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galebrainrot2024 · 2 months

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GalexYou Pep-Talk

Summary: Pre-relationship yearn alert! This is a BIG yearn. Thank you @orangekittyenergy for the idea! Gale goes to seek you out (gender neutral) after a long day. Mutual pining, angst, fluff. Word Ct. 1.4 k

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After the merriment and bustle of the night wore away and gave into the doldrums of sleep, Gale flicked his gaze around camp searching for you. You slipped away and although he expected you to return, the emptiness in your absence haunted him.

He sat outside of his tent, then stood, pacing with book in hand. He wasn’t worried. Not necessarily. You had been traveling for a few weeks together now and you had a certain levels of tenacity it seemed even gods and devils refused to trifle with.

It was just that he had grown accustomed to your company post-dinner and campfire camaraderie and felt a pang of remorse in your absence. The night air too quiet without the soft hum of your laughter. Sometimes, he would read aloud to you, other times you would both get lost in conversation, and sometimes would sit in utter silence. It intrigued and terrified him, that you sought out his private company despite the others being starved for your attention.

It was quite flattering and made him want to rip out the persistent thrum in his heart. He couldn’t indulge in such frivolities and would cause far less suffering to not humor the feelings at all. The orb’s ever looming threat didn’t allow Gale to succumb to whatever emotions festered in his gullet. At least, not consciously.

His mind began down the treacherous path of ‘what ifs.’ It was a game, like lance board, Gale was excellent at. As the moon greeted the stars, Gale’s anxiety intensified, his mind whirling with options. It had to have been a least an hour you’d been gone, longer than you’d take for bathing - not that he knew exactly how long that was! It was just something he happened to notice. Coincidentally.

The foreign thrum of desire stirred and the thick hair on his arms stood straight up as he wondered if you were bathing. If you allowed the water to kiss your supple skin, to know your secrets. Gale shook his head, embarrassed and felt his face redden. Keep it together. They could be dead and you’re fantasizing over their wet body? You should be ashamed of yourself.

Gale expected you to traverse through the trees any moment, prepared to feel ridiculous at his worrying. Why did he care? It’s not as if there was anything more than friendship between you two, at least from your end. He had to repeat this to himself to be convinced.

When he overheard Astarion ask Shadowheart if she’d seen you, Gale felt the whispers of envy touch his heart and decided he spent enough time wasted, musing over your whereabouts when you could be lost, or worse besides.

He couldn’t tolerate the sudden pain that gripped him with that ‘what if,’ and he walked into the brushes to find you.

***

Relief roiled through him at the sight of you, despite your disheveled appearance. Gale’s breath caught in his throat and he stopped, gripped when he looked upon you in the pale moonlight. Your eyes were red and swollen, it seemed like you’d been crying. He felt his knees buckle and he cleared his throat, so not to startle you.

You whipped your head around and Gale’s lips parted when he saw crimson blossom across your cheeks as you wiped away the streaks with the back of your hand. “Oh, I um.. how long have you been standing there?”

“Not long, I assure you,” Gale’s voice was tender, quiet. He held up both of his hands at waist level, palms facing up and smiled at you. “May I join you?”

You hesitated for a moment and Gale panicked that he’d made the wrong move, said the wrong thing and of course he had already messed up any chance he might have because he was so pathetically out of practice. You’d think a man who bedded a goddess would have a bit more self confidence in his seductive prowess, but being shunned and cast out by your former omnipotent lover does a number on one’s self esteem.

When you nodded, he tumbled off the cliff and the orb revolted as it mingled with the rush of adrenaline and rapture he felt from the simple gesture. One nod. To Gale, it was everything. He felt welcomed into your world, elated you’d allow him to offer support. You didn’t have to, and yet you did.

Gale joined you on the boulder that was nestled in the thicket, the soft buzz of nighttime harmonizing with his unsteady breath. “Hm… I know that look,” Gale said, gazing at how your lips curved. “And a clear mind does not eviscerate flowers quite like this.” He fingered a petal and gestured at the flowers and stems, all petals plucked intentionally from their root. “A nervous habit, no doubt.”

You sighed and his heart swelled, “I just don’t know what I’m doing. Every lead ends up in either more unanswered questions or unhelpful ends.” You groan and grip your chest, your breath coming in unevenly. “I’m exhausted,” as your head fell into your hands Gale, without thinking, rested a hand on your upper back and stroked your hair behind your shoulder.

“Ah, heavy is the head that wears the crown.” Gale felt warmth pulse through him as you laughed, whether genuinely or out of pity he wasn’t to know. He wasn’t sure he cared. “For the record, you have pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes most skillfully. You’ve shown remarkable courage and determination and, I’m confident the others would agree, many of us would not be so fortunate to still be alive if not for you. You must know that.” He rubbed his fingers in small circles along your upper back. When he became conscious of what he was doing he pulled back, ashamed and nervous by the electricity that seemed to flow between his skin and yours although barred by cloth. You whined a little and Gale cocked his brows, “What?”

You turned and as your gaze locked with Gale he drowned. Oh. He was jolted by the flash of profound need and emotion that coiled through him. Every part of him felt aflame and he worried that it was his end, that the orb was at last collapsing in on itself. Yet, as he remained next to you in the thickening silence, he realized it wasn’t the orb at all. When you spoke, Gale thought surely this was the moment he was becoming a mindflayer, a wicked dream to lull one as they succumbed to the parasite. “I.. .can you do that again?”

“Gladly.” Gale shyly returned his fingers to your back and as you leaned into his touch, Gale knew it was not longer a matter of if, but when. As you leaned farther, you almost rested in his shoulder and his throat closed. He swallowed hard and tried to steady his body and mind, every cell quaking with anticipation and overstimulation.

He inhaled. Temptation. You smelled like rain or fresh cut grass. You smelled like home. It was when you leaned into him, he was certain he forgot how to formulate a thought. Your head nestled against his neck and your side pressed into his. He wondered if the quaking was from your body or his. He dared not move, frozen as if Tara had fallen asleep on his lap.

The pain that coursed from Gale’s chest through his veins was almost enough to send Gale back to camp. The undue excitement made the orb restless. Agitated. He was both grateful and nostalgic when you pulled away and sat up. “Thank you, for that. Let’s get back to camp. I don’t want the others to worry.” You smiled at Gale and it seared into the crevices of his mind, a look he would capture a thousand more times and it would never sate him. You gave his hand a squeeze and then stood, offering your hand to Gale’s with a cheeky grin. “Here, I’d hate for you too put too much strain on those creaky knees of yours.”

Gale’s hearty laugh took him by surprise and he took your hand and stood with a grunt. “A wizard is useless without his knees, shame on you for poking fun at their fragility.” Gale chased the feeling of you, of this closeness and realized that, even before his isolation he had never met a person quite like you. Gale would have stood there in stunned desire forever had you not taken his hand to guide him forward, the movement breaking the trance and he pulled his sweaty palm from yours, embarrassed. He wiped them on his shirt and followed you back, his heart and head swimming with the idea of kissing you.

#gale dekarios #bg3 #bg3 gale #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #gale #gale of waterdeep #bg3 brainrot #gale x you #gale x reader #gale fluff #gale angst #gale yearning #bg3 fanfic #bg3 fanficiton #gale fanfiction #bg3 gale fanfiction #bg3 gale fanfic

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Dow promised to turn sneakers into playground surfaces, then dumped them in Indonesia

Dow Chemicals plastered Singapore with ads for its sneaker recycling program, promising to turn old shoes into playground tracks. But the shoes it collected in its “recycling” bins were illegally dumped in Indonesia. This isn’t an aberration: it’s how nearly all plastic recycling has always worked.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/career-criminals/#fool-me-twice-three-times-four-times-a-hundred-times

Plastic recycling’s origin story starts in 1973, when Exxon’s scientists concluded that plastic recycling would never, ever be cost-effective (#ExxonKnew about this, too). Exxon sprang into action: they popularized the recycling circular arrow logo and backed “anti-littering” campaigns that blamed the rising tide of immortal, toxic garbage on peoples’ laziness.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/14/they-knew/#doing-it-again

Remember the campaign where an Italian guy dressed like a Native American shed a single tear as he contemplated plastic litter? Funded by the plastic industry, as a way of shifting blame for plastic waste from the wealthy, powerful corporations who lied about plastics recycling to the individuals who believed their lies:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-indian-crying-environment-ads-pollution-1123-20171113-story.html

When I was a kid in Ontario, we had centralized, regulated, reusable bottle depots — beer and soda bottles came in standard sizes, differentiated by paper labels that could be pressure-washed off. When you were done with your bottle, you returned it for a deposit and it got washed and returned to bottlers to be refilled again and again and again.

