#I love this dialogue more than life itself

[snail-eggs]

i shit you not, the way some of my mutuals write just constantly has me like this

#snail thoughts #just the sexiest prose dialogue and themes #i love you all more than life itself i hope you know that 🫶🏻

[age-of-moonknight]

“Knight Feeders,” Moon Knight (Vol. 9/2021), #13.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Penciler and Inker: Federico Sabbatini; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

#Marvel #Marvel comics #Marvel 616 #Moon Knight vol. 9 #Moon Knight 2021 #Moon Knight comics #Moon Knight #Marc Spector #Taskmaster #Anthony Masters #GAH I love these pages so much; there’s so much to unpack #to start there’s the bullet metaphor #first off it continues in the vein (that Marc occasionally buys into as well) of Marc being more weapon than man #and a point I find interesting that they kind of don’t bring up is that a bullet by itself is not lethal #but instead needs a firearm to jettison it into a lethal velocity #paralleling first Khonshu’s control over the direction over Marc’s life and then Marc taking up that mission on his own terms #and then there’s that last bit tying back into the first time we saw Taskmaster and Moon Knight tangle: #that Marc will take any amount of (often extensive) damage to achieve his goal #but also I love the contrast between the dialogue boxes and what’s actually happening on-panel #you’ve got Taskmaster saying “he’s nothing more than a weapon and a particularly savage one at that” #all while Marc is rather tenderly (for him) rescuing people #love that #wish it wasn’t the case that Marc would probably agree with Taskmaster’s assessment #but I love seeing Marc saving people nonetheless

[cepheustarot]

Who will be your love in 2024?

Attention! This reading is for entertainment purposes only. This tarot reading does not give a 100% guarantee that all the described situations will occur or being ultimate truth. You build your own life and destiny and only you know yourself best.

Paid readings

Pick a pile. Choose one or more pictures. Trust your intuition.

Pile 1. As I see it, next year you will have a choice between two people! The first man endowed with self-confidence, quite cheerful, sociable, leads an active lifestyle. At the same time, when you first meet him, you will think that he looks mysterious and in general for you he will be like a "mysterious person", because the person will not immediately talk about himself, will hide his personal information. I would also like to point out that he is more of an observer than an activist, he needs to assess the situation first, gather information and only then act, but he may delay the process.In that sense, he needs someone to push him into action. Also, this man has hard work, diligence, he tries to develop all areas of his life, to achieve balance in them, whatever he takes, he will always succeed. 

Speaking of the second person, he tends to behave closed and cold with people, but despite this external severity, he is quite sensitive inside and vulnerable. By itself, a person does not manifest or manifests rarely emotions in people, he tries to maintain calm and resistance. But he has a good reputation among people, he’s quite intelligent, erudite, spiritual, he respects tradition. Also people can often ask him for help, as he has a lot of experience, he is wise and can always say/do something that will help people. This person is also hard-working and diligent, he can have excellent grades in his studies or good stable salary at work, his activities can be related to people, for example, he can work as a teacher, lecturer, can work/study in law or in the medical field, he can also do podcasts.

Pile 2. Here, your love will be a person from the past, with whom you once stopped communicating. However, you have had quite good and warm relations in the past! By the way, there is a high probability that this is your friend from childhood or from youth, from school days (but this is not necessary, again). It may happen that you will meet by chance somewhere, or this person decides to suddenly call you, write, you will start a dialogue and you will begin to communicate as closely as before. By himself, this person is authoritative, he can be too serious, looks at things rationally, relies more on logic and facts and evidence will be important to him in disputes, not the feelings of a person. He is a good leader, purposeful, and at the same time he is a reliable enough person to trust! He clearly understands what he wants from life and how to get what he wants. He is also honest, always tells the truth to his face, he can be called straightforward. By the way, outwardly he has a pretty toned body, he has an athletic build!

Pile 3. You will meet a person who inspires people, he is a good leader and speaker, he knows how to work in a team and how to achieve success.He is a good planner, and instead of improvising, he prefers planning, acting strictly according to plan, but even if something does not go according to plan, he can calmly adapt to the situation, in this regard he can be called flexibility to adapt. He is also financially literate, does not make mindless purchases, knows how to save money and generally monitors his spending money. He can devote a lot of time and effort to work, in this regard he is a workaholic who does not know what rest is. He is not one of those who likes to lose and admit defeat, so he will stand up to the end in an argument, proving his truth. At the same time, this person is prone to self-sacrifice, it is difficult for him to say "no", he is ready to help loved ones and people, is capable of full dedication. He may have many difficulties and problems in life, but nevertheless he tries to solve them all, and in general he prefers the approach of "it is better to do something that is in my power than to do nothing."

Thank you for reading! I will be glad of any feedback 🖤

#tarot #tarot reading #pick a card #pick a card reading #tarot cards #pick a pile #pick a pile reading #pac #love tarot reading #free tarot reading

[allisondraste]

I’ve seen various different posts on the website formerly known as Twitter and this one right here, discussing Gale’s behavior in romance as obsessive, possessive, and possibly codependent. And while I support everyone having their own interpretations and opinions, I do disagree, so I want to talk about it!

First— it’s so important to acknowledge that Gale is strictly monogamous. He is not someone who is comfortable with a partner having other partners. This is fine, and not inherently indicative of any unhealthy attachment styles. Wyll, Karlach, and Lae’Zel are also monogamous in a relationship.

Gale does struggle with some insecurity that at times bleeds it’s way into his romantic relationship, but isn’t a product of the relationship itself. His biggest insecurity is feeling like he isn’t enough (in general, not just for a romantic partner). Mystra had a way of making him feel like nothing he did was ever enough, he always needed to do more, to be more, and when he tried, when he made mistakes, she abandoned him.

Those are wounds that do not heal quickly, and so he needs quite a bit of reassurance from both friend and lover PCs that he’s fine just the way he is and that he doesn’t have to try so hard or pretend to be fine when he’s not.

He’s lonely. Due to his condition, Gale, who is an incredibly social person, had to hermit himself away from his friends and colleagues for over a year. Mystra was no longer interacting with him, and he was afraid to be around his mother because he didn’t want her to worry. His only company was Tara, and as much as he loves her, shes not a replacement for human or humanoid connection. Usually with folks who struggle with codependency and insecure attachment, there are long patterns of each of those things in all of their other relationships, but Gale seems to have had pretty healthy relationships, the Mystra situation being the exception, not the rule.

It excites him when he gets to travel with a group, have friends. It’s even more exciting to him when he finds someone who makes him forget the hurt Mystra has caused. Yet he still has to withdraw from even that because he does not want to put their life in danger. It is not until act 2 after Elminster has cast the incantation to calm the orb that Gale feels comfortable enough to give in to his feelings. And yeah! He comes in strong because he’s been holding it in. He’s been pining away, sad that he can’t let himself so much as kiss Tav or else he quite literally explode.

When you talk to Gale after his romance scene in act 2, you’re able to confront him about his feelings for Mystra, and he is very direct, stating that he does still have complicated feelings for her. Which makes SENSE. The game and Gale himself try to minimize Mystra as just his ex, but she is more than that. She is his groomer and abuser. Gale is traumatized, and it will likely take him the rest of his life to get over that. It’s not something that more time alone is going to heal. He needs a support system to help him. He needs his mom, his friends, and maybe even his new partner.

You can also ask him if he meant it when he said he loved you, and his answer is “I am many things to many people, but I am never one to throw the l-word around lightly.” He didn’t just say it on a whim. He thought about it, probably extensively. Judging from the dialogue we get, he’s aware that he is rushing to say it, and admits that it’s because he’s scared that he’s going to literally die tomorrow. It’s not a love bomb. It’s an “I need you to know this, just in case something happens to me.”

Once he doesn’t die in act 2, he simmers down. He becomes more concerned with curing his condition, he faces Mystra, he accepts that he doesn’t need to have godly power to be worthy of love and respect.

At the end of the game, he asks you if you’ll come back to Waterdeep with him, which is his way of proposing more or less, but its more that he wants to be home and he wants the person who has become so important to him to come with him, to meet his mom, to see his hometown. He wants them to want that too.

He’s a grown man, mid to late 30s, not a naive young person. He knows what he wants. He’s thought about it, extensively.

In my opinion, there’s nothing possessive, obsessive, codependent, or unhealthy about any of that.

#gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #meta post

[wakkass]

💜Teenage Sofia💜

On the right is some hairstyle searches

AU itself

Sofia sleeps through her first lessons and cannot concentrate on her homework, which is why she makes mistakes.

For some reason, Sofia’s energy is becoming less and less; she cannot easily join the busy rhythm of life as in childhood.

She considered it an uneven start to the school year, and therefore didn't tell anyone about anything.

Despite this, Sofia tries very hard to work, but the problem is that she never begins to accomplish anything.

The amulet began to behave strangely: it loses color and turns gray. And most importantly, it doesn't work as it should, sometimes completely switching off and depriving Sofia of her powers.

This causes problems with her missions: she cannot respond to calls for help in time and cannot talk to her friends. It also reminds her of the helplessness she felt when she was stuck inside the amulet.

Sofia is caught between her old responsibilities and her new academic demands, causing her to fail at both.

This begins to put pressure on her, and as a result, Sofia's emotions become uncontrollable, for example, she may suddenly cry or get angry.

It got to the point where Sofia yelled at Miranda and ran away in a fit of rage, not understanding why she was even angry.

At first, Sofia believes that the amulet is to blame for her strange condition. Something happened to it and it needs to be fixed. This is a reason to turn to Cedric for help.

However, when examining the amulet, it turns out that it doesn't affect Sofia, but vice versa. That is, the amulet reacts to her burnout due to permanent stress.

Sofia doesn't know the nature of her condition and how to fix it. If this is a curse, then it must be removed, and if it's a disease, then it must be cured, and who else but the royal sorcerer will help with this.

The more Sofia describes the symptoms, the more Cedric realizes that this is not an infection or a curse, but something that he himself once went through - depression.

To avoid this, Cedric does what Sofia once did for him: shows care and attention.

He tries to repeat the same actions that Sofia did for him many years ago, because this is the only way to deal with depression that he knows.

This doesn't always help, since she could suddenly cry, and he didn't know what to do about it. But Sofia felt better from the very fact of understanding and caring for her. What's important is that she was able to let her feelings out.

Sofia asked Cedric for medicine and he took her to the throne room where her parents were sitting. A friend nearby can help in difficult times, but there is nothing more healing than family support.

Sofia was scared to talk to her mother, because they parted on an unpleasant note. Sofia was afraid of making this worse, because she reacted extremely unpredictably to things.

I see their dialogue as somewhat awkward at first, which is why Sofia has a lump in her throat. But Miranda is not angry with her, although it's difficult for her to ask about what is happening. I think this will put pressure on Sofia and she will utter her words of apology quickly and incoherently.

It was amazing how much easier it became for Sofia when she didn't face her mother's anger, but her mother's support. What's happening to Sofia is complicated, but she's still loved and understood. No one will ever leave her alone, no matter how much she changes.

The amulet remains gray until Sofia deals with the amount of work she has to do, causing her to burn out.

In the future, Amber helps Sofia with her schedule and organization of things during the day.

Appearance info

Hairstyle:

I knew that Sofia's hair texture needed to be soft and light, so I was looking for a simple and full hairstyle. I chose between a ponytail and a half-ponytail, and in the end I settled on the hairstyle that I could feel best.

I like how in animation the movement of the tail reflects the personality and mood of the character, this is ideal for a pubescent AU, where emotions and feelings burst out.

Meg and Thumbelina are not only a great visual reference for hair movement, but also reflect facets of personality that Sofia might have at her age. And the hair in a high ponytail emphasizes this perfectly.

Cloth:

Amber and Sofia's costumes are similar because they wear school uniforms. They study together in a specialized educational institution, so I think there is a certain dress code there. It's different from the public school setting that was in the original series, and I wanted to highlight that visually.

At the same time, the palette is different for everyone and reflects the individuality of each student.

I took inspiration from Pinterest where I was looking for simple yet elegant clothes. Asian uniforms have the most variety in silhouettes, so I mainly focused on them.

A small example of the cut I relied on

< Previous post

#sofia the first #sofia the fandom #sofia the first fanart #stf #sofia the first au #princess sofia #cedric the great #cedric the sorcerer #queen miranda

[deakyjoe]

Somebody’s Watching Me Part 2

Pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x Reader (she/her pronouns used, reader is implied British and given backstory)

Category: I still don’t know but it’s coming together

Summary: On a night out with your friends, you’re pleasantly surprised to run into your secret observer.

Warnings: flirting (Ghost and reader getting some action, they deserve it), mentions of war/death, talks of scars, alcohol consumption, Ghost being normal AND weird, the mask is off again, Ghost doing domestic things almost (socialisation in a pub), sexual references, family issues, reader’s friends are intense, British terminology/slang, swearing/cursing, dialogue heavy, minute Soap slander (I love him but couldn’t resist)

Word Count: 5.5k (longer than part 1)

A/N: After the love I got for part 1, I decided to continue so Simon is still my babygirl. Please remember that if Simon feels out of character, that’s the point of this story. It’s him when he’s not being Ghost but being forced to mix aspects of his life at home and his life at work - the work aspects being reader. Also he’s going out of his comfort zone to please the sergeant (you) because he likes you but just hasn’t really realised it yet. Not entirely sure I’m as pleased with this part as I was with the first but we’re posting anyway!

Part 1 available here.

Part 3 available here.

It took weeks before your friends finally managed to convince you to join them on a night out. You'd been putting it off for a number of reasons. One being that the thought of socialising in a crowded environment had you wanting to gouge your eyes out as you'd grown used to little to no company. Another being that you genuinely thought it'd be overwhelming and you might have a panic attack.

But after they'd assured you that they'd look after you and you could all leave if it got to be too much, you relented and organised a time and place with them. Just your local pub on a Wednesday night. You'd decided on a Wednesday as you hoped it wouldn't be too crowded and that your friends might need a pick-me-up in the middle of their work weeks. They agreed quickly with the idea.

And honestly it'd been nice for the most part. You'd arrived early, you swear active duty had made you so time efficient that you spent almost no time at all getting ready, and sat down at a table in the corner, out of sights of the most of the rest of the pub. The only thing in direct eye line was the bar itself which would come in handy when you needed to go up and order drinks.

Your friends all slowly arrived, none of them being too late, and gave you big greetings as they hadn't seen you in "forever" they claimed. You returned hugs and kisses and prepared yourself for a night of bombarding questions and retelling of war stories.

A couple of your girlfriends were bought drinks by guys at the bar and you watched on in amusement as they giggled about it together. They assured you that someone would probably buy you a drink if you asked but you waved them off saying you didn't care, which you didn't.

You listened intently as they all told you what was happening with their lives - work, significant others, kids, families, pets, parties, weddings, funerals, birthdays, anything and everything you could possibly imagine. A note of envy settled in your stomach at one point but it went away quickly when you told yourself you were being silly.

Telling them about your life was slightly more complicated. You had to skirt around some of the details of your job as it was classified and would probably horrify them if they knew what you truly did. You gushed about some of the amazing people you'd met and mentioned casually that you'd actually bumped into your lieutenant in the supermarket. They all absorbed it with wide eyes of wonder and amazement, each of them having at least one question to ask.

"So, wait, you can actually shoot a gun?"

"Does it bother you having to bunk with a bunch of blokes?"

“What’s said country like?”

"Are any of them fit?"

"Isn't it tiring?"

"How long until you go back?"

"Met anyone you fancy?"

"Hang on, you have to share a communal bathroom?"

Yes, it's alright, not really, they're okay, very, not sure, oh my god, yeah.

They never really seemed satisfied with your answers and always wanted you to elaborate. Which you did if possible.

Overall, it was nice. There was no sense of impending doom or a weird feeling in your stomach about the whole thing. You let your guard down just enough for once to attempt to have a good time. Which you did. You laughed, you chatted, you drank, it was good.

Until the bar tender came over with a drink that looked exactly like what you usually ordered.

And when he placed it in front of you, you wanted to throw up.

"Fella at the bar bought this for you."

This was it. The moment in the night that you looked forward to the least and the moment your friends had been encouraging the most. They insisted that you needed to "put yourself out there more" and “try to get laid at some point”. You were "too uptight" as they put it. Little did they know that you weren't really interested in a quick shag or even a relationship with anyone at the moment. And rejecting someone was always awful. Every time they asked why and having to explain that your job made romantic entanglements extremely hard made things awkward.

"Ooh, this is so exciting!" One of your friends squealed beside you, frantically searching the bar for the culprit. "Which one?"

“Blond one.”

Oh.

"Tall."

My.

"Scars on his face."

God.

Your eyes shot towards the bar and immediately landed on him. Of course he was already looking your way with his drink raised to you.

"Shit." You cursed, silently letting out a sigh of relief that it wasn't someone you'd have to reject but all the more anxious because it was him. A part of you was very excited to see him though.

"What is it? Do you know him?" Another friend asked you.

"He's my lieutenant. Fuck." You stood from your seat, grabbing the drink.

"The one from the shops?"

"Yeah. I'll be back in a minute, guys. I'm just gonna go say hi." You explained, slowly making your way towards Ghost.

"Take your time!"

You hadn't seen your lieutenant since he'd gone over to your place for tea. It was a weird experience. Weirder than the shops. You'd had a couple cups of tea each, shared his packet of chocolate digestive biscuits, which he'd kindly offered to you, chatted a little more and then he'd left. You didn't exchange phone numbers or even offer to see each other again. He didn't because he probably didn't want to and you didn't because you thought he probably wouldn't want to. So you'd gone your separate ways and that was that.

As you got closer to him, you wished you hadn't had so much to drink. You weren't drunk but you weren’t sober either. Kind of just bordering the edges between being buzzed and tipsy.

"Simon."

He turned so his body was facing yours, his large frame consumed the stool he was sitting on. Intimidating and alluring all at once. "Sergeant."

"You really should start calling me by my name." You sighed, stopping to stand in front of him.

"I like calling you sergeant."

"And I liked calling you lieutenant." You shot back, taking a sip of your drink despite your head screaming at you not to.

"Bet you like calling me Simon more."

Your eyes widened at his statement. He wasn't wrong but you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that. "Thanks for the drink, by the way."

"It's no problem. Thought I owed you for the bourbon."

You hummed in agreement but said nothing.

"Friends of yours?" He nodded towards your table where all of them were watching the two of you interact intently.

"Uh, yeah. First night out since being home so..." You shrugged.

"Having fun?"

"I was." You regretted your words immediately, knowing that you’d been insensitive.

"Ruined it, did I?" He asked but it wasn't malicious.

"No. Just... unexpected."

He nodded. "So, which one's your boyfriend?"

You were surprised at the question. Last time he'd enquired about your personal life it hadn't gone so well.

"You live alone?"

"Yeah. Used to have a hamster but he died a few months back."

He blinked at you and said nothing so you rushed off to make tea, desperately trying to come up with a new topic to talk about when you got back to him.

"That's presumptuous of you, lieutenant."

"Just making conversation with you, sergeant." The return of dropping rank had you tingling inside. Might have just been the alcohol though.

You huffed. "None of them."

"Girlfriend then?"

You shook your head. "Nope."

"Sorry soul you're torturing with your affection couldn't make it then? What a shame." His eyes narrowed, you presumed he was joking.

"I'll ignore that insult. I'm single." Setting your drink on the surface of the bar, you leant your hip against the side but not before taking a step closer to him.

"Lucky for the world then that you're not burdening anyone with yourself."

"Jesus, Simon." You laughed out of shock, struck with his bluntness.

"Had to be said."

"Huh, you really are a charmer." You flashed him a glimpse of your teeth in a small smile, brows raising on the last word of your sentence.

"I try my best.” Pause. “Why are you single?"

