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#why stock market is down today

hmatrading · 1 year

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What is the best way to earn money in the stock market?

Become informed: Understand the basics of investing, how the stock market operates, and keep up with current market developments. Learn about financial statements, valuation criteria, and investing approaches.

Research and analyze: Do extensive research on the businesses you are interested in before making an investment. Check out their management team, competitive advantages, market trends, and financial health. Analyse past performance and assess potential for future growth.

Diversify your portfolio: Don’t put all your financial eggs in one basket by diversifying your assets. Make investments in a variety of sectors, businesses, and asset types. Spreading out the risk this way aids in risk reduction and may ultimately increase profits.

Invest for the long term: Long-term investing is advised since it can be dangerous to try to time the market or engage in short-term trading. Focus on long-term investments instead, which will enable you to weather market turbulence and gain from compounding gains over time.

Dollar-cost averaging: Instead of attempting to timing the market, think about investing a certain sum of money at regular periods (for example, monthly). This tactic lessens the effects of short-term market volatility and may eventually result in a reduced average cost per share.

Set realistic expectations: Be reasonable in your expectations; gains are never assured and the stock market can be erratic. Stay away from going after rapid earnings or falling for get-rich-quick schemes and be reasonable in your expectations.

Take expert advice into account: If you don’t have the time or knowledge to handle your finances, you might choose to talk to a financial adviser or use robo-advisory services. Based on your financial objectives and level of risk tolerance, they can offer tailored advice.

Keep in mind that there are dangers involved with investing in the stock market. It’s crucial to conduct your own research and make selections that are appropriate for your financial condition and risk tolerance.

Read more — https://hmatrading.in/free-stock-advisory/

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dreamescapeswriting · 5 months

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Surprise! ~ KSM

⤜WORD COUNT: 1.4K

⤜GENRE: fluffy, stressed out Seungmin finally getting a break, poor baby just needs his partner, angst (I guess) with a fluffy ending, cute, THIS is the song used xx

⤜PAIRING: Seungmin x GN!Reader

⤜Copyright: © DreamEscapesWriting - January 2024

⤜MASTERLIST

A/N: So I wrote this as a non!Idol piece as I thought it would be a lot more fun to write, I really hope that’s okay, if not feel free to give me a message and I can work on fixing it for you

The car came to a halt and your boyfriend let out a small whimper, all morning you had been overly secretive about something. For the first time, in a long time, he'd managed to get a weekend off from work and you'd decided that it was going to be your chance to do something nice for him. Something no one else in the world could have, well, maybe some people but not many.

"Is the blindfold really necessary?" He quipped with a slight laugh behind his voice, you glanced over at him as you parked up and made sure he had no idea where he was.

Ever since he'd woken up that morning you'd been dropping hints about what the two of you were going to be doing today but he seemed oblivious to them all right now. It started with the music you'd had on while he woke up, a little day6 music to start the day off with, but he'd brushed it off as nothing since you worked for the band and loved their music almost as much as he did. Breakfast that morning had been pancakes in the shapes of the Day6 logo but you weren't exactly skilled in pancake making so they mostly ended up looking like a normal pancake with a tail.

"Yes, this is a surprise. Remember?" You let out a small laugh and got out of the car, Seungmin shook his head from inside of the vehicle. Today was going to be special for Seungmin since you knew how stressed out he'd been lately.

Stressed to the point where he'd missed a few dates with you, something you were mad about when it first happened but when you saw how much work was putting on his plate you began to let them slide. It must not have been easy working in the stock market business, he'd come home and pass out in bed but some nights it wasn't even the bed, it was the sofa.

Last week had been the final straw for you. It was the tenth time you'd woken up in the morning to find your boyfriend hadn't even been able to make it to the bedroom before passing out on the sofa sleeping there instead of in a warm bed with you and you were finally doing something about it.

"Why can't you just tell me what we're doing?" Your boyfriend quizzed as you helped him out of the car and began walking him in the direction of the arena doors, the guards nodding and winking at you. Everyone knew the plan and seemed to be sticking to it.

The band you worked for had a gig later tonight so right now they were practising inside of the arena, well, they would be and you knew how badly Seungmin had wanted to go to a concert for years now and you were finally going to make it happen.

"You'll see, you have to trust me." You whined, slowly leading him through the hallways and down toward the main stage as he complained the whole time - jokingly of course. Seungmin trusted you to the moon and back, maybe even more but he did, if you said he was going to enjoy it then he knew he was going to.

"Are you ready?" You whispered from behind him, his back tingling as your breath caught in his ear.

All morning he'd been trying to guess what it was that you could possibly be doing for him, he ruled the beach out since the forecast was supposed to rain all day and he knew he wasn't at his parents since you'd driven too long for that. It was a little surprising that you wanted to do anything today, he knew you had work later and assumed you wanted to relax until then but you'd insisted on taking him out.

"More than ever!" He yelled out, buzzing with excitement as you slowly began to remove the blindfold from his eyes, Drums started to play and instantly he recognised the song and Seungmin's eyes flew to you, this was what you'd been planning?!

"What?!" His voice cracked, going up in pitch as you giggled a little, the music playing louder as the boys began to sing to you both. Seungmin's head spun around so fast to face the boys you were afraid it was going to come off his shoulders.

"Your own private concert." You whispered to him, smiling as you watched your boyfriend's face lighting up the whole time he sang along to the song. The whole place was empty besides you and Seungmin, and a few guards were spotted around the floor cleaning up and making sure everything was prepped for later.

"It's hard, each day is the same. I wanna fling everything away, and just play. Don't stop me, I'm going out." You both sang along, swaying side to side the whole day, YoungK winking at you as he continued to sing.

"This must have taken a lot of persuading," Seungmin told you as he wrapped his arms around you from behind, swaying with you on the spot his entire body relaxing as he let himself feel the music and for the first time in months he felt at peace.

"Nah, YoungK was pretty happy to do it." You explained, leaning your head into your boyfriend's chest as you watched the members. The truth was, it had taken a lot of convincing and you might have had to give up some of your holiday days to sway it with your boss but all of it was worth it as long as it helped Seungmin unwind. Besides, the members had seemed 100% behind you when you'd explained the reasonings behind the mini concert and they were all excited to meet Seungmin since you hardly ever stopped talking about him.

"I know it's not the best way to relax...but I thought you might enjoy it." You were starting to feel a little doubt about whether or not he might have liked this. It was his first day off in a while, what if he'd wanted to stay inside?

"Yn, this is perfect." He hushed out, your whole body relaxing as you heard him and you smiled, cuddling into his chest as the next song started to play.

"I love you," He whispered, placing a gentle and soft kiss on your jawline, your whole body heating up at the action earning a chuckle from the boys as they continued to sing.

"I can't believe you did that for me," Seungmin was still buzzing after the mini-setlist the members had performed and you giggled a little at him. Everything that had stressed him seemed to be wiped from his brain tonight,

"I'll do anything for you, you know that Sungie." You ran your hand over his cheek and he wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you closer to him.

"A surprise like this needs a proper thank you," He told you with a giant grin on his face, you giggled a little excited to see what he had up his sleeve for you.

"Oh? Like what?" You ran your hands over his chest, his eyes on you the whole time as the grin he was plastering across his face slowly turned into a smirk,

"Oh I can't tell you that, it has to be a surprise," He chuckled evilly making you curse him out, gently slapping against his chest in protest.

"Seungmin, you can't." You groaned, shaking your head at him, Seungmin chuckled even more though. He knew how much you hated surprises and he was planning on doing it all week long next week.

"I have a week off next week, I can surprise you all week long."

"A whole week?!" You squealed out, your hands clutching his shirt as he laughed at you, it was cute to see you looking so excited. The week off had been for you, he knew he'd been working so much he was missing important dates and time with you. Something he was going to make up for for the rest of his life. There was no excuse for missing dates.

"I took time off, I've missed too many dates with you and I'm going to make up for it."

"O-Oh, I can't wait." You giggled, as he kissed the top of your head before taking your hand in his and going to meet the members who had told you to go and meet them back stage.

@chiisaiblog @sw33tnight @kaitieskidmore97 @laylasbunbunny @stayconnecteed @saymyspringrain @toplinehyunjin @katnisspeetaprim @acciocriativity @just-aelia @choisoorin @straykids5star @midnightfrog625 @beccaskz @scarletemeterio @halesandy @junhannies @gothic4under4lord @lixie-phoria @soulphoenix1618 @aerastus @jin-from-the-block @lensfilm @elizaschuyler18 @piratequeen-impact @kpopsstuffs @chaeyoungs @delulu18 @xyahrinx @katsukis1wife @anthropologymajorkpopmultistan @blairscott @4-chan-inpadella @niktwazny303 @moonlight-the-writer @armystay89 @hadassahchan @yxngbxkkie @felixismybf @myyouthdonut @extrhotjne @ca11me3mily @elissasimp @xakx @aurora115 @sleepb @kittymaryam-thebrowniefairy @kpopmenace143 @minhosify

#skz #skz x reader #skz imagine #skz imagines #stray kids #stray kids x reader #stray kids imagine #stray kids imagines #kim seungmin #seungmin #seungmin x reader #seungmin imagine #seungmin imagines #kim seungmin x reader #kim seungmin imagine #kim seungmin imagines #dreamescapeswriting

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chanshoesunite · 2 years

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Chan wants to record your moans for a song

GENRE: smut WORD COUNT: 2.6k Author’s Note (Author Hare): This is my 500 follower hug for y’all inspired by two prompts given to me by my favourite reader of all times, Author Tortoise. Maybe you can guess what they are! WARNINGS: rated M (minors do not engage!), unsafe sex (wrap it up, kids), slight dirty talk, Chan calls reader a slut (but in a very loving way)

You unlock the door, enter the flat and kick off your heeled ankle boots, balancing two bags of takeout as you do. Having successfully completed that task, you dump them on the floor and shrug out of your coat as your obligatory “honey, I’m home” call stays unanswered. You smile to yourself – you’d expected that; it means that your boyfriend is still so focused on creating music, he forgets the world around him. That is also the main reason why he got you a key to his flat – more than once had you been standing in front of the door, waiting for him to open it for you, and he simply hadn’t heard the doorbell, lost as he was in his creative process.

You’re still in your work clothes – a black dress (that might have screamed “overdressed!” to some people, but you are aware that being overdressed is a concept created by people who don’t want women to feel beautiful every day), stockings and bright red lipstick – as you make your way through the hallway with the sashimi you’ve picked up at Chan’s favourite place to treat him for dinner.

You knock on his studio door, but the gesture is again futile – through the glass door, you can see that he’s wearing massive headphones and can’t hear anything that’s not blasted through those. You take a moment to watch him – he is clad simply in a black oversized shirt, his hair a dark mess as if he’d dragged his hands through it a hundred times today while looking for words and melodies to match in ways that you find to be positively magical. Elbows on his desk, his gaze is turned towards the ceiling as he vibes with the music, nodding to the beat, critically analysing something he has created. It’s so incredibly attractive, the way he is so focused on and passionate about his work, your heart is full just looking at him.

The song seems to end because Chan looks down and catches your eye. He gives a little start – after all, he thought he was alone in his flat until a few seconds ago – and then a glowing smile takes over his face. He waves to you in an almost childlike gesture, and you mirror his smile as you enter the studio. Chan pulls the headphones off, letting them rest around his neck before putting them on the desk. “Hey, baby girl,” he greets you happily, rolling back in his swivel chair and patting his thighs. “Come here!”

You oblige, sitting in his lap, your legs dangling over one of the armrests as your arms come to rest on his broad shoulders. You lean in to kiss him, and though you mean it only to be a peck, your kiss lasts a little longer and feels a little more heated than your average welcome back kiss. “Hi,” you whisper, smiling, as you pull back eventually.

Chan’s eyes are fixed on your red lips, but eventually stray as they take in your dress. “You look beautiful,” he pronounces, his hand sliding down the skirt of your dress and coming to rest on your knee. “Did you have a good day?”

You nod emphatically, your curls bouncing as if supporting your claim as you recount your successful day at the publishing company where you work. “The presentation went very well. The boss was ecstatic and said I’ll get to manage more of the marketing campaigns since I’m doing such a good job.” You nod to the takeout bags. “I got us some sashimi to celebrate.”

Chan’s face, which had lit up at the news, now takes on an even more enthusiastic expression. “I’m so proud of you, baby, those are wonderful news! I’m so glad your boss can see how dedicated, hardworking, and talented you are! And I’m happy I get to celebrate with you. Thanks for bringing dinner.” He nuzzles into your neck, and you giggle, feeling giddy at his euphoria.

“Thanks for being such a hype boy, babe. And how was your day? How is the new album coming along?” You glance at the computer, where Chan has obviously been busy mixing a sound file. Chan shrugs. “Ah, you knaur.” He’s trying to sound non-committal, but you know that he cares deeply. “I’m trying to write a new unit song. Hyunjin is in it, so it needs to be racy.” He winks at you. “Another hoe anthem, you mean?” Your boyfriend bursts out laughing. “Something like that. Do you want to hear it?” “Sure!” You always love listening to early versions of songs – it is intriguing to watch Chan decide what to keep and what to cut, what to put on demos – and then listen to the final product as it is released. The process is fascinating, and you love being a part of it, even if you’re only a spectator.

Chan reaches around you, and you turn to face the computer, leaning back against his broad chest. His left hand slips around your waist, securing him against you as he starts the song. Immediately you know why this song is meant for Hyunjin; it is a dark-sounding RnB track that seems to continue the tradition laid down in “Red Lights” and “Taste”. There is an almost hypnotic organ melody that reminds you of church, but in a distinctly unholy way as it is paired with lyrics such as “I know that we shouldn’t, but I want to”. Chan’s voice on the demo carries the song without difficulties, and it’s positively captivating; breathy whispers and slight vocal fries add to the sexy tone of the song.

You feel the mood in the room shift, anticipation making room for arousal. You shiver in Chan’s arms listening to it, and you feel your boyfriend shift beneath you before he presses a kiss to your neck. “Do you like it?” he breathes into your ear, and the air against your neck tickles you in a decidedly not innocent way.

You nod, releasing a breath you don’t know you’ve been holding. “It’s definitely racy,” you agree, your breath hitching as Chan continues to kiss your neck while the song moves into the second verse. You can feel him smile against your skin.

“It’s almost as if hearing my voice singing it is doing something to you, baby girl. It must be like me getting dirty thoughts when you wear lipstick like that,” he almost purrs, gently biting your earlobe as his right hand finds your breast, teasing it through the cloth. A tiny gasp escapes you, and even though the music is still playing, it doesn’t slip Chan’s attention. “God,” he almost growls. “Your moans would sound so good on this track.”

That one sentence causes you to groan again, and Chan’s hand slips from your waist downwards, under your dress and directly into your panties. He gasps at the wetness he finds there and starts stroking you softly, maddeningly, but not in any way that could actually do something for you except tease you further. “Does it turn you on that much, baby girl? Hearing me sing a naughty song, knowing I wrote it thinking about your body? Do you like the idea of me recording your moans, putting them on the track, having the fans wonder who got so horny just listening to the demo version? You’re such a little slut, baby.”

At the word slut, he pushes a finger into your pussy, and this time, your moan is anything but quiet as you throw your head back. The song comes to a close, ending, just as it started, with the organ melody, and the only thing you can hear is Chan’s finger sliding into you and the two of you breathing heavily.

“So,” he drawls, almost sounding bored but of course he’s anything but as his thumb comes to circle your clit. “What do you say?” You meet his eyes as he glances down on your face, still hypnotized by your lipstick. “You know,” you rasp. “Your song is so hot I wish I could fuck it, but I can’t. So I will fuck you instead.” You watch as Chan’s pupils dilate, and the growl that escapes his throat as he claims your lips is almost feral. Well, you know what you do to him, and you have him exactly where you want him.

“Turn on the mic,” you breathe as you pull his hands off you. In a quick gesture, you grab the hem of your dress and discard it onto the floor, standing in front of him in just your stockings and black underwear, lasciviously leaning against the desk. “Let’s see how good these moans sound.”

He seems to contemplate your words for a few seconds before he takes a step closer and, his eyes never leaving yours, leans forward to push a few keys on his keyboard. This right there, this silence before the storm, this uninterrupted eye contact, might be one of the hottest moments you’ve experienced in a long time.

Chan is on you in a second, hoisting you up onto the desk as he kisses you deeply. Your hands grab for the hem of his t-shirt, greedily pulling it off to feel more of his skin. Chan’s meanwhile busy opening your bra, and in his impatience, he has to fumble for a bit to get it off you.

“Eager?” you tease against his lips before biting down, eliciting a groan from him. “You have no idea, baby girl,” he admits as he finally gets the offending garment off. He lets it carelessly fall to the floor, already focused on nothing else but your naked breasts resting against the palms of his hands. He kisses you deeply as he strokes your stiff nipples, his erection pushing against your scantily clothed pussy as he stands between your spread legs, trying to still be closer to you than he already is.

You cross your ankles behind him, helping him in his endeavour, and you both gasp as he grinds against you. “Off, off, off,” you breathe, gesturing to both his sweatpants and your underwear. Chan smirks. “Who’s eager now?” he asks, nipping at your collarbone. You roll your eyes playfully. “Who has written a song about fucking me?” He seems to consider that for a second. “Fair point. Move your hips for me, will you, baby girl?”

You help him pull your panties off and take the liberty of pulling down his sweatpants and underwear in one go, letting his girthy cock spring free. Chan appreciates the view for a second, seeing as you’re only wearing stockings now. “You’re the most attractive woman I’ve ever seen,” he declares in a raspy voice, and it only adds to your need. You make to touch him, but Chan easily catches your wrist and pins it to the desk with his hand. You actually whine at that. “Please, don’t tease me,” you beg, wanting nothing more than to feel his length stretching you out deliciously.

Chan’s smile is wolfish. “Don’t worry, baby, you’ll get what you want.” And before you can protest any more, he lets go of your hand, pulls you to the edge of the desk and guides his cock into your pussy. Your gasps mix with his broken moans as he slowly pushes in. Chan pauses, but only for a moment – both of you are far too turned on to take this slow, and even though the height of the desk isn’t perfect, the newness of the location adds a level of spice to the encounter.

He starts thrusting into you, fast, hard, causing the desk to shake beneath you. You scramble to push the keyboard to the side, falling back onto your elbows as Chan’s punishing pace throws you off balance. You stare up at him: his hair sticking to his forehead, a slight sheen of sweat glistening on his neck, the muscles in his arms playing as he holds onto your hips with a ferocity that might result in bruises. You give yourself over to your sensations: the cold desk below you, the sound of skin slapping against skin, Chan’s steady groans at the pleasure you give him, his big cock positively railing your wet cunt.

You grab onto him, pulling yourself back up and clinging to his broad shoulders, wanting to be even closer to him, feel his breath on your skin. “You feel so good,” you moan into his neck, biting his shoulder lightly. His retaliation comes in form of a thrust so powerful that it punches a loud groan out of you.

“Fuck, baby girl, you’re so hot, making me take you in my studio,” he gasps as he pushes into you again and again, relentlessly. “You’ll sound so good on this song, and it’ll be our little secret, but at the same time everyone will know. Everyone will know that only I can fuck you so well, make you make the hottest little noises, make you fall apart on my cock.” He slips a hand between you and starts stroking you to make sure the falling apart can actually happen, but he knows your body well enough to have you panting and at the edge of your orgasm within minutes.

“You’re such a good girl, making the most beautiful noises. Tell me, baby, who’s making you feel good? Say it. I want to hear it.” Pushing against him, trying to get closer to the delicious friction, you gasp, “You, Chan, only you can make me feel like this!”

You can feel Chan’s concentration slipping, his thrusts becoming sloppier, but he seems determined to make you come first, so he redoubles his efforts stroking you, whispering dirty nothings into your ear, how you’re a good little slut for him, taking him so well, how you’re made for this, made for him, how no other pussy could ever feel this good.

“Come on, baby girl, be good and moan for me and Hyunjin.” For some reason, that and a well-timed thrust does it, and you come on Chan’s cock with a loud, drawn-out groan, your pussy spasming wildly around him so he follows you over the edge mere seconds later. He crushes his lips to yours once more, and you make out as he spills into you, and continue to do so as you both slowly come off your highs.

A few moments later, you break the kiss to lean against his shoulder, still enclosed in his embrace. “That was a really nice entrée,” you declare, and Chan chuckles. He is quiet for a few seconds. “Are we gonna pretend you didn’t come the second I mentioned Hyunjin’s name?” You know he is teasing you, so you decide to go along. “Well, maybe you should invite him over some time?” Slowly, gently, you push against him so can slide out of you. You can feel a dribble of come making its way out of you and onto Chan’s desk, but that looks like a him-problem.

Chan clutches his chest in mock-terror. “Am I not enough for you?” You shake your head. “Oh baby, you’re sometimes more than I can cope with,” you say, pressing a kiss to his shoulder as you grab your underwear. “But in a good way. The best, really.” Chan slides an arm around you, stabilising you as you slip on your panties. “I’ll take it as a compliment, then.” He glances at the takeout bags. “Dinner?”

You nod. “Have you turned off the mic?” Your boyfriend turns around to check the equipment. He curses. “Oh naur, it seems like it was off the whole time!” He catches your eye as you slip on his t-shirt, and there is a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Guess we’ll have to do this again soon…”

#author hare #500 follower extravaganza #bang chan #bang chan smut #chanshoesunite #bang chan imagine #skz smut #bangchan x reader #skz imagine #bangchan smut #author hare effectively writing herself into the story like the lil witch that she is #to tortoise with love

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ma1dita · 2 months

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I need a pt 2 to the Luke and long distance!gf PLEASEEEEE

mdni

🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥

pt 1 here

a/n: man... getting out of my writing rut so here's this filth. sexting. kinda public. luke cums in his pants. what a loser

wc: 780

*bzzz*

Luke’s phone buzzes for the third time in a row in his Financial Marketing lecture today. The notification shakes his phone against the wood of the table to the point that it’s bugging the hell out of Chris who’s locked into whatever the professor’s saying—but as soon as Luke sees your name flash across the slightly cracked screen of his iPhone, he drops his pen in favor of you. His brother rolls his eyes, slumping further into his seat head lolling against his arm. There’s a smile that immediately settles upon Luke’s cheeks at the thought of you.

“baby 🤭 you busy?”

“why are you not answering you don’t even like this class anyway”

“fine ig i’ll ask someone else for their opinion 🤷🏻‍♀️”

He chuckles lowly as he types out a reply, “opinion on what babe 👀” and Chris nudges his arm with a nod to ask if everything’s good. The professor drones on in the background about the stock market and for once, Luke is glad that Hermes gave him the ability to skate through his Econ degree (the only think he’ll be grateful to his absent father for), because it gives him more time to focus on more important things, like the slew of images of you trying on bikinis that infiltrate his phone.

[5 Image attachments]

“oops sorry! guess i sent them to the wrong person”

He gulps almost comically, shifting in his seat as he saves them for later. Shifty eyes and quick fingers can only do so much in a crowded lecture hall. But you see that his read receipts are on, and frankly the lack of a response is irritating when you’re pulling your best poses in the comfort of your living room. Boys never get how much effort it takes to be sexy.

“damn. guess i’ll go find a new boyfriend who can appreciate all of this”

Luke sighs, half stifled by is need to see you bare and his spit going down the wrong pipe that he clears his throat loudly, trying to ignore his jeans tightening by the second. Licking his lips, he clicks on the presentation slides, trying to catch up to where the professor is after your very welcome distractions.

[Image attachment]

He presses the ‘next’ button just as another iMessage notification pops up on his screen, trigger finger clicking open an image of your tits pressed between your fingers, nipples taut against the fabric and lips between your teeth—all shiny soft skin almost bursting through the flimsy top that’s loosening and almost vivid through the still image. If there’s more, he thinks he’s seeing stars.

Luke slams his laptop shut and it echoes.

He takes a deep breath trying to remember what year it is.

“You good bro?”

Chris mumbles with a furrowed brow, watching sweat glisten against Luke’s flushed cheeks.

“Not feeling well. Think I’m gonna head out. Send me notes later?”

It’s almost an inside joke between the two of them, but Luke laughs a little too hard trying to play it off. He shoves his laptop into his backpack, before slowly weaving through the row and hoping no one noticed his girlfriend’s tits on the blown up screen of his Macbook. But then again, something’s obviously off as he walks stiffly towards the exit, feet swift with no predetermined destination. Luke contemplates the probability of someone interrupting him in the hall bathroom if he goes there to rub one out. His dick is hard and weepy, frustration brimming at the seams of his resolve when he walks out of the lecture hall. Readjusting himself into his waistband and groaning at the pressure, Luke wonders if he can walk home fast enough.

[Video attachment]

He stops in his tracks as he opens your message, the sound of your moans and slick movements of your fingers buried under the damp bottoms of your bikini almost too loud in his Airpods. His dark brown eyes trace the movements of your swiveling hips on his screen and he leans against the wall to groan lowly, a pathetic noise clawing up his throat, until his mouth dries at the sight of you parting the fabric aside just in time for him to watch you cum hard, soaking the rest of your hand and the leather of the couch beneath your ass. Luke doesn’t realize his body’s unprompted decision to join your release until he feels a sticky, uncomfortable warmth pool against the bottom of his shirt, soiled beyond belief.

His head of curls bangs against the wall behind him as he moans.

*bzzz*

A lopsided grin forms on his face when his phone buzzes again in his hand.