After intense lobbying from soda companies, brewers and the plastic industry, that program was replaced with curbside “blue boxes” that promised to recycle our plastic waste. 90% of the plastics created has never been — and will never be — recycled. Today, the plastic industry plans on tripling the amount of single-use plastic in use worldwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/26/plastic-fatalistic/#recycled-lies

You know those ads from companies like Bluetriton (formerly “Nestle Waters”) that promise that your single-use plastic bottles are “100% recyclable…and can be used for new bottles and all sorts of new, reusable things?”

Bluetriton is a private equity-backed rollup that has absorbed most of the bottled water companies you’re familiar with, including Poland Spring, Pure Life, Splash, Ozarka, and Arrowhead. When they were sued in DC for making false claims about their “recyclable” water-bottles, their defense was that these were “non-actionable puffery.” According to Bluetriton, when it described itself as “a guardian of sustainable resources” and “a company who, at its core, cares about water,” it was being “vague and hyperbolic.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/26/plastic-fatalistic/#recycled-lies

With this high standard for plastic recycling, Dow’s Singapore scam shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it seems to have surprised the government of Singapore. Writing for Reuters, Joe Brock, Yuddy Cahya Budiman and Joseph Campbell describe how they caught Dow red-handed:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-plastic-dow-shoes/

The method is actually pretty straightforward: Reuters hid tracking devices in cavities in the soles of sneakers, dropped them in one of Dow’s collection bins, and then followed them. The shoes were passed onto Dow’s subcontractor, Yok Impex Pte Ltd, who sent them hopping from island to island throughout Indonesia, until they ended up in junk-markets.

Not all the shoes, though — one pair was simply moved from Dow’s collection bin to a donation bin at a Singaporean community center. Of the 11 pairs that Reuters tracked, not one ended up at a recycling facility. So much for Dow’s slogan: “Others see an old shoe. We see the future.”

Dow blamed all this on Yok Impex, but didn’t explain why its “recycling” program involved a company whose sole trade is exporting used clothing. Dow promised to cancel its deal with Yok Impex, but Yok Impex’s accountant told Reuters that the deal would be remain in place until the end of the contract. Yok Impex, meanwhile, shifted the blame to the low-waged women who sort through the clothing donations it takes in from across Singapore.

Indonesia bans bulk imports of used clothes, on the grounds that used clothes are unhygenic, displace the local textiles industry, and shipments contain high volumes of waste that ends up in Indonesian incinerators, landfills and rivers.

In other words, Singaporeans thought they were saving the planet by putting their shoes in Dow bins, but they were really sending those shoes on a long journey to an unlicensed dump. Dow enlisted schoolchildren in used-shoe collection drives, making upbeat videos that featured students like Zhang Youjia boasting that they “contributed 15 pairs of shoes.”

Dow does this all the time. In 2021, Dow’s “breakthrough technology to turn plastic waste into clean fuel” in Idaho was revealed to be a plain old incinerator:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling/

Also in 2021, in India, a Dow program to “use high-tech machinery to transform the [plastic from the Ganges] into clean fuel” was revealed to have ceased operations — but was still collecting plastic and promising that it was all being turned into fuel:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-plastic-insight-idUSKBN29N024

Dow operates a nearly identical “shoe recycling” program in neighboring Malaysia, and did not return Reuters’ requests for comment as to whether the shoes collected for “recycling” in the far more populous nation were also being illegally dumped offshore.

The global business lobby loves the idea of “personal responsibility” and its evil twin, “caveat emptor.” Its pet economists worship the idea of “revealed preferences,” claiming that when we use plastic, we may claim that we don’t want to have our bodies poisoned with immortal, toxic microplastics, that we don’t want our land and waters despoiled — but we actually love it, because otherwise we’d “vote with our wallets” for something else.

The obvious advantage of telling people to vote with their wallets is that the less money you have in your wallet, the fewer votes you get. Companies like Dow have used their access to the capital markets (a fancy phrase for “rich people”) to gobble up their competitors, eliminating “wasteful competition” and piling up massive profits. Those profits are laundered into policy — like replacing Ontario’s zero-waste refillable bottle system with a “recycling” system that sent plastics to the ends of the Earth to be set on fire or buried or dumped in the sea.

The ruling class’s pet economists have a name for this policy laundering: they call it “regulatory capture.” Now, when you hear “regulatory capture,” you might think about companies that get so big that they are able to boss governments around, with the obvious answer that companies need to be regulated before they get too big to jail:

https://doctorow.medium.com/small-government-fd5870a9462e

But that’s not how elite economists talk about regulatory capture: for them, capture starts with the very existence of regulators. For them, any government agency that proposes to protect the public from corporate fraud and murder inevitably becomes an agent of the corporations it is supposed to rein in, so the only answer is to eliminate regulators altogether:

https://doctorow.medium.com/regulatory-capture-59b2013e2526

This nihilism lets rich people blame the rest of us for their sins: “if you didn’t want your children to roast or freeze to death in the climate emergency, you should have sold your car and used the subway (that we bribed your city not to build).”

Nihilism is contagious. Think of the music industry: before Napster, 80% of the music ever recorded was not for sale, banished to the scrapheap of history and the vaults of record companies who paid farcically low sums to their artists.

During the File Sharing Wars, listeners were excoriated for failing to pay for music — much of which wasn’t for sale in the first place. But today, fans overwhelmingly pay for Spotify, a streaming service that notoriously pays musicians infinitesimal sums for their work.

Spotify is a creature of the Big Three labels — Sony, Universal and Warner — who own 70% of all the world’s recorded music copyrights and 65% of all the world’s music publishing. The rock-bottom per-stream prices that Spotify pays were set by the Big Three. Why would the labels want less money from Spotify?

Simple: as co-owners of Spotify, they make more money when Spotify pays less for music. Musicians have a claim on the money they take out of Spotify as royalties — but dividends, buybacks and capital gains from Spotify are the labels’ to use as they see fit. They can share that bounty with some artists, all artists, or no artists.

Not only that, but the Big Three’s deal with Spotify includes a “most favored nation” clause, which means that the independent artists who aren’t under Sony/UMG/Warner’s thumb have to take the rock-bottom rate the Big Three insisted on — likewise the small labels who compete with the Big Three. The difference is that none of these artists and small labels have massive portfolios of Spotify stock, nor do they get free advertising on Spotify, or free inclusion on hot Spotify playlists, or monthly minimum payouts from Spotify.

The idea that we shop at the wrong kind of monopolist in the wrong way is a recipe for absolute despair. It doesn’t matter whether you listen to music with the Big Tech-owned monopoly service (Youtube) or the Big Content-owned monopoly service (Spotify). The money you hand over to these giant companies goes to artists the same way that the sneakers you put in a Dow collection bin goes to a recycling plant.

Think of the billions of human labor hours we all spent washing and sorting our plastics for a recycling program that didn’t exist and will never exist — imagine if we’d spent that time and energy demanding that our politicians hold petrochemical companies to account instead.

At the end of Break ’Em Up, Zephyr Teachout’s outstanding 2020 book on monopolies, Teachout has some choice words for “consumerism” as a theory of change. She writes that if you’re on your way to a protest against a new Amazon warehouse but you never make it because you waste too much time looking for a mom-and-pop stationers to sell you a marker to write your protest sign, Amazon wins:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

The problem isn’t that you shop the wrong way. Yes, by all means, support the creators and producers you care about in the way that they prefer, but keep your eye on the prize. Structural problems don’t have individual solutions. The problem isn’t that you have chosen single-use plastics — it’s that in our world everything for sale is packaged in single-use plastics. The problem isn’t that you’ve bought a subscription to the wrong music streaming service — it’s that labels have been allowed to buy all their competitors, creators’ unions have been smashed and degraded, and giant accounting scams by big companies generate minuscule fines.

The good news is that after 40 years of despair inducing regulatory nihilism and “vote with your wallet” talk, we’re finally paying attention to systemic problems, with a new generation of trustbusting radicals working around the world to end corporate impunity.

Dow is a repeat offender. A repeat, repeat offender. Chrissakes, they’re the linear descendants of Union Carbide, the company that poisoned Bhopal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

They shouldn’t be trusted to run a lemonade stand, let alone a “recycling” program. The same goes for Big Tech and Big Content company and the markets for creative labor. These companies have repeatedly demonstrated their unfitness, their habitual deception and immorality. These companies have captured their regulators, repeatedly, so we need better regulators — and weaker companies.

The thing I love about Teachout’s book is that it talks about what we should be demanding from our governments — it’s a manifesto for a movement against corporate power, not a movement for “responsible consumerism.” That was the template that Rebecca Giblin and I followed when we wrote Chokepoint Capitalism, our book about the brutal, corrupt creative labor market:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

We have a chapter on Spotify (multiple chapters, in fact!). For our audiobook, we made that chapter a “Spotify Exclusive” — it’s the only part of the book you can get on Spotify, and it’s free:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing

Next Thu (Mar 2) I’ll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who’s-who of European and US trustbusters. It’s livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free. On Fri (Mar 3), I’ll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival.

