#so i might as well just draw the silly old man who kind of sucks from the lawyer show | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sombreboy · 4 years

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Dining out⇢kth x jjk

⇢18+ ⇢pairing: Taehyung x Jungkook (brief ft.Namjoon & Jisoo) ⇢genre: Smut, fluff, mxm, married couple ⇢word count: 8k ⇢warnings: Profanity, dumb humor, lil secret touching under the dinner table, bratty sub tae, dom daddy jk, I swear the daddy kink is heavy for these boys sometimes and this is one of those times, puppy petname; CHECK, blowjob, finger sucking, fingering, filming their shenanigans with their phone, tae fucks himself on jk's big doink then gets fucked good, meme ending because i am too lazy but at least you got a good fucking in. xo

A/N: Serves as a oneshot within the Love Maze series AU, however can also be read on it’s own. Co-written with my lovely @velvetwicebang <3

“Okay, remember to feed her every two to three hours.” Jimin nodded; blonde hair bobbing as he did so. The man carefully bounced the babbling baby on his hip, suppressing the need to roll his eyes at Taehyung’s constant reminders.

They’d only be gone for a few hours; but Taeyeon’s fathers were treating this like a five-month vacation.

“Her formula is in the bag, and so is her apple sauce! Sometimes she gets fussy right after she eats, so rub her tummy and give her a few pats on the back. Also, there’s diapers—“

“Guys, we know. We’ve looked after her before, remember?” Jimin reached out to place a hand on Taehyung’s shoulder; unknowing of Taeyeon’s infatuation with his boyfriend’s tattoos.

He didn’t have as many as her daddy Koo, but her shiny, doe eyes curiously scanned over the new piece of art. She found his eyes cool..

“No, I know.” Taehyung sighed, knowing he needed to calm the fuck down— but, Taeyeon.. but their date night.. “Normally we would’ve left her with Namjoon and Jisoo, but obviously that isn’t an option.”

“Cool, we’re the second choice. Nice.” Jimin wasn’t truly hurt by his friend’s careless reveal, only chuckling as he reassured them of the best.

“Shit, Jimin, I didn’t mean it in a bad way. It’s just she knows them bet—“

“Tae, be quiet before I throw this apple sauce at you.”

Taehyung’s mouth was glued shut.

“Just go out and have fun, alright? We’ll look after Taeyeon, she’s in good hands. You seem stressed out as hell, I dunno, maybe even fuck it out while you’re at it.”

Tae simply sighed, detaching himself from Jungkook’s arm to press a soft kiss onto Taeyeon’s head, bidding his temporary goodbyes.

“Okay, well.. we’re leaving. We should be back soon. Thanks, again.”

"Thanks guys, don't hesitate to call us if you need to!" Jungkook chirped, a bit less worried than his husband. Surprisingly, Taehyung seemed to be the one who was always extra, extra protective and worried about separating from their little daughter. Now, Kook was a worrier himself, but he never thought he'd be the one tugging at the elder to finally be able to let go of being a father for just one second.

Kook's eyes met with the little doe eyes their daughter mirrored, his toothy grin growing as she quickly resumed her attention towards the tall man. He might've looked a bit intimidating at first, but everyone quickly learned that he was probably the softest one of them all.

Jungkook pulled Taehyung with him quickly, closing the door behind them before heading towards their car. They haven't been able to get this kind of time to be a couple for quite a while, and both of them were excited-- and anxious. It was routine by now with their child, and breaking it was harder than it seemed. BUT, fuck, did they need it. Stress was no joke with these men. Work, eat, sleep, clean, shit... Take care of the baby, make time for each other?

It wasn't easy, but they were a team. And did they make a damn good one.

"You look good." Jungkook grasped for Tae's hand to hold it cutely by the car. "We should take a picture of this rare occasion of both of us being properly put together at the same time for once."

“You’re right. This is rare as fuck..” Taehyung’s shoulders dropped to a less unnatural position, deep-set brows resuming to their place, ripening his facial muscles. He hooked an arm around Jungkook’s delicate waist, pulling him in until their sides touched. “Let the photographer do the honors, ey?” Cocky as ever, the elder’s hand uninvitingly reached inside of Koo’s back pocket, searching for the younger’s phone whilst he hummed into their short-lived kiss. Tae pulled away with a dorky smile, angling the high-tech device towards the starry sky, a wash of light shining down on them as if the cluster of stars themselves were on their side; working towards getting them the perfect picture.

It was cheesy— every second of it— but, Taehyung found his anxiety crumbling the longer they spent taking silly photos, so he said: ‘fuck it’.

“I like this one, you look like a full course meal.” Tae nudged his husband’s side, believable as he mercilessly teased. “Ah, okay. We should get going before Joon thinks we’ve bailed or something, you know he always thinks of the worst.” The elder climbed onto the passenger seat, twisting his body to reach for the seatbelt. “How much do you wanna bet Jisoo is holding him back from making a phone call right now?”

Jungkook's bunny-like grin grew at the compliment, the apple of his cheeks tinted with a rosy hue. He grabbed his cell phone back from his husband before sitting down in the driver's seat, deciding to post their selfie on his Instagram.

"I bet she took his phone away already. If not, they'll see our pretty picture." Kook scrunched his nose before placing his phone down in his front pocket. He starts the car and backs out on the driveway, giving their home one last glance before driving off.

"I'm excited, honestly. We haven't had a second for ourselves lately." The younger sighed, eyes flickering to keep his attention on the traffic. With one hand on the steering wheel, the other reached over to smooth over Taehyung's thigh as if to soothe him.. Koo could easily tell the elder was still having a bit of separation anxiety for leaving their daughter with their friends... "Let's enjoy this to the fullest, don't think too much. You know what would be nice? A few drinks to loosen up a bit."

“Yeah, I need that.” Taehyung knew Koo could see right through him. It was no secret that the elder’s mind lingered somewhere else; Taeyeon, to be exact. Tae knew he was extremely overprotective, it was never something he’d felt ashamed of in the past. What could you expect from someone who grew up in a hostile environment when they were younger?— it pained him to think this way, but.. If his own father could raise a hand at him, what would a stranger be capable of doing? Of course Tae didn’t think any of their friends would obtain such malice, nor were they strangers to Taeyeon. The opposite, in fact. Each and every one of their hyungs held a special place in the girl’s heart. The elder guessed that his past’s trauma arose now that he was a father himself. Taehyung wanted to do better.

Jungkook's smile didn't falter from his face the entire ride, the faint tugging of his lips in excitement a constant reminder of how relieved he actually is to be able to get some time alone to focus on his friends-- and especially his husband for the night. He pulled up into the restaurant parking lot, the scent coming off the building already hitting their noses even as they sat outside in their car. Kook inhaled with a content sigh, leg almost jumping in excitement. He was a foodie after all-- and since he finally has a stable income along with Taehyung, he's never had to worry whether or not there'd be food on the table. Cheesy one might say, but once in a while the younger still enjoyed to microwave some noodles on occasion either way.

"We're here." He cooed joyfully as he clicked the seatbelt off to lean over to the passenger seat, placing a haste kiss on Taehyung's cheek. He lingered, letting his lips hover over the elders skin. Taking a moment, he drank in the view. Taehyung has always been the most handsome man that Jungkook had ever laid eyes on, and as the years passed by quickly, that still never changed. One would say Taehyung only became hotter, aging like a fine wine.

"You look so good tonight... I won't be able to keep my eyes off you." Kook smiled, cupping Taehyung's cheek to draw him in for a proper kiss.

Taehyung giggled in the midst of their kiss, the sound so small and indistinct, but in the calming stillness of a parked vehicle it was impossible for its vibrations to go over one’s head. It definitely went noticed by the culprit himself, who blushed at the abrupt realization that even after many years spent by Koo’s side, the latter always knew how to make him feel beautiful..

“Thanks. You look really good too, baby..” Tae licked over his lips, able to still taste Jungkook despite the younger having pulled away. “Fuck, okay. Let’s go in; I’m hungry and Joon’s probably losing it by now.”

“Where the hell were you guys? We’ve been waiting for what—“ Namjoon’s eyes flickered down to his watch, “—fifteen minutes?”

Taehyung snorted, “What do you want us to do? Get down on the ground and bow at your feet?”

“You know what? Hell yea—“

Jisoo stepped in, speaking on behalf of her husband, “No need for any major bows here.. Ah, please sit down. Joon’s extra dramatic when he’s hungry.”

"You're not you when you're hungry." Jungkook recited the old commercial with a giggle, shaking his head at how bad it was-- but so funny to his young mind. He sat down in the booth across from Jisoo, with Taehyung sliding down next to him to sit across from Joon.

"Fifteen minutes is precious cooking time at a place like this, Kook. Don't joke--"

"Won't happen again hyung!" Jungkook saluted clearly, his toothy grin too effective towards Joon-- whether he wanted to admit it or not. His bunny-like smile would never cease to work as a secret weapon...

"Whatever." Namjoon grumbled as he picked up the digital device on the table used to order their food.

"How have you guys been?" Jisoo chirped as she glanced over at the little tablet, clicking occasionally to help navigate Joon's confused behavior towards the device.

"Stressed." Jungkook sighed, leaning his head against Taehyung's shoulder. "Having a child is no joke, there's never a dull day. But I love it, though." Kook mused, waiting for their turn with the tablet, reaching out for it when Jisoo had completely taken over to order for her and her husband. He stares at the contents for a moment, showing Tae the various choices of alcohol, hovering with his finger over the stronger drinks with a coy eyebrow.

“You know me too well.” Taehyung returned the favor, imitating Koo’s raised brow before pointing at the drink of his choice; Tae was aware he needed to chillax. And alcohol never disappoints.

Once they were finished ordering their starting drinks, the elder dismissed the tablet to the side. He scooted closer to Jungkook until they were practically squished together in spite of the extra space; playing with his husband’s fingers from under the table.

“Yeah, Taeyeon’s a handful.” The corner of Taehyung’s lips twitched upwards as he amusingly breathed out through his nose, mind tracing back to their daughter. “But she’s cute though, so it makes up for it.” The elder turned his head to look at Kook, “Also, this guy right here is pretty good with babies.”

Jisoo voiced out her agreement, reminded of the older days when Jungkook would help her with Yuna once he was done with school. Now her friend was married, and caring after a baby of his own.. Proud was an understatement in Jisoo’s mind. Every time she looked at Koo her heart swelled; the boy she once knew had grown into a man. But then again, Jungkook had always been really mature. In a sense, it’s the same guy Jisoo’s always considered her close friend— and fed on the daily.. “Joon could learn a few things..”

The mumbling under the older woman’s breath didn’t go unnoticed by Namjoon, who came to his own defense as quickly as lightning strikes the ground, “I showed up to the wrong preschool once!”

Taehyung butted in, confused but amused, “You forgot where your son goes to school?” Tae’s shoulders vibrated as he laughed, suddenly feeling much better about his own mishaps as a parent.

“The drinks can come out anytime now..” Namjoon tried to swerve away from the topic; his failed attempt at being sly earned himself a couple rounds of laughter.

Yeah, maybe Taehyung needed this..

As the tray of drinks finally arrived, they were left to sip on whatever they've ordered while waiting for their dinner. Jisoo and Namjoon both opted for the simple choice; beer. While Jungkook was an avid enthusiast of alcohol, whether it be beer, tequila, wine... He did settle for a large glass of wine, perfect for the occasion on his end-- and perfect as it always got him pleasantly warmed up.

"Ah, I'm so hungry...." Jungkook groaned, waiting for that big, fat juicy steak he'd seen on the screen. Meat was his one true love-- if you'd disregard the fact that his husband existed. He worked out just as avidly as he did in their younger days.. Well, tried to, and therefore his appetite was comparable to that of a horse.

"You're always hungry!" Jisoo joked, slapping Joon's shoulder as she laughed.

"Yah! Why'd you hit me?!" Namjoon nudged her shoulder back with his dimpled smile.

"Ah, food!" Jungkook's big, doe eyes sparkled with a childlike joy when the food finally arrived, jaw hanging open in pure admiration.

Taehyung chimed out loud along with Koo, ignoring Jisoo’s and Namjoon’s playful banter in the background. All that was on his mind at the moment was, ‘must eat’. Taeyeon snuck in there once in a while, but Tae trusted Jimin and his boyfriend. They’ve always returned his baby back in one piece, so that’s that. Maybe the alcohol was helping; he wasn’t as restless.

“Fuuck,” Taehyung knocked his head back, resting it against the backrest of the booth whilst he chewed on the piece of meat, savoring the burst of flavor that’d just popped in his mouth. “Koo, here.” It didn’t matter that they ordered the same meal, Tae still cut out a small piece for his husband to try. He blew on it before guiding it into Jungkook’s mouth, “Fucking delicious, right?”

Jungkook chomped the piece of meat off the fork with his bunny teeth, chewing it happily. His eyes widened as he nodded, humming in content. Food did taste better when it was from your husband's plate, confirmed. "So fucking good, oh my god.. " Koo agreed. Both men were just feeding off of each other's plates at this point, letting out all their curses and groans occasionally. Being censored on the daily was harder than they thought, and finally letting it all out--- somewhat satisfying.

Namjoon eyed the couple with a mix of disgust for their cheesiness, yet the dimples proved that he couldn't hold his smile for the two. They were grown ass men, and yet they acted like dorky the teens they’ve always been the moment they are together like this. It was endearing.

"What? You want me to feed you too?" Jisoo nudged Joon with a coy smile on her lips, immediately laughing when he shook his head.

"Definitely not." He joked back. He hated to share his food-- but so did Jisoo, so it was okay.

The evening went on for a bit, everyone talking-- rather, Namjoon rambling about everything and nothing while the rest ate, drank, and drank....

Jungkook couldn't help but continuously look over at his husband. He was just so fucking hot, when was the last time he was able to truly admire him like this? Forever ago.. A few drinks in and Koo's cheeks were hot, hazy eyes only half listening to the rambling from the other side of the table, nodding absentmindedly. His hand, however, decided to snake over to the elder's lap, gently rubbing up and down the soft fabrics, feeling the firm muscle underneath.

Taehyung was just as buzzed; their conversations only stuck with him for a couple of seconds before he reached for his glass of wine, downing the remainder of the scarlet drink. He was loosening up, or so he thought.. The meat of the elder’s thigh clenched, and his dimmed eyes averted downwards towards the source of the unexpected caress on his leg. With barely any space between the two, Tae awkwardly shifted around in his seat— however, he didn’t bother on pushing Jungkook’s hand away.

He liked it..

It’s been a hot minute since his husband put this much attention on him. The touch was small, but even such delicacy had Taehyung’s hormones in a twist..

“What are you doing?” He leaned in to whisper into Koo’s ear, resting his own hand on the younger’s thigh. Tae told himself that it was for balance, but even he knew that wasn’t exactly the truth. “Fuck, you’re hard,” his hand had slithered upwards to Jungkook’s crotch, groping his husband’s cock through the fabric of Kook’s pants.

"What are you doing? ah.." Jungkook's thighs quivered, gently bucking up into Tae's hand as he desperately tried to act unaffected. Not that the other couple would notice-- they were just as buzzed, just rambling, occasionally bantering... Koo barely noticed their presence at this point.

All he could think about was Taehyung, Taehyung, Taehyung...

"You just look so hot, babe, how could I not be hard?.." He huffed quietly, the hand on Tae's thigh mirroring the elders movements by palming his husband's cock right back, able to feel the shape and girth of it through the fabrics. "Shit, what I'd do to have you on your knees below this table instead..."

Taehyung’s shrunken pupils vigilantly switched between his husband and the other couple in front of them, until he realized there was no need..

Joon and Jisoo weren’t quite at their level, but it was obvious the beer had gotten to their systems if the cheesy mumbles and sudden display of affection were anything to go by. They were never cheesy— in front of them, at least.

“Don’t tempt me, we’ll probably get banned from this place or something..” Tae’s drunken smile beamed in the dimmed lighting before his lips abruptly took the shape of an ‘o’. Embarrassed, he nuzzled his nose in the dip of Jungkook’s neck, continuing to rub and squeeze Koo’s prominent bulge at a fixed pace despite crumbling underneath the younger’s teasing himself. “It’s been so long since I really got to feel you like this, and it’s been too long since you’ve felt me; really felt me..”

“Let us in on the secrets! Don’t be so secretiveee, it’s not nice, y’know.” Jisoo loudly sipped on her water’s straw, lips closing in on the frail plastic after her third try— her aim when drunk was amusing.

“This feels like all the way back to, uh, second grade was it? When all my buds talked shit behind my back ‘n crap.”

The woman pouted, “Awe, babe, fuck those kids. Look at you now, with mee! They wish they had me.”

Namjoon understood in spite of her strong slurring, “They’ll never have you, mine.”

Taehyung turned to look back at Jungkook, face reading; ‘what the fuck’. “Wanna get out of here? Kinda want some.. privacy.”

Jungkook couldn't even play it cool at this point, his eager nodding proving just how badly he wanted to get out of there as well-- if his throbbing erection wasn't enough to go by. "Yeah, please." Kook’s ragged breath whispered back, withdrawing his hand from Taehyung's crotch to inhale deeply. "Follow me... I have a fun idea." Since they couldn't go home, nor did they have a hotel room for the night-- there was only one option the younger could think of. A fun one, in his own mind. It's been a long fucking time since they did something a little risky... Jungkook was gonna try to say something to the other couple, but it was easier than he expected to have them accept their disappearance, so he simply got up, leaning down to whisper once again into Tae's ear.

"I'll be waiting in the bathroom... You have two minutes. No more, no less." He cooed, a mischievous grin on his lips as he placed a gentle kiss on the elders cheek before strolling off towards the bathroom area, closing the door behind him. The anticipation-- the small amount of waiting was enough to rile him up even further. And surely he hoped it did the same to Taehyung.

Fuck the bathroom, I’ll willingly get down on my knees right at this second— Is what Taehyung wanted to say, but he was far too stunned to even respond with a dumb nod of his head. Jungkook had strutted away without waiting for an answer, and for that Tae was glad.. Every time the younger asserted his natural dominance, Taehyung was left a flustered, unable-to-form-coherent-sentences mess. The elder was convinced the alluring words that slipped past Koo’s lips tasted like honey; they were sweet and sticky, making it awfully hard for Taehyung to forget them.

“I’ll be waiting in the bathroom.. You have two minutes. No more, no less.”

The man didn’t realize he’d been stalling until Jisoo asked him where Jungkook had gone off to.

“He’s.. somewhere. I’m going to the restroom, I’ll be back.” He kept it short ‘n sweet, knowing that whatever was going to happen in the secluded space would be anything but. Jungkook liked taking his time, and Taehyung enjoyed taking all his husband had to offer. The elder loved drowning himself in the moment, which is why he’d grown keen of using his beloved camera for other reasons.. Taehyung looked back on the films a lot— it was hot, and it gave him an excuse to miss Jungkook whilst he was away at work. More often than not Tae couldn’t act on his sexual desires; only settling for giving Koo a messy hand job before they called it a night. But today? It was going to be different.

Taehyung’s eager hand slowly turned on the doorknob, brows arched in anticipation when he’d met Jungkook’s gaze on the other side. It was a family restroom, meaning it was quite small. There were no stalls, only space meant for one. Or two..

Tae’s back was pressed up against the door as he pushed it shut, making sure to lock it. He stayed still in his place, arms shyly tucked from behind him. “I think I went over two minutes, daddy.”

"You did, puppy." The corner of Jungkook's lip curved into a smirk as he moved forward, barely a few steps before he was already towering over his husband. Internally, he was eager.. Impatient in every sense of the word. But tonight was a once in a while occasion, and it didn't occur often enough for him to waste it on a quick fuck. He'd been longing for this opportunity to truly feel Taehyung again, and boy.. was his body itching to feel everything.

"Can't even follow one simple instruction.." Jungkook tsk'd playfully, pressing up his body against Tae's, deliberately brushing their crotches together to make sure the elder felt just how hard he was for him already. "What do I do with a boy that misbehaves..." Now, Taehyung was anything but a boy-- but making the elder feel smaller was one of his favorite things to do, belittling him until he was nothing but a whiny, pleading sweetheart. Kook grasped Tae's chin in his long, tattooed grasp to demand eye contact, tilting his head lightly to the side like a curious pup would. "Do you need a reminder of why you call me daddy?"

“Hmm... I think I do..” Taehyung’s tongue peeked out from the small, surprised opening of his flushed lips, brushing over the moisturized skin and wetting it with its saliva. A hitched gasp followed suit, emphasizing the gloss-like effect he’d made for himself; Taehyung knew Koo was a sucker for the posh look. Slowly, his lips relaxed, and Taehyung’s intense gaze clashed with his husband’s. He allowed the latter to feel superior by standing tall before him, while Tae cowered in his place. The delicate, firm hold on his chin was beginning to make itself known, but the elder didn’t dare move out of Jungkook’s clutch. “Remind me, Koo.. why do I call you daddy?” Taehyung’s hands gripped at the younger’s hips, stifling his faint moans as their crotches pressed against one another.

It’s been too fucking long.

“What makes you worthy of that title?” He kept on pushing, wishing Kook would drop the foreplay and fuck him numb once and for all.. The elder was less patient, but he was just as needy.

Jungkook's lips curled into a smirk to serve as a response to Taehyung's daring words, knowing just how needy his husband was to just be stuffed with his cock already. But what the younger loved even more, was the buildup-- to make Tae so flushed and desperate that when he finally gets what he desires, it'll be more than worth the wait.

"Ah, my baby has already forgotten...." He huffs through heavy breaths, leaning forward to kiss his husband. As his tongue claimed the elder's mouth as his own to explore as he wishes, his hands hungrily roamed down his body, feeling and groping at every curve before they began to unbutton Tae's shirt, exposing his flushed skin. Without wasting another second, Jungkook's hands smoothed up Tae's stomach, his thumbs swiping over the elder's nipples softly-- at first. He groaned into the hot kiss, not stopping his hungry ministrations all while continuously teasing Tae's perky nipples, lightly pinching them between the calloused pads of his fingers.

Taehyung’s frail body squirmed in delight, the skin of his chest buried in small goosebumps whilst Jungkook spared him no mercy on one of his most responsive areas. The filthy noises of mild fulfillment scratched at the back of the elder’s throat, calling out for vocal release only to get pushed back down by Kook’s tongue.

“Mmhm..” Tae vaguely hummed into the heated kiss, hot puffs of air slipping past his nose, warming Jungkook’s already sultry skin. Everything about the younger was hot; like a predictable summer’s day.. Just one kiss and Taehyung began melting against him, his smaller body frame molding against the barely-noticeable dip from Jungkook’s chest to his pelvis. Eager, Tae never stopped rubbing their crotches together, driving his husband’s hips towards his own.

“Fuck, babe...” Tae whimpered once he pulled away from the kiss, chest rising while his lungs worked to retrieve back air. Taehyung’s head tipped backwards, bottom lip caught in between his teeth as he nonverbally encouraged Koo to continue playing with his sensitive nipples.

“Daddy.. please film me.” Tae might not have his camera at hand, but something about the quality of a phone turned him on. The elder wants to be able to look back on this moment.. He wants to be able to see his reflection in the mirror while Jungkook fucks him— phone held tightly in his hand. Tae wants Koo to focus on the way his cock sinks deep into him, catching Taehyung’s loud, hiccupy moans on video. They’ve filmed themselves a few times in the past, but Tae’s camera was set up on a tripod. Now, they had the opportunity to pilot a phone how they pleased. Jungkook could pan in on whatever he wanted, get a close-up of the goodies.. “Please, daddy. I’ll be a good boy... I’ll squeeze around you so tight. I’ll be so warm.. fuck— I’ll be your little bitch until you stuff me full of your cum. Then I’ll be nothing but your cum dumpster..”

Jungkook's cock twitched heavily beneath the fabrics, the thought alone of filming his husband in such a scenario bringing him more excitement than he expected. Tae’s cameras were fun, the quality superb... but using his phone seemed so much more intimate, it had the younger heated in excitement.

"Fuck yes... I'll stuff you so well. But first..." Kook placed his hands on the elders shoulders, using his strength to force him down on his knees. With a swift motion, he unbuckled his pants and tugged them down, too eager to wait for his cock to be engulfed by Tae’s plushy lips. His cock bobbed when set free, letting it freely taunt Taehyung as he dug for his cellphone in his back pocket. "Suck on it, puppy." His low, raspy tone was laced with lust, eyes staring at Taehyung's lips through the camera screen on his phone when he pointed it down from his view. "When it's nice and wet, I'll fuck your tight ass until you can barely walk out of here."

“Whatever you say, daddy..” His warm hands skimmed upwards from Jungkook’s beautifully muscular thighs to the latter’s base, where Taehyung took his time feeling the younger’s cock. He began by lazily flicking his wrist, multitasking while the other hand kneaded his husband’s balls. Taehyung played innocent, staring up at the camera whilst his tongue circled around the head; his long eyelashes fluttering in a coy manner.

“Daddy.. daddy, you’re so fucking hot when you’re in control.” Closing his eyes, Tae leaned back in, slowly taking all of Jungkook into the warmth of his mouth. He’s had plenty of practice, his gag reflex was practically nonexistent at this point in their relationship. Taehyung guessed all of those times he’d sucked Jungkook off under the covers when their friends were around— or when he got too impatient and gave Koo the suck of his life in the middle of the grocery store’s parking lot. Not to mention, the birthdays when he’d woken Jungkook up with his limp cock throat-deep in Taehyung’s mouth. They all paid off when it came to unplanned moments such as this one.

Tae hollowed out his cheeks, bobbing his head as he dragged his tongue from Kook’s base to the tip, leaving a trail of saliva along the hardened girth. He’d gotten so consumed in the moment, that Taehyung had forgotten all about the camera.

"Whoa, so pretty when you take my cock like that..." Jungkook's voice was shaky, already feeling the muscles in his thighs tense up. Taehyung knew exactly how to suck him off properly, every drag and movement done with the utmost purpose, hitting every sensitive nerve that riles up Kook to the max.

"I can tell you love it, fuck..." He stated as if it was a fact, and it was. Kook kept one hand gently combing through Tae's dark curls, brushing his fringe away to be able to get a proper visual of the elder through his phone screen, focusing on how his husbands plush lips stretch with the younger's girth, the slick saliva on his silky skin glistening even in his digital eye. "Okay, baby, that's enough... Spit on it and get up, pull down your pants and bend over the sink. Need a good view of your pretty ass."

Taehyung might be a natural-born brat in other aspects, but he never disobeyed Kook’s orders inside of the bedroom. Or a public restroom.. No matter how much Tae wanted to keep going, he did as his husband told, leisurely withdrawing from Jungkook’s cock as if it was the last thing he wanted to do. The elder stalled at the tip, glistening eyes peeling open to meet the phone’s unwavering perspective from above him, keeping a digital memory of Taehyung’s lightly damped, crimson cheeks. His swollen lips pulled off with a loud pop, eyes dimmed as they switched downwards to his husband’s cock. He gathered saliva, swishing the warm, thick substance around his tongue before allowing it to drip down on Jungkook’s already-drenched head.

“It’s so wet..” Tae’s thumb rubbed deep circles on the small slit, moaning to himself at the sly muscle spasms in Jungkook’s clenched thighs. Once Taehyung was satisfied, he followed through with the second order. Shimmying out of the tight jeans that hugged around his thick ass, Tae let them drop to his ankles along with his boxers.

He really was one impatient boy.. He couldn’t wait to get utterly fucked; Taehyung was always horny for cock.

With each hand gripping onto the side of the sink until his knuckles turned white, the elder stood before Koo, back slightly arched whilst his soft stomach pressed up against the cold surface.

“You like what you’re seeing, daddy?” He spoke, looking at Jungkook through the mirror, feeling more cocky now that he wasn’t kneeling down in front of his husband.

"Mhm." Jungkook hummed in approval, his eyes dilated with lust as he dumbfoundedly stared at Taehyung's full cheeks. He's seen his husband naked more times than he could ever count, but every single time it turned him on just as much-- He was insatiable when it came to Kim Taehyung. He angled the camera down as he approached Tae from behind, using his free hand to grab a handful of the flesh, squeezing hard just to see the skin redden underneath his fingers, watching the fat protrude in between his digits. "I love what I'm seeing... Fuck, I've been thinking about doing this to you all day--work was dreadful."

Jungkook's blunt nails dragged across the tanned skin, leaving faint pink marks in it's rake. He spread his cheek with one hand, just enough for him to see his unused entrance. By now the elder had gotten used to Jungkook's sizable stretch without much preparation, although some would still be needed... It had been a while after all. Kook switched the angle to the reflection, making a show out of the way he sucks his finger until it's nice and slick, however wasting no time in massaging Taehyung's delicate rim, and then finally sliding his middle finger inside of his heated flesh. He films Tae's expressions through the mirror before switching back to filming the way he drags his finger in and out of him. A low groan slips past Kook's lips, his cock throbbing as it rests against Taehyung's ass, still wet and impatiently waiting for it's turn to feel the warmth it craves.

"Stretched so easily tonight-- you're that cockhungry, huh." Kook digs his finger deeper past his knuckle, glancing back at the reflection to watch the blissful expressions on his lover's face.

The elder wasn’t given the chance to come up with a vague answer, only mewling softly as he felt his insides grip around Jungkook’s finger; the squeeze so tight while it clenched and unclenched that it almost forced Kook’s single digit out. Still, Taehyung worked on regaining his breaths, relaxing his muscles for a deeper stretch. Jungkook’s cock must’ve plunged deep into him over a million times, but that never meant Tae would lose his tightness. Every time felt just like the first.

“Oh my g-god.. move your finger— please.” Taehyung deliberately squeezed harder, squirming in delight when he felt the pad of Jungkook’s digit brush against his prostate.

Jungkook's lips tugged into a light smirk, a hot breath huffing through them at the beautiful sound of his husband pleading for more. Everything his man did turned him on, but the begging.. It was next level music to his ears. He kept the camera close enough to be able to see the skin of his finger coated in Tae's juices as he pulled out, only to shove in a second along with the first when he pushed it back inside, effortlessly with the sheer amount of force he used to refill the elders tight heat. Kook curled his fingers ever so slightly, just enough to reach that sweet spot better as he began to curl and uncurl his fingers a few times, relishing in the visible contractions around his digits.

"Your ass is squeezing me so tight... Ahh, the camera loves you.." He groaned, now fucking his fingers in and out of Taehyung, his stable hold on the phone capturing every single drag, clench and wet squelch. "You think you could take me already? It's gonna be a tight fit, but fuck... I want to feel your ass crush my cock."

As if the rest of his body was beginning to give out, Taehyung’s head dipped forward, panting heavily until he could make out the hot puffs of air grazing against his own chest.

“D-daddy— fuuck..” His hips rocked into the younger’s nimble fingers, relishing in the toe-curling way Jungkook teased his prostate. “Y-yeah, ‘m ready. First— a-ahh..” Taehyung hissed, raising his head once more to look at his husband through the mirror, long fringe reaching his pleading eyes. “Can I have a taste? Wanna suck on your fingers.” Taehyung didn’t shift eye-contact; eager to swirl his hot tongue around the same fingers that’d been deep inside of him.

