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#think about it and we will discuss it again
vroomvro0mferrari · 2 days
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LN4 | Panic at the Disco
Summary: When you call your brother to pick you up from the club, it's his best friend who answers.
Lando Norris x Fewtrell!Reader
WC: 1.3K
Warnings: Maybe slight panic attack, insinuated sexual harassment/assault
Masterlist
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You rush through the club in a hurry, bumping into God knows how many people as you search for the exit. The hot, stuffy air makes it even more difficult to breathe as you keep pushing through the crowd. You can feel the wetness of your tears run down your cheeks as you reach the exit, nearly running into the bouncer checking IDs outside. You stand close to him as you wipe your cheeks and sniffle, trying to calm yourself down while you rummage through your purse in search of your phone. Taking a deep breath, you call your brother.
You wait impatiently as the phone rings. He doesn’t answer, so you call again. And again. Eventually, after three tries, the phone is picked up. 
“Hello? Max?” You say rushedly.
You hear some noise on the other side. In your frenzy, you don’t realise it’s not your brother, not from the mere grumpy hello the phone is answered with.
“Can you come pick me up? Please?” The sheer panic you’re experiencing is clear in your voice. Lando can even hear your sniffling through the phone as you wipe your hand under your nose. 
“Y/N? Is that you? Are you crying?” He asks, much more awake now as he sits up from his position on the couch.
“Who’s this? Lando?” You realise now that you hear him speak; it's your brother’s best friend – to your frustration.
“Yes”
“Why are you answering my brother’s phone?” You ask annoyed.
“We were just hanging out, he fell asleep and-”
“You know what – it doesn’t matter. Can you tell him to come pick me up please?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m not sure, uhm, it’s called Palace, I think.” You sniffle, “You’ll send him to get me?” You ask hopefully.
“I’ll come get you myself. I’m just putting my shoes on, I’ll be there in a bit.” He says, putting your brother’s phone on speaker mode and stepping into his shoes.
“Lando you don’t have to come, just tell Max to come pick me up, please. I need him right now.” You say, frustrated that Lando wants to come. He’s not who you want and need at this moment; you need someone who you can trust, who’ll protect you and make you feel safe after what just happened. You need your brother, a close friend, or maybe even your father, but not Lando. Why can’t he understand that? You can feel your tears welling up again in frustration.
Lando ignores you, however. “Are you safe right now? You should try to find a group of people or something, stick to them until I get there, okay?”
“Lan-” He cuts you off, in a rush to get to you. 
“Do you want to stay on the phone? I’m getting in the car right now, I’ll be there in, like, eight minutes.”
“Lando, just send Max, please.”
“I’m already in the car. Do you want me to stay on the line, or not?” You hear the car revving in the background.
You sigh. Nevertheless, you’re relieved he’s on his way and you don’t have to stay here much longer. “That’s not necessary, Lando. I’m with the bouncer right now. Just come quick, please?” You’ve given up on the idea that your brother might come, Lando’s very much set in his ways.
“Of course, I’ll be right there.” Lando says firmly before hanging up.
Although you and Lando aren’t the best of friends, you get along well enough. Regardless, you get caught up in discussions quite regularly; both of you are passionate and stubborn in your opinions – it rarely happens that you and Lando do not end up being separated by your brother or a mutual friend. However, that you know exactly how to push each other's buttons doesn’t mean Lando doesn’t care about you. In fact, the opposite is true. Although he would never admit it, Lando has liked you for quite a while and cares for you deeply, even though he doesn’t generally show his feelings. And so, when you call him (well, not him specifically, but that doesn’t matter) crying and upset, he worries about you. He could’ve woken up your brother, who you obviously would have preferred over him, but he wants to be the one who’s there for you. He wants to be the one who protects you and keeps you safe – better yet, the one who makes you feel safe, if he could ever accomplish such a thing.
Lando exceeds his own expectations when he arrives at the nightclub in under five minutes. Already spotting you standing with the big, bulky bouncer, arms wrapped around yourself in an attempt to keep yourself warm in the cold, late night (or early morning) breeze. He carelessly parked his car on the side of the road, barely turning on the hazard lights before exiting the car. 
“Y/N! Are you okay?” He jogs towards the club entrance, concern showing on his face.
You lifted your head at the familiar voice yelling your name. Quickly thanking the bouncer who kept you company, you rushed over to the familiar boy. You had never been so happy to see Lando.
He pulled you into his arms as soon as you were within his reach. Cradling your head and brushing your hair with one hand, while the other pulled you closer by your waist. Although you initially wanted your brother to come, this was good too – you’d even go as far as to say you were enjoying it. Despite your differences, Lando’s presence (more specifically, his strong arms holding you tight) made you feel at ease and calmed you down. He relieved the tenseness of your body and you relaxed in his hold. Hiding your face in his neck and fisting the fabric of his shirt, you nestled yourself comfortably in Lando’s body and exhaled the breath you had been holding.
He buried his nose in your hair on the top of your head, breathing in your scent and smiling at the feeling of you snuggling into him. It felt right, so right, to be holding you like this. He whispers, “Are you okay?” You merely nod your head, not wanting to leave his embrace. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” He questions further.
You stay silent, enjoying Lando’s strong hold on you. It makes you feel safe. Safe enough to share what happened in the club. “There was some random guy who thought he was entitled to my attention.” You mumble into his neck.
“He didn’t touch you, did he?” He continues, already fearing the answer.
You let a silence fall before answering, “He did,”
Lando squeezes you tighter at the revelation. He’s not surprised a man ruined your fun night out.
You continue quickly, “But there were some girls who helped me, and I think they kicked him out. I’m not sure though, I left as soon as I could. Then I called Max, but he didn’t answer, and now…”
“I’m sorry,” Lando says, a pained expression on his face. “Men are shit.”
You let out a small laugh and Lando can barely avoid shivering at the feeling of your warm breath hitting the sensitive skin of his neck. Nevertheless, he smiles in accomplishment when he hears the sound, glad he could cheer you up.
“You want to go home? To my place, I mean, Max is there…”
“Yes,” You say into Lando’s neck, sighing before distancing yourself from him.
He kisses the top of your head before letting you leave his hold, “Let’s go then.” He says, pulling you along to his car, still tucked into his side.
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rintoki · 2 days
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“aventurine! what is the meaning of this?!”
your heels clacked on the cold marble floors, echoing throughout the otherwise empty space. you find the man hunched over the bar, and a loud thuack resounds out as you slam a stack of papers onto the counter beside him.
a crooked smile plays on his lips, about time, he thinks to himself. aventurine takes a swig of the drink he’s been nursing, emptying the remains of the smooth liquor down his throat.
“this was not what we agreed on.” your tone was harsh, accusatory, and he could feel your gaze burning holes into the side of his head. but the man could only laugh, his head lolling to the side to meet your eyes head on.
“aventurine. answer me.” there was a dangerous glint in your eye now, and aventurine felt if he stayed quiet any longer, he may very well never speak again.
“you finally came to find me,” the grin on his face was almost sickening, and you could just barely keep the red from clouding your vision. “is this what i have to do for you to look at me?”
aventurine turns his body to face you, leaning in close enough for you to catch the stench of alcohol on him. his smile quickly turns into a pout, “it was just a little mistake… are you going to punish me?”
your eye nearly twitches, what is this man…? but you compose yourself quickly; reigning in your anger as you turned away from him and let out a frustrated sigh. even though it’s clearly not a mistake, neither of you are in the right mind to resolve this. “we will discuss this—“
your words were abruptly cut off as the drunken man in front of you grabs your face, turning it back to face him. “why won’t you look at me?”
his arms slowly crept around your shoulders and before you realise, he’s so much closer than you remembered. and this time, the pout on aventurine’s face looked much more genuine. it was a rare sight to see, one that now held your full attention.
“i am looking at you,” your voice had lost its edge, softening as you answered your colleague. a beat passes as the pair of you stood unmoving, each unable to tear their gaze away from the other.
but aventurine breaks first, sighing deeply as he casts his eyes downward, “that’s not what i mean.”
somehow he’s found his way even closer to you, resting his head upon the crook of your neck. and somehow, you can’t find it in yourself to push him away, instead letting your arms rest on his lower back.
“… you’re drunk. get some rest and we can talk again tomorrow.”
you slowly pulled away from aventurine after a while, assessing that he’s more or less stable enough to be left alone. and with the same clack of your heels, you turn to leave, with an arguably bigger headache than when you first came here.
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thebearer · 1 day
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Can you imagine reader doing the “do you know a mike wazowski, he said he knows you and his best friend sully from school?” Trend from TikTok On carmen, Richie, fak and uncle jimmy. And they are all stood around thinking where they would know this person from and discussing it for like an hour and then they bring Tina into it 🤣, and then they get annoyed that the person would even think about approaching you and asking you any thing like that 😂🤣.
Also literally obsessed with your writings 💕❤️
committed to the bit, truly, you get sydney to call the phone and you answer it. pretend to have a whole conversation, then come out.
"that was weird."
carmen's head snaps towards you. "what? what was weird?"
"the guy on the phone." you try to keep your face still, knowing your phone is propped in the window. "he called and said he wanted a reservation, i told him we were pretty booked and he could check online, and he said he knew you guys. that he was family."
"family?" carmen's brows crease.
"who's family?" richie comes in, buttoning his suit.
"the guy on the phone."
"what's his name?"
"wazowski?" you furrow your brows. "i think i'm saying it right. wazowski? mike?"
"mike wazowski?" richie repeated, you nodded. he and carmen look at each other.
"i dunno him-"
"-no, is he- fuck." richie pinches the bridge of his nose. "is cicero still here?"
"oh, please, don't tell me there's more." jimmy snides. "thought you two had it under control."
"no, not that." richie rolls his eyes. "who was, uh, neil's cousin? the one that's been married like twelve times?"
"paul?"
"yeah, what's his last name? wazowski?" richie waves his hand.
"wazowski? no." jimmy frowns shaking his head. "wazowski? no, that's uh... who is that?"
"he said he was coming with sullivan." you take a stilling breath to contain your giggles. you know you can't look at sydney or you both will break in laughter. "sully?"
"sully?" richie, jimmy, and carmen question.
"i dunno who any of those people are." carmen huffs.
"yeah you do. is it- is it pete's family?" richie frowns.
"yeah, i think it is. seems like pete's family." jimmy grumbles.
"doesn't he have that weird uncle-"
"-oh shit, yes. at the wedding. god, that guy wouldn't shut up." jimmy groans. "i thought pete was bad."
"don't call him back." carmen looks at you. "if he calls again, just get richie."
"me?" richie scoffs. "why do i have to talk to that guy? i don't wanna talk to that guy. make sugar do it. it's her family."
"yeah but it's your job, jagoff."
they don't realize later, until the video is posted, that it was in fact, a joke.
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doe-eyed-fool · 24 hours
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Hi, I just discovered your page and am enjoying the Alastor and Lucifer fics, I was wondering if you could do an Alastor x Reader Wedding edition from Proposal/ Ceremony/Honeymoon? and also a tidbit of their marriage/Parenthood? Same for Lucifer? if it's not too much?
Married Life
Alastor x Reader | Lucifer x Reader
Thank you! I'm glad you like my fics, it makes me very happy! Enjoy~
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Alastor
Proposal-
Alastor never thought he'd love someone like he does you. All his life he's gone without the need for romance. He's never had any interest in such things. But then you came along, and turned everything upside down.
You made him feel things he never thought he could. Of course these things take time, and even longer for Alastor. He had to make sure he was serious about this. He had to make sure you were serious about this. He would not give his heart to just anyone. You had to earn it and his trust.
And earned it you did. Yes he never thought he'd find love in all his years living and in death. Even more so, he never thought he'd ever do something like this. But here he was, on one knee, asking for your hand in marriage. Of course you said yes, and he couldn't have been happier.
Ceremony-
The wedding would most likely take place in Cannibal Town. Rosie would have been a huge help in arranging the ceremony. After all, Alastor was a good friend, and she'd do anything for him and his soon to be bride/groom. She would even be the one to wed you both.
Husk believe it or not, was Alastor's best man while Mimzy was your maid of honor. (and you know she injured a few girls to catch that bouquet)
Alastor couldn't ignore the sudden quickening pace of his heart as you walked down the isle. His smile was genuine, and his chest fluttered with excitement as you approached. (if he wasn't hiding his tail everyone would have seen it wagging)
Alastor silently dared anyone to speak up when the whole "object now or forever hold your peace" part came up. And best believe that crowd was silent.
When you both were offically married, Alastor held you close as he kissed you softly. The kiss may have lasted a bit too long, but again, no one dared to speak up and ruin this moment.
Honeymoon-
Alastor would have planned a trip to the Wrath Ring (let's forget sinners can't travel through the rings), where you'd stay in a lovely cabin in the woods. It sorta reminded Alastor of home, being in the woods. It was peaceful considering the area. Nice and secluded too, you wouldn't be disturbed.
And if someone tried, well, Alastor would quickly see that taken care of...
There was a large meadow within the woods behind the cabin. The two of you could stay there for hours, just listening to the sounds of nature all around. It was a much needed break from the city life back in the Pride Ring.
Alastor was a wonderful cook and impressed you every day with a delicious meal. He'd even teach you how to cook certain dishes that his mother taught him. (she would have been so proud of him)
The two of you didn't want it to end, but alas, it was nearing time for you to return. Not to worry, there would be plenty more trips like this planned for you two newlyweds.
Parenthood-
This was a huge step for Alastor. He's never disliked children by any means, but having his own...
Nothing really scared Alastor (that we know of), but this was... something that kept him "on edge". Of course, there would need to be a very long and thought out discussion about having children. Alastor would also need some time to really think about it. He was thankful you would allow him that time, no matter how long it took.
Eventually, he would come to a decision. If you two have children of your own, he'd still be nervous. But once he see his newborn in your arms, something stirs deep within him. He just stared at it for a while, then he worked up the courage to actually hold them. And that was what did it.
