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#this issue was dense as hell
joeysmuttonchops · 6 months
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[Wonder Woman (1987)/vol 2 #49]
joe looking EXTRA prince like in this cameo
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electrivolt · 10 months
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// i am once again thinking abt all of volk's pent up anger towards flint
does he think it's his own fault for once again losing someone because he just didn't step up and get out of his situation himself? when he could've maybe also gone on a journey with his at the time best (only) friend? absolutely (he was just too scared of his father to run away but the guilt says otherwise-)
but then flint went on to continue his journey and to become part of the e4 and never looked back to sunyshore while everything kept getting worse and he just sees him on tv or something being happy and successful all on his own and clearly he doesn't need anyone else does he? and it's just the "he really isn't going to remember about me huh."
except then flint does come back and it's only to ask him to reopen the gym. over and over and he just gets angrier because flint really only cares about the gym doesn't he? he's not here to check on an old friend and see if he's okay is he? no flint, he doesn't just need a good battle to get back in the game leave him alone now!
he would deck the shit out flint if he didn't know it would bring more trouble than it's worth.
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toastsnaffler · 10 months
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weird asf that netflix released a trailer for a series theyre making of 3 body problem like. the same time i started reading it 🤨🤨🤨🤨
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jophiel-shakes · 3 months
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summary :: Alastor during a rut
warning :: nsfw
note :: requests are still open
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Alastor isn’t a sexual person by any means.
Don’t get me wrong, he fooled around once or twice in life but in hell there was never a looming pressure to get married or have children.
Despite his aloof attitude towards sex and general romance there is a certain time when his more animalistic side controls him.
These periods happen to be ruts.
Every sinner has to deal with unsavoury things because of their hellish form, Alastor’s is just a unbridled need to have sex.
Of course Alastor tries to survive the ruts in confinement (usually in his radio tower or bedroom), making it clear to everyone that they’d best stay away if they value their lives.
Though there comes a point where dealing with the issue himself doesn’t do the trick.
So he decides to leave his tower in search of a mate.
And you happen to be the perfect find.
On sweeter terms you would’ve been honoured and perhaps even flustered but Alastor’s inky tentacles ripping you from your own room and dragging you into his own was rather alarming to say the least.
His room was hot and dense, Alastor himself loomed like a predator, his horns large and winding whilst his teeth glistened with drool.
It was a sight to behold and you were unsure if you should’ve been horny or terrified.
He’s quick to get in your personal space, scenting you immediately.
He asks to strike up a deal;
“How about a deal?” Alastor croons, sliding his hands down your back as he mumbles in your ear.
You clear your throat and try to mentally solve his mixed signals. “What for?”
“I’ll do you a favour, anything you want at any given moment. In return, you offer me your… company.”
You take it of course, to have a favour from Alastor was a great deal and you’d be helping him through his rut. Everyone wins.
Despite Alastor’s strong belief in acting as a gentleman most of his manners are thrown away once you shake hands.
He’s immediately buried himself into your body, inhaling your smell and pressing himself into you.
First, he takes you against the wall, being far too eager to move to his bed.
His talons graze your skin, pulling you into him with a desperate tightness.
One would’ve imagined sex with Alastor as sweeter and gentle, but whilst in a rut he’s got unbelievable stamina that he uses to split you.
Biting biting biting. Alastor can’t help but taste you. It’s a cannibalistic tendency, but he never takes a chunk out of you. Do expect him to draw blood though.
When in a rut he prefers to take you from behind. Mostly he likes to trap you between him and something else like a wall.
During the end of his rut when things have cooled, he’ll take it smoother and actually make love to you.
Though, when he’s in the heat of it it’s nothing but quickies and rough sex.
Alastor goes for multiple rounds, usually three before you tap out or someone interrupts. Generally he could go longer.
Alastor will not cum anywhere but inside you. He’s mentioned in passing that the feeling of cumming inside helps settle him more.
No one in the hotel knows of your affair, well, apart from Angel who could practically smell the daily quickies on you, see it in your flushed face and frizzed hair. Husk was a close second who’s seen Alastor in a isolated rut before. Angel then spread it to everyone else.
Nifty knew too, being the little creep she is, she mentioned to you her habit of listening in.
Despite most having heard you yelp his name at night, Alastor just pretends nothing ever happened and nobody dares mention it to him.
Although you do cop a lot of teasing from Angel.
Once things settle down and Alastor gets the frustrations out of his system, everything goes back to normal. Your bite marks heal and everyone settles.
That is, until his next rut.
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astroboots · 10 months
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Every You Every Me | Issue #7
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COLLABORATED WITH @thirstworldproblemss
Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader
Summary: You finally get some answers out of Miguel about who you are to him.
Word count: 5,700 words.
Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist | thirstworldproblemss' Masterlist
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"So let's take it from the top," you tell him, as you sit down and put down the Trenta-sized caramel flavored hot chocolate with extra whipped cream and chocolate syrup in front of the man named Miguel O'Hara.
The two of you are sitting across from each other at a small booth at the nearest Starbucks you were able to find, seeing as you're homeless now, and there's nowhere else you could think of to go.
He's dressed in a large fitted hoodie that drapes down to his thighs. Where he's managed to find something that is oversized in length on him, you don't know because he's not exactly short.
"I'm from a dimension known as Earth-928," Miguel says.
Before he can continue, you raise one hand, and you can see his right eyebrow twitch unhappily at the interruption. 
"Yes?"
"Just to clarify, so we don't have another ‘coffee cake’ misunderstanding. When you say Earth-928, do you mean a different version of the Earth we’re on now? Or is this a habitable planet in another galaxy that happens to be partially named Earth?"
"It's a parallel universe characterized by distinct physical parameters and initial conditions, accounting for the diverse manifestations of our observable universe. So still Earth," he says, sweeping his gaze across the café, nose wrinkling the way one does when there's something off-putting in their vicinity. "Just a little bit less primitive."
Of course he would say that, wouldn't be able to resist the jab would he.
You peer up at him across the table. He is very technical and thorough with his explanations. But as grateful as you are for him finally being willing to answer your questions, you hadn't expected those answers to be quite so information dense. You need to pick your questions more carefully or you are going to have to go down the street to buy yourself a notebook in order to keep up.
"How did you end up on this Earth?" you ask.
"Where I'm from, I'm a scientist, a researcher. One of the things I studied was the theory of physical cosmology and the existence of the multiverse. My work was concentrated on the theoretical ability to navigate between distinct universes within a hypothetical multiverse–”
Ah shit, you should've been more narrow in your question. Should have asked him to simplify it a bit more for you. Because now you're sitting here blinking up at him, pretending you understand half of what he's saying. 
It makes sense that he’s STEM. He speaks like the type. Smart as hell with none of the social skills to gauge whether the other person is following the conversation. 
Listening to him reminds you of that time in college, when you'd walked into the wrong lecture hall, wound up in advanced chemistry instead of your math class, felt too awkward to leave and just sat there drawing doodles with an attentive expression until the class was over. 
And he’s still at it, “– employing advanced mechanisms that manipulate or transcend conventional spacetime frameworks, enabling exploration–"
"Okay, wait, hold on a sec," you interrupt, once it becomes obvious he’s not going to stop any time soon on his own. "Can you... simplify, please?"
He stops mid-sentence, taking a deep breath as he looks up at the ceiling and considers your request, with a serious expression as if he's thinking really hard on it. "I’m a scientist. I study the multiverse. I built a parallel universe traversal device, it allows me to visit different dimensions." Your brain feels insulted that it clearly took more mental effort for him to dumb it down for you than to just give the supergenius version.
“So… a machine that allows you to jump between alternative universes?” 
“Yes.” 
There’s a pause between you as you run through the questions in your mental list you want to tick off now that he’s turned cooperative and talkative. But with everything that’s happened in the last handful of hours, a lot of the questions you previously had seemed outdated. The one question, the most important one, you’ve wanted to ask from the start though remains. 
"Who am I to you?"
Miguel takes the large sized drink in his even larger hands and somehow this big paper cup still manages to look tiny in his grip. "You and I were... involved," he says.
You frown. ‘Involved’ is such a vague term. It belongs in the trash with other useless terms to describe relationships: “situationship”, “complicated”, you hate them all. 
"So I was your girlfriend?"
"Yeah, something like that," he concede, fidgeting with the thin gold chain looped around his neck, his eyes not quite meeting yours, like he's embarrassed to use the term.
‘Something like that,’ you chew on his answer unhappily, sympathizing with your other dimensional self and how the other you seemed to have snagged a commitment phobe. 
Other-you, who isn’t here in this dimension with Miguel. You wonder why that is. 
"What happened to me?" you ask.
His eyes are glued to the table,  not looking up at you as he answers you in a voice so quiet you can barely hear it. "She died."
"Oh."
The revelation shouldn’t take you by surprise. 
Every time Miguel’s brought up your other self, it’s been tinted with earth-shattering sadness. It's not hard to put one and one together and come to the conclusion that whatever happened to you in this other dimension didn't end happily.
Still it's an odd feeling to know that out there, somewhere, a version of you has died. A version of you that was clearly very important to the man in front of you.
"I'm sorry," you tell him.
It feels silly to say. It's bizarre to give your condolences over your own parallel death, but Miguel looks so heartbroken. He’s slumped in his seat, large shoulders rounded until his frame looks so much smaller than you're used to, and you don't know what else to do.
"So what is happening to me now," you start, not sure how to word what the phenomena that you're going through is, "these continuous near-death experiences, is that how she died?"
"Yeah."
"And do you know why that... kept happening to her? Why is it happening to me?"
"I don't, and I don't know how to stop it. Believe me I tried."
He cradles the paper cup in his hands, the grip a little bit tighter now until he's creasing the paper and the caramel liquid oozes and leaks from the top.
"What I do know is that the universe isn’t going to stop trying to kill you, no matter what you do. And with every near death incident you manage to survive, these incidents will escalate in nature, until..." he stops, eyes flickering away from the cup to meet yours, but it's like he loses courage and doesn't want to say the last part.
"Until, what?" you prompt.
"Until your dimension collapses."
The blood freezes in your veins. "Wait, collapses!? What do you mean?"
"I can't guarantee it will happen again. But that's what happened last time. When the other you kept cheating death, the universe eventually started to collapse in on itself."
You slump back in your chair, trying to process what you've just been told. What does that mean? That even if you managed to defy all odds to survive, doing so would doom the rest of this universe as you know it?
"When will that happen?" you ask, and you're surprised you manage to get the words out because there is a hard lump in your throat that makes it hurt to even swallow.
"Judging from the trajectory and escalation of events, you have about three months give or take."
The two of you sit in heavy silence, for the moment you're not sure what else to ask him. Because it feels like you are trapped in a building looking for an exit sign, but all that’s tacked onto the brick wall is your death certificate, waiting to be signed and formalized.
There’s no way out. Nowhere to go.
"Give me your hand," he says, breaking the silence. 
You give it to him without hesitation, watching, puzzled, as he takes off his watch and secures it around your wrists.
"Why are you giving me your watch?"
"It's not a watch," he says, then he presses something on the face of it, and an image of a young woman flickers into existence in the space above your wrist, vaguely see-through. A hologram!
"This is Lyla," he introduces.
Wait, wait? Lyla? As in your mom Lyla? You watch the tiny woman floating above your wrist. Short bob-cut, and flashy heart-shaped sunglasses, with a twinkle in her eye. 
The hologram looks nothing like your mom. You part your mouth, about to ask about the name but you're interrupted by the energetic buzz of a female voice greeting you.
"Boss-girl! Long time no see. Want me to catch you up on the latest multiversal gossip? I compiled an edit of highlights set to Despacito."
"Lyla," Miguel warns, tersely. "Not now."
"Ruuuuude! You're the one who woke me up you know."
"Lyla, go back to sleep."
The female avatar grumbles, but then her image flickers away and the watch turns back into, as far as you can tell, just an ordinary watch.
"Why did you name the watch Lyla?"
"It's not a– " He cuts himself off, sighing with exasperation. "Lyla is an advanced A.I. she's going to be with you at all times. She's an added layer of security, built to protect you."
He didn't answer your question. Completely sidestepped it as if the two of you are having two different conversations.
Built to protect you, he'd said. Does that mean he still intends to do that?
"So you're not going to leave?" you ask him.
He leans back in his seat, eyes drifting towards the table. "No."
You look up at him, stumped. Not sure you're understanding what he's saying. Because not even a few hours ago, when the two of you were in your apartment, this man was adamant there was nothing to be done to save you. That he was going to leave and you were never going to see him again.
Right now though, his actions seem to be contradictory to that. You can't make heads or tails of him. Hot and cold doesn’t even begin to cover it. 
"Why not?" you ask, "I mean, not that I’m not grateful, but you seemed pretty set on the whole ‘I can’t save you’ thing. What changed your mind?"
“You did.” His eyes narrow as he looks down at you, crossing his arms ever his chest, "You told me you wanted to live. Have you changed your mind already?"
“Wha– NO! I just want to know why you changed yours.”
“I–” He hesitates, another wave of sadness passing over his face. “I’m a superhero. I save people… or try to. It’s what I do. I’m not gonna just leave you to die after you tell me you want to live.”
It’s a good answer, even if you don’t buy that it’s the whole truth. 
You look down at your wrist, and the shiny chrome of the not-watch he's just gifted you winks back up at you. "Do you think I have a chance of surviving all this?"
"It's pretty hopeless," he says, and there’s no break in his expression as he continues. "Your chances of making it out alive are pretty much mathematically impossible."
It's odd though. Even though he's outlining the futility of your situation, basically telling you to raise the white flag and surrender, there's something contradictory in the tone of his voice. 
"What do you want to do?" he asks you.
It’s a challenge, you realize. An encouragement. He has faith in you. It's all of these things rolled into one. As if he's telling you to prove the universe wrong.
"I want to live," you answer. "If the universe collapses in three months, then please stay with me. Give me time to solve this and find a way to stay alive."
His mouth curls into a hint of a smile. The very first you've seen from him since you've met. It's bright and boyish, erasing the harsh lines of his stern expression until it gives way for something much softer underneath that makes your heart leap in your chest with triumph.
You grin, a strange elation of happiness buzzing in you as you stretch out your hand to him, in an invitation for a handshake to seal the deal.
"Deal?"
Miguel leans over the table, clasping your hand in his much larger one as he squeezes it back gently.
"Deal." That small smile from before is still there. "So what's next?" he asks.
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The thing you never realized, being an ordinary person bereft of super genes or other superhuman powers is just how convenient commuting can be if you have them. 
No longer do you have to brave the Lynchian nightmare that is the NYC subway system. Half-naked manic street preachers giving sermons as you’re held hostage, with nowhere else to go in the carriage. Being chased down by a drunk trumpeting Mariachi band. Instead, all you need to do to get from point A to point B (A: being the Chrysler building and B: the building formerly known as your home) is to hold on tight to Miguel as he swings you both above the city gridlock.
You imagine that this is what paragliding must feel like, except it's so much better because here you don't have to do the safety training beforehand or pay $3,000 for the privilege.
The city skyline is a dark evening blue, dotted with the sparkling lights of office buildings, cab roof lights and street lamps, as the wind ruffles through the fabric of your clothes.
It's such a different sight when you're flying above instead of walking on the streets below, that you don't even clock that you're in your neighborhood, until you see a building with a collapsed wall that's been blocked off, looking like a crash site. Only then do you realize... you're home.
Miguel carefully sets you down on your feet on a small patch of concrete that is clear of the rubble and destruction.
"Why did you want to come back here again?" he asks. 
It’s a good question. Now that you're here, standing in the middle of charred debris and cracked bricks, you're not sure either. You had some vague plans of seeing what you could salvage, hoping for some clothes, maybe your electric toothbrush, or really just any of your stuff. Something that’s yours, no matter how small, to hold on to after the events of today have ripped away life as you know it.
But there’s nothing left. The furniture, all your books and knick knacks, and even your dirty laundry piles have been demolished. Your home as you know it is gone. There's only piles and piles of rubble and traces of white fire extinguisher foam on the ground. The fire has been out for hours, but the pungent smell of smoke and sulfur still pervades the air. 
"You okay?" Miguel asks.
He's still standing at the outer edges of the apartment, close to where your window would have been if a helicopter hadn't crashed through it.
"Yeah... I guess the silver lining is that I didn't have anything expensive. Though it'd been nice if I could've saved my mom's Le Creuset set or at least the nanny-cam so I could return it and get a refund," you joke glibly. 
You nudge aside some concrete rubble with the cap of your shoes. There's nothing under there, no treasured memorabilia that's still miraculously intact. Just more burnt concrete and rubble.
"Why did you have a nanny cam?"
You turn around at his question, to see him hovering close to you, one eyebrow raised with an unhappy set to his jaw. 
From the displeased expression on his face, he's probably misunderstanding something here. Probably thinks you're operating a very unlucrative Onlyfans business, when what you've really been doing is spy on him and his nightly visits. You don't know which is worse to confess to, so you don't confess to anything.
"No reason," you say, ignoring the way his already raised eyebrow twitches with irritation at your lack of an answer.
"Come on, let's go," he says, and he waves towards you in a come hither motion like he's commanding a dog.
"Go?" you ask him. "It's past midnight. My place, as you can see, is wrecked. Go where exactly?"
Miguel shoots you a strange look. "A hotel," he says, like it's the most obvious thing, and– okay, he's not completely wrong in that assumption.
Problem is, you didn't have time to pick up your wallet or phone before your impromptu interdimensional visit. They’ve been incinerated along with all the rest of your worldly possessions, which means you don't have any way to pay for a hotel.
Plus Manhattan hotel prices average $400 a night. Even if you still had access to your debit cards, your budget’s pretty tight right now after all the capital you invested in your unhinged quest to trap the superhero before you. 
"In the city? I don't have that kind of money and it will take months for any insurance payouts to come in."
You should know. As an insurance claims adjuster, you know you’ll be lucky if your claim is processed before the end of the year. And, ugh, just the thought of the paperwork you’ll have to fill out is enough to give you an anxiety migraine.
"I’ll cover the room," Miguel says casually before holding out a hand to you, "Come on, let’s go."
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When Miguel said he’d cover it, you expected a reasonably-priced room at one of the Days Inn across the river or the like. Hopefully a place with no rats or bed bugs, and maybe clean bedding over a somewhat comfortable mattress for you to pass out on if you were lucky.
You didn't expect this.
Standing in front of the Midtown Four Seasons, you find yourself on sleek marble so polished you can see your own reflection. You haven't even stepped a foot inside yet and there are two old fashioned doormen, wearing immaculately fitted suits, with an even more impressive posture opening the majestic double-set doors for you as you approach.
It's swanky as hell, and you can’t help gawking like a tourist, eyes glued to the decadent carved ceilings that must be at least 30 feet tall, soaring above you. Honey-colored limestone that looks like it’s been looted from Ancient Rome.
You feel more than a little bit out of place. This is way outside of your budget. You could probably work your job for a lifetime, and not have enough disposable income to stay the night at a place like this.
"Uhm, Miguel... this place is way too–" you start, turning towards him.
But as you were busy lamenting the state of the housing market, he's already walked away from you (for such a bulky guy, he moves swiftly and silently) and as you whip your head around to find him, he's already standing in front of the receptionist.
Damned antelope legged man, would it kill him to wait up for you once in a while? You run up after him and have to tip-toe in order to see over his shoulder because the giant mammoth is blocking the check-in counter.
And wow, even the receptionist here is of a different caliber than the ones you'd find at Holiday Inn. A fashionable bob-cut with razor sharp edges, looking like a model cut out from a Vogue cover.
"Do you have a reservation, Sir?"
You half-expect him to say no, and that the two of you would have to tuck your tail between your legs and walk out of here to the backdrop of a sad trombone playing.
To your astonishment he says your name. The receptionist tip-taps away at her keyboard and then she nods and smiles gracefully at you both. 
"Yes of course. After reviewing your reservation details, I am pleased to inform you that all necessary arrangements have already been made, including advance payment and verification of your identification. Your room is ready for you, we trust you will enjoy your stay."
She flashes you a pearly white smile so shiny it's almost blinding and hands you a hotel key card. 
When you turn around, to your confusion Miguel is no longer next to you. How does he keep disappearing like this? 
"Cielito," Miguel’s voice calls. The nickname doesn’t register at first. It doesn't even occur to you that he’s referring to you, until he barks it out a second time. 
Your head darts up to see him standing by the elevator, tapping his feet impatiently as he waits for you to make it over to him.
"How did you do that?" you whisper loudly to him as you step into the elevator. "Where did you get my ID? How did you make a reservation? How did you--"
He takes your hand, mid-sentence, turning your wrist upwards and taps the watch.
"The computer systems in this universe are child's play for Lyla to manipulate. Reservations, money, ID, she can take care of all of that easily," he explains.
"She can do that?" you ask, and Miguel merely nods at you as the elevator closes behind the two of you.
You tip your head down to inspect your gifted watch. In awe of this technical marvel that would make Siri look like it’s from the stone-ages. You wonder if she can boost your credit scores. She could probably hack any wi-fi password so you'd never have to worry about data throttling again. She could get you table reservations for Libertine! The possibilities are endless!
You turn to Miguel. "Can Lyla get me Beyoncé tickets?" you ask. 
