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#and would just post massive blocks of text
pallanophblargh · 4 months
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Good things: I've been invited to partake in a certain exhibit regarding a certain author since I've had the privilege of illustrating the covers for the UK edition of a certain fantasy series.
Not so good things: I've lost most of the scans for the 8 illustrations (I think I only have 3? 4?) so that means I need to figure out WHERE I stashed the originals. I know I HAVE them, so that's some comfort. But I have so many stashes. And it's been... 10+ years and two moves. On top of that, they may need retouching. Fun times!
A minor "conundrum": I finally need to decide where I would like to offer said illustrations for print. I have a society6, but it is rather dusty these days. That aside, the print quality seems pretty decent (I have not seen with my own actual eyes, but considering I've yet to hear otherwise, I'd say they go over well.) That said, if anyone has opinions/experiences on print on demand storefronts, I'd love to hear them. I'll say in advance I would prefer to not handle printing them myself. If you know, you know.
So yeah: Things! Winged horses abound, and the search for my old art begins. If you are a fan of the old Green Rider series illustrations, watch this space?
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heartbrake-hotel · 1 year
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Lordy honey yall makin me wanna write my own damn prompt. I got some more little tidbits for ya:
Elvis was turned during his first appearance at the International. But who turned him? I'm thinking there's some sort of deal going on between one the old vampires who invested in the building, maybe even the International's owner and Colonel Parker. They want Elvis to play there for as long as possible, and he isn't getting any younger--so they make it so he can't get any older, either.
At first Elvis is in a state of confusion, because fledglings (at least in my thoughts) are in a sort of fog when first turned. It helps them to adapt to feeding; cue Colonel Parker shoving cigarette girls into Elvis's suite, which he drains dry, much to his own horror when the initial feeding frenzy lifts.
And Colonel Parker isn't exactly picky with what he feeds Elvis: whoever is easy to get up into the suite, and high young girls are the easiest. Elvis tries, when he can afford it, to not feed--he doesn't know that if he drinks regularly then the frenzy won't come, but nobody has told him much of anything. His Sire isn't there, there wasn't any sort of ritual to his Turning as there normally is. No, this was just business.
aLRIGHT WOOHOO SMITTY MY LOVE LOOK AT US !!! im finally getting to this lmaoooo oOOPS 🙈 AND i have some mf THOUGHTS,,
(the orig hc post is here btw) ((idk if yall could tell but it Wrecked my Shit))
also it's been Sooooo long since we discussed this that u now have some Other relevant supernatural!au lore to pull from . so,, i hope u don't mind if i conflate the two universes a lil but ur worldbuilding in you ain't nothin' but a overtook my conscious mind weeks ago and has yet to relent 💝 oh nooooo.. whatever shall i dooooo.. 😏
far too many words under the cut. i, uh.. i may have lost control a lil 🤭🦇 ft. a frankly excessive use of pet names and an e who has been babygirlified maybe more than is appropriate within the confines of the plot (shocking, i'm sure).
right ok so !! vegas as a hub for at least some of the supernatural bc of its transient nature, high tourist volume, and seedy reputation. obvious check
for the most part, unaffiliated vamps stay out of vegas. like you said- it's too hard to monitor their blood concentrations when everyone and their dog is doing truckloads of party drugs well into the night.! but there are, of course, some Old Ones, who saw (or perhaps even built??) the city as their own personal playground btw this blends so seamlessly into the irl high-level mob ties its crazy lmao. marina's bringing up elvis is literally never not on my mind 🙏
if you're rich enough, or powerful enough (or have friends who are enough so), you don't have to fend for yourself the same way, so it's less of an issue. sucking out some rando party girl off the street is faaar beneath the pay grade of the handful of guys at the top, who have their meals carefully cultivated and hand-procured thru what is almost certainly a human trafficking ring
kirk kerkorian [or meyer kohn - u can pick ur universe, here] and the entire board of the international is of course among this group, exerting their power and influence (and perhaps Compulsion) to keep the flow of money running smoothly from the casinos below directly into their cash-lined pockets.
colonel tom parker [a demon again? or perhaps nobody in particular - either way he ends up hellspawn lmao whether literally or figuratively] is acutely aware of this when he first signs elvis on for the hotel's opening season - how could he not be? and of course everything goes perfectly smoothly for those first six weeks in 1969. **ik im twisting ur original idea just a tad but bear w me
but the longer the engagement goes, the more trouble colonel has reining elvis in. he had agreed heartily to those first fifty-eight appearances - purely to fund his upcoming world tour, you understand ("the snowman strikes again!"). but no matter how much colonel wheedles, he's not budging; elvis simply will not sign on for the next year.! he's finally holding his ground... and that's his undoing
coming off the back of his comeback special and last movie, e finally feels like he's got his mojo workin' - the king is back on top! after a looong decade stuffed fit to bursting with his botched movie career, he never thought he'd wrest any semblance of creative control away from the powers that be. but the last year or so has really made him see the value of his own opinion, AND the dangers of continued complacency. so with the backing of his family and extended entourage, he's heading halfway across the world just as soon as he gets off that stage for the last time.
colonel can't have that, not with the remainder of his hefty personal debt hanging in the balance. and with all the dough the hotel is raking in during the first dregs of their opening season, nobody up top wants their prize little cash cow flying away to london or japan or the rock of eternity or wherever he's fixin' to go - not if they have anything to say about it !
and so a plan is devised, swiftly, mercilessly, and without any pesky sense of remorse. after all, what do they have to feel bad about? they're just taking care of business
just after elvis' last performance, he's heading to his packed-up suite to shower and change for what he thinks will be the last time.. the boys are downstairs getting the last of the stuff in the cars and then they'll all head to the airport. he's got just a couple minutes to spare, and he assures them he'll be fine alone. just gonna run on up and change real quick, y'all don't needta worry about me none. [*evil colonel voice* wanna bet?]
he steps into his unusually empty suite, but before he can even shuck the towel from around his neck, his throat is being wrenched to the side in a vice grip as an unseen assailant steps from their hiding spot behind the door. he yelps, tries to throw them off, goes for the gun in his boot, but their grip is like steel, solid and unyielding, and before he can move much of anywhere there's a sharp prick in his neck and a sudden heaviness in his muscles he can't quite shake.
he assumes it's a syringe - he's not wholly unfamiliar with a needle, after all, and why would he suspect anything else? he guesses he's been drugged on account of... well, on account of bein' elvis presley. goddamn sonsabitches don't need any more reason than that. 'course, the sensation is a little different than he's used to - the gauge is unfamiliar, and he could swear he feels two distinct track marks - but by then his head is spinning too much to be certain of anything.
the last thing he feels is a rushing sense of complacency as his legs give out. his vision is swimming too much too see his attacker's face, but they let him go down, hard, and he crumples to an undignified heap on the floor helplessly as they turn to... leave? huh. not what he expected, but he supposes beggars can't be choosers
his sluggishly disjointed musings are broken only by the shadowy figure melting back into the shadows... his increasingly-addled mind knows he should be glad at their sudden departure, but all he can concentrate on is the inexplicable swing out of the vague sense of euphoria that had been the "drugs" kicking in, and a sudden accompanying feeling that he didn't like one bit. he could only describe it as a crawling fear, an absence, a kind of ripping deep in his soul... a pervasive sense of distance, of wrongness so festering he feared it was about to tear him apart from the inside out. he's suddenly certain he's not meant to be alone right now.
he gasps in the worst pain he's ever felt, and at the same moment, he's aware of a rush of footsteps in the hallway outside - he barely manages a wobbly gesture to the door and a slurred request to rip his goddamn tongue out b'the roots to the panicked faces of his boys crowding around his supine form before his vision finally goes dark.
when he wakes up, he's in an all-too-familiar bed. before running for the doctor and his daddy, a frazzled jerry sitting vigil at his side hurriedly explains that without him conscious enough to fill them in, all they knew is he wasn't fit to travel, so they'd unpacked his suite again while waiting for him to return to the land of the living. he's grateful, but assures him that as soon as he's feeling better they'll be heading out again.
he asks jerry to turn down the thermostat and flip off the light on his way out. the heavily-drawn drapes had already ensured it'd been near-pitch dark and freezing, just how he liked it, but he murmured it felt like he was burnin' up from the inside out, and his eyes were too sensitive for even the ambient glow of his bedside lamp. jerry does so and also fetches him a pair of big ol' sunglasses, without a word.
the doctors (who'd been summoned to the hotel; despite protests from the mafia, colonel had suggested that moving elvis to a hospital could be even more dangerous, what with this criminal still on the loose, and vernon had reluctantly agreed) hadn't been able to tell what he'd been dosed with - it'd metabolized too quickly to detect, apparently. all they can tell him after the last four days of monitoring his comatose form is that his vitals have been almost astonishingly strong. the only symptom he's had has been a high fever, but it breaks as soon as he's awake again- and actually, his body temp has overcorrected and is a little low now, is he feeling chilly?
they joke that whatever he'd been given seems to have actually helped him, and he's inclined to agree... despite the fact that they hadn't administered anything to him except an IV drip, in case it had any adverse interactions with whatever he'd been on, his chronic pain has mysteriously vanished. and since he's been awake and in recovery, he's only seemed to get more handsome and charming, no sign at all of being out of it and on fluids for so long. you sure wouldn't have known his recent predicament by looking at him !
he's got a host of baffling new symptoms as well, but nothing that seems dangerous or that points to any kind of diagnosis. he's growing increasingly thirsty, but the buckets of water he's drinking aren't quenching him. he seems to have lost his sense of taste (this one hits him the worst) - at first, the smell of food made him nauseous. now he can keep it down, but it feels like ash in his mouth. his light sensitivity lingers, though for the most part it's limited to natural light, and he takes to wearing the sunglasses often. he seems to have developed a sudden allergy to some of his jewelry - his silver rings and pendants now cause a burning rash. he has them remade in gold and doesn't give it a second thought.
he tells and retells his story to the cops, but they're left scratching their heads; it's widely assumed the panicked arrival of the mafia scared off the creep before they could pull off the rest of their plan. kill him, kidnap him for ransom... seemed like they'd never know for sure, but either way everyone agrees he narrowly escaped a much worse fate. colonel doesn't think it wise for him to be on the road, what with this continued threat hanging over his head, but jerry argues it doesn't seem any better to stay in vegas with this freak at large. and elvis points out that if the bastard follows him overseas, they have bigger fish to fry.
the boys seem confused that the attack doesn't appear to have played into his usual paranoia in any way; he doesn't know quite how to explain it, he tells them, but he feels stronger, somehow. more settled. like if it ever came to it again, he could handle himself. it might just be relieved cockiness, but what didn't kill him made it so he's at least not afraid again. he's been reflecting deeply on psalm 23, apparently.
and so the suite is once again packed up, despite colonel's protestations- this time with elvis under constant supervision, much to his good-natured amusement. it goes without incident, and they make it all the way to the runway before elvis is suddenly doubled over in pain in the back of the limo, sweating and shaking like a leaf.
he's groaning that it hurts, hurts s'bad, but can't say anything more than that, and within seconds the whole caravan has whipped around and is careening back to the relative safety of the hotel. by the time he's being ferried hurriedly up to his room, he's improving steadily, and by the time he's settled in bed and the doctors once more fetched, he's weak and badly shaken but seems no worse for wear.
the doctors can't explain this apparent relapse any more than the first, but tentatively give him a clean bill of health, and two days later they try it all again. this time he makes it within a couple miles of the airport, and it takes him four days to recover. the last time they try, he only makes it four blocks away from the Strip and is bedridden for a week. nobody has any sort of explanation, and the tour is put on hold indefinitely while they're seemingly stranded.
the colonel is the one who offers a possible solution. he'd been hovering around elvis' room the whole time (like a bad smell, sonny mutters when he's out of earshot), fluttering around with assurances that the hotel would gladly host them as long as they needed, maybe even sign them on for another season if elvis so wished...
when elvis finally roars that he just wants OUT of this place, goddammit in response to vernon's suggestion that he stop working himself up with leaving, colonel finally pounces.
he must put his foot down, he says. his boy is clearly in no condition to travel- no, no, not physically, he hastily amends, when elvis opens his mouth to remind him what the doctors said, but clearly mentally. something about the attack has left him emotionally unstable, it appears, and the idea of leaving, even though he's so sure he wants to, is clearly triggering some kind of psychosomatic attack. why doesn't he make up his mind to stay- not forever, just until his head is screwed on right. he can keep playing the international, and they can find him some head-shrinkers to fix him right up, eh? elvis doesn't see any choice but to glumly agree.
of course, unbeknownst to elvis, the real issue is that his Maker won't allow him to leave vegas city limits. he's been kept totally in the dark as to his situation and is thus totally suggestible, so when the vampire who Turned him (continually employed by the Ancients for just this kind of dirty work) uses their mental connection to Compel him to stay within a certain radius, elvis doesn't even know he's feeling it, much less that it's possible to fight it. his Bat simply obeys without question, to the confusion of his body and conscious mind.
if his Turning had been accompanied by proper ritual, if his Maker had explained any of his new life to him, if he'd received any guidance at all, he'd know he could override this instinct, break the Bond they shared (especially as ill-cultivated as it is), and be on his way. as it is, he's like a dog with a newly-installed invisible fence. a dog who's also growing steadily weaker since his Turning because of his lack of sustenance, mind you.
the colonel knows all this. he also knows that any doctors or psychiatrists that see elvis from this point on will be in the know, be provided by the hotel, and be payed handsomely to tell elvis exactly what the colonel wants him to hear. he send word to the Council that they've got him at last. they rejoice at the prospect of chaining elvis to their stage for an eternity, elvis begrudgingly signs the contract for another engagement, and this is where the real trouble starts...
it's been three weeks since he was inadvertently Turned, and elvis is feeling the affects of not having Fed, though he doesn't realize it. he's weak, he's thirsty, he's snappish, and can somebody turn off those godDAMNED lights !!! the mafia assume it's due to his mental slump and are at a loss except to wait it out, but the colonel thinks he has something to cheer him up. he winks and tells red that elvis will have a few, ehem.. lady visitors tonight, and surely they shouldn't be disturbed. the boys get the hint.
colonel sends up the ditziest cigarette girl he can find downstairs, a perky little blonde, so doped-up out of her mind she's wobbling in her heels. she gasped and flushed darkly when he told her that mr. presley was in need of her services; he hadn't even needed to slip her any cash to incentivize her troubles. he chomped on his cigar and grinned darkly as he watched her giggle her way to the elevator.
elvis, for his part, almost makes it. he'd answered the rhythmic little knock in his robe, loosely tied, and didn't miss the way the sweet young thing at his door gaped at the sight of all that chest on display. before he can even say anything, she's slipped under his arm and further into the room, and he raises an eyebrow and grins as he eases the door shut. he peruses her wares (the CIGARETTES !! im talking about the cigarettes..) more for show than anything else, and hands her a $20 in exchange for a pack he doesn't plan on smoking, telling her to keep the change.
she bends over far more than necessary while stacking boxes back in her tray, and flutters her lashes when she asks him if there's... anything else she can get him. flattered as he is, he tells her, he isn't sure he needs anything just now, but thank you kindly anyways, honey. truthfully, he's not sure he's feeling up for it, but she pouts so prettily as she swings her hips sadly over to the door, and turns back to ask if he's really really sure... the colonel had sent her up with express instructions to give him anything he wanted, she explains, sultry little whine in her voice, and he finds his resolve crumbling.
surely a little kissing wouldn't hurt, he reasons, might even make him feel a lil better, and her eyes light up in glee when he beckons her back over. but the minute she's in his arms, easing her way up to his lips as her eyes flutter shut, he isn't sure what comes over him. they're so close her heartbeat rushes in his ears, and without a thought he's effortlessly snapped her neck (with strength he didn't know he had) and is lapping frantically from her torn throat (pierced with the aid of sharp fangs he's never felt before). she never even saw it coming.
he moans as he sags to the ground, clutching her limp form and still slurping desperately as, for the first time since his attack, his thirst is quenched. he dimly realizes he's done something unforgivable, but his head feels like it's been stuffed with cotton, everything around him distant and foggy. the sense of panic he knows he should be feeling is a far-off twinge, all but muted by the combined cocktail of ecstasy running through him: fresh blood, dope, and a brain fog he can't quite attribute to either.
when she's dry he's sated, the sense of woozy relief hits him so strong that he barely manages to stagger to his feet and stumble over to the couch, chin and hands still covered in blood, before he's passing out for ten hours of the emptiest sleep he's ever had. when he wakes up, all traces of what happened are gone, and with a mind that finally feels clearer than it has for weeks, he almost manages to convince himself it was an incredibly fucked-up dream, so potent that the sweet metallic tang is still blooming on his tongue...
...until of course, the next time it happens. it goes much the same way: the colonel has no trouble locating a girl who'll never be missed- this is vegas, after all- and sends her, high as a kite of her own volition, up to the penthouse to keep company with a disgruntled and starving elvis. he drains her dry before he can even blink, but stays awake this time to spend the next few hours totally blissed out in an uncomfortably drugged haze. the more he comes down, the more he hates not only what he's done but also the way it makes him feel.
thus starts a vicious cycle: elvis, terrified of feeding, swears off blood, until he's half-starved but fighting himself at every turn. the colonel intervenes, sending throngs of low-risk girls up to the suite, where e simply can't help himself anymore, and enters a violent blood-crazed frenzy. he spends the hours after staggering around half-lucid, waiting for the effects to fade so he can convince himself he'll never do it again.
the stronger he maintains his tenuous mental fortitude- the longer he goes between feeds- the more girls he needs in a night to fill him up, and the higher he gets afterwards. he doesn't ask where colonel finds them or what he does with the bodies. he thinks dully that he doesn't much want to know.. it's hard enough on his conscience already.
of course, yet another thing nobody's bothered to explain to poor frightened fledgling elvis is that every time he refuses to feed when he should, every time he feels the welling signs of that dark hunger within himself and shoves them down in distress, every time his instincts are forced to take over and quite literally make him feed, that it exacerbates the mental fog he's feeling.
vampiric lore (which of course he doesn't know) attributes it to a sort of easing-in countermeasure; it's only newly-turned vampires, not fully in touch with their desires, that attempt to starve themselves so, clearly suffering from a mental block regarding the morality of preying upon their former species. to smooth their transition into acceptance of their new form, every time they're forced to feed rather than do it willingly, a potent release of hormones and neurotransmitters floods their system, both to combat any lingering guilt and to make them crave the mental release of feeding just as much as the physical.
if he were to feed normally, if he were to provide his body with the nourishment it needed on a regular basis, his instincts wouldn't have to override his mind this way. he wouldn't be forced to feed so violently or so much, he'd be able to control himself such that he could select his own victims preferentially and even bring himself to stop before killing them, and he wouldn't feel so overwhelmed afterwards.
elvis thinks of his... condition as an affliction, a temptation he lacks the strength to overcome, but really, it's his body's desperate attempt to stay alive when his mind insists on thwarting his ongoing survival at every turn. the bloodlust isn't a punishment but a protective measure, and one he could prevent if he'd take consistent care of his new needs.
and on top of all that, the particular way his intake is chemically tainted only adds to this anguish, because now he's unknowingly also developing a dependency on the drugs- the painful withdrawal symptoms of which serve to strongarm him into feeding even more frequently.
things are only exacerbated by his performance engagement starting back up; of course, it's even easier to find girls- hordes of them batter the doors to the showroom after every show, desperate for just another glimpse of him- but it also means he's got a responsibility to be right there on that stage twice a night, able-minded or no, and he takes that very seriously.
he's got people to support, after all, so he gets very used to functioning while highly intoxicated, whether that means performing, schmoozing the high rollers in the casino at the behest of his hotel benefactors, or smiling through a never-ending stream of reporters and photographers during every interview and press conference.
this is where the reader steps in !!!
you're one of less than a handful of vamps, just two or three, really, who manage to stick around vegas (and consume healthy blood) without the influence of the Old Ones, a feat you manage by staying off the Strip almost entirely. you stick to the suburbs, both as a way to ensure you're not tripping out after every meal, and to (hopefully) stay out of sight and out of mind of the powerful Ancients who don't want anyone infringing on their territory. this is very fright night remake vibes btw if anyone remembers that
but there's very little to do in the dusty, sprawling desert neighborhoods that isn't centered around maintaining the tourism industry downtown, especially for an immortal with nothing but time (and the occasional meal) to kill. you're nowhere near as experienced as those you seek to avoid, but you've been around the block quite a few times yourself, and sometimes the neon glow of the city lights overrides the quiet boredom of your safely-maintained little perimeter.
tonight is one such night: elvis presley had been headlining the international hotel for what felt like ages, or maybe just a blink - it was hard to judge that pesky human time, when their lifespans were so much shorter than yours. either way, he'd been this era's answer to jesus for a few decades now, and you had to admit you were curious to see him in person at last.
you decide on the midnight show- maybe if you're lucky, you can scrounge up a snack on the way home. you don't bother with a ticket- though you have more than enough human money stored up over the years, you're sure it's no use for what promises to be a sold-out show. the bouncers aren't any deterrent, either- you simply Compel them into checking the list for your name another time, and they let you in without a murmur. the showroom is packed so full, you notice as you survey the area, that nobody could ever notice one more.
you slip into a vacant seat at the end of one of the long tables that line the stage, with a group of screaming fans who don't seem to notice that they don't know you. you can't tell if their distraction is borne more from excitement or alcohol, but either way, you're grateful for the cover. you order a bloody mary as your own personal joke and bide your time until the show starts, perusing the booths that line the floor behind you. you recognize a few familiar Old Ones, by face if not name- no surprise, considering who runs the casino just outside.
eventually, the lights fade and the orchestra bursts into an opening riff. you clap with the rest when elvis struts out on stage, looking resplendent in a white jumpsuit, grinning wide and boyishly and practically glowing under the stage lights. his rings flash as he waves to the audience, courteous and attentive even as he starts singing. when the song's over he introduces himself and some of the VIPs, including the owner of the hotel (now there's a vamp who's been getting himself a lot of press lately), and the heavyset man next to him, apparently elvis' own manager. the man gives a simpering smile and wave to the crowd as the spotlights illuminate the booth, and you wrinkle your nose as you turn back to the main stage. you haven't placed it yet, but something seems off about that one.
elvis puts on a good show, you'll give him that, but the longer you watch, the more puzzled you become. he's slurring just a bit when he jokes with the band in between numbers, and more clumsy than you'd expect for someone so flexible; you'd say it was just another hollywood star using and abusing drugs if he didn't look so... panicked every time. he's twitchy, too, keeps getting down toward the edge of the stage like he's about to move out into the crowd and start planting kisses on his clamoring fans, like you've heard he does, but he keeps jerking himself back at the last second. they seem to think he's teasing, screaming louder every time, and he plays it off with a slow grin, but it's almost like... like he's afraid he won't be able to control himself, like...
ah. there it is
you zero in on just the barest flash of fang in his smile, and immediately suss out what's going on. elvis presley, a fledgling vamp in what is indisputably the worst city in the world for fledgling vamps... strange things are happening every day, aren't they?
that leaves you with more questions than answers, however... questions like where's his Master? why isn't he feeding properly? who's keeping him half-starved and strung-out? and most importantly, does he even know what's going on?
you narrow your eyes contemplatively as you watch him fool with the microphone before prompting the band to start the next song. all it takes is seeing his hands tremble around the cord to make you nod decisively and shoot back the rest of your drink. you suppose you can stick around a little longer than originally planned... after all, it seemed like elvis might need a little help fixing this, whether he knew it or not.
you lingered just a little after the show ended, waiting until the throngs of frantic women had pushed their way back to the lobby before heading after them yourself. you glanced around surreptitiously, locating the nearest elevator bay... and near it, a familiar older man with a cane whispering furtively to a clearly-tipsy young woman, one you recognized from your table during the show. she had caught a silk scarf fluttering down in front of her from the man himself and hadn't stopped screaming until the lights came back on. bingo
you ran one hand through your hair haphazardly, tousling it slightly as you stumbled your way over to them. "oh, there you are! i was looking for you," you chirped. she gasps and waves excitedly in the earnest way only drunk girls do, but your mouth is open again before she can speak and do something incriminating, like ask your name. "who's y'r friend? s'he coming upstairs with us?" you giggle, leering at... what had his name been again? ah yes, colonel parker. you silently gave a sigh of thanks for your heightened senses- you might not have recognized him just from your brief glimpse during the show otherwise.
the colonel glanced you over dismissively, clearly writing you off as another inebriated fan - his mistake, but exactly what you wanted him to think all the same. he gave you a leering grin and tapped his cane as he said "ah, i was just asking your friend here to do a simple personal favor for me..." you hummed disinterestedly until he continued "...on behalf of mister presley, of course." you gasped exaggeratedly and willed your cheeks to flush- lucky you had fed recently.
he seems to buy it, from the way his eyebrow ticks upwards when he sees your reaction "perhaps you would like to... accompany her to his suite, no?" he teases. you nod raptly, artificial stars in your eyes, and he snorts as he pushes the call elevator button for you with the top of his cane. "top floor. you two enjoy yourselves," he chuckles. the two of you giggle as he saunters away, towards the casino entrance.
as soon as the doors slide shut behind you, you straighten up and tidy your hair in the chromatic reflection until you're once again presentable. you brush off your outfit, fiddling until you're satisfied, then take a deep breath. snapping once to get your lightly confused companion's attention, your turn her shoulders towards you so she's making woozy and bewildered eye contact with you.
"hi honey. having a good night? good. this is how the rest of it is gonna go, ok? now you listen to me-"
when the doors opened again at the thirtieth floor, the girl (tracy. she had told you absently her name was tracy) waved distractedly over her shoulder as she walked straight out of the elevator bay and into the nearby stairwell, head filled with what she believed to be an immutable truth about the elevator being out of service. she'd walk back to her room (on the off chance there was anyone downstairs monitoring the floor indicator dial), wake up perfectly safe in the morning, and think nothing of it.
meanwhile, you let yourself into elvis' suite with the key tracy had handed over, a parting gift from the colonel. you left the lights off, made yourself comfortable on the couch facing the door, and waited.
you didn't have to wait long- just minutes later, there was noise outside, multiple male voices speaking over each other as they all piled out of the elevator and headed for the door, elvis' the loudest. "yeah, yeah, i said i'd meet you down there, didn't i? doin' my damn head in... i'll tell ya what, y'all g'head and i'll call down there when i'm done. yes i swear, now git!" laughter and good-natured ribbing faded as the elevator doors presumably closed behind the crowd once again, punctuated with a sigh and the click of the door lock disengaging another time.
elvis didn't seem to notice you as he walked in, leaving the light off as well as he patted his face dry with the damp towel looped around his neck. he leaned against the wall with one hand to brace himself as he toed off his boots, then whipped his dark shades off onto a side table and gripped the bridge of his nose with another deep sigh.
"are you in any pain, mr. presley?" he yelped in undignified surprise and whipped around with a touch of vampiric speed, dropping the towel in his fright to discover the source of your voice. despite the pitch blackness of the room, his eyes locked onto yours immediately through the dark, without needing to scan the empty space around you- another sign of his transition. no mortal could see as perfectly well in this scenario as the two of you could.
"wh- who-" he stuttered some, regaining his bearings, as you cocked your head in evaluation. "i'm sorry to startle you, mr. presley," you say evenly, but pleasantly. "you can drop that shit straightaway, honey, that's my daddy. can jus' call me elvis." he murmurs absentmindedly, as if it hadn't been what he really intended to say but came out by habit. "and now that you know me, may i ask who you are? and better yet what the hell you're doing in my room?" he doesn't sound angry, per se, more resigned than anything, and you smile wryly in response as you introduce yourself. "real pretty, honey, but i'd like an answer to my other question, too." he raises his eyebrow, and you wonder if he's even aware of how much charismatic mental energy he's leaking right now. it was even more apparent to you now why humans throw themselves at him left and right.
"sorry, m- i mean, elvis. the colonel sent me up. i saw your show- you were fantastic, but i had a couple questions." "he did, did he? just wonderful," he almost growls, squeezing his eyes shut. "and some questions, you said? you a reporter?" his voice sounds hard-edged for the first time tonight, but he seems to relax again when you answer with a simple no. "just concerned, i guess." he hums tiredly at your response, vague though it is. "concerned about what, 'bout the show? i'll do my best to answer your questions, honey, but i really don't think there's all too much to be concerned about-"
"elvis, when was the last time you fed?" you can hear his breath catch from clear across the room. "i-i had lunch after rehearsals, but i ain't had dinner yet, if that's what you're askin'... pretty forward way to ask me on a date, but i-" you put a hand up to cut him off. "i think you know perfectly well that's not what i'm asking, elvis. when was the last time you fed properly? on blood?" "...ha! been watching a little too many dark shadows reruns, honey?" his words trip over themselves getting out, and eventually he gives up to just blink at you, speechless, owl-eyed, and afraid despite his frankly pathetic attempt at a cover. he looks like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar only this time the metaphorical cookie jar is a number of very literal human corpses lol
you bite back a sigh- perhaps you pushed too hard there. poor thing is wringing his hands like he thinks you're gonna put him in cuffs any minute. "maybe we should start over- i'm here to help, ok? i wanna make sure you're alright, cuz i think you might have a lot of questions nobody's explained to you yet. c'mere and sit next to me, baby, and we'll just talk" you pat the seat next to you, flipping his casual pet naming back on him effortlessly. to be fair, he is a baby to you- only, what, a couple months old? that's nothing compared to your few hundred years.
he eyes the spot next to you but shakes his head, still looking like a lost puppy. "n-no, i- m'fine over here," he manages. you furrow your brow; he's gonna need to start trusting you if he wants your help, and this is a bad way to begin. "i promise, i'm not gonna hurt you, elvis-" that sure does it. "i'm not worried about that!" he exclaims. "m'worried about me hurting you!"
you breathe out a surprised little oh, suddenly understanding. "is that what you're so worried about, sweetie? i'm not afraid of you." you try to placate him. "y-you should be afraid of me, honey. i am."
and that's the crux of the matter, isn't it? it breaks your heart a little to know that this is what he's been grappling with alone. it's not meant to be like this- with time and acceptance, he was meant to gain eternal companionship (your semi-loner status nonwithstanding). and whoever heard of a scared vampire?
but you put that aside to focus on elvis- and quickly realize there's one more... little thing you might've left out.
