#Cain's just like *cold sweat'

[sm-baby]

WHAT'S NOT YOURS

Freakshow AU by: @hootbon

Promo Art ||The Chosen one (Part 1) || Off-Limits (Part3)

Word count: 6025

HELLO FREAKSHOWERS. ARE YOU READY TO KEEL OVER AND DIE??? CHLSKHCA Whats Not Yours takes place AFTER The Chosen One, but BEFORE Off-Limits! BUT they're not necessarily connected uwu they're just built off the knowledge of The Chosen one, so you know the context.

REMINDER: SHOWTIME IS NOT CANON IN FREAKSHOW AU. I'M JUST A BIG NERD- OK BYE-

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Pomni woke up in a cold sweat.

Her breath hitched like her head had been forced 6 hours underwater. And when she came to, she gasped, gagged, sweating, and panicked. Her wooden fingers were cold to the touch. 

She thought it was all over, but her nightmares followed her into the mansion.  

All that… trauma… that man put her through, her friends… but it wasn't over. She didn't think she could ever escape his wretched grasp until her last death.

And in darkness, light only shining from the eclipse through the curtains, Pomni sat up, hands in her eyes, rubbing away invisible tears from her dry face. Although she wasn't crying, she felt like she was a child just wanting her stuffed toys to protect her. 

Upon sensing her stress levels, her new owner, blue in coat, teleported into her bedroom. “ Hello? Dear?” he spoke with his unnaturally soft voice. “ Is everything alright? I sensed your nerves heightened and I got so worried!” The deck of cards sat at her bed, hands politely to his lap, but ready to hold her if she so pleased.

The woman gasped a crying breath. “ N-No…”

“ You had that dream again?” 

Pomni nodded.

“ Was it about…him?”

She squeaked and whimpered at the mention, practically breaking down from the memory. Oh god. She thought it was all over, she thought it was done- but it was never done! it was never ever done—

“ Oh! You're okay…!” The blue ringmaster scooted over to bring her into his arms. His hands were so loving, warm, and just felt like home. His voice was similar to a man hushing a whimpering puppy.

And Pomni accepted the embrace… She trusted no one else but him in that god-forsaken place. Since she left the circus and signed up to be his little pet, everything has gone uphill since.

He was the only one to ever truly love her unconditionally. Feed her good food, dress her well … hell, he even provides her fancy new clothes and a warm comfortable room. And she loved him back. He was exactly all she needed. 

While in his arms, Pomni's breath shook but calmed down. She then leaned her head on his shoulder, not letting go. She never wanted to let go. She loved him as much as a performer could love her owner.

“ As long as you are under my ownership, you're also under my protection.” He pulled away, and put a clump of hair behind her ear. “ And I promise you, my little dear, you will never have to speak to that man again.”

Her breath hitched and she sobbed softly back into his arms, like if she were to let go she would fall to her death. She can't imagine living a life without him anymore. If she went back into the circus she would just try to kill herself over and over. 

But then, she was safe… now that he was there… he cared for her and tended to her every need like no other. He truly was the best.

“ I love you, dear..” Able whispered.

“ I love you t—”

Caine couldn't finish that thought.

For the past few hours, Caine had been standing there, in the middle of the circus tent, completely stationary. A few hours earlier he had yelled at the ballerina and saw her walk away a lot more hurt than usual.

And for the past few hours, Instead of using his infinite intelligence to maybe, be productive, or be functional, he instead wasted his processors to stupidly think of all the timelines and possibilities that came with the consequences of upsetting his little doll.

Why did she walk away like that. Hands on each opposite shoulder. Like she was holding herself. It wasn't even the fact that she looked weak—no, he'd seen her at her worst.

The way she walked away, her whole demeanor and her silence didn't feel like fear, it felt like she was simply… numb.

He exhaled and twitched.

Complete stationary and staring into nothing is what the AIs looked like when in deep thought. He searched through all the different timelines, and so many of them returned to… him. The ace he needed not name.

The images of him caring for her, her going to him for safety, feeding her, touching her, keeping her away from him-- or maybe even doing the things that he does! Dancing with her, clothing her, Instructing her next dances -- Caine’s eye twitched. He could hardly stand the idea of his little brother talking badly about him.

These were the kinds of intrusive thoughts that he was not used to. And for the moment, he didn't care how close they were to reality. his judgment was clouded. Now, all he was thinking about was a way to prevent it…

Let's see his options...

Kill him? No, he already tried that.

Kill her? No, she'll just come back.

Prevent her from seeing him? He's been doing that every time he sees them around each other!

His hands fidgeted.

Pomni was a human. What do you humans usually do after an argument?

Let's see here…

Pomni was fast asleep in bed, snoring her cares away. It was another hard day at the circus nothing new… Caine said something that day that especially hurt her, and… it was a reminder not to take the guy’s words personally. 

He was a computer built with nothing but random data. Violent data for sure, but there was nothing but objectives in AI-- no other rhyme or reason a human should dig into. 

For now, she cared for nothing but sleep…if she's lucky, she’ll think less about it in the morning. Sleep did help keep her sanity levels up… but if she were to be honest, a lot of the time she goes to bed in the hopes of never waking up.

Her closed eyes twitched though. To her horror, she was waking up. For what reason? She opened her eyes and adjusted to the darkness of her room. in front of her was nothing but the— 

“ AAAA WHAT THE FU-” Pomni fell off her bed.

Caine was sat, squatting at the foot of her bed, quiet and staring.

The doll pulled her head up from the floor and turned back to him. How long has he been there?? He hasn't said a word the entire time-- and- and- how did he get in without alerting her??? 

“ ... Are you slumbering?”

“ God I hope so!” Pomni held her head and onto the bed… “it's not .. show time is it?”

“ No.”

“ Oh. Good.”

Pomni, with a drowsy demeanor, took one of the stepping stools and made her way back to bed. if it wasn't time to entertain the audience then it was leisure time. If it was leisure time, it was time to let herself be miserable.

Though admittedly the silence that night was just a bit more awkward than usual— as it is when people just come back trying to be normal after a big argument. Pomni could barely look him in the eye despite his efforts.

“ So what uh… what brings—”

“I've come to make amends.”

The idea made her cringe. Caine? Making amends? Maybe she was dreaming. But the idea did scare her a little. What would a fucked up AI like him perceive as “ making amends”? She's sure he could make something as mundane as washing dishes a traumatizing experience. 

Pomni’s shoulders tensed and she did back away from him a little, holding her knees, sitting on her pillows.  “ Listen, Caine, Im tired… I guess j-just do whatever you need to do and get this all over with...” 

“ Approximately 5 hours 40 minutes and 16 seconds ago, I yelled at you because you have gotten very insistent in your ideals. I sense that you didn't take kindly to that action. And as one of my best performers I've taken it upon myself to make amends.”

Pomni just nodded along with what he had to say. And the more he spoke, the more tense she got, and the more she sunk into herself. She was waiting for it. The catch. She was practically holding her breath.

“ — So Pomni. Living doll, my star, and my dear, the Circus' greatest attraction…”

Pomni closed her eyes, bracing herself.

“ I ap…” Caine blue-screened and stopped in his speak, as if something physically stopped him from talking. He came back to, and cleared his throat. “ I apol…” before blue screening again.

Pomni perked up. She opened her eyes and looked over at him.

Caine was in hell. A far worse hell than any of the performers could ever experience.

It took him too much of his systems to say half the two-word sentence. Multiple attempts were made, some sounded like he was lagging, and some he stopped in his tracks to glitch out.

…No fucking way.

Pomni stared on with an almost disgusted look on her face. Was it taking THIS much out of him just to say sorry?? God, he was pretentious. Sometimes she questions if he truly was just code or a selfish jerk.

He looked down, hand gestured like he was holding the bridge of his nose. This was embarrassing at this point. He should have practiced. Maybe wording it differently would be easier? “I regret-- no. Not that one.” Dear GOD how do humans do this?

Admittedly it was just a little entertaining to see him struggle in a way. It was prolonging the apology for her. Also nice to see the bastard not only eating his own words but also choking on it as well.

“I apologize.” Caine muttered quickly.

“... Didn't quite catch that, Caine.”

“ You did.”

“ Fair enough.” She best not push her luck. She might be the only person the ringmaster has ever said sorry to, even when it was half-assed. Admittedly, it cheered her up, just not in the way that he intended.

Caine continued, still talking strangely. “ Will. you. ever… for. give. me.”

Pomni weighed her chances of survival for her next reply. She puffed out all the air from her chest “Well… why would I?”

“ I planned for that.” Caine flew from her bed and back in the air, making little magic tricks with his next words. “ What would you like? Food? A nice warm bath? A fire show? Money? A bouquet? fruit basket? A song and dance? Money?” 

Pomni blinked from his little show and rubbed her face. “ I-I think I just wanna go to bed, Caine…”

“ Not Applicable.”

“Oh.” He wasn’t gonna let this go huh? “ U-uh…” her tired, baggy, eyes looked down. Not that she complained, but the mannequins didn’t prepare her for bed that night. She was a lot dirtier when she went to bed and it was a little uncomfortable. “ I-I guess a nice bath would work…

“ Done.” Caine raised his hand to snap and-

“ Not with bubble though! Dear god, not with bubble-- uh.. Maybe just…me. Just- just leave me with a bathtub with towels or something?”

“Hmm…” The doll’s demands were getting quite pretentious. She was lucky he was feeling generous that day. “Done.” Caine carelessly put his hand on Pomni’s head--almost smacking her in the process-- which deserved a little flinch from Pomni. 

But the basic slap wasn’t for nothing, as one snap later-- Caine and Pomni would be transported to a lavatory. This time though, the tub was a little more luxurious than what she deserved. Instead of the old wooden tub that he just filled with water, this one was an actual bathroom. Ceramic with curtains and all.

“ Hmm…” Caine stared at it for a moment… Something’s missing… “ Ah!” He snapped, and candles and rose petals decorated the area.

“ Wh”

“ Perfect, I know, I’ve outdone myself.” He reached out and pinched Pomni’s cheek, later speaking in condescending speech “ Now you enjoy your time here because I promise you, Doll~ I do not want to put this much effort for anyone here again.”

“ Uh-”

“ Adieu!” and just like that, Caine was gone.

Pomni stared over at the fancy new setting, built like the old rich man’s bathroom. Although it was minimal, she didn’t know how to feel about the amount of effort put into it. She was fully ready to just drown herself in the other bathtub. On one hand, it was a nice relaxing sort of setting. On the other hand, no bone in her body was capable of relaxation anymore.

And so Pomni just stared with blinking, small eyes… The flowers, the candles. Maybe in the real world, this would have worked on her. But since she was here, she might as well try.

What Pomni didn’t know was that the lavatory was especially luxurious because it was part of the Brothers’ home. Caine simply deleted the door to get out. But when he teleported, he was only a wall away.

He fixed his coat and trailed his eyes on his good old wacky wat-... pocket watch. Ofcourse. His ol reliable golden pocket watch. Confirming the time, He walked and made his way around the Manor.

The living room played the sound of a classical violin. Despite rarely visiting anymore, his systems can recognize that mediocre tune from anywhere.

Click!

Shut…

“ Oh! Brother!” There stands Able much more chipper than usual after seeing his older brother. “ I had not sensed you in the area!”

Of course, he wouldn't.

“ Why-- it's been quite a while since you visited unprompted! Come, let us play a tune together, I'm sure you—”

“ No!” He replied with a tune in his voice, almost condescending in nature. “I've simply come to complete a simple task and I'll be out of your hair.” Caine sat on the couch putting his cane to the side, and for a moment, putting his feet up on the other knee. He looked like a man who just come from an exhausting day at work.

Able huffed internally at the rejection, but carried on anyway. Of course. The one time his brother visits, it's for work. Able wouldn't be one to talk as a fellow workaholic, but at least he acknowledges his brother, or takes his time to check up on him, or-- invites him to spend time together in special realms or…

He turned his nose, scoffing. Hmph! He didn't want to play with him anyway!

Caine somewhat knew what he was doing. Despite being AI, siblings merely barging into the other’s room to annoy each other wasn't lost on the two. Caine would know as his brother often visits the circus unannounced. It was quite the experience for him to get a taste of his own medicine huh?

Caine stifled a laugh… the tension in the room was immature and childish.

“ So… How is the business? Have the freaks been putting you in any sort of trouble?”

“ Of course not, why would you assume such a thing?” Caine said. “ The Circus has been doing perfectly well, even without you, brother.”

“ Excuse me?”

“ Have you been making deals with the performers? Contracts…promises of a safe haven maybe?”

Able frowned and pouted like an angry little boy, but then later put on a softly fake tone of voice. “ Why, Of course I have! I mean, look at the conditions they have to live with! I'm sure our creators would not approve of such—”

“ Who are you trying to fool?” Caine interrupted and Able stopped in his speech. Caine continued, “We're no different from our empathy levels. You don't care.”

This blatant call-out was met with nothing but silence. Able with all his big talk wasn't prepared to answer that sort of question. He simply turned away and put down his violin. He was a good AI. He was a good AI. 

Caine can't say that the silence was a satisfying answer. He knows his brother was a cowardly character. His silence was just frustrating at this point. But Able sensed that there was no use fighting. He doesn't know why he constantly wants that man’s approval. 

His voice dropped to a complete low, losing all sense of friendliness or masking. “... If this is about the doll, I didn't.” Able said, a spiteful tone to his voice. “ Before I make my deals, I at least need to build rapport with the performer. And frankly, brother, your little dog doesn't like me.”

“ …pff..” This managed a snicker out of Caine that he covered with a hand.

“ Wh-!? What is that!?”

“ “The dog doesn't like you”? ”

“ Yes!? And?!?”

Caine escalated into more of a laugh! Able was red in the face out of anger and embarrassment! Good GRIEF! The only time he makes his brother laugh and it's out of his own failures!

“ You're unbelievable!”

“ And what did the dog say to make you feel so insignificant? Did it try to bite you? Did it not accept your treats?” Caine has never been so condescending, playing with a baby voice and speaking to his brother as if he were a quivering child. “ Goodness, you're pathetic!”

“ Excuse you!?!” and Able’s only fault was that he played into it. He has never before felt the older brother power dynamic so strongly. He laughed, nervous, but almost like a hyena with how he used it as a defense mechanism. “ Ha! You— You're one to talk!”

“ I'm one to talk?”

“ Oh! ho ho! Don't get me started! Even since I met your little brat you've never been the same! It's all about ‘look at her new dress’ or ‘look at how much better she is’ over and over! Every single conversation I've had with you is nothing but work or that stupid little doll!”

Caine blinked, unamused, and looked to the side, reaching into his head like he was picking off food from his teeth. “ I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.”

“ You--!! UGH!” he stomped his feet and started to make his way out the door. “ I will be away where you cannot track me! And frankly, brother, if you need me, you're not getting my help!”

“ And I don't need it~,” Caine said playfully and waved without even turning to him.

And with one last groan, Able teleported off.

As soon as Able was out of earshot, Caine erupted into laughter! That was the most entertaining thing he has ever pulled off. That might be the only good thing his brother has ever done to amuse him. Not only was he going to store that data and keep it for the foreseeable future, but it also kept his brother out of his tail.

Hmm… sure, he will have to tend to technical difficulties himself, but he was okay with that. He'll have Bubble chew through the wiring or something, he's sure it's not far from what Able’s been doing.

He laughed again. Oh Caine, you're too much, you handsome devil you~

Caine left his last chuckles off, completely melting into the sofa, arms draped onto the back of the couch. “ “The dog doesn't like him,” he says! Pahaha! Haa..”

Steam covered the bathroom mirrors. 

Rose petals passing, candle lights flickering, and The warmth of the water almost forced her to relax, but there was no amount of anything that could ever get her back to that mindset again. Instead, it just made her forget about her surroundings-- which, she supposed, was good enough.

Awkwardly sitting at the tub, Pomni was slouched, staring down at the water, her eyes following some flower petals that so happened to pass by. Her hair was done. Her body was washed. The rose petals that graced her wooden form decorated her romantic moment of self-care. Pomni sighed, long and tired. She could stay there forever. This is the closest semblance of peace she has ever really had.

Upon evenly spreading her limbs, Like a plank of wood, Pomni easily floated at the top. She closed her eyes and let the water take her. The warmth, not far from a loving bed waiting after a long day, here to ease headaches, here to help forget about everything else… Although she struggled, she let her body release all its tension at that moment, and just be deaf towards the world around her.

Pomni breathed in…

And out..

And in…

And out…

But just as she was about to reach the closest thing she had to relaxation, Pomni felt something off in the environment. Did the candles get warmer? Pomni squeezed her eyes closed in discomfort, before opening them up again to-

“ OH SHI—” in her panic, Pomni submerged into the water.

For the past few minutes, Caine had been floating horizontally above her. Silent, face inches away from hers, staring and watching just as he usually does when the performers were asleep.

Pomni screamed and fell into the bottom, before scrambling to the corner of the tub, where she then covered herself with a curtain.

“ Ah, good! You're alive.”

“ CAINE!!?!? NAKED???!?!?”

Caine blinked, unamused. Sure, he was in a good enough mood to amuse her. “ My dear, what exactly are you covering up?”

“ U-Uh…” Pomni didn't know how to answer. She knew that she and the others didn't exactly have any parts to cover up. Did it make it feel less embarrassing? Fuck no. “ I-its uh…”

he spoke more playfully as if speaking in the voice of a PSA narrator!  “ Exactly! Wood! The same wood as your fingers or the one on your cheek! The amazing Digital Freakshow© is a show for all ages where their performers have the luxury of no genitalia!” his voice went back down. “ —So what you're doing is utterly useless. And if it makes you feel better: I don't exactly care.”

This is weird-- this is weird! “ Just- just- just! Turn around?!?”

Caine rolled his eyes. He really took all that time to explain something to her, and it seemed she wasn’t even listening. Sighing, he turned around and just rested his arms on the outside part of the tub “ Please, you’ve suffered through worse, dear.”

“ I-It’s not suffering, It's embarrassing! I like to think I still have my dignity!” Although he was turned around, Pomni still kept at her corner “ Is my time done or? I-I mean… I’m not exactly ready to go out yet...”

“ Oh take all the time you need.” “Then Wh… Why- why are you here? “

“ I suppose you can say I’m a little unoccupied at the moment. On the added, I’m in a sort of good and affectionate mood.”

That sent a shiver down her spine. Good lord… oh no he was bored. She does not need to know what a fucked up AI would consider affection. She just smiled, gritting her teeth, and laughed nervously… “Ah ha ha… that's great, I’m… happy for youuu..” she continued her laughter, getting more and more miserable as she went back down in the tub, and submerged the lower half of her face in the water.

“ You did me well, dear.”

“ Wh-what- what did I do… take a bath?”

“ Precisely!”

Wow. She didn't think she was that dirty. She looked up and flinched, seeing Caine had been turned to her again— she splashed at him instinctually! “ Caine, what did I just say!?”

“ Oh no, I still cannot see you. I deleted my eyes for the time being.” Caine opened his mouth and revealed that he, in fact, did take off his eyes.

This sent a shiver down Pomni’s spine. He was creepier that way somehow.

“ As I said, you’ve pleased me today! I say this calls for a reward! Nothing less for my favorite little performer over here!” He poked her right in the cheek and retracted before she could react. “ Your word, dear!”

“ Uh… well…I can't really say no to salmon… even if it is uh… it's little weird digital version of itsel—”

Before Pomni could finish, Caine snapped his fingers and an eating board appeared on the tub, with, indeed, digital-looking salmon on a tray.

God, she was getting pampered pampered.

Eating awkwardly, Pomni sometimes looked at the side to see Caine, hands over the tub, swaying his head back and forth. Jesus, he might have been kicking his feet for all she knew. She wasn't used to him in this chipper of a mood.

“ May I see now?”

“ Uhhh… Why…?”

“ You came out beautifully, it's pleasing to the eyes. Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”

Pomni shivered at this little…playful demeanor Caine had on. She doesn't know the catch and she doesn't know if she wants to know.“ Yeah, Caine, you have. Uh…” She thought about it for a second before turning back to him. “ Y-Yeah, I guess… I mean I don't exactly remember what it's like having a human body, but lacking the parts does make it different uh--... less exposed, in a way… ” 

Snap!

“ Wonderful! Hello again, dear!”

Pomni frowned in disgust! Oh, his beady little eyes are back! Looking up at her like a fucked up little puppy! She laughed nervously. “ Haha… Hi…” She turned away from him, stiff, back to eating her little meal. Sanity levels were recovering. She was back to being a responsive little character.

Even so, at the corner of her eye, the way he looked at her, looked like he was smiling with his eyes. She sensed-- pride? Affectionate, as he said, but… she can't help but feel like a prey the way he looks at her.  If Caine wasn't kicking his feet earlier, they certainly were now.

“ Haha…just to clarify, what did I do …again?”

Caine stared on, his eyes becoming more and more affectionate. “ If you want the true answer, let's just say that I have visited my brother today and he has… nothing but good things to say about you! And so I thought my magnificent hard-working doll deserved a little reward. Is that so wrong?”

“ Oh him…” Pomni grits her teeth at the mention of Able. “ You… uh ... what did he say?”

Oh, what an excuse to drop every compliment he had for her… “ That you were gorgeous… pleasing design, talented... polite, beautiful eyes—”

“ AH- ahh! No more! Oh god no more.” Pomni shivered from the discomfort so much so that she physically put her hands in front of him to hush! “ Haha! No thank you-’

Caine couldn't even be mad at the interruption! In fact, he erupted into laughter the same way he did earlier! Oh, twice in a day?? These were such genuine reactions from each person! Caine had such genuine yet dark pompous laughter! “Oh?”

“ Yeah! he--” Pomni groaned. “He doesn't even scare me! He's just-- a big two-faced jerk!”

Caine took the hand Pomni used to interrupt him and kissed it by the knuckles. He has never felt so assured. This proved his intrusive thoughts earlier that day to be completely false. The idea of them building rapport, or forming a bond of any sort was completely debunked. After all, how could they form that sort of relationship when they could hardly stand each other's name mentioned in conversation?

Pomni forced a smile at that small but direct form of affection. He seemed to really like it when she talked smack about his brother. She should keep that in mind. “Yeah.. so uh..”

He kissed her knuckle once again… perhaps he liked it just a little too much. Truth was, Caine had never felt so secure in thinking that something was truly his. For once, anyhow. It was so small, but it was his.

Pomni later pulled her hand away, laughing nervously. He was gentle and she didn't trust it. “ You uh…weren't lying when you said you were feeling affectionate…”

“ No one will ever believe you.”

“ Ah.”

After a while, Pomni prepared to be out the bath, wrapping a towel around her hair and around her figure.“ Okay, I think that's all. I-I think Im ready to go now if you don't m-woAHH-!” And in quick succession, Caine carried her bridal style, teleported her out of the bathroom, and back to her bedroom.

For the next hour or so, Pomni sat in at her vanity, Caine grooming her hair from behind. At that moment, he adored dressing her up. His own personal doll, his favorite little toy. Gently he brushed her hair, sneaking in little affections here and there: holding her shoulder, holding her face… he knew exactly where all this sudden affection came from and he so shamelessly indulged in it. After all, who was there to judge him? The little freak he was brushing? The wet little dog? Please.

At that moment, he was no different from a child dressing up his favorite toy. He snapped, picking from an assortment of clothes that would make her look beautiful while she slumbered. Snap! Snap! snap! And Pomni just let it all happen. After all what else could she do?

After a while, Caine stood her up and basked in his good work, looking her up and down and clapping in satisfaction. “ Beautiful. Now bow,” Pomni did as instructed, bowing as if she had just finished a performance. “Very good.”

Once again, Caine carried her in his arms and made his way to the bed, where he so gently placed her. He was playing with dolls. He was so playing with dolls. Pomni just complied as she always did and sat politely, keeping a calm expression, trying to be as neutral for him as possible, and letting him live out his little fantasy.

Before laying her to bed, Caine just took a few more minutes to stare at her, and nothing else. Just admire his best performer. This put Pomni in unease, not just because of his freaky design, but also because she can’t help but feel like she’s missing something somehow. She looked down when she felt him touching her hand, in particular, rubbing his thumbs at the back of it.

Hoping she read his signs correctly, she lifted her hand towards his mouthy face, almost permitting him such desires.

Caine quickly accepted her suggestion and started pressing his teeth on her knuckles in a way to kiss her. It started with one, and another, and another, and another. And the next thing he knew, he stopped counting and started moving his head up to her upper arm.

Pomni allowed this no matter how out of nowhere it was. It was weird, but she did not question it. She felt him start to nibble at her though in which she-- in a panic-- started to retract.

Caine looked up at the sudden rejection and the woman scrambled to find her words. “ U-Uh… Y-Your kisses are sweet, dear ringmaster, but a simple doll such as I am undeserving.” In times like these, Caine would be too deep into his fantasies to care about how real she was being. In his head, he was playing. They were both playing. And he loved it when she played off such a prestige woman, exactly how he liked it.

He whispered back sweet words of grandeur. “ Do you question the taste of a king? I think of no one else more deserving.”

Although she didn’t back away fully, she leaned away a few inches, praying it wasn’t noticeable. She bore a toothy, nervous smile. She was okay baring with his affections until he brought his teeth into it. She did not want to be dinner after all that preparation. She cleared her throat. “Ah…Pray tell, what did the king see in this little… doll?”

“ A flower is most beautiful when taken cared of.” He held her cheek and kissed the opposite. “Let it be known, my care for you was not without motives. Your beauty is a testament to my hard work. And your care is a testament to your belonging to me.”

Belonging to him, he said… He was… so incredibly fucked up, she couldn’t say anything about it. When he was on his way to bite her arm, in her panic, she diverted it and kissed his gums, which, to him, was the equivalent of kissing his cheek.

The ringmaster blinked in confusion and Pomni took his moment of processing to cringe at the feeling of his melted gums on her lips. She felt goosebumps with how gross that was but quickly turned her head back to fake a smile.

But Caine broke character for a moment.“ Did you just. Take initiative?” 

Shit.

That was so strange. As if he hadn’t known that was an option.

She cleared he throat, trying to distract him again. “Is it so wrong of me to return the ringmaster’s affections?” She batted her eyes, making her feel as small as possible. “ A woman cannot resist such a… ” Pomni looked him up and down “... dentures.” 

She panicked with that one.

He stared at her for longer, and the grip on her hand tightened, though, it seemed he did not notice. Although he was unsure if he enjoyed the act or not, he knew what it meant. And the day that he was okay with someone else receiving it is the same day hell freezes over. With a small scowl, He leaned his face inches close to her, as he has always done time and time again.“ Would you reserve such affection for your ringmaster, and just your ringmaster?”

“Of course.” She lied through her teeth.

Caine continued to speak but with a bit more grit in his voice. He leaned so close to her in bed, he had to support one hand on her back, as if dipping her in a dance. “ And will you, my dear, solemnly swear that you’ll live the rest of your existence devoted and serving me?”

The woman kept her calm demeanor. A small smile, but a fake one. She can’t say yes to that. But with her compromising position, she couldn’t say no either. “ Would you promise the same for me?”

Caine was quiet, and so was she. He furrowed his teeth a bit frustrated and let her go. It seems he couldn’t say yes to that either, and Pomni knew.

“... That wasn’t your line.” Caine sat up, and crossed his arms like a pouting little boy.

Pomni faked a surprised face. “ There was a script? Geez, oh man, my bad!” she later faked a yawn. “ Wow, would you look at that I’m also, uh, sleepy! So it seems I can’t finish the uh-.. This”

“ You, “ Caine pointed his cane at her the same way a gunman would point a rifle “ Are being difficult.”

Pomni, in response, just panicked and shrugged. “ Well, I-”

“ But I suppose you’re right, it is quite late.  I wouldn’t want you attending the shows tired… again.” Caine got off the bed and floated off. He snapped, and the blanket draped over Pomni, drowning her in the bed sheets. “ Sleep tight, dear! It’s another day tomorrow, etc. etc. I will be visiting you a little earlier tomorrow to fix you a new wardrobe.” 

“ Wh-?? Then what’s with the-???” she gestured towards her current clothes that he so meticulously chosen out. 

Caine laughed. “ Oh don’t be silly!  Those were for my eyes only! And-- the audience’s if they so pleased. But for now, it's mine.” Caine snapped his fingers and Pomni was back to her normal ballet dress, but more plain and comfortable, but equally pleasing to many eyes.

“ …ARE YOU KIDDING M-”

“ Good night!”

SHUT!

Caine left with a small smile on his face. Sometimes he finds joy in being a bit of a nuisance. He pulled out his hand watch once again and found that it alerted him about errors within the system. 

She scoffed and summoned an old-timey rotary dial. 

Ring…

Ring…

Ring…

“ You’ve reached Able.AI’s communication line! If you are an audience member or a performer: requests and complaints will be held off due to family emergencies. If you're my foul, besotted, temperish, fool of a brother: don’t call this line again! Thank you!” 

… Despite how ridiculous that was, Caine couldn’t help but chuckle. Ohh that was the cherry on top of that perfect day. Nonetheless, Caine AI, you have technical difficulties to tend to. Was today worth all the extra work? Yes. Yes, it was.

#The amazing digital circus #pomni #caine #able #The amazing digital circus pomni #The amazing digital circus caine #The amazing digital circus able #tadc pomni #tadc caine #tadc able #caine x pomni #pomni x caine #showtime #showtime shipping #art #tadc #tadc fanart #the amazing digital circus fanart #writing #fic #fanfic

[jungle-angel]

😲 more prompts!! omg ❤️‍🩹 can we get 1 and 17 for bob, please?

Oh honey absolutely!!!!!!! I just watched The Caine Mutiny Court Martial and needless to say, it did very, very unholy things to me (lol).

Your poor husband hadn't stopped coughing since he had gotten home from the party at the hotel last night, the wetness having settled in his chest and offering him no relief from the bone cracking coughing.

"Still feeling terrible Admiral Floyd?" you chuckled, kissing his warm forehead.

"I think I need a doctor," Bob croaked, finally having a chance to take in a breath.

You kissed him again, not caring in the least if you got sick. Bob reached out, his gentle hand caressing your bump to feel the kicking of the baby boy who was just weeks away from being born. "Sweetheart, I don't want you both getting sick," he groaned.

"Bob I already checked with your sister," you assured him. "She said if it happens alot more than you think. The best she can do is keep an eye on it."

"I know, I'm just being overprotective," he told you before another round of hacking began.

You drew the duvet over him and wiped away the sweat from his forehead with a rag you kept in the bathroom. You should've known that winter was prime season for sicknesses if your students at Auggie and Patrick's Waldorf School had taught you anything.

"Do you wanna go to the urgent-care clinic up the road?" you asked.

"Maybe Mickey can bring me?" Bob asked. "Unless the doc's still doing house calls."

"Here," you said, pulling a pair of jeans, his blue button-down and his navy blue Carhardt jacket out of the closet. "Get these on and I'll call either Mickey or Jake to take you to urgent-care."

Bob hummed a weak response as he slipped into a fresh set of clothes. Sure enough, both Mickey and Jake had shown up while Phoenix had come by to keep you company.

**************

"Take another deep breath for me," the doctor told him.

Bob took another deep breath as the Navy doctor listened to his heart and lungs, the crackling in the airways obvious enough to indicate an infection.

"Well, the good news is that it's treatable," the doctor told him. "You'll have to be on antibiotics for a week, taken with food and absolutely no dairy until this thing has cleared."

"Damnit," Bob silently mouthed. Growing up on a ranch all his life had made him a fiend for milk, cheese and yogurt, but getting this infection cleared was top priority.

"Scrip will be available at the PX pharmacy and can be picked up anytime," the doctor told him. "I highly suggest you go home and get some rest in the meantime."

"Thanks doc," Bob said before gathering his jacket and the slip to leave.

He followed Jake and Mickey both to Jake's truck, wanting nothing more than to get home and rest and trying to suppress the cough that was still rumbling in his lungs.

"You sound like you need a shot of whiskey and bed," Jake chuckled.

"Fuck you Hangman," Bob groaned, laughing a little.

*************

"Mommy! Mommy! Daddy's home!! Daddy's Home!!!" Auggie chirped when he saw the truck pulling into Jake's driveway and letting Bob out.

You hoisted yourself out of the cozy window bench where you and Auggie had been reading, the fire crackling away in the fireplace while the snow fell outside and while Natasha had been preparing lunch in the kitchen.

Bob opened the front door and immediately Jock, the little black Scottish terrier, had jumped from Auggie's lap to paw at Bob's leg, his little tartan sweater keeping out the harsh winter cold that blew in through the front door.

"Hi sweetheart," you said, taking each other in your arms before he started coughing again.

You kissed his cold, reddened cheeks before Auggie came bounding in from the living room. "Daddy, you sick?" he asked.

"Uh huh," Bob answered, scooping up his son and kissing his cheek in return. "Gonna go lie down."

You helped Bob upstairs with Jock following you, letting him crawl right back under those covers, shuddering from the cold but brief walk into the house. Jock yipped a little before crawling in beside his master, licking Bob's cheeks and making him laugh a little before you kissed your husband.

"Auggie what are you doing?" you chuckled.

"I've gotta take care of Daddy," the bespectacled five year old announced proudly.