He just shakes his head at you with what almost qualifies as an amused smile.
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The room upstairs is massive. 
It’s easily three times the size of your little studio apartment, and the ceilings are twice as tall, with a hanging glass chandelier that’s sparkling bright enough to blind you. It looks like one of those places featured in Architectural Digest. 
Everything is in an art deco style, with expensive looking furniture and even more expensive art hanging on the one spare wall that isn’t covered in floor to ceiling windows. There are large shelves and a sleek looking kitchen, complete with an opulent looking velvet lounge chair of emerald green that looks like something a Roman emperor would be fed grapes on. 
In this colossal space of a room, there is only one bed. One colossal, plush-mattress-topped, goose down duvet and probably 1,000,000,000 thread count sheet covered bed.
You tense up, not sure what the arrangements Miguel had in mind. Did he want the two of you to sleep in the same bed?
Miguel did pay for the room, so you’re not going to start voicing objections. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time in the short time span that you two have known each other to do that. This bed is also a lot wider than your tiny double bed, so it wouldn’t be the cramped disaster it was last night. You’d just have to make sure to use the bathroom before bed this time so he doesn’t jab your full bladder in the morning again. 
Without saying anything, Miguel strides across the length of the room with impatient and determined steps. His hand reaches for the balcony doors and slides them open. 
"Wait wait, where are you going?" you ask him as you run up to the middle of the room. 
“I’m sleeping outside,” he says over his shoulder, and your mind boggles with that. 
“Why? Isn’t it better for you to stay here?”
"This is the 62nd floor. That’s about as safe as you’re going to get. I’ll keep a lookout to make sure no more helicopters come crashing in.” 
You’re not sure if he means the last part as a joke or not, but as you watch his broad back retreating as he walks away from you, a sickening sort of the deja vu twists through your chest. 
I can’t save you, he’d said back in your apartment, Nothing can. 
The feeling clawing at your chest feels alarmingly like panic. It screams that he’s leaving you. That he’s never coming back. That you’ll never see him again. 
You’re being irrational, and you know it. You remind yourself that he wouldn’t have done this much for you only to bail in the middle of the night, but that doesn’t stop the fear that’s festering, sharp and urgent, under your skin, or the way your heart races, your whole body flashing hot and cold at the same time. 
You want him to stay. 
“Miguel,” you call out, and he immediately stops and turns to look back at you, one eyebrow raised in a skeptical question. 
Please stay. 
You open your mouth, but the words won’t come out. You can’t ask this man—this big, sarcastic, rude hulk of a man—to have a sleepover with you because you’re scared to be alone in the dark. He would laugh you out of the hotel room.
“Uhm… thank you,” you say instead, but it’s no less sincere, “For everything.”
His eyes soften, the sharp narrowness of them easing up. “It’s fine,” he mumbles, and despite the cold chill of the evening, you think you can see a faint flush blooming in his cheeks, before he quickly ducks his face from you. “I’ll be right outside if something happens.” 
He turns back around and walks out, closing the patio doors with a gentle click behind him, leaving you by yourself. 
It’s quiet. 
You survey the empty room you’re in. Without Miguel’s large frame taking up space, it seems even bigger than it did before. 
It’s a beautiful room. Something that you’re pretty sure you’ve seen in a movie set. You don’t know why you’re not as excited as you were before. This is you living your Pretty Woman moment. You should be filling up the big jacuzzi tub you saw with bubbles. Heck, maybe ask Lyla to order you a bottle of champagne from room service. 
Instead, your eyes linger on the glass patio doors leading to the balcony terrace. You walk over to the bed, perching yourself down on the edge of the mattress, then flop down. 
Might as well try to sleep, you think to yourself as you climb under the covers and switch off the light. The best thing you can do right now is catch yourself some rest so you’ll be alert while trying to figure out your next steps tomorrow.
3 months… That’s what Miguel told you.
That’s all the time you have left. 
That means you don’t have time to waste, but you also have no idea where to start. The local library doesn’t exactly carry any resources on how to stop the universe from trying to kill you. 
The Universe. 
An infinite cosmos, grander than any human being can possibly comprehend. This vast space containing all the galaxies with its billions of stars and planets, where an individual being does not even register as a speck, and it wants you dead. How can you possibly fight against those odds? 
You lie wide-eyed and awake staring into the dark of the room, and the feeling of dread gnaws into you. 
You don’t want to be alone right now. Turning in the bed, your eyes find their way back to the blank slate of the pitched night outside the balcony doors. 
You really wished he had stayed with you. 
Sitting upright in the bed, you consider your options. You can lie back down. Suffer insomnia and the existential horror of knowing the universe is trying to murder you. Or you can man up, swallow down whatever tiny morsel of your pride you have left and ask Miguel to come back inside and stay with you. 
Flinging the duvet from your body, you get up to walk over to the balcony. You hesitate for a moment before tapping the window pane the way you might knock on a door, giving a polite head's up before you slide the balcony patio open. But when you poke your head out, turning your head left and right, Miguel's nowhere to be found. 
Okay, that’s weird. He said he’d be right outside if you needed him. You walk up to the ledge of the balcony terrace, leaning over the rail and peer down to see him dangling upside down, from the ledge of your balcony. The sight nearly makes you scream. 
"Miguel!” 
At you calling his name, he pulls himself up, one clawed hand gripping at the concrete wall as he climbs his way up and over to you. He makes it look easy, as if gravity does not exist for him, and it’s only a moment until he’s perched on the ledge of the balcony, facing you. 
“What’s wrong?” he demands, eyes concerned, and you’re suddenly aware of how very close he is. His face mere inches from yours, your noses nearly touching.
“What’s wrong? You’re hanging upside down from the 62nd floor! What are you, a bat?!"
“Why did you come out here?” he clarifies, and his words give you pause. You try to gather your thoughts after the bizarre sight you just walked into and remember what you came out here for. 
He’s still looking at you with his full and intense concentration that makes your skin prickle with warmth.
God, it’s embarrassing to ask. You feel like you’re five years old, asking your parents to turn the nightlight on, even though you know you’re a big girl now and aren’t supposed to be afraid of monsters hiding under your bed any more. 
You look down on your hands, where you’re wringing them together, then back up at him, and make yourself spit it out, "Could you… maybe… stay with me tonight?" 
His eyes widen at your question, but he doesn’t actually answer you and gives you no physical indication one way or the other. 
"I feel safer when you're with me,” you admit. 
“I am with you out here,” he counters, because of course he can’t make this easy for you.  
“I can’t see you out here.”
The line of his shoulder eases, and he ducks his head down with a resigned sigh. "Fine. Get back inside, Cielito. You're going to catch a cold like this."
You shuffle back inside to your bed, watching out of the corner of your eye as  he follows you inside and settles himself on the lounge sofa. He’s so tall that his feet are sticking out over the armrests, like a long-legged stork. 
Hiding a smile, you climb back into bed, wrapping the bedding all around yourself.
“Good night,” you call out, and he makes a grumpy noise of acknowledgment. 
Your head drops back onto the soft pillow, and you close your eyes, ready to sleep. It’s such a nice bed. The sheets are cool and soft against your skin and smell of fresh eucalyptus. The mattress is the most comfortable you ever remember resting on, firm but somehow soft at the same time. You feel like you’re sleeping on a cloud. 
Moments go by, and you revel in the sumptuous bed, waiting for the best sleep of your life to claim you. 
Except it doesn’t. 
Somehow… you still can’t fall asleep. Is it… too soft maybe? You turn in the bed, twisting your torso to get into a position you can comfortably sink into, but something doesn’t feel right. There’s no lumpiness like at home, but that should be a good thing. 
Except… despite the decadent softness of the bed. Despite the fact that the sheets probably have a thread count with more zeros than your checking and savings accounts combined. Despite all of the luxury that surrounds you, you still find yourself tossing and turning and wide fucking awake.
The bed is too big. You don’t know what to do with all this space. Your body is not accustomed to this sort of decadence. What if you suffocate sinking into this soft fluffy pillow in your sleep? What if you toss and turn until you fall off this massive bed and break your neck? Maybe that’s how out of all of the universe’s attempts to kill you, you end up dying? 
Fuck! 
You can’t sleep. 
You turn to your side and stare into the velvet lounge chaise on the opposite side of your room, where Miguel is. 
Quietly, you pad up to his still form until you’re standing in front of him and hunch over, trying to decide how rude it would be to wake him up again when there's nothing he can do about your stupid insomnia anyway.
In the dim light, you spot something glinting at you. Looking closer, you notice that the thin chain looped around his neck has escaped his shirt to pool on the fabric of the sofa cushion under him. You gently drag the loose end of the necklace toward you, and find a smooth golden band threaded onto it.
Picking it up cautiously, you flip it in your hand and find that there's something engraved on the inside.  It's hard to see in the darkness, but when you lean closer and squint your eyes, you can just make out what it says.
'MO'—undeniably the initials of one Miguel O'Hara.
Twisting the ring slightly, you find a tiny plus sign followed by your own initials, and your heart drops into the pit of your stomach.
Oh.
The memory of sitting across Miguel at Starbucks returns to you, when you had asked him who you were to him. You think of the avoidant gaze and how he couldn't look you in the eye.
‘Something like that,’ huh?
Guess the other you wasn't just his girlfriend after all, you think, chest drawn so tight it’s painful.
Holding the wedding band in the palm of your hand, you slide down to sit down on the floor with your back pressed against the chaise lounge.
Your heart aches for the man in front of you and everything he's lost.  You really, really hope you're not going to end up as just another regret on his list.
~ Next Issue
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Dedication & Credits: As always to my best friend @thirstworldproblemss I am half asleep and running on fumes. I'm wording things poorly but I just want you to know that I am very happy I have you. Thank you for being my friend and for the time we get to spend together. I have the most fun when I'm with you.
Also to @guruan who is my muse, my source of inspiration. This chapter is dedicated to her because have you seen this beautiful piece of artwork she did for EYEM?!
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huicitawrites · 6 months
Text
Priestess of The Malevolent Shrine
Yandere! Trueform Sukuna x Fem! Reader
tags: @a-tiny-teez @kazusan7yanderekun @eleventhdoctorsangel @sircatchungus
warnings: yandere, “slow burn”, violence, death and torture, slavery
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Part 1- It begins
Previous Part / Next Part
The day itself was no different than any other spring day in Japan. The vast forest gleamed with green and a soft breeze danced through the trees and rattled the leaves. In the depths, the sound of rushing water could be heard, indicating the presence of a waterfall or spring.
And yet, it was still awfully quiet.
No sounds or sights of animals- no heads of reindeers or tails of mountain foxes, not a single bird sat atop the tree branches and not the single chirp of a cricket or the all-too-known hisses of cicadas.
In any case, the air was tense, the spring wind carried gloom and silence. The dense forest did not hide you, but made you feel small and intimidated, vulnerable to the feeling of being stalked like prey.
You were capable of seeing their eyes and malformed shapes, their sights were focused on you, who was sitting inside the decorated carriage, and the men who carried you to the slaughter.
They outnumbered you and the men, they made you easy prey and yet, they did not jump at the opportunity. No, they watched. Although the bodies pushed and squeezed each other, they did not cross your path and in its stead, formed a straight path up the hill- at the top of it and at its end, a massive torii-gate could be seen.
Like a lamb to the slaughter.
Yes, that’s what you were- The make-up, the accessories and wedding hanfu were all a traditional façade, you were not a woman to be married off to a man as the noble customs dictate.
No.
You were a sacrifice.
An unlucky sheep being delivered to the wolf’s den in a ridiculous attempt to save the other sheep.
As the carriage advanced, you couldn’t help but grasp and twist the fabric of the dress. It was shameful, if anything. Your clan was once proud and strong, almost at par with the family that held possession of The Six Eyes. Your parents were proud leaders that had exorcized countless curses and led their fellow shamans to dominate the battlefield.
A terrible encounter would be their doom and leave the [L/n] clan in shambles. Your parents and many other clanspeople fought and lost their lives to the King of Curses. The L/n’s, once vast and powerful, was rendered scarce and vulnerable. Without the support such a big clan provided, your village’s riches run dry and your clan was abandoned by the townspeople. Even when you as the heiress of the Clan pleaded for help to the other great clans in hopes they would honor their alliances held for over decades, they turned their backs on you without a second thought.
What could you, a young woman with feeble grasp of her own inherited technique, hope to do to? In a world where power ruled over all and guaranteed survival, what could you possibly do to prevent your clan from extinction?
How could you ever save the legacy of your dear parents?
It seemed like your uncle, the only closest relative you had alive, had a wonderful idea. "We'll put to use your youth and face”, he had said, “I am sure you can please him, your parents would be proud to see you do anything in your grasp to save our clan. As a young L/n heiress, it is your duty. Bask in pride.”
‘Bask in pride?’ To hell with him, it seemed that he had also forgotten about his sister, your beloved mother, and his brother-in-law. They would never sell you out, as long as you can remember they never pressured you to accept any suitor and they would always express their desire for you to choose out of your own right.
And screw your Uncle’s words, they would rather fight tooth and nail against the whole Jujutsu world than to see you being sent off to the Cursed King himself. Your parents would rather die than issue an alliance with Ryomen Sukuna, the murderer of your clan, through you- their cherished daughter.
However, they had indeed died. They could do nothing to prevent you from your fate and save you from the madness and desperation of your uncle.
‘Mother, Father’, your fingertips instinctively brushed the piece of jewelry that adorned your [Y/n] hair - a colorful hairpin in the shades of [favorite color] passed down to you as a family heirloom - when you closed your eyes, the faces of your deceased parents and fallen clanspeople flashed in your mind.
To hell with your uncle, to hell with the King of Curses.
Too caught up within your mind, you were brought back by a ‘knock-knock’ from the outside wall of the carriage. Your uncle’s voice reached your ears, “We are almost there, [Y/n]. Prepare yourself.”
“Remember, our lives depend on you. Do not do anything stupid.”
You knew well what he meant to say, ‘don’t you dare step out of line’. You can perfectly recall the sting of the palm of his hand on your right cheek when you had first opposed. You were still opposed, you could not hide the truth that reflected in your face. Your uncle was mad, but he was not blind. He was aware of your intentions and the unwavering loyalty you had for your parents and the clan. Their teachings, values and traditions were well rooted within you.
The ascending movements of the carriage came to a stop. Your curiosity willed you towards the window of the carriage. When taking a peak out of it, you noticed a massive, old and strained torii. The color of it had faded and lost itself to time and the wood of it had various cracks that ran through the columns. In spite of it all, it stood tall and its height made you feel even smaller and more insignificant to its grandness.
Past the torii, meters away and framed at the center, was a shrine.
When the lot of you crossed the torii, a massive aura came crushing on you. The tension solidified ten times over, and the air became even thicker than before. Unlike in the forest, there were no cursed spirits yet the cursed energy emanating from the shrine was hundreds of times stronger and fouler.
This was where Ryomen Sukuna lived.
He had to be there, inside.
The gates of the shrine opened on their own as if he were already expecting your arrival. He knew all of you were here the moment you put a foot in that cursed forest. The doors creaked and the ominous scenery lit up.
The shrine was spacious, there were three columns at each side of the hallroom and between the last pair there was his throne.
The veils of the carriage hid you, but you could feel your uncle and his men freeze. You could feel his cursed energy radiating past the carriage walls and veils, directly hitting your skin and making your body tremble. You bit your lower lip and your nails crumbled the fabric even tighter. It would leave permanent creases, if you ever lived past this moment to see them that is.
“Oh, great King of Curses,” your uncle’s voice announced and his body bowed along the remaining clanspeople, “We have come in peace and humbleness with an offer.”
Your uncle could not resist slightly raising his head and taking a mere glance, but once he did, he was quick to redirect his forehead to the ground and sweat began to break all over his body.
At the top of the leading stairs and in a golden throne gilded with skulls sat Ryomen Sukuna, seemingly bored. Even as he sat, his body was huge, and he had two pairs of arms. The lower set held two weapons, a staff and a dagger, which did nothing but aggravate the threat that he was. His top left arm laid on the armrest as his right elbow bent to cushion his cheek. Although his head was tilted to the side and there were no traces of ire or madness right away, his four eyes looked down upon them with disdain. As if he were glancing at a couple of ants.
His eyes were, however, quick to glance at the carriage. Of course he knew what this was about, this was not the first time he was made an ‘offering’. His red irises glanced back to your uncle and the people behind him, oh how he enjoyed the sight of fools bowing to him.
“Bring the carriage forward and back off. I’ll see whatever’s inside for myself”.
His voice was low and thick, Sukuna ordered them around without much more explanation, only with the expectation that they would fill out his command. They were at his mercy, and so, the carriage was carried forward with you in it. Slowly, they lowered it and dropped you on the ground. As they retreated, their forms were still kept bowed and low.
Ryomen Sukuna stood up from his throne, full seven feet or more of stature in display. Strange black markings stretched across his skin. As he descended the stairs, his heavy footfalls thudded the wooden floor, vibrating through the it.
The carriage shook in the ground, you could tell he was enormous and monstrous due to those footfalls of his. With each step, he got closer, and you grew even more nervous.
Sweat began to break from the skin of your forehead, your eyes widened and your pupils constricted, your throat became tight and dry.
‘He’s getting closer, he’s getting closer, he’s-’
The shadow of his silhouette tinted the veils, and suddenly everything around you disappeared. All you could hear and feel was the frantic drumming of your heart in your ears.
You could see in slow motion how his muscled arm came to grab the veil. One by one, his black claws passed through the division of the veils.
‘He will open them any second now.’
Your breathing became ragged and snippets of your life flashed across your eyes. Your parents, your clanspeople, the townspeople, everyone.
You would rather die than betray them.
You prepared yourself and below the sleeves of the damned hanfu, your knuckles turned white.
When Sukuna drew open the curtains, he was met with a pretty sight. It’s not an outstandingly new thing, but a pretty maiden is always a relief to a man’s eyes, even to one such as him.
Dolled up just for him with delicate makeup and luxurious fabrics, a lady with [h/c] hair and [s/c] skin sat on her knees elegantly. Her back was poise and kept, her eyes were closed, displaying long and curled eyelashes.
For a second, Sukuna lost his usual cool composure- he was truly impressed, even though many had come to him in a similar manner.
However, what followed suit was what definitely picked his interest.
The calm and docile demeanor of the lady snapped and her eyes shot open, revealing a pair of fierce [e/c] burning with fury. From the inside of the carriage, she leapt forward to him- to his throat to be precise.
“Oh?” The Cursed King expressed with genuine interest, an eyebrow cocked and all, as he admired your form in the air.
Your hair spread free and wild in the air, like the mane of a lion, and your teeth were bared as a warcry left your red-painted lips. Your left arm was extended and the palm of your hand was wide open, while the other arm’s elbow was bent behind your head. Sukuna was also quick to take notice of the weapon in your hand infused with cursed energy, a familiar one as well, and his eyes widened in further surprise when the cursed energy became so sharp it flashed in red and black.
The corners of Sukuna’s lips picked up, his lips parted in a wicked, toothy grin laced with malice. He ran his tongue over his lips, he could already taste it, the massacre. Your form was getting nearer and nearer by the second, with the naive intent to strike him down.
“I’d rather die than be sold off like a broodmare!”
“You foolish girl, you’ll kill us all!”
The King of Curses held an amused face in contrast to your enraged one, and just when you thought you would be able to pierce and slice open his throat, one of his arms stopped you. Abruptly, and quite ironically, he caught you by your own throat. His hold was strong, immobilizing you completely mid air. Your body halted and trembled, even as you struggled to find air, the object still held your cursed energy and your eyes kept burning with ire.
“Now this is getting fun”, Sukuna giggled as his four eyes scrutinized your form. He found that the way you resisted was pathetically adorable as if he had just caught an insect with the pads of his fingers, one he could squash in less than a second.
“A hairpin infused with cursed energy? Creative, I’ll give you that, but so stupid. You thought you could kill me? With a hairpin? That’s a little insulting to say the least ” His tone was mocking and condensing, his tongue lacing the words with venom. With his hand still choking you, he brought you closer.
He made out the words ‘fuck you’ from your lips, which just made him laugh some more. You raked your fingernails across his arm in agony, trying to tear apart his skin. Such a feisty lady.
The King of Curses made sure to glare at you right in the eyes with false pity as he spoke, “For someone who would rather die, you sure are putting on a pathetic display as you are giving it your all for some air”.
Something about his words resounded deep within you. A truth you wanted to deny yourself in the name of your parents. Everyone died whilst fighting and here you were, the least you could do was join them and honor their dignity!
Your eyesight was getting clouded with dark spots due to the lack of oxygen, but your ears were keen to the following words, “Hmm? You want to live, don’t you?”
Sukuna hummed the words as he was drowning in the details of your bodily expressions as you gasped for a last breath of air. He had taken many lives, some squealed like lowly pigs at the slaughter, others simply gave up, but some put up a fight, or some sort of resistance. Yours was such a case, in which you’d put on a brave facade, acting tough and daring, but deep down you wanted to survive and live on so, so badly.
He could see it in the diminishing fire of your eyes, and how the cinders of fear and regret took over. You were beginning to question yourself, to panic. And Sukuna relished in it, took all in.