#jo's 23rd birthday bash ⋆｡°✩#luke castellan smut #luke castellan x reader #pjo x reader #percy jackon and the olympians #made by ma1dita ♥︎

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heartsforseo · 2 months

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Strawhats with a Lolita member

Summary: The straw hats just boarded into a new island. But, not like any others. This island was all white and black. Until they met you. The reader also has Daki's demon art technique. This was the request REQUEST are open (IM BEGGING) word count: 1.6k

The straw hats first met you on a gloomy island. Due to the lack of vibrant colors, everyone's in formal and dark clothing. Everyone except you. Your background was a blur. You grew up on the other side of the island and only come to the town when you need something.

Today was always the same. You wore your tall heels and grabbed your ribbon bag. You looked at your mirror one last time to check your makeup and fix your black and pink hair.

You leave your pastel house and start walking to the town. Your frilly dress bounces on every step you make, along with all the little decorations and the big ribbon on your back. Your creamy stockings hug your smooth and perfect thighs. Your parasol, walking beside you, waiting to be opened and used.

The walk to the town was short. All kinds of animals surrounded you. Hostile or not. You were an eye candy on the gloomy island, the only one with colors and a devil fruit.

You looked at the harbor. A ship has arrived. The Jolly Roger is a skull with two crossed bones underneath and a straw hat on top. You looked back at the market, trying to find people standing out.

You opened your parasol and took out your creamy fan, holding it below your eyes. There, you saw a young man with a straw hat, the captain, you presume. Next to him was a girl with tangerine hair and a man with curly eyebrows. Your island doesn't often get visitors. The last time someone came, they never went back to the sea.

There is a saying if you offend the island and do something wrong. At night, sashes will wrap around your body and slowly absorb you.

"Hey! I've been trying to call you for the last 5 minutes." The voice whined. You snapped out of your thoughts--making a little sound, and you looked at the man. He looks like a plank separated by its group.

"What's your name, and why are you the only one glowing?" the tall, lanky man asked.

"Y/n…" you quietly muttered. The fan was a great asset today. Covering your pink blush and trembling mouth.

"Hm…do you know anything about t-" "Luffy! Stop running a- A LADY~"

"Oh, uhm…" You were starting to get uncomfortable. Today was just supposed to be like yesterday and the day before. While the two were busy fighting among themselves, you had run off and went to one of the instrument stores.

There, you saw a tall man's back. He had an afro and, by the neck--an orange scarf. He also had a gold top hat and a cane on his side. The tall man turned around and, to your horror, a skeleton. Before it could open its mouth, your devil fruit accidentally activated, and your sashes were wrapped around the skeleton, ending it with a ribbon.

You gasped and mumbled a quick sorry, then left the store. Today has been unpleasant. You left the town while holding your mirror, making your hair and makeup look good. When you were away from the townsfolk, you used your fruit and made your ribbons carry you.

Various thoughts entered your mind. But the forest was calming you down. You looked around you-- and a woman with sunglasses and a bag stepped out of the shadow.

"That was an interesting ability, miss." The lady said.

You looked at the mysterious woman. Her clothes and accessories fit her. "Oh, uh, thank you!" You answered cheerfully.

"I saw a house on the other side of the island. It was hard to ignore it, especially the color the owner chose. With all the evidence I gathered, you were the legend the people were discussing. Ribbons and sash?"

You tilted your head to the side and asked, "How do you know?"

The woman chuckled and answered, "I saw what you did to my friend Brook. I asked the locals about the ribbons. They said that pirates only left their clothing behind, no bones or skin," she continued, "I must say what you're doing here is heroic. But don't you get ever tired from the lack of color?"

I left my ribbon vehicle and finally spoke, "This place wasn't white and black. It used to be full of color and life. One day, I was exploring the forest all by myself. I never made any friends. They said my style was too childish. My friends were animals, and I was hanging out with them. One of the red pandas gave me a strawberry. Instead of its usual dots, it got replaced with tiny carved ribbons. I ate it since my friend gave it to me. It tasted weird, and I passed out. When I woke up, the island had no color except for me. I want to help my people first."

The woman said, "Have you never thought you were the problem?"

I gasped. Me? What did I ever do?

"I'm not saying that you are. But what if? Me and my crew are going to depart tomorrow. I could show you around the ship. All your belongings are in the Thousand Sunny."

"I- can I at least check the ship first?"

Now, here you are in front of the Thousands Sunny. You entered the big ship, holding your fan just below your eyes. There was no one, and the only light source was on the second floor towards the back of the ship.

"Oh, by the way, my name is Nico Robin. You can call me Robin."

After the tour, you find out the men sleep on the first floor while the girls sleep on the second floor. Speaking of sleep, the crew arranged your corner neatly. You had your vanity and a lot of picture frames. Your bed also had a lot of frilly and curtains, and the wardrobe filled with Lolita and Victorian dresses.

"Let's go to the last room. The dining room." Robin said.

There, you two entered the room. All of the straw hat members except Robin were eating happily.

"I'll introduce you to all of them. The man with the straw hat is our captain, Luffy. The girl with the orange hair is our navigator, Nami. The guy with the long nose is our sniper, Ussop. The guy wearing a suit is the ship's cook, Sanji. The reindeer is the ship's doctor, Chopper. The tall man is a cyborg and is the crew's shipwright, Franky. The skeleton, the guy you packaged neatly, is the musician, and his name is Brook. Lastly, the Fishman is the helmsman, and his name is Jinbei. Let's eat with them."

You walked behind Robin, your fan still in front of your face.

"Oh, it's you!" Nami yelled. "LADY~" Sanji shouted.

You winced from the roaring noise and instinctively opened your umbrella to avoid them. Robin noticed you shifting and held your hand, then closed your umbrella. Sanji served you food, and you sat on the counter.

That night was lovely and fun. The crew, even though it looked chaotic at first, was pleasant. Everybody's different personalities make you fit in like the last puzzle piece. The ship made you feel needed. It made you feel wanted.

You left the dining area and stared outside. In front, you could see the vast ocean. But if you look back, you can see your colorful island. Colorful island?

Was I the problem all along?

"So, do you accept my offer now?" You look beside you to see Robin also staring at the island. You closed your umbrella and shifted your body, staring at her.

"I do."

The next day, you woke up in your bed. Last night was a bit of a blur. Luffy was cheering that someone new joined, and all the crew were doing whatever. You went to the girl's room and immediately passed out.

You stood up and looked at the mirror, observing the heart-shaped beauty mark below your right eye. You took out some new clothes, a white dress stopping at your thighs. You also took a pair of socks that reached your knees and arm warmers, stopping at your shoulders.

You look at the room Nami and Robin, sleeping peacefully.

After showering, you went to the girl's room and put your hair into pigtails, using two large ribbons as hair ties.

You finally left the room and went down to the first floor. There, mostly all of the straw hats were chilling.

"Are we leaving now?" You asked

"Yeah, the log post finally worked, and we're now going to the next island," Franky replied

You stared back at your island, slowly drifting away.

"I hope the animals will be--"

"I saw some marines just east from here," Zoro yelled from the top nest.

The next thing you knew, cannonballs were being launched at you.

Half of the crewmembers were still asleep. The only ones awake were Sanji, Zoro, and Jinbei.

"Don't worry. There are only two ships. I can handle it." You said.

The three looked at each other and nodded. Then, all went back to work.

You used your ribbons and stretched them to make them larger and larger. You wrapped the two ships like a present and ended it with a large bow.

You turn your gaze toward the direction of your island, feeling a sense of loss as it disappears from your view. However, the presence of your friends by your side gives you a glimmer of hope and comfort. It's hard to adjust, but having friends nearby makes it peaceful.

A/n: OMGG I FINISHED IT IN A DAY!! I STARTED ON 11 AM AND FINISHED AT 3 PM I AM SO SO HAPPY!! I LOVE THIS REQUEST SO MUCH SINCE I WANTED TO DRESS LIKE LOLITA BUT NEVER GOT THE CONFIDENCE. ANYWAYS TY ANON!! I LIKE BEING A WORKAHOLIC

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babygirl-diaz · 2 months

Text

Buck is bad about stocking up his own kitchen so Eddie took it upon himself to do it and he usually just lets himself into the apartment whether Buck is home or not and does it for him.

That is until one day, Tommy hears noises downstairs while he’s at the loft and Buck is fast asleep, snoring. He goes downstairs with the only thing he could find for a weapon… an empty fishbowl which was sitting on Buck’s bedside for some reason. He finds Eddie casually whistling while taking bites of what looks like a Pop Tart in between while stocking up Buck’s pantry.

“Uh Eddie?” He calls out and puts the fish bowl down.

“TOMMY! Hey!” Eddie says cheerily like Tommy just didn’t find him breaking into Buck’s apartment

“What are you doing?” Tommy asks confused

“Oh! Stocking up Buck’s shelves!” Eddie replies with the excitement of a 10-year-old.

“Why?” Tommy asks again.

“Because he’s bad at doing it himself!” Eddie’s enthusiasm just doesn’t seem to falter.

“Did you go to the farmers market today?”

Tommy turns to see Buck descending the stairs.

“You know I did! And I got you your favorite Asian pears,” Eddie tells him. “Oh and I got you some honey, Tommy. Heard you had a sore throat.”

“Uh thanks?” Tommy says unsurely. He was still so confused.

“Aw you’re the best, Eddie!” Buck goes downstairs and steals a pear from the bowl.

“Wait… is this a normal thing for you two?” Tommy asks

“What is?” Buck asks, confusion obvious on his face.

“Eddie breaking into your apartment to stock up your kitchen?”

“Yeah!” They both reply with a shrug of their shoulder.

Tommy shrugs as well and joins them. He’s come to realize that he’ll just never understand their weird friendship.

#eddie diaz #tommy kinard #evan buckley #buck x tommy #tommy x buck #911 abc #headcanon #drabble

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lowkeycasanova · 7 months

Text

private lesson

Plot: Sanji is a huge flirt, talking about doing private cooking lessons with him. And to his surprise, you actually agree.

pairing: opla!sanji x fem reader

word count: 1.8k

------------------------------------------------------------

Early one morning, the Straw Hat Pirates anchored their ship on a new island. And as usual, they were eager to explore new uncharted territory. Sanji was left with finding groceries to stock up on.

He wandered through the bustling market. A hand in his pocket and a freshly lit cigarette in the other as he took in the vibrant colors and sounds. The exotic spices, fresh fruit, strange seafood, and beautiful women all piqued his interest.

Heavy on the beautiful women.

Sometimes he had to stop and remind himself why he was there in the first place: finding ingredients for the crew's meals and any other culinary inspiration.

He bought his usual main meats and vegatables and a few things to experiment with later, but what really grabbed his attention was the aroma wafting from a nearby restaurant.

You were the sous chef for the restaurant you worked at. But make no mistake, you worked your way up to that position. Starting on dishes, then the plate line, and finally, you got to cook in the kitchen and craft dishes yourself. You also went to culinary school for a bit, so you did have some formal training under your belt.

The head chef was getting older and had a few health problems, so you'd pretty much take over. It was impressive at your young age. Although it could be stressful at times, you were nice to everyone. Everyone had a lot of respect for you.

It was going on brunch time and surprisingly, it wasn't all too busy. So you spent your time behind the counter at the bar, wiping down the area and trying to perfect a new dish.

The bells above the door jingled. You looked up from what you were doing and made eye contact with a young blonde guy, about your age. He smiles at you. You give him a small smile back, but not sure if it was directed at you in the first pace.

He exchanges a few words with the host and makes his way to the empty seat at the bar across from where you stood, setting his bags down next to it and getting comfortable.

"Hi, welcome in." you greeted him. "What drink can I get you started with today?"

"Just a glass of water, love"

You'd never been called that before. He definitely wasn't a local.

"Here you go." You poured him the water with a friendly smile and slid him the menu. "Let me know when you're ready to order, or if you have any questions."

Sanji looked at you with geniune interest, taking in your professionalism and the surroundings. He couldn't help but be captivated.

As his eyes pursed the menu, his eyes occasionally drifted back to you, the beautiful woman behind the counter who caught his attention. The menu was filled with great dishes, each sounding more enticing than the last.

After a few minutes, he looked up and caught your gaze again. "I'll try the sobrasada brioche."

"Excellent choice." You write his order on your little notepad that you pulled from your back pocket and relay it to the kitchen.

"This is amazing." he beamed. "The texture adds a nice touch."

"I'm glad you like it." you chuckled as you handed a drink to another man who came and sat at the bar a few seats away.

"You know, I didn't catch your name, love. I'm Sanji." his eyes twinkled and he flashed you yet another radiant smile.

"I'm Y/N. Nice to meet you."

"And you as well, madam."

A blush creeped up on your cheeks. It was somewhat unusual to be called "love" and "madam". There was a certain charm to it that you couldn't deny.

"So Sanji, you're not from around here, are you?"

He leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms, taking a second to answer. "My crew and I anchored here. I was looking around, trying to find ingredients for our meals, as I am the cook. But I couldn't resist the alluring aroma that was coming from this place. And I'm glad I didn't."

You opened your mouth to respond when a youngster from the kitchen came out looking for you. Excusing yourself from Sanji, you turned to the boy and allowed him to go on and talk.

He just wanted to get in extra hours and wondered where you could place him.

"Cool, thanks chef." he said after you two came to an agreement and went back between the double doors.

Sanji wasn't the one to eavesdrop but he couldn't help but hear that last part.

"Chef?" his eyes lit up when you turned in his direction again, referring to the title the boy gave you.

"That's me." you smiled proudly. "Well...sous chef."

"It's a pleasure to meet someone so beautiful and talented.

You nervously looked down at your hands. He was direct.

“Have any signature dishes?”

“Well,” you started. “I’m working on this dish.” You grabbed the plate off to the side that held the small entree to show him. “It’s a lobster roll that I want to add for the seasonal brunch menu. It’s…not quite right yet.” you admitted with a bit of self-critique in your voice.

His eyes locked on the dish and he studied it intently and then brought his gaze back to you. "Mind if I try it?"

"Sure, go ahead."

He took a bite, his expression thoughtful as he savored the flavors. "It's exquisite. However, it is missing a certain...kick. And I'd be happy to help you, if you like."

You tossed the dish rag over your shoulder and put your weight on your forearms, leaning closer. "You? In my kitchen?"

Sanji smirked. "If you'll have me."

It was intriguing. He seemed genuine and he definitely had knowledge based on how he spoke and his reaction. You contemplated for a moment, weighing the potential benefits of having him help.

"Alright," you finally replied, with a playful glint in your eye. "But you're not getting paid."

After you instructed another member of the kitchen to watch the bar in your place and getting confused looks as Sanji followed your lead through the area, you both spent the next two hours working, experimenting with ingredients and techniques. He took control, and you let him. The prep area was a mix of different fixings. You worked diligently beside him, chopping the garlic like he asked, your hands moving in unison.

The garlic, along with some white wine vinegar, egg yolks, hot water, salt, olive oil, and spice, he drizzed the sauce (which had a mayo like consistency) onto the dish.

"It's a saffron aioli." Sanji described.

You took a bite. It definitly added flavor as well as color. With a touch of elegance.

"You're incredible!" you told him. "You should write a cookbook."

"Well, you know, a true artist never reveals his secrets. But, I could be talked into offering some private lessons." he replied, leaning against the counter with a mischievous look in his eye.

"Oh gosh." you groaned. "That was so cheesy."

He chuckled. He couldn't help but flirt. Of course, he thought you were gorgeous, but he also saw a lot of himself in you. Someone who seems to love food the way he does and the appreciation for little details.

"Sure."

Sanji blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Yes, I'll take you up on your offer."

He was a bit caught off guard. A woman has never given into his advances. He was always met with soft or harsh rejection everytime.

You knew he was being coy, but if he was actually serious, you could learn from him.

More like, you could learn from each other. What's the harm in that?

He smiled. "You won't regret it. Cooking is a pleasure that's meant to be shared."

The restaurant started to get busier, so you and Sanji had to wrap up the impromptu cooking session. It was time for him to go as well as the crew was probably wondering where he was at this point. On a napkin, you gave him a description of your house and how to find it with the plan to see each other again the following night. He put is safe in his pocket.

You said your goodbyes and Sanji went back met up with the crew again. He couldn't help but gush about the encounter he had at the restuarant. Luffy listened with interest, Zoro couldn't care less, and Usopp and Nami teased him.

The next morning, he found himself eagerly anticipating what was to come. Although Nami was the skilled navigator, she was also the avid shopping connoiseur and offered to helo Sanji find something suitable to wear.

She had an eye for fashion and wanted to make sure Sanji made the best impression possible. Together, they scoured the markets, looking for the perfect attire.

Sanji made his way to your house, per the instructions you provided. After hearing a soft knock on the door, you opened it swiftly. And there he stood.

Clad in a blue sweater and black pants, holding a bouquet of blue flowers to match, two loaves of french bread, with his blonde hair neatly covering his eye and signature cigarette in his mouth. He looked so adorable, you had to admit.

His eyes sparked in enthusiam, mixed with anticipation and hope that you would appreciate his effort.

"You clean up nicely." you complimented, inviting him in and taking the flowers and bread from him. "These are beautiful, thank you."

"My pleasure. Your outfit is nice too."

You look down at your regular ole tshirt and shorts then back at him. "Oh, it's just my usual." You weren't expecting anything fancy. But maybe that was just his style. "So, what do you have in mind?"

"Anything. Just tell me what you want."

At first, you didn't know what to expect from this "private lesson". You were a little nervous and were expecting to say no to anything you weren't comfortable with, if it came to that.

But the night seemed to fly by. The kitchen was productive and filled with laughter. You knew that in due time, Sanji would eventually leave with his crew, but it was nice to have an experience like this.

With the ingredients you had, Sanji managed to make a cigala fideua. A dish that consisted of prawn, baby squid, and garlic aoili served on top angelhair pasta. He was going to serve it with rice but the pasta was your idea. You also sauteed shishito peppers tossed with sea salt as a side dish.

"Mhmm, this is my new favorite thing in the world." you say, mouth full of deliciousness.

Sanji sits across from you at the table, a glass of wine in his hand, smiling at you.

"What?" you raise an eyebrow after you swallow.

He shrugged. "There's nothing better than watching someone enjoy food."

----------------------------------------------------

a/n: someone on tik tok said they had the sanji cookbook and posted pictures of it. it was there where i got the idea for his outfit.

from @/surogori8 on tik tok

#sanji x reader #sanji fanfic #sanji fanfiction #opla sanji #opla!sanji x reader #sanji x y/n #sanji x you #LOOK AT HIM #HE LOOKS SO BOYFRIEND

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robertreich · 2 years

Video

youtube

Is Crypto Really Going To Crash? (Yes)

Crypto is going to crash and could take your savings with it.

In June 2022, Bitcoin dropped over 30 percent to its lowest values since December 2020, and Ethereum, the second-most valuable cryptocurrency, fell about 35 percent. TerraUSD, a so-called “stablecoin,” also collapsed when its underlying cryptocurrency LUNA lost 97 percent of its value in just 24 hours, apparently destroying some investors’ life savings. The implosion helped trigger a crypto meltdown that erased $300 billion in value across the market.

As cryptocurrency prices plummeted, Celsius Network — an experimental cryptocurrency lender — announced it was freezing withdrawals “due to extreme market conditions.”

These crypto crashes and freezes have fueled worries that the complex crypto banking and lending system is on the brink of ruin.

But this crash shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with the industry – or anyone who remembers the financial crashes of 1929 and 2008.

Let me explain.

In the murky world of crypto decentralized finance, known as DeFi, it’s hard to understand who provides money for loans, where the money flows, or how easy it is to trigger currency meltdowns.

There are no standards for issues of custody, risk management, or capital reserves. There are no transparency requirements. Investors often don’t know how their money is being handled. Deposits are not insured.

It’s a Ponzi scheme. Like all Ponzi schemes, getting rich depends on how many other investors follow you into it – until somebody’s left holding the worthless crypto coin.

Why isn’t this market regulated? Follow the money.

The crypto industry is pouring huge amounts into political campaigns. It has hired scores of former government officials and regulators to lobby on its behalf — including three former chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission, three former chairs of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, three former U.S. senators, and even former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

In the past, cryptocurrencies kept rising by attracting new investors and big Wall Street money, along with celebrity endorsements. But all Ponzi schemes topple eventually – just like the Wild West finances of the 1920s did.

Back then, Americans had been getting rich by speculating on shares of stock, as other investors followed them into these risky assets — pushing their values ever upwards. When the toppling occurred in 1929, it plunged the nation and the world into the Great Depression.

That crash resulted in the Glass-Steagall Act, signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Glass-Steagall separated commercial banking from investment banking, putting an end to the giant Ponzi scheme that had overtaken the American economy and led to the Great Crash of 1929.

It took a full generation to forget that crash and allow the forces that caused it to repeat their havoc.

By the mid-1980s, as the stock market soared, speculators noticed they could make even more money if they gambled with other people’s money, as speculators did in the 1920s. They pushed Congress to deregulate Wall Street, arguing that the United States financial sector would otherwise lose its competitive standing internationally.

The final blow was in 1999, when the Clinton administration succumbed to intensive lobbying and ditched what remained of Glass-Steagall. With its repeal, American finance once again became a betting parlor.

Inevitably, Wall Street suffered another near-death experience when its Ponzi schemes began toppling in 2008, just as they had in 1929. While the U.S. government bailed out the biggest banks and financial institutions, millions of Americans lost their jobs, their savings, and their homes – but only a single banking executive went to jail. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, a new but watered-down version of Glass-Steagall was enacted — the Dodd-Frank Act.

Which brings us — nearly a century after Glass-Steagall — to today’s crypto crash.

If we should have learned anything from the crashes of 1929 and 2008, it’s that regulation of financial markets is essential. Otherwise they turn into Ponzi schemes — leaving small investors with nothing and endangering the entire economy.

It’s time for the Biden administration and Congress to end the crypto Ponzi scheme. In the meantime, share this video so your friends and family don’t fall for it.

#crypto #fraud #Ponzi #Glass-Steagall #finance #regulation #video #videos

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th3casscad3 · 3 months

Text

Time Gone Wrong??

After Rummaging Through Your Dusty Old Attic, You Found A Box Full Of Your Grandparents Things From The 1930's. Curious, You Touch A Watch That Leads You Back To Its Time. Suddenly, You Find Yourself Standing On The Sidewalk Dressed In 1930's Fashion.. Warnings/Triggers: Dark Humor, Time Error, Going Back In Time, Time Traveling, Serial Killer Radio Host, G!N Reader. Characters: 3, 568 ************************************************************************ It Was A Boring Weekend, Around The Time Of Spring Cleaning. So Today, You Decided To Tackle Through Your Attic, You Figured You Could Turn It Into Something New. So, As You Were Going Through And Cleaning Out Old Boxes You Found A Box With Your Grandparents Name On It. Curious, You Decide To Pause Your Cleaning And Take The Box Downstairs To Your Living Room. You Find Picture Albums, Jewelry, Letters, And What Seemed To Be An Old Pocket Watch. However, It Held A Name You Didn't Recognized. You Read The Name Aloud " Alastor, 1930's. " You Admired The Silver Watch. It Had A Beautiful Silver Chain Connected To It And It Seemed To Be In Delicate Shape. When You Opened The Watch Up You Were Suddenly Sleepy. You Closed Your Eyes For A Quick Second. When You Opened Your Eyes Again You Found Yourself Outside..? You Were On The Sidewalk Passing People Who Were Dressed In 1930's Attire. Strange, You Thought. You Looked Down At Your Hand To Find The Watch Still In. You Placed It Around Your Neck. Thats When You Caught A Full Glimpse Of Your Attire, You Were Dressed Head To Toe In 1930 Apparel. " What The Fu- " You Said But You Were Suddenly Cut Off With The Laughter Of A Man. You Looked Up To See A Tall Man Standing In Front Of You. He Wore A White Buttoned Shirt With A Brown Vest And Bow Tie. His Bottoms Were Black Slacks And Dress Down Shoes. You Noticed He Wore Black Gloves. He Had Honey Skin And Beautiful Chocolate Eyes. He Wore Round Glasses And His Hair Was A Dusty Brown Color. " Pardon Me, I Had To Interrupt Your Little Breakdown But I Believe You Are Wearing My Pocket Watch, Yes..? " He Wore A Wide Smile And Stuck Out His Hand. You Simply Blinked At Him With A Dumbfounded Expression. " Are You Alastor 1930's? " You Blurted Out, A Bit Louder Than You Had Hoped. " Why, The One And Only! You Might Have Heard Of Me From My Radio Show! " His Smile Grew As So Did His Hand. " Now, Be A Dear And Hand Me Back What's Mine. " You Nodded And Gave Him Back His Watch. Something About This Man Put A Weird Smile On Your Face. You Noticed Him About To Leave When Suddenly You Asked " Wait, Alastor! Do You Mind Showing Me Around. I'm Quite New Here. " You Gave A Nervous Smile, Not Wanting To Be Alone In A Unfamiliar Place. Alastor Smiled And Wrapped Your Arm Around His, Guiding You Around The Town " Why You Must Have Came Here After The Stock Market Crash Of 1929! My It Was A Real Limb Pulling Experience, Ha Ha Ha! " You Gave Out A Laugh, Finding His Dark Sense Of Humor Funny. You Couldn't Help But Crack A Joke Of Your Own. " My, I Have Many Jokes About Unemployed People. Sadly, None Of Them Work! " Alastor Blurted Out With Laughter, He Then Spoke With A Wheeze " Wait Wait! How About This One, You're Not Completely Useless.. You Can Serve As A Bad Example!! " You And Alastor Both Found Yourself In A Fit Of Laughter. You Had Both Been Pulling So Many Joked You Didn't Even Realize You Had Finished The Tour. However, You Weren't Quite Ready For The Fun To End Yet. Just Then, A Question Popped Into Your Head. " Hey, You Wouldn't Happen To Know (Grandparents Name) Do You? " He Then Smiled Brightly And Nodded His Head Yes. " But Of Course! They Are Quite The Company, Such Good Fellows. Always Helping Me "Drop The Load" If You Know What I Mean! " " Quite, I'd Say They've Always Known How To "Kick The Bucket", Say You Wouldn't Mind If I "Crashed" At Your Place. " You Answered With A Sly Grin. " Why, Of Course Not. Say, Did You Hear About The Guy Who Got His Left Side Chopped Off..? He's All Right Now! "

#alastor #radio demon #alastor x reader #alastor x y/n #hazbin hotel fanfiction #dark humor #human alastor #time travel

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lumosandnoxwriting · 3 months

Text

say my name and everything just stops || George Weasley

Title: say my name and everything just stops Pairing: George x Reader Summary: George didn’t expect being fake engaged to the love of his life whose heart he broke would be this easy. But as they put their plan into action, he’s surprised at how seamlessly she fits into his life. It feels as if no time has passed as they settle into a routine, and it feels like she was always meant to be there by his side. It’s hard to keep a grasp on the original goal, when all he can think about is how much he’s already dreading having to say goodbye. But as a new scheme starts to come together in his head, there may be a way for George to get everything that he wants. Warnings: mentions of alcohol consumption, a scene takes place at a bar and one mention of a hangover! A/N: part 2 of hockey!george is here! I did a bit of restructuring to this part and the next, but I’m very happy with the way the story is coming together! As always feedback is welcome! <3

“Thank you again for doing this,” George says for what feels like the millionth time today. But it still doesn’t feel like enough. Y/N has upended her entire life for him, and he still has no idea why she agreed to this whole charade.