[Image ID: A woman kneeling to tie her running shoe. She stands on a background of plastic waste. In the top right corner is the logo for Dow chemicals. Below it is the Dow slogan, 'Others see an old shoe. We see the future.']

#pluralistic

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homonationalist · 6 months

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The point that I’m making is that while racist police violence, particularly against Black people, has a very long history, going back to the era of slavery, the current context is absolutely decisive. And when one examines the ways in which racism has been further reproduced and complicated by the theories and practices of terrorism and counterterrorism, one begins to perhaps envision the possibility of political alliances that will move us in the direction of transnational solidarities. What was interesting during the protests in Ferguson last summer was that Palestinian activists noticed from the images they saw on social media and on television that tear-gas canisters that were being used in Ferguson were exactly the same tear-gas canisters that were used against them in occupied Palestine. As a matter of fact, a US company, which is called Combined Systems, Incorporated, stamps “CTS” (Combined Tactical Systems) on their tear-gas canisters. When Palestinian activists noticed these canisters in Ferguson, what they did was to tweet advice to Ferguson protesters on how to deal with the tear gas. They suggested, among other things: “Don’t keep much distance from the police. If you’re close to them, they can’t tear gas,” because they would be teargassing themselves. There was a whole series of really interesting comments for the young activists in Ferguson, who were probably confronting tear gas for the first time in their lives. They didn’t necessarily have the experience that some of us older activists have with tear gas. I’m trying to suggest that there are connections between the militarization of the police in the US, which provides a different context for us to analyze the continuing, ongoing proliferation of racist police violence, and the continuous assault on people in occupied Palestine, the West Bank, and especially in Gaza, given the military violence inflicted on people in Gaza this past summer.

Angela Davis from "Transnational Solidarities" in Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (2016)

#angela davis #freedom is a constant struggle #palestine #ferguson #reading

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momowritings · 3 months

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A Lesson in French

Pairing: Toji Fushiguro x Reader x Kento Nanami

Rating: 19+ MDNI

Wd ct: 5k

tags: threesome, married couple plus one, bottom Toji, anal, face riding, blowjobs, anal, lowkey brat taming, come eating, uhhh let me know if I forgot anything

Preview :

Nanami pressed his lips to Toji, letting the wine fall out and into Toji’s mouth. Toji let out a low groan, and you watched as the sticky red substance escaped the corner of their mouths as down their chins. You used your thumb to gather the wine on Toji’s face and licked it clean, then tapped Nanami’s jaw.

