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moon-rivr · 4 months

Note

I need a fic about Miguel lusting after nurse fem!reader! I imagine he got hurt around her apartment and being that he is Spider-Man and she is a nurse she decides to take him into her apartment and fix him up. She is so caring and kind to he and this starts to become a thing where spider-man gets her to heal him.

So Miguel never reveals his identity to her but he’s like falling hard for her. Like thinking about her all the time (especially when he is in the shower lol). Let’s say one day he’s feeling like a little under the weather so he decides to go to where she works to get a check up and medicine (and hopefully to see her outside of his costume for once) so when he finally sees her he’s trying to charm her flirt a bit like he does when he’s behind the mask, but she is not having it. She acts cold and disinterested because one, guys flirt with nurses all the time and two, she has feelings for spider-man. Then you can do what you want with the ending but I would like if they get together in the end maybe you can squeeze some NSFW in there. Honestly this might make a pretty cute series!

little nurse

pairing: miguel o’hara x nurse fem reader

contents: mentions of blood/injuries and masturbation (m)

author’s note: decided to split this up into two parts, i hope you don’t mind :) very limited medical knowledge btw (one szn of grey’s anatomy and dr mike accounting for that 😖)

word count: 4.1K

Miguel O'Hara appeared in your life out of thin air. Literally.

You were trudging home from work around eleven at night, your scrubs smelling like disinfectant and dark circles adorning your under eyes. You'd been looking forward to taking a shower and getting as much sleep as you could before your next shift, your plans completely shifting when someone dropped in front of you. A masked man landed in front of you, clad in a Spider-Man costume. The sleep that you were longing for quickly faded away, replaced by a feeling of concern as you kneeled over to see if he had fractured his spine or his head with the fall. "How many fingers am I holding up?" You asked, holding up three as you waited for some kind of assurance that he was awake.

After receiving no response from the man, you dragged him into your apartment to work on him inside. You were grateful to whatever entity there was above that you lived in a downstairs apartment, the task of taking the man inside proving more difficult than you'd originally thought. You let out a small huff as you dragged him onto the rug in the center of your living room, shutting the door afterwards. You looked down at the man, almost tempted to take off the mask and reveal who was underneath the Spider-Man mask. After more careful consideration, you decided that it probably wasn't the best idea while he was in such a vulnerable position and grabbed your phone from your purse.

You'd gotten some old blouses that you were planning on throwing away, using them as a tourniquet around his stomach to stop the bleeding. You pressed two fingers to his neck to try to feel for a pulse, a bit slow but at a steady rhythm. After making sure his heartbeat was stable, you pressed your head down to your chest to listen for his breathing, the sound coming out ragged. "Stay with me, please," you silently whispered as your bloody fingers typed away at your phone screen, opening up the phone app. You'd finished up typing up the final one of the emergency number, a large gloved hand stopping you from answering the dispatcher on the other line.

"No, no. Please don't do that," the masked man underneath you pleaded as he slowly started to regain consciousness. You were made aware that not only would he run the risk of getting his identity exposed, but he'd also run the risk of having the nypd arrest him for the crimes he's committed as a vigilante. "Now do you understand why I can't go to the hospital?" He asked, almost like he wanted to make sure what stood at stake for him. "Okay, I'll trust you for now. But if you start bleeding out in my living room, then I'll take you to the hospital. Does that sound good?" You answered reluctantly, watching as he nodded.

You grabbed some gloves from one of your kitchen drawers, kneeling down next to him as you reached for the zipper on the back. "Do you mind if I take this off?" You asked, wanting to get his approval before you got started on anything. "Whatever you need to do to me, doc," he answered, sitting a bit up so you could reach the zipper better. You zipped down his suit, pulling it off his arms and sliding it down to his stomach. "How's your head? You hit it pretty hard when you fell," you asked him, wanting to get a better assessment of how his health was. You felt around his stomach, trying to find if there was any internal bleeding but you knew that the results would be more accurate with a CT scan.

"My head's fine, just a bit of blindness in my right eye," he deadpanned, your eyebrows practically shooting up to your hairline as you turned to look at him. "I'm joking, doc. I'm all good," he added, a small chuckle following after. "I'd smack you if your ribs weren't probably broken right now," you muttered, getting up from the floor to grab a suture kit from your bedroom. Only the sounds of his breathing could be heard as you worked on the large gashes covering most of his abdominal region, steady fingers working the needle through the thread to stop any further bleeding. You wiped away at some of the dried blood, cleaning him up to the best of your ability before pressing your hands down on his stomach to see if he had any further pain.

"I don't have any strong meds at my house, I only have Tylenol so I hope that works for you," you announced as you looked over at your medicine cabinet, surprisingly empty for the line of work that you'd chosen. "Give me the prognosis, doc. How long do I have to live?" he asked as you handed him the bottle of pills with a glass of a water. "I'm not a doctor, just a nurse. And I'd say a couple more minutes, if you're lucky. Might last longer if you don't annoy me as much," you teased him back, grabbing a couple bandages to finish up with the job. You wrapped them around the places where you placed the stitches, making him a little first aid kit just in case he'd need it. "If your stitches pop out or anything, just come back here. You know where I live."

He pulled the zipper back on, grabbing the first aid kit from you before he headed towards the door. "I'll see you next time I get hurt, little nurse," he told you, making it seem more like a promise than a goodbye. "Try not to make this a daily thing, please," you responded before he had the chance to leave, the eyes of his mask slightly raising. "I can't make any promises, lindura," he swung away after he finished speaking, sticking to the building in front of your apartment complex. You couldn't help but look out at him as he left, watching the way that he maneuvered the webs to the best of his ability despite the injuries that he'd sustained.

Miguel continued to seek you out as his nurse every time that he got hurt after that, enjoying the small banter and jokes between the two of you. Getting to be around you once more felt like the highlight of every fight that he got into, the assurance that you would be there to patch him up giving him the motivation that he needed to get up and fight crime. Despite the small jabs that you took at him, you proved to care about him time and time again with each wound that you treated. You never asked him any questions about his identity, never made him out to be anything bigger than what he had to be. Despite the fact that he wore the mask around you, he'd never felt more exposed around a human being in his life before.

Miguel found himself to be distracted by the thought of just seeing you again, constantly. He found himself wanting to get hurt just so he'd have an excuse to need your assistance, to have your soft hands running across his flesh as you stitched him up. His attention wasn't diverted only when he was dressed up as Spider-Man, the affection that he held towards you following him all the way to the lab he worked at. He'd mixed up two chemicals that he shouldn't have, causing a negative reaction in one of the rats that he was testing on and having to discard his experiment completely. "Focus, O'Hara. We're not here to pick up after your messes," his co-worker and superior, Aaron Delgato, told him during lunchtime with that same stupid smug expression he always carried on his face.

Normally, Miguel would've had something to respond back with but he couldn't find it in him to care that much at the moment. "Yeah, yeah," he ended up muttering back, pushing away his concerns as he sipped at the bitter coffee from the cafeteria. Normally the bitter taste of the coffee would've made him spit out the substance, the taste becoming slightly better when you were at the forefront of his mind. Instead of throwing it away after the first sip, he ended up taking a couple more sips before throwing it away in the sink. He spent the day at work focusing on his reports, having to stay a bit later to make up for the work that he'd messed up earlier just so he wouldn't have to deal with Aaron's condescending comments and stupid smirk as he questioned Miguel's ability to work the job he did.

He got home at around 6:30, two hours after his shift ended. The sound of door closing echoed throughout the empty halls of his home, the environment completely devoid of anything homely apart from a couple pictures and a bookshelf full of scientific journals that he'd enjoyed. He stripped away from his clothes once he got into his bedroom, wanting to remove himself from the lab as much as possible. He got into the shower before he had to head out for his vigilante duties, knowing that he knew would be too tired to do so when he got back home. The cold stream of water hit his muscles as he stood underneath, putting his forehead against the cold tiles of the wall. He felt depraved as he thought about you while he stood here, feeling himself grow more and more ashamed as he resisted the urge to wrap his hand around his cock.

Eventually, he ended up giving into his desires and wrapped his fingers tightly around his cock. He closed his eyes to help him envision a scenario with you, his mind running through with images of you underneath him. His grip on his cock tightened, wanting to replicate the feeling of what your cunt would feel like. He smeared some of the precum leaking out of his tip all around his shaft with his thumb, letting out a small hiss as he felt himself growing more aroused with every second that passed. He started off slow, wanting to prolong this orgasm as much as possible.

He pictured you starting off by sticking your tongue out for him as you sat on your knees underneath him, doe eyes looking at him expectantly as your hand wrapped around the base of his cock. Your mouth would engulf around the tip of his cock, swirling your tongue around it to capture every drop of precum that leaked out. His thumb ran around his tip to simulate every aspect of his scenario, precum sticking to his fingers as he did. He couldn't help but think about how beautiful you would look as you struggled to adjust to the feeling of his cock around your mouth, tears threatening to leak through as you fought off the urge to gag. "Oh shock, keep going," he moaned out, almost feeling like you were in the room with him.

His hand moved faster around his cock, fingers wrapped tightly around his shaft as he tried to get himself off. His eyes remained closed as the cold water ran through his body, his mind still continuing with the scenario from earlier. He felt his cock twitch in his hand, picturing how you would look with ropes of cum splattered onto your face. His release was more uneventful than he'd expected it to be, hit with the clarity of the situation immediately as the water washed the sticky substance from his hands. His forehead remained pressed against the shower wall, wanting to eliminate every negative thought that he'd been presented with. He felt perverted for taking advantage of you in this way, of taking advantage of the way that you were just so ready to help him out, but he couldn't help but feel his desire for you grow even more with every smile that you gave him.

He got out of the shower a couple minutes later, taking a few moments to reflect on what he'd done before finishing up with the rest of his shower routine. "Did you finish making the final adjustments to my suit?" He asked as his hologram assistant appeared next to him, a towel wrapped around his waist as he walked to the closet. "I did. You should find the material to be a bit more durable than the one that you previously used. Though the news reports show that it's going to be close to freezing so I would recommend for you to stay home," LYLA responded, before giving him the detailed report of what she'd done to his suit. "Crime doesn't stop just because it's a little cold. I'm sure I'll be fine," he muttered, grabbing the suit hanging up on the back of his closet.

Miguel shivered as he sat on top of a rooftop, overlooking the city as he waited for something to happen. He would have to make a mental note to add some insulation to the redesign of his suit, finding every minute outside to be excruciating. He removed the bottom part of his mask, blowing onto his bare hands as he rubbed them together. His feet swung on the edge of the building, ears perked up as he tried to listen in on conversations to discern whether anybody actually needed his help tonight. He was about to leave for the night around 30 minutes later, his plans getting stopped when he heard a lady scream across the street.

Miguel handed the purse back to the lady who was getting robbed, fighting the thugs that had tried to rob her proving to be the most exciting thing that happened all night. "Thank you Spider-Man!" The woman called out as he swung away, receiving a curt nod in response before he swung away. He ended up having to fight a couple low-grade robbers and car-jackers, nothing too big for the night. He got back home after finishing up the mundane tasks, feeling himself shivering even as he was welcomed by the warmth of the fireplace in his living room. LYLA had already started with her remarks about how he probably ended doing himself more harm than good, getting shut off two minutes into her monologue. He stripped off his clothing, sitting down on his couch with his legs spread out as he tried to warm up.

Miguel let out a groggy moan as he got up to the sound of his alarm, rubbing his hand across his temples as he laid on the couch. He could hardly get up to go to the bathroom, finding himself unable to head into work today. "I need to call in sick today," Miguel mumbled into the phone, knowing that Aaron was probably rejoicing at his weakened state. "You already messed up the experiment and now you want to take the day off? You're really slacking here, O’Hara," aaron remarked with a small 'tsk', speaking just loud enough for anyone to be able to overhear their conversation. "I don’t see why I have to explain myself to you but I'm sick. The experiment's gonna end even more messed up if I do end up showing up," Miguel answered, a small cough coming out of his end almost on cue.

After getting the reluctant approval of Aaron to stay home, miguel made his way to his bedroom and snuggled underneath his blanket. "LYLA, set up an appointment for me tomorrow at the medical center downtown please," he asked his ai assistant, his words coming out raspy and hoarse. "Why would you want me to do that? I can give you a full health assessment and recommend the right types of medicine that you need, Way better than a doctor ever could," she responded, appearing next to him with a face mask and little nurse hat on. "If I wanted you to do that, I would've asked. Just set me the appointment please," he mumbled, reaching over on his bed stand to get a tissue. LYLA was about to protest once more, but decided to go ahead and do the task when she heard Miguel coughing once more.

Miguel spent most of the day in bed, sweating underneath his tiger blanket despite the fact that he felt himself shivering. He found out the hard way that Vaporub did not in fact cure every one of his aches, though his nose wasn't too stuffed up after using it. He got up around 6 pm when he felt his stomach grumble, walking over to the kitchen to make himself something to eat. He turned on the afternoon news, wanting to make sure there wasn't anything too bad threatening the city. He saw that there had been a couple reports of robberies around the city, leaving it up to the police since he wasn't sure how useful he would be with his nose running every minute. He turned off the tv and poured the chicken soup that had been brewing on the oven into plate, sitting down at the dinner table to have something to eat. All he could do for now was simply wait for what the doctor would prescribe him, a part of him hoping that he would be able to see you.

"Miguel O'Hara?" You called out, looking around the sickly people in the waiting room before a tall man stood up. "That's me," he responded, his sinuses clearly stuffed up as he spoke. You led him back into the rooms, walking to the treatment rooms as you looked through the clipboard. "It's been a while since you've been here so i'm gonna go ahead and update your medical file," you informed him, looking back at him as he nodded. You led him to a wall with a measure taped on it, grabbing a pen from one of the pockets of your scrubs. You were about to take his height, noticing that his figure loomed over the measure. Your eyes widened slightly, your mind rubbing through what you could possibly do.

