#it was much slower and more rhythmic in real life

[jar-of-maise]

On good days, the clouds in Freminet's head are gloomy and overcast. They blot out the sun of his emotions and keep him safe. Sometimes, it even rains in Freminet's mindscape. He doesn't mind those days, in fact, he welcomes the gentle patter.

Something about the rhythmic drops, a sound that mirrors real life, settles his heart. There is no end to the ripples that echo in his lonely heart, so he hopes that if they must move, that they are kind. They aren't always, but he will take many things over waves.

Freminet takes a long, deep breath and falls back into the water. The open blue welcomes him with open arms. Rainbows of rippling fish shimmer weaving in and out of bright corals and seaweed.

This is what he's been missing.

He sinks down lower, where the water is calm. Here, no ripples disturb the surface. Under the turbulent fabric that connects all of the seas at the top, the bottom is comparatively slower. He could almost sleep here, undisturbed for all time.

It's colder still at the bottom of the sea. Cyan blue fades into indigo and turns deeper. Like how the day turns into night, Freminet lets the waves wash his heart out, lets the numb freeze over his mind.

He doesn't have to think here.

Just this once, Freminet is free. There is no one to stare, no one to judge, he's safe. Happier and better than anywhere else. Sunlight floating down from the surface has left gentle kisses on his face.

He likes to think that it's his mother.

But only on good days.

On bad days, the overcast weather turns from gloomy to stormy. Thunder strikes at every opportunity, turning into an awful pounding headache. Lighting bolts pierce steaming holes into the sea of his mind. Turbulent waves tower over him and it seems like Freminet will drown.

On these days, everything is simultaneously too loud and quiet. Every pause after he talks to someone seems to stretch out into an infinity that even the Electro Archon would envy and each conversation becomes a chore. Something that Freminet thinks that even Lady Furina would tire of.

Maybe not, she had a gift for speech. In many ways that he didn't.

When the skies turn into storms, Lyney leaves the table they eat at. His spot quickly turns from a source of warm to a stale hole. Like a draft in a rickety old house, or the cold breath of air that visits one's slumber in winter.

Freminet could have all his fortresses up, insulate all the possible gaps in his heart, and still, Lyney burns them down. What he thinks was an icy heart melts away easily, much too quickly at Lyney's cold, silent rage.

He doesn't explode, merely walks out. Freminet is left staring at the empty abyss of his back. Lynette is left to pick up the pieces, her gentle voice and soothing hands smoothing over the wrinkles in the tension.

She's good at that, at making them relax.

Freminet envies her. He envies Lyney. it's an irrational thought, but one that he can't keep away. He might reinforce his defences, arm himself once more, doggedly stumble onwards, but he doesn't reach the pedestral.

At the very top of the kingdom that "Father" has built, stands Lyney's figure. Silent and brooding, one rung below sits Lynette. Freminet has been looking up at them even when they were strangers. He has never moved once from the abyss of the sea.

Before the twins' arrival, he has never known desire for something other than the ocean. He doesn't know if the change he faces now is a good or bad thing.

He doesn't get to ponder these questions in the day time.

They only become evident at night. When he lies in bed and the blankets are tucked into every corner to stop a cold breeze, do the thoughts arise. There is no peace that can be won without a fight.

Sometimes he dreams.

They are fuzzy at most, leaving vague impressions. Like marks in the sand, soon to be washed away. But Freminet remembers the feelings they gave him.

If he had to describe them, it would be like a gentle sun, shining through light rain.

Yes, those would be his happiest days. A time where he doesn't shield himself from his mother's memory; like how he uses the water to hide from the glare of the sun. One day, he promises himself, one day the clouds in his mind will part.

Maybe...when that day finally came, he'd be able to stand at eye level with Lyney and Lynette.

And just maybe, he'd be able to look them in the eyes, take their hands...and say, "Let me share your burdens."

He can see Lyney's mischievous smile, and already hear the, "took you long enough little brother." Maybe Lyney would ruffle his hair.

He can also see Lynette's approving face, she would nod and let her tail swish from side to side, "good job, Freminet. I'm proud of you."

Freminet doesn't really know what his mother would say, he imagines a myriad of things, "that's my boy", "I'm so proud of you," things to that effect, but he has no way of knowing.

So he settles for what he does know, and for the day he can say, "I made it."

#freminet #genshin impact #lyney #lynette #fontaine #drabble #writing hurts my self esteem (real) #overthinking #anxiety #the inherent pain of comparing yourself to your siblings #fatui #fatui harbingers #found family #arlecchino #i can never spell that right #water related imagery #symbolism #a lot of it #gi fanfiction #the lack #the lack of sleep is getting to me #freminet's lack of parental figures #why do the french #angst #fluff #freminet loses himself in his thoughts sometimes

[hankmoonbeam]

what are your favourite Catfish songs?

Oh god 😛 I love this question and it gives me anxiety at the same time. You could ask me this every day and everyday I might give you a different answer 😄

Right now some top ones are:

Conversation - I recently learned that this is about Van talking with his dad. Makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Johnny’s riffs are anthemic, and Bob gets a nice breakdown near the end 🔥

Postpone - I know it’s one of Johnny’s favorites so perhaps I’m biased 😆 but it’s been resonating with me a lot lately in a post-pandemic world. Like, clear away all the bad shit in your life and focus on what’s important. Love the gallop-y prechorus too 🐎

Twice - just a straight up banger. Van being a snarky sexy beast over Benji’s bass line in the verses. Johnny roaring in for the chorus, and a catchy melodic guitar solo at the end with a lot of Bob’s crashing cymbals. And the arms-around-shoulders ritardando at the end….Just 🔥

Homesick - One of Van’s best-written songs, I think. They don’t always have dynamics (soft/loud) in their songs, but this song does it so well and just milks it. The melody is so catchy and you’ve got screamy Van at his fucking best.

Anything - Here’s the thing. I don’t actually think this is one of their best songs. But I’m a sucker for Johnny’s live backing vocals, and his guitar solo might be my very favorite of their entire discography. 🔥🔥🔥

Glasgow - Got a real soft spot for this one because we get to see Van’s actual skill as a guitarist. He’s much better than he gets credit for, I think. And I wish Catfish would have done more acoustic/slower/gentle stuff. It’s so good. I harbor a hope actually that a solo Van career might have more of this kind of stuff in it.

Encore - I love Van’s vocals in this. He sings some of the highest full-voice stuff he’s ever done here (not counting falsetto). There’s a plaintive nature to it. “Trust me…” I love that lyric.

Longshot - Hard to say exactly what I love about this one except it’s a Van McCann banger through and through. Snarky, rhythmic, simple, four-to-the-floor, with a dancey middle eight and great guitar solo. Just classic Catfish to me.

You didn’t reckon you’d get a treatise did ya 😆

Tell me your fave songs! Please! I could talk about their songs all day long!

#hankscatbasks

[sneakykpopblog]

Thoughts on CD 3 for those interested (me)

Jump demo: Pretty much the same. The computer headphones were missing and I felt shy listening with the speakers, even though it’s just me and my brother who’s a casual fan here. Was good. My cat thought Yoongi’s rap was interesting

Ambiguous (if Google Translate is to be trusted) : It’s so good and I wish they’d released it

Boy in Luv demo: The bridge was different! Instead of slowly down, it was all rhythmic and almost chant-y, and it sounded really good, but I think having it slower with more singing was a good choice for the final song. But still so fun! Also the Korean title translates directly to Manly Men on Google Translate?

Quotes: Even better than Ambiguous. I want. Forgot to write anything down about it, though, except that I really like it

I Need U demo: Poor Namjoon tried so hard at singing, I love him. The intro is a lot choppier but in a fun way, and the different chorus is really cool

Boyz with Fun demo: Pretty much the same, translates just to Fun Boy?

Tony Montana with Jimin: The song the myth the legend! I only like Tony Montana because I like Yoongi, BUT it was really cool, and Jimin was really cool on it with his voice being so different from Yoongi’s extra growly one, and all the memes surrounding it just make it better

Young Forever demo: Sounds like a completely different song, but I really like it

Spring Day demo: Is the same up to the chorus, which is entirely different but just as beautiful. I wish there could just be two versions of Spring Day so we could have both

DNA demo: amazing incredible brilliant showstopping will change your life Hobi can siiiiiiing, I love his singing voice so much, it feels like a hug. The lyrics were clearly still in development, so that was cool to hear, too. I really love how it all feels. Like moving fast, possibly like being in a rowboat with an outboard motor on a wavy day and zooming along in the sun but also having to move with the waves

Epiphany demo: All English lyrics????? “Please be by my side, you’re my lullaby”? My heart… I wasn’t expecting this and it got me

Seesaw demo: Just the music but that’s okay because Yoongi is a producing genius. It’s all chill and dancey, with crickets in the background? It paints an extremely vivid mental picture of dancing outside at night when the air is cool, and the best way to visually represent how it feels would be Yoongi’s blue painting

Still With You acapella: Jungkook sounds like one of the many beings from various folklore that lure people in the forest, and I’m there at night following the sound of his voice, probably to my death, but it’s so haunting and beautiful that I can’t NOT follow it

For Youth: Not today

So yes. DNA is my favorite, but who’s surprised? It’s so cool to hear how they must have made the music first and then played around a ton with the words on some of the songs, like whole different choruses and everything. Also interesting how DNA had “real love” repeated a few times, which would have been cool but probably too on-the-nose with Fake Love coming as the next title track

[ruby-whistler]

yes, i’m writing third life fanfiction because i can

grian and scar have become my second favorite dynamic duo right after the memento mori boys and no i do not take constructive criticism <3

even if you don’t watch the series reading this would be appreciated!

all of this is platonic, including platonic hand holding - no real warnings, just bonding and emotional comfort :]

Grian walked up the stairs of the sandcastle, dragging step after step with shoulders hunched in exhaustion.

Despite the slight frustration at its size now, he’d taken a liking to the building. It had taken him days to make, not even counting the effort it took to collect all of the sand and wood. It looked beautiful standing on top of Monopoly Mountain, he had to admit, and the way the hastily crafted sandstone glittered in the light made it somewhat of a lighthouse in the desert, reflecting the moon’s rays at night when the outside was most dangerous.

He reached the top of one of the towers, and his tired expression melted into somewhat satisfaction upon seeing a pink sunset fall over golden trees, his friend’s brown hair softly blowing in the wind.

“Hey, Scar,” he said, hoping not to startle the other.

His legs were hanging over the railings leisurely, the close distance to a deadly drop causing an uneasy feeling to settle in Grian’s stomach; Scar slowly turned his head and gave him a smile.

“Hey there.” He shifted, staying seated on the carved birch. His eyes were glazed over, and his smile slightly slipped off his face into a more neutral expression as he turned his head back around to stare at the horizon.

The silence was nice, Grian thought. That day had been a lot, and adrenaline drenches you of energy quickly. Redstone was caught in the loose threads of his sweater, and there was sand in his iron boots. Running through the desert and struggling to get past their own defenses was like smears in his mind, stained with an echoing explosion and panicked shouts.

“Anything on your mind?” he asked after a while, setting himself down besides Scar.

“I... Grian, are you ever... scared of me, now that I’m a red name?” his eyes drifted over to his friend, heels banging on the walls below them, with no concern of dirtying them - and really, why should he care?

It wasn’t like they would last long. Who focuses on gunpowder in their hair when they’re standing next to a killer, bound by invisible chains?

Grian should stop concentrating so much on the details. It might cost him a lot, someday.

“I mean I don’t... I didn’t want to kill people before. I just wanted to have a monopoly, to- control the economy through an elaborate scheme. I thought it would give us better chances at survival.”

Grian opted to ignore the plural in the last sentence, and hummed in agreement. “And now?”

Scar’s clothing rustled, head tilted forwards with his palms laid bare on his knees. “I don’t know,” he responded, looking into them like he was expecting red, “it’s like I have a drive.”

A moment passed as the two looked ahead in thought, no rushing on their minds now that the day was over. The world moves slower when the battlefield is empty.

“Well, I guess... I’m still gonna be there, aren’t I?” Grian responded, arms heavy and leaning back on his hands.

The promise remained unbroken for now, and so did assurance he would be there for Scar, no matter if he himself wanted it or not.

Well, what was it really that Grian wanted? He didn’t know anymore.

He had simply wanted to scare everyone, just wanted to have fun, once, and it landed him here, in a game of survival, with a reluctant murderer whose time was running short. Life doesn’t listen to what you want, and sometimes that is the only constant.

“Tell me, Grian, do you get a... thrill, from taking a life?” Scar lifted up his head, prompting eye contact. “You didn’t have to propose the trap idea, we wouldn’t have taken three lives today.”

Grian looked back down, conflicting feelings stirring in his stomach. “Well...” he started slowly, a smile creeping into his eyes, “Smajor did call me a chaos incarnate.”

Something of relief, of amusement, of straight up baffled laughter coming out of him, so hard he thought his lungs would deflate - standing on top of the hill, looking down upon the crater of his own creation, destruction caused by the victims’ mistakes and sheer luck.

He didn’t think before that he’d call three people losing a life lucky.

“Well, maybe I’m rubbing off on you?” Scar interrupted his train of thought.

“Uh-huh, sure. More like the other way around,” Grian retorted, nudging Scar’s shoulder with a chuckle. “You’re more of a danger to yourself than to anyone else.”

Scar snorted, rubbing his shoulder with his other hand. “Yeah, says the one who took my first life on accident.”

“I mean, that only further proves my point, now doesn’t it?” Grian ignored the stinging feeling of guilt at the mention of his mistakes, pushing it back with a bittersweet smirk.

“Guess you’re right about that one. I still have a few people on my hitlist, though, and they better be ready for me to be a danger to them. Us, I mean,” Scar corrected.

It felt nice, though Grian didn’t know whether to admit it to himself or not. Maybe it would’ve been easier to choose who to be aligned with, but so far, it hasn’t been the worst to be here.

“Just keep in mind I’m not killing anyone, and I’m not getting killed to save you from being an idiot,” he commented.

“Me? Be an idiot? Never!”

Scar’s wide smirk sparked something like quiet determination. The blueprints for a small creeper farm lay folded in Grian’s pockets. The day might’ve been over for most of the server, but there was still work to be done. A couple more nights awake couldn’t hurt, he told himself through heavy eyelids and bruised hands weighing him down, sleep could wait.

“I’m going to get some water from the river. G’night, Scar,” he lied, pushing himself up to stand.

“Can you answer a question, and please be honest with me - would you still be friends with me if it wasn’t for the life debt?”

Grian stopped in his tracks, turning back to his liege to look him in the eyes, an intangible expression on his face.

“Is that an order?”

The light was dissipating from the sky, and scattered torches below them seemed to be getting brighter. The night approaching made the small castle seem safe; a beacon of peace, for now at least. Fingers rhythmically tapped on the balcony as Grian shifted, eyes fixed on Scar’s line of sight.

“I don’t think so.”

There was an air of uncertainty to the words, much like anything spoken that day. New developments always sparked doubts. It was strange, to pretend anything was evident.

“I don’t think I would be here with you if it wasn’t for the life debt, no,” Grian said, and he knew it was the truth, but it felt like a decision to admit it.

There was no bitterness or disappointment on Scar’s face. Perhaps something in between.

Grian shuffled closer to his friend, now sitting comfortably - or as much as the gritty sandstone allowed him to - and put a hand on his.

“But I... am happy this is how things ended up, I think.”

“I think so too,” Scar replied with a brightness in his voice.

#third life smp #3rdlifesmp #3rd life smp #3rd life fanfiction #grian #goodtimeswithscar #fanfiction #my writing

[toxophilitis]

The Preacher’s Hot Family  cont

CHAPTER NINE

As soon as they got home from church early the next afternoon, the preacher and his daughter rushed upstairs to his room.

“Wanta undress me?” she whispered, running her fingers across the big throbbing cockbulge in the front of his pants.

Her dad grasped the bottom of her sweater and quickly pulled it off over her head. Spit was drooling from the corner of the preacher’s lips when the girl’s big naked tits spilled out in front of him. Gently holding her bare shoulders, he began licking his tongue across her quivering nipples.

“God, those are sweet tits,” he panted, his tongue still washing her bare turgid tit flesh.

“They must be,” she giggled. “You sure like to suck on ‘em.”

Finally moving his mouth from her tasty nipples, he reached down and lowered the zipper on the side of her skirt. When he’d removed her skirt, he quickly took her panties off.

“Oh, you lovely child,” he choked, seeing her naked body so deliciously exposed in front of him.

Lifting the girl in his arms, he parked her bare ass on the edge of the bed. Though Tammy had sucked on his cock, he had never made any attempt to lick his daughter’s sweet cunt. But right now the urge was overwhelming.

“Lie back, honey,” he whispered, gently pushing her back across the bed. “I want to kiss your pussy.”

Leaning over, he lightly kissed her mouth, and then his lips trailed down over her neck to her tits. He could feel Tammy suck in her breath as his mouth moved down over her belly. Her desirable body tasted even better than it looked. Her sweet cunt hairs looked like spun gold.

Pushing the soft pubic curls aside, he stared into the slippery pink flesh between her open cuntlips. Slowly lowering his face, the preacher licked at the warm juices in her sensitive cunt slit. The girl jerked as if touched by an electric jolt.

Moving his tongue in circles around her cuntlips, he finally flicked it across her clit. Squeals of uncontrolled pleasure shattered the silence of the room when he began hotly lashing her quivering clit with his tongue.

Finally pressing his face into the hot wetness of her crotch, he fucked his tongue as far as possible into the delicious hotness of her tasty pussy. Tammy could hardly believe that her stern father had become so horny as his tongue-fucking had her sweet ass writhing all over the bed.

Clutching her wiggly asscheeks in his hands to keep her cunt welded against his mouth, he ran the tip of his finger lightly across her sensitive shitter.

“Oh, Daddy!” she squealed with joy. “You’re a naughty man to be poking at my ass.”

“Do you like it?”

“Sorta,” the girl giggled. “It feels kinda funny and tickly.”

Wanting to please his sweet daughter, he quickly rolled Tammy onto her tummy and pressed his mouth between her soft asscheeks. Softly blowing his hot breath into the crack of her ass, he began teasing her puckered asshole with his tongue.

“Oh, shit, Daddy!” she squealed with joy. “That feels wild!”

For the first time in his life, the stern, puritanical preacher suddenly had a mad desire to fuck his cock into an asshole. He realized his daughter’s slitter was small, but he felt it would stretch enough to accommodate his cock.

Momentarily getting up off the bed, he quickly removed his clothes. Joining her again, he turned the girl onto her side with her back against his belly. Reaching around her waist, he cupped one of her big full tits in his palm while his turgid cock throbbed against her quivering asscheeks. His smooth cockhead moved up and down in the soft crevice between her silky asscheeks.

