#they were really angling for just firing me outright for never measuring up to their constantly shifting and increasingly bizarre goalposts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

Kazakhstan’s Minister of Communications and Informatics has blocked the Tumblr site because it contained 60 sites of terrorism, extremism, and pornography in 2015.

#they were really angling for just firing me outright for never measuring up to their constantly shifting and increasingly bizarre goalposts

subtlereferencetomyinterests · 4 years

Text

Communication Issues (AT:TTSIMBCMEOAYSFIL)- Chapter Three

Ao3, MasterPost, Chap.1, Chap.2

Relationships: Eventual Romantic Analogince, Romantic Prinxiety, implied background Moceit

Warnings: Misunderstandings, Miscommunication, Self-isolation, Arguments, Unintentional Emotional Repression, Body Horror (in the form of Remus being Remus!), swearing, some small descriptions of pain, self-deprecations. There’s some fluff in the middle cuz I’m not pure evil, but this is pretty angsty :3 (I promise it’ll have a happy ending u just gotta wait ok). Remus uses it/its here, and is also aromantic.

Word Count: 8,167

Now, dramatism isn’t one of your functions, so you like to think that you’re being entirely reasonable when you say that you’d rather die than inform your closest friends that you’ve grown to love them a bit more than platonically.

And yet, here they are. Sitting on your couch, in your cluttered room, staring up at you with expectation in their eyes. They’re waiting, Logan. You didn’t actually expect to avoid this forever, did you?

Maybe you did, but it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve been wrong.

But you digress: you owe them the explanation they came here for. And as you open your mouth to speak, your voice is not nearly as measured as you’d like it to be.

“As I said before, It was never my intention for you to think I did not want to see you- that is to say, it simply wasn’t feasible, given- well- there were certain complications, you see…”

Virgil narrows his eyes, bemusedly, from his contorted position across the arm and top cushion of your couch.

“What kind of complications?”

You look at the carpet, but it doesn’t offer much visual stimuli. You look up at the ceiling, but the angle makes your neck ache. You settle your eyes on your bookshelf instead, studying the multi-colored covers of novels that span the length of the entire opposite wall.

“...Complicated ones.”

Virgil snorts, a sound that usually has you thinking about just how adorable he can be, but the sound is devoid of humor in its current form.

“Care to elaborate, Teach?” Roman inquires, his legs folded comfortably under himself as he watches you. He’s managed to keep himself pretty still and quiet, though you aren’t sure if that’s attributed to his current restraint or the effects of your room.

You push your glasses up on your nose. They fall back to their original position. You repeat this action almost compulsively.

“It’s foolish- Very foolish. I know this is somewhat hypocritical of me, but I believe it is for the best that I do not burden you with it.”

“You aren’t a burden!” Roman squawks indignantly, in conjunction with Virgil snipping: “We’re well past that, buddy.”

You feel your face heat, embarrassingly enough. You aren’t sure why, but their instant and vehement defensiveness for you is a bit motivating. They… they won’t hate you for it. They might even understand, if you’re willing to be optimistic about this.

“You could call it. Jealousy, I suppose.”

“Jealousy?” Roman scrunches his nose, uncomprehending.

“Yes- I know it isn’t exactly fair of me to feel this way, but it’s the unfortunate truth. I have noticed that the two of you have become much… closer, than you once were,” you see the two of them flush in embarrassment, which only serves to prove your point. “Rest assured, I’m very happy for the both of you and your bond. It’s just that I’ve realized that I have become essentially irrelevant, which I find to be… upsetting. And I know you both are far too kind and non-communicative to outright tell me this, thus I decided that I would take matters into my own hands by giving the two of you your much-needed space willingly.”

You do not add that you’re also avoiding them because you can barely stomach being around their PDA. It seems unnecessary, and maybe a tad pathetic.

Virgil recovers from his embarrassment at your calling him out quickly enough, his abashment being engulfed by indignation. Oh, wonderful. They really can’t let up without a fight.

“What the hell are you talking about?” His anger is clear, but all three of you know that he’s only upset at the situation.

“I would love to remain as your friends, of course, I only meant that it would be best if I didn’t interrupt you two-”

“Interrupt us?!” He’s very near shouting, leaping up from his seat and stalking towards you. He stops less than a foot away, and you try desperately not to recoil from him.

“Yes,” you sound meek, don’t you? “It only made sense-”

He stares at you as though you’re an idiot. It’s a despicable look, but when you turn your attention to Roman for a reprieve, his expression is no different.

And then they- oh, what they do next brings you more pain than any expression ever could. It starts quiet, like they’re trying to hold it at bay, but their resolves crack and crumble.

They laugh. They’re laughing at you.

You shouldn’t have let them in- not into your room, not into your head, not into your life at all. You should have known that when your genuine emotions came to light, they’d only find it humorous in the end. Because you, Logan- Logic, your ‘feelings’- they’re hilarious. They are nonsensical and hardly befitting a being such as yourself, yet you have them! And you actually began to speak about them! What a comedic situation. You’re a fool in every sense of the word- both a jester and an idiot.

They aren’t even laughing that hard, but to you each small sound reads as a raucous, villainous cackle that tears apart your skin and leaves you raw. Roman’s head is tipped back and he appears to be shaking with amusement; Virgil is trying to press his lips together and stifle his chuckling, but he’s doing a poor job of it.

Something writhes in you, much uglier than your shame or guilt. It squirms beneath the layers of your skin and runs up and down your spine, tensing your muscles with its electricity. It’s fury, burning nearly as bright as your face surely must be with this humiliation.

How could they, tricking you into caring for them, convincing you to help them and support them, only to then heckle you when you hand them your trust. It was such a fragile thing already- which you know is preposterous, trust isn’t tangible, but in this moment it feels quite like a cracked window finally shattering to useless shards.

“Out.”

Virgil is startled into silence immediately; Roman makes a strangled sort of sound as he stops laughing.

“What?” They chorus, both looking ready to contradict you with drawn out and over-emotional arguments.

You won’t give them that satisfaction.

“Get. Out. Of my. Room,” your shaking speech is blanketed in monotone; it’s like a towel thrown over a forest fire; it won’t last long.

Their eyes widen comically. They speak all over each other, clamoring to explain or excuse their actions, but to you the pleading is naught but white noise.

You gave them a chance to leave of their own volition, but if they’re so keen on remaining a nuisance, then fine. You huff a sigh, turning your back to Roman and Virgil. With a snap, their chatter cuts off unceremoniously, and you are left cold and lonely.

When you turn around, they’re gone.

<<<???>>><<<???>>><<<???>>>

You don’t get a chance to react before you’re thrown upwards through the floor of your bedroom. You land in an unceremonious heap, half-on and half-off of your bed, losing your balance almost immediately and toppling to the floor. Rising up makes you dizzy enough as it is, but being forced away from somewhere makes you want to vomit.

You pull yourself up from the ground, holding your head in your hands until the world stops spinning. As soon as your brain gets working again, you can hear thunderous footfalls out in the hall. They stomp right past your door and down the hall. There’s a series of loud thumps, rattles, and shouts, before whoever it is retraces their steps.

You walk to your door as if on autopilot, opening it just as Roman was about to knock. He’s panting, distressed.

“We fucked up,” he says.

“Yeah,” you pull him inside, slamming the door behind him, “We did.”

“I didn’t mean to, you know that right? I wasn’t laughing at him, I wouldn’t, alright?” Roman spirals, “He thinks I did! It was just ridiculous, was all! To think that we don’t want him around- to think-”

He curls into himself. You catch his hand before he can press it against his chest, unfolding him. You hold his wrist and rub little patterns into the back of his hand.

“Ro, hey.”

He glances up at you, wild-eyed. Eyeshadow is already creeping its way down his face.

“Why don’t we talk about this in your room instead, hm?”

He nods, shaking, with a small mutter of ‘right, right’. You nod back, holding onto him just tight enough that your claws don’t quite dig in.

You materialize in Roman’s room, dragging him along with you. Almost immediately a fierce pulse of energy overwhelms you. You stagger in shock, but Roman doesn’t even blink at the force. He pulls away from you and falls upon his massive, plush, circular canopy bed with a despairing whine. You can’t really blame him.

The Creative power of this room takes its effects on you faster than any other side’s abilities could- you really wonder how Roman is so used to it. You sit on the bed beside him, intending to comfort him as he buries himself further into his hoard of pillows. But then, you can’t. You can’t sit down. Far too much troubled excitement is pooling in your stomach; far too many ideas and thoughts are running through your head, and the loudest of them are desperate appeals to start fixing this mess.

Anxiety and Creativity wouldn’t theoretically mix well, but that’s just the thing about theories. They’re often wrong, so very wrong or crackpot or conspiratorial. The truth of it is Creativity and Anxiety work together wonderfully, both as concepts and as actual, metaphysical creatures. You’ve known this, even if you won’t admit it, since you were all teenagers. But only now does it hit you just how much Roman’s abilities can do for you. It takes all of your energy, all that pent-up fear and frustration from what’s just happened, and it gives you the tools to actually use it for something.

It also makes you, ya know. Just a little recklessly confident.

“Alright, Princey, get up.”

He whines again, shifting his head just enough to glare at you.

“I’m wallowing in self-pity! For the reason that one of my dearest friends thinks me a- a bully! How are you not freaking out about this?”

“Honestly?” You wrap your hands around his wrist again, pulling him into a ragdoll-ish sitting position, “I’ve got no idea. Mentally I think I’m in the fifth dimension or some shit, so we gotta work this out quick before I come back down and really lose my mind.”

He grumbles, but you see him biting back an amused smile. Flopping his legs over the edge of the bed and making no movement to stand, Roman narrows his eyes up at you.

“Alright, alright. We need to give that conversation another go, I know that, but we should give Logan some space first. He’s unlikely to hear us out now. You know how headstrong he is when he gets… like this.”

You nod, vacantly, because you're already three steps ahead of where he is in the conversation.

“Yeah, good point. More time.”

“Right,” Roman draws the word out, looking at you strangely, “So why aren’t you moping with me?”

You pull the reins of your practically palpable energy enough to sit down, right next to him.

“We obviously have to work out this-” you gesture between yourself and Roman, “-before we can really talk to Logan,” once the sentence is out of your mouth you wish you could swallow back the ‘obviously’, because Roman is usually slow on the uptake and you’d never intentionally make fun of that. But he does nothing more than scrunch his face up in exaggerated confusion, the pink tint to his face giving away that he must have at least some idea what you’re implying.

“What- what do you mean by that? The two of us already get along famously!”

“I think you know that’s not what I meant. You’re using your stage voice. You always do that when you lie.”

“Who are you- Janus?” He cough-laughs awkwardly, breaking eye-contact with you. You’re surprised that you’re holding up any better than him, but your strongest reaction at the moment is a mild blush and some prickling at your skin.

It is for these reasons that you both love and hate Creative-Mode Virgil. He is a very productive and efficient version of you, but his propensity for acting bold and impulsive makes you want to strangle him. Him being you, of course.

“Look, Logan was wrong to think that he was a third wheel, or whatever, but I’m pretty sure he was right about the… closeness with us, I guess.”

Roman’s staring at you with wide eyes, a deep red flushing him from his ears right across his nose and cheeks. He’s clearly trying to smile, but it’s coming out awkwardly strained, almost twisted sideways. There’s a second when the anxiety rushes back to you in a wave of oh no you misread this so fucking bad of course he doesn’t feel that way about you you’re his best friend whatthehellwereyouthinkingVirgil- and it almost wins you over, but you’re in Roman’s Room. And that doesn’t just mean motivation and creativity.

Your paranoid thoughts could never beat what’s ingrained into you as a fact. You can feel the romantic tension, almost like it’s a physical presence in the room. Maybe it is. A part of you- most of you, in fact- still wants to convince you that you’re doing something wrong. But it’s getting harder and harder to believe the longer you sit here, knowing that these emotions you feel aren't entirely your own.

“Virgil,” he breathes, and you can feel it on your skin- when did you get so close?

“We don’t have to do anything about this,” you start to backpedal, but you don’t move away from him, “Not if you don’t want to, yet. I just… we had to talk about it, I think.”

“So you…?”

The hesitance in his voice destroys your resolve. You reach out, tucking up both of his hands in your own.

They’re warm.

“Yeah, I- yeah.”

He surveys you for far too long; it’s hard not to squirm. You let him watch you, though, just so he can find whatever it is he’s looking for in your expression. When he does, it only draws him in nearer.

“You and Logan are right. I love you, V.”

You try not to smile. It doesn’t work.

“I figured.”

He huffs at you, shoving you, but he’s grinning widely. You roll your eyes at him. You don’t speak for a while, holding your tongue for as long as you can- but you really need to say it. Just so he knows.

“I love you back, though. Or- something like that, I don’t know…”

Roman laughs outright at that, tossing his head back. You can already feel the energy you were given twisting into an entirely contradictory exhaustion. Because of that, you don’t even try to pretend to be annoyed; you just watch, fondly.

When he’s settled, that amused look turns sharply to worry.

“So now what?”

You pause, running your thumb over his knuckles as you think the question over.

“Logan?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Well, like you said, we give him some space.”

“And then?”

You glance up at Roman for confirmation, but you don’t need to. Like you said, you can feel it; his room is a pretty big snitch.

“We tell him we love him.”

You let yourself forget about what happened, just for the afternoon. It’s hard, but what choice do you have? It’s out of your hands for now. And, while usually that makes you even more nervous, you manage to force yourself into the shape of something vaguely undaunted. After all, if you can’t tell Logan just how much you care about him, you can still remind Roman.

In your own way, of course.

“Hey,” you mutter, for what must be the millionth time that evening. Roman turns his attention away from the vent-art he’s working on, glancing at you.

“Yes, Knightmare?” He asks, but the tired and affectionate smile on his face says that he already knows your game. Damn, and here you were thinking you were subtle. (not.)

“Mmh,” you press your face into the side of his neck, leaving a few miniscule kisses to the skin there. Your arms are twined around his waist, a position that bordered on- oh, who are you kidding, it’s exceptionally clingy.

The embarrassment that you feel from so openly displaying such sappy, disgusting affection is overturned, however slightly, by the quiet laugh and kiss to the top of your head that Roman returns to you for your efforts. You hide your smile in the crook of his neck.

You continue to shower Roman with attention for a minute or so, covering his face with little pecks and pressing yourself against him, before leaning back a few inches. You sigh. He resumes his work, resting his back against your chest as he does so.

You will let him continue to draw for ten or so minutes. You will ask for his attention again, and he’ll give it to you with a slightly wider smile than the last time you did it- that smile grows exponentially, but only by tiny increments.

You’ll kiss him all up his neck and the side of his face, hug him even tighter, listening to him laugh in a much too relieved voice before you let up once more.

And he’ll be a little more sure of you each time. A little more sure that you two can do this together.

<<<???>>><<<???>>><<<???>>>

You are not a patient entity when it comes to the things you want. You are, in the best of cases, the exact opposite. This gets about One Million Billion times worse when the one thing that you want is to declare your love for someone, and said someone hasn’t left his room even once in six days.

Virgil, Patton, and Janus (once you’d relayed the situation to the latter two) have essentially been keeping you on a leash at all times of the day- or night- to make absolutely sure that you don’t break Logan’s door down. Which- to be fair- you wouldn’t put it past yourself to do that, but still.

But even with the distraction of a new boyfriend (boyfriend!!!!) and those two overbearingly caring friends of yours, you are still Physically Unable to Not Do Anything currently. And, you suppose if you can’t break Logan’s door down, you might as well try that idea out on someone who wouldn’t bat an eye at such an, ah, intrusion seems to be the fitting word.

“Uurghhhhh!”

You drop yourself face first onto Remus’ bed in your usual melodramatic fashion, immediately regretting it because fuck that smells horrid. When was the last time it washed its sheets?

Probably never, actually. You sit up.

Your sibling is sitting cross-legged on its desk, working on something that’s got a good deal of goop and limbs. It looks up at you blankly.

“Ro? What the hell are you doing in here?” It doesn’t sound angry, just very, very surprised.

“My life is ending.”

“Fun! Does that mean I get full creative control?”

“No! And it’s not fun, you animal!”

It scrutinizes you, setting its strange arthropodic creation down on the desk. You lean back when it leans forwards.

“Wow, shit must be really bad if you’ve decided to come here!”

You nod, miserably.

“Okay,” it claps its hands together, standing up only to fall against the bed beside you. It’s half-sitting, half-laying; the way it twists all its limbs up can not be comfortable. “What’s going on?”

You glare at it, but you aren’t sure why. Probably just because it is there and you need something to glare at while you talk.

“It’s Logan…” You trail off, waiting for Remus to catch on. It takes its time thinking, even more expressionless than before.

“You know why he hasn’t left his room in days? I tried to check on him but he barely told me anything. Just said he was tired, and ‘thanks for the concern’,” it says at last, catching you off-guard.

“You mean you haven’t heard? I would’ve thought Patton or Janus might have told you.”

It taps its claw to its chin a couple of times, thoughtful. The implication clicks just a second later, apparently, because it lets out a whining groan and drags its hands down its face.

“Oh, not that. I can’t do anything if it’s that!” It exclaims, “Yeah, they did mention it, but I guess I just tune that kind of thing out,” it pauses, “...It’s because you and Vee are fucking now, right?”

You flush, embarrassment and indignation welling up at the back of your throat. You bat Remus’ shoulder, bristly as a thornbush.

“No, we aren’t- I mean, not yet- I mean, that’s none of your business!”

“You did kinda come to me for help, though, so it actually is.”

You glower, refusing to justify that with a response. It rolls its eyes at you, turning over so that it’s flat on its back with its upper half hanging off the bed.

“It’s your bad to come to me for romance advice. You couldn’t have asked literally anyone else- yourself, for example?” It fusses with its talons as it rants, snapping off a couple of nails absentmindedly, “It’s not even the fun kind of gross.”

You can’t believe you’re considering saying it. You won’t! You shouldn’t! You refuse!

“...Please?” Oh fuck, you’ve done it now.

Remus pulls its head up slightly, a very smug grin across its face. Its teeth are horrendously crooked and yellow-stained, looking much too big and sharp to fit into its mouth.

“Awww, you’re begging? God, you’re so desperate.”

It’s very difficult to resist the urge to push it off the bed. But you are a pillar of restraint today, because it’s not entirely wrong about that, and you still need it to help you.

“Look, it’s too personal to my own life for my abilities to do me any good. And Virgil can’t talk about it- he’s way too frazzled to even think about it, the poor thing. Plus, Patton and Janus aren’t… great… at things,” that’s a very soft way of putting: the former gets much too emotionally invested and the latter is entirely snarky and unhelpful. “So I came here. I think a more, erm, detached point of view could help.”

Remus hums at that.

“I guess there’s nothing more detached from romantic issues than someone who’s never had any- you’ve come to the right place in that case.”

“So you’ll help?”

Remus slides slowly forward until it’s landing in a heap on the ground, various crunching noises resulting from the impact. It huffs, lifts itself up to rest its chin on the edge of the bed, and stares at you unblinkingly.

“You’re not allowed to tangent about how pretty his eyes are or how much you love his voice, or anything like that, got it? Otherwise, I will puke, and probably into your mouth just to shut you up.”

You gag, perhaps a bit exaggeratedly.

“That’s vile!”

“Thank you! Now, bitch to me about your problems before I get bored.”

You look down to your lap, winding and unwinding your fingers repetitiously. You think about the past couple of days; in many aspects, it’s been wonderful. Virgil actually wants to be your boyfriend! And that’s what he is now! Of course, you both are just as cuddly as ever, but now you don’t have to worry about holding back. That’s been an amazing relief.

But there’s always that little thing missing, holding you back from being content completely. You want to give Logan his space, truly you do, but every day you feel a little more distant from him. A little further from being able to fix things. It’s familiar in all the worst ways.

You blink rapidly, remembering where you are before the emotions overcome you. With a shaky breath, you begin to speak. It’s just a summary at first, but then you can’t help but give Remus your most detailed accounts of, well, everything.

You gauge its reaction intensely, but it’s as inscrutable as ever. You finish the tale hurriedly, expectant for some sort of response from the creature across from you.

There is an intolerable silence as you practically see the gears turning in Remus’ brain, which is funny because you thought Octopuses were supposed to have nine of them. You have no idea what it’s using all the other ones for, if that’s the case.

“You laughed at him,” it smirks when it speaks, sounding out the words slowly. You scoff.

“We were laughing at the situation! We didn’t mean it to seem that way. It was just bad timing! ”

It cackles at you, sitting back on its legs and tossing its head back. It sounds like a shrieking kettle.

“No wonder he’s so pissed! He thinks you think his feelings are a joke! His whole deal is not wanting to be that. That’s, like, his big thing.”

You’d… sort of figured that’s what happened, but hearing it out loud still stings. To think you’d done that to him. He was getting so much better with his feelings, but you had to go and ruin it.

“I already know that I- we-” mental filtering, Roman, “We caused the issue. I wanted to know how to fix it.”

Remus stops laughing as suddenly as it’d started, looking at you with all the sincerity of, perhaps, someone capable of being serious.

“Corner him,” it answers simply.

“Excuse me?”

“Corner him. Your first mistake was that you went to him in his room, which meant he could just throw you out of there. He’s stubborn, right? Plus, he thinks you were making fun of him. He’s not gonna come out to have a civilized conversation on his own, cuz he’s a dumbass, so I don’t think more space is gonna help you out here. Lure him out! Tie him up, if it’ll make him listen!” Remus pauses thoughtfully, “Orrrrr you could try amputating his legs entirely, but he’ll probably grow them back. He’s annoying like that.”

You choose to ignore the last suggestion, focusing instead on its main point.

“Are you sure that won’t make things worse?”

“Define ‘worse’ for me, in terms of right now, currently, in here on this day.”

“Good point.”

Remus nods to itself, standing up from the floor and stretching its arms above its head. Its shoulders dislocate, but it pops them back into their sockets once its done. This almost feels like the conclusion of the conversation, but you get the impression that it’s taking its time to piece together a sentence with a little more finality.

“He was obviously crazy about you two before, which means he probably still is. He’s also a sad little shit, though.”

You move to stand as well, curling your fingers against themselves again.

“You really think so?”

“Oh, I have no idea. That’s your department, remember? Now, get out of my room; no alloromantics allowed after-” it checks the time, clearly making the rule up on the spot, “Five twenty-six P.M.”

“Fine, fine, I can take a hint,” you place your hands on your hips, feeling just a little more confident in the wake of this talk.

“‘Hint’? I explicitly told you to leave.”

You grumble at Remus, but make your way to the door nonetheless. It turns back to its desk, grabbing for a jar that seems to be filled with insect legs. It’s immediately refocused into whatever strange creatures it was working on, pulling them apart and shoving them back together. You let the affronted look fall from your face, replaced by a small, fond smile.

“Thanks, Re.”

It glances back at you, briefly.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s nothing…” it pauses, its hands stilling. “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” you say, earnestly.

You leave, letting it get back to its work.

The hallway smells like a fucking Macy’s compared to Remus’ room. Jesus Christ, it’s a relief.

You shut the door behind you with a soft click, leaning back against it with a deep, shuddering sigh. It’s been a long week.

Ah, and just on time, as if to prove your point, there’s a gravelly shout and a thump from downstairs. You draw yourself to attention, shaking the slump from your shoulders. You flit through the narrow hall to the top of the stairs, listening carefully for an issue to resolve or an unseemly beast to slay. A prince must protect his subjects, after all.

For a few seconds, all you can hear below is frantic whispering. You set a foot on the top step, but you don’t get the chance to descend.

Virgil is there like a flash of lightning, speeding up the stairs and heading right for you.

You startle, spiraling back to escape his path, but it’s futile. He catches you at the top, sending you both crashing into the opposite wall. Pain shoots up your back at the impact, as well as sparking in your shoulders where his claws are gripping you. You hiss, the sound dying when you meet his eyes.

They’re bright. No, glowing. No, seeping- their color is seeping into the world around them, curling in little streaks of murky green and violet around Virgil’s face.

He speaks, but it’s without distortion. It’s clear and crisp. It isn’t quite anxiety that’s consuming him this way, no, it’s something much more powerful.

“Roman,” he takes your hand in a fervent grip, “Ro, it’s Logan.”

You blink, and before you really know what you’re doing, you're already halfway downstairs.

<<<???>>><<<???>>><<<???>>

Light, sparse taps are turned out against the solid wood door. The sounds, however small, echo throughout this packed little room.

Your fingers stall above the laptop’s keyboard, and for a fraction of a second frustration overcomes you. It’s gone as soon as it comes, replaced unceremoniously by numbness. This is a minor inconvenience to your work, but not much else. Thankfully, you are not one to dwell on it; after all this time, you are finally in complete control of your faculties and your emotions.

The knock returns, more sure of itself as it hits against the surface. Bemusedly, you wonder why on earth they’re still bothering- but, that isn’t them, it belatedly occurs to you. The rhythm isn’t that of some showtune or another, nor is it harsh and pounding.

You aren’t sure how many days it’s been since you’ve heard that particular sound. You aren’t sure… What day is it?

Well, regardless, you’ve been jarred from your work. You could ignore it and continue on- you’d likely forget it soon enough- but the fact that you recognize the presence specifically as Patton stops that idea in its tracks. He’s sensitive, an overthinker to an extreme degree. He could entirely misconstrue it as a dislike of his company if you were to not respond, unlike a flippant Remus or a collected Janus. And, well…

You’re over it. You’ve been over what Roman and Virgil did to you. But even though you very much are, it’s still perfectly reasonable to not want to be near them. There would be nothing to gain from talking to them, and you’d like to spare yourself the headache. But, you digress; Patton was not a part of what transpired. He would not do that to you, and therefore he is not an impediment to your work. Looking at it rationally, he is in fact a great source of comfo- help, for you.

With this in mind you stand, making your way across the room. You stagger when you walk, like something’s pulling you in different directions. Odd. The feeling is somewhere in your head, sinking down your vertebrae, insisting that you need to remain in the sanctity of your room. If you leave, the pull suggests, then all your carefully built clarity of mind should become disrupted. How strange for such a convincing conviction to be so seemingly baseless, you reflect.

The knock returns, and that is of course a much more pressing issue. There’s a pull coming from there as well, only one much fiercer and easier to place. It’s the strongest thing you’ve experienced in some time, like someone’s arm around your waist, guiding you forwards (even if there isn’t anyone there, really).

“Good afternoon,” you intone, drawing the door open with excessive force. Strange, again; maybe you had just forgotten how heavy it was.

Patton stands across from you, shock written across his features with his fist still poised in the air, as though to knock again. He drops the hand quickly, reaching out instead with both arms while a grin consumes his face. But the limbs spasm concerningly, and stop. He sweeps his arms back and presses his balled hands tightly against his chest, still smiling at you, only a little more strained. His eyes are big, murky pools of color and emotion, raging and contradictory and impossible to make sense of. Even looking into them is overwhelming.

“Hi, buddy,” he says it so quietly, but the actual words don’t matter. He says it with force, like perhaps he’s localized every emotion he’s ever felt entirely into his tone of voice.

You blink at him, an undefined question on your lips before that pull behind you turns into a sharp push, and before you know it you’re slumping forward into the hallway and out of your room. As you’re forced out, you narrowly avoid hitting the carpet. That’s thanks to Patton, who rushes forwards with a yelp, hauling you up into his sturdy arms with very little effort.

The confusion you’d felt leaves you in a great big rush, replaced by fire. Your skin is consumed by burns at your friend’s touch- or at least it feels that way, but logically it cannot possibly be actual flame- but fuck logic because you’re on fucking fire.

It’s an all-consuming heat, but that’s hardly all it is. It’s breathing. Like you’d been holding your breath to the point of mad deliria and only now are you gasping in great, relieved breaths of clear air as some great and stifling weight is lifted from your lungs. It also feels like moving from an ice bath to a sauna all too quickly, giving you the greatest relief in conjunction with horrific pain.