You grabbed an extra measure from a drawer, grabbing a chair nearby before getting up on it to tape it up on the wall. "You could've asked me to do that, y'know? I wouldn't have minded doing a favor for such a pretty nurse," he mused as he looked up at you, his lips immediately pursing together at the dirty look that you shot him. You got off from the chair, looking up at the two measures taped together before counting the extra inches. "Alright, 6'9," you muttered to yourself, writing it down on the clipboard before motioning for him to step on the electronic scale next to the side. You took his weight after the machine stopped counting, writing down the results before leading him to his assigned treatment room.

You washed your hands at the sink, putting on a bit of hand sanitizer before putting on a pair of gloves. "What seems to be the problem?" You asked, wanting to get a synopsis of what he thought was wrong before you made any guesses. "The problem is that you haven't accepted a dinner invitation with me. I'm sure my cold would heal a lot faster if you did, just saying. Trust me, I'm also a doctor," he mused, relishing as you resisted the urge to roll your eyes. While you'd had your fair share of patients flirt with you, having to deal with their advances tested your patience bit by bit. The man in front of you wasn't exactly unattractive, but he didn't make you feel the same excitement that you felt every time that you saw Spider-Man. You folded your arms and looked at him, staying silent until he decided to divulge what had been bothering him.

"My nose's stuffed up, my chest feels like it's full of phloem, and I can't stop coughing up a lung," he responded, allowing you to get a glimpse of what was really bothering him. "It sounds like you just have a cold but I'll get your blood work done just to make sure that I get an accurate result," you told him, grabbing a small needle to prick him. Before he got the chance to tell you that the blood work wouldn't reveal much, you'd already collected the blood in a small tube. "The doctor will be right with you, Mr. O’Hara," he'd heard you say before the door closed, leaving him alone with the knowledge that you didn't feel the same way about him while he was unmasked.

The doctor came in and did what they were supposed to, taking his heartbeat and his temperature. "It seems like you just have a cold, Mr. O’Hara. Take some time to rest at home and don't overexert your body," the doctor had warned him, handing him a small paper with a prescription for what seemed to be cough syrup on it. He took the paper from the doctor, looking over at you with a small smile as you stepped into the room. The doctor handed the chart over to you, giving you a shortened explanation of what the diagnosis had been. You read over his chart, reaffirming what the doctor had already said before you dismissed him.

"I forgot to mention, your blood test came back inconclusive. I'm sure it was just the machine since it said it couldn't really identify you as fully human," you told him before he had the chance to leave, his figure looming over yours as he waited for you to finish speaking. "I hope you get your machine fixed soon. I'm sorry if i did something to damage it. By the way, are you certain that you don't want to say yes to that dinner I mentioned earlier?" He insisted with his previous offer, his hand lingering on the doorknob as he waited for your response. "I'm sure, thank you for the very kind offer," you reaffirmed, stepping out of the room once he'd walked out.

You headed to the back to talk with your friends, seeing Miguel at the hospital's pharmacy to get the cough syrup prescription filled. "I heard you rejected your patient's advances when he asked you out to dinner. This one's pretty cute and rich, so what happened?" Nurse Maya asked you, pretending to sift through some files just in case a doctor passed by. "Girl, you know she's obsessed over that Spider-Man guy. How's it been going treating him for free, anyways?" Your other friend, Nurse Valeria asked, looking up from her computer just to take note of your expression. You hated how easy the news travelled in the hospital, avoiding Miguel’s gaze as you turned to look at your two friends.

"It's been going decent, thank you. And there's nothing new to tell, Spider-Man hasn't been showing up to my house lately. I kinda have missing being his little nurse," you responded, watching as they both rolled your eyes. "Of course you had to go and fall in love with the masked psycho," Maya muttered before the three of you talked about something else. You couldn't help but laugh as Maya went through her recent dating dilemma, blissfully unaware to the fact that someone had been listening to your conversation while they were waiting for their prescription to be filled.

Miguel couldn't help the small smile that crossed his lips as he heard you speak about Spider-Man in the way that you did, speaking about his alter ego like a high school girl with a crush. "Mr. O'Hara?" The pharmacist behind the counter called out for what seemed to be the hundredth time, finally diverging his attention long enough from you to be able to do their job properly. "Thank you," Miguel mumbled awkwardly, the smile on his face quickly fading away as he paid for the cough syrup. He took a small spoonful of it in his car while he waited for the blue light to turn off, silently hoping that it would work and he could get back to fighting crime once more.

Though he felt a little discouraged at the way you'd shut him off with every flirting attempt that he made, he knew that at some level you had to feel some kind of attraction for him. His mind began coursing with different ideas of how to approach this situation, almost jealous of the way that you viewed his alternate ego. He started to wonder what it would be like if he was able to flirt with you the same way that he was able to as Spider-Man, what it would be like to have that confidence without the use of the mask. The way you spoke about him was almost endearing, the way that you described what it felt like to have Spider-Man come for your services and the way that you felt while you stitched him up. All that he knew is that he needed to come up with a solution about how to approach this crush for you and fast.

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kiyoomi-levin · 4 months

Text

Morning Routine [nsfw]

(Wakatoshi Ushijima x F!Reader)

a/n this is something i wrote and edited today in a single run >.< I wanted to release a haikyuu fluff fic for my tumblr debut but i was just possessed by something this morning and rolled outta bed and just typed this up hehe.. reblogs and comments appreciated!! i have like 12 unfinished works rn and i am busting my ass off to get those finished and published! please be on the lookout for more from me!

summary:: wakatoshi has a bad habit-- his morning routine revolves around you. more specifically, cumming to the sounds of you. warnings:: wakatoshi is highkey a creep/stalker but this fic is fluffy i promise music rec!:: 2fast by superm <AKA the song i listened to when writing> word count:: 1.9k

6:33 AM, the blinking clock reads.

He doesn’t even need an alarm now.

Silently, Wakatoshi rolls over, reaches over to his nightstand and grasps the two items he needs most– lube and toilet paper.

Sighing, he sits himself up, leaning against the headboard of the bed, and, as if awaiting instructions, goes very, very still.

In a way, he is waiting for orders. You just aren’t aware that you’re the one giving them.

6:34 AM. A mere minute before you’re up and he can get started with his day. It doesn’t feel right, yet he can’t stop. Shaking his head, Wakatoshi shifts his weight around, impatient.

I should stop.

There it is. That nagging voice of reason that scolds him every morning. But really, at this point, he can’t function normally without you.

There’s a certain amount of stress that comes with carrying the title of ace. All the papers praising his skills, cheering fangirls, and words of encouragement from coach only added to the ever growing expectations that people had for him.

Luckily, when he was a senior in high school, Wakatoshi had discovered what best alleviates this pressure– not meditation, not Tendo’s comics, but sexual relief.

Every morning, a quick handjob does the job, gets him into prime condition. He even checked with his primary doctor to ensure it’s safe and healthy to release everyday– “you’ll be fine, Wakatoshi, as long as you don’t consume too much porn,” the old man had advised kindly.

He took the doctor’s words to heart– since he had discovered this method of relief, Wakatoshi had never viewed porn. Some of his teammates laughed at him when they found out he almost religiously avoids it, but he doesn’t want to contaminate his brain with potentially intrusive or disturbing visions. His imagination has always been enough, after all.

Until he met you.

In a way, you’re both a blessing and a curse– probably the latter, he admits to himself. Because since he’d met you months ago, the only thing that’s been able to get him up is you.

He’s never slept so well, his skin has never looked so clear, and, most importantly, his condition on court has never been better. He’s considered the possibility of you being a goddess, or possibly his guardian angel and can only rule those out with the fact that you, like him, masturbate.

More accurately, masturbate. Every. Single. Morning.

Then he hears it. The first soft moan. Wakatoshi glances at the time– 6:37 AM. You’re getting a slightly late start today.

No matter. He lifts his hips, gently rolls down his gray sweats to his lower thigh. He’s already hard. He doesn’t even have to touch himself now to get excited. Your quiet voice and the thoughts of you are enough.

Poor you. You’re unaware that despite residing in a luxurious, single-person room reserved for school athletes, the walls are criminally thin.

Wakatoshi pops open the lid of the lube, squirting a glob into his warm hand. He throws aside the bottle, barely registering as it bounces off the bed, only intent on listening into the sounds of you and your body.

When he first grasps his cock, he has to hold back a groan. Despite it being an everyday routine, he still feels the same surge of pleasure as when he first started this nasty habit months ago.

You're breathing slightly more heavily now, and he hears the sounds of your fingers inserting and exiting your body at a familiar pace. He follows along, carefully stroking up and down.

He wonders where you’ve learned this from, because you always go at the perfect pace. Somedays, you go slower, teasing yourself, pausing just before you orgasm, but it’s always.

It’s always exactly what he needs.

God. He knows this is wrong, even as he pumps faster with his left hand to keep up with your quick fingers. It feels so good.

Next door, you’re beginning to let out soft cries.

He presses his thumb against the tip, holding back a moan of his own as he envisions you jerking him off.

He’s seen your hand before– extra soft from being in gloves for multiple hours daily as a fencer.

Thinking about your sport has him thinking about his, and now he’s back to thinking about how wrong this is. But he can’t help it, he’s already tried to give it up once– yielding horrible results.

The day he held back and skipped a morning fap session with you was also the hardest day of his life. He had found himself unable to focus in lecture, especially grumpy towards Tendo’s typically bearable antics, and worst of all, all his hits were off.

“Your schedule must be off,” his captain had said, casually tossing a ball high into the air.

“Bad sleep? Rough morning?”

Wakatoshi had blinked at him wordlessly, wondering how the tall setter had guessed accurately.

“It’s fine,” the third-year had reassured him, “just get back on track tomorrow.”

With that, Wakatoshi had found himself ‘back on track,’ masturbating with– no, to you– every morning.

You’re moaning out loud now, almost whimpering. His cock pulses in his hands, veins bulging, growing hotter and heavy. Fuck, he just wants to see you right now. Your cute face, your sexy neck, gorgeous arms...

He can almost see it now– your smooth thighs shaking and twisting as your small hands would grasp your pillow. He’d make you feel so good, he just knows it. He’d lean against you, kiss your neck and ear before whispering how good you are, how you’re making him cum, how much he loves you!

You’d cum, and he wouldn’t stop. He’d want to see your eyes roll back over and over again, and he’d memorize every inch of your face.

Wakatoshi holds back another groan. His fisted hand feels so good against his cock, especially as it imagines it’s your tight pussy.

Contrary to what Tendo believes (the only one to know about this bad habit) it wasn’t just your soft moans and quiet gasps that had him clenching his sheets as he lifted his hips.

He had long fallen for you, since you had first locked eyes with him in the long hallway.

There was something about you. The way you always smile up at him gently– not in the way that other girls smile at him, as if they want something (usually his number)– but a genuine smile, eyes crinkling slightly.

This unexpected attraction was only exacerbated when you sat next to him at the first-years’ dinner party. You smelled so fucking good and listened to his words with actual interest, asking him about his family and laughing at his lame jokes.

Unfortunately, he was also scared.

He had heard about the countless rejections you’d dished out since the first day of university.

Despite his perceived sexual ignorance, Wakatoshi knew everything there was to know– he was popular, too, in his own right. Tall and lean, there were girls throwing themselves on him left and right.

But he only wanted you.

Today, he must be extra stressed (especially with that upcoming psychology exam that he hasn’t studied for yet) because he’s so, so close, yet can’t seem to finish.

Fine then.

He leans over, grabs his cell phone. He only does this in emergency cases, which occurs about once or twice a month.

Swiping up, he’s greeted by his photo gallery, opened the night prior for this cause.

In his locked gallery awaits dozens of photos of you.

Obviously none were taken by him!

Wakatoshi’s a creep, but one with manners and boundaries.

This gallery is cluttered with headshots of you from the school’s official website, silly photos of you that were sent into the college athlete’s group chat, and his favorite– photos of you from your close friend who sells them to him at fair prices, starting at $10 minimum.

None are suggestive. But they still rile him up, maybe because the only connection he has with you is through your early morning activities.

Wakatoshi desperately taps on the newest picture he bought for $40, quadruple the usual price– he can hear your breath hitching, and he knows you’re almost done.

He wants to finish with you so bad.

He was going to save this picture for next week, when he knows you’ll be gone for the fencing nationals and he’ll have to cum without you for an entire miserable, dreadful, god-forsaken week–

but he doesn’t care now. Nothing matters.

It’s a glorious photo– when he heard your friend had it, he had grabbed her by the shoulders and demanded a price.

You. On the beach. Under an umbrella. Lying on a purple towel.

He had paid an extra ten dollars for the motion picture– so he could watch you go from ass up onto your back, breasts jiggling and cheeky smirk in full action.

That’s enough.

He holds his fist tight–one more pump and he’s finished, but he wants to make sure you’re cumming first– and he hears it– to his relief, you’re moaning and whispering– “‘m cumming!”

Yeah, he’s cumming too. His hips lift again, and he drags his closed fist downwards against his wet cock. His vision blurs.

“Fuck!”

He can’t help it, today’s orgasm is especially strong, taking control of his full body. He’s shaking, mind barely in control as he continues to slowly pump to ride out the whole orgasm. After all, that’s what you’d do, right? You’d keep riding him, even as he finished and begged you to stop.

Thank God we came together.

Sometimes, you bait him. More often than he likes, you switch it up, holding yourself back and not allowing yourself to cum before masturbating all over again for an even more powerful orgasm. Those days suck– when he’s already softening, cum all over his large hands, and you’re still going.

He hears your bed squeak, and he sighs– as soon as it starts, it’s already over.

6:45 AM, his phone reads. Wakatoshi tosses it aside.

Thankfully, he had pulled his phone away in time, avoiding tainting the device with his release. A few times a month, he gets careless and cums onto an open picture of you, causing him to have to run through his shower extra fast so he can leave time to wipe down the device.

Rolling off the bed, he heads towards the shower leisurely. It’s also become a part of his routine to time his shower. It makes him feel even more intimately connected to you.

Wakatoshi’s grateful you take long showers– you’ve never taken less than 24 minutes to shower, typically, they last about 34 minutes on average. That gives him the time to jump out first and wait to exit his room at the same time you depart from yours.

