#and runs those through a wood chipper

[listening-to-thunder]

You don't have to think something is good to love it.

#hi my guardian feels #and how it makes me entirely befuddled to see the drama defended from loving mocking and legit criticism both #by those claiming it's good through and through #it's...not that #and it's okay! #it's GREAT at making people have feelings and it has some amazing concepts to play with in fic #and nobody could have asked for better lead actors #(better dubbing of the supporting cast would've helped but they all really tired at least?) #also this is my space so i can say i hate the ending and wish most things past ep 38 had gone differently‚ not just for feels reasons #but because it takes the central themes of dixingren are the same as haixingren and deserve better #and shen wei should know he is more than a weapon #and runs those through a wood chipper #let's separate dixing and haixing forever! #and shen wei has to literally blow himself up to stop the brother he was trying to save #wtf #no thank you #no thank you so much #that is not a good ending #tag rant over

[tiredofthehumanlife]

Before proceeding: Luke's a tad wild one might say. Crazy, possibly. Spooky, mayhaps.

Bestfriend!Luke coming over to your cabin to walk you to dinner. You know this and you know all about his crush. You know all about his fantasies, and his tendency of thievery. You may or may not have left your underwear purposely hanging on the rim of the hamper. You may or may not have moved the hamper closer to the spot that Luke usually sat at while he waited for you to get ready.

When Luke actually made it over you were still in the bathroom so he sat down in his usual seat. Luke continued his conversation with you through the door. His eyes caught on the hamper, more specifically the clothing on the rim. A very small voice in the back of his head said take them. Luke wanted to say he was better than that as a person. However, then he'd be a liar as well as a thief. When you left the bathroom you smiled at the now missing underwear. You didn't tell Luke you knew.

Until a few days later when you realized you rather liked that pair. How would you bring that up to Luke. He'd be so embarrassed you know about his feelings towards you, and the underwear thing too. But alas that was one of your favorite pairs so you bring it up when you're left alone with him.

Luke's laying on his back. You hoped he wouldn't run away with leaves and sticks still stuck to his shirt. You were sat next to Luke, leaning back on your palms as you both sunbathe.

"Oh hey you know that underwear you took?" You ask before looking over at the tree off to the side. You heard Luke quickly sitting up. He started talking but his voice cracked immediately. He cleared his throat and started again.

"um sorry what?" You know Luke's under the impression you had no idea. All things considered you were the mastermind behind it all. You certainly hoped he still had them and hadn't thrown them in a wood chipper while you weren't looking. You weren't going to entertain his I have no idea what you're talking about shtick.

"yeah well I want it back because those are one of my favorites but I'll give you a different pair. Tradesies." You keep your attitude nonchalant so you don't freak him out. Or freak him out less. His open and closes his mouth trying to find his words. When Luke finally finds it all he can force out is a tiny sorry that makes him sound like a kicked puppy.

"Luke, it's fine. I don't mind at all. In all honesty I left them there on purpose." This seems to confuse him even more and all of a sudden he's opening and closing his mouth again. You roll your eyes and move back to watching the trees sway in the wind. You felt him pulling your hand away from the ground. You shifted your weight to your other hand and watched him brush the pebbles off your palm. Luke reached into his pocket and pushed the folded material into your hand. He kept it covered with in case of onlookers but no one was around.

You wrapped your next pair in wrapping paper with a pretty bow on the top and a small note. Scribbled on it was a simple enjoy, love. and your signature at the bottom. You left your early birthday present on his bed just before curfew. The next morning Luke seemed quite cheery and you noticed his hand had a tendency to move back to his pocket. You shared a knowing look as he continued his conversation.

#luke castellan x you #luke castellan x reader #luke castellan #percy jackon and the olympians #percy series #percy jackson #stg im not only going to talk about underwear #ekko look over there #sorry guys #😞 #save me a seat in hell

[1800titz]

HI FRIENDS. 18K here!! This time we explore breaks, because sometimes they are necessary! Also, we see Jealousrry, and we see Isla being Isla. Hope you enjoy!! (Feedback always appreciated!) (✿◠‿◠)

PREVIOUS PARTS HERE - WATTPAD ALTERNATIVE HERE

Open houses, to Harry, are a stage, and the gift of his gab leaves him basking in the luster of the spotlight with no stage fright. 

First time home buyers, young couples waltzing through hallways with gazes bouncing over walls with demure decorum, families with young kids who run amuck, darting from one end of the house to the other as he guides their parents through empty rooms, his dialogue friendly and bright — he finds comfort in any audience. Divorced milfs whose heels click over tile, mimicking wood varnish, trailing behind as his silver tongue sells, and sells, and sells — some of those really find his dialogue of “sleek, floor to ceiling windows,” and the “flowing floor plan,” and “custom built additions,” charming enough for hungry fingers to creep against biceps by the end of the tour. 

Harry, never in his life, has had so many nerves over a tour. Maybe just his very first open house, where he’d taken the reins for the first time alone. 

It makes sense, theoretically, that he’d be nervous to become enclosed in a space with Isla Cleery — his masked, blissfully unaware submissive, in a setting where so much was prone to go awry. It makes sense that he’d be nervous to let something slip, that he’d be nervous he’d find himself fucking into her, pressing her face against a full length bathroom mirror mid-tour, like the climax (pun unintended) to a dirty storyline in a professionally produced porno. Young, Hot Slut Isla Cleery Bounces on Raunchy Realtor Cock, or maybe Adorable Brunette Gets Pussy Pounding for a Discount. Something like that. That last one is especially depraved, but — gotta add some form of sordid cliche to create a flashy title. Click bait, if you will.

It makes sense to be nervous when his nerves are all he can think about, sitting behind the wheel of his Range Rover, parked on the curb as he waits for her own vehicle to turn the corner and pull up to the property. It’s all sort of a vicious cycle. 

She’d called him two days prior. He’d been laying in bed, in the midst of his Candy Crush bedtime ritual — culling ice tiles and smashing colorful blocks with point-inducing combos of stripes and wrappers. He’d stared at his phone as the LED display sparked alive with a banner over the top of the screen — an incoming call from an unsaved phone number. A pinch had worked between his brows, and he’d tapped over the banner with the pad of his thumb, clearing his throat and pressing the phone to his ear as he answered. A business call was a business call. 

“Hello?” his voice was low with incoming sleep, his vocal cords supplying a rasp on account of the silence he’d priorly stalled in. 

The pace of the organ behind his rib cage had picked up considerably when Isla Cleery’s soft voice had come in response, her cadence tinny through the speaker, undeniably delectable. 

“Hey!” his ears had swallowed her chime, “Harry,” the man had shifted a bit over his linen sheets, “This is Isla Cleery.” 

Isla Cleery. Bright, and chipper, and …randomly dialing his number at a strange hour in the night.

“Isla! Hi,” he’d responded, clearing his throat to curtail tacking on a quip of how can I assist you at this ungodly hour?

The uneasy wavelength of her inflection had spurred a crease to work over his brow bone — rushed, and breathy, and almost frantic in its phrasing. 

“Hi,” a pause, a half-hearted apology, “Listen, I’m so sorry to be calling you so late but — ah,” a stifled, little sound that had caused his nostrils to flare and had sent an inopportune rush of excitement slithering through to the trench of his tummy and frothing, “So, you sent me this other property, and I wanted to — I wanted to see that one. The one on, Mul-Mulner, was it?”

“Mulnich,” he’d gnawed into his lip, sitting up a smidge, braced on his forearm as his curiosity piqued. 

“Yes, the, uh, the Mulnich property. I wanted to see that one. So,” another pause that had his face contorting in bemusement — (was she running on a fucking treadmill?), “Can we set that up?”

The man had pulled the receiver back and toggled his counterpart to leak through the speaker setting, rolling onto his side as he’d swiped through his virtual calendar. 

“Sure. Yeah. Let me just check,” Harry had supplied, pausing and pursing his lips as he’d just listened — background noise, like a TV, a rustle, a sigh, a laugh track, an inhale, “Does Wednesday at two work for you?” 

“Can’t — can’t. Wednesday, at two. Anything — can you do anything later? In the evening, maybe?”

Harry had paused. He’d paused, and just listened, his ears working on overdrive to attempt to decipher whatever was spurring her strange behavior, the note of apprehension of her cadence, the — was he going insane? — desperation to her dialogue. There’d been nothing but the familiarity of a common laugh track and shuffling. His pupils had perused as he’d ripped his attention off of the odd display and swiped to give her a proper appointment. 

“Yeah,” the man responded after a moment of lull, clearing his throat, “I can do …five? If that works for you.” 

“Yes! Yeah,” He’d picked up on Isla Cleery doing the same on the other end of the line, her speech giddy and garbled, “Five. Wednesday. Yes. So, I can — I can come?” 

His jaw had set at the choice of words — there was just no way, but the frenzy in her inflection so vividly resembled the way she’d begged him back in the White Room, days prior. There was no way, he’d told himself. She didn’t have the gall. She didn’t have the audacity. She was working him into a ludicrous frenzy — or rather, he was working himself into one with the lewd train of thought derailing his composure. 

There was no way Isla Cleery was calling him and touching herself. 

“To see the property?” the voice on the other end had tacked on, coaxing him from the zoned out thrill of a wild imagination. 

“Yeah, yes. Of course,” he’d said. 

There was just no fucking way. 

More shuffling. A garbled sound. Something that’d incited his teeth to dig into his bottom lip, to sit up as he was met with silence beyond the sounds of a TV. 

“Isla?” 

More shuffling. There was just—

No. Fucking. Way. 

He’d felt his own stomach clenching up then, muscles rippling as blood pumped and the familiarity of deluded arousal, at the prospect, suffusing through his veins like quick-acting alcohol. 

“Isla?” Harry had prodded again, louder. 

“Yes, sorry, I’m so sorry. God, I just saw the time — I’m sorry, it was so unprofessional of me to call so late. I hope I didn’t—“ his face twisted up at the breathless onslaught of her breakless cadence, like her speech was expelled all in one, rushed breath, “Thank you for taking my call. Wednesday at Five. Have a good night.” 

His mouth had parted to inquire, because what the fuck — but from there, a click. The green logo of an active phone call had vanished. She’d hung up, evidently in a rush. Harry had stared up at his ceiling for a solid twenty minutes, ruminating on the odd encounter. 

There was, simply, as previously emphasized, no fucking way. 

So yeah, now, with his bare fingertips drumming over the leather of his steering wheel, he’s a smidge nervous to see her. His innards are twisting into knots by the time he catches sight of her white Corolla slipping in against the curb behind him. Harry climbs out of the car. 

“Hi,” Isla Cleery talks first. 

There’s no dainty bell sleeves trapped in car doors today — a pencil skirt hugs her hips, and a long sleeve with a funnel neckline adorns her torso. Harry notes the way she nonchalantly tugs to further lower a sleeve on the arm where he knows the bangle is manacled. 

“You’ve renounced …your renouncement of heels,” is the first thing he says. He wants to smack himself square between the brows with the heel of his palm — what an inane start. 

“Oh,” Isla shoots a glance to her choice of footwear — smart (Harry thinks, spiffy), dark pumps, “Yeah,” she bends a knee back and lifts an ankle a smidge, “Sort of had to. Felt a little weird wearing a pencil skirt with flats.” 

“And,” the young woman casts a small simper his way, “No evil grates, as of yet. Fingers crossed,” she lifts her arm, the left, where the bracelet isn’t, and bares friendly teeth. 

Evil grates …what the fuck? Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking, her inner voice coaxes frantically. 

Isla is dying inside. For good reason — it makes sense. Being enclosed in a space, casually, with her dominant un-dominant-clad, has this weird butterfly-eruption effect. They bounce against her insides aimlessly, like little crack-infused insects. She’s nervous to let something slip — anything, and it’s too easy considering she’s been cuffed by a bracelet that sort of gives it all away within a split-second flash of gold and secrets. 

She’s unsure of what succubus-like tendencies of the day had possessed her to abandon her panties — that had been a dirty, last-minute decision of thrill, and it had seemed filthily exciting and sort of dangerous in the best way. The idea of ambling through a house tour with Harry, and knowing that she was entirely bare beneath her skirt. But now, faced by him, obnoxiously aware of her nude thighs grazing together under the fabric and … only …more debauched nudeness higher, well. 

Isla just feels like a pervert.

It bears resemblance to the sensation she had encountered two days prior, once she’d hung up the phone (and the sex-haze had worn off). That was another thing she was nervous about. There’s no way the man had just glossed over the encounter as entirely unsuspicious. It was weird, she was weird for that, Isla thought, she was weird on the phone with a stuttery, breathy inflection that was obnoxious in give-away, and he definitely knew something was off, if not the entire background behind the lust-driven call.  

She clears her throat in an attempt to ward off the flurry of nervous apprehension coiling in her stomach (that she’s sure will find its way among her vocal cords), “But. Yeah.” 

Harry grins. He’s just so — Isla ogles, kind of dreamily — handsome. And she knows him on an intimate level, (a very intimate level), but these glimpses of his face, in person… she doesn’t get the pleasure of espying those often. His hair, coiled and placed in soft ringlets, his dimples burrowing as teeth showcase and his mouth lights alive with a smile. Last time he’d been clean-shaven and smooth, but today there’s a soft dusting of facial hair over his jaw. She wants to kiss him, she wants to feel it brush against her own face, wants to feel it graze over her inner thighs as he sucks kisses into her skin like affectionate bruises as proof of his presence, and—

“Please,” the man folds his palms together, like a prayer, and pillowy pink curves with his statement, “No …impromptu rope swing climbing—“

Isla’s mouth jolts.

“In heels,” Harry tacks on, raising his eyebrows and gesturing subtly with his palms. 

“Ooh,” she rocks forward a bit, a pinch in her own brows, “Can’t make any promises. The rope swing calls.” 

“Oh it does?” 

“Siren song,” Isla nods. 

Harry’s mouth quirks. And then he clears his throat. 

“Well. I’m pleased you’re interested in viewing another property with me, but I can’t lie and say I’m not a bit disappointed that Sweeger Avenue didn’t particularly catch your eye. I’ll have to buy it if you don’t,” the curly-headed brunette jests. 

“It did!” Isla assuages, motioning with her palm and following as he turns slowly — a gesture that indicates he’d like her to follow in the direction of the house, “It’s a beautiful house, I’m just keeping my options open.” 

Harry hums. The young woman’s heels sink softly into the lawn, bright, neatly trimmed tufts crinkling with each step.

“Watch your step, there, darling,” the realtor warns softly as they venture over a pattern of concrete stone that leads up to the porch. 

“Oh — thank you.” 

She adds, once they’re stood under the awning of the porch, “And, well, you gave such a good tour, I figured another property in my price range was worth a look, right?” 

“Right,” he sends a soft grin over his shoulder at her (that shrouds the nerves he feels teeming below the surface), “Sure. Of course.” 

Isla watches him unveil a little key from his pocket and stuff it into the notch in the knob, twisting. “I will say,” the man starts, gaze cast to his handiwork, “while this one isn’t as… maybe ritzy as the last — y’know, all the bells and whistles of the reno’s — there’s still a lot of potential with this one. Character.” 

The door creaks and clicks on its hinges as it swings open. Isla follows him in, greeted by the sight of what she imagines, once upon a time, had been pasted with warm hues of color and overbearing wallpaper patterns. The entryway, as the first showing had been, is no showstopper with elegant twin staircases. The wood beneath her feet is scuffed, and faint stains litter the walls near the baseboards — but it’s far from time forgotten and termite embraced, as she’d assumed would tail the realtor lingo of potential. 

“Three bed, two-and-a-half bath — little more space with 2,052 square feet. Little more out of pocket, too, if you wanted to amp it up to that sort of à la mode Sweeger had,” the realtor’s shoes click over the wood in a sound that just oozes power, power, power, and Isla tails him, vision walloping the walls to curb the hunger that grows within her at something as innocuous as the sound of his dress shoes on wooden floors, “but if not, there’s loads of character to enjoy and build upon.”

The young woman sneaks a glance — they’re no serpentine patched loafers, but they’re smooth and glossy and jet. Simple. 

She wonders what pair will greet her on Friday night. 

“This one’s a bit newer than the last — but a lot of this stuff is original. Really a step back in time. Very open concept — vaulted floor to ceiling floor plan,” her vision flits over the living area, his velvety cadence like a pre-rehearsed soundtrack to fit a virtual tour posted on the web.

Isla gazes over the expanse of the innards — replicas of the imagery she’d scrolled through online. Only now, the lines are larger, the shapes are prettier, the space is more vibrant. Personal. It’s lived in — furnishings remain of the sellers, but there are no personalized touches of family photos (a key factor, she’d learned, to bolster prospective buyer imaginations, to spur their mental imagery into forming their own space). A half wall breaks a living area off from the entry. Set upon a platform (where tile sweeps from lounge to kitchen; a drab shade of beige others would perhaps not find nearly as endearing as Isla does — it’s a nostalgia thing, she’s sure) — between the wooded entryway that flows into an empty expanse of doors — are armchairs and a sectional in neutral tones. Beyond this, a formal dining area, and on the end is a little kitchen, broken apart from a hallway with another wall. 

“We’ve got these sleek lines that come with open space like this,” Harry gestures towards the sculpt of plaster and drywall shaping lips over windows in the lounge, “but we’ve also got little touches, like a time capsule,” he twists, motioning towards the staircase — an interesting piece unforeseen, “like the spiral staircase. White wrought-iron with wood paneling — you’re not gonna find these being built very often, anymore.”

Upon the grin the realtor casts her way, Isla ambles towards it, and she runs her touch over the railing. 

“Really pretty. You’re right. I don’t see many of these anymore.” 

Her sight is torn between the man — his charismatic demeanor, his good looks — and the space as he continues, lucratively well-versed, “I’m sure you note there’s no overbearing pops of color, or wallpaper that’s wasting away, since I told you it wasn’t all that renovated. Carpet’s been ripped up,” he slides the toe of his shoe over the wooden floorboards, a dark, warm chocolate, and then his hand comes to rap softly over the short wall dividing the kitchen from an expanse of hallway with doors as jade reaffixes onto her, “and the walls were repainted by previous buyers. All original wood and tiling, though.”

As Isla steps onto the platform, she regards chips in laminate. Yes. Original. 

“Between you and me,” her head twists — a friendly simper plays over the realtor’s cushiony (intimately familiar) lips, “I think that was a good choice. Versatile. But the rest, like these gorgeous light fixtures — all original,” he nudges towards the dining area behind her, and Isla pivots to face the table, “‘83, I believe.”

A bundle of two lanterns, elongated like cylinders with tapered ends. They hang over the table, a darling focus point. 

Isla peers back over just as the man’s tongue peeks out to slick his mouth, “But my favorite’s in the kitchen.”

Eagerly, she makes her way forward, where the kitchen lays, open for her exploration. It’s no showstopper. She gets it now — his sugared warning of original pieces. And it’s not like the kitchen is this heinous sight, but it’s timeworn. An outdated shade of mustard hugs the countertops, and the cabinetry is stale and dinged. Scratches and blemishes stain almost plastic-y looking white. The appliances look to be about forty years old — which adds up, according to the timeline. But there’s an island. It’s beautiful, and broad, and even if Isla has no interest in piling it with culinary disasters, it’s still pleasant ken. She finds that on the opposite side of that wall is a pantry. 

“I don’t know what to do with a kitchen like this,” her pink (gloriously fuckable, Harry thinks) mouth jolts as a smile slithers over, “It’s so. Large.” 

“You don’t cook?” 

Her irises roll up to the ceiling with her soft smile, “I microwave. TV dinners, mostly. I can put frozen waffles in a toaster, too. Maybe scramble an egg, but there’s no guarantee there won’t be shell in the mix.” 

It’s sort of funny, Harry thinks — the way polar opposites attract. Like magnets, he supposes. Really, very horribly horny magnets. He can’t remember the last time he had a frozen waffle. 

“But I guess I’ll have to learn, with an island like this,” Isla sighs and gestures. 

Well, if you’re ever in need of a taste tester… Harry bridles his flirty quip. Instead, he shows her what lies behind the doors of the hallway, the rooms downstairs. A half bath, a bedroom scantily furnished — an office, for her, perhaps. 

“You said you were a paralegal last time, right?” he cocks his head back at her over his shoulder as he leads the way, and Isla tries not to feel the warmth the remembrance of the minute detail ignites. 

Of course he remembered. It was his job. She bites her tongue to curb the instinctive, “Yes, Sir.” 

“I am, yeah.” 

“Lot’s of research and a work-from-home, after-hours situation, you said, last time? I think the study on this property will be very suited to your needs.” 

A laundry room, the entrance to the garage, a slow amble back towards the staircase. Ah, the staircase. The young woman feels a burnishing blush suffuse over her cheekbones when the male gestures with an open palm — an invitation for her to go on ahead of him. But there’s that little …no panties …thing. Her legs shift. Her skirt brushes against the back of her knees. There’s no probable likelihood of a flash, she’s sure. Still, that ruddiness glows over her skin as she takes the cautious, first step. She feels ludicrously lewd. 

“Wouldn’t want you to get your heel caught,” the realtor states, strawberry mouth twitching. 

No, that would certainly cause far more than a glimpse of a flash. 

“Truly a gentleman,” Isla quips, and by the time she’s wound halfway up, Harry only a couple of steps behind, she tacks on, “God. It really is sort of a scary set of stairs.” 

“Climbing a rickety rope swing is scary,” Harry scoffs from behind, his cadence lighthearted. 

A hallway with a landing that allows for a gaze upon the first story. A wall of doors. A bathroom with an unsightly, pink tub. A cozy original with old-world-charm, according to the realtor; definitely creative wording, Isla thinks. 

“Master bedroom,” the man slips the final door open, and Isla’s irises bounce from window to window — they suffuse the room with what she imagines would be bright, refreshing daylight. Now, it comes in the form of a warm, yellow glow with the time of day. 

“Very roomy,” she comments. It is. The square footage of the space, she’s sure, has to be roomier than the master bedroom of the first showing, but perhaps the emphasis on the broadness of the space has to do with the sheer fact that the first showing had been bare, and this room holds furniture — even still, the space is bigger. Despite the queen sized bed, throned by the waxy, wooden headboard, the nightstands that mirror either side of the mattress, and the matching wooden dresser, the space is open. 

“S’no reno’d Sweeger Ave,” the realtor supplies, wandering a handful of steps behind her as she makes her way into the room, “But it’s roomy, like you said. Bright. Beautiful windows — lots of light. Can you imagine yourself here?” 

It’s a queen sized bed. Isla is not wearing panties, and she’s reminded of this particular fact as she stares at it and imagines Eros bending her over the edge of the mattress. She thinks of Harry’s chest pressing up behind her as his broad, ring-clad digits slide over her waist, settle on her stomach. She thinks of his mouth pasting to the crook of her neck, sponging kisses over the expanse of her skin as his soft breaths caress her nerve endings. She thinks of him walking her forward, his crotch glued to her hips. She thinks of fingers grappling for wrists and a firm grip as he manhandles the joints behind her back with ease. She thinks of him flipping her skirt up and discovering that she’s bare beneath it, thinks of a palm fondling, of croons in her ear on what a filthy, naughty girl she is, of his fingers slipping lower and his teeth grazing over her neck and—

“Great room, innit?” 

Her eyes flash to him at a dangerous speed, his words from the prior week hurtling through her mind as he tells her, tone entirely innocuous, “But I think there’s something missing.” 

An ottoman, the young woman thinks, her expression kept impressively neutral, all things considered. An ottoman.