There was that genuine smile again, that same thump in his chest again. Pride was a good word for it, but love was better. Alastor was sure right then, he didn't need to be worried anymore, or ever again.
If you two adopt, he will love the child all the same. He'd teach them how to cook, how to play piano, and absolutely how to defend themselves. Alastor couldn't have been more proud when his child picked up a few skills he taught them.
Alastor's children would be just as deadly as him eventually, but he would always look out for them and protect them from whatever threatens to harm them.
Lucifer
Proposal-
This man has never been more nervous in his life. He wanted this so bad, and he'd be damned if he lets his fear get in the way. You weren't Lilith, you wouldn't leave him like she did. If he thought you would, he wouldn't be working up the nerve to propose to you.
Lucifer would do everything romantic he could think to do for this proposal. It would happen at his home, private you know? A nice dinner he made himself. Romantic music. Soft lighting. Rose petals scattered here and there. He even dressed himself in his best suit for the occasion.
Lucifer was practically shaking when you showed up. He got some relief when you admired how everything was set up. He would wait for just the right moment before asking the big question.
He was absolutely over the moon when you said yes, he even cried a little....a lot. He cried a lot, sobbing practically. He was just so damn happy you wanted to marry him.
Now all he had to do was plan the perfect wedding...
Ceremony-
When Lucifer told Charlie that you and him were getting married, she was just as emotional as he was. She insisted you two got married in the hotel. Of course you agreed. So sure, why not?
Charlie and Lucifer would be working double time to make sure everything was perfect. And of course everyone else helped out too. When Charlie had a free moment, she and Vaggie would take you dress/suit shopping. Angel insisted he come along too, cause you're not going to go shopping for such an event without him. He knew how to dress to impress after all.
Charlie would be Lucifer's best woman, because there is no way in literal hell is he going to ask Alastor. While Angel would be your maid of honor. And of course Fat Nuggets would be the ring bearer, as per Angel's request. No arguments there.
If you thought Lucifer was emotional during the proposal, you should see him as you make your way down the isle. He was so excited that he couldn't even get mad that Alastor was the one walking you down. All he could see in this moment was you.
Once you reach him, you take his hands and you could see the love in his eyes. Husk would be the one to wed you both, even his grumpy self was smiling as he pronounced you both married. Lucifer wasted no time as he dipped you and kissed you so very passionately. He almost forgot there were people watching, so he eased up a bit. For now...
Charlie couldn't have been more happy for her dad. She gave him a warm hug before watching you two join hands and walk the isle. Soon you two would be off on your honeymoon.
Honeymoon-
Your honeymoon would be spend in the Sloth Ring. (again, let's just forget sinners can't travel through the rings lol) It was one of the more relaxing places in Hell, and that's what your honeymoon would be about. Relaxation. And of course it would be spent to the very last second filled with love and affection.
Lucifer would have rented a beautiful air bnb home, right on the lakeside. It was perfect for spending time on the deck and watching the pentagram sun set.
Lucifer would have also planned all sorts of fun things to do on the honeymoon. Some activities for couples, but mostly just having fun doing whatever.
Ya'll just know Lucifer would be an excellent cook. Every night he would make a delicious meal for the two of you. He'd let you help out too if you wanted. You might even learn something new.
The last night spent there would be the most romantic night of all. The two of you stayed in and slow danced to an old song you both loved. You don't know how long you stayed in each other's arms, but you didn't care. Neither of you wanted it to ever end.
And it never would, now that you two would spend the rest of eternity together.
Parenthood-
This next step would be big for the both of you. Lucifer was worried about being a parent again, after what happened with him and Charlie. He didn't want to mess up again and ruin the relationship he would have with his next son/daughter.
He was grateful you were there to ease his worries. He wanted so badly to make up for his past mistakes. He was already trying his best to be a better father for Charlie, he would be sure to do the same for his next kid.
If you gave birth to his baby, there would be a new swell of pride within him. You and him created such a beautiful thing together. And he would love this baby unconditionally and protect you and them with his very life.
If you two adopt, he would be just as happy. He had the chance to give this child a better life than they had. He'd love them and care for them, and would always keep them safe.
Charlie would be excited to be a big sister, which made Lucifer happier than anything. He loved his kids so much. He loved you so much. In the end, Lucifer would never let anything happen to his family.
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erwinsvow · 19 hours
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i feel like pogue!reader with rafe would have an interesting dynamic with barry. like, he doesn’t particularly like her - knowing her connection with the pogues, especially jj but at the same time he’s dealing with rafe and pogues as a collective have gotta stick together. he’s also just morbidly curious about how she and country club have became a thing.
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barry laughs when he sees you walking into his place, attached to rafe's side.
"ain't that-"
"that's my fuckin' girl. so watch your mouth." rafe cuts him off before he can finish the rest of his sentence, which is sure to have something to do with the fact that the few times barry's seen you before, you've been with the pogues that rafe supposedly hates so much.
"your girl? is that right? well, pleasure to meet you again, m'barry-"
you look up hesitantly at rafe, wondering if you should say something back, and you briefly reflect for a moment just how different things used to be. with your best friends, with jj and john b and pope at your side, the group of you would go and make yourselves comfortable anywhere. they'd charm their way into the good graces of the host and you never felt like you couldn't just speak your mind.
rafe is different. you don't know if it's bad, if he's bad for you, or not. talking to someone when you know he doesn't want you to feels wrong, feels bad. and you like him taking lead, him showing you the way and calling all the shots.
so you smile at barry but don't engage, looking up at your boyfriend instead. he looks down at you for a second, but you can tell you did the right thing.
"sit down and shut up. c'mon, we got shit to discuss."
"tells me to sit down. in my own fuckin' house. i gotta tell you princess, you picked a real winner here in rafey boy-"
"did y'not hear the shut up part?"
a laugh escapes, though you try to keep it quiet. they go on discussing something that doesn't mean much to you, while you go on your phone and text your friends. rafe's phone rings, and he just steps away for a minute to answer. barry doesn't hesitate a second to get the answers he needs from you.
"so. you and country club. how long's that been goin' on?"
"um, a couple months."
"your boys know 'bout him?" you bite your cheek. they don't, yet.
"not yet. but, soon, i guess. waiting for the right time.." you mumble, playing with a loose stitch on your skirt.
"yeah. i'd get on that. not gonna be too happy, are they?"
"maybe."
"don't they hate your boy as much as he hates them? ain't that.. awkward?"
you think you should be offended by the line of questioning, but rafe talks about barry often enough for you to know that he's not a snitch, that he doesn't care. he's just curious.
and he should be. up until a few months ago, you were never seen without your boys, as barry put it. you used to be attached to jj's arm, permanent passenger princess in pope's truck and the twinkie. it all feels like a lifetime ago.
"i'm hoping we can all make amends," you finish softly, fresh waves of guilt washing through your body. it burns where it goes, a stinging similar to what your friends are gonna feel soon, when they find out you've been dating the boy who's been terrorizing them.
"for your sake, i hope so too."
"what're you two talkin' about?" rafe asks, coming back inside and taking his place next to you. he puts his hand on your knee, brings you in close without having to ask.
you hope it's all going to be worth it.
"nothing."
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if you want to use me, i could be your puppet
for @subeddieweek day four with the prompt edging
rated e | 2,505 words | please check ao3 for tags
Day one:  ao3 | tumblr Day two: ao3 | tumblr Day three: ao3 | tumblr
⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕
Eddie didn’t think this through.
Running from Steve’s bedroom, naked, meant he would have to find a hiding place.
He did not want to have to deal with this right now.
He didn’t need Steve seeing the way Eddie’s feelings would no doubt show on his face, how he’d be quick to brush off Steve’s apology.
How quickly he’d agree to continuing what they’re doing so he had something rather than nothing at all.
The house was quiet, dark, a reminder of how lonely Steve probably was when he wasn’t busy with the kids or Robin or him. No wonder he was always so quick to jump in bed with Eddie; He wanted a warm body to keep him company.
“Eddie! Wait!” Steve’s voice came from the top of the stairs, but Eddie didn’t turn.
Maybe if he locked himself in the downstairs bathroom, Steve would give up and he could sneak out to his van wrapped in a towel or something. He’d done worse.
Unfortunately, Steve was much faster than him, probably due to the whole jock thing. Eddie had no chance.
Steve’s hand burned where it touched Eddie’s arm, trying to make him turn around and face him.
“Please, Eds. Please look at me. Let me-”
“I don’t want you to explain, Steve.” Eddie turned to him, suddenly angry. How dare he ruin what they were doing? How dare he take something that was so precious and send it careening off the road so quickly? “I want to pretend it never happened. I want to go back to letting you touch me and kiss me and hurt me just right. I want to know you don’t mean it.”
“Why?” Steve sounded angry. “Why would you want that? Is it that bad? What is it about me loving someone that makes them wanna run in any other fucking direction than to me?”
And Eddie wasn’t really prepared for that.
He didn’t really know exactly what happened with Nancy or any of the other girls Steve had been with in high school. He didn’t really know much about any of his casual hookups. He just knew that Steve gave so much to anyone he cared about, and many people took more than was fair of him to give.
“Why can’t I love you, Eddie?”
Eddie looked at Steve, really looked at him.
His eyes were watery, red-rimmed as if he was doing everything he could to resist letting the tears fall. Eddie could see his flush cheeks, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to hold back a sob. His hands shook.
Eddie recognized this for what it actually was. Sure it was emotion, and maybe Steve felt it was genuine emotional turmoil.
But it was also the start of a panic attack, one that would quickly escalate to something Eddie wasn’t sure he could help Steve through.
“Steve, hey-”
“Don’t fuckin’ pacify me, man.” Steve’s breathing picked up and Eddie had to shut this down. “I can be upset.”
“Yes, you absolutely can. I’m not gonna tell you how to feel, but you definitely need to breathe, nice and slow.” Eddie put his hand on Steve’s bare chest, forgetting for a moment that they were both still naked, both still sweaty and sticky from everything they did in Steve’s bed.
“I am breathing.”
“You’re panting. You need to sit down.”
“I’m not sitting down-”
“Red.”
Steve froze.
Eddie immediately regretted saying it, hated that he was using this in a situation outside of their agreement.
He just needed Steve to stop and take care of himself for a second.
“That’s not fair,” Steve’s voice was shaky, unsure. He’d never heard it like that, not even when they first started this, not when they discussed the difficult things.
“It may not be fair, but neither is what you said.” Eddie looked behind him at the couch, the same couch Steve had held his hand while they talked about what they’d be into trying together. “Can we sit?”
“I dunno, are you gonna run again?” Steve crossed his arms over his chest, which would be a hilarious image any other time, but was currently just really sad.
“No. I’m not gonna leave.”
“Yet.”
“Yet,” Eddie agreed.
They both sat down on the couch, shifting until there was enough distance not to touch, facing each other.
Steve threw the blanket over their laps to at least make an attempt at being serious.
“I’m sorry I said it like that.” Steve sighed as he put his head back against the couch. At least he seemed to be holding himself together better now. Maybe Eddie could have a turn at a breakdown. “I shouldn’t have said it when we were still…”
“You shouldn’t have said it at all, Steve.” Eddie watched as Steve ground his teeth together. “I know you may think that’s what you’re feeling, but you were on a sex high.”
“I can see why you’d think that,” Steve sounded like he was doing his best to stay calm. “That’s why I shouldn’t have said it then. But I did mean it. That hasn’t changed and it won’t change.”
“Steve, be serious.”
“I am! I need you to be serious! I love you. I’ve loved you for long enough to know that’s what it is.” Steve turned his head and gave him a sad smile. “I know it wasn’t supposed to happen, and I know you don’t feel the same, but I’m glad I said it, even if it wasn’t how I planned to.”
Eddie had to remind himself to breathe as Steve’s words sank into his brain, consumed his chest and stomach, made the nerves in his body spark with a combination of hope and fear.
“How long?” Eddie squeaked out.
“You remember that night when we talked about our limits?” Steve grinned.
“That was…so long ago. What the hell?” Eddie slapped Steve’s knee, but didn’t pull it away fast enough. Steve’s hand grabbed his. “We’ve been around each other almost every day since then.”
“And I thought about it every day,” Steve admitted. “I was gonna ask you on a date first and make it a big romantic thing. I had a plan.”
“Steve, I-” Eddie shook his head. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to say these things to me to keep me around. I mean, it’s not like anyone’s lining up at my door. I wouldn’t trust anyone the way I trust you with all this. I kinda figured you’d be the one to call it off soon.”
Steve moved the blanket for a moment, tugged Eddie into his lap, and tilted his head to the side.
“I’m not going anywhere, Eds. You’ve got me and I’ve got you.”
How did he do that? How did he sound so sincere, so charming, after such an emotional admission?
“You’ve got me?”
“I’ve got you,” Steve surged forward, lips crashing against Eddie’s as his hands left bruises on his hips.
Eddie would be an idiot to let him go.
He would have to trust that Steve meant it, and he’d have to trust that his heart would be safe in Steve’s hands.
He already trusted him with everything else.
The blanket that had barely been around his waist slipped, half pooling on the couch next to them and half falling to the floor.
Steve pulled away, breathless.
“Will you?” He asked.
Eddie had no idea what he was actually asking. “Will I…?”
“Go on a date with me.”
“Yeah, Stevie. I’ll go on a date with you. You’re buying, though,” Eddie winked.
“Of course,” Steve nodded, leaning up to peck him on the lips. “I was thinking about a road trip. Heard there’s a new record shop opening in Bloomington if you wanted to check it out.”
“Fuck, you really do love me, don’t you? You know I could spend hours in there, right?” Eddie’s heart couldn’t handle the soft look in Steve’s eyes.
“Yeah, I’ll bring a cooler with drinks and snacks. It’ll be fun,” Steve shrugged.
