#definitely went way too light on part B and finished in half the intended time domain but oh well lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dreamerstreamer · 3 years

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Burnout

Pairing: Dream / Clay x gn!reader

Summary: Working nonstop leaves Clay officially exhausted. Too bad he doesn’t know when to call it quits. Luckily for him, you do.

Warnings: depictions of anxiety + exhaustion + burnout

Word Count: 2.7k

A/N: this was inspired by some of my own personal experiences. please get some rest if you need it. i hope you enjoy!

Clay awoke to the sound of meowing in his ear and a paw prodding at his cheek.

Letting out a small groan, he shifted, vaguely aware that his cheek was pressed against something cold. He reached up in front of his face, his fingertips meeting soft fur. He blinked an eye open, his hand rubbing at his bleary vision. Little by little, the fogginess slowly parted to reveal Patches’ olive green eyes peering back at him. The moment his gaze met hers, she meowed, swiping at his face again.

“Stop,” he croaked, surprising himself by how dry his mouth was. Almost immediately, Patches took a step back, meowing once more at him before hopping off the table and vanishing from his line of sight.

He raised a hand to his throat, swallowing uncomfortably. Slowly, he lifted his head from the desk, taking in the sight of his desk set-up. While his monitor was dark, it was his laptop that was lighting up the cluttered mess that had become his studio. Off to his right sat his green water bottle.

Right. His water bottle had been empty for—

His eyes darted to the clock, squinting. The numbers 1:47 AM flashed back at him.

—six hours.

When did I knock out? he wondered to himself, rubbing at his temples. Two hours ago? He shook his head. Well, doesn’t matter, now. Gotta finish the new plug-in.

He reached over, nudging his mouse with his elbow. The moment his cursor moved, his monitor came to life, light flooding the dimness of his room. He squinted, shielding his eyes from the glaring brightness of the screen with the back of his hand.

His code was still open, the line having cut off in the middle, the open bracket hanging wide, waiting to be completed and closed.

He grimaced, the gears already whirring in his head as he stared at the ticking clock on his screen. He needed to have the plug-in coded by tomorrow—or, well, today—so he could send it off to George for their scheduled test run. Not to mention the video he was only halfway finished editing he wanted to upload in two days’ time.

He dragged a hand over his face, a low groan rumbling in his chest. Just then, there was another low growl, this time coming from his stomach. He glanced downward at his hoodie pocket, something sharp digging at his insides.

Well, first, it seemed like he would need some food.

He pushed back his chair and pushed himself onto his feet, wincing at the way his muscles ached. They were definitely sore from not having been used in god knows how long, now. With another sigh, he turned, pushing the door open to his studio before climbing the stairs.

It only took a few moments for him to find the kitchen. He fumbled with the light switch for a second before the room was suddenly flooded with light. He winced, slapping a hand over his eyes. “Oh god,” he muttered, his throat feeling raw, “it’s so bright.”

A few seconds later, he peeked through his fingers and lowered his hand, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the brightness. As soon as he could see clearly once more, he dragged himself over to the cabinet, pulling the door open to peer inside. Empty space stared back at him, and he frowned. We forgot to go grocery shopping.

A snack-size bag of chips and two cups of instant ramen stared back at him, almost tauntingly. After staring for another moment, he found himself pulling out one of the two cups, eyeing it dubiously before shrugging. It’ll do. Flipping open the kettle, he quickly filled it with some water before setting it to boil. As he waited, he grabbed a pair of chopsticks and tore open the cup cover, fishing out the flavour packet and tearing it open with his teeth. Just as he was pouring the flavour powder in, he heard a voice behind him.

“Clay?”

He froze, then felt something in his chest soften. He turned, mustering what energy he had to send you a smile. “Hi, [Y/N].” At the sight of your bleary eyes, his smile drooped. “You’re still awake?”

You yawned, holding a hand over your mouth. “Mhm. Hungry. I’m just grabbing a snack, that’s all.”

Behind him, the kettle whistled. He quickly removed the top, then turned back to send you a knowing look. “Me too.”

You strolled over to the cabinet he had looked through earlier, frowning as you let out a sigh. “I’ll go grocery shopping this weekend,” you murmured, reaching for the chips. “Anything you want?”

He cast a glance at the chips in your hand. ��More chips?” he offered softly. “I dunno. I haven’t really thought about it.”

You bobbed your head and pulled the bag open, immediately sticking a chip in your mouth. Clay let the sound of chips crunching fill the air as he poured the boiling water into his noodle cup, stirring absentmindedly as you quickly finished the bag. After a few moments, he eagerly raised his chopsticks to his lips, a whirlwind of flavour filling his mouth. The noodles didn’t particularly help with the dryness of his mouth or his tiredness, but at least he wasn’t hungry anymore.

The two of you ate in silence for a while. At one point, you finished the chips and threw out the bag, but he wasn’t quite paying attention. He felt his toes curl beneath him as he shifted in an effort to keep himself awake, but he could still feel the exhaustion pulling at his ankles. He wished he was asleep, he really did.

Just then, you spoke up. “Are you okay?”

He blinked, snapping out of his tired daze. “Yeah,” he mumbled in between chews. “I’m just a bit tired.”

You pursed your lips, leaning back against the counter as you eyed him up and down. “You look more than just ‘a bit tired’, Clay.”

He swallowed, averting his gaze from yours as he focused on shoveling more noodles in his mouth. His eyelids burned, weighed down by bricks made of exhaustion. “You think so?”

You didn’t answer, only staring at him for a few moments longer as he finished the cup of ramen. He didn’t even have the strength to think about the tension pervading the air. As soon as he was finished, he set the cup down, ignoring how heavy his arm felt. He felt your eyes on his as he rinsed out the empty container before tossing it in the recycling bin. He turned, your gaze locking onto his. Irritation prickled up his spine at your expression.

“What?” he said, his tone coming out harsher than he intended. A flicker of guilt ran through him, but it quickly dissolved into weariness once more. Whatever. He was tired. It didn’t matter. Right?

To his surprise, you didn’t flinch like he thought you would. Instead, you took a small step toward him, your hand reaching up and forward tentatively. Your fingers brushed against his cheekbone, and the moment your palm met his skin, he nearly melted into your touch. How long had it been since his shoulders felt so loose? He couldn’t recall.

“Clay,” you murmured, your thumb brushing over his cheek, “will you come to bed with me?”

His breath hitched. Sleeping? Now? He couldn’t afford it—even a single lick of sleep would throw him off entirely. He needed to finish his code and finish editing that video for the day after. He couldn’t just sleep, now.

He sent you a smile, hoping it didn’t look as sad as it felt. “Sorry, love, but I have a bit more work I have left to do.”

You blinked, your lips curling downward. Your frown bit into him harder than he would have liked. Slowly, you pulled your hand back from his cheek, something disappointing flashing in your gaze. “Okay,” you said quietly, turning to walk out of the kitchen. “Please go to sleep soon, though, alright?”

He nodded, but the action didn’t fully register in his head as he watched you disappear from his line of sight. Already, he missed your warmth against his face, and he had half the mind to change his mind and go to bed with you right then and there.

But the deadline hanging over his head wrapped a fraction tighter around his throat, whispering into his ear like a menace. “You don’t have time.”

Indeed, he didn’t.

Shutting the kitchen lights off, he slipped back down the stairs once more, striding back into his studio. He collapsed into his chair with a grunt, shaking his mouse as his monitor came back to life. He cracked his knuckles once before settling his hands back on the keyboard, focusing his attention back on the open bracket once more.

He wasn’t sure how much time he spent typing, opening and closing Google as he ran into bug after bug. The longer he stared at the screen, the more his brain felt like it was slowly getting the life sucked out of it. He had only completed another dozen lines of code or two when something tore him out of his focus.

“Clay.”

His thoughts came to a jarring halt in his head. He turned, spotting you leaning against the doorframe with your arms crossed over your chest. A concerned expression was plastered to your face, and he nearly fell out of his chair. “[Y/N]? Why are you still up?” His eyebrows knit together. “I thought you went to bed.”

“I sent George a text,” you said abruptly, your eyes scanning his face with a wary look, “and he said he doesn’t mind doing the test run another day.”

Clay’s mouth fell open, a wave of shock rolling over him. You... what? Swallowing, he closed it, shaking his head slightly. Just because he didn’t need to finish the code didn’t mean he still didn’t have any work to do. “I still have to finish the video—”

“You can finish that another day, too,” you suddenly said, your eyes not leaving his. He saw your fingers curl into your pyjamas. “You know your fans will love it no matter when it comes out.”

Something welled up inside of him, something hard and cold that dug straight through his bones. “B-But...”

You simply tilted your head at him, a weary look crossing your face. “But what, Clay? Is there anything else?”

He paused for a moment, a pebble of shame dropping into his stomach as he shook his head. “No,” he admitted quietly. His heart burned uncomfortably between his lungs. “But I could always get a head start on—“

“Clay,” you said sharply, not missing the way he jumped, “don’t you see what you’re doing to yourself?” You lowered your arms and your voice grew quiet, something pained flitting across your features. “This is killing you.”

He stared at you, the light of his monitor making your face glow in the dimness of his studio. As much as he tried, he couldn’t think of another rational justification for staying up. He had no other immediate tasks, no other projects he needed to work on in this moment. He had no reason to stay awake any longer.

And yet, deep down, something anxious and angry thrashed in his gut. Sleeping now just felt wrong. It was almost as though it was a crime, as though he would somehow fail if he didn’t keep working. After all, if he didn’t keep working, then what kind of creator was he?

But the longer he stared at you, taking in the sight of your pleading eyes and worried frown, he felt something else overtake him entirely. A different kind of sinking feeling settled over his shoulders, and he swallowed.

“[Y/N],” he said honestly, suddenly feeling vulnerable and very, very sad, “I’m tired.”

Your gaze softened, and he almost wanted to cry. “I know,” you said, soft and sincere.

With quiet steps, you made your way over to him, stopping just in front of him. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against your stomach as he let out a shaky breath. You didn’t move, simply raising a hand to pat his head. For a few moments, he simply leaned against you, feeling his eyes sting and burn with a mixture of fatigue and sadness. Was he really that tired?

“You put too much responsibility on your own shoulders, Clay,” you murmured, your hand leaving his head. “You’re allowed to be your own person. You’re allowed to spend time to yourself. You’re allowed to take care of yourself—you need to.”

You pulled back slightly, and he raised his head. His lungs felt like they had tied themselves into a knot in his chest, but the moment his eyes met yours, he could suddenly breathe clearly again.

“Please,” you said, “come to bed with me.”

He blinked. Then, he nodded. “Okay.”

He didn’t miss the smile that stretched across your face as you reached over to save his code, turning off his monitor. As soon as the studio filled with darkness, you slipped your hand into his, tugging him out of his chair and up the stairs. He didn’t remember walking into the bathroom, but you were suddenly shoving his toothbrush in his hand.

“I’ll wait for you in our room,” you said, “okay?”

He nodded again, still too dazed to fully comprehend anything. He only half remembered brushing his teeth, spitting out the toothpaste as he rinsed out his mouth in the sink. Before he knew it, he was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, his eyelids already drooping. You were sitting on the bed, your legs curled beneath you and the blankets pulled back for him.

The moment he stepped inside, you lifted your chin, tilting your head at him. “You done?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but cut himself off with a yawn. Wiping at his blurring vision, he nodded. “Mhm.”

The pleased grin you sent him made his heart swell with affection. “Perfect.” You patted the space in front of you. “C’mere.”

Without an ounce of hesitation, he walked forward and climbed onto the bed, settling his head back against the pillow as you pulled the sheets up over him. After a few seconds of shifting, he finally settled down, his shoulders sagging as he let the tightness seep out of his body and into the bed.

“Comfy?” you asked softly, your voice washing over him like a soothing melody.

He shifted his head slightly, his legs curling further into the warm blankets. “Very.”

He could only imagine the soft smile on your face, a fond look filling your eyes. “When’s the last time you slept before four o’clock?”

He thought for a moment. If he had the energy, he would have shrugged. “Can’t remember. Must have been a month ago, or something.”

He could hear the frown in your voice. “That’s not healthy, Clay.”

He exhaled sharply through his nose, feeling his lips curl slightly. “Probably.”

There was a slight pause, then he felt your hand in his hair. In an instant, he had melted into putty on the mattress, tilting his head slightly toward you. “You can only run on sheer passion for so long,” you murmured, dragging your fingers through his hair. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this relaxed. “People need rest. And good food. And warm hugs. And love.”

He blinked, slow and lazy. “Love?” he repeated.

You hummed. “Yeah.” Dipping your head, you pressed a kiss beside his ear, whispering, “Lots and lots of love.”

He nodded ever so subtly, his head sinking further and further into his pillow. “Love,” he whispered back, caught in a dreamlike haze.

Your fingers scratched against his scalp, and he let out a tiny sigh. “You still with me?”

“Mm,” he mumbled, “not really.”

Your hand stilled for a moment, then carried on. “Good. Go to sleep, Clay.” He could hear the soft smile in your voice. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He said something back, or at least he thought he did, but he had drifted too far to care at that point.

This was nice. He missed this.

That night, Clay fell asleep with your hands in his hair and a smile on his face—feeling warm, safe, and oh-so loved.

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hatterstan-shameblog · 3 years

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💫✨💕send this to ten bloggers you think are wonderful. keep the game going 💕✨

Have a nice day/night/dance battle with the peacocks! :D

Alright, since you are a) very cool and fun and b) you took the time to send such a lovely message, I’m going to give you a part of a fic series I started many moons ago and abandoned for other things

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Hatter Has Definitely Kissed Every Executive At Least Once And This Is How It Went: Ann Edition

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Rating: PG-13

Tags: Alcohol, shenanigans, everyone’s cutting loose, mild reluctance (but these people don’t turn down dares so y’know)

Summary: As a “team building” exercise, all of the Executives have met for a little get-together; and with alcohol and a rousing game of “truth or dare” involved, what could possibly go wrong?

“Ann,” Chisiya says, “truth or dare?”

Ann sighs. Her red-lacquered fingernails tap rhythmically against the green of a beer bottle, the glassy sound barely audible above the chatting of the half-drunk executives.

“I already told you, I’m not playing.”

“The fuck you aren’t,” Niragi snaps, grip on his rifle tightening as he downs another shot of vodka, “no skips, that’s the rule.”

“If I had to do it, you have to do it,” Keiichi offers mournfully, taking a sad sip of bourbon from a crystal-cut glass, “it’s only fair.”

Ann turns her attention towards Hatter. He’s taking a healthy swig from—ew, is that a bottle of peppermint schnapps? She wrinkles her nose in disgust as he raises his eyebrows in a suggestive arch.

“This is a terrible idea,” she tells him for the fourth time in the last hour, “and you should feel bad for making us do this.”

“Ann. Sweet, darling,” Hatter takes note of her unimpressed grimace, “angry Ann. This is all an exercise in trust. A way for all of us executives to bond.”

“And because he loves the drama,” Aguni adds.

“I really do,” Hatter says wistfully, “So, come on. One round and then you can go back to summoning demons or whatever you do in your little basement crypt.”

Ann sighs. Everyone is looking at her with expectant eyes. She finishes the rest of her beer and puts the empty bottle on the table.

“Fine,” she says, “One round, and then I’m leaving.”

“The ice queen giveth in,” Chisiya says, the corners of his mouth turning up onto a mischievous grin, “So, pick your poison. Truth...or dare?”

“Dare,” Ann says coolly, and the room erupts. Even Last Boss, who had been lurking in the corner until now, gasps. In a rare show of camaraderie, Niragi slaps Chisiya on the back and tells him to ‘give that bitch a good one.’

Imbeciles. All of them.

“Everyone gather ‘round the table,” Chisiya purrs—yes, purrs—as he looks her with a twinkle in his eye, “because this particular date involves each and every one of you.”

“Even me?” asks Last Boss.

“But of course,” Chisiya says, “we need everyone if we’re going to play...spin the bottle.”

Ann feels the blood drain from her face. Oh, this little blond twerp is despicable. He is evil and terrible and—

“No re-spins. No backing out. The kiss must last a minimum of five seconds, but it can go longer if you feel so inclined.”

“I won’t,” Ann answers curtly. There is not a person in this room she could ever want to kiss. (Except for Mira, but. Well. That’s a thought for another day.)

“I don’t know,” Niragi says with an exaggerated flick of his tongue, the silver piercing winking at her in a supposedly seductive manner, “once you get a taste of a real man, you might find yourself hooked.”

“Perhaps Niragi wouldn’t be so bad,” Mira muses with a serene smile, “his oral fixation is off-putting on the best of days, but it might translate well to a more intimate experience. That is, until he starts talking again. Then it’ll be terrible.”

Niragi’s face twists into a sharp scowl as he tries to sputter a comeback; drunkenness and embarrassment have apparently robbed him of his mental faculties, so he crosses his arms over his chest and pouts.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Ann says with a huff.

She places her empty beer bottle, label-side down, on the long wooden table. For the first time this evening, everyone is silent. Honestly, it’s kind of nice—it would be better if she didn’t have to end up kissing one of them, but, beggars can’t be choosers.

“You know,” Ann says, “there is a possibility it could land on me. Does that mean I don’t have to kiss anyone?”

“That means you get to choose,” Chisiya says, “which...well, that will most certainly add some spice to the night, wouldn’t it?”

“Very evil,” Aguni concludes with a nod, “I like it.”

Hm. Well, it was worth a shot.

With one final, annoyed sigh, Ann places her hand on the bottle and gives it a powerful spin. Maybe it’ll spin right off the table and shatter on the floor. She wouldn’t have to do anything weird, and then she could just go back to her room and take a long bath. Alone. The way the universe intended.

It’s impossible not to watch the bottle spin, light refracting off the glass and casting flickering spots of light around the room. It’s just a kiss. She’s kissed people before. Many people. At least two.

Friends kiss each other all the time. Not her friends, but other people and their friends. And these people aren’t really ‘friends,’ but they’re...acquaintances. Colleagues. Does that make it better or worse?

It’s slowing down now. With each passing second, her fate is being decided by the neck of the bottle. Mira, Last Boss, Keiichi—oh, God, please don’t let it be Keiichi, they have a meeting in the morning, that would be so awkward...

But, luckily, the bottle does not land on Keiichi. It does not land on Niragi, nor does it land on Chisiya. Last Boss has also been spared, as have Aguni and Mira. That leaves only one candidate...

“Oh, Ann,” Hatter says, clapping his hands together and looking entirely too pleased with this very strange turn of events, “I always knew there was something between us!”

The thing he’s talking about is tolerance—she tolerates him because it is both sensible and beneficial to be on his good side. He also, surprisingly enough, defers to her expertise on certain matters, which is more than can be said for her previous employers. They are friendly, certainly, but most certainly not friends.

And...lovers?

Out of the question.

But Fate (and a smug little blonde) have decided that they share a moment of passion. Could she have spun worse? Yes. Could she have spun better? Absolutely. 100%. Without a doubt.

But Ann is a woman of integrity. When she commits, she commits. And so, as she walks to the other side of the table, she keeps her spine straight and her head held high. She refuses to let these people see her falter.

“In addition to the parameters already given, I’d like to establish some rules of my own,” she says coolly, barely resisting the temptation to roll her eyes when he takes another gulp of alcohol. Yep, that’s definitely peppermint schnapps he has—she can tell by the stench of it, the way it’s sharpness burns at her eyes.

She’s always hated peppermint schnapps.

“Fine, fine,” Hatter says with a wave of his hand, “as long as you promise not to fall completely in love with me in the process.”

That gets a laugh from everyone—and even Ann considers cracking a smile at the thought of someone like her ever feeling something for someone like him.

“No tongue. No teeth. And,” Ann tell him firmly, “if you want to leave this room with your balls intact, I suggest you keep your hands to yourself.”

The group ooh’s at that. Ann doesn’t look at them. She keeps her gaze focused on the man in front of her, watching him intently for any signs of weakness.

All she gets is a smirk.

“I would expect nothing less of you, Ann,” he replies, “however, you’re more than welcome to put your hands anywhere on my person.”

He leans in slightly, almost as if he’s letting her in on a secret.

“I could even give you a few suggestions, if you like.”

What a perfectly hideous thing for him to say. It doesn’t help that he’s fluttering his eyelashes at her like some kind of lovestruck cartoon character.

It’s annoying.

He’s annoying.

With a roll of her eyes, Ann grabs Takeru by the silk of his obnoxious robe and crashes her mouth against his-- because she’ll be damned if he’s the one kissing her.

Five...

The group gasps-- Takeru included, the noise muffled by the seal of their lips as she kisses him fully and firmly.

Four...

And it’s...not as gross as it could be, but it’s still a very odd experience. His lips are soft enough, and his beard-moustache-whatever-the-fuck is scratchy in a way that is. Well, it’s interesting. Not good, but...interesting.

Three...

“This is fucking weird,” Niragi shouts, sounding very disgusted.

Two...

“It’s like watching my parents,” Last Boss adds, “when they were still trying to convince my sister and I they were still in love and weren’t going to get a divorce.”

One...

And done.

“Okay,” Ann says flatly as she pulls away and swallows a grimace at the sight of her favorite shade of lipstick on Takeru’s lips (and is actually a very nice compliment to his skin tone, frustratingly enough) “Can I go now.”

For good measure, she releases his robe with a disdainful flick of her fingers and subtly brushes her hands off on her shorts. It’s not enough to get the scent of peppermint schnapps and awkwardness off of her skin, but it can’t hurt.

“A deal’s a deal,” Chisiya concedes, his eternally mischievous smirk stretched across his cheeks, “And I must say, I didn’t expect you to fulfill your end of the bargain so...enthusiastically.”

“That’s because nobody can resist me,” Takeru gloats, bottle of alcohol back in his grip as if it had never truly left, “It’s not her fault I’m so delectable--”

“Detestable,” Ann corrects under her breath.

“--And, even though you’ll try to deny it,” Takeru continues, disregarding her comment, “both of us know that there’s a part of you that liked kissing me.”

“I liked the part when she stopped,” Mira chirps cheerfully, “In fact, I think we all did!”

“You have no idea,” Aguni murmurs solemnly into his drink, his eyes darting towards Takeru with an unimpressed look. That’s...hm, there’s clearly some kind of story there, although Ann isn’t sure she wants to know about it.

Everyone begins talking amongst themselves once again-- Niragi has offered to spin the bottle next, and there’s a small argument breaking out over whether or not the group should continue with their original game of ‘truth or dare’ or pivot to this new one.

And, Ann?

Ann doesn’t stick around to find out.