Trembling with fuck-lust, he continued rubbing the sensitive underside of his cockshaft against the soft smooth flesh between her asscheeks while his fingers dug into her luscious tits. His nostrils were filled with the clean fresh scent of her long blonde hair.

When Tammy began rubbing her ass back against his hard prick, the preacher released her tits and spread the soft warm cheeks of her ass.

Moving slightly back, he began probing for her puckered shitter with his finger.

“Ooooooooh, Daddy!” she giggled. “You’re tickling my ass again.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Shit, yes,” Tammy answered. “It feels funny, but it’s neat.”

Dipping his finger into her pussy until it was completely drenched with her hot lubricating juices, he pressed the tip of it against her quivering asshole.

“Eeeeek!” she squealed, more from surprise than pain as she involuntarily tried to pull away from his invading finger. “What are you doing?”

“Playing with your bottom,” he answered in a soothing voice.

“You’d better be careful,” giggled Tammy, pleased by the tingling sensation in her ass. “Might shit on your hand.”

“Don’t worry about me,” panted the minister as he fucked his finger farther up into her tight hot ass.

“God, Daddy,” she gasped when the length of his finger was firmly lodged in her squirming asshole. “Take it easy.”

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“Not really,” whispered Tammy. “It feels real neat, but don’t be too rough.”

“Don’t worry, darling,” he panted as he thoroughly reamed out her tight asshole with his thick middle finger.

“Gee, that feels funny,” she said, reaching back and grasping his hard cock. “But I sure like it.”

When the rubbery ring of her tight asshole began to relax, he eased the tip of a second finger into her expanding asshole. Working slowly and rhythmically, the horny preacher soon had two fingers deeply embedded in his daughter’s hot asshole.

“Does that feel good?” he panted, worming both fingers around in the slick hotness of her buttery asshole.

“Fuck, yes!” she squealed. “It feels neat!”

“Tammy,” he whispered into her ear. “How would you like me to fuck you a new way?”

“What do you mean?”

“How would you like me to fuck you in the asshole?” he excitedly asked.

“Gee, I dunno,” she said. “I’m afraid your big cock would split my butt open.”

“No, it won’t, darling,” her dad urged. “I’ll be real gentle.”

“I’m scared it’ll hurt,” she whimpered, squeezing the thickness of his wildly throbbing cock.

“Will you just let me try it?” he begged, still fucking his two fingers in her asshole.

“I guess so,” she finally agreed. “But please be careful.”

“Okay, honey, get up on your hands and knees,” he whispered. “You’re going to love ass-fucking.”

Her soft ass was satin smooth as she knelt in front of him. Clutching her asscheeks in his palms, the mail gently spread the soft asscheeks apart with his thumbs. Excitedly licking his lips, he feasted his eyes on the pink blossom of her asshole, completely captivated by the tightly puckered ass ring. Trembling with anticipation, the once puritanical preacher lecherously pressed his bulbous cockhead against his daughter’s virginal asshole. A satanic grin spread obscenely across his depraved face, sweat popping out on his brow.

He had spent his entire life preaching against sin, and the thought of sodomizing a girl had been beyond his wildest dreams, yet that was what he was about to do—to his own daughter. The perverse excitement was almost more than the lust crazed minister could stand as he firmly grasped the girl’s hips. He hoped his prick wouldn’t hurt her too much. But, as if being driven by evil demons, he knew he was going to his daughter whether she liked it or not.

Leaning forward, he could feel Tammy’s ass squirming back against him, eager to receive his big pleasure-giving cock. The head of his lust-thickened boner was thoroughly lubricated from the thick slippery pre-cum that was drooling from the tip of his cock.

The man’s initial entry into her tight asshole was aided by the slippery discharge from the head of his prick.

“Ooooooh, Daddy!” she sobbed when the bloated head of his prick suddenly popped through. “Take it easy. Slow down a bit!”

He was thrilled that the girl hadn’t screamed for him to take his cock out. Elated by the realization that she wanted this as badly as he did, he remained perfectly motionless, satisfied to let her shitter get accustomed to his thick boner before fucking any deeper.

As he tried to hold still, the animal lust in the depraved preacher’s loins drove his throbbing cock a bit deeper into the girl’s cruelly stretched asshole.

“Aaaaaaggggggghhh!” she gasped. “Please, Daddy... please!”

The depraved minister tried in vain to hold back, but his uncontrolled passions forced him to fuck forward a bit at a time with no concern for the child’s discomfort.

Tammy wanted to scream out from the intense pain, but she had the same desire to experience ass-fucking as her dad did.

“Please take it easy,” she whimpered, biting her lip to keep from screaming.

Still trying to hold back, to go a slower, the man continued until most of his prick was in her ass.

“Ooooooooooh!” she sobbed.

Finally pulling back, the sex-crazed preacher paused for just a moment before ramming the entire length of his enormously swollen cock the rest of the way into the trembling girl’s incredibly stretched asshole. He could feel her hot ass ring involuntarily contracting tightly around his deeply buried cockshaft, gripping his prick like a warm moist glove.

Grasping her hips, he could feel his lust bloated balls resting warmly against the wetness, of her drooling cunt. The backs of her pretty thighs were pressed against the hard flesh of his upper legs. Moving his hands from the girl’s hips, he reached under and grasped her big dangling tits, holding her back against him so she couldn’t free herself from his skewering cock.

After resting for a few moments, letting his prick luxuriate in the tight hotness of her sweet asshole, the man slowly pulled back until only his cockhead remained embedded. Then, fucking the thick hardness of his boner back in, he felt the intense pleasure streaking up the length of his lust-swollen cockshaft. Again he repeated the action, striking bottom once more in the girl’s ass guts.

“Oh, Daddy!” wailed Tammy. “I think I’m gonna like this!”

“Then fuck back, honey!” he panted. “Fuck your sweet ass back against me.”

Before she had a chance to do as he asked, Tammy felt him lunge into her again, his cock a shaft of red-hot cockmeat.

“Oh, God, that feels neat,” she sobbed.

The pleasure in the depraved preacher’s loins mounted with every fuck-thrust, the tight hot sheath of her asshole massaging the naked length of his prick into a wild frenzy. He could feel the soft walls of the child’s hot ass guts clinging moistly to his aching cock as he fucked it in and out of her sweet asshole. Every time he fucked into her luscious ass, the sensations racing up and down his throbbing prick were intensifying, giving him the most rapturous ecstasy he had ever experienced.

The girl’s passion-inspired whimpers of pleasure only added to his jay. He was now fucking easily in and out, his heated churning balls telling him it would soon end with his little daughter’s ass full of jism. He continued rhythmically fucking his prick in and out.

The teen’s entire crouching body was hot and wet with passion. Her mouth was gaping open as wave after wave of incestuous joy flooded through her squirming body. She could feel the tremors of ecstasy mounting in her loins, building to a more intense joy with every fuck-thrust. Tammy was hoping with all her heart that her dad was enjoying her asshole as much as she was enjoying his big hot cock.

“Come on, honey,” the preacher panted. “Fuck back at me, darling.”

Carried away by her own lust, the blonde quickly obeyed. Squealing with rapture, she began grinding her cock-filled asshole back around his big impaling fucker, the boundless pleasure mounting within her writhing body.

“Oh, Daddy!” she squealed. “God, that feels so good... so big and hard! Ooooooh, fuck me good!”

Squealing and mowing from her mounting ecstasy, the girl could feel his bloated balls slapping against the soft oozing flesh of her pink pussy.

“Eeeeeggghhh!” she cried out. “Play with my clit!”

Quickly releasing one of her tits, the man reached around between her legs and began rubbing her clit.

“Oh, yes!” she wailed. “That’s it, Daddy! That’s it!”

As the intense pleasure increased, Tammy could feel her nipples growing tight and prickly.

“Oh, shit, Daddy!” she suddenly screamed, writhing her hot ass back around his plunging cock. “I’m coming, honey, coming! Oh, sweet fuckin’ piss, how I’m coming!”

Lurching wildly beneath her father, Tammy suddenly felt his thick jism shooting hotly into the depths of her cock-filled asshole.

“That’s it, Daddy!” she shrieked. “Keep squirtin’, honey! I love it!”

The depraved preacher was moaning with joy as he felt the wonderful release of his cum into her hotly squeezing shitter. When the last drop of cum had dribbled from his withering prick, the man collapsed on his daughter’s limp body.

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year Round-Up: Part 2, Dr. Pete Larson to  Young Slo-Be

James Brandon Lewis

The mid-year exchange continues with the second half of the alphabet and another round of Dusted writers reviewing other people’s favorite records.  Today’s selection runs the gamut from Afro-beat to hip hop to experimental music and includes some of this year’s best jazz records.  Check out part one if you missed it yesterday.  

Dr. Pete Larson and His Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band — Damballah (Dagoretti Records)

Damballah by Dr. Pete Larson and his Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band

Who Picked it? Mason Jones

Did we review it? No, but Jennifer Kelly said about his previous record, “It’s authentic not to some musicological conception of what nyatiti music should sound like, but to the instincts and proclivities of the musicians involved.”

Bryon Hayes’ take:

Judging from Jenny’s review, Dr. Pete Larson hasn’t really changed his modus operandi much since last year’s self-titled release. Well, he has appeared to have dropped vocalist Kat Steih and drummer Tom Hohman, who aren’t credited with an appearance on Damballah. Sonically, this album feels more polished than its predecessor. There’s a richness that was lacking before, a sense of clarity that Larson seems to have added here. He still hypnotizes with his nyatiti but doesn’t lose himself behind the other players. That sense of mesmerizing repetition of short passages on the resonant lute-like instrument is what sets the music of the Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band apart from other rock groups who play in the psychedelic vein. It’s easy to get lost in the intricate plucking patterns as the guitars and synths swirl about. The rhythms bounce cleverly against those created by the percussion, anchoring the songs to solid ground. Balancing the airy and the earthy, Dr. Peter Larson and His Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band create a cosmic commotion perfect for contemplation. 

 James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet — Jesup Wagon (TAO Forms)

Jesup Wagon by James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes, Derek said, “’Fallen Flowers’ and ‘Seer’ contain sections of almost telepathic convergence, the former and the closing ‘Chemurgy’ culminating in Lewis’ spoken words inculcating the import of his subject.” 

Tim Clarke’s take:

Tenor saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis demonstrates his control of the instrument in the opening moments of Jesup Wagon’s title track. Before his Red Lily Quintet bandmates join the fray, he alternates between hushed ululations and full-blooded honks, inviting the listener to lean in conspiratorially. Once the rest of the band fire up, cornet player Kirk Knuffke, bassist William Parker, cellist Chris Hoffman and drummer Chad Taylor lock into a loose, muscular shuffle. Their collective chemistry is immediately evident, and each player has the opportunity to shine across this diverse set’s 50-minute runtime. I’m particularly drawn to the rapid-fire rhythmic runs on “Lowlands of Sorrow,” the gorgeous cello on “Arachis,” and the spacious, mbira-laced “Seer.” There’s something about the mournful horn melody of the final piece, “Chemurgy,” that sends me back to first hearing Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” — and, just like that, I’m excited about the prospect of exploring jazz again, for the first time in a long time. Great pick, Derek.

 Roscoe Mitchell & Mike Reed — The Ritual And The Dance (Astral Spirits) 

the Ritual and the Dance by Roscoe Mitchell & Mike Reed

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes, Derek wrote, “Roscoe Mitchell remains an improvisational force to be reckoned with.”

Andrew Forell’s take:

For 17-plus minutes, Roscoe Mitchell solos on his soprano with barely a pause, the rush of notes powered by circular breathing, as drummer Mike Reed’s controlled clatter counterpoints Mitchell’s exploration of his instrument’s range and tonal qualities in what sounds like a summation of his long career at the outer edge of jazz. It‘s an extraordinary beginning to this performance, recorded live in 2015. On first listen it sounds chaotic, but shapes emerge in Mitchell’s sound, and Reed’s combination of density and silence complements, punctuates and supports in equal measure. After an incisive solo workout from Reed combining clanging metal and rolling toms, Mitchell swaps to tenor and the pace changes. Longer, slower notes, a rougher, reed heavy tone and a lighter touch from Reed. Having not closely followed Mitchell’s work since his days in The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, this performance was a revelation and will have me searching back through his catalog.     

The Notwist — Vertigo Days (Morr Music)

Vertigo Days by The Notwist

Who recommended it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it?  Yes, Tim said, “The Notwist really know how to structure a front-to-back listening experience, and this is emphatically a work of art best appreciated as a whole.”

Arthur Krumins’ take: 

In his review of Vertigo Days, Tim Clarke highlights the “multiple layers of drifting, shifting instrumentation.” It is an album that seems unbound by adherence to a set instrument lineup, and it moves quickly between moods both frenetic and contemplative. However, due to a careful mixing and an unforced approach to genre expectations, it is a surprising and varied listen that bears repeated scrutiny. The touchstones of the sound are at times the motorik beat of krautrock, at others the ethereal indie pop of their melodies and the quality of their singing. It feels like the perfect quirky coffee shop album, just out there enough to create a vibe, but tactful enough to take you along for the ride.

  Dorothea Paas — Anything Can’t Happen (Telephone Explosion)

Anything Can't Happen by Dorothea Paas

Who picked it? Arthur Krumins.

Did we review it? No. 

Eric McDowell’s take:

In one sense, it’s fair to say that Dorothea Paas’s debut album opens with a false start: A single note sounded and then retreated from, fingers sliding up and down the fretboard with the diffidence of a throat clearing. Yet what gesture could more perfectly introduce an album so marked by uncertainty, vulnerability, and naked self-assessment? 

If Anything Can’t Happen is an open wound, it’s a wound Paas willingly opens: “I’m not lonely now / Doing all the things I want to and working on my mind / Sorting through old thoughts.” That doesn’t make the pain any less real — though it does make it more complex. “It’s so hard to trust again / When you can’t even trust yourself,” Paas sings on the utterly compelling title track, her gaze aiming both inward and outward. Elsewhere she admits: “I long for a body closer to mine / But I don’t want to seek, I just want to find.” Instrumentally, Paas and her bandmates manage to temper an inclination toward static brooding with propulsive forward motion, a balance that suits the difficult truth — or better yet, difficult truce — the album arrives at in the climactic “Frozen Window”: “How can I open to love again, like a plant searches for light through a frozen window? / Can I be loved, or is it all about control? / I will never know until I start again.” In the spirit of starting again, Anything Can’t Happen ends with a doubling down on the opening prelude, reprising and extending it — no false start to be found. 

 Dominic Pifarely Quartet — Nocturnes (Clean Feed) 

Nocturnes by Dominique Pifarély Quartet

Who recommended it? Jason Bivins

Did we review it? No 

Derek Taylor’s take: 

Pifarely and I actually go way back in my listening life, specifically to Acoustic Quartet, an album the French violinist made for ECM as a co-leader with countryman clarinetist Louis Sclavis in 1994. Thirty-something at the time, his vehicle for that venture was an improvising chamber ensemble merging classical instrumentation and extended techniques with jazz and folk derived influences. The results, playful and often exhilaratingly acrobatic, benefited greatly from austere ECM house acoustics. Nearly three decades distant, Nocturnes is a different creature, delicate and darker hued in plumage and less enamored of melody, harmony and rhythm, at least along conventional measures. Drones and other textures are regular elements of the interplay between the leader’s strings, the piano of Antonin Rayon and the sparse braiding and shadings of bassist Bruno Chevillon and drummer Francois Merville. Duos also determine direction, particular on the series of titular miniatures that are as much about space as they are centered in sound. It’s delightful to get reacquainted after so much time apart.  

The Reds Pinks & Purples — Uncommon Weather (Slumberland/Tough Love)

Uncommon Weather by The Reds, Pinks & Purples

Who picked it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes, Jennifer said, “Uncommon Weather is undoubtedly the best of the Reds, Pinks & Purples discs so far, an album that is damned near perfect without seeming to try very hard.”   

Bill Meyer’s take:

Sometimes a record hits you where you live. Glenn Donaldson’s too polite to do you any harm, but he not only knows where you live, he knows your twin homes away from home, the record store and the club where you measure your night by how many bands’ sets separate you from last call. He knows the gushing merch-table mooches and the old crushes that casually bring the regulars down, and he also knows how to make records just like the ones that these folks have been listening to since they started making dubious choices. Uncommon Weather sounds like a deeply skilled recreation of early, less chops-heavy Bats, and if that description makes sense to you, so will this record.

 claire rousay — A Softer Focus (American Dreams Records)

a softer focus by Claire Rousay

Who picked it? Bryon Hayes  

Did we review it? Yes, Bryon Hayes wrote, “These field recordings of the mundane, when coupled with the radiance of the musical elements, are magical.”  

Ian Mathers’ take:  

In a weird way (because they are very different works from very different artists), A Softer Focus reminds me a bit of Robert Ashley’s Private Parts (The Album). Both feel like the products of deep focus and concentration but wear their rigor loosely, and both feel like beautifully futile attempts to capture or convey the rich messiness of human experience. But although there is a musicality to Private Parts, Ashley is almost obsessed by language and language acts, and even though the human voice is more present than ever in rousay’s work (not just sampled or field recorded, but outright albeit technologically smeared singing on a few tracks) it feels like it reaches to a place in that experience beyond words. The first few times I played it I had moments where I was no longer sure exactly what part of what I was hearing were coming from my speakers versus from outside my apartment, and as beautiful as the more conventional ambient/drone aspects of A Softer Focus are (including the cello and violin heard throughout), it’s that kind of intoxicating disorientation, of almost feeling like I’m experiencing someone else’s memory, that’s going to stay with me the longest. 

 M. Sage — The Wind Of Things (Geographic North)

The Wind of Things by M. Sage

Who recommended it? Bryon Hayes

Did we review it? No

Bill Meyer’s take:

Matthew Sage’s hybrid music gets labeled as ambient by default. Sure, it’s gentle enough to be ignorable, but Sage’s combination of ruminative acoustic playing (mostly piano and guitar, with occasional seasoning from reeds, violin, banjo, and percussion) and memory-laden field recordings feels so personal that it’s hard to believe he’d really be satisfied with anyone treating this stuff as background music. But that combination of the placid and the personal may also be The Wind of Things’ undoing since it’s a bit too airy and undemonstrative to make an impression.

 Skee Mask — Pool (Ilian Tape)

ITLP09 Skee Mask - Pool by Skee Mask

Who picked it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No 

Robert Ham’s take:

Pool is an appropriate title for the new album by Munich electronic artist Bryan Müller. The record is huge and deep, with its 18 tracks clocking in at around 103 minutes. And Müller has pointedly only released the digital version of Pool through Bandcamp, adding it a little hurdle to fans who just want to pick and choose from its wares for their playlists. Dipping one’s toes in is an option, but the only way to truly appreciate the full effect is to dive on in. 