"you don't need to be anymore, ok? i'm gonna help you learn to control it." you beckon him over again, and this time he makes it halfway across the floor before you realize you're not sure if you're Compelling him or not. he'll need to learn what it feels like eventually, in order to both use it and combat it, but now's probably not the time. you break eye contact, just in case, and he falters slightly, but keeps coming, putting you at ease.
as he gets close enough to hear your heartbeat, though, his eyes suddenly turn frantic, and he backpedals, once again in the grip of that familiar terror. "you- you have to get out of here, i can't-" you shush him, not unkindly. "oh, sweetheart. that one's my bad, ok? i guess i haven't been very good at this so far," you grin apologetically. "but you couldn't hurt me, even if you tried"
you use your superspeed to whoosh over to his side and back, the only sign you'd moved at all the slight sway of your hair in the breeze it creates- and the golden ankh pendant now swinging from your upturned palm. elvis gapes, hands reaching up to feel the now-empty space around his neck where the necklace rested just moments ago. "how...?" listen i really can't be assed abt the fact he wasn't wearing necklaces this early ok. it was a cool move
"forgot to tell you - i'm souped up, too." you wink at him, flashing your pupils the deep red they turn when you're Feeding. "and also i think a little stronger than you, given what i saw on stage tonight." this is soo cliche im sorry but Spooky Eyes HAWT. i don't feel bad about it actually
the immediate sense of overwhelming relief on his face almost aches to see, and he's crossed the remaining stretch of floor to practically collapse in your arms sobbing before you can blink. it's... very surprising, you'll admit, but not unwelcome, either, and you're sure the uncertainty lingers in your voice as you gentle him softly, petting his hair and rubbing his back and trying not to overthink the fact that you've known elvis presley for all of ten minutes and now... this is happening. whatever this is.
"woah- woah, hey, what's happening? what's the matter, baby?" he's shaking like a leaf as you hold him, trying to work out in what universe this makes sense. "i-i-i ain't-" he manages through tears. "i haven't been able to touch any-anyone this whole time without b-being so goddamned afraid i'd hurt 'em... and i just- i..."
your worst fears for him, first materialized as you watched him onstage and puzzled about the identity of his Master, are confirmed. "baby... have you been alone this whole time?" you whisper. he just nods from his resting place, face buried in your shoulder. IS this a weird level of intimacy for 2 virtual strangers? totally yup. DO i still think its arguably valid considering how desperately lonely i have decided to make this bitch? uh huh :3
you suck in a breath through your teeth, suddenly filled with the fiery emotion you've been tamping down all night- rage. rage at whoever organized this hit, at whoever must be profiting off it while elvis suffers and innocent girls die, at the colonel who's been shepherding bodies in here endlessly and apparently without deigning to give elvis any proper help or training- yeah, don't think you forgot about him.
but before you can do anything about that, you have to do something with the king of rock 'n roll, who's finally quieting down in your lap. you shove the anger back down, the same way you do your bloodlust- the same way you'll teach elvis.
he sits back up, furiously wiping his tear-stained face. "sorry, honey- i don't know what came over me." he barks a laugh but his eyes tell you it's for show. you tut at him, standing up to fetch him a tissue and maybe a bottle of water, if you can find it- you're sure there must have been one waiting for him after the show. his eyes widen again, but before he has time for concern you cup his cheek to brush the last of his tears away with the pad of your thumb, accompanied by a gently chiding look that says i'm not going anywhere
he has enough time to look sheepish before you putter back over to him with your spoils, talking a mile a minute to distract him. "tch, enough of that! that's part of the change- everything you felt before is doubly strong now. it can be hard to separate your emotions sometimes, especially when you're not used to it. you'll feel everything differently now, and twice as hard."
he takes a moment to mull that over as he mops his face and chugs the water bottle, then nods as he meets your eyes again. "i didn't know that, but it sounds- it feels right. what else can ya tell me?" you chuckle darkly, stretching out on the couch. "oh, just bunches, baby. get comfortable, cuz i know you've got questions- and i've got your answers."
over the course of the night, you explain everything to elvis- how he was Turned, the changes his body's going through, all the symptoms and abilities he'll experience now, why he's feeling the way he is, his options for feeding, how his habits need to change if he intends to keep going like this... it's a laborious process, given how little he knows and how much he thinks he does- he's already got a lot of misconceptions to retrain.
"hey, maybe you're the one who's been watching too many dark shadows reruns lately!" you mean it as a joke, but he flushes. "well, s'not like there's a, a handbook or anythin'! i've been tryin' to study up!" you burst out laughing, and he laughs with you.
at one point he orders up dinner for the two of you, which provides the perfect opportunity for you to offer him a creature comfort- "food? yeah, you can eat food. it won't sustain you, but you're free to eat for pleasure." at his pained look, you give him a knowing smirk. "i bet it tastes nasty right now, doesn't it?" he nods glumly, eyeing your super-rare hamburger, and you chuckle, eyeing him as you take an exaggerated bite. he groans in annoyance, and you laugh as you lick your fingers clean. "don't worry- that'll pass. it's your instincts' way of telling you that you're malnourished- kind of a deterrent from stuff that won't actually keep you alive. you'll be back to your peanut butter and banana in no time, promise." he cheers, and orders up a bottle of champagne, just for that.
"that's another thing- we metabolize differently. your system can tell the difference between the liquid calories it needs and the solid calories you're feeding it just for fun. you won't derive any energy from human food, so you can't gain weight. no reason to store fat," you shrug. "but it also means-" you clink your champagne glass with his in a mock toast, "-you can't get drunk." he sputters, "well, why'd you even let me order the bubbly then?? this shit's expensive, so they tell me!" "i like the way it sparkles! it tickles my nose!"
the hours come and go, but the two of you barely notice, so wrapped up in your conversation. that's another thing you explain- how he'll need much less rest now, if he keeps himself healthy, but that until he's being nourished properly he'll be fatigued and need to sleep pretty much like before. he admits that he was practically nocturnal beforehand, anyway- he hadn't even noticed this one change among so many more pressing.
his drapes were heavy-duty, but you could see just the barest sliver of skyline out the window as the sun began to rise. "it's almost dawn," you whisper, conscious of the fact that the vampire before you is very young, and has had a very long night. a very long month, to be perfectly honest. he hums from where his head is resting on your thigh- you'd encouraged him to lie down an hour ago when he kept breaking off his sentences to yawn hugely. actually, you'd encouraged him to get some rest and you'd talk more later, but he'd refused to go to bed, assuring you he wasn't tired 't all, just sore from the show- he got muscle aches, you know, and he needed to stretch out. you hadn't been convinced then, and you were even less so now, keeping a fond eye on him (fond?? when had that happened) as he drowsed in your lap.
his end of the conversation had started lagging about the same time you started running your hand through his hair, until he was practically purring in contentment. you huffed in amusement. "more like a kitty cat than a bat, i think." he cocked an eyebrow and grinned salaciously, though he didn't open his eyes. "oh honey, i'll show you a cat... a pussycat, to be precis-" "HEY!" you swatted him teasingly and he snickered, settling down again. "keep it clean, presley." "yes, Master." you paused in your ministrations at that, just long enough for his brow to furrow. "you don't have to call me that." "yeah... but can i? i mean, would'ya mind if i-?" his voice was quiet, but sincere. "...ok. but only if you want to." he can hear the smile in your voice without looking, and it makes him smile, too.
"you do have a real one out there, y'know." "i know. but they ain't ever helped me none- all they've done for me is turn my life upside down and leave again. but you... hell, honey, i've only known you one night, and already things are starting to feel right side up again." you sit with that for just long enough to feel pleased before you reach down to tweak his nose. he giggles, and your bid to give the both of you a break from being so fucking earnest goes off without a hitch. the tension stays broken, but the tranquil mood remains.
"guess you're stuck with me again- i can't make it all the way home in that," you venture eventually, nodding at the lone streak of sun making its way past the blackout curtains to pool on the floor behind the piano. luckily far out of the way, or he might've had a particularly unpleasant awakening of his own, had he stumbled through the patch accidentally. he shifts minutely, well on his way to sleep by now. "mm, sounds jus' awful," he drawls, answer delayed only slightly by the fact that he's snoozing, his voice is so quiet that without your enhanced senses you'd have to strain to hear it. "can't imagine quite how i'll make it through if you've gotta stick around s'more." "even dead to the world, you maintain your sense of humor, huh, baby? and those lady-killer tendencies, i see" "yeah, well, i have killed quite a few lad-" "elvis!" you laugh, scandalized, as he huffs a laugh as well as he leverages himself up to sitting.
he rubs his eyes as he tries to get his bearings. "s'pose that's my way of asking real tactful... what happens next?" "well, first we've gotta detox you." "what, from the blood? i thought you said-" "nope, not from the blood. from the drugs in the blood." "from the w-" he gapes, looking shocked and hurt, and also a little appalled at himself. "i really am sorry to break it to you, sweetheart- there's a lot going on with you right now, and only some of it is due to... this," you reach up a hand to thumb at one of his fangs, which had slipped out as soon as you started talking about blood. "the rest of it is a combination of the vegas lights and whoever up top orchestrated the whole thing." he nods slowly, expression inscrutable. "we'll take it slow, i promise. ok?" "yeah," he nods more steadily now. "yeah, i trust you."
"well, then, mr. presley- are you ready?" he nods his head as if on instinct, then has the decency to look confused. "ready for what?" you smile, fangs out. "to start getting you fixed up... so we can take down those bastards responsible for this." he just stares at you a moment before a slow grin starts to take over his face, eyes darkening to match the quite literally bloodthirsty expression in yours.
"let's get to it."
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fullhalalalchemist · 1 year
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URGENT: Congress about to pass a mass censorship and surveillance bill under the guise of "protecting children"
May 13 2023
The Senate has been in a "do something!" mode regarding children's online safety. They're using this as an excuse to push for widespread internet censorship and surveillance. The EARN IT Act, has a slimmer chance of passing with widespread opposition and some senators saying they won't vote for it. TLDR;The real threat is actually KOSA (s.1409), the Kid's Online Safety Act, which will mass censor and surveill the entire internet by giving all 50 state attorney generals the power to remove content that is "harmful" for kids, and force you to upload your govt ID online to access the internet. I'll explain how it works below the action items but it's absolutely urgent that anyone who likes having a free and open internet fights back. It's all hands on deck, because this has so much public support it's insane:
HOW TO FIGHT KOSA
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES & THE COMMERCE COMMITTEE
This is a link to the Senate Commerce Committee phone numbers and a call script to read off of. (202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline
Opposition is getting drowned, and these upcoming weeks will be heavy for lobbying and they're using young people to do it. We NEED to show these senators that young people are actually opposed to this and don't want it.
2. Sign these petitions
Open Letter Against KOSA
Petition 1
Petition 2
Petition 3
Petition 4
Resistbot: Text PHJDYH to 50409
3. Spread the word.
The opposition is getting absolutely drowned online. Dove has nearly 100k signatures to push for KOSA. Influencers on tiktok are pushing for this without ever having read the bill. Fucking Lizzo is sponsoring it. If you have twitter, reddit, tiktok, are in any community, SPREAD THE WORD, PLEASE.
Here is a linktree with all the above petitions for easy shargin: Link to linktree
HOW KOSA WORKS
First, KOSA pressures platforms to install filters that would wipe the net of anything deemed “inappropriate” for minors. This means instructing platforms to censor. We saw how these filters impacted websites firsthand with tumblr in 2018, with not only blocking all adult content but also sfw queer content such as suicide hotlines, art archives, wiping out entire blogs because they had queer fandom related posts, etc. Places that already use content filters have restricted important information about suicide prevention and LGBTQ+ support groups. KOSA would spread this kind of censorship to every corner of the internet. And who gets to decide what is and isn't harmful for minors? Oh don't worry, just every single state attorney general and the FTC, which is appointed by the president. You know, the same attorney generals that just banned gender-affirming healthcare under the guise that it "ruins mental health" of minors. This is why the Heritage Foundation was one of the first to sponsor the bill because they can use it to censor trans content, and Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is it's co-author.
Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by forcing websites to use age verification and parental monitoring tools. Yup, that's right. Now every single person who wants to access the internet has to upload their govt ID online to third party apps that get hacked all the time. You queer in a red state? You undocumented? You an activist? Have fun getting all your online activity and metadata attached to your govt ID.  
Over 90+ human and LGBT rights groups agree that KOSA is dangerous and updates to the 2023 version won’t and can’t address the big problems with the bill. This bill has MASSIVE bipartisan support, and the authors Blumenthal and Blackburn (yes, that Blumenthal that's pushing the EARN IT Act, and who also sponsored the RESTRICT Act and SOPA/PIPA if you remember) are using the tragedy of mothers who lost their kids to online harassment and young adults who've been traumatized online to lobby for it, and got Dove the company to use a bunch of influencers to push for this under the guise it prevents eating disorders...I wish I was lying. There are already 30 co-sponsors.
It is all hands on deck. I'm dead serious when I say if this bill is passed it is the beginning if not end of the open and free internet.
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blkkizzat · 8 months
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ꨄ︎『Toji x TumblrSmutWriter!Reader』ꨄ︎
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Toji x TumblrSmutWriter!Reader
18+ Minors - DNI
Summary: You shouldn't have left your phone out in the open bestie because now Toji just discovered his cute lil gf has a big slutty imagination and that means you're really in for it ❤︎ . CW: daddy/dilf kinks, humiliation, backshots, outdoor sex, toys, voyerism, breeding, overstimulation, lots of mentions of various kinks, light spanking, light spit play, meta concepts WK: 4.2k Black fem reader coded but no descriptors.
A/N: Y’all can blame my forgetting to take my adhd meds and my hangover yesterday for this one. I was laying on my bathroom floor regretting life choices, waiting on McDs Doordash and thinking up outlines for kinktober when this popped into my head. I thought it would be a quick drabble like 1k words to help my writers block with the "Bumpy Ride" Geto fic but lord knows I can't write shit under 3k, who am I foolin? I don’t even have a song inspo for how spontaneous and random this shit was lmfao but I still had to do a graphic for this one regardless (editing those notifications were hell). Edit- I lied the song inspo is: Girls Need Love Remix - Summer Walker ft. Drake.
Enjoy!
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Imagine you are dating Toji and he finds out you secretly write Tumblr smut fics on the low. 
He comes over to your apartment one night after one of his ‘jobs’ ran late. He has a key, but is wondering where the hell you are as you usually greet him at the door. Going into your bedroom, he finally hears you in adjoining bathroom shower. 
Toji begins to strip down in order to join you but he barely has his shirt off before he notices your phone blowing up. 
Picking your phone up off the bed he sees 206 notifications from an app called “Tumblr”. 
Toji has no fucking clue what the hell a Tumblr is but his jealously starts to soar. He already made your ass go private on Instagram and deleted your Tiktok dances. He got tired of threatening every loser who tried to slide in your DMs or even leave a comment for that matter. 
Imagine his surprise when he unlocks your phone (of course he had made you give him the password) and instead he finds out his new vanilla-as-fuck girlfriend is actually a kinky cockwhore who loves writing character x reader stories about fictional men plugging any n' every one of her holes. Sometimes it was multiple men simultaneously, with their massive cocks bullying your readers until you had them crying. Not to mention them fucking you absolutely stupid in every scenario imaginable, with a huge daddy kink/love of dilfs to top it all off. 
Y/N clearly has type, Toji thought smugly as he saw some art on your page of these animated dilfs that looked similar to him.
But goddamn, some of this shit even he hasn’t considered doing with you yet. Honestly, he’s been holding himself back for your sake as you had been pretty shy at first. His sweet naive little college girl, yet here you were a filthy closeted slut this entire time. 
Tsk, Y/N been holding out on me, eh?
At this point you were probably a bigger freak than he was, he mused with an arched brow as he scrolled through what you called your ‘masterlist’.
It was nothing but a collection of pure unadulterated filth. 
More than anything though while going through your Tumblr, Toji is rather impressed at how popular you are. He reads your intro post where you deem yourself the ‘Self-proclaimed DILF Smut Queen’ and an evil grin appears on his face.
Toji abandons his plans to join you in the shower and he waits for you on your bed while he links-surfs through more of your so-called fics, drabbles and thirsts.
You made your own little pictures to go along with your dirty stories too? Aw, what a sneaky yet talented little whore he had. 
When you finally exit the shower, wrapped only in a big fluffy white towel and your hair pulled back into a ponytail, you are surprised to see Toji sitting shirtless on your bed. 
Toji had promised to be here hours ago. He never even sent a text saying he would be late and you’ve been bored waiting for him all evening so he could give you some of the attention you've been craving. 
Your body is already warm from the shower and your legs rub together as you are already feeling a bit horny just seeing him bare chested.
Walking toward the bed you are eager to go pounce on his lap. That is, until you see it’s your phone he’s scrolling through again without your permission.
You loudly sigh which made his head snap up to look at you.
You’re so ready to tell him off again and remind him your Insta is still private and you only use TikTok to mindlessly scroll, not post dance videos anymore when gives you a dangerous look.
You stop dead in your tracks.
Your eyes grow wide as saucers as you recognize what he’s actually looking at when waves your phone around tauntingly in his hands. 
No.No.No. Not this. Please god, not this!
But your worst fears are confirmed when he starts reading aloud with a huge shit eating grin. 
“You moaned loudly as you threw your head back and bucked against him hungrily. You knew you had to finish quickly unless you wanted his wife to come home to discover the babysitter on top of her husband, making a mess all over his face. His thick tongue lapped into your drenched folds and he spread your puffy pussy lips wider to suck and nip at your swollen clit….” 
Your mouth was agape in shock. You were a deer in headlights.
A million and one thoughts raced through your mind as Toji continued on. He swiped over to the next one, this time a daddy and breeding kink drabble.
“Or how ‘bout… ‘Take it all like the good little slut you are for daddy, Y/N’. ‘N-No daddy, please I can’t cum anymore!’ You babbled as you succumbed to the overstimulation of him ruthlessly breeding your stretched cunt and filling you as you squirted on his dick for the fifth time that night…” 
You could only continue to stand there and gawk at him. This couldn’t actually be happening to you right now.
“Ya really wrote all this nasty shit, Y/N?” Toji teased while still looking at your phone as he found more of your filthy smut to read aloud to you despite the horrified expression on your face.
You of course had written all that ‘nasty shit’ but most of it was before you started dating him, breaking a long dry spell.
You really weren’t one to run the streets and sleep around but you had some kinky ass fantasies and you not getting any action had you needing to express them somehow.
It’s not like you didn’t eventually plan to open up and share a few of your kinks with Toji down the line. But this was a relatively new relationship and Toji was still a bit intimidating to you. Even though Toji treated you with way more care and concern than he did anyone else you’ve seen him interact with, you still had an insecure fear that he would reject you for a few of your kinks. 
Your last boyfriend had called you a weirdo for wanting to call him daddy in bed, so you resolved then to no longer share that part of you.
Hell, not even your IRL friends knew what you got up to. Only the Tumblr followers and moots, who you all shared peaceful anonymity with, were familiar with you and your writing.
Fuck. You had finally found the perfect DILF daddy too, you didn't want to scare him away. 
You cursed yourself for even opening Tumblr earlier. You did so out of restlessness waiting on his ass to come over. You just were going to read a few fics before you realized you had a story in your drafts you never posted that just needed to be proofread.
Wanting to kill time you decided to edit and post it on a whim, not knowing the mess it would be getting you into now. 
“Earth to, Y/N.” Toji snapped his fingers, interrupting your thoughts.
"Where did my perverted baby’s little mind go off to now, huh? So obsessed with being ruined by imaginary cocks you can’t even respond to your own daddy.”
You could have combusted on the spot as you were sure there was more steam coming off you from embarrassment than from the hot shower you had just taken. 
But wait– wtf, your frazzled mind just connected the fact Toji had referred to himself as your daddy. 
Those words sinking in made your entire body tingle. Your pulse quickened as you chewed your bottom lip and fidgeted with the edge of your towel.
Was he also into this?
The fact was Toji was very into this and you were about to find out just how much he was.
Enjoying your reactions fully, Toji stood up and made his way toward you with a crazed look on his face.
“You’ve written 96 pieces of filth Y/N…”
He inched closer and you instinctively moved back. Every fiber of your body sensing the danger in front of you. You wondered if this is how the targets of his ‘jobs’ felt when he approached them. Toji never lied to you about what he did for work but you never felt like you were his prey, until now.
“You’ve been a very naughty girl, have you nothing to say for y’erself, princess?” 
“I-I-I-”, you stumble over your own words. This was all way too much, way too fast, for you to process in order to say anything coherent back to him.
“I-I-I-” Toji mocked your pathetic tone, an evil grin back on his face. 
“Lost your words, Y/N?”
Your body instinctively keeps moving back to keep distance between the two of you as he continues to advance on you.
“But you have so many words to say here, isn’t that right slut?”
Toji toyed with your phone in his hand, spinning it around.
“Slut. That’s what you liked to be called in these stories, eh? The dirty slutty whore with a sloppy cunt just ready to slime all over her daddy’s cock, yeah?”
You gulped as your back hit the glass of your bedroom balcony door with a ‘thud’. You had no more room to run while Toji closes in on you.
He pressed both of his massive hands against the glass as they framed your head, his body hovering over you. You couldn’t help but notice how much bigger than you he was as his frame enveloped you and blocked out the rest of the room. You were trapped.
Too nervous to look him in the eyes, you settled for his chest and Toji’s muscles flexed tantalizingly under your gaze. You lost yourself for a moment as the familiar scent of his heady masculine musk invaded your senses.
Your eyes roamed lower and lower before resting on the bulge beneath his sweats and you softly pant. 
“You’re staring at my dick like you want me to stuff that pretty little throat cunny of yours full. You aren’t making good use of your mouth right now anyway Y/N, might as well see how much of me it can fit.”
You looked away from him completely but that only ignites Toji's flames more.
“Look me in the eyes little girl...” Toji’s hand roughly grabbed your jaw and squished your cheeks together as he brought his face closer to yours.
“This shy act won’t cut it anymore, slut.”
His intensity was overwhelming you. Various emotions threaten to bubble to the surface as you squirm in his grasp and your eyes become glossy with tears.
“You didn’t think you finally had a man who would be into this wild ass shit, now did you?”
You wanted to question him further but you felt your gravity shift as the balcony door whipped open behind you. Toji ripped off the towel covering you as you practically tumbled backwards onto the small landing buttass naked.
The crisp fall night air hits your dampened skin giving you goosebumps. You shiver and immediately drop down in a crouch to cover yourself. 
“T-Toji!! Are you insane?!” You gasped at him in a hushed tone, your silence finally broken. 
Promptly, you scan the seemingly deserted neighborhood streets through the railing for any sign of movement or signal that someone else was outside.
To your relief there was no one in sight.
Thankfully this was a relatively quiet neighborhood and no one was ever really out at this time of night. Nevertheless the shock of it all was sending your nerves into overdrive.
“Toji my ass bitch. It’s daddy to you moving forward–,” he roared jerking you up off the ground, “–and we are going to do every single fucking thing your slutty mind has ever fucking written starting NOW.” 
Your eyes darted as around him if you wanted to run back inside but there was no getting past his brutish build as he quickly slammed the door shut, shaking the frame.
Frankly, you didn’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified as you had written some depraved ass shit over the past year in the midst of your cockdrought. Some of it you had never even seriously thought of actually doing IRL. 
“Let’s start right ‘ere, eh? Did you think I wouldn’t notice the description of the place in your little balcony story matched your own?” 
Your eyes almost popped out of your skull as you recalled what you wrote in that particular smut fic.
ꨄ 
“A-AH! N-NOOO TOJI, W-WAIIIIIIIT!” You whined through gritted teeth. 
You tried (and failed) not to release any noises from the unrelenting backshots Toji was currently giving you as he folded you over the balcony railing. The tips of your toes barely rested on the cold floor as your ass bounced back into him and had your clit throbbing when his heavy balls smacked against the sensitive nub.
You had previously only fantasized about Toji being this rough with you, but now that it was actually happening for real you couldn’t think straight. Your lungs burned from sucking in the frosty night air and your cunt pulsed from his thick girth stretching you open. 
Shockwaves ran along your body with every cruel thrust of his hips. The force of it reduced your legs to jelly and you were sure you would have collapsed had he not had you suspended like you were, between him and the railing. 
Toji seemed both unfazed by the cold and your cries for mercy as he shushed you with a harsh spank. He enjoyed the way your fat ass rippled under his heavy hand in the moonlight so much he gave you a few more for good measure.
Your tits violently swayed over the edge as one of your hands grasped the railing for stability and the other held your phone in front of you. Toji was making you dictate your story for him as he reenacted the play by play assault on your cunt.  
The bright screen you held was near blinding to your teary eyes. You mentally cringed as you knew it would act as a shiny beacon to view your activities if anyone walked by the small apartment complex or hell, even stepped out on their balcony. 
“T-Toj- Daddy, w-what ‘bout– neigh-h-b-bor-s?”
You managed to croak out over the sloshing of your cunt and slapping sounds of flesh that echoed into the atmosphere everytime he rammed into you. You couldn’t bear to look around to see if any of your neighbors had started to investigate.
“Pshhh, Fuck your neighbors Y/N! They clearly don’t have a cockcrazed baby to please that writes dirty little stories about imaginary men like I do.”
If you didn’t know better you would think he was actually jealous of the DILFs in your stories too from the way he was sadistically fucking into you. 
His thrusts caused your icy tears to run down your face and sent your tits bouncing into the wind. Your cold and neglected nipples hardened in the chill to the point of delicious pain.
“B-but- it's too c-cold out D-Daddy!”
“Mmn, yet your pussy feels warm enough, Y/N. Too hot even. This is for your benefit, you know–,” Toji stated matter-of-factly while he increases the speed his pounding into you, “–So you remember you have your own Daddy who will fuck you anyway you want, anytime you want…just, fuck, tell Daddy what his slutty baby needs.”
The way his hips are driving into your core knocks the wind out of you. Toji tightens the already brutal grip on your hips which assists him in pressing deeper into your cunt. The movement has you almost slipping. You nearly drop your phone off the balcony when your toes stepped in the growing pool of shared juices flowing down your legs and collecting at your feet.
“Hold that shit tight for daddy baby, got it? You drop it and we gotta start over, yeah? I’ll make you walk downstairs ass naked just like this to get it too,” Toji breathed out huskily. 
You realize you’ve never heard him sound this needy before now.
“What’s next, in y’er lil’ story huh?… Speak up so I can hear it over this messy cunt.” 
There was an edge of desperation for you clear in his tone. Although to your dismay it causes your body to gush around him harder meaning you would have to speak up even louder as your pussy squelches grew more vulgar in volume. 
You nearly shouted out the next part groaning and mixing in incoherent babbles throughout the smut filled paragraph as Toji doesn't slow to help you. If anything Toji picks up speed and grows even harder inside of you as he's encouraged by his baby's filthy words.
“...H-he- lifts your leg, r-resting your knee on the edge of the bal-c-cony. T-T-The angle allows h-him, fuck, deeper access to your c-cunt. Ah-h-h-a clear view of his c-cock badgering your core f’er a-anyone who happens to p-pass belowwww-ohmygod. Y-you seeeeee s-stars as he callously s-slams into your c-cervix, shitshitshit, n-nearly fa-fa-fucking you off the balcony if not for his s-strong hold on youuuu–ah. Y-you violently t-tremble as you c-cum s-screamiiiiing, not fuckdaddyfuckkkk, caring if your n-neighbors could s-see or h-hear you any l-longer.”
“HA! Is that so–” Toji lifts your leg just like you wrote in your fic, “–guess I am gonna to have to keep fucking this tight cunt until you no longer give a fuck about anything else but this dick, eh?”
You hear what sounds like a door slide open near you and you begin to whine about your neighbors again before Toji jerks your head back by your ponytail to whisper in your ear. 
“I wouldn’t worry that nasty, pretty little head of yours about these neighbors babydoll…” 
The new angle allows Toji to bury himself deeper into you just like you told in your story and his tip hits your cervix so hard you think he might actually penetrate. 
“...if I were you Y/N... I would think about how daddy’s needy lil whore is gonna make it through an entire day of classes tomorrow with clamps on your nipples and a remote control vibrator up your cunt.”
He licked the side of your face and spit in your mouth before carelessly pushing your head back. You loudly moaned as his bruising grip returned to your meaty hips as his nonstop aggressive assault on your cunt proceeds.
You feel yourself getting close, your eyes rolled back into your head and drool seeped down the corners of your mouth. You cursed your weakness for this shit as you felt yourself give into the pleasure. You surprise even yourself as you never actually thought this kinda sex could be so fucking good you wouldn’t care about shit else for real. 