Eddie inched back the tiniest bit and was suddenly reminded that they were very naked. And Steve was getting hard again.
“You know…this house is kinda quiet. Maybe we could…”
“Oh, you wanna be loud?” Steve raised his brow. “Hm. I guess I should give you a reason to be.”
The tone was different, not quite his usual teasing demand, but something that left Eddie wanting.
“Please. God, Steve, I need it, need you,” Eddie had no idea where this begging came from, or why he suddenly felt like he would die without Steve’s hands on him.
“I know what you need, baby,” Steve kissed his jaw, soft for what Eddie knew was coming. “But I need you to tell me your color first.”
“Green, so green.”
“Hey.” There was the demanding tone. “Look at me.”
Eddie had no choice but to look.
“I need you to think about it. Don’t think about how desperate you are. Are you okay with everything we talked about? Are you okay with me loving you?”
Eddie thought about it. Was he actually okay with their short conversation, the feelings Steve admitted to, what that would mean going forward for them? Or was he desperate in more ways than one?
No, no he definitely was okay with this. He’d been so worried that his feelings would never be returned, that he’d be in an endless loop of unrequited love, that he’d do what Steve did and let it slip while he was in space.
Having the guy he loved love him back was a best case scenario for him.
“Green.”
Steve’s lips were back on his, hungry, rough, almost more than Eddie was prepared for, but it wasn’t unwelcome. He sunk into the feeling, let himself drift into Steve physically so he could carry him away mentally.
“Wanna get my fingers in you. Think you can handle just spit?” Steve said as he nipped at Eddie’s neck, leaving red, leaving teeth marks. Eddie wished they could be permanent. Maybe he’d get them tattooed.
“Mhm, please,” Eddie nodded, ignoring the tiny part of his brain that was telling him to be responsible and get the lube. He’d be sore if they didn’t.
The louder part of his brain didn’t care about that, wanted to be sore. He could feel good now and deal with the limp tomorrow.
Steve’s fingers ghosted over Eddie’s lips, pressing down until his mouth opened. He sucked them in, three of them, moaning around them as he made sure they were slick enough to get inside with little resistance.
They were both impatient.
Steve pulled his fingers from Eddie’s mouth only a few seconds later, gently patting his cheek with his other hand when he whined at the loss.
“You’ll have me inside you again, baby.”
Steve didn’t waste another second.
His wet fingers rubbed against Eddie’s entrance, fingertips teasing along his rim and just barely pushing inside one at a time.
It was too much, not nearly enough, and almost exactly what Eddie needed all at once.
He was so close already, teetering on the edge of coming without a hand on him or fingers actually inside him, and it would probably be embarrassing if Eddie could think about a single thing that wasn’t the way heat was pooling in his stomach and chest.
“Close,” Eddie whimpered, bucking up against nothing as if that was even necessary.
Steve’s hands were gone. Just like that. No warning at all.
Eddie whimpered again, reaching his hands out to touch, to beg, to do whatever would get Steve’s hands back on him and finish the job he started.
“No, baby,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Not yet.”
And so it went.
Steve got a finger inside him, barely thrusting it in and out before removing it completely when Eddie would start rocking back into the touch.
Then there were two fingers, and Eddie could just barely feel the pressure against his prostate, begging for more or less or something that would be different from the current hanging by a thread he was doing.
He could feel himself drifting, knew he was mentally checking out from what was happening, but he could still hear Steve’s rough voice soothing him, guiding him.
Three fingers pressed inside him, slower than before, stretching him in a way he never could himself.
He felt full, used.
“Color, sweet boy,” Steve said from somewhere in front of him. Eddie was having trouble centering himself, couldn’t quite figure out where he was physically even though he knew he was with Steve.
The fingers inside him stilled, not working him open further or pushing and pulling until Eddie was naturally rocking back and forth.
Steve needed an answer. Eddie had to give him one.
“Green.”
“Good boy,” Steve praised.
Eddie pretended that didn’t make his heart flip-flop in his chest, but something must have given him away anyway. Steve was grinning at him knowingly, though he didn’t say anything.
“You’re gonna come when I tell you, right? Not a second earlier than that.”
At this point, Eddie was pretty sure Steve was in complete control of his body. He was simply the puppet on Steve’s strings.
“Answer me, Eddie.” Steve pushed against his prostate, making his body shiver and cock twitch.
“Only when you say,” Eddie gasped out, lifting his hips to pull away from the overstimulation, but immediately falling back down when he missed it. “Wanna be good for you.”
Steve groaned, and his fingers pushed in and out of Eddie faster.
He wanted to be good, but he was only human.
“St-” Eddie moaned. “-eve. Can’t-”
“‘S okay, baby. You can come now.”
And Eddie did.
Just like that.
The relief of finally being able to unclench his thighs, to actually feel the last string tethering him to earth snap as his release painted Steve’s stomach.
His fingers slowed, but didn’t leave him, keeping him stretched as he clenched around them during the waves of pleasure still wringing through him. He felt like he’d never stop feeling this deep pulsing, had to try to open his eyes to see if he was still coming somehow.
Steve was murmuring something against his hair.
When had he even fallen against Steve’s chest, face buried in his neck?
How long had he been just whimpering against him like a dog in heat?
“...So good for me, sweet boy. So proud of you for waiting for permission.”
Oh.
Praise like that wasn’t exactly a new part of their aftercare, but it was rare that Steve said it more than once or twice, usually just holding him in his arms in silence while Eddie came back down from the clouds.
He’d think about that later.
For now, he let his body relax, the noises stop, and his breathing slow.
He could sleep in Steve’s arms, feel the love pouring from his words and fingertips, and plant his feet on the ground in the morning.
Day five: ao3 | tumblr
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|| What Took him so Long?
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Summary: For a long time I’ve wanted a comfort fic dealing with Bucky’s arrival in camp and the assumption that once he got there, found his men and was relatively safe, he had a big adrenaline crash and needed a ton of loving care. So I wrote it into this world.
Note: I wrote so many of the boys for the first time this time and, well, it was fun but have mercy I’m new here
Continuity: This segment follows the events of First Night
Thanks: I owe dear @hogans-heroes a lot for helping me sort my screams about multiple different aspects of this fic and for how much depth they’ve added to my own love of these guys. Also to @ab4eva @blurredcolour and @crazymadpassionatelove
Warnings: usual universe warnings apply, 18+,additional graphic recounting of past violence and rape, descriptions of injuries from the same, angsty conversations and misplaced blame, the boys trying to give all six foot two inches of dead weight Egan a bath
“It’s Ida,” Brady’s nimble hand was deceptively strong when clutching Gale’s bicep and shaking him to wakefulness early in the morning, “she won’t fuckin’ respond but she’s bowin’ up ‘till I think her neck might snap.”
Well that got Gale tumbling out of his bunk, out from Maureen’s hold on his face, swollen thumb on his tongue. The hell had he been thinking last night? The raucous noise of his landing to his feet woke the others, Crank instantly startled at their hovering over Ida.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dunno,” Gale replied, staring down at Ida Brady who was suddenly quite still again, “when’d the jerks start?”
“About an hour ago. She didn’t move before that.” John reported and Gale was sure it was an accurate report as Brady’s eye bags suggested he’d not even slept a wink. “She’s cold but she kept seizing so I stopped holding her.”
Gale bit his lip and tried to recall how pale was deathly pale, or just, pale. He bent over her and placed his fingers against her pulse, relieved to find a strong heartbeat in her neck. Maybe too strong, but he wasn’t about to start picking apart mercies. He was trying to measure it to his watch’s third hand when she started again, neck truly so bowed beneath his fingers he understood the impression of it close to breaking. He took his hand away discomfited and by this time Crank had joined them to stare down at her but those eyelids didn’t even flutter.
“We shoulda called a doctor last night.” Crank fretted, “She wasn’t just tired, not after what she’s been through.”
What she had been through was not something that had been discussed really, and so, it had been happily tabled as a past occurrence when she came in last night and toppled into the bunk straight after showers. Now their silence on the topic seemed like the sort of lethal discretion that kills amongst “polite” societies.
“Well, let’s get one now.” Gale snapped, “Crank -find the one who sewed my cut. Vega, I think, Vargas, something like that. He’s here, in the south compound.”
“You got it major.”
As Ida quieted again, Gale tried his hand at her pulse once more. A few moments later she was writhing in her sleep again.
“Since she seizes everytime you touch her, how about ya stop touching her?” Demarco’s word of wisdom filtered in from his bunk.
Chastised, and with shared looks of alarm at their foolishness, Gale and Johnny retracted their hands to clasp behind their backs and waited in that mock parade rest until the doctor came in, dark expression on his face and a very deflated medical bag at his side.
“It’s one of the women?” he asked, shouldering between the two men.
“Yeah, our colonel.” Gale supplied before relaying in brief terms the timeline of her stay here, her symptoms, her rather obvious injuries.
“We might be dealing with a concussion,” the Doc warned upon inspecting her face, “how’d she get these?” he asked about the swollen cheek and torn temple.
Gale turned to Maureen who still sat in her bunk, quiet, oddly quiet. “I saw her get punched once, I think it was on that side. But it wasn’t so bad, the rest happened when they took her away from us.”
Doc Vega was inspecting the rest of her as he pulled the covers down, her shirt flaps up, bruises and more bruises visible and -“She’s bleeding through her pants. Is this a cycle or-?” He turned to Kendeigh expectantly and she only shook her head, making Brady turn away with a wounded noise and walk a convict’s lap around the table, breath shuttering out in rough huffs, fists shoved into his pockets. Maureen wasn’t sure how anyone expected to get on top of such emotions, much less a bother. She was sure as soon as she had energy for it, she’d start making some Germans pay, it didn’t matter which, someone needed to pay.
“With assault this severe-“ Doc Vega’s face was more than eloquent regarding his horrified assessment. “-she should be in hospital. You know that right? That’s what this is, sexual battery, and like the word suggests, it's damaging, very damaging. Not to mention infection, fever- she belongs in hospital.”
The silence was heavy except for Brady and his off kilter laps.
“If they take her, I don’t trust them to guarantee her Combatant status.” Gale’s jaw worked overtime as he stared down at the body of his friend, “German hospital might be the best thing to ever happen to her or the worst when they discharge her. She’d not want me to let them take her out of here. Not after she fought so hard to get in.”
“Then by god,” the doctor exclaimed, “take her to the camp doctor, there must be some supplies. Antibiotics at the least, aspirin perhaps. Something for the swelling, inside and out. Camp doctor has supplies, how many times do I gotta tell you guys -I don’t! Take her to him.”
“No!” John Brady spoke up urgently only to immediately appear chagrined at his slip as Gale Cleven turned a very suspicious eye on him, “I mean, sir, if we take her, the German doctor will just transfer her to hospital. He can’t see how bad she is.”
That was a valid point, Cleven had to give it to him, although he noticed Hambone’s own suspicious, cud chewing, background shuffling observation of his pilot. Every time that doctor was brought up, Brady mildly suggested that they not go to him, without fail. His mentions regarding the guy being German and illusions to his methods being foreign were wearing thin. There was a miasma of myth about the doctor that no one could actually credit for a single source and Cleven hadn’t expected Brady, sensible, steady, laconic and measured Brady, to be the one to start spinning folklore in a place like this. He had next to no patience for it.
“Brady,” he decided to have at it, “you gonna tell me why everytime I bring up medical care in this camp you act like I’m suggesting suicide?”
“Sir,” Johnny’s gentle eyes grew wide and ever more guileless, “I told you, that man isn't much good.”
“Even a trash physician who has supplies is better than a good one without.” Doc Vega pointed out as he prepared to take his leave, “I’ve done everything with what I have. There simply isn’t anything at my disposal. Packages got held up and didn’t have everything accounted for.”
“He probably takes the stuff.” Brady muttured.
“So he’s the one to go to.” Gale snapped.
“He’s not touching her.” Ida’s brother replied.
Gale pinched his nose as he watched Vega leave them, the guy’s useless little bag of nothing swinging by his side, “By not being good - do you mean a poor physician? Be clear, Damnit.”
As if sensing a penultimate conflict, the room soon cleared of everyone save Maureen who was too invested by curiosity and a healthy dose of her own suspicion.
“Sir I’ve told you, he -he operates outside his purview.”
“Son? I can’t even pretend to understand what that means.” Gale’s patience grew more lethal as it rubbed thin, “That could mean he uses leeches or he abuses his patients.”
Brady’s eyes darted back and forth from Cleven’s face to the plain beamed ceiling as if he could find his answer there. Manic and with an odd glitter easily mistaken for tears. The kid probably needed to sleep, or maybe he needed to fess up about the doctor. Either way, Gale found the whole thing more and more unsettling but also, aggravating.
“Now are you gonna tell me which is it? Or are you alright with me withholding help from dying men because Captain Brady’s too intent on staying vague?”
“He’s just odd, sir.” Brady gave a defeated huff, eyes still watery, “It’s nothing bad, I-I never said not to send them, sir. He just can’t see Ida. He can’t.”
Gale was intently watching Brady swallow hard and wrack his brain for another respectful appeal when Crack came barreling back in, the eagerness in his step reserved for only one thing these dismal days: “They’re here! There’s a new batch, bringing them in the front now, quick, there’s not a long line!”
Brady was up and darting out the room before Gale could blink, uncharacteristically excusing himself before his superior had dismissed him and leaving Ida behind, still motionless in her bunk.
“Bucky could be with them!” Brady explained as he dashed out, same old hope repeated for over a month now and Gale wondered when the guy was going to crack from one too many hits to the morale.
“Brady!” Gale called after him a beat too late, wondering who was going to stay with Ida, but after catching Maureen’s quizzical eye, Gale too bolted and left the woman in his lover’s charge, tearing out of the combine to have a word with his young Captain, fleece and cover on for a little added dignity the camp pallor had no doubt stripped him of.
The scars, too.
