#his height isn't bizarre

[rieriel]

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐍'𝐒 𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐄

「content」 1.6k+ wc, fem!reader, reader wears heels, established relationship, cunnilingus, edging, praise, fingering, pet names, just satoru putting your heels on 🎀

☆ in which: gojo satoru isn't above kneeling if it means getting to taste you

You should have known it was a bad idea to let Satoru stay in the same room while you got ready for your weekly date nights.

And you should have known that by now, the only thing you're getting ready for is to unravel beneath him.

The man in question is seated on your shared bed, legs invitingly apart, elbows resting on each knee. He watches every step you make, from applying glitters to your eyelids to finally putting on jewelry as the finishing touch. With all the years you’re together, Satoru isn’t particularly ashamed to admit how this is one of the many things he likes doing with you. Shockingly, it’s also one of the few things that could make him go quiet.

He just sits there and watches you, without uttering a single word. To anyone who knows him, that’s as bizarre as cows flying around.

You're ready to go, but the sudden presence of a warm body looming behind you suggests otherwise.

“Satoru,” you warn, feeling his large hands holding you by the hips, his long fingers tracing patterns across the fabric of your dress.

“You look so good in this dress,” he breathes into your ear, “Can we not go, baby, please? Want you all for m’self.”

“I'm all yours,” you affirm, a soft smile playing on your lips from a rather devious idea you thought of.

Earning a satisfied hum of response from the white-haired, you turn around to face him, halting his indulgence of littering featherlight kisses in your nape down to your exposed shoulders.

You place your hands on his neck, chest against his own, and murmured in his lips, “But after we go to this restaurant, please? I’ve been wanting to go there, baby.”

Ah, you used it against him—the pet name and the pleading eyes.

You know better than anyone that he can never say no to that. It's all it takes for your lover to do your bidding in a heartbeat, because it’s no secret how much he was a goner for you. He lets everyone know that as clear as day, anyway. 

“Fine,” he pouts.

Beaming, you plant a peck on his lips, and before Satoru can chase your lips with his own, you release him to turn once again to your vanity mirror.

“Oh, by the way, can you get my black heels for me?”

“The ones I like?” Even with your back turned, you can practically see the bashful smile playing on his lips from his chirped voice.

“Yup. That one, baby.”

Without a minute passing by, Satoru again appears behind you, holding a pair of black stilettos in one hand. You're just about to grab them from him when he raises them above your reach.

“We’re going to be late, Toru.”

“We won’t,” he assures, a boyish grin materializing on his lips. And god, he is so unbelievably handsome in his crisp suit— you're starting to regret insisting on going out now.

“Let me?” he asks, head slightly tilting to the side.

“The straps could be tricky…” you trail off. Satoru doesn’t respond, but he holds your gaze before slowly going down on both knees.

All while still not breaking eye contact with you.

You know what he’s trying, and Satoru knows perfectly well it’s working.

Satoru places the heels in front of your feet and holds your left calf to slide on the left pair. Your dress rises at the slight raise of your leg, making your breath hitch at the sensation of his warm breath grazing your exposed inner thigh.

The sound of your reaction is everything he needed to make the two of you late on that dinner reservation.

As he finishes putting both straps of the heels, you wait for him to stand– your intentions clear on staking claim on his lips as payback. But all expectations were replaced with arousal building up on your center as Satoru nuzzles his nose closer to your navel, sinking inch by inch in height to reach what’s down below.

“You smell so good, baby…” he mumbles, “Let me taste you, baby, please. It will be just a taste, I promise…” you could hardly make out what he’s saying from how muffled his voice is because of how close he’s pressing his face to your front, taking your scent and letting it consume him.

The strongest— on his knees, begging just for a taste. What a sight to behold, truly.

“T-Toru,” you stuttered, “Just a taste,” you gave in, echoing his needs.

All hell breaks loose for Satoru the moment those words escape your lips. He took one more glance from your pretty flushed face down to your feet, taking his time to marvel at you. He loves you in dresses like these— short and easy to access. Not to mention how divine it hugs your tits.

His left hand, once resting in your leg, started making its way to lift the hem of your dress— enough to expose your lace panties that weren't covering much to begin with.

Oh, heavens, pray heed of his greed because there was no getting enough of you. Knowing that you wore this intentionally just for him made his cock throb and his pants to tighten. 

You let out a gasp when your lover started drawing circles on your clothed pussy, going far beyond slowly sliding his index finger back and forth in between your legs, teasing you.

“Satoru,” you hiss, “Do not tease me.”

“But you’re so wet, princess…” he hums before sliding his long finger at your arousal, “All of it for me?”

“Yes —yes, all of it, ‘s for you, toru.”

“Damn right it’s for me. This pussy is f’ me— made just for me.” 

Familiar fingers looped around the waist of your panties, gently pulling it down your knees.

Even though you’re wearing a four-inch stiletto, his face was now perfectly leveled with your pussy. And just before you prepare yourself for what he intends to, Satoru leans in to plant a wet kiss before hungrily delving his tongue in your folds making knees buckle in pleasure.

“Oh, dear god— there, keep me there..” you whimpered. He put one hand behind your right knee for support. Fingers gently tapping against your knees, as if asking you to look at him as he sloppily eats you out. 

“S-Satoru—” 

“Satoru? Oh, I thought I was dear god, baby,” he teases, smirk evident in his voice.

Satoru looked up, tongue still deep in your clit, to gaze at you. He couldn’t help but swallow hard upon seeing how you were slightly gaping with your eyes shut, obviously blissed out. Fuck, you look so pretty.

“Eyes on me, baby,” he whispered, every breath of his words fanning against your flesh, making you shiver. “Watch how good I make you feel.”

He waits for you to look at him before flicking his tongue at your wetness— the action making you instinctively grip on his white mop of hair. Satoru felt your hands aimlessly guiding his head to lap more at your cunt. 

More, more, more— you need him badly. Needy, you grind your hips against his face, strong jaw touching the sides of your inner thighs. 

Satoru knows your body like the back of his hand, he knows you’re close— so he stops, licking his lips to clean your sweetness that’s almost dripping down his chin.

“Don’t stop, toru. I– I’m close, please. Please–”

“Shhh— I know, baby. I know,” he chuckles, “Would you be a good girl and do something f’me, baby? It’s for you, I promise.”

“Anything… anything! Just please…” you plead, almost tearing. So close, you’re so close. 

Satoru was on his knees, but it felt more like you were the one at his very mercy. Every touch, every sigh, pushed you closer to the edge, the brink of a pleasure so intense it was almost unbearable.

“Put your leg on my shoulder and stand firmer. Can my pretty girl do that for me, hm?”

“I can’t, toru– too weak for it..”

“You can and you will, baby,” he interrupts your whine. 

You did as he told, and lay one of your legs over his shoulder as your other stood firmer in heels. You felt one of Satoru’s hands snaking up to your ass, holding you in place.

“See? now, that’s a good girl,” he cooed at you. Deciding you deserve a treat for your obedience, he slides two fingers in your clit– pumping them in and out while his tongue does wonders circling your cunt.

A loud moan escaped your lips, involuntary, as desire pulsed through you. Dazed and breathless, you look down at your lover only to be met with his clear sky eyes looking up at you. His eyes, dilated with need and want— all at once, revealed a hunger you know you will be paying for to satisfy.

“Tell me, baby” he dared, “should I cancel our reservation?”

The only answer Satoru got from his pretty girlfriend was her loud mewls, heavy breaths, and the shivering of hips against his hold. Your cum dripping from your clit straight to his mouth.

That’s better than a yes, he chuckles in thought.

“Yeah. I thought so, too, pretty girl,” he licks his lips before carrying you to bed to continue where you left off.

『 ↳✧･ﾟ minimal proofread! :>

#gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru smut #jjk smut #gojo x reader #jjk x reader smut #gojo satoru #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen smut #night tales ⋆ ★

[reysdriver]

From The Rooftops | J.P.

James has been confessing his love for you forever, but this is the biggest attempt at wooing you yet — james x fem!reader fluff

warnings: heights ig cus james is an idiot on a roof

words: 0.8k

You were walking outside, near Hagrid's hut with Marlene McKinnon when you saw a commotion near the school. Both of you were curious as to what was going on that was so enticing to all these students. You both tried to walk a little faster so you could see what was happening as soon as possible. 

When you got there, you just wanted to roll back down the hill. It was James Potter standing on the roof of the Divination tower that had everyone so excited. 

"Oh Merlin, that's really him." You said with an exhausted sigh. 

You knew exactly what he was doing. He had been trying these elaborate acts to get your attention for what feels like a million years. It had begun small, but it's only gotten more extravagant as time went on. 

You watched with a blank face as he tossed handfuls of flower petals down to you and all the other students enamoured by his bizarre version of courtship. 

"Wonder what he's up there for." Marlene said sarcastically. No one in the school was a stranger to James' dramatics. 

James seemed to have spotted you in the crowd of kids. "There she is! The love of my life, the beautiful (y/n)!" 

"Get down from there, Potter!" You shouted back. "You know this is a terrible idea."

"On the contrary, my darling! I have so much love for you that I decided I need to shout it from the rooftops!" 

Off to the side, you noticed Remus, Sirius, and Peter snickering together at their friend's idiocracy. You shot them a glare, and walked over to smack each one of them on the arm. "Why don't you talk him out of these things?" You hissed, then looked back up at James. 

"Oh, believe you me, (y/l/n), we talk him out of the craziest ideas he has." Sirius told you. 

"This isn't one of the crazy ideas?!"

"Not even close."

You rolled your eyes, not even wanting to think about all the ridiculous things that lovesick fool has proposed to get your attention. 

James tossed down another handful of petals, reciting a list of reasons why the two of you should date. You snatched a red rose petal out of the air before it could reach the ground and held it up to show him. 

"Look, James, I caught one of your flower petals. It's great, now come on down." 

He shook his head. "Not until I know what awaits me down there." 

Another sigh escaped your lips. He was absolutely maddening, and the worst part is that you were almost certain he was actually wearing you down. 

"Would you come down if she agreed to date you?" Marlene shouted, earning another glare from you. 

James' face lit up at the proposition. "Absolutely I would! Do you agree to those terms, my love?"

"Definitely not." You answered. "What else would you want?" 

As you spoke, you reflexively caught another petal and wanted to scoff at yourself for going along and giving him what he wanted. 

"I'll take anything you'll give me. I did like Marlene's idea, but perhaps a kiss is more your style?"

You looked back at Marlene, hoping she could suggest something. She just shrugged and shot you a smug smile. 

"I'll kiss you on the cheek." You suggested to him. 

He didn't seem satisfied. "And?" 

You rolled your eyes. "And I'll let you sit next to me in all our classes for a week. Those two things in return for you getting down safely and stopping these dramatic spectacles."

He seemed happy with that. He tossed down the remaining pile of flowers, which the crowd around you loved. Then, he picked up his broomstick from behind him and flew down, landing right next to you. He carelessly dropped the broomstick and faced you, looking excited as ever.

"Now you have to live up to your end of the deal." He said with a grin. He puckered his lips and leaned down a bit. 

You placed your hand on the top of his head, his signature curls filling the gaps between your fingers, and you turned his head to the side. "I said 'on the cheek'." 

You did just as you had promised, and stood on your tiptoes to kiss him. You let your lips linger for a bit too long for someone who wasn't at all interested. Judging by his cocky smile, he noticed it as well. 

"You're a piece of work." You told him, fighting back an expression to match his. 

"You love me, and you know it."

You were getting to a point where he was right, but he didn't need to know that. 

#james potter #james potter x reader #james potter x you #james potter x y/n #james potter imagine #james potter fluff #marauders era #marauders fluff

[stinkysam]

Buggy the Clown - Me ! Me ! Me !

Warning : nsfw-ish

Genre : fluff

Synopsis : "ooh maybe buggy with a shapeshifter partner who likes to turn into him?" - anon

Reader : male (he/you)

A/N : Bon Clay already has that devil fruit so I changed it a bit. You can steal abilities, and the last person you stole them from is… Bon Clay !

When he first heard of your abilities Buggy was impressed. Like, that's really fucking cool !?

You told him about the last devil fruit user you met, Bon Clay and how you had his abilities now.

His first thought was that you could easily pass up as a marine. And if he had met you earlier, he would've had you steal Axe-Hand Morgan's face to take the Grand Line map.

What he didn't expect though, was for you to turn into him. And seeing himself move on your -his ?- own, was a really bizarre thing to witness.

Oh, he's definitely going to use it for his circus tricks.

But he's also going to stare at himself under all angles. Are you sure you got the height right ? And why is the nose so…

Yeah, stop him when he gets to the face because he's definitely going to obsess over his nose, his insecurities getting the best of him.

Because if you don't stop him he'll think you're doing it to mock him at some point and once it gets in his head you'll have trouble making him think something else.

Because there's no way in hell you just like being him. He refuses to believe that.

He likes to make people believe he's so confident and oh, so sexy and perfect he'd fuck himself if he had a clone. Because who wouldn't fuck him, right ?

