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slut4thebroken · 11 months

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Exposure Therapy pt. 9

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Pairing | Jonathan Crane × reader

Summary | Dr. Crane finally gives you a reward.

Warnings | 18+, sexual content, smut, p in v sex, unprotected sex, breeding, kissing, grinding, face sitting, 69, finger fucking, praise, degradation, consensual sex, cockwarming?, this is as close as he’ll get in this fic to being submissive lmao.

Words | 3k

Notes | Kinky smut will be coming up in either chapter 10 or 11😏

Ao3 link | <3

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Part 8

When you woke up, it took a moment for you to remember where you were, but the second your gaze settled on the couch you were laying on, your stomach dropped. You had cried to him— cried on him. The thought made you want to crawl into a hole from embarrassment, but you tried to ignore it.

You could see now that he dressed you while you slept in the clothes you brought from his place and when you looked over at him, he was fully dressed in a suit, bent over the desk, completely focused on something. It didn’t seem like you moved enough to alert him that you were awake so you stayed still, trying to come up with something to say. Should you apologize? Pretend nothing happened? Make a self deprecating joke about it?

“I know you’re awake. I can practically hear you overthinking from here.” He said suddenly.

“Sorry…” You muttered, deciding to sit up on the couch now. Picking at your cuticles, you watched him anxiously, waiting. Should you go to him? He hasn’t looked up from his work yet… Maybe he’s just waiting for you to walk over?

“Um, I- I’m sorry… for my behavior.” You forced the words out. “I don’t know what came over me.” He turned to face you, but after staring at you for a moment, decided to walk over. You stiffened as he approached you— were you going to be punished? Yelled at again? He sat down next to you, but still gave you enough space so you didn’t feel uncomfortable.

“There is no need to apologize. I pushed you to that state so I cannot fault you for any of your actions.” He said, tone neutral.

“I still shouldn’t have,”

“No. You are allowed to have emotions.”

“I know, but- I made you uncomfortable.” You argued weakly.

“I am the only reason you acted like that in the first place. There is no need to apologize.”

“Okay… So things are fine?” You asked tentatively, scared of his answer.

“Do not expect to do it again under any other circumstance.” His tone wasn’t mean, but rather he was just setting a boundary. You couldn’t help but notice that he said “under any other circumstance,” not just “any circumstance.”

“That didn’t answer my question.” You said with a small smile that he almost returned.

“Yes.”

“And you’re not mad that I made you change what you were going to do again?”

“You hardly made me do anything.” He scoffed.

“Okay… Good.” You said awkwardly, kind of feeling like you disappointed him by not being able to take the punishment. You also still felt bad for making him uncomfortable— for crying on him and laying on his chest. Your behavior made him call you a fucking pet name for christs sake.

“Y-you… You called me-“

“Anything I said was to soothe you.” He said, suddenly colder than before.

“So you weren’t really proud of me?” You asked quietly, making him sigh.

“You took the punishment adequately.”

“Oh.” You replied meekly, looking at your lap. You didn’t like the way he revoked his praise and affection so easily. He let out another quiet sigh, but you didn’t look up at him yet.

“Your performance was… satisfactory.” It sounded like he had to force the words out. “Anything I said at the time was genuine, but do not expect to hear it again.” You looked up at him, but he couldn’t meet your gaze.

“Thanks.” You muttered, giving him a small smile when he finally looked at you. “I liked when you called me that.” You said tentatively, carefully studying his reaction.

“Do not get used to such affections.”

“Okay… But if you ever decide you want to keep calling me that, I’m okay with it.” You shrugged and he narrowed his eyes.

“I am not going to call you some silly name.” It felt like you were being reprimanded for requesting something childish.

“I like the silly name. You don’t call anyone else by a silly name, do you?”

“Of course not.” He scoffed, almost offended.

“Good. Just me then.”

“No, not you either.” He sighed, getting frustrated with your lack of acceptance with his answer. You pouted, giving him puppy dog eyes, hoping you didn’t look like a fool. “Stop that.” It seemed like the face was working though.

“Please?”

“No.”

“Just once?”

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“I will after you say it.” You said teasingly, giving him a small smile.

“You are truly insufferable…” You waited eagerly, practically vibrating in anticipation. “Little one.” He muttered, looking away from you when your smile turned into a full blown grin.

“It doesn’t count if I can’t hear you.”

“You’re pushing your luck.” He warned, but it almost seemed like he was teasing you back rather than giving you a genuine warning.

“Please?” You pouted again, deciding to crawl onto his lap and straddle his legs, placing your arms on his shoulders as his hands settled on your hips.

“Remind me why I brought you here?” He asked, annoyed. But not in a genuine way, in an almost playful way.

“Because I make you come and I’m stupid enough to go to your place in broad daylight for you.”

“I suppose that’s true. I guess I do have a brave, eager pet. Wouldn’t you agree?” You nodded, eyes wide and breath caught in your throat from the new name. “Lost for words, little one?” He asked, tilting his head and rubbing his hands up and down your thighs. You let out a needy whine as you fisted his suit jacket and rolled your hips forward against his crotch.

“Can- can I call you something too?” You asked, already breathless from the small amount of pleasure.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Your name?”

“Go ahead— try it out.” It took you a moment to register that he didn’t deny you like you thought he would.

“Jonathan.” You whispered.

“It doesn’t count if I can’t hear you.” He said teasingly.

“Jonathan.” You whined, louder this time.

“What do you think?” You hummed in thought. Something about the name just felt a little off. Maybe it was because it’s his full name rather than a nickname.

“Jon.” You muttered to yourself. “Does anyone call you Jon?”

“Everyone refers to me as Dr. Crane or Scarecrow.”

“Do you like “Jon?’”

“It is tolerable.”

“Oh…” You said, visibly deflating in his lap. “I don’t have to if you don’t like it.”

“I do not tolerate many things— that was a positive statement.” He quickly corrected himself, still making sure to keep his tone neutral though.

“Oh. Do you tolerate me?” You asked, perking up a little again.

“That is a foolish question that you already know the answer to.”

“I know… I just like hearing it.” He sighed and for a moment you thought he wasn’t going to respond.

“Yes, I tolerate you, little one.” A blush creeped up on your cheeks as you gave him a shy smile. “Satisfied?” You nodded, biting your lip to keep from grinning like an idiot.

“Can I come today?” His brows shot up and you swore he was about to laugh.

“Someone’s getting bold.”

“You didn’t let me last time.” You frowned. He hummed in thought and continued dragging his hands up and down your thighs, teasing you.

“I suppose since you did such a good job taking your punishment, as well as staying quiet when we were in my office, you’re long overdue for a treat. Don’t you think?”

“Yes please.” You said through a breath as you nodded in agreement. Snaking his hands behind you, he grabbed your ass to roughly push your hips against him, starting a slow, steady rhythm of grinding.

“Whatever you want. Go ahead.” He said, making you falter as you stared at him in confusion.

“What?”

“Take whatever you want.” He explained, still leaving you dumbstruck.

“Anything?”

“Within reason.” He said teasingly. Flattening your palms on his chest, you slid them down before slowly dragging them back up, thinking.

“Can I kiss you?”

“There’s no need to ask. Take whatever you need.” He said softly, eyes fluttering down to your lips. Grabbing his tie, you gently pulled him forward into a kiss. His hands moved back to your hips, not gripping anymore, just holding you as you continued grinding against his crotch. You let out a low moan from the friction and brought your free hand up to pull his hair, making him groan in response. When you eventually grew too impatient, you whined and pulled back.

“Please.”

“If you want something, just take it, little one.” He whispered, making you whine even louder. Suddenly getting up, he eyed you curiously as you took off your pants and underwear, then hesitantly laid him down on the couch. You moved slowly, giving him a chance to protest or change his mind. When he didn’t, you slowly kneeled over his chest, watching his eyes darken as he focused on your cunt. You waited again for him to tell you to get off, but he never did. So you shuffled forward even more, then tentatively lowered yourself onto his mouth. He dove in eagerly, lapping up your arousal and circling your clit with his tongue to tease you.

When you suddenly lifted off of him, he let out a grunt of displeasure, making your cheeks heat up. But you wanted to do something more than just this. You took off your shirt then moved to the floor and started working on taking off his belt, asking for assistance on the upper half of his body. Once he was as bare as you— which you still weren’t used to yet— you climbed over him again, this time facing the other direction. He cursed under his breath as you laid down, your face only inches from his cock.

The second you lowered yourself onto his mouth, his hands wrapped around your thighs, not letting you move away again. You whimpered at the sudden intense pleasure and brought your hand up to start stroking his length, teasing him. When his hips bucked up, you placed your forearm over his upper thigh and put some of your weight on it to hold him down. He growled against your cunt and dug his nails into your thighs, making your gasp, then chuckle as you leaned down to suck the tip in your mouth.

You liked having this power over him. Deciding how much you wanted to tease him- torture him… it was addictive. You wanted to make him beg and whine and moan, so desperate for you that he loses all control.

Hollowing your cheeks, you moved farther down his length, only pulling back up when the tip met the back of your mouth. The movements of his mouth grew sloppy, unable to focus with the stimulation on his cock, but it didn’t matter. You were practically grinding against his face anyway.

When he pushed a finger in your drooling hole, you let out a muffled moan, not expecting it. In retaliation, you moved your hand to cup his balls, gently playing with them until his hips bucked and he moaned against your heat. Another finger was pushing inside, stretching you open and curling against your walls to emit even more arousal.

To reward him, you decided to take him all the way down for as long as you could force yourself to stay there. He let out a choked moan at the tightness of your throat and the hand holding your thigh squeezed again. You did your best to breathe through your nose and relax, but after another few seconds, you couldn’t control your gag reflex anymore and had to pull off of him.

“Baby— I’m not gonna last if you keep doing that.” He muttered against your clit and your hips jerked at his words.

“Neither am I if you keep calling me that.” You whined. When you lifted yourself off of him again, he let out a grunt of disapproval, trying to grab your hips to pull you back. “Fuck me.” You said through a breath, making him instantly release your hips to sit up. When you got a good look at his face, you almost moaned at the sight. His lips and chin were slick with your arousal and his spit, and his glasses were fogged up enough that he had to take them off and set them on the floor to continue.

“How do you want it?” You bit your lip in thought.

“Dealer's choice.” You finally replied and it seemed like he was about to protest, but decided against it. Grabbing a cushion from the back of the couch, he placed it down, then maneuvered you so your hips were over it as you laid on your stomach. He leaned over you, breath fanning against your neck as he lined up, then placed a soft kiss behind your ear.

“Ready?” He whispered.

“Please.” You didn’t have to tell him again before he was breaching your hole, making you whimper at how fucking full you felt in this position with your legs together. “Jesus-“ You choked out as he stilled inside you, buried as far as your cunt would allow.

“Fuck me, Jon.” You said breathlessly and he cursed under his breath, but obeyed. He slid out slowly, still giving you a chance to adjust, then pushed back in just as slow.

“God- You feel so good.” He moaned, forehead resting on your shoulder blade. “So fucking warm and wet, and a perfect fit for my cock, aren’t you?” You nodded as you scrambled for purchase when his thrusts sped up. “Like my own custom made fuck doll, huh, baby?”

“Oh god yes.” You sobbed out, already feeling close from hearing that pet name again. He let out a low chuckle when he felt your walls fluttering desperately around his length.

“Close already? Why’s that?” You couldn’t get a response out through your moans, let alone think of one in the first place. “Is it cause you like it when I pin you down like this? Force my cock in your tight little cunt and fuck you like a cheap whore. Is that it?” You let out another sob that turned into a vulgar moan when he suddenly grabbed your hair and yanked your head back. With his lips brushing your ear, he whispered, “Or maybe it’s when I call you baby. Is that what’s getting you so hot and bothered?” You did your best to nod with his grip in your hair, but he wasn’t satisfied.

“C’mon, use your big girl words. I know you can.” He cooed, making your cunt pulse around him.

“Jon,” You whined, squeezing your eyes shut as your mouth opened in a silent moan. “Please make me come- I’m so close, Jon, I need it.” You whimpered. He suddenly pulled out, making you whine loudly. He ignored your protest though and flipped you over, hooking your legs over his hips as he leaned back down and slid inside again.

“Keep your eyes on me when you come, do you understand?” You nodded eagerly and he continued pushing in and out, getting deep enough that you knew you’d be able to see his cock bulging your stomach.

“God- you look so pretty like this.” He whispered, eyes rapidly trailing over your face. You let out a low whine, feeling your face heat up.

“Say my name.” The request was so quiet that you thought you misheard him. “Say it.” Not a request— a plea.

“Jon,” You whispered, moving your hands to pull on his hair as your eyes fluttered to his lips. “Please kiss me.” He obeyed eagerly and you moaned into his mouth from the intensity of it— of everything really. A hand on your clit made you jolt with a surprised sound that he swallowed eagerly.

“Oh god- Please can I come?” You whined, barely able to get the words out since he wouldn’t break the kiss to let you speak. “Please, Jon.” He pulled back, eyes squeezed shut as he panted, never stopping the movement of his hips or fingers.

“Go ahead, baby,” He whispered as his eyes fluttered open to look at you. “Come for me- but remember what I said.” What you would’ve originally thought was a warning, was actually just a reminder— the closest he would ever get to saying please.

Your orgasm crashed over you suddenly and you did your best to keep your eyes open through the pleasure. He stared down at you with furrowed brows and slightly parted lips, letting some moans escape.

“Please come.” You gasped out, orgasm just barely starting to fade. “Please, Jon.” His lips parted even wider and then he was squeezing his eyes shut, still trying to keep them open though. His hips stilled completely inside you, staying deep to make sure you took every last drop of his come.

When his body finally relaxed and he rested his forehead on your chest, you played with his hair. Both of you were still panting, a little sweaty, and definitely come drunk, but he didn’t seem to care at all. He swiftly turned you both over as he moved the couch cushion back, his cock never leaving you. You let yourself lay down on his body, your cheek on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and one of his hands came up to pet your hair, the other rubbing up and down your back lightly.

There was a nagging thought, deep in the back of your brain, that you were trying to ignore, but it was growing louder the longer you laid there. This felt too good to be true. Like you’re dreaming and going to wake up back in your cell again.

“Jon?” You asked quietly.

“Hm?”

You didn’t want this to be a dream. You wanted him to hold you again and again, let you fall asleep in his arms, have normal conversations about everything and nothing. But most of all, you wanted him to feel the same way. To long for you so hard that his chest aches at the thought of losing you, the way yours does. You wanted him to—

“I-“ You had to stop yourself from saying the thought that just popped into your head because you were scared of how he’d react to such a deep confession. “I just…”

“I know.” He whispered, heart beating faster and harder in his chest. “Me too.”

Part 10

#jonathan crane smut #jonathan crane x reader #jonathan crane #scarecrow x reader smut #scarecrow #exposure therapy #smut

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killerpancakeburger · 1 month

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Breaking point (2/2)

SUMMARY: Civilian!Reader, who works as Price's assistant, has a breakdown at work. Soap+Ghost help the best they can. Hurt/comfort. Can be read as platonic or romantic. Gender Neutral Reader.

PAIRINGS: Soap x GN!Reader

Ghost's version (1/2)

TAGS: Hurt/comfort. Military inaccuracies (I make shit up for the sake of the plot). Soap is tooth-rotting sweet.

WARNINGS: Mention of relative in the hospital, suicide ideation, depressive thoughts, swearing.

WORD COUNT: 4.3k

A/N: Very self-indulgent, Reader is going through it and so am I. 🙃Soap is Prince Fucking Charming (very cliché romance tropes). Yours truly suggest to listen to "Strong For Somebody Else" by Citizen Soldier to set the mood. (Song includes suicide ideation and depressive thoughts too, so listen at your own risk).

This bad good boy gave me a harder time than expected lol.

After ending the call, you put down your phone on your desk in a daze, hand shaking.

The news you’ve just been told cannot be real. Life could not possibly be that cruel. What did I do to deserve this? you wonder helplessly. It’s like every time you get back up, life knocks you down again, sending you tumbling on the cold, hard ground.

Clenching your fists, you stare into space, a thousand thoughts disorderly swirling inside your brain, all bursting with anguish, until a burning tear running down your cheek brings you back to the present. You’re at work, your boss is in the next room; a breakdown is a luxury you cannot afford right now. Better bite your tongue hard enough to draw blood than be caught sobbing.

Inhaling a shaky breath, you take your head between your hands, shoving your fingers into your hair, trying to convince yourself to postpone your nervous collapse. Only one hour left, and you’ll be free to cry your eyes out at your flat. Or on the way home, even. It’s not like the other passengers ever paid you attention the other times you’ve cried on the bus.

But somehow your attempts have the opposite effect, and more tears roll down your face, staining the papers beneath it. As you furiously wipe your face with your sleeve, with a blend of frustration and despair, pissed at yourself, and wanting to get rid of the evidence of your fragile state as fast as possible, the unmistakable sound of your office’s door opening makes you look up.

Of freaking course of all bloody people that could have walked in on you, it had to be Soap fucking Mactavish. Only the most gorgeous man on base - according to you, that is.

You weren't proud of it, but you had a crush on him since you arrived, six months ago. His piercing cerulean eyes, rugged good looks and outgoing personality wouldn’t let you know peace. The mere sight of him was enough to bring a goofy smile to your face, and every conversation between the two of you left you blushing and elated.

You initially thought that this silly, juvenile infatuation would fade away soon enough. Ok, he was beautiful, and he had eyes to damn yourself for, so what? Surely with enough time and exposure, he'd feel mundane. But things didn’t go that way at all.

On top of looking stunning, he just had to be friendly. He made you feel welcome when you arrived. He made efforts to include you in conversations, asking questions to get to know you. He relieved you of the burden of small talk, appeasing your social anxiety, by happily keeping the conversation going on his own, never taking offense when you had nothing to say. He chose to spend some of his free time with you, escorting you back from the archives or dropping by your office.

He was even flirty at times. Flirty. With you.

You could have still disregarded all this; tell yourself he was like this with everyone, that it was just his personality; imagining things would only end up with you hurt in the end.

But then, during a meeting, you witnessed his sincere concern for civilian lives. His righteous anger against unjust orders, when you had fully expected a soldier to obey mindlessly.

This had been your undoing; the moment you knew you were a goner. A severe fondness for him had sunk its claws deep inside your chest and had no intent to let go. It didn’t mean you had any intention to declare your feelings though; you never entertained the thought that he could return them, therefore there was no need for any confession.

For him to be the one to have caught you in this state, it was downright humiliating. Especially since his good heart would make him feel obligated to care.

He was still wearing his leather, fingerless gloves, and some dirt lingered on the contour of his face, like he tossed his weapons and his flak jacket to the side right out of the heli bringing him back to base, and rushed here.

“Hiya hen, brought you the- Shite, what happened?”

His booming voice and cheerful tone fade away as his eyes widen with concern. He briefly freezes at the door in shock before closing the distance to your desk with great strides. You lower your eyes in shame, avoiding his gaze.

“Nothing. Nothing happened. Everything's fine.”

“No offense, bonnie, but yer not very good at lying.”

You bit your lip, forcing yourself to look at him. Staring at your own lap is only going to make you seem more suspicious.

You grit your teeth and lie some more, trying to sound carefree.

“It's nothing, really. I'm just being a crybaby.”

Crybaby.

Soap turns the word over in his mind, unconvinced.

He still remembers that one time when you showed up thirty minutes late to a meeting with the Task Force, panting, leaning on the threshold, the front of your clothes soaked in blood.

“Sorry I’m late,” you started.

“‘Sorry’ isn’t going to cut it,” Price interrupted before laying eyes on you. “Bloody hell, what happened to you?”

You explained how Private what's-his-name bled out in the break room after carelessly reopening his stitches and you had to stop the hemorrhage with your bare hands and a bunch of paper towels while shouting yourself hoarse for help. Yet when Price ordered you to take the rest of the day off, you insisted on going on as usual, forcing their captain to make it clear that it wasn’t a mere suggestion.

You and him had a different definition of “crybaby”.

Clinging to what's familiar, you focus on the stack of papers under his arm.

“You have the latest reports? Give it here.”

You hold out your hand expectantly. Instead of giving them to you, he sets them down on the opposite side of your desk, out of your reach.

“Paperwork can wait.”

You blink in astonishment at him.

“No it cannot…?”

You roll your eyes at his behavior and get up to seize the reports, but he snatches them from you. You can feel your composure snap like a twig.

“Johnny, what the hell?!” you yell, throwing your hands in the air.

You could remember exactly the first time you called him Johnny, only because it had been such an embarrassment. You couldn’t get used to his alias; sure you had been warned beforehand that some of them were… original, but somehow "Soap" was the one that stood out as the most ridiculous. You briefly entertained the idea of using his first name, except that for you “John” already referred to Captain Price. Only once you tried to call him Mr Mactavish, and as a result Gaz and him guffawed so hard they almost fell off their chairs. Even Ghost let out a cough that was most definitely a concealed laugh. You were running out of options until you heard the lieutenant call him Johnny; you instantly liked it. It just… fitted him.

From that moment on you used the nickname, but only in your mind. You didn’t have any of the liberties Ghost had and you wouldn’t take them, out of respect, and shyness. Or at least this had been the plan until you fumbled and called him that to his face. The ensuing silence felt deafening as you were realizing what you’ve just done, and you apologized immediately, mortified.

He just laughed it off; said you could keep calling him that. True, he had appeared more surprised than irritated, but you didn’t want to take the risk of him simply being polite. This too, had been your plan, until he ruined it merily.

Somehow he must have noticed your efforts to not slip up again because he teased you about it.

“Not Johnny today? Did ah dae something wrong?”

You went back to “Johnny” quickly - anything to put an end to the mischievous glint in his eye and the rascally smirk on his lips aimed at you. Being the target of his undivided attention sent a pang in your chest and knots in your stomach. Those sensations weren't exactly unpleasant, but it led to an ominous feeling that this was too good to be true, and that at any second this vision would shatter to reveal the cruel reality; so you'd just grant him a timid smile to confirm he did amuse you, but then proceed to look away.

It's the first time you’re pronouncing “Johnny” with anger; real, raw annoyance, as well as animosity, instead of the fond frustration you usually display when he messes around.

To your utter disbelief, he smiles in response to your outburst.

“There we go, talk tae me. Even if it’s just tae scream at me.”

The remark pacifies you instantly; you lower your arms, defeated.

“I'm not gonna… I don't want to scream at you.”

You sigh and sit back, setting down your elbows on your desk to take your head between your hands, overburdened.

“The hell you want me to tell you? That my mom's on the brink of death out of nowhere? That when she's gone I'll be all alone in this world?”

You swear, aggravated, as tears sting your eyes again, and this time you ignore if you'll be capable of holding back the flood.

Nevertheless you can still hear Soap curse under his breath, Scottish accent growing thicker, before moving to get on your side of the desk, to reach you, dispensing soft-spoken, soothing words along the way. You pivot to face him, your burning eyes and the sensation of dried tears on your face making you painfully aware that you must look as pathetic as you feel.

Your eyes widen in surprise when you see him kneeling at your feet. His hands reach for your face, slowly enough to give you time to back away if you wanted to.

“A'm sorry, ah didnae mean tae mak' ye cry, a'm a bloody eejit. …Can I?”

His fingers stopped a breath away from your tear-stained cheeks.

At that exact moment you can’t quite believe what he's about to do, yet you nod your head in agreement - not trusting your voice to not break - all the same, the gaping void in your chest aching for any kind of contact he'd be willing to provide.

His warm fingers cup your cheeks as the pad of his thumbs gently, almost reverently, wipe the underside of your eyes.

“There we go,” he cajoles, meticulously drying any wet spot on your skin.

“A'm ‘ere whether ye want tae talk or not, aye? A'm not going anywhere.”

You stare at him in silence, thunderstruck by the scene unfolding in front of you. Never in your wildest dreams you would have expected to have this man at your feet. He sets his hands down on your knees, squeezing them softly, and is looking right at you, encouraging smile and tender gaze, reassurance radiating from his expression. The position allows you to greedily take in every little detail: the white line of the scar on his chin, the breathtaking shades of blue in his eyes, the gap in his left eyebrow.

As you lose yourself into the work of art that are his features, he keeps conversing.

“We should take yer mind aff things. We could play board games in tha rec room. Or ye could let aff some steam wi’ tha punching bag in tha training room! Ah could teach ye how tae shoot on tha shooting range-”

You open your eyes wide as his suggestions turn progressively more violent.

