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#gotta negotiate these things man
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Love that prompt list! How about 24 - “Did you just bite me?” - for the DV'Cule, please?
In honour of the fact I've just quit my weekend job - DC please humbly accept my first outrightedly suggestive prose answer: praise the soup and your patience, here we go:
TLDR: Venomous bites and kinky viziers is certainly a match, and not one made in heaven, even for gods.
TW: Suggestive themes, biting, nothing overtly described. Implied threesome.
Did you just Bite Me?! - The DVCule: Jafar x Hades X Facilier
The yelp that cuts though the warm, heavy air startles them so badly that someone – Facilier maybe – tumbles off the bed with a swear, helped by one of Hades legs as the god flails. Flames roar between blue and orange as he grabs the back of Jafar’s head and tries to yank, grunting at the teeth buried in his shoulder.
The sorcerer remains locked in place – dazed and cross eyed as he clings - sweaty, sinuous, satisfied and apparently on another fucking planet for all that he was paying attention.
“Did you seriously just bite me?!” Hades croaks incredulously. “Jaf- Jafar, what the fuck-”
Muffled groans and what sound like an aborted reply leak between wet flesh. Hades winces as he tries to pry the sorcerers head away but finds him all but locked into the muscle – golden ichor dribbling between them. Despite the sudden burst of flame all the sorcerer does is grip harder, tongue idly flicking at the blood as it dribbles down his skin and smears the sheets.
Facilier stumbles up, nursing a bruised backside and scowling - swatting at Jafar to move but only getting a strangled hiss and an unfocused red glare for his trouble. The bokor blinks, noticing the odd..smooth sheen of Jafars skin, and the subtle red and black banding beginning to show.
“Ah, fuck. Is he-”
“Fanged up? No shit.” Hades hisses, feeling the two white hot, needle-like fangs twitch and flex what feels like down to his bones. “I don’t- fucking- need an anatomy discussion doc, get him off-!”
“I’m tryin-!”
Mood murdered - they attempt to wrangle the punch-drunk half-transformed sorcerer off the larger god, trading swears every time the teeth buried in his neck jostle, grimacing as Jafar swallows more and more godblood and slowly begins to giggle and produce some kind of awful hissy purr that shakes the bed and makes Hades especially regret the fireproof spells written into it.
Eventually they manage to pop Jafar’s unnervingly stretchy jaw off, tossing the ex vizier to the side while Facilier grabs rags for the bleeding and Hades glares at his lover. Slitted red eyes blink out of sync back as the half snake curls languidly in place, sleepy and pleased.
Hades scowls. “Memo to me – add a clause about biting...” He pinches his nose and sighs explosively, letting Facilier swipe at his shoulder where the wounds are already closing. “Oy, he’s such a freak.”
Facilier chuckles at that. “Yeah. An’ you like it, so what does that make you?”
“A pincusion apparently, oy-” He rolls his eyes and rubs his temples, feeling a headache coming on. “Was just starting to relax too...”
Facilier makes a sympathetic noise and throws the rag away. He slides back up, all smooth grace now that tall dark and twisted was slightly snoring. He gently cards a hand through the flames, letting them wrap around his fingers as Hades leans into the touch. “You wanna keep goin? Or leave it here? I’m game for either.”
Hades hums as he mulls it over and leans into him. Facilier’s brows pinch as he realises he’s… actually having to brace the god kinda hard. “Uh...Cher?”
Yellow eyes slowly blink open, and alarm bells start ringing as he sees just how wide the pupils are. “Hades..??”
“Faci...” He mumbles. “...have...have there always been three of you?”
The bokor feels his stomach tie into knots as he suddenly connects some dots - snapping his head around to see Jafar yawn, yellow drops of venom still clinging to his fangs.
He about launches himself out of bed – ignoring Hades sudden whine - and scrambles for his trousers, slung over the dresser. “Gotta get Ursula darlin’ - berightback-!”
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dreadfutures · 6 months
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I say this as someone with mental disabilities, sometimes you just gotta take the L and do it. Maybe it'll cost you and send you into negative spoons but sometimes you gotta. We have a human debt we owe to one another and we have to fight for each other.
Disabilities make things hard to do safely, without pain, etc. Where you can, seek accomodations, ask for help, live your life, and do good in the world in the ways you can.
What we can't do with our disabilities? We can't sit here and wallow and use them as a shield.
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ohbo-ohno · 7 months
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Kinktober Day 8 - Breeding
John Price x Reader - 1k (on ao3)
summary: You worry that your boss sees your relationship as more long-term than you do. (Reader POV, second person)
cw: implied stealthing, under negotiated breeding kink, one-sided daddy kink
You tell yourself it’s just a kink.
You’re not ready to become a mother - you’d like to be married for at least a year before even trying for a baby, and you’d like to have an established career before even getting married. For you, the idea of a bun in the oven is so far down the line it’s not even visible on the horizon yet.
But you know it’s not the same for Price. He’s older than you, has lived a far wilder life and lost it what must be nearly a dozen times over. He’s a weathered man, with deep lines on his forehead and wrinkles around his eyes, just the tiniest hint of silver creeping into his beard.
You know it’s not smart to have a fling with him. Not only is he your boss and a controversially older man, but he’s also the exact opposite of a commitment-phobe like you. He’s always looking for more commitment in fact, something you hadn’t expected considering the illicitness of your relationship with him.
You'd assumed an affair with your boss would involve mostly quickies in closets, a refusal to be in the same room as one another during the workday, maybe even pretending to dislike each other around other coworkers. Instead, he talks to you more once you start sleeping together than he had before - he parks himself on your desk at any time he pleases, invites you to have lunch in his office with him (alone), and laughs when your co-workers call him your work-husband.
So you know that he wants more, that he wants you to really be with him (he hints at far more than just that, but doesn’t dare say it aloud, which you’re glad for) past just being his secretary and his fuckbuddy. 
In fact, he’d nearly torn you into two when you’d giggled and called him a “bootycall” after he called you back into work hours after you’d gone home. His face had gone from eager and affectionate to what you can only call scolding, and he’d been rougher with you than normal. You enjoy a few smacks to your ass, but that night he’d spanked you hard enough to leave you squirming the next morning when you sat at your desk. You’d been pouty about it, had glared only half-playfully at him when he smirked, but the way he ate you out on his desk for lunch more than made up for the discomfort. 
And he makes these… comments sometimes, while he’s buried inside you. Things that allude to a future you’re not ready for.
Gotta come after me, sweetheart, it takes better like that.
Hips up, don’t let any of me drip out.
Gonna make me a daddy, pretty thing? Huh? Gonna take my cum and grow me a baby?
My good fuckin’ girl, lettin’ me breed her pretty cunt.
Gonna look so pretty, all round for me. Gonna take such good care of you.
C’mon, honey, wanna make sure it sticks this time.
You tell yourself it’s just a kink. He plugs you up with a couple fingers once he’s finished, says “Just to make sure you don’t lose any of my cum, can’t be wastin’ it right now,” and licks your clit until your legs shake. 
He hardly fucks you in any position that isn’t bent over his desk, no matter how much you whine and beg for me. He just smacks your ass, gives you an extra orgasm or two to keep you placated. More often than not he leaves you bent over the desk after he’s finished, tilts your hips up a little higher and gives you a kiss on the temple as he sits back in his seat to get back to work.
You’d told him to use a condom the first few times, even though you’ve been on birth control for years. You’ve always been responsible with flings, been more than willing to send a man packing at the first hint of whining if he didn’t want to wear protection. A baby has never once crossed your mind as an option, and it certainly doesn't now.
So it was instinct to tell Price to put on a condom before he fucked you the first time. And he had, without kicking up any fuss about it past a furrowed brow and a grumble or two.
But then the condom broke, and you were left with his cum dripping down your thighs. You’d had a moment of panic, but he’d given you money for Plan B, and you told yourself the odds of getting pregnant with Plan B and birth control were so low it wasn’t worth stressing out over.
The condom broke the second time. And the third. And the fourth. And the fifth. And every time after that you asked him to wear one.
At some point you stopped asking, and he never remembered himself. A few muttered questions about what brand he’d been using between fevered kisses, thick fingers at your cunt a distraction, and eventually you told yourself it wouldn’t matter as long as you kept taking the birth control pills.
It would be rude to demand Plan B after every round, right? Plus, asking for cash minutes after you'd both gotten off always made you feel a bit... dirty. When you feel him drip down your thighs, when you pull your panties up and feel the mixture of both of you gather there, you tell yourself that the birth control will surely do it's job, and you try not to worry.
Now, pulling open the drawer where you keep your pills, you wonder if maybe all his talk of babies and his cum taking is more than just heat-of-the-moment dirty talk.
You stare down at the empty drawer and every time he’s called himself Daddy echoes in your ear like a choir.
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bluecollarmcandtf · 6 days
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Cash Slave, reporting in...
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Good morning, master. State Trooper Hernandez reporting!
I hope you're doing well since the last time we saw each other. Again, I can't apologize enough for pulling you over on the highway. I had no idea you were such an amazing hypnotist. Thank you again for letting me get off easy and only making me taze myself twice! I was paralyzed in that muddy ditch for awhile, but you could've given me a helluva worse punishment!
Your instructions aren't negotiable, so I made sure to snap a photo before I started my shift today. As you suggested, I've been eating a box of donuts every morning, and I've packed on a hefty 30 lbs since I've started. My wife has complained, but I know you want me to look more like a cliche of law enforcement!
I'll stop by your house to drop off my paycheck tonight after work. I won't forget to pick up some pizza for you and your friends on the way: extra sausage, just like you said!
See you tonight, master!
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Hello sir.
It's been a week since you came into my shop, and I've followed everything you said. I didn't agree with it at first, but you convinced me with that little pendant.
You were right! I really am beneath powerful men like you. Filthy blue-collar workers aren't worthy to lick the dirt off your shoes. You were right to point that out, and you were right to tell me to embrace it. When the world looks at me, they shouldn't see a man. They should see a grease monkey at the bottom of society.
That's why I haven't showered or changed in seven days. My BO is uncomfortable to work in, but I know it's just a reminder of what I am. I used to be proud of my job. Ha! I used to look down on suits like you, but I'm nothing in comparison; just a tool at your disposal.
Anyways, I cleaned and waxed your old car as fast as I could. I know I lent you my convertible, but you're welcome to keep it. I put a lot of sweat and blood in fixing her up, but like you said, fancy cars are meant for you to drive and me to maintain.
Stop back in my garage anytime. White-collar men like you get free service here! It's not the place of any lowly laborer to get in the way of what you want.
Thank you again, sir.
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Hello boss.
Just started another long day of window washing! It's another hot one, but I'll keep my head down and sweat through it like usual.
I've gotta say, it's days like this that make me miss the comforts of my old corporate desk job. I'd kill for some AC right now, but I remember how much you made me realize I hated that career. Like you said, I'm much better suited to a life of mindless cleaning.
It turns out you're the real one with a knack for business strategy because all of your advice has been genius! The income is dependent on the hours I put in, and since I'm working for half the price of all competitors, I've gotten a monopoly on the market! I've fully booked all seven days for the next five or so weeks, so I'll be washing windows non-stop!
The business is already booming! I've been billing customers to your bank account, so you should already see all the profit in there!
Later today, I'll make a note of the minimum I need to replenish the cleaning supplies I'm running through. I'd also be grateful if you loaned me a bit for personal use, but it's understandable if you can't spare any! We agreed that I wasn't working for a salary, and I'm fine with that! I've been sleeping in the company van the last few weeks and it's more than good enough for me!
Don't worry, boss. I'll get back to work!
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Tell my wife hello for me, master!
Working on a rig has been isolating. The job is brutal, the days are long, and every night I head back to our bunks covered in oil. I thought I'd at least get to bond with the other guys, but most of us are too tired to do anything but eat and sleep after our shift.
The only thing that's getting me through it is thinking about you. I know I also have a girl at home, but you were the one that gave my life purpose. I was never going to make money as an actor, and you helped me see that! You were the one that convinced me to go for this ridiculous job in the middle of the ocean, and now I'm making a ton of money!
You deserve it all.
I wouldn't have seen any of this cash if I hadn't stuck around after your stage hypnosis show. I still remember the wild look in your eyes when you came up with this idea for me. I also remember that hungry look you had when you saw my wife. It was impossible to say no.
Oh, and thanks for keeping my wife company while I'm gone. A man like you deserves her attention more than I do. Like you said, I doubt I was pleasing her to begin with. The only thing I'm good for is earning money, and I hope you're enjoying it because it sure isn't easy to earn!
I gotta get back, but I wanted to let you know that I signed up for another six months like you suggested. It's lonely, but I'm happy to do it, master!
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Son, or should I still call you 'sir'?
I'm not sure if I your new title applies through text as well? Being your dad and your servant can be a bit confusing, but I don't mean disrespect you! Just let me know.
My workout is done and I'm headed back to your house. I signed the deed over to you this morning, so you officially own it now! Like usual, I'll clean the place from top to bottom. I've got all the mops and cleaning supplies in my van and ready to go. Since it's Friday, I'll start on the weekly yard work; mowing, weeding, etc... I don't want to bore you with the details, but it'll take the majority of the day to keep your place in tip top shape!
As I understand it, you are having friends over tonight, so I'll prepare a three course meal for eight. I ironed my apron this morning so I should look like a more presentable waiter than last night when I served your food!
As always, please let me know if there's any other way I can be of service today or tonight.
I'll be awaiting your return, sir.
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Hey little bro,
I just finished my workout at the gym with dad. We're both hitting PRs and we're really starting to see some results! Still can't believe you hypnotized his dumb ass to think he's your butler! That man looks so stupid changing from gym clothes into a bowtie and gloves. He's constantly calling you 'sir' too, even when you're not around.
He's such an idiot.
Anyways, I'm all dressed and ready for my new job. You were totally right. I'm going to be so much happier as a clown instead of a wrestler. I'm about to head out to my first gig; a ten year old's birthday party. I think he's the kid of someone I used to compete with. It might be a little awkward, but it won't affect my routine. I've got an afternoon of pies in the face and self-deprecating humor ahead of me.
I made sure to tell the guy who hired me that I'm willing to stay after and clean up. Kids make a huge mess after all. I just hope he won't be too weird about me being a clown at his son's party. We may have been rivals in the past, but that was back when I wrestled. Now I'm just a joke for hire. He's technically my boss for the day, so I'll have to get used to taking orders from him.
Wish me luck, bro. I'll give you the money after the dad dismisses me. Let's hope I make a good clown!
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luffyvace · 23 days
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Dating ~ Sanji Vinsmoke ~ headcanons pt2
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Pt2 of my Dating ~ Sanji Vinsmoke ~ headcanons
(cuz I ran out of characters 😭) it’s the post before this but I’ll link here: Dating ~ Sanji Vinsmoke ~ headcanons
⚠️(whole cake spoiler but you can read over it)⚠️
Dating Sanji Includes respect.
this man respects you more than he respect nearly everyone. And I mean it! Your up there with Zeff! And that’s the man that saved his life!!
Dating Sanji includes boundaries.
Going into what I just said Sanji respects you, which means he respects your boundaries! Now he finds you very alluring so he might push them but he won’t EVER cross them! Especially since that dude is on cloud simp 😭🤦‍♀️
Dating Sanji includes forgiveness.