And now he has the occasion !

Well, it won't happen.

"Why not ?" You ask, crossing your arms with a pout, trying to hide your smile.

"Are you out of your mind ! This is so weird !

"You said it yourself, yo-"

"I know what I said !"

"And ?"

"No ! It's- Why you- Gah !" He stammers, embarrassed you remembered that.

What he doesn't say is that his self-loathing is that strong. And he would find it incredibly awkward to hear his own voice moan or see his own face contorts in pleasure.

Nope, not even to cuddle. It's too weird, if you want him to hug himself so bad he can do it without you.

"Stop it ! This isn't funny !" He yells as he let go of you, who just turned into him.

"But you should love it ! It's yourself !"

"I'd rather hug myself alone then, get out of bed !" He says, now pushing you out. "Get out ! Out ! Out ! Out !"

"Nooo." You turn into your original form and try to get back into bed but he's still pushing you away.

"Get out ! This is a private moment between me and myself, [Name]."

"Well then," You turn back into him. "I'll get my own cuddles." You begin to leave and you stop by the door. "Maybe I'll even masturbate." You say with a wink before running away, laughing.

"No ! This is a violation ! [Name] ! Come back here !" He yells as he jumps out of bed and run after you. "You brat !"

The crew wakes up from the ruckus and find two Buggys running and throwing things at each other.

"Stop him !"

"No, stop him, I'm the really Buggy !"

"He's not ! I'm your captain, recognize me immediately !"

"If you obey him, you're dead ! Stop him !"

No one knows what to do until his hands flies to you, finally an indication of who's the real Buggy.

"You fucking cheater !"

#male reader #m!reader #one piece #one piece x male reader #one piece live action #one piece imagine #opla #opla x male reader #opla imagine #buggy the clown #buggy the clown x male reader #buggy the clown imagine #buggy x reader

[writings-of-a-hufflepuff]

Derek [Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader]

Fandom: Call of Duty (I haven't been into COD since I was 14 but we're back thanks to COD cosplayers on tiktok...) Collection/Series: N/A Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader Writer: @writings-of-a-hufflepuff​ aka @little-autumn-serenade​ Rating: G Warnings: This is kinda silly and not my best work but the idea has been hanging around in my head so... Summary: A surprise finds you at work while Simon is away on deployment. Notes: Inspired by my dad, a veteran, who did something very similar for my mum. We still have Derek like 30 years later although he's in the loft being eaten alive by moths probably.

You're at work when you're called down to the front office, a confusing event in and of itself seeing as you weren't expecting anyone or anything to interrupt your working day. You're very rarely called away from your work in general. Your family and friends would never interrupt your working day, being too busy themselves and the only other person would be Simon, but he's away on deployment and isn't one for surprises. You liked the predictability of him and the fact he didn't scare you by randomly turning up places without a warning. You liked a lot about your boyfriend even if he couldn't always understand it. You missed him. A lot. He'd been gone for two months already and you'd only had three or four phone calls in that time, due to schedules not lining up.

Janice, the nice older receptionist, is waiting for you when you finally have five minutes to step away from your desk. She looks over the top of glasses at you from where they're perched on the tip of her nose.

"Did you order something, Lovely?"

"No, I...I never order anything to work, why?"

"You've got a parcel, a rather large parcel." She stands with a groan and a hand to the small of her back as she ushers you into the office and to follow her further back into the office.

You feel bad for her when you see the gigantic cardboard box that she clearly had dragged into the office. It's at least half-your height, reaching about your waist and as wide as you. You run a hand over the top, reading the various labels that suggest it has had quite a journey across the globe and the only thing you can think is that someone ordered some stationary or furniture for work and put it in your name on the requisition form by accident.

"What on earth?" You reach for a pair of scissors, cutting the packaging tape and opening the flaps.

You're greeted by a lot of packing peanuts and the mystery has you almost ferally tearing through the box the moment you have a bin to start dumping packing materials into. The one bin proves not to be enough to hold all of the packing peanuts and you end up having to reach for a second one.

It's not long before you see the top of a fuzzy brown head and struggle to heft the rather heavy stuffed toy out of the box. Poor Janice has to grab the box to slide it off at the other end until the thing is sat in front of you.

It's a...a gorilla. A giant, stuffed gorilla toy with a scrappy bit of lined paper torn out of a notebook pinned to its chest. He's wearing a tactical helmet that's a little too small for the giant thing's head. He's clearly been swashed into it, and his face looks a little off as a result, the sides crushed inwards.

"I take it you didn't order a gorilla, sweetie?"

"I definitely did not order a gorilla..." You're baffled, so utterly baffled that you're almost scared to take the note unless it turns out you've got a stalker or something equally as terrifyingly absurd. Simon's many warnings about strange packages and parcels ringing in your ears in that familiar gruff and protective tone of his.

Still you take the piece of paper and unfold it. The note is short, brief and when you read the sign off you understand why. Because this bizarre package, this ridiculous gift, is from Simon. Simon, the gruff, intimidating, scary dog privileges Lieutenant who could probably kill someone in 100 different ways. That Simon had sent you a gigantic, stuffed gorilla in a tac helmet. Simon Riley. Simon Riley had sent you a stuffed gorilla toy of all things.

Hey, Love.

Meet Derek, found him in Barcelona when we had some free time. Figured he could keep you company since i'm going to be gone for a bit longer than expected.

Looks a bit like Soap to me, so sorry if he gives you nightmares.

Simon

The end of the note has a silly drawing in black biro; Johnny, Simon and Derek at the beach. Simon's drawn himself in full uniform, mask included and Derek has a umbrella cocktail in hand. John looks decidedly annoyed giving the gorilla side eye that is meme worthy.

You kind of hate it. The gorilla. that is...it's stitching is bulging at the seams and it's eyes are looking in two different directions and it really does have something about it that screams John Mactavish, might be the slight mohawk at the top of it's head...but you also love it. You love that Simon of all people, hater of surprises, the most unspontaneous and rigid person you know, decided to surprise you with it. That he took the time to package it and probably spent more money than necessary to get the heavy thing shipped to you. You love how absurd it is and mostly, you love that it's from him because you miss him so freaking much that you're starting to pretend he's holding you at night and you're getting sadder each day because his shirts aren't smelling like him anymore.

You don't realise you're crying over it until Janice, tutts and hushes you and rushes for the tissues.

God, you miss Simon. You miss him a lot, but maybe Derek will help you feel a little bit closer to him...or Derek will give you nightmares. Either way, he's staying because Simon got him for you and no way in hell are you throwing out any gift from him even if it's a really dodgy looking gorilla.

#simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x reader #ghost #simon riley #simon ghost riley #call of duty #cod #cod reader insert #call of duty reader insert

[chosoniisan]

A risk worth messy reward ↠ kamo choso

↠alternative title: swapping spit with choso, literally

↠pairing: kamo choso | sorceress!reader

↠setting: post canon, not at all compliant

↠genre: nasty, nasty fluff

↠caution: suggestive; height/size difference ("my" choso is over 6ft); unhealthy-ish/complicated relationship; kinda owner/pet dynamics; coercion (?); lots of tongue

↠summary: after yet another rural-steeped mission, your first priority is finding the nearest bed to fall into; conversely, choso has other things on his mind

↠authoress' notes: my initial plan had been to write a hc about the oddities of choso, how he has some bizarre and inexplicable habits, but writing hcs (without plot) isn't my strength, so I opted for what could be considered "snapshots" instead :')

also, the context, setting-wise, for this is that once the dusts settles post canon, the high-ups (the smattering of them still kicking), let choso live conditioned on you acting as his controller at all times, lest you risk ending up on the execution chopping block, too. . .

A ripely full moon, and the air’s refreshed with a slight chill:

by all means the sort of mid-autumn night you’d want to bottle up and take with you.

You might just have to overlook the chunks of entrails sticking to your soles, though. And maybe you can pretend that it’s the crickets droning in the grass and not the crisping of bone dissolving into nothingness. As if on cue, you resist the urge to sigh to keep the tang of death, thoroughly worn over, from invading your lungs any more than it already has.

It’s not quite how you’d envision your evening—but beggars can’t be choosers. And on the bright side, at least you’re fully intact, all your limbs present and accounted for despite enough close calls to last you a lifetime. Sure, you might have said the very same thing last time (i.e. a handful of days ago), and you’ll no doubt mirror that sentiment next time too (i.e. in another day or so), though you take your blessings when you can get them.

Granted, your good luck quickly runs its course since there’s hardly anything fortunate about the strain of curses the far-flung reaches of the countryside seem to breed to no end. Who would have thought that the higher you climbed the rankings the more acquainted you’d become with woodland critters the size of your hand (excluding cursed spirits, mind you). Then there’s the persistent feeling of otherness crawling over you like a second skin the longer those prying eyes rake and rove over you. (If only they knew that a city girl and her dutiful charge were the last bit out of place in these parts.)

“I mean it when I say that you’re a lifesaver, Choso.” Your poignant ring is all the encouragement he needs to scrap making sure that dead is actually dead this time around and squeeze himself back into your sphere again. Crunch, crunch, crunch goes the tall grass giving way to your missing piece because obviously solace by another name is your side. Leave it to him to be over 190 centimeters of delicately endearing. “I wasn’t expecting that other special-grade, but, of course, you’re always covering for me in a pinch—I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.”

In that moment, you’re the stargazer of him; a face lighting up the pearly night beyond measure. “I’m always following your lead, though. You’re a lot more experienced than me, too, so the best I can do is try to keep up. Because I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.” A dash of sheepishness colors the downward wisp of lashes brushing against his cheeks, but that isn’t enough to distract him from the sway of you in his shadow (even if he has to really drop his head to horde that eyeful for himself). “I’m glad we make a good team,” his brief lull is beseeching, the tilted head even more so, “at least I think so.”

For the sake of his tenderly bleeding heart, your nodding doesn’t miss a beat. “Yep, we sure do. . .! And every good team needs some rest, so I should go ahead and text our supervisor and let him know we’re finished up here.” Another thwarted attempt at a sigh, so you settle for a mild quirk of your lips amidst reaching into your pocket for your phone spared from the fray. “We’ll have to stay the night in town, which isn’t ideal, but we can take the first train back home in the morning.”

The faster you can confirm the rendezvous spot, the faster you can sink into a warm bath and then beneath a cozy comforter, so you’re already a few rapid-fire texts deep when Choso pulls on your sleeve.

“Wait. Before that. . .” he begins, slow, measured as if he’s taking the time to taste every word before it leaves his lips. Like that’s not enough to prod at your attention, you’re especially perceptive to rose stain swashed across the expanse of his face, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think him too innocent to sell his soul to the devil for a life of strife alongside you. Though perhaps innocence in its purest state is wetting his hands in blood, bearing your burden of nocturnal calamity with the occasional slip of diffidence. “Can I. . .” Gulping down that lump in his throat. “Can I have my reward now?”

It's your turn to sound things out for good measure.

“Your. . .reward?” (Emphasis on the furrowed brows there.)

He bobs his head once, meanwhile you’re rifling through the pages of your mental archives in search of this reward, whatever it is. A contemplative hum sifts through you at the recollection of saying something in the realm of treating him once this mission wrapped up; admittedly, it was the sort of remark made in passing, but if it’s Choso, you don’t mind staying true to your word. Besides, you have an inkling of what he might have in mind (or you hope you know him well enough to make that guess. . .there’s only one way to find out).

“You’re talking about the souvenirs near the station; I think you were looking at the sweet dumplings, yeah? I don’t know if that shop is open this late, but we can go over and check—”

“No, not that.” Vehemence strums in his tone, so much so that you start a bit, setting off the ripple effect of him offering you a repentant look in return, one that’s still very clearly brimming with fervor. “I did a good job, right? And you promised I could have a reward if I was really good.” As a matter of fact, he’s not wrong, but his moonstruck gaze, expanding, plants an unnamed sensation between the open spaces in your chest. (You’re not daunted by him, it’s just that unpredictability has never been your forte.) “. . .So I was thinking that I wanted you.”

Doesn’t have a chance to click together in your brain until the warmed heart of his palm envelops your entire cheek, and even then you’re still too many steps behind by the time he’s level with you: face-to-face, eye-to-eye, lips. . .dangerously close. Inhaling a mingling of dried copper and powdery musk doesn’t help you figure out what he means by wanting you, having you; rather, with each fanning of his breath over you in crests, you’re gradually unraveling into something entirely unlike you. Something a lot more nerve-ridden.

If you had intended to chime in after scrambling to make sense of the situation (or not), the reality is that you’re simply opening the door for him to carve a place inside you. Literally. Considering it’s not the sound of a mildly articulated concern that echoes in the air, but a muffled squeak when he catches his lips on yours, inviting himself into the niche of your mouth before you can try to recoil. Even when you do think to reel away, his arm is already circled around your waist, seizing you into the bulk of him to the point that you can’t tell where one of you begins and the other ends.