"Because my affection is a burden apparently." Repeating his own words back to him seemed better than explaining your depressing void of no romance in your life because of your job. But maybe he’d understand.

"I'm serious."

"Why do you care?"

Simon didn’t strike you as the kind of person who gave a shit about the love lives of people he worked with. So why did he seem so interested in yours?

He didn't answer straight away and when he did, it seemed rehearsed. "You're my sergeant, part of my team. It's my role to care."

"To make sure I stay alive. Not to inquire about my love life." You were properly frowning at him now.

Ghost raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry I asked."

With a sigh, you relented. "The job."

"Go on…"

"Makes it difficult. The job makes it difficult to date. Especially civilians." You added the last bit on with clenched teeth. It didn’t really matter. Civilians were not on your romantic radar.

"Would you want to date a civilian?"

He saw straight through you.

"No, not really."

"Hmm."

You wanted to avoid discussing the topic any further so asked a question to change the subject. "What're you drinking?"

"Scotch that Soap recommended."

"And?"

He swished the glass around, the ice clinking against the side. "Utter shite."

"Figures." You took a long look at his drink. “You drink it on the rocks.”

“Tastes better cold. Less shit.”

“That your second glass?”

"Monitoring my alcohol intake, sergeant?” He asked and you shook your head as he looked you up and down. “You gonna take a seat or just stand there all day?"

"I'm supposed to be going back to my friends." You gestured weakly over your shoulder with your thumb, kind of forgetting they’d still been there until that moment.

His eyes flickered between the table and you. "Think we both know that isn't happening any time soon."

You hated how he saw straight through you. "Do we?"

"We do. Take a seat, sergeant." He nodded towards the stool next to him.

You stood up straighter, making a point to look directly into his eyes. "I like being eye level with you."

His foot hooked around the back of your legs and tugged you closer to him. "Think you'll find that I've still got a couple inches on you."

Your skin flushed hot, he was so close to you. You reached out and tapped his chest a couple times before realising what you were doing and removed your hand. "Think you'll find that you've had a bit too much to drink, sir."

"Simon. Thought we'd established that you can call me Simon." He leant back a little bit, relaxing in his seat. “And thought we agreed that you weren’t monitoring my alcohol intake.”

"Sorry." You squeaked.

"Sorry who?"

With a smile, you looked up at him through your lashes. You already knew what you were going to say. "Sorry... Lieutenant Riley."

He smiled. Actually smiled. It was small but it was unmistakable. "Brat."

He was beautiful when he smiled. He was always beautiful but when Simon Riley smiled… he was radiant.

You lit up at the smile but glowered at the insult. "Simon!"

"It's true." He shrugged, taking another mouthful of his drink and wincing at the taste.

"I'm stubborn. Not a brat."

"Believe me, I know you're stubborn. You've almost died like twelve times because you're stubborn. Had to save you every time." He shook his head as if it were a grievance to him.

"Could've left me behind."

"Couldn't do that. I'm your lieutenant, remember? My role is to keep you alive."

"I'm sure Price would let it slide if you had good enough reason." You thought about your Captain and wondered if he'd let you die for a good enough cause. Probably. But you held no resentment towards that fact.

Simon's head tilted to the side as he watched you think. "Don't think he'd accept brat as a reason, hm?"

You raised a finger to correct him. "Stubborn. Not a brat."

"Definitely a brat."

"Stop calling me that." You whined.

"That was the brattiest thing you've ever said. In the brattiest voice." He glared down at you. "You whined."

"You're such a dickhead, Simon." You scoffed but it was clear you were holding back a smile.

"And you're a brat. Guess we're even."

"Okay, I'm going back to my friends. To get away from this targeted attack." You paused. "Unless you want to join."

"I'll pass."

"I guessed. Do you have any friends? Maybe you could use the socialisation." You offered, wondering whether the man ever spoke to anyone when he was home or if he completely isolated himself from the rest of the world.

"Don't have friends for a reason."

That answered that for you.

"And what's that?"

"Ask too many personal questions."

He had a valid point. People did ask too many personal questions and you could understand why someone like Simon wouldn't like that.

"They wouldn't. My friends. They know we tend to be... private."

"You're a sergeant and I'm a lieutenant. Neither of us are privates." He paused to let the joke settle in. "A little army humour."

"I got it. That was good." You beamed at him, eyes crinkling in the corners at his quip.

"How much do they know of what we do?" He nodded in the direction of your friends.

You thought it over for a moment. "Very little. They know more about my teammates than anything else. Even that is limited."

He stiffened at that. "What do they know of me?"

"My quiet lieutenant with no face. Until recently." You let your eyes roam his features, taking all of him in. He was remarkable to look at really. But you'd never voice that to him.

"Hmm."

"There's more but I won't divulge with you." It was a partial joke to mess with him a little. There was some truth behind it however. You may or may not have gushed about your lieutenant to your friends. But that was nothing really. Just friendly appreciation for the man who outranked you.

"That makes me nervous."

Playing with him was too easy and too fun. "You should be."

"I'm reconsidering sitting with you and your friends now." He frowned but wasn't completely serious.

That surprised you. "You were going to?"

"Maybe." He drank more of the Scotch and trembled. "Christ, this stuff is fucking disgusting."

"Order a bourbon, something you know you actually like." You sighed. "Please do. If they're too much we can leave."

"We?" He was always questioning we.

You rolled your eyes at him. "It's always we. Teammates, y'know?"

A level of unsureness settled over his face. "I know."

"Get used to a lot of we then."

"Don't plan on seeing you again after this." The admittance stung but you weren't going to let that stop you.

"I'm sure you thought that last time as well. But here we are. Are you stalking me?" There was a hint of genuineness in the question. There was no way this second chance encounter was pure coincidence.

He shook his head, waving the bar tender over and ordering a bourbon like you'd suggested. "You're too boring for that."

"You have such a way with words. Really know how to make a lady feel special." You said dryly.

"It's a gift." He scratched at the side of his nose, absentmindedly trailing a finger over one of his scars in the process.

"They wouldn't say anything, y'know? Or stare. If you're worried about that. I've come home with my fair share of scars over the years. They understand." You pulled the neckline of your shirt to the side to show off an old bullet wound that had scarred over on your collar bone.

Simon's eyes lingered on the mark on your skin but you couldn't quite read his expression. "People always stare."

"I don't."

"No, you don't." He hesitated. "Okay then."

"Wait, really?" You perked up.

"Yes, really. Quickly. Before I change my mind, sergeant." He rose from his seat, grabbing his drink and gesturing for you to go first.

You gazed up at him. It really was easy to forget just how big he was. "Quick question first?"

He didn't seem keen. "Go ahead."

"How long were you here watching me before you sent the drink over?" You really needed to know, to see how out of it you were.

"Not long." Lie.

Your brow furrowed. "How long, Simon?"

"About forty minutes."

Your eyes widened. You didn't expect it to have been that long. "Fort- Jesus. And I didn't notice you?"

He brushed you off with a small shrug. "You were having fun. Guard was down."

"Still."

"Don't dwell on it. I was just going to leave and not let you know I was here." His eyes moved away from you, the opposite side of his eye contact problem showing.

You ducked to the side to meet his gaze again. "Why didn't you?"

He shrugged again.

You offered him a small slip of affection, just the tiniest thing. "I'm glad you didn't."

He grunted in reply, which was more than you were expecting. So, you just gestured for him to follow you towards the table of your friends where you stopped short a couple feet away. You sent a quick glance over your shoulder to make sure that Simon was still, in fact, there and hadn't pulled a Ghost and disappeared. But he was still standing there watching you when you checked. Which meant it was time for introductions... which you sucked at.

"Everybody, this is Simon. My lieutenant. Simon this is... everybody." You frowned at the crowded table in front of you. "You'll pick up names. It's alright that he joins us, yeah?"

“Of course.”

"Yeah."

"Oh, my god, yes."

"Take a seat, mate."

"Where you from, Simon?"

"Manchester."

"Ugh, he's a Manc! Moving on!"

You laughed as you squeezed into the booth with Simon next to you, trying not to touch him too much. "What did I miss? What are we talking about?"

"My husband is cheating on me." One of your friends announced dramatically.

Your eyes widened at the confession. "What? Really?"

"I suspect he is." She pouted, slumping forward onto the table.

"As if. He worships the ground you walk on. As he should. What makes you think he's cheating?" You debated whether this was a good topic to be talking about with your lieutenant sat right there. But then you figured that Simon needed some friends. And what was a better way to make friends than through some old-fashioned gossip?

"Late nights as work. Going to the gym a lot. He's not getting any fitter either."

You winced. "Ah, well that is quite damning."

"Yeah. I'm trying to build up the courage to just ask him about it."

"Yeah, confront him. If he's cheating then come to me. I know how to use a gun and hide a body." You winked at her.

"Sergeant." Simon's warning tone came from beside you.

"I'm kidding, lieutenant." You looked to your friend again and mouthed. "I'm not."

Another one of your friends spoke up, leaning on the table on his elbows. "God, you guys are so formal. Even during leave."

"We don't have to be. He refuses to call me anything other than sergeant. I think it's because he secretly doesn't know my name." You nudged Simon with your elbow and then, realising what you'd done, pulled back quickly. Maybe taking a break from the drink would be a good idea for a while.

"Not true." Ghost shook his head slowly.

"So you claim. Yet you've yet to refer to me as anything other than sergeant."

"It's fun watching you squirm thinking you have to be on your best behaviour all the time." He sent you a sly smirk, his eyes squinting just the tiniest bit.

Your jaw dropped. "I'm asking Price to reassign me. This is bullying."

"Wouldn't let Price do it." He countered, leaning in dangerously close.

"Who's Price?"

The both of you pulled back at the question and answered simultaneously. "Captain."

"Ah, okay. The one with the mutton chops, right?" One friend offered.

You nodded. "Right."

Simon huffed. "That's what you told them about Price?"

"It's his best feature."

"Christ, woman." He groaned, rubbing a hand across his face.

"Ooh, woman's a new one."

A friend volunteered in your defence. "To be fair, she's not allowed to tell us much. She usually gives us one identifying feature of every person she tells us about. So we can keep up."

"I'm assuming Soap is the fact that he's Scottish."

"Scottish with Mohawk. He gets two."

"What's Gaz?"

"Baby of the team."

"Fitting. Me?"

You stayed silent.

"What is it?"

You shook your head. "Can't say. Classified."

"Sergeant." His voice was harsh, demanding.

But you weren’t going to give in. "Lieutenant."

"I won't be insulted." His voice dropped to its familiar bored tone, as if trying to force the idea that it wouldn’t bother him.

That’s not what concerned you however. "Don't think you would be."

"Then why can't you tell me?”

"Just can't." Stellar reasoning, well done.

"I could ask them." He tilted his head in the direction of your friends, who were all watching you completely enraptured.

You didn’t back down, stare hardening at him. "Go ahead."

"Fine." He turned to the table. "What's my identifying feature?"

There was a moment of silence before someone gave in and admitted it. Traitors. "You don't have one."

There was a split second of delay before he replied. "She doesn't talk about me then?"

"Quite the opposite actually." One of your friends giggled.

Another stepped in. "Talks about you sooo much that you don't need an identifying feature. Just know who her lieutenant is."

"Besides, apparently you usually wear a mask. You have no features."

A raised finger of a counterpoint. "Arguably, the mask is the feature."

Ghost turned to you, almost smug. "You talk about me, sergeant?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Simon. You're good at what you do. I can appreciate that." You sniffed, rolling your shoulders back to force yourself to relax.

"Out loud? With your friends?"

You shot him an irritated look. "Get over yourself."

"Didn't say anything."

You clicked your tongue against the roof of your mouth. "I know what you're thinking."

"I'm sure you do." He exhaled deeply, glancing away from you towards his drink.

Your own gaze moved back towards everyone else around the table. "Moving on! What else is happening with you guys?"

"Saw your parents a couple days ago. They said they didn't know you were home."

Well, that wasn’t the jollier topic you hoped to move on to.

A fake smile automatically set itself on your face at the mention of your family. "Fuck. What did you say?"

"Lied for you and said you only just got back. Might want to call them."

"I will do that. At some point.” Lie, lie, lie.

"Mhm, your sister had another baby as well. That's what? The fourth niece or nephew you haven't met?" There was a note of condescension in your friend’s voice.

You shrugged, knowing you had a decent enough reason. If your job counted as decent. "I've been busy. And it's only the second."

"We're not judging. Your parents might be though."

"Well, that's lovely to know." You slouched down in your seat. The relationship with your parents was… touchy, to say the least. Desperately seeking their approval for years had left the bond with them strained. And you being away from home so often definitely hadn’t helped the rockiness of it all.

"Also they seem convinced that you've met a military man and are going to come home engaged or married..."

Your face scrunched in disgust. "Oh, ew. What the fuck?"

Simon elbowed you harshly in the ribs. "We're not that bad."

"Share a bunk with Soap and come back to me on that." You snapped back. Your fellow sergeant was a snorer who regularly farted in his sleep. He was like your brother but man did you hate having to sleep in close proximity to him.

"Fair point.” He grumbled back to you. “But why are they under that impression?"

"They know I don't date civilians."

"Or anyone." One of your friends mumbled in her drink.

"Thank you.” You sent her a sarcastic smile. “So they think I'm after a man in uniform."

"Aren't you?" The same friend asked.

You closed your eyes and clenched your jaw. "In... theory."

"Not in practice though." She carried on, loving the way you were squirming.

"We know not in practice, okay? Doesn't need to be said aloud.” You spared a glance at the man beside you before adding a harsh whisper. “Especially in front of my lieutenant."

"I'm sure Simon is loving this."

"It comes with the job. Family troubles and no love life." He offered some of your words back to you from earlier, shrugging. You were glad of the support from him, even if it was only your own thoughts.

"You got any friends for her Simon? Anyone on the team you think she'd be good with?"

He shook his head. "Nah, not good enough for her."

Wait, what? Not good enough? For you? Since when did he have such a high opinion of you?

A friend of yours cooed. "That's sweet. If it helps, she's great in the sack."

You choked on the mouthful of drink you were taking, slamming your glass back down. "And how exactly would you know that?!"

"I shared a house with you in uni, babes. I remember all those guys coming out of your room with dazed smiles looking as if they'd just had the time of their life." She grinned at you slyly.

Eyes wide. Jaw dropped. Heart racing. "Oh, my god. Please shut up."

"You asked."

"I didn't need such a detailed answer!” You were ignored.

"Although you may be quite rusty at the moment. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

You covered your face with your hands. "For the love of everything that is good in this world, please be quiet."

"I'm just saying. We're all friends here, aren't we?" She laughed, mainly gesturing towards your higher up.

"He's my lieutenant!"

"Wait, Simon, are you single?"

You cut in before it could go any further. "Nope! Okay! So... sister? Baby. Parents? Delusional. What else?"

Everyone around the table chuckled at your reaction but moved on anyway, much to your relief.

"They're hoping you’re home for Christmas this year."

Your hand tightened around your drink. "I hope I'm not."

"Thought you'd say that."

Paying little attention to what your friend actually said, you mumbled to yourself. "That's fucking ridiculous of them. What the actual fuck?"

"We said the same." Mumbled loud enough for them to overhear apparently.

Simon looked confused. "What's the issue there?"

You failed to answer so someone else did for you. "They uninvited her to Christmas three years ago. Hasn't been back since."

"Why would they do that?"

"Didn't approve of her lifestyle."

He turned to you. "Your... lifestyle?"

"Murderer daughter." You bit back, bitterly.

His body tightened with tension. "You're not a murderer."

"Tell them that." You snorted. "Why do they want me home now?"

"Beats us.” Your friends said in weird unison.

"Wish they'd make their mind up over whether they want to disown me or not. It's exhausting trying to keep up."

The table laughed at that. Simon did not. But did he laugh at anything?

“I’m gonna get another drink. Want one?” He looked down at you, pointing vaguely at your almost empty glass.

“Uhh… sure. Thanks.” You smiled at him, which he obviously didn’t return. After briefly asking everyone else if they wanted anything, which they declined, he stalked off in the direction of the bar.

Once he was a few paces away, one of your friends practically launched herself halfway across the table and lowered her voice to a hushed whisper. "He's gorgeous, babes."

You decided to play coy. "You think?"

"You don't?" Her brow was raised in disbelieving accusation.

The coy act was dropped pretty quickly. "Oh, I know he is. Just didn't think you would."

"Well, I do. And he’s definitely your type, absolutely perfect for you. Plus he so likes you."

You scoffed. "No, he doesn't."

"He fancies the pants off of you!" She insisted.

You didn’t buy it. "I can guarantee that he does not."

"He can't take his eyes off you!"

"He has a staring problem." You shrugged, it was true.

"Yeah, the problem is that he can't stop staring at you."

You thought about it. Yeah, he stared at you a lot. But he stared at everything. Didn't mean he stared at you with... feelings or whatever your friends were implying. Just that he had a staring problem.

"Lieutenant Simon Riley does not like me." It was a finalised statement, one that you believed wholeheartedly.

"Open your eyes, babes. He likes you."

"Do you like him?"

Avoid answering. "Not allowed to like him. He's my lieutenant."

"That doesn't answer our question."

Shit.

"Maybe a little." You pinched your fingers together, there was no point lying to them, and shook your head. "Doesn't matter anyway."

"Why?"

"Because, say he did like me, he'd never admit it. And I'm not going to push him into anything. I'm just glad he's talking to me and accepting my attempt at us being friends." That was true. You were loving how he wasn’t completely rejecting your friendship. He maybe wasn’t embracing it but he wasn’t pushing you away either.

"That's so sad, babes."

"Cheers.” You deadpanned. “It can't happen anyway."

"Why not?"

"Relationships aren't allowed. Makes us a liability. My captain would reassign one of us as soon as he caught wind of it. And it would be me." The thought of Price reassigning you was horrid. You loved your team more than anything.

"Simon said he wouldn't let your captain reassign you."

That was true, he did. "He was joking... I think."

"I don't think he was. That man stares at you like he's ready to eat you. It's like listening to Hungry Eyes by Eric Carmen in real life!"

Groan. "You watched Dirty Dancing again, didn't you?"

"Yes, but that's not the point. The point is that Simon looks at you with hungry eyes. And don't judge my love for Dirty Dancing." Two of your friends nodded in agreement with her.

"I'm not. I'm judging your favourite song choice when Love Is Strange by Mickey and Sylvia is clearly the superior song on the soundtrack." You said as you downed the last bit of your drink, thankful Simon was bringing you another one. Your mouth was dry and the initial buzz was wearing off. You’d need more alcohol if this interrogation was going to continue despite it probably not being the best idea.

"Blasphemy!” She declared before quietening herself. “Oop, we gotta be quiet now because he's coming back over. Simon!"

He froze in his tracks, a glass clasped in each large hand. "Yes?"

"Can you settle a debate for us?"

You froze too, wide-eyed. They weren't going to ask about him staring at you, were they?

"Sure...?"

You smiled at his unsure tone. Big, scary man who got shot at for a living was terrified of answering a little question.

"You've seen Dirty Dancing, yeah?"

You relaxed.

"I have."

Surprising.

"Which is a better song? Hungry Eyes or Love Is Strange?"

"Oh, I... uh-"

"Leave the poor man alone." You laughed despite being a little curious about his music taste.

"I always liked She's Like the Wind."

That shocked you to your core. "Patrick Swayze fan?"

"Used to have a mullet just like his." He placed your drink in front of you. "Here you go. You look surprised."

"I always am when you don't disappear. And when you admit to being a Patrick Swayze fan." You snorted, taking the drink from him.

"Learn to have a little faith, Sarge." He sighed as he sat down next to you again, an inch closer than before you were sure.