After spending a few days in Washington to figure out some of the logistics of Y/N moving, which included George getting on his knees to beg Fred to take over her lessons at the rink, they’re finally back in Chicago. Thankfully Y/N’s actual job in marketing is remote, and George already arranged to have a desk and whatever else she may need delivered sometime this week.

He had his assistant stock the apartment with all of the things Y/N used to love, including her favorite snacks and several fuzzy blankets, and he signed the contract for Y/N’s car service this morning before they got on the plane. George has even already added her to his Amex account, and the black card with her name on it should be here any day now.

George has money to spend, and there’s no one else he’d rather spoil than Y/N.

”You really can stop saying that,” Y/N reminds him as she follows him through the front door. “It was cute at first, but now it’s just kind of annoying.”

”Sorry, I know. You’ve had to sacrifice way more than me for this stupid arrangement and I feel bad that I’ve basically uprooted your life. I don’t deserve any of the shit you’re doing for me and I just wanna make sure you know how much I appreciate it.”

”George, it’s really okay. I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t want to be here.”

In all honesty, Y/N feels a little guilty over how accommodating George has been. She’s not really here to help him out, but to figure out whether her life has become the plot of a book and she’s about to get her second chance at love or if she’s about to break her own heart. Either way, she’s not here out of the goodness of her heart, and George’s kindness is undeserved.

“Right, okay,” George gives Y/N a grin, before motioning for her to follow him. “I had my assistant clear some of my stuff out of the dresser and closet so there should be plenty of room for your things,” he explains as he leads Y/N down the hall towards his bedroom. “This space is ours now, and I want you to feel like it is too.”

As soon as they step through the door Y/N is hit with the scent of him and it nearly knocks her on her ass. Because George still uses the same cologne he did in high school, and it reminds her of home. She used to steal the bottle when he went away for games, covering her bed in it so it would feel like he was there with her at night. Now she’ll be surrounded by that scent 24/7 and she’s not sure her heart is ready for that.

George drags the suitcase he’d been rolling into his closet disappearing for a second before he pops back out. “I only have a one bedroom, I uh, never really thought about having to share my space with someone,” he admits sheepishly. “But you can take the bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Y/N shakes her head. “No, George, I’m not taking your bed. The season’s about to start, you need to be well rested and there’s no way sleeping on a couch for weeks will be sufficient.” She gives him an appraising look, taking in his broad frame. George has always been big, but time has done him well and his build has really filled out.

“Besides, I don’t think there’s a couch in this world big enough to fit all of you,” she continues, and Y/N can feel the blush creeping up on her cheeks. “You stay in your bed, I can sleep on the couch.”

”Absolutely not,” George insists, taking a step closer to her. “You’re my guest, and I’m not going to have you sleeping on the couch.”

Y/N bites her lip, already regretting what she’s about to suggest. “Well then if you’re not going to let me sleep on the couch and I’m not going to let you sleep on the couch, we’ll just have to share the bed.”

Her suggestion takes George by surprise, and his jaw clenches to keep it from dropping. He was already questioning whether he’d be able to survive sharing space with Y/N, but sharing a bed? His cock is rock hard at just the thought of smelling her shampoo on his pillow.

“Are you sure?” He manages to stutter out, running a hand through his hair.

“I mean it’s big enough,” she responds, gesturing towards the bed. It’s got to be King sized, with a thick black comforter that’s sure to reek of George that Y/N wants to wrap herself up in. “We’ll probably barely even touch.”

“As long as you’re fine with it, I am too,” George agrees. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

”It’ll be fine George,” Y/N lies, giving him a grin that she hopes is genuine.

Fake engaged to and sharing a bed with the man she loves that broke her heart? Yeah everything is definitely not fine.

After a torturous first night together, Y/N thanks the heavens that George is up and out early for the first day of training camp the next morning. Because despite all of her reassurances yesterday, sharing a bed with George Weasley is the worst idea she ever had.

Despite the size of the bed, George is massive, and as soon as he laid down next to her she could feel the heat radiating off of his body. It doesn’t help that she was completely enveloped in his scent, and her pussy was throbbing with need from the moment she crawled under the blanket. It took her hours to fall asleep, her body rigid as George tossed and turned as well. It wasn’t until his breathing evened out that Y/N finally managed to close her eyes and relax.

Only for her to wake up a few hours later to George’s arm wrapping around her waist before he pulled her into his chest. Turns out all these years later he’s still a cuddler. Being back in his embrace was too intoxicating to deny, and Y/N laid awake for over an hour, just letting George hold her as his breath ghosted across her neck. It felt achingly familiar, and she didn’t want to give it up.

But she knew things would be awkward if George woke up to find her in his arms, so after getting her fill Y/N wiggled her way out of his hold. She stuffed a pillow into his chest for good measure, needing to keep his arms occupied so she didn’t find herself caught in his embrace again. Y/N doubts she would have had the willpower to pull away a second time.

Y/N is up and out of bed the second her alarm goes off, electing not to stay buried under the covers while she scrolls social media like she usually does. Just the smell of George has her wet and if she lays there for another moment Y/N knows she’ll have her hand down her pants, touching herself as she buries her nose in George’s pillow like a weirdo.

She wanders out to the kitchen, taking advantage of being alone so she can snoop around. Last night George had assured her that this is her space now too and she’s welcome to anything, but it felt weird going through his things with him around. Apart from finding where he keeps his dishes and a cursory look in the fridge for a drink Y/N didn’t do too much exploring.

So when she opens George’s pantry, she’s surprised to find it filled with all of the things she loves. A brand new box of her favorite cereal sits right next to the granola George puts in his yogurt in the morning, and her favorite chips and cookies are mixed in with the kinds that George prefers. It all feels so natural, and Y/N slams the door shut as she struggles to catch her breath.

Because fuck, this is the life she always imagined having with George, and none of it is real. This is the life Y/N has always wanted, and yet it’s still not really hers - something she has to remember. There’s a very real possibility that once George makes Captain they will go their separate ways for the last time, and she has to be prepared for that.

Deciding to avoid the pantry for now, Y/N wanders to the fridge and pulls out the things to make an omelet. She’s just starting to whisk the eggs and deciding whether she should work from the kitchen island or the couch when the doorbell rings. George hadn’t mentioned anyone stopping by, and Y/N remains cautious as she goes to open the door. Some part of her fears that some crazed fan or ex-lover of George’s will be waiting on the other side, but a sigh of relief leaves her body when she checks the peephole and it’s just a few delivery people.

No more Criminal Minds for her.

“Hi Mrs. Weasley,” one of the men greets when Y/N opens the door, and she’s too shocked to correct him. Her knees shake as she steps aside to let them in, her mind still focused on how good it felt to be called by George’s last name. “We’ve got the things your husband ordered, it shouldn’t take too long for us to set it all up.”

“Okay,” Y/N says hesitantly as the men start to bring a few boxes into the apartment. She’s a little unsure about letting these people in since George didn’t say anything about a delivery, but Y/N knows the security here is intense and they wouldn’t have been let into the building if there was something weird going on. “You know where everything is going?”

The first man nods, giving her a smile. “Yes, your husband was very clear when he placed the order a few days ago. We’ll be in and out so quickly you’ll barely even know we were here.”

Y/N nods, gesturing towards the kitchen as the men head towards the dining room. “Alright, well, if you need anything I’ll be in there.”

She shoots off a quick text to George as she walks, knowing she’s unlikely to get a response. But it makes her feel better that at least someone will know other people came into the apartment in the event that this really is an elaborate ruse to kidnap her.

Y/N: hey! Hope hockey stuff is good - just wanna let you know the delivery people are here setting up whatever you ordered

When a response doesn’t come through Y/N tucks her phone back into her pocket and refocuses her attention on breakfast. She’s just plating up her omelet and toast when the man from before appears in the kitchen.

“We’re all done here if you just want to take a look to make sure everything looks good before you confirm delivery.”

“Uh, sure,” Y/N agrees, following him into the other room.

When George gave her a tour last night the dining room had virtually nothing in it. There was some artwork on the walls, a small table with a few chairs with a fake plant tucked in the corner and a lamp in the other. Which made total sense to Y/N, since George lives alone and has an island with barstools for him to eat at, he hasn’t really needed a fully functioning dining space.

Which is why her jaw practically drops when the man leads her into the dining room. The small table is gone, and in its place is a gorgeous wooden desk with the softest looking chair Y/N has ever seen behind it. There’s two large bookcases against the back wall, and there’s a plush carpet covering the floor. Tears prick the corner of her eyes, and Y/N runs a hand along the glossy desk just to make sure it’s real.

“Does everything look okay?”

Y/N spins around to face the man who she forgot was even there. Swallowing the emotion crawling up her throat, she gives a curt nod. “Yeah, it’s perfect.”

The man gives her a smile and thrusts out a clipboard. “I just need a signature and then we’ll be out of your hair.”

She signs without even looking, her attention back on the office George created for her. After their breakup Y/N couldn’t fathom when her sweet, loving boyfriend turned into the heartless person that dumped her so carelessly. It’s just starting to hit her that maybe the George she knew wasn’t really gone after all, just hidden behind a facade.

Once the door shuts behind the delivery crew Y/N makes her way behind the desk, sinking back into the plush chair. Her apartment back home isn’t big enough for her to have a dedicated office space and she often works from her kitchen table or couch, and Y/N had been totally fine with doing the same at George’s. So the fact that he’s gone and made Y/N her own space in his apartment has her heart pounding in her chest.

She fires off another text to George.

Y/N: the delivery people just left and holy shit, George. You really didn’t need to do this for me. I love it, thank you.

They must be on a break, because a few minutes later as Y/N is opening her laptop to start working George responds.

George: ah shit, sorry, i totally forgot to mention the delivery last night.

George: we can go out and get different artwork or decorations or whatever. I meant what i said last night, this is our space now and i want you to feel at home

George: and i know i didnt need to, i wanted to :)

She’s already starting to fall back in love with George Weasley, and Y/N is not sure she’ll be able to stop.

Things get easier to navigate as the week goes on.

That first night when George got home from training camp it had been awkward, neither of them really sure how to navigate this interesting relationship. On one hand, they’re technically engaged and it should be expected for them to act somewhat like a couple while at home. But on the other hand, they haven’t been around each other in years and it kind of felt like two strangers living under the same roof.

But they slowly started to get into a routine. George is always up first, and before he leaves for camp he puts on a fresh pot of coffee so it’s still warm and fresh by the time Y/N gets up too. They usually text throughout the day whenever George has the chance, discussing what to do for dinner or to just share something about their day. George gets home at 4 everyday, and Y/N has a protein shake waiting for him on the counter while she finishes up with work. Then they cook dinner together, moving around the kitchen effortlessly while they talk about their days.

Dinner is always eaten in the living room while they watch something on TV. George cleans up the kitchen while Y/N empties his hockey bag, throwing his sweaty gear into the washing machine before repacking his bag with fresh athletic gear and a clean practice jersey. They get ready for bed together, standing at the his and hers sinks in the bathroom as they brush their teeth. George is usually the first to fall asleep, and Y/N will read or scroll on her phone until she too goes to bed, and then they wake up in the morning to do it all over again.

George didn’t think they’d fall into a routine so easily, but he’s been pleasantly surprised so far. He finds that every night after a long day of camp he’s looking forward to seeing Y/N at home, and the little texts they exchange during his breaks have become his favorite part of the day. Even falling asleep next to her has become second nature, and George will never get tired of the fact that his bed has started to smell like the both of them.

He figured it would be an adjustment, having someone else and their stuff in a space that has always been just his. But George loves seeing the touches of herself that Y/N has started to leave around the apartment. It’s always a thrill when he enters the closet and her clothes are hanging up next to his. He loves the rumpled blanket she always leaves on the couch, and the sight of her coffee mug in the sink next to his in the afternoon always makes him happy.

They’re living the life George always wanted, and he’s already dreading the day it comes to an end. But the inevitable heartbreak is worth it to see the way Y/N lights up when he gets home in the afternoon.

“What’s got you in such a good mood, Weasel,” Thomas, the Rebel’s goalie, states as he slides into the seat across from George.

They’re on break for lunch, and George was taking advantage of the opportunity to text Y/N back.

“Yeah, you’ve been a lot more smiley, Weasel,” Adam, a defenseman, adds as he sits next to George.

“What? Is it a fucking crime to be happy?” George asks with an eyeroll.

Before he has a chance to even react Thomas is reaching over and snatching George’s phone out of his hand. “No it’s not a crime,” he starts, scrolling through the texts on George’s phone. “But I’m sure it has something to do with Y/N and why she’s asking you what you want for dinner tonight.”

“Fuck you,” George grumbles as he grabs his phone back, and he can feel the flush on his cheeks. He knows that the whole point of Y/N being his fake fiance is so he can show everyone how responsible he is, and in order to do that people have to know about her. But a part of George was hoping to keep Y/N to himself for just a little bit longer.

“Weasel’s got a girlfriend!” Adam exclaims, ruffling George’s hair. “You’ve been holding out on us George, when the fuck did that happen? Who is she? Where’d you meet?”

“Yeah, give us all the details George, you owe it to us,” Thomas adds.

“You two are worse than a couple of school girls for christ sake.” George takes a sip of his water, needing a second to compose himself. “It happened during the off season. I went back home for a bit, you know, to see the family and everything. Y/N and I dated before I was in the league and we reconnected. We didn’t want to be apart when I had to come back for the season so she moved in with me.”

“Holy fuck, look how red his cheeks are,” Thomas teases. “Our little Weasel’s in love.”

“Little lover boy,” Adam joins in, ruffling George’s hair again. “Fucking finally, Jenny has been dying for you to get a girlfriend, she said her and Olivia need a new drinking buddy.”

“Hell yeah, bring Y/N to team drinks tonight,” Thomas suggests with a grin. “You can’t keep her from us forever, and Olivia will castrate me if she finds out you have a girlfriend and I didn’t try to get you to bring her out.”

George huffs, thinking it over. They have a day off tomorrow, and he was kind of looking forward to doing nothing but hanging out on the couch with Y/N. But introducing her to the team and their partners is probably the most natural way for him being in a relationship to get back to Coach, and that’s the whole reason Y/N is here in the first place.

“Alright fine,” he relents, causing the other men to cheer. “But you fuckers are on a short leash, you hear me? Say any weird shit and we’re gone.”

“We’ll be on our best behavior,” Adam promises, placing a hand on his heart. “Scout’s honor.”

“Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Are you sure I look okay?” Y/N asks again, pausing just outside the entrance to the bar.

It physically pains George to look her over, because the pair of jeans clinging to Y/N are so tight they look like they’ve been painted on and it’s taking all of his willpower and thoughts of his grandmother naked to keep him from popping a boner. The fabric showcases every single curve on her, and all he wants to do is plant one hand on her ass while the other grips the back of her neck as he kisses her senseless.

But he can’t do that, so he settles for grabbing her hands to stop the way she tugs at the hem of her shirt. It’s just barely too short, letting a sliver of skin peek between the top of her jeans and the bottom of the shirt, and Y/N has been tugging on it constantly. As if another few inches of fabric will suddenly unravel and cover her completely.

“For the millionth time, you look incredible, baby,” George reassures her, taking too much pride in the way her cheeks flush. “You have nothing to be nervous about, Y/N. This is just a casual hang out with my friends.”

“I know, I know. You’re right,” Y/N agrees. George intertwines their fingers, squeezing her hands and it sends butterflies fluttering through her tummy. “I just want your friends to like me, and I don’t want to fuck up this whole fake fiancé thing.”

George can feel the cool band of Y/N’s engagement ring pressing into his skin, and he’d be lying if he said it doesn’t send a thrill through his body. He thought it would be strange, seeing the ring on her finger knowing that he’s the one who put it there. But every time he gets a glimpse of the diamond it feels like it has always been there, a feeling which George has carefully boxed up and stuffed to the back of his mind.

“You have nothing to worry about,” George soothes, releasing one of Y/N’s hands so he can pull her behind as he pushes through the door to the bar. “All I told the guy’s is that you and I dated when we were younger and reconnected when I went home during the off season. Technically none of that is a lie.”

Y/N nods in agreement as George drags her into Maynards. Except for the rowdy crowd in the corner that is very clearly George’s teammates, it’s practically empty and she feels some of her nerves drift away. Pretending in front of people George knows is one thing, but having to put that facade up in front of fans with phones is a whole nother story. On the drive over George had explained that Maynards was the team’s go to spot because it’s close to the arena, but is so dingy and outdated that not too many people come in. The boy’s like the anonymity that Maynards provides, and it’s often the place they go when they just want to hang out for the night and spend some time together.

Y/N feels honored to be let into that special club.

It’s one of the guy’s girlfriends that notices them first, and the rest of Y/N’s nerves float away at the look of pure joy that crosses the stranger’s face.

“Holy fuck, Thomas wasn’t lying!” The girl shouts excitedly, causing the few people standing with them to turn and look their way. She abandons her boyfriend, bounding over with her arms stretched out for a hug.

Except much to Y/N’s surprise she walks right past George, wrapping her arms around Y/N instead. “I’m Olivia, it’s so nice to meet you.”

Y/N returns Olivia’s hug with the arm that isn’t attached to the hand George is still holding on to, returning the tight squeeze. “It’s nice to finally meet you, George has told me so much about you.”

Which isn’t a total lie, from the time George got home until they reached the bar he’d given her a brief run down on everyone she’d be meeting tonight. He’d spent the most time talking about Thomas, Adam and their girlfriends, since they are who he’s closest with on the team and who he spends the most time with off the ice.

“Well he’s told us absolutely nothing about you, so we’ve got a ton of catching up to do.” Olivia releases Y/N from her embrace, grabbing her hand instead. Except as she starts to drag her away, George keeps his own grip on Y/N tight, catching her in the middle.

“Y/N is my date, Olivia, you just can’t steal her,” George huffs, pouting at them.

Olivia rolls her eyes, clearly used to George’s antics. “Sharing is caring, Georgie,” she mocks, tugging on Y/N so George has no choice but to release her hand. “You’ll get her back, I promise.”

Before she disappears into the crowd with Olivia, Y/N shoots George a reassuring smile over her shoulder, a silent signal not to worry about her.

If only she knew that George’s reluctance to let her go has nothing to do with worry, but his overwhelming need to feel her hand in his.

“So what was Weasel like back in high school? Was he always such a little shit?” Thomas asks with a grin.

They’ve been at the bar for a few hours, and despite her initial nerves, Y/N is actually having fun. Olivia had dragged her over to where Jenny, Adam’s girlfriend, and some of the other player’s partners were huddled together and it was as if they were old friends. After a few margaritas and getting to know each other the guys had wandered over. George had immediately wrapped his arm around her waist, bringing Y/N in close so her back was pressed to his front. That’s where she stayed as his friends asked her what felt like a million questions about George.

“Weasel?” she responds, wrinkling her nose. Y/N tilts her head back so she can look up at George. “That’s what they call you? I’m ashamed, it’s not very creative. Woody was way better.”

George’s cheeks immediately flush at the reminder of his old nickname, causing Thomas and Adam to whoop in laughter. “You’re a little menace, you know that?” he murmurs in her ear, squeezing her waist.

“Woody? Now that’s a story I want to hear,” Adam says, his eyes lit with excitement.

Y/N goes to tell the story, but before she can even utter a word George claps his free hand over her mouth, muffling her words. “No, nope. I will not let you hooligans rope my fiancé into your shenanigans.”

Everyone around them goes silent. When Olivia had referred to Y/N as George’s girlfriend earlier she didn’t correct her, figuring there was a reason why he hadn’t told his friends about the engagement. So she went right along with it, keeping her left hand tucked into her pocket as much as possible.

“I’m sorry, did you say fiancé?” Jenny asks, her voice loud enough to draw looks from those around them.

“Um. Surprise?” George responds sheepishly, dropping the hand he has over Y/N’s mouth to grab her left hand instead. He lifts it up to show everyone the ring, and even in the dim light of the bar the diamond shines.

“Oh my god! Congratulations!” Olivia shouts as Jenny giggles, and the girls take Y/N’s hand from George so they can examine the ring more closely.

“Damn, Weasel. You’ve broken the hearts of female hockey fans all over the country,” Adam teases, clapping George on the shoulder. “No wonder you’ve been in such a fantastic mood lately. Congrats.”

Thomas winks at George. “Yeah, congratulations or whatever, but let’s get back to the conversation.” His eyes sheen with mischief and George lets out a groan. “Why the fuck did they call you Woody?”

The girls dissolve into a fit of giggles as Y/N looks up at George for approval. But when he gives her a pleading look all Y/N does is wink before she refocuses her attention back on the group and launches into the story.

“Well you see, it all started back when we were in high school, and George was away with the junior team for the first time.”

George tunes out the rest of the story, not needing to listen as Y/N recounts the story of how he got caught jerking off in his hotel room the night before his first game in the junior league. Instead he focuses on the bright smile on her face, and how the people he cares about most react to her. He can already tell that Jenny and Olivia have accepted Y/N as one of their own, and he knows she has Adam and Thomas’ stamp of approval too.

Y/N fits into their group flawlessly and it makes his chest feel warm. George tightens his grip on her waist, and he never wants to let her go.

They spend a large part of the next day on the couch. Y/N is too hungover to move and George wants to be wherever she is. With each of their heads at one end of the couch their legs are intertwined in the middle, both of them content to just watch movies and eat snacks all day. It isn’t until the sun is starting to get lower in the sky that George finally speaks.

“We should go out somewhere for dinner tonight.”

Y/N raises an eyebrow as she raises her eyes to meet his. “You suddenly get bit by the going out bug?” she teases.

George chuckles. “No, I’d much rather lay around all day with you. But if we want people to believe we’re engaged we should probably be seen out and about together.”

At least that’s the excuse he’s come up with. In reality last night he started to come to the realization that he doesn’t want this engagement to be fake. Y/N had fallen asleep as soon as they crawled in bed but George had laid awake watching her closely as he reflected on the night and the last several years.

Because being at that bar with Y/N is the happiest he’d been in a long time, and when he really thought about it, the last time he remembers being truly happy was before he ended things with Y/N. Even the day he was drafted and his first game in the NHL didn’t come close to being his happiest memory, because she wasn’t there with him.

So George made a decision last night. Fuck being named Captain, his one and only goal is to make Y/N fall in love with him again. That way he can marry her for real, and he never has to think about what life will be like without her by his side. He’d stayed awake for hours formulating a plan, and this is just step one.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Y/N agrees. “But nowhere fancy, okay? I still feel like shit. You weren’t kidding, Olivia and Jenny go hard.”

George agrees to her stipulation, and he finds himself returning the grin on Y/N’s face. Operation Get Y/N to fall in love is officially a go.

“Remember that time at Rosie’s when Fred made you laugh so hard milkshake came out of your nose?”

George attempts to laugh at the memory, choking on the sip of milkshake he’s just taken. “Oh god, don’t remind me,” he spits out once his coughing calms down. “I smelled vanilla for weeks after that.”

Y/N giggles at the grimace on George’s face as she settles back into the booth. To comply with her request not to go anywhere fancy, they’re at a dingy dinner a few blocks from the apartment that George swore has the best milkshakes in all of Chicago. And as Y/N takes a sip of hers, she can’t help but agree.

“That was also the first time we held hands,” Y/N reminds him, blush coating her cheeks. They were twelve and George had been so embarrassed that Y/N had reached out to squeeze his hand and he never let go. Two weeks later they went on their first date, and a week after that they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

“I was so nervous that I threw up when I got home,” George admits with a grin. “I told Fred it was because I could still feel milkshake dripping out of my nose, but really it was because the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen had held my hand.”

He lays his arm across the table, palm up in invitation. Without a moment of hesitation Y/N places her hand in George’s and a shiver runs up her spine when he grasps her fingers. George brushes his fingers over her knuckles, and they sit in silence as George looks at their intertwined hands and she looks at him.

“What happened, George?” Y/N asks suddenly, her voice shaky. “I thought things were going so well and then suddenly they weren’t.”

