#she's been through so much and was so so important to turning 2-4 on its head

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cigna’s nopeinator

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THURSDAY (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Cigna – like all private health insurers – has two contradictory imperatives:

To keep its customers healthy; and

To make as much money for its shareholders as is possible.

Now, there's a hypothetical way to resolve these contradictions, a story much beloved by advocates of America's wasteful, cruel, inefficient private health industry: "If health is a "market," then a health insurer that fails to keep its customers healthy will lose those customers and thus make less for its shareholders." In this thought-experiment, Cigna will "find an equilibrium" between spending money to keep its customers healthy, thus retaining their business, and also "seeking efficiencies" to create a standard of care that's cost-effective.

But health care isn't a market. Most of us get our health-care through our employers, who offer small handful of options that nevertheless manage to be so complex in their particulars that they're impossible to directly compare, and somehow all end up not covering the things we need them for. Oh, and you can only change insurers once or twice per year, and doing so incurs savage switching costs, like losing access to your family doctor and specialists providers.

Cigna – like other health insurers – is "too big to care." It doesn't have to worry about losing your business, so it grows progressively less interested in even pretending to keep you healthy.

The most important way for an insurer to protect its profits at the expense of your health is to deny care that your doctor believes you need. Cigna has transformed itself into a care-denying assembly line.

Dr Debby Day is a Cigna whistleblower. Dr Day was a Cigna medical director, charged with reviewing denied cases, a job she held for 20 years. In 2022, she was forced out by Cigna. Writing for Propublica and The Capitol Forum, Patrick Rucker and David Armstrong tell her story, revealing the true "equilibrium" that Cigna has found:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-medical-director-doctor-patient-preapproval-denials-insurance

Dr Day took her job seriously. Early in her career, she discovered a pattern of claims from doctors for an expensive therapy called intravenous immunoglobulin in cases where this made no medical sense. Dr Day reviewed the scientific literature on IVIG and developed a Cigna-wide policy for its use that saved the company millions of dollars.

This is how it's supposed to work: insurers (whether private or public) should permit all the medically necessary interventions and deny interventions that aren't supported by evidence, and they should determine the difference through internal reviewers who are treated as independent experts.

But as the competitive landscape for US healthcare dwindled – and as Cigna bought out more parts of its supply chain and merged with more of its major rivals – the company became uniquely focused on denying claims, irrespective of their medical merit.

In Dr Day's story, the turning point came when Cinga outsourced pre-approvals to registered nurses in the Philippines. Legally, a nurse can approve a claim, but only an MD can deny a claim. So Dr Day and her colleagues would have to sign off when a nurse deemed a procedure, therapy or drug to be medically unnecessary.

This is a complex determination to make, even under ideal circumstances, but Cigna's Filipino outsource partners were far from ideal. Dr Day found that nurses were "sloppy" – they'd confuse a mother with her newborn baby and deny care on that grounds, or confuse an injured hip with an injured neck and deny permission for an ultrasound. Dr Day reviewed a claim for a test that was denied because STI tests weren't "medically necessary" – but the patient's doctor had applied for a test to diagnose a toenail fungus, not an STI.

Even if the nurses' evaluations had been careful, Dr Day wanted to conduct her own, thorough investigation before overriding another doctor's judgment about the care that doctor's patient warranted. When a nurse recommended denying care "for a cancer patient or a sick baby," Dr Day would research medical guidelines, read studies and review the patient's record before signing off on the recommendation.

This was how the claims denial process is said to work, but it's not how it was supposed to work. Dr Day was markedly slower than her peers, who would "click and close" claims by pasting the nurses' own rationale for denying the claim into the relevant form, acting as a rubber-stamp rather than a skilled reviewer.

Dr Day knew she was slower than her peers. Cigna made sure of that, producing a "productivity dashboard" that scored doctors based on "handle time," which Cigna describes as the average time its doctors spend on different kinds of claims. But Dr Day and other Cigna sources say that this was a maximum, not an average – a way of disciplining doctors.

These were not long times. If a doctor asked Cigna not to discharge their patient from hospital care and a nurse denied that claim, the doctor reviewing that claim was supposed to spend not more than 4.5 minutes on their review. Other timelines were even more aggressive: many denials of prescription drugs were meant to be resolved in fewer than two minutes.

Cigna told Propublica and The Capitol Forum that its productivity scores weren't based on a simple calculation about whether its MD reviewers were hitting these brutal processing time targets, describing the scores as a proprietary mix of factors that reflected a nuanced view of care. But when Propublica and The Capitol Forum created a crude algorithm to generate scores by comparing a doctor's performance relative to the company's targets, they found the results fit very neatly into the actual scores that Cigna assigned to its docs:

The newsrooms’ formula accurately reproduced the scores of 87% of the Cigna doctors listed; the scores of all but one of the rest fell within 1 to 2 percentage points of the number generated by this formula. When asked about this formula, Cigna said it may be inaccurate but didn’t elaborate.

As Dr Day slipped lower on the productivity chart, her bosses pressured her bring her score up (Day recorded her phone calls and saved her emails, and the reporters verified them). Among other things, Dr Day's boss made it clear that her annual bonus and stock options were contingent on her making quota.

Cigna denies all of this. They smeared Dr Day as a "disgruntled former employee" (as though that has any bearing on the truthfulness of her account), and declined to explain the discrepancies between Dr Day's accusations and Cigna's bland denials.

This isn't new for Cigna. Last year, Propublica and Capitol Forum revealed the existence of an algorithmic claims denial system that allowed its doctors to bulk-deny claims in as little as 1.2 seconds:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims

Cigna insisted that this was a mischaracterization, saying the system existed to speed up the approval of claims, despite the first-hand accounts of Cigna's own doctors and the doctors whose care recommendations were blocked by the system. One Cigna doctor used this system to "review" and deny 60,000 claims in one month.

Beyond serving as an indictment of the US for-profit health industry, and of Cigna's business practices, this is also a cautionary tale about the idea that critical AI applications can be resolved with "humans in the loop."

AI pitchmen claim that even unreliable AI can be fixed by adding a "human in the loop" that reviews the AI's judgments:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

In this world, the AI is an assistant to the human. For example, a radiologist might have an AI double-check their assessments of chest X-rays, and revisit those X-rays where the AI's assessment didn't match their own. This robot-assisted-human configuration is called a "centaur."

In reality, "human in the loop" is almost always a reverse-centaur. If the hospital buys an AI, fires half its radiologists and orders the remainder to review the AI's superhuman assessments of chest X-rays, that's not an AI assisted radiologist, that's a radiologist-assisted AI. Accuracy goes down, but so do costs. That's the bet that AI investors are making.

Many AI applications turn out not to even be "AI" – they're just low-waged workers in an overseas call-center pretending to be an algorithm (some Indian techies joke that AI stands for "absent Indians"). That was the case with Amazon's Grab and Go stores where, supposedly, AI-enabled cameras counted up all the things you put in your shopping basket and automatically billed you for them. In reality, the cameras were connected to Indian call-centers where low-waged workers made those assessments:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

This Potemkin AI represents an intermediate step between outsourcing and AI. Over the past three decades, the growth of cheap telecommunications and logistics systems let corporations outsource customer service to low-waged offshore workers. The corporations used the excuse that these subcontractors were far from the firm and its customers to deny them any agency, giving them rigid scripts and procedures to follow.

This was a very usefully dysfunctional system. As a customer with a complaint, you would call the customer service line, wait for a long time on hold, spend an interminable time working through a proscribed claims-handling process with a rep who was prohibited from diverging from that process. That process nearly always ended with you being told that nothing could be done.

At that point, a large number of customers would have given up on getting a refund, exchange or credit. The money paid out to the few customers who were stubborn or angry enough to karen their way to a supervisor and get something out of the company amounted to pennies, relative to the sums the company reaped by ripping off the rest.

The Amazon Grab and Go workers were humans in robot suits, but these customer service reps were robots in human suits. The software told them what to say, and they said it, and all they were allowed to say was what appeared on their screens. They were reverse centaurs, serving as the human faces of the intransigent robots programmed by monopolists that were too big to care.

AI is the final stage of this progression: robots without the human suits. The AI turns its "human in the loop" into a "moral crumple zone," which Madeleine Clare Elish describes as "a component that bears the brunt of the moral and legal responsibilities when the overall system malfunctions":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

The Filipino nurses in the Cigna system are an avoidable expense. As Cigna's own dabbling in algorithmic claim-denial shows, they can be jettisoned in favor of a system that uses productivity dashboards and other bossware to push doctors to robosign hundreds or thousands of denials per day, on the pretense that these denials were "reviewed" by a licensed physician.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/29/what-part-of-no/#dont-you-understand

#pluralistic #cigna #computer says no #bossware #moral crumple zones #medicare for all #m4a #whistleblowers #dr debby day #Madeleine Clare Elish #automation #ai #outsourcing #human in the loop #humans in the loop

[shikisei]

im doing a lot better now!

#ace attorney #i love adrian :) i think abt her a lot #she's like 'you guys saved me and i feel a lot better now bc of you' like we didnt try accuse her of murder girl IM SO SORRYYYYYY #one thing i did rlly like abt her in 2-4 #was like. phoenix's savior complex in putting all his faith and trust in his clients yea? #and well engarde betrayed that so it was like #this little sink of despair. but adrian ohh adrian she asks phoenix for help when everyone is at rock bottom and when it seems lost #and phoenix does. she becomes his new 'client' to redirect that faith towards #she's been through so much and was so so important to turning 2-4 on its head #IM GONNA GET YOU OUTTA HEEEEERRREEE #i was delighted to see her again when starting aa3 and so soon! im so happy for her. love her so much #definitely top 5 witnesses for me #she got her riza hawkeye fit on ...

[circeyoru]

Unwanted Soul _ Part 8 = Requested

[Yandere!Alastor x Owner of his Soul!Reader]

Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 2.5 (ask) — Part 3 — Part 4 — Part 5 — Part 6 — Part 7 — Part 8 (here)

Everything was quiet and calm. Too peaceful for your liking. If you know Vox, and you do, he’d be patronizing the hotel and telling demons from all over the Pentagram how vile the hotel and Charlie’s project was. It was so weird that things were this normal, like nothing ever happened

Sensing your uneasiness, Alastor would stay by your side to comfort you with your favourites, even bringing you to his radio tower when he had his broadcast to do. You were either sitting in his lap while hugging him or wandering around his office organizing papers. When those weren’t enough, Alastor offered to take care of the matter

You saw through his wording and knew he was going to duke it out with Vox if you so much as nodded your head. Even if it was a joke in your mind or just a subconscious reaction to his appealing offer. But no, you didn’t want to send Alastor into that ridiculous place

“Darling, it’s a lovely day for a nice stroll!”

“...”

Alastor came to your side, leaning down to hug your form in his arms while you stared out into the city from the balcony seat, “You know, someone else is faring much worse.”

Your eyes looked away from the sigh, nuzzling into Alastor, “I’m just worried…”

“Unlike the princess,” Alastor took your hand in his and kissed it, “You have me as your sword and shield, anytime, anywhere.”

You also observed everyone else’s reaction. Alastor, Lucifer, and Husk weren’t bothered at all, just another day in Hell as their attitudes say. Niffty wasn’t even aware of what actually gone down and continued as normal for a different reason. Angel was checking his phone constantly, maybe to see if Valentino yelled at him or something cause of Vox

Worse of all was Charlie. She was a wreck the day after. She was the owner of the hotel and the ringleader of this dream to redeem sinners to bring them to Heaven. What if you didn’t say anything and let things happen? She doesn’t doubt that her father won’t help her, but by the time she snaps back to it, it would have been too late

Vaggie was with her all the way, comforting her girlfriend and trying to get Charlie back to her cheerful and bright self. Though it was all for not since Charlie didn’t even arrange activities for everyone to do like always, to them, it was like a repeat of what happened before Charlie recruited the cannibals and Vaggie brought them weapons

You knocked on the door, waiting for some reaction. You got the information from Vaggie that Charlie was indeed in her room, just that she wasn’t in the mood for anything. You already had Alastor distract Vaggie for you to do this. So you opened the door and closed it silently behind you.

“Vaggie… I say I’m not hungry.” Charlie groaned, wrapped up as a burrito on the bed with her back facing the door.

“I’m not Vaggie.” You plainly spoke when you walked over to her form. 

Charlie gasped and momentarily turned her head to you before groaning again, “Why are you in my room? Don’t you hate it when others do that to you? Where’s the politeness?”

“Well, I have Alastor to cover for me, and last I checked, there was no Vaggie at your door. Plus your door was unlocked so I came in.” You sat on the opposite of the bed, your back facing hers. “Also, I didn’t think there was a politeness activity. Not that I learn things like that, I’m an irredeemable sinner anyways.”

“Why are you here?” Charlie spoke, muffled by the blanket that she used to hide herself. “I’m not making whatever deals with you.”

You blinked with a stoic look on your face, though it wasn’t like she could see you. The hotel needs Charlie, as much as its demons won’t admit it, the princess was the hotel’s shine. However relutant they seem to be during her activities, they still participated and bonded in the end

It was important that Charlie bounce back quickly before Vox makes his move in the open. Who knows, he might be planning something right now. You really can’t afford for that. Another battle wasn’t what’s needed

Then again, you find yourself asking why are you helping this hotel? At first, it was a good excuse to send away Alastor. Plus it was an interesting idea, to see redemption happen. Perhaps it was because you saw that angels weren’t as holy as you thought? Perhaps it was how easily a sinner died from Adam’s beam?

Perhaps it was because you grown attached to these sinners without knowing

You saw Charlie like a former you. All cheerful and innocent, so trusting and accepting. She had what you don’t. Unlike you, she had Vaggie to support her. Unlike you, she had a group of weird but loyal friends that stand for what she believed and dreams of. Unlike you, she had a loving father that supports her

And unlike you, she had power and authority of her own

Right. You were envious. You didn’t join her, you didn’t let her approach you because it was too familiar to that weak you that brought you to your death. As much as you hated your life, you didn’t want to die. You wanted someone to save you from that desire, someone to be by your side too like the stories you read and the shows you watch

You shook your head and forced away the thoughts to focus, even if it brought out bad memories, you can count on Alastor to comfort you. “If it makes you feel better, you can yell at me.” That got Charlie to peek at you, “If it makes you feel better, you can hit me too, I’ll recover. I must have made you so stupid. It was… my fault.”

“What!? No!” Charlie suddenly burst open like a butterfly from her cocoon, she grabbed onto your shoulder, staring at you with firm eyes. “I’m mad at myself that I didn’t think things through and just accepted it all! I’m ashamed that I’m not as knowledgeable as you are, and they are my people!”

You stayed quiet as you listened, watching Charlie slump down as her hold on you loose.

“I’m… I’m not as talented as you are. You stayed in your room and do whatever you do, but you’re so… uh… capable! And treated. And cool.” Charlie listened on things you don’t even agree with, but you kept it to yourself, this was about Charlie, not you. “I wish I was you…”

“No. Perish the thought.” You firmly stated when she said that. She looked up at you, her eyes widened when you didn’t even know your face made one of disgust and self-loathing. “You don’t want to be me. You shouldn’t be me.”

This time Charlie was quiet as she listened to you.

“Listen to me good. You are a literal sunshine that I feel like I need to wear sunglasses when I’m around you. A princess you may be, but you treat others like equal without boundaries and without a power dynamic. It’s rare. When people have power, they abuse it. In some way, no matter what. That includes me with Alastor.” You ranted on, “Charlie, you are this hotel’s angel, I’ll go as far as to say you’re this hellish place’s angel.”

Charlie’s eyes watered and hugged you like no tomorrow, you allowed her and looked at the shadow in front of you, forming into a familiar shape. You smiled back and blinked with a nod, Alastor’s shadow left and you soon had Charlie back on her two feet

You watched from the sidelines with a satisfied smile, opting to stay in the background while everyone else enjoyed Charlie’s shine. Alastor formed beside you and had his arm around your waist, praising that he didn’t expect you of all demons to be able to cheer Charlie up from that state

From experience, you learned that it wasn’t easy to bring someone out of their depressive episode. It takes someone who understands and opens up their wounds to help another heal. You’ve done that too many times to count. Back then, you thought you had grown numb and continued without caring for your own well-being. When you realized what you had done to yourself, it was too late to change

But the peace didn’t last too long

As you expected, Vox sent an employee of his to give the hotel a message. Because they rudely declined his support and destroyed his products without asking or at least telling him, he wants compensation. In a week’s time, someone, and only one demon, as a representative of the hotel was to come to the V Tower to discuss the specifics of the compensation

If no one came or anything was done wrong, there would be a declaration of war between the Vees and Charlie’s hotel. It was even noted that Lucifer can’t interfere because he was merely a guest, nor can Angel since it too was a guest of the hotel, only members of the staff can participate

Alastor was quick to side with the latter option, thinking an all-out battle/war would be better than submitting to whatever compensation Vox wanted. Vaggie agreed along, saying that it wasn’t worth the risk to send one demon to the lion’s den

Especially after nearly everyone was hypnotized by Vox’s TV screen and that was when he wasn’t even in person. Wouldn’t the hypnosis be even more powerful when they stand in front of him?

“I’ll go.” Your words broke the ongoing discussion, everyone turned to you while you blinked. “What?”

Yeah, you shouldn’t have done that because what resulted was Alastor getting extremely close to you with radio dials for eyes and voodoo symbols started appearing around him while the room was filled with static. “Darling, Dear, My Love, why would you even suggest something like that?”

You patted his head, avoiding the extending antlers. “Because I’m immune to Vox’s hypnosis or any mental attacks. That includes druggings that would alter my thinking and decision-making.”

Your reasoning didn’t soothe Alastor’s mind at all as the static continued. 

“I’m the perfect person to go, I know about Vox and the other two.” You eyed Lucifer for some backup.

Lucifer sighed and stepped up to testify, “Yeah, Pager here collected those three’s information before.” He eyed Alastor, “Up close back when Pager’s still all workaholic and crazy good with infiltration. Not saying Pager’s not as good now.”

“WHAT!?”

“Beloved…”

You looked away with an innocent look, “That was all supposed to be confidential, so it wasn’t exactly my place to tell.”

One way or another, you ended up going just as planned. Charlie and the others watched you leave with Alastor. You suppressed the urge to push them away when they gave you a group hug, you found it off that Husk and Angel was gone, but then Lucifer seem to have overslept, so…

The hardest part was reassuring Alastor you’d be fine and boy did he come up with all sorts of excuse to keep you away from the meeting. Good effort, but meaningless when you knew Alastor too well. He wasn’t the only one to learn a lot about their partner

Alastor compromised with staying in your shadow and observing the entire situation. He’d accompany you along the way to the tower and leave, materializing when you exit as well. You also had to call for him whenever you were in any sort of danger

All agreeable terms. It’s a wonder that Alastor didn’t force you to skip the meeting on the promised day. You gave him a kiss before he had to hide in your shadow. Then it was show time

“I’m here to see Vox.” You told the demon at the front desk, your hand hovering over where your book was the moment you entered the building. To conceal your identity, Alastor has you wear an oversized coat over your attire. Mostly to hide your pages for emergencies. 

“You need an appointment to see Mr. Vox. He is not the type of demon you can just see. Please leave or feel free to browse the VoxTech products.” 

Your eyebrows furrowed from the monotonous voice and the lack of welcome. Vox was really summoning Charlie like some lapdog. “Tell him a representative of the hotel had arrived to see him. He’ll know what I mean.”

“Please leave or feel free to browse the VoxTech products… Otherwise, I will call security to remove you by force.”

“Fine.” You raised your other hand to show your phone with an ongoing recording, “But we fulfilled your request, a representative came as asked and you, Vox, are the one that is refusing to speak to us. If it’s a war you want, then you’re getting one!”

A sudden jolt of electricity was in the air before the demon of the hour showed up with that grin that reminded you so much of Alastor’s. Your blood boiled at a memory that surfaced. But this was business and then you can leave with Alastor by your side to remind you that you’re loved and cared for.

“Ho, ho. No need for that.” Vox smiled, his TV for a head tilting to the side as he stared down at you with neither respect nor posh. “If you want, as a sign of goodwill and that I’m innocent in my lateness since it was my employee’s that’s incompetent…”

You leaned back a bit while Vox leaned forward to you, gesturing to the demon at the front desk that was already shaking from fear.