Jungkook's small dimples grew more prominent along with his smile, crooking a coy eyebrow as he slowly popped his fingers out of Tae's stretched hole, leaning forward to press his chest against his lover's back, his wet cock pressed between Taehyung's cheeks. He brought his slick digits to Taehyung's hungry mouth, filming the reflection to get a proper view of both men.

"Here you go baby. Daddy's fingers are coated in your lovely juices... Have a taste, give me a good show."

The hand closest to Jungkook’s let go of its numbed grasp on the sink, instead reaching for his husband’s wrist as Taehyung enveloped the two fingers whole. The elder moaned; one that advanced from deep in his chest and rang throughout the otherwise quiet restroom.

He tasted sweet. Tae fucking bet he’s the sweetest Jungkook’s ever had..

He grinded his ass against Kook’s pelvis, staring at his man through the mirror with an intensified gaze, tongue lapping around and between the delicious digits, lips puckered whilst Taehyung bobbed his head. Thick drool dripped from the corner of his mouth, running down his slobbered chin; but he didn’t mind. Having yet to avert his strong eye-contact, Tae arched his back further to really press against his husband, having fun teasing the hell out of him.

“Mmm~..” Taehyung’s lips were past Jungkook’s tattooed knuckles, sucking roughly on the latter’s fingers as if it was the younger’s cock tucked in between his cheeks.

Jungkook's normally strong facade of stoism struggled to remain intact right at this moment. Too many things went on, from Tae's ever so piercing gaze, the way his tongue lapped at the younger's fingers, and last but definitely not fucking least; his plump ass grinding against Kook's aching cock. It was too much, and it had been way too long. Jungkook didn't care anymore, his expression morphing into that of pure admiration and lust for his husband, gawking like a dumbass at the show he did so kindly ask for.

"Fuck, that's hot... you're so fucking hot, puppy." He growled lowly, almost frustrated at how Taehyung was allowed to be this gorgeous. It should be illegal. Kook watched the elder work his fingers for a short moment before he had enough, withdrawing his hand to harshly smack his husband's ass. "You're too sexy, it drives me fucking crazy.." Another smack, this time keeping his palm on his ass before squeezing it hard between his fingers, spreading the cheek to grant himself better access to grind his tip against the lightly gaped hole. "Shit, look at this... All mine." Kook huffs under heavy breaths, panning camera down Taehyung's prominent cleavage of his spine runs down his back, until the lens settled on where the head of Jungkook's length prodded at Tae's entrance.

"Move backwards baby, fuck yourself on my cock." Jungkook commands, loud enough to clearly capture his voice in the recording-- knowing Taehyung will love looking back and hearing these specific words.

Taehyung’s body jolted forward with every firm, jaw-clenching slap to his ass; his cheek grew tender the more Jungkook’s palm came in contact with the agitated skin, leaving behind a noticeable outline of his hand to linger for days on end. If the video didn’t serve as enough of a reminder, the sting sure as hell will. The elder was on the brink of crying out loud, having to bite down on his lip to prevent himself from screaming Jungkook’s name.

“Feels so good..” Taehyung sank back until the slick head of Jungkook’s cock popped through the gateway to his familiar insides, instantly clenching down on his husband’s skin as a warm greeting. “Fuck, fuck... so big, daddy.” Moving backwards until he nudged Kook’s pelvis, Tae took a minute to adjust to the length, muttering filthy curses under his heated breath. “Is that tight enough for you, hm? You’re so hard inside of me, ahh..” Once he deemed himself ready, Taehyung slowly began fucking himself on Jungkook’s cock, stopping at the tip before he plopped back in with more force, wiggling his hips against Kook before repeating the action. “So hard, I can feel you twitching, Koo..”

"Ah, fuck-- Taehyung..." Jungkook doesn't hold back letting his husband know how good his ass feels. He runs his flat palm down the prominent line on Tae's back where his spine hides, keeping his hips still for a moment to allow the elder to fuck himself on his cock. Kook keeps the camera focused on the way his slick length disappears inside the stretched hole, in awe of the view through the screen. "So tight, you're so fucking tight-- good god... How could I ever get enough of this?" He hisses through his ragged breath. When satisfied with the good work Taehyung put into getting himself used to Kook's size, the younger decides that it's time to reward his lover.

With a rough snap of his hips, Jungkook thrusts forward to meet Tae's ass as it moved back against him, the loud echo of their skin slapping together drawing a guttural moan from the tattooed male.

"You're such a good boy for me." He redirects the camera back towards the reflection to capture Taehyung's jolting body as he began to build a momentum to the way he fucked into him, slow but rhythmical, forceful but precise. "Aren't you? My little good boy?"

A loud, unavoidable gasp left past Taehyung’s loose lips as he hunched over the sink, toes tightly curled in his shoes as one of his many reactions to Jungkook’s quickened thrust. His hands were balled up into fists; forearms resting on each side of the sink whilst he arched his ass further back. “Y-your good boy, yes,” the elder rasped out, voice as thin as ice, and tone as unstable as his legs while Jungkook fucked him. “Hngh.. I love you, fuck me harder.”

If harder was what Taehyung wanted, Jungkook was in no position to deny his wishes. He knows just how whipped the elder was for his muscles, and the endless hours spent building and maintaining them surely didn't go unnoticed by his husband. Rather the opposite, Kook loved the attention-- ever since they were younger, the elder seemed to have a special fascination towards the strength Jungkook possessed. He allows his body to serve as a response to Taehyung's request, the hand on his hip digging harder into his tanned skin, holding him in place as the younger increases the force of his thrusts, at first dragging his entire length in and out to ensure that every single inch of Tae's insides feels the friction of being filled to the brim.

"Oh my god.." Jungkook huffs out, throwing his head back, screwing his eyes shut in rapture as he pounds mindlessly, focusing only on how good it feels right at this moment to just fuck his husband dumb. The phone in his hand became less of a priority at this point, shaky and blurred, however it captured every wet sound of their bodies joining, every breathy grunt, and every single squeak of the sink as Kook's powerful hips jerked Taehyung's body forward roughly.

The gnawing weight of a hundred curse-words on Taehyung’s tongue never subsided. Every invasive jerk of his husband’s quick hips made him want to scream out in rapture; to sob from the overwhelming feeling of Jungkook’s rigid cock entering him over and over again until he was so fucked out that his eyes no longer saw the faded blue-wash of the tiles on the spinning bathroom wall.

Taehyung fuckin’ loved that. He felt as if he was floating on cloud nine; as if he was reliving his brief encounter with drugs when he was a young teen. His husband’s fucking was a heavy drug, there was never a time where Taehyung didn’t enjoy the high it gave him.

“I love it when you put me in my place, hmph!” Tae’s voice was sultry— breathy. Still as deep, but far more hitched. Every menacing smack of Jungkook’s pelvis against his rosy skin stole his breath away, gasps getting caught in the man’s throat before they were reduced to soft mewls. “F-fuck, daddy’s fat cock never disappoints..” The elder straightened his spine, caramel shoulder blades flexed as he depended on his weak arms to keep him in place. Taehyung stared at Kook’s diverse expressions through the mirror; internally praising himself. Moaning, one of his arms blindly reached backwards until his hand groped Jungkook’s ass, feeling the muscles twitch with every thrust. He tipped his head back against Kook’s shoulder, turning his head until Taehyung could smell the odor of built-up sweat on the small dip of Jungkook’s pale skin.

His back remained lightly arched, driven forward from every slam to his wet insides. “Ah, fuck.. yes, daddy!” The elder’s nose was burrowed in the crook of Kook’s neck, brows twitching slightly as a sudden warmth approached his lower stomach.

"Love when you call me daddy." Jungkook breathes out his words in a haste, grunts following with every thrust, smacking his pelvis against Taehyung's plump ass to feel it jiggle against him. He snakes one strong arm around his husband's torso, the one holding the cellphone to angle it back to film the reflection, as the other keeps a tight grip on his hip to ensure his lover doesn't fly forward from the rough effort he puts into every sloppy thrust.

"You're so fucking gorgeous, baby. Look at your pretty, big cock--fuck.." Kook couldn't look away from the view in the mirror, the elder's body was erotic in this position, skin glistening with sweat, cock swollen and red, looking as if it was about to burst at any second with how well Kook fucked into him.

"A-are you close? God, I'm gonna cum... fill your ass up so well, I want you to hold it in until we get home, okay?" Jungkook nudges the elder's cheek with his nose to bring them face to face. "Kiss me, wanna taste your pretty moans as you cum."

Taehyung enthusiastically attached his touch-starved lips to Jungkook’s smaller, sweeter ones. His warm hand extended upwards to eagerly cup his husband’s face, the pad of his thumb swiping across the younger’s scar whilst he deepened their messy kiss, low hums of approval ringing from profound in his rising chest. His squirming body jolted forward with more force, the ability to withstand Jungkook’s irregular thrusts slowly drained out of him, leaving Taehyung frail to every insignificant nudge.

“G-Gonna cum.. gonna cum so much..!” The elder leaned in once more, unable to take the empty feeling in his mouth. He generously sucked on Jungkook’s tongue, their drool running past his chin and slowly cascading down Taehyung’s neck, illuminating the way his Adam’s apple would bob with every forceful swallow. His husband’s spit was so warm. It was like medicine to his drained throat.. There came a time where Tae’s breathing was getting scarce; he pulled away with a soft gasp. His curtained eyes were glazed with fresh tears, vision blurry as he looked down at his swollen dick and the way it hit against the sink’s cooling edge.

So close..

“F-fuuck! Oh.. hngh, daddy, I’m gonna— A-aahh— ah.. hmm!” His high-pitched moans were muffled against Jungkook’s slick lips, mouth unmoving as Taehyung focused on giving his husband every drop of his filthy sounds.

He stayed still for a few seconds, twitching against Jungkook’s larger body, whining whilst his eyes fluttered shut.

“Fuck... I’m hungry.”

#fic: dining out #taekook smut #vkook smut #jungkook x taehyung #bts mxm #bts mxm smut #mxm smut #dom jungkook #sub taehyung #taehyung smut #jungkook smut #boymeetsmxm #bangtanarmynet #sombreboy

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forasecondtherewedwon · 3 years

Text

Gladly Be a Fool

Fandom: A Discovery of Witches Pairing: Phoebe Taylor/Marcus Whitmore Rating: E Word Count: 2883

Summary: The missing scene after Phoebe and Marcus stumble into his bedroom in episode 4.

“Is this alright?” Marcus asks, despite feeling Phoebe’s calf wind around him like the heavy scroll on an antique gilt frame—the kind of thing they surely have in the vaults at her auction house.

“Completely,” she says against his throat before leaving a lingering kiss. “Does it seem like I think this isn’t alright?”

“Just checking.” He laughs at himself, scoffs with his eyes shut. “It was only that you looked a bit disoriented when we…”

“Flung ourselves onto your bed?”

Phoebe’s bold. He suspected, even with her backtracking after kissing him by the cab, and he enjoys it immensely.

“Yes. Forgive me. Occupational hazard.”

Smiling, he bends his head to her neck. She tilts her head to make space for him. The hum of blood beneath the surface of her skin is more intoxicating than the red wine, less than the creep of her fingers unbuttoning and spreading his shirt. He wishes he were wearing something smarter; blue plaid isn’t his go-to seduction look. However, he didn’t foresee this when he darted to Phoebe’s office earlier. That just toppled into dinner, from dinner into a lovely stroll while they discussed his taste in music to the soundtrack of her laugh, from playful conversation to the kiss that left him longing on the sidewalk, to her surprising call, to, finally, the supreme pleasure of holding her body in place with his and the prospect of imminently warming his cool sheets.

“Are you saying you’re trying to assess my health? In other words, play doctor with me?”

“I don’t think it’s playing doctor when I actually have the qualifications,” he argues between kisses, meandering up to her cheek, then her mouth.

“I suppose I have been acting out of character. Do you think that could be a symptom of anything?”

Phoebe pushes at his shirt and Marcus lifts one hand and then the other, slipping free of the sleeves so she can toss the garment aside. He lifts his head and cocks it.

“I’ll keep you overnight to make sure.”

He doesn’t think he’s offered her anything unusual, and yet she clasps the back of his neck and leads him through a kiss the flavour of gratitude and relief, intense desire welling just beneath. The last thing gets him harder than anything. He presses his groin to her thigh, wanting her, hating his jeans.

Reminding himself that he’s a thinking being, a centuries-old intellect, not just a creature of primal hungers like the one Domenico described, Marcus defers briefly to his brain. The verdict there is that Phoebe’s feeling reassured by his implication that he’d like her to stay the night. She’s inquisitive, attempting to decipher him since they met, holding back even more questions than she asked. Amid all her uncertainties where he’s concerned, his invitation is solid. A promise that predicts the next eight or so hours of her life. He decides he can appreciate that craving for a knowable future. By job and genetics, they’re perhaps both more comfortable with the past.

“I really can’t believe I called you,” Phoebe confesses, working on his belt. “I’m normally not—”

“Liar,” he teases. His hair’s in his eyes as he stares smugly down at her. “A woman who dresses entirely in red is definitely a woman who makes the first move.”

Now to get her out of all that red. Remembering his other guests, Marcus moves swiftly to his feet and closes the bedroom door. He jerks his thumb towards it and mumbles about a friend staying with him as he returns to Phoebe’s waiting arms. His heart doesn’t so much beat as somersault, watching her skate her dress up her legs—presumably, the better to wrap them around him. He feels flushed, imagining forgetting the clothes and just pounding into her.

“Technically,” she pants as his hand skims her inner thigh, fingers trailing along the lace hem of the slip beneath her dress, “the call was the second move.”

“Well, I’ve got to make one of the moves.”

“You really should. Unless it takes you a while to get going. Hamilton six times…”

Grinning, Marcus shakes his head at her and feels for the line of her underwear at her hip. He starts to tug, then wriggles his fingers under the band instead. As he slides his hand down to cup her, he fits his lips back over hers. Phoebe sighs shakily into his mouth as his fingertips glide through her arousal. He applies a gentle touch, tracing her with a surgeon’s finesse.

Before he can ask her which move this qualifies as, she’s opening his fly, her ring scratching against his zipper. The kiss opens up, growing harsher, teeth grabbing lips, her tongue pushing into his mouth then his into hers, until she’s gripping his cock and he’s sunk a finger inside her. He curls, she palms. Between their obscene sounds, he recalls the neat click of her typing as she brought up Lot 42 on her computer. It makes Marcus smile to himself. Then, he dives deeper into the kiss and into her, adding a finger, coaxing a broken moan from Phoebe that vibrates across his tongue.

He raises his head and her hand with it, fingers twined in his hair, because he’s honestly not sure she’s taking in enough oxygen. She might be breathing heavily, but her hand doesn’t quit, fingers encircling him as she pumps faster. Feeling his hips begin to rock as he seeks satisfaction, he realizes he’d better distract her.

“Hope my hands aren’t too cold.”

Phoebe laughs breathlessly and does stop dragging him to the edge for a moment, but then she reaches for his hips with both hands instead, pulling his jeans and underwear down.

“I think I’ve stopped noticing,” she says.

“Am I boring you?”

She rolls her eyes.

“Not like that,” Phoebe tells him. Then, “Yes. Yes, like that,” as he pulses his fingers shallowly and drags her clit in urgent circles beneath his thumb.

“You can have the first move,” he cedes. “I’m claiming credit for the first one of these.”

But he’s got to actually get her to orgasm before that claim’s really worth anything, so he continues what’s making her squirm. With his other arm, he drops from his palm to his elbow, freeing his hand to unbutton her dress from the top. Her chest is warm where he brushes his lips. He exposes more skin, then the lacy neckline of her slip. Being disappointed by too many clothes is a modern man’s insanity—what does it for Marcus are these layers, needing time to strip and reveal, this thick feeling of anticipation drawn out. He watches the dainty gold pendant bob against Phoebe’s throat as her breath hitches. Groaning, he leaves her buttons for now and grabs the hand not in his hair, interlocking their fingers and pressing the back of her hand into the mattress.

“Almost there,” he murmurs to himself, but Phoebe squeezes her eyes shut and nods rapidly in response as the nails of her other hand bite into his naked hip.

Her legs tangle around his and tense when she comes; the leverage pulls him in as her hips jerk up from the bed. He was trying not to grind his erection into the satiny fabric of her skirt, but it’s too late for that now. The contact has him kissing faster over her collarbone and up her neck, sucking where her pulse throbs until Phoebe moans, clamping even tighter around his fingers. Marcus clenches his jaw hard and rests his forehead on her neck, wondering if that was just a spike at the end of her orgasm or whether he compelled her into a second.

When her hand loosens against his, he draws back to look at her in the yellow light coming through his windows from the street.

“Not too cold,” she says, smile slack and easy from the wine and the release.

“Good.”

The word is no louder than the rustle of bedding as he withdraws his hand and braces himself over her again. He stares admiringly down at her. She just makes him feel… like he’s really glad he didn’t pawn the miniatures investigation off on Miriam.

Holding his eyes, Phoebe brings her hands to her chest. Her smile turns sly as she runs her fingers along the open front of her dress until they encounter the next fastened button. She undoes it. Marcus’s gaze leaps from her hands to her face and back. He grins, hanging his head, at her ability to do this to him. She knows too, because she doesn’t speed up. She takes her time all the way to the very last button. When she sits up to shrug out of her dress, he does as well, kneeling between her thighs as she does a little hop to whisk the skirt out from underneath her. She casts the dress aside.

Marcus takes a long breath through his nose, studying Phoebe in her short sheath of white silk. She’s wearing a bra under it—white, ribbed, unlined—but he can see her hardened nipples. While he stares, she unclasps her necklace and lowers it onto the closer of the two nightstands. The chain trickles through her fingers.

“Not the watch?” he asks with a grin when she’s touching him again, hands on his sides, moulded to his ribs.

Phoebe shrugs, barely glancing at her wrist.

“Didn’t think it was really in the way.”

He gives her a considering frown and kicks his legs out from under him, peeling his clothes off. She looks slightly shocked, mouth open in a scandalized smile as she does her best to keep her eyes on his face. Shame.

“Is that all?” he wonders.

“I guess I just like knowing what time it is.” She pauses. Goes on. “So much of the past is identified so indistinctly. Paintings or jewellery by year, some artifacts by decade with our appraisers’ best estimations. The possible timeframe only gets broader the farther back we go. Things travel through time… objects… but we lose details. Maybe it’s silly, but sometimes it amazes me that I can know the time down to the second. I think time is underappreciated.”

“Now that,” Marcus says, leaning in until their lips almost touch, “was a much more interesting answer.”

“Coming from you, I take that as a compliment.”

He’s not positive that was a compliment, but he kisses her anyway. Though he can feel her smile like she might say something else, his hopefully-charming insistence wins her over and her mouth seals to his with more certainty. He groans into it, cupping her cheek to angle her head as he deepens the kiss. He misses her hand wrapped around his cock and yanks expressively at the blanket to either side of her hips. Phoebe shifts back against his headboard, curving her legs out of the way. The second he has the covers whipped down, he catches her behind the knees and pulls her back to him, laughing. Marcus’s smile is broad as he settles between her legs. He traces the neckline of her slip, ignoring where the hem’s scrunched up above her hips, revealing her white underwear, for the moment.

“Did you think about me when you put this on this morning?” he inquires, fingering the lace.

“I didn’t know you’d be coming in. To the office,” she clarifies when he jauntily raises an eyebrow.

“Hmm. That’s not exactly what I asked.”

Marcus kisses her shoulder, heading towards her throat. He slips his hand under her ass to keep her in place as he grinds down with his hips.

“I take care in my appearance,” is all Phoebe seems willing to concede.

“And that appearance is very lovely.” He can feel her arousal through her underwear and rubs against her more precisely, dying to bury himself in her. “So very lovely,” he pants against her skin.

“You’re being very charming for someone who’s already got me half naked.”

“Oh, I never turn it off.” He flashes an enticing grin.

He can feel, and hear, her heartbeat, then his cock twitches eagerly and they’re in another scramble—the first was to make it to his bed, this is to get her out of her underwear and him inside her. She takes care of the former as he stretches to fish a condom from the drawer of the nightstand. If she asked, he would say truthfully that he was thinking about her this morning. The way he pleased and flustered her when they met by suggesting she should be the one in charge of the auction house was in his mind when he ventured to the shop, guiding his hand as he tossed the box of condoms into his basket alongside the coffee creamer and eggs he was bringing back to Sophie and Nate for breakfast. The thrill for the rest of them might have been the discovery of Matthew and Diana’s miniatures; the thrill for Marcus was doing everything he could to provoke a smile out of Phoebe Taylor.

Pressing inside her, he inches the white slip up her stomach with every gasp. Her fingers grip the back of his neck, her eyelids lowered, her parted lips bumping his as they share air. Marcus thrusts shallowly once he’s all the way in and Phoebe shifts her hips, widens her legs; they adapt to each other.

His hands caress her skin more insatiably the more of it he bares. He can feel the goosebumps under his fingertips, unable to count them because she’s rocking her hips with his, driving him deeper. Phoebe intervenes with the slip, stripping it off over her head, then her hands slap to his back and they kiss hard as he bucks into her. Marcus absorbs her high whimpers, refusing to break the kiss. Fuck, she’s incredibly slick around him and he badly wants this to be as good for her as it is for him. He hooks his arm beneath her thigh and folds it up. The moan that leaves Phoebe is almost enough to stand even his heavy, floppy hair on end.

He dips his head, tugging at her nipple through her thin bra. He can feel her wristwatch against the back of his neck as her fingers comb into his hair. Not everything’s been removed; so many pieces of her. She thinks he’s evasive and mysterious, but he’s sure he doesn’t know the half of it with her, and that excites him. Phoebe in his bed excites him. He lets her pull him back into a messy kiss and allows his eyelids to flutter open ever-so-slightly, stealing glimpses of her. This room is full of mirrors, but most are hung just a little too high on purpose because it isn’t really his reflection Marcus wants. He doesn’t need his own face looking back at him, he doesn’t need two nightstands for all his shit.

Breathing harshly through his nose, he catches the wine they drank downstairs, her gin at dinner. There’s the scent of night air and the faint hint of the perfume she must have put on this morning. He smelled it at her office earlier, but at the time it seemed a little too—as Phoebe defined their first kiss—forward to ask if that was for his benefit, like the later uncovered silk slip. She’s as irresistible when experienced through this sense as any other.

“F-faster,” she directs, bowing her body against his, and he is happy to oblige. He loves her sweat. He’d be perspiring himself, if he weren’t what he is.

The present rides him as he moves quickly in and out of her. This is fast, him and her, for something he thinks is more than a hookup. Two days to get them from his cold hands to her heat under and around him. One dinner, one walk, one call, a multitude of kisses. He is so, so into her.

His hand finds and grasps her hip, heaving her up to stroke inside her differently while pinning her thigh to her stomach. She cries out and he knows he’s got her.

“Good god, Phoebe,” Marcus breathes into her ear.

She shudders and shakes, clenching around his cock. He switches to long strokes as she climaxes, powering through them, trying to last if only to extend the present, here to play time’s own game. All of his seconds are Phoebe sighing and catching her breath and being so vibrantly human beneath him. He finally finishes with one of her hands kneading his shoulder, the other on his cheek. The orgasm ripples through him, muscles taut as his hips snap to hers and push until he’s empty.

He almost doesn’t want to pull away, but he’s being stupid. He swaggers unhurriedly over to the bin to chuck the condom, smirking back at Phoebe, who he’s caught watching his ass, as he thought she would be. She rolls her eyes with a certain fondness while she takes the liberty of rearranging the pillows that are propping her up.

“You know what would be great right now?” Marcus asks as he rejoins her.

“What’s that?”

He waits until she’s looking at him dead on before he grins.

“A little Duran Duran.”

#my writing #A Discovery of Witches #ADoW #Phoebe Taylor #Marcus Whitmore #Marcus x Phoebe

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dancing-the-hellfire-rumba · 4 years

Text

Seen ✓ - 2

Pairing: Sam x Fem!Reader Warnings: light anxiety Word Count: 2.2k Series Summary: On her way home, Y/n finds an abandoned, cracked phone on the sidewalk. Anxious about the well-being of its owner, she picks it up and texts the first contact she finds; Sam. A/N: Chapter 2! Our pals are kicking it off already. Can you smell the chemistry? The rOMANCE? LESSGO

Pictures used in this chapter were found on google images :)

Beta: no one.

Catch up! : Part 1 Masterlist

Chapter 2: overthinker.

From: y/n_andrews85 To: D_impala67 Subject: I have your phone. That sounds creepy. I don’t think there’s a non-creepy way of writing this. Whatever.

Dear Dean, is it?

I just wanted to let you know I found your phone at the bus stop the other night. I wasn’t planning on holding on to it, really, but I got worried that you may have been in trouble, and then you never really looked for it either so, I don’t know, I figured better than someone who’ll snatch it and leave, you know?

Anyways, that’s why I’m emailing. I snooped through it a little, sorry, hopefully you’ll understand it was kinda necessary? Maybe we can arrange something so I can get it back to you. This girl, Jamie, keeps sending me (well you technically) topless photos of her. It’s not really what lights my candle. I’m assuming you’d like it back too.

I hope you’re safe. Looking forward to hearing back from you!

Y/n Andrews

Do you believe me now?

oh god

you didn’t

Sure did

wow. just wow.

you just handed his ass back to him holy shit!

last time he called, he said he dropped his phone while walking back to his motel, so

he’s okay.

That’s good, I’m glad he’s safe.

I was planning on including something along the lines of “This would’ve been easier if you were an active member of the 21st century and used social media”

But I figured the Jamie thing was motive enough?

yeah. topless Jamie? that’s something else.

Don’t be getting any ideas, dude, I don’t do nudes lmao.

oh god, no i didn’t think that

you did not just type lmao though. how old are you again?

oh god, you’re not 14 or something right? i don’t know what that would make me.

Don’t worry about it, I turned 16 last week.

…

are you serious?

Lmao, no, I’m kidding. I’m twenty-two.

But I think the word you’re looking for is a creep. Oh, and an ageist.

ouch.

Haha, I’m joking.

Lighten up, what are you, ninety?

hi pot meet kettle.

Shit I walked right into that one.

also i’d like to think i don’t text like a ninety-year-old man. could be wrong though

to answer your question i’m twenty-four.

Twenty-four huh? I assume you’re done with college, no?

Or- wait, I guess not everyone goes to college.

Yes, this is me fishing for information.

well… i kinda dropped out.

decided to go on a road trip with my brother.

things went a little south I ended up continuing the family business.

Damn, college drop-out ey? Where from?

Also, Family business? What do you do?

Is this too interview-y? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to snoop.

you’re good.

stanford. pre-law.

and my brother and i are private investigators. that’s why he’s not in Kansas with me. he’s working a case.

Daaaaamn. Stanford AND a lawyer? And now working as a PI? You’re pretty smart, then.

an ageist and a generalist? i didn’t take you for such y/n.

Fuck, okay, you sound like a lawyer too.

hahahah

so what about you?

What about me?

are you in college?

Oh yeah! Film school. My dream has always been to be a director. It’s rare to find someone who loves movies more than I do.

that’s really cool.

hey i’ve been meaning to ask.

Thinking of me, Sam?

…

Do tell.

how come you were walking home through a park in the middle of the night the other day?

Ooh, I was coming back from work.

I’m a bartender and I had a late shift on Friday.

oh I see. That makes sense yeah.

I’m sorry to cut this conversation short, but I’m legitimately three seconds away from falling asleep. I’m gonna hit the hay.

See you later, Sam :)

See you, y/n :)

A smile creeps on Y/n’s features at the thought of more conversations with Sam. He has given her something to look forward to, something to make her a little more excited during her boring every-day life. As she tucks herself in under her covers, eyelids heavy enough to droop involuntarily, the last thing she thinks of is him, the clever, sassy, twenty-four year old college dropout on the other side of the cracked phone screen. The overwhelming urge to get to know him overtakes her as she succumbs to sleep

Do you believe in ghosts?

that’s… random.

May be

why do you ask?

Idk, just wanna get to know you better.

that’s what you ask people you want to get to know better?

Yes?

Are you avoiding the question?

i do. believe in ghosts.

You?

So do i.

Well, sorta. I guess I believe in souls more than anything.

hm?

Well… I guess I hope (more than believe) that we are more than our corporeal selves.

In the sense that, it’s comforting to me that when we die, and our bodies stop working, we don’t evaporate.

I guess.

yeah I understand.

i don’t know. i guess i wanna believe in science more than anything but i know better.

How do you mean?

call it a hunch.

Oh c’mon, it’s gotta be more than that.

Sam…?

Y/n huffs out a breath, gnawing at her lip. She hopes her anxiety isn’t right, that Sam isn’t sick of her silly questions and existential dread, and is actually doing something. Perhaps his battery ran out.

...Sure.

She was doing something too, before she decided to text him. Eyes falling on all her books and notes, spread around her like ugly, depressing, anxiety-inducing flower petals. There’s a blanket over her legs, chilly fall weather seeping through her bones, and there’s a half empty pizza box in front of her. She’s full and the left overs are kept for her sister, Emily, who’s currently locked up in her room.

Damn it. Y/n is stressed and tired, and now her distraction is refusing to reply. This sucks. She hates the crawling, awful, gooey feeling of cold anxiety gripping every beat of her heart and stupidly convincing her he’s purposefully ghosting her, because he doesn’t like her.

Not knowing what to occupy herself with, she heads to take a shower. In the back of her head, she knows that she’ll probably not study any longer, so she takes it upon herself to sink under the hot water and wash thoroughly, trying to get her mind off Dean’s phone. When her feet step out of the shower and she has towel-dried herself as best as she can, she tosses her wet hair in a haphazard bun, and gets dressed.

Books stack under the rickety, stained coffee table, and she grabs her sketchbook, her favorite pencil, as well as her and Dean’s phone. She shoots Connor a text, arranging a hang out of some kind, and opens her little booklet, when a text vibrates Dean’s phone.

hey i’m sorry i got caught up in something.

It’s alright.

She doesn’t press the ghost subject, because he doesn’t seem into it and she really doesn’t wanna make him dislike her any more than he possibly already does.

The empty page of her sketchbook daunts her. With a tight grip on her mechanical pencil, she urges her creativity pumps to use some gasoline, but they seem limp and dead, and once more unwilling to help her. As her eyes fall on Dean’s phone, like a light bulb out of a cartoon, she gets an idea.

Hey, this might sound creepy, but what do you look like?

She stares at the phone. This feels like a risky question. God, if he wasn’t done with her before, he certainly must be now. But then, he surprises her.

why do you wanna know?

I’m in the mood to sketch some, and my creativity has officially left the building.

Care to help a girl out? Maybe your literary descriptions will spark something in me lmao.

i didn’t know you sketched.

Yeah, sometimes. Nothing great though, I promise. I’m certainly no Picasso.

i mean you don’t have to be picasso to sketch well. and you don’t have to sketch well to sketch at all.

Yeah, may be.

I don’t wanna pressure you into anything, you really don’t have to humor me.