“So? What will you---“
Sukuna blinked his eyes and tilted his head downward upon the feeling of someone tugging on his yukata. “Please forgive her, my lord! I am sure she is just nervous, please reconsider it!”, at the level of his feet, the old man that had delivered his sacrifice was clinging to his ankles. His nose was buried in the fabric of his clothes, and Sukuna gagged in disgust.
“Spare her foolishness! I am certain of her capability to–”
“Silence, you fool”.
The voice of the King of Curses dropped decibels lower, lacking any twisted humor and simply on point. His eyes held no emotion but irritation, his face was relaxed but his eyebrows and mouth were lined straight. Sukuna was serious.
His voice boomed through the hallroom, and you heard the way everyone dropped to their knees again. Your uncle hit his forehead on the floor with a loud slap and he shook like a leaf. A leaf to be trampled on.
Sparing you no other glance, Ryomen Sukuna threw you to the side of the room like a mere toy. Your back crashed against the wall and upon impact. Air was knocked out of your lungs once again and you howled silently in pain, unable to produce a sound. Your body coiled in itself as it attempted to reduce the pain, and you coughed furiously.
Your eyes blinked a couple of times, making feeble attempts to open fully- but all you could see was a blurry mist, in which you only figured out the characteristic pink hair and monstrous build of the demon. You noticed your uncle at his feet, without really thinking, you reached out your arm to him and stretched it wide open. It collapsed on its weight. All you could do was watch the tragedy unfold.
Sukuna kicked your uncle in the gut and he rolled back a few steps. He groaned in pain. He had no time to gather himself, for Sukuna kicked him once more. This time, in the ribs.
“You dare barge into my shrine without care, shamelessly bringing up an unsolicited offer. You were an idiot if you thought you would get something out of me. An alliance, or my ‘divine’ protection?” He sneered, “ You are the fool here. At least the girl stood up to fight, coward.”
Your uncle tried to shape words with his lips, tongue and teeth, but all that came up was splotches of blood and saliva.
“Uraume,” the Cursed King called out and from the shadows, a young man made his appearance at Sukuna's side. His odd light-blue locks cascaded down as his head was bowed, and his robes draped over his legs on the floor. His arm crossed over one of his knees, it was evident that he was awaiting orders.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Help me with dealing with this trash. I am fed up with this.”
“As you say, my lord.”
When he raised up his face, a sinister grin decorated his face. He lifted his body off the floor and dusted his clothes, making way towards the poor souls in Sukuna's hall.
“This one's for me to kill, and that girl over there-” the Cursed King pointed at you “- leave her be.”
‘Uraume’ nodded once more and muttered the loyal words. Without further haste, he launched himself to the rest of the people.
You struggled to stay conscious, the dissonance of horror enveloping you, though your senses were waning. The screams of terror, the sickening squelch of flesh and blood, the bone-chilling cracks—these sounds permeated your fading awareness. However, the overwhelming cursed energy in the air compelled you to regain consciousness. As if it kept your body awakened with its sheer presence.
Your tear-blurred vision flickered as you blinked repeatedly, attempting to adjust your eyesight to the scene before you. Regret – instant and churning painfully your heart – flooded your thoughts as you took in the gruesome scenery.
The room was a nightmarish maelstrom of chaos. Blood pooled around lifeless bodies strewn across the floor. Limbs and entrails laid in grotesque disarray. An overpowering metallic stench overtook your sense of smell, assaulting your nostrils with the unmistakable scent of iron.
You longed to turn away, to escape the horrors unfolding before you, but your body remained unable to move itself. You were far too hurt. Wide-eyed and trembling, you observed that many bodies lay headless, including your uncle's.
His severed head stared right at you, a loud but silent testament to the brutality of the carnage. The weight of the guilt sinked deep within you, the cold look on your uncle’s corpse blaming you.
Your shoulders slumped, and despair welled up, but your body lacked the strength even to shed tears. You clenched your fists so tightly that your fingernails dug into your palms, an agonizing reminder of your helplessness.
"God... please," you whispered, your voice a desperate plea in the midst of the macabre scene. The last remnants of your clan, the servants, the soldiers, your own blood—their lives had all been snuffed out.
The once-proud [L/n] clan, now reduced to a memory, stood on the precipice of extinction. You were the sole survivor, a solitary heiress to a lineage of nothingness. The weight of this grim reality pressed upon you, though it felt like mere seconds separated you from joining the departed.
Alone and vulnerable, you embraced grief and awaited death.
"Wasn't that quite refreshing, Uraume?" Sukuna's voice rang out, his presence looming closer.
"It certainly was, my lord," Uraume responded, his words dripping with sadistic amusement.
You remained ensnared in your misery, dry tears long gone, your throat raw from unspoken anguish. As Sukuna drew near, his laughter filled the air. He crouched before you, his posture languid, his gaze filled with a sadistic fascination that thrived in your torment.
“Now, what will I do with you…” A reminder that you were at the mercy of the King of Curses. As he hummed with closed eyes, searching for answer in his evil mind, his clawed-thumb supported his chin as he tilted his head, his other arms resting over his knees. He was unfazed, lacking any remorse or guilt, he was amused. He truly could not care less about what he had done.
“Ah, yes!” he clapped his hands, eyes wide open along with a bright smile. He sought to meet your gaze, but your head hung too low to notice, and without warning, he raised it with his hand. He pinched your chin, puncturing his claws in your (color) skin. Perhaps, it would leave a scar, but that would heal. Unlike your heart, which would certainly have one– a nasty, deep one, for sure. One that would never heal.
Even though he lifted your head, your gaze refused to meet his. Your (e/c) were dull and empty, your eyelids were swollen and you were crestfallen. His red-eyes went to the side. It slightly irked him, he despised the weak and that face you held was the epitome of weakness. Yet, he could put you to greater use.
“Hear me out, girl” Ryomen Sukuna spat. His eyes glinted with malevolent intent, “You haven’t been the only one to come up to my shrine and be offered as a pretty human bride. But I fear there is just no more space in my harem and I have just enough servants… But I am missing a priestess for my shrine, someone to worship me and pray in my name. A human to set as an example for the rest, a shepherd for these pathetic, weak sheep.”
His tone holds mockery and his eyes hold mischievousness, an egotistical and narcissistic abyss that wants to be filled to the brim. He is asking you to strip off any remaining pride and honor, just to serve him.
“So what do you say? Who knows… if you do your job well you might get to live a little bit more…”
The King of Curses looked back to your face, you were bewildered and your features scrunched in disgust. Of course, Sukuna knew you would hesitate, you just need a little pushing around, “And if you don’t accept my kind offer, well, I could just have my fun with you before ripping you apart and ending your miserable life.”
You gulped. The implications of his word, ‘having his fun with you’, it sent shivers down your spine. It could mean anything, and nothing good for certain. You do not wish to die such a horrible death, what choice do you have? Being used by Ryomen Sukuna like a doll would be humiliating and atrocious, but serving him like a priestess would betraying your morals– yet, you’d live.
You would live to see another day.
You grimaced, a silent tear slipping down the corner of your eye, ‘I am sorry, Mother, Father, Uncle… everyone’
“I don’t have all day, girl”
“I accept”
Sukuna’s eyes widened in pleasant surprise as a cheshire grin spread on his face. He chuckled upon your despair, what more could the weak do than take the slightest chance to be spared? If you were stronger, you could have attempted to resist him, but you were not, you were at his mercy.
“Then bow your head to your new god and present yourself”. The sentence came in the format of a command, one so powerful it instantly made your elbows seek the ground and plummeted your forehead below.
“I am [Y/n] [L/n], heir of the [L/n] Clan.”
On the back of your head you felt a sudden pressure being forced, its flat surface made you believe it was one of his feet. “That name…”
The pressure intensified as he sank his foot deeper and rubbed it against your skull, his next words only aggravated the pain “Ah, yes! The [L/N] Clan, yes, I got word I killed two of their most powerful sorcerers, the heads of the clan nonetheless. It made it all the more funny, they were weakling scum. Pathetic really how the remains of their oh so proud clan, barged into my home pleading for mercy and now I have their daughter right at my foot to serve me.” His laugh was loud and boisterous, as if someone had told him the best joke around, his four eyes holding disdain and madness. His laugh continued to echo across the room, before dying down as he inhaled and exhaled, a smaller smile painting his face.
His four eyes looked down at you.
“You are now solely [Y/n], after all, no [L/N] remains… Stand up.” he removed his foot.
He ordered you to stand up and although your knees buckled, you managed. However, you remained your head low, avoiding eye-contact.
“Well, then. You ought to begin, your first task will be to clean up this mess. Leave this place spotless.” He said without a care of the bodies, without acknowledging the value of the lives he had taken. “Uraume, after she finishes give her further instructions, show her how things work around here.”
“As you wish, my lord”. The man with light-blue hair and peculiar robes showed himself again, this time, right by your side but not at the same level, a step in front.
“And [Y/n]- I despise incompetence”. His eyes shot daggers at your form and his voice rid itself of any sarcastic or ‘humorous’ tone, it was a very real threat. You gulped and nodded, bowing your head in an instant, but something about the way he said his words unease you– the gears in your head began shifting rapidly and you were quick to reach the conclusion, for your sake.
“Y-yes, my lord.” You copied this ‘Uraume’ man, and bowed your head further. The King of Curses chuckled.
“Very good, you are a fast learner it seems.”
Without further ado, Ryomen Sukuna walked away along with Uraume, who later came back to toss you cleaning supplies, a bucket of water and a broom and a rag- he disappeared with a twisted smile too, much like his lord.
You stood still there with the broom in your hands as by your feet, the severed head of your uncle kept staring at you. You rolled the sleeves of the ruined hanfu, and began to mop.
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ooffmlsorry · 5 months
Text
Baby, It's Cold Outside
A/N: I swear I'm gonna work on my prompt posts after this but it was unexpectedly cold today and I was not ready 😭
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Your feet crunched loudly underneath you. The snow comes up to your shines, forcing you to take high trudging steps. The wind is throwing snowflakes into your face, and your tears live short liquid lives before turning to ice on your cheeks.
So far, your first experience with snow is...hell on earth.
If hell froze over, that is.
The rest of the crew were completely comfortable in the weather, but what could you expect? The navigator was a polar bear after all. Someone had said something about part of the crew being from the frigid North Blue, which was suddenly beginning to make sense.
"There's gotta be something wrong with him," you muttered into the scarf wrap around the lower half of your face. It was swampy and damp against your skin, collecting snot and condensation from your breath. Disgusting. But at least it kept your lips and nose from going numb.
The plan was to rendezvous with the rest of the crew on the other side of the island. Bepo was leading the others across, and as the next best thing to a navigator, you were to guide and stay with Law to wait for them at this shabby excuse for a cabin.
You surveyed the white wasteland outside the window. A sheet of startling blue sky loomed overhead. Speaking of Law, you turned to look at your captain just slightly behind you. You couldn't read anything on his expression, but the fact that he didn't look nearly as miserable as you told you enough.
The shack you waited in had nothing except four walls and a fireplace--trees for firewood not included.
"How do you stand this?!" You say. "I'm so cooold!" The end of your whining turns into fake sob.
"Keep your eyes ahead, y/n-ya," Law says. The slight upward pull of his lips turns the neutral resting bitch face he normally has into an amused smirk.
You exaggerate your pout, "that's all I get?! This is my first time in the snow and it's awful! I'm freezing!"
Law chuckles. "It's not my fault you were raised on a tropical island."
Law only wears his hat, a coat--the same one you remember him wearing on Punk Hazard--and a pair of gloves. He's practically naked compared to your hat, gloves, scarf, dense coat, and wool snow pants.
You sigh loudly, your shoulders slump miserably in front of you. Law watches you with a twinkle in his eyes that causes warmth to bloom across your face.
The look in his eyes belays a fondness he normally hides.
He's enjoying this.
"How long do you think it will take the others to get here?" He asks you.
Business as usual, then. You walk back over to the shack's window to observe the sky.
"There's still no sign of clouds. In fact, snow blindness might be an issue for the rest of the crew. They're walking on a plateau, far away from any slopes so they won't have to work against any winds. I'd say three hours? Maybe a little less since some of you are cold weather natives." A draft blows cold winds through the cabin, making you shudder all the way down to your toes. "I can't wait until we literally blow this popsicle stand."
Law wraps his arms around you from behind. His front flush to your back and his chin resting on the top of your head.
"Oh?"
You lean in to him and stuff his hands into your front pockets so you can hold them. Gloved fingers intertwine. You have just enough room to lovingly stroke your thumb across the back of Law's hand. A wordless thank you.
"I won't listen to you complain about how cold it is for that long." Law's voice rumbles from. "I'll warm you up."
You watch the snow drift and dance in the wind through icy windows. You never knew the ice crystals people spoke of were truly crystals, until you saw them on the window. The last time you saw the sky this blue was back on your home island. Cloudless and comfortingly blue.
"It's actually kind of pretty," you say quietly.
"It can be," Law responds. He surprises you further by pressing a kiss to your temple. "You were too busy freezing your ass off to notice."
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ardourie · 1 month
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ok cool ig im name dropping then, u are literally making up headcanons about me based on fucking nothing, i didn’t exclusively focus on the flaws of white trans people over cis white people if u actually read anything i posted instead of believing anons randomly accusing me of things you’d see my only issue is white people like YOU because you are white
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watering down the impact of racism and pretending that it isn’t as harmful when coming from queer people as if being queer is an inherently purifying or redeemable action, this website is overwhelmingly trans, our circles are majority trans, getting into disagreements with trans people on here is going to happen bc of how many queer people there are on this platform, if the only people you claim i harassed are users like ratliker i don’t want to fucking hear it, i’ve been having people call me a terf for years bc of standing up to her racism and black genocide denial, every single fucking time someone on here does something racist and a brown person points it out ppl around you run to call them transphobic, like ur doing right now! the second sentence of her post literally says i deserve to be called a terf for just talking about the racism happening on the poll, she said that HERSELF
i said hussie has done racist acts and has racism in their comic, that doesn’t make hussie evil or fans of it evil it just means we should actually acknowledge its there and not have viral post going around claiming that none of what hussie did was that bad bc they’re trans and if ur bothered by it ur automatically transphobic, as if that isn’t an incredibly fucked up thing to say, bc u said that urself on ur blog multiple times, here’s my original and ONLY post that made someone go and tell plaidos i sent death threats when that wasn’t remotely what i was saying
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plaidos posted this ask that immediately had ppl in my inbox calling me a terf and bigot for harassing a trans girl (hussie) and saying im a horrible person for sending death threats when i NEVER did that, had no reason to, and hussie isn’t even ON tumblr to do that
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she also stated that she meant i “started” the death threats instead of sending them which is still a fucking lie bc the poll that i was referencing was posted FOUR days ago and has ppl fighting and talking about death threats about hussie before i even knew it fucking existed, and she would know bc she was arguing under the post four days ago HERSELF
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how did i start death threats on a post i didnt find out about until 4 days after people were fighting under it? how the fuck does that work?
she then went on to slip up and reveal that she subconsciously thinks the queer community is only white bc when ppl complain about white queers they r complaining about latent racism, bc brown people exist in ur community and acting like poc criticizing white people (who will always be white no matter the other identities they have) means u hate queers is racist as hell
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shit like THIS is what hussie was doing on a constant basis
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these are just two examples you could google “homestuck racism” and find much more my only point that i ever made is that it’s insensitive and fucked up to act like anyone who doesn’t like or even hates homestuck for its racism is a transphobe or evil instead possibly someone deeply affected by hussies racism, and plaidos was under the original poll post i referenced arguing with black people calling them liars for saying hussie is racist and has antiblackness in his work:
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if you recognize hussie is racist and has racism in their work why the fuck are you arguing with black people about that fact? why are you pretending people are lying and making up rumors when hussies racism has been a known fact for a literal decade at this point, hussie was quite literally responsible for a boom in antiblack racism online in the early internet you cannot be so dense as to not acknowledge this, and i want to clarify im literally a homestuck fan, homestuck meant so much to me as a kid, and bc of that i know that online spaces for homestuck treated black people like absolute shit for complaining about the racism, i was bullied and harassed so much for even being upset at characters in the comic using the n word or mocking black people, im criticizing it bc i care about it being such a large phenomenon responsible for the normalization of my oppression.
not going over the homestuck racism workshop thing bc u ppl r being purposefully obtuse and i already talked about it here
if you don’t believe me, please go ask the people accusing me of these things for screenshots of me sending death threats, ask them to show that i have no transfem friends, ask them to show it bc every fucking time theirs never any proof, stop believing ask u read about me with no proof stop believing rumors, put urself in the shoes of others, would you want hundreds of ppl sharing post saying you did something you didn’t fucking do with no proof? ask yourself why you don’t see many black people speak out on racism on here and ask urself if maybe it might correlate to how we get demonized for it, if you think callout culture is bad why participate in it in a way where you don’t even have photo evidence backing for what your sharing
lastly, u people keep going on and on about the company i keep but are the same ones cropping out the trans girls im friends with and constantly talking to on my blog, you did it with the last situation regarding aaron bushnell you did it with the previous pregnancy callout, yall literally accuse every trans girl around me of being self hating or theyfabs, random trans women who simply shared my opinion have been harassed and accused of being sock puppets, i have a whole post about that in my pinned, but u don’t care, it’s easier to make me a scape goat and deflect criticisms of racism despite you being white and unaffected than it is to simply go “yeah some people are gonna hate media that has racism in it and that isn’t indicative of anything other than hating racism” your fucking white, can we be serious right now, you published ask saying i was sending death threats to hussie when that never happened and accused me of starting the anger on a poll i never reblogged that a bunch of my trans girl mutuals were complaining about 16 hours ago, so which is it? transfem opinions matter to you or they don’t? bc it seems like u just pick a fucking choose which girls to listen to and like randomly going after black people for not liking antiblack racism
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kitramune · 3 months
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I'm having feels again so bear with me, but Inuyasha is not that dense. He knows exactly what Kagome feels when it comes to having to somehow be compared to or live up to Kikyou. Their friends get that she has a complex, but I'd argue they don't REALLY get it. Inuyasha REALLY gets it. He is a hanyou. A torn existence that will always be compared to either a human or a youkai depending on the prejudice. He understands the pain of being compared and coming up short in people's eyes. This is why you canonically will NEVER see him compare the two in any direct way, and especially not to Kagome's face. Quite the opposite, in fact.
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Hell, I imagine if he'd been there to hear, it, Kikyou's "you are me" comments would have pissed him off. It's more than romantic drama or average teen coming of age angst. It's about identity issues. Inuyasha and Kagome are more alike than a glance would let on, and me, I love that and how it ties into some of the deeper themes. (Which ARE especially important to teenagers, don't get me wrong.)
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uchihaharlot · 2 months
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Yandere Uchihas with an innocent S/O who doesn't know that he wants to baby trap the S/O.
I think that when an Uchiha wants to get you pregnant… there’s really nothing in the way of stopping them, that being said.
NSFW; Uchiha’s pumping you full of their hot sticky baby batter; Madara breeding; Obito ignorantly blissed; Shisui manipulation; Itachi sexual coercion.
Madara:
lol. This ain’t a baby trap for him. Your body was designed to specifically carry his offspring. Plus it’s the Warring States Era… everyone was fucking without protection. And that includes when Madara has you bunched up beneath him.
He’s not really shy about this either. While sex talk is hot as hell, Madara makes no laughing joke about how fucked out and stuffed full of his genes and babies you’ll be. You’re the perfect woman and you need to be his flesh light. His baby factory, so to speak. Bred until you can hardly breath.
And ma’am, he’s rough when fucking your overly used cunt. Day after day of incessant breeding, him hitting it all the way to your cervix when he cums to make sure his swimmers are close as close gets to your womb. Excellent thing you’re a good little girl and take it all night. The sheets get changed regularly since you have about six or eight loads pumped into you and each load gets fucked out as the other is pumped in. It also takes Madara a looong time to cum inside of you, so you’re basically cumming several times, prepping his cock to empty itself. He just really enjoys seeing how overstimulated you get and how that pussy massages his cock dry. ‘Just a bit more little bird…’ And it sounds so sweet to your exhausted self, but he’s so menacing when it comes to it.
Obito:
I hate to say this but if there were ever an unfortunate enough Uchiha to get baby trapped…. It’s this man here. Our poor Obito is a bit too trusting and a little dense at times. But like, sex feels so so good and he’s touched starved. So when you sit on his fat cock for the first time and fuck him stupid. Any and all sexual education he did have, is wiped free from his mind. You just feel so good in his lap, so wet and warm on his aching length. Especially when you own him this way, Obito can’t think.
Tobi, is a good boi. And if you tell him that, he’s gonna burst fast and heavy in your plush velvety walls without a care. It’s just feels so damn good for Obito to actually cum inside of you, and since he’s rarely sticking his cock often in anyone. He won’t feel the slightest bit nervous when you joke about wanting a little Uchiha in you because, well, it’s hot as fuck. So as many times as you want, he’ll coat your insides until gravity works against his cum and it drips out of you as you ride him through each of his and your orgasms. Which it’s safe to say that if you’re cumming, he is too.