“Accent wall there, long curtains with a sheer layering, different furniture set — contemporary, I’d go with, a rug,” the male taps his foot over a stark area of the floorboards, just ahead of the footboard of the bed, “Nice shag rug. Right here.” 

Shag rug. 

Shag rug — textile characterized by longer, heavier pile, so as to have the appearance of being shaggy. Isla imagines a white rug in tufts, warding her brain from mental images of the man physically shagging her on said rug. Yes. These are all very …compelling suggestions.

“Mhm,” Isla hums curtly. 

“And, y’know, all this light lets the room whisper sweet nothings about the beauties of the approaching day, but I think, the view,” he takes slow steps over chocolate wood to tug blinds open, “beckons sleepless nights.” 

Sleepless nights — Isla is going to wring her own neck. Despite the arousal that seeps through her at the dirty-fucking-twist of insinuation, she makes her way to his side for a peer. Beyond the horizon of plains and landscaping lies skyscrapers — the city a blip of scenery with the sky as its backdrop. 

“Oh.” 

“Mm. Really pretty at night, I’d think.”

“It’s a …good thing I have a strong constitution for sleepless nights,” Isla swallows, “I’m sure the view will keep me entertained.” 

Harry steals a soft glance, down at her side profile. He’s bridled his flirtish nature, he’s restrained his quips. He’s bent over backwards for sanctity. But—

“If you ever find yourself in need of a midnight conversation partner, you know who to call.” 

The young woman peers up at him through her lashes. It’s a blatant implication of her untimely phone call two days prior. He’s teasing. He has to be simply teasing. But the way his mouth twitches, the way his eyes fix on her — there’s something… something beyond innocent jest. 

“Offering your services as a nocturnal conversationalist?” she tries to keep the nervous note from her cadence as she takes a step away — he had to be flirting. “I’m a lucky girl.” 

“Real estate agent by day, midnight talk-show host by night. I’m a man of many talents,” the curly-headed brunette shrugs, digging ring-adorned fingers halfway into pockets of slacks. A soft smile plays over his soft mouth. It’s all sort of lascivious. Isla wants to clamber back onto a stranger's bed in a master bedroom that doesn’t belong to her, and she wants to ogle his reflection glint at her from the waxy headboard as his hips pump forward. As his cock pummels into her. A warmth pulses between her thighs, beneath her pencil skirt. 

The reminder of her arousal, left in a dried stain post her drive home, confronts her as she strips in the confines of her apartment, alone, nearly two hours later. 

Harry is not a green-eyed monster. 

Which is an irony, because in the realm of indulge, there’s more than a handful of people who would confidently deem him with that pretty title. 

Perhaps, better phrasing (that wouldn’t allow for the claim to be twisted by unruly, prior play partners), would be that Harry is not innately a jealous man. He’s a sure man, a man who knows his ambitions and aims — bluntly so. He’s a man that doesn’t like to share during scenes, but he’s upfront and honest about it. There’s no games, no teetering tugs and yanks on strings of emotions. He’s not a man that is known to ooze green at the sight of his partner fraternizing with someone else, and he’s definitely not the type of man to care about those things in any context outside of Indulge. 

A person is a person — their own person. That’s not his thing to fuck with. Harry is not a green-eyed monster that bleeds envy with begrudging glances. 

The sight of Isla Cleery, though, shrouded by her commonplace lace, leant up against the bar, in the midst of lively chatter with some shirtless dom adorned by an eye-cover with plastic-y tufts of horns — that culls an odd reaction from him. It’s strange — she’s early. He always shows before her to reserve the room of the night, and she arrives and waits in an obedient kneel until he opts to join her. But she’s early — she’s at the bar, and he’s just booked the room (The White Room, tonight). Harry nearly misses the sight of the interaction altogether. 

But he doesn’t — she catches his eye, clad in a set of dark, silky underthings and sheer stockings. He watches her toe back against the stem of one of the barstools. She’s got her cherry concoction in hand, a plethora of syrupy fruit upon a bed of ice and artificial sweeteners, and she’s laughing at something her counterpart says. In response, the man’s grin is vibrant over the visible expanse of his lower face. Harry doesn’t know who he is at first. But then he squints, and his vision roves. Faunus. He vaguely knows of the dominant, but the most prominent thought that floats to the forefront of his mind involves the jest Isla had made prior to the drafting of their contract. The one where she’d mentioned the alternation of rocking her shit, and the name Faunus had been introduced in the prospective party.  

And it’s not like Harry bleeds jade at the sight, but he kind of does. Because, the thing is, next week is their last scene, contractual obligations concerned — and. Well, it makes him feel ill. The thought of his submissive — of Isla Cleery, slipping to her knees for Faunus as their own contract comes to a close, the thought of Faunus manhandling her in the same way Harry does every Friday night, it all makes his jaw set from across the lounge. Because those are their Fridays. Something stirs in him when Faunus places his hand onto her arm — because, what the fuck? 

Slowly but surely, he makes his way over, slipping into the interaction from behind his submissive. He brushes a gloved palm against the small of her back, and upon the touch, Peitho stiffens and twists. And then she relaxes. Smiles all pretty at him, too. 

“You’re early,” the hand slides to the vale of her waist and squeezes softly as he presses close and speaks low. It’s obnoxious, Harry’s aware — opting not to initially acknowledge the other member of the conversation, but Faunus watches the two with a silent eye, anyhow, so. 

“I was late last week, so. Wanted to be early this time. Didn’t know you were here, Sir,” the submissive supplies, rocking forward onto her toes, and then lets the outside of her arm glue to his torso as he pastes to her side. 

Harry hums. And then he casts his gaze onto Faunus as the man speaks. “Eros, right?” the male’s mouth curls softly as he nudges towards Harry. 

“In the flesh,” Harry grins politely. Politely. Because he’s polite.

His counterpart, glistening with a sheen of sweat under the purple-ish tinges of the lights, takes a swig from his glass — water, Harry assumes it to be, but you never can really tell in the hue of the lounge, “You’re a little infamous around here.” 

Infamous. Sounds about right. 

“Am I?” 

“Mm. I’ve heard only good things from this one, though,” the horn-masked man gestures with his glass towards Isla. In turn, she shifts a little further against her dominant. 

“Yeah?” Harry’s chin dips toward the submissive, then, and he tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “All good things, baby?” 

Isla nods and hums, melting with the side of her cheek against his chest. 

“But between you and me,” Faunus leans forward a smidge, elbow braced over the marbled bar countertop, “This one’s a bit of a handful.”

Harry grins politely. Yeah, the reminder that this man has manhandled his submissive in the same manner he has makes him go a bit neon green. What the fuck. And Isla — she just squirms against him. Harry’s well aware that the nonchalant small talk of her, with no acknowledgement, like she’s not stood in the midst of the conversation, riles her in a filthy way. And Faunus seems to know this tidbit of information, too — his irises, glinty under the lights overhead, slink from Harry to Isla and back again. It’s a subtle motion, but it shows Harry enough. The dominant’s mouth quirks, gaze subtly steely in the narrow of his lashes. 

“Mm. Well, between you and me,” the hand that’d previously settled on her waist slips up to her hair, cards through past the nape of her neck, digits entangling in the roots, “she knows her place with me,” Harry shoots her a look, and tugs firmly by slowly tightening his fist. It’s a subtle motion — but the pinpricks of pain that burst over her scalp, as a result, have her pulse quickening. 

And Harry knows. He knows and his lips nearly crook up, but he curbs his smirk. And Faunus can ogle all he wants — but he can’t touch. Can’t draw the same reaction from her. That thought has satisfaction blooming in his chest. 

“Don’t you, darling?” 

When the young woman returns in concurrence, her inflection is breathy and soft. “Yes, Sir.” 

He’s jealous, Isla thinks. She’s not sure why. But he’s jealous, and he tugs on her hair like a showcase of his dominion, like she’s simply a plaything for him and him only to lewdly siphon soft reactions from. It’s so blatant, the way he does it all in front of Faunus. He’s claiming his territory. It’s subtle, it’s obnoxious, it borders on impolite, but it lights a fire within her like no other. 

“The White Room,” Harry croons against her ear, low in decibel, “S’open. If you were up to play.” Jade slinks back up to dull blue, to the opposite dominant watching the display — a blank slate of curious interest. His gloved fingers untether gently and he speaks a bit louder, face turned back towards Faunus, “Wouldn’t want to tear you away and impose, though.” 

The White Room. With Eros. Yes. Isla wants to go to the White Room with her Eros. 

“Oh — no,” Isla assuages quickly, pivoting her head from Faunus to Eros and back, “Great — it’s been great, catching up, with you,” she motions with her palm towards the horn-masked dom. 

Faunus pauses, as if musing, and eventually the corners of his mouth curl up softly. 

“Likewise,” he tells her, gesturing with his glass, before his vision skids from Isla to Harry and back. His tongue peeks out to glide over his bare lips. Harry doesn’t miss the way his eyes wander roguely over the submissive’s silhouette — a tad flirtily, if he’s not mistaken, before he tacks on what sounds uncomfortably ominous to him. “I’ll see you around, Peitho.” 

Harry’s jaw sets and he watches the other man all the way as he ambles off and disappears into the midst of the crowded lounge to mingle. It’s childish, he’s aware, to feel as though his turf is being invaded upon, like a personally deemed sector of a sandbox, and Isla his prized, shiny …bucket …or something (what do children play with in sandboxes? Harry can’t recall, at the moment). And he’s aware that Isla is not his possession, per se, but she sort of is. For the window of six weeks, she is his and his only, and the way he seems to recall it, they’re only on number five. His head snaps to her as the submissive clears her throat. She’s peering up at him, her mouth twitchy in giveaway. 

He’s jealous, Isla thinks, and obviously so, the envy in him visible like figurines through the glass of a snowglobe. 

“Had a nice time catching up with your friend?” Harry settles on. His inflection is smooth like molasses and low like a foreboding omen — a siren song. Isla contemplates getting him jealous more often.  

“Yeah,” the young woman blinks, “Faunus is always great.” 

Her lips twitch on the latter, and the word choice is made with such outright and overt intent to goad him — but she’s so harmless about it, too, afterwards nestling against him sweetly post the double entendre. Always great. Always a great fuck. Harry gives into her game shamelessly. He fingers at the strap on her brassiere as his mouth quirks wryly. 

“This is a pretty little piece. Wear it for Faunus?”

“No,” Isla’s cadence doesn’t offer nearly as much resolve, and she jolts minutely as he lets it snap back into place. “Wore it for you.” 

“For me?” the dominant raises his eyebrows, playing coy, and smooths the pad of his finger over an embellishment of lace over the edge of a cup as he tacks on, a little derisively, “How sweet.” 

Then, Eros juts with his chin towards her unfinished rocks glass of sugar and syrup and fruit with the barest bones of their original nutrients, “Are you gonna throw that up if I play rough tonight?”

The brazen insinuation causes Isla to swallow, her chest growing a little tighter and the valley between her thighs growing a little warmer. 

“Wouldn’t be a pretty sight. S’the White Room, after all,” his irises glimmer mischievously. 

“No,” Isla protests, her gaze jumping from the glass to the shiny latex disguising his stupid, perfect face. A beat. The sound of the glass grazing over the wood coaxes his eyes to her hand as she slides it away. Yes. 

“No, no. Feel free to finish it. I’ll wait.”

Despite this, her eyes jump between the half-empty glass and his face. His lack of tout — the empty, unspoken allurement of possibility — only lure her further. Take your time, I’ll patiently wait to do cruel and unusual things to you (that would’ve probably been deemed beyond illegal in the middle ages). It’s — yes. That is, no. No. Isla does not want to wait, her imagination running rampantly on the prospects of a mean Eros spurred by a jealous streak suddenly prevalent. 

That she’s wrenched from him. 

“No, I’m good,” Isla tells him, her cherries discarded. 

Harry blinks at her, and then responds, his mouth curling softly, “Really, love. S’no rush. Got all night to,” her fingers jump to her palm, as he stretches it and settles it against the countertop, pleather-coated digits splaying, “play.” 

Play. Her interest itches horribly to know what his agenda for the night entails. 

“No — no, I’m good. I’m good,” the submissive clears her throat, sliding the cup away just a smidge more with the flex of her fingers. Harry’s mouth quirks. 

“You’re awfully eager.” 

Good. He’s pleased to coax the reaction — he’s pleased that Faunus, evidently, doesn’t even have the ability to harvest her attention in the same manner. Good, good, good. 

“Well. White Room’s waiting for you, then. I’ll meet you in there,” Harry blinks at her, and then his eyes flash to his fingers as those come out to smooth over the bangle manacling her wrist, “Lemme just tie up some loose ends.”  

Isla looks at him then, for a second, speaking volumes through her expression despite the majority of it being clandestine by swirls of dark fabric. Loose ends. He can tell she’s bemused that he doesn’t personally walk her, hand-in-hand. 

“Okay,” the young woman settles on. 

“Okay?”

“Okay, …Sir.” 

He watches her walk off down a secluded hallway at the edge of the lounge, and then he blows out a breath and turns to the mocktail bartender on shift. Bliss — pretty corset, pretty, bedazzled mask, and a pretty mean dominatrix on the weekends when she’s not tending to the bar, he’s heard. 

“S’cuse me, could you just—“ he gestures with the glass once the bartender’s in earshot, and she lifts her face from the sink at his cadence, “switch this off her tab onto mine.”

He doesn’t have to specify — he knows Bliss well enough. They’ll engage in the occasional small talk. Mundane shit, usually; the weather, the housing market, reputable toy artisans. Or, they had. These days he spends much of his Indulge time playing rather than strung up at the bar. Anyways, it’s the least he could do for Peitho, considering… well. The agenda for the night. The least. His mouth nearly crooks at the thought. 

“Oh, it’s not on her tab, babes. Guy that was with her already tabbed it out.” 

Oh — Oh. Okay. O-kay. His head swivels back to the throng of Indulge, where Faunus has vanished into the midst of the mingling masses. So now Faunus was buying her mocktails. Sick.

“How …nice,” Harry turns back, a tick in his jaw. 

By the time the door clicks open from behind her, Isla’s knees are already shifting into their welcomed ache. It’s all sort of a routine she’s become beyond well accustomed to. The young woman listens to his dress shoes pad over the floor, and then she feels his hand brush through her hair from the back. 

“Come sit.” 

He says it in a way that doesn’t imply that he’s presently vexed — it’s easygoing enough, but his tone nearly carries the impending weight of the incoming scene. The submissive feels his palm withdraw, and then watches the backs of his dress shoes move, for a moment, as he winds past her towards the chair. And then she clambers up and follows. The mischievous jest Isla had basked in, priorly, starts its usual gear-shift into apprehension. Because being in a room, alone, with Eros, post whatever brazenly mouthy infringements Isla has managed, doesn’t leave her with …nearly as much pluck. Though, unfortunately for Eros and his ego, (or perhaps fortunately — she’s convinced he quite enjoys manually taming her into submission far more than he lets on), she’s still far from that state of mindless subservience he always manages to draw her into by the end of a session. The dominant sinks into the cushion and blows out a breath as if to discard the heft of a long workday, and his thighs splay a smidge as his eyes convey, expectantly through the slit of his mask, that he’d like her to sit. Isla slips into his lap, against the sturdy muscle of one of his parted thighs, and his leg shifts beneath her as his arm winds around her waist to cradle her close. 

“I didn’t fuck you last week, and you’re already looking elsewhere, darling?” are the first words out of his mouth. 

The statement is said as a jest — but it’s only half of that. His strawberry mouth is twitchy, and the pads of his digits are gentle on her thigh, and his tone is calm, and friendly, and traitorously sweet. 

But Isla knows better. 

Her mother had always said, behind every joke there’s some truth, sort of like a more wholesome version of drunk words are sober thoughts — far more kid friendly, but. The young woman couldn’t relate more to the wise piece of advice than she was, now, in this moment. Because her Eros is green, and obviously so. It radiates from his pores, the envy, no doubt a response to seeing Faunus’s palm pasted to her arm (she’s sure her innocuous, little comment played some part, as well), and the tidbits of his vulnerability make something oddly twist in her. Something like — feelings, beyond the playroom. It pleases her, in a red-flag-on-her-part sort of way, knowing that he cares. But more than that, the sentiment leaves her brimming with arousal. A jealous man was never a kind man, and a mean Eros, tucked away with her in a reserved playroom at Indulge, always left her simmering in welcomed anticipation. 

“Of course not,” she assuages, tracing the folds of fabric in his collar and fixing them up with a smoothing touch, her pupils fixed to her fingers as she tacks on, “I’d never look elsewhere when I’m contractually obligated to uphold monogamy.” 

It’s a tease that’s blatantly meant to rile him — the corners of her mouth buckle like an afterthought, and beneath her touch, the dominant’s chest heaves with a sigh. 

“Contractual obligation. S’that all my time is to you, then?” 

His tone is lighthearted, but the words have that undercurrent of brooding, like her words have wounded him, and Isla thumbs over a button and pops it through a loop — just for a bit of skin. 

“All my cock is to you?” the man shifts below her, his tone still playful, “A contractual obligation?” 

“No,” she protests, her fingers twitchy before his chin dips to ogle her handiwork, and a palm clasps over her wrist to bring the fingertips to his mouth and nip. 

“Hm?” he prods, teeth grazing over skin playfully, “Gonna go back to alternating having your shit rocked when my time is up?” 

Okay. Little less playful. His cadence is still light and good-natured but. Oddly heavy question. That little, unspoken slice of reality peeks through the facade of joking, traces streaking like dawn through cracks of blinds, if only for a moment. 

Isla swallows. Her pupils paste to his cushiony mouth, to the tips of her digits pressed lightly between his teeth. She settles for something safe, her breath held in her chest. Actually, maybe a little unsafe, given the trajectory of his emotions. 

“If you want me to, Sir.” 

Placate, placate, placate. The words are all that any dominant could want — submission in its ultimation. Whatever he wants of her. Despite this, the statement has something like …disappointment twisting in his chest. He doesn’t want that. He wants to elongate their contract, he wants to keep railing Isla over, and over, and over, he wants to spend the rest of timeless time with her as his in the realm of Indulge, and only his. And he doesn’t want it to be up to him. Tell me no, Harry wants to say. Tell me you want me and only me. Show me you care, the way I do. 

Instead, his mouth purses. 

If there’s any inkling of protest to her words, the dominant doesn’t showcase it. She’s curious to hear his response, but he doesn’t give one. Instead, he intertwines their fingers and shoots her a glance. The topic of conversation pivots. 

“Were you a good girl for me this week, sweetheart?” 

Oh, goodness gracious. She’d nearly forgotten all about Monday night’s debacle, so honed and amused by the envy the dominant was radiating. The mischievous streak in her really starts to fade, then. 

Was she a good girl for him this week? Vague recollections of a very satisfying vibrator pressed between clammy thighs in messy sheets at late hours flit through her mind. 

And her Eros on the other end of the line.

There’s a sudden heaviness to her tongue. It’d be easy to fib and pretend she hadn’t slipped up with hungry fingers between hungrily splayed thighs, just as he’d requested — commanded — her not to do. It’s not like he’d know.

Was she a good girl for him? No. Isla certainly wasn’t. 

She admits, after a moment of deliberative lull, “No, Sir.” 

Sir, she’s tacked on, politely — without coaxing, Harry notes. It’s the first thing he notes, in fact, besides her candid confession of misconduct. After that, it’s the way her body language has morphed from joking to tensed, to the way her fingers rub together in her lap, to the way her chest rolls lightly with her slow, bated breaths. 

“No?” he prods softly, pondering on her admission, “You weren’t a good girl?” 

Behind his ribcage, his heart kicks it up a notch from priorly peaceful equilibrium into a wild, racketing hammer. Because if she tells him what he thinks she’s going to tell him, if she confirms his suspicions and proves that he hadn’t spent Monday night driving himself mad, with hands raking restively through his tendrils in lieu of getting a good night’s rest post her late night call, then—

“I …touched myself, Sir.” 

And there it is. 

Isla bites into her cheek when faced with his hum of acknowledgement — of course the sound is coated with condescension, as if he’d expected her to fail. 

“And you came, I assume?” jade glimmers between lengthy lashes and shadows of an unnecessary disguise as he tacks on, “I mean, I’d hope disappointing me was worth it, at least.” 

It — what? Isla toes at the back of her opposite ankle, a crease working between her eyebrows. 

“I didn’t — I don’t know,” she blows out a breath, “how to answer this question.” 

“You don’t know if you came?” his own eyebrows rise in teasing, inflection jestingly incredulous. It’s a good sign, for now, the young woman thinks. She’d expected green to turn steely, but he seems keen on poking at her — which she’ll take rather than to be confronted by his demeanor of disdain. 

“No— I,” she sighs, craning her neck back and crossing her arms as the dominant’s pillowy mouth twitches, “I did,” upon the glint of warning to his expression, even mostly bridled by rubber, the submissive curbs the exasperation that’s leaked into her tone, backtracking softly, “I mean, I don’t — I wasn’t trying to disappoint you.” 

“Mm.” 

“And — well, anyways. I think you should be the opposite of disappointed, considering I came clean,” the twist she takes on the circumstances, to Harry, are a little appalling. 

He just sort of hums, entertained, and states, “S’that where the bar is, now?” and upon her vexed look, commences a slow clap, “Applause for the bare minimum.” 

“Amnesty,” she cocks her head, sitting up a bit, unperturbed by his derisive sarcasm, “is a thing, by the way, if you weren’t aware.” 

At that, he literally feels the dimples poke into place beside the curl of his smile. “You’re quite funny.” 

“I know,” Isla tells him after a moment, her shoulders sagging as she tips her chin to her hands and picks at her nails, her voice low, “I’m hilarious.” 

Harry brushes a pleather-clad palm over her thigh before he bats at her hands. He clears his throat. “How many times?” 

Her face tips up, like she’s confused by the question, and the man clarifies, “How many times did you touch yourself?” 

Rather than persisting with the jittery habit of nail picking, she mollifies by tracing down his chest, over his dress shirt, sort of hoping to smooth out the incoming tension of the scene in the same way her touch smooths the fabric, “Just once.” 

“Tell me,” she watches his tongue peek over before his swipes over his lips, and her vision only flits away for a mere moment when she feels his colossal palm squeezing at her hip, “how you did it.” 

She blinks up at him, like the request baffles her.

“S’not that difficult of a task. Well,” Harry pauses, and his eyes roll to the side with the patronizing dig, “The first one wasn’t either, but.” 

“I—“ the young woman’s jaw sets as she lifts her chin at the jab and she declares with resolve (plucky, Harry thinks, considering the circumstances), “with my vibrator.” 

Vibrator. Interesting. He hadn’t heard it on the other end of the phone — sneaky girl. The chatter from the television, obnoxiously loud, floats to the forefront of his mind, then.

“Okay,” he nudges with his chin, “Getting somewhere…”

“Third setting,” Isla states, deadpan in decibel, “and I came.” 

And then his palm locks, softly, over the back of her neck, and he physically guides her to lean forward against him. The dominant’s strawberry lips brush over Isla’s ear as he speaks, low and tantalizing, and then that same mouth pastes to an expanse of skin just below. 

“Details, little miss. And less attitude. Paint me a picture.” 

Oh — her pulse stutters. 

“Were you,” his mouth alternates between questioning and pressing open-mouthed kisses that incite chills to bloom over her flesh, “watching something? Thinking of something? Hm?” 

The young woman’s unsure of the cause behind the sudden, sensual twist in their discussion, but she tries to bare her neck a bit, quite literally the furthest from complaining. 