Tying into that Sanji might push your boundaries..so forgiveness with him is essential! Hopefully your not stubborn! 💓
⚠️(whole cake spoiler)⚠️
you’ll also need to forgive him for leaving the crew at whole cake- and for almost MARRYING someone else- despite the fact that he always proclaims his love for you and says he wants to marry you. 😐
Dating Sanji includes comprising.
As said, this guy is pushy! So compromising can help strengthen your bond! “Dearest darlinggg~ could we take a bath together??~” *nose bleed*
it’s simply much to early for this sort of thing and you know Sanji’s a pervert 😵‍💫
”how about you prepare me a bath and make me some food while I’m in it? I’m really craving some (fav food :3) right now :)”
”right awayyyyy my scenic beloved~ you know I love doing anything for youuu~ especially cooking~ 😍🧑‍🍳”
compromise :)
by the way when i say Sanji is pushy I don’t mean it in the overly annoying way I mean it in the negotiation way, like that thing where you go:
‘50 dollars!’ ‘20!’ ‘30!’ ‘35!’ ‘Deal!’ 🤝
Like that type you know? He wouldn’t never actually cross your boundaries….it’s more like (harmless) loopholes ☝️🤓
Dating Sanji includes loyalty
very very very very very very obvious.
this man wouldn’t trade you for the world, and take that in because I mean that literally. Now if ykyk but whole cake was to protect you!! If it’s to protect you Sanji will find a way to minimize the damages instead.
anyhow- on a lighter note, you undoubtedly believe he will be faithful to you because you know it’s true and for that your grateful.
he’s always thinking about you 24/7- he doesn’t even have time to think about himself sometimes!! (He needs to)
Dating Sanji Includes active listening
top notch listener! As I said in part 1 he loves your voice so he could listen to you all day
he never gets bored or tunes out and you can tell! He consistently asks questions and maintains eye contact even if he’s doing something! :) it makes you feel so loved and heard 💗
Dating Sanji includes affection
only if you want it tho!! He has all love languages really (😭) but has no problem adapting to yours! So if this isn’t your forte, not to worry! He will never force this on you!
that’s talking about physical affection tho.
And there are many different types!…For the record- you get them all. 😊 he will emphasize on whatever’s your favorite to ensure maximum comfort <3
but this is where the communication from part 1 comes in!! You’ve gotta tell him what you like dear!! He’s not a mind reader 😃
Dating Sanji includes support
definitely this!!
he’s one of those guys who goes broke to support your dreams! (Remember the time Sanji almost sold Luffy out to the marines to buy Nami some PAPER?? Yeah..that’s you now)
everything is yours at the drop of the hat! Supplies?! He’s on it! (If you sell something) low sales?! He’s putting on one of those goofy mascots and twirling the sign around :) Karen Kustomer? Call security! (It’s Sanji- could you guess?!)
Dating Sanji Includes patience
this goes both ways truly..if your a bit more hot headed then you’ll definitely need this when it comes to him. He isn’t a idiot he just argues with Zoro too much…and Simps a lot too.. 👍
as for you I mean this in the sense that he already has plenty of it for youuuu!
he never gets angry at you for any reason.
I stand on that.
no matter how many of your shenanigans him and the crew have to go through, or how much chaos you’ve caused he’ll defend you to the end of it
”Oi! Why’d you have to go and do that?!”
”SHADDUP SHABBY SWORDSMAN!! my picturesque partner~ HAS DONE NOTHING WRONG!!”
😆
- You
(after causing chaos)
Dating Sanji Includes acceptance
self explanatory :3 he accepts you no matter who, how, where, what you are and he loves you through and through. From the highest point of your hair to the bottom of your feet 🤓😱
all that jazz~ 💖👌
Happy b day Sanji!! I’m totally not late for this!
:3
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alienpossession · 3 months
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Prologue of my own take for this alien story by @apushforfolly
A little bit connected to @fullfriendnerdpurse story because imagine how convenient that he used the guy I planned to use on one of his alien story, and I linked it to my early caption too that you'll find later below. Kudos to @cleanstatevessels for bugging me consistently (LOL) to fulfill my promise
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Sander van Broek is a Dutch fitness model and businessman. He's a rather established name in the fitness industry and that caused him to frequently fly all over the globe for fitness expo and bodybuilding meet where he will meet old friends, build new business and personal network or sometimes speak as a panel for his experience. Due to that, Dubai become a very sensible choice of residence for him because it's practically a global hub nowadays, and he's more than lucky to have some people he knows that can show him good places to rent
Sander knew Andrei from a couple years ago as fellow fitness enthusiast. They were cordial at first, but similar type of jokes and life mindset eventually bonded the two men and they've been close friends ever since. Andrei conveniently also worked as a realtor, guess his easy-going personality and charming look proven to be helpful to close deals with the rich and wealthy. Not to mention that he's a polyglot, capable to speak Romanian (his native tongue), Spanish (his girlfriend's native tongue and still part of broader Romance language), French, Russian (language spoken by his boss in the real estate firm), English and Arabic, making him probably a great asset to attract international clientele. All the places he shown were remarkable and located in great spots, but Sander felt the prices to be a bit steep.
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"Crazy view, eh? This place gets both of the best sight, and the way this room perfectly captured the sunrise and sunset, perfect righr?"
"Certainly yeah. But again, this is like the 5th place you shown me to be above my budget. I have money, but I don't think I wanna blow it for rent,"
"No worries, price is pretty much negotiable, you know. Let's talk about it while drinking in my office, shall we? We're done looking anyway,"
"How negotiable are we talking about here?"
"You'll be surprised," said Andrei with a smirk, grabbing his Ferrari key and ready to leave the unit with Sander following him closely right behind him
When they arrived in the towering glass skyscraper, Sander cannot help but look upward until his eyes blinded by the sun. Dutch might be the tallest people on Earth, but there's no such tall building in the Netherlands, that's for sure. Andrei tossed his key to the valet and strut to the lobby with confidence in his step, everyone seemed to know him just by looking at him. Well, not like you can ignore a presence like Andrei anyway, he just demanded such attention to every spaces he walked into. As the elevator flies through the floor, he just hummed casually while Sander still marveled at the whole bunch of floors they passed through and how far they are already from the ground within seconds. As the elevator dings at the 66th floor, it opens to a short hallway with lobby in the end of it. The two receptionist greeted Andrei and Sander warmly and as he stepped through the lobby area, the door behind him closed
"That's just the way it is. Don't be afraid hahah,"
"Just surprised on how loud it was, that's all,"
"Okay, you go to the 2nd room after you take left, okay? I'll be there in a sec, gotta talk to boss,"
"Sure thing,"
"Oh, and by the way, what do you want to drink?"
"Anything is fine actually. Just don't get me too drunk, we're still talking about apartment,"
"Okay, as you wished. Just wait for a sec, okay?"
"Sure bro,"
So Sander fidgeted rather awkwardly in the dimly-lit room all by himself, waiting for Andrei to come back. So that's the boss? Piotr something? Sander saw a glimpse of a man with traditional white Arab headdress, the guy is massive and he seemed like a rather stern boss. Is that guy the Russian's counterpart? He's pretty sure he heard Andrei said his boss is Russian, but that one clearly seemed like an Arab and he's pretty sure he read that "Piotr" is the one written in the gold plaque attached to the slightly opened door earlier
---
"Frankie, how's Piotr doing?"
"Still not awake and no response from his body, my Prince. Just very tense and excessively sweating. Probably the slug still trying to wrestle the control over," said the nerd from a hidden office suite right behind the bookshelves within the CEO room
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"You see, Andrei? I told you, some of these guys are just not that easy to be taken over. It's beginner's luck that you got someone as massive as him as your vessel," said the Prince from his chair
"Well, clearly Piotr was not easy to be taken over. For starter, he doesn't even understand what the fuck you are saying since he only speaks Russian and here you are prancing as an Arabic prince, and two, I told you I'll take care of him. He trusted Andrei, trust means easier takeover as they won't raise their guard or being too defensive,"
"Show me then. I see you bring a fella earlier. Show me how much "trust" will help you take that guy over. I check his profile, seemed interesting,"
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"Pffft, you're underestimating me, Prince Hamid. You see......*take a bottle of wine from one of the small cellar in the CEO room* *take his shorts down* *painted the glass with his black slug* it won't even take more than 5 minutes and he'll be under my control. You'll give that body up to me and the chain of command, including the fate of that dweeb, if I can prove it to you how well my method works," Andrei said as he poured the red wine into the slug-stained glass. The slug camouflaged itself by changing its color and texture to match the wine's depth of color. Mere seconds later and it seemed like it's always been red wine and nothing else ever added there.
"And if you failed?" the prince smirked
"I'll let that nerdy friend of yours used me as he pleased," Andrei hissed while looking at the nerd with disgusted look as the nerd tended to his passed out boss
"Deal. I'm inside a Prince for a reason, young man. I know what I'm doing,"
"Yeah, he's in the middle of a climax when you shot yourself into his asshole. It's not like he can fight you, he's spent. And you got that nerd helping you. Me getting inside of Andrei might be luck, but the rest of those folks you met, the people I takeover, all taken over smoothly because they never thought their own realtor turned out to be something out of this world and all of those process were hella smoother than my first takeover of this stud," Andrei said as he wipes the remnant of the cum-slug in his piss slit with his fingers, give it a delightful lick before putting on his pants back. He then strut to his office to seal the whole deal with his so-called "friend" while the Prince followed him with some distance.
----
"Hey there, sorry. Searched for some of the documents first and talked with the boss about work," said Andrei as he barged into the room where Sander already waited for him
"That's okay, is that for me?" Sander asked, his eyes eyeing the glass of wine Andrei held alongside the bottle and some papers in his other hand
"Oh yeah, for you. Sorry about that," said Andrei, a little bit forgetful about his sole goal as he played Andrei a bit too realistic sometimes while he handed over the wine glass
But instead of directly drinking it, Sander just simply put the glass on the table, which trigger raised eyebrow from Andrei
"You don't want to drink first?"
"Oh no, let's hear first about those units, and maybe if we reached a deal, I'll drink,"
"Ahh....okay *internally cursing Sander*. If that's what you want. So, basically, you can get those units with half of their prices, max,"
"What? Half?! That's so great, how the hell that happened?"
"I told them you're going to be a long-term tenant and with your job, they probably won't have to worry about the payment and all. Just basically convinced them, you know,"
"Are you playing with me right now? Is there something I have to do for them or anything? Half is crazy, bro,"
"No, I'm serious. But yeah, they wanted something. Nothing nefarious or anything, the owner of the last unit just wanted you to help by personally training their son," Andrei said, trying to hide his grin from Sander by turning his back to him and acting busy in his table
"Really? That simple? Huh well, cheers to that then," he said, instantly taking a gulp of the wine in one go due to his excitement
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Not even 5 seconds later, the glass dropped to the floor as Sander's body instantly having a massive seizure. His eyes fluttered and mouth foaming like crazy as his body wriggled like a seaweed, flailing here and there purely moved by the spasm of his own body. The Prince steps into the room with his timer recorded 0:25 seconds left. Upon witnessing the state of the man he saw walked earlier, he smirked because there's no way this guy would be back to normal within seconds! But, in a plot twist the Prince didn't see coming, Sander instantly groaned when the timer left 0:08 seconds as he then stabilized and start taking normal, paused breath.
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"You thought I'll fail, huh?"
The Prince just seethed in anger. The timer stops at 0:02 seconds, but promise is a promise so a black, oil-like slug gets out from the Prince's ear and then slide off to the floor. It purred upon meeting another slug that came from inside Andrei's body before heading to their respective new vessel. As both men cracked their neck upon the alien entering their brain, Sander murmured
"This guy really didn't see it coming. He simply thought he's going to die or something, that's all what I gathered from his final memory. The burst almost caused his clothes to torn apart by the way, he really likes tight clothing," He said while trying to assess and fix his tight shirt that enveloped his muscular virile form
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"Well, the rest of his memories will be accessible to you for the next couple hours so you can lounge around if you want. But yeah, as I said, the owner of the unit wanted you to train their eldest son. Of course the owner is also one of us, but I guess he has that attachment issue to his human vessel or something, some of the team are watching him closely to ensure that he can serve in full capacity or else we will just abandon that old fit man. But in the meantime, I'm the one tasked to ensure we also convert his eldest son. He's based in UK, but he'll move to Dubai in the next few weeks. Since I'm no longer Andrei, you'll do the job alongside Sander, is that clear?" said the alien formerly inside Andrei that now comfortably reside inside the authoritative Prince
Both Sander and Andrei just nodded and said "okay" slowly, one still trying to adjust to a new life with a vessel and the other one still dejected that he just lost a nobility's physique. But not like any of them can say no, they understand that their mission is important to the cause.
"And now, I'm going to leave this premise and contacted HQ for update about our changes. And, let's not try to make my father's suspicious that his youngest Prince went missing for long period of time with no possible info on his whereabouts, don't want to make that old man worried sick. Let's update each other's progress a month from now, hopefully by then you two and Piotr plus the nerd have more progress in branching out, I'm the Prince after all, yall report to me,"
----
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"So Mike, how do you like this condo? Your father told us to take good care of it for you. Or you want to look at some spaces to rent on your own?" said Andrei and Sander to the oblivious Mike, not knowing the fate that awaits him.....
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214 notes · View notes
causeitsagame · 9 months
Text
Some good old-fashioned h/c
For @hajihiko, since there was nothing to read <3
"No, we cannot tell Makoto," Sonia insisted, and coughed up a wad of phlegm. "He puts himself at great risk with every visit."
"I know that," Hajime said, and traded the phlegm-y handful of palm fronds she'd grabbed along the way in favor of an actual tissue. After some time spent on the real islands, Makoto had asked them what else was needed for their recovery. The list was fortunately brief, but did have some small but critical items, like a pressure control valve for surgical anesthesia. Somehow, he'd managed to find the whole requested collection in the broken world out there.
"And so we cannot appear to be ungrateful," Sonia continued. She snorted, drawing a drooping bit of snot back up into her reddened nose. "Accepting necessary trade-offs without complaint is a part of negotiations and aid."
"It's Makoto," Hajime patiently countered as he led her back into her room. Other nearby doors were also closed, but she'd decided that she felt well enough to help prepare some broth for the others. It hadn't gone well; he'd found her slumped over in the kitchen. "He's not going to get mad if I clarify exactly what he brought to the island with him."
"No, we mustn't blame him," Sonia said weakly as Hajime steered her toward her bed.
"It's not blame. I just want to know."
"You mustn't," she insisted again as she let herself be maneuvered under a light blanket. Though the day was typically warm outside, she shook.
"…Fine," Hajime lied. "I won't call Makoto."
Sonia smiled gratefully up at him through reddened, watery features.
"Feel better. I'll check on you soon, all right?"
She nodded, coughed again, and curled up on her side.
With a reassuring smile, Hajime walked off to call Makoto.
"Sorry, I didn't realize," Makoto said on the video screen, and wiped roughly at his nose. Now into recovery, he had the pale, desaturated color scheme of a heavy illness draped over his otherwise sunny demeanor. "I didn't feel bad until I was already leaving. How are people doing? Do you need more medicine?"
"No, we're good." Hajime gestured over his shoulder, and coughed. "There's plenty of medicine in the clinics around the islands."
Makoto hesitated at Hajime's deep, rough cough. "Is it expired, though?"
"On the packages? Sure. In reality? Slightly reduced efficacy, easily adjusted for with a larger dose." Hajime coughed again against the back of his hand. "We're good."