Though Müller filled Pool up with around five years’ worth of material, the album plays like the result of great deliberation. It flows with the thoughtfulness and intention of an adventurous DJ set, with furious breakbeat explosions like “Breathing Method” making way for the languorous ambient track “Ozone” and the unbound “Rio Dub.” Then, without warning, the drum ‘n’ bass breaks kick in for a while. 

The full album delights in those quick shifts into new genres or wild seemingly disparate sonic connections happening within the span of a single song. But again, these decisions don’t sound like they were made carelessly. Müller took some time with this one to get the track list just right. But if there is one thread that runs along the entirety of Pool, it is the air of joy that cuts through even its downcast moments. The splashing playfulness is refreshing and inviting.

 Speaker Music — Soul-Making Theodicy (Planet Mu)

Soul-Making Theodicy by Speaker Music

Who picked it? Mason Jones

Did we review it? No 

Robert Ham’s take:

The process by which DeForrest Brown Jr., the artist known as Speaker Music, created his latest EP sounds almost as exciting as the finished music. If I understand it correctly — and I’m not entirely sure that I do — he created rhythm tracks using haptic synths, a Push sequencer, and a MIDI keyboard, that he sent through Ableton and performed essentially a live set of abstract beats informed by free jazz, trap and marching band. Or as Brown calls them “stereophonic paintings.” 

Whatever term you care to apply to these tracks and however they were made, the experience of listening to them is a dizzying one. A cosmic high that takes over the synapses and vibrates them until your vision becomes blurry and your word starts to smear together like fog on a windshield. Listening to this EP on headphones makes the experience more vertiginous if, like I did, you try to unearth the details and sounds buried within the centerpiece track “Rhythmatic Music For Speakers,” a 33-minute symphony of footwork stuttering and polyrhythms. Is that the sound of an audience responding to this sensory overload that I hear underneath it all? Or is that wishful imaginings coming from a mind hungry for the live music experience? 

 The Telescopes — Songs of Love And Revolution (Tapete) 

Songs Of Love And Revolution by the telescopes

Who recommended it? Robert Ham

Did we review it? No. 

Andrew Forell’s take:

Songs Of Love And Revolution glides along on murky subterranean rhythms that evoke Mo Tucker’s heartbeat toms backed with thick bowel-shaking bass lines. Somewhere in the murk Stephen Lawrie’s murmured vocals barely surface as he wrings squalls of noise from his guitar to create a dissonant turmoil to contrast the familiarity of what lies beneath. The effect is at once hypnotic and joltingly thrilling, similar to hearing Jesus And Mary Chain for the first time but played a at pace closer to Bedhead. A kind of slowcore shoegaze, its mystery enhanced by what seems deliberately monochrome production that forces and rewards close attention. When they really let go on “We See Magic And We Are Neutral, Unnecessary” it hits like The Birthday Party wrestling The Stooges. So yeah, pretty damn good.

 Leon Vynehall — Rare, Forever (Ninja Tune)

Rare, Forever by LEON VYNEHALL

Who recommended it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No. 

Jason Bivins’ take: 

I was amused to see Leon Vynehall’s album tucked into the expansive “Unknown genre” non-category. This is, as is often the case with these mid-year exchanges, a bit far afield from the kind of music I usually spin. Much of it is, I suppose, rooted in house music. Throughout these tracks, there are indeed some slinky beats that’ll get you nodding your head while prepping the dinner or while studying in earnest. There’s plenty to appreciate on the level of grooves and patterns, but he closer you listen, the more subversive, sneaky details you notice. The opening “Ecce! Ego!” isn’t quite as brash as the title would suggest, featuring some playfully morphed voices, old school synth patches and snatches of instrumentalism. But after just a couple minutes, vast cosmic sounds start careening around your brainpan while a metal bar drops somewhere in the audial space. Did that just happen? you wonder as the groove continues. Moments of curiosity and even discomfort are plopped down, sometimes as transitions (like the closing vocal announcement on “In>Pin” — “like a moth” — that introduces the echo-canyon of “Mothra”) but usually as head-scrambling curveballs. Startled voices or flutes or subterranean sax bubble up from beneath deep house thrum, then are gone in ways that are arresting and deceptive. I still don’t know what to make of the lounge-y closing to “Snakeskin – Has-Been” or the unexpected drone monolith of “Farewell! Magnus Gabbro.” In its way, Vynehall’s music is almost like what you’d get if Graham Lambkin or Jason Lescalleet made a house record. Pretty rich stuff.

 Michael Winter — single track (Another Timbre)

single track by Michael Winter

Who recommended it? Eric McDowell 

Did we review it? Not yet! 

Mason Jones’ take: 

Over its 45 minutes, Michael Winter’s 2015 composition slowly accelerates and accumulates, starting from an isolated violin playing slightly arrhythmic, single fast strokes. The playing, centered around a single root note, seems almost random, but flashes of melodic clusters make it clear they're not. After nine minutes other players have joined in and there's a developing drone, as things sort of devolve, with atonal combinations building. By the one-third mark everything has slowed down significantly, and the players are blending together, with fewer melodies standing out. Instead, it's almost more drone than not; and at a half hour in, most of the strings have been reduced to slowly changing tones. As we near the end we’re hearing beautiful layers of string drones, descending into the final few minutes of nearly static notes. It's an intriguing and oddly listenable composition given its atonality. The early moments bring to mind Michael Nyman, and the later movements summon thoughts of Tony Conrad and La Monte Young, but it's clearly different from any of them, and more than the sum of those parts.

 Young Slo-Be — Red Mamba (KoldGreedy Entertainment / Thizzler On The Roof)

Who picked it? Ray Garraty 

Did we review it? No. 

Ian Mathers’ take: 

The 12 tracks on Red Mamba fly by in a little over 27 minutes (not a one breaks the three-minute mark) but the result doesn’t feel slight so much as pared down to a sharpness you might cut yourself on. Stockon’s Young Slo-Be only seems to have one flow (or maybe it’d be more accurate to say he only seems interested in one) but he knows how to wield it with precision and force, and if the subject matter hews closely to the accepted canon of gangbanger concerns, Slo-Be delivers it all with vivid language and the studied, superior disdain of an older brother explaining the world to you and busting your chops at the same time. The tracks on Red Mamba all come from different producers, but Slo-Be consistently chooses spectral, eerie, foreboding backgrounds for these songs, even when adding piano and church bells (on “Asshole”), dog barks (“21 Thoughts”) or even Godfather-esque strings (the closing “Rico Swavo”). What’s the old line about the strength of street knowledge? These are different streets, and different knowledge.

#mid-year 2021 #midyear #dusted magazine #Dr. Pete Larson and His Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band #bryon hayes #mason jones #james brandon lewis #derek taylor #tim clarke #roscoe mitchell #mike reed #andrew forell #dorothea paas #eric mcdowell #arthur krumins #Dominic Pifarely Quartet #jason bivins #the reds pinks and purples #jennifer kelly #bill meyer #claire rousay #ian mathers #m. sage #skee mask #robert ham #patrick masterson #speaker music #the telescopes #the notwist #leon vynhall

[ineverlookavvay]

the best things happen while you’re dancing

Set during the lost decade; Michael meets Alex at a club and they get very well reacquainted on the dance floor...

Fill for Kinktober Day 12: Frottage

cw: exhibitionism/public sex (club dance floor/bathroom)

Read it on Ao3

Michael stepped into the club and looked around, taking it all in.  It was big, and dark, with wildly flashing lights, and loud, pumping music.  He would have hated it more than anything else except that the only reason he was here was to meet Alex, and he would have stomached almost anything for that.  

He moved around the cluster of people near the door, trying not to feel too out of place, looking for Alex.  He spotted him after a moment, standing up by the bar—the most well-lit area in the place.  Alex always was smart like that.  

It had been four years since they’d seen each other.  Long, tense years, filled with the kind of real-life bullshit Michael had never been able to avoid, and the constant memory of the moments when he thought things might improve.  It had been years, and Alex had been gone, and when Michael had gotten the text asking him to meet Alex here, he’d gotten in his truck and driven hours away without even stopping to think about it.  

Alex looked the same, except for the ways he didn’t—the short hair and the lack of any jewelry, the way he looked guarded, harder.  He still smiled, though, when he saw Michael, and something that had been tight in Michael’s chest for days loosened. 

“Alex,” he said, stopping in front of Alex, looking him up and down partly for show, and partly because it had been goddamn years, and he deserved to look, he needed to look.  They were dressed almost the same, jeans and a t-shirt, but no one would confuse Alex for a cowboy, and no one would confuse Michael for anything else. 

“Guerin.”  Alex sounded as happy as Michael felt, which was good.  Michael had been half afraid this was some kind of weird friendship thing, even though being summoned to a gay club in the middle of nowhere wasn’t exactly the recipe for platonic friendship, he was just always waiting for that shoe to drop. 

“You look good,” Michael said, because he had to say something.  

Alex smiled like he knew there was a bittersweet edge to the compliment.  “So do you.”  He said it quietly, but appraisingly, like he knew Michael needed the reassurance of what this was; maybe like Alex needed the reassurance, too.  He sounded a little tipsy, and Michael couldn’t blame him—Michael had swallowed more than he meant to from his own flask before leaving the truck.  

“Buy me a drink?  Since I did drive across an entire state for you.”  Michael leaned on the bar next to Alex, purposefully getting into his space, just a little, just enough to see if that was where things were going.  He was practiced at this now, far more practiced than he was in high school, but he still felt nervous in a way that was almost foreign at this point—the stakes with Alex were always higher.  

Alex hesitated for one terrible, long moment, and then grinned and nodded.  Michael motioned over the bartender and ordered a whiskey, watching Alex take a long pull from a bottle of beer.  The music in the club picked up, something with a lot of bass and unintelligible lyrics that people still seemed to know. 

Michael watched the people crowding the dance floor, writhing and swaying, some of them wearing far too little clothing for being out in public.  Clubs were different than bars, that was for certain.  It looked gross, and sweaty, and overly sexual and kind of…hot, actually.  

“Wanna dance?” Michael asked, bracing himself on the bar and leaning close to Alex’s ear to be heard.  Close enough to smell the soft scent of something Alex was wearing and the scents that were purely Alex, that couldn’t change with time or scenario.  Michael found himself inhaling it like it was the air and he was drowning. 

Alex frowned, looking out at the dance floor.  “I don’t know…”  

“Alex, why else are we here?”  Michael lifted his hand off of the bar and slid it down Alex’s arm to his palm, winding their fingers together cautiously.  Alex looked alarmed, then seemed to remember where they were.  They were just another couple, another nameless pair of boys hiding in the darkness of the club.  Alex flexed his fingers, tightening his grip on Michael’s knuckles.

“Yeah, okay.”

Michael nodded, grinning as he pulled Alex towards the dance floor.  He’d been half hoping for another answer to the question of why they were there, for something truer than dancing, for words that would make him ache, that he could hold close for the next four years, like a wound he could poke for the ache that meant he was alive.  But he would also accept dancing. 

Abandoning their drinks at the bar, they waded into the writhing sea of the dance floor.  They swayed at each other, neither of them brave enough to close the distance quickly, inching closer together like slow magnets with every beat of the music.  Michael watched Alex’s face as he danced, watched the way he was slowly letting his guard down, his face softening, his limbs loosening.  He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, it was just like being back in high school—it was the look that pulled Michael in, the intensity he couldn’t break away from, that felt less like a spotlight than a soft glow, like the sun. 

The song changed to something boomy but slower, and Michael took the opportunity to reach out and pull Alex to him, wrapping his hand around Alex’s waist.  He could see Alex try to hide his initial panic, and Michael let his grip loosen, giving Alex the opportunity to pull away without it feeling too awkward, to laugh and say it was too much too quick.  Alex took a breath and let himself relax against Michael, wrapping his arms loosely around Michael’s neck.  

Michael moved his hands to Alex’s lower back, letting them rest there with a firm pressure.  Alex inhaled quickly as the change pressed him in even closer to Michael, barely any space between them.  They swayed to the music. 

The thing was, Michael knew how to dance.  He knew how to line dance, and he knew how to dance to this pounding bass, how to press his hips against someone and move like it was foreplay.  He usually reserved it for the tougher one night stands, but he knew how to dance well enough to close the deal.  He just wasn’t sure if Alex knowing that would work out in his favor or not. 

Michael rolled his hips experimentally, in time with the bass echoing around them, and Alex inhaled sharply again, pressing his hips into Michael like he’d been holding back, waiting for Michael to make a move.  

Keeping one hand firmly on Alex’s lower back, Michael caressed the other hand up Alex’s back, pressing against his shoulder blade, and rolled his hips rhythmically against Alex again.  Alex moved in time with him now, his fingers curled against the back of Michael’s neck.  Michael could feel Alex’s breath on his face, warm and vaguely alcoholic, and Michael wanted to kiss him so badly he could feel his body vibrating with it.  

Michael pressed his forehead against Alex’s, caught up in the closeness, circling his hips.  Michael could feel himself getting hard with every touch of their bodies, every circled hip thrust, and it just spurred him to press harder against Alex, until he could feel the hard pressure of Alex’s cock against him.  Alex moaned softly, just barely audible over the loud music, and wove his fingers into the hair at the base of Michael’s head, still gripping his neck with the other hand.

Michael exhaled as the song changed to something more uptempo, but didn’t change the way they were dancing, continuing to grind against Alex.  The feeling of his cock brushing Alex’s, even through layers of fabric, was a phenomenal tease, and he felt electric with want and need, desperate to keep dancing, desperate to get Alex alone as soon as possible.  

Alex was breathing heavily, and even in the indirect lighting of the club, Michael could see his eyes were dark with lust and his face was flushed.  Michael adjusted his motions so that their cocks were rubbing together with every thrust, heat flooding through him.  Alex moaned again, and Michael felt like they were doing something illicit, like they were fucking in the middle of the dance floor instead of just dancing suggestively, like he was getting away with something, hearing Alex’s moans while an entire floor of people were none the wiser. 

“And to think,” Michael said, trying to sound nonchalant even though he could hear the desperate edge to his own voice, “you didn’t want to dance.”

Alex laughed hoarsely, rubbing himself more forcefully against Michael, rolling his hips in a way that made Michael let out a quiet moan.  Michael slid his hand down Alex’s back, resting it on the waistband of Alex’s jeans briefly before slipping his fingers under the waistband, rubbing his palm against Alex’s ass through the thinner fabric of his boxers alone.  Alex gasped, his fingers tightening against Michael’s neck and in his hair. 

“Someone will see,” Alex said quietly, although he didn’t pull away, made no move to put any distance between them.

Michael smiled at him.  He could feel the heat of his touches, the spot where his hand rested on Alex’s ass burning like a brand.  “No one is watching us,” he reassured, moving his mouth close to Alex’s ear, “Besides, I’ve been waiting for four years to touch you like this again.”

Alex shivered, his breathing growing ragged in Michael’s ear.  Michael pressed against Alex’s ass as he moved his hips, their cocks rubbing together obscenely.  Michael was painfully hard, his hips twitching helplessly towards Alex, seeking friction with each roll.  Alex moaned again, the sound loud against Michael’s ear, Alex’s hips pressing against Michael more insistently.

Michael pulled his head back, meeting Alex’s eyes quickly before catching his lips in a kiss.  It was rough, and frantic, lips and tongues and teeth, and it was still perfect—the same warmth Michael had always felt kissing Alex spread through him immediately, the same soft ache in his chest.  He nipped at Alex’s bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth, gratified when Alex’s motions became more frantic, rubbing against Michael faster and harder. 

Alex tugged on Michael’s hair as he continued to grind against Michael’s cock, licking at Michael’s lips and moaning into his mouth.  Michael could feel Alex’s motions getting more frantic, less dancing and more fucking himself against Michael, pressing more insistently, his breathing rough.  Michael pulled his hand from Alex’s pants, only to slip it down again inside his boxers, pressing his palm to the skin of Alex’s ass, squeezing lightly as Alex rubbed against him.    

Michael was starting to wonder if they should just leave before they accidentally started undressing each other, when he squeezed Alex’s ass a little harder, and Alex cried out, groaning as he stopped dancing, dropping his forehead to Michael’s shoulder, his hips pressing against Michael’s in little uncoordinated stutters, his hands gripping Michael’s neck like he was trying to stay upright.  

“Did you just—?”  Michael ran his thumb along the top of the crease of Alex’s ass, holding Alex close, letting Alex shudder against him.      

Alex looked up at Michael with glassy eyes, his face a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment.  It cleared in a moment to pure embarrassment, and he tried to pull away.  “Fuck, I’m sorry—I can’t believe I just—shit.”

Michael held him tightly, leaning in for a kiss.  His cock was throbbing in the tight confines of his jeans.  “Don’t apologize, that was hot as hell.”  Alex gave him a small smile, and Michael kissed him again.  Michael slid his hand around Alex’s body, discreetly palming him to feel the growing wet spot on his jeans around his softening cock.  “Fuck, Alex.”

Alex still looked uncomfortable, and Michael understood, even though the thought of Alex cumming just from rubbing up against Michael like that was unbelievably hot—Michael was going to be getting himself off to this memory for a long time, he could tell.  But he had to convince Alex not to be ashamed of it, that he was into it.  

“Come on,” Michael said, spotting the sign for a bathroom across the room from them.  He freed his hand from Alex’s pants and grabbed his hand instead, leading him over to the bathrooms.  

“What are we doing?”  Alex asked as Michael pushed him into an open stall, pressing him back against the metal side wall.  

“I want to touch you,” Michael said softly, even though the only other person in the bathroom was singing loudly and drunkenly. 

“I already came.”  Alex sounded like he thought Michael might not know that, which was both ridiculous and misguided.  

“I know,” Michael said, pressing himself against Alex, pressing kisses against Alex’s neck and sucking gently just to make him moan again.  “And it was hot as fuck and I want to touch you.  Is that okay?”  He paused with his fingers on the button of Alex’s jeans.  

Alex looked unconvinced, but he nodded, and Michael undid Alex’s jeans, pulling down his boxer to reveal his cock, soft and surrounded by a mess of cum.  Michael inhaled sharply, helplessly turned on by the knowledge that he’d done this by barely touching Alex, barely doing anything but being there.  He gently rubbed Alex’s cock, while Alex watched him carefully, his breath catching at each touch. 

“Can I lick you?” Michael asked, feeling out of breath himself.  His cock was straining against his jeans, but he would ignore it for a few more minutes in favor of convincing Alex how hot this entire situation was.   

Alex nodded again, breathing heavy with anticipation, and Michael dropped to his knees.  Michael licked gently at Alex’s oversensitive cock, grinning as it vainly attempted to twitch back to life, as Alex moaned louder, un-self-consciously.  Michael sucked very softly at the tip of Alex’s cock, and then licked at the cum on his skin, looking up to meet Alex’s eyes.  Alex groaned, gripping Michael’s hair again while Michael ran his tongue over every drop of cum on Alex’s skin.  