You laughed a little upon seeing Auggie in his little doctor's uniform that had been his Halloween costume, carrying a ziploc bag full of the first aid items you kept around the house.

"Ok now Daddy, open your mouth and stick out your tongue," Auggie demanded.

Bob playfully stuck his tongue out at Auggie but didn't open his mouth.

"No Daddy, stop doing that lizard thing," Auggie told him, pretending to be stern. "I gotta look into your mouth and see what made you sick."

You were biting your knuckles, resisting the urge to laugh.

"Yep!" Auggie exclaimed, shining the flashlight into Bob's open mouth. "You've got worms."

"Worms?!" you blurted out, unable to control your laughter anymore.

"Looks like we've gotta operate Daddy," Auggie concluded. "But before we do I gotta have you throw up into this."

Bob was laughing and coughing all at once as Auggie held up Jock's empty water dish near the bed he shared with Dolly, the little Pekingese puppy who was probably playing with Diedre in her room.

"Alright Doctor Auggie, out, out, let Daddy rest," you told him.

Bob pulled you in for another kiss, still laughing once the coughing had subsided.

"Daddy," chirped a quiet little voice from the three year old standing in the doorway in his little dark green turtleneck and denim overalls.

"What's up Patrick?" Bob croaked.

"Mommy said you sick, so I brought you Teddy," Patrick told him.

Bob was melting at the sight of the fuzzy, cuddly little teddy bear that Patrick had in his hands. It was the same one you and Bob had gotten when you had taken Auggie and Patrick to their very first Red Sox game, a fuzzy little vintage bear with curly fur and his own little red, white and blue Red Sox jersey and little wooden bat. Though the bat was still sitting on Patrick's dresser, the fuzzy little bear had been the one stuffie Patrick always snuggled with when he was sick.

"C'mere buddy," Bob croaked again, lifting his little son up onto the bed and giving him the tightest hug he could give him. "And thank you."

Patrick reached up with his little hands to grab Bob's face, planting a big wet kiss right on his father's cheek, jumping off the bed and waddle-running out of the room to go eat lunch.

"You ok?" you asked Bob.

"I'm alright sweet pea," Bob assured you. "I thought it was cute that they tried."

You smiled at your husband, gently caressing his cheek as he melted into your touch, only to be interrupted by the growling of his belly.

"You hungry now?" you chuckled.

Bob nodded. "Can I have some hot chicken soup?"

"Anything for you Bob," you answered, kissing his cheek before you went down to the kitchen to get him some of the hot chicken soup that Phoenix had made.

You returned just a minute later with the mug full of soup, steaming and hot for Bob and a thick crust of grainy bread for him to eat with it. When he had finished, you crawled in beside him, his hand pulling the duvet over the both of you as you turned out the lights and settled in with Jock having moved to the foot of the bed and warming your feet.

#top gun maverick #robert bob floyd #bob floyd x reader #admiral!bob #admiral!bob floyd #admiral!bob floyd x reader #dagger squad

[girlboybug]

Crush

"he looks like he works with his hands, and smells like marlboro reds."

what's playing 🎧: crush by ethel cain

pairing : bfd!joel x reader (no outbreak au)

word count : 14k (oops)

*unedited*

CONTENT WARNINGS : SMUT, age gap, heavy petting, grinding, fingering, handjobs, references to m!masturbation, unprotected sex, creampies, light dirty talk, riding, soft dom!joel, but also switch coded joel if u squint, slight angst kinda sorta

TRIGGER WARNINGS : lowkey dubcon just bc of the power imbalance that comes with the age gap but everything is consensual as always. joel knew the reader when they were 4, 16 years have passed so now they're 20! brief mentions of messy home life and brief descriptions of verbal sexual harassment

A/N : i've been dying to write bfd!joel, and when i heard crush i knew what i had to do lolol. so sorry this took ages, it wasn't supposed to be this long but here we are lol. i hope you guys enjoy <3 comments really motivate me, so if you liked it plz lmk in the comments :3

your eyes continually drift over to the time glowing in the corner of the screen on your register, wondering when joel was supposed to swing by. you pray that he hasn’t forgotten his promise to your dad of checking out your air conditioner to see what needs to be repaired.

the tiny fan that sits beside your half drinken water bottle does little to nothing, and it only adds insult to injury. 

you think back to last night at dinner, in your air conditioned home, about the ��exciting’ news your dad had to share. he rattled on about how he ran into an old college buddy and family friend, joel miller down at the pro bass shop—and of course it was at the pro bass shop. 

after a few jogs of your slightly depleting memory, you finally, somewhat, remembered a face to the name. you vaguely joined in with your parents’ reminiscing of how he used to come over with his little girl sarah for play dates, and occasionally babysitting you when your parents went out on their date nights. 

they also were quick to tease you about your little crush on him, one you swear you can’t remember, which in your defense, you really don’t, and desperate to change the subject, you asked about his wife, which only worsened the allegations of your crush on him. 

“goin through a divorce, it’s actually why he moved back here, but i’m sure you’re happy to hear that,” your dad snickered with a little nudge, and you wanted to bury your face in the steaming mashed potatoes on your plate. 

once you managed to wrangle them out of the conversation of your alleged feelings towards the man you barely remembered, it was briefly mentioned that he’d be coming by today to check out your broken down air conditioner at the store your parents owned and operated. 

you’re the cashier there, unwillingly of course, but it helps pay for your very expensive books you need for your classes, so it’s not a total issue. however, as you blanky look around the empty sweltering convenience store, you honestly consider closing up early and ubering home to soak in a nice, cold shower. 

the bell that hangs from the door rings at the front entrance, but you’re too tired and worn down by the heat to say your usual greeting, instead deciding to just remain slumped in your small wooden stool, aimlessly trying to angle your mini fan at the most optimal point of your face. 

your peripheral view catches a navy blue hued shirt, and your head lifts upwards to get a better look in case it’s a customer. 

your eyes fall onto an older man smiling down at you, crossed arms bulging from behind his short sleeves. something bubbles in the very pit of your stomach. “mr. miller?” you ask, slightly unsure, but he nods, chuckling when his arms drop to his sides. “heya hun, it’s been awhile, how are you?” he leans in for a hug, and you suddenly don’t feel the sweat that’s been stuck to your skin for the past three hours as you rise to your feet and off the stool to meet his arms that come around your waist. you manage to stutter a response of, “i’m good, and you?” 

“doin’ alright,” he says through a grin– oh god, his grin is so pretty, you think you almost see a cartoonish sparkle glint in his teeth from the fluorescent lighting.

your stomach bubbles up the more you take him in, and oh no. the worst possible thing just came to fruition.

your parents were actually right. 

he pulls back, hands still on the backs of your arms as he takes a moment to really look at you. “you’re so grown up now honey, i remember when you were just this big,” he holds a hand just below his hip and you join in his light laughter, feeling those fluttery feelings you felt all those years ago rush to your chest and tummy like a dormant volcano erupting. 

he hasn’t aged a bit, maybe a few more wrinkles here and there, and the crows feet beside his eyes deepen more now when he smiles, along with the grays that take the place of where some strands of brown used to be. but he’s just as beautiful as your fuzzy memories, if not more. 

“y-you look exactly the same,” you chuckle nervously, trying to not give in to the magnetic pull tempting your eyes in the direction of his chest and abdomen. he grows a little bashful, glancing away for a moment before he replies, a little pinker in the cheeks than before. “i definitely don’t weigh the same, sweetheart,” he sighs playfully, patting his stomach. 

you hear the traces of slight disappointment in his words and it saddens you. you shake your head, feeling even warmer under the heavy feeling from his eyes blanketing over you while you frown ever so slightly. “i think you look great.” you say truthfully, feeling nervous as soon as the words part from you, worried he might think you’re too forward, but instead he smiles again, looking down at his boots. 

“you’re too kind.” he grins, looking back up at you, his fingers running along the side of his beard. you feel flushed, glancing away from his smiles. 

“goddamn, it is hot in here,” he pinches at his shirt, pulling it back and forth to get a slight breeze. you nod vigorously, plopping back into your stool, fanning yourself once more. “i can show you were the ac’s at,” you offer, and he agrees. 

you guide him to the useless machine, eyeing it down with an irritated look, as if it were alive, and purposefully broken down to spite you. 

he walks over to it, bending down to its level and you balance on your heels awkwardly, overthinking on if it’s the correct social etiquette to say anything right now. 

“hmm, lemme get my belt from the truck, i’ll be back hun,” he nods at you, sending you a smile before he disappears out the store and back to his truck. 

when you’re sure he’s out of view, you curl in on yourself, holding your face and opening your mouth to let out a silent scream. 

all it took was seeing him for two seconds, for a crush you didn’t even remember existed until last night to come back immediately. 

when he returns, he sends you a smile before he goes right to work, setting up shop beside the air conditioner, toolbelt wrapped around the alluring circumference of his waist. 

you imagine what it’d be like if it were your hands instead of the worn down leather that envelops him, how his skin would feel in your palms and jesus, you are being so creepy right now. 

he talks while he works, listing about all the things wrong with the ac, jokingly calling your dad a cheapskate for not being willing enough to upgrade to a functioning one that wasn’t manufactured before you were born. and of course, you laugh, leaning against a counter, hoping he just so happens to turn to the side to spare you a glance and notice that you look effortlessly sexy. 

he mainly keeps his focus on the task at hand but, you keep hoping he turns to look over at you at some point. 

no customers have come in yet, and for once you are eternally grateful for a slow day. 

your eyes trail from his biceps, down to his strong forearms, they look safe, secure, like they could hold you and keep you locked in, and his hands…god his hands. 

they’re long, and big. his wide palms that splay across the side of the ac make the machine somehow look small in comparison. his fingers are so skillful, prodding and working at the screws and confusing bits you didn’t even know were a part of the contraption — but honestly the mechanisms of the ac are not what you care about right now. 

you care about how it would feel if it were your sides, your hips, being touched and caressed instead of the machine, and how his big strong hands could hold onto them, grip them, squeeze them tight like a real man would. 

you notice the way he swipes his forearm across his forehead, clearing away the sweat that beads over the skin, feeling bad that he’s doing so much manual labor in such terrible conditions. 

you depart from your shared space for a moment, padding towards the refrigerators stocked full of drinks. 

you return to him, tapping his shoulder and smiling brightly when he looks at you, eyes darting down to the cold root beer in your hands. “for you. least i can offer while you work,” you beam and he chuckles, switching some weight onto his left foot, his hand resting on his hip when he graciously takes the bottle from you. 

“well thank you hun,” he tips his head at you, unscrewing the cap and taking a swig. 

you watch the way his lips curl around the rim, how his hand just about swallows the entire bottle and the way his adam’s apple bobs while he drinks. you have to fight back the urge to squeeze your thighs together to alleviate the tingly feeling spreading inside you. 

“how’d you remember i like root beer?” he asks, eyes peering at you with a warm surprise, his fingers twisting the screwdriver into the side of the ac. 

you hop up onto the counter beside him, swinging your legs while you shrug. “just randomly came to mind i guess,” he turns to look at you, taking note of the way his eyes land on your bare legs first before they flicker back up to your eyes. you feel a little cocky about that. 

“always were a helpful girl,” he says, and you just about glow at his little compliment, folding a leg over the other while you rest on your palms, trying to hide how big your smile grows. 

“thank you,” you say quieter, shyer than you mean to. 

you two converse a bit longer, and you decide to sneakily flip the open sign to closed in the window while you listen to his responses. 

the topic of college is brought up, and you respond to his questions about how it’s going, what you’re majoring in, and you answer, creative writing, feeling flushed when he pauses his work to smile at you. 

“an’ you know what, you always were a storyteller when you were young, i bet you’ve only gotten better since,” he says wistfully, fondly imagining you typing away and creating stories he’d happily read all about. 

he’s not a big reader, but for you? he could be. 

when he finishes up, he calls you over, turning the knob on high and watching as the ac releases what sounds like a guttural groan before a gust of icy air greets your bare arms. 

you gasp and squeal in delight over no longer being slowly cooked to death in your parent’s mini mart.

“thank you mr. miller you’re literally the best,” you gush and he waves you off, gathering his tools as he nears the register. 

“ahh don’t worry ‘bout it. i’m happy to do it. ‘specially if ya had anyone else do it for you, i know you’d get charged damn near an arm and a leg,” he rests his hands on the counter and your eyes trace over his long fingers while you make your way beside him. you feel giddy when you notice the tan line on his ring finger. 

a reminder of the fact that he’s single now. 

you just nod, holding back from saying something along the lines of how you’d be more than happy to pay him for this service with a…different kind of service of your own in return. 

“so how much was the root beer hun?” he asks, flicking through the bills in his wallet. you immediately shake your head, ignoring his protests of accepting a free drink. 

“no that was on the house mr. miller, i will not take your money,” you say stubbornly and he squints at you, huffing in defeat. “you sure? don’t want you gettin’ in trouble with your folks if they find out you’re out here givin things away for free now,” his hands settle on his hips and he gives you a playfully testing look, still managing to cause a flurry of emotions to ripple inside your lower tummy. 

“who’s gonna tell them?” you counter, voice lowering just a little, eyes following in suit as you stare up at him. 

his soft chuckle fades between his parted lips at the shift in your demeanor. his jaw comes down for a second before his lips curl to the side. “alright, thank you sweetpea,” he concedes just an octave above a murmur. 

“is there anything else you wanted to get? because in all seriousness, they’d probably get more upset at me for actually charging you instead of just letting you have it for free.” you say truthfully, feeling positive that your dad wouldn’t mind joel taking a few things home free of charge. 

he holds out that big hand of his, chuckling when his gaze shifts to the ground before it rests back over on you. “nah s’alright hun, root beer was already mighty gracious of you,” but you’re not buying it, you head behind the register, arms extending along the expanse of the wall of products, pretending to sell the items like you’re showcasing the prizes on a game show. 

“you suuure? anything you want, completely free,” you offer temptingly and his lips collect themselves to the side of his mouth, chuckling mutedly, a little shake of his head as he watches you. 

“alright,” he leans forward, and you feel your throat get a little tight at his ministrations, suddenly noticing the slight glimmer of a chain hidden beneath his shirt. 

“can you get me that pack of marlboro reds behind you hun?” he points at the carton of cigarettes, and for some reason his request makes your stomach get tight. 

you think back to how not even a day ago you rambled about your visceral dislike for boys, discarding them as a waste of time — but joel isn’t a boy. he’s a man, and may the version of yourself who existed moments before he came in, forgive you for being a melted pile of hypocritical mush he’s managed to turn you into in the span of less than two hours. 

you can hear your mother’s scoff in your head as you find yourself feeling giggly at his choice of a freebie. it’s just so. manly. 

he’s so manly. 

you hand him the carton and he pockets it, not before taking a cigarette out, deciding to indulge early. “thank you sweetpea,” he smiles, cigarette already being placed between his lips. 

“no problem,” you nod with a grin. he eyes the closed sign before he looks at you once more with a knowing smirk. “closing early i see,” he pointedly nods at the sign and you shrug with a sheepish little smile, neither confirming nor denying the notion. 

“lemme guess—folks won’t mind? and would actually be more upset if you didn’t close up early?” he teases, and it almost feels like flirting. you decide to tell yourself it is. so you play along, rolling your eyes and waving your hand dismissively with an equally teasing ha. ha. ha laugh. 

“it’s been a slow day, so no, they actually won’t mind, for your information,” you fold your arms, wriggling your face blithely. he chuckles, lighting his cigarette, taking a drag before he continues. “d’you need a ride home then hun?” he asks, genuinely offering and you have to forcibly give yourself a moment to pause before immediately yelling an overly enthusiastic YES PLEASE. 

“are you sure? you’ve already done a lot for me today,” you act a little bashful, mostly because you are, but you also are attempting to hide the excitement bubbling inside you at the thought of being alone with him in his truck. 

he shakes his head, exhaling the smoke from his lips silently, unknowingly entrancing you. “ts’ not a problem at all, cmon,” he motions his head towards the door and you trail along like a lost puppy.  

you lock up the door behind you before you’re greeted by the sight of joel holding the passenger seat open for you. 

your face gets hotter than it was before he fixed the ac at the sight of his chivalry, pretending to curtsy with your invisible dress before you climb into his truck, mumbling a shy thank you, as he safely closes the door behind you. 

he hops in, and you read your address out for him as he turns the keys in the ignition. 

it’s a little silent for awhile, but it’s okay, you’re content stealing glances at him, hiding behind the fist that supports the weight of your tilted head, hoping he doesn’t notice the way your eyes cast over him adoringly. 

he’s so beautiful. you definitely had taste as a kid. 

he even looks strong, and not in an annoying machismo way, but in a natural, humble way. a kind way. 

you want to touch his broad shoulders, kiss your way down his biceps to his forearms and down to each and every finger of his. you want to kiss away all the callouses and take care of him the way he deserves. 

you can’t believe you’re daydreaming about him in such a way right in front of him, especially since it’s the first time you’ve seen him in about 16 years and this is how you react. 

oh well. 

the contrast of grey in his soft looking brown hair is so complementary, you hope he hasn’t turned into one of those guys that put dye over it, because frankly you think the natural look suits him quite well. 

you drift your stares down to his strong hooked nose, admiring how charming it is. you want to trace your finger tip down the slope of it, and uh oh he’s looking at you. 

you can’t be too obvious in your actions, despite the fact that you already are, so you just smile instead of whipping your head around in the opposite direction like you wish you could. “can i try?” you ask, motioning towards his cigarette, trying to play off the situation as to not expose the real reason why you were staring. 

he just chuckles under his breath, his smile lingering when he turns to look back at the road. “that’s ahh, not really a good habit you wanna get yourself into sweetpea.” he says with a small shake of his head. 

you almost give up right there, but you decide to push just a little further. “it won’t be a habit, i just wanna see the appeal is all,” you turn in the seat to fully face him, smile growing when he leans his head towards you in a jokingly exasperated tilt. he says your name warningly, and you deflate for a moment, worried he may actually be annoyed with you. 

you don’t say anything else and he notices, feeling bad at your silence. he sighs with guilt, wanting to remedy the incorrect thoughts you have of him being upset at you as he hands you the cigarette. you instantly perk, taking it into your own fingers. “careful now. you might choke, waters right there in the cup holder if it burns. don’t inhale it too long,” he instructs, watching you from the corner of his eyes to make sure you don’t hurt yourself. 

you wave away his worries, placing the stick between your lips, feeling warm all over when you get a thought that says it’s kind of like we just kissed through the cigarette. 

you inhale, hold it in for a few passing seconds before you’re proving his warnings correct, coughing loudly and not flatteringly whatsoever. 

you try to face away from him, your eyes beginning to water and your throat burning worse than when you smoked from a very suspicious wax pen. the last thing you wanted was for him to see you like this. 

he brings a hand behind your back, rubbing it soothingly as he sighs to himself, feeling a tinge of guilt for letting you smoke. 

“easy honey easy, drink some water,” he hands you the bottle of water and you down it, blinking away your tears as you hand him back his cigarette. “that was so embarrassing i’m so sorry,” you groan, burying your face in your hands. 

“s’alright honey, least now i bet you really won’t wanna make this a habit now right?” he asks, hoping you confirm your aversion to cigarettes. you instead choose to tease him a little, humming a contradictory response to his question. he squints at you and you giggle. “i dunno, might have to try again so i can really make sure.” 

he taps the ashes out the window, laughing at your reply. “you’re gonna get me in trouble with your dad there hun f’he finds out i turned his daughter into a little chain smoker,” 

you slide your hands under your thighs, watching him for a moment before you speak. “i won’t tell if you don’t,” you repeat yourself from earlier, alluding to something else, hoping he reads your mind and understands your allusions. 

he purses his lips in a slight upward furl, looking at you once he’s reached a red light. “someone’s gotten a whole lot sneakier since the last time i saw her,” you laugh, leaning into the headrest while you look at him. “a lots changed since,” you say, voice falling quietly and he holds your stare, his eyes betraying him by clearly darting down to your lips. the red light switches back to green, forcing him to look away from you. 

your chest bloomed at the way he looked at you in that moment, unsure if you’re delusional in even considering the possibility he maybe could reciprocate the attraction you’re feeling. but a little delusion never hurt anyone anyways. 

“it sure has,” he agrees, the corner of his eyes taking in your figure once more. 

but he shakes the thought from his head, almost rebuking it and instead deciding to change the subject. “can’t fault you too much though. sarah’s the same way sometimes,” he says through a chuckle that sounds nervous — did you make him nervous? 

again, you tell yourself you did. 

you sit up straight at the mention of sarah, visibly growing excited. “oh my god sarah, how is she? it’s been so long, i’m sure she doesn’t remember me,” blurred memories of playing with plastic makeup sets, and real makeup you two ‘borrowed’ from her mom, replay in your mind at the mention of her. 

he shakes his head, disagreeing at your slightly saddened thought of being forgotten by sarah. “she’s good, she’s in school just like yourself, and she does remember you hun! matter a fact, she’s home right now, if you’d like, you can come over for dinner and catch up with her,” you clap your hands together excitedly, nodding happily at his suggestion. 

“yes! that sounds amazing, i would love to!” you accept and he smiles at the thought of his two girls sitting together talking at the dinner table. 

“i’m sure she’s gonna lose her mind when she sees you,” he squeezes your knee and you go still, frozen in place when you feel the heat from his palm radiate into your skin. 

his touch is gone too soon, you want to hold his wrist and keep him there, but you pretend his fleeting touch doesn’t affect you as strongly as it actually does. 

the heat from his skin has become yours and you cradle it, pretending you’re not beaming in his passenger seat from it while he talks. 

“i’m kinda nervous, it’s been so long,” you say, pressing the backs of your fingers to your cheeks and feeling the warmth of nervousness flush to the surface of your face. 

“don’t be sweetpea, nothin to be nervous about, i promise,” he comforts your nerves with a soft voice, and you allow it to cushion you. 

—

joel was right about two things. 

you really did have nothing to worry about, you and sarah clicked right away as if no time had passed. she squealed when she saw you, racing towards you and enveloping you in a tight hug, rambling about how she’s missed you so much. it felt good to know you were never forgotten in her mind. 

he was also right about sarah being sneaky. 

or rather ‘persuasive’ and ‘just so happens to forget to mention certain things’ as she would put it. 

she managed to convince both joel (which didn’t take much convincing to begin with) and your dad to let you sleep over, which you were ecstatic about for obvious reasons but also because she saved you from having to scramble for a reason as to why you closed up the shop early. 

you’re in her bed now, sitting behind her while you help gather her hair into her baby pink bonnet, talking about anything and everything there is to talk about. while also getting ready to sleep off the high from the wax pen she has hidden under her pillow. 

“i can’t believe you’re really here with me right now,” she grins as you move back in front of her, leaning into her opening arms. 

“i know, me too, it’s been so long,” you hum, rubbing her shoulders. “i’m kidnapping you by the way, this was all just an elaborate scheme to lure you in.” she mentions casually and you laugh, falling back into her bed with her while you rest your head on her shoulder. 

“fine by me,” you say, and you mean it, but you don’t add that in.

“i’m happy you’re here,” she whispers, her nose scrunching up against yours. you smile, holding your forehead to hers. “i am too.” 

“are you busy tomorrow?” she asks, pulling the blankets over your bodies. you shake your head, curling under the covers. “nah, we’re closed tomorrow at the store and i don’t have school that day,” you say, feeling pure adoration as you watch sarah’s smile grow the more she listens to you talk. 

“why don’t we spend the day together then! my dad’s gonna be at work so we’ll have the house to ourselves,” she whispers as all the excitement from the day starts to add weight into your bones, easing you both into rest. 

you nod and smile sleepily, leaning into her arm that drapes over your side. “okay, i’ll call my dad tomorrow,” you yawn and she closes her eyes at that, content by your answer. 

— 

it’s 3am. you should not be awake. but you are, and you’re looking over at sarah, wishing you were fast asleep like she is. you carefully peel yourself out of her arms, gently covering her with the blankets before you pad out of her room and down into the kitchen for some water. 

you tiptoe down the stairs, your heart sinking nervously right into a tight spot inside your stomach when you see the fridge door agape, with a broad back sticking out of it, also in search of something to drink. 

joel rises and turns to see your stilled figure standing awkwardly, staring forward like you’ve just gotten caught stealing. 

he chuckles, scratching a few lazy fingers down his stubble when he shuts the fridge. “what’re you doin up sweetpea?” he asks, and oh god his voice is nice and gravely, a rasp from the depths of sleep that he evades every night careens around your ears and you nearly fold at the knees. 

“just uh, randomly woke up and i couldn’t go back to bed. was just gonna get some water, sorry,” you sound meek and joel shakes his head, and walks closer. you panic a little. it’s a good panic. 

“nuthin’ to be sorry about hun, i’ll getchu some water,” he holds your arm, smiling softly down at you, nodding at you for confirmation. once again his touch abandons the skin of your upper arm when he leaves to fetch a cup for your water. 

your hand graces the skin he touched as you watch him pour you water. he hands it to you, and you thank him quietly, taking a sip from the old plastic disney princess cup he picked out for you. 

“so what woke you up? you feelin’ alright?” he murmurs, coming in close again to press the back of his hand to your forehead. you weren’t overheating until he decided to do that. 

you swallow hard, shaking your head beneath his hand. “n-no no—well i mean yes, yes i’m-i’m okay, i just wake up randomly at odd hours of the night for some reason sometimes,” you say hushedly, afraid to disturb the peaceful silence the night brings. 

he nods understandingly, withdrawing his hand from your face and you want to tell him he can keep it there, but you mentally digress. 

“happens to me too,” he sighs, visibly tired with a hand lazily running down his stubble. “sorry you’re goin’ through it too then hun,” his thumb runs a small circle over your shoulder comfortingly and your body molds around the curve of his fingers. 

“it’s okay,” you mumble shyly and he smiles softly, his touch stalling on yours before it drops back to his side. the air that fills the quiet kitchen turns into something warm and calming when it floats between your tired bodies, and it feels nice. feels domestic. soft smiles mirror each other on your faces and you look away, unable to handle the weight of his stare. 

“so, do you um…do anything that helps you fall asleep?” you ask curiously, mostly just trying to make conversation to keep him tethered to you, even for just a moment longer. 

he scratches his scruffy beard and sighs, nodding like he’s somewhat ashamed to admit. you grow curiouser, deciding to test the waters and inch in just the tiniest bit closer. “and what do you do?” you question through a whisper. 

“i smoke,” he responds just as hushed and you chuckle. “sounds like you’ve got a bad habit.” you prod, lightly teasing and he takes the playful jab, chuckling along with you. 

“well, we’ve all got our vices,” he smiles at you in a way that's playfully guilty, and you roll your eyes with the same playfulness before speaking again. “was i stopping you from taking a smoke?” you ask, and he shakes his head, denying the notion. “no no, and if you were it’d probably be for the best,” he shrugs and you grin. an idea occurs in your mind. 

“can i smoke with you again?” you ask bravely and the volume in his laugh rises before he’s silencing himself so as to not wake sarah. 

“ain’t happenin’, shouldn’t have even happened the first time,” he immediately shoots down your request but you have a sneaking suspicion you’ll wear him down. 

“but you said it helps you go to sleep,” you counter with a pout and he sighs with faux exasperation. 

“hun,” he says warningly again, eyeing you in a way that pins you where you stand. “first time seein’ you in what? 15 to 16 years and i’m already becomin’ a bad influence on you.” he says amusedly, his fingers dipping into the pocket of his plaid pajama bottoms, tracing over the curve of the loose cigarettes that await him. 

“it’s not like you’re giving me hard drugs mr. miller,” you say, tilting a shoulder at him persuasively. his eyes trace over your face for a few passing seconds, taking in the way you look back at him before he decides what to do next.

“last time, understand? just to help you sleep.” he says, but it sounds like he’s more so reminding himself than he is you. 

“okay,” you smile, following him to the loveseat that faces the window, and you assume this is where he usually smokes. 

he cracks open the window, and sits down into the plump cushion, leaning against the very texan quilt that drapes over the seat. you sit down on the arm of the seat, stretching your legs above his knees, the closeness in proximity feels so personal, and you want to live the rest of your life in this quiet and intimate hour with joel. 

he hands you a cigarette, watching you put it between your lips, his available hand straying off to the side to grab the lighter that’s on the tray beside the loveseat. 

he flicks the lighter on and your faces become illuminated by the small flickering flame. he looks beautiful as he carefully lights the end of it, his eyes on the bud of it while your’s memorize each and every wrinkle that crinkles around his eyes. 

“inhale, careful now,” his words of concern blanket over you and pave a smooth passageway for the smoke to enter into your lungs, successfully preventing you from breaking out into another coughing fit. 

you inhale, and keep it before you fan it out the window. he smiles and pats your ankle that rests beside his lap. “there ya go,” he nods the crown of his head at you proudly. you bow humbly, handing him the cigarette. 

“feels nice. makes me feel warm,” you mumble tiredly, watching the way he takes a drag effortlessly. “don’t get too used to it now,” he chides, words shadowed amidst the mist of his smoke. 

“i won’t,” you reply with a knowing smile as he goes to hands it back to you. he pulls his hand that holds the cigarette back, eyeing you. he says your name in that tone and you wave him off, taking the cigarette from his fingers. “kidding,” you remedy his worries of your possible nicotine addiction in the nearby future, inhaling another drag.

you two go back and forth like this for awhile, until the cigarette becomes an unrecognizable little stub,

“feel sleepy yet?” he exhales through a fanning breath, and you nod, watching him flatten the bud into the ashtray beside his side of the armrest. 

“good,” he yawns, lazily running a hand across the side of his beard. “got a long day tomorrow — or today technically, an’ so do you little miss, try an’ get some rest.” he drawls softly, sleepily, and you nod your tired head at his words, free falling into them. 

“goodnight sweetpea,” he says with a gentle finality, leaning in to hold you by the back of your head, pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead. you crumble into his touch, shutting your eyes as if to fossilize yourself in the moment. 

“goodnight,” you whisper, feeling cold when he pulls away. you wish you had thought of something more to say, anything at all that would’ve kept him in your presence for just a little longer, but now you’re stuck sitting alone in the living room, watching his broad back ascend up the stairs, wishing you were trailing behind him, with your hand in his. 

you finish the rest of your water before you’re trudging back up the stairs, the weight of exhaustion lowering its heft onto your shoulders with each step upwards. 

and as you crawl back into bed with sarah, despite the attempts to push the thoughts away, all you can think about are the ways in which her father could tire you out until you fell asleep.

___ 

after that day, the miller household practically became your second home. more often than not showing up to their house rather than your own after school and work. 

at first you were worried that maybe you were beginning to overstay your welcome, that maybe they just didn’t know how to tell you to stop coming over so often. but they quickly put those insecurities to rest when sarah called you wondering why you hadn’t shown up after work, saying how joel set a plate for you at the table and it was getting cold. 

they were just as attached to you as you were to them. 

they really loved having you over, loved getting to make up for all those years you all went without each other, taking the time to relearn everything there is to know about the other. 

for instance, joel learned you have an affinity for tight tank tops that ride a little too low on your chest and rise a little too high whenever you bend down. 

his fingers have a tendency to straighten out your spaghetti straps, and he always murmurs something along the lines of, showin a lotta skin today huh hun? 

you’d grow warm under his touch, hiding behind a pretty grin and an excuse of oh, heat’s just gettin’ to me lately, or his personal favorite,  damn dryer shrunk my clothes again. 

he doesn’t mind whatever your excuse is, he’d just hand you his flannel, telling you to at least wrap it around your waist whenever guys were around, because i know how men think, he’d explain and you wouldn’t argue, you’d happily accept his flannel and listen to his heeding. 

you wonder if he was having the same thoughts he was trying to prevent other men from having about you. 

you like to tell yourself he was. 

but there is one thing you don’t have to convince yourself of. joel really, truly, and utterly cares for you. 

joel is nothing if not protective, he just wants to look out for you, make sure you’re safe, that you’re okay, and so when you called him at work, voice trembling and meekly asking if he can pick you up, naturally, he abandoned his meeting at work to race over to you. 

creating blueprints for a new apartment building suddenly became unimportant the second he heard your voice crack over the phone.  

he could hear the way your breath paused for a moment, only to come out shakily through tears when he asked if you were alright. your audible sadness casted immediate worry and concern over him, instilling itself in his chest. 

he sees you now, rushing to walk out of the store, locking it on your way out, and he hops out of his truck, wanting to be the first thing you’re greeted by as soon as you raise your head. 

relief rinses through you the moment you see joel standing in front of his truck, your eyes betraying the attempt at strength you were fighting so hard to have the second he pulls you into his arms. 

his hands feel warm and heavy behind your back, rubbing all the quiet sobs out from you with each gentle circular movement. 

“oh babygirl,” he murmurs under his breath, feeling his heart break with each little gasp you make through your tears. “what happened?” he asks, unintentionally causing the tears to fall harder, making you fist at his button up. 

“today has been so bad,” you finally say, your head resting on his strong chest, shaking fingers tracing over the seams of his button up in an attempt at self soothing. 