Shisui:
He didn’t really want to do this to you. I mean, yes he wants everyone to see that cute belly of yours cradling his Uchiha baby but also… he knows you’re not entirely ready. So Kotoamatsukami for you, miss. You are none the wiser since Shisui doesn’t even need to look you in the eye while using his ultimate technique. This is a very egregious act and an abuse of power. Shisui justifies it because you have talked about children of your own. Just not making them yet. Shisui, I think, has a heavy conscience over it but when you’re whining for him to fuck a baby in you because your mind has been inundated with thoughts of his hot cum. It’s a non issue in that moment.
Palms splayed all over your stomach when you both cum. Admiring the flat of your stomach and visualizing how plump and delicious you’ll look with his growing seed. Holding your hips roughly when you squirm from being so taut and full of his cock pumping you raw and full.
You just look so sexy like this. Begging him for an Uchiha baby, even if it is manipulative, Shisui is in heaven. ‘Please, Shisui…’ is your vocabulary for the next few hours. This is his passion now. Shisui gets really into filling your soft hole with his seed, very desperate soft whines each time he cums inside of you. That much closer to his goal . If you end up squiring on him, well that’s another two loads to make up for the one you washed out. ‘Tisk, there goes all my hard work, baby. You need more now…’ Gods, his sex out voice is so low and hoarse too 🥵
Itachi:
Any sort of insolence on your side about having his baby is just ending with you tossed into Tsukuyomi. You should have agreed with this man from the get go. Though you might think this is a safe zone for acting out his deplorable behavior. He will fuck you into submission until your willing and eager for it. Just throws you in there and locks the key until he is done. Fucking you senseless until you are in agreeance of him cramming your insides with a baby. It takes only three seconds for him to coerce you from an outside perspective, but yet it’s been nearly a lifetime in there for you.
Consider yourself more fortunate with his good graces if you end up in this situation, agreeing and whatnot. Itachi is persistent when it comes to actually making sure you fall pregnant. Though he doesn’t believe that the more loads of cum you take in a single session actually makes a difference. He will breed you for the novelty of it. It’s just been one of those things whispered in the shadows and plus. It feels so damn good having you whining underneath him this way and hey, yea. Baby making sex is hot as hell. So you really are wanting this. Itachi is typically a soft lover. Very sensual, but like this? Now you know why he was so desperate for your cooperation. The man is insatiable and ends up cumming several times over, especially when he sees how into it you are. How quick you climax the first time he raws you. 🫠
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akystaracer22 · 2 months
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Distrust Fall:
A leap of faith gone wrong, an eternal promise kept eternally. No matter how long it has been some things never truly change.
Notes
How to fail a trust fall: Step one
Vaggie's relationship with Adam is very complicated, but at the moment there is a lot of animosity and it shows.
Adam is of the opinion that Sorry doesn’t mean jack shit if you make the mistake again, so he just doesn’t apologise because he thinks he’ll just fuck up again so there’s no point.
The hotel needs a licensed therapist at this point dear lord.
Alastor still isn’t over the whole “Radio is fucking dead” thing.
If there is one thing that Adam knows off by heart, it’s the names of animals scientific or otherwise. That was the guys job once upon a time and assuming he doesn’t know that stuff is the true quickest way to piss him off. He’s also really good with animals which pisses off Anthony because Fat Nuggets *likes* Adam and it drives the sinner up a wall.
Alastor and Lucifer are on the ground. Angel, Husk, Charlie, Vaggie, and Adam are on the roof.
Alastor was going to let him get a cm from the ground before catching him dw.
Lucifer used to be friends with Adam in the garden because I live for that sweet sweet friends to enemies tragedy.
Adam really does not like people staring at his face, it’s a mild form of scopophobia caused by his time in heaven with people always giving him shit for how he looked, particularly his facial features (Yes I drew on everyone calling him ugly and average on twitter and shit). He used the mask to get around it, that way people couldn’t actually see what he looked like.
This was originally 1260 but then I got an idea that blew this out by 500 words lol.
The graveyard with be elaborated on in a future connected one shot.
This is officially a fully fledged AU
Regarding Adam's claws, they're gold to combat the greyness of his palette, but also as a nod to Midas, the arrogant king who's touched turned everything to gold. Angelic blood is also gold so if you want you can interpret it as having blood on his hands.
Fingerless gloves because I thing they're neat.
I based Lucifer's wings off of duck wings!
Also Lucifer's angelic appearance was based on space. I heard Sera call Charlie "Daughter of the Morning Star" and I went feral.
He has a full shifting night sky in his wings, clothes, and hat.
Angels have white pupils now I don't make the rules.
References saved my life.
Word count: 1725
(Comic and fic under the cut! Click for better quality)
@irregular-child
Adam leaned away from the edge as the wind drifted through his wings, keenly aware of the fact that his wings wouldn’t break his fall and he did not in fact trust jack shit in hell to break it except the ground.
“Are we sure this is a good idea?”
“I’m with princess perfect this is a fucking death sentence,” Adam agreed, a little reluctantly because it was still the princess of hell, “You’re trying to fucking kill me.”
Vaggie smirked, because of course she did because she was trying to kill him, he wasn’t that dense, and just shrugged, “I mean, worked for me didn’t it?”
“That wasn’t even a fucking trust fall that was to get you to fucking fly and you know it! Fucking bitch,” The first man scowled and tried to step away from the edge, the crack whore of an arachnid immediately shoving him back up, “Would you fuck off?!”
“Would you stop being a dick?”
“Would you stop sucking them?”
The white jumping spider stared at him for a long moment and Vaggie stepped away from him for once, great! Cool! One person was leaving him alone and soon a second one will!
Great! About fucking time they got the message-
-------]
Lucifer paced nervously around Dazzle’s statue; this was a terrible idea. Having Adam go through a trust fall this early was going to end in disaster one way or another.
The main issue being nobody liked Adam and wouldn’t care if he fell. Hell, Charlies girlfriend has already tried to kill Adam off for good multiple times since he got here!
This was going to be a mess; Alastor was supposed to be catching Adam but he was just standing there looking completely unprepared and-
“Are you going to get ready or not.” Lucifer snapped at the radio demon, wings flicking out behind him in agitation.
“Oh, I have no intention of catching him.”
Lucifer froze, his tail stilling before lashing behind him as he turned on the deer-eared sinner, “What.”
“You heard me.”
“Oh, I heard you alright, and I think you should try that again.”
“And why are you getting so worked up, hm?” The sinner hummed, sneering down at the king, “Last I checked, the first man was your enemy after he tried to kill your own daughter.”
“I-” Lucifer paused, then scowled because Alastor was right. Why was he getting so worked up over this. This was Adam they were talking about. Adam who was crass and rude and cold to everyone. Adam, who would rather sit in his room all day than even look at any of them. Adam who was…
“…Luci, do they all hate me?”
“I can see why they left me for you.”
“It is good to see you again my friend! Come, much has changed since your last visit!”
… Adam who was so much more than who he was now. Who was probably the only person left in hell that remembered Eden.
Damnit.
“That’s none of your business you son of a bitch,” The fallen angel snapped at the cannibal, eliciting nothing more than a growing grin from the bastard.
Not a day went by in hell where Lucifer wished that this wasn’t his circus and that the sinners weren’t his monkeys.
Someone screamed above him.
The seraphim whipped his head up, eyes widening as he registered Adam twisting the air as he was shoved off the roof by Angel Dust.
Fear struck his heart like an exorcists blade when the first man tried to use his wings to glide, only for a single wing beat to send him into a spiral hurtling towards the ground.
He caught Adams eye for a single moment before it was obscured by his good wing, the man was terrified. He didn’t know sinners reformed after death and despite it all. Lucifer would never wish someone to experience falling from their death after quite literally falling from heaven.
Not even on Adam.
Something in his heart spurred the king into action, kicking off the ground as his wings snapped open to catch the air. A single beat of his wings and he was already well off the ground.
Lucifer reached a hand up for Adam as the fallen angel reached out to him in kind, panic written across both their faces at the idea of a horrible accident.
Lucifer’s wings moved the air one more time and-
“And… you will catch me?”
Lucifer laughed softly, a gentle chiming sound from where he stood behind Gods first man. He was trying to show him a game Lucifer and his kin would play from time to time amongst the spires of heaven.
The game was simple, one angel was to stand up high with their wings folded and fall. Then the other angel was to catch them. It was supposed to build trust, not to mention it was a delight in and of itself.
Standing amongst the grasses of Eden, Lucifer saw no reason not to share this game with Adam. He’s already grown fond of the way that Gods creation would go out of his way to show the angel what he’d been up to since his last visit.
“Be not afraid my friend!” Lucifer’s wings spread quietly to punctuate his point, divine magic threading his words, The Voice ensuring that the first man would hear and believe him.
“No matter how far you fall, I shall always be there to catch you.”
Lucifer wrapped his arms securely around the fallen angel as his wings curled around wing and man alike, bracing himself as the added weight as they both fell together.
It’s funny, it reminded him of when Adam first fell, a fiery ball that could have almost been mistaken as a shooting star had Lucifer not known better.
They hid the ground with a slam and the fallen seraphim had to bite back a shriek as his wings took the brunt of the force. They’d be left aching for a while.
Lucifer grunted as he pushed Adam off of him, sitting up and folding his wings in, allowing them to slip out of existence while they healed, he definitely didn’t want to do that again.
He slowly got to his feet while the first man got his bearings, dusting himself off and rubbing his shoulders to try and alleviate the pain.
“Why the fuck did you save me?”
Lucifer jerked and looked down at Adam from where he was glaring up at him, a note of confusion held carefully in his gaze before it dropped.
“I-”
“Well, isn’t this quite a surprise!”
Lucifer’s expression shot into a scowl as he rounded on the radio demon very blatantly interrupting the moment. The bastard just grinned and stared down at the both of them.
From the corner of his eyes Lucifer noted Adam’s good wing hitching up instinctively to cover his face from the demons gaze before dropping.
Lucifer turned his attention back to the radio demon with a glare that could melt steel, “You were going to let him fall,”
“I was going to do no such thing,”
“You just said-!”
“I said nothing you just assumed I was going to do nothing at all!”
“Listen here you!” Lucifer was just off again by the main doors opening and the other’s all barrelling out at the commotion.
Lost in the sudden onslaught of attention and having to field Alastor’s snarky comments, Anthony’s suggestive remarks, and Charlie’s concern, he didn’t see Adam flee the scene.
It wasn’t until much later that he was able to recognize the first man’s absence, searching the hotel to see if Adam was okay.
He found him at the graveyard, sitting among the many tombstones for the exorcists slain in the battle that caused Adam to fall.
Lucifer paused at the entrance to the burial ground, watching Adam sit there facing away from him for what felt like an eternity.
Despite the dead being gone, the king of hell still felt like the exorcists weapons were pointed at him, a warning that if he made one wrong move they would rise from their graves to protect their leader, to avenge him, to strike Lucifer down in an instant.
The once-angel of the morning star carefully stepped away from the cemetery, making sure he didn’t break the silence. Even if Adam wanted to be disturbed, he wasn’t the right person to do it, not in this place.
Besides, he still had his own thoughts to sort through, like why in the name of the divine he saved Adam when he would have survived regardless. He would have been fine even if he did hit the ground unimpeded so why-
Lucifer grimaced as the answer stuck to him like a parasite, he knew damn well why he saved him. It was the same stupid reason he preened Adams wings for him, the same reason he treats the first man’s wing rot and the exact same reason he made that deal with Adam after he fell.
He was attached.
Stupids horribly foolishly, Lucifer still cared for Adam even after everything.
By the stars he beat Adam within an inch of his life! Adam tried to kill his daughter!
But emotions were hardly logical. They weren’t logical when he fell for Lilith in the garden and taught her and Adam both The Voice, they weren’t logical when he freed Eve, and they weren’t logical now.
Lucifer cared for Adam, even if by all logic he should hate the man.
“Dad?”
Lucifer looked up to meet his daughters eyes, a small smile letting her know he was okay, “Hey there Duckie.”
Charlie’s expression softened at the nickname even if he still looked concerned, “Dad… are you sure you’re okay?”
“If I’m not now, I will be, so stop worrying about little old me Char-char,” Lucifer chuckled, “However… Adams in the graveyard if you want to talk to him, he seems like he needs some company right now.”
He made his exit quickly after that, he knew what Charlie would do, it was in her nature to help people, it was what made her so special.
But Lucifer, he helped people once, and now… he had a new person he could help again.
And he might just know where to start.
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bones-of-a-rabbit · 6 months
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the abandonment issues au,,
where Sun and Moon gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss their way into ur heart
and then turn into sad wet baby kittens when u find out and call them out on it <3
(copy and pasted from the space aces discord, sorry fellas lmao)
abandonment issues au:
ok what if. fucked up au time
where. reader is the new daycare assistant or a mechanic or smthn idk theyre working withh Sun and Moon thats the important part
i think it works better if theyre like, Sun n Moon's handler? Bc they r closer that way and it makes it more fucked up lmaooooo
so basically. this takes place right after Sun n Moon had their best friend-handler person leave bc Sun n Moon had been acting increasingly volatile n buggy n rlly just having issues but the more the previous handler tried to talk to them abt it and fix it the more they got anxious abt getting decommissioned and would cover up the problems n act like nothing was wrong
and eventually one day the previous handler nearly got rlly hurt and knew they had to leave bc it wasn't safe for them and they left a detailed warning/report for the mechanics
(and they didnt say goodbye, not out of malice or anything just bc they didnt want even more reasons for Sun n Moon to act up/potentially hurt them or themselves)
so. the mechanics did a total clean up of Sun n Moon's system, basically left their memories but scrubbed their data of a lot of the 'feelings' they'd had- mostly wiping away the feelings tied to 'good' memories, and the only thing Sun n Moon could do to fill in the void of 'feelings' was assign different feelings in their place, so when they once looked back and felt happy or nostalgic, now they feel confused and angry and sad and betrayed bc why was all of that happiness taken from them?? why did their handler hurt them like this??
so the scrubbing of their systems, which was one thing they really really didn't want to have done for fear of losing their memories entirely, DID work in putting their issues on a much lower level,, but it didn't get rid of the issues entirely. Now they're just,, easier to hide or play off or ignore. They're careful around the kids, of course, but they do at times have trouble with their motor controls or their speech will glitch slightly, etc
a few handlers come and go, never staying for more than a week or so- none of them really care about the job, don't see Sun n Moon as coworkers but more like fancy 'machines' with no real thoughts or emotions, they normally leave after Sun or Moon has a glitchy moment and nearly hurts them or, in at least one case, does hurt them by squeezing their wrist too hard. more often than not, the ppl applying for the position read the list of warnings n cautions and are like 'hell nahh' and bail immediately
then. in comes,, reader. local dumbass. most endearing of idiots. a bit dense. very much clueless. dearly beloved
you're the first one to really treat them like your coworkers, making small talk and being friendly and kind and patient and laughing at their jokes. you smile when you introduce yourself, offering your hand for them to shake- not afraid of them or their little twitches at all. god, how they missed that. you remind them of their previous handler, if only in how you see them like theyre people and not machines.
and they make a mutual agreement to do whatever they can to keep you as their handler. even if it means dodging around company rules and policies by doing something like crumpling up the confidential 'warning' forms, ortelling the occasional white lie, like forging your signature onto the papers when your back is turned and making sure it makes it to your manager without either of you noticing who exactly was putting it on their desk.
you've already started calling them your friends the first time they have a glitchy moment. you're doing detailing work on their endoskeleton, really just cleaning dust away and making sure everything looks the way it does in the manual, when they break something- a tablet, a pen, your phone, whatever it is, it happens in an instant and startles you.
when Sun n Moon come to and realize whats happened theyre terrified. what if you use this as some kind of excuse to leave? What if you abandon them, just like their previous handler did? What if you start treating them differently, or you tell the staff that they need to be scrapped
so when you ask what that was about, they're frantic, quick to come up with something, anything that might make you shrug and forget all about it,
"Well, you WERE just working on their insides, right? That must have been something YOU did to suddenly make us do something like THAT! There's no way else it could have happened. Right?"
You take the lie hook, line, and sinker, apologizing profusely, promising to try harder to make sure nothing like that happens again. The relief they feel is almost euphoric. They pat you on the head kindly, reassuring you that they know you didn't do it on purpose, it was just a little mess up! You're fine, friend, we forgive you.
From then on, they dodge blame and truth alike, most often redirecting your attention to something you must have said or done to make something so strange and out of character for them happen so suddenly, and you believe them, full of apologies and careful words and actions and nervous worrying about doing things wrong and hurting them somehow. It's cute, how anxious you can get. It's cuter, how you melt for their comfort and reassurance. 
They play the song and dance with you again and again, weaving doubt and guilt into you more and more frequently. Until one day, you mumble something about how 'maybe i'm not cut out for this, maybe i should switch to be on the janitorial team instead, or some other department, i don't want to hurt you guys, or-or be the reason someone else gets hurt, i clearly dont know what im doing, and it's only gotten worse, maybe i should talk to my manager,,' and they panic
don't be silly, friend!!!! you can't just leave like that, what about the kids, what about that puppet show you had helped them plan, did you really want to just abandon all that?? so what if maybe they had the occasional hiccup, you were always there to smooth it over, who cared whether they dropped things from time to time, or- or broke a toy or two, that didn't matter, did it??? You were getting so good at being their handler, your little mistakes were normal, come on, you don't want to leave your very best friends. Do you?
and you cave, agreeing to stay, and they are so, so extremely careful to hide their little moments from you for several weeks, making sure you don't notice their tiny twitches or split seconds of glitchy voices, maybe keeping a closer eye on you than would be comfortable, watching over your shoulder each time you type up a report about the day, giving the manager a loathsome glower behind your back whenever they happen by,, and every time you leave you say 'i'll see you guys tomorrow!,' they grab onto your sleeve and respond with 'promise?' so you always know that they really, really do want you to come back
and then. one day,, you decide to go looking in their files for something small and silly, like what kinds of updates had been added to their pick-up protocols, and you find the warnings and cautions forms
and you see your signature on them, but you would definitely remember this and you are absolutely certain you have never seen these papers in your life. and you take the papers and you go to ask them about it.
"i thought you said you never had any problems before? you told me you never had any issues before but this- this is full of things that you- and you, you've been having these problems for that long??"
they stumble over their words, frantic, panicked, backpedaling on everything theyve ever said, trying meekly to grab the papers from your hands, piling excuses on excuses 
"you knew? you knew you were having these problems, and you didn't tell me? and you- you told me it was my fault!"
you're close to tears, hurt that they lied more than anything. you keep backing away from them, dodging their attempts to get the forms. they don't know which is worse- seeing that look on your face, or when they were left without so much as a goodbye.
"you could have told me. i thought i was the reason for everything, i thought i was hurting you, and you just... you lied right to my face and let me think that."
theyre putting on their best soothing voice, movements slow and gentle, wanting to comfort you and wipe those tears away and reassure you somehow that this- this isn't their fault, none of it is, it never was, they're fine and you're fine and nothing was ever wrong, and everything will be fine if only you calm down and stay
you can tell they arent really listening. you take a deep breath and turn away from them, scraping the tears from your face. you tell them you're going to go home and write up a report about all of this and when you come back you can go over it together before you send it to management, but right now you're leaving because you need space to breathe and time to think
but all they hear is that you're leaving, and they panic.
they don't hurt you, of course! but right now you're not allowed to leave.
you try to shut out the sound of them crying and apologizing and begging, even if it breaks your heart, because right now all you want to do is go home and lie in your stupid bed and have a stupid cry in your favorite pajamas. but you try every door you can think of- none of them open. you've sstayed past closing more than once, but the doors aren't normally shuttered for another two hours,, and you're pretty sure the night guard isn't even here yet
the entire time you're walking around the 'plex, Moon is trailing sadly behind you, waiting with the saddest, most pathetic wet cat look an animatronic can achieve, for you to turn and face them again
and thus begins what is probably the longest night of your life, spent trying to avoid your animatronic friends/coworkers who are acting like the worlds clingiest ex who just got broken up with and who can't stop dropping sad love songs in ur dms
by the time morning rolls around, they agree to actually go to parts n services and cooperate and try their best to get whatever is wrong with them repaired, even if it means they might get decomissioned. in the mean time, you promise to come back once they're fixed and work with them to help them get back to their old selves- or at least, back to how they were before any potentially dangerous bugs
basically this is the 'sun and moon have abandonment issues and gaslight you abt it' au
idk what else would happen tbh idk why i thought this au needed to exist either but here we are *lays facedown in a puddle*
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sluttywoozi · 3 months
Note
I have been re-reading the supernatural svt and I just need to know more of your thoughts and headcanons for werewolf! Jun
okay so i have his origin story in mind but also some headcanons so i'll do both hehe
warnings: blood mention, food mention, even longer than vampire wonu
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jun was going on a late night food run one night and to save time, he decided to use the walking path by his apartment instead of the well lit, safe sidewalks because those go around the forest and the path goes through. he wasn't nervous at all for some reason, even though it was nearly pitch black in the woods and he could hear every single animal moving through the underbrush. he was nearly there, even, when something tackled him from the side, throwing him off the path and tumbling down a rocky hill with him. by the time he stopped falling, he was dizzy and panting and likely concussed, and whatever tackled him was gone.
he had no idea where he was, or how to get back up to the path, so he just wandered until the sun started to rise and then he followed the light to find his way out of the dense trees. his side and back ached, stinging, sharp pains shooting through him with every movement, every step on the uneven ground, but he just attributed that to the fall and continued on his way home.
he didn't think anything was amiss until his roommate lost it at the sight of him, shouting about tracking blood and mud all over the floors and what the hell happened to his back?!
they shoved him to the bathroom and turned on the light, and Jun blanched at the reflection in the mirror. he was absolutely covered in dirt, with leaves sticking out of his hair and moss clinging to his clothes. he turned around and glanced at his back, his eyes growing wide at the large gashes cutting through his skin like claw marks.
he could barely even feel them with the way his whole back throbbed, but they looked ugly, torn, ragged, and above all, dirty. he didn't know what else to do so he hopped in the shower and went about his day, not registering the way sounds were louder and smells were stronger until they got so overwhelming that all he could do was cover his ears and breathe through his mouth.
things only got worse from there, his senses sharpening and his strength increasing with every passing day. he could hear the neighbors two stories up arguing about bills, he could smell dinner cooking in the basement apartment, and he could taste his roommate's confusion and distrust on the air.
the night of the full moon was when it all finally started making sense. well, the morning after really.