"Okay," Makoto said uncertainly. "Call me again if you need to, all right?"
"We're fine." Hajime waved him off. "I should be able to toss this off pretty easily, and I can look after everyone else."
"Well. Okay. But seriously, you can call me."
"And we always appreciate it," Hajime assured him, and with a grateful nod, cut the call. Okay. Time to check on everyone else.
Akane complained, which was a good sign; she'd been the first to succumb, and her laying so still and quiet in bed had unpleasantly reminded everyone of the Despair Disease. "I've gotta have something more than just water," she griped as Hajime handed her a bowl, filled from the pot Sonia had left simmering.
"Broth," Hajime corrected. "And do your eyes feel all weird and prickly?"
"Yeah."
"Right. We need to get more fluids into you, first thing. That'll help you recover as quickly as possible. And if you need fluids, this is better than just water, right?"
"Yeah," she admitted, and drank some. "I guess."
"Okay. Drink some more of that until you feel better, and then real food is on the way." That encouraged her enough to treat the broth as an actual meal, and after a quick temperature check, Hajime moved on.
"I feel gross," Kazuichi whined.
Hajime turned to cough into his shoulder, heavy and deeper in his chest than when he'd talked to Makoto. It felt like it echoed inside him like a timpani, and Kazuichi had an eyebrow raised when he turned back to the man.
"You sound gross," Kazuichi added.
"I'm fine," Hajime insisted, and held up a stethoscope. "I want to listen to your chest."
Breathing was hindered by the sputum that this illness had brought to their respiratory tracts, but fortunately, it didn't sound any worse than yesterday. Kazuichi must be currently going through the worst of it, which meant that recovery was right ahead. "Cough for me into this," Hajime instructed, handing over a tissue.
Kazuichi did, and made a face as Hajime inspected what he'd coughed up. "And that is gross."
"The infection is on the mend," Hajime dryly confirmed as he tossed the tissue in a nearby bin. "And you're welcome. I'll bring soup."
"…Did you make the soup, or…"
"Sonia."
Kazuichi's grimace deepened as much as his illness-exhausted muscles would allow.
"She knows how to make a decent vegetable broth, by now. It tastes fine. Really. Be back in a sec."
Outside Kazuichi's cottage, Hajime felt a deep, insistent pressure build up in his chest. He hurried away from the open window, far enough that the noises he was about to make would blend into the rush of waves on the shore.
The cough ripped out of him painfully hard. He could feel it dislodge substances inside him that shouldn't be there; the illness everyone else was dealing with had also settled into his own respiratory tract. With another few deep coughs, Hajime cleared his throat and stood. His immune system was part of his generally improved body. That, along with his medical knowledge, meant that he was the best-suited person on this island to look after everyone else. And so he'd do exactly that.
"Hey," Hajime quietly called out as he entered the last cottage. He'd stopped by the kitchen for Kazuichi's broth, and another bowl of it was still in hand. "How are you doing?"
While Hajime was the best-suited to throw off an illness, Fuyuhiko was expectedly having the roughest time of it. He'd succumbed soon after Akane, but while she'd rebounded enough to complain and regain her appetite, Fuyuhiko remained a quiet, pliant lump under his blankets.
Silence in return to his question twisted an anxious knife in Hajime's chest. Suddenly fearful, he leaned over Fuyuhiko's still form.
And then he coughed on him, deep and loud.
Grimacing, Fuyuhiko stirred and looked up at Hajime with an accusing eye. "What?" The question was deep, raspy. Between damage from days of coughing and the illness his body still fought, his voice had dropped half an octave and most of its volume.
"Just checking on you," Hajime said. "I brought this. Can you sit up?"
Fuyuhiko flicked his gaze to the bowl Hajime held, then away. It was a silent but clear 'no thanks.'
"You need to eat," Hajime insisted.
Illness weakened people, and Fuyuhiko apparently dealt with illness about as well as he did with anything that made him feel weak: it pissed him off.
He'd been even more uncooperative than Akane. Although she'd fortunately rebounded quite a bit after the pods, giving her some physical reserves, Fuyuhiko had been an easy target for the disease clawing through everyone's system. He'd been left nearly motionless, only able to manage the short trip to the bathroom without exhausting himself. He relied on Hajime for food, medical attention, and anything else, and it infuriated him.
"The faster you recover, the faster you can get out of this room," Hajime pointed out. "And you're not going to recover if you starve yourself."
Fuyuhiko didn't want to agree with that, clearly. Fortunately for his pride, he could simply stay silent.
Hajime sighed. "Would you just—"
He barely set the bowl down in time before another cough ripped through him, doubling him over. He felt his abdominal muscles clench hard, almost like he was vomiting, as his airway was forcefully cleared. He gasped when he regained control of his breathing, felt his throat catch again on some of the mucus coating it, and fell into a second helpless round of coughing.
"One second," Hajime wheezed, and wiped his teary, bloodshot eyes.
In Fuyuhiko's bathroom, Hajime wiped down his face with one tissue and coughed hard into a second. The sputum had tinges of color just like what he'd inspected on Kazuichi: the infection was finally settling into Hajime's lungs, too. But it was mild, only there in small streaks, and so there wasn't any need to worry. Certainly, he was in much better shape than any of the rest of them, especially Fuyuhiko.
When Hajime exited back into the main room, Fuyuhiko was making an awkward attempt at the soup left next to him.
"Oh," Hajime said in pleased surprise, and cleared his throat again. "Need any help?"
Fuyuhiko eyed him speculatively. "No. Hey. Is there any medicine I should be taking?"
Hajime's eyebrows further rose. Fuyuhiko had rejected most of his suggestions before this, saying he didn't need it. "Yeah, there are a few different things I'd like to put you on."
"Go get 'em."
Not about to argue with a patient suddenly cooperating, Hajime did so. On the way, he stopped twice more to double over, hacking and coughing until tears squeezed out of his eyes.
Two days later, he tried to get out of bed to monitor everyone's recovery, and… couldn't. Hajime's muscles were tired like he couldn't remember, and every breath was thin and labored. He could feel the heat and humidity of the islands laying across his skin like a slimy, stifling weight, and yet the core of his body felt chilled and vulnerable. Hajime pulled a blanket over his shoulders and curled inward on himself.
Ten minutes passed, and his door opened under Sonia's mostly-steady hand. "We knew it," she sighed. "Yesterday, you were clearly on a steep decline."
"How's everyone doing?" Hajime asked. Or tried to, anyway; the words came out all mumbled.
"Good enough to check in on you!" Kazuichi promised, walking in with a bowl of soup. Behind him, Akane carried three thermoses, presumably full of the same.
"No," Hajime protested, seeing them all up and walking around. "You need to." His medical assessments weren't coming together like they had, and so he struggled with finding the instructions to issue. "Cough. Tissue."
"We're all clear," Kazuichi promised with a big thumbs-up. "Just normal snot, no infections."
Sonia smiled awkwardly. It was a curious mixture between celebration of their improved health and not wanting to have physical matters mentioned. Princesses weren't raised to acknowledge bodily issues, presumably.
"Oh." Well, that was good. Hajime let out a few rough, hacking coughs again, then found the next words he'd been struggling for. "Where's Fuyuhiko?"
As if cued, the man brushed past Kazuichi. Unlike everyone else, who appeared well on the path to recovery by now, Fuyuhiko was clearly still in the grips of the illness. He at least looked better than he had, though, even as he had a light blanket clutched around him and would probably go straight back to bed. "You probably know which one of these to take, yeah?"
Hajime managed a faint smile as more than a dozen different medications were deposited on his nightstand. The pile included every medicine he'd pulled for Fuyuhiko, along with what must be every other medicine that Fuyuhiko had decided looked even remotely related when he made his own visit to the nearest clinic. "Yeah. I see what I need."
"Good." Fuyuhiko found a small smile of his own, though it was an odd-looking expression after their collective illness had torn so deeply into him. "When I saw you acting like a dumbass, I figured I'd better heal up fast."
"M'not a dumbass," Hajime protested.
"You will stay in bed for the next three days," Sonia proclaimed, bringing the full weight of her lifelong training to bear. "We will not permit you to further exert yourself, Hajime, and will look after you as you have looked after us."
Hajime opened his mouth, took in everyone's visibly improved states, and closed it. That… that didn't sound too bad. "Okay," he relented. "But Fuyuhiko'd better do the same." Fuyuhiko had improved, yes, but 'can stand and walk, only with great effort' wasn't exactly reassuring.
Instinctive stubbornness slammed into Fuyuhiko's expression, and he opened his mouth to argue.
"Get back into bed," Hajime said, mostly into his pillow, "or I'll get up to check on you."
"…One more day," Fuyuhiko accepted, clearly with great reluctance.
"Fine." Hajime coughed. "Someone get me three pills from the. Bottle with the uh. Uh. Green cap." Sonia stepped forward toward the bottles, and Hajime admitted to her, "I called Makoto."
"I assumed as much," she sighed, though it came with a smile. "Will you need help with these pills?"
"Yeah, I'll need help sitting up," Hajime said, and saw Akane head his way to do so as Sonia disappeared into the bathroom for a glass of water. At the doorway, Fuyuhiko actually let himself be led off by Kazuichi.
As he felt Akane carefully tilt him up from the bed, Hajime sighed and let his eyes fall closed. Her grip was steady and sure, and Sonia sounded confident as she rattled off the (expected) name on the requested bottle, wanting confirmation before she administered it.
Obediently, Hajime opened his mouth for the first pill, and swallowed it down with the mouthful of water she then offered. And then again, and again. Sonia's voice next promised that she'd check on Fuyuhiko as the day went on, too, and so there was no need for him to worry.
Reassured, Hajime nodded as Akane arranged him back under his blanket. "Thanks."
His instincts began to rattle off all of the checklist items he should tackle, but for once, Hajime ignored them.
For now, he'd let someone else be in charge.
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hxzbinwrites · 2 months
Note
Yayyy! Vox was who I wanted to make a request for so I was thinking what if female reader is an overlord who deals with weapons that can kill sinners and hellborn. Maybe she is also an owner of a nightclub? maybe she died in the 1920s and she knew Alastor as well and maybe she’s had a crush on him but he’s not interested in her so then she goes and she dates Vox but then she catches him positioned with Val and she doesn’t know the extent how Valentino is abusing Vox so then fast forward 7 years later and they meet again because she’s helping Alastor and of course that makes Vox jealous and angry and Vox just wants her back and he’ll do anything to show her that he changed and he just wants her back. And maybe he explains how Val treated him and then a happy ending heheh. 🤭 I love your stories. Also maybe reader is badass and is like doesn’t need a man because she got herself but she also loves when Vox protects her? Kinda like that song on TikTok from Olivia Rodrigo that goes “I’m a feminist obviously but I wouldn’t really mind him saving me”
Vox x Fem! Overlord! Weapons Dealer! Reader | Stayed Gone
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(A/n): IM BACCKKKK!!! Sorry this is kind rushed, but it was a really fun write!!! I’m promise I’ll get working on more requests but i’m gonna take it easy to slide back into writing after my little break! Thank you to all of those who supported me through this!! ❤️❤️
Warnings ⚠️: Cussing, Vox is OOC, Cheating, Violence, Short (sorry :( )
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” (Y/n) said, throwing a wine glass across the room, particularly aiming at the TV who was caught in the act with a certain moth.
“(Y/n), babe, ‘ts not what it looks like I swear-“
“Oh really?” She said, a venomous lilt in her voice,”cause right now it looks like you’re getting screwed by your little business partner? Huh? Am I not right on the money sugar? Oh, but where’s that little sarcastic buzzer now?!”
Vox slipped his pants on, zipping up his fly while trying to walk towards (Y/n)
“I swear, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m..this isn’t…we’re not…”
“Save it.” She said,”This, us, is over. Our business deal is over. And if you even try to negotiate or give me some shitty excuse, this little turf you have will belong to my empire and become my next factory.”
Vox was left, standing here, shirt off and wrinkled pants on, watching as the love of his life took the bare necessities and walked out of his life, all while Valentino watched and smirked at the sight.
—————
7 Years Later
“THAT FUCKER IS BACK!!” Vox screamed, his fists slamming down on the table. A month before (Y/n) walked out, the infamous Radio Demon went MIA, and has now returned to the scene, alongside the Princess of Hell, Charlie Morningstar.
“Yeah” Valentino said, in a sultry voice,”I thought he was gone for good too”
“It’s been seven years!” Vox huffed, turning away from the screen, missing a very crucial person who just walked outside to scope the situation of the attack on the hotel.
“You still pissed he almost beat you that time, right before your little angel walked out~?” Valentino teased, rubbing Vox’s digital cheek on his screen, causing a squeegee noise to be emitted
“Uh, fuck you!”
“Just saying!”
“Things have changed a lot since they both left town!”
“That’s for sure”
“I gotta send a message to who’s, really in charge of things now!!”
“Welcome home, I’m gonna make you wish that you’d stayed gone! Say hello, to a new status quo. Everyone knows that there’s a brand new dawn, turn the TV ON!!!”
“Top of the hour, and we’re discussing a certain ‘has-been’ who has been spotted cavorting around town after a seven year absence! Did anybody miss him? Did anybody notice? More on tonight’s program!”
“So the Radio Demon is back in town! Why’s he hanging around? What does that mean for your family? Well handily I’ve got good news, he’s a loser, a fossil, and I don’t mean to sound hostile, but the demon is a coward!”
“You can take that as gospel! Pulling my viewers? Impossible. I’m visual, he’s barely audible! Stop giving him the time of day, don’t listen to a word he’d say! I hope he had a nice vacay, but he should’ve STAYED AWAY!”
“While he rid in radio, we’ve pivoted to video! Now his medium is getting bloody rare!! Hell’s been better since he split! Where’s he been? Who gives a shit!”
“Salutations! Good to be back on the air~!” A familiar, static filled voice responded.
“Yes I know it’s been a while, since someone with style, treated Hell to a proper broadcast. Sinners rejoice!-“
“What a dated voice!-“
“Instead of a clout-chasing, mediocre video podcast-“
“C’mon!”
“Is Vox insecure? Perusing allure? Flitting between this fad and that, is nothing working?”
“Ignore his chirping!”
“Everyday he’s got a new format!”
“You’re looking at the future, he’s the shit that comes before that!”
“Is Vox as strong as he purports? Or is it based on his support? He’d be powerless without the other Vees!”
“Oh please!”
“And here’s the sugar on the cream, he asked me to join his team! I said no, stole his girl, and now he’s pissy, that’s the tea!”
“WHAT?! YOU OLD-TIMEY P-PRICK, ILL SHOW YOU SUF-UF-FFERING!!!!”
“Uh oh, looks like the TV is buffering” A new voice said, mocking Vox’s breakdown. Except it wasn’t a “new” voice, it was (Y/n). (Y/n), with Alastor, at the Hazbin Hotel.”
“ILL DESTROY-Y YOUUUUUU”
“I’m afraid you’ve lost your signal” Alastor said, taking the mic back before finishing his number.
“Let’s begin~”
“I’m gonna make you wish that I’d stayed gone! Tune on in! When I’m done, your status quo will know it’s race is run! Oh this will be fun!”
Vox could hear Alastor laughing alongside (Y/n) in the background, as his monitors start to flash “no signal”
“FUCK!” He whines
————
The gang was all downstairs, Charlie explaining what tomorrows fun activity would be when a loud banging was heard on the door.