You’ve long given consideration to the fact that Choso’s spent more time sealed than unsealed, that to this very day he’s still working out the kinks of what it means to be mostly human—but this. This goes beyond his idiosyncrasies of not knowing the particulars of kissing. No, this is nothing of a kiss and everything of devouring you whole.

As susceptible as you are, he has no trouble crowding his tongue against yours, which is the difference between tasting him and choking on him. Testing the waters is the last thing on his mind (you suspect it had never been there in the first place) when he’s using the anchor of his hand to steer you right where he wants you, because how else could he map the ridges of your palate without you shrinking like the violet you’re steadily flowering into. Intrusive is him eating away at your lips like a man starved, but it’s also the blooming of heat curled through your insides with a particular penchant for the midst of your tummy.

The compulsion to stagger back is second nature to you, except he’s unnaturally folded into you, so there’s really nowhere for you to skitter off to, especially not with the fixation given to a mesh of sticky pink. And it feels foreign, sinfully so, as he overwhelms you with broad, saliva-rife sweeps of his tongue, undeterred by your stagnate self, too paralyzed by the knotting in your core, the blistering up of sweat at your temples, and the uncut wildness—or is that obsession?—of him before your very eyes. Either way, it’s just the push needed to send you over the edge of quiet bleating. . .that finds its premature end swallowed into him for safekeeping at the bottom of his stomach, just like every other morsel of you.

Heady appreciation is quick to follow on your heels by way of a long-winded moan from him, to you by virtue of his snare. The stammering in your chest is the clear mark of being caught off guard, and Choso in all his fevered glory capitalizes on your lapse of self to plunge his tongue as deeply as it’ll reach. Nevermind the fact that there’s no stifling the stuttered heave around him or the full-bodied quaking against him, either, he’s still singularly focused on partaking in the mess of you. Willingly or not, you can’t help but indulge him when you’re varying shades of fluster, and it’s the gilt reflection of your disarray that has you clamping your eyes shut. Too bad for you, darkness doesn’t temper the dizzying sensation clambering through your veins that’s becoming more, and more, and more intertwined with him.

(You don’t know how much longer you can weather the storm of him, or if you’ll even be able to mend what he’s already bitten through, and maybe it would have been preferrable if he had taken your skin & tissue with him. He took something far more softly perverse.)  

Though in the end, it’s of his accord, only, that he spares you of the kind of smothering that’ll have you icesheet cold against him in no time flat. And you use spare loosely because he simply moves to sucking and nibbling on your bottom lip as if parting from you means imminent death. If he’d give you a chance, you could assure him that his fears of relenting are unwarranted, but in the thick of hungry fascination, he’d rather stripe his tongue along the corner of your mouth to gather up a stray bead of slick. Whether yours or his, you don’t know—you do know that when he’s done, it’s every bit of his tacky memento etched on your skin.

His gift to you for letting him have one of your deepest intimacies.

As expected, he doesn’t keen over from unlacing himself from you—truthfully, his hand is still palming at your cheek, so it’s not a full untethering—though you’re certainly not boasting a modicum of stability yourself. If that unyielding hold around your middle is anything to go on, you suspect that he doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest; you might even say that he’s savoring in the ruby-rich reliance of his handler.

“Uhm,” Reticence returns with a vengeance despite having just rooted through you mere moments ago; the moonlight glancing off traces smeared across his lips a testament to that. “. . .Do you we could see about those dumplings now?”

And of course you’ll oblige him—even knowing you’re complicit in preserving his devotion.

#choso x reader #choso x you #jjk x reader #jjk x y/n #jjk x you #choso #choso kamo #jjk #jujutsu kaisen

[jackbesterman]

On this, the anniversary of the Mishapocalypse, I'm thinking about the Constantine show and how I will never get over it.

Matt Ryan was so perfectly cast that even after the show got canceled they kept him on as a voice actor for the animated films and kept finding excuses to put him in the other live DC shows because he was just that good.

But the show was never going to be a good adaptation of the comics because what makes Hellblazer so unique and great is how fucking weird it is. It captured the existential horror of 80s Britain and the confusing mess that is modernity. It was a rejection of neo-fascism and religious orthodoxy. It was a tribute to freaks and punks and the edges of society. There's a comic where Constantine uses magic to travel through the internet. There's a comic where the demon stock market crashes because Margaret Thatcher got elected and she was so evil that it caused runaway inflation. It's the kind of bizarre storytelling that you really only get from comics. There's a combination of the literary and the visual that lends itself to that kind of weird storytelling (I'm still blown away that the Sandman show turned out as incredible as it did because it has all the weirdness of Hellblazer and then some).

But really the reason why Constantine as a show was never going to make it was because of Supernatural. Supernatural borrowed so many concepts from Hellblazer. And there's nothing wrong with that. The producers are clearly super into that genre of comic and I think that's awesome. But the relationship that the show has with monsters and the divine is just directly lifted from a 1980s Vertigo series.

And then Constantine comes onto the scene at the height of Supernatural's popularity and it looks so so derivative of the thing that was cribbing off of its notes in the first place, with its trenchcoat wearing protagonist with a perpetual five o'clock shadow and gravelly voice. And because they wanted to appeal to the Supernatural crowd they sanded off so much of Hellblazer's original personality to make it more like Supernatural.

So instead of this washed up walking disaster who narrowly avoids death at every turn through a combination of charm, luck, and willingness to be a complete bastard, you've got hyper-competent magic detective with a spell or an artifact for every occasion. No longer do you have Constantine defeating a monster by making its multiple heads fight over soccer teams. Instead he's waving his hands around and throwing fireballs. When the thing that makes Constantine an interesting character is that he's shit at magic! He's always fucking it up and getting into trouble because he messes with things he isn't cut out for.

The worst thing about the Constantine show was that it wasn't bad. It was a totally decent adaptation of a great series. A few odd choices here and there, but ultimately serviceable. The worst thing about it is that someone had already made it 10 years earlier, filed off the serial number, and called it Supernatural.

#hellblazer #john constantine #i like supernatural but it's not my blorbo

[thefiery-phoenix]

YANDERE THOR HEADCANONS

Thor won't make it certain to ANYONE that he's a yandere at first. And heck, even HE won't have a clue that he's a yandere or not. He likes showing off a little when he's around you and putting impressive thunderstorms and challenging people to life the Mjolnir and that sort of thing to prove he's worthy for you. He's like a little puppy always wanting some form of attention from his beloved. He is clingy no doubt about that always wanting you to notice him and if you don't well... he's going to go around sulking and grumping and maybe causing thunder storms on poor unsuspecting people

He isn't shy for wanting affection from you that's for sure. When he wants something, he will get it. Thor's way of affection isn't that creepy or weird. People might think you're really good friends or something. He loves being close to you and always wants to be with you when you go for missions or something. And even if you're not an Avenger, he just likes being around you. Any sort of physical contact between you both like hugs and hand holding is more than okay for him, his heart will literally be leaping till the moon

He likes seeing you laugh but will get jealous if you direct your beautiful smile and laughs at other people instead of him. So, he'll always have some corny or cheesy dad jokes prepared mentally so he can make you laugh and feel good about it. Man here can be really creative about his jokes, they can range from hilarious ones to cheesy ones to dad jokes and puns and the most weirdest and bizarre jokes you've ever heard in your life. You'll love spending time with him since he makes you feel... warm and nice and also he makes you laugh

Now, he's really protective of the people he cares about and when it comes to you, he OVER protective. He'll always look out for you and will just wave his hand dismissively when you tell him you're more than capable of taking care of yourself. As strong and powerful as you may be, Thor here sees you as a gentle delicate precious flower that needs to be protected at all times. He'll first tell you to look carefully at the road while you're crossing and make sure you don't stay out till late in the night and stuff like that. Till he starts poking his nose into your personal life and matters

Despite his friendly nature and attitude, he ain't one to take shit from anyone, and when someone tries targeting you for something, he'll get pissed. He's one of the most powerful Avengers on the team and he isn't afraid to put his strength and his hammer to good use if someone decides to mess with you since your safety is of UTMOST importance to him

Thor isn't aggressive he just appears to be because of his height and intimidating personality but deep down he's a literal cinnamon roll and a cuddly bear. With issues that is

Loki may or may not tease him for his obsession of you from time to time just to get reactions from him

He'll take you to Asgard soon after his crush deepens even more and then he decides that he needs you to be with him and tell you you'll be the perfect king/ queen of Asgard with him. He will be incredibly sweet, caring and gentle towards you. He knows he can overpower you in literally less than a second but he prefers to tone down the aggression with you since he doesn't want you to be scared of him. His poor heart will shatter if you become scared or nervous around him. He is the literal incarnation of the devil when it comes to others and he isn't scared to get his hands dirty if anyone tries taking you away from him and he'll make that crystal clear. Anyone who even looks at you for a second longer will have his hammer at their neck and he doesn't care of they're a guy or girl

He will shower you with presents and gifts if you're good with him and he'll give you jewelry and things like that. He just wants some love and affection from you so please give it to him. He will give you whatever you ask for, books, music whatever it is. You ask, you get. In the blink of an eye

He won't like it too much if you hang out with Loki than him and he needs constant reassurance from you that you won't leave him or he'll get sad and grumpy. When it comes to punishments, he'll just hold you and ask you if what he's doing for you isn't good enough, if he isn't good enough for you. He's a damn good manipulator, that's for sure. He doesn't like yelling at you or raising his hands at you since that's no way to treat his beloved and he frowns upon any sort or form of violence if he has to deal with you when you're being bad. If you get on his nerves by yelling at him, he'll just lock you up in a room till you're ready to say sorry and calm down

As a yandere, Thor is pretty tame and gentle when it comes down to you. As long as you're by his side and tell him you love him, things will be better for you, him and everyone else around you

#yandere marvel characters oneshots #yandere marvel characters x reader #yandere marvel characters #yandere marvel x reader #yandere marvel #yandere avengers oneshots #yandere avengers scenarios #yandere avengers x reader #yandere avengers #yandere mcu x reader #yandere thor odinson #yandere thor x reader #yandere thor scenarios #yandere thor oneshots #yandere thor headcanons #yandere thor imagines #dark thor odinson #dark thor odinson x reader #dark avengers #dark avengers x reader #dark marvel #dark marvel characters x reader #dark avengers oneshots

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

Best and Worst of Both Worlds (part 41)

Tw: not that i know of

Part 42

Vote below pls i will only consider first 21 votes

Yves effortlessly carried you out of the back seat and placed you onto the wheelchair.

You gaped at everything while Yves closed his car door.

It's a stylish and minimalistic house with two floors. You like its modern architecture with sharp edges and boxy shapes, the walls and roofs are painted with black or various shades of grey.

It's much smaller than his neighbors who boast their colossal mansions and manors. Even if each owned land is similar in size, Yves's vicinity appears larger by tenfold due to how little he built. You saw some lawns even have a helipad, all other houses had a swimming pool of some sort and a garage that was as big as a shopping mall's parking lot.

Yves had none of that. It was just a relatively boring, regular sized luxury house. And with a small garden and a garage that fits a maximum of two cars.

You think he wanted you to look around, that is why he parked outside instead. His home looked... out of place. Not because he appears poor due to his lack of excessiveness, but it almost seems like he's hiding something from his equally wealthy neighbors.

Because how else is he able to secure housing in a neighbourhood that appears to accommodate multi billionaires? Yves has to be rich, but he refuses to show it, going against the norm. Is that not social suicide for the wealthy?

He lifts the brakes off your chair and pushes you towards the entrance. It's just a plain, singular door with no grand carvings. There is a metal gate that he had to unlock before accessing the next barrier, though. But it felt bizarre how there isn't some complex security system. Just a surveillance camera and two keyholes.

"Welcome to the place I call home, my love." Said Yves as he wheeled you inside.

His home is breathtaking. A dramatic, gothic interior design complete with a giant chandelier emitting soft, golden light. Black, greys, burgundy, ecru and browns were all you could see. It is exactly like the ones you would see in high end magazines, the epitome of opulence.

He has a brick fireplace that isn't lit, but upon further inspection, it's more of a glass box- an electronic fireplace that replaced the need for gas, wood or an actual fire. It's obviously not lit at the moment due to the scorching weather.

The lighting is nothing like you imagined, illuminance came from slender, golden lamps that glowed pleasantly. It's never too bright or dim, it felt perfect.

The windows quadruple your height and the blinds block natural outside light so much that you thought they were part of the walls, it's ridiculously spacious for its exterior. It was as if Yves managed to stuff an entire plane hangar into a little room.

It's cool inside, but not freezing. You couldn't find the air conditioner anywhere, you wonder where the cold air is coming from. No visible vents nor openings in the walls.

You picked up a nice, citrusy and vaguely floral smell with a clear note of sandalwood. It's very mild, almost unnoticeable if one were to be absentminded. But the general fragrance of his home fits the theme, sophisticated and seductive, yet enigmatic. You have no idea where the smell is coming from, seeing that there isn't an air freshener nearby.

It's so surreal to exist in such magnificence, you're afraid to touch anything else because whatever your eyes landed on, you knew that it cost way more than your life.