A burning feeling settled in your chest at the nickname. Sure, it was only a shortened version of your rank, and a common one at that, but it was something. Not sergeant. Not woman. Sarge. You decided to let it slide to see if he’d ever do it again of his own accord.

"Your name's Ghost for a reason." You sing-songed, the image of his mask flashing through your mind.

"I'll give you that. But remember, Simon here."

"Still weird."

"Still Simon."

You chewed the inside of your bottom lip before asking your next question. "Patrick Swayze?"

"He was blond."

"Like you, you mean?"

Hesitation. "Yeah."

You hummed and thought about him with a mullet. What an odd thing to admit to you. But you’d never complain. If Simon was willing to offer you little tidbits of silly information about himself, then you were going to absorb every single one and treasure them forever.

A/N: Simon with a mullet as a teen because he wanted to be Patrick Swayze when he grew up is canon to me now.

#simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #ghost riley x reader #ghost riley x you #ghost x reader #ghost x you #simon ghost riley #simon riley #ghost #simon ghost riley fanfiction #ghost riley #ghost riley fanfiction #simon riley fanfiction #call of duty #modern warfare #modern warfare 2 #ej’s fics #ej’s writing

[spindlewoed]

You have to understand. I don't "ship" Harry with the smoker on the balcony, I think whatever they have going on canonically is way funnier and touching than anything anyone could come up with.

There is so much within the dynamic itself. It’s a middle aged man and a younger man who are nothing alike and everything like each other. It’s the smoker being the person that kickstarts Harry’s sexuality journey anew, seeing Harry’s fascination with him and being amused by it because (aside from Harry being probably the first man in a while who’s managed to leave him dumbfounded in a positive way) the smoker *knows* what’s happening in Harry’s mind and as he puts it, it’s beautiful.

Don't get me wrong, the mutual attraction is there. The smoker flirts with Harry every other two lines (girl why the fuck are you flirting with a cop you're insane. I'm obsessed with you) yet makes fun of him in the same breath while Harry is absolutely clueless the whole time because he's too busy staring at his abs. Couldn't come up with anything funnier if I tried.

I love this high drama check, this is exaclty what it feels like to speak to clueless boomers who have no idea what they're talking about. Still, once Harry admits that he might be part of the "underground" as he puts it, the smoker is immediately excited and encourages him to think about it. It's very sweet.

(I know everyone has probably seen this dialogue 100 times by now but I love the phrasing here. literally twink_boutta_pounce.jpeg)

And as a side note I really like this emphaty check in response to Harry's little breakdown after the failed suggestion check the first time you meet him. The smoker like damn he just like me fr.

I don't think more smoker interactions were needed at all or that they would ever talk again post-game but it's interesting to think about what other converations they could have, even just so we could learn a bit more about him. They both have an interest in art. They're both stuck in a place they can't leave if they wanted to and yet find beauty in it, they both have regrets about past relationships. They both find talking with the other a charming experience in a way or another. If I want to be indulgent, they both could benefit from learning about what being gay means for a younger/older generation, especially since they both have such different life experiences with their identities.

It's all fanfic talk, and obviously no cops at pride and so on but their interactions did make me think about community and recognition through the other. A flirt for the sake of a flirt, a “maybe in another lifetime” but this lifetime is good too because they did meet and leave an impression on each other before parting ways. That's *beautiful* too.

#disco elysium #smoker on the balcony #harry du bois #they can boink too if you want them to I support you. honestly good for them #but overall I do think about the greater scope of their dynamic it's just. it's nice. #de meta #don't know where else to put this other observation but it's fun to look at how the smoker is framed from Harry's POV #I can't give specific examples bc it's basically all over the pov narration when talking to him #but it feels very femme fatale in a noir detective novel. it’s very refreshing to see that portrayed as a twink idk. I liked that detail #I mean you could argue that klassje is more of the femme fatale of the game and I’d agree with you #but harry’s bi he can have two of them. as a treat

[alicerosejensen]

Something about sin. Pt.3

Warning: Age difference, Older!Leon, Reader daughter of another DSO agent, fem.reader, mention of sex, guilt.

A/N: The penultimate part. The second part was chaotic and probably the weakest, but it is what it is. I’m still trying to overcome my chronic fatigue and constant apathy, so if it’s not difficult for you, please write a few kind words if you liked this text.

I still decided that there would be four parts instead of three. The final chapter will probably be smaller in volume, but it will have a lot of dialogues and the resolution of the conflict itself, so I decided that it would be better to write it separately and not in one large text.

Once again, I apologize for the delay in publication, but sometimes our health fails us all.

Part 1

Part 2

And he would burn in hell for all the lust he feels for this lost innocent soul.

Your father would never forgive him for this, just as Leon will not forgive himself for having you in his arms. Albeit of his own free will, but getting out of bed, going to the bath and rinsing his face with cold water, Leon prefers to take all the blame on himself. You are innocent... you were innocent and he stretched out his dirty hands to you, put you into his bed three months after that kiss in the barn and, no matter how disgusting it may sound, slept with you.

The most tender, most precious girl he's ever had of all, he knows that he would have made the same decision every time if God had brought him back to the day he kissed you, allowing himself to desire you. That's why it's nice to come back to bed with you, even if it's soul-destroying from himself.

You destroyed him thoroughly.

You are his sin, a sweet obsession and a mad desire designed to crush all the little that he has managed to build in his hectic life. You mock him, tear him apart so that he pursues you and falls into this sinful ocean of passion without regrets. And Leon can't do anything to himself. He was older than you, almost twice as old, well, that was fine with you. The feeling of comfort and security never left while Leon was around, as if it was something you needed all your life. As he lay back in bed, he replayed your dialogue in his head. It's one thing to kiss while muffling the egregious voice in his own head that it's not worth it, and it's completely another to insert dick into his friend's daughter.

Leon was the first in every way for you and he understood it perfectly without words. It's not that your dad forbade you to date boys, but maybe your father's attention really wasn't enough if you reciprocated his feelings?

"I could be your father… Your father and I are the same age…"

"But still, you're not my father," you smiled then, begging him with puppy eyes to teach you love and move on to something more than ordinary kisses, which of course you were crazy about, but you want to understand what it's like to be with someone you love, even if he's much older than you.

You promised him that you were ready for more, for a new stage, and Leon continued to feel as if he was seducing a young girl, doing something dirty and vicious with you, something against your will. This, of course, was not the case, but the anxiety did not go away. Asking to think about this decision, to weigh everything, led nowhere, and in the end everything happened.

"Are you sure you want this?; Are you sure?; we can stop, sweetie, at any time you want"

His voice, saturated with anxiety, accompanied you throughout your first sex with him, and it was never as described in the books... however, this was not surprising and you knew very well that what is on the pages and in films differs greatly in real life. And yet, it's good that you got Leon and not someone else, because he took care of your feelings, trying to prepare you in such a way as to reduce all discomfort to a minimum: gentle kisses, a prepared bottle of lubricant, long intimacy , careful touches. All his movements were careful and together with you, he essentially got to know your body, trying to help you and himself understand what you would like in sex. he allowed you to touch him, showed how he liked it, smiling, kissing you on the corner of your lips, seeing the embarrassment on your beautiful face.

"My dear, do you remember?" his reminders constantly sounded while his thumb caressed your swollen clit with round movements, "I will stop as soon as you say"

How could you forget? Leon was catching every emotion on your face, afraid to catch the pain, but it was good for you. It's better than if it was a guy your age who didn't give a damn about you. Leon was doing everything right, but he was still a monster in his head. You liked it. There was no blood, none of the things your friends used to scare you with, but you didn't see the stars in the sky either, no matter how funny it sounded. Just because it was the first time and yet Leon left almost a thousand kisses on your face before and after sex. He took you to the shower, gently ran a sponge over your body, washing away all traces of intimacy, wrapped you in a towel and put you back to bed, not forgetting to bring a glass of water. You were sitting on his bed and the man's hands were firmly holding you by the waist while he weightlessly touched the bridge of your nose with his lips asking about your well-being. You could joke that you really feel a little unwell after sex, but seeing your lover's panic, it would be wise not to play him like that, otherwise this could be your first and last sex with him.

"I don't regret it," you said, hoping that it would take some weight off his shoulders.

Leon reassured himself that even if nothing came of this relationship, at least your first man was the one who took care of you and did not run away the next morning, managing to tell his friends about the new notch on bedpost.

.. But yes, now if your father finds out that you've been fucked, then a fist in the nose will be the most merciful thing Leon can ever get. Most likely, it will be an explosion of epic proportions and a shootout worse than Hollywood action movies. What should it tell him? "Buddy, but we can still drink beer and watch football, it's just that now I'm still sleeping with your daughter, whom you've been caring for and cherishing all his life?" This is shit, not an explanation. If his friend had once confessed to him that he was sleeping with HIS daughter, Leon would have killed the bastard and disposed of the corpse so that no evidence would be found. That's just that he is now the main culprit, and he does not want to leave your life when such a charming angel sleeps next to him in bed.

Leon doesn’t want to leave you, but he himself has no idea what outcome his actions will lead to. Hugging and pulling your body while you sleep, he kisses the back of your head, sincerely hoping that you won’t regret what happened between you, that you won’t cry in the morning, calling everything a mistake, but the devil is not as terrible as he is imagined...

A sound sleep was interrupted by caring strokes and soft kisses, although he is not a handsome prince, but he still got a sleeping beauty and it seems that the only thing you were unhappy with sitting with him at the kitchen table was that Leon woke you up too early. Like a gloomy owl with disheveled hair, you try to focus your gaze on coffee and not fall asleep while he says something and you ignore all his speeches until your name is called.

"Did you heard what I said?" and you honestly nod your head negatively to a heavy male sigh.

Trouble obviously doesn't come alone, fortunately you don't cry or curse him, instead you just snuggle up to his back and pull him back into the bedroom to sleep an extra couple of hours with him in your arms like the whole last night.

He was a good man. Not ideal, with his own problems, fears, experiences, but still he continued to care about you more than about himself, so he carefully turned to face you, hugging you, starting to gently rock you to the sides, burying his nose in the top of your head.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked still anxiously.

"All was good"

With Leon you could relax and trust him, last night he was perfectly prepared and constantly asked if you could continue or if he should stop, and you know that if you said yes, he would immediately end everything without caring about his feelings. The main thing is you! As a result, he treats you like a princess all day long, taking care of you. He even volunteered to comb your hair, which now smelled like his shampoo, and while Leon was fiddling with the comb, at the same time remembering the jokes that your father loves so much, you just laughed and enjoyed the complete adoration of his person.

“I’ll order food for us, and you relax on the couch. Choose the movie you want.”

Not surprisingly, Leon doesn’t know how to cook, he doesn’t have much time to improve this skill, but you don’t expect him to pick you up in his arms and put you on this very sofa, covering your legs with a blanket and handing you the TV remote control. Another girl obviously wouldn’t like it, but not you, although you didn’t feel helpless. There was some discomfort, but nothing scary or that would require consulting a doctor. As a result, the two of you spent another day lying cuddled on the couch, eating pizza, watching, flipping through channels and discussing various things. Despite the age difference, there was no feeling that Leon was some kind of ancient old man walking around with an ancient push-button telephone (although you assured him that there was nothing wrong with that). He smiled, playfully flicking you on the nose and it seems he even exhaled and came to reconciliation with his inner voice, but exactly until the moment when your father called.

And conscience woke up again.

He protected you, he didn't hurt you and took good care of you, Leon is ready as a faithful doggie to accept any thing you ask him, because he is...

It's worth admitting to yourself that this is not an affair because if Leon just wanted to sleep with someone, he went to a bar and found someone who wouldn't mind spending the night with him, and you are something more. He wants to cherish you and shower kisses on your face while you're lying serenely on his couch watching the show. A good excuse for the conscience that was gnawing into his brain and telling him that he was an ordinary son of a bitch, screaming: "Look, you took advantage of the poor girl's naivety. The daughter of your friend who supported you after China! How well did you repay his kindness by dragging his favorite daughter into bed!"

The phone rang but couldn't find the strength to answer.

You asked if everything was okay, to which Leon sighs and answers yes, asking not to worry. And then he gave you his sweater and you curled up next to him and fell asleep without caring about anything, because the thunderstorm with lightning no longer scared you both. And Leon really slept well for the first time in a long time, hugging you to his chest, knowing that when he wakes up he will find you where you fell asleep - with him.

No more notes with lipstick marks or paper airplanes on the nearby pillow. Besides, it’s so nice when you snuggle up to him at night, trying to hug him. Leon allows it. Your hands are much warmer. this makes him fall out of reality when he turns to you, wrapping a blanket around your body and pressing you to him so that you don’t freeze. It can rain outside as long as you like, his phone can ring off the hook with calls all night long, but his lips will still find yours and kiss you tenderly.

The forbidden fruit is very sweet.

For the first time in years, the government agent felt like he had something to treasure. Sometimes he envied your father for the fact that he could return to a cozy home where his beloved wife and daughter were always waiting for him, eat delicious home-cooked food and sleep in bed with his loved one. Not much is needed for happiness, according to Leon, and he would also like to receive this gift. But probably for you it's all just an affair. For children, you are young and he himself is not trying to knock you up. Besides, marriage is a matter that should be approached wisely, and neither you nor Leon are fools, so he doesn’t even console himself with the hope of a future together.

As a matter of fact, the matter is rubbish and Kennedy should not have put you to bed at all. How can he look your father in the eyes after what happened? And you? so Leon again does an even more disgusting thing - he ignores you.

You wrote him several messages, called him a couple of times, but the calls went unanswered, he didn’t even send a tiny message like “Sorry, work. I’ll call you later” or “I’ll call you when I’m free.” Yes, he could at least write something and not remain silent like a fuckboy who fucked half of the college! But you are not intruding, no, but this does not mean that you are not offended and you do not feel that you were simply used. For many months you felt this beautiful love for him, afraid to show it, but when the miracle happened, it turned out that the gingerbread house was not so sweet.

It was a complete failure, which brought you to tears, although you didn’t pester him with calls and messages because you didn’t want to look stupid, like the girls from high school who were chasing guys around. There should still be pride, but do you really have to pretend now that nothing happened between you? Actually, it wasn’t even that bad, right? he looked after you and didn’t throw you out of his apartment after sex; he was sweet and gentle, but no matter how hard you tried to convince yourself of this, the resentment still stuck like a bone in your throat.

Therefore, you locked yourself in a room and did not leave it for hours, and to all the requests of your parents you answered one thing "I feel not well", of course you managed to slip unnoticed into the toilet, but if your father saw this terribly swollen face from tears, then his weapon, which was always hidden from you when you were still a child, risked shooting someone- something in the balls, if your dad found out that the reason was a guy.

Although it would be more correct to say an adult man.

But your nightly sobs did not go unnoticed, and in the end, your dad really wanted to kick someone's ass because his babygirl was constantly crying due to a broken heart.

“If he somehow offended you, just tell me,” he asks, stroking your back soothingly, and you can’t even squeeze out a word, just cry. "And this little piece of shit will remember that he can’t offend my girl."

Your father’s words made you laugh through your tears and calm down a little. Although you were still terribly swollen with a huge nose from which snot flowed every now and then, thanks to the support of your close person, life no longer seems so spoiled. However, no matter how your dad tried to find out the name, you didn’t tell him anything about Leon.

After a couple of weeks, you were even able to calm down and have fun with friends, but still the image of Kennedy kept popping up in your head, haunting you both in your dreams and in reality, despite all your attempts to distract yourself. He never left you a single message, thereby forcing you to draw conclusions.

Your college classes will begin in the fall, so there is not much time left to rest, so you decided to make the most of the rest of the summer, but returning home you clearly hear the sound of cleaning weapons and a painfully familiar voice that raises a wave of anxiety in chest.

"...I swear to God I'll find out who this asshole, Leon." Your heart tries to jump out of your chest when you press your ear to the door of your father’s room where he keeps a gun and other things that are not for your eyes. Leon himself almost doesn’t answer and you honestly don’t even want to face him anymore because the resentment still bites painfully into your throat making your eyes water.

It's not good to eavesdrop, but what could you do with yourself? Part of you hoped that he felt at least some guilt for treating you so badly.

“He’s such an asshole...” Leon says quietly in an unnatural voice. "Definitely deserved the bullet"

Maybe he didn't deserve a bullet after all, your heart is not so cruel as to wish him dead, but you could slap him in the face, although you don't want to see him at all, so carefully moving away from the door, go upstairs to your room and lock yourself in it again hoping that Leon will leave before you get hungry. It took about two hours before stomach growled for food. A bar of chocolate in purse briefly saved the situation, which caused an almost opera orchestra of an empty stomach to resound throughout the room. As luck would have it, a delicious aroma came from the kitchen from below, from which wings almost literally grew behind your back and you flew down to try this freshly baked pasta. Your mom called you to the table a couple of times, but it looks like Leon didn't go anywhere, once again staying at dinner with your family, and how the hell did he end up in the same room with him?!

But you can't tell them that Leon is the guy who dumped you after the first sex.

Therefore, it went downstairs and met his guilty gaze. You didn't say a word to each other at dinner, although Leon asked neutral questions like are you okay? It's a shitty question, actually, and your want to throw this plate at his head so Leon's answer is a simple nod.

Your parents are sure it's about the boy who broke their daughter's heart, but they don't know that this "boy" is right in front of them. That makes Leon even more sick of himself, but what happened was clearly a mistake.

He had no right to drag a young girl into his bed, he had no right to touch you at all, and yet the vicious feeling turned out to be stronger than the mind. And yet Leon thinks you can easily overcome your first crush, because no matter how you look at it, this relationship is hopeless. He will not be able to marry you, will not create a family and the people around him will always condemn and most of their sidelong glances will be directed at you. Damn, your dad took out a loan so you could go to the college of your dreams and fall in love with someone like him, the worst possible idea.

"She'll find a better boyfriend in college," Leon said to your father that afternoon. Although he wanted to bite his tongue, because he didn't want to give you to some brat at all, but his mind kept saying that it would be the right thing to do. You deserve a quiet life, and everyone Leon gets attached to sooner or later leaves. Therefore, this time he decided to leave first. And yet he really acted no better than any jerk when he ignored you and your messages.

Dinner passed in tense silence. Your appetite disappeared and a piece wouldn’t go down your throat, which is why you offered to help your mom put the leftover food into the refrigerator, at the same time running away from Leon because tears were running down your cheeks by themselves. Standing in the kitchen, washing the dirty dishes, you were drowned in your thoughts, realizing that you were again sliding into the deep bottom of self-torture, because of this you did not hear the steps behind you, shuddering in surprise when Leon’s hands carefully placed them on your waist.

"Forgive me" It seems that he himself does not know how to choose the right words, but takes his hands away from you, looking around so that your parents do not hear this conversation "I know I acted like an asshole, but it's not going to work. It's wrong, God, you're old enough to be my daughter, and I don't know what I was thinking when I was doing this with you.

You're silent, turning away from him, continuing to wash the poor plate, and Leon is ready to swear that your silence is a hundred times worse than if you were yelling at him.

"You're so young, good, please... Sweetie, I didn't mean to offend you. Trust me, this was never part of my plans, and when your father told me how you cried all night long... It will pass. You'll find yourself a good guy of the same age, well, maybe he'll be a little older than you by two years or maybe three, well, certainly not more than fifteen years."

You are silent again, putting down a clean plate and starting on another one, standing with your back to him.

"This is the first love... And I gave up on myself. You're a wonderful girl..."

"Is it my age?" You rudely interrupt him: "Am I not experienced enough or am I just disgusting to you?"

Finally you turn around turning off the water with your arms crossed over your chest. But God no, that's not what he meant! If he had his way... if it's not the damn framework that Leon mostly pushes himself into, then he won't admit to himself, but he wants there to be no more men in your life besides him. In an intimate way.