“A NEW GUEST!!” Charlie squealed, stars in her pupils, as she ran to go open the door, only to be met with a very tall TV Overlord.
Alastor’s antlers shot out of his head while (Y/n)‘s weapons were at the ready.
“I come with no harm!” Vox said, raising his hands, before locking eyes with (Y/n). His digital eyes made little heart pupils before blinking them away, embarrassed.
“(Y/n)…” he breathlessly said,”I-I know you hate me…but please, I-“
“Save it Vox.”
“I wish I could explain to you that night, or even today, but I can’t! This….deal has my lips sealed shut my love-I mean (Y/n). I-I just…I cannot explain myself with this contract I have.”
“Wait” Angel Dust said,”You’re Valentino’s little situationship, right?”
“If that’s what you wanna call it….”
“Wait….oh shit” Angel said, walking over to him,”I…I know what it’s like…”
“I know…I see you around his studio…I’m not above owning souls, I have my own, but to work with him…? I’d…..I’d free you all in a heartbeat….”
“Vox?” (Y/n) said,”are you in some sort of deal with Val over your…body.”
Vox could only look at her, not able to give her any conformation.
“Oh Vox…I…I didn’t know…I-“
“I know dear…” Vox said, smiling sadly,”but you have a erm….partner, of sorts, not your finest option but whatever, now and I wouldn’t want to intervene-“
“Oh Alastor? Me and him aren’t in a relationship” (Y/n) replied,”You know him, Mr. Ace in the Hole!”
“A what now?-“
“Ohhhhh, that…that explains so much.” Vox said, looking at the Radio Demon.
“Vox…I-I think we need to go home, talk about this in private….after I squish a bug.”
“Okay…” Vox said, holding (Y/n)‘s hand,”but what about this hotel?”
“I’ll still work here, with everyone, I believe in the cause. I just didn’t think you’d want to.”
“Maybe I can….put some ads on if you’d like-“
“YES YES YES PLEASE THANK YOU MR. VOX SIR ID REALLY APPRECIATE IT!!!” Charlie said, shaking Vox’s other hand,”IM CHARLIE!!”
Vox smiled, a genuine smile for the first time in a while,”Yeah, yeah I think I need to hang here a little more often…detox a little…”
“Good, I can’t have you stressed out too much, I just got you back.” (Y/n) said, rubbing his digital cheek affectionately,”my little trophy husband”
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Text
ʜɪɢʜᴡᴀʏ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇʟʟ
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader
Summary: In an effort to get the two of you to bond, Tony Stark sends you and the ex-assassin Bucky Barnes on a road trip together. The problem? You hate each other. The situation? Two weeks in a car together. The reward: three days of a resort vacation. And the problem? He's kinda cute.
Warnings (Entire Series): Enemies-to-lovers, cursing, sexual tension, angst, fluff, crying, fighting, violence, chaos, mentions/talk of trauma, discussions of mental health, and potentially more.
Warnings: Enemies-to-lovers, sexual tension, cursing, arguments.
|| Part 2 ||
[Series Masterlist]
---------------------------------------------
𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝑻𝒓𝒖𝒄𝒌 𝑨𝒊𝒏’𝒕 𝑩𝒊𝒈 𝑬𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒐𝒕𝒉 𝒐𝒇 𝑼𝒔
“It’s just two weeks, Buck. You’ll be fine.” Steve attempts to reassure his best friend, though it doesn’t seem to be working. “She’s really not as bad as you make her out to be.”
Bucky says nothing, rolling his eyes instead. "This whole idea is a waste of time. I'm not going." He grumbled. Stark had the grand idea to send the most incompatible people in the entire Avenger's Compound on a fucking road trip.
"You have to go. Tony said it's non-negotiable. I'm sure she doesn't like the idea either, but there's nothing we can do about it. Just...try and make the best of it."
"That's easy for you to say. You don't have to actually go." Bucky grumbled, stuffing more things into a suitcase. Steve was supposed to be helping, but he was really just there to try and convince Bucky that this was for the greater good, or whatever. Something like that.
This was going to be an insufferably long two weeks.
--------------
"Two weeks and three days. Three days of actual vacation! This is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. Nat, you gotta get me out of this." You pleaded with the Avenger.
"Already tried. Tony won't budge." She gave an apologetic shrug. "Maybe you'll find out you share a lot of common interests."
"Right, because me and the ninety-nine year-old man are basically twinsies. Thanks, Nat."
"Maybe you'll just decide to fuck halfway-through." Yelena interrupts. "Like, full-on go at each other. The tension is very strong. Very strong." Her accent is thick as she digs through your closet.
"She's right, I've read too many romance novels to know how this turns out." Kate agrees, judging your shoe collection.
"What? Ew--God, no. That's...so fucking disgusting to think about." You shudder. "He's a total asshole."
"He's not so bad." Yelena shrugged. "Helped take down the Red Room. Good enough for me."
"He can't be that bad, right? I haven't really talked with the guy, but he seems chill." Kate ponders.
"What they mean to say is that it will be fine." Nat attempts to assure you.
"I hate him and I hate everything about it." You rage quietly as Yelena stuffs shampoo and conditioner into your suitcase. You were packing one suitcase and one backpack. Yelena, Kate, and Natasha were supposed to be helping, but they were really just goofing off and occasionally helping you grab something.
"The trip isn't even worth it, anyway. One week of driving to get there, three days of the actual resort, and then a week back. It doesn't make any sense." You tried to reason.
"The whole point of the trip is to get you two to bond. Or at least to not bicker and argue over the comms during missions." Nat rationalized. "It'll not only be good for you two, but for the team as a whole."
You thought for a moment, considering it. You could agree that the idea made sense, but still. He was a dick to you most of the time, so what was the point?
"Fine." You said. "But if he starts shit, I'm not going to let him walk all over me."
Sighing, Natasha nodded.
"If he pisses you off, just kill him--very easy. You know how to do it." Yelena stated ever so casually.
"Yelena!" Kate and Natasha exclaimed at the same time.
--------------
You scowled as you loaded your suitcase and backpack into the backseat of the truck. You even made sure all of your stuff was directly behind the driver's seat. Your seat. You were going to drive.
Bucky Barnes, seemingly getting the message, put his singular suitcase behind the passenger side.
Tony and Steve stood outside the huge garage, watching as the two of you loaded up the truck. Tony had bought the truck a while ago, but he never really ended up driving it often. He thought it would be perfect for this trip.
"Don't die, if you sleep in the car make sure to lock the doors, get a motel when you can, stay safe and have fun, blah blah blah, don't crash my truck." Tony told the two of you. Steve gave him the Eyebrows of Disappointment before turning back to you. "Please don't kill each other. Stay in a motel or something when you can." Steve quickly hugged Bucky goodbye, stepping inside, and you turned to walk to the driver's side.
"What're you doing?" Bucky asked from behind you.
"Getting in the car?" The way he said it annoyed you.
"I'm driving." He declared.
"No you're not. I am. You watched me put my stuff behind the seat--my seat!"
"I am driving the damn car. Move."
"No you are fucking not. Get your ancient ass to the passenger seat." I growl. "Your driving is shit. Move out of the way before I make you." He says, sharp blue eyes glaring straight into yours.
"What're you gonna do? Throw me?"
Without saying a word, he put both of his hands on your biceps, squeezing lightly, before slightly picking you up and moving you to the side. He did it so easily, too. Most likely due to the serum, along with the vibranium arm. You felt the rage seeping into your body, and just before you could throw a punch, Tony called out from the door inside the garage. "Take turns, losers! Jesus Christ."
You both look at him as he says this, before looking back at each other. Shoving him out of the way, you open the truck door. He sticks up both of his middle fingers as he walks around the back of the truck. As you buckle your seatbelt, you consider just backing up the truck as he walked behind it. He wouldn't die. He probably wouldn't even fall over. It could be a total accident. A little oopsie, if you will.
Just before you could ponder the potential attempted murder, Bucky opened the passenger door, hopping into the truck. You plug your phone into the truck, putting on your favorite playlist. The one Bucky hated. It was a very personal 'fuck you' to the Super Soldier sitting next to you. He looked like he wanted to make some kind of comment, but he didn't.
Pulling out of the huge driveway, you knew one thing for sure.
This was going to be a long two weeks.
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tieronecrush · 9 months
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꒰ა ONLY ANGEL ໒꒱
javier peña x f!reader
chapter one: sweet temptations
series masterlist
rating: E (18+ only, MDNI)
summary: After his return to the US, Javier is trying to settle back into a normal life without the pressures of Colombia and the DEA, but he finds himself feeling isolated with no one to spend his nights with. Now a newly appointed criminology professor at Texas A&M, he is drawn to you, a post-grad student in one of his classes. You’re intelligent and witty, sweet and kind, and he can’t get you out of his mind. To cope with his growing loneliness and to rid himself of thoughts of you, he signs up for an “arrangement service” to connect him with somebody—a sugar baby—he can care for. After he is matched up with Angel, he finds himself developing feelings quicker than he ever expected, but what happens when he finds out Angel is really you?
series warnings: power imbalance (prof and student), sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship, discussion of money, criminal activity, judicial systems, graduate school, smut, daddy/papí kink, praise kink, degradation, self deprecation, discussion of self worth, multiple sexual or romantic partners, sex work, cursing, use of spanish, likely more warning so read at your own risk!
word count: 3.8k
a/n: first chapter AHHHH!!! hope you all love, i am not sure if i am doing a taglist yet cause it’s a lot of work tbh so will keep y’all posted <3 and a special thanks to bestie @northernbluess for helping me with this brainchild and always screaming about javi with me. love ya sister wife <3
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“Professor Peña! Welcome back, sir. So glad we have you on for another year,” the voice of the Dean of Faculty, Jim Banks, booms in the empty hallway of the Sociology department, a cramped space on the top floor of one of the, luckily, newer buildings on campus. With a large donation made to the university last year, specifically directed to the Sociology department for their ‘advancements in the field and hiring top talent’, the department was moved out of the basement and into a space that actually saw the sunlight. And had a decent view of the quad, too.
Javier stops in his tracks in the middle of the hall, turning over his shoulder and giving the man approaching behind him a strained, polite smile. He hikes the strap of his chestnut leather messenger bag further onto his shoulder, the itch of his brand new button-down scratching against his skin.
“Dean Banks, good to see you,” he sounds clipped, but Javier has always had a hard time hiding his impatience and annoyance.
“Please, Peña, like I’ve said, call me Jimmy! No need for formalities, buddy.” The dean slaps Javi’s shoulder when he reaches him, and Javier clenches his fist at his side. The whole buddy-buddy Southern thing never roped him in, and certainly not after he was made privy to what a boys’ club the academic world was.
Javier has been a professor for 6 months at Texas A&M University, based at their San Antonio campus, and has taught primarily undergraduate classes for the first semester and summer session that he was on the faculty roster. Hired into the Sociology Department after job-hunting for something to fill his time after retiring. Well, he technically resigned after the nightmare that was Cali, but he negotiated to keep his extremely cushy government pension. Never needed to work another day in his life, but damn he was getting bored. Even his Pop nearly kicked him out to get him to do something other than roaming the field of the ranch and camping out to watch the boats.
Those damn boats.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Dean Ba—Jimmy?” He takes one step back, out from under the man’s hand on his shoulder, and straightens up, grip tightening on the strap of his bag.
“Well, I do gotta favor to ask you, Peña. See, Professor Harrison has had some…extraneous circumstances that have kept him from coming back to the department this semester, and likely next semester. So, I was coming down here to ask if you would be willing to take on his graduate-level course for the semester, and possibly his next semester too. It’s Sociology of Deviance, and by god, you were the first person I thought of to fill in, ya deviant!” Banks gets a good laugh out of his own joke, the effort falling flat for Javier. He waits out the man’s reaction to his own humor, clearing his throat to attempt to egg him on and end the conversation earlier.
“So, what d’ya say, Peña? Think you can manage instructing that course? Syllabus and everything is already planned, just have to have someone actually teach the material and grade everything.”
“Uh, yeah, that would be fine. I’ll check in with Beth at the department’s front desk to get access to Professor Harrison’s material for the course,” he nods to the dean and starts to turn away, ready to retreat to the peace of his private office when Banks’ voice catches his attention again.
“Can’t thank ya enough, Peña. And, uh, try not to get yourself into any of those extraneous circumstances that will be on the class roster, yeah? Don’t want to have to replace you too. We can’t have A&M losing the Big Man on Campus, hey?”
His brows furrow as nods in response, calling out a ‘yes, sir’ as he finally starts toward his office again, stopping at the front desk of the department and requesting the materials for the graduate course, complimenting Beth’s nails with a playful wink.
At the click of his office door, he sighs and sets his bag down on the desk, turning around to face the large window overlooking the campus quad with his hands on his hips.
What the hell kind of extraneous circumstances was Dean Banks getting at? Javier’s a professional, his days of bending the rules in his career are over.
The morning goes by quickly and suddenly it’s two o’clock, fifteen minutes until the new lecture he’s been assigned to instruct. He gathers the syllabi that Beth had dropped off an hour earlier, taking his bag with him as he weaves through students in the halls and slips into the lecture hall, descending the wide stairs at the side of the rows of seats. At the start of every class, he prefers to spend the minutes before gathering his thoughts and laying out everything he needs to get covered. Today’s an easy day, the only goals are to hand out and review the syllabus, and to have the students introduce themselves.
At the prompt time of 2:15 pm, Javier clears his throat and quiets the chit-chatting down, looking up for the first time and meeting a set of eyes that dry his throat immediately. Soft, supple lips are quirked up into a smile, tendrils of short bangs framing her face. Her skin looks like velvet, with baby pink rouge on her cheeks, and a swipe of gloss across her bottom lip. His eyes combed down to her open chest, the scoop-neck baby tee emblemed with some band’s name that he didn’t know. When you smile at him, he feels his heart pound and his cock jump, suddenly grateful for the pretentious podium that he is standing behind.
So those are the extraneous circumstances Dean Banks was getting at.
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It was the second semester of your two-year Master's program, and you were honestly excited for the first day of classes. Over the summer session, you had taken a couple of courses to get ahead and worked as a Teaching Assistant for one of your old undergraduate professors. It was about four years ago that you graduated, working in Corporate America before deciding to go back to school and pursue your found passion in Criminal Psychology. The Teaching Assistant job paid pitifully, as you should have expected, so you had turned to an external opportunity that quickly, and easily, became profitable for you and allowed for you to quit TA-ing and focus on your studies for this semester.
The first class of the first day is Sociology of Deviance, a class that is scheduled for Monday and Wednesday afternoons. When you registered for the course, the instructor was listed as “To Be Determined” but as a required credit for your degree, you signed up for this semester anyway.
And holy shit, you’re glad you did.
A few minutes after two o’clock, the lecture hall door opened and slowly shut, the man in a baby blue button-up and tailored slacks stalks down the stairs to your right, headed for the desk in front of the green chalkboards. Underneath the tiny laminate surface that swings out from your chair, you cross your legs and sit up, eyes trained on your professor. His dark hair is clean cut, but not too cropped, swept to the side and up away from his face. A strong, full mustache adorns his upper lip, perfectly groomed along with his clean-shaven, sharp jaw. Wide, expansive shoulders strain under the material of his shirt, the top button near the collar undone and his tie slightly tugged down. The silver belt buckle sitting at his waist glistens in the fluorescent lights, one glance given down his legs and then to his muscular arms when he turns around to write his name on the board.