Michael grinned up at Alex, licking at the cum still on his lips, and Alex swore and pulled Michael to his feet, abruptly shoving him against the other wall of the stall and kissing him more fiercely than he had yet the entire evening. 

“You’re unbelievable,” Alex said, pulling back, and it didn’t sound like an insult.  He pulled at Michael’s belt buckle, tugging it open and starting on his jeans.  “I’ve been waiting to touch you, too.”

Michael leaned his head back against the wall of the stall as Alex tore open his jeans and pulled out Michael’s cock, stroking it softly.  Alex licked his lips, and Michael felt overwhelmed by it—the touches and the look on Alex’s face, like he wanted this as much as Michael had wanted him.  He was already on the edge from the dancing, from licking Alex, and Michael thrust up into Alex’s fist as Alex kissed him again.   

Alex tightened his grip, slicking the way with the precum beading from Michael’s cock, stroking him so well that Michael had a moment where he was afraid he’d imagined it all, that he was alone in his trailer dreaming of this, his own hand on his cock.  But it was real, and happening—Alex was jerking him off in a bathroom at a club after cumming on the floor while they were dancing, and Michael was both ecstatically happy and shaken to his core to realize that over all these years, nothing had changed about the way he felt for Alex, not at all.  

“Cum for me, Michael,” Alex said, pressing his lips to Michael’s ear, nipping at his earlobe, “and then we can leave, and I can show you the motel room I got for tonight.”

Michael groaned.  Alex’s voice was commanding, more sure than he remembered it, and he was working Michael’s cock so well, and Michael wanted the motel room, wanted to lie curled together in a bed with Alex, wanted to wake up next to him and pretend like it wasn’t temporary.  

Alex sucked the spot right under Michael’s ear and sped up his hand, and Michael thrust against him a few more times before he came into Alex’s fist, whispering Alex’s name.  

“Good,” Alex said, sounding deeply affected but also like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to praise Michael or not.  

Michael beamed at him and kissed him deeply.  Alex smiled when they broke apart and tucked Michael back into his jeans, wiping his hand on toilet paper. 

“Licking it up is less messy,” Michael said facetiously, and Alex snorted.  

“I’ll keep that in mind for later.”  

Michael laughed and buckled his belt again, waiting for Alex to do up his jeans before pushing open the door to the stall, dragging Alex out by the hand, kissing him in front of the row of sinks before Alex shook his head and pulled Michael out of the bathroom.  

The club was still playing the same music, so similar that it might have even been the same song, and Michael was only a little bit regretful as they left.  There was something special about this, about the first time they’d been together with no threat of being caught, of feeling like they were doing something they shouldn’t be.  Michael had never really believed that anyway, but the fear was infectious, and it had always hung over their heads.  Now the only thing hanging over them was the next morning, when Michael would presumably have to drive back to Roswell and Alex would go back to somewhere else.  

Alex walked with Michael over to his truck, smiling at it with something that was almost nostalgia before they climbed in, explaining that he’d taken a taxi, to keep from leaving a trail.  Michael felt a pang in his chest at that, but let it go—there wasn’t time to touch on everything.  

Michael started the truck and Alex gave directions to the motel.  It was a short drive, and Michael was still vibrating with the need to touch Alex, the small distance between seats in the truck feeling like a chasm after being so close at the club.

“Motel was a damn good thought,” Michael said as they pulled up to it, a nice enough looking place, although the neon sign was a garish red cowboy outline that blared across the parking lot.  

Alex smiled.  “I thought there was at least a chance you’d come.”

Michael parked the truck, shutting off the engine and looking at Alex seriously in the red light of the lot.  He could see the guarded expression wanting to break through on Alex’s face again, and Michael would do anything to keep it away, to keep Alex open and smiling and telling him he was good.  “You don’t have to worry.  I’ll always come when you ask.”

It was a promise he didn’t know he could keep, but it felt right to say it, it felt like the ache in Michael’s chest eased a little.  It felt like knitting something together that he didn’t know was even broken.  

“I’ll always ask,”  Alex said simply, and Michael felt warmth course through him with the words.  “Now let’s go inside because I need to touch you again, and I’d really like it to be in a bed and not in public.”

Michael laughed and reached tentatively across the seat to squeeze Alex’s hand.  “Seem to remember you not minding the whole public thing about half an hour ago.”

Alex rolled his eyes, and his expression turned teasing.  “Yeah, but I’m better in private.”

Michael grinned, feeling his cheeks heat up, and pulled Alex from the truck.  They were definitely going to have to test that.

#malex #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #my writing #smut and feelings

[caxsthetic]

Balter

Tendou Satori x F!Reader

(v.) to dance artlessly, without particular grace or skill but usually with enjoyment.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *. 500 MASTERLIST .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The room was dark, the only light that shone through the entire room was the dim light from the laptop screen. You type away at a speed of lightning, but you tried to keep the sound to be as minimal as ever.

There laying in the bed with his mouth hanging open, was your husband. The two of you were workaholics, but you were way too mad since you never take a break.

Meanwhile, he was good with his time management. And sometimes, you were envious about it with how well he could manage his daily life.

You were not always like this though, you were not someone who would type away in the middle of the night, trying to finish all of the report even before the due date.

But it was all changed when your boss promoted you to be the director of administrations. Something stirred in your mind since that day. You felt like you needed to do everything right, all of your work needed to be done perfectly.

It was always like this now, going round and round in circles. Every week, you would always go to the office early and go home late, a habit that started to develop around three months ago.

Your husband notice this, notice how you always conceal the bag under your eyes. So he pulled you to the bed early today, forcing you to cuddle and sleep with him.

But when he already drifted off to sleep, you just can’t do the same.

So you untangled yourself slowly, looking at your red headed husband who still stuck in the dreamland. You were feeling bad from it, but you know you couldn’t possibly sleep if you still had work to do.

And here you were right now, typing away all of the work. You simultaneously glanced towards the bed, making sure that your husband was still asleep.

Tendou never liked how you always did everything non stop. You rarely eat lunch if he didn’t call you at the office, he rarely saw your figure even at home, he rarely got any affection from you,

And he started to get tired of it.

It was cold tonight since snow already started to fall down from the sky. Even when the heater was on and he used a pile of blankets, he just felt like something was not right.

The cold may be the one who woke him up from his slumber. But the fact that he didn’t feel the warmth from your body anymore, was the reason why he decided to stay awake.

He sat on the bed, rubbing his eyes groggily before yawning. His hair was down, cascading perfectly as it fell to his face. You were not there beside him, and he started to get upset by this constant event.

His eyes bore to your figure, letting out a long sigh when he realised what you are doing. The moonlight that was peeking through the curtains notified him that it was still late.

Your typing was fast, and the screen illuminate your face as your orbs solely focus on the screen in front of you,

“Working again?” You jolted when you heard your husband’s voice. Your fingers stopped typing immediately, “At this time? Really?”

Tendou Satori wasn’t someone who could be angry so easily, but right now he was too frustrated to even notice the malice voice that came out from his lips.

He was always gentle towards you, caring for you and just pout when you didn’t hear his warning. So when you heard how different his voice was, you couldn’t help but shudder.

You let out a long sigh, straightening your leg that was folded on the chair before. His gaze piercing right through you, waiting for any kind of excuse that you blurt out usually.

“Y-Yeah,” He raised one of his eyebrows and decided to approach you, “I am sorry, Satori. I-” You stopped when you could feel his hand crept on your shoulders.

The ministration made you moan a little. You could feel how your body relaxed as he started to massage you. No matter how stubborn you could be, he couldn’t get angry at you, at least not for more than a minute.

After all, you were the only woman who could see through all of his imperfection.

“Let’s sleep after this, okay?” He kissed your head, making a smile bloom on your face from his affection, “You can continue this tomorrow morning, you know that, right?”

He expected you to smile and let him lead you back to sleep. So when he saw you slumped your shoulder away from his grasp, he knew that his words were all in vain.

“Just… Just a little more minute, okay?” You stood up and gave him a peck on the cheek, “Go back to sleep, Satori. I will catch you up after this.”

The red haired man could only sigh at how hard you were to crack. He grumbled like a child when you sat again on your chair, focusing all of your thought on your work.

He stood there for a while, waiting for you to turn your head and just shut down the laptop. But after minutes, you are still muttering about work. That’s when he knew he should just go to bed.

Frustrated, he grumbled once again and left the bedroom, going downstairs to the kitchen to grab some water. It was dark as he walked on the first floor. The only light that illuminated the whole floor was the one from the kitchen.

And in the middle of the night like this, his pinky toe was longing to kiss the table leg. He almost yelped, but he decided to bite his lips immediately so he didn’t have to make you worried.

“For shonen jump shake, who the hell decided it was good to put the table near the staircase!” He mumbled while he tried to soothe his pinky toes by massaging it a little, “Oh, it was me who decided that.”

His dark red eyes fall to an item that was put on the table. He widened his eyes, orbs twinkling with excitement as an idea popped into his mind.

This idea? He was sure you will love it. At least that’s what he hoped for.

You were currently finishing one of the reports for the office, ready to continue another piece of work. The truth, your eyes were getting tired already, but your mind just wouldn’t rest before finishing the last report.

That’s when you realised that something was off. No, it’s not a bad kind of feeling that you felt right now. But something caught your hearing that made you stop your works completely.

♪ I been working so hard~ I'm punching my card~ ♫

You choke on air, jaw dropped as a wide grin started to appear on your face, surprised to hear the song in the middle of the night like this.

♪ Eight hours for what~ Oh, tell me what I got~ ♫

Your eyes darted to the laptop screen once again, trying to focus on your work. You started to type, but it was much slower than before.

♪ Tonight I gotta cut loose, footloose~ Kick off the Sunday shoes~ ♫

That’s it, you were done for real. You immediately save your work progress and shut down your laptop. Your feet stride as you were so eager to just see the culprit behind the music.

You were just touching down towards the first floor when your eyes promptly fell to your husband. With a blue shirt and black boxer, he was there, moving his body to synchronize the beat.

It was awful, an awful dance that everyone would laugh at. You leaned your body to the wall, eyes still focus on the man that caught your heart.

A wide grin plastered on his face, eyes closing and just… listened.

It was a beautiful sight to behold, to see someone could let loose of their dignity and just move their body around like that.

When you first saw him, both of you were in a club. His friends were laughing at him for dancing uncharismatic on the dance floor. But you could see the appeal from how he moved his body.

“Took you long enough,” He extended his right hand towards you, inviting you to the gala of the year, “Let’s dance, my lady.”

“You are crazy,” You said that with playfulness flying around your voice, “It’s 1 am, Satori. We would wake-”

“Just join me,” His left hand was now put on his hips, waiting for you to take his right hand, “Join me to the party where you could ease all of your problems, when else you could dance with the miracle man, Tendou Satori?”

“Uhm, everyday?” He pouted when he heard your answer, making you chuckled to see how childish he was right now, “Alright, alright. Just one song.” You put your hand on his, a cheeky grin was now plastered on his face,

“That’s what they all said at first,” The first song was done, and now you wonder what kind of song that he would play this time of night. He grabbed both of your hands and wink, “Prepare for the night of your lifetime~!”

You laughed when the tune intrude your ear, and the sight of you looking so happily like this, brought a loving smile to the man in front of you,

“Rick Astley? Really?!” You started to bob your head to the left and right, “What playlist is this? I never thought you listened to all of these songs!”

“Well, I know my wife enjoys some old songs,” He kissed your hand and twirled you around, your giggle just blessed his soul, “So enjoy~ Today, your night will be filled with my OK BOOMER playlist, made by Tendou Satori~ Just for his beloved wife.”

You were cackling uncontrollably by now. Your husband, just literally blurt out that you were a boomer when it comes to song.

Both of you were now bathed in the rhythmic sounds of drums and bass, piano and guitar, chants and cries as you move your arms and legs in a frenzied way, losing yourself in the bewilderment of a dance.

Rule 1: Enjoy the Music

Everything feels like you were all in a mirage as you close your eyes, trying to sync your hips to the beat of music.

Rule 2: Relax

Dancing had nothing to do with dancing well, at least this is the rule that you know when you met this man all of those years ago.

Rule 3: You Know What to Do!

Everyone has their own way to enjoy the music. And for the two of you, dancing without style and just absorbing the passion between each other was the way to relax.

You feel free as you laugh at how your husband moved his body. He would bam his hips with yours occasionally, making you almost fall because he used too much force sometimes.

Right now, both of you didn’t even know how many songs had passed. You have been dancing on the couch on Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, standing on the coffee table as Super Trouper playing in the background, that, and so much more.

“Ooooh! You're gonna take me home tonight,” You stopped when you heard your husband singing the new song. Your mouth hanging open as you realised immediately what song it was.

To say that this song was fun, it is fun that you couldn’t help but snapping your finger to match the beat. But this song would always bring the sexual tension up to the roof.

You locked eyes with him, a smile slowly turned into a smirk. He was on the corner of the living room before, but in second, he stood in front of you, putting his hands on your hips.

“This song is dangerous,” You shook your head, but the smile was never once dissipate, “Oh god, what if they-”

“Shush!” He pecked your lips, a little bit harder than usual, “Enjoy this while it lasts, baby.”

That’s when you decided to let your mind free. Right here, right now, with him on the dance floor. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore as you allowed him to take you anywhere.

The two of you become one with the song, with the crazy dance, and of course, with each other.

There was something in his eyes, something between lust and mischief. And so you put your arms on his shoulders, staring intensely as the song brought the atmosphere to the next level.

The two of you still danced like before, purely idiotic and move with delight. There’s no shame, both of you just embrace the dazzling strangeness and derangement.

But yet, the movement was so different from before. There’s a lot of skinship already right now. You would dance in front of him as he pampered you from behind with kisses, starting from your lips, until down to your neck and bite it playfully.

You turned around, facing him again, a hint of mischief overpowering your worries from before. As your husband for more than five years already, he knew what’s the meaning behind your gaze.

He pushed your body to the couch, dark red orbs even get darkened by lust. His hands started to slip inside your clothes, feeling your smooth skin who was now covered with beads of sweat.

You were panting, due to the ecstatic action from before, and now added with heat as your husband started to create a magical feeling for every second passed.

One of your hands crept at his nape while the others teasingly trailed down to his boxer, trying to give him the hint. He kissed your neck patiently, making you moan out while the song was still blaring in the background, coating the action with a little more push.

“Why are you still up late?” You pushed your husband to the side, making him fall to the ground in a second, “Are you guys having a party without me?! Not fair!”

With the music blasting throughout the first floor, both of you couldn’t hear the little steps from your son. The little boy was now standing behind the coach, peeking at the two of you who were just… dancing.

“W-We were-”

“Wrestling!” Your husband who was now crying inside because he knew he wouldn’t get any action tonight, only smiled at the copycat of him who stared at his parents, “And why are you up, Shinichi?”

“I am thirsty! And I heard some brouhaha downstairs, so yeah! Here I am!” The red haired boy decided to jump out from the back of the couch to your lap, “But now I just want to sleep! Would you tell me some bedtime story, mom? These past few days have been dad non-stop and he was bad~!”

“Hey! That hurts!” You cackled, kissing your four years old son and lifting him to your embrace. The music was still blaring, but now it was changed to a ballad song, “I will clean up our mess, you go ahead, baby.”

You peck his lips, earning a little Eww by your son. Tendou just stood there as he looked at the two most important people in his life. You carefully go upstairs with little Tendou on your arms, leaving your husband to clean up the living room that looked like there's been a fight there before.

He turned off the speaker, tidy up the pillows that were splattered around the room. With you in his mind, he just wants to drift off into the dreamland with you by his side.

The magic from the dance before started to dissipate as he yawned while going upstairs, done with the living room like nothing happened there tonight.

He walked lazily to your shared bedroom, but stopped when he passed his son’s bedroom which the door was wide opened. He peeked inside, expecting to hear your soft voice as usual.

But the sight in front of him made him feel like he was the luckiest man in the world. There on the bed, you fall asleep with your son’s head falling to your shoulders.

He decided to tiptoed inside the room, trying not to wake any of you. His face was comical as he slid himself to the small bed, circled his arm to bring you and Shinichi closer so no one would fall to the floor in the middle of the night.

Even in such a little space, he felt comfortable. He was ecstatic to know that his plan worked perfectly. And right now, nuzzling on the cramped bed with his family, was the perfect outcome that he could ever ask.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*     ༶•┈┈⛧┈♛ ♛┈⛧┈┈•༶    *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Tagged Lovelies:

@benewol​ @letmeshouyou​ @nitricflame​ @vventure​ @heccingdead​ @muffins-puffins​ @miyulovestowrite​ @nanashinanashi​ @vlovers-world​ @proplayer-kenma​ @kashika​ @cuddlyasahi​ @blacckdiamondposts​ @muffngw​ @baby-boy-taichi​ @of-heroes-and-dreams​ @for-ests​ @giyuwu-san​ @oli-imagines​ @lordeofthunder​ @miyatsunami​ @analyze-hq​​ @tendoustan​@allywritesimagines​

#tendou satori #tendou #haikyuu tendou #tendou satori x reader #tendou satori imagine #tendou x reader #tendou satori scenario #tendou satori drabble #haikyuu x readerr #shiratorizawa #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu scenario #haikyuu drabble #tendou fluff #tendou satori fluff

[miss-tc-nova]

A Real Winter - Scala Kids

Merry Christmas Eve from Nova! Or Happy Holidays if you don’t celebrate Christmas. 

This is my alternative work for the Hearts for the Holidays zine. I liked the other more in terms of it’s spirit and emotion, but I still liked this one enough to complete and share with all of you. Enjoy Xehanort’s first real winter. 