“I can always… torture them for your entertainment.”

Note: Ta da~! Vox is officially out now! How's this one?

Circe Y. 

My Works: MASTERLIST

Taglist: (those that don't specify to being in all the works' taglist will automatically be assumed to be in whichever series they comment on)

@aconfusedwonderland @crowleysthings @donustellaron @mistpurpl3 @lucifers-silhouette @fluffy-koalala @nevermore-ramblings @justboredforreal @youroneandonlysimp @falsemain @scenteddelusion5 @anni1600 @readergirlstuff @salutations-demonsanddappers @mistpurpl3 @haruskrd @biadoll21 @speedycoffeedelight @wendds @paninibit @emperatris-rinaka @lucifers-silhouette @an-idyllic-novelist

#Circe's Nighty Writings #Circe's requested writings #alastor imagine #alastor x reader #alastor x y/n #alastor x you #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel alastor #alastor headcanons #hazbin hotel fanfiction #alastor #hazbin hotel oneshots #yandere alastor #yandere alastor x reader #yandere hazbin hotel #alastor fanfiction #hazbin hotel imagines #Unwanted Soul

[ivymarquis]

A Little Death

Pairing| Ghost x F!Reader Rating| M Word Count| 7k Kinks/Content/Warnings| The author has decided she can't be assed to edit this, Chubby!Reader, Kidnapping, nondescript mentions of torture. Ambiguous mentions of S/A (vague enough you can chose to ignore that part if you want tbh), Reader is traumatized from her ordeal but working through it. Fingering, PiV, riding, squirting, Simon has a moment where he's worried he triggered reader after sex but that is an incorrect assumption on his part.

On days like this Simon can almost pretend he’s normal. 

The game’s on, a beer in one hand while the other has been commandeered by his girlfriend with a simple “Gimmie.”

Simon has never been one to worry about his nails beyond clipping them for practicality’s sake.

Having a SAS lieutenant for a boyfriend means she deals with what she insists is Simon’s paranoia and he insists is a healthy level of suspicion about the outside world. Having a nail technician for a girlfriend means every so often she’ll commandeer his hands to ensure they’re up to her standards. As it turned out, adhering to regulations wasn’t up to par for her. 

His neighbor is a popular woman.

It sets him on edge, all the traffic. One or two people at a time, usually other women- sometimes with a man in tow, other times not. They show up, they stay for maybe an hour or maybe 4, and they leave. Within 30 minutes someone else is knocking on her door.

Normal men humor their partners about things they don’t particularly give a fuck about when left to their own devices, as an acknowledgment of its importance to them. 

And so he sits, beer in one hand as she works on the other. Once she’s finished she gathers up the towel that acts as a catch for the various clips and trimmings before making her move to switch sides, Simon easily acquiescing to her whim.

“I’m not keeping you up, am I?” She asks one night. Music plays lowly from a laptop on her patio as he steps onto his for a smoke break. Just because he’s got his vice doesn’t mean he wants the whole flat smelling like it.

“Don’t sleep much anyway, pet. Bit of music won’t change that one way or another.”

Despite his insistence that he’s merely humoring her, he soaks up the attention she readily gives him. When she’s done and tidied after herself she returns with a small bottle of lotion.

He’s got one arm wrapped around her shoulders, pressing a chaste kiss to the top of her head as she massages his hand. If he plays his cards right tonight he can probably get her to soothe some of the aches and stiff muscles that always plague him. For now he melts as she seems to know exactly what points to hit in his palm and forearm. 

It’s domestic and normal and Simon can almost ignore the burner phone he keeps on him at all times.

It goes off at 5am on a Sunday, Simon already awake and having been watching the ceiling fan since 4:30. He can’t fall back asleep but can’t bring himself to separate from her. 

She burrows further into his chest as his shifting disrupts her. He’s fairly certain she would crawl inside his ribcage if she could, curl up right next to his heart and never leave. 

Simon would gladly let her. 

She’s a nail technician, he comes to learn. Sure as shit, he eventually memorizes the traffic that comes and goes on a roughly two week interval. Some of them are steadfast in their appointments. 2 o clock every other Thursday. 4 o clock every other Friday. Others not so much- they come around frequently but the days and times are random after the 14 day mark. 

The familiarity of some of the faces takes him slightly less on edge. He will never relax, not truly, but it settles him down now that he knows the pattern. 

It also explains why her hands have two completely different designs on each one. Color, pattern, the shape of the nails. Her left and right hand look like they belong to two different people. 

Simon doesn’t use social media, for obvious reasons. His little neighbor has formed an entire career for herself based off of it. 

But the phone buzzes on the nightstand, an omniscient presence that always hovers heavy in the air.

“Price?” Is all he gives for a greeting. Trying to keep his words short and concise. He doesn’t want to wake her, still under the lull she draws him into without trying. 

He keeps his work and his personal life separate with no intention of ever melding the two. 

“Laswell’s got intel. We meet in 2 days, back on base at 06:00.”

He is about to respond, both an acknowledgment and a hopeful end to the conversation, when she stretches next to him with a groan of protest at being awoken so early. 

“Tell your other girlfriend I said hi,” she grumbles, already knowing it’s Price on the phone and that the clock is officially counting down on the time they have left together. 

“You know at a certain point I'm going to just decide you’ve got a whole secret life with a wife and kids and a picket fence.”

He doesn’t want his work to ever follow him home. Not to her. He keeps them strictly separate. She knows he’s military- specifically SAS- and that he works in counter terrorism and that’s about all he’s willing to tell. She doesn’t need to know details. And more importantly the details don’t ever need to know about her. 

His past missions have haunted him in the worst way possible. He’s finally rebuilt something for himself as the ghost of a dead man, and doesn’t want anything to ever tarnish what he’s found. 

He can’t entirely blame her. It takes a leap of faith to accept the little he offers her. What does he have? A dead man’s name and most likely a violent end waiting for him. 

Eventually he does offer a small peace offering. Price is enough to settle the concerns that she hides as jokes. Provides enough credibility that she can let go of the concern that he’s living a double life.

Well, he is. But not the kind that nags at her. 

Price knows her; Gaz and Soap know that he’s got someone waiting for him at home, but Simon is already at his limit of how much intermingling he can handle. They’re both compromising, both making allowances for their comfort levels for the sake of the other. But he has to draw the line somewhere. 

If Simon had his way Gaz and Soap would be none the wiser, but a night of frantic coupling before he’d left had Simon bearing marks that are incredibly obvious in the changing room. 

“Steamin’ Jesus L.T.! You get jumped by a wildcat?” The chortle from the Scot makes it obvious that Johnny is yet again not afraid to push Simon’s buttons. 

There’s no denying what they are, nor how he got them. Neither Soap nor Gaz are stupid. 

Long, red scratch marks criss cross the broad expanse of his scarred back. He certainly hadn’t complained when his lovely girl had left her mark on him- those nails dragging across his skin had only encouraged him as his hips clapped wetly against hers, hands gripping her knees as he pressed them to her shoulders.

Most nights he is soft and gentle and strokes her skin while his lips press either in her hair or the soft expanse of her neck. He doesn’t roughhouse her tonight, but the knowledge he’ll be gone for weeks and tonight is their last together for the foreseeable future?

Well, the pair of them are a bit amped about the impending separation. It’s a good thing neither of them are particularly known for their good sleeping habits, because there’s not a lot of that usually happening on the nights before Simon leaves. 

Leaving without waking her up is an impossible task but he tries anyway.

Whereas Simon finds sleep difficult to achieve and eventually sleeps like the dead once he finds it, she drifts readily enough but will wake at the drop of a hat.

Usually she’ll settle soon after. Eyes following his form in the dark, waiting expectantly for him to come back after he dresses to kiss her goodbye. 

They carve out a routine for themselves. One for when Simon is home, and one for when he’s preparing to walk out the door until eventually coming back through it.

His therapist is equal parts shocked and pleased to hear that Simon is taking the leap and opening himself up emotionally to someone. 

His therapist is less pleased about the way he simply buries himself in her life when he’s on leave.

Simon is nothing- has nothing- when he is not acting in the line of duty. He is a dead man with nothing to his name and no one who gives a fuck if he ever walks back through the door that isn’t tied to his military career. 

He thrives on the stability and schedule on base. On the simplicity of nights spent out on the field. Wake up, piss, dont die, go to sleep. Wake up, repeat. 

Some days the only thing keeping him from trying to end it all (again, he bitterly acknowledges) when he’s gotten too far into a bottle of bourbon is his therapist and the thought of his team’s face at the news. 

Until, at least, he meets her. 

The mission is brief but successful. Simon is pleased. 

The deepest of the scratch marks has just finished healing and he’s already missing the sensation of her nails dragging against his skin- and he’s not picky about the context, either. 

There have been plenty of nights he’s fallen asleep with his face buried in her chest with one of her hands scratching gently at his scalp and the other tracing in broad strokes across his back.

Of course those nails also feel divine scratching at his abdomen while she is on her knees for him.

There’s a process he goes through when he gets home. It lets him shed the mantle of Ghost- to calm down as much as he’s able and be better equipped to deal with civilian life. Helps him give her the illusion that she is with a normal man who’s not holding onto himself with a death grip, desperately trying to keep the pieces together.

He feels fine when he leaves base and heads home. Everything is normal. 

Until he turns the corner and sees the door ajar.

Fear runs ice cold in his veins, hackles raised and on guard. 

I’m just being paranoid, he tries to self soothe as he steps towards the door. She tells me all the time.

Course, it was one thing when he gripes about how she answers the door without looking to see who it is. She doesn’t leave the fucking door open.

“Wish you’d at least look at the peep hole before just opening the bloody door,” he grouses into her hair, pulling her in so she’s tucked up to his side. 

“If I’m expecting someone to come at 3 and there’s a knock at 3, I already know who it is, Si.”

There are times when he is grateful that she has, by comparison, lived a life where she thinks he is paranoid and needlessly worries. She hasn’t had the experiences he has, and he doesn’t wish that upon her. He’s grateful with the knowledge that every time he’s sent out, thus far, that she’s been tucked away safe and sound until he returns. 

But of course the other shoe was always going to drop eventually. 

“Price?” Simon doesn’t know who else to call. 

He’s standing in the middle of his flat, evidence of an altercation scattered around the living room. 

She put up a fight if the state of the flat is anything to go by. He wants to be proud of that at least, use it as hope-

He just feels hollow. 

A group the 141 has dealt with prior are the ones all the signs point to. They wanted the team’s attention and by God they fucking got it. 

Simon doesn’t understand how they found she has any ties to him. He’s so careful- keeps her tucked away and hidden from any potential cross over with his work.

The next few days are a blur and Simon’s mental health has seen better days. 

He resigns himself, even when Laswell gets a hit and the 141 are loaded into a helo, to the fact that at best this will be a body retrieval mission. 

Even as Soap gives a reassuring knock into his shoulder- we’ll get her back, LT- as confident as ever. 

His sweet girl is dead, just like every other person Simon has ever cared about. 

He doesn’t understand what he’s done to deserve losing them all. The only ones he has left are his team, and that’s a tenuous state at best. His family was good. They were normal people with normal lives. She is good and a normal person. 

Her only sin is being foolish enough to love him. 

Some time between getting on the bird and offloading, Simon forces the thoughts in a corner and blocks them off. 

Simon, the terrified boyfriend, gives way to Ghost so he can get through this in one piece. He just wants to find her, bring her home and bury her body. He’s numb to anything beyond the scope of the plan he’s formed in his mind. 

It’s laughably easy. A fringe group the 141 has had altercations with- she’s not exactly a high profile prisoner. They just wanted to fuck with Simon.

There’s no satisfaction or vindication as they clear the building floor by floor. 

He feels nothing.

The further they venture into the building with no sign of her, the pit in his stomach sinks just as far. There’s no sign of anything concrete or anywhere they’d keep a prisoner. 

And then there, in a corner of a hallway, Ghost spots it-

An acrylic nail lying broken on the ground, dried blood clotted on the tips. 

For the first time in days, Simon feels something. 

It’s not hope. He doesn’t dare hope. 

But it’s confirmation that she has, at some point, been in the building. 

It’s also confirmation that she gave it a fighting chance. 

She’s a civilian- nothing much she can do against professional criminals. But she tried and Simon has to find something in that.

They split into pairs down a hallway clearing rooms. Every door that opens only to not have her in it is like a knife that keeps twisting in his abdomen. 

Just let him have this one thing. 

It’s just as Ghost and Soap have called out clear on another room that he hears Price’s voice call to him down the hall. 

There’s only one reason Price would be calling for him specifically.

As he approaches he can hear the captain again, softer this time. Can’t make out what he’s saying but everything feels slow; like he’s moving under water. 

As his mind prepares him for every horrific potential image waiting for him beyond the threshold of the door- there’s nothing that prepares him for what he sees. 

She’s alive. 

Wide eyed and panicked, which is to be expected all things considered, but she’s here and she’s breathing.

Simon forgets himself entirely. He swings wildly from feeling nothing to feeling everything and it bubbles up all at once as he barrels towards her. 

He forgets that while she knows Simon is SAS she knows nothing of Ghost. Simon works in counter terrorism, yes, but she knows nothing about the mask.

So after being kidnapped and going through God-knows-what in her absence, she’s got no fucking clue the 6’4 fucker with the skull mask gunning for her is her boyfriend. 

The sharp, croaked “Stay the fuck away from me!” doesn’t cut but it does jog his memory enough to know she’s absolutely terrified.

Again there’s that part of him that is proud of her. After everything she’s been through even if she wouldn’t stand a chance in an actual altercation- She’s not huddled in the corner. She looks willing to fight him, until Simon rips the mask off his face. “It’s me, love! It’s me.”

“Simon? What the fuck is that?!”

Rather than scrambling to get away she turns to launch herself at him, a tangle of limbs as they cling to each other and reassure themselves that yes this is real and yes the other is there. That this fucking nightmare is over.

Simon buries his nose in her hair- was so certain he’d be bringing her home in a body bag he almost doesn’t know what to do with himself. She’s shaking in his grip, sobs ripping through her as he shushes her gently and murmurs “It’s alright, love. I’ve got you now.”

“As much as I love a good reunion- we need to get going, Ghost.” Price is ever the voice of reason, because Simon’s head is not in the game right now. 

He wants to cling to her and never let her go- he needs to pull his head out of his ass. 

Price isn’t wrong. As much as he has to fight off the impulse to tuck her against his side and keep her there, they have shit to do. 

He won’t truly be able to relax until she’s safely stowed on the helo and they’re on their way back.

It’s a bit easier once he puts the mask on. His brain is trained to focus on work and not let his personal life muddy the waters. Where Simon can’t help but falter, Ghost is dauntless. 

Simon can barely string a thought together now that he has her back in his arms. Simon still cannot believe she’s alive and breathing even after touching, smelling and hearing her. 

But Ghost can focus on getting her to the helo. 

Everything is a blur as Price and Gaz lead with Soap bringing up the rear. 

Ghost can’t quite decide where he wants her- keeps alternating between keeping her behind him in the event they get blindsided, that he’ll take any hits that go past Price or Gaz, or getting her in front of him so he can keep an eye on her, and there’s two SAS soldiers in front of her and two behind.

The hostiles in the building wanted the 141’s attention. Mission fucking accomplished.

The ones they chance across are dropped with ease. Simon is no stranger to returning to a location and making his point. Right now he’s got bigger concerns to be worried about. 

A knot of anxiety lodges itself on his ribcage as they move through the building that doesn’t unwind until he’s got her strapped to her seat in the helo. 

For the first time in days he can breathe. The knot slowly untangles as they ascend.

It finally settles in for both of them that she is out and she is safe. She’s been quiet the whole trek to the helo but Price, Soap, and Gaz have been on enough hostage recovery missions to not be caught off guard as she bursts into tears and buries her face in Ghost’s vest. 

It’s finally safe for her to do so, the adrenaline wearing off as she sobs. 

For the most part the other three men try to avert their eyes and not intrude.

Simon’s always been reserved about his life off base and watching him soothe his partner is bordering too personal for the others to witness.

It comes and goes in waves; Simon will settle her down, crooning quietly in her ear too low for the others to hear. She’ll stifle her tears for a bit as he soothes her. They go straight to medical after landing to have her looked at. She starts up again while waiting for the nurse to come back, trying to apologize to Simon through choked sobs. 

He won’t hear it, softly but firmly brushing her apologies to the side and assuring her everything’s fine now, love. No need to apologize.

He feels physically ill when the nurse delicately asks if she needs a rape kit or screenings done.

The rest of the 141 gives them a wide berth- which is a marked accomplishment because all too often Soap and Gaz are trailing behind him and finding some sort of shenanigans to get up to. Simon is perfectly content with the arrangement. He wants to focus his attention on her and that’s easier to do without the sergeants under foot.

His room on base is much like his entire apartment was before she moved in.

It’s 3am, Simon needs to take a piss and as he’s doing so, he’s not-quite eye level with a sign that says

“★★★★★ -

Would poop here again”

He’s got no idea when or where she found that, let alone put it up, but rolls his eyes good naturedly as he tucks himself away.

Normal people have bathroom decor.

Simon can appreciate a bit or a joke as much as the next person- but while this space is his it’s not something he’s ever felt the need to decorate. It’s a bed for him to crash on in between missions or if he’s too bloody exhausted to safely make the trek home.

There’s only one piece of any sort of personal touch to the room- a framed photo of her.

Simon intends to see her through the next few days- they’ll head home in the morning and realistically there’s only so long John can hold off on calling the boys in again. But the captain says he’ll do what he can to keep Simon home while they settle back in. He’s been due for some leave anyway.

He doesn’t sleep the first night. She swings drastically between being knocked out and jolting awake screaming and crying. Even once she’s gotten over the initial shock of her rescue it still takes time for her nervous system to calm down.

“I’ve got you, love- you’re safe here” he murmurs into her ear as she trembles like a leaf. “We’ll be home soon, yeah? You’ll feel better once you’re in our bed.”

The question is twofold- it is to soothe her, and also to gauge her reaction to the prospect of going home. Simon won’t hesitate to set the flat ablaze if it makes her feel better. 

Start fresh.

For now she seems to sleep better if he’s got her pinned up against the wall- the bulk of him a physical barrier to anything that might enter the room.

He’s always slept between her and the door so that’s no hardship- it just takes time to realize she feels safer trapped between him and the wall.

They make it through the first night in one piece, although the next morning she will not stop chewing on her nails. With someone else, he wouldn’t necessarily be surprised- but she’s never been a nail biter.

It dawns on him, as she sits on the couch and bursts into tears, that she wants the nails (or at least the ones that survived the ordeal) off, and is winding herself up too much to take them off the way she knows she should.

Simon goes to her office; he’s watched her enough that he knows the steps and the materials she’ll need, gathering them up before coaxing her to the table.

There’s no interest in redoing them but Simon manages to get the current sets off of her so she doesn’t damage her nail beds- assuming she stops chewing on them (which she does).

Over the next few days he lets her set the pace. She’s jumpy at home and calmer when he takes her out to run errands or just to stretch their legs. 

Maybe he will propose moving sooner rather than later. Their building is a shithole anyway.

He puts her in therapy after a week. It’s the only time he’s away from her. Realistically he knows it’s not good to have her so used to always being within arms length or eyesight of him- it’s not sustainable when eventually he will be called back in. But he has no qualms for the coddling he subjects her to while he’s able to. She’s quiet and comfortable with his hovering in a way she’d never tolerate before she was abducted- he figures he’ll know when she’s feeling a bit like herself again when she starts complaining about him not giving her any space.

Knowing she’s got the therapist gives him some security on how she’ll mentally cope when eventually he needs to leave again.

Her bursting into tears occurs less frequently. If Simon has to pry himself away from her to take a piss in the middle of the night she’s not up, back ramrod straight and waiting for him to come back with wet, teary eyes.

As the days tick on, bleeding into months later, Simon idly acknowledges that-short of when he’s on deployment- this is the longest they’ve gone without having sex. There’s nothing else that goes with that acknowledgement- he’s far more concerned with her well being than he is getting his kicks. He’s just taking stock of all their ‘normals’ and prior to her abduction they’d had quite the active sex life.

It’s one day as they’re watching a movie that it’s apparent Simon isn’t the only one aware of their dry spell.