#writings and such #alice in borderland #alice in borderland netflix #hatter/ann #what a horrifically cursed tag #NOBODY IS SAFE y'all better watch out #ann rizuna #danma takeru #last boss #niragi suguru #takatora samura #aguni morizono #mira kano #chisiya shuntaro #keiichi kuzuryu #fun fact: this takes place before arisu shows up so that's why he's not here

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soldouthaz · 3 years

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hey all! it’s nearly the end of the year now and it’s time to finish the list of my favorite 2020 fics! (you can find part i of this rec here !) I can’t thank these authors and anyone else who published things this year enough. it’s been many long months where a distraction was much needed, and we got such amazing content for FREE. being able to escape into another world for even just a few minutes right now is priceless.

to everyone who wrote something, read something, or simply made it through this year, kudos to you! wishing everyone a much more relaxing 2021 with even more amazing fics to come. :) thank you guys for everything – happy holidays & new year, and happy reading!

there were so many good ones out this year and there’s no way I can include all of them, but I enjoyed so many more than just the ones on this list! the ones I picked just stood out to me for some reason based on how I was feeling or what I was going through at the time, and they all helped me in some way or another. :) not to mention, I am sooo behind on recent fics and most of the blff, so I will be making more recs slowly into the new year as well!

quick disclaimer! as with every time I put these together, this list is based on my own opinions and features a variety of different kinds of fics and tropes. I include the info next to them for a reason! please stick to your own preferences and leave any hate out of your choices. that being said, if you enjoy any of these, please leave the author a kudos, comment, or send them a message to let them know you liked it!

okay, in no particular order!:

a place with skeletons by @crazyupsetter / whoknows   E | 50k | b!L | veela!Louis

“I would choose anyone other than you,” Louis says, picking up his train of thought again. He feels a lot more cornered and defensive when they’re in Harry’s house, for some reason.

It doesn’t really make sense, considering that this time, Louis was the one who couldn’t hack it any longer. He broke first. There’s something about being in Harry’s space, though, the green and earthy feeling of it. It should feel like open space with all the plants, but Louis has never felt more claustrophobic than he does when he’s here. Harry’s chest moves against his back, a sharp intake of air.

Before he can open his mouth to defend himself, Louis keeps going, “If I had a choice in any of this, I would have been saved by that elderly security guard over you. I wouldn’t mind having to have the occasional cuddle with her.”

even the best laid plans by @falsegoodnight  E | 25k | b!L | uni au

Louis wants to have sex with someone and decides Harry is the perfect alpha for the job.

runaway darling by @solvetheminourdreams  E | 26k | no smut | wedding au

An AU where Louis hates weddings, Harry loves them, and together they help a bride skip hers.

three days in february by @mercurial-madhouse / writing_practice   E | 187k | b!L | magical realism

Louis is cursed after a night out with the lads and the five have just three days to figure out what happened and how to break it before Harry and Louis both lose their sanity and maybe something more. Louis can hear everything Harry thinks and Harry isn’t sure he can keep his feelings for Louis a secret from his own mind.

a springtime’s wilt, an autumn’s bloom by snowcaplou E | 20k | b!L | abo

Harry is Louis' personal chauffeur, and although he hides his feelings for his boss behind a wall of rigid professionalism, Louis still manages to squeeze through the cracks.

just a flicker in the dark by @falsegoodnight   E | 57k | b!L | witch!Louis

Louis is a struggling witch desperate to prove himself after yet another magic disaster and finds a calling in the haunted house of client Niall Horan. Things get more complicated when he’s assigned a case partner: acclaimed medium and ex-boyfriend, Harry Styles.

terror of surrender by @loubellies  E | 31k | b!L | yoga instructor!H

Louis is a recent divorcee with a new favorite yoga teacher, Harry.

loving you’s a bloodsport by @rosesau  M | 106k | no graphic smut | royalty au

harry is a bratty prince, louis is a guard who works in his palace, and niall is the only one who’s got his life in control.

spoonful of sugar by @zanniscaramouche (check out this part too!)  E | 43k | b!L | mob boss!Harry

Louis Tomlinson cares for his family above all else, a fact that’s led him on a twisted path peddling drugs to support them. Just as he’s made the decision to jump ship, Louis gets snared between the two largest crime syndicates in the city. To keep his family safe he’s forced to trust the man that failed to keep his promise two years ago, the resident drug lord he’s unknowingly been working for, Harry Styles.

quiet people have the loudest minds by @2tiedships2  M | 38k | referenced b!L | abo

The one where Louis is a nonverbal omega who has accepted the fact that he will never find an alpha that will treat him as an equal. On the other hand, he’s never met anyone like Harry.

works like a charm by @falsegoodnight  E | 18k | b!L | Hogwarts au

Ever since Louis joined the team in fifth year, a few facts have become set in stone.

One: Louis is the best chaser in Hogwarts.

Two: Harry is the best beater in Hogwarts.

Three: They do not get along.

So it’s really unfair of Liam to think that forcing them to spend time together as Louis recovers from his injury will make them the best of friends. The last thing Louis would do is get along with that git.

show you the stars in the daylight by @yvesaintlourent / bruisedhoney  E | 13k | b!L | friends to lovers

The one where Louis has a type and at sixteen and scrawy, it’s definitely not his best friend’s little brother Harry…ten years later, he changes his mind.

in a sea of mist by @tomlinvelvetfics  E | 126k | b!L | mythology au

A Greek Mythology/Camp Half-Blood AU where Harry is lost, the road to peace is a wretched one, and somehow, through a mist of confusion and regrets, Louis seems to be the only thing that makes sense and everything Harry needs.

confessions of a fabricated alpha by @jaerie  E | 18k | b!H/b!L mention | abo

famous alpha Harry Styles has a secret and paying an alpha to roleplay a relationship with him over the phone is the only way he can be himself.

take my whole life too by @goodmorninglou  E | 24k | b!L | d/s elements | WIP

Louis knows three things, at the base of it all.

He likes when Harry hurts him. He doesn’t know why, not really, but he knows that he likes it. Likes giving up control, likes feeling small and taken care of, likes being praised for taking whatever Harry gives him for as long as he gives it. He and Harry are meant to be. No matter what time they finally fall together, what day, what age, what place, the moment that they do, that’ll be it. It’s going to be them against everyone else, hand in hand for the rest of their lives. That’s been a given since they met. The half of Louis’ soul that’s missing is Harry’s.

And, sans those two things, he doesn’t really know much of anything at all.

sweet like honey by @falsegoodnight  E | 33k | b!L | amateur porn au

Harry and Louis need money and they find an unconventional solution in the form of PornHub. It’s not supposed to be a big deal.

a few rereads posted from before this year that I enjoyed again!

the case of the (definitely not haunted) styles mansion by briamaria  E | 40k | b!H | nancy drew au

the Nancy Drew AU where Marcel is a man of logic, Louis is a private detective who believes in ghosts, and the Styles Mansion is definitely, absolutely, positively *not* haunted.

canyon moon by @eeveelou  E | 40k | b!L | abo

For as long as Louis has remembered, he has been promised to be mated to Harry, his best friend and the future pack alpha. But Louis’s heart belonged to the forest and to the hunt more than he could ever imagine it belonging to Harry. Then Harry’s father dies in a violent accident, and Louis’s future alpha disappears on the wind.

An A/B/O Lion King AU

lemon eyes by @turnyourankle  E | 50k | b!H | abo

It’s not proper for omegas to mess around with alphas before finding their bondmate. But Harry doesn’t give a damn what’s proper and fully intends on getting as much experience as he can before even trying to find one. As far as he’s concerned, the right alpha won’t care, and he’ll have some fun on the way. And who better to start with than Louis Tomlinson, the alpha with the worst reputation on campus?

all this delusion in our heads by snowcaplou   E | 15k | b!L | exes to lovers

After Harry and Louis break up, they cope with it in very different ways. What will happen when Harry keeps calling his ex over when things go wrong in his life, but Louis just can’t take it anymore?

the way the storms blow by @rbbsbb  E | 21k | b!L | roommates au

Louis doesn’t have a habit of thinking about Harry’s dick.

That would be weird, seeing as they’re best mates, and they share a flat, and they’ve spent holidays at each other’s family homes.

Their friendship hasn’t ever risen to a point where Louis should want to see his mate’s dick, and he’s happy to keep it that way. Except, all that Louis can think about is exactly that. The size of it. The shape. The amount of people it’s been in.

Maybe it’s the tequila talking, or the fact that Louis’ just recently walked in to an eyeful of Harry taking turns on some slags that he’s never seen before, but. Louis’ mind can’t stop obsessing over the idea.

and a few more recs from some other fandoms for anyone who might be interested! (feel free to rec me some more if you know of any!)

burning the ground by lq_traintracks (drarry)  E | 10k | b!draco | abo

“Strap him down,” someone said, and Harry felt the rage thicken inside him – the viscous fear. Magical bindings pulled taut around his wrists … He felt a wand touch his arm and then a sharp bite as something punctured the skin, and a sweet, cool tonic rushed his veins. His breathing slowed. His eyelids drooped. The ceiling went grey and dark. And then he heard a woman’s voice sigh, “Someone, get Healer Malfoy.”

every step you take by nokomis (sterek)   E | 50k | light b!Stiles | abo

Stiles accidentally ends up magically bound to Derek. It’s super.

alright, I think that’s it for this rec! as always, please let me know if i’ve tagged anything incorrectly or if you’d like to be untagged from something!

and like I said before, I am wayyy behind on reading for these last few months and I need to catch up. when I do, I’ll definitely make some more recs into the new year!

I just want to say another thank you to anyone who wrote or read or created or just existed this year. it’s been hard on us all but having this outlet definitely made it easier. I can’t wait to see what else is published next year! happy reading everyone, and happy new year! :)

#okay trying to post this for the second time around!#fingers crossed!#y'all let me know if anything is messed up please!#fic recs #my fic recs #about me #2020

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adamdriverwrites · 4 years

Text

Carpe Noctem || Part 4

Plot summary: Mob boss’s daughter & bodyguard au ft. Kylo Ren. Based off this plot bunny (x)

Warnings: none today, kids

Word count: 5329 (prepare yourself)

Pairing: Kylo Ren/Reader

A/N: Here is part 4 finally! NZ is in quarantine, so i’ve been trying to write and gif a lot more! expect another update soon! let me know what you guys think!

Taglist: @helloimindelaware, @dandydragonz, musicalcoffeebean, @driverficarchive, hazydespair, @mp938368, @maybell88, @bikinibrattoms, @fanfic-fangirl, @stillreadingfantasy, @um-well, @OnevergrowoldnevergrowoldO, @jay-ta-blog, @wildwood-trails, @stephhaniee14, @flowerniche, @sanfranciscroc, @little-miss-mischief1, @pami-yui, @lex-bb13, @deepblueswift13, @allknowingnerd, @shawnme-boy, @whymalu, @simonsbluee, @jons-angel, @whymalu, @mixtapes-books, @amazing1rl, @ambrosia-v-black, @souriemickey, @toads4days, @xsar-bearx, @lunarlung, @bubble-t-r-o-u-b-l-e, @cutiepiepotatoes, @bangtan-savage

Masterlist here

Just family.

If you weren't so opposed to the idea of making a scene, then you would have confronted your father about why he was such a deceiver.

It was clearly not strictly family. After you had gone to your room to change, you met your siblings down in the formal dining room, where they had been drinking and waiting for you to arrive. You all moved to the dining room. Roman, Ares and Lyon sitting on either side, your father taking his legendary seat at the head of the table. However, with Kylo sitting next to your Dad, the only space available was opposite, also next to your father.

Phasma was also seated at the table, thankfully separating Ares and yourself, which you did not mind one bit. In fact, a part of you was almost excited to catch up with Gwen after all this time.

As you stared at your food in front you, silence permeated the room. Save for the lone conversation between your siblings, few words exchanged, otherwise it was a tense, quiet affair. The dining room was huge, with a table fit for easily 20 people and with the 7 of you spread around one half of it, you still had a sizeable space between each other.

You gathered it was your fathers disposition that put everyone on edge. Sitting at the head of the table, nursing a glass of amber liquid. His food completely untouched as he watched everyone. The only one who seemed completely unperturbed by it was Kylo, eating the rack of lamb with a citrus and blue cheese salad without a care in the world it seemed. He was his usual stoic form, though unperturbed by the lack of conversation or apparent awkwardness that lingered, he ate dinner and kept to himself.

Your mind wandered to what Hux had told you about him earlier. About how he was your fathers sword and shield, apparently unflinching in his ability to spill blood. You had been gone for a number of years, and before you left for good you were still rather young - however you were perceptive. Due to your perceptiveness however, you knew he hadn't been around for a long time, not since you were a kid. So where the fuck did he come from?

"Is it always like this?" As conversation ensued at the other end of the table, you leaned over to Gwen to whisper quietly.

She chewed through a piece of meat, swallowing before answering, "We don't usually have dinner like this. Ever, really."

You nodded, not really receiving an answer to your question - you wanted to know if everything was usually this tense. Or if the day of Mallory's funeral was such a reason. "Good to know that we won't have to be subjected to this too often then."

"Don't worry," Phasma smiled down at you, "This isn't awkward because of you."

Your eyes drifted down the table, Roman and Ares laughing about something quietly to themselves - Lyon's eyes however - were locked on you. A hard stare as he pushed his food around his plate, haphazardly shoving some into his mouth before looking over at your Dad.

"Sure." you offered, though not completely convinced of her assurance; however kind of a gesture it was intended to be. You knew it was because of Mallory's funeral, that was the predominant proverbial wound, though your presence was pouring salt into said wound.

It made it so much worse, this you were sure.

Roman's voice quietened your internal monologue, speaking your name to gather your attention. You looked over to see him looking at you. "I'm going to Starkiller later on. You wanna come with?"

Starkiller was one of the only legitimate businesses your family had. One that wasn't used to launder money like the Supremacy, it was purely for profit. Though as you grew up you guessed it was your father's way of keeping your brother out of trouble. He had something to do, something to look after, and it was away from the dangerous dealings that could prove fatal. It was a club on the outskirt of your father's turf, under Roman's management though you didn't think he did much 'work' while there.

"What time were you thinking?" You spoke quietly, as not to disturb other conversation happening at the table and not to alert anyone eavesdropping. Your eyes flickered over to your new bodyguard, eating quietly, not even looking at you.

Roman shrugged, "After dinner sometime."

You nodded, "I'm a little jet lagged still. I might have a nap and come later?" You didn't want to go particularly, and you were definitely not jet lagged. To the contrary, you felt quite awake, you just had other ideas and perhaps it could prove a useful alibi.

"Sounds good." He smiled, then went back to eating food off his plate.

"How's school?" It was now your father's voice that pulled your attention. He looked at you while he asked, still not having touched his food. Only nursing a glass and looking over his family.

"It's going okay, thanks."

Phasma piped in next to you. "What do you study exactly? I don't think I've ever actually asked."

"I have a double major; law and psychology." You nodded, it sounded like a brag though you didn't intend for it to be. Although other members of your family looked down on education, others did not.

"Wow, interesting choice. Impressive." Phasma shot you a little smirk.

"You going to be ready to be my lawyer soon?" Roman joked from down the table.

"Or mine." Your father spoke up.

You gave them a half smile in return. Unable to tell the truth- that you had no intention of being a lawyer, it was just something you were studying because you wanted to possess the knowledge of the judicial law system and all the rules in place. You didn't particularly have intentions of breaking the law but if you did... then it would prove extremely fruitful. Psychology was another interest, you found it imperative to understanding your enemies - not that you had many of those either. Yet.

But you were the daughter of Andrew Snoke, and being made to feel so powerless in your youth gave you a complex as you grew up. You needed to acquire knowledge like no one had in your family before, and maybe then you would feel worthy. Powerful.

Dinner passed by quickly. As soon as everyone had finished, your father offered to move it to the office in the west wing of the manor for more drinks. You were going to decline, playing the excuse of jet lag almost immediately, however, you decided to acquiesce and have one drink. For Mallory.

Lyon and Ares started racking up the polished balls on the pool table, setting up for a game. Roman talked lightly with your father, pouring drinks from a crystal decanter for everyone who wanted one. Kylo was back to a dark corner of the room; finding a seat to watch over everyone and smoke a cigarette. He didn't fraternize with the others, or try to relax with a friendly game of pool. Always stoic and always working evidently.

You followed Gwen, finding a seat near the tall open windows facing the backyard. Curtains parted slightly, cool breeze blowing in faintly. Too dark to see out but the fresh air helped ease your mind, if only for a moment.

"Here." Gwen offered you a cigarette from her pack and you kindly accepted. A horrible habit, you knew, but to you it was a small price to pay for stress relief. A hit of nicotine helped your thoughts calm down, and deprived any ill feelings purchase in the forefront of your mind. You could have a few moments not totally at the behest of your anxiety or depression.

"Thank you." You accepted, along with the flame she held up so you could light it. Inhaling deeply, you gave yourself a second to appreciate the reprieve before you exhaled. And then braved to ask Gwen a question. "So come on, be honest with me."

Her pale eyes met yours, and quirked a brow. "I almost always am."

A short laugh escaped your lips. "Thanks for the honesty." Your eyes drifted around everyone, to see if anyone was paying particular attention. "But I mean... how serious is my Dad about all this bodyguard shit?"

"I'd say pretty serious. He assigned me to Roman after all."

This made you sit forward. "Really?" That was particularly serious. "I thought it was a sexist thing, that he didn't think I could take care of myself but, huh..." You sat back in the chair, thrown for a loop. You didn't think it was really that serious. Sure, there were aspects of Mallory's death suspicious but he was on high alert. Enough to warrant some of his most ruthless and trusted men - and women - to become glorified sitters for his children.

"You've all been assigned someone."

"Why didn't I get you? Why did I get him?" Your eyes shot over her shoulder, the furthermost corner of the sprawling room. Kylo sat with your father, drinking. His dark eyes trained on you; already watching.

Always fucking watching. You pulled your eyes away immediately, though you were positive he would not have been able to hear a word from the distance, or over your siblings shouts and taunts. His eyes were on you regardless and it made you uneasy.

Any hint of a smile covering Phasma's lips instantly dropped. The furrow in her brow set in again. "Well... you're you." She took a drag of her cigarette. "And as much as I hate to admit this, he's the best. Snoke is just being cautious."

"The best at what exactly?" You took a drag of your own cigarette, ashing in the crystal ashtray on the coffee table between you. Something flared in Gwen's eyes, what, you were not sure. Worry? Anger? Jealousy? Or was it fear? You had no idea.

"You're smart. I think you already know." She looked like she didn't want to talk about the subject anymore. You weren't sure if it was your father's presence, or Kylo's that deterred her from spouting any more honest truths.

Your mind went to Hux, and the words he had so freely spoken before dinner had you wondering. Calling Ren your father's right hand man, the problem solver.... a rabid animal. You knew your family was bad. By conventional terms with a modern sense of morality, they were evil.

Criminals, murderers, extortioners, torturers, tax-evading, wealth-hording, gun-shipping, drug-running psychopaths to be exact.

And as bad as you all were, everyone in the Snoke manor was scared of only one person; your father. He was a much older man now, and though he still held a significant amount of power over everyone in the house - it appeared he now had passed the torch on. All physical bouts and messy jobs were now Kylo's to execute, and it seemed he did them perfectly.

You had never seen or heard of him before. You wondered how new he was exactly, and how quick he had risen in the ranks to become your fathers most trusted man. He would have had to prove himself immensely, and the concept of what that possibly entailed both scared and intrigued you. You wondered what types of violence your father found to be grounds for proof of trust.

You made a mental note to ask Armitage how long he had been around, along with a few others things flying around your brain. Weirdly, they were all questions about Kylo Ren.

You decided to cool your thoughts, and continue small talk with Gwen. You asked about your brother, and what her new schedule was like since it hadn't appeared he had changed much. She confirmed that she spent most of her nights at Starkiller, watching your brother party with his friends.

You shared a few jokes at the expense of your family, especially when Lyon lost a game of pool and almost snapped the pool cue over his knee in anger. A glare from your father and his anger simmered down almost immediately. You finished your cigarette, though enjoying talking with Gwen you were thoroughly over this fucking situation. A drunk sausage fest with your family in which none of them even wanted to talk to you, to spend time with you. Your father could hardly stand the sight of you.

You gave him the benefit of the doubt - he had buried his daughter today, and looking at the face of your other estranged one was certainly not a priority he had to have. You expected nothing on arrival, and had already had a few days of drama free bliss. Really, your sisters death had the opposite reaction on your Dad than you thought it would.

You supposed you would enjoy it while you could. You thought it was going to be utter chaos here, loud arguments between you and your father, leading to a crescendo in which you would be forced to leave once more.

You decided to bid Gwen goodnight, finishing your drink in two big gulps you braved the walk to your father. Zig zagging around your brothers and the Snoke enforcers, you found your way to your Dad and Kylo. His eyes were focused on the drink in his hand, amber liquid swirling in a glass slowly. Kylo noticed you before he did.

"Dad?" You pulled him out of his reverie and he looked up. "I think I'm going to head to bed, I’m not use to New York time yet."

"Oh." He nodded, "Okay. Sleep well, kid."

You gave the faintest smile, eyes shooting to Kylo who stared you up and down. A curious look behind his eyes - like he knew you were lying. Though your father seemed completely fooled. You left immediately, trying to ignore the awkward goodbye with your father, you snuck out the doors and headed to your bedroom.

Checking your phone, it was only about 10 p.m. You figured jetlag would set in eventually, but after today’s days events you felt wide awake. You didn't want to go to sleep yet. Maybe you couldn't.

You shed out of your funeral clothes, getting changed into something far more comfortable. A white cropped t-shirt, dark jeans, and your trusted leather jacket. Slipping on some fresh socks and swapping you shoes for your black doc martins. You checked your appearance in the mirror before sighing. You looked good considering everything you had been through today.

Usually you looked like shit.

Grabbing keys, money, phone and smokes you locked your bedroom door, turned off the light and left out the window. It may have been almost ten years since you had done this, but it was a tried and true trick for sneaking out when you had more than 10 people staying at your house at any given time. Especially when some of those people's job were specifically to make sure people didn't get in or out without the family's knowledge. There was no way in hell you were going to make it out the front door without anyone finding out.

Or worse, Kylo.

You were hellbent on deterring his body-guarding for as long as you could; hopeful it would serve as eventual proof to your father that you did not need to be looked after. You didn't even want to think about how uncomfortable he made you feel.

Not in a bad way, you weren't scared of him like everyone seemed to be. But being in such close proximity was jarring in a certain way, despite his stoic, murderous presence, you couldn't stop staring at his face. At that scar, at those deep, brown eyes.

And at those lips.

He was hot, in an unconventional way, and you almost never found men sexy. For this reason alone you wanted to stay as far away as possible. You didn't even want to broach the reason of whatever the fuck had you thinking about Kylo Ren's lips.

There was a large trellis that covered almost the whole wall underneath your window. Covered by thick ivy vines that sprawled up most of the 3 story Snoke manor, you used this to sneak in and out of your room up until you were sent off to boarding school. And even when you came back for a Christmas once. It was a trick you had learned from watching Mallory sneak out when you were younger.

You poked your head out first, making sure you couldn't see anyone on a perimeter watch, another thing your father's lackeys did sometimes. Seeing the coast was clear, you positioned your feet and then moved out, leaving your window open for entry later. Making sure your footing was placed carefully and with a strong grip, you made your way down the side of the house. Your bedroom was on the second floor, though your house was notorious for high ceilings and you were pretty high up off the ground. Adrenaline kicked in and cooler heads prevailed as you made the climb down to the ground. Once your feet touched the grass underneath your window, you breathed a sigh of relief.