Inspiration: Yeah, this

~~~~~

              “You better watch out! You better watch out! You better WATCH OUT!”

              Those two blockheads have been singing the same thing for five minutes now, ever since Eraqus forgot the next line and repeated the one before. Then that smarmy Fluffcoat—Bragi—joined in and they’ve just been ominously singing the same line over and over.

              Other than the threat-chanting morons, today has been a new experience for Xehanort. Having spent his entire life on a pair of tiny, tropical islands, he’s never actually seen real snow before. Spring was in full swing in Scala Ad Caelum when he arrived and it only shifted into an even hotter summer. Granted, autumn was pretty and another first for him but, hands down, this winter wonderland is one of the most beautiful scenes he’s ever seen.

              In the first snowfall of the season, the new key bearer was out in the middle of it, awing at the sky until Vor and Hermod ushered him back inside. The down pour over the next few days kept them all holed up indoors—that and Xe caught a cold. Now that the weather has had time to dump a bounty of snow across the city and all the students are healthy, they’re out to sightsee and show the newcomer what a real winter is.

              And what a sight to see. Scala itself is normally a bright place with white buildings and shining adornments, but blankets of snow make everything nearly pure white and it’s almost enough to burn retinas. Still, when it isn’t blinding innocent civilians, Xehanort distinctly thinks of diamonds when looking at the glittering powder. It sparkles and glimmers and even the crystal ocean of his home world can’t compare to the sight. His friends can barely convince him to stick with the group—they want to meander while he’s raring to race through the streets and see it all as soon as possible. He has to admit, though, a slower pace does give him a chance to really appreciate the true beauty that the weather has presented them.

              They finally reach the park where a seemingly endless expanse of untouched snow dazzles the silver eyes. Powerful is the desire to disturb the perfect scene yet at the same time, he wants to just take this moment to take it in. That’s ruined when there’s a pull on his jacket.

              Xehanort peers over his new scarf at his shortest classmate. With another tug, she says, “Let’s build a snowman!”

              With no idea how to do that, he gives the others one last glance before being dragged off the path to ruin that perfect blanket. Vor excitedly scoops up a pile of snow while explaining to Xehanort how to build a snowman. It’s pretty straightforward: roll snow up in a ball and stack three of those on top of each other. Not about to ruin her fun, he copies his friend’s action and starts rolling a handful of frost.

              Before long, Xehanort has a decent mass of powder packed together when Urd calls him over; a much larger orb sits between the girls.

              “Put it right here,” Vor instructs, patting the top of the base. They reinforce the seam with extra powder as Eraqus brings over another orb, heaving it on top.

              “Lookin’ good,” he hums.

              Vor dusts her hands. “Now he needs a face.”

              Before a confused Xehanort can ask, Bragi announces, “Way ahead of you.” He and Hermod have been collecting sticks and stones for their creation.

              The islander watches the Scala natives poke rocks into the thing to emulate buttons, eyes, and a smile that looks rather drunken. This tipsy appearance is further created by the crooked arms that mimic an inebriated jig. The whole group looks rather proud of this morally questionable mound of snow.

              The blond tilts her head. “Hmm, he’s still missing something.”

              Hermod tugs at his scarf. “Here.”

              “Perfect!” Her smile turns to concern. “Are you sure?”

              “Yeah. I wanted to get a new one anyway. That one has a hole in it.”

              As the girl tries to tie the scarf around the taller counterfeit being, Xehanort’s still not sure about this whole snowman thing.

              “If he’s made of snow, why does he need a scarf?”

              Vor beams. “It just makes him look cute. Isn’t that right, Shawn?”

              “Shawn…the Snowman?” Urd questions.

              “Yes!”

              “Well okay then.”

              Hermod chuckles. “Sounds like a good name to me.”

              Firstly, there’s really no reason to argue with Vor about such a trivial thing and, second, none of the others were likely to come up with anything better to call him. However, surely there’s someone who’d have some quip about “Shawn,” but he’s mysteriously vanished.

              “Hey, where’s Bragi?” Vor asks.

              Xehanort glances around. “Eraqus is missing too.”

              As the four fall silent, a rhythmic humming can be heard.

              “You better watch out! You better watch out!”

              Across the path is a low hurdle of snow. In time with their ridiculous chanting, the troublemakers pop up from behind the wall to add to its bulk. All the while, their mantra slowly morphs into shouting.

              “YOU BETTER WATCH OUT! YOU BETTER WATCH OUT! YOU BETTER WATCH—”

              Hermod heaves a sigh. “What are those two—”

              THWAK!

              Down goes the model student in an explosion of powder. Xehanort immediately ducks, now fully aware that those rabble-rousers have started an assault.

              “Run! Run!” Vor shrieks, fleeing for the first defense she can get at: behind a tree.

              Xehanort slinks away behind good ol’ Shawn for cover, just missing a projectile aimed for his head. He watches as the ambushers prep more ammo and their first victim drags himself into the shelter of Shawn with him.

              “What the heck is going on?”

              “They started a snowball fight,” Hermod grumbles, wiping a sleeve across his face. “Basically we just throw chunks of snow at each other. But at least it’s two against four.”

              Xehanort distinctly notes the head of silver hair ducking down behind the barricade with the hoodlums. “I think Urd just defected.”

              “Oh no…”

              “FIIIIIIRRRRRE!”

              Both boys look back to see little Vor with a mound of scooped snow and hurling them across the path like a machine. Her barrage alone is enough to cause the rebels to cower and earn gaping mouths.

              The two exchange glances and Hermod tells him, “You make ammo and I’ll make the wall.”

              Xehanort agrees with a nod and begins packing snow into throwable clumps while Hermod shoves more around Shawn to extend his protection.

              Even odds take over the battlefield as the underdogs gain some ground: Guardian Shawn’s wall has been built and Vor uses her secret talent of snowball flinging while Hermod and Xehanort provide back up and ammo. More importantly, Xehanort is having a blast. Behind the dramatic “fatalities” and battle cries, every one of the kids is laughing and giving the game their best.

              There was no telling what this new season would bring the boy who only knew humid summer all year round, but based on the beauty alone, winter quickly became his favorite. However, now that he’s out enjoying what the weather has to offer—now that he’s making memories with newfound friends—the snowy season will forever be his favorite time of year.

              A shot of freezing cold splatters against Xehanort’s ear. He launches his retaliation across the expanse, knocking Eraqus back behind shelter. Vor follows up with a volley of her own.

              “SURRENDER!” she demands.

              “NEVER!” the blockhead boys shout back.

              Her orders turn on her teammates. “Gimme another!”

              “We’re running out of useable snow,” Hermod says, plopping an orb with stray bits of dead grass in her hand. “Unless someone wants to run out there and risk getting pelted.”

              “Unless we use Shawn,” Xehanort tacks on.

              He’s never encountered such a wrathful look of offense, but Vor is deeply disturbed by the suggestion. “Don’t you dare touch Shawn!”

              “He’s too tightly packed anyway,” Hermod informs them. “We might have to surrender.” It’s his turn to face the offended expressions of his classmates: Vor is too invested in this battle and Xehanort never admits defeat.

              “No,” the girl states flatly. “This is what we’re gonna do.”

              She gives the boys her do-or-die plan. Hermod is a little reluctant, but has never been one to let his classmates down; Xehanort, on the other hand, is already on board, risking attack by reaching for good, fresh snow beyond Shawn’s wall. With a stockpile for little Vor to support the longer-legged boys, the trio makes their move.

              The second the opposition all ducks behind shelter, Hermod and Xehanort dart in opposite directions. Urd pops up, only to be forced back under cover by Vor’s onslaught.

              “They’re coming!” she alerts the other two.

              Bragi and Eraqus attempt to halt the pincer maneuver, but the sharpshooter keeps them in check. With Vor watching their backs, the boys are able to slip around enemy lines. The victims put their backs to the wall, successfully cornered, and the petite blond scurries over to reinforce that advantage. Snowballs are held up in warning.  

              “Give up!” Xehanort shouts.

              “No!” Bragi snaps, resulting in a snowball exploding in his face, curtesy of Vor.

              Eraqus is not as eager for his punishment, attempting to hide behind Urd. “Alright! We give! We give!”

              Hermod drops his arm, but Vor throws hers in the air. “Whoo! We win!”

              Chuckling, Xehanort tosses his last snowball off to the side. “Looks like I win again, Fleetfoot,” he says as he extends a hand to his rival.

              Despite having lost, Eraqus gives him a grin and takes the offer. “Yeah right. Vor handed you that one. You and Hermod would’ve been toast without her.”

              One teammate does not disagree while the other is quite proud of herself. Xehanort, on the other hand, is a bit miffed. “Please. One on one and I’d have you cowering in under a minute.”

              “Are you kidding? You’ve got a red mark on your face from where I got you.”

              “One lucky shot doesn’t win a war,” Xehanort retorts.

              “Why don’t you two continue this on the way back to the castle?” Hermod suggests, his hands shivering against their shoulders. The herd has been out long enough that everyone seems to be stifling shudders.

              So the pack treks back to the citadel, taking refuge from the frosty weather in the student dorms. Damp layers are discarded for dry before everyone meets back in the commons. Hermod and Vor are kind enough make the hot chocolate while Xehanort and Urd get the fireplace going. As the sun begins to set, everyone sits in a happy comfort, chatting among themselves and enjoying the warm fire.

              As he sits, Xehanort’s eyes travel to each of these kids he’s only spent a handful of months with. Being aloof and distant had been his specialty from the beginning—not everyone on his home world liked him and those assumptions transferred with him to this world—but not one of these people seemed to acknowledge that. He brushed off attempts to be friendly and even picked fights with Eraqus, but they remained welcoming and friendly; they did not meet his expectations of people which was something he didn’t know he wanted until this very moment. They spent all this time with him, breaking down those beliefs of his and creating friendships with him. Everything about Scala Ad Caelum flipped all he knew and this snow—his first real winter spent with actual friends—has cemented the idea that he has a bright future ahead of him.

              “So what do you think of winter so far?” Pulling Xehanort from his ponderings is an elbow from Eraqus: the one who’s destroyed the most expectations.

              A smile pulls at his lips. “It’s better than I thought it would be.”

              All of it is.

#scala kids #xehanort #eraqus #urd #bragi #vor #hermod

[anarcho-mom-unist]

A survey of my ‘spotify wrapped’ from 2020

So, I listen to music between a lot of platforms, I hate how spotify operates as a company (and like in a way that’s pretty comparable to my loathing of the publishing/distribution sides of creative industries,) and I fucking refuse to ever pay for spotify askjdhd

However based on the aggregate of my 100 most-listened-to songs from a year of mostly hitting shuffle on an artist, album, or playlist on mobile, I do have some reflections and highlights. From that I made something of a survey of that list which includes my #1 and #100 song in addition to 1 song from each set of ten, for a total of 12 songs. These represent artists and genres I really got into this year, as well as longtime favorites that are worth talking about:

1. “Bad Trip” - Bad Trip (single) - Xena Elshazlii & Fady Haroun: "Bad Trip” is probably my favorite 2020 release, like if I had to pick one. The track has incredible energy, from the soft piano and vocalization intro to the verse with it’s sparse drums, subtle bass line, and slight strings to an absolute banger of a chorus with punchy staccato synths, reinforcement of the drum groove, and addition of an electric guitar. Elshazlii & Haroun pack a lot into 2-and-a-half minutes of music, and the variations in texture, mix, & music in each iteration of the song’s discrete sections are *chef’s kiss* ---verse 1 and chorus 1 are not identical to verse 2 and chorus 2, to say nothing of the short instrumental transition b/n the first chorus and second verse. Whenever I listen to “Bad Trip” I’m compelled to hit ‘repeat’ ---which is not a normal occurrence for me---and experience the builds and releases that this track brings once again. I don’t know much Arabic beyond the slang terms and exclamations that peppered my grandparents’ & parents’ speech when they spoke to each other in Armenian, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t tell y’all that “Bad Trip” is among the songs that make me want to learn the language so I can better sing along w/ them.

3. “City Lights” - Sailorwave II - Macross 82-99 ft. Kamei:  "City Lights” is the opener to Macross 82-99′s 2018 EP Sailorwave II, and it does that job immaculately. While I recommend the entire EP and an exploration of the Future Funk genre as a whole, you can’t go wrong with getting a taste of either through “City Lights.” The track bursts to life w/ synth brass chords and fast drums, quickly finding its way into punchy up-tempo horn line w/ light rhythm guitar and an active & bouncy bass line joining the mix. “City Lights” more or less goes from A to B to C and after the instrumental opening, the track shifts to a more under-voice horn line offering a countermelody to a mid-to-low register vocal line which is soon after joined by high voices punctuating the beginning of each phrase. The horns, guitars, and singers are cut from the track as the song enters its final section, a rap verse from featured artist Kamei accompanied with a slower-moving bass and light synth chords & wash in the middle register. Taken all together, “City Lights” ---like “Bad Trip” before it---packs a lot of music into a short duration & leaves me wanting more, which I especially long for when listening to the track outside of the context of the EP (which is what I usually do.)

12. “Turn to Hate” - Pony - Orville Peck: There’s a lot I could have done better in 2019, and “check out Orville Peck” is pretty high up there. “Turn to Hate” is a song that is at once heartrending, sincere, & catchy as all get out. Peck does one of my favorite possible things a musician can do on this track, and that’s make me Feel Things at a quick tempo. The vulnerable lyrics sung in outlaw country bass are supported by a fairly simple chord progression that acts as a solid foundation for a lot of texture ---moving guitar lines in the accompaniment part and middle-ground lines that move in and out of the melodic foreground. My moment of pure delight on the track is Peck’s laconic “yeehaw” that leads into a guitar solo that does so much work w/ its relative simplicity. “Turn to Hate” is an excellent song to get you into Orville Peck’s music if you aren’t already, if any of this piques your interest then I strongly recommend exploring his output of classic country meets 2010s indie meets camp gay sensibilities meets emotional realness. (This is as good a place as any to advise you to check out Yola and her album Walk Through Fire.)

27. “Water No Get Enemy” - Expensive Shit - Fela Kuti & Africa 70: I’m a newcomer to Afrobeat which is a fuckin’ shame because it contains a lot of the things I love most in music: rhythmic density and variety, jazz and “folk” idioms working together, a sense joy in the music-making with righteous anger at injustice in the music’s purpose, and a kick-ass horn section. "Water No Get Enemy” by Fela Kuti & Africa 70 is as good an intro as any to Afrobeat as it’s a delightful & excellent piece of music by the genre’s pioneer. It’s worth mentioning that in addition to its musical quality, Afrobeat is also deeply connected with Pan-Africanism and the resistance to the presence of European colonizers in Sub-Saharan Africa. To be frank, whatever I write can’t really do justice to this song or the musical movement from which it comes, go listen to it... a jam you can dance to while hating the British!? Immaculate. 

31. “Vardavar” - EP No. 1 - Tigran Hamasyan: The first of two songs from Armenian Jazz-fusion pianist/keyboardist and composer, Tigran Hamasyan, is a fast moving rhythmically dense piece of music named after the Armenian holiday of the same name ---Vardavar is a holiday of pre-Christian origin that Armenians celebrate in July in observance of the transfiguration of Christ, it involves throwing buckets of water on each other! Appropriate to its namesake, the running piano line through much of the track and the melodic lines are both exceptionally fluid and reminiscent of water. The rhythm of the tune follows a highly irregular subdivision of the bar that it’s best to feel along w/ as a listener ---seriously, unless you’re transcribing the tune or practicing/rehearsing it, don’t worry about counting---and get lost in with the flow of the music. Notable features of the track are the dense layering of instrumental/vocal lines on the melodic and countermelodic material, breakdowns & entire sections where the music takes to longer notes, “slower” feel & division of the bar, and a slower harmonic rhythm, unexpected unisons b/n instruments, and the transformation of Armenian folk melodies & texts between vocalized material and statements of the original material. There is no living musician whose work I love more than Tigran’s and if you’re not familiar with it “Vardavar” is an excellent place to start.

46. “Boyish” - Tropical Jinx - Little Big League:  "Boyish” is better known as one of the singles from Japanese Breakfast’s sophomore album Soft Sounds from Another Planet where Michelle Zauner presents the tune at a slow tempo with an unassuming instrumental accompaniment, wash of synths in the chorus, and low-register closing guitar solo which leaves the audience with a sense of melancholy & vulnerability. The original version from the 2014 LP of Zauner’s former band, Little Big League, offers a different take on the text: noisy guitars, driving rhythm, aggressive drumming on a rock groove, and a vocal delivery offering more of the rage of heartbreak than its sadness. Zauner refers to “Boyish” as an ‘ugly girl anthem’ and that intention is very apparent on this version of the track ---whereas the Japanese Breakfast take on it gave me a sense of being in the gender hinterlands b/n acceptable presentations of masculine and feminine. Both versions of the song are really worth seeking out for different reasons, and I chose to highlight Little Big League on this list because they’re a solid guitar-driven emo band that deserves appreciation in its own right.

50. “Dreaming” - Eat to the Beat - Blondie: What do I need to say about Blondie!? A CBGB act from the late-70′s that straddled the worlds of Punk and New Wave at their peak with a mix of an exceptional rhythm section (that bass!) diverse and compelling guitar work, and the captivating and ever-iconic vocals and presence of Debbie Harry. “Dreaming” might be my favorite song from Blondie and has had a special place in my heart since I first listened to them with my mom. It’s one of those songs that I’m tempted to call a perfect pop song: a joyful performance, lyrics that are at once simple and relatable ---whom amongst is unfamiliar with longing!?---music full of hooks & containing the kind of energy that just goes and takes you with it!

65. “Holy” - Shadow Theater - Tigran Hamasyan: The second entry from Tigran Hamasyan comes from his 2013 album Shadow Theater ---an excellent work as a whole---and is one of the slower, more spacious, and simpler tracks from it. “Holy” is a setting of the Armenian liturgical piece “Soorp Soorp” which is frequently used in the celebration of the Eucharist (even in the Armenian Protestant church I grew up in) and it’s achingly beautiful. There’s always something to be said about a musician capable of complex and virtuosic feats on their instrument doing something very simply and very well, and that’s what the entire ensemble brings ---including frequent collaborator Areni Agbabian who provides the vocals. Even as the texture thickens in the middle of the song, the middle ground & harmonic support coming from strings and bassoon (Ben Wendel) is simple, under-voice, and reverent. “Holy” is the kind of piece of music that offers an encounter with God ---even if one would never otherwise believe in something beyond the material; even just for a moment.

77. “The Day the World Turn Day-Glo” - Germ Free Adolescents - X-Ray Spex: X-Ray Spex is one of those bands I’ve listened to before on a recommendation I received ages ago but never really followed up on beyond the one song sent my way. “...Day-Glo” is a fuckin’ banger of song that just bursts with this wonderful energy from the jump & showcases the best qualities of X-Ray Spex’s sound: driving guitars, wild saxophone lines, and chaotically charismatic lead vocals from singer Poly Styrene. X-Ray Spex have an output that is wild and fun as hell to explore, and “...Day-Glo” is an excellent place to start ---you’d also do well to check out their more notable song “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” 