“Goddamn mamas, squeezing me so hard–” Toji’s hips snapped into you with every syllable, his voice becoming more animalistic, “–you want me to fill this pussy up? Mmm, I fucking know you do the way she’s milking me. Fuck, might even put a baby in you, give ‘gumi a sibling. We won’t be able to do some of that kinky shit you wrote unless I knock a baby up in this cunt, ya know.”
Of course, Toji being the sexy ass DILF straight out of your dreams would love breeding kinks too.
His ramblings cause you to tighten and clench around him even more. You’ve wanted to beg for him like this since you first started dating. Just thinking of the words spilling out of your mouth nearly pushed you over the edge.
You were so close to release.
“I-Inside me D-Daddy pleasepleaseplease!,” you slobbered out, struggling to make sentences from all the pleasure within you.
“F-fill me– fill me D-Daddy, knock this tight little cunt up, w-want it– want it– w-want it–!!!”
Your voice caught in your throat and you nearly choked once you felt your peak hit. Your pussy sent tremors around his dick as you creamed around him. You can't think of anything else but him inside of you.
You just came but Toji allowed you no rest. He still pummeled inside you as he chased his own high and slurred vulgar curses of praise for his pretty lil’ whore's dirty mind, while planning the next debaucherous smut for you both to reenact.
“Ya think it's too late now f’er prime next day delivery for those toys, baby? Fuck, look that up while y’er still holding that phone.”
You didn’t even realize you still had your phone in your hand but were just thankful you didn’t drop yet. You didn't think it would survive the fall.
Groaning you tried to rally the strength to even lift the phone to face unlock when you locked eyes with someone below. You instantly recognized the person as the elderly woman with the flower garden from down the street.
The old lady had always been very kind to you, making pleasant conversation, offering you fresh flowers for your kitchen and praising you for how reminded her of her own sweet young daughter at your age. 
Unfortunately for you both, she was casually walking her two mini poodles when her eyes were affronted with you practically hanging off the balcony. A blissed out expression plastered across your face while Toji held you, battering your slick pussy full of his thick cock.
The old woman’s eyes widened in terror as if she actually witnessed a crime scene as she panicked, yanking her two dogs away swiftly back in the direction of her home. You knew you would have to take the long way home from now on.
Nevertheless Toji, who was none the wiser and wouldn’t give a single fuck regardless, merely continued planning out your next smut fic enactment.
“Nah fuck it, we’re going to the library tomorrow. See how many pages you can read of that dull ass biology book while y’er warming my cock... Tch, or should we do the one where y’er fucking the coach in the men’s locker room, whacha think baby?”
"Hmmmnmmrgh", you could only moan in reply.
You were already near hyperventilating from your own climax, the shame of now having to avoid your neighbor for life and Toji’s fiery body creating a storm of friction clashing with the freezing temperatures.
But your senses were now wholly overloaded once you felt him reach down to pinch and rub at your clit. 
“Cum again with Daddy baby, shit, can ya do that f’er me?” Toji sounded like he was close and he slapped your clit even harder causing you to scream out.
Cockdrunk and overstimulated you could no longer communicate as your entire body felt like it was an extension of your pussy. The thick fluids flowing out of your body increased the sizable puddle already at your feet. You utterly surrendered to the feeling and your body wrecked with pleasure electrifying you. 
You almost blackout as you feel his cock bust hot seed into your tummy melting your insides and causing you to cum all over again.
"Fuck, that’s it, take it all. Can't wait to see this belly and these tits full mama."
The aftershock of your orgasm feels near endless as Toji continues to fuck thick ropes of his cum into you. 
Losing track of time you weren’t sure how long it was before Toji finally pulled out and took you off the railing. Holding on to you so you can balance and turning you to face him he places you down on your unsteady feet. You immediately bury your head into his chest as his heat envelops your cold skin. Your breathing finally starts to calm in his embrace. 
“So good f’er daddy babygirl,” he murmurs into your hair, savoring your scent.
“Warm bath, yeah?”
“Sure, but you gotta carry me daddy.”
You yawned while Toji’s already lifting you princess style in his strong arms. You were exposed still in the night but at the same time you have never felt safer. 
You curl further into his warmth as he kisses your forehead and finally brings you back inside.
Once inside the bathroom Toji sets you down on the edge of the tub while the water runs and he leaves to grab some fresh towels.
You can’t help but feel euphoric as you smiled to yourself. You are too giddy!
You finally have the DILF daddy you always wanted and could be open about your kinks without any judgment. 
However your mood shifts when Toji returns. You give him an incredulous look as you see your pink waterproof vibrator in his hands. 
Toji turns it on and saunters over to you, his scar twisted into a devilish smirk.
“95 more fuckfics to go ma’, we don’t have time to waste…”
Fucking hell, you had entirely forgotten about the overstimulation in the bath drabble. 
You quiver in both anticipation and distress as you aren’t sure how your completely spent and nearly frozen body is gonna be able to cum four more times tonight. 
Could there ever be too much of a good thing?
You weren't sure what those limits were exactly.
“Ya know, Y/N–," Toji started slyly, interrupting your thought.
”If I hit up Shiu and you asked him nicely with that pretty lil' mouth, I’m positive he would be down for some double daddy Eiffel Tower action.”
However from the feral grin on Toji’s face he appeared determined to test those limits with you.
You could thank your Tumblr smut fics for that. 
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© ʙʟᴋᴋɪᴢᴢᴀᴛ 2023. ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛꜱ ʀᴇꜱᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ. ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ꜱᴛᴇᴀʟ, ᴛʀᴀɴꜱʟᴀᴛᴇ, ᴄᴏᴘʏ ᴏʀ ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇ ᴀɴʏ ᴏꜰ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋꜱ. ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪɴᴄʟᴜᴅᴇꜱ ꜰɪᴄꜱ, ᴅʀᴀʙʙʟᴇꜱ, & ɢʀᴀᴘʜɪᴄꜱ. ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴀʀᴇ ᴀʟʟ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ʙʏ ᴍᴇ ᴜɴʟᴇꜱꜱ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀᴡɪꜱᴇ ꜱᴛᴀᴛᴇᴅ. ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ.
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A/N: I honestly have to say I am a bit impressed with myself as I’ve never finished a story in one day before ever (although it took most of today to proofread and I still think there might be errors soz). Hopefully this is a good sign for powering through those Kinktober fics once classes start up again this Weds. Also If there is any interest possibly a PT 2 after Kinktober featuring a threesome with Shiu at his office.
Edit: errors/grammar fixed as of 9/26.
This one goes out to all of us dilf smut queens who simp Toji ❤︎
Please reblog to have DILF Daddy Toji dick you down, but likes and comments are always appreciated just the same!
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uncouth-the-fifth · 11 months
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click, p.2 - Sam Winchester/Reader
read it on ao3.
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Pairing: Sam Winchester/Reader (late s5) Tags/Warnings: angst, love confessions, romantic sex, oral sex/cunnilingus, (aka, Sam pussy addiction: the shequel), Sam is Lucifer's vessel, reader is AFAB. Word Count: ~11k. Notes: i was commissioned for the second time by the lovely @daffodil-mania, who wanted a continuation of her last fic set during the "say yes" era of s5. (sooooo dangerous to let me put my grubby hands on this version of Sam, btw). i cannot express how BUCK FUCKING WILD uncouth-nation went for the first part of this fic, so this is for all the wonderful people who gushed over click, commented, threw me some kudos, or even just read it and liked it. lots of love, and i hope you enjoy <3 i did my best to rip out your soul as best i could. THIS CAN STAND ON IT'S OWNNN AHHH. i mean. if u wanna read it <3 Ask to be added to my taglists for future posts!
FIVE YEARS LATER
The walk from the bus stop to your apartment is a safe and easy seven minutes. If you were any other person in any other world, you’d glide onto the bus after your night shift at the university, hop off at your stop, and bumble toward your apartment without a single care in the world. Maybe stare at your phone the whole walk back. Text a hot guy who isn’t the physical manifestation of the devil on earth. Normal stuff.
But this is your life, so you sit front seat on the bus, hands in your lap, tapping a nervous beat against the angel blade hidden in your book bag. The windows rattle in their frames and gleam with rain. You could get off at your stop and take those easy seven minutes home—but the bus driver could also be a demon, so.
Since you aren’t in the mood to die a slow death tonight, walking a few extra blocks to keep anybody from knowing where you live will have to work.
On day two of this, you’d called Dean and asked if you were being extra paranoid. He’d kindly pointed out: Extra-paranoid is just extra-survival. I dunno about you, but survivin’ a lil’ extra sounds fan-fuckin-tastic to me right about now.
He’s right. You know he’s right. But it still doesn’t feel like a good answer, and that makes you picture Sam, twenty-three and still bright-eyed, running his fingers down your bare back and scowling. I’m sick of surviving. One of these days, I want to actually live my life.
But that had been before the apocalypse, before Dean’s deal, before everything. Sam was a different man now. Hunting had reached into all three of you and ripped all sorts of things out, but you would never forgive it for taking Sam’s hope for something better. God, you missed that Sam. You missed him more than anything.
The city bus lumbers up to the curb and spits you out onto the sidewalk, where you superstitiously hover, waiting for the other passengers crawling away from their night shifts to scatter. It’s only when the bus is a dark spot in the mist down the street that you start to walk, your whole body caked head to toe with oily rain. 
This time, you take a random left toward your apartment and serpentine street-to-street, never walking the exact same way the same week. By the time you’re closer to where the bus could’ve actually dropped you off, the lingering smell of old research books has been practically power-washed out of your clothes. You try to think of anything but the freezing, biting, face-stinging rain… and, like a moth to a flame, your mind floats back to Sam.
It’s been over two weeks since he dropped the nuclear option. Over two weeks ago, Sam wanted to say yes to Lucifer, and over two weeks have passed since the massive, unstoppable-force-meets-immovable-object fight that’d erupted as a result.
Dean had blown up. Sam had pushed. You’d burst into tears and clawed into Sam just as deep, because why, why would he ever go there—why would that even be a fathomable possibility in his mind? Did he really think so low of himself? How could he ever give up like that? How could he leave you—?
The worst part was easily the way Sam had reacted. With Dean or John, he could yell himself hoarse, but when it came to fighting you all he could do was sit and take it. He put his head down and nodded at everything you said, even the cruel things. In some ways it made you angrier, but also inconceivably, cosmically guilty. This was Sam’s choice. And of course, because this was Sam, his choice was to save the whole goddamn world. Not a single bone in your body carried that level of selflessness, yet Sam bled the stuff.
You were still furious with him, but only because being mad at him was the only option you had left. The right thing to do would be to tell Sam, I trust you to make this decision, this is your life, and let him take that jump… But you didn’t have it in you. Saying that felt like pushing him over the ledge yourself, or telling him you’d never cared about him in the first place. If you were angry at least you were still fighting for him in some way.
You’d been on board for everything—trying to find a way out of Dean’s deal, trying to kill Lilith, everything. But the argument with Sam had torn out the final piece of you that could stand this, so you packed a bag, told Dean you’d be in a strict research-only role, and booked it back to your hometown. It was cowardly and stupid and beyond selfish, but you knew your stance. The hunt had taken everything from you. You refused to let it take Sam, too.
Maybe, Sam would take you stepping away as a serious sign to change his mind. You couldn’t imagine a world where Sam and his Winchester stubbornness would ever do that, but. It was a nice wish to hold onto.
By the time you make it up the steps to your apartment building, you’re soaked to the bone and audibly making pathetic shivering sounds. Your bookbag feels heavier than ever, digging a trench into your shoulder as you fish around for your keys. The second your apartment door is open the true weight of your exhaustion hits you—
—and then utterly disappears, replaced by a shock of pure adrenaline.
There’s a new pair of boots by your front door.
You catch the heavy door before it goes swinging against the doorjamb, straining your ears against the ringing silence. The bedside lamp is on in your room.
On dead-quiet feet, you slip in, click the door shut behind you, and slip off your bookbag. Your angel blade is in your hand in a second, but you risk a few extra steps toward your kitchen table to wiggle loose the pistol you taped underneath. Just the weight of your weapons in your hands flicks the hunter muscle memory back on in your body, and before you can think you’re hiding in the shadow beside your bedroom door. Listening.
Soft breathing. The pages of a book turning.
You know, instinctively, who it is—you would know him dumb and blind and dead. But these days, anybody could be piloting his body around.
You suck in a deep breath through your nose, heart throbbing in your ears. You wait until the fingers on your gun aren’t shaking anymore, then burst inside the room, slamming the door into the wall and whipping your pistol up to eye level.
Sam’s head flinches towards you. He is exactly as you saw him two weeks ago; solemn, determined, and open, the air around him practically steaming with safety and goodness. He’s sat comfortably on your bed, reading a book he brought with him. Despite everything, your belly still curls with butterflies when you lay eyes on him. Sam. Definitely Sam, and no one else.
Still, your paranoia has gotten you this far. You both stare at each other for a beat, equal parts scared out of your minds and relieved. Without a word, you keep your gun trained on him, and Sam lets you, his eyes big and understanding. You shuffle sideways to your dresser, and without turning away from him, pop open the top drawer and toss him the silver flask of holy water you keep hidden inside. 
He catches it. So, not a shapeshifter, then. Sam takes a drink of the holy water, even turning to the side so you can see the water go into his mouth. (A demon in Missouri had slipped past the three of you by pretending to sip—only Sam would know that.) You’re still a little terrified, but you manage to pull your weapons back down to your sides. You still don’t know what to say.
He’s really here. The part of you that had worried the argument with Sam would be your last wails with joy. He’s here, alive and in front of you. No matter how awkward you feel you can’t bring yourself to stop staring at him. By the buttery light of your bedside lamp, he literally glows with beauty, and you realize he’d scrubbed his boots off on your welcome mat to not track mud in, and he’d hung up his rain-soaked jacket in your shower to dry. Stupid polite Sam things.
You dare to glance back at your kitchen, then swivel to squint at him. “Did you… do my dishes?”
Sam lets his hands relax into his lap and nods, shy. He’s looking at you in a way he never really has before, eyes big and soul-rending. “…Yeah. I used the key you gave me to get in… Hope that’s okay.”
There’s another long pause. Usually when you stare at Sam, he doesn’t stare so intensely back, but you share a weird mutual moment where you just stand there and take each other in. It’s so obvious it’s painful, but if he’s doing it then you feel entitled to devour him with your eyes too.
“I got, uh, bored. Waiting for you,” Sam clarifies. “Thought I’d make myself useful.”
Sam stands from the bed. For a second you think he’s heading straight for you, but he moves toward the dresser behind you, kindly tucking the holy water back where it was stowed. You flit out of his way as fast as you can and set your weapons down on the closest available surface, feeling off-kilter. Why would he come here? Is he going to tell you that he changed his mind?
You hold onto the question, but you know it’s too out of character to hope for. Despair sinks into your gut like a rock in a pond. You know why Sam’s here. He would never make this decision without telling you first—without at least saying goodbye in person.
Your throat locks up with tears.
Behind you, Sam hums, “You changed your hair.”
Right. You’d altered it to be more undercover. You resist the urge to reach up and play with your hair, or give in to any of the fluttery feelings you always feel around Sam. “It’s safer.” Tightly, you ask him, “What are you doing here?”
Sam drags a long breath through his nose. You clutch the end of your bookshelf, your chest crumpling with misery. Please don’t say it. Please, please, lie to me if you have to.
“...I’m not taking the jump,” Sam breathes.
There’s more that he says after that. He talks about how you and Dean are right, and how, surely, after everything that the three of you have been through, there’s got to be another way to end this. You’ve always found another way in the past. Sam explains all this to you in a sure, quiet voice, like this is something he’s thought about for a long time, but you barely hear him after those first words. There’s this persistent tension in your chest that’s telling you that there’s something wrong here, but you don’t care—you don’t give a single fucking shit, because Sam—Sam isn’t saying yes. Sam’s staying.
“…are other ways I can make up for the mistakes I made,” he’s telling you, scrambling to fill the nagging silence.
You take a moment to force back your tears, and Sam, nervously, keeps talking.
He swallows, trying to smile. “I-I would’ve called and told you, but something tells me you wouldn’t have picked up.”
When you’ve got your bearings back, you push away from your bookshelf and turn to face him. Your legs are so leaden that you feel as if you have to physically pick up your body and drop it down the other direction, but you manage it. “What… what made you change your mind?”
Sam gets one look at your face and wilts with guilt. He doesn’t answer your question in words—just shoves his hands in his pockets and stares down at his feet, then around your room, as if his reason was in the air with the two of you. In the apartment. His eyes flicker over you just once, and you understand. Seeing you leave really had scared him.
“Be careful,” you start to joke with him, “you start validating my childish reactions and we’re gonna have a whole new set of problems on our hands.”
Sam scoffs. “It wasn’t childish to run away.”
You raise an eyebrow at his word choice, which gets an honest-to-god laugh out of him. A real good Sam Winchester laugh, dimples and all. The last dregs of anxiety in your gut melt at the sound, and Sam reassures you, shrugging, “You needed to get out. In case you forgot, I kind of invented wanting to get out. I understand. I really do.”
You know that he does. That’s not exactly going to stop you from feeling guilty about ditching them, but at least it kicked some sense into him. God. For the last five or six years, your every moment had been spent with Sam and his brother. Even just a couple weeks without him had drained you, and having him back only makes those feelings more clear. Sam’s presence commands the space in a way that turns your shitty, undecorated bedroom into someplace magical, someplace good and safe and warm, and just seeing him standing there draws the ache out of your spine.
Your reach out for his sleeve. Somehow, he’s more real than ever, a tangible person instead of the memory you’ve chased for so long.
“You’re really not saying yes?”
Sam unwinds your hand from the fabric so he can hold it instead, your fingers scooped in his fingers. You’re given a firm squeeze and are hypnotized by him in an instant, the world narrowing down to this moment between just him and just you.
Sam looks into your eyes when he promises, “I’m not going anywhere.”
The tears you’d resisted before return in one big, merciless wave. You’re so tired and the rain was so fucking cold and you’re so sick of being scared that Sam, thank god, Sam, is everything you could possibly need. He’s not going anywhere. Before you can stop yourself you’re clutching him for dear life, shoving your face in his shirt and crushing his body against yours. These last few weeks have submerged you in survival mode, and you don’t realize how deep until Sam pulls you out of the current. He’s warm and dry, and when you inhale to sob he smells like a 24-hour-laundromat, the Impala, and home home home. You could’ve lost that. You could’ve lost him.
“Th-thank you,” you choke out at nothing in particular, “thank you.”
You’ve cried a lot this week, so there are not many tears left to shed. Still, Sam holds you through all of them, swaying back and forth with you and cooing in your ear. You hear him sniffling too. When you’re both all sobbed out, you pull back to tell him you love him, to remind him of all the things he needs to hear, but Sam strangely doesn’t let you. The second he feels you pull away he clutches you back against him, and you get the uneasy impression that you’ve been comforting him more than he’s been comforting you. His whole body’s shaking.
Sam hugs you for longer than he ever has before. It’s a little worrying, but you’ve both needed it so much that you don’t even complain.
After a while, Sam slips back, and in traditional Winchester fashion tries to play off his vulnerability. He’s always been a dead-silent crier, so you have zero way to gauge how bad things are until you see his face. He looks like he’d sobbed his heart out. Your shirt is still wet from the rain, but even then you can feel Sam’s tears soaking your shoulder. Saying anything about it will just embarrass him, though.
“...I-I, uh,” you lick the tears off your lips, mumbling, “I don’t know bout’ you, but I’m beat. Do you have somewhere you gotta be, or,” you add hopefully, “or can you stick around?”
This is the part where Sam will start coaxing you to drive back with him to where he and Dean are holed up, you’re sure of it. You’re already plotting in your head what to pack and what to take, but Sam never brings it up. He doesn’t worry about tomorrow yet.
He presses his lips together. “I was hoping I could stay here tonight, actually.”
This is an even better answer. You’re nodding before he’s even finished the thought, stroking your hand down his chest. It twists your gut in knots to see him like this, so you start to steer the conversation toward something more playful, something less daunting to think about.
“You’re lucky I like you then,” you smirk. Somehow, you manage to peel yourself out of his bubble and teeter toward your dresser, scrubbing the tears off your face. “Make yourself comfortable. I dunno about you, but I’m getting the fuck out of these work clothes, I’m freezing. Do you need anything to sleep in? I’ve got at least five years of your stolen shirts in here.”
You hear him ease himself down on the end of your bed again, but there’s no sassy retort, sly comment, or any sort of line about you and your stealing habits. Instead, sweet and simple, he says, “I’ll just sleep in this. You can have them.”
Okay. Weird.
Since he didn’t take the bait, you throw out another line and try again. This time, you kick off your shoes, open a drawer, and turn back to him with two of his shirts in hand. “Really?” You wave them teasingly in the air. “You sure?”
They are some of his best shirts, easy. You’re not a cheap thief. The first is a holey, feather-soft Red Hot Chili Peppers tee, and the second is a deep maroon Stanford sweater. He has so few artifacts from that time in his life that there’s no way he won’t want this one back. Right?
But Sam just gazes at you, his whole face soft and loving as he says, “You should wear the Stanford one. It looks good on you.”
Those old hot-shivery feelings for him seep down your spine, and you feel in real-time how your cheeks flood with heat. Damn, okay. Consider yourself wooed.
You’ve been down this road with Sam many, many times—enough to know when he’s flirting with you. The forbidden labels had never been thrown around, but. Well. Sam had been your first time, as well as the many other times after that.
He’s usually leagues more subtle than his brother, but for whatever reason he’s pouring it on by the truckload tonight. When you turn around he’s nothing but big, happy puppy eyes, waiting patiently for you at the end of the bed. (Like you’re his girlfriend. Like anything about this is normal at all, and you and Sam are going to tuck into bed together like it’s any other night). Fuck, you missed him.
The bathroom is only a few steps away, but this is Sam, so you decide to just throw on your pajamas right here. Your shirt is so wet that it hits the floor with a slap. It also takes some experience to wring yourself out of your denim-turned-cement jeans, so it’s not the sexiest show in the entire world. Still, Sam’s gaze traces sensual lines down your back. You would rather go to literal, actual hell than wear your bra for a minute longer, so the second you’re free of its death grip, a long happy sigh drains out of you. A similar dreamy sigh drains out of Sam. Dork.
“I will never get tired of that,” Sam murmurs. You expect to hear some kind of hunger there, but the timber of his voice bleeds with admiration and fondness.
There are very few ways to be a normal human being while Sam Winchester adores your nude body with his eyes. The best you can do is burst into flustered, giggly laughter and give him a good eyeroll, your entire face cooking like a stove burner.
“Alright, loverboy,” you scoff, “I’m gonna go brush my teeth and take my makeup off—”
“Can I help?” Sam asks.
You sputter out another laugh, confused. “You wanna brush my teeth for me?”
“No,” Sam shakes his head, smiling big, “Lemme take your makeup off for you.”
Okay. Weirder. But it’s sweet, and you like this side of him, so you decide to indulge his mood. “...Sure.”
You go about your night-time routine. Sam continues to be a weirdo, trailing you into the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe, and blinking slow endearing blinks at you as he… watches you brush your teeth. Just. Stands there, watching, utterly enamored with this little moment of domesticity with you. On the surface level you’re a little thrown off, but it falls under the category of Freaky Sam Things that made you catch feelings for him in the first place, so. You grin into your toothbrush the whole time.
When he’s satisfied by his little ogling fest, he drifts off to hunt around for your makeup wipes. Either you’re predictable or he knows you too well, because he finds them within seconds, and patiently sits back as you finish up your routine, watching you like you’ll disappear on him the moment he turns away. Click click, you feel inside you.
“Okay,” he says when you’re done. “Close your eyes.”
You do. You wait for the cool touch of the wipe on your face, but instead, Sam’s big, rough fingers find your chin and hold you still. It takes conscience effort to not melt into his touch like a cat in a square of sunlight. Your willpower is nothing on Sam’s, though, so you give in quickly, sinking into his hand and sighing through your nose. In gentle swipes, he cleans your face. It must be a nightmare of smeared mascara considering how you’d cried earlier… And yet Sam had still been so transfixed by you. He’s the fucking best.
Sam’s hand tilts your head from side to side to survey his handiwork. Pleased, he tosses the wipe in the trash and says, “There you go.”
You open your eyes and go to double-check his work in the mirror, but Sam hasn’t removed his hand from your chin, and you really, really don’t want him to. His thick thumb comes up and caresses under your lips. He looks at you like he loves you, and with all the honesty in the world, he utters, “...You are so pretty.”
…The only way for you to survive this is by throwing him a dry look. “You’re full of shit. What’s your game, Winchester?”
That earns you another authentic Sam laugh, along with a handsome boyish smile. “There’s no game. What are you talking about?”
You squint at him. Liar.
“This.” You gestured between the two of you, suspicious. “You’re mooning over me. Why are you mooning? Are you planning something?”
A ripple of discomfort rolls across Sam’s face, but it passes too fast for you to read. His hands go right back in his pockets and he leans into the doorframe again. “I’m just… happy we’re not fighting,” he confesses.
Oh. That makes sense. Sam hasn’t exactly made up with you like that before, but. These times change everyone. You ease up on your teasing and admit, “Me too.”
“I’m sorry for scaring you away,” Sam says, and far, far too seriously for your liking, he whispers, “I’m sorry for everything.”
Your answer slips right out of your mouth without hesitation. “I forgive you, stupid,” your brows furrow together. “And I’m sorry, too. I said some pretty shitty stuff back there.”
Sam wilts against the doorframe a little. “Nothing I didn’t deserve.”
A dull pulse of anger flares in your chest, which flickers out and dies not a second later. There’s so much you want to say to that.
It is so fucking unfair—biblically, cosmically unfair—that Sam, the good guy to end all good guys, thinks of himself this way. He is the kind of righteous they make saints out of. And yet he sits in your silly little bathroom in your shitty little apartment and gives you that look, the look that says, I deserve this and so much more. I deserve to rot in hell for all eternity. He gave you that exact look when he brought up saying yes. He gives it to you now, because Sam sees everything as a sin to serve penance for—freeing Lucifer from the cage and making you a little worried. He thinks he’s so evil, so beyond saving. It makes you want to get your fists in your shirt and just shake him. 
You’re good! You want to scream. Just for once in your life, listen to me! None of this is your fault!
There’s nothing you could say to him that would ever make him let go of his guilt. But, at the very least, you could help him forget about it for a while.
“You beat yourself up too much,” you scold. Then, softer, you add, “C’mere, Sammy.”
Sam does as told, planting himself right in front of you. God, he’s changed. You look him over with a bittersweet smile. He used to be so spindly. The last few years have filled him out, forcing his body into something ready for war. The hunt reached in and tore all sorts of things out of people, but you’d been wrong about what it’d ripped out of Sam. His optimism was still there, warm and humming in the tissue of his body, and just seeing it fills you with hope. He looks so different from the man you’d had all to yourself in that cabin, but you can feel that he’s still in there. He’s still your Sam.
You take his face in your hands, smoothing your thumbs into his dimples and quietly, needily rasping, “...Can I take care of you?”
Sam’s whole body shudders with relief. “Please, yes.”
The next few beats of this dance haven’t changed. Like always, Sam comes flying in with a big, smashing kiss that shatters any leftover barriers between you. You’re not Sam’s girlfriend and he’s not your boyfriend, but Sam makes you his with this kiss. (If only for a little while). Your noses mash together and his eyes squeeze shut and then everything is just Sam, Sam, Sam at every angle. His hands are at his sides then suddenly they’re all over you, taking two greedy handfuls of your waist under the Stanford sweater. He jams your hips against his and kisses you senseless, towering over you, surrounding you, so that when you pull back to gasp for breath your lungs are flooded with his familiar heady love potion.
Either he’s giving off some Poison Ivy-level pheromones, or your body is so familiar with these steps that it knows what comes after this kiss… because you’re instantly wet.
You realized a long time ago that you and Sam have sex a bit too often for it to be considered “casual,” but even if it was, Sam is not a casual kind of lay. After that first soul-stealing kiss, Sam stares you down like a four-course meal, spins you around, pushes you down chest-first onto the bathroom counter, drops to his knees—
—and shoves his face between your legs like it’s his goddamn job.
In the middle of all your surprised shrieking and squirming, Sam nuzzles his face into your panties and moans deep and bassy in his throat, “Yes.”
Like he’s won something. Like he’s been waiting weeks to do this. Holy fuck, you’ll never get tired of that.
The second you have even an atom of your reason back, you slap a hand over your mouth. Neighbors! Sam has already forgotten what neighbors are, and is holy-mission-from-god-determined to make you noisy. He’s extra hungry for it tonight, too. You squeak out his name, not so much in shock, but more because having those huge hands squeezing where your ass starts to round out tends to produce a reaction, and Sam rumbles like a lawnmower in approval. Holy fuck.
He doesn’t have to ask you to spread your legs. One of the hands appreciating your ass slides between your thighs, cupping you through your underwear, and you have to try not to squeal when the meaty pad of Sam’s thumb swipes across your clothed folds. He presses a big kiss in that exact spot as he drags your panties down your legs, and it’s a weirdly sweet gesture that makes your heart and your belly flutter with shivery heat. Fuck. Fuck, you missed him so much.
The first few times Sam had sprung this move on you, you hadn’t exactly had enough time to fully rev up. But Sam is deadly efficient in and out of the bedroom, so he makes a point to get you extra wet (for him) with his spit, laving his hot, slippery tongue over you in one long swipe. He eats you out with all the obscene, noisy enjoyment of somebody gorging on the juiciest fruit they’ve ever tasted. Even you are scandalized.
