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#I'm joking about the unforgivable thing
cinnamon-phrog · 20 days
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A mutual reblogged a pr*ship post and their dni is now neutral. Unfallowed. Bolcked.
#see if i joke i don't CHOKE. on my tears. because this just keeps happening#i'm so scared to interact with mutuals for this exact reason#most i've made have either left me. became toxic over minor differences or become a degenerate.#which is sad because i really enjoyed this friend and all those friends before they or i cut ties#but this kind of shit is unforgivable to me. i've had bad experiences with a friend turning out to be a pr*shipper#everyone flocked to me to fix their traumas but i had talked to that person often. it hurt a lot. they harassed people who harassed them#i was only 15. and i was threatened but what the hell is a sheltered kid SUPPOSED to do back. i wasn't taught shit#people in their fucking 20's were trauma dumping to me in dms and sadly still go to me when they catch wind of this person-#'i need support' you need to get offline. please. just block and ignore. i'm tired.#i should not have had to be babysitting adults and older teens when i didn't know what half those words were at the time.#months ago i did something stupid when i was at my limit and mirrored the pettiness i saw. i was told i would drive someone to suicide.#over saying the person was a bit mean and bringing up some posts i thought they made#i did apologise when i got it wrong. but got threatened with the person possibly killing themselves in my inbox.#this person and the pr*ship person were famously at eachothers' throats#i do not stand by the pr*ship persons' actions. their opinions on the other person were honestly right though. the only thing i agree with.#once again i complain about proshits and gatekeeps. the two are almost as bad as eachother to me#or at least two awful sides that have affected me and my ability to make friends online.#so that's what this remined me of.
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yellowocaballero · 10 months
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Miguel is Fine, Actually (Being Spider-Man's Just Toxic As Hell)
Before I watched ATSV I said that I would defend my man Miguel O'Hara's actions no matter what, because he's always valid and I support women's wrongs. I was joking, and I did not actually expect to start defending him on Tumblr.edu. But I'm seeing a lot of commentary that's super reductive, so I do want to bring up another perspective on his character.
Miguel wasn't acting against the spirit of Spider-Man, or what being Spider-Man means. Miguel isn't meant to represent the antithesis of Spider-Man. Miles is the antithesis of Spider-Man. Miguel represents Spider-Man taken to its extreme.
Think about Miguel's actions from his perspective. If you were a hero who genuinely, legitimately, 100%, no doubt about it, believed that somebody is going to make a selfish decision that will destroy an entire universe and put the entire multiverse at severe risk - if you had an over-burdened sense of responsibility and believed in doing the right thing no matter what - you would also chase down the kid and put him in baby jail to try and prevent it. He believed that he was saving the multiverse, and that Miles was putting it in danger for selfish reasons. Which is completely unforgivable to him, because selfishness is what he hates the most. And then he goes completely out of pocket and starts beefing with a 15yo lmfaooo he's such a dick.
But why did Miguel believe that? Why did he believe that Miles choosing himself and his own happiness over the well-being of others was the worst possible thing? Why did he believe that tragedy was inevitable in their lives, and that without tragedy Spider-Man can't exist?
Because he's Spider-Man.
Peter Parker was once a fifteen year old who chose his own happiness over protecting others. It was the greatest regret of his life and he never forgave himself. Peter's ethos means that he will put himself last every time, and that he will sacrifice anything and everything in his life - his relationships, his health, his future - to protecting and helping others. Peter dropped out of college because it interfered with Spider-Man. He destroyed his own future for Spider-Man. He ruins friendships and romantic relationships because Spider-Man was more important. If Peter ever tries to protect himself and his own happiness, then he's a bad person.
That is intrinsic to Peter. Peter would not be Peter without it. A story that is not defined by Peter's unhappiness is not a Spider-Man story. If Peter doesn't make himself miserable, then he's just not Peter.
That is a Spider-Man story: that not only is tragedy inevitable, that if you don't allow yourself to be defined by your tragedy then you're a bad person. If you don't suffer, then you're a bad person. If you ever put anything above Spider-Man, then you're killing Uncle Ben all over again. Miguel isn't the only one that believes this - as we saw, every Spider-Man buys into what he's saying. There's no Spider-Man without these beliefs.
Miguel attempted to find his own happiness, and he was punished in the most extreme way. He got Uncle Ben'd x10000. He tried to be happy, and it literally destroyed his entire universe. It's the Spider-narrative taken to the extreme. Of course Miguel believes all of this. Of course he believes this so firmly. He's Spider-Man. That's his story. And the one time Miguel tried to fight against that story, he was punished. And like any Spider-Man, he'll slavishly obey that narrative no matter the evil it creates and perpetuates. Because if he doesn't, the narrative will punish him. The narrative will always punish him. It's a Spider-Man story.
I don't think the universal constant between Spider-Mans, the thing that makes them Spider-Man, is tragedy. I think it's the fact that they never forgive themselves. And Miguel is what that viewpoint creates. He doesn't believe this things because he's an awful, mean person. He believes them because he's a hero. He's a good person who hates himself.
Across the Spider-verse isn't really a Spider-Man story. It's a story about Spider-Man stories. Miguel's right: if this was a Spider-Man story, then Miles acting selfishly really would destroy the universe. But Miles' story isn't interested in punishing him. It pushes back against Peter's narrative that unhappiness is inevitable and that you have to suffer to be a good person. It says that sometimes we do the right thing from love and not fear, and that Peter's way of thinking is ultimately super toxic and unhappy. ITSV was about Miles deciding that he didn't need to be Peter Parker, that all he needed to be was Miles, and ATSV is about how being Peter Parker isn't such a good thing. Miguel shows that. Whatever toxic and unhealthy beliefs he holds - they're the exact same beliefs that any Spider-Man holds. He's a dick, but I don't think he's any more awful a person than Peter is.
TL;DR: Miguel isn't a bad person, he just has Spider-Man brainrot.
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American education has all the downsides of standardization, none of the upsides
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Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.
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We moved to America in 2015, in time for my kid to start third grade. Now she's a year away from graduating high school (!) and I've had a front-row seat for the US K-12 system in a district rated as one of the best in the country. There were ups and downs, but high school has been a monster.
We're a decade and a half into the "common core" experiment in educational standardization. The majority of the country has now signed up to a standardized and rigid curriculum that treats overworked teachers as untrustworthy slackers who need to be disciplined by measuring their output through standard lessons and evaluations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core
This system is rigid enough, but it gets even worse at the secondary level, especially when combined with the Advanced Placement (AP) courses, which adds another layer of inflexible benchmarks to the highest-stakes, most anxiety-provoking classes in the system:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Placement
It is a system singularly lacking in grace. Ironically, this unforgiving system was sold as a way of correcting the injustice at the heart of the US public education system, which funds schools based on local taxation. That means that rich neighborhoods have better funded schools. Rather than equalizing public educational funding, the standardizers promised to ensure the quality of instruction at the worst-funded schools by measuring the educational outcomes with standard tools.
But the joke's on the middle-class families who backed standardized instruction over standardized funding. Their own kids need slack as much as anyone's, and a system that promises to put the nation's kids through the same benchmarks on the same timetable is bad for everyone:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/28/give-me-slack-2/
Undoing this is above my pay-grade. I've already got more causes to crusade on than I have time for. But there is a piece of tantalyzingly low-hanging fruit that is dangling right there, and even though I'm not gonna pick it, I can't get it out of my head, so I figured I'd write about it and hope I can lazyweb it into existence.
The thing is, there's a reason that standardization takes hold in so many domains. Agreeing on a common standard enables collaboration by many entities without any need for explicit agreements or coordination. The existence of the ANSI/SAE J563 standard automobile auxiliary power outlet (AKA "car cigarette lighter") didn't just allow many manufacturers to make replacement lighter plugs. The existence of a standardized receptacle delivering standardized voltage to standardized contacts let all kinds of gadgets be designed to fit in that socket.
Standards crystallize the space of all possible ways of solving a problem into a range of solutions. This inevitably has a downside, because the standardized range might not be optimal for all applications. Think of the EU's requirement for USB-C charger tips on all devices. There's a lot of reasons that manufacturers prefer different charger tips for different gadgets. Some of those reasons are bad (gouging you on replacement chargers), but some are good (unique form-factor, specific smart-charging needs). USB-C is a very flexible standard (indeed, it's so flexible that some people complain that it's not a standard at all!) but there are some applications where the optimal solution is outside its parameters.
And still, I think that the standardization on USB-C is a force for good. I have drawers full of gadgets that need proprietary charger tips, and other drawers full of chargers with proprietary tips, and damned if I can make half of them match up. We've continued our pandemic lockdown tradition of my wife cutting my hair in the back yard, and just tracking the three different charger tips for the three clippers she uses is an ongoing source of frustration. I'd happily trade slightly sub-optimal charging for just being able to plug any of those clippers into the same cable I charge my headphones, phone, tablet and laptop on.
The standardization of American education has produced all the downsides of standardization – a rigid, often suboptimal, one-size-fits-all system – without the benefits. With teachers across America teaching in lockstep, often from the same set texts (especially in the AP courses), there's a massive opportunity for a commons to go with the common core.
For example, the AP English and History classes my kid takes use standard texts that are often centuries old and hard to puzzle out. I watched my kid struggle with texts for learning about "persuasive rhetoric" like 17th century pamphlets that inspired anti-indigenous pogroms with fictional accounts of "Indian atrocities."
It's good for American schoolkids to learn about the use of these blood libels to excuse genocide, but these pamphlets are a slog. Even with glossaries in the textbooks, it's a slow, word-by-word matter to parse these out. I can't imagine anyone learning a single thing about how speech persuades people just by reading that text.
But there's nothing in the standardized curriculum that prevents teachers from adding more texts to the unit. We live in an unfortunate golden age for persuasive texts that inspire terrible deeds – for example, kids could also read core Pizzagate texts and connect the guy who shot up the pizza parlor to the racists who formed a 17th century lynchmob.
But teachers are incredibly time-constrained. For one thing, at least a third of the AP classroom time seems to be taken up with detailed instructions for writing stilted, stylized "essays" for the AP tests (these are terrible writing, but they're easy to grade in a standardized way).
That's where standardization could actually deliver some benefits. If just one teacher could produce some supplemental materials and accompanying curriculum, the existence of standards means that every other teacher could use it. What's more, any adaptations that teachers make to that unit to make them suited to their kids would also work for the other teachers in the USA. And because the instruction is so rigidly standardized, all of these materials could be keyed to metadata that precisely identified the units they belonged to.
The closest thing we have to this are "marketplaces" where teachers can sell each other their supplementary materials. As far as I can tell, the only people making real money from these marketplaces are the grifters who built them and convinced teachers to paywall the instructional materials that could otherwise form a commons.
Like I said, I've got a completely overfull plate, but if I found myself at loose ends, trying to find a project to devote the rest of my life to, I'd be pitching funders on building a national, open access portal to build an educational commons.
It may be a lot to expect teachers to master the intricacies of peer-based co-production tools like Git, but there's already a system like this that K-8 teachers across the country have mastered: Scratch. Scratch is a graphic programming environment for kids, and starting with 2019's Scratch 3.0, the primary way to access it is via an in-browser version that's hosted at scratch.mit.edu.
Scratch's online version is basically a kid- (and teacher-)friendly version of Github. Find a project you like, make a copy in your own workspace, and then mod it to suit your own needs. The system keeps track of the lineage of different projects and makes it easy for Scratch users to find, adapt, and share their own projects. The wild popularity of this system tells us that this model for a managed digital commons for an educational audience is eminently achievable.
So when students are being asked to study the rhythm of text by counting the numbers of words in the sentences of important speeches, they could supplement that very boring exercise by listening to and analyzing contemporary election speeches, or rap lyrics, or viral influencer videos. Different teachers could fork these units to swap in locally appropriate comparitors – and so could students!
Students could be given extra credit for identifying additional materials that slot into existing curricular projects – Tiktok videos, new chart-topping songs, passages from hot YA novels. These, too, could go into the commons.
This would enlist students in developing and thinking critically about their curriculum, whereas today, these activities are often off-limits to students. For example, my kid's math teachers don't hand back their quizzes after they're graded. The teachers only have one set of quizzes per unit, and letting the kids hold onto them would leak an answer-key for the next batch of test-takers.
I can't imagine learning math this way. "You got three questions wrong but I won't let you see them" is no way to help a student focus on the right areas to improve their understanding.
But there's no reason that math teachers in a commons built around the (unfortunately) rigid procession of concepts and testing couldn't generate procedural quizzes, specified with a simple programming language. These tests could even be automatically graded, and produce classroom stats on which concepts the whole class is struggling with. Each quiz would be different, but cover the same ground.
When I help my kid with her homework, we often find disorganized and scattered elements of this system – a teacher might post extensive notes on teaching a specific unit. A publisher might produce a classroom guide that connects a book to specific parts of the common core. But these are scattered across the web, and they aren't keyed to the specific, standard components of common core and AP.
This is a standardized system that is all costs, no benefits. It has no "architecture of participation" that lets teachers, students, parents, practitioners and even commercial publishers collaborate to produce a commons that all may share and improve upon.
In an ideal world, we'd get rid of standardization in education, pay teachers well, give them the additional time they needed to prepare exciting and relevant curriculum, and fund all our schools based on need, not parents' income.
But in the meanwhile, we could be making lemonade of out lemons. If we're going to have standardization, we should at least have the collaboration standards enable.
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I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/16/flexibility-in-the-margins/#a-commons
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every love i've ever known has been drenched in blood; teach me how to unfurl these fists, show me where to put down this knife.
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ax72 x reader: the fireman feels like something special.
(warnings: blasphemous filth, unprotected penetrative sex (m on f), hair pulling, oral sex (f on m), biting (briefly, okay?), crying, dirty talk (tasteful but serious. i'm not kidding), just all my typical stuff (and all my usual ax72 stuff - so legs and limbs and size and the like). don't read if you're not 100% sure).
(a/n: my favorites! thank you for being patient with me. for your reading pleasure, may i present to you a ax72 fic in which he is a volunteer fireman and you are plagued with fear and self-doubt! i'm joking, but not really. i couldn't not write something for him after the insane start to the season he's had - penalty minutes leader darling deserves a treat. obviously none of the details make sense, none of the dialogue is realistic, there are way too many dramatic speeches and angsty confessions, but you guys know that at this point. to anyone who may relate to what this main character is going through, please know you are not alone. it is very easy to push good things away because they scare you. but to be scared is to care about something. follow your fear, stalk it, don't let up on it until it leads you to something lovely, something real. pretty please tell me what you think. i think jh86 may be next but i'm still storyboarding. for now, i'm sending you and your snakes every single bit of courage and love i've got. go canucks. until next time).
that first night was cold like an absent mother. cruel and unforgiving, unavoidable.
the cold was weathered, however, but the hushed laughter and bickering amongst your housemates as you all exited the front door, smoke alarms blaring, loud and relentless.
