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heartbreakgrill · 7 months

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Black Paint; Vessel (Sleep Token)

a/n: i am so fucking proud of this and i hope you absolutely love it. pls don't anyone tell brittany or else i'll fucking kms. thx.

description: brittany broski and friends go see sleep token. the group's energy catches the attention of the band.

warnings: alcohol, smut, cringe wattpad y/n moment.

“Hey, guys, welcome back to the Broski report. I’m your host, Brittany Broski.”

She rambled the words out breathlessly, smile void on her face. I stifled a laugh from the seat beside her, especially as I knew the camera frame would then focus on me.

She slammed her palms down onto the table, peering over at me with a blank expression, “Bitch.”

“I know,” I shrugged. My lips were pursed together, shoulders shaking as small giggles forced their way out of my nose.

“Bitch!” She tilted her head from the microphone so as not to disturb the sound mix.

I pressed a hand to my lips, dying of laughter now. “I know!”

“Listen,” she pointed at the screen behind us, “there is no fucking time for introductions because this bitch…just ruined my life by introducing me to yet another GROUP masked men I will not and can not have!”

“I know,” I nodded solemnly, still giggling. “I’m so sorry for what I have done to you.”

“Sleep Token,” Brittany yelled. I flinched from the volume, eliciting a soft, “Oh!”

“Sleep Token, guys,” she repeated. “Listen…before we even begin, we have a disclaimer for you horny sluts.”

I licked my lip as I silenced my laughter, looking seriously to the camera. “We do not condone the search for the identity of this band. Let them exist peacefully. If you know who they are, and you comment it on either of our platforms, anywhere, you will be blocked. Be respectful, shut the fuck up, and keep the mystery alive, kay?”

“Kay. Moving on! Sleep Token!”

It was my first time being on Brittany’s podcast. I was honored to have been asked, considering she didn’t often have anyone join her. But, considering I’d introduced her to the band I was currently hyper-fixating on, she needed me to provide my personal testimony. We spent most of the video appreciating their music, pointing out our favorite drum parts, lyrics, and Vessel vocals. Of course, we thirsted over the band, too. Why wouldn’t we have? They were hot as fuck and we were just girls.

And, of course, the video blew up. Her podcast segments normally did, but this one reached new numbers even she could not have predicted. At one point, trending on TikTok was a video of me saying, “I would literally let this man do dirty, nasty, terrible things to me that my mom would disown me for. Things only bitches did in that fucking town of Sodom and Gamora. God would literally come down and rain hellfire over my apartment after I got done with that man.”

I wasn’t necessarily embarrassed by the videos that came out after my clip went viral, but it was a little silly. I just hoped the band didn’t have secret accounts that they stalked fans on. I would never want to know that- but Ijust hoped and prayed it wasn’t sure.

Soon after we posted the video, the band announced a new leg of a North American tour.

And, of course, we spent a shit load of money to get tickets.

The months drug on before it was finally time for the concert.

“Shot?”

Brittany held out the glass vial towards me, a knowing smile- brows raised, round eyes suggestive- egging me on. Not that I needed it- tonight was the perfect night to get trashed. Of course, with Brittany, that was most night’s. When we had filmed for the podcast? Oh, we were smashed.

“Duh, bitch.”

I took it from her hold, wrapped my forearm around hers, and shared a low cheer before taking the shot. Our other friend Sarah Baska, was ordering herself something at the bar. Meanwhile, the liquid burned the back of my throat, sliding down my chest in it’s fiery path. A natural lightweight, I felt warm immediately. It was also just really hot in here.

I then ordered some mixed drink. Sarah got more, harder liquor, as per usual. And, Brittany did another handful of shots for the road. After, we headed for the stairs, giggly and anticipatory. We spent extra money on a private box, both to shake our asses in a spacious area, and to be able to enjoy the concert without being bothered by fans the entire time. It was nice getting photos with them and meeting people who looked up to all of us. But, tonight, it would be nice to just exist as normal people at a normal concert. Besides, we were all here for Sleep Token. I wanted them to get all the worship that they deserved.

Not that this was a normal concert. This was, in any devoted fan’s words, a night of worship to the god of Sleep. This was a ritual. Tonight, I would be shaking my ass extra hard for the little dancing vessel’s on that stage who were so fucking attractive, I could drool.

We found our seats quickly. I was grateful for the space away from the thick, sweaty crowds- it was hot in here, even though I was wearing next to nothing. I really didn’t want my makeup- done heavier than normal thanks to Britt- to run. I did, however, hope that Vessel’s paint would smear a little extra from this heat. That was hot.

We sat down in our seats for a few minutes, gushing about finally being at this ritual. I sipped at my drink, finishing it faster than I thought possible. I tended to drink heavier when my pulse rate was this high. My chest was really warm now, and I enjoyed it. It loosened me up quite a bit. I wasn’t really introverted, but I had anxiety when it came to these situations. Liquid courage was always nice to have.

I shed my jacket on the back of my chair, exposing my midriff and bare arms. It cooled me down a bit. Brittany was rambling on about Vessel and some video she’d saw on TikTok the night before. I went to reply to her, to ask to see the video, when a staff member interrupted us, “Excuse me, ladies-”

We looked up him expectantly. His voice was quiet against the loud chatter of the crowd and the pre-show playlist thumping through the speakers. I leaned in close to him and strained to hear his next words.

“These seats have food and drink service. Would you like anything?” He graciously held out a menu.

We nodded enthusiastically and ordered another round of shots and cocktails. Just as he returned with the tray of drinks, after we occupied ourselves by watching a handful of videos on Brittany’s phone, the lights dimmed for the opener. I tipped the server as I joined the crowd, on my feet, hooting and hollering. We quickly down our shots.

The opener was pretty good. Brittany, Sarah, and I danced along to the songs, clapped when gestured to, and took a few embarrassing pictures for us to regret in the morning. I liked to spin in circles as I danced, rotating my hips to the beat. I made a stank face while doing so, drink raised to the sky like an offering. Brittany and Sarah would hype me up, pretending to swipe stacks of cash over me like rain, leaning into my momentum with hollers. The more I moved, the more the alcohol took over. I was completely lost in the music.

When the opener took a bow, Brittany, Sarah, and I screamed, loudly. Loud enough that the opener noticed us. They waved up to our seats. I jumped up and down, splashing my drink over the railing, on the floor below. I waved wildly. The opener then blew a kiss and I nearly melted. I felt like a little girl at a One Direction concert. It was awesome.

As the crew began tearing down the openers set, and putting together Sleep Token’s, more music streamed through the speakers. The server scurried off to get us more drinks.

Because the opener had noticed us- twice- a few people in the crowd turned to look up at our seats. Now that the overhead lights were back on in the venue, a bunch of fans started calling out our names, waving excitedly. As they did, I Wanna Dance With Somebody started playing and the energy in the venue lifted completely.

I set my drink down in my cup holder, needing both hands to go absolutely feral over the song choice. As the first verse began, I grabbed Brittany’s fingers in my clutch, serenading her through viscous screams. I swayed from foot to foot, hitting each beat with my hips. As Miss Houston sang, “My lonely heart calls…” I grabbed the railing from behind me, leaned myself over it, back arched and head upside down, towards the crowd. Everyone freaked out at the stupid move I did. I was sure to see clips of it in the morning.

Then, the chorus started, and we jumped around like raging lunatics. We clapped our way through the song, entertaining the crowd like we were the real show. Eventually, the crew seemed to be finishing up their work onstage. The music started to fade, the lights dimmed, and the stage lit up with bright blue. I picked my drink back up, screeching my head off as the music started.

I swear to god that the band could hear us screaming from our side of the venue, jumping around like children, holding onto each other like we just might fall over. We were louder than, probably, the rest of the crowd. They started with Chokehold, which made me nearly lose my sanity. Vessel strutted out onto the stage like a literal god, rings shining in the light, blackened skin already slick with sweat. I bounced up and down to every beat, waving my hands with the crowd, spinning in circles, downing my drink like there was no tomorrow. I didn’t focus too much on how good he looked, caught up in the music. But, god, did I know he looked insane.

At one point, Brittany and Sarah turned their phone flash on. They switched between that and taking videos on their phones, giving me all the spotlight. They made it like I was the fucking main character of the concert. And, I loved every second of it.

At one point, the bassist noticed our flashing lights and mini dance circle. He pointed up at us, nodding his head in appreciation. I screamed my head off in response, gripping the railing and whipping my hair. He raised his hands like he had to defend himself from my energy and slunk off to the other side of the stage. Brittany pointed the camera in my face, “How do you feel?!”

“I’m shitting my pants right now!”

The concert went by quickly, too quickly. IV interacted with us a bunch, too, especially after he’d scream his lyrics and we’d go wild. Vessel, unfortunately, avoided our side of the stage. He was so lost in the music which was, honestly, amazing to witness. His silly dances combined with his insane vocals made for a great show.

By the time The Offering started up, Brittany, Sarah, and I were absolutely trashed. I wasn’t too far gone because I was started to sweat out what was in my system. Yet, I was nowhere near sober. Anyways, maybe it was because we were being obnoxious and loud due to our drunken states- Vessel finally noticed us. It was at the beginning of the song, when he sang, “Take a bite…’ It came out like an animalistic growl, chilling the audience.

He pointed his hands towards our balcony, though I’d like to think he was really just pointing at me, and whispered the sultry lyric. I melted to the ground, head thrown back as I yelled. Brittany grabbed my bicep to ensure I wouldn’t fall any further. She and Sarah hoisted me back up. We cackled into each other’s shoulders annoyingly. Then, as the drums picked up, we began moving with the rhythm again.

Before we knew it, the concert was over. Vessel raised his hands in a bow. Then, he looked around the crowd, found our seats again, and shot us a small smile. I took the opportunity to blow him a kiss, enthusiastically throwing it through the air towards him. He grinned in response, looking to his feet as he shook his head, before slinking backstage.

I plopped back down into my seat, already cracking open a water bottle. My chest heaved for air. I didn’t even know how to process anything that had happened. All I knew was, “I need to eat so many fries right now,” I breathed out, sweat slicking my skin. I sipped the water slowly. I could feel myself sobering up more and more. I was a little more conscious, but so damn hungry.

Sarah was talking to some people next to us who she knew. Brittany sat beside me. “Vessel literally wants you,” she said, nonchalantly, like she had read it in that morning’s paper. “Like…holy fuck.”

I cracked a smile and wiped a bead of sweat off of my brow. I checked my reflection in my phone. Luckily, my makeup had stayed intact. I replied with a silly tone, “Don’t even get me excited like that. It’s rude.”

“No, cause, he kept looking up here after The Offering,” Brittany said in a matter of fact manner, again.

“Really?” I sat up in my seat, “No way! I must have been dancing too hard to notice.”

“Oh, you were shaking your ass,” she snickered with a grin.

“Ugh, he’s fucking sexy,” I continued on. We stared at the stage for a moment in one of those silences where neither drunk girl could really formulate any relevant response. Then, I kind of tossed my weary arms around, “Well, doesn’t matter. I bet he, like, doesn’t even date.”

“No, but he def fucks,” Brittany emphasized. We leaned into each other, laughing loudly.

Sarah turned to us at the sound. She plopped down beside me and went to add to our conversation, but the familiar staff member who’d been supplying our drinks was interrupting again. Though, this time, he didn’t have a tray of alcohol.

“Excuse me, ladies,” his favorite phrase. We all looked up at him, curious. He didn’t have to speak so loud, considering the venue was clearing out, so it was easier to hear. Whitney Houston was playing again.

“The band is wondering if you’d like to come backstage for some refreshments?” He asked so casually that it took my brain a moment to process the information.

I managed to play it really cool, but internally, I was basically shitting my pants. Brittany, however, gaped at the worker. She slowly turned her head towards Sarah and I with a wild look in her eyes, seeming like she might scream at any given moment.

Sarah snorted, “What fucking fanfiction did we just get thrown into?!”

“I don’t know, but I fucking love it,” I gushed back, staring at the worker. “What the fuck.” He shrugged back at me.

Sarah shook her head with an amused grin, waving off the worker, “Listen, yall go, have fun. My friends offered to let us go out with them, so I’m gonna split off. I don’t think I could mentally handle meeting them right now. I think I’d, like, puke all over them.”

“But, then you could say that you’ve puked on Sleep Token!” Brittany smacked Sarah’s shoulder, reaching across my body.

“Go!” Sarah shoved back, squishing me further between the two of them. “Go, so you can say that you puked on Sleep Token.”

“Yeah, I fucking will,” I pushed up out of my seat, an eager energy in my bones.

Brittany and I followed the worker down the stairs, clutching each other’s arms. He ushered us through the remaining crowd gently, though we had to stop to take numerous photos- and make the occasional TikTok- with fans. They gushed about our dance moves, our podcast episode. It made everything feel even giddier. We eventually made it up to the stage, where we were guided behind these large black curtains disguising the dimly lit area of the sides.

The crew worked hard on getting everything packed up, put away. We skirted between all of them, trying not to get in the way of it all. I kept checking my reflection in my phone’s front camera to ensure I looked okay. Most of the sweat had soaked itself up and my perfume was long lasting. Hopefully that was enough to rizz up Vessel. Not that I was counting on that. It would be awesome, but I was actually excited to have a conversation with all of them. I would soon learn that was not what he wanted from me tonight.

We went down another set of stairs and stopped before a closed door. Behind it, we could hear music playing over a speaker, a few sets of voices cheering and chattering. The worker knocked, kindly, and the voices cut themselves off.

“Come in!” A thick British accent called out.

I took a deep, drunken breath as the worker turned the door knob. And, my stomach dropped when he pulled open the door.

Sleep Token sat, lounged out across their dressing room, on various couches. They wore those familiar masks, their stage costumes- save for a few layers- and clutched some drinks in their blackened hands. My eyes found Vessel last, who was leaning against the counter of the vanity, a drink sat beside his left hand. He had shed his cloak, so visible to us was his paint-smeared chest and back. I tried not to let my eyes wander too much- but they did.

III stood from the couch, excitedly dancing his way over to the door where we stood. The worker abandoned us. “‘Ello, darlings!” III called out.

He hugged Brittany first, bent down because of his insane height. As he did, I couldn’t rip my eyes from the slits of Vessel’s mask. I somehow knew that he was staring at me- probably because his distant gaze burned my skin. Then, III was pulling me into his chest, “It’s so lovely to meet you…”

“Brittany,” she gestured to herself, then to me, “Y/n. Dude, thanks so fucking much for having us! We had an absolute blast. Your performance is just- wow!”

IV and II approached us next, as III pulled us a bit further into the room. III busied himself with pouring us each a drink as we introduced ourselves to IV and II.

“We’re so glad you had a good time worshiping,” IV cracked, hugging Brittany, “makes it all the more worth it.”

I grinned at his words as he embraced me, too, still occasionally glancing at Vessel. II added on, “Sure you’re exhausted from all that dancing. Have a seat.”

III wrapped an arm around Brittany’s shoulder, passing a drink to her hand, as he brought her onto the couch beside him. IV and II moved to stt back where they had been, probably assuming I was following. I clutched nervously to the drink III had given me. I may be drunk, but not drunk enough to not act stupid in front of men I wanted to fuck. The nerves were crashing down me instead, making me stoic, overthinking my own breathin.

I looked back at Vessel, again, who had been quiet thus far. He held out a hand, an offer for me to come sit beside him. I hesitated, for just a moment, before taking it. His fingers were warm, even his rings, and I noticed that black paint smudged itself across my skin as I took my hand from his. I leaned up against the counter beside him as I admired the paint.

III, IV, and II struck up a lively conversation with Brittany, full of teases and easy topics. I watched until I felt that burning stare on the side of my face again. I looked up at Vessel, a small smile forming across my lips. He returned the expression.

“Lovely to meet you, Y/n,” his voice was just as deep as his singing tone. It sent a shiver down my spine.

I shifted on my feet, glanced around, before returning his gaze again. “You, too, Vessel,” I took a sip of the drink in my hand.

He chuckled down at me. My knees rocked. “So…you like Whitney Houston, yeah?.”

My face turned beat red at the realization that he had seen a lot more than I hoped. I pressed a hand over my face, groaning, “Oh, god. You saw that?”

Vessel brushed his shoulder against mine. More paint took it’s place there in my skin. “I saw everything.”

I crinkled my nose, “Ugh, that was just…I don’t claim to be a good dancer, just so you know.”

Vessel shrugged, “I beg to differ.”

Shaking my head at his words, I waved him off, “Don’t even…I just, like, throw myself around like a fucking rag doll.”

“No,” he drug out the word, deep voice reverberating in my chest, “no, you have some rhythm in those hips.” His head tilted down as he eyed my body.

There was a beat of silence that passed between us. I examined his mask. I think I knew then that I wouldn’t be leaving until this man fucked me senseless, but my foggy, drunken brain thought still that maybe I was just being delusional.

It wasn’t until he opened his mouth, again, that I was certain. He drug his tongue over his bottom lip, as though he was searching for the right words to say. My eyes followed the wet, pink organ with a blank stare.

Vessel thought for another moment before leaning his mouth down towards my ear. He pressed his hand against my hip, fingers curling around my bare skin exposed there. His breath was hot against the side of my neck, though I shivered again. “I want to see how those hips would move on me.”

I flushed, bright red again, the alcohol making the heat on my blotchy skin worse. Vessel pulled away, a smirk ever-present on those pink lips, black staining the outer edges. It took all of my self control not to lick it clean, right then and there. I wanted him- needed him. And, he knew it.

Vessel searched my eyes with that curl in his lips. I was unable to come up with a proper response. But, I think he found what he was looking for in my dilated pupils and rising chest. “Be a good girl for me? Yeah?”

Vessel offered up his hand again. I entwined my fingers in his, my own smile finally finding its place on my mouth. Vessel took my cup and chugged it, tossed it into the trash, and led us from the room.

I followed like a puppy-dog, hot on his heels. He guided me so carefully, looking back occasionally to ensure I was okay. Then, he threw open a door at the end of the hallway we traveled down. It was dark in the room, with only a small lamp in the corner to illuminate our hushed desperations. Vessel locked the door behind us after he ushered me inside. He spun me around and forced himself against my chest, pressing my back against the door. It knocked the wind right out of me. My chest rose and fell as I took rapid, deep breaths. Vessel held me by my hip, again, thumb brushing against my bare skin gently.

“Is this okay?” He whispered as he brought a hand to my face, cupping my cheek.

I barely nodded, entranced by the stare coming from behind his mask. I had enough focus to touch my hands to his chest, though, running my fingers up and down his toned stomach. The paint smeared beneath my knuckles, revealing more of his pale skin. I watched it mix with our sweat with hopeless admiration in my gaze.

Vessel looked down at my hands, too, a smirk still present on his face. But, then he forced my chin up, so my eyes were on his mask, and said, “Use your words, darling.”

“Y-yes,” I shuddered, voice breathless.

Vessel pressed me harder against the door as our lips met, tongues clashing against teeth, hungrily. We moved together so easily, entranced by the other’s taste. I gripped at his sides, pulling me into him, arching my back to press my chest against his. Vessel’s hold tightened, too, and he ground my hips against his.

I felt him get hard, quickly, the loose material of his pants allowing his erection to fully grind against my thigh. He was whiney, all gasping breaths, low moans, as I drug my fingers down his chest, dipped them through his waistband. I nearly got to feel him, but Vessel grabbed my hand harshly in his, slamming it up against the door, above my head. My eyes shot back open in surprise. I don’t remember closing them.

“S’all about you right now, darling,” he demanded, words against my lips.

Vessel shoved his head into the crevice of my neck, nipping and tonguing at my flesh. My eyes dropped shut again, head hitting the door in a way that would probably hurt tomorrow. I had a feeling all of me would hurt tomorrow. But, I didn’t care.

Vessel drug his fingers up my arms, leaving goosebumps in his path, trails of black paint like a roadmap amongst my freckles. He slid the straps of my dress down past my shoulders. Then, he kissed his way down to the arch of my breasts. He rolled the material between his teeth and sunk to the floor as he drugged it down my body. Vessel was on his knees below me.

Vessel looped an arm around either of my thighs, nearly pulling my entire weight onto his shoulders. I clutched onto the top of his head, feeling some of his hair slip out from the cap he wore beneath his mask. It was soft, though just a bit sweaty. He glanced up at my bare breasts, smirking devilishly now

He admired my face as he said, “I watched you worship me all night. It’s my turn to pray at your altar.” STOPPED HERE.

My head hit the door again as Vessel sunk his tongue into me. He had managed to tear my underwear down with his teeth and they were now laying across the room. I ground my hips into his face, back arching each time his nose would then rub against my sweet spot. I tried to be quiet at first, though small gasps and moans slipped from my bitten lips.

But, then, Vessel stopped, eliciting a whine from me. He chuckled, lips slick from me. He darted his tongue out, smirking as he cleaned his mouth. He tilted his head in disappointment, “You were so loud for me earlier, darling. What happened to that good girl? I want to hear how good I am making you feel.”

I nodded, dazed, brows furrowed, fingers digging at his hair. The cap had fallen off his head at this point, but the mask managed to stay on. I was grateful it did. The mystery alive energized both of our primal desires..

Vessel watched my face as he pressed his tongue back up into me, running the tip of it down my entire core. I moaned, loudly, back arched into the cold air, nipples hard from the temperature and arousal.

