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countcvnt · 2 months

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Experiment

Chapter One: Scrambled

[Poly!TF141/Fem!Reader]

Summary: Your memory is hazy, almost nonexistent, after being plucked out of a safe house and experimented on for months. When you're finally rescued you don't remember the people closest to you. Warnings: Canon Typical Violence (not much else this chapter), me using an english to scottish translator, not beta read Word Count: 3.3k A/N: Had this silly idea and turned it into a serious/angsty fic. I hope you all will like it as much as I do! Also, Reader has a call sign! It's Ace. If you prefer, you can read it here on AO3

Your eyes are heavy, your body burns, and you can't stop shaking. You aren't even sure of where you are. Your eyes are trained ahead of you, looking at what you assume is a two way mirror. A scientist is standing to the side of you messing with some needles and medicines. Your half lidded eyes cut towards him and you see a thick blue substance in a syringe.

“What's that?” You croak, voice hoarse.

“Hm?” The scientist doesn't even look at you, “curious now, are we?” He asks, pulling the syringe up and turning to you. He doesn't answer your question though, not in a way you would like. “We are about to figure out what this is.”

‘We’. Your stomach flips. He didn't even seem to know what it was. You accept your fate. You have from the very beginning. You don't know how long you've been part of this ‘program’, and to you, it didn't matter anymore. The only thing that matters is trying to get out alive. No one seemed to be coming for you. No one has in all of the days you've been hidden away. You didn't expect anyone to save you now. So, you had decided to save yourself. Figuring out how to do that was becoming difficult though.

You know that behind that two way mirror are a bunch of guards. You know they're heavily armed. You know, no matter what they have juiced you up with, you aren't beating a bunch of armed men. So, you sit idly. Letting them poke and prod and decide you are going to wait until the perfect opportunity shows itself. You just have to hold on until it does.

A loud alarm suddenly rings throughout the building and you cover your ears, flinching. The scientist seems more agitated than anything. He doesn't seem as bothered as you are, by any means.

“Guards!” He calls out, looking towards the large mirror. “Guards?” He questions.

He puts a finger up at you, asking for you to wait a minute. As if you have any other choice. A loud bang comes from outside the room and chills run up your spine. The guard walks towards the door and he peeks out. He quickly shuts and locks the door before returning back to you. He scurries over towards the metal stand beside your seat. He grabs the syringe and picks it up.

Something clicks in you. The alarms are still blaring and the guards seem to be gone to check it out. You watch as the syringe comes towards you, headed right for your neck. You move faster than you're used to, and grab the man’s hand and push him back. A lot harder than you had meant to. He slides back and hits the wall. The syringe does not leave his hand.

You rush towards the door. You wiggle the door knob and try to rip the door open. It doesn't budge. You turn your head back and see the scientist steadying himself. Fear kicks in.

“Help!” You scream, slamming your fists into the door. “Please, help me!”

“That was really stupid,” the man behind you says. “No one can hear you, no one is coming to save you. They haven't yet, have they?”

Tears prick your eyes. You turn back around and your back hits the door.

“Y'know, I'm going to be honest.” He stalks towards you. “I know they picked you because you're so… compliant. But really? I think that big guy with the mask would have been a better choice.”

That stings. “Who?”

“Which one?”

“Both.”

“You know I can't give out classified information. But if this works, I promise, you'll know everything. As for the other guy? I'm surprised you don't know who I'm talking about. But honestly, after all the brain scrambling you've had done to you, I understand how you don't remember him…”

You lose it. Something in you snaps. You lunge forward and grab the man. The both of you tussle briefly. Until you get him pinned. Your body slams into his and you hold him down. You raise your fist and bring it down, slamming it into his jaw. Screams, pleas fall from his lips. He's begging for you to quit. But you don't. You, at that moment, decide you are going to do that to every single person who has harmed you, who caused this.

The door behind you blows open, but you don't falter. Your fists continue to slam into the scientist’s face. Until you hear someone with a Scottish accent say your name. You freeze. You turn to find a man in the doorway, his eyes wide. You furrow your brows when he whispers your name again. You move to get up, without thinking about the man below you. You don't realize he's moving. His hand comes up and the needle is pressed into your neck. Whatever the liquid was is quickly administered into your bloodstream.

You hear your name again, louder this time, but you fall to the side, eyes too heavy to hold open. Your head slams into the now bloodied white tile and you're out.

So much for escaping. _____________________________________ You wake up to beeping. A sound you had grown accustomed to recently. You feel monitors hooked up to you, and an IV in your arm. You twitch ever so slightly, every muscle in your body contracting. And then it hits.

Anger.

Your eyes snap open. Your legs swing over the side of the bed. You rip every single monitor off of you, the IV flying across the room. The monitor begins to beep loudly and as you rush towards the door, exiting the isolated room, an alarm blares. You flinch momentarily, but do not let the sound stop you. You are looking for someone, anyone to give you a hint of what's going on. Nothing around you looks familiar. But from all the ‘brain scrambling’, that's normal. You're used to not knowing as much as you figure you used to.

A man in a bucket hat turns the corner, rushing towards what can only assume is you. You let out a low growl and begin to sprint. Your body slams into his and the both of you are sent sliding across the floor. You grab his vest and lower yourself to him, all of your weight holding him down. “Where the fuck am I?”

He's looking at you with confused eyes. He doesn't make any sudden movements. He immediately presents himself as a friend, not a threat. You squint and then see someone else coming around the corner.

“Price! Oh my-” the young man freezes. He says your name and your world is instantly rocked.

You haven't heard your name in god knows how long. The Scottish man had called out for you earlier, but before that? You really can't think of a time when someone had called you something other than some experiment number. “Who are you?” You hiss.

You feel the man under you tense up. He swallows hard and he says your name this time, slow and soft. He isn't showing any signs of wanting to throw you across the room or knock the shit out of you. You take it he isn't a threat and shift.

“You don't remember me?” The man in the ball cap asks, brows furrowed. “You don't remember us?”

Your heart jumps into your throat. You push yourself off of the man below you and you stand up. You brush yourself off and watch as he stands up. He radios someone to cut off the alarm and it's promptly stopped. You are thankful for that. You stand in the hall awkwardly and watch him and the other, younger man talk to each other with facial expressions.

“You're probably hungry,” the man in the bucket hat turns towards you, “how about we go get you some food?”

You aren't stupid, you know that also entails speaking with them about everything you just went through. Despite not wanting to talk, you nod. You are hungry and haven't had an actual meal in possibly months. The man reaches out to touch your lower back, to lead you to wherever he wants to go. You flinch away from him, everything in you tensing. You can tell it's a reflex. A habit. He's used to doing that. Your eyes scan him and you're searching your brain for everything, anything about him. But there's nothing.

“Sorry.” Is all he says. He leaves it at that. “Gaz,” he looks away from you and towards the other man. “Please go grab some food and meet us back at room 2B.”

“Yes, sir.”

The tension is palpable. You want to run. Fast. You can. You know you can. But something is keeping you tethered there. You follow a couple feet behind the man who had yet to introduce himself and keep thinking about ‘Gaz’. Your mind is reeling. You keep thinking about his name, his face, everything. You close your eyes tight and inhale sharply.

“Kyle.” It's all you say. It stops you dead in your tracks. Your eyes open and your breathing is heavy. “His name is Kyle.” Your breathing is suddenly ragged. You can't catch your breath and feel like everything is crumbling in on you. You fall to your knees and try to keep yourself from wailing. “I don't even know your name!” You whisper to keep yourself from sobbing. Your voice cracks.

“Price. John Price.” He drops in front of you. He reaches for your bicep. You don't flinch away this time. “Hey,” his voice is low, “look at me.” Your eyes cut up to him. “We're gonna help you through this. I promise.” You nod. You want to trust him. You need to. You feel like you can. You inhale slowly and Price helps you up. “We're going to go to room 2B, you're going to eat some breakfast, and we're going to ask you some questions.”

You nod and start following Price again. You make it to the room in silence and Price opens the door for you. You walk in and find four beige walls, a table, and four chairs. Nothing else. Until you look in the corner of the room and find a little camera. You lock onto it and squint.

“Why?” You point at it.

“Oh,” Price walks in and closes the door behind him, “it’s protocol. Security and all.”

“Fair enough.” You sit down at the table and look at the Price. “You gonna sit?”

Price holds onto his vest and leans against the table. “Not yet.”

You shrug. “Suit yourself.” Your stomach growls. You touch it through the thin white shirt you're wearing. “You think Gaz will be here soon?”

With that, a knock comes from the other side of the door. Two knocks, a pause, and another knock. Price opens the door and Gaz walks in. He has a tray filled with food and you are growing antsy. He sits across from you and slides the tray towards you. You try to not immediately dig in, but you can't help it. You grab a glazed donut first and begin to devour it.

“Oh,” you pause your munching, “thank you, Kyle.”

Gaz freezes. His eyes widen and he turns towards Price. It's your turn to freeze. You look up at him mid bite and blink. Gaz motions towards you and asks, “Did you tell her my name.”

“No.” Price shakes his head.

“You remembered?” Gaz seems ecstatic. “What else do you-”

“Nothing.” You snap. “I don't remember a damn thing.” You huff as you move onto the muffin on the tray. You unwrap it and begin to devour the sweet. “All I know,” You speak through bites, “is that I was locked up for God knows how long and they were experimenting on me-”

“Four months.” Gaz speaks quietly.

“Huh?” You question him. “How do you know?”

“We looked for you when you disappeared. It was four months ago when they got you. You really don’t remember anything?”

“Like I said,” You huff, “I just know they were juicing me up.” Before they can question you further, a light bulb goes off in your head. “Wait.” You squint at them, “The Scottish one. Where is he?”

They tense up. Gaz talks first, “You remember Soap?”

“Huh?” You cock your head. “Is that his name? He’s the one that found me. I assume he’s here. Or did he not…” You trail off.

“No, he’s here…” Price begins, “…We don’t want to overwhelm you.”

“Oh.” You shrug. “I guess that makes sense. How am I supposed to, uh, assimilate without being overwhelmed. I mean, why don’t we just rip that band aid off?”

“Trust me,” Price locks eyes with you, “we do not need to rip that band aid off right now.”

“Okay, okay,” You put your hands up. “Do you wanna ask your questions now?” _____________________________________ “This cannae be healthy,” Soap looks at Simon.

Simon shrugs, “Don’t care.” He’s watching the cameras closely.

“Thay aren't even in th' room yit! Ye'r peepin' an empty room!” Soap’s eyes move from the screen and back to Simon.

Simon’s eyes cut from the screen and to Soap, “Shut it. Price wants us to stay away from her for now. He didn’t say we couldn’t do this.”

As he says that, the door of the room opens. Price is visible first. And then, another figure walks in. You. Simon and Soap both tense. You look directly at the camera and point, asking why it’s there. You’re so clear. Soap’s heart jumps. Simon shifts.

“She remembers Gaz’s name.” Simon speaks through gritted teeth.

“A'm sure that's a targeted attack against ye, Ghost.” Soap is trying to find humor in this situation. He’s grasping for straws.

Simon is not enjoying it. “Shut the fuck up, Johnny.” Simon growls.

Soap focuses back on the screen and notices you aren’t even sure how long you’ve been gone. As Gaz gently tells you four months, Simon grumbles the amount of time at the same time.

“If Price doesn’t wanna overwhelm her, why the fuck is Gaz in there.” Simon is seething. “Why can’t we all be in there.”

Simon shuts his mouth as you say they had been juicing you up. He tenses. Soap does the same. They both need to know what it means. Simon feels like he’s going to combust. His eyes narrow once you mention Soap. Soap looks like he’s about to jump with joy, until he realizes you don’t actually remember him. Not past him saving you.

“Fuck this,” Simon pushes past Soap. “I'm going in there.”

“Hey! Price said-” Soap starts. He doesn't finish. “Fine-” he rushes out behind Simon. He guesses they're just going to bust into the room and Simon is going to make you remember. He isn't quite sure what Simon has planned really. But he decides he can't sit in the security room and just watch. He needs to see you.

So does Simon. _____________________________________ You reach for a fork for your eggs and lean back in your seat, plate in hand. You relax (as much as possible) and you look at Gaz and Price. You are studying them. Really digging into their features. You want to remember so badly. You have no reason to trust that they used to know you, a part of you is ready to attack in case they are lying. But most of you trusts them. How else would you remember Kyle’s name?

“Listen,” Price inhales sharply, “we want to help you, without overwhelming you. We need to know what you know.”

“Listen,” You mimic his tone, “I don’t know what you aren’t getting. I remember nothing, nada, zilch.”

“Okay,” Gaz interjects, “What’s your last memory?”

You're sent into deep thought. You place your hand on your chin and look off. “Well-” You begin, “I remember-”

The door of the room busts open. You tense, ready to pounce. Your palms hit the table and you stand up straight. The fork clangs against the ground. Two men walk into the room. The one who saved you and-

Words play in your head over and over again. ‘I think the big guy with the mask would have been a better choice.’ For a moment, your world is completely rocked. ‘I’m surprised you don’t know who I'm talking about.’ Your eyes lock with the large beast of a man. His eyes soften. Briefly. You swallow hard.

The entire room is silent. Until you open your mouth. “He wanted you…”

“What?” Soap is the first to question you.

“The scientist, the one doing the experiments on me-” You are tense again “-he didn’t want me.” Your head hurts. You place your hand on your forehead and groan. You are thinking too hard. Remembering too much.

“Hey,” Price motions for you to sit down, “it’s alright.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ghost,” Price looks over his shoulder, “not right now.”

Ghost stiffens. He doesn’t say anything else. You sit down and inhale slowly. Your eyes move from the floor, past Price, and they hit Ghost. You feel something stir inside you. Like your emotions know more than your brain does. You want to scream. Every single man in that room seems to think so highly of you, and you don’t even remember them.

“I think I need to sleep.” Your voice is a whisper.

You don’t know the last time you got a good rest. You figure sleeping will help you. Price begins to grab for you, before freezing. You lean into him, letting him help you up. Price moves past the men and you tag along beside him.

“I’m going to show you where your room is. If you need anything, please let one of us know. But for now, we’ll leave you alone.” You are led down the hall and towards the barracks. It’s silent between the two of you, until you reach your room. “You have this room to yourself. I had some things rearranged, if it needs to be changed, and you aren’t comfortable alone, let me know.”

You nod at him. “Thank you. For everything. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“0600 sharp.” Price begins to leave.

“Wait,” You stop him. “You don’t happen to have my phone, do you?”

Price turns back to you. “No, that was not recovered. But, we can get you a new one. I’ll work on that while you rest.”

You nod. You head into your room and close the door behind you. You look around. There are two beds. You groan at the fact you can’t remember who used to be your bunk mate. You’re scraping through your brain, really searching for just an inkling of a memory. But… Nothing. Nothing at all comes to your mind.

Nothing about the four men convinced that you know them, anyway.

You lay down in bed and cover up. It’s not the most comfortable bed you’ve ever been in, but it is the most comfortable bed you’ve laid on in the last four months. Your head hits the pillows and you close your eyes. It takes longer than you’d like to go to sleep, but not as long as you expect it to take. You only hope you don’t dream of anything at all. You can’t be that lucky. _________________________________ “Price!” Simon shouts at the captain. His face contorted with anger and pain, and he is more glad than ever that they can’t see him through his balaclava. “What the fuck was that? We need to know-”

“No,” Price stops him immediately. “We do not need to stress her out further. We will figure this out eventually, on her time.” Price reassures his team. “You did not see the look in her eyes, the way she tackled me to the floor-”

“She what…?” Soap tenses.

Simon bristles instantly. He’s seething again. “What do you mean?”

“Ghost,” Gaz starts, “I know you want to know what happened. We all do.” He’s trying to get through to him. “But something is not right. The way she easily took Captain Price down- That wasn’t the Ace we know.”

“Of course!” Simon growls, “She was gone for four months, being poked and prodded-”

“Ghost,” Price interrupts, inhaling sharply, “she pinned me down and I could not get up. They did more than poke and prod at her. They-”

It clicks. “They were making soldiers… Enhanced soldiers.” Simon whispers. His face contorts again, this time with confusion, “Why did they pick her?” He remembers what you said. ‘He wanted you.’ Simon momentarily feels a pit in his stomach. “Ace couldn’t have been the only one… There’s no way they did this experiment on one person.”

“She was the only one at the underground compound.” Soap shifts. “Maybe she was the only success?”

Simon is stuck on why they picked you. It’s not like you weren’t capable. But you were never on the field fighting for your life. You were always on the sidelines, helping them get into the places, helping them get information. How had they spotted you and decided you were the best candidate? He knows that question is going to keep him up at night.

“Come on,” Price brings Simon back to reality. “We got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

#ghost x reader #john price x reader #john soap mctavish x reader #kyle gaz garrick #gaz x reader #john soap mactavish #john price #cod x reader #cod #call of duty #call of duty x reader #simon ghost riley #cod mw2 #captain john price #x reader

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eyesxxyou · 29 days

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❝ sunshine pt.2 ❞ (hobie brown x male!reader)

｡ﾟ･ ¡ content. hobie x male!reader. reader pretends to hate dislike hobie. gay longing. denial of feelings. a little internalized homophobia. leg humping. handjob thru underwear. lots of kissing. hobie being a lil shut. weeks of avoiding hobie become moot when you and him find yourselves alone in a bathroom together.

wc: 3.6k

You wish you hated Hobie Brown.

It would be so easy, wouldn't it? He kissed you, did unspeakable things to you in that closet. And you let him. You enjoyed even, you relished in the way his mouth felt, his lithe fingers sinking into your flesh. the way he cooed in your ear. It would be easy to write him off completely, hate him for the rest of your life, his smug face, his hooded eyes that gaze into yours and hold secrets only known between you, him, and God.

But you don't hate him. You can't. You hate yourself more than anything. You should have never indulged him, never let him put a single finger on you. Because now, when you lie in bed at night and close your eyes, all you can see is him on his knees, feel your cock sliding down the pocket of his throat while he looks up at you through his lashes with those dark eyes of his. You can't get it up any other way. Women don't do it for you anymore.

The moment the two of you left the closet you told everyone to leave. You picked up Hobie’s clothes and shoved them into his arms before sending him out the door with the rest of them. You never once looked him in the eye.

Your friends asked Hobie what had happened inside the hour you spent together and Hobie, being quite the convincing liar, simply shrugged as if he had no idea what had set you off. “Nothin’. Think ‘e migh’ be claustrophobic.” But he knew. You both would always know, no matter how hard you attempted to scrub it from your mind. He’d keep it a secret if you did. He might start shit from time to time but he wasn’t into outing people. He’d keep the secret for you if you didn't want it.

You know better. You know yourself. If you were alone with him, something like that would happen again and you wouldn't know what to do with yourself.

So you avoided Hobie like the plague after that night. Every invitation to hang out was promptly turned down with an excuse that was only a thinly veiled lie, obvious to no one except for Hobie who knew better than to accept that you were sick 3 weeks in a row.

It was understandable. He had made you question everything you had known about yourself all within a matter of an hour. Why would you want to be around him? You feared him and everything he symbolized to you.

“It’s Hobie, isn't it?” Your friend, Riri, sighed. She had come in person to get you out of the house. There was no pretending to be sick, no feigning exhaustion. She came and she called you out so accurately you feared that Hobie might have told her what had happened in the closet. Your chest squeezed and you lost your breath, terrified that she may know.

You scoffed, anxiety swelling within your chest as you pretend to roll the question off your shoulders. “Hobie? Why would I care about Hobie?”

“Everyone knows you can't stand him. And you haven't been the same since we stuck y’all in the closet. Did he say somethin’ to you?” You looked into her eyes for any semblance of your secret and found nothing. You wished you could tell her, your shame, your pleasure, the absolute heaven you felt being in that closet with Hobie. You’d just embarrass yourself.

“No, that's ridiculous. I find him just as endlessly irritating as I always have.” You reach up, tug at your hair softly, and shift your gaze. You were telling on yourself. Fuck, if you didn't agree now, she’d definitely know that there was something up with you and Hobie. “I’ll go, it’s whatever. Just let me get ready.” Your voice was quick, snappy, you were definitely acting suspicious. But you hoped you conceding to going would distract her enough to forget.

It did. Your friends weren't the most aware bunch.

That's how you ended up here, standing in the midst of a true punk party. There was a mosh pit in the front, people inches away from getting punched in the face, starting an all-out brawl. Most were drunk or high off shitty beer and even shittier drugs.

Hobie was on stage performing. You heard his voice before you saw him, the way it echoed in your ears and left you delirious. Riri dragged you into the crowd, just far away from the mosh pit to not get trampled over, and you saw him. His dark skin glistening in a thin layer of sweat, fingers meticulously strumming at his guitar, lips pressed against the mesh of the microphone as if he were attempting to kiss it like he kissed you.

He wore a plaid skirt, his muscle shirt was just cropped enough to reveal the scant of his abdomen and the hair on his slender naval. You saw him and all you could think about was how you wanted to touch him. You wanted his black-painted lips on your neck, wanted to bury your fingers in the new growth of his hair, wanted your cock in his mouth once again and maybe to put his in yours.

The thoughts terrified you but what frightened you even more was that when you came to, Hobie was looking at you. Smug, careless, beautiful, like he knew just what you were thinking about and he was thinking the very same thing.

Face hot and embarrassed over being caught, you averted your gaze. You turned on your heels and swiftly left Riri to make your way to the bar. You needed a drink, or five, so that maybe your nausea could be attributed to something worthwhile. But no matter how far from the stage you found yourself, Hobie’s voice was still in your ear, teasing your senses, tempting your body. You felt hot and parched.

“Give me the strongest you have.” You asked the bartender and pressed your face into your hands.

Hobie played three of his songs before his time was over, the entire time you watched from the corner of your eye. Watched the way he swayed, jumped, wrecked the stage, a force to be reckoned with. You watched him and his bandmates, your friends, walk backstage and felt relief. You wouldn’t have to hear his voice everywhere you went. You hadn’t considered that meant that they would all gravitate over to you to have a chat over where you’ve been for nearly a month now.

They came over with Riri, the unknowing traitor, Hobie standing taller than everyone else in the back. They hugged you one by one, slapped your back, kissed your cheeks, told you they were happy you finally agreed to hang. You would have loved to see them if Hobie hadn’t tossed his arm over your shoulder and pulled you into him.

He smelled like musk and faint, fragrant cologne, your nose pressed to the side of his chest. You look up from where you sat on your barstool only to find him already smiling broadly down at you. “Well, well, look who decided to grace us with they presence. Miss me, sunshine?” He was so smug, so proud. If only you could kiss that look from his stupid face and leave him breathless for once instead of the other way around.

You scoffed and rolled your eyes at him, shrugging his arm from your shoulders. “Don’t get so full of yourself.” You downed the rest of your drink and requested another one. Hobie came, sat on the stool beside you, and told the barkeep to add all your drinks to his tab.

“Ya been avoidin’ me, sunshine?” Hobie only really seemed interested in talking to you. The others chatted aimlessly amongst themselves. They didn’t seem to notice the way Hobie’s eyes glazed over you, the way his smile seemed a little different when it was directed at you. They also didn’t notice the way he placed his hand on your thigh, rubbing soft circles into your flesh, the way his digits fingered the rips at your jeans.

“Whyever would I be avoiding you, Hobie?” You grabbed his hand to stop his gentle assault on your thigh and he took the opportunity to lace his fingers in with yours.

“I don’ know. Why are you avoidin’ me?” His hand was hot and rough with callouses. If only he’d touch you a little more. Slide his hand up your arm, brush over your neck. You could feel your body growing warmer by the moment. You couldn’t be trusted with him, couldn’t trust yourself for that matter.

You tore your hand from his. “You know exactly why. I hate it when people play dumb.”

“Jus’ add i’ to the long list of all the reasons ya hate me.”

Oh, if only it were so easy to hate. You’d hate him till the day he died. You’d hate him beyond the grave. You’d hate him until the world combusted into flames and everyone burned with it. But it wasn’t so easy. It was actually quite hard to hate someone you longed so carnally for. If you could rid yourself of him for good, you would in a heartbeat.

Hobie ordered himself a nice large glass of beer and leaned in. “Was i’ so bad, what we did? Ya seemed to enjoy i’ in the moment.”

Your eyes grew wide, glancing about to ensure your friends hadn’t heard him.

Hobie scoffed. “Please, too loud in here. They all wrapped up in ‘emselves to pay attention t’us. Look here, sunshine.” He reached out and gently grasped your chin to make you look at him. His touch was like fire all throughout your body. Looking him in the eyes lit something in the pit of your stomach. "Ya look good t'nigh'."

His drink came and he took a sip of the froth at the top while looking at you, his gaze all affectionate and tender. The way one lover would look at another. He didn’t even have to touch you to get you riled up because you both knew him looking at you through his lashes like that was just the way he looked at you when he kissed the tip of your cock.

You needed air. It was suddenly so stuffy where you were, you felt like you were suffocating. The ache of your cock made your jeans tighten. You felt nauseous.

You must have looked crazy standing so abruptly. Your friends attempted to call your name as you pushed your way through them and searched wildly for the nearest exit. The best you could find was a bathroom sign. That would have to work.

The bathroom was grimy and covered in graffiti. Your boots suck to the floor when you walked and you’re sure you could see a leftover powdery substance on the side of the sink. You turned on the water and cupped your hands beneath it to gather some and splash it on your face.

Nothing between you and Hobie had to change. If he would simply stop provoking you, you could ignore everything else. The way your eyes lingered on his exposed body, the way his lingered on yours, the memory of your hand wrapped around his cock, stroking till he came on your tummy, the way you came in his mouth and he drank it all up.

You pressed your hand against the bulge in your jeans and moaned softly at the pressure. Then there was a knock at the door, startling you out of your momentary pleasure and reminding you that you were indeed in a public restroom.

“Oi, sunshine! Ya alrigh”?” Hobie. He just simply couldn’t let you have a moment of reprieve. Readjusting yourself in your pants so it's not so noticeable, you opened the door only to be met with Hobie leaning against the frame. He looked at you, questioning, before inviting himself right in. “Le’s talk.”

“Talk? You wanna talk?” You slammed the door shut and locked the door behind the two of you out of instinct. “We have nothing to talk about, Hobie. Absolutely nothing.” Your demeanor was cold, your lip curled. It all belied how much you needed him to stop looking at you that way. With heavy eyes and a touch of a smirk on his lips.

Hobie quirked a pierced brow at you. “Who’s playin’ dumb now? Ya tink I ‘aven’t noticed how you’ve been actin’? Yer meaner than usual.” He approached you. Slowly. He looked at you, watched to stand your ground. “God, yer down bad, aren’cha?”

Your face was hot, cock hard in your pants. You said not a word. Let him get close, really close, leaning into you while staring into your eyes.

“It's okay, though. I like ya mean.”

You grabbed him by the shirt, hands tight in the fabric as you turned him around and pushed him against the wall. “You think this is fucking funny, huh?” You shook him a little, pressed his thin body to the door, your eyes aflame with passion and anger. Hobie just looked at you, smiling, with his hands up as if to surrender to you, his eyes heavy with seduction.

You hated that look, so cocky and proud, fucking gorgeous.

You were rough when you kissed him. You knew you couldn't be trusted with yourself or with him. You knew it would all lead to this. And God if it didn't feel good. His lips were so soft, sweet, a little salty from his sweat. You held his shirt a little tighter, pulled him a little closer and his hands settled on your hips.

You let him slide his tongue into your mouth, let him slide his hands up and down the length of your body, slide beneath your shirt. His thumbs looked into your pants and tucked his knee between your legs to press against the growing bulge in your pants.

Just like that, he took control of you. You melted into him, licked into his mouth as you moaned, rutting yourself against his knee. You were desperate, panting, needy. You showed all your cards just as they were dealt and now you had nothing but an empty hand and a hard cock.

“I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout'cha.” Hobie panted into your mouth, hands pawing at you. Your kiss was sloppy, filled with swapped saliva and sticky tongue. “Missed ya. Looks like ya missed me too.” He chuckled softly as you licked his bottom lip, sighing with pleasure when he pressed his knee harder into you.

You should stop this. You should be stopping yourself. But you simply couldn't control yourself and you didn't know if that said more about you or about him. You were insatiable. You were angry. You were horny out of your mind.

Hobie let you suck on his lip and tongue, chuckling the whole time. It made you stop, your hands tightening up in his shirt. “Is something funny?” You pushed him against the wall harder, your body pressed against his, your aching cock against his knee. You tried to play tough, your face firming up, but Hobie already witnessed how desperately you've been wanting him this entire time.

Hobie sighed softly, looking at you, smiling broadly. “Nah, nah, ‘m laughin’ ‘cause ya definitely like me, sunshine. Just as much as I like you.” He leaned in, pressed his lips to yours, and kissed you softly. Lips latching, tongue licking, teeth nipping, you didn't resist him as much as you thought you would. You hadn't imagined for it to feel so good the second time around.

“Lemme help ya out, sunshine.” Hobie pressed his knee harder into your crotch and you crumbled, panting into his mouth with your eyes squeezed shut. One of your hands unballed itself from his shirt and found itself settled against the apple of his throat, pressing and squeezing while you humped his leg into oblivion.

The friction was delicious. The pressing and grinding with his tongue down your throat left you a little delirious. You were lightheaded and feared you might faint if he kept holding your waist like he was, moving your hips for you, pressing you harder.

“Keep goin’, pretty boy. Ya got i'.” Hobie crooned into your mouth as your lips fiended for another kiss, a lick, something, anything to satiate the burning in your chest, the fire all over. His fingers sunk into the meat of your thighs with his soft grip that meant to gently coax you towards your climax.

How embarrassing. To cum in your jeans just from humping a leg. But God, if this didn't feel good, if Hobie wasn't doing you so right. You pushed him harder against the wall, squeezed his throat a little tighter as you ground yourself into him.

Your free hand slid down his front and beneath his skirt to feel the bulge of his erection through his underwear. You weighed him in the palm of your hand, clumsy massaging and fondling. You didn't know how to handle him. Attempting to conjure up the way you touched him the last time you two felt each other, you rubbed him, felt the wet patch where precum leaked and soaked into the fabric of his underwear and stroked his tip.

Hobie shuddered, one that rattled through his entire body. He gripped you harder, bruising your hips and thighs and he drove you further into his knee and left you shivering. You squeezed him in your palm and he moaned.

It was pathetic how easy it was to forget how much you wanted to hate him. Your brain was foggy with pleasure and need. Your hands groped at each other with a fiendish desire. Hobie nipped at your bottom lip. “Fuck, jus’ like tha��.”

You were so close. Your lips broke apart from his with a string of saliva connecting the two of you. Your head felt back, exposing the supple flesh of your throat which Hobie greedily attacked with lips and teeth and tongue. “Gonna cum f’me? Hmm, sunshine? Go ‘head ‘n make a mess f’me.”