“I — the TV was on. But I was thinking about you,” she admits, and the dominant slides the opposite hand around the curvature of her hip, fondling over the side of her thigh. 

“What about?” 

“Your—“ the man’s mouth curls up lewdly against her skin in response to the stutter he coaxes as his hand ventures to her backside, squeezing — the way her throat bobs with a swallow, “your hands, touching me. Your mouth — on my, on my—“

“Your…?” Harry wheedles tauntingly, his hand tracing its way back onto her front and teasing at the hem of her underwear.

Isla’s confession comes breathy, and her legs splay apart a smidge when he dips his forefinger past the barrier just a tad, brushing over the smooth, sensitive crease between her pelvis and her thigh, “My pussy.” 

“Mm. S’that all?” 

“No,” her lashes flutter behind the lace, “I thought about — about your cock. Thought about you fucking my mouth, and,” her speech dies off as his fingers wriggle further beneath her panties and brush against her clit.

“And?” 

“and I thought about you,” Isla swallows, screwing her eyes shut, “…holding my nose, as you did it. So I couldn’t breathe.”

The pads of his fingers stutter in their caress. Shit. His nostrils flare at the filthy admission, and the way desire teems through his veins and arousal coils through his tummy at the thought is pure, hedonistic darkness. When Harry asks her, “What else?” his voice is considerably huskier against the crook of her neck. 

“I thought about you slapping me — my face,” her chest rolls as his fingers dip and gather sopping slick — she knows she’s ludicrously wet, reliving the fantasies that’d become tucked away in the dells of her mind, in combination with his soft touch, will sort of do that. It all has her feeling as if a fucking furnace glows angrily between her thighs. “I thought about—“ her jaw sets as she tips her head back, and he nips at her earlobe, “you spanking me for touching myself. How sore I would be over the next few days, having to sit at work.” 

“Spanking you with what?” Harry’s cadence comes muffled and heady against her skin. 

“Just — just your hand,” Isla’s heart races in her chest as he draws circles, like it beats in laps that trace the track of the motion. 

The dominant presses open-mouthed kisses to her skin, crooning, “Just my hand? Y’dont think you deserve the paddle or the strap for disobeying me?”

Isla doesn’t think much of anything when his tongue pokes out and glides over straining muscle.  

“Whatever,” she swallows, his fingers fisting desperately at the sturdy muscle of his thigh, “Whatever you want, Sir.” 

“S’not whatever I want, though,” he hums, “It’s about what you deserve. So what,” his fingers press a little harder, his cadence grows a little hungrier, “do you think you deserve?”

“I — I deserve whatever you decide I deserve, Sir.” 

“Mm. Well. I think,” Isla gasps and jolts, her breath morphing into a soft whimper when he pinches her clit between his digits, “You don’t deserve to entertain any of those little fantasies. Not after you couldn’t follow one simple rule.” 

She sags as his fingers withdraw and the elastic snaps back into place. 

“Don’t deserve to have your mouth fucked,” Harry sighs, shaking his head as if disappointed by the statement, himself (good, he’d be missing out, Isla thinks petulantly), “Don’t deserve to have my hands, or my mouth. I suppose spanking wouldn’t even serve as a punishment for you, would it?”

“Because,” he motions with a hand, “we’ve done loads of that, and you’re still what, darling?” 

Isla gnaws on her bottom lip, chin tilted to her hands. 

“I’m talking to you,” she’s caught off guard and has to bridle a gasp when he grips onto her jaw with a gloved palm and roughly guides her face in the direction of his own. The sudden emergence of his stern streak leaves her doused in want, “You’re still what?”

It’s appalling, honestly, the way a mercurial flip of a switch in his character could affect her so deeply, but there’s nothing Isla finds more arousing than when her Eros gets like …this. 

“…Disobedient,” Isla tells him softly, after a moment, not entirely sure of the answer he’s looking for. 

“A disobedient, little whore—“

Isla swallows dryly, his words — his irritated tone, sinking straight to her core. 

“—that just doesn’t seem to learn.” 

“I’m sorry,” the submissive starts after a moment, but her cautious apology is hindered by his scoff, a shake of his head that leaves light bouncing off the glossy hood, a sound of sardonic amusement. Her pupils, through the lace, bound to meet his narrowed gaze. 

“No, you’re not.”

Isla swallows. He’s right. She’s not exactly this virtuous angel who’s lurched into a pit of misdeed because of a careless accident. And she’s not exactly regretful of it, either. 

The way the dominant squeezes over her hip then, the fondle of his hand gentle in contrast to the foreboding words he tacks on — the way his irises sweep over her like he’s nonchalantly deliberating her fate, has an eager thrill of the looming danger wracking down the knobs of her spine. “But you will be.” 

Loads of people are adrenaline junkies — the bungee jumpers, the skydivers, the bull riders, the mountain bikers, the people who like to watch scary movies in theaters with 3D glasses, melted back against their seats as the volume of the music dims and a pregnant pause of impending doom stalls. The ones who stand in lines, veins teeming with anticipation as they edge closer and closer, zig-zagging through dividers in slow, stalling steps, all to become seated in a rollercoaster with a 90 degree drop. That excitement on the drop billows through their arteries like a chaser. It’s all sort of the same thing. Isla just has …unorthodox penchants. Methods. She happens to enjoy having the shit beat out of her, maybe, or being terrorized by something rooted in fear. Because when you mix adrenaline and sex, it’s just. Unfathomable. Truly a top-tier recommendation, if Isla were ever coaxed to recommend it. But it’s all the same thing. All a similar outcome. 

Isla’s absolutely aching for that enslaving rush, and then Eros nearly gives her whiplash as he just …looks at her and says, “Maybe we shouldn’t play at all tonight.”

She can’t manage to muzzle the bloom of bemused disappointment that seeps into her tone, “I — what?” 

“I mean,” Harry retracts his palm, and Isla’s suddenly left oddly cold, perched on his lap as his arms cross laxly over his chest, “you’re a disobedient, little whore. We’re on the same page about that, aren’t we, pet? Doesn’t matter if I punish you for it. And you certainly don’t deserve to be rewarded. Could just call it a night, hang out in the lounge—” his eyes convey volumes as he peers at her through lashes with insinuation, “Could mingle a bit. Sit around with your great, little friend.” 

Faunus. Back to Faunus.

“I—“ Harry watches her pillowy mouth part, and settle into a line as words fail her, and then part again, “Please.” 

“Please?” his eyebrows jolt, mouth pursing as a huff of wry amusement is expelled from his nostrils, and he’s about to say more, but then she interjects—

“Please, Sir. Please, I need—“

“Shut—“ Isla freezes when his hand comes back to her face, this time with the pads of his digits squeezing into her cheeks harshly, “—the fuck up.” And all Isla can really manage, from there, is a wordless mouthing against his digit, like a fish out of water. Harry watches her lips move a bit over a silent please, sort of amused by the persistive spectacle (but he definitely doesn’t let it show). 

“Stand up,” he tells her, after a moment, unlatching his grip and shifting his thigh beneath her, “Stand up, and strip.” 

As the young woman stands, he nudges himself off the armchair as well, making a beeline straight for the wall of toys, but not before aiming his forefinger her way and adding, (a bit cheekily, if Isla’s not mistaken, though that note is drowned out by the sternness that brims his tone), “Leave the stockings on.” 

The pads of her thumbs hesitate, just past the hem of her left, sheer stocking. Slowly, she straightens back out and fixes the digits into her bra straps, shimmying those off of her shoulders first, then winding her arms behind her back to unsnap the hooks with a deft enough motion (her hands are sort of trembling). Her fingertips dip into her underwear — soaked, of course, post the ministrations of the man who mills about the room all the while, gleaning objects. Isla watches him gather and deliver the objects to the mattress before going back for more — almost like an animal stockpiling in preparation for a lengthy winter. She works the pair of underwear down her thighs, stepping out of them, and throwing them alongside her brassiere on the armchair. 

The young woman feels, for the first time in a long time, a bit awkward, just standing on the linoleum, bare of all but her stockings, as she waits for further instruction from a dominant who doesn’t look as if he cares to bask in her nudity for even a split second. Because Harry always has this way of making her feel worshiped — even when he feigns that his attention is entirely torn away. Because in those split seconds where his pupils train back onto her, that facade breaks, and she sees the hunger seeping through. Her pulse stays impressively even when she watches him set a long, metallic spreader bar with cuffs — like shackles — onto the comforter beside a large wand. Finally, the rubber-hooded male shoots her a blank gaze — it lasts, as expected, a minute timespan before he fixes his attention back onto the objects. He doesn’t look even a smidge interested in her denuded state — it’s an offhand glance to make a point. 

“Are you just going to stand there all night?” 

“If you’d like me to, Sir,” Isla tells him — he couldn’t possibly get upset at an open offer of subservience (despite the underlying aim of innocuously-feigned backchat), and that fact seems to register with him. 

Harry gives her a good look then, one considerably longer than the previous had been, one where she can practically witness the gears turning behind his skull. The submissive supposes she’s gotten what she’d wanted, after all. Then, his mouth twitches like he’s actively attempting to bridle it from morphing to a grimace. 

“Come here,” the dominant instructs eventually, tone firm. 

Shrouding her timidness, Isla follows his directions and makes her way to the bed until she’s stood in front of him with her chin held high. The way his hand gently grasps her wrist then, as the opposite digs into a pocket of his slacks, has her heart fluttering. His face is downcast to the bracelet as the pin-like key winds, until there’s a click and it isn’t — instead it fixes onto her own. The dominant leans in, his voice soft. 

“On the bed. All fours.” 

Isla turns just as he pockets the bangle, and crawls onto the mattress, just as instructed. She feels chilly metal graze against her calves, a brush of smooth leather. 

“Spread,” Harry demands, and starts fastening one of the plush, padded cuffs to her ankle once she’s knee’d her thighs apart. Then, the following joint. “Put your arms back, through here,” he pats at the empty space between her (involuntarily) splayed limbs. 

So Isla does that, too, rocking forward onto her shoulders and pressing her cheek against the sheets, her face cast at the wall where the door stands as her fingers twitch. He fastens cuffs onto those, too, and by the time all’s done and well, Isla’s absolutely immobile. Testingly, she tries to wrench her wrist back, the attempt subtle. She can’t move. At all. And behind her, the dominant’s pillowy mouth crooks at the sight. Apprehension rises in her, like a flood of water surging through a cylindrical building, swelling in the space between a spiral staircase that clings to the curved walls. 

The beginnings of that beautiful adrenaline. 

“Anything uncomfortable?” 

“No, Sir,” Isla tells him. 

“I mean — you’re going to be plenty uncomfortable,” she rocks back a tad as the dominant smooths his hand down the back of her thigh, “but I’d prefer you didn’t end up with a cramp, or a weird soreness because your neck’s in a funny position.”

The touch withdraws. Isla swallows. 

“No. Everything’s good.” 

She jolts when her ears pick up on a sound that destroys the lull �� like tape, bondage tape, she’s sure, and the dominant sounds as if he has a piece between his teeth when he responds, “Wonderful.” 

Then comes the sounds of tape tearing. Her muscles tense as she feels something press against her thigh, against her core, and then his hand starts to wind what she knows is the tape around her flesh. A click. The wand comes alive, rumbling. Isla can’t begin to stifle her soft hum. 

“Good spot?” the dominant prods, out of sight. 

The young woman fixes her gaze onto the bland wall through shapes and swirls of lace, her lashes fluttering, “Mm — yeah. Really good spot.”

“O-kay.”

And then after that — a stalling silence. Nothing reverberates over the walls, nothing falls on eardrums besides her soft breaths and the fixed buzz of the wand, pressed between her clammy thighs. Pleasure builds within her like water surging behind a dam, just sort of steadily rising until the structure starts to show signs of wear, rifts in its integrity. Then — well, then, there’s imminent destruction. 

The mattress creaks. He’s shifted.

“Sir?” Isla prods, her voice small. 

“No talking,” the dominant tells her after a moment, his cadence steely, “Don’t wanna hear you.” 

Her bottom lip becomes siphoned past her teeth. That’s — fuck. Okay. She regulates her breathing, and stares at the wall as the toy continues rumbling against her. He hadn’t exactly, explicitly mentioned that she was to hold off her climax, so. All sort of fair game, Isla thinks. Despite this, she does try to moderate the pace in the surge of bliss — maybe it could be, like, a trickle instead of a swelling flood, if she really focuses—

Another click. The buzzing increases in intensity. Her digits flex and clench, and her wrists shift in their respective cuffs. Still, she stays very quiet. That is, until the familiar, foreboding wave of pleasure tides, frothing at her tummy and sinking. Isla tenses in the restraints, and holds off pleading until she absolutely has to. It’s sort of a gray area, because she’s definitely not supposed to wait until that happens, but apparently she’s also not supposed to talk, so. 

“Sir! Can I cum? Please, please, can I—“ 

“Cum,” he tells her simply, not even batting an eye at her improper wording — may, he’s told her so many times, may I? 

Isla does, and it’s extraordinary. His dialogue nearly misses the mark entirely before the wave crashes, the countdown spent to milliseconds. Her toes curl, and her eyes screw shut, and her thighs tense, and her wrists tug reflexively, pinioned, as she groans and attempts to coil up. The dominant doesn’t make any moves that propose the idea of him touching her or using her for his own pleasure, in any manner, nor does he make an effort to remove the vibrator or her restraints. It buzzes at her core, even as the tide of pleasure ebbs. It ebbs, and all she’s left with is the hammering of her heart, and the toy still rumbling at her core. The young woman feels her pulse racketing in her eardrums. Isla shifts in her cuffs a smidge — as much as she can — though, there’s not much leeway for that. 

“Thank you, Sir,” she tells him, after a moment, her tongue swiping out after, over her strawberry mouth. She supposes she’s supposed to thank him, right? Isla’s still unsure of what exactly is going on. He’s going to overstimulate her — that much she’s discerned. It’s not rocket science. Spreader bar plus vibrator plus bondage tape? That shit was crystal clear from a mile away. She figures the dominant is aiming to venture to three, …maybe four. Maybe until she’s crying. Who knows. 

The dominant doesn’t respond. She hears him exhale, though. The bed creaks again. 

The thing with toying at senses with overstimulation was that the first bit …wasn’t all that rough. The first bit feels good — even on the advance towards the second crest, past that incipient budding of discomfort post an orgasm, the pleasure builds up pretty well. In fact, it sort of feeds off that discomfort. For Isla, at least. Because once you get past that first hurtle of too much, too much, that smidge of aching becomes a mere shadow in the cliff of rapture that blooms from stone — growing, growing, growing. 

Until, eventually, it gives. 

“Oh, oh, please, can I— Sir—“ 

“Cum.”

She expands and shrivels all in one, everywhere and nowhere with a surfeit of dopamine spurting through her nervous system. The fire kindles. Ah. The beginning stages of displeasure-pleasure. She’s felt it before, a plethora. That kind where her nerve endings settle into a dull, numbing ache. Involuntarily, her limbs jerk in the restraints, tugging to get away. Her jaw clenches. 

The thing with toying at senses with overstimulation was that the first bit wasn’t all that rough, but the bit after starts to suck. All good things must come to an end, and all that, but—

Despite that, the unwavering pleasure builds. It builds because of the stimulation, first and foremost, but then it builds because he hasn’t touched her, because he’s just sat back ogling, because she knows she’s dripping down the toy and that the bulbous head glints with her arousal. It builds because it’s a punishment, because Eros doesn’t want to hear her, because she’s disappointed him, and now she’s meant to appease him by enduring suffering. It builds because she wants nothing more than to endure suffering to please him—

“Sir!” Isla wriggles in the restraints, helplessly, the mantra of please-please-please morphed to nothing but a slurred string of words. 

“Cum.” 

The submissive nearly rolls and topples to her side under the earth-shattering abuse of the third — frankly, the only reason she doesn’t sink into a ridiculous sort of spreader-bar-mangled fetal position, is because Harry touches her, for the first time, steadying her with a firm palm against her bare hip. The pleasure with the third is much shorter-lived than the wide windows of the first two. It wanes nearly instantaneously, shrinking back as fiery ache overtakes it in the race. Isla grits her teeth, writhing forlornly as pain settles, coating her and seeping to interweave through the marrow of her bones. Three, maybe four, she tells herself, a mellow appeasement for inner peace — though, her brain has slowly begun its melt into a commonplace mush. Telling anyone anything, or even processing thoughts besides the signals fired off by her nervous system, is beyond strenuous. She doesn’t notice a sheen of tears has glazed over until she blinks and what’s normally sharp, clear lines of fabric turns to blurs. Despite the (reasonable, Isla believes) assessment of the dominant’s agenda (Isla’s fixated upon to ground herself amidst the curdling fear that tails the unknown, in all circumstances), she can’t help but start to plead, a bit, all things considered. 

“Sir, please, please, please—“

“Cum,” the man tells her, from behind, offhand and simple, probably admiring his gloves, or something. The statement comes as if he’s nothing but a robot programmed to grant her permission, and that word is the only term coded into his feasible vocabulary. 

If Isla had it in her to balk, she certainly would. She doesn’t. Partly because she doesn’t have it in her, and mostly because the tingling pain from the toy has her expression helplessly forming into a frown, almost as if on its own accord. The submissive just pouts, her bottom lip quivering in forlorn appall. Because Sir doesn’t care if she’s begging, because he doesn’t care that she’s already had three, because the realization dawns on her, then, that that would’ve been four, and he still hadn’t made any inclination to cease the torture. 

“No — no, Sir,” Isla starts, her waterline welling with tears behind her disguise — it’s wet, and irritates her skin horribly. 

The bed creaks. Behind her, the man tuts. And then the toy becomes toggled to a higher setting, buzzing incessantly against her clit with an intensity that wrenches a sharp keen from her. 

“What did I tell you? I don’t want to hear you. Not unless you’re asking permission, or you’re safing. One or the other. Nothing in between. Disobedient, little whores don’t deserve to beg.” 

It’s — he’s. Pitifully, Isla sobs against the comforter. 

Five. Harry’s on the track to wrench five from her — which, all things considered, is a reasonable goal to shoot for, he thinks. He knows she certainly has four in her to give, because she’s already given him four, weeks ago, in the Dungeon. And if she can’t make it to five within a reasonable time frame, he’ll cut it short post her enduring the aftershocks of the fourth for a bit. He settles back onto his arm, braced against the mattress as he splays behind her, at the foot of the bed, cheek pasted to his gloved palm as he drinks in the sight of her cunt leaking helplessly over the head of the wand. Great view. One for the books. 

Despite all of this, the sobs wracking her body have him sitting up a smidge to peer around at her face, which. Not much to decipher past swollen-post-teething lips and trembling flesh, without a good view of her eyes, but. The goal is definitely not to make her safe — that last bit was just sort of open encouragement. Like, an, always feel free sort of thing. They’re only on three. He frowns. 

“Hey. Baby,” Harry sits up to lean beside her, closer to her face, where she expels helpless sobs from a quivering, slobbery mouth. 

The thing with Isla crying was that it was cool. Deemed cool by both parties — sought after, in fact. But checking in, Harry thinks, is also (even more) cool, especially when she’s crying in a manner that implies that she’s slipping, and that it’s all teeming into the territory of too much, despite the fact that it can sort of break apart the characters they play up in a scene. Because roles are easy to slip back into, but reforming a bond of security post the unnecessary trauma of a boundary being unintentionally crossed is, frankly, much more difficult to casually slip back into. Safety is cool. Big thumbs up. 

This stuff is so much easier with eyes, Harry thinks — they speak volumes. They get blown like nightfall, crossing and shading past the lines of pupils and seeping into colors of irises, they become shifty and evident in apprehension, they kind of give it all away. He flips the toy off, but it stays nestled to her core, and he strokes hair off the band of lace shrouding her from him. 

“Sweetheart, are you alright?” a crease works between his brows as he rakes his digits through Isla’s hair from her sweaty hairline. Because you sound like I’m murdering you, goes unsaid. 

The thing is, he knows Isla’s limits, basically. General ballpark, that is. Really knowing and understanding takes months, and months — maybe years of experimentation. But even then, there’s those scenes where you have to check in and break character, and that’s okay. He just hadn’t prepared that it’d be after three. 

Isla sniffles beneath his touch. 

“Do you want to stop, darling? Red?” he smooths the pads of his digits over her cheek. And beneath his palm, weakly, the submissive shakes her head, an indication that, no, she doesn’t want to do that. 

The muscles in her neck strain with a swallow as Harry tucks loose fragments of hair away, his chin dipped to observe her response, and then the young woman tells him, softly, “No. Please.” 

“We don’t have to keep doing this, pet,” Harry promises, his cadence taking on a note that’s the most gentle it's been since she’d been sat over his lap, “I can take these off, and we can keep playing, but we don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to.” 

Isla sighs softly. The pain had begun intermingling with pleasure just before he’d shut the toy off, tinges of bliss blooming post abuse on her physical senses — that’s not why she was crying. Really, there’s a plethora of reasons, some not entirely decipherable. Partly because of the intensity, partly because of the adrenaline and their subsequent endorphins, and partly because she was definitely fucking slipping. She could feel it loom over her when her mind got all mushy, when it all became slower, and more difficult, like trudging through a swamp of molasses. When her tongue got heavier and her body felt fuzzier. 

“Wanna make you happy,” Isla tells him. Her eyes are screwed shut behind the lace, mostly to hinder the onslaught of tears, so she can't see him, but she does hear him sigh. 

“You do make me happy. Always make me happy. Always happy I get to play with you. Silly.” 

Her mouth twitches, then, and curls up a bit. She huffs through her nostrils. Harry cocks his head, smoothing a thumb down the bare fragment of her face on one cheek. 

“You make me happy, too,” Isla confesses, her voice small. 

Harry tries to keep his mouth from curving into a sad sort of smile in return. Instead, he slips his thumb up to brush over the bottom-most hem of her mask. 

“Let me get you out of these,” he only pivots his head towards the bar before she’s humming, evidently dissatisfied by the proposal. 

“No,” Isla whines, “Don’t wanna stop playing.” 

“We’re not going to stop playing,” the dominant curbs the instinctive eye roll that nearly overtakes the jade, “Just a little break. Don’t you want some water? Doesn’t water sound so good?” 

He smirks when she gnaws on her bottom lip and gives him a slow, little nod against the sheets. The man smooths his hand, fondly, down the side of her neck, kneeing around her to slip his fingers to the tape. He unravels that, first, trying to keep the process short, like a bandaid, and he sets the toy down beside her on the bed. Next to go are the cuffs. 

“Just a little break,” he promises, “Gonna get some water,” he unbuckles the first cuff — her left wrist, “stretch a bit,” the second — her right, “stretch your neck. Can’t imagine it’s not cramping a bit,” Isla rolls her wrists, her arms still splayed beneath her in the space between the bed and her arched back — the third to go is her left ankle, “and we’ll get you back to shambles in no time,” the last, her right ankle, and he smacks her backside lightly, because it’s there and it’d be a cardinal sin to miss the opportunity, honestly. “How’s that sound?” 

The dominant strokes a palm softly up her calf after he sets the spreader bar aside. Isla stretches back against him, like a little cat. Yes. All of these things sound great. 

“Stretch out a bit. I’m gonna grab some,” Isla picks up on him saying, before his touch retracts and she hears his shoes clicking over the tile. 