"do we actually have to evacuate if we know there's not a fire?" your roommate asked, covering her ears with her hands.
another housemate sighed. "maybe we wouldn't have to if you hadn't left your curling iron on for three fucking hours."
your roommate grimaced. "my bad, guys. this one is on me."
you couldn't help a laugh as you threw an arm around her shoulders. "we know, sweetness. live and learn."
someone groaned. "it's frigid out here, jesus."
you nodded in agreement. the alarm had begun to sound at just after two in the morning, meaning everyone in the house was dressed for bed, all thin sleep shorts and fleecy sweatshirts, no where near enough to combat the brisk air, which was already starting to make your teeth chatter.
"great. here comes the government," one of your friends said, eye roll evident in her voice as the sound of the siren began to overtake the tamer sound of the smoke alarm.
you and your roommate giggled at her comment as you huddled together. as a polysci major, she had an opinion on everything, including all facets of the public sector. for example, the fire department, who pulled up to the curb at that moment in their truck.
"who's going to do the talking?" your roommate whispered to you.
"you?" you proposed, raising a brow. "it's your iron, hm?"
she groaned, but nodded. "this should be good."
three firefighters hopped down from their massive rig, looking even more menacing in their heavy fireproof gear.
"hello, officers," your roommate began, stepping forward and away from you to speak. your shoulders shook in a laugh.
"they're not officers," you whispered to her.
"hello, gentlemen," she corrected. "i speak on behalf of our entire house when i say we appreciate your punctuality."
one of your housemates hung her head in her hands. another one groaned.
"i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say there is no real danger?" one of the firemen said, his tone steady.
your polysci friend nodded. "correct, sir. your services are no longer required."
the three men now stood just in front of you, allowing you to get a true look at them.
the one who had spoken was older, probably thirty five, shorter than his coworkers but obviously the chief. he continued to speak with your roommate about the situation as the rest of you watched on.
the next in line was taller, lankier, with a goofy face and a goofier presence. he appeared unsure of his limbs, how to keep them still.
when your gaze drifted to the third, however, your breath caught, that familiar but long-forgotten whirlwind in your stomach. your eyes drank him in greedily, the way a child gulps down a soda at a friend's house. so similar, someone in your mind whispered don't tell mom.
he was the tallest of the three, and the broadest, too, his chest a wide expanse, arms and legs practically tree-like in his canvas uniform. it was his face that really had you, though. he was beautiful in a way you had never seen before, in a surreal sort of way. the kind of face that saved you in a dream, that you tried to conjure when you woke up but never could.
sharp jaw, sharper nose, the kind of cheekbones you had seen before only in a museum. full, pink, upturned lips, downwards sloping eyes that made him appear drowsy, like the personification of a midday nap. cheeks made rosy by the cold. even under his helmet you could see his thick, dark hair, so soft-looking. that was it, you thought. he just looked so soft, even though he appeared to be made of stone.
his presence made you shiver, which was only deepened when you met his eyes, dark and clear, found them already looking at you.
something in your gaze made him smirk, made your stomach drop. you crossed your arms closer around yourself, suddenly insecure under his scrutiny.
you hated the not-knowing, wished you could see yourself from his eyes, from the outside, so that you may correct yourself, angle and present yourself in some better way.
but his eyes only sparked with danger, not disappointment. cold? he mouthed to you, so as not to interrupt the conversation. his mouth formed the words slowly, deliberately, deliciously.
yes, you thought, half stunned he was communicating with you, the cold is why i'm shivering. definitely not you. definitely not your eyes.
so you only nodded slowly, felt your eyes widen as he walked towards you, shrugging off his jacket.
you stood, frozen in place, as he held it out to you in one huge hand. he offered it to you, someone he didn't know, someone who he owed nothing to, someone from whom he knew he could possibly receive nothing in return. and yet he offered it to you, regardless.
he was so close to you, now, just a step away. you tilted your head up to look at him. "don't you need it?" you asked, willing any squeak out of your voice. surely he would realize his mistake soon, realize you weren't worth it.
his chest shook in a low laugh. "what i need is for you to not freeze," he said, his voice much deeper, rougher, than you could have imagined. "just take it, darling, yeah?"
something in your mind screamed what do you want? at him in a voice dreary with fear, raspy with experience and expectation. what's the catch?
had you met him before? surely he couldn't be this sweet to you upon just seeing you, upon not even knowing your name. had you lent him notes in one of your classes, maybe spotted him a drink at a bar? you searched for an explanation that never came.
but at that point you probably would have done anything he asked, which you knew was not good. which you knew was very, very dangerous.
which was bad, but true, so you shouldered his jacket on, found it almost oppressive in warmth. "thank you," you told him, little more then a whisper, letting your voice trail off like a question.
"arber," he finished for you.
"arber," you repeated, knowing as soon as the name died on your tongue your mouth would feel empty, would long to form the word again.
he didn't walk back to his former place, either, instead electing to stay just next to you. just close enough to make you feel almost faint. one of your housemates wolf-whistled. you imagined the image looked fairly comical, a massive oak tree of a fireman with an 80's mullet and mustache combo next to a university pre-dentistry junior in pajamas, swimming in his coat.
but you couldn't think too much about that as you gave him your name, tried to keep your eyes trained on his face. a tough task, considering the way his arms looked unobstructed by his jacket.
everything about him was distracting. your heart was racing. how were you going to be able to get back to sleep after this?
"well, ladies, i hope you've learned your lesson," the chief said, appearing to finish a speech you had missed entirely.
"sure have, officer," your roommate said stoically.
"not an officer, miss," he corrected. the shake in his head was telling, made your housemates snicker.
"apologies, sir," she finished, giving him a salute.
"sorry you guys had to come all the way out here," one of your other housemates said.
"no trouble at all," arber said, his first time speaking to everyone. he was looking only at you. melting you like snow in the morning.
"until next time," your roommate said with a little bow, turning to go back into the house, now silent.
"there won't be a next time, sweetness," you amended, forcing your gaze away from arber. she waved you off.
reluctantly, you made to shrug off arber's jacket, hand it back to him as the other two firemen got back into their truck, your housemates walking back inside, leaving just the two of you.
"sure you don't need it?" he asked, the roughness in his voice somehow gentle. his words coming out in exactly the shape of the hole in your chest.
you gave a light laugh. "think i'll survive the trek back," you said, referring to the several steps between you and the front door. "thanks again, arber."
"my pleasure, darling," he said, and your cheeks flushed at the term. this brutal cold, you thought, making my face pink.
his lips quirked in a way that made your stomach flip. a way that made you so suddenly sure he knew exactly what effect he had on you. exactly how little the cold had to do with it.
"well," you said, your hands laced behind you, your voice taking on a melodic sort of cadence. "i guess i'll see you around, hm?"
"hope so," he hummed, something amusing in his tone. something careful. "sweet dreams, darling."
"good night, arber," you answered, dazed and blushy. like saying goodnight to an old friend, to a middle school boyfriend, to someone who knew you too personally to be real.
but somehow, it was saying goodbye to someone whom you had known for only moments.
the truck pulled away, you shut the front door behind you.
"should i just leave my iron on 24/7?" your roommate asked immediately, not giving you a moment to catch your breath. "maybe throw some rocks in the microwave?"
you rolled your eyes at her. "oh, please," you said.
"don't worry," she finished, an impish smile on her pretty, round face. "i'll wait until you're in the shower, next time."
you playfully slapped her arm as you made your way back into your room, not bothering to stifle both of your giggles.
you went to sleep that night with mirages of dark brown eyes and corded shoulders in your head. you swore you could smell smoke, could feel flame, could sense danger.
the feeling stayed with you, settled like ash in your bones. a heat, a skepticism, a want, a worry. you halfway hoped you would never see him again, because when had one person ever had such an effect on you? when had you let them?
you halfway hoped you would never see him again, but as soon as you did see him again, you knew that hope had been a complete and utter lie.
it was only a few days later, in the middle of your serving shift at the pub close to campus. only a wednesday, so nothing too busy, just a regular shift. your regular black uniform, long braid down your back with black ribbon, everything the same as always.
and then he was in a booth, practically taking up the whole bench, his deep laugh at something one of his friends had said making you dizzy.
surely it's not him, you thought as you took out your guest check pad, it couldn't be him. how could you have gone twenty one years without seeing him once, then see him twice in a week?
what trickster god was toying with you, now?
and then you were standing in front of his table, and it couldn't be him, but it was. of course it was.
but you didn't know if he would recognize you without your pajamas on, couldn't fathom that he could have dreamed of you with the vigor you had him, so you went on, business as usual.
"hi, guys," you said, your customer service voice ringing through the air like a bell. muscle memory had you placing napkin coasters down in front of each person. "can i get some drinks started for you?"
you took the orders of the others before finally locking eyes with arber. it wasn't any easier than you remembered. it wasn't any cooler, didn't feel any less like being engulfed in flame. "and for you?" you asked, hating how you couldn't just admit to recognizing him. hating how your mind preferred crafting protective plans to just being honest.
but he upended you, as you should have perhaps expected. his smirk was subtle. "am i that forgettable, darling?" he asked, like it was just the two of you.
the answer was so obvious you could have rolled your eyes, but you just cleared your throat and choked on a laugh, happy to have an excuse to show your delight. the insecurity in your head sighed in relief.
"arber!" you exclaimed, clicking your pen nervously, "thought that was you."
he nodded towards your general figure. "good to see you warm," he said with that rough voice you could feel in your chest like a bullet.
you hummed. "good to see you," you said, not bothering to add a condition.
something he noticed, something that made him smile, therefore something so, so worth the risk. your grin overtook your face all at once, toothy and real.
it appeared to shock him as much as you, his expression suddenly one of wonder, of awe.
you cleared your throat again, rediscovered the other people at the table, went to get everyone's drinks and then ran their food orders to the kitchen.
and you tried not to dwell on the way his hand looked around a glass, like it was kid's toy in a play kitchen, tried not to zone out on his lips as they formed words, not to blush whenever he looked at you.
you only laughed, mumbled a thank you when he joking said this was the best service he had ever had.
when he asked how you day had been, you had just blushed, muttered something affirmative, tried not to drop the glass you were holding, hated how anyone's attention, never mind a man's, could render you so helpless.
it was a whole lot of trying, a whole lot of awareness and controlling your own limbs, your own reactions like a marionette puppet. this way, you guided your arms, lined with plates of food. that way, you led your legs. these words, no, not those ones. no, no blushing, no not like that.
your marionette puppet appeared defective in many ways, many frustrating ways.
it was the slowest shift of your life. you felt oh so tired by the time arber's table asked for the check, felt oh so embarrassed by how hard you had been trying all night, hated how it was impossible for you to hide your effort.
it was all over you. it was in the slight sheen of sweat on your upper lip, in the strands of hair that had come free from your braid, in the way your voice shook when he spoke to you, the wobble in your knees when your eyes met.
you were trying so devastatingly hard, and you knew he could see, that everyone could see. was it terrible, was it so naive of you to hope maybe he wouldn't mind? that maybe the effort would flatter him instead of scare him away?
when you came to give back the card and receipt, his friends had gone. it was only him, taking up all that space in the booth.
he smiled when he saw you. it was soft. he was soft, this marble man.
you placed the check on the table. "there you are," you said, threading your empty hands together behind your back, part of you scared their idleness would lead to reaching for him. "thanks for coming," you added, then physically cringed.
thanks for coming? what, like this was some party you'd thrown?
he laughed, low and gentle, at your expression. of course, he was laughing at you. how could he not, with how you were acting? your head dropped like it was full of bricks as you flushed, as hot shame began to pull at the edges of your face.
but then you felt him take your chin in one of his large, rough hands, tilt your head back up high to meet his gaze. there was nothing but softness in his hands, in his eyes. no judgement, nothing of the sort.
his touch felt like drowning in flame, even in this small dosage, and you knew immediately it was too dangerously good. you swallowed.
when was the last time someone had touched you like this and you hadn't secretly wished they would only just leave you alone?
"thanks for inviting me," he said, playing along with your words so mercifully. "think maybe you'll have me again?"
you nodded, couldn't stop your shy smile. "maybe," you said, your voice a breath.
too soon, his hand was gone, leaving your face cold, lacking.
"can i tell you something?" you asked, quiet and hopeful.
"'course," he said, like he would never deny you such a request.
"i sort of feel like i've met you before," you said.
"i don't know," arber said thoughtfully, "think i'd remember someone like you."
your mouth ticked. "someone like me?"
he tilted his head, just looked at you for a moment, his gaze comfortable in its greed, its genuine appreciation. "why do you think we've met?"
you shook your head. "something about you," you said, trying to figure it out yourself. like i dreamed you up, you thought, are you real? are you sure?
his smile was subtle. "hope it's something good, eh? something like you?" too soon, he was signing his receipt, and then he was up, walking towards the door, to his waiting friends. "sweet dreams, darling," he said, like there was no one else in the pub, in this universe.
if he had told you as much, you would have believed him.
after a moment to catch your breath, you took the receipt from the table, found not only a generous tip but a phone number and a child-like scrawl that read coffee?
your head bowed in delight. when was the last time someone had asked you out? had not texted you deep into the night, at the time when the parties were ending and something much more terrifying was just beginning?
when was the last time you were nervous for a date, but the innocent kind of nervous?
you were that innocent kind of nervous when you approached the agreed-upon coffee shop several days later, at the middle of the day, between your classes.
there he was, standing in front of the cafe, hard to miss in stature and presence.
you had spent a scary amount of time deciding what to wear, eventually landing on what you wore everyday. you gave him a timid wave, were met with a confident wave back.
do i shake his hand? you thought. no, i've worn his jacket. maybe a high five?
your overthinking was quickly overwhelmed by the realization that he was pulling you in close for a hug.
you froze for a moment, your mind short-circuiting, your body uneasy, unused to such casual gentleness, ease.
your head against his chest, his arms all the way around you, you probably could have passed out. your mind mumbled something about cardiac arrest as you slowly hugged him back.
he smelled like the forest, like dull smoke and wooden fog.
"swear you get prettier every time i see you, darling," he said as you both pulled away, his eyes full of sweetness.
you had to close your eyes as you breathed out a laugh, already turning pink. "you sure know how to embarrass me," you said, teasing, trying to recover.
he held the door open for you as you both entered the cafe. "it's too tempting," he argued, smiling. "that blush you get..." he trailed off as if lost in his mind. sparks, smoke, flame, ash.
you knew the feeling.
he ordered some kind of sugar-bomb, practically a coffee milkshake, you ordered your usual flat white with soy milk.
and you were out of practice when it came to first dates, but it didn't seem to matter. he didn't seem to notice the pauses you took to think about your words, or if he did, he didn't say anything.
you learned that he was on the hockey team, that he was a volunteer fire-fighter for the school, about where he was from and his family.
he asked about your family, about your studies, about your job, what you did for fun.
and when you told him how much you loved your pre-dentistry classes, he made a joke and popped his fake tooth in and out, which made your laugh come so easy.
you told him how much you looked forward to seeing your sister, how funny your shift the day before had been, how much you loved your house's movie nights.
he asked about you, and it dawned on you that your last boyfriend had never truly asked you simple questions like that, and he certainly had never cared about the answers.
you had sudden flashbacks, you and your ex in bed, you asking him about his week, him giving you some dismissive response as if you had asked him if you could take out some of his teeth sans anesthesia.
how, towards the end, it had felt as if you were engaged in some kind of corrupt exchange, sex for tolerance of your curiosity, sex for tolerance of you.
the memory sent a shiver down your spine, a wave of shame. you could not go through that again. you refused to put yourself through that again.
through the relentless begging for something, for attention? no, begging to be treated like a person? like a girlfriend? begging for him to just be a little more gentle. yes, that's it. you had gone months feeling like nothing but a burdensome bag of stones he had reluctantly agreed to carry around, and you refused to feel that way again.
you just wanted gentle. you just wanted soft, and when arber waved a hand in front of your face to break you from your trance, you realized it might not be crazy to think you were close.