It becomes embarrassingly clear that covering your mouth isn’t going to keep Sam from what he wants. The high, desperate moan you try to stifle only makes him work harder. You press an arm flat to the counter and bury your face in it for strength, since you’re weak and whimpering for him already. 
Sam was good in bed when you met him. But, by nature, he is a relentless and avid learner, and it’s been five whole years since he put his mouth on you for the first time. Now, Sam is a certified pussy-eating weapon. He knows your body better than anyone possibly could. You’re over the edge in a minute flat.
Your climax flies through you in one whizzing, sparking rush, then keeps flying, until your body’s squeezing out little squeaky pleas for mercy of its own accord. This is his favorite part. You claw into the countertop and wail for it, pushing at the floor in your socks to gain any sort of leverage. To press closer? To squirm away? You have zero fucking clue, since the thought part of your brain has been blasted into a smoking crater. Sam wraps a big arm around your spasming thigh to pin you open, and holy fucking shit, could that man suck the chrome off a tailpipe. His mouth is a whirlwind of licking and suction just on the right side of oh fuck too much that makes your skin feel like it’s fizzing. You are a thread that he’s just pulling and pulling until you’re so thin you could snap into nothing—
You wait for the moment when Sam pops off you, stands up, and goes for his zipper, but he never does. He remains on the floor, determined to lick you through overstimulation and straight into round two. But that’s a whole minute you could spend with his dick inside you instead, and there’s no fucking way you’re wasting that. Not when he’s here and real and not going to say yes. Sam’s not going anywhere. He’s staying, he’s alive, and the world isn’t going to end tomorrow.
“No no no,” you bite out in one short, rattling breath. “S-Suh—Sam, please please—” An unexpected sob shreds out of you. “Miss you. Need you.”
You’re actually, genuinely crying, and not entirely in the fun sexed-out way. Sam backs up. He’s not even halfway standing when you wrench him up the rest of the way, straight into a desperate, maddening kiss. It’s a brutal cross of teeth and tongue. The need for body heat and skin and him burns through you like genuine bloodlust, so you cram yourself up against him with life-or-death urgency. You get your nails into him until you feel something like shirt fabric and viciously yank it over his head, waiting for the moment when he grabs your wrists or shoves you onto the bed o-or—or starts to blow off steam. Cause’ that’s what this is all about, right?
He drags your mouths apart. Sam pants, “Slow down.”
You stop.
This is. This is new.
There’s no slowing, with this. You both go and you keep going until there’s no more fuel in your tanks, and you crawl out of bed the next day feeling like you’ve beaten the rot out of each other. You’ve never once slowed down during this before, and as your wheels spin to a halt for the first time, reality filters back in around you.
Sam stares at you. His hair is all over the place. A patchy blush speckles up his heaving chest, burning in his ears and in his cheeks. Your slick shines on his lips and the bulb of his nose. He’s just standing there and fucking looking at you, but for whatever reason it feels like the color has seeped back into the world.
“S’okay. Gonna be okay,” Sam hushes, bleeding with sweetness.
He picks up your hands, moving you as if you were a delicate glass he was turning over in each palm. Each of your hands are kissed in the center (oh my fucking god) then wrapped around his neck, and when he has you in his bubble he scoops up your face and kisses you.
It’s a boyfriend kiss. Not a blowing off steam thing, or any other excuse the two of you have used to feel each other. A genuine, I’m your boyfriend and I love you sort of kiss, foreheads pressed together, noses touching, the whole nine yards. It’s the kind of kiss that’s meant to say something. Every inch of what he’s trying to tell you echoes through your body in one ringing smash, like you’re a big cymbal he’s taken a mallet to. 
He slips off your lips and hovers, bracing himself for impact. You suck in a rattling breath.
…Then you press up onto your tiptoes to give him a kiss of your own, just pressing your lips against his, unmoving. It’s undemanding; an answer. You try to find the words to describe the shift that’s occurred between you, and end up feeling stuttery and shivery and fucking elated. Romantic. It’s fucking romantic.
“Sammy,” you sob out.
“Shhh. C’mere,” Sam whispers, his voice throaty and whiskey smooth. “Lemme make it better.”
He tries to walk you straight back out of the bathroom and towards the bed, he really does, but you stop Sam every other step to overwhelm him with obsessed, affectionate kisses. God. His chapstick is all over your fucking mouth (along with your slick) and his hands are everywhere else, feeling instead of grabbing.
“You always do,” you breathe, and that might be the most honest thing you’ve ever said to him in bed.
Sam gets this quiet, pleased smile on his face. No matter how naked and turned-on you are, you’ve always got a snappy reply ready, and you’re about to throw one at him—until you’re fucking obliterated. He smoothes his palms down your arms. Your wrists are scooped up again. With all the tenderness on the planet, Sam slides in close, kisses your throat, and places both of your hands firmly on his belt.
“Take it off,” he rasps.
This. This isn’t the first time he’s given you that order. But knowing, feeling that he’s playing this all out like it’s more than a fling to him… that Sam’s gonna fuck you like you’re someone special to him… sweet jesus, it makes you lightheaded.
“Bossy,” your murmur, grinning.
You’re downright feverish going in to kiss him next. Sam parts your lips with a slow, sinful swipe of his tongue, and there must be a drop of psychic still in him, because suddenly you’re flooded with visions of that filthy mouth between your legs. You can still feel the ghost of him there, keeping you open with his thumbs as the blunt tip of his tongue pushes you somewhere vast and sparkly and wonderful. This is going to be even better.
He sounds like he’s praying when he says, “I just like to watch you.”
Muscle memory serves. You work his clasp open without peeking down and let it hang in his belt loops, mostly because it lets his jeans sling low on his hips in the most enticing way. His belly twitches at even the slightest touch of your hands; always so responsive. Sam drops his forehead on your shoulder to watch you work, and you take the rare opportunity to kiss the top of his head. This is one of your favorite parts. When his button is undone and his zipper’s down, you’re free to smooth your hand under his waistband and take a big handful of him.
You reach in and—squeeze. Sam’s hand snaps up to clutch your arm. His nails dig in, and he rocks forward onto his tiptoes to really dig into your touch. “Yes.”
It’s the kind of soft, needy sound that makes you want to smother him with kisses and hug him until he suffocates. Instead, you cooly purr into his hair, “So sensitive, Sammy.”
A hoarse, sharp laugh snaps out of him, which dissolves into a shuddering groan. You tug at his jeans until they’re somewhere you don’t care about anymore, and forget about everything else entirely at the sight of his cock. All these years of sneaking around with him have conditioned you. Just seeing the pretty speckling of dark hair that leads to it, then the real deal, hanging blood-hot and heavy between his legs, makes your tummy flip and your mouth water. One of a million embarrassing Sam-reactions you’ll have to bring to your grave.
You take his cock in your hand, trying to swallow back the slutty amount of saliva in your mouth. Sam whimpers. A real, desperate sound, with his nails stinging down your arms and everything.
“Know you wanted to slow down,” you struggle between open-mouthed pants, “b-but—can’t—don’t wanna wait—”
Sam physically curls towards you, his hips seizing into your hand and his arms hooking around your shoulders. You’re dragged in for a sloppy kiss so deep you swear it melds your souls together. Sam is just as affected, rumbling like a racecar in approval.
“Then don’t.” He begs.
If this was any other night, Sam would just take. You’d be face down and drilled halfway through the mattress by now, no preamble, all business. He got off and you got off and everyone was happy that way. Sam would want the room dark and you would hide your face in the bedding, the two of you eager to touch and experience but terrified of breaking the illusion. He’s so generous that you suppose he’s got to have at least one place in life where he’s selfish, and you’re happy to be his outlet for it, but.
You’ve never seen him take this way before.
He looks at you and he never really stops, transfixed. You don’t doubt you could walk in a circle around him and Sam’s eyes would follow you the whole way, his gaze oozing with longing and something else—resolution? Faith? You push him onto the bed, and he drops down as if hobbling into a pew for the first time, unsure how to clasp his hands in prayer because it’s only ever been something done in his head before.
You stand there for a moment, unsure of what to do next.
“God,” Sam utters, spellbound. 
You’re blushing so hard that you forget to be sexy as you crawl into his lap, but Sam doesn’t care, still giving you those big slow doe blinks to express his love. It’s so different from the Sam you know (yet also so deeply, deeply him) that you forget what it means to be sexy entirely. He coaxes you closer to plant tender kisses under your chin, and the plan to seductively peel off your sweater for him and flash him your tits blips out of existence.
You wait for the moment when Sam shreds the Stanford sweater off you. Instead, those wonderful fucking hands tease under the hem to squeeze your waist, and Sam croaks out between kisses, “Should wear this all the time. You’re beautiful in anything, but this… you’re… mmn.”
Your heart gives a pathetic flutter. You press mindless kisses against his mouth and rock your bare core down on his lap, because he’s never acted this way before and you don’t know how else to return the favor. “Not nearly as beautiful as you, Sammy.”
The only reaction you get from him is a single huff out of his nose, like it’s something he can’t commit a whole laugh to. Like none of that matters anymore, like it would never matter for Sam, because his body may be beautiful, but it hardly belongs to him anymore. God, you’re shitty at compliments.
You’re fucking wonderful, you suddenly want to tell him. A whole swarm of little truths and sweet nothings roars straight up to the surface of your mind, a whole sea of better things you could say to him, but then one of those perfect hands is slipping between your legs and Sam’s asking you in that perfect, tinted glass voice, “You still on the pill?”
“Yes, doctor,” you tease.
Another flood of sticky heat rushes between your legs, because that question is always a precursor to being pressed into and filled and stuffed end-to-end by Sam’s dick. The one barrier that doesn’t—didn’t exist between you.
“Good,” Sam sighs, relieved, grateful. He never turned down going raw in the past, but he’s downright starved for it right now. Closer closer closer, his whole body begs.
You’re tugged in by a big hand hooked around your back, and you fall right into Sam’s summer-warm, sweat-sticky chest, giggling. He loops both arms around your middle and teddy-bear squeezes even more laughter out of you. The only way to hold yourself up is by planting two hands on his shoulders… which turns into his cupping his neck… then caressing his face, because it’s impossible to be witness to that quiet boyish grin and not shower him in affection. There’s all these little freckles on him that you can only see up close. He feels good, mystical good, prophetic-chosen-one type good.
This is the moment. You can feel the blood in your body pounding between your legs, and Sam’s cock bumps not-so-innocently against your core as you kiss one another. Every shift of his hands sends your muscles clenching tight, bracing for impact, but Sam doesn’t push into you just yet.
Your confusion must be clear on your face, because he says, “Just let me feel you for a second.”
And, obviously, you’re not an idiot, so you let Sam feel you for as long as he pleases. For the next ten uninterrupted minutes, you makeout like lovesick teenagers, whimpering and sighing and swallowing every sound the other makes. You’d always pegged him as a romantic. But seeing it, feeling it, adds a whole new dimension to him you hadn’t realized you’d been craving.
By the time the pool of need in your gut has opened up into a blackhole, Sam has caressed or squeezed or kissed every part of you ten times over. He continues to be weird and obsessed with you. (So still in character, then). Sam even pinches the ends of your ears and smooths his thumbs over the bumps of your ankles, being sexy about it but also a little terrifying. He touches you like he’s never gonna see you again.
Around the time that Sam starts suckling marks into your neck and trying to tickle you under your arms, you giggle out, “O-Okay—okay! Enough—!”
“Enough what?” Sam cocks his head. His hand makes another dive for your belly, making you shriek and squirm with more giggles. You try to wriggle away to protect your tickling sides, but Sam’s too strong and you’re a little in love with him, so it’s easy for him to pull you flush against him and blow tingly-warm breaths beside your ear. He purrs, “You need it that badly?”
“Fucking yes! So quit torturing me,” you pant, and you’re pretty sure this grin is going to get stuck on your face.
Sam’s smile gets even bigger. “Only if you say please.”
Your attitude slips from your grip like water. Next time, you’ll play push and pull with him, but right now there needs to be a lot more pushing and pulling in a different context.
The words are out of your mouth in an instant. “Please, Sam.”
As reluctant as he is to stop teasing you, Sam’s a little in love, too. He leans back enough to fist his cock in one hand, and you can’t help how your breath hitches when Sam’s touch follows the curve of your ass to where you’re soaked and sensitive for him. Those thick, maddening fingers spread you open. The velvety tip of his cock finds your hole right away, and your legs nearly give out when Sam starts to swipe himself up and down your folds one dizzying stroke at a time. Back…. and forth. Up… and down. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Okay, fine…” He concedes, his eyes glittering with joy. “You’re just so cute when you act all tough.”
Maybe not all of your attitude is gone. You bark out a laugh, telling him, “I hate you.”
Sam presses down for the last time, then presses in. You don’t mean to look into his eyes when he fills you up, and that’s probably what does you in. Sam’s rosy face flutters and twists with pleasure, but he never stops looking at you, not even once, terrified to miss even a small moment. The long hitching moan that slips out of you makes his whole face darken with desire. You’re pulled onto him deeper and deeper and deeper until—click. Cue the angel choir.
Your fingers dig desperately into his hair. Sam curls into you in one slow pulling movement, a thread pulled taut, until his face is stuffed in your neck and his hands are mindlessly scrabbling down your back.
“God, I love you,” he moans.
Soon your pussy feels achy and hair-trigger-sensitive and beyond full, which could mean that you’re all the way on him. It’s impossible to tell, since the first full minute of having Sam’s dick inside you sends you straight to the moon every time, where everything falls in peaceful slow-motion and the whole world hums with cosmic, sparkling pressure. You shove your face into him and nuzzle in a daze, little ripples of electricity sparking up your spine.
…Wait.
“What?” You register, slow.
Sam is still clutching you for dear life, even if the moment’s slowed and you’re both comfortable. He hugs you full-bodied, nose in your neck, tilted forward, the kind of hug where he sways you side to side with joy. Sam sucks in a harsh breath. Can’t hold back anymore.
“I love you,” he gushes. The words burn out of him, declarative, overjoyed.
There’s so much you want to say to that. But then Sam digs his fingers into your ass and pulls you off his lap, only to gloriously sink you down the rest of the way, and. Fuck fuck fuck. His cock drags thick and hot against the pliant walls of your pussy. You couldn’t be any more full if you tried, clamping down on him with long, silky ripples of pressure that outline the shape of him inside you in obscene detail. It’s the kind of mind-blowing that’s beyond comprehension, beyond feeble human understanding. Your eyes squeeze shut and you whimper into his hair.
“God, I love you,” he chants again through grit teeth. “So much. So fucking much.”
You find his face with your hands and kiss him quiet, tasting the promise in his mouth. When you part and the two of you really start to move, you kiss him again, and again, whispering where only he can hear, “I-I love you too.”
It should scare you how easily the confession slips out. You should be terrified, because even if you live to see next week, or next month, or next year, even if Sam isn’t saying yes to Lucifer, those words are a death sentence. And yet.
“I-I miss you,” you choke out, “I need you.”
“Me too. So much,” Sam soothes, his voice tight and sharp with restraint. You know his instinct is to jackhammer up into you and never stop, but he puts in effort to resist, letting you both marinate in the wonderful, glistening, twitchy feeling of each other. His hands are rubbing your back and he is so fucking warm, turning the rain outside to steam.
He doesn’t bounce you on his dick. It’s more of a slow, cresting drag, waves stroking a beach. You don’t think you could handle much more than that, anyway—sometimes these positions make him feel big enough to pop you like a balloon. What you can’t fit on your own, your weight pushes you down onto anyway, turning your whole body into a big expanding bubble of pressure ready to burst at any moment. You clutch at his shoulders and just throb around him for a second.
“Nuh-uh,” Sam leans away, not letting you shove your face in him like you want. Instead, a big hand cups one side of your neck and keeps you in front of him. “Wanna see your face. Look at me. Look at me,” he insists, genuinely pleading.
When your eyes find his, that’s when he decides to snap up into you for real. You don’t even get a full look at him. The arm slung around your waist drags you up off your wobbling knees, then slams you down into a beautiful, endless white space popping with color.
“Sammy!” You choke.
That’s the magic word. You’re instantly thrust up into four more lightning-fast times, one-two-three-four, and hitch out four squeaky gasps to match. Sam’s eyes bore into yours with every beat, blazing with liquid love. For a second you wonder if you’ve fallen back into your rough routine again. But then words and thoughts melt out of your brain altogether, because Sam draws you into the tenderest, sweetest kiss human beings are capable of, fucking into you deep and smooth with that deeper, smoother voice, “Keep saying that.”
Sammy Sammy Sammy, you rattle out under your breath. Sam hisses out your name the exact same way.
You do your best to help him out a little, bobbing up and down in his lap, but’s a drop of water in the ocean for him. All Sam cares about is seeing your reaction. He soaks up everything you do like a sponge, moaning when you moan, gritting his teeth when you bite your lip, grinding up as you stir down. The weight of his eyes on you is so heavy that your skin stings in its wake. Again, it’s Sam’s brand of freak-sweetness that makes you get stupid notions in your head about wedding rings and anniversary presents. But that’s—
…something he knows about. Something he just said to you five minutes ago. Above the haze of bouncing, rhythmic pleasure, you’re flooded with relief. You can tell him! Holy fuck, you can tell him!
“I love you,” you gasp out again, and just saying it feels like it could save the world. “O-oh, god, Sam—”
The breath you have left is stolen from you by another fierce kiss from him, so passionate it lets you taste the bassy, happy hum that rumbles in Sam’s throat. You’re devoured by feverish kisses for a full minute, then Sam pops off you to sob, “So much—so fucking much, yes.”
He slips a hand between the two of you to thumb your clit, stirring in and never once stopping. Every so often he’ll brush up against where you’re hot and filled to the hilt with him, your bodies sliding together with slick, filthy noises that are so—so fucking much that your thighs cramp up, protesting the constant pistoning. But the pleasure is easily worth the burn. Your core booms with long echoes of pleasure that shudder through the trembling spiderwebs that make up your nerves. You make a move to lean back on your hands and switch up the angle, (since you’re a damn good cowgirl, thank you very much), but Sam refuses to stop kissing you. He physically pulls you back in with a hand fished around your neck and kisses you breathless, determined to pound you to your climax one thorough snap of his hips at a time.
“So beautiful,” Sam gushes. His voice is hoarse and thready, like he’s moments away from bursting into tears of pure desire.
You smooth your hands down his flushed cheeks, telling him between huffy moans, “It’s okay, s’ okay, Sammy… so pretty… love you so much…”
You feel him pull the Stanford sweater up over your ass and out of his way, exposing more, more, more of your bare skin for him to touch. Sam palms the slope of your back and your belly in a daze, but that’s still not enough—he’ll never be satisfied with how little of you he’s had. He wants more. He wants forever. You embrace each other to the fullest, cheeks smushed together, chests flush, his parted lips claiming your throat, making you his—but. Sam’s breath ratchets up. Not enough not enough not enough—
In one ragged motion, Sam rolls you both over, tossing you back-first onto the bedding and smothering you with his weight.
A squeal of delight jumps out of you. “Hey!”
If Sam wasn’t all over you before, then he literally is now, dropping onto his elbows so he can cup your face in both hands and surround you completely. “Sorry,” he croaks, “need you. Need to fill you up.”
You whisper against his lips, “Then fill me up already.”
His thumbs press into your cheeks a little. Sam’s breath fans across your face, throttled by the lump in his throat.
“Tell me you love me again.”
Um. You don’t exactly have the sexy heat of the moment to hide behind this time, but you still want to say it for him. His eyes swim with something unreadable. Desire and love, enough love to put a lump in your throat too, but a third thing also. It worries you.
You bring your hands up to stroke his wrists, and give a bit too much of your soul to him when you promise, “...I love you, Sam.”
The words hit him like a bullet. Sam shudders from head to toe, unable to reign himself in any longer, and plants a long, surging kiss on your mouth that makes your belly flash with nuclear levels of lust. He squirms his hands underneath your body so he can cradle you against him—genuinely cradling, one palm cupping the back of your neck—and then burrows into you face-first, groaning your name as his cock nestles itself as deep as it can go.
With all of his weight on top of you, you couldn’t move if you wanted to. You caress and kiss and dig your nails into him, and somewhere along the way you’re given a dose of whatever has made him fucking insane for you right now. It fogs your head and turns your reason to ash, so when Sam returns to ruining you for any other man, you whimper, “Please don’t leave me.”
“Oh, baby,” Sam hiccups out, and something strange hangs in his voice.
You would ask him what’s wrong, but the shuddering, flimsy scraps left of your brain are busy being blasted all over by white-hot pleasure. Everything scorches. Sam’s bare skin and his breath and his hands feel fucking molten, melting you down like hot glass. You’re pinned down in every possible way, and it pushes the sinking, gorgeous pressure inside you all over your body, like it’s not just Sam’s cock filling you up, but him, just him, the source of all good in the world. Holy fucking fuck. His hips glide back and then thud back into you again and again and again. You get why it’s called making love, now. You can taste your love for him in the back of your throat, feel it sitting in a sticky film on your skin. It hangs like humidity in the air of your apartment. And jesus christ, it bleeds from Sam, glowing off him like fucking radiation.
When you’re shamelessly wailing gut-deep in ecstasy, Sam peels himself off you. He forces himself to sit up. His chest putters up and down with desperate little breaths, and a gloriously big hand scoops under your thigh and welds it against your chest. Whatever he sees from this new angle—probably your wet, abused pussy stretched tight around the full base of his cock—makes Sam gape, utterly transfixed. You watch as his mouth falls open, and then those dark, soul-swallowing eyes crawl up your body to meet yours.
“Keep lookin’ at me,” Sam rasps.
Even if he doesn’t sway your opinion with a few dizzying, stomach-deep drags of his cock, (which he does), you’re convinced. You lock eyes with him—and then suddenly feel stupid for not watching him the whole time. A long curl of hair hangs in his eyes and sways as he fucks into you. His expression flutters with these sinful little giveaways, exposing just how starved he is for you, how in love. Maybe if you’d looked back sometime in the past five years, that’s what you would’ve seen: how much this has always meant to him. He searches your face for the same pleasure, obsessed with his effect on you. 
“Fuck,” you shudder out. “C-could cum just watchin’ you, Sammy.”
“That’s right,” he hisses, and you’ve never heard him sound so damn happy. “Cum for me. Please. Look so pretty when you do.”
Usually, when he makes you cum, it’s the roughest part of the whole act. He’d get both your wrists pretzeled behind your back and pinned viciously in one of his hands, and that’s when you’d know the big finish was coming. His pace would go from bouncing to bruising. But this Sam, your Sam, would stop time if he could, so he slows down even further, winding you closer and closer to the top of the mountain with little figure-eights of his hips. He gazes down at you the same way you’re sure you must gaze up at him. Beautiful, he murmurs under his breath.
You utter another, tight, almost-sob of, “love you so much, Sammy,” and his dick twitches wildly shoved in you to the hilt.
“Ohh—shit,” he chokes out, and his other hand snaps desperately towards yours on the bed. They find each other easily, and you squeeze his hand with everything you’ve got, infusing in him all the love he’s infused in you.
The slow, mounting tsunami of perfection you’ve been moving towards finally overcomes you, and in one long gorgeous slippery rush you cum for Sam. And because your life is a movie—he cums for you too. He rocks faster and falls forward to kiss you, your faces pressed together, your mouths slotting against each other, your pussy squeezing down on him in golden rippling strokes. Sam hisses your name out between his teeth as he cums. You’re lanced straight through by a whole fucking universe of fluttering, flickering pleasure. To be honest, you’re a little pissed about it—because it’s the best fucking orgasm you’ve had in your entire life, and it’s all because Sam raggedly chants those words to you again and again, laying sloppy, obsessive, head-over-heel kisses all over your face. Love you love you so much baby you feel so good squeezin’ down on me.
You could’ve had this ages ago. How much more time could you have had with him, if you had just stopped being stupid?
Sam’s crazed, sobbing, hitching I love yous somehow become, in true Sam fashion, a low spiral of thank yous. He lays there and clutches you until there’s a Sam-shaped imprint in your body. You’re pretty sure he would stay inside you all night if he could, but you coax him into some cuddling instead, since you both are in desperate need. It’s. It’s new, but it feels cleansing in the holy way.
What feels like hours later, your brain dimly connects to the rest of your body. You’re halfway through detangling Sam’s hair with your fingers as he hides face-first in your chest, pretending he’s not embarrassed that he cried. At least, that’s what you assume. The Winchester mind is a mysterious one, and as much as you would hope to know what Sam’s thinking, the slow hand drawing circles on your hip tells you nothing. Is he shy that he got emotional? That seems silly, since you both sobbed into each other earlier. Is he embarrassed about everything he confessed? Does he regret it?
Just when your train of thought really starts to take the curves of your spiral hard, Sam tiredly croaks into your neck, “I meant what I said, y’know.”
He draws in a lungful of your perfume through his nose, soaking up as much of you as he can possibly get. His hands smooth over your body, innocent and loving, caressing you, memorizing you, begging silently for forgiveness. 
Sam is a dead-silent crier. But you hear him sniffle as he gushes, “God, I love you.”
Maybe if you hadn’t been so tired, you would’ve picked up on it. Or maybe you’d heard it in his voice, seen it, something, and ignored it, hoping it was something else. Everything he felt, he put into a teeny, unmarked box that he’d bury god knows where, far from where anybody could be hurt by it. Sam didn’t—he wouldn’t say that to you. Not unless it was the last time he ever could. He would feel it, but it’d go right into that box where it couldn’t hurt you. You should’ve known.
Lie to me, you’d begged him. 
…And Sam had.
_
The dull realization that you are awake sets in around noon. Noon as in after-noon, well past when you’re normally up and at em’. When you wonder why the hell you slept in so late, you remember last night’s rain, thrashing against the windows all night, and Sam, his face haloed by lamplight and bleeding with quiet resolution.
Sam. Alive, and not going to say yes.
He’d been the one to keep you up all night. With his mouth and his hands, yes, but then afterward he’d been hellbent on talking. Just… talking. You’d been sluggish and cozy and sated after having sex, but no matter how close you came to falling asleep, Sam wouldn’t let it happen. For two straight hours he asked you every question he could come up with to keep you up with him.
Do you remember when we met? Cause’ I do. Do you remember what I said to you? Do you remember what you thought about me? I remember thinking how similar we were, y’know, how much we’d get along. You were so pretty… my whole face went red every time you looked at me. Do you remember…?
Being cuddled, kissed, and protected by the man you love really tempts a girl to doze off, too, so this was not an easy battle. But Sam persisted. He studied your face intently, uttering I love yous even when sleep started to pull you under. Hearing any Winchester drop those words on you still blew your fucking mind, to be honest. Sam especially. But it was romantic as it was worrying, so you’d shut him up with a kiss goodnight and echoed it back to him. Love you, Sammy. It was probably just an anxiety thing, you assumed—Sam, for some fucking reason, was a pretty insecure guy, so you imagined that was his way of making sure you wanted all of this. He seemed… scared. He wasn’t used to being wanted.
The apocalypse was still on. Maybe the world would end tomorrow, or maybe you’d get lucky and live a whole lifetime with Sam. Regardless, he’s never saying yes to Lucifer, and that alone means that there’s still hope for the future. You’re going to spend every second of it making Sam feel wanted.
Sitting up in bed, you scrubbed at your sleepy face with the heel of your hand and stared around the room. Sam was physically incapable of staying asleep after five in the morning, so the familiar evidence of his military-efficient morning routine was all over the place. You smiled to yourself. He’d picked up after the two of you, and had tucked another blanket over you in your sleep. Stupid chivalrous dumbass.
To think, you’d been terrified you’d never see him again just last night.
You push out of bed, only to almost buckle onto the carpet rag-doll style. Even being torturously gentle, that man manages to make you sore. With a very, very happy groan, you hop (and wince) into some clean underwear, then traipse out into your kitchen to show that dork who’s boss.
“Dammit, Samuel, you’re not my maid—” you start to say, but of course, this is Sam, who wouldn’t miss a morning run for anything. Right. That explains your empty kitchen.
…But it’s afternoon. Sam would be back by now. Your gut prickles with a bad feeling, and you superstitiously sweep your apartment, looking for him. His clothes from last night are still sitting in your hamper, his shirt folded neatly in your dresser and his watch on your nightstand. A spike of nausea rolls through you seeing that his jacket is gone—and his boots. But his duffle—it’s. It’s still on your kitchen table. It looks a little smaller than usual, but his books and his laptop are still inside. He probably just ran out to run some silly errand for you, determined to make up for worrying you so much. Yeah.
You force your hunter’s paranoia down to a simmer, padding over to your breakfast table. There’s a big ol’ note smack dab in the center of it, perched on his half-open duffle bag, and you start to play with one of the bracelets Sam left behind as you pick it up.
You cross your fingers, smiling ear-to-ear. “C’mon. All bets on breakfast. Please be getting me breakfast, please be getting me breakfast—”
…That’s not what the note says.
You read it.
Then you read it again, and the hammer falls, crushing the breath out of you and doubling you over the kitchen table. You read the note for the third time, needing to be sure, and the thin sliver of hope you had—maybe you’d just read it wrong, m-maybe he was fine—turns to ash. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.