“It means threesome. You got ahead of yourself there, Ken. Try not to swallow my man...."

~~~

“Je’n connais pas,” you mumbled into the phone. Toji had a growing frown behind you but your back was turned to him.

“Vin rouge ou blanc?” You asked into your phone again.

Toji grumbled under his breath. “You could ask me something.”

Your eyes darted over to him, a smile creeping on your face. You went over to his side giving him a peck on the cheek. “Mon cœur, arrête de froncer les sourcils.”

He gave you a hard stare yet you blinked so sweetly at him he couldn’t really be mad at you. “I don’t know if you know, but I still can’t understand you.”

“I already have wine, but if you insist on bringing it, get something red. It will pair well with what I have in mind,” Nanami spoke up louder from your phone. Toji’s scowl deepened from the sound of his voice, making you place your finger down the center of his brows to flatten the wrinkles. You held the phone closer to your mouth, still massaging Toji’s face before giving him a peck on the cheek.

“And what may that be?”

“One of your favorites. À plus tard,” he said curtly then hung up. You stuffed your phone back into your purse and held up two different wines to Toji.

“You said you wanted me to ask you, right?”

He pointed to the one in your left hand, which you nodded to contently. He doesn’t know shit about wine so he chose the fancier looking one. He saw that it was yet another French brand too late and almost asked you to put it back until he saw you nodded contently. You held it in your arms, strolling down the aisle while Toji tried to talk you out of your plans.

“Do we have to have dinner with him? We can just stay in tonight.”

“You’re starting to sound like me,” you smirked. “We always stay in.”

“Where’s my baby that has her nightly routine done by 9pm, rubbing her feet under the covers to sleep?”

“Getting excited to eat at our very lovely friend’s house for dinner with, ma cherie. We already agreed to it,” you reminded him.

Toji ignored the way that he actually liked the French pet names for him. The stupid, lopsided grin he felt growing on his face would have to be stifled for the sake of the argument.

“Say I got sick.”

“You’re as healthy as a horse.”

“ You got sick.”

“I was just on the phone with him, he’s not gonna believe that.”

Toji let out an annoyed huff of air. It’s not that Toji didn’t like Nanami. He got along with him just fine… for your sake. Sure, he got a little lost when he was around Nanami and you at the same time because your conversations would move a thousand miles per minute, jumping from topics that required years of context. You told him that you and Nanami had known each other since college, finding yourself in the same classes multiple times over that you two decided to be study buddies until you realized that you liked each other’s company outside of class too. With Nanami you were able to sharpen your language skills, bouncing from Japanese, English, French, Latin and most recently Arabic. He had the uncanny ability to learn a language as quickly as you could, and it just became your “thing” together even after college, even after you got married to Toji. Once Toji saw that Nanami was going to be around much more than he liked, he tried to keep the snarky remarks to himself.

Still, there was only so much he could take.

He just never seemed to meet eye to eye with the blond man, and Nanami has always been territorial over his friends. He didn’t give everyone that title without great care, and when you started dating Toji, Nanami was not too keen on him. He didn’t know how Toji managed to catch your attention but you were genuinely happier around him, so Nanami didn’t make a fuss about it. However, it didn’t mean he had to be friends with the dark haired man. Toji could see the stiff politeness whenever he met Nanami. Toji’s hand gripped the steering wheel tighter when you left the store to go to his house.

When you both arrived at Nanami’s place you were welcomed to low jazz music floating from his hidden speakers. You were greeted with a warm smile and a short hug, but for Toji who stood behind you Nanami gave him a curt nod. You both followed Nanami inside to his kitchen where he was preparing his meal already. You liked to show up a little earlier just to help him out, so the only thing chopped were a few herbs like garlic and rosemary, and it gave you plenty of time to catch up with each other.

“This week was unbelievable. I was telling Toji on our way here that I am very close to quitting my job,” you complained.

“Do it,” Nanami shrugged. He opened his cabinets for wine glasses, grabbing three and setting them on the counter. Then he remembered you mentioning that Toji never imbibed, so he placed one glass back.

He did the same last year, quit his job, you were the first person he told about his decision. You remember the day fondly. He has been happier since then, and he has shown no interest in rejoining the corporate world.

“I told her the same shit but she’s afraid of ‘getting bored’,” Toji sighed. Finally, something Nanami and him could agree on.

“It’s a really big thing to do! I don’t know how Kenny handled it.”

“I knew the burnout from continuing would have been worse,” he said softly, and poured the wine glasses halfway. He handed you a glass first, then raised his glass up to you. “I wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to you. So listen to us for once,” he reasoned. Your fingers wrapped around the stem of the glass and you tapped your glass with his.

You looked at Toji nodding his head. “Oh what the hell. To quitting!”

Nanami laughed at your new enthusiasm. “To quitting,” he echoed. He waited for you to taste first before taking a sip of his own. You let the drink settle fully on your tongue and look down into your cup.

“C’est doux,” you hummed.

Nanami grinned and swirled his own glass. He knew you would like it. Your sweet tooth was more manageable than a certain white haired menace he knew, matching his own preferences. He could handle sweetness in doses and this was the perfect amount. “It is, isn’t it?”

Toji let out a deep sigh and Nanami raised his brow. His presence was brought back to Nanami’s attention and the annoyance settled in. Toji could at least keep the noises to himself.

“Would it kill you to try to learn a few phrases?”

“What good will French do for me?” Toji challenged.

“It won’t make you lose anything,” he shrugged.

“So it’s useless.”

You didn’t know why Toji and Nanami always acted like this when they were around each other. They could be such great friends, you could feel it. You just had to find a way to get them there.

“Look honey, just say sweet. Doux. ”

You and Nanami waited patiently for Toji to repeat it. He crossed his arms over his chest with a disapproving frown.

“No.”

“Pourquoi agit-il comme un enfant?” Nanami whispered it not-so-quietly into your ear. He didn’t need to whisper it at all as there was no way that Toji could understand what he said. It just made watching Toji’s jaw tick more amusing.

You shoved Nanami’s shoulder then swirled the glass in your hand.

“Wanna taste?”

Toji doesn’t drink. He’d rather keep a clear mind at all times for whatever might happen, but he would never say no to a drink from your lips. It was the only way he’d drink anything alcoholic.

You took another sip and curled your finger to him to get close, then pushed your lips on his. Toji crouched down to be slightly lower than your eye level, letting gravity do all the work while the wine seeped into his mouth. He moaned at the taste, or maybe at you, and his arms tightened around your waist. Once your mouth was empty you gave him one last kiss, your tongue running over the seam of his lips to catch any remnants.

“Well. What do you rate it?”

His eyes fluttered open. “It is sweet. Not bad.”

“ Doux ,” you said. You pouted that big eyed pout that broke Toji down no matter how silly the request was. It wasn’t fair to use your brown eyes like that against him and you knew it.

“Doux,” he sighed, and you rewarded him with another wine drunk kiss. He licked his lips after you pulled away, then went back in for another taste. You pushed him away when you remembered that Nanami was standing right next to you. He pretended like he couldn’t see your sickeningly sweet display of affection to each other.

“It must suck to not have somebody to do this with,” Toji said, unprovoked. You jabbed him with his elbow, taken completely by surprise by the remark, while apologizing for him to Nanami. Toji did not take back what he said, and Nanami shot daggers with him that were aiming to kill.

“I won’t be able to eat dinner like this,” you muttered. You dragged the arms of both men into Nanami’s living room. You plopped them both down on the couch, then sat on the table in front of them.

“I need you two to loosen up already. I mean, it’s been a few years already. Neither one of you is going to leave my life so we need to get rid of this attitude now .”

Nanami crossed his legs, stretching his arm over the top of the couch. Toji scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I don’t have an attitude,” Nanami said coolly.

“That’s bullshit,” you and Toji said at the same time, and it was Kento’s turn to roll his eyes. You were becoming so much like Toji. He was so sure that his dearest friend that he’s known for all these years would suddenly morph into the man sitting next to him and he would have two Toji’s to deal with. Nanami’s frown deepened at the thought.

“And you, baby. Why can’t you hang around Nanamin without looking like I’m forcing you to?”

Toji ran a weary hand down his face. “You’re not forcing me to do anything, I promise,” he sighed. “If I didn’t want to be here with you I wouldn’t be. I just think Nanami has a giant silver stick up his ass.”

“A stick up my ass,” Nanami repeated icily. “I welcome you into my home, try to feed you, and this is how you thank me?”

You tried to intervene before they got too heated. You saw Nanami put his leg back on the ground, turning his body to face your husband. “Okay, Toji that was a little–”

“I wasn’t thanking you.”

“I don’t know what she sees in you,” Nanami exasperated.

“ Kento .”

“What? He’s the complete opposite of you in every way.”

“And I love that about him. We’ve been together for too long for you to still be wishing for our downfall.”

“I’m not and will never wish for your unhappiness. Him on the other hand–”

“I’m not going any-fucking-where,” Toji stated. Nanami pinched the bridge of his nose while you let out a breathy, humourless laugh. It would be funny if Toji and Kento were doing a bit, but they were like this at any given chance. It was like dealing with children that you didn’t have the time nor want for. You sighed, patted your knees, then got up and held your hand out to Toji.

“Let’s just eat then leave. I won’t make you guys uncomfortable anymore.”

Both men protested but you gave them a silencing glare. Toji’s mouth snapped shut and Nanami mumbled something that sounded like an apology. They both looked like kicked puppies back in the kitchen, but finally they were quiet. Nanami couldn’t even coax you to speak to him in their mother language, as anything you asked him you answered in English.

Toji felt the worst of the group. After all, you were pretty excited to have dinner with him here and he felt like he had ruined the night for you. You wouldn’t look him in the eye and get everything you needed yourself, not asking him for help on anything. Toji looked at you so miserably that even Nanami felt bad.

Toji swallowed his pride, something he only did for you, and engaged in a conversation with Nanami.

“Have you ever been to France before?” He nudged Nanami as he stood over the stove, turning the sauce so the bottom wouldn’t burn. Nanami looked at you from the corner of his eyes. You feigned deep concentration at the chopping board, oblivious to their conversation.

“Yes, a few times. For work however, not pleasure.”

“I’ve never been. That’s why I don’t really see the point of learning a language I’m not going to use often. It’s more of a skill you and her have,” Toji said honestly.

“That makes sense. If there’s no motivation it would be hard to learn. You’ve been to France before, right?” Nanami turned to ask you and you shrugged.

“Yes. Twice.”

Nanami pursed his lips together. They were going to have to work a little harder but at least you were talking.

“That’s right. You took a trip right after graduation and then attended a wedding there, correct?”

You made a sound of agreement. Toji scratched the back of his head hopelessly.

“I will say Toji, French is pervasive. There’s French influence everywhere so you probably know a lot more of it than you think.”

Nanami started listing out phrases and Toji was following along, telling him if he heard them before or not. They were doing this together, still preparing the dinner, making your heart thaw in the process. They were really getting along for your sake and it was all you ever wanted.

“A popular term is ménage à trois,” Nanami murmured. He didn’t know why he brought it up all of a sudden, but it was true nonetheless.

Immediately Toji’s eyes lit up. A wolfish grin was plastered on his face. “I know that one.”

Nanami rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Of course you do.”

“Remind me what it means again, blondie.”

You decided that now you wanted to join in on the conversation. A slow smile stretched across your face. You set the knife down on the table, carefully wiping your hands clean with a towel as you answered. “Literally? A household of three.”

Your eyes shined with a mischievous light and Toji knew that there was more to it.

“Colloquially?” Nanami brushed Toji’s hand off his face. He took a sip from his glass, maintaining eye contact with Toji and gripped his waist. Toji lurched forward, surprised by the action but he was more concerned with how close Nanami’s face was to his. Nanami gave you a look at the corner of his eyes, asking for permission, looking for rejection. You didn’t look at him yet, instead gazing at Toji who was trying to gauge your reaction. You gave him a nod, and then a look to Nanami that said he’s all yours.

“It means threesome. You got ahead of yourself there, Ken. Try not to swallow my man.”

“He was going to swallow me,” he retorted. Nanami released Toji and brushed his fingers over his lip. They had only kissed for a few seconds but they were tingling. He eyed Toji, who wrapped his arms around your waist and rested his chin on your head, seemingly unfazed. Toji’s ears told a different story. His face was as collected as ever yet they were flaming red, like they could burst to flames. Nanami wondered if he was pushed up against you to hide an erection, because Nanami was doing the same by standing so close to the counter to finish slicing his portion of vegetables.

“Toji you’re slowing me down,” you complained to the man who was still holding onto you like a koala. His arms around you shortened your range of movement, so he raised them up so they wouldn’t be blocking your elbows. You shook your head yet a smile danced on your lips. No matter how Nanami felt, Toji always brought you joy, and he was glad to see your bright smile again. Toji could be standing, doing absolutely nothing but scowling at people, and you would still gaze dreamily upon him. It was ridiculous to watch from Nanami’s point of view, yet he couldn’t stay mad at it. You were smitten with Toji and he had to accept that.