If you do feel like it though, don’t send me a picture. Kinda wanna spark some life into my brain cells.

haha i will. only if you show me the finished product tho.

You’ve got yourself a deal :)

She simply cannot believe he has just agreed to this. Her breath is caught in her throat.

so.

what do you want me to start with?

Just whatever. Idk, tell me about your face.

well

i have brown curly-ish hair that reaches my ears. uh, my eyes are hazel.

Okay, that’s a start.

What’s your nose like?

it’s a bit pointy. thin i think?

Jawline?

sharp? i guess?

this is by far the weirdest thing i’ve done.

Lmao, yeah, this is pretty weird.

Exciting though.

She shouldn’t have said that. Fuck, that is definitely overeager.

yeah it is.

Her stomach feels floaty at his response.

Eyebrows?

normal?

How do you classify “normal” eyebrows, exactly?

i don’t know? they’re simple i guess.

Are you implying complicated eyebrows exist out there?

…

Elaborate, Sam. Are you shy? Do you not have eyebrows? Are they bushy? Or too thin? Or pointy?

i’m telling you they’re average.

Sam

what

You officially suck at this.

oh fuck off how would you describe yours?

Y/n proceeds to write a cohesive sentence that includes adjectives apart from “normal” and “average”. Words like bushy, thin, arched and curvy.

well shit yeah i guess i do suck at this.

i think it’s not a skill i mind not having.

That… is a confusing sentence.

just… draw them however. what difference can eyebrows make?

Oh you have no idea.

Okay, last thing.

Do you have a fringe?

yeah but not for long. i’ll probably let it grow out.

Okay, I can do something with that. Thanks :)

no problem

Her creativity is finally servicing her according to her commands, and Y/n puts pen to paper and scribbles messily. Line after line, they curl and sit on the page, forming a smile with thin lips, a sharp jaw, a pointy nose. She has to guess the eyebrows a bit, and the eyes are more cartoonish and generic than she likes. In the end, she gets anxious at the prospect of having to show him, and gives him a hood, so she won’t fuck up the hair.

Okay, I’m done.

that was quick, actually.

Well I didn’t have much to go on.

Sam doesn’t reply. She worries he might have misinterpreted her teasing tone.

Gimme a sec, I’ll send it over.

Ugh, Dean’s camera is such shit. Do you mind if I send it from my phone?

no go ahead.

[Y/n has sent a picture]

As you said, it didn’t take long. It’s really not the best.

that…

is actually not too far from the truth

it kind of looks like me from two years ago

wow, really?

yeah.

and it’s honestly a pretty good sketch. good job.

Thank you :)

Sam doesn’t say anything after this, and she huffs. Her head falls back on the couch, and she stares at the ceiling. She should go to bed soon, it’s getting late.

isn’t this strange?

Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit oh shit, she thinks. He’s regretting this. He doesn’t like her. He’ll stop talking to her and that’ll be it.

Why does she care so much? It’s a thought that passes through her mind. It hasn’t been long since they started talking and, after the near-kidnapping encounter, they’ve been having nearly daily conversations, but that still doesn’t mean much. She knows barely anything about him.

She guesses, she wants to get to know him better. He seems like the type of guy she’d enjoy hanging out with and she has so far. Stopping any kind of conversation would surely feel like a loss. She’d have to go back to her boring routine. This is the most exciting thing she has allowed herself to do in years.

A part of her feels rather lame for finding such a thrill at something so trivial. She’s talking to a stranger, and that’s all it is, but the prospect that he could be anyone at all, and she’s never even seen his face… well… It feels refreshing, new. Scary in an adrenaline-rush kind of way.

What is?

us. texting.

isn’t it a little odd?

I guess it is a bit.

I mean we’ve only known each other for, what, a week? And a half?

yeah.

should we stop?

I don’t know

Do you want to?

The extra moment his reply takes to arrive makes her want to vomit.

Then there’s your answer.

okay then

can I save you in my contacts?

Sure, go ahead.

I just did too.

alright.

Okay :)

I’m sorry, I have to go.

I guess I’ll text you later, Sam.

Go be whoever Sam Something is.

it’s winchester.

Like the shotgun?

yup.

That’s BADASS. Can you even get more badass than this? Pre-law, now a PI, and you’re named after a shotgun? Damn dude.

Well, it’s nice to meet you Sam. I’m Y/n Andrews.

Haha thanks.

nice to meet you, too

goodnight Y/n Andrews.

Night Sam Winchester :)

--- Part 3

A/N: Thoughts? How are you liking the newer version of this? right after I post it, I’m gonna delete the other one.

Taglist:

Old Can You See The Stars taglist: @shutupiminlooove @sammysgirl1997 @kymberlytorres @bambi95-blog @demonic-meatball @thekarliwinchester @littlekay15 @li-m-ii @thinspo-isuppose @carryonmywaywarddemigodwitch @ellen-reincarnated1967 @moonlitskinwalker @marichromatic @illuminatus42 @lazy-author @mirandaaustin93 @hauntedsiriel @pilaxia @devilgirlsarah @nobodys-baby-now @captiveties @calamitychaos @midiocris @wordswillscream

Sam taglist @kymberlytorres @theboykingsam @depressed-moose-78 @andi-mendes-barnes @captainmarvelcorps @nerd-in-a-galaxy-far-away @nellachain

#sam x reader #sam x fem!reader #sam x reader series #sam x reader fluff #sam x reader angst #sam winchester #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester x fem!reader #sam winchester x reader series #sam winchestr fluff #sam fluff #spn #supernatural #spn fanfiction #spn fanfic #seen 2 #seen

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curriebelle · 3 years

Text

furtively tries to express my appreciation for BTS’s insane showmanship without gaining the reputation of Being a Kpop Blog

Actually leTS TALK ABOUT THE REPUTATION OF THE KPOP BLOG 👩‍🏫

So to a certain extent I understand why “friend’s blog became a Kpop blog” is a meme. From the outside, a lot of the Kpop fan activity seems quite vapid. The impression I got in previous years was that it’s mostly about gushing over handsome boys and a/b/o rpf. And that’s not........entirely wrong, but we’ll get into that more in a sec.

Another factor is that Kpop fandom is hard to follow. The barrier to entry is higher than with other fandoms. In posts, individual Kpop stars are referred to by name, stage name, or nickname, and the band they belong to isn’t always obvious, so it’s quite easy to lump it all into “Kpop”; it takes work for a new fan to differentiate the groups if you don’t know them ahead of time. Kpop fandom has its own lingo that differs from other fan language (other media fans don’t use “bias” or “delulu” — and there’s a linguistics dissertation for you). And let’s not discount the other language barrier — Korean isn’t exactly a common first language, so it does take a bit of extra work to find subtitles and translations.

This might be why the Suddenly A Kpop Blog Event supposedly triggers a different reaction in followers. I’m still following most of my friends from crit role season 1, even though a good chunk of them blog about other stuff now (what is this Chinese show? Boy with magic flute? Gay? Help). Fittingly, I’ve seen memes about how people are ride or die for their mutuals even when they move to different fandoms, but the jokes about Kpop blogs are always a bit different — about how turning into a Kpop blog is a bit cursed of u. It’s to the point where this is only “secretly a Kpop blog” because I don’t want the “Kpop blog” reputation.

And from my fandom lurking I can say that part of that reputation is not unearned. A lot of Kpop fans on tumblr engage in it in ways I’m either disinterested in or actively opposed to (the shipping wars are as terrifying as their reputation suggests. Some were arguing one ship was an rl canon true secret relationship because someone in BTS wrote the letter K on his drawing. Even though the letter K is in his name.) The reason I’ve been “secretly a Kpop blog” is that a lot of Kpop posts don’t inspire me into reblog frenzies the way crit role memes used to, and that’s not because Kpop Stans Suck — it’s more just a matter of taste. Then again, I do like gifs, but if I start reblogging BTS gifs, then I’m a Kpop Blog......and you don’t want to be a Kpop blog.

But isn’t there a whiff of “I’m not like other girls” about all that? Like, yeah, of course Kpop fans hoard gifs of the same people and overanalyze them. That’s what fans do! Pretending I didn’t overanalyze the shit out of Taliesin and Laura’s micro-expressions before Perc’ahlia was a thing would just be disingenuous. We’re all looking too closely — one of the best things about being a fan is diving into the excess of art and making things out of it. We all make mountains out of molehills because mountains are more scenic. And, on a baser level, we are all thirsty bastards. I have SEEN you all reblogging the gifs of Chris Evans ripping the log in half, okay, and you were not doing it bc of the camera angle, just own the thirst. Even the problems the Kpop fandoms have aren’t problems unique to Kpop — aggressive shippers and “””””problematic””” fans are everywhere.

I also wonder if the reason why we don’t see as much Kpop analysis on tumblr is because we’ve created kind of a hostile environment for it. Whether you are a Kpop fan or not, we’ve all decided to treat Kpop as kind of silly — the fans give it their all in the departments of cutesy photo sets and ridiculous fic prompts, and we laugh at memes of Gimli saying “never thought I’d die side by side with a Kpop fan” anyway Stan Jungkook. Just like thirst and over analyzing, that’s not necessarily a bad thing — I love that meme, and you should Stan Jungkook — but it does mean that if you want to start taking it a bit more seriously, or even a bit more casually, the assumption is that all your old tumblr friends will ditch you because “you’ve gone to the dark side”

And that’s a shame because uhhhhhh there is some baller stuff to analyze in BTS’s discography. The album before last was based on Jungian psychology (???). Their leader and primary writer is a huge fan of multilingual puns so in the latest album he makes a three-way pun on the phrase “I’m ill” — he’s sick, he’s cool, and he’s overworked (because “il” in Korean means “work”). So is he sick or is he simply made sick by like, society’s expectations of labour under capital???? Like, you know me. Societal critique by way of pun. That’s my shit. There’s also an essay or two in me about the way BTS are marketed for fan consumption and the way we handle multilingual lyrics and the way they’re handling the temporary departure of one of their members (he is an absolute cat of a man and I hope he gets well soon).

Also fuck can J-Hope ever dance.

EDIT: I should probably acknowledge that I can only make this justification for BTS, which is the only Kpop group I really like; I got no idea about the rest of them. I do know that Shinee can Also dance.

I might get the essays out but this probably won’t become “a Kpop blog” if you’re not into that. I think I’ve internalized too much of the stigma (omg V has a song called stigma it’s so good check it out find a good translation), but also, like I said, I don’t vibe with much of the other content and I kind of only follow one extremely successful group. The gifs, though. The gifs might be coming. They are pretty, those boys.

Anyway! People don’t like Kpop for nothing so like Maybe you would also like Kpop? Who knows. At the very least, think before u meme.

#BTS #secretly a Kpop blog #also I Do like that tag so I’m keeping it #long post

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artificialqueens · 3 years

Text

Control, 1/3 (Katya/Manila) - Dartmouth420

Summary: All it took as the deal went south was a split second, a single gunshot, and then the incredibly stupid, impulsive decision to grab all the coke the guy had on the table and run. Now Katya and Manila need to get rid of a dangerous, truly incriminating amount of cocaine as fast as possible, as they rocket towards rock-bottom in Katya’s 1997 Volvo hatchback. Lesbian AU heist tale, Katya/Manila main, past (plot-relevant) Rajila & Trixya.

A/N: It’s darker and sadder than the summary makes it out to be. This story was inspired by the request for Katya/Manila chaos a few weeks ago, and some Lana Del Rey songs, but it got unhinged and angsty so PLEASE heed the content warnings. but other than that enjoy :)

CW: codependent relationship, drug use, drug addiction, off-screen gun violence, smut, semi-clothed sex, strap-ons, past abusive relationships, angst, unreliable narrator

PS: addiction is a very complex issue, and not something to be taken lightly in real life.

Part 1:

She doesn’t mind I have a flat broke-down life

In fact she says she thinks it’s what she might like about me

Admires me, the way I roll like a rolling stone

-Lana Del Rey, ‘Off To The Races’

It’s the cocaine, obviously.

Katya knows the cocaine is what’s fuelling these decisions. It’s not her fault.

The knowledge hadn’t stopped her from accompanying Manila anyway, as what was supposed to be their deal on enough coke to fuel a big party this weekend had gone sour and scary, and the guy had reached behind him for the gun in his waistband. But Manila had been faster, she’d pulled her piece out of her purse and shot the guy in a sudden explosion of noise.

On the couch in the living room in Manila’s tiny apartment, Katya rubs some coke onto her gums, and presses her fingers to her temples in an attempt to calm herself. Manila paces back and forth in front of the coffee table while Katya tries not to think about the shock in the dealer’s eyes, and his tattooed arm grasping at the bullet wound in his shoulder as he fell back. Is he dead? Maybe. Maybe not.

There are seven single-kilogram bricks of cocaine, one torn open at the corner, sitting in front of them on the coffee table, among the coffee-stained mugs and crumpled McDonald’s bags and the cheap paperback sci-fi novels that Katya likes.

Manila paces with her phone out, and her leather jacket open. She turns on her heel on one end of the stained carpet and makes a call, bringing the phone to her ear.

“Heyyy,” says Manila, drawing out the word.

Someone on the other end shouts Bitch, how did you get this number?! and Manila scrambles, “No wait no, Trinity, hear me out-“

There’s an audible beep, and Manila glares at the phone, angry.

“Okay, okay,” repeats Manila to herself, pacing back and forth, “We can get this under control.”

All the pacing is making Manila’s short dress ride up her thighs, drawing Katya’s eyes. Manila’s legs are easily her best feature. Well, her curly black hair is nice, too. Katya watches her nervously. It isn’t that she’s afraid of her, no, Katya loves her girlfriend. Obviously.

But Manila did just shoot the guy back there.

Katya had shrieked, her hands flying to her mouth, gazing in horror at Manila’s blank, shocked expression. They’d stared at each other for a split second, and then, completely without thinking, Katya had rushed for the drugs that sat on the table next to the man groaning on the floor, shoving the bricks of coke into her purse, Manila had arrived at the table a second later, and they’d rushed out and leapt into Katya’s 1997 Volvo hatchback and sped off as shouts echoed from the abandoned warehouse.

Katya drove like a madwoman back to Manila’s apartment, her scabby knuckles bright white on the steering wheel while in the passenger’s seat next to her Manila dragged in big gulps of air, trembling.

So, yeah. Here they are. Katya had known that Manila had a gun in her purse, just in case, but she hadn’t thought it would… well, come out. Of the purse.

“We need to sell it quick,” says Katya, keeping her voice as calm as possible, despite her rapidly beating heart. In the thrill of panic they’d broken into one of the bricks and done some lines, and were now both a bit twitchy. “We can’t- we can’t sit on this much. Fuck it’s so much money, I could really use it-”

“I know, me too,” replies Manila, taking her phone back out and scrolling. Her movements are rapid, nervous.

Katya glares down at the table, willing her whirring mind to think, and suddenly she misses Trixie. The breakup had been terrible, Katya had yelled and cried and threatened and begged Trixie to stay, but it was well over eight months ago and Katya should be over it. She isn’t. It’s like Trixie took her heart out of her chest when she left, and is still carrying it around with her. Katya has known Manila for a lot longer, from even before she met Trixie, and in the aftermath Manila was well, single (sort of) and there.

Katya has always been incapable of making good decisions. Even alright decisions. But she’s been trying to talk to Trixie again. It’s been going well. She hopes they’ll be back together by the end of the year.

Manila taps her phone, and then hits speaker, and the sound of it ringing echoes around her small apartment. Katya watches her. Manila paces, holding the phone out in her hand.

“Hello?” comes a deep, familiar voice.

“Latrice!” enthuses Manila, all smiles and joviality, “Hey girl, long time no chat!”

“Uh-huh, same to you, what’ve you got going on?”

The mild skepticism in Latrice’s voice is as well-hidden as Manila’s own manic edge. But maybe Latrice would be interested, and she’d buy a chunk of their sudden supply. Katya fidgets on the couch, reaching out and sinking her fingers into one of Manila’s old throw-pillows, the one with the fading print of Bettie Page posing with a whip.

“I’ve got, uh,” says Manila, speaking like she’s consciously trying to slow herself down, still pacing, tossing her hair over her shoulder, “I’ve got something you might like to buy.”

“Oh? And what might that be?”

“Ah, just a little something for a good time.”

“How much have you got?”

Latrice’s voice remains cautious-friendly, and Katya gets her hopes up for a second. Latrice is a local club owner, large-and-in-charge, friendly and easy-going, and primarily a legitimate business woman. But she sometimes dabbles in other kinds of purchases. Like they all do.

“Yeah, uh, a little more than I thought…” says Manila smoothly, with a chuckle, like it’s all a big joke. “Seven kilos.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Latrice?”

“I’m still here,” replies Latrice, but her tone is now suspicious, reticent.

“Mm,” says Manila, nodding to herself, “Okay, so you’re interested? Think you want to buy a brick? Or two?”

“Two kilos? Girl.”

“Don’t say it like that, you know how these things happen,” says Manila rapidly, trying to smooth it over.

“Seven kilos of coke doesn’t just happen, Manila.”

“Look we need to sell it fast-“

“You always need something, don’t you.“ Latrice’s tone is unimpressed, annoyed. "How many favours have I done for you over the years, and how many times have you disappeared when I needed you to have my back? See this is your problem-“ They’d all been good friends once, recalls Katya. Champagne and glitter and birthdays and club music and VIP lounges. Perhaps not so much anymore. “I don’t even want to know, I’m not getting involved-“

“Just let me expl- no- don’t you dare hang up on me!”

There’s a beep and the call drops.

Katya stands up, and walks the short few steps to the kitchen, chewing at her lip. Her gums are going numb. Who does she know that could buy this amount of stolen cocaine and very, very fast? She scrolls through her mental list of contacts and stares at the counter, at the crumbs brushed to the backstop.

“Well that sucks, why am I the one calling everybody-” mutters Manila from the living room, and then says louder, “Okay, okay, this isn’t a big deal. We’ve got choices, we’ve got options.”

Manila paces the living room again, tapping at her lips with her finger.

“What if we parcel it out and sell it at the club tonight?” suggests Katya, wriggling her hips as she bends over to look in the fridge, before glancing over her shoulder to see if Manila’s eyeing her ass in her jeans or not. Coke always makes her a little horny, which used to make Trixie unsettled. But Manila likes that about her.

Manila pauses in her pacing, watching Katya’s ass, and a little thrill shoots down Katya’s spine. There isn’t anything of interest in the fridge. Some carrot sticks, old milk, leftover pizza. Slimy spinach from Katya’s attempt to get something green into them both last week. Behind her, there’s a snort as Manila does another bump.

“Maybe- no, the first place they’ll check is the clubs and they’ll probably recognize us, but if we could get someone else to sell for us-“

Katya looks back at her, arching her back with a giggle and wiggling her ass. Her heart is soaring, she can’t help smiling, and there’s a manic edge underneath it. Her gums are numb, and her throat is tingling.

Something changes in Manila’s eyes and a smile spreads across her face.

Manila always makes Katya feel good, of course, but it’s a different kind of good than she’d had with Trixie. Trixie, with her big hair, her flannel shirts in the morning over her those little pink nightdresses, her dry humour. The way she didn’t always realize when she was being funny. Her observations. She used to make up silly songs for Katya, strumming away on her guitar while they sat on the balcony and Katya smiled and laughed and spilled her coffee, kicking her feet with how happy she was.

But Trixie had been able to walk away from it all because she had a goal. Katya and Manila haven’t had real goals in years.

Manila walks the short distance from the living room to the kitchen, eyes on Katya’s ass, hunger on her face. There’s an impulsive, high thrill in the air, that might be from the coke or the crime or both. Katya straightens, shutting the fridge.

Manila grasps her waist from behind, pushing Katya against the fridge and murmuring in her ear, “Gotcha, baby.”

Katya cackles and smiles and pushes her bony ass back into Manila’s body. But she likes it, the way that Manila manhandles her sometimes. It’s thrilling. She’s always had a thing for tall femme chicks with an aggressive streak. Trixie used to do the same thing, playful, until she started refusing to touch her at all.

Manila takes Katya’s upper arms and turns her around, bringing them both from the fridge to push Katya back against the counter and kiss her. Now this is going exactly where Katya wanted it to go, and it’s messy and frantic and maybe they’re both a lot high and a little scared. Lips meet teeth and tongues mingle, delicious.

“Get up on the counter,” orders Manila, breaking the kiss, and Katya obeys, hopping up with the help of her hands. She wraps her legs around Manila’s hips and they make out some more, Manila running her hands up Katya’s muscular back under her T-shirt, and Katya’s heart beats a little faster.

Katya tries her luck sneaking her hand between them and feeling up one of Manila’s not-particularly-impressive tits. Anyone involved with Trixie Mattel, even for a brief period of time, is ruined for all other breasts afterwards.

Manila bites Katya’s bottom lip in response, and the brief shot of pain goes straight to her pussy. Katya whines, and Manila goes from her lips to her neck, sucking the sensitive spot right below Katya’s jaw, and then she pulls back, hands fumbling on the button and fly of Katya’s jeans.

“Are they building jeans more complicated all of a sudden?” mutters Manila impatiently to herself as she works Katya’s fly open and Katya laughs, lifting herself up on her hands like the athlete she is- correction, once was, as Manila finally manages to get the fly down and pulls her jeans and underwear down to her knees.

Sitting back down ass naked on the counter is hilarious and Katya giggles, and then there’s the matter of working the jeans down to her ankles while Manila returns to Katya’s neck with a vengeance, kissing and sucking, and generally sending tingles up and down her spine. Manila roughly shoves Katya’s legs apart and drops to her knees.

And now it’s time for the best part and it’s the best part because, simply put, Manila might not be very smart (Trixie’s smarter than her despite her endless dumb blonde jokes) but Manila’s really fucking good at eating pussy.

Any dyke in Boston will tell you if you ask.

So Katya lets out this strangled gasp as Manila goes in with that fantastic mouth of hers, and Katya tangles her hands in that black curly hair and shivers and whines and tries to open her legs as wide as humanly possible without falling off the counter.

“Yes, god yes, ha, fuck-“ babbles Katya, caught up between gasps of laughter. She’s always been expressive.

The pressure builds as Katya rocks her hips, and Manila pushes fingers inside her and flicks her tongue over her clit in that way that makes Katya’s eyes roll back. Her head falls back and smacks against the cupboard behind her, and Katya throws one hand back to catch herself, scrambling to stay upright, as Manila holds her legs steady, in charge.

“Ow! Uh no, not you- oh fuck yes-”

It feels so good, it’s like a rollercoaster, building building building. Manila does that thing with her tongue again, glancing up to meet Katya’s eyes for a second, and Katya sees stars.

Two or three orgasms later, Manila stands up and leaves Katya gasping through the aftermath of the last one on her own. Wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist, Manila leans in and captures Katya’s lips in a brief kiss.

“You want your turn?” says Katya, as her breath returns to normal. She hops off the counter, brushes the crumbs off her ass and pulls her underwear back up but doesn’t bother with her jeans yet, stepping out of them.

Manila nods. Manila’s turn is usually after Katya’s unless it’s one of those rare nights where Katya doesn’t want anything, doesn’t want to be touched at all, which happens sometimes. Trixie was always understanding, she was so loving, so patient. Manila is less so. But Katya has a lot less patience for her, too.

“Meet you in the bedroom,” says Manila, grabbing a lipstick-stained glass from the pile of dishes by the sink and filling it from the tap. To wash out the taste of pussy, Katya presumes.

Katya picks up her jeans and heads to the bathroom, pausing at the coffee table to cut out another line of blow and put it up her nose, while Manila does the same, except her trajectory is to the bedroom. As Katya washes her hands she stares into the mirror. Dark circles under her manic hazel eyes. Dryish lips. A weird pimple on her jaw that came out of nowhere. Straw-blonde hair up in a greasy top-knot. White T-shirt with Bob Ross on the front. But she’s wearing her favourite earrings, the ones that are dangly little plastic hands. Heh. Katya manages a smile. Those earrings always make her smile.

But what the fuck are they going to do with all that cocaine-

No time for that now, Katya breaks eye contact with herself and dries her hands, because it’s time to fuck Manila and fucking Manila is always an event.

In the bedroom, Manila has taken off her leather jacket but not her dress, and holds her phone in one hand, glaring down at it. She’s pushing forty but she still looks good and for a moment Katya just admires her figure in that short black lace nude illusion dress that hilariously doesn’t match her skin tone, and those long, fantastic legs.

They make eye contact across the room.

“Fuck me.”

It’s an order. Manila is always in control.

Katya crosses the room, leaning in to initiate the kiss. Softer this time, as Katya touches the back of Manila’s neck, and moves her bare legs against Manila’s own and eventually drops her hands down to grip her ass.

They stumble to the bed, and it only takes a quick confirmation for Katya to know what Manila wants. Katya’s on top of her, pressing her arms down, and pushing her thigh between Manila’s legs so she can grind on it. They furiously make out even as Katya’s gut is tightening, is reminding her, hey, you just saw this woman shoot a man-

As Manila’s breath gets heavier, Katya ignores the doubt and sits up and gets off the bed. Manila turns over, and slides herself back so that she’s bent over the edge of the bed, taking in a breath of anticipation. Her dress is riding up, and Katya can see the crotch of Manila’s plain blue cotton underwear. It’s damp.

Katya steps back and digs under the bed for her harness and strap-on, the one that she’s taken to leaving here. Hurriedly, Katya does up the leather harness and puts the dildo in place. It’s purple. Trixie used to wear it, and Katya would get on top and ride it enthusiastically, expressive, words of love and lust tumbling from her while Trixie gripped her thighs and smiled and fucked it up into her, her blonde hair splayed out on the mattress like a halo- Katya clicks it on to vibrate, angles it so that the end rests against her clit through her underwear and then gets down on her knees.

Manila props herself up on her elbows, and peers over her shoulder at Katya, her dark eyes intense and expecting. She licks her lips. It sends a jolt down Katya’s spine.

“Are you wet for me?” asks Katya in a filthy, half-joking tone.

“Why don’t you find out?’ replies Manila.

Katya decisively pushes Manila’s dress up to her waist and pulls her underwear down, and grabs her ass cheeks, squeezing, before running her knuckles across Manila’s pussy, to check. Manila sighs, and shuts her eyes. Katya isn’t sure who Manila’s imagining behind those eyelids, and she doesn’t ask. When Katya shuts her eyes it’s always Trixie.

On her lower back, Manila has a tramp stamp of the gemini symbol with a stylized little tail on the end. It’s ridiculous because as Katya knows well, Manila’s birthday is in October. Manila was getting it covered, redesigned into a monarch butterfly, but it’s half-done so only one side of it hosts a delicate orange wing.

She ran out of money for the other half.

Katya takes a moment to slips fingers into Manila and to stroke her clit and make sure she’s really ready, until Manila practically growls and looks back at her, widening her legs. She hates being teased. Well whatever, Katya’s not going to say no to fucking the pussy before her so she lubes up the gently vibrating strap-on, lines up and, because she’s a softie, slides it in gently, taking care.

She knows Manila doesn’t want her to take care, Manila wants her to slam it in and fuck her like she means it, but Katya learned to take care from Trixie and now she can’t (or won’t) unlearn it. Manila gasps, gripping the tangled, dirty sheets.

Katya snaps her hips forward, filling Manila and thrusting repeatedly, her hands on Manila’s hips, pressing her fingers into the crease where they’re bent.

Manila moans and curses, and Katya sets a good rhythm, because she knows it won’t take long. Manila pushes her ass back against Katya, and the sudden shift in movement makes Katya almost lose her balance again, arm reeling out to the side as she falls back on her heels, the strap-on sliding unceremoniously out of Manila.

“Oops,“ laughs Katya.

“Did you just fall?” says Manila glancing back at her, amused.

Katya giggles and Manila chuckles too, and maybe there’s a moment of love between them, for a split second. Katya gets back up and strokes the curve of Manila’s hip, then grabs it and fucks her hard, and Manila releases a passionate moan. The opposite end of the dildo rubs against Katya, and it feels nice, not enough to make her come again, but-

It’s all over fairly quickly, and as Manila arches her back and curses her way to a messy, satisfying finish.

And then there’s all the post-sex rituals to go though; Manila sitting up, slightly dazed, and pulling her dress down and wandering over to the bathroom. Katya unbuckling the harness, and listening to the water run. Manila returns for fresh underwear from the clean laundry basket by the bed that she hasn’t bothered to fold or put away, and then Katya goes to the bathroom to clean the dildo and comes back and tosses it back into the plastic bin under the bed with the harness, and the problem they’re faced with washes back over them.

They kiss briefly for the look of the thing, just because they’re supposed to afterwards or whatever, but maybe there’s some affection in it. Katya puts her jeans back on and then the fun’s over.

“Okay,” says Manila, pacing her bedroom as Katya sits cross-legged on the end of the bed, slumped, “Okay, who do we know?”

“Adore?”

“Amateur hour, no.”

“Violet?”

“She deals E and molly, she won’t touch coke.”

“Crystal?”

“Methyd? It’s in her fucking name, Katya-”

“Bob?”

“Moved to New York last I heard-“

“Alaska?”

“What? No. Fuck, I can’t believe Latrice is still mad at me-”

Katya’s list is over. Katya stares at the ugly carpet, and watches Manila pace. There’s another option that Katya hasn’t had the guts to bring up, until now.

“Your ex,” says Katya. Manila won’t stand to hear her name spoken aloud. It’s a ridiculous habit that Katya barely has the patience for.

“No-“

“She’s the only one with the buying capacity for this.”

“We’re not going to her.”

Katya throws up her hands, “If we sell this amount to anyone in the city she’ll know about it anyway!”

Manila stares at the dusty window.

“It’s not-“ begins Katya, and the hair stands up on the back of her neck and she releases a nervous giggle as the horrible possibility occurs to her, pointing to the bricks of cocaine on Manila’s coffee table in the other room, “That’s not hers, is it?”

“No,” says Manila abruptly, worry lining her face for a second, turning back to Katya, “No way, those weren’t her guys, she doesn’t hire guys like that. Those guys were fucking idiots. Besides, they'd’ve been ta-”

Katya breathes a sigh of relief, and Manila cuts herself off. There are two major gangs that run Boston’s underbelly, that bring in drugs and keep the crime organized. Katya’s on good terms with the north side guys, she knows a couple of them from way back and they don’t bother her. She works for them occasionally, when she’s gonna be short on rent. But Manila’s ex runs the other gang, and she’s powerful and dangerous.

The Gemini is not to be fucked with.

“Wait!” exclaims Manila, her eyes going wide and expressive for a moment, “What about your friend- your friend, what’s her name…?” Manila snaps her fingers frantically, as if to jog her memory.

Katya just looks at her, skeptical.

“Uh, uh,” says Manila, still snapping. “You know her, uh, she’s Laotian, short, great ass-“

“Jujubee?” says Katya, in complete disbelief.

“Yes!” says Manila, triumphantly. “Her.”

“No,” replies Katya, mouth twisting, “She’s not involved anymore, she said she’s getting sober and getting out-“

“Yeah whatever, everyone says they’re ‘getting sober and getting out.’ You said that.”