You’re fighting back a surge of ugly, choking tears in an instant. He’s… Sam… he…
Your whole apartment lingers with the heat and goodness of him, like he’d been here just minutes ago. Just seconds. Even your clothes still smell like Sam. Just inhaling it tears chunks out of your reason, like—like you’d just missed him. Clawing around for something to do, you pace in a daze between your bedroom and the front door, desperate to recreate the moment you realized he was gone. You’re still just in the Stanford sweater and your underwear, but you don’t give a single shit and go careening out into the hall, stalking up and down your floor for him—because, b-because Sam wouldn’t, he wouldn’t do that to you—he would tell you first, he would never leave you in the dark like this—
…But you know Sam. And if it meant fixing his mistakes, saving you, saving everyone… Then he’d say yes in a heartbeat.
“These belong to you. You deserve a world to live in. I’m sorry - Sam.”
- tags: @samssluttybangs @cookiemumster1@lacilou@cevans-winchester @leigh70@ seraphimluxe @emily-roberts @emme-looou @aloneatpeace @williamstop @ornella0910 @chaoticshepardplaid @dakota-dream @lcvecstiel @goghkiss @spnexploration @stoneyggirl2 @urm0mmmbbg @mulattomoon @poeticsorcery @deansapplepie @rennydenny @babydollfoster @badlandsbrunette @hallecarey1
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oceansprompts · 11 months
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text message prompts
[text] You okay?
[text] GO TO BED!
[text] hey you better be alive in there
[text] SOS save me please holy shit
[text] call me this date is going so bad
[text] I have way too much shit to do.
[text] Honestly I'm really worried about you.
[text] Why are you trending on Twitter?
[text] Please let me come over and pet your (pet).
[text] We are in the same building, you could come talk to me.
[text] It's not going to work out.
[text] This is a terrible idea.
[text] people have fetishes
[text] They really do crucify anyone these days huh
[text] I don't know why but that really means me want to stab you
[text] That movie was awful.
[text] For the love of god please help me
[text] I fucked up. I fucked up really bad.
[text] I'm blocking you.
[text] YOU ONE BRAINCELLED BITCH
[text] I regret swiping right.
[text] Everyone lies on their dating profiles.
[text] That absolutely can't be an actual picture of you.
[text] This forced open my third eye and I saw the devil
[text] I'm like a child in line for the newest fucked up disney ride
-
[text] That's just all fucking sorts of fucked up
[text] Why are we here? To suffer? Every other day I get messages that cause pain
[text] In the department of old man fucking, we've got you beat.
[text] have you gotten any work done?
[text] I am beyond shame, try again
[text] You left your left your underwear at my place.
[text] Don't you dare put this on Facebook.
[text] My brother in Christ you're being haunted
[text] I want to wring you like a wet towel and slap you against a wall
[text] The mind is weak but the body is funky
[text] I'm a zombie the law can't stop me.
[text] Jealous of my massive honkers
[text] We left you to die to play minecraft
[text] She would never ever take away one of these stupid fucking hats
[text] I puked all over the Uber driver's backseat.
[text] I just took a screenshot of that and posted it to Reddit
[text] You said you'd be right back and it's been months.
[text] Can't we talk about this face to face?
[text] Yeah, you'll come learn I just have a thing for milk
[text] Why did you like one of my pics from 2014?
[text] Now's as good a time as any to exchange nudes.
[text] Why would you send me an eggplant emoji?
[text] I write five paragraphs, pouring my heart out, and all you reply with is k?!
[text] Who would dare to lie on the internet?
[text] When I die, please delete all my shit off the internet
[text] He's so hot, I briefly started texting like a straight person
[text] And because I'm god and I've decided that; no, in fact, I'm not done.
-
[text] I know you love bloopy reggae jams, now is not the time.
[text] You better not be standing catatonic in your room again.
[text] God has abandoned his children but unfortunately for you I pay child support and I will smite thee.
[text]: My neighbor just told me he can fix my water heater for 50 bucks. I’m skeptical.
[text]: Do you have any idea how much it costs to buy apples? I paid 10 dollars for 6.
[text]: I mean, I wouldn’t say I have a problem with buying Squishmallows..
[text]: Hey, so you know how you told me no dog? *sends pic* I don’t do well with no’s.
[text] Stuart Little is a bitch and Remy could take him any day.
[text]: My roommate just said that Lola Bunny is hot. I’m moving out.
[text]: Hey I posted that vid of you drunk, singing Ariana Grande, wearing all black and people said not to do it again. Sorry.
[text]: Do you think the price is ever right? Like, I feel like it’s not.
[text]: I booped your nose. Boop the last five people you texted or���nothing happens really.
[text]: I’m actually in the ER and it’s a long story that involves Best Day Ever from spongebob.
[text]: I fucking hate you–wait you’re not my ex. Who are you?
[text]: You ever ask yourself if birds see a bee and just go ‘wow a bee’? im high.
[text]: sometimes all i think about is–sour patch kids. bet you thought it was you.
[text]: I love you—not as much as I love my dog. But still a lot!
[text]: I found a cat on the way home and now it’s mine. But it hates my guts so this should be fun.
[text]: I have questions about the marvel cinematic universe…how long do you have?
[text]: why do donald duck and winnie the pooh not have to wear pants but other people do?
[text]: Hey you know that show floor is lava? I may have turned the apartment into that..this isn’t a joke, btw. the floor is sticky.
[text]: I bought too much soap off etsy and now I don’t know what to do with it…I smell like Captain America.
[text]: On a scale of one to ten, how many drinks would you need to sleep with me? This isn’t a tiktok trend…or it is.
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No Pain, No Gain | Part 1 | PersonalTrainer!Aemond x fem!reader
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Summary: The personal trainer your roommate Baela recommended to you is rude, condescending but also hot as hell. Series Masterlist.
A/N: shoutout to my personal trainer Alex for rotting my brain. This is my first modern!Aemond fic, so any feedback is genuinely appreciated, I hope you enjoy this, it was an absolute ball to write (and there will be more!)
Also I could not post this without tagging some absolute modern!Aemond QUEENS who inspired me to write this. @valeskafics @oneeyedvisenya @sapphire-writes​ you’re the real ones! Also massive hug to @ewanmitchellcrumbs​ for hyping me up and being a parent to this child she didn't choose to create.
warnings: EVENTUAL SMUT, 18+, sexual tension, binge eating, mentions of breakup, cursing, dickhead Aemond, reader is horny af, English slang (soz), warnings will be added when needed
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To say you were broken-hearted would be a bit of an understatement.
You were angry, annoyed, frustrated, wound up tight and pissed off to the highest degree.
And it showed in how you acted these days as you polished off the salty family-size bag of crisps on your own in 10 minutes flat.
You look over at your phone and sigh when you see it’s already 6 o’clock in the afternoon. Another day sat on the sofa, wallowing in self-pity, eating yourself into oblivion and fairly soon pouring a glass of Baela’s finest white wine (now that it was officially almost evening anyway and it was justified).
Scrolling through instagram was like twisting the dagger that was already in your chest. All that stupid fucking app could show you was ‘ex in the bar with his new girlfriend’, ‘ex in the drive-thru with his new girlfriend’, ‘ex on the beach with his new girlfriend’.
It made you want to throw your phone directly at the wall. But you settled for squeezing the life out of it, imagining it was your ex’s stupid face instead.
The absolute waste of space had broken up with you over text on the night you were supposed to go out on a date. And as if that was not bad enough, not even two weeks had gone by before he’d managed to stick his dick into someone else with a pulse. At the time, you were so angry that you didn��t accuse him of anything, he’d already broken up with you. But you did suspect that this ‘sudden’ relationship he’d gotten into wasn’t as recent as first thought. 
It’s been a month since you found out about the other woman.
And clearly you were coping really well.
Indulging wasn’t something you usually did, but now you feel you deserved it. 
“Hello~” the soft, ringing voice of your roommate Baela was at the door. You half-considered hiding all the packets of various foods you’d managed to stuff down your gob, but Baela had seen worse of you. She’d seen you while you were throwing your guts up after freshers week at university. Nothing was worse than that and you shuddered at the memory.
She walks in, looking more put together than you by a long way, having been hanging out with her sister all day. That’s what you like about Baela, she’s not judgemental, and so when she sees you’ve barely moved an inch she just flashes her usual smile.
“Good day then?” she says with a smirk. You raise your eyebrows in return.
“Apart from seeing him plastered all over instagram I’m great” 
“Got any left?” she asks, extending a greedy hand for a crisp. You offer her the bag with a sigh as she slumps on the sofa next to you. She watches boredly whatever you have on the TV,
"Why don't you just block him?" She asks. And to be fair, she has a point.
But you huff and shove another crisp in your mouth, whining, "Cos I'm a nosy bitch with no boundaries"
Baela sighs, pulling out her own phone and scrolling through her notifications, "As much as I love you y/n, this is pathetic, even for you"
You'd be offended if she wasn't completely right. And you know she's only half joking so you just shrug.
"How was Rhaena?" You ask.
"Yeah fine, usual shit with Dad. Oh I didn't tell you-" she starts.
She has that glint in her eye which spells trouble. She's got gossip and you raise your eyebrows in anticipation.
"Hold that thought, wine first?"
"Obviously"
After giggling and waltzing over to the counter to pour two glasses of the finest box wine you could get for under seven English pounds, you hand her one and wait almost too excitedly for her to spill whatever sweet gossip she has.
She sips it, almost like she needs the liquid courage to begin, and she hisses at the sweet, acidic taste.
"God that's foul" 
"It was 2 for 1!" You retort with a laugh, but she is right, it does taste foul, "Stop stalling, tell me tell me tell me" 
She looks at you as if to say bitch, you are not fucking ready.
“Dad’s married Rhaenyra” 
The force of which your jaw drops open is almost comical. You’d guessed for a while that they were at least fucking, but to just elope?!
“I need money, cos I betted on this shit happening!” 
“Oh my gosh, Rhaena was fucking hysterical. Jace and Luke aren’t surprised at all, but Alicent is beside herself in the family group chat, it should honestly be a reality TV show” Baela says scrolling through said group chat. From what you can see without being too nosy, is that there’s a lot of long paragraphs and angry emojis.
“What about Viserys, surely he’s…” you ask, trailing off to sip the pissy wine in your hands.
“Oh no, he’s thrilled. Which pisses Alicent off even more if that’s possible”
“Baela I think your Uncle’s gone insane” you bite your lip to stifle a laugh.
“No fucking kidding”
You slump back onto the sofa, “Holy shit, I am a genius. I knew the whole time” you say, smirking in victory.
“And so humble too” Baela gives a sarcastic grin which you return.
“How do you feel about it?”
Baela shucks her phone onto the coffee table, sighing, “Not bothered, we’re all adults now, so it hardly makes a difference to me. Suppose it’ll get Dad to stop bringing back random women now” she says exasperated, “but Rhaenyra gets the impression we’re all really bothered so she’s invited us all to a retreat for a week. Think she just wants to butter us up for marrying our Dad”
“Oh? Anywhere nice?”
Baela looks over, giving you a wearied look.
“What?”
“Well that brings me to you”
“Oh god, what” you ask, dropping the tone to emphasise the seriousness of the talk all of a sudden.
Baela fiddles with the remote, in an attempt to appear cute, “Well~ There’s a spare ticket going and you’re my bestest friend. And I would hate to endure a week of watching my Dad eat Rhaenyra’s face off, so come with me please?” she begs.
You sigh, “Baela usually I would love to sponge off you like that but-”
“Pleasepleaseplease~” she begs, “Rhaena’s bringing her boyfriend and we’re basically together!” 
You fake a gagging sound.
“Oh come on, a week on a beach in bikinis,sweltering weather with as many cocktails as you can hold isn’t exactly torture”
You give her an incredulous look, opening your arms to emphasise all the bags of junk food around you, “Do I look beach body ready to you?!”
“Oh fuck off, you’re hot and have an ass that can keep the world fed” 
“I know I am hot, I just don’t feel hot” you stare blankly at the TV, trying to ignore her and stuff another crisp into your mouth.
Baela sighs, “I was just thinking it would be a nice distraction, that’s all” 
“I want to it’s just…” you start, trying to think of the right words, “...I don’t feel my best”
Baela gives you a playful slap on your arm, “Look, forget your ex, he’s dumb as fuck and it’s not solving anything by staying inside with the curtains drawn all day. If you want to feel better, might be worth taking care of yourself a bit, hm?” 
Fuck her, you think, rolling your eyes, she’s right.
You hate how often she’s right. Because she gets that look on her face when she is. Always has done.
“How about that gym membership you’ve not used since February?” she asks,
“Okay firstly, ouch. Secondly, I realised I don’t know the first thing about how to work out in a gym, besides the guys there were…weird”
You shudder at the thought. It was January and so all the new year’s resolution guys were at it in full swing, using the gym as a means to try and pick up girls. And since graduating you find that more often than not the guys who hit on you were students. Maybe it was different now?
Baela pokes her cheek with her tongue, racking her brain.
“One of my cousins is a personal trainer? I could text him to see if he’s happy to take you on. Mates rates” she smiles.
You side-eye her hard. You’ve heard briefly about her cousins. Some of the stories are a bit more…eccentric than others. And even though you’ve never met them, you’ve heard enough stories to satisfy your curiosity. 
“This isn’t the manwhore cousin, right? Because if it is then no” 
She scoffs, “No. Aegon hasn’t set food in a gym since graduating and he only went cos it was free. The personal trainer one is Aemond. He’s a bit…anti-social?” she pulls a face when she says it.
“He’s anti-social and he’s a personal trainer?” you ask, eyebrow raised, “makes so much sense”
Baela scrolls through her contacts, “Yeahhh. Don’t worry though, he’s just grumpy” she explains, “want me to text him?”
Your head falls to the edge of the sofa in a huff. You want to go and on top of that, it might be nice to finally have a break. That and you’d love to shove it in your exes face when he sees you’re on holiday looking your hottest. 
“How long ‘til the holiday?”
Baela grins victoriously, “A month and a bit. He does a month course for stuff like this, I can ask him about it”
What the fuck am I getting myself into, you think briefly.
Fuck it.
“Fine”
The force at which Baela’s nails tap against the screen is almost desperate.
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Baela snorts a laugh at the message and turns her phone to show you the messages.
“He seems lovely” you roll your eyes sarcastically.
“Like I said, he’s just grumpy. He’ll be professional though” she says.
You sigh, crushing the empty bag of crisps in your hands.
“Can’t wait” 
After following him on instagram, you did a bit of shameless stalking. You’d heard a little bit about Aemond from Baela talking about her family, but he seemed the most mysterious out of all of them (save for the youngest whose name she struggled to even remember). 
He had very little photos of himself, mainly progress pictures of other clients he’s helped. And he seems to be pretty successful so far. A girl with a similar body to you managed to get toned on his one-month program and looked hot afterwards, so you had some high hopes that it was possible for you as well. But you did wonder what he looked like. There were only two photos where he was in frame, and he’d been tagged by another person, looking away from the camera.
From what you could see, he was very tall, lithe and slim but built, with silver hair that had been pulled up into a bun. Ah, so he’s a man-bun type of guy. Yikes. 
Unfortunately, the photo showed very little of his face, so you couldn’t be too nosy.
You sent a very brief message, introducing yourself, trying not to cringe at the idea that he might be doing the exact same stalking to your instagram right at this moment. A shiver went up your spine at the thought. 
It’s only when you’re in TKMaxx with Baela, shopping for gym gear the next day, that you finally get a reply from him. 
“What do you think of just wearing a sports bra?” Baela says, eyeing up a black shirt.
You’re too busy staring at the message, “Hm? Oh, I’d just go in gym leggings and a bra yeah. Just got a reply from your mysterious cousin”
Baela hops over, “What’s he said? Nothing bad I hope” she grins.
 You show her the screen.
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Baela raises her eyebrows, “Very formal. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised” she says, seeming surprised that he’s at least cordial.
“It’s very ‘serial-killer-esque’ of him not to have a profile picture” you joke, locking your phone again.
Baela picks out a black gym set. Black leggings with a mesh pocket on the side for your phone and a black sports bra. You nod, “Yeah looks good to me”
“Oh please you’re gonna look hot in this” she smirks, leading you over to the counter to pay.
She rewards you for your efforts by driving you to McDonald's drive-thru. A send off to junk-food so to speak.
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And when Monday rolls around, you nod in the mirror. She was right, it does look hot on you. At least in the safety of your flat where there’s nobody to look at you. In a gym, surrounded by other fit people and a personal trainer you’ve never met? It might feel slightly different.
There’s a faint swirl of anxiety in your gut but you pull your trainers on, grab a hair tie from your nightstand and drive to the gym you’ve agreed to meet at. Luckily it’s your local gym, large and packed to the brim with some good equipment at least. And you briefly wonder what kind of workouts you’ll be doing before pulling into the car park.
You see him as soon as you enter the gym. He’s very tall, slender but muscular and fucking gorgeous. What the fuck, is all you can think when you shamelessly scan him from head to toe. Like the pictures, he has his long silver hair in a bun, with a few pieces having come free and falling around his face. His legs are miles long in the black sweats he’s wearing, as well as the black top that sticks a bit too snugly to his front and shoulders, making your mouth water a bit.
And you can’t help but admire his side profile, how his jaw just so naturally and sharply juts into his chin. How his cheekbones sit so prominently and high on his face, framing his features. His sharp, defined nose. And you can’t see from here because he’s looking down at his phone, but his eyelashes are unnaturally long for a man. It’s just unfair, frankly.
Shaking yourself briefly from the trance you were in, you right yourself and approach him.
He looks up to see you before you even have a chance to open your mouth. Now that he's looking at you face on, you can see the shocking blue of his right eye and the paler, soft hue of the other. Not only that but the angry scar that ran down the side of his face, extending from his forehead to the mid part of his cheek, straight through the eye.
You look at it for a split second, surmising that perhaps he's partially sighted or blind in that eye. But you choose not to say anything and instead smile with an awkward wave.
"Hey, you must be Aemond"
He openly drags his eyes over you, from head to toe, just like you did a moment ago without his knowledge. But now that you're standing right in front of him, in the gym gear that you totally don't feel a bit self conscious in, it feels a bit weird.
He doesn't reply for a moment.
"I'm y/n" you say, forcing a smile to your nervous face.
"Hm" he responds lowly, "Baela's friend" 
You pull an awkward face and nod.
You feel so stupidly small against this absolute giraffe of a man and you daren't step forward any more, for fear of looking even smaller under his judgemental and indifferent gaze.
He sighs and gestures for you to follow him, seeming disinterested as he looks down at his phone. For a brief second you wonder how this guy keeps his clients if he's this rude, but you shake the thought away, not wanting to judge too quickly.
He leads you into one of the consultation rooms, separate from the rest of the gym. He sits on one of the seats, sighing as if he's had the hardest day in the world and taking a swig of water from his bottle.
Sat across from him, you feel a bit small under his gaze. He's quite intimidating, you now find.
"Have you ever worked out before" he asks flatly.
You shrug, "I've tried I guess, but never super seriously" you laugh awkwardly, but he doesn't return it.
He runs his eyes over you again, as if to say yeah I can see that.
"Stand up. Shoes off. We're going to take your weight and measurements" he orders, going to his bag to grab some things.
It's beyond awkward and quiet in the room with him as he idly takes down your weight, height and current eating habits, which you've had to be more honest about than you'd cared to admit.
Standing in the middle of the room, he twirls his measuring tape on his fingers. He measures your upper body first, which isn't too bad until he gets to your bust. You try and look anywhere else in the room while he measures across it, his fingers landing softly at either arm, taking a note of the measurement. You internally scold yourself, he is so much taller and surely must be able to see right down the sports bra. It only serves to make your face heat up with embarrassment.
If that wasn't enough, he gets to your lower body, measuring your hips and then thighs. He gets to his knees to do it and you resist the urge to pull your hands into fists at the proximity of him to your intimate area, separated only by a thin pair of gym leggings and underwear.
He doesn't seem to bother himself with the awkwardness. And every time you look at his face, he seems indifferent, bored even. Even then, his face is unnaturally beautiful, even with the scar.
He must really not like people.
Aemond sighs having taken all his notes.
"We'll do one training session and see how much weight we can do" he instructs. You nod.
"I expect you to be in the gym four times a week, three in the week and once at the weekend. We'll do one session together a week so I can check your progress" 
His tone is so flat, all you can do is nod. He looks at you,
"Got it?" 
Your cheeks heat up, "Um, yeah"
"Good"
He leads you outside to the actual gym floor which luckily isn't too busy, side-eyeing you massively when you pull your hair up into a ponytail to get it off your neck.
His large form leads you over to where the mats are kept, haphazardly throwing two to the floor.
He doesn't say anything past one or two word commands and it's incredibly difficult to not look in the mirror in front of you to watch him as he stretches. The way he stretches his arms over his head and it lifts the hem of his shirt a little, showing his happy trail, biceps rippling.
And when he does leg stretches, instructing you to do the same, you can't help but stare at how his thighs are basically bulging out from his sweats. It takes all of your strength and will to not look any higher than that towards his hips.
He watches your form as you try and copy him stretching. And your heart almost leaps into your chest when he uses his hand to move your ankle slightly, so that you put pressure on a certain muscle. But he focuses completely, professional.
Fuck, be professional.
All caution is thrown completely to the wind when he gets you on machines. He demonstrates some of them first, starting with the so-called 'easier' ones, like the inner and outer thigh machines that look way too…suggestive.
Of course, he's got it on a ridiculous weight to demonstrate which makes you scoff a bit. And when you get on the inner thigh machine, it locks into place with your legs spread. You thank every god there is that there's no mirror in front of you on this machine.
"You have to start with your legs spread as much as possible" he states simply, pushing the pads against your legs even further. It makes your eyes widen, sinful thoughts pop up in your head. But before they take root you shake them away.
It's ridiculously hard the first few times and he raises an eyebrow.
"Really?" He mocks a bit, the tiniest of smirks on his face "you're only on 14kg" 
"Fuck off" you mutter under your breath. He tuts and changes it to 9kg, bruising your ego a bit. But you finish the set nonetheless.
You think he's a bit of a psycho, because after that little remark he has you on every leg machine available. Making fun every time you have to be on the lowest weight.
After the session, you're aching in places you didn't even know existed and you haven't even rested yet. Knowing full well you'll be achy as fuck tomorrow and even wlrse than right now. The faintest sheen of sweet is visible on your pinkened chest.
"You're weaker than I thought" 
He runs his long fingers through his hair and you want to slap that stupid fucking self-indulgent look off his smug face seeing you all out of puff like this.
"Thanks, means a lot" you say sarcastically, drinking from a water bottle. He raises an eyebrow at the attitude.
"I'll send you your workout plan. If you have any issues do me a favour and don't bother me with them" he retorts.
"Charming" you mutter under your breath once he's gone past you. You watch as he walks away, briefly appreciating his broad shoulders, until the sour taste of his poor behaviour settles in. And you huff, texting Baela immediately.
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You curse every god there is that you drive a manual car, because right now the thought of having your aching leg pressing on the clutch pedal might actually drive you to mass-murder.
This is going to be a long month.
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Taglist: @mrsgrwy @lovelykhaleesiii
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So... @muffinlance wrote a really awesome story. I read a post from a point in time, though I truly do not remember when since it seems like I've been working on this project forever, saying that she gives blanket permission for people to print and bind the story into a book (I think there was an also addendum saying that they do not give permission to be sold, since selling fic is illegal). This fic has had total control over my whole brain since it was sent to me (@creatorofthemind I believe it was you, so thank you forever for tuning me into it) back during the days of like chapter six or seven.
So here I am now, sharing this amazing journey of my first ever bookbinding adventure. Further reading below.
So to give you an idea of what's going on, this is a fanfiction about Zuko (Avatar the Last Airbender) (animated show version, the LA show did not exist yet and we do not speak of the movie) being adopted by Hakoda, Father of Katara and Zuko. (This might have also been what kicked off the Give Zuko A Parent craze, but don't fact check me.)
Overall, the characters from the show stick very well to the cannon versions, but where MuffinLance really shines is in the rich backstories and fleshed out feeling of all the non cannon elements. Especially the background characters. I would argue that the writing in this peice of fanwork could easily rival the cannon show at many points of comparison.
Now that you have context, we can get into the actual process.
To start, I used this guide to figure out where to even begin, and fount the included resource list to also be quite helpful. I cannot for the LIFE OF ME figure out where I found the template I used for the front matter and such, but it must be somewhere and I will link to it when I inevitably come across it again.
Then I began to typeset. This step took... a long time. I worked in chunks from about September of 2022 to late March of 2024. I would get a big section done, sometimes even the entire thing, but then find I hated the way I had done it and give up for months at a time. Such is the life of ADHD and flitting interest in projects I suppose.
And then finally, step one was done, and I was left with pages on a word document that look like this. (And do please let me know if you want the link to the document. It was so much work, and I would love to not be the only one to use it.)
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Next step was printing out this beast. Ended up being about eight pages of front matter, and about 630 pages of body text.
That I printed wrong.
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Twice.
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Before finally getting it right. And then not getting a picture of it, because I finished at 4 am and had work at 7, and am also an idiot.
Then I simply stitched along, putting everything together into a beautiful text block.
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And came up with a design for the cover.
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Yes the glue did end up lumpy. Ignore it.
Yes I did have to sketch out the design onto a scraped page several times before I figured out what I was doing. Ignore that too.
The cover design does wrap around the entire cover. No I did not get a picture before I glued the thing down. See again: I'm an idiot. And just... massively impatient.
Finally, we get to the stage of gluing. Behold, my bookpress.
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Of course, topped with Madam MuffinLances own actual professional-people book, Fox's Tounge and Kirin's Bone. It is Excelent. Here is the LINK so you can go and support this amazing author with the real-monies as well as the internet-kudos.
Then, once everything is glued together, one must give the book its "gilt" edges.
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aethersea · 11 months
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etiquette for copying tags
you can and should copy tags onto the body of the post if you think they’re cool! the only rule for doing this is you should @ the person you got the tags from to give credit. this is polite! do this!!
but I’m persnickety so here are some lesser rules, which are not essential but which I think you should also follow bc they make the site experience nicer
1. if you can, copy-paste the tags directly, don’t screenshot. this makes the tags accessible for everyone using e-readers! I say “if you can” bc I’m given to understand this is basically impossible on tumblr mobile. rip everyone using the mobile app, braver than any us marine
2. the format™ for tags is to have a # in front of every line. sometimes you will copy-paste the tags and they won’t look that way, for mysterious reasons knowable only to software devs. you should tidy them up so they do, bc if there’s nothing clearly demarcating the start of a tag, it’s all just a weird river of words. it’s like removing all the periods from a paragraph.
3. it’s common practice to just paste the whole thing as a block of text, but in my opinion it’s nice sometimes to break it up into paragraphs, especially if it’s a lot of tags. improves readability, you know? more pleasant than reading a massive block of text
4. it is good and right to add image descriptions to screenshotted tags if you encounter them in the wild, to make the post accessible for everyone using e-readers. good samaritan behavior, we love you
5. don’t screenshot and then add an image description in the same reblog?? just paste the tags in directly?? why would you take up twice the space you need to and make everyone read the thing twice??? if you have the capacity to show the tags as text, then you...have the capacity to show the tags as text??? clown behavior, this baffles me
6. ‘prev tags’ has been outlawed by tumblr staff
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55sturn · 5 months
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✮ BEEN AWAY
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pairing: chris sturniolo × female!reader
synopsis: in which y/n grows tired of chris constantly being whisked away on business trips and taken to fancy parties every weekend, she knows it’s part of the job but it’s taking a heavy toll on their relationship and she can’t take anymore.
warnings: swearing, chris is stressed and kind of a dick, mentions of parties, implied sex, i lowkey shit on laura in this sorry not sorry, angst angst angst, oh and more angst!
important notes pt 2: purple text blocks are the lyrics that each part are based off of. during the text section, orange text is chris, and pink text is the reader!
THIRD PERSON POV
“I KNOW I BEEN AWAY, I’M JUST TRYNA GET MY PAPER STRAIGHT GIRL.”
chris sighed as his phone pinged with another text from his girlfriend, with every imessage ping, his heart clenched tighter in his chest.
his trips, more so the business trips that laura and the rest of the triplets’ networking and public relations team were taking them had begun to cause a massive strain on his relationship with y/n.
he would bring her along when he could but laura, his manager was adamant that these trips were meant for the triplets to build their network, so that their brands, the collective one all three shared and their own personal brands could grow and flourish. laura felt that the triplets’ personal relationships had no place in their professional lives and often made a point to exclude their significant others and relationships when planning their trips and events.
so when a trip or event was labelled as something to do with networking, it meant that y/n couldn’t tag along. and most of the time, at these events, the triplets were meant to paint their faces with effortlessly charming smiles and flirt with anyone they could, to gain a good rep.
and while y/n know what those networking trips and events entailed, her knowledge didn’t ease the loneliness and heartache she felt when she’d open up her phone to see backstage footage of the events. her heart would drop as girls would attach themselves to chris, flirting and hanging onto his every word, watching as he’d give the same flirty smile back to them.
y/n sighed tapping cautiously through private snap stories of some influencer party that was taking place, all of the most popular influencers making an appearance and posting about it, per their managers’ requests. as she paused in the middle of larray’s story, she saw chris in the corner, clear as day, talking to some pretty little blonde thing whose hand was on his bicep. rolling her eyes, she opened her texts with her boyfriend.
START OF TEXTS BETWEEN CHRIS AND Y/N
Y/N: when are you coming home? i’m tired and i can’t sleep without you
Y/N: chris???