Professor Peña.
No fucking way, you think to yourself, immediately more engaged than his looks had you. The Javier Peña was teaching one of your courses, a name buzzing around campus over the summer, one that you had read about over and over for the last few years while focusing on the World News section of the paper. The DEA agent not only had a part in taking down Pablo Escobar, but he was also the agent who found and arrested Gilberto Rodriguez, a godfather of the Cali Cartel, and eventually took down the rest of the whole organized crime family.
Finally, someone who actually had some experience with crime outside of a courtroom. 
Uncapping the ballpoint pen laid in front of you, you tap it against your chin as you listen to Professor Peña recount his philosophies in teaching. According to him, he prioritizes ethical and principled practices in the field, noting personal experiences he had with the opposite. You vaguely remember a story from the Miami Herald about his involvement with Los Pepes during Escobar, and you could never forget reading about the corruption of not only the Colombian government but the US government during the Cali days. That case — that scandal that he exposed was a big reason you dove back into criminology. You wanted to be a person who would better it for the people under the jurisdictions of the judicial system, as naive as it may sound.
A thick, stapled stack of packets gets dropped onto your desk, eyesight zoning back in to look to your side and face your professor standing next to your chair. He gives a tight smile, nodding his head to your left.
“Please pass these down that way after you take one for yourself.”
Even from that simple statement, his deep, raspy voice has you sucking your teeth, shaking your head to yourself as you pass on the stack of syllabi, and turning your attention to the outline of the semester. As you study the required readings, Professor Peña returns to the front. Another clearing of his throat turns your eyes up, sitting up straight again as you watch him lean back against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest.
“At the beginning of each semester, I like to have everyone go around and introduce themselves. Now, I know you’re all adults and probably don’t want to do this, but it helps me to remember you when I’m grading all your shit,” he gives a closed smile to the room as a rumble of gentle laughter erupts and quickly fades.
“Anyone want to volunteer to go first?” Professor Peña scans the room, interrupted by a brunette guy that looks to be around your age, an eager smile on his face.
“I’ll go first, Professor. My name’s Alex, I’m in the first semester of my first year of law school. Planning to focus on Criminal Law. I went to UT Austin for undergrad. Go Longhorns!” The exclamation gets some applause, you note the lack of reaction from Professor Peña and smiling to yourself.
Thank god he isn’t one of those insufferable college sports obsessed men.
A handful more of your classmates take their turns, and you politely pay attention to each of them, but unable to shake the feeling of eyes on you. One glance toward the front and you catch Professor Peña’s eyes, darting away toward the student speaking and his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows hard.
If you could read his mind right now, you surely would be dropping the class. Javier can’t seem to keep his eyes off of you, entranced by every angle of your face that he’s given, your head turning to face each of your classmates as they speak. It’s endearing how engaged you seem in learning about your peers, and it snaps him out of the daze for a moment when he realizes that he is really the one that needs to be paying attention to the names being spoken.
The only reprieve he seems to get is when you take your turn to introduce yourself, giving your name to the room and each detail you offer, he automatically categorizes into his brain to remember. In those thirty seconds that you are solely speaking, his gaze is trained on you, watching the pout of your glossy lips as they move together and apart, your tongue hitting behind your teeth and the softly shadowed eyelids that crinkle at the sides when you smile. Something you’ve said makes you laugh a bit, the sound ringing in his ears and pumping his heart faster.
The focus moves from you to the next student to volunteer, but Javier can’t help the lingering of his eyes across your collarbone, sloped shoulder and pen bouncing in between your fingers.
Enamored. Infatuated. Bewitched, even.
God, he shouldn’t be thinking about his student this way. 
But you are so fucking gorgeous. And clearly kind, with the way you focus on everyone speaking, gentle smiles given to everyone. You have to be intelligent, pursuing a Master’s degree. And you seem so delicate, so sweet.
What do you taste like?
Nope, not going there Javier. Sure, he’s lonely, but with a student? After another professor just got caught with one, allegedly?
Before he knows it, every student has given their name and random facts about themselves, and he can finally turn his back to the room to begin writing out the required, upcoming assignments and go over the material that will be covered over the next few months. In the blink of an eye, class is wrapping up and he lets out a long exhale, longing for about two fingers of the whiskey that is sitting in the bottom drawer of his desk.
He leans over the table in front of him, shuffling the extra syllabi together and organizing them into his briefcase while the students funnel out of the lecture hall. Brows furrowed, he sighs when he hears footsteps approaching, glancing up to see that little band t-shirt he noticed before, now the view of a dark evergreen, black, and hints of yellow plaid and pleated skirt with legs extending from the mid-thigh hem, and suddenly he’s standing up a bit too quickly to acknowledge your approach.
“Excuse me, Professor Peña?” you ask, saccharine and well-mannered.
“How can I help you?” he responds, not managing to hold back the grin that ticks up one side of his mouth.
“I wanted to properly introduce myself to you,” you give him your name with your hand stretched out, “I know it sounds kiss-ass, but I am really excited to be able to take a course from you. It’s cool to have a non-lawyer professor in criminology courses.”
“I appreciate that,” he slips his palm against your outstretched hand, shaking it and noting your firm handshake, “Hopefully, I live up to your expectations as a professor. Not sure if I will have as good of a grip on the material as Professor Harrison would’ve, this is my first time teaching this class.”
You drop his hand and wave off his concern, a smile still plastered on your face. It’s not forced, by any means, he can see it’s a genuine expression which has his insides stirring again.
“I’m sure you will exceed expectations, especially if the reviews from my graduate cohort have told me anything.” The statement is punctuated with a faint laugh, echoed by Javi as he tilts his head in questioning.
“Glad to hear that I am… well-liked?”
“You could say that, Professor Peña,” you raise your eyebrows with a curl of your lips, nodding slowly, “Well, I should let you get back to your office. Looking forward to the semester.”
“Nice to meet you,” he repeats your name, “And be sure to read your syllabus.”
You turn around as you climb up the stairs of the lecture hall, wide smile, “Oh, I always do my homework, Professor Peña. You don’t have to worry about me.”
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Luckily during syllabus week, Javier’s workload is light enough to stay on top of his emails and be able to plan ahead for the next few weeks when things will start to ramp up and assignments will be due.
In his office the next morning, he’s in the midst of slowly working through his short to-do list before his class at one o’clock. With a familiar chime from the clunky machinery on his desk, he turns to the screen and clicks open the tab with his university email address. A new message is in his inbox, one from a student. He starts to skim the message to look for questions asked, thinking to himself as he shakes his head with a disbelieving scoff.
A student already emailing? It’s the first fucking week, c’mon kid, let up and have a little fun during syllabus w—
Oh, wait, it’s you. From his graduate course yesterday afternoon. The student off to the left, with the sweet smile and doe eyes, tight t-shirt and juicy lips.
What would they look like around him?
Jesus Christ, Javier. Get your shit together. A student. That is what you are, and all that you can be.
At least until you graduate.
Shut up, Peña!
He argues back and forth with himself, the angel and devil on his shoulders both making convincing arguments. Physically shaking himself out of the thoughts, he focuses back on your actual message, fully reading it now and chuckling to himself when it’s simply a message about a mistake in the syllabus.
One of the readings is listed with the wrong author, but of course, with how amiable and courteous you are, it’s phrased as a question rather than flat out telling him it’s wrong. Something along the lines of “Sorry Professor, but did I get this wrong…”
He’s not offended, he didn’t write the syllabus, and even if he did, he still would feel no qualms about being corrected where it was due.
There’s a flash of something in his chest, the smallest bit of anger when he thinks about you drafting this email to him, likely nervous you’d get a shitty response back. He knows the type of shit his colleagues say to their female students, and it grates on him every time. Typing up a reply to you, he answers the question concisely. The cursor blinks for a minute on the screen, deciding whether or not to finish off the message with some words of encouragement or not.
Quickly, he adds ‘And please, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. Clearly you know your stuff, and I could use some help with navigating this new course.’ Adding his signature, he hits send before he can give it another thought.
Exiting out of the window, an ad pops up onto his desktop. Javier moves his mouse to hover over the ‘X’ button, the baby pink banner catching his attention.
Sweet Temptations.
Curiosity gets the best of him and he clicks through to the website, licking his lips when he’s greeted with a logo design that features the silhouette of a woman as the ‘T’.
Javier is lonely.
He moved away from Laredo, where his father resides on the family ranch, the only familiar piece of the US that he was eager to return to. That excitement for the slow life burned out quickly, angst settling in and keeping him on edge — those damn boats.
Chucho encouraged the move, the job, the lifestyle change. Something busier to keep his mind and body occupied, left active enough to forget about the news from over the border, the runs happening right behind his family’s land.
Sure, Laredo is a short drive away, but the distance from family and the few friends he has at home, plus no informants to spend his evenings with, Javier has become decidedly lonely. And these days, he is open to any means of companionship.
For a few minutes, Javi pokes around the site, reading about the matching process for men “seeking arrangements” that “avoid the complications of traditional dating”.
From what he can gather, it’s a place to find a sugar baby. And as a man who was — honestly is supportive of sex work (if this even counts as sex work?), he isn’t above paying for an arrangement that will work for him. Traditional dating hasn’t given him much luck, too many expectations put on him upfront, and too big of a jump to be made that he isn’t quite adjusted for. 
All of this logic is leading him to the sign up tab, filling out his information. He creates a new email address for this purpose, choosing a simple ‘[email protected]’. The rest of the form is a simple questionnaire, looking to get the gist of what he’s looking for out of this arrangement and what kind of woman he typically goes for.
He hovers over one question: ‘Are you looking for a relationship that will be sexually active?’. It’s a check of ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and suddenly the back of his neck is burning with a hint of shame as he selects ‘yes’.
After the rest of it is answered, he submits it.
If this goes nowhere, hey, at least he tried.
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In the exact same spot a week later, Javier is slumped in his chair at his large desk, the sleeves of his button up rolled up to expose his forearms as he does the reading for his own class, preparation for Sociology of Deviance tomorrow afternoon.
Last week, at the second meeting of the cohort, he was impressed by your analysis of the first reading assignment, joking with you after you hit all the key points that ‘you could come up here and teach and give him a break’. That same jolt of energy from last Monday passed through him when you smiled bashfully at him, actively listening for the rest of the lecture. Before he could pull you to compliment you again, you were up the stairs and out the door, a tiny piece of notebook paper left behind. He stalks up to the desk you were at, picking up the scrap and grinning to himself when he sees a doodle of yours. It’s him, it has to be with the prominent ‘stache and eyebrows, his characteristically accurate head floating on the page. He tucks the drawing into his pocket and leaves for the day, stowing the art piece in the top drawer of his desk.
Today, he flicks the paper around in between his fingers, studying the fluid line work when his computer sings again with an incoming email. With nothing in his work inbox, he checks his new personal one, greeted with an excitable subject line:
YOU’VE GOT A MATCH!
JaviP & TheOnlyAngel
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tagging some peeps that requested it but not sure if i will have a taglist for this series lol: @northernbluess @swiftispunk @joelsversion @mrsquill @yazsos @cartoon-garbage04 @sugadolly @ilovepedro @lovers-liability @deathwife @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @undrthelights @atticrissfinch @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin
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evilminji · 9 months
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Having seen it several times... I Wonder (<.< )
Amity Lore has a protective barrier/timeout zone for Bad And Naughty invaders called The Suburbs.
Short little street. Nice-ish houses, fully stocked with food and electricity. Quiet. Alone...
*sweats in introvert*
O-Okay but listen. Here me out! *twitch*
Fffffuck capitalism, man! That sounds SOOTHING! Let me in! LET ME IIIIIIIN!!!
How do I convince the arguably sentient City I would like to go to The Quiet Street?
Is this a monumentally bad idea? Probably! NEVER give the sentient-non-human and Probably Eldritch city control of your life! It loves you but is incapable of understanding your human intricacies! I GET that!
....but it would be so soothing. My autistic ass would have to be DRAGGED out.
TEXTBOOK "jokes on you! I'm in to this shit!" Material. Endless, soothing, repetition broken only by what I create? No messes I have to keep track off? Don't have to keep track of paperwork or scheduling things?
If I can negotiate being able to come a go? I fuckin LIVE there now.
I'll just politely ask Amity to let the internet through. Keep MY corner or the repetitious hell barrier away from the part that has Dirty, Dirty Crimial Crime People's in it.
I haunt the walls now ( 👁 👁)
Hmmm? (👁 👁 )
Oh! HIIIII DAAAANNYYYYYYYY (👁 👁 )/ I haunt the walls now! Yeah, Amity says it's "rent" I just gotta stand on my front walk and Stare(tm) at The Feds when they drive in.
Yeah. In a bathrobe. Really creepy like. I think my bathrobes too nice. I need a really ratty one. Any tips? Gotta pull that real "horror movie" vibe, ya know?
@hdgnj @stealingyourbones
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bearsbeetsbeskar · 4 months
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Sheep Days with Joel (post outbreak)
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Word count: 5.9k (im so sorry i genuinely can't believe I wrote this much about an old man taking care of livestock) Rating: swearing, descriptions of an animal birth (I tried to make it not too gross or explicit), traumatic animal birth, discussions of labour and stillbirths Summary: At Tommy and Ellie's insistence of him finding a routine, Joel is appointed as the sheep caretaker in Jackson. After all, sheep are quiet, and do what they're told. How hard could it be? A/N: this is purely self indulgent, peepaw playing with animals. No romantic interest or pairing, just wholesome father daughter interactions, along with some other characters. Something about the holidays made me think about that conversation that Joel and Ellie had over the fire, and his dream of owning a sheep ranch, and before I knew it 5k was written. If you have read all of this, please know that I love you so incredibly much and you make it worth it to keep writing these silly little stories that bring me so much joy. main masterlist
Life in Jackson had a way of moving at the speed of molasses, while also propelling itself further into the future at the speed of light.
Some days were syrupy and slow, thick with palpable moments of survival, tension and freedom. Memories of what life was like before the outbreak. Other days however felt like the course of an electric current, with glitches and shocks jumping from one event to another, one threat to another in the span of a few hours in a day. Attacks from raiders during ambushes in the early morning, a group of coordinated clickers just outside patrol borders when dusk set in.
Even just the day to day events in Jackson could make one feel that life seemed to pass by at a static, yet dynamic pace, regardless of what routine you had fallen into in the modest settlement.
Joel was still getting used to it. The staticity, as well as the dynamism. Life before Jackson was nomadic. Rootless. Constantly on the run.
Endure and survive. That’s all that really mattered at the end of the day. The words bore a penultimate weight akin to the wartime motivational phrase, ‘keep calm and carry on.’ 
Well, that’s all Joel knew how to do.
Carry on.
Not so much the keep calm part, but he was no stranger to putting his head down and pressing forward when things got tough. Carrying on also meant being strong for others. Something which Joel is constantly reminded that he need no longer do now that he and Ellie are in Jackson. Now that they are safe.
And there is no shortage of people who tell him the same, including Tommy and Maria, and even Ellie.
“You gotta find something to do, man,” Tommy sighed and crossed his arms, leaning into the doorframe of the kitchen. “Something to help you get into a routine y’know.”
Joel glared at his younger brother. “The hell d’you mean I gotta find something, Tommy? I already have a routine.” He scowled and shifted his jaw.