The words hurt. Katya looks down, drawing in a breath, the shame crushing her for a moment. Manila indulges all of Katya’s worst sides. Manila parties hard, she disappears and re-appears with new and better stories every time, she’s doesn’t get sad, she never gets tired, she encourages, she enables, she’s always in control, and it’s so, so hard to let go of her. Even when Trixie had given Katya the ultimatum.

Especially when Trixie had given her the ultimatum.

“Fuck,” says Katya, standing up and stalking back into the living room. “Fine, you wanna go hassle a dead end, whatever-“

“She’s not gonna be a dead end,” argues Manila, shrugging her leather jacket back on and following Katya, “I bet she still knows people who’ll buy. We have to shift at least some of this shit and quick, and maybe she’ll take it. We sell it to her on the cheap, she’s happy, we’re happy. Who cares what she does with it?”

Manila’s cynicism is so oddly pragmatic, so heavy. It’s crushing even Katya’s own cynicism, which is a weary weight to drag around. But it’s so hard for Katya to say no to Manila, saying no to Manila always comes with caveats.

“Fine,” agrees Katya, grinding her teeth, taking her phone out and firing off a quick text to Jujubee.

“Great,” replies Manila, and walks over to pick up the duffel bag next to the table, and begins shoving the neatly wrapped bricks of cocaine into it. She dumps some of the opened-up brick into a loose little ziplock baggie for easy access, rubs a bit on her gums, then puts the baggie into the duffel bag too.

There’s a sudden leak of noise as a car goes by outside, blasting music loud enough that Katya can hear the lyrics drift up into the apartment.

“Loving you forever can’t be wrong, even though you’re not here won’t move on-“

As quickly as the song arrives, it fades. Katya picks up her car keys, and wonders what Trixie’s up to right about now.

#rpdr fanfiction #katya zamolodchikova #manila luzon #katya x manila #lesbian au #rare pair #fic challenge #smut #angst #heist au #unreliable narrator #control #dartmouth420 #tw drug addiction #tw off-screen gun violence #tw codependent relationship

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raendown · 4 years

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Pairing: MinatoKakashi Word count: 3399 Rated: E Summary: A mild kitchen accident leads to feelings being revealed and action being taken. Minato has no complaints.

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Whipping Up A Good Time

He would discover later, through offhand questions at the supermarket, that he had simply been one of the unlucky consumers to buy part of a defective batch of product. In fact quite a few people in the village had suffered the same sticky accident as he had, although probably without quite the same results afterwards. One of them had been a little old lady who lived alone and, reportedly, she’d almost had heart failure from the surprise. Still, that was all discovered after the fact and hindsight did nothing to save him from the shock of having the can of aerosol whipped cream explode in his hand as he held it upside down over a slice of reheated pie.

Minato’s finely honed shinobi instincts reacted without thought, tossing the small canister away from himself as they registered the ‘threat’. Unfortunately it hit the cupboard and rebounded straight towards him so he succeeded in nothing more than assaulting himself with even more sugared foam. A heartbeat passed in which his every sense sang with awareness, feeling the utter calmness of the room in contrast to the excitement he had just experienced. Then the Yondaime Hokage peeked down at himself to assess the damage.

He couldn’t help but feel just a little ridiculous. The tiny explosion had scared the life right out of him even if he hadn’t been harmed at all - unless one counted his dignity. He couldn’t help but imagine the local gossip chains in his head telling each other all about how their fearless leader had been frightened by a can of dessert topping and it made him grimace in self-deprecation as he took in the sight of his torso. He certainly wouldn’t be scaring off any enemies looking like he did right now. It was his first day off in a long while so he hadn’t been wearing a shirt all morning and thus of course he looked incredibly lewd now, like something that might have stepped right out of Jiraiya-sensei’s raunchy novels. His bare chest was liberally coated in snowy cream, some of it dripping down to catch and gather around the waistband of his lounge pants. His peripheral vision informed him that at least some had landed in his hair and he could feel the splotch that streaked across his left cheek. More than anything he felt like some sort of confectionary treat gone wrong.

If the god’s had any kindness for him they were not exercising it that day, he decided. Just as he finished appraising the damage his kitchen door swung open and, of all the people in the entire village, the one he least wanted to see him like this walked straight in to the room. He’d forgotten in the excitement that Kakashi was only a thin wooden door away, that he’d come in to the kitchen to make tea and pie for them both since his ex-student had stopped by for a visit.

“Sensei? What was that noi–…uh…hngh?” The younger man’s words petered out the moment he caught sight of Minato’s current state and his sentence instead ended with a rather strangled mix of letters and a low keening. The Yondaime watched as Kakashi’s visible eye widened steadily, bit by bit, until he feared for the security of its position. He watched Kakashi’s body pause between one step and the next until he had settled in to absolute stillness. Then that one eye inched down until he was staring at the mess of creamy whipped frosting and stayed there, seemingly riveted by the sight.

“Uhm…I don’t know what happened,” The Hokage mumbled in embarrassment. “I just wanted some whipped cream. The can sort of exploded when I tried to use it.”

Kakashi gave no indication he’d heard a single word that was spoken. He was still staring at the mess. Minato drew his brows together self-consciously and fought the urge to fidget. It was hard enough to stand still around the younger man lately; doubly so now when he found himself being scrutinized so closely.

“Kakashi?” he asked. No response. “Are you alright?” It was as if his friend were frozen to the spot, some part of his brain broken down by the admittedly silly sight in front of him. Minato spent a few moments genuinely confused about such a response until he witnessed something he had only dared think about in dreams he would never willingly admit to.

The mask hiding that face from the rest of the world had been discarded around him years ago. He therefore had a perfect view of the small pink tongue that peeked out to absent-mindedly draw across thin lips, lips that stay parted as if their owner were unaware of just how stunned he looked. What sparked the moment of realization for Minato, however, was the fact that only a second later Kakashi swallowed. Hard. And that one action changed his entire face, rearranging it in to an expression of desperation and want. Minato wondered what he wanted so badly. All he was doing was staring at his half naked old teacher all covered in whipped – oh.

Well.

Well well.

The Yondaime felt both of his eyebrows slowly crawling up in to his hairline as he allowed the idea to sink in that Kakashi had frozen because of the debauched picture he’d been presented with and because he - by some grace of the gods - liked what he saw. In the most wonderfully perverted way. Suddenly the attraction he’d been working so hard to keep hidden didn’t seem like it was as one-sided as he had assumed.

Minato smiled while the inner child inside of him decided that a good situation could always be made better if you have a little fun with it. When he lifted the hand not still holding the can of topping, Kakashi’s eyes darted to follow the movement. The younger man made a strangled noise when Minato drew a single finger through the mess decorating his pectorals, swirling around a sticky nipple, before raising up to pop the appendage in to his mouth. As he sucked it clean his ex-student finally made eye contact with him again so he rewarded him with a slow deliberate wink. He could swear that Kakashi actually stopped breathing for a few heartbeats.

“Sensei…” The single word seemed to be all that Kakashi was able to muster, and even that came out breathy and uneven. He looked unsure of what he wanted to say, as if his brain wasn’t functioning at full capacity right then, especially evident when he barely twitched to be beckoned forward with that freshly cleaned finger.

“Kakashi,” Minato purred. “Come here.” He’d never seduced anyone of the male persuasion before. His first attempt didn’t appear to be going too badly if the way Kakashi was drifting towards him in a trance-like state was any indication. When the younger man was close enough Minato reached out and snagged him by the mask pooled around his neck, using the material to draw him in until they were less than a foot apart. “I could use your help cleaning this up.”

Alright, so maybe all of his seduction knowledge had been gleaned from his mentor’s pornographic novels. Maybe that was the cheesiest line that he had spoken in his whole life. Anyone else might have laughed at him. Kakashi, however, happened to enjoy the same raunchy literature and his reaction did not disappoint. Minato had the pleasure of watching a slow flush paint itself across that pale countenance while the deliciously exposed throat bobbed in another thick swallow. His ears twitched when they picked up the sound of harsh breathing.

As if in a dream Kakashi swayed forward, his torso arching to keep his own chest out of the sugary mess decorating the Hokage’s form. Minato almost squealed aloud when something wet dragged up his left cheek. He turned his head to see Kakashi’s tongue withdraw back in to his mouth and watched as he seemed to contemplate the sweet cream.

“Was that the kind of help you were looking for?”

That was all it took for Minato to all but physically melt in to a puddle right there. He’d only heard that kind of rumbling growl out of Kakashi in his most secret fantasies. Unable to properly formulate enough words to make a coherent response, he yanked on the mask still in his grip and pushed his head forward to meet the other man in the middle.

Kakashi moaned in to their first kiss, the sound reverberating through his lips and all the way down to his toes. They tilted their heads in unison, seeking a better angle as they both poured all the passion they’d been hiding from each other in to this one moment. It was hands-down the hottest kiss Minato had ever been a part of. His friend seemed determined to short-circuit his senses with nothing more than lips and tongue and it was definitely working. He was panting already when Kakashi moved his kisses away, down the side of Minato’s neck to nibble across his clavicle.

He gasped when Kakashi licked him again, cleaning whipped cream off of one peaked nipple and lapping at the surrounding area. He arched like a cat, pressing in to the sensation and letting go of Kakashi’s mask at last, his hands instead falling to grip the counter behind him as he abandoned the exploded canister to roll across the floor. His knees felt as though they were seconds away from collapsing with unexpected pleasure but he desperately wanted to stay upright. There was absolutely no way he was ending this when he’d been waiting for it for too long already.

Like the complete tease he was, Kakashi licked his way down Minato’s chest, making random patterns and leaving patches of cream behind without care. He traced the lines of hard-earned abdominals and dipped a tongue in to a slightly ticklish belly button before following the rather prominent oblique line. Minato’s jaw hung open as he watched helplessly, unable to do more than pant and shiver and let the other man do as he wished. Kakashi’s half-gloved hands traced around his waist to give his rear a firm squeeze before trailing down the length of his legs only to come back up the sides. Clever fingers toyed with the drawstring on his trousers while that sinful tongue traced the last visible edge of skin.

“Ah…” Minato mouthed wordlessly, small breathless sounds escaping him when Kakashi looked up to catch his eye. The moment their gazes locked Kakashi pulled on the string and Minato swallowed thickly as the only item of clothing he was currently wearing loosened and slipped off his hips, bunching on the floor around his ankles.

His cock jutted up, nearly brushing the other’s chin now that it was allowed to hang free. Kakashi smirked at him and held his eyes as he leaned down to slowly lick the tip, tiny kitten licks with just a brush of his tongue. Despite the barely-there touch it was still the best thing Minato had felt in years and it sent trembles of anticipation racing through his veins. Kakashi licked his own lips with a hum as though he’d found a flavor he thoroughly enjoyed. Then without any warning he leaned forward and took the cock before him in to his mouth, sliding down as far as he could go.

Minato very nearly collapsed as an echoing moan was dragged out of him. Almost immediately he had to have a quick but very stern talk with his body just to avoid coming straight away from the incredible sensations threatening to overload his brain. Kakashi sank down until he could fit no more in his mouth and then stayed there, breathing through his nose and waiting until Minato met his eyes again. Then he slowly pulled away to swirl his tongue around the head and sank back down.

The rhythm he picked up was slow but steady, paced just right to bring Minato to the brink of insanity within less than a minute. Never before had he experienced such glorious torture - or at least if he had then he couldn’t think of it at the moment. He couldn’t think about very much at all just then. Every last ounce of brain power he had was steadily being sucked out of him through his cock by a very eager Kakashi. If he wasn’t sure he would die if the man stopped just now he would have tackled his friend to the floor and done what he could to show that he had a few talents hidden under his own tongue as well. But that would have to wait until he was able to unroll his eyes from the back of his head or even think a coherent thought around the mind-numbing sensations in his lower half.

Without thinking Minato reached out to thread his fingers through the silver hair bobbing in front of him. And when Kakashi swirled his tongue just right he jerked his fistful of hair more by instinct than through any efforts to be intentionally sexy. The moan that drifted up would have been utterly filthy even if it hadn’t been delivered around a mouthful of cock, complete with vibrations that had Minato trembling against the countertop.

“Don’t judge me,” he managed to choke out, “but I’m- fuck- don’t stop- I’m so close Kakashi!”

His only response was another moan and fingers coming up to cup his balls ever so gently, an area he generally ignored on the rare occasion he indulged himself while alone. It had been long enough that he’d entirely forgotten how sensitive he was there. A simple roll of Kakashi’s fingers was all it took to send him tumbling over the edge.

Embarrassment that he hadn’t been able to hold off for all that long would have to wait until later. Minato closed his eyes and curled around the body kneeling in front of him as he came with a garbled call which might have started out as Kakashi’s name. It was hard to tell. The fingers not cupping him curled around the length Kakashi hadn't been able to fit in his mouth and stroked him so gently he could only clench his own fingers around their fistfuls of hair to stop himself from curling down farther and whimper a cry for mercy.

“You have no idea,” Kakashi murmured in a hoarse voice after he slowly pulled away, “how many times I have gotten off to the idea of doing that.”

“Nngg!”

“Why, whatever is the matter? You looked a bit flushed.”

Minato gurgled a few disconnected syllables in a very serious attempt to find words. When it became clear that talking was still a bit beyond him at the moment he opted instead for sliding down the countertop - ignoring the way several drawer handles dug in to his flesh uncomfortably on the way down - and pulled Kakashi in to a kiss that nearly sent smoke signals pouring out of his ears. Strong thighs found their way overtop of his own and he suddenly found himself with a lapful of his most scintillating dreams.

While he certainly had entertained a number of fantasies that involved both of them in a kitchen, eventually sitting on the cold linoleum was enough to bring him back to reality and remind him that there were much more comfortable places they could be in. Namely the bedroom. Or the couch, that was a lot closer. He had an inkling that Kakashi would be amenable to either. It still took him a couple minutes longer to remember how proper speech worked but that had quite a bit to do with the phenomenal kisses stealing his words all over again.

“You should stay for dinner,” he managed to blurt out eventually. When Kakashi pulled away a few inches to look at him consideringly Minato licked his lips with a nervous twitch. “Or if you’re busy tonight then I could take you to dinner this Friday? No ramen, I promise. You deserve better than just ramen!”

“Maa, if you’re trying to sweet talk me it’s a bit of wasted time.”

“Oh.”

For a single heartbeat Minato wondered if he could convince the ground to open up and swallow him.

“I’m already as sweet on you as I’m going to get.” Kakashi winked, his lips pulled up in a mischievous grin. Minato wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss it away or swat it. He settled for an exasperated huff.

“That was terrible,” Minato scolded him. Kakashi laughed and ducked in for another kiss.

“Excuse you, my jokes are masterpieces!”

“Of terribleness!”

Both of them glared playfully, sizing each other up like they meant to go to war, until eventually Minato realized he was sitting on his own kitchen floor with his pants around his ankles and a fully clothed man across his hips. If the awkwardness of being the only one naked weren’t enough, his ass was definitely feeling the chill of the poorly insulated tiles now. He cleared his throat with a distinctly sheepish note and tilted his head towards the hall.

“I don’t suppose we could take our dinner negotiations to the bedroom, could we? Before I freeze both of my buns off?”

He’d never seen Kakashi move so quickly outside of battle, leaping up and pulling him to his feet within seconds.

“We can’t have that!” he declared. “I have a vested interest in those buns and freezing them off is not on my to-do list. At least not until we’ve had our first big fight and I toss you out in to the cold to think about what you’ve done.”

“Ah, I see. And I suppose making it up to you will take some begging?”

“Quite a lot of it, yes.” Kakashi nodded solemnly. Then he turned his head away to hide the smile breaking out across his face, enjoying his own joke just a little too much. Or possibly he was imagining what filthy deeds the two of them might get up to once begging got involved. Minato had to admit that he was very tempted to ask.

Instead he shuffled his weight from side to side, kicking his trousers off each ankle one by one. When he was free he set both hands on his hips to display his body in all its naked glory. He knew very well that he was an attractive man, although hopefully the little bits of creamy residue left on his skin didn’t take away from that too much.

“First one to the bedroom gets to be on top,” he declared. Then he bolted.

Behind him he could hear the echo of Kakashi’s indignant protests that this wasn’t a fair contest, going up against the fastest man in the village, and the laughter bubbling up in his chest very nearly put him off balance as he raced down the hall. He couldn’t find it in himself to be upset when he almost lost because of that. The two of them collapsed across the bed in a messy heap of tangled limbs and Minato could only think that this was it, this was the missing puzzle piece he’d been yearning after for years.

And he owed it all to a faulty can of whipped cream. When Kakashi came over that afternoon neither of them could have predicted that this was where they would end up - but as he listened to the sinful noises playing out beneath him Minato thought happily that neither of them seemed all that disappointed. He was sure most customers would have immediately taken the canister back to the shop and demanded a refund. As for him, well, he was already drafting a letter of thanks in his mind for the company that made them. He owed them every smile and every laugh that he would ever taste for himself from this day forward, every anniversary they would ever celebrate, every touch of calloused fingers over old and faded scars. All this because of a little whipped cream.

Excited as he was for their current activities, Minato couldn’t wait until later. Of all the people he knew only Kakashi, with his equally terrible sense of humor, would appreciate the pun of how very sweet the results of this accident had been.

#rae writes #minakaka #minato #kakashi #fanfiction #the little wip that could #for reals this has been a wip for so long #just take it

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panharmonium · 4 years

Text

no man can know his destiny...

...because if we told him what it was, he might decide to tell destiny to bugger off!

all right, folks. i am obviously eight years late to this party (party? maybe not party; that’s...maybe not the best word), and i am aware that everybody who was ever in this fandom has probably already consumed all the finale reaction posts that they ever needed to read. i am putting this S5 finale round-up together for my own purposes anyway, because now that i’m no longer avoiding spoilers, i want to make sure i get all of my own thoughts down on paper before i accidentally run into anyone else’s.

fair warning before anyone decides to invest their time: this post is sixteen single-spaced pages long. i am putting it under a cut here, so feel free to scroll on by.

with that said, off we go!

in a land of myth and a time of magic (i fell in love with a ten-year-old tv show):

so, to preface this, i think it’s pretty fair to say that i very rarely complain about merlin.

i watched the first episode of merlin on a complete whim - i was by myself, on a trip to atlanta, and despite the fact that i usually never sit down and just decide to watch random tv, i was scrolling around on netflix before bed and saw merlin and thought “oh hey, that’s always been on my list as something i thought i might like.” i clicked it. i watched it. i thought it was going to be a silly, fun, low-investment show i could use to fill the spare time on my trip.

it was silly. and it was fun. it was not low-investment. i fell in LOVE.

and i know this comes through in the way i write about it, like - the vast majority of the blogging i have done about merlin has come from a place of THIS THING IS GREAT AND I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT’S GREAT. sometimes the story will go places that stress me out or make me sad, but usually that hasn’t impacted my enjoyment, because generally, when i evaluate stories, i react more to my perception of the story’s integrity, as opposed to whether or not i personally ‘liked’ the ending. so i might personally prefer stories that don’t end in tragedy, but if the story has earned its ending, with integrity, then i won’t feel any desire to criticize it. i will talk about how sad i am or how low it made me feel, but if the story has earned its ending then i can’t - i just can’t argue with it. i have to respect it.

and i think i’ve demonstrated that well enough in all the other blogging i’ve done about merlin. with 5.10 and 5.11 particularly; i felt those episodes were impossibly tragic and dark and SO unhappy, but i respected the storytelling, despite this. i wasn’t hopping on here to make posts like ‘ugh this is getting so dark this episode sucks!!!’ i was writing about the story they were crafting - which, yes, WAS getting dark, certainly - and about how impactful it was (even when that impact was just “OUCH”). i was still deeply engaged, at that time.

so - i think i have earned the right to say honestly that the following analysis does not come from a place of ‘this was SAD and that makes it automatically CRAPPY!!!’ that’s not how i assess things. 5.10 and 5.11 were devastating, but i respect them. i loved watching them. i would watch them again. i thought that the show had the potential to pull off something masterful, after those two episodes.

but the one thing this series has always struggled with a little bit is follow-through. bbc merlin is at its finest when they aren’t afraid to go barreling after the moral ambiguity and complexities that their show inherently contains (‘to kill the king,’ ‘the sorcerer’s shadow,’ ‘the disir,’ ‘the kindness of strangers,’ ‘the drawing of the dark,’ to name just a few), and they achieve real greatness in those moments. but they sometimes pull back from the difficult questions they pose. and i can’t tell if it’s that they’re deliberately chickening out, or if it’s just some variation of carelessness or ineptitude that makes them fumble the ball, but the end result is that they hit these amazing highs of “wow, i can’t believe we’re finally going there; we’re addressing the central conflict” and then all the complicated questions they asked just get dropped.

it happens in ‘the sorcerer’s shadow’ (which is an amazing episode otherwise), when kilgharrah kind of...word-of-god handwaves away merlin’s conflict, saying ‘we just gotta wait for arthur to be king, that’s the right way to go about this.’ and they double down on this by having merlin say that it was gilli, not merlin, who had betrayed their kind - which is just not - that is not what that episode had been saying, up until that point! the entire point of that episode was that yeah, merlin has in fact gotten himself into a position where he’s made a morally questionable decision to serve a regime that oppresses him and others like him. they show us how conflicted he feels when he’s confronted by this reality. they show us that he knows it’s true. it was brilliantly done - and then they pulled WAY back.

but even then i don’t think it was like...unforgivable, at that point. it doesn’t break the story’s integrity; i can definitely believe that merlin would take that tack - i’m not sure he’s quite ready to confront/accept the reality of his situation at that point. so i get it. it wouldn’t be a big deal - if the show had eventually addressed/followed through on this conflict in the end.

and i think the same is true of the episodes leading up to the finale. they were dark and complicated and tragic, but they were telling an important story; and none of the terrible things we saw happening to the characters were dead-ends, story-wise. there was a place for that story to go. there was room for morgana to have her arc resolve in a meaningful way. there was room for mordred’s arc to do the same. the place in which we found ourselves at the end of 5.11 was as dark and complicated as merlin had ever been, and it was still bursting with potential.

and then you watch the finale and it’s just - empty. i described it as a paper castle in some other post, and that’s what it felt like. no substance. it was like they stuffed us on a bullet train and whizzed us past material that should have taken an entire season to handle, and you didn’t see any of it or feel anything because the trip took ten seconds and the scenery was a blur.

it honestly felt like they thought they had another season coming and then someone popped in and told them “actually you have to wrap this up in two episodes.” i can’t think of another way to reasonably explain how dramatically the quality of the storytelling downshifts between 5.11 and 5.12. i wasn’t watching the show then, so i don’t know, but it’s - at least if that had been the case, i would UNDERSTAND what had happened. it’s just insanity, otherwise.

so anyway, with all that said, here are my own reasons for why i think the last two episodes were objectively bad writing, as opposed to just writing i don’t personally like. nobody is obligated to agree with me on any of these points, but i’m also not putting them up here to debate them, really - i truly believe that almost everything i watched in the last two episodes was poorly-conceived.

(there’s an entirely different discussion to be had, of course, about the relative merits of ending your, uh, hopeful fantasy story on a bummer of a death knell, and i might touch on that later, but that’s a little bit more subject to personal preference, and honestly, it’s not the point i’m trying to make here, because to be frank, these episodes are bad without even getting into who lives and who dies.)

i. plot contrivances: EVERYWHERE.

i don’t mean plot devices. plot devices are important, in a story. a plot device is something like how merlin throws excalibur into the lake in 1.09, and then is able to retrieve it in 3.13 because of a choice he made to show someone compassion in 2.09, and thus he is able to save the day and defeat the undead. excalibur is a plot device, in that scenario - the ability to use it in 3.13 unfolds organically.

a plot contrivance, on the other hand, is artificial. it’s unnaturally convenient. it doesn’t feel convincing. it’s what you reach for when you can’t think of a way to make something happen, but a writer is supposed to look at these things when they edit and think ‘hey. if i can’t make this happen without it being contrived, maybe it shouldn’t happen. maybe i need to look at this again.’

so like, from the very beginning of 5.12, we have:

the face-sucker slug. never seen one before. never heard of it before. never given any indication that any such creature ever existed. never given any indication that “stealing” magic was something that could even happen. no idea where morgana found it. created for and introduced in this very episode, just to give merlin a reason to go to the crystal cave; removed from the episode ten minutes after it’s introduced, forgotten.

gwaine’s sudden girlfriend. NEVER SEEN HER BEFORE. NEVER HEARD OF HER BEFORE. NEVER GIVEN ANY INDICATION THAT ANY SUCH CREATURE EVER EXISTED. where does she come from? why do we care? (surprise: we don’t.) created for and introduced in this very episode for the sole purpose of explaining how morgana could get the information she needed to interfere with everyone’s plans, which was a contrived idea in and of itself, because it relied completely on making gwaine act like the kind of dope who tells a civilian military secrets.

you just. you can’t. if your plot point can’t function without a) introducing a brand new character in the penultimate episode of your show and b) forcing a long-standing character to do something they just wouldn’t do, you can’t use it. you just can’t. you have to figure out something else.

this lady’s very existence is nonsense. absolutely, utterly contrived. to waste that much time on a character we’ve never seen before and don’t care about, in the last two hours of your five-season show...incredible.

morgana’s army. they outnumber camelot’s forces “five to one.” where did they come from? how did she amass such a force? in season 4 she was losing all her allies - the episode with annis and caerleon was specifically designed to show us how people were turning from her methods and aligning with arthur. and then she spent two years in a pit. how did she amass such a force in such a short period of time? what could she offer them? why do they fight for her? there is no explanation of who the “saxons” are or what they want - the show just needed an army for camlann.

aithusa. aithusa was, apparently, just a vehicle to enable mordred to obtain a blade forged in the dragon’s breath. beyond that, he served no purpose. he literally just vanishes, along with that entire storyline - the future of the dragons, everything - just dropped, forgotten, never mentioned again.

morgana in the crystal cave. “gee, i finally caught merlin, the guy who’s supposed to be my doom. i think i’ll just...trap him behind some rocks. wouldn’t want to kill him, while i have him completely powerless and at my mercy. how then would he escape from this super powerful magical cave and ensure that the next step in this impossibly weak plot unfolds?”

the crystal cave itself. what is the entire point of this detour? killing time while arthur and merlin are separated? i mean, the whole “merlin loses his magic for all of five minutes” thing was a contrivance itself, just to ensure that merlin and arthur had a reason to be separated during the battle. but even putting that aside, once merlin is in there, and balinor says ‘you have to go into the light to discover who you truly are, you have power of which you cannot conceive’ - what purpose did that serve? all we see merlin do once he gets to camlann is call down some lightning. he’s done that before. he...he did that in season one.

the entire detour in the crystal cave changed nothing. it was a contrivance to mark time so merlin didn’t arrive at camlann at the same time as everybody else.

arthur at camlann. the idea that we are supposed to believe that arthur somehow finds himself all alone on that battlefield, long enough for mordred to sneak up on him and stab him and for him not be found by a single other human being until merlin shows up. he is the KING. there is no conceivable circumstance where his army lets him go wandering around by himself after the battle has been mostly won. it doesn’t make sense. it isn’t believable. it’s a contrivance to make sure mordred has an opportunity to get him.

“only the sidhe possess such magic.” the SIDHE????? you guys. the last time we saw the sidhe was in that gooftastically wonderful filler episode where a pixie wanted to bone gaius. you can’t - you just - you can’t center your entire ‘this is how we save arthur’ plan on a race of beings that we haven’t heard of since early season 3 and which we never knew anything more about than that they once possessed a farting princess.

“not without the horses.” are you telling me. that the reason they don’t make it to this fabulous isle in time. is because. their horses. were conveniently scared away. that’s what killed the glorious once and future king. the horses ran off.

and the horses conveniently ran off because they were conveniently scared away by morgana, who conveniently happened to show up because she was conveniently put in a position to extract information from someone who conveniently knew where arthur was going - all of this, of course, predicated on the impossible-to-believe assumption that a) gwen would ever tell anybody where arthur was going, when the stakes were this high, when nobody needed to know and camelot had already fallen prey to spies multiple times, and b) that gwaine and percival would, if they did for some reason know where arthur was headed, be so foolish as to literally serve themselves up to morgana on a plate, when they know that the whole point of this scheme is that they WANT morgana to hang out in brineved wasting her time in order to allow arthur to reach the isle safely.

I SAY AGAIN: if your plot point cannot function without making characters do things we just do not believe they would do, you can’t use it. you can’t. you have to revisit what you’re doing. you can’t just make anything happen that you want to in order to drive the story to the place you want it to go. it has to make sense.

kilgharrah. is called just in time to deliver a pat explanation of the ending, but not in time to shuttle arthur over to the isle? merlin could have called for a ride ages ago. merlin and arthur weren’t traveling fast, or far. it’s not like kilgharrah was having that much trouble getting around. we see that he handles carrying the two of them just fine. we see that he flies away, zoop, no problem. there is no reason for him not to have been called even a single hour sooner, other than that the plot demanded that he could not be, because the plot demanded that arthur not get there in time.

it breaks the boundaries of disbelief. it takes you right out of the story. it reminds you, inappropriately, that all of this is a thing someone planned (poorly). all of it is contrived.

ii. dropped plotlines

i can’t believe i actually have to say this.

i’ve seen tv shows tank before, but usually, when tv shows tank, it’s just that the quality of their writing has declined, and they’ve resorted to resolving their plotlines in ill-conceived ways.

i have never, in my life, seen a tv show DROP all of its major plotlines before it ends. i have never seen a tv show just. FORGET. to address their premise. never. i still can’t believe it actually happened. i’m sitting here trying to remember if the merlin finale was actually some kind of anxiety-induced fever dream i had while i was gearing myself up to watch the last few episodes.

merlin bbc had, at its outset, two major plotlines. these would be supplemented later by other throughlines (many of which were also dropped), but the two major ones always stayed the same, one for arthur and one for merlin:

for arthur, the question of him one day becoming the greatest king in history and uniting the land of albion

for merlin, the question of him one day liberating the magical community from oppression and being able to live free from fear

those were the two constant throughlines in this show, from episode one. the struggle to unite the land of albion, and the struggle to make the land a free and just one for ALL of its people, not just those without magic.

this show, somehow, ended without actually addressing either of these things.

it’s amazing. i don’t even know how they managed it. somehow, this show ended without actually ending.

to elaborate on this (and other dropped plots):

a) the once and future king: we never see a united albion. the show is driving at it, in seasons 4 and 5, when arthur makes peace with annis in S4, and then gets annis’s permission to travel through her lands in 5.01, and then helps Mithian’s father in S5, and makes peace with odin in 5.04, and then tries to make peace with the sarrum in 5.08, and it’s all making sense, and you expect that plotline to continue until we see its eventual fulfillment at the end of the show. you would expect, if this were supposed to be such an important thing, that the big struggle at the end of the series would have been all the peoples of albion united together against a threat.

but we never see any of these kingdoms again. we never hear a peep out of them. no one ever mentions them. it’s like they all just vanished into the wind. as far as we’re aware, camelot fights morgana’s army on their own - it’s like annis and odin and godwyn and rodor and those five kings that came together to sign the treaty in 2.10 never existed.

the dragon says at the end, “all you have dreamt of building has come to pass,” but we’re just like - WHERE? we literally didn’t see it! it was never shown to happen! you can’t just say that the most important outcome of your five-season series happened when it never did! it demonstrably NEVER DID! you can’t…..oh my god, you can’t...try to end your show offscreen, lol; i don’t know what else to say!

look - this is something i wrote before i knew how the series ended, when i was considering the possibility of arthur dying:

i wrote that before i even knew what happened. that’s not the result of, you know, retroactive complaining because they killed a character and i didn’t like it. i was doubting the idea that they would even be able to kill arthur, because i legitimately didn’t believe the show had shown us the uniting of albion yet (and they hadn’t, lol).

it just...it truly doesn’t make sense. something got tangled as they approached these last episodes. in 5.10, finna tells merlin, “without you, emrys, arthur cannot build the new world we all long for,” indicating that it hasn’t been built yet. but that scene takes place just a few weeks before the finale - you’re saying “the new world” hadn’t yet been accomplished at that point, but now, a few week later, it has? arthur didn’t DO ANYTHING in that interval! we saw camelot fight off a bunch of invaders (alone) like they’ve done a billion times before. there was nothing to hint that now albion is united.

and if finna was referring to the “new world” meaning a magical world, i mean - arthur didn’t do anything to build that, either. he died.

something happened. some wire got crossed. i don’t know what it was, but it meant that the show ended without actually closing out Main Plotline #1.

b) one day, we will be free: this show also somehow managed to end without addressing the plight of the magical community, which was THE central conflict of the show for all five seasons. more than that, it was the show’s premise - it was how they crafted their entire idea; it was one of two defining features of their pitch to BBC: that they would “wind back the clock” to when the characters were young, and that magic in this universe would be outlawed.

they literally abandoned the show’s premise. the episode directly preceding the finale was entirely about camelot’s wrongdoing and the right of magic-users to stand up and fight for their rights. it is not a crime to fight for the right to be who you are. and then we literally never heard a word about this struggle again. it was dropped like a hot sack of bricks.