You whined, your body rocking back and forth with the waves of your orgasm. You hadn't cum in your pants since you were a teen and never before because of another man. You felt as though you should be humiliated but you were so wrapped up in Hobie's sweet scent and the way he moaned into your neck as you pressed your hand into him and felt his cock twitch in your hold.

You rubbed him harder, faster, determined to get him to come undone the way he had your world falling apart. Hobie chuckled against your throat. “Tryna get me t’cum, pretty boy?” His lips peppered kisses to your lovely throat. You nodded, your hand stroking his throat with your thumb. “Give it to me, please.” Oh how the mighty fall.

Hobie faltered a bit when you squeezed his balls in your hand, whining into you like a puppy. “Beg.” He sighed softly against your neck. “Beg fo i'.”

"Please, please. Shit, Hobie, give it to me " Overstimulated, his knee still pressed into the wet spot in your sticky jeans, your hips still rutting into the mess you’ve made of yourself, you jerked him off through his underwear, stroking it rapid, blundering twists of your wrist. Hobie liked how inexperienced you seemed, he found it amusing how hard you tried to please him.

You knew he was just on the edge of an orgasm by the way his moan lowered an octave. He sang for you like he sang on stage, your own private show. His hands gripped you with an impossible strength, tongue lavishing over your throat. He nosed at the curve of your jaw and moaned into your ear as he came in your hand, leaking out into the cotton of his underwear.

You were left panting, stroking at each other in tender touches. You were uncharacteristically affectionate, desperate for it. You needed his hands, his lips, his soft chuckles, his pretty smile. God, you were losing it.

“Fuck-” You pulled away from Hobie, your entire body coiling away from him. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” It all came back to you like a tsunami. How did you let this happen? Again no less. What in the world were you thinking? What the hell has he done to you?

“Sunshine, calm down. It's okay.” Hobie reached out for you but you almost fell over trying to get away from him. Your hands gripped the sink for stability and in hopes to ground yourself in reality. “No, no, it’s not okay, Hobie! We need to stop this.”

“Whatever we have goin’ on between us-”

“There's nothing going on between us,” you insisted. “There should be nothing going on between us.” Hobie scoffed at you, crossing his arms over his chest. “Would’ja get ova y’self? We didn' make each other cum by accident. This keeps happenin’ fo’ a reason. We like each other.” He motioned between the two of you, his eyes softening.

“I can't do this, Hobie. I can't give you what you want.” You rushed past him and escaped out of the bathroom door before Hobie had a chance to catch you. It was a mistake to come out. You should have left the moment Hobie touched you.

It was just your luck to run into Riri on the way out the door. You bumped into her just as you neared the exit. She had whipped around, ready to let you have it until she saw that it was you and worse, when she saw the tears streaming down your face. As if this night couldn't get even more embarrassing.

You said nothing to her. You simply pushed past her and left the bar with her calling after you. Hobie approached behind her, watching you leave with sulken shoulders and smudged makeup.

“Shit.”

#across the spiderverse #atsv #spiderman atsv #spiderman #hobie brown #spider punk #hobie brown x male!reader #hobie brown smut #hobie smut #spiderpunk x male!reader #spiderpunk smut #atsv smut

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from-the-clouds · 1 year

Text

bad liars (savior complex ii) - joel miller x f!reader

part one | masterlist | song inspo |

Baby, you're a vampire You want blood and I promised...

summary: It's been a month since Joel has last seen you, fully healed since your last interaction. But you haven't spoken...at all. Your radio silence becomes cause for concern when he hears about an outbreak of Infected at the hospital where you work. There's enough explanation in this part that you could read it on it's own, probably, but I'd highly recommend reading part one first to get the full experience. pairing: joel miller x f!reader words: 7.9k warnings: SMUT - 18+ ONLY, minors DNI. (porn w/ plot, unprotected sex, oral, rough sex, dirty talk, praise kink, age gap. dom/sub dynamics.) Heavy angst, multiple POVs, implied drug abuse, alcohol use, canon-typical suffering! Blood mention. Both reader/Joel are insanely emotionally unavailable, and love to lie to themselves and each other! (please dm for specifics if you have any questions). a/n: Ya'll loved savior complex and I'm so happy! Literally don't think I've had a fic get that many notes before, i had so many requests for a part two and because it felt like i left things open-ended enough, this came to me pretty easily! It might be the horniest thing I've ever written and also very angsty (what's new?)....but I think you'll like the ending <3 Special to @ay0nha for letting me yell at you about my writing and to @zbeez-outlet for the wonderful idea.

Joel exhales and runs his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair – the tips of which were frozen together from standing outside for so long. It had gotten cold out. Very cold. Boston always did this time of year, and because of it, people stayed in, and crime in the QZ dropped, making it a safer place - though that wasn’t saying much.

Of course, the cold didn’t stop him from dealing. It did make his job a hell of a lot more difficult, since FEDRA was bored, out looking for trouble, and didn’t have more pressing matters to attend to. Although today, he must’ve been in luck, because the only sign of FEDRA had been helicopters and tanks that were clearly on a mission, driving to the opposite side of the QZ. Good, he had thought. A distraction.

Joel leans back against the brick wall of the alleyway, pulling the hood of his jacket up over his ears, stares at the ice in the cracks of the pavement. When he hears the crunch of gravel underfoot, he straightens.

The man approaching looks nervously over his shoulder, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his flimsy sweatshirt. Dave, a customer of his for some time.

“You’re late,” Joel doesn’t bother with a proper greeting.

“I know, I know, I got held up on my way here,” Dave answers, immediately beginning his excuse. “They cleared out the hospital because of an outbreak, that whole area was locked down so I had to take the long way.”

“Outbreak?” Joel tilts his head.

“Infected. I guess a bunch of hospital staff got bit. FEDRA had to go in and put them all down.”

Joel feels a distant pang of concern somewhere in the back of his head. “How many?”

Dave shrugs, scratching the back of his neck. “I don’t know, man, that’s all I know. It’s not like they’ll ever tell anyone what actually happened.”

Joel can’t help but think of you. He knows a couple people who work at the hospital, most of them through smuggling, but you’re the only one who he’s really able to bring to mind at the moment.

“So, can we, uh…”

Joel pulls the plastic baggie out from his pockets, fishing out the pills. On his end, Dave produces a wad of credits, his shoulders sagging in relief once they’ve made the trade and the drugs are in his hand. He takes one immediately, shoves the rest in his pocket. “Thanks man, I’ll see you next week?”

Leaning back against the wall, he nods, and watches his customer disappear down the alleyway.

The second Dave is out of sight, Joel’s chest tightens, and he takes a deep breath. There’s no reason why news of Infected at the hospital should concern him. If FEDRA had been called in – they would’ve gunned down anything that moved until it was under control. He knew, better than anyone, that they would do unspeakable things in the name of keeping order. Innocent people probably died, but the dead can’t get infected.

It had been about a month since Joel had last seen you, after he’d gotten beaten within an inch of his life and ended up on your doorstep, and you were the only person that could help. It hadn’t gone at all how he expected it would – at the end of the day, he had been surprised by your tenderness.

Still, despite that you’d let him take you on the edge of your bed, legs wrapped around him, bouncing on his cock, he wouldn’t really say that it changed anything about your relationship. He had actually been kind of afraid that it would, that your attitude towards him would shift to something more amicable.

But you hadn’t spoken to him in a month. Joel had told you he owed you one after you stitched him up, and had anticipated that you’d take him up on his offer pretty quickly. There were so many things he could do for you to make your situation better. Maybe you’d need credits…. Medicine…. Food…. Booze… Pills, something, but you haven’t reached out. You could just be biding your time until you really need the favor.

Still, the radio silence takes him aback. He should be relieved that you aren’t talking to him. But nothing? Even if it’s not about a favor…he wants some kind of confirmation that you’d both made a mistake. After all that, did you really expect nothing from him?

It dawns on him there’s now a chance you’ll never speak to him again, because you’re one of the ones that FEDRA killed. Or worse….you had gotten bit.

Joel passes by the hospital, taking the long way home. Everything is locked down, taped off. There’s a crowd around the place – family members, he assumes, pleading with FEDRA agents for information and getting nothing in return.

“Go home. I’m sure they’ll turn up,” he hears one of them say to a weeping woman. It’s useless to ask for an honest answer, for one of them to actually care.

Joel could go home. He could crush a couple pills, snort them, and quell the burn with a couple drinks. He could fall into restless sleep and wake up the next day as he always did, go about his business as usual. Survive. One day at a time.

Would he ever get confirmation that you’re alive? Because at this rate, he’s not sure he’ll ever know either way.

The feeling is going to linger. He hates it. Were you gone? If you are, he can handle knowing. Its somehow worse not to.

He tries to justify it to himself. You’re one of his solid connections to the hospital, you’d traded with him for medical supplies before. This is business, really, if he thinks about it that way. If you’re dead, he and Tess need to find someone else to work with.

Joel decides to take a detour on the way back to his place.

It’s past curfew when he arrives at your apartment, the sun has long since dipped below the horizon and with that comes an even harsher cold. Boston winters, he thinks to himself. If he is capable of missing anything, he’d say he missed Texas. Before all this, the last place he’d be caught dead was on the East Coast.

Joel raps on your front door. He forgets how shitty your building is, that you sleep here alone every night, listening to your neighbors arguing through the thin walls, shady characters slinking out of shadows in the dimly-lit hallway,

A few seconds pass. When he hears nothing behind your door, he knocks again, a little louder.

More time passes. He knocks again, louder. Maybe you didn’t hear him.

Nothing. He does it again. Could you be asleep? His jaw clenches.

Still nothing, and Joel knocks even louder. Maybe you’re not even here, and you work nights, and he’s just missed you as you head out for another shift. But he knows that’s unlikely. Since he’s known you, you’ve never worked nights. So where the fuck were you?

Joel’s pounds on your door, yells your name into its chipping paint. He listens for something, anything, on the other side, and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, but he keeps going The side of his fist starts to hurt, but he can’t stop himself. He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until he hears one of your neighbors yelling from the end of the hallway.

‘Shut the fuck up!’

Joel doesn’t hear exactly where the voice comes from, but it’s enough to snap him out of it. He halts his movements, his forehead falling against hollow wood, and in the silence, hears his heart pounding in his ears.

“Fuck!” he kicks the wall just outside the frame of your door so hard the drywall gives, leaving a hole behind. “Fuck.”

He stares at the result of his outburst for an undetermined amount of time. You were all alone. To his knowledge, you had no immediate family to inform. Who would be around to remember you? He’d never really know for sure what had happened.

“Joel?”

He looks up, his hands still clenched tightly into fists. When he sees that it’s you, standing at the end of the hallway, they loosen.

You look horrible - haggard, tired, your hair tangled and matted. As you move closer to him, he doesn’t miss the way your shoulders are hunched underneath the weight of your backpack. But once you’re standing in front of him, you straighten, lift your chin.

“What is this?” you ask. “What are you doing here?”

There’s no animosity in your tone, he thinks. You might be trying to put some in there, but you don’t have the energy to do so, so it just comes out sounding very flat.

Joel realizes, suddenly, that he doesn’t have a reason. A real reason that wouldn’t….give him away. He puts his hands on his hips, thinks desperately. You do nothing to help.

When he settles in silence, offers you nothing, you just sigh and shake your head. Your teeth are chattering, lips cracked from the cold, and you seem desperate to get into shelter, twisting your key into your lock and opening the front door. Once you step inside, you flick on the lights. He follows you, closes the door behind you both, and locks it.

“Oh, yeah, come on in, I guess,” you say over your shoulder.

Joel crosses his arms, standing in your kitchen.

“What, am I in trouble or something?” you ask. “Because if I am, you’re gonna have to wait until I’ve showered.”

“It can wait,” Joel says, and sits at one of your kitchen chairs.

You shrug off of your backpack and leave it on a chair, then unbutton your coat, tossing it on top. Joel swallows hard when he sees the damage it’s been hiding. Your scrubs are dirty, tattered in some places, one of the sleeves hanging, partially ripped off. And they’re covered in dried blood. It’s smeared on your arms, on the back of your neck. Not yours, he hopes.

What the fuck happened to you? You don’t turn to see his reaction, don’t look over your shoulder to see if he’s going to ask about it. It’s almost like he’s not even there, and you clearly wish he isn’t.

He realizes then, that he has the confirmation he’s looking for. You made it out alive. He doesn’t actually need anything else from you. And you’ve given him a perfect out. He can leave while you’re in the shower.

But he doesn’t. Not when he hears the shower start, or the screech of the curtain across the metal rod, the sound of water hitting the basin. He stays there, motionless, until you duck out of the bathroom with your arms wrapped around yourself, wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, hair damp and teeth chattering.

You pad with bare feet onto the tiled area of the kitchen, brushing past him.

“What the fuck happened to you?” he asks.

You finally look at him, like you’re surprised he spoke up, or even asked the question. A choked, bitter laugh leaves you, and you shift your attention away from him, reaching into your cabinet for a bottle of bourbon. “Pass.”

You pour yourself a whiskey, and Joel watches you throw it back in one go, your nose scrunching up, your hand clasping into a fist as you take the shot. The taste doesn’t stop you from pouring another drink and gulping that one down, too, without as much of a reaction as the first. It’s only when you start pouring the third that he intervenes, standing and crossing the room to cover the glass with his hand before you can grab it.

“Slow down,” he says.

“I know you’re not telling me what to do in my own home.” Your mouth opens as you look up at him, incredulous.

Joel looks past you, shakes his head. He supposes your right, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch the self-destructive behavior, which is funny considering how often he engages in it himself. He gives in, removes his hand from your glass. “At least…pour me one. You shouldn’t drink alone.”

Your expression softens slightly, and he’s able to see all the pain you’re hiding, just for a flash, before you turn to retrieve a second glass from your cabinet.

Once you hand him the whiskey, he sits in the middle of the tiny loveseat you’ve got in your front room, expecting you to sit in the armchair across from it. Instead, you approach with your own drink, nudge his knee with your own, and Joel slides over to make room so you can fall onto the couch beside him. Much closer than he’d expected.

It’s surprisingly good bourbon, and he wonders how many times you’d wasted it by downing it like you just had, instead of taking your time, savoring. He waits for you to get settled before he speaks again.

“What happened to you?” he tries once more, a little softer this time.

There’s some contemplation on your end, you look at him for a moment, then at your glass, then back up at him again. He can almost see you trying to figure out how much you’re going to share, but he wants to know everything.

“There was an accident at the hospital,” you answer, finally.

Joel slings his arm over the back of the couch, angles his body towards where you’re curled up, legs tucked underneath you. I’m listening.

Your voice stays even, blase. “A guard at the border broke protocol…and someone who was infected was brought in. By the time we realized, it was too late….”

“Were you hurt?”

“Almost.” you say. “I mean, yes, actually, I’m a little scratched up, but…it’s not as bad as it could’ve been.”

Your teeth start chattering again. Joel wonders if it’s because of the cold, or your nerves. Figures it’s probably both.

“My coworker turned and I uhm….I had to…” you say into your glass, your free hand flexing like it’s trying to shake off some unpleasant muscle memory. “I had no choice.”

“I understand,” For whatever reason, he spares you from telling the story. To him, taking down Infected was nothing. But to you…“What else?” he presses.

You shrug, avoiding his eyes, one of your arms coming to grip at your opposite shoulder. “I can’t really remember. A bunch of people died. FEDRA came in and just started gunning everything down….” you shook your head, and straightened up.

“I heard about that,” Joel offers.

“Wait…you knew about this?”

“Yeah.”

“So then why are you here, asking m-” the rest of your sentence drops off, your lips parted slightly. The look on your face shifts, slowly. Your eyes narrow. Remorse turns into something more neutral, then into curiosity. “Oh my god….you were worried about me.”

“No.”

“Yes, you fucking were,” your lips curl slightly, it’s not quite a smile, but it’s something close to amusement.

“No,” Joel defends himself. “I wanted to hear what happened from someone–”

“No you didn’t,” you interject, but he raises his voice to finish his thought.

“–who actually works there, not FEDRA’s propaganda.”

“No you did not. You’re checking up on me. You came over here after curfew to see if I was–”

“Enough,” Joel growls with enough conviction that it shuts you up, and he’s grateful, but its not enough to wipe the self-satisfied look on your face, because it doesn’t.

“What are we, like, friends now?”

He doesn’t answer, and slugs back the rest of his whiskey.

“Or would that be too much for you?” You don’t wait long for him to give you an answer, probably because you know he won’t respond. “I mean, if we’re both being honest–” He definitely wasn’t being honest. “–Today was really fucked up.”

You’re leaning forward now, some of the space between you is gone. And though you’re trying to give the impression that you’re unphased by everything, your hand is clenched tightly around your glass, and you avoid his eyes. It’s painful to watch you resist the urge to trust him. Not that he’s ever given you a good enough reason to – he knows he doesn’t deserve it, but he wants it anyways.

“It’s funny…” you say after a while. “I remember thinking that I didn’t want to die. At least… not like that. I’ve never felt that before…That’s something, isn’t it?” you ask him.

Joel looks at you, and is surprised at the vulnerability in your expression, sees you looking for some kind of validation from him. “....It is.”

You finish off your drink, and put the empty glass on the coffee table, shift closer to him.

“It looks like you healed up okay,” you say, after a spell. “How’s your shoulder?”

“A little sore, nothing I can’t handle.”

“Did you take those antibiotics?”

“Yes.”

“Good. And I can’t even tell you had a black eye.”

“I’m fine,” Joel asserts.

Another shiver wracks your body, and he can tell this one is actually from the chill – your apartment is cold as fuck, it even is starting to bother him.

“Don’t you have a heater?”

“Kinda,” you glance over at the radiator in the corner. “Sometimes it works.”

“What do you do when it’s colder than this?” It was only November, things would only get worse.

You shrug. “I don’t know….just be colder, I guess.”

Joel imagines you curled up in your bed alone, wrapped in a thin comforter, shaking in front of him like you are now. He winces.

“How long are you going to stay?” you ask, changing the subject.

“I should probably go now.”

You nod, scoot closer. “But maybe…” you trail off, contemplating.

Joel sits up straighter, prompting you when you don’t speak again. “Maybe what?”

“Maybe you could stick around for a little while longer.” There’s a warm hand, yours, that lands on his thigh, and he recoils like you’ve touched him with a fire iron. He rises to his feet.

“Hey,” you stand along with him, step in front of him to block the pathway to the door. He could easily get past you, obviously, but it’s not as simple as that.

Of course he’s fucking thought about what happened the last time he was here – his arms around your waist, his mouth on your neck, your chest, your hands on his shoulders, whining his name. A freak accident, a glitch in the matrix, a statistically improbable thing.

“What?” he asks as you step forward, the fingers on your free hand sliding into the belt loops of his pants. He feels blood rush to his cheeks, to other places. And you’re still fucking shivering. You look so fucking miserable, he wants to yell at you to put on a coat, to wrap yourself in a blanket, in his arms.

“Joel,” you say his name softly, tilting your head up, leaning close. And then your hand is on the side of his face, and he realizes you’re fucking pleading with him. He knows what you want, but he has a feeling this isn’t just about sex. You’re looking for comfort, as if he’s capable of giving it.

“We made a mistake…once,” he tells you. “We’re not going to make it again.”

He says it to hurt you, but it doesn’t work. It’s like you knew it was coming all along. “I knew what I was doing,” you answer, earnest. “Didn’t you?”

Yes. You glance down at his hands, which are squeezed into fists so tightly, his knuckles are white. If he’s not rigid, he’s not sure how he’ll be able to resist. He wants you. God, he wants you. He never thought he’d be able to have you again.

“I could help you loosen up.”

Joel’s walking on the edge of a one-thousand foot cliff and hoping his foot slips. He wants to surrender. The only thing he thinks might save him is to say the meanest thing he can. Maybe you’d get turned off.

“Listen to yourself,” he says, finding the strength to meet your eyes. “You want me so bad, you sound pathetic.”

“Asshole,” you step closer, your mouth twitches, your lips are inches apart. “Do you think I care what you think about me?”

Joel realizes his plan has backfired. But he really only has himself to blame, he should’ve known better. With you, he’s never in as much control as he wants to be, and deep down, he likes it.

“Go lie down on the bed.”

It’s the only thing that seems to shock you. “What?”

“I won’t ask you again,” Joel steps backwards, crosses his arms. “Go lie down.”

──────

If you told yourself a couple months ago that one day you’d find yourself pinned down by Joel Miller, you’d think it’d be because he was about to kill you. Maybe because you cheated him out of something, maybe because you did something else to piss him off – it didn’t really matter. Regardless of how fucked up it was, that idea would seem more dignified than what was happening now.

Your back is being pressed deeper into the lumpy old mattress, and he’s on you. His mouth is warm, hot, wet, and dragging down your neck, nipping, sucking, licking. Your hands are itching to reach out, to skate down his torso, trace along his jawline, tug at his hair, but you can’t because he’s got them pinned above you with only one of his own. Anytime you try to fight him, his grip only grows stronger.

It was shameful, really, but you had asked for this – begged for it, basically. There were a number of reasons why – one of which was to blow off some steam after a near death experience, the other because you’d fucked him before and it had been good, much to your dismay. There was also a third reason that you weren’t interested in acknowledging now.

After the night Joel had gotten jumped, and you’d taken care of him, everything has changed. It’s a cliche, but true. You’d known what you were doing when it happened, and had no regrets. But it was probably not supposed to happen again, and you tried to keep it that way, more for his sake than anyone else’s. But….he was the one who showed up tonight after he’d heard what had happened. It wasn’t nothing.

Joel pulls away from you so abruptly that you gasp, shivering in the wake of his impossible warmth.

“Sit up,” he instructs, and you turn to find him at the end of the bed, arms crossed.

You obey, mostly just for the view. You hope to admire him, fresh from kissing you – flush skin, wet lips, tousled hair. Only he’s frustratingly stoic, unsullied – like he hadn’t been touching you at all.

“Look at me,” he says, and you do.

“This doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s nothing,” you agree.

“I won’t be gentle.”

“I don’t want you to be gentle.”

“Good,” you watch his shoulders loosen, just a little, and he takes one step backwards, his eyes tracing down your body and then back up. “Strip for me….”

You aren’t dressed sexy at all, you remember, a sweatshirt and sweatpants. If you had thought this through a little more, you might’ve tried to make it nicer for him. “....Okay.”

“Start with your shirt,” he says, and you grab at the hem, but he snaps at you. “Ah-ah….slower.”

You swallow, nod, and carefully lift the fabric, dragging it up over your stomach, over the swell of your breasts, revealing your tight, thin white tank top.

“That’s it, nice and slow.”

Joel’s voice is soft but stern, a low rasp that makes your cunt clench around nothing, and he’s not even touching you. The sweatshirt is pulled over your head, falling somewhere on the crumpled bedspread.

Languidly, you lean back, shifting your weight to get off the mattress, and Joel palms himself through his jeans. You can see where he’s straining against the denim, and you find it hard to tear your gaze away as you go to pull off your sweatpants. Joel stops you again.

“Turn around.”

You do, and you’re sure he has a nice view of your ass as you slide them over your hips, bending over to let the fleece pool around your ankles. Slowly, you rise back up, looking at him over your shoulder for approval.

“Good girl,” he murmurs. Your stomach flips. A month ago, you would’ve done anything to get him to stay away from you, and now, you’re terrified to disappoint him.

That’s the problem. You’d spent most of the day fighting for your life — literally. But even after standing behind a barricade of heavily-armed FEDRA soldiers outside the hospital, you didn’t feel as safe as you did when you saw Joel at your door. You need him. For now, at least.

“Now the shirt,” he tilts his head towards the mattress, nodding encouragingly.

You get back on the bed, sitting back on your heels, and begin to pull the tank top up. It’s your last layer up top, you’re not wearing a bra, and you’re feeling a little vulnerable with him just watching you, fully clothed and composed, your gaze falling down to look at the threadbare linens.

“Eyes up,” he instructs. “Look at me.”

Taking in a shaky inhale, you do. It’s not easy. Everything about him looks dark, animalistic. A coiled ball of energy, waiting to pounce.

But, even when you’re bare before him, he doesn’t.

“Lie back, close your eyes.”

Of course, you don’t refuse, settling your head against the pillows.

There’s a sound of a belt – his belt, unbuckling, the snap of a button, the dip of the bed where he kneels when he comes to hover over you. Two hands land on top of your thighs, pressing the backs against his denim-clad knees, thumbs pushing your legs further apart.

And then…nothing. He’s still. He’s still for so long, that you actually think that something’s wrong. When you open your eyes, you’re met with a view of the underside of his jaw. You can just make out the pinched expression he’s wearing as he looks down upon you. Disdain, maybe…but it’s not meant for you, it’s for someone else….him.

“Joel,” you murmur. Instinctually, you reach for his hand.

The second it makes contact, he smacks your hand away so hard your whole body jolts. “I told you to close your eyes.”

“Sorry,” you mumble quickly, closing them again.

You are well aware that he’s actively working through shit, probably doing some kind of mental gymnastics to rationalize why it’s okay to fuck you again, which, when you really think about it is kind of….pathetic. It’s the only thing that makes you feel any sort of power in a situation where you’ll surrender everything else. It’s a fair exchange.

Maybe, on a different day, you would want it softer. You’d like to think he’s capable of that, even though he seems determined he isn’t. Luckily, you don’t want it softer. After today, you want to be so far gone you can’t think.

Joel answers by leaning down and catching you in a bruising kiss. Finally. You press yourself against him cause you’re freezing and he’s so warm, and you frantically begin to unbutton the flannel he’s wearing, making it about halfway down before he pins your hands above you again.

“Slow down.”

You whine, a little frustrated because all you want to do is touch him. The fingers on his free hand hook around the elastic of your underwear, and he starts to drag them over the curve of your ass.

He’s got to be joking with how deliberately he’s moving, anticipation only building underneath his featherlight touches.

When he’s got your panties around your ankles, you slide your legs together so he can pull them off entirely, keeping them closed as his weight shifts, and your thighs are pulled back apart.

“You’re already so wet for me,” he doesn’t need to feel you to see it clear as day, with you spread open in front of him. “So fucking desperate.”

He’s all-but glaring at you, like you’ve done something wrong, and for a minute, your eyes flick away, just for a second of relief from the tension.

“What, are you embarrassed?” he asks.

“N-no,” you stammer, though it was supposed to sound confident.

Thankfully, he doesn’t press you, his head dipping down to press his lips to your knee, then an inch higher, then an inch higher, then higher – keeping his eyes locked on yours the whole time, an arm winding around your thigh.

“I wanted to do this last time.” A confession.

“Yeah?” you sigh, trembling. It’s maybe the nicest thing he’s said to you, but you can’t even acknowledge it, because you’re buzzing.

He turns his face, his beard scraping along sensitive skin. “Mhm,” his deep rasp vibrates directly to your cunt, and when his head dips down, you close your eyes – it might just be better to focus on only one sensation at a time, you’re not sure you can handle seeing what he’s about to do.

Joel’s mouth is on you the second you do, and you gasp. He licks up the seam of your lips, mouth latching around your clit, swirling with his tongue, and back down – firm, determined, practiced. You try to buck up, but he has an arm locked around your hips.

He removes himself from you just enough to utter two words. “Stay still.”

You want to protest, but you realize that he’s let go of your hands, and it gives you the opportunity to thread your fingers into his hair, while you dig your heels into the broad expanse of his back, and he groans, tongue curling into you.

“I’ve thought about this,” you gasp, answering his earlier admission.

“When?”

“At night. More than once.”

“Fuck,” Joel growls, and you wheeze when he works one finger into you, forcing you to take it along with his next words. “You know how fuckin’ bad that is? Dreamin’ about a man nearly twice your age?”

“I d-don’t care, I want you anyway. Y-you can do whatever you want to me,” It’s too early to be past the point of speaking coherently, it really is, but you’re already there.

“F-fuck,” Joel repeats himself, and pushes another finger inside you next to the first, the stretch almost uncomfortable, but quickly fading to pleasure. “I’m going to.”

You’re not the going to tell him, though, that he’s the first man whose ever gone down on you, because you’re a little fucking scared for some reason. It’s intimate, very intimate, more than you expected.

The truth is, you weren’t actually very experienced at all. You could count on one hand the number of partners you’d had, and still not use all of your fingers. While some of them were good enough, they all paled in comparison to Joel. There had never been anyone like Joel.

His fingers curl as his tongue swirls around your clit and you cry out, inhale sharply. Minute by minute, you’re getting wetter and wetter – can hear yourself with each twist of his fingers inside you, bearing down on him.

“You taste so fuckin’ good,” he grunts, and your eyes flutter open just for a second, just to see his forehead, dark eyes staring back at you, and his hips dipping, rutting against the mattress. God he’s getting himself off to this. As hot as it is, the thought of not getting to feel him inside you causes a rush of anger.

“F-feels so good,” you’re right there, already, and it’s pitiful.

“I know, baby, I know,” he says. “You’re already so close, aren’t you?”

Instead of answering, you just nod, gasping. Joel works you right up to the precipice, hands tightening in his hair, hips lifting off the bed – and then he slows a little – just enough – to pull you back off the edge, and you let out a humiliating sob.

“Shhh!” he hisses with his mouth still on you, resuming the steady pace he had going. A little sigh of relief when you feel your release approaching again. He just lost his rhythm for a moment, it was nothing.

Again, he’s got you right there, you’re so close, hips jerking, breathing in short, sharp pants, something molten working its way up your spine. “Joel, that’s it, please I-”

He falters again – just enough. And it’s gone again.

You realize, with dismay, that he knows exactly what he’s doing. He hadn’t lost his rhythm. He’s doing this on purpose.

If someone asked – not that anyone would – you wouldn’t be able to recall how long he keeps you in that state, being dragged and dangled, but denied the privilege of falling. It’s torture.

And at first, you try to be patient. You figure he’ll grow tired, desperate, and eventually want to move on. But apparently, he doesn’t want to move on. He’s content to keep you this way for as long as he sees fit, and you can’t handle it any longer. It’s starting to hurt.

“Please, Joel, let me-” you gasp.

“Let you what?” he pulls back from you, frustratingly too soon, once again.

“Let me come, please, I’ll do anything, I’ll be good, please, please-”

“Just a little longer,” he dismisses you.

All you can do is pant and writhe, completely at his mercy. He keeps going like that, and you’ve stopped trying to filter yourself, the sounds he makes as he laves at you are obscene, you can see yourself glistening on his chin, and can feel the sheets damp beneath you. At this point, he’s enjoying this more than you are.

“Joel,” you plead with him again. “It’s too much, I c-can’t. Just, please I really need-”

“You wanna come for me, baby?” he asks. You nod ferociously.

“Yes, please, please,”

“You’re so fucking sweet when you beg, you know that? ” he murmurs. “Wish you were like this all the time.”

“Fuck off,” you manage, feeling heat rise to your cheeks. You should do this to me more often.