He chuckled into me, making my thighs shake around his head. Vessel pried me back open with his fingers bruising my skin. He continued on until I was close. I vocalized my point of no return, and he hurriedly spoke, “Don’t. Be a good girl and wait. For me, okay?”

I nodded wildly, clenching my stomach to deny myself of the orgasm. Vessel gently set my feet back on the ground. He guided me by the hips towards a counter. Easily, he picked me up and set me on it. It was freezing cold against my bare skin, but his warm hands, tongue, were on me soon enough. I took the opportunity to unlatch his belt, fingers moving hurriedly. Vessel moved to help me, tugging the pants down his thighs.

Vessel then pushed me back from him, taking control again. He pushed my legs open further with his bare knee. Then, he grabbed me by the hips and tugged me down till my back was flat against the counter. His hand splayed across my thigh as he pushed himself inside of me.

He was sloppy, quick in desperation as he fucked me. But, every thrust he pushed into me was strong, deep. Vessel wrapped my legs around his waist, securing me by the hip. His other hand drug itself up my chest until his fingers were wrapped around my throat. Black paint smeared most of my skin. There was even a ring around his mouth where the paint had transferred from his skin to my own. I don’t know how we would manage to keep this rendezvous a secret from everyone else with the state we were both in. But, right now, I couldn’t care.

Vessel leaned himself overtop of me, his forehead against my chest. Though, he was dominating me, he was so caught up in the pleasure that he was starting to quickly come undone. I touched his back, nails digging into his skin. He tossed his head back at the sensation, neck exposed to me. I eyed the veins protruding from his skin.

He smirked at me when he noticed I was staring at his neck. He growled, “Take a bite.”

I held one hand, tightly, to his shoulder, keeping him steady as he fucked me. But, I gripped the back of his head with the other. I was slow at first, nipping at his neck gently. Vessel’s thrusts were becoming sloppy with each bite I took. I was close, too. So, I opened my jaw further, taking a pinch of his skin between my upper and lower canines. I bit down, hard.

“Fuck!”

He quickly pulled out and came on my stomach. As he did, I felt myself come undone. Vessel pressed his forehead against mine as we rode out our high. We came down from the top and he gave me a sloppy kiss.

There was a bitter cold left on my skin as he stepped back. I hugged myself, finally taking in the black paint covering my skin. “Oh, god,” I laughed.

Vessel pulled his pants up. He looked at my body, grinning, “Fuck. That’s so hot. Darling, if we had more time…”

“I know,” I smiled up at him.

“Here, there’s a bathroom over here,” Vessel spoke as he finished buckling his belt. He offered me his hand.

I followed him into the side room. He found a washcloth on the side of the sink, clean and unused, and wet it with warm water. Vessel gently pried my hands from covering my body and busied himself with wiping down my skin. He focused on what would be visible: My arms, neck, hands, face. I watched him while he worked. It was fucking hot when he was dominating, disgustingly dirty. But, this, this caring demeanor? I’d fuck him again in a heartbeat.

When he was finished, he rounded up my dress, shoes, and underwear. He turned away, without a question, while I dressed. I was no longer nervous, so I wouldn’t have minded if he watched. But, he was respectful.

“Okay,” I breathed out, pulling my final dress strap back up and over my shoulder.

Vessel faced me. I was finally able to take in his face and had to cover my mouth to stifle my laughter. He frowned, slightly, confused by my laughter. “What? What is it?”

I touched his shoulders, forcing him to face the mirror. His head pulled back in shock at his appearance.

I kept laughing and Vessel peered down at me with a tilted head. “Keep laughing, darling.”

“I’m sorry,” I shrugged, “it’s fo fucking funny.”

“What’s funny?”

I yelped, trying to duck out of the way as he jolted towards me. He caught me by the waist, rattling me around in his hold. I giggled, loudly against his chest, trying to twist out of his hold. His mouth was near my ear as he teased me, “Not so funny now, huh?”

I rested my forehead to his shoulder in my fit of laughter. Vessel calmed his movements, just holding me against him now. “It just goes to show the mess you make out of me,” he murmured against my ear, lips pressed to the shell.

I looked up at him and pointed a warning finger, “Don’t do that.”

“I know,” he huffed as he tossed his head back in frustration. “We should be getting back.”

“Sadly,” I wrapped my arms around his neck.

He admired my face for a few moments, silent, until he smiled softly, “Can I get your number?”

“Maybe,” I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know, I kind of like to just fuck and dump, ya know?”

“I won’t let you do that, darling,” his voice dropped low again.

“Okay, you’ve gotta stop doing that or I’m never going home.”

Vessel cupped my cheek in his hand, nearly void of paint, “I’d be okay with that.”

“I’m gonna walk away now.”

Vessel didn’t let go, however, as I made a move to step towards the bathroom door. In fact, he held me tighter. He pressed another kiss to my lips. “Can’t go anywhere looking that, darling,” he twisted me around to face the mirror, long arms cradling my waist.

I reached for the washcloth and wiped off my face. I faced him again and cleaned up his mouth, just enough so that it wasn’t completely obvious he’d eaten me out. We spent another moment teasing each other, eliciting more giggles from my throat. But, we figured we should get back.

So, he took my hand again and led us back down the hallway. I flushed red as soon as the door was pulled open, considering the entire band and Brittany snapped their heads towards us.

“Way to leave your sister!” Brittany exclaimed, holding up a cup of what could only be whiskey. “Dude, you’re missing out on some insane stories right now. Come, sit.” She patted the couch next to her.

I glanced up at Vessel as I took my hand from his. II, IV, and III greeted me with kind eyes and small greetings. “Hey, sorry,” I said as I plopped onto the couch. “He was just showing me the, uh…”

We hadn’t come up with an excuse. So, my words fell off my tongue with no resolution. Vessel shoved his hands in his pockets, quickly stuttering out, “Backstage. Just the backstage area. She wanted to see how everything works.”

Brittany nodded, oblivious to the elephant in the room. “Dope. You’ll have to show me next.”

“We can do a group tour,” IV offered.

Everyone agreed, enthusiastically, and we all stood to pile out the door. III and I were the last ones seated. I met his dark eyes, smiling kindly at him. His gaze dropped to my thighs, brows raising beneath his mask suggestively.

I followed his eyes down. Where my dress had ridden up my thighs was a long line of smeared paint, not to mention reddened hickies that were starting to sprout up. I pressed my lips together and quickly tugged the material down over my legs.

III patted my knee as he stood, “You were the one going crazy during The Offering, love.”

I gaped after him as his words lingered in the air before me. Vessel stood just beside the door, awaiting my presence. As III passed by him, he took Vessel by the chin and tilted his head.

He tsked at the bruising bite mark on Vessel’s neck. I shoved my face into my hands, face beyond burned.

III whispered, “Take a bite.”

It wasn’t until a few days later, when Brittany and I were hanging out, looking through concert videos with nostalgia, that she found out. I was nervous to tell her. Besides, Vessel and I were starting to see each other, so I didn’t want to expose his private life too much. I trusted her, but I just overthought it all. Apparently, though, I hadn’t enough overthinking.

I had just made a post on Instagram, making the photo we took with the band the cover photo for a dump. It blew up immediately. Brittany and I were reading comments as they came in, dying of laughter at some of the shit people were saying.

“No, hand placement is so real!” Brittany exclaimed. She shoved her phone in my face, showing me the zoom-in of Vessel’s hand on my hip. I blushed and shoved it away. She kept scrolling.

“Wait,” her voice trailed off.

I glanced at her and watched as her brows furrowed. She tapped around, zoomed in a bunch, scrolled through comments. I looked back to my phone just as a new comment began blowing up with responses and likes.

User- so is no one gonna talk about vessel’s paint on y/n’s thigh and her very obvious sex hair?

“YOU FUCKING BITCH!”

#sleep token!vessel x reader #sleep token x you #sleep token x reader #sleep token #sleep token smut #brittany broski

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dawnagustd · 2 years

Text

MU$IC FAIRY || MYG

❃ Festivaled Away: Burned Memories hosted by @bangtanbathhouse

⤞ Ticket: Playlist ⤞ Main Event: Based on a Playlist ⤞ Games: fucking playlist | sensory deprivation | breath play | phone sex | oral fixation

Read on AO3

Thank you for completing our questionnaire. Please stay on the line and allow us to find you the perfect match…

With a few basic questions and a two minute wait, he was paired with a woman that sounds rather beautiful. He imagines that she is, at least. Well, he hopes.

He’s been chatting with her for about an half of a minute, and he’s feeling her. So he doesn’t hang up when the official timer begins.

“So umm…how confidential is this?” He can never be too careful. This could ruin his reputation if someone found out. “You said you’ve done this before, right?”

“Yeah, it’s safe, love. Trust me.”

He hopes you’re right.

“After you complete the questionnaire, they pair you with a random person who has similar preferences.”

He pushes the worrisome thoughts to the back of his mind and proceeds to pleasure himself before time is up. He’s currently living paycheck to paycheck, so fifteen minutes was all he could afford.

“Should I lead or…?”

He scoffs out a laugh. “I got it, babe. Just vibe with me.”

“Okay.” Your response is through small labored breaths. You must be broke as shit too because you aren’t wasting any time. “C-Can you put on some music or something?...I umm, can’t do it when it’s this quiet.”

He grabs his laptop and allows whatever track is next to travel through the speakers.

Fuck. He forgot about the beats he was playing for someone earlier. Hopefully, it doesn’t ruin your mood before he can change it. “Sorry,” he mutters a bit embarrassed.

“No, this is fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s sensual,” you pant. His brows knit together in curiosity and he momentarily ceases his movements. “The bass complements your voice well, actually. Did you umm…?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“I like it.” The little moan behind those words has him standing at attention. In any second, he could blow his load.

“Yeah? What else do you like?...Tell me what gets your attention.”

There’s a pause. “Or would you rather me shut up?”

“The opposite. I wanna hear you…your voice. You sound hot,” you giggle and it’s one of the most soothing things he’s ever heard. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, sweetheart. You don’t sound bad either…Just hearing you laugh is making me hard.”

He hears a whimper; one of the sexiest, neediest whines to ever grace his ears. “Tell me what you just did. Don’t be shy.”

“I—”

You hesitate, so he steps in.

“Touching your pussy, huh?”

He senses through the phone how worked up he’s getting you. You’ve started panting and moaning out your words shamelessly.

“Mmhm, my clit.”

He chuckles and whispers of curses come through the phone.

“Do me a favor?” you agree and he continues. “Move a little lower and dip your fingers in your pussy. Tell me how wet it is.”

He uses his spit for lubrication and tightens his fist around his cock. He imagines it was your walls snuggled around him, pumping his length as you bounce up and down. Something inside of him believes that you’re pretty, with a nice ass too. A really nice ass, that’s what his fantasies project at least.

“Fuck. How many?” you ask him.

Damn. You’re obedient as well. That’s hot, really hot.

“As many as your pretty cunt can take.”

When he hears a muffled cry, his bottom lips tucks between his teeth while he concentrates on the squelching sounds coming through the phone. You both move in sync with the music and allow it to take away the nervous jitters the both of you had previously. His cock starts twitching in his palm when your sweet little moans move through his ears.

“How many did you use, sweetheart?”

You answer him in a high-pitched voice. You’re close too, he can hear it. Your eyes are probably screwed shut, trying to keep it together to prolong the call, but he has to go before his bill skyrockets. He needs to get you off—quickly.

“Two. Three, now. I needed more.”

“Greedy, aren’t we?”

“No…I’m just really horny.”

He has to smile at that. “Yeah? Me too. This is good, but I'd rather be balls deep in you.”

“Fuck, I’d like it.”

Sweat beads on his forehead, but he just wipes it away with the back of his hand and keeps going. The music has changed to something more upbeat and he knows this is his shot for home plate.

“Really? Is that why you’re making a mess? I can hear it, you know...you’re so fucking wet.”

“Shit, I wanna come,” your words are barely recognizable and you just keep begging him for more, “please help me.”

“Fuck, sweetheart. Take your fingers out and rub your clit. Spread that sticky shit all over it and get yourself off.”

He throws his head back and curls his toes, bracing himself for the impact of his orgasm. This has to top he sexual encounters and he’s not even touching you. It’s just something about you that’s driving him insane. He doesn’t even know your name, but he doesn’t need to, not when all that matters now is the pleasure of this experience.

“I’d lick it all up too, eat you out until you cry and forget your own fucking name. You want that, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, I wanna feel you so bad.”

“I know, baby. You’d let me take you anyway I’d like, wouldn’t you?...I could bend you over? Dick you down with your legs pinned by your head. I fuck you up, princess and you’d never want another.”

“Fuck, I’m gonna—”

Dead silence.

“Are you kidding me? Fuck!”

The phone hangs up just as you both reach your climaxes. Disappointment is thick in the air as his quick strokes gradually begin to slow. He groans and curses angrily at the loss, and grips fistfuls of his hair in frustration. Out of all the people for this to happen to; it had to be him. Just when he thought his luck couldn’t get any worse, this happens and proves that life is just out to get him.

“Something’s gotta give, man. I can’t keep living like this.”

So, he shrugs off his needs and does what he does best—work. He puts on his headphones and hopes that one of these tracks will be the one that opens the door to all of his dreams.

Two years later…

“This is your boy Jay Millz, and you're listening to Q107.9. We got my man Suga in the motherfuckin’ building. This guy has the hottest track on the radio right now, bro. He’s gonna be chilling with us for a minute while we dip into the Rush Hour Mix with DJ Reign. Suga! How you doin’, man?...”

He nods and greets the guy behind the mic. They extend their arms for a brief handshake before he continues. “What’s good? Glad to be here, man.”

Yoongi looks around the table and sighs. He’s tired of the same fucking questions.

What’s next for you? How does it feel to be the hottest rapper out right now? Will you sign with SlaughterHouse Records?

As if he’d leave a crumb behind for the tabloids to fight over. Yoongi’s been careful; really careful. He’s worked hard to maintain a decent reputation; besides a few run-ins with the law. But overall, he’s avoided anything that could damage the image he’s created for his pseudo.

Many have tried to tear him down, or trip him up. However, he knows how to handle those people, and that’s what he’s about to do when the woman across from him asks the question lingering on the tip of her tongue. He knows it’s coming; he can tell by the way her nails tap on the table. She waits for silence and then she goes for the kill.

“So…Suga, you know I have to ask.”

The other co host sighs with an exhausted eyeroll. “Bee, please don’t start.”

“I have to. The people wanna know,” she argues and Yoongi can feel his head starting to throb.

It’s bad enough that he hates these things and they cannot stop themselves from trying to dabble in his personal life.

“Anyway, are you currently dating anyone, Suga? A fan? A girlfriend?...etc?”

Yoongi looks to his left and gives her a lazy smirk, just fucking with her mind a bit before he responds.

“Nahh, I’m good. Gotta stay focused, you feel me?”

He takes a sip from his cup and savors the cold liquor before he gulps it down, watching the poor girl slump her shoulders in defeat. However, he was a fool to think this was over.

“And what about Mu$ic Fairy?” the interviewer to his right asks.

“What about her?”

He sets down his cup and turns in the man’s direction.

“She dropped a new playlist last night. I know a lot of us would have gone to see about that by now.”

Yoongi scoffs out a laugh. “Well, I’m not a lot of us, am I?”

“Damn right,” Jay chimes in from across the table. He notices Bee shaking her head in the corner and he couldn’t agree with her more. This is ridiculous.

This girl, “Mu$ic Fairy” or whatever she calls herself is nothing but a fucking distraction. No one can resist bringing her up when he’s in the room. There’s no fucking escape.

At first, it was cute. A few Spotify playlists dropped every once in a while with a rather risqué cover just to tease, but now it’s an entire movement. Some fans are even calling themselves fairies, and wearing themed attire to his performances.

He fucking hates it. The wings, the glitter, the overly sweet tones in which they speak. Of course, he appreciates his fans and they’re fun to look at, but Yoongi’s a picky guy. And if that’s the kind of girl you are, then you aren’t his type.

“I would’ve probably hit her up after she dropped the Fre@kii Ho @nthem! playlist.”

Jay bumps fists with the other guy host after he says that and they have a “same” moment.

Bee adds her input after it quiets down.

“Well, I’m going to have to agree with—”

“Do not…say her name around me,” Yoongi intervenes.

He can’t; not when he has a show tonight. Just hearing her name pisses him off.

Another reason he hates doing interviews is because someone always has to mention…

“Oh, are you talking about that podcaster?...Damn, what’s her name…”

Jay struggles to remember while snapping his fingers, so Bee attempts to help him out. However, Yoongi cuts her off before she can speak of the devil.

“Don’t you dare.”

The woman once again backs down and carries on.

“Well anyway, I agree with you know who. She makes valid points about how none of these people were after him before he started making industry music. They don’t really fuck with the real Suga.”

Yoongi only nods his head because the annoying bitch behind that podcast is right. This Mu$ic Fairy chick started showing up when he became popular and so did her followers. But that’s about one of the only things he agrees with. Everything else is out of line. This woman doesn’t know anything about him, but yet always has an input to give when it comes to his music.

One of the interviewers notices his change in demeanor and senses the hatred he has for this chick. He steps in and changes the subject quickly.

“Shit, we’re almost out of time. That’s what happens when you’re chillin’ with one of the greatest to ever do it.”

Yoongi shakes his head. “Nahh, man. Don’t put that on me yet. Give me some time.”

“Many would have to disagree with you there, bro. Matter of fact, you should ask them. Why don’t you tell the listeners where you’re gonna be tonight?”

“Yuh, tonight you can catch me at the Varsity. Tickets sold out, but yeah…fuck with me.”

The interviewers briefly share a round of applause before Jay concludes.

“Alright. You heard him. Tickets sold out, but who knows ladies…he might just take you home for the after party, right bro?”

Yoongi can only press his lips in a straight line because anyone that knows him, knows that a piece of ass is the last thing on his mind right now, but for the sake of some poor girl’s imagination…

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

And because of this, he’s probably going to have to fight his way out of the club.

The rush Yoongi gets from being on stage always lingers in his veins even after the music stops. The crowd keeps the energy going and going. They scream his name, applaud his techniques, and praise his stage presence like he’s a king. He is, in a way. Suga is the king of this city; there isn’t a guy who doesn’t want to be him or a woman who doesn’t want to fuck him.

Typically, temptation is easy to resist since his career leaves him little time for extracurricular activities. However, sometimes he just can’t allow something to slip away. Not again.

“You killed it tonight, man.”

Yoongi doesn’t even spare his manager a glance as he brushes past him. His train of vision is focused on that little black dress swaying through the crowd. If he takes his eyes off of you for a second, he knows he’ll lose you in the mass of people.

“Thanks, dude. I’ll talk to you in a bit.”

He doesn’t know what was said in response because he’s out of range within seconds. He’s a man on a mission, and he’s not even sure of why.

You’re beautiful, there’s no denying that—and sexy. But something else about you is just luring him in, and he thinks he knows why. At least, that’s his excuse for following you outside of the club.

It’s dangerous, of course, since anyone could be waiting to get him alone. But tonight he can’t let you just leave without a word. He’s done that too many times. You show up to show after show, stare him down as if he’s your last meal, then leave without even a wave or goodbye.

Yoongi’s had enough; this ends now.

“Hey!”

You immediately stop in your tracks at the sound of his voice. He wastes no time trying to eliminate the distance between you, but you dash down an adjacent alley before he can get close enough to talk to you.

He follows you, and calls out to you one more time before you halt and finally respond to him.

“Hey there.”

Your voice is so dulcet, but edgy…and familiar. Where has he heard it before?

“Looking for me?” The closer he gets the more clearer the sound becomes and eventually it clicks. He knows exactly why he knows your voice.

But you aren’t the person he thought you were, and you’re the last person he wants to see.

“You’re that podcaster, aren’t you?” Yoongi questions, approaching you carefully. At least his mind still holds the common sense to be cautious.

When you look over shoulder, it’s like his breath leaves his body. He’s seen his share of gorgeous women, but you are out of this world. There’s no way you could be her. But everything is telling him that you are.

“Depends…who wants to know?”

Yoongi doesn’t know where to look first. Your face or the body that comes along with it. “You or the bitches who want to be like me?”

The moment he’s close enough to hear the cockiness oozing from your voice, he knows it’s you without a doubt. He can feel the same aura radiating from you now that he does whenever he listens to those podcasts. You’re her; he’s a hundred percent sure of it.

“So you’re bold behind the mic, but now you’re too pussy to look at me?”

You turn around on queue, adorning a wide smirk that he’d give anything to wipe off your gorgeous face. “Better?”

Yoongi nods slowly and takes a few steps towards you. With every step he takes you move backwards, allowing him to corner you and in the dimly lit alley.

“It’s funny because with all the shit you talk on air, I didn’t take you to be a runner,” he points out.

“I don’t think you know me well enough to assume that, love.”

“But you know me well enough to critique my music?”

You hum. “I do, actually.”

“Really?” When your back nearly touches the brick wall, he leans in a little closer. You show no signs of uneasiness so he plants his palm on brick structure and hovers over your shorter frame. “What makes you believe that?”

“Because I’ve been a fan for a very long time. Ever since your underground days. You’ve never noticed me…but I was there.”