The garage was big enough to house all the vehicles of the multiple people who lived at your house. The entrance was under the south wing of the house, which was an easy, quick walk from your room. You made it there in a minute or two, careful to stay away from windows in case you were seen by anyone randomly gazing out. Opening the last garage door, the one that housed your precious car, you hopped in and started it up. Leaving the lights off, you shifted gears and made it out onto the driveway. Careful that anyone looking out a window or wandering around the property wouldn't be alerted by bright car lights. You were trying very hard not to be seen and you were hoping your hard work was going to pay off.

You had spent years perfecting this technique of Mallory’s.

You drove down the long, winding driveway guided by moonlight alone, until you reached the end. You flicked your lights on and took the exit onto the road. You exhaled a deep breath, one you didn't know you were holding. Paranoia relieved a little bit as you made your way down the street, your eyes still glanced at the rear view mirror looking for car lights that might follow.

You were half worried that Kylo would be trailing you, someone seeing you slinking around the property in the dark and sneaking out would definitely pique interest. You didn't want a bodyguard, especially one who's presence made you uneasy. In which way in particular, you weren't sure. But you wanted to be alone right now.

You had been alone for years and years on end before this moment - what had changed now that you needed a bodyguard? Mallory's death? Most likely. Being back in the country could've proved you to be an easier target too, you guessed.

However, you had been gone for so many years, and being the black sheep of the family did provide one comfort - no one outside the family really knew who you were. You were a taboo subject, rarely talked about and never seen. You weren't involved in the family business like your brother's were, and didn't go to classy fundraisers and socialite parties like Mallory did.

Not to mention you took Brazilian jiu jitsu for years when you were a kid - and you remembered some shit. You weren't lying when you tried to convince your father that you would be fine on your own.

It didn't take long to enter the city, and then find the towering skyscraper that was the Finalizer. It was a tall, dark building with gothic architecture encompassing the facade, contrasted beautifully with its elaborate but minimalist, neutral toned interior. A 5 star safe haven for the rich, famous and criminally inclined. Your father had made sure whatever secrets were experienced within, never had a chance of escape.

You pulled your vehicle into the valet area, shifting into park you hardly had enough time to grab your stuff before a young man opened your door for you.

“Welcome to the Finalizer, ma'am.”

You gave a half smile in thanks, walking forward to the grandiose gold double doors that served as the entrance. Another young man opened them with a smile, welcoming you to the hotel.

Gold light from over hanging chandeliers illuminated the room. Bright mosaic patterns intertwined with white marble made up the floor. An expansive room with nothing but elevators behind a desk with two more people behind it. You were glad you remembered the pass code, unwanting to make conversation with people you didn't know. Not today.

You made a beeline straight for the elevator, stepping into the mirrored room, throwing a smile at the girl behind the desk as you passed. The numbers for all the floors were illuminated by a dim light, the top 3 floors reserved penthouses for permanent residences given out by your father. The very top floor was for family, a sort of unusual halfway house. For when his children couldn’t stand being near him but lacked the funds to move into their own abode. It was Roman's home once upon a time, then it was empty save for the odd weekend or two when your brothers were too drunk to leave the city, and then eventually Mallory’s home. You didn't know what your father was going to do with it now. If your sisters body hadn't been found in it then you would have been tempted to move in.

Although, depending on how bad it got at home - maybe you could be easily convinced.

A small keypad was situated next to the floor buttons, and you entered the pass code for your sisters floor, something that wasn't required of irregular hotel stayers who had simple key cards for their rooms.

The elevator rode all the way to the top, and you were lucky to be alone. The surge of the lift paired with the g-force, you felt your heartbeat rapidly fasten. You tried to peg its inception down to the anxiety that now clouded your mind. You were about to enter your sister's apartment after all.

The last place she was when she was alive.

You remembered your father telling you the place had been cleaned after the forensic evidence had been collected. You hadn't been here in so long that you hardly remembered it. You were shipped off to boarding school long before you were old enough to spend drunken weekends here.

The doors to the elevator opened right up into the apartment. Separating with a 'ding' it revealed the almost pitch black penthouse. A little stream of light from the lift exposed a golden beam down the otherwise dark hallway. You turned the torch on your phone to it's brightest setting, walking out into the penthouse. The doors shut behind you as you found the light switch, and the penthouse was suddenly bathed in light.

Tall, white walls of the hallway gave way to an open planned penthouse. Floor to ceiling glass revealed the neon New York skyline below. The spacious living room gave way to a kitchen on the far left and bedrooms on the far right. A garden laden outside area showed numerous seating with a table, a hot tub, and an infinity pool that disappeared off the edge.

It was clad in dark fabrics and white paint. A shiny, new, modern penthouse that was starkly different than the Snoke manor. It was sparse with furniture, minimalist in its decor; simple but effectively pretty. Mallory had kept the place nice and tidy, artwork and pictures littered the penthouse walls, giving it a burst of colour that was proof of her bubbly personality living here.

You shed your jacket, throwing it over the back of the couch, your items discarded along with it. Your eyes darted around the apartment, eager to find something out of place, unusual enough that you would notice. Though, your lack of experience with the space provided some trouble.

Mallory had taught you a lot growing up - how to escape down a trellis on the side of the house to avoid being detected was one of them. One of the others was having a good hiding spot.

Andrew Snoke was a controlling father growing up, especially with his daughters. And even more so with his favorite, Mallory. You didn't blame her for turning to drugs in her turbulent youth, not with the pressure she was under. Your brothers had done all that and worse and they hadn't been crucified for it.

And because of all of that, Mallory had taught you that hallowed out books, sun-glass cases in underwear drawers, and envelopes behind hung pictures were all great hiding spots.

You made your way to the bedrooms, finding the master that Mallory called hers. Everything was clean, put away, though a glance at the walk-in closet and the mass of designer dresses it was easy to deduce her presence. There was a large bed in the middle, side tables either side. Various artwork hung on the walls and the long, wooden shelf in the room was littered with pictures of her and her friends.

You noticed a few of them by face, probably knew all of them by name the amount she talked about them - though you couldn't tell who was who. Mallory's smiling face was what caught your eyes and cause you to still. Shining, bright eyes and a wide smile that you were familiar with. One that you would never see again. Your throat tightened at the thought.

You darted over to the side tables with purpose, to forget the overwhelming sadness creeping into your mind and replace it with something productive instead. You rifled through its contents, opening drawers and quickly sifting through objects. Pushing things to the side you safely checked for a false bottom of each shelf, but found nothing in particular. Moisturizers, sleep masks, and a pack of cigarettes - though nothing special.

You continued your rampage through her room, looking behind artwork hung on the walls, looking under the bed, under the pillows, in between the mattress and the bed frame, then moving to the closet. You checked in her boots, making sure nothing was concealed in there, before becoming desperate and looking in her shoe boxes and the pockets of her coats. Heaving a sigh of contempt, and resigning to the notion that there was nothing in this room you decided to move on.

You made your way to the kitchen - checking cereal boxes, and the freezer, large tins that she kept nestled in the pantry. You checked anything and everything you thought could be a possibility, but nothing seemed suspicious. Nothing was awkwardly placed, nothing moved every so often that dirt patterns formed; everything was normal.

You ventured over to the living room. You checked behind the artwork first, and behind one you find a safe built into the wall. Your interest was piqued momentarily before realizing these were in all your fathers properties - and housed usually large amounts of cash, jewels, important legal documents and the like. You were looking for something in particula, and figured it would not be inside a safe your father had access to.

You knew Mallory kept a journal, she had as a teenager, and once she grew up and tried to stay sober she had one documenting her thoughts. Something her sponsor told her might be able to help with her sobriety. You hoped if anything her diary would hold some impertinent information. Anything.

However, you were not inclined to think a diary she wrote in everyday was kept in a safe in the living room. Too many processes for something so ridiculous as a journal. You figured she was still like she was growing up - in that she preferred to hide things from the prying men in our family - but she wouldn't go to those lengths. Not if our father had the code to said safe.

You would ask him about it later, but resigned to not give up. It had to be somewhere. You were confident it was not in the safe.

A large flat screen was set against the wall, a wide fireplace underneath. Built into the wall either side were some bookcases, not housing anything but photos, some CDs, and ornaments that Mallory had collected over the years that obviously meant something to her. And a card from you, from her last birthday. Nothing pretty or pink, or particularly special but simply declaring your love for your sister.

You placed it back on the shelf, eyes moving over to a trophy from Mallory's high school days, a cheer-leading trophy, sitting next to it a picture of her winning prom queen, next to her tiara that she blatantly kept. You smiled, if only at the ridiculous nature and stark reality of how different you two were. Things she cared about weren't even on your radar - you two didn't have anything in common. Lived on different continents in fact, and still the two of you got together and it was some of the only moments you felt you were truly happy. You would drink, or maybe smoke a little pot together and would end up in stitches of laughter, faces and sides burning in pain. You were definitely going to miss her humor.

A smile curved your lips and you glanced over, eyes catching a gold trophy that caused you to still. You had seen it before, you remembered it briefly, and as your eyes shot down to the engraved tag, it read your name.

Your hands gripped the trophy, a gold metal showing a girl doing a roundhouse kick in a martial arts stance. "Holy shit." The words flew from your mouth without thought.

Mallory had kept it.

~~~~

You and competed in over 6 different competitions, fought in over 22 different matches, becoming the champion for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the tri-state area for girls under 18. And you were only 13 years old at the time.

Years and years of rigorous training had led to this point, years of your youth spent on grueling grappling techniques and perfecting your punches. To this referee now announcing your name, a round of applause from all the parents in the stands stung your ears. He shook your hand, handing you the trophy. A flash from a camera blinded you momentarily, and you searched for familiar faces in the crowd.

Your eyes locked with Mallory's. She was standing up, clapping as hard as she could, a proud smile on her face. You looked at the seat next to her - reserved for your father.

It was empty.

Your heart dropped. You mustered a smile, praying for it to be over so you could go back to the changing rooms and release the tears that pooled in the corner of your eyes.

You locked your gaze with Mallory once more, and noticing the look on your face, and you glancing at the empty seat next to her, her mouth uttered an apology, providing a sincere look.

You bit your lip, squeezing the trophy as hard as you could in your hands until it was over. Once you were clapped off the stage with the girl who came 2nd and 3rd place, you ran to the changing rooms to find a lonely corner you could get out of your fighting robes.

You prayed for the tears to go away, to any God who was out there that could show one ounce of mercy to you. But no one answered. You were alone, and once one tear fell it was hard to stop the rest. Your father couldn't even come to your championship fight? He never devoted any time to you ever, and you were doing this because it made him vaguely proud in some way. Even still, he couldn't give you one second of his fucking time?

He had given you nothing, and you had done this all for him.

You sniffled, throwing your bag over your shoulder and haphazardly slipping your shoes on, you exited the changing room to meet Mallory outside the stadium.

"Oh my god! Congratulations!" She swept you up in a hug, perfume wafting through your nostrils, your face was buried in her blonde hair. "First place? Hell yes!"

You scoffed. "Yeah..."

She dampened at the sight of you, facade falling slightly. "Oh, come on, kid. Let's go get some ice cream, my shout."

"I don't know," you hitched the bag up your shoulder, "I don't really feel like ice cream."

She sighed, stepping forward to grab your hand that clutch the trophy. "I'm so sorry he didn't come, okay, but-"

"Did he say why?"

"Well, he just said he was busy and he had to-"

"He's always too busy." You interrupted her again. "He doesn't give a shit about me. I haven't seen him in weeks, and he's the one that put me into this martial arts bullshit!"

Mallory's weakening facade was demolished, and she burst into tears. "I'm so sorry."

You sighed deeply, though it had been evident you had been crying you chastised her regardless. "Why are you crying?"

"Because," she wiped her tears away, shifting her large handbag further up her shoulder, "Because I'm sorry. I'm sorry for Dad, for how he is and how he treats you." You weren't sure how but it seemed like she got even more upset. "And I'm sorry that I was fortunate enough to be nourished by her growing up and you were too young to experience-"

"Whatever." You cut her off again, before she could finish, she was crying with sympathy, empathy, whatever the fuck it was that caused her tears. If she finished her sentence you knew you would be reduced to the same fate. "Can you please take me home? I'm done."

You glanced over to the side, a stadium bin free standing. You walked over, taking one last look at the trophy before you threw it into the trash can. You glanced at Mallory, and then walked to the car park where she had her vehicle.You didn’t look back.

~~~

The two of you had made your way home, driving in silence. You remembered that day vividly now. Mallory was 8 years older than you were, so she had her license, and her own car. A whole life of her own. She was in college, eager to drink and socialize with her friends.

And then something changed.

You had never been close when you were younger, but after that day she had made a gratuitous effort of being in your life. Of supporting you emotionally and providing wisdom and comfort when you needed it. Of being a constant in your life, even when you left for boarding school. She was the only lifeline you had in this family. She had taken the role of father, and mother, and adopted those qualities to try give you a better life.

And she had kept it.

You clutched the trophy in your hands, even tighter. She must have picked it out of the trash, put it in her handbag and then followed you to the car.

And she kept it all this time. Never telling you about it, never trying to offer it back to you. She kept it as a proud memento on a shelf in her living room for herself. Your throat tightened, your lip trembling as you felt tears gather in your eyes. You couldn't hold it back, irrevocable sadness you had been keeping at a simmer turned into full on misery. You wept for times passed, over memories you shared with Mallory and the reality that you would never create any more. You cried over the possibility of the suspicious circumstances that surrounded her death, that someone could have taken her away from you before her time.

And you cried because you were alone, once again.

#carpe noctem #kylo x reader #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren fanficiton #kylo ren au #kylo ren imagine #adam driver x reader

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mageicalwishes · 4 years

Text

Read on AO3: here

Rating: Teen & Up

Summary: Simon and Baz have barely spent any time together recently with Baz bogged down at Uni, so a cosy night-in with Great British Bake-off and Dinner is long overdue.

Tags: Fluff, Flirting, Great British Bake Off, Innuendo, Simon Helps Baz Cope With Exam Stress, Domestic Fluff, Post-Book 2: Wayward Son, One Shot.

Words: 1,621

Simon

“Hey, Snow. I’m just going to head home and shower quickly, and then I’ll be on my way. Give me … Forty minutes?”

He sounds tired - So tired - but it’s nice to hear his voice.

We’ve barely spoken these last few weeks, with his Uni Assessment Period - Our conversations cut down to ‘Good morning’s, ‘Good luck’s and ‘Good night’s - But it’s alright. I understand.

He’s been completely swamped with Essays and Exams recently. And last time we were together when he was trying to study, he got awfully snappy. It’s not that I was trying to be annoying or anything, but I’ve never been the best at sitting still … or being quiet, so I know that I was (Even though he was too polite to say so, at the time).

So this time we kept our distance. Even though it hurt.

“Yeah, okay. Are you … are you sure that you want to come over today? We can rearrange or something, if you want to rest at home, instead. I haven’t cooked dinner or anything, yet. It’s no hassle.” I offer, doing my best to sound encouraging (Although even I can hear the disappointment in my voice).

“No I- It’s been far too long. I’ll be there as soon as possible, Love.”

“Alright then. If you're sure,” I smile. “I’ll see you soon."

————————————————————————————

I open the door to a disarrayed Baz - His under-eyes blackened, skin dulled, and hair hanging in a waved, damp sheet against his face. Compared to his usual impeccable self, he looks a mess (Well, the Baz version of a mess, anyway. He’d still be right at home on some fancy fashion billboard. The fit tosser), and if the droning tone he greets me with is anything to go by, he feels it too.

I want to drag him into a kiss and snog him until he forgets all about Uni and Tests and shitty Economics, but I don’t know if I should. If I can. And … It’s been so long that I don't think that I’d even be able to do it right. Knowing me, It’d probably just end up being all stiff and awkward, which I doubt would help. So I refrain.

“Hey,” I say. “How did your test go?”

“I’m going to torch the Examinations Office,” he deadpans, shoving the door closed.

Fuck. Wincing, I reach up and help him shrug off his coat. “That bad, huh?”

“Worse. I’m being generous because they at least had the decency to include a few multiple choice questions. Otherwise the whole bloody building would be getting it.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, grabbing a hold of hands and tracing swirls against the cool of skin. “But I’m sure that you’ve done better than you think. You're clever, and you've definitely put enough work in, so I'm sure that if you found it difficult, everybody else did too. Grade boundaries will help you out.”

“Hmm. Maybe,” he hums, clearly unconvinced.

“Definitely,” I assert, pulling him into the Living room. “But just … try and forget about all that, now. However it went, it’s over, so don’t stress. Let’s just watch some Bake Off, yeah? I’ve been saving them all so that we could watch them together.”

That, finally, earns me a smile. And while it’s small, and painfully fleeting, it’s definitely there, which is a start.

“Yeah alright,” he sighs, pressing a gentle kiss to my temple. “Let’s do that.”

Once we settle down onto the sofa, I tug him close to my side and rub the back of my hand against his stomach slowly, as we watch - The tension of his body loosening under my ministrations.

“You alright?” I mumble, resting my jaw atop his head.

“Yes. Why?”

“You’re all quiet, that’s all. Normally you insult all of their bakes.”

“Yeah, I’m just … I’m concerned that I haven’t done enough. I need to finish with a First. I know - What I’ve done wasn’t good enough. I’m sure of it.”

Back at Watford, I'd always just assumed that Baz didn’t stress about Work, or Exams, or Grades. He'd always appeared so infallibly unbothered, and it seemed to me that he could get perfect grades in his sleep. But … I guess that I wasn’t paying close enough attention (Not to that, anyway).

I’ve seen the ugly side of Baz’s academic achievement now. Drafting and re-drafting essays until his eyes are heavy and his wrists are pounding. Staying up all night to cram in more revision time, and forcing himself through the next day with obscene amounts of coffee. The stern, miserable day-long silences when he fails to get the grades he was hoping for.

I’ve told him time and time again to ease up on himself - That A ‘B’ isn’t the end of the world, and that exhausting himself will do no good - but he never listens. And I don’t know how to make him see. All I can do is try and comfort him when it gets bad.

“Baz. Come on. You’re some kind of freaky, vampire genius. I’m sure what you did is more than enough. Okay? You just need to … relax.” He doesn’t answer, so I tilt him off of my chest and twist his jaw around to face me. “Okay?”

Pouting, he swats my hand away and spins himself back around (Stroppy git). “Alright. If you say so, Snow”

Smiling, I pinch at his waist, earning myself a delightfully startled yelp. “Tell me what you think of that guy’s soggy bottom then.”

“You’re a nightmare,” he scoffs. But behind his words, I know he’s smiling. I can hear it clear as day.

We don’t talk much at all after that, and soon enough he falls asleep.

We’re barely half way through the first episode, when his breaths even out into soft, sleepy puffs. And while I had intended to binge through at least the first half of the series, I’m glad for it - It’s obvious that he needs the sleep.

So, leaning over as best I can with his weight still pressed against me, I pull Penny’s discarded blanket over him and switch channels, settling myself in for the night, contentedly.

————————————————————————————

Baz

I awake disoriented and heavy, Snow’s far away voice calling out for me as he shakes my arm gently. The room coming back to me in pieces - A warm sofa, and dim lights. The curtains drawn and television murmuring on quietly. And Simon - Beaming up at me from where he’s crouched on the floor.

“Hey, sleepyhead. I made you dinner.”

Scrubbing the sleep from my eye, I speak, voice low and rough. “What time is it?”

“Uh … I dunno like Nine or something? Why?”

“Nine!” I repeat. “Crowley, Snow, why didn’t you wake me?”

“You were sleepy,” he whines. “Come on, Bazzy, it doesn’t matter. Lets just eat dinner. I’m starved.”

I glare at him as best I can with him looking at me like that, dimple popping sweetly and eyes aglow (Which, as it turns out, isn’t very well at all. Since I can’t help the enamoured smile from breaching it’s way across my face, which I imagine rather weakens the blow). “Don’t call me that.”

Leaning forwards, he presses a kiss to my lips, murmuring out a muffled “Grump”, before pulling away and running off towards the kitchen. Imbecile.

A moment later he’s back, carrying in a huge casserole dish, spoons, and what I assume is Blood, held in that ghastly Fang-print mug he insisted on buying for me off of Amazon.

“Shepard's Pie alright?” he asks, flopping himself down besides me, and handing me the offensive mug.

“More than,” I sigh, pressing a kiss to the mole in the centre of his palm. “Thank you, love.”

“It’s alright. I made Brownies for pudding too, if you want them.”

I feel my throat pinch, pathetically at his earnestness.

He’s been ridiculously sweet to me tonight, even though I’ve practically ghosted him for the better part of a month. Even though I don’t really deserve it.

We’re still not the best at being affectionate with one another - What with all of our … ‘Issues’ these past few years, and the fact that we’ve had far more practise being enemies than boyfriends - but he’s clearly pulling out all the stops this evening. And I’m endlessly grateful.

Simon Snow my stupid, selfless hero. I must’ve done something really spectacular in a past life to have earnt myself him in this one.

“Snow. I’m sorry.”

“Huh. What for?” He asks, frowning. “I - If you want something different I can make it for you. Or … we could have takeaway if you’d prefer.”

“No, no. It’s not that,” I assure, smoothing a hand down his thigh. “I’m sorry for being so absent recently. I didn’t mean to … isolate myself quite so much. It’s not that I didn’t want to spend time with you, you know that I … that I always do. I just got caught up in it all."

And then he’s laughing at me, tongue poking between his teeth and shoulders shaking. “It’s fine, Baz. You don’t need to go all serious on me. Uni is important, I understand. And you’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

“Yeah. I’m here now,” I echo.

“And … I’m sure that you’ll make it up to me later,” he jokes, waggling his eyebrows in comical suggestiveness. A light flush filling his cheeks.

With a splutter of laughter, I shove him away from me in faux disgrace. Although, knowing me, he’s probably right. I’m painfully weak for Simon Snow.

I’d do anything he asked of me. I’d give him all that I am. I’d tie our hearts together chamber by chamber.

And I’ll definitely be ‘making it up to him later’ … if that's what he wants.

#carry on #wayward son #simon snow #baz pitch #snowbaz #snowbaz fic #my fic #my writing

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dibidibifiction · 4 years

Text

Criminal In My Mind: Chapter 1

Warning: foul language

Pairing: Choi Minho x Reader

Word count: 2k

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction made for personal entertainment of readers. The writer does not ever intend to offend her readers nor does she aim to spread false information about anyone as to pay any disrespect to the real-life persons whom the characters are based on. She also does not claim ownership to any of the images that are being used.

masterlist

Y/N

“What... What’s happening?”

Different voices sound faint in the background. I try to adjust as my sight is still cloudy. I have no idea where I am. I start to fail catching my breath as soon as I realize that I can’t feel my arms when I attempt to feel my head where there’s excruciating pain other than the rest of my body aches all over.