They’re laying on the couch, her back pressed against his front with one of his heavy arms draped across her rib cage to keep her snuggled up against him as they watch the screen in front.

At first he thinks that she’s repositioning- thinks nothing of it and lifts his arm just enough to allow her the freedom to wiggle to a more comfortable spot. She keeps wiggling though and Simon is trying to keep his mind off the sensation of her arse grinding into his groin. Trying to ignore the way his dick twitches in interest, because- God help him- he's not dead and the love of his life is grinding her arse on him. Bodies are going to do what bodies do, and he can feel himself stiffening in response.

“Sweetheart, you need to sit still,” he whispers the plea into her ear. 

Her head tilts back towards him and lust jolts through his body at the look in her eyes while she still continues to grind against him.

“I miss you, Simon,” and given how he is rarely further than grabbing distance from her, there’s very few other ways to interpret what exactly it is that she is missing.

He’s a goner when she gives him that wide, doe eyed expression paired with the prettiest “Please?” he’s ever heard in his life.

One moment they’re quiet and content laying on their sides on the couch- the next Simon’s gripping her arm and pulling her on top of him as he settles onto his back. She follows his lead and moves so her weight is settled on his hips as his hands grip hers.

It is no hardship on his end to wait for her- the patience never truly even registered in his brain. She can have as much time as she needs and Simon will give it to her gladly.

But his pretty girl batting her eyes at him and pleading softly for him? His patience isn’t the only thing he’s willing to give her.

“Are you sure?” He doesn’t mean to second guess her or make her question herself but he does want to make sure that she’s not acting on obligation.

“Yes, Simon- Please,” and who is he to deny her?

His hands are on her immediately- pulling her towards him and encouraging her to grind, knowing her sweet clit will light up at the friction of her soft panties dragging across the rough material of his jeans.

His lips find hers, separating only briefly as he hauls her dress up and over her head, happily discarding the material in a heap on the floor.

His hands grip her hips, Simon relaxing into the couch while his fingers dug into the pillow soft skin perching above him. He’s straining against the fabric of his jeans- knows the tip of his erection is leaking clear pre and it’s not just going to be her being the reason the fabric has a wet spot.

The couch is certainly not the worst place to be, his beautiful girlfriend’s tits in his face as she grinds down in his lap with little hitching breaths.

“Just like that, pretty,” he encourages, kissing down her jawbone, the length of her neck and across her collar bone before happily mouthing at her breasts which are blessedly right in his face.

Simon groans in pleasure as he teases one nipple, her sweet mewls and the grip on his hair only spurring him on.

Grabbing a handful of her plush arse, he groans in anticipation while switching from one breast to the other.

It’s been a fair while since his back has been shredded by her nails and he can’t wait to feel the bite of them dragging down the length of his spine.

“Lift up, sweetheart,” he instructs, somewhat loath to release her plump bottom but eager to get her dripping for him.

She pulls up enough for him to slip one hand between her legs. Exploring fingers are quick to spread her wetness, dipping between her folds and dragging back up to circle her clit softly.

“Fuck- Simon!” she whines in his ear.

He knows enough by now what makes her tick. Once she’s all warmed up and ready to roll, that sweet cunt of hers could take a thrashing. But warming up involves feather-light touches to get her squirming and squealing for him.

“Feels good, pretty?” he asks despite knowing the answer in the way her arms wrap around his neck and she sags against him, hips twitching as she lets him tease her.

“Ye-yeah,” she murmurs, and presses her lips against his neck as he takes another pass- finger pulling away from her clit just to draw shivers from her as he traces back down her folds and presses ever so lightly against the entrance on her- just to the first knuckle- and making his way back to tease her clit.

Each pass has her rocking her hips more as he slips more of his finger inside, eventually adding a second that has her mewling and squirming in his lap.

He’s going to have one hell of a hickey from how she’s sucking on his neck, but Simon can’t bring himself to care. Not when his ears are graced with the delightful little noises she makes- whimpers of protest as he pulls his fingers out of her, the shaky inhales as he circles her clit and the trembling moan when he once again slides his fingers inside of her to give a few pointed strokes to her g-spot just to get her shivering and blinking up at him with lust-blown eyes.

“Fuck you’re wet,” there’s absolutely zero resistance now, even when he slides a third finger inside her. 

“Please,” she mewls into his skin, hips rocking in time with the thrust of his fingers into her.

“What do you want, sweetheart? Use your words.” He’s always found her an absolute delight to tease- she gets so flustered and stares at him with that doe eyed, betrayed look- how dare he make her ask for anything when it’s obvious what she wants.

“Please let me cum,” she pants as her eyes screw up in pleasure while his fingers trace and circle her clit for several passes.

“You wanna cum, love?” His tone is just a bit too soft to be a mocking tease despite the way she glares at him. Spoiled little thing so easily sliding back into her old habits.

“I’m going to bite you,” she grumbles in bemused annoyance, brows furrowing as she tries to follow his hand while teasing her.

He doesn’t doubt his little viper for a second, mollifying her displeasure with three fingers digging for that spot that makes her see stars.

“Oh~,” she mewls against him as he stokes the fires of her orgasm with a vengeance. He doesn’t stop, angling his hand so his thumb can stroke against her clit and enjoying the way she trembles against him like a leaf caught in a windstorm.

“That the spot, hm? Right there, innit?” He rumbles low in her ear, a satisfied smirk on his face as she nods in a big sweeping motion against his neck. “Come on, pretty. You wanna cum so badly? Do it.” he baits.

Mission accomplished.

Fuck he’ll remember the vision of her crying and cumming and trembling in his hold, soaking his forearm and abdomen as she squirts, for the rest of his days. His free hand runs soothingly down her back for a few passes before pulling both hands away from her.

She’s immediately whining against him, upset at having his touch taken away. “Simon, please-”

He shushes her with a kiss to her temple, “I know what you need, sweetheart,” he murmurs while deftly undoing his pants and freeing his cock.

It only takes a few strokes, already straining and ready to perform, before they’re shuffling as he pulls and maneuvers her so she’s hovering above him and Oh fuck has Simon missed this as she sinks down on him.

It always takes a couple attempts- he’s not a small man, and doesn’t want to risk injury. Not to mention there’s just something fucking delicious about only giving her a few inches, pulling back and feeding her just a few more. Slow, short, steady thrusts that get deeper bit by bit, having Simon ready to melt into the couch at the bliss of being buried in her by the time she sinks all of her weight onto him, her groin pressing against his.

She’s so fucking warm and wet, clinging to him as she shuffles to get good leverage on top of him to bounce.

Bloody fucking hell does she feel good. “That’s it, pretty. Take it all,” he encourages her while she whimpers above him- if he angles himself just right he can grind her clit against him in a way that has her sucking down air and shivering.

She’s so good for him but he knows there’s only so long she can bounce in his lap- even resting on one knee on the couch and her other foot on the floor so she can shift her weight and give leg a break every now and then, Simon throwing his head back and groaning loudly.

It’s one of the only times he’s particularly verbose- Usually content to be silent and broody unless he has a specific question in mind, the bedroom (or in this case the living room) is the one place where he is a chatterbox. The mouth on him is surreal at times, and while one would think his sweet girl would be use to the filth every now and then he’ll catch her off guard with some particularly out of pocket comment.

For now though, he’s a bit reserved- doesn’t want to go from zero to a hundred out of nowhere.

No, for now his attention is focused on the goddess bouncing on his cock, wondering if he can get her to squirt a second time if he just- he shifts underneath her, changing the angle and fucking hell does that seem to do the trick for her. Swiping one of his thumbs across his tongue before pressing it to her clit and circling again, Simon can’t help the smug look on his face when she squeals. “Just like that, sweetheart. Fuck,” he grunts as he thrusts up into her. From how those pretty thighs are trembling, her legs are about to give out as he fucks into her. 

“Simon!” She’s yelping his name with glassy eyes and a clenching cunt “Fuck- Simon! Please-”

She doesn’t have the energy to get herself back up again- poor thing, her thighs must be burning, and he can’t help but be a cocky fuck about the fact that she loves riding his dick to the point that she physically can’t keep going.

“On your back, sweetheart,” he instructs with a light swat to her ass- appreciating the way her body jiggles at the impact.

His sweet girl has done so well and worked so hard, it’s only right that he rewards her. Once she’s on her back he grips her under her knees and folds her legs back- gives himself room between those gorgeous thighs.

“Fuck, baby- please don’t stop,” she pants underneath him, back arching in pleasure as his mouth drops to her breasts again. Her arms wrap loosely around his neck, and he twitches in anticipation at the feel of her nails tracing ever so lightly against his back.

“Not gonna stop, pretty girl.” he groans against her skin, alternating between which nipple he has between his teeth.

Fuck she’s clenching down on him like a vice. He knows she’s getting close; squirming in his grip, keeping her legs nice and spread for him. The feel of her nails reaching down his back and dragging up his spine pulls a groan that would be embarrassing if Simon could find it within himself to care in the slightest. The slight pain encourages him as he cants against her.

“Simon!” The sound of his hips knocking into the back of her thighs is loud and messy. Fuck he’s such a goner when she looks up at him with that sweet expression on her face- pure adoration and wonder in her eyes.

“Just like that, sweetheart. Fucking hell, love,” he grunts out, a second wind reinvigorating him when she starts shaking. Those plush thighs shaking in his hold as he knocks the sense out of her pretty head, he’s so fucking close he can taste it but is determined to get her across the finish line first.

“Such a good fucking girl,” he purrs in her ear, “You feel fucking perfect taking my cock. This wet cunt’s all mine, innit?”

All she can do is chant “Yes! Yes! Yes!” over and over again- Simon’s not sure if even she is certain if she’s repeating the word to answer him, or if she’s just babbling because he’s making her feel good and she’s getting close.

“You gonna cum again love? Gonna soak me, hm?” He’s just running his mouth now- knows the shit she likes to hear, reaffirmed by the way she’s shivering in his hold and crying for it with a glassy eyed gaze.

Whatever she is going to respond with is cut off with a squeal. Simon rears back, enjoying the show as she makes a mess all over his cock with her eyes rolled back. He lets go of one of her legs in favor of teasing her clit just shy of overstimulation to prolong her orgasm- she lets him for a time before her hands abandon shredding his back in favor of wrapping around his wrist in a plea for mercy. 

“Simon it’s too much,” she laments with teary eyes as he pulls his hand away with a chuckle and a chaste kiss. 

He stays curled over her, hips driving into hers. “Tell me where you want it,” he instructs.

“Inside! Please, I want it inside!” Her answer is sharp and immediate, the leg not pinned to her chest wrapping around his waist like she is daring him to even try to pull out.

And fuck there is something cathartic about his orgasm when it hits. Burying his face in her soft body while his hips snapped into hers a few times, Simon groans as his vision damn near whites out for a second.

Simon knows better than most that there’s good days and bad days- and a presumed good day can become a bad day quicker than one can blink. But overall he feels like consistently she’s doing better all around. They take their time calming down, Simon showering her in attention and getting a feel for where her head is at. Praising her for how well she did and making sure she feels stable.

He lets out a breath, feeling confident that she’s settled, having a good day, and everything is fine for now. 

And it is. Until about two hours later.

One moment they’re finishing the movie they’d initially started before the impromptu romp on the couch, and then Simon has a 3 second warning of her sniffling as she obviously tries to fight back the tears and then she’s sobbing harder than she has in weeks.

Simon goes from content to concerned in a second, his blood turning to ice in his veins. His immediate assumption is that their prior activities finally caught up with her mentally and now that she’s had time to think it over it wasn’t good. It was too fucking soon to have sex. He should have told her no, should have been gentler, should have-

“Sweetheart? Talk to me,” his voice is tinged with a thinly controlled concern (not panic he convinces himself) and while he means to comfort her, she can hear his tone and that just sets her off anew.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” she blubbers, turning to face him. “I don’t know why I’m crying!”

That settles Simon’s nerves somewhat, stroking her back and pulling her close to comfort her. “It’s okay, sweetheart.” he soothes her, listening to her sniffle against his shirt after shoving her into the crook of his neck.

“I just want to feel normal again,” she sobs into his collar.

“You will, love,” he assures her- never mind that ‘normal’ is something that even he struggles with on a near daily basis. “It’ll take time but you’ll get there. I promise.”

He’s a bastard for making a promise to her that he can’t guarantee to keep. There’s a part of him that knows that- hell, he’s been working on his shit for years and he still doesn’t feel normal most days.

But while he can’t promise that she’ll ever get back to feeling exactly the same as she did before all of this happened, he can promise that he’ll be by her side and ensure she’s adjusting. It will take time, and work, but Simon will make sure she gets there one step at a time.

#my writing #simon ghost riley x reader #cod x reader #x chubby reader #cw sa implied

[acotar-taylorsversion]

Future ACOTAR Books

Ok, so Sarah is contracted for 2 more acotar novels and a novella, right?

Here's how I'm thinking its gonna be laid out.

ACOTAR -1, ACOMAF -2, ACOWAR -3, ACOFAS -novella 1, ACOSF -4

ACOTAR 5 - Elain's book with Azriel as love interest. I believe she will reject the bond with Lucien and help Nesta and Az with the trove and locating Koschei, the prison, Az and Nuala and Cerridwen helping her with her seer skills since it can be related to spying, and all that. There's much that could happen here and some many questions could be answered.

Novella 2 - this can be Vassa and Lucien's. I truly believe that if Elain would reject the bond, Lucien would allow himself to discover something with Vassa. This would push the story along for the Koschei storyline because I believe that Lucien and Vassa will be heavily involved with that. Sarah made Lucien a part of this band of exiles for a reason. We could also see or hear about what the inner circle is doing through their povs or through some type of correspondence through Lucien. This could possibly start while Elain's story is going on as well, if she rejects the bond early on in her book. She could even tie in Mor and what it is that she's doing since she's trying to get more allies for Rhys. And even Eris since he will be dealing with Beron and the aftermath of being caught. Seems like a lot but Tower of Dawn was meant to be a novella and look how that one turned out.

ACOTAR 6 - this could be a multi pov novel that centers around all the sisters and their chosen loves. And don't tell me she won't because she did it in acofas. OR it could be in feyre and Rhy's povs because they are sarah's favorite couple and if she had to end the series with any couple I believe it would be them. But anyway, I believe that Koschei will be the final big bad for acotar and its gonna take a lot to defeat him. it's gonna take everyone coming together just like they did with the king of Hybern. I also believe that people are gonna die. I've always felt that Mor would be the one to die and maybe Lucien, and Helion, and Tamlin. I think that a couple of courts would be left without high lords and this would allow Rhys and Feyre to become High King and Queen, especially after what we learned in HOFAS, its pretty much his birth right. Wouldn't be something since Tamlin told Feyre that there were no such things as High Lady's and she would end the series as High Queen! lol

This is what I think will be happen, and it's my opinion so I don't need anyone telling me that I'm crazy or delusional, none of that. Based on what happened in frost and starlight (the one that sarah said she set up the rest of the series in), I believe this is what could happen. Do I think Nesta's story is done? No, and we could have her pov in the last book with her sisters. Do I think the valkyries are gonna be main characters? No, I don't because I think they are there mainly for Nesta and I only see them helping with battles and maybe some research. That's it. Do I think the illyrians will be important? Maybe, but sarah has been known to forget about some plots or just completely shut them down in the next book. Remember how we all thought Kallon from frost and starlight was gonna be Cassian's enemy #1 in silver flames? Don't remember him at all? Exactly.

Sorry for the long post, I just have to get all of this out of my head before it drives me crazy. Just so y'all know, I'm pro elriel, feysand, nessian, vassien (if Lucien survives). I don't see how elucien could ever be a happy mated couple, and I don't see how people think Gwyn and Az could ever be romantic and you can't say the next book is Nesta's and say that sarah will have gwynriel as the couple when they would be side characters. Each book will be centered around a couple, right? Did she say new or established? I can't remember but the main couple wouldn't be in the background. And I don't see how Gwyn could carry an entire novel. I'm sorry, I just can't. It would be half of silver flames and I don't think Sarah will do that. And I do think its messed up how sarah and Bloomsbury have let this nasty ship war go on for this long.

But I do believe that this series started with Feyre and her sisters and it will end with her and her sisters. I believe Sarah has made such a big deal with 3's for a reason. Do you guys remember that scene in mist and fury where Mor (whose power is truth) painted the 3 sisters and 3 brothers on the wall in the cabin? That meant something. Mor's reaction to almost every Elriel interaction means something just like it did with Nesta and Cassian. Azriel being able to smell Elain's mating bond and questioning the cauldron means something. The sisters being Made means something. The fact that the cauldron was messed with means something.

Anyways, these are my thoughts. Sorry that this is so long. Please be kind.

#acotar #elain archeron #elriel #acotar 5 #vassien #azriel shadowsinger #pro elriel #lucien vanserra #vassa acotar #nesta archeron #feysand #pro elain archeron #anti g*ynriel #anti el*cien

[nathaslosthershit]

A lovesick girl calling her tired brother

Mat Barzal x Hughes!sister AU

Summary: After such a wonderful night with Mat, Birdie needs someone to talk to someone, and seeing as most of her friends are probably asleep…

Link to rest of AU

She let out a giggle, like an actual giggle. Alone, in her very dark apartment. She felt so happy that she was giggling. God, this was a feeling she could get used to. 

Birdie needed to talk to someone or else she was not going to get any sleep. But looking at the time, 2:53 am, she knew she wasn’t getting through to anyone. At least not without causing a panic. But as she sat, still in the dark, and watched it turn 3 am, she decided to call the one person that may be annoyed she is calling, but will always pick up. 

And after two rings, he answered. 

“It is midnight here. That's like what, 3 for you? Why are you up and calling me?” Her younger brother, Quinn, asked.

“Please I just had the most amazing night and everyone is asleep. But if you are so annoyed I am sure Trevor would love to talk with-”

“No. I’m sorry, please do not call that idiot. I seriously don’t know why you like him so much.”

“You know why I love him and that is off topic. Can I please just explain what I have been doing for the past few hours?”

“Go ahead.”

From deciding to go up and talk to Mat, to him kissing her cheek before she walked back to her apartment, Birdie left out very few details of her encounter with him. Well, except for one very important detail. 

“So who is this guy?” Quinn asks, smiling. It is nice to hear his older sister so happy. And despite what he is letting on, he is thrilled she decided to call him instead of her friends or their younger brothers… or, god forbid, Trevor Zegras. 

But just as she goes to quickly explain that hockey players are still not her type, and yes she knows she has dated a few too many for that to be true, and yes this man is in fact a hockey player, she decided against it. Maybe a little mystery wouldn’t be so bad. 

“Nope, I am keeping this one to myself for now. If it goes anywhere then maybe you will get to know.” “Come on, dude. You just spent the past 30 minutes talking about how you met ‘the most beautiful man in the world who is definitely your soulmate” and now you are saying it might not go anywhere? Give me a break.”

“I am saying I don’t want to get my hopes up. I am seeing you in a few months. Maybe I'll let you know then if you aren’t annoying about it.”

“Bullshit but alright.”

“I should go its almost 4. Thanks for talking, Quinn.”

“You are welcome. I’m glad you are so happy about this guy. Love and miss you.”

“Love and miss you too.”

“And please never call Trevor over m-” She hung up before he could berate her very dear and close friend. 

She wasn’t going to get any sleep. Not when she had so much more of the dreamlike night to go over in her head again, and again. Birdie hoped that Mat was awake doing the same.

And he was. 