When he gives you a look, you roll your eyes. Of course, he doesn’t believe a word that pretty mouth of yours spits out.

“Your first real gig was on your birthday. You were a senior in high school and you invited your parents to the show. You looked around and when you finally saw them you smiled like a fucking dork.”

Damn. You read him like a book, but that doesn’t make up for the negativity spilled on your behalf.

“So you’ve been following me to shows so you can build up the repertoire for your little podcast? For how long?”

You shake your head in denial.

“I followed you because you’ve always been my favorite artist. I admire you, and I’ve been around since the beginning. Even when nobody was fucking with your music…your real music. The kind you’re passionate about.”

Yoongi scoffs. “Like you would know anything about that.”

“But, I do. That’s why I’m so pissed at you. All you make is industry music now, and I’m just…bored, I guess.”

You’re cute when you shrug your shoulders, but your eyes are lethal. He feels like he’s being stripped bare under your gaze. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say you were silently flirting with him, but they’d be a reach.

“So find a hobby,” he suggests.

“I did find hobbies. The podcast, the playlists, the—”

“Wait,” Yoongi’s face contorts with confusion at those words, believing that he’s misheard you, “...you said playlists. What playlists?”

Your smirk returns and Yoongi suddenly feels his cock slowly rising in his underwear. Why do the heavens place the demons in the most beautiful women; he’ll never understand.

“You know which playlists I’m talking about, love…” your hand makes a move to touch his shoulder but he grabs your arm to prevent contact, “they were made for you.”

“Made for me? What does…”

Oh, damn.

“Are you…?”

“Well, it sure isn’t the whore in there dressed like Tinkerbell. You think I’d wear that shit?” Your laugh is so intoxicating; he almost cracks a smile just standing there watching you. “I don’t need all of that to grasp your attention. I never have.”

Yoongi shakes his head. All this time you were right under his nose. Two women he could never stand to mention are placed right in front of him, hiding behind a goddess. It’s pure comedy; his reaction to the news should have him pulling away from you and heading in the opposite direction.

But can admit that he judges a book by its cover; you aren’t what he thought you were. You’re different, interesting…someone he’d actually like to have underneath him in the opportunity ever presents itself. But he’s confused…why him? Why go through all the trouble if the music is all you care about? That whole Mu$ic Fairy concept has completely fucked with his mind.

How does he go from having no interest to wanting to see what it’s all about? There has to be more to it; otherwise, it makes no sense. You two are strangers.

He shouldn’t crave the warmth beneath his palm while his hand grips your forearm, but he does. The skin to skin contact should not arouse him so easily, but there’s no denying the bulge forming in his pants. Despite all of this, Yoongi keeps his composure the best he can; you’re too cocky for him to just slip up and expose himself.

“Out of all the times to fuck with me…” he pauses when your beautiful glossed lips part to blow the strawberry bubblegum you’ve been chewing. Your tongue darts out to pop and collect the medium-sized pink bubble, and he can feel his knees buckle when you suck it back in.

He’s usually not this fond of people and gum, but the way you handle it, the way you slowly rolled it over your tongue in preparation was a fucking sinful, and he can’t get enough of watching you do it.

“Why tonight?” he asks you.

You bat your thick lashes, probably knowing good and well what you’re doing to him. He knows you’re taunting him, silently asking for him to make a move, but he won’t. You’ll have to beg him for it.

“Because…I’m horny, and I’m tired of waiting for your clueless ass to figure this out.”

Yoongi scoffs. “Bullshit.”

He looks down as your finger loops underneath one of his chains and tugs him closer, something he wouldn’t allow anyone to do, but somehow you already earned privileges. You don’t know how dangerous of a game you’re playing with him, but he silently prays you’ll get to find out. He’d give anything to bend over the hood of his car and—

“And, I think you owe me something,” you inform, placing your other hand on his shoulder once he slides his to your waist.

“What might that be, love?”

Your smirk widens as you hypnotize him with your brown orbs. He can smell your perfume and flavored gum even better from this proximity, and your scent makes him feel like he’s in some sort of blissful haze—intoxicated by the smell of you. It’s no secret that he wants you bad; he just can’t let you know that. Not until you tell him why you’re doing all of this.

“An orgasm.”

Everything grows quiet after you articulate those words. It only takes him a couple of seconds to remember, and when his mind processes it all, his brain nearly malfunctions as he tries to speak.

“You’re fucking with me,” he insists.

“You should know by now that I’m tired of the games, Yoongi.” His body shutters when you use his real name. Something he’d normally go off about, but he never wants you to stop saying it. He needs to hear you say it again; for an entirely different reason. “You can tell me to fuck off, if you want.”

He blinks a few times, not realizing he was just standing there and not saying anything.

“No, no. I’m just–wow…I never expected you to remember me.”

“Why wouldn’t I? It’s not everyday you’re matched with your favorite rapper on a sex hotline,” you wink and Yoongi’s mouth falls open.

“You knew it was me the whole time?...and you didn’t say anything?”

You nod. “Yeah, I did. Your voice, your demeanor; I knew from the start, but I played along because you obviously weren’t on the call to talk about mixtapes. I just wanted you to enjoy yourself, I guess.”

“This is fucking crazy.”

Yoongi’s speechless. That was kind, and you kept it a secret all this time. Suddenly, all of this seems kind of sexy. It’s a secret he could have been in on if only he had read between the lines. However, he knows now, and it’s still technically still a secret…if it stays between you and him.

Your lips are once again his main focus; he’s so close to living the fantasies he had of you all those nights he wondered about how you handled yourself after the phone call ended. Did you come? Or was your mood ruined like his? He sure hopes not, because you were incredible and if anyone deserved to finish, it should have been you.

He was right about you too. You are sexy, and the longer he stands here with you, the harder it is for him to hold back on his urges. But hearing your needy voice breaks him entirely.

“How much longer am I going to have to wait for it, Yoongi?”

All regards for his reputation goes out the window. He looks towards both ends of the alley before he makes his move. Anyone could be watching, but once he feels your hands sliding up his body, he decides that that is no longer his concern.

“Come here.”

Yoongi grabs you by your throat, but doesn’t squeeze or choke you. He just wants you closer, and your eyes tell him you understand where he’s going from.

“I live 20 minutes away from here, think you can wait that long?”

“Do I have a choice?” you reply and that sass is what gets him riled up.

He doesn’t think twice about kissing your pillow soft lips. He’s been staring at them, wishing he could feel them, taste them, and now he is and he already can’t get enough. The level of sweetness on his taste buds is sinful, but it’s one addiction he’d never give up.

His tongue enters your mouth without any resistance from you, and he eagerly explores its depths, getting familiar with the woman wrapped in his arms as if he has all the time in the world with you. Your moans sends vibrations through his throat when he lifts your leg, nuzzling his crotch against your heat.

Yoongi would fuck you right now while he has you pinned against this wall but that just wouldn’t satisfy his thirst for you. You’ve been teasing him for too long for him to just rush this. It took two years to lead up to this moment, a quickie would never do it any justice.

“I need you to be on your best behavior until we get to my place,” he tells you through his slightly labored breaths.

“And if I don’t?”

His features harden.

“Then you won’t get anything, now come on. Let’s dip before one of your friends sees me without security.”

Or…before he changes his mind. He’s had plenty of bad ideas, but this tops the list.

Breathtaking.

It’s the only thing you can think about as your eyes scan over the sleek hood of the Lamborghini Gallardo. The man’s got some taste, you have to admit. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be taking you to his place. You like the fact that he’s picky, but always chooses correctly.

You drink in the sight before—Yoongi standing there in his stage outfit, complimenting his car. The vehicle’s custom, all white except for the tires and the heavily tinted windows. You could only quiver at the image of him driving it, and when it actually happens, your mind and your mouth start to go in different directions.

He asks you basic questions like your name and where you’re from; you can only hope you’ve given him the correct answers because you cannot break away from the visual of him gripping the wheel with one hand while he’s laid back in his seat. His jewelry glistens and shines even in the darkness of his car, but your eyes still fight through the nearly blinding twinkle so you can watch the man behind it all.

You’ve wanted him since you first saw him. He came to a pep rally at your high school and you fell in love with his music and his sound—his voice especially. Sure he was a cutie, still is. But he had so much hunger, so much passion for music that you felt him on a spiritual level.

He did so well on his first performance, and you remember telling your friends how much you wanted to listen to his Soundcloud when the event was over. Of course, they laughed and thought he sucked because he didn’t fit their visual standards, but now…they probably wish they’d been a little more invested in him.

“Can you stop doing that and answer my question?”

There it is again. That voice. It drives you crazy; when he said hello to you on that hotline, you knew without a doubt you were talking to your favorite rapper.

“Wha–Doing what?”

“Eye fucking me and biting your lip like that. Do you want me to pull over?”

Well.

You open your mouth to speak but he interjects.

“Actually, never mind. Don’t even answer that. Certain things I don’t need in my head while I’m operating a vehicle.”

Your neck and face heat up. If only he knew that you aren’t as confident as you appear. He’s hot, but the fact that he doesn’t know it makes him hotter.

“Sorry,” you turn towards the window so you can smile. You don’t want to feed his ego. No matter how much he denies it, he’s cocky as hell. If he knows you’re gawking over him simply driving, he’ll run with it. “...What did you ask me?”

A slow exhale leaves his lips, like he’s slightly annoyed and you should be offended, but damn—it was kind of sexy.

“I just wanted to know what you do for a living. How can you afford to travel and come to shows all the time? ...I’m just curious.”

“Why? You think I’m selling my—”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“You were thinking it, and the answer is ‘no’. And no, I don’t have an OnlyFans either…probably should, though. I’d make bank,” you shrug.

“Look, I know you aren’t doing any of that. Honestly, you seem kind of selfish with the goods anyway, but…tell me how you keep up. That’s all I’m saying. Podcasts bring in that much money?”

“No they don’t, especially when you do them for free. I’m a writer. I write songs and I sell them to some of your favorite artists.”

Yoongi whistles. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Name a few.”

“This isn’t roll call, babe. If you wanna look up my credentials, you know my name now…Google me.”

“Oh, I will.”

“Fine,” you scoff.

When you look forward, you notice that you’re entering a gated community. Yoongi lets down his window and waves at the on-duty guard before the older man opens the automatic gate.

After driving past many luxurious homes, Yoongi pulls into a driveway and uses a clicker to open the garage door.

“We’re here,” he announces.

His home is lovely, and you’re in awe by the set up and interior design once you enter. You’re impressed, most guys don’t spend much thought on this level of organization.

Yoongi leads you up the stairs and into his bedroom. You can feel the butterflies in your stomach fluttering more and more as you get closer to the top of the stairs. Your knees buckle slightly when he opens the door, but your eyes still look in every direction once you’ve made it inside.

It’s dark, but you can still make out the colors that fill the room. Blacks and grays with white walls. His bed is draped with a dark set; you can’t help but find it inviting. And it’s huge; you imagine he must be a wild sleeper because you couldn’t imagine sleeping in a bed that large alone.

“I love your home, Suga.”

He waves his hand. “Thanks, but you don’t have to call me that. You didn’t call me that earlier.”

“I didn’t?”

“Nope.” He shakes his head and tells you that you can make yourself comfortable while he disappears into his closet. When he returns with clothes, you tilt your head with curiosity. “I’m gonna go shower, don’t get too nosey while you’re in here by yourself.”

“You’re leaving me? Why can’t I join you?”

Yoongi’s eyes widen for a second and a hand runs through his hair while he ponders over his answer. “Because umm…”

You crane your neck trying to coax an answer but he still stammers.

“It’s…you know.”

You smile. He’s kind of adorable, in a way.

“Too intimate?”

“Exactly.”

Your head lolls back while you laugh and Yoongi huffs in annoyance as he makes his way to the bathroom.

“What am I supposed to do while you’re in there?” you call out and he stops to turn around.

You watch him get ready to produce a smart remark. However, he pauses before he can get it out. He puts his clothes on the bed and walks over to the nightstand, turning on his laptop and grabbing some Bluetooth headphones from the drawer.

“Here,” he says, pairing them to his computer and then handing them to you. You take them before you look up at him, wondering where he’s going with this, but he’s quick to fill you in. “Listen to this, I won’t be long.”

Yoongi puts on some music and gives you a wink that makes your pussy clench. He leaves you sitting on his bed, headphones in hand without another word.

For the first minute you stare at the object wondering what’s being played, but your curiosity takes over quickly and before you know it, they’re coming over your ears. You don’t regret it the second you hear his voice.

The music begins to travel through the speakers, you become obsessed with it from the very first track. You love that it’s similar to his original sound, but it isn’t the same track over and over again. They’re all so different yet so him. You can hear and feel the amount of dedication and effort he put into it. Like it wasn’t done out of obligation, but because he wanted to do it for himself. You can’t help but get up and sway your hips to the music.

You feel so connected to him through his work, and that’s why you go on and on about how you wish he’d make another mixtape because this shit is fire. You wonder how long he’s been hiding it from the world.

You aren’t expecting him to be sitting on the bed when you turn around. Your hand finds your chest and you lower the volume on the headset.

“How long have you been sitting there? You fucking scared me.”

He shrugs. “Long enough to know that I want that dress off of you.”

Your startled expression turns smug. “Oh, really?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“So…you want me to take it off?” You raise an eyebrow.

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re going to have to use your words with me if you want something.”

Yoongi’s arms fold at his chest; his white tee strains against his beefiness. You remember how his clothes used to swallow him, but now he’s filling them up quite nicely, if you may. Either way, he looks good. It’s just a natural trait he possesses.

“I mean either you can take it off or you can leave. Doesn’t matter to me,” he shrugs his shoulders.

If you weren’t horny just looking at him sitting there in his boxers, you’d call his bluff. But you’ve already picked up on his stubbornness and you know better than to try him. “Fine.”

You sigh as you drag down the straps of your dress, rolling your eyes when he tells you to slow down. You flip your hair and twirl your body as you wiggle the fabric down your hips, turning around in the opposite direction to give him a peek at your derriere.

Looking over your shoulder, you notice how his face becomes etched with approval. You give yourself a silent applaud for selecting this piece. You’re sure your thong leaves nothing for his imagination. It also doesn’t help that you’re topless.

You stop torturing him and turn around so he can see the front.

“Damn,” is all he can say.

You take off your heels before walking towards him and his eyes never leave your breasts the entire journey, even once you’re standing between his legs, preparing to straddle his lap.

“I want you.” You tell him as if he doesn’t already know.

Yoongi’s hands find your waist while you place your knees on the bed. As soon as you’re on his lap, you can feel his bulge threatening to burst out of his underwear. It’d be so simple to pull your panties aside and milk him for everything he has, but not tonight. He’s the one who owes you a good fucking.

“How badly?”

His lips find your skin and make their way to your tits, making you clutch onto his damp curly strands while he sucks and tugs on your sensitive nipples. Your hands tug his hair, and you force him to look at your face.

“Yoongi. You’re either going to fuck me or I’m going to fuck you. What’s it going to be—”

He scoops you up and drops you on the mattress, making you squeak in surprise. The dark gleam in his orbs has your thighs rubbing and your fists clinging onto the comforter. He's finally had enough, and hopefully he doesn’t hold back anymore.

“You asked for this,” he warns you and you almost giggle with glee. He pulls his shirt over his head and is about to toss it somewhere, but then he changes his mind. Yoongi looks at you for a moment, contemplating before he speaks. “You trust me, right?”

“Well, I came home with you even though you hate me, didn’t I?...Why do you ask?”

“So a lot or a little?”

You groan.

He chuckles and you feel the butterflies once again. Yoongi turns the volume up on his laptop before holding up a thumb to ask if it is too loud. Honestly, you’re glad it tuned him out because though you understand that safety is first, there’s little you wouldn’t try when it comes to this man. You’ve been waiting as patiently as you could to experience this and you’re ready to get started.

You nod and his devilish smirk is the last thing you see before he throws his shirt over your head. Darkness fills your vision but it doesn’t bother you as long as his voice is filling your ears. His cold hands slide up your thighs and spread them, wasting no time in touching your slightly sodden underwear.

Gasps escape your lips when his finger presses gently on your clit, and you can only hope the sound isn’t too awkward since you cannot hear yourself.

The bed dips so you assume he’s climbing on and you release a breath when you feel his lips hovering over your body. He leaves kisses between your breasts and he doesn’t stop until your lace panties prevent him from accessing any more skin.

Yoongi quickly slides them off, leaving lying on his bed completely naked. Everything from the moment when his tongue dips into your center is one feverish bliss. Your back arches, your toes curl, and your fingers entangle in his hair. The sounds you’re making are probably feral and of an obnoxious volume but Yoongi doesn’t bother to shush you or stop his sinful movements.

He draws circles over your throbbing clit with his tongue, moving in the same motion as you do as you swivel your hips. This song has you in the mood to grind your pussy on his face, and that’s entirely his fault for coming up with such vulgar lyrics. It’s filthy and you feel the muscles in your stomach tightening by the seconds. You scream his name over and over but he just keeps going until you release the pressure built up inside of you.

The shirt is snatched off your face as you’re at your peak and what you see between your thighs only intensifies your orgasm. His face is buried in your heat, sucking your bundle of nerves into his mouth and nibbling gently while you squirm in his iron grip.

Yoongi kisses your inner thighs once you begin to calm down to help you relax. When you back slowly droop onto the bed is when he carefully removes the headphones, turning them off and then setting them on the nightstand next to his laptop.

“I would go back for seconds, but that would only make me want more,” he tells you. He opens the bottom drawer and pulls out some condoms then throws them on the bed.

“I don’t know if I’d survive that.”

“Well, you better say a prayer because we aren’t done,” he laughs and excitement bubbles inside of you.

Yoongi switches the music to something else and you can’t help but pout.

You sigh. “I pray you aren’t all talk.”

He glares at you for your comment and steps closer to the bed.

“You’re a sweet girl, but…” he flips you on your stomach and pulls you up by the waist, positioning you so that your ass and pussy are directly in his line of sight, “you need to watch how you fucking speak to me.”

A shriek leaves your lips when he slaps your ass. “Yoongi…please.”

“Please? You want me to stop?”

“No!” Your voice is high pitched and shaky, almost unrecognizable to your ears. “Don’t stop, please.”

Yoongi finds humor in your desperation. “Ask me nicely.”

“Fuck,” you whine but it’s the wrong answer. “Yoongi, please do it again.”

“No.”

Your breath hitches. “What?”

“I said no.”.

“Such a fucking asshole,” you mumble insults, thinking they’re too low for him to hear.

“What was that?”

You look behind you and notice Yoongi rolling a condom over his dick. You can’t tear your eyes away from the sight of those veiny hands stroking his cock slowly, preparing himself to dive into your wetness. You’ve always wondered what he looked like doing that, ever since that time on the phone.

“Nothing,” you lie.

He puts his knee on the bed and inches closer to you. You tease him by wiggling your ass a little but he places a hand on your hip to still you. “You know…”

You can feel his cock against your entrance and your body pushes back on him to try and get it inside of you yourself. However, your impatience makes you forget how petty the man behind you really is.

The tip slips past your folds and with the amount of arousal seeping from your opening, he’s able to slide in with ease. But it’s only a taste; the majority of his cock still remains outside of you, and quickly your frustration takes control of you.

“If you wanna meet an asshole…” he makes a loud gasp leave your lips when he, without warning, slams into your pussy in one smooth motion. You whimper; a harsh snatch of your hair makes you wince and grip the sheets. Your head is turned in an uncomfortable position, but the only thing you can focus on is the intensity of the stretch and the way his dick doesn’t leave any room to spare, “I could introduce you to one.”

Yoongi pushes your head forward and pins you to the mattress. Your teeth grit together because of your sensitivity. You could come just like this without him even moving. That’s how worked up you still are. You just need a moment to pull yourself together, but Yoongi doesn’t have the patience for that.

“Arch your fucking back.”

He pulls out but swiftly snaps back into you, causing you to let out a squeak. You try to cover your mouth but his large hand comes down on your ass before you can do so. Your moans turn into screams within minutes, increasing in volume each time Yoongi slaps your rear.

“I know you can do better than that. Straighten up before I do it for you,” he grunts through the lewd skin-slapping noises that fill the room.

You squeeze your eyes shut and arch your back like he demands. The position is only uncomfortable for a few seconds, but eventually it becomes familiar and the sensitivity ebbs away.

Yoongi lets go of your hair and starts rubbing his hands all over your ass, kneading the reddened flesh and giving it words of appreciation.

When you start to fuck him back he holds your waist and pulls you back on his cock. Your body begins to move naturally with the rhythm of the background music and he allows you to set the pace while he whispers obscene remarks.

“Look at you taking it just like a whore.”

You can feel the arousal between your thighs, dripping and making a mess of the sheets. The squelching sounds are disgusting but don’t phase you in this heated moment. You have more important things to worry about. Like how long you’ll be able to keep this up. You weren’t expecting him to have this much stamina, but you’ve learned to never judge a book by the cover.

He’s strong, the grip he has on you is evidence to that. The way he’s handling you like you’re nothing but a fuck toy he can use at his discretion has you clenching around his dick. His deep chuckle fills the room when he feels your walls tighten.

“On your next podcast, you should tell them how I fucked your brains out to your own playlist,” he comments.