"No, God, no, your inexperience has nothing to do with it at all!" he says and immediately tries to take a deep breath, looking around seeing the shadows of your parents, realizing that he chose the wrong place and time to clarify the relationship. "I mean, I can't give you what you want. Honey, at my age, I can seduce a young girl only with my unlimited account card, but you... You need attention, love and care. You see how often your father is away from home and I'm there even less often. Besides, you still don't understand that it won't lead to anything, it's falling in love, butterflies in your stomach, what else is there... euphoria? Please don't think that the world has come together like a wedge on me. Believe me, I'm the most lame option."

"Is it still about age?" Through a lump in your throat, you said softly, "Not old enough for you? "

"I'm too old for you"

It sounded like a sledgehammer had fallen on your head. You let out a shuddering sigh, turning away from him again, because in fact, in your opinion, there is nothing wrong with this relationship. You are not a teenager, some of your age may even have children, and sometimes such a thought has slipped through your mind. Only after graduation, not before. Leon claims that it's just falling in love, but it feels like he's trying to convince himself of this and yet it's very difficult for you to say anything to him right now. The moment is really unfortunate.

“It’s not fair” you turned away, not knowing what else to say to him.

In essence, his argument sounded like a stupid excuse to get rid of an annoying fan while remaining noble. The aftertaste of his words nevertheless remains disgusting.

Of course, you won’t complain to daddy, but your soul was becoming more and more lousy as it seemed that this was the same love that was breaking to the core. It’s as if all the bright colors have disappeared from life, leaving only shades of black and gray without a single hint of joy. Perhaps in a few years this will be perceived as stupidity, but what matters is how you feel now. And this is a piercing, gut-wrenching pain. For several months he flirted, cared, made it clear that this was not a game and that everything was serious for him, but the truth turned out to be too cruel.

Your mother comes in exactly at the moment when you can barely restrain yourself from bursting into tears again at the top of your voice, and she perfectly sees this expression on your face. And it’s obvious that you give up, running to your room, leaving the dishes unwashed, so that you can lock yourself in the room again and not leave there for days on end.

Everyone has their own truth. Leon thought that he escaped with less bloodshed and that you were prudent enough not to make stupid mistakes. Because of his actions, many people have already died and if he finds out that you did something to yourself...

Fortunately, your father just thinks that Leon has found the wrong words of comfort, and this is the reason for lying in bed all day because of your lack of desire to do anything at all right now. When your brain becomes a little clearer after several cycles of sleep alternating with insomnia, it eventually requires you to shift your attention to something other than Leon. In fact, the idea of watching The Lord of the Rings is not the worst, although your father was worried that you would withdraw into yourself again after seeing Aragorn and Arwen break up, involuntarily comparing them to yourself, but nothing terrible happened. You just watched TV, even sometimes smiled at some moments, and then fell asleep, and no one dared to disturb your already light sleep.

“Leon shouldn’t have opened this wound. I shouldn’t have asked him to talk to you.”

Your father confessed in the end, feeling guilty for your next relapse of tears. You sigh and at some point you even want to confess everything to him, clutching the corner of the blanket while you and dad watch the movie together, but you change your mind.

It's probably better not to know the whole truth, because if it comes out, then Armageddon will be.

But maybe Leon is right and this is just falling in love, which you just need to get over, despite the fact that it’s not easy.

Kennedy also disappeared from everyone's radar, appearing only at work. However, he still couldn’t concentrate on reports and training; instead of important thoughts, only you and your tear-stained eyes were spinning in his head. He wanted to console you, to tell you that he was wrong, although he told himself the opposite. The decision that he made, Leon considered truly true and correct, but for some reason everything inside him spoke of the opposite, so the only way to feel sorry for himself, he chose alcohol.

It was like a slow death. Being away from a loved one without being able to even touch. Why not agony? every burning sip of alcohol drew your face in front of his eyes and the desire to get lost with you in the world so that both would never be found was something painfully new for Leon.

He will burn in the fire, but you will remain the peak that he cannot reach. Like a fucking drug that he became addicted to and the pain of withdrawal seems to be many times stronger than the one when Ada left him. He desperately needs to get back to you, to his beloved girlfriend, and just be there for you. But it's so wrong. He didn't give a damn about sex… The hated job sucks all the life juices out of him, so the only thing he wants to do after returning home is to get into a hot shower, washing away blood, dirt and guts. He would have taught you everything, explored boundaries together, guided you… It's not such a big problem, considering how attracted you are to him, and not only in an erotic way. Leon just wants to fall asleep with you, hugging you to him. Listening to the chatter and making these stupid jokes that annoy everyone, but at least you were smiling.

Without you, he's drowning in this sea again.

Let this world be so cruel, but it continues to love you with all its soul, therefore it is ready to sacrifice everything without regret and protect you to the end. Every moment with you was colorful, but with his decision, Leon brought everything back to normal, afraid to be happy. At least Chris said something like that to him when she saw that he was drowning himself in alcohol again. These words made Leon curl his lips in an almost malicious smile, snarling because Redfield didn't know how old you were. If he confessed, he would get something like, "Well, it's just lust." Maybe even reminded him of Ada Wong and how Leon was ready to shoot to save this woman.

But life was filled with meaning only when he was with you and not with Ada. He no longer needs a senseless race after each other when he finally managed to bite into a piece of that life where he is loved and expected.

"I have no future with her, Redfield!" he barked, pouring more whiskey into a glass. "My little American dream of a pretty wife, two children and a white picket fence will not come true."

In fact, Leon would be glad to have you alone in his life. He wants too much, although what is available to ordinary people, Leon is fully aware that he has long lost the right to have it. Your father was not afraid to start a family and you, he loves to talk about what pranks you did in childhood and how you sometimes scared your parents by doing something stupid. The usual parental care. Leon thinks that if he were an officer in Raccoon City, as he dreamed, then now he would also be chatting with some cop about what his children are doing.

Eventually, the sand castle built in the head collapsed immediately.

Where is HIS happy "together and forever"? Obviously in another universe, because in this one he still understands that an old jerk with an alcohol problem and an endless sense of guilt clearly shouldn't bother a young girl without experience.

In fact, he's not such a scumbag as to ruin your life. It's better to be a bad experience than an asshole partner who is also never around.

But you're still as beautiful as the day he met you. However, now you keep your distance from each other, which makes the pain of parting remind you how difficult it is without him. Naively, you drew a too unrealistic picture in your head about this relationship and for some reason you still believe in it, hoping for a fairy tale with a happy ending. From that, you constantly look at Leon with a long piercing look that is literally soaked with a plea to take you back.

You could shout, "Look, I'm aware of my choice! And that's you," but sometimes I wondered if he needed you.

After all, Leon deliberately tore up the little that you recreated with him, preferring to go his own way through life alone.

He doesn't talk to you and has kept communication with your father to a minimum due to the inability to look him in the eye. In fact, Leon really wants to get some kind of punishment for what he did to you, for being so dirty and dishonest, and yet like a puppy, he almost whines wishing that it was you who loved him. Maybe there would be another woman who could heal his mental wounds and the question of age would not be so acute, but Leon does not let anyone get too close to him. Sometimes Ada still comes and he honestly tries to find solace in her, sometimes it even works, but his medicine for longing has too short an effect and a new dose is too difficult to find…

Although he knows where you live, what position you like to sleep in, what kind of music you listen to and all that…

On very difficult days, the hand reaches out to read those sent messages. Flipping through the correspondence in the chat, going back to the very beginning when there was no question of any relationship, when you still just considered him just a colleague of your father but already sent something funny, which made a smile appear on his face by itself.

You haven't written to him for about two months, although the impulses to start scribbling message after message still do not leave, but if before it was a cry of the soul for the way he treated you, now you are ready to literally beg him to give you a chance. Yes, you're young, you're still studying, but you don't demand marriage and children from him right away. And besides, you already have all the rights to make decisions for yourself, even if sometimes they are thoughtless and you still need parental help because of your age. But everything comes with age, right? No one starts walking right after birth and you think you have the right to make mistakes and learn from them, so if Leon turns out to be one of them, then you will face the consequences yourself.

You wanted to write something like this to him, but you constantly deleted the printed lines and wrote again, unable to find the strength to send it to him.

Courage came and went at the most inopportune moment, giving way to doubt and low self-esteem. And yet it was he who kissed you first in the barn, gave you expensive gifts and courted you like a man and not like a brat. Seriously, you don't even pay attention to guys your age, focusing only on one man who was killing his liver and psyche. Of course, there is a high probability that in five years or so you will want to go back in time and hit yourself on the head, but nevertheless it will be later. Only in the possible future, but for now, slowly walking through the wet streets of the city under an umbrella, you slowly wander to a familiar apartment, trying to keep your courage in your fists and not let it escape. It gets too wet on the streets, and it's cool, which makes your palms get cold, but still, gathering your courage, you knock on the door of an apartment in the city center.

The knocking is too quiet, so you try to knock a little louder, but as soon as your palm hovers over the door, Leon's face immediately appears in front of you, forcing all the rehearsed words to disappear from your head.

It seems at first he can't believe his eyes. You are standing in front of him, in a cute raincoat, with an umbrella in your hands, whose hand you are nervously pulling and your hair is a little wet - reality and not his drunken imagination, although for a couple of seconds Leon still thinks that this is his drunken delirium.

"Um…Sorry for being uninvited… I just wanted…To talk?" almost stuttering, you say, looking into his blue eyes that seem a little drunk, "Will you let me in?"

He sighs and you wait with bated breath for the verdict, hoping that you don't look like a fool in front of him. It takes maybe ten seconds before Leon nods, stepping back and you enter his apartment with small steps, standing on the threshold, still nervously but holding on to your umbrella more tightly, scratching the handle with your thumb nail in excitement.

Maybe he's just overworked, but there's an unfinished bottle of alcohol on the table and Leon himself seems disheveled, but still he holds out his hand to you and you look at him in amazement, not realizing that he just offers to take your umbrella and raincoat to dry them a little. Slow reaction is normal for ordinary people and Leon never condemns you for this, in fact, he's not even angry, deep down he's probably even glad that you appeared briefly in his life again, however…

"Something happened?" He asks in a tired tone, although he can see from your body language how tense you are, hoping that you don't have any very serious problems, why are you so worried "Do you have problems or…"

At that moment, you realize that the conversation you are about to have will be long and emotionally difficult.

As the saying goes, "Fortune favors the bold " even if your legs are shaking with fear, then at least you will try to solve this dilemma with him.

#leon kennedy #leon scott kennedy #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #leon x reader #leon s kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x you #leon s kennedy x fem!reader #leon scott kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy x you #resident evil x reader #resident evil #leon resident evil #resident evil leon #leon kennedy fanfiction

[savannahsdeath]

a part3 of -this- which im actually proud of ❈ dealer!ellie and reader in love but nothing's perfect . finally a rough part . got carried away but enjoy:3

warnings: ANGST mention of sex, language

the spring season brought the first warming breeze and blooming flowers to the land after the cold winter. the air was filled with the aroma of new blossoms and fresh grass. the sky was typically clear and blue with the occasional fluffy white clouds covering the bright sun. the days often got warmer, but some areas still experienced frosty nights. small animals such as bees and birds returned and chirped their familiar tunes.

spring was the time of rebirth and new beginnings.

you and your father met regularly over the past month. as time went on, your meetings became more and more enjoyable. you began to fill in the blanks and learn about each other, sharing memories and experiences. soon, these meetings became a regular part of your schedules. your relationship began to deepen as you got to know each other better. you started to share more intimate conversations and found comfort in that. your meetings became more than just catching up on life events - they became a source of strength and support for both of you. yet, you were rarely serious, since you started to notice your father’s playful sense of humor and found it endearing — how could ellie describe him as harsh?

right, ellie. she was just as captivating as your new-old parent's funny bone. she had a way of holding your attention and making you feel like nothing else mattered but her. you shared a connection that ran deeper than words could describe. your friendship grew as you bonded over your shared interests and passions — it turned out that she can be a nerd when it comes to dinosaurs. the more you learned about ellie, the more you were filled with a warm, tingling sensation that grew into something more.

until that one day — morning, to be exact. i won't beat around the bush — you fucked this night, and a few nights before, and a few more nights before that... but you didn't regret a thing. ellie could be more romantic than you guessed she is, but it was more than the physical connection between you that made these moments so special. there was a deep sense of intimacy and shared understanding between them - when your skin touched, it felt like you both are an unfinished sculpture, which melted into the other's undried clay limbs.

the gentle warmth of the sheets beneath you beckoned you up from your deep sleep, as if a stroke from the sun itself was caressing your skin. the warmth of your peaceful slumber was greeted with the golden glow of a new day. the embrace of the bed was like a sweet escape as you peered through your sleepy eyes at the sun rising outside your window. your eyes flickered. you noticed the lack of ellie's spirit and your hand ran over the empty part of bed to make sure she's not there, since your sense of sight wasn't trustworthy yet.

you heard her voice from the kitchen, and once you rubbed your eyes and squinted you identified her arm sticking out from around the corner. "tell her the truth," her voice was subdued and had a nervous, disbelieving undertone, "so that she would look at me through tears instead of seeing me as the love of her life?" a pause, during which the other person on the phone talked and you had time to memorize every word. "of course i do, but what choice would she have?"

"truth?" you whispered to yourself. your nerves were on edge as you strained to listen more closely to the dialogue. every sound of the voices became a point of intense focus, your anxiety grew with the realization that they may know something you don't. "choice?..." you tried to keep a steady breathing pace but every word was like a brick added to the wall of tension around your heart, threatening to crush you with the weight of the unknown.

you stretched, purposely making the bed creak, and loudly yawned.

"i have to go" ellie murmured and put her phone on the table. you heard her footsteps, figuring out she walked over to another countertop, probably to make her morning coffee.

you sat up on the bed, staring at the doorway to see her once she's on the view. "what was that, ellie?" you yelled.

she appeared in the hallway, already dressed up in a flannel shirt with a black tank top underneath and her usual torn jeans. "what?"

"who were you talking with?" you pinched the sheet's button and nervously played with the hem of the seam. "and what about?"

"oh, eavesdropping? not nice." she smirked and clicked her tongue, slowly turning around and making her way back to the kitchen. "if i tell you, i'd have to kill you!" she chuckled.

you whined. "don't laugh it off."

the playful laugh that danced upon her lips slowly faded away as an intense realisation washed over her. the mask she has been wearing for so long has slipped off, exposing the truth beneath it all. there was no more trying to cover up the truth with jokes. she was vulnerable and exposed, and all she could do now was accept that you know that something's off.

she licked her lips. "your father—" she cut off and slowly sat down on the bed next to you. she bent her knees and placed her hands on them, letting out a defeated sigh. she stared into the hallway, just like you before, though you had a reason to and her eyes seemed to be blind, not hoping to see anything in particular. hopeless. "i will betray him."

your confusion was palpable as your mind raced to catch up with the changing dynamic of the situation. the laughter and joking suddenly fall away like a veil dropped, revealing an atmosphere tinged with unease and uncertainty. your gaze remained on ellie, studying her expressions in search of a deeper meaning, wondering why the shift in mood suddenly occurred. you were unable to grasp the truth lurking beneath the surface and the other girl could see the wheels turning in your head as you searched for the missing puzzle piece to make sense of it all. whatever it meant, it wasn't predicting anything good. "if you do you will betray me."

"i'm sorry" she mumbled, cocking her head back, leaning it on the bed frame.

you frowned, knitting your eyebrows together in one line, creating a wrinkle on your forehead. "what are you talking about? what the fuck is going on?"

a sharp click echoed through the room, as the sound of a lighter being sparked filled the air. ellie always plays with it when she's nervous, making the momentary flash of light illuminate her face. the bright flame flickered as it was held carefully in the girl's hands, its warm glow emitting its own palpable warmth. "he's in trouble." the fire danced with a mesmeric grace, drawing all of the attention as emotions threatened to boil over.

"can't be that bad." your voice was begging, pleading for her to reassure you that it's nothing. you weren't sure what your father's job was, and you hoped it would stay that way, but now you knew you can't be out of it.

"but it is." she shrugged. "it's not like i have a choice anyway."

you huffed. "you do—"

"don't act like you know everything." she bitterly chuckled. "if i could be on his side, i promise you, i would."

"so there's more of you. you are just a pawn in their treacherous game." the rush of anger swelled within you as you rose from the bed, the truth finally setting in and filling your brain with a rush of emotions. the confusion melted away into wrath and hatred, the heat of your burning anger replacing the cold chill of uncertainty. "so what was your job? making me fall in love? did they force you to?" every word ringed in your head with the intensity of a thunderclap, stirring your fury and disappointment. your body felt heavy with the strength of your emotions as you began to realize everything that has been happening. "that's clever." you stopped pacing back and forth to accusingly point your finger at her. "you used me. i bet it was your own idea too, huh?"

"you can't be serious." she twirled a cigarette on the palm of her hand. "can i?..."

"you can do whatever you please, ellie." you proudly raised your chin and crossed your arms. "just not in my house."

"are you kicking me out?" she asked in disbelief, so strong she almost smiled. she stuck the unlit cigarette between her dry lips and put her hands in the air, like a surrendering thief. "whatever, i understand. but remember, it was me or him. it still is." she stood up and, without taking her eyes off you, walked up to the door.

✧˖°

YAYYY ANGSTY SHIT I LOVE ANGST MEOW

taglist: @bellaramslover @gold-dustwomxn @loverg1rlll @juliluvsu @timmy-27 @marianeski @kuromicoree @inf3ct3dd @mikellie @elliewilliamsonlygirlfriend @syrenada @drunkzuko @florencepughismybae @weridcattty @kanksaint @villainousbear @coff1nn @emst4rr @thehungrygayterpillar-blog @skylerwhitwyo @macaroni676 @cupid1ink @xen222 @onlinelesbo @crxmxnzl-c0rpzes @elliew-illiamsmissingfingers @mochiivqi @lilylynne11 @sevvenspit @williamsblogxx @707bnnyy @poopypeen @agajahan @kali-1014 @lullsss @corpsebridenightamare @planetloverr @lil-elliesgf @littlegingerperson

#ellie williams x reader #ellie williams #ellie x reader #ellie tlou #ellie the last of us #ellie williams x y/n #ellie williams x you #ellie x y/n #ellie x you #ellie williams tlou #ellie williams the last of us #ellie williams x female reader

[teyamsilly]

Hey bby! I’m just gonna come on here to request because I love the way you write Neteyam it has me kicking me feet oml.

Can you write a fic where metkayina reader has healing powers that are gifting by eywa, and she uses them to save Neteyam during the final battle? you can decide their dynamic and relationship if u want. if not that’s okay u can ignore this xx

don't blame me

pairing neteyam x metkayina! fem reader summary you were always rational, calm, and gentle. like eywa blessed you with all her tranquility. you always knew you had a purpose in life and that was to be a healer, the next tsahik. the great mother gave you the gift to do so and you never went against death because you knew it was meant to be. but what happens when the person you deared most has his door knocking by death? tags & warning reader has healing powers, reader is tonowari & ronal's eldest daughter, only younger than neteyam by 3 months, lots of descriptions than dialogue (bare with me pls), blood, hints of death index paysyul [water lily], tsaheylu [bond/neural connection] word count 1.6k

teyamsilly speaking ✩ there will be two more parts to this: part two & an alternate ending! there's more descriptions in the beginning describing reader, then reader and neteyam's relationship. dialogue will come later on! hope you'll like it <3

PART ONE | PART TWO | ALTERNATE ENDING

How Ronal found out she was pregnant with you was magical to her. She didn't have any problems with giving birth and it wasn't painful at all. She felt as if she was having trouble breathing and questioned whether there were troubles since you weren't weeping and crying the moment you were born. But to her surprise, your eyes glowed a brighter shade of blue momentarily as you gave her a wide gummy smile.