"you okay, darling?" he asked, concern lacing his expression. "lost you, hm?"
"'m okay," you said, shaking your head. "sorry, just thinking."
"'bout what?" he asked.
your heart jumped at the intimacy of being asked such. of someone wanting to know what was going on in your head.
so, you decided to be honest, to an extent. "'bout how 'm very happy to be here, with you," you said, looking him in the eye. feeling no desire to look away.
his face was so utterly pleased. he looked so beautiful then, the sun drenching the side of his face, lighting him up. "makin' me blush, now, darling," he said, and his tone made you swoon.
"sorry," you said, an instinct that made you want to smack yourself.
"don't apologize," he said immediately, "i know i'll get you back."
talking with him felt just so easy that you were again struck with a disbelief that you had only known him for a few days, had only spoken with him a couple of times. you felt like he was inside of your head, like he always had been. something you had never felt before, something that had you saying yes much too quickly when he asked if you wanted to come skating with him that weekend.
you had never skated before, but you were sure if he had asked you to watch paint dry, you would have said yes, because it would have been with him.
but the rational part of your brain was currently overwhelmed by fear, by insecurity, by the terror that you would lose this great thing before you had ever really had it.
"what was i thinking?" you said to your roommate as you struggled to find something to wear. "i have no idea how to skate! i'm going to look like an idiot!"
she waved you off. "you won't, you know you won't. deep breath."
you both took a breath together, tried to exhale some of your nerves.
the quiet that followed felt like another friend. you sighed, sat down on the edge of your bed, held your head in your hands.
"i can't keep thinking like this," you said to her and yourself. "i can't be so fucking scared all the time."
"c'mon, love," she said, sitting next to you and holding you tight. "what will feel better, do you think? coming home after avoiding rejection, walls intact?" she squeezed you. "or maybe coming home with another person to lean on?"
you both knew the answer. you wanted so badly to act accordingly, hoped your overactive mind would let you.
so, when you showed up at the rink, you made the ittiest-bittiest promise to yourself that you wouldn't let your fear get in the way.
if only you knew he would never have let you. that he could never be so easily scared.
he greeted you with a hug once again, and you held him tighter than you had the first time. "thanks for coming," he said, a spark of a shared inside joke in his eye.
"thanks for having me," you replied immediately, a mirroring smile on your face. "'m gonna be honest with you-"
"please do," he said immediately, and you could have melted.
"i have no idea how to skate," you rushed, "so i'm going to be very slow and probably fall and it's probably gonna get ugly."
he let you finish, an amused sort of smirk overtaking his mouth.
"what's so funny?" you asked, furrowing your brow.
"i think you're funny," he said, simply.
you scrunched up your face. "you makin' fun of me, arber?"
he laughed, then, low and rough and grumbly as he reached his hands around you and settled them on the small of your back. "oh, pretty baby, promise 'm not, yeah?"
you pouted, but rested your palms on his chest nonetheless.
his gaze cut through you. "don't expect you to be good at everything, okay? i'll help you," he explained. "just think it's funny you think anything you do could be ugly. imperfect isn't ugly."
"i'll prove you wrong," you said immediately, although you were flushed already, could feel yourself soften, your walls crumble just a bit.
his shoulders shook again. "promise you'll stick around long enough to?"
you had nothing to say to that. what could you ever say?
and then you were out on the ice, more off-balance than you had ever been, and not just because of the skates.
he held your gloved hands in his, tight but not restrictive, keeping his eyes on yours. you willed some of the steadiness in his gaze into your body, found stability in him and let it flow into you like water. he was basically pulling you, but you were moving, and you weren't falling, so you took it as a win.
"'atta girl," he said when you made a turn, soft, proud, and you could have laughed. surely he knew what he was doing, no?
your eyes darted up to his, found a lazy smirk, found your answer.
you shook your head, continued to push with your legs, gaining confidence, gaining balance. "turn off the dream boy for a second, would you?" his smirk deepened. "'m tryna focus, here."
"my fault, darling," he said, false apology saturating his voice as he suddenly dropped your hands. "by all means."
you stumbled forward into him immediately, your body unused to the ice without him to ground you.
you narrowed your eyes at him, looking up at his face, your palms against his chest, his arms around your waist. "not funny," you said, giving him a playful slap. "i could have broken something."
he shot you a look. "you honestly think i'd let that happen?"
your gaze dropped for a second. "no," you sighed. "no, i don't." a revelation in itself.
he pulled you closer, pressed his lips to your hair in a kiss that singed. so quick, you could have missed it. maybe you would have, if you hadn't been so unconditionally in tune to him, to everything he did, to every breath that shook his chest, to every quirk of his mouth and glint of his eye.
your heart sang at the affection you had been so lacking, had somehow missed even though you had never really had it.
so, of course it was a no-brainer when he asked you to come to his next home game.
"i'd really like if you were there," he said as he untied your skates for you, bent on one knee in front of you.
"then i'll be there," you said, flushed, because it was the easiest answer you had ever given. when he gave you that big smile in return, so genuine and goofy, you knew you would have a hard time saying no to anything he asked. just keep smiling at me, your mind begged him. that's all i ask.
the game came quickly, suddenly, after a busy week of shifts and school and everyday things. before you knew it, the day was here, and then you were in the stands, watching him skate like it was second nature, like it came easier than walking.
you had been able to tell at your rink date that he was steady on his feet, but this was different entirely. this was like seeing him at home, like watching him fall asleep.
and it beautiful, it was lovely, it was so intimate until two players started to fight and you realized one of them was him.
one of the people throwing punches that looked lethal, taking fists to the ribs, to the jaw, one of the people with a bleeding nose, a gashed lip, one of the people with blood running down his knuckles - that was your arber. your dream boy.
it wasn't, but it was you - you were the one throwing the right hook, you were the one doubled over, you were the one spitting out blood. you were equally the one punching and being punched. you had set the flame, you were burning.
was it terrible that you felt a little sick to your stomach? you clutched at the edge of your seat, exhaled a short breath, immediately decided you would rather leave than watch blood run down his face on the jumbotron.
as you left the arena, got into your car, drove back to your house, someone in your head was screaming at you, someone with a shrill, panicked voice was screamed scared, scared, scared, scared, scared and you didn't know how to get them to stop.
why are we running? you asked the voice in your head, what are we so afraid of?
what are you so afraid of?
because it wasn't him, you explained to your roommate at some later time, maybe the next day, after the desire to bathe in silence had been overcome by the desire to tell just about anyone.
you were not afraid of arber, knew there had never been anyone in the world more gentle with you. no, there had never been someone who had treasured your heart so truly, who had wanted to understand you to an almost scientific extent, who had dropped into your life like an asteroid and blown it apart just as similarly.
if not him, then what is there to fear?
what is there to fear, if not placing your beat-up heart in his bloodied hands? what is there to fear, if not the desire to press your lips to each of his cracked knuckles, the urge to know him to the point of no return, the want to feel his teeth on your neck, his fingers in your mouth?
sirens went off in your mind. scared, scared, scared.
scared of you, yourself, of offering yourself up to him, to being devastated by him. scared of being so completely vulnerable, of taking all your armor off, finally.
in the end, you were terrified of how scared seeing him hurt made you, because that meant you cared much more than you thought, perhaps much more than you had ever before.
how come no one told you that as much as being scared for yourself hurt, being scared for someone else, that was real fear, pure and undiluted.
a fear captivating enough that you decided to just not deal with it for days, to ignore his texts even though it hurt like a dagger to the chest.
he'll lose interest eventually, you thought, he'll leave me alone eventually. then, finally, i won't have to be scared.
so why did that admission feel like being burned at the stake? why was some small part of you screaming at you to stop?
regardless, you held fast for three days.
and then your roommate put rocks in the microwave.
so you and your housemates stood in the front yard, the air deja-vu-inspiringly cold, the situation almost exactly the same as that first night.
"what's wrong with you?" you whispered-yelled at her. "how do you accidentally almost blow up our house?"
she waved you off, pouted for a moment. "you know how forgetful i get."
"yeah, i don't know if forgetful is the adequate descriptor here," one of the other girls said. "i have a few more specific words in mind."
"oh, come on," you roommate said to the group as the fire truck siren began to yet again overwhelm the smoke alarm. "god forbid a girl make a mistake around here."
you didn't hear the rest of the bickering, too busy sending up a silent prayer, begging some god, any god to listen. please, don't be him. please, if there is anything good in this world, it won't be him.
but, of course, as soon as you saw the massive figure climb down from the truck, you paled.
there might not be anything good, some voice told you then, but perhaps there is something right.
"long time no see, ladies," the same older fireman said, and that was the last thing you heard. the last thing that any of your senses consumed before all of them were so brutally and totally overwhelmed by arber.
because what was he, if not overwhelming? especially now, after having deprived yourself of him for days? how had you managed that?
seeing him here, in front of you, you had no idea.
because he was here, in front of you, this beautiful oaken man, and his hair was messy under his helmet, and his face was flushed from the cold, and his five-o'clock shadow made his jaw sharper, and you could feel his warmth from here.
because he was here, walking to you, right in front of you, dropping his giant jacket onto your shoulders silently, somehow, somehow he was still that kind, and then he was whispering to you.
"alive, are you?" he murmured, as if he almost couldn't believe it.
and you felt so selfish then, the guilt growing like poison ivy in your veins, up your throat, until you couldn't open your mouth for fear that only three-pronged leaves would come out.
you looked up at him, met his eyes, found them burning but unreadable.
a pause that felt infinite deflated as you struggled for words. "listen, arber-"
but he shook his head, almost looked sorry. "don't think i will, darling," he whispered, the name making your stomach sink. someone screamed in your head. "don't care much for hearing why 'm not worth a phone call."
you were shaking your head before he even finished. "no, no, arber, please, that's not it-" your voice was so close to cracking, splitting apart like brittle wood.
"what is it, then?" he said, and you noticed a quiver in his voice too, a warning, "because i've been trying to come up with something for days, and every option i've got hurts."
oh, good god, you had made him hurt? that alone was dizzying.
dizzying and so, so sobering, enough for you to mutter something aloud about arber helping you turn the smoke alarms off, pull him into your house, up into your room.
you barely noticed the alarms subsiding, him hitting all of the necessary buttons wordlessly on his way up the stairs.
and then he was in your room, and you two were alone, and he was sitting on the edge of your bed, taking his helmet and boots off, crossing his arms across his chest.
"by all means," he prompted. "tell me i'm crazy, darling, please, please tell me i've got something wrong."
you took a breath, set the marionette puppets strings down, finally. there was no leading your limbs anywhere, no running words over one million time in your head until you had the right ones.
it was finally time to set aside the fear, to unfurl your forever clenched fists.
your exhale was liberating as you approached him, not touching him, not yet, but close enough so that you could see his eyes, so that he could see the revelation in yours.
"you're not crazy," you said, the softness in your voice surprising you. "i've been trying so, so hard to make you think i don't care."
he scoffed, ran a hand through his messy hair, mercifully waited for you to finish.
"and i'm so, so sorry that i didn't call, and that i left during your game, and that i treated you like you were anything but special, arber."
he looked up at you then, and you saw a soft spark of hope in his eyes that spurred you on.
it was silent for a beat, and then he reached for your hand, held it in his grip, warm and consuming.
"i thought i scared you away," he said, vulnerable, completely honest.
you squeezed his hand, stepped closer, cupped his jaw in your other palm. "i was afraid," you admitted, and that alone felt like salvation. "but not of you." you swiped at his cheekbone with your thumb. "never of you."
with a single swift motion he tugged you onto his lap, both of his hand on your hips. there might not be anything good, that voice whispered like a gossipy teen, but perhaps there is something right. perhaps this is it.
"tell me," he said, not an order but a request.
you would have told him anything, then, as you reached up to loop one arm around his neck, use the other hand to twist one of his curls around your finger. "i hated seeing you hurt," you confessed, moving your fingers down to trace lightly over the greenish bruise next to his eye, the healing gash on his lip. "you give me so much more to lose, baby."
he was silent, still, so close you could feel his shaky exhales on your hand. you willed yourself to finish your thoughts, refused to leave him anything but completely certain, even if it was hard to focus with him under you, against you, all around you. even under the exceptional spotlight of his undivided attention.
"i was lying when i acted like i didn't want you," you said, your tone every bit as ultimate as you felt. "and i understand if you don't forgive me, and i won't hold it against you, but i promise i won't lie to you again, okay?"
you held his face like it was made of glass. his grip on your hips tightened, eyes bursting further into flame.
"let me convince you," you pleaded, willing every genuine thing from your bones into your words. "you have to believe me, baby, i care so, so much. a scary amount."
and something in you sighed, swooned, when you saw that amusement you had missed creep back into his gaze like a fog on the ocean.
his thumbs rubbed circles into the flesh of your hips as you relaxed further into him. "scary, hm?"
you nodded, peered up at him through your lashes.
"how about this, darling?" he offered, voice a tired rasp. "i'll believe you if you do one thing for me, yeah?"
"anything," you said, meaning it more completely than anything before.
the glint in his eye was dangerous as his grip turned firmer. he gave a hum of approval. "tell me something true."
after trying just so deliriously, terrifyingly hard for so long, nothing had ever come easier. with him, now, the truth was easy as breathing. "i want you," you breathed, running your nails lightly down his neck, relishing in his stifled groan. "so, so bad, arber. need you, please." your chest rose and fell in a hurried breath. had you ever been so free of fear? so buoyant with hope, with courage?
he hoisted you up on his lap, pulled you against his chest until it felt as if there was barely enough air to share between the two of you. "good girl," he said, a rough, low, rasp, and he caught your whimper in his teeth as your lips met his.
his kiss felt like molten iron, like forest fire smoke, like initials carved into a heart on an ancient oak tree. he felt like sun on your face and like drowning, drowning, drowning, this kind of torture one you would happily submit to over and over again.
you tangled your hands in his hair as he groaned into your mouth, pulling you up on his lap until you could feel him, so big and hard under you that you let out a gasp.
he smiled against your lips at your reaction, and you knew there would never be anything so glutted with bliss.
you kissed him harder, with the urgency of a thousand missed chances as he rocked you back and forth across his lap, slipping his hands under the waistband of your sleep shorts, his hands now scorching your bare skin.
"look so good in my jacket, darling," he rasped, "let me take it off, hm? want to see you."
you shrugged it off in obedience, placed both your hands on his chest and looked him in the eye, pleading.
one of his hands brushed your hair away from your face, gentle, soft, as you had always known him to be. he dragged his thumb down to your swollen lip, let it rest there for a moment.