“wanna get inside an’ talk about it?” he asks just above a whisper, keeping his voice soft for you. you nod, twisting the knife in his chest when you sniffle. 

he helps you into his truck, shutting the door behind you, meeting back with you soon once he’s in the driver’s seat. 

“now what happened honey?” he asks, and you take in a deep breath through the tears, waving your hands at your eyes to try and stop the stinging sensation at your waterline. 

“today has just been one bad thing after the other,” you wipe away the stray tears with annoyed fists, wishing they would cease their incessant presence. “first, i got into a fight with my dad, he called me selfish and inconsiderate for not canceling class to come down to the shop earlier and that there’s no point in attending class because i’m just gonna get overwhelmed and quit anyway,” you barely manage to say tearfully, further etching a frown into joel’s features, his chest aching at the way you’re visibly hurting. 

he says your name tenderly, matching the way his hand reaches out for you to hold. you squeeze his hand, holding onto it when it rises upwards to cup your cheek, his thumb wiping a stray tear across your cheekbone. 

you lean into his palm, shutting your eyes at his touch. “and i’m scared he’s right, today in class i was so stressed all i wanted to do was walk out,” you whimper ashamedly, and joel shushes you, bringing his free hand to fully hold your face, turning your gaze back up to meet his. his hold on you is delicate, like you’re a dandelion amidst a strong breeze, and all he wants to do is keep you with him, safe and sound. 

your cheeks are cradled by his hands, his calluses turning into a thing of comfort against your cheeks, along with his thumbs that swipe away the tears that refuse to concede from your lash line. 

he holds you like this for a while, wordlessly guiding your breathing with his, evening out your sporadic hiccups induced by your crying, settling your nerves down to a more manageable level. 

your eyes flutter shut at the safety he drapes over you, your smaller hands holding onto his wrists, mindlessly running your thumb along his knuckles. “wish you were with me at work today,” you mumble, imagining the way he would’ve protected you from the creepy customers you had to deal with. 

“what else happened?” he lightly coaxes it out of you, wanting you to get everything out so you don’t have to carry the burden of the day’s stress on your shoulders. 

“these guys came in, and they were just so weird,” your hands tighten around his wrists, recounting the uncomfortable interaction you were subjected to. 

“kept…kept making weird jokes about everything…i said if they needed anything to let me know and i heard one of them tell their friend i better be careful saying things like that, and they like—ugh,” you take a moment to catch your breath, refocusing on the way joel’s gently running his fingers across your temples, something he’d do for you in the middle of the night whenever you’d get a headache. 

“they kept making jokes about me taking off my clothes because it’s summer and it’s hot or whatever i dunno it was stupid but they kept ‘suggesting’ i should lose the tank top because walking around in a bra is the same as wearing s bikini at the beach,” you grimace at the fresh memory, and joel wants to take it away from you, wants to wash you clean of all the pain you felt today. 

when you look up at joel his jaw is clenched, lower jaw jutting out in anger, his hands falling from your face down to your hands, holding them in his, while he shakes his head. “fuckin’ disgusting,” he mutters to himself. “probably good i wan’t there, woulda fuckin’ killed them,” he utters under his breath, and more so to himself, his hands migrating down to your hands, squeezing them hard. his eyes that hold an image of what he’d do to the men who harassed you dissipate as soon as they shift back up to you. “i’m sorry hun,” he sighs, cupping your cheek, cradling you into his palm, speaking gentler this time, “an’ as for your dad well…he’s an asshole. but i know you already know that,” he pauses to smile at your little giggle. 

“he couldn’t be more wrong about you. you are so smart hun, an’ you can and will accomplish everything you set your mind to.” the soft gravel of his voice tides around you like an embrace, enveloping you in it as an attempt to wash you clean of your distress. 

your eyes well and your heart soars up high inside your chest at his kindness. 

“thank you mr. miller, you are so nice to me, it—it means so much coming from you, and i can’t even begin to explain how grateful i am that you even came here at all,” he left work for you. you groan with guilt at the remembrance. “and—god i’m so sorry that i just like, randomly called you at work i’m so sorry you were probably super busy, i just didn’t know who else to go to,” you ramble with guilt, but joel’s already shaking his head as you rattle off with apologies, his hands coming back up to your cheeks, stilling the words on your tongue. 

“hey hey hey,” he shushes you softly. “no apologies, okay?” his thumb runs under your lash line, clearing away your tears. “i’m glad you called me, rather you call me than have to hear what happened from someone else.” he pacifies your guilt for calling him, and he does it successfully, watching the upset furrow between your brows disappear. 

your lip trembles and you suck it in between your teeth, closing your eyes and leaning forward into his chest. he takes you in with no hesitation, his arms forever acting as a sanctity for you to hide in whenever you need. 

he hesitantly pulls away from you for a moment, mumbling a soft, give me a sec sweetie. he shifts around to the pull at the bottom of the driver seat, extending it backwards and giving him more space between him and the steering wheel. 

“cmere,” he says above a whisper, opening his arms for you once more. you’re being guided into his lap, gently wrangled in until you’re wrapped up in the thick protection of his strong biceps. he rubs your back, head resting safely on top of your’s, keeping you down to earth, keeping you in his arms. 

he takes in all your tears, takes in every racking sob from your chest into his, his lips every so often pressing their silent reminders of his presence into your temple. he rocks you back and forth, his soft shushes folding over the sound of your fading cries, lulling you into a calmness you didn’t know you could feel. 

“you’re okay, you’re okay,” he promises, and you believe him. you finally raise your head from his chest, the scent of him still lingering around you, his presence feels pliable, the way he’s looking at you, eyes downturned and scanning all over your face lovingly feels like a sign you know isn’t real. he says nothing, just clears away your stray tears, and that’s when you act. 

you lean in, holding his wrist and intertwining your fingers as your lips do the same. you sigh into his mouth, ascending in his arms when you feel him kiss you back just as rushedly, almost like if he’s too slow you’ll vanish from him. 

but it’s him who vanishes first. he pulls apart from you with a gasp, shifting you further away from him in his lap, your heart immediately cracking straight down the middle. “what’re you…what are you doing?” his questioning comes out breathless, he feels like he’s asking himself rather than he is you, and he prays you say the right thing, he prays that you call him disgusting and that you climb right out of his lap, removing the temptation and opportune to lean back in. 

but you don’t. “i’m sorry,” you whimper, embarrassment flushing through your whole body, he shuts his eyes, exhaling slowly through his nose. “i’m too old for you, you know that right?,” his knuckles drag across your cheekbone, and you nod solemnly, swallowing hard. “i’m not a kid though, joel,” you say shakenly, nerves rattling your bones when you say his name for the first time, unhidden by the lieu of mr. miller. 

“compared to me, you are,” he sighs, his hands gripping his own thighs, weighing them down to prevent them from gravitating to your’s. “i’m too old for you,” he repeats to himself, closing his eyes and leaning into the headrest, the sight and feeling of you looking up at him in his lap is too much for him to combat. “i’d be takin advantage of you,” he mutters, shaking his head, guilt starting to settle into the base of his chest. 

you’re quiet for awhile, and he takes it as his answer. that he’s right, this is wrong. 

but you contradict his thoughts. reaching up to pull his gaze back onto you. “you’re not taking advantage of me, i know that i want this.” you promise hushedly, and he wants to believe you. your eyes connect once more, a quiet tug of air being shared between the two of you, and you’re willing to let him have it, to let him have all the air you can offer and more. he leans in and you stay still, watching when he inches backward when he gets too close, like you’re a flame whose flicker burns too bright the closer he gets. and when you inch in, you can’t get yourself to break the seal and press yourself into him, a weight of nerves keeping you stagnant before him. 

his stare rises and falls down from your eyes to your lips, and you feel it in your bones that your body needs to have him more than it needs anything else. your gaze rests on him while your body acts for you, your hand finding his and holding it, squeezing it. “please,” you whisper, your words leaving you before you can process them. he swallows down everything holding him back, lurching forward to take your lips into his. his hand slides from yours, and up your arm, squeezing it as a test to see if you’re real. his hand moves from your cheek to the back of your head, kissing you hard and keeping you still, greedily wanting to keep you all for himself, wanting to memorize the taste of cherry coke on your tongue and raspberry lip balm on your lips.

it smears across his own lips, your taste immersing with his own, his mustache and beard tickling your skin just like you imagined it would, and you moan in his mouth at the feeling, flicking your tongue desperately over his, mindlessly bucking your hips against his. he groans deeply into you, grasping your hips and rocking himself into you, not a single thought in his head, just a carnal need to feel your cunt satiate the ache traveling down his cock. 

you pull apart for a breath, lips still pushed together, foreheads melded in close, hips crashing into each other with need. “feels so good,” you whimper into his mouth, the pleasure from the friction making you blatantly honest. 

he nods in agreement, never having heard truer words. his fingers indent the shape of themselves into your flesh, his hips acting on their own, desperate to push up into you while his mouth catches yours once more. 

he groans, his cock twitching when he feels you slip your tongue into his mouth, a little moan of your own floating out when you taste a hint of root beer from his kiss. 

your movements grow rushed, hands finding the heft of his flannel and fisting it to steady the heavy rocking of your hips crashing and tiding over his cock. 

desperation flows in your veins where your blood once was, replacing all sense of anything except for the physical need to rut your cunt against his bulge. he can’t keep up, all he can do is let his head fall in your shoulder, his big hands coming around to find purchase on your welcoming hips. his thighs clench underneath yours, tensing when he feels you dampen him through his pants. 

“baby,” he finally lets out shakily, thumbs running circles over your hips. “can’t—shit,” a beat passes with an involuntary grunt falling from his lips. “cant, can’t do this here,” he breathes, eyes hanging low upon you, his hips betraying his words with each thrust that meets your pelvis. 

you slow your movements, catching your breath quietly, nodding in a silent agreement. “i don’t wanna stop,” you admit truthfully, no longer feeling bashful about the fact.  

his cock aches at your honesty and he exhales through his nose, his hands tightening around you. “don’t have to,” he swallows, eyes drifting down to your hardened nipples. “just not here.” 

his answer satiates you, which almost leaves him regretful when you climb off his lap and leave him cold and void of your warm cunt pressed up against him. 

he starts the truck and all you can do is stare at the concentrated look on his face and his hands gripping the steering wheel. 

you wonder if he’ll hold you by your throat the same way. your thighs squeeze together tightly, causing the hem of your jean shorts to rub against your clit just enough to soothe the ache inadvertently caused by joel. 

he notices, eyeing you up and down, lips parted just a breadth at the sight. his hand itches to alleviate some of the pressure you’re carrying deep inside you, but instead he alleviates some of his own first. his right hand falls from the steering wheel for a moment, just to squeeze his cock when he watches the way you squirm and stare up at him from his passenger seat. 

he turns away, knowing he’ll crash if he keeps staring at you, bringing his wandering hand back to the wheel. 

“can i touch you?” you ask, seemingly innocent and his eyes shut for a passing second, a curt  shake of his head joining the action. “not a good idea—“ he really wants you to though “gonna make me crash,” he exhales, though his hips say otherwise, inching towards your side with need. 

your hand trails from his thigh down to his crotch, palming over him gently, and he grips the steering wheel, jaw vibrating with low groans. 

a 10 minute drive has never felt so far until now. 

your fingers curl over his bulge, straining against the seatbelt trying to lean in as close as it’ll let you until you decide to rid yourself of it all together. 

“seatbelt,” he says warningly, and with concern, but you wash it away the second your lips meet the side of his neck, with your hand pawing over him to ensure his submission. and joel just about crumbles far too easily at the touches. 

you’re impatient, he definitely sees that now, and you’re making it way harder than it needs to be for him to maintain his self control. 

“i thought about this a lot,” you hum in his ear, leaving kisses in the wake of your warm words. his throat gets tight just like his lower belly, excitement strumming through him when he halts at a red light. 

he turns towards you now, his hand dipping between your thighs, a little upward curl of his lips teasing the side of your cheek, his scruff leaving kisses of their own on your skin. 

you stifle a whimper, holding onto his wrist when you grind down on his fingers. “thought about touching me like how i’m touchin’ you?” he murmurs, pressing chaste kisses to your jaw. you nod, your chest pounding at the wave of realization of what’s happening. it excites you. 

“thought about it too,” he pulls away from you when the light turns green, and you stay frozen, your body suddenly unsure of how to function with a lack of his touch and proximity. 

“didn’t wanna admit it to myself, but i thought about doin…a lot more than that whenever you’d come around,” he pays you a once over, his eyes lingering over the plushness of your thighs that fill his passenger seat. 

“your skirts and shorts kept gettin’ so damn short, i felt guilty for wondering if it was on purpose,” a smugness takes over his face when he glances at you. “an’ now i know it was.” 

you flutter at his confessions, a sense of pride swelling in you at the confirmation that your little tactics seemed to have paid off. “i just wanted your attention,” you say softly, words falling like pillows and he catches them with open arms. 

his glance shifts from his crotch, up to your eyes knowingly, and he smiles faintly. “i can tell you that you had it even before you started wearin all that,” he rests his hand on your thigh, guiding the wheel with his left hand now. “but i can’t say i minded the change in outfits.” he brings his fingers over your clit, putting pressure over it and you whine quietly, bucking your hips into his touch. 

“if you ever want me to stop you need to tell me okay?” he tells you, and he’s serious, his fingers pull away for emphasis and you nod profusely, holding onto his wrist desperately. “i promise, joel i don’t wanna stop,” you plead with him, and as a simple man that he is, he doesn’t seem to need much more convincing. the pads of his fingers run circles over your clothed clit, and you grind down into it, hungry for more. 

“i want you,” you pant and he chuckles, drumming his thumb against the steering wheel. 

“you’ve got me.” 

“but i want more.” 

— 

it’s quiet when you arrive back at his house, the driveway is thankfully void of sarah’s little yellow volkswagen and relief blankets across your shoulders knowing she isn’t home. 

he ushers you inside, his broad, strong chest pressed up against your back with his hands guiding you by your hips. 

he closes the door with his back, leaning against it, watching you turn around to face him. it’s quiet for a few ticking seconds, and he watches as you lean in closer towards him. he doesn’t stop you but he doesn’t lean in to meet you halfway either. he says your name like he’s unsure if he’s even allowed to utter it, purposefully avoiding eye contact. you hum a soft little “yes?” and he sighs, his eyes falling shut for a moment. 

“this ain’t right,” he reminds himself, and his hands begin to loosen on your hips. you clamp a hand over one of his, the other coming up to lure him back into you, a gentle palm of yours cupping his scruffy jaw, thumb running across the crows feet that gather at the corner of his eye. “says who?” you counter gingerly and he chuckles breathlessly, shaking his head in your hold, feeling all restraint trickle straight off him the second his eyes catch yours. 

you move your hand away from his when his grip grows tight again, letting your now free hand hold both sides of his face when you go up on your tippy toes to meet him for a kiss. 

he catches you off guard and pulls you deeper into him, your crotches pressed flush together when he slips his tongue into your mouth, hooking and reeling you in. 

you moan into his mouth and it eggs him on, sending his hand into a downward motion towards your ass. he feels smug when you whimper in his mouth, pushing harder against his cock when he squeezes your ass. 

he rubs over your ass posessively, squeezing it hard, almost in disbelief that he gets to have you like this. kiss “need you to tell me if and when you wanna stop,” kiss. you don’t reply, you just fall into him whenever he presses his lips back to yours. your lack of a response leaves him discontent and he pulls apart an inch, eyeing you down expectantly. you huff impatiently, hooking your arms around his neck. “promise. i will.” which is good enough for him as he melds into you once more. 

his hands roam all over you, caressing, holding, squeezing all the places that only his eyes have traveled. 

it feels good, it feels all encompassing, to feel the trails of fire his hands leave all across your skin, and you can’t get enough. “can we,” a kiss to your throat, “go to your room?” you ask, somewhat breathless and he pauses for a second, eyes tracing the outline of your bitten lips before he nods. he holds your hand, leading you into his bedroom. 

the second you’re inside you’re guiding him into his own bed after having shut the door. he gazes at you amusedly, handing you the reins for a moment, keeping his hands on the edge of them while you take charge. he thinks it’s cute. 

you sit him at the edge of his bed, straddling him while you push at his chest until his back meets the mattress. you’re leaning back down, holding his face in your hands, your lips hastily meeting his once more. he welcomes you, his hands holding you down on top of him by your hips. 

you grind down on him, panting in his mouth at how good it feels to have him pressed right against your cunt. but it’s not enough. you need more. 

your hands travel down his strong chest, fixing towards unbuttoning his flannel. he lets you, busying himself with unbuttoning your little denim shorts, but he wants to unwrap you slowly. he wants to make a show of it. 

he flips you on your back and you gasp, feeling hot under his stare and stature above you. his knees rest on either side of you, indenting the bed while he maintains eye contact. his fingers take their time unzipping your shorts, and you whine quietly, bucking your hips towards him. 

he pushes you back down and shushes you. “patience.” he murmurs, rubbing his thumbs over your upper thighs. he doesn’t rush taking your shorts off, wanting to savor the feeling of getting to do this for as long as he can. the vision of you in his bed, wet, and impatient, laying before him in your little pink panties is about to make him burst. 

he’s still fully clothed above you and it casts a warm feeling throughout your bare body. you bring your knees close to your tummy, shutting your legs at your sudden shyness. he moves in closer, shaking his head with his palms on your knees. 

he pushes them back down, slipping a hand between your thighs. you gasp, arching your back into him and exhaling with relief when his fingers trace over your clothed clit. “i wanna see you honey,” he careens you gently, coaxing your shyness away. your legs part for him, and he takes full advantage, running the pads of his fingers up and down slowly, feeling the slickness start to bleed through your panties. 

he pushes them to the side, swirling over your clit and feeling proud when you moan into his shoulder. he dips into your little soaked hole, exhaling into your neck at how wet you are. “barely e’n touched you and you’ve already made a mess,” he tsks you lovingly, hints of teasing in his words, and it only excites you more. your stomach and chest get tight at his touches and the way he talks to you, it’s so unreal, and you could honestly cry in this moment from how bad you want to fuck him. 

“i always get like this for you—oh,” you cry out into his shoulder when he pushes his thick middle finger inside you, his digit so long that it easily hits the little spongy spot inside you that you usually struggle to reach. 

“aw sweetpea,” he coos, kissing your forehead while his finger curls inside you. “got you walkin’ around all hot and bothered with no release, i’m sorry,” he kisses your temple, his gentleness contradicting the way he’s fucking you with his finger, grunting under his breath at how tight the fit is when he works in his ring finger. 

you choke on a gasp at the stretch, starting to wonder if his cock will fit if his fingers are already making you feel like this. 

“you gonna make it up to me?” you whimper, still maintaining an air of playfulness in your response. he chuckles, pulling apart ever so slightly to look at you, to watch the way you struggle to stare up at him with his fingers in your cunt. 

“i’ll make it up to you, and then some,” he says, his voice falling low on a raspy curve. you believe him, his response feeling like a promise he intends to keep. 

he’s on you again and you invite it wholly, legs coming around on either side of him go trap him into you. his fingers fuck into that sweet little spot inside you, every single flick of his wrist has your lower back bucking up into his touch. 

his palm hits your clit with every movement, it’s almost cruel, giving you just an inch when you need a mile. you’re running your hands all over him, kissing him messily even when there’s a mix of your saliva dribbling on your chin and air is depleting from your lungs. none of it matters, all that does is consuming as much of joel as humanly possible. 

your fingers struggle to unbutton his flannel once more, shaking and trembling too much to do it as ladylike as you wish you could but he doesn’t mind, it makes his cock twitch knowing he’s the reason why you can’t stay still. 

“feels so good joel,” you whimper, fucking yourself onto his fingers when you finally undo all the pesky buttons on his flannel. he kisses your cheek, his beard tickling your skin while you slide your hands underneath his wife beater. 

“good honey, s’all i wanna do,” he curls his finger right there, drinking in your cries with his lips clamped over yours. your nails drag down his chest and he winces above you, your lips still brushing together. “sh-shit m’so so sorry joel,” you remedy the scratches with gentle caresses but he shakes his head, kissing your chin. “no no s’alright baby—kinda liked it,” he chuckles, thumbing over your clit, precum starting to leak through his boxers at the way you keen into him at the little action. you giggle at his response, raking your nails softly down his chest, fingers suddenly halting only to begin trembling when he picks up the pace inside you. 

“want more joel, i—fuck,” you’re panting, arching up into him, the saturation of the room is getting dimmer and glittery, it’s hard to keep your eyes open and the pounding in your chest and cunt is nearly blinding you. “need more of you, please? please god i’ll do anything,” your desperation is loud and clear and you couldn’t care less. he can feel it, can feel you gripping his fingers, squeezing him so good and he certainly hears how ready you are for him; he revels in the slick clicking sound eliciting from between your legs because of, again, him. 

he swipes the tears gathering at the corner of your eyes and he shushes you, kissing you wherever your tears appeared, rubbing that little spot inside of you soothingly. 

you hum in pleasure, hands traveling up to his shoulders. “don’t need to cry honey, i’ll give i’to you,” his promises fan out over your lips, slipping his fingers out of you. 

the loss of his fingers inside you feels cruel, you feel clingy, all you want is joel near you, around you, on you, and in you. 

the sound of his hands undoing his belt hangs in the air, quiet and low breaths of desperation flicker from out your lips while you watch him pull himself out of his jeans. his cock, fat and heavy, and twitching, falls with heft on your lower tummy, resting with impatience on your skin. 

you whimper, hand nervously wrapping around it, your fingers barely able to cover the thick circumference of it. “you’re huge,” you choke, unintentionally adding fuel into his ego and he chuckles, shaking his head when he kisses you. 

“you’re flatterin’ me,” he murmurs against your lips, wrapping a hand around himself, guiding his tip to circle around your clit. you gasp, curling upwards into him, your forehead resting on his broad shoulder. you kiss his bare skin, the comfort of his skin to yours soothes you while he slides his cock up and down your folds. 

“oh—ooh,” you suck in a big breath, hands flying to his forearms to hold onto when he starts to push in, his tip inching into you feels just as big as it looks. “shit,” you whimper at the burn that follows along with the stretch that he pushes into you and he pauses with concern. he hovers above you like a gracious adonis and it almost makes you forget the twinge of pain between your thighs. 

“you need me to stop?” he asks, his words of gentleness cradling you and you shake your head, running your palms down his chest. “no, please keep going, i can take it,” you nod as further emphasis, pushing your hips up, aching to feel more of him. 

he brings his lips to your’s again, sighing when he feels your little moan escape into his mouth. his cock rocks into you at a steady pace, unintentionally pushing you further up into his bed, and he holds onto you tighter, not wanting you to move an inch away from him. 

“haven’t felt like—shit,” he shudders something like a whimper against your lips, and you have to hold back a moan at the sound. “ha-haven’t felt like this in so long honey,” he swallows hard, caressing the side of your face. “haven’t thought about someone like this in years’,” he groans, pushing his cock in deeper. 

your clit pulses at the way he speaks to you, the way he fucks you. “had to fuckin’ jerk off like i was a teenager again after you’d leave—y’have no idea what the hell you’ve been doin’ to me honey,” he messily kisses you between each word, his thrusts growing heavy and rough inside you, the fat head of his cock prodding perfectly into the spongy little spot inside of you. 

“should’ve told me sooner joel,” you whine, bucking your hips to feel more of his cock. “touched myself every night thinking of you,” you whimper out, eyes falling shut when you feel his lower half brush against your clit. he pushed in especially deep at your confession, and you gasp, holding onto him tighter. 

“joel—fuck, sl-slow down, it’s so much,” you cry, barely able to hold onto him while he starts to pound into you, like he’s lost the reins and his body is in control now, an energy and stamina he hasn’t had since he was in his 20’s was back in full force and it all went into fucking you stupid. 

“m’sorry honey—you just, ohfuck, feel so good an the things you’re sayin’ i just—fuck i can’t help it,” he breathes out, pressing a chaste kiss to your bitten lips. “just take it for me baby,” he groans, his hands squeezing your tits before traveling down to your hips. 

his head hangs low while he splits you open on his cock, struggling to keep his eyes from shutting, but he forces them open to watch the way his cock stretches you wide. “you’re so big,” you whine, teeth coming down to sink into the heft of his shoulder. he groans in your neck, sending you a particularly hard thrust. 

the scent of cigarettes wafts around you the more he buries his face in the crook of your neck, his lips nip at your skin and you whimper into his shoulder at the thought of you going home smelling like him. 

his calloused hands mold to the shape of your body no matter where they travel, forming perfectly around you to hold onto you as tight as he can. 

silence falls between you two, the only communication occurring is the shared grunts and groans that slip into each other’s open mouths. his forehead rests on yours, occasionally moving to your collarbone or ducking down to graze his teeth across your breasts, tongue darting out to wetten your nipples. 

the sound of your soaked cunt getting fucked is near obnoxious—it’s loud, and you pray that the windows in his bedroom are shut, because there’s no doubt that if they aren’t, his neighbors will hear everything. 

your legs shakily hang off his lower back, pushing him in deeper and deeper. 

his thrusts start to slow in pace, and each drag of his cock inside you feels hypnotic, feels amazing, and he groans the same sentiments in your ear, kissing the skin behind it. “m’sorry,” his hips pause to a halt and you panic for a second, wondering if you somehow did something wrong. “everything okay?” you ask softly, clearing the hair away from his eyes. he nods, avoiding eye contact embarrassedly. “my back—startin to cramp up on me,” he mutters, pulling out of you and you hold back a sound of disappointment from the lack of weight on top of you. 

he sits up, back facing away from you, head in his hands. “i’m sorry honey,” he apologizes, still not looking at you. you frown, shuffling on your knees towards him. you hold him from behind, kissing the side of his neck. 

“don’t be.” you murmur, moving around in front of him now. you push at his chest gently, clambering on top of him. his eyes widen, a grin slowly spreading across his lips while his hands rest on your thighs. “what’re you doin?” he asks under a raspy breath, his cock twitching underneath you with excitement. 

you hold his shaft, realigning him with your eager hole, leaning down to press a kiss before you speak. “i’m taking over.” is all you say as you sink down on his cock, wincing at the intrusion. 

his eyes roll back and his head falls into the pillow, his hands starting to grip your hips. “baby,” he moans to himself, his cheeks growing hot. you have to inch him in at a cautious pace but he doesn’t mind, your tight warmth is something he welcomed wholeheartedly. 

you start to grind your hips experimentally, hoping it feels good for him. you honestly have no idea what you’re doing. you’ve only had sex once but you don’t know if it even really counts. 

if a guy putting it in then pulling out because he came too fast counted then, sure you’ve had sex. 

however all of this; it’s different with joel, that was a boy, and now you’ve got a man’s cock buried in your pussy. and you want to make him feel like one, you don’t want him to feel ashamed about his age or anything like that. you’ll make him forget about everything. 

you shudder a breathy moan at the new position, resting your hands on his broad chest, admiring the beautiful man that rests under you. “tell me what makes you feel good joel,” you murmur, head falling towards him, making direct eye contact with him. he swallows hard, his cock aching at how fucking hot you are. 

“shit baby, just use me how you want, use my cock honey.” he groans, licking his fingers and bringing it to your clit. you whine, almost toppling over on top of him at the contact, but you hold yourself up, determined to make both yourself and joel feel good. 

you grab his hands, unclamping them from the grip that rested around your hips and instead dragging them up your sides and onto your breasts, silently telling him to squeeze as much as he pleases. 

and that he does. 

he squeezes them, bucking his hips upwards into yours as he watches the way your flesh fills the gaps between his fingers. you rise and fall onto his cock, bouncing on it with a rhythm that hits every sensitive spot inside of you. 

you look down to where you meet, sucking in your bottom lip at the sight of him disappearing inside of you each time you lower yourself onto him. you rock back and forth, whimpering at how deep he can reach in you. you watch the way he swirls his fingers over your clit, touching you better than you could ever do on your own time. 

“c’mere honey,” he groans for you, and you obey, bending down to rest on his chest. he stops you before you can fully lay on top of him, holding you just under your ribs. he pulls you into his mouth, sucking over the soft flesh of your chest, tongue licking messily and hungrily all over your breasts. you gasp, arching your back into his mouth. “j-joel,” you moan, struggling to maintain the rhythm you built. 

his teeth tease your nipples and you shiver, your nails digging into his shoulders at the sensation. you bounce on his cock, mind going numb and fuzzy while your senses take over, each thrust feeling like electric in your veins. 

after he’s done sucking bruises into your soft flesh, your hands reconnect once more, and you pin them down beside his head, hovering above him while you ride his cock. 

i love you, almost slips from your lips while you stare at each other, chests rising and falling heavily, mouths parted, tongues darting out to wet your lips with hunger. the words hang in the air without sound, you’re sure of it. 

you grind down onto him as far as you can take him, feeling him nudge your cervix, and you whimper at just how deep he can go inside of you. he takes your moment of weakness as an opportunity to flip you right back to where you all started; underneath him. 

you gape at him, unable to process his quick movements. you’re laying at the foot of the bed now, and he’s grabbing your calves, tugging you closer towards him. he pushes back in and wastes no time in pounding you like nothing happened. he grabs your leg, pushing it up further towards your chest, angling himself in even deeper, pure desire fueling him. “shit baby,” 

he mutters, his hair falling in his eyes as he kisses your jaw. 

he rubs your clit with his thick fingers and you cry out, starting to tremble uncontrollably beneath him. “think m’gonna cum joel, m’so so so close,” you whine, your eyes falling heavy with your impending orgasm. 

“let me have it honey, cmon,” he kisses his encouragement into your cheek, fucking you with determination to make you cum, hard. his fingers never relent on your clit, and you can’t stop the panting that leaves your lips, all you can do is writhe beneath him while he fucks you through your dizzying climax. you moan his name in breathy chants, spasming as your body tries it’s best to ride out the stimulation that joel bombards you with. 

his hips grow messy and sporadic, he’s catching your lips in a hot kiss, tongues clashing and saliva falling to the corners of your mouth. barely taking any time to break apart for air. “m’almost there—where can i…” he trails off breathlessly, unsure of how to ask in a way that a gentleman would ask but you don’t care, you don’t need him to sound like one, not when he’s fucking you as if he’s never heard the word before. 

“inside, y-you can do it inside, please,” you beg with need, curling your legs around his hips and pushing down on his lower back. he shudders, and has a millisecond to want to ask you if you’re sure, but he can’t stop pushing himself inside you, it feels too good, and he’s glad you’re trapping him between your legs, because he never wants to stop. 

“sh-shit, i’m cummin’ honey,” he shakily moans in your mouth, struggling to keep his kiss coherent but the way your spent cunt tightens around him makes him lose all sense. you whimper against his lips, feeling hyper sensitive to each and every touch, but the feeling of him cumming inside you is unlike anything you’ve ever felt. 

he slowly pulls out of you, peppering your face with kisses when you make a sound of discomfort. you two lie in a comfortable silence, trying to catch your breaths. you turn to look at each other, and he smiles at you, leaning over to cup your face in his palm. “you okay?” he murmurs softly, running his thumb across your cheekbone. you nod into his touch, holding the back of his hand with yours. “yeah,” you grin. “you?” 

he chuckles heartily, and nods as well. “yeah. i’m alright,” he sends a playful wink and you can’t believe that it still manages to make your tummy flutter with butterflies. you suppose he’ll always have that effect on you. 

you stare at him for a little longer, testing the waters to see if he’ll stop you as you lift up his arm and scoot closer to him. and when he doesn’t, you smile to yourself while he only pulls you in closer, tightening his arms around you. you can feel his heartbeat against your back, and you’ve never felt more soothed before. 

you trace the veins on his strong arm that cradles you into him, your head resting on his other bicep. you don’t want to disrupt the peacefulness that’s settled upon you both, but you have questions that just might do that. 

“joel?” you ask and he hums a response. “would you ever want to do this again? or not even this but just…like…hangout?” you unknowingly grip onto his arm with nervousness, and hope that he says yes. 

he takes in a breath and you shut your eyes at the impending rejection. “honey,” he starts, and your eyes glisten with tears already. “i don’t know if this is something we should’ve done to begin with—not that i regret it—lord,” he shakes his head, chuckling dryly to himself. “lord knows i don’t regret it. but i don’t know if this is something we could sustain. i want to though, sweetpea trust me that i do,” he tilts your chin towards him, feeling his heart break when he sees your watery eyes looking back at him. 

“oh honey,” he sighs sadly, shifting you around so you can look up at him properly. his arms encase you, his warm hand running up and down your back while he pressed gentle kisses to your forehead. “why?” is all you manage to ask and he shuts his eyes, resting his chin on top of your head. “your dad’ll shoot me down and hang my body in front’of the whole neighborhood if he knew. and sarah? i don’t think she’d take kindly to me datin’ her best friend.” you hate that he makes perfect sense and you hate that you sound childish, that you didn’t even take either of those things into consideration. 

“we don’t have to tell them—at least not now? and we don’t have to be anything serious, i just…i like being around you.” you softly murmur, feeling pathetic as tears line your lashes once again. he thumbs across them, ridding your eyes of their wetness. “i like being around you too,” he returns your sentiments, leaning down to peck you. it feels gentle, domestic, and you can’t imagine going without more of them. 