Taglist: @tpwkstiles

#nhl imagine #quinn hughes x reader #mat barzal x reader #Birdie Hughes au ☀️

[drchucktingle]

DECONSTRUCTING DAMASCUS #2

hello buckaroos welcome back to deconstructing damascus where i will be talkin on THEMES and hidden secrets in my dang horror novel CAMP DAMASCUS. as with previous post, this talk will have HUGE SPOILERS so i recommend not reading until you have had a chance to read camp damascus. if you are curious about this way and are thinkin 'oh ill just take a buckaroo peek' then i will say again DO NOT. trust me bud, camp damascus has a lot of mystery to unfold and it is best to go in without knowing anything

THAT being said if you have already read the book and want to dive in then here we go. i will post previous edition of DECONSTRUCTING DAMASCUS below so you can catch up if you have not read the first post yet

DECONSTRUCTING DAMASCUS #1

(EDIT: PART 3 IS HERE)

(EDIT: PART 4 IS HERE)

okay now that is out of the way LETS TROT. big warning there are HUGE SPOILERS BELOW this line you have been warned buckaroo

DECONSTRUCTING DAMASCUS #2: CASTING SHADOWS

previously we talked about way peter pan folklore is sometimes used as allegory running through this story, and before we move on i would like to discuss ONE PARTICULAR aspect of this allegory. last time i gave many examples, but i left a big one off because it is SO IMPORTANT and i wanted to talk about it as its own separate post

in story of peter pan there is classic scene of peter wrestling his shadow. the shadow is both separate entity and the same person, and eventually peter reattaches the shadow to his feet and regains control

in CAMP DAMASCUS shadows are used throughout the whole book, but the metaphor is basically the same: control. more specifically, the trot of shadows is a representation of AGENCY

when we first see PACHID she has all of the control. she is standing in the living room BATHED IN SHADOW. this position of power is where she emerges from

halfway through camp damascus, when roses HEROIC TURN happens and she starts fighting back, there is a scene where SHE TOO wrestles with her own shadow and reattaches it to herself. this is point in the story where rose is reclaiming her agency

but honestly most important thing you need to know about shadows involves OTHER question about camp damascus. question i KNEW WOUlD BE COMING but decided to chart my own path for the sake of art.

when writing book, chuck knew that ending would seem abrupt to some and that it might bother some buckaroos, but artistically speaking this story HAS TO END WHERE IT DOES. because this is not just a story about rose so much as it is a story about ROSES AGENCY. THAT IS THE JOURNEY.

to unlock the secret of WHY camp damascus ends exactly where it does and WHAT it means, all you have to do is ONE SIMPLE TRICK. get up and trot over to get your copy of camp damascus, we can do this together. NO JOKE BUCKAROO go get your dang book.

got it? good job bud. here we go

read the last sentence of the book

now immediately go back and read the first sentence

#deconstructing damascus #spoilers

[sillyyuserr]

Another mini terukane analysis :P

so we’ve all seen the picture of teru’s hand on akane’s head right? Seen it, loved it, yadayada

but if you actually look into it, this is so cute.

i mean for one, thats his sword hand. From previous panels we’ve seen him use his right hand on his sword. While he is pictured with it in his left, when he actually fights, its in his right (old vs recent)

“what about that being his sword hand” well, if you couldnt tell, theres a literal demon right infront of them, so he must be on high guard right? nope its in his left LMAO

His better/dominant/more skilled hand is in the most gentlest way, comforting akane, rather than fighting the little shit off. Almost saying, he’s more important right now, akane’s comfort is more important than his own safety, reserving his better hand for him, rather than the stupid demon thing

then after he hits it, it shatters to glass, fading away. His face changes to that of a worried expression, and quickly turns around, takes akane by the little of his shirt he has left, and starts dragging him

Clearly doesn’t give him any time to react, seemingly extremely worried ab something. but as the chapter progresses, we see supernaturals fading away such as hanako, and mitsuba. The bells signaling the start of the severance

We can obviously put two and two together and realize teru thought akane was gonna fade away 😭 MANS WAS SO WORRIED

He was happy to leave aoi, defenseless, alone, in a realm he cannot reach, surrounded by countless evil entities, with very little time to save her, while she was clearly extremely unstable, with his only way of knowing if she dissipated or not being a little bell bracelet that he doesn’t even wear

yet he immediately turned around, full on dragged him/gave him ZERO time to get up, rushed him to the clock keepers asap without even time for akane to react or anything. Like gosh dude can you be more obvious.

him being that worried about akane is so interesting to me, because like, why? Shouldnt he hate him for liking his so called “crush” (aoi). Since he’s planning on going back and saving aoi why cant he just get akane when he’s going back for aoi? Why go through the effort? Lets think of a few reasons why

Reason 1. Calling back to when he stopped them from kissing, he mightve realized if he’s alone with her there, they’d sit on the train and bam they’re dead, gone forever.

Reason 2. Maybe he at one point, had the idea of overall just leaving her there. Giving her the bell bracelet as a false sense of hope so he doesn’t seem like a bad person. And if akane’s sent there, he has to get him, and of course they’ll be together there so he’ll have to get aoi aswell. Why he might want to leave aoi? No clue but its an idea that came to mind so i put it down

Reason 3. Maybe he cant do it alone. He’s always been the “i fight alone” type, but when akane’s there he’s never fighting alone. So maybe he doubts his ability to save her by himself, and wants akane by his side throughout the whole thing

Reason 4. Maybe he just cares about him and/or maybe might like him a little more than he should

i wanna write one ab what happened with teru + akane JUST before the severance SO BAD THERES LITERALLY SM I HAVE TO SAY but i lost all motivation and there being too much is both good and bad 😭 (bad as in im too lazy to do it)

#terukane #real #tbhk #aidairo #aoi akane #minamoto teru #analysis

[skiller0dani]

The Noble House of Gaunt | Ominis Gaunt

M A S T E R L I S T Other Masterlist Harry Potter Masterlist

angst | slytherin!reader requests info w.c | 4.9k summary | An unexpected visit proves to Ominis that as long as you, a Muggle, love him...you'll never be safe.

Alexa play Ready to Run by One Direction & All I want by Kodaline.

My Aunt Tara passed away from cancer in December, so I chose to name your characters Aunt after her. Love you Aunt Tara.

Part 2 | Part 3 | Blurb

Ominis always knew that being with you would put you in danger, with him being who he is and you being who you are. Blood status has never mattered to him, he knew you were a Muggle before you presented a magical ability when you turned 15. He knew you knew nothing of magic before coming to Hogwarts, and he didn't care. He had every intention of keeping his distance when you were sorted into Slytherin- as he did with most people. Ominis has a reputation among most of the students who attend Hogwarts. They knew who his family was, knew that they did to Muggles. He was ashamed to have their name.

The only two people who didn't flinch away from Ominis in the hallway's or duck into empty corridors to avoid him were Sebastian and Anne. The siblings he desperately wished he had instead of the family he was stuck with. It was halfway through First Year when Ominis stopped going home, and yes he had received more than a few Howlers from his Mother as a result. By the time they were in Second Year, most Slytherin students had dropped all misconceptions of Ominis, the rest of the school remained wary however. He didn't blame them.

Ominis had planned on keeping his friend circle fairly small, he wanted to pass through Hogwarts as small and unseen as he could. He spent most of his time with the Twins, and Imelda occasionally. He spent 4 uneventful years at Hogwarts, save for Anne getting cursed by the Goblins. As soon as Sebastian lost his Twin, he became obsessed with curing her. His obsession was slowly leading him towards the Dark Arts and down a path Ominis wasn't sure he could follow. His already small social circle seemed to keep shrinking and there was nothing he could do about it. It was a maddeningly helpless feeling, although not one Ominis was unfamiliar with.

Being born blind meant Ominis was born at a disadvantage. He was behind most of his pupils and that meant he had to work doubly hard to catch up. Learn how to do things differently, and it was important for Ominis to be independent. He was determined to figure things out on his own, he was nobodies burden and often rejected help if it was offered to him. Maybe it's because he's stubborn, maybe it's because Ominis has a hard time trusting other people. His Mother drug him all across England in search for anything that could cure his blindness, but time and time again his Mother was told there was nothing that could be done for him. That perhaps if his family hadn't partaken in incestuous habits, then Ominis wouldn't have been born with this defect. Hearing that made Ominis hate his family all the more, he's blind and they are to blame. Paying the price for a choice he never made, it wasn't fair.

By the time Ominis turned 11, he had received his Hogwarts letter and went to get his very own wand. Apparently the wand that chose Ominis had been sitting on the shelf untouched for many many years, harshly rejecting any that attempted to buy it. It was meant for you boy Mr. Ollivander had told him. The wand chooses the wizard, that much Ominis knew. His wand was different, even Mr. Ollivander seemed in awe of the bond between Ominis and his wand. His wand became his eyes, it helped him navigate the world, and every spell he cast would hit its target. The wand would help correct Ominis's aim, would pulse if he were about to bump into something. His wand began to feel like a friend. Ominis was very excited about his wand, his Mother was less so. She wanted her son to be perfect, not blind with a wonky wand.

Going to Hogwarts felt like a blessing, he could spend 10 beautiful months away from his family. Luckily Ominis's older siblings had all graduated by the time he started Hogwarts, he only shared one year with his older brother Marvolo who was a 7th Year when Ominis started. After he graduated Ominis knew he was finally free, and for once he felt like happiness was finally possible despite the horrors he endured during his childhood. Then he met you, and so many things seemed to fall into place.

He originally met you through Sebastian, who you'd beaten in a duel on your first day. He was rather prickly when you first met Ominis, but Sebastian reassured you that Ominis is like that with everybody. You made it a personal goal to break down Ominis's walls, his heart was more well guarded than Azkaban. But unfortunately for him you were never one to back down from a challenge, and you knew there was something about Ominis you were helplessly drawn to. You spent nearly every waking moment with Ominis, well when you weren't running around crypts with Sebastian.

You spent a lot of time reading to Ominis, and while he didn't need your help reading he liked the sound of your voice. He read braille books, and Madam Scribner had been more than gracious enough to order over 150 braille books specifically for Ominis, seeing as he was the only blind student attending Hogwarts. But sitting down in front of the fireplace with you while the soft sound of your voice read whatever book you were reading aloud was addicting. Sitting close enough to smell the scent of your shampoo, the strawberry tarts you so loved, the smell of old parchment as you flipped through the book. Ominis was developing feelings for you before he had a chance to stop it. By the end of 5th Year, the two of you were inseparable.

Then he learned you were Muggle born, though it wasn't something you were trying to hide. You never mentioned it before because nobody had ever asked. You lived with your Muggle Aunt before coming to Hogwarts, both of your parents had been killed when you were a small child. Perhaps that's why you bonded with Sebastian so quickly. To say that Ominis was panicked when he learned of your blood status was an understatement. What if his parents found out he was dating a Muggle? What would they do to you? He couldn't care less what they thought of him, what they did to him. All that mattered to Ominis was you.

"You sure you're okay?" You ask Ominis again, bumping your nose tenderly against his. Something you learned about Ominis after you started dating him is that physical touch is very important to him. He always has to be touching you in some way, holding your hand, pressing his forehead against yours, light kisses when nobody is looking. Besides his super sonic hearing, touch was one of his strongest senses. It's how he navigated the world, through touch and after you got together you'd allowed Ominis to run his hands over your body. His fingers gently feeling out the shape of your face, down your arms and across your back. Goosebumps had risen on your skin, and your face flushed hotly. If Ominis could see, then he would have known where your thoughts traveled to as he innocently felt the shape of your body. All he was trying to do was get a sense of what you looked like, to picture every curve of your body the best he could. You were head over heels for him, no doubt about it.

"Yes of course, couldn't sleep last night is all." Ominis answered, his chest warming as you gently nuzzled your nose against his. You leaned forward to tenderly press your lips against his, your hand squeezing his before you stood from the couch. The common room was bustling with people, Ominis was a tad overwhelmed with so much noise. Large groups of people are when Ominis struggled the most, his hearing was very sensitive and listening to so many people talk at once was sometimes disorienting. Which is why he spent so much time tucked away in the abandoned corners of the castle, where everything was soft and quiet. He could no longer feel the heat of your body pressed against his, you hadn't even said goodbye yet and he already missed you.

"Gotta go meet Imelda, wants my help preparing for Quidditch tryouts- y'know now that Black has finally lifted the ban. See you at lunch!" You explain, pressing a kiss to the top of his head before he hears your footsteps heading towards the stairs. Ominis sat on the couch, nervously fiddling with his fingers before he finally stood. He thought about finding Sebastian, but he wasn't quite ready to forgive him for the events of last year. Anne is still utterly devastated, and Ominis felt a pang of guilt when he thought of Anne. He had gone to check on her during the break between 5th Year and 6th Year, and she had confessed to having feelings for Ominis. He remembered his cheeks burning all the way to the tips of his ears as he stammered out that he'd been dating you for a few weeks already. He'll never forget how Anne deflated, how he had caused it. He felt awful about it for days.

Instead of looking for his used to be best friend, he decided to take a stroll along the castle grounds. It was nice outside, you had told him. The sun was out and the breeze was light and warm, and sometimes being outside helped clear his head. You still hung out with Sebastian, you cared for him which worried Ominis at first. He never thought of himself as the jealous type but seeing you spend so much time with Sebastian genuinely worried him. Until you reassured him with a kiss that Sebastian was practically your brother. You were an only child, had no extended family beyond your Aunt Tara. Ominis didn't like to admit it, but he often felt inadequate compared to other guys. He had a defect...he was defective. He knew you'd scold him heavily for ever thinking of himself in that way but its true. Sebastian had described you to him during 5th Year, and Ominis so wished he could see your radiant beauty he'd heard so much about from other people.

You usually reminded him that he could see a beauty in you that nobody else could see. Told him he could see into your soul, that he could see what truly mattered. That usually made him feel better.

Ominis stepped through the front doors, thanking the person who had held the doors open for him. It was easy for other people to assume that Ominis couldn't do basic things, like figuring out how to open a door. He reveled in proving them wrong. He felt the warm breeze you described to him, and would respond with a smile as people greeted him. The rest of the school had warmed up to Ominis considerably after discovering that he was dating the 'Hero of Hogwarts'. You made every part of his life better. Although it was slightly irritating having to converse with people so often, they felt the need to incessantly talk to him. He wasn't trying to be rude, he just preferred to keep to himself. Oh come on Ominis, don't be like that. He can hear your gentle scolding in his head, so he continued to smile politely every time someone said hello.

"Hello Ominis dear, I've been looking everywhere for you." A smooth voice spoke calmly from in front of him, and Ominis prickled at the sound of her voice.

"M-Mother?" He stammered, he suddenly felt very small and helpless. The hand holding up his wand dropped limply at his side, his entire body was shaking from head to toe. Why is she here? What could she possibly want? There's no way she found out about you...no this can't be happening.

"It's been a long time Ominis, you wouldn't be avoiding us would you? Your own family..." Her voice was worryingly calm, it put Ominis on edge. He heard the click of her heels as she took a few slow steps forward, her cold finger running along his jaw.

"I've heard some troublesome rumors Ominis, troublesome enough to warrant a visit." The venom was beginning to seep into her tone now, but she was still far too calm. There must be people around.

"I've heard you've found a special someone, and you didn't tell your own Mother. Ominis I thought I raised you better than that...consorting with a Mudblood. You haven't mated with it have you?" She asked, tutting at him. Her finger turned his jaw up, forcing him to face her. She stared into his glassy eyes, fogged over and covering the beautiful blue of his eyes. She could see the fear in his face, could feel his body trembling. It brought a smile to her face. Ominis's chest tightened, she is here because of you. If Mother is here, then so is Father and likely so is Marvolo. He had always done all he could to please his parents, he was just as evil as they were- if not worse. His other siblings were likely off causing strife and misery elsewhere.

"I...we-" Ominis stammered, his voice shaking. He needed to somehow convince her the rumors were wrong. He wasn't dating a Muggle, no no the rumors were wrong. That's the only hope you have of being safe. "No, no I'm not seeing anyone."

"Don't lie to me you pathetic child." She snapped, her nails digging into the skin of his neck. He's sure her other hand is curled around her wand, the spell he's the most afraid of dancing on the tip of her tongue.

Crucio.

His heart drops into his stomach, he loves you. That was incredibly selfish of him, he put you in danger every time he spoke to you, held you, kissed you and yet he continued to do it. He couldn't stay away, you made his life so much better. He should have stayed away.

"The Mudblood has corrupted you Ominis, did you not take pleasure in their screams? You remember don't you Ominis, what it felt like to hurt them." She sneered, a lightness in her tone as she spoke of the torture Ominis tries to desperately to forget. His jaw clenches and his palms twitch every time she calls you a Mudblood. He could never see you that way. His Mother is going to hurt you, and it's because of him. All of this is Ominis's fault.

"As fun as it is to catch up, I'm here to warn you dear. In 5 days I will return with your Father and your dear brother Marvolo. You have until then to severe all ties to this Mudblood, or we will deal with her ourselves. I don't like you'll approve of our methods of removal." She explained, turning Ominis's blood to ice. Crucio. He can't let that happen to you, he can't. The thought of breaking up with you made him feel nauseous, but the alternative is much much worse. Her hand ran along his cheek, feigning the touch of a loving Mother. She leaned down to press her cold lips to his forehead.

"Don't disappoint me again Ominis, or your precious little Mudblood will pay the price. I do wonder what beautiful screams we can pull from her lips..." She muses before the air changes and she's gone. Ominis slowly crumples to the ground, tears falling from his eyes. Sometimes he thinks it would have been easier if he'd never been born.

When lunch time came around, you looked around the Great Hall for Ominis but couldn't see him anywhere. You feel a pang of anxiety in your chest as you hesitantly sit with Imelda, your eyes glued to the doors, hoping you'll see him. Ominis is never late, never keeps you waiting. He always meets you when he says he will, always. So the fact that you're nearly halfway through lunch and you still don't see him is making you panic. Imelda eyes you curiously, at first you hated Imelda. She was unbearable and rude to you but once you'd beaten her fastest times she softened. She's become one of your closest friends, as has Poppy. Imelda watches you nervously chew on your cheek, your eyes still searching for him.

"What's wrong with you?" She asks, watching your distracted eyes flicker to her for a second.

"Ominis, he isn't here." You say nervously, forking another bite of mashed potatoes into your mouth.

"I'm sure he's fine. He's smart, and he wouldn't put himself in any danger." She tries her best to reassure you, but you're not really listening. You wait a few more minutes before you're standing from the table and heading back to the common room as fast as you can. You don't know why you're so worried, surely him forgetting this once doesn't mean something bad has happened. He's fine you know he is, and yet your heart will not stop hammering against your ribcage. Your palms are shaking as you push the doors to the common room open, you will tear this entire castle apart to find him if you have to. Ominis is easily the most punctual person you know, never late to classes, turns in assignments on time, and always meets you when he says he will. Always.

You find him sitting in front of the fireplace, his shoulders slumped and traces of dried tears on his cheeks. Your entire body tenses, panic crawling up your neck. Something happened, something bad. Ominis never shuts down like this, and he never shuts you out but now...you feel like a wall has been built between you two. You can't read him as easily as you could before, he's retreating from you and you don't know why. He can hear you before you sit next to him, can smell the sweet scent of the shampoo you use. You always smell like sweets and flowers, he's going to miss that.

"Ominis, my love what's wrong? You didn't meet me for lunch..." You ask hesitantly, reaching for his hand. He doesn't say anything, doesn't turn his head at the sound of your voice like he usually does. Ominis knows that if he speaks, the only thing he will say is going to break your heart- and his own. He has no choice, but he wants to put it off as long as he can. He feels you reaching for his hand and he lets you take it. He wants to feel the warmth of your skin, of your love, until he can't anymore.

"Ominis please talk to me, you're scaring me." You plead, and he can hear the emotion in your voice. You try in vain to keep the tears at bay, but they continue to fall every time you blink. Something really bad happened, you can see how shaken up he is. Please don't push me away you beg in your head, screaming it so loud hoping somehow he will hear it. He won't even move, his gaze downturned and his entire body slumped against the couch. Who did this to him? You feel anger surge through you, somebody hurt him. Somebody did this to him.

"I can't see you anymore." The words are whispered so quietly you almost miss them. But as soon as he says it, he's pulling his hand from your grasp.

Wait, what?

"Ominis..." You trail off, you feel frozen. Your heart is breaking and you can swear you feel the pain of it. He turns his head away from you, building his wall brick by brick, the wall you spent so much time tearing down. You need to know what happened, everything was fine this morning.

"Why?" Your voice sounds so small, so broken, nothing like the strong girl he's come to love. He hates that he's doing this to you, but then Ominis can hear the echoing screams of the Muggle's his family has tortured in his head. Reminding him why he's doing this, why he has to push you away. Why he needs to make sure you stay away.

"I'm better alone, I always have been." Ominis says, keeping his voice void of emotion. Maybe that used to be true, but it isn't anymore. He knows he's going to be lost without you, but he needs to keep you safe. He has to. He stands from the couch, keeping his back turned to you. Ensuring you can't see how broken he is, how much this hurts him too.