“I have a bus to catch, and that's overlooking the fact that I haven't done anything in my last hour of work today…”

“If anyone gives you trouble, just say ah forced you.”

You chuckle at the idea.

“You'd never compel me to do anything.”

You can’t repress a loving smile. Johnny just feels that safe to you.

He smirks mischievously at that.

“Na, but they'll believe ah dragged ye intae mah evil schemes.”

He punctuates his statement by a roguish wink that wrests a laughter from you.

“You should take my bed,” he declares suddenly, serious again.

As the silence between you two stretches and your smile is replaced by a mix of shock, confusion, and worry, he realizes how this may sound. Flustered, he starts rambling to defuse the situation.

“Wait, no- steamin’ jesus - Ah didnae mean it like that! I’d take the couch in the rec room, ‘f course. Ye shouldn't go through tonight alone.”

“Oh my god, Johnny, I could never take your bed from you. You must already sleep on the floor so often for missions…”

“Exactly, hen. This is nothing for me. The couch is a hotel compared to that.”

You open your mouth to argue more, but then he makes an expression that can only be described as sad puppy eyes, even going as far as slightly tilting his head to the side to perfect the impression. You gulp in response, stricken straight through the heart, and knowing pertinently that you could already hardly refuse him anything, so if he begins to gaze at you like that…

“Pretty please?”

Oh no. Not that line.

He's now excessively batting his eyelashes at you, which, while not exactly alluring, is both comical and endearing. Hell, who are you even kidding? You’re so smitten with this blue-eyed creature, is there any act from him you wouldn’t find endearing?

“Are you… pouting?”

“Depends. Is it working?”

You sigh, aware it's a losing battle, and look away, a futile attempt to hide the ridiculously potent effect he has on you, or to at least shield yourself from his influence, if only momentarily.

“I think you know the answer to that.”

“Maybe ah just wantae hear ye say aye tae me.”

Your cheeks catch fire at the suggestiveness of the words. As if the regular rasp of his voice, that felt like an exquisite caress along your spine, wasn’t already making it incredibly difficult to keep your face at a reasonnable temperature.

“You're gonna get me fired, Johnny.”

“Over my dead body,” he retorted with surprising determination, solemnly pressing a hand over his heart.

You scoff indulgently. Coming from anyone else, the hastily taken oath would be preposterous, but Soap has always proved himself trustworthy.

“Let's go. Your knees must be sore,” you mumble, trying to sound casual.

“Wanna make a joke aboot mah stamina when kneeling but ah will keep it fur next time,” he slips as he stands up, way too smugly for your own good, so you pretend you didn’t hear anything. As if you needed any more incitement into picturing him on his knees in a different context.

You get up quickly after, but he does not get out of your way. You rise a quizzical eyebrow, his close proximity triggering alarm bells inside your head. If he remains near enough for you to feel his body heat, you’re going to get dizzy.

He simply grins.

“Want a hug?”

He opens his muscled arms, smile genuine, almost blinding, like a tacit invitation, and all your reluctance seems to evaporate with that simple gesture. Before you can linger any more on the harmful consequences this lack of restraint will eventually cause, you throw yourself into his embrace. It feels like falling and flying all at once.

You blink at the unexpected question. Yes, implores your touchstarved mind. YES, cries out your sensitive, enamored heart.

No way, rebuffs your cautious brain. It will only hurt more knowing what you can’t have.

Your hands close on the back of his shirt, near his shoulder blades, and, pressing your face into his shoulder to make the world disappear for a moment, you cling to him like he could rescue you from the sinking ship that was your sick mind. One of his arms close around your waist while his free hand rubs your back, leaving trails of fire in its wake, but bringing you much-appreciated comfort nonetheless.

“You're too nice to me. I feel like I'm taking advantage of your kindness.”

He remains silent a drawn-out second, and you're terrified you just screwed everything up.

“Yer givin me too much credit, lass “ he finally says. “Ah don't go ‘round base comforting every person I find.”

His tone isn’t angry, per se, but it lacks its previous joviality.

Soap tilts his head back, biting his lips, thanking the universe that with your face laying against his chest, you can’t perceive his embarrassment.

He can’t tell you. Not yet. Not now.

Months ago, he took the resolve to make you smile more; for a while now he started doing his reports more seriously, or even did the ones of Gaz and Ghost, just to have an excuse to see you, to behold the way your face lightens up when he brings you necessary paperwork before you even demand it.

He can’t tell you that he used to consider writing reports as the worst part of the job until you came along; until you awarded him a heartfelt, radiant smile when he gave you his; that he noticed how little you smiled outside of artificial ones you fabricate for work purposes; that when he manages to make you smile or laugh genuinely, it feels like a prize, that only he is privy to.

And he certainly can’t tell you about that one time where he handed over his reports in advance, but you weren't there, so he left, heart heavy with disappointment, dragging his feet, until he heard your voice coming from the room he just left.

“What are those?” you questionned your coworker.

“Soap just dropped them.”

“But… I didn't even ask him to yet?”

Perplexity combines with glee in your voice.

“He's a good boy, isn’t he?” prompted your colleague.

You let out a fond, wistful sigh, before responding, half-joking.

“I know! Such a good boy for me.”

Getting to hear you beaming over his benevolent action was already a treat, but witnessing that compromising exchange? To be called a “good boy” by you short-circuited him. He swore - “Steamin jesus” -, ears burning, face on fire, covering it with one hand. He needed to leave badly. Seek refuge in his room, where he could be free to replay that tantalizing line on loop in his mind. “Such a good boy for me.”

Your heart beats a bit faster than usual as you obediently follow Soap through corridors you’ve never been in before. You trust him with all your heart, but that doesn't change the fact that what you’re doing is against the rules; and those rules aren't high school's, but the ones of a military base.

You flinch hard as a familiar voice screams in your direction.

“SERGEANT MACTAVISH!”

Oops, you think. That's Captain Price, your supervisor, and he sounds pissed. You never witnessed him calling Soap by his last name before, but that being said, you never saw him deal with a kidnapped assistant either.

You've been caught red-handed.

Your mind begins to come up with plans to lessen the punishments that are without doubt about to descend upon you two, but Johnny grabbing your hand brings you back to reality.

You lift your gaze to him. He doesn't seem worried at all, if anything… is that a spark of delight in his eye?

He only pronounces one word.

“Run.”

So you run, carried away half by adrenaline, and half by the sergeant dragging you. Thankfully Soap is aware that there's no way you can keep up with him and his training, so he comes to a halt a minute later.

Panting hard, you double over, hands clenching your knees for support, heart thumping in your chest, blood throbbing in your ears.

“Why… are we… running…!?” you manage to exhale. “It's only… gonna make… things worse…”

By your side, he's standing fresh as a daisy, barely ruffled by your flight. The sight would be infuriating if his eyes weren't glinting with amusement and he wasn’t offering you a dazzling smile.

“Because it's fun,” he affirms like it's evident.

Little by little, you catch your breath, throwing Johnny a look that's half in earnest, half in jest.

“More fun for you than for me.”

He doesn't get flustered by your moderate reprimand.

“Is it selfish o' me tae wantae spend more time wi' ye? Didnae want us tae git interrupted yet.”

The line feels like a punch to the chest, stealing the breath you just recovered and leaving you agape.

He takes your hand again with the natural of a well earned habit.

“C'm'on, ah have more than one trick up mah sleeve.”

You're unsure which of the views unfurling under your eyes is the most magnificent; the sunset in front of you that's painting the sky in shades of pink and orange, or the striking man by your side whose eyes could rival the most astounding sights.

Nibbling on the dinner Soap smuggled out of the cafeteria with too much ease for it to be his first time, you regularly sneak glances at him as he fills the silence with tales of his adventures - the parts that aren't top secret, at least. You two totally did not break onto the roof moments ago, no sir.

Goosebumps travel along your arms and any exposed skin as the night falls and the sun takes away the warmth with him. You furiously brush the outside of your arms for heat, and you're about to suggest finishing this inside, when a jacket lands on your shoulders.

It is still warm with his owner's bodyheat, deliciously so. You curl up and drag it closer, your face on fire. Realizing that Soap gave you his jacket without you even having to ask or complain about the cold… you’re conflicted between obsessing over this like a giggling schoolgirl, and feeling apologetic.

Once you more or less got your blushing under control, you turn to him, displaying a contrite expression.

“I don't want to take your jacket on top of your bed, Johnny.” you pout.

“A'm a bloody furnace. Wanna check?”

He asks, cheekily, even adding a wink for good measure. As if there was any more artifice needed to make you putty in his hands.

He presents you his bare arm for the taking, all golden skin, bulging muscles and a constellation of white scars.

You indulge him and lay a hand on his bicep, knowing he won't relent otherwise; that is definitly the only reason; it has absolutely nothing to do with your own desires.

Indeed, he's burning. As you envy and bask in the heat provided by his body, forgetting that your touch is lingering too long for someone who is just a coworker, he chooses that moment to flex shamelessly, showing off the impressive circumference of his muscle. You feel obligated to squeeze it in response, a way to finally meet him head-on instead of passively enduring his quips, and it feels like reinforced concrete under your fingers.

You fail to hold back your laughter at his facetious demeanor.

“You're ridiculous.”

The comment holds no bite, a smile brimming with tenderness stretching your lips.

“I'll be the most ridiculous man on the planet if it makes you laugh.”

He's leaning back, hands propped on the ground behind him, head slightly tilted to gaze at you, and the earnestness on his face could almost make you believe his words.

Almost.

But instead a sharp pang pierces your chest, right between your lungs, at heart's level. The smile you return him in spite of yourself oscillates between content and heartbroken, before opting for the latter.

Tomorrow you will ask him, maybe even plead; tomorrow you'll ask him to put an end to the flirting. You cannot bear it.

But just tonight, you'll indulge it. You'll pretend to be normal, a well-adjusted human being, instead of a broken shell; you'll act like an adult for who flirting is a regular event and not the mental equivalent of a nuclear bomb.

You abruptly stand up, dusting yourself off, purposely ignoring the newfound lack of understanding on Soap's face and how his mouth opened for a question.

“It's getting late,” you state, not nearly as casually as you'd like. “I'm beat!”

You're running away and you know it; but you never claimed to be brave. Really, it is the best solution for everyone involved, or at least it's how it has always seemed to be your whole life.

He escorts you to his room - of course he does. Even if he already picked up his things earlier to crash on the couch, already showed the place to you.

As you awkwardly face him on the doorstep after saying your goodbyes and your thanks, unable to look away yet incapable of making eye contact, pain flares in your torso thinking of him, somehow intertwined with joy and gratefulness for his existence. Maybe your inner struggle shows on your face because next thing you know, he cups your cheek, forcing you to look up, but as the deranged idea that he's about to kiss you manifests in a remote corner of your mind, your brain swiftly shuts off as his lips make contact with your forehead.

The touch is light yet your entire being seems gathered on that point of contact.

“G'night, bonnie,” he half-whispers, as if to make sure his words exist only for you.

He grants you one last smile, small but so sweet you feel your heart tightens.

“Good night, Johnny,” you manage to articulate before sheltering in his bedroom. The room smells like him.

The moment the door shuts behind you, you rest against it, tilting your head back, letting out a deep sigh. Morbid curiosity pushes you to glance in the adjacent bathroom's mirror, if only to see what you look after this evening. A flustered mess? A sorrowful wreck?

Catching your reflection's eye makes you grimace as you realize an incriminating detail.

You forgot to give Soap his jacket back.

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blackreaderfics · 8 months

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🎃Wildcard | Jason Todd x Reader🎃

↳ Pairing : TitansDCverse!Jason Todd x Virgin!Reader

↳ Rating : E (18+ minors dni‼️)

↳ Summary : A round of Cards Against Humanity gets a little wild during “Game Night” at Titans Tower

↳ W.C : ~3.4k

↳ A/N : welcome to spooky season. this is my first ever fic for kinktober🧡👻 idk if this is controversial buuut I love that actor’s portrayal of Jason🫣

↳ Tags + Warnings: dubcon elements, oral (male receiving), face-fucking, orgy, stripping, degradation (“slut”), coercion, alcohol consumption (beer), teabagging, bullyish!jason x shyish!reader, reader wears glasses, reader is a virgin, jason is kinda a dickhead lol, side characters (rachel, rose, gar, and conner) are there, for sake of convenience they’re all 21+

“Oh come on,” Jason groaned exasperatedly as you set your glasses on the coffee table. “Glasses don’t fucking count!”

After a successful mission and saving the world for the hundredth time, the Titans decided to unwind in the best way they knew how: a night in with board games and beer.

As usual, Jason had tried to make the games a little bit more exciting by adding a “fun twist”. Jenga became a drinking game; drink if you make the tower fall. Uno had become “draw or dare”, you could choose to draw four cards or get off scot-free by doing a dare.

The “grownups” of the team—Dick, Kory, Hank, and Dawn— had excused themselves to do “grownup things” leaving you and the remaining group of young adults in the living room. Currently, you were now in the middle of another particularly heated game of Cards Against Humanity, the interesting twist being the person with the best card could choose for someone to strip an article of clothing.

Jason had been targeting you the whole night; teasing you for the baggy clothes you always wore. Purposely, just to annoy him, you’d only taken off your accessories and your zip-up hoodie.

Admittedly the clothes you wore didn’t really fit you right. You’d opted to wear oversized sweaters over fitted shirts, and unflattering pants over a more hip-hugging and slimming fit. Before you became a Titan, you were shyer than you were now. It had only been recently when you started to come out of your shell and get closer to your teammates.

“Be for real. Glasses do so count!” You retorted. You had all but discarded your outer layers and were now left in pants and a tank top. You could take up a few turns with your socks and shoes if you needed to.

“Why do you guys wear so many layers?” Gar piped up. All he had on were his boxers and a single sock. Conner, who was sitting next to him, was equally fucked, only, with no socks as a buffer.

“Because we play idiotic games like this,” Rachel remarked dryly while drawing an extra card from the pile.

You and Rachel were the only ones currently safe from any unnecessary exposure. Rachel did wear a lot of layers, and despite having lost multiple rounds, still looked very much clothed. Rose sat far off on the kitchen counter with a bowl of cereal looking on with about as much judgment as a girl with one working eye could.

“You know, offer still stands. You can still join us, Rose,” Jason addressed the grey-haired, eye-patch-wearing girl without looking up from the cards in his hands.

“Hard pass. I’d rather watch you losers get destroyed.” She then unceremoniously returned to munching on her cornflakes.

Your gaze settled on Jason who’d shed his leather jacket and still remained in a plain black tee and jeans. He was unfairly attractive in the most basic of clothes. And though you hated his playground jibes and dirty humor, you couldn’t help but develop a little bit of a crush on the messy-haired boy. When his eyes caught yours, you could see the wheels in his brain practically turning as his smirk grew wider.

“How about…” He started slowly, “Boys versus girls. If you guys win, then we’ll get naked. If we win, you guys get naked.”

Of course he would suggest that, you thought to yourself glumly. The thought of showing your naked body to your crush didn’t excite you, it only made you more nervous.

“You’re just saying that ‘cuz you’re losing,” you said, masking your anxiety with a chug of your beer, “Conner’s literally only got his underwear left.”

Conner, hearing his name, suddenly perked up. “For the record, I have x-ray vision. I can already see everything anywa—” Gar nudged him in the ribs to keep him from talking.

Jason shook his head. “It’s no fun if we already know who’s gonna win. Let’s vote on it then. Who here agrees to a wildcard match?” He raised his hand, and predictably the two other boys followed suit. “And who wants to play the way we’ve been playing; the boring virgin Y/N way?” He taunted cheekily.

You felt your cheeks warm again. He was never letting you live down the fact that you had confessed you were still a virgin during a past game of “Never Have I Ever”. You raised your hand and looked around for support. “Rachel,” you hissed desperately when you found she had not raised her hand.

“Seriously? They suck at this game. It’s not like they’re gonna suddenly win out of nowhere," Rachel whispered back.

“In that case, I’ll play too,” Rose hopped off the counter and plopped on the couch next to you.

“So nice of you to finally join us,” Jason crooned. “I’ll let you do the honors.” He passed her the deck he’d been shuffling for her to deal and sat back.

After Rose had dealt all the cards, you looked at your hand. The deck you were playing with was a custom-made deck that Dick had ordered to round out the Tower’s impressive board game collection.

As a collective, you all pooled in ideas resulting in a deck of cards ranging from the peculiar to the mundane; from “taking shots off Nightwing’s ass”; to “Batman’s Worst Nightmare”; to names of each of your superhero aliases including all of the Justice League. For some reason, however, all the cards in your current hand were names.

“Make me laugh,” Rose ordered primly as she set down her card and folded her arms in expectation. It read:

“If I could fuck anyone right now, I would fuck ______”

“Damn,” Rachel sounded impressed, “that’s certainly one way to start a round.”

Gar immediately threw his card down, followed by Rachel, then Jason. Only Conner and you were left.

“Time’s ticking Y/N,” Jason tapped a nonexistent watch on his wrist. Usually you would fire a comeback at him, but this time you could only frown as you chose your safest option and slid it tentatively over to the pile in the middle.

“Time’s up, Conner,” Rose said as she gathered the cards. He passed it over face down, obviously not very happy about his choice.

“Okay, we have a ‘Wonder Woman’, a ‘Poison Ivy’….” She glanced around the room to see if anyone would give themselves away. “A ‘Robin’—wait...” She barked out a laugh. “I can’t not address this. I pick this one. Who fucking put down Robin?”

The room erupted into fits of laughter rivaling a high school classroom as they watched you sigh and bashfully raise your hand.

“Oh, would you now?” Jason raised a curious eyebrow at you.

“I-in my defense, there’s more than one Robin,” you sputtered pitifully before he could tease you further. You watched him stand up and begin to raise his shirt, giving you an eyeful of v-line and toned midriff. “W-what are you doing! I didn’t pick you!”

Despite being only in a tank top, you felt yourself getting hot. Gar and Conner had equally toned bodies, but they weren’t affecting you the way Jason had been. Just to spite you, he kept his eyes on yours as he raised his shirt as suggestively as possible, bringing it up over his head and tossing it in a pile on his leather jacket.

“Just giving the person who wants to ‘fuck me right now’ a little preview.” He said, smile smug like he was doing charity for letting you see his 6-pack.

Yea, real fucking Mother Theresa.

“Well, too bad I can barely see it.” You waved a hand in front of your face, “No glasses remember?”

“Come sit on my lap, mama, I’ll give you a closer look.” Jason plopped back on the sofa, abs flexing as he reclined with his legs spread wide, inviting you to sit with a pat on his thigh and a wicked smirk to match.

“Ugh, gross,” Rose made a face but appeared to be humored by Jason’s antics.

“Anyway,” you interrupted desperately trying to change the subject. “Since I won, technically that means the girls won too. Rules are rules.”

You had barely even finished your sentence when the boys immediately moved to take off their clothes. Your mouth went dry as they sat nonchalantly before you now, cocks resting against their stomachs.

In any other situation, you’d probably find this extremely inappropriate. They were your teammates. Sure, you lived together and had walked in on the occasional member changing or just getting out of the shower, but you were a bit buzzed off of the booze already, and this was different— you couldn’t help but stare.

“So uh…what now?” Gar’s nervous laugh broke the silence and everyone turned towards him; he blushed under the newfound attention.

“New game?” Conner suggested. He appeared to be just as clueless as Gar but with less of the blushing.

Rose looked over at you and Rachel for guidance, but seeing as neither of you knew how to react, the grey-haired girl merely shrugged back at the boys. “I’m down.”

“Ok, new game,” Jason agreed. “If you can make all of us cum in 10 minutes then the girls can get TV remote control privileges for the rest of the year.”

“All of you including Conner?” You asked brow raised, “He’s a super, that’s not fair.”

“What? It’s not like he has ‘super cum control’ too.”

“Actually, yea I—”

“Don’t answer that,” Jason cut in, annoyed. “Ok fine, I’ll give a handicap. If you can make one of us cum in 5 minutes untouched then the TV’s all yours.”

“Do you think we’re stupid, Todd?” Rachel narrowed her eyes at him.

“Well…” He paused and tapped a finger to his chin to consider Rachel’s rhetorical question, flinching playfully when she raised her fist to jab in his direction. “Ok ok, but 5 minutes is a long time!”

“I meant the untouched part.”

“Your handicap is you can’t touch us, and our handicap is Logan.” He jabbed a thumb to gesture at Gar who looked like he was meditating to calm himself down. “He’ll probably reach the big ‘O’ before he reaches nirvana.”

“Deal, but if it’s gonna be like that then let’s raise the stakes a little.” Rose countered. “Not just remote control privileges. We get control privileges. Over you guys. If we win, you have to do whatever we say for the rest of the year.”

Jason fished his phone out from the pocket of his jacket and set the timer for 5 minutes. “And if we win, the same for us too.” He started the timer and sat back.

You, Rachel, and Rose made a beeline for Gar, who’d still had his eyes squeezed closed in the middle of the sofa.

“Fuckin’ hell, I should’ve known you’d try ‘n cheat,” Jason grumbled and stopped the timer. “No double or triple-teaming. One to one only and I get to choose the pairs.”

“And why should you be the one to choose that?” You turned toward him, trying (and failing) not to look at his dick. It was long and thick, with a slight curve and a pretty pink color at the tip.

“‘Cuz you wanna fuck me so bad,” he simpered, an impish grin playing on his lips.

“Oh god,” You rolled your eyes.

“Let him choose,” Rose challenged unfazed at Jason’s constant goalpost moving. “Whatever strategy he thinks he has isn’t gonna work.”

Jason ignored her and carried on with making the pairs. “Rachel and Conner, Rose and Gar.” He pointed directly at you, “You and me.”

Upon his directions, the three of you moved to stand in front of your now-designated partners. Finally satisfied, Jason set the timer again and pressed start. Almost immediately Rachel and Rose set to work on their mission, stripping their clothes down to their underwear. You tentatively followed suit, shimmying out of your jeans and kicking them aside. Jason eyed you, fully reclined in his seat with his hands comfortably behind his head.

“Well, this is gonna be easier than I thought,” He yawned, looking as nonchalant as ever.

“I doubt your porn-addled brain has ever seen a real woman before, Jason.” The taunts you directed at him should’ve sounded more confident, but instead were dulled by your nervous fidgeting at the hem of your shirt.

This was the first time you’d ever been half-naked in front of a boy. And not just any boy, but a boy you liked. But the way he always seemed to tease you and make sexually insensitive jokes at your expense made you anxious. It wasn’t overt bullying, but the little comments he would sneak here and there were beginning to eat at you. If you showed him any more of your body, would he make fun of you even more?

“Trust me, I’ve seen plenty,” He assured, “But how ‘bout you jog my memory and demonstrate?” His gaze moved down your chest and back up to your eyes, daring you to take it off.

You fidgeted again under his stare, feeling a sensation growing in the pit of your stomach. It was a mix of anxiety, embarrassment, and something else you could quite place. When you glanced over to the other pairs, Rachel had already taken her top off and Rose was in the middle of a strip tease.

“Four minutes,” Jason announced, with a bored expression.

Feeling a sense of urgency, you pulled off your tank top, exposing your lacy bra. When his dick twitched, both your eyes shifted to the hardening situation in his lap. You could see him fighting the urge to touch himself now, and that gave you a burst of confidence.

Rachel and Rose were now in between Gar and Conner’s legs, not touching them, but teasing them by blowing hot air on their cocks. You followed suit, with only three minutes left you had to do something. After all, forfeiting your will to the whims of three boys with raging hormones didn’t seem like a fun idea, especially since you knew how playfully vindictive they could get. They’d probably try and make you human furniture or whatever other sick and twisted thing they could think of. You shuddered at the thought of the kind of torture they could come up with.

You sank to your knees and sat between Jason’s legs. You watched him involuntarily swallow and sit up straighter, pulling his hands down from his head to steady himself and clutch at the couch cushion beneath him.

“Three minutes,” Jason glanced at his phone, but he wasn’t as confident as he was before. If anything, he seemed much more distracted by your presence at his feet.

Satisfied with his change in demeanor, you only smiled at him, fluttering your lashes at him as you brought your mouth closer to his balls. You opened your mouth and exhaled softly.

He hastily brought a hand to his cock—beads of precum already spilling from its tip—and made minute motions with the pad of his thumb to calm himself down. His chest raised with shallow breaths as he looked down at you now, eyes heavily lidded with lust and wanting.

“Fuck it—” He hissed and without warning, reached his other hand around the back of your head, pushing your nose into his balls as he began to jerk off. Your eyes widened, taken by surprise at his sudden actions.