Yoongi’s thrusts have your knees trembling and nearly giving out, but he’s quick to assure that you keep up. “No fucking slacking, whore. Do better or I’ll pull out and use your throat instead.”

You’re sure your ass will be sore in the morning because Yoongi cannot keep his hands off of it. He strikes you every chance he gets and the stinging sensation from his blows push you closer and closer to your peak.

“Fuck. Yoongi…please.”

Tears roll down your cheek when his cock travels deeper, touching the spot that makes you unravel at the seams. It’s all too much and you beg him to allow you to surrender to the pleasure.

“Not yet. Shit, do you have any idea how juicy your ass looks like this?”

“But I can’t,” you sob into the comforter.

A slap to your left cheek leaves you a shaky mess. However, he shows you no mercy and does the same thing to the other side.

“That’s not an option. If you come, I swear—”

“Sorry…” Your muffled cries are the last thing you can recall before your body accidentally gives in.

Your juices leak onto the bed while you hold on for dear life, afraid you’ll float away if you let go of the fabric. But just as your orgasm reaches its peak, it’s ripped away from you by one of the foulest humans on this planet.

“What the fuck did I tell you?” he growls as he drags you off the bed. Yoongi forces you to your knees, ignoring your pleas to regain what was stolen from you. He slaps your cheek a few times, snapping you back into reality and demanding your attention. “Answer me!”

“You…You told me not to come,” you hiccup.

His expression tells you how displeased he is, but it’s too bad that you don’t care. Something comes over you that has you sucking it up and wiping your tears. If he wants to play dirty, you can do it too.

“So why did you?...I never said that you could.”

You look up at him with innocent eyes. However, you have no intentions on being good anymore.

“Because it felt good and I wanted to,” you tell him and he grabs your face.

“You don’t get to decide what you want to do or what feels good. If you had the answers you wouldn’t have been begging for my dick for two years.”

Yoongi pulls off the condom and brings his cock to your mouth. You clench your fist to hold back the excitement when he tells you to open. You’ve craved the taste of him even though you’ve never had him. Your mouth waters as you wait for him to enter, and when he does, he doesn’t stop until reaches the back of your throat.

“Tap my thigh if you need air, and do not suck until I tell you to, understand?”

You mumble around him as best as you can. “Mmhm.”

Before you can prepare yourself for a pace you know will be relentless, Yoongi withdraws and slowly re-enters your crevice. Your eyes roll back from the fullness and addicting taste of him. You want more—need more to fulfill your desire.

Ignoring his instructions, you enclose your lips around him and begin to suck him in each time he tries to pull out. “Easy,” he warns but you keep going.

One of your hands comes up to fondle his balls and Yoongi’s deep moans begin to fill your ears. He throws his head back in pleasure while you give him, what you would consider, the best blowjob of his life. The sound he produces is the only music you want to hear. His voice holds so much lust and bass, arousal gushes from your cunt as a result.

“Fuck, I told you not to do that.”

You hum around him, sending vibrations up his shaft. The feeling brings him to his senses and he places both his hands on your head. You have to grab onto his thighs to keep yourself steady since he’s starting to take control. You try to maintain the suction but his wild movements make it impossible.

“You wanted to suck me off so badly. Keep it up,” he grunts, increasing his speed.

You choke on his dick and the sounds make him twitch in your mouth. Yoongi starts to intentionally go deeper, but he’s unsatisfied by the lack of space there is for him.

He pulls out of you, leaving you coughing and gasping at the sudden intake of air.

“Well, damn. Do I have to teach you how to suck dick too?”

Yoongi shakes his head as he looks down on you then uses his index and middle finger to open your mouth. He pushes the digits in and finds the back of your mouth with ease, pressing on the back of your tongue to make you open wider. “Stop being shy and open this pretty fucking mouth,” he demands, making you gag on his fingers.

Your eyes water and spit drips down your chin. You must look like a complete mess, but Yoongi cannot take his eyes off of you.

“Now show me, and I’ll give you some more.”

You’re scolded before you can even wrap your lips around his fingers.

“Stop being fucking lazy.” He gives your cheek a few more slaps before shoving his fingers deeper into your mouth.

This time you slurp and allow your saliva to coat his digits. ”Fucking, right. Now open up and milk this dick.”

Yoongi removes his fingers and replaces them with his cock. This time you just open your mouth and let him in. He uses your head like a fleshlight and drills into you at a rapid speed. You try your best to keep eye contact and breath through your nose, but then out of nowhere he buries his cock down your throat.

There’s an intense burning in your airways due to lack of oxygen but it’s nothing you can’t handle. The rush takes you so high you become slightly lightheaded, sending a tingling sensation straight to your center. Nothing but music, the sound of you choking on his dick, and his sound of pleasure can be heard and the way he calls your name sends your ego through the roof.

“Shit, I’m gonna come. Stay just like this, sweetheart.”

Within five long thrusts, his warm seed deposits on your tastebuds. You try to swallow everything but he pulls out quickly and empties the rest on your lips and chin. Your tongue tries to gather as much as you can, but some places are impossible to reach.

“Come here.” Yoongi pulls you from the floor and brings you closer, greeting you with a sloppy kiss once you’re on your feet. He laps up all the cum on your face and gathers it all on his tongue before he feeds it to you. You savor the taste of both of you as the kiss prolongs, and even after he pulls away you can’t help but remember how good he tasted.

If you had to guess which body part Yoongi favors the most, you’d say it was your lips. He can’t tear his eyes away from them. You bite them, he shudders. You lick them, his cock twitches. So you can’t control yourself when it comes to teasing him and pressing them against his soft skin.

“You must want another round if you keep that up,” he mentions as you make your way to his earlobe. You nibble on it gently before you whisper in his ear.

“I just wanna come one more time before you kick me out.”

“Who said I was kicking you out?”

“You aren’t?”

Yoongi ushers you to his bed and helps you lie down before he joins you. He hovers over you once again and his hand snakes between your thighs.

“I definitely am, but not right now. I’m not done with you,” he informs, fingers entering your heat while his thumb caresses your clit.

“Well, hurry up then.”

He frowns. “Do you ever shut up?”

“Yeah, whenever someone has the balls to make me shut up—”

“Interesting,” he states after his hand pins your neck to the mattress. “Let’s test that theory.”

Yoongi’s digits begin to move in and out of your wetness, producing more lewd noises and causing your body to shake with sensitivity.

“Yoongi.”

His name flows past your lips like water. It’s the only word you can think of at the moment. Having been worked up all this time with no relief makes you desperate to satisfy the lingering desire that’s settled in the pit of your stomach.

“Feels good, huh?”

It feels damn good. Your hips buck off the bed to match his movements so you can chase your high. “Yes…more.”

“More?”

His hand tightens its grip and restricts your air supply. He knows how close to the edge it takes you by now and he doesn’t hesitate to use it against you.

“Say please and I’ll make you come all over my fingers,” he chuckles, knowing you can’t respond like this.

You try to speak, but everything gets trapped in your throat. You can only claw at his chest, begging him to guide you to your release. He loosens his grip and through your coughs you manage to give him the answer he wants.

“Please. I can’t take it.”

Yoongi gives you a fake pout, squeezing your face between his fingers. “But you can…watch this.”

His fingers curl inside of you and you’re seeing stars. Your nails dig into his arm, body arching off the bed due to the intense wave of pleasure that hits you. You try to run, but he pins you down and forces you to accept the mind-blowing orgasm you were begging for.

“You talked a bunch of shit, now back it up, love,” Yoongi tells you while your walls clench around him. His hand covers your mouth, preventing your screams from waking up the neighbors as if it isn’t already too late for that. “Let’s see if this cunt’s worth the headache.”

The coil snaps and your body stiffens. Yoongi’s deep voice continues to degrade you as your juices squirt all over his bed. Even though you cry out from the sensitivity he fucks you until the last drop. Your body just falls on the bed once he’s done with you, and you move into a fetal position when he carefully slides out his fingers.

The aftershock of your release has you twitching, but the bliss you feel is superior. This is what it feels like to get fucked out, and you knew he would be the person to deliver. Satisfied would be an understatement because you weren’t expecting to be stuck like this after you were done. Usually, you’re able to get up and go before they can return from the bathroom, but tonight you can only lay there in silence while Yoongi cleans you up with a warm cloth.

“I didn’t break you, huh?”

“The opposite, actually,” you laugh weakly.

“Good.” He lays his body beside you and wraps his arm around your waist, enjoying the familiar beat that plays into the dark room. It’s your phone sex song; the beat he played to help you relax. “Remember this?”

“Yeah, how can I forget?”

“You keep saying that like I’m always on your mind.”

“Maybe you are,” you reply.

A soft scoff comes from behind you. “I hope you’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

There’s silence, then eventually a long sigh.

“I want you gone before I wake up, okay?”

You shake your head. Not in disbelief because it’s what you expected, but because he can’t read between the lines. But you aren’t naïve and you know when someone wants you just as bad as you want them. So for now, you’ll be patient.

“Fair enough,” you answer.

Satisfied, he rolls over and drifts off into sleep, leaving you awake to wallow in your thoughts. It seemed best to just get up and leave then, but it takes nearly an hour to regain your strength. And just when you think it’s safe for you to slip away and consider this night one of the good memories, the warmth you felt before returns and pulls you closer—it is then that your eyes become heavy and you submit to the comfort you know you aren’t supposed to have.

When Yoongi wakes up and finds a cold empty bed, he can only throw his head back in frustration. He hopes…no, he prays he didn’t say anything to make you feel like he wasn’t interested. He knows he can be a dick, but he was just pissed and horny last night. You’re not easy to handle, but he likes that about you. You aren’t afraid to put him in his place.

He rolls out of bed and the first thing he notices is that his laptop is still playing music, so he makes turning it off his first task. However, once he enters the password, he finds an opened document with a typed note in the center of the page.

If you ever think of me, just call...If you want?

Yoongi’s speechless, and out of his damn mind. That’s the only excuse he has for picking up his phone and calling the number you left at 9 am in the damn morning. The longer the phone rings, the more regret fills him. He can’t help but think you left that there to tease him for calling you so quickly. He tries to hang up but before he can remove the phone from his ear the ringing stops and your beautiful voice blesses him once again.

“Hello?”

He panics, and doesn’t respond. He searches the room frantically and finds his excuse lying on the floor right in front of him.

“Yeah, you left your earring. Looks expensive,” he murmurs before he clears his throat.

“Oh, I’m wearing both of mine now. Must be for someone else.”

Embarrassment washes over him as he stands there naked in his bedroom. How could he be so stupid? That thing’s probably months old, if not longer. He wonders if you saw it. Maybe that’s why you left.

“I’m kidding, Yoongi. If it’s a gold hoop, it’s mine,” you laugh and he feels a weight left from his shoulders.

The idea of you finding stuff that belongs to other women in his home doesn’t put a good feeling in his chest. He also doesn’t want you to think of him as someone who lets anyone in his home because he’s not that kind of guy.

“Haha, you’re so funny,” he says once your giggles cease.

“And you’re sarcastic.”

Still sharp as hell. He thinks to himself.

“Whatever.” He takes a seat on his bed and rests his back against the headboard while he checks emails on his laptop and uses small talk to melt away the awkwardness. “So…you left in a hurry, huh?”

Smooth.

“You told me you wanted me gone before you woke up, remember?”

Of course, he did. Because he’s an idiot.

“Yeah, I was just fucking with you, though. I would have given you a ride or something, you know.”

“No worries. I made it to my hotel room safely,” you assure and he releases a sigh of relief.

“Well, that’s good. Glad to hear that.”

“Mmhm, miss me already, huh?...too bad you kicked me out.”

“Honestly, I thought I was gonna wake up to some tits in my face, but that’s fair.”

There’s some shuffling in the background like you’re moving something, but he doesn’t ask any questions about it.

“Can you remember anything from last night?” you ask him after a beat of silence.

His fingers run through his hair as he thinks about all the filthy images replaying in his mind.

“Well yeah, I remember you, of course. You were fucking incredible. But everything after that moment was a blur. Please don’t tell me I did something stupid.”

“No, you’re good. I had fun.”

So did he. He wishes it’d happen again, and again. “And you’re okay too, right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. My ass is sore and I can barely sit down, but I feel good. Thanks for that.”

Thank heavens you are. He knows how rough he was and most women aren’t into that but you took it and enjoyed it. You were fun to play with, and now his cock twitches at the thought of what your ass must look like now, covered in his marks.

“What about you?”

“I’m fine, love. Bummed about having to work, but I’m good,” he responds.

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay. And I’m sorry I kept you up when you have to work this morning.”

“Don’t apologize for that. I enjoyed your company, and…”

He almost told you that he missed you, but caught himself at the last minute.

“And what?”

“Uhh, nothing,” he gulps. “I was reading something…Forgot what I was going to say.”

“O’kay.”

Yoongi can tell by the sound of your voice that you don’t buy it.

“Yup,” is all he can say in response.

After a minute or two of both of you just holding the phone, you finally say something to keep the conversation going. “Yoongi?”

“Hm…”

“Are you busy right now or…?”

He places his laptop beside him because he can assure that whatever he has to do isn’t as important as this.

“No, what’s up?”

“Well, it’s about last night,” you admit.

Now, he’s kind of nervous. What else happened while he was in his post orgasmic bliss.

“Yeah, what about it?”

Yoongi stays on the line waiting patiently for your answer, and it’s one he doesn’t expect.

“Well, you still owe me, you know?”

Interesting.

“And what do you mean by that?” he questions.

“Well…”

Yoongi already knows where this is going and luckily he knows exactly how to handle this situation. “Not satisfied, are you, baby?”

“No, I am. But…”

He chuckles. “You want some more?”

“If it isn't too much trouble. And if you have time, of course.”

You’re as sly as a fox and you know how to get what you want. It’s hot, but he’s going to have to humble you before he does anything else.

“No trouble at all, baby. Do me a favor, and spread your legs for me.”

“Okay.”

He hears some more movement and then you return, prepared to do anything he tells you in the hopes of pleasuring yourself. You tell him once you’re ready and he provides you with more instructions, in which you follow without question.

“Now, facetime me and place the phone between your thighs so I can see your pretty pussy.”

Within a second, his phone notifies him of an incoming facetime call. He answers it and finds you sitting in your hotel room. You’re wearing a large shirt but he can still see the fresh blooms from where he took your skin between his teeth the night before creeping up your neck. He can’t stop the smirk from spreading across his face.

He curses when he sees your cunt, all glistening and wet with your juices. His mouth waters but he pushes his filthy thoughts in the back of his mind.

“This is what you’re going to do,” he starts, watching in awe as strings of arousal snap while you’re scissoring yourself in his presence, “...you’re going to imagine me fucking your brains out and you’re gonna use that image to get yourself off…without me.”

“Yoongi—”

He tsks. “I’m not your man, and making you come is not my job, baby.”

“But…”

If he gave a fuck, he’d break hearing how desperate and needy your voice sounds, but you need to understand that he isn’t going to come every time you call for him. He’s a busy man and he doesn’t need distractions.

“But nothing…Now, bye. Have fun.”

He hangs up just as you start to curse at him and yell into the phone. But he knows this isn’t over; you’re probably getting a ride over to his place right now, and that’s exactly what he wanted.

You were able to just walk out of here this morning without even waking him. That doesn’t sit right with him, and there’s only one solution for it really—

He’s just going to have to fuck you harder during round two…

And maybe, just maybe…get to know you a little bit after.

We’ll see.

#yoongi x reader #yoongi smut #bts smut #bts x reader #suga x reader #suga smut #bangtanbathhouse #festivaledaway #bangtansorciere #btsdreamcourt #yoongi imagine #bts imagines #yoongi fanfics #bts fanfics #sugakookitty

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11x13kyle · 1 year

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hardlaunching the yandere cartman masterpost

cartman genuinely, hand to god, believes that stan is in a relationship with kyle to spite him specifically. he believes that he did something in preschool that pissed stan off, and for that, stan is now committed to fucking cartman over by dating, then proposing to, then marrying, then having children with kyle

one time while drunker than he’s ever been in his life he pulls stan aside to confront him, begging him to admit to this longcon. stan is so confused and has no idea what the hell he’s talking about. this drives cartman up a wall because he is allergic to seeing reason.

stan also (much like kyle) can’t process cartman being in love with and psychosexualy obsessed with kyle because it is way too weird and fucked up for him. it makes him VISCERALLY uncomfortable and he is constantly begging kyle to just get a restraining order, which kyle can’t do, because his livelihood is literally tied up in having public arguments with this guy for money

needless to say, stan and kyle’s relationship (or, to him, “relationship”) makes cartman feel insane levels of rage. he usually just takes this out on stan and kyle in the normal ways, but there have been multiple times where he has tried to murder stan in earnest

his entire life, cartman believes that he Can get stan and kyle to break up, there’s just something he hasn’t figured out yet. he kind of believes that if he succeeds in one of his stan murder attempts that this will woo kyle. for some reason.

one of the stan murder attempts ends like this: cartman is all giddy right before going on the pod that day because he is certain that his most recent attempt worked, so he’s anticipating kyle showing up sobbing, inconsolable because his boyfriend just died of eating poisoned food. instead, kyle shows up perfectly fine and normal. cartman is already mad about this, but it gets worse when kyle offhandedly mentions that a fan sent him and stan and cake, but he says that it “looked like dogshit” so neither of them ate. now cartman is mad about TWO things.

“well you’re WRONG. the cake DIDN’T look like shit. WHATEVER it looked like. and i bet it was a GOOD fucking cake. i’m sure whoever made it put a LOT of effort in and filled it with LOVE and absolutely ZERO arsenic.”

cartman was not invited to their wedding. he still came. kyle factored this into his wedding planning because kyle factored every possible outcome into his wedding planning

kyle paid cartman off to make sure that he didn’t object.

“FINE. HERE’S $600. NO OBJECTIONS CARTMAN. DON’T RUIN MY FUCKING WEDDING THAT I DIDN’T EVEN INVITE YOU TO.”

once the cartman issue is dealt with, kyle can get back to picking colors and accents for the tablecloths

when cartman sneaks into the wedding he brings cupid me as his plus one because he thinks this may help him to break them up. cupid me is just thrilled to finally have that date -> cartman forgets about his objection plans because cupid me keeps foiling them by making sure the wedding goes PERFECTLY

the months following the wedding re: cartman’s kyle fixation are so bad that listeners start to kind of PITY him

kyle makes a whole point of referring to stan exclusively as his husband on the podcast like listeners don’t know who stan is. this ENRAGES cartman. he responds to most of kyle’s comments with snappish one word answers and then rants about absolutely nothing over and over again. he’s never been this upset over stan and kyle in his LIFE. it is getting harder and harder to believe that this is stan’s longcon but he still is able to convince himself of this because he’s ridiculously delusional

cartman keeps calling him sobbing begging him to leave kyle, threatening to kill himself, the works. he climbs into their window the night before the wedding to try and convince stan to change his mind

stan: *takes long drag of a cigarette* if you think i’m ever going to actually leave kyle, you’re wrong.

when they have children, cartman is incapable of being a “fun uncle” because he is so horrifically jealous that he just acts evil to the style kids

also, tweet about anna khachiyan’s baby that reminds me of this whole thing:

cartman engages in increasingly cartoonish attempts to murder their babies, such as dangling one of them off a balcony, putting them on one of those moving saws, etc.

he claims it’s a bit. it’s not a bit.

when they have their second child he’s so mad because the only thing harder than getting away with murdering one infant is getting away with murdering more than one infant

he is so so mega furious that the kids aren’t his, again, he believes this is part of stan’s longcon. whenever they exhibit stanisms or whenever he notices just how much they physically resemble stan this increases his rage

the older the kids get the more verbally nasty he is, but he makes fewer attempts on their lives because its harder to get away with

cartman will do fucking anything. but he is unfamiliar with stan and kyle’s game. as in, the fact that they are legitimately in love and that kyle finds cartman repulsive on every single level.

#microceleb au #one sided kyman is always funny as fuck to write about. his delusional ass truly believes that he can pull kyle. kyle who despises him.#ONE SIDED. PSYCHOSEXUAL OBSESSION. CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.

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beskarandblasters · 6 months

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November Fic Recap! 🍂

Here’s everything I posted in November organized by character, some fic recs, and what you can expect from me in December!

Din Djarin:

Me and My Husband - Chapters 1-6 - Posted every week starting from 11/1 - Din Djarin hastily marries a member of the Children of the Watch after reclaiming Mandalore. He’s still a member of the Bounty Hunter’s Guild, taking bounties to support his new family. But when he meets you on Naboo he finds something exciting in his now mundane life. How long can he keep his secret from you and how long can he keep up appearances with his riduur?

Tell me how it’s lookin’, babe - Posted 11/4 - You see Din in just his flight suit and don’t know how to act

Uncut - Posted 11/11 - You give Din his first blowjob

Grasp & Tug - Posted 11/15 - Din discovers he likes getting his hair pulled.

Oral Fixation - Posted 11/18 - Din eats pussy for the first time

You done? - Posted 11/24 - Brat tamer!Din, you’re bitching at Din and he puts you in your place

Apotheosis part one and part two - Posted 11/26 and 11/30 - Din Djarin is a force-sensitive bounty hunter and you’re a rebel spy. He captures you in order to gain some sensitive information from you; the location of Luke’s Jedi Academy.