“I was scared,” he admits after a few moments of silence, still refusing to meet her gaze. “I always knew the NHL was my future, but getting that call, that Chicago was going to offer me a rookie contract, scared the shit out of me. I still had two years until they were going to call me up, and so much could have happened. They could have decided to drop me, or I could have had a career ending injury. And I had no Plan B. Hockey came first, my grades were barely passable and I had no passion for anything else. Without the NHL I would be nothing, and I couldn’t burden you like that. I figured letting you go so you could find someone worthy of your love was better than dragging you down with me.”

“George,” Y/N whispers, at a loss for what to say. Her heart aches in her chest, because George may have been the one to break them, but Y/N didn’t fight hard enough to save them. She knew something was wrong with George, and that he hadn’t suddenly become a heartless asshole after nearly ten years together. Y/N wishes she had stayed that day, refused to leave until George talked to her about what was really going on.

Maybe if she had the engagement ring on her finger would be real, and it would have saved them both years of pain and longing.

Before she can say anything else the waitress is back with their food, and they pull apart as she places the plates down in front of them. She’s gone in another instant, and even though everything smells and looks amazing, Y/N has suddenly lost her appetite.

The next morning there are pictures of them all over social media, with several different sports sites publishing articles about how hockey’s hottest bachelor is officially off the market. Y/N hadn’t even noticed people taking their photo, but she’s glad that they all seem to have been taken before things got awkward. In each photo they’re both smiling, and there’s even a few where you can clearly see a blush outlined on George’s cheeks.

They actually look in love, and it makes Y/N feel sick.

Things were weird between them the rest of the night and George was up and out of the house to head to camp before Y/N was awake. Her only shred of hope has been the fact that George had still left a fresh pot of coffee for her. Maybe this whole thing isn’t over before it really even got started.

Because Y/N has decided it’s time to stop playing the long game and merely hoping that this whole thing ends with her and George together for real. Y/N is going to get George Weasley to fall in love with her again even if it kills her. After his confession yesterday, Y/N knows now more than ever that George is the man she is supposed to end up with, and she is not going to give him up again without a fight.

Will she ever forget how he had hurt her that day? Of course not.

But what matters is that she’s forgiven him, and she’s ready to show George that what they have now can be real.

She barely focuses on work all day, formulating a plan and figuring out her next steps. By the time George gets home that afternoon, his usual protein shake is waiting and Y/N is ready. Operation get George Weasley to fall in love with her is a go.

Y/N decides to make her move that night when they’re in bed. The awkwardness between them had started to fade as they fell into their evening routine, and by the time they were eating dinner on the couch together they were laughing and joking around again. While they hadn’t talked about what George said at the diner, it seemed they had come to a silent agreement to leave the past in the past and to keep moving forward.

With only one week of training camp left before preseason starts, the focus of camp has shifted from running drills to starting to run plays, so when Y/N crawls into bed that night George is still awake, sitting up against the headboard as he reviews his book of plays.

She mirrors his position, keeping only a few inches of space between them as she starts to read her romance novel. Y/N keeps glancing at George out of the corner of her eye, not really paying attention to the words on the page. After a few minutes she gives up, huffing as she shuts her book before angling her body to face George.

“I’ve been thinking,” she trails off, waiting for George to give her his full attention.

“That can’t be good,” he jests, placing his playbook on the nightstand before he turns to face her as well. “What’s been going on in that pretty little head of yours?”

Y/N rolls her eyes, but there’s a smile on her face. “Well I saw all the pictures of us people were posting this morning, and I was thinking about that family skate thing and the team dinner you were talking about and how if we’re going to be out and around people, there’s probably certain things they are going to expect from us.”

“Like?” George asks, urging her to continue.

“Like PDA things,” she explains, swallowing the nerves threatening to creep up her throat. “Holding hands, touching, cuddling. Kissing.”

“Oh,” George murmurs, his cheeks turning pink. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“So I was thinking maybe we should practice. Doing all of that stuff. That way when we’re in front of people it doesn’t look weird or awkward. It looks like something we do all the time.” When George doesn’t say anything Y/N feels her stomach drop, and embarrassment flushes her cheeks. “Nevermind, forget I said anything,” she dismisses, kicking herself for even bringing it up.

But before she can turn her back to George and pretend to sleep he grabs her wrist, using his grip to pull Y/N even closer. “Sorry, I was just processing. You’re right. No one will believe we’re engaged if we look like two chickens pecking at each other when we try to kiss or if you flinch every time I touch your ass.”

Without giving her a chance to respond George grips the back of Y/N’s neck, pulling her into a kiss as his other arm wraps around her waist. There’s no hesitation as they kiss for the first time in years, and Y/N feels fireworks as George’s mouth melds against hers.

George breaks their kiss for a moment, muttering a quiet fuck before he’s kissing her again with more force. Angling her head back, George deepens the kiss and Y/N moans as he nips at her bottom lip. She shivers as his tongue soothes the sharp pain before letting him lick into her mouth.

Next thing she knows George is pulling her closer, dragging her so she’s straddling his lap. Her own hands grip his shoulders as George massages the back of her neck, his other hand wandering down to cup her ass. He drags her even closer, and they both let out a gasp as his hard cock presses between her thighs, nestled just where she needs him most.

As Y/N rocks against him, moaning as his cock nudges her throbbing clit, the reality that they are about to cross a line that they will never be able to come back from hits them both. In the blink of an eye Y/N is back on her side of the bed, hair tousled from George’s grip and her breathing heavy. She spares a glance at George, happy to find that he looks just as affected.

“So I think that was enough practice, yeah?” George doesn’t even wait for Y/N’s response before he’s up and out of bed, one hand trying to cover the tent in his sweatpants as he rushes into the bathroom. A second after the door closes Y/N hears the shower turn on, and she can’t help but slip a hand under her sleep shorts.

Phase one complete.

They haven’t kissed again since that first night early in the week, but much to both of their delight, physical touch starts to become a regular part of their relationship. When they’re out in public George doesn’t hesitate to grab Y/N’s hand, and he often keeps a hand on her lower back to guide her. Now when George gets home he seeks her out, sometimes content to rub her shoulders as she works, sometimes so desperate to feel her close that he hauls her from the chair into a hug. While they cook dinner together they’re constantly brushing against one another, and Y/N is practically in George’s lap while they eat.

The space they try to keep in bed at night has been completely erased, with George refusing to fall asleep until Y/N is wrapped in his arms. Her plan is working even better than she could have imagined and she can’t wait to show off their new found closeness tonight at the Rebel’s family skate.

Training camp is officially over, and every year to celebrate the team hosts a family skate night. The guys get to bring their wives or girlfriends and their kids, and everyone just gets to have fun together on the ice before the craziness of the season starts to take over. Preseason starts next week, and after the first game at home on Tuesday, the team will be gone for the better part of the next three weeks. Which makes tonight at open skate and tomorrow’s team dinner Y/N’s last chances to really get close to George before they are apart again.

“When do you think is the last time we skated together?” George asks as he steps out onto the ice, holding his hands out so he can help Y/N enter the rink.

In years past George never really cared for family skates considering the fact that he never really had anyone to bring with him, but he’s been looking forward to this all week. Not only did he and Y/N meet on the ice, but ice skating was their first date, making this the perfect next step in his plan to get her to fall in love with him again.

Y/N thinks about it as she grabs George’s hands and joins him. “Probably a family skate back when you were in the juniors. You used to have to bribe me with kisses to get on the ice.”

George keeps Y/N’s hands in his, starting to slowly skate backwards, pulling her along. “Mmm, that reminds me.” He pulls her in closer, leaning down and kissing her briefly. “Thank you for skating with me.”

She knows it’s for show, but it makes her heart rate pick up anyway. “You’re welcome. But I think I deserve one more kiss for being so brave.”

“Y/N, you can have as many kisses as you want,” George murmurs as he leans down before pressing their lips together again.

Their kiss is much longer this time, and Y/N is just about to open her mouth for George’s tongue when someone skates by, stopping sharply to spray them with ice.

“Adam, fuck you,” George growls as they pull apart, glaring at the other man as he skates away.

Y/N laughs, pushing George away to put some distance between them. There are children present after all. “You look so cute when you’re mad.”

“Only when I’m mad?” George pouts playfully, bringing his attention back to her.

“Nah, you’re cute all the time,” she reassures him, momentarily releasing one of his hands so she can boop him on the nose. The smile that graces his lips takes her breath away, and Y/N tilts her chin, silently requesting another kiss.

George immediately obliges, pressing their lips together in a sweet kiss. It’s over far too quickly for Y/N’s liking, but George keeps her close as they continue to skate around the rink. It’s nice, just being there with him, and Y/N lets her gaze wander around as they move.

It’s funny, watching these guys who are so big and broad glide around with their kids. The ones who are too young to skate are just being held in their dad’s arms, bundled up in little snowsuits. There’s a few toddlers too, wearing little skates and a tiny version of their dad’s jersey as they’re guided along the ice. Some of the kids are even old enough to hold sticks, and they’re skating around passing pucks with their fathers before taking turns shooting on the goal.

It hits Y/N then, that if this all works out that could be her and George next year. A tiny baby in his big broad arms, wearing a jersey that says Daddy across the back with George’s number underneath it. A few of the wives have custom jerseys as well, with Mrs. Last name embroidered on the back and their husband’s number underneath. She’s sure that George would insist on her having one too.

Y/N’s attention refocuses on George as they slow and they come to a stop in front of the home bench, where George’s coach is tightening up his daughter’s skates. George wraps his arms around Y/N’s waist, pulling her back into his chest.

“Coach,” he greets when the other man turns and acknowledges them. “I just wanted to introduce you to my fiancé, Y/N.”

“Daniel Morris.” His voice is gruff, and Y/N takes the hand he offers, giving it a brief shake. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet the woman who’s lit a fire under this ogre’s ass,” he teases with a grin. “Weasley has been playing his best these past few weeks, and we have you to thank.”

“Oh well, I don’t know about that,” Y/N brushes off, hoping the pink tint on her cheeks can be blamed on the cold. “But thank you. It’s nice to meet the guy George is always bitching about.”

Morris lets out a loud laugh, grabbing the attention of almost every single player out on the ice. “I like her George, you better keep this one around.”

“Oh trust me, Coach,” George starts with a grin, flicking his gaze down to Y/N. “I intend to.”

And that’s the truth.

“God I’m so sore,” Y/N moans as she crawls into bed that night, flopping down onto the pillows. “I don’t know how you do that every day. I barely did anything and my body aches like I just climbed Mount Everest.”

George shakes his head as he chuckles and he rubs a comforting hand down Y/N’s back. “Years and years of conditioning, baby. Where did you think all these muscles came from?” He flexes, causing Y/N to laugh.

“I do love your hockey butt,” she teases, giving George a wink.

“And I love your regular butt,” he responds, playfully giving it a slap. “C’mere, let me make you feel better.”

George maneuvers her so they’re cuddled close, one of Y/N’s legs slung over his hips with her chest pressed against his own. She presses her face into the crook of his neck, and a shiver wracks through his body when she kisses the sensitive skin there. George starts to rub circles into the tight muscles of her back, his fingers applying just enough pressure to work the kinks out without hurting her.

“Feel good?” he asks after a few moments, and Y/N lets out a moan of appreciation. “Good,” he murmurs as his hand starts to trail down her back. He pauses for a moment on the curve of her ass, digging his fingers in for a moment before continuing down to the thigh he has slung over his hips. George repeats the same motions as he did on her back, working out the muscles of her thighs.

George threads his free hand through the hair on the back of Y/N’s head and he slowly starts to scratch at her scalp. The gentleness of George’s simple intimacy brings tears to her eyes, and Y/N shuts her eyes to keep them from escaping. It’s easy to pretend when they’re like this, that this is just a normal night and they’re just a normal couple taking care of each other before they fall asleep in each other’s arms.

As Y/N starts to slowly fall asleep she sends out every piece of good karma she has out into the universe, wishing that her plan to make George fall in love with her works. Because she’s already head over heels in love with this man, and if he breaks her heart again she’ll never be the same.

#george weasley #george weasley imagine #george weasley fic #george weasley fanfiction #george weasley fan fiction #george weasley au #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter au #gw #golden

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gretagerwigsmuse · 2 years

Note

rooster jealousy fic 🥵🥵🥵

I want all of them

this probably isn’t what you imagined BUT it takes place in an eventual universe where bradley and smart aleck have kids. and yes in my dreams bradley goes as ted lasso for his first halloween with smart aleck and it kinda evolves into peewee soccer coach bradley bradshaw when they have kids since his girl digs it so much (it’s the fucking mustache i stg) - enjoy???

ask prompt

"Did you see that? You saw that, right?"

Bradley sputtered, frantically pointing across the soccer field to where you were chatting with Max's dad, Zach.

Fucking Zach. Bradley hated Zach. And his stupid crisp button downs and his smarmy face and his shiny loafers and his ridiculous fucking Shelby Cobra that was in no way safe for a child to ride in, unlike Bradley's family-friendly Land Rover. Plus, his son, Max, was a biter.

But more importantly, Bradley hated the way Zach got so close to you to talk about emerging markets or stock options or some shit like that. Fucking prick.

Beside him, Gil frowned. "See what? Mommy?"

"Yes, mommy," he sassed the five year old, not taking his eyes off you from behind his aviators. Wait, was he - no, he did not just put his hand on -

"- TWEEEEEEEEEET," Bradley blew the whistle hanging around his neck, causing his small battalion of five year olds to immediately freeze where they were aimlessly running on the field. If it also caused Zach to retreat his hand from where it was about to touch your arm then that was just a happy coincidence.

"Alright," Coach Bradshaw clapped his hands together a couple times, rounding up the troops, "good job today everyone - especially you, Maddie S, that flower crown looks dynamite on you, wanna see that energy on Saturday for our game against the Yellow Frogs, alright?"

Maddie S preened under the praise, while the rest of the kids nodded seriously. "We gotta keep that defense tight - that means no getting distracted by Jacob R, okay Emily? Yeah, heard about you at nap time the other day, little grabby for kindergarten, I think? That being said, I think Mrs. Armstrong brought orange slices and apple juice if you all want to head over for your snack - "

They dispersed without another word, except Gil, who was drawing what Bradley thought was a - dinosaur? a dog? he didn't really know - on his play whiteboard. He hazarded a glance across the field to see that you still were talking to Zach. God, your ass looked fucking perfect in your work skirt. How the hell you weren't sinking into the grass with those heels of yours?

"Hey, buddy?" Gil looked up. "Why don't we pack up all this stuff and go get mommy? Think she's talking to Max's dad..."

Gil made a face. “I don’t like Max -”

“- Well, I don’t like his dad,” Bradley muttered, hoping Gil didn’t hear, but the little boy giggled.

The two Bradshaw men made quick work of picking up all the cones and practice pinnies and tossing them into a mesh bag along with the five or so soccer balls. Gil tried to carry the bag, but ended up dragging it, so Bradley picked it and Gil up and made his way across the field to you. The kid was too old to be picked up, but it made getting over to you quicker - Gil had short legs.

While Bradley and Gil had been cleaning up, Emily K’s dad, Adam, had joined Zach’s little tete-a-tete with you. Of course, none of them had their kids with them. Fucking typical. Emily was probably aimlessly walking around with orange juice dripping on her cleats. Bradley scowled as he approached the group, while Zach tossed him a quick wave.

“Hey, Brad.” Bradley fucking hated being called Brad.

“Hmmm, hi.”

You turned around at the sound of his voice and a huge smile lit up your face once you saw Bradley and Gil.

“Mommy!" Gil squirmed in Bradley’s arms until he put him down, wanting to be let go.

“Hey, little man!” You ran your hands through Gil’s hair as he latched onto your legs in a hug. Suddenly, Bradley was jealous of his five year old and he gave you a longer than probably appropriate for six o’clock on a Tuesday kiss.

“Did you see me? I scored a goal!” Gil exclaimed, dancing on the spot.

You shot a quick glance over towards Bradley to double check. He nodded slightly, knowing you hadn’t seen that part of practice - and not because Zach and Adam had been monopolizing your time.

“Of course, I did! Amazing, as always, did daddy teach you that?” Gil giggled and then burrowed his face in the hem of your skirt when he realized there were two other men standing there.

Bradley took a step back towards you, resting his hand on the small of your back. You leaned into him and gave him a quick smile. “Zach was just talking about setting up a playdate with Gil next week - and then Adam thought maybe Emily could come over, too?”

Absolutely fucking not. The ink on Zach’s divorce papers was barely dry and Adam was - well, Adam wasn’t too bad and he probably had just wanted to see if Emily could have a playdate with Gil. They were in the same class, after all. And she wasn’t a biter. Even if she was a little handsy.

Bradley clicked his tongue. “You know, I think G-man’s a little booked up next week? We got a birthday party and then we’re gonna see Papa at the base.”

Gil looked up at him and his entire face lit up even though they were doing nothing of the sort - well, at least not yet. Clearly, when Bradley called Mav later, he would understand and extend the invite.

“Ahhh bummer. We were just exchanging numbers,” Zach nodded towards you, “so, maybe we can do something the week after?”

“Yeah, of course,” you said politely, “maybe next - ahh - week?”

Zach and Adam frowned at your sudden exclamation, but what they hadn’t seen was Bradley slide his hand underneath the waistband of your skirt and lace panties and dig his fingers into the top of your ass. Or the way he started drawing little circles with the pads of his fingers and dragged his nail down your spine. You swallowed.

He could see the goosebumps rising on your arms. Thankfully, your backs were both to the field and not the mass of parents and five year olds eating oranges.

“We uhh, we can work out the details on - Satur-day?” you stuttered out as Bradley dug his fingers into a rather sensitive knot on your back.

“Sure, that’s fine...guess we’ll see you two around then?”

Bradley smiled at the two men for the first time since the conversation had started, but his good mood was more attributed to your slightly heaving chest, which he had perfect view of thanks to his height advantage. “Have a good night.”

With a brief glance back at the three of you, the two men set off to find their children - which they should have been keeping an eye on in the first place. Bradley retracted his hand.

You bit your lip and glanced up at him. “So, Coach Bradshaw, you gonna make me stay after practice for some one-on-one training? Promise I’ll try harder..."

“Nah, I got you booked for a private session later.” He leaned forward and kissed you, wrapping his arms around your waist, while you clasped yours around his neck. God, you smelled so pretty - he’d take you on the goddamn soccer field right now if there weren’t about twenty parents and five year olds around them.

Bradley only came back to himself and pulled away when he felt a slight tug on his joggers. He looked down at Gil.

“Daddy? Can we get ice cream since I scored a goal? Please?”

A wicked smile crept across your face. “Yeah, daddy, can we get ice cream?”

Bradley threw back his head and groaned. God, you were fucking killing him tonight. He shot Gil an amused look. “If you can carry this bag,” he nodded towards the mesh bag at his feet, “all the way to the car, then we can get ice cream.”

Gil considered this and then grabbed the bag with his little hands. “Okay, I can do it! I can do it!”

The two of you laughed watching him slowly drag the bag across the grass and towards the parking lot. Bradley threw his arm around your shoulders pulling you close.

“So, Max’s dad, huh?”

“Hmmm.”

“What do you mean hmmmm! I could see him making eyes at you from all the way across the field -”

“- He was not!” you protested.

Bradley snorted. “And you just happened to wear that tight little skirt to come to practice, huh?”

“Noticed that, did you - Gil, wait until your father and I catch up before going into the parking lot!” You glanced back up at Bradley. “I like when you get jealous, bubs, it’s cute -”

“- Cute!” He scoffed. “Hardly -”

“- Well, I suppose that’s not true, you were practically groping my ass on the field - isn’t that a Title IX violation or something?”

Bradley groaned. “Sweetheart, at least wait till we get home to start the dirty talk.”

“I make no promises - coach.” You winked and then walked ahead to meet Gil, shaking your hips with every step. “I’ll take Gil to Dairy Queen and we can meet you at home?”

Bradley stopped by his car. “You want ice cream, too?”

You turned around and scrunched your nose. “Not really, I actually have other plans in mind for dessert tonight...” Bradley groaned. “See you at home, daddy.”

thanks for reading x

prequel (ish)

#you're probably thinking - 'why the fuck did you name him gil?'#well this was the most ridiculous name sol and i came up with and now i'm oddly attached to it #i don't like the whole 'harry potter let's name our kids after people who died' thing so yeah #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw #bradley and smart aleck #top gun #writing #asks #bradley fic

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pedgito · 2 years

Note

How abouttttt edging Tom until he's pouty and crying

author’s note: this is purely self indulgence. i tried to mimic some of tom’s dialect in my prose without going too cornish, so i hope it isn’t too terrible. i’m so horribly american that i didn’t want to butcher the shit out of it lol. anyways, love tom grant, he’s supreme boyfriend material.

cw: 18+ (minors dni) strangers to lovers, meet-cutes, cooking for each other, oral (m receiving), edging (to tom), grinding over clothes (sorta), talks about past relationships/cheating (on both of them), tom is a sweetie, if i missed anything lmk

word count: 4.7k

You meet him by chance, out at the market for your daily errands. He’s always dressed in his work uniform, seemingly jumping straight from work to grab a few things for the night or the rest of his week, arms always full of items because he refuses to grab a basket and he’ll pile them high until the food is toppling to the floor. He’s stubborn, you can see it in his face as he squats down to pick up the unlucky can of vegetables that crashes against the tile, denting the corner.

You don’t introduce yourself the first time, grabbing the can and handing it back to him with a smile—he looks a little dejected, pouting at the kind gesture but mumbling a quiet thanks, regardless.

But, you see him everyday for a few weeks and suddenly you’re wondering how someone you’ve never met can be so interesting. He’s kind to the people stocking the shelves, the woman at the counter, but he doesn’t speak a word to you.

That’s why, after a long, dreadful three weeks of tense eye contact and awkward encounters, you finally take that plunge.

He’s reaching for the same box of cereal as you, caught up in his own thoughts so much that he doesn’t even realize you are leaning down beside him—you try to stumble out an apology but it dies on your lips.

“Those are your favorite?” He asks curiously, grabbing the box with ease and handing it over. You stall for a moment, wondering if you’d imagined him talking to you—he could’ve been talking to someone behind you, anyone but you. His eyes are locked on you when you glance up.

“How’d you know?” You ask, clutching the box to your chest with a kind nod. It was the last one.

“You’ve grabbed the same box every Monday,” He notes, pointing at the box of cereal, “but—never any milk?”

You snort a soft laugh, being caught up in your own weird ways of eating. He didn’t seem like he was judging, but it was something he couldn’t help but notice.

“Soggy cereal makes me ill at the thought of it.” You confess, “plus, it’s so much better when you can just eat it by the handful.”

He smiles wide, tongue poking through his teeth slightly.

“I’m Tom,” He introduces himself, “consider that last box an apology for being an ass to you the past few weeks.”

“Thank you,” You reply sweetly, patting the box lightly, “though, I definitely touched it first. I would’ve pried it from your hands if it came down to that.”

Tom laughs, shifting the weight of his groceries in his arms. And like clockwork, a can falls to the floor. You can’t help but take a small jab at him as you reach for it.

“Are you allergic to the baskets?” You ask playfully, “It would squash this whole ‘feeling too awkward to apologize’ when I have to pick up the stuff that you drop.”

Tom shakes his head slightly, a weak and unintelligible answer.

“Unless you’re doing it on purpose.” You suspect.

It had taken Tom a while to get over Ruth, forgive her, allow himself to rid his trailer of her things and move on. The only thing he hadn’t managed was allowing himself to return back to normalcy, talk to his friends, meet a nice girl—when Tom isn’t working, he’s home, unless he’s here and sometimes, the trips were unnecessary, just an innocent hope that he might run into you. But, his nerves constantly got the better of him, the words choking up in his throat. He wasn’t sure why today was different, but it was.

And while he was on that high, he takes a chance before his mind tries to talk him out of it.

“You’ve caught me,” He admits humorously, “there’s probably better ways to ask someone on a date, but uh—“

“Loads,” You interrupt with a hoaky smile, “but lucky for you, I’m interested.”

“Really?” He perks up instantly, nearly dropping his groceries in one giant pile. “Oh, well um—I didn’t think I’d get this far—“

You laugh at his honesty, pointing at his jacket pocket wearily, noting the outline of his phone, “Mind if I—“ He nods, angling his hip toward you to grab it. He rambled off his lock code without question and you entered your information swiftly before returning it back to him.

“I’m a bit rushed but call me later?”

“Uh, yeah—yes, I will.”

He does, which isn’t much of a surprise. You’d been anxious about the call since you left the store, wondering when was the last thing you were this caught up over a boy you knew nothing about. He called you that night, your name falling from his mouth like velvet—he sounds more relaxed, less wound up. You weren’t sure how stressful his job was, or what his life was like, but it’s a difference from the man you had ran into earlier.

“Are you opposed to a home-cooked meal?” He asks, straight to the point. You huff slightly, debating on the question to torture him slightly, the silence lingering.

“Seems a little forward, yeah?” You tease, laughing floating through the receiver and making him smile on the other end. “It’s fine, Tom. I really don’t mind.”

“You sure?” He asks for reassurance.

After Ruth, he doubted almost everything he did—wondering if he was doing too much, or not enough. It was never good enough.

“If I’m being honest, a home-cooked meal sounds much better than dressing up and going out to a fancy place to eat.”

“As if I could afford fine dining on my salary.” Tom jokes, settling into a sense of comfort in the conversation, a lull that felt natural. “But yes—I’m an excellent cook, so you have nothing to worry over.”