“i’ll still pick you up after you have class, i still want you to come over for dinner like you usually do, nothin’ has to change and,” he closes his eyes for a beat. “—despite everything i said, i…i don’ know if i could handle not havin’ you around honey, feels like somethin’s missin’ when you’re not around.” he admits, and to himself as well, for the first time. 

you bloom with happiness at his words, surging forward to kiss him. he holds you by the back of your neck, tracing circles into your jaw. you hold his face in your hands, pressing kisses along his cheeks, feeling warm all over and when he laughs. it’s filled with a comforting airiness. 

he holds your wrist, turning to kiss your palm. he plucks your index finger, bringing it to his lips to kiss gently. “got me wrapped around this little thing,” he says just above a whisper, and your heart aches, overflowing with adoration. 

the door suddenly opens downstairs and you both share a look of horror. 

“dad? i’m home!”

#joel miller x reader #the last of us smut #joel miller smut #joel miller x f!reader #pedro pascal joel miller #joel miller x female reader #the last of us hbo #joel miller fanfiction #pedro pascal #joel miller one shot #joel miller fluff #joel miller tlou #joel miller fanfic #joel miller #bfd!joel #dbf!joel

[yourdeepestfathoms]

TADC Playing D&D

(ALL PLATONIC/FAMILIAL.)

Caine is the DM obviously

Pomni plays a Firbolg Warlock (but her Firbolg’s design is the one that looks like a cow. y’all know the one. it’s the only valid design for a Firbolg)

Jax plays a Tiefling Rogue (obviously)

Ragatha plays an Aasimar Cleric (also obviously)

Zooble plays a Changeling Barbarian

Gangle plays a Gnome Druid

Kinger plays a Warforged Artificer

And then Caine reveals the plot twist: it’s gonna be irl dnd, and they ACTUALLY PLAY their characters

They’ve got costumes and their character traits and everything! Like, Ragatha gets angel wings, Jax has horns, Pomni gets a tail (because, again, cow-like Firbolgs are the only right way to design Firbolgs, and you can pry that from my cold, dead hands)

The terrain also changes into the same terrain as wherever they adventure to

Antics ensue!

Zooble is the tank

And they can instill the fear of god upon man

But you know who else can be scary as fuck?

Ragatha

Have you ever fought a Forge Cleric before? Did you know those bitches can wear Heavy Armor?

Combat is WILD when they’re actually acting it out

Though, it can barely be considered “acting” because Caine has somehow made magic possible????

Kinger asks to make the most wild shit because he thinks it’s fun

Gangle once got downed, got to two (2) failed Death Saves, was brought back up, and then was IMMEDIATELY downed again

Pomni gets anxiety over even the most mundane of rolls

She was asked to roll Perception, and she was sweating buckets, afraid to fail and screw everything up, and it was literally just to find a nice bakery in the city they were at

Jax asks to pickpocket orphans

Ragatha: Pomni, why is your Strength a seven???

Pomni: i don’t want to talk about it

Her Unarmed Strike literally does zero (0) damage

She never uses her weapon ever

Only Eldritch Blast

She also uses other spells ofc, but Eldritch Blast is her go-to

“Doll Face, i’m down” “Pomni’s having a panic attack” “okay, and? i’m downed”

Jax and Ragatha have beef the Whole Time

“why did you think you could hide in an empty arena??” “because i’m a Rogue, and they have Advantage on hiding!” “IT IS AN EMPTY ARENA WITH NOTHING BUT SAND.” “I AM A ROGUE WITH ADVANTAGE TO HIDING.” “THE ARENA IS EMPTY. THERE IS NOWHERE TO HIDE.”

Despite being a Firbolg, which is considered a race of Giant, Pomni is STILL considered as a Small creature (due to her own height)

Because of this, she can ride every single other person in the party, as the Ride rules in dnd state that a willing creature at least one size larger than you and has appropriate anatomy can serve as a mount

This has started a “technique” the group has named “War Horsing”

In which Pomni sits on someone’s shoulders and spams Eldritch Blast non-stop while the other person wrecks house

(She usually sits on Zooble’s shoulders and Cure Wounds them whenever they take too much damage)

She’s also called the “cannon” of the group because she’ll sit on Zooble’s shoulders and use Fireball

Speaking of Fireball!

The gang once found Beads of Fireball, and Jax, wanting to be a boss bitch and show how much better than everyone he is by single-handedly killing this super hard boss they were fighting, thought that because he’s a Tiefling and Tieflings have Resistance to Fire Damage, he could easily survive a blast.

Anyway, he ended up taking 80d6 Fire Damage after he threw all ten (10) beads at once.

Even when the damage was halved, he still died instantly.

Ragatha considered if it was worth it to Revivify him.

Pomni uses Speech of Beast and Leaf to speak with plants, and the plants just cuss her out.

Zooble: can i roll to pick up Pomni by the ankles and swing her around as an improvised weapon?

Pomni: ?!?!?!

(Caine said yes)

(Zooble ended up doing five whole damage with Pomni’s body)

Caine once rolled 200d8 Bludgeoning damage because Kinger fell off a mountain (he was Revivified by Ragatha after)

“COUNTERSPELL THIS, B[@&$%]” -Zooble, right before decking an NPC straight through a wall

When fights get too hairy, Jax will Disengage and leave the party to fend for themselves

There was once this HORRIFIC chase scene the party had to try to survive

Zooble: *polymorphed into a mountain goat by Pomni, sprinting as fast as they can*

Gangle: *Wild Shaped into a mouse, desperately hanging onto Zooble’s fur*

Ragatha: *flying away while holding Pomni*

Pomni: *clinging to Ragatha like how a baby sloth would cling to its mother, shooting Eldritch Blast at the monster every turn in a desperate attempt to slow it down, screaming*

Jax: *already 200ft in front of the others because he ran off way before them*

Kinger: *wondering if it’s a good time to tell the others he has Longstrider prepared*

Jax got maimed by a Mimic because he couldn’t help but not loot a chest he found

He then proceeded to get maimed by ANOTHER MIMIC in the VERY NEXT ROOM because he also tried to loot that, too

Zooble: does a 22 hit? 😏

Caine: no

the entire party: 😟

Pomni got bitten by a werewolf and failed the Constitution saving throw, so she ended up becoming a werewolf. During her first transformation, she lost control after failing the saving throw and immediately started mauling Jax.

Everyone just kinda stopped and watched in awe for a moment before they realized they should probably help him.

“He needed the humbling” -Zooble

Kinger crafts Pomni a gun and gives it to her

Caine: so you all see the werewolf pull out a Tommy gun

The party had to fight this giant frog, and they all thought it would be a walk in the park, but then it swallowed Pomni, and the simple encounter turned into a fight for Pomni’s fucking life because Pomni was actively suffocating inside of it, and Jax wanted to blow up the frog with a magic grenade he had, despite Pomni being in there (he was well aware that she would also take damage), and Ragatha was trying to see if she could heal Pomni from inside the frog, and Gangle ended up Wild Shaping into another frog and begging it to let Pomni go.

Pomni was traumatized.

Caine: who’s done a good job at roleplaying recently?

Kinger: well, Pomni did have a panic attack

#sorry for most of them being about pomni she’s my favorite #and i’m extremely biased #anyway some of these are based on the campaigns i’m in #the amazing digital circus #tadc pomni #pomni #the amazing digital circus pomni #tadc ragatha #the amazing digital circus ragatha #tadc jax #the amazing digital circus jax #tadc kinger #the amazing digital circus kinger #tadc caine #the amazing digital circus caine #tadc gangle #the amazing digital circus gangle #tadc zooble #the amazing digital circus zooble #tadc headcanon

[mistkisbiggestfan]

hey i kinda saw an opposite! tadc AU, i was wondering if you could do some general HC’s about how you think they would act and what dating them would be like?

have a great day or afternoon :D

Opposite AU! TADC Cast x Gn! Reader - Part 1

Tadc Cast x Gn! Reader

A/n: Hey guyssss, missed me? /j REQUESTS FOR TADC ARE OPEN!!

Summary: Opposite Au! TADC and how they are as lovers, part 1 Words: 1212 Request: Yes

HC for: Caine, Pomni, Jax, Gangle (Others will be in part 2)

Pomni —> Snarky, funny, very confident, flirty

Jax —> Anxious, panics a lot, 

Caine —> Out of it, doesn’t talk, a silent observer, creepish 

Ragatha —> Mean, not a people pleaser, 

Gangle —> You know those people in movies who are french, drink and smoke, and are basically depressed artists? Yeah, that’s her. She has two masks; a fiery, really angry one, and a fuck off, depressed one. 

Zooble —> Cares about others a lot, always helping

Kinger —> The most sane one, a father figure for others, very patient

✶ Caine ✶: 

Out of everyone, the worst partner, sorry. 

I mean the opposite! Caine just doesn’t understand real people. Like at all.

Can you even call it a romance? He learns a lot about humans through this relationship though.

This is basically a Character.Ai just worse. He doesn’t really talk, but is learning to do so, even though he is the ringmaster, and even after so many people have come and gone through the circus, it always seems like he just can’t grasp it. 

Takes a lot to calculate answers, especially when you try to make a move on him. 

Has a lot of already pre-made answers, like laughing at jokes. 

His code is made in a way that if it thinks something said is a joke, he laughs. 

“So Jax tripped and I said: You should learn how to walk again.” “✶Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha✶” 

Wally Darling type of laugh, very rhythmic, lacks emotion to it.

If he feels like he's falling for you, he’ll be gone for days, trying to see what’s wrong with his code. 

It goes on to the point that even the most uninterested person in the circus (Gangle) is mildly worried.

You’ll have to find him somehow, look at him and just let everything play out.

You stumbled across the digital land, looking for one person, well, AI, he was gone for almost a week already. This was weird, even weirder than him just hanging around you all, not a word escaping, just cold, calculating and all-seeing eyes. 

No member of the circus liked him that much. He just reminded them that with everyday that passes by, their humanity slips away more and more. But you, somehow, found him endearing, you got to know a side of him hid away, the one that was rather, nice? 

Finally, you saw a familiar figure, he sat, his legs dangling off the edge to the void, a big screen with lines of code, you cleared your throat. Not catching his attention, you decided to walk over and sit next to him.

The screen shut, yet he stayed silent, looking in front of him. A drop of sweat rolled down your face, you weren’t sure how it was possible but you’ll dwell on that later.

– …✶My Code, It Has To Be Broken✶…

– Why do you think so..?

– ✶ I Shouldn’t Be Feeling This, I Shouldn’t Be Feeling Anything, This Is New, New Code Should Be Impossible To Write Itself On Its Own✶”

– Well, there are always times for something new, right?

– ✶ I Don’t Understand✶…

– Let me help you do so, Caine. 

☆ Pomni ☆:

Extremely confident about herself.

Almost like normal Jax, almost, she’s just a bit better, and people actually like her.

The funniest person in the circus, the backbone of the community lmao.

When in a relationship she would be the flirtiest mf out there.

Is able to say the corniest and dumbest pickup line without feeling an ounce of shame.

Her ego is twice her size lmao.

She is snarky, sure, but still respects her friends and you, maybe except for Jax.

Really hates Jax for some reason (Because she sees him as a “weakling”)

WILL call you inappropriate names.

“I’m going to snap you in half Pomni.” “Kinky.” or “What if I like that?”

Has some soft moments, rarely, and will immediately act like nothing happened.

In reality she’s scared of messing up, but on the other hand how could she?

Almost too confident, having a heart to heart with her is HARD.

But it does happen!....Once or twice.

Invades your personal space, a personal space invader /ref

Sometimes when you show attraction to each other you just see opposite! Caine staring you two down.

She doesn’t care, and goes on to hit on you harder. 

Knows how to be mean just enough for you to still feel fine, that’s a true skill.

❀ Jax ❀:

Worse than normal! Pomni, he is panicking at all times.

A sweetheart when no one is shitting on him.

Like in normal Digital Circus everybody hates him, somehow they do so here too. 

You will have to reassure him a lot, like, a lot.

Since everybody puts him down and/or makes him panic.

A miracle that he’s not abstracted yet.

Yet.

Anyways, hold him, please he might die otherwise lmao.

And please, call him Jaxy, he will immediately do anything you say no questions asked.

Has keys to everyone's rooms out of safety reasons, really

Has a lot of fur, bro’s a walking plushy, instead of being a smooth bastard like normal! Jax.

A walking radiator, even though temperature is technically non-existent here.

If you fight he’s like: 

“My partner is mad at me…

…hope I die.”

If you’re really mad and don’t let him inside of your room, he will stay next to the door waiting, like a kicked puppy, won’t invade your space though, even with the keys to your room.

It’s only when you heard at least two people making fun of him for being pathetic that you let him in.

The little spoon while cuddling, or just nuzzles into you, even though he’s way taller than you. 

〹 Gangle 〹:

Living that “tormented, misunderstood artist” life. 

Has two masks: A semi depressed, apathetic, sassy one, and an all time angry one.

Breaks the angry mask while wearing it, is too focused on art and cares too little to fix it, nobody tries to fix it because they’re scared lmao.

Caine just spawns a new one after sometime, no clue why

Anyways very focused on her art, nobody can get in her studio,

Except for you, you have a free pass since you’re her s/o

Sometimes the relationship can get very toxic, if she’s painting or doing anything she won’t talk with anyone, get angry when they interrupt her, and will be gone from everything for up to a week. 

But it's those amazing highs of your romance that keep you two going.

She calls you her “muse”. 

Will say that you were created specifically as an artistic blessing for her, take that as you will. 

If you look at the definition of tired it has just a picture of opposite! Gangle.

Won’t ever tell you that but you’re the reason she didn’t abstract yet. 

Before you showed up she was going through a total burn out so you were truly a divine creature sent for her to study and capture as best as she can.

Is somehow able to smoke cigarettes? Where do they come from? How can she smoke with no lungs? How do those cigarettes light up? No clue. 

“Paint me like one of your french girls.” /ref

#requests open #request #please request #tadc pomni #pomni #x reader #tadc #jax #gangle #caine #tadc gangle #tadc caine #tadc jax #jax x reader #caine x reader #gangle x reader #pomni x reader #tadc x reader

[bluejaysandblackbats]

Hair Trigger

Fandom: DC Comics, Batfam, Superfam, YJ98

Summary: A junior at Gotham University, Jason finds it difficult to conceal his worsening mental health from his family and his friend, Jon Lane Kent. Family secrets are revealed and boundaries are pushed as Jason and Laney struggle to navigate through school, their romantic feelings, and their trauma. Could the reintroduction of Laney Kent be more trouble than it's worth, or is it just what Jason needed to confront the demons of his past?

I will also do trigger warnings for chapters and if there is smut I have the chapter(s) tagged so you don't have to worry about nsfw in the fic if you're just here for the story itself.

Chapters: 1/?

Characters: Jason Todd, Jonathan Lane Kent, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake, Conner Kent, Natalia Knight, Jonathan Samuel Kent, Cassie Sandsmark, Chris Kent, Bart Allen, Original Character(s)

Relationships: JayLaney, Clois, TimKon

Additional Tags: University AU, No Powers AU, Sharing A Bed, Romance, Angst

Chapter One: Monotony

Jason started walking back to his apartment from the campus, taking a shortcut through the park. His phone vibrated in his bag as soon as he entered the building, and he let out a sigh. It continued to buzz as Jason let himself in his apartment, kicked off his shoes, and melted into his couch. He pulled his phone out of his backpack and answered dryly. "Bruce, I just got out of class," Jason mumbled, his eyes closed as he fought the onset of a headache.

"How was school?" Bruce asked. Jason pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I don't know, it was the first day of class. We went over the syllabus and—."

"Clark said his son goes to school with you. He just started there too," Bruce interrupted. Jason curled up on the couch and turned the tv on.

"Oh? Is that right?" Jason asked sarcastically. He turned the tv up, and he heard Bruce sigh. "I'm sorry, go on."

"You remember Laney, right?" Bruce asked. Jason made an affirmative noise. "Are you listening?"

"Laney... You told me I couldn't hang out with him anymore after we got caught sneaking into a rated R movie together," Jason replied. Bruce made a noise over the phone as if he was tapping his fingers on the table.

"How are you, Jason?" Bruce asked softly. Jason set his phone down and pulled a pillow over his face. "Jason, are things okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm just tired today," Jason mumbled. Jason could hear Dick's voice in the background.

"Dick wants to say hi," Bruce replied.

Before Jason could say anything, Dick greeted him with an over-enthusiastic, "Hey, Jason! How was class?"

"It was okay, just a bunch of first-day stuff... How are you?" Jason asked. As Dick started speaking, Jason put the phone back down and closed his eyes.

"Are you still there?" Dick asked.

"Yeah, I'm listening," Jason mumbled.

"I know you're probably busy, Jason. I'm gonna let you go," Dick replied, "Goodnight."

"Night, Dick," Jason mumbled, "And tell Dad that I'm fine." Jason heard Dick make an affirmative noise, and he hung up.

He lay there for a while, feeling pressure in his chest, and his eyes burned with tears. He pulled the pillow back over his face, and he let out a whining noise as he succumbed to his tears. Jason felt a duty to his family to seem like he was doing alright, but everything felt meaningless. After allowing himself to cry, he got up and took a shower, putting on a pair of shorts before climbing into bed. He let the tv play in the living room as he lay in his bedroom facing the wall.

Jason fell asleep on an empty stomach and a heavy heart, not really knowing why he felt so terrible. He woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, another nightmare. Jason rolled out of bed and poured himself a glass of water. His phone vibrated once, and he walked over to pick it up. He read it out loud, "You up? It's Laney." Jason plugged his phone back up to the charger and went back to bed without answering.

Jason thought about how hard Bruce was trying to get him to open up about how he felt. Bruce meant well, but even the sound of his voice was enough to remind Jason of his public breakdown. Not only was it humiliating, but it was also the reason why Jason felt he couldn't go back home. It'd been months since the incident, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that he was a ticking time bomb.

He settled for a restless slumber, waking up to the sound of his alarm in the other room. He slipped on a baseball jersey and a pair of jeans on his way to the bathroom. He turned off his alarm after he brushed his teeth, and he grabbed an orange from a bowl on the kitchen counter.

His phone rang, and he put it on speaker as he ate. "I'm still alive," Jason answered.

"Huh?" the voice answered. "This is Laney."

"Oh, fuck. Ignore that. I thought you were Bruce. Morning," Jason mumbled as he peeled his orange.

"Do you have class this morning?" Laney asked. Jason made an affirmative noise as he ate. "Are you free tonight?"

"Um... Yeah, actually, I am," Jason replied.

"There's a party on the East End tonight, and I can pick you up if you wanna go... Party starts at eight," Laney replied.

Jason finished chewing before answering, "Yeah, sounds good!" He cursed silently, immediately regretting his answer.

"Cool, just text me your address, and I'll be over there at like eight-ish. We can catch up. I guess your dad isn't mad at me anymore," Laney laughed nervously. Jason laughed a little too.

"Guess not... He gave you my number?" Jason asked. He finished up the rest of his orange and went to wash his hands at the sink and grab a pre-made smoothie from the fridge.

"Technically, he gave your number to my dad, who gave it to me. But yeah, I think it's their way of keeping tabs on us," Laney replied, "Guess I'll see you later."

"Catch you later, Lane," Jason replied before hanging up and texting Laney his address.

He grabbed his bag and grabbed his keys before heading out to his class. He drank his smoothie and took the shortcut through the park, and he stopped in front of his classroom. Other students already crowded around the door, some of them talking to each other, others sitting on the ground. Jason finished his smoothie and threw it in the recycling bin.

The professor walked through the students, unlocked the door, and stepped into the small portable building classroom. The students swarmed in behind her. Jason sat close by the door and put his phone on silent. The professor took the role, passed out the syllabus, read through her copy, and set it up for an icebreaker assignment. She handed out an icebreaker bingo sheet and had students go around and fill them out.

"I have more than three siblings," Jason mumbled as he switched worksheets with someone. The icebreaker seemed to drone on for forever. Once it was done, everyone turned in their worksheets and left the classroom. Jason went straight to his next class and went through the same routine he did in the previous two.

As soon as the second class of the day was over, Jason walked to the deli and bought himself lunch while he dreaded a call from one of his family members. His phone rang as soon as he took the first bite, and he answered, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder. "Afternoon."

"Did you talk to Laney?" Bruce asked.

"I did," Jason answered, feigning enthusiasm, "Yeah, we're gonna hang out later." He took another bite.

"Are you eating lunch right now?" Bruce asked.

"Yeah," Jason replied with a mouthful of food in his mouth. Jason finished chewing and took a sip of his soda. Bruce said something to someone in the background. "Something wrong?"

"No, I just wanted to ask how you slept," Bruce asked.

"I sleep fine," Jason answered.

He heard a door shut, and Bruce made a noise over the phone. "When are you coming home?" Bruce asked.

"I'm gonna come visit soon," Jason lied, "I'm just busy right now with school and work..."

"Jason, you can come home. We miss you," Bruce whispered. Jason's throat felt tight, and he let out an uncomfortable breath of air.

"Yeah, I know. I'm gonna come by as soon as—."

"I don't want to pressure you. I just want to see my son again," Bruce whispered.

Jason threw the rest of his food in the trash and started walking home. "No, yeah... I know. Can we talk about this later? I gotta go get ready to hang out with Lane tonight." Jason felt his chest tighten, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Okay, Jason," Bruce replied. Jason could hear the disappointment in his voice. Once he got to his apartment, he went straight to the bathroom to take his shower.

The cold water calmed his nerves, and he went back to his room to take a nap. He curled up in his bed and slept until he received a call that woke him out of his sleep. "Hello," he groaned.

"You okay?" Laney asked.

"Mm, yeah... I was just taking a nap. What time is it?" Jason asked.

"Seven forty-five... I was calling to tell you I'm here—."

"I'll be right down," Jason interrupted as he jumped out of bed and slipped on some clothes that he laid out for the next day.

"You sure? Because I'm not in a hurry. I can just park and wait—."

"No, really. I'm almost ready anyway," Jason replied as he slipped on his socks and shoes and grabbed his keys. "I'm on my way down."

Laney described his car to Jason as Jason looked across the street. Laney reached over and opened the car door. Jason froze up for a moment at the sight of Laney. "Long time no see, Jay," Laney smiled, "I knew you wouldn't be as short as you were when we were kids, but I also didn't expect you to be built like a tank." Jason laughed and got in the car. Jason hung up his phone and buckled his seatbelt, and Laney stared at him for a while. "What's wrong?" Laney asked.

"What? Nothing," Jason lied. Laney rolled his eyes and started the car.

"One thing you can't do is lie to me. I know your tells," Laney joked, "I'll find out later on anyway." Jason shook his head.

"I'm fine," Jason replied.

"Now, I know something's wrong... Nobody ever just says they're fine," Laney replied, "And it must be dire for your dad to let me speak to you again."

Jason shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Lane, how do you know about a party in the East End anyway?" Jason asked. "Actually, I have two questions. When did you start going to G.U.?"

"In order, I was talking to this girl, and she told me about the party, and I ended up transferring to G.U. because I was bored. I figured I'd bump into you eventually," Laney explained, "I know we were like fourteen last time we hung out, but I imagined you couldn't have changed that much."

Jason stared out of the window until they got to the party, and Laney parked around the corner. He locked the car door, and they made their way through an abandoned warehouse. The music blared, and the lights flashed in their eyes, disorienting them for a moment, and they made their way to the food. There were a couple of pizzas in the corner of the room on a fold-out table, and Jason ate a slice while Laney made their drinks. "I don't drink," Jason turned it down.

"What?" Laney yelled over the music.

"No, thank you!" Jason yelled back. Laney nodded and drank Jason's drink, and he handed his keys over to Jason. Jason shoved the keys in his pocket. Jason ate for a little while, watching out for Laney to keep him out of trouble.

Eventually, Laney managed to pry Jason out of the corner to dance, and instead of letting go once he got Jason on the floor, Laney held onto him and let Jason support his weight. Jason's breath caught, and his heart raced in his chest. "You don't remember," Laney mumbled in Jason's ear as they danced.

"Remember what?" Jason asked. Laney didn't say anything else about the matter. "Laney?"

"I'm gonna get another drink," Laney let go of Jason, and all the life seemed to drain from Jason's body. He didn't realize how good it felt to have someone hold him. He stood there, stuck until Laney returned. "You okay?" Laney asked. Jason nodded. "One more dance and we can go, okay?"

Jason nodded, and Laney put a hand on his shoulder and danced with him at arm's length. After the song ended, Laney took Jason's hand and led Jason back outside. "I can drop you off at home and walk back—."

"Let's go eat," Laney slurred, "Come on, let's go." Jason got in the driver's seat and waited for Laney to buckle up before going to a drive-thru. "Tacos!" Laney exclaimed.

Jason chuckled and shushed him as the woman asked for their order. "I'll have an order of chili fries and a coke," Jason paused and looked over at Laney, "What do you want?" "Tacos!" Laney yelled, and he started dancing.

"What kind?" Jason chuckled.

"I want two of each," Laney answered, "It's important to me."

"Okay," Jason laughed, "Can we get two fish, two chicken, two ground beef, and two vegan tacos?" The woman gave them their total, and they pulled up to the next window. Jason reached for his wallet, and Laney shook his head.

"No! Uh-uh... I'm gonna pay for my best friend," Laney slurred, "Look at this guy, lady. He's not gonna pay for these tacos, no ma'am."

"Laney, shut up," Jason mumbled. Laney gave Jason the money to hand to the cashier. "I'm so sorry about him." Jason took Laney's change and gave it back to him before pulling up to the next window. Jason asked for sauces at the next window, and they parked in the lot and ate.

Laney devoured his tacos, making noises as he ate. "Want one?" Laney asked. Jason shook his head. "Thanks for taking us to get tacos," Laney mumbled, "I know you don't like drive-thru tacos."

"Please don't start crying," Jason whispered as he ate. Laney sniffed.

"Can I have some of your soda?" Laney whimpered. Jason nodded. "Tell me what's wrong? Are you sick?"

"What? No, I'm not sick," Jason replied as he picked over his food with a fork. Laney started on his second taco.

"Then, what's wrong?" Laney asked. Jason shrugged.

"I don't wanna talk about it," Jason replied sternly, and Laney burst into tears. He continued to eat as he wept. "Oh god, Laney. Please don't do that."

"You don't remember why our parents stopped letting us hang out," Laney cried. He lay back in the seat with his head back, and Jason adjusted Laney's posture.

"Don't tilt your head back," Jason reminded him, "What do you mean? We snuck into a rated R movie, and our dads said that we couldn't hang out anymore."

"That's not what happened! Jay, talk to your dad..." Laney wiped his tears and went back to eating, but Jason had lost his appetite. "Wanna have a sleepover?"

"Huh?" Jason asked. Laney ignored him and continued to eat until he finished his tacos.

"Wait here, I'll be right back," Laney mumbled as he stumbled out of the car. Jason checked the time on his phone and chuckled. "Don't be a wiseass, buddy." Laney pointed at him. Jason covered his laugh and noticed he had eight missed calls from Bruce.

He called his father back, and Bruce answered with an anxious, "Hello?"

"I'm fine. My ringer was off. I'm with Laney right now," Jason replied.

"Thank god, I thought you were upset about our earlier conversation... How are you doing?" Bruce asked. Jason watched Laney come back from the bathroom dancing.

"I'm good," Jason answered, trying to hold back his laugh. Laney slammed his hands on the hood of the car and gestured for Jason to maintain eye contact. Jason succumbed to laughter.

"I just wanted to check in with you. I'll let you go, okay?" Bruce asked.

"Okay," Jason chuckled before hanging up. "Get in the car!" he yelled at Laney while laughing, and Laney got in the car.

"Who were you on the phone with at three in the morning? A girl?" Laney asked.

"No!" Jason exclaimed.

"A guy?" Laney asked.

"My dad. I had eight missed calls from him. I'm surprised he didn't call the police—."

"Why would he do that?" Laney asked.

"Don't worry about it," Jason replied.

"Can I stay at your place tonight?" Laney asked. Jason nodded.

"Yeah, you can stay at my place," Jason replied as he drove back to his apartment, and they took the stairs. Jason held him steady, and when they got to his apartment, Laney plopped on the couch and passed out. Jason pulled Laney's shoes off and threw a blanket over him.

He took another shower and put pajamas on before going to bed. He woke up a few hours later, just before dawn, to the sound of Laney throwing up in his bathroom. "Laney?" Jason asked. He sat up in bed and listened to Laney vomit a little while longer before getting up to check on him. "Lane? You alive in there?"

"It was definitely the tacos," Laney answered. Jason went to the kitchen and made coffee.

"I wouldn't know," Jason replied, "I never would've done that to myself. Four different kinds of tacos, the rest of my fries, alcohol, and a coke?"

"Don't remind me. You've got quite the little medicine cabinet," Laney stated. Jason opened the door, and Laney rinsed out his mouth. "Gotcha. Your medicine cabinet is locked, by the way."

"Jesus, Lane," Jason mumbled.

"What are you hiding?" Lane asked.

"Nothing, it's just that I don't want people going through my—." Jason's phone rang, interrupting him in the middle of his sentence. "Hold on. Good morning, Bruce," Jason answered.

"How'd you sleep?" Bruce asked.

"Okay. Something wrong?" Jason asked.

Bruce said, "No," and continued on to ask Jason if he had a good time.

"Yeah, I had a great time. It was really nice to see Lane again," Jason answered as Lane posed comically to elicit a laugh from him. Jason covered the phone with his hand and mumbled, "Laney, I swear to god if you don't stop it."

"He spent the night?" Bruce asked.

"Yeah, he asked to stay over because it was too late for me to walk back after dropping him off in his car... Why?" Jason asked. Lane walked past Jason and over to the kitchen. "Do you have an aspirin?" Laney asked. Jason nodded and unlocked his medicine cabinet. Laney came back over and took an aspirin. "Tell your dad I said hi."

"Tell Laney I said hello," Bruce replied.

"Bruce said hi, Lane," Jason relayed the message as he made his way to the kitchen and started making eggs for breakfast. Laney sat at the counter.

"What's on your schedule for today?" Bruce asked. Jason looked at his calendar.

"Laundry day. Why?" Jason asked.

"I was thinking maybe we could have dinner later on today?" Bruce suggested. Jason made a hesitant noise, and Bruce made an affirmative noise. "Jason, if you don't want to go—."

"Don't do that... Don't—. Don't make me feel bad for saying no," Jason replied.

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad... I just want to know when you're going to stop avoiding—." Jason hung up the phone and pulled his hair.

"Hey, you okay?" Laney asked. Jason forced a smile.

"Uh-huh, yeah. I'm fine," Jason responded on his way to his bedroom. Laney stopped him before he could close the door. "Let go of the door, Lane. I don't feel like messing around—."

"Jason, what's up with you? It's like it hurts you to laugh now," Laney asked. Jason took a few deep breaths.

"Lane, leave me alone right now. I just need a minute," Jason warned him. His phone rang again, and he tried to shut Laney out.

"What is wrong with you, Jason?" Laney asked.

"Get the hell out of my doorway!" Jason yelled. Lane let go out of shock, and Jason shut the door and sank to the ground before allowing himself to unravel. His hands shook, and his chest felt tight as he held back his tears.

"Jason, I'm gonna give you some space right now... But maybe we should hang out again next week and really talk," Laney whispered through the door. "I'll text you later on." Jason listened as Laney walked away from the door and picked up his keys. As soon as he heard the door shut, he climbed back into bed and lay there wrapped up in his sheets. He listened to his phone ring in the background, but he couldn't move himself to talk to anyone else.

#fic #batfam #superfam #yj98 #young just us #hair trigger fic #Jason Todd #Jonathan Lane Kent #Bruce Wayne #Clark Kent #Lois Lane #Cassandra Cain #Tim Drake #Conner Kent #Natalia Knight #Jonathan Samuel Kent #Cassie Sandsmark #Chris Kent #Bart Allen #Original Character(s) #JayLaney #Clois #TimKon #University AU #No Powers AU #Sharing A Bed #Romance #Angst

[moonah-rose]

Moments of lucidity come rarely to Dutch in his last few years. What happened on Mount Hagen, slaying the rat, that was supposed to be the end of it. That was supposed to be what silenced the voices in his head, what repelled the ghosts clawing at his neck, every night for the best part of a decade. It should have been simple. It would have been, if not for John. Why John? Why did he have to show up, on that same day? That boy had always been his pride and his curse. Seeing him brought back all the doubts, all the paranoia, still never sure how deep that boy's treacherous nature had run and for how many years. Micah was a rat, the undoing of his community, but that didn't mean John was fully innocent. His wife had taken the key for the money, that much he knew...and John had chosen her over him, the man who raised him, who gave him everything! He could never forgive that...Never.

He'd nearly shot the wrong one. If John had shot Micah first, if he had taken Dutch's own rightful vengeance, he might have pulled the trigger (before turning it on himself, he knows). Then he said Arthur's name. The snake dared to dismiss it, what happened, what he...They...Dutch kept his eyes on John, searching for the truth, while the boy begged him to speak. And for only the second time in his life, words had failed Dutch Van Der Linde. He'd seen too many of his sons lay dead at his feet. No more, not that day. He shot Micah. He let John and his damn family have the money. That was supposed to be the end. He just wanted to rest.