Tim Rockford:

sexfiles.mp3 - posted 11/10 - You’re a true crime podcaster and you land the interview of your dreams with Detective Tim Rockford

Joel Miller:

Breaking Your Best Friend’s Heart - Part two for Fucking Your Best Friend’s Brother - posted 11/15 - Tommy finds out you and Joel had sex. You and Joel have a fight about whose fault it is leading to something else yet again.

My fic rec blog is @kelbellsficrecs! There you’ll find all the things I loved and read this month but I’m gonna list a few here too!

@perotovar Into the Beat of the Night

@jksprincess10 Are We Out Of The Woods

@joelscurls Give Into Temptation

@ramblers-lets-get-ramblin When My Time Comes Around and Excuse Me Mister Officer

@kedsandtubesocks This Tornado Loves You

@planet-marz1 I Know It’s For the Better

@kiwisbell The Impaler

@ilovepedro Just Married

@absurdthirst Vivid

@inthe-dark-tonight Falling Into My Sins

What you can expect from me in December:

Me and My Husband Chapters 7-10

Apotheosis Part 3

Various Din one shots (Virgin!Din, meeting Din’s ex, Vacation!Din, etc)

Bluffing Season, a Frankie x Reader Christmas one shot

Under the Mistletoe, a Mr. Ben x Teacher!Reader Christmas one shot as part of a Christmas celebration with some other creators

And potentially these too if/when I find the inspiration!

What Happens at Coruscant University… - Professor!Cassian edition

For You I Would Ruin Myself, a Mr. Ben x Teacher!Reader infidelity fic

Final part of New York or Nowhere, Bodega Owner!Joel x Reader

Final part of Best Friend’s Brother!Joel x Reader

Thank you for supporting me and my stories!

#din djarin x reader #joel miller x reader #tim rockford x reader #frankie morales x reader #kel wont stfu #fic recap #din djarin fanfiction #tim rockford fanfiction #joel miller fanfiction #frankie morales fanfiction

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dearopheliaimsorry · 1 year

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Rogues! The Podcast (Praise)

Well, my new fixation just hit me over the head. Violently.

If you don't already know about this gem, it is a fan-made DC Comics podcast that is a sort of AMA done by the Riddler while he follows his own fun plotline.

It is on Spotify, with a ton of episodes that range from a minute long to over ten.

If you love Batman the animated series (BTAS - the best batman tv show in my opinion) you will love this. The Joker sounds so similar to Mark Hamil's Joker that it's uncanny, but the other characters have their own specific charm. I am having the time of my life listening, and I need more people to learn about the "Codotverse".

It's just that good. Sure, it has goofy moments, but what media doesn't? Seriously, if you are looking for a new DC Comics podcast that focuses on Batman's rogues, it's here.

I've only just begun season 2, but I am certainly hooked.

My greatest complaint is that I didn't know about it sooner.

(Anyway, here are some iconic rogues moments)

(okay I'm done, whoever gave us this gif button is ruining my life haha)

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emperorsfoot · 1 month

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I'm so tired. Almost my entire blog all week has been posts about antisemitism. Tumblr used to be my fandom website. It used to be where I would go to escape the real world and relax.

So, to break up all the overwhelming IRL concerns,

New Followers of Jumblr, tell me about your fandoms!

Let's all share our interests with each other!

I'll start.

The fandom that brought me to Tumblr was Star Wars. I have been a fan of Star Wars since the 90s. I'm old enough to have felt the pre-queled ruined the franchise before the sequels could (after what Disney's done that opinion has changed). Around 2011-2012ish when the Disney buyout was still new, my friends and I started a podcast to educate new fans about the old Expanded Universe (Legends) that existed before Disney bought the franchise. I started this blog to advertise that podcast.

My username Emperor's Foot is inspired by my favorite character, Mara Jade. She used to be an Imperial agent before the death of Emperor Palpatine at Endor. She is Force sensitive and could hear the Emperor's voice from anywhere in the Galaxy, when the died she felt is and he sent her his last instruction, "KILL LUKE SKYWALKER!" But when she finally crosses paths with Luke organically, she needs him to help her survive, so she can't kill him. Then she needs him to save her new boss, so she still can't kill him. Then she's a prisoner of New Republic and needs to help Luke defeat an evil Dark Jedi in exchange for a pardon, so she still can't kill him! Then she kills his clone and the voices go away. Mara realizes that she and Luke actually work well together and is willing to work together in the future. Luke gives her his father's lightsaber (they pulled it off the clone's dead body, that was how they cloned Luke, they went looking for the hand on Bespin and there just happened to be a lightsaber attached to it.

More stuff happens, but you'll have to read the Expanded Universe (Legends) books to find out.

I'm not competent enough to be the Emperor's Hand, but I could be the Emperor's Foot.

After Star Wars, my new big fandom on Tumblr was Ben 10. I was a very active fan and it was also my first sideblog. But the Ben 10 fandom back in 2014-2017 was really toxic and I ended up leaving. It's had a reboot, the fandom might be different now. I donno. Overall it wasn't a positive experience and I don't wanna go back.

I flit in and out of Sky High every now and again. But I have not contributed anyone of note to the fandom. We're also a very small fandom so there's also not very much to reblog.

My last major fandom fixation was Masters of the Universe, which I got into through She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018), and MotU became my second sideblog.

MotU has a long history. Its similar to DC comics in the sense that there've been so many reboots and reimaginings, and changed form so many times that there's no "one true canon". It really leaves a lot of room for the fans to be creative. An executive at Mattel even says that because they're action figures meant to be played with, that all interpretations and imaginings are canon, even the stories kids make up while playing. So there's a lot of freedom for fans to make their own fan fiction and fan art.

My favorite character is Prince Keldor, the guy who eventually becomes Skeletor. He's gone through a lot of reimaginings over the years. The core detail that remains the same is that Keldor is Randor's brother and Adam's (He-Man's) uncle. When he was first introduced in 1987, we never see him, so we don't know what Keldor looked like before he became Skeletor. Randor explains that Keldor was a sorcerer but had some kind of magical accident and was lost in dimensions.

When the franchise was Rebooted in 2002, Keldor's backstory was changed and his appearance designed. Keldor is Randor's half-brother, they are both the children of Miro (in the 80s he was the previous king, in 2002 he was a "Captain" of a religious army team of Defenders that serve the immortal Council of Elders). Keldor is half-human half/Gar (blue space elf) the homeland of the Gar was destroyed for reasons that are only vaguely explained in the Show Bible and Keldor's mother raises him to blame and hate the Captain Miro (and by extension the Council of Elders) and he grows up studying and training to take "revenge". By the time Keldor's ready to stoke, Miro is gone and Randor is Captain. Keldor attacks the Council of Elders and during the battle his face is melted with acid. Evil-Lyn, his 2nd in command, takes him to the Temple of Hordak to save his life and the price for his life is that he becomes Skeletor.

DC Comics was also given permission to do a run of comics, they crossover with the main DC universe. He-Man fights Superman. The run is not great. The best segment is the end arc, Eternity War when they're back on Eternia after that wild ride on Earth. 2/10, do not recommend. In the DC run, Keldor is still Gar and still Randor's half-brother. Miro's back to being a king in this canon and both Randor and Keldor grew up as princes. Keldor is the older brother, but he's a bastard and so is denied the crown in favor of the legitimate son, Randor. Keldor becomes the scheming royal advisor trope and plans a coup, during which his face is melted and he refuses to die (no, literally, he bashes Death's skull against a rock and walks away, this bitch beat up Death!), and becomes Skeletor.

Around the same time as the DC run was another run of comics published by Dark Horde and came packaged with the toys, the Classics-Line. The Classics-Line is my favorite canon. Keldor is once again the first born son and after Miro is banished to another dimension, Keldor was going to be crowned king, he even had Randor's support! But there were also a lot of bad things that happened all at once. The people of Eternia are apparently super racist and hate the Gar, there's a public outcry over having a Gar king. While Randor is trying to reason with a crowd of screaming citizens protesting a blue king, Randor's mother goes to get Keldor so he can address the people. But she dies suddenly and abruptly from very suspicious circumstances and Keldor is implicated in her death. While her body is still bleeding on the floor, no investigation, so trial, Keldor is sentenced to be banished. Keldor resents this treatment and travels Eternia meeting other people who were outcast and resentful (most of which were other non-humans, while most of the Masters are human; just sayin'), and Keldor builds a rebellion. During their attack on the capital, Keldor's face is splashed with acid and he becomes Skeletor.

In 2021 we got 2 new reboots. One aimed at adults who grew up with MotU in the 80s, and one for children just discovering the franchise now. I like both, and Keldor appears in both. The one aimed at adults has the better Keldor of the two, but the one for children has better story telling. I recommend both. In the one aimed at children, Keldor is completely human and is just a jealous asshole, they really stripped his character of any depth or complicated nuance and gave him a morning character design on top of it. But what it lacks in Keldor, it makes up for in story telling and the Kronis/Evelyn ship.

My current fandom is Tim/Kon. I'd like to say DC Superheroes, but that would be a lie. I only care about making these two men kiss. Tim Drake (Robin, Red Robin, Drake, Gun-Batman), and Kon-El | Conner Kent (Superboy). I have written so much fan fiction about them! I enjoy almost any interpretation of them. DC characters are kind of like "modern mythologies" for me. Like Hercules or Snow White is constantly reigned and transformed, so can you do with DC characters. No depiction of them is "incorrect" I love them all-! ...so long as Tim Drake and Kon-El fall in love.

My current Tim/Kon projects are 2 long A/B/O fic series. One I started in October of of last year, but I kinda lost the thread in what needs to happen in the story. I was kinda just writing out of emotion without any plan, the whole thing's a mess. I've also returned to working on a fic series I started in 2017. Tim and Kon are grown up, married, and raising their children when Tim discovers Terry McGinnis (of Batman Beyond) and assigns his eldest son to follow Terry. The fic mostly focusses on the son, my fan-kid OC. I also just started writing a completely escapist fic taking place in the same universe as the Batman Beyond one, but much farther along the timeline when their youngest child is an adult. Its a self-insert oc/ oc fic which both OCs are my self insert. I might not post that one, I'm still debating. I'm afraid of getting negative comments.

#jumblr

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mac-cheez · 5 months

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I've come to the conclusion that The Magnus Archives has ruined me in the best way possible when it comes to pretty much anything.

If there's anything vaguely unsettling or supernatural in a peice of media my brain now latches onto it like, "Hey! That thing is like this entity!!" And then a debate in my brain as to whether or not I should grace my mutuals with this knowledge.

It's even worse with anything Lovecraftian bc Mag is kinda based in that relm of spooky/horror, and it's the only major part of that media that I have fully consumed and fixated on. For example, I just got Dredge and while playing I kept looking at everything and falling into that same scenario, to the point that I'm surprised no one else has done a cross over with these two.

Like, the eye as a panic meter, being a lonely ship captain like Lukas, the "body" horror(only fish so far), the vague unsettlingness of everything, it all has vague connections to the podcast. Don't even get me started on the abberations bc those all fall under their own entities, most commonly The Flesh. But all these reasons are also very Lovecraft especially the emphasis on keeping the PC in the dark. Yeah they answer your questions, but not in the super clear and concise way a normal person would.

Overall I love this game so far and I need help with my Mag Pod obsession.

Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

#the eyes in the fog are also very Mag #i need help #dredge #the magnus archives #the eye #tma #I need a crossover please!!!#it wuld be beautiful #14 entities

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anulithots · 9 months

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hey! this is chance & here’s week 2's prompt. when you write or create an oc, do you like to reference elements from your life? if yes, name a few. if no, why not?

heh. heh. hehehehe.

What DON'T I reference from my life? It's my personal opinion that storytelling is meant to explore this strange thing called existence, and I'm not aware of other's perspectives, so what else can I use but my own life?

Anuli is supposed to be the parts of me that are "absent-minded, constantly overthinking, storytelling, and seeming self-centered due to the hyper fixations on storytelling." Faer whole purpose is to tell myself that I don't have to give up my joys in order to live my life, and it's okay to be the way I am. Along with just processing general feelings such as - "not wanting to be trusted because we will eventually make a mistake that ruins things." "anger about being interrupted from current endeavors, even though you KNOW that its not that big of a deal."

Also also, it's my goal to never use a feeling description word. (unease, discomfort, grief, sadness, surprise, etc. etc.) Because neither of us can put our strange abstract feelings into words. So I like to use metaphors, it may make Anuli seem overdramatic (feedback from family members) but to me, it's an accurate description of feelings.

ANNNDD the pixies.

They are based off the "four parts of brain" theory from a podcast we were listening to in the car.

(they all used to be one being but separated a few years ago, although their collective identity is still fluid. )

I try not to base the other characters off my family members, because I do not fully understand their internal reasoning, so I don't think it would be genuine enough. But I do steal little quirks and phrases.

For Maidoe, it's a love for the stars and the uncanny ability to find anything.... and a weird knack for predicting the future (this isn't an actual magic power, just a lot of hunches that tend to work out)

For Kamari, it's a few phrases from my parents and the love for songs and music from my youngest sibling (the chaotic lots of noise with a "parent'-esque" character is an archetype I want to try out.)

Thanks for the prompt <3 I really like this one.

#the land of the fallen fairies #anuli the dryad #creative writing #writeblr #dryads #fiction

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w-ht-w · 1 year

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Duality

Duality is opposition/contrast between 2 concepts. Can be big picture (beauty/ugliness; good/evil; life/death), common & everyday (difficult/easy, long/short); or internal (altruism/ego; physical/spirituality)

You don’t have to have a constant emotional commentary, judge, or internalize so much. You just deal with things as they arise.

“The sage perfects things, yet seeks no reward. When her work is accomplished she remains detached from it.” (1; 5:45)

when all people recognize goodness, then evil is understood.

difficult and easy define each other.

long and short reveal each other.

height and depth manifest each other.

musical notes and the tone of the voice determine each other.

dualities in the external world can help us reflect on our internal dualities.

Recognizing duality in everyday life:

Practicing awareness. When am I inserting ego? Getting overly attached to an outcome/opinion? Pushing too hard?

Lead by example. How can I let my actions quietly speak for me today?

Asking ourselves: how am I defined by others? Ex. relative talents. Am I defined by others’ needs + presence?

Ambition vs calling

Let ambition be the impetus from which I carry my inspiration through my work. Take a hard look at the things you value, and observe when you’re overdoing it. Prevent yourself from warping your inspiration, which may derail the whole thing.

Try to connect with your original inspiration, instead of the warped ambition it might become.

Are there moments (past or present) when fixation on a ambition/a specific outcome ruined progress toward the original inspiration?

1. Podcast: The Tao Te Ching for Everyday Living, Episode 2. Duality.

2. Podcast: The Tao Te Ching for Everyday Living, Episode 3. Right-sizing ambition.

#eastern philosophy #daoism #wu wei

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magic-is-something-we-create · 2 years

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Writeblr Reintro (Two!)

Hi! I'm Pax (he/him), and I've been on writeblr for two years now! This little reintro thing has become a bit of an annual tradition, so I figured I'd keep it going :D

The basics about me:

I'm an adult, queer, and neurodivergent

My favorite genres to both read and write are Fantasy (preferably High and/or Epic), SciFi, and Horror. The only genre I don't vibe with is romance (but I do like to hype up that of fellow writers!)

My current fixations include Stardew Valley, Minecraft, The NoSleep Podcast, and Not Another D&D Podcast

I have just recently gotten myself out of a reading slump! Now, I'm working my way through She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb to connect with my mom's favorite book <3

As for tumblr things:

I do digital art, and take commissions through Ko-Fi on occasion! Relevant information is linked in my pinned post. I've drawn plenty of people's OCs in the past, and I'd love to draw yours, too!

As for my writing:

WIPs! I have several of them!

My main WIP is called The Millennium Saga. It's a High Fantasy series planned to have between 4 and 7 installments; book one (Firebreathers) is finishing up with its first round of beta readers, and I'm about a third of the way through drafting book two (Echoseers)!

A socially anxious and PTSD-ridden revolutionary gets dragged into working with the very king they rebelled against--a.k.a. the Chosen One, who supposedly saved the world 1000 years ago and has since become Eternal, alongside his former lover and the woman who gave the two the idea in the first place. But supposedly is used with good reason, and with the help of their melodramatic and vain boyfriend, the son of a banished noble descended from one of those very Eternals, and their found family forged in friendship and fear, they might just save the world for real this time.

The rest of the blurbs will be behind the cut, since there's three of them and I don't want to absolutely wreck your dashes. But if you'd like to hear more about a Dark Fantasy crime syndicate, an Urban Fantasy road trip thriller, and a clusterfuck of a Space Opera, you should click through!

And, of course, tell me about your own WIPs! Introduce yourself! Make some funny references in the tags that I may or may not understand! I will enjoy all of the above :D

Whispers is a Tragic Dark Fantasy standalone novel set in the same world as TMS (called the Ehlverse!), but in a slightly different time and very different place.

Three unlucky lackeys are summoned north by the evil sorceress leader of a criminal ring that specializes in bastardizing the idea of a "life debt". And though escape is something one cannot do for long when running from the Shadow of Fowden, freedom is a tempting thing for those only recently bound. So when she offers it in exchange for their aid in terrorizing their culture's paragons of morality, they agree, even though they suspect she's lying. What other chance will they get? One of those paragons is still in mourning, though, almost twenty years after her childhood fell to ruin. She's not about to let this entity calling herself a Shadow ruin even more. And she's not about to hold her punches for the henchmen, because the hope of her people comes first. She'll swear it on her sister's grave.

Deity Complex is an Urban Fantasy Thriller standalone set in an alternate reality where everyone has a little touch of mundane magic.

A teenage car accident survivor desperately attempts to evade the government seeking to use them as a weapon of war by driving the loneliest, most winding backroads in America on repeat. At least doing this gives them some much-needed headspace... but that mostly ends up occupied with the struggle to not to become a cryptid sighting meme on social media. Because of course. What that headspace should be put towards, though, is coming to terms with the fact that they have an ancient deity of death, plague, and war hitching along for the ride in their brain. Like, the entity that created those very concepts. Wild, huh? But, you know, it's apparently not the rarest thing, this pocket of the brain called a Deity Complex. Which honestly? They're a bit pissed about not being told that. They had a whole breakdown about being weird, and for what? For a random girl they meet on the road to tell them she has a god of obsession in her head. That's what, apparently.

The Lost is a Space Opera that could either become a Webcomic or a novel of its own, set in a nebula lacking humans entirely (and yes, that means an all-original-alien cast. character design, my alleged passion, tries to destroy me yet again).

When the shapeshifting eldritch gladiator known only as the Champion refuses to fight the teenage fairy who was unwillingly thrown into the arena to die on screen, the coliseum goes into an affronted uproar. During that meltdown, while the audience that feeds on bloodshed froths at the mouth, an attending assassin with malfunctioning psychic implants ruins the show further by ignoring her target in favor of breaking the child combatant out--and warily accepts help from the Champion themself to the same end. Upon their escape, though, they find that a domestic terrorist-turned-janitor has ended up as an accidental stowaway, and may or may not be an unwitting point of further surveillance by their captors. They find common ground, though, in this breach of privacy, trust, and autonomy, and team up to destroy the Space Hollywood™ trauma-porn industry, one oligarch's corpse at a time.

#writeblr #writblr #writers on tumblr #writeblr introduction #writeblr intro #writblr intro #writerblr #authors on tumblr #blog intro #introducing myself #q #i know most people seeing this know me very well already #but!!! heres to meeting more friends :D

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mrsblackruby · 3 years

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The Harassment of Billy Hargrove fans #5

I have taken screenshots to reference and prove the behavior I critic but I have gotten rid of all identifying content as to avoid further harassment. Please don’t go out looking to harass anyone. Let me know if I need to add any warnings this is a somewhat serious, heavy, and layered discussion. We are talking about how humans connect to fiction here so it’s bound to be complicated.

tw//The degradation of Billy fans, child abuse mentioned, racism, online harassment, abuse apologia

These post are degrading towards Billy fans. Yes, they are degrading! The creators are making fun of people for not interpreting or seeing media the way they see it and in turn they are ostracizing and making fun of a big part of the fan base. who are real life people might I add.

The first post is making fun of people who don’t think Billy is racist because two people automatically interpret him as such🤷🏿‍♀️ honestly I don’t get the logic but whatever 👏🏿go 👏🏿off👏🏿 bestie 👏🏿

The second post is making fun of Billy fans who know he is abusive but believe Billy can change for the better. Why do that, maybe I’m interpreting it wrong?

And I would just like to point out in the real world racists don’t have to be out right in their racism to be racist... stranger things isn’t the real world… when something is not explicit it’s up to interpretation and even then nobody has to give a fuck about cannon when they reimagine a character.

I call the first post degrading because this is a vague post made by the same person who talked shit about my mama😃. they posted it on their blog and it’s clearly about me (cuz I'm nosy I noticed).

They literally say they don’t care like at all that I got abused by my mom as a child. Amazing 👏🏿 go 👏🏿off 👏🏿 bestie👏🏿

I might just be to nice but I do kind of think my response was kind of mean but I’m not gonna apologize because they don’t care that I was abused as a child.