Brady was at the fence by the time Gale caught up, his wiry frame slipping between the surging mass of POWs come to greet and heckle the newcomers. Gale had long ago found it a dismal scene and wasn’t fond of watching after it, but Crank and Brady were too intent, and some heartsick need drove Gale to find such excuses for why he, too, always managed to be at the scene when a new batch trudged in.
And what the cat brought in today made Gale forget about everything, everything else but that tall, shuffling, bloodied mess of a man he knew was his friend. And, characterically, despite appearing half dead, Egan was asking after Cleven, like the crackers after the cheese, damn the association risks.
“John Egan! Your two o’clock!”
Like a sunbeam splintering a thundercloud, Bucky’s battered face split open in a beaming smile the second he’d registered Cleven’s own. Gale couldn’t help the effusion of bittersweet gratification at the immediate resumption of the old ways, the old sweetness between them, the nearness of a good man to help brave this hell.
“What took you so long?” he jabbed, but his friend’s face told a story Buck wasn’t sure anyone left in Stalag Luft III had the stamina to hear.
And just like that, Egan was shuffled past and into processing and it would be ages before he saw him again. When Gale turned his back and worked his way through the crowd, Brady was lingering in one of the clearings, hands clasped and a rote twirl of thumbs matching the catatonically grateful prayers on his imperceptibly moving lips. Or Gale sure hoped they were prayers, it was that or Johnny having finally cracked.
“You were right.” He gave the kid a pat on the shoulder, smiling gently at him as he seemed to come out of his relieved fog, eyes too big in that lean face and dark circles making reflective ponds below, “You were right, you said he’d make it.”
“I hoped he would.” Johnny didn’t sound like he was expecting to cash in those prayers so soon.
“I’m going to that doctor.” Gale informed him, leveling him a strong look, “I think we should get a little list for the other girls. Play it off, could be for anyone. Penicillin, sulfa, that sorta thing. Does that sorta thing cure…their sorta thing?” Cleven admittedly obfuscated towards the end, not really expecting John Brady to know what cured venereal diseases but more hoping for an opinion of solidarity, like one does when ordering a risky plate off the menu.
Major Cleven never learned whether Captain Brady thought penicillin would work or not, there was a commotion outside the main center compound’s administrative building, and then the sudden appearance of guards dragging between them a slumped figure.
A dragged body was bad in most situations, at the prison camp it was cause for more than a little ire and panic. When Gale recognized the stature of their burden, the familiar span of the shoulders, the dark mop of curls hung low, his own brisk walk turned into a full on sprint across the muddy yard, Brady at his heels full of the same enlightenment.
“The hell did you do to him?” Cleven bellowed at the reasonably perturbed guards who were already mounting a defense of their blamelessness for Egan’s unconscious state.
“Nothing!” the more fluent of the two protested, “He vas being processed, yes? And he falls over, like zat. Nothing. Did nothing. Check him, he is—“ the guard made a motion to his face signifying the battlement Gale had already noticed as Egan trudged in. Back when Egan was awake and on his own two feet. “We? Nothing!”
Gale took Egan from them like a mother being handed their child, full frontal weight of his large friend propped against him and he succeeded at little more than keeping them both from hitting the mud. He was already weaker than when he first got there and the proof was here in the staggering weight of a man he used to hold his own against. Crank and Johnny and Demarco were beside him before he can even look for assistance, expressions of compassion and anger at Egan’s plight all melding into a series of disbelieving grunts as they heaved him up between them, carrying his dead weight like a feedsack. Gale and Brady take under his arms, Crank and Benny his legs. Gale studied the completely bashed face of his friend, a seething deduction brewing as to how he came to be in such a state.
“The showers.” he directed his men as they stalled midway in the yard after having got the weight of him hoisted.
They created a stir as they went, the dire oddity of the scene drawing attention as they shuffled through camp.
“Holy shit, is that Egan?” Talullah Smith came to a sudden halt in their path.
“Move!” Gale told her. “Or get the door.”
“He even alive?” Murphy was with her, no doubt obeying Cleven’s order for no woman to be unattended around camp, and he scrambled alongside to help as they mounted the steps and passed through the door Smith held until they were in the dank and echoing, poorly tiled room. There were a few other men in here, washing clothes and dabbing at their underarms. The showers themselves were not on today, hadn’t been for days, and Gale knew the large trough sinks down the middle of the room were their best bet for a triage and an initial wash.
“Somebody get his boots off, come on.”
It was horrible, grunting, grappling work trying to keep Egan’s dead weight up as they tugged off encrusted articles of clothing one after another, cringing at the bruises each grip and pull necessarily aggravated.
“Sorry Bucky.” Demarco apologized repeatedly to the insensible man as he adjusted his grip on his ribs for Brady to pull the slate gray button up off him.
“Smith, you can go.” Cleven noticed her lingering by the door, consternation written all over her face at Egan’s state, Murphy shadowing her. It wasn’t suitable for a woman to remain for the rest of it, whatever skill she had at setting fingers was a little below the pay grade of John Egan’s injuries. “You and Murph, can go get Doc Vega. Again.”
He sent Brady a look but the boy was too busy to notice, helping pull a very discolored arm out of a Bucky’s standard issue, fleece-less jacket. “What’d the looney do with his sheepskin?” he asked.
“Gave it to, Kidd.” Brady grunted, “Right before Munster. Said you didn’t like it.”
I’ll be damned: no lucky deuce and no lucky jacket and no fighter escorts, how were they supposed to manage to stay in the sky with recklessness like that? “You sentimental sunnuvabitch,” he hissed mournfully at his friend’s flopping head as they got him stripped and the full extent of his bruises came in view, “-supposed to be the last ones up.”
If anyone else understood what he meant in his mournful rage, they didn’t heed it, and if they didn’t understand they also did not press him for his meaning.
“Let’s get him up.”
Collectively they grabbed a limb apiece again and hoisted Bucky, groaning themselves under the bare weight of him.
“What did his mother feed him?” Benny protested as they staggered, and dumped him onto the longest of the troughs, getting a weak moan of protest from their specimen at the cold and hard surface.
“Major?” Crank begged hopefully of his closed eyes as Gale worked at the pump on the faucet, the gurgle of chilled water preceding the blast.
“I’m gonna use this, lad.” Brady was informing one of the armpit washing boys down the way, swiping their washcloth with kind presumption and returning to squeeze it out under Cleven’s growing steam.
Gently as he had his sister’s scalp, Brady began to use the wet cloth to scrub and wipe at the blood dried in an ominous swirl around Bucky’s eye as Gale continued to pump.
“He’s gonna catch chill.” Demarco warned.
“Haul some buckets?” Gale asked if they were willing, the kitchen combine was not so far away with fires and tin pails.
“We’ll be back.” Benny agreed.
“Brady, go with him.” Cleven unceremoniously pried the washcloth from the boy’s hand; silent weeping was an art Gale had perfected as a child but he’d not seen it in a grown man until today, “Go.”
While they were gone Gale did his best to keep the chilled water somewhat diverted, with Crank’s help he even managed to roll Bucky on his side and probe at his blackened ribs. As is, Bucky began to shiver and when Doc Vega got there; he was none too gentle in his hurried and angry assessment.
“Fractured ribs.” he rubbed the washcloth across his face like he was sanding the deck back home, “Possible fractured orbit. Eye socket, Cleven, looks busted. Just keep him propped, hope his eye doesn’t fall back into his skull.” Gale stared back at him unblinking, there was only ever one question these days and after a beat Doc Vega answered it, “And no, don’t have anything for it.”
Brady and DeMarco had returned with their now tepid water in time to hear this. “Should we wash him?” Benny gestured hopelessly.
“Yeah, he’ll probably sleep it off. If we’re lucky. Get him clean, get him warm.”
Gale began to pump anew and Brady gently tipped his warm bucket over Egan’s clotted curls, running his fingers through to disentangle the crusted snarls. Unfortunately their irrepressible patient took the kindness for a waterboarding and began to thrash, sending a shower of cold droplets over his caregivers.
“Buck?” a wrecked voice, punctuated by chattering teeth, stalled them all. “I saw Buck, where’s Buck, I found Buck, wh-“
“Yeah, yeah Bucky, it’s me.” Gale dropped his task and crouched over him, shivering himself as the sink ledge dampened the front of his own clothes.
“Buck!” Egan begged again, arms reaching out until Gale found himself all but tipped into the sink himself, arms wound around Egan’s pale shoulders with their blooming blue mottle, “M’so goddamn cold, Buck.”
“I know, I know, I’ve got ya. I swear, I’ve got ya.” Gale squeezed him tighter, “Almost over. Gettin’ you freshened up. We’ve got ladies here now.” he joked.
John’s head rolled listlessly on Gale’s forearm and his sharp blue eyes flitted across the washroom ceiling until he caught sight of someone else dear hovering over him with another pail, “Brady, what’re you cryin’ for?” he croaked.
“You.” the kid didn’t miss a beat. “So sorry Bucky, I’m so sorry.
“Hey,” Bucky’s voice strengthened with vehemence, “s’not your fault. None of it.”
“Yeah,” Gale agreed, gently peeling a flake of blood off his ear, “that plane was going down anyway without your lucky jacket.”
Bucky somehow had the stamina and the facial expertise to look sheepish at that despite his disfigurement. “Why'd you guys put me in the sink? Animals! Get me out, too goddamn cold, get me out. Gale! Get me out.”
“Ok, ok, shh, ok.”
There was a compassionate scramble to help Bucky sit up and swing his legs over the side, the groaning and swaying of the Major a hardly promising sign for the excursion he seemed intent to make. Suddenly they were helping to prop him on his feet again, and while he was no longer the dead, unconscious weight of before, he was now six feet something of bare, slippery flesh vibrating between them all in a terrible chill. Murphy and Smith had brought blankets along with the Doc, and gratifyingly someone from their combine had proffered a t-shirt and fresh skivvies.
Crank and Brady swayed dangerously with his weight on their shoulders as Gale knelt down and made his shaking legs step into them. Bucky’s own hand arrested him standing up by placing a clumsy hand on his cheek.
“Where’d you get these?” he was thumbing at those scars Gale hadn’t managed to live down.
“Flack.” Gale maintaIned as he rose to his feet, “What the hell happened to you?“
Bucky gave him his old lopsided grin, “War, Buck.”
“Too much of this kind of war lately.” Crank pointed out unamused, wounds were one thing but what was with the abuse? It didn’t seem to stay away, even from the strongest or most esteemed of their number.
Bucky’s brow ticked in curiosity at the allusion to others but he was too drained to keep his thoughts ordered, “Marched us through a town, RAF had just paid a call. Townspeople didn’t exactly come out with flowers.”
“Holy shit.” Benny sucked his teeth in a grimace, noticing how the other men down the way paused their chores to listen in.
“They attacked you?” Cleven’s tone left little room for questioning.
Bucky gave them a wincing little smile, tilting his head in a shrug, “Yeah, guards just let them at us. I’m the only one who made it.”
“What?” Came up in a chorus, his doleful audience suddenly animated, “You mean they killed the rest?”
“One got knifed,” Bucky stared down at Brady’s work on lacing his boots, skivvies and boots, now he looked like all the other clowns here, “the others - guess they beat them, too. I heard shots. Woke up in a cart on the way to a nice, quiet little spot in the woods.”
“Jesus Christ:” Crank uttered, “Jesus Christ.”
“I’ll be ok.” Bucky muttered, scuffing his boots to see how heavy they felt, his limbs wouldn’t stop shivering and he had a sick feeling it wasn’t from cold alone.
“Yeah, you will.” Cleven’s pained eyes ordered him sternly and to swipe away that horrid crease between his brows, Egan would do anything.
“Yeah.” he agreed.
“Let’s get you a bunk.” Brady prodded, slipping back under one of his armpits, wiry shoulders having more strength in them than Bucky credited, “We’ve got a nice little sick ward going.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah; and no medical supplies.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, it’s a real well oiled machine they got here.” Benny snarked as the lot of them kept pace with Egan’s limps across to their combine -it wasn’t under discussion where he’d bunk, he would be in with them.
“What’d you name the place?” Egan asked dismally at the threshold of their combine.
“We didn’t.” Gale admitted his unimaginative oversight for the second time in twenty four hours on these same steps.
“No?” Egan slapped at the boring raw lumber and sniffed, “You let Maureen in billet in here?” he asked suddenly.
“Y-yeah.” Gale was wary and his defense at the ready, “All the women who’ve arrived so far are in this one, so we can help guard them. Yes, Maureen’s in with us.”
It was better just to say it, to head off the teasing and the suggestions and the disorder right away. Cleven smiled back at Bucky confidently, waiting for this friend to get a move on over the threshold.
“Huh, ok,” Egan made a funny little face; “then I christen you,” he went on addressing the combine itself, clearing his throat loudly to collect before spitting on the doorframe above Benny’s disgusted head, “Love Shack Number Nine.”
“Just -get your ass inside.” Gale shoved at him between his shoulders and Bucky -with Brady still tucked dutifully under a wing- entered his new home.
Gale gave him a preliminary roster of inmates in each barrack, “We’re down near the end.” and by the time they got to their own room Crank had to help support Bucky’s other side, the brief surge of energy the cold water and friendly faces had given him waning fast.
“Just so goddamn hard to breathe.” He tried to explain, wincing at the pull of his arms as they clumsily shouldered into their room.
It was empty except for Ida in her bunk and Maureen beside her who stood up fast as a lightning bolt at the sight of Egan. “Jumping Jehoshaphat, what happened to you?” She rushed him but pulled back before her usual greeting of hugs to survey the damage, suspecting a squeeze might be too cruel even by Egan’s standards.
“I’m ok, Candy.” he assured, smooth as butter as he reached for her and ran busted knuckles over the curl of her hair, “God you’re a sight for sore eyes after all these ugly bastards.”