Under the heat of warm water, he’s usually consumed with thoughts of you, impossible thoughts, like maybe you know.

The wall between you and him is equally thin, and your hearing may be as equally good as his…

Maybe you know, and you like masturbating with him.

And then, just as a precaution, he douses himself with cold water at the end of his shower, and those thoughts dissipate with the steam escaping towards the vent.

Like everyday, Wakatoshi laces his shoes, sprays on his favorite cologne (that your friend claims you like) and inhales, bracing himself to see you.

As he hears your feet shuffle, he pushes his door open first, stepping out into the warm hallway.

“Good morning, Wakatoshi!” You greet, eyes brightening. He nods, gulping. That’s an acceptable form of greeting, right?

As the two of you walk towards the elevator in silence, Wakatoshi can’t help but hope that this morning routine won’t be coming to a stop anytime soon.

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

a/n and that's a wrap :,) i really hope you liked and sorry the ending is highkey shit LOL as i kept editing i kept adding and removing more and more and honestly that's kind of my biggest weakness:: i'm never satisfied with my work and i'm scared ppl won't like it ... but i'm trying to overcome that!

#haikyuu smut #haikyuu #wakatoshi x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #haikyuu wakatoshi #hq wakatoshi #ushijima x reader #ushijima smut #haikyuu ushijima #haikyuu fic #haikyuu x you #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu x reader

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gutterfuuck · 4 days

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i literally have your post notifs on now 🫣 that conquerer mark fic was soooo good omfg 🙏🙏 while it’s kind of on the topic of bff mark, would you be able to do like…childhood friends mark that knows the reader is attracted to him (probably in love with him) and kind of uses it to manipulate her? or something similar idk LMAO i’m just in love w the childhood friends/friends to lovers trope and i think u could put a really fun and dark spin on it!

mdni! possibly uncomfortable for some, will add tags soon so please bare with me! not very smut like, some at the end.

this is just a small drable, i will extend on this idea! please enjoy!

i very love this idea; i already know exactly what i will do with this hehe. he's been aware of your little secret crush on him since you both started highschool, thinking nothing of it, thinking that you would eventually grow out of him… until you don’t. you were certain that you were destined to be.

that was until amber came along. you felt threatened, terrified that she would take him from you- she was gorgeous-and he knew it tore you up inside. when college came around; you almost gave up on him. you thought back to how he had knocked on your bedroom window floating one day making you panic and almost scream awake the entire neighbourhood. oh how you wished that he had stayed by your side.

you scrolled through the newsfeeds on your phone, watching back mark-invinvible's - fight today, pining for the sweet boy that you had fallen in love with. you felt as if you needed mark grayson to eat, sleep and drink.

he flew through your window, taking you by surprise as he nodded his head at you as a quick greeting, disappearing into your bathroom in his suit and emerging a second later in no shirt and pajama pants. "thought i'd do a quick check around the city before bed." he spoke, your eyes quickly glancing at his body, observing him. you were sure he wouldn't notice, you'd been doing this for years and he hadn't even paid you no mind.

that wasn't true. mark saw the way you looked at him. not just now, but all the time. he could see the way you mourned for him, heard the way you touched yourself for him, jerking off to the sounds of your hopeless shameful cries afterwards, slowly slipping into despair as you tried to wrestle with the realisation that mark was with another. he craved it. craved you, wanted you.

he wanted to get off…

you were his best friend, so when you watched him slump onto the end of your bed and listened to him complain about his relationship, you comforted him, you heard him. you felt guilty to admit it, but your heart fluttered at the possibility of amber being out of the picture. oh you felt horrible.

mark knew how you felt: euphoric. you were hoping on their downfall. mark and amber were actually only on a little break. “it’s just been rocky recently,” he would get back with her eventually. “we should try seeing other people.”

and he sees right through you, sees right through his pretty little friend. he doesn’t hesitate, his hand resting on your lower back. “i know you like me, i’ve seen the way you look at me.” he speaks and you flush, wanting the bed to open up and swallow you whole. you try to speak, but are interrupted by mark. handsome, strong, sweet mark. “i’m kinda pent up… just- i don’t know.. i don’t wanna make it weird,” he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, shrugging along with his words. take the bait.

“me and amber— not so active anymore. if you get me.” what was he getting at? you thought your heart was going to pop out of your delicate little chest.

and then he finally pops the question.

before long, you’re on your knees, mouth stretched around your best friend’s dick, drool leaking from the edges of your mouth as he rocked his hips into your face, “c’mon now, i thought you liked me… hah- are you gonna start being a good fleshlight or am i gonna have to go next door and finish inside of amber, huh?” his words were lost on you, the only thing you could focus on was the way you had finally gotten his attention; you were finally useful to him.

#dark blog #invincible #mark grayson #mark grayson x reader #mark grayson smut #fem reader #bff!mark grayson #invincible x reader #invincible smut

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the-iceni-bitch · 5 months

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𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐝?

Relationship: Ransom Drysdale x Jake Jensen (Gem and Blondie, NLLYL: Before)

Words: ~3.3k

Summary: Ransom doesn’t want to go, but he can’t stay.

Warnings: explicit language, brief mention of m/m sex, ANGST!!!! Angst, angst, angst, angst, angst, homophobia, implied use of the f-slur, dysfunctional family, so much self-hatred. 18+ ONLY (due to the AU)

A/N: You may have been expecting more Kinktober, but apparently it’s Angst-mas. Listen, all of us knew this was coming but that doesn’t make it hurt less. Just remember they both end up where they need to be and that I am so sorry for doing this to all of you 😭

I am no longer doing taglists so if you want to stay up to date on my fics follow my sideblog @the-iceni-library and turn on notifications.

Ransom took another uncomfortable sip of beer and looked around at all of Jake’s family as he sat next to his boyfriend. It was weird, he was so used to dysfunction and drama that being around so many people who actually seemed happy to be related to each other made his skin crawl. He didn’t know how he was supposed to interact with these people. Even though Jake was sitting right next to him and holding his hand, he felt alone.

That didn’t stop him from smiling like he knew he should be. His thoughts may have been filled with anxiety but his WASP upbringing meant he could put on a good face no matter what. When Jake squeezed his hand he squeezed it back, beaming at his boyfriend even as he wondered at how he could possibly be a part of this man’s life when he was so colossally fucked up. He felt like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop in relation to him being a terrible person, and he hated it.

“Hey,” Jake’s smile dropped a little when he looked at Ransom’s face, his eyes full of concern which only made Ransom want to throw up. “Are you okay? I know Sam Adams is kind of basic beer, I can run to the store if you want something different.”

“No, I’m fine.” Ransom lied, smiling even wider to hopefully cover for the tightness in his throat. “Everything is great, your family is wonderful.”

Jake was about to say something else, he could tell, but fortunately Jake’s sister chose that moment to stand up with her husband. Her grin was huge and she was bouncing on her toes, and even with his anxiety Ransom couldn’t stop a chuckle when Jake started bouncing too. It took a few minutes for everything to die down and then she was finally able to get out the words she had apparently been holding back all night.

“We’re pregnant!!”

The uproar of pure joy was deafening, and it only got more intense when the sonogram was revealed. Every member of the Jensen clan started hugging each other, some of them even cried. Jake was one of the criers, running to his sister and dragging Ransom behind him until he wrapped her in an enormous bear hug.

Ransom felt a little better now that all the attention wasn’t on him as the boyfriend they’d never met before. Or at least he felt better until he heard the word “uncle” directed at him.

“What?” His mouth was suddenly very dry and his smile felt more forced than ever.

“You’re gonna be ‘Uncle Ransom’. Isn’t that exciting?” Jake’s sister beamed at him until Jake poked her in the arm, shaking her head but still keeping that jubilant smile on her face. “Or… you know, sorry. Mom!!”

The rest of the afternoon was a blur for Ransom. A happy, noisy, gut wrenching blur. He didn’t think he’d actually finished the beer he had been holding, and he was vaguely aware of people moving around him but nothing else registered. All he could think about was how fucking serious things were. Up to a certain point he had already been aware, but that was just with him and Jake. Jake’s entire apparently fantastic family had never entered his mind until that day, and he could not figure out how he was supposed to fit in with all of them. Especially as an uncle. The only uncle he’d known was Walt, and he was just awful. He couldn’t be around kids. He probably shouldn’t even be a part of any sort of functional family.

Before he knew it he and Jake were home. He hated the way his boyfriend was looking at him, like he wanted to stay so happy about his sister’s news but also could tell that Ransom was lost in his fucked up emotions. So he managed to put on a placating smile, ignoring the ache in his stomach and his racing pulse when he told Jake how happy he was about him getting to be a fun uncle. His freakout was saved for when he managed to get in the shower after Jake got ready for bed, sitting on the bottom of the tub and breathing painfully while the hot water washed over him and he tried not to feel like such an utter bastard. All night he obsessed about how he didn’t deserve the man he was sharing his bed with, and how much easier things would be if he could bring himself to either talk to Jake or just leave.

It was like that for the next two weeks. Ransom’s cheeks hurt from all the fake smiling and acting cheerful each night when he went to bed. The only time he seemed able to relax was when he and Jake were having sex, and even then he felt like he was being an asshole for trying to distract himself with his boyfriend’s body, so he tried not to do it unless Jake was adamant about it. He knew Jake could tell something was wrong, and as much as he loved the man for knowing that asking would just make Ransom more stubborn, he almost wished the blond would just do it. Maybe if he finally broke down things could get better.

But he didn’t really want to break down. Ransom knew himself, he wasn’t a man who thrived on deep and meaningful conversations. He couldn’t believe how grateful he was when he got an invitation to some boring party for Linda’s real estate firm. A year and a half without a word from his mother or anyone else in his family and all of a sudden he was invited to some fancy soirée out of the blue. Yeah, he hated his family, but he hated what he was feeling around Jake right now even more. He even considered just telling Jake he was going and then drinking himself to oblivion in some random hotel, but he did miss Harlan, and if the old man was going to be there, hopefully Ransom could get his grandfather to talk some sense into him.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to go, Gem?” Jake looked so earnest and sweet while he helped Ransom with his tie and it made him feel like the slimiest douche in the world. “I’m pretty charming. You could introduce me as your ‘roommate’.”

“I’m sure, Jake.” Ransom couldn’t even bring himself to call Jake by his nickname, he hated himself. “Trust me, aside from the food and the open bar, it’s going to suck massively.”

“Okay.” Jake leaned up to peck Ransom on the lips and he couldn’t stop himself from pulling the blond closer for just a moment. “Call me if you need a ride.”

Ransom promised he would, kissing Jake deeply for some unknown reason and looking into his eyes before saying goodbye. It felt painful and he couldn’t figure out why, like it was somehow more permanent and he wasn’t going to be home in just a few hours.

The hotel was sufficiently swanky for what he knew his mother’s expectations would be. He was even more glad that he hadn’t let Jake tag along, handing the valet the keys to that ancient jeep would have been especially awkward. There were so many blue bloods packed into the ballroom that Ransom could practically smell the old money, and he wasn’t impressed. While he was scowling and trying to get his bearings his mother found him, immediately making a stress headache begin behind his left eye.

“Hello Ransom.” God, he’d forgotten how fake the woman was. That smile was showing far too many teeth. “Thank you so much for coming. How have you been?”

“You’re really going to act like you care, mother?” Ransom let her embrace him since he didn’t feel like making a scene, but he hated every second of it. “Where’s Harlan?”

“Your grandfather wasn’t feeling his best so he’s resting at home.” Linda refused to let go of his arm when he stepped back. “But I’m very glad you’re here. There’s someone I want you to meet. This is Sloane Hargreaves.”

Linda gestured to a young woman who looked like every social climber’s wet dream, with eerily straight and white teeth and not a single blonde hair on her head out of place. She was attractive, but her eyes were sharp and cunning, like she was constantly assessing how she could maneuver a situation to her advantage. Everything about her presence put Ransom on edge, especially when she shook his hand and she let out a laugh that was just shy of shrill.

“Yeah, nice to meet you.” Ransom had to yank his hand away from her. Pretty or not she was freaking him out. “If Harlan isn’t I’m going to head home, Linda. There’s no reason for me to be here.”

“Nonsense. It’s not like you have someone to go home to.” Oh, he did not like the way Linda’s eyes glittered when she said that. “Be a gentleman and escort this lonely young lady for the night. What could it hurt?”

Aside from his patience he couldn’t come up with anything, so he just shrugged and let the bourgeois waif wind her arm through his. The way she was clinging to him didn’t help him relax at all, nor did the constant inane chatter. That combined with the cloud of Chanel No. 5 that hovered around her made his headache even worse. All he wanted was to go drink and forget about his fucked up family and the boyfriend to whom he was scared to commit.

He didn’t even know how long it had been before Sloane finally left him alone to go to the ladies room, but it was far too long. Ransom was on the far side of the room from the exit, but he still tried to make a break for it, cursing to himself under his breath when his mother intercepted him with that same, phony smile on her face.

“Now now, why are you rushing off so soon?” Linda sank her claws into his arm and steered him towards a secluded table. “I haven’t talked to you in so long and you’re already leaving.”

“Who’s fault is that?” He took the scotch she handed him and downed it in one gulp. “Why did you even bother inviting me here?”

“What, I can’t miss my son?” Linda scoffed when he just scowled at her, tapping her manicured nails against the tabletop with irritation. “Fine. Your grandfather has been talking about missing you quite a bit and is adamant about letting you back into the family. He’s gotten the idea in his head that you must have made something of yourself if you haven’t come back begging on your knees by now.”

“What’s the catch?” Ransom snorted when she tried to look coy. “C’mon, Linda. There’s no way you’d be thinking of letting me back in if there wasn’t something in it for you.”

“You’re too goddamn smart for your own good.” She muttered under her breath and shook her head before addressing him again. “I know, Ransom.”

“You know?” Ransom chuckled a few times before freezing when he saw the smug look on her face. “What do you know?”