"'f you want something, just ask," he grumbled, transfixed by your mouth. "know i'll give you anything you want 'f you ask for it, darling."
you pulled at his shirt, willed any oncoming flush or fear away. "please can i suck you off, arber?"
his smirk was devastating, delicious. "pretty baby wants me in her mouth?"
you nodded, a shy smile gracing your lips.
"course you can, darling, askin' so pretty for me, too."
you glowed at his praise, sunk down to your knees, admired him as he pulled away at his layers of clothes until finally you could reach for him, hold him in your hand, hot and heavy and just so big, so much so that you couldn't help your eyes widening, your mouth watering.
he groaned at your touch, tilted his head back and scrunched his eyes shut at the sensation of your soft palms on his cock.
you hid your grin, spit into your hands and pumped him up and down a few times before taking him in your mouth, making him moan, almost growl as he gathered all of your hair, wrapped it around his fist, the other hand bracing him against your bed.
"fuck, darling," he rasped, watching you bob your head up and down, "feels so good, so good for me, hm?"
you would have nodded, but instead you were overcome with a desire to take more of him, as much as you could. so you sunk your head down further, until your eyes watered, until air came in short spurts, until you gagged, felt him grow impossibly harder in your mouth.
he gripped your hair tighter, making you moan on his cock. "oh, darling, you want more, hm?"
you hummed, looked up at him through watery lashes, reddening eyes.
"want to take it all, do you?" he asked, "just want me to feel good, is that it?"
you moaned in affirmation, sunk your head down on him again, as far as you could go, relished in his groan, the way his thighs tensed, the way his forearms flexed.
already, your jaw was growing stiff, your shoulders strained, your knees warm from the carpet. too soon, though, he was pulling you up off of him, up from your knees back on top of him, wiping the spit from the sides of your mouth with his thumb, pressing a gentle kiss to your tired lips.
you pouted, wanting more still, and his shoulders shook in a low laugh. "not done, darling?"
you shook your head, ran your nails across his shoulders, down to his biceps, loved the way you could feel shivers erupt under your fingertips.
"i'll give it to you if you ask," he reminded you, simply, because of course it was that simple, that gentle.
you pressed your lips to his chest, his neck, his jaw, bit down softly on his collarbone. "please fuck me," you begged against his skin, "been wanting it forever, arber, need you to fuck me, need you to stretch me out."
in a moment he flipped you so that your hips were angled up to him, your chest against your bed, your cheek to your sheets.
"been waiting, have you, darling?"
you whined, nodded.
"no more waiting," he said, running his fingers through your folds, already so wet, "promise, no more waiting, pretty baby, okay?"
"please," you mustered, the end of the word becoming strangled as he began to push into you. it was altogether too much - every possible voice inside of you screaming too much and not enough in some cacophonous harmony.
his groan was raw, full of relief, release, confirmation. he held onto your hip tightly with one hand, the other wrapping around your stomach to keep you grounded, keep you here as you felt like you were floating away.
the pressure was dizzying, staggering, enough that your breathing was choked, your mind completely clouded, your already watery eyes just barely holding back tears.
you reached a hand back to grasp at his forearm as he pushed further, almost all the way inside of you. you whimpered as the stretch reached a peak, as he stilled, making the stray, warm tears finally fall down your cheeks, hang on your jaw before collecting on the sheets under you.
"so pretty when you cry, darling," he breathed, tight and short as you adjusted to him, and he to you.
"please, arber, just move, hm?" you pleaded. "need it, please."
his embrace around your middle tightened as he began to move in and out of you at an agonizingly slow pace, almost undetectable.
"so whiny, hm?" he bit out. "pretty baby knows what she wants?"
you nodded feverishly. "just give it to me, baby, please, just let me take it."
"don't know if you can," he said, and you pouted. "don't want to hurt you, hm?"
you clutched at his forearm, began to fuck back onto him, determined to get the motion and pace you needed so desperately.
"want it to hurt, arber, please, please give me all of it," you spoke with all of the greed of a sinner seeking salvation. "need all of it."
he abandoned any qualms about hurting you, immediately adopting a brutal pace, so hard and deep you swore your teeth began to chatter. you bit out a choked moan, grabbed at your sheets with your fist, scrunched your eyes shut at the pressure building inside of you.
his grunts grew rhythmic in time with his thrusts. "feel so good, know that, darling?" he rasped. "being so fuckin' perfect for me."
you hummed in response, gasped when he ran a hand across your clit, making you clench tighter around him.
he cursed at the sensation, continued to tease you as he thrusted deeper.
"like that," you breathed, growing dangerously close, "fuck, just like that baby, right there."
"gonna make me cum, darling," he warned, pressing his palm flat against your clit, the friction maddening. "feel too good."
"please cum for me, baby," you begged, your voice raw, "need it so bad, arber, need all of you." you moaned. "fuck, give me all of it."
he groaned as he came, triggering your own orgasm, an overwhelming wave of pleasure that consumed you utterly and entirely. you felt him collapse on top of you, barely registered him pulling you into his side as you both caught your breath in comfortable silence.
moments passed slowly, thick like aged honey, fragrant, sweet.
he lazily traced his thumb across your cheekbone, down your jaw, your collarbone. eventually, you looked up at him, found his eyes full of something homely.
you thought briefly about how you looked in that moment, what he was seeing - spit on your face, skin probably splotchy and red in places from wear, hair fussed and skin sparkling with sweat.
notably, though, the thought evoked no fear, not even for a moment. because you were beautiful like this, like always.
you exhaled a breath, soft, gentle, and buried some ancient curse with it.
the silence was blissful. eventually you heard loud footsteps on the wooden hallway steps, eye widening as you realized there were other people that lived in this house, in this room.
you pressed a hand to his chest to prepare him. "sweetness!" you called out. "do not come in here!"
"why?" came your roommate's voice through the door. "is there a fire?"
you exchanged a look with arber.
"kidding!" she added, her voice growing more distant. "i'll be in the kitchen. big guy, chief left without you!"
your shoulders shook in a pleased, peaceful laugh. he smiled at you, then, a warm, soft smile with teeth, and what was there left to do but smile right back? "what'm i supposed to do, darling?" he asked.
you got up, slowly, reluctantly, tied your robe from the bathroom around yourself, handed him his clothes. "c'mon," you said, "i'll show you the kitchen."
he leaned forward, pressed a soft kiss to your lips before tugging on his clothes, grabbing his helmet.
i'll show you everything went unsaid by you, but not misunderstood by him.
he held your bedroom door open, holding your gaze with a goofy grin. "after you," he rasped.
you bowed past him and wordlessly told the picture frames in the hallway to behave, we have guests.
fin.
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justlemmeadoreyou · 3 months
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harry in love (headcanons)
okay, so what about harry in love? like truly, madly deeply, completely in love? he'd be so adorable :(
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when he would wake up, he would always look at your face the first thing, always saying how it makes his day better. when you're both far away, he would just keep a picture of you as his wallpaper, remembering to look at his phone the first thing in the morning
he would be your chaperone, offering to drive you and be with you anywhere you wanna go-you want to get your nails done, he's ready. shopping? check. groceries? he's your handyman. you wanna go for a girls night? he'll drive you there and then come to pick you up coz it's not safe for a pretty cupcake like you to uber at midnight :(
he would talk to you every night, how your day was, did you eat properly, did you drink enough water, is your car okay? or do you want to get it serviced, get fuel filled? listening closely while he rubs lotion on your hands and legs, occasionally giving you back rubs
expect so many love notes from him. i love you's on text randomly, notes on the fridge and beside table when he has to leave for work early. he would even insert some silly jokes, so you don't miss that adorable dork too much :((
you want something, he would bring 20 varieties of it the next day. you want to try yogurt, multiple flavours that you haven't even heard of are in the refrigerator the next day
he would always cook with you too. chopping or washing vegetables to just stirring the pot or standing there admiring you, he would be by your side. always.
if somebody hurts you or goes over the line, the pure anger in his eyes is unforgiving. he knows he can’t do too much physical harm, but he never lets go off that easily either
when you cry, he's your shoulder to put your head on, he's the hand that wipe the tears off your cheek. he holds you close, rubbing your back and kissing your forehead, your cheeks. he never stops you or pushes you away, knowing just how bad bottled up emotions can be
and he would be so cute when you're on your period :( making you hot chocolate, bringing you chocolates and sweets, keeping the heating pad ready because he knows how much your cramps hurt :( he would cook for you all the time, wanting you to eat all the best food you can.
and don't expect him to freak out and shout when he sees blood ridden sheets. he'll gently wake you up, telling you that your period has started, and that he has run a bath for you, there’s clean clothes, there’s warm clothes, whatever you need. you scurry to the bathroom, making a mental note to clean up the mess on the bed later. but when you come back, the sheets have been replaced and already put in the washer. the room smells fresh, there’s breakfast for you on the table, and he comes back in with a heating pad :( and an adorable smile. when you ask him about the sheets and why is he not freaked out, he says, "i'm not a boy, love"
♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡~~~♡
please like, comment or reblog if you like this, i really appreciate every note 🥺🥺
taglist: @freedomfireflies @gurugirl @thechaoticjoy @styleslover-1994 @gem1712 @ellaorchard @bxbyysstuff @opheliaofficial07 @rafaaoli @tchlamqtsgf @the-mouse27 @indierockgirrl @vrittivsanghavi @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @drewrry @babyiamperfectforyou @me-undiscovered @tbsloneely @whoreonmondays @kathb59 @avalentina @kittenhere @speedywritingharrystylesjudge @mypolicemanharryyy @theendx888 @ladscarlett @whotfisade @youcan-nolonger-run @prettythingsworld @chesthairrry
tags in red couldn't be tagged :(
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bunabi · 2 months
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hi any advice for a person who's trying to become a professional artist? everywhere I look in any art adjacent industry people are losing their jobs left and right,being underpaid or are freelancing while working a side job,I swear the only ppl doing well are the ai art bitches…I feel like I'm aboard a sinking ship 🥲🫠
I applied to multiple postings yesterday and honestly I don't know anymore 🫠
The illustrator + 2D generalist + concept artist hiring pools are pretty full right now with all the layoffs
Without connections or an insane online following idk how students and entry-level folks are supposed to make it anymore
Recommendations through positive word-of-mouth from my previous clients has been keeping me afloat so far + commissions + patreon, and I'm blessed with a super supportive parent; if I didn't have those things — and if I was able or willing to do a 9-to-5 office job— I would not be in a position to handle this
And honestly AI is a huge issue, don't get me wrong, but it plays a small part of why these creative industries are collapsing.
It's the unforgiving hours, the low pay, the burnout, the layoffs disrupting entire chains of communication, sudden project cancellations due to trend-chasing and investor expectations and internal politics, the looming uncertainty of the future. The unsustainable profit-first infrastructure is just finally buckling I fear.
Possible workaround: pop off as a fan artist and build a following large enough to subsist on subscriptions. Make a new draw-with-me tiktok every other day and/or stream for five to eight hours a day three times a week. I am in no way joking about this. It's a lot of work to get there but at least it yields consistent results. 🧍🏾‍♀️
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joonipertree · 3 months
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How Mikey Loves and Proposes
Okay so some of my headcanons for him align with my beliefs however I am very particular about characterisation so I'm gonna keep it balanced.
Genuinely i think Mikey does not need the paperwork, the title or official testimonies to consider himself your husband. Once he has sort of outgrown 'boyfriend', like maybe he's in his mid to late 20s, he wants a new title because boyfriend was very highschool.
Imagine every single thing a couple could be, it has been done. Shared apartments, pets, joint bank accounts. I genuinely think because of how devoted Mikey is with his people, he would be just as devoted to his partner.
He is a people person, he finds his people and he keeps them close to his chest no matter what happens. He has forgiven his people for the unforgiveable. Very very ride or die type of person. So out of everyone, he is devoted and loyal.
I will say, in cases of fucked up timelines...chances are he would either keep you at an arm's length, push you away and disappear or just be cold. He does this because he considers himself a danger. I don't care if he has hurt his friends, I dont care about dark impulses, that man would never lay a hand on you. Dark impulses are strong, his love for you is stronger.
If he does run away, he will never look at another person ever again. Loyal as fuck.
But we are talking about final timeline so LETS GO.
At some point, he just wants matching wedding rings, he just wants people to look at you and then look at your left ring finger and be like 'oh fuck, they're taken'. You're already his, ya'll probably have matching bracelets or necklaces that he bought with his very first paycheck. But he really craves that moment where you call him 'husband'.
He probably felt connected to you in an everlasting sense from the moment ya'll started dating. This commitment was from the soul from the get go.
So why does it take like 6 to 7 years into the relationship to get married? Firstly I just have a general rule that marriage should come after 5 years minimum because it's paperwork and a big process. You can disagree and just add in your own minimum but again...adding that no matter what, ya'll live together, wake up every morning together, build a future together. At some point, you guys are too busy getting jobs, being adults and hanging out with friends to be like 'ooooo marriage'.
How does Mikey propose?
i think it was spur of the moment, maybe it hit him that OH ya'll arent married and suddenly he has the urge to say it.
And one night, it's 2am and you wanna go on a night ride and he never says no to you so he wraps you in one of his jackets and both of you head on a ride.
And it's peaceful and maybe Mikey is having a moment where he's like 'I have died, been reborn and saved multiple times for this moment. I am meant to be alive so I could be with my person. I'm very happy I am alive.'
And he's blinking back tears, stopping close to a convenience store..using snacks as an excuse to stop.
And while he's walking through the place, grabbing his usuals and your favourites...maybe it's the fluorescent lighting or the way you're picking out the drinks, maybe it's because how you look in his clothes or because it's late and you're here with him getting snacks, maybe he is sleepy and warm that he says:
"I wanna be your husband."
And the place is too quiet to not hear it, the cashier is like 'what the fuck dude, you're gonna get smacked for proposing like that' but you look at him and his teary eyes and lovesick smile and you're just speechless. But you move forward to hold him, he wraps his arms around you and presses you close to him. It's warm and engulfing.
And maybe you give an excited 'yes' or maybe you make a joke about where your ring is or maybe it's a soft whisper of an answer...in any case....the answer had been given way before he had even asked it.