Jun doesn't remember what happened that night, just that he woke the next day to someone pounding on his door. he was covered in dirt and blood again, but the blood didn't smell like his or like a human's so he wasn't too worried.
he was a little worried about being able to tell the difference between human and animal blood, but all of his questions were cleared up as soon as he opened the door to find his coworker, Mingyu, large and grinning in the doorway.
"So you're a werewolf too! Why didn't you tell me, bro? We could have been going on runs together this whole time."
oh. a werewolf. huh.
Jun could only lift his shoulders in an exhausted shrug and say, "Nobody told me, my guy."
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very puppylike, squirrels turn his head and he'll chase anything that runs
doesn't really have anger issues at all, only wolfs out (outside of the full moon) when he's anxious or scared or feels cornered
love/hate relationship with his heightened senses
loves how food tastes better and his sight is clearer and he can pick out every individual instrument in his favorite songs
hates that he can smell the garbage truck coming, that he can see every speck of dust in his room, that he can hear the couple in 9b arguing then fucking every night
used to be a bit of a homebody but started spending more time outdoors after he was changed
partially because mingyu drags him out on runs, mostly because the fresh air smells nice and the open sky makes him feel free
starts going to a farmers' market down the road from his apartment because he can taste the processing on fruits and veg from the grocery store
it's during one of his weekend visits that he meets you
or rather, smells you
he almost can't describe it, your scent, but as soon as he locked on, it filled his nose and his head and his heart
he practically floated over to your stall, drawn by your fragrance like he was a fish on a line being reeled in
he didn't see you at first, just the flowers covering every inch of the booth, and he thought maybe they were the source of the smell until you popped up from behind the counter
you had supplies in your hands, paper and ribbon and shears, but you jumped and dropped them all at the sight of him, gasping in shock like you'd seen a ghost
"what's wrong??" he asked, concerned, his hands hovering in front of him as he glanced wildly around the market for a threat
"nothing, nothing, i just didn't hear you come up and i didn't expect you to be there," you rushed to placate him, an apologetic expression on your face before you ducked to gather your materials again
he wished he could help instead of standing there and watching you, but there was a table in between you (why is there a table in between you there shouldn't be anything in between you)
"how can i help you?" you bounced up and beamed, laying your things out on the counter neatly, your eyes still on him
he was nearly laid out by the force of your smile, so it's a miracle when he's able to say, "it smelled really good over here, i just followed my nose."
you laughed and told him you were glad the flowers were doing their job, and he didn't have the courage to tell you it wasn't the flowers that brought him here
he bought three bouquets that day, just so he could talk to you longer
one went into his room, one was for his roommate who was only just starting to be nice to him again, and one was for mingyu, who almost cried when he received them, saying he'd never gotten flowers before
he went back to your spot the next week, but you weren't there
so he tried again, only to find the market still devoid of you
jun's not one to give up, he'll try even when he probably shouldn't anymore, so week after week he found himself at the market, buying produce and hoping he would be able to get flowers too, and maybe even your number this time
it takes two excruciating months, but finally, you come back
he smells you before he even gets to the market, your fragrance wafting down the closed off street and calling to him like a siren's song
he waves at the farmers he always buys from but beelines to your stall, finding you swamped with customers and joining the back of the line
you keep up with ease, wrapping bouquets at the speed of light and moving on to the next, until jun is standing in front of you with a shy smile and his hands clasped tightly together
"hi!" you grin like you recognize him, and he thinks maybe you do when you start to pull flowers, the same ones you'd used in the bouquets last time
"hi," he breathes, taking a step closer and taking in a deep breath before saying, "do you think maybe you'd like to perhaps go out with me sometime possibly? you can say no, and i'll never come here again! but if you say yes, then i- i will. all the time."
you're still looking down at your working hands, but he sees the corners of your mouth quirk up in a smile before you glance up and nod, "i would like to go out with you sometime."
he feels like he could melt, so relieved at your answer that it takes him a full minute to realize he hasn't even introduced himself
"oh! i'm jun, by the way," he laughs, holding a hand out
"y/n," you shake his hand firmly, and if you notice how hot it is, you don't let it show
you exchange phone numbers, then flowers and money, and with that, jun is on his way
he texts you as soon as he gets home and you text back almost instantly, sparking a conversation with no beginning or end, only a middle
you text all day, every day for two weeks, and jun wonders if that's a long enough time for him to ask you out again. mingyu thinks it's not, but he also loitered around his crush for a full month until she finally gave him a chance so jun isn't inclined to listen
it's a good thing he doesn't because he does ask you out again and you do say yes
you say yes with lots of exclamation points and jun's smile gets too big for his face and his heart gets too big for his chest
he knows you like flowers so he takes you to the botanical garden on the edge of town
it has a conservatory and fairy lights and tonight, food trucks and pop up bars
you ooh and ahh with every turn, munching on your snacks with wide, wonder filled eyes, turning to him every so often to make sure he's seeing everything you want him to see
he falls in love with you a little bit that night, and a little more every night after
he does wish mingyu had told him about the knotting thing tho, both for your sake and his
part two (surprise knotting)
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aconflagrationofmyown · 8 months
Text
Even Goldish in the Privacy of Bowls do it
A Sarge & lil Mama episode
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circa 1966 (yes this got moved a little from original shooting time of the movie hinted at here-in, shh)
Elvis Presley x original character -chart refresher for kid’s ages HERE
Warnings: 18+ -y’all, this is perhaps my most unhinged attempt at chaos yet. Finally we’re getting to see more of the kids, maybe more than wanted when a man’s just trying to grab a quickie in the shower with his wife. Warnings include unhinged family chaos, filthy smut, Elaine using firearms, brief mention of animal death by gunshot, brief mention of implied young children sleeping in their parents bed/bedroom while past sexual activities may have taken place, and -PLEASE NOTE- multiple references to an eating disorder on Elvis’ part. Troubling issues like this are integral to him and his mindset at the time so I include them, but please be aware there’s language in here that’s dismissive and condoning at times by certain individuals, just as it’s pleaded against by others. Along with brief body issues and shaming. Just a caution.
Word count: 12k -hope ya missed my tomes lol
Thanks: ever so much thanks is owed to many for their help and support but particularly to the dolls who made this so much better worse with their suggestions. Calling out @missmaywemeetagain @elvisabutler @eliseinmemphis @ab4eva @stylespresleyhearted
Summary: when Elaine visits the Colonel’s bungalow early on a Hawaiian dawn to defend her man and his appetite for her fried chicken -bringing along a loaded firearm for emphasis- the pelicans aren’t the only things startled.
Seven o’clock in the balmy hours of a Hawaiian morning, a solitary gunshot broke the peaceful silence and sent the beach birds squawking into the jungle’s dense foliage.
As seven AM was an ungodly hour of the day to expect anything from a human being, Elvis Presley was still in bed, asleep, and finally settled into that sorta circadian rhythm that helped him sleep through nightmares, alarm clocks, voracious wives and the pokes and prods of three to five children in his bed.
But a gunshot was jarring enough he swam to the surface of consciousness long enough to fling an arm out and pat Laney’s sweet ass and mumble an inquiry as to wether she had any clue why someone was shooting a gun in fuckin’ Hawaii. Especially as he, the only one likely to do so, was, quite obviously, in bed with her.
Except Laney’s sweet flesh wasn’t anywhere to be grabbed the more he flailed his arm in the cold sheets and, with a sudden bolt of terror, Elvis sat up and searched about the room only to find her gone. Jack was, predictably, still clinging to the same pillow Elvis had mistaken as her. He felt a little validated by that.
Two more gunshots punctuated his growing alarm and before two seconds had passed he was flying out of bed despite the way Jack’s legs clung to him and he exited the bungalow door with nothing but his silk night shorts on and espadrilles.
“Laney? The hell are you, woman?” he bellowed out the veranda with caring bravado.
No answer. Which didn’t mean much but it was harder to shake shit like this since the recent uptick in hate crimes and the way those girls had jumped her at their own gate last summer. His knuckles ached at the mere memory of the pummeling he’d given those tarts’ car hood. Nothing funny or harmless about it.
“Laney!”
Jesse barreled out shortly after and stood beside Elvis with a mimicking pose of concern, staring out at the beach with his hands on his hips, surveying the glittering water in the fresh sun’s rays and the undisturbed sand for miles. She wasn’t anywhere to be seen for that long stretch of golden beach.
“You seen your mother?” he asked Jesse sternly.
“No sir, didn’t hear her go out either. She not in bed?”
“No, and I didn’t hear her either. Neither did Jack and he’s always wound round her like a sloth to a branch.”
“Maybe she’s the one doin’ the shootin.” Jesse ventured with a mild expression of hope.
Father and son were both recalling when Elaine had given Elvis ample complaint and ample warning to do something about his reprobate pet chimp and when nothing was done and a child was harmed, Laney stalked into the den where Elvis and the boys were going over rehearsals and asked if he’d like to do the honors of shooting the damn monkey. When he laughed her off she trumped upstairs and the next thing Elvis knew was Tink clipping past the den and out the front door in her heels with his shotgun in her hand, while poor, unfortunate Scatter was being carried by the scruff of his sailor costume.
By the time Elvis caught up with her she’d put five holes in the hairy little pervert. To be perfectly honest he was aghast at such overriding of his jurisdiction but it didn’t prevent him from appreciating that when she meant business, she meant it.
So, it was plausible Laney was shooting something at seven am, and that was one of the reasons Elvis loved her. The only trick was, there was no Scatter here, no enemies in the general vicinity for her to be shooting at.
Elvis commented as much to his young son in grave deliberation.
“ ‘Cept for the colonel.” Jesse pointed out blithely and at that excellent observation all of Elvis’ blood felt like it rushed to his brain and pounded within like a tribal drum.
“Oh sweet merciful Jesus-“ Elvis wheezed and took off from his porch in a sprint along the beach hedges, towards the colonel’s adjacent bungalow, the roof of which -now that he was looking- appeared to have smoke coming out of its abnormally saggy thatch.
“She didn’t like it when he called ya fat yesterday!” Jesse was still hell bent on a little redeeming PR and Elvis waved at him with the back of his hand in acknowledgment that, if Laney was murdering, it would be for him.
And his fat self.
And for the reputation of her fried chicken that Elvis had been laying off of ever since he got so damn pudgy no director would hire him without contractually asking for a little casual bulimia on the side.
It was all part of the business, the snow job of an available and attractive man made harder by the real life presence of a wife and brood of children. The addition of a decidedly fatherly gut wasn’t gonna make them money.
He got it. Laney didn’t.
He tried to jog faster through the sand before she put her fingerprints all over the scene.
Inside the bungalow Elaine fanned the smoke out of her face with red tipped fingers and kept her diction very clipped as was most effective with this self consumed weasel.
“Am I understood? No more sedation and no more starvation and stop recommending those damn uppers that keep him buzzing while his body goes undernourished.”
Elaine still gripped the shotgun barrel, right there by the racker thingy but Parker had watched this woman long enough to know that if he agreed, then she would be pacified enough, he’d live to see another day.
“I get you, Mrs. Presley,” he assured in a pleasing tone, one that always suggested she started this long war between them, “no more. It was the business I was thinking of, it is my role. And yours is to nurture. You cannot expect me to have the same leniency as a wife, but I bow to your superior discretion.”
“You’ve kept him from home, colonel, robbed him and my children of valuable time together just because he knows he’ll be tempted to eat when he’s home. You’re a cruel, heartless Scrooge, that’s what you are. And this ain’t over.”
“It was merely business, Elaine.” he looks close to crying and she feels tempted to blast another shell into his roof.
“It's not your fault Colonel,” she steadied herself and he always liked how she was not so emotional like some women, even if she was icier than Elvis would ever admit, “I wouldn’t expect you to know what appeals to women, you never had the chance to appeal to them yourself. But I’ll tell you now, just for your excelsior betterment, some women like a sturdier man, some women like more cheeks on their husband, and your gravest omission when thinking of his appeal -a slight ponch rubs ever so delightfully on a woman’s clitoris when making love. You have heard of those, haven’t you? Maybe not, I’ll leave you to peruse the encyclopedia. It’s under C.”
Elvis got smacked in the face by the opening door as she stepped out right as he barreled in.
“Good morning honey, why on earth are you awake?” she greeted blithely as the door swung behind her and she raked his bed head back into place with her hands.
“Because you were shootin’ up the damn island.” he cried, “The hell’s goin’ on, Tink? You kill the colonel?”
“No. Of course not.” she rolled her eyes, “I’m just on a roll, keeping varmints in their places. It was his turn.”
“What’s he done wrong?” Elvis was aghast.
“Oh honey we haven’t got the time for all that on such a perfect morning.” she laughed instead, “C'mon back to bed, when you wake up again I’ll make you your favorite.”
“I can’t have flap jacks right now, Laney, you know that.” he mumbled sullenly as they turned back to the path leading to their own bungalow.
“Yes you can.”
“Says who?”
“Says the woman who owns ya before God, that’s who.” Elaine retorted sharply and he sucked in a breath in appreciation of the vindictive mood still clinging to her. He should chastise her for her language but right now he didn’t wanna shift the mood. The racked gun at her side may have added to the thrill a little.
“You’re real pretty totin’ that thing around in just your kaftan.” he complimented
“Oh Naughty.” she breathed, a little blush flaring on her face. His simple little sweetnesses still getting to her far more than any of his wiles or spice.
“Really, just so pretty, sun’s gettin’ in your hair like it’s what it got up to do this mornin’. S’all gold.”
“Oh naughty, hush.” Elaine felt a fit of compliments coming on and was a little rusty at receiving them, truth be told.
“Why can’t I tell ya you’re pretty?” he laughed.
“You can.” she shook her head in amusement and tried to keep walking but his narration stalled her a few steps down the path.
“Your legs are gold too.” he was saying “Is this like your witchin’ hour or somethin? Do I gotta get up at ass crack a’dawn to catch ya like this?”
“I am in a kaftan, Elvis. And this is hawaii, hardly a new sight.” Elaine laughed herself.
“Yeah, and the sun sure goes right through it.” he was admiring the way her legs were shapely shadows under the cream linen, the illuminating ball of fire in the sky giving him a little show. “Is this how early I gotta get up to see this?”
“You’re sleep deprived, that’s why you’re so astounded by a woman in a kaftan, c’mon and I’ll help ya get back to sleep.”
“No, no I don’t wanna go inside yet.” he objected like a child in the middle of his construction when the dinner bell goes off, “There’s kids inside.”
“Yeah there are.” Elaine’s lip curled in wry amusement.
“Colonel gets ya alone but I don’t.” he wasn’t saying it accusingly, just a contemplative pout and Elaine shaded her eyes to watch his face as he stood in front of the glittering ocean, so bright its reflective rays were almost painful this early in the day. “Why’ve we got so many damn kids.” he joked, “Hardly see ya.”
“Aww well I’m here now.” she was touched and a little confused by this mood but she sauntered up to him, leaning the shotgun against a dune marker, and put her arms around him.
That seemed to be the right course of action as he gave her one of those soft little expressions that weren’t smiles so much as they were bashful little cheek scrunches of recognition. The extra cheeks on him made the expression almost intolerably cherubic. “You got up to blow his roof off but..” he can’t accuse her of not getting up to be with him, that was a damn lie, Elaine somehow managed a schedule that fit both the normal world’s waking hours and incorporated in his bizarre nocturnal clock, he very rarely was awake while she was asleep although the same couldn’t be said for him and this morning it nagged him, what little pleasant nothings he might be missing at seven in the morning.
“It don’t make a habit of it,” she reminded softly, “he just needed a talking to. It’s like spanking or putting a child to bed, never meant to disturb you and was gonna slip right back in next to you.”
“Yeah well, three gunshots kinda have the opposite effect, woman.” he shook her shoulders playfully.
“Well I think I got the message across.”
“What was the message?”
“I-“ Elaine paused to restructure her complaint into the mildest terms possible to preserve his sleepy temper and the peaceful scenery around them. “It’s kinda like you were saying with me! I miss you, the children miss you and it’s got nothing to do with movies and making money. You’re tired from the pills and from the starving and -lord, if I see you excuse yourself after one of my meals one more time just to hear you gaggin’ it right up, I’ll-“ she couldn’t quite finish that, wasn’t sure what she’d do but the most constructive thing she could think of after hearing it last night before bed was to visit the colonel and put some fear of God in him.
“How’d you-“ he scratched the back of his neck, sheepish.
“Oh heavens Elvis!” she pinched his cheek, “It’s the oldest one in the book for us women, when I didn’t shift the weight in two months after having a second set of twins it was recommended to me by all the other wives. Just because it’s old or common doesn't make it healthy and I’m just saying that if you’re unhappy and wanna fit in your old slacks then so be it, I’ll feed ya salads and cut down on the butter but there ain’t a single movie producer I’m gonna let stipulate or pay you to starve yourself. Sweet Jesus I- I know you like looking pretty but for god’s sake! You are! You are pretty, you’re Elvis Pretty Presley for the love of God and what are your children gonna think growin’ up watchin’ you treat yourself this way? It isn’t business, no! No! It isn’t! Hush up! It’s not! Business can be constructive or destructive and Christian business only builds up. Actin’ like a pagan by starvin’ your bodily temple that the Lord gave ya isn’t gonna sell us more movies.”
“You done?” he asked her after letting out a long whistle.
“No not quite,” she cooled her tone a little but stopped her hug to cross her arms and hug herself defensively, “Marlon told me they’ve been asking the same from him and he told them to go- well, you know. And they did. They’re still casting him in serious roles even if he’s not a breathing Adonis. They should be castin’ you in movies about human life not posin’ you like some cut out in a storyline.”
“Brando told ya this?”
“Yeah.” she said, “Because Brando’s manager does what he’s supposed to. I was just reminding the colonel that he is *your* manager which means he’s supposed to be your advocate not your damn jailor!”
“Sheesh alright,-“
“Elvis! It’s serious! I mean if Marlon-“
“God!- stop all this talkin’ about Brando, dammit!” Elvis bellowed and Elaine flushed bright red for an instant and it made him do a double take, thinking he saw a flicker of something new there but in an instant it was gone and -this was Laney, it couldn’t have been there in the first place, “Lord ya need to cool off.” he muttered.
He saw Elaine heave in a deep breath and cup her hand over her nose in that tell-tale way she had when she was regaining her control, started with the nose then the hand would go to the lips and then drop as she shook it out like casting out the damn emotions it collected before it fell to her side, diamond ring glinting in the morning light.
He wanted to say he missed her again, but that felt redundant. Instead he busied himself with observing how pretty she was and before he could voice that again, her eyes cleared and she smirked at him.
“Last one in is chicken.” she dared him before taking off over the sand, headed for the decently violent surf.
That was an old trick of hers, when shit became too real she just- played, instead. He felt it was for his benefit but maybe not, maybe it kept them both sane. He was as fond of the old trick as he had been the first time she pulled it in the studio back in ‘56. Elvis caught up to her about three paces from the surf and managed to swing her up in his arms and crash into the water together. After that first gasp inducing plunge and the salty sting up the nose, the water became a sparkling friend to them, and holding onto each other they surfaced and bobbed for a brief time, enjoying the sounds of the island waking up.
“So I guess I gotta get up at the crack a’dawn to do this with ya.” he griped again and pouted into her neck.
Elaine laughed and stroked the curling hair at the base of his neck, “If you want to escape the heat of the day and catch this lighting, then yes, yes you do. Otherwise, I’m here anytime you want me.”
“Why’d we make so many people!” his face puckered playfully for a moment, “I miss you!”
“I dunno, just sorta happened.” she fibbed herself and after a moment of disbelief he caught the joke and laughed too.
“I-I mean I try to be a good father-“
“You’re an excellent father .” Elaine butted in sternly.
“a-and part of that is bein’ with ‘em and I do try,” he laid his head back partially and let the water buoy him, “whatever you may say, I do try, but when I try I-I well, I let Daisy give me a haircut because she had her heart set on it and then when I get to the film set I’m told that was a ‘dis-reee-spectful’ thing to have done. I just can’t figure out how to manage what everyone wants from me. Just can’t figure it out.”