This is the 3rd or 4th time the subject has been brought up and Joel’s just about had it. He doesn’t get it. He does things. He does stuff around the commune. He goes on patrol shifts, helps with the woodworking and labour jobs. He goes to some of the community events, like game nights held at the dining hall or movie nights- even though it takes a good 30 minutes of Ellie’s begging for his resolve to crumble, and he grumbles throughout the entire movie. 
As if Tommy can read his mind, he responds. “Going on patrol doesn’t count as routine, Joel.”
Puffing out his chest and mirroring Tommy’s body language, Joel glares at his younger brother.
“And here we go again,” Ellie quips from her seat at the kitchen table.
There’s a smirk plastered across her face despite her gaze, focused intently on the weathered pages of an old astronomy book.
“You stay outta this.” 
Joel’s clipped tone brokers no room for negotiation, Ellie’s known him long enough to recognize that. But that doesn’t stop her from pushing him, just because she can.
“You stay outta this. Rah rah rah. I’m Joel and I hate everything.” She mocks his deep southern drawl with exaggeration, continuing to look down at her book. 
“Tommy’s right, Joel. Say whatever you want but you can’t just fill your days with the odd jobs around here. And going on patrol. And hanging with me.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Joel exhales, his nostrils flaring. “Ellie-”
“Look, dude,” she cuts him off, “I love you, but it wouldn’t kill you to find something else to do with your time. It’s not the end of the world. I mean, it is but c’mon. It’s like you’d rather get killed by a fucking clicker than step outside your comfort zone.”
At that, Tommy snorts and shakes his head. 
“It’d be a hell of a lot less painful than this conversation, that’s for fuckin’ sure.” Joel huffs and puts his hands on his hips. 
“There’s lots of other jobs in the commune that you could help out with. Jobs that you don’t even need skilled labour experience for.”
“Like what, Tommy? Teachers at the school? Volunteers for movie night?” His scowl deepens, as does the crease between Joel’s brows. 
“Like training newcomers on patrol shifts, working at the clothing shop, working with the livestock-”
“Livestock? What kinda livestock?” Perking up in her seat, Ellie pushes the book away and turns to face Tommy. 
“Just for the horses, chicken, sheep and pigs. Well, it’s really for the sheep ‘cause we came into a decent sized herd in the last couple months, and they’re a bit tricky to look after.” 
Tommy runs his hands through his raven curls and chuckles. “No one’s been able to quite figure them out yet, and they don’t trust Jake- the caretaker for the horses and pigs.”
“Sheep?” Ellie’s mouth gapes open, her bright mischievous eyes finding Joel’s.
“Joel. Sheep.”
Already knowing where the conversation was headed, Joel tips his head back and looks up at the ceiling. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” 
__________________________________________________
And that is precisely how Joel finds himself knocked on his ass, after getting headbutted by one of the older lambs, in an attempt to get their halter on and bring them into the barn.
“You little shit, get back here!” he barks at the young sheep as it trots away from him towards the food trough. 
Rubbing the right side of his jaw and grimacing, he sits back on his hands, looking at the rest of the herd a few feet away from him. “I’ve a right mind to tell them to serve lamb for the rest of the month at the dining hall. How’s that sound?”
A few sheep at the hay bale turn to look his way, chewing absentmindedly before ignoring him again.  It had been about ten days since Tommy enlisted Joel as the sheep caretaker, or as Ellie had so lovingly called him, Jackson’s resident shepherd, and Joel had to admit, the job wasn’t half of what he expected. 
It turns out sheep weren’t quiet, and they certainly didn’t do what they were told. Sheep were actually a pain in the ass to keep. A royal pain in the ass. Much different than cows and horses, despite being herd animals. 
Not to mention that they were creative, escape artists, always jumping over the fence of the pen or squeezing in between the slats of the fence. It was a regular occurrence to hear the phrase ‘loose sheep’ or ‘the sheep are out again’ being hollered across the main street, as a handful of them skittered across the main road, Joel out of breath as he jogged after them, the stitch in his side burning through his abdomen, while he knees ached incessantly.
His first week was spent just getting close enough to them so that he could tag their ears for the breeding records. Not that he could manage to even get a hand on any, especially the young lambs.  As soon as he got within 8 feet of the herd they would scurry away, kicking and bucking into the air, or run right past him, as he keeled over trying to catch them. Needless to say, Joel didn’t manage to avoid getting headbutted and kicked a handful of times during those days. 
Cursing, he dusted off his pants and leaned against the fence of the pen. 
“How’s it coming?” Tommy’s voice called out to him from the opposite end of the pen.
Narrowing his eyes in response, Joel hunched over to rest his hands on his knees.
“Easy my fuckin’ ass you liar. These little shits are demons.”
Stifling a chuckle, Tommy rests his arms over the fence and looks down. “Like I said, it takes some time to get to know ‘em. 
It was wrong to laugh at his brother’s misfortunes but he couldn’t help it as he watched Joel’s hulking figure tentatively approach the herd again before pausing as they all scattered around him.  
“S’that why you haven’t been able to recruit any other unfortunate souls for this torture?” Placing his hands on his hips, he shifts his weight from one leg, appraising the herd. 
“No,” Tommy huffs out an exhale, “most folks don’t have the time to commit or they don’t have an affinity for animals.”
He looks out at the horizon, scanning the snow covered peaks of the mountain range bordering the settlement, before his gaze returns to Joel. He smirks as that familiar scowl settles onto Joel’s face. 
“I do not have an affinity for animals.”
Snorting, Tommy looks down at his feet again, nudging the toe of his boot into the hardened ground. “Is that so? That why no one else has been able to ride Callus out on patrol?”
Joel grunts. “That’s different. I wasn’t taking care of him, I was only riding him cause everyone else had their designated mounts.”
Lying through his teeth was easier than admitting that Joel actually loved having a special bond with the chestnut gelding that seemed to hate everyone else. 
It took time.
Lots of hushed murmurs and praise for the gelding to learn to trust again. Not to mention that Joel seemed to have endless patience for the imposing gelding, never getting frustrated with him or upset when their progress seemed to regress. Plus, he had that quiet commanding authority that seemed to ease Callus’ nerves whenever he became frantic and anxious.
Before he knew it, Callus was following him around the paddock, poking his head out of his stall and nickering whenever Joel stepped foot in the barn. 
“Whatever you say, Joel. Whatever you say.” The younger Miller shook his head and stepped back from the fence. “I’ll let you get back to it, since you got your hands full,” Tommy squinted and peered around Joel’s figure, “or, rather, your pockets full, I should say.”
Before he can even glance behind him, Joel feels a harsh tug on his back pocket, stumbling backwards as one of the young lambs tears a shred of the bandana in his pocket.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Gimme that back you piece of-” he bellows as the lamb prances away with the scrap of faded red cloth in its mouth, echoes of Tommy’s laugh fading into the background as he walks away.
_____________________________________________
A couple months later …
It had been roughly over a month since Joel started taking care of the sheep. Their upkeep became somewhat easier as Joel figured out their quirks and tricks to working with them, but the real difference was that Joel did indeed fall into a routine with them. 
Everyday he got up before Ellie had to be up for school, and headed over to the barn to give them their morning feed. Then, he’d come home, eat breakfast, and walk Ellie to school, shortly before returning to clean their pen and stack hay bales in the barn loft. Sometimes he would even shear some of them when their coats became too thick. At the end of the day, he’d pick Ellie up from school and they’d have dinner together in the evening, then he would pop out again to feed them dinner and do a final night check before lights out. 
They were surprisingly curious creatures, and smart. While he would mill about his different chores, they would follow him as he walked around the outskirts of the pen. When he was cleaning up the pen, they would nudge the wheelbarrow, knocking it over in the process.
Eventually, they stopped running from him and would eagerly approach as he walked through the barn into the outside pen, carrying a heavy hay bale for their breakfast or dinner.
When he’d get lost in his aimless thoughts, or stuck on paralyzing flashbacks, a panic attack brewing under the surface, he’d feel a tug on his sleeve or the back of his jacket.
Pairs of deep brown eyes surrounded by a halo of soft cloud like wool would simply stare back at him. Calmly grounding him back to reality. Not that he encountered those very often. What was even more surprising to Joel was that he had panic attacks way less often these days, his brain seeming to allow him some rest and solace from its usual fight or flight status. Even Ellie and Tommy noticed too, with Ellie pointing out that he was ‘less of a grumpy motherfucker than usual.’
He never named them, though. He wouldn’t allow himself that liberty.
They were just animals. Creatures.
Creatures, who in the beginning were ‘little shits with crack for brains and body padding like the Michelin man,’ according to Joel. Soon, however, ‘little shits’ turned into ‘little devils,’ which eventually turned into ‘little buggers,’ with an affectionate lilt behind the nickname. 
It was Thursday today and the vet was coming by to look after the horses and give them their seasonal shots, along with the sheep, too. With temperatures dropping, the animals had to be prepared for the harsh onslaught of cold weather that was native to Jackson winters. Although the commune was prosperous and there was no shortage of food and supply, or need to ration, the animals were always of high concern. 
“How much are you feeding them nowadays?” Dr. Joyce, the local vet, asked as she placed her stethoscope to the belly of one of the mature ewe’s.
“‘Bout 25 pounds of hay a day, and 15-20 pounds of grain on top of that.”
She hummed contemplatively as she shifted the stethoscope knob throughout the mass of wool covering the sheeps’ belly. “That’s quite a bit considering the size of the herd you have here.”
She nods to the rest of the herd munching away at their breakfast in the pen.
Joel shrugs in response. “That’s what Jake was feeding them beforehand but he suggested I up it as we come into winter, to help ‘em keep weight on.”
“Well, he’s certainly not wrong.” She reaches into her kit to pull out a packaged syringe, ripping open the wrapping and flicking the end of the needle two times. Small droplets of liquid ricochet out as she pinches the skin of the ewe’s neck, not covered in wool, and gently inserts the syringe. 
“Is there anything else I should be doing? Or anything else I could do to help them more when winter hits?”
While Joel would admit that he still really has no idea what he’s doing taking care of these animals, it doesn’t mean that he won’t give his all in providing care to them. He’s come to realize he actually likes learning about the sheep, aspects of their care, behaviour and physiology. It scratches parts of his brain that were only really activated when he was contracting, woodworking, or other technical jobs. And he doesn’t half ass jobs, no matter the nature of them.
Dr. Joyce swiftly removes the needle within seconds, and smiles warmly at him. 
“Nothing in particular, Joel. You’ve done a great job taking care of these guys so far, I know they’re not easy to look after.”
At that he chuckles and shoves his hands in his pockets as he leans against the stall door. “You could say that. There’s been a deep learning curve with ‘em that’s for sure.”
She nods and opens the back stall door that leads out to the pen, the ewe trots out to return to the herd. “Well, like I said, you’ve done a good job so far. Aside from keeping up with shearing them, although you won’t have to worry about that too much come winter, they’re pretty low maintenance. Keep them on lots of hay throughout the winter, and give them more grain to supplement for the colder weather. And some of them may need more than others, especially the pregnant ones.”
He nods along, running through the mental checklist of things he’s already been doing to increase their food supply, when he looks up at the vet.
“Pregnant?”  His brows furrow and he frowns. 
“Oh boy. I guess Jake left that part out when you took over?” The vet chuckles again as she takes in the dazed look on his face and scans the herd briefly.
“You do have a couple pregnant ewe’s here, probably at least 3 or 4. But that one,” she points to a particularly large sheep under the shelter that’s lying down, unkempt wool and hay covering half her face. “That one, 1633, she’s the furthest along. Probably another week or two before she pops.”
“A week?” Joel repeats it, disbelief still laced in his tone. “Shit, I thought she was just really fat. And lazy.” He narrows his gaze at the ewe, tilting his head slightly as he takes in the obvious rising and falling of her midsection, her legs barely tucked underneath her. 
“Don’t worry, Joel, I know easier said than done,” she reassures him after clocking the worry etched into his features. “But sheep births are often fairly quick and easy, not as intense as horse or cow births due to their smaller size. I’ll be on call over the next week in case anything happens but just put more bedding in the stall here during the evenings for her, and keep her feed the same. She will handle the rest.”
Inhaling sharply, Joel nods, processing it all. She tells him what signs to look out for that indicate early labour, and gives him a brief list of things he can do to prepare, as well as supplies that could be helpful during the birth and afterwards. At least the doc will be there to help out so that he’s not completely on his own, despite being very out of his league. 
“Sounds good, doc, I’ll call ya if I notice any changes in her or when she does drop.”
“Please, do. And I’ll see if Jake can come in for an hour or two during your off hours in the event she does go into labour then.”
__________________________________________
Three days after Dr. Joyce’s visit, 1633 goes into labour. Nearly 10pm, just as the settlement tucks in for bed and night shift patrols begin. Dr. Joyce was busy with another animal emergency, of course. Just his luck. 
So, he recruits the next best thing, and gently wakes Ellie up after rushing back to the house after a night check. He hands Ellie the list of supplies that Dr. Joyce gave him and she blitzes throughout the house, gathering the different things in a box.
Of course, the curiosity, fear and excitement over an animal being born was not lost on his teenage daughter. She fired off a barrage of endless questions as she was right on his heels, following him throughout the house.
“Has her water broken? Is she in pain? What direction is the baby gonna be facing when it comes out? Did you call Dr. Joyce?” 
“You bleat more than the damn sheep these days, y’know that? C’mon just get that stuff together for me.”
Joel huffs as he grabs a bucket from under the kitchen sink, thinking of what else he could grab. It had to be the night when Tommy and Maria were both out on patrol as well, leaving just him and Ellie. 
God help him.
When they returned to the barn, the ewe was in the stall, lying on her side, bleating out her obvious discomfort. He quickly takes his thick jacket off, hanging it on a nearby post before stepping into the stall. 
“Alright, honey, alright, it’s okay.” The low murmurs of his voice only seem to agitate the ewe more, as she bleats repeatedly while he approaches and crouches down beside her. His eyes never leave the ewe’s body.
“Ellie, hand me a couple big towels.” She reaches into the box of supplies and hands him two fluffy towels, crouching down beside Joel slowly. The ewe continues to let out loud long bleating groans, huffing as her body starts preparing for labour and her water breaks with an audible slosh.
“Shit. Well, there goes her water.” He huffs, his mouth pressed into a straight line as he tries to peek and see any signs of a muzzle or cloven hooves coming out. 
Gagging and turning away slightly, Ellie groans.
“Ugh, okay that’s fucking gross!” 
He gives her a disapproving frown. “You’ve seen worse before, calm down.”
“A clicker brain and exploding guts is not nearly as gross as this. How are you not freaking out? 
Suddenly, the ewe lets out a long bleating groan again and thrashes her hind legs, in an attempt to get up frantically. 
“Shit. Whoa, whoa, whoa, mama. Easy there. Y’can’t get up just yet.” He hovers over the sheep and tries to coax her back on the ground.
“Ellie, come around here, help me keep her on her side.”
She shuffles around to Joel’s other side and buries her hand into the soft thick wool, gently pressing down. “Have you ever done this before?”
Joel grunts while he tries to contain its flailing legs, preventing the ewe from rolling over or getting up.
“Nope,” he strains. “I’ve seen one or two cow births, long time ago when I was growing up in Texas.”