Oh. You’re crying.

“Shh,” Patton whispers, as though this isn’t anything out of the ordinary, “It’s okay, it’s alright.”

You hold onto him hesitantly. Are you sitting? You think you must be, judging from this position.

“Do you need me to let go? Is it too much?”

You open your mouth to speak, and your voice is in perfect, frightening monotone.

“Yes, please.”

Patton draws back gently, just far enough so that you’re not touching. Big, crocodile tears crawl down your face still, but they begin to die down after a moment. You get your breathing under control, even if just barely.

“I didn’t want you to fall and get hurt,” Patton explains, “But I realize that making you touch a living vessel for emotion might’ve hurt, too, after- well, after that,” he gestures vaguely to your room, and then to yourself. You tilt your head in confusion.

“What-?” You look down at your arms, and the question dies on your lips.

It’s lifeless; corpse-like. The cold, slate-gray painted up your arms and probably across your whole body. The color looks sucked out of you, leaving only emptiness in its wake. The only sign that you’re a living being and not a husk, a shell, a piece of shed skin- other than the tremble of your frame- is the shocks of electric blue running up your body. They could be veins, if not for the fact that the lines were perfectly straight and geometrically cornered.

Patton reaches out, pensively, and presses a cautious finger against the back of your hand. At his touch, the spot bursts into life like watercolor on wet paper. Lively, peachy skin with cool undertones appears, before fading back to gray as Patton removes his finger. And it stings.

You jump to your feet with a struggle, hardly registering when Patton follows your lead. You spin on your heel, staring through the open door and into your room. You can’t imagine entering it- just the feeling of being near it shortens your breath. It’s frigid, it’s hard and unshakeable and dark. It is completely and entirely devoid of emotion or life, and you hadn’t left that frozen hellscape in days.

It’s a wonder you can feel anything at all, after what you’ve done to yourself.

A shaking gasp rips out of your throat, and before you can think another panicked thought you jolt forward and wrench the door shut. You back away from it until your back hits the opposite wall.

“I- I didn’t realize I was doing it,” your words sound like pleas, falling from your mouth without your consent.

“I know,” Patton stands beside you, close enough to feel but not to burn.

“I didn’t mean to, I just-”

“I know.”

“I was doing better. I was doing so well, I was happy.”

He nods solemnly.

You’ve been aware of the existence of your emotions, and relatively accepting of it, for a good deal of time. Hypocrisy is unsustainable. You can’t very well preach the negatives of repression on a weekly basis and then go on to practice it indefinitely.

But what you are… everything that you encompass, everything that encompasses you, it makes it much too easy to slip up. To force out every pesky feeling in favor of more ‘important’ things. What it really is is a pitiful defense mechanism, unfortunately built deep into you by the purpose of your being. And it seems that your room can even do it without your knowledge.

“Logan?”

You look up, unsure if he can even see how miserable you are. Can you emote anymore? You try to frown, but your muscles are stuck like plastic.

“Why don’t we get you somewhere else and see if we can get some of the feeling back into ya, okay?”

You adjust your glasses once, then twice.

“Not your room, I would hope?”

“Oh, goodness,” he lets out a startled laugh, “Of course not, that would be way too much! I was thinking somewhere a little more, uhm, neutral?”

You perk up at that implication. You could just go to the common room, of course, but that’s hardly the only unaffected area in the Mindpalace. Your world isn’t quite real- and even if it is it’s extremely fluid and easy to influence- meaning you can make about just as many locations as any of you would like. Which includes structures ‘outside’ of your ‘house’.

An ill-defined existence like that might irk you, if you were in a philosophical mood. Thankfully, the only mood you’re in right now is sad.

“Yes, I think a change of setting could be beneficial.”

Patton chirps happily, much like a tree frog, and makes to lead you downstairs. You follow close behind him, chasing that emotional high but still nervous of the pain that it could cause you.

You’re on edge for reasons enough already. The idea that you could run into them is a prominent one that you’d rather not focus on.

For a split second you think you might have to, though, because there’s someone sitting on the couch when you step down from the landing. Your breath catches in your throat, but then he looks up at you, heterochromic eyes wide with surprise, and you exhale steadily.

“Hello, Janus.”

His eyebrows arch up at your greeting, perplexion in his smile. Appraisingly, he observes you, offering only a small wave. He addresses Patton when he speaks.

“Well, Dear, it seems you were right to be concerned about him.”

Patton mutters something that you can’t quite make out, looking disconcerted.

You’d be flushing indignantly, if you had the ability to. Your shoulders hunch up as you glance between your friends.

“You’ve been talking about me?”

They both look acutely uncomfortable, exchanging looks. That’s answer enough for you, though.

Oh, just look at yourself. You’re a spectacle now, aren’t you? Poor Logan, getting his metaphorical metaphysical heart broken, only for it to become the talk of the MindPalace for days on end as he relapses into repression. Isn’t it such a lovely thing for you to be? A piece of gossip. Entertainment.

Janus’ worry grows on his face, and soon he’s up from his spot and hastening towards you. You step back from him, trying to remember what glaring is meant to look like. He doesn’t invade your space again, but he just… stares at you.

“Would you like to talk about it?” He asks. You can almost laugh at the question.

“I’m sure you already know all about it, though, don’t you?”

Both of them are taken aback by your snapping. You regret it immediately; they haven’t done anything wrong, not really. They’re trying to help you, it isn’t their fault that they got caught up in your ‘tragic tale’. But your frustration is difficult to push down. You get the feeling that you can’t push anything down, without worrying that something will snap; it’s almost like an overworked muscle.

“Whatever you think has been happening out here,” Janus speaks, even and slow, “It’s not that bad, alright?”

Patton nods along with him, and reaches towards you. He falters, eventually opting to hook a finger through the band of your watch instead. Your skin prickles, but there’s no pain.

“C’mon, I was thinking we could try heading to the Clubhouse.”

That settles your anger, microscopically. You think Janus is being truthful, and Patton is nothing but consoling. And, of course, there’s the clubhouse…

You might not ever admit how much you like it. It’s been around since before you were around, back in the days of just Anxiety (the oldest), Creativities (tied for second), and a very newly formed Morality. Back when it was first made, it really was just a little child’s clubhouse, made primarily by Roman, with some disruptions by Remus, and small additions by a tiny Patton. It was probably the first neutral structure made up by the sides, as they had just begun to figure out their powers and the ‘world’ that they inhabited. Of course no one had the heart to get rid of it after that.

You give Patton a nod, angling your face so that it maybe looks like you’re smiling. He lets go of you, smiling back as he turns on his heel and heads for the door. You trail behind him, knowing that it must look very silly that you’re basically tailgating him. Janus follows you in turn, a few feet behind. He watches over the both of you protectively.

You step out onto the lawn, hearing grass crunch beneath your shoes. The wind is particularly biting, and the sky above threatens a storm. You’re sure that the weather in the real world isn’t this chaotic, so someone in the mindscape must be sulking. You don’t mind; it’ll only make the warmth of the Clubhouse all the more pleasant.

The Clubhouse has changed so much over the years that it’s unrecognizable as its original iteration. What once was a little stick-and-stone glorified fairy house is now a cottage-like building, one story high with a thickly thatched roof. Beside the door on either side are big bay windows, each made into little reading nooks. It’s essentially one big room, the outside painted with such vibrant pastels that it easily stands out against its surroundings.

The doors creak when Patton opens them, but not in a way that denotes damage or wear. It’s an old and comforting sound, one that comes from familiarity and consistent use. You step through the threshold, and affection floods your chest.

It isn’t large, but it’s well-equipped. There are ancient oaken tables stacked up with crafts materials, squashy bean bag chairs, and a bright rug or two thrown over the rustic hardwood floors. The nooks have pillows and blankets piled in them, looking like nests. There are bookshelves, art supplies, vinyl records (complete with a record player)- even some new-looking wall displays of preserved bugs and butterflies for decoration. To top it all off, fairy lights were strung across all the walls, making it all seem quite mystic.

You find yourself taking another step inwards; the amenities are incredibly inviting. Everything here is inviting, and homey, and lived-in. The house itself almost feels alive, nonsensical as that is.

It’s no wonder this is everyone’s favorite.

Patton watches you patiently, his hand resting on the door handle. You take a deep breath, but you aren’t sure why you need it. You make your way to the perfume-y, floral print sofa against the wall to your right, treating everything around you rather reverently. When you sit, you sink down into the couch.

Patton sits a respectful distance from you. Janus strolls right after him, knocking the door shut with the back of his boot before settling in an armchair on the left of the couch.

There’s a comfortable silence, and you start to feel your numbness abate. With a contented sigh, your head falls back against the cushion and your eyes fall shut. Not in an effort to sleep. You’re just… resting. You breathe deeply, letting the atmosphere envelop you.

The corners of your mouth twitch up.

“Logan!” Patton squeaks, “Look!”

Your eyes blink open, mildly startled at the outburst. Patton’s gaze on you is intense, first focused on your face and then moving down your arms. You follow the look, to see your...

Your perfectly normal, flesh-colored arms. Your human-ish, mildly tan, average arms. You feel what you can now recognize as a smile grow wider on your face.

“Well,” Janus chimes, “It seems you just needed a little break.”

“Maybe so,” your voice creaks from lack of use. You hadn’t even realized you’d been nonverbal since you’d last snapped at them. Neither had drawn attention to it, which you silently thank them for (they, after all, were all too familiar with the experience).

“Do you feel good enough to talk about what’s been upsetting you?” Patton gently asks you. And you… don’t have an answer.

“What is there to talk about?” You tilt your head bemusedly.

“I think he means, are you ready to talk to who’s been upsetting you?” Janus explains. Patton hesitates before nodding his agreement.

“I- what?” Your serenity leaves in a rush, replaced by astonishment and outrage, “You expect me to- to talk to them?”

You give them approximately three seconds to respond before plowing forwards with your rant.

“I’m talking to you both, isn’t that enough? You’ve done nothing to wrong me, of course. What does it matter if I don’t speak to those- those- those-”

Janus’ eyes expand to circles, the pupils shrinking to anxious slits.

“Those?” He prompts.

“Tricksters, betrayers, playactors, wolves- whatever you want to call them!” Where were vocab cards when you needed them? All your synonyms can’t carry the punch that you need them to. Insults aren’t much good if you have to explain them after.

“No!” Patton practically screams, out of absolutely nowhere. You glance at him, stunned, to see him looking like a kicked puppy- er, froggy. He’s on the verge of tears, leaning towards you precariously, with devastation swirling in his big eyes. “This is why you need to talk to them, please, Logan.”

You are so very bewildered, you barely notice that Janus is standing from his chair until he’s already across the room.

“As I said earlier: whatever you think happened, didn't. I can prove it, too,” he mutters, standing by the door.

“You weren't there, Janus,” you snap, "I tried to tell them how I felt and they- they laughed at me.”

“They didn't!” Patton squeaks. You shake your head frantically, still reeling.

“It was- it was awful, you can’t-”

“No,” Patton interrupts, “I meant that literally. They didn’t do that.”

This interaction is making your head spin with indignation. You are capable of immense patience when it comes to Patton- and Janus, for that matter- but this has become ridiculous.

“I’m so tired of being made a mockery of, Patton. I won’t stand for it any longer, even if you’re just trying to help.”

He breathes in sharply, about to argue, but then his gaze catches on something behind you. His mouth stays open, but he’s soundless. You jump to your feet, spinning around to see just what he’s looking at.

The door is open. Janus is gone.

There's a shout from the main house.

Taglist: @shrimp-crockpot @glitter-skeleton-uwu @intruxiety @thefivecalls

(Lemme know if you wanna be added or removed :3)

50 notes · View notes

godkilller · 3 years

Text

ROLEPLAYING A FIGHT

DETAILS AND EXAMPLES.

As I touched on in my previous tips ‘n tricks post, fight threads should never happen in a void. There should be concrete connections to your character’s main storyline, their goals, their motivations, and other contributors to why and how they’ve found themselves in this current situation. That ALSO being said, the fight should literally not happen in a void: WHERE IS THIS CONFLICT TAKING PLACE? Describe, as an ‘establishing shot’, where your character is. Are they outside, is there a lot of room for them to run around and get into a scuffle? Are there trees, cars, buildings nearby? Will there be a high potential for objects (and people passing by) to get harmed / damaged in this battle? Does your character care about causing destruction during a fight, are they the type to say “let’s go somewhere else”?

Describing the space your characters are in is an excellent way of UNDERSTANDING WHERE YOUR CHARACTER STANDS, literally, because POSITIONING IS REALLY IMPORTANT! You don’t have to go absolutely crazy detailed when dishing out specs on where your characters are, but a general sense of “an opening within a clustered bamboo forest” or. “a half-constructed abandoned building” can really determine how the fight goes within that space, and most importantly how your character moves through that space.

HOW DOES YOUR CHARACTER MOVE? Are they fluid, are they clumsy? Do they hunch, do they stand tall? Describing essential details pertaining to your character’s appearance, their demeanor, can help solidify them in that space. Do they sway when they talk? Do they jitter when they’re nervous or anxious? A conflict is brewing, are they looking for an escape? Do their eyes keep darting to other distractions, or to look for an opening?

THE FIRST MOVE. Who makes it and why? Example taken from a threeway thread involving Matsumoto Rangiku, Nnoitra Gigla, and Ichimaru Gin. Featuring @oboete-iru & @despairforme respectfully. Gin’s POV:

“ ❝ I saaaid... that’s e-nou-gh. Besides, why would ya go ‘n break her wieldin’ arm if she ain’t a thre---- ❞ in a flashing beam, a bared blade, his left foot swept back to brace as black-lined white billowed to reveal Shinso’s lunging bite directly past Rangiku’s hip------to drive a deep unrelenting strike into his upper ribcage; close to the armpit of the limb that held her still in favor of convincing the uncoiling reflex of his fingers. Gin aimed with precision, and with deliberate proximity to the very target he wished to not be thrown into the line of fire----quite impossible for the Espada to potentially thrust her into the fray considering Gin’s angled approach... lulled by his interrupted speech. The traitor sought to be swift; the blow would surely send the Espada backward in its connection------and hopefully result in her release. ”

Throwing the first punch is a decisive moment for many reasons, but it also should still speak to your character: DON’T EVER FORCE A FIGHT THREAD FOR THE SAKE OF ONE, if your character would rather talk their way out of a situation, exhaust that route first before going feral at your thread partner.

With that aside, let’s dissect this moment.

We get some dialogue to start the moment off, because Gin is a character who will casually chat, but he’s also cunning -- he interrupts himself to create a more abrupt attack. The motion is described as swift, so NOT MUCH IS SAID ABOUT EXACT MOVEMENTS, but we get what we need: his blade is drawn (”a bared blade”) it’s moving fast (“a flashing beam”) Gin has added strength to this strike by falling into a wider stance (“left foot swept back to brace”) and we also get where he’s aiming “directly past Rangiku’s hip to drive a deep and unrelenting strike into [Nnoitra’s] upper ribcage, close to the armpit” We also get motivation: Gin wants Nnoitra to let go of Rangiku, striking to “convince the uncoiling reflex of [Nnoitra’s] fingers” -- so we get this all relatively quick. In fact, it’s all almost condensed into one big sentence.

I don’t really worry about proper sentence structures and lengths because in fights, things should not be adhering to neat sentence pacing, they should be paced the way the fight is unfolding. Gin moves fast, and a lot of things happen at once, so that’s my style choice when writing a lot in one sentence. You can do things differently, this is just my preference!

Notice that none of the language implies that Gin’s target is being struck. The words and phrases used are open for Nnoitra to respond to, to react to, rather than to submit to. I describe things as “quite impossible” for Nnoitra to, say, throw Rangiku in front of Shinso in time -- because I want to stress the speed of Gin’s attack, and guide Nnoitra’s writer away from doing something I feel wouldn’t be realistic without the outright act of godmodding. I say this, however, by still giving Nnoitra the OPTION to do exactly what I have just stressed as DIFFICULT TO DO. Maybe he can still try to throw Rangiku into the way! It’ll be a tight window, but hey, surprise me! Writing this moment also shows that my character is actively deciphering yours, deciding what they could do and preparing for that: Gin knows Nnoitra’s dirty, and thus he’s taken a measure to avoid Rangiku paying the price by striking quickly and at an angle that would make it hard for Nnoitra to bring her harm.

At the end of this Moment(™) I top off the attack by mentioning that IF IT HITS, it’ll do X. Not only that, but IF MY ATTACK HITS, IT’LL DO X TO YOUR CHARACTER, AND HOPEFULLY CAUSE X. This sets up a potential chain of events for your writing partner to consider. If they decide that Nnoitra is going to take this hit, they can also consider: will Nnoitra be sent back through a wall, or will he drive his weapon into the ground to slow his skidding enough to avoid that? Will this be enough to make him let go of Rangiku? I have now given Nnoitra’s mun a few things to think about, or “goals” to either reach or adjust the outcome in their following reply. Nnoitra now has to a.) react to an incoming strike b.) be moved by it, either via being struck or by dodging, and c.) deal with holding onto or letting go of Rangiku, with the option of d.) a counterattack at Gin, or at Rangiku, in response to Gin likely pissing him off.

Describing motion that impacts a character other than yours: KEEP YOUR LANGUAGE OPEN, you can legit drop a “if this hits” to keep yourself from unintentionally godmodding contact onto your opponent. If you’re ever unsure, write like your character is thinking: they’re not thinking that their sword has already landed, they’re thinking about what’ll happen IF it does, or WHEN, but in an open-ended sense. The character themselves should never just manifest a blow landing in their heads as they’re swinging it, if that makes sense.

Open-ended language go-to’s for me: “aimed with the desire to cause (insert what’ll happen if your blow were to land, like ‘causing an immense force to blast all debris, and even dare to throw [opponent] backwards’)” or “their weapon sought to (insert what their attack trying to do, like cut off an arm, slash across a chest, or chop at the other’s weapon) with a wide strike” or “they parried, then moved to attempt a disarming scrape of their blade against the other’s, the swinging momentum a convincing pull to urge the swift release of the blade” etc. etc. I’m staying very vague, but the concept’s there!

THESAURUS TIME! Does your character move fast? Swift, fast, quick… those can get a little boring if your character is ALWAYS moving in that nature. So try to sometimes spice things up by playing with words that can replace your common descriptors.

https://www.thesaurus.com/ is your fellow student who’s working on a group project with you -- you shouldn’t lean so heavily on it because they’re not your friend, but it’s there to help you get the job done and together you can spruce up a neat end result.

MAKE SURE THEY STILL MEAN THE SAME THING, and don’t go too crazy as to lose your reader or distinctly destroy your pacing, your style, and your voice. Sometimes simplified is better, like describing the WOOSH of a fast moment as opposed to saying “this moved fast” -- “a WOOSH of the blade” rather than “he swung his blade quickly” can sometimes make a moment more exciting and easier to read without things droning on.

Hey, speaking of droning on, (this post lmao!!! Amirite lads???) does your character’s weapon have multiple ways of being referred to? Since a fight stars your character and their trusty weapon, having a few different ways to title it in your reply can be a lifesaver from sounding too repetitive. Shinso is Gin’s Zanpakuto, a Shinigami’s katana, and it’s in a wakizashi form. This can be called a short-sword, a wakizashi, a soul-slayer, a blade, a sword, a Zanpakuto, a ‘fang’ (swords or blades in general can be called fangs, especially if your character has animal symbolism tied to them), a beam (when it’s being shot) … and a few other things, too, to avoid me having to constantly write “Shinso” or “wakizashi” when moving it during a fight thread. I try not to alternate TOO much, because then it becomes obvious, kind of like when people start deliberately avoiding ‘said’ and it’s a dialogue-heavy scene… don’t go out of your way, this is just to help you avoid having 34 mentions of ‘sword’ in your 5 paragraph reply.

So you threw the first punch, but what happens next? Well, you can actually end your reply once your blow’s been polished up and finished. But a little bit of juicy introspection can’t hurt, too! Your character’s just started a fight, what are they thinking? What’s the damage? Did your character just do something destructive or brash? Tell us how, and what’s to be made of the attack your character just threw. Here’s Gin’s following moment after striking at Nnoitra:

“ … it’d feel nice ( akin to a surging punch ) to slam his blade into the pitiful pawn’s side. One hundred sword lengths called for, due to their confinement, a collision course that involved Nnoitra taking a shortcut through a neighboring wall. No matter the Espada’s tough exterior, solid defenses, Shinso would not stop shy. ”

There’s some more info pertaining to Gin’s attack in here, drizzled with a brief introspection that Gin will feel immensely satisfied if he gets to land a decent hit on Nnoitra (coupled with a “pitiful pawn” quip that notifies readers that Gin really DOES NOT LIKE this character, nor does he think very highly of his status, which may or may not be a chance for the character of Nnoitra to surprise or impress Gin via a hearty fight)

The details of exactly how far Gin’s blow would carry Nnoitra are important due to the nature of Gin’s special ability / sword. Shinso will “not stop shy” implying that Nnoitra’s going to either have to dodge or get slammed, because the blade that’s hitting him won’t stop its travel until it’s 100 katana-length’s long. Now, back up to the first section of this post: describing your character’s surroundings. Gin and Nnoitra are in a hallway, and Gin struck in a way that means the hallway is not going to suffice in terms of room. SO DESCRIBING POTENTIAL DAMAGES IS IMPORTANT: it paints the scene better. If Nnoitra is going to take this hit, this also means that a wall is likely going to crumble and collapse due to how tough and tanky Nnoitra is. Cue a classic anime moment of dust billowing up, rocks tumbling, and rubble shifting.

In all of this, don’t forget to respect your opponent -- Gin’s strike may land, but right from the get go there’s never an assumption that Shinso will be able to pierce Nnoitra’s tough skin. Knowing about your enemy’s special traits and abilities can help you make these moments more respectable: I know that Gin’s Shikai will not be enough to cut past Nnoitra’s hierro, his ‘steel skin’ defense. The most that’s described is the action of Shinso batting Nnoitra aside and into a wall, despite it being a sharp blade, it’s not described as an impaling moment.

That being said, don’t pull your punches if your character is a powerhouse! Respect others, don’t godmod, but also look out for defending your character’s own strengths! This can involve you studying up on how strong your character is in their universe, and finding some relations and comparisons to draw from in order to properly ‘rate’ them against your opponent. This can also lead you to a very IMPORTANT step, though not always required if both writers feel comfortable enough to proceed unplanned: TALK TO THE WRITER.

Discuss what you think your character is capable of vs. their character in a respectful way, open to hearing “actually, I don’t think that would happen” or “maybe we can go this route instead, since my character can x y and z?” Learning how to protect your character’s power while also being mindful and open to your writing partner’s character can lead to a really fun exchange and a memorable fight. You can literally drop a tentative “hey, I’m replying to our thread and Gin wants to punch Nnoitra in the face” and be responded to with a “go for it, it’ll probably break Gin’s hand” or “oh snap! that’s his one weakness!!!” LOL. I mean, unrealistic, but seriously talk to your writing partner about things if this is something you’re both passionate and excited about!

PLEASE, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT FIGHTS SHOULDN’T HAPPEN IN VOIDS, if you feel like your characters should be interrupted, or end in a draw, or lose interest / dissolve back into talking rather than fighting, then do this! Will your character chose to run away if the fight starts going south for them? Will your character try to offer a merciful end, will they be open to sparing the wounded enemy character if they feel they’ve successfully won? Does your character end up saving the other character by getting them medical help? This can go so many different ways than just blankly fighting and someone winning whilst the other dies.

CONSEQUENCES! What will the consequences of this fight be? For Gin, he has struck out at a supposed ally in defense of a Shinigami intruder that by all means should be considered the enemy. He can get into some trouble for this, or at the very least gain some speculation on where his loyalties lie if word gets out about what he’s done. Other consequences include, too, the very real threat that if Gin fails, Rangiku’s going to be killed. Find how this fight between characters can ADD MORE WEIGHT. Gin really wants this battle to end quickly and quietly. It’s going to drive him to act in a no-nonsense manner, too, because he doesn’t have time to play around. THIS IS VASTLY DIFFERENT, DUE TO THE CURRENT CONSEQUENCES, IN COMPARISON TO HIM PLAYING AROUND WITH ANOTHER MUN’S CHARACTER IN A LESS STRESSFUL SETTING.

Long term consequences, and calling back to a past fight thread in a later thread can make things extra spicy. For example, now Rangiku knows that Gin’ll fight one of his own to defend her; he can no longer pretend to be some emotionless husk standing on the opposing side in the war, he can be confronted about this moment -- by Nnoitra, too, or by other characters who are told about what happened. Gossip’s a bitch, right lads?

Now let your character recover: have them take that nap, or indulge yourself in some juicy hurt/comfort threads with an ally of yours, or some angst about a lost fight hitting your character’s confidence and mentality hard; do they train, do they rest, do they seek out someplace safe to heal, do they hunt down their rival / opponent for a second try? Are they now afraid of certain things, do they have trauma? Near-death experience, or a major injury that now hinders them?

This is a great resource to writing injuries (tw for blood and other graphic depictions of violence, injuries, detailed there) If you’re not squeamish, you can really dive into the medical side of things and study up what kind of damages your character may be faced with. It’s alright to not be totally realistic, though, considering much of what’s being written is based entirely on fake super-powered scenarios.

Sometimes, when struggling on how to describe movement, I’ll go onto Youtube and look up “Battle choreography” or “top ten realistic swordfights” or other relatable content to assist me creatively. Watching things in slow motion or multiple times to nail the positioning can help immensely. By watching similar-themed fights, I can see how those people are moving and try my best to describe that motion in written form. I try to avoid TV/Movie scenes that have been obviously hounded on for their anti-realism, especially sword fights, the common victim to Hollywood’s ridiculousness. But hey, if your character is an absolute mad lad and can pull a John Wick moment, then pull up that badass clip and go for it!

THERE’S SO MUCH TO EXPLORE, SO HAVE FUN WITH IT!

#[ roleplay resource ]#[ out of character ] masquerade; hide your face #long post #PHEW.#this was extra hard and annoying considering a few of my laptop keys have been popping off.#also: i'm not trying to toot my own horn by using my own writing as examples to dissect: i'm well aware that my writing isn't perfect.#i just didn't want anyone to feel weirded out if i put their writing under a spotlight.

15 notes · View notes

just-my-sickly-pride · 5 years

Text

Ask Nicely || Roger Taylor x fem!Reader

summary || you and Brian have been friends-with-benefits for almost five months now, and things are going great. and then his housemate Roger finds out your secret - that you like calling Brian ‘daddy’ from time to time - and things definitely take a turn for the worse. the relentless teasing almost unbearable, until you realise that maybe Roger’s just jealous. guess it’s time to find out. modern day au. college au.

rating || explicit. 18+ only. do not read if you are under eighteen. daddy kink, some dom/sub dynamics. there’s also some Brian x reader at the beginning of the fic.

word count || 18.8k. oops.

author’s notes || the sequel to ‘the old college try’ that no one, not even me, was expecting - but it can be read on its own. requested by @hannafuckingsucks about thirty years ago (i’m so sorry for the wait). i know it’s not exactly what you requested, but i quite like how it turned out in the end, so i hope you like it too!

masterlist

“Oi,” Roger called from the living room as you made your way from the bathroom, wiping your hands on your jeans. “Quick question.”

You grimaced slightly at your hands. Ugh. You hated how dry they got in this weather after you washed them. “Yeah?” you replied idly. “Hey, do you think Freddie would mind if I borrowed his moisturiser?”

“No, just don’t use the rose-scented one,” Roger said. “That’s his nice stuff.”

“Got it.” You disappeared into Freddie’s bedroom. “What’s your question?” You found some moisturiser on his bedside table, made sure it wasn’t the rose-scented one, and helped yourself to it.

“Come out here and I’ll ask,” Roger yelled back.