“Elvis, I don’t know why you’re caring so much what a half a dozen crusty old men say.” Elaine murmured, “Especially not when your wife finds your haircut rather fetchin’ and thinks the meat on your bones feel real nice when you’re up against me.”
“Oh?” Elvis tipped his head back up and seemed to register their close proximity for the first time. As if a switch had been flipped it seemed to be all his eyes could process, the material of her transparent kaftan clinging to what parts of her torso he held out of the water by his hold on her thighs and- Elaine thought it sweet how sometimes her man had a singular track in his mind and that was for sex, but just as singular could be some other focus and a near naked woman wouldn’t strike his as suggestive at such a time until he was made to notice. “Oh, Laney!” his eyes lit up as he surveyed his wife and then the coastline behind her, “Hell, baby, we’re alone, we’re genuinely alone!”
“I know.” her voice couldn’t keep from pitching low as she tightened her legs around his padded hips and watched in awed appreciation for the way his face’s coloring looked like it belonged in the blush splashed sea. “Seven am, for the lighting and for -the solitude.”
“Oh I like the lighting.” he muttered as if to himself as he swayed closer, eyes glued to her wettend lips. “And I like not havin’ all those damn people around. You get it don’t you?”
“Yes I do.”
“You tired of our friends?” he asked.
That could be trick question so she carefully shrugged it off, “Not really, you?”
“Not really just-“ Elvis pondered for a bit, his full cheeks squishing his mouth up and he looked the closest to his babyish self when he had married her than he had in ten years. “It’s just always so crazy ‘round us and I -I want more of this. Just not at seven am. I’ve got a naked woman in the ocean and I’m so sleepy I can’t even stay on track to get in her!” and he laughed ruefully.
“You can just kiss me?” she begged, “Kiss me and we’ll get you back to sleep.”
As if he knew what kind of his kisses she’d been missing most in this fast paced life -for Elvis Presley had many different kinds of kisses for Mrs. Presley- Elvis brushed her hair off her face with gentle care before thumbing at her throat, making her pulse jump from the swipe of his thumb before he brought his lips nearer and nearer as her own trembled and puckered in anticipation until after painful restraint those two plush pillows caressed her own. And stayed. And stayed.
Stayed until the screech of a car peeling out on the path they'd just abandoned made Elaine look up and she saw the Colonel’s conveyance speeding inland after breaking to view their little rendezvous.
“I’m sure we cut a rather scandalous figure in here.” she realized.
“Where’s the scandal when you’re married?” Elvis scoffed. “Besides, not even the paps want a picture of me when I’m this fuckin pudgy-“
“-oh not this again!” Elaine growled, kneading said pudge with vigor as if it would get her point through him better.
“Laney, you're sick in the head, we’ve established this already.” he replied, teasing yet not entirely unserious, “What appeals to you ain’t a rule for the rest of the world.”
“Ha.” she tossed her head back, “Let’s talk about trends then. The trend is towards beefier, hairier men, less of this pristine crooner image, more of the beefcake -Redford, Bogart, that sorta thing.” Learning her lesson on the beach, she omitted Brando from the list.
“Neither of those men are fat.”
“And neither are you.”
“But I don’t look like a star no more-“
“-oh, oh trust me,” she crowed, “if you got yourself a role where you could play a man, a real , raw, gritty man, theaters would be forced to change their seat cushions.”
Elvis scoffed again but asked again with helpless curiosity, “W-what kinda man? I mean, I’m playing real men, honey. Whadda ya even mean, Tink?”
Elaine kneaded his shoulders and pondered the earthy, sultry lines of his face and the heft of his chest beneath her hands, “A working man.” she admitted. “Salt of the earth working man. A man they show working. That’s what I mean.”
“Want me to play a mailman or somethin?” he rolled his eyes. “Real innovative, honey. I’ve been a race car driver, a-a-a Cowboy, I-I’m playin’ a pilot now-”
“I mean a hefty, strong working man who crawls out from under a sink he just fixed and lays a lonely housewife on her husband’s table and gives her something to keep her company at night.” Elaine rasped in his ear.
She felt the gust of his shocked gasp against her wet ear. “Hell, Laney,” he choked, “this-this somethin’ you wanna play?” he sounded scandalized and eager all at once.
“Always, when you’re ‘in this state’, my dear.” she murmured, thumping at his back significantly.
“Hell mama, I could lay you out good.” he swore, going back in for another searing, messy kiss.
“Is everything alright boss?” a yell from the shore startled them both and Elvis fumbled with his grip on Laney’s ass to lower her further in the water for modesty’s sake.
“You’re a lil late, Jerrah.” he snarked back at his friend who was investigating gunshots from fifteen minutes ago. “But yeah, yeah all’s fine.”
“Yeah, yeah ok,” Jerry hollered back, slowly backing away from the beach and up to the hedges, “I can see that. That it’s alright, I mean, like, I can see y’all are very alright. I mean, yeah ok, I’ll go.”
“Why’s he actin’ so prissy.” Elvis grumped but began to ease them both out of the surf anyway.
“You know why it is.” Elaine’s color heightened and Elvis’ grin grew wildly proud. “We were mauling each other a bit.”
“Oh you’re thinkin’ of those early days, hmm? Fresh back from Europe and alllll the world clutchin’ their pearls over how much we loved each other. Fuck ‘em.”
“Elvis!” Elaine prostested, amused yet aghast, “We gave them some cause!”
“Yeah buddy we did.” his tone held masculine admiration for the memories of leading Tink away to a darkened alcove in her pretty jewels and silks and taking her up against one of the ‘Cabana’s marble pillars. He’d had to move so slowly not to attract notice that it was practically cockwarming with a little jive to it.
“Don’t forget the boat.” she pointed out as if she knew he was hung up on another memory.
“Ooh, oh the boat.” he clutched his chest as if she’d brought up the fondest of memories and he was an old man reviewing the best in the twilight of his life, “God you looked so damn good in those photographs, Laney.”
“Elvis! It’s not a proud thing to be the first “indecent” photograph on the cover of Life Magazine.”
“We were fully clothed! They’d no idea what-“
“Yeah, yeah just a man casually playing hoola hoop behind his wife, I’m sure. That stupid captain’s hat,” she pretended to bemoan, “if you wouldn't have been wearing that I coulda resisted and we wouldn’t be on Life.”
“Five years ago, ‘bout time to give ‘em a refresher on the faces you make when lil Elvis is hittin’ the spot.” he snickered at his own joke as she swatted him towards the stairs to their bungalow.
“Five years is not sufficient to dim for me the awful talking to the colonel gave us that night.” Elaine retorted wryly and watched Elvis’ broad back shiver at the recollection before he jiggled up the steps in just his soaked silk night shorts. She stayed below for a moment just to enjoy the dripping, meaty sight of him.
“Lord mama, what was all that for? Was that you?” a wall of young voices hit them as they stepped into their house, five children in various stages of undress and sleepwear scattered around the front kitchen area and worked up by excitement to an ungodly level of energy this early in the morning.
“Yes, that was me.” she admitted cheerily and Elvis loved her for it. “Oh heavens, we forgot the gun-“
“I’ll get it mama!” Jesse was up out of his seat in a flash. “What’d you shoot with it?”
She kissed his forehead in a good morning greeting and soothed, “There was a varmint out back, kept me awake all night so I took care of it.”
“Oh, that’s real cool, mama.” Jesse’s eyes filled with admiration before he backed outta the screen door and flew down the path to get the gun in a blur of blue swim drawers.
“Cool.” Elaine repeated and tested the compliment on her tongue as Elvis laughed in a tired rumble that reverberated against her back as he clung to her like a sleepy child, one hand around her waist, his chin on her shoulder and his other hand busy stroking a clinging Rosalee’s head.
“Yeah, you’re real cool.” he insisted, his voice warbling.
“Outta sight.” Daisy offered from her place on the floor amidst a pile of crayons.
“Mhmm!” Elvis grunted, all gritty and revved up in her ear and she shuddered from something besides her wet kaftan.
“Alright, alright thanks.“ she batted the air like she could knock the compliments down that way, while trying to spin in Elvis’ hold. “Your daddy needs his sleep. Woke him up with all that racket, y’all be good and I’ll be back to fix food. C’mon Mopey, let’s get ya tucked in.”
“But Jack’s in our damn bed!” Elvis bawled.
“Not for long! He’ll be up for breakfast, come on baby, let me tuck ya in.”
“Can’t tuck me in the way I need when he’s there.” Elvis grumped.
“Oooooooh.” Elaine drew it out in understanding before turning back round to address their sleepy little audience gathered round the kitchen table, “Y’all get the flour and maple syrup out for me, your silly daddy dunked us in the ocean so we’ve gotta shower off. I’ll be back.”
“I know how to make pancakes mama!” Ella piped up, suddenly very awake.
“Alrighty then, pancakes it is.” Elaine smirked and saluted her before leading Elvis into the adjacent master bedroom.
“You’re showering with daddy?” Jack grumped from their bed, his stuffed whale toy clutched and his blonde hair scattered across the pillow, “I need a drink, mommy.”
“There’s this great thing called a water faucet in the kitchen, son.” Elvis snarked, now he was the one tugging Elaine.
“Well I can-“ Elaine began before finishing with a little scream as Elvis hauled her bodily into the bathroom with him.
“S’real bad to let the salt stay in your hair for long, Laney, you know this.” he tsked before addressing Jack as he slid the door closed, “Mornin’ Trouble, hope that pilla kept ya good company.”
“You’re awful.” Elaine snickered behind him as she adjusted the faucets. “Having a rivalry with your own son!”
“You like gettin’ fought over, don’t you even try to deny it.” he murmured, coming up behind her to kiss her neck -and help her remove her kaftan. “And I can dance better than him. So it’s a clear choice, lil mama.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t give me half the trouble you do.” she grinned, making fun of his nickname for the poor kid.
“You’d be bored to death without it.” he growled and it sent sparks down her spine as his damp and slippery silk shorts rubbed against her butt.
There was a knock at the door. Elvis quickly left off his romancing and bodily picked up Elaine and set her behind the shower curtain in the steaming bath.
“What?” he asked of Jack, because of course it was Jack.
“You’re not in yet.”
“Thanks t’you,” Elvis laughed, “now what?”
“My whale wants to go swimming with you.” he held up his fuzzy sea creature.
Elvis took a very nasally breath and held it, “Jack, there’s a whole goddamn ocea-“
“Elvis!” came a rebuke from behind the curtain and only the thought of Elaine naked and slippery back there gave him fortitude to begin again, although in a mockingly patient voice:
“Jack, there’s an entire ocean out there for you and your whale to swim in. He swam yesterday and I’m sure mama’s gonna take ya this afternoon. Now go eat Ella’s pancakes. Good mornin’.” and he shut the door.
He tore into the shower so fast he didn’t even shuck his swim trunks, spurred by the image of Elaine lazily wetting her hair under the spray. She looked at him and at his dripping silk shorts and the outline of little Elvis poking needily out the waistband and bit her lip to suppress a grin. It was pretty gratifying to be so wanted.
“Did you lock the door?” she asked breezily and saw the exhaustion cloud his face once more.
“No.” he admitted and stared at the shower curtain while contemplating the door beyond it, “Nope, and if he comes in, it’s on him what he sees.”
“The kid has seen a lot and it hasn’t deterred him yet.” she laughed.
Elvis still stared at the curtain, “Yeah, maybe we should take him to see someone ‘bout that.”
“Oh hush,” Elaine smacked his belly, “couldn’t be hereditary or anything, could it?” she joked.
“I did not cockblock my father at every goddman opportunity!” he railed, playfully backing her into the tiled wall.
“Oh?” Elaine grinned, “That’s not how Vernon recalls it.”
“Vernon’s a bastard!” Six years after Jack’s birth and Elvis was still aggrieved by the suggestion that his doppleganger was anything like him. “Just makes that shit up to justify remarryin’ so fast, actin’ like mama weren’t the best thing that ever happened to his sorry a-“
“I know, I know.” Elaine soothed, regretting this line of conflict. “Just teasing.”
“Don’t tease.” he begged, kissing her under the spray, “I’m tired and I don’t want it.”
“Ok.” she assured, returning his smooches, “No teasing it is then. C’mon now, help me, step outta of them.” she kneeled under the fall of water and peeled away his shorts.
It was a gift every time, pulling the fabric away to see her man and that alluring place that all his costumes and paraphernalia teased but only she got to see at the end of it all. Those deep and skimpy tan lines that marked her territory versus the rest of him that the world saw, like a sovereign country’s borders. Thighs thicker than usual and soft brown skin stretching over his fuller belly, that dark thatch of hair so fastidiously trimmed and leaky lil Elvis collecting shower droplets on his bubblegum pink head. She shifted on her knees and licked her lips, so impatient to taste him she had to force herself to finish the task of untangling his shorts from his feet.
“Think he’s gone?” she asked Elvis as he stroked back her hair in anticipation, spreading his feet to get a stance that didn’t make him knock his knees and crumple at the first throat tickle she gave him.
“Awful quiet.” he shrugged, a whimper caught in his throat as Elaine shifted closer on the hard tile and peppered his stomach with kisses, kneading those handles of his on his fleshy hips and nuzzling the little crease he’d begun to show where he’d once been cut and firm. Her tongue darted out and traced those lines lovingly and the way she held him so firmly to her attentions and the sweet arch of her back beneath the spray convinced him to view such things a little gentler, a little less obnoxious while his Tink’s mouth was worshiping them so gently.
Down she went, lovingly nuzzling and licking a path across his creases and up his thighs, nosing as his balls and rubbing her cheek against him before opening her mouth and letting Elvis guide his throbbing length onto her tongue. He clasped her head and started a rhythm, a gentle and steady pump to the back of her throat which she knew by heart, and when the cadence had been perfected he let her be and grabbed the shampoo and lathered his own hair before tipping his head back in the water and washing the suds out. Then he poured out a dollop again and, rubbing it between his hands, began to massage it through her locks, lovingly swiping any run-off away from her eyes and swirling hypnotizing little circles into her scalp.
That made her moan. It sent the damndest spark to his very toes and he thrust in harder, hissing and smiling down at her. She was smiling back -around a mouthful of cock. And she looked so pretty doing it, there wasn’t a sweeter or lovelier face to be found when she was hollowing her cheeks and stretching her lips and batting her sparkly eyes. Savoring the feel of a man’s meaty weight in her mouth, letting him gag her with aplomb. The suds squished under his grasp as lewdly as the slurping sounds Elaine made when her gasps grew short and she tried to sneak in a breath or two between his thrusts.
“Hell laney, you’re prettier than you ever been.” he realized with his chest fit to burst from love for her, her and the way she massaged his thick sides and the way she always smiled when sucking cock. The way she blew the Colonel's roof off over a point of honor, “How’d I ever get so lucky.” he muttered, realizing suddenly that she reminded him of those early days, before the babies -any of the babies- back when she was toned and lanky and bare faced. She had the prettiest smattering of freckles when her makeup was gone, he swiped the shower spray from off them.
She looked a girl again, the girl who gave herself to him for safe keeping.
She was trailing one hand down her stomach, flat and firm again, and down and down till she was playing with herself, he could tell by the way her arm moved in time with her head. He rubbed at her scalp again.
Another moan. His toes curl. His spine ran like hot lava.
It had been three years since…a baby. That would account for the toned and lean look, he had a sudden epiphany. Felt a fool for it immediately after.
It maybe wasn’t what they wanted but something a little feral and fond flooded his chest at this old Tink. Something told him to marvel at her, marvel at her like he had in her soaked kaftan at the beach. He had a beautiful wife. Damn stunning and he just -he didn’t see her enough, he felt. Odd, that.
“Laney, laney, hold up.” Elvis tapped her jaw and pulled her off him, chuckling as she wheezed in a breath, spit and precum sputtering thick and shiny off her lips and caught herself against the slick tile wall as if she had sparks in her eyes.
“What baby?” she gasped with eagerness, playing with the suds on her breasts and looking up at him coyley, knowing that tone meant her man had a notion up his sleeve. Probably a dirty one.
“I-I-I w-wanna, I-I wanna see you.” he begged and when she still looked lost he clarified, “I w-w-wanna w-watch ya p-play wi’yeself.”
Elaine’s face flushed crimson in pleased gratification at his adoring tone and with one last look of skepticism at his bobbing and visibly pulsing cock, asked with soft eagerness, “How’d’ya want me, daddy?”
Oh lord, it had been awhile since they played this game and his heart skipped a beat in anticipation. “Want ya to lay down on the tile, baby,” he instructed and watched as she sank back on her haunches without argument, slowly spreading her legs and scooting down until she was laying amongst the swirling suds, “Now, I-I-I w-want ya to spread your legs, baby, nice and wide f’me.”
Elaine did as asked, her hair swirling out in the eddy of water, her belly a canvass of sprinkles, letting her right foot push into the encroaching shower curtain a little, feeling a draft of the cold outside air rush in. “Like this?” she asked, her mouth dry from the sight of his bulk standing in a straddle above her.
“Jus’ like that.” he nodded down at her, his eyes darting all across her beautiful shiny self as the spray pelted down on her after breaking across his body, “Now this next part’s important to get right, Tink. Ya gonna be a good widdle bitty f’me, ain’t ya?”
“Yes daddy, I’d do anything for you, anything at all!” her voice rose.
“Then you spread those pretty pussy lips for me,” Elvis directed, “wanna see your itty bitty rosebud, gonna let the water do the teasin’ for us. Wanna see ya cum from the drip.”
Elaine did as she was told and stretched her labia, sucking in a breath as a small jet of water landed on her teased vagina. “Ooh, l-like this?” she hoped, sucking at her lip, trying to get on top of the teasing sensation.
“Fuuuck yeah, oh fuck, ‘xactly like that.” Elvis’ eyes were glued to her wobbling little petals, battered beneath the shower stream as he began to strip his cock with cruel, tight jerks of his wrist. Elaine nuzzled his ankle and glued her own eyes to his heavy sack, swinging above her in perfect view as it tightened up, guarded by those delicious, meaty thighs and her mouth hung open in craving. A drop of water ran off his heavy balls and landed on her forehead. “Oh Laney, you’re just perfect honey, jus’ perfect.” he praised. “It feel good?”
She was pretty sure if they kept this up he’d be spouting down on her face in a matter of seconds. “Yeah, it really does.” She craned her head back and stuck her tongue out in optimism.
—————-
Back in the kitchen a disgruntled Jack wandered into the little gathering of his siblings who were eagerly dishing out advice and praise to Ella as she capably flipped decently fluffy pancakes and stacked them onto a steaming plate.
“There, that should do for a start.” she declared and even Jesse and his ever growing appetite assented as he set the kitchen table with forks.
“Rosalee.” Jack sidled up to the auburn haired little girl trying to make a swan out of the paper towel Jesse had laid down as her napkin.
“Yeah, Jack?”
“Daddy said he’s gonna take us swimmin’.” he lied with the most guileless tone, “You wanna come?”
It was a calculated move, and a stunt Jack had pulled often to back up his own devices regarding monopolizing Elaine.
Rosalee went nowhere without her father and everywhere that her father did go, she went. And Jack knew this. She had meltdowns when she was escorted off sets and had meltdowns when she arrived at sets to find him holding his young co-stars instead of her. Jealous and sensitive, there was nothing more precious to her than time with daddy and at this news of an impromptu frolic, Rosalee clambered off her barstool so quickly she nearly split her head open.
“What are you up to, Jacky?” Nine years old with a head twice older, Jesse was onto him and stared his towheaded brother down with slanted gray eyes, “How is it daddy’s takin’ ya to the ocean when he’s washing the ocean off him as we speak? Don’t sound like somethin’ he’d do before going back. Waste a’time.”
“I’m just bearin’ the news.” Jack held up his hands, “It’s what he done told me.”
“But daddy’s gotta sleep, Jack!” Ella protested, always so keenly aware of her father’s irregularities and fiercely protective of his health.
“Ooooh leave off, he promised!” Rosalee whooped in joy and tore back towards the master bedroom with a maniacally gleeful Jack following on her heels.
Ella dropped the pancake plate onto the tabletop with a thump and Daisy immediately grabbed her fork and skewered four at once.
“Where y’all goin’?” Jesse cried out after trying to get a pancake of his own, abandoning it in favor of running down his two rogue little siblings who were about to start banging at the bathroom door like they had a death wish.
——————
Inside the shower Elvis felt his climax hit him like a freight train and bracing himself with one hand on the tiled wall, he watched with flitting eyes as his thick ropes of come joined the water shower to spatter across Laney’s chest and then down to the pattering of the stream against her pink house, then back up again. His thighs quaked and his belly shook and he kept stripping himself as wave after wave took over him from the sight of her down there, looking up at him with a pleasured grimace as the jetstream wiggled her nub. She had to be close, he could tell from the lines on her forehead and he managed to lift his foot and press it gently on her lower belly, jostling her womb like he did with his hand when he was inside. Her toes curled.
“Ya almost there, ain’t ya pretty girl?” he gasped, his own toes curling as lil Elvis didn’t seem content to flag after one shot alone, still standing stiff and interested in the proceedings below him. Elvis’ hand started to cramp.