“Really though, what happened?” she shied away from his pacifying touches, glaring at the others to start spilling the beans.
“They tried to lynch him.” Gale saw there was nothing for, she’d wheedle it out at some point and after what she’d seemingly endured, what exactly was he shielding her from? “Killed everyone else with him.”
Maureen’s worried eyes dulled sadly at this and she proceeded to hug herself, hands carefully tucked into her armpits, “Gosh, Bucky.” she mumbled.
“Hey, said I’m alright, didn’t I?” Bucky coaxed, swaying towards Maureen and laying a heavy hand on her small shoulder. It tipped him too far forward and he had to clutch at and brace himself on the bunk slat behind her head. Suddenly he was peering over her shoulder and instead of empty sheets as he expected in the lowest bunk, he found the bruised face of a superior he didn’t know had even been shot down. “What the hell happened to her?”
At the silence that followed this very simple question, Bucky swung his head round to stare the men down. It made the world rock, window blurring into the room in a nauseating sheet of white and Buck had too many eyes and all of them sad and Crank hadn’t even a face but a blob and his vision was shot to shit with spots but as no one said a word, he repeated his question in a yell that surprised even himself, “What happened to her?”
“The Gestapo kept taking them from the Dulag.” Brady’s voice was soft and thin in his ringing ears, like a child explaining the fate of a broken toy, “They even took them to a camp. A women’s prison camp.”
“Am I missing the part where any of that promises a face like that?” Bucky demanded, trying to get the goddamn window to stop whiting out his vision.
Gale’s voice was on his other side, the side without the window, he wanted to look at him but he was afraid to move his head again and for the spots to get large and everything go black one more time. “Long time before they’d recognize them as combatants, Bucky,” Gale laid a preemptively calming hand on Egan’s arm, “SS knocked them around bad.”
That’s all Gale really knew of it. Most of it had been gotten out of Smith who seemed most fit and most angry over it all. The others were skittish or tired.
“Knocked them around.” Bucky repeated bitterly, disbelieving Cleven’s moderate retelling, “Who’s them? Who else?”
“We’ve got a little over a dozen of the girls here.” Gale replied, “Brought them in a group, some downed weeks before others. Held them while figuring out what to do before they brought them here.”
“What to do?” Bucky knew he was back to yelling and the spots were getting excited from it, “Treat them like officers being a little too much to ask?”
“Like they treated you?” Demarco weighed in, if only to take the heat off his co-pilot, “Like they treated Buck?” -or maybe not.
“The fuck did they do to him?” Bucky really did try to turn his head this time and he was blindly groping for Cleven’s soft cheeks even as the spots took over his vision and his knees began to buckle. Gale grabbed him on the way down with Candy’s help, but Egan heard her exclamation of pain from it.
Steadied, with his hands back on the bunk slat, Bucky willed away the spots and stared down at Kendeigh’s supportive hands on his waist -or what shoulda been hands. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen an uglier set of paws.
“Were you with her?” he asked, gravelly and not to be ignored.
“Most of the time.” Maureen whispered back and if Gale could have cleared the room for her he would’ve.
“Then what the hell happened to her?” Bucky summoned the last bit of himself and stared down the auburn beauty of his erstwhile drinking buddy, “No really Kendeigh, answer me. I’m your superior, you don’t have recourse, you answer to me. What’re you gonna do, huh? Ask your fairy godmother colonel if you can ignore me? Huh? ‘Hey ida got a sec, Ida?’ No? Looks like her office is closed. Fucking talk to me, Candy. Start with those hands. What happened?”
“Someone stood on them.” -if Gale had to hear Maureen repeat it one more time in that monotone way he was going to start chewing through his cheek.
“Why?” Bucky always had such simple questions, it was one of his wisdoms and Maureen hated it right now, her eyes flashing and her face reddening as she ducked away from the stare of friends.
“So I’d stop fighting him.” The statement was hardly legible, her voice had gone so wispy.
“He, this ‘he’ -he knew you were an Officer?” Gale hadn’t thought to ask that, and he’d thought of so many things to ask that never made it out his throat, but Bucky did. “An army Air Force combatant?”
Maureen swallowed hard before throwing her head back, neck taut and nose flaring -Gale didn’t think he’d ever seen her more magnificent. “He knocked my cap off before it.” she answered at last, a cold hard meeting of blue eyes and Bucky stared her down, “And he laughed at the engraving on my belt buckle when he undid my pants.” There was dead silence for a beat before she went on, “They tore the wing patches off Ida’s shirt, you can see the holes there, see? Johnny’s not fixed them yet.”
Bucky slumped to a seat on Ida’s bunk, a shaky hand extending to push down the blanket and expose her shoulder, and there was a jagged tear in the standard issue, sure enough. “What’s Johnny been fixing?” he asked, voice hollow as he thumbed at Ida’s mottled skin, she was white as a ghost beneath the blue discoloration. Bucky wondered if he looked half as rough.
Johnny was then in a squat beside him, rummaging under the bunk before pulling out a pair of trousers. He tossed them into Bucky’s lap, wordlessly. Drab olive, Brady’s tidy repairs obvious due to the clashing thread, and also blood -so much goddamn blood down the inseams, meticulously scrubbed out but stained all the same and woven together by the white stitches. “You bastards let him do this?” Bucky asked the men incredulously, rage beginning to boil over and it didn’t have a single source and it certainly had no rightful outlet, “None of you can handle a fuckin’ needle? No? No, go on then, let a brother sew up this shit, let him get to think long and hard about what each fuckin’ rip means for his sister! You goddamn cowards -you haven’t even asked them! You haven’t talked about it with the girls, have you?”
“Bucky, Bucky come on now,” Gale tried reasoning with him, “they just got in. So did you. Let’s, let’s take it easy, save our mad for the ones who deserve it.”
“Oh, oh you don’t think that’s us then, Major Cleven?” Egan scoffed, “Because we didn’t do it, isn’t our fault at all?”
“It’s not!” Crank insisted behind Gale’s back, “Gonna blame Buck for your ribs, too?”
That defeated him. Bucky’s fury visibly dimmed in his eyes and Gale would have almost preferred the insulting rage over the dead helplessness that followed, it was too reminiscent of his own. “They’re safe, you’re safe.” he summarized gruffly, “Doc says sleep for both you and her.”
“Sleep.” Bucky mumbled as he looked back to Ida, trying to imagine with masochistic singleness of mind the sort of men who’d enjoy picking a strong woman like her apart -he could bring them to mind too easily. “Sure, just…sleep it off.”
“I don’t want her going to the doctor.” John Brady insisted once more like this had never been argued before in this very room.
“He no good?” was all Bucky asked.
“No sir.” Brady was emphatic and relieved to be taken at vaguest value.
“Brady’s the only one to say that,” Cleven butted in, “and he won’t specify.” Gale may have shot a glare at Ida’s brother, Bucky’s own predicament causing a double issue. “You need one, she needs one, too.”
“I-I trust my little Fox.” Bucky disagreed, although it was less impressive by both the use of a nickname and the slurring stumble that occurred right after as he attempted to get up from the bunk and pat Brady’s cheek. This small movement caused such disturbance in his fragile equilibrium that he would have nearly toppled if Cleven and Kendeigh hadn’t been at his side to catch him. “Goddamn! Goddamn, I’m dizzy as hell.” he repeated, “And cold. I don’t want a doctor, I want a blanket. And a nap.”
“Just what the doctor ordered.” Gale repeated dryly with a ghost of a grin that would have normally riled Bucky into smushing it between his fingers. He was too far away for that and Bucky was too dizzy to reach.
“M’gonna sleep for a week.” He announced.
“They’ll be in here for roll if you don’t show.” Gale begged.
“Good luck to them, moving me.” Bucky grumbled and shook a boot across the room before Brady knelt and helped with the other one. How many times had the sweet kid been shoeing him today? He should start calling him mom.
“They’ll come for her too, if she misses again.” Gale pushed, “A guard came and checked to make sure she was alive this morning.”
“They’ll just take her to the doctor.” Brady repeated hopelessly.
“No they won’t.” Bucky assured him, already fully convinced of two things Gale very much held in suspicion, and he’d been here under half an hour, “They won’t.” he repeated and, before anyone could fully credit their eyes, he appeared to use his last gasp of strength and dexterity to roll Ida Brady, none too gently, further in her bunk toward the wall before climbing in after her and sagging into the meager bedding.
“John!” Cleven had too many objections to itemize at present and all of them were tidily conveyed by use of his Christian name.
“They can’t take her from us like this, Buck.” Bucky was slurring worse than ever, now obstructed by a pillowcase and Ida’s torn head.
“She doesn’t wanna be touched.” Gale hissed urgently, side eyeing Demarco who seemed beyond caution and was now viewing this as analytically as a laboratory experiment.
“S’ok.” Bucky mumbled, “Ida always knows me.”
Gale and Johnny exchanged helpless looks, with Gale choosing to flavor his own with no small amount of accusation towards the younger man. But then, both occupants of the bunk became -and stayed- still, and no seizing episodes followed the heavy burden of Bucky’s arm over Ida’s ribs. So, with shrugs and outstretched hands of mere mortal impotency, they resigned themselves to life with Bucky in Love Shack Number Nine.
“I forgot how loud he could get.” Crank’s mutter broke the silence.
“We should get some salve at least.” Demarco observed with a nod to Bukcy’s face and Kendeigh, who had been oddly quiet and sat with legs swinging on her bunk, echoed in agreement.
“I thought maybe penicillin, too.” Gale asked the room at large.
“Why not ask for the keys to the front gate while we’re at it?” Crank snarked, “That krout sawbones never gave me shit for Murphy’s cuts, hasn’t even tended Hambone since he got out of hospital.”
“Hambone hasn’t gone to him because Brady has scared him off.” Cleven retorted, “Any of you have a better idea?”
“I could try.” Maureen spoke up, “He might -respond?- if a woman asked.”
“No.” Cleven shut that down with a sharp cut of his hand through the air, “No way in hell.”
“I’ll go sir.“ Brady’s soft assurance broke the tenseness, Gale watched the boy stoically as he rose from his place by Ida’s -and now Egan’s- bunk, and grabbed his pipe off the table, “Salve and penicillin?” he confirmed, face cocked shyly back at Cleven once more from the doorway.
“Salve and penicillin.” Cleven affirmed, “And Brady-“ he halted the boy, “-you sure about this?”
“He knows me.” Brady’s eyebrows drew together, a sudden strong expression on his face, nonplussed in a way that made Cleven feel like he was the one slow in the head, “Fixed the shoulder.” he reminded, gesticulating to the joint that had been dislocated by a poor parachute landing, no doubt caused by arguing too long and close to the ground in a spiraling plane with Major Egan. “I’ll get you the stuff, sir.”
Brady shoved his pipe in his mouth and dug his hands into his coat pockets as he walked down the drafty hallway. Conversations from the various rooms drifted to his ear, odd still to hear the high tones of female chatter amongst them. He found himself rolling his last bit of tobacco round and round in his pocket as he neared the door, he’d been saving it for a real doozy of a day; for some catastrophe that needed nicotine to wash it down, or else a holiday that deserved the special exception. Ramming his once hurt shoulder into the door to open it, Brady decided today would have to be significant enough.
The day he got salve and penicillin.
“You just chew on that thing instead of smoke it now?” The laconic humor of his bombardier startled him mid shiver, it wasn’t even that cold outside he just felt poorly and everything was getting real cold and awful as he stood rooted to their steps and eyeing the main compound.
“No, I was gettin’ ready to pack it.” He answered Hamilton, leveling him a scrutinizing look over the pipe in question, “How’ve you been keepin’ occupied?”
“This and that.” Hambone shrugged, gold teeth still glinting as he assessed Brady. “Where you headed?”
“Who says I’m headed anyplace?”
“Word is Egan’s here and half dead.” Hambone scratched at his scar, the rough sutures too late in being taken out and now causing irritation, Brady almost felt guilty for that. “And now you're out here eyeing the Pill Hut. I’d say you’re going to that doctor.”
Hambone never really got enough credit for his smarts, and Brady wished he’d stop using them only when it concerned things Johnny was already having enough trouble psyching himself up for -like radioing the tower to admit they were lost or visiting this freak in a white coat.
“They need some stuff.” He conceded.
“Gonna waste good baccy on it?” Hambone scoffed again, “Come on, I feel like a walk. Haven’t seen inside the place anyway, all your ghost stories were too spooky.” Hambone was mocking him, but he was also beginning to walk towards the hut with the plain expectation of accompanying Brady.
“Hambone-“
“With all due respect, just shut it, Captain.” Hambone gave him a look, and it was the first one today that made Brady feel seen without feeling all of two inches tall, “If I have to rub these stitches on those rough pillows one more night I’m gonna claw my face back open.”
Brady didn’t doubt he would, so in a spooked and complacent mood, pilot followed grinning bombardier down the muddy lanes to the doctor’s shack.
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cripplecharacters · 2 days
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A Quick Guide to Writing Dialogue for a Character with a Speech Disorder: Articulation
[large text: A Quick Guide to Writing Dialogue for a Character with a Speech Disorder: Articulation]
As both a speech-language pathology student and someone with what's known as a lateral lisp (more on that in a minute), I rarely see characters like me and my students portrayed, or portrayed well, so here's a quick look at writing a character with an articulation disorder. A warning that this is going to be a long post.
Learning
[large text: Learning]
The next section is a large look at the information and background of what this disorder/disability is and explains it.
What is an Articulation Disorder?
[large text: What is an Articulation Disorder?]
An articulation disorder is a disorder where a sound or sounds are affected and changed in some way (distorted, deleted, substituted, etc).
This is not to be confused with a related disorder known as a Phonological disorder. Phonological disorders are when sound related rules are affected.