“I know about your… god, I can’t even call it a job.” Linda sneered when Ransom seemed to shrink in on himself, leaning forward as she went in for the kill. “Not just a sex worker, but a sex worker for fa…”

“Stop.” If he had to hear that word come out of her mouth he would start crying, and he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. “Just stop.”

“You have your disgusting job, your piece of shit apartment, and that little boy toy you’ve been fooling around with.” She tutted when Ransom buried his face in his hands and groaned. “It’s ridiculous and uncouth. I’ll not have you parading your vulgar plaything around in front of the family or our friends.”

“They're not my friends, mother.” He felt like he was going to be sick. “He’s not a toy, I love him.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, no you don’t.” Linda sipped on her wine while she watched her son crumble in front of her without an ounce of sympathy. “You love money and being a damn pain in the ass, and as much fun as you might have introducing that fruit to society, I won’t have it. Break it off.”

“No.” Ransom shook his head and barely kept his feet as he tried to hold back a panic attack. “I don’t want to come back if I have to leave him.”

“Oh really?” She cocked her head as she gazed at him with those predatory eyes. “You come back and date that pretty, sweet blonde girl who was hanging on your arm all night and I’ll pay for everything.” When she saw Ransom go completely still she knew she had him. “I have a house all ready for you just a half an hour from Harlan’s, that gorgeous vintage BMW you always wanted, and you’ll get to be part of an important family again. All the parties, all the events, and status. Tell me you don’t want it.”

Ransom felt like the bottom just dropped out of his world. He couldn’t do this. He was a bastard but not that big of a bastard. But he was a bastard. He was dysfunctional and repressed. He was in love with Jake but he was terrified of what that meant. He didn’t know how he could possibly fit into that man’s life and make him as happy as he deserved, because Ransom knew that he didn’t deserve the happiness that Jake did. It could be better if he let him find his own way now, before he had the chance to hurt him even worse. Ransom should only be around assholes, he always knew it, the fact that he was considering this just confirmed it.

By the time he climbed into a cab to go back to the apartment he was drunk. Miserable and drunk. The pool of self pity he was wallowing in was so deep he couldn’t see the bottom. He couldn’t even find his keys, he had to have Jake buzz him up.

“Hi gem, how was it?” Jake turned around on the couch to greet him and his face immediately fell. “Oh Ransom…”

“I can’t… I can’t do this.” Ransom couldn’t bring himself to look at Jake, leaning against the wall and sinking to the floor as he buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh baby, no.” Jake jumped over the back of the couch and went to sit in front of Ransom on the floor. “Don’t apologize, you never have to apologize to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Me, I’m what’s wrong.” Ransom was choking on his words but was determined to not look like the terrified little boy he felt like. “I’m too fucked up for this. I’m too fucked up for you. I can’t give you what you want.”

“All I want is you, Ransom.” Jake reached out to him and flinched when Ransom recoiled. “Just you, that’s it.”

“No it isn’t. How the fuck could it be?” Ransom could hear the pain in Jake’s voice but couldn’t stop now. “You want the family outings and to be ‘uncle Jake’ and domestic bliss. I can’t do that shit, Jake. I can hardly be in the same room as kids, much less have any of my own.”

“Ran…” Jake saw the tears falling from Ransom’s eyes and he lost it, sobbing and gripping Ransom’s hand in spite of the man trying to pull away. “As long as we fucking talk to each other we can make it. You don’t have to do this. I know you feel like you fucking do because yes, your family is that fucked up, but you don’t. I’m here for you, for whatever you need. I love you.”

“I…” Ransom wanted to tell him he didn’t love him, but that was such a fucking lie it got caught in his throat. “I have to go, Jake. I need to leave. I should be back with my family.”

“I can be your family, Ransom.” Jake couldn’t stop himself from pulling Ransom close and wrapping his arms around him. “My family can be your family. You deserve to be loved, to have a family that cares about you. I promise Ransom, you deserve the world. Please believe me.”

“I… I can’t.” Ransom finally crumbled and wept as he embraced Jake in turn. “I’m sorry, I just can’t. I want to, but I can’t. Jake, I have to go back.”

“Ransom,” both of them were a mess but that didn’t stop Jake from kissing Ransom like he was his last breath of air. “I love you so much, goddamn it. I am not going to make you stay, but you should, you can. God, please fucking stay.”

Ransom kissed him back. It was desperate, full of longing and pain. He wished the world would end before the kiss would, but then he had to breathe and reality came crashing around him. His eyes met Jake’s again and he saw the last glimmer of hope die, and he hated himself for killing it.

“I love you, Jake Jensen.” Ransom kissed Jake’s forehead and rose to his feet, staggering towards the door so he could spend the night somewhere else where he wouldn’t have to see the suffering on the face of the man he loved. “But I don’t deserve you. You’ll find someone better, I know you will.”

“Ransom, fuck, just wait.” Jake ran after him and grabbed his wrist to turn him back around. “I’m not stopping you, and I’m not going to tell you that this isn’t the most painful thing anyone has ever put me through, but I’m not going to fucking hate you. You can try all you want, but I love you, I’ll always fucking love you, and all I want is for you to be happy. If it can’t be with me, it should be with someone amazing. Don’t let your family fuck you up any worse, okay?”

“Goddamn it, don’t be such a fucking grownup, Jake.” Ransom had to stop himself from kissing the man again, wrenching himself out of Jake’s grip and running a hand through his hair. “You can keep all my shit. You should forget my number. Goodbye.”

As soon as the door closed behind him he felt his heart freeze over, the sound of Jake’s muffled sobs washing over him as he called himself a cab and went down the stairs. He managed to keep it together for the next week, his face stony and his jaw clenched as he let his mother get him set up in the new house. He even went on a date with the daughter of the upper crust family Linda foisted on him, and Christ was she boring.

It wasn’t until he was moved in, the furniture still wrapped in plastic and a few boxes left to unpack, before he let himself grieve who he’d lost and what he had done to the man he loved, collapsing on the floor and sobbing violently as the moon rose through the trees surrounding his new home. Jake was wrong, he was an absolute and total bastard who deserved nothing but unending pain for the rest of his life. So he let himself feel it, determined to never let go of the anguish that he had brought on himself.

#natalie writes #no love like your love: before #jake jensen #ransom drysdale #gem and blondie #jake jensen x ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x jake jensen #m/m fanfic #angst #chris evans characters #eighteen plus

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plantboiart · 17 days

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Okay finished relistening to episode 1 (will listen to episode 2 and maybe more tomorrow but its like 10 pm and i have school tomorrow) of bitb and heres just like small collection of things that stuck to my mind!

Rolan does in fact canonically have a car i forgot about that so sorry rolan in my fic you got to live but lost your ability to drive such is life

Kian’s first act being just drinking something…. Like he wakes up and immediately gets alcohol… grizzly honestly just does such an incredibly amazing job making kian seem so like depressing but hiding it so well behind making everything seem like just some funny rockstar stuff its amazing

Also! The super tired ‘hey’ before he remembers and switches to ‘i mean whats up dude’??? Like could that have been a genuine mistake by grizz, sure, but i highly fucking doubt that. Like grizzly is so incredible at voice acting i refuse to believe that wasnt intentional

Rand. Just. How fucking mad he is at rolan. Its just painful. And how clearly done with it rolan is like you know this is an argument theyve had like hundreds of times before

So so so many details about kian that are so fucking fun to think about, specifically when he describes the look officer dudes gave him? Like (cant remember the exact quote but you get it) ‘ive seen some bad people in hollywood, people who just smile at you a certain way and you know you wouldnt want to meet them at night because they want to kill you’???? I am using that against him so hard holy shit

They just. Know nothing about how time works. They keep saying that its been a decade (it hasnt its been 15 years) and barc is supposedly old enough to have met them but no he is absolutely not and also charlie described barc as a golden retriever but then who the fuck is the black dog in rands official art just. Wow theyre so inconsistent about everything.

Theres definitely a few details about kian that i had forgotten about (like him just saying he has plenty more cars at home and whatever) but the pros of that is. I dont even need to decide to just ignore canon because i can just fucking believe that hes lying! Like its kian we cant trust his word on anything and thats great for me because i dont need to worry about messing up the canon!

Trying to just keep track of their stats and such but its. Its so hard. Because most of the time they just say ‘thats a success/hard success/failure/etc’ and not even what they actually rolled and then when they say what they rolled they still usually dont say what the number they had to beat was so just like.

Kian has 30 strength and 75 in guitar and 11 hp and that is all i can actually remember

Rand has 45 strength and 30 sanity (for like the first half hour) and ive already forgotten everything else

And rolan. Im going to be real i remember nothing already. I think he has 8 speed? But that was in the solo ep so i cant be sure. Also either him or rand had 14 hp i have already forgotten which one

Rat’s death is so hard to think about but its also very hard for me because im just thinking of kian going through the same fucking thing. Like hes aware of it and hes in pain and he just hears a buzzing and. Augh. (And kian probably died alone. God knows becky wasnt comforting him through that)

…..kian going fucking four times over the speed limit getting to galloway but then specifically not speeding with the others until theyre trying to leave after seeing rats whole thing? You cannot convince me that thats not like him being passively suicidal and just not caring about his own safety unless other peoples lives depend on it as well

Also, quick pat on the back for myself, i feel like i did very well with especially rand and rolan’s dynamic. Like just the intense care and love they have for each other but its been overshadowed by years spent apart and basically the second theyre left alone they immediately get into an argument and instantly start going right for all the things that hurt the most? Jesus they need therapy

Also kian (yes of course im focusing on him again thats my guy) just cares for them so much?? Like him immediately going after rolan and trying to help him without even knowing whats going on, also as fucking stupid as it is grizzlys plan being literally ‘im going to flirt with donna so john walks in on us and chases me with a shotgun to give a distraction for rand’ its like. So ridiculous. Yet somehow also very caring that this idiot is really willing to risk getting shot at to help rand out a bit

#jrwi show #jrwi #just roll with it #jrwi bitb #jrwi blood in the bayou #blood in the bayou #jrwi spoilers #jrwi bitb spoilers #bitb spoilers #blood in the bayou spoilers

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demon----dean · 7 months

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WIP Wednesday!

Okay, technically Thursday in this part of Europe already, but you get the drift.

This is from a silly fic I am writing loosely based on this writing prompt:

"You, an evil sorcerer, decide to summon a demon. You expected a large, monstrous being, as was illustrated in the book, but are surprised to find a child. The demon you summoned is seemingly six and on their first summoning mission!" by @wordsnstuff

Let's make it modern Obikin, Obi-Wan is a grieving lawyer and baby!demon!Anakin is very eager to impress him. 😄 (He may or may not be also imprinting on Obi-Wan like a baby duck, who knows. ;))

Obi-Wan staggered back into the library, Qui-Gon’s favourite place in the house he guessed now belonged to him.

He knew his father had been into the occult, and it was a petty thought to seek a spell, but Obi-Wan felt like he would go and do something unforgivable himself, if justice wasn’t served.

He fumbled and eventually managed to open the secret compartment where the oldest and most precious books were hidden.

“Let’s see…” He mumbled, allowing himself to drop to the floor, the room spinning as the alcohol worked through his system.

“Spells… Spells to have a good harvest, spells to attract romance… Summoning spell…” Wait. That might be the one he needed!

He flipped to the right page and paled as he saw the evil creature with goat body, horns and sharp teeth staring back at him.

A demon.

He could summon a demon and make sure Maul didn’t walk free.

Obi-Wan shivered and rubbed his face, feeling incredibly guilty for not keeping to his usual calm and rationality.

He was only half aware of going to the kitchen for another swing of the whiskey and herbs and candles required for the ritual.

As he came to again, he was kneeling in the middle of the library, carpet pushed aside and the ancient book open next to him.

A sigil drawn in blood.

He took a shuddering breath and cut his palm, careful as he dipped his index finger into the crimson liquid and started tracing the winding lines from the book onto the floor.

“Forgive me.” He mumbled to the ghost of Qui-Gon, undoubtedly watching over him from somewhere above and judging his inability to let go.

As Obi-Wan finished the sigil, he lit the candles and herbs, focusing his drunk brain to read the Latin enchantment.

His tongue felt heavy, and his voice trembled, but all the years at law school were paying off as his Latin was semi decent even intoxicated.

“Daemon, esto subjecto voluntati meae!” He finished, his heart beating as the temperature seemed to suddenly drop and then rise fast.

The ground under him was quaking.

Oh no. What is this blood thirsty creature tears me apart and won’t listen to my commands? He wondered in panic as the sigil started to glow.

Well, it was too late to turn back now. Whatever sort of monster he had called to this dimension, he would have to face it.

The lights flickered rapidly, between one blink and the next, there was a figure standing before him.

The figure…

Was a small boy, dressed in rags. He had a bowl cut and round cheeks. He looked adorable and innocent, except for the unnatural golden eyes and small black stubs peeking out from the hair on top of his head.

Obi-Wan instantly felt himself sobering, almost as if he had been dunked in ice water.

“What is thy bidding, my master?” The boy asked in a tone way too serious for his high voice, and got down on one knee.

Obi-Wan gaped and tried to decide if maybe he should just run. Or more likely he was still extremely drunk and hallucinating. But it was a child! He couldn’t possibly ask of him what he had intended!

“I… I wanted… This horrible man, Maul, he… He took my father for me and I sought revenge in my rage. I see now that I was wrong. I would never ask you to hurt him or anyone else.”

The boy looked confused and a bit nervous now.

“Master, I am very capable. I can fetch his head for you!”

“Jesus, stop that. Stop calling me Master and stop… Stop talking about murder so casually. Please rise.” Obi-Wan pleaded, his head throbbing.

"Rise, my Master?"

"Yes, rise and... And sit on the couch. Yes. I shall make us some tea." Obi-Wan spoke with more confidence than he felt.

Dear lord, was he really inviting the demon child over for tea?

It would seem so.