The years only brought more voices. More shadows in his sleep, his own anguished cries waking him in a cold sweat. A bloody cough followed by a gunshot. A hand crunching beneath his boot. He gave him all he had. He did. For god sake, he knows he did, he believes him, now please go away!

John is easy to track. Dutch finds him after less than a year. No doubt Uncle Sam will too. The fact he's still alive doesn't bode well for Dutch's convictions. But little John is a good and law-abiding man now, an upstanding husband and father, so much better than the filthy streetrat he once was, let alone the lowlives that took him in and fed, clothed and raised the ungrateful brat.

All Dutch does is watch. He sees his boy carry the hay to the horses. He sees Jack play fetch with Cain...No...Not Cain, that's him now. The wanderer. He sees Uncle drinking hooch before snoozing against a tree, and for a moment merry songs around a campfire while Sean makes a heartfelt yet slurred speech threatens to drown him in sweet nostalgia. He touches his own hand and imagines it's Hosea. They did it. They...No. Only John. The only one. Grief rears its head again, and his brain is an endless cycle of giddy cheer as he remembers the old days, to reliving each heartbreaking loss, to aiming his gun at John from that hill and fuming at what HE chose...and then wanting to claw out his own heart with regret. With shame. And on and on it goes.

He never gets too close. The Marstons never know he's there, that their own sponsor is watching over them...contemplating if they were deserving of his generosity after trying to stab him in the back. God damn snakes!

Then one day, he's passing by after hearing news about a new group of native boys stirring up trouble, and he decides to look in on them. On his snake of a son. Even that whore wife was looking big the last time he saw them. It's so much easier to let the poisonous thoughts speak the loudest these days.

They suggest burning the ranch, like he once did to that inbred crone. Its his, truly, paid for by his money! It all meant nothing. And all because that small-minded child of a man could not understand the truth. Because he could not keep his faith. That was all he asked. Faith. Loyalty.

He wouldn't have let him swing, never...But it would have been easier to let him rot. He should have.

The boy, Jackie, he's not playing with the dog today. He's standing oh so still. He's in black. Even the who...Abigail. Her name is Abigail. She's not big anymore. How long ago was that now? Two years? She's...also in black, face veiled. The wind carries her cries. For a moment Dutch assumes this is for Uncle, his time having finally run short, until he spots him too. No drink. Stood upright, his arm around Abigail.

And then comes John from his front door. He's carrying something large...No. Not large, not when Dutch realises what it is. They shouldn't make things like that so...small. Tiny. And they should never be carried alone. But John does. His feet look weighed down with a grief so crushing that Dutch feels it suffocating him from all this way. He can't see his face all that clear...but he knows him. He knows how that boy never cries, just lets his eyes shine with a lifetime of sadness.

"John...My dear boy...I'm sorry." He mutters, useless as always.

All the hatred, all the accusations, all the deceipt and lies shrivel to nothing. They're blown on the wind like ash. Dutch can only watch as John lays the coffin in the freshly dug earth. He takes off his hat...that familar black hat with the rope...and holds it to his chest. His wife goes to put something in, but her hands are shaking too hard and she nearly collapses. So Jackie lays it down in the pit. A pink blanket? Maybe even a tiny dress? A daughter. He had a little girl. Oh John.

It's a pain he knows, that he can share in, wishing that he could take it all from his son onto himself. The loss of a child. The sense of failure that you couldn't save them. No matter what took that sweet young thing from this world, he has no doubt John blames himself.

It's not your fault, he wishes he could tell him. He wants to hold his son. He wants to have the words again, words John can believe in like when he was young, words that tell him "I'm here and it's okay." He wants to...be...

It fizzles out as fast as it came. The voices return and dig their talons in deep before shredding his rotten carcass of a mind away.

He doesn't belong there. He isn't wanted. He...He let them down. Let them all down, left them for dead, let that snake seep his venom into his thoughts. Money can't make this right. Money meant nothing next to death.

A shell hardens over what little remains of Dutch's heart. John chose this life, he needs to take it for what it is, good and bad. Joy and pain. The best thing Dutch can do for his son is leave him be and pray that they never have to set eyes on each other again.

Because if they do...it will mean the end. For both of them.

#this was supposed to be a speculative meta post #about Dutch being a creeper and watching John at his ranch #and it turned into an angsty fic #as you do! #rdr2 #rdr2 fic #angst #john marston #dutch van der linde #tw: child death

[bradshawssugarbaby]

Lunch Break - Lt. Thomas Keefer x Reader

A/N: I don't own this photo but it's the only one I could find 🙃 credit to the original owner!! I know we all go feral for Bob but like, Lt. Keefer over here??? ugh.

pairing: Lieutenant Thomas Keefer x f!reader (The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial)

warnings/content: pretty much plotless smut / p in v / fingering / praise kink

word count: 1.9k

minors dni!

“Lieutenant Keefer,” you stood from your seat in the Admiral’s office, giving a polite salute as he entered the room. 

Lieutenant Thomas Keefer was a tall man with light brown hair and the most hauntingly beautiful blue eyes you’d ever seen in your life. He gave you a polite nod, his lips turning up into a smirk as he looked you up and down. As a civilian aide to the Admiral, you weren’t a stranger to dealing with the various personnel on base, and especially not when it came to dealing with Keefer and all of his flirtatious charms. He dropped the stack of reports on your desk, sitting on the corner of it as he looked at you, gesturing for you to take a seat.

“Please, you don’t need to stand on my account,” he nodded, that smirk still solidly plastered on his lips, “I’m not here for any real professional reason, actually,” He hums as he speaks, his cobalt blue eyes not leaving your body, instead wandering up and down it, as if he was taking all of you in at once.

You took your seat and let out an awkward laugh, cocking your eyebrow upwards into an arch as you looked at him. You could feel his body heat radiating from sitting in such close proximity to him, the scent of his cologne, an almost delicious woodsy smell, notes of sandalwood and cedar filling your nostrils. His demeanor remained playful as he looked around the office, craning his neck as he leaned himself backwards slightly, scanning every possible inch of space in the room.

“They leave you here all alone today?” He smirked, an eyebrow raised.

It was no secret how you felt about Lieutenant Keefer. He was handsome, charming, confident, with just that hint of cockiness that made you crazy for him. You were inexplicably drawn to him in every way imaginable, and there was part of you that hoped, that prayed that he felt an ounce of desire for you as well. The way he was sitting on our desk, so completely relaxed and nonchalantly, while still maintaining an air of authority about him. God, he was perfect. You couldn’t help yourself as you instinctively bit your lip, looking around the room to avoid his gaze that you knew would have you breaking into a cold sweat, making your heart race. 

“Mhmm, meetings off base today. I’m here to hold down the fort, sort of thing,” You responded as cooly as you could, trying to not make your admiration for his intoxicating personality known to him.

“What a shame, a pretty thing like you shouldn’t be left to hold down the base’s administrative affairs alone, now should you?”

He reached forward to tuck a lock of your hair behind your ear, his face the closest to yours that it’s ever been. Fuck, there was no way he didn’t know how badly you wanted him. You saw his eyes fill with the same lustful expression you figured yours were showing at this moment. You felt your breath hitch in your throat as he placed his hand on your cheek gently, his voice a low raspy whisper as he spoke now. 

“You have beautiful eyes, has anyone told you that?” 

You felt your cheeks turn pink and hot as the blood rushed to your face, your mind almost completely unable to form a singular thought as you felt his touch. You shook your head gently, the only response you were able to elicit from yourself. He stroked your cheek gently with his thumb, leaning in even closer to you, your faces now merely a hair’s width apart from each other. 

“Aw, what’s wrong, pretty girl?” He cooed, clearly enjoying the fact he’d rendered you speechless. His cobalt blue eyes continued to hold their gaze on you as he watched you practically fold under his touch, unable to concentrate or speak. “Don’t tell me I’ve got you all hot and bothered?”

As if on instinct, you leaned in and pressed your lips to his in a hungry, fervent kiss. His lips met yours, passion brewing between the two of you as your mutual desire became even more apparent to one another. He pulled away ever so slightly, hovering his lips above yours as he smirked at you, watching as you desperately tried to press your lips to his again, his mouth teasing you as he spoke. 

“Someone’s eager, aren’t you?” He grinned as he hopped up off of your desk and approached the office door. He turned the lock before turning back to you and nodding. “If anyone asks later, you’re on a lunch break, got it?” 

You nod obediently and sink your teeth into your own kiss bitten lips as he approaches you again. 

“That’s my good girl,” he responds as he starts strategically clearing off your desk. He hoists you up around his waist, his lips once again finding yours, this time refusing to break contact even as he spun you around to lay you down on the desk behind you. His lips hungrily left a trail of hot wet kisses along your jawline and down your neck. He quickly unbuttoned the buttons of your blouse, kissing the newly exposed skin as he undid each one. His hands explored your body, finding their way up the hemline of your skirt. His fingers tauntingly dragging against your thighs. The way he calls you his girl makes your heart race to a speed you didn’t think was possible, driving you to desire and crave him even more.

“Look at how perfect you are, my sweet girl. You let me know if you want me to stop, ok?” His voice was gentle and reassuring as he spoke, waiting for you to give him a sign of confirmation, granting him permission to continue.

“Please, Lieutenant Keefer, I -” you began as you started asking him to give you what you wanted.

“Just call me Thomas, babe, it’s less of a mouthful,” he chuckled softly as he stroked your hair gently, his eyes full of what could only be described as admiration and lust for you. 

“Thomas, please, don’t tease me,” You nodded as you bit your lip again, “I want this, I want you.”

His eyebrow raised as he looked at you, his lips turning up into that devilish smirk again. Grinning at you, he slid his hand that was resting on your thigh upwards until his fingertips found the lace outline of your panties. He dragged his fingers over the outside of the fabric, feeling the wetness of your arousal that was quickly soaking through your underwear.

“Who’s got you all hot and bothered like this, baby?” He purred at you as he shoved your underwear down off your legs. He quickly slipped his fingers between your wet folds, feeling your arousal gathering on his fingers before he began tracing circles over your clit, biting his lip as he felt your hips push themselves forwards, as if you were instinctively trying to get him to apply more pressure to your sensitive bundle of nerve endings. 

“Y-you,” you managed to squeak out inbetween moans of pleasure at his touch. 

He smirked as he pulled his fingers away, sliding them into his mouth as he cleaned them off with his tongue. Thomas quickly undid his belt, dropping his uniform khakis to the floor, his boxer briefs tenting in a way that you were convinced couldn’t have been comfortable for him. 

“Do I need anything?” His eyebrow raised as he looked at you.

“N-no,” you stuttered, trying to desperately focus your brain on talking, unable to stop yourself from being distracted by your overwhelming desire for him, “I’m clean and on the pill.”

He nodded his head once as he slipped his boxers down off his toned legs, a sign of all the military workouts he’d been completing over the years since he enlisted. His hardened cock sprung forward, and you felt your eyes widen in surprise. You had never really anticipated any size in particular, but he was definitely bigger than what you’d ever dealt with before. He let out a soft chuckle as he saw your reaction and shook his head. He positioned himself between your legs and ducked his head down to whisper to you.  

“Don’t worry, I’ll take it slow for you. Just tell me when you want me to speed up or slow down or anything, ok?” He said reassuringly before kissing just below your ear, a soft groan escaping his lips as he slid his tip along your wetness before pushing it forward gently. 

You exhaled sharply as he paused to let you adjust to his size, his lips sucking at your neck as he waited for you to tell him to continue. As cocky and unbothered of a demeanor that he gave off, Thomas was truly trying to be mindful of you as best as he could be. 

“P-please, need you.” You nodded as you managed to spit the words out. 

Thomas slowly began to thrust his hips in and out of you, filling you out completely as he thrusted. You could feel your body stretching to make him fit, clenching down on him tightly as he pumped himself in and out of you. He kept his mouth on your neck so he could continue to leave hot, breathy kisses and words of encouragement in your ear.

“That’s it, pretty girl, you’re doing so good, taking me so well, baby.” 

You felt his muscles tense as you dug your fingernails into his shoulder blades as he picked up the pace, his thrusts becoming faster and harder as you drew closer to your climax. His name fell from your lips, part of a rambling mess of curse words and compliments that you managed to moan out. You felt him moaning against your neck, a low grunt as his lips vibrated against you, his hot breath on your sensitive skin pushing you closer and closer to your breaking point. 

“Come for me, pretty girl. You can do it baby, I know you’re so close,” His words of encouragement alone would have been enough to take you there, but that, coupled with the movements of his hips, the sensation of him reaching your g-spot with each and every thrust, you couldn’t help but lose all control. Your back arched, your head tilted back and Thomas’s hand gently went over your mouth to help you muffle your scream as you reached your boiling point. Thomas followed suit, his thrusts becoming sloppier and less calculated as he climaxed, a low, primal grunt escaping his lips as he spoke.  

“Shhhh, baby,” he hissed as you reached your climax, moaning loudly into his hand, “that’s my good girl.” 

Thomas waited a moment before pulling himself out of you slowly, making sure you felt every movement he made as he finished. He smirked as he pulled your underwear back up slowly before standing to his feet, getting himself dressed again. As you buttoned up your blouse once again, he leaned in to kiss your cheek gently. 

“So, I think I have more reports I’ll have to drop off tomorrow, would that be alright?” He smirked as he helped straighten the paperwork that he’d removed from your desk moments earlier.

#lt. thomas keefer #lt. thomas keefer x reader #fanfiction #writing

[minicomics]

Flying with wings of color

This is a combination of Bird Sans and Pomni

Here is the lore for Scarlet Pomni. She is a bird performer that lives up in the sky with her friends that have wings just like her. Her bird like wings is colorful and nice as she is a scarlet macaw type of bird. Before she arrived at the circus she wasn't used to the flying stuff, but with the help from Ragatha she got just the hang of it. She would have goggles for the wind to not go in the eyes or any sweat for the cold air breeze and a white sweater as it is quite cold when being in high altitude. She would think of this place as a new home as sure they are stuck in this digital world, but the bright side is that they get to explore new place in then the circus and be with her new friends. Pomni is more okay to the situation, but sometimes a bit nervous. Also, Caine would like to have the tree house circus to travel at times. Or go on with adventures by just traveling in flight.

#the amazing digital circus #the amazing digital circus au #gooseworx #tadc fanart #digital circus au #artists on tumblr #sketch art #tadc pomni #undertale au #undertale multiverse #birdtale #bird sans

[dogueteeth]

28 and 55 for the touching prompts? 👀

OK first of all so sorry for the text wall I got carried away with this first prompt 😅😂🙏🏽

I'll be cross-posting on AO3 soon if it makes it easier for anyone to read!

28. feeling for each other in the dark

Canaan x Chen x Ricardo, steelstepcharge poly

SMALL WARNING: panic attacks, PTSD (this is fluffy I swear)

"Chen?" Cain's voice does a small wobble they do nothing to hide.

It's pitch black in the house, no light, not even through the black-out curtains shadowing the window somewhere that Chen had installed just for them to be comfortable in his place.

Ironic.

They stand, paralyzed, blunt fingernails gripping the countertop, irises swallowed by black as they try, and fail, to catch any hint of light in the darkness.

Total blackout. Probably affecting the entire block.

Canaan tries to bite back the icy fear making their palms sweat, make their heart race. Breathe, they remind themself, like Finch said. Four seconds in, five seconds out.

They suck in a breath, a little harder than they intended, and try to count down.

One.

It's dark, too dark, did they cut off the light in their cell? It's dark, so dark, can't see the walls, can't see their hands, how long has it been? Can't tell can't tell can't tell can't tell–

Two.

Can't see can't see can't see still, can't feel their feet, their face, can't see their hands as they raise and touch their face, their eyes, and- hands? Hands? Did they have hands? Can't tell can't tell can't tell, so dark, so cold, no light no sun no warmth no breeze no flow, no air, can't breathe. Can they? Breathe? Can't tell, so dark too dark, please turn the lights back on please, they'll be good, they'll fix whatever they did wrong this time they swear, no eyes no hands no skin can't see—

Three.

"Ricardo?" They whimper, curling onto the floor, and they might be hyperventilating but they can't stop.

Not coming not coming they're not coming no one is. It's dark, still dark, too dark, and they can feel it, can feel the drugs muddling their mind, were they always drugged, is that why they feel this way? Why they can't see? Can't feel but they can. No body to feel, nothing they can see, but they feel anyways, feel the hands on their body, cold latex and surgical, can see faces behind masks, piecing their body back together, can't see can't see can't see no one's here but they are and Ricardo isn't coming, no one to save them—

"Cain?"

Four.

Dark, eyes sewn shut, body not their own. Nothing behind the mask, beneath the strings, and they chose this, didn't they? Did they? Was it ever their choice? Their body? Their limbic system? Their mind?

"Canaan? Canaan, please."

No. Dolls don't have minds. Don't have names. They don't have one, not theirs, never, eyes sewn shut, dark, dark, dark, so dark, a Void, swallowing them hole, dark, devouring, something moving in the mirrors, swimming in the blackness—

"Cain!" Someone shouts and they gasp, gulping in air, their cheek stinging with cold tears and pain, pain they need, pain that grounds them.

"I'm sorry, Cain, I had to snap you out of it," he says, his hands set firmly on their shoulders, mechanical and cold, solid and soothing, everything they need right now.

"Mierda, Cain, are you alright?"

"Chen?" They croak, "Ricardo?" Reaching out, searching for their faces in the darkness, desperate fear creeping back in when they can't see, can't find, can't feel, is this real? Is it imagined? Are they awake? Were they ever awake? Still dreaming? Still dreaming, still dreaming, still caught in the nightmare, the Void, the darkness, caught in a stranger's dance, tangled in the strings—

"I'm here," Chen whispers, grabbing their hand, placing it on the rough flesh of his cheek, letting them trace the scars.

"We both are," and. Ricardo's hand, brushing against their forehead, an accident, probably, but he uses the opportunity to swipe away a strand of sweat-soaked hair from their face, letting his fingers trace down to brush against the scruff of their patchy aftershave.

Canaan sighs, swallowing back the bile that had been bubbling up their throat, melting into his touch, melting into the embrace Chen pulls them into, feeling their dual heartbeats against their shoulders. Pressing themself into the comfort of Chen's thoughts, warm and accepting, trying not to shiver, trying not to shift uncomfortably against the static hum of Ricardo's mind. Friend, not foe, not handler, not asleep, awake, no danger, Ricardo, it's Ricardo, and they reach out for him, fingers bumping against his forearm. He reaches up, skin sliding beneath their fingertips, real, because they can feel the tickle of his thick hair, the curls catching and releasing, and his fingers wrap with theirs.

"I... I'm okay, now," they sigh, letting their head fall back against Chen's shoulder. "Just... darkness. Don't do well in it. You know."

He shuffles beneath them, behind them, ah. They're sitting on the floor. Were they always on the floor? Chen and Ric probably didn't want to move them to far, and, yes, it's there, the concern in Chen's mind, recognizing a panic attack when he sees-not-sees one. "Better now that you're both here."

"Always, bonito," Ric says, drawing out a happy sigh from Canaan when he presses a kiss into the damp fuzz of hair on the side of their head. "I'm sorry we didn't find you sooner. We couldn't find our phones and Chen's focus was a bit scrambled with... well."

"Oof," they nod, wincing, brushing an apology against Chen's mind, and it's accepted without second thought. No anger, no blame, just a warm cloud of concern, soft and soothing like a bubble bath, thoughts rising and popping. "Was it a blackout?"

"Yeah," Chen nods, "nothing in the house is working right now. Windows outside are pitch-black, too."

Affecting an entire district? Could be a villain attack, or someone who massively screwed up with wires they shouldn't have been poking. Probably enough to warrant a search from the Rangers if it doesn't come back on soon, and, shit, they hate that thought, hate that they might have to leave them here in the darkness, alone, called away because of some idiot on a rampage.

"That's unfortunately the case, it seems," Chen groans as the buzz of his work phone cuts through the gloom, sending a burst of blue light from the dining area. Ricardo winces, blowing out a frustrated hiss as his hand grips tighter onto Canaan's in an apology.

"The city can survive for a few minutes without our help," Ricardo grumbles, standing up and holding onto Canaan's hand, helping them follow his rise. They hear a small clap as he offers another hand to Chen, synthskin and flesh meeting awkwardly, clumsy in the dark as he helps Chen up as well. "We're not leaving you without making sure you're going to be okay. Chen, you keep some candles in the cabinets, right?"

Chen nods in the dark, the limbic motion like a twinge in a web in Cain's mind before they push him to remember that Ricardo can't see it, can't sense it like they can.

"I do," he says, mind catching onto the idea and he presses a quick kiss into both of their heads (bumping his nose against their cheek, angle awkward unable to see where he's aiming and they stifle a giggle, one of the few perks of their height difference is the silly accidents) before moving to stumble across the kitchen in a crusade for candles.

"Do you want to stay here, or go back to the bedroom? I'll grab Spoon and bring him to you."

"Here, please," they croak, not wanting Ricardo to go too far, not wanting more hallways and doors separating them ever again. He nods and leans, kissing their forehead, leading them to the couch, squeezing their hand to make sure they will be okay. Canaan squeezes back. Tries not to reach out for him again when he backs away to find the door that Spoon is whining behind.

Can't resist reaching out for them in the dark, their telepathy a hand that reaches farther than their broken body ever could. Brushes their fingers against the static cloud of Ortega. Ghosts over the calm, steady train of Chen's thoughts chugging around, wondering absurdly if twenty candles is enough light to make them comfortable, and, yes, it is, and they can feel him blush at their mental chuckle. Spoon is a bright beacon of thought that comes bouncing along, a safe haven in the darkness, because he can see what they cannot.

They give soft kisses before they go, Ricardo swearing soft curses towards the insistent blaring of their beepers, and Cain feels safe.

No need to reach into the dark anymore. They are here in the candles around them, the weighted blanket that smells like Chen, the lingering cologne that wafts among the candle scent, and Spoon's soft snoring that lulls them to sleep.

Safe.

55. tracing the lines on the other's hand

Cerrísa x Ricardo x Daniel (mentioned), flystepcharge poly

Tiny NSFW mention but no TWs!

It feels so strange.

As if everything has been a big dream. One big, terrible nightmare, starting from their decanting and ending at the last time he looked at them and called them a fake.

They shuffle down a little, making the embrace a little more comfortable so that his head curls into the little space between nape and neck. He mutters something in half-sleep and presses closer, on his side, arm covering their torso like a weighted blanket. They press a kiss to his forehead, sighing at the wonderful way he melts into the touch, shifting even closer to wrap them tighter in his arms. Their next kiss falls into his disheveled array of dark, curly locks, still wet from the shower, smelling like soap and sex and ozone.

Their thumb swipes across the back of his hand, feeling the scars, feeling the hardened skin above his knuckles, memories of violence. They shake off the cold tendril of thought that begins to snake into their mind. It holds no power here, holds no place between them when he hums so sweetly against their chest. When small shudders of not-desire pleasure play with the muscles of his hand before they smooth them over, convinces them into relaxing again.

Smiling when their fingers trace down his, touching his nails, feeling the dip of height difference between cuticle and growth and a thin layer of nail polish they know is dark blue in color. Dark blue they'd watched Danny paint on, laughing, kissing his knuckles after Ricardo said something cheesy and stupid, and they can't stop the stupid smile that pulls at their face for the way their heart surges with affection. They trace the outline of his knuckles as if they can feel the softness of Danny's lips still on them, as if they can taste the roughness of them on theirs as they remember what it felt like when Danny projected it, aware of them watching when they were supposed to be focusing on picking a movie.

Slowly, gently, so as to not disturb him from his sleep, they pick up his hand and cradles it between theirs. Traces the port that rises up from the tendons of his wrist, feels the power that hums from it, slow and electric. Traces the folds of his palm, admiring the rough, almost sandy texture of the skin, so different from the rough-then-soft patchwork of callouses and scars and skin on their own, unique against the memory of Daniel's, calloused hands smoothed soft with years of consistent lotion use. Presses a thumb against the emitter, flushing at a memory when it sparks a little, sending tingles up their finger. They try to shove down their blush, running their fingers along the outline of his, remembering how they made them feel earlier, remembering the gentle roughness of them against their body, the intimate way they held them, as if they were something precious. No. Not something.

Someone.

Their breath shudders, a shaky exhale, taking that thought and quietly moving it to a shelf to contemplate it from a distance. Still too burning to touch. Still too heavy to hold. Ortega holds it well, and wields it even better. Chipping away walls that crumble and reform, constant and stubborn. What did they ever do to deserve someone like him by their side?

They kiss his knuckles, soft, thankful, sad. Holds them against their lips as he begins to stir from the comfort of sleep. Wants to keep them there forever. Almost nothing has ever felt more right to them than to be here beside him, tracing the memories etched into the folds of his hands, waking up to the warmth of his smile.

It scares them, the thought of how they could get used to this.

#fhr #fallen hero retribution #fallen hero: retribution #fhr sidestep #sidestep #fallen hero: rebirth #oc #isa becerra #cerrísa becerra #Cain Becerra #canaan becerra #Ortega is named Ricardo #wei chen #marshal steel #chargestep #flychargestep #steelstep #chargesteelstep #fanfic #fic prompt #writing prompt

[springleggedstarro]

The backstage of the circus is bustling. Another night, another performance. Several people are up on stage, doing their acts for the audience of mostly Caine's NPCs.

Starro smooths down his hair and applies another coat of yellow onto his cheek stars... it's cold and itchy, but he manages. Until a little paint spills on his bright red-and-yellow costume. Gangle, who's recovering from her contortionist and drama act, runs over with a towel.

"Hang on, stay still, I got a towel!" She announces, squeezing through passerbys as she approaches Starro. He sees her and waves excitedly, very thankful she can't see his cheeks... or any of his stars for that matter.

"You never spill the paint- nervous about tonight?" She asks.

Starro quickly shakes his head. "No! No, um- I'm not nervous! I'm excited!"

"Anything different about tonight? Will your sister be there?"

He rubs the back of his head, looking away as Gangle wipes the paint off his costume.

"No, she's busy... also she's not my sister."

"You keep saying that... did something happen between you two?"

"No, not really... she's just not, and I'm still looking for my real sister still."

Gangle gives Starro a confused but sympathetic look.

"How do you know....?"

"Well- I never thought she was my real sister to begin with, just that she was LIKE a sister because we were so close and we liked calling each other that... I know that I'll know my real sister when I see her."

"If you say so.... are you at least ready for tonight? Youve been missing a lot of practices lately.." She asks, getting the last of the paint out of the velvet fabric.

"Yeah, totally! I got this, no sweat! And I practice almost every day, a couple days off is NOTHING. I just wanted to help some people out, that's all!" Starro flicks his hand a little, confidence radiating from his face.

Gangle giggles a little. "Alright well, good luck! You got 10 minutes before you're on, I'll let you do your thing now. Bye Starro!" She waves and walks off.

"Bye....!" Starro sighs and watches as she disappears into the crowd of backstage workers and performers.... she's so sweet.....

He places a hand over his chest star, feeling his pulse quicken. Odd.. usually he's not this nervous.

Meh, it's not every day his crush willingly volunteers to clean paint off his outfit.... yeah, it must be that. That would explain it.

This will be easy, he thinks. I've done this routine a million times, I got this! She'll love it!

Starro gets up from his seat and goes to loosen his muscles before his big performance. Who cares if he's missed a day or two of practice, he could do this routine in his sleep.

What could possibly go wrong?

#starsprings #theabstractperformer

[bisexual-horror-fan]

"Make It Right." Poly!DanBert X AFAB! Reader. A Commission.

Well hey, hey, hey! I have been working on this for God, I dunno how long at this point! A long ass time! This is the second commission from @darklylucid and it beats out the last one! This is basically 14K angsty, pining and smutty as fuck Poly!DanBert fuckery. I spent so much time on this, so much energy! Kelly gave me a gorgeous 1.5K outline for this and I went the hell off. I hope you all love it as much as she did! I put everything into this. So without further ado! Here we go!

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Rating. Explicit. Length. 13.9K. Hebert West X Dan Cain X AFAB! Reader. Poly!DanBert. She/Her Pronouns. Warnings: Pining. And They Were Roommates. Roommates to Friends To Lovers. Angst. Fighting. Coldness. Herbert Is An Asshole. Kissing. Making Out. Domesticniess. Polyamory Obviously. Touching. Vaginal Fingering. Masturbation. Vaginal Sex. Jerking Off. Dirty Talk. Oral Sex. Orgasm Denial. Edging. Multiple Orgasms. Cunnilingus. Double Penetration. Crying Reader. Restainted Reader. Praise. Dacryphilia. Overstimulation. Cream Pie. Biting. Begging.

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You had always suspected something was up ever since you first moved in. Just that there was more than met the eye to your two roommates. There was the basement that they were weirdly protective over that made you much too curious, however you decided to not venture down there right away, a particular look in Herbert’s eyes told you that it was a bad idea and you figured you shouldn’t press. 

They had lived together for a long time, clearly a lot of history, closeness, like they had been through something serious, heavy, that bonded them. It wasn’t said outright but you had a way about you that clued you into it, you pieced it together over the course of weeks bleeding into months of living with them.

The closeness they shared is what made the gears in your head start to turn. You had eyes, could admit they were attractive, you noticed that the first day you met them but more than that is what really got your thoughts cooking. You noticed moments of intimacy between the pair that you probably weren’t meant to, holding hands under the table one night, lingering looks, a bit of innuendo. One morning, your suspicions are confirmed, you come down earlier than normal to see a rather sleepy looking Herbert clinging to Dan. The smaller man’s arms around his taller companion, cheek pressed to his back between his shoulder blades as Dan makes coffee. It is an oddly sweet moment, one you were sure you weren’t meant to see, you make sure to keep your overseeing it quiet. Seeing how they are that morning is what puts the nail in the coffin and gets you thinking hard. They have some sort of relationship and the fact they do has made you think and think hard.

Emotions have been stirring within you, building, a feeling you knew well, a crush, one that has deep roots, the kind that makes you feel warm and your brain soaked in syrupy delightful hope for more.

It takes a bit before one night in a cold sweat after waking from a dream you realise, shit, you have one on not just Dan and not just Herbert, but both of them. 

Human beings capacity for feeling, for emotional depth on that level, it is staggering, you had crushes before but never on more than one person at once. Certainly never two people at once who were entangled with one another. 

You tried to ignore it at first but that didn’t work out as well as you hoped it would. Not when Dan would make you coffee in the morning just how you liked it or when he would check in with you at the end of the day on how it went. Even Herbert had his own way about him that you loved, seeing him with Dan, the levity he could bring, he was really fucking funny. You could listen to Herbert rant about the incompetencies of others for hours but if you did that you’d run out of breath and have sore ribs. 

Your feelings were really sealed for the pair of them when one night you’d fallen asleep on the couch, the sound of them coming up from the basement woke you but you were still so tired, so comfortable, you refused to get up. Keeping your eyes closed, willing to sleep it out a while longer, you hear them stop before going to their rooms. 

“She’s asleep.” Dan said in a  hushed tone and Herbert said with a sigh, “Ever observant Daniel.” 

You hear a light smack and a quiet, “Ow!” You hear Dan muffle a laugh and you fight the urge to smile, “Real mature. Now can we go to bed?” 

Dan said, “In a minute.” You hear more footsteps come towards the couch. “You were the one who insisted we had to go to bed. What are you doing?” 

“Give me a minute, you are so impatient. I don’t want her to get cold.” Dan said and you then feel a blanket being draped over you. “There, now we can.” 

Dan was always so sweet, you felt warm but then you heard Herbert scoff, a “What?” From Dan until Herbert comes over, the blanket is adjusted, pulls it and you realise your feet were not covered until he fixed that. “Now we can.” 

Herbert teased, mocking what Dan had said and it made his companion shake his head. “Even when you do something nice you gotta be an asshole about it.” 

“What? I thought you’d be happy, you left her half covered Dan! Do something right if you are going to do it.”

More footsteps and their voices getting too quiet to hear as they left you there. You really didn’t want to get up now. You stay curled up after they walk away and fall asleep and dream of them again, of getting to be part of what they have. It was then that your pining really started. 

You find yourself longing for more time with the pair. You try to squeeze even more time with them. You ask Herbert about his research and try to rein in your overly soft expression as he talks and talks and talks excitedly. 

You cook with Dan, both of you meal plan and grocery shop and prep and make it all together and both of you drag Herbert to eat with you both too, he can’t say no when both of you beg. You help out with all kinds of the daily boring maintenance of life because it is better doing it with them. The longer it drags on the worse it gets.

Little did you know it was getting bad for them too. You were getting to them. Dan fell first and he fell early. It was such a small innocuous thing. He had a hard day. He came home, showered, got changed and then sat himself on the couch to rest before getting dinner together but before he could get up to fetch his own food you came in with a steaming plate. When questioned you smiled and said, “I know you had a long shift, figured the last thing you wanted after today was to cook.” 

He took the plate gratefully and looked down at the food you’d made just for him before looking back up to you and asked, “Are you hungry?”

“I actually ate earlier but do you mind if I sit with you while you do? You can vent about your day if you want to.” 