You told Yves that his design is beautiful. He smiled at your compliment.

"I'm happy that you like my sense of style. As you will be living with me for a while."

You asked if the bedrooms are upstairs. To that, he said yes. Scratching the back of your head nervously, you asked if you could stay downstairs until your leg is healed instead. It would be tedious going up and down with a pair of crutches.

Yves pauses for a bit. He had to hold his tongue as he would have told you to rely on him completely for mobility. That wouldn't have sat well with you as someone who values their autonomy to a certain degree. However, he would have gladly carried you wherever and whenever you wanted.

"I do have a guest bedroom downstairs." Yves appeared disappointed. You ignored that and told him you would take that instead.

"Very well then." He uttered, moving you towards your new bedroom.

__

You're surprised to know Yves has already moved all your belongings into his home. So setting up your new bedroom only took an hour. It seems like he was under the assumption that you will be staying upstairs, as he had to bring boxes upon boxes down by himself.

You grinned and leaned back against your comfortable office chair, your wheels resting close by. The room is almost five times as large as your previous one, everything is new and maintained. The aesthetic is similar to that outside, but it's more impersonal and plain. You assume that Yves would want his guests to customize their temporary living space to an extent.

The bed is fluffy and king-sized and there is an ensuite bathroom.

Yves hung up the last of your posters before bringing his attention back to you.

"Use this if you need me." He handed you a key fob with one button. It's safe to assume that you simply press it to alert Yves.

"I have duties to attend to." He bent down and gave you a kiss on the forehead. "I will be in my office, is there anything else you would like me to do, before I leave?"

You shook your head.

"Then, I will meet you later, my dear." He caressed your cheek before giving you privacy.

As soon as the door closes, you open your laptop and turn it on. The sound of your dusty fans whirring filled the space, it was loud and unnerving. But what could you do, you're too stingy to use the $5000 allowance from Yves to buy a new one since it's still working. You're not going to ask Yves to get another laptop for you either.

You clicked a few icons and began typing.

Yves frowned at his screen that's mirroring yours. His emerald eyes watched you type "Room rentals for university students" in the search bar of your browser.

He adjusted his reading glasses as he flitted his eyes between what is shown on his monitor and the conditions in your room. It's slightly colder than what you're comfortable with, so he adjusted the thermostat in your room.

After a few minutes of scrolling through the listings, once the temperature hits a specific figure, down to the decimals, you immediately close the window just to open up your favourite computer game. Seemingly losing interest in putting your life back together and wanting to distract yourself instead.

Meanwhile, you thought about what you wanted to do as you level your character up. There is no doubt that living with others is much cheaper, but you really wanted to try living on your own. Especially when you probably have the means to pay two months of rent in advance already.

Living with Yves is great, but you noted the lack of bus stops around. The rich wouldn't need public transportation, they have their own private vehicles and maybe their own hidden highways. That means you couldn't move around as freely and you would have to rely on Yves to give you a ride.

You didn't feel comfortable with being that needy with your boyfriend yet. Fearing that he might grow tired and annoyed with your constant requests. He has work and other obligations, he couldn't be on your beck and call 24/7.

Unless he hires a chauffeur, which from your past experiences, it wasn't all that nice.

You remember seeing an opening for a studio apartment on that website. The price seems reasonable and it's a 25-minute walk to your university, so you could save on bus fares.

You wouldn't need to ask permission from anybody, well maybe your parents who are funding your education and living expenses. Maybe even Yves to supplement more money. But in the end, you're an adult that has the right to make their own decisions.

Then again... money. Well, you'll burn that bridge when you get there.

You thought about it, pondering what your next step should be.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere oc #yandere male #oc yves #yandere concept #tw yandere #yandere x you #yandere oc x reader #male yandere oc x reader

[marzipanandminutiae]

I came across your posts/asks about Mike Flanagan and his using names of famous books/stories for clout and could not agree more. It pisses me off so much that he does this. I remember hearing about The Haunting of Hill House and being excited to have a new adaptation of the book and then watching the trailer and the show and thinking 'umm this is alright but it is in no way connected to The Haunting of Hill House outside of some names and the....literal house I guess.' Same thing with The Fall of the House of Usher. I thought we would be getting an actual adaptation of the story and it's....completely different. I mean we have similar names and some modernization of Poe's stories and themes thrown into the show, but I don't get why they named it The Fall of the House of Usher. The spirit of the work, themes, and characters are fundamentally different than Poe's story.

Flanagan is basically writing modern AU fanfics that are just only slightly related to the source material, which is fine, but just don't call your shows The Haunting of Hill House or The Fall of the House of Usher if they are not actual adaptations. I do really like his work and think he's immensely talented but the naming of his shows is bizarre.

Right? it's so weird

And I've had people try to defend HoHH by saying "well, he can't have been going for clout because the book isn't that well-known anymore," but then...I'm still back to "why call it that?" It's clearly a different story! And apparently a very interesting and engaging story! Let it stand on its own! (Also, personally I think some of the clout is still there. The owner of Moon Scones Bakery in North Bennington, Vermont- AKA Shirley Jackson's former house -would definitely agree according to a friend who went there last month.)

One defense I got for Fall of the House of Usher was "it's got more in common than just twins! the family dies and the house splits in half!" And that's great, but it comes back to an issue I had with HoHH- there are plenty of easter eggs and callbacks, but the heart of the story is totally different. Fall of the House of Usher, the real one, is NOT about a Dynasty-style crime family being picked off at the height of their power. It's about two siblings alone in their crumbling ancestral manse (but for the narrator), the final members of a family that has already fallen, limping along until their inevitable sad lonely demise. The glory is gone! The good times are over! That's the POINT!

And if he wanted to do a series inspired by some (surface) elements of different Poe stories, great. But once again, call it something different. Don't claim to be adapting a story when you're blatantly missing all the most important themes.

#ask #anon #mini-rant #also this is not tagging hate. I'm tagging the titles of the book and story. it's not my fault SOMEBODY decided to yank those #for unrelated Netflix series

[sunburnacoustic]

Muse full gigs

Some full shows that are available, for anyone who wants to partially relive the Muse live experience.

I figured no one's made lists in a while.

La Cigale, Paris By-Request gig 2018

rarities + I guarantee I'm gonna fuck up Space Dementia + water spitting + Matt and Dom playing Grammy hosts in the way they announced the winners of the by-request polls

Some cool and noteworthy gigs:

Live Lounge 2012

The Mayan 2015 (performance wise this gig was stunning)

Royal Albert Hall 2008 (Teenage Cancer Trust charity gig - Megalomania on the pipe organ!)

Reading Festival 2011 (10 years of Origin of Symmetry - played the album start to finish)

AOL Sessions 2006

Reading 2006 (Muse's first time headlining if I remember right. Plus, Matt's moves!)

Glastonbury 2004 (first Glasto headline and a must-watch! Of the iconic mad-scientist, white lab coat era. Muse had called it the best gig of their life so far, at the time) (*Ruled By Secrecy was played live but wasn't included in the concert footage DVD and isn't in this video upload either)

Montreaux Jazz 2002 (height of piano maniac-ery days. Would also recommend Pinkpop 2002 but they don't. have. the footage anymore :( Space Dementia at Pinkpop 2002 was phenomenal. 2004 is also good, but I never found 2002 again. Speaking of which,)

Pinkpop 2004 (most songs are in, a few performances missing unfortunately)

MCM Café 1999 (marvel at what a good live act this young band aged 21 already was—with about 4 years of gigging experience under their belts. Insane how good they are.)

Wembley 2007 (H.A.A.R.P. The first band to sell out the newly rebuilt Wembley Stadium. 90,000 people. You need to understand, seeing Chris lift up and point his bass at the crowd at the end of the slightly modified Jimmy Jam riff before Time Is Running Out was a religious experience that changed me and we're lucky enough to live in an age where you and I can witness it over and over and over again and I'd suggest that you do)

Rock Am Ring 2018, uploaded to the Internet Archive by the Muse Historical Society!

Austin City Limits 2013 Philipshalle 1999 Philipshalle 2001 (all suggested in notes, check out the crystal clear gifs from @hotbellamy! :O )

A few additions I remembered after publishing: Eurockeennes 2000 (opened with a then-unreleased New Born. Matt playing a full gig in red sunglasses. Treat to watch. Link's stretched up to fit modern screens but if you want a bit of clarity and don't mind the late 90s ratio stretch, here's a different link) 2002 (quality's a bit shit but that is literally what telly used to look like)

Shepherd's Bush Empire 2006 (Early gigs are always interesting because over time Muse develop different ways of playing songs that are fresh off new albums. The way they work through Take A Bow live is a bit different here, Dom's the one controlling the opening verse synths! During the Abso tour, Matt would play that bit on the piano as an intro to Space Dementia and if I'm remembering right, he does now on the pianos (correct me—this was on the ST tour as well). Also, Starlight in Bm at this gig)

Rock Werchter 2023 (Muse play Rock Werchter in Belgium almost every year, except for the pandemic and 2012 I think, but this year's was a bit special. Best performance of Madness I've seen in a while, I love what he does in the outro! MOTP returns to the set. Muse had tech troubles at the end that caused them to restart Knights of Cydonia twice, to no avail. They finally cut it back for a guitar-bass-drum-vocals-only performance of Showbiz, and Matt's voice sounds exceptional on it— the best in recent years)

Bizarre Fest 2000 (BLESS SOMEONE HAS RESTORED THIS FROM VHS TAPE IN HD, this is so much better than back in the day!! If the falsetto at 1:13 doesn't do it for you, you're into the wrong band, nothing else will help. What an electric performance this was!)

Gigs from WOTP 2022/23 festivals tour last summer:

Nova Rock Rock In Rio Ejekt Fest Isle of Wight Hurricane Festival 2023 (a festival at which Matt once complained that Muse's set was cut short by... hurricanes. But the audio mixing at this gig was really good!)

These are in no particular order, and obviously not complete, I just realised no one had put together a gig archive in a while so I thought I'd give it a stab!

Will edit and add others whenever, there are obviously glaring omissions still!

#gig archive #muse band #muse live #there was this ridiculous 360 cam footage of Reading 2011 and for some reason that was the only one I could find. #That was years and years ago of course so I'm thrilled to have a proper and full recording of this! #Youtube #for anyone that wants to get extra into the spirit before your gigs lol #muse #muse gigs #muse full gigs

[henrysglock]

In Short: I Was Right About The Released Script and The Filmed Monologue.

In this post here about the discrepancies in the released 4.07 script as compared to the version of One's monologue that we see on screen, I mentioned a sneaking suspicion that they might be two halves of a whole monologue.

So, I spliced the 4.07 transcript and 4.07 script together:

For clarity's sake, I color-coded it. Red-colored lines are ones that only appear in the filmed monologue. Blue-colored lines are ones that only appear in the released script. Words in parentheses indicate a swap in wording/phrasing. Words not in parentheses are additional words. Everything is left in order of appearance, i.e. none of the lines have been shifted for clarity. The texts are one-to-one merged.

As we can see, they splice together very nicely...especially in places where we were missing subjects, conclusions, topic introductions, and/or topic re-introductions in the individual texts.

For example:

In the script, the conculsion/Victor's fate is not mentioned. In the transcript, Victor is never re-introduced to El as the subject of his own arrest.

In the merged version, it becomes:

Victor is re-introduced to El, and his fate is told.

Or here:

Brenner's goals with One is introduced in the script, but the part about "fixing" comes out of nowhere, since Virginia's goal of fixing Henry is never brought up. "A doctor not interested in fixing" implies that someone had been interested in fixing him. No such case is mentioned. Meanwhile, Virginia's goal of fixing Henry is mentioned in the transcript, but Brenner's "studying" part comes out of nowhere. "He did not just want to study me" implies that being studied was mentioned previously. It was not.

In the merged version, it becomes:

Fixing? Mentioned by discussion of Virginia. Studying? Mentioned via Brenner's introduction.

And even within that section:

The transcript initially mentions why Henward wants to escape/break free, but it veers away from it with Victor's arrest...only to revisit it out of nowhere directly after. The script never introduces breaking free/why Henward wanted to escape, but it does go from Victor's knowledge (or lack thereof) directly into a clear reintroduction of his need to escape.

In the merged version, it becomes:

Reason for escaping? Given. Escaping? Clear reintroduction to the topic.

The two texts fill in each other's gaps, just as I suspected.

Now I won't say that there aren't some wonky bits, particularly in the "My naive father...for their sins" and "The more I practiced...take the next step" sections.

These exist entirely separately, and they overlay the same memory: Victor's cradle vision and Henward in the red sweater sitting in the attic.

This becomes interesting when we consider that this ^ isn't Nancy's POV. Nancy is downstairs watching Victor...

...and this view is peeking over some boxes in the attic, supposedly seeing Henward while he's enacting said vision:

It, like this scene:

Is from a bizarre outsider POV, one that's about Henward-height.