#very raw #and not edited properly or beta read #so all mistakes are mine #obikin wip #wips #wip wednesday #demon!anakin #modern au

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kirby-rarepair-tourney · 6 months

Text

Round 2 Set 2 Poll 1

Poll Runner's Lack of Anime Knowledge Really Needs to be Rectified: Metajecra VS Metagoon!

Which one's rarer, and which one's pairer? Vote now, for your favourite rarepair!

Propaganda:

Metajecra

In the anime, Meta speaks more highly of him more than anyone else. It’s EXTREMELY clear Meta was very fond of Knuckle Joe’s father, in the sub MK says that he “swears on his love”. ALSO their masks both have the matching four spikes, there HAD to be something going on there.

Metagoon

HEAR ME OUT!!!! LISTEN!!! first off its a knight x assistant, SECOND they are both old ass men THIRD they are both the sassiest men in the show!!! I am aware they have directly interacted two times throughout the entire run of the show and have barely acknowledged each other but!!!! both mk and escargoon have known each other for a long time within the castle besides sword, blade and ddd. so they very likely both couldve been having super deep conversations for those however many decades. both of them take very similar approaches but different when it comes on their stance of king dedede. escargoon seems to only be around the king because of the status being directly under him gives him and the benefits to the job but escargoon does not like what ddd puts him thru. same thing can be said for mk who very obviously is only working under the king because of ddd for his association with nightmare and kirby who is set to land there any time. they both work for him for a means to an end rlly. I also think that mks frim nature could rlly help escargoon break out of his “two personalities” cycle. when escargoon is around ddd hes a bitch when hes not (sometimes) hes nice(?). though once he gains his status back under ddd or no longer makes use for the kids hes prtty bitchy again. mk could probably set him straight or atleast walk him in the right path with him not being his superior nor one of the “brats” he has to deal with. they seem on equal footing. also just a hc i like to think because both escargoon and mk are mechanics that after the anime escargoon helps mk rebuild the halberd. OKOK IM DONE!!!!! HERES A FIC I NEVER FINISHED IF U WANNA SEE MY GRAMMATICAL ERRORS AND ILL MIND [Linked is the fic in question!]

#poll #tournament poll #kirby #kirby series #kirby ships #metajecra #metagoon

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reinvent-and-believe · 2 months

Note

do you think roy always knew he was into men or was he repressed until he realized he was into jamie?

oh anon. i started to answer this, then got inspired and started writing a fic in answer to it instead, then the fic turned into a bigger fic that's going to take me months to finish so i think it's best if i just answer the question. 😅

so thanks for asking, anon, i DO have some thoughts!!!! they are scattered and messy but i'll give it a go.

i don't know that roy has always known he's into men, but i think he's known quite a while. maybe not when he was younger - he might have known in the back of his mind that he liked boys, but he knew he wasn't gay because he definitely liked women, so that's that, no need to think about it past that, it's squared away. even if intellectually he knew about the existence of bisexual people growing up, he wouldn't have considered it an option for himself (and to be honest, i don't think it's a given that he did know it was really a thing. it was the 90s. bisexuality wasn't widely talked about. if you liked men, you were gay, and roy wasn't gay).

roy was born in 1982; he was in the academy and going through puberty and trying to figure out who he was in the 90s. things were not great for us in the 80s and 90s. i'm 8 years younger than roy kent would be, and the way i learned about the existence of gay people was aids and the rhetoric surrounding aids. and that was formative for me; it provided the only frame of reference i had as a kid of what gay people were. that was how i internalized that my queerness—the queerness i couldn't even articulate or understand—made me sick, dangerous, unclean. obviously that's not a universal experience, but it's also not a particularly uncommon one for our generation, and it takes a shit ton of work to unlearn. it would have been worse at roy's age, and i can see it being something that would shape his perception of what it means to be a queer man.

listening to roy talk about himself is fucking devastating and so telling. "sometimes i get concerned that i've been infecting you with the worst parts of me," he tells phoebe. infecting is a pretty loaded word, and it speaks to the deeply rooted shame that roy carries at the very core of his identity. we see over and over throughout the show that there's something about roy that he seems to truly believe is...rotten, repulsive. unlovable, maybe. a lot of people read roy as completely lacking self-awareness, and i get where that comes from, but i don't really read him that way. i think roy's sometimes plagued with self-awareness when he doesn't want to look, and he loathes the things he sees. he knows how he is. he knows the parts he hates about himself. and i think his queerness plays right into that.

ted lasso is, among other things, a show about masculinity, and roy's character arc throughout the show is, among other things, an arc about masculinity, so i think it only makes sense that his sexuality is tied up in that. because in his world, what could be more fundamental to your masculinity than heterosexuality? there's a shit ton of homophobia in football, and it certainly wouldn't have been any better during roy's formative years.

there's a lot you could say about La Locker Room Aux Folles and roy kent's sexuality, and i won't because this is already stupid long, but seriously, have you watched 3x09 while considering that the episode is about roy's repression as much as it is colin's? that it might be colin's coming out episode, but it's roy that functions as the episode's protagonist? that the message colin understands at the end when george hearn croons "i am what i am" is one roy can't let himself embrace by the end of the episode, not even by the end of the season ("i'm still...me"/"wait, did you want to be someone else?"/"yeah. someone better")? that colin may have escaped la cage by the end of the episode but roy's still in there?

the last thing that roy kent wants is to be what he is, and that kind of fundamental, foundational shame reads as very queer to me, feels very queer to me.

so, anyway, i do headcanon that roy sleeps with guys sometimes, at least by the time he gets to chelsea. i don't think it's particularly frequent and i don't think it's particularly healthy and i don't think he lets himself develop anything like a genuine connection, but i think it's what he's allowed himself. i think that's basically where he starts the show, occasionally sleeping with men, refusing to acknowledge it says anything about him. (i could also see him not having fucked a guy, although i like that less. regardless, i do think he recognizes he's attracted to men, even if he doesn't necessarily accept it.)

i definitely think that, when they finally get together, jamie would be his first boyfriend.

anyway, dear anon, you didn't ask for a 1000-word response to your 20-word question, but thank you for coming to my ridiculously rambling and likely incoherent TED talk about roy kent's internalized homophobia 😂

#thanks anon sorry this was 12 years long <3333 #does any of this make sense? idk #asks #ted lasso brain rot #my writing

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liesmyth · 7 days

Note

I'm nearly done with ACOWAR and like. I'm trying to care about Cassian and Nesta but honestly my most recurring Nesta ship thought is Nesta/Elain.

NESTA/ELAIN I love your brain so much! unfortunately I'm cold to negative on Cassian/Nesta, mostly because I think that Nesta is way too cool for the story SJM stuck her in, and everyone she interacts with does her dirty, and the romance is shoehorned... I'm a hater. Rescue my girl from that book and take her to warrior lesbians island

also this ask made me go look for all my goodreads updates while I was reading the Nesta book (court of silver flames) and here's all of them in order. I really was in the trenches. I remember I finished it & immediately went to look for fic and I found @flowerflamestars's ao3

July 8, 2022 - 1.0%

I must confess I have finished 3 of these books now and I still have no idea of what that Cauldron even IS. A real physical object, a metaphor for creation, a pocket alternate dimension, a TARDIS? Who knows bc I sure don't

July 8, 2022 - 5.0%

July 10, 2022 – 15.0%

Look, I love Nesta. I came into this book Very excited and all primed to have a good time, hyped up and ready to go!!

and then 3 chapters in I remembered that I don't really trust Sarah with the characters I like so picture me reading this book like a kid peeking through their fingers watching a scary movie, nervous af but needing TO KNOW

July 11, 2022 – 20.0%

I desperately want to like this more but STAPH @ all this bloated political drama about people I don't care about

gimme more Nesta or give me death

FINALLY things are happening that I care about

July 11, 2022 – 27.0%

Cassian saying "core" and meaning "abs" vs. Nesta hearing "core" and thinking about romance smut is exactly what goes through my head every time I listen to these audiobooks while working out

July 12, 2022 – 30.0%

everytime rhys gets mentioned in this book i roll my eyes the same way nesta does

July 12, 2022 – 32.0%

July 13, 2022 – 46.0%

Sabrina was so right about Amren and I hate it

(Sabrina being my friend who said to me early on: you won't like Amren's arc in this book)

Cassian sexing up (?) Nesta to bring her out of her trance, in front of all his friends whom Nesta doesn't like very much, is... aggressively Not my kink, wow

July 14, 2022 – 54.0%

I just think Nesta is really neat

July 14, 2022 – 60.0%

getting pretty tired of rhys & co arbitrarily deciding is cool to keep potentially life-threatening information from the women in their lives

July 14, 2022 – 60.0%

Rhys: she could literally die but let's not tell her FOR HER OWN GOOD

everyone else: you're such a good boss. saviour of everything. guiding light of this circle. sure let's do that!

July 14, 2022 – 61.0%

"Amren: dictatorship is sexy actually" — WTF is going on with everyone's characterization in this book?

July 14, 2022 – 60.0%

anyway, like. i'm sure as hell not reading this smutty supernatural fantasy romance with my critical brain turned on, but the way this book keeps trying to Make A Point about Trauma and Misogyny and Feminist Empowerment while being riddled with misogynistic implications is sure fascinating to behold. sarah janet. honey. have some self awareness i'm begging you

July 15, 2022 – 65.0%

Literally Rhys: Nesta saw fit to inform Feyre of the very real risk to her actual life, how absolutely dare, I'm scary murderous and I want her gone before I fucking kill her

All those absolute tools: This seems like a totally normal reaction to have! Rhys should be highest king, what a great dude

Me: actually do get Nesta out of the city she deserves better

July 15, 2022 – 66.0%

ok but seriously why is this book trying to make it seem like making someone aware of a potentially life-threatening medical condition is "an unforgivable thing". why sarah. why

July 16, 2022 – 78.0%

Death Queen Nesta is just really hot, methinks

July 16, 2022 – 80.0%

I unapologetically AM very, very into Eris/Nesta, actually

July 18, 2022 – 80.0%

“I want to take that road.” Her voice thickened. “I want to take the road that no one dares travel, and I want to travel it with you two.” — AWWW GWYN!!!!! 😍😭❤️"

July 19, 2022 – 98.0%

this is so predictable and underwhelming :))

#gloriadenton #ask #acotar #book talk

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jinxquickfoot · 6 months

Text

@badthingshappenbingo prompt: Mind Control

Find the fic on Ao3

“Well. This is ominous.”

Tony stares around the deserted Times Square, his suit not picking up a single heat signature in a five-mile radius. Abandoned cars surround him, their doors gaping open. Some even have their engines and radios running. As though everyone in the city center has vanished into thin air.

“Yeah, you don’t say.” Rhodey lands beside him, keeping the War Machine faceplate down, making sure he and Tony can’t hear anything but each other. “I knew Kilgrave was making himself more powerful, but he can control a whole city now?”

“Not a whole city,” Tony reminds him. “Just… the parts we can currently see.”

“Uh-huh. Very accurate, Sherlock.” Rhodey exhales, the sound crackly over the comms. “He said we had until sundown. Drama queen.”

“Yeah, yeah, revenge, power, discredit my name, I’ve heard it all.” Tony makes another slow circle, taking in the eerie landscape. His heart leaps when he sees just how close the sun is to touching the horizon. “Any luck on finding the missing civilians, J?”

“If I had, I would have updated you, Sir.”

“Cranky,” Tony comments. He turns to Rhodey instead. “Okay, hot shot. Give me ideas.”

“You’re the genius, make your own.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“No? Really, that’s not how it works?”

“No, how it works is that you voice the stupid ideas, we get those out of the way, and then I take what’s left and make magic happen.”

“You getting enough oxygen in that helmet? You’re sounding a little—”

“Delirious? That’s just how genius sounds, honey bear, you’ve been around me long enough to know that.”

“If we could please focus, we have hundreds of missing hostages to locate.”

Tony clears his throat. “I know, I know, we’ll find them. Kilgrave’s a pain in the ass but he’s just one guy.”

“With mind control powers,” Rhodey reminds him dryly. “Very powerful mind control powers that he then made even more powerful.”

“I’m sorry, I believe JARVIS just scolded us into focusing?”

“I am so glad you are listening to me, Sir. It’s refreshing.”

“Yeah, maybe let’s reduce sassiness by a good twelve per cent there. So. We've got a supervillain with mind control and an affinity for purple that makes Barton’s look tame. We've got missing civilians. We know that said purple supervillain got to all the hostages at once. We know that all the CTV footage shorted out. We know—”

“It’s the radios.”

“I wasn’t finished.”

“Tony, it’s the radios.” Rhodey stomps the War Machine suit over to the nearest abandoned taxi, pointing at the dashboard. “Is that still playing, JARVIS?”

“I believe so.”

“What’s this believe business?” Tony interjects. “You’re an AI with access to the entire internet and several data banks that don’t want yours truly in there.”

“Whatever affected the cameras appears also to be affecting me. I am aware that the radio is playing, but the words are distorted.”

“But they can’t be distorted if people heard Kilgrave’s orders…” Tony trails off, “Ah, shit. So we can't listen to where Kilgrave told the hostages to go without falling under his control too. So we find a workaround. We’ve got, what, twenty minutes before whatever grand spectacle Kilgrave is trying to pull off? That’s time, we’ve got time.”

“Tony.”

Tony can’t see Rhodey’s face, but he can tell by the set of his shoulders that his friend is about to pull something Tony is not going to like. “Rhodes. We have time.”

“No, we don’t. We need to know where Kilgrave has the hostages, and we need to know right now. It’s hundreds of lives at risk.” Rhodey turns to face him. “Once I know where I’m going, all you have to do is follow me, and I’ll lead you right to them.”

“Yes, and you’ll be a magenta zombie. We’ll find another way.”

“No, we won’t. Not quickly enough.”

“Rhodey, once you’re under his control, I have no idea how to break you out of it.” Panic is rising, his mind racing as he tries to find any other path but this one. “He could make you do anything.”

“Well, you’ll just have to stop him and get me back then.”

“So, your plan is to be the damsel in distress until I can save you?”

“Well, generally as I’m the one doing the saving, I think that’s fair.”