“I’m not blind, you know. It’s hard to ignore you two fucking each other with your eyes,” you commented, shocking both men. “I don’t think I want to sit through that at the table, so let’s deal with this now.”

You gazed at Nanami who doubled and tripled checked your expression to make sure he was not reading you wrong.

“You want to…?”

“If Toji wants to,” you agreed. All eyes were on Toji.

“Lead the way, cheekbones. I’ll do whatever she says.”

With that Nanami washes his hands and leads you two to his bedroom. You were right, he couldn’t imagine sitting at the dining table with the way his heart was racing in his chest and his pants getting incredibly tight. It was better to deal with this now. Get it out of his system once and for all. Whatever this was.

“Your room is exactly how I’d imagine it to be. Cold, ” Toji said pointedly once inside. Everything was neatly folded and tucked away. Dark bedding a few decorative pillows laid on the bed, and you sat down on the edge of it, already making yourself comfortable.

“You were having wet dreams about my bedroom?” Nanami raised a brow, causing the other man to scowl. You pulled Toji down to the bed next to you. Your lips tickled the outer shell of his ear when you spoke, yet your voice had a sharp edge to it that sent chills down your husband’s spine.

“You’re such a little shit tonight. What is your problem?”

Your fingernails scraped Toji’s nape and his jaw tightened. While it wasn’t intentional tonight, he liked the way you got rough with him when he was getting on your nerves.

Nanami cleared his voice. “How are we going to do this?” You and Toji’s attention snapped at him. There was a beat of silence before Toji answered.

“You’re already in front of me. How ‘bout you get on your knees?” Toji offered with a wicked smile. He had every right to decline, yet with one look at you and your bitten bottom lip Nanami felt compelled to do so. Never in a million years would Nanami think that he would be on his knees in front of Toji this way. He didn’t expect to get hard from it either.

You rubbed Toji’s shoulders as you moved to sit behind him, cheering Nanami on while he kneeled in front of the other man.

“Doesn’t Nanamin have the prettiest eyes, Toji? They’re absolutely gorgeous,” you cooed. Kento tugged at the belt holding Toji’s pants together, trying to ignore your compliments that made his ears flame. “I know how much you love brown eyes.”

He was sure that one was meant just for Toji to hear since you dropped your voice down so low, but he heard it all the same. Nanami zeroed in on the hardening length in Toji’s pants, straining to be released and took his time unzipping his pants. You whispered more obscenities in Toji’s ears while Nanami gently pulled him out of his pants. He was already leaking with precum, making the blonde man smirk.

“Something funny?” Toji asked gruffly. It’s been so long since anybody else’s hands but yours have been on Toji’s body, and the new feeling was exhilarating. Nanami dragged his tongue from the base to the tip before answering.

“Nothing in particular. Do you want me to continue?”

“Keep focus on the tip,” you mention, still behind Toji. “He’s incredibly sensitive.”

Nanami kept that in mind as he swallowed Toji’s cock. You both watched him in awe as it seemed like he had no gag reflex. Spit rolled down Toji’s length and he let out a low hiss. By habit he placed his large hand on top of Nanami’s head, barely guiding him because Toji was too worried about busting quick. The sound of Toji’s cock head hitting the back of Nanami’s throat made you want to join in on the fun.

“That’s enough, Kenny. I don’t want him to come just yet,” you purred. He didn’t hear you, his eyes were closed and he was moaning over Toji’s cock so you slipped onto the floor next to him, one hand running up his thigh to rub his erection through the fabric of his pants and the other one combed through his undercut until you got to the thick of his hair. Toji removed his hand off of his cheek so you could talk to him. You gently tugged his hair until he released Toji’s cock with a soft pop . “Enjoying yourself?”

Nanami looked at you from the corner of his eyes, breathing heavily. Your fingers on his erection made him painfully hard, his hand coming to rest on top of yours. Cum mixed with spit dripped down his chin and you collelected it with your thumb, pushing it up back into his mouth until he sucked on your digit, then you stared straight at Toji. Kento’s eyes were low and heady, making Toji ache even more. He had such long lashes and blinked slowly at him, daring him to say something. You grabbed Nanami by the chin and gave him a kiss, breaking the trance both men were in.

It wasn’t your first time kissing Nanami. It was New Years during undergrad, and you were happy and drunk and willing to kiss anybody who was within arm’s reach. Nanami just happened to be the closest. It was a drunk and clumsy kiss that led to laughter and shouting “Happy New Year” right in his ear. You only vaguely remembered it the next day, apologizing profusely to your friend who said it wasn’t a big deal.

However, this kiss was nothing like the one you two had shared those many nights ago. It was downright filthy, full of tongue and teeth, push and pull. The kiss was going to be burned in your mind forever. The fact that Toji was watching you made you put on a show, and Nanami felt the same heated eyes sweep over him. You made quick work with the buttons on Nanami’s shirt, almost popping them in your haste. Kento’s hand slipped past your waistband, gathering the arousal from your sex and fucking you leisurely with his middle finger in contrast to how ravenous he was with his mouth. Toji started to stroke himself from the scene in front of him, and immediately your eyes opened and wandered over to him. Your lips were still moving against Nanami’s, but you took Toji’s length in your free hand and he let go of himself. He watched your hand wrap around him, hissing when you thumbed his slit and you finally broke your kiss with Nanami.

Nanami’s lips went down to your neck when he no longer had access to your mouth. Your perfume was the same type of subtle sweetness of the wine he drank, intoxicating him further. He managed to remove some of your clothes in his frenzy, and he was finally able to see the delicate lace bra you were wearing that was purple. Your nipples were visible through the berry fabric and peeking over the top of the cup, your breasts threatening to spill over completely. You tilted your head down to Nanami as he left a mark on your chest.

“Help me out, Kento.” You gestured to Toji’s cock still hard in your hand. You kissed the bottom of his shaft, expecting Nanami to take care of the head.

“ Fuck .” Toji had two mouths and two different hands on his cock, all moving at different speeds but had the same goal in mind. He had no idea how he was able to hold back from cumming for so long while looking at the both of you on your knees. Sometimes you’d switch off, Nanami flattening his tongue on the underside to feel the large vein hidden there while you swirl your tongue on the head, focusing solely on his tip. Your nose would bump Nanami’s moving around, and when it happened you would share a sloppy kiss before returning to the task at hand. Toji’s balls tightened, and he gave a warning through clenched teeth.

“I’m going to cum.”

Once again Nanami was at the top, his lips sealed tight around Toji. You backed off, opting to gently stroke the base of his cock as they had their moment.

“Do not get it in my eye,” Nanami warned. His voice was husky from using his throat but you weren’t sure that Toji could actually hear him. Their stare was electric, and Nanami openly gazed at Toji when he stuck out his tongue, waiting for him to cum. You stroked Toji harder while he cursed and shouted, painting Kento’s accepting mouth and face. The ribbons of cum slowed and some spurted on Nanami’s chest. Nanami looked down on the mess made on his chest, and before he could say anything you licked it off of his body. You didn’t want any of it to go to waste and Nanami wiped the ones off of his face by scooping it off of his finger and salaciously cleaned it off.

“Take off your clothes,” you ordered when you looked back at your husband. He snapped out of his post-orgasm daze to shrug off his pants and shirt, tossing them to some corner of the room.

“We were going to have some fun when we got back home,” you shrugged when Nanami wordlessly raised his brow at the blue plug seated in Toji’s ass. He grabbed the base and turned it slowly inside of Toji, who stifled a groan deep in his chest.

“Is that why you always act like that? You need to have your attitude fucked out of you to behave?”

“Watch it, Nanamin. I could say the same about you,” you quipped. As far as you were concerned, you were the only one who could call out Toji for his brattiness.

“I’m not the one prepped and ready to go.”

“Not everybody is as vanilla as you, blondie,” Toji smirked. “You should try it someday. It would help that stick in your ass that I was talking about.”

“All you have to do is ask, Kenny,” you whispered in his ear. Your hand ran down his back, feeling the small of his waist and then cupped his ass. “Either one of us can make you feel good, I promise.”

The offer was tempting, especially coming from your lips. Your fingers made mindless shapes on his skin, making his heart race.

“I believe you,” he breathed.

A small smile formed on your lips. “Good. Next time, alright? Let’s not keep my baby waiting.” You kneeled beside Toji on the bed, taking his mouth to tongue him down, leaving Nanami to his devices.

He watched the scene in front of him, you stroking Toji and your mouth melded in his. Nanami’s fingers grazed over his lips, remembering how yours felt while he grabbed a condom. He pulled the plug out of Toji, taking a moment to view how ready he was, and more blood went straight to Nanami’s cock. He slowly eased himself in Toji’s entrance, pulling back when only the tip entered just to annoy the other man. Toji’s eyes opened to glare at Nanami, then he hooked his leg around his waist, dragging him down and closer. Kento’s hands braced themselves on both sides of Toji’s body, his length going deeper inside of him as he tried to hold himself up.

“So fucking impatient,” Nanami growled. He pushed the rest of his cock in Toji who moaned loudly in your lips. His teeth dug into your lips, and your free hand found its way to the apex of your thighs, circling your own bud from heated desire. Nanami held nothing back from Toji, fucking him with all the roughness your husband craved. Toji’s eyes rolled to the back of his head when Nanami put his leg over his shoulder to reach the end of him.

“F-fuck, Kento,” he bit out. Nanami was fucking him like he had something to prove, and Toji was feeling it in his guts. Your hand on his cock only heightened his sensitivity. Then, in his brief moment of clarity, Toji coaxed you to sit on his face. There was no reason for you to get yourself off when his mouth was free, and it would help him to stop drooling over Nanami’s mind breaking strokes.

You straddled yourself over Toji’s face and he wrapped his arms around your thighs to hold you closer. His nose teasingly nudged your clit, causing you to double over. You splayed your hands over his stomach and gyrated your hips on his tongue.

Your hands roamed your own body until reaching your chest. Surprisingly your bra was still on, but the cups were pulled down under your bust and you tweaked your own nipple. You were too caught up in the feeling of Toji’s tongue fucking you to take it off completely. Toji who knew exactly what you needed stretched his arm to twist your other nipple.Your moans were not the only ones that could be heard in the room. Nanami gave soft grunts as he fucked Toji, and all of Toji’s noises were muffled by your sex. You grabbed Toji’s wrist and urged him to grab your whole breast tightly. With your head thrown back you wished he could put his hands around your neck instead. You were grazing your throat when your eyes fluttered open, staring up at the ceiling before jerking from Toji’s hands. He rubbed fast circles on your clit that choked you up. You drew ragged breaths that made Nanami swing his hips faster, matching the cadence of your moans. The legs around Toji’s head queened tighter as you rapidly approached your climax, but he chased that high as if it was his own. His tongue skillfully chipped away at your sanity.

“Ke-Kento,” you whined, begging him for help. Not that he’d want to in this situation. His body drifted towards your voice, and you stretched across to meet his mouth again. Your hands balanced yourself on Toji’s stomach again, grabbing his cock to stroke him quickly. You and Nanami shared breaths, your mouth grazing over each other’s before kissing again. Toji’s moans prompted yours, leading to Nanami biting your bottom lip. Every emotion was felt between all three of you, currents of energy jumping from one person to the next. Nanami wasn’t fucking you, but he might as well have been from all the noise you were making.

You snapped first. You broke the connection of your lips from Nanami’s, throwing your head back to ride out your high on Toji’s tongue. Kento watched you unravel with hearts in his eyes. Your fingers left angry red marks on Toji’s wrists, as you tried to hold his hands while you spiraled down. Toji tightened dangerously around Kento, and despite his will not to Kento came the same time he did. Nanami filled the condom, and Toji painted his own stomach and chest with come for the second time of the night. Muffled curse words shuddered through clenched teeth left everyone’s mouth. You fell to your side in a heap, your head resting next to Toji’s knee as you tried to catch your breath. Nanami had just enough strength to pull out and take off his condom before collapsing on top of Toji. He’d worry about the sticky mess he’s lying on top of later. When your eyes fluttered open to see Toji’s arm thrown over Nanami’s back you let out a breathy giggle.

Toji spoke first. “Is dinner still going to happen or…”

Nanami scowled, pinching his thigh and your giggles turned into full on laughter.

“All you do is take,” Kento grumbled. Toji gave his ass a playful slap in response.

“I guess you two can never really change, but this was a much needed first step,” you snorted. “But seriously, when are we going to eat, Kenny?”

One would think you meant food. That’s what came out of your mouth, but your eyes hungrily swept over Nanami.

“Vacuums. You both are vacuums.”

#minimoe #momowritings #black fem reader #x black reader #jjk #toji fushiguro #toji x reader #jjk toji #nanami kento x reader #nanami kento #nanami x reader #nanami smut #jjk nanami

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superlarva · 9 months

Text

They sat like that for some time.

Finally, here's Chapter 7 - Nightmare of Raising Dominoes! Sorry it took so long to post! Traveling's a pain.

Prologue: 00 Previous chapter: 06 Next chapter: 08

Summary: Rex and Cody meet up to go over some important information late at night. Fives has a nightmare.

CW: Child abuse (in a dream, but still), nightmares

^Please be careful, friends. The first part of this chapter could be distressing to some. I put a thing like this:

~~~~~

where the dream ends, so if you want to skip it, just scroll down until you see that.

Chapter 7 - Nightmare

The man slammed the car door, cutting Fives off from the loud argument outside the apartment building’s entrance. He could not hear what Rex was saying anymore, but he seemed mad. He was trying to push past some of the men, but they grabbed him and held him back, away from the car.

One of the men got into the driver’s seat and the car roared to life. As they began to drive away, Fives tried to turn to see Rex one last time, but the seat belt was constricting him. He could not move, not even an inch. It was pulled taught. He strained against the belt. Pulled against it. Tried to wriggle out. But it just dug into his skin deeper.

It hurt.

He let it hurt.

He wanted to see Rex.

Fives knew where he was being taken soon as he heard the first drop of rain hit the windshield. Kamino. White halls. Cold, hard beds. Ration bars.

Home.

He was going home.

Mom was nice as the men had handed him over. She smiled and hugged him and talked about getting him something nice and warm to eat. He knew as soon as the door slid shut behind them and the men were out of sight she would be frowning and hitting and yelling.

Fives stepped into the house and screwed his eyes shut. He jumped at the sound of his mom slamming the door.

Fives sat in the room he had shared with his brothers. They were all gone now, even Echo. He felt like he should be more sad than he was.

He was scared.

He wanted to go back to Rex’s apartment.

Fives could hear yelling from down the hall. That was odd, his mom did not normally have company. He climbed down from his bunk to listen at the door.

He could hear her voice clearly, although the words were too faint to distinguish. The other voice he also recognized and with a start he opened the door and ran down the hall towards it.

Rex had come!

Rex was here!

He was going to take him back and make everything all better.

But what if he didn’t?

No, he would. He was nice.

Was he really?

Suddenly Fives couldn’t quite remember.

He peaked around the corner to see his mom and Rex standing in the training room. He had heard them arguing, but now they were not speaking to each other at all. Both faced away from him.

Fives crept closer and softly called out to Rex. The man did not turn around. Fives pulled on the sleeve of his jacket, “Rex?”

Rex yanked his hand away and whirled around, face contorted in disgust, “Don’t touch me!”

Fives stumbled back, surprised, “I- I-”

“What did you think?” His mom turned to face him as well. She wore the same disgusted expression as Rex, “You thought he came here for you? You thought he cared about you? You? CT-5555? You’re just a failure. A failed experiment. You mean nothing.”

Fives looked over to Rex, “I-I’m s-s-sorry.”

“You’re suh-suh-sorry?” Rex mocked, a smirk spreading across his face.

Fives took a step back. Rex was supposed to be nice. This wasn’t right!

Rex stepped forwards and leaned down so his face was inches from Fives’s, “You’re a waste of space. You and CT-1409 should have died that day with the other three. I don’t want you.”

Fives turned and ran, but Rex grabbed his arm before he could escape the room. Rex yanked Fives back towards him so they were face to face again and sneered, “You really thought you could get away that easily?”

Rex was holding his arm so tightly that Fives thought if he squeezed any more it might pop off.

Fives’s mom knelt down next to him and poked his thigh, grinning, “You know, if we chop off his legs, he won’t be able to get away at all.”

Fives looked to Rex for help, but Rex was already pulling a long knife from his pocket and eyeing his legs.

“N-no!” Fives protested, trying to wriggle out of Rex’s grip.

“Calm down, sweetheart,” His mother said, petting his shoulder and sending shivers up his spine. “You’ll be just like your brother. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? To be just like your brothers?”

“No! No!” Fives looked frantically from his mom to Rex, trying to find any spark of the man he had first met only a few days earlier, but there was nothing comforting in Rex’s face. His skin stretched and sagged to make room for his wicked grin. The proportions bordered on inhuman.

It was not Rex; it could not be. Not the real one. Fives screwed his eyes shut and began to scream.

He screamed for Rex, for Echo, for Cody.