She knew you were gifted ever since your injuries would heal themselves. She took it as a sign from Eywa that you were next in line for Tsahik, that you would interpret her will. 

The tasks given to you came naturally for you. You've executed the duties of a Tsakarem excellently, not only that, you were loved by the clan. You were always rational, calm, and gentle like the great mother blessed you with all her tranquility. 

Ronal had never thought that your gift could be extended to another living thing. One time, a few ilu's came back injured from escaping an akula. They filled the water arround them with blood, screeching for help. Immediately, you went to them and cried like you could feel their pain. 

As you created tsaheylu with one, your hands gently carressed the chopped fin with tears slipping from your eyes. You surprised everyone when you took your knife and made a deep cut on your palm, then placed it on the ilu's open wound. The skin covered itself.

However, your gift came with a price. Using your blood meant losing your blood, it resulted you to lose consciousness from the loss of blood. Tonowari and Ronal decided that your ability to heal others should never be used again, so you didn't. 

Your mothers next words would ring in your head everytime you see an injured na'vi or animal: "She protects the balance of life. She does not take sides. What happens is meant to happen, ma'ite."

Neteyam Sully knew you were one of a kind when he saw you pass through crowd effortlessly with curious eyes as you observed each of his family when they arrived at Awa'tlu. Your eyes were nothing like he had ever seen before. Jewelled blue eyes that seemed to shimmer with every tilt of your head. He couldn't stop his tail from jouncing gently when your eyes met. He was sure that your eyes glowed before it's shine died.

When he heard the story from Tsireya of your birth and your miracle powers, he was at awe. It was obvious that you were in sync with Eywa and her creatures. And the way you walked, hips swayed, looked so graceful. It didn't surprise him that Kiri was quick to be cosy with you as she loves nature just as much.

Neteyam never had the opportunity to have a proper conversation with you since you are never present in their lessons because of your duties. The only time the two of you had a proper interaction was when Tsireya introduced them to you. When his name rolled of your tongue, he felt like he was in a trance with how soft your voice was. 

Your smile was something he would never get tired of, ever. Since then, whenever you two made eye contact, you just smiled at each other. He would sometimes stare at you with the intention of being caught. When you noticed him looking at you, he flashed you a boyish grin and tilted his head. Blood would rush to your cheeks making you look away. You swore you could hear his chuckle.

Neteyam would look for you after lessons, but you were always snatched away with another duty whenever he would try to make his move. But you couldn't be that busy, would you? Unless you were actively avoiding him. Tsireya would reassure him that you were being kept busy with your mother and how your attention was always needed in the healers' marui.

Lo'ak would suggest jokingly (not really) that he should get injured on purpose just to feel the carress of your hands touching his skin whilst adding smooching sound effects to tease him. Kiri would smack the back of his head afterwards for his stupid idea. Neteyam felt even more stupid for considering his brother's words.

Until the opportunity rose itself. Ao'nung held a small gathering– a party as Lo'ak called it– that night for na'vi his age. It was kept hidden from the adults because he knew that his parents would never approve of this, especially when he brought alcohol that he shouldn't be drinking because he is not of age yet.

You, the golden child of Ronal and Tonowari, never told on him. You loved how you get to worry about your tasks for a while and being surrounded with your peers.

Neteyam couldn't take his eyes off you. You were glowing, you always were, but it felt different for him today. You were smiling with your group of friends until one of them nudged your arm and pointed his direction. He quickly looked away and acted as if he was staring at the fire that served as the gathering's source of light. He scolded himself internally for acting like a coward. All the courage he collected to speak to you just left him.

"Neteyam?"

The forest boy spun around too quickly for his liking with his eyes wide. Your name stuttered from his lips.

You chuckle, "Hi. Are you enjoying yourself?"

He nodded, "I did not think Ao'nung had such drinks." He shook the wooden cup on his hands before looking at you. It seems to be his most favourite thing to do, just having you in his line of vision. 

"Hmm… my brother does not have the knowledge for this. To make a drink like this, you have to take paysyul that lives outside the reef. Take the petals off and then squeeze the ovary." 

Neteyam's eyebrows furrowed, then it relaxed when he realised. He scoffed as a smirk presented on his lips. "This is your doing? That is impossible."

You laughed, "How come?"

"Because you…" He stared at you with adoration, his smile never leaving his lips. And since then, Neteyam knew you were full of surprises. He was driven to get to know you even more.

Everyone started to notice how close the two of you have gotten. Imagine the surprise Kiri and Lo'ak had when the eldest Sully child didn't come for their lesson and found him with you instead. He stayed with you in the healers' marui just to spend time with you.

They would notice how Neteyam's hand would rest on your lower back as you two would walk around Awa'tlu. How your gaze would linger on him longer. How one of your accessories consist materials from the forest. How Neteyam would intertwine your hands together to pull you away from something. How Neteyam's tail would swish excitedly at the sight of you.

Everyone noticed it. 

Your time with Neteyam made you think that his arrival here was not a coincidence but destined by the Great Mother herself. You cant imagine living your life without Neteyam anymore. He somehow made a permanent mark in your life and you cant move on from something strong like that.

Maybe this excuses your reckless behaviour. Maybe this is why Neteyam met you, because you could save him. Maybe it's why you didn't hesitate to sit beside his panting figure, reaching for his kuru immediately when you spotted the wound on his chest that didn't stop bleeding.

"Save him, please!" Lo'ak begged. Your eyes remained on his kuru, tears flowing out of your eyes endlessly. "I know this is a big move, a-and I know there could be consequences. But please save my brother, please," he croaked out.

His cry for help was unnecessary because you knew you would do it either way. The boy you love is dying in front of you. The sight of him scared and panicked, panting for breath made you sob. 

Jake watched with curious eyes as you created tsaheylu with his son. He's heard stories of your 'powers' but never seen them first hand. He remembered from Tonowari that healing any living creauture with your ability was dangerous, therefore was never used again. Yet he couldn't bring himself to stop you not when you could save his first child.

This was not how the bond should feel like, it was not how you wished for it to happen. You could only feel the pain on his chest and how his body is struggling to breathe for air. Neteyam could feel himself losing it, and you felt it too. You quickly took his dagger, tearing the skin of your palm apart making the wound deep. 

Blood gushed out immediately as you pressed your hand against his wound immediately. You groaned feeling your energy being taken away from you. Neteyam stopped struggling for air, his eyes starting to feel heavy,

Lo'ak panicked at this. "What? What's wrong?"

"It's okay, he will live," Tsireya reassured. She watched how the eldest Sully fall into slumber, his chest now heaving up and down peacefully.  The girl noticed how your body started to lean forward, eyes unfocused. She gasped when your eyes rolled back as you fell unconscious. "Sister!"

Jake caught your body before it could fall over on Neteyam. He and Tsireya gently laid your body beside your now muntxatan. Tsireya separated both of your kuru slowly.

Her eyebrows furrowed when the freckles on your cheeks started flickering on and off. The cut you made on your skin isn't healing. The wind arround them passed strongly. Your body turned pale, but heart still beating. 

Eywa gave you a gift, but it came with a price.

#divider by cafekitsune #✰ : remi.resources. #avatar the way of water #avatar fanfiction #avatar twow #neteyam sully #neteyam fanfiction #neteyam fluff #neteyam x metkayina!reader #neteyam imagine #neteyam x reader #neteyam te suli tsyeyk'itan #neteyam angst

[queenshelby]

Chemical Reactions (P. 9)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy as J Robert Oppenheimer x Student Reader

Warning: Age-Gap, Infidelity, Smut

Words: 2,678

Note: The fic is spoiler free and my own fantasy and imagination. It is not historically and scientifically accurate.

Previous Parts: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8

THIS PART IS DIALOGUE HEAVY AND PART EIGHT WILL BE SIMILAR, BOTH PARTS ARE NECESSARY THOUGH TO EXPAND THE STORY.

Two weeks later...

Just as General Groves had anticipated, the following week, you made your way to Robert’s final lecture at Berkley which was held in front of an audience of about fifty students.

The lecture itself was not relevant to your thesis but you knew that you had to see him, in an aim to clear things up.

You managed to get a letter to him through Professor Lawrance in the past few days, hidden within your thesis papers and, even though Lawrance told you as well that Robert was no longer your supervisor, you insisted for Robert to read it, seeing that her was the expert in this field.

After you begged, of course, Lawrance agreed to provide the paper to his colleague and, whilst you hoped that Robert would respond to your letter, he did not. At least not until now which is when you sat inside the lecture hall and he handed out some papers to everyone.

“I suggest that you read page two carefully Miss Y/LN” he told you quietly when, finally, he approached you amongst the other students and, of course, you knew what he meant by that and skipped right ahead to the page he mentioned.

“Thank you doctor” you told him as he moved on and handed out the remaining papers to the other students while, at the back of the hall, you could see two men watching the lecture and Robert’s interactions with you. They were spies for sure and you knew that, when hopefully getting to see him, you had to do so without being seen yourself.

Robert though played them well. He was nothing but professional towards you and the note he had hidden on page two was not noticeable to anyone but you.

“Meet me at Lawrance’s office. 3 o’clock. We need to talk” it said and, of course, you already knew what this was going to be about. He was going to tell you exactly what General Groves had already told you, namely that he could and would not see you again after today.

He would also tell you that your security clearance had been denied and that, at least for now, you had to forget about him.

Whether you could do that or not, however, was something that you had already thought about for the past week or so, ever since Lesley Groves’ conversation with you and you came to the conclusion that you could not.

Not after the letters he had sent you, telling you how much he desired you and enjoyed your company, and not after the passionate night you shared.

Of course, love was not something you believed in even though Robert referred to it on two occasions now and love was not yet what you felt for him. But what you felt was something more than just some intellectual and physical attraction. It was desire in its purest and most primal form which had developed into an addiction of some sort and this addiction needed to be fuelled in order for you to function mentally and physically. You thus decided that you needed Robert in your life and this was going to be a challenge.  

You were crazy for him and, clearly, he was crazy for you as well, going by what he had written to you and it were those letters which went through your mind just as Robert made his way to the lectern and began his lecture on naturally occurring atoms.  

“Concentrate Y/N!” you then said to yourself as Robert had started reading for the lesson and just as he spoke so passionately about physics, you took your pencil and slowly ran it down your neck and then to your collarbone, subtly squirming like you enjoyed the feel, though your face was serious. There was something extremely sexy and desirable about this man talking about atoms and your mind again wandered to the night you shared.

You could feel his eyes on you, glancing at you, as he went through some chemical reactions and him talking like this sent goosebumps all over your skin. You enjoyed the feeling and brought the pencil back up, now running across the seam of your lips in purposeful absentmindedness until he lost his train of thought and paused before picking up on his speech again.

This is when you decided to tune it down. You did not want Robert to be thrown off guard and knew that, after class, you would finally be able to catch a moment with him after not having seen him for almost four weeks.

***

At 3 o’clock and after shaking off the two men, who had been following you, by sneaking out of the lavatory window, you made your way too Dr Lawrance’s office which, unsurprisingly, was unlocked that day.

Thus, you made your way inside without knocking which happened to startle Robert who had already been waiting for you.

“Jesus” he cursed, afraid that it was one of General Groves’ personnel who had followed him or even you to Lawrance’s office. He was clearly paranoid and concerned about meeting you there, but he knew that he had to see you regardless.

“Has someone followed you here?” he asked nonetheless and you shook your head while, finally, approaching him and, in a haste, pressing your lips onto his.

“I missed you” you moaned against his lips while Robert kissed you passionately, only ever allowing you to pull away in order to breathe, which is something that continued for at least five minutes until Robert took a step back.

“We need to talk” Robert then said after your lips drifted apart and you slowly looked up at him with wide open eyes and a parted mouth before, wordlessly, reaching beneath your skirt and taking off your panties.

“We do, but that has to wait!” you determined, causing Robert to gasp with suprise and shake his head.

“We can’t Y/N…” Robert began to say but, as soon as your lust filled eyes met his, his grip on your waist tightened and he stopped talking.

“I suppose we can…” Robert then corrected himself, stammering out the words and you could feel his gaze boring into you and, just as you felt as though your lust for this man couldn’t have been any greater, he pressed his lips onto yours again for another passionate kiss.

As you were kissing, you slid your hands up his thighs and reached for the zipper of his pants. You pulled it down, undid the button and belt and then his briefs-bound cock pushed out of the opening.

“On the desk” Robert simply groaned as, eventually, you reached into his briefs and grabbed him, pulling his erection free. The gurgling noise he made at that meant that he was absolutely focused on what you were doing to him, so you let yourself lift your eyes and take in his flushed face, staring at your hand like it was God's salvation for his mortal soul.

“Not yet” you teased before licking your lips and descending on him, causing Robert to swear.

“Fuck” he cursed as, without warning, you engulfed him completely.

The feel of his length in your mouth and the weight of it was almost as good as the punched-out moan he made as you worked your tongue up and down his shaft for a moment before taking him in all the way again until he bottomed out.

Then you pulled back and took him in again, building up to a brutal pace.

Robert was grunting with every thrust into your mouth. He could not hold back as you sucked and swirled your tongue around the head, making sure he would never forget this moment with you, especially if this was going to be the last time for you both.

“Stop. No more” Robert eventually groaned before pulling slightly against your hair and, just as he did, you removed your lips from his pulsing hard shaft and stood up.

“I need to taste you and I need to be inside of you. It has been weeks” he then told you while pulling you over towards the large cedar study desk which, clearly, belonged to Dr Lawrance.

“Then have me Robert” you told him as he stared at your body intently. “Fuck me like you own me” you then demanded and Robert took a handful of your hair and pulled your head back playfully so that you would stare up at him. Your eyes went wide for a moment as you let out a little gasp before returning to the lidded hungry stare you had before.

Robert then leaned forward and kissed you hard on the mouth and your mouth tasted sweet and your moans against his mouth were whorish and wanton. He drank from your mouth and all thoughts of his marriage and the project slipped far into the recess of his will as he lifted you up on to the desk.

He then kissed down further, along your long neck and just above the v-line of your blouse before he kneeled in front of you and you wrapped your fingers in his hair.

As he was caressing your clothed body, you popped open some of the buttons on your blouse, thus allowing Robert to push it down and thereby exposing your breasts. He cupped the right one with his hand, gently twisting the nipple between thumb and forefinger. It instantly grew hard to his touch.

Robert then spent a moment or two with his mouth on each breast. Tasting every inch of your flesh, before he slipped lower and the heady aroma of your open sex filled his nostrils so that he was possessed by a strong desire to taste you.

As he lowered himself further, he took hold of your legs behind each knee and spread them apart as he pushed your legs up and your skirt back so that it was curled up against your stomach. Robert then kissed your left thigh and looked up at you. Your cheeks were flush, mouth parted, eyes unfocused but intent.

"You must be quiet" he managed say and you faintly nodded before he lowered his mouth onto your sex. You tried your best to muffle your squeal, but as his tongue worked its way into you, more moans and cries escaped your lips.

You tasted as sweet as usual, and he devoured you. He worked his tongue as deep into you as he could before wiggling it back and forth up over the length of your slit, and then sucking gently on your engorged clit.

You bucked and squirmed in response to his ministrations, but Robert held you down as his mouth locked onto you. Your fingers wrapped into his hair and you grinded yourself against his tongue as best you could.

You began a long slow whine that slowly built in intensity, punctuated by quick movements of your hips as you pressed your mound against his mouth. It almost sounded as though you were crying, and for a moment his concentration broke, and he was tempted to stop, but your grip on the back of his head told him otherwise.

“Don’t you dare stop!” you moaned just before Robert flicked his tongue quickly over your clit and your body began to shudder. Your whine became a steady cry, followed by convulsions, and finally a great big gasp, as your body went slack.

"Oh god” you then panted before pushing his head away, unable to take anymore. Your hair was mussed and your makeup had smeared a bit.

“Yes, my love?” Robert teased before standing straight and, of course, you rolled your eyes at his joke just like you usually would.

“You are so sure of yourself, aren’t you?” you teased as Robert finally brought you to your feet.

“Yes” he answered with a grin before kissing you again to let you taste yourself on his lips.

“Now turn around and lean against my desk” Robert then demanded before he spun your small frame around and bent you over his colleague’s desk.

“That’s Dr Lawrance’s desk, not yours” you pointed out before Robert stood himself behind you. You were limp and behaving more like a rag doll than an active participant, but after eating you to orgasm, Robert knew that he had to have you. He had been aching for you for weeks.

“I suppose it is Lawrance’s desk, but I am sure he would not mind us using it” Robert then said which made you giggle.  

“Very well then professor, I am all yours” you teased as Robert flipped your skirt onto your back and reached down between your legs, feeling that you were still slick and ready for him.

“You are indeed” Robert groaned before he lined himself up with your entrance without pushing into you just yet.

“Don’t tease” you demanded as you lowered your head to the desk and pushed back a little against his teasing cock.

“Please Robert” you then begged and, with that, he finally pressed into you slowly.

“I missed this a lot’ Robert groaned again as, finally, he took hold of your hips and pressed harder, to which you whimpered and moaned in pleasure.

“So did I” you gasped as he filled you.

"You are so very tight” he then told you as your channel gripped his length like a firm velvet fist. He could feel every inch inside you and, slowly, he began to rock his hips, small movements at first, then bigger ones, until he was fucking you in earnest.

You mewled as his member opened you and made your channel adjust to his size. He held your hips and pressed hard against you as you grunted with each thrust while, eventually, his cock was swelling.

"Oh god" you repeated as he fucked you in a steady rhythm until he briefly pulled out of you and turned you around.

“I missed having you inside me” you told Robert as you sat up on Lawrance’s desk again and spread your legs wide.

“I need you Y/N. I need you so fucking much” Robert said as he stepped in between your legs and re-entered you while you propped yourself up on your elbows and wrapped your long legs around his hips.

"I need you too, Robert. God, fuck me, make me yours” you moaned incoherently while your eyes were desperate and intently locked onto his. He leaned forward and kissed you in response, pressing his tongue into your mouth while you moaned against his lips, over and over again.

His own orgasm was building, but he did not want to stop just yet. Thus, his thrusts became more insistent and, with that, he drew you closer and closer towards climax as well.

“I am close” you said as if you were reading his mind while you leaned back and looked at Robert through lidded eyes.

“So am I” Robert told you as he felt your legs lock tighter around him and, just as you decided to hold on to for dear life, he pressed himself into you hard.

“Oh god, yes! That’s it” you almost screamed as, all so suddenly, you climaxed again. Your orgasm hit you like freight train and just as your walls began to convulse around his shaft, he exploded deep within you, filling you with his seed. He was thrusting hard with each spurt, and you wrapped your arms around him as it was his turn for his body to shake.

His orgasm was intense and, within seconds, his cum seeped from your channel and down his shaft, eliciting a final groan from Robert when he took a glimpse at where you were still connected.

“We really do need to talk” Robert then eventually said as he pulled out of you and felt the tension loosen inside of him as he momentarily closed his eyes and relaxed.

“Yes we do and now I can. I just needed to get this out of my system first before I could put together some logically thoughts” you said before reaching for Robert’s handkerchief and using it to clean yourself up.

“Do you mind if I keep that?” you then asked, causing Robert to chuckle.

“Not at all” he then said, pulling up his briefs and pants, before he leaned over and kissed your forehead. “Your security clearance…” he then began to say but you interrupted him.

“I know, General Groves came to interview me” you told Robert while adjusting your skirt. “He told me that you were instructed not see me again, but here you are, engaging in some intimate relations with me” you chuckled, still out of breath.