IMPOSSIBLE.

and yet

it’s just left, twisting in the wind. we have no idea what happened. the one and only glimpse of camelot that we get at the end of this show has nothing to do with magic; it’s grim and somber people chanting ‘long live the queen’ in the throne room. and then we’re gone from that place, forever, never to return. it’s like they don’t even remember that ‘freedom for magical folk!’ was the driving source of conflict for the entire show. you would never have known that “magical oppression” was ever a feature in this show, if you just watched the end. camelot’s wrongs are never addressed, never referred to, never amended. the fate of the magical community is never hinted at. we don’t have any inkling of what happened to those people. we literally do not even have any indication of whether the magic ban was lifted.

it’s like none of that ever existed. it’s like the show just FORGOT its entire premise.

this truly might be the most unbelievable thing about the finale, for me. i’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it. in a roomful of writers and editors and producers, not a single person pointed out “hey uhhhh...we haven’t actually resolved either of our plots?”

i was exposed to enough vague reactions from fans to expect the finale to be disappointing. i assumed that the show would resolve its major plotlines in ways that i either didn’t approve of or found unsatisfying.

i did NOT expect them not to resolve their major plotlines at all.

i have never seen a tv show literally forget to end. never. never seen that happen before in my life.

c.) i am the last of my kind: the reveal of merlin as a dragonlord ushered in a third important plotline - his responsibility to the dragons, his duty to protect them and help them thrive. and the question was always ‘all right, so as a dragonlord, how is merlin going to ensure the survival of the dragons as a species, since they’ve been almost exterminated - .’ and that was also dropped. like a hot potato. like it never was. we never get clarity on what the heck was going on with aithusa, and then at camlann, aithusa just vanishes. gone. literally never to be seen, mentioned, or wondered about again.

d) i am old, merlin: this is a smaller thing, but in 5.10 the show starts this subplot about kilgharrah being unwell and merlin suddenly confronting the idea that kilgharrah is not, in fact, immortal. and it was actually very poignant and made me emotional despite how kilgharrah kind of drives us insane. they set us up for the idea that we are going to lose him. they set us up to expect that we will eventually see merlin arrive at a place where he doesn’t have that voice in his ear anymore, kind of like when luke goes to cloud city and obi-wan can’t help him.

but then, in the finale, kilgharrah just shows up like he always does, and there’s no mention of anything that came before. he’s fine.

it’s - it’s inconsistent, it’s not appropriate; there’s no emotional throughline. the exchange they have in 5.10 is such a beautiful moment, when a wavering merlin asks “what will i do without you?”

and kilgharrah says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world, “you will remember me.”

that’s such a powerful thing. for someone like merlin, for someone who has lost so many people who mattered to him - you can feel that line expand to cover miles and miles of ground. it’s about more than just kilgharrah.

but having kilgharrah then show up at the end of the finale to deliver his neat little explanatory summary the same way he always does dilutes that previous moment down to almost non-meaning. there’s no emotional consistency. they emotionally prep us for this figure’s departure, and instead he shows up, the same as always, with no reference to the fact that a few episodes ago we were getting ready to watch him leave us.

it’s not good writing. it just isn’t good writing.

iii. i want you to always earn your ending

i think it’s hard to come to grips with the idea that bbc merlin was specifically a show whose kind of...big premise was being a deliciously torturous slow burn up to some massive and long-awaited reveal, and then it fizzled just before it gave the audience what it had been leading up to for five seasons. it’s really just...wow. i’ve seen shows fizzle before, obviously, but the fact that this one was specifically built on the idea that you were waiting for something momentous (and inevitable!) to happen - which then doesn’t happen? that’s just...hoo boy.

the long-awaited, promised “payoff” doesn’t happen in any way that is convincing or satisfying or remotely plausible. it’s a little walk in the woods, and it ultimately doesn’t matter, because as soon as it’s over, so is the show, and everybody except merlin is long dead.

not with a bang, but with a whimper, indeed.

for a show that had its audience waiting on tenterhooks for five seasons for merlin’s secret to be stripped away, the fact that the show’s biggest “payoff” ended up carrying so little weight and feeling so unconvincing is truly a shame. there was no way for the show to give this concept the weight it deserved by flying through it in thirty minutes. the audience knows that there’s no way this could have been resolved so quickly, so everything that happens between the “reveal” (such as it was) and the end feels...false. it doesn’t seem real. it’s not believable. it feels (again, to use the word that truly sums up the entire spirit of this finale) contrived. rushed and squished together to be neatly tied up in the time they had available.

and that’s poor craftsmanship. stories shouldn’t feel like ‘well, i needed to reach x destination no matter what, so i made this that and the other thing happen to ensure that we got there.’ a reader/viewer shouldn’t be able to sense the presence of the author. they shouldn’t be able to feel the hand of god reaching in and arranging pieces to force a conclusion or extract an emotion that hasn’t been earned.

stories, if they are crafted appropriately, should feel like they have no author at all. like they just are. like everything that happens is the natural next step to whatever came before, as if events could not possibly have unfolded any other way. and i don’t feel like the “reveal” and arthur’s reaction to it met those criteria. all the supposedly super sad and emotional moments they were having at the end made me feel absolutely nothing, because the things arthur says don’t feel real. they haven’t been earned in-story. i felt like i was watching that sequence from a hundred miles away...just like...clinical. removed. like i was taken completely out of the story. like i was in the lighting booth of a theater watching some scripted scene play out below me.

(and this might be the time to mention that this has NOTHING to do with the actors. the entire cast was killing it. they were AMAZING. their performance threatened to wring emotion out of me even despite me being completely unconvinced by the idea of what was happening.)

but that aside - how can you stay immersed in something when you can feel the creator’s hand coming down and forcing a resolution that doesn’t make sense, that hasn’t been earned? it snaps you right out of the suspension of disbelief that all stories require you to maintain in order for you to engage with them. the writers needed arthur to say these things sometime before the end of the show, and so he says them, regardless of whether or not it would ever actually happen like that. but i didn’t believe it, because it wouldn’t have happened like that, and so the emotional impact was zero.

here’s the truth: you can’t use lines like “i want you to always be you” and expect me to get weepy about it when you haven’t earned that kind of resolution. it’s a false tearjerker. the writers are relying on our previous emotional attachment to these characters and our burning desire to see merlin validated in order to slip a contrived resolution past us without actually doing the work to make it plausible. they’re playing on our affections in order to cover up the structural shortcomings of the story they cobbled together.

i don’t like when a story tries to manipulate me like that. i’m not going to play that game.

iv. you are destined to be albion’s greatest king (*thor face* are you, though?)

i think there are probably some people out there for whom arthur’s death would have been a dealbreaker no matter what the rest of the story looked like. i respect that.

i’m in the camp where i could have accepted the ‘legend-compliant’ ending, if only it had been earned. as it is, arthur is never allowed to fully realize himself before he dies. the show keeps saying, and i quote, “one day you will be the greatest king this land has ever known,” but arthur skips off to avalon after having reigned for a whopping total of three years, during which time he is not shown to accomplish the only goal that was prophesied for him (uniting the land of albion) and during which time he also becomes further entrenched in his father’s anti-magic views (along with the hypocrisy of using magic for his own purposes), as opposed to ever seeing the error of his ways. he doesn’t right his father’s wrongs. he doesn’t usher in justice and freedom for all camelot’s people. he doesn’t change the status quo in camelot much at all, to be honest - and then he dies. and they try to tell us “there will never be another like [him].”

how? how can that not fall completely flat? he hasn’t accomplished his goal yet! he hasn’t become what they’ve kept telling us he will become.

so i can understand the ultimate plan of arthur shuffling off this mortal coil and being prophesied to return, and i could even accept that as an appropriate ending, but not when it hasn’t been earned. the way it actually unfolded, watching this moment feels like we skipped a season somewhere. it feels like a sham.

we’re being asked to give arthur credit for something he did not actually achieve, and it makes the whole thing feel like a farce.

v. gratuitousness and inconsistency

i had no emotional reaction when i realized they had actually killed gwaine.

that is insane, because you know how much i love him. but his death was so ridiculous that I actually started laughing in disbelief. and that in and of itself should be a sign that something wasn’t working. when your emotional beats are landing this wrong - falling this flat - something has slid fundamentally sideways with your storytelling.

i laughed when they killed my favorite knight! but what other reaction was i supposed to have? it was laughably silly! the premise itself was already foolish - that gwaine and percival would even come out here and endanger arthur in that way - and then gwaine dies because morgana used a nathair to extract information from him? we’ve seen morgana use the nathair twice before! she tortured elyan with it. she used it on alator. neither of them died. it’s never been indicated that being tortured with this creature will kill you. which isn’t to say that it can’t be the case, but from a writing perspective, if you’re going to use a sudden inconsistency to kill a major character, it’s noticeable! it’s jarring! and it makes us feel, once again, that the writers just grasped at any little thing they could think of to make what they wanted to happen happen.

and then there’s the whole question of why they wanted gwaine to die in the first place. what purpose did it serve? gwaine didn’t have to die in order for morgana to get the information the writers wanted her to have. and you’d assume that if they still killed him after that, that there would be a reason for it, or that it would at least...matter, somehow, but - WE LITERALLY NEVER HEAR ABOUT HIM AGAIN LOL. i wasn’t even sure he was dead at first. that’s how insignificant it felt. i felt like zuko in the ember island players.

that’s it. we never see him or percival again after that scene. there’s this weird moment where percival examines a footprint and the implication is that he’s going to follow morgana or something, but then it never happens. it’s like the showrunners ran out of time and were like ‘ok well, we just won’t be able to get back to that dangling thread.’ they gratuitously axed their most developed knight and then forgot they did it.

that’s why i laughed. it was so unbelievably bad - there was literally nothing else for me to do.

vi. let the bodies hit the floor (but like, anticlimactically)

i don’t feel like i need to examine mordred and morgana’s fates too closely, because i suspect the subject of “they deserved better” has already been done to death, and that’s kind of a different conversation than what i’m dealing with here. i’m not here right now to argue that they should have lived (though of course, yeah, i have my opinions on what would have made a better story), i’m just here to deal with how ineffectively the story we did get was executed.

one thing that amazes me is that when i watched the S5 deleted scenes, i realized that the showrunners did in fact originally have the right ideas about making morgana and mordred’s arcs deeper/more nuanced, but somehow these ideas never made it into the final cut. there are two deleted scenes that change so much about what could have been - one where arthur and merlin are talking about morgana and arthur is expressing regret and confusion about what happened to her, and merlin says it’s not arthur’s fault, that “there were others better placed to help morgana,” indicating his own guilty feelings.

and the other one was after mordred defected to morgana, where he has a whole conversation with her about how he thinks there is still GOOD in arthur!!!! he’s uncertain about what he’s doing! I JUST

i can’t believe

they had the seeds

of this better story

and they consciously decided not to pursue them. it’s not like they didn’t have the idea. it’s not like they just never thought of it. they thought of it, filmed it, and deliberately removed it. unfathomable.

it’s also pretty remarkable that the big baddie they’ve been touting for the last three seasons just pegs out from a stab wound in about 5 seconds as we’re being hustled on to something else. there is no space devoted to morgana’s death scene (such as it was…). it’s a parenthesis. it feels like, ‘oh we gotta get this out of the way quick hurry up let’s move on.’

and the thing is, i am not wholly opposed to the idea of morgana ultimately destroying herself - it’s not necessarily my first choice, but there are ways they could have gone that route and still told a meaningful story - but if they wanted to go that way, her death would have to matter. it would have to be treated like the terrible failure it represents. it would have to be given the weight of tragedy.

but structurally, the way this scene is set up, there is no way for this to happen. the viewers are already hyper-strung out on tension, when she appears, because they’re suddenly starting to get this horrible realization that one of the show’s two central characters might actually be about to die, but nobody wants to stop clinging to hope despite their bad feelings so there’s just this desperate, screamingly loud ticking clock running in the background, and when morgana shows up in the middle of that clenching fear, there’s absolutely no way her death can receive the attention she deserves. the audience doesn’t have room for something like that. they don’t have room to feel anything on top of what they’re already feeling. they’re already about to explode. they’re already maxed out on investment. they can’t focus on her; they want her to disappear because something more urgent is going on.

and so the show hustles us past her, and her death is just this blip. it barely registers. if you sneezed, you would miss it.

(and then mordred, for his part, doesn’t even have the benefit of a structural problem to explain the anticlimax of his death. he just gets taken out like the trash. for a character that they just spent all this time developing and making sympathetic - boy.)

i think...the thing, ultimately, is this: if this show truly felt that what they had to do was take their previously hopeful premise and stun their audience with the death of the hero, then they should have understood that trying to stack other things on top of that is too much. trying to squash morgana’s death right up against arthur’s is foolish. it’s ridiculous to expect your audience to be able to process morgana’s death and arthur’s in-progress dying at the same time. these two things happen within two minutes of each other. the audience has been following these characters for five years. it’s unreasonable to expect your audience to hold so much emotion at once.

vii. you’ll just have to trust me

the last thing i want to say is a more general thing.

the rest of this analysis focused on the ways in which the finale is poorly-crafted, rather than on my personal feelings about who they did dirty. it’s not really about my own personal thoughts re: the merits of killing gwaine and morgana and mordred and arthur or stranding merlin across the centuries; it’s about if these things (and all the other things in these episodes) were done effectively, and the answer, sadly, is no. the show could have killed all these people and still written something i would have respected (even though it would have been devastating), but that’s not what happened.

but here, at the end, i think i can make room for a little sentiment.

so what i want to reflect on here is this: ultimately, i don’t end up rejecting stories just because they do things i don’t like. the pre-finale episodes were filled with things i didn’t like. i hated how merlin turned mordred and kara in instead of letting them run. i hated how he let the execution proceed. i hated how arthur refused to see the injustice of his own actions. i hated how merlin was getting so wrapped up in ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die’ that everything else was fading away, that he was doing things he could never have done in good conscience before. but i was still deeply wrapped up in these stories, because i believed they were plausible and true. i accepted them. it made sense to me, that these things would be happening, dark and unpleasant as they were.

i don’t start rejecting stories just because they go places i don’t want them to go. i start rejecting stories when i feel they’ve betrayed my trust.

writers and readers/viewers can only ever move together if they trust each other. i allow stories to take me places i don’t want to go because i trust the authors to keep me safe while we travel. i know that they may take me somewhere i don’t want to be, but i trust that they will never take me somewhere i don’t need to be. i trust that they are taking me somewhere intentionally, with the story’s integrity in mind. a creator i trust can take their story anywhere, because i know they will take care. a creator i trust can end their story tragically, because they remember that i am experiencing it alongside them. they don’t surprise-punt me off the edge of the cliff so i can crash, alone, into the painful conclusion. they carry me the whole way, and by the time we get to the end of the line, we can both look back and see that the road that led us here was straight and true. i don’t fault them for taking me here. it was the right place to go.

the end of merlin didn’t feel like that to me. putting aside the fact that it was all so contrived that it didn’t even feel real (illustrated clearly enough in the ten pages above) - the truth is that even if it had displayed the highest quality writing in the world, the way this show ended felt like the audience had been abandoned. the bond of trust between the creator and the consumer was severed. the show forgot to take care.

i’m a ‘galaxy far far away’ girl first and foremost, so i’ll borrow an excerpt from the world according to star wars in order to make my point:

kasdan: i think you should kill luke and have leia take over.

lucas: you don’t want to kill luke.

kasdan: okay, then kill yoda.

lucas: i don’t want to kill yoda. you don’t have to kill people. you’re a product of the 1980’s. you don’t go around killing people. it’s not nice.

kasdan: no, i’m not. i’m trying to give the story some kind of edge to it…

lucas: by killing somebody, i think you alienate the audience. (x)

i think merlin forgot this.

i’m not saying that merlin shouldn’t have killed anybody at the end of their show. i’m not even saying that they shouldn’t have killed arthur. i’m saying that they forgot to take care.

merlin bbc betrayed their audience. you cannot take a show whose underlying theme has consistently been the promise of better things and then turn around and end it like that without taking special care of the people who are watching. you cannot just take an audience who has spent five years listening to someone bright and full of unflinching hope say - without any indication that anyone should doubt the certainty of this statement - “one day things will be better” and expect them to walk into this kind of ending safely.

by killing someone, i think you alienate the audience. and this doesn’t mean that nobody can ever die. but it does mean that if you’re going to kill someone, you have to understand that there is going to be an automatic pain reaction from your viewers/readers/etc, and if you want to maintain their trust, you have to take so much care. you have to be sure that you know exactly what you’re doing. you have to be sure that it’s the right thing. the only thing. you have to make sure that it doesn’t betray the fundamental promises you’ve made whilst crafting the rest of your story.

the end of merlin is truly stunning in a) its utter reversal/unfulfillment of every major promise that comprised its premise and b) the casualness with which it throws its characters away in the last episode. it’s not just “killing someone.” it’s a slaughter. we have to watch almost half the cast die onscreen, and then at the very end literally everybody is dead except merlin himself.

and this is merlin! not game of thrones! merlin is a “family show;” that’s what the writers/directors/producers keep calling it when you listen to the episode commentaries and they talk about how they can’t show certain things or make it too bloody. they wanted to follow in the tradition of “big, kind of epic family-entertaining shows, that—across generations—work on lots of different levels.” but i cannot imagine a young person who has watched this show for five years coming into the finale to see mordred and gwaine and morgana and arthur violently executed, and to see gwen in mourning, and merlin anguished and then more alone than he ever was even when he was hiding his secret, and then, whoop, there’s the credits, that’s all folks. aren’t you glad you got on this ride?

the show ends without fulfilling any of the promises it made repeatedly for years. the liberation of magic, the uniting of albion, and, for merlin, especially, the long-predicted day when he would be known and recognized for who he was - all forgotten. all abandoned. the finale finishes without giving the audience any of the things that they have spent five years being told to expect. the show rewards five years of emotional investment with death and desolation. it breaks all of its promises. it doesn’t take care.

i was lucky enough to have been so disconnected by how shockingly bad these episodes were that i mostly sat there shock-laughing at them in disbelief, the first time i watched. but going through them again to put this write-up together was just like - that’s when a deep sadness kicked in, for me. not at the ending itself, exactly, because, as i’ve said before, it was so poorly put-together that i can’t even see it as real. but just - at the idea that i still had to see it, period. that i had to witness this thing that i loved so much descend into this misery, for all that i didn’t recognize it as something plausible or true. that i still had to watch merlin drag arthur all over creation, still trying, still scrabbling for that sliver of hope, only to have arthur bite the dust like ten feet from their destination. that all merlin ever wanted in his life was to be accepted and loved for who he is, and that he put all of this on hold so he could (supposedly) bring about a world where it would be possible, and then he never gets it. that a life of hiding himself and believing that everybody around him hated who he was inside - that was as good as it was ever going to get, for him.

the writers just - piled it on. ‘you can watch mordred die, even though we just went to all this effort to make you root for him! and now you can watch gwaine die (why????? we don’t know!!! it doesn’t change the story, but why don’t you watch it happen anyway!). and now you can watch morgana die! but don’t look too long, because arthur is dying! and now you can see camelot cold and in mourning - but only for one second, because now you can see merlin, who we never showed meeting any of his friends ever again, wandering around as a solitary old man thousands of years after everybody else is dead and the universe we spent the last five seasons living in no longer exists!!!!!!’

unbelievable.

it doesn’t upset me in the sense of “it’s so terrible that the story ended that way” because i know it didn’t, really. it was contrived and false enough that i laughed through most of the episode. i know it isn’t the way things would have gone, and i won’t have any trouble forgetting it; whereas if it had been well-done, i wouldn’t have been able to dismiss it so easily. but i still had to watch it, regardless. you’re forced to watch it, because you care, and the creators know you care enough not to look away, and they use that trust to keep you glued there while they gut-punch you over and over and over again and then peace out without concluding any of their plotlines, saying, “isn’t it clever??? we really fooled you, didn’t we? technically, we fulfilled the prophecies - nobody ever said any of the characters would get to enjoy the new world they would build! i bet you’re so surprised!”

it leaves you stunned.

it’s so...mean.

it’s so careless.

i don’t have any desire to subject myself to that a second time. after i’m done with this post, i know i’m never going to watch those episodes again. they weren’t good, first of all; and if you need more clarification on that, please see the first ten pages of this document. but more importantly, i don’t feel the need to subject myself once again to the callous disregard for the trust i gave this show’s creators.

if i’m supposed to trust a creator to carry me over rough terrain, i’m trusting them to carry me all the way to the end. they can’t violently dump me to the ground two feet before the finish line, run me over with an ATV, and then expect me to willingly climb back into their arms.

viii: if you want something done right

in conclusion, i guess the one nice thing about this is that we can crawl the last two feet ourselves.

for me, sadly, i think canon!merlin is always going to end at 5.11. the last two episodes don’t feel believable to me. i couldn’t watch them and be convinced that i was watching something plausible; i felt like i was watching two hours of scripted theater. which is, of course, what we’re always doing - but if the story had been crafted appropriately, we shouldn’t have realized it. we shouldn’t have been able to feel the writer’s hand reaching in and making improbable things happen. we shouldn’t have been laughing in disbelief as supposedly “sad” things were happening in front of us, and we definitely shouldn’t have been almost falling off the couch because the last scene was so jarring we thought it was an advertisement. (the TRUCK, people. blaring across the screen and bulldozering through medieval fantasy-adventure show merlin bbc. nothing on earth or in high heaven could have prepared me for that moment.)

but the one good thing about a piece of media that ended so unsatisfactorily is that it lights a fire under people’s butts to go ahead and sort of...row the boat themselves. i was afraid, before i watched this, that seeing it would make me never want to go back to merlin again. i put off finishing season 5 for an entire year because i was in the middle of writing a fic and i thought that if the end of the show upset me, i would never want to write another word. but now that i’m finished, i’m relieved to be able to say that the finale, while it will always be a bitterly disappointing sore spot, was also SO laughably bad that i don’t feel the slightest compunction about just...letting it lie unrecognized. if it were well-crafted and i was just ignoring it because it made me sad, i’d feel guilty for being petty. but it was Just Actually That Bad, so my conscience is clear.

and so is the path to more fun things, i hope, because that is the point of fandom, in the end, to have fun with something you love in the company of other people who love it the same way.

i hope i haven’t written the last merlin thing i’ll ever write. i hope there’s more inside me that i want to say. i hope i haven’t come in too late to make connections. i hope i’ll enjoy rewatching (most of) this show someday. i couldn’t imagine that any of these things would be true, when i knew the end was going to be a let-down, but now that i’ve finished, i feel like there’s infinite room to play, and that, at least, makes me smile.

i’ve said before that this was a hell of a ride. it ended in a trainwreck, sure, but i’m not sorry i got on.

#the once and future slowburn #merlin S5 #meta

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thetrailofyourbloodinthesnow · 4 years

Photo

for the prompt Joanna and children

for @incurablescribbler

The song of steel lures Joanna to her window. In the distance she can see the large figure of the Master-at-arms, looking over two boys clashing swords: a tall one with dark brown hair and a smaller one with golden curls whose back is turned to Joanna. The swords they use have dull edges, fit for practice, yet, the sight of them still makes Joanna nervous. Perhaps she’s being overprotective, but she can’t shake the feeling than her son is too young for steel and that he’ll should be sticking to wooden swords. But Jaime had insisted – and the Master-at-arms had backed him – that he was ready for them, and seeing him practicing, she admits that he was right; the boy he’s fighting with is older and already a squire, and yet he’s getting bested by her son.

He’ll make a great knight one day. Usually that thought makes her chest swell with pride. Instead, right now, it makes her sad and she can’t understand why. Is it because she can feel him slipping away from his mother’s arms into a world of swords and horses, jousts and mêlées, blood and sweat, a world in which his mother has no place?

It’s a somber thought, that kind of which have crossed her mind more often lately. Is this room. I'm not made to be locked in here. She’s used to roam the castle, giving orders and making sure they are followed through, or holding court in the audience chamber, or greeting guests in the courtyard, anything but staying in her chambers staring at the ceiling all day. She wishes terribly to go back to her routine, but the Master had been firm in his orders that she keeps to her chambers resting; for her own sake and the sake of the child she carries. I wouldn’t be able to do much anyway, she thinks resigned. My belly is so swollen that even a small walk would leave me gasping for air.

Even then, the boredom of her enclosure doesn’t weight on her as much of the loneliness does. If only her husband was at her side. But Tywin is away at King’s Landing, handling the realm in the name of a king that mistrust him more every day. At times like this she wants to ask him to renounce his post, to stay with her ruling Casterly Rock together as it’s meant to be. But she knows it’s a lost cause, that he trusts her to rule alone over their lands. As well as over their household, their family and over herself. So, she never lets her desires show on the letters she sends him regularly, and resigns herself to keep missing her son and her husband.

At least she has her daughter. Her Cersei comes to visit her every day and Joanna tries to teach her the business of being a lady. It was easier before, when she could teach her by example – she would go about her duties with her daughter trailing behind, following her mother into a world of dresses and ornaments, balls and drawing room gatherings, courtesies and good manners, and blood and sweat too, but of a different kind. She would set a small chair besides her High Seat so Cersei could accompany her while she listened to the petitioners that came to the Rock. She would announce her verdicts and explained the reasoning behind them to the girl, who was quick to understand. The memory of her daughter sitting next to her – her back straight and chin up, trying to look imposing at eight years old – brings a smile to Joanna’s face. She will make a fine lady one day.

Or a queen. Tywin hasn’t said it yet, but Joanna is not blind to her husband’s ambition. She knows he would like to see his daughter wed to young prince Rhaegar, and one day his grandson on the Iron Throne. It was that type of ambition that draw her to him in the first place; that impulse of climbing higher and having the guts and the cunning to reach the top. It was his ambition that brought back the prestige of their house after Lord Tytos made them the laughing stock of the realm. But Joanna worries that her husband might be overreaching. For another King, a daughter of House Lannister would make a fine match for the Prince of Dragonstone, but is Aerys they are talking about – capricious, envious, prideful Aerys – who would likely reject the alliance just to slight her husband, as he so delights in doing.

She can’t forget how he humiliated her at the Anniversary Tourney. Remembering it still makes her teeth grind. He had asked her (with his wine-stinking breath) if giving suck to her twins had ruined her breasts, “which were so high and proud." Tywin was so angry that he presented his renounce, but the King refused to accept it. And, to Joanna’s frustration, he stayed in his post to this day. But she knows he hasn’t forgotten either, not that nor any other slight. He remembers them all and will remember to pay them back twofold. A Lannister always pays his debts.

Yet, even knowing that, to think of her daughter being in the vicinity of that man sickens her. A crown is no less than Cersei deserves, but if to have it she must go to the wolf’s den then Joanna would prefer that she stayed crownless in Casterly Rock forever.

Crown in her future of not, there’s still a lot that she must teach Cersei, and it seems she should start with how to keep one’s temper. She’s pleasantly surprised when the groom announces – hours before she expected them – that Cersei and her Septa request entrance to my lady’s chamber for their daily visit. Her smile disappears, however, when Septa Lynora enters her chamber with a sour expression, carrying her daughter by the wrist, who looks at the septa as if she wants to grind her to sand. Oh, now what?

"My lady, forgive me for bothering you by coming here early. But I’m afraid your daughter needs to be disciplined.”

“And why don’t you discipline her yourself, septa?” Joanna asks, irritated. “Isn’t that your job?”

“I...” Septa Lynora seems to lose her voice. And Joanna catches Cersei trying to hide her smile at the older woman’s plight.

“What did she do?” Joanna nods at Cersei who immediately loses her glee.

“She pushed Ella Marbrand into a mud puddle,” the septa replies. Ella Marbrand was the newest of Cersei’s companions. She and her brother Addam had arrived at Casterly Rock barely a fortnight earlier. And while his brother (who served as a page) and Jaime had become fast friends, she and Cersei were having more of a rough start.

“She deserved it!” Cersei stomps her feet in the ground. “She was being such a pretentious moron.” Her daughter then goes on a long rant about the girl; how she’d been bragging all day about the things she’d brought with her from Ashemark: fine dresses, rare jewelry, exquisite perfumes, and so on and so forth. She also presumed of her relatives; their position at court, their ancient and exalted lineage, and their connections with other Houses. Especially with the Lannister themselves. Who could forget that lord Tywin’s mother was born a Marbrand? “She even said that we should strengthen the ties between our families by having the heir of Casterly Rock married to a Marbrand again,” Cersei sounds outraged. “She meant she should marry Jaime!” she crinkles her nose at the idea.

Joanna lets her rant, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Petty fights between girls were the least of her concerns. And really, her daughter should learn to ignore silly comments from a girl who clearly has more ambition than brain.

“And you know what else she said?” Cersei doesn’t seem to notice her mother’s lack of interest and continues unrestrained. “She said that father seems to be getting too full of himself, thinking he is the king instead of Aerys. That, as capable as he is, someone needs to remind him that he is really just a servant to the Iron Throne.”

“She said that?” That does piques Joanna’s interest. The words of a child are of little importance, but children often repeat the words of their elders. House Marbrand had been a loyal vassal to the Lannister in the past, but loyalties could change like the weather. She makes a mental note to mention it to Tywin in her next letter. “Did she mention hearing that from someone else?”