“I’m putting my life in your hands, Tom.” You tell him carefully, though the affection is still there. “Don’t be the first boy to put me in the hospital with food poisoning. I’ll never be able to forgive you for that.”

“Fucks sake—I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

The curse sounds too dirty falling from his mouth, tarnishing his rather innocent, boyish looks.

“What time is good for you?”

You hum softly, pondering on how long you should make him wait. But, you were too impatient yourself.

“How about tomorrow? Say, six?” You suggest.

“Perfect.” He responds softly.

The date quickly evolves into something that you and Tom didn’t really plan on—and it’s a silent agreement that settles between you two as that date turns into several dinners over the course of a couple months, either at your place or his, venting about your day and getting to know each other better than anyone else you knew in town.

You weren’t familiar with the place, having only lived there a few months, but Tom had told you everything you needed to know—where to eat, where to shop, even if you always ended up at his place anyways.

And you realize rather quickly why you both latched onto each other without hesitation—there was a weird yearn for companionship, or friendship even, that neither of you acknowledged audibly, but sensed within each other.

Tom has empty pictures frames stacked on his bedside table that he doesn’t mention, even when you two end up on his bed one night after a particularly filling meal, listening to him complain about how much the weather had been bothering him.

“I live right off the beach, you know—it would be nice to go but the water is always freezing.” Tom complains, tracing the outline of your fingers with his own, hands held straight up in front of you as you both stared toward the ceiling.

“So I suppose streaking into the ocean is out of the question for you?” You ask, only slightly joking. Tom turns to look at you, eyes comically wide as his movements still. “Tom, I’m fucking with you.”

Tom looks away briefly, face contorted in a semblance of pain, like maybe you hit a sore subject. It fades quickly, replaced by a flat emotion of content.

“Okay, fess up.” You pester him, turning on your side and propping your head up into your hand. “What’s got you so bothered?”

“Nothin��,” He laughs awkwardly, releasing your hand to replace it with his own as he settles them against his stomach, soft cotton rubbing at his fingertips, “s’just bad memories.”

“Well, whoever it was, I’m sorry.” You tell him honestly. “They’re missing out.”

Tom smiles sadly, looking over at you briefly.

“Piss off,” He says softly, shoving at your thigh with no real strength, “s’not fair.”

“What isn’t?”

“You gettin’ to flirt with me, but you always tease me when I do the same.” He explains, cheeks blushing a faint shade of pink.

It’s the similar pink that happens when he’s out in the wind for too long, settling in the apples of his cheeks and staying for a while.

“Do you want to talk about it?” You asks curiously, “M’not trying to pry or anything, but—“

“Think I held her back,” Tom admits, “She loved me in the beginning.”

“And it just faded out?” You try to perceive where the story is going, but Tom shakes his head.

“Nah, it was kinda sudden.” He explains, glaring up at the ceiling, “I don’t see her for a while and then she comes back and it’s like—she hates being here. It was good those couple days but I think whatever she’d been dealin’ with had been there the whole time.”

“That’s not your fault,” You tell him, “her problems aren’t your problems, whatever they were.”

“Took me a while to put it all together, but she thought I was cheating—I mean, who does that?” Tom asks with a strain to his voice, frustration lining his tone. It seemed like a sore subject, but Tom powered through. If he didn’t want to talk about it, he wouldn’t.

“Cheat? Loads, Tom.” You emphasize, “And I’m speaking from experience, it’s not fun.”

“I’m not like that,” Tom insists, “I couldn’t—I didn’t even think about that stuff. I loved her.”

“Did she cheat on you?” You ask carefully, wondering if you're straying too far into territory that wasn’t yours to venture into.

“I dunno,” He shrugs, “She started hangin’ out with this girl and getting teasy for no reason—maybe she expected it to be different here.”

“I like it here,” You shrug, “it’s quiet—people are nice.”

Tom smiles at that, noticing how your eyes trailed toward him. You sit up slowly, crossing your legs in front of you.

“Felt like I was forcing her to love me,” Tom says, voice teetering of sadness that clogged his throat, “some days we’d be okay and then others she would throw herself at me—like she was tryin’ to make up for acting distant.”

“How so?” You ask.

People showed their love differently, so you couldn’t really judge. You were just trying to understand.

“It’s embarrassing,” Tom admits, shaking his head at the thought, “she came home late one night and tried to—“ Tom gestures to his groin vaguely, “I couldn’t get into it.”

“That’s not your fault,” You shrug, backpedaling for a moment, “well, technically—yeah. But, if you weren’t feeling it, that’s not something for you to get upset about.”

“And then sex was,” Tom starts, looking over at you, gauging your expression, “—is it weird if I talk about this? Don’t want you feelin’ uncomfortable.”

“Tom, we’ve talked about everything. You’re not gonna have me running away at the first mention of sex. You thinkin’ I’m some kinda prude?” It’s teasing and playfully in tone, but Tom is straight-faced, sincere. “It’s not weird.”

“We’d kiss for a while, she’d make some excuse to go to the bathroom—brushing’ her teeth or something else, but then she’d come back and she couldn’t look at me.” Tom says, eyes straining slightly as he roamed around the room briefly, blinking the dryness out of his eyes, “anyways, ‘nough that.”

You laugh slightly, rocking in place as you stare down at him.

It’s the most he’s opened up since you met him, part of it feels forced—like he’s trying to clear up for his standoffish behavior, why he comes off a little forward, but it’s never bothered you.

“Got a pretty lady right here and I’m boring her to death over my ex-girlfriend.” He says, taking a stab at himself, “That’s not kind of me.”

“Kind?” You tease, poking at his side, “You? Never.”

“What about you?” Tom asks innocently, turning on his side now, knees grazing his torso. His right hand rests against your leg as he settles in a similar position to how you were earlier, paying full attention to you. “Some bloke break your heart?”

“Break? Not really. He was an ass and slept around on me every week. Took me a few months to catch on. But, there was never anything there.” You explain, “I got a nice job out here, destroyed his ego when I dumped him in front of friends, and never looked back.”

Tom grins widely, “Damn, that’s cruel.”

“He was fuckin’ them in my apartment. That shit was justified.” You tell him, the endearment is a little patronizing on your tongue. “Don’t cross me, Tom. You’ll regret it.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.” Tom replies flirtatiously, letting you drag your fingers through his short cropped curls, eyes falling shut at the touch. “Wouldn’t ever—you’re too sweet of a girl.”

“As far as you know.” You counter, his eyes peeking open briefly to look at you, teeth peeking through his smile. It makes your heart melt, his features soften every time he looks at you. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Tom asks, knowing full well.

“Giving me the eyes,” You chuckle softly, “If you want to fuck me just say so—I hate dancing around that shit.”

“You’re something.” Tom notes, squeezing at your thigh gently.

The touch had become normal, something you both seeked after long meals and tiring work days. But this, it had your stomach fluttering and ignited a deep, unfurling pit in your stomach.

“What, are you scared of me?” You ask teasingly, flicking at the collar of his shirt as you graze his chin. It had only ever been playful touches, some suggestive touching and the one time that he kissed you on the cheek when you left his place after a late night, delirious from sleep and not really thinking.

Still, you thought about it every time you looked at him. Tom was as honest as they came, open to anything, willing to do whatever to make you comfortable. It was everything you weren’t used to but also everything you wanted.

“I don’t bite,” You tell him quietly, “not unless you ask for it.”

Tom pulls his bottom lip between his teeth slightly, smothering the laugh that escapes, attempting to cover up for the obvious surprised noise that tried to come out.

“And if I do?”

Your eyebrows raise slightly, daring him.

“Because I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t.” He admits, his hand trailing dangerously higher up your thigh, your hands having moved behind you, watching his movements.

“Then I’d say you’re in for it,” You confess, “you may not survive me, you know.”

“Soundin’ like a good way to go.” Tom replies confidently, his fingers dipping past the hem of your sweatpants, grazing the thin fabric of your underwear. “Show me?”

He’s not asking for anything in particular. He wants everything,

You bite at the inside of you check, considering how deeply this could affect your friendship with Tom—and as much as you tried to think about the cons, it was outweighed by the pros. It was a long, endless list that you couldn’t even begin to speak on—the only thing that mattered was that Tom wanted this, just as badly as you did.

You hadn’t been with anyone in a few months, let alone touched in any type of way—the kiss on the cheek was the closest you got to anything in a while. So, even with Tom’s gentle, fleeting touches, you were already willing to do just about anything to prove to Tom how much he deserved to have someone who cared, somehow who wasn’t going to flee from him without an explanation.

You hand grazes over his jeans testingly, the fabric worn from constant use, frayed at the thighs and thinning. He’s already hard under the line of his zipper, jaw clenching at the slightest bit of friction.

“How long?” You ask curiously, undoing his jeans silently.

Tom watches on, turning to his back to give you more room.

“A couple months,” He admits, “got on with a girl out at the bar after I had too many beers, don’t remember much if’m being honest.”

You nod, Tom speaks softly, “And Ruth—Ruth, she never liked to—“

“Touch you?”

“Or I touch her, not really.”

You tilt your head, wondering who could resist someone like him. He was sweet to the core, staring up at you with his hopeless eyes, wide with adoration.

“Let’s fix that, yeah?” You ask, earning a jerky nod from Tom.

He lifts his head slightly, propping himself up on his arms as he watches you tug at his jeans until he can kick them the rest of the way, your hand coming up to cup over the strained tent in his underwear, squeezing gently.

“That’s, fuck—“ Tom sighs, “this isn’t going to last long, ‘m sorry.”

“It will.” You assure him, smiling with a devious intent that should scare him away, but it only entices him further.

You settle over his legs, spread wide on your knees as you pull his underwear down the rest of the way, cock springing free and upright toward his stomach, the tip matching the vibrant blush in his face. He stares up at you nervously, hands dragging up his thighs teasingly.

“You’ve got a pretty cock, Tom.” You comment, watching as he stumbles to find his words. “Anyone ever told you that?”

He shakes his head slowly, your delicate fingers wrapping around the base, the skin like soft velvet under your touch. He’s not nearly as good at keeping his composure as you thought, letting out a small groan as you touched him.

You squeeze gently, hand slipping up to squeeze at the the tip, thumb rubbing over the slit at the head of his cock, rubbing the small amount of precum there, making the slide down all the more torturous.

“Love, that’s so fuckin’—“

You nod knowingly, just as affected despite that lack of touch. Your thighs squeezed together desperately, mouth watering at the thought of him heavy against your tongue, what he tasted like—it was impossible not to think about.

“Can I—or do you not like that?”

Tom doesn’t hesitate, not even for a second as he watches you eye his cock in your hand, licking your lips as you parted them.

“Please, please—“ He all but rushes out, “that’s, yeah, of course.”

You snort at his eagerness, relaxing himself over your lap as you take him in your mouth slowly. First your tongue, dragging it up the line of his shaft, swirling over the head slowly, repeating the process a few more times until you finally decide to take him in your mouth, the moan that escapes him is desperate, noisy, need—his fingers dragging at your hair, pushing it away gently. His hands follow the slow bob of your head, never pushing or pulling, only feeling.

And he’s mouthy, mewling all sorts of noises alongside his words. It doesn’t surprise, given how much he can talk your ear off. Though, this is so much better.

“God, it’s been ages, fuck—“ Tom grunt softly, head falling back against the pillow, fingers rubbing tenderly through your hair, silence filled with the obscene noises of your mouth on his dick, “told ya I won’t last long.”

You lean down briefly, taking his balls into your mouth, tongue rolling over the tight skin and forces and strained moan from his chest, the grip on your hair tightening slightly. You can feel the muscles in his thighs flex, the quickening in his breath—so you pull back, a vivacious grin on your face.

“What?” Tom asks flippantly, his deep cornish accent peeking through, “S’goin on? I was there.”

“I know,” You nod slowly, “It’s the whole point.”

“M’sorry?” He asks, eyebrows falling together in confusion.

“Have you never edged yourself?” You ask curiously. “Got close and stopped? Nothing?”

“That sounds horrid,” Tom admits, “Isn’t cumming the whole point?”

“Well, yeah—“ You squeeze at the base of him gently, punching a huff out of his chest as his eyes roll toward the ceiling, hands clenched into fists at his side, “but this is more fun, don’t you think?”

“Sounds like you want to torture me.” Tom notes, losing the last bit of sanity he had left when your mouth closes over the head of his cock again, tongue swirling lightly. “—N’ here I was calling you sweet.”

You grin darkly, “I can make you cry, if that’s what you really want.” It wouldn’t be the first time, definitely not the last. Most of the time you did it to be petty, bring a man to a primal state of begging just to embarrass them. But for Tom, it was more than that.

He’d never really been touched, not like this. He’s had his fair share of encounters, and his relationship with Ruth spanned a long part of his teenage years, but there was always something missing. There was always a sort of shame behind wanting things for himself and not asking, feeling like an ass for voicing his needs, so he didn’t. You didn’t need to ask him because you saw it everyday, always putting himself second for anything and anyone. Besides, you wouldn’t mind forcing a few tears out of him, a few breathless pleas.

He was already halfway there, it seemed. Tom had his eyes squeezed shut, fists still clenched at his sides as you bobbed your head slowly, eyes flicking up to watch the muscles in his jaw tense, blush traveling down his neck.

“Gotta slow down,” He begs weakly, “s’too much.”

“You sound alright to me,” You tell him snarkily, licking a long slow stipe up his cock, “should I stop?”

“No, no, no—“ Tom quickly answers, hands reaching for your head as you move, “just—I,” He sighs, feeling like a sap for saying what’s on his mind, “I’d rather have you up here.”

Sex wasn’t totally off the table, but it hadn’t been on your mind.

“Do you have condoms?” You ask, earning a slow head shake from him. The last thing you needed was a baby by someone you’ve only known for less than six months.

“You can uh—you don’t have to take your clothes off or anything,” Tom starts, “we could, just like—“

“I haven’t done that since high school, Tom.” You answer with a faint laugh, bubbly and free of judgment. “But, it’s really our only option.”

Tom breathes a heavy sigh of relief as you sit up, slipping your sweatpants down your hips and off your legs, his calloused hand traveling up your thigh as you settled over his groin, hard cock pressed against the thin cotton of your underwear, sticky with the small wet patch that had grown there, much to your own embarrassment. You hadn’t even touched yourself, or he you, and you were already just as needy. You push his shirt higher up his chest, pale skin hot to the touch, fingers dragging through the small trail that led down to his dick, hips heavy against him as you dragged your hips once, twice.

“Oh, fuck,” Tom sighs loudly, fingers gripping your hips tightly, “tits—can I see your tits?”

And no one’s ever asked in such a polite way, you can’t help but chuckle, nodding eagerly. You slip the shirt over your head, breasts bouncing freely, having forgotten your bra at home in rush over to his place. They were all in the wash, thank god.

“Beautiful,” He notes, his voice low and rough, leaning up to mouth the flesh, plush pink lips pressing against your skin, “s’like the rest of you. Perfect.”

“Tom.” You warn lightly, feeling your own face heat at his compliments.

“It’s true, love.” He tells you, eyes connecting with your face briefly, eyes vulnerable as he stares up at you. It’s the most expressive part of his face, mesmerizing, to say the least. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

You nod slightly, “I know, I know.” You respond, “M’not used to people saying stuff like that to me, never know how to respond.”

“Don’t.” He assures you, “As long as you know.”

And you’ve never felt love this strongly, this early—it could be because of the situation, given your heightened state of connection, but those three words rest on your tongue heavily.

It’s a slow gradual rise as you grind against him, pressing against you in just the right way, clit catching the head of his cock with every pull back of your hips. Tom’s a mess, murmuring words that don’t make sense, soft noises, not having the strength to hold himself up any longer as he rests back against the pillow, grip tightening on your hips as you ride it out, stopping briefly when he starts to squirm a little more than usual.

It goes on for forever, it feels like. In reality, it was only about a half hour, watching Tom fall apart every time you denied his release, nearly to the point where he’s gasping at every touch, wicked pleas turning into desperate whines.

“I can’t.” Tom concedes, eyes brimming with tears, face excessively flushed, “Need it—please?”

You nod, impatient yourself as his hands travel up to touch you, thumb finding your clit over the fabric—it amazes you how he has no trouble at all when feeling out your body, despite how new this was to both of you.

“Fuck, you’re just as bad,” Tom notes with a breathy laugh, it quickly dying out with a rough snap of your hips, chasing your own orgasm selfishly, “take it, come on.”

Take what you need. Take all of it. Tom would give you everything if you let him.

It hits you fast, hard, eyes squeezing shut as you whimpered a soft ‘Fuck.’, fingers finding his wrist for purchase as you rocked your hips one final time—Tom watches your face as you come, which does him in immediately. He blinks hard, watery eyes lending a few tears to escape as he finally breathes in relief, coming in long spurts over his stomach and ruining his shirt in the process, though it’s the last thing on his mind.

“Not how I thought this night would go,” Tom admits with a lazy smile, rubbing at your thighs gently, pointing out how ruined your underwear were now, covered in a mix of slick, yours and his, “come here.”

You slump forward weakly, hands sprawling out over his head as you rest on your arms, nose grazing his. “Me neither.”

“You’re really good at that.”

You snort a tired laugh, “I’ve made many men cry—gotta admit though, you’re the prettiest.”

“Fuck off,” He laughs, reaching up to press a soft, gentle kiss to your lips, “shit hurts after a while.”

Your eyebrows raise, as if trying to prove your point.

Tom grins, attempting to hide his face in your neck. He’s never been this shy until now and it melts your heart.

“You can take a shower here,” He tells you, “sleep too, if you don’t want to mess with the drive.”

“Clothes?” You ask curiously, knowing you didn’t bring any spares.

“No, no—that’s where I draw the line.” He jokes, failing to hide his obvious smile. “‘Course, take what you need.”

“This doesn’t change anything,” You tell him honestly, watching his expression blank for a moment, “I still want my dinners, too.”

Oh.

Tom nods fervently, “Got it. Not like you could do without my cooking now, anyways. You get pissy when it’s your turn.”

You gasp slightly in shock, taken back by the jab and slapping his chest lightly.

“Don’t get coarse with me,” You warn playfully, “or I can make it a lot worse for you.” Unfortunately for you, Tom was already diving in head first. He didn’t care.

“Sounds like a challenge.” Tom counters, “I’m sure I could take you on.”

Please consider a reblog if you enjoyed this fic! It’s makes a huge difference. ♡

#tom grant x reader #joseph quinn x y/n #joseph quinn x you #joseph quinn x reader #joseph quinn #tom grant make up #tom grant x you #tom grant x y/n #joseph quinn smut #joseph quinn fic #tom grant smut #my writing

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zecretsanta · 6 months

Text

All Hail

To: @soraritsuka

From: @chessanator

Merry Christmas, Soraritsuka! I hope you enjoy this fanfic gift. It’ll probably become clear to you very quickly which of your prompts this is based on, but I’ll leave the suspense hanging in the air for now.

Ao3 Link

The Bringer

Aoi Kurashiki sat in the latest Crash Keys command centre, feet propped up on the row of in-built control consoles. The screens above his head flipped from one image to the next, and Aoi followed them with a carefully measured detachment. The information displayed up there was important: assignments for various Crash Keys agents, reports on that incident up in Minnesota… even updates on the stock market, no longer the sole lifeline it had been for them as children but still the fuel that allowed everything else to happen. But that importance wasn’t why Aoi was paying it attention.

It didn’t take long until the info Aoi wanted to see – something he could use – flashed by. In an instant he was in action, though he took care not to let any hint of his urgency be seen by the other Crash Keys members in the centre. After scribbling on a piece of paper he waved it in the direction of the nearest agent.

“Take this report to my sister. She needs to know about these updates from New Mexico.”

Then, only a minute after that first agent had scurried away: “We’ve got some concerns about the vehicle pool. Check ’em out and make sure their engines don’t explode on the highway again.”

After that: “Arrange a meeting to plan the next operation.”

All of these were an integral part of the running of Crash Keys, sure. All of them needed to be done. But the only reason Aoi had for ensuring they were all done at once was to empty the control centre of everyone else and be able to access the computers alone.

The truth was, ever since the two of them had slipped away from Building Q Akane had started to leave Aoi out of certain key facets of her objectives. He was well aware that the Nonary Game wasn’t the end of their mission; if anything they’d only ramped up in the year afterwards, recruiting more members and expanding their information-gathering options. Akane had never explicitly said she was excluding him. On the surface she seemed to be relying on him as much as ever, as evidenced by his position in this control centre. He still had his role, collating incoming information from across the entire organisation and passing out new instructions to their operatives. But Aoi knew that surface impression wasn’t the truth. The hole in what he’d been given access to was apparent to him, whether Akane acknowledged it or not.

Aoi wasn’t going to take it anymore.

Today was the day for him to uncover what his sister had been keeping from him. What he already had access to ought to be enough for that. And he knew that Akane would spend the day occupied by a dozen different small crises; the courier he’d sent ought to keep her away even longer. He swung his feet down to the floor, vigorously spun his chair to face the nearest computer console, and booted it up.

After half an hour of searching, Aoi realised what was confounding his efforts. As he encroached on the pieces of information Akane had kept away from him, he could start to identify the general shape they took: something about some fucked-up cult operating in the shadows in much the same way that Crash Keys itself did.

But at every step of the way he was confounded by other pieces of info that he also hadn’t seen before. A certain morphogenetic experiment, bringing back alarming but inconclusive results. Cases of agents experiencing debilitating headaches or mental breaks, with no known cause. Even, in later reports, hints of another group of fanatics; Aoi only realised they weren’t in any way related to the first cult after a painstaking delve into the evidence.

No wonder he’d assumed they were yet more pieces of the big thing Akane was keeping from him. And no wonder that, having mistakenly thought everything he was finding was part of one big whole, he’d spent most of his time searching being led completely astray. In the end, he settled for filtering out everything past June 2028. It was a blunt instrument, but at least he’d know everything left was relevant.

Once he’d done that Aoi was able to spot and understand the connections that tied everything else together. It was only then that Aoi was able to identify the cult, this so-called ‘Free the Soul’, and realise that several operations that Akane had told him were unconnected were in fact all targeting individuals connected to them.

With this information in hand he delved deeper into the computer network, ready to make some actual progress. He was now able to identify, with a bitter ironic smirk, the layers of obfuscation that his sister had used to keep him from piecing this together even while engaged in his role in Crash Keys. With a great deal of effort he worked his way to what had to be the key document, stored in a location you’d only search if you already knew what you’d find there. It had been authored by Akane, it had ‘Free the Soul’ as the main part of its title, and it seemed to be a summary of everything known about the terrorist cult. Aoi opened it up and read the first line.

‘I know you’re reading this, Aoi.’ Beneath that and above Akane’s signature was today’s date.

That had been… entirely too predictable. But Aoi didn’t have time to reflect on that at all. At the exact same moment the sharp scowl formed on his face, and before he could read even a single word more of Akane’s document, klaxons sounded across the Crash Keys base.

Aoi sprung to his feet. As the red of the warning lights swept and danced across the control centre he strode towards the way out. Only to find that just before he touched the door it opened itself. On the other side stood Akane, arms folded.

Aoi put on a self-assured smirk. “Okay. You didn’t need to rub it in,” he said.

Akane’s eyes widened; a confused gasp escaped her lips. “What do you mean?”

“I read your message.” Aoi gestured nonchalantly in the air. It was usually best to let Akane have her all-knowing fun. “That’s what this is about, right?”

“That’s…” Akane trailed off, shaking her head briskly. “This is something else. What you found doesn’t matter until after we’ve sorted this out.”

After all the effort he’d put into finding it?

“It’s just a coincidence this emergency happened at the same time you found that message. I couldn’t believe it, but it’s true. This emergency is real, and Crash Keys will truly be in danger if we don’t solve it.”

Aoi felt his awareness sharpen. Everything about Akane’s bearing, and everything coming through their shared connection, said that this was far more crucial than some morphogentically-powered practical joke. At least she was letting him in on it, this time. “What’s this about?” he asked, his tone serious in an instant.

Akane answered his question, her voice tense in a way Aoi hadn’t really heard since the day she had laid out, at age twelve, the plan to retroactively save her from the incinerator.

“I think we’ve made a terrible mistake.”

—

Eternally Preserve

Alice blew her whistle, sharply. “Once more!” she called out to the gaggle of young espers at the far end of the course, and they began to file back towards her: Clover bouncing along, Light maintaining his upright, princely bearing, Nona and Ennea slightly breathless but still giggling to each other some joke Ennea had made. When they were all lined up in front of her once more Alice waited just a couple of seconds to check their readiness. Then she sounded the whistle a second time, pressing the button on her stopwatch as the espers took off at a full sprint.

‘Baseless Training’: that was what some of her coworkers had called this when Alice had requested a transfer to the newly opened experimental division. On particularly sharp-mouthed SOIS officer had twisted the words into ‘Boot Can’t-p’. The idea that the most elite intelligence agency in the country was pouring this much time and resources into agents claiming to have psychic powers was ludicrous on the face of it, so Alice could understand where her colleagues were coming from. She just didn’t care. These new recruits were her last, best chance to get to the people who’d kidnapped her father, and Alice was going to take it.

That meant bringing them up to speed. It wasn’t as though SOIS could expect that the miniscule proportion of people with these special abilities would be the exact same people who had the military physiques and constitutions needed for the gruelling rigours of SOIS work. And the new recruits didn’t just have to operate at the peak of human ability. They needed to be able to do all that, wear themselves to the bone over hours of effort and then, at the end of it, still be able to use their esper powers on behalf of the mission.

There wasn’t yet much research into research into how espers coped with physical exhaustion. All Alice could provide was drilling, drilling and more drilling; she would have to hope this level of physical conditioning was enough.