“General Groves should use his words more wisely as he did not say that I cannot see you again. He simply said that I must not engage or liaise with communists and, since you are not a communist, I do not see an issue with seeking you discreetly” Robert then pointed out while caressing your face.

“Discreetly, huh?” you chuckled before asking Robert what he thought was happening next.

“What do you mean?” he asked gently while looking into your eyes.

“With us, Robert. Where do we go from here” you wanted to know.

“Well, I will continue to try my luck and convince Groves to get you clearance for the project and, in the meantime, I will come here and visit you whenever I can” he explained.

“Robert, the General has already read your two letters to me. So, how do you expect to make contact without them noticing?” you asked, seeing that, no doubt, Robert was being watched.

“I will find a way my love. I promise” he promised you while cupping your face with both of his hands.

“Wouldn’t it be easier just to end it?” you argued, but Robert shook his head.

“I can’t do that” he told you.

“Why?” you queried, seeing that seeing you would be risky.

“Because I need you in my life Y/N” he then determined and a surprisingly warm and fluttering feeling crept up inside of you. It was a feeling that was unfamiliar to you and you could not describe it.

#cillian murphy #cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy x y/n #cillian murphy imagine #robert oppenheimer #tommy shelby #cillian murphy x you #oppenheimer #j robert oppenheimer x reader #j robert oppenheimer #oppenheimer x reader #oppenheimer 2023 #cillian murphy fanfiction #oppenheimer fanfiction #oppenheimer fanfic #oppenheimer imagine #j robert oppenheimer x you #robert oppenheimer smut #cillian murphy fanfic

[lisafication]

Digging Graves for your Morals; Or, The Ethical Problem of Outlawry

Hello, yes, I am here again. This one is shorter, I swear (it’s under four thousand words, even). If this is the first post from me you’re seeing, this is a follow-up to my prior essay posted here on the game The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, although it should be able to mostly stand alone.

At the end of my last essay, I touched on both the game’s nearly uncompromising moral scepticism and relativity, but I didn’t really dig into it. I outlined that the game only textually frames actions as ‘morally bad’ in the context of a morality set by the society and the world that has treated them as no better than farm animals raised for the slaughter. Well, I have a lot to say on the topic of ethics on the topic of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, so buckle in, this one’s going to talk about the social contract, moral scepticism and everyone’s favourite topic: Mrs. Graves.

As usual, this was originally posted and formatted for on Sufficient Velocity and you can perhaps more easily read it there. Spoilers abound, and my content warning from last time still applies.

She’s not too hot on either ethics or her mother

The Meat of the Matter

Since a lot of this is optional or otherwise missable information, let’s review the premise the game gives us. If you’re already aware of all of this, I apologise, it won’t take long.

First off the bat, the quarantine at the start of the game was a hoax-driven money-making scheme of which you can pick up more-or-less all the relevant details of. This is entirely missable and by the time it’s possible to discover, our protagonists have better things to dwell on and have dialogue about, so I’ll give you a summary of what you can deduce from reading the notes and thinking about it.

The quarantine is an organ harvesting operation, as per some documents you can discover in the wardens’ office. They entrap the residents, test their blood types and starve to death those they deem surplus to requirements — alternatively the starvation itself could be their method of ‘preparing the harvest’, there’s evidence in both directions and it hardly matters — harvesting the organs of the others for sale. As our protagonists are AB-typed, the ‘universal recipient’ or ‘most selfish blood type’, they’re some of the first on the chopping block.

If you read through the newspapers and the documents in Mr. Washing Machine’s car, you can discover that ultimately ToxiSoda are responsible, and a similar thing is happening in a different city under the guise of a ‘chemical leak’.  Should you further investigate matters, you will find mentions of the ‘man behind it all’, the doctor, or the Surgeon, as the fandom have been referring to him — you may recall Mrs. Graves mentioned someone similar! Yeah, he’s the guy who runs ToxiSoda, who are themselves partners with the water company that faked the parasite outbreak in the first place.

It’s all a life insurance scam, apparently

How much the details of the operation matter is something open to interpretation — it might just be something for players to figure out and Episode 3 will not cover the Surgeon at all, or he might play a major part; it's not particularly relevant to this essay. What matters is that it happened at all — indeed, it’s fairly easy to justify Ashley and Andrew in everything they did in Episode 1 (flashbacks aside), arguing that if they’d made any other decisions they’d have died — an argument that the victims dug their own graves, even if the Graves siblings put them in them. How correct that is is a matter of debate, but that you can make the argument at all matters, and we’ll be returning to this later. In my last essay (and again in the introduction here), I made an analogy to farm animals, raised without love and for slaughter. Let’s put a pin in the ‘for slaughter’ part for now and take a look at the ‘without love’ part. 

That’s right, it’s time to meet the parents.

As Andrew notes, there are significantly more compelling reasons for you to say that

They Fuck You Up, Your Mum & Dad

They really do. 

Our charming protagonists are, as with many things depicted in this game, an exaggerated, almost farcical example of this phenomenon — one that’s just grounded enough to still feel very real, just like the siblings themselves. 

The late and lamentable Mrs. Graves is just the same: originally a teen mother, hopelessly out of depth with two difficult children — even if one was good at masking it — and an unreliable, emotionally unavailable (at least to their children) partner who can’t hold down a job, ends up foisting them off on each other and doing a Parental Negligence because she simply Cannot Cope. That’s the real part. The part where she gets paid off by an organ harvesting operation to leave them to die, that’s the borderline-farcical exaggeration that throws all the nooks and crannies of her character into sharp relief.

Mrs. Graves does not have a good relationship with either of her kids. Having self-admittedly fobbed the job of raising Ashley off on her son, to the degree that they did not even celebrate her birthday as kids, both of them hold differing degrees and types of resentment for her.

For Ashley, it’s hate — perhaps not quite so clear cut as that, as it’s her that calls for the eulogy and she shows some potential signs of discomfort while cleaning up her parents’ corpses, but by and large, it’s fairly simple and straightforward, as usual for Ashley. The sentiment is not exactly unreturned, either.

This brings Ashley’s heart great delight!

The most clear incident raising her from everyday ‘neglectful’ to ‘wow she wanted nothing to do with this kid’ is the optional ‘birthday cake’ scene, obtained by finding the present in Ashley’s first ‘transitory world’ dream, in which we see Ashley’s birthday  and the founding of a lemon cupcake tradition between Leyley and Andy. She has received nothing from her family, notes that her ‘friends’ would say they were busy before she even told them the schedule and Andy takes her out to buy cupcakes with his pocket money.

This scene gets a callback in Andrew’s dream later. Just remember to Ask Nicely, rather than Kill Her.

Parents of the year, everyone.

So with Ashley it’s as straightforward and obvious as she herself is — she hates her mother, her mother hates her. With Andrew, as with Andrew himself, it’s a fair bit more complicated. His mother is a much more nuanced figure, who is believable in her role as an unfortunate teen parent who was trying her best. He has a degree of trust in her against, seemingly, his own good judgment In her conversation with Andrew, she acknowledges her fault in raising him and seemingly sincerely tries to offer him a ‘way out’, an olive branch.

I think many people have had relationships where they might say this

This scene in particular intrigues me, because she is acknowledging fault in a way that Andrew strictly avoids doing — and well, there’s nothing Andrew likes more than a good way to avoid acknowledging any fault of his own. With her dominant relationship over their father as a model for Andrew to draw comparisons to his own relationship with Ashley with, it’s no surprise that the narrative resonates with him to the point of ‘Accept’ being many people’s first completion.

Of course, that’s not all there is to it. There is a fascinating contrast with her later conversation with Ashley, where she — despite accusing Ashley of brainwashing Andrew — refers to Leyley and Andy as ‘two psychos’ and states that she always knew they were responsible for Nina’s death and that, implicitly, they owe her for not turning them in. 

There's something about mother-daughter relationships here that I just do not have the time or reading to dig into, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, when Andrew interrogates her on her possession of their death certificates, she has… an interesting, plausible story about a life insurance scam and claims that she really did think they died in the fire, implicitly denying the claim that she sold them. It’s entirely possible that she’s describing the details of the ‘scam’ correctly — you can even buy that she genuinely does care for Andrew in some way, if not Ashley, but her claim about being an honest, grieving parent shocked at their deaths… doesn’t add up?

This is a very normal reaction to your supposedly dead children showing up in your house.

As Andrew himself notes after hearing her story, she’s full of shit. This gets into speculation, because there are a few ways to read this, but the most plausible ‘gist’ is that she and her partner were paid off in money and jobs to not raise a fuss — the surgeon she mentioned is almost certainly the founder of ToxiSoda, remember?

The overwhelming difference in presentation between how she speaks to Andrew and Ashley invites investigation — and when Andrew turns down her offer and tells her he isn’t interested in her offer in Decline, her reaction isn’t… despair, it’s shock — and well, there’s a good reason for that.

Why do you think she did it in the first place?

This is the happiest we see her

Well — it’s so she can finally fit into society. That white picket fence, that idyllic 1950s life — hell you can call it the American Dream. She wants that, or as close to it as she can get — the working-class teen mother, living in poverty, aspiring to the middle-class. It’s a very common, very real and very grounded motivation.

And to that end, she effectively sold off her children. It’s no wonder she can’t fathom why Andrew wouldn’t choose the same.

That’s the part that makes you think — just like the deaths in Episode 1, well- maybe the siblings are justified here, too. It’s a weaker argument, but it’s still one you can make under many common moral paradigms today — what goes around comes around, all that jazz. Just look at how awful she was to Ashley.

She’s finally found what she’s been striving for.

Here’s the thing, here’s the thing though — what, reasonably, could she have done? Andrew and Ashley briefly highlight this in conversation about Ashley’s ‘friends’ in Episode 1 — was she supposed to fight gunmen to try and break them out? Throw food to the balcony from four stories?

Moreover, as she herself says to Andrew… would anyone really have been able to do better than her in her position? She was seventeen when Ashley was born, living in poverty with a partner who couldn’t even remember Andrew’s name when he was a kid. Anyone would have had difficulty, let alone with these kids.

Her evils are — they’re not any deliberate action, but rather… prompted inaction. She didn’t have the emotional energy, resources or plain capability to properly parent her children, she didn’t have any solutions to their murder of Nina in a state so blatantly hostile to its underclass, she didn’t have a way to connect with Ashley and she took the money rather than fight a futile and likely suicidal battle against a corporation and its armed goons in a dystopian setting.

Ashley, notably, does not deny this.

Her sin is the one we’re all, I think, guilty of — that of not trying hard enough, that of inaction in the face of difficult tasks, of not standing up on principle because it’s just too much that day and you don’t have the spoons, you’ll do it tomorrow (no you won’t). It’s a petty, everyday kind of evil — that of not doing enough. 

Is that enough to condemn her? Certainly, there’s a pretty manipulative read of her that likely has some truth to it — in the locked door in Ashley’s dream in ‘Decay’ you can discover that she has a ‘not-hatched’ tar soul — but consider that lens — the game won’t make up your mind for you, so you’ll need to choose that for yourself.

The dad is interesting in terms of negative space — but he’s mostly important in that he doesn’t matter, so I decided to not fit him in here. He has art, though — just no sprite, because, well, he’s never mattered to either sibling.

The Contract We Call Society

Right, it’s time to get a little bit Theoretical in here. Not much, but a little. Social contract theory is a complex topic with a lot of nuance, much of which I will be eliding in the name of not writing a twenty thousand word paper on semiotics, law, and anthropology, but the short analogy is… the idea that as long as you play by society’s rules, as long as you are a good citizen, a good person, the state, or the community, will take care of you.

In a number of ways, the harshest penalty levied by many historical states and legal codes was not death, but rather the criminal status of outlawry, a practice that’s cropped up a number of times in history — the practice of no longer being protected by the law. This meant one could be killed or worse with impunity — you were no longer protected by mob justice and, while overexaggerated as a term of reference, certain texts from Medieval England refer to outlaws as bearing a wolfshead, ‘for the wolf is a beast hated by all folk’. Never minding that wolves are actually delightful, this was a time when wolves were actively hunted and sold by people — and the same was intended to happen to outlaws. They were ‘fair targets’ as far as society was concerned, no longer to be treated as your fellow citizens.

This was the gravest punishment on the books, for most of these legal codes — something saved for those who had broken the social contract so completely that there could be no turning back (civil outlawry is… a bit different, that’s not the topic here). Among others, a modern critique of the concept is that it offers no incentive for improvement, no incentive to change or to cease harming society — if an outlaw has none of the social contract’s protections, what reason do they have to obey… any of the social contract? If that seems familiar, well, let me ask you this:

What if the state or community fails its end first? What responsibility does the innocent outlaw have to that contract?

It’s an interesting phrasing, that the world is better off.

It’s time to talk about the incest, and part of why it’s there. The cannibalism too, but that’s less impactful here. If you’ve seen me elsewhere, you might have seen me say that the incest is a load-bearing narrative pillar — in large part due to it being a critical facet of the siblings’ relationship, but in another large part due to it being an equally critical part of how the game uses taboo.

A taboo is in this context something that is considered repulsive and to be avoided by society. It’s a more complex term than that — you can also use it for certain sacred actions or utterances that are only permitted to certain people, for example — but that’s what it is here. Swearing, premarital sex, BDSM and murder are, approximately from weak to strong, some example taboos held in modern Anglospheric society. 

Strong taboos are a staple of horror — they shock, they disgust, they draw people’s attention and it’s that last one that’s critical here. Incest is a very strong taboo — while I am absolutely not segueing into its historical context, the very well-established Westermarck effect gives it a certain timelessness and immunity to desensitisation that most other taboos don’t have — murder, to contrast, is a taboo we’re largely desensitised to in modern media and works of modern media have to put in actual work to make a murder seem horrifying — through atmosphere, cinematography, evocative prose etc.

And this is important because the use of taboo I’m covering in this essay is that the incest is used to invite judgment — it is so ingrained as a ‘wrong thing’ in people’s brains almost regardless of background that it forces the player to engage with the work morally. And that’s where the fun starts.

I’ve mentioned before, very briefly, about the juxtaposition of tone between the Burial & Decay endings, contrasting with the very monstrous difference in morality. Burial is remarkably light-hearted — they play around with the drain blockage, they joke about their mother’s personality and this is further exaggerated on the Love path, where Andrew is much more comfortable with casual contact and the two make a game out of how far they can throw their parents’ skulls, the humour is directly contrasted against their abhorrent actions.

I’ll be real Ashley is far more merciful than I, I’m shuddering at the thought of that gunk in my hair

In comparison, Decay is… bleak. I’ve seen it being referred to as being ‘emotionally sandblasted’ and, yeah I think that’s fair — it’s uncomfortable, it’s heavy and it’s just not fun. And this is the route in which, if you chose Trust into Accept, Andrew has bought into the narrative that his mother’s offered — that he can fit just fine into society if he wasn’t stuck, if not for Ashley — the route that ‘fits’ most closely to the social contract, to Andrew feeling the guilt that we think he should and hating the monsters that they’ve become, as the social contract deems them. Given the pains the game takes to attach the player to the protagonists, this normative moral ending is very easily interpreted as the bad ending.

And well, isn’t it?

Thing is, as mentioned above, the social contract has never held up its end for them. The game takes careful pains to point out to a viewer that they’ve never had the life that society promises people, so why do its moral standards apply?

The game invites you to judge the characters, and in the same motion, asks you from what principles you judge them, making a pretty good guess in that, like most people who haven’t spent a large amount of time navel-gazing and reading some very boring books by very dusty old men, they come from the society around you.

Love even has Ashley express this sentiment directly after the incestuous dream — she asks you — well, Andrew, but this is also something for the player to mull over — why this is what’s engaged your morality or sense of revulsion, rather than the desecration, cannibalism or murder.

Andrew and Ashley are both very funny and very fascinating in this scene.

And that’s the framing that it casts all of its own moral judgement in — even the ‘tar-soul’ aspect is… well, it’s unclear what it even means. Mrs. Graves was a ‘not-hatched’ tar soul, after all. Other than that, it’s society and the world being better off without them, rather than any kind of assertion of objective morality. Due to the present of ‘soul colour’, we’ll presumably see the game make some moral statements in Episode 3, but as it stands?

It’s nearly completely morally sceptical, in and of itself — it’s not interested in moral assertions or education, it’s interested in making you question your own morals. Deconstructive (not that kind), rather than dialectic, to be mildly pretentious.

It uses taboo and shock to invite moral judgement, but then uses tone, charm and our instinct to look for the happiest end for our blorbos to get you to recognise that these are principles you yourself brought into the game, rather than any it’s handed you. 

To summarise: you’ve brought these principles in from society, but what do the siblings, the protagonists, the villains to the world, owe society? Enough that they should follow them? It failed them first, after all.

Closing Thoughts

This one is a bit less energetic than the last, tragically — my sleeping schedule is the stuff of nightmares recently, I love windy weather. Wait, no the opposite. Huge thank you to everyone who commented on the last one, you are the wind beneath my wings and the main reason I managed to get this out this week.

This essay is a bit more interpretative than my last one — certainly, there are alternative readings and I’ve been toying with the idea of deliberately taking a reading I don’t like very much and writing from that perspective as a demonstrative exercise recently — mostly that you shouldn’t just take my word for things!

Otherwise, if the last bit at the end seemed murky, I apologise — I did try to write a more detailed version, but firstly, it was three thousand words and secondly, I re-read it the next day and I could not understand what the fuck I was talking about. Personally, I blame Derrida — suffice to say that I strongly recommend playing through it with an eye towards considering culpability, morality and why you think certain characters are more or less forgivable than others, and for what deeds. See what you get out of it.

I managed to keep one particular thread open to wrap up with here —  I try to keep speculation on Episode 3 content to a minimum in the main essays, but it should be fine here — you might have noticed that I refer to Episode 1 and Episode 2 being on something of a spectrum of justifiability, with the siblings’ actions being ‘more’ justifiable in Episode 1 and ‘less’ justifiable — but still justifiable if you try — in Episode 2. 

To continue the thought of the happiest ending being the one in which they step the furthest away from common morality and to further jar the viewers’ sense of morality by contrasting societal morality and blorbo-oriented morality, Episode 3: Burial could continue this trend in having a major victim be someone who, well, has done nothing wrong and isn’t even guilty of bystander syndrome.

I wonder if there’s any good candidates, someone who’s sweet, harmless and will indisputably be an innocent victim…

…I’m sure she’ll be fine

#the coffin of andy and leyley #tcoaal #analysis #essay #ashley graves #andrew graves #mrs graves #nnnnot sure what the next topic will be #might do a deranged take on purpose #this one and the last one have been very grounded #I'll get to my asks tomorrow #probably #I've been busy sorry

[lafaiette]

I've seen some people ask for comparisons between Pen's Chinese and English lines, so I made a small compilation to show the biggest changes that most baffled me.

There is a kind Chinese player, Yu, who offered the fandom much of the info and insight contained in this post, and she was the first to shed light on these differences! Without her enthusiasm, I doubt people would have started investigating Pen's original lines ;_;

Under the read more because this is long!

Brief premise: the Chinese dialogues in the game are often less "harsh" than the English ones. For example, Qi can sound rude and condescending in English, while he's pretty polite, if not a bit aloof, in Chinese. Justice's lines in English rely on the typical "hey pardner" cowboy accent, while in Chinese he's very professional, almost overly so.

That said, the English writer who worked on Pen made it no mystery that he based his characterization of Pen on Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. There is even a line directly referencing the movie: "[...] when I was a boy I ate four dozen eggs every morning to help me get large. Now that I'm grown I have five dozen eggs [...]"