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donderwolkenblog · 3 months
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very heavy on locker rooms as liminal spaces! i grew up as a dancer with a hockey-playing brother in midwestern usa, and it's bizarre how much our experiences were paralleled. we'd vent a lot to each other about the various pressures of our sports, and even though i didn't have the words for it at the time i look back now and can see that both of us were locked in these insulated, self-policing, gender-essentialist and hyper-conformist environments that reallllyyy distilled themselves in locker rooms/dressing rooms - places where we both spent a ton of unsupervised time establishing our own in-group hierarchies and in-jokes and bonds. it's why i'm kind of baffled by some depictions of the locker room in hrpf as the convening of the big happy team family and nothing more- because yeah, that can be what it looks like on the absolute surface level, but there are so many weird and often fucked up undercurrents that create a constant baseline tension that everybody is at least subconsciously aware of and reacting to at all times. especially when some kind of event, usually an intrusion from Outsiders Who Just Don't Get It And Never Will or some infraction committed by a team member against unspoken but gospel rules- really cannot emphasize the self-surveilling and self-policing enough- triggers an uptick in the tension. and i want to see that tension informing everything those little guys do in MY hrpf. i want the tension to be palpable in the narrative! additionally! it is extra extra interesting to me that it's very possible to be a person immersed in such a culture who can recognize that other similar cultures are extraordinarily fucked up and even that elements of one's own culture are fucked up but remain fundamentally and fanatically attached to the idea that changing one's own culture would harm its success in some way, which is more unforgivable than literally any other sin. i cannot stress enough how badly i want more hrpf through that specific lens. i am so sorry this got so long lmao but would LOVE! to hear your thoughts on this i am obsessed with all of your meta and could read your hrpf perspectives all day
yessss yes yes! i love this message so much, you get it, damn. i went to a professional ballet academy and this is so real. i definitely didn't realize it at the time but the way dressing rooms have both been a refuge for me and the most terrifying place to walk into is so interesting. even just the process of taking off your own clothes to all put the same shit on... walk in an individual, walk out part of the team, oof. i think locker rooms are so difficult to get a grip on writing-wise so i definitely don't blame anyone for not going there in fic, lmao. i know i always try to avoid locker rooms in my fic, especially on an nhl level. it's hard to find real, solid resources/texts on the hockey locker room and the shit that happens in there, but i fucking love when people do go there in fic and really just... put in text how a locker room is its own little microcosm where the rules are different and the real world isn't allowed. like, you just know the performing and the posturing and the weird mindgames going on there are crazyyyyy! and honesty about that sacred space seems, for so many guys, to veer into betrayal so fast (interesting in and of itself, i think) and i think the fact that it is this kind... of we don't talk about fight club thing... even just the politics of who you're sitting next to... i was watching this tour of a hockey locker room and someone asked a player like, 'do you think you're sitting next to vets on the team was a deliberate choice from the org?' and he was just baffled by even the idea. had never even thought about it even though it was so obvious that that was exactly what was going on, lmao. but then you also hear players say like, 'no i need to sit next to this guy or i'm going to blow up this whole building' so there is some wherewithal... i think it's also so interesting how like, showers are this holy thing. so many players without any kind of like, self-reflection saying like, if you don't shower with the boys, that's it, it's over. you have to shower with the boys or you miss everything. it's guy time. it's important. it's bonding. i was reading someone's dissertation on lgbt acceptance in junior hockey and the thing all these guys kept coming back to was like, well, i would probably feel uncomfortable with a gay teammate being in the showers with us but i would be even more uncomfortable if he couldn't shower with us, it's soooo like. even the politics about like, who has the aux cord, lmaooooo. i was reading this article on locker room politics and there was this whole thing about certain players not bobbing their heads to the music and how that became a whole thing. just incredible stuff, hahahaha. i think you're also so right about how some dudes, looking back, can see that fucked up shit went on there, lmao. and still are so set on like no but we shouldn't change anything about it. was it auston m who said that (junior) hockey is like a cult? bc......... you can get in. but you can't get out. not even when you're sixty and no longer care that your hockey coach/father stand in isn't proud enough of you. you're still trapped.
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pinguwrites · 3 months
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Drabble: dark!william teases and degrades whore!reader in semi-public
pairing | william killick x reader
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Warnings: kind of DUB-CON, william’s lowkey abusive, slapping, fingering, use of whore, public sex, reader used to be a prostitute, use of sir, reader’s implied to be a foreigner
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“You know how many men have begged me for a night with you?”
William slammed you against the brick wall, careful that you didn’t injure your head. He slapped you across the face to gain your attention, but it was rough and made you cry out with pain. He grabbed your chin in his hand, forcing you to look up at him.
“They come to me during work, when they know you’re at home,” he started, roughly pulling your skirt up to reveal the panties you had on underneath.
“Please!” you begged, shivering from the cold air. “Not here — someone could see — ”
“ — they start off slow, telling me what a lucky man I am.” William ripped your panties apart, exposing your cunt. With how loud he was being, you were sure someone would come around the corner and see you two. “Then they start complimenting you. How obedient, how pretty, how exotic you are. Like you’re some damn trophy.”
You pathetically squirmed and cried out, “I didn’t know!”
“Surely you must have,” he said, feigning a confused tone, while his fingers spread the wetness to your clit. “With the way they were eye-fucking you. I know you’re not stupid.”
Your lower lip wobbled. “I-I — ”
“ — or maybe you are,” William mused, pressing his thumb against your clit. You jolted in pleasure, filled with embarrassment and shame. “Those men, the one you were flirting with at the party. They joke to me about passing you around. You know why?”
You didn’t say anything, too focused on the way he was rubbing you. With bent knees, you tried to keep yourself upright, but truly, the only thing that was keeping your balance was William’s hold on you.
“They want to fuck you,” William continued. “Some of them don’t even care — they ask me straight out, ‘Your wife was a whore, wasn’t she? Do I have to pay extra now that she’s married?’”
William slapped your clit, making you yelp, before he plunged two fingers inside. “I tell them no. But the way you were acting tonight . . . maybe I should have let them.”
“No!” you whimpered, pressure building up inside. You grasped his uniform, desperately clinging to him as you moaned and writhed.
“No?” William repeated. “Then why’d you let one of them kiss you?”
You hadn't seen it coming, honestly. It took you by surprise, but you were too far into a haze to properly express that.
"I-I didn't know what he was going . . . to . . . ah, don't stop."
William stopped, and pulled his fingers out. You whined and pressed your body up against him. "Please," you mewled, "I was almost there."
"Stop complaining!" he snapped. "Do you know what it's like for me to have to deal with this?"
You finally burst into tears, losing what remaining composure you had. "I'm sorry!"
William's eyes softened. "I know, I know you are. But you have to be punished. Do you understand?"
You nodded your head, sniffling. "Yes, sir."
When you first met William he was so sweet and gentle. You had just finished the night with a rude customer, and was roaming the empty streets in search for another. It was cold and dark, and you were hungry, but you were willing to sacrifice your well-being for more money, in that hope that one day you could have enough to quit this job all-together. When you saw William, you assumed he would be another arse of a soldier, but then he offered to take you in for a warm bath, and from there your romance blossomed.
He didn't care about your status. He wanted to marry you. His love was harsh and passionate and unforgiving, but you could handle it. You could take it, and he knew that. That was why he wanted you. That was why he chose you.
It was only that sometimes he could get a little carried away with his words. But he always meant well, didn't he?
"Turn around, and put your hands against the wall."
Trembling, you did as he asked, sticking your arse out. You closed your eyes, praying that no one would walk by. You could hear the sound of William unbuckling his belt, and you braced for the coming impact.
"I'm doing this because I love you," he reminded, before giving the first, painful blow.
You squealed in pain, knowing that you were going to be here a long while before the lesson was over.
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Taglist: @mrkdvidal1989 @slut4thebroken @qqquartz7 @madeinuk @flwrs4aust @httpxgray
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whathorselegs · 15 days
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This is probably going to be controversial take (I mean no harm by it, and its not hate directed at anyone), but the reason Dazai shooting at Akutagawa in Dark Era is so shocking to people is because he did it to a character we've had time to get attached to.
If Dazai had shot/killed/wounded a random subordinate for messing up his plans, it would be in all the PM!Dazai remixes as one of his dark and cool moments. Like when he's repeatedly shooting that guy in fifteen. It's messed up, but it doesn't happen to a character we're attached to, it happens to an enemy, so we swallow Dazai doing it much easier. If Akutagawa had been a random subordinate, people might even say Dazai was right to do it because that subordinate did a dumb thing that led their investigation to a dead end. (This is theoretical example not my opinion, I don't agree with what Dazai did)
I'm not justifying what Dazai did, but it's the framing that makes this so much more "evil" and unforgivable for people than anything else PM!Dazai did. It's stated multiple times Dazai was terrible to his enemies AND his own subordinates. Akutagawa wasn't the exception, he was just the one we care about. (Q too, though I see less talk about that and we're not actually shown what happened to Q)
Yes, it is cruel, no denying that, he hurts Akutagawa to teach him a lesson, that what's the mafia life has taught Dazai is effective. I'd argue though, it's not anymore cruel than what Yosano does to Tanizaki and Kunikida. She literally tortures them, but it's fine because it's played off as a joke and they're healed in the end. When in reality it's Yosano taking out her trauma on her patients and friends, and she's enjoying it. She didn't need her patients to be half dead in the flashbacks, that came after the trauma. She hurts them to discourage them from getting hurt again in the future. (Again, no hate intended, I love Yosano and all her complexities)
Dazai hurt Akutagawa the same way. Except it's never told as a joke. It happens brutally because it is and the show wants you to feel it in those moments. There is plenty brutal things that Dazai does that are played off as not serious. What he does to Ango with the airbag in his car is brutal. Yet its framed as a dark but necessary action, we're supposed to agree with Dazai because it ultimately saves Kyouka and Dazai gets to have some vengeance. It's a framed as a victory over Ango that we're supposed to support.
Chuuya is constantly being brutal in fights. He kills those people in the woods when he goes to retrieve Q and it's not a gentle killing either. He enjoys the fight, he's happy to get his hands dirty, he likes throwing bullets at people. And we accept this because he does it to the "bad guys".
Yet when Chuuya murdered the guards at Meursault, people thought this was out of character for him. It wasn't. These characters simply seemed more like innocent bystanders to the audience so the reality of how vicious Chuuya's actions were, kicked back in.
So many characters do messed up things in BSD, to pin one as irredeemable because of them doesn't make sense when so many characters are guilty of similar actions. People put Oda up on a pedestal just like Dazai does, because he stopped killing and took in some kids, but he was still a murderer, he still shot and maimed people with ease, as long as they were breathing he was fine with hurting them.
Sure, you can certainly say, "I no longer like this character because of their actions." and that's perfectly fine. You have no obligation to like a character, your preferences are perfectly valid. I just don't believe there's meant to be such a thing as irredeemable or truly evil in BSD. Just people who choose to keep hurting others, and those who try to be better than who they once were.
Dazai has hurt literal hundreds of people during his mafia years but that's off screen and to nameless background characters, it's easier to dismiss. The way he treats Akutagawa is a reminder to the audience that all the characters' actions have consequences. That Atsushi's hero was another person's nightmare and that BSD has many characters like this.
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bumblebeesfromvenus · 4 months
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Burning Touch ♠︎
Bale!Bruce Wayne x reader
A/N: MORE BALE!BRUCE 🥳 I adore possessive Bruce, especially Christian's! So, have this treat for the weekend <3 Enjoy!
~Fi 🐝
Warnings: NSFW content. proceed with caution. cunnilingus, It's so filthy, and it's literally just Bruce eating pussy, he's a lil insecure in this one, and feral.
Word count: 3.2k
Please don't copy my work! I put a lot of effort and heart into the things I write.
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The chilly November air of Gotham city nipped at your cheeks, turning them a rosy shade. The cold wind was blowing on your face, making a few tears burn in your eyes.
Gotham was its usual grey and gloomy self, but the low temperature made it bearable. This kind of weather wasn't unusual for this time of year, after all. Snowflakes would cascade from the heavy clouds soon, coating the dark city in a powdery blanket. The long-awaited holiday season had yet to come, but snow would always awake that cozy and warm feeling in your chest.
Your arm was hooked into Bruce's as you two walked through the moderately bustling streets of Gotham. The two of you had decided to take a walk, not a regular occasion, but when it did happen it was lovely. Bruce had never been one to go outside for fun, the fact that there always were paparazzi hiding somewhere didn't really contribute to his lacking enthusiasm.
He did it for you, to spend time with you. The way you were all cuddled up in your huge scarf and winter coat always coaxed a smile onto his face. Your excited smile as you went on about whatever came to mind perfectly extenuated your red cheeks, the unforgiving cold stinging on your delicate skin. Little did he know you had similar thoughts about him. His adoring eyes as he listened to your ever on going rambling, and his hair that sat so perfectly, even on a day like this. The long wool coat he wore made him look incredible handsome and put together.
Well, he always looked handsome and put together, but there was something so uniquely different about that damn coat.
You'd told a really bad joke, but he still laughed, his head thrown back as that wonderful symphony reached your ears. Occasionally, a stray strand of hair would fall into his face, but he'd just blow it away without a care in the world. The center of his universe was right in front of him. Why would he care about something as unimportant as that?
"We should head home. I'm about to turn into a popsicle." You laughed, it was airy, your breath forming a little cloud in the cold air.
"Well, Honey, you'd be a very, very delicious popsicle." Bruce smirked, turning his head towards you.
"Oh, stop, you!" You playfully hit his arm as a pout settled on your lips. You really hoped he couldn't see the blush on your cheeks through the redness the cold painted on your face. If he knew he could still fluster you after all this time together, he would use it against you as much as he could. And all of it would be for his amusement and his amusement alone. He'd tease you relentlessly, and maybe you enjoyed it just a little bit more than you should.
"I'm serious! I'm freezing my ass off." You huffed, a slight tremble to your tone from the cold. His arm unhooked itself from yours, and it trailed down your lowerback, all the way to your ass before giving it a squeeze.
"Still there, sweetheart, you don't need to worry." He looked like the cheshire cat with that huge grin on his face. You squealed at the unexpected touch and smacked his hand away. "Bruce Thomas Wayne!" You scolded, your brows scrunching together.
"I'm just keeping you warm, Honey." Bruce snaked his hand around your waist and pulled you against his side before pressing a kiss to your temple. You could feel his smirk against your hairline as he kissed you, and you had to admit it made you smile.
"You're lucky I love you." Grumbling quietly, you let him pull you into his embrace. You were cold, and he was warm. It was a no-brainer, really. Well, you also loved him dearly, which made his embrace twice as warm.
"I'm very lucky indeed." He said with a small smile, littering more kisses along your temple. You giggled as his action, pressing your face closer to his coat covered side. His heart felt full. It never had before, no matter how many new dates he took to galas or how many new cars and expensive watches he bought.
Not even Rachel had made him feel like this. Only you did, only you could. He would cherish you and the way you made his heart beat faster, the smile that would creep onto his face whenever you entered the room and a subtle heat rose to his face, until it all came crashing down. He swore it. He swore himself, and he swore you, and he'd do everything in his power to keep that promise.
You continued your path through the city, getting closer and closer to a much needed hot shower and a hot beverage of your choice. It would probably end up being Alfred's hot chocolate. You don't know what he puts in there, but god, it's good. You were just telling Bruce some gossip from this month's book club, which you attended with Alfred and Selena.
Although the latter of your friends was very hesitant and not at all fond of the idea, she enjoyed the time after discussing the books, which she'd never read anyway. You didn't see each other much, so catching up during a cozy afternoon was always a nice experience. Not to mention Alfred's cookies had your fellow book clubers, who were mostly middle-aged women, absolutely swooning.
"You won't believe which book Carol recommended we read next."
He raised an eyebrow glancing over at you. "And what book is that?"
"The fucking Bible." You replied, slightly shaking your head.