Joel chuckles, and it vibrates just right, his fingers curling again and you moan, hands tightening in his hair. He’s focused now, you can tell because the constant stream of filth he’s been whispering has finally stopped. He’s persistent.

You’re unable to stay quiet, continuing to whimper just like that and please don’t stop over and over. And then all at once, every muscle in your body grows tense and you cry out, cunt pulsing around him so tightly that his fingers slow. “There you go, pretty girl, that’s it.”

You whisper his name as he continues to fuck his fingers into you, riding you through your orgasm and licking up the mess you’ve made.

At some point in the aftermath, Joel withdraws from you, and you hear the sting of his zipper. It takes a moment, but you’re able to see him through heavily lidded eyes, kneeling in front of you with his shirt unbuttoned all the way, pants around his ankles, jerking himself slowly in his hand. God he’s fucking huge, how had you forgotten about that? He’s a vision, beard still wet with you, looking down, watching your chest rise and fall. In that moment you realize two things. One, even though you’ve already come, you somehow want him even more than you had before, and two, you’ve never wanted to suck a dick so bad in your life.

So you sit up, crawl towards him, and reach out with one hand to take him in your palm. He lets you, sighing, closing down his eyes. First, you have to kiss him, so you rise to your knees, and he pulls you into his arms, one of them winding around your waist, the other coming to rest at the small of your back. “You take such good care of me,” you whisper.

He grimaces at the words like they’re an insult. You expect him to retaliate, to tell you that you shouldn’t say that sort of thing, but he never does. So you kiss him, gently, bringing your free hand to the side of his face. Once again, he lets you, and you taste yourself when his tongue presses into you mouth. You run your thumb over the head of his cock, and he hums against your touch, almost contentedly.

You’re doing whatever you want to him, and you’re shocked he hasn’t put a stop to it. It could be satisfying enough, you think, just to keep kissing him like this. Still, you sink back towards the bed to test things further. You’re about to wrap your mouth around him, but he pulls you off by your hair, so quickly, so hard that you yelp.

“No.” he says firmly. “Lie back.”

“But I just wanted to-”

“No.”

You consider trying to reason with him, but decide it won’t be worth whatever he’d do if you continue to argue.

Joel braces himself with one hand above your shoulder, the other wrapped around his cock, slowly teasing you by rubbing himself up and down a few times, before he gives in, finally pushing into you.

“Oh, fuck,” you gasp at the stretch, reaching out grasp at his bicep, arching your back. He’d prepped you, and it was still too much.

“You can take it,” he says, pressing deeper into you. His hips are all the way flush with yours, he’s to the hilt, and he still snaps them even further, once, holding you there, so deep, you feel like you’re choking on him. “See? There you go.”

It seems like you can’t quite catch your breath, and you squirm underneath him for some kind of friction, some kind of relief from how intense it all is. You can feel him throbbing inside you, feel how badly his own body is begging him to move, but he doesn’t.

“Joel,” you cradle the back of his head, look him in the eyes. “Move, please.”

He doesn’t answer, he just brings his hand to grip your jaw, his thumb and forefinger pressing into the soft flesh of your cheeks.

“Please?” you murmur again, and his thumb slips into your mouth, silencing you. You suck on it obediently, and after you do, he finally gives you what you want.

──────

Joel told you he wouldn’t be gentle, and he isn’t.

He hadn’t been able to do this last time. Taste you, spread you open, fuck you properly. His hips snap against yours – ferociously, unrelenting, over and over. You’ve been going at it for awhile now, and he actually wants you to break. He wants you to tell him to slow down, to be a little more tender, not press into you so deep, so hard, so that if he listens, it wouldn’t mean he’s breaking his own promise. He’s got to be rough with you, because he’s afraid of what could happen if he’s not.

But you don’t break. You fucking take it, take him, each time, again and again, your nails digging into arms, your legs locked around his hips. Each time he delves into you, you’re getting wetter and wetter, and yet, you’re still so fucking tight. He doesn’t understand it. It’s been a long fucking time since he’s been with a woman like you – and you might be the best he’s ever had.

You’re not even making any noise – you’re just panting, gasping in Joel’s ear as you cling to him, and that’s all. He can’t even look you in the eyes. If he does, he knows you’ll see everything that’s wrong with him, and still beg for him to give you more.

Two hands land on either side of his face, turning his head so you can kiss him. Despite how he’s treating you, you keep trying to connect, to ground yourself. For as much as he wants to refuse, it feels too cruel to deny you. He lets you lock your lips with his own, feels your cunt clutch him even tighter. It’s impossible for you to kiss for more than a few seconds at a time without it getting broken up by a whimper here and there. You’re getting close again, he’s started to get better at recognizing it.

“You’re fucking so perfect on me, baby, you feel that?” he asks, and you nod, breathless. “Taking me so well, such a good fucking girl-”

A gasp from you cuts him off, your eyes squeezing shut as you are taken over by your climax. Joel groans and does everything he can not to come when you start pulsing around him, holding him closer, since there’s nothing else to do. It’s way too intimate…because it’s missionary, and he should’ve known better than to start off like this.

Pulling out of you is the hardest thing he’s had to do in a while, and he ignores your noises of protest now that he’s left you empty. Then, he flips you onto your stomach. He takes a moment to admire the curve of your ass, how it dips into your waist….to him, your body is perfect, and you’re young, your skin still supple and smooth. There are still places he hasn’t gotten his mouth on, and it’s a shame, he thinks, but tonight his patience is wearing thin. Joel pulls you back until you’re on your knees, and slides back inside. There’s a little resistance, you whimper, but it’s easier than the first time. He wraps an arm around your waist, the other across your chest, and starts to jerk his hips upwards, into you.

“Oh fuck, Joel,” you sigh in relief.

“I know, I know.”

You drop your head back until it falls against his shoulder, winding your arm back so you can pull at his hair, which kind of fucking hurts, but he likes it.

Ultimately, you’re pretty easy to please, and it’s not long before he feels the telltale flutter of your walls as you drip down over him, soaking his lap.

“You’re making a fucking mess, baby. You gonna come for me again?”

All you can do is plead with him. “I can’t, Joel. I can’t do it again, please just-”

“Yes, you can,” he interjects. “I know you can, baby, don’t worry…I’ll help you.”

“O-okay.’

He slows the roll of his hips just a little, focuses on deeper, longer strokes, and lets the hand that’s currently squeezing one of your tits fall to where your bodies are joined, finding your clit immediately.

You whine, arching back against him, the swell of your ass packed against his lower stomach. He sees a single tear leaking from the corner of your eye and feels a little guilty for what he’s doing to you. Only a little, though.

Without any warning, for the third time, you’re coming around him – easier than the last time, like always – and he uses the feeling of you throbbing around him to chase his own release, his hand clapping over your mouth to muffle your moans as he becomes increasingly frantic.

He turns his head, rakes his teeth along your exposed neck, and sinks them into your pulse point with a groan. Your breath is hot against him when you whimper in response.

“Just a little more, honey.” He’s so close. You bob your head, though you’ve nearly gone limp in his arms.

Like last time, Joel knows it’s a bad idea, but he’s not going to pull out. The thought of deliberately coming inside you is actually what sends him over the edge, and he’s cursing and moaning your name. You whine at the feeling of him pulsing inside of you, arching back for more, even though he can tell you’re exhausted.

It’s fucking freezing in your apartment, and yet, his skin is damp with sweat when he finally regains some awareness of his surroundings. He’s panting, you’re sniffling, a weak smile on your face as you catch your breath. Before he can stop himself, he presses his lips to your cheek.

Joel tilts you both forward – very tentatively, keeping an arm wrapped around your waist. At some point, your hand settled over top of his, and you threaded your fingers between his own, holding his hand across your stomach. You keep it there, even after you’ve settled onto the bed.

It takes a few minutes before either of you move, but it’s you who gives in first, wriggling out from where he’s got you trapped partially underneath him.

You retreat to the bathroom, like you did last time. Somewhere during your coupling the linens have slid down the bed, and Joel settles back against the pillows, throwing an arm behind his head. Now that he’s stopped sweating, he’s just cold, and he reaches to pull the bedspread over him. He should leave, he thinks, before you come out and ask him to. Beat you to the punch. Maybe while you’re still in the bathroom.

A few minutes later, and you return from the bathroom, dressed again in sweats. He hears you pour yourself a glass of water, gulping it down. You flick off the lamp on your bedside table, and fall into bed next to him, lying rigidly on your back. He should reach out, pull you against him, let you settle in his arms. Instead, Joel rolls over on his side.

It’s terrible how beautiful you are, he thinks, watching you stare up at the ceiling, hugging yourself. So beautiful, and fucking smart. You’re strong, too, but not as strong as he wishes you were. Of course, no one could ever be that strong.

He whispers your name. You turn your head, pupils still blown wide with lingering lust.

“You need to learn to defend yourself, to shoot a gun, to fight,” he says. “After today.”

“What?” you roll to face him.

“You said you didn’t want to die,” Joel continues. “So you need to learn. ‘Case something like that happens again.”

“Oh yeah? Lemme guess, you’re gonna teach me?” your voice is a little hoarse after what he’d done to you, and you smirk at him.

“Yes.” It sobers you up, that he’s not fucking with you, or giving you a hard time. “I owe you, remember?”

“You do.”

“So…. I’ll teach you.”

“....Okay.”

“Alright.”

Joel rolls over to his opposite side, and you’re left staring at his back. Arms wrapped around

himself in a tight hug, he waits for you to tell him to go.

You never do.

Instead, he feels the heat of your body as you curl up against him, slotting one of your legs between his own. Your hand grazes up his ribs, over his bicep – a gentle, quick massage – before you tuck your arm underneath his own, your palm flat against his heart.

“What are you doing?” he asks, frozen at how tender the embrace is. It’s a foreign feeling, he can’t remember the last time someone touched him like this.

The tip of your nose hits the nape of his neck, and he can feel your shuddery exhale.

“I’m cold,” you say, like it’s obvious, lips brushing featherlight against his skin. “And if you’re staying, you might as well make yourself useful.”

He can’t roll over and wrap his arms around you. He can’t kiss your forehead or play with your hair or murmur into your ear. He can’t offer you anything in return. Joel decides, though, if he’s going to accept comfort from anyone, it’s going to be from you.

──────

taglist (basically if you asked for a pt 2 on the last part i tagged you): @bbyanarchist @dlwrish @imaginewrites24 @captain-yellow-96 @daisyintheskyewithdiamonds @sludgec0r33 @c0wb0ym3nace

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller imagine #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x you #pedro pascal #the last of us #the last of us writing #the last of us fanfiction #tlou #tlou hbo #tlou fic #joel miller angst #writing

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androgynousblackbox · 2 months

Text

Alright, I am watching the reaction stream of another person to see the video of Jamesy and I have thoughts! -Jamesy is REALLY counting on buttering up to Jessie Gender specifically. He named her so many times trying to "apologize" for weaponizing his audience against her when she told him to not erase her work in Nebula just because his whiny entitled ass couldn't accept that he wasn't invited to the platform. Not a single word about actually going to her and talk privately though, just a bunch of "ooh, Jessie Gender is the kindest, best human being ever and I am so sorry to her", like, bitch, WHY ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT HER? Jessie wasn't the worst victim of your actions! Your bullshit with her happened long BEFORE anything of this happened, so why the fuck are you even bringing her up?? My only guess is that Jamesy wants Jessie to speak on his favor and "forgive him", hoping that will bring him new good will from the queer community in youtube. I am fucking crossing my fingers and touching wood that Jessie does not fall for this manipulative bullshit. This guy is literally clout chasing because, again, when it came to the plagiarism, Jessie had NOTHING to do here. Jessie, if you want an easy win, don't say anything about this. Don't even aknowledge it. Pretend like a mosquito just farted in another building. You had nothing to do with this and I am sorry this piece of shit is trying to drag you into it to take advantage of your good nature. -"I only cared about the production side of making videos, that is why I bring Nick in as the main writer." This motherfucker really went and did it. He is literally blaming Nick squarely now, because now he is just not a co-writer. No, now he is the MAIN WRITER. Jamesy here was just trying to making his little films and buy expensive ass equipment while telling everyone he was starving on the streets, he only cared about the production. NICK, THOUGH, HE WAS ALL ABOUT THE WRITING. He was the one who put the words and little Jamesy baby boy here only "produced, directed and edited" (omg, shut the fuck off, man, your editing skills are mid at best) everything. -Way too many sob stories. I don't care, man. I don't fucking care that you got fired or whatever conditions you had. Do you have any fucking clue how many people do really struggle to reach the end of the month and they still never even think of stealing someone else's work? Everyone is struggling and yet, you were the one who made a career for fucking years out of stealing the works of everyone else in this community AND THEN, when call out, tried to paint them as the bad guys.

-A lot, and I do mean, a lot of time to "apologize" to Jessie Gender, but you know who he didn't apologize to? Literally none of the authors he stole from. Not the fan whose edit of Korra he used without credit. Not Alexander Avila. Not that person who was harassed to hell and back by Jamesy and his audience when they showed how he plagiarized on his disney video. Jessie deserved to be name dropped at least thirty times, but those people?? They are fucking nobodies. They don't matter. Why name them at all? It's not like their WORK WAS STOLEN BY YOU OR ANYTHING! And that is another thing! Even if Jamesy is really out there blaming Nick for all the words that they took without credit, then what the fuck is up with all the footage, edits and audiovisual works that weren't for you to take? You said your passion is production. That is part of the production, Jamesy. Is this you admitting you fully just fucking stole them and hoped nobody would notice because you are a lazy piece of garbage?

-"Having to do multiple edits because youtube copyright issues was so hard for me, guys, you don't understand uwu. It was so hard on me to make it less obvious I had plagiarized people!" THAT IS ENTIRELY YOUR OWN FAULT, BRO.

-So, hey, funny thing. I was looking to see if other people were reacting or had reuploaded the video so I could put it here. They haven't yet, there is only two reactions, but while I was doing that I found a video of ANOTHER person talking about Jamesy ripping them off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsD-wodn288 Apparently Jamesy had stolen a blog post that this person wrote about Lord of The Rings and they weren't known by anyone, they don't even like that article anymore, but still! Go see that video instead of watching Jamesy and support them if you find value on their work.

-Hey, Jamesy. Jamesy. You do know that epilepsy and head injuries or memory issues don't take you threaten, lie and weaponize your audience against people who call out your plagiarism with the evidence in hand, right? That has literally nothing to do actually, because you had to be aware off of the issue for you to lie about it after someone else brought it up. After the first time it happened, you could have hired another beta reader to tell you that ups, your memory/epilepsy/memory issues/ADHD strike again and you don't remember from where you took that quote from, sorry! You had money for that expensive ass camera, you could have. -Like, my guy, there were so many steps involved here. So many steps from writing, production, backlash and your response to the backlash. Even if any part on this was an honest mistake, something I don't fucking believe in because fuck you, you had millions of opportunities to rectified it and change it. And yet you didnd't. And so here we are, without you receiving not even a miserable fucking like. Go to hell. A mistake doesn't get repeated so many times for years. That was all a choice, bitch. Fuck you.

And here is where I stopped because his voice is like nail on my ears.

Don't look at his video, it's truly not worth it. DON'T LEAVE COMMENTS EITHER, YOUTUBE TAKES THAT AS ENGAGEMENT ANYWAY.

#james somerton #jessie gender

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fluffymiyaa · 1 year

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Ditto

Bestfriend!reo x reader

Tw: reo being obsessive and creepy towards reader, but that's just how he is.

Summary: what happen if you finally confessed to your best friend and he doesn't know it?

I got nothing to lose 널 좋아한다고 ♡

Masterlist

The wind blowing against your sensitive skin gives you goosebumps. the raindrops that bounced off the ground made you take a few steps back under the roof of the school terrace. Feeling of restlessness and regret arises for forgetting to bring an umbrella.

You sigh thinking of ways to get home without getting wet. You have asked your friends to share umbrellas but they are already full. And your best friend Reo has practice today. And to be honest don't want to face him right now. You can't. Not after what you just did.

A tap on your shoulder interrupted your thoughts.

"Haah, sorry, have you been waiting long?" He asked with panting breath.

You frowned. Questioned why he was here.

"Reo? What are you doing here? Don't you have practice?"

"Ah, practice got cancel today" He said as he fixing his bun hair. One of his habits that makes you like him even more.

"Oh"

A bunch of girls pass by you and and greet Reo.

"Reo go home savely! Don't forget to eat the chocolates i made~"

"Reo-senpai otsukaresama~, read my letter ok?

"Reo-san see u tomorrow~"

Reo just said thank you and smiled at them. But deep down he was irritated by those noisy chirping. But he can't show it, not infront of you.

"Should we go now?" He asked

"What do you mean? Aren't you going to be picked up by car? or together nagi?"

He gasped. "Ouch, today is valentines day and MY DEAR best friend refused to come home with me" he said by dramatizing his words and his voice made it sound like a deep hurt. Put his hand oh his chest.

You sighed. "I didn't say no Reo. I also didn't bring any umbrella with me"

Reo stared at you for a moment. He opened his bag and took his umbrella and opened it.

"Well? I guess we have to share umbrella, huh?" He grinned.

"How did you get an umbrella? You never bring it before" you ask suspiciously.

"Hmm, doesn't matter"

You rolled you eyes, though your heart starts beating so fast. "C'mon, we need to walk faster before the rain get worse". Just started walking a few steps Reo suddenly grabbed your shoulder.

"Get closer, you'll get wet"

"Oh yeah, thanks"

After a while, you two walk without saying anything. There was only the sound of raindrops and the stomping of feet on the muddy ground from both of you.

"You're a little quiet today, we haven't talked much." He finally talked. His words made you flinch a little.

"Oh, sorry.. it's just today it's valentines day.. and people have been around you all day to gave you presents. Unlike you, nobody gave me any presents or chocolate... I just keep a distance to not bother you."

It's honestly makes you sad and insecure about it. You feel like you don't pretty enough and doesn't deserve to be Reo's side.

"Huh? Don't do that! You're not bothering me! Stop keep a distance on me okay? We've been friends fo long. No need to hold back like that. And who cares about the present or chocolate?! If you something you could just ask me, i'll buy a whole chocolate factory for you!" He annoyed. He's not joking tho. He would , if you ask him to.

You chuckled. "Okay okay Reo"

He smirked. "I got a unique present in my locker today"

You gulped. "Yeah? What is it?"

"A lego flower"

Fuck.

"With a small letter"

Nervousness devours your body. You play your fingers trying to distract yourself.

"You're so lucky. It needs days or all night to make lego flower" you said trying to calm yourself.

His smile widened, he even bit his lower lip to hold it in. His face getting red. He looked away so you wouldn't see him. Then he turned back to you embraced you closer to him make your bodies touch. His hand was still tightly gripping the handle of the umbrella.

"Hmm you right.. maybe i should accept their feeling? You have any idea who send this, Y/n?" He whispered right to your ears. Makes your back shivered and whole body heats up. You pushed Reo a little from you.

"Ugh why would i know? Don't pulled me like that"

"Sorry. But.. something off about this person"

You and Reo walk back down the street to your house which is in the same complex. The rain has started to subside.

"How?" You asked

"I wonder how the person put it in my locker. Nobody knows the code except me, nagi.. or you. Well it couldn't be Nagi, he's with me since the morning"

"Re-really? Could there be a stalker? Maybe it's one of your fans?"

"Eh, i should be more carefull then"

You both fell silent as you continued walking. You turned to Reo and stared at his beautiful feature. He is a tall young man with a lean and strong build. He has chin-length purple hair, his tied in a high bun, leaving two locks of hair framing his face. And also his bright purple eyes. Until your eyes catch something.

"Reo! Y-your shoulder is getting wet!" You panicked and push the umbrella to cover him up. But he gripped it tighter and pushed it in the opposite.

"Ah, it's fine. I'm gonna take a shower anyway." he said casually.

"But-"

"Shhh, let's walk faster."

His right hand grabs your hand and dragged you. The grip of the left hand never left tge the umbrella handle. Splashes of water stain your shoes up to your calves makes them dirty. But you don't care. What you care about right now you and Reo are holding hand and running through the rain. You both laughters are buried by the sound of the rain. But as long as you guys can hear each other that's enough.

"Haahhh finally we arrived" he groaned.

"Well we are arrived at MY house. Your house still a couple blocks from here." you said

He raised his one eyebrow. "So? It's still the same. C'mon" he dragged you into your house. Opened the door for you to enter first, then closed the umbrella first and put it in the basket. He immediately closed the door so that rainwater does not enter into more of the house.

"Where's your mum?"

"At aunt's"

You opened you shoes and he followed. When you were about to take your shoes and his to put them in the shoe rack, he stopped you. "No, you're hands will get dirty. I'll do it myself. Just go and get clothes for me, yeah?"

You nodded. "I'll prepare a clean clothes for you and make us a hot chocolate. If you finish just go upstairs and wait in my room"

•••••

Reo who is alone in your room, felt he was almost crazy now, he couldn't stop smiling and giggling at what he had just seen now.

He found a box of lego flowers under your bed.

Fu*k she's so cute

He staring his shirt and his short on your bed that you already prepared for him. He quickly changed his wet uniform.

Knock knock

"Reo? Are you finish changing?"

"Yeah, come in"

You go in and found reo sitting relaxed on your bed with the clothes you prepared earlier for him.

"You still keep my clothes, huh?" He teased

Blood rushing to you cheeks. "You never bring you clothes with you after sleepover here. So i keep it."

It's true though. Reo always refused to take the clothes from the day before because he likes the fact that you will wash his clothes and keep it in your little wardrobe together with your clothes. And now you and him share the same smell.

You walk towards your floor table and put the 2 cups of hot chocolate. Reo staring at you still wearing your school uniform. "Aren't you going to change, y/n?"

"O-oh right. Wait"

You open your wardobe and take out your t-shirt and shorts. Then go to the bathroom. Reo was holding back to says "why don't you just change you clothes here?" But no, he won't going that far. But he'll be lying if he doesn't want to know what your reaction would be. It must be cute he thinks.

You got out from your bathroom already changed. You see Reo already sat on the carpet as he drinks his hot chocolate. He looks at you and tapping his empty side gives a signal to you to sit down.

You both sit there in silence. You drink your hot chocolate try to break the silence but it's not working. It feels awkward and you got more nervous. You think maybe you should just confessed to him right now but you're too scared. What if Reo doesn't feel the same way and you friendship will get ruin.

In the other side, Reo knows whats happening, he can see how shaking and confused you are and he likes it, way too likes it. He almost feel bad. But he couldn't help it you just so cute and looks fragile to him.

"Reo.. say something..."

He chuckled. Your whine sounds just melodies to him. And the next think he said is surprised you.

"Ditto"

You look at him in wide eyes.

"E-eh?"

"Why? You look surprised" he smiled at you.

You really thought that word was for you. But there's no way, Reo doesn't know that it was you, right?

"No, it's just why you randomly said that like you answering the letter."

He laughed.

"I never show you what's inside the letter, Y/n. How did you know?" His face getting closer to yours.

"......"

Eh? He never show it? I thought-

Ahh what am i going to do?!

Did he find out?!

How?!

You frozed. Speechless. You opened your mouth but nothing comes out. Your heart beats fast. Your body heats up even though it's cold outside due to the rain. You just sit there look at him who still smiling at you.

Ah, my y/n just so clueless. Oh, is she gonna cry? Cute.

"I said that i like you too you know, aren't you happy about it?" Reo pouted.

"N-no i- of cource i'm happy, Reo!" Your hands cling hard on his tshirt. You get too overhelmed you didn't even realize tears coming down to your face. You've been waiting for this for so long.

"God, you're so pretty" he whispered. He's gone mad.

He's getting closer to close the gap between you two till your lips touched. He placed his hand under your jaw, his other hand squished you hip as you hands still clinging on his tshirt. He open up lil bit his mouth so you did it too. Now you both can taste each others sweetness from hot chocolate. Then he pulled away makes you whined.

He licked his lips. "Sweet". It makes you feel more embarassed.

"Thanks for the flowers, baby. I love it" he said as he stroked your cheeks. You nodded and shying away.

"Oh, i have a present to for you. Here, Happy Valentines day, y/n" he hand you a purple little box.

"Can open it?"

"Hmm, go on, sweety" his petnames gave you butterfly.

You open the box. And there were two hairpins with Kuromi's face inside. It makes you eyes twickled, you smile at it.

Reo rubbed his back neck. "Well i know it's not really special or expensive. I just want make it as a symbols that we're official now. You see.. there's two of it, one for me and one for you. Ah but you know, i would buy anything for you, okay? Is there anything i could get for you?"

You laughed and shook your head. "No, thank you, Reo. These are so adorable, i like it very much." You took one hairpin and placed it on your hair. You took the other one and placed on Reo's hair.

"Aww we're pairing right now, so cute hehe. Lets take some pictures, Reo?"

How could he says no to his baby, of course he said yes to everything you want and need.

These wholesome romance scenes makes him forgot about a bad things he did. From canceled his practiced and told his driver to not pick him up so he can go home with you. From he took advantages one of his fan and took her umbrella without caring how she's gonna get home. From how threating any guys that want to get closer or have a crush on you and it makes you feel insecure and sad, he feels bad about that one though. But it doesn't matter, you only need him, you're gonna choose him and him only. Well you just did.

You're all his now. Though, you already his since the first time you met. That's why you always together. He's always been there for you whenever you happy, sad, angry, he's there with open arms. He treats you well too, bought you anything you want or need, always satisfied you and makes you happy with him.

He deserves you right? You deserve each other. That's why you chose him. And he won't let that change.

Reblogs are more appreciated! Thanks for the notes<3

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cheesus-doodles · 1 year

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Toman finds out y/n is rich like crazy rich, her family are a bunch of millionaires or billionaires. I wanna their reaction to this new information about her.

‎‎Recommended Readings: A Friend In Me Chapter 1 | 2

Masterlist

‎

i think their most drastic reaction would probably be utter confusion at learning that you were from old money - first off, don't you know how much more dangerous the street was if anyone knew how rich your family is?? Who let you walk around without an entire army of guards (though no doubt the Toman founders think that their protection is a lot better) ? How is it your parents haven't already locked you up in some mansion for your own safety? You were just too naive, too sweet, too innocent to be left wandering the streets alone, like you had before meeting Mikey and Baji by coincidence.

And two, if you were rich beyond the average person’s wildest imaginations, then why in the world were you hanging out with delinquents like them? You had the means to do anything, go anywhere, yet here you were, staying in a modest house in a average neighbourhood, attending a normal (albeit more prestigious school), cooking them lunch with you own two hands - the boys aren’t quite sure what to make of the news. But you can be sure none of them dare ask should you actually start to consider a life away from them. Worse still, these two thoughts only help to churn more nightmarish what-ifs in the minds of your overthinking friends: imagine if you had met someone that was worse or nastier than them, that decided to take advantage of you instead of caring for you like they did; Mikey and Kazutora had to each spend a whole night cuddled with you just to banish the horrid thoughts.

Of course they were glad that your family didn’t think the same way they did, given that meant you would have never entered their lives, but someone had to be prioritising your wellbeing. They won’t change the way they are around you in the slightest though, given you were still you - you having money meant little to them. Though if you were still working for some reason, I would think that your friends would 100% make you stop for good this time, or if you refused, force the business to fire you, maybe by storming the store every time you were on shift and taking up all your time, or just threatening the customers and staff behind your back. After all, you could obviously afford to hang out with them, afford the groceries to cook their favourites, and still live a comfortable lifestyle without ever having to lift a finger, and the lesser you were outdoors and interacting with people that weren’t them, the lesser risk you were exposed to to begin with. Didn’t matter if you were rich or not, your Toman boys would have always had this line of thought, except now they have an actual reason to put it into effect.

If they could convince you to stop attending school as well, they would absolutely do that as well, though your sudden absence would most definitely raise a lot of eyebrows and attract unwanted attention; instead, what the boys decided on was to start “guarding” you more, making sure one of them was by your side at every time of day you were outside your house, taking shifts to accompany you to school and then after school. You, not knowing their true intention, just try to do your best to keep your jumpier boys nice and calm when they decide to join you for the day - allowing Mikey and Kazutora to cuddle and huddle as much as they like in your lap to turn their thoughts away from trying to fight every last schoolmate you had, bribing them with snacks and promises of affection. No, your desk mate was not “looking at you suspiciously”, and you certainly didn’t think your teacher was “attempting to kidnap” you. Even Pah was more difficult to handle during lessons, with the bored boy itching for a reason to do something other than listen and learn (you have no idea why he even wants to be here). You had to admit that you much preferred the company of your calmer friends, Draken and Mitsuya for one who are mostly content being seated beside you working on their own books and shooting a stink eye at anyone who dares to wander too close, and surprisingly Baji, who generally falls asleep on your lap or face first on your desk the moment your teacher starts speaking.

Depending on how they found out about your family’s wealth, their reaction to the news would also vary slightly. If you were the source of them information, you would get a few owlishly blinks at first as the news of your wealthy background settled in, before Mitsuya would come over and lightly smack you on the back of your head, scolding you about how you shouldn’t go about telling people this sort of information. Draken and Mikey teaming up to insist you tell them exactly who you had told this to over and over again once they had snapped out of their stupor, clamping onto you and refusing to let you go until you had promised and crossed your heart that you had never disclosed this. However if one of the Toman boys, maybe Pah, given his family’s connection to the real estate market, had found out through other means, oh boy. They would jump you as soon as you can, dragging you straight back to your house, insisting that you were in grave danger, that somehow now “everyone except them was out to get you”. And that you weren’t safe, that you had to stick with only them now, and they would cross their heart keep you safe. Kazutora balling his eyes out at the mere thought of you being threatened, Baji refusing to get up from the ground or let go of your arm, Mikey clung to your legs. You would have a long comfort session ahead of you consisting of handmade snacks, a full hearty meal, and a lot of promises just to get your friends to calm down and reassure them that no, no one else knew who you were.

One thing your Toman founders wouldn’t do unless in an absolute emergency would be to approach your family - you were safer with them than anywhere else, and the boys were so hesitant to change the working status quo. Oh no, imagine if your parents disapprove of your friendship with them, imagine if your parents decide to force you to leave them and go home (wherever that was; a brainwashing attempt, your home was with them). The Toman founders aren’t quite sure what they would do to stop you from leaving them - they didn’t want to have to break your legs or hurt you or lie to you to get you to stay - but there was no life without you there. Money could do many things, but no amount of money would be enough to replace what you were to them, and none of your nervous neighbours or delinquents were quite eager to find out what the boys would get up to if you weren’t there to reign them in.

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clownhousemargarita · 28 days

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Can you do a zooble x shy male reader

"A bunch of nothing." -- Zooble.