“You’re the one doing the— what about Hammer? The Expo?”

“What about Afghanistan?”

“Um, I think you’ll find I saved myself.”

“And then you would have dehydrated to death unless I saved you.”

“The Expo was more recent so if we’re taking turns—”

“We save each other, how about that, does that sound okay to you? Tony,” Rhodey cuts him off when he goes to protest again. “I trust you to save me. And I’ll save you next time. We save each other.”

And he flips up his faceplate, letting Kilgrave’s voice in.

Tony’s protest dies on his lips as he sees Rhodey’s face go horribly blank. “Tell me what the radio is saying,” Tony demands. “Come on, just tell me where he’s telling you to go, then I can lock off the suit and you won’t be able to go anywhere, Rhodes—Rhodey!”

Rhodey doesn’t say a word. He just starts flying.

Tony swears, taking off after him. “The bad guys could make it easy just one time, is that so much to ask for?”

The flight is short, but Tony is still all too aware of the sinking sun. It glints off the War Machine suit as it begins to descend, touching down in what appears to be an abandoned quarry. Abandoned buildings surround the disrupted rock, towering above Tony as he lands behind Rhodey. “Heat signatures, J? J. JARVIS, come in?”

“I’m sorry…interference…War Machine…”

That’s as much warning Tony gets before Rhodey turns around and fires right into Tony’s chest.

The Iron Man suit is built for a lot, but an unexpected hit from his own team isn’t on the list. Tony finds himself catapulted backward, doing a not-so-elegant somersault along the dusty ground. “Ow. Uncalled for, Rhodes, even if you are—” He breaks off when he straightens up and sees the War Machine suit is empty. “Oh, shit.”

“Sir, I am receiving an incoming message.”

“Kilgrave sent a voice message? That can cause interference in you? Yeah, I’m not listening to that.”

“It is text-based. It should be safe for me to read it to you. It begins with: Look up.”

Dread pooling in his gut, Tony cranes his neck upwards just as the sun slips below the horizon. Floodlights burst to life around the quarry, and only the Iron Man helmet keeps Tony from being blinded. “Well. Guess we found the hostages.”

Hundreds of people line the roofs above him. They teeter on the edge, all staring eerily ahead, young, old, even some kids. And then, atop the building right in front him, now very much without a flying suit, is Rhodey.

I trust you to save me. And I’ll save you next time.

“Keep reading, J.”

“Know that the city is watching this live, Iron Man. Even your technology cannot save them all. Every day, you choose who lives and who dies, and they call you a hero regardless. Not today. Today, they will see how useless you really are.”

Tony bites his lip, feeling his heart pound. No one is dying today, that’s not an option. When people step forward, he’s not going to choose whether he catches Rhodey or the girl three hostages down from him who can’t be older than nine.

“But there’s a twist, Iron Man. My final order to them? To follow the next words out of your mouth.”

Tony stills, confused. “Keep reading, J.”

“Of course, I’ve laid some groundwork for how they might interpret your words. Tell them to leave the roof? They will jump. Tell them to delay? They will jump. Tell them in any way to save themselves, and they all jump. Say nothing—they jump. Good luck, Iron Man. You have ten seconds to decide what you would like to say.”

And then, as one, all the hostages swing one leg forward, balancing on one foot. Tony starts, ready to start flying and catching regardless, he at least has to save some of them, but they freeze in place. So the ten-second countdown is real, then.

“J, what do we do?”

“I’m calculating a flight path. You should at least be able to catch Colonel Rhodes and some of the children if I remotely pilot the War Machine suit.”

“And let hundreds of others die?” Not to mention that Rhodey would kill him if Tony chose to save him over innocent civilians. “So, my choices are to let people die, or…”

“Give a final order that makes them look like you made them jump yourself, which appears to be Kilgrave’s plan to turn the city against you. If you’re blamed for this—”

“They lock me up and Kilgrave gets free reign of the city, I get it.” Tony grits his teeth, forcing his brain into overdrive. There has to be a way out, there’s always a way out. “Put me on speaker, J. Make sure everyone can hear me.”

“Done.”

“Listen to me, you’re going to be okay,” Tony calls out, his voice echoing around the quarry. He’s speaking to everyone, but he fixates on Rhodey. No falls for his best friend today. He can do this. “You know the next order you have to follow is mine. But I can’t order you to save yourselves. And I can’t save all of you, either.”

That’s what we do—we save each other.

Tony squeezes his eyes shut, praying for this to work. “So if I can’t save you, and you can’t save yourselves, my order to you is this: save each other.”

As soon as he says the final word, every hostage is stepping forward. His time is up. They’re going to fall.

And then… movement. Not forward. Sideways. As the hostages reach out and grab each other, tugging their neighbors back onto the safety of the rooftops.

“Hey, J?” Tony is breathless, sinking to one knee with relief. “Any sign of Kilgrave in the area?”

“None, Sir, but we have citywide surveillance looking for him.”

“Turn on the speakers, then.” Sound floods back to him all at once. It’s loud and terrified and relieved all at once. Tony risks a look upwards, a smile curving his lips as he sees hundreds of strangers all hugging and celebrating the joys of being alive.

Rhodey disentangles himself from the crowd, yelling down something Tony can’t hear.

“Did you get that, JARVIS?”

“Colonel Rhodes is requesting that you, quote, hurry up and come and get him.”

A laugh bursts out of Tony, pure relief flooding him. “I just saved his ass, he can wait a damn minute.”

“I’m sure he will remember that the next time he saves you, Sir.”

“Yeah,” Tony agrees. He doesn’t get a lot of good days. But today is one of them. “When he comes to save me next, I’m sure he will.”

#bad things happen bingo #bthb card #tony & rhodey #tony stark #james rhodey rhodes #mind control #kilgrave #based on an episode of Gotham I only half remember and COULD NOT FIND anywhere online #maybe I hallucinated it who knows #whump #whump prompt #hostage situations #rescue #self sacrifice #marvel #mcu #iron man

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raichett · 2 years

Text

Deal

Have some Scarian flash fic for the soul.

EDIT: this flash fic can now be found on AO3 here.

---

DEAL

“When I made a deal with you, that wasn’t an invitation to move in,” Grian grits out, staring at his bathroom mirror and the man inside of it. His own reflection is no longer visible, and the mirror’s half steamed up anyway, but at least he managed to get a towel around his hips before Scar appeared there. Small mercies. His damp hair drips water down his forehead and he blinks it out of his eyes, annoyed and getting more so.

“Ah, but I need to stay close to you to fulfil your commands,” the man – he’s not a man, not really, he’s taking the form of a man – says, grinning with too-sharp teeth. Blue-white wings, not dissimilar to a bat’s, only tattered in a very stereotypical horror game monster design way, flutter behind him, seemingly too small to ever carry his weight. Not that this being follows such mundane things as the laws of physics, but still. “Isn’t that right, master?”

Grian rolls his eyes, fully aware that he’s playing with fire. “Uh-huh,” he says, sceptically. He’s no more this being’s master than he is Maui’s. Everyone knows that cats own you. Not that Grian’s owned by this being, but they’re contracted together, so they owe each other. (And no, Grian was not fool enough to offer his soul. Six hundred and sixty-six weeks is just over twelve and a half years, and that’s… an acceptable amount of time to agree to being this being’s companion after the deed is done, right?) “And how about you listen to this command, then? Leave me to get dressed in peace.”

Scar – that’s what the being told Grian to call him – laughs and vanishes, leaving only the echo behind, bouncing off the bathroom walls. Good. Grian was half-convinced he’d reply with Peace was never an option and stay as Grian tried to dry his hair and brush his teeth, but thankfully it seems that Hell doesn’t have a good enough internet connection for Scar to be aware of memes. He supposes that it might just be a matter of time, however.

Grian finishes up his morning routine, unsurprised when Scar returns just as he’s finished pulling on his second sock. The man doesn’t seem to have much of an awareness of personal space, but he goes when Grian snaps at him to, so it’s probably just ignorance.

“So,” Scar beams at him, the light overhead flickering and the air in the room becoming cold, “murder?”

Grian reaches for his shoes. “Yes,” he says, shortly, feeling anger rise in his chest and beat against the insides of his ribs just at the thought of what he has contracted Scar to help him with. “Murder.” Bloodlust wells like venom on his tongue, and Grian swallows it down. Not yet, not yet, he can’t go in recklessly and expect to make it out alive. There’s a reason he dipped into the dark magic arts instead of going it alone.

“Good,” Scar smiles, his hand brushing Grian’s back, between his shoulder blades. “I am excited. We’re going to have so much fun together.”

“Before or after we kill Ren and Martyn?” Grian asks, thinking about twelve and a half years of being haunted by this man, practically roommates. It’s not – a bad thought, he supposes. Scar hasn’t yet been poor company, despite his… less than human origins. And he’d liked Maui, cooing over the cat, so – yeah, Grian can live with someone that loves cats.

“Oh, both,” Scar says, his green eyes glowing brightly as his fingers press against Grian’s back, warm and possessive. “Definitely both.”

#my writing #flash fic #scarian #trafficshipping #fanfic #grian #goodtimeswithscar #mcyt #it's not super shippy but it's intended to be pre-ship

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syndxlla · 10 months

Note

Saw your 'corruption' ZeLink fantasy and felt I should share what I would love to use it for if I had the writing skills. So... while reading, I thought of how some people are of the HC (myself included!) that every Game!Zelda is Hylia reborn just as she had been in SS but people In Universe think that's naught but fanciful stories, that Hylia Ascended into Divinity once more after her SS!life ended. Now, for my version of your Zelink 'corruption' fantasy I think that Link is very much aware and fully believes such 'stories', (maybe through Fi or his dreams or just a sort of sixth sense or because of his being The Hero or however else one can reason it out) so when Zelda's trying so hard to be 'pure as the Goddess' as the various factions of clergy tell her she should be he's like, 'fuck that.'

He's of the opinion that she doesn't need to be 'pure' as those of Mortal ken would describe it, but that she needs to be 'pure' to Herself as She is. A Goddess. To be worshipped, not to worship. Especially towards a replacement/false idol since they do not remember Her as She once was before Time made Mortals forget that She walks among them as Her own descendant when Demise's Curse rears its head once more.

So he teaches her in a sort of reverse psychology way. He bugs and bugs and bugs (maybe leaving some books on her desk that she'd never find in the Royal Library 'cause they were 'immoral', 'disgusting', or that whoever enjoyed such {whether reading about it or performing it} are 'abnormal' and/or 'heathens', maybe he does one thing or another that she should be punishing him for but isn't because she's 'practicing charity/turning the other cheek' as the clergy taught her the Goddess would want her to do, maybe teasing her and saying something along the lines of, "Oh, dear. Are you frustrated? Tsk, darn. If only my Goddess would command me to finish what I started. Too bad she doesn't seem to be listening.") until she finally finds it in herself to take charge as his Mistress, his Princess, his Goddess. He was her Servant, her Appointed Knight, her Hero. So it is time for him to repent his blasphemy by learning at her feet to stand unless she bids him bend the knee or face punishment. (Orgasm denial? Overstimulation? Edging? Humiliation? Training him to the point he can only orgasm with her 'help?) He should be answering to her and her alone; kneeling to no one but her. And that includes her father!

This might even be the type of AU that involves her then 'unlocking her power' (one could even have it be that she then uses her power in creative ways when she's playing with her hero; justifying it as 'for science!') but she then keeps quiet about it as validation that everyone around her telling her what to do was wrong and a bit of vindictiveness because 'she's found her worth in herself with her hero's help and love and support so why should she go looking for it with those who tried so hard to knock her down for so long? She'll do her duty when it's time but for now? Let them sweat it out, the bastards.'

What do you think? Do you like my addition to your Zelink 'corruption' fantasy or...?

FOAMING at the mouth rn.

I love female worship okay, the orgasm training is kind of what i was going for in my original post when i talked about them getting turned on when they would pray because they were trained to associate those prayers with the sexual touch of the other.

I also LOVEEEE inappropriate uses of magic (when i was in my star wars era, inappropriate use of the force was my FAVE). and i love the potential of Zelda unlocking her power and using it on Link unexpectedly (lowkey in cnc area, but not in a toxic way haha), or even better Link using his totk right arm to mess with zelda (i reblogged some art of this), even though i know i’m zelda canon the latter couldn’t happen.

REGARDLESS i am OBSESSED with corruption zelink rn and WILL be writing a short fanfic for it! But i wanna finish my current fic ‘best friends’ first!

Zelink smut go brrrrrr

#ask #fan fiction #tloz #zelink #zelda #botw #legend of zelda #the legend of zelda #link x zelda #zelda fandom #zelda tears of the kingdom

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pan-de-queer · 7 months

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20 Questions Game

Tagged by @jadedloverart! for once, i've finished work early and am free to write fic and answer tag games today hahaha thanks for the tag!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

31 lmao, feeling a lil fandom old or whatever haha

2. Total AO3 word count

157,459 ??? wild considering i mostly post one-shots hahaha

3. Fandoms you write for

for the past few years it's been supercorp but you can also find bechloe, junksen/embry, some choices (the cyoa game), and les mis sprinkled in my ao3. all wlw too

4. Top 5 fics by kudos -

ruined nights make for perfect first dates (bechloe)

'cause you know all of my secrets (supercorp)

maybe i matter (because i knew you) (bechloe)

love tastes like spring and blood (bechloe)

kept my face to the sun (you drive away my shadows) (supercorp)

most interesting thing for me abt this is that ruined nights is the shortest one out of all five of these??? love that ppl liked it so much tho

5. Do you respond to comments?

as much as possible yeah! which reminds me that i haven't replied to @jadedloverart's comment on my fic. and other comments. i should do that hahaha

6. Fic w/ Angstiest Ending -

i don't end with angst haha i'm angst with a happy ending or bust lmao BUT the closest to angst would probably be love tastes bc the issue isn't solved until the very end

7. Happiest ending? -

all of them 💕 but if i had to choose then probabbbly cause you know

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not that i'm aware of!