"The.. Bible? I doubt she could finish that in a month." He grinned, making you laugh. You went on about all the gossip about their grown-up children, who quit which job and others, which relationship. It was quite entertaining, actually. It was also the only reason Selena put up with the bookclub idea in the first place.
By this point, she was more excited to go than you and Alfred were. Bruce listened to all the stories that had been exchanged during this months meet. He would gently guide you around street lanterns and people as you were too captivated in your storytelling to notice.
He wondered sometimes, did he make your heart feel as full as you made his? He didn't want to doubt you, or your love, but he couldn't help the dark thoughts that would worm their way into his brain in the late evenings. He couldn't help the deep, dull ache of jealousy and insecurity that pounded in his heart when you would talk to other men. Bruce knew you would never break his trust and love like that, but it just felt so.. wrong. Wrong when you would smile at the barista at your favorite coffee shop and that idiot would smile back, or even worse, start small talk while he was right beside you.
At Galas and charity events, he'd hold you especially close. What if you found someone who was richer? Better looking? Someone who was more charming than he was? Bruce was an expert at hiding his feelings, so events were no different for him.
He'd laugh along and smile as you talked with some handsome billionaire, who was already undressing you with his gaze. He always felt uneasy around men like that. What if you left him? He was shocked at how insecure he really felt when it came to you, but he never had something like this before, something real.
Everyone always left him, what if you weren't any different? What if you would leave, just like everyone else had?
Bruce quickly caught sight of a tall, well built buisness man coming your way. He was on the phone, very entranced in the conversation, as were you. Before Bruce could pull you aside, you collided with the man, making you grunt has the air was knocked from your lungs. "I'm so sorry, Miss," he bent down to pick up his phone, which he had dropped at the impact, "are you alright?"
"I am, don't worry. It happens." You smiled with a little chuckle. The man, who was way too close to you for Bruce's liking, touched your arm and bid you a farewell with a very charming smile.
You went on your way, but Bruce was a little absent from that point. He tried catching everything you told him, but he couldn't stop thinking about how that guy had touched you. He had just touched you, who does he think he is? First, he's careless and bumps into you and then he touches you? He could feel a mix of emotions bubbling in his veins.
First, there was Rage. The hot, red anger of that fool putting his hands on you. Even if it was an objectively nice and innocent gesture, it made his blood boil. And then there was it again, that strange, fizzy feeling of insecurity. Would that small touch and exchange of words be enough for you to leave him? Was he good enough for you? Was he doing this right? He had no answers to any of these questions, and they were bouncing around in the inside of his head, pounding against his skull.
"Bruce, my love, are you alright?" You brows were pulled together in concern. You'd noticed that he was in his head, barely listening to what you were saying. He'd slightly stiffened and sped up his pace as well. "Hm?" He snapped his head towards you. It took him a second to process what you had asked.
"I'm fine, sweetheart." He forced a small smile, but you could see through that immediately. He'd forget that you were in a relationship sometimes, being completely vulnerable around each other. There was no way you'd fall for his little number. He cleared his throat. "Let's get home, shall we?" He hastily pulled you along, resulting in you stumbling behind him.
Once you were back at the Manor, you sighed in relief at the warmth that eveneloped you. You rubbed your hands together, hoping they'd warm up quickly. Bruce was still acting strange, a stoic expression and he hadn't said anything on the way back. You couldn't even get your shoes off before he was dragging you up the marble staircase, quickly finding the way to your shared bedroom.
"Honey? What's going on- mh!" You were interrupted by your lover turning around and smashing his lips to yours, probably to shut you up, cupping your cheeks in the process. Without saying a word, he grabbed one of your hands again and reached the bedroom with a very confused and flustered you in tow.
Locking the door behind him, he was on you immediately. Groping and kneading at your body, although you were still in your full outside attire, pushing you back on the bed. His kiss was hungry and desperate, he was practically devouring you. You fell back onto the bed as Bruce crawled on top of you, wrapping your legs around his waist.
"What- what's gotten into you?" You managed to ask between kisses, your breathing already heavy. "Need you." Was all he responded, mumbling the words against your lips. His hands which had previously rested on your waist slid down to your hips, over your thighs and calves until he reached your boots which he quickly made work of, making them hit the floor with a thud.
Your coat was next, being thrown across the room, same with your scarf, which then joined your coat on he floor. Bruce sucked and nibbled on your jaw as he eagerly pushed your top over your head, exposing your bra. He groaned at the sight, the vibration making your lips tingle. It wasn't a rare occurrence to see him like this, but usually, you'd know what caused this behavior. But today, you were clueless.
Not that you weren't enjoying it. It was an absolute sight to see Bruce like this. How this well-mannered, calm, and patient man lost his self-control so quickly when it came to you managed to ruin your panties every single time. He placed one of his hands on your back, making you lean slightly forward before he expertly unhooked your bra with one hand. Your soft tits spilled from their confinement, and you moaned softly as the cool air of the room hit your skin.
Bruce trailed his kisses down your neck and over your chest, but they weren't as slow and precise as usual. They were sloppy and rushed, it was like he was trying to reach as much skin as fast as possible. A few gentle sucks to your hardened nipples had your breath catching in your throat, but before you could say or do anything in response he had already moved on, hooking his fingers in your skirt and tights, quickly pushing them down your hips.
He slid off the bed, sinking to his knees and wrapping his arms around your plush thighs to pull you to the edge. "We have all the time in the world, no need to rush things," you breathed heavily, propping yourself up on your elbows to look at him.
"No." He growled, already at work to bite and suck marks into the supple skin of your thighs. Your head fell back at the sensation and you groaned. He looked so fucking good on his knees. Bruce was almost feral, groaning and grunting as his mouth tasted more and more of your skin. Finally, he turned his attention to your soaked pussy.
He stroked over the wet spot on your panties, licking his lips when one of those sweet moans fell from you. Kissing your ruined underwear, he gently caressed your thighs, soothing the bruises he had left. The sound of fabric ripping made your head snap forward, looking at your lover with an alarmed expression. Bruce was in a different world. His pupils were dilated and his chest was rising and falling with heavy breaths as he looked at your glistening cunt. It dawned on you once the cold air it your sopping slit. He had ripped your panties off of you.
"Honey, those were new-" you were cut off, yet again, as he dove in, licking at your folds. A high pitched moan ripped from your throat and you were gripping the sheets so tight there'd surely be holes in them by dawn. Bruce hummed in delight at your taste, his arms tightly wrapped around your thighs whil his hands were splayed out on your tummy, keeping you still as he devoured you.
Goosebumps were rising on your soft skin. The room was cold and you laid bare, making the sensation of his warm mouth on your pussy overwhelming. The scratchy fabric of his wool coat rubbed against your calves, reminding you that he was still fully clothed. A dull ache of arousal shoot into your tummy at the thought of him being so eager to have you, taste you, that he didn't even have the patience to undress himself.
He laped at you, drinking in all you were giving him. The lewd, wet sounds echoed through the quiet room, accompanied by your beautiful moans. All of your nerve endings were on fire, his touch almost burning as he kneaded at your body.
"Oh, Fuck- Bruce, oh my God-!" You whined and moaned once he circled his tongue around your clit. Your blood was boiling, almost as if hot lava was flowing in your veins. He pulled away for air with a gentle kiss to your bundle of nerves. The sight made your cunt squeeze around nothing. His hair was messy, your slick was dripping down his chin, he was heaving, the breaths sitting heavy on his chest.
A light layer of sweat covered his forehead, from both the warmth of his winter clothes and the burning pleasure he got from fucking you with his tongue. His beautiful brown eyes were almost black, his pupils swallowing his irises whole as he looked up at you.
"You're mine, right?" He asked, with such vulnerability and softness that your brows furrowed. That question caught you off guard, frankly. "W-What?" Your mind was hazy, your otherworldly bliss having been ripped from under your nose.
"Tell me you're mine. Please, sweetheart." He continued slowly licking at your cunt again, his eyes never leaving yours.
"Tell me you're mine." This time, it was more a demand, a hard tone to his voice. His cold gaze pierced through you, but there was an underlying look of pleading, like he was begging you to assure him you were his with his eyes alone.
"Tell me." It was a desperate plea, the raw emotion was something you'd seen rarely. You didn't know what to think, the jump between emotions and his demeanor couldn't cut through the thick fog of pleasure hanging over your mind. In a rough manner, his hands settled on your thighs, prying them open.
His tongue was back on your clit with small licks and kisses before wrapping his lips around it and suckling. The sensation made pleasure shoot up your spine, your eyes widening and your mouth was slightly agape, breathy whimpers and moans left your lips while your back arched off the bed.
"Shit- Yes, yes I'm yours! Jus' yours.." it came off your lips as a drawl, a slurry of words as ecstasy gnawed its way into your brain. The grip he had on your thighs tightened, his nails digging into your delicate skin. A delicious feeling of the subtle pain seeping into the pleasure you were experiencing coaxed another string of moans from your lips.
"Good." He said it so lowly, it was unlike anything you'd ever heard come out of his mouth. It vibrated in his chest and throat, and in succession against your sensitive pussy as well. You were so close, the mere touch of a feather could tip you over the edge.
"B-Bruce.." You panted, his name was forced out of your throat as best as you could. Your hands were gripping at his hair by now, not knowing whether to push him away or pull him closer. He knew you were impossibly close, he hungered for you to fall apart on his tongue and only think of him. Bruce buried his face even deeper between your thighs, finally snapping that thin rope that was keeping you from earth shattering bliss.
You came with a cry of his name, your thighs quivering. Your breathing was fast and uneven and your mouth was dry. The movements of his tongue slowed and became gentler as he helped you through your high. He slowly kissed his way up your body before finally capturing your lips in a soft kiss.
"Did you get all of it out of your system now?" You laughed breathlessly while a small smirk settled on his lips.
"I'm not so sure, actually."
"Oh, give me a break!" You whined as he pulled you close to his chest with a chuckle. It was kind of odd, seeing as you were completely nude, and he looked like he was ready to go out.
"Are you okay? I wasn't too rough, was I?" He inquired gently, pressing kisses to your head.
"No, no, it was really good." You smiled, resting your head against him with a sigh. You were burning up, your skin shinning with sweat.
"At least I'm not cold anymore." You glanced up at him with a smirk and one of those signature Bruce Wayne grins crept onto his face.
"Told you I'd keep you warm, Baby."
🌬●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●🩵●●●●●●●●●●●●●●🌬
There's more of our favorite playboy to come very soon!~ 🐝
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icedragonlizard · 5 days
Text
I might get torn apart for posting this, but imo it must be said.
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To make it crystal clear, I don't excuse Susie's actions in Planet Robobot. But I don't excuse Taranza's actions in Triple Deluxe either.
I think people in the Kirby fandom infantilize Taranza way too much.
I am not joking when I say that I've seen people go as far as to say that he was "never a villain in the first place". That he's "innocent".
I'm sorry, but that's just flat out wrong. He was objectively the villain during Triple Deluxe. "He was just following orders!" is not proof of innocence when he was following the orders of a dictator. Taranza was a dictator-enabler. A dictator's right-hand man. That's not innocent. He lowkey kidnapped people in the name of this dictator.
Who knows what he could've done off-screen during the game while dragging Dedede around with him... probably could've tormented a lot of unshown Floralians while Kirby was trying to stop the takeover.
I also believe that Taranza loved playing the villain. He looks incredibly smug while dragging Dedede around and provoking bosses into fighting Kirby. Not to mention the very things that he says in his monologue right before he uses Dedede like a puppet to fight Kirby.
.... So much for the claims of "never a villain in the first place".
I very much believe he's reformed (Susie too, tbh) but I wish people would stop totally erasing his actions and pretending he did no bad.
This is not meant to demonize Taranza in any way. It's just... I absolutely hate that people treat him like a poor little innocent baby while simultaneously treating Susie like an irredeemable, unforgivable monster. They committed very similar crimes, but somehow get treated like they're opposite ends of the spectrum morality-wise.
Now, when comparing them, Susie is indeed the worse of the two overall, because her actions were done on multiple planets vs. one country. But that doesn't change the fact that it's still hypocritical to treat one of them like they're innocent while demonizing the other.
Regardless of the different scales of their crimes, they're both ultimately just second-in-commands to corrupt higher-ups that then helped give Kirby something to fight the final boss when it mattered.
I like to think that Taranza and Susie are both rather morally grey people with good and bad qualities. To me, they're friends with Kirby now, but they still have flaws despite not being as bad as they were before. I'd put Magolor on the same boat alongside with them too.
Taranza can both have grief and still have flaws. And I think Susie 100% has had grief for her dad too, even if she's less open about it.
One of the reasons why Susie discourse is so aggravating is because people simultaneously downplay and infantilize other villains, especially Taranza. People are hypocrites. I bet people wouldn't give a crap if Taranza or Magolor were to turn Meta Knight into a robot.
I get why the colonization and capitalism themes for both Susie and Planet Robobot as a whole can strike a nerve to some people and elicit discomfort, but I don't really think that warrants a massive and unfair discrepancy to how she gets treated compared to the others.
While I can get why those themes can make some people not like her as much as others, I don't think it makes it fair to treat her like an unforgivable demon because her villainy happens to be more real.
Just because the others are less real doesn't mean they're innocent.
The double standards suck.
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shourin · 2 years
Text
madly in ̵l̷ov̸?̶e¿ voicelines
◇ ✨live✨ version (click to view)
◇ script version (under the cut)
(+bonus! heizou ー it's too bad i can't find his video :c ) same notes as this post for the live voicelines
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| About [name]
Ah... Yes. Aren't they endearing?
Hm? I look... upset? My apologies. Please don't worry, as long as you don't harbor any... foul intent towards them, my blade will remain sheathed. You must have known by this point that I don't care for needless confrontations.
| Your Relationship
The protector and the protected would be the best description, I suppose. I try to be the best shelter that I could ever become for the tired dove that they are. A safe space to return to, someone to call home.
... Or at least, this is what I wish to become. My sweet [name] tells me that my protection suffocates them sometimes, but in this ruthless world where the gods will not hesitate to strike their subjects down, can you truly fault someone's desire to protect what is most important to them?
| Competitors
If there is anything I've learned from my life of wandering, it's that obstacles will always present themselves in one's journey. And to move forward, we must eradicate them, lest they ambush us in the future. Don't you agree?
| Would you ever let go?
I'm sure you, who have experienced losses in your journeys, will be able to relate to me when I say that... At a certain point, one will slowly become accustomed to separation and rejections. But do you know what lies past the grief and the numbness when you think it couldn't possibly get worse?
*chuckles* I'm afraid... I have gotten past that point.
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| About [name]
Mm? Yes, what about my darling [name]?
Tread carefully now, comrade~ *chuckle*
| Your Relationship
Utterly head over heels, madly invested in each other, completely in love, and is in a loving relationship! Ahaha, don't give me that look! You were the one who asked!
Alright, alright, since you asked nicely... [name] has been with me for as long as I remember, actually. We were neighbors, and we kept in touch even after I joined the Fatui. They stuck by me through thick and thin, always smiling when they greeted me back at the village, despite knowing what I do for a living...