A sound, in articulation disorders, can be substituted, deleted, inserted, or distorted. Substituted means instead of sound "a" they say sound "b" (wose instead of rose). Deleted means they get rid of sound "a" and skip to the next part of the word (ose instead of rose). Inserted means a sound is added (ruh-ose instead of rose), and distorted means the sound is off but not completely one of the other categories.
Specifics of Articulation Disorders
[Large text: Specifics of Articulation Disorders]
There are two common sounds related to simple articulation disorders - "r" and the lisps. A thing to understand about "r" is that there are two types of "r" that can have errors - "r" with a vowel and without a vowel. Another important thing to understand is that each sound comes at a certain age and "r" is the last sound to come for most children, meaning that a 4-year-old who can't say "r" is not disordered and has a possibility of learning to say it later without intervention (although intervention and assessment are always preferred sooner rather than later). Again, though, articulation disorders can be any sound or group of sounds.
What are the lisps?
[large text: What are the lisps?]
There are 4 kinds of lisps - we'll start with interdental (the stereotypical "th" for s and z - "have you theen my thlipperth?" usually assigned to a nerd or intellectual character) and the lateral lisp (air leaks out the sides and "s" can become "sh" - "can you pash me the notesh for clash?") There are two other types as well but we can come back to them later.
I'm largely skipping through phonological disorders, as they can be more difficult and there are too many of them to discuss in a short post without that being the entire post!
Personal Experience
[Large text: Personal Experience]
This next section is more fun - looking at my own experiences and opinions as someone with an articulation disorder.
What to add
[Large text: What to add]
There are aspects to a speech sound disorder/articulation disorder that I think is very important to keep in mind that seldom are. The biggest one is that a person with an articulation disorder that impacts them enough is going to have ways to get around their disorder outside of receiving speech therapy. This can include avoiding words that prove difficult and words with certain sounds (I know that "ss" in the middle and end of words is a problem so I may avoid it around people that I think would tease me for it). They may be silent during conversations or class for fear of embarrassment. They may use their body more, like pointing or gesturing to things.
Another important thing I would love to see is reactions to articulation disorders that are positive or even neutral - letting people repeat words until they get the sound right if they're able to or just letting it pass otherwise.
Stereotypes
[Large text: Stereotypes]
There are only 2 types of articulation disorders:
Many people when they think of articulation disorders think of either an "r" substitution (rhotacism) or an interdental lisp. There are so many types of articulation errors a character can have, and for several reasons, from comorbid and related illnesses (such as neurological disorders and dysarthria) to no known reason (known as idiopathic) to structural reasons (my hypermobility makes my tongue too long, which causes air to come out the sides of my mouth).
Articulation disorders make a character less serious:
Often characters who are given an articulation disorder are the comic relief (Tiny Nose in the Owl House is an example of exaggerated rhotacism) and aren't allowed to be serious or leads because our voices and way of speaking are too "ridiculous". This leads me to my next point...
Articulation disorders make a character "stupid":
There's a myth that speech and intelligence are related, which harms not only people with speech disorders but mainly people with intellectual disability. There is no relation between speech sound disorders and low intelligence, but there is nothing wrong with low intelligence and there are absolutely people with speech sound disorders with low IQs* (which do not label all intelligence and have its faults) as well as people with high and average IQs.
Should you "write out" a speech sound disorder?
[Large text: should you "write out" a speech sound disorder?]
This is a complicated question with no specific answer. Many people would agree that it is jarring and unadvised to write out an accent or dialect, but a speech sound disorder is not a dialect. It may also be difficult for the reader to visualize and keep in mind the differences if it is not put down. However, very unintelligible dialogue will need to be adapted for or translated in some way in most scenarios and some readers may be annoyed by the stylization of writing out the errors. I would overall lean towards including it, for reasons mentioned and so the disability isn't one that's discussed but never shown or adapted for.
Why not call my character's speech sound disorder "severe" or "mild"?
[Large text: Why not call my character's disability "severe" or "mild"?]
This is a personal take from my time at a clinic but one that I personally think is really impactful. Especially for younger people reading or younger characters, hearing that their disorder is "severe" may be both alienating and insulting. It also often implies there's no getting better or growth, which is not true. There are better ways it can be phrased - the disorder is significantly impacting them, or their intelligibility is significantly impacted, for example. As for "minor" or "mild" I try to avoid it because any disability can still impact the person - my lisp is relatively "mild" now after a while of using compensatory strategies and learning how to navigate but it still is impactful to me.
When writing characters who are less severely impacted by their disorders it may be more internal than anything else - others may not notice how much the character is compensating. This is going to impact their internal view and narration, however.
And that's another thing I want to stress - these disorders can run all kinds of ranges, from very impactful to barely noticeable. There is no one way to have a speech sound disorder - or a speech disability.
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sturnish · 2 days
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౨ৎ Teachers Pet౨ৎ || ⋆౨ৎ˚ Matt Sturniolo⋆౨ৎ˚ || MasterList ||
ᡣ𐭩 | Warnings - Smut,legal age gap,sir kink,
ᡣ𐭩 | Summary - Y/n is nervous about meeting with Mr. Sturniolo to discuss her grade, but also has a secret crush on him.
As the day went on, Y/n found herself growing more and more nervous about her meeting with Mr. Sturniolo. It wasn't just because she was going to discuss her grade; it was also because she had a secret crush on him. She had been fantasizing about him since the first day of class, and the thought of being alone with him in his office sent shivers down her spine.
When she finally arrived at his classroom, her heart was racing. Mr. Sturniolo, tall and handsome, was sitting at his desk, poring over some papers. He looked up as she entered, a small smile playing on his lips.
"Ah, Y/n. Good of you to join me. Please, have a seat." His voice was deep and commanding, sending a thrill through her body. She could feel her cheeks flush as she took her seat across from him.
The two of them exchanged small talk for a few minutes, but Y/n could barely focus on what he was saying. All she could think about was how she wished they were alone, how she wanted him to touch her. Suddenly, Mr. Sturniolo leaned in, his voice lowering. "Y/n, there's something I've been meaning to discuss with you."
Her heart skipped a beat as he slid a piece of paper across the desk. Her name was written at the top, followed by a big, red 'F' for her grade on the most recent assignment. She felt a stab of disappointment, but she couldn't help but notice the way he was looking at her, the heat in his eyes.
"I think we can work this out," he continued, his voice low and sensual. "Why don't we discuss it further… in my office?" He flashed her a wicked grin, and she felt her entire body respond to his suggestion.
Without another word, she followed him down the hall to his private office. The door clicked shut behind them, and they were alone. Mr. Sturniolo turned to face her, his expression unreadable. "You've been such a good girl today, Y/n. I think you deserve a reward."
Before she could even process what he'd said, he was pressing her against the door, his hands moving up her sides to cup her breasts through her shirt. She gasped as his fingers found her nipples, hardening them beneath his touch. Her head spun as his lips met hers, his tongue delving deep into her mouth.
He pushed her jacket off her shoulders and began to unbutton her blouse, revealing her lace bra. "That's it," he murmured, "let me see all of that beautiful skin." Y/n obediently raised her arms, letting him pull her top off and toss it aside. His eyes raked over her bare chest, and she could feel herself growing wet between her legs.
Mr. Sturniolo stepped back, his eyes traveling down her body until they met hers. "You are so beautiful," he whispered, his voice thick with desire. He reached out and tugged gently on one of her earrings, pulling her forward until their bodies were pressed together once again. "And you want this, don't you?" He nipped at her neck, sending a shiver down her spine.
She moaned, arching her back to get closer to him. "Yes, Sir," she whispered, using his honorific for the first time. "Please."
His hand slid down between their bodies, pushing her panties aside and rubbing circles over her wetness. "Oh, you're wet for me, aren't you?" He growled, the roughness in his voice sending a thrill through her. "You're so fucking wet."
Without warning, he spun her around and bent her over the desk. She gasped as she felt the cool leather against her stinging skin. "You're going to take my cock now," he said, his voice low and commanding. "You're going to show me how much you want it."
She whimpered, unable to believe how much she wanted this, how much she wanted him. He pressed the tip of his erection against her entrance, and she felt herself stretching to accommodate him. "Oh God, yes," she moaned, arching her back further. "Please, Mr. Sturniolo."
With a rough thrust, he buried himself inside her, filling her up completely. She cried out, the pain momentarily overwhelming the pleasure. But he didn't stop, didn't let her catch her breath. He began to move, his hips slamming against her again and again, driving his cock deeper inside her with each stroke.
Her nails dug into the desk, her body arching and twisting in response to his brutal rhythm. Her orgasm built inside her, teetering on the edge, and then finally crashing over her in a wave of ecstasy. She screamed his name as her inner walls clenched tight around him, milking his cock. But he didn't stop there, didn't let her come down from the high. He kept thrusting, his eyes locked on hers, until he came as well, his hot cum spilling inside her then pulling his cock out.. He groaned her name, his fingers fucking his cum back into her tight pussy, "Sorry baby, i can't waste any."
"Please sir!" she whines. "Please, what?" he teases. "Please, fuck me again!"
He chuckles, lowering her back down to the desk. "Been a bad girl, haven't you?" He asks, smirking. "Well, you'll just have to take your punishment." With that, he pulls her back up by her hair, forcing her to meet his gaze, and then slams her back down on his cock again.
She cries out, the sudden pain causing her to tense up. He growls, slapping her ass hard. "Take it, Y/n," he commands. "Take my cock."
Tears well up in her eyes, but she does as she's told, relaxing her body and letting him use her. He begins to fuck her harder now, his hips slamming against her, driving his cock deeper inside her. She can feel the tears streaming down her face, but she doesn't care. All she cares about is his thrusts, the way they make her feel.
"That's it, baby," he whispers, his voice thick with desire. "Give it all to me." And she does, surrendering to the pleasure and the pain, giving him everything she's got.
As her orgasm builds once again, she feels him tense up inside her. She looks up at him, their eyes meeting, and then he comes, pouring his hot cum deep into her. His body goes rigid, and he growls, his hips bucking violently against her.
She cries out, her own orgasm finally cresting, and then he collapses on top of her, his weight pressing her down into the desk. He kisses her roughly, their tongues tangling together as they both catch their breath.
Finally, he pulls out, his cock sliding free from her wetness. She looks down at the mess they've made on the desk, and then up at him. "Is that it, Mr. Sturniolo?" she asks, her voice barely a whisper. "Am I forgiven?"
He smirks, leaning back in his chair. "Oh, you're forgiven, all right," he says. "But now you're mine."
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newtonsheffield · 3 days
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MOLLY!!! 😭😭😭 https://x.com/bridgerton/status/1779947803445194809?s=46&t=5MS-nJRE_o6_WH-_5XCR-g
Okay yes, they’re bantering and it’s very sweet but you know one of the best things about it?
Kate is the one who starts whispering in Anthony’s ear first. They’re at a point in their marriage where they really know one another and themselves so well that they’re happy stood together somewhere whispering in each other’s ears flirting quietly where no one can hear. But also, they’re bantering and they both know that the other person loves them anyway.
Miss Kate Sharma would never dared have actually flirted with a gentleman. She was serious and responsible and she had a job to do. Kate, Viscountess Bridgerton knows exactly how much flirting it’s going to take for her husband to snatch her glass of lemonade from her, drink it himself and stride over to his mother.
“Mother, I’m afraid Kate and I have to leave a little early.
Violet looked a little weary, “Again?”
Anthony didn’t react. “My wife’s feeling a little tired.”
Violet sighed, “Anthony people are going to start to think Kate’s the only person you like anymore.”
Anthony blinked at his mother and then Kate, “Well, no harm in people thinking what’s true.”
Kate sighed as Anthony swept her away, “One of these days you’re going to have to stop blaming me for leaving early. Not entirely what we discussed.”
Anthony scoffed, “I do blame you. You were the one who whispered filth in my ear just now, Viscountess.”
“Oh poor little Lordling Anthony, his wife can stand to be in the same room as him.” Kate teased.
“My wife’s not often standing when we’re alone together last I checked.”
“And she doesn’t want to be standing for long now either.”
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scoonsalicious · 3 days
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Unwanted: Chapter 21, Unacceptable - Pt. 3
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader
Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn’t be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust.
Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, violence, mentions of sexual situations.
Word Count: 1.3k
Previously On...: Oh, look-- you didn't sleep with Steve, after all! THANK FUCKING GOD. So what if Bucky thinks that you did? lololololol
A/N: NGL, this part was delicious to write. Pocket setting of explosions, baby.
NOTE! The tag list is a fickle bitch, so I'm not really going to be dealing with it anymore. If you want to be notified when new story parts drop, please follow @scoonsaliciousupdates
Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917!
Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!
Taglist: (Sadly, tag list is closed; Tumblr will not let me add anyone new. If you want to be notified when I update, please Follow me for Notifications!) @jmeelee @cazellen @mrsbuckybarnes1917 @blackhawkfanatic @buckybarnessimpp @hayjat @capswife @itsteambarnes @marygoddessofmischief @sebastians-love @learisa @lethallyprotected @rabbitrabbit12321 @buckybarnesandmarvel @fanfictiongirl77 @calwitch @fantasyfootballchampion @selella @jackiehollanderr @wintercrows @sashaisready @missvelvetsstuff @angelbabyyy99 @keylimebeag @maybefoxysouls @vicmc624 @j23r23 @wintercrows @crist1216 @cjand10 @pattiemac1@les-sel @dottirose @winterslove1917 @harperkenobi @ivet4 @casey1-2007 @mrsevans90 @steeph-aniie @bean-bean2000 @beanbagbitch @peachiestevie @wintrsoldrluvr @shadowzena43
Tumblr will not let me directly tag the following: @marcswife21 @erelierraceala @jupiter-107 @doublejeon @hiqhkey @unaxv @brookeleclerc
You stepped into the conference room, still wearing Steve’s shirt, though you’d paired it with a pair of leggings and a belt, and your go-bag slung over your shoulder. You figured if Bucky thought the two of you had slept together, you may as well feed into the notion. Good. Let him have a taste of his own fucking medicine. You smiled when you saw Sam had beat you there and was already sitting at the conference table, chatting with Steve.