9. Do you write smut/what kind?

nope! never been interested in writing it mostly bc my brain sees it as "action with even more emotions" and i have a hard enough time with action as it is lol

10. Do you write crossovers?

used to! and if you count the mcu+comics!marvel crossover i only posted a tidbit of, then yes, i still do

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

again, not that i know of

12. Ever had a fic translated?

yeah! can't remember for what tho but someone very kindly asked and i said ofc!! and then they sent the link but i can't remember where lmao

13. Ever cowritten a fic?

a long long time ago haha, wouldn't be opposed to doing it again though!

14. Favorite ship?

it's been supercorp since the pandemic! but who knows where the winds of my silly lil whims might take me?

15. A wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

all of them 💕 lmao jk jk but seriously i have a LOT of wips and i put them all under ONE file so it's like wading through a garbage dump trying to see what i'll do next and that's just for supercorp, i have separate untouched wips for allll my other old fandoms too lmao (some wips i doubt i'll ever finish for sc though are the undercover fake lovers one, the coastal cleanup one even though it SHOULD be easy in theory, the hanahaki au that's lena's version instead of kara's, and the one based off of emily the song by jeremy zucker)

16. Writing strengths?

anything descriptive! i can go in depth about shit forevveeerrrr

17. Writing weaknesses?

dialogue. like i can WRITE it and i can even write it WELL but that dialogue came from the bloodbath of thousands of drafts so

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in a different language?

many thoughts! number one being that if you don't know it, get someone who's above average fluent to help you if you feel like the language is needed in the story! and if the language is fake (like using kryptonian) then make the inclusion of it make sense! other thoughts are for my thinking only 💕 (and my unfortunate friends who have to listen to me lecture)

19. First Fandom you wrote for?

MAYBE ranger's apprentice or percy jackson

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

i can't pick favorite for my babies but i'm hella proud of all my supercorp fics rn! it had been so long since i joined a new fandom that i felt suuupppeerrr awkward posting at first! but it's been a nice experience shifting fandoms ever since :)))

for the no pressure tags! @nostradamus0 @sssammich @ridiculously-over-obsessed @tiny-maus-boots and anyone else who wants to join!

#tag game #while i do genuinely mean 'and anyone else who wants to join' it ALSO means 'i don't remember y'alls usernames'#and i'm p sure i just flat out forGOT even if in my heart of hearts i know that username hasn't changed in a long while #i just can't REMEMBER

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vampire-the-askerade · 1 year

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Angry Strauss x Tremere fledgling reader

[TW- emotional manipulation. This came from me realizing there’s nowhere near enough fics for him and also not enough of him actually showing the cruel side of his nature totally not me saying I want him to be mean to me]

There was little that upset Maximilian Strauss. Even when there was he wasn’t the type to show those emotions outwardly. However, even he had his limits; the times when circumstances and his own disposition of the day aligned such that he was a bit more vocal about his feelings than he usually ever would be. And, as you were about to find out, when he was pushed too far there was a reminder of why he, though usually carrying himself as a quiet scholar was feared by many of the other kindred. He was going to make you aware of that; gently, but you were going to be made aware.

Strauss would say that he is at least partially to blame for this, as he had appointed you to be the go-between for himself and the Anarchs. He knew that you being younger than he and closer to the age of the people in their group would be a better fit and that the Anarchs would be less inclined to antagonize someone that wasn’t higher in the ranks of the Camarilla. This would likely be because if you proved yourself as non-threatening to them and perhaps even friendly, they might be inclined to recruit you; though Strauss was convinced that you would never, knowing that your loyalties lay with the clan. It seemed he didn’t take time to think of all of the possible outcomes for this as you and those brutes down in that dive bar were starting to become quite close. A side effect of that was you taking on some undesirable characteristics of theirs, namely thinking that you could do whatever you want whenever you wanted. If word were to get out that you were acting in such a way while you were under his supervision, his reputation would be ruined. More important than that, however, was the fact that he refused to be disrespected like this.

The door to the chantry opened and Strauss knew it was you. The two of you were the only ones living here at the time. The ever-changing corridors were very straightforward tonight, almost as though they could feel his dark mood and the chantry itself was getting out of his way to avoid it. You, however, seemed to be wholly unaware of how serious the situation was as when he entered the foyer you greeted him with a cheery, “Good evening.” Strauss didn’t respond, he only commanded, “Come speak to me in the main study.” Still not comprehending the situation you landed yourself in, you replied, “Of course. Just let me-”

“Immediately.”

Strauss didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The fact that he was demanding rather than politely asking let you know there was something big going on. Without another word, you wouldn’t dare to try another, you followed him. When you got to the study, you could have sworn that he had the flame in the fireplace burning hotter and more noticeably and dangerously brighter than it usually was. But, this could be your natural disposition to fire as a kindred mixing with the nerves of what he might want to talk about. When the both of you were in the study Strauss gave a curt, “Sit,” without even turning to look at you and motioning to one of the decorative sofas. When you hesitated, he then turned just enough to eye you, those eyes burning like the fire he was standing in front of. “Sit.” He repeated unkindly and there was no longer any hesitation on your part.

“Before we begin our talk, let me make something clear. We will not be actually talking. I will be reminding you of how you are to behave yourself and how you are to represent your clan when you are out of this chantry, and you will be still and listen quietly until I am finished.” You went to affirm that you understood what he had just said, but were cut short as soon as your mouth opened. “I said quietly.” Strauss scolded.

There was silence for a time. Strauss was facing away from you once again. The smoking jacket that he was wearing tonight was black with silken patterns shining a dark silver, the shadowy tones of it making his already pale skin look ghostly. The glimpse you caught of his eyes earlier, burning amber tempered only by red lenses let you see the anger that the rest of his face stoically hid. This bout of silence was terrifying, harrowing, and it was meant to be. You were supposed to sit there and stew in the unknown ramifications of whatever it was that you had done to upset him to this extent. Your nerves were stinging, eroding, eating you from the inside out, making it so that Strauss wouldn’t even have to say a word to make you frantically search through all of your actions to find and apologize for the offending ones. Unfortunately for you, he still had plenty to say.

“There was a certain level of trust that I gave you when I appointed you for such an important task. I believed that I could give you that trust and that you would respect that privilege.” Strauss then turned to look at you fully and his leer made your entire body tense up. “It seems that trust was misplaced and that respect was disregarded.” Strauss stepped from the fireplace and in front of you. There was never a time when you felt so small, shrinking back into the corner of the sofa even more than you already had. “How do you suppose I should react to such a blatant disregard for myself as a person?” If there was one thing that he could commend you for it was that you remembered instructions and didn’t try to answer. Strauss did not make any effort to answer either; much more effective to have you think of your own fears than for him to try to guess at them.

Strauss placed a hand on the arm of the sofa, making you feel even more boxed in. The feeling worsened when the other hand was placed on your shoulder, hold firm, threatening, just firm enough for his nails to start to push into your skin; he wasn’t wearing gloves as he almost always did for this very purpose. “Until you have proven to me that you are in fact able to show me the proper amount of respect- respect for guiding you through your challenging first nights as a kindred, respect for taking you into this chantry as your haven, respect for risking my credibility and status by advocating for your acceptance into the Pyramid- I will not allow you to return to the Anarch’s territory. I cannot and that is your fault.” He gave a moment for these words to sink in. “Furthermore, your time away from this chantry will be limited and supervised. You have already proven that you will toe the line on your given boundaries, and I will be sure that you do not cross them entirely.” The hand on your shoulder moved to take hold of your jaw; though his grip was firm but not painful, his cold hands burned like ice. “You will learn to behave yourself properly or there will be more than talking happening if I must correct you. Am I understood?”

“Yes.” Your warbled voice did its best to answer

“Perhaps you should reconsider your wording.” Strauss’ hold did tighten now.

“Yes, sir.” You corrected yourself quickly, feeling your stomach twist in knots at this newfound, terror-inducing side of your regent.

Letting go of your face, Strauss reached into his pocket, pulling out a handkerchief. “There now. No need for the theatrics.” He admonished, but this time with a nurturing, almost babying tone as he used the cloth to dab away some bloody tears that you didn’t realize were starting to gather in the corners of your eyes and crawl down your face. “You be good and take this lesson to heart, and there will be nothing more said of it. You are my brightest pupil in the longest time after all. We just need to be sure your efforts are going in the correct direction.” Strauss took your hands and lead you to stand, and you were too dazed from the emotional whiplash to question the action. “Come, let me walk you to your room.” He knew that even though he had to make a point, being too emotionally distant would simply push you from him even more. So, now that the necessary firm hand had been introduced, the gentle one must be there to comfort its metaphorical blow. As he walked you through the halls he had an arm wrapped around you, pinning one of your arms to your side and the other to his. His free hand continued to dry your eyes with the handkerchief.

Once your room was reached, he opened the door and walked you in, leading you gently to sit on the edge of your bed. With a few more pats to your face, Strauss took your jaw to look at him once more, this time it was a cradle rather than a grip. “Rest yourself. It has been an intense night for you. I know I seemed harsh, but it’s all for your good, childe. Remember the duality of all things in life as comfort and aspiration for the future. Just as disobedience must be corrected, so shall good behavior be rewarded. Do well, follow guidance, commit to this life you were destined for, and I will be prouder of you than I already am. But, rest now.” His thumb glided along the area it rested on. “I shall return before dawn to check on you.” Strauss used this as a signal to politely tell you that you had better stay in here for the rest of the night, and you knew it would be foolish to ignore that implied command.

With that, he turned to leave. Right before the door closed him out of your view, you saw him place a corner of the bloodied handkerchief into his mouth.

#maximilian strauss #maximillian strauss x reader #strauss x reader #vtmb maximillian strauss

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snowdice · 9 months

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Big Bang Editing Story [Day 120]

I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story years ago, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag ‘proofread stories.’ I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.

My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40 Part 41 Part 42 Part 43 Part 44 Part 45 Part 46 Part 47 Part 48 Part 49 Part 50 Part 51 Part 52 Part 53

I have a list of tasks I need to finish, but some of them might take a while. So, expect there to be long breaks between sections.

Chapter 54 (Patton)

“I still can’t believe he’s allowing this,” King Thomas said from next to Patton. The two of them were standing at the edge of the arena outside the horse stable, watching from a safe distance.

“If he hadn’t tried to bite me earlier, I’d think he was a different horse,” Patton agreed.

“He doesn’t even let Logan ride him,” the king said. “At least not ride him and give him directions.”

Patton was very aware of that. Logan did on occasion choose to get up onto Mr. Apples’ saddle. However, Mr. Apples was always the once who got to decide where they went after that. Logan had no say.

With that in mind, Patton, Logan, and every stable hand who’d heard about the prospective riding lessons had tried to convince Virgil to learn to ride on a different horse. Virgil was just as stubborn as Mr. Apples however and had insisted. Logan, being the only one who could be around Mr. Apples without risking being kicked, had become his de facto tutor.

Not even Logan could have expected that within a week, Virgil would be able to control Mr. Apples. Though perhaps ‘control’ was the wrong word. Nothing could control Mr. Apples, but for some reason, Mr. Apples seemed willing to do as Virgil asked.

Even right now Mr. Apples was trotting around the training arena like he was a well-trained trick horse warming up with his rider.

“Logan told him we could go on an actual ride today if the lesson went well,” Patton told the king. The lesson seemed to be just getting over because Logan said something to Virgil and Virgil started to climb off. Mr. Apples was patient and still as he dismounted.

“Do you think he’d mind if I went with you?” King Thomas asked.

Patton shrugged. “Mr. Apples might.”

“Mr. Apples definitely will,” the king replied. “I’ll come anyway.”

Logan had walked over to where Patton and the king were standing while Virgil fed Mr. Apples some apple pieces as a reward.

“I hear you’re going to go riding today,” King Thomas said.

Logan nodded. “Mr. Apples seems to listen to him well enough,” he said.

“I might join you if that’s alright. Where are you kids going?” the king asked.

“I was thinking the main forest path,” Logan replied. “It’s not a particularly difficult route, but it’s also a part of the castle grounds Virgil hasn’t been able to see yet. Loraine told me it has been recently cleared after the winter.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” the king said. “Are you going now?”

“Once Patton and I saddle up our horses,” Logan said. “You can come.”

“Great,” the king said with a smile. “I’ll ask for Bella’s saddle to be brought out. I haven’t gone on a ride yet this week.”

He turned then to walk towards the stables leaving Patton and Logan alone.

“Do you think he’s been acting weird?” Logan asked, turning towards Patton.

Patton frowned. “No,” he said. “Not really.”

“I’m just wondering why he wants to go horseback riding with us.”

“He likes spending time with you?” Patton guessed.

“Yes,” Logan said, “but typically in a setting that doesn’t involve Mr. Apples.”

Well, that was fair.

“I mean, it’s not too weird,” Patton said, thinking back through the last couple of days. King Thomas had been a bit… clingy.

“He’s been hanging around a lot,” Logan said, echoing Patton’s thoughts with narrowed eyes. He glanced back at Virgil. “You don’t think Virgil let something slip, do you?”

“He didn’t say anything,” Patton said. “I think your dad would say something if Virgil let slip he was an assassin somehow.”

“Unless he let slip something that didn’t quite implicate himself but invited suspicion.”

“Your dad doesn’t seem suspicious,” Patton said. At least, Patton didn’t think he did. He hadn’t been acting mean in any way. In fact, he might have even been acting nicer.

Logan frowned. “We should keep an eye on him, especially around Virgil.”

Patton bit his lip.

“What?” Logan asked.

“Are we ever going to tell your dad about Virgil?” he asked.

Logan hesitated. “I don’t…” he trailed. “I’m not sure.”

“It just feels weird lying for so long,” Patton said. Patton didn’t lie a lot. Sure, maybe he’d pretend to not know what Mama was talking about when sweets went missing from the kitchens or he’d pretend to not know what Logan’s birthday gift was, but he’d never lied about anything serious before now.

“I know, but,” Logan glanced back at Virgil once again, “even if we did decide to tell, we’d have to convince Virgil everything would be alright beforehand. I don’t think we’re at that point yet. He was terrified of Father until a few months ago, and he’s still cautious around him sometimes.”