“Shouldn’t be too different,” he says breathlessly, saying a silent prayer as he pulls the sheep away from kicking at the stone wall of the barn. “As long as she stays on the ground like this, she should be okay, she can’t get up or roll over though ‘cause it could hurt or suffocate the baby.”
“Okay, okay,” Ellie exhales shakily, wincing as the sheep bleats loudly.
“Hey,” he turns to gaze down at the teenager, his voice quiet but authoritative. “It’s gonna be okay, look at me.” Her dazed gaze snaps from the ewe up to meet Joel’s big brown eyes. Anxious. Focused. “It’s gonna be okay alright? She’s gonna be okay?”
Ellie nods her head, the hint of a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth as she looks down at the ewe again. “It’s okay, momma, you’re okay, just breathe.”
No later than 5 minutes after do a pair of hooves and a muzzle appear. Ten minutes of pushing after that, the tiny lamb is lying sprawled out on the ground, Joel rubbing the remnants of placenta off its body and face.
“Joel.” 
It’s barely above a whisper as Ellie hovers over the baby, crouched on the balls of her toes. 
“Joel. It’s - it’s not breathing.” 
She inhales sharply and leans her head over the mouth, trying to feel or hear for a puff of air. 
He’s silent for a moment, and leans back looking at the tiny body covered in bodily fluids, and realizes there’s no movement coming from the lifeless body. No rising of its stomach, and its eyes are barely opened.
All of a sudden the vastness of the chilly barn shrinks to the size of a shoebox. The air suffocating, as if all the oxygen was sucked out of it.
“Fuck. Fuck. Get me another towel.” 
Rushing over to the box of supplies, Ellie hands him a smaller towel, as Joel leans down and wipes at the lamb's eyes, and around its nostrils. He tries to open its mouth to see if there’s any fluid trapped there but he can’t see.
“Get the baster. Hurry.” His clipped tone betrays his panic as Ellie places their turkey baster in his hand. 
It’s a poor substitution for an actual proper bulb syringe that is used to remove mucus and fluid from newborns’ mouths. He opens the lamb's mouth and inserts the baster roughly, pressing down on the bulb, as murky liquid is drawn through the clear pipette. He squirts the remnants of the baster out onto the ground and reinserts it into the lambs mouth, drawing more mucus and crap out a few more times until it’s empty.
They both wait a beat, panting heavily to see any sign of life on the little sheep. 
“She’s still not breathing. Fuck.” Ellie’s voice trembles. “She’s not breathing, Joel!”
“Okay, go into the feedroom and fill up the hot water bottle with warm water okay? Warm water, not hot, I’ll try to swaddle it in more towels, get some heat going.”
Immediately, she races to the feedroom with the rubber water bottle. As Joel hears the water running in the background, he wraps the lamb in two big towels. The ewe is now up and pacing frantically around Joel, sensing something is wrong. 
“C’mon baby, c’mon,” he rubs the covered lamb firmly, pressing his palm down slightly against the ribs and chest of the baby and shaking slightly. Nothing though, no sounds, no movement.
The ewe is now crying and bleating repeatedly as she paces circles around Joel, wanting to get to her baby. “I know, momma, I know. I’m trying. Fucking hell.”
The edges of his restraint and control start to fray. His heart is racing, chest tightening under the crushing realization that the lamb is a stillborn.  He cradles the lamb, swaddled in a mountain of towels now, squeezing his eyes shut and holding the tiny limp weight against his body. 
Moments later Ellie reappears at his side, sinking to her knees with the water bottle in both hands, the sloshing sound of the water drowning out the ewe’s crying.
Joel opens the folds of towels up so that she can place the flimsy warm pouch over top of the lambs side. Wrapping it up like a burrito again, he holds it up against his chest as if he was holding a baby, firmly patting and rubbing the little lump in his arms. Ellie fruitlessly tries to calm down the mother ewe but it’s no use as she continues to trot circles around Joel, weaving back and forth and trying to nose the little lump in his arms. 
He places the swaddled lamb on the ground, into the cushioned nest of shavings and straw bedding. Hovering over it on all fours, he places his palm over the swaddle again, applying pressure to the lambs back and rubbing circles, while opening its mouth with his other hand. 
“C’mon, little one, c’mon. Gimme something, c’mon. Please.” Joel leans down, his lips pressing against the towel as he murmurs.  The sound of his warm, deep voice breaking is barely muffled by the damp fabric as he squeezes his eyes shut. Another set of warm, small, clammy hands overlap his, as Ellie kneels beside him.
They huddle together over the lamb for another minute or two, the soft swishing of straw and shavings strewn about as the ewe continues pacing is the only audibly sound. Her cries for help softened to brief bleating.
Ellie intertwines her fingers with Joel, squeezing tight as she let’s out a quiet sniffle.
Then, a muffled sound. The smallest hiccup. 
“Joel.” She whispers and squeezes his hand again.
“Joel, look.”
He raises his head slowly, holding his breath as he hears the small noise again, before he carefully unwraps the swaddled material.  He cautiously rubs the lambs back again, as they watch as its bleary eyes blink open, slowly but surely.  It raises its head ever so slightly, dazed, before letting out the smallest bleat.
Choking out the breath that he had been holding in, Joel rushes to wipe around the lamb’s eyes and mouth again.  “There she is. Hey little one,” he coos at the small animal, afraid to speak above a hushed tone.
“Holy shit.” Ellie huffs in disbelief with tears in her eyes. “Dude, you fucking did it! Oh my god, look at her!”
She clutches the sleeve of Joel’s shirt, exhilarated and bouncing with adrenaline. “Do you think it’s a girl?”
Smiling to himself, he shakes his head, “not sure, but it doesn’t matter, s’long as it’s healthy. Right, little one?”  He slowly strokes the lamb as it starts bleating with more fervor, when he feels a bigger muzzle shoving his hand out of the way .
“There ya go momma, there she is.” 
He gets up, ignoring the groaning protest from his knees and steps back so that the ewe can see her baby, gesturing for Ellie to follow. 
“Here, Let’s give ‘em some space to breathe. Go grab the space heater and we’ll get ‘em nice and warm.”
Shooting to her feet, she scurries back to the supply room to retrieve the heater. Joel sits back against one of the stall walls, his head tipping back till it hits the wooden slats with a dull thunk as he takes the deepest breath he’s taken all day. The adrenaline is still coursing through his veins but he feels fucking exhausted all the same. Defeated but elated, he watches the mom lick and nudge the little lamb, before a voice rings out from behind him.
“Well, well, well, looks like we got a full house in here tonight!”
Joel turns to see Dr. Joyce striding through the aisle, a bright twinkle in her eye as she stops in front of the large stall, already stretching a pair of latex gloves over her hands. 
The corners of his mouth pull up into a small smile as he nods in her direction. “Hey doc, how’s it going?”
“I should be the one asking you that,” she chuckles with warmth, shimmying around the stall door slowly. “You’ve had quite the night from what I can tell. I saw the lights on at this hour and I could only assume it had finally happened.”
Snorting, he crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s one way of putting it.” He nods his chin as Ellie returns with the space heater in hand, “couldn’t have done it without this one’s help of course.” 
Ellie grins and hands the space heater to Joel. “If I’m being honest, it was probably one of the coolest and scariest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Especially when she wasn’t breathing. But it was all Joel, really. He brought her back, I just tried not to get in his way.” 
Rounding Joel’s other side, Dr. Joyce crosses the stall and crouches down and pulls out her stethoscope, winking at Ellie. “Is that so? Do I sense a future vet tech assistant that can help me with house calls?”
“Shit. Are you serious?” The teenager’s eyes nearly bug out of her head as a massive smile stretches across her face. “That would be fucking awesome!”
Joel doesn’t even have the energy to reprimand her for swearing, his mind and body drained as he snorts and shakes his head.
“Hey! Is there room for two more at this welcoming party?!” Another booming voice echoes throughout the large stone barn, similar in its Southern drawl to Joel’s but not as deep. 
Tommy and Maria round the corner with huge smiles, still in their riding clothes, fresh off the night patrol. 
“Just so long as y’all can keep quiet.” Joel grumbles, still sat leaning against the stall wall with his arms crossed, legs kicked out from underneath him. He looks over at the scene in front of him, warmth etched into his features as he watches Dr. Joyce check the lambs vitals while the ewe finally starts to munch on hay again.
“We couldn’t believe it, we had to come right away. Hell, I had half a mind to cut the patrol short when we found out.” Maria nods at Joel with a smirk. She glances over to the little sheep who has started to stand on all fours and nurse from its mom, wobbling on its nimble legs. 
“What’s the verdict Dr. Joyce?” Tommy sidles over to Joel, crouching down beside him and grinning. “All working organs? All ten fingers and ten toes?”
Joel sighs gruffly. “They’re hooves, not toes, genius. Jeez, you sure you’re expecting soon?”
Maria only smirks in response as Tommy mumbles and shoves his older brother in response. 
“Everything’s in order Joel, don’t worry.” Dr. Joyce smiles, taking one ear bud out of her ear as she continues to check the lambs pulse. “Her oxygen levels seem good, despite the rocky start and her lungs are clear of fluids, and she’s warm. You couldn’t have done a better job, really, you should be proud of yourself.”
He tries to hide his beaming smile he really does, but Joel grins. His bright eyes crinkle and his dimple pokes through his right cheek. “Thanks doc. I appreciate ya comin’ over here as soon as you could.”
“Her?” Ellie’s eyes widen as she clasps her hands together. “So it is a girl?!”
“Yup, definitely a girl.”
“Think she deserves a name, don’t you?” Tommy nudges Joel in the arm again.
Joel’s smile falters immediately. He shakes his head and looks down. “No. I don’t name ‘em, besides it’ll only be a couple of days before she’s gotta get tagged and registered in the breeding books too.”
“Oh come on Joel, please? She deserves one. After everything she’s been through…” Ellie’s voice trails off. 
Everything they had been through. She doesn’t need to say it for him to know. 
When she doesn’t keep going he looks up at her. Her eyes pleading, welling up with fragments of the pain and haunted memories that they endured over the last year.
He looks at Tommy and Maria, his eyes then falling on Dr. Joyce as she tends to the lamb. 
“Ellie’s right Joel. I know y’all don’t normally give them names, especially the young ones, but given the circumstances, this little lady oughta have a name.” The vets eyes are soft as she gives Joel a sympathetic smile. 
He’s silent for a moment, shifting his jaw. His gaze drops to the tiny lamb, white as snow, now that she’s been towel dried and cleaned, listening to her tiny bleats as she headbuts her mom for more milk. Instantly, his gaze softens, his big eyes rounding at the newborn.
New life. 
A breath of fresh air into the looming hollowness of the barn. A pulse. An electric current, melding into a comfortable, viscous, energy as Jackson’s population, well four-legged population, increases for another day. 
Sighing, he tilts his head in adoration. Filtering through the vestiges of his memory, he thinks back to the conversation that prompted this whole sheep herding fiasco. Him, Ellie, their tiny fire amongst the vast expanse of snow covered country, with nothing but the moon overhead. The comforting solace provided by its glowing illumination, letting them know they weren’t alone in their travels. 
“Well, she is a bright light, figuratively and literally,” he peeks his head out of the stall to find the moon, beaming down on the tiny settlement, before glancing down at the lamb again. 
“How does Luna sound?”
In that moment, the lamb trots over to Joel on its spindly legs, getting braver by the minutes after its birth. She bleats in his face loudly and headbutts his arm affectionately before circling back to her mom, stumbling over herself in the process.
“Well I’ll be damned, I think she likes it.” Tommy chuckles as Maria comes to stand beside him. 
Ellie snuggles up to Joel, her eyes starting to close as the evening's events catch up to her.  “It’s perfect,” she yawns and nuzzles into his broad shoulder, “our little Luna.”
Luna approaches Joel with more curiosity again, as he stretches his hand out towards her, letting her sniff and lick him. 
Despite everything that happened, the chaos, the panic, and near crisis with his first lamb birth, for the first time in a while, Joel feels whole. Fulfilled. Right where he's supposed to be, in this new world, this new life.
Rooted.
A lopsided smile stretches across his face, as his dimple pokes through his cheek. “Yeah, I suppose it is. Our little light, Luna.”
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sea-owl · 5 months
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What about an au that in it Anthony, Benedict, and Colin recruit their future sister in-laws.
Like the guys are trying to court the loves of their lives but Kate, Sophie, and Penelope are all oblvious and or in denial. So an inside man or rather woman is needed.
Enter Edwina, Posy, and Felicity, their loves' beloved younger sisters.
Anthony got lucky with asking for Edwina's help. One of the few things Edwina wanted the most was to see her sister happily married as well. Kate acted more like a chaperone than a woman looking for marriage herself, which was a shame in Edwina's eyes since she knew Kate was a secret romantic. So when Viscount Bridgerton came to her not as a suitor but as a potential brother-in-law, Edwina was delighted to jump on the chance.
Benedict got Posy's help by complete accident. In this AU, Earl Penwood hadn't kicked the bucket but still only claimes Sophie as his ward. It's an open secret one look at Sophie, and they know she's his illegitimate daughter. But it's not acknowledged, so no one says anything. Sophie does not care for London and is happier when they are in the countryside. She does not want a husband who takes mistresses like her father did and potentially brings more children in the world like her. Nor does she plan to risk any illegitimate children herself. She's decided spinsterhood is best for her and is just waiting it out. Of course, Benedict fell in love with her at first sight. Unfortunately for him, due to her experiences, Sophie is weary of any promises or pretty words a man says. Posy just happened to see Benedict have a woe is me moment in the garden during a ball after Sophie had yet again managed to evade him. Her thought was that this man was pathetic, but then the inner romantic side of Posy thought it was kinda sweet this Bridgerton still held a soft spot for her favorite sister. Posy asked Benedict ofnhe owned any property in the country. Benedict tells her yes and a little bit about My Cottage. Posy then says she'll help Benedict wins her sister's hand so long as she gets to visit. Benedict agrees, enthusiastically shaking Posy's hand.
Now, to be fair to Colin, he was probably on the right track using bribes to get Felicity to help him. Felicity is Hyacinth's bestie, and everyone knows if you want Hyacinth to do something, you gotta bribe her. The downside is that Felicity is Hyacinth's bestie, so she knows how to negotiate a bribe, and the hand of Felicity's favorite sister, plus the add on feature of distracting Eloise to give Colin time with just Penelope, is a high price. Colin's pockets were lighter than when he entered that day, but now he has a partner in crime and a list of gifts he and Felicity compiled together to start his courtship with Penelope.
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loremaster · 6 months
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BOBA AU - CHAPTER 1 EXTRAS
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I had actually drawn a few more things than could fit within the 30-image-per-post limit. Here are the ones that didn't make the cut, with commentary!
(tw: mild animal abuse, n*zi mention, suggestive themes)
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Zilch's animal companions. I named Carmina Burana and Tortellini, Gucci and Bosch were named by my friends - though Bosch was supposed to be called Hieronymus, it just didn't fit on the nametag lol
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I wanted to illustrate some examples of Zilch casually mistreating/neglecting the animals but this was as far as I got. I don't think he would be a full on animal abuser, just... the type of person who likes having a bunch of pets to show off but doesn't really think about properly caring for them. He likes the aesthetics of animals much more than the logistics.
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This was gonna be the chapter cover and I forgot. Oops.
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This was just practice drawing the church characters from their sprites.