At least her recruits’ teamwork was up to par. Alice took particular note of the moment when Clover, a couple of strides ahead of the group along the course, glanced back at the exact right moment to assist her brother in cornering tightly around the cones.

Alice was satisfied to see that each and every one of the trainee’s times had improved from the sessions before, even if they weren’t yet up to the standards of the agency’s usual recruits. As long as this final run went well she could be confident that the espers would be ready for the field by… No. Something was wrong. Alice didn’t yet know what, but her instincts were prickling.

Moments after Alice started dashing forwards Light let out a hoarse gasp. His legs buckled and he fell to his knees, his remaining carrying him skidding and tumbling across the grass. By the time Alice had caught up to the other runners, and brought them to a halt, Clover was knelt down by her brother’s side. Her wild pink hair fell across her eyes as she clutched at Light’s right arm. A mistrustful anguish contorted her expression.

“Light! What’s hurt you?!” Clover cried out. She glared up at Alice. “He didn’t just trip. Don’t you dare say he just tripped!”

It was probably a good thing that Clover was joining SOIS where such an attitude, even towards a superior, was appreciated as a sign of initiative. “Yes, I saw. This won’t affect his ratings,” Alice reassured the younger woman. She then assessed Light’s condition with a practiced eye: some pain that had caused him to fall, certainly, but no serious or permanent damage. Alice allowed herself a sigh of relief.

Alice’s judgement was confirmed a few moments later when Light raised his head. “It has passed,” he said, his tone measured and steady despite the aftereffects of whatever had brought him down. Relying on Clover’s arm for support he made his way to his feet. With his eyes still firmly closed he turned to face Alice. “A certain ripple, you could call it, in the morphogenetic field. Streaks of black and white swam across the images Clover was sending me. It was quite disorientating.”

With a quick glance towards the other espers present, Alice asked if any of them had endured the same thing. Shakes of heads all round, plus Nona’s murmured “No. Nothing like that,” confirmed that they hadn’t.

Alice weighed up the situation in front of her, and came to a decision. “I’ll need to report this to the higher-ups,” she said to Light. “Once I find out what we know I’ll pass it on to you all.” It looked like the rest of her day had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.

At the debriefing later that evening Alice addressed the SOIS director and the head science advisor, describing what had occurred during what should have been a routine physical fitness session. “It didn’t have much effect today,” she concluded, “but who knows what problems it could cause if it happens again. When it happens again. We don’t know what triggered it today, so we can’t prevent the next time.”

The science advisor nodded, then passed a pair of thin folders to Alice and the director. “Trainee Field’s report has been corroborated by the prototypes we’ve been testing. Certainly, something morphogenetic happened at that time. We’ll try to narrow it down further, but that will take time.”

Alice bristled at the insinuation against her subordinate’s trustworthiness, but held her tongue.

“What I don’t understand,” the director said, tapping the diagrams in the file with her fingertips, “is why only Trainee Field was affected. Not even his sister showed even a single symptom. Correct?”

“Yes. That’s correct,” Alice replied. She marshalled her thoughts, and then added, “The documents we appropriated from Cradle Pharmaceuticals suggest that espers can be divided into two classes. ‘Transmitters’ and ‘Receivers’. Surely that has something to do with it.”

“Light is a receiver, certainly,” the science advisor concurred. Then his lips pursed; his nose wrinkled. “That can’t be the sole factor. I was under the impression that receivers and transmitters both made up a good proportion of our recruited espers.”

“Then perhaps we should look at something only connected to the Field siblings, which then only affects Trainee Light because he is a receiver,” the director mused. She then fixed Alice with her piercing gaze. “You were the one to pick them up after that particular incident. I’ll leave the investigation of any leads related to that to you.”

It looked like the entire rest of Alice’s year had gotten more complicated, too. “Yes, ma’am,” was all Alice could reply.

—

The Peaceful World - Unwarranted

The streets of New York city bustled, and Hazuki Kashiwabara had to shimmy her way through the crowd to make progress along the line of shopfronts. At least that was something she was adept at: regular exercise had kept her limber and ready to take advantage of gaps, while her quickness of mind had her apprehending the flow of people and capable of anticipating the best route forward. So it didn’t take her long to reach the end of that block, where something finally brought her short by catching her attention.

A fancy-looking bookstore stood out among its neighbours. Hazuki quickly decided that this was an excellent place to browse next. Perhaps she could get Ennea’s and Nona’s Christmas presents early? It would be a surprise if she couldn’t find any books at all that would interest her daughters.

Once inside, Hazuki found that the back area of the bookstore had been given over to some sort of book promotion. A slick-looking presenter stood on a slightly raised platform, brandishing a microphone in one hand and gesturing towards a display board with the other. Another man – presumably the author – sat at a table to one side, stacks of the book in question piled in front of him. A small number of people had gathered in the open space in front, drawn in by the presenter’s spiel.

Hazuki had arrived just in time to catch the end of the presenter’s opening announcement. “– and the scientific basis of telepathy. This, and more, can be learned from this amazing compendium of the secrets of the universe!”

Hazuki sighed, and looked away. Once she had found such topics an amusing diversion that was fun to read about, if not actually believe; these days it hit too close to home. She turned away from the presentation and headed over to the shelves of fiction. And though the presenter’s microphone caused his speech to carry across the store – “Thank you, kind volunteers! May I please have you split into two groups so we can recreate this famous experiment.” – Hazuki kept herself from paying it any attention at all.

Just after finding a newly-published book by an author her daughters had enjoyed before, while she was mulling over whether it would make a good gift, the ringtone of Hazuki’s phone began to emanate from her handbag. Somehow, the tones sounded even more urgent than normal. Hazuki hurriedly extracted the phone and read the name that had appeared across the screen: ‘Nona’.

In an instant the phone was at her ear. “Nona?” Hazuki said, ignoring the pointed looks from the other shoppers around her. “What’s going on?” Even without being allowed to know the full details, Hazuki knew that it was too soon to expect a routine call.

“Mom!” The voice on the other end of the call was breathless, hurried. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but… You have to get out of there! I can’t tell you why, but it’s not safe. Something’s about to happen. Please…”

Hazuki had sworn to herself that she’d always trust in what her children told. “I will,” she replied. “Thank you.”

The phone hung up just after. Hazuki had no idea what it had taken for Nona to steal those few moments for that call.

That just added to the urgency of the warning. Not even checking to see if she’d put the book back in the right place she headed back towards the entrance in as brisk a walk as she could manage. The path back to the door took her back through the central space, from where Hazuki could see over to the book promotion once more. There, the presenter was just finishing up the experiment he’d announced earlier.

“And so, let us see how many of you are now aware of what this pattern is. Though you had no ability to know about these images before today, that knowledge should now be available through the mysteries of the morphogenetic field.” The presenter pointed at the display board on his right, with now showed an abstract looking pattern of black and white shapes. He then reached for the first of a pile of folded-up pieces of paper and flourished it in the air. “And just as expected, our volunteers now recognise this picture as a…”

The presenter opened the folded paper with a dramatic snap. He glanced at some writing written upon it; his eyes went wide.

What the presenter said next had been intended as just a whisper to himself. But the microphone carried his alarmed and confused mutterings across the entire bookstore. “Huh? That’s not supposed how it’s supposed to go…”

As the rumbling commotion of the spectators grew into agitated shouting, and then yells and screams, Hazuki doubled her efforts towards the exit. Was this the danger Nona had tried to warn her about? It was best to get out while she had the chance.

Hazuki stepped out of the bookstore onto the bright New York street, only to find that both ends of the block had been cordoned off. On the other side of the streams of bright yellow tape stood ranks of riot police, equipped with shields and Kevlar and batons. As blinding spotlights were directed her way, Hazuki put her hands in the air and sank to her knees.

She’d barely been able to keep track of the storm that followed. What Hazuki remembered: as the riot police had swarmed and surrounded her to take her into custody, yet more phalanxes of them had stormed into the bookstore she’d emerged from. In handcuffs, she’d been dragged along the pavement and into one of the canvas tents that had been erected beyond the cordons. And there she’d been left, sat on a rickety metal chair, long enough that she thought she’d been forgotten about.

It was only after what had to have been hours – Hazuki had no way to tell the time, her wristwatch having been inaccessibly stuck behind her back when her wrists were cuffed together – that something happened. Two officers – a man and a woman, dressed in military khaki – ducked their way under the flap of the tent’s door and sat down on the opposite side of an equally rickety trestle table. The two of them stared Hazuki down for a while, an evidently practiced interrogation tactic, before the woman retrieved some papers from her attaché bag, placed them on the table, and opened her mouth to speak.

“Hey!” Hazuki got there first. “Get me my lawyer! I’m not saying anything until then.”

The male soldier scowled, and the woman rapped her knuckles harshly against the papers in front of her. The metal table resounded with a sharp ring, one that would have been uncomfortable to the ears if the sound hadn’t been dulled by the soft material of the pavilion that surrounded them. Hazuki did her best not to look intimidated.

Eventually, the woman said, “That’s no longer relevant. The Special Emergency Powers Act sees to that. You need to tell us what we need to know.” She paused, and Hazuki could feel the way her questioner was trying to make the implicit threats sink in. “What do you know about the incident that just occurred?”

Before Hazuki could even process that question the man jumped in as well: a staccato rhythm of interrogation that kept her off balance. “You stepped out from ground zero of what they’re telling us is a category nine mind-virus. You just strolled out of there without suffering any effects at all. How do you plan to explain that?”

Then back to the woman. “None of the other civilians we picked up are in any state to ask for their lawyers. Not from in the bookstore; the ones we picked up from the sidewalks outside aren’t looking good, either. All we’re getting from them is wails and yelling and babbling about some fu– some fucked up nonsense. What makes you special?”

Hazuki didn’t know what to say to any of that. She glared defiantly back at the level stares of her interrogators, just hoping that they wouldn’t jump to the worst possible conclusions about her and knowing that nothing she said could prevent that.

Reprieve came from a blithe but commanding voice, speaking from just outside the tent. “I’ll take it from here,” came a statement that was just as much an inviolable order.

The woman seated opposite Hazuki sighed and shook her head, but she gathered up her papers without complaint. As her two previous interrogators stood up and filed out towards the exit, the speaker from outside raised the tent flap and strode in. The shining glint of her necklace’s golden ring, sitting as it did over a practical but well-tailored beige suit, heralded Alice’s arrival.

When the two of them were alone Hazuki breathed an exhausted sigh of relief. “It’s good to see you,” she said to the woman who’d been the first person they’d seen after escaping from that horrid death game.

Alice nodded in reply, a warm smile spreading across her lips. “I figured a softer touch would be better for all of us, not whatever those two clowns thought they were up to.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it,” Hazuki said. After stretching out all the tension in her shoulders – tension that she’d only just realised had been coiling up throughout her time in the emergency response pavilion – she glanced up at Alice and jingled the handcuffs that still held her wrists together behind the hard back of her chair. “Any chance of getting these off?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, no.”

“What?!” Hazuki gasped. “You can’t be–!”

“You’re a friend,” Alice said, “but that doesn’t mean I can take liberties.” She sighed, gesturing towards the exit of the tent and the New York streets outside: an outside world that had barely seemed to exist while Hazuki had been left to stare at plain white fabric. “Those two might have been ham-fisted, but they weren’t lying. It’s a nightmare out there. And across the country, too: I’m barely catching up to events in time to put out fires, not getting any chance to get ahead of this thing.” She leaned over the trestle table, locking eyes with Hazuki. “I need some reassurance you’re going to be safe. Not add to all our problems, even if you don’t mean to.”

Hazuki recalled the questions that the two soldiers had been asking her. “I-I don’t know why nothing happened to me. Some sort of weird buzzing in my head, then I left the store and that was it!” She forced herself to concentrate, digging up every last detail she could have subconsciously picked up along the way. “Maybe I’ve seen… whatever-it-was… before?” Would that have made her resistant, by inoculation?

Alice shook her head, sternly. “That’s not it. This was a book announcement by a world famous parascience advocate. Half the crowd in there had to be familiar with the Sheldrake experiment.”

But something was making Hazuki even more certain. “No…” she murmured. “I think I’ve seen all of it before. Including that bit extra, at the end, that made it happen.” Though what that extra was, and where Hazuki had seen it before, she couldn’t quite recall.

Alice pursed her lips tight. But, eventually, she nodded. “It’s worth looking into,” she said.

From there it was only a few bureaucratic hurdles before Alice arranged for Hazuki’s release, though it felt to her like an hour. When Alice knelt down behind Hazuki’s chair to finally uncuff her wrists she whispered into her ear.

“Thanks for this. I’ll make sure to overlook what Ennea did to give Nona that distraction. For a friend.”

—

By the Numbers

The detective glanced to his side, made sure Junpei looked as ready as possible, and then rang the doorbell of the house they’d arrived at. To be honest, he wasn’t sure if the kid would ever have his head completely in the game. He’d done his best to rub into Junpei’s skull that, if he was going to be a private eye, the routine cases were the ones that paid the bills. That both of them were going to have to do their best on this missing person case, if the detective was going to keep the leeway from his superiors that let them work together on the big stuff.

Even after all that, there was only one missing person case on Junpei’s mind most of the time. The detective would just have to trust it not to get in the way of this one.

The front door of the house creaked open and a middle-aged woman peered out through the gap. The detective was used to the reactions to his stocky frame and height that towered over most Japanese people; his police badge was already in his hand in anticipation as the lady began to flinch away.

“Mrs Matsuo?” he asked. “Can we come in? We’re here about the disappearance you’ve reported.”

Still a bit nervous, and certainly dazed, Mrs Matsuo responded slowly. “About Kenji…?” she said, weariness threaded through her voice. “I… Yes, of course. Please…” She trailed off, the open door as she stepped back finishing her sentence for her.

Once the detective and Junpei had stepped inside, the lady led them through to the living room. As they sat down on the offered sofa the detective looked around, taking particular notice of a photo framed on the side table that portrayed Mrs Matsuo and the man they’d come to ask about standing side by side. She was in no state to offer them refreshments and so she just sat opposite them, her head slightly bowed.

“Can you tell us what happened with your husband, when he went missing?” With the question asked the detective fell silent and leaned back, giving the woman room to answer.

Mrs Matsuo clenched her hands together and shook her head in tight, little jerks. “I-I don’t know. Kenji just left in the middle of the night. It was sudden. So sudden.”

The detective could see from her face the way the pertinent details were getting buried under her shock. He was about to pry further when Junpei spoke up first.

“Anything that happened beforehand? Did Kenji say or do anything that would give us a clue where he’s trying to get to?”

Mrs Matsuo met his gaze for just a second before looking away again. “Um… He was acting strange the evening before. But I don’t see how that could help you find him.”

Junpei put on a warm, beckoning smile. “Every little bit can help. We won’t know what information will be important until we seek it all out. Please, help us help him.”

That was a good start, on Junpei’s part. The detective settled in to watch Mrs Matsuo’s reactions, see what clues they provided on top of her words.

The lady blinked a few times rapidly, cleared her throat, then began to answer Junpei’s question. “Three days ago, I got back to find Kenji stood in here, yelling at the dog.”

The puppy in question – a young black and white terrier – had emerged into the living room to investigate the new guests, and was now nuzzling up against the side of the detective’s leg.

“He was just screaming at the top of his voice and waving his hands at him. Something about how the poor thing ‘wasn’t right’ and was ‘being so rude.’ All sorts of things like that. It didn’t make any sense.”

That was something that made this different from any other missing persons case. “Whoa!” the detective exclaimed, hoping that it sounded sympathetic. “Any idea why he was doing that?”

The lady vigorously shook her head. “No! I couldn’t believe he was doing that! He’s never been cruel to the dog before. And… I don’t think Kenji knew why he was doing it, either.”

“Huh? Mr Matsuo didn’t know either?”

“I asked him, and he just couldn’t answer me. I was so angry… I just sent him to bed, told him he should explain himself in the morning.” Mrs Matsuo put her head in her hands, guilt driving rivulets of tears from the side of her eyes. “By then, he was gone. He left that night. Never came back.”

The detective and Junpei asked a few more questions after that. They established that Mr Matsuo had packed for his disappearance, taking cash and cards and changes of clothes for five nights. The detective ran through a list of known associates, making sure they had all the details of everyone the missing man might have contacted or taken shelter with. And so the routine part of their investigation came to an end.

After they had made their goodbyes to Mrs Matsuo and exited her house, Junpei turned to the detective. “This isn’t just some guy having a mental breakdown, is it?”

The detective shook his head in agreement. Now back to talking just among themselves, he let his voice settle back into its more natural, rougher tones. “Nah. This was too planned out for some guy going nutso. If that was all this was, one of the beat cops would have picked him up wandering the streets by now.” He rubbed is forehead with his fingers, reading himself for what was to come. “Let’s get our asses back to HQ and put together what we’ve got.”

Back at police HQ, and after getting Junpei through his colleagues’ inquisitive gazes by talking up the benefits of collaboration with Junpei’s newly-joined private agency, the detective had taken over a conference room to act as the base of operations for this investigation. He’d projected profiles of the missing Mr Matsuo on the screens around the walls and spread the witness accounts the beat cops had collected from nearby houses on the central table. Then he’d set up computer terminals for himself and Junpei, from which they could follow up any leads and pursue their hypotheses into the wider world.

They’d begun their work of tracking where Mr Matsuo could have fled to, collating new information as it came in and bouncing ideas off each other. The detective had felt particularly proud, successful as a mentor, when Junpei had brought up the usage of the man’s credit and debit cards, which suggested even further that the man was in full possession of his wits – money drained from his accounts, and then a taxi out to no destination they could make sense of. Even so, they hadn’t made any concrete progress yet. Just as the detective was about to call for a coffee break his phone began to ring.

The phone was out on the table, and Junpei was able to get a look before the detective was able to pick it up and answer. His eyes narrowing in first concentration, then surprise, Junpei read out the caller ID that had shown up across the screen. “Huh? ‘Exhibitionist Demon Lady’, it says… Is that Lotus?”

The detective snorted. “Yep. We’ve kept in touch, ever since… you know.” It wasn’t like anything more needed to be said about that event in both their lives. “But why the hell’s she calling me now?”

Junpei shrugged. “You got any choice but to pick up the phone?”

The detective did so. “Hey, Hazuki! What’s up?”

The voice came from the other end of the line, sultry and jocular. “It’s been crazy here like you wouldn’t believe. Or who knows. Maybe you would.” Hazuki paused then, the faintest tremors of barely picked-up speech coming through the speakers as she conversed with someone in the room with her. “I caught wind of something that might interest you. People are going crazy in a number of different places, and they might be connected.”

Junpei perked up, eyes narrowing as he peered towards the phone the detective was holding. “Huh? Could that have anything to do with our case?”

That drew a response from the other end of the line as well. “Is that Junpei? Say hi to him for me.”

The detective duly put the call on speaker so that Junpei could take part. Then he continued speaking to Hazuki. “So how’d an ol’ lady like you get mixed up in this?”

Her gasp of rage wasn’t so much heard as projected all the way across the call to blast into the detective’s ear. “I’d kick your ass for that! If only we were in the same country… Anyway, it wasn’t my fault. I just happened to be around when the big one happened.”

Obviously, that wasn’t the whole story. But the detective had learned not to look a gift belly-dancer in the mouth. “So this bull isn’t just happening in Japan?” Hazuki had moved away to America a few months back, when her daughters had gone to live there. “It’s happening all over the world?”

“No. Just the USA and Japan. Nowhere else, at least for now.” A deep sigh crackled over the connection of the phone-call. When Hazuki’s voice came back it was lilted with an ironic “Now, what else has happened recently that connected America and Japan?”

Something that had involved a connection between Japan and America? There was only one thing that came to the detective’s mind.

“I can’t fucking believe it. The Nonary Game?” the detective said, his voice drained, wearily resting his head on his palm.

“I can’t fucking believe it. The Nonary Game?!” Junpei said, his eyes shining with a desperate, all-consuming, desire, his voice rising with uncontrolled hope as he leaned unconsciously in towards the phone.

“Yep. I guess I’ll be seeing you soon.” After that Hazuki hung up.

With that extra clue in hand – and after some not-entirely-legit strings were pulled by Junpei’s detective agency – it wasn’t long until the two of them tracked the missing Mr Matsuo to an airport, buying tickets to San Fransisco under an assumed name.

“How’s your passport situation?” the detective asked Junpei.

“Not great,” Junpei said with a smirk. “They’ve been iffy about it ever since I ended up outside the country with no idea how I’d got there.”

It didn’t matter. That wasn’t enough to stop the two of them from getting where they were needed.

—

Hard-Earned Fortune

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just take you in right now,” Clover Field said to the man in front of her, the muzzle of her handgun buried in the messy white of his hair. “Why shouldn’t I throw you in the slammer like you deserve?”

A strained chuckle came from Aoi Kurashiki as he held his hands out to either side. “Is this any way to greet an old friend?”

Clover tilted the gun slightly, savouring the grind against the back of Aoi’s head. “Nine…” she hissed. “Eight. Seven…”

“Jeez!” Aoi exclaimed. “I’ll tell you why we called you out here. Calm the fuck down, already.”

Certainly, the dingy back alley the two of them were in was a good location for a clandestine meeting, which was probably why the mysterious note calling her out here had specified it as her destination. It was equally an excellent location for an ambush, which was why Light was sitting two blocks away in a van filled with reinforcements, waiting for the merest thought of alarm from her. And why Clover had undertaken to get the upper hand on whoever came to meet her, by every trick and method her SOIS training had instilled in her.

That strategy had led her here, sidearm planted satisfyingly in the back of the man who had kidnapped her and her brother only so many months ago. Still, Clover knew a single arrest wasn’t the objective of this little operation. She gritted her teeth, and said, “Go on. Tell me.”

“My sister and I were looking for a team-up. Join forces. Crash Keys and SOIS, having a nice little house party together.”

Clover could just imagine his smirk, even looking from the wrong side of him to see his face. “Why would we want to do that? What have we got to gain from teaming up with you?”

Aoi scoffed. “I’d have thought you’d already have a good guess on that. You gonna make me say it?” He shrugged, and Clover by well-ingrained instinct shifted her attention to his hands, making sure this wasn’t the start of him trying something. “Guess you are. Akane’s got some idea about the struggles you chumps are having with that so-called ‘mind virus’. And whatever you’re telling the average joes, we both know it’s morphogenetic in origin. You guys and us are the only fuckers who know anything about this, so we’re the only ones with any chance of dealing with it. Admit it. You need our help.”

“It’s not just that,” Clover snapped. “You’ve got some other angle on this. Haven’t you?!” The two Kurashiki siblings had kept up their façades for nine hours back then, impeccably. Clover was never gonna take anything either of them said at face value, ever again. “I just bet it’s some scheme to get one over us, while we’re busy trying to solve the real problems.”

“I’m not gonna try lying to you,” Aoi replied. “Of course we’ve got some agenda. Who the fuck hasn’t?”

“Then tell me! Tell me, or any deal’s off the table.”

Aoi Kurashiki grunted. “I can’t tell you just whatever… I’m not hiding anything that’ll be a problem to SOIS. Fucking god, Clover, I swear I’m not!”

“Then prove it! What are you hiding?”

“You think you can just do whatever you want, ’cause you’re with the government,” Aoi spat. His tone was as cocky as always, but something about him was almost… desperate. Clover was about to press him further when he suddenly spoke again. “A hostage.”

Clover squinted her eyes. “Huh? A hostage?”

“Yeah. Against Crash Keys’ good intentions.” Aoi’s shoulders relaxed and slumped as he let out one final half-laugh. “I guess you’re gonna get to throw me in the slammer after all.”

Back at SOIS HQ they’d set up a meeting room so that Alice’s squad of espers could prepare the next stage, as they moved on from just managing one crisis after another to actually being able to get ahead this thing. A meeting room specifically chosen so that Aoi Kurashiki could be handcuffed to the table.

“You really think this is necessary?” he complained, testing the range of motion the restraints gave him.

“Perhaps not,” Light said as he sat down on the opposite side. “Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that it is a reassuring precaution. Perhaps you could take a moment or two to reflect on why this has happened.”

Aoi scowled. Then he turned with a plaintive expression towards Alice, who’d taken position at the head of the table.

“I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am today if I hadn’t learned to trust my subordinates’ judgement,” she said to him.

As Aoi sulked and sank, defeated, into his seat, Clover opened up her laptop. “Here’s what we’ve got!” she exclaimed, plugging in the flash drive Aoi had brought along to the rendezvous. The maps it contained were projected onto screens around the room, to which Clover added streams of camera footage from her own investigations. “It really does look like this is the place all those people are going. See? There’s that group from New Mexico we lost track of, going into the big building.”

“Very good. That’s impeccable proof that this is where we need to go,” Alice replied. She glanced at Aoi. “How come your people knew about this place?”

“What can I say?” Aoi said with a languid gesture. “It wasn’t any great feat of detective work. These people just happened to use one of the same construction supply companies we did, back when we were retrofitting Building Q. We noticed people were purchasing the same sort of stuff, put three and six together, and got a great big screaming ‘look here’ sign.”

“Hey!” Ennea interjected, tapping the side of her head. “Is it, like, just a coincidence they used the same company?”

“Heh. No,” Aoi replied. He didn’t volunteer anything more.

“Now we have a target location,” Alice said, “we’ll need to infiltrate. Find out what’s in there, what’s causing the morphogenetic mind virus and, if possible, what we can do to cut it off for good.”

“What’s the plan?” Light asked.

“This one won’t be a direct assault. Until we know what’s inside, we can’t take the risk that some of them will escape and set up shop again somewhere else. Looks like a quiet infiltration’s on the cards.”