So my thoughts on that wonky-ness amount to this:

I would speculate that the two lines don't feed into each other, but may instead be meant to occur simultaneously from different people (whether that be via a time loop or via timelines...I can't say for certain).

Either way, the texts do line up as two halves of a whole.

#doing my part lol #timeline theory #script analysis #4.07 script #st nina project #henry creel #edward creel #henry/vecna/001 #edward/vecna/001 #stranger things

[isfjmel-phleg]

Why I like it: Leave It to Psmith

I've analyzed this book to death. I don't even know what to say about it anymore.

It's probably the most familiar of the series. It has had the most adaptations--multiple theatrical versions and radio adaptations, a mysterious Hungarian film, an early 1930s film that removed Psmith and replaced him with one Sebastian Help, an Indian series in which Psmith is called...Rambo? (seeing a theme here--adapters seem to be afraid of Psmith himself). It crosses over with the Blandings series, which was then just getting started. It's easy to read without having read the earlier installments, for readers who are more reluctant to take on all the cricket etc. of those books.

Wodehouse intended it that way. Leave It to Psmith was written for a different audience than the other Psmith books. Instead of British schoolboys, his readership was now adult Americans who wouldn't have known Psmith at all since the earlier books hadn't been published in the US then. They didn't care about cricket; they were looking for the kind of plot that Wodehouse is more often associated with today. Hilarious, intricate shenanigans with some light romance. And the ever versatile Psmith fits into this new genre perfectly. Perhaps that's where he belonged all along.

Leave It to Psmith is one of the finest examples of Wodehouse's best style. There are different views on this, but I personally consider his work from approximately the early 1920s through the 1930s to be the height of his talent (he had finally fully found his voice, and the stories are still new enough to avoid the more overtly formulaic feel of his later books). And Leave It to Psmith is one of the books that kicked off that era of his writing. It's got everything. A witty and distinctive prose style that complements the theatrically-influenced story and characters. A memorable cast. A bizarre and silly but ultimately sweet central romance. A shocking newspaper ad. Flowerpot throwing. Jewel heists. Gun fights. An obnoxiously large chrysanthemum. Umbrella theft. A very elegant hat. Extremely strong opinions on hollyhocks. Mistaken identity. Imposters. The worst poetry ever. The motivating power of friendship. A dead bat that apparently was somebody's mother. It's not going to remembered as a Deep Philosophical Novel ever, but that's not what we need from it. It's just fun and joyful and a delight to read.

Even though this is the one book of the series that opens with Psmith in a genuinely difficult situation and relatively low frame of mind following his father's death and the loss of the family fortunes. Psmith has skated by on his father's money for the entire series up to this point, so taking away that kind of invincibility from him was a genius choice on Wodehouse's part. It forces Psmith to grow even further in a way that he never has before. We see him at his most vulnerable; the narrative gives us more of his POV than ever, and there's a marked contrast between what goes on in his head and how he presents himself. And it's at this point that he's finally in a position for something that's never been an option to him before: a romance.

Psmith and Eve's love story would probably not work in real life. But they're in Wodehouse-land, where realism isn't the point. The point is that they are two people who complement each other well and enrich each other's lives and need each other. They're both clever and dynamic and adventurous and alone in the world. She appreciates his eccentricities, which provide the excitement she craves. He appreciates her listening skills and sympathetic nature. She's warm-hearted and impulsive; he's a calculating thinker--and they balance each other out. Each has a brand of weird that works well with the other's. It takes them a little while to get matters resolved, but Eve doesn't put up with his nonsense, and he gradually develops the emotional maturity to trust rather than manipulate. When they do get together, it's not because he's done his usual fast-talking. It's a mutual choice.

We don't get to see much of Mike and Phyllis, but it's also clear that they're happy, and it's satisfying to see that Wodehouse gave Mike, the original protagonist of the series, the ending he deserves even if he is no longer in focus and the American audience wouldn't know or care about him from previous appearances. But Psmith cares about Mike a lot. That hasn't changed, and the lengths that Psmith is willing to go to for Mike's sake are endearing. The choice to give Eve a parallel role as best friend to Mike's wife reinforces the significance of this devotion. This entire plot happens because people care very much about Mike and Phyllis Jackson. That's pretty powerful.

This is the end of the series. We never see Psmith again. But it's an ending that leaves the reader satisfied. Psmith is not trapped in an endless loop of growthless status quo for our comedic benefit. We've watched him grow up from the worldweary teenager leaning on the mantelpiece at his detested new school to a joyfully singing young man running through Blandings Castle on his way to meet the woman whom he's about to have a future of adventures alongside. In many ways, he's still his old eccentric self, but his outlook has changed for the better. He's simply, genuinely happy. What more could we wish for him? What more could we hope for ourselves?

#Psmith Pseptember #thanks for waiting for this one #it has been A Week

[alastorinwonderland]

Alastor in wonderland (remake chapter 1)

Chapter One:

A Fall into the Unknown

As consciousness slowly seeped back into his mind, Alastor found himself in a bewildering predicament. Falling. Fast. Surrounding him were a cacophony of sights – paintings, furniture, and assorted knick-knacks whizzing past in a blur of chaos.

"This is certainly not what I had in mind for an afternoon stroll," Alastor mused to himself, the faint echo of amusement in his voice as he descended deeper into the abyss.

With each passing moment, the uncertainty grew, and Alastor's thoughts turned to the grim possibility of a painful landing miles beneath the surface of Hell itself. But just as despair threatened to take hold, his coat billowed out, transforming into a makeshift parachute, slowing his descent to a manageable pace.

"Ah, well now, isn't this just a delightful turn of events?" Alastor remarked to the empty air, his voice carrying a tone of bemused curiosity as he gazed around at the surreal scene.As he floated gently downward, Alastor's mind raced with questions. What awaited him at the bottom of this seemingly endless hole? Was there even a bottom, or would he continue falling into oblivion for eternity?

"Dreadful predicament, indeed," he muttered to himself, his words carried away by the rushing wind.Determined to find answers, Alastor reached out for a book from a nearby shelf, only to find its pages blank, devoid of any knowledge or guidance."Well, that's simply preposterous," he remarked, a hint of frustration creeping into his tone as he let the book drift away, resigned to the fact that answers would not come easily in this bizarre realm.Finally, with a soft thud, Alastor landed in a dimly lit room, devoid of anything save for a small door and a mysterious figure with rabbit ears darting through it.

"That’s….interesting….." he quipped, his voice tinged with intrigue as he attempted to follow, only to realize his tall frame wouldn't fit, leaving him stranded and perplexed.But fate had other plans, as a bottle materialized before him, bearing the ominous label, "drink me."

"Hmm, well, here goes nothing," Alastor remarked, raising an eyebrow skeptically before taking a cautious sip.The liquid within caused him to shrink to a fraction of his former size, shock momentarily silencing his radio voice.

"By the stars!" he exclaimed, shaking away the surprise and taking stock of his new form and attire - a male Alice-inspired outfit that seemed to mock his predicament.

Surveying the room once more, he spotted a key left behind by the mysterious figure and attempted to retrieve it, only to find himself thwarted by his diminutive stature."Blast it all," he muttered, frustration evident in his voice as he examined his surroundings for a solution.But fortune favored the brave, as a cake labeled "Eat Me" presented itself.

Taking a bite, Alastor grew to towering heights, his towering form allowing him to grasp the key and unlock the door to his next adventure.

And so, with uncertainty and curiosity driving him forward, Alastor stepped through the doorway, ready to confront whatever wonders – or horrors – Wonderland had in store.

#alice in wonderland au #alice in wonderland #alastor in wonderland #hazbin hotel #very special au #hazbin hotel au #my au #hazbin alastor #hazbin charlie #remake chapter

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

TWOW: Tyrion II

Trumpets were blowing along the Skahazadhan, warhorns answering from the walls of Meereen. A ship was sinking in the river mouth, afire. Dead men and dragons were moving through the sky, whilst warships crashed and clashed on Slaver's Bay. Tyrion could not see them from here, but he could hear the sounds: the crash of hull against hull as ships slammed together, the deep-throated warhorns of the ironborn and queer high whistles of Qarth, the splintering of oars, the shouts and battle cries, the crash of axe on armor, sword on shield, all mingled with the shrieks of wounded men. Many of the ships were still far out in the bay, so the sounds they made seemed faint and far away, but he knew them all the same. The music of slaughter.

Kind of bizarre that the thinking man isn't speculating over the ironborn's participation.

+.+.+

The siege camps shimmered in a gaudy haze of rose and gold, but the famous stepped pyramids of Meereen hulked black against the glare. Something was moving atop one of them, he saw. A dragon, but which one? At this distance, it could as easily have been an eagle. A very big eagle.

An eagle! The dragon is an eagle!

Thrice that day she caught sight of Drogon. Once he was so far off that he might have been an eagle, slipping in and out of distant clouds, but Dany knew the look of him by now, even when he was no more than a speck. - Daenerys X, ADWD

Love when we draw that comparison.

Then a sudden gust of cold made his fur stand up, and the air thrilled to the sound of wings. As he lifted his eyes to the ice-white mountain heights above, a shadow plummeted out of the sky. A shrill scream split the air. He glimpsed blue-grey pinions spread wide, shutting out the sun . . . - Jon VII, ACOK

Excited to see where this might be going.

"Look," she said, pointing at the sky with her frog spear, "an eagle."

Bran lifted his head and saw it, its grey wings spread and still as it floated on the wind. He followed it with his eyes as it circled higher, wondering what it would be like to soar about the world so effortless. Better than climbing, even. He tried to reach the eagle, to leave his stupid crippled body and rise into the sky to join it, the way he joined with Summer. The greenseers could do it. I should be able to do it too. He tried and tried, until the eagle vanished in the golden haze of the afternoon. "It's gone," he said, disappointed.

"We'll see others," said Meera. "They live up here."

"I suppose." - Bran II, ASOS

+.+.+

A younger man might have found it all exhilarating. A stupider man might have thought it grand and glorious, right up to the moment when some arse-ugly Yunkish slave soldier with rings in his nipples planted an axe between his eyes. 

The second I read that I knew exactly where to look.

Whatever might befall us on the battlefield, remember, it has happened before, and to better men than you. I am an old man, an old knight, and I have seen more battles than most of you have years. Nothing is more terrible upon this earth, nothing more glorious, nothing more absurd. - Barristan I, TWOW

+.+.+

Tyrion found himself thinking back on his first battle. [...] When Tyrion had shouted out for Podrick Payne to help him with his armor, he'd found the boy asleep and snoring. Not the quickest lad I've ever known, but a decent squire in the end. I hope he found a better man to serve.

Did he ever.

+.+.+

Shae had called him "fearsome" when she saw him in his steel, mind you. How could I have been so blind, so deaf, so stupid? I should have known better than to do my thinking with my cock.

Can I just point out that in this chapter, there are multiple paragraphs dedicated to recalling Shae and the Green Fork battle, seemingly for no reason at all? I'm beyond annoyed.

+.+.+

The Second Sons were saddling their horses. They went about it calmly, unhurriedly, efficiently; it was nothing they had not done a hundred times before. [...] Snatch chewed his sourleaf, making japes and scratching at his balls with his hook hand. Something about his manner reminded Tyrion of Bronn. Ser Bronn of the Blackwater now, unless my sister's killed him. That might not be quite so simple as she thinks. 

Still not sure why this random serjeant is always being compared to Bronn.

That from a third man, drawn by their voices—a skinny stubble-jawed piece of work with teeth stained red from sourleaf. A serjeant, Tyrion knew, from the way the other two deferred to him. He had a hook where his right hand should have been. Bronn's meaner bastard shadow, or I'm Baelor the Beloved. - Tyrion XI, ADWD

The one thing we can be absolutely sure of is that the presence of sourleaf guarantees he'll die.

+.+.+

The Stranger had mounted his pale mare and was riding toward them with his sword in hand, but Tyrion Lannister did not care to meet with him again. Not now. Not yet. Not this day. What a fraud you are, Imp. You let a hundred guardsmen rape your wife, shot your father through the belly with a quarrel, twisted a golden chain around your lover's throat until her face turned black, yet somehow you still think that you deserve to live.

That's what I've been saying!

Clutching on to that "Not yet" like my life depends on it.

+.+.+

He sighed. "I would sell my sister for a cup of wine." "You would sell your sister for a cup of horse piss." That was so unexpected that it made him laugh aloud. "Is my taste for horse piss so well-known or have you met my sister?" "I only saw her that one time, when we jousted for the boy king. Groat thought she was beautiful." Groat was a stunted little lickspittle with a stupid name.

The amount of times I've read that Tyrion undergoes a transformation towards the end of ADWD, and reverts back to being a decent person ...

Bitch, where?

+.+.+

"Hold your tongue. I need to lace this jerkin up."

Tyrion did try, but it seemed to him that the sounds of slaughter were growing louder, and his tongue would not be held. 