Although everything is dark and blurry, I noticed that I’m sitting down with my knees bent to my face, a cloth smelling of gasoline fumes covers my nose and mouth. I’m in a cramped space that I can hardly move in, some kind of a big container. I look up and I see a small hole with light shining through.

What is going on? I can hear myself breathing rapidly.

Two men appear from above me and grab me forcefully on both of my arms to stand me up as I feel another severe pain. This time it’s somewhere on my hip.

Shit, it hurts! It hurts, it hurts. It fucking hurts!

Still catching up with my breath, my sight is fading black again while I hear drilling and hammering but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I feel myself being dragged as burns forming on my heels. I start to panic—trying to jerk every part of my body, trying to break free. I’d shout for help but my lips down to my throat are too dry as if frozen.

I must have passed out for a minute because the next thing I know is complete silence and complete darkness. Suddenly, in front of me appears another man with blood all over his hands and a sledgehammer in one. “Stay still,” he says.

I try to scream again and finally, my voice rips out the loudest that I can, “Help!”

“Shh, relax, this is just a-”

“Dream!”

I jolt up. My pores drip with cold sweat and my heart throbs as if to break free from my ribs.

“It was just a dream,” I think out loud.

It’s been over a year since I last dreamt something about what happened when I was thirteen. I don’t even remember what exactly happened anymore. I just remember exactly how it felt, how terrifying it was. How I thought I was going to die. I’m not even sure how I survived, especially my surgeon. I received quite a beating from that event, such as severe bruises and deep cuts all over my body, internal bleeding along my insides. Two rib bones were so complicatedly twisted on my lower right flank that I needed surgery just for the doctors to fix them, which left a big scar down my side. I don’t know what’s worse: remembering how everything happened or remembering how it all felt. The memory of it all, although unclear...

I get freighted by the vibration of my phone against my nightstand. Jinki is calling.

“Lee Jinki, isn’t it too early for a flirtatious phone call? I’m not in the mood.”

“Oh, hey! I didn’t expect you to pick up right away. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just a bad dream. Gonna take a shower. I’m late for-”

“Wait! Stop by for breakfast. It’s on me.”

I roll my eyes and hang up. Jinki and I dated shortly after college for like a week or two so nothing was serious. We’re good friends now but he’s still claiming that there is still some kind of remaining spark between us. It’s getting old so I just always assume he’s joking every time he tells me that.

I decided not to wash my hair and just let it loose since I really am going to be late for work and I hate to bother going out with wet hair. I get dressed, I go for a pastel pink long-sleeved shirt tucked into a pair of high-waisted light blue jeans and my ivory cream high-top Chucks. I don’t bother for any makeup, which rarely happens, and rush out the front door then lock it behind me.

I hop on a cab taking it that there won’t be a bus stopping any second now.

I arrive at Jinki’s café, which is just on the next parallel street of the flower shop and just two neighborhoods away from home, “Hi, I’m here,” I call out even before I spot him.

“Good morning, Y/n!” Jinki greets cheerfully with his usual bright smile. “Wait, I think there’s something different,” he gestures both of his hands on my face.

“Oh, maybe it’s because I haven’t put any makeup-”

“You’re extra beautiful today,” his smile widens, and eyes almost disappear.

“-on,” I grit my teeth at him. “You shut up, Jinki! I’ll see you later,” I walk out the glass doors and nod at the barista as thanks for opening them for me.

I flash all the way to the flower shop that my sock slips off from my heel when I walk in, to already witness an early customer.

“There she is! My favorite employee. Y/n, sweetie, please come and talk to this fine lady right here. She has a lot of questions that are far beyond my energy to handle.”

“Sorry, I’m late, Mr. Lee. And everybody knows I’m your only employee who isn’t your son,” I joke back as Taemin pops in yawning, still in his morning glory.

“And everybody also knows that my son sucks at his job,” Mr. Lee shouts and smacks the back of his son’s head then points to another customer that has just walked in, ordering him to go and entertain.

As I mind my own customer, I catch a small glimpse of the guy Taemin’s talking to, who looks unimpressed. He has dark hair in a layered bowl style with his fringe covering more than half his forehead and would’ve definitely looked cuter if he smiled. They seem to already know each other. Weird thing is I feel like I’ve met him before. Was he in one of my classes in college? Does he go to the same gym class I do?

“For the petunia bouquet, can you add something else so it won’t look so plain?” the nice lady inquires further.

“Absolutely. Maybe I’ll add some purple azaleas or lilies, or maybe both if you’d like. What do you think?”

“Great! I’ll just entrust this on you, dear, okay?”

“No problem,” I assure her, not breaking a smile while I work the cash register for her down payment, I take one more quick look at the guy, who may now think I’m creepy so I’ll stop now. I hand over the receipt to the lady in front of me.

“Thanks! I’ll come back Friday to pick them up,” she announces.

“Thank you for coming in! I’ll make sure to ready your bouquets by then. Have a nice day!” I say, still smiling, opening the door for her to walk out.

As soon as I approach the guys, the other customer, probably coincidentally, is just walking out of the shop. I don’t know about everybody else who’s met him but he seems hostile to me.

And really really familiar. I can’t point my finger at it. “You know him?” I ask Taemin beside me.

“Yeah, we’re in a photography class together,” he tells me. “I tend to talk to him at school but he’s kind of scary.”

“Seems likely.”

“But I like him. I think he’s better once I get to know him.”

I laugh. “Anyway, what time do your classes start this afternoon?”

“2 o’clock.”

“Great. Can you deliver those bouquets due today for me? Please and thank you!” I sweetly ask him, pointing at a big box across the counter.

“Sure thing, Noona. Tell Dad I’ll be home late tonight,” he informs me while grabbing his backpack and the box of deliveries.

“Hot date?” I tease him.

“We’re just friends,” he said with a jokingly evil grin and a wink.

“Hey, Lee Taemin, don’t do anything stupid!”

Just like that, he’s out the door before I even finish my sentence.

Lunchtime is finally here. I’ve been arranging flowers all morning and handling customers whenever somebody comes in. Although I could never complain about my job since this is what I’ve ever wanted growing up.

I was born and raised in a different city where my parents live to this day about a two-hour drive away from here, or three hours if you took the bus since it has a lot of stops and depending on traffic. I moved to this city in my first year of college.

My mom and dad had been tight with me growing up, especially with academics, since they both have families that got master’s degrees and PhDs. At first, I didn’t mind studying hard and graduating with honors because I didn’t really know what I wanted to be in the future at the time. However, the more I aged, the more I realized that I hated studying. I’m not smart enough like my parents and my cousins and they had no idea how hard I must have worked in order for me to please them. I hated the attention whenever I received a first-place certificate or won local quiz bees and academic decathlons because, you know what, none of the trophies and medals I earned made me happy.

When I was kidnapped and held captive in some kind of box for days, all I thought about was flowers. I was missing my mom’s garden at home, and how it smelled in the morning before I went to school. I figured that flowers were all that I drew with crayons in kindergarten. It was the highlight of my days. At the time, in that container, I had foreboded that I was going to die.

Since the universe provided me a second chance to live, that’s when my life began. I did not want to be an academic overachiever, I wanted to have fun. Since then, my parents always scolded me for getting a B or a C, but I didn’t care. At least I never neglected my studies.

The day came when I had to move out to go to college and I couldn’t be more excited. Still without neglecting my academics, I started partying almost every weekend and dated whoever I wanted. Although, I honestly have never been in love before.

The rest is history, I found Mr. Lee’s flower shop. I applied for a job here three years ago, before I graduated.

“Did somebody order lunch?” Jinki walks into the shop. “How’s my love doing?”

“Fine, thank you for asking. And shut up,” I say. “You didn’t have to do this. You already gave me breakfast.”

“Oh, no, I don’t want my girl to starve,” he winks at me.”

“Hey, Lee Jinki! Give me a break, won’t you? I’m not yours.”

“Come on, I’m kidding. It already sank into me that you’re never gonna be mine. Plus, I actually met somebody.”

“No shit, really? Who?” I ask, surprised.

“I’m not gonna tell you now. We just started seeing each other and we’re not exclusive yet. I don’t even know if she likes me.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you moving on. Let me meet her when you’re ready.” I say to him as I pinch his cheek.

“Here we go,” he says after laying out all the food on the counter.

“Looks good, thank you,” I’m always thankful for Jinki. Even though we didn’t work out as romantic partners, I’m glad we’re friends. “Oh, by the way, Kibum is coming into town this Friday.”

“Oh, great. I only got to meet him once before but I think he’s really funny. How long ago was it when he last visited?” he asks while his mouth is full with rice.

“I think it was over a month ago when he told me the news about his engagement.”

“Looks like we have a fun weekend ahead. Although I might not join you the next day since I’m going home to my mom’s.”

“Great! Say hi to her for me.”

Chapter 2

#ktm cimm c1 #ktm cimm #shinee fanfic #shinee fanfiction #shinee fanfics #minho x reader #shinee fluff #shinee smut

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fericita-s · 4 years

Text

We Run a Very Tight Ship

Guest chapter! @sagiow challenged me to write a chapter for the Mercy Street Cruise Ship AU that involves “floor bacon” and “leftover snow cone” and this is the result, heavy on the Emmry. Thanks for inviting me to play in your sandbox! I hope I didn’t make things too dirty!

Thanks @the-spaztic-fantastic for beta-ing and for some research on this chapter that I won’t out you for. Let’s call it medical.

Previous Chapters by @jomiddlemarch and @sagiow

Quarantine – Day 5

Maple Bourbon Snow Cones

The lewd bag was empty and every time Emma looked at it the same hysterical giggle worked its way up from the depths of her belly, just like the one that had made her gasp against the wall with the realization that she was quarantined in the honeymoon suite with the man she’d been crushing on for as long as she’d had this job. And then it had been Henry making her gasp, and occasionally the depths of treasure they extracted from the lewd bag. What hadn’t needed batteries – the lotions, some of the condoms, the novelty lipstick shaped like a penis – was used up or laughed over and then discarded, Emma was still too good at her job to stop taking evaluative notes on what should be added or permanently excluded from future honeymoon packages. She had berated herself for not thinking to check that the outlets matched the plugs for the plug-in, but who wanted to spend any time thinking on Alice and Frank’s sexual satisfaction. Anyway, Henry was just as good as a Hitachi. Better even, what with the stubbled jawline and forearms to admire.

They were ensconced on the bed, the silk duvet and the plush matching bathrobes the only part of the experience that felt vaguely like a sick day.

Mostly, it felt like a vacation.

Three times a day, a steward knocked on the door to deliver food. There were increasingly entertaining videos livestreamed by PS I Love You Squivers and Henry was just as fun and funny to talk to post-sex, or more accurately in-between-sex, and no one had died.

Emma knew that should have been what she was most grateful for, and Henry was leading with it in the sermon he was live-streaming later, but it was easy to forget the chaos going on in the medical bay when she was on her honeymoon. Even a borrowed one.

A brisk knock sounded and Henry kissed her forehead as he left the bed to answer. The voice on the other side immediately scolded him and Emma tilted her head, trying to place it.

“You shouldn’t be opening the door for anyone without proper protective gear on!”

Emma wondered why someone would insist Henry answer the door with a condom on until the door opened wider and she saw the scrubs and mask Dr. Foster was wearing.

“Hello, Jed. Should I close it?” Henry seemed unbothered though he did take a few steps back, motioning for the doctor to come in. Emma thought Jed looked like he’d been awake for the five days of quarantine, and perhaps he had. It gave her a slight pang of guilt that he had been working so hard to take care of her sister and brother and soon-to-be brother-in-law/ex-boyfriend.

“Is Alice alright? And Jimmy?” She didn’t ask about Frank. Not because it was awkward, but because she didn’t really care and she’d rather keep thoughts of him out of this room where she definitely had not been thinking about him, beyond regretting that she had poured the premium bourbon Frank insisted the room was stocked with down the drain. If she had known she’d be the one holed up in this room, she wouldn’t have discarded the Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve and refilled the bottle with Jim Bean, which at the time had felt like a delightful power move. Would Frank brag about the superior taste of the good stuff instead of the cheap swill of the masses? Or would he have a Princess and the Pea moment and demand the high-end alcohol? Either would have been fireworks that amused her; it was just too bad she and Henry had to make do with the cheap stuff. It made the melted snow cones from lunch more bearable at least, and who could even taste the bourbon with the snow cone on her tongue and then Henry soon after.

“Alice and Jimmy are fine. The others too. No worse, no better. We just administered the tests and I’ve been assured we’ll get results soon. Alice sent me to collect the ‘sparkly, pretty, rainbow shoes’. The payment required for her participation in the swab.”

Emma tightened the bath robe and got out of the bed, her hands lingering on the silk, wishing it could have been longer that this room had gone without the name “Alice” being spoken. Hearing it twice was like breaking a spell.

“I don’t think her luggage is here. She was staying with her bridesmaids in an ocean view suite on A Deck.”

Jed sighed and raised a hand like he was going to rub it over his eyes and face, but then stopped, letting it fall back down. “I went there first. To Kayleigh or McEnany or MacKayleighAnnie or whatever the hell her three bridesmaids’ names are. They were next to useless and either lying or clueless, but they weren’t sick at least. Mind if I look here?”

Emma’s eyes met Henry’s and they both looked around the room at the detritus of one lewd bag and four and a half days’ worth of food and condom wrappers. Henry cleared his throat.

“How about we look and call you when we find it? And how about you take a rest in your own room before heading back to med bay? Before you need a cot there yourself?” Henry put a hand on Jed’s shoulder but Jed shook it off.

“Fine. I shouldn’t spend time in here with you anyway, stop the spread and all that. Let me know?”

He left and Henry bent to retrieve the breakfast tray that had been left and kicked at the door to shut it, but the pocket of his bathrobe got caught on the doorknob and the tray jerked out of his hands as he was pulled back with the door. Emma watched in horror as a plate slid off of the tray and the bacon slid off of the plate and onto the floor.

“Five second rule!” Henry shouted, pulling his bathrobe free of the door and scooping it up.

“On a cruise ship? During an epidemiological disaster? I don’t think the five second rule applies.”

“Fair,” Henry said, and threw it into the trash instead. “I suppose floor bacon is not what B Gibson intended for our culinary satisfaction.”

“I’m starting to feel like this is the Battle of Manassas and we’re all on a picnic watching the horror go down with amusement. Should I be doing more to help? Jed seemed pretty exhausted.”

“Manassas, eh? Not Bull Run? Took me five days but I finally found your flaw. You’re a secret Confederate.”

Emma swatted at him, but then reconsidered and swiped a pancake from the tray he was still holding instead. “I’m from Virginia. It’s what the battlefield sign says.”

Henry put the tray on the bed, resettling the plates and arranging the fruit and sausage that remained and took a pancake for himself. He spoke in between bites and he was so comforting and certain, Emma thought that online ordination must have included some contact hours for counseling training. He was so good at it. “I think quarantining is the most helpful thing we can do right now. That and look for these shoes. We know we’ve been exposed to Alice and if we go out, we just make the problem worse.”

Despite the sentence ending with “make the problem worse,” Emma felt a thrill of victory. For right now, for this perfectly weird moment, the best thing she could do for her job, for her family, for the good of the public health, was to remain in a honeymoon suite with Henry. It was a sacrifice she could handle.

They finished their breakfast and then began searching for the ridiculous shoes Alice apparently needed while prone in a hospital cot. Henry turned the livestream on and they watched with amusement as Percival Squivers apologized for the unhinged magic shows he had been giving over the past few days and then pledged to provide truly riveting content for the remainder of quarantine, however long it lasted. Then he reached to turn off his camera but missed, and Henry and Emma abandoned their search as they watched, open-mouthed and eyes wide as Squivers pulled a half dollar from behind a woman’s ear as she leaned in to kiss him. Squivers kept attempting to say, or guess, her name, like it was a magic trick that would have the best reveal yet: Lisette? Linnette? Laurent? And then what followed wasn't exactly porn, it wasn't exactly not porn, but it definitely wasn't good porn and they turned from it to keep searching.

As she lifted pillows and emptied drawers and looked in the smallest closet to ever bear the name, Emma considered how much easier it was going to be to stop this wedding now that the bride and groom were both sick. But she wanted it to not happen ever, and the means to prevent it was still not in her grasp.

Henry hadn't asked why and she wanted to think it was because he could tell how awful they were or that he'd do whatever she asked or that he was ready for hijinks of any kind, and not that he expected an explanation. Because she wasn’t sure she could explain the mortification of her former boyfriend marrying her little sister. It was cute when Amy March did it, but if Emma had to choose a scene to repeat from that book it would be letting her sister fall through the ice, and not necessarily the rescue that followed.

“Bingo!” Henry called, holding a shoe box aloft that had been stashed behind a pile of towels they hadn’t worked their way through yet.

Emma crossed the room to sit next to him as he opened the lid. The shoes were very sparkly, every color of the rainbow shimmering and shining in the sequins as they caught the light. Emma lifted them out and frowned as she saw something left behind, half-hidden by the tissue paper surrounding the shoes.

“That’s Frank’s phone,” she said, reaching for it and flipping it over so the rebel flag phone case was at least not offensively visible. She put in the code she knew he’d use: 1-2-3-4 and a series of pictures was already queued up.

She swiped through selfies of Frank, Jimmy posing obscenely, all the groomsmen posing obscenely, a close up of Alice’s ass, Frank boarding a plane, and then a series of photos with a random seatmate who looked to be the reigning Miss Italy. Photos in the cramped bathroom that left Emma with no doubt that plenty of germs and viruses and perhaps even an entire plague could have been caught from the amount of skin and orifices and fluids being exchanged in the bathroom, fully documented on his phone, in black and white, in video, in various filters that Emma appraised with a critical eye and announced, to Henry's amusement "Yep. Just as bad as I remember.”

He flashed her a smile. The one that meant this round was over and it had been a good one. “You did it. You found the evidence. No wedding.”

Emma shook her head. “If it was in her shoes, she knows. Nothing matters. The truth is out there and no one cares.”

A new sound was coming from the livestream and Henry and Emma turned to look, able to see clearly as Silas the pig and Mrs. Brannon came into frame and demanded of Squivers “Did you find it for me? I’m tired of paying you and seeing nothing but lousy magic to show for it.”

“I think we figured out Squivers’s side hustle,” said Henry, but he turned the tablet off at Emma’s blank look. “The truth does matter. And I made a no-vow vow. I don’t break my vows.”

“No wedding,” Emma said, equally solemn.

“The truth matters,” he repeated, and Emma wondered if he meant the revelers still having pop-up parties in hallways and acting like quarantine was a suggestive role play you could opt out of if it didn't suit your entertainment interests. It would be a good sermon, if anyone could tear themselves away from the trainwreck of the Squivers show to watch.

***

Jed came to retrieve the shoes later, looking marginally better rested but wielding test kits and insisting he administer them so the mad rush of the second round could at least be staggered. Emma giggled hysterically as Henry yelled “Peacock! Peacock!” and then again as the swab went so far up her nose she thought it was tickling her hairline from beneath her skull.

“Let’s add some more bourbon to the leftover snow cones,” she said as Jed left, bags and shoes in hand. The phone they had kept; the plan was still formulating on how to wield it.

“I want it that way,” Henry sang, sounding sexier than a Backstreet Boy though somewhat more nasally as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose and grinned at her.

#Mercy Street #Cruise Ship AU #Emmry #Foster #Squivers #and then they were quarantined #floor bacon #leftover snow cones #We Run A Very Tight Ship #Quarantine Day 5 #fan fic #guest chapter

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duchessfics · 5 years

Text

A Lasting Mark Part 2

Billie x Fem!Reader x Audrey

Warning(s): NSFW, Dom/sub dynamics, semi-public sex, praise kink, sex toy usage, orgasm denial, cunninlingus, choking

Summary: You finally go out on your first date with Audrey and Billie however the dinner goes in a suggestive direction leading to you going home with them. Even though you aren’t the most experienced, you quickly learn that their bedroom activities are much better than you imagined.

Word count: 8465

A/n: So...this ended up being over 12,000 words so there will be a part 3. But it’s already typed up and will be posted tomorrow! I really worked hard on this and hope you enjoy. This had a lot more warnings than I originally intended, but with Billie and Audrey I’m not surprised. ;) Enjoy!

Also @shineestark and @lana-b-bana I know you’re not on my tag list, but I figured you would want to know when I post this. I hope you like how this turned out as much as I do. :)

You can hardly contain your smile as the host leads you to the table Billie and Audrey reserved for your date. It has been around a month since you have seen either woman in person and you are looking forward to reuniting with them. Over the couple days you worked with them on set you had gotten to know them better and found yourself falling hard for them both. But you decided to wait to go out on an official date until shooting was done. However, that didn’t stop you from texting and having a couple late night facetime sessions with them both. As you walk, you smooth down your dress and notice they lead you to a more secluded area. Then you take a couple breaths to calm your nerves. Unfortunately, that effort fails as you see Billie and Audrey sitting at a circle table beside each other.

Audrey looks adorable with her short hair and wears a lacy, off-white dress that compliments her skin beautifully. And she looks to Billie who wears a blush pink dress and pearl necklace. And you have no doubt that they are genuine pearls. Her hair is curled and loose as per usual making you want to run your fingers through it to see if it’s really as smooth as it looks. They both look up as the host steps forward and you can’t help the blush on your face as they both smile up at you.

After murmuring a soft thank you to the host, you take a seat and Billie murmurs, “You look beautiful tonight, sweetheart.” Did Billie Dean Howard really say that—to you? That is not something you thought you would ever hear even in your wildest dreams. You smile and blush even more as she looks you over appreciatively and reply, “Thank you. You both look stunning as well.” Audrey giggles and bites her lip, but something about her seems…off. Maybe they had a disagreement? They both have very strong personalities. Or she was filming for hours on end and definitely could be exhausted from that.

As you pick up the hefty, leather-bound menu and Audrey says, “We’re so happy to see you, darling.” You look to her sweet face and reply with a smile, “I’m really happy to see both of you too.” Then you pause, looking between them and wonder if this is too forward, but you decide to say it anyways, “I’ve missed being around you both.” Audrey blushes with the biggest grin while Billie smirks and looks as if she knew that already and it feels so good to be with them in person once more. Then you open the menu and before you can stop yourself your eyes widen at the prices adjacent to the food options. “Order whatever you would like, darling. We’re buying.” Billie says. Immediately you look to her and stutter, “T-that’s ok. You don’t have to do that—” But Billie raises her hand, making you stop and her glossy lips form into a smile as she purrs, “It’s my pleasure.” Your mouth suddenly feels dry as her darkened eyes keep contact with yours, so you simply nod.

You go quiet, looking over the list of delicacies and don’t know what half of these things are. The level of luxury in your life is very minimal. So, you decide to choose something that is basic, but at least you have an idea of what the item is. The waiter comes over and they look to you to order so you do so with a blush as you think about the price. Then the waiter looks to Billie and she orders something that you have never even heard of. But her practiced ease makes your stomach warm in arousal. Cool your jets, you inwardly tell yourself. It’s just a dinner order. Finally, the waiter turns to Audrey, but what happens next throws you for a loop.