For anyone.

~~~~~

“Fives?”

Someone was shaking his shoulders. He was lying down now. He vaguely wondered if they had tied him to a table, but he was lying on something soft. He wanted to see where he was—he was so confused—but he did not want to open his eyes just to see Rex’s twisted face glaring back at him. He trembled.

The shaking stopped.

“Fives?” The voice asked again. It had a tremor in it almost as if it was scared. “Are you awake now?”

The voice sounded like Rex’s, and it sent a shiver down Fives’s spine.

“Cody,” The voice said softly, “Could you get the extra blanket from the closet?”

Fives laid stone still. Cody and Rex. Not mom and Rex. Had he been sleeping? Had it just been a dream?

He felt a hand run through his hair, smoothing it back, away from his forehead. Rex’s voice asked if he was awake again and Fives relented with a small nod.

The bed dipped as what Fives assumed was Rex—although he refused to open his eyes—sat on the edge, “Bad dream?”

Fives gave another small nod.

“We heard you calling out for us.”

Steps began to approach the bed and Fives tensed.

“That’s just Cody with another blanket,” Rex’s voice said as Fives felt the blanket being placed over him. “Is that better?”

“Mm-hmm,” Fives finally managed as the footsteps faded away.

“Do you want to open your eyes? It’s just me—just Rex.”

Fives cracked an eye open, half expecting to see the Rex from his dream hovering over him. Instead, he was met with a head of short curly hair bathed in golden light flooding in from the open doorway into the hallway, kind brown eyes, and a face wracked with worry.

Fives let out a shaky breath and opened both eyes fully, “R-Rex?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Are- are you real?” Fives reached up to touch Rex’s face.

Rex did not flinch away and did not look at him in disgust. He instead smiled and allowed Fives to prod at his cheek, “As real as you are.”

Fives let his arm fall back down onto the sheets, satisfied that he was no longer dreaming.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rex asked softly.

Fives turned away and curled up, hugging his T-rex plush to his chest, “No, I’m fine. I’ll b-be quiet now. I’m s-sorry.”

Rex sat down heavily next to Cody at the kitchen table. The table was littered with papers and informational pamphlets. Before he and Cody had heard Fives screaming out for help, they had been going over the documents provided to them about the twins and had been signing the boys up for school, doctor’s appointments to get their vaccines, and therapy.

Cody crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back, “How is he?”

Rex shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, sighing, “He wanted to be left alone. Didn’t want to talk about it.”

“You know it’s not your fault, right?”

Rex looked up at his older brother desperately, “Of course it’s my fault! He’s terrified of me!”

Cody reached out and laid a reassuring hand on Rex’s shoulder, “He’s not scared of you, just scared of what he thinks you might do. He just met you and you know he’s had bad parental figures in the past. It’ll just take time.”

Rex nodded, but there was still a deep sadness in his eyes.

“Besides,” Cody continued, “When I saw you guys this morning at the hospital, you were thick as thieves. I think he trusts you.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, I do. I mean, when he was yelling our names, yours was the first he called for.”

Rex’s eyes scanned over the table and landed on the boys’ birth certificates, “Heck Cody, do you think she really called him that?”

“CT-5555?” Cody clarified before his eyes fixed on a point over Rex’s shoulder and he went white as a sheet.

Rex’s heart dropped, landing in his gut, as he turned to see a tiny hand disappear from around the corner of the hallway.

“Fives?” Rex bolted from the chair to reach the boy’s retreating figure.

Fives was wrapped in a blanket and in his haste to get back into Rex’s room, he tripped over the edge that was dragging on the ground and fell to the floor with a loud thwack. Rex quickly covered the distance between them and knelt down next to the boy.

Fives was silent for moment before he started wailing loudly, curling up into a ball on the floor. Rex looked back to Cody who was hovering uncertainly a few feet away, face still drained of color.

Cody met his eyes, a reassuring calmness spreading across his face, and slowly sank down next to the sobbing boy, “That looked like it hurt.”

Cody’s voice was gentle, and Fives let out a shuddering breath as he nodded in agreement.

“Yeah?” Cody asked softly, “Can you tell me where it hurts?”

“E-ev-everywhere!”

Rex grimaced, he had to give it to the kid, it probably did hurt everywhere given the massive collection of bruises and scrapes he was sporting when he had acquired him a little over 24 hours earlier.

“Okay. Do you think you can sit up for me?”

Fives acquiesced and was soon sitting with his back pressed up against the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. Tears were still running down the boy’s cheeks, but his sobs were much quieter, “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t m-mean to l-leave the- the room. I-”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Cody interrupted.

Fives turned to Cody, looking a little stunned.

“He’s right,” Rex jumped in. “You’re allowed to go anywhere in this apartment.”

Fives turned his large confused eyes on Rex.

“I mean it,” Rex said before switching gears. He needed to make sure Fives was alright after that fall, “Did you hit anything when you fell? Are you hurt?”

“N-not really,” Fives admitted, wiping a tear away with his sleeve.

“Are you more upset about what I said?” Cody asked. He looked like he already knew the answer.

A fresh wave of tears gathered in Fives’s eyes, “I’m s-scared.”

Rex and Cody exchanged a glance before Cody ventured a cautious, “What are you afraid of?”

“That you’ll- that you’ll b-be just l-like m-m-mom!” Fives cried before hiding his face behind his knees.

Rex scooted forward and wrapped Fives in a tight hug, “If I ever do anything she did to you, you let me know and I’ll stop. I promise.”

Fives hugged Rex back and sobbed into his shirt.

They sat like that for some time.

At one point Cody got up and returned with a glass of water and a box of tissues. Fives seemed content to cry into Rex’s shirt, but Cody was eventually able to coax him into blowing his nose a could times and taking a few sips of water.

After the boy calmed down a little Rex decided they needed to clarify a few things.

“Fives?” Fives sniffled in response, and Rex continued, “First off, do you want me to call you Fives? Because you’re not a number. If you want, we can change your name. Change it to anything you want.”

Fives was silent for a moment before turning his head to the side against Rex’s shirt so he could speak, “I-I don’t like CT-5555, b-but I- I like F-Fives.”

Rex glanced over to Cody, then back at the boy, “So, we should call you Fives?”

Fives nodded, “Fives is what Eh-Echo calls me.”

“Okay,” Rex said softly, trying not to let his heart shattering into a million pieces for his boys show in his voice, “Next, it is very important that you understand that I will not let anyone take you back to her.”

Fives took a breath, “I- I don’t have to- to go back?”

“No, never.”

“Really?”

“I think you and Echo are stuck with me.”

Fives was silent for a moment and Rex’s heart sunk. What if he’d ruined it already and Fives did not want to stay with him? Suddenly Fives shifted his head up to look at him, his chin digging into Rex’s sternum. The boy’s face was full of hope, “Forever?”

Rex smiled, “For as long as you want.”

@marierg @stressed-cherry @ffdemon @renton6echo @bambambunny @tearfulsolace @rndmpeep @brokenphoenix99 @nerdy-valkyrie @xylionet @tazmbc1 @eyayah123 @the-bad-batch-baroness @sarcastic-nebula @ihaventpickedausername @sexysmeagolshitposting @emma-1409

#I almost cut this chapter from the story #I still think I could have #But IDK #I figure there's no harm in posting it #the clone wars #tcw #clone wars #arc trooper echo #arc trooper fives #clone trooper echo #clone trooper fives #captain rex #commander cody #domino twins #baby dominos #superlarva

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lesbiandanhowell · 14 days

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i know you all follow me for my silly fandom thoughts and the occasional big brain idea, but this one is important to me so if you have a minute PLEASE READ

the last four years have been the absolute worst years of our lives for my family and it's been tragedy after tragedy and now medical expenses have gone beyond what's doable for us alone.

my cousin has started a campaign to help her and her husband continue living and caring for their kids after she was paralyzed waist down during the birth of their twin babies

so far they've been able to get money through health insurance programs but it won't be extended beyond april 28th so they are desperate for help

please donate if you are able to or help with a reblog, thank you!

as the page is in german i've summarized and translated the pages description:

Julia and her husband Christopher are parents of a 4 year old son and discovered the joyful news to be pregnant again last year, with twins!

Both babies developed perfectly and in the 38th week Julia goes to the hospital with contractions. Having good experiences with an epidural during the birth of her first son, Julia asks for an epidural, which is when things start to go wrong.

She feels sudden pain, like being electrocuted in her right leg and begins to feel numb, unable to move any part of her lower body. At this point one of the twins heart sounds create concern and the decision for an emergency c-section is made.

After waking up from surgery Julia has three healthy babies, but can no longer feel or move her legs.

Despite being paralyzed, fevers and endless exams she tries caring for the babies, but after two weeks the twins leave the hospital without her.

Tragedy continues when unbearable headaches, a lack of vision and consciousness prompt a CT scan that shows a Hydrocephalus, a condition in which excessive fluids in the brain cause pressure within the skull. Another emergency surgery to place a drain to relief the pressure on the brain is followed by a third surgery for placing a shunt, a permanent solution for the pressure regulation.

It is now 13/04/2024 and Julia has not been home since 06/12/2023, while her husband cares for all three kids.

So far this has been possible as Julia's father in law has been on leave from work as a domestic helper and his loss of earnings is reimbursed by the health insurance company. This funding is to be cut without any chance of extension by April 28th 2024.

Julia is still in inpatient rehab trying to regain mobility and learning to walk again, while her husband is at maximum capacity caring for two infants and a toddler.

The money goes towards providing help in continuing to employ a domestic helper, so he can concentrate on child care while Julia focuses on recovery as well as making their home wheelchair accessible.

please help if you can

#pls rb #i don't love getting personal on tumblr but this is bigger than me #please help in any way you can #sam talks #pinned #mutual aid

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tricountymov · 1 month

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#commercial mover norwalk ct #moving company mt vernon ny #movers mount vernon ny #packing services mt vernon ny #packing services mount vernon #corporate moving mt vernon ny #moving companies mt. vernon #moving companies mount vernon ny #tri-county moving & storage #tri county moving

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aplusmovingllc · 1 year

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#local moving company #moving services #east haven ct movers

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tvckerwash · 5 months