From where you were kneeling you could already see Rachel and Rose giving their partners full-on blowjobs, completely forgetting the game they had agreed to earlier. The sensation in your stomach moved down to your clothed sex, and you could feel a tingling sensation as he rubbed your face obscenely against his balls, moaning with need.

“Open your mouth —oh fuck— please.” His voice sounded strangled as he held you at the base of his cock, masturbating desperately to chase his release.

You obliged his request, opening up and taking his balls into your mouth, looking up at him as you felt his grip on the nape of your neck tighten. He was clearly getting off from the sight of you beneath him, massaging thoroughly with the flat of your tongue. He brought your head back and, with his other hand, held his cock by the base.

He groaned again when he saw your lips now glossy with spit. “Open f’me again, baby?” he asked despite the fact that the tip of his cock was already being pressed to your lips. Your cheeks warmed as he let out a moaning “fuuuck” when you opened your mouth again to allow him inside. He pushed your head down deeper to take all of him in, and your eyes began to water as the tip of his cock grazed the back of your throat.

“You don’t know how fucking pretty you look with my cock in your mouth, Y/N,” he murmured, releasing the pressure off your head for you to catch your breath. He let out a short laugh as if your gasping for air was funny to him.

“Had no idea you were such a fucking slut under all those clothes. How’re you a virgin when you’re takin’ my cock this good, hm?” His voice was gentle and soft but borderline condescending as he spoke.

Jason brushed away a tear from your eye and leaned over to bring you into an open-mouthed and sloppy kiss, tasting himself on your tongue. A string of saliva connected at both of your lips when you separated.

“Gonna fuck that pretty little mouth of yours. Keep it open,” He instructed. Within seconds he was guiding your head back on his cock, bucking up into your mouth and against your throat. You made a garbled sound, which only seemed to make him thrust harder.

“Oh fu— that’s so fuckin’ good, baby keep doin’ that,” he moaned, though you weren’t doing much except letting your head loll up and down like a brainless doll with the support of his hand at the back of your neck.

The living room was now filled with the pleasured moans of the three boys and the gagging ‘gluck gluck’ sounds of the three girls as each of them fucked into your mouths, getting off on the lewdly slick sounds of their cocks pistoning in and out in a relentless rhythm. Your mouths became just another hole for them to fuck.

“Shit—” His hips stuttered; he was close. He brought both hands to your head pushing it down so your nose pressed against his base. “You know how to swallow right, baby?” He grunted.

You couldn’t respond with words readily—your nose was plugged and his cock clogged your windpipe— instead, your throat closed over his tip, as if a Pavlovian response to his question. He groaned and not shortly after, you felt his hot cum shooting down your throat.

When his softening cock finally left your mouth, you swallowed his sticky release as best as you could with your punished throat. He swiped some of the cum the had dribbled down your lips with his thumb and pushed it past your lips, making you suck it.

“You’re so fucking hot,” he said breathlessly as he watched you suck his thumb, mesmerized by the way your eyes locked on him. A loud moan from Gar interrupted, making both you and Jason tear your eyes off each other. The green-haired boy was currently stroking his cum onto Rose’s waiting tongue. About a minute later, Conner came too.

It was only then that you realized that Jason had come the fastest; faster than the “handicap” he’d claimed Gar to be.

“So…I’m guessing that means we won?” Rachel had already started pulling her clothes back on. Since she started dressing, everyone else mundanely followed suit.

Jason tugged his jeans back on, “Sure. Fine. Whatever, we’re all yours for the next three months,” he sounded less than enthused but still took the time to find your discarded tank top and jeans and toss them over to you as well.

Rose threw her shirt back on and adjusted her eyepatch. “Girls, what are we thinking? Anything we want our new servants to do for us?”

“Hmm…” You tapped your chin in mock thought, giving Jason a sly look that could give one of his own cheeky smirks a run for its money. “Oh, I‘ve got a few ideas.”

©️ blackreaderfics // dividers by cafekitsune & poison-aesthetics

#the boys were playing checkers while the girls were playing chess 😁#finally wrote some jason todd 🫡#didn’t mean for it to be titans!verse it just happened #jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #jason todd imagine #jason todd smut #titans dc #x reader #brf.fest #cross posted on ao3

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y-rhywbeth2 · 6 months

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D&D Vampire Lore Dump #4

Weaknesses and Cures Featuring that pesky sunlight problem, and how to get around it. Overview of other limitations and weaknesses of their condition (running water, invitations, etc) and how to get around those, vampires being extremely annoying to kill and how to make them stay dead, and the four ways I know of that can cure vampirism.

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER FOR FIRST TIME READERS: D&D is decades old, spans five editions, several settings and hundreds of writers. One guy establishes a piece of lore, and then the next picks it up goes "nah" and writes something else. I collected info from four different source books, all from different editions, which naturally don't entirely agree on how vampires work. Lore never stays consistent and may contradict itself. You may see information somewhere else from a source I don't have that contradicts what I wrote here. If you read this and like some of this stuff but not other bits, take the good and ditch the rest. Larian themselves have not written BG3 totally compliant with some established D&D lore or the original games. If you want canon to work a certain way in your headcanons/fanfic, go ahead.

Feeding | "Biology" | Hierarchy | Weaknesses and Cures | Psychology

Sunlight is basically instant death and will kill vampires within moments of touching their bare skin. Even if vampires can walk in sunlight, vampires can't access their abilities while the sun is still in the sky. A sunstone, if left in the sunlight to "charge" take on an energy that will rebuff vampires with an effect much like sunlight exposure (but weaker) if they attack an individual wearing/holding the gemstone. This disorients them, cuts them off from many of their powers and inflicts a small amount of damage.

There are ways that allow vampires to walk in sunlight, although their powers will be disabled during daylight hours.

Liquid Night is a vampire sunscreen that will protect the wearer from sunlight.

Clearly, going off of BG3, the Netherese had magic that could do it. (Netheril, according to one story, was an empire whose initial magical foundation was specifically the school of necromancy, under the guidance of the priests of Jergal/Withers)

Fiends are happy to take/destroy your soul in exchange for the ability to walk in the day, as the Greater Vampire creating succubi can attest.

Vampires grow more powerful with age. One of those ways used to include that they became increasingly resistant to sunlight with age, and by the time they were 1000 years old they were fully immune to it. After almost two centuries of undeath, Astarion may be strong enough to avoid immediate death and this may be why he doesn't burn to a crisp immediately when the netherbrain dies.

Necromancers can create enchanted objects that protect vampires from the sun. One example being the Cloak of Dragomir in BG2.

They can also just keep to the shade or wear clothes that provide enough shelter to keep the sunlight from touching them. A deep hood or a parasol can help.

Vampires don't usually consider such things worthwhile, as they don't see much point if they lose their powers. They generallyhave no desire to be in the sunlight for its own sake as most vampires instinctually hate sunlight.

Vampires instinctually recoil from mirrors and hesitate to step in front of them. This hesitation will typically pass in seconds or moments. In 1e they had reflections, but their reflection turned the hypnotic properties of their gaze back at them or at least, they thought it could. After that they lost the reflections, and it's thought that the absence causes an instinctual distress for the remnants of the vampire's human psyche (reminding them that they're an accursed dead thing who's lost everything).

In a similar manner to their lack of reflection, vampires also do not cast shadows upon their surroundings.

Vampires who don't rest in/on their dirt-bed (usually a grave or coffin, sometimes a bed with a mattress stuffed with the appropriate type of soil) are destroyed. A vampire that can't get to its sanctuary before sunrise is utterly screwed. They tend to have multiple safe havens with prepared resting places, just in case. Vampires who will be traveling sometimes use a bag of holding, essentially taking their grave with them.

Some have suggested that the dirt dependency is actually just superstition and a vampire can sleep wherever it wants, but nobody's successfully convinced a vampire to take the risk of testing that.

As said previously, vampires are healed by negative/necrotic energy and harmed by positive/radiant energy (including heal spells)

Holy symbols can repel them, but the specifics can vary based on source. On the one hand there's one that says that the faith and belief in the holy symbol is what gives it power, and on the other there's one that says that the symbol is only useful in the hands of a priest. Only the symbols of Good and Neutral aligned deities have repelling properties. Evil clerics can still try to Command Undead however (the evil variant of Turn Undead - instead of repelling/destroying the undead you seize control of them.)

In terms of clerics and paladins attempting to Command/Turn Undead, vampires are susceptible to it, but are also the most resistant of undead, so it's difficult and risky.

Vampires are repulsed by garlic - it doesn't harm them and can't keep them at bay forever, but a vampire will hesitate before approaching. Some vampires also randomly develop other "allergies". Salt, rose petals, rice, mistletoe, lilies, small children singing, dove feathers… could be anything, really. It's generally linked to the individual vampire's own personality and beliefs. If they believe it should repel them then it may have warding powers against them.

Vampires will dissolve in bodies of running water like rivers or the ocean, because the running water forces them to turn into mist and washes them away. However, running water's only a problem if they're immersed in it. They can fly over it (be that with the fly spell or by shapeshifting into a bat), be carried over (bodily carried by a person, or in a boat, or by bridge, whatever) or use the water walk spell and just walk across like a basilisk lizard.

They are however, blocked from crossing a body of running water over three feet wide in mist form, for some reason. There's no answer for this, but I'd guess the vampire cloud picks up water particles and grows heavier, eventually sinking onto the water or something...?

At least 3/4 of the vampire's body must be submerged for it to count as immersion - and it must include the entire torso (the heart in particular must be below the water). The vampire must be held under for three minutes. It doesn't exactly kill them, but as their body is now thousands of particles distributed through the waterways, unable to reform, the vampire is effectively gone for good.

Vampires are also extremely annoying to kill. They can only be damaged with enchanted weapons or weapons plated with silver.

Upon death their body turns to mist and they return to their resting place, where they reform their physical body but are rendered vulnerable. A vampire can be paralysed by piercing their heart with a wooden stake... and then, sometimes, you get the unusual ones who need to be staked with a specific wood...! Once they've returned to their coffin the body must be damaged enough to be considered destroyed. Decapitation is a favourite method, but the main point is just to inflict as much damage on them as possible. Vampires begin to regenerate once they return to their coffin, and need to be dealt with quickly, hence the stake to pin them down while you start hacking them apart. Luckily for their would-be-killers they often wake up disoriented.

Vampires can't enter houses, or holy sites of residence like monasteries without permission, and can't enter sanctified graveyards of religious organisations. They can't enter temples, as these count as the residences of the deity worshipped there. A guest cannot invite somebody in, the invitation must come from a permanent resident.

Unless the owner of the house is the one who extends the invite, the invite only counts as a one time offer and the vampire needs to be invited again once it leaves the premise - so you can get invited in by a child, but for the ability to come and go as they please, a vampire needs permission from the parents/guardians in charge of the family and house. An invitation taken through use of enchantment magic or just plain coercion counts as a legitimate invitation.

They can also just take a third option and find a way to kill everyone inside from afar and then just walk through the door once there's nobody left alive to own the property. Also if the building no longer exists, for whatever reason (like if it mysteriously burns down), then they don't need an invite to get to whatever's inside. Or buy the building - if the vampire legally owns the house, and the residents are their tenants, then the vampire does not need an invite.

Public areas, inns, public graveyards and non-residential buildings do not count. Vampires can come and go as they please here.

Other people's graves can also count as privately owned residence upon which the vampire cannot intrude, hilariously. The final resting place of the deceased counts as belonging to them - providing they received burial rites. Vampires can however just animate the corpse and have it leave, at which point it ceases to be a resting place and they can do what they like. It's not stated whether they can also use speak with dead to ask permission.

---

There are four ways off the top of my head to cure vampirism. Most of them aren't cheap:

Firstly is the wish spell, which can be used to cure vampirism in one of two ways:

Using the spell to rewrite reality. You force reality to bend to your will and turn the vampire into a living being. Using wish this way is extremely taxing on the caster and may harm them permanently. They will basically be bedridden for a given amount of time and there's something around a one in three chance that you'll never be able to cast the spell again.

In its 5e variant, wish can replicate the effect of any spell below 8th level (including resurrection) while ignoring all the requirements of the spell itself.

Next up is divine intervention. Deities can remove vampirism, though the extent and conditions may be limited by their portfolio.

Amaunator (the ancient Netherese sun god, precursor to Lathander) had a temple over in Amn. You have to take the vampire and the heart of the vampire who turned them to the statue of the ancient sun god in an abandoned temple, place the vampire in the arms of the statue with the heart and it completes a ritual that restores them to life. This was part of a quest in Baldur's Gate 2 where your love interest (who may have been Jaheira) was turned into a vampire and needed curing.

Eldath, a minor goddess of peace, has also been known to restore some level of mortal life to unhappy vampires.

And then resurrection spells. The time limit on resurrection exists because when calling a soul back to its body there are numerous obstacles.

The body needs to be in a state fit to go on living. If it's too damaged or decayed putting the soul back is a waste of time.

The soul must be both willing and able to return. It has to still exist, to start with. If the soul has a new life it probably can't be recovered (be that by being sent back to the material plane for reincarnation in another life, or remade as a fiend or celestial). If the soul has been absorbed by their deity or into the fabric of the planes it can't be recovered. If the soul has been destroyed then you're shit out of luck.

The longer the target has been dead, the more likely the above scenarios are true and that the spell will fail. Also restoring a body and calling a soul from across the planes is extremely powerful, taxing magic that's hard to pull off, which makes it harder to succeed. Hence the time limit.

Vampires have the advantage that their body is perfectly preserved and intact and the soul is still on the material plane, and there's an argument to be made that this makes them resurrect-able.

Greater vampires are not resurrect-able as their soul is either annihilated or has been taken to the Lower Planes and tortured until the person has been turned into one of two varieties of barely sentient blobs of rancid flesh trapped in eternal agony. Wish may still work, but it may have a 50/50 chance of failure.

There's also the elven High Magic spell Gift of Life, which as it says on the tin, restores an undead being back to life. The catch with this one is that knowledge of high magic is dying out, so finding an elven archmage who can and will cast it on you is extremely difficult and probably involves a lot of favours and proving yourself.

#bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #astarion #astarion ancunin #excuse me while I have flashbacks to the vampire crypts in BG2 #Cazador you're such a fucking disappointment of a vampire villain #WotC DE-NERF THE VAMPIRES #Half of playing D&D is arguing about the Rules As Written VS The Spirit of The Rules

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tripleyeeet · 11 months

Text

DO I KNOW YOU? (3)

SUMMARY: Miguel's been showing up at your house for months. And yet, you still have no idea who he is.

PAIRING: Miguel O'Hara & Female Reader

WORD COUNT: 4,810

WARNINGS: Angst, all hurt no comfort (sorry folks, I promise the comfort is coming just be patient), enemies-to-lovers adjacent, descriptions of a panic attack/dissociate behaviours.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, this chapter gave me such grief I'm just so fucking glad it's over. Enjoy! Please! For the sake of my sanity. :')

CHAPTER LIST / LAST CHAPTER / MASTERLIST

It’s been nearly two months since that first encounter. Two months of random, bloodied drop-ins, and you still have no idea who Miguel really is.

At this point, you’ve spent weeks wondering. Every time you look at him it’s like you’re met with this overwhelming desire to discover new information —to explore the contents of his brain in a way that makes your own begin to race at the thought. Like you’re cracking some kind of code. Oftentimes, it takes over you entirely, pushing you further and further over that established boundary line towards the impending doom of another late-night argument neither of you wants to have. So far, it’s happened six times, each argument worse than the last, but despite that, you refuse to give up.

“Okay, how about two truths, one lie?”

“Seriously?”

Each time he shows up at your house battered and bruised, you find yourself coming up with new ways to attempt extorting information. Sometimes you outright ask, hoping he’ll simply give in. Sometimes you resort to bribery. Tonight though, after several weeks of partially un-consented arrivals, you’ve decided to try your luck with a game.

“No.”

Or not.

“No?”

“I come here to rest, not play games.”

“Okay well, house rules.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not, actually. House rules state you have to participate if you continue crashing on my couch.”

Without missing a beat, he snorts, throwing his head back against the couch in frustration —something he always does whenever you’re being annoying and he isn’t sure how to proceed.

“You know I’m still not gonna tell you anything.”

You hum and turn to face him, watching his head fall to the side to look at you.

He’s got the kind of face that could make a baby cry. Not because he’s scary or unattractive but because he’s mean. With constantly downturned eyebrows and a frown so deep you can see the wrinkles already starting to form, he’s perfected the unimpressed face. The one that always has you second-guessing your intentions at least for a second.

“Do you know the rules or do I have to explain them?”

“I’m sure I can guess what the rules are.”

“Good, you want to go first or—“

“You go.”

You can’t help but grin as he motions towards you, offering his palm into the space between. For once it’s bare, along with the rest of his arm. Usually, he always shows up in his suit and nothing else but after last week's incident of almost indecent exposure, you figured you’d offer him something more comfortable from Peter’s closet.

“Okay, two truths, one lie, two truths, one lie…”

He watches you closely as you slip further into the couch, your brows knitting together as you try to come up with a plausible set of facts, knowing it shouldn’t be that hard. Like you, he knows very little. Sure, he has the slightest advantage of constantly making himself present inside your apartment but like him, you haven’t revealed any big secrets —no defining factors of your personality that could give him the upper hand.

So far, the playing field seems pretty even.

“Okay, my favourite meal of the day is breakfast. Blue Moon by Billie Holiday is my favourite song. I work as a geneticist, specifically in R&D.”

You raise a finger with each fact you list, noticing the way Miguel’s brow rises ever so slightly with each passing one. By the end, he looks almost surprised by your choices, as if somehow he pegged you as someone completely different.

“A geneticist. That’s tough work.”

“It is.”

“Can I ask a follow up question or is that against house rules?”

You ponder for a minute, taking slight enjoyment over the way his expression slowly becomes more annoyed as time passes. “I’ll give you one.”

“Do you like your job?”

It’s an off-putting question considering the end goal of the game. Its abruptness throwing you off as you stare, confused, taking in the way his overall posture sort of relaxes under your gaze. Like his question, its change is immediate. His body slipping into the couch as he pulls his arms across his chest, mirroring your position.

He looks weirdly calm —tranquil in a way that has you feeling a bit happy that he isn’t on edge like he usually is.

“Sometimes.”

“Why not all the time?”

You open your mouth to respond but quickly close it. You said one question, not two and you stand by that.

For some reason it makes him smile once he realizes this. His mouth falling open to reveal those fangs you’ve slowly grown used to —the ones that nearly made your heart jump out of your chest at first glance all those weeks ago. It was his second night staying over that you’d noticed them. You were grabbing all the usual items to aid Miguel’s injuries when he let them slip between his teeth in the form of a yawn, prompting you to nearly drop the scotch in your hand.

It was embarrassing for the both of you but you never spoke about it, instead choosing to sweep it under the rug in favour of another argument about why he was there in the first place.

“Your turn.”

“Hm.”

He takes his time curating his answers, focusing on the space in front of him with such intense eyes you almost wonder if he’s doing it to annoy you.

Honestly, you wouldn’t put it past him. As time’s gone on, you’ve learned that Miguel is quite the pusher. The kind of guy who can get a rise out of anyone with very little effort. All he has to do is say a few choice words and inevitably an altercation will arise out of nowhere.

You’re certain it’s a Spider-Man thing because as wonderfully caring as your brother is, most of the time he’s always had the same ability. As kids, he could crawl underneath your skin with just one look and to this day, despite winning your fair share of fights, Peter still lands supreme in overall standings.

“I’m Spider-Man.”

You want to punch him in the gut but refrain, noticing the smirk that creeps across his face.

“My name is Miguel.”

“Oh, my god…”

“And I’d like a scotch, please.”

This time you really do reach out to punch him, feeling his fist wrap around your own before you can even think to retract. Against your skin, it’s warm —hot even and slick with the kind of sweat that has you pulling away in embarrassment.

In response, Miguel merely snorts and recrosses his arms over his chest, looking as smug as ever as you stand up, opting to fulfil his wishes.

“You’re lucky I also want scotch.”

“Wait, but what if that’s the lie?”

His tone is dripping in the kind of sarcasm you’re unwilling to entertain as you perform your usual route. Grumpily, you grab two stacked glasses and the neck of the bottle, rolling your eyes when you plop back down, motioning for him to do it himself.

“I feel like house rules should apply to the owner as well,” he mumbles, reaching over to grab the bottle. Popping it open, he hums to himself as he pours each of you a glass, ignoring the way your jaw tightens at the prospect of yet another night without information.

“You know it’s kind of unfair that you keep showing up unannounced and refuse to tell me literally anything about you.”

In unison you grab your drinks and settle, staring at each other with offensive expressions that you can feel escalating —building in tension.

“I told you I can’t,” he says, sighing and sipping and ultimately trying his best not to disturb the one night of peace you’ve managed to have so far.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s classified.”

You groan.

It’s the same answer he gives every time. That’s classified, this is classified, sorry all of my personal details are classified! Every time you hear him say it you want to rip your own ears off and eat them. To scream at the top of your lungs because it’s so unfair that you’re this nice to him. This giving —and for what?

Aside from Peter, if he were anyone else you’d tell them to pack it up and take their baggage elsewhere, barely batting an eye as they left. Closing up the window, you’d smack your palms together as if you took out the trash and go to bed, never to think about their presence again.

You’re not sure why Miguel is different. Why you continue to let him in night after fucking night, regardless of the hour. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s a part of your brother’s overall safety or because you think Peter will get mad at you if you don’t.

Regardless, it still doesn’t make sense considering the nature of your relationship. The lack of ability to communicate genuinely. Every conversation you have with one another is snarky and laced with daggers aimed to kill. There’s nothing of value to redeem. Nothing to make whatever this is worth it as you stare at each other angrily, trying to defy the constant wall that sets you both apart.

“God, you are so—“

“What?”

You drop your glass onto the table and move your hands into the air, extending your fingers out as you shake them in frustration, groaning.

He’s so fucking confusing, you decide then. Conceited and awful and stupid. Ungrateful too, remembering the fact that he’s never actually thanked you for letting him stay over —for being there whenever he arrives, willing to plaster up the pieces of his broken body.

Without question you’re always at the window, peeling it open with tired hands that later pour him drinks and feed him pills and fucking wash his wounds, and not a single time has he ever thanked you.

“Selfish.”

You see the impact of your words on his face. As he looks over, his eyes go from immediate belligerence to apologetic, his brows lowering in confusion. Awkwardly, his frame sort of slips, causing him to cave in on himself as he slowly looks away, making you realize he might actually be sorry this time.

“I know I’m not a part of your secret society,” you tell him, waiting for something —anything, knowing deep down it’ll never come. “But this is my house. My home.”

“Okay, and?”

His tone doesn’t match the expression on his face. Devoid of anything sympathetic, he sounds like a dog being backed into a corner, canines fully out to defend; his face transitioning into that same old scowl that makes you feel insane for even attempting this time and time again.

“I don’t know you, Miguel! You’re a stranger and you’re in my house all the time!”

“You’re the one who lets me in!”

“Okay, and?”

Repeating his words back to him feels like a bit of a low blow but it’s all you got. You’ve already had this same conversation countless times. All that’s needed to be said has been, and if he can’t understand that you’re not sure you can keep doing this.

Sure, he may be Peter’s superior but he’s certainly not yours. He doesn’t dictate what you can and can’t do and he certainly doesn’t have the right to assume he’s allowed entrance into your home without at least a little exchange of trust.

“Listen, I get the whole keeping the universes separate bullshit —believe me, I hear about it from Peter at least a zillion times a week. But I don’t know you —I don’t know who you are or what your deal is and it’s getting kind of weird.”

His jaw shifts, loosening ever so slightly at the calmness of your words.

Oftentimes, during these moments, you find the volume of your voice surpassing the level you want. With him, whenever an argument erupts, it’s like something completely foreign takes over and all attempts to quell the anger inside are shot dead in their tracks.

“All I want is something —anything. I’m not talking trade secrets. I’m talking like, uh…” You pause, trying to rack your brain for something easy and boring. Something he’d be willing to give up. “What do you do for a living when you’re not Spider-Man?”

“What do I do for a living?”

He sounds almost offended, as if you’ve just asked the stupidest question on the planet but you refuse to falter, staring at him with interest in your eyes.

“Out of all the questions in the universe, that’s the one you want to go with?”

“Is there a problem with it?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s boring.”

“Okay, then answer it.”

“No.”

Oh, for fuck's sake.