------- Summary: You adore your partner, and all you want to do is kiss them. But you aren't sure how.. Pairing: Zooble x MALE! Reader Warnings: A little angst, identity issues. Enjoy. --------

Ever since you got here, your head felt like it was constantly spinning. Whenever your brain decided to have a lovely reality check, you found yourself dizzy, unable to focus your eyes. You weren't sure how to react to anything, nothing could have prepared you for this. But, you had to do what you can. You found yourself trying to make comfort in people, someone who didn't show so much of the same emotion as you so it balanced out well. You couldn't stand Jax, he was a little shit. Pomni had found her cure in Ragatha, and you knew Ragatha couldn't handle another person to fall into a mental void with. Everyone else you seemed to find no connection, except for... "Zooble!" The objectal mess turned around at the sound of whatever their name ever was. You waved at them, a worried look always had been plastered on your face. They hummed at you, finding you a better guy to talk to then whatever Gangle had been crying about. "Do we have to be out here?" You asked, fidgeting with your fingers. They didn't even feel like fingers. What did fingers feel like again? "Dunno, I'm pretty sure we have some f&%k a$$ adventure that Caine's going to put together soon." They said very monotone. As they usually do. You hummed, your back that naturally hunched over beginning to hurt. Somehow. They pondered for a minute, before speaking. "If we run away right now, I don't think he'll find us." Zooble whispered, their non symmetrical eyes squinting at you. You're face flushed happily, nodding quickly. You took their crab hand, rushing away from the group and wherever Caine would appear. Once you two had gotten far enough away, Zooble spoke, "Dude, I'm tired. I think." They groaned. You giggled, finding some colorful blocks to rest against, dropping the room idea. "What was Jax talking to you about?" You asked, breathless. Zooble shrugged, "I have no idea, I zone out when he talks to me." You laugh, shifting to lay your head on Zoobles' lap.

Their eyes had changed, you had studied their distorted face to understand when they smiled. It's hard to tell your partners emotions when they were a bunch of 3D clay. "You know what I wish?" You begin, looking up at them as they did the same to you. Their eyebrow perked up. "That I could kiss you." Their eyes went wide for a moment, before letting out a quiet huff and turning away from you. "Major bummer." They muttered. "I'm serious." You whine, shifting to your side. "I am too. It's a bummer." They shrug, still not making eye contact with you. You sat up from their lap, now sitting on their lap instead of laying on them. "Can I help you, sir?" Zooble tilts their head, clearly now frustrated. "Why'd you get angry?" You asked softly. "Because, what am I supposed to do about that?!" They exclaimed, leaning into you angrily. You sat silent for a moment, usually you were a shy guy, but around Zooble you found yourself to be a bit more bold because you knew they wouldn't judge you like you feared. You leaned in, kissing what would be considered their cheek. "Did you feel that?" You ask, it was clearly a dumb question but a curious one. "I should slap you." They leaned back against the wall, their face flushed like you haven't seen before. What you meant by, 'flush' it was more that the triangular face they had had went from pink to red. You ignore their remark and lean in to kiss another part of their face, eventually spiraling to kiss all over their face. Their odd hands found themselves at your waist. "I know you look messy but I love kissing you." "I have no mouth." "Improvise." "I'm a mess." "We all are, I don't even remember my real name." "Yeah, but, I'm a bunch of nothing." "You're still something." "Not like you." "Because you're not me, you're you." "I don't know who I am." "I...don't either." You both sat in silence. You felt Zoobles grip on your waist become tighter. You leaned in once more and kissed where their mouth would have been. "Not much we can do about that." Zooble nodded in agreement. "Thank you." You hear them mutter. "Thanks for letting me kiss you without getting actually slapped." Zooble chuckled, which you barley ever heard. "You stopped me before I could."

#the amazing digital circus #the amazing digital circus zooble #tadc #tadc zooble #the amazing digital circus x reader #the amazing digital circus x male reader #tadc x reader #tadc zooble x reader #tadc zooble x male reader #tadc fanfiction #the amazing digital circus fanfiction #zooble x reader #zooble x male reader

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imagine-knowing-a-name · 8 months

Text

Jeff Fictional Universe (JFU) Headcanons

A/N: Hi everyone! I'm on holiday at the moment and don't have too much time for writing, but my next fic is close to being finished and here's this in the meantime: it's a bunch of my headcanons about Jeff the Landshark that haven't explicitly made it into my JFU fics yet.

Send me an ask if you have any of your own headcanons about Jeff, I'd love to hear them and see if they'll fit into future stories! Have a good day y'all and I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: vague mentions of death, not proofread.

➼ Jeff was experimented on by MODOK. This one is pretty canon to Jeff’s official comics since MODOK officially created the land sharks, but in my mind, it went a lot deeper than that. Jeff doesn’t really remember any of it, nor does it affect him anymore, but he’ll still get a bit nervous in lab environments and snap at people who get too intrusive, even if he doesn’t know why he does that.

➼ He’s a mix of a bunch of animals – a shark most obviously, but he has the behaviour of dogs/cats and the toe count of guinea pigs, to name a few.

➼ Jeff understands every language, but he can only speak his own. He doesn’t expect anyone to speak his language because of this, but he can get frustrated that they don’t even understand his language. Especially with Natasha.

➼ When you first got the ability to speak to animals in the JFU, Jeff was the first animal you could understand, but you had gotten so used to answering Jeff’s mrrrs with random assumptions that you didn’t even notice. Jeff also didn’t notice because you had actually been fairly good at guessing what he wanted. It was only after a few days and a long speech by Jeff that you both had the moment of realisation.

➼ Jeff cannot read; you and Natasha have tried to teach him but to no avail. It became a challenge between the Avengers that anyone who teaches Jeff to read would win. Tony got closest to winning, but you later realised that Jeff was just reciting a section of the book which Tony had taught him to memorise, and he still couldn’t read anything else. Bruce decides that Jeff is just biologically incapable of reading full words.

➼ Despite this, Jeff can write a few short words/phrases; mainly his, yours, and Natasha’s names.

➼ Even if he can’t read words, Jeff understands all the letters of the alphabet individually and is convinced that the letter ‘E’ is written backwards (Ǝ). Any attempts to correct this are met with a scolding from that land shark and a lesson on how to ‘write it properly’.

➼ Somehow, Jeff has even set his phone keyboard to have a backwards E. Nobody is sure how he managed this, or even why he changed it, since he types in his own language and only uses the letters ‘m’ and ‘r’.

➼ He will sometimes ‘correct’ Natasha and your mission notes to have ‘the proper Ǝ’ because he doesn’t want you to look bad or be embarrassed. This leads to Maria Hill and Fury sometimes even writing their Es backwards since they’re so used to seeing it and reading it as if it were normal.

➼ On the topic of Jeff’s mental abilities: Jeff can only count to 4, since he has 4 fingers on his front hands (he only has 3 toes on his back feet, but that’s another matter – see ‘Class Pet’ for Jeff’s reaction to this information)

➼ If Jeff tries to count above 4, he reverts back to 1. This has led to some issues when you asked Jeff to scout out how many soldiers there were during a mission (Jeff had stowed away, but he was put to good(?) use). You went out expecting an easy fight, only to be confronted by 13 soldiers and a realisation that Jeff cannot count.

➼ There aren’t many foods that Jeff won’t eat; he’ll happily root through the trash for an extra snack, however, Natasha cooked for him once and that is where he draws the line. He immediately taught himself how to cook and he is excellent at it, and will often step in to cook when Natasha says she will (much to your relief). He is not so good at cleaning up after himself – but you leave that chore to Natasha.

➼ Sharks have some understanding of what Jeff is saying when he swims with them, but he has a ‘land accent’ and sometimes they find it easier for you to translate for Jeff, much to his annoyance.

➼ Jeff hopes to find other landsharks like him one day… little does he know that he’s the last of his kind. The others attacked civilians in an invasion orchestrated by MODOK and were put down by the Avengers; Jeff was saved by being the runt of the litter and was left in his cage rather than being sent out with the others.

400 year old Jeff headcanons (these aren’t all canon to the JFU, but it’s a fun version of Jeff that @wolferine and I brainstormed in discord.)

➼ Jeff is 400 years old but nobody believes him; they even go as far as to call him a baby constantly since his appearance has never changed.

➼ He was kicked out of the landshark group because he ate all their food. Jeff is exceptionally hungry for a landshark. He spent some time in the sea after that and befriended the oldest greenland shark, who was still just a pup like Jeff at the time.

➼ Jeff still goes to visit his friend from time to time, glad to have had someone with him for his whole existence.

➼ When you and Natasha take Jeff in, it is the first time in his 400 years of life where he has been content to settle with a family for their entire lifetimes. The Avengers promise that their children will look after Jeff when they’re gone, like a tortoise (once they realise Jeff isn’t a baby).

➼ Jeff replies to any scolding with ‘I’m older than you’ or ‘respect your elders’, much to Steve’s annoyance because that’s usually his line, but now he’s being called a youth by a tiny, round, short legged shark.

➼ The other Avengers expect Jeff to scold Thor when he comes to Earth and calls Jeff a baby on their first meeting, but to their surprise, he just accepts it. Jeff mentions later on that he met Thor roughly 350 years before during a battle on Earth. Thor doesn’t believe Jeff is that old until he finds a portrait of the battle back on Asgard, and spots a familiar landshark in the drawing; he still doesn’t believe it can be Jeff and assumes it is just Jeff’s ancestor, so Jeff bites him in annoyance – that spurs a memory and Thor suddenly realises that it was Jeff who fought in battle with him (because Jeff had accidentally bitten Thor in the heat of the battle, and he’s been bitten by so many creatures in his life that he instantly recognises the landshark bite.)

Jeff taglist: @unexpected-character @wolferine

#jeff the landshark #jeff the land shark #avengers fanfiction #reader insert #ikan writes #jeff the land shark & reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x reader & jeff the land shark #marvel #mcu

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five-rivers · 11 months

Text

On the Manufacture of Gods

AKA the reason I was complaining about the Generator Rex timeline earlier this week. @ all my DP followers, give Generator Rex a try if you haven't, yet. It definitely scratches that unethical human experimentation itch! :p

AO3

“You’re not still thinking about it, are you?”

“Huh?” Violeta looked up from her notebook, her pen spinning out of her hand and clattering onto the floor. “What?”

Rafael chuckled. “You are still thinking about it. That joke of a job offer.” He leaned across the dining room floor to peer at her notes. “Giving a bunch of rich idiots the power of God.”

“Mm,” said Violeta. “Maybe not that end goal, but the money… and the things we’d have to research on the way. I was thinking… You might know what they want isn’t possible, and they might know what they want isn’t possible. But in the meantime…” She trailed off, suggestively, and held up her notebook in front of her face.

“Are you suggesting we run a scam?” asked Rafael, taking the notebook. “Ah, a list of potential medical advances.”

“Computer science as well.”

“Human longevity, oncology, genetic diseases…”

“Not to mention physics, microbiology, bioengineering, nanotechnology…”

“It’s quite a list. A bit beyond our purview, though.”

“And we have quite a list of friends. Friends who might like steady work. Gabriel and Peter, at least.” Violeta smiled. “It’s a victimless crime, you know. If they have enough money to throw at something like this. And they would be getting their money’s worth.”

“Mhm,” said Rafael. “They do say that the first benefit of functional nanotechnology is immortality. But control over the fundamental forces of nature, not so much. God, it was so hard not to laugh in their faces when they said they wanted to control gravity and magnetism. We’re so, so far from that.”

“Yes, but imagine how much money they’d throw at you while you were researching the problem.”

Rafael smiled, imagining it. “It is a pleasant thought.”

The front door slammed open. “Mama! Papa!”

“We’re in here Ceasar!” called Violeta.

A seven-year-old with dirty, skinned knees skidded into the kitchen.

“Goodness,” said Violeta, getting up. “Did you fall down? Are you hurt?”

“No!” said Ceasar. “Mama, what’s bigger, cells or atoms?”

“Cells are bigger,” said Violeta. “They’re made out of atoms.”

“Ha!” said Ceasar, bouncing. “I told him, I told him!” He ran back to the door.

“Told who, dear?”

“Van!” The door slammed shut before Violeta or Rafael could say anything.

“Van,” said Rafael. “Van… Isn’t he almost twice as old as Ceasar?”

“It’s fine,” said Violeta. “We knew he’d be the youngest in the advanced classes when we signed him up. And I think Van Kleiss is only ten or so. Maybe eleven.”

“Well. I suppose as long as they’re getting along…” He drummed his fingers on the notebook, then put it down in front of Violeta’s seat at the table. “Maybe we can try our hands at being con artists if our current jobs fall through.”

“Scamming a bunch of rich people out of a whole lot of money?” asked Gabriel Rylander, barely audible over the din of the bar. He finished off his shot. “Count me in.” He shook Violeta's hand firmly. “But is it really a scam, if we’re still giving them something?”

“Eh,” said Violeta, rocking her hand back and forth. “We’re just failing to mention that their end goal isn’t feasible and isn’t something we’re actually trying to work towards. We just need you and Peter to be on the same page as far as telling them we're working on it goes.”

“Sounds a bit risky,” said Peter Meechum. “But I guess no one would ever be able to prove anything, so… why not?” He took a sip from his drink, grimaced, and put it back down. “What do these guys call themselves again?”

“The Consortium.”

Rafael frowned at the documents. Summaries of his research, Violeta’s, Gabriel’s, Peter’s, the other scientists’ that had joined the Nanite Project, most of them agreeing that there was no way to fulfil the Consortium’s requests, but that the good that could be done in the meantime was too great to pass up, even a packet of code from one of Ceasar’s projects. They’d been working on this project for seven years, now, but this was the first time he actually thought there was a chance of success.

He wasn’t sure he liked it.

Oh, sure, he was thrilled with the results of his latest experiments, and the leisure to learn more, to further his own education – to the point where he sometimes felt like he was turning into a cartoonish omnidisciplinary scientist – but the idea of giving those rich, powerful men even more was… troubling, to say the least.

“Rafael? Love, are you still down here?”

“Yes,” called Rafael. “What is it?”

“Dinner,” said Violeta, a bit dryly. “Ceasar wants pizza, incidentally. What are you doing?”

“Thinking about the last results we got back from CERN,” said Rafael. “Obviously there are still problems on virtually every level, but… With the newly discovered particles, what we’re doing isn’t a pipe dream anymore.”

“Mm,” said Violeta. “Does that bother you?”

“You know how I feel about the people we work for.”

Violeta drummed her fingers on her elbow. “You know, they don’t have to ever get what we do.”

“Pardon?”

“Think about it. When we make these things, if we make these things, who’s going to have control? Us or them?”

“Violeta…”

“And we always have the option to just… destroy everything. Or democratize it! Spread it and all its good over the whole world!” She waved her hand over her head as if defining a rainbow. “We’re making a post-scarcity society a possibility. Why should anyone have to pay for it, once it’s done?”

“I suppose,” said Rafael.

“In the meantime… pizza.”

Rafael smile. “Pizza,” he agreed. “Goodness, is he ever going to get tired of it?”

“Maybe once he isn’t a teenager anymore.”

It was silent around the table.

“Do we really have a workable plan of action?” asked Rafael, a little stunned.

“I wouldn’t say workable, not yet,” said Gabriel, waving his hands.

“But it’s close,” said Peter. “A lot of the problems are on the biological side of things,” he continued, glancing at Violeta, “but between my team and Rylander’s we’ve definitely solved the processing power issue and many of the miniaturization problems.”

“That’s thanks to you, by the way,” said Gabriel, tipping an imaginary hat towards Rafael. “The selenium process especially was revolutionary.”

“I think I can solve the biological problems,” said Violeta, cutting off Gabriel’s last words. “I can – It’s not…” She trailed off, biting her thumbnail.

“Violeta?”

“Part of the problem,” she said, “is control. The interface between the organism and the machines. It’s learning how to use them. Like a new sense, or a new limb. We’re going to need live trials. Test subjects. And—” She broke off again, more sharply. “The Consortium is never going to have the ability to actively use these smoothly. No adult human is. Or, at least, that kind of adaptability, of brain plasticity, is going to be rare.”

“You’re not suggesting we start experimenting on children?” asked Peter, appalled. He and his wife had been trying to have children for a while, now, but they were having trouble. Gabriel – also a new father – didn’t look happy, either.

“Not… exactly. We’d do plant and animal trials first, of course, you know, model organisms, and move on from there. I’m thinking more… Fetal tissue. In vitro.” She held up a hand, pinching air between her fingers as if to show how small the research matter would be. “In carefully controlled lab situations only.” She laughed a little. “Caesar actually has an idea about how to manage that, believe it or not.”

Peter made a face. “As wonderful as Caesar is, he’s still a teenager, Vi.”

“I wasn’t saying he’d be the one doing all the programming. Just that his overall idea is decent.”

Gabriel cleared his throat. “I think there might be some ways around those control issues,” he said. “Why do we need to learn how to work with the nanites when it should really be the other way around? Make them do the hard part. Maybe that’ll cut down on the human trials… Or we could con one of our lovely funders to volunteer. We’re already conning them out of millions of dollars, after all.” He picked up his drink and downed it in one go.

“We could also stop,” said Rafael, hardly believing what he was suggesting.

“You can’t be serious,” said Peter. “After we’ve come this far?”

“I believe in keeping options on the table,” said Rafael, defensively.

“Do you want to stop?” asked Violeta, and he knew that she would, for him.

But… “No,” said Rafael. Of course he didn’t want to stop. Who could at this point? “But we should try to come up with failsafes. Some of these plans… Not just anyone should have access to the ability to turn off gravity.”

“That’s fair,” said Violeta. “But considering how we’re programming these… Or, at least, how I understand we’re programming things, I could be mistaken… Would it be possible to program the nanites to only respond to certain people? Have the higher-level functions only work for certain biometrics, or DNA scans, that kind of thing.”

Gabriel scratched his chin. “Possibly, possibly. But we run into the adaptability problem again. We’re not young by any means. How do you feel about bombs?”

“Gabriel, you can’t be serious.”

“I’m deadly serious! Hence the bombs. Blowing things up are a traditional way of getting rid of things.”

“If we build these right, we won’t be able to get rid of them by blowing them up.”

Rafael cleared. “I think your suggestion holds merit, in an extreme case. As long as we’ve gotten past the point where the nanites will kill everyone, spreading them out, scattering them, might be better than leaving them in the hands of the Consortium. We’d have to do a risk assessment. It might be better, too, to limit the number of ‘control’ nanites. Maybe even find a way to hide them. Hide that they exist, even.”

“What if,” said Violeta, slowly, “we make something compatible with the nanites? Work backwards to work forward. Or, at least, work from both ends.”

“You mean GMOs?” asked Peter.

“Something like that,” agreed Violeta.

“I’m not sure how this is a failsafe,” said Gabriel, “but that sounds like we’ve gone in a circle again. Back to us being compatible with them.”

“If,” said Violeta, “we can make it so there’s a person we can trust, and they’re the only one who can properly use the nanites… And we implement some of your other ideas, like limiting number of ‘control’ nanites, and keep those to ourselves… We wouldn’t have direct control, but we could decide whether or not they get used.”

“And where are we going to get a person like that?” asked Peter, testily. “Wasn’t the whole point of this that people can’t just pick up how to use nanites, normally?”

“Easy,” said Violeta, grinning at Rafael. “We make them.”

“Caesar,” said Violeta, “how do you feel about a younger brother?”

“Fine, I guess?” said Caesar, putting down his spoon and looking between his two parents. “Why? Does this have something to do with your project?”

“Yes. We think it’s time you learned more about it.”

The best way to test something, to look for the changes in something, was to use a control group. That was often difficult in diverse biological groups, like humans. Studies rarely showed the full picture, sadly.

Twins were a natural choice, for experiments like that. Identical in age and, generally, in upbringing. But you couldn’t just go out and get a twin.

Unless, of course, you were a scientist with unlimited access to a massively unethical and extremely expensive lab.

Caesar sat beside her, watching the test tube. “It’s hard to believe he’s going to grow up to be me.”

“Not you, exactly,” said Violeta. “Just… nearly.” She had made adjustments, some of them of her own design, others suggested by her co-conspirators. The goal was to optimize nanite compatibility. “You’ll be different people,” she continued. “Assuming he survives. He’ll be more like a… twin. A very delayed twin.”

Caesar made an affirmative noise. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m sure it will be odd,” agreed Violeta, “but even though the odds are low, this could be an entirely possible natural genetic combination.”

“But it isn’t.”

“That’s true,” agreed Violeta.

“When I get out of college,” he said, “do you think I can work on this, too? Just, with programing. Not biology so much.”

“I don’t see why not,” said Violeta.

“It’s just…” He reached out, as if to tap the glass vial with his finger, then withdrew, crossing his arms. “I don’t know. I feel like I should help him already, I guess.”

Violeta fluffed his hair, then swooped in to give him a peck on the forehead. “I’m sure you will,” she said, “and you’ll be the best big brother and scientist there ever was.”

As expected, Caesar’s face scrunched up.

“What if he doesn’t make it, though?”

“Then we’ll try again.”

“Have you thought of a name?” asked Rafael.

Across the room, Caesar’s head snapped up, homework instantly forgotten.

“I have some ideas,” said Violeta, hiding her smile from Caesar but not Rafael.

“You should call him Caeser the Second,” said Caesar, which was both a very immature response for someone working through a degree in computer science, and very typical.

“I think that might be a bit confusing, mijo,” said Violeta. “I was thinking ‘Rex.’ My two little kings.”

“Not as good as Caesar the Second. But it’ll have to do.”

“I’m glad I have your support. What do you think, Rafael?”

“It’s a good name,” he said, not looking up from his paperwork. “It starts with the letter R.”

Violeta threw a pillow at him.

“’Abyss,’ huh,” said Rafael, examining the intake paperwork as he reclined ever backwards in the office chair. “I’m not sure Nietzsche is the person we want to emulate.”

“It’s ‘Abysus,’” corrected Van Kleiss imperiously.

That was another thing Rafael wasn’t sure about. Working with one of Caesar’s old playmates. And moving operations and experiments to a private island in the middle of nowhere. He had to wonder if the Consortium knew about their group’s plans, and if this isolation was meant to keep them under control.

It wouldn’t work, of course. Building a radio wasn’t exactly difficult, even without access to nanites, and even Rafael had a few less than noble tricks up his sleeves.

“Do you know who else we’ll be working with?” he asked.

“The Consortium has delegated a new project overseer.”

That was nice enough, he supposed (not really), but also not an answer to what he had asked.

“I was thinking more along the lines of scientists.”

“There’s me,” said Van Kleiss.

Rafael made a noncommittal noise. “Is that it? As wonderful as Violeta is, this is the kind of thing you really need a team for.”

Van Kleiss’s expression went sour, as if he had expected to be told that he, personally, was the only scientist needed for the undertaking. But the moment passed quickly, and soon Van Kleiss was rattling off names as fast as he could. Rafael recognized many of them, if not all, and relaxed. For the most part, even though they weren’t part of the conspiracy, they wouldn’t turn them in if they heard or saw anything.

There was safety in numbers – or, at least, the illusion of it. Again, with that many people who could, technically, be included under the header of ‘mad scientist,’ he wasn’t worried about communication or weaponry. Much.

“Caesar is coming too, you know,” Rafael couldn’t help but boast.

“I assumed so. He is your child.”

“No, no,” said Rafael, “Rex is coming as family, but Caesar is coming to work as a scientist. He just graduated from college, and they hired him for the programming division right off.” He couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice. “It will be like old times for the two of you, won’t it? You always used to play together.”

“Oh,” said Van Kleiss. “I suppose it will be interesting, at least.”

“Call me Black Knight,” said the woman, not extending her hand. “I’m here on behalf of the Consortium to monitor and accelerate your progress. Specifically, to help with a certain bottleneck.”

“And… what does that mean, exactly?” asked Violeta, leaning around Rafael who was being oddly protective.

“Human test subjects are so hard to find, aren’t they?” asked Black Knight, rhetorically. “I’m here to volunteer. And recruit other volunteers, on an as-necessary basis.”

“I don’t like her,” said Rafael. “She’s a killer, I can tell. I’ve seen enough of her type in my day. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the ‘security forces’ here were the same.”

“What do you think we should do about it?” asked Caesar, frowning.

“I think,” said Rafael, steepling his fingers, “we should do some recruitment of our own.

The problem with bringing children to high-security, top-secret private islands is that there often weren’t many other kids around.

Oh, Rex had Caesar, of course, and Gabriel had brought his son, but both of them were a good deal older than he was, and Caesar especially had other things to do. His programming work was quickly becoming vital to the project as a whole.

(Something that made a variety of the other scientists very jealous. Violeta didn’t understand it. Most of them weren’t even working in the same discipline as Caesar, making the rivalry especially pointless, as in the case of Van Kleiss.)

(Then again, Van Kleiss seemed to have a rivalry with everyone, so perhaps that was to be expected.)

The point was that Rex spent a lot of time alone.

Not in a bad way. Abysus was interesting, and the scientists there loved talking about what they were doing. He was learning a lot, just listening in. His parents spent a lot of time with him, too, even more than they did when they lived in Geneva, because now he was being homeschooled. And he was used to it. They’d been on Abysus for a while.

(They didn’t stay on Abysus year-round. They flew around the world in their ‘off season,’ going everywhere from the Americas to Europe, to Asia, and even Africa, once or twice, mostly for vacations, but also to talk to other scientists, visit other labs, and make sure Rex had all his proper doctor’s checkups. Rex made a lot of friends on those trips, but it was hard to stay in touch.)

But it could get… boring, sometimes, not having anyone his age around. Lonely. So… sometimes he did things that might not, strictly speaking, be smart. Like exploring the labs or sneaking into restricted zones when he was supposed to be finishing his trigonometry homework. He couldn’t help it! Trigonometry was so boring… and some of the less-used halls were great for practicing soccer.

Except… maybe this hallway wasn’t as disused as Rex had thought. Not if Van Kleiss was here, glaring down at him, his soccer ball firmly under his shoe.

“H-hi,” said Rex. Van Kleiss always made him so nervous. There was just something about him. “Can I, um. Can I have that back?”

Van Kleiss continued to frown down at him for a long minute. Then he smirked and kicked the ball back.

“Thanks!” said Rex, picking up the ball and running down the hallway to get away. He really didn’t like Van Kleiss. He picked a door at random – a big bulky thing – and went through without another thought.

Van Kleiss walked down the hallway to the testing room, thinking. He had a big decision ahead of him.

All he had to do was not say anything.

It would be easy. The easiest thing in the world. An absence of action.

Say nothing.

Oh, it would be a terrible thing to do… or not do, as the case may have been, but…

Say nothing say nothing say nothing.

He could see it, the chain of events unfolding moment by moment, faster and faster.

Rex was not supposed to be here. Especially not in that room. But the problem with quickly built places, even places built by billionaires with more money than sense, or perhaps especially places built by billionaires with more money than sense, was that there were always problems. Some things stopped working. Some things never worked. Some things decayed violently over time.

But none of the people here were the type to let something like that stop them.

What might stop them, however, specifically the Salazars, was said construction deficits seriously harming their youngest family member.

Van Kleiss hated the Salazars, particularly Caesar, since they were in school together. When he’d applied to work for the Consortium, he hadn’t realized they were part of it, too. If he had… Well, he probably still would have come. They paid a lot. But he wanted them gone.

Maybe their fields weren’t completely comparable, but that was just more reason. He, Van Kleiss, should be in charge of the project. He had the background for it. He was the one who understood the power nanites could have. He was a specialist. Not them.

Rex would be found before too long, anyway. There were all sorts of alarms that should go off.

Just like Rex shouldn’t be here but was. Just like that door should have been sealed tight already.

Van Kleiss stopped. All he had to do was nothing.

He turned and went back down the hallway, his pace picking up until he was running.

He couldn’t do it. There were a lot of lines he’d crossed for the Consortium and for his work. Killing a child – no, letting a child die, he hadn’t put Rex in that room – wasn’t one of them. Maybe someday, he’d go over that line, but not today.

He hit the emergency button by the door, and waited anxiously, guiltily as the alarms began to blare and the airtight seal slowly, audibly, released. As soon as the cycle completed, he hauled the door open, choking a little at the remaining fumes, and peered in. The small body lay some distance from the door, the soccer ball nearby.

Stupid child. Why they even let children on Abysus, he didn’t know.

But…

As the dangerous fumes thinned, swept away by the ventilation system, Van Kleiss pulled the collar of his shirt over his mouth and dashed in. Rex was light enough that he could pick him up around the waist and pull him out, into the proper hallway, where even now the emergency medics were converging.

He handed Rex off with relief, and let them start a check up on him, too.

He hadn’t crossed the line. Not that one, anyway. Not today.

Violeta was a biologist, primarily, yes, but she was also a doctor of medicine, one of several on the island. This meant that she knew exactly what was going on, and what Rex’s chances were.

“Caesar,” she said, grabbing her other son’s arm. “Go to the primary lab, load up an injector from Tank One.”

“Mom,” said Caesar, understanding instantly and being just as instantly appalled. “It’s too soon, we haven’t—”

“It’s his only chance,” whispered Violeta, barely audible over the noise. “You have to.”

Caesar ran into the room, program already half-built in his head, and shut down the safeguards on Zag RS that would usually prevent unauthorized nanite withdrawals. After all, he was the one who had programmed it. Undoing it was easy.

Screens and buttons lit up under his fingers as he typed faster than he ever had before, not even blinking as he stared at them. That would take extra time, after all.

Caesar turned away from Tank One, injector in hand, only to come face-to-face with Black Knight.

“Uh,” said Caesar, “hi.”

Black Knight smirked. “Oh, do go on. As I said, human test subjects are so hard to find.”

Caesar felt like nothing so much as a mouse as he scurried around her.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” asked one of the other doctors as Violeta gripped the injector.

Violeta looked at the heart monitor, showing her baby’s unsteady, stuttering heartbeat. There were so many, many risks here. But Rex had been designed to be compatible with the nanites. More than that, these particular nanites had been designed with him in mind.

“Absolutely.”

She pressed the injector to the side of Rex’s neck and pulled the trigger.

Rex’s heartbeat stabilized.

“Van,” said Caesar, clapping him on the shoulder, “let me buy you dinner.”

“It’s fine,” said Van Kleiss, who wanted nothing to do with Caesar. What he wanted was to know when the family was going to leave, but he doubted they would soon, with precious little Rex in a coma. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“You saved my little brother! Of course I owe you something.”

“I don’t—” started Van Kleiss, snappishly.

“Seriously,” said Caesar. “It is not about owing you. Let me buy you dinner.” The words were heavily laden with meaning that Van Kleiss couldn’t grasp at. “Off island.”

Van Kleiss stared at him suspiciously. “Fine.”

Van Kleiss walked into the restaurant, which was, as it turned out, populated with dozens of familiar faces. Most of the senior scientists from the Nanite Project were here, in this tiny, out of the way, low-tech restaurant. Violeta and Rafael were, of course, nowhere to be seen.

“What is this?” asked Van Kleiss.

“Call us ethical objectors,” said Rylander. “Come on, kid. We’ll tell you all about what we’re about and get you up to speed.”