You smiled, satisfied, as you rubbed your hands together, heading out to the living room. Roger was sprawled out on the couch, Xbox controller in hand, game on the TV paused. “Yes?”

Roger’s shit-eating grin made your stomach sink with dread. He held up your phone. “Why the fuck is Brian called ‘Daddy’ on your phone?”

In the span of about half a second, a number of potential responses flashed through your mind.

You could get mad about it and tell Roger to mind his business. That wouldn’t seem suspicious at all.

You could play clueless, like maybe someone changed Brian’s name on your phone as a joke and you hadn’t realised. That wouldn’t work either – you and Brian texted too often for you not to have noticed by now.

Or, you could tell Roger the truth: that you and Brian had been sleeping together in a friends-with-benefits situation on a semi-regular basis for just over five months now, and, when you were both in the mood, you liked to call Brian Daddy. And so you’d changed his contact name to ‘Daddy’ to give yourself a chuckle whenever he texted.

You decided to go with none of the above. “How do you know it’s him?” you asked casually, putting your hands on your hips.

“Two reasons,” Roger said. “One: no one else I know texts with all proper grammar and spelling and shit. Two: he’s asking if you’re still over.”

Well, shit. That didn’t work. “Well, it’s nothing, really,” you said with a laugh, meandering over to stand in front of him and holding out your hand for the phone. “That’s just– it’s a joke. It’s been like that for, like, ages now. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed already.”

Roger didn’t give the phone back. His grin stayed firmly in place. “Uh-huh,” he said slowly. “So this has nothing to do with the fact that you two have been sneaking around together for months?”

“We’ve hardly been sneaking,” you scoffed. “We just– we– we don’t broadcast it. Can I have my phone back, please?”

“You’re stuttering,” Roger said.

“I’m- I’m not,” you said.

“You are,” Roger said. He leant forward, eyes wide, spinning your phone in his fingers. “I can’t fucking believe it. You call Brian Daddy.”

“It’s an inside joke, actually,” you said, aiming for nonchalant.

“Oh, really? What’s the joke?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be an inside joke,” you said. “And it was really more of a you-had-to-be-there situation, anyway. So.” You held out your hand further, pointedly.

“By the sounds of it, I don’t think I’d want to be there,” Roger said. He made a face. “Brian? Really? Of all people?”

“It’s an inside joke,” you said again, this time through slightly more gritted teeth. “And anyway, even if I did call Brian… that – which I don’t – it wouldn’t be any of your fucking business. Can I please have my phone back, thank you?”

“You’re so defensive,” Roger said with a laugh, but held the phone out to you. You snatched it from him. On the screen was a text from Brian. You still over?

You gave Roger a withering look, and then angled away from him. Yes, you replied. I was having a good time hanging out w roger until he started being a little shit.

Brian replied a few seconds later. He’s good at that. What’s he done now?

You glanced up from your phone. Roger was watching you expectantly. “‘You still over’?” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Bitch,” you muttered, turning back to your phone. saw my phone when I was in the bathroom. saw ur text. and the name ur saved under.

Which is?

daddy. remember?

OH SHIT.

You couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Cute.”

You shot another glare at Roger, who was apparently enraptured by you standing in the middle of his living room, texting his roommate. “Are you done staring at me like a loon?” you said.

“I’m just trying to wrap my head around it,” Roger said, sitting back, crossing one knee over the other, Xbox controller hanging loosely in his hand. “You calling Brian Daddy. You know, out of the four of us in this flat, I wouldn’t have picked Brian as the one who was into the weird shit, you know?”

You have no idea how much weird shit he’s into, you almost said, but you stopped yourself. That would have been nothing but adding fuel to the fire.

Your phone buzzed. What did you tell him? Also, are you staying for dinner?

yeah I’ll stay if that’s cool, you replied. I tried to tell him it was an inside joke but I think we’re sprung.

Fucking fantastic. And we’re having fish and chips.

“I’m staying for dinner,” you said, pocketing your phone.

“Did Daddy say you could?” Roger teased.

“We’re having fish and chips,” you said, ignoring him. You sat down next to him on the couch and picked up the other controller. “Right. Prepare to eat shit.”

“I thought we were having fish and chips.”

You turned to Roger instantly, throwing the controller into the air like you were going to beat him with it. Roger cringed away, hands up to defend himself, cackling. “All right, all right!” he cried.

“You’re on thin fucking ice, don’t push me,” you growled, turning back to the TV. You jabbed Roger in the waist for good measure, and he yelped, but didn’t retaliate. He just giggled, and unpaused the game.

Despite your bragging that you’d make him eat shit, Roger was far better than you at gaming. He spent a lot more time doing it, anyway. But what you lacked in skill and experience, you made up in ridiculously violent threats and elbowing Roger in the ribs and leaning over him so he couldn’t see the screen.

It was how you usually played, and, as much of a little shit Roger could be, he was very patient with your antics when it came to gaming. He never got annoyed or frustrated – probably because he knew that if he did, if he made you sit still and play properly, you’d lose interest pretty quickly.

The entire time, however, things felt different. ‘Strained’ was too strong a word, but you could tell that something was on the tip of Roger’s tongue, that he was on the verge of saying something, but kept swallowing it down. The furtive glances, the gnawing on his bottom lip, the intakes of breath – you almost outright asked him what the hell it was he was dying to say. It wasn’t like the Roger you knew to be unsure about anything. Or to hesitate before speaking, for that matter.

But you didn’t ask, or push. Mostly because you had a feeling it would probably just open the door to more teasing. In fact, to your surprise, Roger didn’t bring up the whole ‘Daddy’ thing again at all.

That is, until Brian got home.

The second Brian unlocked the door and waddled in, arms loaded with shopping bags, Roger hollered, “Freak!”

“Hello to you too, Roger,” Brian said tiredly. “I couldn’t have some help, could I?”

“Brian’s a sex freak!” Roger cried delightedly, not even looking away from the TV, where he proceeded to stab your character in the back. “Sex freak! Sex freak!”

You sighed irritably and shoved at Roger’s face, and he laughed.

“Some help, please?” Brian prompted from the door.

“Sorry, sorry,” you said, abandoning your controller on the couch and jumping up, taking some groceries from him. “Yum, dinner smells good.”

“I know,” Brian said as you both headed to the kitchen. “I’ve had to smell it all the way home. I’m starving. Thanks for the help as always, Rog,” he added as you both passed Roger on the couch.

“Wouldn’t want to interrupt father-daughter time,” Roger said, and you could hear the smile in his voice.

“Ew, Roger!” you shouted from the kitchen, screwing your face up.

“You’re the one who calls him Daddy.”

“I don’t–” You cut yourself off with a sigh, shaking your head. There was no point of return now.

“Sorry,” Brian said as he started unloading the shopping bags. You helped, setting everything on the kitchen bench for him to put away.

“For what?”

“I don’t know. He only saw it because I texted you.”

“He only saw it because I left my phone on the couch,” you said. “Face-up.”

Brian’s lips twisted into a small smile. “Okay, maybe it is a little bit your fault.”

“It was,” you said. “I’m the one who set your name as that on my phone in the first place.”

Brian lowered his voice to barely above a soft murmur. “Well, I’m the one who likes being called Daddy, so…”

“Ah, so maybe it’s entirely your fault after all,” you said with a smirk.

Brian cocked his head to one side. “Let’s agree to take half the blame.”

You laughed. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Are you two done fucking in there, or do I have to wait longer for my fish and chips?” Roger called from the living room.

Brian sighed. “I can’t believe, after all this time, I’m finally going to murder him.”

“That’s very sexy of you to say so,” you said.

“Thanks.”

Roger piped up again. “Hello?”

“We’re not going to fucking serve it to you on a silver platter,” you shot back. “Come and get it, you knob.”

You heard a dramatic clatter, and a few moments later, Roger appeared in the kitchen, going straight to the plastic bags where the fish and chips were hiding.

“Did you get enough, Bri?” he asked, grabbing two styrofoam boxes in one hand and stacking them on top of each other. “Doesn’t look like much.”

“I got plenty, it’s just the three of us tonight,” Brian said.

Roger hummed in thought, going to the pantry to fetch the ketchup, balancing it on top of the boxes. “I think Deaky’s coming home at eight.”

“Where from?” you said.

“Dunno. Study session, I think?” Roger took one of the chips that peeked out from the edge of the styrofoam box, popping it into his mouth. “You know how he’s always starving after he’s been studying.”

“Well, thanks for the heads-up,” Brian said with a roll of his eyes. “A bit of forewarning would have been nice.”

“Sorry, thought you knew. It’s fine, he can have some of mine. And there’s that pasta in the fridge from two nights ago.” Roger wrapped his other arm around his hoard of food and shuffled towards the kitchen door. “I’ll, uh–” He gave you a wink. “–leave you and Daddy dearest to it, then.”

Both you and Brian made matching sounds of disgust, and Roger laughed gleefully as he left.

“I don’t think we’re gonna be using that for a while,” you said lowly, your lips downturned.

“What?” Brian said. “You calling me Daddy?”

You shook your head.

Brian threw out his hands in exasperation. “What?” he hissed. “So Roger is a dickhead, and I get punished for it?”

“All I’m gonna be able to think of is his stupid face.”

Brian huffed.

Despite yourself, you smiled. “Don’t be so dramatic. You’re such a baby sometimes.”

“I am not a baby.”

“You can be.”

Brian clicked his tongue in irritation. “Fine. Whatever.” He grabbed a styrofoam box. “I’m not fucking you tonight.”

You gaped. “What? Dude.”

“You heard me. You called me a baby. No sex.”

He went to leave the kitchen, but you grabbed him by the belt loop on his jeans, towing him back, and spun him around.

“Oh, no,” he said, backing up again. “Don’t even try.”

You raised your eyebrows at him, and wrapped your arms around his waist, holding him in place. “Do I even have to try?”

Brian sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “You’re unbelievable.”

You drew him in for a kiss, and his free hand curled around the back of your neck as he deepened it.

When you broke apart, you bit your lip. Brian’s gaze on yours was heated, and you knew you’d won. “Am I forgiven?” you murmured.

“I’ll consider it.”

You grinned. “I have that mini skirt in my bag. The one you like to fuck me in.”

Brian shuddered. “Yes, okay, fine, you’re forgiven. Fuck.” He kissed you fiercely, reaching to the side as he did so to slide the styrofoam box back onto the kitchen counter to free up both hands. One hand curled into your hair, gripping it tightly, and the other went to your hip, his thumb slipping up inside your shirt. You hummed happily against his lips. You’d thought it before, and you’d think it again: you didn’t believe you’d ever get tired of kissing Brian. Sometimes you wondered if you should have felt unnerved by the fact that the feeling of your friend’s lips on yours was both a welcomed and wonderfully familiar experience, but you never thought about it too hard.

“For Christ’s sake.”

You and Brian sprung apart as Roger stomped into the kitchen. “Just because I know about it now doesn’t mean you have to parade it everywhere,” he said, heading to the fridge, squeezing past you and Brian.

“You’re the one who walked in on us, mate,” Brian said. You both exchanged a glance – the moment was over. Brian clicked his tongue in irritation, and grabbed his styrofoam box, leaving the kitchen.

Roger took a can of Coke from the fridge. “Well, somehow I managed to go however many months without seeing basically any of it, so you must’ve been at least trying to hide it. And I want to keep it that way, thanks.”

You gave the back of his head a bewildered look as he disappeared from the kitchen again. Seemed like he wasn’t in the mood for playful teasing anymore.

Brian collapsed beside you on the bed, and you turned your head to share a grin with him.

“Satisfactory?” Brian said breathlessly, raising his eyebrows, his cheeks red and his skin glistening.

You nodded. “I’d say so, yes. I’ll give you a glowing review on Yelp.”

Brian snorted, looking towards the ceiling. “Ah, wonderful. Just want I want to hear.”

“The aftercare could use some work, though,” you said expectantly, wiggling your fingers.

Brian tilted his head back to see where your wrists were still bound to the headboard of the bed, and he quickly sat up. “Shit, sorry.” He untied the rope – you’d upgraded from scarves to actual ropes designed for this kind of thing two weeks ago after a spontaneous adventure to the local sex shop, and it had been money well spent – and you let your hands drop. Brian tossed the ropes onto the floor and took your hands, massaging your wrists.

“They all right?” he asked.

“Absolutely fine,” you said. “Honestly, considering how often we use the ropes, if you didn’t know how to tie them properly by now, I’d be worried.”

“So would I.” Brian settled back down beside you. You rolled onto your side, watching his profile as he stared at the ceiling, his mouth hanging slightly open, as it was wont to do. You could see his mind ticking away furiously, and you didn’t hesitate to say, “Check-in?”

The check-in was routine, but always a little nerve-wracking. It was checking in emotionally – a question of are we still on the same page? You’d both agreed that neither of you were romantically invested in each other, even after all these months, but, of course, there was always the possibility that feelings could still develop. And if they did, and they were one-sided, then things would end. That had been the agreement since day one. Luckily, your friendship had remained solid, and your bond was undeniably close in a strange way it hadn’t been with anyone else before, but there were no butterflies, no feelings of longing. Which was exactly how you both wanted it. The check-in was just a way to make sure.

Brian turned his head to look at you. “I’m really happy with how things are between us right now,” he said with a smile. “I love sleeping with you, and you’re one of my closest friends. But I don’t have feelings for you.”

You grinned. “Good,” you said, patting him on the cheek. “I feel the same.”

“If anything about that changes–”

“You’ll be the first to know,” you finished.

Brian nodded. “And vice versa.”

You sighed happily, your eyes sliding closed. “God, I love my life right now.”

Brian chuckled. “You’re just saying that coz you came three times in the past forty-five minutes.”

“Maybe so,” you mumbled, and Brian laughed again.

“Hey,” he said, and you opened your eyes to look at him again as he shifted onto his side, mirroring you, “is Roger bothering you at all?”

You snorted, amused. “What, you mean more than usual?”

Brian smiled. “I just mean about… this. About us.”

“Are you asking if his relentless teasing and badgering for the past week has been upsetting me at all?” you asked dryly.

Brian shrugged. “Just that – well, I don’t know about you, but it’s almost becoming a point of concern, how… overwhelmingly obsessed he is with it.”

“It is odd,” you murmured in thought. “I have thought about that, yeah.”

“It just seems like every fifteen minutes he’s cracking some joke about it, trying to stir me up in some way. Is he like that with you?”

“It’s different for me,” you said. “I don’t live with him.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Brian said. “But you’re over often enough.”

“Yeah,” you said. You sighed. “It’s not upsetting me. Annoying me, yes.”

“I’ve tried to tell him to bugger off, or even to leave you alone at least, but he – like you said, he’s relentless.”

You reached out and traced over Brian’s collarbone with a light touch. He shivered, and you smiled. “The only thing that’s really bothered me is that he’s telling everyone,” you admitted. “Just makes things…”

“Awkward?”

“Different. Now that everyone knows.”

Brian hummed. “You don’t think…”

Your finger paused. “What?”

“It’s… jealousy?”

Your eyebrows shot up. “Jealousy?”

“Well, yeah,” Brian said. “He’s jealous, and he doesn’t know how to deal with that, so he’s taking it out on us.”

“Who’s he jealous of?” You pulled your hand back abruptly. “You don’t think he likes me, do you?”

Brian frowned. “I don’t think that’s it,” he murmured.

You paused. “You don’t think he… likes you?”

Brian huffed a laugh. “No, that’s– that’s not what I was getting at. Pretty sure he’s straight, anyway.”

“Then what?”

“I think it’s just our whole arrangement,” Brian said. “The simplicity of it, maybe. Like, you can’t deny that what we have is fairly unusual. At least, for this length of time.”

“I guess so,” you said. You went back to tracing his collarbones. “Or maybe it’s the fact that I call you Daddy.”

Brian let out a short, sharp burst of laughter. “You really think so?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s crossed your mind before, hasn’t it? You made a joke once about how he makes so many Daddy jokes that he must have a secret kink for it as well.”

“I was just kidding.”

“Well, maybe you’re smarter than you realise.”

Brian broke out into a wide grin, and your finger lifted to tap on one of his pointy canines. His vampire teeth, you called them. The first time you’d tapped on his canines, he’d recoiled and asked what the hell you were doing – but now, he knew to expect it almost every time he smiled widely. It was just how you showed that you kinda loved them.

“Would it be weird?” you asked, gently pressing on the tip of his tooth absentmindedly. He opened his mouth just enough to softly bite down on your finger. “If I… did some digging? To find out if Roger secretly does have a fuckin’ huge Daddy kink?”

Brian drew back. “Did some digging? You mean interrogate him?”

You shrugged. “There are other ways.”

“What, sleep with him?”

You shrugged again.

Brian snorted. “You’d want to sleep with Roger?”

“I wouldn’t say no,” you confessed. “I’m not gonna say it’s never crossed my mind. It’s really just a matter of whether he’d sleep with me.”

Brian just laughed. “Oh, no, there’s no question there. He would definitely sleep with you.”

“Would that make you uncomfortable?” you asked. “If I did? He’s your roommate.”

“No, of course not,” Brian said easily. “You can sleep with whoever you want.”

You took a breath. “So… is this happening? Am I going to seduce Roger with my wily womanly charm and find out if he likes it when I call him Daddy?”

Brian made a sound in the back of his throat. “Well, if he doesn’t, that’s his loss.”

“Are we making a bet on it?”

Brian laughed, shaking his head. “No. We’re both on the same team here.”

“Which is…?”

“That we both think he’s hiding a Daddy kink. Agreed?”

“Oh, hard agree,” you said with a nod.

Brian’s hand went to your lower back, dragging you in close to him. “Maybe you should practice on me a bit first, though,” he said with a smile, his gaze dropping to your lips. “Just in case.”

“Just in case what?” you said, your blood tingling with anticipation. “I forget what the word is? You’re such a dumbass.”

“You never know,” Brian murmured, his eyes flicking back up to yours, but only for a moment, before returning to your lips. His hand smoothed up your side, around your back, and you arched into him.

“What if I don’t want to?” you said, just to be difficult.

Brian rolled his eyes. “You’re such a pain in the arse.”

“What if I want to dress up in my hedgehog furry suit, hm?”

Brian sighed, and let you go, flopping onto his back. “Not this shit again.”

You giggled. “What’s the matter, Bri?” you said in a whiny baby voice, clambering over him, straddling his waist. “Don’t wanna fuck me in my furry suit?”

“You know, I’m seriously considering that maybe you do actually have a bloody furry suit somewhere and you’re trying to convince me to let you wear it,” Brian said. He sounded pissed, but it was all part of the game. As he spoke, his hands smoothed up your thighs. “Which isn’t fucking happening. I indulge all of your stupid kinks, but that’s not one of them.”

You gasped, mock-offended. “But it’s your kink, Bri. I got it just for you, because you love animals so much.”

Brian shoved you off, and you fell onto the bed, laughing. “I can’t stand you,” he said. “I genuinely hate you. Get out of my life.”

You laughed even harder, and Brian sat up just to turn to you and stick his middle finger up at you, right in your face. You grinned, and grabbed his wrist, tugging his hand closer to wrap your lips around his finger and suck.

The shift on Brian’s face from faux disdain to arousal was immediate. “Oh, fucking hell,” he said weakly, and pushed another finger into your mouth. You took it gladly, your tongue sliding between them.

“There’s the wily womanly charm you were talking about, then,” Brian said.

You pulled off his fingers with an obscene sound, making him moan softly. “You have good hands,” you said. “Makes me wanna put them in my mouth.”

Brian sucked in a shaky breath. “Roger is going to have no idea what hit him,” he muttered.

You drew Brian’s fingers back into your mouth, loving how his eyes zeroed in on your lips. “Good girl,” he murmured, and you moaned.

He slowly pulled his fingers from your mouth, making you whine. “You gonna be good for me?” he said, his hand going to rest against your throat.

You nodded furiously. Already you could feel yourself growing wetter. “Just for you, Daddy.”

Brian grinned. “That’s what I like to hear.”

The opportunity presented itself two weeks later, at a party that the boys were invited to, and you were brought along as their plus-one. You’d discussed with Brian beforehand when the best time to strike would be, and you’d both decided you’d shoot your shot tonight. Through Snapchat, Roger had actually been the one to help pick out your outfit – your favourite dress that hugged everything in all the right places, cute platform heels, and a choker to tie it all together; he had an eclectic sense of style that you greatly admired, and so you always turned to him for fashion advice. You loved Brian dearly, but his idea of a good outfit involved honest-to-god clogs. Freddie liked to pitch in with fashion tips and tricks as well, but his offers were sometimes a little too bold for your taste.

You met at the boys’ place for pre-drinks. Freddie let you in, welcoming you with a warm hug and a kiss on the temple. “Can you please help us,” he murmured into your ear as he walked you to the living room. “Rog and Brian have been bickering like a married couple over what music to play for hours.”

Sure enough, the first thing you saw was Brian and Roger across the room in a heated debate, the record player sitting between them. You shook your head. As if you hadn’t sat through this sort of shit a thousand times over already.

You and Freddie hovered in the doorway, a half-empty bottle of cider in his hand, and a six-pack in your arms. You could see the back of John’s head over the couch. You could see his girlfriend Veronica too, where she was sitting in his lap, the two of them in conversation, blatantly ignoring Roger and Brian.

“I’m honestly in half a mind to just play something from my phone at this point,” Freddie said, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s already connected to my speaker. The only thing stopping me is knowing that they’d skin me alive if I tried.”

You snorted. “You only have, like, five records between the four of you, anyway.”

“I know,” Freddie bemoaned. “That makes it even worse.”

“We listened to Abbey Road on repeat ten times yesterday,” Roger snapped. “I like the Beatles just as much as the next white guy, but for the love of God.”

“It’s good,” Brian insisted. “Look, if you won’t let me play Tattoo–”

“Not fucking Rory Gallagher again, Brian.”

“Stop shitting all over Rory Gallagher! He’s the greatest artist of all time.”

“I’m not shitting all over anyone. Although you’re wrong.”

“Wrong?” Brian cried.

Freddie looked to you pleadingly. “Save us.”

You laughed. “I’ll do my best.”

You went to step forward, to say something, but then Freddie said, “I’m sure you’ll at least be able to shut Brian up, eh?”

You were half-expecting some joke like that, but it still made your stomach coil with embarrassment. “Ha ha, very funny,” you drawled.

“Or is he the one who shuts you up?”

You sighed, adjusting the six-pack in your grip. “Could I have a rough estimate as to how long Brian and I are going to be subject to this sort of thing? These little jokes? Just a ballpark estimate?”

Freddie put a finger to his chin, tilting his head this way and that, pretending to think very deeply about the question. “Oh. Hm. Well. Maybe, if I had to guess, dear… You know, put a gun to my head, I’d probably say… forever?”

“Fuck you, Fred.”

Freddie laughed. “I’d apologise, darling, but it’s just too funny. Brian, of all people–”

“Yes, I know, wow, Brian, somehow it’s Brian, I know,” you said, rolling your eyes.

“And you’re sure the two of you aren’t dating?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” you said. “We’re not lying, you know.”

“I’m not saying you are,” Freddie said. “It’s just…”

“I know,” you said again. “But we’re happy. Okay?”

“Oh, I’m sure you are, dear,” Freddie said with a cheeky grin. “I see how chipper Brian is after allegedly spending hours every other day ‘studying in the library’. I’m sure you’re just as delighted to get all that work done, hm? Really getting deep into your studies.”

You gave him a withering look, and his grin widened.

“Oh, hey!”

You looked over, and Veronica was peering over the couch at you, her face lit up. “When did you get here?”

“Hi,” you said, finally stepping into the room, Freddie close behind. “Just a minute ago.”

“Let me–” Veronica clambered off John and hurried over. “Look at you, you look gorgeous,” she said, her eyes sweeping up and down your outfit, and then she wrapped you in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispered furiously into your ear. “There’s way too much testosterone flying around in this fucking room.”

You laughed. “I’m here to save the day,” you said.

When you stepped back from the hug, Veronica took your six-pack from your hands. “You sort the boys out – I’ll get you a drink,” she said, nodding behind her.

Roger and Brian had stopped their argument temporarily, but you could tell that neither of them were willing to budge from the record player.

You ignored them, and turned to John, leaning down to give him a hug. “Hey, Deaks.”

“Sorry, should’ve stood up for you,” John said, leaning forward to hug you back.

You didn’t mind. In leaning down, you incidentally had given a nice view of your arse, wrapped tight in the dress you were wearing, to Brian.

And to Roger.

“No, don’t worry about it,” you said easily, straightening up and adjusting your dress. “Have you guys had much to drink yet?”

“Only one or two,” Freddie said. “Haven’t even cracked open the vodka yet, would you believe.”

“I have to say, I’m shocked,” you said. “What are you waiting for?”

“For you, my love,” Veronica said, coming back over to you, one of your drinks in hand. You thanked her as you took it. “Wanted to make sure the whole gang was here before we got too sloshed.”

“Well, I’m here!” you said, holding out your arms. “So, let’s put on some music and let’s get it going.”

Everyone laughed, and you stopped, your eyes widening, and you grimaced. “Oh, that’s right,” you said slowly, finally turning to Roger and Brian. “These two have been too busy measuring their dicks to actually play anything.”

The joke went down swimmingly with John and Freddie, and with Veronica. Not so much with Brian and Roger.

You grinned at them. They did look good tonight, both of them. Roger had re-dyed his hair a few weeks ago, and it had settled into the prettiest soft blond colour that matched his big blue eyes perfectly. His hair actually looked fantastic tonight, all fluffy and bouncy. His shirt was a button-up, brightly patterned, tucked into ripped jeans, and he was wearing his sparkly pink hi-tops that clashed both horribly and wonderfully with the rest of his outfit.

Brian’s trousers were black and slightly flared, his shirt black as well. He was wearing a floral-patterned blazer that you’d seen him wear before. You’d seen Roger and Freddie wearing it, too, and at this point you weren’t sure who it actually belonged to. The sleeves were a touch too short on Roger and Freddie, so on Brian they went only halfway down his forearms, but it worked.

Your eyes ducked to Brian’s feet. Clogs again, it seemed. Fucking weirdo.

You matched Brian’s gaze. Then Roger’s. “Hendrix,” you said simply.

They looked to each other, glared, and then Brian sighed in defeat, knowing you were right, and said, “Fuck.”

You smiled, and Roger huffed, but put on the Are You Experienced album.

Veronica cheered. “Finally!”

“I’ll get the vodka,” Freddie chirped, and hurried to the kitchen.

As Foxy Lady started playing, you wandered over to Roger and Brian, who were still not quite done being pissy with each other – but, with nothing left to argue about, they settled on simply marinading in each other’s bad energy.

“Hello,” you said, taking a deep swig of your drink.

Brian’s gaze was so intense on you that you could almost feel the heat of it. You could tell he was figuring out already how soon would be too soon to drag you to his bedroom.

You couldn’t help but preen under the attention. Would it be too greedy of you to sneak Brian off first before going after Roger?

Speaking of Roger – he was staring at a point over your shoulder, arms crossed, his bottom lip jutting out the slightest bit. You wanted to kiss him, which wasn’t the first time you’d thought that, but the first time you’d allowed yourself to. It was thrilling, freeing.

Was it too early to test the waters?

“Roger,” you murmured, softly, in the tone you liked to use when Brian was misbehaving.

You heard Brian’s breath catch, and you smothered a smile. Even when it wasn’t being used on him, it still had an effect.

Roger’s eyes flicked to yours, the tiniest frown on his face. He was unsure. “Yeah?”

You tilted your head to the side, smiling, dropping the tone back into your normal one. “Hi.”

He smiled tightly. “Hi.” He sighed, uncrossing his arms. “I’m getting a drink. I’ll leave you and, uh, Daddy to it.”

You resisted the urge to let out an exasperated sigh, and watched him head to the kitchen. “Still with the Daddy jokes,” you muttered, turning to Brian. “That one wasn’t even funny. Or clever.”