“Elvis-“ her pretty pink tongue came out and touched her upper lip, her breasts jiggling with every big heave of breath.
Just then a round of knocks sounded on the door and if Elvis was any judge of distance -and he was a good one- he’d wager they were coming from someone about three feet off the ground and blonde as satan himself. “Not yet!” he barked, well past being patient.
“Elvis!” Elaine fretted below him, so close her eyes looked scared from desire. “I’m -“
“That’s it, that’s it you just take your time and feel it, sugar pie, that’s it.” he cooed to her and stepped over her, turning round in between her legs and running his foot further down, pressing on her little mound and after observing her hesitant moan, slipped his big toe along her soft seam.
The way her legs snapped closed like a trap spurred him on, as did her happy gasp as she thrashed and gripped at her chest like she was trying to hurt herself with the squeeze. He wiggled his toe in further, snagging her lil hole and plunging in, his leg shimmying in that controlled way he’d perfected on stage and she shrieked, happily, he was sure, except Jack didn’t know that-
“Mama I know you’re in there!” He demanded from behind the door, driven to outrage by neglect.
Laney was gorgeous when she was coming, and while often a moaner in the moments leading up to it -when propriety allowed- she was a silent screamer in the throes of it. Elvis kept up the merciless jimmying of his leg all the way through it and watched with distinct enjoyment a sight he rarely got to see from this removed vantage point. Caught in the vice grip of pleasure Elaine couldn’t humor her little brat any more than she could call on Jesus for help and Elvis just smirked down at her evilly as he kept the stimulation up. Kept it up until he was getting kicked in the gut by an overwhelmed wife.
The faucet stabbed his back as he stumbled backwards, laughing those hiccuping laughs of his and jostling his throbbing balls in one hand as Elaine cupped her mouth and tried to get her breath back. “You ok?” Elvis giggled as he knelt down and crawled over her to cup her wet cheek and bring her back down to earth. She was giggling herself, unable to voice anything but giving him a thumbs up to assure she was ok. He smooched her cheek vigorously.
“You’re still-“ she tried to form a full sentence but couldn’t.
“Those diet pills.” he whispered in explanation, gingerly still stroking his hard cock but over-sensitive cock. “It won’t go down, Laney.” he whined a little as he humped her slick belly, conscious that this was a lil pathetic to do on the shower floor but this is what he missed, moments like these where they could trust each other with all of it. He couldn’t stop himself now just to make it a little less animalistic, a little less needy. Truth was he needed her terribly and he didn’t mind her knowing.
Elaine’s hands came up and clung to the backs of his meaty thighs, as high as she could reach over his hips and she begged in a hoarse whisper that underscored the way her eyes were heavy and half mast “Sit, please, sit on my face, Daddy. Wanna taste you, I’ll get ya drained.”
She’d seen the chafed markings on her little friend from all the tucking and taping the wardrobe department had put him through, she’d tended to them with Vaseline and kissed the booboos goodnight. From the way she had her mouth open and her chin tipped back -Elvis knew what his wife wanted and with a weak moan he crawled over her again and at her insistent hands, turned back around till they faced the same way.
69ing he’d heard it called from a co-star. A filthy sorta indulgence that his ingenious wife had discovered on her own without the benefit of co-star gossip or ‘new wife’ magazines. “Gosh yes, yes that’s it, smother me baby, you're a hunk like this you know?” She gushed, gripping his hips firmly.
“Mama?” got yelled through the door along with another knock and a small racket as if there were reinforcements approaching -wether for Elvis’ cause or Jack’s, was yet to be seen.
“Go eat your pancakes!” Elvis hollered over the noise of shower spray.
“I need mama to cut them up!” Trouble hollered right back and Elvis looked down to see his fair temptress waiver at the sound of her son’s dire plight.
“Oh no, no you don’t, don’t even think it.” Elvis corrected her as he settled over her, a hefty thigh on each side of her face trapping her where he needed her, hard tile and grout lines digging at his knees. He patted at her belly and rubbed her hips as he stared ahead at the wall and slowly, almost apologetically, lowered his package over her sweet face. One ball slotted into her waiting mouth perfectly, aided by her eager little hands as she snuggled it onto her waiting tongue and with a contented grunt he muttered, “All you need to think about right now, my lil Tinkerbell, is how full and stuffed your lil mouth is with daddy’s sugar plums, how nice he is to give ya a treat n’how good you’re lil mouth is gonna make daddy feel, so good I just might kiss your lil kitty in thanks.”
Laney always got a little woozy when he didn’t give her a choice, told him it made her feel like goo inside and like she was a baby again -not in a bad way, mind. She loved it and he capitalized on it on occasions like this. After years together he’d come to understand she enjoyed a little sternness so long as he mixed it with affirmations and gentleness after. Something his younger and randy self may have been pitifully short on in his eagerness to sample her. So Elvis found himself able to squash the shame of teabagging his wife in the shower rather speedily, the obvious and untampered joy she took in the act helping him, as well as the feel of her rolling the damn things, one at a time due to size, in her mouth like his nuts were a Listerine swish.
How someone could enjoy gargling ballsack or having their noses smashed to an asshole was a little beyond Elvis, but when he said as much to her, Tink had told him she didn’t get how he could eat bloody pussy for hours.
After arguing this they had to call a truce. No accounting for taste. And since then, as a treat, Laney gets to suck his balls with the only addendum being she can’t lick his ass.
Never stops her from kneading it though, digging at the plain globes with her nails and pulling it apart -for his sanity’s sake he likes to assume she spreads it so she can get some air down there. He wishes he didn’t like that feeling as much as he does but hunched over her in the shower he has to admit the stretch of it feels rather good, combined with her suckling his sack. Little Elvis begins to pulse like he gets the memo. The better it gets, the greater the sensation becomes, the more he moans and shifts and bends double till he’s biting her thigh to keep quiet. In doing so he stops sheltering her little house from the spray with his shoulders, and with malevolent delight, he notices her jerk from the water jet.
It’s fun to watch from down here, her pretty pink petals getting battered and he adds his tongue into the mix on occasion and she thrashes and screams around his balls and he keeps his thighs locked against her cheeks, muffling it almost completely. He’s missed this, not just the filthy want for each other but -but the selfishness to do it. Sure he had been a cad in their earlier marriage, using her more like an animated glory hole than a cherished child of God, but they’d both trade the exhausted lassitude of the past year for that rigorous idiocy in a heartbeat. There’s gotta be some middle ground. He just can’t come up with the right balance with Tink mouthing at his balls like a feral harmonica player tearing up the riff to Orange Blossom Special.
“Daddy! Daddy when are you takin’ us swimmin?” That’s Rosalee’s voice, coming through the door and Elvis’ heart thuds to a stop for a moment in complete confusion as to why his lil pet expects that of him this morning, “I’ve been waitin’ patiently! Please daddy!”
She’s been waiting, by the door, this whole damn time while Jack’s been doing his regular, moronic behavior. She has been good. And somehow there’s been a mix up. He’s had little enough time to play with the kids on this set and Rosalee always takes that absence the hardest. The tile is unyielding beneath his knees and his resolve waivers.
“Oh sweetie I-I-“ he brings his fist up to his mouth to try to steady his wrecked voice, “sweetie I didn’t say nothin about that, did I?”
Elaine, callous succubus that she is, ignores his fatherly plight and begins to strip the base of little Elvis like it’s gonna spurt pixie dust for her. He falls down a little more in his kneeling posture from the intensity of it, forehead banging against her shin as he claws at the slippery grout lines.
“Jack said you promised to take us swimmin!” Rosalee sounds close to tears and it makes Elvis plan on wringing Jack’s little neck while the desperate need to cum rattles in Elvis' head until he’s humping Elaine’s mouth like a maniac. She digs in harder and he hides a sob as a cough.
Angrily he peels her pussy wider and let’s the jets sting her little nub, locking his legs resolutely against her cries until he sees a stream going in the opposite direction of the shower flow, a pretty little arc of fluid straight from her pussy and if it weren’t so diluted by the shower he’d know it tastes perfectly salty sweet. Satisfied with his revenge he covers her again with his back and lays his face on the tile between her legs, trusting her to either let him get up and console his poor daughter or else finish him fast.
Going with the first option becomes entirely necessary when he hears the door crack open and a cold gust of air rustles the shower curtain.
Panic gives Elvis’ voice a thunderous edge as he shouts:“The hell are you doin’? Don’t you dare open the curtain, don’t do it! Do not!”
“Oh daddy please don’t hit me!” Rosalee wails this idiotic plea like it’s a line from some dramatic afternoon Soap Opera, and Elvis is quite sure that’s where she learned it.
“Oh, s-s-stop the d-d-dramatics!” he begs, half to his children and half to Laney who seems convinced he can come from ball sucking alone, while he’s quite sure he can’t today.
“You promised!” Rosalee continues crying, very near the shower but not touching the curtain.
“Jack!” Elvis' voice thunders shakily.
“Yes Elvis?” the kid replies very calmly from the sink area.
“G-get out! Both of ya- get out.”
“I just wanted to take a bath with you!” Rosalee stays from sheer horror at having provoked such temper from her ever-loving father, “I’m sorry daddy! I-I-I didn’t mean to make you mad, honest I didn’t! Jack said-“
“Guys, what the- come on, get out!” That’s Jesse’s beautiful voice resounding in the bathroom, sounding like a general at nine years old and Elvis is gonna have to buy the kid another motorcycle for always being such a swell fella in times of need.
“But Daddy promised to take us swimming-“
“Guys out!” Jesse grabs ahold of Jack’s tshirt and starts tugging.
���But swimming-“
“Only Mommy’s and Daddy’s swim in showers, sometimes-“ Jesse insists.
“I just came to tell mama that Ella has caught the stove on fire-“
“Jack, liars go to hell.” Jesse reminds.
Elvis realizes then that maybe his thighs are squishing all the sound from Laney’s hearing and that perhaps she’s just coasting while enjoying her favorite hobby, unaware of exactly how nuts it’s gotten in here. Nuts was a bad word for it but- he starts to pull himself off her only to feel her teeth snap in protest at the thin base of his scrotum.
He can’t help his yelped,
“Laney!” that in turn spurs Jesse onto a frantic beg,
“Kids come on! Really, we need to evacuate now!” The poor boy sounds frantic and Elvis wishes he had the moral fiber to get off his wife’s face this close to the finish line. But he doesn’t, not for Jack, not even for Rosalee and any other sweet idiot spawn who didn’t obey the closed door policy.
This isn’t the first time.
Hovering as he is, balls clamped in a toothy prison, it’s like Elaine finally hears it all, processes her children and their proximity, finally gets it without the soundproof padding of Elvis’ thighs. She responds accordingly. Instead of abandoning their tryst as he expected, like a ninja geisha, she simultaneously grabs his cock and bends him backwards between his cheeks into her mouth, while raising her foot for Elvis to muffle his impending scream around some perfectly manicured toes.
To a chorus of wailing youngsters and one very admanet eldest son who sounds like a shell-shocked veteran encouraging the green troops to pull back, Elvis feels the persuasive suction of Laney’s mouth around his throbbing head, a flick or five to his weeping slit and he’s giving into her efforts, biting her toe to keep silent and smacking at the shower curtain in an attempt to stifle the need to move with his release.
Elvis shakes to the floor with an exhausted splat as his orgasmic loss of reality gives him a blissful five seconds of escapism where he lays, cheek down in the swirling shower drain, thanking Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit for his wife.
Elaine surfaces from beneath him with the invigorated gusto of a woman satisfied with her work, pulling herself out from beneath her man’s inert form only to be hit by a toy whale that’s been hurled over the curtain and onto her wet head -a last little defiance by a growling Jack who is getting tugged out by Jesse. An impressive throw, one Elvis is responsible for helping Jack perfect with the football many a summer’s night on Graceland’s lawn.
“Oh you silly thing!” she shouts with a laugh, “If any of you sprites are still in here, make yourselves useful, hand me those towels on the countertop.” she adds as she leans over Elvis, straddling him to turn off the tap, sticking just her hand out the curtain and making grabby motions with her fingers till the feel of fuzzy cotton meets it. “Thanks, sweets.”
“Why’re you so short mama?” Rosalee’s voice asks and Elvis groans beneath her on the floor.
“Cause I’ve been playing with sea creatures.” she explains without missing a beat and Elvis’ slick back starts heaving beneath her from suppressing his laughter.
“Oh.” Rosalee accepts it with a sniffle, having spent many hours in the tub or hot tub on her knees, the better to help her toys swim around.
Elvis rolls over beneath Elaine’s straddle and smiles at her with eyes still crossed from going to the grown man’s neverland. “Alright Rosalee, you run on now we’ll be out in just a minute. Promise.” he speaks up.
“And swimming?” she begs as she retreats.
“Well, uh, we’ll talk about that over breakfast.”
Elaine makes a sad face at the realization he’s not going to let himself go back to bed after causing so much heartache in their little people. “S’ok.” he insists, reading her mind and patting her thighs.
Hearing the latch click and the silence of privacy restored, Elvis clasps her by her neck and brings her face down to his, kissing her passionately, licking at her tongue and the traces of his spend on it. “You sure know how to love a man, Tink.” he murmurs, clinging to her warm body as the shower tile turns cold.
“All I ever wanted was to learn to be the best for ya.” she whispers, sweet and gentle.
“Born the best.” he insists, “The rest was just…a bonus.”
She brings the towels she’s been balancing out of the wet, onto his chest, and sitting up they rub each other dry, soft smiles and drowsy affection making them clumsy and open.
They stagger upright together and Elvis throws his towel around her and she throws hers around him and they’re cocooned in terry cloth this way, standing in the dripping shower, snuggled together and nipping at each other’s lips.
“How’s my lil friend.” she asks, sneaking a hand between them in the damp warmth of their burrow and cupping his harmless, shrunk little appendage.
“He’s good, he’s real good.” Elvis giggles, his cheeks turning pink, “Gentle with him now, he got wrung out by a cruel, lecherous gal.”
“He sure did.” Elaine grunts satisfactorily and it’s the most masculine sorta sound Elvis has ever heard her make, full of smugness and a dirty, gritty edge he can’t quite believe came out of his woman, his woman who is so polished and elegant most times. As if to underscore this departure from demure normality and diminish it all at once, Elvis feels her hand move again beneath the towel before an electrifying sting slices up his spine and down his leg from his freshly smacked ass.
“Laney!” he cries again, utterly aghast and pink as a baby and she can’t stand it anymore, standing on tippy toes to neck him some more, vigeorusly smashing her lips to his as she yanks the shower curtain open with her free hand
She steps out while Elvis lingers and bends down to retrieve Jack’s sodden whale plushie. He may wring the poor creature out more violently than necessary but it makes his wife titter.
“God! - I love you.” she insists, surveying her man as he steps out, his wet hair dripping in a boyish mop down his forehead and his lips kissed and bitten puffy pink and his cheeks bunched in a grin despite their bashful blush and the soft accumulation of fluff and good living filling out his chest and swelling his belly just that little bit. “Sometimes I think it’s gonna kill me, gettin’ to enjoy you, getting to look at you so much. Feels indulgent somehow, like you oughta be rationed to a gal, the same way you’re dosed out to your fans in little bits, one movie a time.” she laughs at her own silliness and he shakes his head shyly as he tucks his towel into a covering around his waist. “One day they’ll find me keeled over from palpitations brought on by starin’ too long.”
“That’s what the obituary’ll say,” Elvis snarks, “but you and I’ll know the truth of the matter, that you’re a lil squirrel who likes her nuts so much she don’t take time to breathe. Mark my words, that’s how you’ll go if you keep this appetite up.”
“Then I hope they accuse ya of manslaughter, right after.” Laney grins and he stalls with his comb in hand, raised to coiff his hair back, waiting for the punchline, “Because I don’t wanna be up there without you for too long.”
“Laney!” he repeats for the upteenth time this morning, but this time it’s hushed and his lower lip wobbles with emotion and his eyes swim, touched by the sentiment. Clearing his throat he adds, “I still wanna uh, sometime -yeah, uh sometime do that thing you were t-t-talking about in the w-water.”
She makes a puzzled face as she wiggles into a tiny pair of shorts Elvis bought her last month. She’s fit as hell, and he’s envious of it, and has to admit Jack’s overdue weening did serve one purpose at least, it thinned her out like nothin’ else coulda.
“Play handyman or-or whatever.” he blushes and turns his face away as he hangs up his towel, aware that they haven’t the time to linger over this with the kitchen possibly on fire and his children eager for a swim. “Ya recall? -what you were sayin’? Me uh, playin’ a handyman or plumber or, uh, whatever. Come visit ya.”
“Oooh that,” she goads playfully wrapping her arms around his belly once more, chin in his shoulder blades, “you wanna swing by Graceland and fix a pipe or two, find the rich and spoiled Mrs. Presley wasting away in her gold cage, rich but wanting in the worst ways? Hmm?” she runs her finger down the shell of his ear and it’s flaming hot to her touch, he must be red as her nails in the face, “Wanna take her on the table and give her what her posh movie star husband can’t? Wanna do that, huh Naughty?”
“God y-yes.” he stutters, head thunking against the wall in desperation at the mere
concept.
“Wanna make a movie of it,” she whispers into his ear, “like those ones Thumper and I made? Wanna make a movie so Elvis Presley has to sit and watch it later, hmm? Watch his wife get taken by a workin’ man?”
“Nghhh…” he growls smacking the wall, overwhelmed by memories and prospects.
“I see, well, that’s settled then.” Elaine murmurs before stepping away from their embrace, flicking his bare butt one last time as she laughs, “Only you would get the hots for cuckolding yourself.”
“Anything involving rearrangin’ your guts on a table gets me hot.” he mumbles defensively and Elaine smirkes at him with a promise in her eyes as she makes her way past him. He snags her back to him briefly by a finger in her back pocket, “Hey you,” he says adently with his hand cupping her jaw, “I love you too. I love you somethin’ fierce.”
~~~~~
“Daisy!” Jack’s voice warbled with betrayal as he entered the kitchen, “You didn’t!”
“Daisy!” Ella chimed in, whirling around from the stove to survey the kitchen table and her demolished stack of pancakes, “There was enough there to feed uncle Jerry and us besides!” she cried out as her little sister swallowed down the last of her syrupy goodness with a shrug,
“Oh, oh Daisy, oh my, that’s gonna -that’s gonna bite ya later.” Jesse sighed as he pulled up a chair and pushed around his abandoned, now cold and half eaten single pancake on his plate. “Your stomach’s gonna kill ya, Mae Mae.” he explained to a remorseless Daisy Mae.
“I was hungry.” she defends as Rosalee sullenly takes a seat next to her twin, “Sorry Rosalee, I shoulda saved one for ya.” she conceded but Rosalee shook her head.
“I don’t feel like eatin’ anything.” Rosalee moped.
“Why not?” Ella turned again from the stove, affronted for the reputation of her irresistible pancakes. “I’ll put blueberries in them and everything for ya!”
“I’m not hungry!” Rosalee repeated close to tears and her little chestnut bob swayed with her head shake.
“What happened to you?” Daisy grunted.
“Daddy got mad at me.” she whimpered.
“No he didn’t.” Jesse sighs, settling Jack into a seat by the scruff of his t-shirt, “He’d just told y’all not to come in and you disobeyed. He ain’t mad. He’ll be right as rain in a minute, hold tight.”
“He sounded mad! He sounded sad!” Rosalee’s tone grew in emphasis.
Jesse pinched the bridge of his nose and stared at his empty plate as Rosalee’s whimpers grew from just that to outright crying. “No, no look it’s-“ he glanced over at the stove to his twin who was industriously cooking another batch but not fast enough to circumvent Rosalee’ meltdown, “it’s like, when we all used to sleep in the big bed,” he chose his words carefully for optimal grief assuagement, “you know how some mornings you thought daddy was cryin’?”
“Yeah.” her little voice was garbled by snot.
“Yeah but he wasn’t, was he?” Jesse pressed his point, “He was just tryin’ to hold in his laughs so he didn’t wake you, while mama or Ella was ticklin’ him.”
“Yeah.” Rosalee cracks a small smile.
“S’like that.” Jesse reminded, “He ain’t sad. You ‘member how he’d start bawling when we started ticklin’ too?”
“Yeah.” Jack smiled in reminiscence of mornings when they’d all pile on top of Elvis and tickle him while Mama held his shoulders down. “But I know you don’t tickle people in the shower.” Jack fired back with six year old conviction, “Elvis hisself told me it wasn’t safe.”
Before Jesse was forced to choose between explaining further or else sullying his daddy’s reputation for safety ethics in the shower -or in general- the man himself and Mama breezed through the door, hair wet and as smartly dressed as always.
“Alright, alright, kids what’s groovin’ huh?” Elvis barreled in like his kitchen was his stage and topics of tickling and sadness were shelved, much to Jesse’s watery eyed relief, though he couldn’t quite meet his mama’s eyes when she scootched past him with a kiss to his head on her way to the sink. “Hey you I’ve got a present for you.” Elvis addressed Jack before plopping a very sudden and deformed whale plushie on the boy’s plate.
“Thanks a lot Elvis.” Jack muttered.