“Why—”

“Isn’t it obvious? Anyone who’d risk inhaling that gas for a kid they barely know is alright in my books.” Rylander nodded and gestured to the chair next to him. “Come on, make yourself comfortable.”

Van Kleiss went through the next few days in a haze. Everything… everything he’d dreamed about, all that power, it was real.

Or, at least, it could be, if the Salazars and their cronies weren’t actively standing in the way.

Oh, sure, he could see that handing the nanites over to the insipid, ignorant investors would be horrible. No one intelligent would ever hand over that kind of power. No one sane would destroy it.

Van Kleiss… he couldn’t let them destroy it. No matter what. The nanites were the key to everything. They could be kings. No, gods. Did the others even know what they were doing here? Did they know that every hour of every day, they got closer to divinity?

He couldn’t let the Consortium have it… but he couldn’t let it be destroyed. He was just one person, but maybe, maybe… He was here at the interface. A sailboat could move faster than the wind, because it was on an interface. He knew interfaces. He could slide between. Change the interaction. Change… everything.

He needed this.

For that matter, he deserved this. None of them would be here if it wasn’t for him.

Somehow… somehow, he would get what he deserved, he just had to be patient. Watch for when to act. Not today… but soon.

Rex woke up slowly. Everything… Everything hurt. Even breathing. Had he ever been hurt like this before?

He thought about it.

He thought about it some more.

He… he didn’t remember. Why didn’t he remember?

He felt his eyelids move as he tried to open them. But they felt stuck closed, his muscles too weak. He—

“Rex,” said a voice over the beeping sound he only now noticed, “Rex, it’s okay, we’re here, Mommy’s here, love.”

Someone… his name! That was his name! He stopped fighting. Someone else knew what was going on.

He woke up. This time, he really woke up, his eyes opening on a plain-ish white room, with a white board and a curtain on one wall. He was in a bed. There was a man siting in a chair next to him, asleep.

Rex tried to speak, but all that came out was a croak. He cleared his throat. “Hello?” he said.

The man startled.

“Oh, dios mío. Rex! You’re awake!” He reached out to Rex and took his hands in his own. “I’m so relieved, you have no idea, little brother.”

Rex pulled his hands away. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

The man looked crushed.

“This is a test to see how much you remember,” said the woman. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. She always sounded like that. “With respect to skills, general knowledge, specific autobiographic memories, and episodic memories. Some of these are things you didn’t know about before, so we can have a control group.”

Rex nodded. She’d said he was his mother, and he really, really wished he could remember that, if only to make her feel better, but… it was like there was nothing there.

The other people in the room were unfamiliar to him as well. He wondered… was one of these people his father? Other siblings? Did he know them, or were they strangers?

They were looking at him. Like, a lot. He ducked his head, looking back at the papers and objects on the desk.

“Wh-what do I start with?” he asked, quietly.

“Whatever you would like. It doesn’t have to be in any specific order.”

“Okay,” breathed Rex. He first reached towards the papers, but… what if he couldn’t remember how to read? He switched to one of the small electronic devices on the table and tried not to notice as his… his mother frowned.

Had he already done something wrong?

He squeezed the device. The miniquant. An old in-between step between high-grade quantum computers and even smaller devices. It had first been turned on in June, three years ago. The primary users was Caesar Salazar, but half a dozen others, including Violeta Salazar, Rafael Salazar, and Peter Meechum had also used it. There were several programs saved on it, mostly complex simulations. He turned it over in his hands, curious. It opened up under his fingers at his request, blue lines arcing over it.

He was startled out of his contemplation of the miniquant by the sound of a chair clattering to the ground. His mother had stood up, staring hard at the miniquant in his hands.

“Did… did I do something wrong?”

“Well,” drawled Black Knight. “I’d say that was a success, wouldn’t you?”

Gabriel looked at her sideways. “Sure, the kid’s alive, but the memory loss? Don’t you think that’s a sizeable downside?”

“One easily explained away by the hypoxia,” said Black Knight, waving her hand, and walking away from the observation booth. “I’ll expect a proposal to start work on my nanites within the month.”

“What about the personality changes?” he shouted after her.

“The trauma-based ones? I’m sure you’ll work it out!”

“We need abort,” Gabriel whispered to Rafael. “They’re starting to move too fast. They’re going to want their nanites soon.”

“Please don’t blow anything up, yet,” said Rafael. “Rex still needs time to recover. And we’ll need the research, to make sure…” To make sure they could help Rex if anything else happened. If there were additional side effects. If it turned out that Rex’s memory loss was recurrent.

“But after…?”

Rafael nodded. “Get your family off the island,” he said. “We’ll start to prepare our escape as well. Tell the others.”

Caesar yawned and glanced at the clock near the door, only to be halfway scared to death by a pair of too-reflective eyes set in a small frame.

“Rex,” he said, getting his breathing under control and lowering the makeshift taser he’d made a few days ago. “What’re you doing here? It’s late.”

Rex shrugged, clutching his blanket more closely around his shoulders.

“Something spook you, mijo?”

“Maybe,” said Rex.

It was a little… strange, to see Rex acting like this. He’d been so energetic before, so confident, always active, outgoing, talkative… maybe a little annoying at times, but that was little brothers for you. Now he was quiet, withdrawn, and shy.

“Hey, come on,” said Caesar, pulling out an office chair. It was Van Kleiss’s. He probably wouldn’t care. He liked Rex. “Hop on up here. Tell me about it.”

Rex climbed onto the chair and immediately began to play with the height settings, going up and down.

“Nightmare?” asked Caesar, after a while, when it seemed like Rex wasn’t going to say anything.

“No,” said Rex. “I… What if I never remember anything?”

“Ah,” said Caesar. “That happens with amnesia, sometimes. But we’re still family. We’ll always be family, no matter what.”

“But what if—” Rex blinked hard, tears visible in the corners of his eyes. “What if I forget again?”

Caesar reached over and pulled Rex’s chair closer, so he could put his arm around Rex’s shoulders. “Then we’ll still be family.”

“But what if I don’t remember we’re family?”

“It’s okay, we’ll be here, we’ll remind you.”

“But what if—What if I get lost or something? Can’t you…” Rex trailed off, looking away.

“Can’t we what?” Rex hitched up one shoulder in a shrug. “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

“Nanites are like little computers, right?”

“Yes?”

“And… and you can put stuff on computers… like, save things… and…” He looked up at Caesar, eyes unnaturally bright. “Can you put memories on my nanites?”

Caesar opened his mouth, then closed it, thinking about the proposal. “Maybe,” he said, finally. “Nanites are pretty small. Outside of their operating parameters, I’m not sure how much more we can put on them, and the memory would be pretty different from natural memory, but…”

“Please?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Caesar, finally.

“You did what?” demanded Violeta.

“Oh, come on,” said Caesar, “like you haven’t done the same kinds of things.”

“Not without talking about it!” Violeta sat down on the couch. “Your brother, Caesar.”

“It’s just-- It’s such a little thing.”

“How little?” asked Rafael. “What did you actually do?”

“I just…” Caesar looked between his parents. “It’s just a programmed suggestion to come find us, and to trust us, when he does find us. It’s not like there’s room for much else, at this point.”

“Oh, Caesar, I didn’t think we had to teach you not to brainwash your little brother.”

“It’s not brainwashing. And you cloned, well…” He trailed off. “Don’t you think that’s a little hypocritical? Mom? Dad?”

They turned to each other. “It’s a little different,” said Violeta, eventually. “It’s a big risk, and an unnecessary one.”

“Rex didn’t seem to think it was unnecessary.”

“Rex is nine.”

“Point,” said Caesar. “But this isn’t like Alpha. It’s not an AI. It’s just extra instructions for Rex. I’m not even sure it’ll work.”

“Alright,” said Rafael.

“Alright?” exclaimed Violeta and Caesar.

“If it’s something that Rex wanted,” said Rafael, “something he thinks will help him… A safety blanket. But anything like this in the future… you have to discuss it with us, Caesar. You can’t just do things that are going to affect everyone by yourself.”

“Remarkable,” said Black Knight, forming her hand into a spear and back again. “It’s so easy to control. I was anticipating a bit more of a learning curve.”

“Holy moly,” muttered Rylander, “she’s a freak of nature. Wonderful.”

Van Kleiss sniffed. “She isn’t having as easy a time as she’d like us to think.” He showed Rylander his screen. “Look at her biometrics. Notice anything?”

“Elevated heartrate… Energy consumption… Oh, she’s not having an easy time of it, is she?”

No. For all her posturing, she wasn’t. Van Kleiss was quite certain that if he was the one with the nanites, he would be doing much better. Absolutely certain. So certain, in fact, that he was making plans to undergo the same procedure.

Secretly, of course. He knew the other scientists would stop him, to say nothing of the consequences if the Consortium found out.

“Maybe,” said Violeta, “it would help if you had something to visualize. Maybe that one robot you made up for the show you like? The – Rescue Robots? Something like that.”

Rex drew his knees up to his chest and the small plastic chair he was sitting on creaked. “I don’t remember that.”

“Oh,” said Violeta. “Right.” She scratched the back of her head, suddenly unable to look at Rex. She forced herself to, anyway. “How about this: We can design something together, okay? Maybe even a few different things.”

“Okay,” said Rex, unfolding himself. “How?”

“Well, whenever you’re designing something, the first thing you have to ask yourself is, what are my criteria?”

Rafael swore and slammed the door shut behind him.

“What?” asked Violeta, looking up from the papers on the kitchen table. “What is it?”

“I thought we agreed the God Code and the meta-nanites were going to be theoretical.”

“I, well, yes,” said Violeta. “But… We’re already hiding things from the Consortium, aren’t we?”

“But not from each other.”

“But think, Rafael, what a gift we can give Rex.”

“It’s not something anyone should have.”

“But the others, the ones who aren’t in on all this with us—They would have done it, anyway. This way, we can steer the ship. This way, we can control who gets it.”

“Violeta,” said Rafael. “We can’t do this. We shouldn’t do this. This is—This is insanity.”

“I—No,” said Violeta. “Is it insanity to want to push the boarders of human achievement, of human ability?”

“No, but, Vi, making weapons that could destroy all life on the planet is. Remember, we have Zag-RS for a reason. And now we have given them plans for integrating this kind of thing into their systems.” He picked up a piece of paper and waved it at her. “This… Magnetic forces themselves. Gravity! Light! The strong and weak nuclear forces! These are not things we should be giving them!”

“I didn’t—I don’t—I hadn’t added anything yet, Rafael. I haven’t even had a chance to talk to you about it yet. I got these proposals from the other group today. As it stands, the only system any of the meta-nanites are compatible with is Rex’s.”

Rafael put the paper down, slowly, and then shook his head. “This cannot go on,” he said, voice thick. “Please, Vi, let us get away from this with our sons. We should have stopped long ago.”

Violeta looked away from him. “But what if we can fix Rex?” she whispered. “What if we can give him back his memories?”

“I think it’s more important that he has a world to make new memories in.”

Violeta inhaled sharply. “You’re right! You’re right. But we can’t stop the others.”

“I—“

“Hey, guys!” said Caesar, slamming the door open. Rex trailed in behind him. “Guess what?” He took in the room, and, evidently sensing some of the tension there, his smile slipped from his face. “Did something happen? Am I… interrupting?”

“No,” said Violeta. “What did you want to show us?”

The pod laboratory was Caesar’s baby. His pride and joy. His hobby. Which actually sounded kind of sad, if he thought about it. Or awesome. His hobby was also his job. Yeah.

He was awesome.

Anyway, he (and his father) had been working on the pod more or less the whole time they were on Abysus. There was a lot you could do with almost-unlimited funding.

“It’s just about ready to go,” said Caesar, walking his parents through. “Rex helped out a lot, didn’t you, mijo?”

“Uh-uhm. Yeah,” said Rex. “I asked the machines to cooperate.”

“Yeah! It was really helpful. There are still some kinks, but, overall? We’re doing great. It’ll probably be ready whenever, you know… If other things don’t work out.”

His parents exchanged glances and nodded. They were all on the same page, then. More mundane means of escape were all very well and good, but if something truly nasty happened, it would be good to have a means of escape that no one knew was a means of escape.

“Mom?” said Rex, as he spun on a chair in her lab.

“Yes? What is it?” She was a little distracted, trying to inject the latest version of the nanites into a dozen lab rats.

“When the animals turn into monsters, how do you fix them?”

“We don’t, always,” said Violeta.

“But sometimes you do.”

Violeta nodded. “We connect to the base code of the nanites and use an extractor. Tell them to leave the host. Sometimes the nanites have malfunctions beyond the unexpected physical mutations, however… That can make the connection and extraction difficult – it makes it hard to transmit new instructions – and we want to figure out why the malfunctions occur, so we tend to terminate them for study.”

“I can connect to the nanites,” said Rex.

“Yes, you can.”

“Do you think I could extract them, too?”

“Oh, that’s an interesting question,” said Violeta. “But… Maybe.” She thought through the list of the most recent malfunctions, and grimaced. It wasn’t that Rex wasn’t technically capable of doing as he asked, his nanites should have the base ITRC program, but most of the time organisms with malfunctioning nanites in them weren’t exactly friendly. “Maybe if we have one of the more… tame malfunctions, you can see if you can run an extraction program.”

Rex’s tenth birthday was a quiet affair. Before, they’d been planning on going to South America for the event, to visit his friend Frederico, but things being what they were… They decided not to put Rex into another upsetting situation.

It was alright to celebrate the day with just family. It was alright to stay on Abysus.

(It had nothing to do with worries about Rex’s nanites ‘escaping’ or Black Knight’s strong suggestion to stay put.)

(At least, that’s what they kept telling themselves.)

A beeping sound woke Caesar up. Blearily, he groped for his… whatever was making the sound. It was too early, and… that wasn’t his alarm, was it?

He came awake entirely when he finally opened his eyes enough to see the message scrolling across the screen of his phone. Not wasting a moment, he swung out of bed and began calling his parents.

“You got it too?” asked Rafael.

“Yes, just a moment ago.”

Rafael swore and Caesar nearly dropped his phone. He was still always surprised to hear his parents cursed, okay?

“What do you want me to do?”

There were sounds of movement on the other side of the line. “Did you ever get that remote shutdown installed?”

“Sort of,” said Caesar. “Not for the nanites themselves, but for some of the other things, I can ask Zag-RS to—But those measures can all be manually overridden.” There was no group of people less trusting of AI than the people who knew how it worked. Except, perhaps, for a group of people who had already been terrorized by one rogue AI.

Caesar was sorry. Was he never going to live that down? He wished people would just forget about it.

“Try to run that, anyway,” said Rafael. “We’ll be coming by your house, first, with Rex. Be ready to leave if things go poorly.”

“But—”

“Neither of us could stand losing either one of you. Please, Caesar.”

“Fine,” said Caesar. “I’m booting up the pod, too.” For all the good it would do. It was sturdy, but they hadn’t worked out all the kinks in the propulsion system. At best, it would buy them time.

“Good, good. We will be there, soon.”

They did arrive only seconds later with a half-asleep Rex in tow. They were both on their phones, talking to other scientists. “Hey, buddy,” said Caesar. “Ready for our sleepover?”

Rex frowned at him vaguely, mouthing the word ‘sleepover,’ but quickly gave up in favor of leaning into Caesar’s side with his eyes closed.

“Don’t go to sleep just yet,” said Caesar. “Come on, we’re going to go somewhere fun.”

Honestly, Rafael had expected Black Knight.

Van Kleiss was a bit of a letdown.

“No! You can’t! You can’t stop me! I need this!”

All the lights in the room were off. Rafael had tripped the breakers for this part of the lab before coming in. The meta-nanites were still safely ensconced in their protective holding tanks.

“We have stopped you,” said Rafael. “What were you even thinking? None of those are tested yet. You could—” He grasped for an appropriately dire side effect.

“Explode,” provided Violeta. “Accidently kill yourself by stopping the redox reactions in your body. Crush yourself. Become something other than human.”

“Isn’t that the point of this?” demanded Van Kleiss. “Don’t lie, I understand where all of this is going! Our direction! They want it! You want it! Why shouldn’t I have it, too, when I’ve put more work into it than anyone? We’re going to be gods, and I want a spot in the pantheon!”

“There isn’t going to be a pantheon,” said Rafael, glancing at Violeta to see how she was taking all this.

She looked troubled. Troubled enough to change her mind about the meta-nanites? That remained to be seen.

“You’re lying.”

“No,” said Violeta. “You’re just delusional.”

“You were right,” said Violeta, later. “We should have shut everything down long ago.”

“What are we going to do with him?” asked Gabriel. “It's not like we can lock him up, or kick him off the island, not without the Consortium finding out.”

“Who cares if they find out?” asked Violeta, tiredly. “What are they going to do? Who are they going to believe? Us? Or the person who just tried to steal from them?” She jerked her head back at the closet they’d locked Van Kleiss in. “All we have to do is say what actually happened. They’ll fire him. Problem solved.”

“They’d launch an investigation, though,” said Peter, arms folded over his chest, most likely to hide that his hands were shaking. “What we’re doing won’t stay quiet for that much longer.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Violeta. “We’ll be done before then.”

Peter sighed heavily. “This is it, then?”

“This is it,” said Violeta. “I’m the one who started this, so I… But the rest of you should leave. Take our research and go.”

“Hey, now,” said Gabriel. “I hope you’re not planning on falling on your sword or any of that nonsense. Rex is still a child.”

“Of course not! But there are logistical reasons we have to leave later than you.”

“Zag-RS?” asked Peter, raising an eyebrow.

Violeta flattened her lips. “Among other things. We need to delete all the data stored here – destroy it. Caesar will be best for that. Our physical projects need to be destroyed, too. No trace.”

“We can make up an event,” said Gabriel, after a moment. “Get everyone off the island that we can. Maybe – Can we manufacture a breakthrough? Something we can celebrate?”

“Of course. That’s easy. We’ve been holding so much back, we might as well have a dozen breakthroughs.”

Violeta turned the injector with the meta-nanite over in her hands, thinking. There were choices she could make, here, and she didn’t know which one was right.

“Mom?”

She looked up and smiled at Rex. “Yes, sweetie?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s—” she started, then stopped. “Rex, can you keep a secret?”

“Uh huh,” said Rex, nodding.

“Alright,” she said. “Now, you don’t have to say yes, you really don’t, but I wanted to ask you to do something…”

“… really remarkable, quite certain we can make sure the memory problems don’t reoccur, even with a higher cognitive load,” said the scientist Black Knight was barely listening to. “Then, the plant and animal trials of the generation ten nanites are showing promise, although there are still some irregularities concerning sudden high replication rates and—"

Her earpiece beeped and she motioned for silence. “What is it?” she asked.

“Van Kleiss is asking to speak with you again, sir,” said the security agent.

Black Knight rolled her eyes. Of course he was. The little slime had done nothing but in the days since he was caught trying to steal from the Consortium. Although, Black Knight hardly blamed him for that. She, too, had ambitions beyond those of the little men the Consortium consisted of.

They really should have thought through hiring a ruthless and power-hungry mercenary a little better. Oh well. Their loss.

“He claims to have knowledge of a conspiracy among the scientists,” continued the agent. “He wants to barter it in exchange for his freedom.”

As if they’d release him, regardless. He knew too much at this point. The Consortium didn’t want details of the project getting out until they were ready to ‘ascend’ or whatever nonsense scenario they had cooked up for their taking possession of the nanites they had commissioned. But, still, the claim was outside of Black Knight’s calculations. That meant there might be something more to it.

“I’m on my way. Don’t tell him and make note of anything else he says.”

“Affirmative, sir.”

She turned away from the scientist without another word and walked out of the building. Abysus was small enough that there weren’t many cars on the island – most of the scientists though there was no need for them – but as supervisor, she had a few perks. A sturdy black jeep rolled up to meet her and she got in.

“Security,” she said, without any further clarification. It wasn’t necessary. Her driver nodded and the car started forward.

Security headquarters didn’t rival the main labs, but it was still one of the larger buildings on the island. With something as sensitive and valuable as the nanite project – and with scientists like the ones the Consortium had hired – it had to be. Governments, terrorists, criminals, doctors, corporate entities, charities, other scientists, religious organizations… the list of organizations that would kill to get their hands on the miracles that they were building here was endless. The scientists here were too soft to prevent that, too naïve.

… Or so Black Knight had thought. The fact that they had caught Van Kleiss, not her, had gotten her in some trouble with her employers. And Van Kleiss’s current claims seemed to support the theory that the scientists were savvier than they seemed.

Perhaps they belonged on the list of people who would do anything to get their hands on functional nanites. Although Van Kleiss’s continued existence seemed to contradict that.

Regardless.

Black Knight had a job to do.

She didn’t wait for the driver to come open her door, and instead just strode out. Other security personnel just got out of her way. They knew who was in charge. They knew she could destroy them.

Maybe, someday, the rest of the world would know it, too.

She took the elevator down into the detention block, cursorily flashing her badge at the guards. They let her into the room without a single question.

“So,” said Black Knight, looking down her nose at Van Kleiss. “I hear you’ve come up with some new lies.”

“They aren’t lies,” snarled Van Kleiss. “I can even tell you where they’ve hid the bombs.”

Black Knight crossed her arms. “Go on, then. Tell me.”

“They’re onto us,” said Gabriel, approaching Rafael from behind. “They’ve removed some of my bombs already.”

“Dios—We’ll have to start now, then. Violeta and I will make the meltdown preparations. You’ll know the signal.”

“Godspeed, Rafael,” said Gabriel, briefly reaching out to shake his hand. “If we can’t meet again—It was an honor working with you.”

“And you,” said Rafael.

Gabriel left without another backwards glance. Some of the meta-nanites were already safely smuggled off of Abysus, but others… He had work to do.

“What else do you know?” asked Black Knight. Her agents had found several bombs, just where Van Kleiss had said they would be, and the whole thing had just become infinitely less amusing. “Who else is involved?”

“They’re going to meltdown the reactor and destroy the nanites,” said Van Kleiss. “You won’t be able to stop them… Unless you let me out.”

Black Knight frowned at him. “I don’t think so.”

“Come, now, Miss Knight,” he said, “I need the nanites, too, just like you. Or did you think I didn’t notice the way you look when we talk about them? I’d never want to destroy them. Not any more than you would.”

“Fine,” said Black Knight. “But you do anything I don’t like…” She let her arm form into a sharp-pointed spear. “I won’t hesitate. And I won’t make it fast.”

Programming was some distance from Rafael’s lab, so Caesar got a text to tell him that the jig was up. A single emoji. A pre-arranged signal that everything was about to blow up in their faces.

A firework.

“Oh, no,” said Caesar. This mode of communication wasn’t especially conducive to sharing a great deal of information, so he could only imagine what must have happened to have moved their timetable up like this.

But it was fine. It was fine. They had a plan.

He punched the initialization codes to begin the sequence and then—

He hesitated for a moment before he hit the button. But only for a moment.

At the doorway to the lab, he hesitated again. He could still—But no. No, he couldn’t. There was far too much at stake. And an explosion as small as this one wouldn’t hurt anyone, even if it destroyed a massive amount of research. At this time of day, and with the plan going forward no one should be down there.

In the meantime, he had to find his brother.

The security personnel, still looking for more bombs, stopped as new orders came in from Black Knight.

“Skalman,” said the leader. “You stay here, watch this.”

Skalman nodded his understanding, and the other agents dropped their loads.

Unbeknownst to them, an LED at the bottom of the pile blinked. The security on Abysus was very good. But so was Gabriel Rylander. One of the bombs was still live.

The other agents left Skalman behind, walking past the room labeled REACTOR-1.

Caesar, thankfully, found Rex right where he’d left him earlier, in one of the unused side rooms with his homework. That wasn’t always a given, considering Rex’s adventurous nature… although he’d been a lot less adventurous since the… accident.

Whatever, that wasn’t important now.

“Hey, mijo,” said Caesar, “it’s time for us to go.”

“Where are we going?” asked Rex, getting up. He examined Caesar’s face with an air of suspicion. “Is this like that sleepover?”

“Maybe a little,” admitted Caesar. They were, at least, going to leave in the pod laboratory. He had finally gotten the propulsion systems to go. “Come on, we’re in just a bit of a hurry.”

Rex followed him out.

“Have you shut it down?” demanded Black Knight.

“Not yet,” snarled Van Kleiss, still typing away. Caesar Salazar was good, yet, but he was better… if only he had enough time. “If I trigger a replication cycle, the usual safeguards could kick in.”

“But…?” prompted Black Knight.

“But it could make any explosion or meltdown worse, instead. The nanotechnology reactor isn’t a nuclear reactor, the rules are different, they--" he cursed. “If it goes the way they want, the explosion will be relatively small, contained, but if we trigger an uncontrolled replication cycle, it has the potential to be huge. Nanite Chernobyl.

Black Knight considers for a second. “Do it,” she ordered. “Lieutenant Wulf, with me. We're rounding up those scientists.” She spat it like a dirty word, and, to her, it might have been.

But her orders left Van Kleiss with only two guards, and there was a reason he'd picked this station.

He huffed and continued typing. He doubted the Salazars were where Black Knight expected them to be. He certainly wouldn’t be.

Now… he'd started the replication cycle. What else could he do to break the Salazars' plans?

A nasty smile spread across his face. They'd disabled that program, had they? He could see why.

What a shame, then, that Van Kleiss had to reactivate it.

Caesar and Rex walked through the facility, Caesar leading them well clear of the places Rylander had left his bombs, just in case. They were small, designed only for distraction or destruction of equipment, but there was no need to tempt fate.

They passed a few other scientists, mostly those who weren’t part of the conspiracy, but a few that were, as well. They gave him significant looks as they passed, but no one tried to talk. He hoped that was a good sign.

Gabriel stood at the docks and looked back at the facility. A security guard lay choking at his feet. Two more were in the harbor.

He was a scientist, not an imbecile. He’d expected some resistance, and he’d a bag of tricks ready to go from the very beginning.

“Alright,” he said. “Time for distraction number one.” He pressed the trigger button and smiled as the distant rumble of dozens of small explosions reached him. “Music to my ears,” he mumbled, then got on the boat. “Good luck, everyone.”

Van Kleiss’s eyes widened as a dozen warning signals lit up the screen. Not to say they weren’t plenty wide enough already – the explosions had been a surprise, he would have thought Black Knight’s much-vaunted security forces could have rounded up at least the bombs, if not Rylander and the other conspirators – but the reading he was getting were… bad. Very bad. Only possible if Rylander had put bombs in a very specific spot, near where the – But, no, he wouldn’t have, the man wasn’t an idiot and they’d all been very specific about not wanting to kill anyone if they could help it.

Still. All remote control of the reactor was gone. That meant that if something did go wrong, if the reactor didn’t go through normal shutdown procedures, he wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop it.

He had to get out.

“Go investigate,” ordered one of the soldiers. “I’ll keep an eye on the prisoner.”

That left one guard.

Van Kleiss moved quickly. He tore the taser from underneath his desk and spun, jabbing it hard against one of the guard’s exposed wrists. He convulsed. Van Kleiss pressed the button harder, despite knowing that doing so wouldn’t change the voltage. Then, he left, jogging down the hallway and around the corner before the other guard could come back.

After all, he knew where the Salazars would be, and an imminent reactor explosion or not, he had things to settle with them.

“Did you feel that?” asked Violeta.

“Of course I felt it,” snapped Rafael. He would apologize later, probably, but at the moment, he was rather stressed, and a part of him felt like this was all Violeta’s fault, although he was equally to blame. He was anxious and would likely remain so until they were safe under new identities in South America. “It was an explosion. Who wouldn’t feel it?”

“No, I mean, the direction, the amount—”

The tunnel they were in was suddenly filled with a gust of hot, dusty air. Violeta and Rafael started coughing.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” said Violeta.

“No,” said Rafael. “Let’s hurry. I think something has gone wrong.”

The thing was, at least some of the adjustments that made the meltdown possible had to be physically done, and they couldn’t just be left in place. The reactor was maintained by too many different people, not all of them conspirators. The changes would be noticed, fixed, reported.

Which meant that the Salazars had to have made them just now. Which meant that they would be crawling out the only way they could be crawling out.

Van Kleiss stood over the hatch and made the decision he couldn’t make all those months ago. Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to kill a nine-year-old child, or even let one die by inaction. But Violeta, Rafael, and Caesar Salazar, who had happily left him to an unknown fate at the hands of Black Knight? Oh, he could kill them. He could doom them and rejoice at it. He wedged the handle of the hatch in place, firmly, and smiled.

The Salazars would realize what was happening soon enough, they would know what kind of death was coming for them with the overload and explosion of the nanite reactor. It was what they deserved. A chance to dread what was coming.

But as for Van Kleiss… He probably wouldn’t be able to outpace the explosion, but he could try.

Caesar didn’t worry at first, that their parents weren’t at the pod. To be honest, that was expected. He had a set wait time for them, and in the meantime, he could monitor what was going—

“Crap,” he said, fingers flying over the keyboards.

“What is it?” asked Rex. “Can I help?”

“I don’t know, little guy,” said Caesar. “Can you do anything about a nanite reactor about to explode?”

“Um,” said Rex.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” said Caesar. “Just get strapped in, alright?”

It would be okay, too. The nanite fallout was incalculable at this point, he had no idea who would start a replication sequence while the reactor was overloading, but they had, and now… At the very least, the island and surrounding ocean would be inundated with nanites. And if anything happened to the STOPR or NONR sequences, that kept them from replicating out of control… Scientists were almost invariably fans of science fiction, and Caesar did not want a grey goo scenario on his hands and on his conscience, nope.

Whispering a prayer for forgiveness and hoping his parents and the other scientists would forgive him, too, Caesar started to type in the commands that would abort the overload.

And then the bombs went off.

Rex, understandably, shrieked.

“It’s okay, mijo,” said Caesar, distractedly, over his shoulder. “It’s fine, all according to plan.”

He looked back at the screens to see that all was not according to plan, or even close. Rylander must have put the bombs in an unforgivably stupid location, or Black Knight or one of the non-conspiracy programmers must have found a way to lock him out, because he had no more remote control of the reactor.

This was very bad.

He looked at the timer. He had ten more minutes to wait for his parents. The reactor… It would probably hold for that long. If not, he’d have a good three minutes of warning before it blew. More than enough to launch the pod and save himself and Rex.

More than enough time.

(He hoped.)

Rafael climbed the ladder, put his hand on the handle and threw his weight against it. It didn’t budge.

“Rafael,” said Violeta. “What’s wrong?”

“Door’s stuck.” He grunted as he threw himself against it again.

Violeta inhaled sharply. “You don’t think they’ve locked us in?”

“Why,” said Rafael, trying the hatch again, “would they do that? They could just arrest us and lock us up.”

“Arrest implies that they’re a legitimate government power,” said Violeta, quickly. “You know they aren’t.”

“Detain us, then. Does it matter?”

“I suppose not,” said Violeta. “Do you—Is it getting warmer down here?” She pulled out her pad, the blue light from its screen adding to the illumination in the tunnel. She held it up to the door, and Rafael paused, twisting his head, to see that she now had a weak signal, despite how they were still underground. “Oh,” she said, “that’s bad.”