“I think he’s too pissed off to try to be funny or clever,” Brian said. He seemed unbothered by it, however, and was much more focused on you. “You have no idea,” he said lowly, “how badly I want you right now.”

You shivered, but apart from that, you kept your body language friendly, light, trying not to give away the nature of the discussion to the other occupants of the room.

But the look on Brian’s face probably gave it away immediately.

You grinned. “Did you like that?” you said with a cheeky scrunch of your nose. “The way I just told you and Roger what to do in front of everyone?”

“You had the fucking nerve to bend down like that in front of me,” Brian said through gritted teeth. “Wearing that dress…”

“Well, I put it on because I thought you’d like it,” you said. You paused. “Oh, wait,” you said. “No I didn’t. I did it because I thought Roger would like it. And he does. He helped me pick it out. Helped me choose this whole outfit. And he’ll be helping me take it off later.”

Brian breathed out sharply through his nose, shaking his head, glancing away. “I swear to God…”

You giggled. “What’s the matter?”

“You’re such a fucking tease.”

“Oh, why, thank you, Bri,” you said, patting him on the chest. He stiffened, and you knew it was because he was holding back from grabbing you and towing you away. You almost let him. He would’ve kissed you so hard that your lips would’ve bruised, and you knew he would’ve fallen to his knees – maybe metaphorically, maybe literally, it had happened before – and begged you to let him fuck you, damn everyone else, damn the party. You would’ve said no, and he would’ve pleaded for you to at least let him eat you out, please, please, I need it, please, God, I’ll do anything, just let me make you feel good, please.

You didn’t know if you would’ve let him. You didn’t know how on-board Roger would’ve been to sleep with you if he knew that you’d been with Brian earlier that night.

It didn’t matter, anyway. Because, as it stood now, you and Brian were still at the record player, and Brian was tense and pissed and horny as hell.

God, you fucking loved this. The power you had over him was the best fucking aphrodisiac you’d ever discovered.

“Can you two stop eye-fucking each other and come join the rest of the party?” John called from the couch.

You could see immediately the way Brian snapped out of it, like he’d been doused with cold water. He looked over to John, and shrugged a shoulder. “We’re just having a conversation. No eye-fucking.”

“Oh, yes, darling, and I’m Her Majesty the Queen,” Freddie said. He had a large glass on the coffee table, and was spreading a deck of cards in a circle around it. “Come on, come on, let’s play King’s Cup.”

You snorted. Of all the games. “Wonderful,” you said under your breath, taking a drink and heading over, Brian behind you.

Roger finally re-appeared from the kitchen, a beer in hand. “Right, let’s play, before I decide that this stupid game is a waste of my time and it’d be much more worthwhile to just down five shots of vodka.”

“It’s not stupid,” Veronica tutted. “Stop being a party pooper.”

“Yeah, Roger, stop being a whiny bitch,” you said, sitting down next to Brian.

Roger gave you a two-fingered salute. “I will defend to the death my right to be as whiny of a bitch as I want to be at all times,” he said as he neared the table. He raised his eyebrows at Brian, pointing to you. “She deserves a spanking later for calling me that.”

Veronica tutted, rolling her eyes, and Freddie and John snickered behind their hands. Brian said, “Oh, for God’s sake, mate,” at the same time you cried, “Roger,” slapping his thigh.

He flinched, but laughed. “Oh, I’m the one getting a spanking now? Saucy.”

Your face was burning. You knew that whatever you said, it wasn’t going to stop him, so you just said, “Roger,” again, in the most disapproving tone you could manage. Roger laughed even more, sitting down beside you.

Brian muttered something into his beer that you didn’t catch, but Roger spluttered, his ears going as red as yours, and exclaimed, “You think I’m–? Me? I am not–”

He cut himself off, and grabbed his drink. “Twat,” he mumbled.

“Can we please start the game now?” Veronica said.

“Yeah, can we?” you seconded.

“Yes, I believe we can,” Freddie said pointedly. “If everyone in the room is finally ready.”

You weren’t sure how obvious you wanted to be when it came to flirting with Roger – you’d already been the victim of your friends’ gossiping the past few weeks because of Brian. You didn’t want to give anyone else anything more to talk about.

So you kept it fairly subtle. A lingering hand on Roger’s thigh underneath the table, a cheeky smile here and there. In the moments you felt daring enough, you let your gaze drop to his lips when you spoke to him.

You could feel Brian’s eyes on you every now and again. You weren’t sure if it was intrigue or jealousy. Maybe he was just eager for you to figure out the truth of Roger’s supposed Daddy kink as soon as possible.

Eventually, long after King’s Cup had ended, you all decided it was high time to make an appearance at the party. Leaving pre-drinks was always your least favourite part of the night – staying at home drinking and playing dumb drinking games with your friends was always a better time than hanging around at a party – but Freddie and Roger were eager to get to it, and John was itching for an excuse to dance.

The past couple months, you and Brian usually used your mutual dislike of parties to sneak off to make out, or to leave altogether for something else entirely back at his place. You had to admit that it was confusing, in a way, to know that that would not be the case tonight. Old habits die hard, you supposed.

You sat in beside Roger in the back seat of the Uber on the way there; Brian sat in the front seat, and John, Freddie, and Veronica were on their way in a second Uber.

Conversation flowed easily between you and Roger. Brian chimed in every now and again, but it was always difficult to be a part of things from the front seat. Now that it was just you three, you allowed yourself to flirt more openly. You weren’t quite at the ‘blatant’ stage just yet, but you were well on your way.

Roger flirted back – of course he did. Any opportunity to turn on the charm.

The issue for you was that you didn’t know how serious it was. Was he just playing along? Did he think you were just tipsy and being more outgoing? Or was he genuinely flirting back? It was hard to tell. Frustratingly hard.

He dropped a Daddy joke every now and again, as was expected, but each time he did, Brian would just hum, a light but unmistakably condescending mm-hm, and Roger would glare at him or reach forward to jab him in the shoulder or the back of the neck.

You tried to give Brian a questioning glance, but you couldn’t catch his eye. Can you stop? you wanted to say to him. You’re kind of killing my groove here, making Roger all pissy.

Things would settle at the party. The group would disperse, and you’d have more alone time with Roger.

It didn’t quite happen how you hoped it would, but when did things ever go according to plan?

The group did disperse – including Roger, who disappeared off with Freddie. And, as was the norm, you were left alone with Brian. The two of you gravitated towards the couches, which were loaded with people already, so you both perched, side-by-side, on the sturdy arm of one of the couches. Outside, it wasn’t the coldest you’ve ever felt, but you much preferred staying inside. It helped that the alcohol you’d had during pre-drinks had well and truly settled in your veins, keeping you warm and your head pleasantly fuzzy.

“Where’d your loverboy go?” Brian asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

You blew a raspberry, shrugging. “Dunno. This is weirdly more difficult than I expected it to be.”

“Roger’s used to girls flirting with him, I suppose,” Brian said, shrugging. “He maybe doesn’t know that you’re angling for anything more than just a bit of fun.”

“I am angling for a bit of fun,” you said. “Just a particular kind.”

Brian snorted.

“You’re not helping, dude, by the way,” you said, nudging him. “What are you saying to him that’s riling him up so much?”

Brian unsuccessfully tried to hide his smile, shrugging again. “Nothing.”

You glared at him. “What?”

“Nothing!” Brian said with a laugh, even as you shoved at him. “Have you heard me say a word?”

“No, you’ve just been making snide little noises.”

“Snide,” Brian scoffed.

“They are snide,” you said, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You two have some sort of secret language going on, and you’re using it just to distract him.”

Brian gaped. “Distract– I am doing no such thing.”

“I am doing no such thing,” you mimicked. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”

Brian laughed again. “Bastard.”

“Me?” you gasped. “How dare– I’m not the bastard here. Fucker.”

“You’re a bastard.”

You shook your head, crossing your arms, looking away from him resolutely. “I’m not talking to you now.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Nope. Not talking.”

“You’re talking to me right now. Bloody bellend.”

You pushed him off the arm of the chair, and he stumbled, laughing.

“I can’t stand you,” you said. You stood up, adjusting your dress.

Brian beamed like the cat who’d gotten the cream, coming to stand in front of you, hands in his pockets again. “Oh yeah?” he said, his voice sliding suggestively.

Goddammit it. It was fucking hard to resist him, and he knew it.

“Yes,” you said. “And don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Get that look in your eye. Stop smiling at me like that.”

“Like what?” Brian said, still very much smiling like that.

You couldn’t smother your smile in return, so you glanced away. “Stop it.”

Brian stepped in closer, his hands coming to your waist. “Sorry, say again? I didn’t quite catch that.”

His hands were warm, and your breath caught, your eyes flicking to his. One of his hands slid down to the small of your back, his other moving to your chin, tilting it up towards him. His eyes travelled lazily to your mouth and back to your eyes.

“You’re dreadfully misbehaving, mister,” you said lowly. “What was that you were saying about not causing a distraction?”

Brian hummed, smiling, unbothered. “I can’t help myself when it comes to you. I do stand by me saying I wasn’t trying to distract Roger, but you, on the other hand…” His grip around you tightened, the hand under your chin slipping around the back of your neck.

You wanted to touch him, to slide your hands under his shirt and scratch your nails down his back, hear him gasp when you did it. You wanted to kiss him, steal him away to a more private area.

But you also wanted Roger. So your hands stayed at your sides.

Brian leant in for a kiss, and you pulled back. “Bri.”

Brian stopped.

“Bri.”

Brian sighed, his eyes searching yours. “Not even for a bit? Just twenty minutes.”

You raised your eyebrows at him.

“Ten minutes? Five?”

You said nothing.

His hands held you more tightly, and you could see the desperation creeping into his features. “No?”

You shook your head.

Brian let out a small whine, and dropped his head onto your shoulder, his hands coming back to your waist. “Fuck me.”

You rubbed his back soothingly. “Aw,” you cooed, a touch sarcastically, “were you looking forward to making out with me? Did you get all turned on and now you’ve got no outlet for it?”

“Fuck you,” Brian grumbled, his hands turning into fists, gripping your dress.

“You wish,” you said, the soothing rubbing turning into a comforting pat. “But that’s not gonna happen tonight. You’re gonna have to find someone else.”

Brian growled, and then let you go, stepping back, shaking his head. “You’re the worst.”

“Why don’t you hang out with Freddie?” you suggested. “Y’know, actually spend time with your other friends.”

“Says you,” Brian grumbled.

“Hey, I’m on a mission,” you said. “For science.”

Brian pouted, and you laughed. “Come on,” you said, patting him on the cheek, intentionally a little too roughly, making him pull a face and bat your hand away. “Let’s go find them.”

It didn’t take long. Both Roger and Freddie had incredibly strong, loud personalities, so together you could have spotted them from the moon. They were in the backyard, doubled over each other, laughing so hard that neither of them could breathe. As you approached them, they seemed to settle down somewhat, but then Freddie said something you didn’t catch – it really sounded like more of a splutter, maybe half a word at best – and they were both off again.

You grinned at Brian. “They’re so cute, aren’t they?”

Brian snorted, giving you a confused look. “Cute?”

“The way they laugh so much with each other. I dunno, makes me happy to see it.”

“It’d probably make you less happy if you had to hear it when you were trying to study,” Brian muttered. “Or at five o’clock in the morning when they come home from the club.”

You gave him a back-handed slap on the chest. “You’re just jealous coz you’re such a stick in the mud all the time.”

You yelped in surprise as Brian grabbed you around your waist, swinging you to the side. “I’m not a stick in the mud,” he growled playfully into your ear, and you squeaked, trying to squirm out of his arms.

“Yes you are,” you giggled, and Brian readjusted his grip on you, locking you in. “No!”

“Take it back,” Brian demanded.

“No,” you panted, wriggling furiously.

Brian grunted as you almost accidentally sent an elbow into his face, and doubled down, squeezing you more tightly. “Take it back.”

“You’re a stick in the mud,” you said, and managed to worm your way out.

Brian tried to grab your wrist, but you yanked your hand away, and dashed off outside, laughing, ducking behind Roger. “You have to save me,” you said breathlessly, as Roger and Freddie drew away from you in surprise.

When Roger clocked on that you were just being silly, he broke out into a smile. “What?” he said. “What’s going on?”

You peered around him. Brian was looking towards you through the open door, his arms thrown up in exasperation, shaking his head. “Brian’s trying to get me.”

“And why’s that, darling?” Freddie said. He took a drag of his cigarette and held it out to Roger, but Roger declined, instead wrapping an arm around your waist, looking back to Brian. Your heart did a dance in your chest, and you gladly curled into Roger’s chest, playing up the whole damsel-in-distress bit. He smelled of cigarette smoke and of his cologne, the nice one he always wore to parties.

“I called him a stick in the mud,” you said.

Freddie and Roger laughed. “But you are!” Freddie called to Brian.

It took Brian a second, but when he realised what Freddie meant, he stuck his middle finger up at him, and Freddie clapped his hands in delight.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, we’ve got ya,” Roger said, and his other arm joined his first, hugging you close. “He’s a terrifying git, I know, but we’ll protect you.”

You giggled, pressing your face into Roger’s neck, and he pulled you even closer.

There was a pause, and then Freddie said, “Should I go check on the git in question?”

It sounded pointed, weighted, like you’d missed something important in the subtext, and you raised your head to see Freddie quickly looking away from Roger’s face, taking another drag of his cigarette.

“Yeah, I reckon so,” Roger said nonchalantly.

“I think he was saying he wanted to hang out with you, Fred,” you said, and you caught the way the corners of Freddie’s mouth twitched.

“Oh, is that so?” he murmured. He took a final draw, then dropped the butt on the ground, grinding it underfoot. “Well, then,” he said with a sigh, an unreadable expression on his face as he turned to Roger, smoke billowing from his mouth up into the air. “Better go say hello, shouldn’t I?” His eyes flicked between you and Roger, and then he said, “Suppose I, uh, might see you later then, folks.”

When he left, you pulled away from Roger enough to look him in the face, but not so far that Roger let you go. “What was that about?” you said, frowning. You fiddled with the collar of Roger’s shirt.

“What?” Roger asked. His eyes were so pretty and blue.

“That,” you said, jerking your head towards where Freddie had left. “All those looks and everything.”

“Oh, Fred’s just being…” Roger took a breath in, and shook his head. “He’s just being Fred. How’s your night going?”

“We only got here about half an hour ago,” you said. “Forty-five minutes at most.” Roger adjusted his grip on you, and you pressed in closer to him, warmth blooming within you. You were close enough to kiss, easily.

Roger shrugged a shoulder, smiling. “A lot can happen in half an hour.”

“Well, nothing’s happened to me.” Yet. “What about you?”

“I would’ve thought you and Brian would’ve snuck off by now,” Roger said. “You know I used to think you two just went home? Ages back. Like, you went to your home and he went to his? Or that you just used to stay up having a chat? It took me way longer than I’d like to admit to figure out that when you walked out of his room sometimes the next morning, you hadn’t been sleeping on his floor.”

You chuckled. “Why’d it take you so long?”

“It just didn’t seem to… make sense. You and him sleeping together but not dating. He’s too much of a romantic.”

“Well, it’s been working so far.”

Roger sighed, shaking his head in disbelief. “Fucking hell, it has.”

You took a moment to drink in his response, not quite sure what to make of it, but he moved on before you could analyse it further. “So why aren’t you with him right now? You’re not in the mood?”

You went to speak, but hesitated. How did you want to play this? “I… wouldn’t say that,” you said.

“Oh,” Roger said, and you could see the cogs whirring behind his eyes, trying to figure out what you meant, just as you’d done to him. “So should I be expecting you to disappear very soon?”

You shook your head. “No.”

There was a moment, so charged it almost made your head swim. You thought Roger was about to kiss you, and your whole body was screaming at you to go for it.

But then Roger just said, “Oh, well, lucky me,” and he gave you a quick kiss on the forehead, then let you go. “Did you wanna get another drink? I think I saw some beers that someone left unattended inside we could steal.”

You took a second to get your bearings once again. “Um, sure,” you said, and Roger smiled, then went inside. You inhaled, exhaled, pulled a slight face at yourself in frustration for how stupidly difficult this was, and followed him in.

There only ended up being a single beer left, and the two of you sat on the front steps, sharing it.

You’d been the one to suggest sitting out the front. Roger liked the party atmosphere too much to even consider it, probably. You’d certainly never seen him taking some time out from any party you’d gone to with him.

The conversation was simple, nothing too shallow or too deep. Mostly just passing thoughts. The new bass John had been eyeing up online, the mess your housemate Lucy was always making after she’d had her boyfriend over for a movie night, the latest celebrity gossip. Roger hadn’t seemed like the sort of person to keep up-to-date on celebrity gossip when you’d first met him at the beginning of the year, and you still hadn’t ever seen him read anything trashy, but somehow he knew it all – but he always made sure to clarify that he didn’t care about any of it, just that he knew it. And, of course, he had an opinion on every part of it, too.

But as nice as it was to chat, you had had an ulterior motive for getting Roger alone. At this point, however, you were considering that maybe Roger just wasn’t interested in you that way. Which you were fine with, but you had to admit you were surprised.

It was hard to tell. So hard. Roger seemed to be leaning into your personal space, and then he’d shift away again. Sometimes it seemed like he was glancing at your mouth, but then his eyes ended up wandering all over your face, like he was just absentmindedly studying your features. Countless almost-touches, glances that could be seen as flirty or interested but also equally could be just the alcohol talking. It was maddening.

Inevitably, the conversation circled back to you and Brian, and that’s when Roger began grinding your gears. It was on the second Daddy joke in five minutes that you had to put your foot down.

“Okay, what is up with all the jokes?” you asked.

Roger frowned, laughing slightly. “Uh, they’re funny?”

“They’re excessive, Rog. We get it. Even Fred and Deaks must be getting tired of them by now.”

“Sorry,” Roger drawled sarcastically. “I happen to think they’re still funny. Sue me.”

You sighed. You didn’t want this to turn into a fight. “Are you sure that’s it?” you asked tentatively.

Roger blinked at you. “Uh, what?”

“Ever since you saw my phone, you’ve been all…”

“All what?”

“I don’t know. Not yourself. Just a bit.”

Roger bristled again. “It’s a little hard to– to act normal around you sometimes, yeah. You and Brian. How the hell are you meant to just go about your day when you know two of your friends… When your flatmate is, like, someone’s Daddy? What are you meant to do with that information?”

You scoffed. “Okay, wow, no. Brian is not ‘my Daddy’. That is not how it works between us.”

Roger shook his head. “Not how it works between you,” he muttered to himself.

“It isn’t,” you insisted. “It–” You bit your lip, cutting yourself off. This wasn’t just your information to tell. How much was too much to share?

“What?” Roger said.

You looked at him, at his big blue eyes, his long eyelashes. Your knee was touching his, and you so badly wanted to curl your hand around his thigh. You sighed, shaking your head, looking out onto the street. “I’m not going to explain it. You’re just going to laugh at me, and I don’t really feel like subjecting myself to more ridicule, if I’m honest.”

Roger said nothing for a while, fiddling with the label on the beer bottle, and you took it as the final nail in the coffin. You wouldn’t be sleeping with Roger tonight. Oh well. You’d tried. And, you supposed, you and Brian finally had your answer: Roger did not have a Daddy kink.

“Sorry,” Roger said.

You looked to him, at the little pile between his feet of the ripped-up label. “For what?”

“For taking it too far. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

You didn’t really know how to respond, so it took you a minute to think. “Of all the things I was expecting to hear from you tonight, an apology wasn’t one of them.”

Roger huffed in amusement. “Yeah. I’m not really known for them.” He put down the beer bottle, and turned to head towards you. “I won’t laugh,” he added.

You raised your eyebrows. “You want me to explain how it works?”

Roger shrugged a shoulder, a tiny movement. His face betrayed nothing. “If you like.”

You took another moment to try to suss him out, and decided he meant what’d he’d said. “If you must know,” you said, somewhat cautiously, “Brian’s not… my Daddy. That’s not how we – play with that dynamic.”

You were expecting some kind of recoil. Retaliation. Ragging.

But this time, Roger just swallowed, and said nothing.

So you took a breath, and went on. “The way we… Well, it’s sort of…” Your hand moved to your mouth absentmindedly as you thought, brushing over your bottom lip. “I really like teasing. Like, really like it.”

Roger nodded – an invitation to go on.

“So usually, the way Brian and I flirt, I guess, is I– I make him work for it, you know? I make him…” You hid a smile behind your hand. “Um.” You chuckled. “This is weird to explain out loud. But yeah, basically, in the simplest terms, I make him work for it. So that means when the roles are reversed, when suddenly I’m the one who has to beg for it, because I’m blindfolded, or tied down, or, y’know, that sort of thing–”

“Christ,” Roger breathed. He shifted and cleared his throat, and it was as if a switch had been flicked: the electricity between the two of you was palpable.

“You, uh… When I said I didn’t know Brian was into the weird stuff, I didn’t know he was…”

“Yeah,” you said with a laugh. “Oh, yeah. I mean, really, in the scheme of things, as far as ‘weird’ goes, most of what we do is pretty vanilla.”

“Depends on who you’re talking to, I guess,” Roger said, and he gave you a nervous smile.

“Yeah, you’re right, I guess,” you conceded. “But, well, my point is that when the roles are reversed, I don’t really go down that easily. Sometimes, maybe, if I feel like it, but rarely. I’m…” You chuckled. “Honestly, I’m the biggest–”

“Brat?” Roger jumped in, and the word tumbled from his mouth like he couldn’t help it.

You grinned. “Yeah.” You raised your eyebrows at him. “Should I be surprised that you know the lingo? Mr. ‘I’m-Not-Into-That-Weird-Shit’?”

Roger’s face turned bright red. “I haven’t– It’s just that other people use it. I don’t even know if I used that work properly; honestly, I was just guessing, I’d just heard someone use that word before. Or maybe I read it somewhere, I don’t know.”

You let him babble, just nodding along, not even trying to hide your smug smile.

He ran out of steam eventually, and he rolled his eyes at your expression. “Dickhead,” he muttered.

You laughed. Roger chuckled as well, and when he glanced at you, your eyes locked with his. And stayed there, only breaking to drift to his mouth and back up again.

His eyes did just the same.

And this time it was unmistakable.

A thrill of relief and exhilaration bolted through you.

You just had to check one thing first. Just to be sure.

“Rog?”

“Yeah?” Roger said softly.

“How do you feel about me?”

Roger frowned. “Feel about you?”

“Yeah,” you said, and you licked your lips nervously. “Y’know, do you – and this is probably a pointless, dumb question, but do you… like me?”

Roger froze, and your stomach clenched. “Um… like you?”

You nodded. “In a… romantic way. At all.”

Roger let out a breath. “Oh. Um.” He looked down at his hands in his lap. “I didn’t know that that’s where this was going. Shit.” He ran a hand through his hair.

“Do you?” you asked, suddenly panicking. Did this mean that he did? Oh, Jesus, please no. You’d have felt fucking awful if he did.

Roger rubbed his hands over his knees. “Uh…”

“Rog, say something,” you pleaded.

Roger glanced at you. “I… Look, you’re great. You’re a lot of fun to be around, and you’re funny, but I – I don’t see you like that. I’m sorry.”

You breathed out.

Roger frowned. “Does– Does Brian know that you…?”

You gave him a look. “What? No, Roger, I don’t like you in that way either.”

Roger hesitated. “You… No?”

“No.”

“Then why did you–”

“Ask?” you cut in. “It was to make sure that you don’t have feelings for me.”

“Oh,” Roger said. “No, I don’t.”

“Good.” You sighed, and smiled. Time to make a break for it. “Wanna make out?”

Roger blinked. “Right now?”

Your heart lurched, but you kept your voice light, confident. “Yep.”

“But what about Brian?”

You snorted. “What about him? We just sleep together, we’re not a couple.”

“Well, I know, but–”

“I can sleep with whoever I want to. And so can Brian.”

Roger paused. “Sleep with?”

Ah, shit. Talk about jumping the gun. “Or, you know, whatever,” you said casually, shrugging.

Roger wasn’t fooled. “You trying to sleep with me?” he asked.

You gave him a sheepish smile. “Would you hate me if I said yes?”

Roger laughed. “Uh, no. I wouldn’t hate you. I’d probably take you home.”

“Oh!” you exclaimed. God, things had really turned around in the last ten minutes. “Well, in that case, yes I am. Been trying to all night, actually.”

“You’re joking,” Roger said with a disbelieving shake of his head. “Y’know, I knew you were. I could tell from the moment you said my name back at the flat. But I was talking to Freddie about it and he was all, ‘No, darling, that can’t be right, why would she want you when she has Brian, I really think you’re just a bit full of yourself’. But I knew it!”

“I’d just about given up at this point,” you admitted. “I had no freaking way of telling if you were into it or not.”

“Oh, I was,” Roger said. “I am.”

“Great!” you said. “Can we start making out now?”

Roger laughed again, and you laughed too, and then Roger was pulling you in for a kiss, and a strange concoction of excitement and relief washed through you.

It was exhilarating and wonderfully confusing for your brain to be making out with someone else. You had kissed a couple of people since your thing with Brian had started, but not really. And you’d slept with one other person, about two months ago now, but you hadn’t really needed to find anyone else to scratch that itch, as it were. Your thing with Brian took the guesswork out of sex, which was great. More room for exploring.

But the way Roger tilted his head was different from what you were used to, the way his lips moved with yours was different, the way his hand came to rest against your cheek gently was so, so different, and you couldn’t wait to experience everything with Roger for the first time.

It made you kiss him harder, clutch onto his shirt, and his arms wound around your waist.

When you broke apart, there was a beat where you both just stared at each other, where you allowed it to sink in that you’d both finally crossed that threshold. You could see Roger trying to read your face for any signs of hesitation, as you were trying to read in his.

You let out a breathless laugh, and Roger did the same. His smile was nervous, but his eyes gleamed with anticipation. He glanced away, a hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. “Um,” he said.

“Yeah,” you said.

“You’re – you’re good,” Roger said, looking back to you, his cheeks going pink. “You’re… really good at that.”

“What, kissing?”

“Yeah. That.”

You chuckled. “Thank you. You are too.”

“Thanks.”

Another beat, and you both started laughing again, and then your eyes were meeting, and then you were pulling him in to kiss him again.

Now that the first kiss was out of the way, you allowed the kiss to develop, to deepen. Trying a few things, figuring out what Roger liked and what he didn’t. Most importantly, how he responded to something he did like.

Right off the bat, an unexpected discovery: he was far gentler than Brian was. You didn’t want to spend the whole night comparing the two, but it was hard not to, in the privacy of your own mind. While Brian kissed like he was pissed at you, like he was desperate to tear your clothes off at any given point, Roger kissed like he had nothing else on his mind but the feeling of your mouth against his. With Brian there was teeth – nipping at each other’s lips, at each other’s throats. With Roger there was the press of tongues, the drag of lips across skin.

It was good – it was great, and super hot, but it was driving you fucking mental. You had no idea how to handle this. There was nothing to push back on, not like with Brian. Nothing to fight against.

Maybe Roger really didn’t have a Daddy kink. Surely someone this… tender couldn’t be into something like that.

You pulled back. Roger’s lips were a little swollen, his hair a little mussed, his eyes a little glazed, and he looked divine.

“I’m not… This isn’t going too… fast for you, is it?” you asked, unsure.

Roger frowned. “No?”

You shrugged helplessly. “You just seem… I don’t know. Um – gentle?”

Roger quirked an eyebrow. “Do you want me to be rougher?”

“No, no, don’t – you don’t have to be,” you said quickly. “It’s just, um… not…”

Roger’s other eyebrow joined his first, up high. “Not what you’re used to?” he said slowly, and then he laughed. “Man, Brian is a bloody beast. How rough is he with you?”