+.+.+

"What he should have done was send all his horse at the eunuchs, full charge, before they got ten feet from their gates. Send the Cats at them from the left, us and the Windblown from the right, rip apart their flanks from both ends. Man to man, the Unsullied are no better or worse than any other spearmen. It's their discipline that makes them dangerous, but if they cannot form up into a spear wall…"

If the Yunkish commanders had any sense, they would send their horse thundering down on the eunuchs before they could form ranks, when they were most vulnerable. - Barristan I, TWOW

Somebody in Westeros is going to be smart enough to do this, but who?

+.+.+

"Lift your arms," said Penny. "There, that's better. Maybe you should command the Yunkishmen." "They use slave soldiers, why not slave commanders? That would ruin the contest, though. This is just a cyvasse game to the Wise Masters. We're the pieces." Tyrion canted his head to one side, considering. "They have that in common with my lord father, these slavers." "Your father? What do you mean?"

Yeah, cause you've never engaged in political maneuvering, and manipulation to gain power, all while disregarding those who are least fortunate in this world.

+.+.+

" [...] He wore crimson armor, with this huge greatcloak made of cloth-of-gold. A pair of golden lions on his shoulders, another on his helm. His stallion was magnificent. His lordship watched the whole battle from atop that horse and never got within a hundred yards of any foe. He never moved, never smiled, never broke a sweat, whilst thousands died below him. Picture me perched on a camp stool, gazing down upon a cyvasse board. We could almost be twins… if I had a horse, some crimson armor, and a greatcloak sewn from cloth-of-gold. He was taller too. I have more hair." Penny kissed him.

+.+.+

She moved so fast that he had no time to think. She darted in, quick as a bird, and pressed her lips to his. Just as quickly it was over. What was that for? he almost said, but he knew what it was for. Thank you, he might have said, but she might take that as leave to do it again. Child, I have no wish to hurt you, he could have tried, but Penny was no child, and his wishes would not blunt the cut. For the first time for longer than he cared to think, Tyrion Lannister was at a loss for words. She looks so young, he thought. A girl, that's all she is. A girl, and almost pretty if you can forget that she's a dwarf. Her hair was a warm brown, thick and curly, and her eyes were large and trusting. Too trusting.

[...]

"You're brave. Little people can be brave." My giant of Lannister, he heard. She is mocking me. He almost slapped her again. His head was pounding.

"I never meant to make you angry," Penny said "Forgive me. I'm frightened, is all." She touched his hand. Tyrion wrenched away from her. "I'm frightened." Those were the same words Shae had used. Her eyes were big as eggs, and I swallowed every bit of it. I knew what she was. I told Bronn to find a woman for me and he brought me Shae. His hands curled into fists, and Shae's face swam before him, grinning. Then the chain was tightening about her throat, the golden hands digging deep into her flesh as her own hands fluttered against his face with all the force of butterflies. If he'd had a chain to hand… if he'd had a crossbow, a dagger, anything, he would have… he might have… he…

Just when I thought Barristan Selmy was going to run away with the title of Most Hated POV.

+.+.+

"Something's happening." He went outside to discover what it was. Dragons. The green beast was circling above the bay, banking and turning as longships and galleys clashed and burned below him, but it was the white dragon the sellswords were gawking at. Three hundred yards away the Wicked Sister swung her arm, chunk-THUMP, and six fresh corpses went dancing through the sky. Up they rose, and up, and up. Then two burst into flame. The dragon caught one burning body just as it began to fall, crunching it between his jaws as pale fires ran across his teeth. White wings cracked against the morning air, and the beast began to climb again. The second corpse caromed off an outstretched claw and plunged straight down, to land amongst some Yunkish horsemen. Some of them caught fire too. One horse reared up and threw his rider. The others ran, trying to outrace the flames and fanning them instead. Tyrion Lannister could almost taste the panic as it rippled out across the camps.

That's excellent, let them become accustomed to the flavour of human flesh.

The only thing I care about right now is that dragon being over top of the ironborn. Sound the horn! What are we waiting for? Show me what the horn does.

+.+.+

"Lord Gorzhak sends his compliments to Captain Plumm and requests that he bring his company to the bay shore. Our ships are under attack." Your ships are sinking, burning, fleeing, thought Tyrion. Your ships are being taken, your men put to the sword. He was a Lannister of Casterly Rock, close by the Iron Islands; ironborn reavers were no strangers to their shores. Over the centuries they had burned Lannisport at least thrice and raided it two dozen times. Westermen knew what savagery the ironborn were capable of; these slavers were just learning.

Once again, is he not going to spare a moment to contemplate why the hell the ironborn have turned up at the other end of the world?

+.+.+

"Better to look a fool than to be one," the dwarf replied. "We are on the losing side." "The Halfman's right," said Jorah Mormont. "We do not want to be fighting for the slavers when Daenerys returns… and she will, make no mistake. Strike now and strike hard, and the queen will not forget it. Find her hostages and free them. And I will swear on the honor of my house and home that this was Brown Ben's plan from the beginning."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Is that clueless Jorah Mormont pushing for the rescue of the queen's paramour?

Oh, this is perfect. This is wonderful. I love everything about this. It's totally going to happen too.

Who is going to regret this more, Jorah or Tyrion? Don't you love when actions have consequences.

+.+.+

By the time Plumm and his companions came galloping back from the camp of the Girl General, the white dragon had flown back to its lair above Meereen. The green still prowled, soaring in wide circles above the city and the bay on great green wings.

WHERE IS HORN.

+.+.+

Brown Ben Plumm wore plate and mail over boiled leather. The silk cloak flowing from his shoulders was his only concession to vanity: it rippled when he moved, the color changing from pale violet to deep purple. 

Seems to me like his cloak is turning colours.

+.+.+

"We are commanded to defend the Wicked Sister," Brown Ben informed them. The other men exchanged uneasy glances. No one seemed to want to speak until Ser Jorah asked, "On whose authority?" "The girl's. Ser Grandfather is making for the Harridan, but she's afraid he'll turn toward Wicked Sister next. The Ghost is already down. Marselen's freedmen broke the Long Lances like a rotten stick and dragged it over with chains. The girl figures Selmy means to bring down all the trebuchets."

Ghost better not be down, we need him.

Marselen sighting! Nothing else to report.

+.+.+

"It's what I'd do in his place," Ser Jorah said. "Only I would have done it sooner."

I forgot about Jorah and Barristan's little hate-filled rivalry.

Maybe in the future they can bond over their shared hatred for Tyrion, Daario, and Victarion. It's so dysfunctional, I love it.

+.+.+

"Why is the girl still giving orders?" Inkpots sounded baffled. "Dawn has come and gone. Can she not see the sun? She is behaving as if she were still the supreme commander." "If you were her and knew that Pudding Face were about to assume command, you might keep giving orders too," said Mormont. "One is no better than the other," Kasporio insisted. "True," said Tyrion, "but Malazza has the nicer teats."

Yunkai has too many cooks in the kitchen, which is partly why this is going so poorly.

Though it seems like we're having a discussion about an entirely unrelated boy and girl.

+.+.+

"Morghar?" Kasporio frowned. "No, Gorzhak commands today." "Gorzhak zo Eraz lies slain, cut down by Pentoshi treachery. The turncloak who names himself the Prince of Tatters shall die screaming for this infamy, the noble Morghar swears." Brown Ben scratched at his beard. "The Windblown have gone over, have they?" he said, in a tone of mild interest.

Tyrion chortled. "And we've traded Pudding Face for the Drunken Conquerer. It's a wonder he was able to crawl out of the flagon long enough to give a halfway-sensible command." The Yunkishman glared at the dwarf. "Hold your tongue, you verminous little—"

listen.

+.+.+

"Collars can be removed. I demand that the dwarf be surrended for punishment at once." "That seems harsh. Jorah, what do you think?" "This." Mormont's longsword was in his hand. As the rider turned, Ser Jorah thrust it through his throat. The point came out the back of the Yunkishman's neck, red and wet. Blood bubbled from his lips and down his chin. The man took two wobbly steps and fell across the cyvasse board, scattering the wooden armies everywhere. He twitched a few more times, grasping the blade of Mormont's sword with one hand as the other clawed feebly at the overturned table. Only then did the Yunkishman seem to realize he was dead. He lay facedown on the carpet in a welter of red blood and oily black roses. Ser Jorah wrenched his sword free of the dead man's neck. Blood ran down its fullers. The white cyvasse dragon ended up at Tyrion's feet. He scooped it off the carpet and wiped it on his sleeve, but some of the Yunkish blood had collected in the fine grooves of the carving, so the pale wood seemed veined with red.

A lot of people use this as evidence for Tyrion having a dragon. Lmao

I certainly see Viserion foreshadowing here, but it has nothing to do with Tyrion riding him.

+.+.+

"All hail our beloved queen, Daenerys." Be she alive or be she dead. He tossed the bloody dragon in the air, caught it, grinned. "We have always been the queen's men," announced Brown Ben Plumm. "Rejoining the Yunkai'i was just a plot." "And what a clever ploy it was." Tyrion gave the dead man a shove with his boot. "If that breastplate fits, I want it."

Do you have any idea how stupid you have to be to reinstate the Second Sons? To align yourself with Tyrion Lannister? To accept Jorah Mormont back?

About as stupid as Daenerys.

Final thoughts:

49 down, 0 to go.

Next chapter: Arianne I

-> return to menu <-

#operation stumpy re-read #twow #tyrion ii

[changingplumbob]

OC Questionnaire: Rahul Chopra

Tagged by @marcishaun, so let's learn some more about my sims!

Name - Rahul Chopra

Nickname - Big Guy, used by Cassandra when his mother isn't around because *coughs* he has some large pixel parts. Everyone else just calls him Rahul.

Gender - Cis Male

Star sign - I still don't understand star signs

Height - 6ft (although I have been thinking and might bump him up to 6ft 2 along with Reece, and bump Samir up to 6ft 4 or 5 because I've been seeing people height charts and some of y'all have some very tall sims)

Orientation - Biromantic and Bisexual

Nationality/Ethnicity - Indian descent on his mothers side, African American on his fathers. With growing up in Henford-On-Bagley he has the dreamiest British accent

Favourite Fruit - Any type of berry

Favourite Season - Autumn, the most fascinating things happen in the garden in that season

Favourite Flower - The parrot flower, yes it's a thing (he's a plant nerd aka professional gardener so he knows about bizarre plants)

Favourite Scent - Cinnamon

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate - Coffee

Average Hours of Sleep - an optimistic 5 if he's on infant/toddler night duty. Otherwise around 7.

Dogs or Cats - Do mini goats/sheep count?

Dream Trip - I mean... he already had his dream trip to Granite Falls with Cassandra where they conceived their twins in the hidden part. He would like to visit the Valley of Flowers in Uttarakhand (there's over 600 species of flowers here) to marvel in the wonder of nature.

Number of Blankets - 1 in summer, 2 or 3 in Winter. He likes being cozy

Random Fact - As a teen he kept making fake deliveries to Cassandra's house to get to know her. Bella originally ordered one delivery from Henford but after Rahul passed this to Cassandra he was smitten. He kept making deliveries and Cassandra assumed her mother was ordering more things (but she wasn't, it was all Rahul, thank god he had an employee discount). Eventually she invited him in and he was able to get her number (success!)

I have several of these to do but of course I can't remember who has or hasn't done them... If you're following me I tag YOU. But feel free to ignore my antics

#dag dag or tag tag #Rahul again

[mangoshorthand]

Thing of the Past- [Five Hargreeves x F Reader]. Ch11 (Hard Feelings Part 4)

SUMMARY: You can't avoid it any longer: Five has to meet your parents. It goes more wrong than you could possibly imagine, spiralling to bring up secrets he'd rather stay buried.

⚠️TRIGGER WARNINGS⚠️ Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Chapter Eleven/Epilogue

There's enough of you left to not want Aoife to see what's about to happen.

Final chapter of this part

⚠️Please heed content warning⚠️

Chapter Eleven: Fugue State + Epilogue

Five stands outside room 218, dreading the encounter within. The fact her room number is one away from The Handler’s that time he visited her in Dallas in the teenage body does not escape him.

He psychs himself up, shaking out his limbs. He’ll go in, grab the baby and leave. If she tries anything weird, he’ll blink. He’s in charge here.

He raises his fist and knocks.

“Come in.” it’s Bert’s voice and Five breathes a sigh of relief.

He enters to find Bert sat on one of the room’s twin beds, holding a book of crosswords. He gives Five a small smile.

“Morning, Five. Great day yesterday. Lovely ceremony.”

“Yeah, it was, thanks. Is Aoife here?”

“No…” he looks almost baffled- as if he’s wondering why the baby would be here, of all places?

“My sister-in-law says Geri has her?”

“Oh. Well Geri never came back here after breakfast. You can try her cell.”

“Huh. Well, I’ll go look for her.”

As he leaves, he sees a phone on the bedside table and picks it up.

“This yours, Bert?”

He looks up from the crosswords, “Ah no, Geri's left hers here-  she doesn’t always take it with her places. I don’t bother with technology myself.”

Great. Now he has to search the hotel for the mother-in-law who wants to grope him…maybe this is one for his wife to deal with.