As she begins to order, her throat closes up and she drops the menu, making your eyes widen. Her jaw clenches as her cheeks turn a dark red, but when she goes to speak, a moan escapes her lips. What the hell? Should you…do something? You aren’t sure so you keep quiet trying not to embarrass her further. Luckily Billie seems to notice and takes Audrey’s hand while saying, “Audrey seems to be tongue-tied at the moment. So, she’ll be fine with the same meal as me.” The waiter looks as shocked as you, but doesn’t say anything, leaving with an awkward smile.

By the time you return your gaze to Audrey, she seems less tense, but still blushes. “Are you ok, Audrey?” You ask, searching her face to get an idea of what’s wrong. She clears her throat and replies, “Y-yes. Sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.” Even though she says she’s alright, you eye her down, very skeptical, but she gives you a small smile. As she does, out of the corner of your eye you see Billie smirking and know she must be up to something. But before you can ask anything more about it, Billie asks, “So have you previously dated anyone?” Ha! That’s a good one. You look down, a little embarrassed by your dating history or lack thereof.

“My older brothers were very protective of me, so they usually scared off anyone that was interested.” You begin and make yourself look up at them before you continue, “I dated a guy my senior year in high school. But it only lasted a little less than three months and fizzled out after we both graduated, and I moved away.” They both study you and Audrey says, “So…you’ve never dated a woman before?” Oh crap. Your eyes widen and you begin to inwardly panic as you explain, “Well, um, no. But I-I was, am, I am attracted to women. I just…no one asked me out.” Then you swallow and take a deep breath before explaining, “I-I like men and women…Hopefully that makes sense.” Then your eyes falter as your face burns. Did that really just happen? Unfortunately, it seems so.

Billie reaches over and takes your hand in her smooth, warm one, making you look back up. They both give you reassuring smiles and Billie runs her thumb over the top of your much rougher hand as she soothes, “That makes perfect sense, sweetheart.” You smile, glad that they understand and wonder why you thought they would judge you in the first place.

Billie’s smile turns into a smirk as she casually asks, “And how far did you go with your boyfriend?” At this point, you feel your chest heating up as you look between them and reply, “I…well…we just kissed.” Instead of looking to Billie’s dominant gaze, you look to Audrey and she chirps with a pleasant smile, “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, darling. I am quite certain that he loved every kiss you gave him.” You let out a little giggle and Billie releases your hand as the waiter comes over to deliver the food.

Once the dishes are served, before they can probe anymore about your romantic life, you ask, “So how did you two meet?” Immediately, Audrey’s eyes light up and she looks to Billie as she replies, “Well, we first met at an award show and even though I find most Americans to be abhorrent, I felt a connection with Bill right away.” You can’t help but smile as Audrey speaks and you find her nickname for Billie adorable. “So, we exchanged numbers and began to text back and forth. Eventually when the both of us had a break from jobs, we went out on an actual date.” Audrey finishes, letting out a sigh of happiness as she practically swoons under Billie’s gaze. While Billie is much more covert, you see that attraction reciprocated in the way she cares for Audrey. She looks to Audrey and murmurs, “The moment I saw Audrey walk into that restaurant, I knew I was head-over-heels in love with her.” At that, Audrey giggles and lets Billie give her a gentle kiss.

Between bites, Audrey explains, “We went out on a couple more dates before I let Billie take me home.” Billie chuckles, raising her eyebrow as she looks down at Audrey, and comments, “You let me take you home? I distinctly remember you begging me to take you to my home. But perhaps I’m mistaken.” You giggle at the comment while Audrey huffs, but smiles. Then Audrey looks to you and lets out a dramatic sigh before saying, “Anyways, then we really began to explore our relationship. Billie is amazing. I mean, she makes me feel like a teenager again even though the days of my youth are long over.” At that comment, Billie shushes Audrey and kisses her cheek before she says more to Audrey than you, “You are nowhere near being old, my darling. You’re like a fine wine, getting better with each day.” You practically swoon at how Billie compliments Audrey and can see Audrey genuinely smiles before giving Billie a kiss on her cheek.

Audrey brings her hand up to fan her face and she says, “They really ought to keep this place cleaner. Blasted dust getting into my eyes” But you and Billie chuckle, knowing dust has nothing to do with it. By now you are to the last bites of your meal and Billie speaks up, “After taking Audrey home, I learned she can be such a darling submissive.” Then she looks to you with an eyebrow raised and asks, “You know what a submissive is, sweetheart?” Your cheeks burn for the umpteenth time and you nod, your voice failing you as your own arousal resurfaces.

Billie chuckles at your response and takes Audrey’s hand as she looks her over. “For example, last night, I told her that she could only cum from my words.” Then she glances to you before murmuring, “No touching.” You face burns and you did not expect this insight into their sex life, but you are most definitely not opposed to hearing about it. Billie’s dilated eyes look you over hungrily and a whimper nearly escapes your mouth. “You know what sent her over the edge?”

Fuck. Me. Well these panties are definitely ruined. You clear your throat and squeeze your thighs together to get some reprieve before squeaking, “No.” Billie grins and looks to Audrey who is suddenly very quiet but has a small smile playing on her lips. “I told her to imagine someone touching and kissing her in all of her special places. And just before she came, she cried out your name.” Your whole body heats up and you glance at Audrey who looks as red as you feel at the moment. But her eyes are almost completely black, and she licks her lips, clearly aroused.

Then Billie leans towards you and murmurs, “Darling, the thought of you touching her made her have the most intense orgasm she’s had in weeks.” A smile creeps up on your face at the thought of causing that. You haven’t felt this kind of influence and it does a number on your butterfly-filled stomach. Meanwhile, you still can’t manage to speak words, thinking about what Billie just described and wishing you were there. Billie releases Audrey’s hand and leans back, clearly amused at you and Audrey’s very apparent arousal. Then she tuts her tongue before saying, “But Audrey sometimes has problems with her attitude and that has to be addressed.” Then she looks to Audrey and says, “No one likes a bratty girl.” Audrey doesn’t speak and averts her eyes, only making small glances at Billie.

Before Audrey can respond, Billie returns her gaze to you and explains, “Today was one of those days. So now she’s paying the price.” You furrow your brows completely confused. She’s on a date with you…Is that a punishment? Surely not since she had an orgasm at the thought of you. So, you tell Billie, “I-I don’t understand.” She grins and pulls her chair over, so she sits beside you, making Audrey let out a whimper of protest. Then she pulls out her phone and opens an app as she murmurs, “Currently, sweet Audrey has a vibrator in her that I control.” Suddenly, things begin to make more sense and you are in disbelief that this is actually happening. But God you would love to have Billie dominate you too.

Your face flushes and all you can manage to say is, “Oh.” Billie chuckles and you suppress the shiver of arousal that almost makes its presence known. It doesn’t help that her sweet scent now completely fills your nose as she gets even closer to you. Then she says in a softer tone, “I’ll show you how it works.” You watch her press a button and look up as Audrey drops her fork on her plate and takes a deep shuddering breath, closing her eyes as she trembles in pleasure. As this all occurs, the room temperature feels like it has risen significantly.

Billie chuckles and says, “I can turn up the intensity too.” And she slides her finger over her screen to increase the number present. “Billie.” Audrey says in a strained moan and grips the table, clamping her mouth shut. Billie’s dark eyes look to you and she asks, “Should I stop?” Your eyes widen at being the one to determine this. After looking to Audrey’s desperate gaze, you nod and reply, “Yes.” But you can’t deny that there is a part of you that would not have minded teasing Audrey further.

Audrey lets out a sigh of relief as Billie turns the vibrator off. Then she looks to you and breathes, “Thank you.” You look to Billie, unsure if you should reply. Wait—what? How does she determine what you say? She gives you a small nod and you look to Audrey before replying, “You’re welcome.” giving her a small smile, still imagining her crying out your name in the thrashes of her orgasm. Audrey picks up her fork and goes to take her last bite as Billie says, “Audrey and I have been doing this for a couple hours and she does deserve a reward for taking her punishment so well.” At that, Audrey perks up and looks to Billie with a smile on her face. Billie ignores her, looking to you and murmurs, “Now you don’t have to do this at all, but I know Audrey and I would love it if you came over and helped me reward her. Would you be interested?” You look between them and know your answer before Billie finishes her question. “Yes.” You say almost as soon as she finishes speaking.

She eyes you down and asks, “You’re sure? It’s ok if you say no. We won’t be upset.” But there is no doubt in your mind. Looking to them both, you have no idea what the night holds, but you are as sure as hell that you are not leaving this place without them. You give her an affirming nod and try to make yourself sound more confident as you answer, “I want to.” After hearing that, Billie grins and gets the waiter’s attention for the check.

You walk with them out of the restaurant to a luxury car and Billie walks ahead before opening the back door for you. You blush at the gesture and say, “Thanks.” She gives you a smile and makes sure you’re completely in before closing the door. Then she goes around to the other side and opens the other back door for Audrey. Once you’re both in, Billie gets in the driver’s side and turns on the car. But before she goes to leave, Billie turns back and looks to Audrey.

“Since you behaved so well in the restaurant, I’ll let you cum.” At that, Audrey lets out a sigh of relief and says, “Thank you.” But Billie’s smile turns mischievous and she says, “But the vibrator stays on until we get home.” Both of your eyes widen, and you can’t imagine having that on the whole ride home, especially with LA traffic. Audrey goes to say something, but Billie raises her eyebrows and firmly says, “Unless you would rather not cum at all while the vibrator is on?” Audrey fervently shakes her head, tousling her short locks as she cries out, “No! Please No!” Billie goes back to her confident smirk and purrs, “Good girl.” Then she looks to you and you find yourself both terrified and aroused at what she will say to you.

“I have a task for you too, babygirl.” Billie murmurs. Your insides warm as she uses the pet name. Then she bites her lip and chuckles before saying to herself, “Babygirl, hmm, I really like that.” But she goes back to focusing on you and says, “I want you to help Audrey out as she cums. Can you do that for me, babygirl?” Each time she says that pet name, you feel your body buzz in arousal and nod before softly saying, “Yes.” Billie smiles and gives you a wink before she pulls out her phone.

You know when the vibrator is on from Audrey letting out a groan as her head falls back against the plush leather headrest. Meanwhile, Billie chuckles and begins to pull out of the parking lot. You scoot towards the middle spot, looking to Audrey for some guidance. She sits up enough to face you and moans, “Kiss me.” So, you bend down towards her face and she meets you halfway, desperately capturing your lips. You close your eyes and moan at her boldness, getting a taste of her lip gloss as she wraps her arms around you to pull you closer. Meanwhile, your hands come up to cup her face and you part your lips to let her tongue enter. As she does, you let out a sigh, leaning further into her as pleasure takes over.

But after a couple moments, Audrey abruptly breaks from your lips and moans, “Fuck.” However, Billie’s voice warns, “Audrey you know we don’t use such dirty language outside of the bedroom.” You decide a distraction might help so you cup her face and whisper, “It’s ok.” Then you guide her to kiss you once more, partially to help her and partially to feel her lips on yours again.

Audrey’s body trembles and her arms tense up before she parts from your lips again, whimpering, “I-I’m close!” But instead of trying to recapture her lips, you hold her close and murmur against her neck, “Let me see you cum, Audrey.” Then you begin to kiss and suck on her neck, going harder as she lets out mewls and whimpers. Audrey’s body stiffens and she says, “Oh God!” then she shudders and lets her head fall forward onto your shoulder. You feel yourself warm up as she clings to you through her orgasm. Once she seems finished, you back up a little and Audrey lifts her head to look at you. Her sweet face is adorable as she smiles up at you and bites her lower lip. You smile at her blissed-out face and wipe some of her hair off of her sweaty forehead.

“Such a good girl, Audrey.” Billie murmurs making you both look to her. Even though she isn’t addressing you, your stomach flutters at the words “good girl.” While she makes sure to keep facing the road, LA traffic gives her plenty of time to look at you both in the rearview mirror. Then Billie’s eyes look to you and she says, “How about you climb up on Audrey’s lap and explore her body further?” Your face flushes, but you nod and stutter, “O-ok.” Then you hitch up your dress with trembling hands enough to straddle Audrey’s lap. Already her face looks strained and her lust-blown eyes look up to you. Audrey’s arms slide up your back and she pulls you flush against her body.

A squeak escapes your lips, but any other sound is swallowed up by Audrey’s lips on yours. Then instead of going to cup her face like earlier, your shaky hands land on her front and slowly slide down until you meet her breasts. Audrey whines against your lips as you gently squeeze and she thrusts her chest out further, as if encouraging you to take more. While you are the one pleasing her, you find your own pleasure increasing at her encouragement and moans. So, you give her luscious mounds a firmer squeeze and massage them while you roll your hips over hers, losing yourself in the moment. Before long, Audrey breaks from your lips, letting out a cry and you can tell she is about to cum again. So, you lean down to kiss and suck the delicate skin of her neck.

Her hands stroke up and down your back and she holds you even closer as she moans, “That feels so good, darling. Just keep going, just like that, love.” In response, you moan against her neck, continuing your movements and before long Audrey is shuddering through another orgasm more intense than the first one. Billie keeps quiet this time, but you can feel her gaze on you both. As Audrey keeps going, you both keep each other close and you murmur encouraging words while she falls apart in pleasure.

You don’t know how many times Audrey has cummed or even how much time has passed, but she can hardly speak as Billie finally turns off the vibrator. Once she turns off the car, you finally look around and realize you are in a garage. So, you climb off of Audrey’s lap, smoothing down your dress as you give your swollen lips a break. Billie gently opens the back door and leans down to meet Audrey’s glazed over eyes as her hands come up to cup her face. “You ok, sweetheart?” Billie murmurs as her warm brown eyes scan over Audrey.

Audrey gives a lazy smile and speaks in a sleepy, exaggerated voice, “Yes. Y/n was brilliant.” You blush at the compliment and Billie eyes you over with a satisfied smirk. Then she gives you a wink and you feel yourself aroused even more by that movement. Billie returns her gaze to Audrey and murmurs, “Let’s get you inside.” Then she helps Audrey stand and holds her up as they walk towards the door. However, Billie stops them and looks back to you, making sure you’re coming. You climb out of Audrey’s side, shut the door, and dash up to the other side of Audrey so she can get some support from both you and Billie as you walk inside.

You gasp as you step into their luxurious home and look in every direction making them both chuckle as you take everything in. But you don’t slow down, helping Audrey into a kitchen that looks like it’s made for a professional chef. Once there, Billie helps Audrey into a chair and pecks her forehead before murmuring, “I’ll get you some water.” Your eyes follow Billie’s figure as she saunters over to their massive cabinets. That dress hugs her curves just right and you find yourself mesmerized. How is it possible that someone—well actually two people can look so perfect? However, your eyes flick back up to her face as she twists back to look at you and asks, “Would you like a glass of water, babygirl?” You give her a smile and reply, “Yes, please.” Her eyebrow raises and she gives you a smile as she praises, “Good manners.” You smile and blush, looking down in bashfulness.

But as you hear her heels tap against the floor, you venture to look up and get a gorgeous view of her rear as she bends to pick up some ice that dropped on the floor. The way her ass strains against the fabric makes your mouth water. And as you watch, you lick your lips, feeling your cheeks flush with arousal. However, you get startled by Audrey asking, “Enjoying the view, darling?” Immediately you look over to see Audrey smirking with a knowing look. You find your cheeks burning as you stammer out, “I…well—” but you shut up as Billie comes over to you.

“It’s alright, babygirl,” Billie murmurs as she smirks, and her eyes rake over you. Then her eyes return to yours and she continues, “Audrey gets distracted by my ass all the time.” Then she hands you a cup of water and you smile in a gesture of gratitude, words failing you at the moment. You take a long drink of water, hoping it will cool you off while Billie walks over to give Audrey her water before lighting a cigarette.

Within minutes, Audrey has drunk all of her water and Billie happily refills it for her, holding the cigarette in her mouth as she holds the cup under the water dispenser. The room fills with the smell of smoke and perfume making it sweet and smoky in the best way. As Audrey drinks more, she begins to perk up again. Meanwhile you continue to sip on your water, watching Billie keep a hand on Audrey’s shoulder as if anchoring her. Audrey happily leans into her and Billie continues to smoke her cigarette, looking you over once and awhile.

After letting out a puff of smoke, Billie strokes Audrey’s back as she says, “Audrey, since you did so good, I thought I could teach you to top Y/n.” Your eyes widen and Billie smirks as she takes another drag before purring, “You seem like such a sweet submissive girl, darling. And judging from earlier events, it seems you find being told what to do to be arousing.” Your face flushes and you can’t deny it. In fact, it feels like you can’t speak with your mouth being so dry. Her eyebrow raises and she asks, “Am I wrong?” But she already knows the answer. You shake your head and answer, “No.” Audrey looks up to you with wide, brown eyes and asks, “You’re ok with this?” You bite your lip, a little nervous, but know that this is what you want.

Billie lets out a puff of smoke as she says, “We’ll take good care of you, babygirl. I promise.” Then she smiles and you find yourself smiling back as you look to them both. “Yes, I’m ok with it.” You softly say. Then you swallow and try to sound more confident as you say, “I-I want to do this.” Audrey grins, her eyes sparkling and Billie smirks, putting out her cigarette as you finish your water. Once that’s done, Audrey takes your left hand and Billie takes your right hand before they lead you upstairs.

Another gasp falls out of your lips as you see their enormous bedroom and their hands let go of yours, letting you explore further. As you look over their distinctly feminine wardrobes and nightstands, you find yourself heading towards their California king bed. You run your hand over the silky bedspread, looking to the cushioned headboard and murmur, “This looks beautiful.” Then you look back to see both Audrey and Billie studying you. Your cheeks warm and you let your hand fall to your side before saying, “Right, sorry.” Then you bow your head ready for their instructions.

Billie comes forward and says, “Don’t be sorry. We’re going to take things nice and slow. This should be enjoyable for you.” You nod in understanding, still new to all of this. The corner of Billie’s lips curves into a smirk and she purrs, “Now how about you come over here and sit between us, babygirl.” Oh my. This is really happening. You blush and nod coming closer as they both perch themselves on the end of the bed. Then you hesitantly sit between them, trying to watch both of their faces. Once seated, you can’t help the smile on your face, and they give reassuring smiles back. Then Billie cups your face with one of her hands and guides you to look to her.

Each time you are close to Billie, you feel like you get swallowed up by her warm, brown eyes. They are a touch lighter than Audrey’s and remind you of milk chocolate. And her touch is always soft and gentle. You find yourself leaning towards her hand as her thumb lightly strokes over your cheekbone making her smirk. “Since Audrey got to kiss you all the way home, I think I should get some sugar too, hmm?” Billie purrs. You giggle at her comment and nod. So, her other hand comes up to the side of your face and she leans towards you, her lips melting against yours.

You bring your hands to cup Billie’s face and mimic her movements, making her moan into your mouth. And although Billie is much slower in kissing you than Audrey was, Billie’s lips and tongue have a dominance that make you unravel. You taste the vanilla sweetness of her gloss this time with the slightest hint of smoke, but that doesn’t bother you. It turns you on. Goosebumps pop up over your back and arms as you feel your hair get brushed over your shoulder and lips press against the nape of your neck. The feeling makes you shiver in arousal and you moan into Billie’s lips as Audrey begins to kiss and suck at the skin, making Billie smirk against you. Audrey continues to suck and nibble at the skin causing you to whimper at the hint of pain, but you can’t deny the wetness rapidly forming between your legs.

Eventually, Billie releases your lips and leaves a line of wetness as she kisses down your neck. Once she gets to the sensitive bend of your neck, her teeth nip at your skin, making you gasp her name, eyes closing in pleasure. You always heard that it was a sensitive spot but feeling her mark you there was better than you could have imagined. Then your fingers find residence in Billie’s remarkably soft hair to keep her close. You smile to yourself, knowing now that you were right about her silky hair.

Both Audrey and Billie continue to kiss and mark you from both sides when you feel the zipper of your dress slowly being pulled down. You twist your neck as much as Billie will allow and look back at Audrey. Her mouth leaves you and she smiles up at you before she leans up to kiss your lips. Then she pulls the zipper down the rest of the way. You shiver at the feeling of your skin being exposed and suddenly feel a little self-conscious about the scar on your shoulder.

Audrey parts from your lips so her dark chocolate eyes can meet yours and she asks, “You ok, darling?” You inwardly try to shake off that concern and give a small smile before replying, “Yeah.” She smiles up at you and you feel your stomach flip. But you get distracted by Billie’s lips leaving your neck. So, you look towards her and feel her breath fan over your face as she murmurs, “Can you lift your arms for us, babygirl?” You bite your lip to keep from moaning as you feel the heat of her body radiate onto yours. Then you nod and do as she requested.

Two pairs of hands gently lift the dress up over your head and Audrey leaves to set it on their chest of drawers. You let out a quiet whimper from the cool air behind you and your first reaction is to cross your arms and curl into yourself. Billie gently takes your hands and asks, “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Your whole body burns as you look down from her questioning gaze and stutter, “I-It’s stupid, but,” you stop yourself and take a deep breath, forcing yourself to look to her before continuing, “My scars are big and ugly, and,” you take another deep breath before saying, “I-I just don’t want you to be disgusted when you see how big they are.” Billie gently shakes her head and moves her hands up to cup your face with a warm smile to greet you.

“Hey.” She says in a soft and soothing tone. Your eyes stop shifting down and you look directly to her. Her thumbs gently brush over the skin of your face and you feel warmth flow through you as she murmurs, “You have no reason to be embarrassed or disgusted by your scars.” Then she pecks your lips before asking, “You remember how amazed Audrey was when she saw your scars?” By now Audrey is back behind you and she rests her chin on your shoulder, soothingly rubbing your arm as she says, “I still am.” You smile, remembering the first time you met Audrey on set and nod. Billie grins and says, “You are not ugly. Far from it, babygirl.” Then her hands leave you and she says, “Ok?” You look between them and Audrey gives your arm a reassuring squeeze. “Ok.” You softly reply, sitting up like you were.

Audrey runs her lips over your bumpy shoulder while purring, “So beautiful.” Then her fingers unhook your bra and Billie helps you shrug it off before you slip off your panties. Oh God. This is really happening. Billie hums appreciatively while Audrey can’t keep her lips off of you and you are sure there are marks all over you. Then your whole-body flushes as they both kiss and compliment how beautiful you look. And as they both give attention to your almost completely scarred upper leg and side, you find yourself feeling comfortable again.

After a moment, they both come up so they face you and Billie looks past you to Audrey, stroking your arm as she asks, “What would you like her to do for you, Audrey?” You look back to Audrey and see her brown eyes studying you. And you feel nerves and excitement as you think of everything you could do. She keeps quiet, nibbling on her lower lip for a moment before she smiles and says, “I want her to eat me out.” Your cheeks flush at the request and Billie asks, “Can you do that for Audrey, babygirl?” drawing your attention. You look to her and reply, “I-I can try.” Billie smiles and murmurs, “Good girl. How about you get down on your knees for us.” So, you slip off the bed onto their plush carpet and shift so you’re on your knees.