“Yes, she said she heard it from her cousin who lives at court, and that many others agree. Such a liar.” She lets out a huff. “That was when I pushed her into the mud.”

Joanna can’t help feeling a certain pride at her daughter’s fierceness in defending her father – a true lioness – but she knows she can’t let that behavior carry on.

“You are a lady, Cersei. You can’t toss your friends in the mud. No matter what they say”

“She’s not my friend! She’s a horrid little airhead. I don’t like her at all, can’t you send her home?” Joanna knows her daughter is truly upset, but her little pout is rather adorable. It does a lot to ease her annoyance at her childishness. After all, she is a child. She just needs to be taught better.

Joanna asks the septa to leave them alone and gestures Cersei to sit next to her.

“I cannot send her home; it would be considered an insult by the Marbrands.” She explains calmly. “Furthermore, there’s something you need to understand: whether you like her or not plays no role in her being your companion.” Cersei starts to protest that, but Joanna carries on, “She is your lady because is critical for our House that we foster good relationships with our vassals. Is important that you are her friend, or at least that you’re cordial to her. Chances are, you will know ladies that you like even less than Ella Marbrand, but you must always be courteous no matter what. You, my love, are a daughter of House Lannister. You carry our reputation on your shoulders. You must never lower to the level of any ‘little airhead’, understand?”

“I guess…” Cersei admits reluctantly.

“And more importantly,” Joanna continues, “The maidens that you befriend today will one day become the wives of your brother’s Bannermen and the mothers to their heirs, and they will have influence over their husbands and sons. You will find that the connections you form now will come very handy once you’ve grown.” She thinks of her friend the Princess of Dorne; how they had met as young girls serving as ladies to princess Raella, and how beneficial that connection was turning out to be. Tywin wasn’t the only one who had plans for their children’s future. “So, you must make peace with Ella Marbrand.”

“But mother…”

“No buts. You will apologize to her before the day is done. That’s an order, Cersei.”

Her daughter’s jaw clenches tightly for a moment before begrudgingly saying: “Yes, mother.”

“Good girl.” Joanna runs her fingers through Cersei’s golden locks, but she stays stiff, unacknowledging her mother’s caress. “I know you’ll become a great lady. You’ll make your father proud.” That manages to bring a smile to her lips, and she lets Joanna pull her closer and place her arm around her little shoulders. “Now, tell me what else happened to you today.”

Cersei leans her head upon Joanna’s shoulders and begins describing her lessons with the Maester, her horse ride through Lannisport, her games with Jaime, and all her other activities, while Joanna listens attentively and feels glad that her daughter’s life is full of joy and innocence, where the only thing that can bother her are petty fights with other girls than can be easily resolved. Spending those moments with her daughter, talking and laughing with her, is enough to wash away the gloomy mood that had taken over her earlier. She bids goodbye to Cersei for the afternoon with a kiss in her forehead and an exhortation to apologize to Ella Marbrand before the day is done.

Alone again, Joanna rests upon her comfiest couch and begins going through the account books that the Steward had left her. Then, a sudden drowsiness assails her, the numbers begin to blend before her eyes and her eyelids close on their own accord.

A tapping on her door awakes her. She doesn’t know how long she slept, but a quick look at the window reveals her that is beginning to dusk. She allows the caller to enter, and it’s the groom, who announce her that Septa Lynora once again request entrance in her chambers.

Joanna’s first thought is that Cersei’s apology must not have gone as well as she had expected. The septa’s face is ashen and somehow seems more winkled than earlier (something Joanna wouldn’t have thought possible). But the girl who accompanies her is not Cersei. Rather, is a scrawny girl who wears a handmaid’s attire. She’s casting nervous glances upon every place in the room except for Joanna’s face.

“My lady, forgive me for bothering you again,” begins the old septa. “But there’s a grave matter that I must inform you of.” She beckons the reluctant girl to stand next to her and continues: “This maid came to speak to me about something she saw today.” Septa Lynora swallows audibly as she struggles with her speech. “She says that she surprised my lady’s twins doing some… unspeakable acts.”

Unspeakable acts? Joanna knows that the septa has an inclination to dramatics and might use that term for any childish misdeed. But something tells her that wherever Jaime and Cersei were doing was grave indeed. Though she cannot imagine what it could have been. “What did she saw them do?” she asks.

“It’s better if you explain it yourself,” Septa Lynora tells the girl who answers her with a look of dismay. “Speak, child,” the Septa commands the servant, and speak she does…

Joanna listens incredulous to the girl’s tell. Her mind struggles to even imagine it. Cersei and Jaime… But they are just children… No, they couldn’t have been doing that… Impossible, no!...

After the servant finishes speaking, Joanna stays sitting there, unmoving, staring at the distance. After a few uncomfortable moments, Septa Lynora clears her throat and inquires, “My lady, are you all right?”

Joanna turns her eyes to the older woman. “Do you believe this? Did you speak to them?” she asks in a taut voice.

“I did speak to them, my lady,” the septa replies, while fidgeting with her woven belt. “They denied it at first, but I saw the fault in their faces, especially in young Jaime’s. It was only after I promised that I wouldn’t tell you that they confessed,” she looks into Joanna’s eyes. “Their confession matched this handmaid’s story. It’s true.”

It’s true. It’s true. It’s true. Those words keep echoing in Joanna’s head as the world begins to whirl around her. Shock, horror and disgust battle for dominance inside of her. Her stomach flips. She gets up abruptly – startling the two other women – and staggers to reach the chamber pot at the side of her bed. She falls heavily to her knees and empties her stomach into the pot.

“My lady!” she hears the septa shriek, and a moment later she feels someone sinking next to her and holding her shoulders, and someone else holding her hair back from her face. Joanna’s stomach keeps on contracting violently and choking her with vomit until everything is finally out.

When she’s able to breathe again, she looks to her right and sees that is the girl who is holding her. Joanna shakes her hands off and turns her eyes from her. She can’t even look at her; that dark raven, bringer of dark words. Her eyes swarm up with tears. “Leave,” she orders. She once told Cersei that tears were a woman’s weapons, but she doesn’t feel protected by them now. In fact, she only feels the humiliation of being seen so vulnerable. “The two of you leave now!”

The girl doesn’t need to be told twice, she rises from the floor and after curtsying practically runs out of the room. The septa stays where she is, thought. “My lady, shouldn’t I call the Maester? You’re not well…”

“No!” She can’t stand someone else seeing her like this. “Just leave me alone!” After a final look of concern, Septa Lynora curtsies and turns to leave as well. “Wait!” Joanna stops her right before she closes the door. “The children. You must separate them. Place Jaime’s room far from Cersei’s.” The septa nods and finally leaves.

Even after they had left the nursery, the twins couldn’t stand to be apart. So, Joanna had placed their rooms across from each other, and they had the custom of staying in each other’s bed at night. And she had allowed that, thinking they were still too young for it to be inappropriate. She feels sick thinking about it.

Her twins. Her precious babies. They had always been so alike that only their clothes told them apart. Together everywhere they went. Seeming to understand each other without the need of words. Their connection had always seemed so sweet to Joanna. She’d been glad that, despite their difference in gender and personality, they always got along so well.

Now, she didn’t know what to think. How couldn’t she have noticed it? Had she unknowingly allowed it or even encouraged it? She doesn’t know and that’s the worst part. This revelation makes her doubt herself and her motherhood at the worst possible time: when she’s about to bring another child into the world.

Joanna stays curled up on the floor of her chambers, pressing her head against the side of her bed as the sobs bust up through her throat. A long while after, when her crying has subdued, she gets up with great difficulty and sits upon the bed, drying her tear-stained face. Her breakdown passed; she takes a decision. She couldn’t prevent what happened, but she can still fix it.

It’s past sunset when she has the maid brought back to her presence. Joanna is the image of composure and pose as she politely thanks her for her services to house Lannister, and informs her that said services will be no longer needed. The girl protests at losing her job, saying she has done nothing to deserve being dismissed, that she was only warning m’lady of what she saw. Joanna interrupts her; she doesn’t want to hear again about what the girl had seen. She would rather forget that she ever heard it.

She hands the maid a leather pouch. The girl opens it; there’s a pause and then her lips curl at its content.

Joanna hates that smile. She imagines the wench in a filthy tavern, presuming of her gold, telling everyone within an earshot how the Lady of Casterly Rock had given it to her to keep her children’s dirty secrets.

She yanks the maid’s arm and lowers her to her face. The girl cries out as Joanna’s nails dig into her flesh.

“You won’t say a word of it,” she orders. “You understand? Not a word, or I will have your head!”

“Y-yes m’lady,” the girl’s eyes are wide with terror. “I won’t say anything.”

Joanna lets her go and the girl scurries off the room without looking back.

When she’s alone again, Joanna shrinks in her chair with a sigh, it has been a long day and she feels dreadfully tired. What she wants more in the world right now is to lay in her coverts and sleep – hopefully she will awake to find out that it has all been a nightmare – but there’s still something she must do before the night is over.

Joanna makes her way to Cersei’s chambers; a guard has been posted at her door to make sure her twin doesn’t get in or – more likely – that she gets out. Inside, it looks as if a tornado has rampaged the room. Tables have been turned and curtains have been ripped, the articles of Cersei’s vanity have been tossed around and her garments sprawled across the floor. Even her favorite dolls have not survived her fit. Finding nothing else to target her anger at, Cersei finally resigned to sit by her window, frowning at the glass as if trying to break it with the sheer force of her glare. Septa Lynora is standing at her side chastising her, but Cersei simply ignores her. Until she sees Joanna's reflection in the glass and rushes to her.

“Mother!” She tries to wrap her little arms around Joanna’s middle, – something made difficult by her protruding belly – sure that her salvation has finally arrived. “Mother, Septa Lynora has looked me in my room. She doesn’t want to let me see Jaime. Mother, tell her to let me out.”

But she is left cold when Joanna doesn’t immediately return her embrace to comfort her, bad mouthing the Septa for mistreating her child. Instead Joanna looks hard at her and crosses her arms. “Septa Lynora has only done what I order her to do.”

Cersei steps back as if she’s been struck. “But, why?” she whines outraged.

“Don’t play fool, Cersei. You know exactly why.”

“I’ve been trying to lecture her on the grievous sin she has committed,” Septa Lynora intervenes. “But she resorted to storm her room in a rage, as my Lady can see,” she gestures at the surrounding mess. “Even when I told her that we could pray for her forgiveness…”

“I don’t need to pray for forgiveness, you old hag!” Cersei snaps. “I already told you, we did nothing wrong!”

“That’s not what the servant girl saw. Nor what you admitted to Septa Lynora earlier.”

“I lied, mother. Septa Lynora was yelling at me to admit to whatever that girl said she saw. I got scared. I only said what she wanted me to say.” With her watery eyes and lip trembling, Cersei is rather convincing. Joanna wants to believe her, but she knows her daughter; Cersei has sufficient stubbornness in her to look at the blue sky and claim it is green. She can’t have suddenly become so afraid of her Septa – who never had much power to intimidate her before – that she would admit to something she hadn’t done.

“Really?” Joanna asks in a sarcasm-soaked voice. “Or was it that you believed the Septa’s words that she wouldn’t tell your mother if you admitted to her what you did?”

“N-no, mother,” Cersei stutters. “She said that? She lied to you. They both did.”

“So, everyone always lies except for you, Cersei. Is that’s how it is?”

“Yes! I mean, no. I mean…” she’s babbling in a way she rarely does. Except when she knows she has been caught.

“And tell me, why Septa Lynora would want to inculpate you with something like this?” Joanna can feel the anger building up inside her, forming a tight burning ball in her guts. But she wills herself to keep her voice calm. She doesn’t want to scream at her child. She only wants the truth. “What will she gain from it?”

“I-I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her? She’s…”

“Enough!” Joanna snaps and immediately regrets it when Cersei recoils from her. She breathes deeply and says evenly: “Cersei, you already are in a truly serious problem. If you don’t want to make it worse, you must be honest. Don’t try to deviate from the subject or blame others. Just tell me the full truth.”

Her daughter stays quiet, her face turning pink and her eyes cast down, unable to bear the burden of her mother’s stare.

“Won’t you say anything?” there’s an edge of desperation in Joanna voice. Because she truly wants Cersei to deny what she’s been accused of, and for her denial to make sense, so she can believe her. She wants none of this to be true. But Cersei is silent as a grave. Joanna sights again, “Very well, since you won’t speak to me, I will go. I’ll come back tomorrow and see if you’re willing to tell the truth. You are not allowed to leave your chambers till then.”

Cersei’s rage reawakens: “That’s not fair!” tears of frustration start to stream down her flushed cheeks. “Why don’t you believe me, mother? That serving wench lied to you. We did nothing wrong!”

Joanna is not listening anymore. She turns back and leaves the chambers without another word. Once outside, she begins her trek to the other end of the Rock, where her son has been housed. She has to stop several times on the way to catch her breath and give some relief to her swollen feet that makes every step feel like she’s walking on spikes. After what feels like an eternity, she reaches her son’s door.

Unlike his sister, Jaime receives her without objection. He doesn’t say much, and keeps his head lowered, seemingly unable to meet his mother’s eyes. Seeing him thus makes Joanna’s heart ache even more than Cersei’s harsh words, for she sees an admission of guilt.

“Jaime, look at me,” she keeps her tone calm, but firm, she wants him to know she’s not there to scream and rage at him. Her son looks up tentatively from beneath his eyelashes. “I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to be fully honest with me. Were you and Cersei doing what that maid said she saw you do?”

Jaime averts his eyes again and nods. “But we were just playing,” he explains. “We saw the dogs in the kennels doing it, and the horses too. We were trying to imitate them, and it felt good, so…”

“Those aren’t games, Jaime.” Although she feels relieved to hear him describing it as such. They were just children plays; misguided but innocent. Not the unnatural sinful tendencies that Septa Lynora had made them out to be. They are children; they just need to be taught better. “You are not dogs or horses. Children should never do those things, especially if they are siblings.”

“W-we didn’t know that,” he murmurs meekly.

“I believe you,” she says, and Jaime sights relieved. “But, remember what your father said to you the last time you saw him?”

“He said that I was the Lord of Casterly Rock in his absence, and that I had to protect my mother and sister,” he recalls solemnly.

“Precisely. But you did the exact opposite of that today.” Confusion and dismay are plain in Jaime’s face. He knew that he had done wrong, but he hadn’t realized how he had failed his father. “If these were to be known, her reputation would be ruined. She wouldn’t be able to find a good husband.”

“Does she have to get married?”

“Yes,” Joanna’s tone leaves no room for debate. She remembers Cersei’s outrage at the idea of Jaime marring Ella Marbrand; it doesn’t seem so innocent anymore. “It’s inevitable. When she’s of age, she will marry and start a family. And so will you. Or would you have your sister be a spinster?” She makes it sound like a fate worse than death.

Jaime shakes his head. “No, I don’t want that.” His lip trembles and tears began to flow from his emerald eyes. “I’m sorry,” he sobs.

“I forgive you.” Joanna draws her handkerchief and wipes away her son’s tears. “Wrongs done in ignorance can be forgiven. As long as you don’t repeat them. Listen, I know you love your sister. I understand that you feel like you’re two parts of a whole. It makes sense; you’ve been together since before you were born. But there are things that you cannot share with her. Your bond has a limit, and today you have crossed it.” She gently lifts Jaime’s chin with her hand, looking him straight in the eyes. “Promise me, Jaime, that you will never do that again. Or I will have no choice but to tell your father.”

“I promise,” he’s so serious when he says it that Joanna believes him hole-heartily. She draws him to her arms, tucking him under her chin. She begins to rock him gently, letting the warmth of his body permeate her own, overturning all the doubts and fears that besiege her. She feels assured again.

Jaime will be a great knight one day. Cersei will be a great lady. And the child that is coming will follow their lead.

As long as the Gods give her breath, she’ll make sure of that.

#asoiaf #asoiaf fic #joanna lannister #jaime lannister #cersei lannister #my edits #my fics

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sammysdewysensitiveeyes · 4 years

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"Get your fingers off my phone."

(OOC: Somehow, I wrote goofy little responses for the other asks, but this turned into an angsty, dark ficlet. Also a bit long! Sorry, I’ll go back to silliness next time.)

“You want me to dial with my dick, Shaw? Would that be better?” Pyro snarled, blinking dust and sweat out of his eyes. “We need an extraction, and this is the fastest way.”

Pyro’s own phone was smashed beyond repair, but somehow Sebastian’s was intact, even if the man himself….wasn’t.

The mission had gone very, very wrong. Being buried in the basement of a collapsed building would not have been a problem, if those Verendi fucks hadn’t zapped the two of them with temporary power dampeners. At least, Pyro assured himself it was temporary. There were no intelligence reports that the humans had found a way to make it permanent, so he ignored the tiny doubts gnawing at the back of his mind.

Shaw had taken the brunt of it, and was lying face up under massive pile of concrete, his breathing labored, a thin trickle of blood running down his cheek. Pyro himself had been mostly untouched by the debris crashing down on them, something he assumed was mostly luck, and not any protective instinct on Shaw’s part. Shaw probably would have used Pyro as a shield if he’d had the time.

“Water…” Sebastian gasped. Pyro looked up, surprised to hear the other man beg for anything…then realized that Sebastian was not begging, he was simply stating fact. A thin layer of water was flowing around his boots, spreading across the floor. Must be a burst pipe or three.

“Well, that’s just bloody wonderful,” Pyro groaned, punching numbers into the phone. Haven or Madelyne were the best bets, but of course the connection was absolute shit. He tried again and again, until someone picked up the other line. There was too much static to know who he was talking to, but he yelled the details anyway. Verendi soldiers in large numbers, power-dampeners, trapped under tons of rock. The team would need to be careful coming to get them, and for fucks sake leave Haven safe on the boat. He wondered if any of it was getting through.

“Just…text…..idiot,” Sebastian croaked, and Pyro clutched the phone tight in a sudden fury. Of course the horrible old bastard was right, and that made it even worse.

“I was just going to try that, Shaw,” Pyro snapped, quickly tapping out a message to the others. He probably would have thought of that, he wasn’t a complete moron. He shot the message off into the void, wondering what steps he could take next. It was suddenly very important to come up with a plan before Shaw condescended to him again.

Pyro realized that the water was up over his feet now, lapping at his ankles, and looked over where Shaw was pinned flat against the floor. His face barely breached the surface, poking up out of the water like a very ugly mermaid.

“Aww, fuck.” Pyro made his way over, and lifted Sebastian’s head up out of the water, supporting it with his hands. He wasn’t sure why. No, he knew why. Because Haven would be disappointed if he didn’t do everything he could to save Shaw. Because she would look at him differently – her, and Madelyne, and maybe even Shinobi.

“Don’t….bother….” Shaw ground out between gritted, blood-stained teeth. “Temporary solution….at best….”

“Maybe we can…set up some kind of breathing tube for you.” Pyro looked doubtfully at the tubes connecting his flame-thrower to his wrist. He wasn’t an engineer, but it seemed like it would do in a pinch. Moving the concrete was not an option. It seemed as though half the building was resting on Shaw.

“Foolish….optimism…..thought better of you….Allerdyce….”

“I really cannot imagine a situation in which you think anything good about me, Shaw,” Pyro quipped.

“We both know….how this….will end….” Sebastian choked for a moment, and a spurt of dark blood gushed over his chin.

Even with his powers, the weight of the rubble might have given Sebastian some difficulty. Without his powers…it was a wonder he was even still alive.

“Let….go….” Sebastian commanded. “Don’t….draw this out……”

Still, Pyro hesitated, imagining the sadness in Haven’s eyes when they found him alive and Shaw dead. Would she look at him accusingly, or would she just shake her head and sigh?

“Let go….imbecile…..don’t need….your help…..death preferable…”

“Well, fine!” Pyro exclaimed, letting Sebsatian’s head drop back under the rapidly rising water. “Drown, ya stubborn ass, ya fucking well deserve it! Don’t think I’m sorry ta see ya go!”

For a long moment, Sebastian lay motionless, eyes closed under the surface, bubbles pouring out of his mouth and nose. Then, his body jerked slightly as he took a reflexive breath. No matter how stoic Shaw pretended to be, he couldn’t fight his body’s survival instincts. His torso convulsed as another breath sucked water into his lungs, his eyes squeezed shut.

Pyro grinned down at him. It felt good watching a man like that die. It was a nasty kind of good, the same way he felt sending a wall of fire at human soldiers that were trying to kill him and anyone like him. No matter how the moralizers might try to deny it, there was a real enjoyment in watching a piece of shit get what they deserved. It was just human nature. Or mutant nature. Whatever.

It didn’t take long, and soon Sebastian was still again.

“All right then, dickhead. You can’t say I didn’t try.” He just wished he’d thought to record it for Shinobi.

Time passed, and the water was up to Pyro’s chest. The ceiling wasn’t far above his head, and he held the phone aloft in one hand. They’d be able to track his location through the GPS, as long as the damn thing didn’t die on him.

Sebastian had disappeared from view entirely. For a while his face had lingered, a pale oval just below the surface, but the water was deep and dark. Pyro had explored the room, searching for something, anything that could get him out – some hidden opening, or metal the he might be able to melt though. His powers had come back with an exhilarating rush, but fire couldn’t do shit against a tomb of rock.

He supposed the stupid X-Men would have found a way out, they probably would have figured out some fancy, complicated way of combining their powers. The Brotherhood had never been all that good at teamwork, but at least they’d had Dominic. Dominic would sort this mess right out if he were here.

Pyro fantasized about Dominic ripping open a path to the surface and pulling him up, then carrying him off to a fancy resort to spend an entire week eating, drinking and fucking. He ignited a small flame and let it float around the room, in the form of a bird, a butterfly, a small cat scampering across the surface of the water. Anything to take his mind off the cold soaking into his bones as the water continued to rise. Lighting himself on fire wouldn’t really help with that, given how much of him was submerged.

He didn’t look at the corner, where Sebastian lay in the depths. The delightfully nasty feeling of satisfaction and schadenfreude had faded, leaving a hollow sensation in its place. Pyro tried not to think about the water closing over his own head, how he would jerk and convulse just like Shaw, clawing at the unforgiving ceiling. He tried not to think about the sense of panic coiling up inside him. He didn’t really want to die like this, trapped in the cold and the dark. It was better than the Legacy Virus for sure, but it was still creeping up on him, slow and inevitable.

He wondered, for a moment, who would enjoy watching his own death. Was he also getting what he deserved? When the water came up to his neck, would a strong hand wrap around his ankle and pull him down?

Instead, the hand came down from the ceiling. Pyro blinked at it for a moment, wondering if he was hallucinating, then Shinobi’s head popped into view, ghostly and translucent.

“There you are!” Shinobi exclaimed. “How’s this for a rescue? Wow, you’re turning blue.”

“D-don’t exactly do w-well in the cold,” Pyro stammered, teeth chattering. He was a scrawny man from a hot climate, he wasn’t meant for this bullshit.

“Where’s Father?”

“Over there.” Pyro gestured towards the corner. “He’s…..uh….he’s under the w-water. He d-didn’t make it, I’m afraid.”

For a moment a shadow passed over Shinobi’s face as he looked over. Then he brightened again.

“Well, good! We’ll get a long break from him on the way back to Krakoa. Just imagine all the partying we can do without him looming over us.”

“Oh, I c-can imagine.”

Pyro grabbed Shinobi’s hand, feeling the odd tingly sensation as his body became intangible. Then Shinobi pulled him up, through the layers of shattered concrete, out into the sunlight.

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thelittlemissfortune · 3 years

Note

Sam & fall for the oc meme!

Thank you!!

Full Name: Sam Tewrick Gender and Sexuality: Cis man and (closeted) bi Pronouns: he/him Ethnicity/Species: halfling, white I think Dutch? Birthplace and Birthdate: Banholm, he's 22 Guilty Pleasures: All I can think of is any of his interactions with his bf Phobias: None, but he's scared of his magic, battle and death, fire, judgement, himself What They Would Be Famous For: Sam does become famous as one of the people to win the battle of Haladrin. He polymorphed as a dragon, picked up the dragon lords body and dropped it before their army, causing them to retreat. He then went on to join the government of Banholm where he campaigned for tighter restrictions on magic. What They Would Get Arrested For: Disturbing the peace, blazing it, faking being a noble OC You Ship Them With: his ex ex bf Filipe. Sam has a wife now too but that isn't the most ideal relationship. OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Conrade. Favorite Movie/Book Genre: He can't read.. Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: See above. Talents and/or Powers: He's a sorcerer. He has a lot of druid spells though. Uses a lot of evocation, like fire and lightening spells. Why Someone Might Love Them: As a character he's this goofy frat boy with SO MUCH trauma and repressed feelings, his life has been wild. He has an interesting character arc. As a person, he's flirty and fun a lot of the time, has fame and wealth ig. Why Someone Might Hate Them: He's a very flawed character, not a nice person (although he ended up being the groups moral compass bc the rest of the party was so much worse!). He becomes a politician who tries to make stricter controls on magic, esp ones like warlocks and sorcerers, this definitely made him some enemies. How They Change: Sam starts out as young and naive, trying desperately to ignore his past and his magic and just enjoy a possible bright future in a new place. His magic and being flung into adventuring don't allow this. His morals and worries are constantly challenged. Sam grows to find more confidence in himself but not in the most positive ways. He's constantly taught that he should find confidence in his powerful magic, and basically how it can be used to protect himself (by killing...). In the end this path is somewhat avoided as instead Sam focuses his magic on how to find and resurrect his old roommate and partymate (who he doesn't realise was a serial killer manipulating him!!!!). Sam ends up rather dissonantly finding strength in his own magic and himself, but using it to politically find ways to put restrictions on magic users. Why You Love Them: He was my first ever dnd character and he changed pretty rapidly from being a goofy roll to seduce character to one with a very serious backstory and arc. I adore him and the messed-up interactions with party members and events. My love of flawed characters can shine with him, but he's fairly sympathetic as well. It was very fun playing a character who's afraid of combat and doesn't want to adventure, I've taken these tropes again with Fall but Sam was the og.

Full Name: Fall (he mentions his birth name in the pod eventually) Gender and Sexuality: genderqueer and questioning (bi and gray aro) Pronouns: he/they Ethnicity/Species: Tiefling, ethnicity facts will also be revealed in pod! Birthplace and Birthdate: Palas and they're 19. Guilty Pleasures: Read one (1) romance book and felt very guilty bc scandalous! And it’s hardly academic. Baking sweets, sees it as a waste of food but fun. Phobias: Claustrophobic (not too severe though), also have ptsd related to combat, death, and have anxiety esp about social situations, authority figures, and change and uncertainty. What They Would Be Famous For: They really don't want fame or limelight. Maybe they could be famous in Barovia if the party ends up dealing with Strahd. What They Would Get Arrested For: Stealing. Although they've been caught before they haven't been arrested yet (generally burst into tears and tell a sob story, or things go the Parriwimple route. OC You Ship Them With: I really can’t see them with anyone atm! OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Selwyn through business practises and such affecting the poor. Favorite Movie/Book Genre: The one romance book they read is their fave bc it’s the only book other than academic or children’s that he’s read. Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Philosophy books are so confusing. And science is so boring. Nonfiction sucks. Talents and/or Powers: He’s skilled in martial arts and can harness ki to use magical energy in his fighting. He can also do minor illusions and is training to be an acrobat and juggler. Why Someone Might Love Them: As a character, people all agree they’re very baby and must be protected, and also anti-capitalist haha. As a person, Fall isn’t generally well liked at all, but they can be protective and helpful to people they trust, can be quite silly, and empathise with anyone who’s gone through similar things to them (although their comforting skills could do with some work). Why Someone Might Hate Them: I worried a lot that they might be an annoying character, they’re whiny and self-deprecating and unwilling to engage in a lot of the plot/adventuring. This definitely irritates a lot of people Fall’s engaged with in his life which he’s come to accept/utilize at times. How They Change: I can’t get too much into this I’m afraid since they’re a podcast character! Check out Wyvernss and Weirdos Curse of Strahd side campaign. Why You Love Them: They’re a really fun character for me, I find them quite interesting with their persona that isn’t really a persona at all, and their kind of mean but kind of compassionate, and they draw off a lot of my own experiences with mental illness while also being so very different from me. It took a little bit to Get them but I really enjoy them now I have.

#asks #i love them!!!!#ocs

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trainsinanime · 4 years

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Adrien v Batman

Just so we're clear here: This is all about Miraculous Ladybug on its own, it is not about the oddly popular Miraculous Ladybug/Batman crossovers in the fandom.

For months now I've had these thoughts that don't really coalesce into anything. It starts with this old webcomic from 2011. That comic discusses the frequent idea that "men are just sexualised as women in comics" by pointing out that Batman, as we see him normally, is meant to appeal to male, not female audiences. And to illustrate this, it shows what a Batman designed to appeal to women might look like. You get some things like larger eyes for more emotion, a leaner build for dexterity over power, and more visible face. Good point, done well, deserved its run in the limelight in 2011 and probably doesn't hurt to bring it back now either.

But watching Miraculous Ladybug, I can't help but wonder: Is that comic the origin story for Chat Noir? Because those descriptions match him pretty well.

In general, Ladybug seems to be inspired by Spiderman (red outfit, rope powers, teenage angst, just all a lot less intense), and the conclusion that Chat Noir is inspired by Batman seems very simple, too: Hangs out on tall buildings, dresses in black, his outfit has extra ears on it, he lives in a big empty manor, parental abandonment issues…

But a lot of Adrien's defining characteristics seem to be the exact opposite of Bruce Wayne, and in particular the brooding, serious, hyper-masculine version popularised by the Nolan movies and parodied so beautifully by the Lego movies.

Most importantly, Adrien is emotionally very open (even more so when he's Chat Noir). He doesn't hide his emotions, his pain at all. On the flip side, he is incredibly open to making new friends. He even went out of his way to become friends with that one super-judgemental girl who saw him, went "you're rich, that means you suck", and falsely accused him of putting gum on her seat. People go to great lengths here on Tumblr to point out how actually Bruce Wayne is really kind you just don't notice because it doesn't come up that often. No need to do that for Adrien; it's always 100% out in the open.

In fact, being kind and emotionally open is a huge part of his role in the superhero team dynamic. He does the Spider-Man quipping, and when things have gotten really bad near the end of a season finale, he provides emotional support to Ladybug by telling her how much he believes in her. That is not something Batman would do to Spiderman most of the time, and even if he did, it would be framed as this big revelation, not as reaffirming something we've always seen anyway.

It even goes down to the superhero costume. Ignoring all the changes they made to avoid copyright infringement, the costumes are fairly similar: Black mask, dark suit, all designed to blend into the night, and black extra ears because, as the title of Gintama episode 43 said, "Make Characters So Anybody Can Tell Who They Are By Just Their Silhouettes". But artists over the years have gone to great lengths to make Batman's suit seem powerful, masculine, regal, and not at all silly, despite it being a grown man dressing like a bat.