Isla shuffles her arms forward, lifting up a bit only to flop back down and morph into Child’s Pose. Sort of. As best as she can. The water machine grinds in the background. By the time Harry has made his way back to the foot of the bed, Isla’s rolled onto her side. He gestures out with the plastic, little cup, and Isla flips onto her back and sits up to grasp it between her palms. They’ve ceased their shaking, for now. Harry takes a seat beside her, his legs kicked out ahead as opposed to her coiled hover, calves pressed against the bed. Her Eros has all the answers, Isla thinks. Her throat bobs frantically as she chugs, and in her peripherals she watches him take a slow sip. Once she’s reached the bottom, her hands flop against her sweaty lap, the empty cup wrapped by her right hand. 

She turns her face to him, a little smile over her mouth. The dominant peers at her, lips wrapped over the rim of his respective cup through the unzipped mouth slit, and he lifts a hand to swipe a stray rivulet of water from the corner of her mouth with a thumb. Her tongue swipes out as his touch retracts, almost as if to chase the pad of his digit. The man makes a soft sound of amusement over the lip of the cup. Slowly, Isla cranes her neck back, and then forward, and then side to side, and Harry takes another sip. 

“You take care of me so well,” Isla admits, planting her forehead against his arm. She’s jostled then, and nearly complains, but then she realizes that he’s only done it to grant her a space to nestle, a nook for her so he can hold her. She still feels a little …warm and fuzzy, but her head has cleared considerably since he’d unshackled her. Isla scoots in, and the dominant winds his arm around her shoulders, squeezing softly. 

“You always know what I need, even when I don’t.” 

“S’because I’ve got you figured out,” Harry nudges in her direction with his beverage, three thirds of the way down. His hand, cradling the cup, lays laxly against his thigh, then. 

“Do you?” Isla’s gaze narrows behind the mask as a little grin plays over her mouth. She lifts her chin up to display it. And she’s so close, he could kiss her. 

The male’s tongue peeks out to glide over his pillowy mouth. Isla Cleery. Cherries, and Hydrangeas, and pencil skirts and strange tendencies to do dangerous things on a whim. 

No. He absolutely does not. 

“Basically. You’re an easy read, love.” 

Her pupils rove over the rubber hood. Over his eyes, glinting through the shadows cast by parted zippers, slipping to the muted berry of his mouth. She’s never yearned, so badly, to surpass a personal limit and kiss someone she was …just playing with. Desperately. She tears her gaze away. 

“Can we keep playing?” the young woman inquires, instead. 

The dominant rolls his eyes, a soft smile cresting his cushiony mouth, “Do you want to keep playing?” 

“Yes. Sir. Please. Right where we left off.” 

“Right where we left off?” his eyebrows raise a smidge, “Are you sure? We can move on to phase two.” 

“Phase two?” 

“Well. Since phase one was punishment for your little slip up earlier in the week,” Isla’s gaze skids away sheepishly, “figure s’only fair phase two is penance for that little comment you made out in the lounge.” 

The young woman’s gaze snaps back to the dominant, and she wracks her brain for a dull moment where her mind sort of lags, the edges still a little fuzzy. And then it dawns on her. Fuck. Right. There was that. 

“Okay,” Isla tells him, after a moment — not a deliberative one, per se. Just. Mental preparation. “That sounds good.” 

“That sounds good?” Harry’s hand slinks out to stroke over her bare thigh, and then his gaze skims to his thumb as he strokes it over the hem of her stocking, “You’re sure?” 

“Yes, Sir,” Isla tells him, sitting up a bit with her rejuvenated courage, “and I want to start where we left off.” 

Harry hums, pausing his thumb over her stocking. He digs it under, just a bit, tugs up, and lets it snap back into place. And then he pats her thigh, takes her cup from her, and tells her, “Alright. Back into position then. M’gonna refill these so we have them ready, for later.” 

As the dominant stands to refill their respective beverages of sustenance, Isla scoots back on the mattress, flips, and clambers into position, already prepped with her arms stuck flat out in the space between her parted calves by the time he returns and sets the cups onto the, (oddly domestic and ludicrously practical), nightstand, beside the bed. She hears him blow out a breath, and the bed shifts as he knees his way onto it from behind. 

“All good to keep going?” Harry prods, the thin pole of the spreader bar grasped in one hand, “Promise?” 

“I promise,” the young woman returns, half-nodding and half kind of just taking the opportunity to snuggle her face into the comforter. The area soused by her tears is a little further to the right, now, and despite the fact that her mask is still wet, the blanket beneath her face, now, is dry, so it all feels like a spruced up, fresh start. 

He slots the cuffs back on, one by one, working backwards from the order in which they’d been discarded minutes prior. And when she’s all splayed and riveted for him, a particular sort of sensitivity settles in her as the wand, still slick from her, presses to her cunt as he sets all the props back into place for the scene (pun intended). It’s not necessarily that grating numbness she’d become accustomed to, or a cloying past aftershocks. Just the sensation of knowing, physically, that she’s already given three. A tremble nearly slinks down the knobs of her spine at the thought. The tape unsticks from the roll as the dominant works it back over her thigh. 

Isla blinks, her lashes brushing over the innermost of the lace, squeezed to her face in its tightening against the sheets. She chimes, for good measure, “And. I’m all good. You don’t have to …be nice.” 

His handiwork pauses. And his cadence, rasped like sandpaper, slow like seeping molasses, sweet like syrup, nearly causes her to drown in it all. He sounds …hungry, for the first time in the night since they’d explored her fantasies in the verdant armchair, when he tells her, “I don’t intend to be.” 

That’s — shit. Okay. Then, Eros smooths his palm down the back of her thigh and ponders, aloud, “Can you give me five, d’you think?” 

Five. That’s a …milestone. 

Isla blinks. Warmth coils in her at the suggestion, instantly, hunger unsatiated as if she hadn’t just endured the three course meal of three orgasms, back to back. Her throat feels dry, like her mouth’s been stuffed by cotton. 

“I can — I can try,” she swallows, “Sir.” 

“There’s a good girl,” the man hums, pleased by her answer, and he sits back a bit, rewarding her with a loud smack that siphons a gasp and a jerk in the restraints from her. A ruddy splotch teems over the surface of her skin — tinges shaped by his open palm. He gives her another, just over where the first had landed, and Isla releases a girlish grunt in response, rocking forward. A third, then, and with the opposite hand, he toggles the toy on. Harry watches every muscle in her body tense, at that.  

The newfound pleasure, post the break, feels almost as if spawning from square one. Not entirely — there’s still that nagging reminder deep within her nervous system that she’s already spent so much for him (recovering from three takes, maybe, just a little longer than a span of minutes). But rather than numbing tingles enmeshed with knife-like, slicing pain, pleasure blooms quickly, radiating from between her thighs and coaxing the pit of her tummy to coil with something familiar and warm. And rather than sitting back like an audience member to enjoy the show, this time, the dominant seems interested in taking part — an active part, in fact. He smooths his palms over the globes of her ass, and every blow, falling in increments (when she seems to least expect it), sends jarring shocks through her nervous system that throw her entire comprehension of sensation for a loop. It doesn’t hurt — not at all, really. Instead, each hit enmeshes with the overpowering bliss from the rumbling against her core, and the only tinges of pain come from the eventual soreness that blooms. But it makes her wetter, hotter, more sensitive, and, eventually—

“Sir!” Isla’s eyes squeeze shut as the beginnings of the flame lick at her, “Can I—“

And then one of his palms squeezes into one of her hips and the opposite smacks her again — and, fuck. Isla can’t bridle her strangled sound when he tells her, “Cum.” The wave washes over her like water crashing over jagged rock. 

The discomfort that flourishes as the weak bout of ecstasy recedes is not …horrific, per se, but it certainly reminds her that this isn’t her first, and, just as it’d been strung up prior to the break, her body becomes launched into a frenzied state of escape. Five. Why did she agree to try for five? Isla whimpers, her thighs trembling in desperation. And, as if to allay her worries (or perhaps to spur them further), Harry just delivers another strike. And then again, and again, and again, and again. 

“Sir,” the submissive whines, a plea (for more? for less?), tears gathering over her waterline like rain in a gutter. 

“Say it with me now, go on, darling, I will not,” the volume of his cadence climbs up the stairwell as he smacks her and digs the pads of pleather-clad digits into her skin. Her brows pinch when his mean affections don’t abate, when she aches everywhere to please him, and she sobs. 

“I will— will not,” Isla hiccups, sniffles, sobs, pleads for more of his aggressive attention. More, more, more, please.

“Cum without permission,” Eros waits for her to parrot the dialogue before he toggles the setting on the vibrator pressed within her to a higher setting and her sentence cuts off into a high, loud moan. Perhaps of pleasure, perhaps of pain, and probably a solid concoction of both. 

He talks over her nonetheless, “I will not cum without permission,” he says it until she’s up to par and mimics, in unison, “I will not cum without permission.” 

“What—“ Isla keens as the dominant smacks her again, and her arms strain in the restraints, shackled to the slim pole between her ankles, “—will you not do?”

“I will not cum without permission!” the young woman responds, her cadence breaking into a sob as the toy buzzes incessantly, nuzzled to her overstimulated clit. 

“You will not,” Eros agrees and assures her, tone unwavering despite her sobs, “and I will make sure you remember this lesson very, very well.”

By the time she really starts approaching the fifth crest, Harry’s faltered on the follow through of the blows, just sort of admiring the marks, in lieu, like a rabid animal. He’s nearly foaming at the mouth. The dominant traces the pad of his forefinger over a curve, entranced, and nearly misses her shrill plea entirely. 

“I’m—“

“Cum,” he demands, pupils roving over her hips, over her sticky thighs, between her legs where she clenches emptily, helplessly, drinking in her cry like an audible variation of nectar. 

The burst of pleasure is as short-lived as Isla can imagine, like the most anti-climatic climax of all time. It tears through her, severing her seams, and dwindles almost immediately for a dull ache to settle in its place. Except, this one isn't dull at all. It’s sharp, and it sends her nerve endings into pure angst. She freezes up, her muscles quivering, tensed like the string of a bow just waiting to snap, and she can’t even make out discernable request for him to turn the wand off. All that slips from her is a string of incoherent, muffled sounds, and then the rumbling ceases. Isla pants, her heartbeat so frantic she can feel it in the tip of her tongue. It pulses through her neck, through her appendages, tingling in their cuffs. It slinks through her stomach, through her fingers, it rattles her ribcage as the organ pumps rapidly. 

She doesn’t realize the cuffs are gone until she feels herself being manhandled, onto her side, and then onto her back. The dominant slips off the bed, standing at the foot, and wraps his arms around the backs of her thighs as he yanks her toward him. And Isla just splays like a ragdoll. She watches him watch her, her legs flopping and her soles planting against the mattress, knees bent. The submissive tells him, then, cadence soft and dry as if she hasn’t drunk in days, “Please.” 

Her chest rises and falls, almost in tune with the slow clink of his belt buckle as he opens it, nimbly, with one gloved palm as the opposite strokes over her knee. His eyes glint like green embers — hungry with want like fire kindling in a forest. Contained in a campfire, for now, just yearning to swallow the branches and brush in flame. Her own pupils shift to his belt buckle. He draws the belt out. 

“Please.” 

Finally, some give in his otherwise hardened features — his mouth quirks as he tips his chin towards his trousers, utilizing both hands to pop the button and tug down the zipper. 

“Please? What, you wanna bounce on my cock, a bit? Gave you five orgasms, and you’re still desperate for it, like a slut.” 

Her inhale is tremble-y as she watches him cull a condom, tucked away in its wrapper — red, this time, unlike his usual. His mouth purses as he flips it, rotating between his fingertips. 

“Funny,” Harry shoots a glance her way, “This one’s cherry.” 

Want a taste, she nearly expects him to jest, memorable remnants of their first one-on-one scene floating to the forefront of her mind. He doesn’t. He goes quiet, and looks awfully concentrated. Isla exhales at the sight of him untucking his cock from its confines, at the view of him tearing the wrapper open with his teeth, and the image of him rolling the condom down his shaft. He takes his hands away, and his cock bobs. The young woman’s chest rolls as he lines himself up with her core, and she jerks when he swipes the head from where she gushes and leaks to where she’s swollen and sensitive. Jade flickers up to face her. 

“Gonna be a good girl and follow the rules from now on?” he croons, his voice a bit strained given that he’s been aching for fuck her for the entirety of the session. 

The submissive nods, weakly. More than anything, it’s a mindless jerk of her chin. She tenses when he nudges into her. And the stretch is — it’s euphoric. She feels like pure euphoria to him, her spongy walls squeezing over his tip as if they’re two puzzle pieces destined to slot together. A perfect fit. A tight one. His teeth clench, and he hisses and he slides further, unable to curb his groan halfway to the hilt. 

“Fuck.”

Isla spasms over him, over the perfect drag, over the perfect stretch. He buries in, sheathing his cock in its entirety until she hugs every last inch, and his fingers fondle over her thigh as he lifts her legs to plant her calves against his shoulders. 

“Please,” Isla says again, her hips shifting like she’s eager for him to move. 

His mouth twitches. He huffs, reining the instinct to hammer into her as his stomach swirls with want and his mind swims with defiling filth. “Look at you. Desperate to cum. Desperate for attention — for anyone’s attention,” he tacks on pointedly, a dig made as her little rendezvous back at the bar, and Isla’s irises nearly roll back into her head as he withdraws, just a smidge, and pumps forward harshly. Harry grunts. “Just a desperate, little thing. Aren’t you?” 

All Isla can manage, as his hips work into a steady pace, is a wordless part of her lips. 

“Answer me,” the dominant demands, tone hard. 

“No,” the submissive manages out, eventually, and his hips stutter. She whines, bracing her calves against his shoulders to grind wantonly. Case and point. 

A wryly amused crease works over his brow bone, behind latex, and his pace becomes stifled to nothing, “No?” 

Isla whines, frantically, rolling her hips and squeezing over his length, until he scoffs, throws her legs off of him unceremoniously, and leans down in the newfound space to press her cheeks between his digits harshly. 

“No? What the fuck are you doing right now? Grinding on me, like a desperate whore.” 

Her breaths are shallow, and she expels, again, a denial. His takes his hand away, just a smidge, and then pats, once, over the fleshy part of her cheek with his open palm splaying — it’s borderline harsh enough to be considered a slap. Isla groans, and the dominant feels the aftermath manifest as a frantic spasm over his cock. 

“No?” he repeats, voice low and soft. 

“No,” Isla tells him, for the third time. So, he lifts his hand back and does it again, this time a little firmer. Her hips cant as she muzzles a soft sound with her lips, glued together. 

“Don’t want anyone’s attention,” the young woman tells him from below, then, her inflection borderline frenzied, “just want yours.” 

Slowly, the plush strawberry of his mouth quirks and curls up. His ego swells, and the man pulls his hips back, just a smidge, and pummels forward — a reward, for her, and she’s aware. “S’that right?” 

“Yes, Sir,” Isla cranes her neck back against the comforter when he pushes off of her, picks her legs back up, and melts back into a sure, satisfying tempo, his hips pumping relentlessly. It’s the best. He’s the best. 

The dominant takes her ankles in one palm — how the fuck does he do that, Isla thinks, his hand is so large, and strong, and—

“Fuck, baby, f’you could just see the way we fit together — s’like a fucking match made in heaven,” he throws his head back with a groan post taking in the view of her cunt swallowing him up, coated in cherry-flavored, red latex. His shoulders roll as a shudder wracks down the knobs of his spine, and he separates her ankles off with his hands, setting them into a spread, against the bed, gently. He pushes her knees back until the front of her thighs nearly brush over the sheets, and braces himself with his palms on either side of her head as he works into a hammer. 

“He fuck you like—“ Harry grunts as his hips swivel, and Isla watches, entranced, the plush of his lips part on shallow breaths, his grin wicked and twitchy in response to her little sounds, “this? Give you what you want? What you need?” 

She doesn’t have to inquire to know that he’s talking about Faunus — still on about Faunus. 

“No,” Isla tells him, soft and breathy, And he rewards her, again, by pumping forward, harder, faster, deeper, and groaning, soft huffs suffusing his speech. 

“No? Doesn’t stretch this snug little cunt out the way you need? Who does?” 

“You — just you,” she keens as the entire mattress rocks beneath her. 

“Just me?” his tongue sticks to the tips of his front teeth as he pummels forward and punches a little gasp out of her, “Who does this sweet, little cunt belong to?” 

“You — Sir!” 

“That’s right. S’my cunt. Mine to fuck, mine to tease, mine to kiss,” his gaze flickers down between them, where they connect, and the sight alone nearly has his balls draining. His hand ventures, and fingertips rub over the bundle of nerve endings in a way that has her tensing and crying out. 

“My clit. Isn’t it?” He switches to a thumb, swiping over it, and his jaw falls open as he watches her pulse over his shaft while her head thrashes above, her teeth clenched and grinding in a pained frenzy. She’s quite pretty, overstimulated, too. 

“And that means,” the left corner of his mouth buckles up, his speech glazed with condescension, “I can do whatever I want to it, right?” 

As soon as his touch abates, Isla can no longer restrain herself. She digs the pads of her fingers onto his placket, into the empty spaces between the buttons of his shirt and the slits where they’re looped, clenching a fist as she raises herself and tugs him down. And before the dominant has the opportunity to scold her for treating his dress shirt with such an unshackled lack of care, she meshes their mouths together. Harry’s arms nearly buckle. 

It’s filthy — but not at first. At first, he doesn’t return it, appalled by the gesture. Because it’s a limit, according to her, it’s her limit, because it’s too personal, and she’s just broken it herself. Because she just couldn’t hold back anymore, and in the fervor with which she kisses him, that shit is pretty evident. But then, he does return it. His lips move, and he moans against her strawberry mouth, and then her lips part, and from there it’s just …lewd. They’re sort of in the middle of active intercourse, Isla thinks, so a kiss shouldn’t make her feel so dirty — but it does. It’s not a dainty first kiss of first loves and soft touches and curious experimentation. It’s thrilling, and dirty, and his tongue slips into her mouth after she brushes her own against his bottom lip, and one of her hands tangles into his dress shirt while the opposite presses against his shoulder as if aiming to work out a fucking knot with the pressure. She whimpers against him, wetly, and in turn he groans and nips at her bottom lip with his teeth, his cock pulsing inside of her. And then it’s all teeth, and tongues, and want, want, want, as his hips hammer against her. It’s wanton moans, and whimpers, and rugged groans. It’s everything she’s been yearning for, and more. 

“Open your mouth, open your mouth,” Harry urges, pulling off a bit and slinking a hand over her cheek, “Tongue out.” 

She complies, and then a rivulet of spit dribbles from his mouth against her twitching tongue, and that’s just—

“Fuck,” Harry groans, his hips rolling against her, “You’re fucking filthy. Swallow it.” 

So she does, her throat bobs below his palm, which slinks to cradle over her windpipe — not squeezing, just …there. She moans, soft and melty and desperate as his hips roll into her. And then Harry exhales, takes his hand off of her throat, and plants his palms on either side of her head to raise himself, hovering over her. He sighs like the experience is too pornographic to even comment upon. It sort of is. 

“Dirty fucking girl,” the dominant settles on, eventually. And then he plows her like fucking farmland. 

Her palms roam, frantically, over the fabric covering his back, the craving to leave marks of her own with short nails swelling through her mind, as he pumps forward, until it’s the only thought fathomable. It’s that — and the sick urge to spit into his own strawberry mouth, to have him leant back against the sheets, bare beneath her as she works and bounces over his cock. 

Christ. 

She’s warm, and wet, and heaven, and Harry imagines that his own personal Nirvana, then, would involve nothing but her cunt squeezing over his cock for the rest of eternity, her skin sticky with sweat beneath him, and her muscles quivering as he imbibes and basks. She is, in the moment, everything he wants and everything he’s ever wanted. Everything he ever will want, maybe. Because sex with Isla was — well. It was something else. Something rapturous, something sick and twisted, something he imagines he could never grow tired of. Ever. 

His muscles do, though. Eventually. He feels the ache start in his hamstrings, in his shoulders, in his neck from its crane to gaze down upon her, because he just can’t tear his irises away — it’d be a cardinal sin to miss the view of a lifetime, afterall, Harry thinks. And along with the ache of his muscles comes the familiar chip in his resolve — cracks surfacing as he begins to become rended apart. He feels that in his stomach, first and foremost, in the trench of his tummy as his muscles tense — then, on the underside of his balls, a pleasured warmth that radiates as he pulses, and finally it seeps through his shaft. She squeezes over him, like she knows, and he almost loses it, then and there. He drives into her frantically, groaning animalistically as his body chases release almost on its own accord. 

“Shit — always milk my cock so good, baby. Gonna— FUCK—“

Isla moans, soft beneath him, when she feels the warmth of his release, confined by the stupid cherry-flavored condom. When she feels his cock pulsing in her, when she feels his tempo slow, when he gives her a few last, weak strokes. When his head dips and he blows out a long breath, grunting as he pulls back and slips out, when she feels nothing but emptiness. 

“Sir,” she starts, soft, soft, soft, and the rough exterior, the paramountcy-hungered, hard shell of his demeanor splinters and falls apart. 

“So sweet for me,” Harry says, voice coated in candy, tucking strands back from her sweaty hairline, “Aren’t you? Always so eager to be good for me.” 

Isla whimpers. Harry coos, shushing her with soft croons for a moment, until he pulls back and starts untucking himself from the condom and clearing up a bit. 

“Always make me happy, always such a good girl. Take everything I give you and more, so well,” the man tells her, his pupils bouncing from his cock to her face as he cautiously rolls the condom off, “Hold on just a minute, baby, and we’ll have a cuddle, alright?” 

He stows the condom away in its wrapper after he’s tucked himself away, and he contemplates making the short walk to the trashcan by the electric water thing against the wall. Ultimately, the dominant decides against it when she whines, needy for him and in need. Instead, he sets it off to the side, on the nightstand, as he turns back to her, lips twitching up into a little grin. 

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” he starts, kneeing his way back onto the bed to sit beside her and hover, his hand stroking over her cheek, the side of her head, over her ear, down the side of her neck, “Gave me five today. Made me so proud.” 

Isla just nods against his gloved palm, her sigh dreamy. Did she? Five, really? What an exciting and, frankly, impressive number. It’s all sort of a bliss of euphoria. She feels it, the headspace, the kind where she’s buzzing and floaty and her mind drifts and bobs about the walls aimlessly. The kind where all she can fathom is that she wants to be close to him. And it really hits her when Eros coaxes, “Can you sit up for me, pet?” 

Absolutely not. 

She shakes her head at him, wordlessly, and his mouth quirks with an endeared scoff, and the young woman nearly whines until he slips onto his side beside her to cradle her close. For a minute, he just lays near her, his chest to her side as he pets and caresses over her waist, and eventually he rolls to his own back and beckons, “Come here, baby,” holding her close as she shifts her head onto the space just over his butterfly. 

Harry stares at the ceiling. All is well. 

All is well, and it happens nearly out of the blue, brought about from a murky horizon, unforeseen. Because in their nights together, Isla cries — she always cries, and sometimes, when Harry cradles her close, he coddles her out of soft sobs that wrack her body post an intense scene. But those are traces. Remnants. They’re aftermath. The unanticipated is a fresh wave. 

And Isla feels it coming on. She feels it settling in her chest, first, bursts and blooms of sadness, like the kind where you feel nostalgic, missing something. Then, her eyes. They already feel puffy and swollen, but they start to burn in the back. Her throat feels tight. And that sadness creeps deeper and settles. 

Because she sort of feels she’s living through the nostalgia, then and there, in the moment. Like she’ll never relive it again. 

Isla lays her head over his heartbeat and starts to cry. 