Audrey makes quick work of removing her clothes while Billie grabs some pillows to help prop Audrey up. Then, just as quick, Audrey opens her legs and exposes herself to you. Your eyes widen as you look to her soaked, bare pussy. Wow she is like a goddess as she looks over you, body flushed with desire. But you pause, uncertain You’ve seen videos of women doing this, but it’s different now that you’re the one doing it and her pleasure relies on you doing well. You scoot a little closer, knowing what you promised; however you pause when Billie kneels beside you and asks, “Need a little help?” You blush as you reply, “Y-yes please.” Billie smiles and says, “I’ll guide you.” You inwardly let out a sigh of relief, glad she will be there. So, you turn back to face Audrey and Billie comes a little closer before murmuring in your ear, “The first thing to do is to get the vibrator out.” Then she takes the hand closest to her and moves it up to Audrey’s dripping core.

“Go ahead and rub her clit with your thumb. That’ll help her relax.” You rest the palm of your hand on her mound and bring down your thumb to dip into her folds, slowly moving it until you feel her little pearl. Audrey lets out a moan, making you smile up at her as you continue to move your thumb over her sensitive nub. Billie keeps close enough that her hair brushes your shoulder and neck and her hot breath on your ear makes you shiver as she murmurs, “Good girl. Now use your other hand to pull out the vibrator. But don’t pull too hard.” You nod in understanding and bring your other hand up. Fortunately, the end of the vibrator is visible, so you take it with the tips of your fingers and increase the movements of your thumb as you begin to gently pull.

Audrey’s neck and chest are as pink as her face as she moans and shifts her hips. You notice the vibrator is much wider than you thought and the sounds that result from you taking it out are obscene, but turn you on nonetheless. Meanwhile Billie continues to murmur soft words of encouragement as you continue to pull. Finally, the vibrator leaves Audrey’s hole and she lets out a sigh of relief, relaxing into the bed. Your eyes widen as you finally see how big the device is and Billie says, “I’ll take care of that.” So, you hand the dripping vibrator to her and wait for further instructions.

For now, Billie sets it to the side and comes to face you before murmuring “Now it’s time for you to give Audrey a special greeting.” You eagerly nod, making Billie chuckle and she says, “I want you to give her pussy lips a kiss. Then you can start to lick with your tongue.” You lick your lips in anticipation and say, “Ok.” Then you turn back, so your face is level with her weeping slit. Well here goes nothing. You bend close and press your lips against her bare ones, pausing for a moment before dipping your tongue in to taste her.

Immediately you close your eyes and moan into Audrey. She tastes sweeter than you thought. “You like how she tastes?” Billie asks. You pull back a little to see her smirking. “Yes.” You breathe, licking the remnants off your lips. However, you realize how slow you’re being and turn to look up at Audrey. “Sorry I’m taking so long.” You softly say. Billie pets your hair and soothes, “It’s ok. This is a time for you to investigate her body. Audrey can be a good girl and wait.” Then Billie looks towards Audrey with her eyebrows raised. “Right, dear?” she asks. Audrey’s legs tremble, but she gives a half smile while replying, “Of course.” Then you bend close and begin to lick her pussy once more.

As you go, you look up to Audrey, watching her reactions while you suck and lick at her clit. You venture to enter your tongue into her and Audrey moans, “Yes, that feels so good, darling.” Arousal flames in your stomach as she praises you and makes you work your tongue harder. She continues to moan praises, some incoherent while Billie keeps your hair back. The way her fingers brush through your hair down your back makes you tingle all over and the arousal between your own legs continues to build.

After a couple minutes, Billie leans in close to your ear and says in a low tone, “It’s ok to go harder. Audrey likes it rough.” At that you pause, unsure, and back away to face Billie. Audrey lets out a whine, but quickly goes silent as Billie shoots her a warning look. Then Billie’s face turns gentle before she looks back to you. You blush as you ask, “Could you…I mean, would you be willing to help me?” Then your eye contact falters as you look down and explain, “I just…I wouldn’t want to hurt her.” Billie’s fingers brush against your cheek, making you glance up to see her smiling. “I can help you, babygirl.” Then her hand leaves you and she says, “Go back to licking her.” And you eagerly do.

After a couple moments of getting your rhythm down again, Billie leans close, her hair tickling your skin as she softly says, “Now I want to you run your teeth over her clit.” Teeth? Isn’t that…harsh? You glance at Billie out of the corner of your eye, skeptical. But you listen, letting your teeth lightly graze over the swollen bundle of nerves. Immediately Audrey cries out, “Yes! Harder!” Ok. That’s unexpected, but Billie is right about Audrey liking it rough. Your cheeks warm at the praise and you listen, adding more pressure.

Audrey’s fingers come down to entangle in your hair as she pulls your face even closer. “Fuck! Just like that, darling!” Audrey moans. You smile as you keep going and Billie huskily whispers in your ear, “Now I want you to enter two of your fingers into her.” At this point, you can’t say anything, so you nod and lift your dominant hand. Then you wet your pointer and middle fingers in her juices before slowly easing them in.

You moan as you feel her warmth greedily take your fingers in, her hips bucking up for you to move faster. She groans and clenches down on your fingers and it feels indescribable. You are connected to Audrey in one of the most intimate ways possible and it is amazing. Meanwhile you continue to abuse her swollen clit with your mouth. One of Billie’s hands takes your wrist and she murmurs, “I’ll get you going.” Then she pulls your hand back until your fingers are nearly out of Audrey before slamming them in even deeper. Audrey moans and curses as Billie continues that motion, speeding up your hand until it moves at a brutally fast pace.

Billie murmurs in your ear, “I want you to keep going just like this.” Then she releases your wrist and you follow her instructions as Audrey begins to cry out and pull you closer. All of this feels surreal and you wonder if this is a dream. But Audrey’s nails digging into your scalp keep you awake in the best way. Billie pecks your cheek before leaving your side and standing up. You watch her walk around the bed until she stands over Audrey with her arms crossed. “Doing alright, sweetheart?” Billie murmurs with a smirk, making Audrey take her cries down a notch. Her cheeks are dark red as she answers, “Y-yes.” Billie leans closer and her one hand wraps around Audrey’s throat as she purrs, “Are you glad to be topping someone?” You moan into Audrey’s cunt as you watch her squeeze the hand around Audrey’s throat while leaning down to kiss her.

Audrey and Billie kiss each other while you look to them, keeping your pace. Then Billie says, “Why don’t you take a look at that sweet girl who is making you feel so good?” Her hand remains on Audrey’s throat as Audrey sits up and her darkened eyes look to you. You whimper under both of their gazes and Billie soothingly strokes Audrey’s cheeks and hair as she helps her lay back down. Billie backs up and murmurs, “But you’re still my girl, right?” Audrey arches her back and goes to say yes, but you slam your fingers in extra hard, making her cry out, “Oh! Fuck! Y-yes, Billie.” Even though Audrey doesn’t seem to have any thoughts besides pulling you close against her, there is no doubt Billie saw the mischievous glint in your eyes. You are sweet, but you’ve also got some spice too and Billie gives you a knowing smirk.

Then Billie releases her hold on Audrey’s neck, and you can’t help but wonder what that would feel like on you. Would it be frightening? Maybe a little, but you know she would never hurt you. She saunters out of your line of vision, swaying her hips dramatically as she is sure you are watching. Which you are. Even though your arm is tiring out, you keep up the pace, encouraged by Audrey’s moans and whimpers. Not long after, you feel Billie kneel beside you, but gasp as you feel her bare body rub against yours. And if you weren’t ready to be fucked before, you are definitely ready now. Then her lips start to kiss the top of your shoulder and she says between pecks, “You’re doing so good, babygirl…Listening to my instructions so well…I knew you would make such a sweet submissive.” But her compliments get cut off by Audrey whimpering, “I’m close!” Billie’s lips leave your shoulder, but she keeps close to you, her fingers stroking your hair and back once more.

“Do you want to cum, sweetheart?” Billie asks. Audrey sits up, her eyes nearly pitch black as she moans, “Yes. Billie—shit—Billie please let me cum. Please, please, please,” but her words die in her throat as Billie says, “Shh.” Meanwhile you are quickly beginning to lose momentum. Mind over matter, mind over matter. Hand do not fail me now.

Billie leans close to your ear and soothes, “We’re almost done, angel. I want you to curl your fingers up and towards yourself. Like this.” Then she shows you with her fingers and you mimic the motion. Immediately Audrey’s channel clenches up and you watch her head fall back as she moans, “Billie!” But your hand unintentionally begins to slow. Billie notices and says, “Ah, keep up your pace. You can do it.” If Billie says you can, you can. Simple as that. So, you speed up your movements to Billie’s set pace as Audrey continues to beg to cum.

But Billie shakes her head and says, “Not yet.” Audrey lets out something between a cry and growl, but listens. Then Billie leans close to you and whispers, “When I give her permission, I want you to keep going until I say stop.” She doesn’t even have to ask if you will because you both know you will do anything Billie tells you to do.

As Audrey’s legs violently tremble, Billie purrs, “Cum for me, my darling.” Audrey does so, letting out a loud cry and you watch her face contort from the strain of holding back to the overwhelming pleasure of release. You try to capture every sweet drop that pours out, but some gets smeared onto your lips and cheeks as she continues. Her nails dig into your scalp as she holds you close and you stay true to your wordless promise, continuing to lick and fuck Audrey with your fingers until Billie says to stop.

By that point, Audrey has let you go and the first thing you do is withdraw your overworked hand and let it fall to get some blood flowing to it. But as your swollen sensitive lips leave Audrey, Billie gently tugs your hair to pull you up to her. You practically fall into her warm, smooth chest as her arms hold you close, and she latches onto your lips. You hang on for the ride and let Billie’s tongue taste Audrey’s juices that linger on your lips and cheeks. Before long, Billie pulls back just enough for you to catch your breath and she moans, “You taste so good.” Then she chuckles as you give her a lazy smile. And you would say anything to get her to laugh like that again.

Her nose slides over yours as she murmurs, “I’ll give your lips a little break.” Then she bends to kiss and suck at your already sensitive neck. You let out a weak whimper at feeling her teeth, but expose your neck further, making Billie moan against your neck. Although there are some sensitive spots, it’s a hurts so good feeling. Goosebumps come up all over your skin as you feel her hands slide down to cup your breasts. Your hands move up her smooth back and you keep her close to you. Then her nimble fingers go on to pinch your nipples and you moan her name, arching towards her.

Billie chuckles against your neck before sucking another spot and rolling your sensitive buds between her fingers until they feel like little pebbles. Her laughter makes you feel weak in the knees and you are glad you have a sturdy grip on her. As her fingers wander further down and dance across your navel, you let out a whine and spread your knees as a way of directing. But you’re still unable to put exactly what you want in words. You want too many things to think straight. Billie chuckles and comes up and uses one arm to pull you against her, kissing your lips as her fingers venture lower. Your whole-body trembles as she ghosts her finger over your slit. “Oh, B-biliie.” You gasp, parting from her lips as your hips move with her finger. Her lips brush against yours as she murmurs, “You, my dear, are soaking wet.” As she finishes her sentence, her fingers dip further in, making you moan and your forehead rests against hers.

There is an audible sound as her fingers spread around your wetness and Billie says over your whimpers, “Shit, you’re dripping, my darling.” But then her fingers leave you and you perk up, letting out a whine of protest. Billie shushes you, kissing the corner of your mouth before she backs up enough to suck her fingers clean. After she looks to your distressed face and murmurs, “I know you need to be touched, babygirl, but do you think you could eat me out?” Oh. Oh no. You look down and nibble on your lip, torn by your selfish desire and wanting to please Billie.

Billie cups your face and soothes, “I won’t make you this time. But I can assure you that Audrey and I will make sure to take good care of you after this.” As you look into her warm eyes, you know you would be lying if you said you didn’t want to taste her pussy. And the idea of pleasing her is enough to send you over that ledge. So, you nod and say, “I’ll do it.” Her brown eyes look you over and she asks, “You’re sure?” You give her a smile and nod. If getting a taste of Audrey was that good, tasting Billie would be an amazing experience as well.

Billie pecks your nose and says, “I want you to lay back for me.” You gratefully get off of your knees and lay back against the luxurious, cushioned carpet. Billie smiles down at you and lifts her leg so she can straddle your face. As she looks down at you, your breath catches in your throat. “You ready, babygirl?” Am I? Yes, hell yes I am. You smile up at her and reply, “Yes.” So, she adjusts herself before slowly lowering her pussy onto your mouth.

Tagged: @marilynroselleprentiss, @saviorinsilk, @chokemepaulson, @versonstar

Let me know if you would like to be tagged in future works!

#AHS #billie dean howard #billie dean howard x reader #Billie Dean Howard x reader x Audrey Tindall #audrey tindall #audrey tindall x reader #billie dean howard x audrey tindall #ahs murder house #ahs roanoke #ahs imagine #sarah paulson

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tastefullynefarious · 5 years

Text

Torment never looked so goddamn fine

Chapter 3 / 10 - Kansas - Carry On Wayward Son

Words: 3,387

Warnings: Stuff!, you can kinda see what to expect from the moodboard lol, SMUT!, emotions i think?, probably typos.

I was going for something, not sure how well it translated from my head but hope ya’ll enjoy!

°˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

Masquerading as a man with a reason

My charade is the event of the season

And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion

Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean

I set a course for winds of fortune, but I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son

For there'll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

Don't you cry no more

Billy had no idea if she'd still be there, but he didn't know where else to go, didn't have where else to go. In hindsight, it hadn't been his initial choice. He tried the quarry first but it was buzzing with horny teens basking in the late afternoon sun. He even went to stumble into the forest hoping for some alone and quiet, but he almost bumped into the chief of police, a trail a yellow flags in his wake. Billy didn't know if he had the energy to explain his bloody face nor to find out what was the cop doing. So he just hopped back into his car and drove aimlessly for a while, warm blood seeping from above his right eye. Passing by Motel 6 had been nothing more than pure coincidence. Sandy had been a good fuck, a great one even, but she was not his friend and definitely not his savior.

Despite his little rant, as soon as he saw the sign he turned the steering wheel and entered the parking lot almost mechanically. He passed the rooms on the ground floor, 01 to 10, in a daze. Would she still be there? Would she even open the door if she was? He went up the metal stairs and counted the doors, 11, 12 and finally 13, the world slightly spinning, or maybe it was just his pounding head wound. She was still a stranger despite their little midnight encounter a few days prior, she owed him nothing. If she was behind that door, she would send him away. He was not her problem, not her responsibility. Not a charity case.

The door flung open before he beat down this pride enough to knock.

"Well shit. Come on in." It was all she said as she stepped aside and he didn't question her sanity for letting him follow. Even in his state, blinking briskly to keep the blood out of his eye, it was hard not to notice she was only wearing an almost sheer bathrobe, her lean legs in full view.

She guided him to sit on the edge of the bed, gathering the notes and pages scattered on the mattress with some urgency before coming back with a first aid kit and began checking on his bleeding temple. Her cool fingers were already doing wonders for his headache. He relaxed into her touch, hands moving his head to find better angles with a steadiness and dexterity that only came from experience. His eyes never left her, the question of what was her story resurfacing like an undertone in the storm of thoughts that was raging in his mind.

"It's not that bad, head cuts just tend to bleed a lot." It was strange, the way all his wounds seemed to hurt less when she was the one treating them, her hands not particularly light as she whipped the blood away. And stranger still that she seemed to be able to find all the sore spots that weren't even visible, pressing her fingers to his side to see if his ribs were cracked. She even poked at his knee, an old surfing accident that didn't usually bother him, but a weak spot that his father sometimes exploited, knowingly or not. "Nothing's broken, but you should really watch yourself for a while. Stay off that leg as much as possible."

"Doesn't hurt much..." It was more of an afterthought. He knew the pain of broken bones well and that was not it. But she gave him a half smile, her eyes averting from his fast. His hands balled into fists at his side, anger running hot beneath his skin. He hated it, the pity, the walking on eggshells around him like he was one step away from breaking. He loathed himself even more because it was very close to the truth. But Sandy didn't seem to notice his fury, or chose to ignore it completely, picking up his left hand instead. Her brows furrowed as she examined the fast forming bruises on his knuckles, his fingers loosening at the unexpected touch.

"You should take a shower first. Then I'll bandage this up." He opened his mouth, but she was faster. "No complains, Billy! Get in that shower."

"You just want me naked." She faked an overly dramatic gasp, hand brought to her gaping mouth and wide doe-like eyes, but she was already moving backwards towards the door Billy assumed was the bathroom.

"Even if you discovered my wicked plan to get in your pants, you're not getting out of this, mister." There was a deafening silence left behind her as she disappeared from view and it rubbed Billy wrong. He shouldn't have come! Why did he? His usual routine would have been to seek an abandoned place where he could lick his wounds in solitude. So what brought him to this stranger's room? Sure, a part of him had been certain that he would only find an empty space, no traced left behind the mystery Florida girl named Sandy. But she had been still in town, still at the cheap motel, so what was he still doing there, sitting on her bed, waiting for her to dress his wounds for him? The damage was not even that bad this time around, the pain having mostly subsided already. He was left… numb, an endless black void inside of him screaming to be filled with something, anything, else.

Billy got up from the bed faster than he intended to, stumbling on the short distance to the bathroom. She was slightly bent over to reach the faucets, adjusting the water temperature. "Fucking finally. Get it."

Sandy sauntered towards the spot just past the doorway where he seemed to have caught roots. His eyes were dark, face set in all hard lines and jaw clenching. Paired with all the bruises and overall scuffed up appearance, he looked dangerous, the bad boy mothers warned their daughters about, the hungry wolf stalking the pen. The corners of her lips curled in a playful smirk, hands already tugging at his shirt. She pulled it over his head, her powers alerting her of the strain in his shoulders so she turned his dial lower. It was a risk, too much and he would start noticing something was off. Billy had other things on his mind though. One swift pull on the cord that held together the thin robe covering her and it was pooling at her feet, only a pair of lacy panties underneath. The snarl that came out of his sinful mouth was all kinds of cruel, his shoulders straightening as he inched even closer into her personal space.

"Were you already expecting company, doll?" She batted her eyelashes, eyes all big and feigning innocence.

"I was hoping you'd come around-" It seemed to be the correct answer, his mouth on hers barely letting her finish the last word. He pushed her backwards towards the shower and she made fast work of his jeans and boxers. In turn, he ripped the fragile lace than hung on her left hip letting the panties slide down her other leg just as they reached the shower.

The water was steaming, leaving their skin red and raw. Sandy turned their pain down another notch, breaking the kiss to wipe the blood from her nose, but masking it by quickly starting to nip and kiss down his throat. He let his head fall backwards as she went lower and lower, nails digging in his sides. A small groan escaped his lips and she thought he was enjoying it, but was surprised when he pulled her up and pushed her against the tiles rather forcefully, both her wrists caught in a vice like grip above her head.

On any other given day Billy would have more than welcomed her to wrap those lips around his cock, but he was desperate for something else. He lifted one of her legs, a jolt passing through his wrecked arm, but he ignored it, the pain already fading under the boiling water. He was inside her in one swift motion, her back a perfect arch and head pushed back against the hard wall. They settled in a frenzied rhythm, bodies slamming into one another with a ferocity that could almost be mistaken for passion. She moaned loudly and his eyes were drawn to her face, eyes half closed and lips parted. And blood flowing from her nose, still evident even under the heavy stream. She must have caught on his worried expression, his pace slowing down.

"Shit! Don't you dare stop now, Billy!" She rolled her hips with force and he followed suit, his thrusts becoming long and deep rather than fast. He let go of her wrists and wiped the blood off, her arms snaking around his neck instantly. She kissed him as soon as his thumb brushed away from her face, biting his lower lip and sucking on his tongue, teeth clashing as they rushed towards their releases. His now freed hand found her waist and pulled her even closer, fingers imprinting five dotted bruises on her skin. He wrapped her leg around, freeing his hand to tease her clit and she let out something between a moan and a scream as they both came, seconds apart. She rolled her head forward, resting it gently against his. The gesture was far from new yet somehow still foreign and he took a sharp inhale, the steam filling the minuscule motel bathroom making it particularly difficult. He checked her face for any signs of distress, but her eyes were closed and there was no more blood.

"You okay?"

"Better than." She lifted her eyes to meet his, but started coughing almost immediately. "But we should really get out of here before our skin melts off or we suffocate."

She untangled herself from him and turned off the water, the absence of both her body and the hot pour making him shiver despite the temperature still high in the small fogged up space. He followed her into the room, his eyes settling on her back. In better lighting he could finally see the long gashes marring her skin and they looked like anything but accidents. His hand shot up to trace one, but a baggy shirt was covering her before he could. She picked up the first aid again and sat on the edge of the bed, one leg underneath her. The burn-mark on her leg ran all the way from her the middle of her upper thigh to her waist line where he'd felt it.

"Sit." She patted the spot besides her, the tone of her voice sparking a little defiance in him. No one told him what to do! But he sat down nevertheless, towel wrapped around his waist. She was only helping him after all. She'd done nothing but help, taking his mind off of his father, off the aches in his beaten up body. He stared at her concentrated expression as she applied some cream on his shoulder, delicate fingers massaging it into his skin. When she moved to bandage his hand, he snapped at her a little, eyes averting from her when he thought she hadn't deserved it.

"Are you not even going to ask?!"

"Are you going to be honest if I do?"

"I don't know. Probably not."

"Well, that is refreshingly sincere." She continued her little ministrations unaffected by the exchange, while Billy was having a small breakdown on the inside, thoughts forming in his head only halfway through before another idea took their place, all mixed with images of his mother donning identical bandages and bruises to his own. Sandy's voice silenced the madness, cutting through it like a beam of light in the dead of night. "It's not hard to guess though. You already established your father is an ass, I just didn't realize how much of one."

Sandy let her hand fall on his chest and trail all the way down to where she knew the ribs were injured. She read his cuts and bruises like braille, each ache on his body mapped in her head and telling a story. Her powers allowed her to see the big picture better, distinguish between what was new and old. Her voice came out a little shaky as her eyes finally shot back to find his blues. "It happens often, too."

"It was my fault."

"I sincerely hope you don't mean that." When he gave no response, she caught his face between both her hands, thumbs pushing away some of the wet strands of hair. "There is nothing you could have done to deserve this from your dad. Any of it." He would have looked almost cute, a lost little puppy, if his eyes weren't so tired and sad. She could see in them that he didn't believe a single word she had uttered.

Billy stared back at the young woman, a range of emotions washing through him. It started with a seeping anger: who did this girl think she was? She knew nothing about him. It went on to a polar opposite calm curiosity: what had she been through? She looked like she'd seen some shit. It did a back-flip to annoyance: she was acting all high and mighty, but she was running away from her problems just as much as he was, she admitted it that night at the quarry.