84. “Marquee Moon” - Marquee Moon - Television: Listen, you don’t need to read some internet lesbian with a music degree go off about Television ---one of the most musically interesting acts to come out of CBGB and one of many definitive proofs that Punk is not a label that people should fucking fight about having a true definition of. Clear 11 minutes in your day, find a pair of headphones so you can experience the use of stereo in the recording and enjoy each element of the song, especially with regards to Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd’s interlocking guitar lines.

96. “Leylum” - Kokorec - Collectif Medz Bazaar & Sevana Tchak: Armenian folk music, baby!! Collectif Medz Bazaar offer a lively and joyful rendition of the classic folk song “Leylum” which has been burned in my mind from church and community gatherings ---the fun ones with music and all of your aunties dancing in a circle and such. Listen to this song and DM me if you aren’t dancing along of joining in on the response parts as best you can. I think this particular recording offers a nice entry point into an exploration of Armenian music, the instrumentation hits a lot of the staples of Armenian folk ensembles ---duduks, dohl, dumbek, clarinet, shvi, etc.---and the song itself is an up tempo dance tune which I find to be easier to start with than ballads or liturgical music.

100. “Electrastar” - Paradize - Indochine: Back in the hazy past of 2017, one of my friends from undergrad and I were hanging out and playing music for each other. In a departure from his usual library of French Baroque music, he played a song by French New Wave band, Indochine. That song was “Electrastar” which is a consistent favorite of mine, my favorite song from its album ---Paradize, which is already a solid record---and a great entry point into the musical output of a band which has been active for about 40 years. "Electrastar” features driving rhythm guitar, pulsing synth under the texture, eminently catchy chorus and post-chorus, and a very care-full and effective approach to the mix. Also, not for nothing but that album cover is 👀

Survey of 2020 Listening

#magatha.txt #long post #music recommendations #Xena Elshazlii #Fady Haroun #macross 82-99 #kamei #orville peck #fela kuti #tigran hamasyan #little big league #blondie #x-ray spex #Television #collectif medz bazaar #sevena tchak #Indochine #french mention

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Undercover Lover prt 11

11

Eren seemed much better than when Hannes had wheeled him away. Then again, when you’ve hit the bottom, it’s hard to go any further down. Apologetic, Eren had wanted to call a taxi, Levi “bullying” him into getting into the “shitty car, before he had Hannes lock him up overnight”. Almost immediately Eren passed out in the passenger seat, snoring softly as Levi drove him across town and back to his apartment, trying to act like his alpha wasn’t secretly pleased at the thought of having Eren around. Hannes had given him one little yellow bottle of pills for Eren to take three times a day over the next five days. Eren’s colour somewhat back to normal, though the drowsiness remained and made it hard to get the brat out of his damn car and into the building.

Unlike Eren, Levi’s apartment was in a good neighbourhood. No junk cars, or car parts, lay scattered around. No dodgy painting, and most importantly, no dodgy shitty stairs to climb. The alpha had worked hard to get his shit together. The apartment chosen for its location and the fact that the building manager actually kept up with the upkeep. Everything he had he’d poured into finding a suitable address where he’d no longer have to fight and scrape for what he wanted. Fighting brought the cash in, yet so did work, and he’d never been one to spend frivolously.

Unlocking the door, Levi supported Eren inside. His own apartment decorated very minimalisticly, though that was by choice and not by budget constraints. Everything he owned served it’s purpose. Guiding Eren in, he lowered the beta down onto the sofa, Eren letting himself flip sideways like a child

“No feet on the sofa. Not with those shitty boots on”

Groaning at him, Eren tried to sit himself back up, Levi mentally sighing

“I’ll do it. Don’t even think about puking on my sofa, you shitty brat”

“I’m sorry. I can go home...”

The beta’s voice was low and rasping, Eren was in no state to be left alone

“And die? Shut up and let me get your boots”

“I shouldn’t be here...”

“No. If you’d actually listened to what you were told, you wouldn’t be so damn sick”

Sighing at him, Eren moved his leg as Levi tried to take his boot off him. He wasn’t playing this damn game with a grown man

“Do you ever get tired of being right?”

“Do you ever get tired of being so damn tall?”

“At least I know when it’s raining before you do”

Jerking Eren’s leg solidly, Levi started on his laces. The beta getting the message

“Okay. Okay. I’ll shut up. I’m sorry I caused you all this inconvenience”

“Tch. It’s fine. I shouldn’t have blown up at you this morning”

“I wanted to apologise to you, but I drank your tea”

Getting Eren’s first boot off, Levi started on the second, aware he was once again going to have to touch Eren’s gross socks

“You drank my tea?”

“Ordered it at the cafe without thinking... Wanted to try and understand you...”

A rush of affection for the man nearly had Levi falling on his arse. What the hell was he supposed to do with that?

“And?”

“You need more sugar in your diet”

Snorting, Levi shook his head. Eren seemed completely out of it, how he managed to make quips while looking like death warmed up, Levi didn’t know

“Is that so?”

“It was so bitter... you’re not bitter... I’m really sorry I drank your tea”

“You can buy me another one next time”

Getting Eren’s otherboot and sock off, Levi wanted to throw them off the balcony. The man could at least invest in better footwear

“Okay... I think I’m going to pass out now”

“Fine, but don’t even think about expiring on my sofa”

“I won’t get my death germs on your sofa... Thank you... Levi”

He was not a teenage girl. He did not get a thrill at Eren saying his name. None at all. No weird warmth in his chest. None of that. That was not for him. Feelings were worse than germs. At least with germs you could shower them in disinfectant

“You’re welcome, Eren. Get some sleep”

“Still... sorry”

Eren always had to get the last damn word in... and always had to find a way to make a nuisance of himself. Within moments he’d dozed off... Levi then faced with getting the lanky shit up the sofa and covered with a blanket after fishing out Eren’s phone and keys... reminding him that Erwin should have messaged him back by now. God. The shitty lanky shit in front of him always found a way to get under his damn skin like some kind of Eren sized infection. Now he had him sleeping on his sofa with his filthy germs... and didn’t actually mind as much as he should have.

*

Waking with a low groan, Eren had had better days. Next to him something was clicking rhythmically, and the TV across from him was most definitely not his. Alarmed, and not remembering Levi taking him home, he went to shoot off the sofa, only for a firm hand to grab him by the shoulder and pull him back down

“Don’t move too fast. You’ll hurl all over the place and I’m not cleaning up”

“Wha...”

Slowly pieces came back to him. Eren’s face heating up as he let out another groan. Hannes... the bathroom... the emergency department... Levi...

“I’m sorry”

“Tch. You wake up and the first thing you do is try and fucking bolt... then you apologise. You’re definitely a strange one”

“Sorry. Fuck. You took me the hospital, right?”

“Yep. Some shitty dumbarse couldn’t recognise he had an infection, no, he had to go and collapse at work”

Infection? No... not an infection... Oh... Hannes must have covered for him with Levi

“In my defence, nothing seemed infected”

“In your defence, you’re a moron”

That was well deserved. Shit... Every breath he took in he could smell Levi. This was probably the worst place he could be right now given the real reason he’d ended up in hospital was his body’s inability to cope with his dynamics shifting for the first time in his life

“I’ll... get out of your hair. I must have been a pain in the arse”

“You’re not going anywhere tonight. Food. Shower. Shit. Whatever. I’ll drop you home on the way to work tomorrow”

No. He had to go to work

“I can work”

“You’re a stubborn arsehole, you know that, right? Doctor’s orders, brat. Hannes said you weren’t to be alone tonight. Given you went and collapsed with a shitty fever, he probably has a point”

No.... No. He really couldn’t be around Levi. If his dynamic shifted further... If his scent... They’d already fucked

“I’ll be okay...”

“Shut the fuck up already. You and me need to have a talk”

Shit. Did Levi know? Hannes. No. Hannes wouldn’t have told him... Hannes didn’t know the full story to tell. Something scratched at the back of his mind, the feeling uncomfortable as his whole mood kind of fell, a whine trying to escape as Eren cleared his throat

“We do?”

“Yeah, we do. But first you need food and to brush your damn teeth. I can smell your stink from up here”

Maybe it was slightly wrong, but bossy Levi was kind of... hot. The moment the thought crossed his mind, Eren stomped it down firmly. He wasn’t a lovestruck teen. He wasn’t even a real omega. He’d been a beta that wasn’t a whole beta for his life. He didn’t have that second dynamic looking out for him and offering advice on how to handle things around him. Everything felt confusing as fuck and it was Hannes’s fault for putting this all back on Levi. His dynamic had started shifting after he’d met Levi. It possibly could relate to one of Levi’s friends, but he wouldn’t have continued to experience symptoms of it had.

“Then how about you show me around already? Let’s see how many dust bunnies you’ve missed”

Smacking him on the side of the head, Eren groaned yet again

“If there’s any fucking dust around it’s your fault for taking up my whole damn day”

“Don’t snark at me. It’s not my fault. You could have left me there”

“No one deserves to be on that shitty filthy floor”

“I’m glad I rate above a “no one” in your opinion”

“Tch. I wouldn’t be doing this for just anyone”

So he was a someone to Levi? Eren felt an almost rush of happiness at the idea, yet it wasn’t quite there at the same time. Trying to reach for the feeling, it evaporated away. Moving to sit up much slower this time, he wasn’t stopped by Levi, who turned out to be busy on his laptop, explaining the clicking he’d been doing. Quickly the alpha shut the lid, Eren feeling as if he’d interrupted something he wasn’t supposed to see.

A quick tour around the apartment later and a shower in Levi’s ridiculously clean bathroom, Eren dragged himself out to dining area. Levi in the middle of placing a second bowl on the table

“There you are. I thought you’d escaped down the shower drain”

“And fuck up all your hard work? This place is nice”

Levi clearly took care of things, unlike him who tried and got nowhere fast. Decorated with light wood furniture, and deep green, the place had a kind of foresty feel about it. Set up for the alpha, Levi seemed to have no room mate, nor did he care too. Everything screamed this was his space and you kept your mouth shut if you didn’t want to be booted out the door. It was so Levi that Eren almost enjoyed being out of place

“I bet you clogged the drain with that long hair of yours”

Instead of lecturing him, Levi just sighed at the end of the sentence

“Probably. I’m sorry if I have... Are you sure you want me here?”

“You’re here and it’s fine. I made soup, so sit down and fucking eat something before you go collapsing again”

Right. He shouldn’t assume Levi cared more than outside how much he’d unconvinced him. Still queay, Eren wasn’t sure he’d keep anything down, not as long as his body kept betraying him and reacting to Levi’s presence

“Thanks... and thank you. I...”

“Can it, brat. If you apologise one more time, or thank me again, I’m going to punch you”

Right... yep. He was being a nuisances. He was good at that... Forcing a thin smile to his lips, Eren nodded

“Okay, let eat”

#undercover lover #undercoverlover

[ranma-rewatch]

Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!

*checks watch* Oh, hey, it’s time for more Ranma 1/2! Hope things are going well for you, person reading this. I’m...fairly sure I know what’s coming? I just don’t really remember exactly how it happens. Will I like it? Will I not? We’ll have to see, next paragraph, after I’ve seen the episode again.

That was...not what I was expecting? This storyline is both moving much faster and much slower than I remember, if that makes any sense. How? Well, let me recap it a bit first.

The episode starts with someone flying into the city on birds. More specifically, a bunch of small birds supporting a larger bird who doesn’t seem to fly, and the person is riding on that bird. It’s weird. She arrives in a construction zone, an old woman with a walking stick taller than she is, and she says something about looking for her son-in-law. Actually, she says it a lot. A steel girder almost falls on her head, but she hits it with her stick in mid-air, shattering the metal into dust, before running off.

It cut from that to Ryoga attacking Ranma. Why? Well, Ryoga doesn’t really need a reason, but this time he does. Namely, the whole Ranma kissing Akane thing from the last episode. Of course, Ranma was in cat-mode at the time and doesn’t remember it at all, no matter how much Ryoga tells him it’s real. After Ryoga gets splashed with cold water, Ranma is then attacked by Sasuke and Kuno for the same reason, and combined with piglet-form Ryoga’s help, Ranma actually gets kinda beat up in the process.

Heading back to the home, he realizes that Akane’s probably mad if it is true, and we see her in the dojo, but she isn’t really working out the way she usually does when she’s mad. If anything, Akane seems conflicted. Ranma shows up to talk about it with her, and immediately apologizes. Akane asks if he remembers doing it, and he admits he doesn’t. Then, Akane wonders, did it not matter? Would Ranma have kissed anyone, and it just happened to be her?

Not understanding what is going on, Ranma stumbles over answering too long, until Akane starts actually getting riled up, calling him a flirt. That pisses Ranma off, so they get into an argument. There’s also a scene where their dads are playing shogi, and they wonder about that pink cat Shampoo sent them, especially since it’s unlikely she knew about Ranma’s fear of felines.

The answer to that comes as Ranma goes to take a nice, hot bath to clean off after the fights he’s had. The cat jumps in with him, and before he can freak out about his greatest fear being in the room, Shampoo emerges from the bath right where the cat had been, and she’s very naked. Yep, the cat was her that whole time!

In a case of Ultimate Bad Timing, Akane comes to take a bath herself and sees Ranma in the bath with a naked Shampoo. We cut directly from that to Ranma practicing what to tell Akane later. Namely, that he won’t apologize or back down, instead being firm on the fact that it wasn’t what it looked like and he did nothing wrong. And we wonder why Ranma has relationship problems.

Akane appears, and she seems fine...before knocking Ranma into a pond. Not long after the water changes him into his cursed form, the old lady from the beginning appears, and Ranma has a very hard time fighting her. She won’t explain who she is or why she’s fighting him, then disappears. That felt...a bit pointless, honestly.

Later, Shampoo comes by the house again, with food. It seems she has moved to Japan officially, and lives and works at a nearby ramen shop. As everyone’s eating the food, the old woman shows up again, taking a place at the table to eat. It’s revealed that she is Shampoo’s great-grandmother, named Cologne, and she’s there to make sure that Shampoo and Ranma get married. Soun fires back about the engagement Ranma already has to Akane, but Shampoo seems to think she has a good argument for why she should be the one to take Ranma’s hand.

She takes him into the bathroom and uses cold water to turn back into a cat, and it’s revealed exactly what happened. Heading back to China, she was shamed for failing to either kill or marry Ranma, and thus had to train with Cologne. They did that at Jusenkyo, for some reason, and Shampoo fell into the Spring of Drowned Cats. So, apparently the curse is Ranma’s fault, and thus he has to marry her. He rightfully points out that’s utter nonsense, but Cologne doesn’t care.

They fight for a bit, with Cologne showing off one of those moves where it looks like there are a bunch of her but only one is real. Ranma uses food and Cologne’s hunger to figure out the real one, but that doesn’t really matter. She’s a bit impressed by him, but still knows he’s far too inexperienced to ever really stand a chance against her. Then she hits him with her stick, and says something about how he’ll be begging to marry Shampoo in a few days.

Why is that? Well, it seems she did something quite diabolical. She apparently hit a pressure point that has caused Ranma to be incredibly sensitive to water. Even cold water feels boiling hot, but it still activates his curse. To turn back to his preferred form, he’d need to use hot water, but with how sensitive his skin is, hot water would be torture to endure. Thus, he can’t turn back into his uncursed state unless he does exactly what Cologne tells him.

Let me start with the stuff I like about this episode. First off, this is a really interesting way to build a story arc that’s very different from the ones that came before. All the story arcs in season one were pretty typical for anime. Each event led directly to the next, it all felt like single stories that just took multiple episodes to tell.

But if you didn’t know the last episode was part of a story arc, you wouldn’t guess that to be the case. It felt like a single-stand alone episode. And it kind of was. Only two things really carried over: Shampoo the Cat being mailed to them, and Ranma kissing Akane at the end of the episode. In fact, when I saw Ryoga and Ranma fighting, it took me a second to realize what they were talking about, because I didn’t think that event from last episode would be carried over.

I really like how it was done, though. The show made it pretty clear that Akane was feeling some feelings about the whole thing, but Ranma was too caught up in the idea that she’d just be plain angry about it to miss what she was really telling him. She wanted him to tell her that actually it did mean something that in his cat-state, he still sought her out and was affectionate towards her. She didn’t want it to be meaningless. That’s really cute, and the miscommunication there was less annoying than it sometimes is and more adorable. Free relationship tip: learning how to properly communicate to your partner is really important!

The concept of finally introducing a character who is actually a better fighter than Ranma is good. Cologne isn’t Ryoga or Shampoo or Kuno. He can’t just beat her in a cool fight, she’s far more experienced and skilled, something that from here will kind of drive the entire arc. The fact that Shampoo ended up with a cursed form that Ranma finds so terrifying is also interesting. She’s kind of scary to him anyway, this unrelenting force who won’t leave him alone no matter what he does, so making her cursed form that but to the tenth degree is pretty neat.

Last good thing: I really love how nonchalant Kasumi is with Shampoo. Like, to her it’s just like, “Oh, Shampoo! You’re back, that’s lovely, do you want to stay for a meal?” Either Kasumi doesn’t understand the complex romance plot going on, or she does and finds it not reason to stop being a good host.

What didn’t I care for? Well, like I said at the start, it feels like this arc is moving too fast and too slow at the same time. In one episode, this story resolves the Akane/Ranma kiss from last episode, the mystery of the pink cat, introduces a new focal player in the story, and curses Ranma with something he’ll have to fix. That’s a lot to happen, and I was really shocked the pressure point thing happened in this episode too.

But at the same time...I really found my interest waning in the back half of this episode. The Cologne fight just isn’t super gripping, to me anyway, especially when the technique she uses just feels very bland. There’s a good five or so minutes, about a quarter of the runtime of the episode, that I was just bored in.

I also like reintroducing Shampoo, only three episodes after she left, was a bit of a mistake, especially when she’s basically a main character from here on out. I know she was very popular, but even then giving the audience some time away from her let’s them miss her, if that makes any sense.

There was originally going to be a Cologne based Character Spotlight, but then I decided not to because we still haven’t seen a lot from her, and also I’m very tired and my birthday was Monday please stop bullying me

So, yeah, if you couldn’t tell I’m kind of meh on this episode. It’s not bad. It’s not great. I enjoyed the first half quite a bit, but the back half was a little more of a struggle. It was in fact a big enough dip that I’m putting this episode fourth from the bottom, just above the P-Chan introduction episode.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’  

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

But hey, maybe things will be different next time? I’m actually pretty sure I’ll like it better, because now we’re really getting into the stuff I can remember. Namely, Ranma is going to be introduced to what will be his signature technique in “Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique”. I’ll be there next week, and I hope you will too.

#episode 21 #This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe! #ranma 1/2 #ranma saotome #akane tendo #shampoo #cologne #anime analysis #anime rewatch

[ask-the-childrenofrevolution]

Wakey Wakey

Charley had woken up in an infirmary of sorts. It was very pink and adorned in a feminine style.

As Charley tried to sit up he felt his head begin to spin as the room twirled around him. Charley fell backwards onto the pillow and waited to try getting up again once the room stopped spinning. He tried again but this time at a slower pace. It worked which Charley took as a small victory but that was shortly lived when he noticed that something in his chest felt off.

Charley placed his hand over his heart but instead of feeling fur with an accommodating rhythmic beat Charley was met with the coldness of steel with a fastening pounding. Charley pulled down the fabric of his hospital gown that covered his chest and was met with a metallic steampunk device wedged into the part of his chest cavity where his heart should’ve been. Charley felt sick as he watched the light coming out of the device repeatedly dim and brighten to the beat of the artificial heart. Still feeling sick Charley wanted to get out of bed and hurl out of the nearest window. He immediately pulled the sheets covering of him, and screamed. His leg, his right leg was gone! All that remained was a gauzed stub right below his shin.