CHRIS: i know i’ve been gone a while ma
CHRIS: i’ll be home soon, just gotta make a couple more rounds and reach out to ppl and offer to collab
Y/N: you say that every time chris
Y/N: and then you don’t come home until 3 or 4
Y/N: i’m sick of it chris i’m done
CHRIS: come on ma you don’t mean that
Y/N: whatever just be quiet when you get home i’m sleeping on the couch
CHRIS: ma come on, i’ll be home soon
*read 12:31 AM*
END OF TEXTS BETWEEN CHRIS AND Y/N
“THEY JUST WANNA FUCK WITH YOU, CAUSE THEY KNOW I FUCK WITH YOU.”
chris sighed as countless articles flood his screen, random female influencers claiming to be in some sort of lowkey relationship with him, random male influencers trying to get at his girl.
he knew it was only because he had finally announced that he and y/n were together. she had her own fanbase prior to be connected to the triplets and it only grew, but the growth came with overly possessive and protective supporters. and it became like that for chris as well. in theory the over and slightly intense protectiveness was endearing, to an extent.
but the fans created these rumours and let them swirl as a way to try and debunk the announcement of chris and y/n’s relationship, almost as if their respective fans were gatekeeping the two.
“do we say something? should we say something?” y/n mumbled, her face tucked into chris’ chest as they talked about the things metaphorically floating around online.
“no.”
“why not?” y/n piped up, her tone almost defensive and accusatory as she pulled away from his chest, her eyes boring into his.
“they’re only doing it because it’s confirmed that we’re fucking with each other. they wanna mess with us, get under our skin, and cause a rift so that we break up so they can try and swoop in. it’s better to pay those rumours no mind.” chris spoke, his hand rubbing up and down her thigh, squeezing lovingly as his hand reached her hip, letting her know that it was okay.
y/n sat up for a moment, letting his words sink in before nodding and laying back down in her previous position, knowing that she had to trust chris.
“IF I PUT MY TRUST IN YOU, WHAT WOULD YOU DO? WOULD YOU JUST STEP OUT? WOULD YOU THUG IT OUT?”
“i need you to trust me y/n! can you do that? can you please just trust me or do you want out of this relationship?” chris yelled, pacing his room as yet another fight broke out between the couple, rumours of chris cheating had been rampant for the last few weeks and it was getting harder for y/n to decipher what was true and what was false.
“i don’t know chris! every day it’s something new about you and some other chick and it’s getting to me! it’s hard to see what’s fake and what’s real right now when the whole online world is against us being together!”
“why are you paying attention to what’s being said online when i am right here telling you myself what’s true and what’s fake?” he yelled back, running his hands through his hair as she cried on his bed.
“chris you literally have to flirt with girls at those parties, what’s stopping it from becoming something real?”
“i don’t know, maybe the fact that i’m with you and not them?”
“chris we met just like that, at some stupid fucking social media party!” she spat, climbing off his bed and grabbing her jacket as he scoffed.
“so you think that just because you and i met that way, it means that i’ll throw away a relationship that means the world to me?” he seethed, laughing dryly as she rolled her eyes.
“no i think that you’ll throw it away because it doesn’t actually mean the world to you.”
“the fuck does that mean, y/n?”
“actions speak louder than words, chris, and you haven’t done a whole lot to show me what i mean to you.” she whispered, grabbing the rest of her things that had been scattered around his room as he shook his head.
“where are you going?”
“i need some space to think chris, we’re not over, but i need to spend a couple nights alone at my place, to calm down and collect myself. you should do the same.” she spoke, her voice small and uneven as she quickly made her exit, leaving chris to think to himself as he flopped down against his mattress.
“DON’T GIVE MY SHIT AWAY, I’M JUST TRYNA GET MY PAPER STRAIGHT, GIRL.”
“c’mon y/n, can’t you just store it somewhere?” chris groaned, trying to focus on the email he was typing up while on facetime with his now ex-girlfriend, y/n who sat on the floor in her apartment, going through a pile of chris’ clothes and other shit that she had rounded up.
“chris i don’t want your shit in my apartment, it hurts to look at it.”
“well whose fault is that?”
“i couldn’t handle it chris, you know that.”
“i know ma, i’m sorry, i’m just stressed and trying to get this email to some fuckin’ company out and i-i can’t do it while you’re sitting on call trying to hide your tears while you’re going through my shit because i prioritized my job over our relationship.” chris whispered, his voice cracked slightly as he looked back at her, watching as she wiped her tears.
“it just hurts so much chris, we should’ve been able to make it through. our love should’ve been strong enough.”
“it’ll be strong enough one day, i just gotta-“
“get through this part of your job, i know chris.”
“so please don’t give away my shit. just store it somewhere until you and i can make it through, okay?”
“okay.”
“THIS PENTHOUSE VIEW AIN’T AS BEAUTIFUL AS YOU. DON’T EVER HAVE TIME, BUT I CAN MAKE TIME FOR YOU.”
chris anxiously bounced his leg as he waited for y/n to arrive, he had flown her out to the city he was in for work, and as timid as she was about showing up, she pushed herself to go. she missed him, his smell, his smile, his touch. god missed his hands in hers as they tangled themselves up in the sheets. so instead of being stubborn, she boarded that plane and made her way to chicago.
she stood outside the penthouse hotel room that chris and matt had booked, she felt her stomach turn, she was going to see him again, and god she needed this. with a raised but shaky fist, she rapped her knuckles against the door.
chris and y/n had spent a few hours exploring the city, visiting all the touristy spots that she had been dreaming of seeing for years. once they got back, they both took a hot, steamy shower, and spent their time reminding each other how much they loved one another.
“the view is gorgeous.” y/n whispered, her hair and face tucked into one of chris’ hoodies over a pair of lace panties that left little to the imagination as chris’ arms were wrapped around her waist with his chin tucked into the space between her jaw and shoulder.
“so i talked to laura, told her that i’ll be booking my own networking appointments and trips from now on, i’ll run them by her of course but i told her i’m making my schedule now. and that you’ll be my plus one to every single event, on every trip. you’ll be a part of everything.”
“chris, what?”
“i don’t have much time myself but i made a promise to you and to myself while you were in the flight here, that i will be making time for you. you come before my job from now on.”
“is that why you flew me out here?”
“yeah. you’re my girl and you deserve my time and attention. i’m so sorry i ever made you feel like you didn’t. i love you, ma. you’re more important than flashy trips and parties.”
“i love you chris.” y/n cried, as she turned in his arms and pressing affirm but loving kiss to his lips.
“i got my paper straight ma, it’s our time now.”
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taglist: @dylsdunbar @soursturniolo @4sturns @sturnsclutter @spencerstits @meanttomeet @bluesturniolo333 @graciereid @abbie13sworld @ghostofbrock @l9vesick @mylifeisevenstranger @bethsturn @verosivy
© 55STURN 2023 [ you do not have permission to copy or save or share my work to other platforms and devices! ]
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WIBTA if I were to report my ex friend's antisemitism to their university?
So I 20nb have been friends with most my current friend group since we were 11. Two years ago I stopped being friends with a guy in my friend group due to toxic behavior on his part (not antisemitic yet, just giving background info) He would constantly say things like "don't make fun of neurodivergent people's special interests and hyperfixations as they can't help it" and then would go and make fun of my special interests (note: said ex friend has ADHD). Over our friendship he had a lot of double standards like that and one day I had enough. The first time I brought it up he dismissed it as someone else in the friend group did the behaviors I'm accusing him of. I kinda dropped it as I didn't want to deal with that level of denial and thought that if I waited a few days he would have had some time to reflect. So I brought it up again and he continued to blame it being one of our other friends doing it and that I was simply "misremembering". I gave specific examples and rough time frames yet he continued to deny it. All I wanted was a simple "I'm sorry and I will work on that" yet he refused to do that. So I ended our friendship.
Since then we have been on rocky terms. We are still in the same friend group since the issue was between me and him, I didn't want to involve my friends and make people pick sides. He was moving away soon at the time of the end of our friendship so it wasn't like I was going to see him when the friend group all hung our together.
Since we are still in the same friend group, he is in the discord server our friend group has which is just like a massive group chat with things categorized into topics.
Recently there is the current conflict going on in Israel and Palenstine. I am Jewish and vented to the vent section of that discord server about how I have seen people I know irl post online antisemitic things. I am very much against Israels actions and made sure to include that in my vent so no one coukd twist my words. I didn't initially say exactly what I was seeing as I was still processing the fact that I was going to have to cut some people off.
He then replied to my vent saying that he has never seen anything antisemitic online and that if he has, he has seen Jewish people saying that it isnt. I replied that his reply to my vent was weird and that i was talking about people saying that all jews should die. I felt hurt as yet again he was being hypocritical towards me as he has said before that you should say that (what he said) when people complain about seeing hateful things towards a group (eg racism, homophobia, etc).
He then responded that I was only calling him antisemitic because he was arab. The thing is, I never called him antisemitic and I myself am also arab. (Yes I know, most people have never met an arab jew but we do exist).
I pointed out that I never called him antisemitic and I am also arab which he seems to have forgotten. I said that his response was still weird considering what he has said in the past about people who say what he said. I then invited him to dm me privately to discuss things further if he wants to as it's not fair to do this in front of all of our friends.
He did not respond and ended up blocking me on discord.
This irked me quite a bit but in the end I decided that him blocking me was for the better if he stands by his original response. I was talking to my partner about it who is not Jewish and he said that my ex friend's response was definitely weird and the fact that he was so quick to defend himself about being called an antisemite without even being called it was indicative that he probably is. I decided to look at my ex friends tumblr to see if there was anything to suggest that and there was. I saw a few posts which he has recently reblogged which used anti Semitic dog whistles like the echo, example: (((insert text you which doesnt say jew but you are implying jewish people are))).
I was quite appalled to see that and am debating if I should send it to his university. The university he attends has spoken out about antisemitism before and has kicked out people in the past for using racist dog whistles due to a potential danger to POC students so it is likely that he would get kicked out for using antisemitic dog whistles.
In my mind, he fucked around and therefore should find out aka face natural consequences for his actions.
WIBTA if I contacted his University about his antisemitism?
What are these acronyms?
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kyra45 · 8 months
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Donation scams
For pet donation scam information, go here.
What is a donation scam? - This kind of scam occurs when someone is asking for money but isn’t being genuine/honest for why they need it and upon closer inspection you’ll often find out their fundraiser information is stolen from someone else who needs support. For example, the text itself would pull up someone else’s fundraiser that’s posted on another site such as Facebook or Gofundme with names that don’t match up or certain details edited out or added from something else entirely. In a sense, the post doesn’t make much sense or seems to be mashed together from other places. These are scams because money given to them isn’t going towards their goal and also not going to the one who needs it.
Was there an ask sent? - Asks for these scams are varied with no common theme but they usually seem poorly worded and link you to their post which may be pinned. Usually they’ll be sent immediately after following you with no prior interaction even when they call you their friend. Sometimes they’ll say they see you share mutual aid posts too but that’s generally just some excuse they’ll use so you won’t be too suspicious of them. Legit people be warned: Spamming these asks will get people suspicious of you and asking you questions instead. If someone tells you to please limit them, it’s advised you try to. Don’t send these asks to anyone who has stated they don’t like them.
Is the account new? - Another common thing to check is the posting date of the posts on the blog. An account with a massive amount of posts dating across many years is generally a legitimate person if they have several original posts and overall appear to be a person. Unfortunately, scammers tend to backdate posts to make their blogs look older then they may be but rarely have that many original posts. By turning on timestamps, you can see the original posting date in other notes if they have shared posts. Usually the backdated posts are only a few days old but have been made to look years old. What is post backdating? Please refer to this post.
Does the story make sense? - Basically, how well does the story they give sound and does the information it has seem reasonable. Is there anything in it that seems too far fetched to be applicable to a situation? Such as stating they need money for someone’s funeral but the images they supply seem to be photoshopped. Or they have their name on a paper but there seems to be a filter over it which may be obscuring minor details from the original unedited image. You may notice the story also doesn’t give much information out that would be anything important like if a law applies to their situation but they don’t supply a general idea of what country their in. Sometimes the story changes after a few days too.
What else should you do? - If you still can’t figure out if someone’s legitimate, then you may try to nicely ask them questions related to their situation. These questions don’t have to be anything needing personal information; It can request clarity about something your unsure of or further explanation regarding a detail that doesn’t seem to make much sense overall. Most people don’t mind answering these questions as long as your being reasonable and friendly. Most usually will answer you. Unless they ignore you.
What if it is a scam? - Once you have gathered enough resources to confirm the post is by a scam account, it’s necessary to compile it into one place then make a post showing it or show them what you found as well. The scammer will most likely get really angry and deny your evidence and then block you and continue scamming people. Unfortunately it’s suggested to post the information yourself before confronting scam accounts.
Other stuff to look out for? - Asks being spammed; Mass tagging accounts who share mutual aid posts; Replies/reblogs are missing; Harassing people who proved they are scamming
How to report these accounts? - Report -> Something Else -> Illegal content or use -> Phishing
If you like this guide, feel free to check out my blog as I report on these scams nearly daily among other kinds of scams that I post about. If you like my hobby, feel free to drop some pocket change as thanks! However, all I really want you to do is share this post to help me bring awareness of tumblr scams. Send it to people who might not know what a donation scam is or link to it in posts you make! Thanks. Hope this information is helpful!
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Pathologic Bachelor ARG Megapost
This post is a culmination of months of (mostly my own) research into the Bachelor ARG. For far too many days and far too many hours, I’ve been doing my best to solve this, with the help of a few other people. I looked very deep into most Fyodor Vitin posts, played through The Marble Nest several times, looked extensively through the Pathologic wiki, and read/analyzed countless outside sources for this post, and I will link as many of them as I can. (If there are links that you think would help the ARG that you’d like included in here with credit please let me know.) For any people that are credited, an “@” before their name implies that it’s a Tumblr username, while a “u/” proceeding their name implies it’s a Reddit username. I have discovered and analyzed dozens of leads, some of which are more likely to be important or intentional on the part of IPL than others. The primary purpose of this post is to give all of you Pathologic fans new leads and theories to analyze in pursuit of solving the mystery behind this ARG, so many of the things within this post should be looked into further! With this post, I will lay out my findings in a series of sections, all of them having several connections to each other. This post is more than 10,000 words and is not meant to be read all at once, so feel free to read sections, take breaks, re-read sections, or skip around if you'd like. “Observations, Research, Analysis” is a vast majority of this post and consists of observations made about the ARG material, as well as any research I did into those findings that bore fruit, and analysis/connections to other things. The additional notes section consists of some of the conclusions I’ve reached after putting all of my evidence together, as well as some connections I didn't really make in the previous section, but keep in mind they’re still just theories so they could obviously be wrong. I would like to emphasize that I am not a native Russian speaker, but I did have many native Russian speakers helping me along the way, and in particular, I’d like to thank @kurury-chan for her massive help with this. She transcribed the newspaper for me, provided tons of consulting, translated many other Russian sources, and actually went out of the way to go on an irl tour of a certain ARG-related location to see if my theories about it could hold any ground! Because I'm not a native Russian speaker, the sections where I'm required to analyze Russian text (notably the newspaper section) will probably be the least interesting and I'll probably end up making a lot of points that aren't valid. Additionally, I’d like to thank @cryingsyren (who also happens to be my bf) and @ded-not-ded for their help. As for formatting, since Tumblr doesn't have tiered lists for some fucking reason, all main points will be written as bullet points, and any sub-points within that bullet will then have numbered points afterward. For example like this:
The first main point about a topic
Sub-point of the first point
Second sub-point
The second main point about a topic
I'll either do that or I'll do it like this:
First main point
First sub-point First sub-sub-point
Second sub-point
Second main point
Edit 1: I've had to revert much of the Chat text (the font I used for the sub-points above) to regular text because of a formatting glitch that irreversibly changed most of the Chat text to bold, which was very confusing.
Depending on which looks better in the context of the points. Because that formatting is so awkward and clunky I'll try to minimize the use of tiered lists as I convert this from the Google Docs format to the Tumblr Format. Most of the time that I use tiered lists here it's to deal with the character limit Tumblr has on single blocks of text within a post. With that out of the way, let's just get into the post.
Observations, Research, Analysis:
"The Accident" Fyodor Vitin post
The first thing I noticed about the newspaper when I took a good look at it was the use of bolding with certain letters. If you look at the Newspaper you’ll also see ink splattered on the page in several areas, which could be a clue toward noticing the bolded letters, or it could be something else I’ve yet to discover. I knew I wouldn’t be able to transcribe the entire newspaper by myself, not being a Russian speaker (although I’ve just started learning!) so I enlisted the help of @kurury-chan, a native Russian speaker, and she transcribed the entire newspaper for me in Cyrillic. After getting this transcription I went through and spent a couple of days looking for which letters were bolded, writing them down, and coming up with possible translations/meanings. I’ve come up with lots of possible meanings for these, but for many of them I couldn’t figure anything out, and I’d love help if anyone has any idea what they could mean! To me many of them seem like word fragments that are simply missing one or two letters, and so in the document where I list all of the bolded letters I put some words/phrases that are very close to the seemingly fragmented words. Once again keep in mind that, while I’m trying to learn Russian, my understanding of the language is still rather weak, so I may have mistranslated some of these. Another small detail to mention is that there’s a prominent crease on the left side of the paper that runs through a decent portion of the bolded words. First, I’ll start with the bolded letters on the left side of the page. I may have missed a couple, and I may have written some of them down as bolded when maybe they aren’t supposed to be seen as such.
Here is a link to a list of all the letters I think are bolded on the left side, which lines they’re on, and possible meanings, many of which I’ll be discussing here. I will not go individually through what I believe all the bolded letters mean, but I will go through and explain the ones I think are most meaningful and important, as well as some connections I’ve made with them. And here is a link to the original Russian transcription and my best attempt at an English translation.
It’s possible that the crease that runs through the left side of the paper and notably runs through many bolded words somehow denotes that those particular bolded words are special, or perhaps that they should be seen as separate from the other bolded words.
Line 15 has a rather interesting bolded phrase, because it actually appears to make a somewhat coherent 3-word phrase, but one of the words seems to be a surname, “Pepe.” Additionally, the crease on the left side of the page starts right above the word “ПЕПЕЛИЩЕ” in the title, and splits it so that “ПЕПЕ” is separate from the rest of the word. (ПЕПЕ is Pepe in Cyrillic.) If you want to know what the non-Pepe words say, skip to the next bullet point, because the rest of this one is my analysis of the ПЕПЕ part. So, of course, I looked into the name a bit, looking through all notable historical figures with the last name, and found one that I think is of special interest: Guglielmo Pepe. Born in the small ancient town of Squillace, Pepe entered the army at a very young age, and was an Italian commander during the early 1800s, but his military career was fraught with trouble, as he also had rather revolutionary politics, which angered both the government he was serving and many of his peers, and he was exiled on several occasions. Upon Pepe’s return to Italy at the age of 30, he was given the rank of general. After this, the most notable events in his life would largely consist of his attempts at going rogue in revolutionary attempts to change the existing power structure, for which he was usually punished. (It’s also perhaps worth mentioning that his brother was part of the attempted French invasion of Russia.) All of this is to say, Pepe obviously shares some striking similarities to General Block, perhaps the most striking of which is his status as a 30-year-old general, which is an aspect of Block’s character that is highlighted several times. So, of course, I looked into Block’s character a bit more, and discovered that in the Russian version of the game he is called “General Ash” instead of “General Ashes.” “Strange,” I thought, until I saw that in Russian, Ash is “Пепел” which is pronounced as “Pepel” for anyone that isn’t familiar with Cyrillic. If we look into it, we do see that the letter after the Пепе is л, but it is notably not bold. This is, if you're counting, two separate times in this paper where the plural for ash, пепелище, is split up so that only the пепе is emphasized. As for other connections between Pepe and Block, we could look at them both harboring some revolutionary tendencies and being punished for it, both by The Powers That Be and his peers. General Block also tells Artemy that he was born in a town not too dissimilar to the Town on Gorkhon; this is interesting because there are some connections to be drawn between Squillace and Gorkhon, primarily that both of them preserve the beauties of ancient times that have all but been lost to most people. Related to this, it should also be noted that I believe the plot of The Marble Nest was heavily based on the plot of The Seventh Seal, which is the same movie that inspired the character Alexander Block.
The rest of line 15 is also interesting, but I’m not sure exactly what it’s supposed to mean yet. It translates to “Heaven on Pepe” basically. I consider the “Pepe” part to probably be the most important, since there’s a large crease that runs through it, which I think probably denotes a level of importance? The line’s meaning might be related to the fact that “heaven” is sort of a synonym for “utopia,” or the character that Block is based on is the protagonist of a movie that revolves around the ideas of heaven and Christianity, which is something we saw very briefly with Block in Pathologic 1. If you have any ideas please post about them and tag me, or simply comment/reblog this with your ideas!
Line 1 and line 18’s bolded letters both start out with “ов”, and for my English speakers out there it is pronounced sorta like “ove.” ов is interesting because if you translate it as о-в it actually is the shortened form of “island” in Russian. Line 1’s bolded letters read as “ов попо”, and for people not familiar with Cyrillic попо is basically “popo.” There are, apparently, many Popo islands in the world, and I couldn’t find one that I think directly connects to the ARG or Pathologic, but maybe someone else out there will, or perhaps that line has a different meaning to it. As for line 18, it says “ов испустивших” and according to Russian wiktionary, the second word is one letter off from the word “Emitted.” I looked a bit deeper, though, because that didn’t satisfy me (why would they use the incorrect spelling of a word after all?) and I didn’t see much, but I did find two things that used the exact word “испустивших” that interested me: A Saudi Arabian newspaper that has been translated into Russian, as well as a Russian poem from 1777 celebrating the birth of Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich, also known as Alexander I of Russia. The latter is more interesting to me for numerous reasons, the first one being that it might serve my theory about the connection between line 1 and 15, as line 1’s bolded letters end with попо and line 15’s end with пепе. The connection is weak, too weak for me to make it a separate bullet point, but strong enough for me to want to explain. So, as we know, there is a connection between line 1 and 18, it’s what this whole bullet point is about, and this theory (using the term “theory” loosely) relies on us seeing them as very closely connected. Basically, Alexander I was the ruler of Russia during the French invasion, which is interesting because, if you’ll remember, Guglielmo Pepe’s brother, Florestano Pepe, took part in the French invasion. This, to me, is an interesting connection, but I do admit it’s definitely a reach.
That’s where I’ll stop talking about the bolded letters on the left side of the paper. If you’d like to see what other bolded letters there are, what they could possibly mean, and try to decipher the meaning for yourself please go to my linked Google Doc(s).
As for the right side of the Newspaper, there are some bolded letters, but I can't seem to make much sense out of them, and by this point in my research I was starting to pursue more promising ARG leads, so this section is rather incomplete. Just as a reminder, the right side of the newspaper is an advertisement for a lantern/kerosene shop. I personally think the right side is more interesting than the left for a couple reasons, but most of them are either self-evident or will be discussed later.
The lantern on the right side of the paper is the same model that’s used throughout the Haruspex’s route, but most notably it’s used a ton during The Marble Nest as set dressing. And when I say "a ton" I really mean it.
I also remembered vaguely an unused lantern item found in the game files of Pathologic 2, so I went to the Pathologic wiki to look for it, and surely enough the exact lantern used by Artemy, the one that appears so many times in The Marble Nest, is also an unused item present in the game files. When using console commands to give yourself the item, you’re able to click on it and select the “touch” option, upon which you’ll see the number 6192355001378070 where the name of the item should be, and 6192355001378072 where the touch text should be. I’m not sure exactly what these numbers are supposed to mean; my first thought was that they seemed long enough to be coordinates, so I put them into google maps and it does lead to a location in Russia! Nonetheless, the numbers are a little bit too long to make sense as cohesive coordinates. Still, it might be something worth investigating. You'll see later in this post just how significant numbers and number patterns are in this ARG.
The word used to describe one of the victims of this inferno, “academician,” has sorta interesting connotations in countries that were once part of or heavily influenced by the USSR. This person is referred to as “Mr. F.L.” in the article. This guy is also said to be a historian and a “бытооописателя,” which as you can probably tell by the fact that I’m not using the translated English version is a weird word. Perhaps the strangest thing about this word is the fact that it clearly has 3 o’s where there should only be one. The actual meaning of this word is odd, as it’s very rarely used, and according to all sources I could find (including native Russian speaker and linguistics enthusiast @kurury-chan) it is either an archaic term for a historian or a term meaning “writer of everyday life.” I’m honestly not sure what that means, and at first, I thought it meant something like a blogger. The most complete and coherent definition I could find describes it as “author of works describing everyday life.” A different translation I found seems to say it means something like "chronicler," which I suppose makes some sense.
In the bottom right part of the paper, you will notice what at first appears to be a signature. Admittedly I had almost no hand in this part of the investigation, except for the isolation and upscaling of the text. Most of the work here was done by @cryingsyren with some help from @kurury-chan and @ded-not-ded. Here is the image that I got for them of the text, and here is our current interpretation of it: It at first seemed to be Russian cursive (and it probably is supposed to be), which complicates things quite a bit, and @cryingsyren spent a couple days trying to figure out exactly what it says, (with some help from @kurury-chan) and as far as we can tell it’s four letters, which are separated into either two or three sections. I think we have a decent grasp on what they’re supposed to be in Cyrillic, but the interesting thing is that they do look a lot like both Russian and Latin cursive. I’ll describe them now using what Latin character they look like in quotes followed by what Cyrillic character they look like in parenthesis. The first section is an “M” (М) and a “K” (К), which are very clearly connected. The next section is either an “H” (Н) or an “H” and an “n/u”. We’re not exactly sure whether the H and the n/u are supposed to be connected, but the n/u being lowercase seems to imply it is. The interesting thing about the n/u is that, while it looks like it could be a Latin n or u, it also looks like it could be a Cyrillic и, which is the italicized version of the Russian letter и. It seems all too coincidental that all of the letters they used have almost exact visual counterparts in the Latin alphabet. At the moment our working theory is that it could be initials, and this is where I come in, because for days I knew I recognized the "MK" part of the signature, but I couldn't remember exactly where from until today. For anyone that has played too much Pathologic Classic HD like me, you may recognize the "MK" signature from the center of the loading screen in that game, scrawled in a way that most people wouldn't pay attention to it, and certainly that most people wouldn't have it committed to memory like me. During the roughly 170 hours I've spent playing the game I've probably looked at that MK more than I've looked at my youngest brother. This presents the question, who is MK? Well at first I thought it could be Mr. Katzman, as referenced in the "Mask" post, but that didn't seem right to me. This is when the fact that so much of my brain is Pathologic lore facts came to help again, when I remembered state inquisitor Mark Karminsky, who you may remember as being one of the men people thought would come to the town before Aglaya Lilich showed up. As for the rest of the writing, I'll leave that up to you guys to figure out.
Something to note for later on: We know there to be 19 inquisitors when Pathologic takes place, and in this ARG the number 19 becomes very important with later clues.
"Mask" Fyodor Vitin post
Arguably this is the Fyodor Vitin post I’ve done the most research into, and it eventually led me to develop a very deep and passionate interest in the Buryat peoples that has so far caused me to read several books and around a dozen academic papers about them. I haven’t only done research into the Buryats for this post, though, because although the Buryats are the primary inspiration for The Kin, they’re not the only inspiration. Despite all of this research work, this section will be rather short because I’ve already been through and exhausted most possible leads I’ve found, and this is what remains. Since the post is in English, and I think everyone that follows me presumably knows English (если вы не говорите по-английски, я хвалю вас за то, что вы зашли так далеко) I won’t summarize it, so I’d recommend reading the Vitin post and then coming back.
We see in the post the mask of “Muu Shubuun,” which we’ll immediately notice is almost the exact same mask as is used by the Executors in the game. Actually, in the Marble Nest, you can acquire the Executor mask, and its touch text reads, “The mask of Muu Shubuun, ‘the wicked bird.’ Part of the Reaper costume from the local theatre.” I have found several different sources that lead me to believe this is based on actual Buryat folklore, however, I’ve heard several conflicting accounts on whether Muu Shubuun is an evil spirit that tricks people by taking the shape of a beautiful woman, or if it’s closer to what we see in the game/ARG, but both seem to be documented as existing within sources on the Buryats. I think this confusion between the two likely means the stories and connotations associated with Muu Shubuun vary based on different groups of Buryats. An alternate spelling I’ve seen used is “Mu Shuvuu.” Possibly related to this is the character “Shar Shuvuu” (which means “eagle owl”), who appears in The Marble Nest during the “marriage” scene in the steppe camp behind the cathedral. In fact, a surprisingly high number of NPC characters in this DLC are named after birds.
The phrase used in the post to describe a seasonal festival, “dosoo ba beshē tēēhēē” is where I’ve devoted much of my research, with most of that research being from about a month ago. Only the third word in this phrase, beshē, appears as a kin word in the games as far as I know. However, we can use a method here that people in the Pathologic community have been using for years to figure out the meaning of kin words: Most of the steppe language in the game is based on one of many languages: Buryat mostly, Mongolian sometimes, Tibetan sometimes, and some parts of it also take inspiration from other languages of similar origin to these. A majority of the language seems to be based on Buryat, and many Kin words come straight from the language. A few words in the game seem to be made up entirely by Ice-Pick Lodge, and many are based on words from the aforementioned real languages but tweaked slightly, as if to indicate that the steppe language spawned from those languages but has some distinctive elements. To determine what this phrase means, I tried my best to dig into the languages and find parallels:
“Dosö” in Buryat means “inside”
In Mongolian “dooshoo” means “down”
In Mongolian “ba” means either “and,” “we,” or “sorcery”
In Tibetan, “ba” means “cow”
“Beshē” in the game’s steppe language means either “not” or “other”
The prefix “të-” in Buryat means “to transport”
In Mongolian the prefix “te'e-” also means “to transport”
As for the “-hee” part of the word, I have not found a single source that could tell me what it means. I’ve found several Buryat words that end in “he,” but I can’t seem to find a connection between them strong enough to suggest what it denotes.