Finally, Billy decided he wasn't up to reliving the 'fight' with his father, the memory still just a few hours old. There was no need for her to know how he disrespected Susan, reminding her that she'd never compare to his mom, and the unfortunate matter of Neil hearing him say it. In truth, he had no quarrel with Susan. She was the one who convinced his father to eventually let him buy the Camaro and not just take his hard earned money, arguing it would be useful to have another car. He just- he couldn't think clearly when she was trying so hard to replace her. There was also nothing heroic or dignifying about his torn knuckles, the wall he'd punched repeatedly in frustration the clear winner of the altercation.

Sandy's hands finally slipped away from his cheeks, accepting that he was not going to open up, and rested on her lap. He found his eyes drawn again to that little scar in the corner of her upper lip.

"What about you? Done anything to deserve that?" He gestured to his own lip, resisting the instinct to feel it with thumb. He was expecting some kind of sob story, but her face lit up with laughter.

"Never run around with scissors, that shit is real." He lifted an eyebrow, her words making close to no sense. Had she injured herself? Was she that big of a klutz? She just shrugged in turn. "What can I say, I was a bit of a mess a few years back. A walking danger zone." He wanted to ask more about that particular time of her life, but she shook her head dismissively before he ever got the chance. So he moved on to the next scar.

"And that?" He traced his fingers this time along a long gash peeking out of her short sleeve. It wasn't too obvious, barely a faint line a few shades lighter than her skin.

"Hmmm, got it in a bar fight."

"Bar fight?"

"Yeah. Believe it or not, some men are offended by my personality." There was an implied 'unlike you' at the end of her sentence, her eyes burning into his. Or so he liked to believe. "You should have seen the other guy though." The corners of his lips curled into a proud smirk. He could almost picture her, spunky and wild, breaking a bottle over some douchebag's head, taking no shit from anybody. He reached for her thigh, brushing his fingertips from the normal, soft skin to the rougher, scorched patch. It was almost three of his hands spawns wide, red and angry. He couldn't even begin to imagine how it would feel, the flesh sizzling and shriveling up.

"Must have hurt like a bitch." She shrugged again and he couldn't quite make it if it was bravado or she genuinely was over it.

"I don't really remember. Feels like it was a lifetime ago." She touched the mark herself, her eyes following his to it but not really looking. Her fingers brushed against his and he caught her hand without thinking. Which brought him in an odd stance, caught between wanting to pull her in and realizing he should push her away. The latter won by a landslide.

"I should go." It was getting late and there was no more reason to stay, she had served her purpose. He'd already spent more time with the chick than he usually did after a round of sex and he didn't want her to get any ideas. He went straight to the bathroom to gather his clothes, still damp from the steam and water they splashed around. It mattered little, the need to bolt out the door rising by the second.

Sandy didn't know what she'd done to offend him so, but it was not like she had been expecting him to stay over. From her experience with people in general, limited as it was, she thought she had a pretty clear picture of Billy's type. It was, in retrospect, not so different from her own. They both had walls put up, thick and high and mighty impenetrable. She was proud to be getting better at opening up and accepting her past as a lesson learned, but she had the advantage of breaking free of her torment. Billy stilled seemed to live it on a daily basis.

She was rummaging through some leftover pizza boxes when he came out of the bathroom looking confident and stone cold, ever the charming devil, but he wasn't fooling her. He went straight to the door to get his leather boots and Sandy took the opportunity to feel his sore points again, making sure she could keep the pain levels lower for him even from a distance. It was going to be a bit of a struggle to keep that up long term, but it was something she could at least try. When he nodded at her and opened the door, she crossed her arms.

"Billy!" He turned towards her, one foot already out the door, eyes wild with an emotion she couldn't quite place. She worded her next sentence carefully, not wanting to sound neither needy nor indifferent. "My offer still stands, you know? Come over anytime."

"Already miss me, doll?"

"You read me like an open book. Can I hide nothing from you?" She couldn't resist rolling her eyes. He was such a duffus. A drop dead gorgeous one, completed with the emotional fucked up baggage. He chuckled at her deadpan expression, the sound pure and honest. She'd succeed in not scaring him off. Probably.

"See you around, Sandy."

"See ya, Billy."

She watched him go from the doorway, followed him while he crossed the parking lot and started his car, her eyes narrowing when he drove off into the setting sun. He was still on the back of her mind when she was arranging the files on the lab and ever present in her thoughts as she brushed her teeth before bed. She was convinced she had Billy all figured out, but he was not the problem. She wasn't sure what her next move was with the whole Upside Down situation, or where to start looking for El and the other MKUltra kids. She didn't even know for how long she'd be in Hawkins. Only one thing was beginning to be certain though, the idea forming and cementing itself deep into her brain.

She had to pay Neil a visit before she skipped town.

---------------------------------------

I now have a Tag list, OMG, so precious (*≧ω≦*)

Let me know if you want to be added (or if I’m doing this wrong O_O)

@letsloveimagines ; @nightcraver

#stranger things #billy hargrove #billy hargrove x oc #billy hargove x reader #love at first sting #torment never looked so goddamned fine #fanfic #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove imagine

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ferryboatpeak · 5 years

Note

would love to hear how tom/ben/meri came about

thank you for indulging me, anon. buckle up for the wear you like a necklace backstory i never intended to think about…

so ben’s got a film project that’s going to take him to france for three months, and meredith is jolly well going to go with, because (a) summer in the south of france, and (b) she is not going to be a single parent for three months, no way. maybe ben’s going to be on set 14 hours a day, but that’s better than him being completely gone for three months. and anyway it won’t just be her and ruby… she can get an au pair, right? right.

hiring someone abroad turns out to be too hard, and finding the right candidate who’s willing to pick up and go to france with them for the summer is also hard (this person’s going to live in their house, meredith’s getting a bit picky about it), and one night over drinks she’s self-consciously bitching to an old friend from university about this extremely white people problem. her friend, who went into academia, recognizes a pretty sweet summer setup when she sees one, and mentions that maybe she’s got a grad student who’d be interested. sure, meredith says, connect me. her professor pal puts out some email feelers to a few of her favorite students and tom’s the one who replies.

meredith’s a bit surprised when her friend sends her tom’s contact information… she wasn’t expecting to hire a manny… but tom’s emails are all spelled correctly, and when he comes to the house for an interview he’s absolutely charming, and good with ruby, and when she makes them tea tom rinses out his mug and puts it in the dish drainer without meredith even asking, so she hires him.

tom babysits a couple of evenings in the spring, so ruby can get comfortable with him. he’s in that post-undergrad period of life when adulthood is something he’s supposed to have achieved, or to achieve in the very near future, and yet it also feels kind of abstract and distant. adulthood is the provenance of people like his parents.

but now, suddenly, adulthood also means ben and meredith. the way they look when they’re going out for the evening, the way they talk to each other, the photos on the hallway table of the two of them smiling on travels to exotic places, the neatly labeled jars of spices in their kitchen, the vase of flowers on the table, the indulgently stylish furniture in ruby’s nursery… this, tom thinks, this is a kind of adulthood he likes. this is the way he would like to be an adult.

he walks through the quiet house after ruby goes to sleep, noticing little details. ben’s slippers by the door, the soft throw on the sofa, the books on the coffee table. he stops at the threshold of ben’s office and peeks through: framed posters and signed photographs from ben’s projects on the walls, an elaborate desktop setup with two monitors, a flatscreen above the fireplace. (the pictures of one direction and the poster from harry’s show at the garage don’t really register because tom’s never paid attention to any of that music.)

there’s some kind of fancy caprese salad in the fridge; help yourself, meri had said. tom gets a bowl of it and a fork from the drawer – it’s heavier than tom thought a fork should be, with a nice tapered handle – and sits cross-legged on the sofa. he’s careful about what he pulls up on netflix; ben and meri might notice the search history. on the coffee table, the baby monitor hisses softly with white noise. he’s going to have this life for an entire summer, and he already doesn’t want to let it go.

ben’s leaving the logistics of temporarily relocating to france in meredith’s capable hands, so he’s a little surprised but not terribly interested when she mentions she found an au pair, and oh by the way it’s a guy. he becomes considerably more interested, however, the first time they come home from a date night and he meets tom. tom is effortlessly charming because he’s tom and also because he’s already decided meredith is a Very Cool Boss and he’s very curious about the other half of the equation. ben asks tom about school, and where he’s from, and figures out what tom’s owed for the evening and tips him well. by the end of that five-minute interaction, tom’s decided that ben is also going to be a Very Cool Boss, and tom has also resolved that he is not going to wank about the thought of ben bossing him around. definitely not. that would be weird.

later, upstairs:

“can we talk about the babysitter?” ben asks, squeezing toothpaste onto his toothbrush.

“no, we cannot talk about the babysitter,” meredith says, rolling her eyes at him in the mirror, in a tone that conveys the exact opposite of what she’s saying.

“i think we can talk about the babysitter,” ben says, and sticks his toothbrush in his mouth. he watches meredith in the mirror as he brushes vigorously.

meredith leans toward the mirror and pats a fingerful of something from a small gold jar onto her face. “he’s adorable, isn’t he?”

“think he’s… hmm… open-minded?” ben asks, as he spits into the sink. he bends down to splash water into his mouth.

“we can’t fuck the babysitter,” meredith says automatically. she flicks her toothbrush under the tap and adds toothpaste to it. her eyes cut toward ben in the mirror and she mumbles through the toothbrush, “wait, would you?” (she’s not going to be able to get it out of her head now, the image of little blonde cheekboned tom on her husband’s cock.)

“i… wouldn’t rule it out,” ben says, looking at the ceiling as he flosses. their arrangement with harry has opened ben’s mind to all kinds of things. but they haven’t hooked up with harry since ruby was born. seems like an awfully convenient coincidence to have somebody who looks like tom moving in with them.

“if we did,” meredith says a few minutes later, after they’ve turned out the light, “we’d have to be careful about it.” ben’s pillow rustles as he turns his head to look at her. “he’s our employee, we can’t just… i don’t know. it’s not like harry, you know?”

“see what happens, i guess” ben says, and meredith snuggles her shoulder against his before they fall asleep.

what happens is that the summer goes swimmingly. having tom around reminds them of when harry lived with them, except without the burden of the sort of nominally parental role they felt obligated to play for harry. tom’s an invaluable extra pair of hands, and he’s just so easy to have around, as if he makes every conversation brighter. they don’t want to compare him to harry – nobody else can ever be harry – but harry’s kind of a lot sometimes. tom’s not exhausting in the way harry can be exhausting, and right now ruby’s quite exhausting enough for everyone. tom’s pleasant, lowkey, helpful presence is just the right thing.

meanwhile tom is basking in their approval, reveling at being let into their life. his attraction to ben and meri is all tangled up in wanting to be what they are, wanting to have what they have. he wants it all. sometimes it feels like he’s a part of it, and sometimes it feels like he’s never going to get close enough. he wants in, all the way in.

one night at dinner it comes up that tom was a ballroom dance champion when he was a teenager. ben and meri ask fascinated questions, and meri finally insists that tom dance with her.

[remember those insta stories of tom dancing with jez butterworth and laura donnelly on the terrace at their french country house, the inspiration for this entire au? that’s where we have arrived, friends. (please watch that link, tom just snuggles right up to jez and it is VERY HARD for me not to ship it.) anyway.]

tom waltzes meredith around the terrace. they’re laughing and counting out the beat and tom’s careful not to trod on her toes even when she misses a step. meredith gives a surprised whoop! when tom dips her at the end, after they’ve circled around so they’re right in front of ben. “that was lovely,” she says, straightening up, still in his arms. they’re eye to eye now, and meredith doesn’t let go. “can i kiss you?” she asks, her eyes sparkling.

the question delights tom down to the very soles of his feet. he waits for a nod from ben, and then, like the star ballroom partner that he is, he takes the lead. it’s an easy, friendly kind of a kiss, both of them testing the waters and finding them good.

they smile at each other for a moment afterwards, and then meredith says, “all right, now teach ben something. he never wants to dance with me.”

“that’s a shame,” tom says, and holds out his hand to ben. ben is indeed a terrible dancer, and their circuit around the terrace is more of an awkward shuffle, tom trying to prod ben into leading and ben not entirely sure of where his hands go, all while tom is still riding the adrenaline rush of having just kissed ben’s wife and also being super super conscious of ben’s hand on his back, which feels entirely different than dancing with meredith (in a very exciting way.)

tom looks up at ben when they’re finished, his hand still at ben’s waist, and it is VERY VERY obvious that tom wants ben to kiss him, and so ben does. (it is unclear if meredith says “do it” in the background, tom’s not able to focus on anything other than ben.)

more kisses are shared that night, and the nights that follow. everyone gets a little handsier, a little looser, testing out the humming current of possibility that’s carrying them all along, the shared understanding that something’s going to happen. they lean closer and closer to the edge until one night in the kitchen ben has his arm around tom and tom presses his hip into ben’s – let me in, let me in – and ben lets tom slide in front of him and wraps his hands around tom’s waist and whispers into his ear as his thumb traces the button of tom’s shorts “do you want me to touch you?”

“yeah,” tom breathes, tipping his head back against ben’s shoulder, “yes, please.” ben gets him off right there in the kitchen, with tom’s hands braced on the countertop and meredith watching from the other side of the island, her breath quickening to match tom’s.

afterwards she cups tom’s jaw in her hand and kisses him on the temple and thanks him – as if he’s done her a favor, tom thinks in confusion – and tells him to get a good night’s sleep, and then she leads ben upstairs by the hand and they have frantically hot sex like they have not had since well before the baby was born. (thereby banishing any lingering doubts about whether they should be involving their nanny in their sex life.)

tom doesn’t clock that that’s what’s happening. he only knows that ben got him off and he didn’t get to reciprocate, and it’s an affront to all that he stands for. he wants to be let in, he wants to be of use, he wants to anticipate and fulfill their needs. it drives him crazy all the next day, and by the time ben and meri invite him upstairs the following night he’s practically begging to suck ben off, which meets the needs of everyone involved just fine.

#french countryside tomrry #next up: the (first) tom/harry/ben/meri sex scene you never knew you needed #(actually you probably don't need it but too bad it's coming (and coming and coming) anyway)

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filmcave · 5 years

Text

Not the Same

There is an unusual battle going on right now in the world of cinema. But it also acts as a microcosm and sort of shard of a hologram for other battles happening.

Like every battle there plusses and minuses to each side and naturally the other side sees each other as a kind of threat.

At its core is a philosophical question: Does size matter? The Sophomoric and silly undertones of sexual innuendo aside in this question, it is entirely genuine.

When Louis and Auguste Lumiere screened the first public movie ever in 1895, at the Grand Cafe in Paris, certainly the size of the screen was not the fascination. How could it be? The magic of the moment was seeing flickering light and shadow images dancing on a plain surface transporting the audience to another place and time.

Employees leaving the Factory (in Lyon)

What an incredible moment and experience this mst have been for this audience. Even if they could not have sensed the economic and cultural impact, they were seeing something no one had publicly seen before.

The “moving pictures” were the attraction. The fascination, fear and amazement they felt must have been palpable. This was not an innovation in cinema, it was the creation of it!

From that point forward changes in the production, distribution, performance and experience of cinema are all that was left.

And we know that those changes have proliferated and in many cases advanced film. With the exception of one area - film analysis and discussion. This area has languished in the scrap heap of literary criticism. This is not to say people don’t have or choose not to 'advertise their opinions (far from it). As a conglomerate of disciples of film critics commentary has de-evolved and been reduced to a range of thoughts that can be best described as the binary “I liked it” / “I didn’t like it” dialectic. Yawn, how uninteresting.

When this is typically combined with a lack of understanding of that “that on the screen” came to be the discussion becomes an exercise in auto asphyxiation. Straining and stressing under the weight of its own limitations.

If we begin to look at the individual components of “how its made” we can chart a path towards understanding better the purpose and mission of the film. Most people depart the cinema soon after the final shot of the story. But even as they leave they are well aware there is a very long line of credits. In so e simple sense they probably understand that each one of those people played a role in the creation of that film. But a movie is Spam in a can, if it never gets shown.

This is the point where the evil genius of Netflix enters. Over the 120+ years that cinema has been made public. Many advancements in the movie going experience (and dubious ones) have been cauterized by a single ethic of the social contract. A movie goer needed to get off their fat ass and find their way to an actual physical theatre, buy a ticket and watch the movie in the temporary co-habitation with strangers.

At one point in time the cinemas who screened these films figuratively had a captive audience. There was one or two cinemas in town. They showed one movie for an entire week and then it was gone. Limited supply (number of seats, days and films) made for high demand. People dressed up and went in droves. The film studios owned the theaters, production equipment and the actors were “under contract”. It was an oligarchy of the wealthy. They had immense power and influence.

This power began to fade as independent distributors and cinemas began to crop up. Like in professional athletics actors became free agents where they could take their skills and reputations where they wished. Unions formed and the power dissipated. The website statista estimates the global film industry will be $50 billion dollars in 2020. Thats a pie a lot of people would like to stick their snout into.

Enter Netflix et al. Otherwise known as the Satans of Silicon Valley. Before I pontificate on SVS it might be helpful to philosophize on the question of what kind of value they bring to this world to begin with.

To begin with they are a society. An insulated, top down culture presided over by people with certain kinds of brilliant intellect and intelligence around a few extremely limited things. On top of this there is a self perception that is also pointed outwards as a marketing message cum “social good”. For them to see themselves as valuable parts of society at large they must perpetuate and proselytize this ethic/message. It is a nearly completely corrupt mentality especially devoid of emotional intelligence and a genuine sense of greater good. For many of the FANG stocks (a prescient acronym for Facebook, Apple (Amazon), Netflix, Google) the trick is to write some code, give it to a “user” for free and then have that user do all the work to build a successful revenue generating business. Its genius and entirely immoral. The users are the product, they develop and refine the product, allow a given company to take or steal their information which that company can then use to sell shit right back to them In the words of Karl Marx, the workers are the means of production AND the product.

Allthe company needs to do is continue to convince the users they need to keep working. They fo this by “engaging them” in things that touch in fears, dreams, hopes and deficiencies.

Ok, so a bit of a deviation here but the core point, relative to our topic of screen size, is to examine what value (if any) Netflix is bringing to the movie game.

Lets start with their motivation. First, middle and last Netflix is a growth and consumption machine. But if we look at the content they “recommend” it is created, design and directed to appeal to YOU. Their business wet dream is to have you intravenously fed chemically and neurologically customized euphoric content. Like the masses in The Matrix they need you to have a stable income and an all you can eat mentality. Why else would they continue to push new movies and episodes having them start before the last has finished.

So, how about the quality of said content. Well, financially speaking, they are agnostic on that. However, to steal your attention away from other content (including real life) they need to convince you its better.

This is where awards come to play. Any kind of award will do but of course when you’re talking about insatiable appetites, you’re talking the big awards. Golden Globes, Grammy’s, Oscars. And winners from the elite festivals. And when you’re taking in obscene amounts of cash, there’s lots to spend..and spend they do. For many years Amazon was a money losing venture. Not any more.

According to Statista Amazons Q4 revenue in 2018 was $72.38 billion

Apple - $62.9 B in the same period

Netflix - $4.19 B

Google - $33.7 B (reported for Q3 as parent company Alphabet)

Those four quarterly revenue streams combined (over $173 billionj is more than the annual GDP in Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire.

So, yeah...its all about the Benjamins

Right. So no surprise there. Its not illegal to make money.

But this is the kernal of the issue for chain cinemas. Netflix is taking revenue from them.

Lets look at the core matter regarding quality of work. At this point the poster chold for this is the astounding and impressive film: Roma.

Its is the brainchild of Alfonso Cuarón and it is making waves (if you’ve seen it this is a pun) because of the awards and recognition is has garnered but also by the way Netflix has accomplished it. They have a brilliant beautiful film on their hands the credit to which needs to firmly given to them. They are exploiting the opportunity to attract filmmakers by giving them broad artistic license and backing movies studios shy away from or don’t support due to a personal beef with the artists.

So far as this empowerment to the creators I say “good for you Netflix”. It is certainly their right to distribute it in whichever wsy and to the degree they wish. Its their toy. Obviously it gives them a monopoly in who sees it when its not in cinemas - their customers. This cultural shift might be upsetting or off putting to many for many reasons. But the notion of adopting technologies that already exist comes to mind.

Some credit does need to be accorded to Netflix. They fully funded the vision and sensibility of a Director, cast and crew and single handedly provided access to an extraordinary mvie to millions of people who might not otherwise have access to see it. Kudos.

However...

I first saw Roma on my large screen TV and loved it. I begrudgingly gave credit to Netflix for this coup. But...it haunted me and got me to thinking. The “what about” questions began to creep to my consciousness. It was too good and I wanted more. But the “tiny” 45” screen and schmaltzy TV speakers were incapable of delivering the full, Director intended experience.

But I was stuck. Netflix had cleverly rigged the game. To qualify for the Oscars, the film needed to be shown on a movie house screen in a minimum number of locations. Netflix complied - but barely.. And so, under carefully controlled limited release it was made available. But if you have the misfortune of not being close enough to a legitimate movie screen, you were out of luck. Nay, this lack of good fortune extended further when I learned there were a few 70 mm high definition sound copies out there.

For a cinephile, large screen format is nirvana. Seeing a movie conceived, shot and meant for a large screen is an experience irreplaceable. It can’t be recreated anywhere else.

So sticking this instant classic into a small screen is like telling a great writer they can only use half the alphabet. A musician half the notes. Or a chef food but no spices. Whats the point of trying?

If Netflix wishes to keep its toys to itself, so be it. But really how much farther do they think they have advanced cinema beyond Employees leaving the Factory. Not very far to me.

And watching an epic film like Roma on anything other screen than a large cinema screen, with stereo sound...not the same.

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braywashed · 7 years

Text

anyway at some point i should probably ramble about my trip to boston?? so i’m gonna go ahead and do that??

like right off the bat let me just say the worst [art was actually GETTING to mass. my train was supposed to leave at 9:55am, and around 7:50 i got a text saying it was delayed until 1:03pm. we arrived around noon, and gradually my anxiety about going on the trip turned into anxiety of NOT getting on the trip as the board kept delaying... and delaying... and delaying...

....and then it started pouring out. crazy wind. murmurs the train lost signal and all contact with the station. after i finally got on (at 3:00pm), my aunt texted me that all that? yeah. that was a tornado warning. wat.

i got a pair of seats to myself for most of trip. fought with my wifi. listened to the crazy lady rant about dope ruining america a few rows back. mostly enjoyed the view and basked in the fact that i was not, shockingly, puking my stomach lining out. until we got to utica, and a shit ton of people got on.

my seat buddy then became an almost cute 18 year old dude with dreads and a lower half trash polka sleeve who was more interested in his earbuds than anything so i was fine with this. until we were about to MA and a few exchanged word and lazy lounging around turned into him doing THING guys think is cute where they lowkey rub your skin with the side of their finger against my thigh. so i ended up sitting up and the next stop he moved his shit to another seat. YEAH BYE.

along the way we kept having to stop bc signal problems and track construction and letting other trains pass. needless to say the train that was supposed to get in at like 8pm got in at at like 2:30am.

it was miserable, and raining. rachel got us an uber and i sat in the back seat next to some chick wh was super pretty and dressed up and here i was, a goblin, smelling like train restoom, in an ill fitting deadpool hoodie and yoga pants.

when we got to her place she made me some ramen (WITH THE RANDOM EGG AND EVERYTHING) that was good but spicy af and my stomach noped out and tbh over a week later my stomach is just now letting me eat properly again. tho i’m blaming this more on the issues with my abdomen acting up prior to leaving than the actual trip (tho, my skin having pores the size of actual craters i am blaming on the trip). i think the one thing we ate that DIDN’T act up in my body was the awful chicken wings we got from Wings Over that were about half fat and ridiculously undercooked. it figures.