“You know, talking to you is like talking to fucking wall!”

Suddenly you’re standing up and reaching for your glass, taking a moment to throw the contents back in one swift dip. As it goes down it burns your throat, making you cringe and smack your mouth around before grabbing the bottle and pouring yourself another glass.

“I mean, am I crazy?”

“I’m going to assume that’s a rhetorical question.”

Ignoring him, you down another glass and begin to pace, your mind racing to piece together everything that’s happened between you. Right now the details are fuzzy —whizzing past your head in rapid succession but they’re there. Taunting you from every angle. Reminding you that, yeah, you’re definitely crazy for letting this stranger into your house. For giving him so much when he returns so little. For assuming that offering up even an inkling of kindness would gain you anything but absolute bullshit in return.

“Am I crazy for wanting to know why you’re always here? Why, even when you’ve barely been touched by another one of your stupid anomalies, you always show up in the middle of the night?”

He’s silently staring, looking up through his lashes at your outburst. Somehow throughout it all his face remains completely neutral, barely a muscle out of place as you continue your rant, yelling about him and how he doesn’t care about you —how he’s just using you for something you don’t even understand.

By the end of it, you’re nearly in tears, gripping the glass in your hand so tight you’re certain it’s about to break. Everything is tense and hot and despite the calmness that washes over your face once you’re done, inside you’re messy. A mixture of emotions you can’t quite place as you watch Miguel stand up, take the glass out of your hand, and slowly lean in.

“In every universe you are infuriating. Every single one. In my experience, there’s not a single one out there that you reside in that isn’t filled with a rage I haven’t understood. You think I want to keep secrets from you? You think I don’t want to tell you everything each time I step through that window?”

He’s so close you can feel his breath against your face.

“I know you don’t think I know you, but I do. Trust me.”

“How?”

Something in him changes then. A switch of some kind flipping mid-thought, causing him to back away and look towards the window in your bedroom. “I know your favourite meal of the day is breakfast because it reminds you of mornings with Ben,” he says, still looking, avoiding your gaze entirely as your brows perk up. “I know that your favourite song is Blue Moon because it’s on that album that May used to play when she’d do all the housework.”

There’s no way he knows that based on you in other universes. Taking into account the few spider people you've met, it's obvious everyone is slightly different. Not all of them look and act the same so Peter must’ve told him about you —about your childhood and how the two of you were practically raised on bacon, eggs and Billie Holiday. It’s the only plausible excuse for how confident he is in all of this.

In how when he finally looks at you with sympathy in his eyes.

“I know you’re a geneticist but your focus isn’t R&D —it’s biotech. I know this cause—“

He stops before he can even begin to explain, leaving you wanting. Yearning. Your mind and heart working in panicked tandem to get him to talk as he rapidly blinks and looks around.

It’s obvious then that he’s said too much. For a little too long he ran his mouth and now he’s about to suffer the consequences in the form of anxious movements that have him sidestepping around you and moving towards the exit.

Out of habit, you tell him to stop —to wait for just a second but like Miguel, he doesn’t listen. Doesn’t stop in hesitation as you stand frozen in the middle of the living room, watching his suit form directly over the clothes you let him borrow as he opens the window and leaves.

How do you move on from this?

It’s a question you ask yourself as you lie on the floor, eyes shut tight. Your breath is heavy. Underneath the weight of the information that’s suddenly been thrust upon you, it’s hard to form steadied breaths. Your chest shaking; twitching as you count your breaths and try to come up with a solution.

You could talk to Peter. Maybe get him to convince Miguel to come back. You know it’s probably the most unlikely outcome but you’re awfully stubborn and Peter’s always been the type to at least hear you out before he inevitably says no. If you could just form enough of a case to get him to help, maybe then he’d take enough pity on you.

Ugh, probably not. Peter’s nice but not that nice, especially when it comes to all his Spider-Man stuff. Aside from the aftermath of fights, he likes to keep all that separate —says it’s easier to keep you safe. The less you know the better and all that bullshit.

Groaning, you press your palms against your eyes to try and get your brain to focus. To come up with something good and convincing. Something that’ll really tug on his heartstrings or—

You hear the lock of the front door click. Sitting up, you drop your hands to the floor and twist, watching as it opens to reveal a very tired, civilian-looking Peter with the messiest hair you’ve probably ever seen.

“Hey.”

“Hi."

As he steps further into the room, he yawns and throws his stuff onto the floor near the entrance, narrowing his eyes as you quickly shuffle into a standing position.

“Why were you on the floor?”

“Just stretching.”

“On hardwood?”

He looks at you like you’re crazy as he passes by, making a beeline for the kitchen. Once there, he opens the cupboard and grabs a couple of protein bars, opening one almost immediately.

“It’s good for your back.”

Raising his brow, he takes a suspicious bite, watching the way you fiddle with your hands. You’ve never been a good liar. At least, not with him. Over the years you’ve learned to lie for Peter —to always have an excuse ready for when he’s late or unable to show up at all— but never to feed him false information. It’s too hard with that stupid spider sense of his.

“How was work?”

You’re not sure if he’s changing the subject to fish for further info or to actually progress the conversation, so you merely shrug, offering him a dull fine as you cross your arms over your chest.

“Just fine?”

“Mhm.”

Usually fine is enough to get him to stop. As time’s gone on he’s learned to understand the limits of your responses —how fine usually means fuck off rather than yes now please ask me more. Right now though, it’s obvious he knows something’s up. That beneath it all you’re hiding something in plain sight. He can see it in the way you struggle to answer his question. How you press your lips together and awkwardly look away, trying to come up with some sort of placeholder response.

“Any reason why?”

For a moment you think about coming clean right then and there. You think about telling him about Miguel’s most recent visit and how it went from zero to one hundred all the way back to zero in the span of minutes. It’s not like he’d be that mad, right? Besides, Miguel’s the one in charge, so all that information about knowing you and how you’re infuriating was told to you by him —not Peter. Therefore, no dirt on his hands, right?

But then you think of Peter and how he’s a firm believer in boundaries. How, since day one, he made it clear to you that he never wanted you getting involved in this life. That it was too dangerous for someone so fragile.

At first, you were pissed, mostly because you hated the idea of your little brother being stronger than you, but slowly you began to understand that he was a part of this whole other world you’d never be able to experience. A world too brutal for your stupid unmodified body to handle.

The same world Miguel is in. The same world other universe you is maybe in too. A thought that makes you wonder if maybe this is all pointless, because regardless of who you try to convince —Peter or Miguel— ultimately one of them will deny you the right.

The statistics are there, stacked against you, so instead of continuing like you want you just sigh, accepting defeat. (For now.)

“Exhausting. Harry was on another rampage.”

“About what?”

“Time constraints. Apparently Norman’s on our ass about wanting this project finished so he can present it to some new board.”

“For funding?”

You nod, watching him finish the rest of his bar and move on to the next. “I guess there’s this new company that wants in? I don’t know. Norman refuses to tell us but Harry says they’re some sort of start up.”

“Interesting.”

You pray to god that the details you’re giving him are enough to deter him. To keep him here in this conversation so that he doesn’t decide to explore any further.

“Did Harry give you a name at all?”

You shake your head.

“Hm.”

The gears in his head are turning then. He’s got that far-off look in his eye he always gets when something piques his interest a little too hard. The one that makes the lids of his eyes sort of slip to the halfway point while his jaw falls slack. Whenever it happens you have to hold in a laugh because he always looks so ridiculous, like he’s about to fall asleep, even though it’s obvious he’s just focusing a little too hard for his brain to remember how to properly present his face.

“You good?”

“Yup.” He takes another bite, finishing off the second bar before throwing the wrappers in the trash under the sink. “Just tired.”

Immediately you take this as an opportunity to shift the conversation further onto him. To distract yourself from the creeping thought that’s telling you to keep trying. “Rough day?”

He nods and instinctively both of you move towards the couch, sitting on your usual sides.

“Two robberies and a car chase.”

“Yikes.”

“And in the middle of the chase Jonah kept calling me asking me to get pictures of Spider-Man so afterwards I had to stage some.”

“Were they any good?”

He scrunches up his face which tells you they weren’t.

“Well, at least it’s over?” you offer, flashing him a fake grin that falls once you hear that familiar beeping in his backpack.

Immediately, it shifts your mind back to Miguel. To how his breath felt against your skin with each accidental confession. You remember how awful it made you feel, standing so close to him, the rage inside his chest reaching out to touch your own.

Thinking back, it suddenly dawns on you how quiet it all was. How the words tumbling from his lips somehow barely registered through the anxious ringing of your ears. And how regardless of the small, yet empty space between you made you feel like you were being enveloped entirely. You can still imagine every movement of his lips. The curling motions formed over statements you’ll never get the answers to.

Watching Peter jump from the couch to his bag you’re reminded of this. Taunted by it as he pulls out that stupid watch and Miguel’s masked face suddenly appears, telling him there’s another anomaly in some world you’ve never heard of.

It makes your skin itch, hearing his voice again. The way it strains through the hologram, prompting Peter to spring into action, ripping both his hoodie and shirt over his head to reveal that familiar spider emblem that now makes you sick to your stomach.

“I’m, uh —I gotta—“

As he hooks a thumb over his shoulder you merely nod, watching the way he sort of perks up at your acceptance.

“Get home safe,” you tell him then, watching the frantic movements of his hands pulling off the rest of his outer shell until he’s reaching into the front pocket of his backpack to grab his mask.

After he puts it on you lose all focus, wondering how the hell you’re supposed to move on from this. How every day moving forward you’re going to have to sit on the sidelines, watching him live while you’re forced to forget.

It’s not fair, is it?

You can feel the sting of tears beginning to form as you stare at Peter messing with the watch on his wrist. Quicker than you can think to suppress them, they begin to pool at every corner, threatening to break free as your front door suddenly becomes obscured by a warm-toned, octagonal portal.

“I’ll call you as soon as I get home,” he tells you.

Pressing your lips together, all you can do is nod, forcing yourself to remain as calm as possible as he waves goodbye and steps through, leaving you there to stare at the now empty space that continues to glow; the portal’s reflection dancing across the room.

Delicately, it flickers in and out as its existence begins to dwindle, reminding you that once again you’re alone, feeling the same effects of another spider person abandoning you in favour of something bigger than yourself.

It feels weird to admit you’re jealous. That the envy that creeps through your veins feels familiar yet foreign as you wipe your eyes and cough out the sob that’s been sitting in your throat.

Embarrassingly, you have to force yourself not to let it overtake you as you stand from the couch and move towards the portal, suddenly feeling the urge to jump in after him.

He’d surely kill you if you did. He and Miguel and probably any other spider person present. These portals aren’t meant for you. Everyone involved has made that very clear that you’re not meant to know about this life and the way it works.

And yet, as you inch closer the temptation grows. Filling you with a thousand what if’s as you reach out to graze the light dancing before you.

It tingles against your fingertips like static, bouncing off each cell of skin at such high speeds you have to force your hand back in shock, laughing.

“What the…”

You push your hand out again, noticing the portal begin to decrease in size, its slow-moving layers starting to cave in on themselves the longer you stand there staring. Waiting. Debating whether or not to take the plunge into the unknown.

Not going in should be the obvious choice. Inter-dimensional travel is something you always anticipated to be a myth, so there’s no telling the actual science behind it now that it’s so obviously not. If you step in you could easily die —come out the other side a complete scramble of decomposed elements. You could lose your memories or simple motor functions or the entirety of your soul. Anything’s possible.

In fact, the only thing you’re certain of is the argument that will inevitably ensue if you manage to make it. It’ll be a big one —an unforgivable one filled with consequences you aren’t sure you’ll be able to handle. Peter will probably give you the silent treatment for a while, if not indefinitely, and Miguel will most likely yell at you until you’re deaf.

Still standing there, watching the portal become smaller and smaller you debate the worth of it all. The potential outcomes and how maybe, for once, it might be best to fight for something you want rather than run away like you usually do.

It’d certainly make for an interesting experience if you come out of this alive, right?

TAGGING:@fandxmslxt69 @buckysblondie @leucoratia @avatricu @rexxesgirl @hoe4fiction @erissco @dil3mma @ashjbu @mfrnchsk @sanjisluvbot @deputy-videogamer @arloballs @fictional-character-whore @busy-buzzing (if you'd like to be added fill out this form)

#who are you when nobody's watching?#miguel o'hara series #miguel o'hara fan fic #miguel o'hara fic #miguel o'hara x female reader #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara angst #summer writes

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howdoesagrapewrites · 2 years

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𝙇𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙣

"That demon butler looks familiar"

A/N: Like I've said as grape anon, I have this headcanon that Sebastian Michaelis is MC's and Barbatos kid. So here's some family fluff <3 Also Sebastian isn't his real name, but for the sake of this, it is now

Barbatos x female!afab!reader (reader gets pregnant and is referred to as "mom")

>You didn't want to rush kids, after all, Barbatos work was absorbing, you were always aware and comfortable with it, but raising a half demon was a tough job to do without help

>However, because of his powers, Barbatos knew you were getting pregnant soon, so you talked about it in all seriousness, and to be honest, the most excited party was Diavolo

>Diavolo even started working harder so Barbatos could be there for you through your pregnancy

>While your husband was making sure the castle would be baby proof, the prince was buying cute little onesies

>The naming bit was... Complicated, As a human, you saw no problems with names like María, or Fyodor, also the demons assured you that they wouldn't take the meaning in consideration, but your life in the Devildom showed you God wasn't the nicest of guys, so naming your baby something like "gift from God"... kinda awkward

>"I like Gabri- shit, that's an angel"

>In the end, there was one name that caught your eye and Barbatos: Sebastian

>"Sebastian" meaning "revered and honorable", inspired by the city of Sebastia (now Divas)

>Even though Barbatos didn't want to use his powers to know the gender of the baby, there was something telling you it would be a boy

>When baby Sebastian finally arrived, you had never seen Barbatos look so joyous, he looked at you and the baby like you were the most precious thing he had ever seen (bc you are)

>He didn't want anyone seeing you two for the first hours after the birth, he just wanted to be with you like nothing else in the world mattered, like there was nothing outside of your room

>"Would you allow me keep you two all to myself just for now? I just need a moment with the most majestic beings in the all the three realms"

>He cries, doesn't let anyone else see it, but he cries. And still tears up a little when he remembers you two made a whole entire being just because you love each other. It's a lot, specially because he was never a child

>Of course he is a pro at children, he raised Diavolo. But sometimes he does feel like he can't be the best parent because of this

>And of course he wants to be the best parent, he has the best child and the best wife

>Sebastian always looked up to his father, but he was the role model, he's a total momma's boy

>Doesn't like when Barbatos does butlery things for you, he gets all pissy and says "I'm mommy's butler! You're dad!"

>Treats Diavolo like a sibling, but he acts like they're close in age

>Runs to his office with candy and tells him "shhh, don't be loud, or dad will get mad"

>Says he likes mommy better but literally squeals when he gets to "help" his dad do something

>Thanks to the constant exposure to Barbatos, he talks really formal, the kid's five and saying "Dad will be most displeased if he finds me eating these cookies" but kind of switches when he's near you or the brothers and a talks like a normal child

>It's not that he feels unrecognized by his father, but because of Barbato's nature, he's always trying to prove that he can do things (even small ones) by himself

>He's eight now! He's a big boy! He can tie his shoelaces!

>It's you that always thanked him saying "Thank you Sebastian, you're one hell of a butler" and he just... Kept that, forever

>Was literally born a perfectionist and will throw a tantrum if someone messes with his toys, only Barbatos can calm him when he's like that

>Out of everyone, his uncle Satan is his favorite, he's always borrowing books from him and Satan was the first one to show him the world of cat loving

>Likes Lucifer but thinks is funnier to mess with him rather than to spend time with him

>Ages very fast for demons, his parents know this but still it's really weird for most demons

>I headcanon that every demon has a particular sin (Barbatos being greed because of his lightstick) and he's a wrath demon

>His "true form" it's actually him using his powers to scare the shit out of Diavolo

>When he's working for Ciel, he still visits, but he tries to get his professional life absolutely distant from his personal life

>So he's much less perfect prim and proper in reality, that's just him being professional

>Talks shit about EVERYONE during the holidays in the devildom

>"I mean, how can you forget to prepare a bath?! That's servant 101! It's like these humans aren't good for anything!"

>"...Sorry mom, you and me both know I'm not referring to you"

#barbatos x you #om! barbatos #shall we date barbatos #obey me barbatos #Obey me x reader #obey me x mc #Barbatos x mc #barbatos fluff #sebastian michaelis

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writingfool001 · 2 years

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Reader with Robotic Limbs

Author’s Note: I put the entire list of first years into a random name picker and got the three you will read soon.

Request: Yes by @elizyo23

Pairing: Ace, Sebek, & Jack X Gn! Reader

Ace

The first time he noticed that something was off about you was you always wore gloves, always carried an umbrella on sunny days, and your wardrobe mainly covered your arms as well as legs. When it came to having to fight, you always hit the hardest, harder than jack or Sebek. The gears in his little head were turning

When he asked, Deuce would lecture him to respect your choices that you made. He continued to somehow always bring it up in a conversation. You continued to not tell him since he was being annoying about it and let time take the lead on this one.

He completely forgot about it and immediately remembered when he saw you in a short sleeve and some baggy shorts one morning during VDC training camp.

He saw the smooth intricate plating and designs on your arms. Color him amazed and this sparks more curiosity, meaning more questions.

He lightly teases you about it and would eventually ask what happened if you didn’t tell him already. He’ll help get the pieces together if your arm breaks during a battle and might complain when you need to have someone around to help while your limb was getting repaired.

Sebek

Funny story how he found out about your mechanical limbs.

Since you started training under Lilia, Lilia instructed him to strike you with his wooden sword.

For about half an hour, you blocked his attacks and would occasionally tap him with your wooden sword. After a while, he got frustrated and decided to take you down by punching you. Originally, he was going to hit you in the chest but you moved and he ended up punching your arm really hard.

He fell on his knees and held his wrist as he screamed in pain, scaring the birds. Demanding to know an answer of why your arm was so hard, you told him the truth. He doubted you before you showed him your mechanical limbs and he tried to argue that you cheated by having them. You commented that he at least has his original limbs he was born with.

Yeah, Sebek got a good slap to the back of the head that day. After that, he behaved and treated you as usual while being respectful/ more mindful of the things he said to you. He grumbles everytime that Lilia and malleus gush over your mechanical limbs in awe. I can only imagine his parents’ reactions to you if you ever visited his home.

Jack

Very respectful, right off the bat.

He didn’t really raise any suspicions about your choices, like Ace did, and went about his life at NRC as usual. You wore gloves? That’s fine if you don’t want to show your hands or hated germs. Long sleeves and pants? People can wear whatever they’re comfortable in. Carried an umbrella around on sunny days? You hate the heat and understands if Vil lectured you about your sun exposure or something.

One day, you were at a Savanaclaw training and you were suffering as you felt like you were baking. Jack noticed and asked about it, to which you told him that you’re literally made of metal and being out in the sun is not helping.

Noticing the confused expression on his face, you lead him to shade and rolled up your sleeves and loose pant legs to your legs. Jack would be in awe, but keep it in and understood the reasoning behind your choices.

From now on, Jack is more understanding and will remind you to take care of yourself. He offered to help you on days that you had to make repairs to any of your limbs. Jack won’t push for you to reveal your past regarding your limbs. He will spar with you, only if you have padded covers for both of your sakes yet mainly for him. You both already made the first mistake after a small spar which resulted in Jack almost breaking his hand.

#twisted wonderland x mc #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #jack howl #sebek zigvolt #ace trappola #twst jack x reader #jack howl x reader #sebek zigvolt x reader #sebek x reader #ace trappola x reader #twst ace x reader

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emberfrostlovesloki · 3 months

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Spider-Man(?) [Hotch x Reader]

Photo credits: Left (@rebecca--barnes) Center (google) Right (@hotchs-big-hands)

Prompt: Aaron hires the reader to come and be Spider-Man at Jack’s fifth birthday party and ends up offering the reader some comfort and advice at the same time.

Pairing: Aaron x fem!non-BAU!reader. The reader uses she/her pronouns

Category: fluff/comfort

Word Count: 6.1K

Content Warnings: drinking [light], some sadness / depression, tension [slight (Haley and Hotch)], mention of breakups [Haley and Hotch], if I missed any, please let me know.

A/N: Hi loves! Here is another fic based on the amazing @imagining-in-the-margins January/February Writing Challenge. The prompt this was based on was “Characters change career paths with a very different job.” I wrote this because sometimes I feel stuck in my life (even though I love my job), but sometimes I wonder if things could be different. So I wanted a bit of encouragement from Aaron. So this goes out to anyone who just feels a bit mheh right now. I wrote this as a platonic fic but read it how you like. If you enjoy this fic, likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated! I hope you’re having a great start to your week and thanks for reading. Love Levi - ❤️

List with all stories

_y/n_= your name

_y/l/n_ = your last name

_y/f/d/p_ = your favorite Disney Princess

_a/t/y/k_ = any tricks you know

Aaron was doubtful as he called the final number on his list. The name already wasn’t promising, and he was trying to find any way to make sure Jack had what he wanted for this fifth birthday party. Hotch had never really been someone who had been interested in superheroes. The most exposure he had to them was the Batman comic strip that ran in the Sunday paper when he was a kid, and even then, the story always took too long to unfold to keep his attention for more than a few weeks in a row. Then when he was older, and the Marvle boom had hit, the movies that were coming out had no real appeal to him. However, Aaron had become a fan of superheroes for Jack’s sake. Jack loved to watch the Amazing Spiderman cartoons on Saturday morning with a bowl of cereal in his little hands. Aaron would often watch along with his son for some quality time before he got picked up by Haley. Aaron had come to love those moments of quiet, watching his boy’s eyes light up as Peter Parker fought off one villain or another. Jack wasn’t old enough yet to get the romantic problems Spider-man had, but Hotch knew that one day, they’d have that conversation, and he’d feel old giving it out. Aaron already could see Jack growing into his own person with his own opinions and friend groups. It was because of this, the fact that childhood was so fleeting, that Aaron wanted to give his son the perfect birthday party.

Hotch had been searching for a Spider-Man to make an appearance at the party for an hour or so. He’d coordinated with Haley, and she’d gotten a superhero-themed cake and she agreed to let someone come and cosplay for Jack and his friends. But the search so far had been unsuccessful. He heaved a sigh and dialed the last number. If Party Princesses Inc. didn’t have someone who could do it, he wasn’t sure what he would do. Aaron made a fine Santa at Christmas time, but he was no Spider-man. The phone rang three times before someone picked up. The woman on the other line sounded tired as she said, “Party Princessess Inc. How can we help make your party magical?” Hotch let out a breath and replied, “Hi, I was wondering if you had someone who could be Spider-Man for a party three weeks from this Saturday?” There was a brief pause before the lady said, “Let me check the schedule for that Saturday, Sir.” Aaron nodded and waited for a few minutes. When the woman came back on the line, she said, “Sir, none of our guys are scheduled for that weekend, but we have a girl that can pull off Spider-Man pretty well. She does crossplay or whatever that is.” Hotch hesitated for a moment, He wasn’t sure about this, but at least there was an option, even if it wasn’t a great one. As if the woman could sense his hesitation, she said, “I know it might not be ideal, but _y/n_ is convincing. There are pictures of her on our website as Spider-Man so you can see them. I wish he had more guys on the team, but we don’t get that many requests for male characters at boys' parties. This is a party for a boy, right?” Aaron replied, “Yes, it’s for my son. If I did want to book the person you’re talking about would that be through the webpage or somewhere else? I don’t see a form online.” The woman clicked on a keyboard for a second before saying, “We’re currently updating our website, so the form is temporarily down for the public, but what I can do is give you _y/n_’s number and if you decide you want to book her, she can fill out the form from her end and email it over for your records.” Hotch replied, “Alright. Could you give me _y/n_’s last name and number, please?” The tired assistant relayed the information and Hotch hung up shortly after that. He then opened his laptop and looked up _y/n_’s profile on the Party Princesses website. As unconvinced as Aaron had been, the photos of the young woman were pretty convincing. She made a good _y/f/d/p_ but also passed off as a Spider-Man, Captain America, and Luke Skywalker. She was so convincing that Aaron might have believed _y/n_ was a guy if it wasn’t for the softer curves of her hips and shoulders. Jack wouldn’t notice, and even if he did, it would be a good learning opportunity for his son to realize that not everyone felt like just a boy or girl, and people could look however they liked if if made them comfortable. Hotch felt relieved that he had persisted because it looked like he was going to be able to give Jack a big surprise at his party. He quickly dialed the number the woman had given him because he didn’t want to risk having his only option get booked for another party.