Upon first seeing this festival mentioned, I believe I commented somewhere on the Pathologic subreddit that it might be the same one we see in the Kin’s camp behind the cathedral in The Marble Nest. While I’m not 100% convinced still, I also don’t doubt it that much. One interesting thing to note for any people that might wanna investigate this in the future is that I’m pretty sure what we see in the Marble Nest is the same thing that Nara and the Haruspex perform in the abattoir, as they both seem to happen on day 10, and if you look close you can see that Nara is the one that is cut open in The Marble Nest. Seemingly with the Haruspex gone, there is no one that knows the lines and so the ritual doesn’t go as smoothly as it could.
“Messages” Fyodor Vitin Post:
This particular Fyodor Vitin post is the third one, which if you know Ice-Pick Lodge certainly has some importance to it. The post is a series of letters and images, one depicting an Executor and one depicting Voronika Kroy, who's a minor character in Pathologic 2 and the main character in the Pathologic Feverish Feelings ARG. The letters detail how the recipient’s reports about Voronika Kroy have been seen and have started an investigation by the Federal Bureau. What’s most interesting to me are two things: the jumble of (Latin alphabet) letters in the bottom left, and the number used within the letters (the post-card letters in this case).
The number in question is “196-17-1” which is apparently the case number used for the Voronika Kroy investigation. This number will be more important later in relation to other clues. One interesting thing I've found is that the RGB value for 196-17-1 is a deep red.
The jumble of letters at the bottom of the picture is “eiamrucdvrturxoevecid”. It is 21 letters and can be divided up into chunks of 3 or 7 letters. 3 and 7 of course being Ice-Pick Lodge’s favorite numbers. Up until this point, it has been assumed that this is an anagram, and I have no reason to doubt that. It has already been pointed out in the Pathologic subreddit that the words “Executor” and “Corvid” can be found in the anagram, as well as the Latin words “Cura”, “Curare”, “Curari”, “Medici”, and “Vivam.” Credit for finding the Latin words goes to u/apostforisaac who is apparently studying Latin at university! Additionally, u/Own_Sympathy_9814 deduced a possible meaning by unscrambling the anagram and finding “MAVRUD + VERIDIC + EXECUTOR”, which they believe hints toward the answers lying in the Marble Nest (I wrote the entire Marble Nest section of this post before finding their post about that, so I do feel pretty validated by it). Many people have been approaching this anagram, like many other parts of the ARG, as if they have one right answer, and frankly, I just don’t think that’s in the style of Ice-Pick Lodge. I’ll quickly list out some words/phrases I found in the anagram and what they mean/how they could relate. I will also include words that have already been discussed, and they’ll be marked with a “*” so you don’t think I found them. Most of the ones marked with a * I won’t be discussing, as most have already been discussed extensively. I also won’t be discussing the ones that I think probably don’t have much meaning, but I’m including them because it still could be something later on down the road.
I am You don’t actually even have to unscramble the letters to get this one, as the second, third, and fourth letters of the jumble simply spell it out. What's interesting is that the 7 "I am" discourses are a crucial part of the Christian Gospel according to John. The Gospel according to John was an important clue during the Feverish Feelings ARG, which revolved around Voronika Kroy and her Inquisitor father, Peter Kroy. If we're speaking of the four canonical gospels, we must also address the Gospel according to Mark, which coincidentally is the name of an inquisitor that has popped up elsewhere in this ARG. Following this theme, there is actually a non-canonical Gospel According to Peter, which seems too cool to be a coincidence.
Eve This is one you don’t have to unscramble also. Interestingly, Daniil is often compared to a snake, even being called a snake-man in Marble Nest by Shaazgai, a man belonging to the Kin. In the biblical story of Adam and Eve, it is a snake, often thought to be the devil, that convinces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Retroviridae The scientific name for a retrovirus. If I was more knowledgeable about biology I would say more, but this seems important.
Rex Iudaeorum Translating in Latin to “King of the Jews,” this was the inscription that allegedly was put on the cross that held Jesus of Nazareth, as detailed by 19:19 in the book of John. Very interesting as Daniil does compare himself to Jesus at least once in the Haruspex route, on the night before Aglaya comes. The Gospels, as discussed before, all detail the life and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The "19" connection is also interesting because of the inquisitor detail, and I'll talk about more of the connections to 19 later in the post.
Cardio Commonly used medically as a prefix for heart conditions, “cardio” is a Latinized version of the Greek “kardia,” which simply means heart. Heart imagery is very common and significant to the Bachelor.
Eva This is similar to the Russian version of Eve.
Corvid*
Cura*
Curare*
Curari*
Medici*
Vivam*
Mavrud*
Veridic*
Executor*
Order Could relate to the committee in The Marble Nest and the fact that after they’re replaced by tragedians the absurd order begins getting sent out to the orderlies.
Carex ericetorum This is a plant that would almost definitely be present in/around the Town on GorkhonThis is a plant that would almost definitely be present in/around the Town on Gorkhon
Creature
Marble Nest:
The Marble Nest, as we know, is very concise, only really lasting half a day in-game. Because of this, the dialogue does tend to feel a lot more intentional, as though the named characters are not necessarily speaking only to The Bachelor but also trying to convey a message to the player. This, of course, is because The Marble Nest takes place inside Dankovsky’s head. If this ARG will be revolving partly around The Bachelor, as it seems to be, then there’s no better place to start than digging into his head, which is why I’ve played so much of the Marble Nest for this.
There are several specific stories/myths/historical figures that are mentioned through Marble Nest. First, we’ll go through some of these.
There is a very interesting conversation that The Bachelor has with Georgiy Kain, where he is trying to justify his decision to lift the quarantine restrictions to The Bachelor, who is rather upset obviously. I’ll cut down and paraphrase most of the dialogue, since if I didn’t this would be much longer, but basically the conversation goes as:
[Georgiy introduces himself, and says he decided to let The Bachelor sleep so that he would have the strength to face the upcoming trial] [Daniil asks if Georgiy lifted the restrictions and let the plague into The Stone Yard] Georgiy: “Quite so. It's plain to me that you are on the verge of shredding me into pieces. But still your wrath. As a great Athenian once said, ‘Strike, if you will, but hear.’” Daniil: “Themistocles, I know. He met a rather gruesome end, by the way. Died of plague.” Georgiy: “No, it was Pericles. You are a learned man, but history is not your strong suit. Which is why you should listen to me. Perhaps it will help you see something that you missed in your previous studies.” [Georgiy then goes on to explain a bunch of other stuff about the plague, which as far as I’m concerned isn’t all that useful to the task at hand.]
I find this so interesting because The Bachelor, in his own head, poses a question to himself, gets it wrong, and then has another separate figment of his imagination correct him, and then proceeds to tell The Bachelor that he’s not great at history and should listen to Georgiy more. What’s even more interesting is that, as far as I can tell, Georgiy and Daniil are both wrong, it was actually Themistocles that said “Strike, if you will, but hear,” and it was Pericles that died of plague. I found this interesting enough to look into who Themistocles and Pericles were, and here’s what I found:
Themistocles was a politician and general that broke the mold by being non-aristocratic and populist, which gave him the support of the people but put him at odds with the nobles and some of his peers. He turned 30 in 494 BC, which qualified him to run for the position of Archon, which he did, and won the position the following year. He had a prominent rivalry with another politician named Aristides. Whereas Themistocles was populist, Aristides primarily fought for the upper class. Themistocles eventually 20the rivalry after Aristides was exiled. Years later, though, Themistocles himself was exiled, and while he was gone his enemies took the opportunity to charge him with treasonous activities, knowing he could not defend himself. Because of this, Themistocles could never return to Athens, and so found employment and a home among the people that he once fought against while serving Athens. Given military command once more, he was actually Themistocles who said “Strike, if you will, but hear,” and it was Pericles who died of plague. I found this interesting enough to look into who Themistocles and Pericles were, and here’s what I found: Pericles, to me, has less interesting things about him in relation to Pathologic, with the main two being that he rehabilitated the image of Themistocles and he died of a plague. What could be interesting is the fact that General Block and Captain Longin are in both Pathologic 1 and 2 often compared to Achilles and Patroclus, two Greek soldiers from ancient folktales, primarily known for being two of the most important characters in The Iliad. To me, drawing a connection between Achilles and Block, as well as Pericles and Longin, isn’t that absurd. What could also be interesting to note is that Pericles was the main character in a play written in part by William Shakespeare. While Themistocles' life almost exactly fits the character arc of General Block, down to the weird connection between him dying of the plague in The Marble Nest and Themistocles drinking bull blood (as well as Dankovsky thinking Themistocles died of the plague), I think how Pericles fits in could lie in the Shakespearean play, as we all know how important theater is to Pathologic. You see by now at least partially what I think this alludes to, but I’ll talk more about it in the additional notes section.
Next, I’ll discuss a mythical story brought up in the Marble Nest: The Tower of Babel. This is brought up by the clerks sitting directly outside Georgiy Kain’s house. I think most people would talk to these guys right before talking to Georgiy, but I have more to say about it so it’s written second. When talking to one of the clerks during their argument about the plague, one man mentions that he thinks The Polyhedron is at fault, and no matter how Dankovsky replies (he has 3 options), the man then says “History already knows an example of people trying to erect an impossible tower. It ended in tragedy.” I could go on explaining why I believe this guy is talking specifically about the Tower of Babel, this post is already long enough so just trust my reasoning here, please. Notable to the point I’m trying to make, one of the other clerks brings up that he thinks the plague was started because of the irreconcilable differences between The Kin and the town, and the fact that the Kin have been forcibly mashed into the town. When Dankovsky asks the man if something is holding the Kin in the town, preventing them from leaving and returning to the earth, the man says “Someone is… our rulers. They have embedded the steppe people into this town, carved them into its warm flesh. This isn't a town, it's an honest-to-God minotaur. A chimera. And chimeras have remarkably short lifespans and bad health. Can you breed a snake and a crane? You can, yes. But the progeny won't live long.” This dialogue is interesting for a few reasons, one related to the tower of Babel and two related to other possible ARG clues. The first interesting thing is that what he’s describing, drawing a connection between the Tower of Babel and the Polyhedron, actually makes a lot of sense. To him, the Polyhedron is not only an affront to God, but its accentuation of human hubris coincides with a beating down of nature and the earth, represented in part by most of the Polyhedron’s mass being concentrated far above the earth while also piercing the earth’s heart. The story of the mythical tower, to oversimplify it, is essentially a tale of people from many different walks of life all coming together to construct a giant, seemingly impossibly tall tower in order to avoid the possibility of a second biblical flood destroying most of humanity. God sees this attempt as an affront to both him and the natural order, and so before the men are able to finish the tower he divides them all by making them speak different languages, making it impossible for them to understand each other. So, in this second clerk’s interpretation, the plague is a result of the town both rebelling against/abusing nature and also taking the Kin into itself. Unlike the first man, who believes the tower itself is at fault, this second one believes it’s all because of the town making itself into a “chimera,” which he believes cannot live long. What’s clear to me, though, is that although these men believe they disagree, their explanations complement each other very well, which brings us to our third man, who has a rather simple but somewhat confusing explanation. This clerk believes that this plague occurred in the town because men should not be “remodeled or altered,” and when asked what that has to do with the epidemic he replies “I don’t know… It wasn't we who designed the world like this. I believe in men, Doctor; in superhumans, I do not. This earthly life wouldn't fit them. Immortals have no place in the world of the living. This is just how it works. Take from it what you will.” This man seems to be implying that Simon Kain, the immortal man, is the reason why this plague appeared in the town. This is when it all started to come together for me: these men's stories do really all complement each other, because here they are posing the Polyhedron, chimera, and Simon as all the same. This will further be explained in the additional notes section. Three parts of one whole if you will.
Now, the mention of the Tower of Babel is interesting for two other reasons, one of which will be discussed in the additional notes section and one of which I’ll discuss here. In the Fyodor Vitin “One can work here” post there are numerous items displayed in the room pictured, but perhaps most interesting to me is the golden bull statue that sits at the front and center of the photo. My first thought when seeing that image was “Oh! This reminds me of the biblical story of the golden calf statue, which I bet is what they’re referencing.” For those who aren’t familiar, I’ll be oversimplifying another biblical story now. While trekking from Egypt to the holy land, Moses leaves his people behind to climb to the top of a mountain and commune with God. Moses is gone for forty days, upon which the people are fearful that he will not return, and so they molded a calf statue out of gold to worship. God, upon seeing this, sends Moses down to the base of the mountain to punish his people for their sins. Moses burns the golden calf in a fire, ground it to powder and water, and forced his people to drink it. He then killed all of them basically. My thought process was related to the fact that The Bachelor is punished severely by The Powers That Be for his own affront to God, the pursuit of immortality. Now, after that previous discussion about the Tower of Babel, I am noticing some very interesting things in this picture, and primarily that there are two other related statues. Now that we have the previous context about The Tower of Babel and the clerks in our mind, we can see new meaning in these statues: a black statue of a centaur, and a white bust of a man. The interesting thing about the centaur should be obvious, it is another chimera. The bust of the man, which seems to be made of marble, reminded me somewhat of ancient Greek statues that are chiseled to glorify certain leaders and make them seem somewhat perfect while also immortalizing them in stone. You can probably see the connection I’m making here, and so I will leave the rest of the explanation for the additional notes section.
Another thing that's interesting to note is the aforementioned three men, unlike most characters in Pathologic 2 and the Marble Nest, do not stop moving when you pause the game; their animations continue to play even after you bring up the pause menu. If you’re unaware, there is actually a small detail in Pathologic 2 where pretty much everything nature-based or that is a natural force of the world, as well as everything that’s supposed to be seen in a meta-narrative sense, does not stop moving when you pause the game. This includes rain, leaves falling, the particle effects that come off the clocks, fire, executors (not orderlies), plague particles, etc. Once I noticed this (while trying to get a screenshot of some things to analyze) I tested out some other NPCs in The Marble Nest, and all of the other people I tested seemed to freeze when the game was paused. However, this is not to say that no other characters in the Marble Nest move when the game is paused. I only tested about 4 guys besides the primary trio we're discussing, mostly just to make sure it's not a thing that all Marble Nest characters do. If one of you people reading this would like to go through and see which characters in The Marble Nest also possess this trait, it could prove fascinating.
Finally, I’ll talk about two somewhat modern (at least modern compared to the previous two) stories that are brought up in The Marble Nest, although not directly: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells and The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe. Admittedly, I have not read either of these stories (it’s possible I read the EAP story 5-6 years ago and just don’t remember it), but I do actually know quite a bit about the stories and their themes from a couple of literary studies on specific genres I’ve done over the years. Additionally, for this section, I have done some more research on the plots and themes of these stories which yielded fascinating results.
The Time Machine is brought up when The Bachelor visits The Cathedral and speaks to a Tragedian standing within. The Tragedian talks about how the building is not a temple, but a machine. Daniil asks what kind of machine, and The Tragedian responds “This is a time machine. Time works differently on the inside and on the outside. It's frozen now. I think something's broken.” To which Dankovsky can say “A time machine? Are you saying it can transport me to the past or to the future? Like in that Englishman's book, what's his name…” For this, I did some research into what book he could be referring to, and almost instantly Time Machine stood out to me for a number of reasons. I think there might be something interesting to be said about how this relates to the ARG, but I’m not going to be the one to say it, because I’m honestly not sure how or if it does. I will describe how it connects to Pathologic though, in case that sparks anyones mind. The work is apparently seen as popularizing the idea of time travel and the time machine, which relates to what IPL has said about The Bachelor’s route I suppose. As for the plot, it’s about a Victorian man using a time machine to travel to the year of A.D. 802,701. He meets two races of people, one descended from the oppressed working class and one descended from the pampered owning class. Over hundreds of thousands of years of this lifestyle, the two races have started to diverge, with the owning class becoming child-like and basically useless, while the working class has been forced into a life of toil and hardship which has shaped them into a race of underground-dwelling animalistic race of people. Essentially the novel is a depiction of class struggle and the class contradictions inherent within capitalism, but with a bit of a metaphorical twist. The toiling of the working class underground is what allows the upper class to live in abundance without the need for work. There is very interesting commentary here to be made on the worms/odonghs in the game, as well as the eternal youth that is present in some elements of the stone yard, but this isn’t a Pathologic essay, it’s a Pathologic ARG essay.
The Masque of the Red Death is alluded to by The Bachelor in a dialogue with a wandering citizen, who opens up the conversation by saying “A masquerade ball will be held in the main square this evening. People want to celebrate our victory over the sand pest. You don't mind…?” To which The Bachelor has 3 possible replies, one of them being “I seem to vaguely remember a rather famous story about a masquerade held to celebrate a victory over a plague. Remember how it ended?” To summarize, The Masque of the Red Death is about a group of noblemen taking refuge in an abbey to hide from a plague (the plague is known as the Red Death). The plague’s symptoms are gruesome, and all people who contract it apparently die within a half hour. The main character, Prince Prospero, and his fellow noblemen believe themselves to be entirely safe, though, as they have welded shut all the doors and isolated themselves in the abbey. To entertain the guests, the prince holds a masquerade ball that takes place in seven of the rooms of his abbey, each colored differently. The first six rooms are blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet, with the last being black and illuminated by a red window. No guests venture into the seventh room, as they are all scared to enter it. Every hour a clock in that room chimes, upon which the guests freeze and go silent momentarily, before resuming normal activity once the chiming stops, only to do the same thing after an hour. Once midnight comes, a person appears in robes covered in blood and resembling a funeral shroud, wearing a mask that depicts a person clearly infected with the Red Death. This figure walks through six of the chambers before the prince starts chasing them with a dagger. Confronting them in the seventh room, the prince immediately falls dead upon seeing this person’s face. The other party-goers all charge the figure, stripping them of their clothes and mask, only to find that there is no one underneath. The conclusion of the story states that the figure was not a person, but rather an embodiment of the Red Death. The Red Death also appears as a reference in the novel The Phantom of the Opera, as well as several film and musical adaptations. The titular phantom dresses up as The Red Death, and in many adaptations wears a skull mask as part of the costume.
I believe Hamlet is also brought up at some point in The Marble Nest, but I can’t seem to find the dialogue so I’m unsure if that’s true.
Next, I'll talk about another random Marble Nest clue
The Bachelor’s hover text for the beetle item says “I used to collect these as a kid. Left the collection with my father.” @pseudoquiddity found that a paper on the top of “The Beginning” Fyodor Vitin post spells out Mechnikov, which is almost definitely referencing Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, who was a Russian zoologist and immunologist who achieved incredible scientific discovery during his life, and notably for us he was largely focused on the issue of aging and extending human life. Mechnikov was actually brought up in an IPL teletype post as one of the Bachelor’s main influences scientifically, alongside Albert Einstein and Max Planck. The relevant thing about Mechnikov here is that, as a zoologist, he did many notable studies on insects throughout his career to see how their bodies reacted to things compared to how ours did. One thing that’s interesting to me is that the type of beetles we see in the game, I believe, are based on Trypocopris Vernalis, commonly known as the spring dumbledor or spring dor beetle, which is not known to inhibit the region that the Town on Gorkhon would reside in. Another thing I find interesting is the touch text from the Alpha version of the game, which reads “Some fifteen years ago, the Soul-and-a-Halves, the gang of children who are defined by sharing special bonds with their pets, actually considered to allow flower chafers as their "Halves" due to the beetles ‘looking as though they knew something’. The idea was quickly abandoned as ridiculous.” Maybe I’m just 8.6 thousand words into this post and have finally gone insane, but I think the beetles “looking as though they know something”, combined with their close connection to Dankovsky, it seems too intentional.
In the “Feverish Feelings” ARG, the Beatles (the band) were brought up indirectly and used by the players as a clue to get more information. This also related to the clue relating to the Gospel according to John. Additionally, speaking of Mechnikov, u/Fantastic_Advice5593 theorized that the numbers on Daniil’s train ticket from one of the original ARG notes could be hinting toward the date May 15th, or 5/15 (15/5 if you use the non-American dating system I believe), which is Mechnikov Day, and is commonly recognized as Mechnikov’s date of birth. Proving this connection further, the “Messages” Fyodor Vitin post was posted on May 15th. Another interesting thing is that if we convert the time that the “Messages” image was posted to the time scheme used in Pathologic (that is, a 24-hour clock), it comes out to 19:35 (Using GMT+3 time zone, as that’s where Moscow is located.) This is interesting because “Messages” was also posted 19 days after the previous post, and I know for a fact that 19 is an important number in this ARG: The newspaper from the “The Accident” post was labeled as issue number 19, the bible passage that we saw referenced in the anagram from the “Messages” post is John 19:19, the jumble of letters that we found in the touch text for the unused lantern item includes “19,” and so does the 196-17-1 number from Messages. In a way, the number 19 is sort of a self-checking method to substantiate some of the clues we’ve found thus far.
Griffins’ Tower
Many of the details in this section wouldn’t be possible without @kurury-chan who, upon my inquiry about the tower and its accompanying pharmacy, actually visited it, got tons of cool pictures, and translated a ton of the history for me! I literally cannot thank her enough for her help with many elements of this post, but especially in this section. In the original Pathologic ARG, “Feverish Feelings,” the Griffins’ Tower is brought up a couple of times throughout, and was part of an intensive fandom discussion because many elements of it paralleled many themes and plot points of Pathologic. The following connections/possibly related facts are a combination of fandom discussion from the time and my own research:
The tower is connected to a pharmacy that has existed since the 18th century. Both were once owned by the Poehl family, who were a rather eccentric yet somewhat mysterious rich family. Rumors from the time (The 18th/19th century) speculate that members of the family engaged in “…alchemy and witchcraft, and in the basements of the house he turned mercury into gold and bred griffins. Since ancient times, it was believed that griffins, mythical creatures with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle, were the guardians to secret sacred knowledge and treasures.”
In 1994, the artist Alexey Kostroma, together with the society "Here and There" (Tut i tam), organized a demonstration/art-piece to advocate for the preservation of the tower and the revitalization of the city, which they believed was falling apart before their very eyes. During this demonstration, they hoisted a large egg (approximately 1.5 meters) onto the top of the tower, and they painted (I’m not sure what was used to put the numbers on the tower, but I assume it was paint) numbers on almost every brick of the tower. While the purposes for the those two additions rarely get brought up in conversations surrounding it, the egg and the numbers are now some of the most well-known parts of the tower, despite the fact that neither of the two are there anymore. The Polyhedron, as we know, is a tower that at the top houses children and is made from its own complex blueprints. Additionally, in the Marble Nest, but also throughout Pathologic as a whole, there is a common piece of imagery that connects eggs and the Utopians. In the opening of The Marble Nest, the item that’s used on the loading screen is an egg. If you look at the egg sprite in P2, you’ll see a crack in it that heavily resembles the Polyhedron. Daniil Dankovsky commonly uses the Latin phrase “ab ovo,” which means “from the beginning” but when literally translated means “from the egg,” and his touch text for the egg in Marble Nest reads “To understand anything, start ab ovo — ‘from the egg.’”
While playing through The Marble Nest several times for this ARG, I noticed something that gave me more confidence in The Griffins’ Tower playing a role in it. If you guys have played Pathologic as much as I have you’ll know there’s a tower in between the Stone Yard and the steppe that you can’t enter and is barely ever really explained. If I’m picking apart my brain correctly for Pathologic 1 knowledge, I believe it is implied to be a Focus of some sort. If you’ve only played Pathologic 2, or you haven’t played through The Bachelor’s route in P1 enough, or you haven’t read through the Pathologic “Corpus” entries, you probably have an incomplete idea of what a “focus” is and all that it entails. I won’t go too deep into it now, but it’s said in one of the Corpus entries that, on top of the Polyhedron, Cathedral, Stillwater, Crucible, etc., there were a number of experimental Focuses that were built for Simon Kain to test the limits of what buildings could capture the human soul and memories. It’s a building you can’t ever enter, but it does have a visible door, which is very similar to the way that Simon’s focus is described by Victor Kain. I’d like to draw your attention to the visual similarities between that tower and the Griffin Tower. I’d also like to draw your attention to the fact that, in the original design concepts of Pathologic 1 every character is associated with a specific animal, and Simon Kain’s is a griffin. What is a griffin? Well, it’s a fusion between two drastically different creatures, a lion and an eagle; a griffin is a chimera.
Interestingly, in 2005 (the year Pathologic came out) the pharmacy connected to The Griffins Tower was closed for a while because it became flooded with water while trying to extinguish a fire.
There is a photo in the pharmacy connected to the tower (which has now been converted into a museum about the history of the place and pharmacies in general) that depicts, during the early 1900s, the pharmacy sitting next to a theater called “Simpatiya” (Sympathy).
While @kurury-chan was on a tour of the pharmacy/museum she found an interesting marmite that was on display. It was created by Samuel Clarke and it’s called “Pyramid,” and the marmite has an accompanying poem: Когда ночи темные, подумайте о Кларке, который попал точно в цель. Его ночные огни создают светлые ночи, в которых вы прекрасно видите. (When the nights are dark, think of Clark hitting the mark. His night lights create bright nights in which you can see perfectly) This is interesting largely because the poem reminds me somewhat of the body text for the lantern ad found in the newspaper post.
In the original email mentioning the Griffin’s Tower, Voronika Kroy appends the message by saying “P.S. I feel like I’ll need this memory later.”
Seventh Seal
I watched this movie after discovering all of the allusions to General Block we’ve seen thus far, but being unsure what to do with any of them. For those that don’t know, the movie The Seventh Seal’s protagonist Octavius Block has been listed as one of the main inspirations for Alexander Block, and since IPL seems intent on leading us to analyze certain works of literature/film/theater for this, I decided to look into it. What I found is incredibly interesting I think, because it seems that one of the main inspirations for The Marble Nest is The Seventh Seal.
The title is based on a bible verse (from the Book of Revelations) that reads “And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” This verse appears both at the very beginning of the movie and then again toward the end. This thirty minutes/half-an-hour element appears prominently in both this story and The Masque of the Red Death. One other place it appears is on the pocket watch in the first Fyodor Vitin post, where the time on it is 2:30. I am very confident that it also appears in The Marble Nest once or twice, but despite looking I was unable to find it. If anyone else knows where it might be, either comment on this post or message me, and I will put it in this section and credit you.
The movie's plot revolves around Antonius Block, a disillusioned medieval knight returning from the Crusades. Block is struggling throughout the movie with his inability to believe in God and his realization that his whole life has been wasted. He wishes more than anything to do one last deed before his death to give his life meaning. The movie is set during the Black Death, with prominent elements of the story revolving around the plague. The movie largely focuses on how Block takes in several poor and out-of-luck folks fleeing the plague, inviting them to stay at his castle and escorting them along the way.
Toward the beginning of the movie, Death comes to take Block, but he convinces Death to play him in a game of chess for his life. This game of chess continues throughout the movie, with Death allowing Block to take several breaks in order to find clarity about his life and death. Toward the end of the movie, he allows Death to take his queen, effectively ensuring he would lose the game in the next turn, so that his companions could get away without Death noticing. After returning to his castle, everyone has a nice meal before Death arrives and takes everyone, excluding the people that Block helped get away by tricking Death.
Many things from Pathologic seem to take inspiration from this movie; most notable being the storyline of The Marble Nest (Dankovsky’s “People” screen categorizes people as chess pieces, essentially implying that his struggle against death is a sort of chess match), but there are also some smaller things. For example, there is a scene where the characters encounter someone afflicted with the plague who cries out for help, and one of the women tries to get closer to give the man water, but another person stops her, as giving water to a plague victim is futile and dangerous; almost immediately after this, a personification of Death appears. This heavily reminds me of the intro/tutorial of Pathologic 2, where a similar scene occurs.
While watching the movie, it’s very easy to see how Block was directly inspired by the main character, but it’s hard to convey exactly how without describing many scenes in detail, so I will simply describe one of them. After leaving a church confessional where he admits to his faith faltering and wanting to perform one meaningful deed before he dies, Block encounters a young woman who’s about to be burned at the stake for allegedly having ties to the devil. He takes pity on this woman, seeing something special in her, and believes she can tell him about life after death. This, to me, seems very reminiscent of Block’s storyline with the Changeling in P1.
Another small lead before this part of the post is finished: This lead, I will admit, I stumbled across completely at random, and will not talk about much because there’s not much I can say about it that isn’t obvious. It might be worth looking into the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov, and perhaps thinking about if Fyodor Vitin was based partially on him, since we know Vitin works closely with Daniil.
Additional Notes/Comments:
In the newspaper clipping, it is said that a man with the initials “F.L.” had been one of the apparent two victims of the fire that burned down several buildings. This man (who I’ll simply refer to as “F” from now on) is an academician, historian, and writer of everyday life, which obviously fits well with the man that we know as Fyodor Vitin, and it has been assumed up until this point that he was the victim of this fire. I think there are three possibilities here: Fyodor Vitin was not the victim of this fire somehow, Fyodor Vitin is not his real name, or the newspaper is lying to us. In connection to the light/lantern emphasis in the newspaper, it might be worth it to note that the word “vitin” in Faroese means something like “the lighthouse”/“the beacon”, while in old Swedish it means something like “to know.” What’s more interesting is that Vitin in old Swedish is a second-person plural present indicative, and for people that got a useful education, that means it’s a verb that’s used to factually describe the current actions of the people that the speaker is saying it to. If Vitin isn’t his real surname, his username could mean “Fyodor beacon”, or “Fyodor (that you all) know”.