You sat down next to Sam. “Morning, boys,” you said, voice more cheerful than you felt after your confrontation with Bucky earlier. “Are we ready to rock and roll?”
“Damn, Baby Girl!” Sam grinned back at you as he took in your altered appearance. After you finished packing, you’d met with a hair stylist and had her dye your hair from its normal hue to a more stripper-appropriate bubble bath pink, and had her put in extensions so your hair came down to your ass in long, loose curls. 
Steve just smiled at your transformation and slid you a manilla folder. You opened it up to find a fake ID, documentation, and a brief dossier with your cover history.
“I hope you don’t mind, Pocket,” Steve began, “but I discussed it with Tony and we decided it would be best if you resumed your old dancer alias. That way, if anyone has any questions about your background, there’s a legitimate history for them to follow up on.” You nodded that was smart. “Cherry Pie’s back in action, then?” you grinned.
Steve smiled. “Looks like. Tony also wanted to apologize for not being here to say goodbye; there was some need for Iron Man’s services in Belize early this morning.” You nodded, sad that you had to miss out on saying goodbye to him, and to thank him for the party, especially when you didn’t know how long it would be before you saw him again. “He also said to tell you he’s arranged to have all your presents moved up to your new room for when you get back but, if you want them at any point while you’re in Atlantic City, to just let him know and he’ll…” Steve paused to check to check a piece of paper that apparently had Tony’s instructions on them, “‘fly them down myself because if she thinks I’m going to let her stay undercover with that birdbrain–’” 
“Hurtful!” interjected Sam.
“‘--with that birdbrain and not come down and personally check to make sure she’s still alive, she’s gonna have to think again.’” Steve finished. 
You laughed. “Yeah, alright. Tell him I said thanks,” you said.
Before anything more could be said, your attention was caught by a ruckus outside the conference room. You could hear the sound of doors being slammed open and someone stomping their way down the hall toward you, and an angry voice bellowing out “ROGERS!”
“Oh shit, Cap,” Sam grinned, “What’d you do?”
Bucky came barreling through the double doors of the conference room, sending them both flying into the adjacent walls with a thud. His gaze bore into Steve as he stalked toward him.
“IF YOU THINK, FOR ONE GODDAMNED SECOND, THAT YOU CAN FUCK MY GIRL AND GET AWAY WITH IT–”
He paused when his gaze took in you and Sam. “Oh… I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t realize–”
“He thinks we had sex, Steve,” you said, crossing your arms, “and for some reason he feels he has the right to be upset about it.” You shrugged your shoulders. “Can’t seem to get it through his thick skull that I’m no longer ‘his girl.’”
Bucky did a double take. “Pocket?!” he stuttered, flabbergasted at the sight of you. “What– what the fuck did you do to your hair?” You rolled your eyes and turned away.
“Bucky,” Steve took a step toward his friend. “We’re in the middle of a pre-mission briefing. What the hell’s gotten into you?” he asked.
 Bucky looked from you to Steve, and back again. “I want to hear you admit it, you fucking punk,” he said, pushing Steve with both hands in the chest. Steve stumbled backward.
“Yo, man,” Sam said, standing up, “what the actual fuck?”
“He slept with Pocket,” Bucky said, his voice beginning to rise. “He slept with my girl and I want to hear him fucking admit it to my face.”
Now it was Sam’s turn to look between you and Steve. “Whoa, Baby Girl. That true?”
You sighed. “No, Samuel. It’s not true.” You cast an angry glance at Bucky. “First, I’m not Bucky’s anything. He made damned sure of that all on his own.” At Sam’s confused expression, you added “Just ask him about what he and Carthage got up to in Russia together.” Sam’s eyes widened and he gave Bucky a disapproving look. “Second, I got high last night, danced with Steve, we went back to my room, we talked, and we fell asleep.”
“You gonna stand there and lie to my fucking face, Pocket?” Bucky yelled. “You answered the door in nothing but his fucking shirt!”
“Okay, first of all, I’m not sure what part of ‘you have no right to be angry about it even if I did’ you don’t understand, and second, I was still wearing a skirt under that shirt, asshole, so, technically, fully dressed. Steve slept in his undershirt, and I just threw the button-up on because my shirt got all tangled up in the night. Nothing happened.”
“Well,” Steve interjected, “I wouldn’t say nothing ha–”
“Jesus Christ, Steve,” you uttered, just as Bucky threw himself at his friend with an angry roar. Sam jumped in to break the two men up, but he was no match for two super soldiers. The two men tousled on the ground, and you could just make out a portion of the insults and accusations they were throwing at one another. 
“If you laid one finger on her–”
“--can’t believe you cheated–”
Having had quite enough of their testosterone display, you grabbed the pitcher of ice water that was sitting on the conference table and, walking over to where Steve currently had Bucky pinned to the floor, dumped its entire contents over both their heads.
“Are you both quite finished?” you asked, annoyed as fuck as the two men spluttered and worked to extricate themselves from one another. “You’re acting pathetic, and Sam and I have places to be.”
Steve reached a hand down to help Bucky get up. “We didn’t sleep together, Buck,” Steve said. “We just… made out a little.”
Bucky looked like he was about to launch himself at Steve again before Steve added “But we knew it was wrong and a mistake and we stopped almost immediately. That’s it, I swear. I would never do that to you, man. You gotta know that. You’re my best friend. To the end of the line, remember?”
Bucky pushed his wet hair back, away from his face. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, punk.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
You rolled your eyes. Reaching across the conference table, you grabbed the files that held the paperwork for you and Sam and handed them to him. “And with that touching display of toxic masculinity,” you said, furious that the two men had been fighting over who got to have access to your body like you were some sort of toy, “Sam and I have a mission to get to.” Slinging your duffle bag over your shoulder, you motioned for Sam to follow you back out the conference room doors.
Just as you reached them, you turned back around. “Oh, and Steve?” you added, knowing you were about to throw a match onto a recently diffused powder keg, but not caring the least little bit about the oncoming explosion. Both Bucky and Steve turned to look at you. “Don’t forget to tell Barnes about having your hand on my cunt.” With that, you walked out, Sam cackling behind you and the sounds of Bucky screaming at Steve echoing in your wake.
<- Previous Part / Next Part ->
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haikyu-mp4 · 1 day
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Mistletoe
word count; 531 – f!reader
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Inarizaki were not exactly unfamiliar with pranks, but when everyone walked into the locker room after a tough winter practice, none of them could figure out who hung mistletoe over their door. Nonetheless, they kept getting dressed into their normal clothes while still discussing the odd decoration.
Everyone looked up when their captain knocked on the door instead of walking right in. “Manager coming in, everyone better be decent in 3… 2.. 1,” he announced before the door was opened, revealing you and Kita side by side. You had a kind smile on your face as usual, notebooks clutched to your chest.
“I just need to note down something I forgot, sorry for interrupting.” you started saying before frowning. “Why are you laughing?”
Snickers sounded throughout the room, some holding it in and some not. “It’s just...” Aran said, pointing at the branch that hung from the ceiling. “You two are under the mistletoe.”
You look up, tilting your head in confusion and looking back at the boys. “Did you guys hang this up here because you like kissing each other?” you asked without wavering, lifting an eyebrow and pointing your gaze more towards the second years. Some of them were even blushing.
Atsumu would not take this slander. “Well we don’t walk inside in pairs, but you two did,” he noted, crossing his arms. The guy was also not wearing his shirt, making Kita squint so he knew he would get a scolding later. However, he had more important things on his mind right now. There’s a reason Aran was trying his hardest not to smile too much. Kita would never in a million years deny kissing his crush.
“Please excuse them, y/n. We don’t have to-” Kita started saying, but he was shut up completely as you stood up on your toes and pecked his cheek before turning back to the boys.
“I need to know how many of you need new shoes next season,” you asked, clicking your pen and waiting for them to answer you. Kita had a light blush covering his nose as he glanced between you and his team, feeling like they were all staring at him. Not that he would have traded that for the world. He was so entranced by your confident professionalism and light humour in addition to the kiss, making him choke on any words he wanted to say.
“My shoelaces tore, so just laces I think,” Aran answered, saving you from further awkward silence. Suna said something about needing a new pair in a bigger size, and after just a minute, you had everything you needed.
“Great! Thank you,” you said, bowing to them before turning to Kita. He hadn’t noticed before, but now he could see your red ears and temples, a sudden shy smile on your face. “And to you, Kita.” you bowed again before turning around and walking out, leaving a stunned Kita to stare at the floor where you just stood.
Osamu whistled, putting his sweater on. “Didn’t know you had the hots for our manager.”
“Not another word from any of you about this or we’ll run double laps outside when the snow falls.”
masterlist
/It snowed like 2 weeks ago where I live so I got inspired, sorry for posting winter content in spring hehe
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hotchs-big-hands · 1 day
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What size do you reckon AH’s cock is 👀
👁️👁️ hello anon, asking the important questions here.
I’ve defo discussed abt his cock size and shape before but I’m more than happy to do so again and again cuz 😍 so, my hc is that he is GIRTHY. Yeah he’s got abt 7 inches of length but the girth… you’re gonna be feeling that. There’s a reason he has to stretch you out around three of his thick fingers 🫣🫣🫣 cuz his girth is gonna leave you gaping a lil let’s be real here.
Also also, just a lil detail I like thinking about is we all see that he has little beauty marks and freckles dotted around his face and body, I like to think he has a couple on his cock too 🥰 you should kiss them.
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Waking up is never easy, luckly there was someone willing to help today. Jjok tackled your face.
Jjok: Sibling Mc! Good morning, how are you feeling?
Mc: What?
You were still grumpy from being woken up so suddently, but you rub the sleep out of your eyes and look at the little devil in your bed. Jjok was holding a black letter wrapped in a satin ribbon up to your face. "It's from His Majesty Lucifer." He was quick to answer the question in your mind. Opening it grants you a message written in a language you weren't familiar with, but still somehow understood.
"Dear Mc,
I would like us to continue bonding even after you have deemed me a suitable mate for you. Please meet with me at 12 PULANT ( Paradise Universal Latitudinal Abriviated Time) so we may discuss our arrangement further."
Even though he had no signiture, you could tell that it was Lucifer that wrote that letter to you. You recently decided to ask him to be your boyfriend and he accepted to your surprise. It was almost sweet to see him asking you out like that. You put the letter on your nightstand and laugh happily.
Jjok: You should get ready for His Majesty Lucifer. It's almost 12 in Paradise Lost and His Majesty doesn't like waiting.
You put on your prettiest clothes and ask Jjok to teleport you to the foreign land. Before your vision returns to you, you get tackle hugged by Gamigin. He was always the most excited about your presence and now that you were dating Lucifer, he considered you to be part of the familly.
Gamigin: MC! Oh, I see you're all good! You look stunning today! Did you use a new deodorant today, or maybe a new shampoo?
Marbas: Gamigin... Leave the poor human alone.
Gamigin: How can I? They're our new sibling! Aren't you guys excited as well?!
Mc: It's fine, Gamigin gives great hugs.
Gamigin: Really? You love my hugs? Then I won't let a day pass without embracing you.
It was a sweet scene between you two, but it eventually had to stop.
Buer: His Majesty Lucifer is still getting ready for today. Would you like a message in the meantime?
Mc: You're not scamming me out of my money again.
Buer: This one's on the house. How could I make my sweet sibling pay for one of my services?
Marbas: Does that mean that you were joking yesterday?
Buer: No, you still owe me 50 dollars.
Marbas: This is why we should stop accepting immigrants.
Gamigin: Techinicly speaking all of you are immigrants
Buer, Marbas, Morax: Shut up, Gamigin!
After the small squable between the four, you decide to take Buer's offer. He always gave the best messages which made you feel more relaxed than anything in the human world. If they didn't cost so much you would ask him to do it daily... maybe that's why he doesn't make them free.
After the message, you were dragged by Morax to his room. He wanted to give you a through medical check out, to make sure his new sibling has no problems. When you tell him that he should take care of himself more, he blushes and takes your hands in his.
Morax: Would you like to replace my bandages?
The look he gave you was nothing short of adoration as he brought a new roll of white bandages to you. He slowly takes the bandages off his arms revealing his closed and opened wounds. He teaches you how to take care of a wound just in case. After you finish bandaging him up again, he opens his arms for an embrace. Even though you cannot see it, a soft smile makes its way on his face.
When you're finally done with those two you meet up with Lucifer. Your dates mainly consist of you talking to him about random stuff while he plays with your hair. When you stop talking he caress your face and hums signalling you to continue.
Meanwhile, in the bushes, the Paradise Lost gang spys on you two.
Buer: Shh! Marbas, your wheels are too loud.
Marbas: Not louder than your voice.
Gamigin: Look, look! I think they might kiss!
Buer: What?! Pass me the binoculars!
Marbas: You don't have money to buy your own?
Buer: No, I spent it all buying a gag to shut you up.
Morax: Don't talk about your bedroom activities in front of the child!
Gamigin: AAAAAAAAAAAA
Gamigin starts screaming and shaking his hands violently. He starts bouncing on his knees and hitting the air, which, in turn, makes the bells of his staff jiggle wildly. Buer and Morax try to sush him down and hide him behind the bushes.
Gamigin: Did you see?! They kissed! With tongue!
Morax: Quiet down, Gamigin, we don't want to be seen.
Buer: We don't even know how his majesty would react if he found out we're spying on his date.
Marbas: They're... so pretty together.
Buer turns around and slaps Marbas' erection like turning off a lightswitch.
Buer: Pervert!
Marbas: Who are you calling a pervert you little shit! You're so lucky I'm tied up so often. The second I get released, I'll make Gamigin work overtime to reserect you.
Gamigin: Would you really kill your brother like that?
Marbas: ...you're on thin ice.