TDIAG MASTERLIST HERE

#dom harry styles #harry styles smut #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles wattpad #harry styles writing #harry styles dirty fanfiction #harry styles x oc #dom!harry #dom!harry x sub!reader #tdiag

[sporesgalaxy]

good morning on this fine friday at 5am my time! circe clawthorne jumpscare.

I truly think this is very very close to final, moreso than usual lol. I'm quite happy with this

I really can't tell if it would be more difficult for me to try and convert this into proper paragraphs or make it a comic...

well here it is. but wait there will be more!

•••

?: [distantly] Philip?

?: [closer] Philip!

?: Philip Wittebane!!!

P: [weirded out cuz hes in the middle of the woods] What in the–

C: [running up to him excitedly] Philip!!! It’s SO good to see you again!!!

P: [backing away] See me again? Do we know each other, Miss?

C: !

C: Come on, Philip!

C: Surely the King of the Witch Hunters can recognize the Dread Witch Beezelbella when he sees her!

—

P: …

C: [smile falters nervously] ...

[Philip bolts]

C: Wh- Philip!

[He sprints through the woods as fast as he can, but weaving between the trees slows him down.]

[Circe suddenly cuts Philip off, riding on her staff]

P: [flinches away from her so violently that he falls on his ass] GAH!!

C: What are you running away for?!

P: [shielding his face, peeking at her erratically, as if afraid to look directly at her for too long] You’re not real!! You’re some cruel illusion!!

P: Sent to– to torment me, or tempt me to forfeit my soul to the devil!

P: Well it WON’T WORK!! So– gh– [flails his hands in her general direction] BEGONE!

–

C: No no no no! No tricks, I promise!

C: [REALIZES SHE IS LEVITATING] Ah!!! Er…

[she jumps off the staff and holds it behind her conspicuously, too frantic to remember to store it as a palisman]

C: [smiling nervously] I meant to save that for later!

P: [STARING]

C: Here. :) [holds out her free hand to help him up]

P: [looks somewhere btwn angry and scandalized]

[Philip pushes himself further away from her before standing up on his own. He struggles a little because he now seems reluctant to take his eyes off her. Circe looks saddened but not entirely surprised.]

C: Really, I--

[tries to gesture, but is still holding the staff in one hand, and ends up accidentally swinging it towards Philip.]

[Philip flinches again, and stares at it like it might explode.]

[Circe quickly reduces the staff to just a bird and pockets the palisman in her cloak]

C: [smiling apologetically, holding up palms to show she’s unarmed] I’d never dream of hurting you!!

C: [looking at him and still smiling but with pleading, sad eyes] You know that, don't you Philip? No matter how we've changed, I...I'll always love you.

P: [mentally recalculating] …I...see.

C: [beams] Yes!! I pinky promise! [holds out pinky for a second, but quickly drops it]

P: [less defensive body language, but still clearly a little wary] Hm…

–

C: [a bit nervier] Ah-- before we go any further, I need to re-introduce myself!!

P: [skeptical] Re-introduce?

C: [trying to stay chipper but looking more stressed] I know I look different, but it’s…it’s still me!! [she pulls her hair back into a ponytail, looking a bit uncomfortable] See?

P: The…Dread Witch Beezelbella.

C: [frustrated] Your sis– your sibling!!! You know, the one who raised you?? Who spent all those years putting gruel on the table??

P: [frowning] The one who died seven years ago.

C: Er– well– I had to...go away for a while. But I’m here now!!

C: [trying to bulldoze through it] And really hardly anything has changed!

C: I've simply learned I’m much happier being your sister! That’s not too complicated, is it? You understand, don’t you??

P: I…suppose–

C: [bulldozing again] Spectacular!!!!

C: So, you’ll call me Ci– [seems to realize something] Er…just C.C. is fine for now! [nervy smile]

[Philip gives her a perplexed look]

C: Probably easier and, er…good for an Adjustment Period! [nods to herself]

P: [mostly just baffled] …C.C.

C: [nodding more] You've got it!! Same person, new gender! None of the old name and no man words, pretty please!

P: --

C: [before Philip can reply] Great!!!

C: Now, with all THAT out of the way: It’s YOUR turn! [stepping closer to him, as though she wants to hold his hands] Tell me everything! How are you?! What’s happened while I was gone? What have you been up to??

–

P: [leaning away] Oh. Er…

P: I’m…doing very well. I… [“thinks”, bringing a finger to his chin a little too theatrically]

P: …Goodness, so much has changed, I’m not even sure where to start!

P: Really, you ought to just visit the house with me and see what’s changed for yourself. [grabs her arm and gently tugs]

C: [Withdraws, very nervous] Oh, no no no, I can't go into town.

C: You and I of all people should know how–!

C: --!

C: [Squints]

P: …Is something the matter?

C: [Squints harder]

C: ...Do NOT Witch-hunt me, Philip!!!!

P: I have no idea what you’re talking about. I'm only trying to show you--

C: Oh for goodness' sake, NO!!!! I will NOT set foot in that town EVER again!!

P: ...Then you should wait here for just a moment, and I'll return shortly– [beginning to walk away]

C: [Grabs his arm to stop him leaving] [exasperated] I am not an idiot, Philip!!!

C: [sighs] Look, I know this is going to be difficult for you to accept, but magic didn't turn me evil! I'm still just ME!

P: [MAIDENLESS STARE]

–

[Circe continues holding Philip’s arm to keep him there, and for now, he lets her.]

C: As it turns out, you DON’T have to sell your soul for magic! We were completely wrong about it!

P: [EXTREMELY skeptical] Is that so?

C: [frustrated] It’s true! I could prove it to you!

C: ...Well, I guess I can’t PROVE that I still have a soul. Not that I know of. [to herself] I wonder if there’s a spell for that…

P: [extremely sarcastic] Perhaps we ought to enlighten the entire town to the existence of this fascinating *benign sorcery*.

C: [annoyed] Really, Philip?

P: Well, why not?? Since you can *prove* that it’s harmless, let's go prove it to everybody! It would make our lives *so* much easier…

C: Stop it.

—

P: Why, no one would have to do chores ever again!

C: Philip!

P: Maybe we could all be in one big witch’s coven together--

C: ENOUGH!!

C: You've been clear enough already!!!! You still don't like magic, and you don't trust me!!!

C: [takes a deep breath] ...

[Gently, Circe lets go of Philip's arm, which she had been gripping rather tightly.]

[She watches as though expecting Philip to bolt again, but he doesn't.]

[She fidgets with her sleeve as she continues.]

C: Philip, please. Just...just listen to me for a moment.

P: [Opens mouth, looking indignant]

C: [cutting Philip off] You don't have to believe me! I know that you...probably won't. I had hoped--

C: [doesnt finish that thought, looking bitterly sad]

C: ...There's something I need to tell you, but I want to know you'll listen.

P: [scoffs] Why bother if you know I won't fall for it?

C: Because...! Because I have to do something!

C: ...Philip--

[She reaches toward him, and he shrinks back.]

P: You've been gone for nearly a decade.

C: ... [confirmingly guilty face]

P: It took you that long to-- to bother telling me anything?!

P: Why in the hell would I want to believe that?!

—–

P: How could I?!

P: How could I possibly believe that you’d *vanish without a trace,*

P: and then– *reappear out of thin air,* just because-- what, the whim finally struck you???

C: No--! It-- it wasn't a whim, Philip, I would never--!

P: [pulling at his hair] AGH!! Then where have you *been??!!!* Why come back *now??!*

C: I-- it's difficult to explain--

P: I spent YEARS trying to hunt down that *witch*–!

[Circe grimacing/wincing rxn shot]

P: [gesticulating wildly] YEARS hopelessly wondering what might’ve become of you!!!!!

P: I WASTED my LIFE searching for answers!!!!

P: Of course I don't want to believe this!! That you could have come back this whole time, but-- [voice breaking]

P: ...But you chose not to.

–

C: 😟

P: [still angry, but quieter now] And what a cruel joke it would be, for you to finally be here.

P: [hand gravitating towards knife on belt] After I’d finally managed to give *up* on you.

[Circe wants to hug him. She wishes he were still small enough that she could pick him up and squeeze him with all her might. But she thinks better of it. No matter how much she loved Philip, she couldn't afford to trust him right now.]

[Philip's hand is hovering over the spot where Circe knows his knife sheath to be. She feels her heart break a little more.]

[She steadily meets his eyes and keeps her hands at her sides, ready to pull out her staff if necessary. She won't be able to hurt him the way he's apparently resolved to hurt her, but she could run away.]

[She had desperately hoped that Gravesfield's claws wouldn't be sunken so deeply into him, but she knew what it took to survive there. And he had been forced to survive it even longer than her.]

C: ...I’m sorry, Philip.

P: ...

C: I'm sorry for leaving you in Gravesfield alone.

C: I didn't think I had a choice.

[Circe shifts her weight uncomfortably. It feels wrong, measuring how she speaks to Philip, her brother, the person who knew her better than anyone not too long ago. But he isn't the only one she's protecting anymore.]

C: ...truthfully, I…

[It feels loathesome to admit after so many years of spending so much of her energy hiding it.]

C: …I thought you would be better off without me.

—

P: [genuine confusion] ...What?

C: You're a genius, Philip. I knew you could do anything you put your mind to. Make a real future for yourself.

C: But I-- I could barely even keep us fed until we--

C: [looking terribly guilty] ...started working together.

C: I thought that once you could take care of yourself...

C: You could have a normal, happy life. Without me.

P: [pissed] And how do you know that you couldn't be a part of it!? You ran away before you even tried!!

C: I tried for years!! All my trying ever did was put targets on our backs!!!

C: [bitterly] Because I couldn't hold down any job but the most dangerous in Gravesfield.

---

P: What targets?! We were heroes!

P: If you had just stayed, if you had never listened to that witch, we still would be!!

P: Did she say I'd be better off without you?! Is that how she convinced you to leave?!

C: [low, serious] No.

C: I... [ashamed] ...I made up my mind before I met Evelyn.

C: I had already decided you were better off without me.

C: [intense] She's the reason I'm still here to discuss it with you.

P: [shocked, unsettled, doesn't want to process that]

P: That...that can't be true! Everything was fine until she came along!! This was all her fault!!

P: You'd still be normal if it weren't for her!!!

C: [angry on Evelyn's behalf] No!!! I was never normal!!!!

C: And you were the only person who couldn't seem to tell!!!

C: [tearing up] It was going to get us both killed, sooner or later!!!

C: *I* was going to get us killed, because I'm like this!! Because *I* can't live a normal life!!

C: I wanted to protect you. To make your life easier than mine had been, but--

P: You were protecting me just fine before you ran away!!!

P: And what's this nonsense about us getting killed?! We were heroes! We saved the whole town from evil!

C: We were never heroes! We weren't saving anyone!

C: We punished people who didn't fit in!

P: Didn't "fit in??"

P: We punished monsters!! Demons who tortured our neighbors!!

P: Any one of those witches would have sacrificed all of Gravesfield to the Devil had we not stopped them!!

C: And what about us, Philip?!

C: Is there anyone in Gravesfield we wouldn't have sacrificed, had the court willed it?!!

C: [crying] We were such hypocrites!

C: The suspicion, the accusations-- it was exactly the way they used to treat us!! We were outsiders, too!!

P: [falters. that kinda gets to him but he wants to pretend it didnt]

C: [miserable] I justified so many awful things to myself. To you.

C: All because I was too scared to see the truth.

C: And once I finally did...I was too gutless to ask you to face it.

C: We were never any better than anyone else.

C: All of it...

C: It was just murder.

P: [not as much conviction] Don't be ridiculous--!

C: Don't be naive!!

P: ...

C: ...

C: ...I am truly sorry, Philip.

C: I'm sorry that I got us into this mess.

C: I'm sorry that I couldn't protect you like I was supposed to.

--

C: I was rash. And stupid. But I only ever wanted to keep you safe.

C: ...I still want you to be safe. I'd hoped you could understand, but...

C: [difficult for her to give up on him] ...if you refuse to listen...there's nothing that I can do.

P: [trying to not want it to be real] ...

[Philip looks conflicted, frustrated, trying to find his anger and righteousness again]

P: I-- rrgh!! You're impossible!!!

[He begins to walk in one direction, pulling at his hair, then suddenly turns on his heel and walks the other way again]

P: [exasperated, tring to convince himself] Literally! This is-- this is all impossible...!

[He buries his face in his hands and plops down on a log with an angry grunt]

[Circe watches him, wondering what he’s thinking now.]

[After he just sits there with his face in his hands for a moment, she slowly approaches and sits carefully next to him.]

P: [he is resting his elbows on his legs. He clasps his hands, uncovering his face, forehead against his intertwined fists.]

P: ...

[shot of Circe looking at him sadly]

–

C: …Are you happy in Gravesfield?

P: [Hands still clasped, his eyes open, looking into the woods] …

C: Philip?

P: [flatly] That doesn’t matter.

C: [Leaning forward, trying to look in his eyes] …It matters to *me*…

[Philip unclasps his hands but remains hunched over. He instead holds his elbows, which still rest on his legs. Does not look at Circe.]

P: [cold] So you say.

[Circe shrinks back]

[the two sit in silence for a moment. Birds chirp, and the bare tree branches sway in the breeze above them.]

–

C: [quietly] …are the trials as bad as they used to be?

P: …

P: [even tone] Less frequent.

C: [hopeful] That’s good.

P: … [furrows his eyebrows]

C: Do you still–

P: Yes.

C: [saddened] …

P: I am protecting people.

P: I’ve prevented what happened to you from happening again a dozen times over.

[Circe pales. Philip still is not looking at her.]

P: [clearly bitter about something] I’m *careful.* [seeming more vexed than proud] I’ve done more research than *anyone.*

C: [examining his face] …Research?

P: …

C: [dawning ] Do they *understand* that’s what your doing?

P: [intensely, looking only at the ground] It doesn’t matter. I can prove it.

C: [scared] Philip, are you in danger?

P: [breaks a twig off a branch on the fallen log with his left hand] [curtly] *No.*

P: [looks annoyed at the stick momentarily. passes it to his right hand] Because *I* am not a witch.

P: [slightly hesitant] …obviously.

���-

[Philip starts doodling in the dirt with the twig]

C: [losing patience with his stubborness] Do you honestly still believe that only real witches get accused? Get *punished?*

P: [stops drawing. gives her an angry sideways glance. then glares at the dirt again] …

P: …*Yes.*

P: As long as you do it *correctly.*

C: [furrows eyebrows] ……

[Philip resumes, scratching the dirt more forcefully.]

C: But–

P: Witches die because they are born doomed.

[as he says “doomed,” Philip finishes drawing The Belos Mask with a final, forceful scratch]

C: That’s what we were *told*. That doesn’t mean it’s true.

[Circe looks at Philip, expression somewhere between grim and pleading, but he won’t look up from his sketch]

——

P: [darkly] What does that mean for you, then?

[Circe is taken off-guard]

P: Do your witch-friends know what you used to do?

P: Or are you lying to them, too?

C: I–!

C: …

C: [quieter] …Not all of them know.

P: [snidely] Hmph.

C: [with a bit more conviction] But the ones that *do* know…

C: They know that I was scared. And trying to keep us safe.

C: There are people who understand that I truly thought I was doing the right thing.

C: [guilt] That I would give anything to undo it now…

C: [focusing on Philip again] They trust me, and love me, even though I’ve made…terrible mistakes. Even though I’ll *always* make mistakes.

C: [trying REALLY hard to get through to Philip] *Gravesfield isn’t all there is.*

P: …

[Philip scratches out the doodle forcefully.]

P: [unhappily] Good for you.

—-

[a prolonged beat of silence, save Philip’s stick scraping against the ground as he scribbles slowly, randomly on the spot where the doodle used to be]

C: ...If you want–

[suddenly, Philip throws his stick to the ground and turns to Circe]

P: [frustrated noise] Would you just get this over with already?!

C: [taken aback] What?

P: For Christ's sake, I don’t care what you want anymore!! Just take it!!!

P: You win! Enough with this awful vision!!

C: [baffled] Wha–! I-I’m not–! You still don’t believe that I’m real?!

——-

P: You *can’t* be!

P: [breaking a little] I only *want* you to be real!

P: I *want* you to be *alive*!

P: I don’t *want* to be *alone* any longer!!

P: But you insist on dragging out this awful charade!!

P: [becoming more desperate than angry] Why can’t you just lie to me?!

P: Tell me that you never wanted to leave at all!! That you're back for good! That nothing’s changed!!

P: *Something*– *anything* that’s actually easy to go along with!!! Isn't that what you're supposed to do?!

[Circe looks hurt]

P: Don't I even get to die thinking that I could be reunited with– with you?!

P: [losing steam] …What could you possibly want that you haven’t had the chance to take from me already…?

[a beat. Circe’s expression has closed off considerably. Philip rubs his face for a moment, then looks up again.]

P: Please. Get it over with. Kill me, or whatever it is you came here to do.

P: Or for God’s sake leave me be.

[wide shot of them sitting in unhappy silence]

——

C: [very quietly] …Alright.

[Circe stands, brushes her skirt off. Philip remains sitting, not looking at her]

C: I suppose I’ve done all that I can, then.

P: …

C: I won’t disturb you again.

P: …….

C: I’m still thankful that I could see you one last time.

P: ………..

C: [trying to keep composed] Please…stay safe. Take care of yourself.

P: ……………..

—

C: I love you.

P: …………… … …

C: [offscreen] Goodbye, Philip.

[she walks away]

[a beat passes]

[Philips resolve breaks. As he looks up–]

P: Ca– C.C., I–

[–he realizes he is alone again.]

P: ….

P: [slowly, he stands. brushes his jacket off. walks away.]

#circe clawthorne #toh #suicide mention #<- still just implicative but closer to explicitly referenced now #ohhh they both have so many problems. yippee!!!!

[xsapphirescrollsx]

Touch

Written: 2020-04-28

Bucky Barnes x Black female reader

Bucky Barnes thinks he doesn’t deserve you.

That he was unworthy of this very moment too.

Rain fell in sheets swelling the air around you in scents of dark soil and juniper. He sniffed the moist air again and breathed in deep, it smelled a touch like honey too. Bucky huddled in further next to you, hair wet, the droplets fell to your cheeks and he discovered the sweet smell was coming from you. 

A pavillion of sorts, but it was a small and broken pile of wood to the point a stream of spring rain came pouring in from the roof, on to the base of the floor and down the side like a waterfall. 

Bucky groaned inside, What are you doing here? Why did you follow him?

You slid down the column running through the center of the junky gazebo with a frazzled but excited gaze. 

“Just a little rain,” you said in a chipper tone.

He was not sure whether to sit or to continue to stand. Bucky glanced from your bare legs, to your flip flop barely on one foot, to your hands gently wiping off the rain from your thighs. Not entirely comfortable with how smooth he found your skin to be, he quickly looked away to the rain that was still coming down hard.

“Aren’t you going to sit?” You loudly asked over the roar of the downpour.

The apple of his cheeks were still pink when he nodded stiffly, refused to look you in the eyes and sat down next to you.

“Afraid of me?” you asked playfully and bumped his shoulder with yours.

Bucky brought a knee up and rested his metal arm on it and didn’t speak. 

He shook his head and kept his eyes panned on the rain. In the past, he had women, some of those moments he had become hopelessly devoted too, though to his detriment for only just one thing. But now, his eyes fell to your hands cupping and rubbing the bottom of your foot. 

Bucky imagined your hands, the soft pads of your fingers tracing along his face, his lips. The little movement of your thumb messaging the pinch in your hell was enough to send his heart hammering into his chest.

“It was a pretty day,” you said offhandedly. 

You rocked forward on your hands and knees, pushed closer to the cascade of rain and rinsed your hands.

Tilting your head back over your shoulder a small smile met his. Blood rushed to his head again and Bucky looked away.

It was still a pretty day, he thought.

Bucky concentrated on a blade of grass being pelted. “You got stuck out here with me. Why’d you follow me in the first place?” He asked.

“You looked upset after the reaming from Fury.” 

You scooted closer, folded your legs underneath you letting your knee touch his shin.

“So?” 

Bucky’s eyes fell to the place the two of you were connected up to your eyes.

You shrugged gently, he could see the confidence melt a bit and the shyness take over.

“I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Tender, with merciful care you laid the tips of your fingers on his calf.

The rain let up a bit. “Why would you care if I was alone?” he asked quietly. 

“Same reason you cared when I didn’t show up for the briefing a few weeks ago.”

He remembered. He found you in your room, unbathed, the assertiveness in your eyes had vanished and you just wanted to be alone.

And he remembered in that moment he wanted to touch you then, like he wanted to now.

“I just want you to be okay,” You said and your eyes moved to his stubbly cheek. Smoothly your fingers left his calve and with the tips of your fingers you caressed his jaw.

He felt his inside skip and stuttered, his skin flushed to a deeper pink. Bucky’s jaw tightened, his heart thumped quicker as your palm was joined by your fingers.

Your touch was like light, raw and pure it cut through the dark muddling his mind and he shut his eyes. Bucky unclenched his jaw as the back of your other hand swept up his neck. The warmth of your body fell over him, through him and he breathed in the sweet silkiness of your rain soaked skin.

A sob racked from his chest. It scared him, he hadn’t expected to feel this unfiltered joy. You hesitated, and Bucky opened his eyes and gazed at you.

“Don’t stop,” he said softly. 

You brushed a few wet strands away from his forehand.

“Never,” you whispered.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x black!reader #black female reader #x black reader #x black!reader

[billyssillywilly]

Vampire Eddie Oneshot

18+ MINORS BEGONE, completely SATIRE smut

Warnings: drug mention, swearing, bats, multiple orgasms, really stupid and obscure smutty sequences that make no sense 

Enjoy!

Ever since the demobats, Eddie hasn’t been the same. he’s gone absolutely feral, wanting to be inside of your moist sticky pussy every second of the day. You hear the crunch of the gravel of your driveway and practically came on the spot, he was finally home after a long day of bullying children and selling crack cocaine to cheerleaders. The jingle of his keys send you into your first orgasm, the anticipation was enough to send you over the edge.At the Speed of light, he races on all fours toward your spot on the couch and proceeds to tear your clothes to shreds like an extremely horny wood chipper. “I’m going to ruin your easy bake oven pussy Y/N” he whispers moistly into your ear, sending you into another orgasm. As if possessed by a malfunctioning lawn sprinkler, you twitch and squirt all over the couch. Eddie begins suckling on your left earlobe, making your nipples twist with excitement. “Babe, stick it in my glazed krispy cream donut” you plead, fisting his hair as if you could control him ratatouille style to fuck you. Eddie roughly takes you by the toes and growled “I’m taking my time baby, don’t rush me” and proceeds to suck each one individually. Hes caring that way, making sure each toe gets the attention it deserved. He makes his way back up to your firm mammaries and took each in his hands, giving them a good shake. Still gorilla gripping your breasts, he moves to your throbbing abyss. Using your knockers as handles, he begins to eat you out like a watermelon, slurping and sucking so loudly it’s possible he broke he sound barrier. His tongue climbs up your pussy and into your uterus, causing you to orgasm again, this time squirting into his mouth. He proceeds to gargle your cum and swallow, “I could drink that shit every day like Starbucks” he says as he smacks his lips. As you go through the final few waves of your orgasm, he grabs your face and attacks your lips. He begins swirling your tongue like a washing machine set on heavy duty, practically scrubbing your taste buds clean. His tongue slithers down your throat to play with your uvula, making you gag in response. It continues to snake its way down your throat, strumming your vocal cords like his guitar, causing you to involuntarily moan. His unnaturally long tongue was one of the many blessings that was gifted to him from Vecna when he was transformed into a vampire. You run your hands up his stomach and over his chest, feeling the scars from the very incident that had led to his transformation. “You like those?” He asks, you nod in response. Suddenly, Eddie sat up and whispers “Bat mode activated”. You sit in confusion as His eyes turn red and he screeches as if hes attempting echolocation. Bats flood the room and begin circling you and eddie as he lines himself up with your deep sea cavern. He roughly pounds into you amidst the screeching bats. Suddenly, he began levitating, Rising up and taking you with him. You both turned upside down and begin raw doggin it on the ceiling, still being orbited by thousands of bats. You orgasm from the sheer shock of the situation. Who knew fucking on the ceiling could be so sexy. Eddie quickens the pace, eyes still red as he twisted your uterus into a pretzel with his cock, you can tell he was close. “I’m gonna cum in your wet little Pringle’s can” he says, voice unnaturally deep and husky. His red eyes roll back in his head as he shoots scolding hot streams of cum into your pussy. You both begin spinning as You orgasm again and you both shower your living room with cum like fire sprinklers. His eyes slowly return back to normal as you both sink back into the couch and the bats begin to flutter out of the windows and doors. You both lay with each other on the cum soaked couch enjoying the post nut clarity. Suddenly, Steve, robin, argyle, Nancy, hopper, joyce, Mrs wheeler, Mike, el, will, Dustin, Lucas, Erica, Suzy, Murray, Dr. Brenner, and Keith from family video walk in and collectively yell WHAT THE FUCK. Jonathan runs in last minute with his camera and says “I got it on camera!