Aoi took that moment to interrupt. “And you’d better not step on Crash Keys’ toes while you’re at it. That’s half of why I’m here.”

Actually, the whole of why he was here was that Clover had hog-tied him and dragged him back to base. Clover let a scornful smirk in Aoi’s direction be her only acknowledgement of that fact.

“We’d be doing this anyway,” Aoi continued, “even if you chose not to co-operate with us. It’s too important to our organisation’s goals. Having your guys along for the ride is good, but mostly I just wanted to make sure you didn’t stumble into us halfway through and fuck this up.”

Alice sighed and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. “Yes. It looks like agents of Crash Keys will be engaging alongside you when you enter the building. Respect their expertise, but do not place your complete trust in them. I’m sure you understand why.”

“Do you have to talk about us like I’m not sitting right here?” Aoi said.

Into the silence that followed Nona hesitantly, shakily, raised her hand. “Alice… you said… when we enter the building. Us newbies?”

“Yes,” Alice said with finality. “It’ll be your first major mission. You’ll be supported by more experienced agents, sure. But, given the nature of what we’re looking for, you’ll need to be on the front lines. It might be that you’re the only ones who’ll be able to recognise the morphogenetic cause.”

At Alice’s pronouncement, a deathly pallor descended on the other espers in the briefing room. Nona, lips almost white with how much she was pursing them, wrapped her arms round her sister’s elbow; Ennea, in turn, leaned into it. For Light… well, no one else would have been able to tell that his demeanour had changed. But Clover knew her brother well enough to see his uncertainty. Who knew how it would have been if they weren’t all trying to keep brave faces in front of this outsider among their midst.

Clover gritted her teeth. She slammed her palms down on the table, half-standing up in the process from sheer momentum. “We can do this!” she hollered. “We’ll kick their asses.”

“That’s right, Clover,” Alice said, her smile warm and proud. “I wouldn’t have recommended you all for this mission if I thought there was any risk to my impeccable reputation. This is what all the training was for. We do our best here, and we can put the convulsions of the last few weeks behind us.” She pressed a button, bringing up a schematic of the building on the screens. “Now, the plan is…”

—

Markings of a Moment in Time

Akane Kurashiki peered around the corner, making a mental map of what would come next as they made their way through the building. A carefully application of pressure to the construction supply company had produced rough blueprints of the complex they were infiltrating, from which Crash Keys had been able to identify the likely heart of the facility. Through careful inspection of the plans, reasonable assumptions about how the people inside were using the space, and some morphogenetic insights Akane herself had supplied – with no desire to explain what it’d taken to arrive at them – they had plotted several routes to that central point with good opportunities for cover and that should avoid most of the foot traffic.

Akane had led a small team of Crash Keys agents along one such route. She knew that SOIS had infiltrated via the other routes. With luck, they would all make it through to here, on the ninth floor of the central building.

All Akane had to do now was ensure the safety of this last stretch. So she peered around the corner of the corridor, examining the path to the plain and simple, but strangely foreboding, door that was the entrance to the heart. She was ready to lead her people towards it – Not just yet. Someone was coming.

She waved her team to hold back, then focused her attention on the man who’d just appeared into view from a corridor crossing their path. Middle-aged and Japanese, he was distracted from his surroundings by the phone pressed against his ear. The drained, hollow look in his eyes marked him as a victim of the morphogenetic field; the driven purpose of the stride reminded Akane that he was still an opponent. Indeed, everything they’d seen of the people drawn to this place had reminded Akane of a cult. Maybe not as bad a cult as Free the Soul was looking to be, but enough to still make this a more immediate concern for Crash Keys.

What the man was saying did nothing to dispel that impression. “It’s almost time… It’s almost time,” he kept muttering into the phone. Whoever was on the other end of the phone call seemed to be acting like this was a normal thing to hear.

It wasn’t long until the man had passed by, the sound of his babbling receding away. Akane and her squad wouldn’t have a better chance to make to their target. Akane beckoned them forward, then stepped with purpose out into the corridor. They crossed the space with quick, soft steps and gathered in a well-practiced formation around the door.

They’d expected, going in, that the target door would be secured. Locked, guarded perhaps, maybe even booby-trapped. Akane found none of that. Instead the door opened immediately to her touch. Suppressing her surprise in front of the people she had gathered to her cause, Akane stepped inside.

And in there, in the heart of the cultists’ facility, Akane found… another corridor. This one was markedly different to the corridors they’d passed through to arrive, however. The light was dimmer, only coming from small circles in the ceiling and the occasional lamp hung on either side. Brass handrails ran along the dark grey walls. The entire corridor somehow managed to seem like it should have been a lot longer than it was; instead it was only a dozen or so metres to the other end, and the pair of doors there that led back out the other side. Those doors, made from solid oak, were decorated with intricate patterns around two golden diamonds. A spear-and-shield symbol was carved into the lock below the door handle.

Just as Akane had taken it all in those two doors swung open. For a second Akane tensed up with readiness; had they been discovered? But then Akane was put at ease. The overwhelming pinkness of Clover, at the head of the newly-arrived group, made it obvious that this was one of the SOIS squads that had infiltrated alongside Crash Keys. Beside Clover was her brother Light. And further back, escorted by the squad of extravagantly-dressed SOIS agents that were backing the Fields up, was Akane’s own brother Aoi.

“These chumps,” Aoi said by way of explanation, even as the agents surrounding him bristled warily, “didn’t feel like they could spend a moment out of my company.”

Akane smiled gratefully at him. He’d taken on the risks, to make up for her mistake. “You’ve done well,” she said in reply.

By now Clover, Light, and the agents who’d accompanied them were peering around the corridor they’d entered, curious and cautious in equal measure. Clover, who’d been examining the smaller doors leading off to either side of the corridor, suddenly perked her head up with confusion. Her nose wrinkled. She glanced first, beseechingly, at the more experienced SOIS agent searching nearby, then turned towards Akane with suspicion in her eyes. “This place feels real familiar, somehow…”

It wouldn’t do Akane any good to hide it. Even if Clover and Light didn’t eventually come to the realisation that was already on the tip of Clover’s tongue, the earpieces they all wore could connect them within seconds to someone who could answer the question for them. SOIS had gone over Building Q with a fine-toothed comb after she’d abandoned it, after all.

“It’s the second class cabins,” Akane stated, her voice unwavering but nevertheless subdued.

Clover’s eyes narrowed. “Huh?! As in, the Nonary Game… How the hell did we end up back there?”

“Not exactly. We didn’t suddenly teleport hundreds of miles. But it’s certainly a very good recreation of them,” Akane said.

Even with his eyes closed, Light took in his surroundings. “There are a great many things about here that remind me of the Gigantic, it is true. And the general atmosphere… Still, it is not quite something I recognise.”

Aoi scoffed cockily. “Yeah, sure. The two of you didn’t get to come through here, so I guess it –”

“In this timeline,” Akane interjected.

“In this timeline, right.” Aoi nodded exaggeratedly. “In any case, I guess it stands to reason you guys wouldn’t recognise it on sight.” He turned towards the side door that Clover had been examining, pointing out the plate that read ‘B93’. “Or we gonna have a look at what else they managed to put together, or what?” He opened up that door and slipped inside.

Akane went the other way, into the door labelled ‘B92’. Her first sight inside just confirmed how much this space was drawing from her Nonary Game. The same calming blue wallpaper covered the walls, the same pattern of checkered tiles could be found in the ensuite, even the box of matches and the tiny golden key that she’d included for the escape puzzle were in the carefully chosen locations she’d designated.

Light and Clover had followed Akane in. “Is there any particular reason why the victims of this mind virus would choose to recreate part of your Nonary Game?” Light asked. “It’s a peculiar choice, for the inner sanctum of a facility such as this.”

“I’m not certain, yet,” Akane replied. A half-truth.

Clover folded her arms, tapping her foot. “Well, when we work out what’s causing this whole thing, then we’ll know what you’ve got to do with it.” She glanced around the cabin. “So? Where the hell is it? What in here’s causing the morphogenetic field to get so crazy?”

Akane closed her eyes. It was true that this place, this replica of the second class cabins, was a place of morphogenetic power. The cultists had built it to be so. But at the same time… “This place isn’t complete yet. We came here too soon. Whatever’s at the heart of this, it’s not here yet.”

It wasn’t clear that Clover was going to accept that, just on Akane’s word. But the other SOIS agents had pulled out various devices and were waving them around: experimental prototypes that allowed them to test the morphogenetic field what Akane knew as plain fact.

“Damnit! I thought we were so close, too,” Clover said with a scowl. “I guess we’ll just have to round everyone up, see what we get from them.”

The SOIS agent nearest to her put a finger to her earpiece, listened carefully, then nodded at Clover. “HQ are saying that we should clear out before the ordinary police move in. Avoid crossfire. So let’s…” She cut off suddenly; when she spoke again her voice was harsher, more urgent. “Reports are saying that the opponents have spotted our infiltration points. They’ve moved guards into the parts of the construction site we used. The other teams have successfully exfiltrated, but our path is cut off. Crash Keys’, too.”

“Are we gonna have to fight our way out?” Clover asked. Her voice was half-filled with trepidation, half psyching herself up.

Akane concentrated, delving deep within herself for each and every detail she’d picked up about this facility and the people who’d been drawn their like moths to a flame. “There may be a way out, without violence,” she said. “But you’re going to have to trust me.”

The two groups, now moving as one, had left the recreated second class cabins. They’d found a storeroom, and purloined from there everything they expected to need. Now they were gathered at their final resting point, sheltered just off to the side of the open foyer that took up most of the building’s ground floor.

Akane’s planned exit? Through the main entrance, in plain sight.

“Remember the one thing we know about these people,” she said. “They all just got caught up in this thing and came here. They don’t know each other. They aren’t entirely sure themselves what they’re doing here. If we move through with purpose, we’ll appear to belong just as much as any of them.”

Clover shrugged. “It’s as good a plan as any I’ve got.”

“Very well,” Light added. He held out his robe from among the ones they’d taken from the storeroom. “It seems that being compelled into strange, cult-like, garb is just something I have to expect these days.”

Strange it was, as were all the other robes they’d taken. Black divided from white into uncoordinated blobs all along the fabric, like wearing a Rorschach test.

Light turned to his sister. “Clover, please help me don this. It would be a shame to get this far and be caught out by a misplaced hood.”

After they had done so, and after all the other members of the group had put on robes as well, Akane stepped forward into the open light of the foyer. She surveyed the crowd milling about in front of her, took a single second’s judgment, and then plunged in. By an instinct trained over a decade of preparation, she knew not to be tempted to scrutinize the people she passed for their reactions. She just kept walking forward with a steady pace, hoping that those behind her – SOIS and Crash Keys both – were following her lead.

They were about halfway across the space, the towering glass of the exit coming closer and closer. No-one had noticed them yet. It had to be working.

And then one of the figures in front of her diverted from their expected path. Akane collided with them, barely stifling her gasp of surprise, and the two of them tumbled to the floor.

Akane looked down at the man who had stopped her. As the hood of his robe fell away, a kind and innocent face looked back up at her.

“…Jumpy?”

“Kanny?”

“What are you doing here?!”

“Huh? What are you doing here?! You –” Junpei’s face contorted in a desperate confusion. He mumbled, “We were investigating a missing person. Plan was for us to sneak in and see if we could find him. But you…”

Akane got up as Junpei trailed off and helped him to his feet. At this point she noticed three things. One: the imposing figure of the detective who had rowed her away from the Gigantic a decade ago. How on Earth he’d managed to disguise himself using a cultist’s robe and sneak in… His actions against Cradle had proven his aptitude for stealth, however surprising that would seem from first glance.

Second: an unnatural silence had descended on the foyer. The entire crowd of cultists had turned to face the escaping group, hollow-eyed stares boring in.

And third, Akane’s disguising robe had fallen away in the tumble.

“Interlopers!” came one astonished shout.

“Her! In the purple,” a hiss-like cry came up from somewhere in the mass of people. “She’s the one who did this to us!”

Then the crowd rushed in, a berserker wave.

Akane knew that Aoi and the Crash Keys members she’d brought with her could handle themselves. The hand-to-hand skills of the SOIS didn’t need to be mentioned. And the detective had decades of experience bringing down violent criminals. Once they could just form ranks they’d be able to hold out against these random untrained people plucked from the street.

But there was a second or two before that could come together. Grasping hands reached in towards Akane. She flinched back, flailing with her arms. And the Junpei stepped into the way, batting away a couple of the arms.

“Kanny! Run!” he cried out. Then he was yanked off his feet and drawn away, disappearing from sight into the mass of people.

Akane reached after him, but it was too late. The detective came up on one side of her, shielding her from blows, and Aoi pulled her back by the arm. “Fuck it, Akane! You can’t do anything,” he said. “Junpei’s gone.” Ignoring her protests he dragged her back into the squad of agents, who’d attained a defensive formation too late for it to count.

The cultists formed up around them, more arriving by dribs and drabs at the back as they were drawn to the commotion. For a moment a ring of no-man’s land took shape between the two groups. Then a piercing battle-cry went up, and the enemies charged.

“All hail the Funyarinpa!”

—

Two-Pronged Strike

It was a good thing that Light Field’s character inclined him towards calm, reflective confidence and an unwavering poise. The sudden rush of attackers was enough to test even his nerves. He held his own as the melee began, but by the time he was rotated out of the front lines by the more experienced SOIS agents his muscles were aching. The attackers showed no signs of relenting.

In the centre of the defensive ring, Light joined Akane and Aoi; he could keep track of Clover as well through the flashes of her heightened emotions that he was receiving. It looked like they were all still safe so far. Except, of course for Junpei.

“We ain’t gonna last long,” grunted the detective, even as he held onto one side of the formation practically single-handedly. “They’re just gonna keep coming, until we’re exhausted.” The rumbling sounds of the fight interrupted just then, and when they subsided the detective was panting. “There’s gotta be somewhere with some cover, where we can make a choke point. Right?”

For a moment Light had expected Akane to answer. Her information on the facility had been better than SOIS’ own, and coming down here had been her plan. But her shallow, laboured breathing conveyed her current mental state as clearly as spoken words. Light decided to answer on his own initiative.

“There is still construction in progress on the south-west side of the building. Perhaps we can use that?”

“Sounds good,” the detective replied.

Light kept pace as the group pushed that way, forcing their way through the attacking crowd and across the foyer. When they reached the edge, they ducked their way, one by one, through a hole in an unfinished wall that demarcated the start of the construction. Once they’d all escaped the deafening fury of the foyer and into the sheltering quiet of the construction site the detective turned. He gave one solid kick to the supports of some nearby scaffolding, bringing the web of metal bars crashing down on top of the entrance. The pursuit was blocked off, a moment of peace bought.

Light’s earpiece – Clover’s too, and presumably the other agents’ as well – pinged at that moment. “It’ll be twenty minutes before regular law enforcement is ready to move in,” Alice’s voice came through it, the hint of worry not detracting from the clarity of her tone. “Hold out until then and we’ll see you home safe.”

As the veteran SOIS agents who had come with Light and Clover fanned out, surveying the lay of the land, Light tested out the sounds of the new environs. The first impressions seemed promising: the clear tones of metal laid out the positions of the rest of the scaffolding, the dull crumbling of shifting footsteps acted as a polite warning from piles of rubble. This was a stage on which Light could pull his full weight.

Meanwhile most of the Crash Keys members were also exploring the construction site, following SOIS’ lead. A couple had stayed behind with Aoi near the blockade of scaffolding, tending to Akane. Light and Clover approached them.

“Perhaps an explanation is in order,” Light said to Akane. “The people who just attacked us seemed very much convinced that you are to blame for their condition. They were quite aggrieved, in fact.”

Akane shrunk away under the glare of his closed eyes. Then she steadied herself, taking in a deep breath. “I included a certain item in the Nonary Game,” she stated, “in order to establish certain ideas about the morphogenetic field. It was necessary at the time, for the game to conclude as it did, and I won’t apologise for using it. But… I regret the side-effects of that choice.”

“Hah!” Clover spat. “It’s not so easy, is it? When it’s your boyfriend’s life on the line.”

“Junpei’s life has always been on the line. I accepted that a long time ago.”

Aoi grunted to himself. “I can’t believe Junpei went off like that, back when we were going through the second class cabins. Even as a joke… I should have knocked some sense into him before he could get that far.”

Light would have desired to press that further for more details. But now wasn’t the time. The sounds of the mind-virus victims on the other side of the barrier were getting louder, bit by bit, and they worked away at the pile of tangled metal. One wiry young man, working his way through a gap at the top by a desperate, manic effort, burst through into the construction site. He pulled himself to his feet, ducked under one last metal bar hanging in his way, and then ran down the side of the barrier towards them.

The clang of feet on metal told Light exactly where this man was at all times. As the attacker leapt wildly Light caught him out of the air and flipped him onto the floor.

Clover was immediately by Light’s side, pinning one of the attacker’s arms with her knee. “Hey! What are you doing? The hell’s up with you, anyway?”

Not the most precise of interrogations, but the man responded. “I just saw it, one day…” he mumbled. “I saw it, and knew that it was the Funyarinpa. That it was important.”

“How the fuck does that add up to you attacking us? Like crazies?!” Aoi said.

“Yeah,” the detective added. “You and loads of other guys left your homes, your lives, behind. What’s it all for?”

“I can’t get it out of my head. The Funyarinpa, it’s… it’s all I can think about!” The young man groaned, as though exhausted from an entire marathon’s worth of effort. “If we can make this work then it’ll make sense. I just want it all to make sense.”

By then the agents who had set off to explore the area were coming back. And they weren’t just returning in order to rejoin the group; they were backing up, slowly and carefully, attention fixed cautiously outward. Beyond them, hooded figures circled with heavy, uncertain footsteps. Just as the cultists that had attacked them in the entrance lobby were working on widening the hole that first man had used, others must have been finding their way in through other parts of the construction site. They’d settled for just watching, for now, and the crowd was diffuse. But more and more were arriving over time. They drew closer.

Light, Clover, and all the others that had stayed at the opening stepped forward. Now that their respite had come to an end, every hand would be needed to stave off an attack and keep themselves going long enough for rescue to arrive. While the detective kept an eye on the widening hole in the barricade Light, Clover and Aoi joined the defensive line of SOIS agents facing the gathering crowd of robed figures. With the sheer number of people in front of them, however unskilled, they needed to avoid being flanked: staying in formation, and using the clutter of half-finished construction work to anchor the ends of the line.

“We just need to take them out,” Clover muttered. “We can manage that.” Light felt her heightened emotions drift her thoughts towards the gun at her hip.

Light placed his hand on her arm. “They are victims in this. Just as we were,” he said.

“Yeah, sure,” Clover replied. Trusting warmth came through in her voice despite the sarcasm. She settled into a fighting stance and raised her fists.

The cultists had worked up the will, egging each other on, to encroach forward towards the territory held by the agents. Bit by bit, the momentum built up: not quite the mad rush of the foyer, but before Light knew it he was in hand-to-hand combat. Someone tried to push him back in an unskilled bull-rush. Light redirected the flailing strikes and sent the attacker stumbling back; there was a gratifying thud as they collided with more cultists coming up behind. Clover was doing just as well, fending of blows from three men at once and then delivering a swift kick to the groin of the one who faltered first.

And then one of the robed women pulled out a crowbar. She raised it high above her head and sung it down with a primal yell.

Clover screamed as she caught the metal on her right forearm; the breaking of bones was audible to even those without Light’s exceptional hearing. The crowbar wielding woman made to swing again, and Light was just able to get his left arm in the way before the rod of metal came down once more on Clover’s head.

It didn’t hurt. That arm didn’t feel any pain. Something else, coursing through his entire body… it felt much worse than mere pain.

Beside Light, Clover struggled to stay upright. “I can still…” she said through gritted teeth, “…fight. I can still do this!” She waved her left arm, as much to convince herself as to convince him. “See? I’m not –” An involuntary gasp cut off her words.

“No, Clover,” Light said. “Stay back here. Stay back, and keep your eyes open.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What I have to.” Then Light turned and stepped forward into the onrushing crowd.

Did the people in front of Light know what was allowed to him by Clover’s open eyes? Did they know what it meant for them that his own eyes were open, too?

The attackers moved to take advantage of Light stepping out of the line, hurrying to surround him. This was why the SOIS agents had been so concerned about being flanked, after all. Once one of the hooded figures was behind him they moved in, aiming a low strike at the small of his back. The woman who’d swung at Clover, who had been backing away with unsteady, stumbling footsteps, raised her arms again as she saw Light coming for her. She lashed out with the crowbar at the exact same moment.

Light dodged both strikes with an effortless lean to the side.

Even as more of the Funyarinpa cultists surrounded Light, attempting to interfere with his approach on the woman who had hurt his sister, none of it concerned him. A knowledge better than mere vision guided his actions. As long as Clover, watching over him from where he’d left her, knew where his opponents stood and what they did she could send him that information. They couldn’t lay a finger on someone with that perfect knowledge. And while such a number of attackers were trying and failing to deal with Light, the rest of the SOIS agents gained a moment of relief.

After knocking the wind out of one man and efficiently sending another off-balance and careening away, Light closed with the crowbar-wielding woman. In her panic she didn’t even attempt anything before Light grasped her wrist and disarmed her. Then he threw here over his shoulder onto the hard concrete floor.

For a moment Light was torn about what to do with her. His duty called on him to continue using his ‘advantage’ in this melee for the benefit of everyone else fighting; a bitter poison inside him reminded him of the shattering crack of Clover’s bones. Indecision held Light motionless, just for a second.

And then, all at once, all across the construction site, something changed in the voices and breaths of the Funyarinpa cultists. Light could hear every last subtlety of it.

As one, the robed figures began to retreat away from the line of agents, all the tension gone from their movements. One of them stepped cautiously forward to get between Light and the woman on the ground, kneeling to shelter her with his body, hands held in surrender. “It’s happened. It all makes sense now,” the man said to Light. The hopeful hint in his voice only grew as he continued speaking. “A truce? We don’t need to fight you anymore.”

Light’s decision was made for him. He nodded.

The man whispered his thanks and helped the woman to her feet. Then the crowd of Funyarinpa cultists melted away from the construction site as gradually and unobtrusively as they’d entered, leaving SOIS, Crash Keys, and the detective in the quiet, empty expanse.

—

The Thing in Itself

When Junpei Tenmyouji regained his bearings he was in a small but cosy room, the half-light and the ache of his body from the rough manhandling leaving him almost drowsy. That wouldn’t be good; Junpei forced himself to stay alert and pay attention to his surroundings. The room was L-shaped, the wallpaper a pleasant calming green, and Junpei was sat at the corner of it. From there he could see the entrance door just feet away to his right, hints of an ensuite shower through a crack in a door just beyond that, and to his left a blue sofa and a glass cabinet in what was a small lounge area.

This all seemed very familiar to Junpei. Was this one of the second class cabin? From the Nonary Game? If Junpei could just check things out closer up he might be able to confirm it.

It was at this point that Junpei realised that he was firmly tied to the seat he’d been sat it.

“Hey!” he called out as loudly as his lungs could manage. “Let me the hell out of here! Goddamnit!” Would any of the hooded figures who’d carried him here be close enough to hear him shouting? Would they care, if they did?

As it turned out, one did respond to Junpei’s yells. The entrance door opened up and someone – wearing a robe with the same pattern of black and white blobs – stepped into the cabin. He went past Junpei into the open lounge space and then stopped, as though pondering.

“Why the hell did you bring me here?” Junpei spat, struggling to turn in his chair to face the man. “Who are you? Show me your face, damnit!”

The man turned. His head had been covered by the robe’s hood but under Junpei’s glare he lowered it. The face underneath was that of a middle-aged Japanese man, one that triggered a spark of recognition in Junpei the moment the fabric fell away.

“Huh? Kenji Matsuo?”

The expression of the man Junpei had been hired to find was hollow-eyed, worn down by exhaustion and anxious uncertainty. But that didn’t stop Kenji’s eyes from registering his surprise. “You… know my name?”

“Yeah. Your wife asked me to come find you. At least that seems to have worked.” Junpei sighed. “What the hell are you even doing here? Your family back home’s going crazy with worry.” It was hardly his first priority right now, but convincing this guy to go home would be the easiest solution imaginable to the case he’d come on.

“I… I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t want to hurt them, but… I couldn’t just leave it.” Kenji shook his head fitfully. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to see it.”

“How did all this–” Junpei craned his neck as though to take in the entire towering edifice of the building they were in “–happen by accident?”

“I owe you an explanation,” Kenji replied. He turned away ever-so-slightly, and under his breath he mumbled, “I owe my wife an explanation, too.”

Junpei curled his lip into a scowl, but nodded.

“There’s one more thing that needs to happen, before anything I say will make sense to you. Don’t worry, it’ll get here soon.”

Junpei was about to get impatient, but then the entrance door opened again. Two more cultists stepped through it carrying a golden portrait frame between them. In silence they carried it to the wall at the end of the ‘L’ and hung it there, facing Junpei. It was the Funyarinpa.

Huh? Hadn’t Lotus explained him, back during the Nonary Game, that this was a picture of a dog? She’d traced it out, and he’d certainly been able to see the dog in the image. But now he couldn’t see the dog at all. There was the Funyarinpa, and nothing else.

“I just came across this picture while flicking through late-night reruns,” Kenji explained. “I ended up on this kooky show about paranormal stuff. Some sort of experiment they were doing about how more people were now able to see what was in the image?”

“Yeah, I know,” Junpei replied. He passed on the explanation that Lotus had given him a year before. “So before they did it, people would be able to see lots of different objects in the pattern, or nothing at all. Afterwards, there was an increased chance that they’d be able to see the dog.”