A bright and chipper voice answered saying, “Hey this is _y/n_ with Party Princesses Inc. How can I make your party magical?” There was a large contrast from the woman at the agency. Hotch cleared his throat and said, “Hello. My name is Aaron Hotchner. I was told to give you a call if I was interested in booking you for a party in three weeks.” There was a shuffling on the other end of the line and _y/n_ said, “You are correct, Mr. Hotchner. Please give me one second and let me pull up my calendar and the form I need to fill out for you.” Aaron waited patiently for _y/n_ to come back. When she did, she started by asking, “Alright, sorry for that wait. What day and time would you like me?” Aaron provided those details, and then _y/n_ asked, “Alright, and how long were you wanting me and in which character?” Aaron replied, “Could you tell me about your rates before I decide a time? I didn’t see them on the website. And I was looking for Spider-Man if can do that.” There was a soft chuckle before _y/n_ replied, “I can somehow still manage to pull off Spider-Man, shockingly. And about the prices. I charge a flat rate of $25 for thirty minutes or $45 for an hour. If you want me longer than that it’s an additional $25 for each thirty minutes after that.” Hotch was surprised by the rate. He thought it was low for the type of service being offered. He wondered for a second who set the prices. He didn’t elaborate on that question though as he said, “Could I book you for two hours from 1:00 to 3:00?” _y/n_ responded quickly, “Absolutely. If you could give me an email address I will send over this form and ask you a few questions like the address you’re holding the party at and parking and such. Also if I could get your cell number as well, just in case I run into traffic or there’s an emergency or something.” Aaron nodded and said, “Right. A good email is [email protected] and a good number is 215-359-0075.” Hotch heard as _y/n_ typed in the information and said, “Perfect. I just want to let you know that because I’m not a guy I won’t be able to take off the mask in front of the party guests, and that the company requires you to pay me in either cash or check at the end of the allotted time. Does that work for you, Mr. Hotchner?” Aaron nodded. For the first time, a small note of discomfort could be detected in _y/n_’s voice. Again, Aaron didn’t question this as he said, “That checks out with me. Thanks so much for taking this, I was getting a bit desperate.” That soft chuckle from _y/n_ came back and Hotch couldn’t help but smile slightly. From _y/n_’s tone and energy, he wondered how old _y/n_ was. _y/n_ replied, “Well I’m happy to help Mr. Hotchner. I’ll send over that email in a few minutes and then I’ll see you in three weeks.” With that, both parties hung up. Aaron couldn't help but smile himself for being able to do this for Jack, and he couldn’t wait to see the look on his son's face when Spider-man showed up at his party.

The weeks that led up to Jack's big day went quickly. There was one long case that took the team away for seven days, but that didn’t stop Aaron, and especially Jack from getting excited for the party. Jack had invited all of his preschool class as well as a few friends from soccer. Aaron spent some time getting some last-minute gifts for Jack and making the final arrangements for food and balloons. They were holding the party at Rossi’s because neither Aaron nor Haley had the indoor and outdoor space to hold eighteen kids and their parents. Hotch was incredibly grateful for his friend and his team, as they all loved Jack so much. The BAU was going to be there on Saturday. He was grateful for this because it would be the first time he met Haley’s new boyfriend since the separation. He was happy for Haley, of course. He wanted her to be content and find someone to love, but that didn’t take away the sting that he still felt at how things had ended. He prayed that it wouldn’t be an awkward situation when he met her new boyfriend. For his part, he was going to make it as easy as possible, and that was going to be aided by having his support system behind him. After all the day was about Jack, not him and Haley’s relationship. On Friday that week, he left the office at five. He stopped off at Rossi’s office to hand off his gifts for tomorrow. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if he took them in the car with Jack tomorrow. After Dave had the presents on his desk, Aaron said, “ Thanks for everything, Dave. I really appreciate you.” Rossi laughed and said, “Well don’t thank me yet, we still have a party to get through tomorrow. Now if it goes well, then you can thank me with a bottle of that whiskey I like.” That got Aaron laughing. Hotch straightened up and Rossi asked, “Did you tell Spider-Man about the parking and the surprise entrance?” Hotch nodded and said, “We got it all cleared. Now let’s just pray for a clear day.” Dave smiled and replied, “Don’t worry, Hotch. It’s gonna be perfect. Now go and get Jack. You don’t want him waiting at school the day before his birthday.” With that statement of encouragement, Aaron left the office and waved bye to Emily and Spencer who were still in the bullpen. Both agents told him that they’d see him tomorrow.

Aaron drove to Jack’s preschool and parked. On Fridays, when Hotch had Jack for the weekends, his son stayed after school at a reading program. The extra half-hour gave him time to get from the office and to the school. Aaron hopped out of the car and moved inside. He signed Jack out and the coordinator of the program sent Jack out to his dad. Jack’s face lit up, as he ran on small legs to hug his dad. Hotch accepted the gesture happily and said, “Hey bud! You’re looking sharp today in your button-up. Is that new?” Jack nodded happily and said, “Mhm. Garret got to for me as an early present.” Aaron smiled and replied, “Well it looks great son. How about we go home, maybe stop at the park on the way there?” Jack nodded giddily and started toward the door excitedly. At the park, Hotch played with his son on the playground and ended up pushing him on the swings higher and higher into the air. Aaron didn’t make any more comments about the fact that Haley’s new partner was getting his son clothes. It was a nice gesture, but it made Hotch wonder if the man was trying to buy his son’s affection. He didn’t want to read into it too much, but he couldn’t help do it a little. After the separation from Haley, things felt different. Of course, they did. But Aaron hadn’t expected it to be so difficult. Sometimes he felt like he was walking on eggshells around Haley, and now Garret. He didn’t want there to be any tension, especially for his son’s sake. It made Aaron feel like a normal human having to deal with these kinds of situations. Not that he thought he was extraordinary or anything, just that profiling usually allowed him to read situations better. In the case of his personal life, he wasn’t succeeding in it well. When the park became boring to Jack, and Aaron made sure his son had gotten some of his extra post-school energy out, they headed for home. In the car, Jack asked, “Daddy, can we get pizza tonight?” Hotch smiled in the front seat, looked at Jack in the rearview, and said, “Not tonight. Remember that we’re having pizza at your party tomorrow and I don’t want you to get tired of it before your big day.” Jack sulked in the back. However, he quickly turned around and asked, “What are we having then?” Aaron smiled and said, “It thought maybe some chicken nuggets and Mac and Cheese?” Hearing this, Jack smiled, but it fell when Aaron added, “And some peas and carrots.” Jack made a gagging face at the mention of vegetables and he replied, “You know we gotta eat those veggies to have the good stuff kiddo.” Jack continued to sulk but knew that this was a rule for both Dad and Mom’s house and as much as he fought it, it was what they’d set up.

The rest of the night went by quickly. Jack ate his dinner with little fuss, and after a bedtime story, he went to sleep excited for his birthday tomorrow. Once Jack’s night light was on and he was tucked in, Aaron moved into the kitchen on soft feet. He poured himself a glass of white to relax for the rest of the evening. He moved to the couch and grabbed the novel he was currently reading. He was trying to relax more for himself and Jack’s sake. He knew being stressed all the time was bad for his health and given how his father had died young, he wasn’t planning on repeating that for Jack. Of course in Aaron’s case, he was happy for his father to be gone. It was a blessing more than anything else. The relief he felt at his father’s passing was something he still hadn’t processed, but for now, he was fine. He had to be fine for Jack and the team's sake. Aaron pushed the thought aside and dove into his book and let the night slip away like sand in an hourglass.

In the morning, Hotch took his normal long Saturday run at 5:00 a.m. The pounding of his feet on the pavement was a great way to get the stress out for the day ahead. Running had become therapeutic for him as it gave him something to do in the early hours of the morning when he naturally woke up and had nothing to do to fill the space before Jack woke up for the day. They had been even longer runs before he and Haley had set up the visiting schedule with his son. But now that it was sorted out, and they were doing their best to co-parent, things had finally slipped into place a bit more. When Aaron got home, he started some coffee on the machine and moved to his room. He stripped off his sweaty shirt and pants along with his briefs. He threw them all in the laundry basket in his closet. Once the shower was suitably warm, he stepped under the flow of the water and let his muscles relax. He played through what the day might look like and remembered that he’d have to text _y/n_ about where the gate to Rossi’s backyard was for her surprise entrance. This thought came to him as he was rinsing the suds out of his short hair. He tipped his head back a little more so no soap got in his eyes. He was at the age in his life where a warm shower could just make the morning and this one was doing just that. Even after he was clean, he stood under the water for a few minutes more. When he was content, he stepped out and dried off.

When he had his clothes on and teeth brushed, Hotch moved to Jack’s room and woke him gently. Jack turned on his side and opened his eyes slowly. He smiled up at this dad and said, “Hey,” in a sleepy voice. Aaron knelt near his bed and said, “Morning Buddy. Happy Birthday.” It was like Jack had forgotten it was his birthday and sat up and said, “It’s my birthday!” in an excited voice. Hotch gave a little laugh and said, “Yup. It’s a big day for a big boy. Now how about you pick out an outfit for the day and then come into the kitchen? We can grab some breakfast and watch cartoons until we need to head to Uncle Rossi’s?” Jack nodded excitedly as he scrambled out of bed. Aaron watched with a smile as Jack got some clothes from his small dresser. Hotch moved back to the kitchen and got his first cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal for his son. By the time Jack was out of his room, Spider-Man was on the TV and they settled on the couch near the screen and ate their breakfast. Jack was wearing jeans and his Spider-Man t-shirt that Aaron had gotten him last month. At around eleven, Hotch looked down at Jack and said, “Alright bud, I think it’s time that we head over to your party. How about that?” Jack nodded and moved off the couch for his shoes. Aaron turned off the TV and grabbed his jacket, keys, and wallet. The drive over to Rossi’s was filled with some music and Jack’s excited feet kicking up and down in his seat. It didn’t take long to get to the site of the party and Hotch recognized Derek and JJ’s cars on the street already. He smiled as he and Jack moved down the sidewalk and to Rossi’s large glass door. Dave opened the door for the birthday boy, and he gave Jack a big hug which was then increased as Derek, Spencer, Penelope, and JJ, came into the entryway. There were greetings on all sides, and the guests started to arrive. As the party picked up, the kids started playing some games inside. Haley, who had shown up with a big pack of guests was mingling with the other parents and making them feel welcome. Aaron was telling the parents where to put the gifts while Haley was telling the adults where the grown-up drinks were and where the kid’s drinks were. Once all the parents had been greeted, Hotch walked over to Haley and gave her a light hug asking how she was doing. She replied, “Oh I’m doing good. Work is a pain like always, but when isn’t it? How about you? Any pressing cases right now?” Hotch nodded no and replied, “Thankfully not, but now you’ve said something about it Strauss will probably call me right now.” Haley let out a laugh and said “Well if that happens I’ll be happy to throw your cell out the window for you.” Now Aaron laughed. As worried as he had been, now that he was here, everything felt okay for now. He was glad that he and Haley could still have a relationship, a friendly one, after everything they had been through. He cleared his throat and said, “We’d better go and talk to some of the parents. Dave loves mingling, but not that much.” Haley smiled and nodded, and they both moved to the kitchen and living areas to talk and watch the party.

After a few minutes of party games and Aaron circling around and saying special thank you’s to the team for coming. The pizza arrived and Aaron, Haley, and the rest of the parents made sure that the kids stayed at the kid’s tables set up in the kitchen to stop any mess from spreading into Rossi’s living room and white couches. After everyone had had a slice or two of some good old-fashioned pepperoni or cheese, Hotch suggested that the kids go out and play a round of soccer on the lawn. He’d made sure to bring along a soccer ball for this exact occasion. He also made sure to text _y/n_ that the birthday boy would be outside in a moment. _y/n_ responded that she was ready whenever the kids came outside. Initiating the plan, Aaron tossed Jack the soccer ball and opened the door for his son and his friends. A few of the parents moved out with their kids. Jack ran around marking the goalposts and while he was very interested in setting a stick down for the middle of the backyard to mark the middle of their make-believe field, _y/n_ slipped in the back gate. Hotch and a few of the other kids noticed and cried out in excitement with little screams of happiness. However, Jack was too obsessed with his game to notice. Aaron let out a little laugh and approached his son. He tapped Jack on the shoulder and said, “Hey, buddy, I think someone’s here to see you.” Jack looked up at his dad who was kneeling on the grass. The little boy looked over to where Aaron was looking. Hotch watched as Jack’s eyes went wide and he whispered, “Spider-Man?” And then more enthusiastically, “Spider-Man!” Jack ran over and gave _y/n_ a tight hug around her legs. Aaron was surprised how convincing _y/n_ looked in the costume. He chalked it up to youth, and again, he was incredibly grateful he didn’t have to don the costume himself because heaven knew he wouldn’t look like that.

_y/n_ smiled as the little boy sprinted over as quickly as he could. She knew it was the birthday boy because his dad, Mr. Hotchner, had described him and told her his name was Jack. Before the little boy had noticed her, _y/n_ watched as, who she assumed was Jack’s dad, kneeled near him. The man was strikingly attractive. Mr. Hotchner had sounded nice on the phone. He had a deep, rich voice that carried well over the line, but _y/n_ hadn’t expected him to look as nice as he sounded. It was a rarity for the dads to set up this kind of thing. It made _y/n_ respect the man who clearly understood what his kid enjoyed. _y/n_ snapped out of her thoughts and looked at Hotch when Jack made contact with her legs. _y/n_ knelt and gave Jack a hug. The little boy asked in awe, “Spider-Man, what are you doing here?” _y/n_ smiled under her mask and said, “Well I was swinging around the neighborhood and someone spilled that it was your Birthday, so I thought I’d have to come by and say Happy Birthday!” Jack’s eyes stayed wide and he said, “Who told you?” _y/n_ looked over to Aaron who was standing now and was looking at the pair with a stunning smile. Jack followed her gaze to his dad. Jack’s jaw dropped and he said, “Daddy knows Spider-Man!” _y/n_ put her finger to her lips and made a “shhh-ing” sound before saying, “He does, but we can’t let anyone else know. You know how those villains get when that kind of information gets out.” Jack closed his mouth and nodded solemnly. _y/n_ didn’t want to keep Jack away from his friends for too long and noticed the soccer ball and said, “Hey how about we play some soccer with your friends?” Jack nodded enthusiastically and moved toward his friends excitedly to tell them that Spider-Man was going to play with them. The kids and _y/n_ spent about twenty-five minutes playing. _y/n_ made sure the ball stayed almost entirely with the kids and Jack and cheered when anyone made a “goal.” _y/n_ looked over at Aaron for a second and noted that he was now talking to a woman and another man. _y/n_ wasn’t close enough to hear what was being said, but even with the mask on, Mr. Hotchner didn’t look too comfortable. _y/n_ didn’t have a chance to question it too much as one of Jack’s friends approached them and said, “Can you show us some of your moves!” _y/n_ let out a laugh and said, “Well I can try, but I’m a bit sore from fighting Doc Ock a few blocks over, so let’s see what I’ve got.” The boy called out that Spider-Man was going to do some tricks and that got the attention of most of the kids and some of the parents, including the trio, that included Hotch. _y/n_ moved to the open part of the yard and did a cartwheel into a superhero pose and all the kids cheered, _y/n_ kept doing _a/t/y/k_ for a few minutes. When _y/n_ was all out of stunts, she asked, “Now how about y’all? Do any of you have any superhero moves?” A hoard of hands went up and _y/n_ organized an informal competition for all the kids to show off there summersaults and jumps and kicks, all of which were ten-out-of-tens! After a few minutes of judging, the woman that Aaron was talking to came up to her and said, “Sweetheart, why don’t you take a quick break inside? You must be baking in that costume. Jack will keep you here all night if you let him.” _y/n_ smiled and nodded saying, “Thanks, that would be nice. I can be back out in a few minutes.” Haley nodded and said, “Take your time. I can handle them for a few minutes.” _y/n_ nodded again and moved into the fancy house for the first time.

The open doors lead to a nice open kitchen with marble countertops and brass barstools. Once _y/n_ was sure none of the kids were watching, she stripped off the mask covering her face. _y/n_ took a deep breath. Not that the mask was hard to breathe in, just a bit claustrophobic. The woman who had offered her a reprieve had been right, _y/n_ was very hot in the form-fitting costume. _y/n_ assumed the blonde-haired woman was Jack’s mom. For some reason _y/n_ started to wonder if she and Mr. Hotchner were still married. From the way Mr. Hotchner had been standing uncomfortably, it seemed that perhaps there was some tension there. _y/n_ cursed her brain that saw things that weren’t probably there and found anyone older than her attractive. This wasn’t why she was here. This was the furthest reason she was here. Thankfully _y/n_ was pulled from these thoughts when someone said, “You’re really good at this; you know that, right?” _y/n_ turned around and saw a pretty brunette woman who was moving toward the bar with an empty wineglass in hand. _y/n_ smiled and said, “Thank you. I’m still kind of new to this, so I’m happy to hear I don’t look like a complete fool out there.” The woman smiled and said, “Far from it! You’re doing awesome. I know you’ve made Jack’s day.” _y/n_ smiled and said, “Thanks. He seems like a great kid.” The woman smiled and stepped forward with a hand extended. _y/n_ took it and the woman said, “Emily, Prentiss.” _y/n_ smiled and said, “_y/n_ _y/l/n_. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Emily smiled and said, “Same here.” _y/n_was very happy she’d taken this job now. She was rarely acknowledged by anyone at parties, and at this one, she’d been offered a break and someone had noticed her existence. It was a nice reprieve as _y/n_ had been questioning her life choices recently.

Someone else came into the room and looked at Emily and _y/n_. The bearded man looked at _y/n_ and asked, “You want a drink, kid? I’d say you’ve earned one with how happy you’ve made Jack. We’ve got wine and beer in a cooler if that’s more your thing.” _y/n_ smiled and replied, “Thank you for the offer, but it’s company policy that we don’t drink on the job. I think one or two Elsa’s had one too many and caused some problems, thus the policy.” _y/n_’s candidness had Emily almost snorting out her wine while she laughed hard. The man also chuckled and said, “You sure, we have plenty.” Prentiss composed herself and said, “Oh come on Rossi, we don’t want to get her fired.” _y/n_ smiled and said, “I appreciate it, but I really shouldn’t. I have another party after this one. If I didn’t, I’d be tempted. You’re a very kind host.” Dave gave _y/n_ a soft smile. Shortly after, Aaron entered the room and said, “I think the kids are going to come in to do cakes and presents, so you might need to put the mask back on?” _y/n_ nodded and adjusted her wig cap, holding all her hair at bay before slipping the mask back on and zipping it up the back. _y/n_ joked and said, “Ready for duty Mr. Hotchner.” Aaron nodded and said, “Please, just call me Aaron. Now let me see if I can wrangle Jack and his friends in here.” The next half hour was spent with cake, singing, and presents. Jack tried very hard to offer _y/n_ some cake, but _y/n_ adeptly replied, “Well, I’d love some, but if I take off my mask, well everyone would know who I am, and you know that can’t happen.” Jack nodded again like he was fully in the know of his favorite superhero’s life and problems. After the presents, _y/n_ took pictures with Jack and anyone else who wanted some, which was almost all of the kids. The two hours went by more quickly than usual and as some guests started to leave the party, wishing Jack the happiest of birthdays, Aaron pulled _y/n_ into the entryway and wrote out a check to _y/n_. He added a nice tip and said, “Jack had had a blast to have Spider-man at his party.” _y/n_ had taken off her mask and gloves again and when Hotch handed her the check she said, “Thanks for asking for me. I had a lot of fun with Jack and his friends today. He’s really lucky to have a dad like you.” Hotch’s cheeks took on a tinge of color at the compliment. Half of the time he felt like he was doing the parenting thing all wrong, so it was nice to come from such an unbiased source. He cleared his throat and said, “Thank you. You really made Jack’s day special.” _y/n_ smiled and said, “Tell him I said happy birthday again, please.” Hotch nodded and _y/n_ moved out the door because if she didn’t, she felt like she could stand there in her costume forever just looking at Aaron.

Outside, _y/n_ felt a wave of disappointment at herself. The sadness wasn’t from the party, perhaps it was leaving a party was where it was coming from. It was so clear that the person being celebrated was loved and cared for. Someone who had a community around them. This job was great, but _y/n_ saw a lot of sad kids and it made her sad too. It didn’t help that working for a knockoff princess company was never on her life goals list. _y/n_ swallowed back emotions she had not been expecting when that soothing warm voice called out behind her. _y/n_ turned around and wiped her eyes before saying, “Hey Aaron, did I forget something in there.” Hotch tipped his head to the side, slightly confused why _y/n_ seemed to almost be in tears. He nodded his head no and said, “No, um, Jack insisted that I bring you out a piece of cake.” He held up a plate covered in plastic wrap. _y/n_ could see the vanilla cake with red and blue frosting beneath the plastic, and _y/n_ gave a small laugh. She looked over at Aaron as she reached for the plate and said, “That was nice of him, and you. Thank you.” _y/n_ turned and put it in the passenger seat of her car, but Hotch continued to stand there.

Finally, Aaron asked, “Are you okay, _y/n_? You seem upset. Has something happened.” _y/n_ didn’t know why, but talking to Hotch felt safe, and she sniffled and said, “Did you ever feel like you took a wrong turn in your life somewhere? Like it’s going in the wrong direction or nowhere at all?” Hotch furrowed his brow at the existential question. He slowly said, “I have. Are you feeling that, _y/n_?” He was concerned for _y/n_ now. She was young and had so much life left to live. Questions like these could weigh heavy on someone. _y/n_ sighed, leaning against her car, replying, “I guess so. I just feel kind of lost. I never saw anything like this in the cards for me.” Aaron nodded and wanted to reassure _y/n_ that life could get better. He said, “I’ve felt that way before. I’ve seen dreams of mine fade away, or realize that my dreams weren’t dreams at all. I’ve felt the same thing with a job. I had to be forgiving of myself. But it got better with time. I promise you things can get better with time, _y/n_.” _y/n_ was crying now and said, “You say that. You’re an actual hero, I heard Emily and Derek talk about the fact that you’re all in the FBI. Look at me, I just play at one. I thought I had my whole life planned out. The job I did before this was nothing like this. I feel embarrassed for being so wrong. So naive.” Hotch moved forward and put a hand on _y/n_’s shoulder like a father might. He looked into _y/n_’s eyes and said, “Listen to me. Today you were a hero to my son. You were his idol and he was so happy to have met you. And so am I. Just because I do a hard job doesn’t make yours any less worthy. Even if it’s just temporary.” _y/n_ wanted to believe him and nodded softly, still sniffling. Hotch moved closer and gave _y/n_ a hug. Something to reassure her. _y/n_ leaned into the embrace and listened to Aaron repeat himself, “It gets better if you can give yourself time.” _y/n_ nodded into his chest which was like a shield against the rest of the world and her own thoughts. _y/n_ pulled away eventually and she said, “Thank you for talking to me, Sorry to pull you away from the party.” Aaron gave her a gentle smile and said, “I think you needed to let some things out. I’m happy to listen. If you’re ever feeling terrible, you could call me. I might not pick up right away, but you can call.” _y/n_ nodded, and suddenly felt like she was part of Aaron and Jack’s community too.

After saying thank you again, _y/n_ got in her car, and Aaron moved back to the house. As _y/n_ drove toward the next party, the fact that her life hadn’t panned out the way she planned suddenly didn’t feel so shameful. Maybe if she tried to give herself time she could figure out what her real passions were and how to take the next step forward. For now, she could be someone’s hero, even for just a few hours. And if she couldn’t, she had one very loving father in her corner. At least there was that.

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Prophecy of the Kudan

"Goshiki no Fune', or "The Five-Coloured Boat", is a novel written by Tsuhara Yasumi that was adapted by Kondou Youko into a manga in 2013. Note that I haven't read the original book, so I'll be going off the afterword from the manga when I talk about key differences between both versions.

This was my very first exposure to anything Kondou. The manga is a perfect introduction to her authentic and heartfelt human dramas, all having some degree of relatability for any reader out there. No matter what you've experienced, she has a story to tell that will hit you deeply. In this case, with the original story being written by Tsuhara, you can see Kondou's ability to translate and adapt the novel into a medium that is able to freshly reshape the story. As she mentions in the afterword of this book, she had taken some creative freedoms with how certain characters from the original story were portrayed. There are small differences here and there with Tsuhara's story, but her changes are intended to smoothly transition the written story to one that can be consumed visually.