#eddie munson #eddie x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x reader #stranger things smut #stranger things #eddie munson smut #satire

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Sadly I think Stede might be here to stay? Sorry.

Yeah I know. Do I need to tell my villain origin story about Stede again to remind everyone why I'm Like This?

So in late 2020 I met this guy on grindr, he was blond, goofy, exactly my type (emo and skinny and self destructive)(I have sex with all types of men but this is the only type of guy I've ever fallen in love with, I'm doing great thanks for asking)

We went out on a couple dates and I fell in love with him far too fast. He lived out of town so he would always come to visit me but he had a better job than I did making gas money less of a concern and I hate driving so I didn't see that as a red flag. You already know where this is going. We made it official

Motherfucker ghosted me on the day after fucking Christmas. I had a pair of earplugs (like for gauges) I had gotten him. I waited all fucking day for him to show up because I had blocked this out. He never came he wasn't answering his phone.

Cut to twoish months later and I get a text from him. I call him, we have a long phone convo but the TL;DR? Wife and 2 kids. This whole time. And I need you guys to know I was fully ready to marry this man when he ghosted.

Anyway exactly a month after that phone call I watched a television show on HBO Max called Our Flag Means Death and I was an Ed kinnie from Episode 4 on I was like "this is the new hes just like me for real character he's my fav hey his ex even kinda looks like the guy i have sex with in exchange for drugs haha thats awesome" however it did not even occur to me to project my 130lb soaking wet, formerly meth addicted, emo, cheating ass most recent boyfriend onto Stede, because why the fuck would it, until Ed sat on that dock and waited for him all fucking night and he never showed up and then it hit me like a truck and in those minutes I went from thinking Stede was a funny little protag to mentally running him through a wood chipper and I will continue to do so until he wins me back (which to be clear Stede winning me back has always been part of the escapism of this show for me.)

#personal #batsarebetterthanpeople villain origin story #drug mention

[pinkhairandpokemon]

———

[Video: Blake can be seen jumping off Reshiram’s back with their Zoroark, Nox, before they make a frantic run for a small wooden cottage up ahead together.

“Alder- Alder!” They cry out, rushing past the dirt battlefield out in the front yard before stumbling almost face-first into the front door. They pant, straightening themself up again before pounding their fist against the wood. “Alder, I’m here, let me in-!”

“It’s unlocked! Come on in!” A far more chipper voice can be heard inside. Without hesitation, Blake turns the knob, almost tripping over their own feet and Nox’s paws as they both squirm their way through at the same time. Once they fumble inside, though, they stop- their expression of panic quickly shifting to one of bewilderment.

The first noticeable thing is the huge, paper banner hanging from the ceiling- with the words “Welcome back, hero!” written in bold, colorful letters, decorated with some Unova Pokémon themed stickers. Gathered underneath it are several people stood side by side- Professor Juniper, her father, Alder, Cheren, and Bianca, and a pair of two kids Blake doesn’t recognize.

“Surprise!” They all cheer in unison the moment Blake steps through the doorway.

Blake blinks a few times, looking over the single room house around them- There’s balloons, assortments of food plated on small folding tables, and a small blue cooler filled with sodas and water bottles off in the corner. Nox seems just as perplexed as they are.

“Wh-wha?” They mumble, still a bit out of breath from their frantic escape earlier.

“Welcome home, Blakey!” Bianca squeals, running up to envelop them in a tight bearhug. “Well- back to Unova, anyway!”

“Glad to see you again,” Cheren muses, a relaxed smile on his face as he places a hand on their shoulder.

“What…” Blake looks around again, still rather dazed. “What is this…?”

“The minute we heard you were in Unova, we knew we had to welcome you back properly- it’s the least we can do for the region’s hero, right?” Prof. Juniper explains, walking over to playfully ruffle the young trainer’s hair. “The surprise party was Bianca’s idea. It’s nothing much, just what we were able to throw together before you arrived, but I’d say it turned out pretty good. Whaddya think?”

“It’s… it’s great,” Blake stammers, looking to Alder. “But what about-”

“The texts I sent you?” Alder chortles, slapping them on the back with a beaming grin. “Ahah, that was just to make sure you got here as fast as possible! Sorry if I startled you!”

While everyone continues to chatter on around them, Blake’s gaze falls to the floor, uneasiness brewing behind their eyes as they start to zone out. They look at the dust stains covering the sleeves of their jacket, the ones they’d received trying to fight off Team Plasma’s sneak attack hardly even an hour prior.

Bianca places a hand on their arm, snapping them out of it. “Hey, you alright?” she asks, tilting her head a little in concern. “You look tired. Why don’t you sit down and have something to eat and drink? We’ve got two whole years to catch up with each other on!

She begins to gently tug them towards the nearest seat, beckoning Cheren over as well. Blake seems to hesitate, though, looking back towards the entrance- they notice Nox gazing firmly at the door, like he’s waiting for something to come barging through, still high on alert from the prior attack.

“But those grunts…” They mumbled underneath their breath.

“Hm?” Cheren hummed, raising a confused brow at them. “Sorry, did you say something?”

They hold their gaze on the door and their Zoroark a few seconds longer, before turning back to their group of friends and shaking their head. “N-nevermind. It’s nothing. Let’s go eat.”]

———

#interlude arc #pokeblogging #pokemon irl #pokeblog rp #pokemon #pokemon oc #pokemon rp #trainer blake #pokeirl #pkmn irl #pkmn rp

[jennycalendar]

is it jenny/xander?

i will DEFINITELY keep answering incorrect guesses because i think they're super funny.

that said, i would actually rather run into a wood chipper than even entertain jenny/xander after all of the incredibly bad male power fantasy "xander and jenny bond over how much they both hate angel and are right to hate angel" fics i have read in my quest to Read Everything Jenny Related On The Internet. actually this ask has given me so many flashbacks. i have seen things no man should see. i truly cannot have a coherent take on jenny/xander outside of "kill it with fire" after Going Through It in those fic trenches. i am SURE fic COULD exist that could make me believe in this dynamic, because that is, i think, what the art of fanfiction is for, but y'all have no idea how much jenny/xander fic is already out there and how bad it is. jenny/xander my worst nightmare. never ever jenny/xander

#asks #REALLY the fic just falls victim to the No One Knows How To Write Xander disease #but i truly cannot overemphasize how bad 99 percent of it is #that said: i read a wishverse fic once where xander and jenny are like the last survivors #and xander's in love with jenny #jenny's feelings are left incredibly ambiguous but she tolerates xander's affection #THAT dynamic made me unwell and insane. but that's the ONLY one that will be allowed in my house.

[whorrorgrl]

So…

I finally got around to watching the 2022 slasher movie, X. Written, directed, and produced by Ti West, it starred Mia Goth as Maxine Minx, Brittany Snow as Bobby-Lynne, Kid Cudi as Jackson Hole, Martin Henderson and Wayne Gilroy, and the up and coming star Jenna Ortega as Lorraine. The buzz around this movie was so enticing that I ordered the DVD and waited patiently all those 10 business days for it to come. I had surprisingly avoided all talk about the show, so it was a surprise when I saw Jenna Ortega in a movie where she wasn’t playing a teenager. She’s one of those stars where you know they’ll become a big name in the future, so I’m excited to see her in more movies like this. However....as far as this movie goes....I was expecting so much more.

     It had it all! Cornfields on each side, roads stretched for miles with no help in sight, and a van filled with young adults awaiting to be slaughtered. It’s one of my favorite genres in horror movies and why I always rewatch movies like Wrong Turn, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween. But unlike those iconic franchises, X fell short for me when it came to the slasher part. It was too fast, too, quick, and lacked suspense. Plus, who the hell finds old people threatening? Maybe in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit it was scary, but they were going against kids. Pearl (also played by Mia Goth) and Howard with his rusty shotgun are no threat, which really took it out for me. And I was only proven right after watching the ending and how those old farts practically took themselves out. 

The Kills:

This was the biggest letdown of the movie because the way our characters went out was so lackluster. If you blinked, you would’ve missed it. In slasher films, I expect a lot of blood. Buckets of it. Considering this is a movie set in the late 70′s, they could’ve really played around with corn syrup and ridiculous kills, but no :/

The scenes weren’t as gruesome like the movies X took inspiration from Owen Campbell’s character RJ Nichols was the  one of the only interesting kills, Wayne getting his eyes forked out of his head a close second. But Bobby-Lynne getting pushed into a lake to getting eaten by a gator and only seeing it for a split second, Jackson getting shot with that damn gun, and Lorraine getting her head shot off...you barely got time to enjoy it or cringe before you were moving onto the next scene. What I loved about horror movies from the 80′s to 2000′s is how those scenes seem to go on forever. You can feel every muscle being torn from a stab, cringe when someone got their limbs churned off from a wood chipper, and have your heart racing when the final girl runs through a field,  have your heart literally sink when the get into that pick-up truck only to realize the keys are in the house - with the killer. There’s always a struggle fight, a reach for the gun, a knife, something. If there’s a stairway, someone’s getting thrown down it. At some point, you wonder if the protagonist will even make it out alive - that’s how close the fight seems. X gave me none of that. 

In the beginning of the movie, cops arrive at the scene of what will be the crime scene of what we know will happen before it actually happens. Sheriff Dentler (played by James Gaylyn) examines a body outside the property covered in bloody sheets, then enters the house. Another officer tells him he needs to come and see something in the basement. They go and witness something that leave him slack jawed. But we don’t see it, of course, because it’ll later be revealed as the movie starts. When we do realize what it is, that’s also lackluster. It’s just some guy chained up stripped naked. Throughout the entire movie, I’m wondering what that scene will be. When Howard tricks and locks Lorraine in the basement, I wonder if the horrific scene is of her in some horrific state. Maybe Pearl’s obsession with Maxine meant she would be put in the basement dressed up like some doll or something, I don’t know. Anything that wasn’t some random John Doe with his pants to his ankles. As a stand alone movie, this movie struggling to keep upright. Even if Pearl (2022) clears up more, I don’t think movies should rely on others in a series to be good.

This movie is apart of a sequel with Pearl, the prequel which will explain why Pearl is the way she is a lot better, comes out September 16th....but I do not care about Pearl to even wonder why she is the way she is because her and her husband’s weird ass life isn’t fleshed out or properly handled enough for me to care. I don’t care that she misses being young and beautiful and is taking it out on the unsuspecting guests in their guesthouse. I don’t care that Howard can’t get his willy up without risking a heart attack. Everyone is so rushed, every scene is so fast paced, every kill happens before you can even realize it....nothing marinates. Nothing is handled with time and patience. I’m sitting here mourning because this movie could’ve been so good. The ending where Maxine starts up Howard’s pick-up truck and dusts off down the road to safety doesn’t seem earned. Whenever I watched similar movies like this where the final girl maniacally drives to safety, it’s after seeing a whole rollercoaster of her and her friends trying to survive the night. I used to hate those movies as a kid because I used to really think there was no way they’re getting out of their horror - even when I rewatch it and know how it’ll end. I didn’t get that with X and I’m so disappointed. Such an original take on an old horror style. 

6/10 for me

#A24 #X #xmovie #2022 #whorrorgrlreviews

[veganmikehanlon]

The Past Has Claws

prev/next

It has been one whole hour of blissful quiet from both girls. Stan has been able to listen to NPR without any loud complaints from the girls about how boring it is and it’s... Amazing. He should have gotten some time this morning but the girls woke up very chipper and hyper and they didn’t conk back out until an hour on the road.

They’re getting close to Derry and Stanley is getting nervous. It’s been nothing but woods and fields for the last two hours, civilization seemingly getting farther and farther away. He stopped to get gas and drove 30 minutes down one road with nothing on either side before reaching it and getting back on the highway was another 30 minutes. What if Derry is exactly the same? Is he really going to raise his Black Jewish daughters in a place where you have to drive an hour to the nearest Walmart and even farther for a mall? There’s going to be so many white people.

Okay, he can’t go into this thinking negatively. Maybe he’s being too harsh, the house is very nice and the downtown is charming. But nothing is perfect and he turned out fine enough, maybe Derry isn’t all that bad. Patty did have a few worries she shared over the phone when she first arrived, like the Walmart and the mall thing. And the white goyim thing.

Stan glances back at his girls. They might stick out with their light brown skin, tightly coiled curls, and being Jewish, but so help anyone that tries to bully them for any of those things. Kids can be cruel and he has no shame in holding them and their parents accountable. They didn’t have many problems in Georgia, there were plenty of little black kids running around that bullying was generic, not race-based.

But Patty hasn’t mentioned anything of the like in the last week they’ve been apart. And their talk last night she was so excited about the house and the move, and Stan trusts her. It still doesn’t make him feel any better about all the farmland.

“Horsie,” a small tired voice pops up from the backseat. Stan chuckles and glances back. Isabelle is sitting with her head resting on a pillow against the window, her hair a wild mess around her face, gazing serenely at the passing scenery.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Stan says softly so as not to wake Michelle. Isabelle yawns and stretches her legs out.

“Where are we?” She asks.

Stan glances at his phone and is surprised to see how close they really are. He checks the speedometer but he isn’t going any faster than the speed limit. “We’re a half-hour from Derry,” he tells her. A shiver goes through him and he admonishes himself for being scared. Nervousness seems like a more appropriate response to the situation, but with the knowledge that he’s about to be back in Derry, the small town he grew up and away from, the only feeling he can describe is fear.

“Can we take a bathroom break?” ‘Belle asks, snapping Stan out of his thoughts. He looks at his phone to see if there’s anything nearby but there’s nothing. Just a lot of land.

“Can you wait? Derry is the closest thing around, or you can go outside?” He suggests and she immediately looks scandalized.

“Outside?” She gasps, “I can’t go outside !” She says with righteousness that makes Stan laugh.

“Careful, if you wake your sister up you know she won’t have any problem going potty outside.” He warns and Isabelle casts a disgusted look at Michelle’s sleeping form in the relaxed bucket seat.

“I can wait.” She says softly and decisively before leaning back against the window to watch the scenery. Stan chuckles quietly to himself, g-d he loves that girl. The car turns quiet again and Stan’s eyes wander back to his phone and the rapidly approaching town line.

His nerves spike again and he turns his eyes fiercely on the road, waiting to see the sign he knows he’s dreamed of recently. When it appears Stan sees a bunch of red balloons tied to it like the town was waiting for them to greet them.

“Oooh, balloons!” Another sleepy voice pipes up and Stanley looks back to see Michelle sitting up and pointing excitedly at the balloons. “Hello, town!” She greets excitedly as they trumble past the sign.

Stan ignores the uncomfortable tightening in his chest, determined to only look forward. He can’t seem to help looking back in his rearview mirror though, and the sight that greets him is confusing. It looks like a clown, blurred behind the bunch of red balloons. It waves. Stan has to look back at the road to make sure he’s not drifting off the road, and when he looks back there’s no one there.

He shakes the imaginary clown out of his mind, he already has to see his parents today. The most important thing though is that he will be reunited with his wife! He’s missed her terribly for three weeks and now he just has to find their new house and he’ll have her in his arms again.

“Are we there yet?” Isabelle groans.

“Just about,” Stan answers as his phone starts speaking for the first time since they’ve been on that long, long road. He makes a left, sits at a stoplight, turns right and a block later the houses change from small family homes to suburban mini-mansions.

“Whoahhhhh,” The kids say in tandem and Stanley finds himself agreeing.

“Which one’s ours!” Michelle asks excitedly, pulling the back of her seat up so fast Stan winces, worried she whipped her neck in her excitement. The worry passes as she continues to talk. “Is it that one? Ohhh I like that one is it that one? Are we there yet?”

“Almost,” Stan answers distractedly as he squints at the house numbers, searching for theirs. In the end, he didn’t need to look so hard.

“MOMMY!” The girls both shout and there she is, standing at the end of the driveway, waving excitedly.

“Keep your seatbelts on,” Stan warns, already knowing they were reaching to unbuckle. They bounce around with excitement in their seats and Stan chuckles at the excitement two little bodies can emanate. As they pull into the driveway he sees his parents on their beautiful, dream house wrap-around porch.

As soon as he puts the SUV in park the girls are flinging themselves out the car doors. Stan exits a moment later, watching with a swelling heart as Patty wraps her arms around their little girls, her smile lighting up her face.

“I missed my little birds so much!” Patty says, kissing each of their heads. “Why don’t you go say hi to your Bubbeh and Zaydeh,” She suggests and the two girls run to the porch and up the steps.

His heart starts racing when she turns that smile on him, her perfect white teeth gleaming against her smooth brown skin. “Babylove,” he sighs as he finally wraps his arms around his wife.

“I missed you so much,” Patty says fiercely into his neck.

Stan laughs and picks her up in his arms, twirling around once, twice, as Patty shrieks with laughter. He sets her down lightly on her feet, “I missed you too, babylove.” He says before drawing her into a kiss. Now he’s home.

“Hey lovebirds!” His dad’s rough voice calls and Stanley withdraws from Patty sadly. “Come say hello to your Mother.” He commands and Stan immediately side-eyes his wife who is already looking back. They both burst out laughing, giddy now that they’re back together. They interlock their fingers, and Patty pulls Stan to the porch, their laughter still dying down.

Their house is beautiful, a soft robin egg blue with white shutters. The large wrap-around porch that they already have a porch swing picked out for. Stone steps lead up the porch to the doorway, comfortably solid beneath Stan’s feet. And he knows the inside is beautiful too, with a large foyer, 4 bedrooms, 2 ½ bathrooms, and an updated kitchen. Stan doesn’t think the girls are old enough to understand what a house is like from pictures, so their first look should be fun to witness.

“Oh, my Stanley!” His mother cries, pulling him into her arms and the foot down to hug him around his neck.

“Hey, Ma.” He greets with a laugh.

“Oh, my baby is home!” His mom all but sobs, her hug getting tighter and tighter around his neck.

“Okay, Ma, come on,” He wheezes.

“Oh! My dear, here you go,” She says letting him go. He kisses her cheek and turns to his dad. They clap hands and his dad pulls him into a brusque hug, patting him on the back a couple of times before letting go.

“Good to have you home, son.” He says gruffly. Stan claps him on the shoulder and looks at Patty, who has Isabelle cuddled on her lap while Michelle paces around them babbling excitedly.

“Good to be home,” Stan replies warmly, and with a shared smile with his dad, he approaches his family. “Should we go see the inside?” He suggests and the girls are a flurry of excited shouting, Isabelle jumping out of her mom’s lap and chasing Michelle to the door.

“I call the bigger room!” Isabelle yells, making the adults laugh.

Stan turns to his wife, “Shall we?” He asks and she turns that blinding smile at him again.

“We shall,” she responds with a laugh, and with that Stan lifts her bridal style and carries her over the threshold. She laughs into his shoulder, “Stan stop! You’re going to throw out your back!”

“Oh come on, I’m not that old!” Stan laughs, but he sets her down as soon as they’re through the door, not for any reason, because he’s not old. She kisses him on the cheek and kicks off her sparkly slides. Stan toes his sneakers off and sets them next to her shoes on the shoe rack. He loves that Patty knows all the little things that make him feel at home. The girls didn’t take their shoes off, must have been too excited calling dibs on their rooms. The funny thing is that the rooms are the same size, he wonders how that will go over.

The foyer has a high ceiling with a chandelier and opens into the living room, where their black sectional sits in an L shape. His and Patty’s favorite chairs are sat next to each other and Stan is already imagining sitting next to her and watching reruns of Family Feud.

“Ready?” Patty asks, holding a hand out to him. He grabs her hand and lets her lead him past the foyer. They turn right to the kitchen and pass the dining room area with their dark wood table, four chairs, and one bench on each side of the table.

“Woah,” Stan can’t help but say when he sees the kitchen. It looked great in the pictures but in real life, it’s something else. There are granite counters, a gas stove with a griddle in the middle, a big farmhouse type two-compartment sink, and high ceilings. He runs his hand over the counter as he walks to the fridge. There’s the picture of them at the Eiffel Tower, Isabelle and Michelle’s latest school photos, a family picture at the beach, and their mismatch of magnets they’ve gotten throughout the years. He straightens the picture of him and Patty and smiles.

She comes up behind him and wraps her arms around his middle. He relaxes into her hold, “I love it.” He sighs.

“Wait until you see the backyard, just enough room for a trampoline.” She says. Stan turns in her arms, confused.

“A trampoline? Where did you get that idea?” He asks.

Patty laughs, “From your dad. He wants to get it for Michelle’s birthday.”

Stan groans, of course his dad wants to get them a trampoline, then he’ll be the best Bubbeh and pull ahead in the competition with Patty’s parents. Patty runs her thumb over his eyebrow, smoothing it out, and cups his face. Her soft smile is so full of love that Stan forgets to be frustrated with his parents.

“Want to show me our room, Babylove?” He asks softly, a coy smile playing on his lips.

“Stanley!” She gasps like she’s scandalized, but her smile is too wide to pull it off.

Stan laughs and tickles her side, making her laugh harder. “Later, then.” He mumbles into her hair and they take a moment to wrap each other up tight in their arms.

“MOM!” Michelle screams from the balcony upstairs and the two reluctantly pull apart. They split and head for the stairs and to their daughters.

[echantedtoon]

Allison Chapter One

Allison Gale is newly turned twenty two fresh out of college and just learnt her grandmother had sadly passed away and had left everything to Allison. Well, she doesn't have any place else to go so why not move out of state? But unluckily for her, she's about to get dragged down the rabbit hole by a crazy but familiar old face.

(A story based on the concept art of Vivziepop's old project Allison. I do not own any of the characters, I just wanted to make a story of it based off my own headcannons. The coverart tho is mine. If you don't know what it is please go look it up. It was made by the same person who made Hazbin Hotel.)

It was a beautiful day.