“But that’s not what happened.” Bitterness was laced through Kenji’s voice. “All I could see was that it was the Funyarinpa. Everyone else here has a similar story: just coming across this image by accident, seeing the Funyarinpa, and not being to get it out of our heads. We all knew that there was a place we could go, where we might be able to put our heads together and work out why this was happening to us and what it meant.”

“You sure gave us the runaround when you left Japan to come here,” Junpei said.

Kenji smiled sheepishly. “The idea just came to me. I didn’t mean to cause anyone any trouble.”

“So,” Junpei said, “you all came here. You ‘put your heads together’, or whatever. Built all this up, and made these mock-ups of the second class cabins. Then you attack my friends and haul me up here.” He made a show of struggling with the bonds that held him in his seat. “Did you actually get anything from all that?”

However rhetorically Junpei had meant that, Kenji answered with, “Yes. I think we did.” He rubbed his brow for a moment, then added. “I think we’ve worked out what the problem is. Why the Funyarinpa’s causing all of us who’ve come here such mental pain.”

“And? What is that?”

“We know the Funyarinpa is important. Every part of us is saying that it’s blasphemous to think otherwise. But there’s nothing else. We all know we have to do something, but there’s nothing in what we received to tell us what that something is.”

Not a surprise, Junpei realised. It had all started as a heat-of-the-moment joke, carried on long enough to make a point and no further. Of course there was nothing more to it than that. Was this… his fault?

Something on Junpei’s face must have conveyed what he was thinking about, because Kenji narrowed his eyes at that moment into a tight, suspicious glare. “You were there, weren’t you? When it first happened? I thought I recognised you.”

“Could have seen me from anywhere,” Junpei replied, his eyes wandering off to the side.

Kenji scratched his finger through his beard-stubble. “No… we only got flashes of it, but enough. It was you, and that skimpy woman, that punk kid, all looking at the Funyarinpa. We got enough to know you were here.” Then the man snorted. “And you recognised this room when you came in.”

“Fine!” Junpei exclaimed through gritted teeth. “It was me! I made the Funyarinpa! I’m the one who did this to you.”

Kenjo Matsuo nodded, then slowly drew closer to loom over Junpei, still trapped in his chair. “Yes. And I think I know exactly what we need to do with you.”

“And so they elected me Funyarinpope,” Junpei said to the assembled group of his friends and their colleagues.

He’d come back down to the bottom of the building, with Kenji Matsuo and a couple of the other worshippers in tow, to view the aftermath of the conflict that had erupted after he’d been carried away. Now his friends stood alongside the Funyarinpa worshippers, an uneasy truce holding among them. Wounds were being tended on both sides, and one young acolyte – Junpei now knew her name was Jessica – was speaking to Clover with a stutter in her voice and her hands intertwined contritely in front of her.

On the other side of Clover stood Light, and as Junpei had finished his speech he raised his hand with a question. “Can we be sure that the various convulsions of the past few months will come to an end? It would be just terribly sad for us to remain at odds.”

“I hope so,” Junpei replied. “I’m not sure exactly how it works, but the Funyarinpa should be stabilised now. A real idea worth believing in, not just a mind-virus. That should make everything better. If it doesn’t… I’ll just have to keep working at it.”

The detective Junpei had been working with laughed heartily. “It’s a hell of a step up from being PI, Junpei,” he said. “So, what will you do now?”

It took Junpei a moment to decide, but when he did his voice was certain and unwavering. “I’m going to go with them. We can’t use this place now–” And it really was ‘we’, wasn’t it? “–but we can set up somewhere else. And when we finally find somewhere, and gather everyone together who was affected… I’m going to take responsibility for what I created.”

For a moment it looked like that was the end of it. Certainly plenty of the others thought it was: the SOIS agents gradually retreated from the building, while the Funyarinpa worshippers dispersed to clean up the detritus from the fight. But Junpei knew there was one thing left to happen.

There she was. As the rest of the crowd melted away around her Kanny stood in place, eyes fixed on Junpei. For a moment he’d been tempted to have one of his new followers keep an eye for her leaving; in the end he was glad he’d left it to trust.

Junpei stepped down off the makeshift wooden platform he’d been using. He didn’t realise the way his breath had caught in his throat until he was half-way across the distance to her. When he finally reached Kanny he didn’t now whether to leap in for a hug, to scold her, to turn and run back the way he’d came.

It was Kanny who broke the silence. “I guess it is your turn, to do the thing and then vanish without a trace.”

“This is something important. Something only I can do. You came here to make sure that what we did in Building Q doesn’t cause any more problems. If I do this, I can make sure that happens.”

“I know the feeling.” Akane glanced over towards the edge of the foyer, where her brother Aoi was watching over her warily. “I… I’ll have to go soon too, to sort out the aftermath of this. Is this really it? Again?”

That finally gave Junpei the impulse he needed to cross the last few feet and grab her hand.

“Don’t worry. Funyarinpa willing, we’ll meet again.”

—

Epilogue: Highest/Lowest

Being one of the world’s wealthiest men came with its advantages, even in prison. Gentarou Hongou knew that well. After all he was sitting in a luxurious open-plan living room, bottom resting on the finest of sofas, watching the world go by through a widescreen television. Only a few bars on the windows were there to remind him that the barely-better-than-apes of the world disapproved of his actions. Even after his utter defeat, Gentarou had not a thing to be concerned about.

And Gentarou Hongou was bored.

All his accomplishments had come to nothing. All his ambitions unfulfilled: especially that final one, which would have established him as the greatest scientist the world had produced in the twenty-first century. Now all he had was his wide-screen TV and the chance to watch lesser people’s accomplishments. Lesser people’s ambitions.

He flicked channel over to a news broadcast. Something about some new religious movement? It seemed utterly irrelevant, at first, but then the footage switched to a press conference given by the religion’s supreme leader.

Was that the brat? Junpei? Gentarou could only tell because the elaborate vestments the young man was wearing – still somewhat uncomfortably – had a colour scheme patterned after the garish cyan and the black-and-red chequer he had worn during the Nonary Game. So this was where he’d ended up? Gentarou would never have guessed.

Junpei apologized for something or other that Gentarou had no context. He promised that things were mending, and hope for the future. All the things that, as head of Cradle, Gentarou had made subordinates do for him at these sorts of apology press conferences. Until the last one.

It was an interesting curiosity, but it seemed to have nothing to do with Gentarou Hongou. That, of course, was the most important factor.

But then Junpei unveiled something on a plinth next to him: the main symbol of his new faith. Gentarou saw a painting, the image constructed from a number of black and white shapes. At first they looked like just a random collection of abstract blobs, and Gentarou scoffed. And halfway through that breath, something clicked inside his mind. Those previously abstract shapes reaching out and connecting to each other and forming something whole – something with meaning. Funyarinpa.

Gentarou’s brain wasn’t supposed to be able to do that. He tried it again. Yes: there once again were the meaningless components, and as he stared they coalesced into a coherent concept once more. He was actually able to make that happen. For this first time, only with this Funyarinpa; one day, for anything he would put his mind to.

Gentarou Hongou smiled to himself with a sincerity he hadn’t had for quite some time. It had taken over a decade, and only through means entirely unexpected. But, somehow, his grand experiment had accomplished its goal after all.

#submission #999 #funyarinpa #soraritsuka #chessanator #zecret santa 2023

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shunin-gumis · 6 days

Text

Nagi Initial SSR Story

A Taste of Happiness (Part 2)

Any notes with a * are at the end of the post!

Location - Mountain path

Nagi: ...No good, the bike's completely stalled.

Momiji: Oh no, what do we do now... We're in the middle of the mountains and it's in the dead of night now... I don't think we can call anyone for repairs. Do we start pushing the bike down the path?

Nagi: No, it's ok, this one's a champ. I just have to give it a little nudge to get it started again.

Nagi: This is exactly why Sonia left the tools in my bag. Just wait for a bit, Chief.

Nagi: If you could cheer me on, that would lift my spirits and make me happy.

Momiji: Haha, should I wave an uchiwa* for you? ...Wait, you actually have one!?

Momiji: Um... I'll just hold the flashlight instead, ok?

Momiji: How's this? Can you see clearly?

Nagi: Perfectly. Please hold it up for a bit.

Momiji: Got it.

Nagi: Seems like... the problem's here.

Nagi: Alright, I should be able to fix this right away.

Momiji: That's some impressive technique, you're just like a professional!

Nagi: It's just because I'm used to it. I'm confident that I could pass for the mechanic certification on the first try.

Nagi: Ah. Or maybe not. I'm worried about the actual writing part. I can imagine all my stationary ending up falling apart.

Momiji: Ahahaha.......

Nagi: The atmospheric pressure was stable too....

Nagi: I guess it's because I managed to get my hands on some rare flowers that are usually never stocked at the market...

Momiji: This is about Nagi-kun's "Theory on the Yajirobe of Fortune and Misfortune"...*

Momiji: A balancing act of his happiness... Whenever something fortuitous happens to him, it's guaranteed to be followed by misfortune to balance it out again...

Momiji: Still, something like that is...

Nagi: But the fact is that you ended up being affected by my misfortune too.

Nagi: ...Sorry, Chief. Are you fed up with me now?

Choice 1: I'm surprised rather than fed up

Momiji: I guess I'd say I'm surprised rather than fed up… I can barely believe this is actually a thing. Momiji: But it's also true that I got to experience something that was only possible because I was with you, Nagi-kun. I'm being honest when I say I really learned something today. Nagi:... I guess you're kind to even someone like me, Chief. Thank you.

Choice 2: Not at all. In fact I find it exciting!

Momiji: Maybe it's a little inappropriate to say but... it's kind of like experiencing a thrill ride, I get excited wondering about what's gonna happen next! Nagi: Chief, you're amazing. Your heart is as big as the Pacific Ocean.

Momiji: It's nothing like that.

Momiji: Besides, it must have been really hard on you, to deal with this all on your lonesome. When it's the two of us, we can gain courage from each other to overcome our challenges.

Momiji: Troubles or misfortune, come what may, feel free to share them all with me.

Nagi: ....Ok.

Nagi: Ah, got the engine to start up again, Chief.

Momiji: That's great! Now we just have to head home.

Nagi: Um... before that. I have some place I'd like to take you to, is that ok?

Nagi: If we get a move on now, we should reach it time.... Although, I'll still stay under the speed limit.

-------------------------------

Nagi: ...Here we are. Nice timing, if I do say so myself.

Momiji: Wow...! The sun's rising! It's beautiful....

Nagi: Right? This is my secret hideout.... Wait, hideout might be the wrong word for it. Um, special spot?

Nagi: I come here once in a while on my bike, just to see this sunrise.

Momiji: Was it alright to bring me here?

Nagi: I wanted to share this with you because it's you, Chief.

Nagi: Drinking coffee while I watch the sunrise is a small reward I treat myself to.

Nagi: But today, I'm not alone. I have you with me, Chief.

Nagi: Today... Well, I guess it's yesterday now. I couldn't even imagine something like this happening when I woke up yesterday.

Nagi: There's plenty of happiness and unhappiness scattered all around this world.

Nagi: But that just means the possibilities are endless, right?

Momiji: Hehe, I agree. This world is full of possibilities!

Nagi: ...With that said, have this coffee as thanks for accompanying me all the way to this morning.

Nagi: A tumbler of Sonia's special blend. It's hot so be careful.

Momiji: Thank you!

Momiji: Good work today, Nagi-kun.

Nagi: You did good too, Chief.

Momiji: The coffee I had together with Nagi-kun while watching the sunrise... was very warm and delicious.

*uchiwa is a flat hand-fan that's usually decorated in the style of one's bias in support of them.

*Yajirobe is a term used for Japanese balancing toys. The mechanism involves balancing the main body at a fulcrum and making sure it doesn't tilt too far in either direction before it's balanced again, swinging back like a pendulum.

Part 1

#18trip #18trip translation #18TLip #hachinoya nagi

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louis-the-french-one · 2 years

Text

Tony Stark x male reader

Request : Hey 👋 can I get a tony x make reader who’s his rival company so they don’t like each other at first but then become lover some smut with top reader would be good too but you don’t have to. Thank you.

Type : Smut

Relationship : ennemies then lovers

Summary : When SHIELD itself asks you to work with them you can't say no, unfortunately it also means you have to work with your rival and ennemy, Tony Stark

Warnings : swearing, angst, smut, rough sex, hair pulling

! Reader is AMAB !

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As you stride down the New York City streets a smile forms on your face when a certain building appears in front of you, a giant tower with '(L/N) Industries' written in capital letters. Your smile widen when your eyes then land on the smaller Stark tower right next to it.

You had specificly chosen to position your new headquarters next to your rival, the famous Tony Stark, and to annoy him you had made sure to have a, even so slightly, taller tower.

You and Tony had met in MIT in your youth, two young geniuses always competing against one another. And it only continued with time; from being the best in the class to being the best in the stock market. Now that you thought of it, it had been a while since you had last seen your rival face to face, mainly just teasing each other from your respective headquarters, and in some way, you kinda missed seing the frustration build on his face.

But there you were, entering your building, everyone greeting you with a gentle smile and a formal "Good morning Mister (L/N) ". You knew they only did it because you're their boss but seing kind faces always put you in a good mood. And it's with a smile on your face that you approached your secretary.

"Good morning Mister (L/N)"

"Good morning Vanessa, anything exciting today? "

"You just have a meeting with the marketing team at 3"

"Right, thank you"

You enter your office, calmly setting down your suitcase and opening your office laptop when the company phone rings, surprising you. Vanessa always announce it when a business call is on the line... After deliberating for a few seconds in your mind, you decide to take the call.

"Hello? "

"Mister (Y/N) (L/N)"

"... Yes..."

"Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, we need your help on a project"

"SHIELD ? Well um, I don't know if I, you know, it's-"

"I'm not asking, you'll find the address directly in your GPS, come now"

And with that the call ended, you were surprised and in shock a little, what was SHIELD ? And why do they need your help ? For some unknown reason or really just curiosity you decided to go.

When you get there, two agents non chalently welcome you and show you inside, once past the long security checks and empty corridors you arrive in the main control room and it completely blows your mind. High technology everywhere, each agent having their own super intelligent computer. Finally at the center of the room stands a man in a long black coat, the agents escorting you go up to him.

"Mister Fury, (L/N) is here"

The man that you now know is the Fury you had on the phone turns to you.

" Ah, (L/N), you took your time... Follow me, join the other guest for my explanation "

"The other guest ?! " You thought to yourself, you were confused, who else had been crazy enough to listen to a mysterious call ? Entering a new room there stood your answer. The only man you knew as crazy as you. Tony Stark.

"Oh hey dickhead ! " Tony greets you.

"No." You simply answer.

"What's he doing here? " You both say at the same time.

"Shut up, the both of you, this is SHIELD, Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division, a secret agency in charge of protecting the world and we got you both here today because you're the best in weapons conceptions and we need you on a project" Fury tells you both, a bit angered.

"What kind of project are we talking about ? "You ask.

"The kind that could kill a God " Fury answers.

"I see, that won't be a problem, but I refuse to work with ... Him" Tony says, ending with a disgusted face.

"And I refuse to work with this asshole, he does not know what team work means and just can't stop thinking about himself, I assure you, Mister Fury, Stark will fuck up this project" You conclude, arms crossed. Tony glares at you from his side of the room, he opens his mouth to answer before Fury stops him.

"This is no negociations, you work together on this project or you get out of my hellicarrier" Fury stands firmly.

"Alright, I'll do it, not sure if Mister 2nd of the class over there will be man enough for it though" Tony teases you.

"Fuck you, of course I am, I accept"

At this moment you thought you'd just accepted to sell your soul to the devil, working with Tony Stark. You just knew things weren't gonna be peaceful.

/Time skip/

Yelling could be heard all around the hellicarrier, echoing through the corridors. It had been 3 weeks since the start of the project and it wasn't going anywhere, for the simple reason that you and Tony could not spend a minute without arguing about every single thing. It could start from a simple "This equation isn't necessary" and lead to a fight that would last for the whole day, he'd start being arrogant and you'd start insulting him, then you'd almost physically fight before agents would separate you and tell you it was all for the day. But this time, you decided to not go that far.

"Fuck you ! We all know that if it wasn't for your very wealthy dad you would have never been to MIT cause you just can't get work done ! " You hissed, pointing at him.

"There's a reason why you never was 1st of the class deep shit, I was always smarter, and I can in fact get work done , I'm motherfucking Iron Man " He brags.

"What you are is a fucking prick, you can't even see how good life has been with you" You look down to your notes, calming down, trying to get back to work for once.

He smirks " I do know life has been good with me, look at this" He taps his reactor "This reminds me every day that I survived when some didn't" There was a silence.

"Sorry, I... I didn't know" You put your pen down looking at him.

"It's okay..." He simple says, continuing to work.

"No really Tony I'm sorry, I've been an ass to you since I've met you, just because I was jealous" You stand nervously.

"Of course you were, I'd be jealous of me too" He tries to laugh it off.

You still look at him, not feeling like working right now.

"You better be done with your equations if you want to keep staring at me" He doesn't even look up.

"What if we start over? " You suggest .

"With the project ? No. " Tony answers.

"No I mean, between us. What if we start over ?"

"Okay, but this doesn't mean you're allowed to get a crush on me"

/Time skip/

"It works ! " You scream of joy.

"IT WORKS" Tony screams back after you.

It was 3am currently, you and Tony had been assigned to the project 5months ago. And finally, the God killing weapon worked. In the past months you and Tony had learned to appreciate the other, and to be honest, a crush on him had developed, something you never thought would happen judging by how you had hated him ever since you met him but there you were. Looking at him, smiling, with a single idea in mind : kissing him. He was doing a little victory dance, something a little embarrassing but it's Tony Stark so you can't stop yourself from thinking he looks cool.

Suddenly he takes you in his arms, hugging you, you stay like that for a good minute before he whispers a quiet 'thank you' and lets go of you. You look at each other in the eyes and that's when you can't resist anymore, so you go for it. You kiss him with all your passion and, mostly tension, shocking yourself by the strength you put into it. But what shocks you the most is that Tony, in a matter of seconds, returns the kiss and you find yourself quickly making out with your former rival; a hand on his neck and the other in his hair, pulling slightly. But now you want more, you need more, after months of hard work you deserve a reward. And as if he was reading your mind, Tony's hand discreetly places itself on your crotch making you moan into the kiss.

Feeling hornier than ever you decide to go for his neck, licking, sucking and biting while his loud moans echo in the lab. For a split second you wonder if the agents outside can hear you, however you decide that the view in front of you is worth the slight embarrassment. And the view is breath taking indeed, the infamous Tony Stark, genius playboy billionaire philanthropist is right in front of you, desperately holding onto the lab table as his legs have apparently given up already, his other hand is palming your dick through your pants driving you crazy. And while you're observing him, his eyes are closed as he's focusing on the feelings and the touches.

"Do you want me to blow you? " You ask.

"I thought you'd never ask, wait, I have a condom somewhere in there" He says, part catching his breath part searching in his pants' pockets.

Finally, he pulls out 3 condoms from his front pockets, "Should be enough! ". Still he doesn't waste any time, pulling his pants and his boxers down, revealing his already hard cock. But you couldn't judge him as you look down seeing your own very much erected dick. The condom once put on, you get on your knees, giving his member a few light strokes before your mouth soon enough meets the warmth of his crotch. Your hand now playing softly with his balls and your mouth taking him oh so sweetly Tony is left but a moaning mess, his back arched and his hand now in your hair. He was pulling it roughly making your dick leak with pre-cum. You take your time down there, letting your tongue do it's tricks until Tony starts to loose control and thrusts desperately into your face. That's when you stop everything and come back up, meeting his red face. You notice his lips are very swollen from the previous make out session, turning you on even more if it's even possible.

"Why'd you stop? Please continue (Y/N) " He basically begs.

"I want to fuck you now" Your mind is fogged with lust and you have no filter now.

"Oh... " He breathes heavily. "Do it, fuck me"

Not really controlling yourself anymore, you pull down your pants and boxers, grab one of the remaining condoms and place it quickly before grabbing Tony by the waist and turning him so his ass in now in front of you, or should I say, just in front of your hard cock. As your hands were on his waist you let one of them roam around his back, giving him chills. He turns to you then, "Don't prep me, I like it rough". Not wasting anymore time you place your cock at his entrance, entering slowly, you moan while he hisses a little, you wait before he nods his head telling you to continue. You start your little back and forth movement with your hips, slowly at first, enjoying the feeling and warmth of his ass. Your hand places itself on his ass cheak, pulling it apart to give you a better view of your actions. The room, as you realize is silent, with just the sound of yours and Tony's heavy breaths.

"Go faster, please" Tony says, breaking the silence.

And you do as he wishes, accelerating your rythm in a crescendo style, going faster and faster with each movement. His back archs in a way you thought it would break and his mouth let's out what sounds like angelic noises to your ears, feeling lucky to be the one causing them. As you're fucking him you can feel the room tense up and your movements becoming rougher, more animalistic and judging by the sounds your partner was making, he seemed to really enjoy that so you let yourself go for it. Only going faster, harder and deeper, the act was driving you both crazy and you could feel yourself coming to your climax. So you decide to give it your all, put all the strength you had left, fucking him like there was no tomorrow, and the moans were louder and louder that you were now sure people could hear it. When suddenly Tony cried out one last long moan as he came inside the condom he still had on. And with a few more thrust you came too, collapsing into him and him onto the table. Installing a comfortable silence in the room.

"That... Was something. We should totally do it more in the future" Tony says in a high voice you had never heard before.

"Maybe we could go on a date before next time" You ask.

"Hmm... Yeah, that's a good idea" He smiles at you.

You kiss him one more time, way more softly though, before you two clean the mess you've done and present the final result of the project to Fury.

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AN : Alright this one took me some time but I'm kinda proud of it, hope you like ! Also reminder English is in fact not my first language please be kind.

#smut #angst #tony stark x male reader #x male reader #x reader #tony stark x reader #tony stark smut #mcu x reader #mcu x y/n #mcu x male reader #tony stark x y/n

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naquey · 30 days

Text

Meet The Character Monday

Only it's not Monday, it's Thursday. I've been skipping the past few Mondays, mainly because I forgot but also because of school.

Today, I bring you Victor Hans. A secondary protagonist in my black butler fic "Entrusted To You." (picrew brought to you by niseo who has wonderful art btw)

Victor has been alive for a long time. Records of his existence were lost centuries ago. Sired in 1346 to ensure his survival of the bubonic plague, he took his sire's family name and integrated with human society, weeding his way through the nobility. Physically, he's in his twenties, but he's actually 491 years old (not that old for a vampire) and is technically still a fledgling. Because he no longer controls blood circulation or temperature regulation of his body, he wears many black clothes that retain light and make him overheat, along with wearing scarves all year round. Considering he was brought back from the dead, his body temperature is lower than that of the average live person.

Vampire hunters started a myth that their blood could cure any ailment, thus leading people in search of them. Which birthed a market for supernatural trafficking. Werewolves fangs and fur for their strength, siren scales for their voice, ghost ectoplasm for vitality. You name it, apothecaries stocked up on it, feeding into the trade.

Years before he meets Sebastian, he is kidnapped, his fangs are ripped out, and he is harvested for his blood. The hunters didn't give him the mercy of killing him right then. Instead, they took him back to their caravan, where other supernatural creatures were kept in captivity. They were a traveling freakshow for humans to point, stare at, or even poke. He tried many times to escape but to no avail. He couldn't get past security. Two hulking gargoyles were watching; to the untrained eye, they were just statues.

In his grief, distraught by being the cause of Ciel's death, Sebastian finds a letter stating that this was the final job for him as the butler to the Queen's Guard Dog. Ciel had been keeping tabs on apothecaries throughout London thanks to the Undertaker because people were getting killed, and Scotland Yard wasn't sure why. Desperate and hoping that this could bring Ciel back, he complies with his final orders and hunts down how the apothecaries got their ingredients. Eventually, going undercover with Raziel and allowing himself to get "captured" by the vampire hunters. (Think how Sebastian and Ciel infiltrate the circus)

When Victor meets Sebastian, he hates him. He's coddled by the demon and treated as someone he isn't, all because Sebastian sees him as Ciel and sees him as a second chance to be his butler again. Victor refuses to talk to him or even stand in the same room as him, but he has to ensure his safety. His disobedience lands him on a trip to the boss's office, where he is beaten. The human forces him to fight, even going as far as to try and get new fangs to sprout. (They can't because vampire fangs aren't like human teeth) Which leads him to break Victor's jaw. Bloodied and on the floor, as a last resort, Victor calls out to Sebastian, pleading to get him out of there to save him. The demon comes running like a dog when they see a bone.

Sebastian is blinded by the similarities he thinks Victor and Ciel share, blinded by his own grief, and he cannot think straight. Their contract binding is loose and unspecified. It causes many problems because Sebastian isn't bound adequately to his contractee and, therefore, can do whatever he wants as there is no reason for him to stay. Victor doesn't want him around and does not need a demon butler. But Sebastian saves him in tricky situations, leading Victor to reevaluate his feelings about having a butler. He had spent his life as a butler to his sire. Having a butler of his own is a luxury.

Raziel hates him because undead humans are no better than live humans. Live humans serve him no purpose; undead humans are even more useless. As an angel, he believes it defies logic and throws off the balance between life and death. He and Grelle try to get Sebastian to see that there is no bringing back Ciel, as it will never happen.

#black butler #black butler oc #original character #male original character #vampire original character #kuroshitsuji #kuroshitsuji oc #kuro #kuro oc #vampire #victorian era

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