The main reason I wanted to write a post on this manga was because of the distinct plot point of the Kudan, a yokai typically identified as being a cow with a human's face. Sometimes, there are cases of it being the other way around with a human's body, but the creature is mainly known for its prophetic ability. Whatever it says will come true, which plays an extremely important role in 'Goshiki no Fune'. Here's some other sources that provide a summary on the yokai:

At least on the English side, I couldn't find as much information on the Kudan as I would have liked, but what's out there will give you a good enough idea of the creature.

The Troupe

Moving back to "Goshiki no Fune", the story follows a group of people who are apart of a freak show, helping each other survive as they live with their disabilities. For simplicity's sake, I'll be referring to them as the family throughout the post. Here's a brief description of the cast below:

Papa: the leader and creator of the troupe. He was a renowned actor that had to have both of his legs cut off because of gangrene

Shousuke: a dwarf that was found at a riverbank by Papa who acts as a strongman in shows

Kiyoko: a woman born with knees that bend backwards who is presented as a 'cow woman'

Sakura: a girl who was born as a Siamese twin and was successfully separated from her sister. She can't speak but can hear, and acts as a 'snake girl'

Kazuo: a boy born with deformed arms who is our main character. He can't speak nor hear but can still understand people, and paints with his feet in the troupe

Shousuke pulling Papa and Kiyoko on a cart while Kazuo and Sakura walk behind

The beginning of this manga is an important one because it introduces a core idea that will be revisited towards the end of the story:

"Once I die and depart this world, my heart will return there once more/Back to that many coloured, tattered, lovely little boat."

The line above is narrated by Kazuo as we get a colourful view of the sea and the boat in question floating in the middle. We're introduced to Kazuo as he stares in awe at the boat the family lives in. The towering shadow of the boat is the first thing he encounters as he climbs out of a straw box, and he recognises that it signals the start of a new world for him. We can gather that he had been abandoned by his parents because of his disability, floating down the river until his box had washed up on the shore. Quite a sad start to the story already, even without yet knowing about his disabilities and struggles.

As the story progresses, we get to learn more about the origins of the family and how each person had been discovered by Papa. What is incredibly important, however, is Papa's motivation. The family is travelling to Iwakuni, the location where the supposed Kudan is kept in captivity. He explains the ability of the Kudan to predict the future and voices his determination to add the Kudan to the troupe's show. He believes that people will pay big money to hear their futures, and rightfully so. However, a condition not mentioned in the story is how the Kudan usually dies soon after giving a prophecy. This information was taken from the sites that I provided above that detail the Kudan's abilities that aren't explained in the manga, but it's an interesting point to note because it foreshadows some of the events that transpire later in the story. So, if you were familiar beforehand with the Kudan and knew about this condition to its prophecies, you would be able to figure out the general trajectory of the story earlier than the character's themselves.

Various scenes of the family's show

The War

What's also interesting to note at this point in the story is the setting. The family are travelling through villages and towns in rural areas, but the second world war is being fought in the background as they put on their shows. We aren't given any dates or any visuals of the fighting, but the story is set somewhere towards the end of WW2, a timeline that becomes more apparent later on. Kondou does show the presence of soldiers scattered throughout the beginning of the manga to hint at this contextual period, but everything begins to escalate once we find out that the army is holding the Kudan.

Kazuo and Sakura get a glimpse of the Kudan in the truck

The pages above mark the turning point of the story. Kondou depicts it in such a quiet and subtle way, making it very easy for readers to actually dismiss these important pages. The scribbles in the speech bubbles is the Kudan talking, and we're shown that both Kazuo and Sakura had taken a small glimpse of the Kudan in the back of the truck and heard its voice (top left panels of the picture). Nothing major immediately happens after this encounter, but we begin to see the effects of the Kudan on Kazuo and Sakura gradually.

Dejected after realising that the army's control of the Kudan meant that he wouldn't be able to use it for his show, Papa sets up camp near a shore. The family continue to put on their shows, but Papa is also trying to find another way to reach the Kudan. The doctor who had amputated his legs and who also saved Sakura, Inukai, is actually Papa's fan and lover. He helps Papa by sneaking him and the family into the facility where the Kudan is kept, bringing us to the climax of the story.

The Dream

Before I talk about the climax, we need to firstly look at what actually happens to Kazuo and Sakura after their encounter with the Kudan. Signs begin to surface when Kazuo starts to dream of the family's boat floating in the middle of the vast ocean. Another boat would appear out of nowhere, and Kazuo would have to watch in despair as each of the family members volunteer to join the other boat, leaving him behind.

Kazuo's sad dream/Kazuo's and Sakura's conversation

We also learn that despite both of them being unable to speak, Kazuo and Sakura can somehow communicate with each other. This method of conversing is unique to them because of their disabilities, so none of the other family members can understand them. Sakura, out of the blue, asks:

"Kazuo-san, is Papa going to get on another boat?"

This comes as a shock to both Kazuo and the reader as we realise that she had been having the same dreams as him. They quickly learn that because they had seen and heard the Kudan, both have been affected by the same dream. If we think back to the Kudan's prophetic abilities, it's inferred that the dream is some vision of the future. And now, with this knowledge of the prophetic dream that's affecting both children, we'll see how the climax with the Kudan plays out.

The Kudan's End

After being snuck into the army facility holding the Kudan, the family talk with it and learn of its prophecy: that Japan would be hit by an atomic bomb and lose the war. Whilst the Kudan explains all of this, it also gives another couple of predictions:

The Kudan itself would be killed soon

The first person to die out of them would be Dr Inukai, followed by the soldier, then Kazuo and Sakura in the atomic bomb

The soldier stationed with the Kudan is planning to kill it because he thinks that it's trying to deceive them. Shortly after explaining everything it needs to explain, the events play out as it had predicted. The Kudan is shot in the head by the soldier, who also kills Dr Inukai. Shousuke manages to kill the soldier but the Kudan doesn't have much time left before it dies. It asks the family for any requests they may have, to which they all express their desire for Kazuo and Sakura to have a better life, to be transported to a better world.

"To what sort of world shall I take them?" - Kudan "A world where Kazuo can go to school!" - Kiyoko "A world where they can both live happy lives." - Papa "A world where all of us can be happy!" - Sakura

However, after hopping on the Kudan, it falls and dies. What is predicted by Kudan happens, and Japan lose the war. A really notable part about this climactic scene is the ability of the Kudan to transport people into different worlds or timelines. The Kudan itself describes it with an analogy of moving from boat to boat, with the boat representing these timelines. It's an ability that I didn't see anywhere in my research of the Kudan, so this is something that was most likely added by Tsuhara himself and isn't canonical to the yokai. Though, it plays an insanely important role to the ending of the story and how the reader may interpret it.

The Rebirth

After the war, the family begins to see success and stability in their lives. With the technology of artificial limbs, both Kiyoko and Papa are able to walk again. Kiyoko becomes a celebrity and Papa returns to his rightful place in the theatre. Unfortunately, there wasn't any cure for Shousuke, but that doesn't stop him from becoming a wrestler. For Kazuo and Sakura, they both settle down after attending a school for the deaf, with Kazuo also acquiring some prosthetic arms.

The aftermath of the Kudan's death may seem like a simple one, but there's a deeper layer that we can dig at. Firstly, we need to revisit the Kudan's ability to move between different realities or timelines. It's able to take people and transport them between these timelines, but it died soon after Kazuo and Sakura jumped onto it. However, we also need to note that one of the conditions of the Kudan's prophecies was that it would die soon after giving it. The question now becomes whether it had died from the gunshot wound, or whether it died after transporting Kazuo and Sakura to a better world. Did the Kudan fail to transport the children, or did it do so successfully and then die?

This is a question that both Kazuo and Sakura think about. They remember that Dr Inukai had told Papa that it was a matter of where your heart was, which suggests that the Kudan didn't transport the children to another world. Their hearts still remained in the miserable world that feared the atomic bomb, a world where they had to survive in the freak show. But at the same time, the Kudan very much could have transported them to a different timeline where the atomic bomb was still dropped, but their lives afterwards would still be happy. Afterall, the only condition that was given to the Kudan was that it had to transport the children to a world where they could be happy. In the reality we're in right now with Kazuo and Sakura, the atomic bomb was dropped but they still lived happy lives after. Taking all of this into consideration, it gets you really thinking about the chances of both possibilities, of whether the timeline they're in right now is the original or a new one.

But, at the end of the day, it all doesn't matter to Kazuo and Sakura. Why? We revisit the core idea of the manga, introduced to us in the beginning narration:

"Once I die and depart this world, my heart will return there once more/Back to that many coloured, tattered, lovely little boat."

No matter what timeline they're in, both Kazuo's and Sakura's heart belong to the timeline where they met Papa, Kiyoko and Shousuke. The timeline where they were saved and grew close as family. The timeline where Japan faced an impending doom with the end of the war.

"Our feelings will always remain in that world. That world may be an empty one where everything ended when that bomb fell. But once our fleeting lives here in this world end, we know that our hearts will return there. We will not run away. We will be standing there. On that tattered, multi-coloured, lovely boat." - Kazuo

Final Thoughts

"Goshiki no Fune" is one of the most memorable stories I've read in recent years. The combination of the unique cast, the subtle yet poignant setting and the centrepiece of the Kudan all mix together incredible well. Rereading this manga, and especially writing about this ending, had me very teary-eyed. Kondou does such a great job at pulling at your heartstrings. After following this family and their struggles, all you want to do is root for them and wish for their happiness. In a world where their disabilities limit their mobility, and the looming threat of the atomic bomb towers over Japan, the Kudan became their one hope. And after everything had happened with the passing of the war, it becomes clear that maybe the Kudan wasn't the key to their happiness. Their hearts will always belong in their original world - the same boat - no matter how hard it was to live in.

Thanks for reading! This was an emotional one to write about...

#manga recommendation #manga oneshot #manga art #manga panel #anime and manga #mangaka

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tgh2023 · 1 year

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Sujata Upadhyay: The Content Brainbox

“We create content that sells.”

Sujata Upadhyay (Founder, CDM Content Design Market LLP)

Sujata Upadhyay, a content consultant and marketing enthusiast believes in curated, coherent, and compelling content that creates an impact on the reader’s mind.

Let’s hear what Sujata has to say about her journey and her brand CDM Content.

Give us a glimpse of yourself and walk us through your journey of becoming an entrepreneur.

While working with companies in the tech space for 14 years, the knowledge I developed was – the right positioning and credibility building makes one stand ahead of its competition. Hence the choice of words and the content you create is essential and I wanted to pass on this experience to the startups. That’s how CDM was founded – to help growing businesses enhance online visibility.

What hurdles did you face while building your career? How did you overcome them in order to succeed?

In 2018 when we started, it was just the US market that was well aware of the credibility content could bring. Meanwhile, most of the Indian firms I connected with were still struggling to find value beyond SEO blogging and were expecting to see an immediate ROI. The market was not ready for what we had to offer.

In the last few years, the importance of subtle marketing, and the role it plays in increasing steady revenue has become clearer. There has been a huge shift in where the Content Marketing industry is heading, and we’re really excited about the contributions CDM will make as we grow.

What is your leadership philosophy? What factors do you keep in mind while taking business decisions?

You cannot grow as an organization if you do not offer value to your clients, your employees, and your network. Every decision I take is therefore guided by the overall growth our offerings can bring in terms of revenue, exposure, and expansion.

Briefly describe your company and the products or services you are offering.

We are a Content Writing and Content Marketing firm mainly catering to the needs of B2B firms looking to expand their business. The content we generate and distribute is designed to attract, engage, and convert prospective audiences into long-term, loyal customers. We create content that sells.

The internet is filled with unoriginal content that is written for the sake of writing; it does not provide value to the end customer. The CDM writers are marketing and domain experts know how to create content that is both informative and effective.

Shed light on the clientele of your company. How do you ensure a successful client relationship?

We have worked with over 200 clients since we started out in 2018. Most of them are among rapidly growing tech-enabled firms, manufacturing, and EdTech companies. Our project coordinators and strategists ensure that our clients are part of our planning and execution processes thus building successful client relationships.

How do you identify and explore new market opportunities in a changing world?

In a mature market like our vertical, the ability to identify consumer needs, pain points and to cater to them via a customized offering is the best way to grow. This, combined with the fail-fast approach that is vital for sailing past competition, has helped CDM continue to thrive since its inception.

Shed light on the mission of the company. What is its long-term strategic vision?

We want to be the leader in the B2B content writing space, catering to tech-enabled firms with our rich experienced strategists and writers.

Mention the awards and milestones received by you and your company so far.

We were recognized as the Best Startups in Pune to work for in the year 2021, as well as the Most Promising Content Consultation Companies in 2022.

What would your advice be for women, who also want to become an entrepreneur? Share your favourite quote that keeps you inspired.

Entrepreneurship is a mindset, a journey, not a designation. So, one doesn’t plan and become an entrepreneur, if you can stay positive throughout the roller-coaster ride – then just start.

Words that keep me going are – ‘being flawsome’ – accepting your flaws (working on them) but knowing that you are awesome irrespective!

#magzine #women leaders #women entrepreneurs #women business #entrepreneur

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just-call-me-johnny-archive · 1 year

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WARNING: The following contents contains explicit depictions of violence/abuse, electrocution, human muzzling, brief body horror (mending a wound in an unconventional way), captivity (again), claustrophobia/claustrophobic themes, and brief references to flogging and burning. Reader discretion is advised.

Maybe it was a good thing that he couldn’t concentrate as the Doctor tended to the gashes in his hands. By now, he barely flinches at the feeling of his skin being melted and resculpt to form uniform tissue. Not that the pain isn’t there, it certainly is, but this is the easy part.

He’d spent the past eight hours with holes in his hands, he could handle this.

What he is having trouble with, is guessing what his punishments will be for last night.

He skates his tongue under his teeth and recalls the feeling of biting through flesh and bone. He heard once that you can bite your own finger off (or someone else’s) with the same pressure that you use to eat a raw carrot.

He isn’t quite sure whether that was proven or not, but he’d been too busy spitting out the repulsive phalanges from his mouth to contemplate how much force he’d used to get them there.

There’s only so much time to speculate until it comes time to experience, and he’s starting to understand what he’d put his old victims through when he just left them there in his basement. Left them to their thoughts, left them to their nightmares and speculations.

The hydrobox had been a steep turn in cruelty. The punishments before were tame in comparison: getting stuffed into a cubby under the floor, getting flogged, having the damn constellations carved into his back until he could call out what each one was by touch alone.

Okay. Yeah. Those were all very awful in their own ways, but drowning over and over for seventy minutes was a whole different torture of just being toyed with. The other punishments were simple- pain or discomfort was the educator. However, with the hydrobox the pain was a side effect of a greater lesson- that he is at Edgar’s mercy. That he gets to decide whether he can die or not and that it was a lot more fun to just dangle the reward of death than threaten it.

Of course, Johnny C. isn’t afraid of death. Edgar knows that for him death has been a salvation, but he won’t find that here.

The Doctor finishes reforming the last layer of skin, applying a coated bandage to keep the newly tissue safe from exposure, lest they have to go through the trouble of patching it up again.

“Don’t bother going back to your room. Operator Vargas wants you in his office,” they say, gathering and tossing stray pieces of burnt skin and bloody gauze into a bin.

Johnny complies with the order if only to just get the punishment over with. When they are training, they can at least channel all of their frustrations into their performance.

Edgar is waiting at his desk when Johnny comes in.

“Hello, Johnny,” he says, grinning in that ever-frustrating way, “As I’m sure you’re aware, you’ve accumulated quite the tab of punishments after last night. I can list three infractions off the top of my head, and for brevity and schedule’s sake, we’ll keep it at three. Can you list them for me?”

Johnny’s eye twitches and his fingers clench and dance beside him. He’s not a child. “No.”

“No, you don’t know or no-”

“No, I don’t want to. And no, I don’t have to. I didn’t do anything wrong.” Johnny steels his nerves. As much as he believes Edgar’s rules are bullshit, he still can’t help remembering them and remembering what happens when he breaks them.

Edgar is silent for a moment, before he taps his fingers on a package under his hand. “I will overlook you interrupting me if you go ahead and list those infractions for me.”

“I’m not doing that, Vargas,” Johnny says, crossing his arms. “Add another punishment all you want, add three more for all I care. I’m not going to-”

Edgar is faster at grabbing his hair and slamming his face down onto the edge of his desk than Johnny is at finishing his sentence. Johnny yelps as his nose crunches and his teeth knock against the wood. His lip splits and blood runs down to his chin from his nose and mouth. He claws at the hand still buried to the root in his hair.

“I’ll give you a hint,” Edgar says, voice still, but stern. His grip does not falter, even as blood wells up from cuts inflicted by Johnny’s sharp nails. “One of them has to do with your mouth. Which is exactly why I had this made for you.”

Johnny’s head is yanked up to get a look at the item that Edgar now takes from the package. At first glance it just looks like a belt, but once it’s fully displayed, he realizes what it is. And his blood boils.

“You are not putting a fucking muzzle on me.”

Johnny only has a few seconds to struggle against Edgar’s grip, pulling out a few clumps of hair. Prae come in and hold his arms behind his back while one holds his head still for installation.

He shakes his head as violently as he can once the contraption is on him. He thrashes around, tries and fails to scream past the bar lodged between his teeth. He quickly realizes that he’s losing precious air with his actions. Something that is now made difficult by the muzzle.

“We’ll keep that on you for the next seven hours, and see how you adjust,” Edgar says as if the painful addition is a new pair of glasses or jewelry.

Johnny breathes out harshly through his nose, his eyes narrowed to slits, arms sore and bruised from continuing to be restrained and continuing to struggle.

“You can let him go now,” Edgar waves away the Prae, who give their leader a questioning look, but obey the order.

Johnny is on his feet and lunging for Edgar before they can fully relinquish him, but not even an inch before his hands reach Edgar’s throat, a violent shock that reverberates first throughout his entire skull and then the rest of his body, disorients him so badly that he collapses over the desk, clutching at the muzzle as it continues to shock him.

It’s only when he starts screaming and writhing that Edgar turns off the electric current. Johnny abruptly stops yelling and falls limp.

“Now, back to what we were discussing. Of course, now that you have the muzzle on, you can’t say what those three infractions are, but you can still write them,” Edgar says, producing a notebook and a pen for Johnny.

Johnny resists, resorting to glaring at Edgar. He’s so close, if only he could spit in his eyes. Or eye holes. Whatever the fucker has behind those stupid glasses.

Then, he’s convulsing and arching his back, his throat raw with trapped screams. And just as quickly as it started, it stops, and he breathes in shallow bursts through his nose. He’s starting to feel lightheaded.

“Write them down, Johnny,” Edgar nudges the pen into the man’s hand and Johnny’s fingers reflexively curl around it.

“And before you think about turning that pen on me or yourself, I currently only have you on the second to lowest setting.” The threat is clear. It can and will get much worse.

Johnny’s fist clenches around the pen until his knuckles grow pale, but he moves his hand to hover over the first page of the notebook. He briefly wonders why he has a whole notebook, but the thought disintegrates with another pulse of painful shocks.

He starts writing, putting all of his weight into every stroke of the pen, imagining that the paper is Edgar, and the pen is a very, very blunt knife.

It isn’t until he’s written the last word that the shocks abate while the tension remains. It feels like little sparks are still zapping around in his brain and along random nerves in his body.

“Good job,” Edgar praises. “That notebook is for you.”

Even though he can’t voice it, Johnny’s face morphs into one of incredulity. What the fuck is he supposed to do with a notebook?

“I recall that you like keeping a diary,” Edgar explains. “When you are good, you can write whatever you want in there. You won’t be punished for what you write, no matter how obscene or disrespectful.”

Immediately, Johnny’s hand flies across the page.

In big, fat letters: HOW THOUGHTFUL.

His black eyes are trained on Edgar’s, daring the man to revoke his own permission so quickly after giving it.

Edgar does not. In fact, he does the opposite.

“Surely, you can do better than that,” Edgar goads him on. “I’ve just given you free reign to write whatever you want about me or regarding me. I’m positive that you have much more to say.”

Johnny watches Edgar’s face, searching for signs of… well what he’s not sure. But he’ll play along. Give the bastard what he wants. He flips the page over and sets the tip of the pen at the very top of the corner. He drags it down to the bottom, going over the same lines over and over like worrying a cut until it deepens.

He moves onto the next page to write the next word, putting just as much emphasis on his line work until he’s satisfied. He then draws out a doodle that takes less than a minute.

This time he turns the book to face Edgar and slams the pen down the crack of the notebook.

Sprawled across two pages and in letters as big as each, F U C K Y O U is written out in messy print along with a hand holding a middle finger up.

“That’s a little more expected.” Edgar nods and takes the pen back, tucking it into his desk drawer. “You’ll have the ability to write in your notebook at least once every day, regardless of whether you’ve earned a punishment or not. All you have to do is ask someone for a pen.”

Johnny shifts his eyes, his bewilderment plain on his face. He had not expected something like this.

“Now onto your punishments,” Edgar starts, his voice holding a bit of an edge. “I was thinking that it would be beneficial to test how your training has gone and do something a little different.”

Edgar pulls up a hologram of the building between them, he takes a stylus and circles the area around it with red. “Any area outside of this red circle is forbidden and will result in a very painful shock until you step back into bounds.”

“You have seventeen minutes to conceal yourself somewhere I can’t find you. After those seventeen minutes are up, I will come looking for you. You cannot move from the place you are hiding, if you do, you will be shocked.”

“I will have seven minutes to find you, and if I can’t, you’ll get to pick your punishment. Singular.”

Johnny’s eyes widen just a little. All he has to do is keep himself hidden from Edgar for a total of twenty-four minutes and he’ll get to choose what happens to him? As if he doesn’t already do that. This should be easy.

“I’ll even disable my tracker on you.” Edgar does so, showing Johnny when it’s done.

“However,” Edgar stresses the single word with an unsettling smile. “If I find you, not only will you receive the real punishment, but also the one you would have suggested.”

Johnny’s blood runs cold and he swallows difficultly.

“Consider it a game of hide and seek,” Edgar says, smiling a little more.

Johnny has to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“Nod if you understand and agree to the terms,” Edgar demands.

It takes him a moment, but eventually Johnny nods curtly.

“Perfect. Your time begins… now. Good luck,” Edgar announces, beginning to pick up the mess that Johnny left from earlier. He doesn’t give the man another look.

Johnny scrambles out of his chair, out of the office, and practically flies down the hallway, nearly running into a Prae or two. He’s a little surprised when they don’t do anything. The last time he was sprinting like this, they’d run after him with their electric batons raised.

The muzzle makes it even harder to breathe than it already is, running as fast as his feet can carry him. Everything burns, from his chest to his thighs and feet, but he can’t stop. He’s afraid that if he does, this will all just be a dream.

What was Edgar thinking just letting him go like this? Did he honestly think he couldn’t handle some pain if the ultimate reward was getting as far as possible from the System. He doesn't know where he is, he doesn’t know where he’ll go, but those are all thoughts in the back of his mind as he blazes through the exit.

He can barely believe it when he feels real ground beneath his feet, soil and grass as opposed to harsh metal. He could almost laugh; the feeling is so amazing. He’s breathing fresh air and there are trees and running water. Everything looks familiar and foreign all at once.

He pauses to catch his breath, his head spinning and pounding. He’s still within the perimeter of the red circle. He can see forest all around him, just past that boundary. Surely it leads somewhere. Just one more minute and then he’ll tear through the trees and wave goodbye to this place and that sadistic fucker forever.

At least until he returns to raze it all to the ground.

He begins running again, his feet propelling him forward at a speed he wasn’t aware he could reach. Freedom. It’s right there.

He sees the red of the circle approach and he braces himself, throwing himself into picking up as much speed as possible, hopefully the burn in his lungs and calves will cancel out the shocks.

Johnny leaps over the line and before his foot can touch the ground again, he’s collapsing into a paralysis that attacks his every last nerve. It feels like every single one is being split down the middle and then that piece split and so on and so forth. He’s felt pain, been in agony plenty of times, but this- this is-

He can’t scream, can’t control his body at all as it convulses and his sight goes white from the pain erupting inside of his skull. He can barely move his legs; there are shocks coming in rapid cycles that reignite the agony over and over.