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wash being ct's best and closest friend in freelancer is so so important to me. they're the kind of friends that can stay up all night together talking and sharing stories, but they can also spend hours together in complete silence just enjoying each other's company. they share things about themselves with each other that they don't share with anyone else. ct finds a solace in wash that she's never found in anyone else; because he feels just as deeply, openly, and honestly as she does. she admires his more subtle nature, and inversely wash admires her own bold defiance. ct gets so angry with him because she's angry at herself—angry that she can't be more like him, angry that she can't tell him all of what she's learned because it's no secret that they're close and she knows that price knows she knows and and and—

so ct takes a page from wash's book, she tries her hand at speaking his language. she let's him see her making calls because she knows that he'll never turn her in, because just like her wash puts protecting those he cares about above the rules. wash is smart, so she knows that he'll understand that she's trying to protect him—to protect all of them, just like he's protecting her.

leaving them, leaving him, is a painful but necessary decision. she fights to stay for as long as she can even though she can feel price and the director closing in. she wants nothing more than to bring him with her. every time she speaks with the leader she finds herself thinking about how well he'd get along with wash, he's cryptic, melodramatic, and just a little bit paranoid in all the same ways. maybe that's why she fell in love—because he reminds her of wash without being wash, who always kept a certain level of distance from the people around him. she'd seen his service record—he'd seen so many people die over the years that he learned how to love without getting to attached; otherwise, the guilt and grief would drive him insane. ct hoped that she wouldn't become another lost friend, but if she did, she found comfort in knowing that he would be able to move forward without her.

#oops i turned what was supposed to be a fun little post into a ct character study #mine #rvb #red vs blue #agent connecticut #agent washington #i have lots of thoughts about wash and ct if anyone hasn't noticed yet lol. ct is such an underrated character and her dynamic w wash is—#very important to me #i hc that carolina gave ct's dog tags to wash in-between s10 and s11 'you were closer to her than anyone else.'#wash wears them right along with his own two pairs #he never could force himself to get rid of his unsc ones. he might not go by that name anymore but it's still a part of who he is #oh have any of yall ever seen that post that's like 'the bgc doesn't use wash's real name because they never asked what it was'?#if so hi hello i made that post on one of my old blogs and that is my stance on wash's name lol

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beautifulpersonpeach · 7 months

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Jikook has such a beautiful heartwarming strong bond. The whale/shark pic made me all warm and happy inside. The thought of them enjoying such random silly things to the fullest and always looking so happy in each others company is magic..they truly "click"

Ask 2:

hey bpp! did you see jimin's cute insta post of jk's drawing? he's so cute and he finds jk so endearing that he just had to post his baby's artwork on his IG feed 🥹

my question is i wonder if this pic is recent of from their NY/CT trip? it would make more sense if it was recent but i wanted to ask if you have any thoughts about it

Ask 3:

BPP!

Jimin posted another photo taken by a yacht. JK seems to have been with him at the time it was taken. Perhaps another photo from their trip in July?

Why is Jimin teasing us so much! Is some kind of content going to be released pretty soon?? Please give us more, Jimin!

***

Hi Anon(s)!

I mean...

Jimin has a chronic case of cutie patootie-ness and Jungkook so loves that side of him... they both play it up for each other. Jikook really are the cutest thing. I'm always happy whenever they let us in a bit to see how easy their love and friendship is. When they said they "click", for me it shows up in all the big and little ways, like finding a random cloud shark in the sky and sharing it with your 'bro'.

I have no real thoughts on it besides that tbh. It could've been taken when Jimin visited the US to support Jungkook in July, or perhaps another time - either way it doesn't change anything for me.

Because at the end of the day, jikook are always jikooking. Where and when it happens doesn't move the needle for me all that much.

Besides, Jimtober is once again upon us.

We'll all have more interesting things to be talking about very soon.

#jikook #jimin #jungkook

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jedi-lothwolf · 1 month

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Whump: The Musical Day 8: Hades Town (Deals)

Fandom: The bad Batch

Summary: When Hemlock shows his face while the batch are on a mission for Rex, Hunter and Crosshair have to deal with him. However, when he catches them, he offers a deal to Crosshair. One that will change the brothers relationship for their whole lives.

It wasn't like Crosshair wanted to hurt Hunter.

The two weren't sure how they ended up together. What they were sure of was if they wanted to survive, they had to get into the city. When the mission they had begrudgingly taken for Rex began, Crosshair was supposed to go off on his own. However the sniper had a different plan.

So maybe Crosshair did know how they ended up like this. His brother however, had no clue why Crosshair had been so insistent so when he almost shot him for appearing next to him, the first thing that came to mind was to curse him out. However, he didn't.

"Fine" he had said, "you can stay."

Crosshair didn't say a word. Instead, he just started walking.

Slowly they settled into each other's company. They talked a little bit about what had happened between them and worked though smaller problems that still lingered between them. Then, they made small talk about the past, sharing memories that stayed between the batch and the forest.

Almost forgetting the last years, they laughed as they recalled the time that they hid plastic ducks around General Kenobi's Venator and how every time they saw him, he always had one to hand back to them.

As they snickered, soldiers started to creep up on them. "Hold on" Hunter said, reaching a hand out to stop Crosshair. "Feel them?"

Grabbing his rifle, Crosshair nodded his head. They needed to get out of there before it came down to violence. Quietly, the two men started to move forward.

The two drew their weapons as soon as the first shot missed them. They returned fire and quickly realized that they needed to lose the soldiers before they caught up with them. It wouldn't end well if they didn't. Running, they tried to stay close to each other, knowing it would be easy to get lost in the forest. Blue and purple trees blended in with the dark skies. The dark blue bark didn't help.

The woods were thick but the city was thicker. The brothers never were fans of the cities. Crosshair would rather be in the mountains where he could get the best vantage point and Hunter would prefer to be in the forest. It was a less overwhelming environment.

As they approached the city, both men felt themselves become more nervous then before. It was the smell that hit Hunter first. Alcohol and sewage had a disturbing smell to them. While alcohol wasn't common, sewage sure was.

The bright lights threw off both Hunter and Crosshair. Still, they ran forward. "This way" Hunter told Crosshair, waving for him to follow his. They ran into an alley and then they ran up a fire escape.

After a while of running, they finally came down from the rooftops. Helping Crosshair down, Hunter took his hand and steadied him. They walked, cautiously through the neon streets. That's why everything smells like alcohol, body odor, and cheap perfume.

Before Hunter could say a word, he was pulled into a back alley. At first, he thought it was some random bar goer or a trafficker, but when he realized it was a clone, he felt his heart drop. Crosshair came into the alley, gun pulled and ready to shoot.

"I wouldn't." A familiar voice ran in Crosshair's ears. Hemlock. "Lower your weapon." Hunter kept fighting against the clone commando that held him in place.

Nervously, Crosshair lowered his weapon. Then Hemlock walked over to the man. The older of the brothers panicked as the scientist advanced towards his younger brother. "Don't touch him!" He yelled.

The imperial looked deep in thought for just a moment. Then he spoke, "Ct-9904, I have a, proposition."

Hunter looked personally offended by the use of Crosshair's CT number. Had it been any other case, he would have said something.

Fear sank into the experiments skin, then to through his muscles and bones. It spread until it was in his heart. "Let him go" he scowled.

"I will not be releasing him, however-" When Hemlock said however, Hunter started to feel the already existing lump in his chest grow. Something bad was about to happen, and he got the feeling it would only be to him. Hunter was okay with that.

"I have a proposition, so please, listen." Crosshair, without realizing it, started to pull his rifle closer to himself for comfort. It had been a few months since the two had seen each other. The time that had gone by, should have been a lifetime.

Now Hemlock stood only a maybe four feet in front of Crosshair. "I will let you leave, however, you can not fight for him. If you sacrifice your brother, you can leave."

"What?"

"I'm giving you a chance to leave" Hemlock closed the gap between Crosshair and him, standing maybe a foot away from him. Pushing his to his knees, the scientist grabbed his face. "you don't want to go back, do you Crosshair?"

The sniper thought he might cry. There was no way he would survive Tantiss. But could he really not fight for Hunter? The weight of the fear Crosshair carried, started to multiply. As soon as Hemlock had touched him, he had frozen. The fear made it hard to realize that commandos had grabbed him and that Hunter was screaming at them to release him.

Hunter wanted to murder Hemlock. He needed to get Crosshair away from the commandos and away from the man who had hurt him. The man tried everything. No amount of kicking, struggling, or even trying to bite the commando who held him so tightly, mattered.

"All you have to do, is leave. Stay quiet about all of this, and you'll never return to my facility. Unless" Hemlock smoothed his thumb over Crosshair's face. "You feel you should return."

That's when Hunter lost it. "Get the fuck away from him!" Failing to protect Crosshair, his youngest brother, was not an option.

The clone hated actually thinking about his opinions. After a moment, he knew he had his answers. Crosshair couldn't go back. With tears in his eyes, he looked Hemlock in the eyes for a moment before looking away. Shaking, he said "okay."

The words ran through Hunter's head. 'Okay.' He was going through with the deal. Hunter was defenseless. Hemlock removed his hand for Crosshair's face and nodded. Watching, Hunter felt betrayed. While he understood, it hurt more than he expected it to.

As soon as Crosshair was allowed to stand, he did. Hunter saw him trying to fight the fear. Still, he was hurt. The betrayal dug deep into his heart. But, he couldn't blame him.

Not being able to tell the rest, Crosshair was already trying to figure out how he was going to explain to the batch that they couldn't find him. As Hunter continued to fight, the commandos started to drag him away from the ally.

Crosshair and Hunter made eye contact. The betrayal and hurt in Hunter's eyes met with the pain and fear in Crosshair's. He looked sorry.

When Hunter was out of sight, Crosshair started to question his decision. But for now he needed to get back to the Marauder.

Part two:

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