This is degrading I’m not even gonna explain it🤦🏿‍♀️

I come to tumblr to get away and feel okay in myself after a long day of college, anticapitalistic organizing, learning a new language, healing from trauma, and etc. I’m asking kindly that if you see this post please don’t engage in the behavior I critic in it because you would be creating a toxic environment for marginalized community members who can see them selves in Billy’s story arc (even though it is flawed). I’m not trying to ruining anyone’s day I just want a healthy and respectful environment to enjoy the media I enjoy. Maybe I’m reading 2 much into this. Maybe I’m stupid for wanting tumblr to be less toxic.

I recognize that online harassment is an issue in all fandoms and it’s a wider systemic flaw with the internet at large so this 5 part series isn’t gonna stop this issue. I just wanted to do my part to advocate for a healthier stranger things fandom. But oh well if my efforts are useless because the Billy Hargrove fans out there still have each other 🫂. I want the Billy fans on tumblr to know you can get things wrong /make mistakes in other situations and that’s okay. On the other hand, don’t let anyone tell you you’re wrong for liking Billy. I hope I gave someone the tools to be more confident in their “cringe” hyper fixation.

Go live a great life or whatever and enjoy yourself. Thanks 4 reading if you we’re able to get through all the Drama. If you’re a Billy fan and anyone ever gives you heat let me know and I’ll try my best to respectfully defend your personhood if I’m able.

Stand alone post: Me reading to much into the politics of Billy Hargrove/ Harringrove

THE 5 PART SERIES ON HARASSMENT:

#1 #2 #3 #4

Coming soon…

Podcast response to an ask because I’m chaotic: Will The Billy Hargrove/ Harringrove Fandom Ever Know Peace 😭

U owe all humans respect ✊🏿 I’m @mrsblackruby Billy’s teenage defense lawyer signing off… 4 now at least.

#billy hargrove #harringrove #anti billy hargrove #anti harringrove #lucas sinclair #joyce byers #byler #elmax #el hopper #jane byers #bob newby #kali prasad #jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #jim hopper #max mayfield #robin buckley #mike wheeler #stranger things

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crazyintheeast · 3 years

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More of Jim Caviezel craziness thanks to the great transcript @benfinchemerson did of the podcast . You can find the transcript here Part 1

"Sources explain a ‘universal lack of surprise over JC’s Q-anon turn. They describe the man profoundly consumed of a bizarre jumble of religious, military, and nationalistic fixations’ a name was even coined on set for the recurring experience of being cornered on set by a barely coherent Jim- “ the ‘Cav-vortex’ (laughter)

A source explained ‘It’s just him soft-talking about 3 inches from your face. Total stream of consciousness, but not a consciousness that was going in the linear fashion. Meanwhile, I have a walkie on all the time, so if somebody’s talking to me in this ear, then I can’t hear them, so someone would have to pull me out all the time.” “I have never had a real conversation with him in the years that we worked together”

‘no one wants to work with him. It’s not the people on the set making this decision, it’s the producers saying ‘this guy means x amount of dollars, so we’ll put him in the movie no matter what’ and then you just get these kinds of lunatics, like what Tom Cruise and John Travolta were apparently like. It’s all the same shit. Conspiracy lunatics who no one ever says no to.”

Speakers joking- “It’s just dudes crowding you in a corner saying ‘do you know what happens when babies get really really scared?’” (laughter) ‘Aren’t you the lead?’ “so yeah, they get scared and you take their blood’ ‘and you can’t say anything because he’s the lead and I don’t want to lose my job.’

The sources were remarkably frank about Jim’s inability to communicate with people around him. “The thing you need to know about Jim, candidly, is that he is one of the stupidest people you will ever meet” (laughter) “He is not smart.” “I pray for him that he never winds up in a paper bag, because he would be stuck and he will die” (more laughter)

“stupid is not a word that I super throw around. But he is just not a bright guy, it was like working with a dog” ‘isn’t that just the feeling you get when you see an interview with him? That he’s just really, really dumb’

(speakers explaining why everyone went along with JC) “when you embark on a series such as Person of Interest, there’s like 200 people on board with an ongoing project, and replacing the lead in the first season will destroy that project. Then when you’re locked into a second season, then you’re caught in an endless cycle.” “once you’re locked into a show, then there’s 90-100 people who all have jobs, that are paying for their mortgages, etcs, based on this dude not being crazy. If word of who he is gets out, then it would ruin their careers. Then you have to search for another job, joining pilots and pilots so when you get something stable, you would totally just accept the holocaust-denying guy, because I just need a job”

Another source described JC as a “A very broken, brain-child-like person, who is fundamentally super religious, so in whatever childlike understanding he has of religion, I think he thinks he is a loving person. He is not. He is filled with hatred above it.”

#person of interest #poi #jim caviezel

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bluejayblueskies · 4 years

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I always find it interesting when I see posts about remembering that TMA is ultimately going to end in tragedy, or that people have forgotten along the way what with the levity that fandom often brings to the show that TMA is a tragedy. Because to me TMA has been a tragedy from the very beginning, and I don’t just mean in its trajectory toward an ultimately tragic end. TMA has stressed from the very beginning that the world the characters live in is ultimately a tragic place, both through the context of statements and through the direct actions of characters.

Tim is a good example of this. His motivations for joining the Institute, and arguably his entire character arc, revolve around getting retribution for Danny’s death. In a lot of other non-tragic media, revenge arcs are either seen as justified actions that eventually resolve into a fulfilled arc, or as unnecessary fixations on past events. With Tim, we don’t really get either scenario. While his revenge arc is ultimately fulfilled, it’s not quite the smooth resolution that we’ve come to expect. The Stranger is still there and actively causing fear, the actions taken to stop the ritual are eventually revealed to have been unnecessary, and Tim ultimately ends up sacrificing himself in order to bring himself closure. This, to me, is a deeply tragic way to end Tim’s arc, mostly because the noble intentions we often see rewarded in other stories aren’t, instead requiring Tim to sacrifice everything he has left to bring fulfilment to an arc that’s still messy and not tied up with a bow.

Sasha’s storyline is shorter, but with the context season five gives us—that she was meant to have Jon’s job, and that she was ultimately looking to move on from the Institute—her death is also quite tragic. Unlike the other three Archival staff members, who were either drawn to the Institute for personal reasons (Danny and A Guest for Mr. Spider) or for practical reasons (Martin’s CV), Sasha didn’t have those strong ties and had no real personal stake in working in the Archives. This, combined with the fact that her death was simply the result of choosing the wrong door to run through and of choosing to risk her life to help her friends, makes Sasha’s storyline even more tragic than Tim’s, in my opinion. Her death didn’t fulfill any specific arc or serve as a casualty in an effort to bring about the greater good. It was solely a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, while trying to help those she cared about.

In fact, this thread of one’s life being ruined by no fault of your own, just bad luck, is something that’s laced throughout the entirety of the show. Almost every statement features someone who was simply unlucky, or in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who spoke to the wrong person, or who even was trying to help someone or do good. Tim highlights this really well in MAG 117:

TIM: I used to blame my brother for going off his own and poking around where he wasn’t wanted. I used to blame myself for not helping him. But now… now it doesn’t matter. I’ve read through enough of these things to know that this doesn’t matter. The only thing you need to have your life destroyed by this stuff is just bad luck. Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, open the wrong door, and that’s it!

Yes, TMA is ultimately going to end tragically. Yes, Martin and Jon’s arcs are going to end tragically. But we’ve already seen so much evidence of TMA being a tragedy from episode one, and I think it’s important to recognise this in the overall context of the podcast beyond just Jon’s tragic arc.

#tma #the magnus archives #magnuspod #tma meta #this didnt go in the tags the first time for whatever reason so here it is again #i will not repeat my choice monologue though lol

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bubonickitten · 3 years

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Fic summary: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Chapter summary: The process(es) of resigning from a terrible, no good, very bad assistant position.

Previous chapter: AO3 // tumblr

Full chapter text & content warnings below the cut.

Content warnings for Chapter 22: discussions of eye-gouging/eye horror (not graphic); brief mentions of spiders/arachnophobia; anxiety/panic symptoms; lots of dissociation/dpdr; Peter Lukas being a manipulative shit; Lonely-typical content (including fear of abandonment & some abysmal self-esteem on Martin’s part); allusions to police violence & Hunt-related themes (re: Daisy’s past actions); swears. SPOILERS through Season 5.

Chapter 22: Resignation

Georgie paces in a slow circle, alternating between biting her nails and picking at her bottom lip – entirely immersed in her own thoughts, judging from the faraway look in her eyes. Jon hasn’t seen her this overwrought since the last depressive episode he witnessed. Just watching her is enough to make his chest tighten with vicarious unrest.

Wary of contributing to a vicious feedback loop between the two of them with his own customary pacing and handwringing, he forces himself to keep his knees locked and hands at his sides. Still, he can’t help rubbing his fingertips together and rocking minutely on the balls of his feet.

“Why don’t we sit?” Jon finally interjects, wincing when it comes out more curtly than he intended – more like a command than a suggestion, but luckily without any accompanying static.

Be mindful, he silently chides himself: being on edge like this only makes him more susceptible to accidental compulsion.

“What if something goes wrong?” Georgie whispers. Jon doubts she even heard him beneath her nervous refrain. “What if –”

“Georgie?” Jon tries again. No response. He steps into her path and places a hand on her shoulder. “Georgie.”

“What?” Georgie raises her head, but she isn’t looking at him so much as she’s looking through him.

“I think you should sit down?”

“What?” Georgie says again, sounding utterly lost. Her eyes are darting around the room now, as if she doesn’t recognize her surroundings.

How the tables have turned, Jon thinks grimly.

“Come on,” he says, taking her hand and guiding her to the nearest chair. She offers no resistance, trailing behind him like a flagging balloon. When he presses on her shoulder to coax her into a sitting position, she goes easily. Keeping hold of her hand, he drags another chair closer to her and takes a seat.

Okay. Now what?

Jon jiggles his leg as he wracks his brain for the right thing to say. She deserves more than handholding and awkward silence, but soothing words have never come naturally to him.

“Do you, ah… do you want to talk about it?” Jon cringes at his faltering delivery. “I’m sorry, I’m – I’m still not very good at this,” he adds with a self-deprecating laugh – then immediately shuts his eyes, kicking himself. Why are his attempts to relate to others always so clumsy and – and weirdly self-centered? “I mean –”

“I’m scared,” Georgie blurts out.

“You… what?” Jon tilts his head. “But I thought – you don’t feel –”

“Fear?” Her clipped, brittle laugh dies in her throat. “No, I don’t. And that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?”

Jon strokes the back of her hand with one thumb, but remains silent. She always elaborates on her own time, given some space to order her thoughts.

“I don’t feel… terror,” she says slowly. “After I had my… encounter, I did a lot of research on how the brain works. Trying to understand what was happening to me, you know?”

Jon nods. He’s intimately familiar with that urge. As a child, he went through a spider phase, as his grandmother called it, obsessively seeking out any information he could on them, hoping even then that he could conquer his fear if only he could see the world through a detached, academic lens. There were plenty of academic odes to the spider to be found; no shortage of enamored arachnologists waxing poetic about the wonders of evolution and the vital role that arachnids play in their particular ecological niches.

Unfortunately, a phobia – especially one arising from acute trauma – tends to be resistant to reason and reality. His obsession only ever yielded heart palpitations and lucid nightmares. Despite that failure, he never stopped clinging to that idea that if only he could know everything there was to know about a thing, he could finally scrape together some semblance of control over his fear.

In many ways, that fixation is exactly what drew him to the Magnus Institute.

Unless the Spider really was pulling the strings all along, he thinks, and then: No, we are not going there.

“As far as I can tell,” Georgie continues, “my sympathetic nervous system still functions. I can still experience all the physiological aspects of sympathetic arousal – and fear is only one possible trigger for those sorts of responses. What’s missing is my capacity to interpret those responses through the lens of fear. To emotionally process or identify them as fear.

“I can still experience anxiety, to an extent – or something close to it. But mostly in the context of worrying about others, being scared for them. I mean, I can feel apprehensive about the possibility of experiencing pain or loss or failure myself, I have a stake in my continued existence, I can recognize danger, but sometimes it feels… I don’t know – mechanical, almost? There’s just always the feeling of something missing. Something important. And there are times when I feel that void more acutely.”

“Like now.”

“Yeah.” Georgie looks away, chewing her lip in silence.

“I’m listening,” Jon coaxes, sensing that there’s more she’s holding back.

“It’s just… hard to feel like a full person sometimes, you know?” Georgie says helplessly. “I worry sometimes that it – I don’t know, does a disservice, I guess, to the people I care about? Like no matter how much I love someone, it isn’t… complete? Or – genuine, in the right way? It’s – hard to find words that actually describe it. There are times when it feels like I’ve lost something vital that made me human, that made me me, and it’s… difficult to reconcile who I was – who I could have been – with who I am now.”

“That I understand,” Jon says softly.

“I know.” Jon wishes he was less familiar with the sad smile she gives him just then. “It’s just… I remember a time when I would have been terrified of all this. Not just worried, or upset about someone I care about being hurt, or devastated by the prospect of losing someone I love. Terrified. And knowing what I should be feeling – what I would have felt at some point – is… it’s unnerving. There’s a void there that shouldn’t be there. It’s like… having part of you gouged out and left hollow. An absence that’s so present it’s almost visceral.” She frowns. “Does that make any sense?”

“In my future I had a Flesh Avatar reach into my chest and wrench out two of my ribs, so… yes, actually.”

Georgie blinks several times, then laughs breathlessly. “Do I even want to know?”

“Probably not.” Jon returns a cautious smile, but the levity evaporates after a few seconds. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think that you don’t have to have access to the full spectrum of human emotion in order to count as human. And I don’t think any of this makes your concern for others any less heartfelt, or – or comforting. You might not be the same person you were before you were marked, but that doesn’t make you any lesser as a person.”

“You should try applying that metric to yourself sometime,” she replies, not unkindly.

“It’s –”

“Don’t say it’s different,” she cuts in. “Just… keep it in mind, okay?”

“I’ll, uh… I’ll try.” Georgie nods, but says nothing. Jon grips her hand a little tighter. “Listen, I – I know you’re worried for Melanie, but I think it’s going to be alright? I can’t predict the future –well, I have knowledge of one possible future, but that’s because I lived it. I don’t have any precognitive abilities, or anything like that. But… it turned out okay last time.”

Until I jump-started an apocalypse –

Jon reins in the thought before it can gain momentum. Georgie doesn’t need his brooding right now.

“Melanie is a fighter,” he says instead, offering a tentative smile. “And she has you.”

Georgie shakes her head. “I can’t believe you came out of the apocalypse sappier than you were when you went in.”

“Side effect of traversing a post-apocalyptic wasteland with a hopeless romantic, I think.” That gets another little chuckle out of Georgie. “I mean it, though. I think Melanie will be okay, especially with you looking out for her. Not to mention, the Admiral is a perpetual serotonin generator.”

“You really miss him, huh?”

“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve pet a cat, Georgie?” Jon practically whines, playfully dramatic. It manages to keep the amused smile on Georgie’s face, he’s pleased to note.

“Maybe I should bring him by sometime.”

“Absolutely not. This place doesn’t deserve him.” Georgie snorts. Although Jon is reluctant to ruin the temporary shift in mood, this is as good a time as any to broach a subject he’s been dreading. “Also, I, ah… I don’t want you to feel obligated to continue visiting here.”

“What?” Georgie says, eyes narrowed.

“If you have to take a step back,” Jon says carefully, “I’ll understand.”

“I mean, I might not be able to come by as often as I have been, especially while Melanie is still recovering, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be around at all.” Georgie’s frown deepens. “I’m not about to cut you out of my life, Jon.”

“I know. And I don’t want you to. But – no, listen,” Jon insists, seeing Georgie about to protest. “What I’m trying to say is – I know Melanie wants to put as much distance between herself and the Institute as possible. If it turns out that you staying involved in all of this is too close to home, then… well, I don’t want her to feel like she’s still trapped in the Institute’s orbit, is all.”

Or mine, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t want to be a reason for Melanie to feel unsafe. In the past, he has been – and that’s not who he wants to be.

These days, Melanie has come to view him more as a fellow captive than a complicit enemy. Lingering resentment still sparks to life from time to time; she still struggles with her anger, and once or twice, she’s had to leave a room for fear of that rage boiling over. Overall, though, she no longer directs the majority of her ire towards him. When they do butt heads, it hasn’t gone much further than bickering – and even that feels comforting in its familiarity and mundanity. Almost companionable, in its own way.

Most significantly, ever since their talk, Melanie hasn’t once likened him to Jonah Magnus. Jon doesn’t know if that’s because it’s no longer an automatic association at the forefront of her mind, or because she’s consciously watching her words around him, actively taking care to avoid tripping that perpetual trigger. Either way, Jon is grateful.

But Jon also knows that he’s inseparable from the Institute. Despite his intentions, and regardless of whether or to what degree the others hold him personally responsible, the fact remains: he’s embroiled in something unspeakably evil, and that poses a danger to anyone who stands too close to him.

Georgie doesn’t immediately respond, instead taking the time to seriously consider his words. He’s always appreciated that about her, as uneasy as these moments of silent suspense can make him.

“I’ll talk to her about it,” she says eventually, “once she’s recovered enough to have that discussion. I don’t know how she’ll feel about staying in direct contact herself, especially at first, but… I doubt she expects me to cut you off. And I imagine she’ll still want to know how everyone is doing, even if she doesn’t want the details.” She glances up to meet his eyes. “Anyway, regardless of how often I visit in person, I’m still going to be checking in with you, so answer your damn phone, will you?”

“I do answer my phone,” he says defensively. “I just… forget to answer texts sometimes. And I don’t get service in the tunnels –”

“Well, come up for air and cell service from time to time.” She wrinkles her nose. “Honestly, I don’t know how you can tolerate being down here for hours on end –”

Jon startles slightly as the trapdoor creaks open above their heads. Georgie stands as Melanie makes her way down the ladder, hurrying over to fold her into her arms. Basira follows behind, closing the trapdoor behind her as she goes.

“Mission successful, I take it?” Jon says quietly as Basira approaches him, giving Georgie and Melanie a moment to themselves.

“Uneventful,” Basira says with a shrug. “A few sidelong glances, but otherwise, none of the library staff even acknowledged us. Definitely didn’t seem keen on asking why we were rummaging in the repair supplies.”

“They probably didn’t want to know.”

“Yeah.” A small, rueful smile crosses her face. “Some of them used to talk to me, you know. Nothing personal – we weren’t close – but… when I returned a book, they’d ask what I thought of it, give me recommendations, that sort of thing. Now, though…”

These days she prefers to wait until everyone has gone home for the day before visiting the library, Jon Knows. He also Knows that the library staff are well aware that she’s the one pilfering research materials in the dead of night – and that they have no plans on confronting her about it. She never leaves a mess, after all, and always returns items to their proper places once she’s finished with them, which is more than can be said for many of the students who make use of the library’s resources.

“You know, I don’t think any of them have looked me in the eye for months.” There’s a distinct note of regret in Basira’s voice. “They just watch me out of the corners of their eyes when they think I’m not looking. I don’t know if that’s because they’re afraid of Lukas disappearing them for fraternizing, or because everyone is leery of the Archives these days, or because I’ve just become less approachable. Maybe all three. Suppose it doesn’t really matter.”

Jon knows the feeling well. Before he can answer, though, Melanie clears her throat. Jon looks over to see her facing his direction, one hand clasping Georgie’s tight enough to blanch her knuckles.

“This is it, then,” Basira says solemnly.

“Yeah.” Melanie closes her eyes and breathes a long, shaky exhale. “It’s time.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me there?” Georgie asks.

Melanie shakes her head. “I don’t want you to see that.”

“But –”

“She won’t be alone,” Basira says. “I’ll be right outside the room.”

Melanie faces Georgie fully, taking her other hand as well. “The plan hasn’t changed. Basira will call 999. I’ll make it quick, and – once it’s done, Basira will come in and sit with me until the ambulance gets here.”

“I have a general idea of what the response time should be like,” Basira adds, looking at Georgie. “If we time it right, Melanie will have medical assistance within minutes. I can come get you when the paramedics get here, if you want to ride in the ambulance.”

Georgie nods and tightens her grip on Melanie’s hands. “Is that okay?”

“Only if you want,” Melanie says haltingly. “But – maybe try to avoid looking too close, if my eyes are uncovered? It’s just – it probably won’t be pretty.” A stressed laugh claws its way out of her throat. “Potential trauma fodder, you know? I don’t want to worry about you remembering me like that every time you see me, even after I’ve healed.”

“Okay,” Georgie replies softly.

“It shouldn’t take long. Just – wait here with Jon until then, okay?” Georgie nods again, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “Speaking of which –” Melanie glances at Jon, as if just now remembering his presence. Startled by the sudden direct eye contact, he reflexively straightens his spine and stands at attention. “I guess this is goodbye, huh? For a while, anyway.”

“I, uh. I suppose it is.”

“Right. So, um… good luck, I guess?”

No disclaimers or ill will tacked on this time, Jon notes privately.

“You too.” He forces a smile, but he suspects that it comes off as awkward rather than reassuring.

“Try not to die.”

“Yes, ‘not dying’ is relatively close to the top of my to-do list.”