"No, I deserve a better explanation than that. There's more to it Ominis, tell me the truth." You plead, voice wavering as tears continue to cascade down your face. He can't tell you, he wants to but he can't. He doesn't want you to be afraid, but more importantly he wants you to stay away from him. If he tells you the truth... you'll try to help him. Try to protect him, you'll stay with him regardless of the danger.

So when you say, "have you found someone else?"

He doesn't deny it, he simply nods. He could never find someone who could compete with you. Nobody on this useless planet could ever come close, but if you believe he's a scumbag who cheated on you then you'll definitely stay away. Which is what will keep you safe. He can hear you gasp, as if he's wounded you. In a way, he has. Your hand clutches your chest, feeling it tighten. You never thought Ominis was capable of...of this. Of hurting you in this way, you trusted him. All this time he's been falling in love with some other girl, holding your hand while thinking of her. You feel sick, so sick you can't stand to be around him any longer. You turn and rush up the stairs to your dorm room, slamming the door shut behind you. Ominis hears you leave and he slumps against the couch again.

He hates himself, and he loves you. Not like it matters anymore.

The next 5 days were spent with you actively avoiding Ominis whenever you saw him in the common room or hallway. You barely ate, hardly left your dorm except to go to classes. You spent most of your time crying or sleeping. Imelda tried to talk to you, but you always brushed her off. She even tried reaching out to Ominis but got nearly the exact same response. You told her what Ominis said, that there was somebody else but she thinks that's a load of crap. For the last few days, Ominis has been sulking around doing the same thing you were doing. Not eating, not leaving his dorm and going to classes. If there was somebody else, wouldn't he be with her? Not sitting in the common room with a kicked puppy look on his face?

Imelda couldn't even bring herself to be angry with Ominis because anybody with at least 1 working braincell could tell that Ominis most certainly didn't cheat on you. There's more to this, she knows there is and for your sake she wants to find out what's going on. He's never been seen with anybody else, doesn't really have friends except the Twins and he hadn't even been seen with Sebastian lately either...an idea struck Imelda then.

Sebastian!

If anybody could find out what's going on in Ominis's head, it's Sebastian. Last she saw he was heading towards the Library, so Imelda stands and exits the common room, finally leaving Ominis alone. He knows it's nearly time for his wonderful family to drop in and make sure he's taken care of the...problem. So he stands and straightens his cloak and does his best to look like he isn't stuck in the deep pits of depression. If he looks heartbroken they'll know you matter to him, and they'll punish you for it. He hears your cries every time he wanders by your dorm, he knows you never leave the dorm, knows you're barely eating. Its beginning to scare him, he doesn't want you to hurt yourself because you're so heartbroken. Ominis never meant to hurt you, he wished he could tell you that.

Imelda finally found Sebastian tucked away in the upper levels of the Library, sitting near one of the windows with a book he isn't reading in his hand. She quickly makes her way towards him, plopping herself down in one of the chairs next to him before he could protest. One of his brows raised in surprise, his expression apprehensive. Imelda never talks to him.

"Imelda." He says simply, his eyes turning to his book.

"I need your help." She says simply, causing Sebastian to look back up at her, signaling that he's listening.

"Ominis broke up with Y/N, and they're both totally devastated. He said it was because he met someone else but I think he's lying to cover something else up." Imelda rushes out, causing Sebastian to finally put his book down. Sebastian's eyebrows pull together, met someone else? No way.

"Ominis practically hates everybody except for Y/N and Anne so its unlikely that he met someone else. Why do you think I can help?" He asks, he wants to help. He loves Ominis, he's practically Sebastian's brother and you're practically his sister. He cant sit around and do nothing while you're both suffering. But he doesn't think Ominis will want to speak to him right now... not after last year.

"Uh because you're his best friend? Talk to him, please." Imelda asks, her tone pleading. Eventually, Sebastian nods and stands to go find Ominis.

Ominis however is pushing his way out the front doors, making his way through the castle grounds. He isn't sure exactly where his family will meet him, but he's sure it'll be somewhere away from the castle grounds. He continues to walk, his ear straining to hear anything when he hears the familiar sound of someone apparating nearby.

"Hello brother." Marvolo taunted, and Ominis knows Mother and Father are here as well. Ominis's body went rigid, but he did his best to stay calm. As long as he tells them what they want to hear they won't hurt you.

"Marvolo." Ominis's tone is clipped and he hears a chuckle from behind him.

"Come now Ominis, don't be like that." His Father says, his words mirroring your own and causing a pang of pain through his heart. A hand is placed on his shoulder, icy cold.

"Hello dear, have you handled your little problem?" Mother asks, running her hands along his shoulders and he can feel her breath fanning on his neck. She must be leaning close to his ear from behind him.

"Yes Mother I have." Ominis forces his voice to sound certain and unwavering. He can't allow any emotion in his voice or on his face when he talks about you.

"And how do you feel now my darling?" There's that tone again, the tone she only uses when he's said something that makes her happy. When he's being the cruel boy she expects him to be.

"Much better, you were right all along about her." Ominis says simply, feeling sullen and dejected. Her hands cup his face, forcing his head up to look at her.

"Your face looks sunken in dear, have you been well?" His Mother asks, although Ominis knows she doesn't really care.

"Yes Mother, quite." He responds robotically, and it seems to be enough to satisfy her. A groan comes from Marvolo, who's crossed his arms like a pouting child.

"Does that mean we don't get to torture the Mudblood?" He asks, sounding genuinely put off.

"Oh hush now Marvolo, we shall find another for you to play with on our way home. Care to join us Ominis?" His Mother scolds lightly, her tone gentler when she addresses Ominis. He feels his stomach turn.

"No Mother, too many assignments I'm afraid." He says calmly, hoping she accepts his no and lets him go. Please just go.

"Very well, we will continue to check up on you Ominis. To ensure you don't fall pray to weakness." His Mother says, her voice sharp and dangerous at the end. He merely nods and a few moments later they're gone.

"So that's why you did it." Sebastian says from behind Ominis, causing him to jump slightly.

"I don't know what you mean." Ominis says, his tone turning icy. Sebastian knew he wouldn't be happy to see him.

"Ominis, your family threatened Y/N didn't they?" Sebastian questions, causing Ominis to freeze.

"And what of it? I've dealt with it." Ominis snaps.

"What about Y/N?" He asks, and just hearing your name makes Ominis's heart clench.

"What about her? We're over Sebastian, and that will never change. So long as I'm a Gaunt, she will always be in danger. We can never be together, I should have known that." Ominis says bitterly.

"That's not true, if you love her then-"

"Then what Sebastian? Sometimes when you love somebody, you have to make sacrifices. Not like you would know anything about that." Ominis snaps, his shoulders rigid. He turns and makes a beeline for the castle, leaving Sebastian standing in the courtyard.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

#ominis gaunt #ominis x reader #ominis gaunt x reader #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy spoilers #angst #breakup angst

[fangirldreams101]

Coming Home pt. 1

DBF! Daryl, Rick, Negan, and Shane x F!Reader

You come to your dad's hometown for college and meet some very very attractive individuals.

TW: None for this chapter (I think?)

pt. 2

Your mom and dad met in college up in Washington and ended up having you as an accident. They tried to create a happy household for you to grow up in but they soon realized that a one night stand was not a good base for a sudden marriage and decided to part ways. While you and your mom stayed up in Washington, your Dad went back down south to his hometown near Atlanta, where you would go and visit him for the summers and holidays. Eventually, it was decided that the trip back and forth was too taxing for you especially for the important high school years, but you wanted to spend college in Georgia so it was decided that your mom would get you for 4 years, and your dad would get you for the next 4. Holidays were shared and you would always call and chat. As unorthodox as this may all sound, you had a great relationship with your parents, so you were excited to spend the time with your dad.

You drove down with all of your stuff for college packed into your car. It was an old piece of junk but your mom was a mechanic so she managed to prolong its life as long as possible. You arrived in your dad's town and decided you should pick up some of his favorite foods as a gift. Pulling into a neighborhood grocery lot, you noticed some shady looking guys leaning against their motorcycles and arguing. Deciding to ignore it, you parked and grabbed a few bags to carry your items in. Spotting one of the arguing men, you took note of his fun vest, angels wings sewn on it. He was rugged looking, and if he wasn't yelling right now, you would have thought he was rather attractive. You didn't pay much attention to the actual words being exchanged, just enjoying the view as you made your way inside the store. After grabbing a couple of things, you made your way to the home supplies aisle, looking to see if they had the wrench your dad mentioned needing in passing on your last phone call.

"Dang, only one left, talk about lucky," you said, dropping it into your cart before continuing to browse.

Suddenly, you see the man in the vest from before make his way around the corner, grumbling under his breath. He stopped a little way from you as you pretended to not pay attention to him, his eyes sharply moving from object to object.

"Where the 'ell is it," he grumbled, "he said it'd be here."

At this point you were pretending to read the back of a glue stick, wanting to watch the ruggedly handsome man for just a little longer. He called a clerk over, and his next words made you perk up.

"'Ey, do ya know if ya have anymore of these wrenches?" He motioned towards the exact spot you grabbed your own from.

"‘m sorry, sir," the teen clerk said, "that was our last one."

"Mind checkin' in the back fer me-" the man began to say before you practically bounded over.

"I'm so sorry," you practically purred, "I couldn't help but overhear about what you needed. Would you like mine?"

You fished out the wrench from your cart and handed it over to the man that caught your eye.

The man looked at you, briefly glancing down subtly before his eyes darted back up, "Ya don' wan' it?"

"No, it's okay," you smile up at him through your lashes, "Seems like you need it a bit more."

“Uh, alrigh'," he stutters under your gaze- you look so young -and he twists the packaging around in his clasp, "I can, uh, get ya sumn for the trouble?"

You perk up even more at the prospect of getting to know him a bit more, "Oh you don't have to!"

"Oh okay then, thank ya," he nodded, turning around and not seeing how your eyes widened that he didn't seem to catch the hint.

"Um! If you'd like to make it up to me, could I have your number?" you decided to make the leap.

You would never have been so bold back in Washington, but everyone was kind of ugly back there anyways. Not to mention that college was supposed to be the time for fun and adventure and the man before you was pretty darn hot. Seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Daryl Dixon had a damn near heart attack at your words. Such a young, pretty thing like yourself was not only giving him the time of day, but was actively showing interest in him? This had to be some kind of joke Merle put you up to. There was no way someone who looked like you would ever be into someone like him. An old, worn down hillbilly.

"Sorry, kid," he shakes his head, looking at you and trying to ignore the fire that lights in him and the way your lips form a small pout.

He quickly walks away, feeling a blush begin to heat up his ears and he speed walks to the checkout aisle.

"Aw man," you mutter underneath your breath. It was a good shot at least. You also made your way to the checkout aisle after grabbing a few more things, the man that caught your eye nowhere in sight. He must've left already. Such a shame.

Getting back to your car, you made your way to your Dad's house, the earlier rejection from the hot looking man now pushed to the back of your mind. Pulling up to the classic suburban looking house, you spot a familiar looking motorcycle parked in front of the garage. Parking, your notice your dad and the man in the vest from before conversing.

You hop out, carrying your offerings to them, "Hello!"

Your dad spun around with a huge smile on his face, "Sweetheart!"

He bounded over, crushing you in a hug before pulling away, "Why are you carrying so many things? Let me help!"

Your dad picked up some things from your straining arms before seeming to remember his guest, "Oh! Daryl! Let me introduce you to my daughter!"

You gave a coy smile at Daryl, introducing yourself, "Nice to meet you sir.”

Daryl felt his heart drop at the word, 'daughter', "Um, yeah nice to meet you to."

He turned to your dad, "Hey, listen, I just wan'ed to give ya that wrench ya had been hunting for the past few days," he set it down on your dad's workshop table in the garage, "I actually have ta, uh, head on home now. Bye."

Your dad and you watched him scurry away.

"Huh, haven't seen him act like that before," your dad mused, causing a wicked grin to light up your face before dropping it as he turned back to you, "I'll invite him and a few other buds of mine over for dinner some time so you can know who your old man is hanging out with."

"Sounds good," you smiled, thoughts of Daryl running through your mind.

#daryl x reader #the walking dead daryl #twd daryl #daryl x you #daryl dixon #daryl fanfiction #daryl dixon x reader #x reader

[desktop-writes]

Static on the Screen | 01

--A Lack of Backup--

<|AO3|Gala Au|SotS|>

(<- Part 2 of 14 ->)

[_|2|3|4|5|6]

{TW: N/A}

[Words : 1,736]

*Note: For any overarching triggers, please click on the Gala Au tab at the top. For warnings regarding this specific fic, please click on the SotS tab.*

Sometimes there’s a moment where you know things will never be the same. A turning point in a person’s life, if you will. It could be as monumental as the moment of the wrongful death of a loved one, leading to an obsession to right the wrong that had happened. It could also be something as trivial as bumping into a person at a coffee shop, leading to finding the love of one’s life. For Barbara Gordon, it was a simple click on a link.

It had started a week ago. Three meta-humans had attacked Jason, Cass, and Damian while on patrol. Seeing as all three family members had some connection to the League of Assassins, the first idea was that they were assassins. The fact that they seemed to glow a Lazarus Green color only provided more evidence for that theory. But as soon as someone verbally confronted them, the theory crumbled under its weight.

“They had called themselves Ghosts,” Cass had signed with their face screwed in confusion. They had emphasized the last word, marking it as important. The rest of the night hadn’t given her much besides debunking the Assassin theory. While she couldn’t do groundwork anymore, she is still one of the if not the best, digital detective on the team. She had made a file and labeled it accordingly, then she had started her search with the keyword ‘Ghost’.

It had taken her 2 days between her day job and getting roughly 3 hours of sleep to find what might have been a lead. A self-published research paper by the Drs. Fenton titled ‘Effective Warding Techniques Against Ghosts’. Barbara had spent 3 hours reading the paper, scanning every detail for information. She could barely find anything useful at the end of those three hours. A lot of it was opinions worded through a scientific lens and not actual scientific facts.

Spurred on by the lack of information, she searched for other papers in their names. Yet, the majority of it was filled with the same content. Descriptions of creatures in agony while being remarked as'manipulative' and ‘non-feeling’ by the two doctors. She knew this needed to be brought up to Bruce and the Justice League as a whole, but she needed more information for the presentation. Thankfully, she had the next day off, and she began a more detailed search of the doctors.

They had documents claiming them to be doctors, with Madeline and Jack both holding doctorates in biology and master's in engineering with minors in Supernatural Studies, but she couldn't find any records of their college days. A handful of papers referenced in the other self-published research papers had Vlad Masters as another co-author, but that dropped after Vlad’s accident. That set off alarm bells in her detective sense, allowing her to dive deeper into her research.

She was nearing the end of her research binge on the doctors and was gearing towards Vlad Masters when she spotted a weirdly named Web link on the last page of her search engine of choice. Thinking it was something similar to the doctor’s papers, she clicked on the link. While it wasn’t another research paper, it was something that grabbed her attention. A halfway-done website wouldn’t have been published unless they were hiding something, so she opened the source code, hoping to easily crack the passcode and start snooping around in whatever was hidden.

The code was surprising, to say the least. The code itself was the same Lazarus Green color as the Ghosts, changing languages every 7 seconds - yes, she had timed it -, and moving in a scattered pattern. The code fought back as soon as the cursor was placed in the text box, with the creator not far behind. With her getting little sleep and the surprise of the abnormalities in the code, she ended up losing against the person on the other side of the screen. With her loss, her screen turned black with a green I-beam in the left-hand corner. A message was written behind it.

<I don’t recognize your system. Who are you? What is your affiliation>

Barbara looked at the question before checking on the burner phone she had bought for this reason. They hadn’t touched any files, even though they had full access to her civilian computer. She went the complement route and hoped to get more information on what lay ahead.

<It has been a while since someone had bested me. You should be proud.>

<I will not ask again. Who are you and what is your affiliation?>

Barbara’s hope of the other hackers’ pride getting to them and spilling what they’re hiding diminished with their quick response. She debated her options mentally. She could lean on luck, tell the truth, and hope the person on the other side is an ally in her search. She could also make up a lie and hope they won’t see through it. While she was debating, a new message appeared.

<You have one minute to respond, or else I will destroy your system.>

It seemed the decision was made for her. Even if she were to call their slightly plausible bluff, there were way too many important files on her computer, including the one she was building against the Fentons. Plus, she had yet to receive a notification on her burner phone about a breach.

<I go by the name Oracle while online. My employer may need this information. Can you unlock my computer?>

<Only if I monitor your actions.>

It was a fair request, one she would make in their situation. From their perspective, she was an outsider wanting to look at something personal to them. She could handle a little monitoring if she could find a crack in this case.

<Deal.>

When the black screen disappeared, a light gray followed behind it, giving the website an industrial feel. Black text filled the tabs across the top of the screen, listing labels like 'Ghost Basics’, ‘Rouge Abilities’, and one with a lock emoji, among others. This was a hero database, given the mentions of rouges.

The database belonged to a group of small-town vigilantes, with the person she was conversing with filling in the guy in the chair role. She could tell they were young, with mentions of having to skip class or needing to find an excuse for the team’s main hero, Phantom. Just reading their rouge descriptions, as sloppy as they are compared to the bat’s, she could tell a lot about their team and how they worked.

She kept reading on about the rouges themselves. Even though the pictures were a blurry mess -similar to the stills she had asked Tim to try and clean up -, she could get some information through the written portion of the reports. Everything thing she was learning was leaving her increasingly shaken.

Needing a break from the rouges list, she looks to the Phantom tab to see if the Justice League needs to extend a hand or if they have it under control. She hovered her mouse over Phantom’s tab, only a tab away from the locked emoji. Right before she was about to click, her screen turned black again. Their previous conversation looked back at her, and a slight weight settled on her shoulders. On the other side of the screen was a child.

A child.

A child on an entire team of children being attacked by beings with the power levels of gods; who are being hindered by the very people they protect. At the very least, Robin had Batman, or even their junior teams, if something happened. She looks at the new message.

<Phantom is off-limits.>

She needed to keep the connection. Something is happening in Amity Park. Something big. She can feel it in her bones. Racking her brain for ways to keep the connection, she thought back to how unorganized and messy their reports seemed. Mentorship seemed like a good way to go with the kid.

<Your Phantom’s guy in the chair, right? I can help you with that.>

The next message was apprehensive, much like talking to an Alley kid. She should’ve expected this. She was a stranger who had attempted to hack into their database and then offered help with nothing in return. It had caught their attention, though, which was good enough for her.

<What’s the catch? Nobody would do that for free.>

<You seem to know a lot about Ghosts. We had a few show up in Gotham recently. You help me relay the information to Batman and the others tomorrow, then we can talk about our mentorship.>

It took a few minutes to get a reply, but that was okay. It gave her time to clear off her desk and start getting the papers strewed about in order.

<Let me talk with my team.>

<Take as long as you need.>

She continued cleaning up her apartment while she waited. While it wasn’t trashed, it wasn’t clean either. Taking empty snack bags and water bottles from the top of overflowing trashcans and putting them in a separate bag was repetitive and mind-numbing enough to pass the time. She set the filled bags by the door and rolled back to her desk, pushing the desk chair out of her way. It would be stupid to go out this late. She was finishing organizing the paper notes she took over the three days when she got a response.

<I accept. I am not giving you more access though.>

Her screen returned to normal; the same gray greeted her back. The only change was a small, lime-green chat bubble in the bottom left corner. She spent the next three hours getting a feel for Pharaoh’s setup while gathering more information on the team for her reports. She still had to collect information for the Justice League for them to look at what's happening ground-level. After three hours, she closed the database.

She told the bats, via group chat, that she had found answers to their meta case that needed to be discussed in person tomorrow. After closing the group chat, she checked the locks on the door for the second time that day. Assuring herself it was locked, she wheeled to her bedroom, locked her chair by the bed, and then pulled herself into bed. She went to sleep relatively easy, unknowing of the bombshell that would be dropped tomorrow night.

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

Chapter 2 should be out by the end of next month at the latest.

#dc x dp #dpxdc #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dp x dc fanfic #GalaAU

[daughter-of-prospero]

Jonah Rant

Someone on Youtube reminded me that I rage-typed an essay-length tirade about Jonah Magnus and his status as a certified Bastard Man right after the finale. They asked if there was a chance they could see it, which was a good question because did I even still have it? Turns out: Yes! It’s evidently been chilling in Onedrive for ~2 years. So for those who wish, my thoughts regarding that awful little man are below.