The sun rays shone down upon the world as the calm quiet woods sounded with the life of birds and insects happy the sun warmed them from up above. The light shone through the tree leaves as their branches leaned over the road and blocked most of the sunlight, casting long shadows to dance on the old dirt road that only lead deeper and deeper into the forbidden woods- Well almost forbidden. The yellow blur of the taxi as it kicked up dirt was the only thing interrupting the silence of the silent woods as it sped down the dust path. Shining light went inside the cab and caught on the dark reddish-brown eyes attached to the sweet strawberry blonde haired lady as she stared out of the window watching the green world go by. It's was almost like a dream to come back all these years to the place she used to play and live as a small little girl. Running through the woods, climbing trees, swimming in the giant pond, playing with her blue furred imaginary and her granny coming out to find her and dragging her back in again. She almost smiled remembering the thoughts, or she would have if another thought didn't hit her. What would her granny say if she saw her no? Washed up without a job and dropped out of college at twenty two. A great way to start off life, am I right? A small bump sent her jostling and reaching a hand over to grab the large suitcase in the set next to her and the smaller gym bag on top of that, scrambling to not them fall on the bed of the car as another bump threatened to send them over again...When no more bumps can after a few moments she slowly let go and sighed when they didn't fall over and leaned back into her seat.

"You ok back there?," the cab driver bluntly asked not even taking his eyes off the road. His tone was just bored instead of that chipper happy tone from when she got rides back in her own town.

She pushed some of that strawberry blonde hair out of her face and taking a breath. "Y-Yeah. I-I'm ok. Thanks." He didn't answer her back and she sighed, looking back out the windows at all the pine trees and other nature scenes. "This forest sure is big."

"It's the Oceanic Forest. Our world is one half water and these woods make up a big chunk of it what land we have left." She jumped slightly and blinked back at him. He muttered something else under his breath she didn't quite catch, his black eyes seemed almost nervous gazing out at the woods like he was expecting some kind of monster to pop out in front of him and glance back up at her with a almost stern look. "....Some folks say this place is cursed. Cursed for thousands of years."

"I-I know, but it all sounds rather silly." She shook her head and looked back out the window with a small smile. "Fairies and strange powers that doom anyone who harms the forests. Heard it over and over before. Curse thee those who's hearts are easily closed minded." She gave a chuckle to it all trying to lighten the mood but stopped once her eyes looked over and caught him giving her a stern look through the rear view mirror.

"These aren't things that should be joked about young lady. If I had it my way, I'd turn around right here and now and drive back as fast as I could to the safety of the sidewalks and man made houses." His eyes darted back to the brightly lit dirt road and even though it was daytime he acted like it was night time and something would jump out at them at any given second. "B-But lucky for you my boss would have my hide if I turned down any job. I've seen things. Strange things. That no one could explain in these very woods."

Her eyes scrunched up in curiousity and perhaps mild fear at why he was acting so weird. "Like what exactly?"

"Shadows! If you look out right now and look around you may or may not see one!" He stated matter of factly and looked around quickly again at the peaceful woods. "It doesn't matter if it's day or night for them. They'll always move around waiting for their victims, but as long as you stay out they'll leave you alone. Oh, nono. They'll creep to the very EDGE of the last tree that begins the forest line and reach out for you I heard. Snatch you if you get too close. But they'll never fully leave the safety of their vast woods. Just never go into the woods and stay away, and you will always b-be safe." His voice trembled as his grip on the steering wheel increased. "May god have mercy on the poor souls who don't heed the warnings and travel to places they don't belong."

Another moment of silence passed and she temporarily gazed out the window. She didn't know why but she squinted her eyes out the window at the forest surrounding them and especially the shadows. There wasn't anyway she was superspicious but looking never- She jumped seeing something move behind a tree, but quickly relaxed when her brain registered it as a deer. The poor thing ran off probably from the car speeding through it's home and she smiled. Fairies and shadow ghost and curses. And she supposed Santa Clause and the Sand Man were right around the corner too. Her small smile returned as she looked over to the driver again.

"And I don't suppose there's a legend behind these woods too is there?" She couldn't help but sound a little amused which still made him irritated.

"This isn't funny! People say these woods were cursed by demons and witches thousands of years ago. Making this place a literal hell on earth!"

"Well. I grew up in these woods. And nothing ever bad happened to me or my granny when she was alive," she said smiling back out into the beautiful woods, "I played in the woods all the time as a kid, and I never saw any scary shadows or anything."

...."Then you're really lucky young lady." He seemed to almost shudder with his next warning. "If I were you I'd handle up whatever business I had with this dead grandma's place and get out of here."

...This time she scowled. "I can't! She left it to me, a-and I don't have anywhere else to go." Her face glanced off to the floor of the cab as her faced turned sour. Remembering the faces of the landlord who happily evicted her for bills she couldn't pay anymore, the cousin who conveniently didn't have any room for her to stay, or the teacher who wouldn't let her go back to school when she couldn't afford the college anymore. Working the dead end job at the local pizza place wasn't enough money and she only had a highschool degree. God she really did mess up huh?

"Mark my words. Nothing good could ever come from this place. Just don't say I didn't warn you, Kid."

The rest of the trip there was rather peaceful except for the man staring at the woods around them with a scared matter, until she saw it. Pale white paint chipping off the old looking brown wood giving the small house an old abandoned look. It was-...Not lot she remembered. And it only made it more apparent when they got closer. The old metal fence was barely hanging into it's place in the ground and wild vines were all plastered over it, making the tall grass and weeds look even more eerily. It...It looked like the place had been abandoned for years as it rolled closer and eventually loomed over them with a shadow once they came to a stop right in front of it. She just...stared at it. This wasn't the same white house and neat yard she remembered from when she was little-

"That's no house, that's termites holding hands...No offense."

"...I-It's ok. Nothing a lawnmower and paint can't fix."

He hummed. "Well my job's done. Grab your stuff and get out so I can leave."

She looked to him and blinked. "You're not going to help me?"

He looked around to her with a stern face and gripped the steering wheel tighter, "Lady! I ain't getting out of this cab and getting snatched up!"

She scowled but didn't argue when she pushed her door open and got out, turning around and grabbing her bags, pulling the heavy suitcase and bag out and hitting the ground with a thud, she scowled and mumbled to herself before slamming the door shut and dragging them a few feet away from the- SCREEE!! A cloud of blinding dust and screeching tires suddenly hit her and filled her lungs. Those hands went up to cover her mouth and wave at the air in a futile attempt to swat away the dirt stinging her eyes and making her eyes sting. Reddish-brown eyes blinked and through the settling dust and saw the faint sight of a blurry yellow taxi speeding away with a dust trail kicking up behind it. A growl escaped her throat and she scowled at the fading menace.

"HEY!! YOU JERK!!", She yelled back. Not that it would do her any good now or ever.

She groaned loudly and with a grunt, she leaned back down to grab the two giant and heavy bags filled with personal belongings and began to pull and tug them towards the house. That took a while with her small form heaving the objects through the tall weeds and grass towards the front door of the old home the shadow of the old place looking over her swallowing her whole and blocking out the sunlight, once she got to the porch she stopped though. Looking over the steps with a scowl before sighing, and continuing, the luggage thumping and jarring being pulled past each step. It always seemed like it was harder bringing things up stairs than down don't you think? One back breaking pull later, they were redropped onto the hard old porch and she sighed. Hands going to her back as she stretched it out with a pop and brown-red eyes looked around the front door and everything around it. ...Where did the lawyer say the key was again? OH!! RIGHT!! She quickly looked to her feet and smiled at the old welcome mat under her, stepping off and leaning down to grab and lift it, underneath was a small golden key that looked to match the doorknob. With a smile she stoof back up and went to insert it into the keyhole, with a twist and click, it opened. She just stood there as the door very loudly opened revealing the inside of the house and it-......It looked exactly as she remembered. The large living room opened up to her was littered in old worn furniture, a small shelf lined with her grandmother's old glass figurine collection still stood there as small shiny glass statues ranging from a small cat to a couple kissing each other stood proudly. She remembered sitting by the fireplace right next to it staring at the figurines and making up stories about those figurines. How the couple was a secret runaway princess and her lover. How the ballerina next to them was the greatest dancer in the world with many admires, how the cat was a glass version of her imaginary friend. She giggled remembering the funny things they would get into when she was younger. Everything looked the exact same. It was almost like-...she never left. As if she turned her head- Her eyes turned to glance at the old rocking chair by the fireplace- her granny would still be right there. Rocking back and forth, knitting her whatever new sweater or clothes she needed. Like she said when she was a little girl:

"You don't need distractions like television and all that nonsense. The woods and imagination take you places other's can't even dream about-"

"Go play. Create fantasies a bundle." She slowly muttered to herself. She still stared at the rocking chair, a light breeze blowing in through the open door, blowing her hair around and the rocking chair moved just slightly in the wind. ....She sadly smiled and turned back around. Discarding the key into her pocket and turning back to the luggage still sitting behind her on the porch with a sigh. She still had a lot of work to do. So that's why five minutes later she was pulling both bags across the floor one giant tug at a time, she would go one bag at a time but she just wanted to get this over with. It was when she encountered the stairs leading up to the second floor of the building when she wished she had superpowers of flight or teleportation or strength. It'd make things very easier, but alas magic didn't exist. While going up the stairs she passed by different picture frames hung on the walls, some really old black and white photos, others looking a bit more modern but still older. An old black n white photo of her young grandparents on their wedding day, a new one of her granny as a young lady, another of her holding a younger version of her- She stopped and stared at the picture of herself...A younger her. She remembered the day this was taken. Mother's day when she was just six years old, she made her and her granny matching flower crowns and she took the photo...She smiled a bit at the fond memories of giggling and sweet scented flowers. Before she grunted and started pulling again. The heavy bags hitting each step making a giant thump sound that vibrated through the empty house. She passed the mirror hanging against the wall as well and if she would've taken a look at it she might've seen the pink and yellow strange mitchmatched eyes blinking at her from the fan on the ceiling as she continued to grunt and pull the heavy thing up the stairs away from the mirror, but those eyes remained glued on her as the small blue person just blinked and turned as she reached the top of the stairs. She gave a sigh...before grunting and starting to pull the thing towards the old bedroom she used to stay in. The pink door to the far right. The small blue figure on the ceiling fan tilted his head at the obvious struggling before she just dropped them with a growl to the floor. Looking at them for a long moment before giving them a kick of frustration and turning to the pink door. She hesitated....before pushing it wide open and walking in. The small blue figure tilted his head to the right before blinking, arching his body and shaking lightly before hopping down off the fan and landing to the floor with the softest thud. He crept over to the doorway and poked their head in to watch her. She looked all around the small room. Faded beige walls with flower wall paper stared back at her, a regular sized bed, dresser, and desk lined the left wall and a small shelf with old toys and books leaned against the other side. A smile came to her face seeing the old pictures still tacked onto the wall. One of a crudely drawn grandma and child holding hands and another next to them a small blue crudely drawn kitty wearing some kind of white shirt and red bowtie. Unconciously she raised a hand and touched the picture with a smile at the memories. Oh the adventures she had as a child. She missed the small blue head (that looked oddly like a better version of the blue cat in the drawing) when she turned back to the door and went over to regrab at the heavy things, grunting as she pulled them in and laid them in the middle of the floor and sighed. Before unzipping the first bag on top and reaching inside to pull out a pair of clothes. These things wouldn't put themselves away, and she had a lot of work to do later fixing up the place and cleaning all the dust up.

The small figure that hid from before peeked out from the top of the doorway upside down and kept quickly ducking whenever she turned her head in that direction. Always missing the figure as she worked to unpack and definitely didn't see the wide fanged grin. Or hear the mischevious giggles. Or even hear the playful voice.

"Welcome back, Allison."

#allison #hazbin hotel #helluva boss #zoophobia #timber

[the-haunted-walkman]

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Ichoriel

𝔸𝕝𝕓𝕦𝕞 - My Oc ! Definitely not from Minecraft

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↠ⁿᵉˣᵗ ˢᵒⁿᵍ ↺ ʳᵉᵖᵉᵃᵗ ⊜ ᵖᵃᵘˢᵉ

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"I am waking up now",Ichoriel told himself, his wide smile on his face. Big eyes blinking in the half lit room like a kid opening his eyes on his birthday to a surprise he'd already overheard the secret of. Like the feeling of delight in a good surprise, one already known.

His boney hands pressed into the easily giving mattress under him, the blanket he slept on top of shuffling against his coarse wings' skin and the thin layer of ash that covered everything; it sifted to the side with the movements.

He was awake now, or, that's what he told himself.

Because Proper People wake up, because Proper People had been asleep. And Ichoriel was nothing if not a Proper People type of person, the thought making his thin boney tail swish a little with happiness, the star shaped barbs on the end cutting through the air.

Ichorial stretched, his gangly limbs above his head and arching back a bit in a curve, always messy ivory hair sticking out everywhere like a sleepy angels halo and brushing his soft cold skin. His bones popped satisfyingly, like a gentle pinch under his slightly gray and purple skin. His spine deep in him resounded like a dozen tiny church bells echoing through the empty ceiling that was his hollow chest, his ribs clacking together a bit where they rested over his tunic like birds waking up in the rafters and taking off in a cacophony, and his wings and tail straight out like weathervanes and lighting poles. Ichoriel gave a laugh that didn't sound like clicks or chattering at all, Proper People laughed like hearty wind instruments rapidly played. Ichorial was a Proper People type of person, not an old church building, and so the thought made him laugh, just like the wood wind laughs he knew.

Ichorial smiled as he stood up on long legs covered in a tan tunic he had found.

Because Proper People stand up, Proper People stand and walk and sit and run, Proper People dream of floating and flying cause they cannot, and as a Proper People type person, neither can Ichoriel.

"I am going outside!" Ichorial said happily, voice chipper and not at all chirpy. Bugs chirp, Proper People do not. Snagging his long almost cloak-like scarf off its fire darkened hook by the door that creaked under its own, fragile and charred straining, Ichoriel's tail swished a bit out of the way so that the sharp almost barb like hooks at the boney end don't hook on the fabric like a fishing lure and tear it. The tattered holes at the end of Ichoriel's cloak tell of what happens in those situations.

It is a foggy evening, the dampness sticking to the air like a sweet sap on bread. Ichorial purrs- HUMS at the thought, remembering the sweet sticky treat he'd have on a good morning way back when.

The memory is foggy tho, like curling smoke, all the ones from before everything smelled like burnt wood and charred fibers are that way.

Ichorial still smiled, that was a good smell, tho. That smelled like home!

Ichorial walked down his steps, as proper people do, and started his 'morning' stroll through town. It is quiet, save for the friendly greeting chirps of bugs, the great rumbling croaks of the frogs and toads, and the cautious shifting of an animal testing the perimeters of the forestry town. Ichorials' steps treaded a little , , ,lighter, maybe just above the ground, so as to not scare off the wildlife. It had been awhile since they ventured into these parts, at least the larger creatures, that is, the fuzzy skittish ones and the big rude behemoths. They smelt very well, Ichorial thought, and for some reason, they did not like the smell of Home the same way Ichoriel did.

A shame really.

Home was so nice! Always calm and peaceful, lively and excited when Ichorial wanted it to be. Ichorial's home was really whatever he wanted it to be.

Change came easily when you were the only factor, Ichoriel thought to himself with an easy smile as he strode on the oaths between the stunted jutting poles that had long ago stopped smoking or holding up anything.

The ash on the ground had shifted and changed, Ichorial liked to think that the shifting of the wind is why he never could track his footsteps. Because proper people leave footprints, proper people walk on the ground. So of course the occasional weak forest breeze, that would disturb the familiar scent of ash with its earthy wetness, changing Ichoriel little world without his permission, would sift over his footprints and cover them back up before dying down to the regular charred scent. Ichoriel nodded once to himself, assuredly with an easy smile, bright eyes taking in the sight of a yellow frog atop the charred storage chest in a nearby house's shell, smiling at his guest.

Ichorial took his 'walk' through the town at a leisurely pace, slowly winding through the small charred rib cages of old houses. Sometimes he'd guess at what an old blackened lump of wood used to do, or what a melted glob of metal had kept closed. He distantly recognized the same thing he always did, they all had been made mostly of wood.

Wood likes to be bright, to shine and be bright in the way that goirges itself ferociously and loudly and hungrily, eating up everything in its path. Wood really liked that kind of light. What a silly thing to make a home from, Ichorial thought, to make it out of something so hungry to be eaten. Ichoriels' home was not like that, it was cold and hard stone. Maybe a bit burnt along the outside, but Ichoriel thought that it would be hard not to be. It had been in the center after all, an important building if the tall tower was anything to judge by, tho Ichoriel had nothing to compare it to. It was the only one standing after all. Stone was reliable like that.

It was his favorite house in his entire Home, Ichorial's house was. Not to say he hadn't tried the others, he definitely has, Ichoriel was a very fair person. Not all Proper People are, but all ought to, Ichoriel thought with a decided nod, and so he tried all of the houses before he settled on which one would be his home inside of his Home.

Ichoriel had come to the conclusion he just liked stone things better in most cases. The stone home was his favorite, and the stone paths, the stone well and the stone support beams.

Stone stayed the same, not as starved to eat and be eaten by brightness, like wood. No, stone may reflect brightness occasionally, but it had its fill of Brightness' hunger.

Ichorial could relate to that. Brightness and Ichoriel did not get along, the tender spots on his wings, his back and his arms reminded him of that old grudge. Ichoriel thought that the brightness was too hungry, and it got greedy when it came to what it could feast and gorge its burning center with, what it could feed on, often taking what was not its. A bandit of sorts.

Ichoriel hadn't met a bandit in his Home, but he had a pretty good idea of them, and what they did. In fact, he knew quite a lot about bandits and what they did, details and tricks and necessary capabilities.

Ichoriel told himself he must just be very clever to notice these things. Ichoriel was not like the brightness, he was no bandit, and he did not take what was not his. Not very difficult though, as everything in Home was his. In fact he'd be more hard pressed to find someone else to take things from!

Not that Ichoriel planned to leave. No, Ichoriel was content to stay here, amongst the charred exposed ribs of Home that always smelt like what was left of the Brightness' hunger. Ichoriel thinks his home is like him, in a lot of ways. His exposed ribs click as he walks a bit, a familiar soundtrack to his movements.

Proper People make sounds as they move, don't they? Ichoriel wonders absentmindedly, his tail flickering back and forth behind him.

Nevermind that tho, Ichoriel was coming to the edge of his little town, and this is where his trail ended. Two stoney structures stood on either side of the opening, like kids guarding a clubhouse. Ichoriel smiled and strode up to either, waving in a friendly way at the two stone structures.

"It is a good morning, Hedge and Wedge! The rain walks with me, all foggy on the ground as it is !" Ichoriel greets the two stone guardians cheerily, big eyes bright like stars. Neither answer, though that was to be expected, Ichoriel smiled anyway. Ichoriel flitted up, as best he could on his boney half webbed wings, to sit lightly on top of Hedges head, crossing his twiggy legs and his tail curling up into his lap. It swished there, never staying still.

Hedge and Wedge are made of stone, Ichoriel thinks as he sits quietly, tail unfurling after a moment to swish behind him, reaching to the ground below. It is good they are made of stone, Hedge and Wedge that is, Ichoriel also bemused, because Ichoriel likes having friends, even if they are quiet, and stone stays. And since Ichoriel's friends are stone, they will stay as Ichoriel's silent cold friends.

Ichoriel's tail catches on something on the ground as it swishes. Ichoriel blinks, and does not let out a curious chirp as he curls it up to check what was stuck in its star shaped barbs. The star shaped barbs caught things rather easily.

What had caught on his tail was bright and it was red. Red on his sharp barbed tail that he held in his fist, familiar. Like a dagger.

And it made Ichoriel freeze cold and still. Like his favorite stones.

It was sharp, and red, like a dagger in his hand.

Sharp and red in his hands. Sharp and red. Sharp and red. Sharp and red. Sharp and red, sharp and red and sharp and red and sharp-

It was a poppy flower. The perky happy flowers that surrounded the base of either of the paths' silent stone guardians in a delicate carpet of color and forgotten please for remembrance. Ichorial plucked it off of his tail, and let it flutter to the ground, torn up and lying among its still growing kin. Ichoriel's tail hung behind him like a strip of cloth torn and dangling from a dress. It did not move. It was clean and not red and not in his hand. Proper People keep themselves tidy.

They do not have red on their hands or anything in their hands. So Ichoriel will not have red on his hands, Ichoriel is a Proper People type of, , ,person after all.

Ichoriel carefully climbs off the head of his stone friend Hedge. It's a difficult descent due to the sharp and square stones edges but Ichoriel manages, Proper People have to climb after all, they can't just flit up and down off of things. Proper People don't have wings after all.

Ichoriel doesn't look as he steps through the red red flowers. Instead he looks up. The canopy of trees around him has a hole in it, charred and long dead branches around its perimeter like a gothic picture frame one could buy at a Hollow-Day Fest celebration in the fall.

The stars shine above Ichoriel making him smile.

Ichoriel liked stars.

They were like the Brightness, but they did not burn. At least, not in that hungry consuming way that the Brightness did. No, stars were like stones. They hardly would change where they hung in the air, where cold and did not hunger with that harsh appetite of the Brightness, they shine cold and unmoving, only fading when the Brightness returned cruelly. Ichoriel liked stars.

Ichoriel thinks that he used to like the Brightness. Before everything smelt like Home and before he was here. Ichoriel used to burn like the Brightness did, hungry and fast and chasing whatever would fuel him, hissing popping raucous and bright, setting other things alight with little Brightness' too, to serve a purpose in satisfying his hunger or to let others burn like him.

Ichoriel thinks he got too greedy though. Greedy as is the nature of that Brightness. He got too close to something he wanted, too close to the Brightness, and it taught him a truth colder and more still and silent than Ichoriel could hardly believe it capable of. The Brightness' voracious consumption is only fun when you are the one consuming. Being consumed that is something else, something cold and silent and dark and everything that is NOT the Brightness.

Ichoriel likes the stars and the stones and the smell of Home. Home smelt like what happens when The Brightness leaves, and the stones are cold and unmoving, and the stars shine to keep away the Not Brightness and yet are not The Brightness.

Ichoriel likes Home, and he doesn't wish to change it.

No matter what the embers in his chest say in its flickering way of speach.

#my ocs <3 #Ichoriel you dumb ded silly #ghostly wails #minecraft oc

[faolonfiendrender]

Monster slayer's guide (Formerly Mage slayer's guide)

First off, I'd like to retract my former statements about vampires. Apparently "hurr durr move their coffin while they sleep" does not work. On a side note, the spell to regrow your limbs is a handy one if you choose to fight a vampire, whatever gods may be bless the bastard who made it so that it works when you have no limbs. Anyways, what distinguishes monsters from Mages is simply a matter of toughness, for the most part mages (at least those who haven't figured out the level of BS they can do with simple powers) are still mostly human, and go down pretty quickly once your attack lands. Some types of monsters are known to actively block attacks with their head to avoid damaging their clothing. Suffice it to say, a .44 hand gun won't cut it. For general advice, do your research almost all monsters have an exploitable weakness, fire, running water, native iron, and silver are all pretty common things that work. Also, if you can't find a weakness bring absurd firepower, not much will stand up to rocket launcher or being fed through a wood chipper. The common ones are vampires, werewolves, and revenants. Generally speaking, revenants are the easiest to deal with from afar, just figure out why they got back out of their pine boxes and fix it. Barring that, burning their body or nailing it into the coffin works pretty well. Of course, some revenants are incorporeal, I suspect it's an age thing. For them, there ain't much to burn or nail, and the thing to fix is probably not findable, so you basically either ignore them, or try to talk to them, make them understand that it is done, and even if they didn't win nothing will happen, and hope the trauma healing that takes lifetimes expedites itself. Werewolves are nasty motherfuckers to fight. They are tough enough to take a 16 inch shell to the gut and keep going, strong enough to manhandle whatever shot the shell, and fast enough to run down the vehicles that brought the shell and gun. But, if you are lucky, the guy underneath is still in some sort of control, and you can get him to stop murdering. If you are unlucky, the guy underneath actively wants you dead to the point where even his human form might keep coming after getting hit by a cannon. The uncontrolled ones tend to be weaker, less conditioning, less tactical prowess, less able to exist as wolves without the full moon. It should go without saying that you should not engage werewolves. If you must, try to use silver slugs, and do not engage in hand to hand. Vampires are interesting, their strength varies from basically human martial artist to able to fight gods. Simply put, they are unpredictable. However, they do need to return to their coffin every morning, and they do die when exposed to sun, as well as a handful of other ways depending on the vampire. It turns out that they can wake from their slumber after at most 3 hours of coffin time (probably less) They do all weigh the same as humans, so an angry mob can be effective.