Charley’s head couldn’t prosses what was happening and let out a scream of horror. Unintentionally Charley’s screaming had scared awake a woman who had been sleeping in a chair beside Charley’s hospital bed. She startled awake, her big round blue eyes turning to the panicking Charley. “ Hey, hey its alright please calm down.” The woman begged. Charley stopped his screaming but was heavily breathing. “ M..m..my leg..my..my heart, their gone, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED”! Charley yelled. “ I’ll tell you but you need to calm down first okay”? The woman asked. Charley responded with only a nod. “ Okay, first try and take a deep breath in.” The woman instructed. Charley did as told. “And now slowly let it out.” The woman said. Charley slowly exhaled. He was instructed to do this breathing for a few more times before he was asked to stop. “Feeling better” ? The woman asked. “A bit better then I was before, thank you Ms...” Charley paused as he hadn’t asked for the woman’s name. “Koala, you can leave out the miss.” Koala said. Charley could feel the fur on the back of his neck stand up as the name Koala rung a distant bell in his head. Right now though he needed to find out what happened to him.

“We found you and your friend passed out in a field nearby. You two looked in horrible shape and at first we thought you were actually dead, if you hadn’t coughed when we picked you up we likely would have pronounced you dead on the spot.” Koala said. “My friend, is she okay”? Charley interrupted. Koala smiled. “Your friend is fine, she woke up just last night and has been getting along great with the others.” Koala said. Charley let out a sigh of relief. “I’ll be sure to let her come and see you once were done here.” Koala said. “Thank you, sorry for interrupting.” Charley said. “ No worries Charley, I understand why you would be concerned about your friend.” Koala replied. “ Once we discovered you were alive you were rushed to the operating room and immediately from there our surgeons discovered the bullet in your heart and tried to remove it.” Koala said. Koala seemed hesitant about the next part. “When the surgeons tried to remove it you flatlined and for 15 minutes you were dead.” Koala said. “I ACTUALLY DIED!” Charley said aloud. “ We brought you back!” Koala said trying to reassure the young cat mink. “ You were put on life support while our lead inventor worked tirelessly to make that artificial heart inside of you.” Koala said as the pointed to the glowing device in Charley’s chest. “ Holy mother of Buggy D Clown.” Was all that Charley said. “You are certainly very lucky, I haven’t seen anyone with this type of death escaping luck outside of Sabo and his little brother.” Koala said. Charley felt his heart nearly stop. Sabo, he definitely recognized that name from old notes and recordings from the previous Revolutionaries. Then that would make this Koala the one Sabo often referred to in his recordings. “How is that possible though? Besides Morley all the original Revolutionaries died 200 years ago.” Charley thought to himself. Charley thought back to the device they found sealed and secured in an old lab of Lindbergh’s. Lindbergh and his team claimed that it had the ability to make a round trip to the past and back, but that was just a speculation Right? Charley looked around the infirmary again and noticed how well kept it was, nothing like the decrepit rotting buildings of the wasteland. A cool breeze made its way through a slightly cracked open window. It was a much more pleasant experience then the hot blows of air from the glowing sea. If he really was in the past with the actual Revolutionaries then Charley had to grab Hana and get out of here. If the laws of time applied than there was a real possibility that Charley and Hana could wipe themselves or their friends from existence with the smallest of mistakes. He had to think quick. “Hey Koala, can you close the window over there please? I’m kind of getting cold.” Charley asked. “Sure thing.” Koala said. Charley waited until Koala was at the window before he jumped out of bed. He didn’t have time to try and figure out how to balance himself on one leg and had to use his momentum to keep balance as he hopped towards the infirmary’s exit. “Charley, what are you doing”! Koala cried out as she sprinted towards Charley. This made Charley hop even faster as he tried to create distance between him and Koala. He was almost at the door when Charley had to suddenly stop to prevent himself from running into the person entering the infirmary. Charley soon found himself nose to nose with the newcomer, one he recognized all to well. “Out of all the Revolutionaries why did it have to be him to step through that door”? Charley said. Standing before the boy was none other than Lindbergh. The older mink seemed to have been caught off guard by the sudden appearance of Charley as he almost dropped the device he was carrying. Charley quickly realized the device in his ancestor’s hands was his S.E.A.H.O.R.S.E. “I’m so boned”. Charley gulped.

#one piece #fallout #oc #au #crossover #time travel #cat #mink #revolutionary army #pre war #wasteland #nuclear #lindbergh #post apocalypse #post apocalyptic

[bxsh-wxck]

Bastion; Aesthetic ↳ 🌋 PATH OF REDACTED 🌋

the path to demigodhood has no doubt been long and fraught with danger.

after weeks of training, combat, and near-death experiences however, you can feel your power broiling within you now more than ever. like a pot that threatens to boil over, you stand at a crux

. it all comes to a head one night as you fall asleep --- as soon as your body hits the bedroll, you feel as if you're falling. falling, falling, falling; and as your eyes open, you see a place that may have once held great importance to you. or, perhaps, it's more surreal than that --- the 'safe place' your psyche has constructed just in case. either way, the details come into focus with every blink you take.

describe your surroundings. what do they look like, smell like, feel like?

are you alone?

A solitary clicking reverberates around you; low and dull it’s rhythmic resonance overlaps on itself, echoing around the chamber that encased  you. Each beat, coming no faster or slower than the first, rings louder and louder until your eyes flutter open. The coolness of the air, it’s frigid touch caressing your pressed cheek as you look out across the vinyl floor you are laying against. Shocked, your mind racing; thoughts blooming outward like a net being cast into the void.

     Your eyes set your attention to the walls around you; glowing warm, a dull haze of richness, mounted soft antiquities, portraits of aristocrats of old stared back at you. Some frames were life like, largely taking up space across the creamy structure. While other pieces were majestic of their own: Bejeweled necklaces, clusters of gems and diamonds; garnets the size of eggs manipulated into jutting spikes of a queen’s crown. You lift yourself up, still confused but the art that surrounded you; the stillness in the air that you appreciated.

    Then it hits you----

      As you realized where you were, the thought fell from your lips. “The Met?” standing up fully, as there was no soul in sight---hallways stretching almost endless in either direction of you. You've spent hours in these halls, alone and roaming around until you got lost, wandering further and deeper in this labyrinth of galleries; sometimes finding yourself in secret halls of porcelain and renaissance armor; yet never could remember how to find it again.

you stand in the great hall of the metropolitan - eerily silent. the halls on all sides seem to stretch impossibly long, like a maze begging to be explored.

to the east, the hall bends in impossible ways, almost like the hallway itself is turning on an axle the farther down one goes.

to the west, you see a hall filled with priceless treasures - armor, weaponry, even old tools of yore are set up on either side.

to the north, a large staircase stretches upwards. you can't quite see the end - just the stark white marble of the steps eventually meeting the ceiling.  

last but not least, behind you lays the entrance - yet, when you look out, you don't see a single soul, either. this doesn't strike you as odd, even though it might set off alarms any other time.

At first glance, Bastion is pulled to the west, almost out of instinct. Even from this distance, his eyes could discern the armor was 12th century maybe early 13th. With another step he gazes over to the other side of the wall, however he stops. His feet feel like glue, a resistance the smith-son didn’t anticipate. The son of Hephaestus’ heart might have pulled him towards that hall, it’s sheen of metal being illuminated by the fluorescent lighting yet he couldn’t move---as if his mind was denying him.

 There is something not right, a split in logic that seemed to cement him where he was.  As familiar as it was, as much as Bash wanted to trust it...he couldn’t. Somehow he felt it in his bones that this was his hideaway, a place he could escape when he was first stationed here---yet at the same time it wasn't. He knew it. These halls, frozen capsules of time that had pass---Bastion found his imagination here, his desires. This is where he justified why others loved and fought, that in these halls through the paintings and telling of them---he experienced it’s history and it’s mistakes, it’s beauties in all form they came in. It can’t be right? This was real or was it? The smith-son wrestled with his thoughts, as doubt settled in

  However, as Bastion aimed to step once more, he cocks his head to the north. His eyes dance upwards, as they glided up the endless marble steps. “But...maybe?” once again whispering to no one but himself, he turns now to face the north hallway just staring down it. This definitely wasn’t something he’d seen before, the stone staircase ascending further into the ceiling until it practically disappeared. With hesitation, Bastion tries to step forward and with surprise his right foot moves. With another, then again, it seems this was the path he needed to take.

you take one step, then another, pulled to the staircase like a magnet. the stifling silence is broken by your feet hitting the marble with every step, a rhythmic clacking of sole and stone. moments turn to minutes, and if you were to look behind you, you'd see endless stairs. ahead, too, are endless stairs. the horizon looks the same - stairs, as far as the eye can see.

do your legs start to tire? do you think about turning back - or perhaps, just end up turning back altogether?

Vastness of stairs before Bastion felt like a daunting task, yet hopeful and athletic he hustled his way up the first stretch. With every step Bash counted one after the other; by the fortieth he wander how much further, by the eightieth he imagined what is forty more? So on and so on the steps continue into the hundreds, then closer to two hundreds, which by then the sheer enjoyment of counting became taxing for the smith-son. “This doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to stop?” thinking silently, hiding each worry he produce underneath the heel of his steps; telling himself just another...just another

 Minutes kept growing, yet the horizon kept refreshing with more stairs for Bastion to climb; each flawless and marbled as the first. As in shape as he was, his stamina became to take it’s toll reminding the son of Hephaestus that he still was mortal. That there was a weakness in him that he hated. “Fuck, this shit...” he huffed, a grit strung from his throat as he stubbornly pressed on. Logically he knew that there would be a limit at some point, that no matter how many steps were made, whether by hand or by magic, that nothing could truly be infinite...that even in this place, still confusing and uncertain for Bastion must have a beginning and an end. Right?

you climb, and you climb, and you climb - yet, not once do you falter. even as the stairs seem to continue, infinitely copy-pasted, you climb.

eventually, however, another noise breaks the monotony of shoes against tile. it's quiet at first, barely audible - but it grows just as quickly as it came on.

it's... a voice. but is it masculine, feminine, a mix of both? or perhaps something more bestial in nature, more primal? describe what you hear, and the tone they seem to have.

𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐓𝐈𝐑𝐄, 𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐏𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐒? 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐔𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 - 𝐖𝐇𝐘?

  At first the noise that breaks through sounded raucous as it’s voice boomed around Bastion. It was so loud that shook the steps below him, the stone absorbing the acoustics as every inch of the marble vibrates like a tuning fork.  It took a second for the smith-son to pick up on it’s words, as each breath it took was feathery, like wisps of air being funneled then scorched. It was raspy then, felt dry against the air, like a parched mouth whimpering on a hot day. As it bellows, Bastion stands still for a moment, gauging his footing by not allowing the vibrations scattering all around to dislodge him from his placement.    

  “Who’s asking?” was the first thing he could produce, though it was drowned out by the entity’s words. With some silence returning, the steps bellow him buzzing then still once before, Bastion tried again. “Why not? Is this not some test?” he felt smug in asking, even if he had no real proof where he was or what he was doing. Yet in an instance, he curled in on himself as more answers came to the surface, “I...I don’t know why, really... but it’s better than staying where I was. This seemed like the best option, but I.” why was he stumbling on his words now? The presence of his voice, held a heaviness to it that didn’t resonate in it’s volume---no deeper than that, it’s tone that swelled through the smith-son felt domineering, critical, as if one wrong move, one out of step response would be a failure. “Who are you? Why does it matter why I continue marching or not?”

𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝑫𝑶𝑬𝑺 𝐈𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐔𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆? 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐊 𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐌𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐘𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐍.

with every word, every syllable, the entire structure shakes beneath your feet - with all the heat of a summer's day. you continue - left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. it's eerily uniform, yet not eerie enough for alarm.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐍, 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐂𝐊. 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐁𝐎𝐋𝐃, 𝐋𝐎𝐘𝐀𝐋 - 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐃𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐀𝐋𝐒?

behind you, you hear a noise... almost like something distant falling. then another, then another.

slowly, but surely, it seems as if the steps behind you are breaking away; and they only seem to drop faster and faster with every moment that passes.

what do you do?

Bastion bide his words, concentrating on an answer that felt real and honest, than reactive. This heat that grew, baked against the smith-son almost like rays of dessert heat, practically feel the particles of hot sand roll off his back with every climbing march he took. It was sweltering the higher he climbed, beads of sweat raining from around his collar. Even as the marble trembled, shakily adding a hast to Bastion’s movement he still pressed on pigheadedly.

    “Does it matter if I stop? Does anything matter in this new life I’ve been charged with? Does the fact that I have no idea what is real or not matter? Does it matter than all you gods, all our enemies want are test after test, after challenge after some fucking prophecy? I don’t know what I’m doing other than trying to survive, so tell me...if just trying to live for tomorrow is Sisyphean for you then sure. I’ll take trying over doing nothing any day.” even if his memories were twisted, there was something burred in him that felt like loss he couldn't place. There was something in him begging him not to give up, that trying is all you were ever gifted. That the chance to do something, to live or to fight for love or for loss was all on you...that the ability to try was more important than the idea to fail.

   ---yet in the middle of his yelling, the shaking grew more ravenous as cracking of stone; gravely and explosive pulled at the back of Bastion’s head as he turned. With a brisk step, his feet began clambering up the steps of the staircase. Though with the words of his adjudicator seemed to spark a fierier response, as Bastion was tired of not knowing what was going on---that lack of control pushed him further towards spontaneity.

  With the second to last stone step shattering behind Bastion, the young demigod swirled his fingers around like a conductor waving a wand. In the air, two fracture steps crumbling below him fly at his side, then descended backward as Bastion lunged backwards. With grace, the stone pieces  swoop underneath his heels, levitating there as he jostles about gaining his balance. “I posses more than you can imagine....” he breathed out, bracing himself once more as he stares up int the vast ceiling. “I don’t know what my father was or capable of, but if even a little of him is in me, if he trusted me enough to allow me to get this far...than I plan on continue.”

the staircase continues to crumble, leaving nothing but a milky white abyss where steps once were. throughout your monologue, you feel as if something's changing, swelling within you - like a vein of power, now unearthed.

just as it threatens to swallow you whole, however, it... doesn't.

due to your quick thinking, it seems as if you've gained a footing.

the staircase continues to crumble ahead of you, far into the distance. it's silent for one beat, then two. as if on their own, the stone step holding you up lurches upwards - seemingly of its own volition. the marble-white color threatens to overtake your vision, glinting lighter and lighter ---

𝐇𝐀 𝐇𝐀 𝐇𝐀! 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐒 - 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐔𝐈𝐓𝐘, 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐇!

--- when your vision comes back, you're in an entirely different place... not one of your past, but of your present and your future.

a sanctuary.

describe what this might look like - along with any smells and sounds that might come with.

𝐈 𝐀𝐌 𝐀 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐒 - 𝐀 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐇𝐄𝐏𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐒' 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒. 𝐘𝐎𝐔, 𝐌𝐘 𝐒𝐎𝐍, 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐕𝐄.

as sure as that new vein of power that's opened within you, like flowing ore, you finally are able to comprehend this mysterious voice fully - it, and its physical manifestation.

has the voice changed? what does the figure it belongs to look like? what are they doing?

Your arms cross in front of you as you brace for impact; the marble bleaching pure white until nothingness consumes your senses. It takes a moment, a pause of anticipation with no solution for you to wave your hands down and out away of you. As before, your eyes flutter to adjust to the room that sharpened into vision around you. Pillars of onyx and iron tower above you, a hallway grand enough to hold hundreds of people stretches out before you. Tapestries largely ornate, with tassels dangling from their ends drape the walls around you. Yours eyes jump down further, pyres like stone torches guide you down the middle of the chamber, it’s fire that of vermilion; flickering and inviting you to follow.

  Still hovering on your stones, the pieces take you deeper through the hallway as you begin to look at the tapestries that fly beside you. The crest of your houses, your homes hung as banners adorn with garlands of magnolias and calla lilies; their stark white petals shedding like feathers through the air. In front of Voithos stood a statue of a Pegasus, marble like the staircase; the next Aspida and their Minotaur cast in bronze ferociously standing guard...so on and to the next, each house's symbol displayed before their banner.  The room wasn’t just a hallway, four walls, longer than any mile you have ever seen---no it was a chamber, a celebration as faceless people gathered at the end, cheering and praising the young demigod as he entered.

It felt like a banquet for him, a future, a version of a truth where they survive and win appeared before Bastion with surreal acuteness. At the end of this hall, was the source of the voice that had guided him. Though as he got closer, it’s voice grew quieter and softer, it’s dry rasp being coated with a velvety tone yet it’s warmth growing on the verge of blistering. Before the smith-son stood a marbled golem, parts of it’s shoulders and chest are cracked, carved open with a tool allowing veins of white hot magma to seep through it like veins. Underneath it now, the massive statue towered over the smith-son, it’s height well over ten feet, as parts of armor and scale mail coats over the animated guardian. At it’s helm, where a head would form, was replaced with a floating ball of flame that fluttered in place. Deeper at it’s core, seemed to be an eye, intensely burning blood red birthing an amber hue to the flames that danced from it.

  “Thank you... I wouldn’t know how to be anything else, but I am no champion yet. I feel like with every little win we get, there's another problem to solve. How am I possibly able to keep this up...did you know my father? W-what would he have done?”

this is no hallway, no liminal space between the person you were then and the person you are now; this is your home. the crowd of faces cheer and toss rice, overwhelmed by the pure ecstasy of having their champion in front of them.

𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐄? 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐇𝐈𝐌.

the golem stands, solemn, even as you approach. the heat, while blistering, also feels like that of comfort... and when you've finished your trek towards the throne, the towering guardian sets a cracked palm face-up on the ground for you to climb onto.

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐎𝐋𝐘𝐌𝐏𝐔𝐒, 𝐇𝐄, 𝐓𝐎𝐎, 𝐅𝐄𝐋𝐓 𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐅 𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐍𝐎 𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 - 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐙𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐍𝐎𝐒. 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃, 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐂𝐊, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐎 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔

do you climb on?.

Climbing into the palm of the golem, Bastion listened eagerly as the the radiating heat began to tickle his skin as he ascended. Crawling up from his knees, he stands and watches as they space between them lessens and the flaming source, from what the smith-son assumed, was it’s power. As the construct, still smooth and softly echoing, spoke more about Hephaestus it allowed a truth to be revealed, a sliver of transparency that their myths lacked.

   To think his father’s struggles happened to him, a god and an immortal, allowed a sobering and honest thought be birthed in Bastion. “I guess not, but to think that with out him I wouldn’t be here..in your palm. I just, I can’t shake the thought that if I knew him more I could honor him more...honor myself.” a pause took the silence between them, as he hovered before his guardian---eye to eye as Bastion peered into the flames.  “I hope so, I don’t do well on faith but... I think.” his head tilted back to the banners, names of his comrades flooding the hall as their silhouettes began being birthed near the bases of the banners. “I maybe, if I stick to what I know and who I have around me....maybe persevering is enough. Is that why you are here? To see if I have enough guts or something?

as you come eye to eye, the flames that threaten to lick at your face can finally be seen for what they are; the fires of benevolence. the crowd cheers on, applauding your revelation wildly. even your silhouetted comrades, it seem, are clapping for you.

a crack in the golem breaks, and with it, comes another river of lava.

𝐈 𝐀𝐌 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀 𝐒𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐘 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑; 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐈𝐓 𝐀 𝐆𝐈𝐅𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐀𝐃.

the golem raises the very same hand that holds you gingerly within, above his head.

𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐘, 𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐏𝐇𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐒. 𝐈 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐍𝐎 𝐃𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐓 𝐖𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐄𝐄𝐓 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍.

then, it drops you - right into the orb of flame that occupies the space where its head would be. where they might have hurt someone else, you simply feel a divine comfort envelop your entire being.

you awake with a jolt, but that vein of power looms ever present. and somehow, you get the feeling that this wasn't just a dream to write off.

either way, it was a new day in undertown - and now, you feel, you are more ready than ever.

#;{ path!goals } #;{ mine } #;{ long!post } #man html wasn't loving me and it's late I'll edit this maybe later.

[number-one-micoverse-fan]

Matters of the Heart

Sickfic for @mushroomminded because I know what she likes. 

*****************

“Dad? …Dad. Dad! DAD!”

Dom jolted in his seat, blinking rapidly to clear the film over his eyes and refocusing his attention on Cody. His son was leaning forward in his chair at the dining room table, brow furrowed in concern and not a little worry. Dominic forced his fuzzy mind to concentrate on the most important aspect of his life.

“Mm, yeah? Sorry, I—not awake yet. Coffee—need my coffee. What were you saying?” He murmured the words the words through a mouth that felt like it was made of wet and heavy clay.

Cody’s lips pressed into a thin line, bottom lip sucking in between his teeth as he looked his dad up and down, “I was…saying how Milo and I were planning on going to the Parker house again after school today. If that’s okay with you?”

There was a very slow moment wherein Dom struggled to put the pieces of Cody’s sentence together. But then he smiled warmly and nodded, “Sure, that shouldn’t be a…um. Should be fine. Take—just take your phones. Let, uh, let one of Milo’s dads know where you’ll be.”

Cody beamed, “We will! Thanks dad!”

Dom made a pleased noise of consent as Cody ducked his head to rapidly type something on his phone, no doubt letting his partner in crime know their plans were good to go. Dom breathed out a heavy and burden-laden breath, shoulders slumping as his eyelids slid closed once again.

It felt like only seconds later that Cody was waking him up with a quick hug and a shout goodbye as he ran out the door to school. Dom stared blankly at the empty chair his son had left behind, his mind tangling into a knot of stray and disconnected thoughts. He ran his fingertips distractedly over the polished woodgrain of the table, glazed eyes finding a middle distance in the pattern of the floor.

He didn’t realize he’d been dozing off again until his phone buzzed in his pocket with a reminder that he needed to get ready for work soon.

————

Dominic was reprimanded for dozing off at his desk three times.

Once, he fell asleep in the elevator.

His coworkers kept asking him if he felt all right, telling him maybe he should ask to go home. Dom kept waving them off with a thin and awkward smile and telling them he was fine, it was just a bit of stress, really, some coffee would wake him right up.

The drive home was stretched time from minutes into days, streetlights blurring into smears at the edges of his vision. Cars honked at him angrily when he drifted into their lane, the noise jolting him from his hazy stupor and snapping his focus back on the road.

The house was quiet and empty when he got back home, the lights off and the windows dark. Cody was undoubtedly still out and about with Milo. But that was all right, let the boy have his freedom. Dominic kicked his shoes off and shuffled into the sitting room, collapsing on the couch with a groan. He only intended to take a moment to breathe and unwind before he got up, changed, and started on dinner for Cody.

But the next thing he was aware of was being shaken awake by Cody and noticing how dark the room really was.

“Shoot, nh, s-sorry, Cody, I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Dom heaved himself up, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and trying to shake the lagging dizziness from his mind, “I’ll get you something to eat in a minute, just let me—“

“Dad, you don’t have to, it’s okay, I ate at Milo’s,” Cody had his hand on Dom’s arm, fingers curled into the fabric of his father’s shirt sleeve, his face a mask of worry, “I came home and you were asleep on the couch and you were so tired this morning, I just thought I’d let you sleep. You needed it. Did you eat dinner, though? You probably should…”

Dom blinked at him, something twisting in his chest at the thought that Cody had to take care of him.

“I’m all right,” He said, a little hoarsely, swallowing a lump that was pressing hard against the inside of his throat, “Just, um, long day. I’ll get some dinner. Did you do your homework?”

————

Everything was starting to pile up.

Bills, work, obligations to Cody and the school, maintaining the house, the car, and social connections. With everything else he had to take care of, Dominic had started neglecting himself. But it wasn’t a big deal; a few nights missing sleep to do some work on the side, make some extra money, try and get some savings so he could do good by his son.

Shave a few hours off of sleep here.

Skip a few meals there.

It was nothing. Really, it was nothing. Of course he was dozing off every so often, he was working twice as hard as usual.

It wasn’t a big deal.

He’d get through this and on the other side would be a full night’s sleep and plenty of time with Cody.

————

Except he was halfway down the stairs one morning when his stomach lurched and his breath seized in his lungs. His fingers cramped, his arms curling in pain, a stabbing agony radiating from his chest.

His foot missed the step and he blacked out as the world pitched beneath him and the walls spun.

Dom hit the ground hard, driving what little breath he had from his lungs as he clutched at his shift front. He wasn’t even sure he’d stopped falling because the ceiling was still spinning around and around enough to make his mind feel as if it were in a blender, smearing along the sides of the inside of his skull.

Cody’s terrified face swam into view, shouting, his mouth moving, his words so muffled they were distant beats of sound from a faraway shore. Dominic tried to say something, tried to comfort his son, but his lungs weren’t working right and his chest ached with the pain of a blade slipped easily between his ribs. Exhaustion and adrenaline fear battled one another as he stared hopelessly up at Cody through watery eyes.

He blinked and Cody’s phone was in his hand.

Blink and there were more voices, thudding footsteps.

Blink and there were strangers over him, hands on him, pressing against his wrist, his neck.

Blink and he was off the floor, rattling on something, sweet oxygen pouring into his strangled lungs.

White lights and muffled beeps and voices and it sounded like someone was crying.

Dominic made a laborious effort to turn his head and managed to make out Cody, pressing against Dan Fuller’s side, shaking with tears.

God, no, please, no.

The last thing he’d wanted to do was make his son cry…

————

Dom rose into consciousness with a sluggish return to his senses. He first became aware of his body, laying down and feeling like one massive bruise, muscles sore and aching. Then a soft, rhythmic beeping, the shifting of another person, and his own, shallow breathing reached his ears. There was a soft light on his eyelids and he peeled them open, blinking the gummy blurs of sleep from his vision as he focused on the cream colored ceiling.

A second, more lucid assessment brought attention to the padded clamp over his finger (heart monitor?), the pinch in the back of his hand (intravenous line), and the thin rubber tubing around his face, tucked into his nose (oxygen). With a soft grunt, Dom tried to shift his weight and sit up, wincing at the tight feeling in his chest.

“Want me to call a nurse?”

Slower than he’d like, Dom turned his head and saw Jake Pierly slouched in a chair next to the hospital bed. He looked more drawn and tired than usual, the bags under his eyes deeper and darker. Milo was in a chair next to him, curled up in a position that looked a little uncomfortable, but sprawled in such a way that he had his head in Jake’s lap.

Dom automatically looked around for Cody. Jake noticed,

“Dan finally got Cody to get up and leave the room, get something to eat.” Jake said in a low voice so he didn’t wake the sleeping teenager. He was idly running his fingers through Milo’s hair, an almost absent motion, “He’d been in here all day, didn’t want to leave you alone. He was really worried.”

Licking his lips and throat clicking as he tried to work the dryness in his mouth away, Dom spoke in a cracked whisper, his voice hoarse as if he’d been screaming, “Wha’ happened…?”

Jake snorted softly, an ironic smile twisting one side of his mouth, “You had a heart attack, stupid. What did you think was going to happen after you’ve nearly been working yourself to death?” Dominic stared at him and Jake sighed, rolling his eyes, “Dom, even I know you can’t skip that much sleep without consequences. And I am the king of skipping sleep.” His expression softened, tired in the knowledge of things that were too heavy to put into words but too hard to carry alone,

“You know you could have asked for help, right? We’re right next door. If you ever need anything…I mean, Dan and I…” Pink dusted the tops of Jake’s ears and he shifted awkwardly, disturbing Milo who murmured in his sleep and clutched tighter at the hem of Jake’s shirt. Jake shushed him gently, brushing his Milo’s hair back from his freckled face,

“God, Dom, you’re practically a part of this family.”

Dom’s face felt hot and his eyes burned and he sniffed, turning his head away to look at the ceiling.

Part of the family.

He let out a breathy, unstable chuckle,

“Miranda’s gonna kill me…”

Jake laughed a little, “Yeah, she’s gonna kick your ass.”

“DAD!”

And then Cody was in his lap, face pressed into Dom’s collarbone, fingers digging into the papery hospital gown. Dom wrapped his arms around his son and held him tightly, ignoring the pressure in his chest and tugging of the IV line, ignoring Milo’s happy sounds and Dan’s relieved praise. Ignoring everything but the boy in his arms. He kept one arm around Cody’s back, put the other into his son’s hair, held him as close as he could and apologized in strangled whispers, promising to never do it again, promising he’d be better, grateful that he had who he did in his life.

Cody was his world, the real center of his universe. He’d done everything in his life for Cody.

And he’d be damned if he was going to let some stupid heart attack keep him away from the people he loved the most.

#i am not very confident about writing dominic but i do like how this turned out #dominic #fan fiction #angst #family

[remys-lucky-franc]

Reward - A Queen of Thieves Fic:  Leon x MC (Daisy)

Word Count: ~1600

Rating:  To be safe I'll say Adult as this is a little bit naughty.  It's not like terribly graphic or explicit or anything - but err on the side of caution I guess!  

This was an idea I had based on a drabble prompt I'd written for another fandom and I thought it could be switched up a bit and might be fun for these two -  and I think it works :)   This picks up after the cliff-hanger ending of Leon's 3rd season <3

Daisy fixed an encouraging smile on her face.  

After Leon's hospital appointment a couple of weeks ago, he had been cleared to get back to 'normal'.  After the shooting he'd a few days under observation before being sent home to heal from the surgery removing the bullet that had torn through his torso and punctured his lung.  He'd been very lucky really, considering the horrifying possibilities of what could have happened that night...  Those didn't bear thinking about.  

Leon was feeling much better than he did in the immediate aftermath, but unfortunately after six weeks of prescribed rest and healing, without being allowed to lift anything heavier than a kettle, Leon's normal, incredible strength, fitness and muscular physique had taken a  hit.  Before he'd been discharged from hospital, their Physiotherapist had visited him to show him a range of breathing exercises to help strengthen his lung and chest again and he'd performed them religiously before he was allowed to do any real physical exercise again.  He'd been delighted when he was given the okay, but in the space of that two weeks, his mood had taken a dip.  The problem was, initially even going for a walk around the block was enough to wind him:  Leon had spent his whole adult life in tip-top physical condition and he was finding this really hard.  Right now he was pretty much as low as Daisy had ever seen him.  Even though he'd adhered to the physio's instructions to the letter, progress towards getting back to normal was painfully slow for Leon:  Daisy knew he was expecting wonders overnight - and after what happened that night in his bedroom?  Well, she was scared that he was being completely unrealistic...

As had become their routine, Daisy sat at the desk sketching, keeping Leon company while he went through the motions.  He was in the middle of the bedroom floor bare-chested in a pair of dark sweatpants.  She'd half-watched him work his way through a bunch of calf raises and squats using free weights, and Daisy had to admit, the large dumbbells he was holding?  She wouldn't be able to lift them uninjured!  Before his injury, Leon always enjoyed exercising.  Daisy would always smile when she watched him work out - the sheen of sweat on his skin, the determined glint in his eye as he pushed himself harder and harder, consistently making gains.  But since that night exercise seemed to dull his mood and dampen his enthusiasm.  Every day he struggled to get through the routine.  Every day she watched his veins bulge, his jaw clench and his muscles shudder as he dug deep to get a fraction of the results he'd have achieved easily a few months earlier...  And every day Daisy could see him get more demotivated because it wasn't getting any easier.  

As he sat down the weights between sets of shoulder presses, Leon let out a sigh that he sounded like he'd been holding in for a lifetime.  Daisy bit her lip as she looked across at him,

"You doing ok, Leon?"  

He shook his head, a hand raking through his dark hair, voice totally dejected,

"Daisy, I don't know if I'm ever going to get back to normal.  These weights are a third of what I was lifting before...  This is...  It hurts...  And...  I-"

His hands covered his face as he stopped talking.  Daisy stayed silent for a few moments as she watched on, concerned and unsure whether he was ready to cry or scream in frustration.  

By the time Leon uncovered his eyes, Daisy was standing right in front of him.  He smiled softly down at her, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes.  Daisy reached up, stroking his cheek tenderly,

"Shoulder presses are the worst one, right?"  

Leon nodded as he took her small hand in his, pressing a kiss to the back of it before he stooped to pick the dumbbells up for a second set,

"These, and press ups."  

Daisy moved to the side, giving him a little space, watching as he cracked his neck from side to side and set his stance in preparation.  He inhaled deeply and then exhaled as he steadily pressed the dumbbells overheard, then back to down to shoulder height, then repeated the motion, a rhythmic 2:2 count.  When he got to the eighth rep, Daisy could see the vein in his neck begin to raise and the intake of his breath become ragged.  The exertion was written across Leon's his face, sweat starting to bead as he gritted his teeth and pushed through the pain to twelve reps.  As he sat the weights down and mopped his forehead, Daisy wondered how he was going to manage a third set, then a round of press ups...

Her heart sank as she watched him struggle through that final set before sinking to the ground: this was the same man who got stabbed protecting his friends in the Underbelly of Paris and shrugged it off as though it had been nothing more than a scratch.

'There must be something I can do to make this easier for him?  I hate seeing him like this...'

Leon got himself into the press-up position, cranking out ten laboured presses before coming to a grinding halt, huffing out a frustrated breath,

"If I could see some progress, maybe this wouldn't feel like a complete waste of time.  I just feel like I'm putting in all this effort, and getting no reward."

A lightbulb went off inside Daisy's brain as he spoke, a sly grin spreading across her face, eyebrow arching at him,

"Twenty press ups?"

Leon eyed his girl with suspicion,

"Yeah.  Why?"

Daisy laughed,

"So ten more.  Keep going.  Don't mind me..."

Leon tore his eyes away from her, still suspicious, but saying nothing.  He was sore.  His muscles felt like lead and his chest burned.  He could barely focus on the exercise he was suppose to be doing because of the fatigue his body was feeling.  The next ten would undoubtedly be slower than the first ten.  He got back in position as Daisy tossed an earring in front of him, mouthing,

"Ten."

He paused, glancing at her as she tapped her foot with mock impatience,

"Come on.  Nine?"

Leon pushed his body upwards, muscles tensing, eyes squeezed shut, trying to block out the ache.  As he lowered himself back down, a 'clank' in front of him causing his eyes to fly open.  Daisy's other earring.  She let out a mini cheer and clapped her hands together.  Leon narrowed his eyes at his pretty fiancée as she winked at him mischievously,

"Next rep, Kwan, you've got this, come on..."

Leon braced himself as he moved into the third rep, concentrating a little less on the pain of the movement as he tried to work out what the hell Daisy was playing at.  Completing the movement, he watched Daisy saunter across to the window before pulling the band from her dark hair, shaking it like a mane as she tossed the band beside her earrings, murmuring,

"Eight...  Great job...  Keep going..."  

Leon took less recovery time before lifting into another press up.  The strain on his muscles clear as he breathed hard, eyes flitting to look back at Daisy giggling as she propped herself against the desk, pulling off one of her turquoise Converse and walking wonkily to close the space between them, dropping it into the ever-growing bundle of Leon's winnings...   A smile spread across Leon's face as he locked eyes with her, moving into the fifth rep without hesitation.

Daisy clapped her hands as she tossed her second sneaker into the pile,

"You're doing so well, Leon!"  

Watching him steel himself for the sixth round...  A sock was discarded...  Round seven, the matching sock...  On the eighth press up, Daisy stood in front of Leon as she untied the bow of her pink floral wrap dress, letting it slip silently from her shoulders onto the ground, feeling her face flush as Leon's dark eyes undressed her completely.  

Daisy raised her eyebrow at Leon as he continued to stare at her standing there in her cute blue bra and panties,  

"Number nine, don't give up now..."

She flipped her dark wavy hair behind her shoulders as she grinned down at her man,

"I know you can do this!"

Leon clenched his jaw as he raised an eyebrow and pushed hard through the penultimate rep.  Daisy smirked as she watched him:  he was sweating hard, and she was pretty sure from the way he'd just looked at her, it wasn't solely down to the exertion of the physical therapy...  Finishing the exercise, she giggled as Leon leaned up on his elbows with a devilish smirk on his face, pupils blown wide as they trailed from her eyes downward, settling on her curves.  She stepped closer, fingers trembling as she fiddled with the clasp on her bra.  She removed it slowly, teasing him as he groaned at the sight, making her giggle and toss the garment directly into his face.  

Leon stifled a laugh, shaking his head as he knocked the lacy bra that smelled of Daisy's perfume aside, digging deep, muttering,

"Last one."

His arms shook from the exertion as Leon moved through the last motion, listening to Daisy 'woop' and encourage him.  As he completed it, a peal of exhilarated laughter rose from Leon, breathing hard and rolling onto his back, propping himself on his elbow as he grinned up at Daisy.  She giggled as she twirled her hips a few times, teasing him before shimmying out of her panties, tossing them behind her and climbing into his lap as she purred,

"Now what was that about no rewards for your hard work?"  

#lovestruck fic #queen of thieves fic #leon x mc #leon kwan