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Zilch: I must say, it's an unexpected pleasure to run into another kindred spirit around here. I'm Zilch~
This scene was actually cut deliberately. I drew it before I decided exactly what the Nun's issue with Zilch would be and then once I did, I felt like it didn't fit anymore. Zilch is still excited to see someone else with ears and tail like him, but in the final version, he's a lot more derisive about it.
I imagine the Nun is, like, an actual animal-human hybrid whereas Zilch is a furry with a wallet that can afford bioengineered bodymods. (One day, my friends... one day...)
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Zilch being flippant and Halara being dismissive/tsundere. Couldn't really find a place to put it but I still like the drawing - even if I did accidentally give Zilch human ears.
By the way, you might notice Zilch hasn't been wearing his cap. There are two reasons. One is to show off that his ears aren't actually connected to it. If I had the time to go back and redraw the prologue with him wearing it - so Halara's "holy fuck" reaction makes more sense here - I would. (Not really worth trying to fix though, not until the rest of the story is done.)
But the other reason is that upon looking closer at Zilch's original design, I thought it was a little too evocative of Nazi imagery and wasn't really comfortable with it. It's not really the same style of hat, sure, but combined with the swastikas in his eyes??? yeah no way is that not intentional. (I redesigned his eye symbols to be catlike slit pupils instead.)
I get he (or, the hitman, I guess) is supposed to be a villain, and a minor one, in the original game... but here I'm gonna flesh him out a bit more. So I guess in that sense the removal of the hat symbolizes his growth as a character beyond his terrible awful fascist upbringing lol (more on that in the Gumshoe Gabs soon)
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If I were making this an actual game it would be fun to have Yuma get a fun little added gameplay element of using Zilch's Forte like he does with Halara's. He gets some little animal friends!!!
I imagined Zilch would ask to be carried, but Halara won't do it without getting paid an exorbitant amount. And then Zilch forks over the cash on the spot. Yuma screams internally. If he had that the whole time why were they even trying to negotiate over the coat???!? Why does he still have his own debt to pay if Zilch could just cover the whole thing up front????
Halara has to pretend not to be enthusiastic about this opportunity.
Shinigami is... there, I guess.
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Martina my wife driving around her little parasite of a boyfriend. Ms Electro please call me
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Was originally gonna have Seth say that out loud but then I remembered he doesn't want to lose his job. (It's okay, he loses it anyway.)
(Also yes this is pre-Vivia-DLC.)
And then the mystery is solved!
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Zilch feels indebted to Halara for saving him from the Nail Man, and wants to follow their example, turn it around, treat his animals better... his act of goodwill here is extremely performative, though. But, hey, everyone's gotta start somewhere!
Ultimately I cut this scene after coming up with the cat bed idea. (Was very tempted to have Halara cruelly taking the coat from the boy, but just decided to skip it instead.)
So Zilch kinda idolizes Halara now... which is fine... but then the morning after he really lets his simp flag fly.
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Congrats on your furry boyfriend, I guess?????
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A doodle from the margins of this comic way back when.... which finally has a place to belong! \o/
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Zilch's fursona. His "zursona," if you will.
Thanks again for reading! I love everyone's comments in the tags and I'm so glad you all like my version of Zilch especially. Excited to develop him some more in future chapters >:)
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mortuarywriting · 30 days
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If I outline what the fuck i wanna see in my self indulgent au will it give me the kick in the ass to write it.
Obviously relative spoiler/high notes/plot points below
The premise is, so far, nobody has seen where Simon lives. As far as they- they being Gaz, Soap, and Price- know he has a flat in Manchester.
Well leaving base one night(ish, time negotiable), the road they were all taking in their separate vehicles is closed due to a nasty accident. Gonna be blocked for 24 hours kinda mess.
So Ghost offers to let them all stay at his place, if only for a bit or the night if they prefer
Everyone just kinda. Well this isn't what we were expecting but alright. So they follow his car, it's pissing down rain and you can't see shit before you but the tail lights you're following but they've committed and by the time they pull off the road they're fuckin nowhere. House is fairly isolated, separate garage building, coop in the backyard, and a thatch roof cottage. Whose Nan's attic is Simon living in???
Except, not a random old biddie. Just a random fat American?? It's obvious they're familiar enough with each other, giving each other shit and that there's a whole "you got back from a mission here is our you came home routine"
Whole mess. The group stays the night because now they're nosy and wanna find out what the relationship is. You both say roommates. They don't wholly believe that.
Simon and roomie sleep downstairs, he can't sleep in a bed yet after the mission and roomie makes sure there's enough background noise that he doesn't snap into combat mode everything is about to go to shit.
Next morning roomie and Simon team up to make a hodge podge of all kinds of breakfast food and between them all there are no leftovers. Concerns are had if everyone ate enough (and then biscuits and gravy settled).
Its back to routine and roomie goes out to grocery shop to stock back up on "i need to feed myself and a whole ass army dude" levels of food and snackies.
While Simon is trying to get Soap and Gaz to stop making excuses to stick around (all good-natured fun) there is a call. Roomie prefaces this with they're fine!!! But uh. They did get hit by a car. A bit. Enough that there has to be a report. Come get the groceries?
And this is the part where they find out Simon and roomie are married. Have been for y e a r s. Technically the town knows them under roomie's last name as a couple.
After the dust is settled and everyone is back at the cottage the explaining happens. Yes, they're married. Vegas happened. It's been a long time and they kinda glossed over the whole "he's a dead man" legal bit for it. Roomie still gets married rights. How do you think he has a lease as a dead man roomie legitimately wants to know. The cottage is in their name, his isn't on it to keep it all off the record if people come knocking for him.
(He does actually have a Manchester flat, though. Landlord takes cash payments however many months at a time and doesn't ask questions. Roomie gets mail from it every once in a blue moon.)
Relationship is largely "we're married but for tax benefits"esque because they're both some flavor of ace. If he's in town roomie checks on if he wants to go to the Saturday munches or not but that's sir not appearing in this fic.
But yeah. Just fun self indulgence.
Could go write the Vegas bit. Write work "being brought home". Bonding activities. List of things for when he retires. Potentially kidnapping. S o many fun options but I just. Gotta write it.
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possessionisamyth · 7 months
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Here's some RE Separate Ways analysis that isn't about shipping because I like Ada. I'm happy her DLC actually focuses on her, but some of the takes I'm seeing are Insufferable. Main statements in bold for ease of reading and skipping purposes.
-Wesker and Ada haven't been working together consistently for the past 6 years. This dripless bitch is calling Ada every five minutes to babysit her. I don't think that's the relationship dynamic of someone you're regularly employed under, and when it is, Ada is not the type of character to tolerate that behavior for 6 years. We know Ada is a contract worker. We can understand she's worked for Wesker on and off, but she's a freelance agent period. She must've done enough jobs for Wesker that he feels the need to check on her and have this constant reporting in to make sure she stays on task since he's clearly used to her not always following his orders. He 100% hired her for this assignment because he knew the situation and compared to the other options, she had the highest survival chances. Which, he was right. High risk, high reward.
Sometimes Wesker's babysitting works: Ada holding Luis at gunpoint when he tries to negotiate saving Leon and Ashley. Sometimes he knows when to step away: "Keep your dog." All of it is in the effort to get what he wants. Look, he let her live. He worked with S.T.A.R.S for years and wanted them all dead. If he worked with Ada regularly and she pulled this shit with the amber, he would've had that helicopter blown out of the sky. There's always some restraint with personal distance, especially with a guy who thinks so highly of himself.
-Luis is a drama queen. In the regular game, Luis acts cool and under control to the best of his abilities around Leon and Ashley. It's a part of his newly found hero-complex even though he does still know when to ask for help: "save me prince charming!" In the DLC, we see the real side of Luis. The one who's scared, and dramatic, and knows when he's not shooting with a loaded gun so to speak. When Ada tells him to leave her to fight, he does. He wants to help, but his respect for her abilities sends him fleeing like she orders him to. Also, like every scientist, he has zero self-preservation! He ran into a fire that clearly would kill him to get medicine. And the exchange afterwards? "No! Now you'll all die!" "Make some more medicine." "Oh..yeah...I can do that. I do have that ability."
The flamenco dance. "Are you mad at me???🥺 You're mad at me!😭" This man understands Ada can kill him without blinking, but still can't keep his composure around her. This is such a fun dynamic to explore in fic for expansion stories and "Luis lives" au's. The DLC gives him breaks to freak out and panic, whereas the main game holds the "cool persona" moments after Leon saves him. Even his dying words to Ada. This man is bleeding to death and still can't shut up. I love him.
Okay, that's all I gotta say about the loser men. Now for the star of the DLC. Ada. :)
-Ada "Sans Undertale go into my eyes" Wong. The methods Ada uses in the DLC are fun and appropriate. It's not invasive and in your face unlike another agent, but more subtle. She can track footprints, fingerprints, gauge the safe distance required for her grappling hook, and she knows when she needs to fight and whens he needs to run. Her practicality has always been the cleanest of the entire cast due to her being a spy, but this time we actually get to see this trait utilized through her tools.
-Ada is silly and quips her own jokes to get through it. Something I'm not seeing anyone talk about including the aeon people who are claiming anything they can get, is this specific humor parallel between Leon and Ada in the remake. Both of them have gone through the horrors of Raccoon City. Both of them went right back into very difficult military in function style work which always has a body count. I talked about Leon's humor coping mechanism here [X], but to hear Ada do the same thing? I feel like they went under the radar because they don't sound as stupid as Leon's quips, but they are still so stupid. "Nighty night." "Lights out." "Bring me a real challenge next time." "Now look at the mess you've made." "You think that gun will be enough?" She and Leon even share the same "Next," line!
If I had 80GB to spare on the game, I'd see just how many more I could get out of her. Like, these are dumb as hell. She's found a method to cope with the horrors she's witnessing that just so happens to coincide with Leon's. I'm not saying this as a marker of whatever romance you've tossed them in or even to diss any other romances. What I am saying is that they have a similar type of mental illness resulting from trauma, and they ended up using the exact same coping method despite never seeing each other.
Ada fans who hate Leon! This opens a door for you when it comes to character analysis and how Ada deals with her PTSD and/or depression! Run through it RIGHT NOW!
-Ada's infection pulls a lot more weight than it seems. I've seen some people say Ada's parasite should've been removed the same as Leon's and Ashley's. (Which is an extremely unsubtle argument to get them all in the same room for your shipping nonsense.) However, something I noticed with the DLC were the parallels to the troubles in RE2. The Black Robe/U-3/Pesenta monster is the first time where we get to see Ada dealing with a stalking enemy. Due to RE4 being so much more plot-lined streamed to maintain the flow of gameplay, these events were not allowed to be random, but the narrative purpose remains. Ada gets to have a stalking enemy in her DLC like Claire and Leon did in RE2 with the addition of a hubris check.
The hubris check? Well, Ada has never been infected until this DLC. In the original games, she can step back and watch people die because she doesn't know what it feels like. Now she knows what it feels like. The lack of control. The pain. The slow turning. Her job has had her flirting with death for years, but not in a way she can't fiddle with the odds. A parasite is not something a person can distract with words. The action to steal the amber is backed up via personal experience not just a morality code slapped on. The addition of Wesker's correction to "billions of causalities" means she's included in that number and just cements her incentive to flee. She's not doing this for Leon. She's not doing this for Luis. She's doing this for herself, and if it so happens to help other people then it is what it is. After being on both sides of the coin when it comes to viruses, she can no longer function as entirely impartial to the work she's doing.
-Ada doesn't ask for permission but asks for forgiveness. Don't take this phrasing literally. She doesn't ask Wesker to forgive her. What this means is that she'll do something before asking, and if it upsets people then she'll course correct. Her job is not the kind of job where she needs to take orders for every action she implements which is why Wesker calling every five minutes was annoying as hell. In the OG RE4 she kind of argues with Wesker for Leon to live for "his usefulness", but it's swiftly shut down until it's convenient to Wesker for Leon to live. This forces her to sneak around and betray Wesker multiple times to save Leon secretly, and the concept rightfully gets thrown into the garbage for the remake DLC.
The scene in the bedroom where Wesker tells Ada not to become a liability after taking her blood? Ada doesn't fight to get her shit back. Some people said this was flirting. Wrong. This is Ada seeking forgiveness after the fuck up of passing out in the middle of an active field by letting Wesker walk off with an infection sample. She then makes sure not to fuck up a second time in the same way, and she doesn't. She learns the signs of her parasite so in case she does pass out again, she'll be somewhere much less conspicuous. She listens for the changes in her environment and the feelings in her body and prepares herself for what's next.
-Ada saves Leon and Ashley for Luis' sake. I stated earlier that Ada's action to take the amber was for her own sake but ends up helping others. This is the exact situation going on when Luis talks about getting the suppressant. She needs the suppressant in order to do her job and kill the black robe so she can heal. It just so happens that Leon and Ashley need the suppressant for survival reasons too. They are an afterthought until Luis dies.
We watch Ada question Wesker and his plans all throughout this DLC, and she comes to her own conclusions after her experience working with him. She could've gotten the amber back and let the whole place blow into smithereens like Wesker intended. Who cares about the president's daughter? Who cares about another dead federal agent? Luis did. He cared so much he died for it, and just like that other clown in Raccoon City (aka her), she got emotionally attached. If there was anything she could've done for Luis to make his death mean something, it was this act.
-Ada sells Leon's jacket. This isn't analysis, but I thought this was funny as hell. ACAB! No exceptions! Freeze your tiddies off, Leon! I don't give a shit!
-Ada's new outfit is still better than her old one. It's still not the best they could've given her. I'm also not speaking from a fashion point of view when I say this. In the OG RE4 we see Leon in a jacket which is forcibly removed to show off his pecs to the ladies, but it clearly marks a colder time of year. OG RE4 Ada has arms out, legs out, and tits out because a hoe never gets cold. The sweater dress for the remake re-establishes that it's colder here because even Luis doesn't lose his jacket. Ashley doesn't lose her jacket either until they yoink it off her for ritual reasons. I still hate that the thigh high boots have that heel and would prefer the flats, but that's going to be in the complaint paragraph below.
-Capcom sexism at play once again. I don't give a shit about rigs and motion capture or whatever, her walk cycle was 2 adjustments from being full Bayonetta, and I hate it. The ass shots? Disrespectful. Her heels didn't have to be that high. Never heard of a kitten heel? They exist. The people who worked on RE3 Remake and worked on this DLC sure love to make a woman vomit don't they? Why the fuck was she so clean the entire game? She was being thrown around and tossed in the dirt a lot, but this woman's skin is shinier than a waxed apple. Either she has some wet wipes on hand, or god forbid women get filthy. Absolutely zero reason she shouldn't have been looking as rough as Leon by the time she gets on the helicopter! No reason at all!
That's all they wrote! I love Ada. I loved this DLC, and I loved the dynamics going on here even though I hated every time Wesker was on screen or opened his mouth at all.
As much as I would love to expand this post and go further into the changed Ada and Leon relationship, I frankly hate all the takes I've been seeing so much on either side of the Aeon debate. I hate the ongoing conversation around it so much that I don't know if I want to discuss this at all. The Aeon should've gotten this if not for Luis and Ashley side and the Aeon is dead side going back and forth with each other? All of you put on your clown noses! None of you are looking at this situation objectively to see where the lines cross and where they run alongside each other, and frankly I'm tired! I could clear this whole table off so both of you can get exactly what you want based on what you're not actually interpreting from this media, but I won't! Kill each other!
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