Tell me, how can one not fall in love with someone like that? Such a pure, untainted soul... Being around them feels like I've committed an unforgivable sin in itself, but alas, I've been utterly smitten and I can't exactly remember how to get out of this maze called love anymore. So I guess I'm staying for good, haha!
| Competitors
Ah, of course, there were many, many insects swarming around such beauty... The only irritating thing about it is that none of them - not even a single one - was a fun hunt! Can you believe it?? I've probably gone through a hundred of them by this point, but none makes a worthy opponent! *sigh* Life's hard when you're just too strong...
*grin* Speaking of which, how about it, Traveler? If you're free, why don't we do some sparring~?
| Would you ever let go?
Ahahaha! Comrade, you sure like to joke around...
Perhaps. If you can pry them off my dead body.
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| About [name]
[name]? Yes, of course I know them. What do you think about them, Traveler?
Oh? My smile looks scary? I'm not sure what you mean by that, this is my usual smile. *chuckles* Why, have you done something that will potentially incur my wrath? Something like... taking a romantic interest towards my dear fiancé, perhaps?
That's not the case? Well, then, I believe there's nothing you should worry about!
| Your Relationship
[name] has stayed with me throughout my darkest hours. They... gave me much-needed comfort, when I had to take the mantle of the head of the clan. Though it is something I have prepared for my whole life, it was a rather sudden change, and the transition was abrupt. Coupled with the fact that there was no room for mistakes... Yes, I could never thank them enough.
I believe we've developed a deep bond because of it all. So, it's only natural that I repay them by providing them with the best luxuries and the safest shelter to call home. And as the spouse of the head of the Kamisato clan, they won't ever lack anything!
| Competitors
-and make sure to do it without any trace, as usual. You are dismissed.
... Hm? Oh, Traveler. To what do I owe the pleasure?
| Would you ever let go?
My, I'm afraid I'll need context on this one. If this is about my position as the head of my household clan, I would rather not, but I believe Ayaka will become a fine head in my place. If you're talking about the Shuumatsuban, it will undoubtedly cause a few issues. Still, I should manage to hire some elite private mercenaries in their stead, though it would not be preferable.
And if this is concerning [name], then the answer is rather simple:
No.
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| About [name]
*smiles* [name] is my greatest treasure. I'm quite sure you've noticed the fondness I hold towards them. I can talk about them all day.
They are a kind one, for starters. Always wishing and striving to please everyone, sometimes to the point that they forgot about themselves. No matter in whichever lives, no matter their position... This aspect of them never changed. It worries me so. Yet, forcibly stripping this away from them would mean that I am rejecting who they are as a person. And that is not what I wish to do.
I'd like to think that I'm protecting them, by making sure that no one tries to take advantage of their kind nature. After all, is it not the job of a lover to make sure their beloved is safe and sound?
| Your Relationship
Would you believe me when I say that I have been in love with them for thousands of years? *chuckles* 
Be it Rex Lapis, Morax, or Zhongli... They have a firm hold of my heart. So it's only fair that I do so in return, don't you think?
| Competitors
As much as I would find it liberating to subdue those who do not deserve their attention, let alone be allowed to lay sight on them... I cannot.
We would not want the seas of Liyue Harbor to turn red from all the blood. It would be unhygienic.
| Would you ever let go?
..... All I wish for is for [name] to be safe.
And the safest place in all Teyvat is by my side.
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| About [name]
Oh, did you meet [name]? I suppose you've been frequenting the Kamisato residence lately... What did you think about them?
Hmm, I see, I see! The young miss introduced the two of you! ... .That's fine then.
Aren't they really nice? Did they talk about me? I have some time to spare, so we can sit down for some tea! Why don't you tell me all about it over some tea time snacks?
| Your Relationship
"The perfect couple"? R-Really? Do people really say that? Aw, geez, that's kinda embarrassing, but it makes me happy that people recognize how well we get along with each other, haha!
[name] could be a little stubborn sometimes, but they're just the sweetest! *giggle* Oh, and don't worry, when we get married one day, I'll be sure to invite you as one of the guests!
| Competitors
*strained laugh* Uhm, well, I can't deny that there are a lot of people around us, and with me being busy tending to the Kamisato siblings' needs, there isn't enough time for me to regularly check on them...
B-But, the young master has been really kind, so I really have nothing to worry about! Huh? What kind of help did he provide? Well, there are numerous things, really. For example... He's provided me with an adequate living section in the Kamisato residence, since I'm the young miss' retainer, and he allowed [name] to reside there! Just normal things, you know? Man, I sure am glad I work for a really accommodating boss!
| Would you ever let go?
You know, my mom used to say, if you truly love someone, you should always keep them close to your heart... And I agree wholeheartedly with her! Plus, [name] enjoys my company very much, why would I 'let them go'?
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| About [name]
My adorable significant other! What's this, are you investigating them for some reason, Traveler? I assure you, their background is completely clean, with no dirt in sight! I made sure of it, afterall~
Eh? What does that mean? Haha, who knows~
| Your Relationship
It's like a game of cat and mouse, most of the time. I find it mentally stimulating! They always love to test my intelligence by going into hiding somewhere, waiting for me to catch them! Isn't that cute? It's thrilling and keeps me on my toes, that's for sure! They're always so creative about it, too...
I do get worried from time to time, though. I mean, they might get hurt out there while they look for a hiding place... So if you ever spot them out there in any dangerous areas - which they're prone to wander off to - let me know straight away, okay? It might sound like I'm cheating by asking this from a lot of people, but I'd rather have [name] safe and my detective pride bruised rather than have them get hurt, or worse...
| Competitors
Now, see, to make a fair competition, the two candidates must have an equal footing with each other. However, I have yet to see someone who is as interested in [name] as I am, who is just as smart, good-looking, attentive, and capable as me - and to top it all off, have the ability and courage to do whatever it takes to ensure their safety and comfort! So there isn't really any competition going on here, is there?
| Would you ever let go?
Haha, is that a serious question?
Look here partner - a detective worth their salt will chase its target until the end of the world. Now, I'm not saying [name] is a criminal or anything like that, but all I'm saying is...
... I'm not the type who would let my prey get away, you see.
And it's not like I have a shortage of handcuffs to use, haha!
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tacticaldiary · 7 months
Note
Hey there! Love your stuff! I was just reading some of your work for our favorite Scotsman and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to feed me more.
Picture this, Soap and Reader have been a thing since like forever. On the “Alone” mission or something, reader goes on a rampage to find her sweet sweet Johnny.
A Still Beating Heart
Pairing: Johnny ‘Soap’ MacTavish x Reader
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
"Like hell I was leaving you." Clicking her tongue, she shifts her focus on his wound that's bleeding through the hasty patchwork. "Not letting you bleed out now."
"You gonna kiss it better, hen?" A poor attempt at a joke.
"I'll kiss you all you want once we're safe."
A/N: This turned out way longer than I expected-
Masterlist
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Rain obscures her vision as she runs, the image of Johnny hitting the ground after being shot playing over and over again in a dreadful loop.
He got away. He's gotten away. He's alright.
She chants it in her head over and over whilst navigating the winding streets of Las Almas.
"Watch it." Ghost barks yanking her to the side roughly when she almost crashes head-first into a crumbling brick wall. "Get your head on straight, Sergeant." Muted anger coats his words as he spits them out.
She grits her teeth in response, taking a second to survey her surroundings. They've stopped in an alleyway a good chunk of the way into the town. There's no doubt that Graves would be on their heels, they couldn't afford to stop for long.
Leaving two deadly soldiers who are witnesses wouldn't be a risk he'd take.
Three. She reminds herself with a fierce determination. Three soldiers.
How dare he. How fucking dare Graves turn around and betray them like he hadn't been their brother in arms for the last few weeks. The fact that he'd turned on them without remorse, shot her boyfriend without batting an eye was unforgivable.
Rage, hot and fierce scalds the blood running through her veins. Her mind is a storm of conflict, a desperate chant of Johnny's name on repeat. Between the anger, there's the blinding worry that accompanies it. It had all happened so fast she didn't get a chance to see where exactly he got shot, just that he'd fallen with a pained grunt, then Ghost was shouting at him to go.
Part of her rages Ghost him as well, for the way he'd roughly stopped her from lunging into the open to get to Johnny. It's not justified. Ghost had done his job as Lieutenant, had gotten them both and Johnny out of there in time.
Just barely in time.
While Ghost ventures farther into the alley, she clicks on her radio, switching through different channels. "Transmitting in the blind, does anyone copy?" She says into the device, frustrated when there's no answer, she flicks through the channels again and-
A raspy cough, a weak, familiar Scottish drawl.
She switches to it immediately, bringing the radio up to her mouth. "Johnny? I read you." The relief is palpable in her voice, a creature that settles with its claws still out. "What's your location?" She holds her tongue and her questions upon hearing heavy, raspy breaths from the other side. "Johnny?"
"Aye. 'S good to hear your voice." He manages. "I'm in...at the corner of a street. Edge of the town somewhere." There's a grunt from the other end, the rustling of gear and clothing as he sits up. "Is Ghost there?"
"Affirm." Her eyes snap to the man as he talks through his own radio. "There's a Church north side of the city. We'll recon there." His scouting must have resulted in something, then. It's a good plan, she'll admit. A structure with a solid vantage point gated off and less likely to be surrounded with its many exit points. Smart.
"Copy." Johnny's short response makes her frown.
"Can you make it?" She presses him. The short beat of silence has her heart sinking.
"'Course I can." He laughs but it's hollow. "Don't worry your pretty head about it. You'll see me in no time."
"Get moving, Soap." Ghost shuts down the conversation tightly, peering into one of the cracked open doors that lead into what looks like a clothing store. "Stay on my six," He tells her. "It's a straight path there, but we don't have a count on-"
"I'm going fetch him." Ghost exhales slowly, not turning around. "You and I both know he's lost an unknown amount of blood. I'm not risking losing him to that motherfucker." She snarls.
"You don't have his location."
"I'll scour the outskirts until I find him. You provide overwatch from the church. I will find him."
The fire in her eyes, the tight-strung posture...Ghost has little doubt that she would. They meet eyes, but she doesn't back down for a second, daring him to order her otherwise.
Finally after what seems like ages, he jerks his head behind him in silent, begrudging approval. "Thirty minutes, Sergeant."
"I'll only need ten."
                                  · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Tucked behind the counter of a grocery store, Soap clenches his jaw as footsteps pass through the window above him. This entire situation was a shit show.
The sting of betrayal was almost as painful as the insistent throbbing on his shoulder. He's already sure the bullet is lodged in there from the quick once-over he gave himself. Admittedly, it had taken him longer than he expected to get his bearings. Judging by the puddle of blood he woke up in, he'd already lost a good amount of blood before he'd roughly packed the still gushing wound.
Guerrilla warfare was bloody and made something vile crawl through Soap's veins. Every time he ties together rope and metal to pry open a door, or fashions a bomb out of a mousetrap, he can't help but think of the bodies he'd encountered on his path to the church. Children, women, men...nobody was spared by those fuckers.
It was vile, a kind of justice he didn't enlist to take part in. The very thing he's sworn to protect people against...
Soap is snapped out of his thoughts by Ghost's voice. They'd had some back and forth whilst they were moving, and Soap knows it's partly to keep him alert and present. Underneath Ghost's rough words, there was always a twinge of worry lacing his tone only someone familiar with the exact lilt of his mannerisms would pick up.
Once the footsteps recede, Soap groans quietly, pushing himself up to his feet with help from the wall. His legs protest, his arms ache and a deep exhaustion infects his mind, begs him to sit down for a few minutes and let go.
In an attempt to shake off the thoughts, he takes a deep breath and reaches for his radio to hear the one voice that always makes him snap to attention.
Soap's been thanking whoever was up there that she'd ended up safe with Ghost. It didn't ease his worry but it soothed it into something more bearable. She wasn't incapable by any means, but even the strongest person benefitted by someone equally capable by their side.
God, he hopes he reaches the church before he collapses.
Swaying suddenly, Soap curses under his breath and reaches to grab the counter to steady himself. In his haste, his arm crashes against a vase, sending it crashing to the ground.
The noise is accompanied by the yells of Shadows outside the store. Soap barely has time to curse himself out and make a lunge for the stairs before the soldier from before peers into the store, rifle at the ready.
Gunfire rains down on him, grazing his arm when he presses himself behind a brick pillar for cover.
Fuck. Fuck.
Sweat beads down his back as he struggles to keep himself upright, shaky fingers patting down his pocket for the knife he'd yanked out of a soldier's head an hour ago...has it been an hour? He doesn't know anymore.
Cautious steps approach him, his heart pounding against his chest as adrenaline pushes itself through his system.
It was strike now or get struck down. The element of surprise was the only advantage he had. His shoulder aches like a bitch but he sucks it up and tightens his grip around his knife.
It all happens at the same time.
Soap lunges out of his hiding spot, weapon raised as much as the fuzz around his vision will let him.
And he watches as someone else tackles the Shadow to the ground.
Soap stops in his tracks, tensing at the vicious way she slits the man's throat. Familiar hair, a body he's mapped out with his hands and mouth over and over again.
Her gaze snaps up to meet his, a shock down his spine.
"For someone so loud, you're good at staying hidden." She huffs, wiping the blood off of her cheek.
No. No, she couldn't be here. She was supposed to be with Ghost, not roaming the streets crawling with Shadows for...
For him.
The thought warms him from the inside out despite the situation. Who the hell is he kidding? He would have done the exact same thing for her.
The moment her hands touch his arms, all the energy seems to snap out of him. Johnny's knees give out, her hands barely catching him to lower him gently to the ground.
"Shit, Johnny?" Panic laces her voice. A hand slick with blood cups his cheek, slaps it gently to prompt his eyes to flutter open. "You gotta stay awake, okay baby? Come on." She doesn't relent until he listens, a hazy gaze focused on her.
"Ya shouldn't be here." He rasps out.
"Like hell I was leaving you." Clicking her tongue, she shifts her focus on his wound, bleeding through the hasty patchwork. "Not letting you bleed out now."
"You gonna kiss it better, hen?" A poor attempt at a joke.
"I'll kiss you all you want once we're safe." Hooking his uninjured arm over her shoulder, she helps her stand. Her heart clenches at the pained groan he tries to muffle. It's good that she had the sense to come back for him.
She doesn't want to think what might have happened if she'd been a second too late.
"That a promise?"
"A threat." She corrects as they stumble towards the backdoor. The weak snort she gets in response is more than enough to loosen the knot in her chest an inch.
Soap's laugh dies in his throat when they hit the streets.
"Jesus fucking Christ." He mumbles, looking around at the roads bathed in crimson.
Bodies and bodies of Shadows lay scattered around almost every alleyway they hobble through. Peeks through to the main roads show the same results. Black masked figures slumped over, limbs twisted and odd angles, necks slit open brutally.
"Had some fun getting to me, did ya?"
There's no response from her but a shrug.
There's no sorrow or remorse for what she had to do to get to him. A mantra of his name playing through her head, the desperation of getting to him and the rage of the situation mixed together had made each swipe of her knife, each broken bone easy.
She's painted the town red.