Meanwhile
Mc: Should we stop them from staring?
Lucifer: Only if they're bothering you.
Mc: ... ok then. So, we all thought it was the bite of '87-
When your date with Lucifer is over, you go looking for Gamigin which turns out to be an extremely easy task because he was in the bush right next to you and Lucifer.
Gamigin: Are you leaving so soon?
Mc: Yeah... I need to go to Gehenna.
Gamigin: Why though? We have a lot of spare bedrooms in Paradise Lost. You can even sleep with his majesty Lucifer!
Lucifer: Gamigin...
Gamigin: Ok ok fine. But make sure you return tomorow! We're having a family board game night with everyone in Paradise Lost.
With that, you bid your fairwell and return to Gehenna.
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sophsicle · 21 hours
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if this is too personal or triggering please please ignore it but i finished kyd and i was wondering whether you have experience with disordered eating because man the way you wrote regulus felt so very real and relatable. you really are a brilliant writer
tw ed discussion
no worries, pretty sure i've talked about this before because some people were very unhappy with me when i started kyd that i intended to write about eds
but yeah i've had a pretty disastrous relationship with food my whole life, and then in my senior year of high school i was in and out of hospital because if it. and it was actually way more cathartic than i thought it would be to write about it. i think partially because i've never really been able to explain it outloud to anyone in a way that I was happy with (there's a lot of embarrassment and shame that sort of gets in the way I think), but i feel like i was able to describe it in a way that was effective. and also because, as with most things, i have always found the mainstream representation of eds frustrating
i think the compulsive nature of eds gets missed a lot, or not emphasized enough maybe? i've said this before but i always think of it as being very similar to OCD in that way, you have a set of rules that you have to follow and they aren't always logical, but if you break them you lose it even if you can recognize that it's irrational
i think the lying is something that i also don't see talked about enough, like i get that we see people with eds lying, but again i feel like the compulsive nature of it is sometimes lost?
in general i think because we exist in a society which, in a lot of ways glorifies eds, it is also very difficult for mainstream media to avoid glamorizing them in a weird way
BUT yeah, anyway, so i wanted to write about it and try to get more at the compulsive need for control, the link with anxiety, and also i think, you know, i had a very bad experience with the hospital program i was in, i think ultimately it hurt me more than it helped me which is not usually portrayed either cause it doesn't make for a very clean ending, so i kind of wanted to show that with Regulus too
and it's been incredible the amount of people who have expressed feeling seen by this character, it really means a lot <3
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clangenrising · 2 days
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Month 14 - Newleaf
“Thank you all for coming,” Goldenstar said to the assembled warriors of RisingClan. “This should be quick.” Everyone had gathered at sunhigh to talk while the kits were sleeping. Even Sagetooth and Oddstripe were in attendance. The only cat missing was Songdust, whose absence hung heavy over the group like an ill omen.
Yarrowshade shrugged and said, “We’re happy to be here, Goldie.” She smiled and he grinned in return. It was good to see her smiling again. Beside her, Scorchplume’s tail was twined with hers, a development he had noticed a few days ago but said nothing about yet. Neither of them seemed to want to bring it up either so he left it alone.
“We all want to see the end of this war,” said Pantherhaze and the rest of the group concurred. Yarrowshade in particular couldn’t wait to pay the rogues back for all the grief they had caused him. His claws ached to sink into their fur. His skin itched for the satisfaction of a well-deserved wound.
“I’ve been discussing strategies with Scorchplume,” Goldenstar said, “and she thinks there’s a way we could manage to take Razor out of play, which would be huge.” 
“Yes,” Scorchplume said, less excited than Goldenstar was. “It’s risky though.”
“Risky is what we do,” Floodpaw purred proudly. Oddstripe clucked with worry. 
“Right,” said Goldenstar. “A risk with big pay off is way better than continuing to sit and wait. Go ahead.” 
“Alright,” sighed Scorch. Yarrowshade watched her shift uncomfortably and added another smack to the list of punishments he owed Razor. “When Smokyrose came to the city, they were discussing a peace agreement. Until Ghost arrived, it looked like he was going to arrange a one on one meeting with Goldenstar that he would use to ambush her and take out your leader.” 
A few cats shifted bitterly at the mention of Smokyrose. 
“The plan is to arrange that meeting,” Goldenstar said with a fiery conviction in her voice, “and then ambush him back.” 
“But it’s extremely dangerous,” Scorch cautioned. “Goldenstar will have to be basically alone with Razor for at least a few moments. If there are any mistakes, Goldenstar could die.” 
“I could lose a life,” Goldenstar admitted, “but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. As long as the rest of you come in to corner him, we should succeed.” Scorch chewed her lip, tail rippling irritably, and Yarrowshade realized that she still didn’t believe in Goldenstar’s nine lives. 
“I think it sounds like a solid course of action,” Sagetooth said. “I’ll consult StarClan but I think we should plan on going through with it.” 
“We should ask the other Clans too,” said Pantherhaze. “We only won the last battle because of their help. We could use it again.” 
“Yeah, we don’t know how many cats Razor will bring with him,” said Sparrowpaw. “Best to be prepared.”
“I agree,” Goldenstar said, “and I’m sure something this important will get Flightstar and Snowstar to agree to it. Scorchplume believes that Razor thinks I’m the Clans’ only leader, so I’ll also be the one meeting him and taking on all the risk.” Scorch shifted again.
“Just don’t take any unnecessary risks,” Oddstripe said. “I don’t want to have more of you injured than is necessary.” Sagetooth twitched her ear. 
“We’ll train in defensive combat strategies and cooperative fighting in preparation,” said Russetfrond, looking more like himself than he had over the last couple days. Yarrowshade had enjoyed how miserable Mystique’s pregnancy had made him at first but by now he was just glad that the deputy had stopped moping. It was unsettling - too unlike him.
“Good idea,” Goldenstar nodded. “Russetfrond and I will come up with a more decisive battle plan and share it with you all during training. Are there any other questions?” 
“What are we going to do about Songdust?” Floodpaw asked impatiently. Barleypaw nodded. Sparrowpaw looked at the ground. Pantherhaze and Ospreymask leaned forward for the answer.
Goldenstar shifted. “That’s a little more complicated…” 
“I know a cat or two who might be able to help,” Scorch said, “but there’s not much we can do without going into the city which we can’t really do with Razor in power like this.” 
“StarClan will protect her if they can,” Sagetooth said. “Defeating Razor is the first step. Then we can think about rescuing Songdust.” No one seemed satisfied with that answer, but Scorch was right. There wasn’t really anything they could do. 
After a moment or two of silence, Goldenstar said, “Alright then. Meeting adjourned. Everyone focus on preparing for the battle. May StarClan guide us.”
“May StarClan guide us,” said Sagetooth, Oddstripe, Barleypaw, and Pantherhaze’s staggered voices. The cats began to disperse. Yarrowshade picked himself up and moved to talk with Scorch and Goldenstar. 
“Hey, you guys wanna go train or something?” he asked. Goldenstar looked to Scorchplume.
“You two can go,” Scorch said. “I’m not going to go anywhere near Razor.” 
“Still, it can’t hurt to get some practice in, right?” Yarrowshade asked. She looked at him and he swore he could hear her thoughts, how irritating she found him, how much she hated him for ‘choosing Nightfrost.’
“Fine,” she said shortly. 
“Great,” Goldenstar laughed a little and Scorch shot her a subtle glare. “Or what if we scout out places for the meeting instead? That’s something you could help with.” 
“I suppose,” Scorchplume hummed, seeming more inclined to that idea. Yarrowshade couldn’t help but feel like she just liked Goldenstar’s ideas better than his. He swallowed tightly and tried not to look disappointed. 
“Sounds good to me,” he said brightly. “Let’s go.” 
They set out towards the southern border. The day was warm for the season, bright and sunny with a welcome breeze. Yarrowshade tilted his face to the sun and tried to enjoy the warmth of it. 
“How’ve you been, by the way?” asked Goldenstar.
He tilted his head in her direction. “Good, I guess.” Lonely. “I’ve missed hanging out with you two though.” 
“Same, honestly,” Goldenstar said, leaning into Scorchplume’s side. “I can’t wait for all this business to be over so things can go back to normal.” 
“Normal is extremely relative,” Scorch hummed. “I for one am sick of normal.”
“We’ll just have to make a new normal then,” Yarrowshade tried, offering her a smile. She raised her brows at him but said nothing. He tried not to frown. 
“Scorch,” Goldenstar said softly. “He’s trying. Be nice to him.” Yarrowshade blushed at being called out like that. Was he so obvious? Scorch scowled at Goldenstar but there was no malice in her gaze. 
“I’ll do what I please,” she huffed.
“I know,” purred Goldenstar, “but you guys used to be good friends right? I don’t see the point in holding onto a grudge when you could just get along again.”
“Look,” Yarrowshade cut in, fur prickling in discomfort, “if it helps; I’m sorry for whatever I did.”
“Whatever you did?” Scorch raised her brows even higher somehow. 
“Yes?” he winced. This felt like a trap. 
“What was that, exactly?” Scorch asked. Goldenstar was mouthing something but he was terrible at reading lips. 
“For…” Yarrowshade hesitated. He had to find the correct answer. “For not choosing you?” There was a moment of silence where Scorch sized him up and he and Goldenstar held their breath. 
Then Scorch said, “Apology accepted.” Both Yarrowshade and Goldenstar sighed in relief. Scorch flicked her ear in annoyance. 
But after that, things were alright. Yarrowshade brought up a funny story from hunting with Barleypaw the other day and the others laughed. Scorch poked fun at him with an easy smile rather than a cold, defensive one. Goldenstar wouldn’t stop purring. He still felt like he was walking on thin ice, but at least for now Scorch was finding him entertaining. That was all he wanted, really. 
Discussion moved on to talk about how Barleypaw and her littermates would be warriors in a moon or two. Goldenstar expressed being nervous about her first real warrior ceremony as leader and Scorch and Yarrowshade told her she had nothing to worry about. From there, they started talking about Slatekit and Fogkit and their upcoming ceremony. 
“I still don’t know who should mentor Fogkit,” said Goldenstar as they paused to examine the sightlines on one hill. “I think I have Slatekit settled but Fogkit doesn’t like Ospreymask anymore and I’m not sure who else could mentor her.” 
“She’s a pawful, isn’t she?” Yarrowshade chuckled. “Yesterday I caught her ‘crafting curses’ out of claw sheds and bird bones.” 
“Crafting curses?” Scorch said skeptically. 
“Yeah,” shrugged Yarrowshade. “I don’t know where she got the idea but she said she was trying to curse the rogues to death.” He shook his head. “I’m honestly glad I already have Barleypaw cause I don’t think I would want to try and untangle that whole mess.” 
“Yeah, that’s the thing,” Goldenstar said. “I would take her myself but I’ve already got Floodpaw.”
“You can’t just take every apprentice who seems like they’ll be a pawful,” Scorch huffed. 
“Is that a challenge?” Goldenstar teased and Scorch rolled her eyes. 
“Look, if it’s really such a predicament, just give her to me.” 
Yarrowshade and Goldenstar fell into stunned silence. 
“What?” Scorch bristled defensively. “Is that so outlandish?”
“No, no,” Goldenstar said quickly, a smile spreading across her face, “I just didn’t expect you to want an apprentice! I mean, it’s a pretty big commitment.” 
“Does that mean you’re staying?” Yarrowshade asked excitedly. 
Scorch swished her tail back and forth, puffing up like a ginger pigeon. “For now,” she said. “By the time I leave, Floodpaw will be a warrior and then Goldenstar can take over her training.” 
Yarrowshade cocked a brow, smirking. “I don’t buy it.” 
Goldenstar was grinning like an idiot. “Oh, Scorch!” she purred, butting her head into Scorchplume’s shoulder. “I love you so much!”
“That’s it!” Scorch said, putting both paws on Goldenstar’s face and shoving her away. “I’m actually leaving right now and throwing myself in the river.” 
“Wait, no!” wailed Goldenstar through laughter. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to use the forbidden word!” She threw herself at Scorch’s feet and clung to her like a needy kitten. Scorch huffed a laugh through her nose. 
“Please, your excellence,” she said, pretending to be scandalized, “you forget yourself.” Goldenstar laughed, chest thrumming with an uncontrollable purr. 
Yarrowshade swallowed thickly. Grief, unexpected and overwhelming, flooded his mind as he watched them joke and flirt. Neither of them seemed to notice and he was grateful for it. He carefully turned away and started down the far side of the hill, breathing slowly through his nose to try and stop himself from tearing up. 
Get it together, Yarrowshade, he thought to himself. This was such a stupid thing to cry over! He wasn’t going to let them see him like this. 
“Look,” Scorch said smugly, “your pathetic displays have scared off Yarrowshade.”
“Ah!” Goldenstar cried, still laughing, “Yarrowshade, wait! I’m sorry!”
He paused and let out one last breath before forcing the frown off of his face. “I think this hill is too exposed,” he said, glancing back at them. “Maybe we should try somewhere with trees?”
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Goldenstar had gotten to her feet and was halfway to him, Scorch trailing behind. Both of them looked so happy it hurt to watch.
“Do you think Orangestar would let us hold the meeting on EarthClan territory?” he asked, looking away. He focused his eyes on the trees up ahead and tried to pretend that he was fine. 
“Maybe!” Goldenstar said. “I’ll bring it up at the Gathering.” 
“Hmm,” Scorch chewed her lip. “Could we take a look anyway or would that be inappropriate.” 
“I’m not sure,” Goldenstar said.
“Probably best to wait for permission,” Yarrowshade said. 
“Yeahhhh,” Goldenstar sighed. “Oh well. Why don’t we catch some lunch and head back?” 
“Sounds good to me,” said Scorch. 
“Yeah,” Yarrowshade turned back to them, smiling again even if it felt a little forced. “I’d love that.”
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