You could feel your cheeks burning, despite yourself. “I – I just mean….”

Roger cupped your face, smiling reassuringly. “It’s fine. I’m sorry for teasing.”

You scoffed. “Two apologies in one night. Who are you and what have you done with Roger?”

“I’m in a generous mood. But it’s a one-night-only deal, so savour it.”

You laughed, and leant in for another kiss, but Roger leant back, out of reach.

“But,” he said.

You swallowed down a small whine. “Mm?”

“I don’t care how Brian fucks you,” Roger said softly. “Because you’re with me tonight. So we’re gonna do it my way.”

Oh.

“And what if I don’t want your way?” you said, unable to resist the challenge.

“Don’t knock it till you tried it, sweetheart,” Roger said. “I mean, I can switch things up if you’re downright miserable, but if you’re used to rough, then I’m gonna go real nice and gentle.”

You considered this. “Okay,” you said slowly, nodding. Not really up your alley, but you could work with that, just for one night.

“I mean real nice and gentle,” Roger said, looking at you pointedly, sliding a hand up your thigh.

It began to dawn on you. “You mean… so gentle it’s gonna make me want to…”

“Scream? Beg for it?” Roger grinned. “All of the above?”

You broke out into a smile. “Oh,” you said. That you could get on board with.

But still: “And what if I don’t wanna do that, huh? What if I want to make you beg for me?”

Roger cocked his head to one side, his thumb brushing your cheekbone. “I should’ve guessed you’d say something like that.”

“If you want me to stay still, you’re going to have to tie me down.”

Roger paused, and you wondered if you’d gone a step too far, but then he said, “I’ll decide if that’s how I want you or not.”

Okay. Okay. This was so far shaping up to be quite an interesting night.

You went to kiss him, but he pulled back again, and you sighed in frustration.

“Roger.”

Roger smirked. “Ask me.”

You glared. “I’m not going to ask if I can kiss you when I know you want me to.”

“Ask me.”

“No.”

“Do it.”

The tone of his voice left no room for any other option.

You clenched your jaw, and growled, “Can I kiss you.”

“A ‘please’ would be nice.”

You gaped at him. “You fucking twat.”

Roger just shrugged a shoulder.

He looked so smug, the arsehole. It made you want to kiss him even more. “Can I please kiss you?” you ground out through gritted teeth.

Roger smiled. “Was that so hard?”

“Fuck you,” you said, and surged forward, kissing him forcefully.

But, sure enough, he didn’t rise to the bait – he pulled back just enough to break the kiss, and then re-initiated it himself, gentle and tender.

Your hands were almost starting to shake by this point. You were going to scream. You needed that push-back, you needed that fire. This was water, this was air, so careful and light, and it was made so much worse by the fact that Roger was doing it just to make you desperate. And, fuck it all, it was really, really working.

You ducked your head to suck on Roger’s neck as you went for his jeans, and he drew in a gasp, one of his hands in your hair – not pulling or grabbing, just there – and the other on the small of your back, pressing lightly.

“We’re on the front porch,” Roger murmured, moaning softly as you soothed with your tongue the hickey you’d just made.

“Don’t care,” you panted, tossing the belt buckle open and yanking on the button of Roger’s jeans.

“I do,” Roger said. “Stop.”

You stilled your hands, your breath hot against Roger’s neck.

“Look at me.”

You sat up, taking your hands back. “Sorry.”

Roger’s eyes were sharp on yours. “It’s all right,” he said. “But you’re not to do anything like that again without asking me first. Got it?”

You opened your mouth to protest – you weren’t going to beg like a dog – but Roger gave you a look that said he knew exactly what you were going to say.

“My way,” he said.

You shuddered, and nodded.

“Use your words.”

“Your way,” you said, and then, without thinking, added, “Nickleback.”

Roger blinked, and then laughed. “What?”

You felt your face turn red. “Oh,” you said. “Um. That’s– that’s our… Brian and my… ‘Nickleback’ is our safeword. Sorry, I just sort of said it automatically.”

“Makes sense,” Roger said. “Nothing kills the mood–”

“Like Nickleback, yeah,” you finished. “That’s the conclusion we came to.”

Roger hesitated. “Were you… using it? The safeword?”

“No,” you said, shaking your head. “It’s just sort of – like I said, it’s automatic, when, er, things start to – heat up. I always say it, just to say, like, that I understand where this is going, and I’m on board, and I’m making sure we both know the safeword.”

Roger’s eyes widened. “Blimey, you’ve really got this down pat, haven’t you?”

“You’re lucky I do,” you said. “Otherwise we’d both be walking into this blindly, and that sounds like a recipe for disaster if I’d ever heard it.”

“Did you and Brian walk into it blindly?”

“Brian…” You bit your lip. “He’d had a tiny bit of experience. Not much.”

Roger blew a raspberry. “Fucking hell. Learning more and more about him tonight.”

“We should come up with a new one,” you said. “A new safeword. Just for us.”

Roger swallowed, and nodded, licking his lips as he thought. “Macca.”

“Macca?” you repeated. “Like, Paul McCartney Macca?”

“It was the first thing that popped into my head.”

“Sounds just fine to me.” You grinned. “Macca it is.”

The ride back to Roger’s was beautifully tense. You barely even spoke to each other, but your hands stayed in contact in the middle seat between you the entire way. Roger’s fingers fiddled with yours. Your whole body thrummed. You made sure to send Brian a quick text. You tossed up how to word it, but in the end settled on simply: rog and I are on the way back to urs.

You were expecting him to not reply for a good while, if at all, but he must have been looking at his phone when you messaged. Lucky bastard. So, does he like being called Daddy?

how fast do u think this works, brian, you replied. idk yet.

It worked pretty quickly for me.

we’d been fucking for a while already, did u forget that?

Okay, all right, I see your point, Brian replied. I’m just deadly curious, is all. Have fun. Hope it goes well. If he’s just absolutely horrible, just send me a text and I’ll come right over and make you come until you you’re crying.

You swallowed down a laugh. thanks. looks like rog isn’t the only one who gets jealous. enjoy the party, you sent, and put your phone away.

You glanced over at Roger, to find him watching you. You felt your body flush with warmth. “What?” you asked lowly, a smile spreading across your face.

Roger shook his head, and just hummed. His hand shifted, his fingers brushing yours, and you bit your lip. Your heart was trying to break out of your ribcage, and you couldn’t fucking wait to tear Roger’s clothes off.

This was the part you loved almost more than anything else: the lead-up. The suffocating sexual tension. The moment before the bomb exploded.

You and Roger barely touched each other as you climbed out of the Uber and headed up to the flat. There was some conversation, but not much. You were well and truly wet by the time Roger got his keys out to open the front door, and you squeezed your thighs together to try to relieve some of the tension.

Roger opened the door. He headed inside.

You followed, and closed the door behind you.

You grinned, and hurried after Roger, taking his wrist and tugging on it, turning him towards you. You leant in for a kiss, ready for that bomb to explode, but he pulled back.

You wanted to punch the wall.

“Did you ask if you could kiss me?” Roger murmured.

You tutted, rolling your eyes. “Roger, come on, we’re alone now.”

A smile grew on Roger’s lips. “And?”

You studied his face. It was plain as day that he meant it, and he meant it wholeheartedly. Your whole being was begging you to grab him, to kiss him, to claw at his clothes until they were in tatters on the ground. You narrowed your eyes. “Can I kiss you?” you growled. “Please?”

“Oh, honey,” Roger said – so condescendingly it almost sounded like he was cooing at you – and he reached up to stroke your cheek. You instinctively turned your head a little, going to nip at his fingers, to invite them into your mouth, same as you would with Brian, but Roger just moved his hand out of the way. “I think you can ask me a little nicer than that, don’t you?”

You let out a sound of frustration, gripping his wrist tighter. “Roger.”

Roger paused, his eyes flicking aside in thought, but they settled back on you. He cocked his head to the side. “You don’t want to be here all night, do you?”

“Of course not,” you huffed. “So can we get on with it?”

“Ask me nicely. I don’t want to have to say it again.”

A small whine slipped from your throat, and you felt your will start to crumble. “Please,” you said in a small voice.

“Please what?”

“Please can I kiss you?”

Roger smiled, extremely pleased with himself. Fucking dick. “Yes, you can.”

You were in half a mind to outright refuse, despite the fact you’d just asked. To tell him no, you weren’t going to kiss him, actually, and he could go shove it up his ass.

But you were too desperate not to. So you kissed him, and he kissed you back, and for all of his pomp and circumstance, you could feel how eager he was through the way he breathed in sharply when your lips met, through the movement of his jaw, through the force of his hands gripping at your waist, pulling you against him. It was blissfully relieving, to finally have something more solid to work with.

But then Roger let you go, his fingers relaxing against you, his lips drawing away from yours.

You leant in further, clutching at his shirt, and he chuckled, and pressed the lightest, briefest kiss to your lips before he took your hands and pried them away. “Stop it,” he said, and his voice left no room for questioning.

You went slack, rocking back onto your heels with a huff. You pouted.

“God, you’re so worked up,” Roger chuckled.

“Yeah, bitch, I fuckin’ am!” you said. You had the inexplicable urge to stomp your foot. You suppressed it, but only just. “We’ve only kissed twice! Forgive me if I’m more than a little horny!”

Roger’s eyes were dark on yours, and he looked delighted by your outburst. “You’re doing well,” he said, his voice warm with appraisal. And arousal – oh yeah, plenty of that. “You’re actually behaving a lot better than I thought you would.”

Half of you bristled at that, at the accusation that you didn’t have as much fight in you as first thought, and the other half melted at the praise.

Roger kissed you again, his free hand skimming your waist gently. His other hand still held your wrists tightly, and your stomach clenched in irritation.

When Roger broke away, he let you go, and said, “Stay here. Don’t move.”

Then he left, heading towards his bedroom.

You pursed your lips. God fucking damn it, this was frustrating.

So you stripped to your underwear. You’d come prepared, of course, wearing your nice stuff. You kept your choker and your heels on, and draped your dress over the back of the couch.

“Sorry, I was just making sure my room was cle–” Roger’s jaw just about hit the floor, and he stopped in his tracks in the hallway. “Oh,” he said.

“You were taking too long,” you said, crossing your arms, cocking your hip. Roger drank you in, licking his lips, and then he met your eyes. “How many fucking times do I have to tell you to ask for permission?”

You grinned. “Maybe one more time.”

“The fucking cheek,” he said. He stepped into the living room, and then pointed down the hallway. “Go to my room.”

You raised your eyebrows at him. “Are you grounding me?” you asked.

“Go to my room, take off your shoes and your necklace, and sit on the edge of my bed,” Roger said. “Now.”

Oh, you wanted to protest. You really wanted to fight back. You wanted him to make you, to grab your wrist and drag you there, to shove you onto the bed, all the while bitching about how annoying and disobedient you were.

But this wasn’t Brian.

Roger’s way, you reminded yourself, and sighed, uncrossing your arms. “Fine.”

“Good,” Roger said, and as you went to walk past him, he took your elbow, stopping you, and kissed you softly, making your knees weak.

You hurried to his bedroom and did as you were told. You crossed one knee over the other, squeezing your thighs together, a soft sound slipping from your lips as you did so.

Roger entered not long after you’d sat down, and he smiled when he saw you. “Good,” he said again.

You squirmed.

“How turned on are you right now?” he asked, almost disbelievingly, his smile widening.

“Why don’t you come and find out?” you said. Roger chuckled. “Stand up.”

You did.

“Good.” Roger walked over to you. “When I kiss you, you’re not to touch me, understand?”

You scowled, but nodded.

“Use your words.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“Nicely.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Roger bit his bottom lip. “Fuck, good girl.”

Warmth rushed from your toes to your head, and you let out a small moan.

It didn’t go unnoticed. “Oh, you like being called that?” Roger said.

“Yeah,” you breathed.

Roger sucked in a breath, but got a hold of himself, and said, “Then do as I say and I’ll call you a good girl when you’ve earned it.”

You nodded.

“Words, sweetheart.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

You felt your stomach drop. How ironic, after this whole exercise, that you calling Roger ‘Daddy’ had been entirely an accident.

And you might have very well fucked everything up by doing so.

Roger didn’t seem to know how to react. His first instinct seemed to be to laugh, but it seemed off, an odd giggle, almost, and his cheeks were turning pink. “Um,” he said, “okay.”

Your stomach twisted in embarrassment. “Fuck, Rog, I’m sorry, it just slipped out. ‘Good girl’ is– it’s sort of– the whole… the whole ‘Daddy’ thing and the ‘good girl’ thing go hand-in-hand, so when you started saying… Shit, I’m sorry.”

Roger ran a hand through his hair. He seemed so flustered that he could barely look at you. “It’s fine, it’s all right.”

“I’m super fuckin’ embarrassed now,” you said with an awkward chuckle, covering your cheeks with your hands. “Ah, shit. So not cool of me.”

“No, I’m– it’s okay,” Roger reassured you, taking your hands. “I’m– Frankly, I’m just surprised that you… felt like calling me that. After everything.”

“It was an accident,” you said. “Just instinct.”

“But I– I triggered that instinct, right? That’s what happened?”

You weren’t sure what Roger was angling for. “Y– uh, yeah. You calling me ‘good girl’, and the whole… Yeah.”

Roger nodded, and then chuckled. “How, um, how funny would it be if– if you called me that? Like, tonight? Right?” Another odd giggle. “Like, you call Brian that, but I can be all like that too? Like, I can make you say that by accident? That’d… be so funny.”

Oh. Oh-ho. Oh-ho-ho.

Fucking knew it, you thought to yourself.

You tried to hide how smug you felt, and instead played along. “Yeah, it’d be pretty funny,” you said. “I feel like we should almost do it for the meme of it, you know?”

Roger was very flustered now, and doing only a semi-good job of hiding it. “Kinda, yeah.”

“Like, we wouldn’t have to tell anyone,” you said. “It’d just be funny.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, like…” You licked your lips, thinking, and then reached out to Roger, tentatively, not wanting to push anything. When your hand splayed across his chest, he didn’t move, so you leant into it. “Like, it’d be funny to laugh about how, like, funny it would be if you liked being called Daddy, and I liked calling you that.”

Roger swallowed heavily. “If you– What?”

You stepped in close, and nipped at his earlobe. “If I liked calling you that,” you murmured, and he shuddered. “If I liked you being in charge and ordering me around.” You kissed just below his ear, your other hand moving to cup him through his jeans. “You’re doing a good job of it, you know. Of keeping me in line. I’m not easy to handle.” You kissed down his throat, and then under his ear again.

You smiled as you whispered, “It’s okay, Daddy. I won’t tell anyone.”

Roger sucked in an unsteady breath. “Yeah, that’d– that’d be so funny,” he said shakily, and you laughed, kissing his neck again, you both felt and heard his quiet moan.

“Please, Daddy, I need you,” you said in between kisses, and Roger shivered again. “Tell me what you want me to do? Please?”

Roger breathed out, breathed in, and then said, “L– Lie down on the bed for me.”

You obeyed, propping yourself up on one elbow, grinning in excitement as you watched Roger shaking himself, trying to clear his thoughts.

“You’re so pretty,” you said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Of course they have,” Roger said. “Don’t be cheeky.” He kicked off his shoes, pulled off his socks, took off his shirt, dumping them aside, and you made a grabby hand at him.

“Daddy, please,” you whined. “Come fuck me.”

“Just because that’s – a thing now,” Roger said, “doesn’t mean you’re any more in control than before. Don’t let it get to your head.”

You weren’t convinced. “I know.”

“Stop smiling at me like that,” Roger said, pointing a finger. “I’m serious. Don’t be a brat. You were behaving so well before.”

You patted the bed insistently. “Come on.”

“What did I say?” Roger raked his fingers through his hair. “If you’re not going to behave…”

You raised your eyebrows at him. “Then what?”

Roger thought for a moment. “Then you’re not getting off.”

Brian had made similar threats a thousand times before. He never followed through. “Uh-huh.”

“I mean it.” He pulled off his jeans, leaving them on the ground.

“Mm-hm.”

“You know what?” Roger crawled onto the bed, over you, and you happily grabbed at him, but he sat back onto your hips and took your wrists, pinning them above your head with one hand.

“You know what’ll happen if you don’t stop being a brat?” he murmured, leaning down to brush his lips and nose along your throat. “I’ll fuck you. Fuck you good and deep. But I’ll make sure I do it in just the right way that, no matter what you do, you won’t be able to come. I’ll do it for as long as I like, and you’ll be so close, but not close enough. And when I’m done, I’ll leave you here, all worn out and exhausted but still so, so desperate and horny for me.” He pressed the lightest kiss to your racing pulse. “And I mean it, sweetheart. Don’t test me.”

Could you have come on the spot from that threat alone? Maybe.

“Got it?”

“Yeah. Yes, Daddy, I got it.”

Roger nuzzled at your throat, like he just couldn’t help it. “Good girl,” he murmured. Then he chuckled, drawing back. “I honestly cannot believe how fucking hot I find that.” He wasn’t lying – his boxers were tented, and you could see a small wet patch has formed on the material.

You smiled. “Yeah,” you said, a little breathlessly. You were more focused on how Roger wasn’t kissing you, wasn’t touching you, apart from where he held your wrists. You were almost shaking under his touch. This was excruciating. Fucking excruciating. The aching between your legs was almost unbearable.

“I… Daddy, please, I need more,” you begged. “Please.”

Roger licked his lips. “More what, sweetheart?”

“More anything, please.”

Roger hummed, dusting a kiss to your lips. “Are you getting uncomfortable?”

“It – it hurts,” you admitted.

“You’re that desperate, are you?”

“Yes.”

Roger smiled. “Okay, sweetheart. You’re being so good for me, I know it must be hard for you. Why don’t you strip naked for me?”

Relief washed through you, and Roger climbed off you so you could tear off your bra and underwear. You went for Roger’s underwear, but he stopped you with a hand, looking at you expectantly.

“Please, Daddy, can I take these off for you?” you asked immediately.

“Yes, you can,” Roger said, sounding far less smug now, and way more turned on instead.

You helped him out of them, and it filled you with glee to see just how hard Roger was, swollen and red. Surely you weren’t the only one on the verge of a damn breakdown over how horny you were.

“Lie down,” Roger said, and you did.

Your stomach fizzled with excitement. “Thank you, Daddy,” you said, and you surprised yourself. God, you must have been really be desperate. Never in your fucking life had you ever thanked Brian for something like that. You’d rather have been shot in the face.

But when Roger settled between your legs and stroked a finger through your folds, just feeling how wet you were, you gasped, and out tumbled, “Thank you, Daddy, please, please, thank you.”

Fuck. Okay. New development.

Roger seemed equally as taken aback. “Shit,” he whispered, and then his tongue was licking a long stripe through you as he pushed a finger into you, and you arched off the bed.

“Daddy, can I please hold your hair?” you blurted out in a rush.

Roger paused to say, “Yes, sweetheart,” and one hand went to his hair, gripping onto it, the other one scrabbling at the sheets beside you.

Roger was barely even doing anything. In fact, the more time went on, the more you realised he was deliberately avoiding your clit, his tongue and fingers and nose touching everywhere but there.

You wanted to cry.

“Please,” you sobbed. “Please, I need– I need…”

Roger ignored you, and kept going. Every so often he’d nudge your clit or your G-spot, just giving you a taste of what you needed so badly, and it was like a fix, like a drug.

He only stopped when he had three fingers sliding in and out of you easily, and you were sweaty and trembling, and you were so on edge that a few well-timed clenches of your thighs could have made you come.

Roger wiped his face on the back of his hand, and hummed as he placed a light kiss to the inside of your thigh. “Good girl,” he said. “You’re doing so well.”

“Th-thank you, Daddy,” you said weakly. You knew you were leaking all over his bed sheets, but it wasn’t like there was anything you could do to stop it.

Roger rose to his feet, and your eyes dropped to his cock. You needed that inside you, right now.

“Are you gonna fuck me now?” you said.

Roger sighed, cocking his head in thought. “Do you think I should?”

“I would really like you to. Please.”

Roger seemed to consider it. “Okay,” he said eventually, and your heart soared. “Since you’ve been so good for me. But you’re not allowed to come until I do, okay?”

“Yes, Daddy. Thank you.”

“Have you ever done that before?” Roger asked, going to his closet to fetch a condom and some lube. “Stopped yourself from coming?”

“Once or twice.”

Roger nodded. He prepared himself, rolling on the condom and lubing himself up. You watched with hungry eyes.

“Have you ever been fucked from behind?” he asked, coming back to the bed.

Your eyes widened. Oh, man. “Not for a while.”

“I’ve been so very gentle with you,” Roger said, dropping the lube onto the floor. “I’m tired of it, I think.”

A smile spread across your face. “You are?”

“Get on all fours.”

You scrambled to do as he said, and he settled in behind you. His cock nudged your entrance, and your breathing quickened.

“Please,” you begged.

Roger lined himself up, and pushed inside you.

Your breath rushed out of you. Roger pulled out an inch and then slid in again, this time all the way to the hilt.

You gasped, panting.

“Good girl,” Roger said, squeezing your hip. “You okay?”

“So good, Daddy. Thank you.”

So Roger began fucking you. Each thrust hit you hard and deep, and your legs and arms shook. Your fingers were like claws on the sheets, and you moaned and whined as Roger’s hips snapped against your ass. It was so good, so fucking good, and when you fell onto your elbows and the angle changed, both you and Roger groaned deep.

You had no idea how you were going to stop yourself from coming before Roger did. If Roger so much as touched your clit, you knew it would be over in an instant. Hearing Roger’s grunts and gasps was almost enough to set you off alone. He had a gorgeous voice, and you knew you’d be dreaming about the growl of his voice, how rough and hoarse it was, for years.

Roger hit you in just the right way, and you almost squeaked as you nearly came. “Daddy, Daddy, I’m so close, I’m gonna come, please,” you pleaded, your voice breaking. “Please, Daddy, come in me, I’m too close.”

“Not yet,” Roger said, and you screwed your eyes shut, pouring everything you had into not coming. You thought about the biggest turn-offs you could think of – most of them involving your grandmother, poor thing – but it was hard when your thoughts kept snapping back to how fucking great Roger was fucking you.

You clenched around him, and he groaned. That didn’t help at all. You whined into your arms. You were so, so, so close.

Roger’s rhythm stuttered, and you gasped. “Fuck, please, Rog, come on,” you moaned. “Come inside me, Daddy, please.”

“Shit,” Roger hissed, and then he moaned, and let out a string of swear words as he came, driving hard into you, almost knocking you off-balance entirely.

You groaned. “Can I come now, please? Please?”

“Yes, of course,” Roger said. He pulled out of you, and you mewled pathetically, but he pushed you onto your back and then his fingers pushed into you as his tongue finally, finally, massaged your clit.

It didn’t take much. Your orgasm rose like a wave and crashed into you, punching the breath from your lungs, and you cried out, your whole body shuddering, your thighs clenching around Roger’s head. He pushed your legs apart with his hands, his mouth still working your clit, and you whimpered through the aftershocks. Soon, it became too overwhelming, and you had to tell Roger to stop, which he did, pressing a kiss to your stomach as he crawled up to meet you. He took off and tied off the condom, dropping it beside his bed.

You both lay side by side, facing each other, panting. Roger’s nose and chin still glistened with you, and you reached over to wipe him clean.

“Thanks,” he said, and drew you in for a kiss.

The kisses were different from before. They were slow and lazy, unhurried. Tongues pressing against each other, the gentle graze of teeth against lips.

Roger rolled you over onto your back and held himself up above you to kiss your neck. “That was fucking hot,” he murmured in between kisses.

You hummed in agreement, your hands brushing up and down his sides.

Roger captured your lips again, and it was like he was making up for all the times he hadn’t kissed you – or only barely kissed you – earlier in the night, his kisses deep and hot, and you loved them.

The two of you made out for what felt like forever. Every time you broke apart and it seemed like things were settling down, there would be a moment, and then your lips were on his once again.

It was nice, just to kiss.

Eventually, though, you couldn’t ignore how badly you needed a shower.

Roger didn’t mind. “I’ll get you a towel,” he said, rolling out of bed and pulling on some tracksuit pants. “I honestly don’t know how you don’t have your own at this point, though.”

“Maybe I’ll just claim this next one as mine, then,” you said, sitting up. “Thanks, Daddy.”

Roger’s gait stuttered, and he blinked at you bewilderedly. “D– Uh, um.”

You laughed. “I’m just kidding,” you said. “Sorry, habit. I pull that shit with Brian all the time, calling him Daddy super casually like that. He fuckin’ hates it.”

“I don’t hate it,” Roger said. “It just took me by surprise.”

You raised your eyebrows. “You don’t mind it?”

“I… like it, actually, I think.” Roger shrugged. “Guess I’m going all-in on the Daddy thing now. It’s sort of, like, a retro pet name, isn’t it? Like, fifties-style? It’s sort of cute, actually.”

He disappeared out the door, leaving you to drink in that unexpected bombshell. You went to reach for your phone, but you realised you’d left it in the living room, along with your dress.

Roger returned with a towel. “And your phone,” he said, as if reading your mind, tossing it onto the bed near you. “You have about fifty texts from Brian. He sounds sad and horny.”

“That’s just Brian,” you said, picking up your phone and scrolling through the messages. “And stop reading my texts, for God’s sake.”

“I didn’t mean to, they were just there,” Roger protested. “I didn’t open anything.”

“Not an excuse.” There were only seven messages from Brian, not fifty, and it was nothing important, apart from the last one, which said: Can I get an estimate as to when it would be all right for me to come home?

Now, you replied. You didn’t bother responding to the other ones – all you said was, We were right.

“I suppose you’re telling him about me?” Roger said, going to pick up his discarded condom from the floor.

You smiled sheepishly. “He wanted to know.”

Roger frowned. “What? About how I’m like in bed?”

“No, what the fuck,” you said. “Just whether you like to be called Daddy.”

Roger’s bottom lip jutted out. “Don’t tell him,” he complained.

“Too late.”

“You said you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“You told everyone about me and him.”

“I don’t want everyone knowing.”

“Brian won’t tell anyone. But also, still, hypocrite.”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“Sorry, dude, already told him.”

Roger sulked as he threw out the condom.

You couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t sulk.”

“I can’t believe you told Brian.”

“I won’t tell him anything else.”

“I don’t care if you’d told him anything else.”

You climbed off the bed, and wrapped your arms around Roger’s neck, kissing the pout off his face. “It’s only fair,” you said. “You know he likes it, and, now, he knows you like it.”

“And we both know that you like it too,” Roger added with a cheeky smile.

“The entire fucking world knows it, thanks to you,” you grumbled. He kissed you, and then you took the towel, wrapping it around yourself.

It was strange, the next morning, to wake up beside Roger and not Brian. To see a mop of blond instead of an explosion of brown, to gaze sleepily into big blue Bambi eyes instead of smaller hazel ones. They had different smiles, but the way they smiled at you was the same: with the same warmth and fondness, the same post-sex self-satisfaction.

It was even stranger to see that Brian was the one slouched over the dining table with the killer hangover, instead of Roger. You hadn’t heard Freddie or Brian come home the night before – John was staying at Veronica’s, you assumed – but, then again, you and Roger had fallen asleep pretty damn hard after your fun night. Roger had told you he wasn’t big into cuddles after sex, but you could testify that when he was asleep, it was a very different story.

You weren’t the only one to notice the role reversal. “My my,” Freddie said, sipping on a cup of tea as Brian hid his face in his arms, and Roger pottered around the kitchen, humming to himself. “How the tables have turned.”

You smiled, but said nothing.

“I shouldn’t be worried, should I?” Freddie asked. “You’re not going to come after me next?”

“I’d be worried about me beating your ass if you keep up that sort of shit,” you muttered, and Freddie laughed.

Brian moaned, turning his head to tuck his nose into the crook of his elbow. “Be quiet, you’re too loud,” he mumbled miserably.