Adrien, on the other hand? His suit features a bell. They didn't just leave the silly in, they draw attention to it and made it a key part of the design, because silly and emotionally open and honest is a key part of who Adrien is.

And finally, of course, the descriptions from the comic: Adrien is lean and has large expressive eyes. Both apply to most characters in the show, of course, that's its aesthetic, but they could have easily changed the aesthetic (early in the design process) if they had wanted a more classic Batman-type Adrien. Even within the show as it is, you have quite a range of body types, so an Adrien built more like a prize boxer would have certainly been possible. But that's clearly not the character they were going for here.

So… I'm not sure if this is deliberate. I think you can read Adrien as an alternate take on Batman; a Batman who sees strength in connection with others, instead of brooding, and ends up much happier as a result (plus, he got Spider-Man to crush on him). To me, the similarities seem too clear for this to be an accident, but who knows. Not sure what the conclusion is either; it's just something I found interesting.

#adrien agreste #chat noir #miraculous ladybug #batman #bruce wayne #mlb meta

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aleteia-ff · 4 years

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A Decade To Find You - 3

Also Read On: AO3 | FF.net

Thank you everyone for the support! Unfortunately, school started again, so this update came in a bit later, but I'm definitely finishing this story! My current expectation is that it will end at 5 chapters, perhaps 4. This one turned out a lot longer than I'd anticipated, hence me coming back from my earlier estimate of 3 chapters!

I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Astrid didn't think much of the guy she bumped into just after midnight on January 1, 2010. It was just a hasty apology, a quip and a lop-sided grin from his side. It wasn't supposed to be special.Hiccup felt the same way. That was, until he locked eyes with her again one year later. And the year after that. And the next.But somehow, their destinies only seemed to intertwine that one night a year... On New Year's Eve.

Hiccstrid, New Year’s Eve Fic. Spanning the entire past decade.

Chapter 3: New Year’s Eve 2016

December 31st, 2016

Life came with a lot of difficult choices. Hiccup knew that all too well. Batman, Superman, or simply admitting that the DCEU, especially after Suicide Squad, didn't quite hold a candle to the MCU? It was a shame, really. He'd always loved Batman, had reread many of his old comics since 2014, even saw the humour in George Clooney's Batnipples. But perhaps Justice League would prove everyone wrong in 2017. Hopefully.

At least it hadn't been difficult to choose between Team Cap and Team Iron Man. As much as he adored Spider-Man, his father's opinion was simply more important. And Steve Rogers was their guy.

He felt silly to be spending energy on those dilemmas, but after all the shit he'd been through, it was a breath of fresh air to be worried about stuff that was simple. To have his life on the rails, to no longer be forced to sort through his father's will and figure out how to handle all the insurance and ownership documents. He'd even felt comfortable enough to go and study abroad, having spent the best part of the last half year in Melbourne while Gobber, Snotlout and Uncle Spite took care of what was now his house.

Uncle Spite had told him that it was fine if Hiccup wanted to sell it, that he would find a trustworthy real estate agent who got him his money's worth. It would allow Hiccup to buy an apartment in Hopeless, closer to university, and leave Berk and all the painful memories there behind.

He'd seriously considered the change of scenery, because of course it was difficult to forget what had happened when so many people around him knew. Not just the small family that remained. But also Mrs. Ack from down the street, who kept bringing him leftovers, because his thin frame had led her to assume he wasn't feeding himself properly. The Bog family, who lived a few houses away and whose eldest daughter, Camicazi, frequently stole his garbage bags long and put them at the side of the street for the truck to pick up. Everyone knew what had happened to him, and wanted to do their utmost best to support him. He didn't need it, and had told them to stop several times, painfully elated and awkward, rubbing the back of his head so hard he was surprised he hadn't gone bald yet. But Berkians were stubborn, and persisted nevertheless.

And the more time he'd spent in Australia, the more he'd started to miss Berk. He didn't know what it was about the town that had been his family's home for seven generations. But the moment he'd set foot in it again after returning from the other side of the world, it had simply felt like home. And for now, he had no intention to leave.

He didn't know what it was, exactly. Tuffnut and Ruffnut weren't around much, their band now touring the country and only returning as a service to Gruffnut, who had given them the necessary spotlight by booking them last New Year's Eve - although the way the twins told the story, it was Gruffnut who owed them, not the other way around. Fishlegs was studying at the Hopeless Institute of Technology - the name of which was a HIT with students in exam weeks - like him, so Berk wasn't where they saw each other most. Hiccup had grown closer to Snotlout however, some of his cousin's obnoxiousness having faded after his father passed away. Or it was simply being channelled into the roles he played with Berk's local musical theatre company.

Still, Hiccup felt something was keeping him in Berk. He didn't mind it, not in the slightest, it felt good, like he'd finally found a fragment of inner peace. But he didn't know what it was exactly.

And he didn't have time to think about it, since a voice snapped him out of his tragically derailed train of thought.

"What's on the menu?"

He had only heard it one time before, seven years ago. Yet he recognised it immediately.

He turned his head, looking right into the beautiful blue eyes of the woman next to him. He had to look down at her now, unlike on the first day of 2010, but felt incredibly tiny nevertheless. He'd thought he'd blown it when she'd fled from him last year, having rejected her himself the year before that one. But here she was, smiling at him with a teasing smirk on her face and making the ground underneath his feet disappear, sending him into a free fall.

"Hey - uh - hey -" He laughed sheepishly when he finally remembered how to form words, rubbing the back of his head, and her grin only widened. "Hi," he concluded more sternly, as if it would miraculously make up for his earlier stammering.

She bit her lower lip, laughing still and making his insides contract because he'd thought she couldn't look cuter, a dark blue beanie pulled over her ears, but of course she kept surprising him. "Hey."

For all the times he'd imagined spending time with her, he now realised he'd put embarrassingly little effort into what exactly he would say to her when the stars finally aligned.

There were a million thing he could say, but now that he had the chance, he couldn't come up with anything. His eyes flicked back to the wooden stall in front of him, to the choice he'd been trying to make, and he finally realised that she had already asked him a question he still had to answer.

"All of this is on the menu," he told her, widely gesturing at the space in front of him, a holiday market stall selling all kinds of New Year's treats and drinks from around the world. "I don't even know half of it, but I figured I should try something."

"How about you let me pick?" she proposed. "And I'll pay for it too, in case it's horrible."

"Only if you have it with me," he smiled, her smirk contagious. "And let me buy you a drink in return."

"Deal," she nodded, instantly stepping forward to examine the shop's showcase, her brows furrowing as she focused. Occasionally, she made an adorable sound when she not-so-silently judged the different kinds of food, and Hiccup found himself staring at her, cherishing the moment.

Because she hadn't disappeared yet.

He quickly pretended to be studying the sign that listed the available drinks when she glanced over her shoulder, shooting him another smile.

"Glühwein?" he asked, his voice shooting up as if he'd gone straight back to puberty.

"Nah." She shook her head, looking away from a moment. "I don't drink." She paused before adding: "Not anymore."

"I can respect that," he nodded, thinking back to the times he'd seen her considerably less sober. Despite only catching a glimpse of her, he was sure just last year had been one of those. And he couldn't deny that while he respected anyone enough to let them make their own decisions, she hadn't looked as well as she'd done the years before. As if there had been a little less light in her otherwise bright eyes.

She pulled up an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yeah," he shrugged, gesturing at his head. "Hangovers suck. Kills your brain too. And booze doesn't even always taste as good as people pretend it does."

"I'm glad you agree," she hummed.

"You make it sound like I'm special."

She took him in for a moment, as if she was seizing him up. "I guess you are. Most of my friends at university disagreed."

"Seems like you need better friends."

"Which is why I'm here." Her lips settled back into a smile. "And I think you still owe me a mug of hot chocolate."

He couldn't help but grin. "Sounds like a plan."

He ordered two mugs of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top while Hot Chocolate Girl - her name, he had to ask for her name - picked out a snack she liked. They walked away from the stall with what she laughingly informed him were called 'Dutch doughnuts' - huge balls of deep fried dough with raisins in them, covered in about a pound of powdered sugar.

He asked her if she wanted to sit down.

"Of course," was her simple answer.

They zigzagged through the crowd, her leading so he wouldn't lose sight of her - not again - until they reached one of the market's squares. He thanked the Gods Luktuk had gotten spiteful and had organised its own winter market this year. Meaning it was a lot less busy and that there were actually some free spots. He had already started to dread the prospect of having to go and sit back with Snotlout. Not that Snot wasn't good company, but from the corner of his eye he could easily see his cousin, already sufficiently drunk, draw Barney Stinson's hot-crazy scale in the air, challenging Fishlegs and the twins to determine where Hot Chocolate Girl would land.

So much for Snotlout losing some of his obnoxiousness.

They sat down across from each other at one of the wooden picnic tables, and for a moment, Hiccup felt himself caught in how unreal the situation felt. He had thought of this girl for years, imagined what she might be like, chased by the notion that seeing her every year on one specific day couldn't be a coincidence. And now he had the chance to confirm that suspicion.

He laughed at himself for his superstition. He had no idea if she even had the same ideas about him. But she chuckled, too, and their eyes met again.

"What's your name?" he asked, curling his fingers around his mug.

"Astrid. Astrid Hofferson." She - Astrid - slowly moved her spoon, mixing the cream into the hot chocolate. "You?"

He blinked, somewhere surprised that she didn't know it already. That he had forgotten that she knew as little about him as he did about her. "I'm -"

He was going to offer her the formal introduction he gave any stranger. But that didn't feel right.

"People call me Hiccup."

Astrid - such a pretty name - pulled up her eyebrow. "Hiccup?"

"It's a nickname," he shrugged. "People close to me have been calling me that for as long as I've known. I was quite small as a kid." He held out his hand next to the table, at the same height his hip would now be. "Dad called me a little Hiccup, and it stuck. First with my cousin, who was in the same class as me in elementary school… And you know how kids are."

"Assholes," she noted.

"Definitely."

She reached for her pocket, whisking out her phone. She bit her lower lip as she started to type. "Are you Hiccup on Facebook too?"

He gave her a sheepish grin. "No, I actually don't have Facebook. Nor Instagram. Or Snapchat."

"Whoa. What century did you come from?"

"I'm not much of a social media guy," he tried to explain. "Not a fan of Mark Zuckerberg getting his hands on all my data."

"Yeah, he is a bit of a creep," Astrid nodded. "Shame I can't go without Messenger."

"Call me old-fashioned, but I can give you my number instead," he proposed. "I do have WhatsApp."

She frowned. "Didn't Facebook buy WhatsApp like two years ago?"

"Just an introduction to how consistent my principles are," he quipped.

"At least you have some. I'm just a regular sell-out." She swiped around on her phone for a moment, before handing it to him. She had opened a new contact, the name already filled out.

"Fake Foot Guy?" he laughed.

"It's not much worse of a nickname than 'Hiccup'," she shot back.

She'd had a nickname for him too. "Can't argue with that."

He typed his number into her phone and handed it back to her, feeling awfully giddy at how easy it was to talk to her. Astrid tucked it back into her jeans, and pointed at the curious snack in front of her. "After you."

"Whoa, Astrid," he objected, putting his hands up in the air. "You picked it out."

"Fine, I'll be the brave one," she joked, and lifted the doughnut, making a toast with it. "Bon appetit."

She took a bite, looking pensive as she chewed calmly before finally publishing her verdict. "It's not too bad, actually."

Encouraged, he began to eat as well, taking a big bite to show he wasn't a coward.

"You're right, not as bad as it looks."

"You doubted me?"

"Not even for a second."

She shook her head at him, working the rest of the doughnut down with impressive speed. She propped her head up on her hand as she waited for him to finish, playfully cocking her head and tapping her fingers on the table while grinning to herself.

"Hey, at least I'm taking the time to enjoy my food," he defended himself.

"Oh, that's now why I'm laughing," Astrid grinned. "You just have some sugar on your face."

"Where?"

Astrid gestured to her own face, drawing a circle in the air. "Everywhere."

Way to make an impression, Haddock. He hastily grabbed his napkin, but when he looked back up he found Astrid leaning over the table, tentatively reaching out to him with hers.

He sat there, frozen when she carefully wiped the tip of his nose as if it was the most obvious, the most natural thing to do. With her so close, he could count the few freckles on her cheeks, her entire presence kissed by the sun in a way people in Berk so rarely were. His eyes fell to her soft, pink lips, slightly chapped by the cold, and he considered hooking his finger underneath her chin and finding out if she still tasted like sugar too. But he figured she always did.

It felt like it was supposed to. It felt right. As if he'd never done otherwise. As if he was lucky enough to get to gaze into her beautiful blue eyes every single day.

While the truth was that he hardly even knew her.

"What do you do?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"Huh?" Astrid blinked, then looked at her hand, her eyebrows shooting up as if she hadn't realised it belonged to her. "I'm sorry -"

"No, don't be," he told her as she backed away, already missing the closeness and sheepishly cleaning the remaining sugar off his face to occupy himself. "I just meant, what do you do on, you know, other days than New Year's Eve?"

"Oh." She sat down, wiped off her hands and tucked some of her hair back behind her ear. "Mostly volunteer work, these days. Trying to help people where I can."

"That's great!"

"Yeah, it's very satisfying." Her voice trailed off, making him raise an eyebrow.

"Sounds like there's a 'but'."

She smiled slightly. "It's not exactly long-term. I need to find an actual job eventually so I can move out and become an actual adult."

"Any ideas on that yet?"

She shook her head. "That's the issue. I went to uni to become a doctor so I could help people, but it wasn't for me. So this past year, I've been trying to figure out what I want to do instead."

"I don't see how that's an issue."

"Because it's not the way it's supposed to go!" Astrid exclaimed. "I always thought gap years were a waste of time, and now here I am, doing exactly what I vouched I never would."

"Life hardly ever goes how it's supposed to," he shrugged, taking a sip. "And it doesn't seem to me like you're not doing anything."

She cocked her head at him. "What makes you so sure?"

Because I feel like I've known you all my life. "You don't seem like the kind of person to lie in bed watching Netflix all week."

"Of course not," she snorted.

"And you probably volunteer like ten, twenty hours a week…" he murmured, trying not to grin.

"Thirty. At least," she corrected him. "Fifty maybe, if there's a kickboxing tourney in town."

"Okay, public service announcement, don't pick a fight with Astrid," he quipped, painting the words in the air. "Although it's unlikely kicking your ass fits her schedule, because she works so godsdamned hard."

Astrid gave him a determined look. "I can always take time out of my day for special cases."

"Lucky me, people have been telling me I'm very special all my life," he mock-gaped. "What are the odds!"

"About the same as those of living in a town with one hundred thousand people, but nevertheless seeing the same person eight New Year's Eves in a row?"

He froze and looked at her, the way his blue eyes peered into his, searching for something. "You realised it too," he gaped, his voice suddenly a lot softer.

"Of course I did," she scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I may be a drop-out, but I'm not stupid."

"Didn't meant to imply you were, just…" he laughed at himself. "I thought I was the weird one."

"I don't think you're weird," Astrid reassured him. "Just a dork."

"Do you…" he started, his throat suddenly dry. "Do you think it's a coincidence?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."

He was staring at her again, wondering if leaning across the table and kissing her would be an acceptable way of 'figuring it out'. If she would find it inappropriate, or if she would wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him back until their position inevitably became uncomfortable.

He could get up and walk to the other side of the table, sit down on the bench next to her and pull her into his lap, curl his arms around her and hold her until the clock hit midnight. So she wouldn't vanish, not this year. Ask her to come home with him, or meet him again tomorrow, because they had only barely talked and he already couldn't imagine never hearing her voice again. Because it had been enough to catch a hint of how she was brave, passionate, selfless, and smart. And he wanted to know everything else there was to learn about her.

He was snapped out of it by Astrid clearing her throat. "So what about you?"

He blinked profusely and sat back, not even realising he'd been leaning forward. "Huh?"

"What do you do?"

"Oh, I -" He took a deep breath, trying to push away the heat in his cheeks through sheer force of will. "I'm still studying. Trying to become an engineer."

"What kind?"

"For a long time, I wanted to do something with aviation," he elaborated, studying her face for a trace of boredom but finding her eyes opening up instead. "Like, my room is full of sketches of rockets, air planes, flight suits."

"Flight suits?"

"Yeah, you know, so people can fly themselves." He moved his arms, demonstrating the idea until she laughed and made him realise how stupid he made himself look. "It'd probably be a regulatory nightmare though, given that airports already aren't happy with people flying drones." He grinned. "So naturally, I got myself one for Christmas."

Astrid leaned forward, giving him a knowing look. "Does it fly yet?"

"No, but -" He continued, despite Astrid's chuckles. "That's only because I'm making some modifications."

"Sure," Astrid teased.

"It's true! Sticking to the basics takes all the fun out of it."

"Basic planes do sound a lot safer to me, you know," Astrid countered.

"Well, you're in luck, because that's what I was getting to," he explained. "I've loved planes all my life but recently, I've been giving a lot of thought to this thing. You know, what gave me my superhero name." He grinned, vaguely gesturing to his left foot. "The longer I live with it, the more ideas I get to improve it. So maybe I should do that instead." He shrugged. "Help people like me."

Astrid smiled softly. "I think that's a wonderful idea."

"Me too."

He could only smile back as a silence settled between them. It wasn't uncomfortable - on the contrary, he felt he could do this all day, simply look at her, the sounds of the busy market around them seemingly non-existent. Suppress the urge to reach out towards her, unwrap her delicate fingers from around her mug just so he could study them.

He felt like Tarzan - minus the dreadlocks, broad chest and any other kind of muscle definition - wanting to pull off just one of the gloves of his Jane. Not that she was his, of course, he barely knew her name, for years he had known nothing more than that her smile warmed his heart and that every moment they shared seemed to last forever. Besides, he was a 21st century man who didn't believe women to be his property in any way. In fact, he didn't mind a woman who looked like she could kick his ass instead.

But he cherished the thought of carefully taking her fingers in his, treat them delicately despite her obvious strength, and press their palms flat against each other. To get a sense of just how real she was, her warm skin against his, treat her as if she was the first woman he'd ever laid eyes on. Because in a weird way, it felt like it. Then again, everything about this was weird, but in a way that made his heart beat faster.

He could do it. Take her hand, wrap his fingers around it and simply hold them. He would settle for that, and not let her go for the rest of the night. Not even when the fireworks started. He wasn't concerned with those. He was just wondering if they would also go off in his head the moment he kissed her.

Or he could finally realise he was staring at her like a fool, way longer than any sane person would. He blinked profusely, and she cocked her head at him, clearly amused as she took another sip.

He cleared his throat, trying to come up with something smooth, or another topic, but he found himself speechless. "There's so much I want to ask you," he laughed, embarrassingly awkward. "But I can't think of anything."

"Really?" Astrid teased. "Nothing?"

How old are you? Do you prefer dogs or cats? Sushi: overpriced raw fish or actually quite okay? How do you feel about Brangelina getting divorced? Who is your favourite character in Friends? Will you think less of me if I admit I exercised almost every day last Summer, but that ninety-nine percent of that was walking around town catching Pok émon? What even is Brexit?

Do you feel like there 's something here too? Do you like me, even a little bit?

"I just don't know where to start," he shrugged.

"Perhaps you could Google it," she grinned, seemingly content with letting him drown.

"You know, there are actually lists for that," he pointed out, pulling another useless fact out of his repertoire. "Questions to ask on dates."

"Oh?"

He treasured the fact that she didn't ask whether this was a date. So he leapt again. "Yeah. Like a list of 36 questions that 'guarantee' two people will fall in love with each other."

She snorted. "Now that sounds like yak dung." He opened his mouth to agree, but she added: "So go ahead."

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, like a confused goldfish, not having expected to get this far. "I don't know them by heart…"

"You don't do this often?"

He liked the twinkle in her eyes, the way she consistently teased and challenged him. No, he loved that.

"But there was this one question that stuck with me, regardless," he continued. "If you were able to live to the age of ninety, and retain either the mind or the body of a thirty year-old for the last sixty years of your life…. Which one would you want?"

Astrid answered nearly instantly. "Body."

Well, if I had yours, that's what I'd pick too.

"And that's not to sound vain," she elaborated before he could comment. "It's not about that at all, but the thought of becoming so old that I can no longer move around on my own, that I'd need help to get everywhere, or that I simply don't have the energy to do the things I love anymore… I'd hate that. I would lose my independence, my freedom. I don't know what it's like to be thirty yet, of course, but if I got to live the next sixty years feeling like I do right now, but with more and more experience as time goes by, I'd sign up for that." She grinned. "And of course, not getting any wrinkles, or menopause, is an upside too."

"Not sounding vain, right?" he quipped, earning him a punch in his shoulder.

"I gave you a serious answer!"

"I know, I know!" He put his hands up in the air. "But hey, don't blame yourself for being gorgeous."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Hiccup…"

He liked the way she said his name. He hoped she would do it again. "Look, if you can't take a compliment, that's not my fault."

"Fine." She rolled her eyes. "You're not bad yourself either."

He tried not to bask in that comment, in the knowledge that she might like him, even a little bit. He did his best to wipe his grin off his face and continue where they left off. "But I get what you mean, I suppose. People say that you need three things to live a happy life." He counted on his fingers. "Time, energy, and money. If you're young, you have time and energy, but no money. When you're a proper working adult, you have energy and money, but no time. And once you've retired, you've finally got time and money, but no energy. So I don't think your choice is that strange at all. Let alone vain."

"Well, that's one way to get depressed," Astrid huffed.

He gave her a wry smile. "Leave it up to me to brighten the mood, I guess."

"No worries, it won't keep me up at night," Astrid shrugged. "So what about you? What would you pick? If you remembered the question, you probably thought about what you'd answer too."

"I did," he admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "It's… interesting, but I always thought the answer was obvious. Then you made some really good points, and -"

"And I'm interested in yourreasoning, not your backpedalling."

"Okay…" He shifted, pushing his bangs back. "I'd choose mind. I'd never thought about those things you mentioned, about the whole 'walking around with a walking frame' part of getting old. Especially with my leg and all." He vaguely gestured beneath the table. "Whenever I think about reaching those ages, my mind always goes to the documentaries, the news reports about people with dementia. Because I just find them so incredibly… scary."

Astrid nodded at him and he briefly chewed on his lower lip before he continued. "The thought of getting Alzheimer's, of digressing until you forget yourself and the people around you… I don't think it runs in my family, at least not the early version of it, as far as I know, but I know that doesn't make me immune and it's just -" He sighed. "I know we all die eventually, that's inevitable. But I wouldn't want to go like that."

"Me neither," Astrid softly said, glancing at her hands. "Can I still change my pick? No use in feeling fit if you don't remember what to do with it."

"Or we could team up," he joked, wanting her to smile again. "One preserved body, one preserved mind."

"Sounds like a plan," Astrid laughed. "When I'm old and senile, you just tell me what to do and I will carry you around when you can no longer walk yourself."

"Perfect!" he agreed, grinning. "Match made in heaven."

Astrid cocked her head, observing him as her lips settled back into a slight smile. "It'd seem that way."

Had they both just implied they'd still be in each other's life years from now? Was he reading too much into that? Into the way Astrid's eyes seemed to soften the longer she looked at him, in how he was struggling to remember the last time he'd felt both this excited and this at ease?

He should just ask her. Show that he wasn't afraid to step up and declare he liked her more than he should like anyone he'd talked to this shortly.

"Do you -"

He was interrupted by a loud crash, a shout coming from the other side of the square, the world suddenly larger than just the two of them. He twisted his head to see a guy with fiery red hair stumble backwards, reaching for his eye.

"Dagur!" Astrid jumped up, sprinting in the direction of the sound as the man - Dagur? - balled his fist.

And punched the guy Hiccup only now recognised as Snotlout right in his nose.

"Fuck," Hiccup muttered, rushing after Astrid.

Snotlout recoiled, grasping his nose, blood seeping out from between his fingers as he ran into Dagur shoulder first. Ruffnut and Tuffnut cheered as the two fell over, crashing into the bench Fishlegs had been sitting on until a second ago. What the Hel had they gotten themselves into?

Astrid reached them before Hiccup did, shouting in exasperation at the men rolling around on the ground. "What the fuck are you doing!?"

No one gave her nor the small crowd that had gathered the answer they were looking for. Astrid rolled her eyes, digging her nails into Dagur's leather jacket and pulling him off Snotlout with a show of strength that seemed to surprise Dagur too and left Snotlout on the ground, wide-eyed.

Dagur tried to rush back in, but Astrid yanked him back. "Nope, you're not ruining my night, not this year." She twisted his arm behind his back when he moved again, making him yelp. "You can go berserk in your own time!"

"It wasn't my fault!" Dagur sputtered, his left eye blue with something Hiccup didn't know was a bruise or a tattoo. "He hit me first!"

"You were asking for it!" Snotlout yelled, coughing as blood streamed into his mouth from his obviously broken nose.

"Nah." "Not really." The twins countered instantly, crossing their arms.

Hiccup rushed over to Snotlout as he got back up, and put his hands on his shoulders. "Whoah, Snot, calm down."

"Move over," Snotlout insisted. "Let me at him!"

"Dude, your nose's broken," he argued as calmly as he could, trying to use his height advantage to prevent Snot from moving.

"You know him?"

He looked back over his shoulder at a sceptical Astrid, her eyebrow pulled up, Dagur's efforts to squirm out of her hold futile. He didn't know whether to yell at Snotlout or simply stand there and be impressed with how well she handled guys two times her size. Make a bad and inappropriate joke about her handling him, sometime…

"My cousin," he shrugged, trying to make clear that he also didn't ask for this. Out of all the nights Snotlout had to be, well, Snotlout…

"Nice family you got there," Astrid snorted.

"Right back at you."

"Nope." Astrid shook her head. "Best friend's brother."

"Oh my Thor… You broke my nose!" Snotlout suddenly yelped, as if he'd only just realised it.

"Heh. You kind of sound like Hiccup, talking through your nose and all," Tuffnut commented.

"You gave me a black eye!" Dagur yelled.

"I'm gonna sue you!"

"Playing the lead role in a local production of Grease doesn't make you an American, Snot," Hiccup bit, trying to glance over Dagur's shoulder, where Astrid was trying to hold her grip. "Astrid -"

"Is there are doctor around!?" Snotlout whined.

"I hope so, cause you need one, to fix your head!" Dagur bellowed.

"Guys, fighting doesn't solve anything, please stop…" Fishlegs tried weakly.

Dagur surged forward with such force that the last thing Hiccup saw was Astrid tumbling backwards on the ground, right before Dagur collided with him and Snotlout. They landed in a pile of limbs, both real and fake, Hiccup's elbow landing right in Snotlout's stomach and Dagur's knee digging into his thigh. He cried out in pain, trying to push Dagur off him but ending up as the heavily abused third wheel, caught in the crossfire while neither Snotlout nor his assailant paid any actual attention to him.

"Alright, fine, then we'll try it this way."

His misery was interrupted by a few flashes of blond, followed by pained yelps from Dagur. Finally free, he sputtered and rolled off of Snotlout. He pushed himself up, glancing around to thank his saviour and finding Astrid next to him, perched up on Dagur, holding his arms behind his back as he was lying face down on the floor. Looking uncannily comfortable, as if she was doing this every day.

"We should probably get out of here before the cops get here," she casually remarked.

"If I didn't know better I'd think you were currently undercover," he grinned, distractingly offering Snotlout a not-so-helping hand while keeping his eyes on the most badass woman in the world. He was happy she wasn't with the police though. He didn't need the idea that she could end up like his father.

"You caught me," she laughed. "I'm trying to get a breakthrough in the curious case of cute guys who only appear on New Year's Eve."

He could feel his face change colour. Along with his hand when Snotlout gripped it, leaving it sticky with blood as his cousin hauled himself up.

"Geez, can no one hand him a tissue?" he asked, agitated. Ruffnut shrugged as if there was no other sensible option, zipped open her coat and tore off part of her shirt, handing it to Snotlout, who promptly pressed it to his nose.

"Astrid -"

"Oh Gods," Snotlout gasped, glancing at the piece of fabric and seeing how red it had gotten in mere seconds. "That's a lot of blood."

"- this is not how -"

"Am I dying?"

"- I thought this would go -"

"I'm definitely dying."

"- but thank you, and -"

"But I'm too young and handsome to die!"

"And I think you should get your charming cousin to the ER," Astrid smiled, softly patting Dagur's head when he struggled again.

"I'm sorry," Hiccup tried. So this was how it ended. His first true chance in seven years.

"I'll call you tomorrow," Astrid reassured him with yet another smile.

That phrase stayed with him as he told her goodbye, dragging Snotlout away from the crowd, the others following in his wake. It was echoing through his head when the clock hit midnight in the waiting room of the hospital and Snotlout lamented this being the worst New Year's ever, his complaints unheard because Hiccup himself simply disagreed. He was on cloud nine despite the hospital smell, despite having to explain to the twins that bringing booze into the ER to 'have a bit of a party after all' wasn't socially acceptable behaviour, despite being semi-traumatised by Fishlegs Googling every single medical condition a nosebleed could be a symptom of. No matter how often Hiccup pointed out that there was a direct correlation between the position of Snot's nose, the unstoppable force that had met it and the voluminous amount of blood.

Astrid's words were still with him when he woke up the following morning, feeling like he had a hangover despite not having drunk any alcohol. But in a good way. The best way. The kind that made him giddy and excited, anxiously glancing at his phone while he tried to go about his day.

And they didn't leave him until by the end of January, Astrid still hadn't called.

#a decade to find you #modern au #hiccstrid #hiccup #astrid #httyd #httyd fanficion #aleteia-writes #i love musical theatre snotlout #i love using all the references #it was a good refresher of 2016 to write this chapter #hiccup is such a drama queen #httyd fanfiction #fanfiction #nye #new year's eve

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dreadnought-dear-captain · 4 years

Text

You Asked, I Told

Spoilers up to Chapter 37 of Baghdad Waltz

Hi everyone,

I’m so very sorry for being so late with getting Chapter 38 out. Writing that Spent Brass put a delay in everything, though it was really crucial to get it posted before this next chapter.

This has been a really tough chapter to get right for me. I’ve gone back to the drawing board more than once for a couple scenes. I’m not sure when it will be out, but I’m working on it daily and making some good progress. Thank you for sending me your words of encouragement and letting me know you’re thinking of me! I’m thinking of you too and know you’re really looking forward to more. It will be a doozy, in terms of content, so I hope it’s worth the wait.

In horrifying news, BW is turning THREE YEARS OLD on March 13th. Kill me. (But not before I finish this fucking thing.)

In the meantime, here are some answers to some Asks-------

Thank you so much for the very kind words. I’m so pleased that this story checks off so many of your boxes, and I’m relieved to know that the structure and methods I’ve chosen for storytelling have lent to a balanced narrative where you can appreciate both of these characters. I figure people don’t have to like each character equally, or at all. I just really want their choices make sense, for each character to have a distinct psychology, to have each action and reaction be believable, even if it is infuriating or illogical (it can still fall within the character’s internal logic, based on their own worldview). And I am so honored that this fic can serve as some inspiration for your own. God knows I have mine I go to on the reg when my stuff sucks and I can’t string two words together to save my life.