There’s enough of you left to not want Aoife to see this.

You grab the unplugged curling iron, scattering the cosmetics left on the dressing table. Holding it in one hand, you grab your mother by the front of her blouse with the other. You shove her through the bathroom door. As she falls against a tiled wall, you raise the curling iron like a truncheon, breathing hard. It will serve to beat her to death. Otherwise, the wire can garotte her.

Her screams are genuine now. You place a hand on her chest, drawing yourself up to your full height. You feel your head tilt and jaw set. When you speak, you sound like him too.

“You don’t know who you messed with, Mom. It may be thanks to Five that the world’s here, but he’s got a pretty high body count too. Did you know he once murdered twelve people with an axe?”

Her eyes go even wider.

“Yeah. Cool, isn't it?" you lean in, lowering your voice, "Do you even get to know people before you try to grope them, Mom?”

She squirms, pushes against you and tries to object but you just push her shoulder more roughly into the tiles.

“Not that you ever call me, but if you had and managed to not talk about your-goddamn-self for two minutes, I might have told you that he was training me to fight. To kill if I need to.”

Her begging, whines and supplications fall on deaf ears. She winces, shrinking away from your improvised weapon. As you bend your head closer to hers, your voice lowers to a biting whisper.

“Not nice, is it? Being backed into a corner? Trapped.”

As he walks towards it, Five hears the scream from the bridal suite. He blinks in there from the end of the hallway, emerging from the portal a little unsteadily in his haste. He takes a quick survey of the room. There’s Aoife, screaming on the floor by an upturned chair. He overrides his instinct to go to her: she's upset, but safe. The ruckus comes from the bathroom. He wrenches the door open to see you standing there, looming over your mother.

It's a bizarre sight but his reflexes don’t fail him: he grapples with you, bashing your fist against the wall until you’re forced to release the curling iron with a yell of pain. Immediately, he pulls your arms up and behind you into a full nelson.

“What the FUCK are you doing?" he yells into your ear.

“PROTECTING YOU.”

“Protecting me?”

“Get OFF me!”

You struggle against him, trying to loosen your shoulders in order to slip out of his grip. Not that it would work against him given that he taught you that move. You make a frustrated sound and fight against his restraining arms, trying to stamp on his feet. Right now, you don't care if you hurt him as long as you're able to mash your mother's head into a meaty pulp. 

At last, his words in your ear get through. 

“She’s not the Handler!”

Your struggles fade and you sag. Now he’s holding you up instead of holding you back. Tears come. As your mother whimpers, all your recently acquired Five-ish mannerisms melt away.

“You’re my husband.”

He shakes you more roughly than he intends.

“And you think I want this for you? To go down this road!?”

Considering the danger sufficiently averted, he lets you go. You slump against the bathroom wall and cry, head in hands.

“Help me!”

Geri’s wail echoes unpleasantly off the tiles. She's holding out her arms as if she expects him to sweep her into his and carry her away Officer and a Gentleman -style. He turns his eye to her with disgust.

“Go fuck yourself, creep.”

This elicits a horrified gasp- apparently being instructed to fuck herself is more offensive than being threatened with a curling iron. Five turns back to you and places a hand on your upper arm. His touch makes you spin around, eyes fixed on your mother, a little slice of the all-consuming rage firing up again.

“I never want to see you again. You stay away from us. You fucking hear me?”

The crocodile tears erupt again.

“What is wrong with you? You're insane! You can’t keep me from my granddaughter.”

“Don’t pretend to give a shit about her, Mom, you met her a month ago and you just hit her head!”

"Why is everything always my fault?”

“Because it IS!” you shriek. “You suck, Mom! You only give a shit about yourself. Just get out! Or, I swear, I WILL kill you this time."

Five pulls you bodily out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, giving Geri the space to remove herself.

“You heard her Geri. Get out. She’s right: I can’t promise to stop her next time. Hell, I might even help her.”

She scrambles to her feet, sobbing. Five pulls you away from the suite door. Neither of you look at her as she leaves, letting the door slam behind her.

When he lets go, you hurry over to Aoife, scoop her up, and rock her. You’re reeling from the reality of what she was nearly present for.

“Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma” she cries, red-faced.

“I’m sorry sweetheart. I’m so sorry. It’s ok. Mommy’s got you. I’m sorry.”

You repeat variations on these phrases until she puts her arms around your neck and cries loudly into your chest. She’s clearly picking up on your poor emotional state. Five inspects her bumped head before moving away, satisfied of its superficiality. He roots around in the diaper bag and emerges with her favorite stuffy.

“Hey Aoife, do you want Mister Bear? Dov'è il Mister Bear, tesoro?”

He takes her off you, pulls her onto his hip and passes her Mister Bear.

“Beh” she repeats, downheartedly. Though she’s still upset, being in the arms of a calm parent is helping.

“Mia bambina coraggiosa." he twists gently at the waist to rock her, kissing her sore head while she rubs her nose into the bear, "That’s right. You cuddle Mister Bear and I cuddle Mommy.”

He walks over to the end of the room, kisses her and places her on the floor. She stands there, wobbles and then bumps down on her diapered butt.

“Oh!” she says, in surprise. She looks at you both, sadness and pain forgotten. She smiles and gives a high-pitched giggle hoping you’ll share the joke. You both smile back at her, you still teary-eyed.

Five approaches you, guides you onto the bed and places an arm around you.

“Well, that was cool.”

“What?”

“You were about to commit matricide for me. It’s hard not to take that as a compliment. But trust me, angel, you don't want to go there.”

He takes your hand in his and kisses it gently across the bruises already forming where he bashed it off the tiles.

The smell of hay mingled with blood. He'd told Herb she was definitely dead and, while that had been enough for Herb, Five couldn't trust his own conviction. He crept- no- strolled, (he didn't creep anywhere). He strolled into the barn with the briefcase held at his side. There she was. Still crumpled where she fell.

A few feet away, he had lain on rough floorboards, pumped full of her bullets.  His breath had rattled as one or both of his lungs filled with blood. He had been certain he was about to die in a Dallas barn dressed in shorts and knee socks. He had been sorry to die staring into her face; hers again to use and dispose of as she pleased.

Yet he was the one standing over her now. She still lay on her side, having collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. Her eyes were wide with her final gasp, shocked that somebody would dare to take her by surprise. He waited to feel satisfied, at peace: hell, to feel something. 

He extended a leg and turned her onto her back with his foot. It made her head loll yet, grotesquely, her hat stayed on.

Yes, there she was. Definitely dead. One hundred percent dead. As dead as a door nail, having kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil and waved her big Adios. It was over.

… So why was he still there?

"I hope hell's hot enough for you," he murmured, though without believing in any such place. His barely-broken voice cracked as he said it.

He turned as if to leave but stopped upon noticing that one of her shoes was askew, only held on by her toes. The heel stuck out at an odd angle, like a jutting tooth.

S tilettos...even now. Part of him had to admire that. She'd put together this outfit for their final showdown and thought, 'Killing Five Hargreeves on a Dallas farm, right? What else but stilettos?!'

He gave a short exhaled laugh at the thought. 

He bent and righted the shoe before he left: irritated with himself without really knowing why.

The memory flashes in the moment he holds his lips to your final bruised knuckle. 

“Killing doesn’t help. Vengeance, I mean. I caused The Handler’s death: I watched her die- twice, actually- it’s not cathartic; it doesn’t fix the damage somebody did.”

You watch Aoife pulling Mister Bear’s ears and hold his hand tighter.  

“And…you gotta ask yourself,” he continues, “how much of that was about me, and how much was about you and her?”

You truly think about this. Vengeance for Five beat in your blood while you held her there but it didn’t exist in a vacuum.

“Probably fifty-fifty.” you say, as honestly as you can. He nods sagely.

“Exactly. And is someone being irritating, neglectful and manipulative worth fifty percent of a death sentence?”

You lay your head on his shoulder. You don’t need to answer his question. It answers itself.

“Never kill unless you absolutely have to. I will never get rid of the stain of all the lives I've taken; of what she turned me into. It's with me now, forever." He takes a second or two before continuing, listening to Aoife's babble.

"I’m proud of you though. For cutting her off, I mean. Not for nearly beating her to death."

“Hey, look.”

He looks where you’re pointing.

Aoife was a late walker and still prefers to butt-shuffle when at all possible. But now, she’s running unsteadily across the room after a thrown Mister Bear. What happens next makes you both gape: Aoife disappears into a spatial portal with a fffssht and reappears beside the toy.

“Did you blink?” says Five

“Bih!” she exclaims.

“Blink, yeah! Well done baby!” you smile at her.

Five blinks to her himself, picking her up and smiling all over his face.

“Did you see that? Papà è molto orgoglioso di te!”

As he kisses her cheek, she looks over at you with his vivid green eyes and smiles her gappy, eight-toothed grin.

Five tries to carry you over the threshold of the Academy, but you refuse. That’s too far in your estimation.

Klaus insisted on cooking for you the night you got home. He’s Avant Garde in his cooking style but surprisingly always produces amazing results, even if the kitchen invariably looks like a bombsite by the time he's finished. Luther pulls Five aside when the rest of you head down to the kitchen.

“Hey, Five…can we talk?”

“Sure?” As Five’s eyebrows lower, Luther looks nervous. He draws Five into the seclusion of the attic stairwell.

“How was the honeymoon?”

“It was…really great.”

And it was…even considering he spent most of the three weeks in varying stages of trauma-response.

“I…noticed…at the wedding.” Luther shuffles from foot to foot. “Geri.”

“Yeah.” Five folds his arms.

“You said she was weird to you before as well?”

“Yeah.” He repeats. If Luther has something to say, Five’s going to let him come to it himself.

“I wanted to say…I’m sorry. I was your Best Man a-and your brother. I should have been more on the ball and…stopped it.”

Five looks at him a little incredulously, arms unfolding and hands falling into his trouser pockets.

“And what were you supposed to do, Number One? Go hulk? Beat the shit out of her?”

“I don’t…I don’t know. B-but…” Luther looks at the ground for a second and then back up at Five, “it wasn’t ok. You know that, right?”

Five allows himself a small smile at Luther’s expense,

“Really? There was I thinking the Mother-of-the-Bride trying to get under the Groom’s clothes was normal.”

Luther scowls at him.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”  

“I wanted to tell you…you can talk to me,” his blue eyes are earnest. “about anything like that…because I’ve been there.”

Five meets his eye and considers him, all trace of irony dissolved. Does Luther mean what he thinks he means? He puts a hand on Luther’s massive upper arm.

“I’m…sorry,” it’s both an apology for his levity and a mark of sympathy, “you know, I may just take you up on that. I have…other stuff in that… area. Maybe we can talk our stuff through together some time.”

Five squeezes his fingers around his bicep, thanking and reassuring his brother in the same action.

Luther smiles, relieved and touched, but he knows instinctively to change the subject now. There’s plenty of time stretching out ahead of them.

“Did you like my speech?”

“It actually wasn’t terrible.”

This, from Five, is as good as a panegyric.

“You were the best Best Man…and you’re a good brother.”

Luther hugs Five tight. Five extracts one of his hands and rubs him across his broad back.

After a dinner including shredded banana skin cooked in barbeque sauce and topped with cheese, (it tasted good- who knew?) Five disappeared into his father’s rooms while you sat in the lounge with the other Umbrellas. Now, Santi sits on the floor with Aoife, building Duplo towers with her that she knocks over quicker than he can fix. Lila’s head is on Diego’s shoulder, Luther and Viktor talk quietly in the chairs by the fireplace while Sloane and Klaus hang out by the bar. This is your family now, by marriage, choice and affection.

You stand and make to leave the room in search of Five but Lila grabs your hand to stop you.

“Five told me what happened with your Mum. Well done, Chicken.”

She smiles up at you and gives your hand a squeeze.

“Next time, if he tries to stop you killing her, he’s shittest at protecting his legs. Go for his knees.”

When you enter Reginald’s study, you find Five behind the desk at his own computer, an empty glass at his right hand.

“Hey,” you say.

He meets your salutation with a single upheld finger. After a few more seconds tapping away, he looks up and smiles.

“Sorry- just needed to get that down.”

“What are you doing?”

He pushes the chair backwards and pats his lap. You sit on his knee and he turns you both to the screen. He has an open spreadsheet, a list of names, addresses and numbers with fields filled in beside them.

“So: this is a list of the best psychotherapists, psychiatrists, phycologists and therapists in the city. I think Cognitive Processing Therapy sounds like what I need, at least to begin with, so I got a field for if that’s a specialism of theirs. My situation’s rather specific but I think someone who specializes in veterans or solitary confinement victims might have the best chance, so I got a field for that. Plus, long term, medication might be on the cards so I want someone who can prescribe if necessary. That’s what this field is for.

Once I’ve built the master list, I’m going to start cross referencing provider reviews to create a shortlist, (I got that idea from how you and Klaus found that Klein guy who used to work for JUICED). Considering all these factors and their relative importance to me, I should be able to work out a mathematical ranking order based on who’s most likely to be able to- mmph!”