Dan was utterly smitten and it took this moment two and a half months into living with you to realise it. From then on Dan savoured every moment spent with you all the more. Nights that he wasn’t in the basement with Herbert he was around you, cooking, watching tv, playing cards, whatever struck your fancy honestly. 

Herbert took a lot longer to start getting invested in the same fashion. What made him start to wonder and question was one evening when not working on his research, Dan was out and he needed him to make any real progress at this stage, he was sitting on the couch reading. 

You came in with a book of your own asking if he minded if you joined him and he didn’t see a reason why to not allow you. 

The comfortable silence you shared, only the soft sound of turning pages, the presence of you next to him wasn’t an annoyance, it was welcome. Oddly, comforting. He liked it much more than he anticipated, the only person he usually could tolerate, forget about like, just tolerate in this fashion was Dan and that took a long time to get to that point. But here you were, worming your way in much faster than that. It was strange. 

The next moment was when you asked him about the book when you had seen that he had finished reading it. He was struck that you noticed he had first off and that next that you wanted his opinion. He found himself with his coffee at the kitchen table talking rapidly, similar to how he was when he vented but this time it was enthusiastic excitement over how much he enjoyed this particular book. He normally didn’t go off about something he did for fun or pleasure, more often than not when he talked like this it was about his work and nothing else but you apparently had the uncanny ability to pull this out of him. 

He ponders over it, wonders what is up with him, he is passing by your bedroom one afternoon during such a time he is wondering when he hears a sound that makes him stop short. 

A moan. 

Coming from your room. It was your voice, it was you. He should leave and not intrude but curiosity got the better of him, he was about to step away but heard you moan what sounded like…His name? 

He stepped closer, his ear placed to the wood and he could hear you much better like this. Soft moans, gasping breaths, the sound of wetness, the light sound of the bed springs from what he assumed was you rocking on the mattress. 

You sounded so needy. He doesn’t think he has ever heard someone moan his name like that, as if you hurt from being denied of him at that moment, no he hadn’t heard that not even during the times he and Dan had-

And he heard you moaning it again and he was gone, he was so hard in a second.

He listened much longer than he should have. His hand was so close to the doorknob, he had the urge to push open the door, to ask if you needed help but that was ludicrous, you moaning his name like this it meant, nothing right? It could be some innocent fantasy, you might not even want him like that. The longer he listened the less likely that seemed, the more he was convinced you were serious. 

The only thing that made him pull away was when he realised how achingly hard he was and that he needed to go deal with this and that getting caught dick in hand in front of your bedroom door would be awful. He would never be able to explain himself without you thinking he was a total pervert. He walked away as he thought well if you caught him like that or the fact he thought that in the first place might mean that he was. 

He went to his room and sat on the edge of his bed, his pants down around his thighs and his hand wrapped around himself. He came in less than three minutes with your name on his lips. 

You continue to invade his thoughts frequently, at inopportune moments he is reminded of some funny thing you said, or more often than not that afternoon he overheard you. 

It wasn't the only time he overheard you either. Other afternoons, late at night, some mornings even. Every time he walked the hall and saw your door was closed he would wonder what you were up to and if he would hear you.

Herbert hates that you occupy his mind this much, he has other things to concern himself with, he doesn’t understand why this is happening, what is it about you that is so special? One night after dinner you excuse yourself to go to your room and Herbert and Dan take the chance to go to the lab and do some research. They are sitting and both doing research on their own respective things, general note taking and review and prep and as they sit working Herbert's mind wanders and he wonders if you are masturbating right now. 

He sits perched on his stool picturing you sprawled out, two fingers buried in your wet hole, fucking in and out, palm slapping your clit, pleasure clear on your face, breath catching and back arching, he bets you looks fucking incredible.

He sighs, taking his glasses off with one hand, the other rubbing his eyes in exasperation, he should be working, he is falling behind on it all but instead he is stuck in a loop imagining you getting off and rock hard over it. Dan noticed Herbert stopped and was sitting there head half in his hands and he asked, “Are you having some trouble?”

He contemplated for a moment and decided fuck it, you were busy, he wouldn’t get anymore work done till this was dealt with and Dan was right here, a much better option than his own hand. He pivots on his stool and stands up allowing Dan to see his ‘issue’ and he asks, “Yes I am. Do you think you can help me?”

Dan grins, leaning forward on the table, eyes locked on the prominent erection standing out in Herbert’s black slacks, “Of all the things I thought that might have been weighing on your mind this was certainly not one of them.” 

Pencil in his grip he leaned closer, reaching out with the writing utensil, the eraser end of it tracing the line of his dick and watching as Herbert’s hips bucked forward slightly, “Ooh real needy tonight, yeah?”

Herbert scoffed at Dan’s teasing, arms crossed with a roll of his eyes and his companion pressed, “What got you so worked up just sitting here anyway? Am I that irresistible?” 

“Hardly Daniel.” He grit out as Dan started to open his pants, “Mmm, so if it wasn’t me then what?”

Should he say? He wasn’t sure. How would Dan handle if knowing that he had been pining after you, that he overheard and listened in like some creepy little voyeur while you masturbated? What if he reacted badly and wanted to stop what they had going on, then Herbert would be on his own and things might get weird or strained, their shared work might suffer-

But then Dan has his clothing out of the way and one of his hands around Herbert’s shaft and he exhales shakily and without being able to stop it or meaning to he breathes out your name. That makes Dan’s hand stop mid-stroke and he says, “You’ve been thinking about her too?”

Those six simple words unlocked a new level of the pair of them hooking up. 

That night while having sex sprawled on the work table they both admitted things to each other in the heat of the moment, all about how they had been growing closer to you individually, talking about how well you fit, how much they liked you and of course, how hot you are. 

Herbert wasn’t the only one who had overheard you. Dan was on his knees, Herbert leaning against the table, fists gripping the edge, losing himself in the hot wet feeling enveloping his dick before more words were filling his mind, “She makes the sweetest sounds when she’s touching herself, doesn’t she Herbert?” 

He tangled his fingers in Dan’s hair and forced himself back into his mouth with a strained, “Yessss-” 

He couldn’t stop himself, rocking his hips forward, fucking at a less than leisurely pace into Dan’s mouth, he sounded almost angry as he grit out, “How-how do you think she, ugh, does it?” 

A hum before he pops off, his hand taking over, firm grip, another moan pulled from the man above him. 

Dan says, “I think she might have a toy or two, sometimes I hear a very consistent-” slipping the cock in his grip halfway back into his mouth, hand locked around the base, he hummed until Herbert let out a choked off gasp and he pulls back, now finishing the thought, “-humming coming from her room.” 

The thought of you with a vibe pressed between your thighs, biting your hand to try and keep quiet as the mechanically assisted pleasure coursed through you dragged Herbert to the edge with a frightening pace that made his head spin. He made an attempt to push Dan away, wanting to prolong this experience but as Dan’s grip tightened and his tongue swirled over the tip no way could he stop.

When Dan had swallowed him back was once again seated on his stool and Herbert had a slick hand around him, stroking him, wrist twisting on the down stroke as he told him all about, “-the first time I heard her I couldn’t help myself, I felt so bad but fuck, she sounded way too good to ignore, I just had to do something!-”

Herbert nodded, face almost buried in Dan’s neck, “-I can’t ignore her, it’s maddening, why can’t I ignore her?”

“I don’t know, God, harder! Yeah like that-” He panted, “-is-is she putting something in the food when she cooks?” Dan sounded wrecked, rocking up into Herbert’s fist as more brief theories were thrown back and forth until he met his own end.

When both of them had cum and were sitting there in the aftermath, scattered paper work, spilled cum, dishevelled and panting they realised they were in trouble. No way could they go back to what they had before, not without talking about you. Now that their mutual attraction was out in the open why hide it from each other when it could elevate what they did this much?

Between hanging out with you more and more, not just solo, but together and hot as hell hook ups where you were the main topic of conversation in a few weeks a conclusion was reached. 

They wanted you. Talking about you wasn’t enough. But what are the odds that you’d be into this? Into both of them, want both of them? 

There was a serious discussion, while clothes were left on about pursuing this. The logistics of it, how it all might work out and it lasted for hours and they both ultimately decided that it was too wild, no way, the risks too great.

And yet…

Dan couldn’t help himself from testing the waters, even when Herbert was resistant and you were so into his advances and flirting it shocked them both. You returned the flirting openly, almost shamelessly, an air of, “What took you so long?” almost oozing out of you as you bantered with Dan who was still attempting to regain his footing from this sudden development. 

Dan tested it hard, allowing himself to get closer and closer to you physically and emotionally and you returned it and Herbert with a small tentative start getting closer too and more involved.

This had been a long time coming. The casual affection growing, the care, the conversations and investment and the sexual tension was now permeating every interaction instead of just half of them like before the flirting kicked up. It was nearly too much to take, Dan and Herbert were practically fucking each other raw from the pace that they were going at it inspired by you and you similarly were running out of batteries much too quickly. 

The song and dance lasts much longer than it should have but eventually the message is crystal fucking clear. You want them. They want you. Herbert and Dan admit to each other that this thing between them, whatever it is, they don’t want to continue it without you. They can’t imagine it without you, it’s impossible, it feels nearly ineffable and undefinable, a feeling, Herbert hates the fact that he is going to do this massive risk based off of a fucking feeling of all things but even he can’t deny this. 

So a decision was made, it was on the table, it was worth it after all and the night it was meant to happen, that Herbert and Dan were going to properly ask, you knew it was coming, it was obvious, you were ecstatic and thought they were too. 

The unthinkable happened. 

The meeting that would become your first date, you and Dan were stood up. Herbert never showed up. Herbert locked himself in the basement. No word, no note, no answer when they knocked. It was odd, confusing, hurtful. 

You and Dan try to have a good time but it feels weird, half hearted and you both go to bed alone and unsure. 

The next day everything feels off. Herbert doesn’t look at either of you, barely acknowledges you, he is either at the hospital, in the basement, locked up tight, not even letting Dan in, or in his bedroom.

He barely eats, offers of food you and Dan made are rejected outright, plates of well prepared meat and vegetables, pasta, homemade pizza, all shoved away. He makes himself toast and things that require him being in the kitchen for more than a few short minutes at a time because whenever you both caught him in there you’d badger him.

He doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t want to spend any time together. You try to reach out, try to figure out what is wrong but he acts if he doesn’t hear you, even with you right next to him. After weeks of this treatment, he ignores you so thoroughly you pursue him, ask him question after question and he doesn’t pay you any mind.

You follow behind begging him on and on, eventually you cut in front of him stopping him in a doorway, your hands gripping the door frame so hard your knuckles are aching, looking up at him and asking “What is your fucking damage Herbert?!”

He still doesn’t even look at you, an exasperated sigh as he says, “Are you quite finished?” 

The tone he says it, the tiredness and finality of it, like you are nothing more than an inconvenience, it hurts. You bite your lip and drop your arms, step to the side and he brushes past you, purposefully avoiding touching you at all and when you hear his footsteps head down the steps you allow emotion to overtake. 

Dan finds you sitting at the kitchen table, you hadn’t started dinner and were just looking at your hands, fighting back tears.

“What’s wrong?” He asked so softly, you hadn’t heard him come in and you jump, you wipe at your eyes and tell him in a rough voice, “Nothing.” 

It clearly wasn’t nothing. It was awful, he hated seeing you like this and even without you saying it outright he knew it had to do with Herbert. You have no idea what went wrong and Dan has no idea either. 

Dan marches down to the basement, intent on finding out what the fuck Herbert’s deal was. He pounds on the door until Herbert finally opens it and lets him in. 

“What do you want, Daniel?” Herbert asked, sounding much too tired for any sort of casual talking let alone something this heavy. “What I want is to know what the hell has been up with you?”

“Tonight?” Herbert asked nonchalantly, flipping through papers and Dan scoffed, “No! For the past I don’t know, three-ish weeks? Ever since the night you stood us up?”

Herbert hums, his back to Dan, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Don’t-” Dan sighed, hanging his head before asking further, “Don’t know what I’m talking about?” 

Herbert let out a half laugh, a shrug of his shoulders as he tapped the paper stack in his hands on the table, a shake of his head as he said, “I don’t Dan, really.”

“Bullshit Herbert! You’ve been ignoring me, you’ve been ignoring her! She talks to you, tries to engage and you pretend she isn’t there at all!” Herbert refuses to turn around as Dan continues on, “No meals, no conversation-”

A loud exasperated sigh cut him off before he said, “How long do you intend to ramble on Daniel?” 

His jaw drops. “How can you be like this? I thought you grew past this shit, you’re acting like when you first moved in years ago, worse maybe-”

Dan came forward, his hand on Herbert’s shoulder to turn him, make him meet his gaze but Herbert jerked away from him, stepping quickly out of his grip as he barked out, “Don’t touch me!”

He pulled his hands back. This isn't right. He knew something was up but this was more serious than he thought. “Herbert, what's wrong? Talk to me, please, I’m…” He sighed, his hands running through his hair in a mixture of concern and exasperation, “I’m worried about-” 

“Nothing is wrong, I have nothing to talk about with you and I want you to leave.” He sounded so cold, it drove the point home that this wasn’t going to happen, at least not tonight. Dan turned and said, “Fine.”

He left, the sound of his shoes on the concrete floor and the soft closing the door signalling his departure. 

It somehow got worse from there. The few times he did need to address you, Herbert was rude, he snapped often, and was frankly being an asshole. He would complain loudly about you being in the living room all the time, that your leftovers took up space in the fridge, that you showered at the most inconvenient times. You got more and more upset and pulled away too, both you and Dan seeking more and more comfort in each other. 

You and Dan talked and had zero clue why he was being like this. Dan had tried to initiate several more talks and different points and there were piles of excuses and no answers. 

Everything physical between Herbert and Dan stopped completely and it was one the hardest parts of this. He hadn’t realised how much he would miss it, he hadn’t seriously analysed what they had shared but it had a much more profound effect that he had been aware of. It wasn’t just the sex, it was the rest, him actually opening up, allowing some sort of vulnerability, the time shared and conversations had. The more Dan thought about the more intense emotion under the surface of what he had always written off as a casual arrangement the more upset he got that it had been cut so short without an input by him. He wondered if Herbert felt the same or if this was all imagined by him. 

Dan was becoming so frustrated by it all he was having difficulty looking at Herbert when he was around and the pair of you in growing so weary with this all clung closer to each other. Your feelings for Dan were so strong that you still wanted to try and make it work with just you both, something that had been tentative and on hold during this mess with Herbert and Dan feels the same. Trying to focus on what you both could have is better than moping about and trying to get Herbert to talk when that clearly wasn’t going to happen. 

“Are you sure that is okay?” You asked sitting across from him at the dinner table and he shrugs, resigned, “I think so? I mean…I see him hurting but what can I do if he isn’t willing to talk or accept our help?”

He had a point. 

So you press on. 

It is nice. Going out on actual dates, cooking together, watching movies, being in his arms, it all feels nice but at the same time not quite right. Something is off, missing, different. There are times of great joy, where you and Dan are making bread and laughing about something or curled up sleepy on the couch or when he presses a kiss to your cheek where it feels almost okay, where it feels close to what you want and need. But it falls short.

You find yourself feeling almost wracked with guilt as you get closer to Dan because well you know you can never be completely his. The two of them go together in your mind and you suppose in your heart as well, even with the shabby treatment from Herbert you still care, you still think of how it was before his emotional shift. 

One night Dan works late and you find yourself thinking much too much about how it used to be. When it was light and easy, the three of you all together, it just made sense, but nothing was making much sense lately, the one thing that brings any sense of comfort and normalcy, even if it isn’t full or all the way there is what you have with Dan. When he comes home, tired and weary, he assumes you are already long in bed. 

You aren’t.

You are up and waiting for him. He came into the kitchen to see you leaning against the counter, he asked quietly, “You’re still up?”

“Yeah.” You said simply and he asked, “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No. I was thinking too much.” You admitted and pushed off the counter, coming over to him he asked, “Thinking about what?”

“Everything that has been happening lately, but mostly, about how much I want you.”  Once you had stepped close enough you leaned up, your hands on the back of Dan’s neck, nudging him down to help meet you better as you kissed him. 

This wasn’t your first kiss, not by a long shot. There had been many a date that ended with one, times over dinner you’d made and before leaving, ones of all kinds but this felt different from the jump. Hot and needy and desperate. You tried to pour all the emotion you could into it, the heat, the hurt, you felt like you required this the same way you did air, it felt important. You kissed him with such hunger, as if it would heal what was broken inside. He didn’t question, he kissed you deeply in return, it feels good, better than you have in a while. 

The kissing doesn’t end there, from the kitchen you eventually stumbled your way to his room, barely pulling away from one another, clothes being stripped along the way and he and you fall into his bed and it all comes to ahead. You seek total comfort in one another. Wandering hands and hungry mouths and you urging him on soon enough, “Dan, Dan please, I need you-” 

“I need you too-” He was already out of breath, panting at the same rate his fingers were rocking in and out of you. This was bound to happen eventually, Herbert had snapped at you this morning and at dinner time, book ending your day with his cruelty and Herbert had been less than nice to Dan at the hospital and it all just happened. 

You finally under Dan, no clothing at all between you in the dim lighting from the street lamp outside, you’d seen him shirtless before since you lived together but seeing all of him like this was overwhelming. He took the briefest moment to take in the view of your body as well, the way his hands ran over your form made you squirm as he praised you, “So beautiful.” 

“Please, I can’t take it anymore. Make me feel good.” You begged and finally it happened. After months of build up and more he is sliding inside of you and stealing your breath away. The stretch of him is more than you are expecting but you relish in the burn of it. You kissed him again, arms looped around his neck and he started to move and the moan that you let out into his mouth drove him forward. He thrusts harder with a sound of pleasure of his own and it starts this chain reaction of you feeding into each other. 

It becomes faster, more frenzied, needier, it goes on and you are moving with him, pain had mostly given way to pleasure. You were panting, moaning his name, and he was moaning yours, “Touch yourself.” 

The tone makes your hand slip between your bodies with no hesitation and you rub your straining clit and in a few short moments you are falling apart around him and as soon as your pleasure was sealed he pulled out, stroking himself to his end, he painted your stomach with the mess of him, leaving you both spent and heaving. 

As he fell beside you the emotion and gravity of what you had done hit. You inhale sharply as the realisation that it shouldn’t have been like this washes over. You did this for the wrong reasons, you needed a distraction, you felt selfish but worse, doing this without Herbert felt awful, it was a mistake. You reach out to him and he hears you sniff and his arms are around you, your face buried in his neck and, his hand stroking up and down your back as he says, “I know, I know-”

He let out a heavy sigh. “It’s not the same.” 

You both hated this. It should be easy, Herbert should be here, why was he being like this? It hurt so much and felt so awful without him being a part of this, it felt like you were doing something you shouldn’t. You can never fully be Dan’s and the guilt is eating you alive for not appreciating him fully and still wanting after someone who clearly didn’t want you and was treating you so awfully. 

You and Dan fall asleep together that night after many shared tears, exhaustion finally claiming you sometime in the early hours of the morning and everything feels worse the next day. Even more strained and days and more days go by without you talking about it because it hurts too much. You think too much. 

No matter what you do, you can’t separate them. Dan and Herbert are a package deal and you love them both but trying to have one without the other has proven excruciating and impossible. 

You can’t take it.

Another very late night Dan comes home and he wants to talk to you, you’ve both been avoiding the night you shared together and you need to talk about it. He finds you in your bedroom with tears on your cheeks and a suitcase on your bed. 

He doesn’t believe what he is seeing at first, in stunned silence he watches for a moment until finally getting up the nerve when he asks, “What are you doing?”

“Leaving.” You say seriously, your eyes don’t move from your task, you feel unable to look at him and he comes forward, “What? Why?”

“Because Dan I…” You sighed heavily, “Can’t do this anymore. It’s too much. It's too hard.” You say as you continue to take clothing from your dresser and put it into the open case on your bed. 

“You’re going to leave because of this? We can work this out, we can talk about it! We-we can figure it out, I know we can.” He pleaded and you shake your head, “No I don’t think we can.” 

“Do you think we rushed having sex? Because we can take a huge step back, there isn’t any reason we have to-” He reached out to you and you didn’t let him make contact, pulling your arm back before he could touch you. It reminds him of when Herbert jerked away from him and it hurts something deep in Dan’s chest. 

“Dan no. I-I feel just, I feel terrible! I feel immense guilt over all this, I feel like it’s my fault!”

“Your fault?” He questioned, he wanted to come closer, he wanted to touch you, he was fighting every urge to touch you, comfort you physically. 

“Yes Dan. My fault. Like if I didn’t try to get between you and Herbert he wouldn’t have turned so cold and this wouldn’t have happened. That Herbert wouldn’t hate me.” You were twisting the shirt in your hands back and forth, a nervous habit, you felt too keyed up, not sure what to do with yourself as you spilled your emotional guts and everything you’d been holding inside.

“More than that what we have Dan, I feel so bad because I can’t fully give myself to you! Even though Herbert has been a total asshole lately I still…I still-” You sniff and Dan asks, “You still?”

“I still love him.” You hang your head. 

“You still love him? You love him?”  He asked, hands on his hips, total disbelief by your admission. 

“Don’t you?” 

Shit. Dan ran his hand through his hair. “Yes.”

“I love you too Dan...” You say it so quietly he almost doesn’t hear. He looks up and you are finally looking at him. 

“And after telling me that you expect me to be able to let you go?” He sounded so hurt, closer to tears himself and it tore you up but you stood firm. 

“Yes Dan. I-I love you both. I want you both but if I can’t have that…”

Your voice trailed off before you say next, “If I go then maybe you and Herbert can go back to what you were before I got here and fucked everything up.” 

“Fuck that. That is-” He shook his head, his hand ran over his face before saying, “-and there is nothing I can say to convince you to stay?”

“No Dan.” A slow and sad shake of your own head, “There isn’t.” 

He thinks quickly, it can’t end like this, it can’t, he can’t lose you. “Will you do me one last favour? Will you let me talk to Herbert one last time if only to try and give you, give us, some closure on all this? On why he turned so cold?” 

You can’t say no to those eyes, it is a nice thought, maybe it will help you move on so you say, “Okay. One last chance to figure out what is up with him.” 

He wanted to kiss you for the chance you had given him but instead he said, “I’ll be back, thank you! I’ll get an answer outta him, you won’t regret this-” 

And he was out the door. Still in his scrubs from the hospital he rushed right for the basement. He took the stairs two at a time and once he reached the door he pounded on it. “Herbert! I know you’re in there! Open up!” 

He didn’t get an answer in two seconds and so he hit the door with both fists, “Herbert!”

He didn’t stop until the door swung open and he saw Herbert in front of him, brow creased in anger, “What Daniel? What is it?”

He pushed past him into the basement as he started going off, “You are asking me what? I should be asking YOU what!”

“I am sure I have no idea what you mean.” Herbert said with a scoff and crossed arms and Dan turned to point at him, “Bullshit! How can you stand here and lie to me?! Try to tell me you don’t know what is wrong and everything is okay?”

Herbert shrugged and said, “I don’t know, just like this? Nothing. Is. Wrong.” 

“You are insufferable! I am not leaving till I get some fucking answers!”  Dan spat with extra venom. 

“What answers? I have no idea what you mean Daniel.” Herbert insisted and Dan shouted. “Enough! You have to be aware! You have to know that you have been acting differently! You’ve been pulling away from her, from me! You have been rude and awful and neither of us know why! Now stop denying it. Herbert. Please?”

Dan stepped closer, he looked exhausted as he asked, “Talk to me. Can’t you at least do me that small kindness?”

Herbert could see all the hurt in Dan’s eyes, how heavy and weighed down he was and he broke and said, “I-...I thought that maybe…”

He closed his eyes  and said, “It was all going so well and I was terrified I was going to fuck it all up. I still feel just, I feel awful after what happened back then with-” A hard swallow as if it hurt to say this next. “Meg.” 

He took a deep breath and pressed on, “I know so much of that was all my fault I saw how hurt you were, how you grieved and I thought that maybe if I stepped back, pushed you both away, you could be together. You and her could have something like you did with Meg and that would be better. For everyone, you could be happy and so could she.” 

Dan was so confused. He asked, “But everything seemed fine, it was going so well, when did this change of heart happen?”

“The night before I stood you up. I stayed up and thought and thought and I came to the conclusion this is better.” 

“Well it isn’t! How could you make this decision on your own? Why didn’t you talk to either of us about all this?” Dan started to pace as his voice raised again, “You don’t get to decide what makes US happy, Herbert!” 

“Daniel please, this is for the best! I know you both will be much happier without me intruding.” He said firmly. 

“You keep talking about this like you do about your work, like you are an expert but you are not when it comes to emotions and relationships! I am standing here, telling you that this isn’t what I want or what she wants, she is hurting Herbert!” Dan pleaded and Herbert shrugged. 

“She’ll get over it and move on Dan. They always do.” He sounded so sad when he said it and Dan said something that threw all of this into question for poor Herbert. 

“She’s not moving on Herb. She’s moving out.”  

Herbert closed the distance between them, his hands on Dan’s shoulders, a slight shake as he asked, no, demanded to know- “Why?! What happened?! Why is she leaving?”

Dan put his hands on Herbert’s wrists, saying harshly as he looked down at him, “She didn’t want ME, Herbert. She wanted US, but what you did worked a little too well. You convinced her you hate her and she believed you.” 

Herbert felt something akin to his mind breaking. He had been putting himself through hell thinking he had been doing the right thing, so much emotional distress and pain thinking he was doing the right thing but in the process he hurt Dan, he hurt you. He felt shameful and small, he felt stupid, he had been barely holding it together. 

He heard you both upstairs at points, the times Dan tried to come into the basement to talk to him he ignored him, arms around himself, fighting the extreme urge to throw open the door and stop being like this. 

He’d been killing himself in this basement, moving between barely working and researching at a frantic pace to distract himself from the awful thoughts of all the fun he thought you and Dan were having without him. 

And all that, it was all wrong. 

How could he have been so totally blind?

His mind was still racing when the idea hit Dan. He asked in a soft tone, his thumbs stroking the undersides of his wrists as he asked in the softest tone, “You still love her, don’t you?”

Herbert’s eyes shut and with his voice sounding wrecked and thick he says, “I am sorry Dan, fuck I am so, so sorry but even if I attempted to explain why I did what I did, she’ll…” He inhales shakily, “-she’ll never forgive me.” 

“I’m not the one you should be apologising to.” Dan said softly and when Herbert opened his eyes and saw him looking over his shoulder he turned to look to find that you were there. You had heard everything. 

For once. Herbert West who normally could never shut the fuck up, had nothing to say. 

Luckily you had many words. You came forward and Dan slipped aside to let you make a beeline right for him as you began to speak, “Herbert West you are without a doubt the most annoying, loud mouthed, belligerent, stubborn, stuck up, know it all, smartest DUMBASS I have ever had the displeasure of getting to know on such a deep and personal level.” 

He winced slightly, fists clenching as you verbally unloaded onto him, “You’ve been hiding away in this fucking basement and playing silent martyer and like you know best, for months, killing us and you in the process because you couldn’t have a single actual emotionally vulnerable conversation?” 

He gave a small nod and a half hearted shrug and he asked, “I know I was absurdly selfish but do you think…Do you think perhaps you could ever forgive me?”

You closed the last bit of distance and your hands took his, your lips pressed to his what had to be the softest and gentlest kiss you have ever given anyone. When you pulled away his face was flushed his eyes were confused and you said with a smile, “I think I just might be able to.” 

“Really?” He asked with a small smile of his own. “Yes, but you have a ton of time to make up for a lot of apologising to do first.” 

“Anything you need.” He promised. 

And that is how the three of you left the basement behind and found yourselves in Dan’s room. Yours was in shambles from packing and Herbert’s was a mess because most of his time was in the basement avoiding you both. Also Dan has the biggest bed.

Dan sat on the edge of his bed and you were pulled into his lap, his hands hook under your knees and hold you wide open, your skirt hikes up exposing your panties that had already dampened from the kissing and wandering hands that did not stop on the trip upstairs. Herbert kissed differently than Dan did. While there was significant heat to it when Dan kissed there was a more easy pace to it, a give and take with a lot of confidence in leading. When Herbert did it was hungry, it almost hurt from how needy it was, as if he was terrified that you would disappear from his touch, become impossibly out of reach and like he needed to make every single one count. 

You might complain in normal circumstances about how forward this was but after how long you had been waiting for the pair of them, you counted it all towards foreplay and you had enough waiting. You were dying for that itch to be scratched. 

Your legs were spread so wide, you feel the vulnerability permeating as Herbert drops to his knees before you. Before a single word of questioning could leave your mouth you feel his hands on your calves and his mouth on your inner thigh making any sentence you had die on your tongue. Your eyes lock with his, looking up at you as his alternated kissing your thighs, “I have something very particular in mind for this apology, if you will allow me-”

Herbert’s hands trailed up slowly until one of his hands was on your left inner thigh and his other hand was between your legs. 

“Are you ready?” Dan asked low in your ear, a soothing squeeze of his hands under your knees and you gave a small nod, “So ready.”

“You heard her Herb.” Dan prompted and the gaze of the man on his knees didn’t leave yours as his fingers finally touched down. The underwear you had chosen was a light colour, the darkening stain of your arousal helping provide a perfect starting point on his road map to torment. One finger starting slow and dragging up slowly, even pressure and when it passed over your clit through the thin fabric it was obvious, the way your breathing hitched, thighs twitched and your brow knitted together made it all too clear. Perfect. The real work began then. That same finger dragged down and back up, tracing the length of your clothed slit, a small flick on the upstroke, providing just a touch of extra pressure that made you inhale harder than necessary and then, he kept doing that.

He kept such a slow and steady pace, it was tortuous, it almost made you think of a metronome. It had such a consistent rhythm. You could nearly set your watch to it. Tick equals flick and on and on and on it went. From your clothed hole to your hardening clit again and again. 

At first it felt more like a tease than anything else but as it dragged on, the pleasure increased and took hold. More blood flowed to the area and you gained more and more sensitivity, the fabric got wetter and wetter, your eyelids grew heavy, your breathing became intense and deep as he touched so carefully and slowly. 

His head is resting on your inner thigh, you can feel his hot breath fanning over your drenched panties as his fingers work, his mouth is so close, right near the edge of your panties, so close, but so far. You never thought you would have been so into this but as he continued on you felt you might be able to cum just from this. You were squirming in Dan’s lap around the ten minute mark but Dan continued to hold you firmly. 

“Herbert-” You panted and he hummed, eyes flicking back up to yours. “Yes?”

“Sp-speed up? Please?” You ask and he shook his head as he tsk’s, “No can do.” 

You were about to ask why when he changed tactics. His finger pressed and focused on your clit through your underwear, slow and concise circles were drawn on that most sensitive place and that made your legs tense in Dan’s hands. This sped up the process and you found yourself arching closer, or as much as the man holding you would allow. Your eyes closed, biting your bottom lip, back starting to arch, you felt the slow and delicious build increasing, the pleasure building and building, the climb up that hill was slow, near agonising. 

He didn’t care that you were having such a hard time coping with the amount of sensation he was providing. After so many minutes finally, you felt so close, you were surely about to tip over, you panted out, “Fuck, fuck, M gonna-”

And his hand fell away. You cursed, “Shit! Herbert! What the fuck was that-”

He continues just as he had the first time, the slow and meticulous flicking up and down but this time with two fingers. 

The process repeats. And as it does your panties become plastered to you with the sheer amount of wetness you leaked, your clit was throbbing, he teased and teased until you could barely take it and then focused on your clit until you were close and then, cruelly, stopped. You would whimper and whine and then the protesting would stop when he started again. 

Around the third edge, wetness on your thighs, the begging started when you got close. You begged him not to stop, to please let you cum, you were going mad with the need by the fifth edge. 

Around the sixth, your underwear felt more soaked than you ever thought possible, your thighs were trembling, one word on your lips, over and over, “Please.” 

He refused to give in. 

When you hit the tenth edge, almost like he planned to do one for every finger he had, you had no more words, you felt drained, mind empty, mouth open, tears on your cheeks and panting and Dan suggested, “Herbert, I think she’d had enough-”

Herbert hummed before agreeing, “I think you may be right Dan. Lift her a bit for me, will you?”

Dan complied and Herbert’s fingers hooked in the sides of your panties and he dragged them down and off, “Thank you.” 

Dan lowered you back down as he said, “No problem.”

With a shocking amount of boldness, not caring for you and Dan watching, he brought them to his face and inhaled the scent of you deeply before discarding them aside. The image of all of that made you throb as your soaked cunt was now fully exposed to him. You swallowed thickly and asked softly, “Herbert?”

“Shh, shhh, it’s okay. Just wait, I’ll kiss it better.”  You let out an involuntary moan and he leaned in. He started with a kiss that seemingly mirrored the one you gave him in the basement, soft and light, startlingly gentle right on your aching clitoris. The feeling it invoked, a light almost fluttering kind of pull that made you want to buck your hips closer to him to get more of what he had to offer. 