#mage slayer's guide #unproofread at 2 am; probably not good

[vic-2point0]

Look anything here is intended to be comedy and not offensive and I would gladly edit anything offensive I don't have a problem with that because my point is not to offend my point is to be comic and you have to be specific about this and I think you also have to be just aware of the Mongolian Russia history and it's interesting ironic sort of detachment sort of thing but you got to tell me what it is to edit out because it's a lot of work and this is like you know 5000 words of stuff

So a lot happened in June and July and August which I guess counts for and as my summer.

It was such a long cold and lonely winter because of the Ukrainian war which I hope they resume their key of in dominance over those Eastern Slavs with their M faces.

And then it became such a too hot drought lonely summer, but I had Spirit coming around May, bad tenants we're leaving or had left I need my house back in Yardville New Jersey not that I don't have it but there's one guy everybody knows him he's not like a hard worker or responsible person and he was homeless so they got me to take him in and for a year and a half at work but then after he started getting unemployment he basically haven't gotten out of bed and this little down to 70 lb but at least he's not like drinking beer anymore he does that about 5% of what he used to but that's cuz he's not working or getting unemployment but then when someone does give him $30 a month he'll buy vodka he hasn't doesn't buy clothes you know I sometimes clean up the room for him refuses to eat but enough about the tragic comedy of Yardville New Jersey

[Everyone is someone else]

Let me tell you about the confusing spirited times of June July and August till now in that when I left here after you know the June visit of my last post I totally failed to make frequent short visits I showed up once time later for just two or three nights still in June so that was two times in June but then I didn't make July at all and I didn't make August at all and it was 10 days into September before I got back here where it's all so peaceful and clear and I sober up

I've gone going on 72 hours without a drink and that's what I need the key to my success is 48 to 96 hours of sobriety a week and this can be leaned on with tactics such as only having a drink in the daylight daylight or in the night darkness not both and it can also be leaned on with the tactic of just having one glass of wine around a late lunch time maybe two and that's all the whole day so you can also have these days that just have one or two drinks or you know religious 12-hour periods without alcohol but the true chipperness comes from extended periods without enjoying a drink and sometimes you know I can even just take a sip to my tongue and I don't want any of this now I'm not even tempted at all and for a good 48 hours of this journey I didn't even think about alcohol I was just so happy to be in my cabin alone from the dying and murderous people and not that anyone is murderous or dying anyway I've just been so nice to sleep away out in the country out in the rural areas near the trees and the hills and the forest not all the time but a little bit now and then it's just the ticket if one truly feels good at a vacation place like the susquehanna's when one feels that they haven't gotten enough of it they need more of this,

And part of it was replacing a bad habit with jogging which lead to increasingly feats of endurance and strength from a vigorous splitting of wood to jumping off the ground 300 times to shoot a basketball into a hoop and as well as you know thinking nothing about running seven miles in a day up and down hills where I had gone like 5 mi running you know at a stretch through a season and a half and then I stopped it's at this cross country season is something that best happens twice a year and it's separated by at least 3 months with no jogging running and that if you pick it up like it's usually in the fall or spring if you pick it up in the fall or spring I usually have some sort of cadence to it such as 5 mi runs like I had last time this time I had a little bit of 6 mi in 4 hour hilly stuff and then I walked a heck of a lot and ran around Boston for 4 days and 4 nights in the stiff heat and stiffer robots there and and then I did just 7 miles in 5 mi without stopping in the heat 2 weeks ago,

But then I was saddled with the idea and what is is right here in front of me and it's simpler than I thought but it's just raveled in a stress ball, all the morals I should be, so when Queen Elizabeth passed, at Balmoral Castle I realized all those tense balls of morals that need to unravel, are at and from her Ball Morale Castle

And so I was needed to stay away from the cabin in Pennsylvania, and I had two injuries; so I don't know if my suffering had anything to do with it; any event I was not urged by the voices in my head to leave earlier in September or August as inclined and wise habit,

For there was a lot to process in my spiritual journey: For when God is right here, there is nowhere to move.

And it's not like I wasn't exploring other viable pursuits, particularly, song and, well, America, actually.

But the story really starts back from the last time I was here from that post on June 9th when I was doing such fine six mile four hour jaunts with my little police dog Maria.

So then I have to leave to consort my sister being back from New Mexico in the area for a week but I was able to extend my stay here to Saturday because she failed to meet me earlier in the week in Wednesday as she promised which was okay because I was able to spend more time here at the cabin and really she should have come up here to see me from Philadelphia where she flew in to see her daughter graduate

Yeah it also shows you how difficult it is to get a footing with and have honest relations with, but that's okay because it could be and has been much much worse, oh of course I know it's all an illusion I also know this country has to come together to become a better country.

Eventually I gave my sister and my niece who was traveled there with her from New Mexico Kailyn arrived from the Philadelphia airport where they had turned in their rental car to Dewey Beach past Rehoboth Delaware North of Maryland by about a foot or two and we stayed in separate hotels and she saw a friend from college and I had too many pot gummy bears that she had given me because I thought they were gummy bears, anyway I ended up walking into town three miles with Maria on the hot day there and that was a lot of fun and sitting out at the bars where there were a few people in those there were much younger than me almost college age and as such they were sympathetic to me and sort of more cordially leaning than more peer group based society.

The next day after dropping my daughter my sister and her daughter Kaylin off at the Baltimore airport to go back to New Mexico I drove 40 minutes back the way I came in and had a reservation to spend two nights in Annapolis which was very enjoyable and a very unique small City or Big Town.

So that was good capitalizing on the opportunity to see the Chesapeake and I followed through this examination of state capitals to see Dover and spend the night out there on the way back which you know has its share of needs for racial Harmony but is improving

and I learned that the area, Ham Noah's third son who is condemned descendants to ignoble slavery basically founded an empire in central Africa that's kind of the Central African Republic today which is a very dangerous country if not the most dangerous country in the world and so that's obviously some link from slavery and blacks in America to Ham and the his empire that came out of the center of Africa it seems the more in the center of the Africa sort of the harder and less technologically based it is you have to enjoy roughing it a little more both in terms of enlightenment and in terms of experience living there like the Congo right before the Democratic thing of Congo right underneath the Central African Republic I saw some pictures of that off Google map and it's a looks like it's it's not like you know dangerous or super poor it's just rough it's like living in hut like stretch structures on the banks of a river and fishing or something.

(If you Google what type of meat is raised in Africa you'll see there's very little pig by 25 million compared to 200 million really they don't eat pork they're the ones who don't eat pork because they're insulted by the inference of Ham, Noah's third son who founded an Ethiopian empire that spread inward as an African empire or that's what I'm saying anyway) (to this day no one names their kid Ham)(of course no one names their kid Japeth or Shem)(but they do name kids Noah and I did meet an Amish kid named Shem but that was like in 1997 I think he was seven at the time it was out by Chuck's farm in Pennsylvania to south of the cabin 150 miles near Centre Hall.)

I mean I don't think it even really exists I think it's all just a story that plays out and imaginary hallucination illusion and certainly this way we live is very oppressive but even if we put our heads together and lived naturally and fraternally and traveling I think pretty soon we'd realize there's this other world here of creation all about and this is they're having and this is the projection imagination illusion from having others and it wouldn't really be about this experience of living in Earth which is what I'm full of so obviously got some reason to become a little more perfection of the body and perhaps extending the body into the mind instead of like immediately like a bird flying into the air and it's more like a planet absorbing things about what's around it ideas to the mind

And then I had a very polite time stopping in and exploring this town I'd heard about just south of Philadelphia maybe in Delaware or Pennsylvania not even sure it's called New Castle De or something it's very nice and value rich, it's a very friendly town I mean I just had a little snack there and they let my dog in their patio and they're very sympathetic and they had comedy nights and even though really hot they gave everyone's dogs water, and they even like put together people that had dogs, so the dogs can get to know each other and the people too could see how well they converse despite like you know class differences we're all pretty much similar in the experience of school to the degree of spirit that we have there.

But later it became more glaring and blatant that everything is faking no one really went through school and there's only me and I'm just going through something that's not even moving and there's really only just me and of course that's hard to say to people because it contradicts what the judiciary is saying about Earth and Society and Humans.

You know one of my complaints to God is women are kind of like segmented from society and I don't have enough women in my society and God at some point agreed and so women friends are very valuable and hard to pick up n I got two of them and one of them is stuck together with me as a friend and cohort since 6 years, and her name is Tena and with an e.

Never easy being called Tena so in hindsight I see the solution is calling her Tenelope. It's funny because for a while now she calls me Vicariah because our Bichon who passed in July or like who passed in like March 2018 that was Zack and she called him Zachariah.

It was going to be the key to the whole fall season was developing a nickname for her of Tenelope and getting her you know used to it and everything and seeing her life improve, that it was brilliant.

Tenelope is one of those skinny girls who's offended by being a muse. She thinks the Muse stereotype is demeaning, and she knows what problems are with my poetry are and she just tells me them and says it to me you got to make them snappier. If the job is to make your poetry better I'll tell you how to make your poetry better you don't have to look at me funny.

And she hates and finds Greek history very boring, which is a real buzz kill.

But as for the whole muse thing, I am ready with repartay, that it's about conducting the grace of God.

She reminds me of Vicky an old friend of mine from the early 90s who didn't speak to me for 5 years or use my name for 10 all because I dare to share a short story I'd written this was in Manhattan where she was featured prominently.

Tena is exactly like that she is going to be mad at me for being in this journal is published journal. She doesn't want her life investigated by a stupid public unlike me who has built my life like an inverted pyramid rising higher and higher balanced and balanced to a point where my promotions nowadays are lateral promotions and explained to me as because I deal with so many people I need to know the tricks of the trade in sensitivity as opposed to some promotion in rank with a higher pay grade and more prestige.

New York City or Manhattan or something you know there's a general sophisticated understanding the lower class lacks where they're sort of like automatic promotions every 5 years.

See my life has had these like 5-year arcs. Each five years contains a different career.

But across the board: I feel I maybe promoted vertically soon and one of my profound regrets in life is not enjoying or recognizing it's lower parts for the visceral that they be.

Anyway I know Tenalope is not going to find being in here that pleasant. But like Vicky she'll get over it even if it takes 15 years.

So when I got back from exploring and rubbing against and with the Chesapeake Bay which I had never really explored before so I struck out for the cabin again but this time with Tena.

See we had long agreed at some point we would travel together and while I might not want her I certainly want a crack at her as we have been good friends over 6 years in proximity and mutual friends and society and so she agreed to tour Pennsylvania with me for a week with two nights my cabin two nights at a music festival camping in Blaine about 2 and 1/2 hours south and then two nights camping at a nearby State Park and all this after picking her up in North Jersey at 1:00 a.m..

What I want what I mean is I want a crack at traveling with her for a week around Pennsylvania because you know it's going to be a little nerve-wracking prospect and I just want to see if it's possible and have fun you know the brave New world of Pennsylvania with the scary hillbillies and hippies.

Cuz you know we've been talking sometimes about road tripping and we did a little road tripping in in the past two or three years out to the Poconos to visit family of hers we went out to the pine barons once and sometimes we'd explore on the way back from the Poconos regalsville

But trying to spend a week in Pennsylvania was or is a big step fraught with peril and bullets to dodge. Like bipolar people in a bipolar world capable of surfing the tippy tops of success but also capable of the jarring crashes of waves upon idiocy.... Which of course people want to see that's the thing

So I picked her up in lake hopatcong but I only left Yardville at 11: 30pm so I only got there a little after 1:00 a.m., and I keep forgetting how odd most of the world finds my tactic of traveling at night,

But then we hauled off down route 80 into that Pennsylvania night till we got to route 15 to Williamsport and then we swung a sharp right up to Mansfield 70 miles and then duck left on route 6 past Wellsboro almost up to Galeton.

Everyone is uniformly amazed about how far this place is, they always look at me funny about how I need to travel at night, and then they always just can't believe that this is how far away, they be like, I knew it was far but I didn't think it was this far.

There's no traffic at night. You can nap in the sun at parks during the day.

Tenalope loved the cabin, she's pastoral, I've often seen her as a pastoral, wood nymph is not the "mote juste", for how many wood nymphs have scraped up knees, like to fish, and wear funny fishing hats?

I met a plumber at the cabin, (nothing like trade practicioners folks) and arranged a septic tank pump out and he replaced a toilet, and the winters here are so vicious if you don't drain every dram of water out of the pipes, things will split and fittings shake: and me and Tenalope laughed about how given a choice between indoor plumbing and love, not one person has ever chosen love, that we know of.

And one of my trials and tribulations which I love and don't shrink from but lean on and threaten maybe is just getting this cabin up to the ship shape adequate adequacy it is now.

A stupid contractor got me a huge used refrigerator for like a family of five refrigerator when there's just me in a 600 square foot cabin I want a small refrigerator and space for shelves and pantries I don't want a huge refrigerator when I just have a stick of butter in there.

I wanted to have like limited appliances here like I don't have have an oven and stove but a toaster air fryer oven and one of those portable stove top burners with two electric burners I plug it in and I unplug it

and I made a sauce in one yesterday for the egg noodles of cheese and olive oil and tomatoes and peppers from the garden in Jersey and then I also do this boiled red potatoes and olive oil and sea salt and then and that's like all I have in my kitchen I'm down to my last four or five potatoes and a quarter bottle of olive oil and a quarter shaker of salt but I did bring a lot of non-alcoholic beverages to ward off outflank and destroy alcoholic beverage impulse because I am the king of non-alcoholic beverages and instead of going to the bar across the street I read books.

Anyway I played the Facebook Yardsale game which I played at least maybe 20 times bought or sold something through Facebook yard sale and it's much kinder than the Craig'sbook sharks but my goal is to give a good deal

because you know in Maine they have freebie barns, little big barns where people leave the TVs they're replacing and the couches they don't want anymore, and you can walk in and out and just look around and take whatever you want and leave whatever you want

but anyway my goal is to give a good deal to someone who deserves it. I want to sell to an honest poor person that's my desired market and so I went to the cool little furniture store in Gallatin and I was able to get a nice more appropriate and small refrigerators aren't cheap without being one of those little refrigerators and it's about half the size of huge one thus freeing up shelf and pantry space.

A young man of the military religious sort, came out, picked it up, God bless them and we had to like take the door out of the hinges and then we have to take the door off the refrigerator and you understand the door we took off the hinges I had completely sealed I don't even use that door it's a door with Windows it's like a window so I had like all that spray foam insulation underneath it and plaster between the gaps and spackle and I painted the door really nice with its window so there was all that

but I'm so happy I got rid of that huge monstrosity and replaced it with something more compact now I have space and shelf room yeah okay the whole big refrigerator my God so that was taken care of too

Then Tina like wanted to get into splitting wood so she like really got into attacking wood with an ax for like 2 hours or something and we had no problem lying in two separate cots at some distance as friends truly do.

Course the first night I was exhausted from driving and I'm so deadline oriented that of course I left late on Monday because the deadline of going to Pennsylvania with Teen motivated me to do as much as possible before I left that's called the deadline syndrome and she's up all night at the campfire making weird soups, talking to herself I think I'm pretty sure she's one of those people that talks to herself but I don't know. I know we've spoken simultaneously for long stretches of time and that's cool.

I wish though in hindsight I had told her two things and explain to her two things upon which the whole pyramid is balanced upon but Sera Sera.

The first is that everyone is in Pennsylvania is married at a concern for all the secret violence to white women by black men and at the highest priority of any society is naturally protecting the women which is a value not held in most of America but I believe it is like surely held in like Eastern Europe which is really more like Western Asia and that's why it's possible.

And of course if you read the papers, America isn't even a safe place, so government on that count, has lost standing. And government knows this.

And the second is that as a historian I have something going because I realize some historical renditions of History are wrong or they mix something up something needs to be straightened out and redone or major stuff is omitted, or science as a philosophy as a whole is omitted,

and I was thinking that would make a nice holiday pageant for this area, a proper rendition, so that's how I am friends with the locals who we treat well and use for jobs and she can't have this kind of like man-hater streak in her and people can't refer to her as my wife in private with me they all say all well they refer to her as my wife assume that she's my wife and and that's just not true and that turned out to be the mangled coat hanger in the shoulder.

See, while I was jawing with the religious military buying my huge refrigerator, down the hill at the unmaintained road, my phone in the cabin rang, and she refused to just answer it.

That was the first leak that sprung, and leaks happen.

And she likes to be a short order cook, and I was like looking at like housekeeper, personal secretary, you know, business venture organizer, but a few holes were springing in this shipwarding journey into Pennsylvania absolutely requiring household morning meetings and the earnest seriousness grabbing a grip into today's ruts of sand necessitate.

However, the boat had not yet begun to sink, the few small holes easily laughed at and appropriated.

And so we journeyed on south, to Blaine PA, to a music festival 2 hrs south on a Thursday, I had tickets for.

This summer marked my inception into the potential "Arc" [ like movie arc] of "shows" or, musical acts that a lot of people show up to outdoors and the music is like psychedelic I had never been into a festie but I was with my friend Terry in Connecticut like that last April and she tries to teach me about music and I said I'm going to invest in the music concert scene so I lined up for concerts I got tickets for and the first one was this musical festival June 23rd in Blaine Pennsylvania and I had gone to a heavy metal thing out in Port Jefferson Long Island in May but I'm not really heavy metal thing but I'm glad I learned about all that bass

So this is like the next subplot to the summer, my kind of initial foray into the concert world, previously scoffed out by rainbow camping routes, I always thought them, concerts snobs.

But actually in all hindsight, Robert, my dear best friend who passed in 2021 was getting me into music and explaining to me music he was like my music mentor since about 2016, earlier, I'd come around and I realized the grateful Dead aren't evil, music is not about controlling your mind, people are not not thinking for themselves because they're listening to music, the music doesn't want them to think.

So in one day hanging out with Terry, I mastered Ticketmaster, and got tickets to four shows one for two or three nights in late June in Blaine Pennsylvania not far from the area I volunteered farm labor for on and off in the late 90s, and then I got a ticket to see Umphrey's McGee at the summer stage in Asbury Park l, and then I got to see David Matthews the very next day out in Camden, which afforded an opportunity to explore launch an exploration of Camden and it's Arc so to speak and that was on the 15th and 16th of July and then the next weekend me and Smitty went up to Terry's in Connecticut and we saw Max Creek out of County Park north of Terry in Granby Connecticut so that was all cool and in all these places I like had like a costume or disguise with dark glasses my white Panama hat and a colorful Hawaiian shirt and shorts and no socks and I would just dance straight I couldn't be stopped I couldn't stop dancing that music would hit me I'll tell you about the sound systems later anyway so Tina and I had headed off South from the cabin, now through the winding country darkening roads of Pennsylvania through dangerous Juanita county where I had gotten in trouble before in 1999 I believe,.

Oh it was horrible and once again I was completely innocent I've suffered more punishment for being completely innocent then for any guilt, I'm one of those people.

See here's the story okay it's kind of embarrassing but my ankle is still swollen since 2008 and I wear a brace for it sometimes to keep me from being in a bad mood and I had gone on a cruise in with my mother who's 30 years older than me or was and my nephew who's 30 years younger than me and I had made two female friends on the cruise a little older than me and you know good at all food and drink and partying and I was dancing around in Greece and tripped up my ankle and kept dancing and subsequently you know have never danced since like that song by Gloria summer and I want this St Patrick's Day to the Hibernian Lodge in Hamilton and there's his old senior citizen Irish band people were dancing to lyrics you could hear the words to and understand the ideas to the stanzas

And like Tina wanted to dance but I don't dance after my ankle injury and she wanted to go up and congratulate her for the band leader for the great job there doing because they were like awesome they were tripping us out and watching like the Irish people dance and everything cuz like Tina's Hungarian American and I'm like rushing American she's a little Irish too anyway the band leader saw that like I was a rough potentially dangerous dancer and gave me the whole like you know lead singer enforcement kind of treatment and it completely psychologically overcame my dancing heroes so when I was out there with Tina in June 4 months later thanks to that kind of treatment I was just like I locked in immediately I was like just like a salmon quivering in the river upstream you know and Tina's there like you know she wants to be all crazy too but she don't she don't know she's I'm not sure she's quite understands

[delaneyngusantana]

Shrub Trimming: The Distinct Tools That Are Used For Typically the Job

The best time for tree cutting off varies from shrub species to one other. On the whole, spring upwards to the early part of summer time is recognized as as the best time just for this type of shrub service. When tree trimming and shaping is done, it's definitely important that the correct tools are employed so as to prevent accidental injuries both to the particular trees plus the individuals doing the job. Additionally , using the proper tools will also help ensure that the tree eventually ends up looking more pleasing instead of the particular other way around. There are different types of tree trimming tools available in the particular market today. Every single one of all of them is designed for cutting different trees that have sizes and varying heights. The Tools Applied For Trimming Forest The process involving trimming trees may sound really basic but it's not really. Certain guidelines require to be followed in order to ensure typically the safe cutting of the trees' divisions. Overall, doing the cutting job at the best place and in the moment using typically the proper tools will not only enhance the look associated with the canopy shape but will furthermore aid to promote the particular growth of the trees and shrubs while protecting all of them against diseases. Listed here are the tools utilized for the task. Mechanised Saw: A great deal of gardeners nowadays use a mechanised saw, that they can make use of for performing standard garden maintenance processes. This is the manually-operated tool, which often can become used for trimming forest. https://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/jacksonville-tree-service-experts-partners-with-a-new-machines-repairing-company Saw: There are two types regarding chain saws specifically those who run about gas and the ones that run on electrical power. Between the two, gas chain saws are definitely more popularly used with regards to shaping forest. They could be used in order to trim any kind of shrub. Pole Tree Pruner: This is one of the better tools to employ should you be going in order to trim a forest from the surface. With this particular tool, a person can trim tiny to medium-sized twigs even without employing a ladder. Some sort of pole tree pruner is made associated with 3 parts specifically a saw, string, and an adjustable handle. Lopper: This particular is well-suited regarding trimming small forest specifically those of which range between 2 to 3 inches in diameter. This is usually also the lopper shear or pruner lopper. This comes with a long handle and knife, which resembles that of a scissor. Ladder: This is important to have since most of trees' branches are too high to achieve without resorting to this device. If you wish something really very good, an extension ladder is a great choice. You should use this specific to trim each small and great trees.

Aside by the ones i have mentioned above, you can also get other types of tools that are more sophisticated such as wood chippers. Regardless of typically the type of tool that you use, it's important that a person put it to use with precaution safeguard through the manufacturer's guidelines. Avail regarding highly affordable nevertheless really good Austin texas tree trimming [http://american-treeworks.com/] services that will leave you satisfied.

#Tree Trimming