This is a deceptively silly question, I think (because I can’t keep anything simple). Working out together would be a nice little nostalgic throwback, wouldn’t it? I sometimes pop back to earlier chapters when they were in Baghdad and think about those times with a wistful smile. I think about the way they related, the way they looked, the relative lack of complications in their lives, and it’s such a profound departure from the way things are now.

Steve obviously has kept up his gym going with Matt. We’ve also seen that working out for him is about more than just being swole and hawt; it’s about control and regulating his emotions. And for Bucky, working out used to be a way of maintaining peak fitness for his career, which was one of the ways that he evaluated his self-esteem. If he was fit, he had value. Also, if he was fit, he was sexy, and we know that sexual capability is also one of the primary currencies he uses to determine his self-worth. He also used the construction of his physique as a way to develop his masculinity, the correct form of [gay] masculinity, rather than being a twink or a sissy. This was always a struggle against Bucky’s natural slim body composition, which has become his default again now that he’s been out of the military.

Now Bucky faces a couple of hurdles to exercise, whether he would do it for health or for building his physique. He has the challenges brought about by his many injuries - compromised grip in his left hand due to his massive forearm injuries and inconsistent rehabilitation efforts, ongoing pain in his right foot and a continued limp from that, significant back and hip pain due to very heavy load bearing and overcompensation from his foot injury. This would make it challenging for him to engage in any intense fitness program. What he really needs is to go back to physical therapy, and probably occupational therapy as well, but last time didn’t go so hot last time.

Even if he didn’t have to contend with his injuries, Bucky is at a bit of a crossroads in terms of how much energy he wants to put into rebuilding and maintaining his ideal physical self, which seems to be based on some prototype he picked up long ago (more on that in a future chapter). No chest hair, no body fat, muscles, a perfectly shaved asshole at all times… But he’s not 21 anymore. He has a boyfriend now. And even though he’d probably love to go to the gym to shoulder in on Steve’s time with Matt, I wonder if he would want to go for himself anymore. I wonder if going with Steve would be intimidating or make him feel pressured to fall back into his old patterns. Because now at least he has the excuse that he can’t lift heavy, that he can’t run, so he might as well not even try. But if he could, it would be interesting to see where his path would go as a 31-year-old man.

See? You thought it would be a simple “Yeah, there’re totes gonna go to the gym together, chapter 41, stay tuned!” or “No, probs not, I don’t think he’s much of a gym goer anymore.” Alas. I give no simple answers. This is why you have to wait 5 months for a BW chapter.

This is a good observation. Bucky loves himself a good drunk pizza. He also watches a lot of food-related TV when he drinks. Bucky has had to think a lot about food for various reasons. One is building muscle and physique when his body is telling him NO I WILL NOT. One is not eating so that he can get drunk faster. One is eating the right kind of diet so that he can have anal sex without having to worry about digestive issues (constipation, feeling too full, not being ‘ready,’ too much or too little shitting), which is a thing he would take seriously a hardcore bottom. I see things like pizza as a comfort food, family food, something Winnie would get for them every Friday night after they moved to New York. It’s a very emotional food for him, but he knows it’s “bad” for all of the aforementioned reasons, because it will make you fat and slow your buzz and stuff up your colon, so he might be most inclined to eat it when deep in a bender and doesn’t give a shit about those other things. Because Bucky not only drinks to forget and manage intense emotions, but he drinks also to just relax the relentless march of self-perpetuated, often absurd rules about what and who he is and what he can and should do. So yes, Bucky has some disordered eating, most of it functional, though a lot of his lack of eating recently is likely anxiety-related and/or stomach illness-related.

Another excellent observation. For those who might need a refresher, since this was in chapter 36:

The morning after Bucky shows up at Steve’s drunk and they have sex and many revelations are made about drinking during their relationship, Bucky gets honest about what happened the day before. He tells Steve: “I had my interview. It— I really don’t know how it went. I was so out of it. I’ve been so fucked up these past couple weeks. Just— it’s been bad. Really bad.” He tells the story of what happened at Scott’s. Steve asks why Bucky didn’t tell him he was struggling, and Bucky says that he didn’t want to get into it. Steve shifts in to talking about whether they should get back together.

I think there are a couple things here I could say. Yes, Bucky saying that he’s struggling is an example of some unusually straight-forward honesty that’s also a personal risk for himself. That’s a real measure of progress! But while I think this honesty is something that’s pretty new, the fact that he’s in a bad place mentally is not new information to Steve. I think back to the chapter before, after Bucky’s PT appointment with Luke, where he was clearly very distraught and having an extremely difficult time. Steve couldn’t get him to say what was happening then, but it was clear that it was something very major. So I don’t think this really felt to him like a major revelation, like Bucky’s really been holding it all together perfectly while imploding on the inside. I think this observation was more like, why didn’t you just TELL me you were struggling rather than having to have me wonder and then get wasted and come here drunk? Steve has a long history of asking Bucky if he’s okay and getting the brushoff. He’s probably starting to get tired of always asking and getting shot down.

Another part of your question is also very valid - is this the right time to get into a relationship?? Haha. Ha. Well, nobody said these two were good at making relationship decisions. But on a more serious note, Bucky having struggles is not only not new information for this month, it’s not new information for their relationship. Bucky has always had a secret life of pain that Steve has had to wonder about, ask about, beg to be let into, and he probably figures that one of the best ways he can affect change is if they’re in a romantic relationship. It will let him get close, give him some leverage, etc. So although it might come off as callous, Bucky’s struggles are the rule rather than the exception, and Steve probably figures he needs to get this relationship locked down so that he can get them into therapy and much-needed help.

Of course, there’s plenty of dramatic irony here, right? Steve doesn’t know what we know, which is that what Bucky is struggling with here is the REALLY BIG STUFF. He probably just thinks it’s his usual stuff. So. We’ll see where that goes. Bucky is going to maintain this illusion for as long as he possibly can.

Yes, @pitchforkcentral86 and I had several conversations about whether Bucky should have an animal. It’s a common trope in fic, and a joyful one to read. (Omg, I didn’t know about Alpine until now and I am thrilled!) And yes, service dogs, emotional support animals, therapy animals, pets, they can all be very healing, can provide meaning and purpose, and can also help to structure the lives of people who feel destabilized in various ways.

However, I have held back on giving Bucky an animal because a) his aforementioned history with animals, and b) I’m not sure if that’s what he needs at this point in his journey. I do really think Bucky has some sort of healing that needs to take place around animals. He loves animals. He loves nature and is a true soft boy (TM) who has been deeply hurt by his experiences. It was very inconsistent with his values to do the things he did, see the things he saw, and it’s so painful that he doesn’t know how to reconcile it.

But he’s in such a precarious place now emotionally, with such low resources, and he can barely even share the smallest pieces himself with other humans. People are a lot more complicated, yes, but animals are a lot of responsibility. He would be so hard on himself if he didn’t do a good job, if he didn’t react well to his animal companion, etc. And I think it would probably be more bang for his buck to devote that energy to trying to increasing his emotional intimacy with his partner or his sponsor or other important humans in his life who are asking for his trust. He could GO BACK TO THERAPY EVEN.

I do think something that would potentially be helpful and pretty low resource cost is to have a therapy animal in his life, like something he could go periodically, a therapy dog at the VA or something he could visit and pet once in a while. It would be a good start.

But that’s just my thinking for this character specifically. I think service/emotional support/therapy animals are wonderful and can create incredible bridges for people to improving their quality of life.

Well, that’s all for now! I will continue plugging away at BW and will get it to you as soon as I can. Thank you, as ever, for your patience! And thank you for the wonderful Asks <3 <3 <3

#YOU ASKED I TOLD #send me asks #thank youuuuu #baghdad waltz

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one-piece-dumpster-fire · 5 years

Note

Thank you for answer me so well and again for that drawing !! (ﾉ*0*)ﾉ So know I see, I wanna ask finally! NSFW headcanons of Drake, Apoo and Hawkins (do what you want👌) with a s/o male! Good luck too with all the work !! ❤️

FINALLY managed to finish this, I really hope this is what you wanted and that you like it 💜 💜 💜

And as always, warning for FILTH under the cut~

Dirty headcanon with a male!s/o

X Drake

it may not come as a suprise, but being with a male partner actually boosts his confidence level enormously. and he isn’t gonna pass out from seeing you naked either!

mainly because you and him are… pretty much the same, speaking from a physical aspect. So when his eyes roam over your body the blush on his cheek is actually symbolizing desire and admiration rather than embarrassment and shame

Drake likes to claim that he is ‘a power top’ who wouldn’t ever consider himself to be on the bottom. He is quite the dominant partner, and the idea of being submissive does not sit well with him (but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to convince him otherwise *wink wink)

while he is indeed a bit more careful with female partners during the whole foreplay aspect, he does not mind getting rough with you. After all, you’re more like him so you could probably take more teasing and action, right?

now, he is… not very good at sucking dick. At all. Drake has a rather easily triggered gag-reflex, so sexy times might easily turn into puky times if he takes you in a little… too deep

…but as far as getting sucked goes, he is ecstasic. Drake’s a man who loves to watch you get your knees dirty, and is not afraid of slipping you a teasing comment every now and then when you get up and he sees your now deeper colored shin. Beautiful.

but have I mentioned how vital it is to have a few bottles of lube ready for when he decides to 'go in’? Because when he reached that point of no return and no holding back then you better believe it’ll be just that- Dinoman is going to shove himself into you so quick you won’t even noticed. So unless you’re into pain, make sure you’re proper oiled!

from a viewer’s perspective, sex with Drake looks… a little weird. Because his large body is mostly covering yours, basically pressing you into the matress, while he keeps on pounding like there is no tomorrow. Sometimes it might even look like he is fucking a sex doll because you CAN’T REALLY MOVE UNDERNEATH HIM

his orgasms are always quite intense and, well, massive. Good if you like creampieng but if you don’t then I’d suggest you tell him to pull out a little bit earlier

on rare occasions he might even remain buried inside of you after sex and just… fall asleep like that. There is something about remaining one with you that gives him a feeling of serenity. If you’re okay with it, that is!

Apoo

regardless if you’re a man, a woman, or something else- Apoo is and will always be a little shit huge tease in bed and that never changes

preparations and foreplay are far more important to him than the real thing (aka going inside). In fact, he can very well enjoy a steamy session that doesn’t include any sort of direct ‘intercourse’!

a thing he likes quite much before any touching and making out begins though is a good ol’ stripshow put on by you. Make sure to be sultry and seductive! Get him going! ….he’ll play his body parts for you to add the right ‘mood music’ too!

and once naked, we move on to his next absolute favorite thing ever:

who’s dick is bigger competitions. Every. Time. Does the size of your cock change? No. So does he need to check everytime? Also no. But is it fun? To Apoo, yes

and yes, occasionaly he also seems to be the kind of guy that loves to engage in some pre-intercourse 'swordfighting’ if you know what I mean (we’re talking the more silly, less sexual variant. Like literally hitting your dick with his. It makes funny sounds. APPRECIATE IT.)

he’s a real master when it comes to giving oral, but of course not without making a dumb comment: „I’ll play you like a flute, apapapa!“, „Time for me to blow your little blowpipe!“ (it’s quite embarrassing, really…)

and he uses his teeth too while going down, mostly because the sounds it makes when he touches your cock with his piano teeth are HILARIOUS, it’s like your own little song

on the other hand, when it comes to receiving oral- he’s a bit picky. And sometimes even a bit of a critic, since he does not appreciate the feeling of not being in control and you doing with his dick as you please

I hope you have some stamina in you because Apoo can and will go for multiple rounds. Sometimes this might even lead to you or him being overstimulated and growing extremely sensitive, but then again that is a new kind of excitement he also thoroughly enjoys

once everything is finished though Apoo will almost always cling to you afterwards, his arms entrapping you like a prison made out of…. well, very long and lanky arms

Hawkins

secretly(?) the kinkiest out of all three

…and an absolute master of the art of 'hidden’ teasing. He knows exactly what he’s doing to get you turned on, even if it may not seem so!

like his foot suddenly rubbing against your crotch? Uhm no he has no memory of that didn’t you see him read a book? That must have been an accident or maybe your mind is simply toying with you again…

it’s almost somewhat funny how Hawkins always claims that he never initiates sexy times and that you are the horny one, when it’s actually the other way around but never say that to him or he will give you the silent treatment for a few days as revenge

as far as foreplay goes, he tends to be rather lazy and often acts as if you’re asking the impossible of him. Hawkins sometimes pretends to be quite the diva, but the main reason for that is because he knows that it will get you going

also this man occasionally wears lingerie and loves to hint at it without immediately showing you, which serves as another way for him to tease you

one thing important to note is that Hawkins can be really into BDSM depending on his mood- in fact there are days where he’ll refuse to get it on unless you pull out the cuffs, and then there are some where he can easily do without it

however if there is ever one thing he is not willing to do, then it’s being degrading. He has no problem with playfully looking down on you that’s true, but taking it that far just makes you look absolutely pathetic and causes him to lose any sexual interest and excitement rather quickly. The same goes the other way as well, by the way!

Hawkins also tends to get bored rather easily with repeating the same thing over and over again… how about sprinkling in a little something to spice things up some more? He is definitely open for suggestions…

and although submissive most of the times, there are quite many occasions where Hawkins is not afraid of taking over the reigns and actually being a top. The magician considers himself a 'switch’ who will not do the same old thing two nights in a row, so versatility in the bedroom is a guarantee!

#one piece #dirt #x drake #scratchman apoo #basil hawkins #male!s/o #op headcanon #one piece headcanon

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nate-santos · 4 years

Text

O, Death || Nate & Morgan

@mor-beck-more-problems

Nate gets his tarot read! Nothing bad happens!

Nate had never had any sort of psychic reading done before, and while most might think the whole practice was fake or silly, he wasn’t so sure. At this point, Nate had seen enough to know that pretty much anything was possible, even the ability for someone to read his future with a few pieces of cardboard. He was overwhelmed with nerves all evening as he ran around his house making sure it didn’t look like it was entirely in disrepair. Sure, he’d just gone through some flooding and he’d never really made the interior feel like home aside from towers of take out boxes, but Morgan didn’t need to know that he lived such a sad life. Not that she wouldn’t be able to tell just by reading his future...god, was all this stuff really real? He paced the familiar path next to his front door as he waited for Morgan to arrive, jumping into action probably quicker than he really should when her knock finally came. “Hi! Hey! Welcome! Sorry- I’m uh...a little nervous...Would you like to come in?”

Morgan felt bad for how easily Nate fell off her radar. He’d admitted he was a zombie to her, over the internet, and he was always on the town social media checking in on things or saying nice things about other people. And somehow he was willing to pay her twenty bucks to hang out and give him a tarot reading despite knowing divination wasn’t her magic department. If she hadn’t needed the money so bad, she would’ve taken back the idea of compensation to get some good energy going in her favor. “Hey!” She said brightly. “Love to!” She stepped inside and--wow. Maybe the reason Nate was so nice for the same reason she tried to be: his existence away from the rest of the world was so...sad. “This is...great! Did you build the whole place yourself? It’s enormous.” She asked, tiptoeing around the takeout. It was nice, or it could be nice, if he knew how to give it a little love. She wandered to the back of the main room and looked out the windows. Trees on all sides and the brightest view of the night sky and the waxing moon. Nate would have made a good warlock, she decided.

Nate ran a hand through his hair, nervously looking for something to occupy his antsy fingers as Morgan looked around his sparse living space. He had been so proud of the design, and looking over the space now, he felt an overwhelming surge of guilt at how he was treating his “dream” home. This was supposed to be he and Mari’s forever house and he had only decorated it with take out boxes and safety proofing equipment. It was so pathetic when he looked at it through the lens of someone else. “Y-yeah! I designed it myself...I wanted to have a nice view and stuff...it was uh...planned for a while. Didn’t think I’d build it in this town but- well…” He trailed off, his eyes falling to his feet. “So uh...where are we supposed to do this? Do you need candles or something? ‘Cause I don’t think I have any...fire hazard and all that.”

“Well you definitely got the view down with these windows. And this deck!” Morgan exclaimed. She swiveled back over to him. “I brought the atmospheric candles, don’t worry. And your homeopath-tastic cleanser of choice. You seem like you might be a cedar and juniper kind of guy, but I also have lavender if you want to have a softer mood. And we can do it anywhere!” Immediately after she said this, however, she had a distinct feeling that no amount of magic, real or otherwise, would make this living room the kind of space where you would feel cozy hashing out your feelings. “But, since you’re asking, I would love to spend some time on your porch! It’s so nice out, it’d be a shame not to, right?”

Nate smiled lightly at Morgan’s positivity. The whole experience made him nervous, but then again, most things made him nervous. But she had an optimism to her that made Nate remember what it was like to feel happy, even if his nerves were overtaking him. “Oh uh...I’m not sure? I don’t really know what any of those smells...do? But I think uh...softer might be...ideal?” Nate kicked at the toes of his shoes, unsure what to do with himself. “Outside? Uh- yeah, sure!” Nate glanced out the window, noting the bright sky, the nearly full moon reflecting on the river. It did look peaceful, almost like it wasn’t the back yard of a man who would become a monster once he died. Nate grabbed a few blankets and led the way out to the porch, plugging in the few strands of twinkle lights he’d installed and rarely ever used. “Is this ok? Or should I turn them off? I’m- I’m sorry, I’m a little nervous…”

Morgan beamed at Nate, nervous about everything, even a little aromatherapy. But, yep, in spite of his lumberjack figure, Nate was as soft as a flower petal inside. If she’d met him in person before, she probably wouldn’t have bothered with the cedar in the first place. “Lavender is perfect,” she said.

Somehow she ended up leading the way to the porch and setting out space for them. Blanket, candles, lavender. “Are you kidding? The lights are perfect! You need to have people over more often, you could throw some amazing parties!” But, that was probably not going to happen anytime soon, if they were being realistic. Morgan took her seat on one end and gestured for Nate to take the spot opposite. When he was ready, she passed him the deck, “So, what do you want to know about your life right now, Nate?”

Nate chuckled. As if he even knew enough people to have a party at his place. Even though he’d originally designed it for entertaining, without Mari around, it just felt...empty. All the time. And that was fine. Sometimes Nate thought maybe he liked the sadness it brought. It was like a penance for not being there to save her. As if being bitten by a zombie wasn’t bad enough. “I uh- yeah...maybe when it gets warmer out,” he hedged. The view overlooking the river would be the perfect backdrop for a backyard BBQ, complete with neighborhood kids running around and his friends laughing over a beer. Nate shooks the thought out of his head. He settled in, focusing back to the present. “I-” he paused, wringing his hands in his lap. “Will I die soon?”

“Nate! Your whole future isn’t written in stone! And there’s nothing in you that could have the answer for that besides your own fear. Ask something that acknowledges that you have some agency over yourself. Fate--” Morgan hesitated. Fate, as far as she could tell from Deirdre, was a real and terrifying bitch. Fate wanted you for life, sometimes. But Fate couldn’t possibly have her hands in everything. There was too much universe and too much magic for her to steal Nate’s potential on the mortal plane or her fucked up family curse. Right? “Fate doesn’t have every card in the deck. You have some power, right now, to choose how your life takes shape. Doesn’t it matter how? Isn’t there anything you want to make sure happens before the end?”

Nate stared at his hands, falling silent for a long while. He wasn’t sure that he did have agency over when he was going to die. He liked to think he did, and he sure did try hard to make sure it wasn’t any time soon, but at the end of the day, he would still become a monster when it happened. For all his research and all his attempts, there was still nothing he could do to change that. He racked his brain trying to think of an easier question, perhaps something that might even ease his mind, if only for a moment. “Ok...ok…” Nate crossed his legs and sucked in a long breath. “Will I...find peace? Before the end?”

“There you go,” Morgan said. “How will you? What do you need, right now, in order to find peace at the end? She took the cards up and gave them a shuffle, thinking of Nate all the while, and laid them out in an arc facing him. The fireflies buzzed gently in the air, looping their peaceful infinities. They buzzed near Morgan’s neck and dipped across Nate’s vision. She hoped, for his sake, the pull of life to him was a good sign. Okay, thinking about what you need, right now, to find your peace, draw a card.”

Truly, Nate wasn’t sure what it was that would bring him peace. Seeing Mari one last time? A guarantee than once he died, he wouldn’t wake up and murder the first person he saw, consuming their brains? Knowledge that there was a real cure to what he was? He closed his eyes for a moment, centering himself as much as possible. He resisted the urge to swat at the fireflies, knowing they weren’t poisonous, before reaching out to pull his first card. Flipping it over, his stomach knotted, unsure what it meant. “Is that...good?”

The card was Death. Poor Nate, Morgan thought with a sigh. It was good, insofar as anything was good, but it sure would’ve been helpful if the cards had been less...aggressive. “So, you may not believe it, but yes. This isn’t about literal dying, it’s about letting go. Letting something that’s tired, broken, and no longer helping you...die. And out of that passing, finding space for something new to take shape.” She gave Nate the most encouraging smile she could muster. “Sometimes death is something that is, something that fits into the balance of everything. This Death, it only comes for you when it’s really time. When the bones your dragging are ready to be laid to rest. Especially when those bones are old stories you’re used to telling yourself that just don’t do what they’re supposed to anymore. Am I making any sense?”

Nate wasn’t familiar with tarot cards or their meanings, but a card that literally reads DEATH couldn’t be good. He could feel the familiar wave of panic cresting over him and his hands gripped his chair. “Y-you sure? It’s- literally...it’s death!” Nate rocked slowly, trying to calm himself. Death and rebirth. Death of things he’s been carrying around. Death of his fear of dying? Did that even make sense? Nate wrapped his arms around himself and looked up at Morgan. “Is- there another...would the next card maybe...be better?”

“Nate, please don’t freak out,” Morgan urged gently. “Death can be--” She hesitated, wondering for a moment if there wasn’t something in the cardstock after all that knew she was here and taking a two-way jab. “--Even real death doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can just be. Or be a gift. I don’t know how exactly, I just heard it from someone who’d seen a lot of it and that’s not what this is about anyway, I want to emphasize that--but it’s possible. And if even real death can be a gift, then letting go of this something in you can be a gift too. It just wants you to let go. As gently as you can. And it’ll be caught, and so will the rest of you. You won’t fall when you let go. This Death will catch you and the whole world will open up.” She smiled sadly at him, and decided not to question who she was more sorry for in that moment. “But, you should definitely draw another card!” She said, straightening herself up with cheer. “Three card pulls are nice and easy.”

Nate drew.

“Ooh! Look how strong he is, right? This is what you’re really aiming for, what’s waiting for you after you’re caught! The Hierophant is a master teacher. He’s got all the rules, the knowledge, usually in some kind of organized structure? And, as counter-intuitive as it might seem, you could actually move closer to finding that kind of firm, organized knowledge if you let go. Or maybe there’s someone you know like this already, and they want to help you! It doesn’t have to be a man, I should probably mention that. All these energies are around and in us. It’s what they’re offering you that’s important. Is that--does that--make you feel any better?”

Nate struggled to calm his breathing, squeezing his eyes shut before managing to suck in a few deeper breaths, forcing serenity into his body. He was afraid to open them, to see the next card that could destroy his future. But what was he gonna do? Chicken out? Pretend like any of this wasn’t real? Maybe...maybe he would get caught. Maybe Morgan was right. Maybe death wasn’t the death he thought. Nate slowly opened his eyes and stared down at the cards, flipping the next. Morgan’s reaction was all he needed to feel the smallest bit better. “Y-yeah,” he started, feeling one of the zillions of stress knots in his stomach start to loosen. But as was always the way with Nate’s luck, a shadowy figure sent him straight into another panic. “But...uh, M-Morgan? Were you uh...expecting anyone else?” His eyes were locked on the figure behind Morgan, making its slow approach towards the house. “C-cause my...neighbors are...out of town….”

Morgan was preparing to explain the next card, the Hanged Man, making a full set of major arcana cards, no suits, just big, demanding energy, when she noticed Nate go still with alarm. “Someone else?” She asked, confused. She looked over her shoulder and--

No.

No, this was bullshit. She was not seeing him right now. This was some evil, cursed, supernatural bullshit. Morgan felt sick. She sank onto her hands, her chest tightening. His face had been all wrong, sagging to one side, swollen on the other from the impact of hitting that tree, like on that last day. Morgan fixed her eyes on the deck, waiting to see his staggering footsteps. She waited. Nothing. Morgan risked a look up and-- nothing still. “Fuck this,” she hissed, and scrambled to her feet towards the door.

Nate scrambled backwards, feeling the sense of unease rolling off of Morgan in waves. Whoever this was was not welcome here. “W-where are you going? What’s happening??” He rushed after her pulling them both into the house and locking the door out of reflex. “Do you know that person?” His brows furrowed, not understanding why she might have invited someone else to their reading, but honestly hoping she did. It was better than the alternative which of course was that some shambling stranger was wandering around his yard in the pitch black darkness. As if he wasn’t already horrified of his future.

Morgan pressed her back to the door. “Person?” Morgan hissed through her teeth, voice shrill. “What kind of person disappears as soon as you stop looking at them!” Was this some kind of hex? More White Crest bullshit? Morgan’s brain was firing too fast for her to think, and she didn’t even know half the critters that lived in the cursed place. But whatever was making her see her Dad, mangled and estranged from his real self as he’d been on the day she lost him, after the time she’d had with the treasure chest coins, was on her list. “That is a thing,” she growled. “Some stupid curse, some ghost out of a stick or I don’t even know! But I am not putting up with this!” She went to her bag and started rummaging. Nothing stood out, nothing seemed right, she was running too fast from this to think. “What do you know about the weird things here?”

Nate shrank back at Morgan’s change in demeanor. She’d been so calming before the appearance of the man, though Nate couldn’t fault her. He was straight up terrified now. “I don’t know!! But it- it looked like a person!!” Nate eyed the door, knowing his locks were more than secure, but if that...thing wasn’t a person after all, would all the locks in the world even work? “I know...there’s a lot of it? Everything’s weird?” He wasn’t sure what Morgan had in her bag that could help them right now, but he prayed she knew more than he did about this sort of thing.

Peeking through the door’s window, Nate’s stomach dropped to his knees. No longer did he see the figure of a man, but a lumbering woman, limping along with one arm barely hanging onto her shoulder. In the pale moonlight, there was no mistaking her. Mari. Nate crashed to his knees, his head slamming hard against the door as sobs raked through him. “N-no no no no….she’s- she can’t be-” Somewhere in the back of his mind, Nate wanted to try to help Morgan, but it was all he could do to breathe. His love had come back after all. It only took nine years, but she’d finally found him. He wondered if she were able to eat normally she might have some sort of chance at a real life, like Remmy had. Crawling over to the front window, he saw Mari’s intestines trailing behind her, muscle and raw sinew draped across her shoulders like some sick shawl from beyond the grave. “M-Morgan-” Nate croaked, pointing out the window.

Morgan screwed her eyes shut and tried to remember breathing. In. Hold. Out. She was doing it too quicky, and under her lids she saw the palm tree lunging towards them, the way his body bounced against the steering wheel on impact, how still he was. She opened them. What had Nate said? She? “‘She’ who? What are you talking about?” Morgan turned and staggered back. The figure was pulverised, bloody and draped in gore. “Do you--do you know her?” Distracted, Morgan found her iron and salt. If this thing wasn’t a ghost, it was at least ghost adjacent. That had to mean something. “Nate, get back from the window. She’s not--whoever you think she is. If this turns out to be another bullshit curse thing...” she added through her teeth. There was nothing to say after.

Nate shuffled himself backwards away from the window, clenching his eyes shut. Whoever - whatever Morgan had seen had to have been awful if it had snapped her into such a frenzy. If it was anything like Nate’s ghost from the past, he wondered how she could still make complete sentences. Then again, Morgan seemed a good deal stronger than Nate in a lot of ways. He backed himself up against his weathered couch and wrapped his arms around his knees, waiting for the next instruction. “W-what kind of curse?” He stammered through sobs. “She’s- it’s not really- please tell me it’s not really-” another round of sobs choked him off.

Morgan had to bend over to keep from looking at the broken girl in the window. Her stomach was trying to spiral its way up to her throat and having the iron and the salt didn’t really solve the problem of ‘now you have to get outside and touch it with those things.’ And Morgan knew just like she knew that she’d had it too nice, too balanced, too cozy, that if she went out to take a swing at that thing, it would turn back into her dad. Or maybe her mom. Or maybe her college roommate, freshly lacerated with glass from her fall. And she wasn’t ready for that. She couldn’t stomach this punch from the universe. Even if it meant another one would find her later, she’d handle it over this. “No,” she snapped, breath hollow in her throat, “No it’s not really her! I don’t know what it really is but it’s mean and it’s awful and if I made this happen with my stupid danger zone, I’m sorry!” She straightened up and looked around the house. Suddenly it seemed like there were too many windows, too many places for it to find her, and her Subaru was too far away for comfort. “Where’s your toolbox? You’re gonna need salt and iron and to stop looking at whatever that asshole is! Just stop, stop looking at it, it’s just being cruel!” Her voice was growing shrill as she spoke, the more she fought herself for control, the more it seemed to run away from her. She went for the kitchen and started pulling open drawers and cabinets, pulling out anything that looked close enough to what she needed that it would transmute easily and shoving it onto her pop socket, til there was a steady pile of each. The knives she left alone. Maybe Nate would be able to use it in a pinch. “I’m sorry,” she said again, arming herself with one of the extras. It made her feel safer, having a spare.

Nate peered up at Morgan with tears in his eyes. He didn’t take it personally, but her biting tone cut through him like a knife with his nerves as raw as they were. Shrinking into himself he muttered a response. “T-tools are- the shed-” Sobs continued to crash through him, along with every image of Mari’s mangled corpse from the woods so many years ago compiled with these new fresh horrors. His hands slapped to his head, fingers curling his locks into knots. Morgan flitted around him in a frenzy, ripping open drawers and pulling out random knick knacks. It was clear out of the two of them who would be useful when the apocalypse came and who would immediately turn into a blubbering mess, incapable of doing any real help. Whatever magical strength had come over him when he saved Taylor and her boat was beyond his reach now. Sucking in as much air as he could between sobs, Nate tried to pull himself together, just in time to see Morgan preparing to flee. Oh no….no no no no no. She couldn’t leave him here with- her. “W-where are you going?!”

Morgan had her jaw set and her resolve doubled down. She could take a lot from her curse. She had, in fact, already taken a lot. More than a lot of people she knew. But this was too soon, too much, and the curse magic could call her up another time to yell about it. Throw something different. Mulligan on the misery. She marched to the door, thinking about how much she needed to see, what she really needed to focus on to get out of here alive. “I just can’t do this right now Nate!” she said. “But whatever that thing is, it’s not your friend, so don’t look at it!” And before her conscience or her fear could reach up to pull her back, she was out the door, gunning for the safety of her Subaru. It fluttered comfortingly to life and in the dim, she leveled her gaze to only the barest, closest strip of the road. Behind her she heard something like buzzing, but for all she knew it was the thrum of her own brain trying to shut away what she’d seen.

#chatzy #o death #tw gore #wickedswriting

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