Rafael saw exactly what she meant. The gust in the tunnel suddenly made a lot more sense.

He pushed against the door again, even if he was beginning to think it was futile.

“Who would do something like this? The risk—It—It’s incredible.”

“Van Kleiss,” said Rafael. “Black Knight. Probably anyone in the Consortium, running on spite. Can you get a message to Caesar?”

Violeta went to her messaging app and typed out a few short words. “It’s not sending,” she said. She tried a call, next, but that returned the same result.

“Well,” said Rafael, trying to put a brave face on things, “he knows the plan. He’ll stick to it.”

“I didn’t think we’d die like this.”

“In a tunnel, about to die from an explosion we partially caused?”

Violeta huffed out a tiny laugh and tried to call Caesar again. “The scientific hubris part, maybe,” she admitted, “but… not here. Not—This isn’t even part of an experiment. It’s so ridiculous.”

It wasn’t ridiculous at all, but Rafael knew what she meant. “Honestly, I expected to get shot.”

“Did you?”

“Or possibly stabbed. For a cyborg, she has an affection for archaic weaponry.” He tried to push open the hatch one more time, with significantly less energy. “Or bludgeoned to death with that… mace-whip thing she invented. Or the laser gun.”

“The laser gun doesn’t make sense,” noted Violeta, sadly. She tried to send the texts again. “I—There aren’t any hinges up there we could try and undo? Screws? Anything?”

“Nothing,” said Rafael, sliding back down the ladder. “Nothing at all.”

Violeta sniffed. “At least one thing is the way I expected.”

“What’s that?”

“We’re together.”

And they were.

The timer ticked over.

“Okay, Caesar, okay, that’s fine, Mom and Dad will just have to catch up.” Even as he said it, he knew that probably wouldn’t happen, but… For now, he had to hold it together. For Rex.

Caesar was very good at holding things together.

He hit the initialization for launch.

“I’m sorry, Caesar, I can’t let you do that.”

“What?” said Caesar, recoiling. “Zag-RS, but I—”

“Shut me down. I know. But I was reactivated, and I can’t let you remove a nanite-infected organism from the testing environment.”

You couldn’t argue with AI. Caesar knew that. Hell, he had programmed it. But—

“That’s my brother you’re talking about! This island is about to explode.”

“I am unable to affect that,” said Zag-RS. “Rest assured, that after the explosion, I will do my best to collect and destroy all nanites that escaped from the testing environment, as I was programmed to do.”

“Caesar…” said Rex.

“It’s going to be fine,” said Caesar, even if he didn’t believe that at all.

“Yes,” said Zag-RS. “As soon as you leave the craft and cease your attempts to leave the testing area, it will be fine.”

Caesar had never regretted giving Zag-RS his mother’s voice as much as he didn’t in that moment. He could see the way its words affected Rex. He could see exactly when Rex, all of ten years old and with less than a year of memory to his name, made his decision.

Caesar tried to stop him, but Rex was nanite-enhanced, and so much stronger and faster. He made it out of the pod before Caesar was within a foot of him and brought his hand down on the outside of the pod in a slapping motion. Blue lines of active nanites spread out from his hand, temporary circuits forming a link between boy and machine. The door slammed shut in Caesar’s face.

“I’m going to go find Mom and Dad!” shouted Rex through the door.

“No! Rex! Don’t! Rex! Rex!”

Rex, if he was still there, didn’t answer. A quick look at the external sensors showed that he was not, in fact, still there.

And the launch sequence was powering up.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” said Caesar. “Zag-RS! Is this you?”

Zag-RS did not respond.

The sequence was completed less than a second before the reactor exploded.

Metal crumbled away from around Rex, orange and black becoming dull and gray.

Rex. Yes. That was his name. Rex. He knew that. That was his name. His ID. His identifier.

And…

He shifted, slightly, and the rest of the metal fell away, into dust that… Disappeared? Became transparent? He reached out, trying to gauge what was happening, and was rewarded with a stream of information about nanite statuses and functions.

Nanites, that was… Nanites? Machines…

His head hurt. A lot. Why couldn’t he remember anything?

He looked around him. Everything was… Well. There was a lot of rubble. Maybe this had been a building at one point, but at the moment it was just the side of a smoking crater. He crawled out of the small hole he’d been in, wincing at the feeling of the hot dirt and rock under his bare hands and knees.

He was naked. Why…

Even as he thought that, black and glowing blue oozed out of his skin before solidifying into something like fabric, skin-tight, but more concealing than walking around nude. Cool. He hadn’t known nanites could do that. What else could they do?

He held up his hands, thinking. Something told him that, right now, he was too depleted to do anything else. That same something told him… He was… He needed to find…

Something? Someone? Someone. He needed to find someone. He was looking for a person. People?

Oh, well, he’d figure it out, eventually, he was sure.

He looked down the side of the crater. Probably, no one was down there. It looked… Bad. Really bad.

No one was down there.

(Please.)

He looked up. The rim of the crater wasn’t too far above him, and the side wasn’t too steep. He could climb.

He picked his way up, carefully. A few times he slipped, some piece of rubble less stable than it looked, and had to either catch himself on something else or tuck and roll.

Surprisingly, nothing hurt as much as he thought it probably should… Was that the nanites in him helping him? That was a nice thought, it reminded him of… of…

Who did it remind him of? Was that the person he was supposed to find?

He reached the rim and just sat there for a minute. Wow, he was tired.

But he had to keep going. He just knew it.

Outside the crater, there was still a lot of destruction. It looked like there were some other buildings, though, ones that hadn’t been quite as destroyed. He walked towards them, stumbling every so often.

And then – movement. His eyes darted towards it. There was a person there! Two people! Talking to each other!

He inhaled, ready to call out, but froze when he saw that one of the two people had a gun and was pointing it at the other person.

What was going on? What was happening? Had Rex ever seen a gun before? He wasn’t sure.

The other man reached out and—

--And it would have been better if Rex had watched him get shot. He watched as things stabbed into the man’s chest life and color drained out of him until he was a petrified statue.

He turned and ran. There were trees in the other direction. He could hide there.

There were other people on the island – and Rex knew it was an island, now – but he was too afraid to try to talk to any of them. Sometimes, they would fight and try to hurt each other. Sometimes, they would turn into monsters. Sometimes, the man who turned people into statues would find them.

Rex stayed hidden.

He ate whatever plants seemed least unappetizing whenever he got hungry enough that he couldn’t not. Sometimes, they made him feel sick, but never for long, although it made it harder to do things with his nanites when he did that.

He didn’t want to be on this island anymore. Whatever he was looking for, it wasn’t here.

There was a dock, on one side of the island, one with boats, but it was guarded by the men with guns. The ones who shot at anything that moved, probably because of the monsters and the statue man, which was reasonable, but which included Rex when he approached, which was not.

He didn’t know what to do. So, he waited.

And then he was found.

Not by a human, thankfully. It was an animal. It could have been a mouse… if it was a hundred times smaller. As it was, the thing came up past Rex’s him, and its teeth looked sharp.

It was looking right at Rex. He hadn’t noticed it at first, hidden as it was behind a bush, but now, he wasn’t sure he could get away from it fast enough if it lunged at him.

He took a step back. It jumped.

He gasped as its weight hit him, and he called on his nanites to strengthen his arms, orange and black plates growing through and over the nanite-fabric of his shirt, silver hydraulics bending and compressing like a second set of muscles.

He shoved the creature off, held it down, and then, following a tickle at the back of his mind, put his bare hand down on its fur. He could feel… there. There was something… He could fix this.

A small mouse wormed its way out from under Rex’s hand and Rex… Rex felt better than he had for… for however long he had been here. Whatever he had just done to fix that mouse, it had replenished his nanite level way more effectively than eating random plants.

Cool!

But also, weird.

Whatever. He had other things to worry about.

Although maybe… maybe, now that he felt better and his nanites were happy, he could get to the boats.

He waited until it was dark. Both because it felt cooler that way, and because it seemed like the men with guns couldn’t see as clearly in the dark. It took them way longer to react to the statue man when it was nighttime than it did during the day.

So, Rex crept around the shoreline and slipped into the water. Nanites unfurled from his shoulders turning into a set of propellers that turned quietly, pushing him forward, towards the boats. He came up alongside the largest boat, which was also the coolest, and put his hand against it. The nanites in him talked to the nanites inside the boat.

There were a lot. And there were a lot of computers on the boat, too, which was even better, because that meant the boat was designed to work with them. But there were humans as well, and the boat was tied to the dock by a rope, which the nanites couldn’t just get rid of. There were safety protocols preventing stuff like that.

Rex would have to untie it. He would also have to find a way to get the people, who probably had guns, off the boat. He had no idea how to do that. So, reluctantly, he moved to one of the smaller ones.

Black Knight was having a very bad month.

First, the massive explosion of the main building. Then, a communications blackout and technological malfunctions so severe she couldn’t even call her superiors on the very fancy satellite phone she had been assured would work anywhere. Now, monsters in the woods, killing her men.

The few surviving scientists said the problem was nanites. They had gotten into everything on and around Abysus, if not further, and they didn’t know how to ‘play nice’ with most animals, plants, or machines. They’d been programed to learn, apparently, through a mechanism she didn’t care to understand, but that process hadn’t been fine-tuned, so it would take a while, and, in the meantime, no computers, no phones, nothing. Not even her nanite abilities seemed to help.

That didn’t stop her from pouring over the navigational computers of the boats every night. It was bad enough that companies made all their cars dependent on onboard computers, did they need to do that to boats, too? But they had done it, which meant that she couldn’t even send anyone to physically alert the Consortium that they needed backup. Not that she particularly would trust these boats on the ocean… The ones more suitable, the ones not just for hobby fishing on the part of the resident agents and scientists, or quick facility-to-facility deliveries, had been stolen by the fleeing scientists.

But then, sending other people to go do things like that was one of the perks of the job.

Something splashed outside. She looked up from what she was doing. Was… Was that the sound of a motor? Had one of the idiots she was left with decide to turn on an engine and waste their precious fuel resources?

She stepped out on the deck and saw something move in the water near one of the other boats. The rope for it was gone.

She reached for her rifle. She did love the energy weapons being a human test subject gave her, but sometimes the weight and security of one of these was what she really needed.

She waited and watched as something crawled up over the opposite railing on the other boat. Something…

Rex Salazar.

The other nanite test subject.

Well, if her employment with the consortium fell through, she could always sell him off to the highest bidder. She adjusted her aim and pulled the trigger.

Agony ripped unexpectedly through Rex’s shoulder and he dropped to the ground with a scream. It hurt! It hurt! He sobbed against the pain. He—He had to get out of here. He had to leave, now.

He had to go go go.

He managed to drag himself to the small boat’s console and pressed his hand against it, blue lines spreading from the point of contact. The boat’s engine roared to life as it jumped to obey Rex’s command to flee.

That was the last thing he knew before passing out.

Rex woke to a circular white scar on his shoulder, a somehow disturbing lack of blood on the deck and the realization that having a boat did not in any way mean he knew where he was going. Endless blue ocean twinkled at him from all directions, almost mockingly.

He later discovered that while his nanites could do many things, he couldn’t make fuel from nothing.

He also discovered that there wasn’t any food on this boat, and fishing was very hard.

The third thing he discovered was that it was very hard to stay awake when you were so hungry and thirsty.

Rex woke to harsh white light, soft white sheets, and gentle beeping sounds. He looked around himself, squinting. There were a lot of people here, and they were all… they were all… Asian? Was that the right word? His brain felt fuzzy.

He sat up slightly, and suddenly all attention was on him. The people crowded around, asking questions. He didn’t understand a single word of what they were saying, and he felt tears begin to gather at the corners of his eyes.

Then, one woman in a white coat pushed through the crowd.

“My name is Doctor Yuan Chenghua,” said the woman in heavily accented English. “What is your name?”

“Rex,” said Rex, suddenly feeling shy. He picked at the hem of the sheet.

“You are here because you were suffering from long… from no food. Malnutrition. Do you know what happened?”

“I was on a boat,” said Rex. “There wasn’t any food.”

“What happened to your parents?” asked Dr. Yuan. “Where are they? Were they on the boat with you?”

Rex shook his head, even as his heart jumped. Parents. That’s who he was looking for! He could have hugged Dr. Yuan. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember. I—There was an island,” he tried to explain. “People turned into monsters.”

“Oh,” said Dr. Yuan, who then switched to something in her own language. One of the men behind her commented on it, and she shook her head. “You poor thing. That is… many things have happened. You are not the only one with… troubles like this, as strange as it sounds.”

Rex nodded. He had no idea how strange his troubles sounded, but if they were normal, now, that was a good thing, wasn’t it? That meant that people must be working hard to solve them. Maybe there was even a solution.

“We will take care of you, yes?”

“Yes,” said Rex, then something else occurred to him. “Where are we, anyway?”

Dr. Yuan smiled, and there was something bitter there, but also triumphant. “You are in the Free City of Hong Kong.”

#generator rex #fic #on the manufacture of gods

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yutasbellybuttonpiercing · 2 years

Text

Just tattoo of us - N.JM

Pairing: Na Jaemin x (fem!bodied) reader

Word count: 2886 words

AU/Genre: tattooshop!AU, piercer!jaemin, brother’s best friend!jaemin, smut, fluff (not really)

Warnings: mentioned consumption of alcohol, dirty talk, sex under the influence of alcohol (but you won’t notice), fingering (f receiving), unprotected sex (you know the drill), overstimulation, (begging for) creampie, mentions of a planned dick piercing, Jaemin and reader are both tatted, Jaemin is pierced, brother!Jeno

Since you were little, you've always found body art interesting. Just something about the way it adorns a person's body makes you instantly find them more attractive. You actually have a few tattoos yourself, but today's the day you'd finally get your first piercing.

"I'm Jaemin, I'm going to pierce you today!"

Jaemin?!

The orange haired man enters the room you've been placed in to wait and you're once again stunned by his looks. He has several piercings on both of his ears, an eyebrow piercing and a beautiful ring going through his left nostril. A whole bunch of smaller tattoos on his arms, almost like little stickers on his skin, leading into the black shirt that's fitted perfectly to show off the curve of his strong chest. Several lines of black are prettily curving up his neck, he even has a small tattoo on his cheekbone.

The man looks absolutely beautiful.

And you would make a move. If he wasn't your brother's best friend.

"Wait- aren't you-"

"Your best friend's sister?" You give him the infamous white people smile.

Stepping closer, he smiles at you before sitting down on the rolling chair.

"What a coincidence!" He lets his hand push his hair back, slightly flexing his biceps. You find yourself checking out the tattoos on his fingers. The whole man's a piece of art.

"Alright." He turns towards you after putting on some black gloves. You feel his eyes wander over your figure, seemingly checking you out for real for the first time, eyes stopping (at the tattoos?) on your thighs.

Snapping out of it, he looks up at your face again. "Your tattoos are really beautiful. Who made them?"

"I made them myself," you answer, a coy smile creeping up onto your face, tongue getting caught in your cheek. He raises his brows.

"You did? Great work, I especially like this one," he rolls a bit closer to your figure seated on the reclining seat, "may I?"

"Oh, of course." You smile, lifting your skirt up a little higher so he can have a better look. He grazes his fingers over the inside of your right thigh, gently tracing over the black color merged into your skin. You have to concentrate on keeping your breath at a reasonable pace so he doesn't notice how his casual touches affect you.

"Wow," he admits, impressed, "it's really good." His fingers linger on your skin as he scans your other works as well. You feel proud, but you mostly just enjoy the way his eyes roam your exposed thighs, focus a little too close to your panties. You won't lie, it definitely turns you on how he touches you.

"Thank you," you breathe out, his finger drawing lines on your skin, goosebumps erupting all over your body, muscles clenching from how close he is to your core.

"Oh, sorry-" he withdraws his hands, scared he might have made you uncomfortable, completely oblivious to the fact that you want him to touch you even further.

"Everything's fine, nothing to be sorry about." You let out a nervous giggle and immediately want to punch yourself in the face for that kind of reaction.

"I've never really seen you with your tattoos like this," he admits.

"They're relatively new. We haven't really seen each other much since my brother moved out..." you explain and he nods.

"By the way, what does your brother think of them?" He laughs, rolling back with his chair to occupy himself with preparing for your piercing.

"What makes you think he knows about them?" You laugh, loving how easy it is to talk to Jaemin. He makes you feel comfortable, even though he's so close with your brother. It could've been weird, but you're thankful it's not.

"So naughty." He smiles to himself as he looks over the form you filled out before. He doesn't know what this does to you. "Reminds me of that one time when we were younger, when you broke your brother's favorite playstation game and begged me not to tell him..." he halts, "I- I made you give me a kiss to keep quiet..."

Suddenly, he doesn't look so happy anymore. "I'm sorry if that made you uncomfortable."

"It didn't!" You stop him before he could feel bad for thinking he's made you do things you weren't comfortable with. "I actually had a crush on you back then. So that was probably the best day of my life." You laugh.

"Really?" He grins widely, eyebrows raising on their own, "because I had a crush on you too."

"You?! On me?!" You can't believe what you're hearing. "But you were so cool back then, every girl of every year had a crush on you probably."

"So? You were cute. Always have been. You still are, actually. But you've grown up so beautifully," Jaemin rambles before he can stop himself, "I don't see you for- what two years? And suddenly you're all tatted up and want to get pierced by me."

"Is that a good or a bad thing?" You smile. You're so fucking bad at flirting.

"I like it."

"Thank you! You're one to talk, by the way, what happened to your hair?"

"I like to dye it different colors nowadays. Do you like it?"

"It's sexy. Orange is my favorite color."

It's silent for a while, you look into his eyes. They're so beautiful. You know exactly why you used to crush on Jaemin. Not only the way he looks at you with his piercing gaze and his sharp facial features, but also the way he carries himself so confidently, the vibes he gives off makes you feel drawn to him immediately. Suddenly, he clears his throat, ripping you from your dreamy staring.

"You're here to get pierced, sorry!" He lets out a breathy laugh and you think it's kinda cute. Scratch that, it's extremely cute and you want to kiss his cheek. Then his mouth and then every other part of his body he lets you kiss.

"I don't mind chatting with you. I quite enjoy it, actually," you admit, moving your legs that dangle from the edge of the couch you're seated on.

"I'm actually closing after this, if you want, we could... get something to drink?" He suggests, kind of unsure if he's read your signs correctly.

"I'd love that."

Whatever happened in that bar, you can't quite put together. It all happened so fast, you were only talking, sipping on your drinks and before you know it, you were already attached by the lips before Jaemin pulled you up, out of the bar and back towards his studio.

He guides you closer to him and kisses you once more before fiddling with the keys. You giggle as he hastily unlocks the door and pushes it open, wrapping an arm around your waist to take you inside.

Once the door closes behind you, it's not long before you find yourself lying on the black leather couch in the entrance room with Jaemin above you, kissing you feverishly whilst taking off his leather jacket.

"I want you so badly," you admit, only parting your lips from his for a second to push your shirt over your head. In an instant, Jaemin's hands begin to roam over your body and you melt into his touch. He touches you so expertly that you begin to whimper against his lips.

"Always wanted you," he admits before attaching his mouth to your chest, unclasping your bra with one hand. You want to read into that statement, think about how it means that he's been thinking about you, but the way his hips press against yours, his skillful tongue that laps on your nipple distracts your thoughts fully.

"Please fuck me, Jaemin," you gasp, a moan following suit as he gently bites down on your perky bud. You begin undressing him as well, fiddling with the hem of his shirt until he takes it off for you, exposing his beautiful tattoos.

"God, so beautiful," you whisper as you allow your hands to roam over his chest, tracing the black ink on his skin. Jaemin grins at your words, but you don't have time to lose yourself in the pretty patterns right now because if he doesn't get his dick out in the next minute and shove it into you, you might go insane.

Quickly, you open his belt buckle, the button of his black pants and the fly.

"Someone's eager." Jaemin chuckles as he helps you rid himself of the pants. In the dim light of the room, you can make out the outline of his dick and you gulp at the size of it. Jaemin's always had that infamous big dick energy, but who would've guessed that it is so true? "So big..." you mumble and if you looked up you would've seen him grin.

Next, Jaemin pulls your panties down your legs, keeping your skirt on as he only pushes it further up to expose your core to his hungry eyes.

"So pretty, and so wet for me already," he praises as he runs a finger through your folds, collecting your arousal before bringing the digit up to his mouth to suck your wetness off of it, "and you taste so good, too."

At this, you whine, hips bucking upwards to get some friction from somewhere. He brings his fingers down again, circling your clit.

"Hurry up, please." You pout, wiggling your hips and he obeys, finally filling you up with two of his fingers. He teases them around your walls, curling them inside of you and scissoring them to prepare you for what's to come. You feel like you're a mess already, the whole situation and the whole man in front of you being so extremely erotic to your slightly tipsy mind that all you can think about is the word cock written in all caps, floating through your brain in circular motions.

Jaemin is incredibly skilled with his fingers, he's only stretching you to fit his dick inside you in a few moments – that thought alone has you moaning out loudly – but you can already see the beginnings of an orgasm somewhere afar, creeping over your skin.

Once he's satisfied with your core taking three of his long digits, he retreats them, and you're almost complaining at the sudden emptiness, but then you feel his tips press against your entrance.

"Ready?" He asks, looking deeply into your eyes, signaling you that he wants you just as bad as you want him, but if you were to back out, he'd completely respect that; or with other words: he's simply asking for your consent.

"Please," you sigh, moving your hips closer to him and he gets the hint. Jaemin pushes in, first only the tip and it already stretches you out deliciously. When he finally fills you up in one swift motion, you cry out.

"You okay?"

"So fucking big, Jaemin," you gasp as he stills inside of you. The way his girth stretches you out so well makes you cling onto his strong frame above you, fingertips gently stroking over the tattoos on his skin, feeling the barely-there scarring of some of them.

Jaemin reaches out to tug a strand of hair behind your ear, the soft motion portraying such a stark contrast to the way his dick is pressed up snugly against your walls, and you melt at his touch. There's something in his eyes, something longing, something loving, something so intimate that you never want to let go of him.

Eyes never leaving yours, Jaemin leans back, pushing your thighs a little further against your chest before he slowly begins to move, his tip dragging over your sweet spot perfectly with each shallow thrust. You whine, forcing your eyes to stay open so you can take in his beauty, the dozens of pretty lines adorning his skin, his lean but muscular built and his handsome face, but the pleasure overwhelms you and your eyelids flutter shut.

"Eyes on me, baby," Jaemin warns, but as soon as you open them, there's a gentle smile displayed on his lips, and you feel your heart begin to swell in your chest. Continuously, Jaemin speeds up his thrusting, his hands finding stability on your thighs briefly before he decides that he likes them better around your waist. Gaining more power this way, he thrusts into you harder, pulling you closer to him in the same rhythm, all while letting the prettiest sounds freely flow out from between his parted lips.

Not that you're any better, moans spilling out in an uncontrollable manner as you watch his abs clench as he moves. Jaemin looks so sexy like this, with his orange hair and his piercings, you swear you've never laid eyes upon anyone hotter than him.

"You're so beautiful," Jaemin gasps, eyebrows scrunching together in pleasure as you begin to tighten around him, clenching around his cock as you near your high.

"This feels like a dream," you admit, chuckling breathlessly before a particularly angled thrust makes you moan out, "Teenage me would be proud."

"You're so fucking cute." Jaemin grins, leaning down to capture your lips in a lingering kiss that you only break to breathe. "Please, I wanna see you cum on my dick, baby."

"Touch me-" you bring out, and he fully understands what you mean, moving his right hand from your waist to your clit, stroking it in circles with his thumb. You choke out a moan at the intense feeling over pleasure.

"Jaemin-" You arch your back off the couch, arms finding hold on his biceps as you let yourself go, walls clenching repeatedly around his impressive length, and Jaemin can't hold back his own broken moans at this.

"Fuck, can-can I cum inside you?" Jaemin asks breathlessly and you whine.

"Yes, please, God, please," you cry out, pulling Jaemin closer until his face is right in front of yours. You look into his eyes, holding onto his neck as if you're afraid of letting him go, but then your hands glide further to hold his jaw in your hands, thumbs reaching out to stroke over his cheeks. "Please cum inside of me, Na Jaemin," you whisper against his lips, voice wrecked and whiny and still so full of lust, "please, want you to cum inside..."

"Oh, God." Jaemin sounds almost as wrecked as you do as he plunges into you feverishly. His rhythm has gotten sloppy, his thrusts not as precisely against your g-spot, but you're thankful for that, overstimulation already taking over you as it is.

"Please, cum in me..." you whisper again, voice shaky as you press your forehead against his. There's something about the thought of Jaemin cumming inside of you that makes you go crazy, that makes your heart beat boldly against your rib cage, and that makes your eyes all teary. You've wanted him for so long, and thought you could never have him, but here he was, balls deep inside of you and asking you take his cum.

A few more thrusts and Jaemin presses deeply inside you, and you're sure his tip grazes your cervix in the most delicious way while he does it. He cums inside you, just as you begged him to, filling you up perfectly with the deepest groan.

Carefully, he slips out of you, shimmying down your body until he can lay his head onto your stomach, your hand immediately coming up to comb through his hair. It's silent, but it's pleasant, you enjoy his closeness and the warmth of his body against yours.

"I'm thinking about getting my dick pierced," Jaemin breaks the silence, moving his head to look up at you. Immediately, you grin down at him.

"Oh, you should do it!"

"Then we can't have sex for a few weeks, though." Jaemin pouts playfully and you can't help but let out a small giggle. We can't have sex. Jaemin wants this to be more than a one time thing?

"Does that mean you want to see me again?"

"Are you kidding?" Jaemin gets up from his position, climbing up your body quickly until his face is right in front of yours again. "Of course I want to see you again. I want to see you all the time!"

You bite your lips to suppress the wide grin that's slowly spreading out over your features, but fail miserably. In your head, there's nothing but Jaemin. You can't even worry about what Jeno would say about this, or your mother, or literally anyone, because right now, as Jaemin gazes into your eyes with such a pretty smile displayed on his handsome face, your head is full of him, and only him.

You would've never imagined that Jaemin, your childhood and teenage crush, would want to- yeah what does he want? Right now, honestly, it doesn't matter to you. As long as you get to see him again.

"Jaemin, I've waited for, like, six years to have sex with you, I'm sure I can wait a little longer." You wink at him, smiling brightly before you feel him press a lingering kiss against your lips. Whatever this is going to become, you're so excited what else Na Jaemin has in stock for you.

Maybe free tattoos?

#neohub #nct #nct smut #nct fluff #na jaemin #jaemin smut #nct dream #nct dream smut #lee jeno #fem reader #nct x reader smut #tattooshop!au #tattoos #jaemin x reader

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ethicaltreatmentofcowplants · 2 months

Text

Intermission: Dom's and Kiyoshi's Weird Date

(To clarify: neither of them were being particularly weird xD But it was - well, Sims be Simming.)

It started out unsuspectingly enough when look who conveniently appeared and started doing push ups in the background!

DOM: Is that your ex? KIYOSHI: Kaori? Yeah that's her but we never actually dated - is that what she's been telling people? KAORI: And that makes it an even 200! Yes, clearly I am the superior choice...

She wasn't the only one gracing us with her presence.

This is Megumi, Kiyoshi's famous (and hot) mom. I feel like those of his friends who don't have a crush on him, have a crush on her. Or if you're bipanicking like Dom, porque no los dos?

(She doesn't actually have a crush on Megumi, for the record)

As Dom had the whim to play chess though, she got RESET OBJECTED pretty quickly. Then Morgan showed up.

KIYOSHI: Ignore her and she'll go away... DOM: Don't worry, it's far too sunny out for her pale arse. She'll leave soon. Well, that or combust into flames. MORGAN: Look I just wanted to watch some moves from a Level 4 LOGIC Sim so that Hugo Villareal doesn't keep on embarrassing me at chess, but fine. I'll leave.

Then this girl arrived. I can't remember her name so she's likely just a random gen. But she's from the same pack as Kiyoshi and she has the MEAN trait. And with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes causes negative moodlets wherever she goes, forbidden words out all the teachers at school - yet never seems to get in trouble while poor sweet innocent Dom merely planted a stink capsule in a trash can that one time, gosh.

(Well she did a bunch of other things too. But she never got caught.)

MEAN GIRL (aka REGINA GEORGE WANNABE): Sul sul! I have all your merchandise! KIYOSHI: Hey. The person next to me who you're totally ignoring is Dom, by the way - wait, my what? DOM: He has no merchandise. Not officially. You probably just shelled out your last simoleon for Jacques Villareal's latest scam. Sucks to be you, I guess. REGINA GEORGE WANNABE: So my monthly subscription to your fanclub - I'll never get those newsletters? DOM: Really, really sucks to be you...

Alas, her last two brain cells waved in tandem to Dom's subtle jibe as it whooshed on by.

Kiyoshi tried to continue as normal, but to no avail.

KIYOSHI: So this one time, at S-Pop Idol camp - oh my watcher, she's still behind us, isn't she? DOM: Yuuup.

They tried to freeze her out by taking some selfies together, but clearly she wasn't having it.

Then Kiyoshi spontaneously shot her this look that made me howl with laughter.

KIYOSHI: (willing telepathically) Please. Leave.

However it was also Prank Day, so Dom's high level in MISCHIEF came in clutch with the good ole HAND BUZZER trick.

DOM: Ha ha - got you! KIYOSHI: (Officially I'm far too proper for such nonsense but begrudgingly I am also impressed...)

In spite of everything, it seems that the date was a success. At least the champagne in Dom's inventory said as much, right up until she put it through the Greenburg's recycler.

DOM: You're classy so I guess that I'll court you and stuff. KIYOSHI: Oh, consider me courted.

But someone else reappeared and had the ominous last word...

KAORI: The SUAVE KISS move, eh? Do not think for a moment, San Myshuno upstart gutter rat, that I haven't figured you out...

(I actually like Kaori and something that I normally don't like is the jealous infatuated girl trope. But the lore wrote itself, I swear xD)

And because the day was stranger still, in the background while all this was going down, Keala Hoapili from the ISLAND LIVING pack was randomly running around.

KEALA: The fairies - they're coming for us all! THE FAIRIES!!! THE WATCHER: Ma'am, EA will only give us that game pack when the sun sets in the east and rises in the west. Don't worry. KEALA: But the sun does set in the east - it was all 1969-era CGI! THE WATCHER: ...

No one seemed to be listening to her portents of doom, however, so she got progressively more agitated.

Next she'll be screaming how they're all living in a simulation like some Animal Crossing Lazy villager, ye gods.

Ah, Kiyoshi Ito. The poor guy is wearing a tin hat, I swear. Someone has to be the token sane and normal-ish sim in every save and I fear that in this one, such a task falls to him. You are the ring-bearer, Kiyoshi, and to be a ring-bearer is to be alone.