A few weeks passed. There was undoubtedly more flirting between you and Roger, but sleeping together had only been a one-off thing. It made things more interesting with Brian in the bedroom, in a way – he sometimes got jealous of the way you and Roger teased each other, and it made him rougher, more possessive. Sometimes you liked it, liked the bruises Brian left on your body that Roger most definitely noticed, and other times you liked to fight back against it until Brian was begging and apologising. Roger noticed the bruises you left on Brian, too.

Sometimes you wondered what it would be like to cave, to give in to Brian completely, like you had with Roger. But that would be too strange with Brian. You had no idea whether he’d even like it.

No, that had been something for you and Roger, and you and Roger alone. But, fuck, it had been good.

Almost three weeks exactly after your adventure with Roger, another party sprouted that Freddie and Roger were invited to, so of course that included you, Brian, John, and Veronica. You got together for pre-drinks, played some dumb game that Freddie insisted you all play, and flirted with Brian and Roger to your heart’s desire. At the party, as usual, you and Brian took the first chance you could get to sneak off somewhere – around the side of the house, in the dark, bracing against the cold in your shorts and top, as it ended up being – to stick your tongues down each other’s throats. When you made your way back to the party, Brian sporting a new bright red-purple bruise at the base of his neck, you spied Roger, and how his eyes zeroed in on Brian’s throat, and then he took a huge gulp of the alcoholic concoction he’d brought to the party, an entire litre-bottle of soda water with far too much vodka poured into it.

John and Veronica had eventually said their goodbyes. Freddie went a while later, reluctantly, and then it was just you, Brian, and Roger. You were happily drunk, everything around you fuzzy but in a blissful way. Brian was at the level of drunkenness where his hands couldn’t seem to stay away from you, they were magnetised to your waist, your back, your shoulders, your ass, your wrists, your hands, regardless of how many people saw it. Sometimes it was a bit much, and you had to tell him to stop being clingy, and he listened, until he forgot that you’d told him and his hands were back on you again.

Roger, however, was past the point of no return.

It hadn’t taken long for you and Brian to decide that it was time to put Roger into an Uber and send him on his way.

You both waited with him out the front. It was almost three in the morning, but the alcohol kept most of the chill of the night at bay. Roger was unusually quiet, and his behaviour reminded you of that afternoon when he’d first found out about your and Brian’s Daddy kink – there was something he wanted to say, badly, but he didn’t.

“I have to piss,” Brian announced to everyone but also no one in particular, and he made sure to drop a kiss to your cheekbone before he left, stumbling a little as he went.

Roger’s eyes were trained on him for a long time. As well as they could be, given Roger’s state. After far too long, his gaze wove its way to you.

He took in a breath. And he spoke. “I have… somethin’ to tell you,” he slurred.

“Yeah?” you said.

He blew out a lungful of air, and took a swig of beer. “Oh, bugger. Fuck. No. I shouldn’t say.”

“Okay,” you said. “That’s fine.”

“Fuck,” Roger moaned, rubbing at his eye. “God, I can’t believe I’m gonna tell you this. I really… shouldn’t fuckin’ be telling you this.”

“You don’t have to,” you said. “It’s all right.”

“No, I’m going to.” Roger took another gulp of beer. “Oh, God.”

“Rog, it’s fine,” you assured him, your stomach twisting with nerves. “Look, I’m just gonna walk away. I don’t want you to regret telling me something you shouldn’t have. Okay? It’s all right.”

“I want you,” Roger blurted desperately.

You screeched to a halt. And so did your brain. “Oh,” you said, unsure of what else to say. “Ah. Was… Was that it? Did I not run away fast enough?”

Roger nodded, pouting.

“I’m sorry,” you said. Your heart was pounding against your ribcage.

“Oh, fuck,” Roger sighed. “I shouldn’t have– have told you.”

He looked so miserable with himself that you wanted to reach out and touch him, to comfort him, but it felt wrong, given this new revelation, so you held back. “What do you mean, you want me?” you asked.

“I mean I… think about you, all the time,” Roger said. “The sex we had was fuckin’ incredible. It was so hot.”

You couldn’t deny that. And, in all honesty, your core throbbed a little at hearing Roger admit it so openly. “It was, yeah,” you said. “We were super hot together.”

“I want that again,” Roger said. “I want you.”

You took a steadying breath. “Do you mean right now? I’m not sleeping with you now, Roger. You’re wasted.”

Roger shook his head. “No, I know, I don’t mean that. I want you… like how Bri has you. God, I can’t stop thinking about all the shit you told me, all the weird – freaky – sex – shit he gets to do with you. I fucking want that.” He sobbed, clutching at his beer bottle. “I want that so bad. I’m losing my mind.”

You smiled reassuringly. “You don’t need me to do all of that,” you said. “You can do as much weird freaky sex shit as you want.”

“But I want it with you,” Roger said, and your body was starting to thrum. “Because… Because I know you, and you’re hot, and we’ve had fuckin’ hot sex already, and you’ve… made this thing with Brian work for fuckin’ forever. Do you know how in– insane that is? You two have been fucking for months, and you’re not even dating. And you’re allowed to fuck whoever else you want on top of that. I’m so jealous. You fuckin’… You literally went and – and had sex tonight, just out of the blue, at this goddamn party, just coz you felt like it. That’s so hot, I can’t stop thinking about it. Do you know how insane your… whole thing is? Do you?”

“Yeah, I know,” you said with a smile. “If I hadn’t known already, I have plenty of people telling me. Like you. And we didn’t have sex tonight, by the way. We just made out.”

“And I know it’s insane,” Roger continued without missing a beat. “But, Jesus, I want it.” He sighed, his hands falling limp at his sides, his beer bottle almost slipping from his grip. “Would you want that?” he asked. “With me? If I asked you, would you say yes?”

You hesitated. The chance to get to sleep casually with Roger on a semi-regular basis? Sure, you’d want that. But your thing with Brian was, as Roger had so delicately put it, insane. Unique. It was a perfect understanding between two equal parties. The check-ins, the trust – it was a fucking amazing mixture of all the right things to be as sustainable as it was. And it had taken time to get it just so. Effort, on both parts. Awkward conversations, negotiations, confessions. For it to work, you both had to frequently lay your hearts bare to make sure they matched up. You couldn’t just jump right into that sort of thing with anyone.

You knew Roger had no real understanding of just how complex things had to be in order to make them so simple – how would he?

But maybe they didn’t have to be to complex with Roger. Just the casual sex – that was what Roger was referring to, wasn’t it? It could just be a every-once-in-a-while thing with him. It didn’t have to be as frequent as with Brian.

“I can share,” Roger added. “I was gonna say that before, but I forgot. I’m not– I’m not asking you out or anything. I wouldn’t try to, I dunno, steal you away from Brian. You guys are really close or whatever, so I’m not trying to… come between that. Just you and me could have a – regular thing going, too.”

You opened your mouth to speak, closed it again, then opened it once more. “It’s a little more complex than that, Rog,” you said. “My thing with Bri – there’s a lot of rules and stuff. So neither of us get hurt.”

“I can do that,” Roger said. “I can do rules.” He finished off the beer and set the bottle of the ground beside him, almost losing his balance as he did so. You grabbed onto him and helped him straighten up.

“So?” he said.

Headlights rounded the corner, and you squinted against them, Roger suddenly lost in the intense light behind him.

“Roger–”

“At least think about it?”

Could you do that? Could you really have a friends-with-benefits situation with two guys living in the same house?

Oh. Oh, man. Didn’t that thought just open up some doorways to new possibilities in your imagination.

Stop it, you thought to yourself.

The car slowed as it neared you.

“You know I’d fuck you good,” Roger said in a low voice. “I’ve done it before, I can do it again. And again. And again.”

The car stopped, and the window rolled down. “Roger?” the Uber driver called.

“Yeah, he’s here,” you said, giving the driver a wave.

Roger looked to you pleadingly.

“How about you ask me when you’re sober,” you said.

Roger grinned. “That’s not a no.”

“It’s not a yes, either,” you said warningly. “I want lots of sober thinking about this, okay?”

“You have no – idea how much I’ve thought about it,” Roger said. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it, sober and drunk.”

Your breath caught. “Well–” You cleared your throat. “Well, do some more. Then we can have a serious conversation about it. That’s all you can hope for at this point, got it?”

Roger nodded. “I can work with that.”

You opened the car door for him. “In you get.”

Roger hesitated.

“Roger.”

“Ask me,” he said.

You frowned. “Ask you what?”

“Ask me to get into the car. Call me Daddy.”

You sighed. “Roger, I’m not going to do that.”

“Do it.”

“No. You’re drunk, and we’re not flirting right now.”

Roger went to protest, but you said firmly, “Roger, I’m not going to do that. Now get in the car.”

Roger closed his mouth, his eyes slightly wide, and he swallowed, nodding. “Yes, ma’am,” he said quietly, and climbed into the car, closing the door.

As the car pulled away, disappearing down the street, your mouth hung open.

It stayed open long after the car had gone.

And then, to the chilly night air, you said, “Oh, fuck.”

#roger taylor x reader #brian may x reader #queen fanfiction #rpf #smut #mine #try verse

542 notes · View notes

therealmadblonde · 4 years

Text

October 29

Following lunch at Jill’s place — to which Bubo was also invited, having finally acknowledged Graymalk to be a cat of a different category — I took a walk back to the ruin of the Good Doctor’s place. The meal had had an almost elegiac quality to it, Jack having asked outright whether she’d consider switching, Jill having admitted to a conflict in her sympathies now, but being determined to play the Game through as she’d started. It felt odd to be dining with the enemy and to care that much about them. So I took a walk afterwards, more for something to do while being alone than for any pressing purpose. I took my time in going. The charred ruin still smelled strongly; and though I circled it many times, I could see no bones or other signs of dead humans within. I wandered over to the barn then, wondering whether the experiment man might have returned to it to hide.

The door was opened sufficiently for me to enter, and I did. While his disconcerting odor was present, it did not seem a recent thing, as smells went. Still, I sought in each stall, even stirring through the hay. I checked in every corner, cubby, and bin. I even mounted the ladder to the loft and looked about there.

Then I noticed a peculiar shape to the rear — that of a bat hanging from a beam. While all bats look pretty much alike to me, especially when you turn them upside-down, it reminded me a lot of Needle. I approached and said loudly, “Hey, Needle! What the hell are you doing here?”

It stirred slightly, but did not seem inclined to wake up. So I reached out and prodded it with my paw.

“Come on, Needle. I want to talk to you,” I said.

It unfurled its wings and stared at me. It yawned, then, “Snuff, what are you doing here?” it said.

“Checking out the aftermath of the fire. What about you?”

“Same thing, but daylight caught me and I decided to sleep here.”

“Does the experiment man still come here?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t today. And I don’t know whether the Good Doctor got away either. How’s the Game progressing?”

“Now I’ve learned that the Good Doctor was never in it, I’ve found the point of manifestation — the big hill with the fallen stones.”

“Really. Now that’s interesting. What else is new?”

“Rastov and Owen are dead. Quicklime and Cheeter went back to the woods.”

“Yes, I’d heard that.”

“So it seems someone’s killing openers.”

“Rastov was a closer.”“

“I think Owen talked him into switching.”

“No, he tried but he didn’t succeed.”

“How do you know that?”

“I used to get into Owen’s place through Cheeter’s attic hole and listen to them talk. I was there the night before Rastov was killed. They were drinking and quoting everybody from Thomas Paine to Nietzsche at each other, but Rastov didn’t switch.”

“Interesting. You sound as if you’re still in the Game.”

There came a faint sound from below, just as he said, “Oh, I am — Get down! Flat!”

I threw myself onto my right side. A crossbow bolt passed very near and embedded itself into the wall right above me. I turned my head and saw Vicar Roberts below, near to the door, just lowering the weapon. His face held a nasty smile.

If I ran and jumped I’d be downstairs in a trice. I might also break a leg in the process, though, and then he could finish me easily. The alternative was to climb down the way I’d come up, backing down the ladder. For anatomical reasons, my descent is always slower than my ascent. If I did not do this, however, he could crank the weapon back, seat a bolt, and come up after me. In that case, the odds would be in his favor. At least, he didn’t have any armed assistants with him…

I thought back quickly, recalling how long it usually took to get such a weapon cocked. There was no choice, and there was no time to wait if I were to have any chance at all.

I rushed to the head of the ladder, turned, and began my descent. The vicar had already lowered the bow by then and commenced rearming it. I moved as fast as I was able, but as I searched with a hind leg after each wooden crosspiece my back felt terribly exposed. Should I make it to the floor unpierced I knew that I would still be at high risk. I hurried. I saw something black flutter by.

I heard the final click. I heard the sounds of his fitting the quarrel into place. It was still a good distance down. I descended another step. I imagined him raising the weapon, taking a leisurely sighting at an easy target. I hoped that I was right about the fluttering, about Needle. Another step…

I knew that I was right when I heard the vicar utter an oath. I descended one more step.

…Then I decided I could risk no more. I pushed myself backward, letting myself fall the rest of the way, recalling things Graymalk had said about always landing on her feet, wishing I’d been born with that ability, trying to achieve it this one time, anyway…

I tried to torque my body in the proper direction — along the long axis, relaxing my legs the while. The bolt passed well above me, from the sound I heard of it striking wood. But the man was already cranking the weapon again as I hit the ground. I did land on my feet, but they went out from under me immediately. As I struggled to rise, I saw him finish cocking the thing, now ignoring the black form which darted before him. My left hind leg hurt. I pushed myself upright, anyway, and turned. He had the quarrel in one hand and was moving to fit it into place. I had to rush him, to try knocking him over before he succeeded and got off another shot. I knew that it was going to be close…

And then there was a shadow in the doorway at his back.

“Why, Vicar Roberts, whatever are you doing with that archaic weapon?” came the wonderfully controlled falsetto of the Great Detective in his Linda Enderby guise.

The vicar hesitated, then turned.

“Madam,” he said, “I was about to perform a community service by dispatching a vicious brute which even now is preparing to attack us.”

I began wagging my tail immediately and put on my idiot slobbering hound expression, tongue hanging out and all.

“That hardly seems a vicious beast to me,” the voice of the lady stated, as the Great Detective moved in quickly, passing between the vicar and myself to effectively block a shot. “That’s just old Snuff. Everybody knows Snuff. Not a mean bone in his body. Good Snuff! Good dog!”

The old hand-on-head business followed, patting. I responded as if it were the greatest invention since free lunch.

“Whatever made you think him antisocial?”

“Madam, that was the creature that almost tore my ear off.”

“I am certain you must be mistaken, sir. I cannot conceive of this animal as behaving aggressively — except possibly in self-defense.”

The vicar’s face was quite red and his shoulders looked very tense. For a moment I thought he might actually try angling in a shot at me, anyhow.

“I really feel,” the Linda voice went on, “that if you have any complaints concerning the animal you ought to take them up with his owner first before embarking on a drastic action that might well draw the attention of the Humane Society and not rest well with the parishioners.”

“That man is a godless jackanapes…” he began, but then his shoulders slumped. “Perhaps, however, I acted hastily. As you say, the parishioners might view it askance, not knowing the full measure of my complaints. Yes. Very well.” He lowered the weapon and released its tension.

“This will be settled,” he said then, “in another day or two. But for now I accept your counsel and will do nothing rash.” He put away the quarrel in a case slung over his shoulder, slinging the weapon, also, moments later.

“And so, madam, I thank you again for those cookies you brought by, which I found quite tasty, and I bid you a good day.”

“I trust your daughter enjoyed them as well?”

“Indeed she did. We both thank you.”

He turned then and passed out through the door. The Great Detective immediately followed him to it and peered out, doubtless to make certain that he was indeed departing. Before I could take the same route to the same end, however, he caught hold of the door and slid it the rest of the way shut.

Turning, he studied me.

“Snuff,” he said, the falsetto vanished, “you are fortunate that I have a good pair of binoculars and have been inclined to use them of late.

“You are a very unusual creature,” he continued. “I first encountered you in Soho when assisting some friends at the Yard in their investigation of a very unusual series of killings. Subsequently, I have found you to be present in numerous situations both bizarre and intriguing. Your presence seems to have become almost a common denominator to all of the recent peculiar occurrences in this area. It long ago passed the point where I could safely deem it a matter of coincidence.”

I sat down and scratched my left ear with my hind leg.

“That is not going to work with me, Snuff,” he said. “I know that you are not just a dumb dog, a subhuman intelligence. I have learned a great deal concerning the affairs of this month, this place, the people engaged in the enterprise which I believe you refer to as ‘the Game.’”

I paused in my scratching to study his face.

“I interviewed both the inebriated Russian and the equally distracted Welshman on their ways home from the pub one night, in my guise as a jovial traveler in commercial sales. I have spoken with the Gipsies, with your neighbors, with all of the principals involved in this matter of purported metaphysical conflict — yes, I know it to be that — and I have observed many things which permitted me to deduce the outlines of a dark picture.”

I yawned in the rude way dogs sometimes do. He smiled.

“No good, Snuff,” he said. “You can dispense with the mannerisms. I am certain that you understand every word I am saying, and you must be curious as to the extent of my knowledge of the ceremony to be conducted here on All Hallows’ Eve and my intentions concerning it.”

He paused, and we studied each other. He wasn’t giving anything away, even at the olfactory level.

“So I think it is time for a sign of good faith,” he finally said. “Apart from the fact that I may just have rescued you from mortal distress, there are more things that I wish to say and some that I need to know, and I believe these would benefit you as well as myself. If you would be so good as to acknowledge my words, I will proceed.”

I looked away. I had anticipated this as soon as he had begun addressing me in a rational fashion. I still had not decided what my response should be when he finally got around to asking for what had to be a token of faith. And that is what it came down to… faith in the man’s professional integrity, though I was certain he would not approve of the goings-on here, and I’d no idea where his significant loyalty lay — to law, or to justice; nor whether he really understood what was at stake. Still, I did want to know what he had learned and what he had intended, and I knew there would be no way for him later to prove his assumptions concerning myself even if I did give him the acknowledgment he wanted.

So I looked back at him, met his eyes for several long seconds, then nodded once.

“Very good,” he responded. “To continue: A great number of crimes have apparently been committed by nearly everyone involved in this ‘Game,’ as you call it. Many of them would be virtually impossible to demonstrate in court — but I have neither a client who requires that I find a way of doing so, nor inclination to pursue such matters for my own amusement. Technically, I am here only as a friend of the Yard, for purposes of investigating the likely murder of a police officer. And this matter will be dealt with in due time. Since my arrival in this place, however, I have been more and more impressed by the unusual goings-on, until, at length — largely because of Mr. Talbot’s strange condition and that of the one known as the Count — I have become convinced that there is something truly unnatural involved. While I dislike such a conclusion, recent personal experiences have also led me to accept its validity. Such being the case, I am moved to interfere with your ‘Game’ two days hence.”

I shook my head slowly, from side to side.

“Snuff, that rascal who just left is planning to murder his stepdaughter on All Hallows’ Eve!”

I nodded.

“You countenance this behavior?”

I shook my head from side to side, then turned and walked away from him to a place where dust lay heavy upon the floorboards. With my paw I made four strokes in the dust: LT.

He followed me and watched. Then he said slowly, “Lawrence Talbot?”

I nodded.

“He plans to prevent the killing?”

I nodded again.

“Snuff, I know more about him than he realizes, and I have experimented with many sorts of drugs myself over the years. I know that his intent is to rescue Lynette on the night of the ceremony, but I do not believe that he has sufficiently refined the dosage which he feels will carry him past the moon madness of his affliction. And whatever the case, Vicar Roberts is aware that there is one of his sort involved, and he has melted down a piece of the rectory silverware to cast a bullet for a pistol he will be carrying with him that night.”

He paused and studied me. I believed him, but I did not know what to do.

“The only part I can see for myself in this entire affair would be to effect the girl’s rescue, should Mr. Talbot fail. To do this, I require something from you: I must know where the ceremony is to take place. Do you know?”

I nodded.

“Will you show me?”

I nodded again, and I looked toward the door.

For a second his hand twitched toward my head, then he lowered it and smiled. He moved to the door and slid it open. We stepped outside, where I looked in the direction of Dog’s Nest and barked once. Then I began walking. He followed.

#10-29-20 #a night in the lonesome october #roger zelazny #full moon halloween #the only thing that could make this book more perfect is having Sherlock Holmes in it

0 notes

truemedian · 4 years

Text

Samsung Galaxy A51 review: Wait for a price drop

Image credit: Chris Velazco/Engadget It's not a bad phone, just a bad deal. (In the US, anyway.)

Sponsored Links

Samsung got me. On paper, the company's Galaxy A51 appears to have everything you could want out of a $400 smartphone. A big, pretty screen. A multitude of cameras. A 4,000mAh battery. A flagship-inspired design, and a headphone jack. As an avid -- some might say rabid -- fan of ambitious midrange smartphones, I was ready for the A51 to take its place alongside other modestly priced standouts like the Pixel 3a XL and the iPhone SE. It never did.That’s not to say the Galaxy A51 is a bad phone. Samsung got a lot right here, and over a week of testing, I found it perfectly pleasant at times. Sadly, all the things the company handled well couldn't fully offset some janky, inconsistent performance: This is a $400 device that sometimes runs like a $250 one. I don’t think that's enough to make the A51 a bad smartphone, but it does make it a bad deal. Excellent design Big and beautiful AMOLED screen Flexible multi-camera system Laggy performance Camera quality is largely unremarkable Mediocre battery life Samsung’s Galaxy A51 packs a great screen, a handful of cameras, and a big battery -- what more could you ask from a mid-range smartphone? Well, more consistent performance, for one. Despite using a reasonably powerful chipset, the A51 is often plagued by slow app launches and laggy animations, to the point when it sometimes feels like a device that costs much less. Battery life wasn’t as good as we had hoped for, either. While Samsung got a lot right with the Galaxy A51, it never feels as consistently nice to use as some of truly great devices available in its price range.

Be the first to review the Galaxy A51 LTE? Your ratings help us make the buyer’s guide better for everyone. Write a review Key specs ConfigurationsThe Galaxy A51 I've been testing is a Verizon Wireless model with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. (Disclaimer: Verizon is Engadget's parent company, but it has no influence over what we say.) Sprint and AT&T also offer this version of the A51, and no matter which carrier you choose, they'll all sell you the phone outright for $399. That doesn't sound too steep, but it's worth noting that the phone can be had for less when purchased unlocked, especially if you live outside the United States. If you're serious about owning an A51, scouting out a good deal is a must: This isn't worth $400.

Chris Velazco/Engadget Image credit: Chris Velazco/Engadget Flagship styleIf there's one thing Samsung deserves credit for, it's that the A51 in no way looks like a $400 phone. With a surprisingly trim frame; an eye-catching, light-refracting finish; and some incredibly small bezels, this midrange model could easily pass for a phone that costs twice as much. As far as I'm concerned, this is the best-looking midrange smartphone out there. Just keep in mind that thanks to its display, the A51 might be a nonstarter for people with smaller hands -- it's thin but still plenty large.Of course, since this phone costs a fraction of what a flagship does, Samsung had to be judicious about balancing style and substance. Consider Samsung's choice of materials: Wrapping a phone in glass quickly makes its price tag jump, so the company used what it calls "Glasstic" for the A51's body. As the name suggests, that just means this phone has a plastic frame that sort of feels like glass if you don't scrutinize it too much. The Galaxy A51 also lacks an IP-rating for water and dust resistance, which is very common for phones in this price range. (Note: If you Google "A51 water resistance," you might see a search result from Verizon claiming the A51 is rated IP68 -- it absolutely is not.)

Chris Velazco/Engadget The rest of the phone's design is fairly standard. There's a USB-C port that supports 15W fast charging and a combination nanoSIM/microSD card tray on the phone's right side that you can use to augment the standard 128GB of storage. If you're a music fan, you'll also appreciate the proper headphone jack Samsung squeezed into the A51, since its single speaker is pretty awful. What helps elevate the A51's design is its spacious, 6.5-inch, Full HD+ Super AMOLED screen. It's one of Samsung's Infinity-O displays which, if you're allergic to marketing BS, means there's a tiny hole cut out of the panel to accommodate a 32-megapixel front camera. It’s remarkably small and would be easy enough to overlook were it not for the shiny metallic ring surrounding it -- it's almost like Samsung wants you to keep looking at it. Thankfully, the rest of the screen is typical Samsung: Deep blacks, punchy colors, and great viewing angles considering the price. Its max brightness feels a little anemic so outdoor use can be a little tricky at times, but the display is very well-suited to binging on YouTube videos while you're sheltering at home.The screen is very often the most expensive component in a smartphone, and I'm glad that Samsung went with the display it did here. It's not just easy on the eyes; it’s a great rebuttal to devices like the iPhone SE that rely on dated designs to keep costs down. Visually, the A51 is a stunner, but as my parents always used to tell me, looks aren't everything.

Chris Velazco/Engadget Image credit: Chris Velazco/Engadget In use The frustration here begins when you go to unlock the phone. There's an optical fingerprint sensor under the display, and it's... not great. When it does work, it usually takes a while to actually recognize my thumb. Too often, though, the sensor just didn't work. Normally, you'd see a bit of green whooshing around your finger to let you know the sensor was analyzing your print, but that didn't always appear. Repeated screen cleanings didn't fix the issue, and neither did re-enrolling my fingers. For your sanity, maybe just set up a PIN or an unlock pattern instead.Once I made it in, a bigger issue became obvious pretty quickly -- the A51 is noticeably laggy at times. Switching between apps frequently felt choppy, as did thumbing through pages of apps, and even just popping back out to the home screen. You know, the stuff you do every day.To be clear, this doesn’t happen constantly, and I didn’t have much to complain about when the phone was firing on all cylinders. If you're the kind of person who just wants to watch videos and maybe send a few emails to the family, you might not even notice this momentary lag. But if you're a fan of smooth, consistent performance, be prepared for some disappointment -- stuttering animations and delayed app launches are never too far away, and it gets old pretty quickly. Gallery: Samsung Galaxy A51 review photos | 13 Photos

Exactly why the A51 runs the way it does isn't wholly clear, but part of the issue probably lies with Samsung's choice of chipset. Rather than use a Qualcomm Snapdragon like most US-bound Android phones, the company ran with its in-house Exynos 9611. From what I can tell, there's not much difference between this sliver of silicon and the Exynos 9610 Samsung started using in late 2018 -- some of the CPU cores are marginally faster and it supports a wider variety of rear cameras, but that's really it. That Samsung would splurge on a great screen and use a minor refresh of a chip that was announced a little over two years ago tells you a lot about its priorities. The funny thing is, this chipset is no slouch. It falls somewhere between the $250 Moto G Power (with a Snapdragon 665 chipset) and the $470 Pixel 3 XL (with a Snapdragon 670), which is exactly what you'd expect considering how much these phones cost. The A51 benchmarks pretty well, too -- it’s nowhere near flagship level, but well in line with other US-bound devices we’ve seen in this price range. That being the case, it seems more likely that this inconsistent performance is due to a lack of software optimization that could theoretically be fixed in a future update. (For what it’s worth, Samsung wouldn’t confirm that any such updates were in the works.)In fairness to Samsung, people contemplating a $400 smartphone probably know not to expect best-in-class performance. The bigger issue here is that it’s still a considerable sum to drop on a smartphone, and the A51's balance of performance and price just doesn’t feel right.