Spoilers for The Magnus Archives.

I went into the finale fully ready to not hear from Jonah again. I thought ‘oh, cosmic horror, as important as he thinks he is, he’s inconsequential and John just zaps him with eye lasers or something’. I didn’t want it per se, but I thought it was plausible.

But no. Oh no. Jonah Magnus speaks again, and he hasn’t been around for all of season 5. We heard him on a recording and we heard him chanting in the background and also all distorted in a job interview flashback, but there has been no actual uncompelled words being spoken by Jonah Magnus in real time since 159.

Yes he wrote the incantation but, rather crucially, he did not read it.

I binged TMA right as it got up to the season 4 finale. I got through season 1 in one day, and season 2 the next, and then got through three and four in the days after that. I caught up just in time for 160 to drop.

So I, foolish, naïve baby that I was, had over a year to forget what this character actually sounded like, and just how much of a slimy, insufferable fucker Jonah Magnus is. Was. Bitch.

I’ve gone into this elsewhere so I won’t belabor it but one of the reasons I’m so viscerally miffed by him is because of every human character in this podcast, he is the only one that is never shown sympathetically. I’m not counting Nikola Orsinov, or NotThems, or other manifestations of the Entities. I mean of the human, or avatar-human characters he is the least grey. Morality in this show is complex and tough to think about in my brain and one of the great ways it does this is through having really layered characters with motivations that are, at least a little, understandable. Jude Perry was a violent, sadistic lady...she was also devoted to Agnes and in some ways I think you could argue they were each other’s only links to humanity until what’s-his-name came along. Coffee shop Himbo guy. Peter Lukas is a misanthrope to the max who will send people into a nether realm if they so much as look at him wrong – which is to say, look at him at all. He was also raised to know nothing but loneliness, and pursuing it was kind of the only way he ever got some sort of approval. Which also manifested as more distance.

We get these little nuggets of what brought a villain where they are now, and we certainly don’t have to excuse them, but we have some context. We have some understanding that there is humanity in there, and that understanding makes them all the more unsettling.

Not fuckin’ Jonah.

What do we know about him? He’s a couple centuries old. Great. He found out about the powers, was drawn to the eye, and decided to start body-hopping to cheat death. He’s been doing this for ages. He tried a ritual and it failed. He took his time then, plotting and planning, and being smug, and finally arriving at a hypothesis that had a lot of credence to it. Everything fell into place, he was right, its all or nothing with the entities but the Eye rules because it opened the door (or WHATEVER).

So his big motivator is he doesn’t want to die.

And you know what, this is super understandable. We don’t know what his childhood was like (Jesus, can you imagine him in a little powder wig, climbing a tree to get a high vantage point to spy on people and get blackmail on them?), but fear of death is almost universal.

And of all the billions of people on this planet, I cannot help but notice that we are not thwarting narcissistic necromancers every fifteen minutes. Because the world would have fucking exploded a long, long time ago if we had more Jonahs in it. i.e. the people who would make aggressive selfishness a full-time occupation.

There’s a sort of cocktail of shit that makes him a memorable baddie not the least of which is that he never even attempts to justify his abhorrent actions. He’s not lying to himself, or anyone else, he’s not serving a cult, or a bunch of worms. He’s in it for himself, and if he has to stack the corpses of every living thing on the planet to reach immortality he’ll fucking do it without hesitation. Couple that with his manipulations, his merciless psychological torture, and a low, smooth voice that is always so infuriatingly composed and you have a Hell of a villain.

(I maintain that one of the reasons he’s so effective is that he enunciates so carefully. He doesn’t run words together, or mumble, he never really raises his voice, he is always in control, and everything is a flex right down to the articulation. I feel like we associate crisp, clear speech with formality, presidential addresses, or theater, things like that. Where you know what you are going to say and so the recitation is more confident. We hear this happen in statements, to a certain extent, but there’s still a lot of emotional range. For 199 episodes we never heard Jonah lose this pointed, smarmy tone. People don’t talk so formally in life, or when they’re talking on the podcast. There is something unsettling and intimidating about hearing such clear and confident speech all the time. It sounds like he knows exactly what to say in any situation. It sounds like he is utterly confident in every word that leaves his mouth. It sounds like he’s in a scene and no one else got the script but him. Because that is kinda what’s going on. At the very least, he thinks that’s what’s going on)

When he drops from wherever he’s suspended in the panopticon, he, you know, sort of makes a noise because that’s gotta be jarring. And we for once, for once, for fucking ONCE hear him even vaguely uncertain. And stupido io, I thought he was finally brought low and we might get a tantrum or something.

But no. Jonah Magnus has a lot of lost time to make up for, it’s been 20 eps since he’s been able to serenade everyone with his unique brand of horny arrogance. This motherfucker has exactly a millisecond of confusion and grogginess before “I was having the most...wonderful dream”. You can hear him edging.

And he’s kiiiiind of surprised to see John by himself with a knife, but still, so blasé, so, ‘oh, is that all?’ He’s a liiiiitle regretful to hear it’s over, but immediately heads into waxing rhapsodic about seeing a thousand lifetimes and the rapture of infinite sight and suffering and other Hellraiser shit when John speaks for all of us and tells him to shut up. Yet another reason to respect him.

And John has a lovely little catharsis where he gets to tell this orchestrator of his despair that Jonah has failed because the Things that Jonah is so devoted to will die a slow death. How long has he been waiting to say that, do you think? I mean at this point there’s nothing that could do what he’s probably feeling justice but he says it himself he gets some satisfaction from “knowing that I’ll be leaving these things that you serve trapped and starving in their own private hell.”

And all Jonah has to say is: “That we serve.” To the bitter, bitter end he is determined to just...okay I was gonna say twist the knife but that seems a bit tasteless now...determined to cause even more hurt. He cannot resist, it’s kind of all he knows. He is at the edge of a cliff and taunting the person that’s about to push him off of it.

And if you ever need a posterchild for ‘hubris’ just pull up a sound clip of Jonah Magnus. He tries to play the old ‘alright, playtime’s over,’ card, brushing the dust and what-the-fuck-ever else off his suit and manipulate John again. He has the...not even audacity, he’s looped back around from being semi-omniscient, to being so confident in that omniscience he thinks he knows everything and therefore acts way more stupidly than someone without that surety. He is enough of a dipshit to try and say to John “we both know you don’t have it in you”.

Motherfucker, what have you been doing for this entire season? What have you been doing this entire show? You have purposefully created someone who has withstood the brunt of every entity and come out more or less intact. You purposefully guided him into honing his powers, and put him in a position where he has nothing to lose. Well, Martin, but Jonah can’t do anything about that. Not anymore. Because the one person who can protect Martin is coincidentally the same person who can, will, and reeeeeally wants to Kill Jonah.

“King of a ruined world and I shall never die” my ass. King? Really? You were a placeholder, my dude. The Eye didn’t give a fuck that you were at the top of the panopticon and it didn’t give a fuck when John pulled you out of it. You said it yourself, dipshit. You might have started the archives, but John IS the archives. He is the only person more powerful than Jonah and Jonah, of all people, should know this. Especially considering you could presumably see John cutting through the domains, dishing out biblical vengeance, on a warpath for your tower.

So of course, he decides to antagonize John even more if that is even possible by telling him they both know he can’t do it.

And John fucking punches him and it’s great. Extended sounds of brutal ass whooping, please and thank you.

And then we get one of two lines that sums up Jonah Magnus for me.

“P-please John, I don’t want to die”.

This guy. Who dedicated his several lives to ruling the world and feeding on everyone else’s pain. Who has committed atrocities that numerous to count and too horrible to name. Who is being confronted by the direct target of his machinations and who, I think it’s safe to say, hates him more than anyone or anything else in existence. Has the absolute fucking nerve to go “but I’m scared :(”

When he went ‘I don’t want to die’ I actually said to literally no one because I was alone in my room “HA, Fuck you.”

John puts it a bit more eloquently. “Neither did they”. Beautiful. And then he’s gutted like the repulsive little fish he is.

The second line that sums up this insufferable megalomaniac is a little earlier. It’s casual, neither of them makes a point of it. Maybe because it’s a little redundant. “Empathy only holds you back in the end”.

I don’t want to die, and Empathy only holds you back in the end.

I mean, that’s the thesis statement of the shit-eating essay that is Jonah Magnus.

He’s so far beyond regret, or anything that isn’t 100% self-motivated he cannot perceive that perhaps John will have maybe, I don’t know, changed a bit. Gotten used to horror. Killed. He cannot fathom anything outside the tower as more than a food source. He is so used to seeing people as pawns he dies not actually understanding why John killed him. “Good luck” are his last lines.

First of all, the direction is ‘wetly’ and on the one hand I know what that means, but on the other, I cannot think of a more fitting adjective to end on with this guy.

Second of all, the ambiguity of how sincere he is or isn’t being is enraging, and so classic and I hate him, which is to say fucking excellent job of writing and acting both.

He goes to his grave thinking John’s making a power grab. He cannot conceive of any other reason for John doing what he’s doing. They’re opposite ends of the spectrum. One who can think of no one but himself, and one who will sacrifice himself because he’s thinking of everyone else. You know how matter can’t be created or destroyed? I think guilt might be the same way. And Jonah found a handy receptacle for all the guilt he doesn’t have time for and that receptacle is named Jonathan Sims head Archivist of The Magnus Institute.

What a good villain. What an infuriatingly mellifluous bitch. The thinks he’s King of the World, he thinks he’s going to get such special treatment, he thinks consequences apply to everyone but him, he thinks this is a game he can win when he doesn’t even know what the fuck he’s playing.

As much as he looked at John and went “perfect, an insecure idiot”, the Web looked at him and went “perfect, a pompous ass”. He wanted to live forever, but now he’s dead. And he doesn’t even get to live on in memory. No one knew he was up there. No one remembered Elias, let alone Jonah. You think Georgie, Melanie, Rosie, and Basira are going to tell the world about him? What would be the point?

Congratulations, Jonah. You tried to ensure your immortality and ended up ensuring that you died both literally and figuratively. Before it got yeeted into another dimension The End must have had a fucking Field Day the second his heart stopped beating.

What a bastard. What an unfathomable bastard. Like he really thought this would all work out for him, that he was the most Important Thing in the world when, at best, at best he was a glorified fucking contact lens.

Ass.

#The Magnus Archives #TMA #Rusty Quill #RQ #Jonathan Sims #Jonah Magnus #Rant #The Eye #TMA spoilers

[decarbry]

Yabureme 2-3

It’s weird, the boundary between professionalism and emotion. Some people have a good one, or act as though they do. Shou was one of those people. When it came to saving lives and doing his job, he seemed like he could put anything at all behind himself for a moment just to make sure he got it done. But it was more than that. Shouta tended to find ways to let those emotions fuel his work. That was why he flourished as a teacher. Oboro did that for him.

For better or for worse.

Hizashi wasn’t like that. He was a good pro hero, and a good radio host, and good with the public. And though daily failures could eat at him, he didn’t take them so personally that he couldn’t work. Hizashi knew that pro heroes couldn’t save everyone. It just wasn’t possible. Early on, it was tough to shoulder through. As he got hours under his belt, he faced reality. Shouta and Nemuri helped him with that.

He might cry in frustration the night after a rescue failed, but he would trot himself back to school the next morning, a smile on his face. It was something every single hero student had to come to terms with. It was no different back then and now. Every class, every generation. He had never been special for it.

This was different. This wasn’t just some failed hero work. This wasn’t some daily torment.

Half of himself was gone.

Nemuri had stepped away after he confirmed his intentions to lead commentary at the sports fest as usual. She had her own preparations to make, her own stage to step onto. Despite his words, she had to know he wasn’t okay. He wouldn’t put it past her to have someone waiting near the host station in case he needed some support while she couldn’t be there. He had doubts in himself too. But he wanted to at least give Nezu a good ol’ Plus Ultra try. He wanted to be there for Shouta’s kids. They were expected to move on too. To participate in a series of games that seemed so trivial compared to the loss and peril they’d all just experienced. Shouta might not have been as important to them as he’d been to Hizashi, but… no, he shouldn’t think like that. He was just important in a different way. Those kids did experience something horrible. So, to make this work, he’d resolved to channel Shou.

If it worked, maybe those kids would be able to find a foothold. Maybe he would too. Maybe together they could stabilize and find a way forward.

Fuck. He hadn’t even opened the door any further and he was already shaking. One of Shou’s methods for reining himself in was counting to ten. Hizashi shut his eyes and did just that.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, blah, blah, 9, 10.

Opened the door.

The roar of the stadium suddenly came into existence as he stepped past the threshold, surrounding him in a way it hadn’t while outside. This was his element.

He could do this.

“HEY HERO FANS!” Hizashi— no, right now he was Present Mic— his voice had somehow found its same old familiar energy, like nothing was wrong. Yeah. Good. Maybe this could work.

He’d somehow transitioned from the door to the chair at the console without much trouble, hand gripping the base of the microphone to hold it up to his mouth. He stood with the other hand on the back of the chair, channeling the energy of an excited announcer, and that required standing. He hoped no one in the crowd was paying attention, or knew him well enough to hear the agony he was masking.

Down below, he could see the empty field, and Nemuri standing on her podium, waiting for her introduction. Her back was turned to his announcer’s box, but he knew she’d be able to tell.

“Welcome back to the UA Sports Festival! Once again we’ve got the strongest, brightest new hero prospects in the world ready to show off their stuff in today’s heart-pounding competitions.” He wasn’t using his quirk, of course, but his voice still boomed around the stadium, each exclamation eliciting a surge in the roar of the crowd. They were excited even without his encouragement.

An unexpected pit of disgust formed in Hizashi’s stomach. The same event that had taken his heart and those kids’ teacher was only fueling the crowd’s anticipation.

They couldn’t help it. They weren’t as impacted. Heroes died and were injured every day. That was what they signed up for.

The morning before, Nezu had made a statement to the press that kept things short and sweet, using Aizawa’s family name rather than his hero name. By design, few people knew of Eraser Head on any wide scale and nearly no one in the public knew his real name in connection. All the press really cared about was that a first-year UA class was attacked, less so about the teacher that was missing, especially when that teacher had just acted like he was meant to. There wasn’t a sensational story in that part. Most of the people here, the civilians, probably had no idea anything had happened beyond the threat to the students. The spectating heroes might have simply considered the loss sad, with a small handful that knew the missing sharing more legitimate concern.

But the vast majority just wanted to be entertained.

The teachers, the few that weren’t on the current search teams, were seated in their box below his, and though Hizashi couldn’t see their faces, he knew they were tense. Some of them wouldn’t be able to watch the entire sports festival as their turn on the search rolled around. But they were here to support the students too, while they could. Even now, Hizashi watched Thirteen check a time piece and leave the seats, her large helmet’s eyes carefully avoiding his. He was glad for that. He didn’t want to blame her, but his anger was still too hot to consider anything else. He didn’t trust himself not to meet her gaze with something cruel.

Snipe was there, and All Might. Snipe was his usual mask of vagueness, having been all logic and consideration, but All Might, drained of energy for the moment, was tense. Hizashi could see the man’s knee jumping as his foot tapped anxiously, eyes on the empty field. All Might had been the only other hero at the USJ, the only other one to see those monsters drag Shouta away. He had been busy, of course, trying to defeat that monster with the bird head. All Might perhaps deserved some of his same blame as Thirteen, uncalled for as it was, but it felt harder to throw it at him. Unlike the rest, this was the first time Hizashi had seen him take a break since it’d all gone down. He must have been exhausted. Hizashi had never considered that a burden of guilt might be something the Symbol of Peace allowed himself to deal with so completely.

Hizashi didn’t realize he’d been gripping the microphone hard enough to hear the more fragile mechanisms straining. He released it quickly before accidentally breaking it, readjusted his hold, and took a breath.

“I want to hear you roar, listeners! You’re in for a spectacular showing of powerful quirks, entertaining games, and heroic hearts. I can’t wait to watch these future heroes go all out to show that they’re going to be the best of the best! How about you, part—“

Oh. Right.

The utter lack of a body. The missing glower of the disinterested eyes that struck him every minute with their quiet intensity. The subtle quirk of a reluctant smile to tail his silly quips, both of them fully aware that they were manufactured just for that reaction. Just to weasel that little smile out into the air.

Hizashi’s resolve began to shatter. He stumbled on through the introduction of Midnight and the classes. If the crowd hadn’t noticed before, some of them surely would now. His energy had dulled to a forced simmer, and every other sentence a word shook.

The students stood on the field now, a strange restlessness to them. A certain class exuded it most, and their seriousness was spreading through the rest.

Those kids.

He’d been avoiding them since it’d all gone down. Classes had only been ongoing for a few days, but in those few days he’d taken them into his care. Just for his one subject. Grammar, language, all that jazz. His notoriety with his radio show meant most of them knew who he was before they’d become his students, but they didn’t see him as anything more than that. He had memorized all their names, their quirks, some of the things about them that stood out the most.  Ojiro’s calm reasoning. Koda’s shy listening. Jiro’s sassy commentary. Kirishima’s supportive bolstering. Kaminari’s energetic laughter. Yaoyarozu’s infallible memory. Asui’s logical points. Sero’s easy demeanor. Tokoyami’s observant silence. Hagakure’s startling appearances. Mineta’s… distractions. Ashido’s friendly jabs. Todoroki’s burdened intensity. Shouji’s thoughtful questions. Aoyama's flamboyant poses. Sato's quiet presence. Bakugou’s explosive attitude, Midoriya’s studious eagerness, Iida’s diligent focus, Uraraka’s soft determination.

They barely knew one another. They wouldn’t have needed him as moral support. Nezu told him to use this sports fest to connect with them, find a grounding. Instead, he felt separated by miles. He could do nothing for them.

Right?

Shouta would have been frustrated with him for leaving it all to All Might and Nemuri.

They were a strong class. Even just a few days under their belt had shown them all that. He couldn’t see their faces at this distance, but he found his eyes drifting to them constantly. None of them spoke amongst themselves like some of the other classes did, unable to stand silently while amongst their friends. Class 1-A was focused.

Some of them were tense, some of them with their chins angled low, as though they were staring daggers into the field beneath their feet. A couple of the more withdrawn ones fumbled with their hands before them. But they all stood together, shouldering the burden just like he did.

Maybe it wasn’t the same… but it was just as heavy. Nezu had been right. They had just been shown a nasty reality of the future they’d chosen for themselves. It hit fast. It hit hard. And just like in the real world they were expected to move on. They were still here because they were doing what Shouta would do. For them, this was a lot more than just some sports festival, some competition.

Fuel the fire.

The League of Villains, or whatever they called themselves, hadn’t just taken his husband away. They’d taken these kids’ hero away. Their shining example.

Their guide.

“THESE STUDENTS ARE GOING TO MAKE THEIR TEACHER PROUD!”

The words burst into the microphone without his realizing it, the windows around him jittering in their tracks, and a hairline fracture split one of them in half just before his face.

His hands had slammed down on the console in front of him, but it hadn’t been a loud enough impact to drown his words out.

“THEY’RE GOING TO MAKE VILLAINS TREMBLE IN THEIR PATHETIC SHOES KNOWING THAT THEIR TIME IS RUNNING OUT! SO LET’S MAKE SURE THEY HEAR IT ALL ACROSS THE WORLD!”

Uncaring of anything but the entertainment set before them, the crowd surged louder than ever. Midnight’s shoulders tensed somewhat, and she finally turned her eyes worriedly up in his direction. Some of the students followed her example of their own accord.

No one else noticed the change in their umpire, too consumed by the energy flowing around them.

Hizashi sagged backwards into his chair suddenly, everything wrung from him in that moment. It was rushing up on him with an intensity he could sense a mile away. Panic. He had the wherewithal to slap the mic switch to off before the sobs started in earnest.

Outside of the box, the sports fest carried on. He faded in and out of focus, scarcely noticing Midnight’s voice as she smoothly stepped in where he had weakly slipped out.

Thank god for Nemuri Kayama.