“If I come to find out that you’ve gotten yourself killed and broken the eldritch employment contract binding us all to this place after I’ve gone and gouged my eyes out, I’m going to be livid.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Jon says wryly.

“Seriously, though.” Melanie’s smirk melts away, taken over by a somber, quiet sort of intensity. “Either beat Elias at his own game, or get the fuck away from this place the instant you find an out. Whichever comes first. Preferably without any of the self-sacrificial bullshit.”

Fractious as its delivery is, the demand is oddly touching, coming from Melanie.

“I, uh… I’ll do my best?”

“You’d better.” Melanie nods – a curt but cordial dismissal – and turns her attention back to Georgie. “Hey,” she says, her voice going measurably softer, releasing one of Georgie’s hands to reach up and cup her face. Her watery smile belies her mental state: resolve warring with trepidation. “Look at me?”

For a long minute, she studies Georgie’s face, clearly enraptured. Jon forcefully tears his gaze away from the intimacy of the moment.

“Okay.” Melanie takes a deep breath in and releases it slowly. “I’m ready. I’ll see you soon, okay? Or – well, I won’t see you, but – you’ll see me, and I’ll…” She huffs, rolling her eyes. “Oh, whatever – you know what I mean.”

Georgie lets out a tearful chuckle, and Melanie relaxes marginally.

“I’m sure about this,” she says. “I promise. This is what I want – a life with you, away from all of this. And if this is the price I have to pay, then… I’m okay with that. Really, I am.” She stands on tiptoe to give Georgie a peck on the cheek. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Georgie says, leaning down for a return kiss, smiling weakly against Melanie’s lips. “See you soon.”

When Martin first heard the bustle outside his door – coworkers venturing outside their solitary offices to trade whispered questions and eager gossip as word of paramedics in the archives made its way upstairs – his stomach gave a little lurch: a combination of horror and wonder. He hadn’t expected Melanie to change her mind – he knows how determined she can be once she’s settled on a course of action; how desperate she was to extricate herself from Elias’ – Jonah’s – schemes. Still, though, faced with the reality of it, he found himself in awe of her nerve.

That was yesterday. Martin didn’t get much work done, preoccupied as he was. He isn’t having an easier time of it today: his attention keeps slipping away to linger in remembrances of sterile hospital rooms and muted hallways, thoughts drowned out by the ghosts of sirens and beeping machinery.

“Well, this is an unexpected turn of events.”

Martin jolts in his seat, heart leaping into his throat. It only takes an instant longer for his alarm to mutate into aggravation.

“Peter!” Martin spins around to glower at the man. “How many times do I have to–”

Peter flaps a dismissive hand. “To be honest, Martin, the drop in temperature tends to tip most people off. The only reason you continue to be surprised by my arrival is because you’ve become acclimated to the Forsaken.”

The revelation is slow to sink in, a stark chill blooming in Martin’s chest and snaking its roots outwards. Only now that it’s been brought to his attention can he feel the nip in the air.

“Here I was certain you were becoming estranged from our patron, but it seems I needn’t have worried.” Peter’s smile is laced with malice. “Or should I?”

Martin says nothing, eyes wide and stinging from the now-conspicuous cold. Peter sighs, folds his hands behind his back, and begins a meandering back-and-forth pace.

“Our success is dependent on your voluntary isolation, Martin.”

“Yeah.” The word turns to fog as it touches the air, and Martin finds himself transfixed by the sight. “You’ve said.”

“It seems you need a reminder.”

The condescension dripping from the words is enough to drag Martin back into the present moment. Heat rises in his cheeks, contrasting with the temperature in the room and making the chill that much more noticeable.

“You still haven’t told me your plan,” he snaps. “You keep expecting me to just – go along with whatever you’re scheming, no questions asked.”

“You ask many questions, Martin –”

“Yeah, and you never answer them! You’re so – so bloody cryptic about all of this.”

“Martin, Martin,” Peter says, placating in the most patronizing way possible. Martin bristles: he hates the way Peter says his name. “There’s no need to get so worked up –”

“If you want me to be a partner in – in whatever it is you’re planning, you can’t expect me to go on blind trust!”

“I’m still conducting my own research,” Peter says mildly. “I would rather not confuse you with extraneous details before I have all the kinks worked out.”

“I’m not an idiot –”

“Rest assured,” Peter interrupts, “if I was capable of stopping the Extinction alone, I would. Unfortunately, it will require someone touched by the Beholding.”

“Why?”

“Because it requires this place, and this place” – Peter’s lip curls in distaste – “is the Eye’s seat of power. The One Alone has no dominion here.” Martin crosses his arms, unimpressed. “You are the only one who can do this, Martin.”

“Why?” Martin repeats.

Judging from the muscle ticking in Peter’s jaw, his limited supply of patience for conversation is precipitously depleting.

“No, really,” Martin presses, “why me? I mean” – he spreads his arms out with a scornful chuckle – “look at me. I’m not exactly hero material, am I?”

“That really depends on you. I can’t force you to cooperate. It won’t even work unless you’re a willing participant.”

“And what makes you think that your plan is the only way? You – you keep going on about how it’s my choice. Well – what if I choose to work with the others? It can’t hurt to have more eyes on the problem –” Martin rolls his eyes at Peter’s unconcealed revulsion. “Yeah, I know. No one would ever accuse you of being a team player, obviously. But I can be the liaison; you don’t have to interact with anyone at all.” Would prefer you don’t interact with anyone at all, Martin thinks. “I mean, that’s already my role, isn’t it? Dealing with people so you don’t have to?”

“Martin,” Peter says, low and dangerous.

“I’ll do it off the clock, even. I’ll isolate myself in my office during the workday, or whatever” – Martin gives a flippant wave of his hand – “and continue researching the Extinction.” And practically running the whole damn place on an assistant’s salary, he grouses silently. “After hours I’ll pursue my own research with the others.”

“Part-time isolation will not suffice to equip you with the power you’ll need.” Peter presses his lips into a pale, rigid line. “Be reasonable. Are you really willing to risk an apocalypse, just because you can’t appreciate solitude?”

“If it starts to look like there’s no other option, I’ll reconsider.”

“And if the Extinction emerges while you’re wasting time searching for an alternative that doesn’t exist?”

“Based on the limited information you’ve given me, I don’t think the Extinction is going to just… emerge overnight. I’m still not even convinced it’s going to be worse than any other Fear. I mean, the Flesh is relatively new, isn’t it? And it didn’t… leave the fear economy in shambles, or whatever.”

“It isn’t about competition, Martin.” Peter releases a slow plume of fog through his nose before continuing, voice cool but simmering with pique just under the surface. “The Extinction is different from the other Powers. It is defined by widescale eradication. The other Powers may seek to change the world, but none of them strive for a world without us.”

“But what makes you so sure the Extinction would?”

Peter’s eyes narrow. Ignoring him, Martin runs his thumb along his bottom lip as he replays Jon’s impassioned conjectures on the matter: It thrives on the potentiality of a mass extinction event, not the fulfillment of one.

“What’s to say it wouldn’t be just fine with the world as it is, like the End?” Martin says, more confidently now. “People have been prophesying about the end of the world for – all of human history, probably. I doubt we’ll stop anytime soon. Maybe at its core the Extinction is just… the fear of an uncertain future. And a particular future doesn’t have to be realized in order to inspire fear, as long as the potential is always there. It’s about the suspense – the ‘what ifs’, the unknown, the – the lack of control in it all.” Martin laughs. “In a way, that’s… that’s what most fears boil down to, isn’t it?”

“The stakes are rather high to gamble on a thought experiment, don’t you think?” The temperature plunges a few more degrees as Peter speaks. “I think that the most important ‘what if’ you should concern yourself with is what if you’re wrong?”

“And what if I’m not?” Martin counters. “You act so authoritative, but aren’t you also just speculating? When I agreed to work with you, you told me you would provide me with evidence to support your theory. So far, I’m not convinced. You’re going to have to give me more to go on than just ‘trust me.’ I mean – if it’s between trusting you and – and trusting Jon, and the others? You can’t really be surprised if I choose them over you.”

“Oh, Martin,” Peter tuts, shaking his head with derisive, disingenuous pity. “Since when has the trust you’ve placed in others ever been reciprocated?”

“I trust him,” Martin says defiantly.

“But does he trust you?” Peter pauses for effect. “Of all the times you’ve allowed yourself to form attachments, has anyone even once genuinely returned those affections?”

Jon did.

Whatever expression Martin is wearing brings a sneer to Peter’s face. Martin clenches his teeth and ignores him.

Jon does, he corrects. Present tense. He said as much.

Martin still can’t fathom what Jon could possibly see in him, but Jon wouldn’t lie about something like that, right? He wouldn’t.

…would he?

No, he wouldn’t, Martin chides. You know he wouldn’t. Trust him.

“Sure,” Peter persists, “you may open yourself up to the potential for something more, but you know as well as I do that it won’t last. Is the inevitable loss really worth the risk?”

“I don’t know,” Martin says. He tries to ignore the slight quaver that insinuates itself into the declaration. “But if I never take the risk, I’ll never know, will I?”

“I think you already know the answer.” Peter’s pale eyes glitter with spite. “Remember what it felt like, languishing at the Archivist’s deathbed. Recall the state you were in when you first came to me.”

The words are incisive, sliding under Martin’s skin and lodging there like shrapnel. He can feel his confidence waver, the conviction he stood fast on only seconds ago splintering underneath him like thin ice.

“How many times do you think he can court death and survive? He all but died stopping the last apocalypse; he was willing to bury himself alive for a woman who tried to kill him. How do you think he’ll react if you tell him about any of this? You think he’ll listen to reason? Trust in your judgment?” Peter fixes Martin with a smug, hungry look. “Or will he throw himself in front of the first bullet he sees?”

He already knows about all of this, Martin reminds himself. Jon isn’t about to sacrifice himself on account of the Extinction. Moreover, he seems to be genuinely committed to working as a team rather than striking out on his own.

But he also sees himself as a cataclysm waiting to happen, says the nagging doubt skulking in the far corners of Martin’s mind. As much as Jon insists that he doesn’t want to die, he’s already lived through one apocalypse. Martin has no doubt that Jon would sacrifice himself to prevent another, if it came down to it.

Jon is a powder keg of fear and guilt, and there is no shortage of potential ignition sources waiting in the wings. It only takes one untimely spark to set an archive ablaze.

“I trust him,” Martin repeats to himself, but the statement is rendered feeble by the leaden, frozen knot unfurling in his chest.

“Can you really weather another round of grief?” Peter continues, triumphant. He knows he’s found a gap in Martin’s defenses; all he needs to do now is twist the knife. “You’ve already done your mourning, cut the infection off at the source. Let him back in, and you only open yourself up to more pain. Better a numbed scar than a wound that never heals, don’t you think?”

“No.” There’s something off about Martin’s voice – as if it doesn’t belong to him; as if it’s originating from outside of himself, faint and frail and faraway, smothered by the cold, empty fog clogging his lungs. “N-no, I…”

“Connection is a fleeting, fickle thing,” Peter persists. “It’s a lie people tell themselves. The truth is that we are all alone. In the end, all we have is ourselves. Think about it.”

Unthinkingly, Martin shrinks away as Peter steps closer.

“You asked for more evidence.” Peter slides a few statement folders onto the desk. “Take some time to yourself. Consider whether you’re willing to wager on the fate of the world.”

When Martin looks up, he is alone.

“It’s so loud,” Daisy mutters heatedly, stalking to and fro like a panther in a cage. She scratches furiously at her forearms as she goes, blunt fingernails leaving faint red stripes on pale skin.

“Daisy,” Jon says evenly, “I think maybe you should –”

“Itch I can’t scratch.” She pivots on her heel, retracing her short path in the opposite direction. “Feels like fire under my skin.”

“I don’t think clawing your skin off is going to help.”

Daisy barks a laugh. “With what claws?” She stops short and brandishes the backs of her trembling hands, fingers splayed to highlight nails gnawed to the quick, ragged cuticles stained rust-brown with dried blood. “Dull now.” Her eyes go unfocused, staring vaguely at her hands as if she doesn’t recognize them. “Too dull.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, and he means it.

It never gets easier to witness her like this, frenetic and fraying in the throes of the Hunt’s compulsion. These spells have a way of making her features look sharper, her mannerisms more animalistic. She’s all protruding bones and sallow skin, but that seeming frailty does nothing to tame the violence thrumming in her veins. If anything, that all-consuming hunger only makes her more fearsome.

Jon’s strict rations have given him an underfed, pinched look as well, but at least he has something. Not enough to put meat on his bones, so to speak, but enough to stave off starvation. Daisy, though…

When Jon takes a step forward, she rounds on him with teeth bared and a snarl in her throat. Jon flinches at the sudden movement.

“You’re afraid of me.” Daisy exhales an exhausted rattle of a laugh, as if vindicated. “Good. You should be.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Jon says. “I have an overactive startle reflex. Always have, really.”

“You’re lying.” Daisy breathes heavily through her nose, fists clenched at her sides now. “Admit it.”

Jon knows what she’s trying to do. She wants him to lash out, to bite back, to make her bleed. He’s uncomfortably familiar with that craving. It’s like looking into a mirror.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he reiterates.

“Liar,” Daisy hisses, fixing him with a baleful glare.

He’s seen her like this many times before, hunger-ravaged and swamped by bloodlust. She’ll doggedly bash herself against the nearest witness to her shame like a ship crashed against a jetty, driven forward again and again by cresting waves of guilt and self-loathing until she’s free-floating wreckage. Every time, it gets more and more difficult to gather up all the debris and repair the damage. Jon fears that one of these days, the storm will pass and there won’t be enough pieces left to put her back together.

“I’m not a knife you can cut yourself on, Daisy,” he says patiently.

Daisy looks positively mutinous, mouth opening and closing several times before erupting: “Why wouldn’t you be afraid of me?”

“I used to be,” Jon admits, leaning back against the tunnel wall to take some of the weight off his bad leg. “Before the Buried. I was terrified of you. Dreaded every moment I had to be alone with you. Thought it was only a matter of time before you finished the job.”

“It was,” she rasps out – and with that, her shoulders slump and her fists relax to hang limply at her sides, fingers jumping and twitching with the last dregs of her agitation.

“I know. But then you changed. You were different, after the Buried. As afraid of yourself as I used to be of you. As afraid of yourself as I was of myself.” He looks her in the eye as he speaks. “I looked at you and saw my own fear reflected back at me. There are so many things to be afraid of. You were – you are trying very hard not to be one of them.”

“If I’m afraid of me, you should be, too.”

“Are you afraid of me?” Jon asks, shaping each word carefully to keep the compulsion at bay.

She pauses, considering the question.

“No,” she says eventually. “Afraid for you, sometimes.”

“As I am for you.” Jon’s tentative smile fades after a moment. “I’ll admit, I do have… reflexive reactions, sometimes. There were a few incidents where I walked into the breakroom and you were holding a knife, and my fight-or-flight response kicked in before my conscious brain could catch up with reality.”

Daisy squeezes her eyes shut, wrapping her arms around her middle.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. When she opens her eyes, the look on her face isn’t pleading so much as it is resigned. She isn’t asking for forgiveness. Jon doubts she ever will.

It’s just one more thing they have in common.

“I know,” he says quietly. “To be clear, I don’t feel unsafe with you, as you are now. It’s just… flashbacks. They can be – unpredictable. And if I’m already feeling on edge, or – or not quite present, it doesn’t take much to set me off. But,” he adds, giving her a serious look, “I don’t want you walking on eggshells around me. That only puts me more on edge.”

“Fine. But will you tell me if I do something to scare you?”

“Yes.” She made the same request last time. “But I’ve never had to. You could always feel when I was afraid. From a few rooms away, even.”

“Yeah,” Daisy says with a choked laugh. “Your blood is – very loud sometimes.”

“And now?”

These episodes tend to be capricious. Sometimes, what seems to be the calm after the storm proves to be only a lull before a second wind. If the way she’s wobbling on her feet and favoring one leg is any indication, Jon suspects that the worst of the flare-up has passed for now, taking her adrenaline surge with it. Still, he waits for her confirmation. Daisy takes a minute to mull over the question, head cocked slightly to the side as if listening.

“Quieter,” she says.

With that, Jon lowers himself to the ground and sits with his back against the wall, beckoning her over to take a seat. She hesitates for a moment longer before following his lead, slumping down next to him with a labored sigh.

“Sorry for growling at you,” she says sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Daisy tilts her head back to stare at the ceiling. “You said I ended up going back to the Hunt last time.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“September. But – but that doesn’t mean it has to happen again,” he adds hurriedly when he sees her face fall in a mixture of anguish and resignation. “It was – sort of a perfect storm of extenuating circumstances. Like I said before, if you didn’t let the Hunt back in, you and Basira would likely have been killed. But I think you knew you wouldn’t be coming back from it. Before you changed, you made Basira promise to hunt you down and kill you.”

“And did she?”

“She lost track of you in the chaos. You gave chase after one of the Hunters. Once you killed her, the other Hunter started hunting you. For revenge.” Jon’s voice drops to a low murmur. “A few weeks later, the world ended.”

Which makes it sound far more passive than it actually was, but Jon isn’t in the mood for a scolding should he opt for an ‘I’ statement.

“And then what?”

“You were a full-fledged Hunter in a – a perpetual fear generator of a world,” Jon says grimly. “Do you really need to hear the details?”

“Tell me,” Daisy says. “Please.”

Jon understands the need, but recounting the apocalypse never gets any easier. He closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and takes a moment to gather his thoughts.

“When I opened the door and let all the Fears into this reality,” he begins, “the world was divvied up into thousands of different domains, each belonging to a different shade of terror. With few exceptions, most people were confined to one domain – usually whatever aligned with their deepest fears. Avatars and monsters were subject to the Ceaseless Watcher, but otherwise able to exercise control over the humans in the domains of their patrons. Most seemed to stake out territory and settle in one place – customizing their own little spheres of influence, creating playgrounds of their own making. But some got around. You were one of the ones that traveled.”

“What was –” Daisy grimaces. “Who was I hunting?”

“Well… in that place, no one got what they deserved, only what would hurt the most. And people are rarely afraid of just one thing. Most were magnets for multiple fears. The more nomadic Avatars and monsters would gravitate towards whatever individuals were most susceptible to their power, so to speak.” He bites his lip. There’s really no tactful way to phrase this next part. “In your case, you had a roster of specific targets that you were tracking. Former prey. Whether you were drawn to them because of their own fear of you, or because some part of you judged them to have ‘gotten away,’ so to speak… I’m not entirely certain. It may have been a bit of both.”

“I see,” Daisy murmurs. “Guess it makes sense that I would rank high among some people’s greatest fears.”

“Basira was tracking you when we ran into her. We were with her when we found you.”

“And was I… still me?”

“Yes and no,” Jon says hesitantly. “You were you, in a way, but only a small part of you. The Hunter. Everything else was buried too deep. Drowned. Even if I could have brought you back, it would have killed you. You – you didn’t even recognize me, or Martin. You recognized Basira – saw her as pack, wanted her to join you in the Hunt – but…”

“You were prey,” Daisy says quietly.

“Yeah.”

“You never did manage to grow a self-preservation instinct, did you?” Daisy squints at him. “I went full monster on you, and you still want me to sit next to you now.”

“You had sharper teeth then,” Jon says drily. Daisy scoffs and nudges his shoulder with hers. She doesn’t draw back after making contact, and when Jon doesn’t pull away either, she leans into him.

“Basira kept her promise?” Daisy asks after a minute.

“Yes. She didn’t want to, but…” Jon swallows thickly, the memory of Basira’s heartbreak bringing to mind his own. “It wasn’t an easy decision.”

Daisy rubs at her chest with one hand, as if to soothe an ache. “It wasn’t fair for me to ask that of her, was it?”

“Maybe not,” Jon sighs. “It seems fair choices are hard to come by, for most of us.”

“I… I don’t want her to have to make that choice this time.”

“Neither do I.”

“It’s never going to stop, is it?” Daisy glances at him, allowing her head to rest lightly on his shoulder. “It’s only going to get worse.”

“I’m sorry.” What else is there to say?

“Melanie got away,” Daisy says, a tinge of bargaining in her tone. “She managed to purge the Slaughter. And break away from the Eye.”

“Her situation was… different from ours. She wasn’t as far gone as we are. The Slaughter hadn’t fully claimed her, and the Eye never took her as an Avatar. But you’ve been living with the Hunt for most of your life; I signed myself over to the Beholding the moment I became the Archivist. We’ve become… attached to our patrons, dependent on them for survival. Symbiotic, in a twisted sort of way.”

“You really don’t think there’s a way back, then.”

“I don’t know for sure. I’ve seen it before, in my future, but – the world was different then. During the apocalypse, I was able to, uh… shift a person’s status from Watched to Watcher. I – I mean, technically everyone was Watched – the Eye had dominion over everything – but I could give someone control over one of the smaller domains. Create new Avatars, for lack of a better term.

“But turn a Watcher into solely the Watched, and they would typically unravel. I don’t know if that’s because the full focus of the Ceaseless Watcher’s gaze just happens to be lethal – particularly for Avatars aligned with other Powers – or if an Avatar is simply unable to survive being cut off from their patron regardless of the means of separation. I do Know that I wouldn’t have been able to survive being cut off from the Eye unscathed. I was… too much a part of the Eye in that reality. Not sure about now. For either of us.”