“Look on the bright side Trouble,” Elvis laughed while reaching down Jack’s back to grab a handful of his jean’s waistband, “all ya had to do was wait fifteen minutes and now mama’s got your glass o’water and your pancakes’ll be cut in triangles. Imagine that, patience.” and with that laughing admonition Elvis hefted Jack out of his chair by his waistband and proceeded to jostle his second born son in the age old manner often referred to as a wedgie. It even made Rosalee laugh and Jack hiccup from something they all suspected was enjoyment, although the kid would never admit it. “Alright, everyone alive and well? No fires?” He took stock of the place and found it comparatively tidy -little wonder as the kids didn’t have time to wreck anything, too busy knocking on his door. “Ella Bug those smell amazing and- Daisy, why’re you actin’ put out?”
“M’fine.” his daughter protested even as her face was folded into the identical sorta scowl that sold him a lotta records back in the early days.
“Is everyone mad at me?” he balked.
“No, she just ate fifty pancakes while everyone else was… busy.” Jesse cleared his throat. “Should enter her in a contest.”
“Oh Daisy, no!” Elaine swiped back her black curls and knelt by her, “Is your belly hurting?”
“Startin’ to.” Daisy was forced to admit through clenched teeth.
“Lordy, Mae Mae, that’s impressive,” Elvis murmured as he took his seat and, in a well worn routine, opened his arms and lap in welcome to a still sniffling Rosalee who catapulted into him, “what got into you?” he marveled as he tucked Rosalee into a snuggle and peppered her now glowing face with kisses.
“They were very good.” Daisy insisted and Ella beamed with pride over the stack of freshly made ones she carried to the table.
“Bet they were.” Elvis praised, tongue poked through his teeth laughing, “Glad ya enjoyed yourself at least.”
“Come lay down sweetheart, here on the couch.” Elaine led her to the adjacent wicker lounge. “Get you some ginger ale or something. Heavens, girly, the appetite on you!”
“Are you gonna eat with us, daddy?” Ella spoke up timidly as she took her own seat, the rather novel concept of her daddy at morning breakfast and the pride she took in her own cooking warring to make his verdict overly meaningful to her.
Elvis stared for a moment at the heaping piles of fluffy goodness with its melting pad of butter and sparkling syrup trickling to the plate as Jack voiced the very worry he had rattling in his head:
“That’s a lotta carbs.”
The whole table’s racket of pancake stabbing screeched to a halt and Elaine fumbled the glass bottle of ginger ale she had retrieved from the fridge to the very ground in her shock. “Jack!” she chatsized with more vehemence than the little stinker had ever elicited from her in his life, “Why on earth would you say a thing like that?”
Jack shrugged, although the combined weight of his family’s horror and Elaine’s blazing eyes made him timid, “It's just what the Colonel said. Last night. To daddy.”
“And why would you ever wanna sound like that good for nothin’ scallywag?” Elaine cried, “We appreciate a good appetite in this house, plenty of folks don’t have what we’ve got and we’re not about to thank the good Lord for his generosity to us by listenin’ to the worn out gimmicks of a corpulent glutton. Carbs! Maybe he should count some carbs-“
“Laney, laney.” Elvis moderated her with a shushing wave of his hand and she stilled, pinching the bridge of her nose in that way Jesse had learned from her and clipping over to Daisy with grief stricken eyes she hid behind her ire.
“Sorry.” Jack croaked while giving his mother the stink eye even as Jesse in turn glared at him, “I said I was sorry?”
“There’s nothin’ to be sorry about Jack.” Elvis insisted, eyeing his strangely cold wife as she tended to Daisy and got her a preemptive barf pan. “You were just statin’ nutritional facts and if you’re gonna be a scientist one day, your interest in ‘em will serve ya well. Now Ella, dish me up some a’those sticky carbs, won’t ya?”
Ella beamed and quickly stacked up a steaming pile on her daddy’s plate, presenting a blushing cheek for his kiss just as Daisy lost her battle with the bellyache and puked into the bowl Elaine held for her.
“Well that’s an appetizing sound.” Jesse pushed his plate away with a joking grimace and he and Elvis shared a silly moment that almost made Jesse forget about the shower and his subsequent vow never to look his daddy in the eye again.
“Poor Mae, Mae,” Elvis sighed, stabbing his pancake and making a show of chewing it obnoxiously for Ella’s benefit.
Elaine couldn’t help but smirk, even as she dabbed at Daisy’s mouth with a cloth, amused that her man was moaning louder over pancakes than he did from her attentions in the shower.
“So,” he spoke up as he scarfed them down, “what’s this about swimmin’? Hmm? For the record I never promised anythin’ of the kind but, loathe as I am to award bad behavior,” and here he gave Jack a pointed look over his poised fork, “since we’re all together, why not?”
“Really? Really?” Rosalee screamed so loud in his ear he shook his head just to get the ringing out.
“Oh daddy, it’s gonna be so fun! You there! Oh yes yes yes yes!” Ella was spinning in circles, having gotten out of her chair at some point to celebrate.
“Mhmm,” he hushed them and went on, pushing his plate away, “is it swimmin’ you’ve really got your hearts set on?”
“Well, no- we just wanna be with you.” Rosalee admitted.
“What? No! We wanna go swimmin’, just us and mama-“
“Jack, please hush up.” Jesse begged.
“See I was thinkin’,” Elvis rose above his six year old’s sharp remarks, “we could certainly go swimmin’ but then again, ya can go swimmin’ most anytime, near anywhere. But ya know what ya can’t do?”
“What, daddy?” a hushed chorus of anticipation went up from his little audience, even Daisy showed interest as Elaine doted on her.
“How would you Tiddlywinks like to fly ‘round in a helicopter?” He asked with a brilliant grin.
“No way!” Jesse nearley fell out of his seat and his eyes filled with excitement.
“Yes way, perks of the job, boyo.” Elvis sat smug at the head of his table as his children gushed around him in a frenzy of anticipation, Elaine watched their adoration with a pleased smile, praying only that he wasn’t going to be the lone pilot. “Now who’s glad daddy works for that ‘corpulent scalliwag’, huh?” he goaded and Elaine’s smile turned brittle as the kids laughed and cheered.
Elvis eyes met hers above the den of kids clearing plates and his sober, cobalt stare put her right back in her place, a place that more and more had little or nothing to do with his creative processes and business deals - a far cry from the production and artistry that first brought them to together. She bit her lip and walked the vomit pan back to the sink, receiving a wide berth from the little revelers as she did. “Alright well, help your mama with this mess and get yourselves sorted.” he clapped, “We’ll leave, soon as we’re ready. Gotta go brush my teeth.” he rose from the table, his hasty exit unnoticed by any save Elaine who postured herself to be in his path as he turned to go into the master bedroom,
“E,” she murmured softly as he brushed past and he didn’t stop, but she knew he was listening by the tilt of his head as he went “while you’re at it, be sure you don’t accidentally brush your tonsils again, silly man.”
This loaded tease met with a titter of laughs by the couple clueless kids who overheard it and this time it was Elvis’ face that grew brittle, his step halted and his lip was close to sneering as he lowly rejoined,
“If you know ‘nother silly man who can get you a helicopter ride, an all expenses paid for vacation to Hawaii and satisfy your particular tastes, then be my guest Elaine, you tell him how to brush his teeth.”
Hope y’all enjoyed! Your “bugging” and “screaming” is music to my ears, fuel to my fire and keeps me writing, please never hold back -this is a safe space for feral little Elvis loving rodents…like you and me.
If you’d like to be tagged in this particular series please drop a note below. I’ll admit I’m disorganized and have trouble keeping all the requests sorted when they’re scattered, what I do check regularly are the requests in the notes for chapters -and I do manage to get those added. So, if you’ve put in a request and I’ve failed ya, or if you’re new and would like to be added, please pop a note below. Xoxo
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185 notes · View notes
luvhughes43 · 8 months
Note
Have Jamie and Y/N every gotten into an argument about Lila
lila, my love masterlist
lila is extremely clingy towards jamie and he definitely enables that behaviour which causes y/n to get upset because she has to deal with all the consequences.
-
"jamie! i told you to leave lila in her crib!" you whisper yell to your boyfriend who had your sleepy toddler laying against his chest.
"i know but she wants me! isn't that right lila-bell?" jamie coos to the baby who relaxes further into her fathers hold.
you loved jamie, she really did. but he could be so dense sometimes. you had told him that you were trying to get lila to sleep on her own since she was having a hard time adjusting when jamie was gone. she was just getting over the crying and messy sleep schedule when jamie was away, and here he was, ruining all of that progress.
"i know she wants you but she needs to sleep on her own. this isn't good for her" you speak quietly and jamie just rolls his eyes.
"of course it's good for her, i'm her dad. she loves me" jamie smiles down at his now sleeping daughter. you wanted to cry.
"i'm just trying to get her to sleep through the night jams" you sighed loudly, causing jamies head to snap up and his eyes to meet yours.
"i just wanna see my girl," he defends.
"i know that! but you can see her tomorrow morning when she wakes up! or hell, you can go check on her when she's in her crib!" your voice is sharp, and jamie winces at your tone.
"okay sorry, i didn't realize it was that big of a deal!" jamie says innocently, but his tone strikes a nerve within you. of course he didn't realize it was a big deal. he was never here.
you breathe deeply. "i don't even want to respond to that" you say, bringing your hands up to your face and pressing your palms into your eyes to try and relief some of the tension.
jamie stays silent, sitting on the couch and rocking lila.
you take another deep breathe, and then walk silently into your bedroom. jamie joins you about 10 minutes later, stripping off his clothes and getting under the covers. you turned away from him.
"you can't seriously be mad at me," jamie speaks, his voice louder in volume now that lila was back in her room.
you don't turn around when you answer, "i'm tired"
jamie sits up.
after a few minutes of tense silence, you decide to voice your problems. "i'm just trying my best here, and i feel like you don't care! i am trying so hard to break lilas bad habits and then you go behind my back and do exactly what i told you not to do!" you cry, pushing jamies hands away from you when he goes to comfort you. "i was finally making progress with her attachment issues,"
"i'm so sorry honey i-"
"and i understand that you miss her, of course i do!" you sit up in bed, frustratingly wiping your tears away with the back of your hands. "but when you're gone, i'm doing this on my own and its so hard" you cry out again, and this time you let jamie hold you.
"i am so sorry y/n, i just.. i feel so bad for missing all this time with lila that when she wants me, and when she's crying i just want to soothe her as quick as possible. i should've listened to you earlier when you were telling me about your progress with her" jamie apologizes and you nod along to his words.
"i'm going to do better, yeah?" jamie brushes your hair away from your face as he presses a kiss to the top of your forehead. you lean further into him instinctually.
jamie apologizes one more time, and then the two of you spend the next half hour discussing how you want to go about lilas attachment problems.
148 notes · View notes
blorbologist · 5 months
Text
Feeding a Flying City
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[Aeor, by Pretty Useful Co.]
This started as a little exercise in my worldbuilding thoughts for some off-hand stuff mentioned in my current fic, but I uh. Got Into It. So enjoy, if you're into two thousand words of nerding out about fantasy economics and agriculture and spells. For the sake of context, this is specifically looking at Exandria's flying cities in the Age of Arcanum, working off D&D 5E's rules as written (so I'm avoiding inventing spells).
When tackling the Age of Arcanum in my fanfic, I knew going in that I wanted to use this space to stretch my worldbuilding muscles and fill in some of the space left by Matthew Mercer and Brennan Lee Mulligan with reasonably plausible meat and bones.
One thing I was excited to squint at was the issue of how the hell flying cites feed their populations. 
The ‘lonely city’ is a common fantasy trope, especially in visual media. Your towering bastion of civilization (or spire of evil) on the open plains, or beside a river, or deep in the mountains certainly makes for a great symbol. A flying city is really the ultimate version of this, completely disconnected from the petty ground below… and the farmland that usually would surround any metropolis. 
See, in medieval times, you only had so much time to transport good until they spoiled. Some could be more forgiving than others - however, given a city often aggregates political and financial elite, there is an expectation that they can get their fresh fruits, and decadent game. Even beyond freshness, if you have a lot of people in one place who are not actively growing their own crops, a lot of more-or-less processed food needs to get into the city daily. And though you could station your acres of farmland just over the hill so they don’t ruin the ~scenic approach~, that will cost more to transport. The fact is, having a lot of people - poor and rich - in one place requires a lot of food, every day, to feed them. And it has to come from somewhere.
(Off-topic note, medieval castles (not necessarily cities) were also there to, y’know, defend the populace. So they had to be both near enough to their peasants to respond to aggression, and near enough for the people to get to the castle for shelter when needed. Which is not relevant to this point.)
Magic, like refrigeration, greenhouses and GMO crops, allows a society to sidestep some of these issues. Which is great! But how the flying cities could use the resources they have to feed their population is half the fun in theorizing. 
To quickly recap what we know to be common to flying cities of the time:
Limited to the city only, usually a location with ground dense with brumestone (i.e., no farmland). 
Their limited ‘undergrounds’ are often fairly dense with more structures (Aeor’s many levels; the labyrinth and tons of administrative locations inside Avalir).
They are nomadic and engage in trade (both with eachother and grounded cities, like Vasselheim).
… but they all likely came from landed roots, and potentially were once perfectly normal cities. 
So. How do you feed your people while flying a path that might take years to travel (ex: Avalir’s 7-year trek), especially between trade stops?
The last surviving flying city is Draconia, which is really fragments of a larger nomadic city that decided to remain fairly sedentary compared to its predecessors. Its answer was probably pretty simple: given that Draconia hovered within Dreemoth Ravine, the tailed dragonborn could just… collect a tithe of crops from the enslaved ravenites. It’s already canon that they were put to work in the mines, so working the land also unfortunately makes sense. It’s unclear how the food then got up to the city (skyships, given they have ready brumestone access?), but given Draconia seems to be an exception to the rules I can (mostly) confidently rule out ‘the Age of Arcanum was built on abusing the grounded cities and towns, potentially requiring an age of magically-enhanced farming to provide for the people above and/or risking the farmers going hungry in favor of the mageocracies’. 
Here’s where magic offers numerous solutions, and just as many weird problems! 
First of all, the stupidly isolated nature of flying cities means that any method of bringing food in has to be extremely structured. Mom and pop can’t just bring the donkey to the farmer’s market to sell their goods in Avalir; to get there you need to fly (more scheduled) or teleport (requires a mage, and limited quantities of goods). So from the getgo a lot of financial control is likely in the cities’ hands. Which… is not all too dissimilar from history, but the lack of flexibility is probably more striking here. Shit, I was hoping to get away from Draconia’s grim worldbuilding.
It also places flying cities in a role very similar to an advancing army, requiring food as they march to be drawn from the surrounding lands. While soldiers can break off and loot towns they pass through, a flying city probably can’t just dock in the middle of farmland, grab all the corn and bolt. So the need for a more organized food transport likely helps protect towns from that exploitation. (Though, with the military posturing of Avalir and Aeor, I could see flying cities strong-arming support from grounded ones in exchange for promised protection/aid if they needed it.)
Of course, when docked at another city (Avalir stayed at Vasselheim for ten days in the weeks before the Calamity), they can fairly easily trade with the surrounding towns there… who are also providing for the existing city. Hosting a flying city must be a huge logistics nightmare, but economically worth the headache. 
(Vasselheim likely has a leg up in that it has both a sitting population of mages, such as Vespin pre-fuckup, and the likes of Clerics, who I’ll get to soonish.)
In EXU: Calamity, skyships (and an offhand mention of something called an ornithopter) already exist, which could facilitate the bulk transport of goods. Based on the speed of the Silver Sun in Campaign 3 (4-5 days to cover ~700 miles translates to a speed of ~5-6.5 knots; for context that seems to be about the middling range for a medieval tradeship), this seems like an excellent way of transporting goods that do not spoil easily. Or use arcane equivalents to the canon Bag of Colding to help keep things fresh longer. However, as noted above, this would require a lot of community organization to get crops together when the skyship shows up for harvest.
The tricky thing is that Avalir, at least, follows leylines as it travels. So if there was intent to line up its passes over farmland with their harvest season - to minimize transport distance - it might be difficult to coordinate. Moreover, with an implied many flying cities, and no clear territorial delimitations between their routes (especially if they’re all following leylines; but Avalir at least made stops in Issylra, Gwessar/Tal’Dorei, and Dorumas/the Shattered Teeth at least), I wonder if there would be economic conflict over which cities could be highest bidder for the freshest crops. Which could be Interesting. 
(I wonder if sky piracy, or sky privateering, was a thing in the Age of Arcanum. Nydas is said to have been a pirate on the actual seas, so aquatic trade is still going strong, but given the flying cities are so reliant on limited methods to get food… you could put a lot of pressure on a rival city by capturing a few key skyships full of the last harvests before winter.)
Another option is teleportation. Avalir, after all, has an entire guild devoted to teleporting people around, so critical to its functioning that part of the Betrayers’ plan was to leave them without leadership when they struck. However, teleportation is very much a creature-oriented form of transportation; perhaps you could bring up a herd of cattle for slaughter, but that’s a pretty damn high spell slot for beef.
Avalir is in a fortuitous situation, in that it has a longstanding relationship with the Gau Drashari; druids, well-known masters of plant and animal life. In theory, this could mean Plant Growth casts to increase harvests… but at this time the Gau Drashari specifically only live in Caithmoira, guarding this holy site. So hopping from one druid-boosted farmland to another is unlikely. 
Well, if transporting food to the cities is such an issue, why not produce food in the cities?
While magical greenhouses must account for some luxury fresh goods for sure, I really don’t think the cities as illustrated have enough real estate to actually support their whole populations like this. Like I noted above, of the two cities we know really well, their insides are already full of labs and labyrinths and all sorts of things probably best kept away from your food supply. 
D&D 5E spells offer another answer, and another piece of potentially complicated worldbuilding: Create Food and Water. Per the spell description, it creates enough food to feed 15 people for 24 hours, which seems to neatly solve all our problems! Until you realize the food is explicitly bland (bet you the mages turn up their noses at it), vanishes if not consumed after 24 hours (so that’s a daily 3rd level spell slot from some poor schmuck), and is mostly limited to Paladins and Clerics. You know, godly people, who are so fondly looked upon by the mageocracies. Artificers, at least, are more in line with the Age of Arcanum attitude - but we don’t see any in Calamity, so it’s unclear if the class ‘exists’ per say in the time period. Reducing powerful Paladins and Clerics to food dispensaries - and not even good food, probably for the lower class - would fit in neatly with how the powers of the divine are seen as lesser. Goodberry falls into a similar role: useful, but probably something mages would avoid.
Speaking of spells, let’s get a little fucked up, hm? Who is to say a mage couldn’t just. Summon some pigs to be served up as bacon tomorrow? Well. Conjure Animals specifically says the animals are actually fey, and vanish when their HP reaches 0. Summon Beasts? Same thing. Find Steed? You guessed it. So magic can help us grow food, and transport it, and preserve it, but not actually make it out of nothing. (If there’s a spell I’m missing that completely solves this, please let me know, but I can’t really find one.)
My final little thought came watching geese migrate some time ago. The passenger pigeon has been extinct for… a hundred and ten years, now. But in its hayday, flocks of the birds would literally cloud the sky. Exandria is home to far more stunning beasts than pigeons, and hunting flying game is likely a lot easier when you yourself are flying too. 
Sure, you can apply this to actual fishing when the cities are over the seas, but! Imagine fishing boats but for birds and all manner of winged beasts in great flocks, netting and catching them to haul in. Maybe the magical equivalent of those helicopter boar hunts to deal with invasive populations, but landing at all introduces a whole lot more hassle. Big net and flying device = fresh meat, with an arcane twist.
So: how do you feed a flying city? Especially one with a lavish lifestyle as seen in Avalir, or a hard research focus as in Aeor?
Have an extremely regimented relationship with the towns on your path (likely in competition with other flying cities using these leylines when you are) or that otherwise have food you need. Make sure skyships arrive in time for the harvests. Miss that and things get dicey. 
Supplement this with trade, both with other flying cities and grounded ones when docked. However, docked time has to be limited to not risk starving out the countryside surrounding the city hosting you.
Small deliveries, especially of fresh livestock, can be accomplished through Porter’s Guild or equivalent.
Magically preserve food thus obtained to survive until your schedule and harvests of X Y z goods next align. 
City-based organizations can ‘fish’ for birds as the city flies (or potentially even actually fish as they fly over the ocean) for fresh meat.
Hope to gods (but without hoping to the gods because they’re schmucks) that you time your pick-ups right, that there are no famines, or early frosts, that no one steals your fucking skyships our outbids you on a key agricultural contract, or casts Dispel Magic and makes your food all spoil.
When the carefully-scheduled management of the city’s resources fails, turn to your diviners or healers and have them feed the masses with bland crackers while the Somnovem or Ring of Gold continue eating honeyed lamb and figs. 
If you read this far, I'm super flattered you shifted through my rambles! I'll gladly discuss any glaring mistakes or things I've overlooked; this is only what I considered in worldbuilding for a fic, and I don't pretend to be an expert on medieval agriculture or economic practices.
This was still very fun to (over)think about <3
(Water, of course, would be a similar limiting factor, but is easy enough to magically purify, and would not be too bland when made by Create Food and Water, so I didn’t bring it up.)
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