#Yabureme Comic #nomu aizawa #present mic #Hizashi Yamada #boku no hero academia #I'm so nervous posting this LMAO I have never actually posted legit fic content before #like in writing #I'm definitely going to start posting this on ao3 when I get to make an account #for now uhhh enjoy?? #there are images within the text #Yabureme Aizawa AU

[helladirections]

BBF3: Kiss Her, Don’t Tell

Author: @helladirections Pairing: Harry x Y/N Status: Part 3 of ongoing universe (but can be read on its own) Word Count: 7k

Summary: Harry is YN’s brother’s best friend and YN isn’t a little kid anymore. Featuring kink negotiation and smut. That’s literally it. Lot’s of smut. 

MASTERLIST  - PATREON - BBF TAG - PART 2 - PART 4

Preview

“Why uh… why do you call it ‘playing’?”  Harry smiled then, tilting his head to the side as he answered. “Because it’s fun, or at least it’s supposed to be fun. Because I’m playing a part, playing the role of the dominant person and you’re playing submissive. It’s like we’re playing a little game with each other, because sometimes I sound mean but really I would never do anything to hurt you. Is that ok with you?” “Yes,” she said softly. “I… I’ve never played the part of being submissive before. But… I think I like it.” 

Read below or on AO3 or Wattpad

“Do you trust me?”

Harry had asked YN the question before, the first time they hooked up out on the balcony. But it felt like it meant so much more now. The first time, it was spontaneous, exciting, they were breaking the mold of who they were. He teased her because that’s what he knew how to do and she liked it more than she expected. The question came up in the short term, do you trust me right now or do you trust me to do this? 

This time the question was longer term, maybe do you trust me in general to treat you the way you deserve to be treated while we play this wild game that you’ve never played before? 

And honestly, she did trust him. Maybe their relationship or whatever this is was new, but their knowing each other was not. She’d known him since she was a little kid, and had always trusted him to some degree. Sure, he joined in the teasing with her older brother when he was harmlessly bullying her, but Harry also reminded him when to back off, included her in games they played, and helped her find her way around at school when she was lost. He had a bit of a rough exterior with her at times, like when he refused to let her win a board game even though the rest of the family had agreed it was her turn, or when YN’s brother found out about a real crush she had on a boy at school and Harry joined in the teasing. But he was always soft on the inside - like when she went through her first real breakup and her brother was complaining about the crying and nonsense but when she finally left her room for dinner Harry gave her a nice big hug. 

She trusted him in the ocean at the beach earlier that afternoon. YN followed him out into the deep water, deeper than she would ever typically go. She trusted that even though he was touching her in public, he was going to hold on to her and protect her from prying eyes. And when she got pulled under by a wave, he pulled her out and brought her safely back to shore. He said he would always take care of her, and YN believed him.

So when her brother woke up from his beach afternoon nap and called out towards the two of them (still in the water but not touching as they had been earlier), she trusted Harry when he asked her to meet him in his room after a shower. She trusted him when he told her that her brother wouldn’t find out, because Harry had told him he needed to call someone back home. And she trusted him when he sat her down and started talking about the game they were playing and how they needed some rules.

“Yes, Harry. Of course I trust you.”

Harry leaned forward, closing the small distance between them as they sat on the edge of his hotel bed and left a quick, soft kiss to YN’s lips. It was clearly a reaction to her answer, but he continued speaking before she had the chance to really process what had happened. 

“Good, because trust is the most important thing in all of this, you know? Well that and consent. You should always be not just willing, but excited to be doing whatever we’re doing. And if you’re not, you just have to tell me.” 

“That makes sense.” 

“You’ve probably heard of safe words. I like to use a color system to gauge how we both feel. And it goes both ways, if I want to stop I get to say so too. We both do.” 

YN nodded her head. She had a vague concept of what most of this meant, but had never realized this area would be something that would interest her, so she had never put much thought into it. 

“So green means yes, I like it, keep going, feels great.” 

“Right.” 

“And red means stop, no, I don’t like it, this feels bad, this needs to end.” 

“Sure.” 

“And I like using the colors because sometimes someone feels yellow. Like… slow down, don’t stop completely but it’s not as good as it was, I need a break, I’m a little bit scared. Do you understand?”

YN nodded her head.

“Words, YN. It’s really important that you use words while we talk about this.” 

“Yes. I understand.” 

“Good. And if you can’t talk because you have something in your mouth,” he smiled to himself at that. “Then you can use your fingers. One for green, two for yellow, and three for red.”

“Ok and should I… if you don’t ask but I need to tell you should I just like… tap you with my fingers or something?”

“That sounds perfect, sweetheart. And remember, you can always talk to me and tell me how you’re feeling in regular words too. Like today in the water when you said you’d never been edged before, that was great. I didn’t know. Now I know I need to ease you into it, maybe explain what to expect.” 

“I do think I liked it,” she added in. “It was just new. I just didn’t know what was happening but… I liked it. Um… I think it was a good punishment.” 

A soft smile spread across Harry’s face. “Good. Because even your punishments should make you feel green, ok? All of this is supposed to be fun and exciting and feel good.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course darling.”

“Do you… have you done this a lot? With other people?”

Harry paused for a moment to think about his answer. The silence made YN a little bit nervous. 

“I’ve done this with a few people. Each person was very different, though. And it’s going to be different again with you. I’m not going to treat you the same way I’ve treated the others because you aren’t one of the others, you’re YN. So I’m going to treat you like YN and do things that make you feel good, that are fun for you. Our rules will make sense for the way that we are together.” 

“Ok, that makes sense… what are the rules?”

“Well we haven’t set them yet, have we? It might have been a bit unfair of me to punish you today since you didn’t technically break a rule, since it didn’t exist.” 

They talked it over then, setting rules that they both agreed on. The first rule was clearly that YN’s brother should never find out about their arrangement. Other rules included YN always using her words to answer while they were playing, calling Harry sir, using the color system, following any and all instructions Harry gave her. They had rules about boundaries, about things they would never do and things they would always do. There was a rule that the giving to receiving ratio should be as even as possible. And that orgasms can be taken away as a punishment, but otherwise are relatively expected (unless she wants to stop early). And even when they’re taken away as punishment, it still needs to be agreed upon that it’s fair. The rules felt good; made her feel safe. 

“And of course, a big rule is that I will always take care of you. That’s my job, to take care of you. And your job is to let me.” 

“Ok,” YN smiled. She liked the sound of that. 

“Now, sometimes taking care of you means giving you kisses,” he said. He interrupted himself by placing another one on her lips. “And sometimes it means punishing you for breaking a rule while we’re playing. But even when I’m punishing you, I should still be taking care of you. You should still be feeling good.” 

“I like that,” she answered. “Um… I have a question.” 

“Of course, darling.” 

“Why uh… why do you call it ‘playing’?” 

Harry smiled then, tilting his head to the side as he answered. “Because it’s fun, or at least it’s supposed to be fun. Because I’m playing a part, playing the role of the dominant person and you’re playing submissive. It’s like we’re playing a little game with each other, because sometimes I sound mean but really I would never do anything to hurt you. Is that ok with you?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I… I’ve never played the part of being submissive before. But… I think I like it.” 

“Good. Do you think it’s fun? Because playing should always be fun”

YN nodded before catching herself and speaking up. “Yes, It’s been really fun” 

“Is there anything else that would make it more fun? Do you have any kinks you want to tell me about now so I can plan for them?” 

That made YN pause for a moment. She really didn’t know what kinks she had, she had never explored it before. Her sex life had always been very straight forward and simple. But the concept of getting to explore new things with Harry was more than exciting. YN explained this all to Harry, and he placed his hand gently on her knee as he listened and watched as she spoke. 

“I think… I think my favorite is just the way you talk to me. The good things and the mean things. Just… anything. It makes me feel… good.”

He laughed a bit then. “Good, I’m so glad. Because if you haven’t noticed… I love saying those things.” 

She smiled. He made her feel safe in trying new things. Safe in acknowledging what she liked. And safe any time she was with him. His words, even the most filthy ones, even the mean ones, all came from a place of care and fun and wanting to take care of her. And she had never had anything like that before. 

But something was still nagging at her. “But, um… what about… uh…” YN didn’t know how to bring it up. She didn’t want to sound overly clingy, but she also thought it was an important point. She had been punished for flirting with someone, so she needed to know if that was going to be in the rules going forward. And if it was in the rules for her, would it be for him? Would that mean they are exclusive?

“Come on, you need to be open with me. What’s on your mind?”

“Um… well today you punished me because I was flirting and… is that in the rules? For both of us?” 

Harry didn’t answer right away, which made YN just a little bit nervous. Maybe she asked too soon? It had been less than 24 hours after all. She wasn’t exactly asking to be exclusive, she just wanted to know where they stood. And if she wasn’t allowed to flirt or be with someone else, then it would only be fair for it to be the same with him. 

Eventually, Harry broke the silence. “Hmm, that’s a good question. What do you think?”

YN just shrugged.

“Ok, how about this. Everything is very new. We don’t have to decide everything right away, right? So for both of us, our homework is to think about that. And in a little while or a few days when we have some thoughts about it we can talk about it again. How does that sound?”

“That sounds good,” she answered softly. 

Harry smiled at her then. And if she didn’t know any better, YN would swear she saw a sparkle in his eye. A mischievous sparkle. A dangerous but fun sparkle. A sparkle that lived just at the corner of too much but not enough. A sparkle she desperately wanted to visit. 

“What are you thinking Harry?” she asked with a soft smile. 

He leaned back on his hands, the bed sinking a bit beneath him. His eyes stayed on hers but he didn’t answer right away. Instead he shook his head, laughing to himself as if her entire existence was a joke.

“I just… I can’t believe this. With you? Fuck…” 

“Is that… is that a good thing?”

“Oh my gosh, YN,” he said in disbelief. “Of course it’s a good thing. It’s an incredible thing!”

“So you’re excited?” she asked, still a bit nervous of what his answer might be even though she had a feeling.

“You’ve no idea how excited… just talking about it is making me chub up a bit, look.” 

He nodded his head towards his waist and she finally looked down. She hadn’t noticed until then, but his bulge was definitely more significant than it had been when she walked in. His loose shorts showed off his newly tanned legs, a tank top allowing her eyes to devour his beautiful arms. And his boyish curls were even more prominent than usual, being that they were still a bit damp from the shower he had just gotten out of. 

“Do you want… should I help you with that?” she asked. 

Again, a soft smile appeared on his lips. His pink lips which he had been biting earlier in the day and which YN desperately wanted to kiss. 

“Such a good girl, hm? Offering to help. You want a taste?”

She nodded her head.

“What did we say about words, YN?”

“Use your words,” she whispered.

“That’s right. The rules are new so let’s try this again.” Harry swallowed and then asked in a slightly deeper voice, “Do you want a taste of my cock?” 

“Yes sir,” she answered, mouth practically drooling at the thought. She looked down at his crotch again, and had to pry her eyes away to look back at Harry’s face. 

“Do you think you’ve earned it?” 

“Yes sir.” 

“And why is that?”

That was a bit of a surprise to YN. She didn’t realize she’d have to validate herself. She had no idea what he was looking for in an answer. Biting her lip, she adjusted her gaze from his crotch back up to his face. His pupils were bigger, the soft green of his eyes that she loved so much was just a thin ring around the black center. 

“Tell me all the ways you’ve been good for me today,” he supplied.

“I um… I listened to you when it was time to leave volleyball?” she tried. 

“Hmm. You did, but that was after you let that guy touch you. So I’m not sure that really counts. Try again.” 

He reached down his body, gently palming his own dick through his pants. YN’s eyes couldn’t help but follow the movements. He looked so delicious, lying there, teasing her and himself. Her mouth was practically watering at the thought of what was to come. A heat was traveling down to her core. Already it was getting hard to think straight. But he wanted her to answer the question. 

“I tried to save your sunglasses in the ocean?”

Again, Harry hummed. “I suppose. But I told you to be careful and instead, you got pulled under a wave. I had to go in and rescue you. That doesn’t sound very good now, does it?”

“No sir.” 

“Stop biting your lip, darling. That’s my job.” 

She blushed at the suggestion. 

“Oh!” her face lit up with the new idea. “I listened and helped just now, when we talked about rules, and colors, and stuff.” 

At this, Harry’s hand paused. But only for a second before he restarted his movements and his smile spread wider.

“Yes, that you did, babygirl. That was very, very good. I guess you have earned a taste afterall.” 

YN smiled, but didn’t move.

“Well, go on then, take me out of my shorts and shove me down your pretty little throat until you gag.” 

Harry leaned all the way back so his arms were supporting him and his legs were spread, giving her enough room to jump up and situate herself between them. Sitting on her knees, she didn’t waste any time. Eagerly, she grabbed at the waistband of his shorts and slid them and his briefs down his legs, throwing them onto the floor behind her. 

And it just wasn’t fair how pretty his cock really was. When YN was a little kid and she had first been introduced to the concept of a penis, she really didn’t understand it. And maybe it was a little kid thing, but for years after her first sex education class she truly didn’t understand how people could possibly enjoy the look of a penis. Its shape combined with how they always appeared to be wet made her swear they looked like squid.

Harry’s cock did not look like a squid.

Harry’s cock looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Even at its hardest, it never stood up perfectly straight, but its lean was beautiful. It was full and thick, and the top was the prettiest part. A thick vein ran along the side of it. And even now, when it was still half soft, she couldn’t look away. The slight wetness at the tip shined in a way that mesmerized her. It was perfect. He was perfect. 

“Well stop staring and get to work. That’s what you’re good for, isn’t it? Sucking me off? Come on then,” he encouraged her.

YN spit into the palm of her hand and then spread it around his length. Slowly, she dragged her hand up and down his shaft, watching with awe as it started to perk up more and more. As the circumference grew, her eyes got wider. She had seen his dick last night, but it was already rock hard, standing proud. Watching it go from half chub to full length was really something else. 

“You just gonna touch it, or are you gonna use your mouth? Hm? What did I ask you to do?”

“Taste it.” 

“That’s right. I asked you to taste it. So I expect you to use your fucking mouth for something other than talking about nonsense. Can you manage to do that or do I need to get myself off in the shower again?” 

She didn’t answer. Instead, she leaned her head down, effectively folding her body in half and curving her back. Immediately she started licking around his head, and smiled a bit when she heard him hiss at the first bit of contact. He tasted good. A little salty - maybe from the precum and maybe from the ocean which hadn’t been fully washed off of him. The skin was smooth and warm and the weight felt nice on her tongue as it continued to grow. It only took a few more moments of giving him proper attention with her mouth for his cock to be fully hard again, effectively stretching her lips wide around him.  

YN’s eyes were closed as she focused all her energy into what she was doing. Every piece of her was focused on pleasuring Harry. She almost didn’t notice when he reached forward, gathering most of her hair at the back of her head and holding onto it tight. He missed one strand, which dangled in front of her face. But she ignored it, focused solely on the task at hand. 

“Deeper,” Harry groaned. “Take me deeper in that throat. Wanna feel you fucking gag on it.” 

YN moaned around his dick, resulting in a small gasp from Harry above her. She bobbed her head a few more times before doing as he requested, taking him deeper. Slowly, she took more of him, breathing through her nose and desperately trying to relax her throat. But it was hard, he was big. Really big. She’d never taken something so big this deep before. 

His grip in her hair became stronger as he started to push her head down a bit more. And honestly, YN enjoyed the feeling of Harry controlling part of her body. She knew she was giving him the pleasure he wanted because he was the one controlling it. So she hummed around his cock again, allowing it to touch the back of her throat and make her gag a bit. 

Harry’s grip loosened, giving her the space to come back up. But she didn’t. Instead she just took another breath through her nose and tried again, going so far as to feel his fine little hairs on the tip of her nose. 

“Oh, fuck me. Darling y’so fucking good at that… shit.” 

She gagged again, this time releasing his cock from her mouth. Her hand took its place, stroking him eagerly while she caught her breath. 

“Such a good girl f’me, hm?”

“Yes sir,” she said, her voice a little more grovelly than usual due to the disruption to her throat. 

“Look so pretty on my cock too,” he said. “Perfect little mouth, made to be stuffed full of my dick.”

YN heard herself whine before she realized she was doing it. 

“Oh you like, huh? Hearing about how I’m using your holes to get off?” 

“Yes sir.” 

“So fucking pathetic. Willing to do whatever I ask, huh?”

She nodded her head. Technically she was supposed to speak, but Harry either didn’t notice or decided to let this one slide. 

“Alright then. Let’s try something else. Lay down on your back with your head over the edge of the bed.” 

YN followed his instruction and arranged herself how he had asked. He stood in front of her, as he finally removed his shirt and threw it on the floor with the rest of his clothes. She was still fully clothed, but she didn’t mind. Any excuse to look at his body was more than welcome. 

Fisting himself slowly, he took a step closer to her. 

“So fucking desperate for it. Such a little cock slut for me,” he teased.

“Yes sir.” 

“Bet you’d even let me spit in your mouth, hm?” 

She nodded.

Harry’s dick whacked her on the cheek, leaving a small wet mark from the precum on his tip.  

“Don’t be a brat. What did I say about words, hm? Thought you were being good for me.”

“I am! I am. Sorry sir I… I am being good. Spit in my mouth, please.” 

He smiled as he leaned over her.

“Such a filthy thing,” teased. “Asking me to spit in your mouth… I could do whatever I wanted to you and I bet you’d still beg for more. Well if you’re gonna ask so nicely.” 

She watched as he moved his mouth a bit, collecting the spit before releasing it. A long string dripped from his mouth into hers, right in the middle of her tongue. YN let out a heavy breath when she could feel it, closing her mouth and swallowing quickly.

“There’s a good girl,” Harry cooed, holding one side of her face in his palm.

Maybe it was the blood rushing to her head, or the excitement for what was happening, but YN felt like she was about to float away into the sky. It would be nice, she thought, to just float along the ocean outside, feeling smiley and soft and warm like she was right now. She sighed, eyes closed and a smile spread across her face.

“What’s your color right now, sweetheart?” Harry asked softly.

“Green, so green.” 

“Good, me too.” He gazed down at her, stroking her skin with his thumb. “I’m going to fuck your mouth now, ok? So if you need to tell me something, remember to reach up and tap on me. You remember the numbers for your fingers?”

“One for green, two for yellow, and three for red.” 

“Good girl. I’m going to start now.” 

He gave her ample warning as he took another moment to stroke himself. Without even asking her to, she opened her mouth wide, tongue sticking out. Her eyes were closed but she was clearly ready for what was coming.

When Harry slid his cock into her mouth, he couldn’t hold it together. The sounds he was making were music to YN’s ears. She tried her best to just stay relaxed, cover her teeth with her lips, open up her throat, breathe through her nose. But her mind was so floaty and distant she didn’t feel as though she had much control over things. Harry didn’t seem to be complaining, though, as he continued to thrust his hips in and out of her. 

“Fuck, your mouth is incredible,” he groaned. “Feels so fucking good around me.”

YN couldn’t help but hum around him, blissfully listening to what he was saying. The praise tickled something deep inside of her, and she loved that she was the one to make him feel this way. Not one of the girls she saw him with when they were younger, not his ex that she used to hear him talking about at dinner night after night. Her. YN. She was the one to make him feel so good he was going to explode inside of her. 

Harry leaned forward then, still thrusting his hips. His hands grabbed at her breasts and started massaging them gently. She was wearing a tank top, giving him relatively easy access to slip underneath her shirt, under the cups of her bra, and grab her boobs directly. Without missing a beat he continued to play with them, thumbs stroking over her hardening nipples. She let out another little hum.

“Hm you liked that?” he teased, doing it again. 

She tried to say ‘yes sir’, but with his prick down her throat it came out garbled and incomprehensible. 

Harry laughed. “Fuck you’re so hot. Look so fucking hot laying there for me, mouth open, letting me fuck your face. Shit. Could do this all day but I don’t think I would last.” 

He stood up straight again, pistoning his hips in and out of her mouth. Slowing his pace a bit, he placed his hands on his waist and pushed himself into her throat deeper, letting out a groan at the feeling. 

“Such a filthy little slut,” he said under his breath. ‘Willing to do anything I ask? Letting me fuck your face to get off? Fucking pathetic, honestly.” 

And if the praise earlier was doing something to her, it was nothing compared to the shocks she felt down her spine at his taunting. 

“I bet you’re getting wet right now, just from letting me use you. Just from listening to me call you a damn slut.”