He can’t finish his sentence with your lips around his. He tries to break away and continue with the explanation, but you hold his cheeks between your hands and don’t let him. When he starts to kiss you back, you pull away.

“I love that you’re trying to beat your mental health issues to death with a spreadsheet.”

“It’s a perfectly logical way forward.”

“Exactly!” you laugh.

He furrows his brow and continues. One day, that line that appears between his eyebrows won't disappear when his face unrumples. 

“Once I got my ranking, I’m going to set up meetings with maybe the top five and see who I get on with best. I was reading that sometimes you have to shop around until you find someone you click with.”

“I’m so proud of you.”

He usually scowls at anything like this, but today he doesn't. The smile appears gradually on his face like a developing polaroid.

“Thank you, dearest...I realized that it’s not just about me. You and Aoife suffer too.”

You both fall silent; you can hear Aoife shrieking with laughter from a few rooms away. The clock on the wall ticks peacefully. You stroke his hair out of his eyes, running it between your fingers. Momentarily, he closes his eyes, as if melting into your touch. And then looks at you, his sharp, slightly tanned jaw angled in harsh relief.

You've come so far together, you and him; a long way from kneeling on your apartment floor with his gun to your head. This man: now as necessary as air to your existence, now your pole star. You could never tire of looking at him; he who you could love in any form. 

"I love you." 

He fixes you with a complacent, wry look, hair flopping slightly as he tilts his head.

“Who can blame you?” 

His finger and thumb grip your chin and he pulls your face towards his. You breathe the beguiling eucalyptus scent of his cologne. He blinks slowly, languidly, cockiness fading to be replaced by something else. His eyes search your face, gliding between your eyes and lips with the corners of his own turned up.

He closes the gap and lays his mouth on your mouth. It's not like the kiss you just gave him, (ecstatic, grateful, boisterous); it's delicate and reverential.

You inhale his breath, feeling the gentle warmth of his skin as you kiss him back. He makes a sound and opens his mouth against yours, soft-lipped and keen. You can taste the sweet smokiness of bourbon still in his mouth. His pulse beats rapidly in his neck under your hand. 

When he withdraws, he still holds your chin, smiling in the soft way he saves just for you and Aoife. 

"I don't believe in much, but destiny's had a way of kicking me up the ass so much that I can't deny it exists."  

He leans his forehead against your temple, lips grazing you. He loves you with faith he thought lost in childhood; lost long before he himself was. With all his trials, sharp edges and broken parts, he loves you. 

"I think I was meant to fuck up the jump to 2019. Now I got this whole second lifetime to love you in; to raise our daughter in. To maybe...atone. And I promise you now, I'm not going to waste a single moment of it or take it for granted. I'm going to cherish every moment with you.: I wanna go on road-trips, I wanna do our taxes and argue over what to have for dinner. I want to see Aoife grow up, be happy and maybe give us grandkids,” his breath hitches a tiny amount, “I want to grow old and I want to die together.” You can feel his earnestness in the steady press of his head. You hold one of his cheeks in each hand and kiss him again, your tears comingling with his.

"That was so sweet until you said you want to die with me."

He laughs shakily, "Well...eventually."

You lower your voice to a creepy whisper,

"I want to die together." 

He tries to look severe but his dancing, tear-filled eyes give him away.

“Jeez, that's the last time I try to pour my heart out. Grow up, lady."

"You first." 

He kisses you again, partly to shut you up. It's nice.

The End

-Epilogue-

When Five enters via the atrium he thinks the living room is deserted at first. Despite his hulking size, he initially doesn’t notice Luther, sat on the chesterfield and staring into the empty hearth. When he turns on the light to illuminate him there, it makes him start.

“Woah.”

“Hey Five.”

Something in the tone of Luther’s voice makes him pause before heading through to the study.

“You like sitting in the dark, big man?”

“Lost track of time.”

Feeling his brow contract, Five joins him, sitting in one of the armchairs at right angles to Luther’s couch. Clasping his hands between his knees, he leans forward to place himself in Luther’s eyeline.

“Where’s Sloane?”

“At home.”

“Why are you here?”

“Just…needed to think.”

Five, though still concerned, couldn’t resist this bait.

“I wondered why I could smell burning.”

Luther’s mouth twitches and he exhales laughter from his nostrils. He turns his head to Five.

“Where you been?”

“Visiting a friend.”

“You got friends?”

Now it’s Five’s turn to smile, “eh…less of a friend and more of an…employee.”

“Since when did you have employees?”

“Doctor Robin Daley. They're a shrink.”

Luther’s eyebrows raise and he stammers a little as he replies.

“Oh. Good for you.”

Five rolls his eyes and sits back in his own chair and crosses his right leg over his left, letting his ankle shake slightly in mid-air. He chews the inside of his cheek and uses one of Robin's favorite lines:

“So…what’s been eating you?”

Luther looks up at him.

“Do you and the shrink talk about your…stuff?”

When Five looks into his eyes, he knows it’s time. They’d both known this was coming: the jolliest of brotherly chats about their shared experiences of sexual abuse.

“It’s not our focus right now. We’re focusing on coping methods and dosage before we go too deep into talking therapy. But we might, one day.”

Luther nods and looks down at his feet. Five prompts him.

“Do you want to talk about yours?”

Another nod.

“Okay. Let me get us a drink.” As he strolls to the bar, he quirks an eyebrow back at Luther, “I think this calls for a vodka gimlet, myself.”

“Sounds good.”

There’s silence as Five prepares the drinks, ice in the shaker the only sound in the vast living room. When Five returns and hands Luther a glass, he chinks it with his immediately.

“To stuff,” he says, clapping Luther bracingly on the knee as he sits back down.

Both of them take a sip of the drink.

“Too much syrup,” murmurs Five, disappointed in himself.

Luther shakes his head in negation before speaking as if picking up from an earlier conversation.

“I can’t talk to Sloane about it, you see.”

Five cocks his head, silently questioning.

“Because it happened when we were together and it’s…” he takes another sip, “complicated.”

“It’s always complicated, Luther. Sorta the nature of the beast. But how so?”

Luther chews his lips.

“She…rumored me.”

Five takes in a slow breath, brain blank for a second. Allison? Allison?

“Ah shit.” Five raises his hand to his own cheek, “Luther…Jesus.”

Doctor Daley will sure as shit be hearing about this in talking therapy.

His mouth, though he doesn’t know it, hangs open. Before he can wrap his head around it, Luther spews the rest: the dam broken.

“She was upset. Over Ray and Claire. It wasn’t her fault.”

“Wasn’t her fault?”

“She was vulnerable. She’d been drinking in the hotel. I hugged her, she tried to kiss me and I turned her down. I mentioned Sloane and she got angry. I told her it wasn’t fair- that she couldn’t use me like that- she couldn’t expect me to just be there when she wanted to. And then she said that she could, if she wanted.”

“Fuck.”

“She rumored me to stay and then she rumored me to want her.”

“Oh.” it comes out low in his throat, halfway between a word and a groan.

“I tried to fight it, but it wasn’t me. You know what it’s like: you can fight and fight it but you can only hold it back so much. I kissed her-”

“She made you kiss her.”

“Shut up a second. I was on top of her but it didn’t go any further than that before she stopped it. She stopped it. She knew it was wrong.”

“She knew it was wrong but she did it anyway.” Five muttered.

Luther made a sudden, frustrated movement, spilling half his drink.

“Can you not? Can you just listen!?”

“Sorry buddy. Sorry.”

Five blinks to the bar and back. He hands Luther a bar towel and refills his glass from the shaker.

When he sits down again, he nods at Luther to go on.

“I wanted…that for so long, from when we were kids. And when I got it, it was all wrong.”

Five nods.

“It was the loss of control. She…took something from me. She didn’t do it on the spur of the moment, she threatened me with it, and then she did it. You’re right, she thought about it and then she still did it. She was going to use me like a…like a…”

Five nods again, wincing in sympathy, he knows what Luther means without him needing to say it. He puts out a hand and rests it on Luther’s upper arm as he continues:

“And then she would have just thrown me away again. She can just pick people up and drop them like action figures. Thank god there was enough decency in her to stop it. If she hadn’t, then god knows what I’d do.”

“You’d manage,” murmured Five, venturing a comment now, “believe me.”

Luther eyes him but Five keeps the subject, for now, firmly on his brother.

“I’m…sorry. Am I the first person you’ve….”

Luther nods.

“Then I’m honored…but I don’t know what to say, other than I understand. And I’m a little…hearing that was hard, so I’m sorry if I can’t give you what you need.  She’s our sister: I don’t like to think of it,” he screws up his eyes momentarily, in feeling something between anger and disgust, “But I get it, the loss of control,” he smiles, “you don’t need to be rumored to feel like that.”

“Sometimes I have dreams that I’m stuck inside my body while it does stuff. Like I’ll be working out, or at the store but my mind can’t control it.”

“Me too.” Five smiles, amazed, “I’ll dream I’m making coffee while my mind’s just a passenger in the body. It’s awful: it always adds milk for some reason and I can’t stop it.”

They catch eyes and laugh slightly, for joy at this confluence; this similarity.

“Let me guess: you feel guilty about it as well?” Five asks, “guilty for putting yourself in the situation or for giving her the wrong idea or whatever?”

Luther nods, the smile only slightly fading. Five nods in return, knowingly. This is…weirdly nice.

They both take a few seconds out before Luther says, “what about you?”

“What, this a ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ -type deal?” smirks Five, playing for time.

“It doesn’t have to be. Maybe another day.”

“Nah. May as well bite that bullet. You remember the Handler?”

“Lila’s Mom? Wasn’t she your old boss?”

“Yup: raped me. Around ten times over the course of three and a half years. Threatened me with dropping me off back in the apocalypse if I didn’t let her.”

Luther gapes. Five keeps his voice light, conversational.

“It got pretty…violent at times. Bit of a sadist, actually. And she was the first, so that was…that was a doozy. It was a long time ago now but, suffice it to say, they’re not memories I look back on fondly. It messed me up for a few years in the…bedroom department.”

Five finishes the rest of his vodka gimlet and pours himself another while Luther sits there, dumbfounded. He runs his fingers through his close-cropped hair.

“I got off lightly.”

Five’s eyebrows lower, “The Handler wasn’t my sister. The trust that Allison broke: that’s sick. You hear me? It’s fucking sick.”

He looks into Luther’s eyes sternly, willing him to get it: to not go down the road of comparing stuff. There’s too much shame in his eyes already.

“I hear you,” he muttered.

“Good. You should consider telling Sloane, you know. It’s not your fault.”

Luther shakes his head, still getting his mind around what Five told him. “You were raped ten times?”

“More or less, yeah.”

“My God. I just can’t imagine…you?”

Five looks irritated again, “Yes, me. It can happen to anyone. You’re not exactly the picture-perfect victim yourself, built like a brick outhouse, but you were.”

“I know. I don’t mean-”

“From experience: you should tell your wife.” Five interrupts, “It was the best thing I ever did for myself. You got nothing to be ashamed of. You didn’t cheat.”

Luther scowls, skeptically,

“Listen dumbass, you flip the genders and how does it sound? Sloane comes to you and says a guy did that to her while you were together. What do you do?”

“I make sure she’s okay and then I kill him.”

“And do you have reason to believe Sloane will feel any different?”

He shakes his head slowly.

“No, but that’s worse. What if she runs off to LA and kills her?”

Five exhales through his nostrils. Luther’s right. Sloane had been raised like the rest of them, and Five knows exactly what he’d do in her situation.

“It’s complicated,” he concedes, “maybe we try and get you your own therapist? Someone who knows what they’re talking about? Maybe they can help with Sloane?”

Luther considers, “I…maybe. But not now.”

“You take all the time you need, little brother.”

Five studies Luther’s face for a few moments before heaving himself from the armchair to sit beside him on the couch.

“You okay?”

In answer, Luther bends from his considerable height to rest his head on Five’s shoulder. Five, inwardly rolling his eyes at his eternal need for a comforting father-figure, puts one arm around him and holds him for a while.

“This is nice,” murmurs Luther.

“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you.”

“I don’t believe that. You’re a big teddy-bear underneath it all.”

“Better than a big monkey-boy.”

Luther chuckles, breaking the embrace and leaning back into the sofa. His eyebrows raise ironically, and he lowers his voice suggestively.

“That whole thing didn’t mess you up too badly in the bedroom department, based on what I hear.”

He laughs further at Five’s confused scowl.

“Every time I’m in this damn house you seem to be boning. And that’s with me avoiding the attic.”

“Oh okay,” says Five, standing up and making as if to leave.

“It sounds like a wounded hippo covering a Slipknot song sometimes. Should I be worried?”

Five can’t help but laugh at this, stopping with his hand on the doorframe.

“You know, Luther, for you that was actually a pretty good zinger.”

“Thanks,” he says, his trademark dopey grin spreading over his face.

“Don’t mention it. Now, I suggest you focus on your own sex life. Go home, big man.”

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