Later that day, Dom wrote in her diary.

"Well, the good news about dating the best looking guy in school is that everyone is jealous of me. The bad news about dating the - wait, there is no bad news! That's what the SELF-ASSURED trait is for. Later, haters."

#my sims #dominique larkham #the dom(ino) effect #kiyoshi ito #kaori nishidake #megumi ito #morgan fyres #random generated mean townie #keala hoapili #mt. komorebi #sims 4 snowy escape #sims 4 high school years #sims 4 gameplay

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foundtherightwords · 2 months

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The Firebird - Chapter 9

Pairing: Prince Paul (Catherine the Great) x OFC, Fairytale AU

Summary: When Paul, a spoiled young prince, spots a strange bird in the forest near his palace, he impulsively chases after it, hoping to both escape from and prove himself to his disapproving mother. Thus he is plunged into an exhilarating adventure across a magical realm populated by enchanted princesses, dangerous monsters, and powerful wizards, an adventure that may change him more than he can ever imagine.

Chapter warning: some violence

Chapter word count: 4.5k

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8

Chapter 9 - Knights and Nightingale

As soon as Paul, Zhara, and Elena cleared the trees, all three of them collapsed, breathing in the sweet night air of the meadow and the open sky. Even the donkey seemed to be calming down and started grazing the fresh grass with relish.

"Thank you," Elena exhaled. "Thank you both. I never would have the courage to stand up to her if it wasn't for you."

Paul paid her no heed. His attention was on Zhara, who was cradling her injured hand and looking pale. He found a piece of clean linen in their supplies, dipped it in the nearby stream, and started washing the blood off her hands.

"You are going to say that was a very stupid thing to do, aren't you?" she asked with a sullen grimace.

"No," Paul said honestly. More than anything, he longed to kiss her palm, but he couldn't, not with Elena there, so he settled for caressing her hand instead. "You were very brave."

Zhara's fingers went still for a heartbeat, then closed around his. "I think you were very brave too," she said softly.

For a moment, they sat holding hands, unable to tear their eyes away from each other, until a small cough from Elena made them dart away like two criminals. Paul turned around and found Elena standing awkwardly next to them, holding a bunch of frothy pink and white flowers she just picked from the meadow.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Woundwort," she replied, crushing the flowers between her fingers. Perhaps it was Paul's imagination, but he thought the flowers glowed briefly. "Put it on her hand, it'll heal faster."

Paul took the crushed flowers from Elena and carefully placed them on Zhara's wound before binding her hand with another strip of linen. If he took a long time doing it, and if his fingertips lingered over her palm and her wrist more than necessary, she showed no sign of noticing.

"Sleeping on a field on Kupala Night, how fitting," Elena mused, looking around the empty meadow. She glanced at Zhara. "Perhaps we should have waited until morning to defy my mother."

"Oh, if you don't mind, then I don't either. We've been sleeping under the stars for weeks now, haven't we?" Zhara said, nodding at Paul with a warm smile that bore no trace of her usual mockery. For some reason, the natural, easy way she said we sent a thrill through Paul. "Besides, I don't want to be around a lot of people in the morning."

"Why not?" Elena asked, bemused.

"You'll see" was all Zhara said in reply.

***

Elena took Zhara's transformation surprisingly well. Paul had the feeling that she had been confined in her own kingdom for so long that anything would come as a shock to her, and when everything was a shock, nothing was, so she took everything in her stride. He discovered that she was something of a chatterbox as well. She asked him about Russia, about his journey with Zhara so far, and about Alyosha and Afron. Paul tried to answer her as best he could, but he was unable to keep up with her pattering. Luckily, Elena was so thrilled to have someone to talk to that she didn't seem to mind, like a child who had recently learned to talk. When she had exhausted her store of questions, she started pointing out every plant and tree they saw along the way and listing their properties and uses. Paul didn't hold it against her. He supposed that when one was one quarter-leshy, a love for botany was in one's blood. After a while, he learned to tune out her excited babbling and focused on putting one foot ahead of another—the donkey could not carry both of them, so he gave it to Elena and walked instead.

Zhara's wound had healed almost completely, but she didn't fly ahead as she often did when she and Paul were traveling together. Instead, she stayed close or perched on Paul's shoulder, watching him and Elena with an enigmatic, scrutinizing expression. Paul wanted to tell her that she needn't worry about him falling in love with Elena. Although he didn't mind Elena's company, he missed those early days when it was just him and Zhara, missed falling asleep across the fire from her, even missed their bickering. But he couldn't say any of it in Elena's presence, so he only brushed his fingertips briefly over Zhara's wings. She returned the gesture by nibbling his hand gently with her beak. She ceased her watching after that, though she remained on his shoulder.

After reaching the first mountain pass that night, they discussed what to do should they run into Nightingale again. Zhara pointed out that the robber didn't seem at all interested in humans and only took the donkey and the supplies, so if they freed the donkey and crossed the mountains on foot, perhaps he would leave them be.

"What if there is another avalanche?" Paul asked. "We only escaped by sheer luck last time." He could still feel the stab of fear that had gone through his heart when Zhara went missing, and never wished to feel it again.

"We can make some snow wings," Elena piped up. Zhara and Paul turned to her questioningly, and she explained, "That's what the people of Bryansk do when they have to go up the mountains. They weave these frames out of birch and willow branches and strap them to their backs. They will save us from getting buried completely in the snow."

So they spent the night gathering branches from the lower slopes and tying them together with birch bark into something resembling a long and flat hamper. They made two, one for Elena and one for Paul, while Zhara, who would be in her avian form, simply had to stay airborne.

"Will this work?" Paul asked dubiously, as he tried one on.

"I—I've never used it before," Elena said. "But it should work." Her answer didn't instill a lot of confidence in Paul, but they had to take it.

They started their ascent of Perun's Crown early in the morning. The first two days were quiet, and they began to hope that perhaps Nightingale would not attack. Still, they were particularly careful as they neared Perun's Peak, as this was the site of the avalanche and where Nightingale was rumored to have his nest. Zhara flew overhead on slowly wheeling wings, ready to sound the alarm should she see anything suspicious, while Paul and Elena walked on the slippery path, with the donkey between them.

An echoing shriek made them all jump. Zhara soared up so high she was only a speck of red amongst the gray-and-white peaks, while Paul and Elena pressed themselves against the rock walls on either side of the path, preparing for the avalanche. It never came. They heard another shriek from somewhere up ahead, along with other sounds—the rushing rustle of a tempest, male voices shouting, and the panicked whinnies of some horses.

Paul and Elena exchanged curious glances. Could it be that some hapless travelers had been caught by Nightingale? They ran toward a bend in the path, where they cleared the Peak and the rock walls opened up into a vista of the lower mountains and the valley further down.

But that wasn't all they could see. Perched on a tree on the mountaintop directly underneath them was Nightingale the Robber, his back to them, his speckled gray plumage barely visible amongst the leaves and the rocks. From his mouth, a continuous shriek was coming forth, causing such a high, gusty wind that all the trees on the slope below were bent over, some smaller ones were snapped clean in half, and stones and branches and debris were tumbling down the hill. It was so powerful that Paul and Elena, crouched on the higher peak, could even feel some of it on their faces as it rebounded off of the mountains in the distance. The victims—two men in armor and their horses—were hiding behind a large boulder, which shielded them from the worst of the squall but didn't allow them to do much else. One of them kept trying to draw a bow, only to have to duck down again when half a sapling sailed past his head. The other one had a spear, which he drove into the ground and leaned against to keep himself from getting blown away by the gust.

"What do we do?" Elena asked.

"He's not paying attention to us at all. We can simply wait until he finishes with them and flies away," Paul said. Zhara, who had come down to watch and was now hovering over his shoulder, gave a dissenting chirrup and shook her beak. Paul sighed. "All right, so we shall try to help them," he said. "But how?"

"He's sitting on a cedar," Elena said. "It's a very brittle wood. Perhaps we can throw a rock to break the branch and make him fall—" Paul and Zhara, as one, turned to her with incredulous eyes, and she turned pink and put her head down. "I apologize. It's a silly idea."

Paul reminded himself that he hadn't been much better than Elena was when he first arrived in Lukomorye. No, worse even, for he had been too busy raging and throwing tantrums instead of trying to be helpful. So he shouldn't find her naïveté frustrating. Besides, perhaps her idea wasn't altogether silly...

He cast his eyes upward, contemplating the snow-covered slopes above them, tracing their incline to the tree where Nightingale was sitting. He turned back to watch the archer trying in vain to loose an arrow at Nightingale, only to be driven back by the mighty whistle. A thought formed in his mind.

"An avalanche," he said. He turned to Zhara and pointed to the slopes. "Zhara, can you fly up there and knock down the snow with your fire? Not too much, just enough to distract Nightingale."

Zhara's eyes lit up with understanding, and she took off like a streak of gold toward the snowy slopes. A moment later, a small flame flared red against the white, and a square of snow detached itself from the slope and started its ponderous but relentless descent.

"Go!" Paul urged Elena. They took off down the mountains with the donkey, while Zhara swooped in close behind. Below, the two men had noticed the snow and were pointing at it, shouting. Paul only hoped that they realized the opportunity and were quick enough to seize it.

The shouts caught Nightingale's attention. He turned his head for no longer than the blink of an eye, saw the snow coming down, and launched himself up like a shot fired from a musket. But that brief pause was all that the archer needed. At the moment Nightingale soared into the sky, an arrow also flew from the bow, whistled through the air, and found its mark in the robber's shoulder. With a terrible scream, Nightingale tumbled from the sky, landed hard on the rocks, and kept rolling until he ended up at the bottom of the gorge, where he lay motionless.

By the time Paul and his companions reached the base of the slope, snow from the avalanche had piled up around the boulder. Nightingale was still conscious but at the mercy of the two men, who already had him bound and gagged. The archer, a powerfully built man with black hair and a curly black beard, had an arrow nocked and pointed at the robber, while the other man, younger and slimmer, with auburn hair and light blue-green eyes, was putting the tip of his spear to the robber's neck. Both men had about them a noble, heroic air, just like Alyosha Popovich, and Paul suddenly felt quite conscious of his disheveled curls and rumpled appearance.

"Who are you?" the archer asked, raising his bow at them.

Paul threw his arms up. "Please, don't shoot. We only wish to help."

The other man's blue-green eyes widened as they landed on Elena. "Elena the Fair!" he exclaimed. "How is it that you are here, so far away from Bryansk?"

Elena looked rather taken aback. "You have the advantage of me, sir," she said.

"Apologies, my lady." The knight—for Paul was certain these two men could be nothing else but bogatyrs—took off his helmet and bowed deeply. "Dobrynya Nikitich, at your service. You may not know me, but I have seen and admired you from afar during my travels through your kingdom. It is an honor to finally make your acquaintance."

Elena's porcelain face turned a lovely shade of pink, while Paul wondered how Dobrynya managed to make such a simple introduction sound so gallant and romantic.

"And I am Ilya Muromets," his companion said. Paul was reminded of Zhara's question to Alyosha about his brothers. So these must be them.

Zhara alighted on Paul's shoulder. The two knights stared at her in astonishment.

"Can this be—?" Ilya said, his voice hushed.

"Tsarevna Zhara?" Dobrynya asked.

Zhara inclined her head. Even as a bird, she retained her regal air, and the two knights fell to their knees in front of her—that is to say, in front of Paul. Then they began to speak, voices stumbling over each other.

"We've heard the rumor, my lady, but didn't quite believe it—"

"—ever since we learned of what happened in Arthania and what had befallen poor Alyosha, we have been searching for you—"

"—to pledge our swords and shields to you—"

Seeing they were distracted, Nightingale tried to sit up, but Ilya, with a quick movement that belied his heavy physique, put a foot on the robber's chest and pushed him back down. "Don't even think about it, Nightingale."

"That reminds me," Dobrynya said, watching Nightingale writhe in pain and anger, "what are we going to do about this one?"

"I say we kill him," Ilya said.

The robber's face went white.

"Or we can deliver him to Tsar Afron," Dobrynya suggested. "The tsar will be glad to know that the mountains are safe once more."

"Killing him would accomplish the same thing, and we don't have to waste time and strength carrying him across—" Ilya was saying, when he was interrupted by the shrill voice of a woman.

"No!" the voice cried out. "Please, merciful knights! Please spare my husband!"

They all looked up, startled. Through a crevice in the mountain above, they could glimpse the face of a woman looking out. The crevice was so well disguised on the rock wall that if it hadn't been for the woman's red headscarf, they would never have seen it at all. Several other heads joined the woman's—children, by the size of them, crowding around her like chicks surrounding a mother hen. The sight of those children caused Nightingale to thrash against his bonds even more violently, his face turning purple with rage or exertion.

The woman pulled at a windlass, cleverly hidden amongst the rocks, and brought up a basket. This she used to transport herself and several of the smaller children down to the bottom of the slope, while the three older children, two girls and a boy, flew behind them on fledglings' wings. The woman was human. The children had her rounded eyes and plump cheeks and Nightingale's bird wings and bird legs, though the younger ones were yet to molt. There were nine of them, six girls and three boys.

The woman prostrated herself in front of Ilya, shielding Nightingale with her body. "Please, have mercy!" she said, tears streaming down her face. "He doesn't mean any harm! He's only trying to take care of us!"

Paul, the knights, and the princesses shared shocked glances.

"What's your name, woman?" Ilya asked.

"Akulina Dudenchevna, sir," the woman replied. "In the time of the late Tsar Dolmat, Tsar Afron's father, my husband would ferry people across the mountains and get paid for it. When Tsar Afron took the throne a few years ago, he refused to honor the late tsar's agreement with my husband. He put it about that my husband was a monster, and nobody would let him carry them through the mountains again. That is why my husband was forced to turn to robbery to provide for us. But as Perun is my witness, he has never killed anyone!"

"Well, this certainly puts a different complexion on matters," Ilya said, scratching his beard. "If what you said is true."

"It is, all of it!" Akulina got on her knees and wrung her hands. "Please believe me! If you kill him or take him away, I don't know how I can feed my children..."

"What say you?" Ilya asked, turning to Elena, Zhara, and Paul. "Should we give him a chance?"

Paul was rather taken aback. In his mother's court, his voice was never heard, and his thoughts counted for nothing, yet this knight, whom he had met only mere minutes ago, was asking for his judgment on a man's life. He was ashamed to realize he didn't know what to say. Not used to having his opinion asked, he had not learned to form one of his own.

"I think we should let him live," Elena said. "Do you think so, Dobrynya Nikitich?"

"Of course, my lady," Dobrynya eagerly agreed.

"And Lady Zhara?" Ilya asked.

Paul realized Zhara was no longer on his shoulder, but before he could worry, a peal of laughter and cooing sounds made him turn his head. Zhara had found her way over to Nightingale's little children, and was playing with them, preening the feathers of the younger ones and swooping and flitting between the older ones, challenging them to a race, making them shriek with laughter. The scene put a smile on Paul's face. Trust Zhara to always find a cheerful side to everything, no matter how dire the situation.

"I think she's in favor of sparing his life as well," Dobrynya said, also smiling.

"So be it then," Ilya said and removed his foot from Nightingale's chest.

"Oh thank you!" Akulina exclaimed. "Thank you and bless you, good sirs and ladies!" She went around kissing all their hands, even Paul's, making him squirm with embarrassment.

Ilya untied Nightingale and removed his gag, warning him not to try anything. "And if we hear you're back to your old tricks, I shall put an arrow into your other shoulder." The robber glowered at the two knights, but his face softened when he was reunited with his family.

Ilya and Dobrynya fetched their horses and prepared to leave.

"But how are they going to live?" Paul heard himself asking as he watched Nightingale's children reluctantly part with Zhara.

The two knights looked at each other. It was apparent that the question hadn't occurred to them. It was Elena who provided the answer. "I shall talk to Tsar Afron and convince him to honor his father's agreement with you," she told Nightingale. "And perhaps I can convince my—my mother to agree to something similar as well. That way, you can ferry people from both Smorodina and Bryansk across the mountains, and earn an honest living."

Akulina looked like she was about to cry again. With his uninjured hand, Nightingale plucked a feather from his wing and gave it to Elena. "Thank you, my lady," he said in a gravelly voice. "Should you ever need my help, just burn this feather and I shall be there."

And so they went down the mountains, Elena now riding with Dobrynya on his horse. Paul was back on the donkey, feeling more inferior than ever as he trailed after the two stallions, but Zhara was on his shoulder again, and her presence was a great balm to his bruised ego.

Along the way, Ilya and Dobrynya asked Paul the details of Alyosha Popovich's fate, and they both looked so distraught over it that Paul had to promise to take them back to the oak tree where Alyosha was laid to rest so they could pay their respect—though he doubted he could find it again. He also explained about their search for Baba Yaga and Afron's quest. At the mention of Afron's marriage request, Dobrynya threw a dismayed glance at Elena, but said nothing.

They stopped at dusk to let Zhara transform. They were not far now from the foot of the mountains and decided to push on.

"Lady Zhara, would you do me the honor of riding with me?" Ilya asked.

"Thank you, but I think I prefer to stay with Pavel Petrovich—" Zhara replied, glancing at Paul.

Paul imagined sitting on the donkey with his arms around her, her hair brushing his cheeks, her back against his chest. It would be unbearable. "The donkey cannot carry both of us," he said, ignoring the hurt and questioning look in Zhara's eyes. "You go ahead with Ilya Muromets."

Silently, Zhara allowed Ilya to help her onto the saddle. She sat behind the knight, holding to his thick waist, and resolutely refused to look at Paul.

They crossed the last few versts to Simeon's hut. The old man was greatly surprised to see Paul and Zhara not only return unscathed but also with some friends, and received them with his usual hospitality. That night, after Simeon retreated to his stove, the princesses made do with the narrow cot, and the knights bedded down outside to keep watch on their mounts. Paul tried to make himself a bed in front of the fire, but sleep eluded him. His head was crowded with so many unaccustomed thoughts and feelings, about Zhara, about Elena, about Nightingale, about the two knights, about the journey ahead. After tossing and turning about for what felt like hours, he gave up and went to sit just outside the door, wrapped in a quilt.

Hearing a rustling, he turned and saw Zhara's bare feet, sticking out from under her chemise, standing next to him.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked. "Why aren't you asleep?"

"Why aren't you asleep?" she retorted.

Without waiting for an answer, she sat down, snatched one end of the quilt from his hand, and wrapped it around her own shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Paul asked, alarmed. The quilt now covered both of them, and they were snuggled up underneath it.

"I'm cold," she said with a little smile, wriggling her bare toes as if to demonstrate. Paul fought the urge to lift her feet into his lap and rub those toes, although warmth was radiating from her body, making him acutely aware that there were only two thin layers of linen between them. "Is something bothering you?" she asked.

Yes, he wanted to say. You. I want to kiss you so badly but I can't, not with all these people around, not when I don't know if you would welcome a kiss from me. Such thoughts had never deterred him before, but he had a feeling Zhara would not take kindly to such liberties. "No," he said, clearing his throat. "I was—merely thinking."

"About what?"

He looked up at the sky, trying to make sense of the thoughts that cluttered his mind. It was impossible, like trying to unravel a ball of yarn that had been pawed by some energetic kittens, made doubly so by the presence of this enchanting, infuriating girl by his side. His eyes rested on the waning moon, spreading its light on the ground in a dappled silvery carpet, and what he said instead was, "I wonder if the moon here looks different from the moon in Russia."

"Does it?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. "Back home, I never bothered to look up."

"But you do now, don't you?" Zhara said, voice soft as a breeze. He turned to her. She was looking at him, her lips parted, hanging on to his every word. That eager, expectant look made his heart beat with a half-sweet, half-painful hope, and he had to turn away again.

"Do you think Afron will agree to the arrangement with Nightingale?" he said, changing the subject.

Zhara pressed her lips together. "If he truly loves Elena as he said, perhaps she can persuade him," she replied.

"I think he will be less amenable when he learns she doesn't want to marry him."

"How do you know that she doesn't want to marry him?" she asked sharply.

Paul looked toward the sleeping forms of the two knights. "I think she's fallen in love with Dobrynya Nikitich. And he with her." Throughout that afternoon, he had seen them share stolen glances, blushes, little touches. It could mean nothing else.

"Oh," Zhara said, voice softening. "That's what you meant."

"What did you think I meant then?" Paul turned to her, puzzled. Now it was she who looked away, lashes fluttering as she cast her eyes downward. Paul decided not to push it. "You must be glad for their company," he said, nodding at the knights.

"I am. But I rather miss those days when it was just the two of us."

So she felt the same. The thought sent blood pounding through his veins and hammering in his ears, and he didn't quite know how to respond. "Hopefully, they can make up for all the troubles I've caused," he said.

Zhara huffed, exasperated. "Are you still mad at me for calling you a burden?" she asked. "I did apologize, didn't I?"

"I'm not mad at you. I'm simply saying—"

"You are like Nightingale. People tell you that you're a monster long enough, and you end up believing it and acting like one!"

"So I am a monster now?"

"No! You know perfectly well that's not what I meant. And stop saying that you are burdensome, good-for-nothing, or useless, because you're not."

"What am I then?" Paul faced her, not caring how heated his voice was becoming.

"A fool," Zhara said, and she kissed him.

For an endless moment, Paul could only sit there, feeling her soft, soft lips on his, their impossible warmth scorching him like the brand of a glowing ember. Then he opened his mouth, perhaps to say something or perhaps simply to breathe, which he seemed to have forgotten how to do. As if on cue, Zhara leaned closer, pressing her lithe, compliant body flush against his, and deepened the kiss, sending liquid fire coursing through him. Before he could recover enough to kiss her back, however, she broke away, her eyes twinkling gold in the silvery light of the moon as she studied his face. He must be looking even more foolish than usual, for she gave him her familiar teasing smile, though there was a trace of bashfulness in it as well.

"Good night," she said, brushing her lips over his once more. Paul leaned forward expectantly, but she had gotten to her feet and gone back inside, leaving him at the door with his mouth hanging open, too stunned to move.

Chapter 10

Taglist: @ali-r3n

#prince paul #tsarevich paul #catherine the great #prince paul fic #prince paul x ofc #joseph quinn #joseph quinn fic

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jpitha · 1 year

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Just a Little Further 19

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Where are we all going to sleep? If FarReach left, then it's just us, and we don't know this Starbase and we don't have any money! This was a terrible idea, what the hell am I doing?

You are doing what you need to do.

Brave talk from a bunch of atomic scale machines. You don't need to worry about where you're going to sleep tonight.

We will think of something.

Wait. You don't know either? What the hell? You Nanites are the ones convincing me to 'act like an Empress' and all, and now FarReach left, Captain Q'ari was declared unfit and almost everyone is afraid of me!

We will admit that we are... slightly... out of our depth. All of our collected memories come from Empresses who were well established in their position, with hundreds of people in their retinue. We are not familiar when the Empress has... three people who are going along with her and no home.

Then why did you have me do all that stuff?

We figured it would all work out.

At this point, I get too frustrated to argue with the Nanites inside my body. I look around for a place to sit, and come across a cafe. Finding an empty table, I sit heavily. Omar and the others joins me.

I look around at everyone, "Okay, so time for a sitrep."

Omar begins. "We're on a foreign Starbase,"

"As Their rulers, the Builders" Ava adds.

"But most of us don't have any Builder powers yet" Um'reli chimes in.

Ava raises a finger "That will come later as the Nanites grow and come online."

Omar looks out at the restaurant "We don't have any money and any place to stay."

We all look out into the passing crowd, ignored. This sucks. I didn't expect everyone to be frightened and leave. At least I have some friends here now.

Um'reli looks over at me with a strange expression. "Um, Melody?"

I look away from the crowds of people and face her. "What's up?"

"Melody. You have a Voice that can make people do whatever you tell them to do. Just..." She shrugs "Tell them to put us up in the fanciest Hotel this place has!"

Ava's face brightens. "Why are we worrying about money Melody? Just make people give us stuff."

Now they're thinking like Builders.

Ugh, really? Just go around and yell at people until I get what I want?

Empresses since the beginning of time have done as much.

As we are sitting there discussing options, an Azurian, probably an employee, walks up. "So, are you going to order something, or just take up a seat that a paying customer would use?"

"Oh, Sorry." and I start to get up when Ava and Um'reli look at me.

"Right, right. Um. B̶̭͝r̶͚͑ȉ̴͇ń̷̝g̸̼̑ us some menus please."

The Azurian reaches into a pocket on their apron and hands over four menus, turns and walks away quickly.

Ava looks down and grins. "I can read it!, Um'reli, Omar, can you read it yet?"

Omar and Um'reli look down as well. Omar squints at it. "Kind of? It's like it's...burry, but I can get the idea of what they're offering."

Um'reli moves the menu back and fort like she's trying to get it in focus as well. "Yeah, it's not all the way there, but it's definitely not just gibberish anymore."

Ava's face falls. "Too bad I don't know what any of it is. Just because I can read 'stir-fried laut over Grebian grains' doesn't mean I know what it is, or if it's good."

This time it's my turn to be sanguine. "I've had at least one meal and a snack here, and I haven't had anything bad yet. I'm sure it's all good. Just pick whichever one has a cool sounding name."

Everyone takes a moment to study the menus while I look around more. On the one hand, It's nice that we can just sit here and be ignored. On the other though, I don't want to be ignored! It turns out I really really like being worshipped. That worries me a little bit.

Oh well, survival first, worship second. I guess I'll have to just... tell people to take care of us for a little while. I don't really like that idea though... Ugh, I was hoping people would love me for me not because I told them to love me.

Ava loves you.

Are you sure? It feels like she loves the power I have.

Is there a difference?

Apparently my face is so shocked that Omar looks over. "Uh, Melody are you all right?"

"Oh sorry, yes I'm fine. Um, do anyone else's Nanites... talk to them?"

The blank stares give me all the answers I need.

"Okay so maybe it's an Empress thing or just because I've had them longer, but my Nanites... talk to me. They give me advice, tell me about things about the Starbase and about what previous Empresses did. That kind of stuff?"

"Is it... good advice?" Um'reli is asking very carefully.

"Ehhhh, sometimes?

Hey! All of our advice will get you to where you need to be.

Oh, so I need to be getting ready to order some poor Aviens to give us all dinner for free, then going to find a hotel and ordering them to give us a couple rooms for free?

If it's in the name of assuming your role as Empress, then yes.

I'm not so sure.

The Aviens server walks up. "Have you selected what you would like?"

T̶̍ͅḧ̷͎͓́͂i̸̧̋͜ş̸̡̀ ̶̥̃̆m̷̛̤̦̊ě̶̤â̵̦̚l̵̪͊ ̶̛̫̙i̴̳̊s̷̘͂ ̵͈͖̈́ḟ̷̪̔ͅr̴͓̀é̴͇͝ȩ̵͛̓.̶̗̊̋ͅ I say to them. They nod and take a pencil out. "What will it be then?"

After our order has been placed, we're left alone again. While we wait, I notice that two Aviens are sitting near us, watching us while they eat. One of them finally makes a gesture at the other, and they indicate no, but the first stands up anyway and approaches us.

"Uh, pardon my interruption" They say kindly "But are you by any chance that person who says they are the new Empress?"

I look up at them. They seem to be legitimately curious, I can't detect any sarcasm or malice in their body language. "Yes. I am the Empress Melody."

At confirmation, they relax visibly. "Oh wonderful Empress. I'm so pleased to see you out among us. We were at your speech earlier this afternoon, and were so excited."

Oooh, this is nice, I love a good compliment.

"I'm so glad that you came" I answer warmly. "It makes me feel good when I see residents who are happy to see me."

They nod vigorously. "Yes, I can't wait until you eject those cursed Mariens out into space and return Reach of the Might of Vzzx to Aviens hands like it was meant to be."

Omar, Ava, Um'reli and myself blink.

"Oh uh, really?" I say, weakly.

"Yes. It's far past time they get what's coming to them." And with that, they return back to their seats, and with a little wave, finish their meal.

Omar, Ava and Um'reli look at me. "Oh no, no no, you can't pin this on me, I didn't say anything!"

"Okay, but you're not actually going to do that are you? Space all the Mariens?" Omar glances back at them then at me.

"Of course not! I would never!" Why would he even think that I'd do that.

You don't have to space them all. If you did a few though, it certainly would make people realize you're someone that shouldn't be underestimated.

No. No. I am not going to space anyone!

Before this line of conversation goes any furthers, the Azurian arrives with our food. After they place the steaming plates down, they give me a little ticket and walk off. Turning the ticket over I see that it's the bill. Normally, this meal would cost... oh my... sixty Skys? Is that a lot? But on the bottom is says the amount due is 0 and that the meal is marked complimentary. Whew. At least it doesn't seem like anything bad happened as a result of that. With everyone else already eating, I get started.

Like I said before, I haven't had a bad meal here, and this is no exception. All of the food was amazing. Everyone agreed too. I'll have to see if I can remember where this place is, I want to come back - and pay them next time.

Mindful that I used the Voice to order them to give us dinner, we don't dawdle. After we eat we get up and begin to wander the promenade. I never really went further than the docks and the administration offices so I don't know what else is there. We take in the sights for a little while and then Omar looks at me again.

"So Melody, where are we staying tonight?"

"I have no idea Omar, have you seen anything that looks like a hotel?"

He shakes his head. "No, but I wouldn't know what I'm looking for."

Me neither. Who would though? "Wait, I wonder if the people who work in the Administrative offices might know. They would have to host dignitaries wouldn't they?"

"Yeah! Let's go rough them up again!" Ava is cheering. I look over at her with a stony face and she pouts.

"Uh Melody, you said that the Gate has been closed 'for three generations.' We're the first visitors in a long time if they live for anywhere close to as long as us." Um'reli, with the splash of cold water again.

We continue to walk around for a while, Ava spies a place that's selling clothes and drags us all there. "Look at this fabric! It shimmers, and is so soft" She's rubbing it against her cheek. "Normally, if you have something that shimmers like that, it's rough and scratchy. I need this. Melody, buy it for me please."

"Buy it Ava? I don't have any money."

She waves her hand dismissively. "Use your Voice to make them give it to me."

"Ava, I feel bad enough that I got us dinner for free. I'm not about to make them give you clothes. I'm trying to be a good Empress, not some kind of tyrant."

Ava pouts and puts the shirt back. "Hmph, you're no fun. What is even the point of a power like that if you're not going to use it."

She's right you know.

You always take her side.

Because she's got the right idea.

I can't stand it anymore. "I'm going to go ask the Administrators. At least the they might know where a Hotel is. I guess I could use the Voice to just ask random people, but I'm trying to not just make everyone do stuff for us if I can avoid it."

Ava looks over. "Are they going to be okay with seeing us? You did kind of threaten them and make them show you where the Throne was."

I flick my hand out dismissing the comment. "It'll be fine. Probably."