He bites down onto the bit between his lips and forces himself to roll onto his back. He kicks his legs out trying to inch closer and closer back to the other side of the red circle. Finally, after what feels like several hours in the span of minutes, he makes his way back to safety. Or at least the shocks stop.

He lays there for a few moments, trying to regulate his breathing through his nose and wake up his limbs. Even though the shocks have ceased, he still feels little aftershocks along his body just as he did before. However, these shocks are a lot deeper, the pain a lot bolder.

That had not gone as he had planned.

Johnny looks up at the projected clock that’d been counting his time down.

He has eight minutes left.

The consequences of his actions hit him like a bucket of ice water. If he doesn’t find a good place to hide in eight minutes, Edgar is going to unleash some type of extra-horrible fucked up double punishment. The thought alone propels him onto his feet and back towards the building.

He runs past the projection on the wall counting him down to six minutes.

He runs past Edgar’s office, not even thinking to peer in and see if he is still there.

He runs past his room, past the dining hall and the training room.

Where can he hide where Edgar won’t look? Where won’t Edgar find him in seven minutes?

With a quick glance on either side of the hall, he ducks inside of the punishment room. The overhead lights flicker on one at a time. Somehow, seeing the room mostly barren is more intimidating than when it has the hydrobox or a similar device taking up the space.

Johnny speeds over to the only place that he can think of right now. He digs his fingernails along the indention in the floor, just a single tile that if you weren’t looking closely, looked like all the others. But he knows what lies underneath it.

He curses sharply as the clock hits the minute mark and the seconds trickle by as he still isn’t successful in prying open the opening to the cubby.

With less than thirty seconds left, he pats and slams his hand along the square, hoping that he hits something right and can just get in!

Finally, it pops open, and he slides himself in, the coolness of the cubby’s metal interior bites into him like knives of ice against his exposed skin. He moves the tile back into place and curls up as tightly as he can and closes his eyes.

Seven long tones ring out, signaling that his time is up.

He hears the sound of the lights in the room going off right as the last tone fades out. He breathes a sigh of relief and sinks further into the cubby. He lays his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. He will allow himself this moment of peace. He’s earned it.

And now, all that he needs to do is stay as still and as quiet as possible until the next seven minutes are up.

Time bends and stretches itself as thin as a thread inside of the cubby.

He remembers when he was first punished with it. It’s barely big enough to fit his entire body, he can’t stretch all the way out or up. It’s pitch black and freezing. He had to spend seventy minutes inside.

His legs cramped up not even five minutes in and his neck throbbed in ten. By the end of the session, he couldn’t move his neck or head in a certain way for days. Not to mention that he’d managed to dislocate a bone or two with the slightest movement.

Seven minutes is nothing.

Maybe that’s what he’ll ask for his punishment: time in the cubby. Something still unpleasant so as to avoid Edgar outright denying it, but still something that would allow him to keep most of his functions afterwards. And no water. Especially, no water.

Suddenly, he hears the faintest noise. He holds his breath and focuses all his energy on training his ears to pinpoint the source. It could be something happening outside the room. Could be his imagination. Could be him accidentally hitting something against a wall of the cubby and not noticing.

Several seconds of silence meet him.

He exhales and another sound pops up, sounding clearer… closer.

Johnny wills himself not to tense or move a muscle. Despite the panic welling up inside of him, he trains his breath to be as even as it can. Quiet as it can.

Then he hears it: footsteps.

He shuts his eyes even tighter, self soothes. As long as he doesn’t panic, he won’t be found. Edgar is probably just checking all the rooms. If he just breathes and stays very, very still, the man will just leave to go to the next one.

The footsteps stop just above him with a resounding clack. Johnny doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe.

Then, two knocks.

Against his will, he clamps down harder on the bit in his mouth to keep himself from screaming or gasping. Not that he can do either.

His heart is beating so hard that he forgets only he can hear it pounding.

Another two knocks.

Johnny’s mind races. Is he compromised? Is Edgar just doing some convoluted check to make sure he isn’t in the cubby? Can he sense a difference in sound by where he knocks? Is he using some sort of echolocation tactic?

Another two knocks.

God, just go away. Go away. Go away. Go away.

One knock this time. As if Edgar second guessed giving it another full round. Like he’s maybe realized nobody is there and he can move on.

Move on. Move on. Please, move on.

Johnny isn’t sure how much longer he can hold his breath; his limbs all buzz like a million ants are crawling along them. He feels cool sweat trickle down the back of his neck and along his temples.

Just as he’s about to break, the sound of seven long tones sounds out and tears of relief trickle down his face. He’s so disarmed that he lets his limbs go loose and his head thunk back against the wall. He breathes in and out as much as he can, making up for lost oxygen.

The tile overhead slides open and Edgar’s face comes into view. “Congratulations, Johnny. You won.”

Johnny just blinks up at him blearily.

“So what punishment did you want,” Edgar asks.

Johnny’s head hits the back of the wall again as he blinks meaningfully up at Edgar.

“You wish to stay here?”

Johnny nods, slowly.

“Hm. Alright. What do you say to another thirty-seven minutes?” Edgar looks at his watch and then back down at Johnny.

Again, Johnny nods, his head heavy.

“Splendid. Enjoy yourself. You’ve earned it,” Edgar says, reaching in to brush his hand through Johnny’s hair, stroking it for a moment before pulling away and replacing the tile over the opening.

At long last, Johnny’s entire body goes lax, or at least as much as it can while cramped inside a hole in the floor.

He’s safe, for now.

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after-witch · 2 years

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I want to see the “If I bake you a cake, will you let me go outside, L” since I have no imagination

Notes: yandere, kidnapped reader

His head quirks--actually quirks, slowly, tilting down, and you can’t help but think of owls, for heaven’s sake--and he regards you for a long moment.

You feel something in your chest lifting up. It’s a devil you didn’t want to make, you hated giving him anything he truly wanted, but it had been so, so damn long since you’d felt the sun on your skin. Since you’d felt anything but the stale air of the secluded, heavily secured apartment.

“No,” he says finally, voice low and lilting. It’s not meant to be cruel or hurtful, you can tell that in this tone, but that just makes it hurt more.

“But why?” You say, and you hate the way your voice cracks just a little on why, revealing the shaky foundations of your present emotional state. You clench your hands, gripping the fabric of your shirt, wanting an answer despite knowing it wouldn’t do you any good to know.

“Risk versus reward.”

You say nothing, confused, and he explains.

“First, risk. What is the risk taking you outside? You might try to run away, or someone might see you with me and you’d become a target for some unsavory fellow, or the exposure might make you want more than simply going outside in the future, leading to increased dissatisfaction and a high likelihood of a decrease in your emotional state.”

You open your lips to protest, but he continues, and you know you’d be lying in some way no matter what you intended to say.

“The reward is a delicious cake baked by your own hands. And they are delicious,” he says, and you see his tongue dart to the corner of his mouth, as if remembering the flavors he used to savor back before he’d taken you. “But they aren’t worth the risk of you escaping,” he begins to tick off the reasons on his fingers, and this simple motion makes you want to scream, “being targeted or an increase in your risk for depression.”

His hands return to his plate, picking up the last remnants of dessert--something he’d ordered in, an angel food cake that you turned down.

“Not as good as yours, dear,” he says, crumbs on his lips. “But I’ll put up with it for your sake.”

#yandere l lawliet #yandere death note #yandere #afterwitch writes #note: these aren't open I'm just doing some older ones I hoarded

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notnctu · 4 years

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backseat chronicles - n.jm | ridin’ club

━ welcome to the ridin’ club smut series

genre ➠ slow burn, smut, fluff, lil angst wordcount ➠ 8.5k details ➠ fem!reader, streetracer!jaemin, badboy!jaemin, college!au ━ where Jaemin brings you to his club races as his arm candy. warnings ➠ explicit language, overstimulation, flirty banter, pet names, softdom!jaemin, car sex, praise kink, hittin it raw (y/n on the pill), oral, daddy kink, slight corruption kink, fingering synopsis ➠ There is no reasonable explanation as to why or how you always end up in the backseat of Na Jaemin’s beloved car. Almost routinely, he picks you up around ten in the evening with the stereo blasting the raunchiest lyrics for your entire suburban neighborhood to hear. The entire night remains purely friendly, a dabble of flirtatious comments because well, it’s Jaemin for fuck sakes. But all it takes is one suggestive gaze from his dark, lustful eyes and a drop in his voice that rumbles your core to have you climbing over the seats to get to the back. taglist ➠ @rabbit-doyochi ; @darkneogotmyback ; @im-lame-irl ; @p-mini ; @niniluvsmarkhyuck ; @saniahmichael ; @jaehy9ngs ; @danyxthirstae01 ; @jaehyunoos ; @pikijaemin ; @suhweo ; @yunoyeol ; @lanadreamie ; @ta3ilmoon ;

a/n ➠ hi yall its author doie❀!! thank you for over 1k notes on this series, im beyond impressed by the amount of attention this got! it really blew up and its so crazy!! i wrote this one with more of a romantic plotline i realized its too hard to keep it pwp with all the story building and characterization i have :)) it’s almost over yall! pls pls leave me feedback im sorry it took so long to write ):

While college lecture rooms are too big to interact with other students, discussion classes are there to ease the difficulty. A classroom for about twenty students from a three hundred person lecture. It’s administered by a clueless TA, who barely began his second term in graduate school.

Unlike lecture, attendance is mandatory for participation points. You show up every time without a fail, so it came as a shock to you when a certain blue haired student finally appeared from the list of absent students.

Na Jaemin. The notorious playboy with looks that kill and partakes in some illegal racing club. It’s as if every person in the room fawns over his aura, Jaemin drips with an inexplicable alluring confidence. You didn’t know anything about him besides the fact that he never shows up for class and rumors about how he’s slept with the entire cheer squad.

But he’s drawn to you like a magnet: always sitting in the available spot next to you, asking about your day before the TA arrives, developing an odd staring problem. You don’t feed much into his attention, minding your own business when he starts with his notably flirtatious greeting.

“You just take my breath away, (Y/N).” Jaemin cocks back in his seat with legs stretched wide in an overly comfortable manner. The smug smirk on his face cannot be ignored, he’s doing the absolute most to get you to pay the smallest attention to him.

“I didn’t do anything in particular to do that, Jaemin.” You respond bitterly, pulling out your notes for today’s discussion class. The TA enjoys wasting the first twenty minutes going over the past lecture slides and running through the most obvious topics.

You pay no mind to Jaemin peering over at you with the single handedly most dreamy eyes and smile --- stars shining in his dark orbs and a dazzling twinkle in his wide toothy grin.

“That’s why you’re so amazing. You do nothing and it still leaves me breathless.” His sneaky eyes examine your clothing choice for the long day. On this warm afternoon, the short tank top does nothing to hide much of your skin and the denim shorts that ride up a little too well drive Jaemin insane. And when you cross your legs together, he swallows the spit that pools in the back of his throat.

Your ears catch onto the murmurs of the rest of the class, the midterm is next week. The wretched midterm that is half of your grade dooms you, it is going to take an endless amount of completely undistracted dedicated hours of study--- “On a more serious note, can you help me with this class?”

His voice shatters your inner panic, if anything, adds to the stress that already beats down on your shoulders. You look up to glare at him, but you’re entirely taken aback by the new styling of his hair and the exposure of his tattoos.

The sweet blue cotton candied strands are ruffled lazily above his brows, messy from him constantly running his hand through them. Jaemin sits relaxed in gray sweatpants that are extremely baggy on his slender figure, hands are shoved casually into the pockets.

But what has you staring for longer is the long sleeve of tattoos that wrap around his left arm. Not that you’re surprised that Jaemin has tattoos, let alone a whole sleeve, but this is your first time seeing it as this is the first time he’s come to class without his leather jacket on. Something about the intricate lines and shadowing make Jaemin seem much cooler, almost more attractive.

When you meet his eyes, his lips curl slowly into a sly side smile and he’s practically eating you up under his gaze. He definitely knew that you were staring and what comes next out of his mouth will haunt you for it. “Like what you see, beautiful?”

“I don’t have the time to help you.” The best way out of this situation is to simply ignore it. Jaemin is overly adored and admired by many, he’ll find someone else to help him.

“Jaemin, do you want to study together?” There you go, folks. The random girl snickers with her small huddle of friends in the upper corner of the room, like a crowd of crows, they’re all waiting around for Jaemin to accept her offer so he can be easily integrated into their little group.

However, you watch how his glances bounce between you and her. The most sickly sweet, kind smile is almost too fake to consider it to be genuine. His final choice surprises you, “thank you for offering, but I only want (Y/N)...”

Your breath hitches and gets caught in your throat as you hope for him to finish his sentence, the drumming of your heart distracting you even more. Jaemin wants you? While the thought is flattering, it puzzles you greatly.

“... to help me with my studies.” Jaemin finishes his sentence after a rather long pause, his eyes finally resting upon your figure shying away and finding any way to seem uninterested in the conversation. “Is that going to be okay, (Y/N)?”

“What do I get out of it?” You can’t believe that you are actually considering it. But this is a man that only wants you to help him. Jaemin is an impossible, yet charming man and whatever comfortable attire he is wearing today is really aiding in his request.

He lights up, ears perked up and eyes attentive. His hands fold together on the empty desk, leaning forward towards you. “Dates with me.”

Rolling your eyes, you groan slightly at the arrogant answer. “I don’t care about that. I want something that benefits me.”

“I’ll make sure you’re well fed.” There is a tiny plea in his tone, a remarkable shift from his cool aura. “What do you want? I’ll give it to you.”

“I guess I can’t turn down free food…” there is a hang in your sentence as you contemplate what chaos you’re about to dive into and what life changes are about to be explored with Jaemin.

“Before you agree,” Jaemin chuckles, “there’s one more thing I’d like you to do for me.”

You’re quick to shoot a daggering glare at the overly enthusiastic boy, “why do I suddenly owe you favors?”

“Because I say so.” He deadpans, a chill running down your spine at the deep dip in his octave. The playfulness that was present all this time suddenly vanished, a serious look that intimidates you, but sexy enough to where it erupts something in your core. He blinks at you with dark clouded eyes and you nervously anticipate what he is going to ask next of you.

“Accompany me to my races.” He speaks lowly as if he’s afraid of someone else eavesdropping in the conversation.

Here’s your issue with that request: you’ve never really been part of that scene. You’ve lived pretty mundanely, even in college. It’s simple, you like to stay within the boundaries of what you enjoy to do and what you have to do. But you’re always open minded and willing to try something to determine whether or not you’re fond of it.

Partying and drinking copious amounts of alcohol weren’t your favorite things to do, especially to the point of forgetting your nights. You wanted to remember your nights as much as you do your days. The youth isn’t here for long, why waste them by blacking out in the middle of a large party? Also, whoever said that alcohol goes down smooth is a blatant liar.

Illegal racing could possibly be an extension of people who participate in those things, which is fine, but does place a crippling fear of coming off too boring or unrelatable inside your nervous system. But just because you don’t do those things doesn’t mean that you’re not as cool, right?

Since when was your status based nonsensically on how often you spend your nights in socializing crowds full of sweaty bodies and how much cheap booze you can drink? It had to be all in your head --- you’re just dreading any awkward socializing with people who race cars when it’s absolutely illegal.

“Why me?” It’s a genuine answer, possibly stemming from your insecurities of not being on the same level of charm as Jaemin exudes. You’re not a fool, you’re well aware of the many different people he comes across on campus so, why you?

Jaemin doesn’t hesitate to answer, “why not you? You’re just my type. Hot and smart. Cute and a little shy. The greatest duality, if you ask me.” His words seem so genuine that it has you believing these things about yourself as well.

Nonetheless, you’re taken aback by his observations and his choice of descriptions. “We’ve barely ever talked. How can you say these things so confidently about me?”

Jaemin slightly pulls your chair closer to his own and you yelp in response to the sudden movement and lack of space that separates the two of you. He leans into you, breath hot on your skin and obvious eyes darting between your shocked ones and pretty lips.

“So let’s get to know each other. I can already tell that it’ll just make me fall for you even more.” His finger lightly traces your jaw, stopping at your chin to give it a small lift to meet his focus. Jaemin loves how you squirm underneath his intensity, you’re too cute to let go. “Plus, my boys will love you. I’m sure of it.”

The TA rushes in quickly and is utterly distressed from the traffic that had pushed back his schedule. “Sorry, I’m late everyone.” He rummages through his things to find his notes, but groans to see that the monitor of the computer is off. It’s going to take him another ten minutes to input all his credentials.

But your attention doesn’t stray from Jaemin, especially with his delicate touch at the bottom of your chin. His gentle smile enacts nothing but a soft love, and a peak of interest. Na Jaemin, the one and only. He’s like an adventure waiting to be explored, an open bottle of fun for you to take a sip.

“What would I have to do?” Your voice comes out shaky.

“Just be there as your pretty self.” Jaemin comes off as the type to always have women around him, “you’ll be my lucky charm. For some reason, I always feel better around you.”

The escalation of this conversation is possibly more action you’ve had to handle in the last two years. Jaemin drops your chin and falls back into his own seat with his arms crossed. He is about to turn your life upside down and whether that be a good or bad thing, you don’t mind. You’re excited for the new thrills that come with being by Na Jaemin’s side.

Jaemin’s hot hands lift your shirt quickly, throwing it towards the front seat of his car. His lips return to your soft neck, nibbling at your skin tenderly and with love bites that will remind you of his gentle touches. The streetlamps outside flicker impatiently as you feel the eagerness soaking your panties and he lifts you up to take them off.

“My sweet girl,” his voice is light and airy that it becomes almost lost in the heat of the car. “You’re excited tonight. Did you miss me?” The devilish smirk can be felt upon your collarbones.

“Yes, I haven’t seen you for almost five days.” A peculiar whine settles in your pout and Jaemin’s low growl sends shivers down your spine. The only barrier are his own tight jeans and your hands are fast at unbuckling his belt. Jaemin relaxes back, forearms resting on your soft thighs and watching the neediness in your expression and the speed of your hands. He smiles to himself seeing you this way, wanting him so badly that you can’t wait to get him out of his jeans.

Throughout the two months that you and Jaemin finally became well acquainted, he’s fallen inexplicably into your trance. His friends made it very clear to you that he doesn’t keep the same girl around for more than a few weeks. But he’s brought you to almost every race so far and despite the initial shock of your appearance after the third time, you didn’t let the passing comments phase you.

Why he hasn’t replaced you is unknown and truthfully, there is no reasonable explanation how you always wind up in the backseat of his car by the end of the night. It’s become part of your routine. Jaemin picks you up around ten in the evening with raunchy lyrics blasting out of his personalized car for your entire suburban neighborhood to hear. More often than not, Jaemin has food ready for you to devour and a cozy blanket for your exposed legs.

You’ve learned a bit more about him through your backseat chronicles. Jaemin is possibly one of the only people in your life with a heart bigger than his own body, while also being as carefree as he can. Oddly enough, he cares about you as his friend and as his companion. Not to mention the ridiculous, yet endearing nickname, “Lucky Charm”, that he has coined upon you.

Jaemin has been the best adventure you’ve had in ages. While he takes you on intoxicating thrill rides on the leather of his back seats, every street race has been more than unforgettable. He shares one of the same values as you --- wanting to remember the present. You both know that you’ll remember each other enough for it to transcend into your next lives.

You have him to thank for your youthful experiences, to learn and dive into this new found world of mischief under his care. Jaemin treats you extraordinarily well, he’d never hurt a soul. He showers you in appraisal and carefulness, he’s attentive to your behavior and remembers your favorite things. And he reminds you almost every time you see him that he’s so grateful to have you in his life.

“Have you been touching yourself?” Jaemin’s bold question catches you off guard as it causes your hands to shyly hover over his unzipped jeans. When you glance up at him with soft innocent eyes, as if you’re guilty of a crime and wish to beg for forgiveness, his facial expression is serious and intimidating.

“Continue, baby. You can be honest with me. Daddy isn’t going to punish you if you did.” His tone is sweet and light, but his eyes are dark and piercing. His lips are drawn tightly into a thin line, no curve in sight.

His finger grazes down your cheek gently as he admires your slightly parted lips and the way your eyelashes dance every time you blink. However, his other hand urges you to continue your previous action of getting him out of his restrictive jeans.

You nod, while rubbing his erection through his gray briefs that hug him so tightly. There’s a sharp intake of breath when you pull the waistband of his underwear down and his cock stands against his lower abdomen. “Do you think of me when you do?” His voice gets caught in his throat when you take him in your warm hand.

“Always.” You kiss his jawline and fix your position above his dick. Your slick pussy presses down against his shaft, coating it in your juices and rubbing his tip to your clit for a delicious sensation. Jaemin groans, his gaze dipping between your lower bodies and back to your face.

“My sweet (Y/N) thinks about her daddy fucking her senseless while she touches herself.” Jaemin chuckles darkly, grinding his hips harder against you. There is a shift in the atmosphere as he grips your hips and slowly enters your dripping hole. “That’s cute, baby.”

You hold onto his shoulders as his raw dick fills you to the brim, stretching you out like past nights. Gasps leave your body when he starts pulling all the way out to only have you sink back down. “Daddy, please just fuck me.”

Jaemin picks up his speed, knowing that you have a quiz due at midnight that you scolded him for forgetting earlier. The grip on his shoulders tighten as this man navigates your body all too well. He knows you like the back of his hand, fucking the spot that causes your body to lose control.

One of his favorite sights in the world is the view of your lips parted open with loud whimpers falling effortlessly. Your eyes roll back into your skull as his hips roll deeper into your walls, the tip hitting your sweet spot repeatedly.

“You’re always the best girl for me, aren’t you?” His hand wraps around your neck when you throw your head back, choking you lightly and your walls grip around his shaft. “I know you’re close. Cum on my dick, baby. Be a good girl.”

Jaemin’s tattoos shine under the moonlight when you peer down at him. His hooded eyes are intoxicated by the pure image of your fucked out body and he’s truly in love. “My good girl, come on baby.” He continues to encourage, his other hand giving you a smack on your ass when he drills mercilessly into you.

The familiar bubbling occupy your lower half and the feeling of release unravels all so suddenly. You fall forward, Jaemin lets go of your neck to hold your limp body close to him, your head on his shoulder as your orgasm overtakes you. He grinds his hips into you to prolong your shaking climax, cooing sweet nothings in your ear as his other hand takes a whole handful of ass to squeeze.

He bottoms out, filling you up to the rim to cum deep inside of you. Jaemin moans loudly, his cum spilling all over your walls. You two sit like that until he grows soft, pampering your temples with gentle kisses. Jaemin remembers to take care of you, no matter what.

While you’re in his arms, he reaches for sanitary wipes in the side compartments. He lifts your hips slowly to pull out and you sigh at the emptiness. Gently, he swipes at the dripping cum from your pussy and makes sure that you’re all cleaned up before getting dressed.

“So, you want to tell me why you’ve been MIA for the past five days?” Rolling your eyes, you pull up your panties and fix the last decency of your hair.

“Car meets that are too far for me to take you.” His thumb rubs your chin lovingly and Jaemin’s eyes are so bright and mesmerizing, you find that it’s hard to look him in the eye at times.

“Not because you’ve been hooking up with other girls?” There is a tinge of sarcasm that laces your rhetorical question and though you don’t expect him to give you an actual answer, you take note of his reaction. Jaemin raises an eyebrow, clearing his throat and looking out the window away from you.

“And if I was?” Truthfully, that question hurt you more than your’s hurt him. His hand rests underneath his chin as he patiently waits for your answer. He admires the clear night sky and the rundown abandoned liquor store that stands all by itself.

“What do you want me to say?” Question after question, a stiff tension replaces the sex of the car.

“I’ll take you back now.” Jaemin crawls back to the driver’s seat, completely ignoring your confused figure. He has always been quite like this: going aloof whenever he wants to dodge something. However, it’s been happening more frequently the past times you two have been seeing each other.

The truth is simple, yet entirely complex at the same time. You and Jaemin aren’t dating, despite always going out together and him posessively introducing you to other men. You and Jaemin aren’t dating.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t stop you from growing feelings for him and you can tell that this happens too often for the attractive boy. He can’t have a fuckbuddy that won’t fall head over heels for him. But who could really blame you? Even if all this time Jaemin was pretending that he cared about you, he still pampers you like a princess; he still tells you he does.

But when it comes to discussion about advancing into something more, he hides and grows silent. This has you wondering, maybe this entire thing to him is all sex? And he can’t love you back the way you do.