As such, English Pen sounds much different from Chinese Pen. He's more patronizing and rude, and the writer added stuff that it's simply not present in the Chinese text. So while in English Pen can sound like a knucklehead obsessed only with muscles and training, surrounded by adoring women and fans when in Duvos, in Chinese he shows a different, almost more innocent side, as if he were a very tall and big child who has never had a day of legitimate and healthy fun in his life (and that's carried across in some of the English lines - that's why his English version is a bit contradicting sometimes).

Here are some examples:

One of his lines as a Good Friend is:

Here it's implied that Pen gives the Builder a hard time not only to push them to improve themselves... but also because he likes doing it, referencing his friendship mission where he admits he doesn't like teaching people anything, he just wants to fight them.

Meanwhile, the Chinese version says:

I keep calling you a weakling just to urge you and encourage you to exercise hard and break through your limits. If you won't have me to protect you in the future, you will have to become an eagle for me!

Here "eagle" is a reference to the way Pen calls the Builder in Chinese: 小弱鸡 "little weakling/little chicken" - and the latter is a rude way to call someone in Chinese, especially if they are a man and the "chicken" character (鸡) is repeated twice (but 鸡 by itself is also slang for "female prostitute"... so if you want to read it that way, Pen can call the Builder "my little slut" when in a relationship. HEH.)

In any case the tone in this line of dialogue is much different from the one in English, and Pen sounds genuinely enthusiastic.

Another example:

At the start of the game, Pen asks the Builder to craft a Sword and Shield for Burgess, who apparently misplaced his own. It turns out Burgess hid them under his bed, so when the Builder tries to give the weapons they crafted to Pen, he will tell them to keep them.

As usual, the English version is mocking and patronizing ("Hah! That'd be rich!"). In the Chinese version, Pen first compliments the desert:

In this case, take it back and use it for yourself! Use it to explore the desert and fight those monsters - what a thrill! The desert is very dangerous, but it is also full of charm.

Then there is the line about Logan and his band:

Hey! Maybe you can still find traces of Logan's gang! If you subdue them, you will gain both fame and fortune! [Okay, see you next time] [not shown here]

Now, some romance stuff : >

This is the description for the Robo-Love Couch. In English it says:

Meanwhile the Chinese description:

Referred to as the "Love Sand Machine", Peng Hu specially built a loving sofa for you, pieced together from the remains of robot monsters in the ruins.

He specially built a loving sofa for the Builder. It seems like a silly detail, but wording is important!

And yes, Pen's full name is Peng Hu, 彭虎. Peng is his family name, Hu his birth name. Hu 虎 means "tiger", and now you can understand why Grace suspected him to be Tiger the spy. But that would have been too easy!

Peng 彭 is a common Chinese surname. Its original meaning is believed to be "sound of war drums" (sad implication), but it's also used as an adjective to mean "big". So Pen's full name can mean "big tiger" :D

Back to the couch! Lines are different during the date in Paradise Lost, too.

Come on, little weakling, come and sit next to me. Let's give this trophy a "kiss of victory"! Do you do this with everyone you date? Wait, it seems I'm regretting it a bit... Happiness comes too suddenly...... (Kiss Peng Hu)

In the English version, the Builder can ask "How many of these thrones have you built...?", implying that Pen has had so many lovers he can craft this couch in a matter of few seconds. But in Chinese, the Builder's question is much different, it's more like: "Damn, are you always so over the top when dating someone??"

One of the biggest differences is in this set of lines:

Okay.

Meanwhile, in Chinese:

Today's experience made me realize that love has used a deadly locking technique on both of our hearts. Let me no longer doubt the feelings between us. This love is true love! Now, I am even more unwilling to take my eyes away from you! Haha!

I MEAN.

Also, in Chinese Pen never mentions the infamous 12 girlfriends when the Builder and Grace question him in jail. Yu confirmed that throughout the game Pen doesn't brag about his love life or his popularity with women, probably also due to the negative way Chinese culture sees this kind of "bragging".

Not only Pen and many other characters are younger in Chinese Sandrock (Pen's age ranges from 25 to 27, while he's confirmed to be 31 in the English localization), but he's depicted as being not very experienced in relationships in general. He basically only knows how to fight, punch people, and destroy stuff. Anything else - having friends, being with someone who truly loves him and whom he truly loves, having a normal life - are something he never experienced before. He did date (see his final letter later), but he's not described being the Casanova of Duvos like he is in the English version. In fact, it seems people only liked him due to his body and status, and a remnant of this piece of characterization is left in the English text when he says:

Surely, you understand… I am quite the prize. I can’t take myself off the market just to become arm candy for you to show off at your little buildy guild awards or whatever it is! No, what I desire… is true love…

Furthermore,

In Chinese, he says during the Masterclass friendship mission: "To be honest, I never thought I'd be able to make friends, let alone with someone of your stature/body size! But here we are, with a sick relationship!"

In English: "You know, Skinny, I’ve never had someone I really considered a friend before. Furthermore, I always promised myself I’d never be friends with anyone who didn’t have an awesome cape, but… you made me break that promise."

"I never thought I'd be able to make friends" is different from "I’ve never had someone I really considered a friend before." In the first line, the focus is on Pen ("I don't know how to make friends; I'm not good at it; it's not for me; how do you do it?"), in the second it's on other people ("I've been surrounded by people all my life, but I don't consider any of them to be a friend of mine; yeah, I call this one 'friend', but... they are not really really a friend")

The Chinese line is much sadder, and it shows how lonely Pen's life has been. One of his main characteristics, after all, is being "special", "the strongest", "different from everyone else"; but more often than not, being special and different also mean being "lonely". ("I must say it gets lonely at the top… What I wouldn't give for a truly talented opponent who could really keep me on my toes! Alas...")

And now, the grand finale :'>

A screenshot from Yu's playthrough, Pen's final line:

Farewell, Yu. This time it's for real. You're free.

The Protector, the bracelet Pen will leave for the Builder in the cave, is called "Guardian of Love" (爱的守卫者) in Chinese. Its description says:

A very delicate bracelet that protects the wearer's wrist. Wearing it gives the wearer a feeling of being emotionally confined. Perhaps this feeling is similar to what Peng Hu often said, "Marriage is a boring bondage".

His letter in Chinese is also sweeter and sadder:

最近在这所谓的阿塔拉最高监狱，我也多了点时间思考，没法带你一起来陪我，多少有些遗憾。罢了，这事也怪我。不管怎么说，你也算是我交往过的恋人里最让我上心的，也是为数不多分手之后我还继续挂念的。所以，我打算原谅你了。对——我原谅你了。我想我们也没有机会再在一起了，你也不过是做了你那个位置该做的事，没什么值得抱怨的。我应该一开始就努力把你“招安”了，让你跟我一起，才是最妥当的做法。当然我也没怨你，你确实很优秀。我还留了个最后的挑战给你。在某个遗迹里，有我最宝贵的几样东西，如果你能拿到，就归你了。运用我教给过你的一招半式，要去到那里应该很容易。我亲爱的小弱鸡，这是我最后一次这样叫你了，我相信你的能力。记住，不要怠慢了训练。我们，后会无期。

Dear [name], I've had a little more time to think lately in this so-called Atara Maximum Prison, and I'm more than a little sorry that I couldn't bring you along to accompany me. Well, it's my fault. Anyway, you are still the most beloved lover I have ever been with, and one of the few that I continue to miss even after a breakup. So, I'm going to forgive you. Yeah - I forgive you.I don't think there's a chance we'll ever be together again. You're just doing what you're supposed to do in your position, so there's nothing to complain about. I should have tried my best to recruit you from the beginning, and it would have been the best way to keep you with me. Of course I don't blame you, you're indeed excellent. I also left you a final challenge. In some ruins, there are a few of my most valuable things, and if you can get them, they're yours. It should be easy to get there, using the tricks I've taught you. My dear little weakling, this is the last time I'll call you that, I believe in your abilities. Remember, don't slack off on your training. We won't meet again. (but 后会无期 can also mean "meeting at an unspecified/unclear date")

And finally, if romanced, Pen will leave for the Builder 5 pieces of gold, 2 diamonds, and 1 Protector. 521 (and 520) are a cute way to say "I love you" in Chinese, because when read aloud they sound like "我爱你, Wo ai ni, "I love you". But in some cases, 521 also means "Yes, I will [marry you]" - and Pen does drop a diamond ring after his final battle (apparently he drops it only if you romanced him, but it's unclear yet. I'm pretty sure he didn't drop it during my Fang playthrough, while he did drop it when I romanced him, but I'll need to check that).

WELP, this is pretty much everything I got on this! If the kind Yu will tell us more or I find anything else, I'll update this post!

#mtas #mtas pen #my time at sandrock #my time at sandrock pen #PATHEAAAA #YOU HAD A GOLDEN CHARACTER IN YOUR HANDS #AND YOU WASTED THE CHANCE.... #you can see the chinese writers DID put more effort into his characterization #they wanted to write the “bad boy who actually loves you” trope #meanwhile the english writer went for “disney villain/clown bachelor choice” #hahah such fun :')

[kurtie4life96]

when the party's over.

E.M. x F Reader drabble

Summary: That night in the Upside Down changed everything between you and Eddie.

CW: MDNI 18+, extreme angst, (soft) smut, mentions of drinking, smoking, arguing, injuries, dialogue taken from season 4

Loosely based on the song by Billie Eilish.

"Oh my god, Eddie!"

"Pretty bad, huh?" He sputtered, his hair matted with blood and dirt as you held the back of his head.

"No, no you're fine, we just gotta get you to a hospital, okay?" Your voice cracked as panic gripped every muscle in your body.

"Okay."

You tried to lift him up, tried to get his bloodied body off the cold ground, but he'd grunted in pain, dead weight, too heavy to carry, so you tore your shirt, frantically trying to stop the bleeding from his neck, but it was no use.

There was a moment of silence between you two, the only noise in the background from demobats and other unholy creatures in their habitat of the Upside Down.

An ominous, dreadful feeling settled itself in your stomach as you looked at his brutalized body in horror- pieces of him bitten off all over his legs, arms, sides, and neck as he lied in a pool of his own blood, motionless.

Reality only settled in more when his glossed over eyes turned to look at you, and he smiled- a type of smile that without words, told you he wasn't going to make it.

"I think it's my year now," Eddie's voice shook as he choked out more blood, a smile still on his face, "I think it's finally my year."

"Eddie, no, please..." you quietly sobbed, pleading with him, holding him as close as you could without hurting him further, hot tears rolling down your cold cheeks.

"I love you." He confessed, his body beginning to shudder uncontrollably beneath yours.

"I love you too, Eddie," you assured your dearest friend through sobs, "I'll always love you."

It'd been 5 months since Eddie Munson died in your arms.

It'd also been 5 months since Eleven found the two of you, and restarted his heart, saving his life.

Eddie had healed from his injuries, went on to graduate, and, of course, flipped Principal Higgins off.

He'd also told you, over time, that he meant what he said when he'd told you he loved you.

You told him you meant it too. Yet, you also told him that you couldn't be together.

It was too risky, too dangerous to start something romantic with a friend, when there was a possibility you could lose him again, or he could lose you. The fight with Vecna wasn't over.

The two of you had argued about it numerous times, and as much as you wanted to be with him, be something more than friends, you were just too damn scared.

Eddie eventually said he understood, after months of trying to convince you otherwise, because you wouldn't let up. But this also caused a rift between you two.

Anytime you were around each other, there would be this strong tension in the air, this push and pull, and by refusing to do anything about it, you'd eventually distanced yourselves from each other.

You thought that you would go numb, that your feelings for Eddie would eventually subside, but it was sure taking an awfully long time.

And you missed him more than anything. But his presence was too overwhelming for you. The event that took place was too traumatic for you to even converse with him.

Trauma is just funny like that.

And now here you were, 5 months later, at someone's house party that you didn't even know the name of.

Music boomed throughout the fairly large house, a giant crowd of belligerent teenagers and young adults scattered throughout it.

Everyone was dancing obnoxiously, shouting, doing shots and shotgunning beers. Well, everyone except for you and Robin.

The two of you stood in the corner of the living room people watching, sipping on a red solo cup of a mixed drink like the usual wallflowers you were, snickering and making fun of everyone.

You were dressed similarly- tank top, flannel, and high waisted shorts, a perfect outfit for a warm August evening.

"Check out Tammy Thompson's moves," you giggled, leaning against Robin's shoulder.

"Oh my god."

She put a hand up to her face and hung her head low with secondhand embarassment, before the two of you bursted into laughter, stomachs hurting and pushing each other back and forth, before Robin's laughter stopped abruptly.

"What, what happened?" You chuckled, still smiling at her.

"Look," she whispered, a sense of urgency in her voice.

You glanced over to where she stared, to find Eddie Munson on the other side of the room, gazing at you with soft eyes, a kind grin on his face, seemingly amused with your good mood.

Your smile slowly faded and your heart dropped, going silent, and his did too, his gaze hardening before he looked away quickly, averting his eyes back to the group of teenagers he'd previously been speaking with.

"Shit," you murmured under your breath, staring into your cup and fiddling with the straw.

"I wish you guys would just talk, or fuck, or something," Robin emphasized, taking a sip of her drink.

"Yeah, right," you scoffed playfully, raising your eyebrows, refusing to look back up at him, "shoulda known he'd be at a party, selling weed or whatever it is he's doing now."

"Go talk to him," she suggested, shoving her shoulder against yours, "this is stupid. You love each other."

"I can't, Robin, I just can't," you reasoned with her, though your heart ached, "everytime I see him, I just... see him die all over again... plus, I've been drinking, probably not a good idea."

She rolled her eyes, "Oh, please. You've had one drink. Neither of you are leaving Hawkins anytime soon. You can either stare at each other like creeps forever, or you can just clear the air."

She motioned her head for you to look at him, and you sighed, slowly averting your eyes back to Eddie to find him observing you once again.

His throat bobbed, studying your body language cautiously as you continued to stare back, taking note of his furrowed eyebrows, pursed lips, and long dark curls.

Damn it.

"Fine," you groaned, keeping eye contact with him, "but it's not gonna change anything."

You began to trek through the sea of the intoxicated crowd towards the backyard, knowing well that Eddie would get the hint and follow after you.

"Yay!" Robin exclaimed, "Love you! Be good! Hey, Tammy!"

You opened the sliding glass door and walked outside, not bothering to close it behind you as you knew Eddie would be out momentarily.

You stood on the back deck, arms crossed as you peered off into the night sky. Your stomach was doing backflips in anticipation- no- nervousness as you awaited his presence, counting the seconds as they went by.

11 seconds and you heard a couple of heavy footsteps behind you, the door gently slide shut, and a couple more steps walking towards you.

With a sharp inhale and exhale, you turned around, arms still crossed and took in the heartbreaking sight before you.

Eddie Munson.

He stared at you, hands in his pockets, a melancholy, yet empathetic look in his eyes, and you looked down to your feet, shuffling them back and forth, unsure of what to say.

Another moment passed before he asked, "Cigarette?"

Another moment passed before you answered in a flat voice, "Sure."

He handed you one, putting another between his lips, lighting the tip of his before using the same flame to light yours as you leaned forward into it, taking a long drag and giving him a small nod of appreciation.

"So," he exhaled, "what're we doing out here?"

"Robin." You blew out smoke, flicking your cigarette constantly in an anxious manner.

Eddie nodded, "Figures."

"Mhm," You nodded back, focusing on anything but him, until you felt that same tension, that same push and pull feeling crawling back towards you.

"Wait, what do you mean by that?"

"Oh, nothing," he flicked his cigarette, his lips curling into a smile, "just that I figured you wouldn't talk to me unless someone told you to."

You frowned, looking to your feet again and your chest tightened, "That's not true."

"Yeah, it is," he chuckled sarcastically, "I mean, you avoid me at all fucking costs-"

"Stop it," you demanded, now scowling at him, "you act like I hate you-"

"No, it's fine," he interrupted, a shit eating grin on his face as he leaned back nonchalantly, "everyone hates me. I hate me, too. It's alright."

"Eddie," you looked at him with disbelief, "that is absolutely not true, I-"

"You what?" He took a step forward to you now, peering down at you, "you, what? Love me?"

You stared into him, faces now inches apart, feeling provoked, "You know I do."

"Yeah, right," he laughed, throwing his arms up in the air, voice getting louder, "that's why you just love to be around me, you know it's not my fault what happened-"

"Eddie," you warned quietly, "let me speak."

"Oh, so now, now all the sudden you've got so much to say? Are you fucking kidding me? Jesus christ, pick a way to be-"

"Let. Me. Talk!" You raised your voice, instantly feeling bad for it, but stood your ground anyway.

He let out a small laugh of disbelief, staring into your eyes, before he leaned back again, taking another puff of his cigarette, motioning for you to continue.

"Let me talk, please, okay?" You sighed.

He nodded impatiently, only making you angrier.

"Eddie, I love you. And I'm so fucking scared to lose you," tears prodded at your eyes now, "I know what happened wasn't your fault. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's my fault. And I feel it, and I relive the experience everytime I look at you. I've learned what it's like to lose you, and I am fucking terrified that I will again. I could lie, I could say I like it like this-"

You choked back a sob, earning a concerned look from Eddie's face, "Wait, hold on, it's not your fault either, don't say that-"

"Stop interrupting me!" You cried, tears rolling hot over your cheeks now, "I can't be with you the way you want me to, the way I want to, because I don't want to be in love with you, plan some kind of future with you, only to lose you again, or for you to lose me. So please, stop doing this to me!"

"I love you!" He shouted as he lunged towards you, his face turning red, curled up in pain as he attempted to hold yours, "I love you so much that it fucking hurts, and I can't do this, I'll never be able to look at you, and not love you-"

You took a step back, swatting Eddie's hands away, "Please, let me let you go. I can't do this. I can't keep telling you the same thing- I'm fuckin outta here-"

You shoved your way past him, opening the back door and storming aimlessly through the crowd.

"Hey!" Robin yelled at you, "where are you going?"

"I've got a ride," you lied, not bothering to make eye contact as you head out the front door, starting your journey home on foot.

You sobbed as you walked down the streets, not even knowing if you were headed the right direction, mascara staining your face as you stumbled and stopped every few steps to catch your breath, the emotional pain becoming physical as you leaned over to gasp, an even deeper sob from the last leaving your chest each time.

"Nothing's better sometimes," you tried to reassure yourself that you were doing the right thing as you trekked down the dark streets of Hawkins.

Normally you would feel scared, worried that you were walking home alone in the middle of the night, knowing what monstrosities could be around you and even underneath you, but not this time. This time, that was the last thing on your mind. And the first thing on your mind was Eddie.

Eddie. Oh, how you loved that boy so god damn much, it ached every bone in your body. All you wanted to do was be with him, more than anything, but it was just too risky. Too risky to be with him, only for him to lose you, or for you to lose him again.

You wondered if you even were making the right decision, that if that stupid saying, 'it's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all' was really true. But it was surely too late now. That argument, that fight felt like the last one. The one you couldn't come back from.

You'd only walked about 10 minutes before you heard a vehicle slowly pull up next to you, making you stop in your tracks.

You tried to compose yourself, catch your breath, your heart threatening to jump out of your chest before you turned towards it, knowing damn well what and who it was.

You slowly looked over to see Eddie, sitting in his van, his engine running and his window rolled down.

Time slowed down for you now, the world outside, the night pausing, coming to a halt around you while you stared at him, your makeup now a sorry mess on your face, as he said the simple words you didn't even know you so desperately needed, his voice stern, but his face soft and kind.

"Get in."

Your crying stopped, and you continued to gaze at him for a moment, trying to grasp the situation in front of you, before you easily agreed, not saying a word to him as you walked to the passenger side door, opened it, got in and sat down, putting your seat belt on as you hiccuped.

"Cigarette?" Eddie asked you, not looking at you, his eyes only on the road, though he hadn't started driving yet.