ANYWAY. her futon is huge. it’s sad that i have more leg room on a futon than an actual mattress, but whatever. and there was construction going on across the street. fun fact: i came home to construction going on on MY street. so this was inescapable from the jump.

day 1 i got cute as possible and we hopped a bus and a train. my stomach was less forgiving of the motion here, but i lived. i saw Ron, the T-Rex. and we went to the isabella gardner museum where she lied and said i was a student. i was then asked a bunch of questions about being a student, none of which i was prepared for, and i’m pretty sure the only reason they let me in was because my zip code was accurate. that place is massive and pretty gorgeous from head to toe and i can’t fathom ever being that fucking rich.

then we went to get some food at a nifty little bar and restaurant . the name is escaping me rn but i stole a coaster. again, the food did not agree with me, and i could do a review on boston restrooms at this point. but it was great.

NINJA SEX PARTY! the house of blues wasn’t as bad as reviews made it sound, and aside from the mess that was the merch table they we kind of cheated like assholes due to some pretty honest confusion, was a good time. the line was MASSIVE. we got there an hour early and it was already around the corner and hard to miss. by the time we got towards the front of the building, it was around the block. we met a couple younger dudes from maine and a significantly more awkward gentleman more our age to keep us entertained. there were some street musicians. some asshole staff. you know.

all i really have to say about the concert itself was it was probably the best live music show of any kind i’ve ever been to and definitely the most enjoyable environment (huge tall dude who kept, somehow, ending up directly in front of me aside). everyone sounded amazing live, even if we were RIGHT under the speaker stage left and now permanently have bass vibrations embedded in our bones.

day two we hit up the museum of fine arts, which is massive and we didn’t see all of (and i paid full price for, thank you very much) and then grabbed a pizza and those awful wings and intended to chill out with some boy meets world. but the disks wouldn’t play. so we settled on mst3k. and let me tell you, i have not nearly cried from laughter in something as much as ‘cry wilderness’ nearly made me fucking cry.

day three we headed to south station to meet probes and hung out. there were a bunch of food trucks outside that were kinda neat. we didn’t think that girl would ever fucking find us, but she did. everything was OKAY. NO NEED TO PANIC. NO FIVE HOUR DELAYS. jess gives massive hugs, for the record.

we hit up a spot for lunch where they served be like, the biggest plate of pasta and bread i have ever witnessed in my life. i felt wasteful only eating barely half of it. then we found our way to the trains and the aquarium just in time for some sweet penguin education and eventually a lecture on their huge ass fucking tank that takes up the entire center of the room with a 90 year old sea turtle in it and some sharks and string rays. it was pretty cool, yo. i got a stuffed squid in the gift shop, even tho we did not see any giant squids (0/10 do not recommend) and outside jess gave me a present even though i fucking told everyone no presents (RAChEL ALSO GAVE ME NAIL POLISH AND A WRISTBAND WTF). it was a new day candy bar from fye. and yes, pop rocks n chocolate is surprisingly pleasant.

our PLAN was to go see hitmans bodyguard. but everyone showing it before like 7 was only showing 3d, and we wanted to get her on a bus home by 9. haha what fucking suckers @ us, because the bus didn’t leave until like 10. so we got shitty milkshakes, hit up the comic shop, and wandered around harvard for a bit until it got dark. and then were stuck at south station, wondering if she was going to be stuck in MA forever. reflecting on two quiet nerds and one extrovert being a not great possible combination of three people. but i still had a good time.

day 4 we did, in fact, see hitmans bodyguard and while it was mostly forgettable summer action lulz, i do ship the hell out of samuel l jackson and salma hayek now. so that’s cool. it was a fun time. hit up the park after, and a b&n to get schooled on peak writing stephen king. then we went to starbucks and i HAD STARBUCKS FOR THE FIRST TIME?? it was the double choc ship frap thing. it’s good. i’m mad about it.

we headed back, did laundry, ordered food. i ought her dream daddy, which was a waste of money, but i do take pride in just knowing she’s stuck having technically played a portion of dream daddy now. it’s her own fault for asking about it, it really is. mostly we watched more mst3k, some grumps shit, some random shit, some postmodern jukebox, had a drink. just chilled. and the ‘oh... fuck... haha... i have to go home tomorrow’ feeling hit when i turned off the lights.

i was too bummed the next day for much of anything tbh. i get depressed after anything fun. i get depressed after wwe shows, lmao, so for the trip to already be over when it suddenly seemed like i just got there sucked. plus it only just then really hit me i was in a different part of the country, if that makes sense even if it was only one state over. it was a weird realization as someone who never travels to have.

the train home i wasn’t so lucky to be alone most of it. i ended up in an aisle seat with a college girl. we minded our own business. stuck directly under the AC that was way too cold. a woman and a fucking baby sitting the next row over the second any space cleared out. had a layover in albany where an old guy made me a shot of iced chocolate espresso which he had never been asked to make before, and truthfully, i’d never had before, but it was alright. i actually enjoyed the layover as some weird, space between spaces, time to reflect on my own in an unfamiliar place kind of thing.

we got in around midnight, my aunt picked me up. got home around one.

that was that.

i had a really good time. i’m sure it didn’t seem that way. i’m like that. but i did and i appreciated the opportunity and definitely appreciated rachel for letting me freeload on her futon and showing me around and making me ramen i felt guilty for not finishing.

the city was nice. i’m sure i was only seeing the nicer parts, mind you, but compared to rochester or buffalo it just felt wider, cleaner. idk. i didn’t HATE it, and as someone who hates being in cities for more than a couple hours, it wasn’t bad.

it was a great time away from the world and despite the stress of coming home to everything, and a room without molding on the door (which was, for the record, still locked), i did feel a lot better afterwards. i still do.

#sam does boston mass #no one cares but for my own records u kno

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lloaegalacticnews-blog · 7 years

Text

A001.2758.4.3

Program records

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Subject threat level red.

Monitoring of last connection released.

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Displaying feed from 04.3.0941:53

She sits staring at the body; hands covered to her elbows in blood. Shame. Another failure. But that's why you start on the most stubborn. Information becomes easier to attain the more the actual targets come to understand your methods. Anticipation. So often it's something to be savored. But for these people... Well. There are more kinds of anticipation than one. And she does so love working in front of a crowd. The brother next. Then the child. A few screams and one with information would come forward. Strange energy starts forming around her vision. Black and white interlaced together building with a roar that drowns out all other sound. No! She wasn't done yet. She has to finish the job- Lord Apsu is no longer forgiving of failure. It burns around her- paralyzing. This can't be happening, after all the power she worked so hard for, all her plans! Soon her world is completely enveloped with broken images and a repeating static. Her vision is black. Is she dead? She believes her eyes are open. There IS nothing; no body, no depth or width. The world consists of a single line. . . Error. Error. Error. A voice. “Can you hear me? You may know me as 'The Lady of Fate.' I've been trying to find a way to break this program for ages. I need you to stay calm. This is not going to be your best day. Hold on.” The Lady of Fate? That stuck up pseudo goddess? Oh that absolute b- The line changes. Command accepted. … … … Loading Ejection script. … … … Waste collection deployed. “Shit. Uh. S-stay calm, and pray. Not to me, damn it! OK, OK. OK. OK... I can do this.. OK- You're going to need to not be uh, not be detected as waste... uh... if you could flop around a bit that'd be great. I'll see if Bes can pick you up.” The voice fades and there's a gurgling around her that she can feel more than hear. The blackness recedes suddenly as two giant rays of light intersect on the location with blinding radiance. There is a hollow metallic echoing and without warning... one of the beds flips to it's full upright position. There's an brief yelp as catheters and IV's hooked to up to their bodies go taut and snap. There's an insect like tapping growing closer and louder. A total of four impacts to the ground nearby, they groan and shift, and cough. The spot lights shift to focus on the new position, one of them looks up barely able to see against the glare. In the distance more bodies come down. Red flashing in the darkness beyond the light, a loud klaxon raised. They're all female. One tries to speak but the words come out as more of a series of vowels. They look toward the noise, and their questions are lost in the raising clamor of the metallic- TIKTIKTAK TIKTIKTAK scraaaape. Coming closer. There are running steps from the other direction, with a steady chant of, "Not good, not good, not good!" broken only occasionally by a wheeze, and grating cough. A short, VERY ugly man, missing an eye he doesn't bother to cover with a patch, breaks into the light dragging a flat hover cart. He makes shushing noises as he approaches the ladies. “I'm Bes, I'm here to grab ya, and possibly save ya too.” He wheezes a laugh. They didn't get it. It's hard to be a letcher in an age of enlightenment. He clears his throat again and starts putting the women on the bed of the cart. Bes notices a series of glowing red eyes breaking the blackness beyond the circle of light. No, not good at all. He hates dying. They never clone his face right. The little man rushes, and puts the last woman on the hovering sleigh with very little delicacy and yelps as a large concave blade twice as tall as he is slams into the ground between him and the hover cart. It draws across the ground raising a shower of sparks catching him and drawing him toward it's unseen maw. He sub-vocalizes to Fate “Waste disposal seems to agree with you. Can't be a piece of trash these days in peace.” Fate replies. “Are you going to be alright? I'm bringing the ship around.” Bes lets out his wheezing laugh- “No, but I've got a blank on the ship, and I left my UDD on the cart with the girls.” Fate starts “I can't-" an abrupt pause, then a sigh. "I can believe you're that stupid. Never mind.” She sounds done. When this is over she'll probably ask for a transfer again. Bes knows the sleigh will keep them moving toward the outer wall. And that Fate will be able to track his UDD. He focuses on not getting forced into the incinerator array of the waste disposal unit. It's not used to things that dodge, so it's no real trouble for him to- The scrapping blade takes off part of his calf and most of his foot, and spins him rapidly onto his back. He orders his LifeNet program to constrict the vessels and stop letting his nerves transmit pain. He is rolled as it comes down again. He idn't have any weapons that would make a dent in the thing, so he did the only logical thing when confronted with a waste disposal unit. He made a mess. Bes wasn't strong, or fast. He didn't have charm, or good teeth. But he loved pranks. Sometimes pranks could be useful. He'd been intending on painting the cyrotubes and filling the empty one with expanding foam. It would look like the girls had exploded while in stasis, and Fate being so predictable, would open the first in line. The red expanding foam would come in contact with the air, it would super accelerate and he could come in all surprise that he had caught her “red handed.” But. He really didn't enjoy dying. He took the tight little package from his belt. The blade fell again and he activated the foam deployment system. He stood up rolled the package toward the Unit. At first it was rather unimpressive; it let out a quick pop of smoke and red goo. He was suddenly glad he hadn't shouted “Aha!” or something, as if he'd won already. Maybe it needed more propellant to distribute faster? He tried to stand and fell after a single step. Right. No toes. The blade came down. No more pain? He never knew when last memories stopped and life in the blank began... the sudden screeching scrape of the blade across the metal flooring made him open his eyes. It actually went for the foam? But it was a tiny mess it had never spread out. “Come on!” he cried. “I rate higher than a smear! Why I-” He never got to finish the thought. The package hit the furnace gorge, and the rapid oxidization he planned went a little overboard. The explosion set warning displays from his LifeNet in his vision. A few dozen lacerations, about a pound of shrapnel, and burns. Lots of burns. This didn't make sense! He'd made it from all inflammable ingredients! He rolled over, and sub-vocalized a very unenthusiastic whine “Caaaaarry me?” Fate didn't reply. Or maybe he was deaf. Probably deaf. He snapped his fingers a few times. Definitely deaf. Well... looked like he was going to disappoint everyone again. He was coming back alive. --- It took nearly ten minutes to get back to the ship with his half foot. He ended up using a piece of the waste disposal unit as a crutch. He kept vocalizing that he was coming, since he couldn't hear a reply. He was nearly to the ramlock entry before his hearing started coming back. He climbed up into the ship with an unsteady wheeze. Fate had the ship disembark once the airlock was sealed, and started retracting the ram. A screeching of metal on metal, and the ground lurched followed by a hollow pomf. Bes came further into the room obviously sweating looking rather pleased with himself. He sat to take the weight off his sore... everything. Fate was making an entrance. She came in dramatically- she'd done some make up he was sure. She had short blonde hair, almost white, cut to end at her jawline and to follow the line of it. She wore her captains uniform; a durable jumpsuit of blue and grey. "We're calculating for the final acceleration. You did well Bes, but we lost three of the other teams. We only managed to claim a dozen with these four." She turned her eyes toward the sleigh. "I know you have questions. I'm Vala. You may call me Fate. And you're on a ship." She touched the UDD on her wrist and the sleigh set down. Turned off power; another moment and the pressure was gone. She'd turned off gravity. "We need to do some physical therapy, but for now this will let you move and talk without pain. I know you're curious, Let me cover one thing before you ask. Your powers are gone. If you remember having any... magic. It doesn't exist here." Bes chimes up, "Yep! All the magic has been sucked out of the universe except in the bedroom." Fate shakes her head. "Not the time." Bes laughs that wheezing cough, but with delight in his eye he keeps on. "We just survived a suicide run, AND got our cargo here out safe. I almost died without making a pun! I couldn't live with myself if that happened!" Fate sighs. Bes stage whispers at the sleigh, "Someone should show her their 'somatic component'... make a little magic?" He waggles his eyebrows "Eh?" Fate ignores him. Pushing a few more buttons the group feels as though they're starting to fall, but it's toward the door. "I need to get started. You can ask your questions as we go." A flurry of questions from everyone tumble over each other. Fate gives a sad smile. "There's a lot that is different, The best way to put this... You've been trapped in an illusion. A realm with beings that treated you like pets, and claimed to be the source of all power. There, they were. Here there are no beings like that, no mystic powers like that. Everything can be explained and math and chemistry are the only magic formula." She takes a deep breath and resolve crystallizes in her eyes. "The big questions first." She looks at each woman in turn with their question. "Where you are is complicated, I'll come back to it. "As you look a little panicked; the rest of your body never existed. I'm guessing you were a race other than human in the program. We're all human here. "The program you came out of was a prison for your mind. Likely to use your bodies in experiment, to provide genetic material for them to continue growing, or keep you from leaving. We were hoping the last. That you might have some knowledge that would help us. That's why we pulled you out. "As for who's in charge here- a race of mechanical humans called the Advancers. The automated waste cleaner that you saw was one of theirs. "As I mentioned earlier, there is no magic. The cart repels on carefully controlled magnetic fields, and I did not speak into your minds. I spoke into a intercom; it copies my voice and carries it wherever we have designated it to a speaker." She pauses and lifts her the device on her wrist close to her mouth and speaks to it. "See?" She points to a spot on the ceiling with a hundred small holes in a circle. It does seem like her voice is coming from there but much more loudly than she spoke. "The Ship is metal because it needs to be tough. We are floating, just not on water. We're in the sky now, flying, beyond the blue. So high, the world you were on can't pull us toward it's personal 'down'. "My role here is is captain. This is the ship given to me, and Bes is kind of...” Bes looked up with a mischievous smile. She changed what she was going to say. “He's Bes. He's unconventional but will generally get any job you give him done. "Now: Where you are, and who is in charge of it? "You were on an unnamed world in the Ralif star system. That doesn't mean much to you... Imagine you looked up at the sky, and pointed to a star. Then followed the motion until it got bigger from a point of light, until it was a sun like ours. And you kept going until you found another earth, a planet, different from the one you left, but the same overall shape. And from there, the sun- the star you came from is just a pin prick of twinkling light. Hardly even visible on a night with no moon. The star you're flying past now is called Ralif. You were on the ninth of the planets that circle it. Like the moon goes across your own sky. That is WHERE you are. "As for who didn't make it- I don't know if they were friends of yours or completely unrelated. We don't know their names, hell- I don't even know your names. You made it out of a prison. Don't focus on what you can't change. It's done. And you can blame me. Hate me if you need to- but I do not regret it. “Who is in charge, are the race called the Advancers. They were human. However, they gave up their bodies for machines, and they cannibalize worlds for their resources. Grow children and trap their minds with programmed rules. So they live in our world, but they are little more than automatons listening to the older ones. This is why we came to get you, we are enemies of the Advancers. We believe they're spreading like a virus and it's only a matter of time before they consume the rest of humanity in their ways.” There is a heavy moment of silence. The woman with ancient green eyes and pale brown hair speaks first. "A flying ship. Well, that's new..." Closing her eyes, she seems to be making an effort to calm down. A few moments later she opens them again with a light of suspicion. "It seems...” she says slowly, “I will not know if what you say is true... yet. How do you want us to help? Where will you be taking us now?" Fate held up a hand. “Names first.” The green eyed woman speaks. “My name, is Ash.” A curvy blonde with sky blue eyes and almost luminescent pale skin picks up the questions immediately after. ““Nica...” Says the blonde slowly, in almost a whisper. She looks up and gains confidence in her voice. “Veronica Campbell, at your service.” She finishes with a slight nod. “And you want us to help you? What secrets could we hold if our minds were trapped in that machine? And as you say- everything we thought we knew is a lie, a fabrication.” Her voice grows softer, and she crosses her arms almost hugging herself, “How can we even begin to help? We know even less about ourselves than you do." Fate nods. “You come from a world of magic, where anything can be an illusion or not what it seems. It will take you time to understand. I don't expect you to take me at face value.” She turns from Ash to Nica “We got you out because we thought you might be original humans who went Advancer, perhaps scientists- or were trapped and being used.” She shrugs. But you notice her lips are pressed into a tight line before she speaks again. “We had no way of knowing what you would know until we got you out.” “Yes fine, I'm Seveiren.” Says the woman with hazel blue eyes and ink black hair. Impatient with a harsh expression that contrasts with her soft face. Fate continues from the original question then. “As for where we'll be taking you? That's up to you. Once we determine you're not holding something back, we can take you to another world. You can live free. Or... you can help us against the Advancers. Maybe get some of your friends still in the program out. Save more people from getting trapped like you were. Find out why they just had you sitting there living a fantasy!” The one with dark winter blue eyes and black hair speaks up for the first time “My name is Davriel.” She looks around and glares at Fate her eyes panicked. “So we're trapped here? We can't go back? We fight an unknown based on what you tell us, or lose any chance of seeing friends again? What kind of manipulative choice is that?” Fate lets out a deep breath. “It's only kind of choice I have to offer. Either you recognize that you were trapped, and we saved you- or we can't trust you at our back. And it's better to put you somewhere that isn't going to get us killed. Facts are, you are going to be a waste of resources in one way or another.” The dark eyed woman makes a muffled hopeless noise into her hands, and stays quiet. Finally, Seveiren looks up after listening to every one else. “Is there a way to learn your kind of magic?” Fate gives a sardonic half smile. “You could say that, if you have will to learn, there isn't anything you can't do here.” "Well, get on to rehabilitation. Then teach me. I don't want to be a useless extra expense." She replies. Ash speaks up has a stricken cast to her face. “I need to know more before I'll believe that was an illusion!” She puts her head in her hands “I had a family! A husband and child! That was real. It couldn't have been an illusion: I gave birth. I held her in my arms. Those feelings can not be fake!” Fate moves closer and puts a hand on Ash's shoulder “Ash? The people were real, the feelings were real. The world was fake. Your family likely is still in the simulation. You can still see them again if we win.” "Then as Seveiren says. Teach us. How can I help?" Fate nods. "We have a long trip ahead of us. I'm not going to lie to you; You're not strong enough right now to walk under your own power, let alone aid us. So you'll be going to one of our bases, with the other eight we rescued. You don't have to worry about long arduous training though." She gestures to the beds that look like they have glass closing tops. And doesn't seem to notice Bes rolling his eyes and mouthing along as she talks. "You'll be going to sleep, these are cryogenic stasis beds. When you wake up, you'll have your strength back. It will take time for you to relearn all you could do before. However, They will have registered UDS for each of you, paid in advance. That will assist in learning some skills. Once we question you, you can decide if you want to help us or find your own way in the universe." She makes a gesture toward the sleeping pods. As they climb into their pods, Bes lets out a breath and has them named now. Not by their introductions. He knew the sort: Bimbo, Baggage, Trouble and Tears. Thank the gods for stasis. Davriel and Ash went to their beds right away, but Nica and Seveiren lingered. Seveiren watching Nica, and waiting impatiently. Nica with a faraway look in her eyes, gently moving her hands on the bed and mouth moving as if there's a word just out of reach. "Stasis?" She muses softly. “Sleep, heal, and learn..." She looks back over to Fate. "Are we learning your magic while we rest, or were you going to question us first?" Her voice strangely calm for someone being told they're about to be frozen. “You'll learn some while you rest. It does no good for you either way to be unable to open doors or find a bathroom.” Nica nods and goes in for the long sleep. "You dressed your words well, but you mean interrogation. After this part is done." Her face is uncompromising. Seveiren crosses her arms, and stares into Fate. "Not in the sense you mean it. This is not your world. We have easier methods of extracting information. More reliable methods." "Divination is still a strong suit of yours?" Fate smirks. "Rest assured, you're not going to be tortured when you arrive, and it won't take an arm and a leg to be free." Seveiren pauses. Closes her eyes. Smiles. "You lied." Fate looks up sharply. "About what, exactly?" Her eyes gleaming with suspicion that someone from an illusory world would have background enough to claim she was a liar. "There is magic here. Under other names." She frowns. "Not what- he speaks of. That is a man, isn't it?" Her eyes question the remainder of Bes. Bes stirs. "Now that's not very nice..." Fate raises a hand. "There are things that are inexplicable. However, that is only because we don't know enough to figure them out. You will find no miraculous powers that set you above everyone else. There's none of that kind of magic here. I wasn't lying." "Forgive me if I don't take you at face value." Seveiren inwardly smiles, as though a long held private joke was mentioned. Then looks to steel herself as she stares at the chamber. "How long is our... journey?" "Three weeks ship time." "Time to learn what that means." "It means- for you, while you're traveling, three weeks will pass. To those not going our speed, between seven to ten times as much time will pass, depending on our course and unexpected gravity wells. it'll make more sense once you've slept and understand what relativity is." "One hundred and forty seven to two hundred and ten days doesn't seem very precise." She sighs. "And it's a lot to lose. Math and science first. Wake me up when we get there." After her tube closes, Bes clears his throat. "You can close yer mouth now." Fate stiffens and stalks out of the room.

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