She squeezed her eyes tighter. 

The motion was out of pleasure, but she supposes it could be perceived as pain because Harry slowed down and asked her for a color. She put up one finger. She was green. She was loving it. 

Harry backed away from her, letting his cock fall out of her mouth. She gasped, trying to catch her breath after the way he had been working her. She had drool and spit all around her face now, so naturally she reached to wipe it off. But Harry grabbed her hand before she could.

“No, leave it. Wanna see how much a mess I can make you.” 

He used his leverage to help her sit up on the bed before taking a step back to look at her.

“Already look like such a mess… such a pretty thing,” he muttered to himself. 

In another universe, YN would be blushing at the comment. But after all he had been saying and doing to her, this wasn’t bothering her much. 

He stepped forward then, crashing their lips together for a moment, tongues intertwining before he disconnected them and started attacking her jaw and neck. 

“Wanna… mark you up… so fucking bad,” he mumbled between kisses and licks. 

YN loved the idea of being all marked up by him, but they both knew it would mean breaking rule number one, never letting her brother find out. And considering they would be going to the beach or the pool again tomorrow, there was hardly a spot on her body that he could get away with it. 

His hands rubbed up and down her sides, thumbs brushing at the sides of her breasts lightly before sliding back down to her hips again. His hands slipped beneath the fabric of her shirt and came back up again, bringing the tank top with him and forcing them to break their connection just long enough to get the shirt away. 

Their pace had slowed down a bit, but YN had so much adrenaline coursing through her veins, she just couldn’t let it stay like that. So without breaking their kiss again, she reached for Harry’s hand at her side and moved it down to her center. 

He groaned into her mouth.

“Fuck, darling. Y’such a fucking slut. Want me to finger this little pussy, hm? Take care of my pretty girl? I think I owe you an orgasm still, don’t I?” 

“Yes sir. Please. Want it so bad. Want you.” 

Lightly, Harry rubbed a finger over her core, teasing YN. 

“Such a needy little thing… What do you want, baby? Want my fingers? My mouth? My cock?”

“Yes!” she let out. 

Harry laughed again as his fingers continued applying light pressure to her body. “My pretty little whore, hm? Want anything I’m gonna give you, don’t you?”

“Please!”

“Alright honey. I think you’ve been very good this evening, so I’m going to give you a reward. Gonna fuck you with my cock, what do you think of that?” 

“Yes… Harry… please sir!”

He made quick work of her clothes then, ridding them of any and all barriers to feeling each other. She layed back on the pillows at the head of the bed, legs spread out to make room for him between them, and he leaned over to grab a condom out of his nightstand. 

“You brought those with you?” she asked. There was no one else on the trip that he could possibly be planning on using them with.

Harry shrugged. “Had a good feeling,” he reasoned as he rolled the plastic down his length. 

He crawled over her, using one arm to support himself and kiss her lips again. With his other hand he rubbed between her folds, spreading around her juices up to her clit and leaving circles there.

“So fucking wet for me,” he mumbled into her mouth. 

YN felt his finger tips circling her entrance, and all she could do was whine because it wasn’t enough. 

“More,” she begged.

“More what?”

“More, please. Sir. Harry, please!” 

He didn’t have to finger her for very long, they realized. She was so turned on by everything they had done, she was wet and ready for the main event. Still he indulged in it for a while, curling his fingers up and finding that special spot inside of her. It had only been a day and he was already learning her body so well. 

When neither of them could wait any longer, he reached back to his own dick, spreading her wetness over the condom and stroking himself again. 

“Not sure how long I’m gonna last, to be honest,” he told her. 

“S’ok. Just want you. Please, Harry. Please sir.” 

“Mmm, so good for me,” he praised, leaving a little kiss on her forehead. 

She smiled, but the smile soon broke as he entered her slowly and her mouth hung open. Her breath caught in her throat and she heard a drawn out groan from Harry. When she finally took a breath, he pushed in even further. She was ready for him, but he was still big. She could feel him stretching her out in the most wonderful way. The little sting was good, and was quick to fade. 

When he bottomed out, he leaned forward, resting his forehead at her shoulder. 

“Dammit, babe. You feel so fucking good around me.”

She brought her hands around to his back, stroking lightly at his muscles which she had always wanted to touch and admire in this way. But now that she had the chance there was so much else happening she couldn’t be bothered to pay much attention. 

“Harry, please,” she whined. “Fuck me, please sir.” 

“Shit,” he whispered to himself. “Baby, I’m gonna start gentle, but sometimes I can kind of lose it and go a bit hard. So you gotta tell me if your color changes to yellow or red, ok?”

“Harry, please, just move,” she begged again. 

So he did. He pulled himself almost all the way out before sinking into her again, both of them moaning in unison at the euphoria of the moment. Pleasure spread through her bones as he picked up his pace, his tip nudging against her g spot over and over again. Her fingers, which had been gently stroking up and down Harry’s muscular back, were now digging into his skin. She couldn’t help but grab onto him as her back arched and she gasped at the way he was making her feel.

“Feel so fucking good… shit… babe…” 

“Harry!” she responded, unable to find any other words in the midst of her clouded brain. 

“Tightest little pussy,” he groaned into her ear. “Love this perfect hole… s’like it was made for me…” 

Again she said his name, over and over as his speed picked up. She was so wet that they could both hear the wet noise each time his hips crashed against her ass. 

She could feel it too, how wet she was around him, her arousal leaking out of her and landing in the hair littering the base of his dick. It was messy. She was spreading herself over him, taking him for herself. Each time he rolled his hips into her his skin and the fine hairs of his pubes got wetter and wetter. She was hypersensitive, feeling the wet hair against her skin when their hips met over and over again. 

Harry reached down to rub at her clit, eliciting another moan from YN’s mouth. 

“Listen to that,” he said between grunts. “So fucking wet… such a pretty little slut for me.”

“Yes,” she gasped.

“MY slut, right?”

“Yes sir!”

“Open your mouth,” he said with a deep voice.

She obeyed, opening wide with her tongue sticking out just a bit, only to squeal a bit when she heard and felt his spit landing on her tongue. With one hand still rubbing at her sensitive nub, he brought the other to her mouth. He used it to spread the spit around, pushing it all across her tongue. She could taste herself on his skin from when he had been fingering her, and she couldn’t help but close her eyes as she sucked on him. His fingers pressed down on her tongue, far enough in her mouth to just about make her gag for him. 

“So good for me, look at my little slut, taking what she’s given.”

Harry pulled his fingers out of her mouth and wiped the wetness off onto her cheek. 

YN whined again. Her eyes squeezed closed as she reveled in the feeling. No one had ever fucked her like this before - hard but careful, fast but precise, mean but full of care. She wanted all of it. She wanted to live in this moment forever, feeling him inside of her, and on top of her, and all around her. He was filling all her senses and she loved it more than she thought possible. 

“Feels so good… sir… keep going… don’t stop.”

“Yeah? My cock feels good? Filling up your little hole… fucking you just right?”

His thrusts became harder again, pushing her further and further into the bed beneath her. She could feel her body melting even as the muscles in her abdomen were tightening and burning. Each push of his hips into hers sent her further up the bed, the headboard hitting the wall repeatedly. She was relieved to know that there was a stranger nextdoor and not someone they knew. 

With one hand she was beginning to dig her fingertips into his back, trying her best not to press too hard to leave red marks in the morning.  YN brought her other hand around to his chest. The little hairs between his pecs were soft against her fingertips. His muscles tightened as her touch traveled around, admiring him above her. She smirked a bit as her thumb brushed over one of his nipples. 

He paused then, just for long enough to roll YN’s body over and lift her up by the hips so her ass was in the air for him. Harry groaned as he grabbed her cheeks with his palms, massaging them at first gently before digging his fingers in deep, leaving ten little red spots. Spreading her out so he could have a better view of her core, he groaned loudly, leading YN to giggle a bit. 

“S’not funny,” Harry said with a pout. “Y’just so fucking hot… I mean look at this tight little pussy… dripping wet… little whore for me.”

“Harry,” she whined, missing the feeling of having him inside of her.

“Like I said… little whore… can’t go two minutes without my cock in you,” he taunted. 

But before she could respond he entered her again anyway. This time he didn’t start slow at all, right from the start he was pounding into her, deep and fast and hard. With each thrust she was pushed further up the bed, her head digging into the pillow. The sound of his hips and thighs meeting her ass filled the room, slapping noise ringing out in their ears. 

It was rough, rougher than she had ever taken before. But it felt so much better than she ever could have expected. 

Harry’s hand traveled up her spine, pushing her down further. When he started to speak, she expected more filthy words.

But instead, he asked “Color… baby what’s your color?” 

“Green!” she called out, face still planted into the pillow.

“Thank fuck because I really don’t wanna stop.” 

He curled his body over hers, kissing on her shoulder and neck as he brought his hand around to her front. Finding her clit easily, he started rubbing fast circles in time with his thrusts. 

YN moaned out again, mouth wide open as drool fell onto the pillow below her. The heat in her lower stomach was building up, her muscles getting tighter. She could feel that she was close, her whole body electrified and on high alert. Every sensation was amplified, but the bundle of nerves getting attention from Harry was at the center of it all, lighting a fire inside of each of her bones. 

“Come on, darling,” he murmured in her ear. “Let it go, cum for me, cream on my cock.” 

It was only another moment before she obeyed him, practically screaming his name as she squeezed her eyes and something popped inside of her. His name was the only thing she could focus her mind on, muttering it over and over through her moans and pants. 

She could feel herself squeezing around him before she heard Harry’s high pitched groan as he emptied into the condom inside of her. The thought of him emptying inside of her was almost enough to get her going again. She just wanted to please him the way that he did for her. She wanted to be enough for him, and over and over again over the past 24 hours he had proven to her that she was. 

He kept thrusting, but his movements gradually slowed down until he eventually stilled, body still draped over hers. They collapsed together, breathing aligned as their sweaty bodies stuck together. Harry’s body was heavy but comforting on top of YN as her breathing slowed down. 

“Baby,” Harry whispered, leaving a kiss on the back of YN’s neck. 

YN just gave a contented hum in response. 

“Y’so fucking amazing, shit.” 

They stayed there for a few minutes before Harry peeled himself off of her, rolling over to the side of the bed. He let out a sigh when his head hit the pillow, arms extended outward so one hand was still resting on YN’s back. 

“Harry,” she breathed out, turning her head on the pillow to face him.

His eyes seemed to twinkle as he looked at her, soft smile on his face. Leaning down slowly, he pressed a gentle kiss to her lips before using his thumb to wipe away some of the spit still resting on her skin. 

“You were so good for me, baby.” 

“Really?”

“The best. Perfect.”

She felt goosebumps rising up over her skin. 

“Will you just… you can say no but… will you hold me?” 

Harry cocked his head to the side before moving his hand to stroke over her hair. 

“Of course I will baby. Let me just get us both cleaned up first.” 

Before she could question what he meant, he was standing up, a soft groan escaping his mouth as he stretched out his muscles. Now that she had the time, she truly could admire his back. She wanted to reach out and touch it, but her whole body still felt a bit like jelly. 

He disappeared into the bathroom and YN closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, he was kneeing himself back onto the bed, warm washcloth in hand. 

“Can you roll over for me darling? Gonna be easier to clean you up on your back.” 

She followed his instruction, eyes still closed. YN felt the washcloth drag across her skin and let out a hiss when it came in contact with her overly sensitive folds. 

“I know, sweetheart. But I want to get you all clean. Just another minute and then we can cuddle for as long as you want, I promise.” 

And Harry kept his promise, crawling back into bed with her. He held her close with her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. His skin was warm and smooth and his arms were strong around her body. When she got cold, he offered her a t shirt of his and snuck them both underneath the covers.

They would have to come up with a reason why they both missed dinner that night. 

MASTERLIST  - PATREON - BBF TAG - PART 2 - PART 4

#yo #writing #bbf

[bestygogirl]

BEST YGO GIRL: ROUND 4, GROUP C

Match 2

please use this as an opportunity to say why you like a character, not why you don't.

Propaganda under the cut!

Mana

mana is the apprentice to mahad and her ka is dark magician girl. she is the basis for apprentice illusion magician. she is the first one to inherit the millennium ring after mahad, while it allegedly has yami bakura in it. her fate is left up to the viewer. another fun fact is she teases atem like he's her big brother and hides in vases. she makes fun of set's stupid hat and turns it in magical hats. she's a fun loving child who is put in a position where she needs to fight a war. and like. she's my daughter please vote for her.

Isis Ishtar

gorgeous, very caring sister, strong duelist, and the only woman to ever make Seto Kaiba squirm

anyways. not only as mentioned above is she the first woman to make kaiba squirm, but she was by all means going to beat him if not for the millennium rod's millennium interference. yami marik admits that she's a strong duelist with a strategy that's been working for literal years-- and given that she's not like, a professional duelist, thats pretty impressive

she also recently got some really cool meta bumps and let me point out that an "ishizu deck" now includes obelisk the tormentor-- which we knew she had prior to giving it to kaiba, but i think it only solidifies my opinion that she very much could wield an Egyptian God Card, an exclusive little club for top tier duelists

as a character she presents herself with an amazing amount of poise and grace, shes compassionate and kind and stays with mai and serenity even though she only just met them. shes struggling through living the past 5 years of her life drowning in guilt for her family's tragedy just because she wanted to make her little brother happy and shadi is a fucking liar. shes foretold her own death and marches towards it grimly but with so much love in her heart. and even then shes 20 years old and holds an important position in the egyptian government that typically requires a doctorate degree AND has been dealing with mariks off-and-on bullshit entirely by her lonesome. she also likes to flex her fortunetelling a little which is awesome i think she should do that more that scene where she tells the guy exactly how the stele is being transported was so everything

speaking of shes got such an attitude. "is it your destiny to waste my time?" iconic. never seen before will never be seen again. watch the duel between her va and joeys its so fucking funny

shes excult. shes doesnt flinch in the face of god nor death. seto kaiba and yami marik respect her. shes so sad and so sweet and battle city couldnt have happened without her.

also her parallels with kaiba are what motivate kaiba to give yugi the card he needed to beat marik.

kaiba, in duelist kingdom, was ready to jump off a ledge if yugi didnt let him through to face pegasus while trying to save mokuba out of sheer desperation to save his little brother. he KNOWS what that dedication feels like and the iron kind of will you need to have to make that kind of gamble. isis is being so fucking legit with what shes saying and he respects that and her judgement enough to change his mind and not only watch the duel, but give yugi a card that eventually helps him win, even if he has no real confidence in the odds. but theres a CHANCE, which is the same thing he taught her when he beat her in a duel. the layers its her faith that moves him to act. which is so crazy

anyway vote isis shes my best friend forever and a real rep for all the 20 year olds who honest to god did not sign up for this bullshit

#best ygo girl poll #round 4 #yugioh duel monsters #mana yugioh #mana duel monsters #isis ishtar #ishizu ishtar

[autisticlancemcclain]

fic rec friday 33

welcome to the thirty-third fic rec friday! where, on friday, i rec five of my favourite fics.

1. Rose-Colored Boy by melancholymango

“I missed you, you know.”

“Yeah?” Lance sighed, warm and giddy, clearly not absorbing how serious the words truly were. Keith nodded his head for a few seconds, not trusting himself to speak around the size of his emotions. He was suddenly brought back to the years alone on the whale, when all he’d had to keep him going was memories of his friends, of Lance.

“Yeah.” Keith said, more certainty in his voice now. He reached down, hesitantly threading his fingers through Lance’s and giving his hand a squeeze. Lance tensed next to him. “I still do.”

“I mean, I’m right here.”

“Are you? You still seem pretty far away.”

again i know im not really big on those fics that make the team out to be deliberately cruel, but sometimes its cathartic tbh. sometimes you remember canon and ur just like yeah what if he got angry. what if someone got angry for him. what then. and mango gives us that

2. Swamp of Sorrows by SwissArmyKnife

Pike gets exposed to acidic ooze, which leads Block (& Keith) to make a few discoveries about their party’s rogue.

“We can't leave them like this,” Meklavar said of Valayun and Pike, who’d been laid beside the fire. "Look at how bad those welts are." She came up with a bottle of oil and a cake of soap. "I can smell water nearby. We can get them washed and roll them in a blanket to sleep off the spore. What do you think?"

"I think it's our only choice," Takashi said.

monsters and mana fic!!!!! everybody say YES to righteous anger on pike’s behalf. and also say yes to pike bc i love him. this fic is interesting bc its a little tense and awkward bc this ragtag team of misfits doesnt quite trust each other yet but they also cant quite stop themselves from caring about each other. so even though they dont all agree on eveyrthing and dont agree about all, they do agree that pike needs more care than he got. also unrelated but the fact that shiro’s m&m name is fucking takashi kills me every time like man just wants to be himself 💀

3. Beneath the Champagne Sea by SwissArmyKnife

The paladins make a diplomatic visit to a planet with sexual dimorphism roughly opposite that of Earth. Women are larger and more powerful, while men are leaner and smaller. Cue their horror at gaunt, sickly Pidge and mild disgust with the ’womanly’ Shiro. Lance hits the sweet spot. He's got the build and features to draw the eyes and the charm to keep them. Their hosts are quite taken with him, in particular the daughter of the queen, whose forwardness is a comic reversal of Lance’s usual dynamic with women. Lance likes the attention and finds her intriguing, but eventually things take a discomforting turn.

Lance tried to step around her, wanting to walk away from a conversation that seemed less and less likely to end well, but Leh’n seized his wrist before he could. Her grip was tight, and freeing himself would require an act of aggression, which he still wanted to avoid. ‘Think of the mission, of how important it is to get the castle up and running again,’ he coached himself.

Still, that did nothing to stop his blood pressure from skyrocketing as Leh’n leaned closer and said. “I am not accustomed to reluctance.”

i swear to god that ive recced this before, but i couldnt find it in my records so here it is!! this fic is endlessly fascinating. the exploration of gender roles is super interesting, considering who is impacted in this fic and how. the discussion about beauty standards, power imbalances, the alien wrench in things was so cool! and i think lance, who is very much someone who rides that gender lines in terms of presentation of hobbies and even chracter traits, makes sense as the main character here. interesting think piece. 

4. you had me at merlot by @ryomakun

“Oh my God,” Lance says as he covers his face. Keith’s tinny voice blares from his laptop speakers: “What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta.” See, this joke might have been funny if someone charismatic and charming had said it, but Keith’s flat voice and even flatter expression effectively kidnaps, tortures, and then decapitates any chance of it being remotely humorous.

--

Keith accidentally starts a YouTube channel. Lance, of course, refuses to be left out. It goes about as well as you'd expect. (Ft. copious amounts of wine and a truly shameless number of references to MyDrunkKitchen, DailyGrace, and general pop culture)

this fic is HILARIOUS. its one of the firsts i ever screenshotted for the scrapbook i have of fics that made me laugh out loud. i offer you this one part that really made me giggle: 

““It tastes good,” Keith says petulantly as he glares at the accusing finger Hunk has pointed at him. “No offense Hunk but that stuff you gave me for my twenty-first tasted like feet and antiseptic.”

“That was a merlot,” Hunk wails. “The good kind, too!”

Ignoring them, Lance stands in front of the rum selection. This is why he didn’t want to bring anyone. They might call him loud and embarrassing, but at least he doesn’t yell inside WalMart about the virtues of a “real red wine.” An elderly couple passes through, eying the bickering three. Lance resolutely pretends he is here shopping by himself.“

the way they are so ridiculous that LANCE of all people is embarrassed of them...cinema. also this fic is peak bc it has klance as enemies to lovers and childhood friends to lovers at the same time. iconique

5. Flayed by @admiralcanthackett

Lance gets hit with a face full of spores and it leaves him wracked with pain. Touch is the only relief he can find.

yes i know i tag this author all the time but in my defense there was a point in my life where i was OBSESSED with faer fics. truly. anyways this one has unexpectedly protective keith, like to a very high degree, and im loving the heavy themes of trust and emotional as well as physical vulnerability 

that’s it for today!! i’ll see y’all back next friday for the next fic rec post!!!

#pretty varied this week tbh!! #anyways #vld #voltron #lance #lance mcclain #keith #keith kogane #team as family #lance & hunk #established klance #enemies to lovers #fic rec #fic rec friday #langts #monsters & mana