As discussed extensively in the section on the Tower of Babel, there is a direct connection drawn between the Polyhedron, Simon, and chimeras. We elaborated a bit on this connection in the section on the Griffins’ Tower. What’s especially interesting then is the fact that, in The Marble Nest, the Polyhedron is labeled as “focus,” implying that Simon’s essence is infused in the Polyhedron, as is what happens in the first game. This, I believe, confirms our theory about the connection even further. What then makes this even more related to the ARG is the fact that in the “One can work here” post by Fyodor Vitin, we see the three statues depicting the golden bull, the centaur, and the marble bust of a man. It is then worth noting that this bust of a man made of marble could be a reference to The Marble Nest, perhaps trying to get us to look there for clues. I believe, if the golden bull is meant to represent the Polyhedron (or at least the Polyhedron argument in The Marble Nest), and the centaur is meant to represent the chimera, then the marble bust of the man is meant to represent Simon (or, once again, represent the Simon/immortal man argument from the Marble Nest). This is supported by my point about the marble busts both immortalizing men and also making them more into concepts than men (as the statue can only depict a small part of a man’s life, usually depicting him in battle, leading a governmental position, etc). In the original game, and as can slightly be seen in hints of the second game, Simon is sometimes seen as more of a concept than a man; he is the ideology of the utopians incarnate, the perfect man that represents everything humanity could be. As a chimera is vital to Burakh’s quest, so too is it vital for Dankovsky’s (and it’s interesting to note that Burakh has the chimera revelation while in conversation with Dankovsky.) If the Marble Nest is used to represent the stone yard, or the “town” in its purest form, then Simon Kain is the marble man. It then becomes important to figure out where the “One can work here” picture is supposed to be depicting. I believe, if the statues there are supposed to represent all that we’ve said so far, the location should be representative of Dankovsky’s fight against death, and therefore I say it probably has to be Thanatica.
Now, as for all the connections with General Block, there are obviously many of them, from the Guglielmo Pepe hypothesis to the mention of Aristides/Pericles to The Seventh Seal to the whole “ash” thing, it seems far too much to be a series of coincidences. I don’t think it’s too crazy to connect the prominent appearance of the number 30 in the Block/Pepe/Aristides context to the prominent appearance of the number 30 (as in half an hour) in The Seventh Seal, which makes the appearance of the number 30 in that first Fyodor Vitin post even more interesting. It’s long been theorized that, from what we see in the Haruspex’s route and what we’ve seen in Pathologic 1, the Bachelor’s new route will probably feature General Block much more prominently. Perhaps, as the first ARG was so focused on the inquisitors, we’ll also get to learn more about the army in this one. Maybe General Ashes even had something to do with the building that was reduced to ashes?
The topic of religion, and specifically Christianity, comes up a lot in The Marble Nest. I think all the connections I’ve made in this post to Christianity have convinced you that it’s seemingly an important part of this ARG. In the first ARG, there were certain biblical passages that acted as clues, specifically from the Gospel according to John, which we talked about in the section on the “Messages” post. As is also mentioned in that section, the connection to Inquisitors Peter Kroy and Mark Karminsky seems to be driving us toward looking into The Gospel according to Peter and The Gospel according to Mark. It’s also talked about in that section how these both relate to Daniil. Mark Karminsky specifically also seems to have had something to do with the "Accident" mentioned in the newspaper, and so perhaps combining numbers from the newspaper within the Gospel of Mark could lead to some clues.
Still, as much as I’ve said in this post, there is more I wish to analyze but have not yet. This post has been in the works for a while, though, and I don’t want people to be waiting any longer, so I’ll have to save that other stuff for another day.
If anyone can somehow get into the game files of the Marble Nest and retrieve the texture/model for any of the letters or books (like the two linked images), that will end up being very helpful.
Other screenshots from Pathologic 2/The Marble Nest that could be of interest:
Grigory Gorky (Pathologic 2) Grigory Gorky (The Marble Nest) Mikhail Goba (The Marble Nest) Daniil Death Certificate (The Marble Nest) Rug (The Marble Nest) Book (The Marble Nest) Familiar Bloody Handprint (The Marble Nest) Tipped Over Lantern (The Marble Nest) Staff Sergeant Plover (The Marble Nest) Avrely Gubar (The Marble Nest) Odd use of Roman Numerals (The Marble Nest) Cathedral Letter (The Marble Nest) Plant that I found several times in the Cathedral (The Marble Nest)
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yagirlwrites · 5 months
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(Not) My Baby (4)
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Pairing: Rafe Cameron x Reader
Synopsis: Y/N makes a decision with the help of her friends but Rafe isn't going to like it.
A/N: Not me posting this at 1am on a Thursday lmao! Y'all it's finally here! Part 4! I have been in such a massive slump and had huge writers block for many months. Honestly don't know how I wrote this tbh🤣 That being said I'm not super happy about my writing here but I'm posting it because y'all deserve to get it immediately, you've waited long enough! Hope you enjoy this part! Love you all❤️
Series Masterlist
My work is my own; it's not to be copied, transferred or translated. Reblogs, comments, feedback are always welcome and appreciated❤️
Happy reading! 🥰
(Not) My Baby (Part 4)
"So what are you gonna do?" Y/N sighed at her friend's question. She knew it was wishful thinking that they might finish breakfast before Stella brought up the issue. To be fair to her, she hadn't mentioned it all night and Y/N managed to actually get some sleep because of it.
But now it was time to face the music and deal with her problem. Fuck.
"What are we talking about?" Lena's voice came from the doorway, the girl looking like she had been through the wringer. The girls at the table almost giggled at her messy appearance, given her usual insistance on being put together at all times.
"Well, hello to you too. Couldn't be bothered sending a text that you'd be home late? Again?" Lena blushed at Stella's words, knowing she was right and she had messed up. Yet again.
Since her and Kelce started dating she had become more and more forgetful of their rule - always let each other know where you're staying the night. They had a few rules in their roomate agreement, this one being the most important one. Hell, she invented the rule herself. And yet, here she was, constantly breaking it.
She knew Stella wasn't really mad, but it still made her feel embarrased. How she let a guy distract her like that so often, she didn't understand.
"Yeah... Sorry." She let out a sheepish smile and Stella rolled her eyes, motioning her to join them at the table.
"While you were getting busy with your man, we have been in a crisis!" Lena's eyes widened, slightly concerned, slightly suspicious.
"Expand." Y/N's head met the table and let out a muffled groan. Lena looked at the girl in confusion.
"What happened??" Stella folded her hands, getting ready for a dramatic retelling. Y/N remained face planted on the table while Stella caught Lena up to the latest drama.
Many 'he did whats' and 'oh my god's' later, interrupted by both Stella's and Lena's laughter at the sandwich incident, Lena was finally in the know about the Rafe situation. And boy was she loving it.
"I fucking knew he was into you! I knew it-"
"Can you please not?" Y/N had gotten up from the table and planted herself on the couch mid-story, not wanting to deal with any of it so early in the morning. Or ever. Preferably she would deal with it never. She just wanted to go back to bed and sleep for several weeks. She was exhausted.
Lena and Stella gave eachother knowing looks but said nothing further about it. Instead they plopped down on the couch either side of her and Y/N knew the ordeal was far from over. They wouldn't let her keep ignoring it. Sometimes she hated having friends who knew her too well.
"So what are you gonna do?" This time it was Lena posing the dreaded question.
"I don't know." It was an honest answer. The only one she had. But she knew her friend would not be satisfied with it.
"Well what do you think?" Y/N closed her eyes, trying to mentally prepare for everything that was about to unfold.
"I don't know...." She sounded tired. And Stella felt a pang of hurt on her friend's behalf.
Lena, however was not going to accept that as an aswer. She was a doer, she always thought three moves ahead and prepared for everything. 'I don't know' was not in her vocabulary. Usually that was someting Y/N loved about her, but at this moment she resented it.
"Well lets figure it out." Lena started. "It is a good opportunity."
"I know that." Y/N begrudgingly admited.
"So what's holding you back?" Y/N looked at Lena as if she was stupid for posing the question. Lena was not bothered.
"Don't say it's cause you don't like him because I know that's not really the reason. You're pragmatic, you know this is a good chance to network. So I'll ask again. What's holding you back?"
While Lena was right about her being pragmatic, she just didn't understand how big of a factor her dislike for Rafe was in her dillema. Whereas Lena couldn't fathom why she'd let something silly like that get in the way of a good opportunity to make connections, she felt sick to her stomach at the thought. The mere idea of being on his arm while he flaunted her was making her flushed with anger. She knew she couldn't explain it to her friends though, so she didn't even try.
"I don't know. I just hate the idea of giving him what he wants and seeing his smug face-"
"You're getting something out of it too." Lena, annoyingly pointed out.
"Not as much as him." At Y/N's words, Lena finally grinned.
"There it is." Lena's words made Y/N look at her in confusion.
"What?"
"What's holding you back. You think its an unfair deal. He's getting more out of it than you are." Lena explained.
Y/N's brow furrowed in thought. Stella was quiet the entire time, knowing not to interrupt the two girls when they're debating something. She learned long ago it was a bad idea. It was best to let them figure it out and not get involved.
Y/N realized Lena was right. She was feeling resentment because she felt like she would be giving him a lot more than she'd be getting in return and it made her real mad.
"Yeah... I guess so." Lena nodded.
"Good."
"Good?" Y/N asked, exasperated.
"Yes, good. Now we know the problem. Now we can solve it." Lena said as if it was the simples thing in the world.
"Oh it's that simple?" Y/N's sarcasm was felt but ignored as Lena continued.
"So what do you want?" Y/N looked at her confused, again.
"What do I want?" She repeated.
"So what do you want that he can give you?" Lena asked again. Y/N frowned.
"Yes. He's getting the better end of the deal. So even the odds." She was explaining it as if it was obvious. Y/N didn't think so.
"I don't want anything from him."
"Don't be stubborn." Lena interrupted. "There's always something you can get from someone. It's just a matter of figuring out what you want."
"I don't want anything from him!" Y/N repeated, a bite in her voice.
"Now you're just being childish."
"Let's not get nasty." Stella finally piped up, seeing that this was not going in the right direction.
"How am I being childish?" Y/N bit out.
"You're letting your feelings cloud your judgement. Stop letting your dislike of him lead the converstation." Lena spoke evenly, making sure not to push Y/N further than she had. They could both be stubborn and they knew it. Lena didn't want to fight. She was just trying to help her friend. The problem was she wasn't always the best at showing it.
"Okay, lets take a step back." Stella interjected. Hands up in what she hoped was a calming gesture.
"I think what Lena is trying to say is that you might be holding yourself back from something that could benefit you because you're letting your feelings for Rafe get in the way of seeing the bigger picture."
"I don't have feelings for Rafe." She quipped back.
"You know what I meant, Peach." Stella's use of her nickname softened Y/N's features some. She was realizing Rafe was now causing her to fight with her friends. The thought infuriated her. No way.
Y/N sighed and closed her eyes, trying to clear her head. They were right. When it came to Rafe, he always managed to unhinge her and anger would lead her actions. But she was smarter than that. She wouldn't let him get in the way of her friendships. And she wasn't going to let him being a dick be the reason why she misses on a good opportunity. One that could do her a lot of good in the future.
That's when it hit her.
When she opened her eyes her friends were looking at her with bathed breaths, anxious for her next move.
"There is something." Lena smiled.
"But he'll never go for it." Y/N was doubting herself. It was crazy.
"Babe, he's in a position where he can't refuse you. He's got a lot to gain from this but he also has a hell of a lot more to lose if you say no." Lena reasoned.
"She's right. I'm pretty sure you could get a kindey out of him if you wanted to." Stella joked and the girls laughed.
"That's a bit much, Pumpkin." Stella beamed at her friends words.
"All we're saying is, he won't be able to refuse you. He's desperate. He needs you." Lena explained.
"Okay." The girls grinned, Stella jumping up in excitement.
"So what is it?!" Y/N smirked. Oh it was a good one and he was going to hate it so much. The thought made her giddy.
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It had been days since the sandwich shop. Since he poured all his shame out to her and asked her to help him. Since he embarrased himself thoroughly and put his fate in her hands.
It has been days of radio silence. He was getting antsier every second, feeling like he might crawl out of his skin in suspence. Truth was, he had no idea what was going to happen. She really didn't like him and she could refuse to help him so easily, leaving him the deep deep hole he dug for himself. She didn't owe him anything. He wasn't great to her in the past and he regreted it. Had regreted it for a long time. He tried making things up with her for months but she was so unreceptive to his efforts, and then she pushed his buttons and he'd lose himself all over again.
And now he was at her mercy. She could embarrass him by telling the whole world about what he had done. Or she could just ignore him, letting him stew in his misery. Leaving him stranded and giving his father the perfect opportuinity to cut him off for good. Disown him even. He was losing his mind.
It has been days and everyone around him could feel his sour mood. He was twitchy, easily irritable, incapable of focusing on anything and constantly fiddling with his phone. Constantly writing and deleting texts, to what they assumed was the same mystery person.
None of his friends knew what the hell was going on with him but none dared ask, knowing it would most likely end with him shutting them out further. He was moodier than usual, which they didn't think possible.
Kelce and Topper knew the only person who could ever affect him like that was his father. Or Y/N. Both in very different ways, of course, but in simmilar intensity.
His friends never knew what it was that him and Y/N had going on, never understood the odd relationship. They knew they'd get punched if they brought it up though, they learned it the hard way.
His father was a whole other story. They both knew, for the most part, how Ward Cameron treated his son. Having grown up with Rafe, they'd seen enough of their fraught dynamic to understand there were serious issues there. Their friend never confided in them fully though, preferring not to talk about his father at all. But every once in a while he'd get that glazed over look in his eyes, the dark cloud around him palpable. They knew then that something had happened involving his father.
This time was different though. He wasn't depressed, he wasn't angry from an argument with his dad. He also wasn't buzzing with nerves and excitement from a row with Y/N. It was unusal and unnerving and the entire appartment was enveloped in the odd energy.
So when Kelce had insisted he needed a night out Topper agreed. Kelce had demanded he needed to unwind and that after football practice he expected his two best friends to take him out for drinks and help him get his head straight. They agreed, Topper knowing Klece's plans had nothing to do with his own well being - and Rafe because Kelce rarely ever expressed that he was having issues, usually the most chill out of the group. It made him feel too guilty to reject him. Even though he'd rather do anything but go out tonight.
But there he was, waiting for Kelce to finish up his practice so they can go to the bar where he fully intended to excuse himself after an hour. The sun was just beginning to set as he fiddled with his phone in his hands, willing it to do something, snap him out of his misery. The orange and pinkish hues enveloped the sky as he heard someone approach him in the parking lot. He was leaning on his car as he looked behind him and nearly dropped his phone in shock.
There she was. She was standing right in front of him, the last rays of sun casting a halo around her. She took his breath away.
For a moment he stood there gaping at her, not quite able to process that she was actually here after days of no contact, after days of him wishing she'd call or text or even email him, give him anyhing to go by.
She cleared her throat, breaking the awkward silence. He snapped out of his daze and took an unconscious step forward. She eyed him warily. He looked rough. As if he hadn't slept.
A sliver of guilt crossed through her but she quickly crushed that down. This whole situation is his fault and she had every right to take even more time, than just a few days, to get back to him. She reminded herself to keep her head in the game, to not get distracted.
"Hey." She spoke first.
"Hey." He sounded breathy, unsure.
"Can we talk?" He nodded, nervous to what she was there to say. He wasn't sure how she found him but guessed she probably talked to Lena. Lena would know he was waiting for Kelce.
"I've thought about your proposition." He gulped, bracing himself for the worst.
"Yeah?" He wished she would just rip off the band-aid and reject him instead of dragging it out.
"I've realized you'd be getting a lot more out of it than me -"
"What do you want?" He interrupted her, cringing inwardly at the sharp glare he was met with. But he couldn't wait another second.
"For future notice, I want you to not interrupt me again." He almost rolled his eyes, almost.
"Noted. What do you want?" He sounded nervous and she almost smiled. Almost.
She looked to he right, taking her time to apreciate his vehicle, letting him stew for a few more agonizing moments while he waited for her answer.
He looked at her, impatient, ready to jump out of his skin, shake her, fall to his knees, beg her to just say it.
Her eyes met his again and she smiled. It was a beautiful sight, but he quickly realized the smile was one of mischief. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. She glanced back at his car. Then back to him. Then back to the car. Then back to him. She gave him a pointed look, raising her eyebrows.
He looked on in confusion and she rolled her eyes at his ignorance.
"The car." She finally spoke. His heart was hammering in his chest from the suspense.
"Huh?"
She looked back at the car and he followed her eyes finally realizing what it was she was saying.
"No way." He spoke before he could even process his words. She nodded her head.
"Okay." She shrugged, swiflty turned around and started walking away. No look back, no explanation, no chance to barter. Panic rose in his chest.
"Wait!" She stopped in her tracks but didn't bother turning around. His mind was running a thousand miles an hour. This couldn't be what she was asking of him? Surely she wasn't that crazy? Surely she didn't expect him to give her his car.
His car. A black, 1967 Ford Mustang, complete with white stripes. A picture of sleek elegance and power, with the classic leather interior and and an upgraded motor, the rev of which caused goosebumps to rise on his skin every time he turned on the key. His pride and joy. The first thing he ever bought for himself. His father protested, of course he did. He would have preferred a more modern vehicle, something that showed status. Not an old muscle car. But Rafe was adamant and as soon as he turned eighteen and got access to his trust fund, he found Clarence and never looked back.
She was his most trusted companion, which is why it was hitting hard that Y/N wanted to take her from him. Couldn't she have picked anything else?
"You seriously want me to just give you my car?" His voice was incredulous. She turned around and calmly walked back to him, as if she had all the time in the world.
"Of course not. I'm not that cruel. Or crazy." She smirked while he looked at her in confusion. What was she getting at?
"I don't expect you to give it to me. Not forever anyway." He blinked at her, still confused.
"I want free use of your car for... In the name of fairness, let's say I'd get to keep it for as long as this charade lasts." His heart was slowing down some, glad she wasn't insisting on actually taking his car from him.
"So... when was it you told your family we were dating, again?" He gulped, redness on his neck and cheeks visible.
"Three months ago" he almost whispered. Her eye twitched but she forced herself to stay calm. The prick.
"And how long did you tell them we've been together?" He gupled again. This was more and more emabrrassing with every minute.
"Three months." She swallowed down her anger that was rising again at his bullshit.
"So let's say six months backlog... and however long this continues. That's how long I get to keep the car. That sound fair to you?"
He wanted to say no. To argue. To call her crazy and beg her to pick something, anything else. But by the look in her eyes he knew it would be pointless and only serve to further his embarrassement. She was determined. This is what she wants. And he has no choice but to give it to her. He has no fucking choice and she knows it.
"Fine. But-" she interrupts him before he can finish his sentence.
"Gas included." He nearly choked on his saliva at her words. She was pushing him to his limits. She wanted him to pay for her gas too, while she drove his car around flaunting it in his face. The redness on his face was now also from anger. She was enjoying this.
"Fine. Fine!" She smiled.
"But that's it!" He continued. "I agree to this and we have a deal? You'll do it? No second guessing, no going back on it. You'll do it?"
He was looking at her with such desparation it tugged at her heart. This really was important to him.
"Yeah. Yeah I'll do it." She nodded along with her words.
He felt like crying. It was as if a ton of weight was lifted off his shoulders. He was still upset about Clarence. Obviously he was. But mostly he was relieved and happy that he wouldn't have to be embarrassed in front of his family. That she was going to do it. She was going to help him. He wanted to hug her in thanks or yell at her for manipulating him. He wanted to pass out from all the stress - of the situation, of the past few days, of suspence.
"So when's this wedding?" She dreaded asking because if there's anything this situation had taught her is that Rafe always can and will piss her off more than she thought possible. Every single time.
He was nervous again. He sighed and Y/N knew she wasn't going to like the words that came out of his mouth.
"Two weeks." He finally said.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
----
Taglist: if anyone wants to be tagged in future work let me know; @r0und3bitch @lovelornanonymity @mentallynot-here @wishing-i-was-rafes-princess @goldenjo @emeloyy @kanib45 @clinelyn @magnificantmermaid @hey-sunrisee @mannstarkey @harringtonstudios @totallynotkaibiased @popcrone818 @bookaholics-stuff @zzzina7 @fangirlwithlou @namelesssav @rafesxgold @cmac-writes @malfoytargaryen @alinaharlow @mveggieburger @theyluvmesblog @withbeautyandrage @sierrahhh @harrys-humble-housewife @piceous21 @vifuckingp @ditzyballerina @xoxo3m1ly @jessmaybank @whore-4-drewstarkey @palmwinemami @mew227 @dustbunniess @sublimepenguinpeach-blog @starkowswife
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hard-core-super-star · 9 months
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Hi, may I please request Reader is Australian and is a judge on the Voice, Australia. Hailee (Steinfeld obviously), with the other judges help to surprise Reader by 'auditioning'. (Reader obviously turns her chair. They've been dating for a couple of years.)
keep on coming back for more [H.Steinfeld]
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pairing: hailee steinfeld x musician!reader
summary: you don't really like surprises...unless they involve a certain brunette and your favorite song.
warnings: none, just fluff; me pretending like i know what i'm talking about when i really don't; R is technically a guitar player but that's not expanded upon; like two seconds of nervous hailee
wordcount: 1k
a/n: messed around with the pov on this one again so...yeet. i also did the most scuffed research on the voice, australia so forgive me if it sucks/if things are too vague. this fic was also just an excuse for me to scream into the void about rock bottom because it's one of hailee's best songs, argue with the wall. [but not the version with dnce because...men. do i have to say anything else?] hope you enjoy <3
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Hailee knows being nervous about this is ridiculous but that doesn’t stop her heart from thundering in her chest or her hands from growing clammy. Usually, those things are a sign of excitement but today, the butterflies in her stomach feel a little more uneasy than usual.
It’s been more than a few years since the last time she performed this song live and, if she’s being completely honest with herself, she’s worried about what you’ll think.
Surprises aren’t her strong suit, especially not when they involve your work but it’s been a few months since you left L.A to start working on The Voice, Australia and she hasn’t had a chance to come see you until now.
She was originally just going to visit you on set and let that be the surprise but she may have texted Rita Ora about her idea to fly to Sidney to see you and then one thing led to another and now she’s here. Minutes away from pretending to be yet another blind audition for the show.
Everyone had agreed it would be a great way to get more people to watch the show, or at the very least the clip that would be posted on YouTube later, but she didn’t care about any of that. She just cared about getting to see your smile again. 
“You’re on in five.”
The brunette nods in response, practically counting down the seconds until the two of you are finally reunited. Dramatic, sure, but also sweet in a way that makes you melt every time.
While Hailee’s getting ready for her surprise performance, you are doing your best to act like you’re paying complete attention to whatever ‘argument’ Rita and Jessica are having to convince the most recent auditioner to join their team. 
You’ve been a witness to these ‘arguments’ a couple of times since filming started but you always stay out of them. Mainly because they’re fun to watch but also because you’re technically the new kid on the block and you have some massive shoes to fill. Keith Urban-sized shoes to be specific. 
You still don’t know how you went from playing the guitar in your room to being a professional musician to being a judge on The Voice but you’re not about to complain. That doesn’t mean the job isn’t tiring but you can’t afford to look like you don’t know what you’re doing. 
The young singer ends up choosing Rita’s team and you’re given a quick break as the crew gets everything ready for the next contestant. You resist the urge to check your phone, knowing all it will do is make you miss your girlfriend. This wasn’t the first time the two of you were doing long distance but it never gets easier. 
You don’t get the chance to dwell on your thoughts too long since filming resumes. You straighten your back in the surprisingly comfortable chair and prepare yourself for the next blind audition.
A few seconds go by before you hear the beginning notes of a song you know like the back of your hand. The smile on your face gives away your growing excitement at getting to hear someone cover a song you love so much. 
You're honestly a little surprised it's taken so long for someone to audition using one of Hailee’s songs. It’s a shock but a welcome one for sure. Just because they're using one of your girlfriend’s songs doesn't mean you'll go easy on them, though. You’re easygoing but extremely picky when you want to be. And you’ll be extra picky just to honor the one you love more than anything else. 
“What are we fighting for? Seems like we do it just for fun…” 
Your eyes widen at the sound of that voice. 
For a second you think you’re imagining things but there’s no possible way you could be wrong. You could be underwater with a bag over your head and still manage to recognize your girlfriend’s voice.
“Breathe deep, bottle it up…”
You don’t waste another second in pressing the red button that allows you to turn around and see Hailee in all her glory. Your breath gets caught in your throat at the sight of her and suddenly, everything else around you disappears. The lights, the audience, even your fellow judges, all you can see and hear is her.
Her brown eyes are trained on you and you have no doubt she’s feeling exactly what you’re feeling. The smile on her face tells you all you need to know about where her mind is. “Oh, we’re on the right side of rock bottom…”
She can’t hold herself back any longer and she takes a few long strides, walking down the stage steps and reaching your chair with a smile so bright it rivals every star you’ve ever seen. Her hand reaches out toward you and you take it without hesitation, allowing her to pull you toward her.
The moment might go viral later but neither of you is focused on anything except the other.
“You’re the best kind of bad something,” she sings, her face mere inches away from yours. “‘Cause we keep on coming back for more.”
This time, you’re the one who can’t hold back. You wait for her to pull her microphone away before you lean in and capture her lips in a kiss filled with all the love you’ve had to keep inside since you left L.A.
You have no doubt the studio probably wanted more words exchanged and overly dramatic shocked expressions but all those complaints will come later. Hell, you’ll even reshoot the whole thing if it means getting to spend time with Hailee on set. But all of that can wait until later.
“Warn a person next time,” you whisper with a grin once the two of you part for air.
“Where’s the fun in that, babe?”
You playfully roll your eyes at her, pretending to be annoyed when you’re truly overjoyed to hear her teasing remarks in person again. “You’re the worst.” 
“You love me,” she replies with a shrug.
She starts to move away but you pull her back in for another quick kiss before she can get too far.
You hear the commotion that comes with getting ready for filming to resume but you’re too busy giving Hailee all your attention to care. You’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be here, and you absolutely love your job, but your girlfriend will always come first.
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word-wytch · 6 months
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tldr: extremely sappy and vulnerable post ahead
My baby, Don't Stand So Close To Me, turns one year old today.
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After a lifelong history of abandoning creative projects, my love for the story I wanted to tell and my newly found passion for the art of writing finally surpassed my fear of rejection, and so I stepped out of the Shire and onto this very long road.
Listen, I know I'm talking about a fanfiction and being very dramatic, but in my opinion every creative endeavor holds the same amount of weight no matter if you're writing books for money, or writing songs for the radio, or songs played only in your bedroom. It all requires you to dig deep and face yourself.
This is the longest and hardest I have ever worked on a creative project in my life.
Over the course of the past year I have come to know myself in a way that I think only writing a novel chapter by chapter for an online community could accomplish. There have been some very dark times, but facing your shadow is always illuminating. Through it, I have grown exponentially both as a writer and as a person.
If I could offer one piece of writing (and life) advice it would be this: Let yourself be where you are. Love yourself here, now. You have been good enough, are good enough, and will be good enough, always. You have nothing to prove to anyone. Your only responsibility is to keep the flame of your joy for creating alive. And that's it. The rest will take care of itself.
I know this is easier said than done. I know this from the painful experience of having believed the opposite about myself at one point.
All artists want to be seen on some level, we need to be. But ultimately, no amount of external validation can supplement the intrinsic love you have for creating. It's even better shared with others, but it comes first from within. I would argue that even if all you had was an idea that made you so giddy that you had to run laps around the room, then you have it all. Your only job is to keep that love alive. It's what I'm chasing every day. More than followers, or notes, or any superficial measure of success. That feeling is everything. The love that I have for my art and this character is everything. The love that I have for myself is, ultimately, everything.
It is a natural part of the journey for all creatives to encounter blocks and adversities, so when it feels like you've lost that joy or you're dragging your forehead against your keyboard in the thick of it, please do not fret. The real secret is that you can never really lose the spark, because you are the spark. You'll feel it again. You're not broken. You haven't failed. Just love yourself anyway and let yourself be where you are, even if that's crying into your ice cream.
Because the gap between how you feel and how you want to feel is not something that once closed, will stay closed forever. It's something you love yourself back to again, and again, and again, and again. And maybe, after your muscles build and your blisters heal, you'll come to enjoy the journey.
For the first time in my creative life I truly feel seen. Thank you all for seeing me, for coming on this journey with me. Thank you to every reader who's left a kind word, every friend that I've made as a result of pursuing this. There are too many to name. I have never been a part of a fan community in this capacity and I feel so unspeakably lucky to have found such a home in this one.
I want to thank, most especially, the people who have both figuratively and literally held my hand throughout the last year behind the scenes. Thank you for sending me coffee, letting me bounce ideas, send massive emails, text feverish voice messages back and forth, keysmash spoilers at you, cry on your shoulder, and fangirl over our boy (and his teacher) @toxicjayhoo @storiesbyrhi @the-unforgivenn @munson-blurbs @jo-harrington @rip-quizilla
I love you.
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