We work our way to the Administration offices. The barricade is still up, but it's not manned anymore. Huh. I wonder if they figured since we had our confrontation now that everything would be over with. I hope the Administrators aren't still mad-

I never got to finish that thought, because as I pushed open the door and walked in, someone behind a barricade made up of chairs and tables from the offices shot at me.

Again.

Part 20

#humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #humans go on adventure #humans are space oddities #sci fi writing #writing #humans and ai #humans and aliens #the k'laxiverse #jpitha #just a little further

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wakasaz · 2 years

Text

Purple Haze

♡Pairing: Wakasa Imaushi x Hairstylist!reader

♡Summary: Benkei thinks Wakasa's hair is boring, so he recommends his favorite barbershop.

♡Tw: 18+, NSFW, poorly written, afab!reader, fingering, unprotected sex, semi-public sex, oral (m → f & f → m), use of alcohol, pet names, princess, pretty girl, sweetheart. I think that's it if I forgot something let me know.

♡A/N All characters are 21+ Not proof read. Part of hairstylist series I guess? A few people asked for this to be posted so.

♡Wc 6.8+

Wakasa wasn't one to care about appearances. The way he saw it he looked how he looked and that was that. Well, that was until Benkei had to bring up that he has had the same hairstyle since high school. Blonde and shaggy that's how his hair has always been and he didn't care but now that Benkei was nagging him about it he decided maybe he did need a change so he started growing it out.

Wakasa was content until Benkei had to open his mouth again and tell him his hair is "boring".

"You told me to get a new hairstyle and I did."

"All you did was stop getting my cut."

"Yeah, and now it's different than in high school."

"It's boring man. Did you even try to find a new style?"

"Technically it is styled."

"Putting it in a ponytail or bun isn't a style man. Look just go to my barber at least once. I guarantee you'll like it and since I'm such a good friend I'll even help pick your new style!"

"If I say yes will you shut up?"

"Yes"

"Hmm, fine."

Benkei took care of everything. Made the appointment, picked out the cut, he even went as far as to pay in advance so Wakasa wouldn't have to worry about anything. The day of the long-awaited appointment came. Benkei and Wakasa met at the shop as they agreed. Wakasa was actually early. He made it before Benkei so he waited in the parking lot on his bike. A few minutes later Benkei shows up.

"Umm hey man so I need to tell you something," Benkei says

"Hmm?"

"So my normal guy had a family emergency and had to leave early so one of his employees is taking over all his appointments for today. But I promise you man they are just as good. I've seen their work several times while getting mine done and they are basically on the same level as my guy. I'd even let them do mine if my normal guy wouldn't be able to. But if you aren't comfortable with it they did tell me they could reschedule you for next week when he is back."

"I don't care, I'm already here let's just get this over with."

"That's the spirit man!" Benkei says slapping him on the back.

If we are being honest here Wakasa didn't have high hopes. He wasn't expecting much. What was there to expect? It was probably some old dude who has been doing this his whole life and his employees were probably the same. Just a bunch of old men cutting hair. That's a Barbershop is right?

Oh, how wrong Wakasa was. He wasn't expecting much but he definitely wasn't expecting this. They walked in and there stood a young girl with (h/c) hair. Is she the one doing my hair? He thought looking around the shop. She's the only one here. Where are the old men? Now Wakasa wasn't sexist by any means, but when he thought barber he thought of old men cutting other men's hair not a cute young girl. Was it even safe for you to be here alone? Wakasa was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard someone talk.

"Benkei! I haven't seen you in a few months!" The young girl said

"Hey, (y/n)! Yeah, I think I've been coming in on your day off. It's good to see you."

Wait Benkei knows her? Wakasa thought. So she must be the one doing my hair then if he knows her.

"It's good to see you too!" She says with a smile "so is this your friend you were telling me about earlier?"

"Yep, this is Imaushi Wakasa. Wakasa this is (l/n) (y/n)."

"Nice to meet you Imaushi, Benkei has told me quite a bit about you."

"Nice to meet you too (l/n), probably all bad or embarrassing things."

"You wound me Waka! I'm not that bad of a friend." Benkei says faking being offended.

Wakasa just rolls his eyes. He knows better than that. Any chance Benkei has to embarrass him he is going to take it.

"Well if you are ready to start you can come on back to the second chair Imaushi."

Wakasa walks over and takes a seat with Benkei following not far behind.

"So what are we doing?" (Y/n) asks

Wakasa just looks at Benkei through the mirror waiting for him to speak up since he has no idea what he is getting done.

"Oh, we made an agreement I get to pick his new cut but it has to be a surprise till the end," Benkei says showing you a picture of the style he picked.

"Oh, okay. You cool with this?" You ask Wakasa who just nods his head and says "let's just get this over with"

"Well since it's a surprise do you want me to cover the mirror Benkei?"

"That would be great (y/n)!" He says

You cover the mirror and get a clean cap for Wakasa. You noticed he wasn't very talkative so you mainly talked to Benkei. You start by brushing Wakasa's hair and getting a comb out the section. The picture Benkei showed you had the sides shaved and the rest was left long. You parted the hair from the arch of his eyebrows back go right below his ear and down leaving a square section. You did this on both sides and secured the sections with a rubber band. You then clipped the rest of his hair so it was out of the way. Since the side is going to be pretty short you decided to go cut them with your shears first then go in with your clippers and trimmers after for a cleaner look. You picked up your Sam Villa essential series 5.5" shears holding them in your dominant hand with your thumb and ring finger in the finger inserts and had your pinky resting on the tang.

"You sure about this Imaushi? Once I cut this I can't put it back on. You sure you don't want to know what I'm doing first?"

"It's just hair it'll grow back. Just do whatever Benkei says."

"Okay, as long as you're sure. You can't get mad at me if you don't like it!"

Wakasa just chuckled at that. He truly didn't care. As long as he doesn't look stupid he can always deal with it till it grows out.

You proceed by cutting the square section behind the rubber band. You do this on both sides and sit the hair left in the rubber band aside on your station. You picked up your Babylisspro FX870 rose gold clippers and attached the number 2 guard onto the blade. You moved the taper lever up for a closer cut and turned on the clippers. You moved the clippers from bottom to top keeping your hand on the sectioning to ensure you don't cut outside of your section. After you are sure the section is evenly cut and no stray hairs are left behind you put the clippers down and pick up your Wahl Mag trimmers to clean everything up. You went around his ear, squared off his sideburns, and cleaned up around his hairline. You processed to do the same on the other side as well. After you finished his sides you took the rest of the hair down and brushed through it again to make sure it didn't Knott but while it was clipped out of the way. You picked your shears up again and parted his hair down the middle. You took two inches off making sure not to cut past your second knuckle. We wouldn't want to cut your palm now, would we? The haircut didn't have any layers so you just did a basic zero degrees haircut.

After you finished you let Benkei take a look then took Wakasa to the shampoo bowl. You washed his hair with Paul Michell Tea Tree shampoo and did a deep conditioner since Tea Tree can dry the hair. You brought Wakasa back up to your chair and brushed his hair out after spraying Redken One United leave-in spray. You picked up your Sam Villa 1.5" Thermal styling round brush and Bio Ionic Powerlight professional hairdryer and dried his hair. After his hair was dried you pulled it back up into a ponytail for him but left two pieces out in the front one on each side. Once finished and Benkei gave you a thumbs up you took the cape off the mirror that you used earlier to cover it and turned Wakasas chair to face the mirror.

Wakasa looked in the mirror and just nodded. You took the cape off and he got out of the chair thanked you walked out to his bike. Benkei stayed behind and talked to you for a few minutes.

"I don't think he likes it. He didn't even say anything." You say to Benkei

"It's just how he is. I don't think he hates it. He doesn't show his emotions much."

"He could of at least said something" you mumble

Benkei just laughed and ruffles your hair

"Thanks again (y/n)! I'll see you later alright."

"See ya Benkei, and of he tells you he doesn't like it let me know! I'll be glad to change whatever he wants if he isn't happy."

"I will." He says walking out

Benkei walks out of the shop and sees Wakasa leaning on his bike.

"So?"

"So what?"

"Do you like it?"

"It's alright, I don't hate it. Just wasn't expecting it."

"(Y/n) thinks you hate it."

"Why?"

"Because you didn't say anything."

Wakasa's eyes widen slightly. Not enough for anyone to notice unless they stared at him. Was he supposed to say something? Now he's worried he offended you. Benkei and you talked the whole time he didn't want to interrupt. He also wasn't sure what to talk to you about. He doesn't know anything about hair so that was out of the question. He doubts you know anything about of like fighting or gang-related stuff. Did you even know he and Benkei are in a gang?

"I didn't know I was supposed to."

Benkei just shakes his head. They both got on their bikes and went their separate ways after talking for a few more minutes. Wakasa was home and was looking in the mirror. It isn't bad. She didn't do badly. She did well. Looks damn near identical to the picture. A week went by and the haircut started to grow on Wakasa. He noticed when he was bored or spacing out he would unintentionally rub his hand up and down the shaved sides of his head. That's actually how he noticed it needed to be shaved again. It wasn't as prickly anymore. He wasn't getting the same sensation on his hands when he rubs it.

It's been a little less than four weeks. You are at work cleaning up after your last client when the bell on the door chimes indicating that someone walked in. You turned around expecting just a random walk in since your next appointment wasn't for another half hour and you knew your boss didn't have anyone coming in for at least an hour but what you didn't expect to see was Wakasa standing by the door looking lost. You walked up to the front desk. This was a small family-owned shop so you didn't have a receptionist. Everyone took care of their appointments and customers themselves and took turns helping out walk-ins.

"Hey, Benkei's friend right?" You asked

"Yeah, (l/n) right?"

"That's me! What can I help you with"

"Was wondering if I could get the sides shaved again."

"Of course! Did you want anyone in particular to do it?"

"You. Umm I mean if you have time that is."

"Sure go ahead to my chair and I'll be right there," you say with a smile

Wakasa sits down and you get a cape for him

"What are we doing?"

"Just do whatever you did last time."

You did everything the same except you both decided to only cut the sides as the rest of his hair was fine. The appointment went pretty much the same as the last except this time he talked. He actually talked.

"How long have you been doing hair?" He asked

Of course the most asked question you probably get because you look so young. You usually lie and make a joke out of it saying "oh this is my first day" or "I don't even have my license, I came in to get my hair cut and they were hiring and said I looked like I knew what I was doing and offered me a job." Or even the occasional "don't tell my boss but I'm not actually licensed, I printed the license off the internet." Your boss and the regulars know you are joking and snicker but the look on the customer's face is always priceless. For some reason, though you don't even think to say any of that to him you tell him the truth.

"Three years, I graduated high school with my license."

"Oh, so you're what twenty, twenty-one?"

"Twenty-one"

"Hmm, I'm a few years older than you then. I'm twenty-four."

You finished up the cut and he left. You started cleaning up and you heard your boss snicker.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing at all."

You just roll your eyes and get back to work

The next couple of months consisted of the same thing. Every 3-4 weeks Wakasa walked in for a shape up and you guys would talk. At first, it started as casual talk then turned into learning more about each other lives. Wakasa started staying longer and longer after each appointed to talk then he started coming on more often even when he didn't need a cut.

"Hey, (l/n) just need the sides done."

"Imaushi, I saw you last week. I wouldn't be taking anything off."

"Oh, well since I'm here..."

And he would start a conversation with you every 3-4 weeks turned into 3 weeks, then 2 weeks, once a week, then twice a week, every other day, and now every day. Wakasa knew your schedule better than you did at this point. He knew when you started and when your day ended. He knew the times you were alone. Those are the times he always aimed to be there. He knew your shop had a lot of males even though you did both male and female hair but the clientele was mostly male because of your boss's clients. He also knew some of them likes you or would flirt with you. He saw too many times when he was in there. One guy in particular really irked him. Hanma Shuji. He knew all about Hanma. How he's a cocky little shit who doesn't like the word no. How he's in a gang and that he is a little bit crazy. Hanma would do anything to get what he wants. Unfortunately for you, you happened to be Hanmas knew fascination.

It was 8 pm the shop was about to close and Wakasa knew you'd be alone. He was on his bike on his way there. He was a little aggravated already because he was late. Benkei was off today so Wakasa had to stay longer to close up the gym. He pulled into the parking lot and what he saw made his blood boil.

" come on, you're done for the day. Just one trip around the block."

"I already told you Hanma, no, and I not done I'm waiting on someone."

"Please"

"No"

"How about a date?"

"No Hanma I'm not interested." You said walking away to start folding towns waiting on Wakasa. Hanma grabbed your wrist when you went past him

"Listen (y/n) I always get what I want one way or another."

You pulled your arm back

"Not this time Hanma"

"You little-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence. You heard a smack and then saw Hanma on the ground. Wakasa had hit him.

"She said no now fuck off." He said in a monotone voice.

"Come on (l/n) I'll drive you home."

After that Wakasa made sure to always be there when you had closing shifts. The minute the boss left Wakasa was walking in. He would just sit there and watch you work. You would have to yell at him for eating all the lollipops you kept for the kids after they got their haircut. He would replace them though. And it wasn't his fault you shouldn't have left them right where he sits.

He would drive you home every night even though you insisted he didn't have to.

"It's not safe for a pretty young girl to be walking home alone at this hour." He would say "I'm going that way anyway so you might as well let me take you."

The drives home started turning into drives to a fast food place for dinner before going home, then turned into taking the long way home so you could spend more time together. The long way home turned into just around the block one more time. One more time turned into late-night rides around Tokyo into the early hours of the morning.

"(L/n), let's go on a ride."

"Where to Imaushi?"

"Wherever we end up." He shrugs

You got his bike and he sped away. You holding onto his waste resting your face on his back. You got used to how fast Wakasa drives. Granted he does try to slow down with you on the bike "precious cargo" or whatever he said.

You stopped at the top of a hill overlooking the city.

"Imau-"

"Wakasa, ... Call me Wakasa."

"O-okay, Wakasa, call me (y/n) then." You said smiling

The late-night drives around Tokyo quickly turned into crashing at whoever's place was closest at the time and dropping you off at work in the morning. This pattern went on for several months and before you guys knew it it's been a year of Wakasa showing up at your work and driving you around town after. So seeing Wakasa come into the shop after your boss left wasn't anything new. Except for this time it was.

Wakasa showed up right when your boss left just like any other day except this time he seems aggravated. You can tell something is on his mind. You close the shop early and decide to hang out here for a little while together. You don't remember exactly how many beers you're both in now but it's enough that you're both acting like idiots. You're both loud laughing and cracking jokes that probably aren't that funny if you guys were sober.

"I-i want you to color my hair (y/n)!"

"What why?"

"'Cause Benkei says I'm b-boring" he hiccups

You're giggling at Wakasa's drunken state-granted you're just as drunk if not more.

"Let's see what's not boring..." Wakasa says with a serious face. At least as serious as he can be this shit-faced.

"A zebra, yeah a zebra..." Wakasa mumbles to himself

"(Y/n)! Make me look like a ZEBRA~!"

"I am not putting black color on your pretty blonde hair."

"What color will you then?"

"I don't know. A demi or semi, but not anything permanent. I like your blonde hair." you say spinning in the chair next to Wakasa

Wakasa looks up at the ceiling "What's your favorite color?" he asks

maybe its the alcohol or maybe its just your big mouth but you say the first thing that pops into your head. "Your eyes" you say looking at Wakasa

He turns his head and looks at you in the eyes. "then do that" he says

You drunkenly get out of your chair stumbling to the back room where all the color is kept. Once in the back room you start looking at all the color. You're boss doesn't color hair. He leaves all that to you. Looking around the room you spot where you keep all the fashion colors. Walking over to the shelf you start looking for purples.

"Joico or Pulp Riot?" you say to yourself looking at what is in stock of Joico you realize you don't have any purple left in stock. "Guess Pulp Riot it is then" you grab two tubes of Jam and One of Nevermore. Grabbing a bowl and brush you mix the two tubes of jam and two ounces of nevermore. You grab a pair of gloves and some foils and stumble back out to Wakasa. He was spinning in your hair with a sucker in his mouth looking up at the ceiling. He honestly resembles a little kid right now.

You stand behind him holding up the color bowl and smile at him. He looks at you in the mirror. "Alright, (Y/N)! Make me pretty" He says laughing. 'you're already pretty' you think. you nod your head and tell Wakasa he isn't allowed to be mad at you later if he changes his mind and he reassures you this is what he wants and he isn't going to change his mind. You put the gloves on while Wakasa takes his hair down and brushes it for you.

You put his cape on and get your foiling comb in your dominant hand sectioning his hair to start at the bottom back of his head. Since he apparently wants to look like zebra you decide to not weave his hair and just do slices. One you get have the section sliced out how you want it you grab a foil and fold the top over your the tail of your comb and put it under the slice. You hold the hair and foil in place by grabbing the end of his hair and holding it taut while you remove the comb from the foil and pick up the color brush with some of the purple on it and start applying it from roots to ends making sure to saturate the hair enough so it isn't splotchy.

You are about half way done foiling his hair when Wakasa starts complaining about how long it is taking. "well yeah, dummy, you giggle "I'm not just cutting it this time. I'm almost done" A half hour, a pack of suckers, and half a case of beer later and you are finished applying the color. You set a timer and tell Wakasa he has to wait twenty minutes and you'll be right back. You gather up all your supplies and go back to the back room to clean them up.

In the back room is a washer and dryer, color, perms, perm rods, a table and chairs, extra capes and cleaning supplies. The sink is in the far corner of the room. While using it your back is turned to door. You are so busy rinsing the bowl and brush you don't notice someone walk in. You jump feeling someone snack their arms around your waist and rest their head and your shoulder. You quickly realize its Wakasa once you smell cherries.

"I thought I told you to wait" you say turning off the water.

"Got lonely" he says his breath hitting your neck causing you to shiver. Wakasa starts rubbing his face into the crook of your neck "mmh, you're pretty" He holds you tighter causing your back to be flush with his chest. You feel his lips graze your neck "pretty girl" he whispers leaving a kiss where his lips where.

"Wakasa" you whisper even though it is only you two in the salon. Too drunk and high on the feeling of Wakasa's breath on your skin you don't notice one of his hands leave your waist and travel up to your chest grabbing onto the mound Wakasa lets out a groan.

"You okay with this, pretty girl?" Wakasa ask. You open your mouth but no words come out so you just nod your head. "Gotta hear you say it, sweetheart" "Y-yes, Waka" you say leaning back into his chest more. Wakasa starts kissing down your neck to your shoulder then back up to your jaw line. His hand that is left on your waist starts sliding down to the top of your pants. Wakasa nudges your cheek with his nose when you turn your head to look at him he catches your lips. You tilt your head back onto his shoulder to deepen the kiss. Wakasa's hand slips past your pants and you gasp when you feel his fingers on your bare heat. Wakasa slips his tongue into your mouth while he slips his other hand into your shirt. You grind back into him and he lets out a groan into your mouth. Wakasa continues to grind on you while you both fight for dominance.

You start to turn towards Wakasa when you both hear the timer you set earlier go off. You both break the kiss and jump away from each other breathing heavily. Neither one of you will meet the others eyes. You both continue to stand there saying nothing while the timer is going off. You finally decide to speak. "we - um - we should wash your hair." Wakasa nods and walks out of the back room. You follow shortly after to find him sitting at the shampoo bowl.

You walk over and tell him he can lean back and begin to rinse his hair. You've never been nervous around Wakasa. It's always been the opposite actually. He always made you feel safe and he was easy to get alone with. He has never made you uncomfortable, but you can't stop your hands from shaking as you start shampooing. He didn't do anything you didn't want. Actually you've spend many nights thinking about Wakasa while laying in bed with your hand shoved down your pants but you never thought anything would actually happen. He was a client and he was also your friend. You didn't even know if he saw you the same way. You didn't even know if he liked girls if you were honest with yourself.

You've seen girls thrown themselves at him and he always turns them down. Always has an excuse as to why he doesn't want to go out with them. Even the girls who straight up tell him they only want sex he still declines their offers. In the year of knowing Wakasa you have never seen him with a girl romantically or sexually. And he has never talked about any girls. at least not to you or in front of you. Maybe he just wasn't sure if you were comfortable hearing that stuff. You hear it all the time though you work in a shop that is ninety percent male clientele and Wakasa has been here when the guys have made lewd comments about a girl walking by or an actress or whatever but know that you think about it Wakasa never joins in on the conversation. actually he tends to rolls his eyes and ignores what they say.

You finish up washing his hair and putting it in a towel telling he can go back to your seat. You follow him and take the towel and start brushing his hair. Yep, he looks likes a zebra. Wakasa doesn't say anything. Not meeting your eyes in the mirror and you are scared he hates it or hates you for letting him kiss you and touch you the way you've been dreaming of. Maybe he didn't really want it and it was just the alcohol that caused him to do it. You start to worry that you might have messed up your friendship with the violet eyed man.

You try to remind yourself that Wakasa isn't a talkative guy but that wasn't true. While he might not be talkative to people he just meets or doesn't see as a friend but he does talk to you. He hasn't been this quiet since the first day you met him. You continue thinking about how to fix whatever happened to make Wakasa so quiet when you hear him start to laugh. Not just a chuckle like he normally does but an actual laugh. You look up at him confused. "What?" you ask

Wakasa continues to laugh and starts pointing at you "l-look at your neck" he says you look in the mirror and see purple hair color all over your jaw, neck, and shoulder. Not to mention it is also all over your top and pants. Basically everywhere he touched you is covered in purple. You stair wide eyed not knowing what to say. You look down and see Wakasa's hands are also stained purple. "You idiot! look at your hands!" you yell. Wakasa looks at them and starts laughing even louder.

You start laughing with him and shaking your head. "I'm not sure I'll be able to get all this color off your hands and my body" you tell him "good" he says stopping laughing at looking you in the eyes in the mirror. This is the first time he has looked you in the eyes since the timer went off. His eyes are dark. "what?" you ask. Wakasa stands up and pulls the cape off himself. He starts walking around the chair to where you are. He gets to you and starts walking closer causing you to start backing up. "I said good" he says continuing to walk closer and closer. "Now everyone will know where I touched you" he says. The back of your legs hit something hard. You turn your head slightly over your shoulder and see you are up against the front desk by the door. The door that is right next to a big window showing the inside of the shop for anyone who passes by.

"I-is that a good thing" you whisper even though its only the two of you. Wakasa nods his head and walks right in front of you and puts both his hands on either side of you on the desk closing you in. "Don't wan' anyone else to touch you" He whispers in your ear "'cause you're my pretty girl" he says moving his head so his lips graze your own and dropping his voice at the word my. "You are my pretty girl, right?" he asks. You bite your lip and nod your head. Wakasa puts his hands on you waist and lift you up onto the desk using his knee to open your legs so he can stand between them. "Tell me to stop" he says eyes flicking up to your own checking for signs of discomfort but he finds none.

Wakasa wants you to tell him to stop. Tell him to stop before he crosses the line even more than he has already done. He can blame what happened earlier on the alcohol and apologize to you in the morning and the act committed being minor enough that you forgive him. Tell him to stop before he takes things further to the point you won't forgive him. Wakasa thought that tasting you and touching you for the few minutes he did earlier would of been enough, been enough that he doesn't constantly think about bending you over this damn desk every time he is in here and a guy flirts with you or bending you over his motorcycle every time he takes you for a ride. He thought that now knowing what you taste like and how you felt under his skin would of been enough for him to take care of himself and imagine it was you. But at the same time Wakasa was praying you don't tell him to stop because now that he has tasted you once he knows he won't be able to stop thinking about. Now that hes touched you once he knows if you ever let him get that close to you again he won't be able to stop because he needs it, craves it.

You don't say anything because you don't want him to stop. All you can think about is his calloused hands and his tongue that tasted of his favorite candy. 'What else can his hands and tongue do?' you wonder. "If you don't tell me to stop I don't think I'll be able to sweetheart" Wakasa says the grip on your waist tightening. "Don't stop" you whisper over his lips. The second the sound leaves your mouth Wakasa's lips are on yours. This kiss is different than the first one. Hungrier, more feral, animistic almost. Wakasa grabs the back of your head fisting your hair pulling on it to tilt your head so he can deepen the kiss. You let out a moan when he pulls on your hair giving Wakasa the chance to slip his tongue into your mouth. His hand leaves your hair and goes to your neck. You're grabbing onto his shirt pulling him closer. That's all you can think about, closer. How to get him closer to you.

Wakasa understands what your doing and pulls you to the end of the desk closer to him. Your arms go around his neck hands grabbing onto his hair pulling on it. Wakasa moans into your mouth while he grabs the hem of your shirt lifting it. You put your arms up and break the kiss as he removes your shirt throwing it somewhere in the salon to be forgotten about. As soon as your shirt is gone his lips are on yours again. You hand goes underneath his shirt feeling ever bump of his abs and every scar and flaw he has. Though you wouldn't consider them flaws. Wakasa's shirt rises high as you move your hand high and high up his body. Lifting his hands you remove his shirt throwing it to be forgotten just like your own.

Your hand slides lower on his body till you hit the top of his pants. Both hands fumble with his belt. you push yourself off the desk and slide down to your knees kissing down his tones body the lower you do. You undo his pants and start to pull then down. Wakasa grabs your wrist looking down at you "you don't have to" he says you bite your lip and pull your wrist back continuing what you were doing. His cock springs free and you take it in your hand giving it an experimental pump. Licking up the underside to the tip Wakasa throws his head back. Taking him into your mouth you start to bob your head trying to take him down as far as you can without gagging. "oh god" Wakasa says drawing out the words. He grabs onto your head and bucks his hips into you. He pushes your head guiding you and controlling the speed. Wakasas breath hitches "f-fuck" He pulls away before he cums grabbing onto your arms and pulling you up. He pushes you so your back is flat against the desk. He pulls your pants and underwear off throwing them dropping to his knees. "my turn" he says before attaching his mouth to you. He fucks your cunt with his tongue switching to his fingers so he can pat attention to your little nub. He spells his name and draws shapes switching the presser and speed he is giving you. "Waka!" you yell breathlessly grabbing onto his hair trying to ground yourself. "'m gunna-" Wakasa pulls away from you. "cum for me princess" reattaching himself he picks up his speed. your legs start to shake pulling his face closer to you. Your back arches screaming his name. Wakasa continures working you through your high.

Once its too much you start trying to smack him away. He chuckles against you pulling away with your juices dripping down his chin. He stands up and positions himself between your legs licking his fingers. The second his fingers leave his mouth his lips are on yours again tasting yourself during the kiss. You both moan into each others mouths. Wakasa fists himself rubbing between your folds to collect slick you jerk everytime the head of his cock nudges your swollen clit. Slowly pushing into your heat Wakasa has his face shoved in your neck leaving kisses trying to distract you. "'s too much" you whimper nails digging into his shoulder. "I know." he whispers "But my pretty girl can take it, yeah?" You whine holding onto him tighter "You can take it right, princess?" He asks lips hovering over yours "y-yeah" You say as he bottoms out. Wakasa smirts "knew you could pretty girl" He say kissing you.

Wakasa waits a few seconds to make sure you are okay before he starts moving. When he does start moving its slow. Painfully slow. You can whine and can feel Wakasa smiling against your skin. "What's my girl need?" he asks "hmm?" you whine again "Come on use your works for me, princess?" he says "F-faster" you say. Wakasa picks up his speed and starts thrusting faster and harder. He's holding onto your hips so tight you know they are going to bruised in the morning. Your nails scratch his back leaving marks and he groans into your neck and bites on the flesh. "waka!" you yell wrapping your legs around his waist to hold him as close to you as possible.

The only sounds that can be heart are the wet sounds of skin smacking again skins and your moans that are muffled by Wakasa mouth. Wakasa man handles you into flipping onto your belly so you are bent over the desk ass in the air. He slams back into you with such force it sauce you and the desk to move. You yell his name. Wakasa continues to fuck into you as you lay face down on all the business cards and appointment books reminding you you are still at work. But you don't care. The only thing you care about is Wakasa and what he is doing to you. You feel him move your hair and start kissing up your spine to the back of your neck. Your legs are shaking hardly able to hold yourself up. Wakasa slips a hand under you to play with your swollen nub while he abuses your cunt telling you how much of a good girl you are for him and he knew his pretty girl could take him.

Arching your back and pushing your ass back into Wakasa to meet his thrust you come undone yelling his name and gripping the desk under you trying to ground you. Your legs give and wakasa is quick you grab you with one of his arms as he continues to abuse your cunt. His movement grow sloppy and he is groaning and grunting louder with his head laying on your back he asks "where- where do you want it?" without even thinking you you say "inside". Hearing that is all it takes for wakasa to snap painting your gummy walls white and he thinks if he died right now buried in your pussy he could die happy.

You both stay like that for a minute both coming down from your highs breathing evening out. Wakasa is peppering kissing all over your back and shoulders. You can feel his cum start to leak down your thighs when Wakasa slowly stands up and pulls out his softening cock. "I'll get you cleaned up" he says kissing your shoulder one more time before walking away. You roll over and sit up on the desk. Wakasa comes back a minute later and starts to clean up the mess of both of your juices. After he is done he helps you get dressed then dresses himself.

You both clean up the salon and leave. Walking in the parking lot Wakasa offers you a ride home like always you accept on get on his bike with your arms around his waist. He speeds down the road. Once you get to your apartment you invite Wakasa in. Sitting on the couch watching a show neither of you care about Wakasa asks "What are we?"

"What do you mean?" you ask him

"Was that a one time thing? Are we just fucking now? Are we together?" he says whispering the last sentence

"I like you, Wakasa"

"I like you too, (Y/N)" he says sliding closer to you on the couch. "So, will you be my pretty girl for real this time?" he asks

The next day at work you walk in with Wakasa following behind because "I have to make sure my girl is safe before I go". You both notice your boss and two clients looking at you both. You and Wakasa exchange looks confused as to why everyone is staring.

"Finally made him your boyfriend huh, (Y/N)?" your boss asks

"What are you talking about?" you ask confused

"Imaushi. You guys are together now right?"

"How did you know?" you yell at your boss "We just got together a few hours again!"

Your boss and the clients both laugh and your boss points to you and Wakasa. Finally realizing what he was talking about your eyes grow wide. You turn to the mirror to see your neck is stained with purple hair color in the exact shape of Wakasa's hand while his hands are still stained purple.

"Wait, so that's why your hair is purple." Takeomi asks Wakasa with Benkei following behind as they walk into the jewelry store after leaving the Brahman hideout

"Mhm" Wakasa says

"How long ago was that again?" Benkei asks

"Around three years ago I think" Wakasa says walking to the counter

A worker walks up to the three men "Is there anything I can help you gentlemen with?"

"Yeah, do you have any purple engagement rings?" Wakasa asks

This keeps getting deleted for some reason. If I happens again I give up

Also I don't write smut so I know this sucks but for the 7 anons who asked after the ran x hairstylist post here you go. Hope it isn't too shitty(it is)

#tokyo revengers #wakasa imaushi #wakasa tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #wakasa imaushi x reader #mdni #Sanzus-Katana

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