Chris Velazco/Engadget The Moto G Power -- a phone that costs $150 less with an older chipset -- manages to run a little more consistently. And the Pixel 3a XL? Forget about it. The difference in smoothness and the overall quality of experience between these devices skews heavily in the Pixel's favor. It’s also worth noting that all three of these phones have 4GB of RAM, so it’s not like Motorola or Google had more resources to work with here. And if you’re not married to Android, there's always the iPhone SE. It's a $400 arrow aimed at Samsung's heart and runs just as well as Apple’s most expensive smartphones. Whether it's because of a heavy touch with software, poor memory management, or something else entirely, this questionable performance makes the A51 hard to recommend for the price. I had hoped that epic battery life would've sweetened the deal here, but it doesn’t. Despite packing a pretty sizable 4,000mAh (along with a mid-range chipset and a screen that only runs at 1080p), the Galaxy A51 is only good for about one full day of use. That's not awful by any stretch, but when other mid-range phones -- like the Moto G Power -- have battery lives measured in days instead of hours, the A51 can't help but feel a little disappointing.

Chris Velazco/Engadget Image credit: Chris Velazco/Engadget Plenty of camerasAt this point, the one thing that could redeem the A51 is truly excellent camera performance. Calling the phone's trio of rear cameras "excellent" would be a stretch, but in most cases, they're good enough.And that's right, I said "trio" although there are four lenses on the A51's rear. Most of the time you'll wind up using the 48-megapixel standard wide camera which, like most other phones with pixel-rich sensors, produces smaller 12-megapixel stills by default. As usual for a Samsung phone, the results feature lots of vivid colors, though pixel-peepers will notice a surprising lack of fine details upon zooming in. That’s despite Samsung’s typical -- and almost stylized -- image processing, too. Big surprise, right? Like nearly every Samsung camera before it, this one seems tuned to deliver images that look slightly nicer than reality. These are great photos to post on Instagram, but maybe not for printing and mounting on your wall. Unfortunately, even the decently wide f/2.0 aperture doesn't help the A51's main camera much in low light -- colors tend to look a little washed out, and details get smeared into oblivion. Gallery: Samsung Galaxy A51 camera samples | 24 Photos

Meanwhile, the 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It captures a 123-degree field of view with minimal barrel distortion around the edges, and its colors are even poppier and more saturated than what you'd get out of the main camera. If you're walking around and shooting photos on a clear day, those pale blue skies will turn out a little more neon than you'd expect. Since this camera is mainly meant to capture lots of attractive, well-lit space, it's no surprise that it struggles more than the main camera does in low light.Rather than a telephoto camera (which was almost certainly too expensive for a phone like this), the A51's third sensor is a 5-megapixel affair for macro photos. I've wondered in the past who spends their time bopping around and looking for very small things to take photos of, but ever since testing the OnePlus 8 Pro, I've become one of those people. It's too bad, then, that this never produced the sort of crisp, super-tight images I was hoping for. That's partially because the camera's image processing seems to iron out some of those minute details, but also because the narrow depth of field means getting everything framed up just right can take some work.And that last lens? It's for a 5-megapixel depth sensor that Samsung uses to capture data for more bokeh-filled portraits. It does its job well. I've seen more than a few phones struggle with accurately separating the subject from its background, but the A51 handles the task without much fuss. Ultimately, no matter which camera you spend the most time with, be prepared for good -- not great -- results. If getting the best overall photo is your biggest concern, you'd still be much better off with one of Google's Pixel 3As or the iPhone SE. Samsung's real edge here doesn't lay in the quality of its images so much as the flexibility that multiple cameras provide.

Chris Velazco/Engadget Wrap-upWith the Galaxy A51, Samsung tried to bring some flagship style and features to an affordable smartphone. It wasn't completely successful, but the effort is appreciated. More than anything, what Samsung really got wrong here (in the US, at least) is the phone's price. If the Galaxy A51 cost closer to $300, as it does in certain overseas markets, Samsung's strange blend of style and stymied performance would be a lot easier to swallow. As it stands, though, the A51 never feels as consistently smooth as some of the truly great devices you can get for around $400 now. Sure, the Pixel 3a XL and the iPhone SE lack the A51’s panache, but they’re just nicer to use. And hey -- if you’re really itching for a Samsung phone and have some latitude in your budget, the slightly more powerful Galaxy A71 might be a better choice. If you can find a sweet deal -- or don't mind trading an older phone in -- the Galaxy A51 isn't a bad option. Anyone who doesn't need a phone now though should wait until Google releases its new mid-range Pixel and decide. All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Comments

42 Shares Read More Read the full article

0 notes

shinthedancer-blog · 7 years

Text

Mack The Knife|Chapter 1|Calandra

“Hey! Hey Callie!“

For someone in so dire a situation, Shin’s mood seemed excellent, or at the very least she was excellent at faking it. With how casual her wave was as she headed towards her pal, it really may have felt like she was just enjoying a nice stroll through the small village. Such excellent weather, after all. And such nice scenery.

Calandra’s choice of it had been the duck pond, nicely central, just behind the cottages where they had all made their homes by now, and Shin, having just returned from her dinner (lacklustre as always, in this place), had seen that choice and decided to join her in it.

The smaller girl turned upon her call, only slightly, only enough to see who it was approaching her, and after confirming it to be the dancer, gave that small, soft smile, more like velvet used to smother than to soothe, which Shin took as an invitation, or at least not an open rejection of her company. She covered the distance between them in large strides, and came to a stop next to Calandra.

“Pretty wild stuff, huh? That whole Fool business.”

Her hands were in her pockets, her eyes on the pond in front of them, and her light laugh on her lips. Even with the acknowledgement of their situation, it seemed like it stopped at acknowledging that things had indeed happened, stopping short of taking them seriously.

“How long do ya think they can keep it goin, huh? HPA, I mean. This has gotta be on them, right? Some kinda prank? Or experiment?”

She looked at Calandra, now, out of the corner of her eye. There was amusement sparkling in it, met with Calandra’s usual level of it, but where Shin was merely making warm conversation, Calandra’s words held a coldness to them not directed towards the dancer, but at any who would be in her way- at this point, the so fittingly named Fool.

“Ah, it hardly matters, does it?”

Her voice was a whisper, and a purr. Shin’s smile widened and warmed with affection hearing that tone, the smoky mystery belonging in one of her beloved noirs. Little did she know what lay beneath. But she would learn, and soon.

“My family will not stand for it, and upon their wish, this will all be over. All that stands in their way is knowledge of our fate, my dearest Shin. And that is soon to follow.”

So much revealed so simply. And yet, nothing at all. But Shin didn’t seem to mind. It wasn’t information she was after, just conversation. And so instead of other follow up questions, all she gave was a low whistle.

“They must be pretty important, eh? Ya family.”

It wasn’t much of a serious question, and she wasn’t interested in knowing. That was, until she got an answer to it.

“Oh, the Jeggare’s have power of this world and the other. Granted by our dark lord, and by our own machinations.”

Calandra returned her look, now, with as much genuine amusement.

“We run our family business well, Shin, my dear, under my guidance as consigliere. Such guidance that it was deemed deserving of a title.”

Shin froze before the last words had even left her mouth. Her posture, her smile, everything. The moment the word “consigliere” was mentioned, she froze in place, and only unfroze a few moments after Calandra had finished talking, to blink in confusion, to have her smile fall, to struggle visibly with this new information.

“Wait…. Wait…… Hold up….”

A smaller laugh fell from her lips, but one lacking in humor or even the attempt to fake it.

“Thought I heard ya say ya were a…. what was it…. Consigliere, yeah? Like in the movies or….”

She gestured, trying to grasp something invisible in front of her from the looks of it.

“Ya know. Like, in mafia stuff. Not that I’m sayin ya would be part of that. Cause obviously that’d just be impossible, right?”

Her tone wasn’t as light as her choice of words. In fact, it was growing heavier by the second, until her next words, in another world an admittance of insecurity, a desperate search for agreement, sounded more like a threat, a warning against receiving anything but that agreement.

“Right, Callie?”

There was a moment of silence between them, or maybe a minute, it was hard to tell. Then, finally, it broke with Calandra’s simple:

“Oh, dearest Shin…. I thought you had already figured that out, at least?”

And, just like that, it would never be fixed again.

“You’re WHAT?”

The ducks in the pond flapped their wings, loudly declaring their displeasure at Shin’s suddenly loud and not so amused anymore voice.

The dancer herself hardly cared. She had turned to face Calandra head on, fists balled at her sides, her face turned from one of warmth and affection to a grimace of disgust and anger.

“Your family, who you’re workin for- they’re gangsters? The fuckin mafia?!”

This was a level of disgust rarely seen from her. She recoiled, physically, from the girl who moments before had been her friend. Recoiled like one would from a snake. A particularly ugly one.

Calandra watched on in silence as Shin came to terms with the information she had just received, which the dancer did loudly. Loud enough to draw some eyes to them, but she hardly seemed to care.

“The thievin, murderin, kidnappin, god fuckin forsaken MAFIA?! Those fuckin MONSTERS??!”

It was at this point that Calandra’s own smile faltered and fell, her pretty face now in a deep frown, golden eyes sending Shin a glare of the kind that would’ve made the blood freeze in the veins of any human being with less fire in them than her.

“And who are you….”

Her voice wasn’t louder than before, but much colder, and even Shin was stopped momentarily in her rage when met with one that matched hers.

“….To judge me? To judge your saviors? We’ve been kidnapped, fucking kidnapped, and yet you whine and complain about your betters? Complain like a baby. Why, Shin I did not take you for such a sanctimonious fuck!”

The insult, fired with the precision off a poison dart, seemed to bounce right off of Shin’s armor of righteous rage (and obliviousness), but the rest of it did not, and was commented with a disbelieving snort.

“Fuckin saviours? Well sign me up for fuckin damnation if that’s your choice a saviours, then. Man, I thought ya were just really into your style, ya know, dark and gothy and shit, but essentially harmless. Like it’s SUPPOSED ta be! Turns out ya actually are just a fuckin killer bitch! Just a fuckin monster!”

Calandra, now facing Shin head on as well, didn’t skip a beat to reply.

“I am not a monster for doing as my family has done since your own ancestors were living in thatched roof huts!”

“But you are! You ARE, Callie!! Who gives a SHIT how long your family’s been up ta terrible things or how loyal ya think you’re bein, if ya were actually a person worth givin two SHITS about ya would’ve told em off! You woulda left! You woulda done ANYTHIN but WORK for em, what the fuck is WRONG with ya?!”

She was yelling, now, yelling and gesturing, face red with rage. Calandra’s own rage had burned cold until now, but the fire of the dancer seemed to jump over to her, and she responded in kind, though her gestures were more the restrained kind.

“The fuck is wrong with YOU, that you think disloyalty a virtue?! They’ve given me everything! Everything I’ve ever had! I have measured and weighed and NOTHING, NOTHING I could be doing is better than doing my lineage proud!! [May the crows eat your fucking eyes, you bitch! May they fucking scratch them out of your skull while demons feast on your guts!]”

She continued in this manner, but Shin was not to be outyelled, not when she had only just started. If there was one thing she was practiced in (aside from the many, many things she was), it was arguments.

“Do ya hear yaself, like, when ya talk?! The FUCK??! Ya standin here, right now, tellin me that the best thing ya could be doin with ya life is... is murder, and theft, and drug trafficking or whatever the fuck else your familys gotten up to?? doesnt matter how related they are to ya, its WRONG, wrong dont become right just cause its ya pa who does it!”

She took a step back, pushed back her hair, but what looked like a retreat was barely her getting enough breath to continue her assault, now with a new angle, a new realization.

“Cant fuckin believe- and ya live with Natsume, too?? im tellin ya if ya lay one of ya filthy fingers on her, touch even one hair on her head, ill fuckin gut ya like the cops ought ta have done years ago!"

With Calandra yelling her own threats in Italian, and Shin returning the favour in Japanese, the two had drawn the attention of a small audience, but neither of them seemed to care overly much. This was a battle between two parties who weren’t used to losing, and much less likely to accept such loss. More importantly, two parties who had managed to enrage each other to such a point that their argument wasn’t a discussion of ethics. It was a shouting match, just yelling out their anger at each other, and neither would back down.

Finally, it was Calandra who returned to actual arguing, instead of just yelling. But it wasn’t a big step back.

"Ignorant oaf! I don't dirty my hands with the work of soldiers! I make and break kings! And you're just a failed dancer, shall I ask a cousin of mine to break your other leg so you can always be on your high horse? And you can't let Natsume dear make her own choices, can you? Keep her in your shadow forever, and don't let her dance away from you! At least she still can!"

It was this, at last, that made Shin fall silent, her expression changing from outright rage to something else. Whatever it was: shock, disbelief, genuine hurt, it vanished as soon as it had come, turning back into rage. A colder, quieter rage that came with trembling, but not words. She stood straighter than before, her fists balled at her sides, and she glared. Glared silently at her former friend. Whichever part of what Calandra said had done it, she was officially at a loss for words. A chance that Calandra used, her voice now at a normal talking level again. The fire was extinguished, the ice had returned to both of them.

"I needn't hex you. You've failed enough already, haven't you dear?"

What happened next, happened too fast to comprehend while it was. It could only ever be looked back upon later, and even then with surprise.

One moment, things seemed to cool down considerably. The audience may wish, perhaps, that this was all there would be to it, that they would just walk away, and that the tension in the air may not snap after all. But it did, because in the next moment, Calandra’s head flew to the side in a flurry of black hair, the sudden force of impact enough to make her stumble and fall. Shin’s fist, formerly so tightly curled at her side, was the source of that impact- it was clear to see she’d thrown punches before, and that this was one that hurt.

It was hard to believe how quickly things had escalated, how little it had taken to get to this point, but Shin had punched her former friend straight in the face, and from the looks of it she had not been pulling her punches.

As quickly as it had happened it was over, and Shin glared down on Calandra, who was holding her cheek. It was hard to tell whether she was surprised with her hair covering her face as it was, but she didn’t move, and neither did Shin. The world seemed to hold its breath.

Shin was the one to move first, and it was in curt, tense movements. One finger pointing at Calandra, jabbing in her direction to underline her words, her tremble had moved from her body into her voice. Was it right to call the anger in it barely restrained anymore, when she had shown absolutely no restraint during the entire conversation in the first place?

“Fuck. You. I WILL get better! I WILL!! STAY….”

She had gotten back to yelling, and took a moment to steady herself before continuing at a more normal volume, but not a less enraged one.

“…Stay the FUCK away from me and Natsume, you fucking piece of FILTH.”

And with that, she just turned and left, with the same long strides that had gotten her here, fists still balled and blood on her knuckles, a storm on the move that none of those watching dared approach.

Yet, this was only the beginning of the violence that was yet to come.

#ic #calandra jeggare #here i summed things up for yall #just so youre not surprised when they suddenly Hate Each Other

2 notes · View notes

365footballorg-blog · 6 years

Text

Armchair Analyst: Your complete guide to the Week 13 MLS slate

May 25, 201812:17PM EDT

The final weekend of May does not mark the final collection of games this month. There’s a quartet scheduled for Wednesday – two East, two West – so between that, injury and certain players headed off to World Cup camps, expect a decent amount of squad rotation this weekend.

Should we expect goals, though? A month ago the league was averaging nearly 3.3 goals per match and just about everybody was lighting up the scoreboard. Now we’re down to 2.8, and my gut feeling is a bunch of the bottom-dwellers looked at the top teams and said “wow we’d better just bunker against that because if we try to come out and play we’re going to get killed.”

It’s part of the ongoing stratification of the league. Parity is still at the heart of MLS, but certain teams have been better at acquiring top talent, or developing young talent, or integrating all their talent (or all three), so there’s starting to be haves and have-nots.

We know what happens in those situations because we see it all over the world: The have-nots play for the 0-0, or the smash-and-grab. Thus the onus is on the haves to crack ’em open early, control the game state and force them to come out and play.

Of late that’s been easier said than done.

Let’s take a look at Week 13:

Friday Forecast

Toronto FC vs. FC Dallas

8 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

Have you seen the Sebastian Giovinco to Tigres reports? You should look at them, and then think about the fact that Giovinco is 1) 31 years old, 2) not the player he was two years ago, 3) injury prone, and 4) on $ 7 million per year. Then look at this:

Re: Giovinco-Toronto FC GM Tim Bezbatchenko tells me that, despite speculation and rumours, the club has received no offer from Tigres UANL. #TFCLive

— Joshua Kloke (@joshuakloke) May 23, 2018

That is not a real denial, is it? The question isn’t “have you received an offer from Tigres?” it’s “would you listen to offers from Tigres?”

I’d wager they would. Giovinco is still arguably the best player in MLS, but he’s on the downslope and almost certainly won’t be the best player in the league when his current contract ends after next season. But he’s clamoring for a new contract already and, from afar, things seem to be at more than just a gentle simmer.

If Giovinco plays angry it’s usually good, provided he can avoid getting carded for abusive language or simple dissent. Nonetheless the Reds have to deal with all of that as they re-integrate a bunch of newly healthy players, and as they try to climb out of the early-season hole they dug for themselves. It feels slightly dangerous and combustible.

Dallas will be waiting, happily, to try to throw a wrench into the works. They have just one loss all season but just one win in their last four, and tossed away two points last weekend.

Houston vs. NYCFC

8:55 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

Way back in Week 1 the Dynamo blitzed Atlanta United 4-0 in Houston. Atlanta came into that game attempting to play the way that NYCFC play just about every game: four at the back, build with the ball on the ground, push the fullbacks up in order to create overloads and turn possession into both width and penetration.

Houston knew it was coming and just battered the Five Stripes by drawing their line of confrontation at the midfield stripe and turning every 50/50 ball into a breakaway opportunity. If Atlanta were going to play so much on the front foot, and bring their defenders so high upfield, then Alberth Elis was going to run into space all day.

And so he did. That, plus set-piece dominance, made for what is still one of the most resounding wins of the year, for anybody.

Obviously there should be some warning sirens going off for the Pigeons. Patrick Vieira has been adamant that he doesn’t want to change the way his team plays – under him they value the ball and always will – but he’s been a touch pragmatic about where they build, what formation they play (it was a 3-5-2 last week) and how high they’ll push their fullbacks. In other words, don’t expect Ben Sweat to get too far upfield on the left since that’s where Elis lurks.

Do, however, expect Alex Ring to be under heavy pressure from the Houston attackers. If he handles that well, NYCFC will give themselves a much better shot than Atlanta did two months back.

LA Galaxy vs. San Jose Earthquakes

11 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

My colleague Bobby Warshaw has been working on the assumption, since he arrived, that the Galaxy would be better with Zlatan Ibrahimovic on the bench. The idea is that with him out of the lineup the entire team would end up playing with a more egalitarian bent, working for and with each other in order to carve out chances rather than playing through their fulcrum of a superstar No. 9.

This point of view is not without merit (though to be clear: he is wrong. You can build a scheme for a heavy-usage Zlatan and be successful if you’re smart about it).

The real problem for the Galaxy isn’t Zlatan, or the attack at all, really. It’s… elsewhere:

I literally groaned out loud several times making this cut up. Check out the LA Galaxy *trying* to play out of the back against the Montreal Impact today. pic.twitter.com/dwuwV4DgEl

— Joseph Lowery (@joeInCleats) May 21, 2018

That clip’s made the rounds this week, as it should’ve. It’s never clear how LA intend to shuttle the ball from back to front, and so there tend to be a lot of aimless long-balls. With or without the big Swede, that’s not a great plan.

Of course it might be good enough against a Quakes team that, week to week, looks like it has no idea how to defend, and no idea of how to play as a unit. They almost certainly lead the league in hospital balls and are probably second only to Montreal in blown offside traps.

Saturday Slate

Seattle Sounders vs. Real Salt Lake

5 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

How many healthy starters do the Sounders have left? It’s not a ton, but honestly they might still be OK because RSL are just shocking when trying to defend on the road.

Borek Dockal is not, and never has been particularly fast. And yet:

It’s becoming more and more apparent by the week that Kyle Beckerman and Damir Kreilach can not play together without getting carved up because neither has any kind of footspeed. If this was circa 2013 RSL – a team that kept the game small and tight, that constantly used the ball to create angles and meaningful possession – they could probably pull it off.

But that’s not how they play. They’re a “spread the field and run at ’em” team when they have the ball, which means any turnover is an existential crisis. And while it’s undeniably true that RSL aren’t 2013 RSL, it’s undeniably-er true that MLS isn’t 2013 MLS. Teams are better and smarter and even the bottom of the barrel can go HAM if you don’t track through the midfield.

So I’m thinking keep an eye on Magnus Wolff Eikrem or Cristian Roldan bursting out of midfield and into space for Seattle.

Vancouver Whitecaps vs. New England Revolution

5:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

Columbus did a very clever job last weekend of playing over the Revs high press and turning it into a game of second balls in midfield off of Gyasi Zardes knockdowns:

This is pretty much the default setting for Vancouver, a team who hit more long-balls than anybody else in the league. The key will be for them to be measured long-balls rather than the rushed, aimless types they often resort to. And the other key will obviously be to understand their own midfield shape – the ‘Caps play with multiple d-mids, and while that can gum up opposing attacks there’s also often a bit of “you take him, no I’ve got him”-type uncertainty when it comes to closing down lanes and making zonal reads.

Which is to say that you can get in between the lines against a Vancouver team that’s not as defensively sound as they were last year. The Revs weren’t able to do that at all against Crew SC last week, but Columbus are made of sterner, more organized stuff. Watch for Teal Bunbury to release into space as Diego Fagundez drifts into pockets between the ‘Caps midfield and defense.

New York Red Bulls vs. Philadelphia Union

7 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

The Union have won two in a row in commanding fashion. Their “Trust the Process” central defense of Auston Trusty and Mark McKenzie has largely been very good, and it’s nice to see a coach give his young players time to improve. Jim Curtin deserves some dap.

It’s been a feel-good two weeks for Philly. And now they head to Harrison to take on the Red Bulls.

Updated top 10 of G+A/90 (no PKs), 500 min+

1) BWP – 1.86 2) Kaku – 1.33 3) Villa – 1.06 4) Lamah – 1.06 5) Elis – 1.06 6) Piatti – 1.02 7) Valot – 1.01 8) Quioto – 1.00 9) Vela – 1.00 10) Diaz – 0.99

BWP is on track for a 25 goal, 16 assist season if he plays 2000 minutes

— Tutul Rahman (@tutulismyname) May 21, 2018

Good luck.

Orlando City vs. Chicago Fire

7:30 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

A few weeks back I looked at Orlando City’s schedule and said that they were entering a brutal stretch in which they’d be outright favored in just two of the next 13 games. This, the third game in that stretch (they’re 0-2-0 so far, though they’ve played well), is one of them.

The Lions have been much more structurally sound over the past three halves of defensive soccer, having mostly cut out allowing the breakaways that had caused them so much worry through the season’s first two months. The fact that it hasn’t paid off with a point is a type of cruel irony.

Regardless, here’s the simple truth: At home against a slow, injured and fading Chicago team, they can’t afford anything but the full three points. And that means the central midfield has to be better at tracking runners than they’ve shown:

Minnesota United vs. Montreal Impact

8 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

MNUFC – go ahead and @ them if you want to – have taken just seven points from their last nine games as they’ve struggled mightily to defend in the box. Bobby Shuttleworth is putting in damn near man of the match performances on the regular, which has kept more than a few of these games respectable.

By the eye test I’d say that the Loons actually have a better front-to-back defensive structure than they did for much of last year, and recent acquisition Eric Miller has helped noticeably at fullback. But they are sloppy and epically prone to mental lapses in central defense, and if you’re sporting that particular flaw you’re going to lose a lot of games.

Montreal have all those same flaws plus a few more. They’re comfortably ahead of MNUFC’s all-time-worst-defense pace the Loons set last year and have lost seven of eight. FiveThirtyEight puts their chances of claiming a playoff spot at just 8% (which IMO feels high).

They should trade Ignacio Piatti, sell whatever other veterans they can part with, and go into full rebuild mode. Piatti’s not the problem – he never has been – but the timeline Montreal are looking at, he’s too old to be part of the solution. Montreal have largely ignored the draft, have been slow to develop their Homegrown talent, and have been far too in love recently with importing injury-prone, 30-something defenders. They are years away from competing, and Piatti doesn’t have that kind of time left.

Chicago? Columbus? Seattle? Somebody out there will give up all their TAM and a young talent for the guy.

Colorado Rapids vs. Portland Timbers

9 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

The Timbers have been a counterattacking machine over the last few years. That kind of disappeared in March, but it’s come back with a vengeance since then as they’ve ripped off five straight wins. Here ya go:

The question against the Rapids is always “will they give you room to counter?” Colorado are still very much a sit-deep-and-break group (they love a good, direct long-ball over the top to Dominique Badji) and that kind of reactive approach obviously has its benefits in the modern game – if you’re not trying to play with the ball in your own defensive third, you’re not going to have as many potentially fatal turnovers.

But the truth is that somebody’s going to need to be on the ball in this one. Given Colorado’s miserable start, their ever-present 5,280 feet of home-field advantage and the existential nature of their upcoming stretch (four of five at home, and I’d say they need nine points to keep their playoff hopes at all realistic), it’s perhaps time to throw caution to the wind spend time playing on the front foot.

Is that a switch they can just flip without exposing themselves in transition? I doubt it. But nothing else has worked.

LAFC vs. D.C. United

10 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

D.C. got themselves a nice-looking win at San Jose last week. They scored two goals off of high pressure and one on a lovely long-ball over the top that caught the Quakes backline predictably flat-footed and out of alignment. It was good stuff from D.C.

It was also a rarity this season. United have spent less time in the attacking third than anyone else in MLS, and despite a very nice collection of committed, skilled, two-way attackers they just haven’t really been able to figure out how to move forward with intent more than every so often.

The numbers back that up:

Team Passes Into Final Third Sporting Kansas City 924 New England Revolution 818 Columbus Crew SC 776 Minnesota United FC 760 New York City FC 758 New York Red Bulls 755 Philadelphia Union 694 Vancouver Whitecaps FC 669 Orlando City SC 664 Los Angeles Football Club 650 LA Galaxy 646 Atlanta United FC 631 Houston Dynamo 622 FC Dallas 618 Real Salt Lake 617 Montreal Impact 610 Chicago Fire 590 Toronto FC 588 Seattle Sounders FC 572 San Jose Earthquakes 556 Portland Timbers 541 Colorado Rapids 531 D.C. United 398

If you can’t even figure out how to get into the most dangerous spots on the field, maybe your best bet is to just defend there? That’s why there’s promise in the high pressure they used to undress San Jose.

LAFC are obviously a level or three above the Quakes, but they’ve been susceptible to the high press themselves at times this season. Of course they’ve also annihilated a few teams that have attempted to press them badly, and their whole ethos is “we will pass right through you.”

They’ve done so with less effectiveness since Marco Ureña went down injured last month, but what you’re hearing is Adama Diomande’s music. The Norwegian was superb in a midweek friendly vs. Borussia Dortmund, and Bob Bradley – who coached Diomande at Stabæk a few years ago – went out and got him for a reason.

Bright start for #LAFC, possessing confidently and taking the game to #BVB. Adama Diomande showing early signs of good hold-up play as the #9, exactly what Bob Bradley wanted him for. #LAFCvBVB #LAFCBVB #MLS pic.twitter.com/qrqdJ4w1UE

— Jason Foster (@JogaBonito_USA) May 23, 2018

Sunday’s Finale

Sporting KC vs. Columbus Crew SC

6 pm ET | Match Preview | TV & Streaming Info

Two of the best teams in the league right now, but both have obvious shortfalls at the moment. For Crew SC it’s still their inability to generate goals from the wing – an ongoing concern that my I’m guessing Gregg Berhalter is prepared to wait out (Niko Hansen has loads of promise as a goalscoring winger, but his decision-making needs lots of refinement).

For Sporting it’s been a lack of any sort of creativity from central midfield in the absence of Felipe Gutierrez. And it’s not just “hey see if you can ping the ball around and open up the defense” creativity, but the sort of goal-hunting, dangerous-movement-off-the-ball creativity that the Chilean brought to the table back in March.