No one knows his heart, not even himself. He’s never wanted to complicate his life, it’s always been about two things: racing and having fun. There is no easy way to explain it all, the thoughts that flood his mind and heart, so he chooses every way to ignore it. Overall, he’s genuinely lost. You are one source of stability in his life that he isn’t willing to let go, ever. But just because he won’t let you go, doesn’t mean that you won’t take the chance to leave when you’re fed up with him.

This has him wondering, how far can he push before he pushes you too far?

“No, it’s fine. I’ll just walk.” Tonight is unsettling, it usually doesn’t end like this. Jaemin locks the car doors and turns around to reach for your hand. “Jaemin, open the door.”

“I want you to say that you hate when I sleep with other people.” Jaemin confesses all too wildly as his hand lightly squeezes around your wrist. “And I want you to mean it.” He’s only speaking words of truth that haven’t had the time to process in his own thoughts.

“I hate when you sleep with other people.” And you do mean it. You mean it more than anything you’ve ever said to this man. Jaemin just sighs, bringing your wrist to his lips for a lasting kiss.

“Can I drive you home?” Jaemin asks softly, eyes dipping down to the leather seats and avoiding all need for eye contact.

“Yes, Jaemin.” He pulls you back into the passenger seat and drapes the soft blanket over your exposed legs. “Hopefully, I still have time to take my quiz.”

“Can I come inside?” Jaemin coolly turns his marble wheel to reverse out of the parking space, a hand resting on the shoulder of your seat as he does a double take behind him for any pedestrians, even if you two are far out in the middle of nowhere and there isn’t anyone around; Jaemin knows you have the hots for him when he does that specific move.

“What do you mean? You’ve already cum inside.”

It’s the sound of disappointment as his tongue tsks at you and he flicks lightly at your forehead. He steps on the acceleration, revving the annoying engine that roars throughout the peaceful night. The multicolored lights illuminate around his stereo and at your feet, creating the Rainbow Road right out of Mario Kart.

Jaemin isn’t like the others who pay close attention to the details of his car. His motto goes, “if I like it, I’m going to have it.” Whether or not anything matches goes beyond his worries.

In some ways, his car is a mirror of his own personality --- wild and free, colorful and welcoming. And his skills as a driver? Safe, no matter how far the speedometer goes, Jaemin always makes you feel safe.

“I mean come inside your room for aftercare. You know how much I hate leaving you without a proper cuddle.” He pouts and almost immediately his cute baby tone comes out with his beg. Almost subconsciously, Jaemin lays his right palm open facing up to invite yours in. Almost routinely, you lace your hands to complete his hold. Getting Jaemin to smile has never been easier as his hold grows tighter.

“You can’t stay over tonight though. My housemates are doing some Single Girls Only house event tomorrow and it starts immediately when we wake up.” You laugh as the ridiculous words fill the air.

“And you’re participating in that?” Jaemin mindlessly asks and you’re unable to differentiate his implications from the question. Is he asking because the idea is horrendously nothing you’d like to do or he’s implying that you’re not single?

“Why wouldn’t I?” Sounding rather harsher than intended, Jaemin finally realizes how poorly he had worded his previous question. Yet, a part of him feels disappointment whirling in his chest and a desire to feel wanted by you.

“Doesn’t seem like something you’d like: wallowing in your singleness.” He chuckles, remaining lighthearted and playful.

“I really don’t.” Jaemin brings your knuckles up to his lips for a lingering kiss, his eyes darting quickly on the road ahead now that you’ve entered the metropolitan areas and his speed drops significantly to avoid getting ticketed.

“I’ll come pick you up. Instead of being single tomorrow, you’ll be on a date.” When you turn to examine his facial expression, the serious tension in his jawline and focused eyes alarm you. Your stomach twists into knots and if he couldn't already tell, your palms grow sweaty at his offer.

“That’s such a slap in the face to them.” Pulling your hand away from his, you cross your arms and lean your head against the cold window. “I don’t think I can do that to them.”

“I have a race tomorrow.” He starts, his head tilting over at you with his round gorgeous begging eyes, “at least, come to that with me.”

“Okay, but only because I want to see Haechan.” As if it wasn’t moments ago, Jaemin was the one balls deep in you and now you’re spewing enthusiasm for another man. It’s all a joke, a way for you to conceal your undying attraction for Jaemin.

You still remember the first time you met the sunshine that is Haechan and the jealousy that seeped from Jaemin’s words when he noticed the exchange of flirtation. Haechan is someone you’d knowingly gravitate towards: a man with a loud personality that just knows how to conduct every personality in the room. And at that moment, Jaemin couldn’t tell if being more observant was a good or bad thing.

Jaemin never saw himself as outgoing as his other friends, staying more kept in his own circle, but he had the confidence to fake it. He’s bold, rather impulsive and slightly narcissistic, Jaemin knows how to use his strengths very well.

However, when he saw the soft smirk on Haechan’s face and your shy mannerisms, a small tinge in his chest ignited a died out flame. He didn’t realize it before, but that was the very start of his long tumble of feelings for you.

“Do you say those things to purposefully get me jealous?” Jaemin rests his hand on your thigh, giving it a harsh squeeze. His eyes never leave the road and his tone reverts back to his dominant tone.

“Well, are you jealous?” It’s like you two dance in circles, answer questions with a question does not stop.

And as bratty as your tone is, you don’t expect the quick “yes” that answers back and the smoldering look he gives you briefly before focusing back on the drive.

“Then good.” You huff, ready to hop out of the car after the odd, yet sensual tension. Jaemin pulls up to your house and double parks the car to lean in for a nightly goodbye kiss.

“You’re not coming in?” You try to read his facial expressions, but he hides his emotions too perfectly.

His lips curl into a smile before saying, “I think it’s better I cool off tonight.” And you mindlessly give him a peck, but he holds your face to deepen it. Through the kiss, you can feel the neediness by the way Jaemin shoves his tongue into your mouth. The taste of lust against your palette is difficult to ignore, but your academically responsible mind screams at you about your forgotten quiz.

Your hand lightly taps at his chest and he pulls away, his eyes drinking up your swollen lips. “I have a quiz, Jaemin.”

“I know, sorry. It’s just so easy to get lost in you.” Jaemin kisses your cheek once more before you exit. You smile back at him as his words have grown a strong effect on you lately. Bidding him goodbye, he wishes you sweet dreams as he patiently makes sure you’re fully inside your house.

“Is the music too loud?” Jaemin checks over at your hunched figure in the passenger seat. You’re diligently flipping through your thick textbook, a yellow highlighter in one hand and the other comfortably holding Jaemin’s.

The worst part of college is the never ending midterms that are given at any time. Studying in his car isn’t a rare sight, if anything it is more expected than you not doing anything related to your academics. But Jaemin genuinely doesn’t mind, even being mindful about his own actions to ensure an optimal studying space for you.

He really is an ideal guy. Like his first promise, he keeps you well fed and never once asks you for any monetary pay back. Jaemin adjusts the car temperature before you even step into the vehicle, knowing that you prefer wearing less clothes rather than more. Though he isn’t academically responsible, he still makes the effort to try and understand enough information to pass his classes.

The sole flaw would be the lack of open communication. It’s genuinely difficult for you to read his emotions or intentions. Jaemin always has a dazed look in his eyes whenever he looks at you, and it’s an internal fight about whether or not you’re being delusional.

“Music is fine, honey.” The mindless use of a pet name slips from your lips, but your concentration on neoliberalism and globalization doesn’t allow for you to notice.

Nevertheless, Jaemin catches on immediately to the usage. While he showers you in ridiculous nicknames, you’re not one to do so. “Honey?”

“Yes?” You answer back carelessly, not entirely actively listening to him as you highlight an important concept in your book.

“No, you called me honey.”

Looking up from your page, you blink at him with wide eyes and mouth slightly agape. “I did?”

Jaemin chuckles and finally pulls into the overly crowded parking lot, a whole mass of fanboys cheering at the arrival of his flashy vehicle. Everyone just loves Jaemin.

This familiar scene plays like a reel --- several high beams cast light under the dark sky due to the lack of functioning street lamps, dizzy multicolored cars that blaze the tracks, and the all too distinct smell of musky cologne in the chilly air. Oh, and the wide eye admirable stares when you get out of the car.

“Hi, you’re stunning.” A bold new recruit blinks at you in complete awe and awkwardly clears his throat once he realizes his rash comment.

Jaemin raises an eyebrow at him, then at how you plan on handling the situation. You’re flattered, nonetheless, but know that Jaemin didn’t bring you here to flirt with other men. “Thank you. I hope you enjoy your membership in the Ridin’ Club.”

The gracefulness in your delicate voice has the youthful recruit swooning and subtly giddy as he runs off to join a group of others that have been eying you across the parking lot. Jaemin casually drapes his leather jacket over your exposed shoulders, knowing the temperature change is going to result in you most likely catching a cold and because you never bring a jacket despite his plea.

“The power you hold.” Jaemin winks at you before pulling you into a larger crowd to socialize with more impressionable recruits.

“Ah, so you’re (Y/N)!” The stranger is unrecognizable, but you giggle to acknowledge his confident statement. “We haven’t met before, but Jaemin was talking about you the other night at our motorcycle meet.”

Your eyes light up, as if you’ve unlocked a new fun fact of Na Jaemin. “You drive a motorcycle too?” You’re truly shocked at the talent of this man.

Jaemin snakes his arm around your lower waist to draw you closer to his side. “Yeah, but I can’t fuck you in a motorcycle, can I?”

Before the other men can comment on the obvious sexual tension that Jaemin created, he leans in to whisper into your ear. “Actually, I can, but we’ll save our decency from unwanted exposure.” His hot breath grazes against the shell of your ear and you just know where you two are going to end up tonight.

“Bro, you guys probably fuck in the backseat of his car.” One of them chimes recklessly, punching at each others’ chest playfully as if he made a decent joke.

“Why don’t you stay to find out?” Jaemin retorts and the grip on your hip becomes tighter. You’re too flustered to add much into this odd form of competitive banter, distracted by none other than the way Jaemin keeps glancing over at you with a delicious gleam in his eyes.

“So what? You don’t care about us now?” You’d know that bratty tone from anywhere as Lee Haechan pushes past everyone else to rush over to the both of you.

“Aw, are your feelings hurt?” Jaemin sticks his tongue out at his friend before cordially sharing a handshake with him.

“Just slightly.” Haechan looks over at you with a wide grin and playful eyes, “hello, my pretty girl.”

“Drop the possessives, Haechan.” Jaemin rolls his eyes with an irritable twitch on his lips.

He hates how obviously jealous he gets. It’s something too difficult for himself to control, he’s exhausted his efforts to bite his tongue whenever it comes to other people’s flirtations. The thought of someone else calling you theirs doesn’t sit well with him.

“I understand your jealousy, Jaem. If someone was flirting with (Y/N), I wouldn’t be able to stand it either.” Haechan fixes the falling jacket on your shoulders. “But she can handle herself, I know those pretty lips have a mind of their own.” His gaze drops momentarily, yet obvious enough for you to grow shy at how strong Haechan is coming off tonight.

“Stop trying to corrupt her, that’s my job.” Jaemin playfully pushes at Haechan’s chest and they both break out laughing.

“I haven’t said one thing and you’re both talking about me as if I’m not here.” Your small pout is literally the cutest thing to Jaemin. He physically has to stop himself from planting the sweetest kiss on it.

It’s blatantly clear that you’re hot stuff. You’re the perfect example of a head turner, your captivating aura has its ability to suffocate those around you. However, Jaemin has seen all sides of you, but overall finding you so entirely cute. And oddly enough, Jaemin has a knack for cute things.

“Is that (Y/N) I hear?” Huang Renjun engulfs you in a hug, showing clear affection and doesn’t mind doing so. “How did your project go?”

“It went well. You accomplish a lot when you don’t procrastinate.” Renjun gleams at your statement and if Jaemin is delusional enough, he’d probably mistaken the twinkle in his eyes for infatuation instead of admiration.

“You’re so responsible, why are you messing with Jaemin?” Renjun sighs and though his question is more of a joke, there is some truth behind his words.

Your friendship with his friends differ immensely compared to other girls who have come around. Like Jaemin had said before, his boys were going to like you and they do, a lot. Sometimes making it obvious that you’re too good for him.

Jeno comes up from the side, an unidentifiable bruise on his neck and a new cut on his brow. Lee Jeno being such a rough character, his appearance speaks well about how his day has been.

But when he lays his eyes on you, it’s as if all his pain is replaced with joy and security. “(Y/N)! I haven’t seen you in so long!” The enthusiastic boy rushes over to greet you with a warm smile.

“I’m pretty sure I was here a week ago.” You laugh, but welcome him in your arms for a tender friendly hug and pat his head out of habit.

“It’s been a week?! That’s so long.” Jeno narrows his eyes at Jaemin and flicks his forehead.

“Ow!” Jaemin exclaims while rubbing the pain away. “You act like she doesn’t go to the same school as us and therefore, can see her any time you want to.” The tone in Jaemin’s voice raises some eyebrows as they all exchange glances to each other before bursting into laughter.

“Like your jealous ass would allow for that?” Haechan remarks and Jaemin doesn’t outwardly react. However, Jaemin’s hand is squeezing you so tight that you’re more than certain he’s bothered by the comment.

“Oh, stop it. You all know I’m Team Jaemin. He does have the most wins this past month.” You only know that through Jaemin’s proud boasting, anything else in the racing world is unknown to you.

Jaemin situates you in between his legs as he slightly sits on the hood of his car. His arms wrap around your middle and chin rests on your shoulder. Public display of affection isn’t a problem for him, and you learned much earlier that Jaemin can’t keep his hands off of you.

Renjun scoffs at your whimsical fact, in absolute disbelief. “It hurts more hearing you say it. I’m getting my car upgraded, but once it’s done, I’m going to blaze his ass on the tracks.”

“Are you racing today?” Jeno asks the blue haired fellow that clings onto you like a koala.

“Yeah, against a newbie. Apparently he’s really good, so I’m not too sure I’ll win.” Jaemin mumbles into your hair.

“You say that every time, yet you win!” Renjun crosses his arms, weight shifting to his left leg as he pops his hip out. There is always a sense of competition between anyone with Renjun.

Jaemin perks up behind you and when you turn around in his arms, you’re face to face with a beaming smile. “That’s because I have you.” Eyes lock with yours, he isn’t saying that directed to Renjun. Na Jaemin has you wrapped around his pinky, the butterflies fluttering in your stomach are too hard to ignore.

“Alright, lovebirds. Get in your car and let’s start this shit.” Haechan groans and claps his hands to draw the crowd’s attention. Cupping them around his mouth, he roars into the starry night, “let’s roll!”

During the race, Jaemin’s number one priority is to keep you safe. While you’ve sat in his car for a number of times now, it’s different once the loud bang goes off and he’s hitting 100 mph. Tonight’s track is much more dangerous, with twists and turns that can have the vehicle flying weightlessly if he’s not careful.

“You trust me, right?” Jaemin has both hands on the wheel and the engine rumbling as you both anticipate the start of the race.

Spectators watch on the sidelines as if it’s the ultimate battle, but Jaemin doesn’t pay them much mind. He’s more concerned about you instead. “Of course. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. You’ve proven yourself that you’re an excellent driver, so let’s win this.”

Jaemin smirks at your encouraging words, feeling a warmth spread across his chest. “I’ll tap out any time you want me to, okay?”

You nod and the initial whip of the car is so intense that you didn’t even register the sound off. It’s not your first race, but it’s been awhile since the last one. When you adjust to the pressure, the lanes in front of you cause a slight queasiness in your stomach.

It’s a two lane windy road that wraps around the mountain side and Jaemin happens to be in the outer lane. All it takes is a second of lost control and you two will hit the metal railings that guard the cliff below. Despite your inner panic, Jaemin guides you through the pooling anxiety that leaves you restless.

“(Y/N), look up and out the window. We’re coming up on the cliff side view, I’ve always wanted to bring you here.” Your eyes land on the dazzling glitter that dances on the ripples of the lake. It’s so vast, the moon high up in the sky is reflected on the water below. It’s a romantic scene of melancholy and bliss. Suddenly, you feel at peace in the middle of this high speed race.

“It’s beautiful, Jaem.” You whisper calmly and he’d reach for your hand to hold, but races take too much wheel control. And he’d turn to look at you, but races take too much concentration on the road ahead.

But throughout every obstacle, he hears the gentleness and the solidarity in your cadence in the midst of all the high stress. He, too, feels peace. He feels calm knowing that you’re simply by his side, even in the face of danger. So, he can finally admit to himself… he genuinely developed feelings for you.

Before you know it, you’re thrusted side to side from the sharp turns and the adrenaline kicks in when the other racer catches up right next to Jaemin. “Fuck,” Jaemin curses underneath his breath and steps harshly on the acceleration. “Baby, I’m going to go a bit faster so hold onto something.” He warns and your hand finds the grab handle. It’s neck and neck at this point.

Usually, you squeeze your eyes shut to avoid becoming too overwhelmed by the sights in front of you. Tonight is different, not entirely knowing why, you’re observing every element that circles around the perimeter.

The finish line is up ahead, but there is no sign that the other racer is slowing down. Then, you see it: the fatal mistake that can cost you both of your lives if you didn’t catch it. “Jaemin, watch out!” You yelp when the other car inches dangerously close, your warning allows Jaemin to make a controlled swerve away from a possible hit.

Jaemin shakes his head and tsks at the recklessness. “Now I know why he’s good. It’s foul play.” He blows his bang out of his eyes and casually says, “thank you for warning me. This is why I need you by my side.”

He makes it to the finish line barely before the other, winning the race by half a second. Jaemin brakes smoothly, tire marks scrapping the concrete below, and you both exit the car to celebrate with everyone else.

But before the mass of eager shouting men make their way over to you two, Jaemin hurries to your side to pull you into a steamy, rewarding kiss. The scene is just like the movies; his hand on your lower back and yours on his chest lightly. His lips taste like triumph, like he had won more than just a simple race against a random stranger. He’s won the best person he could ever have.

You two fled the scene after cussing out the other racer. It was a rare sight to see: Jaemin being all bothered and angry, practically fuming after scrambling back into the driver’s seat. However, your mind had mischievous plans of its own and all it took was one look from his hooded eyes for you to announce that you wanted him --- badly.

Back in your usual abandoned parking lot, Jaemin pauses before following you to the back seats. With the engine off and the dead of the night being absolute silent, the tension remains thick around you two. “(Y/N),” Jaemin is about to confess something he never thought he’d admit. He turns to you sitting in the middle seat with just your panties on and a curious look on your face.

His heart burns and despite being so incredibly aroused, he controls his urges enough to be able to say, “I’m into you.”

“I know you’re into me, that’s how we ended up like this in the first place.” You giggle cluelessly to his words, still not understanding the odd shift in mood and intentions. It’s always his unclear, messy intentions.

Though he can’t entirely figure out his puzzle pieces, he has plenty to connect the dots. “I like you. I want to be in a relationship with you and call you my girlfriend.”

You’re stunned. Did Jaemin just confess to you as you sit in your panties ready to fuck? This softness is different from the sides you’ve seen of him. It’s similar to a lost bunny, wandering grasslands to find a purpose. He looks so fragile, one intense stare and he’d crumble. This softness is vulnerability.

“So do it.” The boldness catches him off guard, but switches on the dominance in him. “If you want me, come show it.”

He climbs over the middle console to push you into the leather seats. “Not acting shy anymore, are you?” Practically ripping your shirt off of you, he cups your breast lightly and flicks at your nipples. Your immediate reaction results in a rush of wetness down your core.

“Before I forget,” sitting up, you share a passionate kiss that you’ve held back long enough. You give it every ounce of feeling you have for him. “If it isn’t obvious enough, I like you too.”

“It’s obvious, baby.” Kissing your nose, he wraps a hand around your throat to lightly push you back down. “But hearing you say it out loud makes me happy.” Jaemin smirks, hand still choking you gently and pampering your jawline with soft kisses.

His free hand reaches down into your dripping panties, circling your clit with your wetness. The sensation causes you to whimper for more. “Daddy, give it to me.” You wiggle in his palm, knowing that the nickname is more than effective.

“My sweet (Y/N) wants to get fucked?” Jaemin rolls your underwear off and rids himself of his own bottoms.

“Yes, please.” Through the darkness, his hard dick stands proudly. Jaemin lines himself up as he thrusts into you without another second of hesitation. He waits for you to adjust to his size, his tip barely grazing your sweet spot. “Fuck…”

“You take me so well, my pretty baby.” Jaemin starts moving his hips, slowly at first to build a rhythm. Taking your legs, he presses them into your chest to fuck you at a deeper angle. And you feel him practically in your guts, his cock pumping against your walls deliciously and bumping into your g-spot. “Do you want more of me?”

Your train of thought is in utter shambles and whatever Jaemin is saying to you barely processes. You’re overwhelmed by a pleasure that fills every system, every part of your body. To answer him, you let out an incoherent noise of approval.

Jaemin pulls your hips down while thrusting forward into you, maximizing every inch of his strokes. This single action causes you to scream and grip onto the headrest. “Who knew my sweet girl could be so fucking dirty?” Jaemin chuckles darkly, his cadence dropping several decibels. “When I first met you, I wanted to ruin you.”

All of his filthy words edge you closer to your release as he continues to repeat his previous motion. He holds your hips in place to grind into you, the feeling of his tip rubbing your walls has your eyes rolling back. “Do you want to cum, (Y/N)?”

“Yes!” You yell, the tight ball in your lower abdomen is bound to break any minute. “I want to cum so badly, please.” You beg and moan, the arch in your back lifts you from the seat of the car. Jaemin snaps his hips into you, drilling you quickly to reach your high. And you break. An euphoric cry fills the air as your walls clench around his length. You hear the extra wetness create a slick noise, but Jaemin isn’t done with you yet.

“You wanted to cum so fucking badly. I’ll reward you with one more for being such a good girl for me.” His thumb flicks at your clit and you convulse into spasms from the sensitivity. Your violently shaking legs can’t hold themselves up anymore and Jaemin rests them on his shoulders. He lines kisses along your ankle as the pleasure overtakes you.

“I don’t think I can do it.” You whine, your fingers twisting and toes curling.

“You are going to try, okay baby?” He coos, but it’s most definitely a demand. He sits back on his knees to pick up more speed, fucking endlessly into your swollen pussy and thumb rubbing fast strips against your bud.

“I’m going to snap, Jaem.” You cry, tears rimming your eyes and before you know it, a second wave hits you. Your second orgasm is ruinous and has you squirming around to regain some sense of control.

“Oh fuck, you’re so beautiful.” Jaemin slows down as your walls grip around him again, tighter this time. “I’m going to fill you up with cum,--- watch it drip out of you.” He grunts while releasing into you, his dick twitching and spraying your insides with white.

He pulls out as hot, white cum spills from your pussy. You take this moment to catch your breath and relax your legs. However, Jaemin coats his two fingers and shoves the cum back into you. “Jaemin!” You exclaim at the sudden intrusion.

He curls them into your plushy walls and finger fucks you into another oblivion. “Wait, again?” Your hands wrap around his wrist, but Jaemin moves too fast for you to catch it.

You’re a moaning mess again, louder than before. Jaemin leans down and flicks his tongue against your overstimulated bundle of nerves. Your back arches automatically and a low animalistic scream rises from your throat.

He observes your body lines underneath the moonlight and the last remaining light the broken street lamps have to offer. Your face contours and you’re so far out into ecstasy that you don’t notice how intensely Jaemin watches you lose yourself.

“It feels too good!” With one last thrilling orgasm, you almost pass out and you see small stars of dizziness. He soaks up every last bit of your cathartic reaction and festers a small sense of pride that he can make you feel all this pleasure.

“Such a good girl. You’re beyond impressive, baby.” Jaemin pulls his fingers out to lick them clean and finds some wipes to help you out of your sticky situation.

“Now that you’re my girlfriend, can we cuddle at any time now? Not just as after care.” He peers up at you and the one word enacts a burning warmth to spread across your chest. That is the best nickname he can call you by.

“I think the Singles Girls Only house event is still going on, but after that, yes a million times.” You laugh and wrap your arms around him into a big loving hug.

Jaemin feels right at home. All the long years of living carelessly and wild, he’s finally found someone worth the extra mile. While Jaemin was a thriving adventure to be explored, you were his comfort to run back to.

It is through the intimacy of your backseat chronicles that Jaemin was able to fall deeper for you. You’re his lucky charm, for some reason, he always feels better around you.

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