Johnny. She needed to get to Johnny and whoever was standing in her way had met their demise by viscous hands and an unforgiving sentence.
"I'm surprised you made it that far on your own." Keeping him talking was important. "Graves will face hell for what he's done." They duck into a street, the church in plain view.
"It's a bleedin' a war crime." Soap says. "Makes me want to commit a few of my own." His voice dips down to a growl. She shares the same sentiment.
"Amen." She mumbles back, peering out into the courtyard in front of them. A couple of figures patrol the area, breaking off of each other to peer behind parked vehicles and doors to different shops.
"Four hostiles in our path." A grimace. She gently lowers him down against the stone wall. "Stay here while I clear our path... not that you can go anywhere, actually."
Soap seems displeased about her going off on her own, but he knows that he's more of a liability than an advantage in a situation where stealth is valued. "Take 'em quietly."
"Copy." Her bloody knife spins in her hand. "Be right back, baby." Pressing a kiss to his temple, she slips out of the alley.
Johnny breathes out a shaky sigh, and lets his head hit the stone behind him. Itchy and restless from being able to do nothing, he loathes feeling so...useless. He's confident in her, how could anyone not be? But that doesn't quell the need to shield her from everything he can spare her from.
She was fiery and bright, everything he'd always wanted. She came into his life as a force to be reckoned with, butting heads with him and throwing insults back at his face as easily as he uttered them to her.
Love had hit him hard.
Stuck in his head, his eyes flutter shut against his wishes as he thinks. Just for moment, he tells himself. Just until she gets back.
Just a second of rest wouldn't hurt, right?
Somewhere in the depth of his mind, he knows that letting himself fall unconscious was the worst possible case in this scenario, but he couldn't have stopped himself if he tried. The blood loss makes him tired and lethargic and before long he's fallen into the inky depth of sleep.
                                  · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
It had all gone to shit.
Three of the four guards she'd taken down quickly. It had been almost easy how fast and quiet they went down, gurgling on their own blood as her knife slid across the chinks in their armour, the skin of their necks.
The third guard had been a little too trigger-happy, though. A twitch of his finger while he was choking had set his gun going off with a bang, a bullet embedded into one of the cars nearby.
It had been enough to alert every goddamn person in the vicinity.
She's glad she left Johnny behind, at least his position wasn't compromised.
Just as the street started filling up, her radio had crackled to life, Ghost barking that the church had been compromised and overrun, ordering them to meet him at the end of the street to secure a vehicle.
She was already there, all she had to do was keep her position and stop the Shadows from flanking her until Ghost got there.
"Copy." She mutters into the radio, setting up the rifle she'd swiped from one of the corpses over the hood of the cars she's ducked behind. "Eyes on a possible vehicle." She relays over comms upon setting sight on a blue truck close to her, relatively unscratched. Firing off round after round, the soldiers drop like flies. The armoured ones are a little tougher to deal with, and need a more precise aim but she manages somehow.
She curses under her breath as more of the pour from the stores and alleys into the streets.
Just a little longer. Ghost was almost here, then they could secure a vehicle, grab Johnny and get the fuck out of here.
Wrecking carnage in his path, Ghost emerges from behind a barrier after what seems like an hour, and together the both of them climb into the truck she informed him of. "Stop by the far alley and I'll haul Soap inside so we can get the hell out of here." She grunts, firing off shots from the back of the truck as Ghost starts the ignition.
She gets an affirmative and they're on their way, ducking at the sound of gunfire and barked orders following them.
She jumps out of the truck and runs into the alley where she left him. "Time to go Johnny, come-..." She halts in her tracks, into a dead stop at the scene in front of her.
Blood splatters the wall behind his shoulder, the wound aggravated and bleeding through the improvised bandaging in rivers of red down his arm. He's...he's pale, shallow gasps of breaths that are barely there making his chest move in movements too small to be healthy.
Ghost yells at her to make it quick, and it's her Lieutenant's voice that brings her crashing back to reality. Swallowing back her panic, she hoists Johnny up and drags him into the back of the truck, yelling at Ghost to move as she lays him down as still as possible.
Bullets ping off of the metal, but all she can focus on is pressing her hands to Soap's wound. She leans in close to feel him puffing out short gasps of air.
Still breathing, she tells herself as Ghost makes a sharp turn. He's alive, he's breathing, he's here, he's not dead. Alive, alive, still alive.
With hands shaky, she pulls out a proper roll of gauze from her vest, the emergency first aid pouch she carries is worth its weight in gold.
"Don't you fucking die on me, baby." She whispers, voice cracking. "It's not allowed." She wipes the worst of the wound with disinfectant before packing the hole with fresh gauze.
There was so much blood pooling beneath him in that alley...and how much had he lost before that?
He needed a medic, and fast. She wouldn't lose him. Not him.
Not her Johnny.
Not the person that could coax a smile out of her even if she was in the foulest of moods. Not Johnny, who always seemed to know what she needed, what made her feel better. Not the love of her life who she'd seen a life out of the military with.
Please, not him.
Time flies by and soon, Ghost pulls over in front of a safehouse. When he exits the driver's seat and comes round the back to asses the situation, his heart sinks as he finds her curled up over Soap, lips pressed to his forehead as she whispers to him, her hand carding through his dirty hair as if he might wake up to feel it.
"Let's get him inside." He says, tone oddly sombre. If he notices how wet her eyes are, he doesn't comment on it, merely helps her carry him in silence.                                   · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Rudy had been a godsend. His safe house had been packed with supplies much more useful to Soap. He'd taken one look at Soap, at her wrecked and frantic state, and taken over. Ordering her and Ghost to start studying the maps to the facility they planned to break into, he started his own inspection of Soap.
She can't focus.
The maps mean nothing to her. The lines, the marks, the circles. It was meaningless gibberish to her when her boyfriend was-
"He'll pull through." She blinks back into the present at Ghost's gruff voice, head snapping up to meet his gaze.
"He better." A shaky inhale.
                                  · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
When Rudy comes back to inform them that Soap is stable, her legs nearly buckle under her with a wave of relief. She pushes past him immediately to seek her boyfriend out, and finds him laying on one of the old cots pushed to the corner.
She takes a seat on the floor next to him, resting her head against the mattress. "You're an asshole." She mumbles after a second. "Scared the shit out of me, you know that?"
He probably can't hear her, but it doesn't stop her frayed nerves from talking. Her hand finds his and she squeezes it gently trying to bring some of her warmth into his cold skin. Sighing, she presses his hand to her forehead, shifting her grip so her fingers rested on his pulse.
Each steady beat loosens the knot in her chest, reassures her that he is alive.
Would he wake up soon? Would he wake up at all? The latter thought is quickly chased away, because there was no choice. Johnny had to wake up, he had to.
A world without him simply wasn't one worth having.
                                  · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Her back aches.
Forehead pressed into the mattress right by his waist, it's the first thing she registers as she's roused from where she'd dozed off. Blinking sluggishly, she groans as she feels a hand carding through her hair.
Just the right pressure, the feeling so familiar and warm and soothing-
Her eyes widen and she snaps up straight to meet a pair of tired but amused blue eyes studying her. Johnny's sitting up right in front of her, looking down at her in that soft way he always did.
"Rise and shine." He rasps out, and she almost sobs at the sound. Pushing herself to her feet, she wraps her arms around him the best she can without injuring him. "Easy." He winces at being jostled but holds her just as tight.
"Thought you were gone." She chokes out, trembling. "I thought-"
"I'm right here, bonnie." He whispers into her hair. "Right with ya. Gonna take more than that to do me in, right?"
She laughs wetly into his shoulder, as he runs a hand up and down her back as if she was the one who needed comforting.
Pulling herself together was a more difficult task than clearing the streets of Las Almas. Every time she thinks she's calmed down, she remembers how still and cold Johnny had been and she spirals all over again.
He clicks his tongue and manoeuvres them gently so he's laying down with her on his chest, careful to avoid his good arm. Her head is pressed against the centre of his chest, the sound of his steady heartbeat a balm against the rising and falling cycle of panic and grief she's stuck in.
Alive, alive, alive. Still alive.
Once her breathing evens out into something relatively stable, she tries to speak again. "Don't scare me like that again."
He hums. "I'll do better next time." A tired smile grows on his face as she pinches his side.
Alive.
He was still alive.
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(3/09/2023)
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natasha-in-space · 2 months
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Every so often, I can't help but think about all the dirty jobs Saeyoung had to do during his time as an agent. I'm not talking about the usual digital crime stuff he feels comfortable enough to mention openly. I'm talking of those missions he'd rather just shut up and never speak a word about. What about all the missions that went wrong for him, back when he was still young and inexperienced?
The fact that he has blood on his hands is apparent to us. But, do you ever think about whether or not he was forced to kill an innocent? Be it by some cruel accident or by direct order from the higher ups he had no choice but to obey? Have you ever thought of him having to make a quick elimination on yet another corrupt member of society, only to realize that his family, who has nothing to do with this, had seen him?
Have you ever thought about him doing everything he can to fix this: coming up with shaky lies on the spot, attempting to fabricate evidence, eventually resorting to pitiful begging that goes nowhere. But there should not be any witnesses. It's too late to turn back now. He got sloppy. His DNA is already on the scene of the crime. If he refuses, he not only puts his own safety at risk, but these people will get eliminated regardless. The least he can do is make it quick and painless. Have you ever thought of him still having to come back to his sad parody of a home and pretend like everything is fine? Like this was just another Tuesday, and not one of the most sickening things he had to do and witness?
Have you imagined him sitting down, staring at his bloodied hands with a blank and glassy look to his eyes, his weapon still in his grasp, and his ears ringing from every shot he has fired? Have you ever thought of him feeling so utterly disgusted and ashamed of himself that it almost seems like the silver cross on his neck that has always brought him a sense of security, is burning through his clothes and straight into his flesh? He won't take it off, no matter how heavy it feels. He wears it as a constant reminder of the sins these hands have committed. He knows that God has seen it all. He knows that, much like Lucifer, he will never be allowed to step foot over the Heaven's Gates. His soul is too sullied. Too dirty. Too sinful.
I feel like these are the days when he goes complete MIA. He tells everyone in the RFA later that he just slept through these few days.
He maintains contact with V, just in case. But, really, he spends these few days just... in a daze. Luciel has no remorse for selling his entire life away to guarantee his brother's happiness. He does not regret sullying his hands in the darkest sins this world had to offer, if only it means that Saeran's hands will get to do all the good things he has always dreamed about. He does not regret forsaking his own childhood, because he never thought of himself as a child in the first place.
But, in these moments... as the events of what he has done continue to unfold in his head over and over again, like he never even left, he feels it. Regret. Guilt. Disgust.
Luciel harbors a deep hatred towards his parents. He hates his joke of a mother, who has brought nothing but endless torment on her own children for ruining the life she foolishly destroyed all by herself, something he despises with all his heart. He hates his father for forcing them to live in constant fear and paranoia, just for the unforgivable crime of being born into this world. He hates every bystander who has done nothing to correct such an unfair act of pure cruelty unfolding right in front of their eyes.
But, as his vacant gaze keep drifting back to the equipment he has stashed away in one of his many drawers, a grim thought claws at his insides, tearing him apart piece by piece like a vicious parasite feeding on his flesh: is he... really that different from them?
Vanderwood ends up being the one find him, slouched in his seat, his hands still caked and crusty with blood. They just sigh, already knowing what happened. It's something they all had to go through. They just sit next to him, letting the younger agent know he's not alone. And, once Luciel's shoulders start to shake with choked, painful sobs, they don't say a word. They just let him break down into their arms.
It's one of the rarer moments of tenderness between the two.
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bitchliteraria1906 · 12 days
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I'm so sorry for spam posting about Lokius. It will happen again.
Anyways, I wanna talk about how the fell first x fell harder thing works with them, in my personal opinion.
Let's get it out of the way: Mobius fell first, Loki fell harder. I think most of the fandom agrees with this.
Mobius studied Loki's life. He's seen all the bad and even downright unforgivable things Loki is capable of.
But he's also seen Loki interacting with his family and the people of Asgard, how he never seemed to fit in, how there always seemed to exist an emotional wall between him and pretty much everyone that wasn't Frigga. He's seen vulnerable moments other people in Loki's life can only dream of knowing about.
As I said, something Mobius definitely noticed is the big emotional wall that exists between Loki and other people.
So the first thing he does when he gets a chance to talk to Loki is try to break down said wall, and he does that by pressing him with questions and pushing all the buttons possible.
"Do you enjoy hurting people? Do you enjoy killing?"
"I'll kill you."
"What, like you did your mother?"
It's a cruel tactic, and considering Mobius’s personality it's safe to assume he didn’t enjoy doing that, but it's what you're expected to do with prisioners at the TVA, and in this case, it works. Loki opens up, and it makes things easier.
I've seen a lot of people joke about how Mobius studying Loki is basically him having either a hyperfixation or being a fanboy with a little celebrity crush, and... yeah? That's pretty much it?
I mean, come on. Even though it was necessary to understand Loki to work with him, you can’t tell me Mobius wasn't genuinely interested in him too. Even in season one, when things were far from perfect and there was still trust to be built, he seems to think of Loki as fascinating/endearing sometimes, and did nice things for him without expecting anything in return, like giving him the daggers, complimenting him, just overall speaking softly whenever they're talking. He wouldn't do that if he didn’t see Loki as more than a variant he was being forced to work with.
All of this, paired with his reaction to the possibility of Loki having a thing for Sylvie, paints Mobius as the person who fell/noticed his feelings first for me. I personally think he pushed these feelings aside due to a "It would never work" train of thought, even before Sylvie.
As for Loki, while he obviously didn't trust Mobius at first, once they started spending more time together, he seemed to start feeling safe and comfortable around him to a degree that he had not felt with anyone else in a long time. He sleeps peacefully around Mobius, allows himself to be playful, and seems to genuinely appreciate the nice things I mentioned Mobius did for him.
But he's also a very traumatized person who hasn't felt genuinely connected to anyone in a while, so he obviously has no idea what to do with this, and the high stakes he's dealing with obviously don't help. He doesn't have time to sit down and process how he truly feels about this random analyst that just came into his life and flipped it upside down. And even if he had the time, would he even manage to accept he was falling for someone? We're talking about Loki here.
This is where the biggest difference between their situations shines for me: Mobius had a long, boring time to think of Loki before even meeting him in person, and even when they did meet, he was dealing with less shit than Loki. He had time to think about Loki, come to a conclusion about his feelings, and make the conscious choice to not act on them/push them aside.
Loki was thrown on the TVA shortly after the events of Avengers, watched a tape of his entire life play before his very eyes, had to learn everything about the TVA and timelines and then met Sylvie and the other variants. It's not that he didn’t reciprocate, he simply didn’t have time to process his feelings.
Personally, I can see him having a moment of realization at the end of season one, when he realized how desperate he was for Mobius's comfort after being kicked through the door by Sylvie, and when the horror of Mobius not recognizing him set in.
And that's what I mean when I say he "fell harder": it's not that he loves Mobius more, it's that Mobius developed and accepted his feelings slowly, while Loki's feelings hit him like a train at the worst time possible.
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