DP signing Yohan Croizet has, uh, not been up to the task:

Kind of amazed by this from Croizet. #MINvSKC pic.twitter.com/3utemwkvJe

— Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) May 20, 2018

So yeah, still work to be done. But this should be a good one nonetheless.

One more thing to ponder…

Happy weekending, everybody.

Series:

Topics:

<!–

Stay connected: Get access to breaking news, videos, and analysis from North America’s best soccer reporters via “This Week in MLS” newsletter or using our FREE mobile app.

–>

Stay connected: The all-new, completely redesigned, FREE official MLS app is your best mobile source for scores, news, analysis and highlights. Download: App Store | Google Play

#block-block-188 {padding:0;} #stay-connected {border-top:1px solid #ebebeb;margin:20px 0;} #stay-connected p {margin:0;color:#4d4d4d;line-height:1.5em;} @media screen and (max-width: 730px) { #stay-connected {padding:8px 6px 0 6px;width:100%;} } @media screen and (min-width: 731px) and (max-width: 1120px) { #stay-connected {padding:8px 6px 0 6px;width:100%;} } @media screen and (min-width: 1121px) { #stay-connected {padding:8px 6px 0 6px;width:708px;} }

MLSsoccer.com News

Armchair Analyst: Your complete guide to the Week 13 MLS slate was originally published on 365 Football

#Analyst #Armchair #complete #Guide #slate #week

0 notes

junker-town · 6 years

Text

The dark, pie-charted heart of college football rivalries

Every rivalry has something that makes it burn hot.

Rivalry is often defined as “that moment when someone sees a stranger dressed in a team’s colors and, despite being down by three scores and on national television, still shoots both middle fingers at them and accidentally creates a Renaissance painting.”

Hang it in a museum pic.twitter.com/gGg2T77gv3

— Bunkie Perkins (@BunkiePerkins) October 23, 2017

No one really says this. They should, though. Every other definition of rivalry is just as bad as this one and leaves out the part about being eager to shoot middle fingers at each other for no reason other than the color of a shirt.

Even if there is a great definition, quantifying rivalries in college football gets squirrelly. They’re less constant standards of emotion, and more more like a currency. Currencies, I should say, because there are a ton of them, all in different states of repair or being, and all of them susceptible to circumstance, politics, and random acts of God.

For instance: Some are dead, which is why we really don’t talk about Georgia Tech/Alabama anymore. Some are in stasis or suspended animation, like Texas/Texas A&M. Some rivalries are alive but in a long, one-sided kind of rut. See: Alabama/Tennessee, still heated enough to merit double middle fingers, but right now leaning 11 games to zero for Alabama since 2007. The emotion and intensity of the game is still real, and the competition portion of the festivities is not.

Let’s check in on some rivalries. A few basic ground rules for inclusion here:

Rivalries are evaluated mostly on the last four or five years. No one on the roster was there before that. The coach probably wasn’t either. The student section was in high school, and so were the players, and there is a strong chance no one remembers anything that happened in the rivalry prior to four or five years ago. But that epic game in ‘68! Stop hipstering dead rivalries to life just because you read about them. Dormant does not count here. We need live, fiery contests with spite and consequences on the menu.

There are exceptions to this, like the Kick Six, which happened and was hilarious. My God, was it funny. If that happened to my team against a team I hate as much as Auburn, I would never stop being mad about it, especially because it is the kind of play that gets a name, and then joins the other plays with Proper Names, and then even young football players and children know their name, and repeat them even after being reminded of the other team’s recent dominance over their rival. Is this triggering? It should be triggering for you, Alabama, because that is the entire point of this.

The rivalry has to at least be competitive over the past few years. What does competitive mean, exactly? The games should be close. If they are not close, then teams should take at least turns giving and receiving blowouts. If neither of these happen, then it means whatever I want it to mean in order to count something as a rivalry for my own purposes here. If this displeases you, please make your own list, and then email me at celebrityhottub [at] gmail [dot] com to show me what you’ve made!

Rivalries should have some tusslin’ and hollerin’. In non-hilljack terms, some fighting, scrapping, some personal fouls, various football-related misconducts, brawls, resulting legislation following said incidents, bowl bans, international sanctions, and general extracurricular conflict. It all helps. For example: Alabama/Auburn is always at least a baseline rivalry, and sometimes it blooms into something where trees get poisoned, babies get named after key players in a moment, and in the most lasting moment of all, triumphantly mocking bumper stickers are made. That’s obviously a step up in intensity, and any ranking of rivalries should recognize that.

The games should matter in the larger scheme of things. Again, this can mean a lot of things. Does the rivalry often determine larger conference or national outcomes? Does one team consistently ruin their rival’s seasons? Or, most exotically, do both teams ruin each other’s lives every year, no matter who wins or loses, because the results of the game are repellent to one and irrelevant to the other? Are we talking about the Egg Bowl? We are definitely talking about the Egg Bowl.

You left one off! Yes, yes I did. Your favorite one, probably. I did it on purpose, because you bankrupted my family, took the family farm, stole my woman, and left my children to starve in a Topeka flophouse! This is my revenge for all that, and I’ve waited years for it.

A PIE-CHARTED INDEX OF SELECTED CURRENT RIVALRIES

REAL HEAT YOU GOTTA MEASURE IN KELVIN

Alabama/Auburn. Historically beyond credible, as it has both its own literally-metal-as-hell nickname (THE IRON BOWL), multiple games with their own nicknames, and a history so fraught the game was called off for a few decades.

Recency matters most here, though. Fortunately for it, the Iron Bowl’s immediate past has enough heat all by itself to merit inclusion in top-flight status. The 2013 34-28 Auburn victory with the Kick Six happened, but so did a raucous 55-44 shootout in 2014, and last year’s 26-14 upset of an undefeated Alabama in Jordan-Hare Stadium. There are two clankers in there where Alabama just went ahead and won outright, but rest assured: They are hateful, intensely felt clankers on both sides.

For extra spite, the Tigers celebrated last year’s win with an extremely giddy and sarcastic postgame playing of the Alabama stadium standard “Dixieland Delight.” Oh, someone got shot over the game in Mobile, too, but don’t worry, they lived. (Not always the case with Iron Bowl-related shootings!) The game matters in-state for recruiting, but it’s the cultural angle that has always been the real tinder here: Stereotypically, Auburn University is the G.I. Bill and agrarian school that actually does work, while the University of Alabama is the school for the gentry. Whether that is completely accurate or not most days of the year, it is the absolute gospel truth during the four hours or so the Iron Bowl is on.

Note: For all Alabama’s dominance elsewhere, the last five years have Auburn going 2-3 against Alabama, about as well as anyone else over the same span and number of games. Even in rivalries, it’s important to grade anyone fighting a living dynasty on a curve, especially one as systematically and consistently cruel as Alabama’s current regime.

Michigan State/Ohio State. Mean as hell for a lot of reasons, most notably the thin margins in games short on points and long on brutal, zero-sum, field-position football. No one is beating Ohio State consistently in the Urban Meyer era, but Michigan State has been the best or worst matchup for the Buckeyes because of their stubborn, ponderous pace, steady tackling, and their willingness to punt on every possession.

The 2017 edition of this game undermines our whole argument—a 48-3 terror of a loss for the Spartans that showed what happens when a low-margin team completely loses the ability to tackle, punt, and keep the game close against an explosive, deeper team. But 2-3 in their last five meetings overall is solid plowing for Farmer Sparty, particularly when one of those brutal knuckups secured MSU a Big Ten championship.

Oh, and it actually matters. Like, a lot, especially since the Big Ten sandwiched all of their major powers into one hallway fight of a division, and because Ohio State has to emerge from that division mostly unscathed in order to compete for national titles. Michigan State and Ohio State don’t have any obvious cultural clashing to do. They can even bond over both hating Michigan, which if anything lowers the temperature of the rivalry with an enemy-of-my enemy vibe to embrace.

But if the built-in neighborly hatred of Michigan/Ohio State isn’t there, two other vital factors are: being a competitive game with an uncertain outcome, and having national and regional stakes.

Oklahoma/Texas: The problem with the Red River Rivalry is that it’s played at 11 a.m. Central time. The players’ body clocks are running behind, no one really wakes up until the third quarter or so, and the action feels more random than anything else. This works well for the random viewer. The random viewer might otherwise opt out of a game where over the past five years Texas has rolled in reeling with multiple losses, and looked weaker on paper.

The solution to the Red River Rivalry, however, is playing it at 11:00 a.m. Central, because totally random outcomes and unexpectedly competitive games have been the recent norm, not the exception. In 2013, a teetering Mack Brown and his final team blindsided Oklahoma 36-20. The 2015 game got even weirder: a shambolic Longhorns team that came into the game 1-3 rolling for 313 yards to give the Sooners their only loss of the regular season. OU went on to lose in the College Football Playoff. Texas went 5-7 and got Charlie Strong fired, and none of this mattered.

Correction: None of this mattered save for spite, malice, and the satisfaction that something beautiful met something ugly, and when the two parted there was one more new ugly thing in the world. Combined with fans who genuinely dislike each other on a molecular level, possible conference stakes, and the only recorded instance of a fan tearing another fan’s scrotum in a bar fight, and it’s very, very real.

Bonus spite: Oklahoma going on long streaks of dominating this series despite being tiny, underfunded Oklahoma to gargantuan, wealthy Texas.

Ohio State/Michigan. Let’s be super clear here, because a lot of lawyers went to Michigan, and because a lot of Ohio State fans like to yell at people on the internet. This is canonically a great rivalry. It is inherited, and still passed down from generation to generation, and still represents a great eternal conflict between two states that once actually fought over the city of Toledo.

That border war is described as “almost bloodless,” a clever turn of phrase summing up the Michigan/Ohio State rivalry in 2018. The blood is mostly Michigan’s at this point, with Ohio State winning six in a row in mostly dominant fashion. The flames are still real on both sides—hello, Marcus Hall—and in the sardine can of the Big Ten East, the game still matters for all kinds of strategic reasons.

This remains a must-win for both teams for reasons beyond identity politics. But if a viewer wanted a game where the outcome was less than certain? Even given a certain spot, and an unending debate whether it was good or not? Ohio State/Michigan is in the stage of rivalry where the game transcends reality, and has become (for the moment) a powerful myth, and myths have a serious narrative problem for the college football fan: They always end the same way.

Still, it pains me to admit how good the rivalry still is as entertainment, and how good it could be if Michigan ever starts to win these again.

West Virginia/Oklahoma. OK, first: There is no real case to be made for this being a recently competitive contest on the field. Oklahoma has won every matchup between the two teams since the Mountaineers played their first Big 12 season in 2012, and it has not been particularly close.

This is is not about that. This is about the matchup with the highest chippiness quotient of any recent continuous conference matchup. In 2015 there was some “pregame jawing” between the two teams in Norman; a combined 240 yards in penalties followed. In 2016 in Morgantown, the Sooners gathered at the West Virginia logo at midfield, and a pregame scuffle broke out before kickoff. The fighting proved to be West Virginia’s most competitive work of the day: The Mountaineers went into the half down 34-7 and lost 56-28.

The 2017 matchup finally spilled into the game itself — mostly thanks to West Virginia, the team that made the brilliant calculation that the Sooners could not win the game if they were all watching from their locker room. Playing well past the whistle on almost every play, the Mountaineers managed to slow down the game itself, with at least three stoppages for extracurriculars in the first half. Those all came before the Oklahoma offense and West Virginia defense got sideways yet again just before the half, and Oklahoma lineman Dru Samia got ejected.

Oklahoma scored on that drive anyway, which sums up about how well the “get everyone kicked out of the game” strategy worked for the Mountaineers in a 59-31 loss. (In Dana Holgorsen’s words postgame: “Well, we won time of possession.”) It might be possible that the only unifying thread here is Baker Mayfield, and that he was just that irritating for everyone he played against. It might also be possible that, for reasons no one can really explain, the cliché might actually apply here: These teams, for lack of a better or more innovative set of words, really don’t like each other.

And if two teams that irrationally dislike each other and play frequently isn’t a strong definition of rivalry, then I am not sure what exactly is.

USF/UCF. Objectively, maybe the best or at least best unsung categorical rivalry? Two teams located an hour and twenty minutes apart, fighting over many of the same recruits and territory, play at the end of each season for both maximum dramatic framing and (because they share a division) actual stakes. Occasionally, one of them might be angling for a national title, or at least an undefeated season they will claim as a national title. That team might go a little too far with this, and that is their right and privilege as Americans.

American is an important angle here. The American Conference is a fine football conference like any other. The reborn/zombie Big East features players one might not find in other, more monied conferences, players other, more monied teams might not give a full chance. 2018’s UCF squad featured one-handed linebacker and future NFL draft pick Shaquem Griffin. USF 2018 had Quinton Flowers, the archetypical Great In College Quarterback who put up massive, streaky numbers for the Bulls, including consecutive seasons with over 2,000 yards passing and a thousand yards rushing. Because we cannot pay Quinton Flowers for all the joy he brought in college, please: Some team keep Quinton Flowers on an NFL roster long enough to pick up a pension.

This series lacks a whole lot of off-the-field drama, but wait on that. It’s young, and learning, and if it keeps up at this pace, the War on I-4 could grow to something large, wild, and wonderful in the way that only things in the Sunshine State can be. By this, I mean that it could involve hurricanes, a deposed governor, the Army Corps of Engineers accidentally opening up sinkholes beneath both stadiums, some heavy insurance fraud (related and unrelated to the sinkholed stadiums), and several people in the game’s crowd being eaten or kidnapped or both. It could be all of that and so much more.

USF and UCF had to wait until the Arena League folded to legally use the name “War on I-4” because the original “War on I-4” name belonged to the Orlando Predators, until the Arena League team went out of business in 2016. They got the nickname of the whole thing on consignment, y’all. This is the best rivalry in Florida right now, and that is before remembering that the whole thing is named after a sun-blasted stretch of highway dotted with spectacular car wrecks and terrifying anti-abortion billboards. The winning trophy should be a sign reading “PLEASE MOVE WRECKAGE TO THE SIDE,” that is nothing but a sincere compliment.

Ole Miss/Mississippi State. The hypothesis here: The Egg Bowl is the only rivalry in college football where both teams somehow lose the game every year.

Recent history has done nothing but add to the mounting pile of robust evidence that while life is pain, the Egg Bowl remains the drug for people who need a deeper more powerful brand of existential agony. Last-minute game-tying TD drives do not fail quietly. No, they instead end with Ole Miss QB Bo Wallace getting stripped and fumbling in the endzone in Mississippi State’s 2013 victory.

Possible appearances in the SEC Championship game don’t just die in the Egg Bowl, as they did in 2014, when Ole Miss upset the No. 4 Bulldogs. No, they also take possible national title aspirations away at the same time, but that’s okay because it’s not like CBS showed the Egg Bowl instead of the Iron Bowl that year. EXCEPT THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED AND THE WHOLE NATION SAW IT. Then Alabama won the Iron Bowl over Auburn, and shut the door completely on Miss State’s beautiful fantasies of larger relevance.

Like we said: Maximum pain, every time.

Continued! Ole Miss needed a win to get bowl-eligible in 2016, and instead took a hefty 55-20 brick straight in the teeth from Mississippi State. That’s the game where Dan Mullen reminded everyone that his quarterback, Nick Fitzgerald, was only recruited by Miss State and UT-Chattanooga. He ran for 258 yards that day. Dan Mullen can be, for lack of a more accurate word, a real dick in a rivalry situation.

There is so much more. Both schools constantly rat each other out to the NCAA. The fanbases split along the same lawyer-class/farmer-engineer type lines Auburn and Alabama fans do, with one group favoring seersucker and bowties, and the other leaning more towards hunting gear, dark jeans for formal occasions, and a real fondness for pointing out how they grill their own meat. (An actual stated point of pride, since open flame is banned at The Grove, and the food is—spits on ground—catered.)

If the rivalry has a weakness, it’s that there usually isn’t a whole lot on the line in the larger picture when the two meet. Counterpoint: when there is something on the line, the underdog destroys the favorite’s dreams and ruins their year. Watching all this might sound sort of like sadism, but that would be inaccurate.

The Egg Bowl is sadism.

ALTERNATES LIST: SUB-BOILING BUT STILL QUITE WARM

Arizona/Arizona State. MEAN. Competitive, heated, and good for a serious upset every other year or so. Like the Egg Bowl, the Territorial Cup is made better not in spite of two in-state teams scrapping over scarce resources, but because of them.

Army/Navy. It’s great! It’s also super watchable because it is really rare now to see two teams both running the triple-option well! And if we’re all going to be honest, it comes a week after the rest of college football’s regular season finale, when we’re all sad, and involves two teams no one outside of their fanbases watches regularly, and both teams have to display real, touching respect each other at the end. That this is so perverse says a lot about college football rivalries in general, but it’s where we’re all at (except for Army and Navy, obviously).

Michigan/Michigan State. Listen: I’m trying to be kind to Michigan, because they have taken a lot of flak here already so let’s see, that’s eight out of the last ten for Sparty and yup let’s just keep it movin’—

South Carolina/Clemson. Would be way higher if Dabo Swinney hadn’t created a perfect recruiting machine and put South Carolina on the whoopin’ end of a very solid stick for a while. Four in a row and no real signs of a Clemson slowdown mean South Carolina will have to play the hard-fighting but winless underdog for a long time here. (In other words: They’ll just have to be themselves.) Actual brawls happen on the field in this rivalry, so it’s basically one Gamecock upset and a fistfight away from hopping back into the upper echelon.

DORMANT

Texas A&M/Texas. Maybe the only real sleeping feud that makes me sad to think about, if only because the two fanbases still talk about each other constantly like a recently divorced couple who clearly is going to get remarried after a few years of festive mistake-making. They’re so good together, and so awful together at the same time.

West Virginia/Pitt. Dormant, but coming back in 2022 at which point it will rocket into the top echelon of college football rivalries based on sheer amount of moonshine and Iron City beer involved.

0 notes

ohnofairsadface · 6 years

Quote

“I have already waited two years now… why not more? Why not wait till it’s so painful, that it is only measurable by its sheer unbearability?”, the Stranger was theorizing as like an experiment in pain that squares upon itself through time. He returned to his present to find the clerk in a baffled state, trying to figure out what just played out in front of him. The Stranger, not having any friends but viewing this clerk as like a friend that never really understands you nor is capable of classifying you, felt it was important to recognize his astute observation. “Did you see that? What do you think that was about?”, the Stranger said in a perplexing connotation to provide him with assurance it was not of his imagination. The Stranger tilted his head to the right and covered one eye, as if to view his friend through a lens. “What will be the perception? What will be his reasoning?”, the Stranger wondered in the same manner as the audience members wondered about the Stranger. The friend who became an actor through an eye, walked forward and placed his hands on the counter as like to support himself before giving up some monumental insight. Yet, in his accustomed response, the fly by night friend shrugged his shoulders and thought that the Stranger also didn’t understand it. Unfortunately, the Stranger fully understood it. He understood it in a manner in which it caused psychosomatic expressions on the body. “She is the only reason I come to this miserable place.”, he internalized as a slice on his back appeared from no physical cause. “Was that to be regarded as her killing blow?”, he thought. “No. I have only been maimed. So am I to play dead for her then?”. The Stranger was trying to solve her riddle, but there was no answer to be found. The riddle was a form of annoyance, which circled around indifference, and when he unlocked that truth, his heart dropped into an unrecoverable cavity of the body. Just like a pilot who lost power to his engines and in the most exquisite state of denial, continues to pull back on the controls till the very last second of impact, the Stranger was also in such a freefall position. His heart felt like it could plunge in perpetuity, and so in an equivalent state of delusion, but in opposition of a pilot, he pushed and chose to willingly nosedive into a fantasy and dream beyond responsible dreaming. ”I will psychologically flagellate myself by her abstraction, which I will make more beautiful then what is realistically possible for me now. I will wait for her here, knowing she will never come to get me, nor send any word through her audience members who will study me on occasions, and this doppelganger will comfort me as my Jungian anima would, and I will dote and build upon her, and love this imitation until I can no longer bear its falsity.”, and so the stage was set when he swore an oath to her, which was also stipulated from the beginning. The Stranger looked over and nodded to a shadow in the corner, who nodded back with delight that he had placed himself into such a predicament. “My unholy homunculus which will prolong a hex already upon me, must be constructed with complexities upon complexities and wrapped in adorable eccentricities, so that my love for her can never wane, and any superficiality will remain concealed even to me, till the very last second.”, he demanded from the shadow, whom nodded assuredly and opened an addendum titled “Reference Volume Three” to a page numbered twenty-five. This meticulous shadow was very accommodating in a way that exceeded what was required, but the Stranger wasn’t at all taken aback by this. In fact, he always felt an odd familiarity from it as it stood in the corners of rooms over the years, as shadows usually do, and so he held no concern as this shadow dragged its transparent finger down from the top of the page to a heading called “Section 37”. Its planchette like finger then moved in a jagged motion until it stopped on the seventh paragraph which stated: “At no time, until the time determinable by the particular factor requested, will the signatory of the operative agreement be made aware of any shortcomings in the proposed projection. Reality shall switch with the dream, and the dream shall supersede and block any attempts of reincorporation.”. The Stranger turned away from the book, and then toward the ceiling to think, “Will this actually cover all contingencies?”. “Do I need to think of anything else here?”, he said in a serious yet acute angle that even a shadow could chuckle at. The Stranger looked toward the table and signed the pact without even reading the multitudes of terms or definitions, or even caring as to whether this would lead to pleasure or pain, because he always knew they were one and the same in a laugh out loud way. “Oh what such a sad sad face for me to know, that what I long will never show.”, the Stranger said as he finalized his signature with a pointless flare that no one would ever see. The Stranger then bent around the fourth wall, looking for the sleeping projectionist deep in the darkness. “What a spectacular tragedy I have been casted into, you duplicitous fuck.”, the Stranger said in perfect timing for a transition into the next scene. He was reminiscing in black and white, back to the dream he had the night before he saw her, and then the next day when he was first in her physical presence. At that instance, the Stranger knew he had stumbled into a killing field, like the Trinity test sites or the Tunguska Valley before their desolations. Her eyes were like a blinding flash in the sky that signaled the coming negation and breaks the bonding of atoms. Her heavy particles were twisting in all directions until they shot through his retinas, becoming as bottle rocket representations in his mind. He felt a force that was capable of rendering all into waste and muck drive through his body, just like with field test dummies fixed in scientific assessments. “I can feel the exposure is clearly past my lethal limit here.”, he suppositioned as he started to feel sick. “I think I can hear my bone marrow hissing from the insides.”, he said in a panicked manner, before checking to see if he even had a pulse anymore. The Stranger was feeling around his left wrist, acting like he knew what he was doing. “Nope, nothing here.”, he said as he moved to his right jugular. He kept feeling around again and again, and testing each area just like a well-trained nurse checking geriatric patients before calling in a gurney crew. “Nope, Nothing here either.”, he said in a disappointed, yet knowing way. “So I am just like the muck then?”, he questioned as he gazed at her from a distance in the days that followed this extinction level event. “I have become like the fallen trees or the shadows of Hiroshima. She has brought down obliteration with a glance and then salted the wounds of my world as her parting joke to me.”. The Stranger laughed, finding bliss in musing of her in such ways, before noticing he was just standing with his clerk friend, who couldn’t distinguish the transition back to color. The Stranger tugged on his left sleeve and looked at a watch that didn’t exist, to check for a time that only mattered in a dream. “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow.”, he said to his friend as he walked out the door knowing this night was just another night for the hypothesis cult. So over time, and in the third year of waiting day after day, and week after week, the Stranger began to actually forget what she looked like and that also compounded upon the particular factor he requested, so he memorialized that aspect in a way the Stranger imagined she would enjoy, if she wasn’t actually imagined of course. Now skipping over many interesting developments, all different and worthy of notation in their own way, but some things can’t be expanded upon at the end of a story, so let’s just fast forward through another year of the Stranger waiting on a partly melted VHS tape, that someone originally set fire to by a recently abandoned building. Around this particular point, after waiting three years in one location, and also waiting at this more than middle of the way spot for two years, the Stranger actually witnessed someone who appeared to resemble her, but in truth, he wasn’t really sure at all anymore. “Has so much time passed now, that if I did ever see her, I wouldn’t even recognize her?”, the Stranger thought as he examined this person and attempted to reconcile the remaining memories with possible new information. “I don’t think that’s her.”, he thought as he watched this familiar, yet different person walk out the door without saying a word. “That could have been her, but it wasn’t. Was it? If she said something I would have known for sure, I think. Wouldn’t I?.”. The Stranger’s thoughts stalled on the same tracks that the unstoppable train from the other story was riding on. Except this hurtling train around the bend wasn’t driven by dread like before, but the realization that he wouldn’t even be able to identify her now if she was even standing in front of him. This epiphany broke a fundamental element within the Stranger’s heart, and in its disguised accompanying agreement with the shadow, and so the requested factor entirely emerged and then impaled it outright. He memorialized this new type of heartbreak as an idol with the last visual pieces of her that was left in him. The Stranger then gave life to her image so that others would see and worship its likeness, and say, “Who is like the one who causes ohnofairsadface such suffering? She was the amputator of his limbs, and then rejected the pleas of death. Who is like the one who causes the Stranger to seek death by pulling mandrakes night after night? She was the mutilator of mentality, who sends others to critique her work, a limbless carcass that rolls and waits. Who is like the one who causes this carcass to roll about on the shores alone? She was his Sibyl of Snares, an Omen for Intangibilities, his Chimera of Prayers, and then a Ferryman who brings finalities to the shore and then carries him out to sea. So who was he then and why did this occur? He was just an unclaimed body in the morgue, who danced a performance of malignancy for ideals. Why didn’t she ever come to identify this body? She detested him and didn’t understand it, so there was no need to pay respects. So where has the body gone to now? It floated for four years until it gave in to the waves.”. So, two weeks after making the unending idol, the Stranger began to write this story, trying to incorporate multiple things together that he imagined she would enjoy because of the peculiarities it contained, but of course everything about her was always imagined anyway, and so it didn’t really matter what the truth is, or what the reality was, or whether anything was to anyone’s particular tastes, because the Stranger was changed by the pain that became unbearable. His exhaustion had finally caught up with him and he couldn’t continue to wait on an abstraction that wouldn’t ever reciprocate. All that mattered now was to fill in some plot holes for the audience before the Stranger stopped waiting and just disappeared. He suddenly wondered if anyone would question what his dream was all about. “It was the most beautiful dream I ever dreamt. It was essentially spooky action at a distance, and it governed over our inarticulable comprehensiveness. So I no longer felt alone through time, because I finally found her in space, and that is what it was all about. It was about travelling and twisting, and wandering and nearing, and then finding my totality, by being alongside her equivalence.”, he had convinced himself of this madness over those years. “But, that was the simple answer then. The more complex one today, which I have presented through an elegant experimentation in elaboration, is that it may just have been a creative snipe hunt designed from unconscious contemplations.”. A terrible tune rang out from the grandfather clock in the next room. Its melody marked that the final hour had arrived, and so the Stranger knew that his time, which he always viewed as a joke, had ended, and now delivered a terrible punch line for him. The Stranger rose from his desk, put on his coat, and then walked out the door to go wait for her in vain for the last time. “I will be there one more night waiting just for her, but if she doesn’t show now, I will post my new piece and stop waiting. I will then vanish from there forever and that will be her live display, and that display will be viewed as like the actual final piece I made for her. It will be the only one she wanted all along, and in a sad and strange way, I will be happy since she will cherish at least that final one, which personifies the death of my dream as a tangible loss.”.

Ohnofairsadface - 12/7/17

1 note · View note

Last Seen Blogs

theplaguereview

The Plague Review

bluejeepmeetsblueeyes

DEvotion - that's the spirit!

1dimagineoutfits

One Direction Inspired Outfits

puterakatak95

himpunan cerita lucah nusantara

chatkanakurzejstopce-blog

Chatka Na Kurzej Stopce