“That’s a roundabout way of saying ‘no.’”

“I’m not saying no, I’m saying that I don’t know. Supposedly escaping the Buried was impossible, and here we are.”

“Apples and oranges,” Daisy says sullenly.

“Maybe. I think it’s all too complex for clear-cut categories. Even the hard-and-fast ‘rules’ are only as strong as our collective belief in them. Almost like our expectations shore them up. I’ve witnessed all of reality being rewritten – all physical laws and supposed universal constants reshaped to center the Eye.” He reaches one hand up to tug on the hair at the back of his neck. “After all I’ve Seen, it’s difficult to conceive of anything being categorically impossible. Between all the dream logic and reality bending, there’s plenty of space for firsts and exceptions to the rules.”

‘I don’t knows’ are where the hope lives, Martin said once. At the time, Jon teased him for being a hopeless romantic, but truthfully, Jon was just as hopelessly endeared by Martin’s belief in such things.

“Have you talked to Georgie yet today?” Daisy asks, apparently ready to change the subject.

“Oh, uh – yes. This morning.”

“And?”

“Melanie was out of surgery and stable, but she wasn’t awake yet. Georgie promised to call tonight with an update.” Assuming nothing major comes up before then, a worried voice in Jon’s head supplies. He shakes his head to jog the thought loose. “Speaking of Georgie… have you given any thought to her suggestion?”

“What,” Daisy says, drolly skeptical, “playing a video game?”

“I realize it’s… somewhat out of the box, but it might be worth a try. Like Georgie said, there are multiplayer games where you can, uh… hunt down other players.”

Daisy plucks absently at her collar, glowering at the opposite wall as if the bricks there committed a personal offense. “It’s not the same.”

“A simulation might not come close to a real hunt, no, but – you might still get something out of it? Maybe?” Daisy directs her scowl up at the ceiling. Jon only digs his heels in, undeterred. “There are even some that have a survival horror theme. An aesthetic that already puts players in the mindset to be frightened, you know?”

“People play those games for fun, Sims.” She finally looks at him, eyes narrowed. “It’s about thrills, not mortal fear.”

“Sometimes genuine fear can sneak through. Haven’t you ever been so creeped out by a horror story that it stayed with you after nightfall?”

“Not really?”

“O-oh. Well, some people have that experience.” Jon gives an awkward little cough. “Anyway, under the right circumstances, a game can get the adrenaline pumping as well as a chase can. A fight-or-flight response doesn’t necessarily require a real physical threat.”

Daisy raises her eyebrows, transparently cynical. “Do you really think the Hunt is going to be satisfied with jump scares and – and low-stakes adrenaline rushes filtered through a screen?”

“No,” Jon admits. “But it might take the edge off. Sort of like reading old statements does for me. Not enough to stop you starving, but maybe enough to distract from the hunger pangs. At least temporarily. If nothing else, you did say you need a new hobby, and it’s not like this place is overflowing with viable entertainment options.”

“I guess,” Daisy sighs. “I mean, it’s not like I’m paying rent. May as well squander my paycheck.”

“If that’s the case, you should see if that eBay listing for that vintage The Archers board game is still up,” Jon says drily. “Last I checked, it was £2 with no bidders.”

“Yeah, and £30 shipping.”

“Sounds like £32 well spent, if you ask me.”

Daisy snorts and bumps her shoulder against his. “You, Jonathan Sims, are an absolute menace.”

Adrift and thoroughly divorced from the concept of time, end of the workday passes Martin by without his notice. Once again, he wonders whether Peter deliberately assigned him an office with no external window, not only to put another wall between him and the rest of the world, but to make it easier for him to lose track of time.

For an interminable stretch of time he sits catatonic, mind peppered with sporadic sensory input: Dead-weight limbs, listless and foreign-feeling. The brush of fabric resting against bare skin, every point of weightless contact a violation. The distant ticking of clockwork, rote and irrevocable.

Stand up, comes the thought, detached and intrusive: an instruction he cannot parse; empty phonemes wafted into a vacant mind, abandoned there to echo and disperse until they lose all meaning. A fragment of a signal from brain to nerves to fingers presses numb fingertips to thumbs, a cautious test yielding no sensation but for the vague, spongey give of flesh.

Then the body ostensibly belonging to him is on its feet, the connection between floor and soles disturbingly incongruent with unreality. Walking now, every footfall jarring in its impact; every step stretched and blurred like a botched time-lapse photograph; every molasses-sluggish forward motion met with invisible resistance, like swimming against a sludgy current.

He does not remember how or when or under whose direction he arrives in the Archives, swaying at the threshold of the Head Archivist’s office. Empty and still. Silence so pervasive it’s almost tangible. Viscous and inexorable. Trapping him like a fly in honey. Drowning.

When next he becomes aware of his surroundings, he’s wavering at the bottom of a ladder. Walls curving up and over his head, a brickwork warren stretching on and out into the murk.

Standing in place. Hovering like an afterimage. Rootless and incorporeal. Searching for… staring at… calling to…

There: something real.

“Martin?” Jon’s breath fogs the air as he speaks, but the way he says the name… his voice seems to cradle the word, shielding it against the cold. He sits up straighter, keen gaze sweeping the area like a lighthouse beacon. “Martin, is that you?”

That’s me, Martin thinks, and then, wonderingly: He says your name like it’s something precious.

At that thought, Jon’s eyes land on him like a searchlight.

“There you are.” His soft smile immediately falters, brow furrowing in concern. “Are you alright?”

He’s sat on the floor with his back against the wall, one knee drawn up to his chest, and Daisy pressed up against his side in a mirrored position, sharing a pair of corded earphones. Daisy is already thumbing at the screen of her phone, presumably pausing whatever it is they’re listening to, as Jon removes his earbud.

Martin opens his mouth to speak, but the air in his lungs has turned to viscid fog and the confused tangle of half-formed thoughts in his mind refuse to coalesce into actual words. Jon exchanges a glance with Daisy, who is already moving to stand. Martin wants to object – she doesn’t have to leave on his account; he can see that they’re busy; he’s fine; he’s just overreacting – but before he can cobble together a protest, she’s halfway to her feet, gripping the wall for support.

“I’m alright now,” Martin can hear her say.

“You’re sure?” Jon asks in a low murmur.

“Yeah.” She winces as she straightens her spine. “Knowing Basira, she’s still pouring over the same statements as she was this morning. She could do with an interruption.”

“Can you manage the ladder?”

Daisy stretches her leg out, testing her mobility. “Think so.”

They give each other another long look, a shared nod, and without another word, Daisy staggers her way to the exit and mounts the ladder.

As it does every time he witnesses these displays of unspoken understanding between them, an ugly pang of jealousy burns in Martin’s chest – some combination of envy, inadequacy, longing, and loneliness. Possessiveness, almost – and an instant later, the shame sets in.

But then the trapdoor closes, Jon looks Martin in the eye again, and the sincere, tender warmth sheltering there is enough to leave Martin reeling. It’s hard to comprehend anyone – let alone Jonathan Sims – looking at him like that; difficult to reconcile requited affection with a lifetime of fruitless want. Martin can’t shake the feeling that it will always be this way – and that his inability to trust in unconditional love is precisely what makes him so unlovable in the first place.

Jon clears his throat and pats the floor beside him. He’s seated on a blanket, Martin just now notices, folded over several times to cushion the hard ground.

He’d better not be napping down here, Martin thinks to himself.

“Martin,” Jon says, in that impossibly soft tone he’s taken to using around Martin these days, “I’d like you to come sit, if you’re amenable.”

It’s such a Jon way of phrasing the invitation, and the familiarity it engenders has Martin accepting without a conscious thought. He settles himself beside Jon, close but not touching. Those few inches of distance manage to be simultaneously loathsome and assuring. Martin lets his hand rest in that vacant space, fingers clenching around a fistful of blanket.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jon’s hand twitch, as if fighting back the urge to reach out and touch. Instead, he starts to rub the fabric of his trouser leg between his thumb and forefinger.

“What do you need right now?” Jon asks.

“I…” Martin pauses, unsettled by the sound of his own voice, grating and almost unfamiliar to his ears.

“Take your time.”

It takes a minute for Martin to wrap his mouth around more than one syllable.

“Nothing,” he says, the weight of the word nearly pinning his tongue in place.

“It doesn’t sound like nothing.”

Several more minutes pass before Martin is able to construct a full sentence.

“I’m just being stupid.” The words seem to echo faintly in the tunnel, despite how quietly he says them.

“What do you need?” Jon asks again.

“Nothing,” Martin repeats dully. He doesn’t need anything.

Jon doesn’t immediately respond. Martin can feel himself go rigid, anticipating… what – aggravation, impatience, disengagement? But Jon only runs a thumb along his jawline, a thoughtful frown on his face.

“Okay,” he says eventually, “what do you want, then? What would – what would help you feel better right now?”

“I… I don’t know,” Martin says in a voice so feeble it’s nearly inaudible. He flexes his fingers uncertainly, chasing after any physical sensation at all, only to find them numb and deathlike. The helpless sigh that shudders out of him wants to be a whimper. “I just – didn’t – don’t – feel real. Feels like I’m not really here.”

“Hmm.” Jon looks at him – really looks at him, taking his time to study Martin’s face. “Well, I can confirm that you are here.”

“You… you can see me?” Martin asks meekly, pleadingly, dreading the answer.

“Yes.” Jon pauses. “And if you’re agonizing over being a bother, don’t, because you aren’t. I always like seeing you.”

He should trust Jon – he does trust Jon – but it’s still a constant struggle to drown out that Lonely part of him that insists that isolation is safer, more dependable, and far more habitable. Unthinkingly, Martin reaches over, hand trembling in the air above Jon’s, fingertips just barely ghosting across scarred skin.

“Would you like me to hold your hand…?” Jon ventures.

Martin’s fingers curve inward as he pulls back slightly. “I, um.”

“You can say no,” Jon reminds him.

“I… I want it, but I – I – I don’t know if I can handle it right now, and I –” Martin draws back entirely, flapping both hands in frustration, trying to relieve the pins-and-needles sensation prickling through his veins. “I hate this. I hate being like this.”

Martin grimaces at the outburst, but Jon doesn’t seem to be judging him. Instead, he’s looking off to the side, a crease between his eyebrows now, as if he’s working through a problem.

“No skin-to-skin contact,” he says to himself, and then he looks to Martin. “Pressure helps me sometimes, when I feel like I’m not real. You could… lean against me? If you want.”

“I…”

“You don’t have to,” Jon rushes to reassure him.

“It’s – not that I don’t want to. I guess I’m just…” Martin can feel himself flush with embarrassment. “It’s daft, but I’m worried that I’ll be – I don’t know, incorporeal, or something.”

“I distinctly recall you telling me that you’re not a ghost.”

It takes a few seconds for Jon’s deadpan humor to sink in. When it does, Martin nearly chokes on a surprised laugh.

“I still can’t believe you thought I was a ghost,” he says, cracking a smile. The tight, bitter-cold knot in his chest yields just a little, like ice disintegrating under a spring thaw.

“In my defense, I was quite distraught at the time.” Jon’s eyes wrinkle at the corners and Martin is struck by overwhelming fondness. He doesn’t pull away when Jon reaches out, open palm hovering just above his shoulder. “May I?”

Cautiously, Martin nods.

“Hmm.” Jon applies the lightest touch at first, watching Martin’s face carefully. He waits until Martin nods for him to continue before he presses down more firmly. Before long, Martin can feel the warmth of Jon’s hand through his jumper. That warmth carries over into Jon’s smile. “Feels solid to me.”

The confirmation comes as a relief, as foolish as that makes Martin feel. He braces himself and leans against Jon’s side, releasing his held breath when his body meets with tangible resistance. At first he worries that Jon, scrawny as he is, won’t be able to support the weight, but he doesn’t budge when Martin melts against him. After that, it’s a struggle for Martin to keep his eyes open.

Jon must notice, because he whispers, “You can rest. I’ll be here.”

Martin doesn’t even have the strength to nod, let alone the energy to argue. He allows the steady rise and fall of Jon’s chest to lull him into an almost meditative state, his mind still floating somewhere outside of himself, but now tethered to the ground.

Then the silence starts nipping at his heels.

“Too quiet,” he mumbles. “Talk to me?”

“What about?”

“Anything.”

“Did you know that highland cattle have a double coat?” Jon says after a minute of consideration. “It insulates them against the cold. The outer layer is long – the longest hair of any cattle breed, in fact – and oily, which helps ward off the rain. Underneath is softer, almost woolly hair.”

Once Jon gets started, those little scraps of trivia soon progress to a nearly encyclopedic lecture. It doesn’t take long for Martin to lose himself in the rich timbre of Jon’s voice as he goes on about various Scottish breeds of cattle. Although he doesn’t fall fully asleep, Martin manages to drift in and out of consciousness enough that he loses track of time once more. This time, though, it’s a comfortable daze: there’s someone to keep him from straying too far.

At some point, he unthinkingly seeks out Jon’s hand. Jon presses his thumb into the center of Martin’s palm, rubbing small circles there, coaxing Martin further into peaceful relaxation.

“Sorry for interrupting you and Daisy earlier,” Martin murmurs groggily into Jon’s shoulder.

“Oh, we were just listening to The Archers.”

“Are you taking the piss?” Martin asks, opening one eye to scrutinize Jon’s expression.

“Unfortunately not.”

“You like The Archers.”

“Good lord, no. Blame Daisy.”

“Daisy likes The Archers,” Martin says, even more dubiously, sitting up now to squint at Jon.

“There are stranger things.”

Martin snorts and nestles into Jon’s side again. “If you say so.”

“Feeling better now?” Martin reflexively snuggles closer. Jon laughs softly, a little puff of a breath that rustles Martin’s hair. “I’m not going to deny you cuddles if the answer is ‘yes,’ you know.”

“Cuddles,” Martin whispers, the word dissolving into a clipped giggle.

“What?” Jon tilts his head. There’s a puzzled scowl on his face, as if he’s trying to decide whether or not he should take offense. It’s impossibly endearing.

“Cuddles,” Martin repeats, in a poor approximation of Jon’s voice this time. “Not a word I ever expected to hear from you.”

“Quiet, you,” Jon huffs, but he can’t disguise the way his indignant pout cracks into a smile under the weight of his own amusement. He almost seems to preen, as if pulling a laugh from Martin is a victory on which to pride himself. He reaches up with his free hand, pausing just above the top of Martin’s head. “May I?”

At Martin’s affirmative, Jon begins to comb his fingers through Martin’s hair, fingernails lightly scratching against his scalp. For the briefest of moments, some primal fragment of him recoils from the contact, instinctively unnerved by the vulnerability inherent to such closeness. Martin spurns that voice, breathes through its fit of angst and panic, and leans into the touch.

Little by little, step by step, he’s acclimating. He just wishes that it wasn’t such a process each and every time he lets his guard down like this.

“Bad day?” Jon asks once Martin settles.

“Something like that.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Martin groans. “But I should.”

“Only if you want to.”

“No, you should know, I just…” Martin heaves a wearied sigh. “Peter’s back.”

Jon gasps like he’s had the wind knocked out of him. The hand stroking Martin’s hair abruptly stills; the other, still clasped in Martin’s, constricts like a death-grip.

“Did he hurt you?” The question is steeped in an artificial, fragile sort of calm, but Jon can’t quite mask the intensity buzzing just under the surface: fear, protectiveness, and desperation all intermingled and reinforced by that ominous inkling of power that, despite his intentions, lurks behind every word.

“He didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. Just… trying to get me to recommit to the Lonely.” Martin scoffs. “And of course he was trying to do it in a way that would make me feel like it was my idea. Get me to convince myself that it was what I wanted, rather than something he was pressuring me into.”

“Of all the Powers, the Lonely is one of the most insidious, I think,” Jon says quietly. “It seeks out victims who already have one foot in the Lonely, reinforces those fears, promises kinship – a paradoxical form of it, anyway – and then it just… waits. Spend enough time disconnected from the rest of the world, and it doesn’t take long to start telling yourself the lie that it’s for the best. That it’s what you are; that it’s all you’re meant to be.”

“And I fell for it,” Martin mutters.

“Anyone would, subjected to the right conditions.” Jon waits until he catches Martin’s eye before he continues. “It isn’t your fault. This is what the Fears do. It’s what they are. They find an opening, they sink their hooks in, and they pull you under. They don’t let go until either you drown or you learn to breathe fear. The only way out is for someone to throw you a lifeline, and even then, the odds aren’t great. And the Lonely in particular – one of the first things it does is make it difficult to even conceive of a lifeline. It’s hard to catch hold of one if you never think to look for it.”

“I thought you hated convoluted metaphors.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately the Powers That Be tend to elude any sort of straightforward, concrete discussion,” Jon grouses. “Just one more reason to begrudge them, really. My point is, the Lonely is an insufferable liar and so is Peter.”

“What do you know, they’re perfect for each other.” The remark succeeds in putting a lopsided smirk on Jon’s face, much to Martin’s delight. “Anyway, Peter said his plan won’t work unless I’m voluntarily Lonely.”

“He’s right, although his plan has nothing to do with the Extinction. He needs you to choose the Lonely because those were the terms of his bet with Jonah. He poaches you out from under the Eye – gets you to pledge yourself to the Forsaken – and he wins, with the Institute as a prize. He fails to convert you, he loses, and he does what Jonah wants, which is for me to be marked by the Lonely.”

Jon says that last part so nonchalantly. As if it’s a foregone conclusion; as if he’s become so accustomed to dehumanization that it doesn’t even give him pause. Martin grits his teeth, biting back a surge of anger on Jon’s behalf.

“Yeah, well,” he says tightly, “Peter bet on the wrong horse.”

A sharp intake of breath leaves Jon sounding strangled when he says, eyes wide and lips parted, “Oh?”

“I mean, he can’t just sic the Lonely on me like he would any other victim, right? That wouldn’t count as a win. He needs me to choose it. And I’m not going to do that.”

“Yeah?” The expression of unguarded, cautious hope dawning on Jon’s face makes him look years younger.

“Yeah,” Martin says, feeling increasingly emboldened. “The funny thing is, I don’t – I don’t think I ever chose loneliness. I never wanted it – that was just a lie I told myself, and the Lonely just – echoed it back to me. S-so Peter’s out of luck, because if there are other options, then the Lonely will always be involuntary. Because it’s not what I want.”

“You – you mean it?” Jon brightens, leaning forward.

Martin’s heart skips a beat and flutters hummingbird-quick against his ribs. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jon smile – not like this, that is, beaming and uninhibited and altogether breathtaking. Immediately, Martin decides that he wants more. It seems wrong for something so exhilarating to be so rare.

He doesn’t know which of them moves first, and it doesn’t matter, because Jon is in his lap, and Jon is nuzzling into his shoulder, and Jon is here and solid and so, so alive in Martin’s arms, breathing warm and steady into his neck, smiling against his skin, hands scrabbling at his back to cling to his jumper. Martin’s fingers seek purchase of their own, and then something clicks.

“Jon,” he says, leaning back just far enough to confirm his suspicion, “is this mine?”

“Are you just now noticing?” Jon asks, devastatingly fond. “Martin, I’ve been wearing this jumper off and on for the last several weeks.”

“You have?” Martin all but squeaks, heat creeping up his neck and to the tips of his ears. “No. No, you –” Jon’s grin is widening, leaving Martin increasingly flustered. “I – I mean, yes, you have, obviously, I know that, but I – I – I –” Martin gulps, mortified, as Jon finally fails to contain his suppressed laughter. “Look, I didn’t recognize it until just now, alright?”

“Well,” Jon says, ducking his head to chuckle softly against Martin’s throat, “it’s mine now, and you can’t have it back.”

Which is fine with Martin, really, because he would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t helplessly charmed by the newfound knowledge that not only is Jon an unrepentant clothes-thief, but apparently also an insatiable cuddler.

End Notes:

To address Martin’s concern: Jon does, in fact, nap in the tunnels sometimes. Listen, with Jurgen Leitner (derogatory) in absentia, there was an opening for the position of Beleaguered Tunnel-Haunting Hermit and Jon has all the necessary qualifications.

So anyways, who else thinks Peter’s bio on a dating app would probably just be that “every living creature on this earth dies alone” quote from Donnie Darko? I bet he thinks 'survival of the fittest' means 'every man for himself'. What an insufferable clown.

No Archive-speak in this chapter to cite.

I wanted to make a joke about a The Archers-themed Monopoly, so I asked duckduckgo if it was a thing. Sadly, it is not. There IS, however, a 1960s The Archers board game, and yes, there ARE eBay listings for it.

The first section of this chapter was written before eps 190-192 dropped. I think it still lines up well enough with what we saw of Melanie & Georgie’s characterization in these most recent episodes, with the qualifier that things have gone very differently in this AU compared with canon. (Also, I took some liberties wrt Georgie’s not-feeling-fear thing, obvi. Some of it matches with the most recent episodes, some of it not so much, but I decided to keep it anyways.)

Oh and I think I might have given myself cavities with the last section of this chapter. (I’m aro-spec; it’s hard to tell when I’m going over the top, but hopefully it’s fluffy without being overly cloying.)

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #tma spoilers #long post

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