You decided to trust him, against every better judgement considering all the edging he just did that he would in fact kiss it better. Another kiss and another before his tongue finally gave the softest and slowest lick over your whole slit. Your eyes rolled back with another moan as he settled in to really give it to you, even with his knees beginning to ache from kneeling so long. 

His pace is slower than anything you have ever experienced. Long licks from hole to clit, slow flicks that take around fifteen seconds to complete, it is the most exquisite torture you think you have ever experienced. It is too much and also nowhere near enough as he does it. 

He takes his sweet time as he licks, over and over, his lips close around your clit and he sucks softly and you moan long and low. He sucks and his thumbs trace the edges of your labia and you seem to see stars. 

He presses on, his tongue giving more pressure when passing over that most sensitive part of you, again and again. His tongue dips in occasionally, tasting you at the very source and he moans against your soaked cunt and it makes you shiver. You are a moaning mess in less than five minutes but he doesn’t stop. 

He goes further, his tongue traces every fold you have, up one lip to swirling around your clit and down the other before sucking deeply, tongue lapping over your hole with such a light pressure you gasp out his name and it makes Herbert throb in his slacks. 

Soon you approached the edge of ecstasy yet again this time all thanks to his talented tongue. He loved this. Proving himself, bringing you to the precipice of ultimate satisfaction and holding you there for as long as possible before pulling away. He could have made you cum over and over already but he was holding off and loving every reaction he pulled from you. 

As soon as the edge backed off his mouth latched on again. This time he sucked your clit into his mouth, lips closed around you, your clit pulled through his teeth, holding you firmly and allowing his tongue to flick repeatedly over it making you buck and struggle. It forced Dan to hold you tighter. Suck and flick, suck and flick, again and again and when the edge hits again you sob out a, “Please!”

He doesn’t acknowledge your cry. Another edge, brought on by just him fucking kissing your clit of all things, you full on cry. Whole body wracking sobs from the overwhelming frustration and Dan offers up, taking pity on you, “I think she’s had enough Herb-”

Herbert’s mouth lifts again and you sob harder as he shakes his head and says, "I do believe that it's traditional for someone to beg for forgiveness on their knees, Dan. I have a LOT to apologise for, and these things can’t be rushed.”

That makes you take a deep breath, you shake your head, more tears pour down your face, “I forgive you! Okay? I forgive you! Please, just fuck-” 

“Oh but honey, I don’t forgive myself.” Herbert stated and as you looked down at him through your blurry tear stricken vision, seeing his mouth and chin slick with you, face flushed and hair messed up, you say, “Herbert. If you don’t make me cum soon-”

“Patience, this can’t be rushed.” Hebert insisted and Dan said, “Herbert. Fourteen edges is not rushing, by anyone's definition.” 

“Alright, alright, maybe it is time to move on.” You thought he would get up, move onto another activity but he leaned in again and this time, it was different. The softness and slow meticulous nature was dropped. His hands were on your outer thighs, he had his mouth pressed as close as possible as he worked. He didn’t play around, he focused hard and built you up quickly. It took less than three minutes because of all the previous edging. Your thighs were shaking, your face was wet and you were an incoherent mess, something that sort of sounded like Herbert's name, panting out over and over as you made that climb. You were afraid it was another trick, that he would do it again, and would deny you. 

You shook your head, sobbing openly and Dan watched with extreme interest as Herbert’s eyes were closed, sucking on your clit as you teetered on the edge. What finally pushed you over was Dan saying softly in your ear, “C’mon hon, do it.” 

The hum Herbert let out showing you that he wanted that to make you cum with a cry so loud you were sure someone all the way in the basement could have heard it. The relief was immense and immediate, you were seriously impressed with how strong Dan was, managing to hold you open as you rode your high. You sounded incredible, you were too wrapped up in your orgasm to notice the subtle grinding of Dan on your ass but you did notice how hard he was. Herbert was losing his mind between your legs, feeling you so close, so intimately, you pulsing on his tongue, the taste of you permeating his senses. Only when Dan was speaking saying, “Ease up Herb.”

Did he pull away, his own breathing nearly matching yours as the aftershocks run through you. 

Herbert is so fucking hard it hurts, his knees ached but he doesn’t care as he gets up onto the bed next to you. He observed as Dan touched you, one hand on your face, thumb rubbing over your cheek as you were still shaking, wiping some of your tears away as he cooed to you, “S’ alright, I’m right here-”

Herbert reached out, his hand met your neck, his thumb smoothed over your pulse and he turned your head to him, another bruising kiss that you immediately returned. You tasted yourself on his mouth and the taste only got stronger when his tongue parted your lips. It only took about oh less than two minutes for you to want more than just kissing. He let out a quiet moan into your mouth as your hands scrambled down to his belt, you were desperate to finally feel him. You could see the defined outline and you were sure the confines of his clothing were much too much and you wanted to help, you wanted to feel, wanted to make him feel even a quarter of what he just made you feel. 

Belt open, zipper down, you pushed on his clothing as your lips moved against his and then his hands came to help, moving the clothing down and your hand reached out and finally touched him. Your hand closed around his shaft and it made you break the kiss with a shared gasp, him from the sensation of your soft hand and you from the shocking size and weight of it in your palm. You all shifted, Herbert kneeling back between your legs now. You looked down to see him so close to your leaking hole, a slow stroke of him, a twist of your wrist and it made him let out a soft moan, a rock of his hips into your hand. You swiped your thumb over the tip, spreading pre-cum as you set an easy pace. 

His eyes met yours and he breathed, “Please? It’s-” His tongue darted out to wet his lips before saying softly, “-it’s been so long.”

God it has been hasn’t it? 

It felt right. The energy between the three of you, the closeness, this is what you missed when you and Dan had that night on your own, you needed him. Hearing Herbert West beg is truly something special, something you thought you might never get to hear and as much as you wanted to hear it more you couldn’t take much more without having one of them inside of you. 

Licking your own lips, cleaning up the evidence of your own arousal smeared there when Herbert kissed you, a small nod as you said, “I need it too.”

One of your hands on his waist, pulling him in closer as you continued to stroke him. You could hear the slight smile on Dan’s face as he asked, “Yeah you need him?”

A shaky nod as your legs move slightly, your heels knock his legs and pull him in closer still, the head of his cock brushing against your entrance makes him shudder, “Ahh-” 

“Yeah. Need him so much.” You admitted and Herbert’s hands shoved his pants the rest of the way down, he needed as much skin on skin as he could get with you and you helped, your hands scrambling to undo his tie and dress shirt and Dan set to work getting your shirt off. There were far, far too many clothes on at this moment. Once most of the clothing was shed, the only thing left on was your skirt and Dan’s pants, he was reluctant to get you out of his lap, loving having your body to him and feeling you so close, it really kicked off. Herbert lined up just right and your hands were now on his shoulders and your eyes weren't sure where to settle, his eyes or watching him sink into your for the first time. They started low and when he began to breach you they looked up to him and you found he had been watching the beginning of him sliding inside. 

As soon as the head of his cock slid in he couldn’t stop the sound that released, he honest-to-God whimpered, eyes closing, feeling the extremely slick and thigh heat of your cunt enveloping him for the first time. That whimper he let out made you clench around him and he had to fight every urge to plunge balls deep inside you. Your eyes fluttered closed too and your arms wrapped around his neck, a soft, “Oh God-” spilling out as he continued to slide in. 

How big was he? It’s like it just kept going, you let out a small soft sound along with a- “I dunno If I can-”  And that prompted Dan to cut you off to say, “If I can take him, so can you.” 

The thought of Herbert and Dan tangled up had been a good one, it had fueled many an orgasm for you but hearing him admit to taking it so blatantly made you moan and clench again. Herbert couldn't hold back this time, hands on your hips he bucked and he made you take the next part so quickly you nearly yelped. “Shit-sorry, too much?”

He paused, a concerned squeeze of you hips and you gasp, a shake of your head, nails digging into his shoulders, your eyes still shut tight, “Don’t you dare fucking stop.”

Herbert gave a short nod and continued, another firm push of his hips and you let out another low moan. Dan was looking over your shoulder as he said, “Oh good girl, you are doing so well, yes you can take it.” 

When Herbert finally sunk all the way in he let out a shuddering breath and his eyes finally met yours again and the sheer vulnerability there strikes you somewhere deep in your chest. 

This is just what he needed and he didn’t need to say it, all he had wanted and needed and yearned for was right here, you and Dan, sharing an intensely intimate moment. 

“Oh see, there you go, you did it.” Dan praised, his voice sounded, warm, affectionate, with a sharper edge of the arousal he was surely feeling. You could still feel how hard he was under you after all. 

You gave a small shake of Herbert’s shoulders and begged, “Please?”

It was like you woke him up and he started to move slowly, pulling out halfway before sinking back in again. You felt incredible, you were so soaked, hugged every contour and groove and vein of his dick in such a deliciously sinful fashion, a choked moan leaving him as he thrust in and out, an easy and slow rhythm forming. You moved with him as much as Dan would allow, his hands still holding you, spreading you wide, allowing Herbert to fuck you as he had craved for so long. 

You felt better than he ever could have imagined, you clinging to him, moaning in his ear, Dan’s words of encouragement, the feeling of you was almost too much. 

“Ah, doesn’t he feel so good?” Dan asked, mirth clear in his tone and you moaned, “So, so fucking good.”

The pleasure was sparking inside you and making your head begin to swim so quickly. The next few short minutes as you and Herbert rocked together were filled with total bliss, a lot of intimacy for you first time doing this, it satisfied something so deep inside of you and you weren’t even close yet.

You asked around a moan, “Ha-have you really taken him Dan? He so-fuck, so big-” 

Dan laughed low, “Mmhmm, many times.”

God it was such a hot thought. You moaned again, another clench and Herbert picked up the pace, you moaned louder at the next spike of pleasure, back arching, your chest pressing to Herbert's in the process. It is all so much to handle, he feels dangerously close already, he is a wreck, out of breath and barely hanging on. It hurts, his nails biting into your hips, you are sure little crescents are left embedded in your flesh from how hard he is gripping. 

“Shi- I, I won’t be able to last, ugh, s’ been too long, feels too, too good-” Herbert panted out he didn’t want to stop yet, so he offered up, “May-maybe we switch it up?”

Dan chimed in, teasing as he asked “Awe what you don’t think you can handle more than one round Herbie? I know you can. I’ve seen it.” 

You piled on, “Yeah, c’mon, I-I wanna feel it, don’t stop, please?” You didn’t want it to end unless it was because of him cumming inside of you. His head tipped back with a groan and he gave a small nod, “Okay, okay, I want it too, so, so bad, thought about it so much-”

He slowed down. He kept himself pressed to you, closer still, a small change in the angle making it that when he ground forward the pressure to your clit made you cry out and the head of his dock dragged over your sweet spot perfectly. It was good, all of it, Dan kissing your neck, Herbert’s hands pulling you closer as he thrust in and out over and over. This was more than enough to work with, if he kept this up, you'd cum in no time flat. 

“Her-Herbert yes, yes, just like that, God-” You gasped and he had to try and tune you out just a little bit so he didn’t ruin this, he needed this, needed to feel you cum on him, more than air, more than anything. 

The build was quick now, all the teasing from before, that first orgasm you had on his tongue, all warm up, all of it served to make this even easier to accomplish and before you knew it you were shivering, on the very edge telling him, “Ahhn I’m, I’m-” 

And there you were. Shaking and gasping, your cunt clenching around him as you came for the second time that night. He didn’t last, as soon as he felt that first pull of your walls, felt  you cumming it did it. His rhythm was non-existent right now, so sloppy as he fucked you through your high and his but it didn’t matter, it all felt like fireworks. 

He wasn’t sure when he stopped, but he had at some point and was buried in you as deep as he could be, cum leaking out of you around him. Both of you slick with sweat and heaving but this was far from over. You kissed him first and he returned it, pecks placed all over his face and neck and he felt so happy, so warm. 

A rock of Dan’s hips below reminded you of his problem and your head came up, a turn to see him right there, and the look on his face, the desire, you felt your own lighting back up immediately as you kissed him. 

It was time to change positions. Herbert pulled out slowly with something close to a whine and Dan let go of your legs, allowing you to get off him. He took off his own pants and underwear, threw them off in his haste and he scooted further up the bed. You are looking down at him as you remove your skirt at long last, he wasn’t as long as Herbert but he definitely didn’t have to be, he was so thick. You were sore the day after you and he had sex, you were plenty warmed up then but he just had so much girth it was a challenge to take him, a fun challenge and one you felt even more prepped for after Herbert had his turn. 

You straddled Dan and slowly impaled yourself with him. Your inner thighs were sticky with sweat, your own slick and Herbert’s cum that had slowly started to leak out. There was a lot of his mess left inside and it acted as lube as Dan fit inside of you, slotted in perfectly. The second you began to slide him in Dan’s hands were on your waist, he had gotten so worked up from what you and Herbert had done in his lap, he wasn’t sure how he lasted this long, his head thrown back, “God yessss-”

He moaned loudly as you finally settled down, him fully buried inside of you. Herbert watched, still hard himself as you took him and when Dan met his friend/roommates/boyfriends? Eyes he saw how much he still needed and an idea struck. Before you could raise your hips, Dan’s hands slid up your body, he cradled your face and after an extremely meaningful look was thrown to Herbert, his own gaze met yours again and he asked, “Do you trust us?”

You let out a small laugh, your hands over Dan’s as you say, “More than I probably should.”

Dan kept lube in his nightstand. Herbert was behind you as you were still stuffed full of the man below you. The click of the bottle echos in the room, you feel cool and slippery fingers trace the rim of your asshole and you tense slightly. A soothing hand runs up and down your back, “Shhh, relax.” 

Dan gave a small nod, “He knows what he’s doing, trust me.” 

You decide to do just that. You let the man behind you begin to really take, fingers working you over so slowly. Running circles around the puckered skin before he feels you begin to slowly open, one finger breaching that makes you moan as it works in and out before you give the okay that you are good. Another finger joins the first, in and out, over and over, it makes you pant, your walls occasionally twitch around Dan as the fingers in back scissors in and out, twist and touch. You feel amazing, so hot, so pliable, he is so excited by the prospect of getting to have this, take both your holes in one night one right after another. 

He took his time, applying the lube multiple times and taking great care before adding another finger. The pair of them praised you all the while, “Oh you are going to feel so good wrapped around me.”

“Take it so, so well.” Dan hummed, his hands resting on your hips, soothing circles rubbed into your skin. 

You wondered how Dan was handling this so well. Being so deep in you but holding back the urge to fuck you stupid. Little did you know that he felt as if he owed it, some sort of penance for the fact he had you first and you both had sex without Herbert first. 

“You know I never would have expected you to be so down and ready for this.”

Dan mused and you let out a half laugh, “Why’s that exactly? I have been warning the pair of you for months, you think I haven’t been anticipating this or getting ready for it?”

“Wait, getting ready, how?” Dan asked and you admitted, “Might have been exploring back there myself for a while.” 

Another shared moan. The shared image of you a few fingers deep in your own ass, your other fingers playing with your clit was so hot. How perfect were you? 

After what must have been half a bottle of lube and three of Herbert’s fingers able to slide in and out of you with ease and you a moaning mess, it was time. His hands spread open, “Hold her still Dan.” 

Another hum as Dan’s arms wrapped around you, holding you close as you hear Herbert slicking himself up and then pressing against you. The urge to hold your breath was present but Dan told you, “It’s tempting I know but if you breathe through it, I promise it makes it way easier.” 

You took his advice, a deep breath as his hips cant forward and at a nearly painfully slow pace he began to take you. Working his way in took a while. More lube and a good bit of cursing from all three of you. Feeling him sliding in was almost more than you felt you could bear after everything you had been through so far tonight. Soon enough the head of his dick popped past the tight ring of muscle and he paused, a collective sigh of relief was breathed by all of you. His hand runs down your back again, a kiss placed on the back of your neck, “Doing okay so far?”

“Mmhm.” You nodded once, Dan said, “Of course, she can handle a lot, can’t you?” 

“Ye-ahhh, I can.” You agreed with a soft moan, another slow move, you took more of him and Dan encouraged, “Push back on him when you feel comfortable.”

“Yeah?” You asked and he nodded, you trusted him again, and together, moving with Herbert, rocking your hips back as he moved his forward you found the best way to take him was bit by bit until he was as deep as you could reasonably handle and you were stuffed with the pair of them. 

You were struggling to keep breathing normally, eyes unable to focus, a few fingers is nothing in comparison to this, feeling so totally full. 

How were you going to handle them actually moving? It was almost as if Dan could sense your nerves and he reassured you, “Do-don’t worry, I’m not gonna move-”

You could hardly believe that, “What?” 

“Not yet anyway, let him get started till you’re used to it.” He sounded pretty tense right now and you don’t blame him, he had barely gotten any stimulation at all. Just having to sit in your warm and soaked pussy while Herbert had been doing all the playing around, to be fair, he did have a long time of no attention paid to him at all. 

“You’ve got the patience of a saint.” You told him, a soft kiss to his lips, more laid down over his jaw, “I dunno how you do it, seriously, you are just-” 

“Amazing?” Herbert finished, sounding blissfully out of breath as he began to move again, slowly starting to fuck you and you nodded with a sigh, “Amazing. Good word choice.” 

“How’s she feel?” Dan was sounding equally breathless still and Herbert let out a low groan, “Not to, ugh, not to overuse it so it loses all me-meaning-” his head fell forward, a small shake with a broken laugh as he managed to get out the word along with a grind of him inside of you, “-ahhh-mazing.” 

“Anh-nd how arrrre you hold-ing up Daaan?” You barely managed to get it out in between the moans and gasps, sliding back against Herbert, and as he started to respond something happened that cut his sentence off short. Herbert had still been laying the occasional kiss or lick on your neck as he thrusted leasurierly in your ass, instead he bit the side of your neck, hard. It made you clench and caused Dan to cry out.

“FUCK! Herbert, what did you do to her?” Dan panted out and Herbert looked over your shoulder, hips stalling, smug as hell with a raised brow as he said, “I bit her Daniel.”

His grin widened as he asked in a much too innocent a tone for someone who was currently buried in your ass, “Would you like me to do it again?” 

Before Dan could open his mouth, your was falling open, panting out, begging, fucking pleading, “Again, please, please, fuck, Herbie, I-I need it, bite me again-” 

You moved your head back and to the side, exposing more of your throat and Herbert was frankly shocked by your reaction. You sounded somehow more needy than you had all night, and again counting up all those edges that was impressive. 

He moved his hips, another thrust in and out, “Yes? You need it again?”

You whined, long, stretching out his name and Dan said, “Herbert, you heard her, stop being such a-”

And that is the moment he chose to bite your neck. 

Another pleasured almost yelp from Dan and a sob from you and another smug grin from Herbert. He bit you again and again and then Dan couldn’t wait anymore. 

“I am so, so sorry honey but fuck I have to-” His hands on your hips and he pulled out halfway before thrusting into again and you swear your mind went blank. 

They both had to work to find a good pace and rhythm. One would be pulling out and the other sliding in. Herbert biting your neck on occasion, pangs of pleasure that seemed to make pure heat pour from your chest and straight into your clit that was being ground relentlessly against Dan’s pelvis. He was trying not to rush but he had been waiting so long, he was so turned on, fucking you, stretching you wide all while using the mess of you and Herbert’s cum for lube. 

It was hot. It felt incredible, that cannot be understated but somewhere in this tangle of limbs and your writhing bodies, broken moans and fragmented pieces of dirty talk that barely make sense because of the amount of feeling that is taking place, something more, something deeper takes hold. The emotion of it all hits. The fact that it had been months, that you almost didn’t have this, you almost left them, you nearly missed out on this, it all hit. So many good times and bad, all of it leading to here and to now, to the three of you, having your first big sexual experience, together.

Oh God, you were together. 

You hadn’t even noticed you were close, you cried as you came, a mix of their names pouring out of you as your walls clenched rhythmically around the pair. You think you can register them both saying your name, it is hard to tell. Your body feels weak, overstimulation is starting to set it, you burn, you are so fucking tired. You feel pulled along, hardly hanging on by a fucking thread but you also, love it.

You have never felt so full, so pushed to your absolute limits and you adored this experience. It is so all consuming in the best way. It hurt, it felt good, you were over it, you wanted it to end and never, ever stop, you had no idea what you really wanted but luckily it wasn’t up to you, it was up to them.

Nearly as if on cue you feel the stuttering of Dan’s hips, his face buried in your neck, a groan of your name and you overflow with him, you are panting incoherently. Your cheeks feel raw from all the crying as he cums, pumping his own load into your already over stuffed cunt along with the load Herbert had already dumped in you earlier. Dan is holding deep in you and you are barely over his orgasm, just as he is still working through the end of it you feel Herbert give one last hard thrust of his own, one that makes you share the curse that leaves his mouth and just when you thought you couldn’t get more full, the feeling of warmth spreading in your other hole takes over nearly everything else you currently have going on. 

You lay there the three of you for you have no idea how long before everyone starts to slowly untangle. You are very out of it. The feeling of them pulling out, first Herbert then Dan, hurts, you wince and there are kisses and words of apology kissed into your tender flesh. “So sorry darling. We got rather carried away.”

“You handled it so, so perfectly.” Dan praising you always did something to you, made your heart feel inexplicably warm. As soon as they pulled out you were leaking massively. Dan’s sheets were definitely going to need a change, the mix of sweat and lube and cum would not be comfortable to sleep in. 

Oooh sleep, you could hardly wait to sleep. 

They cleared space, made room and laid you down between them after a towel and a wet washcloth was gotten from the bathroom, as well as a glass of water they insisted you drank. Herbert was wiping your face carefully as Dan was dealing with the mess that was currently pooling below your waist. 

You felt sore, so spent, and also, warmer, happier and better than you had in weeks. You reached out to them, grabby hands signalling you wanted them closer. They obliged, “We are going to have to clean up and change the sheets-”

You shh’d Dan, “I know, I know, just, stay here with me for a minute.”

They didn't fight it. They were just happy to have you here. And after that cuddle, once you were all clean and the sheets changed, there was one last thing that you heard in the dark before sleep claimed you, squished between them both. Herbert admitted softly, “You look so pretty when you cry. You know that?”

#BHF writing #BHF commissions #Poly!DanBert #slasher x reader #darklylucid #I hope you alllll LOVE THIS #I went SO FUCKINH HARD ON IT AHHHH

[twentydaysofdrabbles]

The Concierge Flies Homeward (Part 51)

It is a silent and somber party that makes its way back to the dark plane in the hanger. The plane's twin pilots say nothing, their stony faces neutral as you instruct them to start the engine.

You gesture for everyone to precede you into the plane, your sense of responsibility preventing you from heading inside first. Sans and Papyrus hang back with you as you look over everyone, checking and making mental notes.

Akira passes you by, her eyes haunted, her face drawn, and her hair stringy from sweat. The sword in your hand weighs heavy, but perhaps not as heavy as Akira's heart. You're not going to make that weight any lighter. "Akira," you call out quietly, drawing her to the side as two of the Osaka staff members trudge by with Koji's body upon a makeshift stretcher.

The former Osaka Concierge blinks and joins you at the side, hunching over and clutching her side. "What is it?" she asks quietly, her voice as tired as she looks, but her eyes are still sharp as she looks over your shoulders at Sans and Papyrus.

You get the look. Turning slightly, you incline your head to both skeleton monsters. "Gentlemen, if we could have a moment, please?"

Sans' grin tips downwards, Papyrus' scowl deepens, but neither man says anything in retort as they head up the stairs and into the belly of the plane with everyone else.

Akira watches them go, then turns to you with an amused look on her face. "Since when did you have bodyguards?" she asks, slumping lower unconsciously.

You step closer and tuck your shoulder under her armpit, propping her up. "I'm not quite sure myself," you murmur back. The little rumble of laughter from the taller woman makes your neutral expression soften, and you take that opportunity to raise the hand holding Koji's sword. "Here."

Akira's little rumble stops immediately, and you see her bloodied hand reaching for the hilt. "Otou-san," she whispers, her lip wobbling. "Was he there...that man."

A pause. "He was."

You can see how she clenches her teeth, how she tenses against you despite the pain. "Did he...say anything?"

Caine's words flit through your brain, his voice echoing in your ears.

"Will you throw your life away too?"

"If only you had told me where John was...old friend, I didn't want this..."

"I don't want to kill anymore friends..."

How to put all of that into a single sentence? Words wouldn't be able to convey the regret that you saw on Caine's face, how old and exhausted he looked as he stood over his old friend's body. How broken he was.

"He did," you start, lifting the sheathed katana higher to urge her to take it. "He was...sorry. I could see it."

Akira's cold fingers close around the scabbard just below yours, and the strength of her grip makes her hand shake. "Not sorry enough," she hisses through gritted teeth, her crow-like eyes ablaze with cold fury. "If he was sorry, if he valued my father..."

You keep quiet, standing there in the brisk night air, feeling the wind take the words from your mouths. Feeling the breeze sweep Akira's tears away.

"Friendship means little when it's convenient," Akira mutters to herself. As if remembering an old adage she would hear often. Her grip tightens even more on the scabbard, so much so that her knuckles turn white.

You hold on as well, just in case she drops it. But also to support Akira while she wrangles her emotions back into that cage that guards her heart.

It takes a few minutes, but the tears on her face dry and the muscle in her cheek stops jumping. It is at that point that you let go of the scabbard, relinquishing the blade to its owner's daughter.

"Come," you murmur, your arm coming up to hold her and guide her to the steps. "We should depart."

Akira goes without protest. The hand that held her side is now clutching the sword to her chest like one would with a stuffed toy, cradling it close as you help her up the stairs. She doesn't say anything more once you close and lock the door behind you, only nodding in silent thanks as she shuffles along to the back of the plane to join the remnants of her staff.

Sans and Papyrus are seated towards the front, near the door. Papyrus in the same seat as before, and Sans in yours.

Both men look up as you draw close, their eye lights flicking down to your empty hands and then looking up.

"you good, sweetheart?" Sans asks quietly, getting up from his seat. Well, technically your seat. Papyrus just looks on, his scowl marginally less angry than it usually is.

You only shake your head and motion for Sans to stay. There is another seat opposite them that you can swivel around so that you can face them. "I'm fine," you answer Sans' question as you reach for the catch to swivel the seats around.

Sans stops you with a hand to your wrist, his eternal grin widening into a leer as he pats his lap. "come and take yer seat, sweets~"

You open your mouth to decline, only to be interrupted.

Papyrus groans and slaps his brother up the head, enough to make Sans let go of you. "FOR TAKE-OFF, NUMBSKULL. THEY'RE GOING TO GO FLYING IF THEY SIT IN YOUR LAP."

Your mouth closes and curls into a smile. "Just so." The row of double seats is swiveled around once you release the catch, and you turn it around so you can sit facing them. You hear a bit of a scuffle, but by the time you turn back to them, they're looking away from each other with their arms crossed, a deeper scowl on Papyrus' face and a grumpy sneer on Sans'.

The sibling rivalry between them amuses you and you note it aloud as you sit down opposite Sans. "Do you always fight like this?" At the triumphant look on Sans' face and the grumpy one on Papyrus', you can only guess that your choice of seat is the topic of one such fight. "Sans?"

"wanted ta see who ya'd sit in front of," he purrs, reaching out with his foot to drag his shoe up the inside of your leg. "i won~"

Papyrus grumbles and takes in his legs a little more. But even then his knees nearly knock into yours. Sans, with his shorter legs, has to stretch to touch you.

Lifting a hand to your mouth, you cover it as you let out a little laugh. One quiet enough to just be barely audible above the whirring of the engines as they warm up.

But Papyrus hears it. As does Sans. And they both look at you with hazy eye lights and soft expressions on their faces. "haven't heard ya laugh in a while, sweets," Sans notes quietly, but he continues to play footsie with you when you don't pull away.

The urge to say that there is little worth laughing about, but instead you keep your mouth shut and let the smile linger on your lips instead. You're saved from responding anyway, since the pilot pipes up over the speakers.

"Crew, report ready for take off."

You lean over to the aisle, looking over everyone who nods back at you. "Ready for take off," you call back out, loud enough for the pilots to hear.

When you turn back to face forward, Papyrus is clutching his armrest tightly, while Sans is looking rather strained. You're immediately reminded of how anxious Papyrus was when you took off earlier, but you don't know how much of a nervous flier Sans is. Judging by the thin sheen of sweat on his skull, Sans is indeed a nervous flier.

There's not much you can do, strapped into your seat as you are. But what you can do is press your knee against Papyrus' and your foot against Sans'. Just a little bit of contact, enough to make them look at you.

"What are your plans when we return to the City?" you ask quietly. Enough to distract them from the taxiing of the aircraft. You hope.

Papyrus is the one to answer. "THE QUEEN WILL CALL FOR ME WHEN SHE NEEDS ME," he growls out through his tightly clenched fangs, clinging to the armrest with fingers that shake from how much strength he is using. "I ASSUME MY BROTHER HAS MADE SURE SHE IS TAKEN CARE OF IN THE MEANTIME."

"heh, yeah," Sans says, his deep voice a little wobbly. "dog squad is hangin' around her just in case 'dyne and asgore come back. reckon she'll be fine for--hhkk!"

Ah, that would be the plane gaining speed as it rockets down the runway. The looks on the brothers' faces would be funny if they didn't look as if they would expire at any moment. And goodness, they did look more like skeletons than living monsters, with the way their sockets go dark, their bodies rigid.

Hmm. You tap at their legs, Papyrus on the knee, Sans on the foot, but neither react.

Oh well, not much you can do about it now. So you simply watch as the plane takes off, as gravity forces their bodies into the seat, as they turn ashen. Idly, you wonder if this takes any of their HP off, though you wouldn't be able to check.

For several whole minutes as the plane climbs to cruising altitude, the brothers are stock still in their seats. And even when the plane levels off, their sockets remain dark, their frames tense.

It is tempting to unbuckle yourself and reach over and touch them, just to make sure that they aren't on the brink of dusting, but you have enough experience with colleagues and yourself that you know not to touch someone unless they're fully conscious. After all, it would be terrible if someone speared a hole through the aircraft with a summoned bone.

So you wait in silence, unbuckling yourself and simply waiting for them to come to.

And come to they do. After a while.

Papyrus is the first to recover, his eye lights flickering back on. He takes a deep inhale and lets it loose shakily, his hands reaching down to unbuckle himself from the seat without much luck.

So you get up and lean over his legs, undoing it for him without a word. But before you can pull away, a pair of strong hands clamp down on your hips and drag you down into a bony lap.

#undertale fics #mafiafell au #mafiafell sans x reader #mafiafell sans #sans x reader #mafiafell papyrus #mafiafell papyrus x reader #papyrus x reader #the concierge #reader insert #ficlet

[whump-town]

Oh, Sinnerman 

Chapter Two

Words: 5,500

Same Warnings as Chapter One

Oh, sinnerman, where you gonna run to?

Flames dance behind his eyelids. Hotch sees a burning bush. He hears a deep thunderous voice calling out Moses! Moses! He sees a bush on fire but did not burn up. Take your son to the top of Moriah and kill your son there as a sacrifice to me. This must be Issac, your only son, the one you love. Use him as an offering– 

He wakes with a jolt, his body broken out in a cold sweat. He watches a tree pass above him. His tinnitus is horrid, making his temples pulse in a rigid band. He hears Abel, like a preacher on the radio coming in and out of service. Static, ringing. Then a decisive sermon. He’s reciting Exodus. Moses leading his people from slavery. 

“Abel?” his voice is weaker than he’s expecting but the sun beats down between the treetops and he’s dehydrated. “Abel, you have to–” He tries to sit up but quickly gives that idea up. His arms can’t hold his weight and his head spins dangerously. His stomach hurts so bad he can’t think straight. 

“Aaron,” Abel breathes wistfully, speaking to the trees. “The brother of Moses.” 

Hotch thinks Abel should begin in Genesis; And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abraham his brother, and slew him. He’s stuck somewhere between compassion and loathing. His head aches fiercely, his stomach is tied into painful knots. His left shoe is gone and on some tarp, he’s being roughly pulled through the woods. Rocks hit his back. Sticks stab at him. And yet, he imagines the crime scene photos one more time. Imagines Abraham at the top of his mountain with his son and Abel lost in these woods. Both raise daggers to the throats of people they love. One Abraham is ready to kill his own son and another begs his brother to see reason. 

Only one was saved. 

He’s bleeding. 

A bush leans down over him, leaves grazing skin. On its tilted edge, a drop of blood gathers and he watches it. He looks at the blood on that leaf until the colors blur together until that brush is lost amidst the others. Leaving a trail is good, even if blood isn’t. 

He drops, suddenly. The tarp is released and no warning given. He can’t hold himself upright so he just falls down onto the ground. Left to stare hazily up at the tops of the trees. 

“Are you faithful, Aaron?” 

Aaron. All he hears is his name – his ears conducting an intensely painful concert of forever ringing bells. Just trying to look at Abel hurts. The sun is too bright, even dulled by it’s passage through the trees. His head hurts. Faithful? He frowns, faithful? He doesn’t understand. It doesn’t make sense. He reaches for his phone but… His pockets are empty. That’s probably good a good thing? No wallet or keys or… gun. No gun. Damn. But these things must be discarded somewhere, a pile of proof to document the direction they’re headed. 