You nodded, your hands on your lap, only keeping your gaze directly on the lit up gravel in front of you.

Eddie put a cigarette between his lips, lighting it and then passing it to you before he lit his own, shifting his van into gear and speeding off.

Neither of you spoke as he drove through the red lights of Hawkins in a rush to get home, the radio not even turned on as you sat in blissful silence, a mutual, comforting understanding between the two of you that no more words needed to be spoken, it just simply wasn't necessary.

You had long finished your cigarette by the time he turned into the trailer park, shutting off his headlights as he pulled in front of his home, parking his van and turning it off, pulling the keys out as you clicked off your seat belt, and the two of you sat in silence a moment longer.

Eddie glanced at you for a beat, his gaze unfocused and dark before opening his door and getting out, walking over to the passenger side and opening it for you, reaching a helping hand towards you to help you get out.

You followed him up the steps of his trailer as he fumbled with his keys, then unlocking the front door and stepping inside, grabbing your arm and yanking you inside the dark of his home before you could walk in yourself, slamming the door.

Everything happened fast, as you expected.

Eddie pushed you against the front door as quickly as you pulled him into you, his soft lips finding yours easily, kissing you as hard as he could, his hands cradling the side of your face as you raked your hands through his hair and pulled him into you, humming with relief into each other's mouths.

The kiss broke, only for the both of you to sigh a blissed out swear as you surged forward again, each rough kiss feeling like a 'what if', 'why not', 'fuck it', 'this should have happened sooner'.

His hands snaked up your waist, shirt lifted, calloused hands wide and hot across your ribs. You pushed up into him more when Eddie slipped his tongue along your bottom lip, deepening the kiss, softly moaning into it as you licked into each other's mouths feverishly, desperately, and there was an ache in your heart that felt like he still wasn't close enough.

You tugged on his hair, earning a groan from him, your name leaving his lips with a drawn out whisper.

The action made your body relax into his and your knees fell apart for him, inviting him to put his leg between them, the friction of his pants against your clothed heat making you gasp softly as Eddie slid off his infamous jacket in a hurry, hastily pressing his lips against yours again as he pulled off your flannel, needy hands now smoothing up and down bare arms.

His hands roamed down to your ass as you embraced desperately, lifting you up and pressing you against the wall harder, making you yelp, as he kissed down your neck, sucking a light bruise there, another one on your collarbone when you let out the prettiest sigh he'd ever heard.

Eddie needed more, his voice rasping swears as he carried you to his bedroom, your arms wrapped around his shoulders, kissing against his neck, and he pressed you into the messy sheets of his bed, his lips still soft and probing, sighing in solace as if to say, 'finally'.

But then he pulled back, sitting before you, his lips swollen from yours as he gazed at you, and you reached your arms out to him, a sudden stinging of tears in your eyes, quietly whining for more.

"It's okay, I got you babe, don't worry," Eddie reassured you softly, peeling his shirt off of himself, then pulling you up by your arms to pull your tank top off and unhook your bra in a hurry, throwing the garments to the side and he leaned into you again, kissing the tears off of your face before they could come running down.

He sucked on your bottom lip hungrily, and you whined, reaching between you to grab at his belt, a pretty whimper leaving your lips as you tugged at it wantonly, making him hiss.

You were begging, pleading with him, 'more, please, more,' in a small voice that drove Eddie absolutely mad, his hard length straining against his torn jeans, all for you.

He cursed to himself in a hushed voice, biting his lip and sighing heavily, and he gave in, taking his belt off and tugging his pants down his legs frantically, leaning back with a sigh of relief as his rather large length was free.

"C'mere," you insisted, reaching for him, wanting to touch him, wanting to smooth your hands along the scars in his sides that you never got a chance to care for, but Eddie shushed you, placing a kiss to the side of your knee to comfort you as he saw you were overwhelmed.

"Just want you," his voice low and husky as he fumbled with the button of your shorts before he paused, his eyes heavy and half lidded, "that okay?"

"Please. Want you too," you whined, arching your lower abdomen into his hand, motioning for him to hurry.

Eddie unbuttoned them in a frenzy, pulling your zipper down and sliding your shorts and panties down your legs, tossing them aside.

He had to lean back and take a moment, his eyes hungry and dark, his lips slightly agape as he took in the full sight of you, and cursed to himself at how pretty you looked.

He gazed at you and then your heat, groaning and praising you for how wet you were when he slid two fingers along your folds, his thumb grazing over your clit, trying to contain himself from absolutely ruining you.

You keened at his touch, grinding into his hand and he bit his lip at your reaction, spreading your knees farther apart for more access as he dipped a finger inside of you easily.

You gasped at the action, and Eddie quickly dipped in a second finger, curling and thrusting them in and out of you languid, gazing in wonder, getting impossibly harder by the second.

"Eddie," you rasped, "I need you. I love you."

He pulled his fingers out and crowded into you then, his hand sprawled messy but gentle along your throat and jaw, kissing and licking into your mouth deeply, moaning into each other as he lined himself up with your entrance.

You brought your knees up to your sides, caging him in, and he pressed a hand into the pillow next to you, hovering over you as you rested a hand against his scarred chest as he pushed into you.

You both let out a gasp of each other's names and expletives as your slick made it easy for him to push all the way into you, bottoming out, and Eddie gave you a moment to get used to the feeling, the pad of his thumb gently stroking your cheek, and curled his hand under your knee, lifting it up over his shoulder before he pulled out slowly, and pushed into you again.

He set a slow but sensual, deep pace and as much as you wanted more, it felt amazing, the both of you panting softly, cheeks flushed and skin slick with sweat, clutching the sheets of his bedding as he pushed in and out you, his lips kissing lazily against your own as you pushed against his thrusts, hitting the spot you so desperately needed.

Eddie picked up the pace, and with the stuttering of his hips, you knew that he was already getting close, understandably so, as you were too, a result from the want- the need from each other you needed for so long, and you couldn't wait anymore, not when he stretched out your walls so perfectly, when he felt so deep, so amazing.

When your walls squeezed against him, his hips snapped and Eddie cursed, his jaw slack as the both of you moaned in ecstacy.

"Jesus christ," his voice was hoarse between thrusts, "you can't do that, I'm not gonna last long."

"Me neither," you mumbled as he continued to massage your inner walls, the curls of his hair tickling your face.

You nearly cried out when he gripped your hip tightly, sure to leave a bruise, and he couldn't help himself anymore, not when you looked so pretty, not when you felt so good.

Eddie bit back a moan, sinking his teeth into your knee as he spilled himself inside you, his hips stuttering as you followed closely behind, your walls gripping him and pulsing as your orgasm took ahold of you, your lower tummy blooming deliciously as he rocked into you through each other's highs.

His hips finally stilled, and his body went limp into yours, the both of you panting against each other, his head in the crook of your neck, pressing sloppy, loving kisses along the side of your face, smoothing stray hair strands away from your forehead.

He pulled out of you and you whimpered, but Eddie was quick to catch your lips, swallowing the sound and he kissed you passionately, before tumbling next to you, pulling your slick body into his, limbs entangled, trying to get impossibly close.

"I love you," he whispered against your lips, eyes closed, "and you're never gonna lose me. Okay?"

Tears prodded your eyes, and you nodded eagerly, smoothing your hands up and down his scarred sides, not knowing if it was true, but you smiled anyways.

"I love you too."

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson angst #eddie munson smut #smutty smut smut #stranger things fic #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson #eddie munson x fem!reader #stranger things 4 #eddie stranger things #eddie the banished #eddie x reader #eddie x y/n #eddie the brave #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fic #friends to lovers #stranger things fanfic #stranger things imagines #stranger things hc #stranger things smut #fluff #angst

[wishuroses]

.⠀ ݁ ⸜⸜ 𓂃 𓇼 experiment, spider soccoro.

✶ pairings: spider x sully!reader

✶ warnings: fluff, kissing, touchy spider, sorry guys it gets heated, love confessions, reader is just a big cat (purring and scenting ensues), size differences, uppercase intended!

✶ word count: 1k

✶ na’vi glossary: yovo – a purple fruit, palulukan – the rainforest’s most fearsome predator.

✶ a/n: being deathly exhausted while simultaneously dying of hunger while writing is not a good mix lawd i’m running LAPS. beware that idk how to write people kissing but i tried my best! happy reading >:-)

It was a quiet and cold night in the lab, hours past eclipse. Norm had suggested that Spider head to bed and you to go back home a long while ago, but you both decided against it–you knew your father would be at least a little understanding (but at the same time, you knew you were going to end up getting a scolding one way or another), your mother, on the other hand, not so much.

(Neytiri loathed Spider so much it made her blood boil and she made sure you both knew that, but the exact reason as to why–you weren’t sure. Nor will you be willing to understand. But one thing you did know was that you loved him, way too much. You weren’t sure if it was platonic or romantic, but either way you weren’t about to fight it. Not a chance.)

The only things you both could hear were the soft pitter-patters of rain that tapped against the glass and the buzzing hum of the hazy overhead lights, long forgotten video logs played on the illuminated screen before you.

It was nice, being alone with your closest friend like this. A small smile graced your lips at the thought, holding the small breathing device up to your mouth, inhaling the precious air, your eyes fluttering shut.

Your calm stupor, however, was cut short when you heard Spider’s nervous voice ring out towards you, soft but held a certain tone that demanded your attention.

“Could I try something?”

When you looked over, his eyes were locked and set onto the floor, finding it more interesting than anything else in the chilly room. Your wide honeyed gaze burned holes into the side of his head, eyebrows furrowing with nothing but concern for your friend. “What is it?”

Spider bit his lip in thought before responding, looking you dead in the eye. “Get on the table.”

Silence.

“..This table will collapse underneath itself as soon as I sit down, Spi.” You responded with raised eyebrows, questioning, staring at him incredulously.

He has the gall to scoff, shrugging. “No it won’t, trust me. I’ve jumped over these things way too many times, and they haven’t budged, not once.”

You paused. Another beat of silence passed.

Your nose crinkled with doubt at the delicate skyperson table not breaking under your lithe, but heavy body–you wouldn’t believe that for a second– but something you could definitely believe is him playing jungle on top of them like it was nothing– honestly such a Spider thing to do.

Despite your inner dialogue, you couldn’t possibly resist this silly monkey boy anyways, even if it meant saving your life. “Fine.” You grumbled.

You placed yourself on the sleek expanse of the metal table, hissing softly as nothing but pure coldness stung the back of your thighs like pinpricks. The table was quite large, admittedly so, but your feet still managed to prod the floor.

A sharp, playful grin stretched across his face once you complied, immediately finding his place between your legs, warm palms smoothing atop your bare thighs. You shivered, goosebumps dotting across your navy blue skin–whether it was from the stale, chilly air of the lab or because of Spider’s touch, you had no idea.

“Spider,” you mused, making him look up at you through thick lashes. You found it oddly adorable how he was still so, so small, even when you’re sitting on a table, nearly hunched over to at least meet some of his height. He was tall for a human, you knew this, but gosh. You thought to make fun of him for it, like you usually do, but you couldn’t find it in you–for whatever reason. “What’s this all about?”

“I want to try to.. conduct an experiment.” If you weren’t so caught up in your confusion, you would’ve noticed the way he leaned into you, taking in your ray of presence with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Bro.. conduct an experiment?” You parroted with a cunning smile on your face, mirth shining in pools of gold. “Haha, you sound like Norm!”

Spider gasped, scandalized. “Shut up. I do not.” He flushed a pretty pink and shoved you gently, making you cackle aloud. “Norm said that if I ever get bored, I should try to experiment–test things out, I guess.” You hummed and placed a hand on his shoulder, letting him know that you were listening. “Thought that’d be boring to do by myself, and I always have fun with you, so that’s why I need you here.”

You nod once, managing to keep a straight face at the hidden confession, but the upwards flick of your ears and the way your tail thudded against the table gave it away. He always has fun with you? Now that was news to you.

All of a sudden, the air felt thinner and your heart felt like it was about to jump out of your chest, you quickly took a flustered breath from the device that dangled from your side. The lab was only chilly a few moments, why was it hot in here all of a sudden?

“Alright..” You licked your lips, and this time, you definitely didn’t miss the way his eyes caught the movement, intrigued. “So, what’s your hypothesis?”

“My hypothesis is that I can make you blush.” He states matter-of-factly, an even sharper grin taking over his features, making your heart palpate violently against your chest. “With my lips.”

You sputtered; now it was your turn to be scandalized, eyes popped open so wide that Spider was so sure they were about to jump out of your sockets.

“With your– with..” You heard the blood rush to your face, your ears flicking downwards with embarrassment. “Spider.. bro.. that’s so..”

“What? C’mon, let me kiss you.” He pouted, daring to lean even closer to you, making your thighs open wider to accommodate him. “I wanna kiss you.” You let out a breath at his straightforwardness, you knew he was not leaving you alone until he got that kiss.

Spider placed his hands around on your thin waist, squeezing softly, making your breath hitch. Fuck it, you thought, before leaning forward to crash your plump lips against his smaller ones, trying your best to work around the difference. He groaned internally, you tasted like sweet yovo fruit. Spider immediately reciprocated with an equal amount of vigor, thumbing the edge of your ribcage.

Noises of wet, desperate lips smacking together and strained breaths filled the air, and you both could only pray that Max or Norm wouldn’t walk in on both of you nearly eating each other’s faces off like two hungry palulukan in heat.

After a few moments, you pulled back–much to Spider’s dismay– making him push forward to chase your lips. Your chest was heaving, face flushed a ripe purple-ish color, while Spider was completely pink from head to toe–like the strawberries your father once told you about years ago. The pit of your tummy fluttered tremendously, like branch tips releasing new buds in gentle, fluctuating bursts.

The loud thumping of a tail and a purr thundered throughout the lab, effectively startling Spider. You push your head between the juncture of his neck and jaw, rubbing your cheek against the skin. He’d absolutely have to ask you about this later.

Your back arches like a strung bow, hips grinding forward against his with newfound vigor, the sudden pressure and friction against loincloths makes Spider groan heartily, thumbs rubbing encouraging circles into the dip of your hips. Eywa, you are huge. He’s overwhelmed, and so are you, yet makes no move to stop you. Please keep going, he wants to say, please.

Then, for you, it finally clicks.

You and Spider kissed. You and Spider… kissed. And the cherry on top is that you purred.

With whatever amount of shame you had leftover, you throw yourself back and slap your three-fingered hands over your flushed face. “Sorry. Oh, by Eywa, I’m so sorry.” He laughs breathlessly and gently removes your hands from your face, intertwining his hands with your bigger ones, silently reassuring you. You let him.

“This wasn’t just an.. experiment, right..?” You mumbled, bright eyes blown out wide and hopeful, Spider felt his resolve melt at your vulnerable state.

“Norm was right about that experiment thing, but I just wanted an excuse to kiss you. I plan to do it even more after today.”

“But..” you paused, “I thought you liked Kiri?”

Spider looked at you as if you’d just sprouted fifteen heads right before his eyes, but his gaze still held something soft. Something soft that was reserved for you only. “If I liked Kiri then I would’ve kissed her, not you, stupid!” At his words, your bottom lip juts outward to form a pout.

“So, you like me? Like, really like me?” You whispered, almost disbelieving.

“Yes, dummy, I really like you.”

“I really like you too!”

You surged forward, sending the both of you tumbling onto the chilled floor, tangled up in a mess of giggles and light pecks across each other’s blushing faces.

If it meant basking in your warmth every moment and every hour of the day, Spider would definitely consider conducting experiments with you more often.

#spider #spider soccoro #atwow spider #avatar #avatar the way of water #atwow #avatar x reader #atwow x reader #atwow x y/n #atwow x you #avatar x you #avatar x y/n #spider x reader #spider soccoro x reader #spider x y/n #x reader #x y/n #x you #fanfic #jack champion #jack champion x reader #jack champion x y/n #avatar spider

[fineghkst]

How Lucien acts around his mate

a/n: It’s been a while since I wrote anything so I’m posting this one before I give up. I will try to post more next week so feel free to send requests!

warnings: fluff; kinda suggestive; not proofread; english is not my first language so let me know if you find any mistakes

At the moment he finds out

Lucien felt the bond the first time he saw his mate. He was truly surprised, even shocked to be honest. Lucien didn’t expected to have a mate after what happened to Jesminda, he was actually afraid of having one and end up putting your life at risk by being connected to him. Lucien would be ecstatic and happy, but at the same time couldn’t help but fear.

How he acts?

He would be completely open about it and would probably just split it out as soon he has the opportunity. Lucien just wants to be with his mate and knows how important is to keep a clear and sincere dialogue. He really values honesty, especially when it comes about the bond.

Lucien is not the only one affected by it and even if you didn’t feel it yet, he doesn’t want to left you in the dark.

Will he tell anyone?

As I said before, Lucien doesn’t keep the bond as a secret. He won’t scream it to the whole world (since it’s not something that belongs only to him but also to his mate) but I think he would share it with his close friends (Jurian, Vassa and maybe Feyre) and also with Eris.

In short, he won’t try to hide it but in respect to his mate, he will kept it low until you’re comfortable enough to tell other people.

When his mate feels the bond

Lucien will definitely be insecure, he was opened about the subject since the beginning but once you feel the bond too he’s too scared you will reject him. I think he always would be around you, but if you rather not having his company he will give you all the space needed.

When his mate accepts the bond

Lucien got used to the feeling of rejection and somehow already waiting for it. Once his mate accepted the bond, agreeing to spend the rest of your life with him, Lucien was truly surprised and extremely happy, a type of happiness he thought he would never be able to feel.

That was the first time the light inherited from Helion reveled itself. He felt a joy that made the power overflow through his veins.

He won’t leave your side (and your bed).

Things he loves to do with his mate

Definitely traveling. Once the matebond was officialized Lucien just wanted to enjoy every second with you and above all, the freedom you both had. He didn’t want to be rooted in a court for a while and neither did you. So you both dedicate your free time on travels to other cuts and to the human lands, even those beyond the continent.

Lucien doesn’t actually enjoy having to wear a disguise to deceive humans, but there was nothing better in the world than knowing every piece of the world next to his favorite person.

Does he often gets jealous?

Is something rare to happen, but sometimes the matebond makes him a little possessive. When someone shamelessly hits on you, Lucien sassy personality would definitely show up (all I have to say is: poor guy who thought it would be a good idea to flirt with Lucien Vanserra’s mate.

Favorite body part

Your neck. Lucien loves to kiss your neck and to buy you jewels that enhance your skin. He also loves the way you react when he give small kisses or when he decided to use his hands as your necklace.

PDA

HE LOVES IT. Lucien loves to be feeling your skin against him so he doesn’t care if you are in public or not, he just wants to feel your skin against his.

How often he says “I love you?”

At the beginning it was harder for him to say the 3 little words, Lucien thought somehow he would scare you away once he said it, so he rather demonstrate with attitudes.

You were the first to say you loved him and once you did, Lucien realized how stupid he was being and started to say how much he loves you every day.

Protectiveness

Lucien been through a lot and because of that, he’s always scared something bad will happen to you. I don’t think he would be the overprotective type but would insist that you learn to defend yourself, supporting you to start training with the Valkyries (and also become one of them).

Random bonus

When it comes to you Lucien is always open to any kind of conversation, no matter how difficult it is. He told you everything that happened in his past without censorship (you were the first person he felt completely safe for that).

He loves to hear you talk and always encourages you to always tell him when someone bothers you, setting your boundaries. Lucien becomes your best friend, not only your mate.

He’s also very open to try anything new on bed. So if you’re curious about something, Lucien is definitely down for it.

#acotar x reader #lucien vanserra x reader #lucien x reader #lucien headcanons #lucien vanserra #lucien x you #lucien x y/n #lucien vanserra x you #acotar headcanons