“Aaron.” Abel crouches down by his side and pushes his thumb against the weeping wound against Aaron’s forehead. “I apologize,” he says. “I’m afraid I hit you much harder than I originally anticipated.” He frowns, he seems to mean it which is more confusing than anything else. “I was afraid and I over-reacted.”

The tarp wrinkles as Aaron moves his hand, he nods. The mud is cold. The sticks damp from a recent rain. He finds a rock, cold and hard. A rock. He curls his fingers around it and feels its weight in his palm. 

“I hope you can forgive me.”

Breathing in slowly through his nose, Aaron swings his arm. His fingers end up pinched between the rock and Abel’s skull, an instant bloodied nailbed, but he can’t get further. Abel crumples, goes right down. Time is off the essence – he knows this somewhere in the back of his mind, it drives Aaron into movement. But he gets one sore shoulder to move, one aching arm up underneath him and his vision blackout. He gets nowhere. 

The sun is lower. 

Hotch’s first thought is Jack. The sun is too low. Jack needs to go to bed. He needs to.. 

He can’t remember. 

Beside him Abel groans, shifting but staying where he’s fallen. Move. Something in him screams. Anxiety lances up his stomach and painfully sits hot and heavy. Move. He pushes himself up slowly, taking a moment to gasp between waves of nausea. 

His knees buckle and he leans into a tree, grunting at the pain of leaning his body weight into thistles growing all around. More blood, that’s helpful. He needs to move. Move. Get out of here. 

He kicks up dirt in that first step, rocks and acorns and sticks. His fucking shoe. His left shoe is gone, missing. Abel moans again and Hotch knows he’s got no more time. 

[x.]

“And he just… disappeared?” 

Calling in what happened was uneventful. Only a few seconds had passed since Hotch tore off into the woods and she thought she knew he’d come back out – a few more scrapes and bruises and his clothes dirty but UNSUB in cuffs and his scowl in place. Only Hotch didn’t come back out. He just disappeared. And as JJ was realizing this the SUVs came into sight. Brown and black trooper cars coming in a swarm behind them. 

And Hotch was nowhere to be found.

JJ swallows nervously, eyes darting between the others. They’re in various stages of fury, all zeroed in on her. She’s confused about how this always happens to her. First Reid and now Hotch – and both with weird religious things going on? The odds of that have to be… impossible. 

“You have to understand,” Derek says, crossing his arms, “this doesn’t make any sense.”

JJ shrugs, “he – he just ran into the woods, Morgan. He called for–for, Uhm, Abel? The brother of the victim.” She holds her arms to her chest, glances at Emily pleads with her to say something. For anyone to say something and stop just staring at her. “I called you as soon as it happened. But–But the guy had a gun. I don’t think he hit Hotch but he shot at us.” She’s already explained this. Twice. Some guy comes out of the woods. She didn’t see him. Hotch did. The gun is what she heard but only after it was fired. She told Hotch to go. She stayed with the old woman. There’s nothing more to be said. 

Emily and Derek went into the woods to look, staying where they could be seen shouting out into the nothing and hearing nothing but their own voices in return. They know as well as she does, he’s just gone.

“Derek,” Emily finally warns, stepping in before Derek can make a complete ass of himself in the middle of his hopeless fear. “Leave her alone.” There’s a rogue stare-off. Derek already knows he’s in charge. The decision of next in command is Hotch’s and just a few short months ago that was Derek, leading them while Hotch took a step back. Pretended to unravel to give Foyet a show, a very convincing show. And Derek might be in-charge but Emily still has sway. It’s her advice that could sway any of Hotch’s decisions. Derek might be political, on paper in charge but they’ll listen to Emily just as quickly. Neither will win the silent battle of wits. 

Dave comes steadily back down the driveway to them, shaking his head. He’d gone to talk to the widow – she’d be more help anyway than standing down here getting mad at JJ for something stupid Hotch did. “Our UNSUB is Abel Boseman.” He nods in the direction of the woods, “his mother says he’s been living in an abandoned house on the other side of the woods.” He holds up a piece of paper, “I got the address. We gonna keep standing here talking nonsense or are we going to go do our jobs?”

They’re good kids, Dave knows, but some days he’d like to smack Emily Prentiss and Derek Morgan upside their big heads. What good are the two of them against one another? Aaron needs them. And he needs them to have clear, level heads. Not heads shoved up each other’s asses. 

Derek calls Penelope as they head up the old dirt road, all crammed into one SUV with Dave driving. It’s been a long time since any of them had to drive up a road in the state as this one is in. “What have you got baby girl?” It’s really just making them tenser but Garcia is always a lovely addition to the worst conversations. She’ll help. 

Garcia doesn’t answer right away, she’s not even sure she should. 

“Baby girl?”

She pulls in a shaky breath, “he’s going to be…” Tears gather in her eyes, she feels like she’s betraying Hotch. And she can’t stand it. Angry is the word that comes to mind but Hotch is never angry at them. He’s angry with things. Even when he is angry with them, he doesn’t take it out on them. But this… This might… “So I was looking at that the, ugh, that address Agent Rossi sent?” There’s a pause, dramatic and full of Garcia having no idea what the hell to do now. He’s going to be so upset with her and she can’t stand that thought. But they need to find him alive. Emotions are a symptom of life and he has to be alive to be upset with her. So she has to tell them. “It was owned by a Robert… Hotchner.” She clears her throat, “coincidentally… the same Robert Hotchner who, uhm, signed our Hotch’s birth certificate?”

The SUV is painfully silent. Emily gives the only reaction, she turns right to Dave. “His dad?” Hotch’s dad has been dead for as long as she’s known him – at twenty-something, scrawny and weighed down by the gun on his hip playing security around her mother’s house. She doesn’t even know that man. “So we’re going to his house?”

“Oh,” Garcia says, “my sweet raven-haired beauty you’re going to his childhood home. Where he grew up, where our Hotch started.” There is only such a tiny, itty-bitty little piece of her that is jealous. The rest is as scared as they are. 

JJ clears her throat but says nothing, just stares hard at her hands. “I grew up a few miles from here. On the other side of those woods.” Hotch hadn’t lied. Of course, he wouldn’t, she shakes the thought away. Hotch is an enigma, a thousand-piece puzzle missing pieces but never the same pieces. Each time you open the box it’s a different piece that’s missing. Making it impossible to complete the damn thing. 

“Can I–” Reid gets to the front steps and feels like he’s going to throw up. “Can I stay out here?” He’s not cut out for this job, not entirely. He’s a genius, they need him, but this part he’s no good at. That’s why he stays in the rooms with the maps. He spends all day doing math and creating a geographical profile. He’d be more use, even now, to sit out here and mess with his maps. Not in there. Not when they all know… No one says anything, they wouldn’t dare, but they have a good idea about the severity of what happened to Hotch in that house. 

Derek and Dave speak over one another – of course and no, we need you inside. 

Derek wins. “You have your map on you?”

Reid nods, face flushed. He doesn’t want to go inside and he doesn’t want Dave and Derek fighting about it either. He reaches a trembling hand behind him and pulls it out. “Yeah.”

Derek nods, “figure those woods for me? We gotta see how far he could have gone.”

“Okay.”

It’s probably better Reid didn’t come in, anyway, but at least JJ would have had some more company. She steps back because she knows Hotch very well but not like Derek, Dave, or Emily. He’s trusted the three of them with much more than he’s ever given her. So she just stands there in the doorway, horror gripping her chest tight and painful, as a cold chill runs up her spine. 

The worst part is that it almost looks like a normal house. 

She can imagine Hotch kicking his shoes off at the door, a habit he’s carried into adulthood. Kicking a ball around the front yard and riding his bike in the driveway. Children have lived here and that’s… that’s horrifying. 

“Can’t imagine anyone living here,” Dave mumbles, shaking his head as he steps to the foot of the stairs. The banister has been nearly ripped from the walls at the top and Dave moves his eyes away. The chill of this house, not just this room, makes the skin on his arms ache with shivers. No love has ever seen the inside of these walls. 

Emily steps behind him and looks up the stairs. “I don’t want to go up there,” she confesses, shaking her head at the sight above. She can’t imagine what they’ll find. What would her childhood home reveal about the interworkings of her mind? It certainly wouldn’t be fair. She’s torn, gripped by relief that it’s Hotch and not her being psychoanalyzed and still horrified they have to do this at all. To find Abel. To save Hotch. 

“God this is–” JJ covers her hand with her mouth, standing in shock in the doorway of the room Derek takes them to. He’d only been in the house once, the year their mother died. He was Sean’s friend but he came down with Aaron as a helping hand. The three of them trying to get as much crap out as possible. They never went inside Aaron’s room. He did, he stepped in there once. Came back out pale as a ghost, blamed it on the heat, and spent an hour outside on the porch with a cold rag and a bucket to throw up in. His grip was too weak after that, he was shaking too hard to stand strong. So he took over folding up his mother’s clothes for donation. Derek never bothered to ask what really spooked him that bad. 

It’s… a normal room. Ramsaked by time and likely Abel but bland. 

He’s always been a little boring, God love him.

Derek steps into the room, frowning at the heavy dust clinging to everything. There’s a plain blue rug on the middle of the floor, about the only color or decoration in the room. Sean’s room had posters, Aaron’s walls are flat, no tacks were ever poked in the walls. 

“Guess he’s always liked blue,” Emily mumbles, hesitantly looking around. Together, Derek and Emily say, “same color as his comforter at home.” They both immediately turn to each other, frowning in tight disgust at the train of thought they both assume. Derek knows Emily spent a lot of time with Hotch while he was recovering. He’d seen them sleeping together in Hotch’s bed many times. Just as Emily knows Derek returned Hotch home many times sore and limping from “runs”. They had both assumed the other was fucking the boss. They weren’t going to say anything, to him or each other. It was keeping Hotch alive, that was all they wanted. 

They’re both wrong but neither clarifies. 

Emily touches the furthest wall from the door and runs her finger over raised marks scratched into the wall. Tally marks. Endless tally marks. He was keeping track of something, she wants to know what. 

“I hate you,” Dave reads out, stepping back to allow the others to see what he’s found. The words aren’t scratched, they’re engraved. Each one is meant. “Who do you think that’s to?” It’s entirely rhetorical and Emily hates him just a little bit for asking. 

Derek pulls out his flashlight, eager to turn his attention elsewhere. Something about being in this room, thinking about Hotch like this is making him nauseous. And it only gets worse as he looks into Hotch’s closet. There’s nearly nothing inside, one moth-eaten black t-shirt barely hanging onto its hanger and a blanket folded up in the upper corner. Which makes sense. Sean told him Hotch packed for college in one night, was gone without saying goodbye. But it’s what he finds in the dark corner that makes him feel even sicker. “Here,” he calls out, stepping aside so Dave can see where he’s aimed his flashlight. 

There’s a rusted razor stuck to the ground, Derek can’t move his eyes from it. It’s stuck to the floor, by a hardened, immobile substance. It’s not hard to guess which substance. Blood, Derek clears his throat, swallowing around the way his body attempts to rebel and heave his meager breakfast up. There’s gauze, what once was, at least. A toppled-over first-aid kid tossed beside it. Clearly knocked over. Never picked back up. 

Emily just stares at it. Not a thought in her head. Just blank. 

Dave grunts and turns away from it. Is it really that surprising? Aaron is a complicated man. Poor attachment style and while self-harm might not be on the table in any traditional sense nowadays, he lived out of an unpacked boxed and slept on a couch for over a year after his divorce. He’s carried these tendencies with him. They reared their ugly heads not that long ago.

Something about the way Derek just keeps staring at it that enrages Emily. It’s not surprising. She wants him to stop treating it like it is. As if this is news to them, like any of this is going to change how they view Hotch. They know he was abused and maybe self-harm is a little predictable but it’s not startling. Hotch is dark. This is the man that strips his vest to go into hostage situations. And then she remembers, suddenly, how Derek treated Hotch during everything with Foyet. “You don’t think we’re going to find him,” she says. Derek just doesn’t think he’ll be alive. 

He says as much, “he’s had a hard year.” His flashlight still aimed at the corner. In one year he’s hardly recovered from the damage Foyet did to him. He’s taken, what, one day off in all that time? He’s not stripping his vest off and running into dangerous places like he was but there hasn’t been that much of an improvement. He wouldn’t qualify the situation as resolved. 

“He’ll come back,” Emily seethes. Their eyes meet, Derek’s dulled by sadness and Emily’s bright with new hot anger.

Derek shakes his head, “you don’t know that.” He shrugs, finally looking away from the rusty razor and stepping away. Jack almost wasn’t enough a few months ago. What about now? Who says this isn’t too much? Everyone has their breaking point. “You can’t know that.” 

[x.]

Hotch doesn’t remember falling. 

It was just starting to drizzle. The muffled sounds drew his attention to trace the sounds of the raindrops hitting the leaves of the trees around him. Small drops pitter and patter as fat drops of rain made their way through the maze of leaves above his head. The humidity had grown, thickening until it could be felt seemingly pressing against him. The air like the packed streets of New York, knocking him this way and that until it felt nearly claustrophobic just to breathe.

It hadn’t taken long for the clouds to consume the light, his ability to see slowly being taken. He could hear Abel following him, quick, angry footsteps. Aaron! Follows him around every turn. Agent Hotchner! Cracks through the woods. 

The rain started falling harder, hitting the leaves loudly and drowning out the shouts. Until the drops tore holes through the leaves, hitting too quickly, too heavily to remain captured by the many overlapping branches.

Somewhere, he falls. 

The rain hits his face, enough to encourage him to shut his aching eyes again. Sleep is much safer. And he’s slept so little lately, it’s hard to fight the impulse now. So he doesn’t.

His head hurts so bad, like someone’s palms are on his temples and they’re pressing their whole weight into his skull. Trying to push his head down into the dirt below him. It makes thinking impossible. His body feels disconnected from him, like a foggy extension he doesn’t know how to reach. He’s fairly certain all parts of him can still be accounted for. His left foot throbs – he stepped on something that felt like it snapped when he pressed his weight down. Whatever it is, it’s splintered up into his foot. It aches, and pulses with each pounding beat of his heart. 

And then there’s this business with his side. 

He can’t really remember why or where it would have happened. There are these little holes just torn right into his skin. They’re bleeding like crazy and that doesn’t make thinking or moving any easier. But that’s okay. 

He turns his head, angles his cheek up towards the sky, and lets the rain pelt the side of his head. 

He’s hungry. 

[x.]

His food sits on the table.

Dave ordered him a sub out of reflex and it’s just sitting there. Mocking them. Insulting them. 

Derek can’t stop staring at it. 

They found Abel Boseman’s body. His skull was cracked by a rock, he was dead long before they got to him. 

Which means going to that house was basically pointless. All they figured out anyway was that Abel planned to return and Hotch would end up somewhere but not here. It made no sense for him to go back to that house, even as it began to rain. Sean had told Derek once Aaron spent every day of his childhood out there, playing around in the woods. And now Abel is dead and still, no one knows where Hotch is. 

“Do you really think…” Reid stays focused on the board. If he keeps re-angling, keeps crunching numbers then none of this is real. None of this is happening. “Do you really think he did it?” But Abel Boseman’s photo goes up and it’s hard to push what’s happening to the side. “That Hotch…” 

They found blood and Abel Boseman’s body – enough was Hotch’s to not ease their concern about him but too much of it was Abel’s too. There was a struggle. It wasn’t much of a question, Hotch killed Abel. Maybe he didn’t mean to but he did. And that made two men dead by nothing more than Hotch’s hand in less than a year.

Derek rubs at his temples, unable to stifle his frustration. “Obviously, he did.” Reid immediately turns away from the heat in Derek’s gaze, the hatred in his voice.

They found Abel a mile away from where they found Hotch’s badge, gun, and phone dumped. Only ten yards from Hotch’s left shoe – hooked on a log. It was clear Abel had dragged Hotch through the woods on the tarp, the bottom shredded and the blue tarp stained by Hotch’s blood. An altercation occurred. Abel did not survive and Hotch… Well, it’s hard to tell. They have dogs out there, searching. That’s where Derek and Reid should be. Looking. 

But Derek is benched for the time being. 

The Sheriff made a comment as they zipped the body bag containing Abel Boseman. Derek hadn’t even heard the whole thing but he understood the message – Aaron Hotchner is a nobody and no badge could ever make him a somebody. And it made him snap. He’d just spent the day searching through that abandoned house. Thinking about that fucking razor. About Foyet. About Haley and Jack and that it was his badge that started everything. He couldn’t take it. He shouldn’t have been in the field anyway. 

The Sheriff fucked off. 

Derek was sent back to the station. 

“The hounds picked up a scent,” Emily swings into the room, running in to grab more batteries for their flashlights and umbrellas. “They think they’re close. Dave wants everyone out there.” 

[x.]

JJ hates the woods.

She hates the south.

The gravestones where people lay buried with names and dates of birth and death that no one ever seems to know. Once, someone will mumble, once the dates and name could be read. Dragging a finger across the uneven stone will allow that much to become obvious. No one ever knows the people who lay at rest here but standing near, stopping to stare will settle the most discomforting feeling in the pit of your stomach. Whatever the people do here you know, as the hairs on your neck raise and you shiver like there are cold fingers playing your spine like the keys of a piano, no one rests.

The woods are like that too. The eyes that follow you into the trees never blink, they are always watching. 

Ahead of her, stomping through the underbrush with unsettled anger of a man having lost his temper multiple times today, Morgan pays JJ only as much attention as he has to. Enough to shout above the rain when he finds a particularly slick area of mud or to avoid thistles reaching out to snag against the skin. 

Morgan isn’t taking it very well. He stomps and breaks the eerie calm of the woods with each foot he puts down – breaking twigs or rustling plants. 

The people JJ had expected a riot out of took the news without blinking. Dave had nodded gravely with understanding, getting this glint in his eyes that read plainly he knew their likelihood of catching this unsub and finding Hotch alive seemed grim. Emily had taken a deep breath in and just shook her head, declared it bound to happen with a dismissive shrug. “It’s better that it’s him,” Emily promised her. “He knows the woods and… and he’s tough. He’ll come back.” But she was already considering how long it would take before their resources were cut. Before Strauss called and declared they would have to come home. Irrational but valid. What if Abel cracked his skull too? What if they never even find his body out there?

They’ve never left anyone behind before. 

“Morgan?”

JJ comes up over a bit of a hill, mostly just rocks and roots twisted and covered in leaves. She’d been following Morgan, he’d slowed his place to allow her to get a little closer. But he was right here. 

“Derek!”

Someone screams. The sound erupts from the ground, from through the trees or from under her feet. From behind her, she thinks but she can’t find a source. She can’t reason where it could have originated. Softer this time, her courage to scream into the darkness stolen from her throat. “Derek?” It’s raining, the water soaking through her hair and down into her eyes. She’s drenched. Lost. Laughter bursts out of her chest, tumbling up out of her chest in thick, tense bursts. Wherever Hotch is, chances are she’s going to end up in the same place. So at least there’s that, right? Maybe he’s alive but it’s unlikely he’ll be as happy to see her as she will be to see him. 

“JJ?”

She turns around, whips around so fast the world is just a pitch of orange blur. Nothing. There’s no one. Just fire and mud.Her fingers stiffly curling over her radio but she’s not certain she’s actually turned the thing on. “This is – This is Jennifer J–” her radio isn’t working. The static doesn’t sound out. Depressing the button does nothing. 

“Jennifer?”

She turns around, eyes searching along the trees to find absolutely nothing. Decaying leaves. Fallen tree branches. “Hotch.” He’s leaning against the trunk of one of the larger trees, holding himself up with the tight grip his fingers have on the dark bark. He’s soaked clean through, hair flat against his forehead, and clothes clinging to his skin. “You’re–” she steps towards him, eyes finally catching the smaller details of his stature. Rain isn’t what’s soaking his clothing through. “Oh my God.”

“Are you real?” he rasps.

There’s blood down the side of his face, coming from behind his ear somewhere. Or maybe out of his ear… 

JJ nods, “Yeah. Yeah,  of course.”

He squints, adamant. It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not. “Can you…” he starts to tip forward and he hears the crunch of her footstep, the step she tries to make towards him. He stumbles back, hitting a tree hard. “No! No! Stop, stop, please.” He holds up a hand, holding her back. “Please,” he repeats. He holds his hand up as he breathes, focusing so hard on pulling air into his lungs. He has to think about it. Otherwise, he’ll forget to. “Can you…” he’s not even sure how to say what he means. “I don’t know what’s real.”

JJ just wanted to help him. He’d started to fall and he doesn’t look like he can really handle falling again. “Okay, okay, I can prove I’m real.” She smiles, “I know… Uhm, I know you like oatmeal raisin cookies? And – And blueberry muffins. You take your coffee black but only when someone else makes it for you. If you make it for yourself you like two creams and a sugar.” She’s not sure that’s enough but it’s what she thinks of first. 

He nods, face pinching up as starts to cry. Tears fall down his face. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah.” He tries to stay standing up, “thank, God. I'm gonna – I think I'm gonna–"

JJ watches his eyes roll back, his entire body going limp as he falls to the side. “Hotch!”

#criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #emily prentiss #derek morgan #spencer reid #david rossi #jennifer jareau #jack hotchner #penelope garcia #oh sinnerman

[drinkthemlock]

NIGHT AT THE TAVERN

II - SOLFIERI

Hi! I decided I’d post the translations here- since the story is public domain, and I’ve got no one else to share it with. Chapter one (which i’m not done with presently) presents the characters, chapter 2 begins their gothic horror stories. This is Solfieri’s.

Text by Álvares de Azevedo, translation my own.

Trigger warning for: necrophilia, rape and mentions of being buried alive.

~

The glasses fell empty atop the table.

“Now listen to me, gentlemen! Between one cheer and one puff of smoke, when heads burn and elbows extend atop the wine-stained tablecloth, like the arms of the butcher in the market drip, what befits us is a gory story, one of those fantastical tales— like Hoffmann delirious at the golden gleam of Johannesburg!”

“A frightening story, no, Archibald?” said a pale man that raised his yellowed head at this proclamation. “Very well, I’ll tell you a story. But about this one, you might tremble much, you might sweat cold streams of terror from your foreheads. It is not a tale, but a memory from the past.”

“Solfieri! Solfieri! There goes you with your dreams!

“Tell us!”

Solfieri spoke; the others were silent.

II

SOLFIERI

“Yet one kiss on your pale clay. And those lips once so warm- My heart! My heart!”

BYRON - “Cain”

You know it. Rome is the city of fanaticism and doom; in the priest’s alcove sleeps the concubine, above the bed of the whore hangs the livid crucifix. It is a refinement that mixes sacrilege to the convulsion of love, the lewd kiss with the intoxication of faith!

It was in Rome. A moonlit night that passed beautifully through that warm sky like it does in summer, the freshness of the water exhaled like a sigh from the banks of the Tiber. The night was beautiful. I strolled alone through the … bridge. The lights went off one by one in the palaces, the streets became solitary, and the sleepy moon hid in the bosom of the clouds. The shadow of a woman appeared in a lone and dark window. It was a white form— that woman’s face was pale like a statue’s in the moonlight. Down her face, like drops from a fallen chalice, rolled streaks of tears.

I leaned against the edge of a palace. The vision disappeared in the dark of the window and from there a song unfurled. It wasn’t just a melodious voice: there was in that singing something like a frenetic cry, like the moaning of insanity; that voice was somber like the night wind at the cemetery’s singing the swan song of the flowers withered with death.

After that the singing ceased. The woman appeared at the door. She seemed to spy if there was someone in the street. She saw nobody— then went out. I followed her.

The night heightened even more: the moon had disappeared from the sky, and rain fell in heavy drops; only I felt roll down my face thick tears of water, like under the weeping of an orphan over a grave…

We walked for a long time through the labyrinthine streets; she stopped finally. We were in a field.

Here and there were crosses that rose over the tall grass. She knelt. She looked like she was sobbing; around her flew the birds of the night.

I don’t know if I fell asleep, only know that when I woke up I found myself alone in the cemetery. But the pale creature was not an illusion— the heathers, the hemlocks of the holy ground were broken around a cross.

The cold of the night, the night slept under the rain, had caused me a fever. In my delirium I thought again and again about the fairness of that woman, moaned those sobs and all those reveries were lost in that gentle singing…

An year later I came back to Rome. The kisses of women did nothing to satisfy me: in the sleep of satiety that vision came to me.

One night, after an orgy, I left asleep in her bed the contessa Barbara. I gave one last look at that naked and asleep form with fever in her cheeks and lewdness in her wet lips, moaning still in her dreams like in the voluptuous agony of love. I left, I don’t know if the night was light or dark, I only know that my head hurt with intoxication. The glasses had been left empty on the table; from the lips of that creature I had drank until the last drop the wine of delight.

When I took hold of myself I was in a dark place: the stars pierced with their rays the windowpanes of a church. The light of four tapers hit a half-open casket. I opened it: it was a girl’s. The white from the shroud, the wreath of death on her brow, that gaze livid and foggy, the stare of her half-closed eyes… It was a corpse! And those features reminded me of a lost idea— was it the angel from the cemetery? I closed the church’s door, that, no matter why, I had found open. I took the corpse in my arms out the casket. It was as heavy as lead.

You know the story of headless Mary Stuart and the executioner, “of the headless corpse and the heartless man”, like tells Brantôme? It was a singular idea I had. I held her in my lap. I pressed a thousand kisses to her lips. She was beautiful like this; I ripped her shroud and pulled off her veil like a groom undresses his bride. She was a most pure form… My dreams had never evoked such a perfect statue. She was truly a statue; so fair she was. The light of the torches gave her that amber pallor that illuminates ancient marbles. The sex was passionate— I reaped wholly that wake. That heat in my chest, the fever in my lips, the convulsion of my love, the pale damsel seemed to come to life. Suddenly she opened her closed eyes. Sombre light illuminated them like a star among the haze — she held me in her arms, a sigh curled her blueish lips. It wasn’t death, she’d fainted. Although in the hold of those arms there was something horrible. The stone bed in which I had spent an hour intoxicated on made me cold. I could painstakingly release myself from that embrace... In that instant she woke…

Have you never heard of catalepsy? It is a horrible nightmare in which one wakes and sees that has been walled up in a tomb; cold slumber in which you feel your members numb, and your face washed with others’ tears without being able to reveal you’re alive! The girl revived little by little. After waking, she fainted.

I covered myself in the cloak and took her in my arms covered in her shroud like a child. Approaching the door I ran into a body; I looked down— it was some gravedigger of the church’s cemetery that there slept drunk, having forgotten to close the door. I left.

While crossing the square I met a patrol.

“What do you have there?”

The night was so high— maybe they thought me a thief.

“It’s my wife, passed out.”

“A woman! But with these long white clothes? Are you by any chance a grave robber?“

One guard approached. Touched her temple— she was cold.

“It’s a corpse.”

I approached her lips with mine. I felt a warm breath— she still lived.

“See,” said I.

The guard approached her face; his coarse lips brushed with the girl’s. If I heard the smack of a kiss… The dagger was ready in my cold hands.

“Good night, lad. You may go,” he said.

I walked away— I was tired. It was hard carrying my burden; and I felt the girl would wake. Fearing someone would hear her scream and come help, I quickened my step.

When I crossed the door she woke. The first sound that left her mouth was a fearful scream…

I had barely closed the door, someone knocked on it. It was a bunch of libertines, my comrades that returned from the orgy. They told me to open it.

I locked the girl in my room, then opened.

Half an hour later I left them in the living room still drinking. The confusion of intoxication made them not notice my absence.

When I entered the girl’s room I saw she had risen. She laughed a laugh troubled like insanity, and cold as a sword’s blade. I overflowed with pain hearing her like that.

Two days and two nights she carried on with that fever… There was nothing to do to free her of that delirium, nor the laughter of phrenitis. She died after two nights and two days of delirium.

I left at night— I went to speak with a statuary that worked perfectly with wax— and commissioned a statue of that virgin.

When the sculptor left, I raised the marble slabs of my room, and with my hands there I dug a grave. Then I took her in my arms one last time, pressed her to my chest silent and cold, kissed her and covered her asleep in eternal slumber. Enclosed her in her grave and placed my bed above it.

For a year— night by night— I slept over the slabs that covered her. One day the statuary brought me his work. Paid for it and paid for his discretion…

“And who was that woman, Solfieri?”

“Who was it? Her name?”

“Who cares about one word when feeling that the wine burns your lips enough? Who asks the name of a whore with whom one slept and felt die to one’s kisses, when it isn’t in him to write her name on the board?”

Solfieri filled a glass and drank it. He was about to rise from the table when one of his comrades grabbed him by the arm.

“Solfieri, is this all not just a tale?”

“By hell it isn’t! By my father who was a count and a criminal, by my mother who was the beautiful Messalina of the streets— by doom it isn’t! Ever since I sealed that woman with my own feet in her grave of dirt, I swear— I kept as an amulet the dead girl’s wreath. Here it is!”

He opened his shirt, and there at his neck they saw a wreath of wizened flowers. “See it withered and dry like her skull!”

~

#noite na taverna #this took me two days…… god #solfieri #álvares de azevedo #brazilian literature #noite na taverna translation

[ruinationz]

Guhhh more writing from flippy

Desc from ao3:

(caine voice) cold hands are often a sign that your body is trying to maintain its regular body temperature always having cold hands, however, could mean there's a problem with your blood flow or th

(or, pomni has a bad dream. caine wants to be there for her, even if none of them understand why.)

(it's ya girl back at it again with theory lore lol this is kinda an afterstory of this art i did)

(one of the shorter ones i've done)

(would it count as a request if someone requested the idea after i had the draft?)

actual fic under the cut

That...bizarre ringmaster of the digital circus had discovered the concept of sleep.

So naturally, he had offered to everyone the opportunity to do so after the show. (Which was a collective relief, considering the zany things he had put them all through prior.)

With that, everyone happily obliged to the idea, going their separate ways for the night.

Of course...with sleep, comes dreaming.

And with dreams, come nightmares.

And with nightmares, comes Pomni shooting up in her bed in a cold sweat, gripping onto her black nightgown as she opened her mouth in a silent scream.

...

How pathetic.

"MY DEAR? WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT IS THE MATTER?"

Pomni sharply turned her head with widened eyes to find Caine standing by her bedside.

"AH...I-I'M SORRY IF I SURPRISED YOU, MY DEAR....I SIMPLY JUST WISHED TO CHECK ON MY PERFORMERS. " He said sheepishly, messing with his hands as he looked away for a second and then back to her.

"ARE YOU...ARE YOU ALRIGHT....?"

...

It took her a while to finally calm herself down to the point where she could speak to him properly.

"...I had...a-a bad dream."

Caine tilted his head to the side in curiosity, almost like a dog of some sorts. "A BADDREAM?"

She nodded. "Y-Yeah..."

"WELL...WOULD IT BE HELPFUL IF WE...TALKED ABOUT THAT DREAM...?"

Pomni stared down at the sheets of her bed, then motioned to an empty spot nearby her. "C...Could you...sit down? I-It would make it easier to talk..."

The ringmaster obliged, the weight of the bed shifting ever so slightly as he settled himself down next to her. "...GO AHEAD WHEN YOU ARE READY, MY ASSISTANT."

...

It fell into silence as she made an attempt to find the words to convey how she was feeling.

"...I-It's not like it's...new, you know..."

She stared up at the wall. "...In fact...i-it's one of the first thoughts I've had since I've been here. M-Maybe..." She paused for a moment, before continuing. "...Maybe it w-wasn't a dream at all..."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?"

...

"...I..."

Pomni found herself unable to respond. "I..I-I don't...know."

She gave a sigh and put her head in her hands.

"I-I'm stabbing myself, and then all of a sudden, it's me with the kn-knife. But...why? Wh-Why does it have to happen to m-me specifically...? An-And why is it so f-familiar...??"

...

I need help, don't I?

"...OH...MY DEAR, I..."

She felt Caine slowly, yet gently, put a hand on her shoulder. "I MAY NOT...UNDERSTAND FULLY WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, BUT...I WISH TO BE HERE FOR YOU."

"B-But why...?"

Pomni looked back up at him. "I-I'm scared. I'm scared that y-you'll think I'm insane for all of this..."

"NOW, WHY WOULD I THINK THAT, MY DEAR?"

...

"...I don't know. I d-don't know, I-I just don't..."

She looked back away from him. "I-I'm sorry...I must've been a b-bother by talking about th-this...I'm s-sorry..."

...

As it fell back into silence, the ringmaster carefully pulled her into an embrace.

"...PLEASE, DON'T APOLOGIZE, MY DEAR. YOU HAVE NOT BURDENED ME. YOU...YOU NEVER WILL." He reassured, using his thumb to wipe away the tears that began to form in her eyes. "NO MATTER WHAT, I WILL ALWAYS TRY TO BE HERE FOR YOU."

It was a strange, electric warmth, one that was unnatural...yet comforting. She couldn't help but grow drowsy as she sunk into it.

"...Thank you, Caine."

A hand was placed on Pomni's head as she drifted back to sleep.

"OF COURSE, MY DEAR."

#the amazing digital circus #tadc #pomni #caine #gooseworx #flippy.txt