Logan was right, of course. Virgil was getting more and more comfortable around the king, but he figured any of the progress made would go down the drain as soon as they brought up telling King Thomas about where exactly Virgil had come from. Patton didn’t know if Virgil would ever be comfortable enough.

“We should go get our own horses,” Logan suggested, and Patton nodded.

Patton and Logan’s horses had already been saddled by the stable hands in anticipation of their ride and it didn’t take long for the king to saddle his own horse, Bella.

The forest path at this time of year was very pretty, Patton thought. The tree branches now had small green leaves on them after having been barren for the entire winter and flowers were starting to grow. In a few weeks’ time it would be even prettier, but it would also be harder for the groundskeeper to maintain as well as it was right now.

Virgil really did seem less anxious around King Thomas now. The path was only wide enough for two horses to go at once, and he didn’t seem to mind that he and the king ended up next to each other while Patton and Logan lagged behind. In fact, he and the king seemed to be having a nice conversation about the local wildlife.

However, if Patton looked close enough, he did sort of see what Logan meant. Virgil may not be anxious talking to the king now, but the king himself seemed just a little bit nervous at least at the beginning of the ride.

He seemed to relax a bit as they rode (even laughing when Mr. Apples tried to bite him when he got too close).

Logan had been teaching Virgil the basics about things like animals, but there was still a pretty big gap in his education when it came to anything that wasn’t about training to fight and kill. King Thomas seemed more than willing to answer any of his questions when it came to the animals and plants around them even if they were sometimes a bit silly.

He’d seen a bird that looked like a dove. (It may have even been a dove, but Patton hadn’t seen it.) This had been a source of endless confusion for him.

“But shouldn’t it live in the dovecote?” Virgil asked.

“Not all birds live in a dovecote,” the king explained again.

“But it’s a dove,” Virgil said with a frown.

“Not all doves live in a dovecote,” the king replied.

“But it’s a dovecote,” Virgil argued. “It’s for the doves.”

“Yes, but there are also wild doves,” the king said.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Virgil replied.

“What about it doesn’t make sense?” the king asked with a laugh in his tone.

“Doves go in the dovecote,” Virgil said.

Patton was starting to have trouble following this argument.

“Dovecotes are made for doves,” the king said, “but not all doves go in dovecotes.”

“Why?”

This seemed to stump the king momentarily, but he still answered after thinking for a bit. “Doves existed before people got to them,” the king explained. “People caught and trained some of them, but there was no way to catch all of them. So, some stayed in the wild and continued with their lives like they had been before humans. Plus, sometimes domesticated doves fly off and never come back. Sometimes they might die, but other times they may have just gotten lost and had to build a new life somewhere far away. Or maybe they even decided that being a trained dove working for humans wasn’t for them, so they decided to go off on their own.”

“You let them do that?” Virgil asked.

“We can’t really stop them in the end,” the king said. “People can try, but it never ends up working as long as they can fly.”

Virgil thought about this. “I still don’t understand,” he said, “but okay.”

“We should take you to the cliffs,” the king suggested.

“What are the cliffs?”

“The castle grounds were built for defense,” King Thomas explained. “The edge of the grounds to the North is a large river and overlooking it is a huge cliff. It’s a good place for picnics and for birdwatching. It’s a bit of a trip, but now would be a good time of year to go.”

He glanced over his shoulder back at Logan and Patton. “What do you boys think about going to the cliffs sometime? Maybe in about a week?”

Logan squinted at his father suspiciously. It wasn’t so much the fact that the king was asking them to go to the cliffs. They did that every so often. However, this time, it only supported Logan’s claims that the king was hanging out with them a lot recently.

“Sure,” Logan said, after a moment.

“Sounds fun!” Patton said cheerily right after, trying to cover for the lack of enthusiasm in Logan’s voice with his own. Judging by King Thomas’s expression and Logan’s tight-lipped scowl, he may have overcompensated.

“Great,” the king said. “I’ll” make sure to make arrangements when we get back to the castle.”

Chapter 55 (Logan)

Virgil was beginning to be able to read some of the common instructions in magic books, but Logan still made sure to read out the instructions to him at least twice before setting him loose. He’d started to jot down notes to himself about things, though these notes were not words, but various symbols that only made sense to the boy himself.

Logan had asked about their meaning at one point and received an answer that, while earnest, was unintelligible. The symbols were mostly just pictures of things to represent certain steps in spell casting, but they were filtered through Virgil’s rudimentary penmanship and often bizarre perception of the world.

Though, despite the fact that Logan could not often decipher his chicken scratch, it did seem to help him produce impressively quality charms even as Logan began to introduce more complicated processes to make them. He was a very good student even if he didn’t have the best foundation for learning.

“I add lavender for the next step, right?” Virgil asked, his finger on a word in Logan’s magic book.

“That is correct,” Logan confirmed.

Virgil looked back at the book and mouthed the word ‘lavender’ to himself before turning back to his potion. He grabbed a few sprigs of lavender and threw them into the cauldron.

The liquid popped and bubbled violently, but Virgil didn’t flinch as he once would have, prepared for it now.

After the lavender, Logan knew that it would have to simmer for 5 minutes. Virgil looked down at the boiling liquid, contemplating it for a long moment.

“Can I soak a knife in it?” he asked.

“What?” Logan asked.

“Can I soak a knife in the potion once it’s done?”

“In that potion?” Logan clarified. “In the emergency hand warmer potion?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I think a hot knife would be useful,” Virgil said.

“For what?”

Virgil shrugged. “Cooking food on the road,” he said, “burning wood, stabbing someone and immediately cauterizing the wound.”

“That is… not a standard use for this potion,” Logan said.

Virgil titled his head at him. “Would it work though?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Logan contemplated. “Perhaps. The potion can cause burns if one uses too much of it or if it is used without an appropriate layer between it and the skin. If one were to pick a knife with enough surface area and let it soak long enough, it could in theory get hot enough to do as desired. Hmm…” he thought about it. “There would perhaps be the problem of the potion not sticking to the knife very long as it is intended to soak into fabric. However, cardamom could solve that issue as long as it doesn’t interact with any other ingredients. Let me see that spell.”

Virgil stepped out of his way so he could study the page. “Yes,” Logan said after scanning through all of the ingredients. “I think coriander would work for something like that. Let me go find some.”

He turned to walk towards where he kept his supplies of potion ingredients. Virgil followed on his heals.

“Can we use a serrated knife?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea, Virgil,” Logan said, nodding as he searched through the cupboard that should hold the coriander. “The knife being serrated would help keep the potion stuck to the blade after many uses and would increase the surface area.”

“That was certainly my intentions,” Virgil said smoothly. There was something odd about the tone that had Logan turning to him and blinking at him. Virgil just smiled at him innocently and Logan turned back to the cabinet finally locating the coriander.

“So how are we going to use that?” Virgil asked.

“We’ll put it in right before the last step and let it sit for about 3 minutes,” Logan said. “If it doesn’t quite work, we may need to make another batch. There are options other than coriander, but that’s the first idea that comes to mind and it a lot simpler if it works.”

He continued to speak of the many other options they could try as they returned to the caldron as well as how they could test the hot knife. It was already about time for the next step and Virgil did it without interrupting Logan’s rant.

Virgil listened to his suggestions with interest all while still making sure the potion he was making was progressing well.

Logan did eventually take over to finish the potion with the revised steps he’d come up with and they ended up with a potion that looked perfect except it was a few shades darker than the one they’d originally been planning to make.

“Well, it looks good,” Logan declared. “We will need to acquire a knife to test its effectiveness, however.”

“There are a few good ones in the kitchen,” Virgil pointed out. “I especially like the one 10 inch one with the black and white handle.”

“You have been eyeing up the kitchen knives?” Logan asked.

Virgil rolled his eyes as though that was not a perfectly reasonable question to ask him. “We should steal that one,” Virgil said.

“Do you think we’ll be able to sneak past Ms. Heart to steal a knife from her kitchen?” Logan asked.

“We can’t,” Virgil said.

Logan almost didn’t believe him… and then he remembered the water pouch incident. “It’s the dinner rush,” Logan said. “We should probably wait for a bit.”

Virgil was shaking his head. “The dinner rush is the best time,” he said. “Everyone will be distracted, and all of the knives will be out and in prime stealing position.”

“And if Patton’s mother catches us messing around in her kitchen during her busiest time of day, she will have Father ground us for a week.”

“Then we just won’t get caught,” Virgil said.

“I’m not sure if it’s that simple,” Logan said with a frown.

“You can stay here if you want,” Virgil offered. “I’ll just go by myself.”

“No, I’ll come too,” Logan relented, though he did still have some reservations about the idea.

He let Virgil lead him towards the main dining hall. By now, Virgil knew the kitchens and dining hall very well.

“Stay here,” he said. They were in a hallway a few feet down from the staff entrance to the kitchen. “I’m going to do some reconnaissance.”

“What type of reconnaissance?” Logan asked, but Virgil had already disappeared before his very eyes. With a blink, Logan looked up and saw a dark figure disappear onto a balcony overhead.

Well, Logan really had no choice but to wait there for him. It wasn’t like he could follow him. He could hear the clatter of silverware on plates from the dining hall down the corridor as he impatiently waited. It only took Virgil a bit over five minutes to return. He dropped suddenly from above and landed in front of Logan in a crouch.

“Well?” Logan asked, letting a bit of irritation into his tone so Virgil knew he was displeased. Virgil did not seem to care.

“Got it,” Virgil said with a wide grin, brandishing a large kitchen knife.

Logan flinched back at the unexpected sight of a weapon.

“You said you were doing reconnaissance!” he sputtered. “Not…” he trailed off remembering that while they weren’t in eyesight of anyone right now, they could be in earshot of someone. He lowered his tone, “stealing the knife already.”

“I was doing reconnaissance,” Virgil said with a shrug, “and then I used the information gathered by that reconnaissance to steal a knife.”

Logan narrowed his eyes at him.

Virgil just smiled. “You would have gotten in my way.”

“I would not have,” Logan insisted.

“How many times has Patton’s mom caught you stealing food from the kitchens in the past?” he asked.

Logan pursed his lips. “That is Patton’s doing,” he said.

“Sure,” Virgil said with an eyeroll. “I’ll have you prove it some other day, but for now,” he twirled the knife around in a way that made Logan cringe even though he did seem to have an expert handle over it. “We have a knife.”

“Right,” Logan agreed with a nod. “We should continue the experiment.”

Virgil stored the knife away… somewhere on his person, and they snuck back to Logan’s rooms.

When Virgil handed over the knife, Logan did have to admit it was a perfect specimen for their project: long and saw-like with a heatproof handle.

Logan carefully set it in a shallow dish and proceeded to pour the potion they’d made onto it. They let it sit for a little under half an hour before carefully pulling it out of the concoction with tongs and letting it airdry. Meanwhile, Virgil suggested they set up a testing area with various old sheets and clothing. They’d even found and decorated an armor stand with an old suit that Logan particularly disliked.

“Well,” Logan said once he’d tapped the handle and had not gotten burned by the potion. “I think we can test it now.” For safety, he made Virgil put on thick heatproof gloves before handing him the knife.

“So how do I make it work?” Virgil asked.

“The original potion works through light friction,” Logan said.

“So just start stabbing things?”

Logan went to respond, but before he could, Virgil had already twisted around and sliced through one of the sheets hanging in Logan’s potion room. There was a sizzling noise as the knife cut through the sheet like it was tissue paper leaving two aflame halves flapping about.

Logan leapt forward to tear the pieces of sheet down and the two of them stomped on the flames to put out the fire.

“It’s perfect,” Virgil said with a grin once the charred remains of the sheet were extinguished.

“It does seem to work as intended,” Logan agreed.

“Let’s do it again,” Virgil said.

“Er, well, perhaps we shouldn’t…,” Logan started, but Virgil had already set his eyes on the armor stand they’d set up. That suddenly seemed like not such a good idea to Logan.

He stabbed the armor stand viciously. It went up in flames instantly. Logan’s eyes widened as the blaze only seemed to get bigger as Virgil drew back the knife.

Virgil did not seem to share Logan’s worry as he turned and stabbed another piece of hanging clothing, setting it ablaze as well.

“Virgil, no! You’re going to burn the room down!” Logan yelped.

The armor stand at that very moment decided to fall to the ground. They had, perhaps, not set the testing area up as well as they should have because it fell directly onto one of Logan’s rugs and set that on fire as well.

“Oops,” Virgil said, eyes wide.

Above the sound of crackling fire, Logan heard a tapping on the door between his bedroom and work room. It opened slightly after a moment and Logan’s father’s voice called out as he was sticking his head into the room, “Um, what do you mean Virgil… is burning the room down!”

The moment Logan’s father fully processed the presence of the flames, he was bursting into the room. He at least remembered that there was a fire extinguishing powder stocked in Logan’s work room even though that fact had slipped Logan’s mind in the chaos. (Perhaps Logan should have thought to set it out when they were testing a fire knife, but Logan would just add that to his growing list of regrets.)

The king managed to put all of the fires out within 30 seconds of poking his head through the door, but the fire left in his eyes when he turned to them afterwards was perhaps more dangerous.

Virgil slowly hid the knife behind his back. It was probably a bit late for that.

“What were the two of you doing in here?” the king asked.

“Nothing,” Logan said. Virgil shot him a look that told Logan what the boy thought about his lying abilities.

Logan’s father put his hands on his hips. “‘Nothing’ set the rug on fire?”

“We may have been doing a small experiment,” Logan said.

“What experiment?” the king asked.

“…I don’t wish to say.”

“Logan.”

“Virgil wanted a fire knife.”

“A what?”

Virgil frowned over at Logan. “Your resistance to interrogation techniques is deplorable.”

Father turned to look at Virgil and obviously spotted the fact that Virgil was holding something behind his back.

“Give it here,” Father said, though his tone was a bit gentler with Virgil than it had been with Logan.

Virgil debated it for a moment, but then offered over the knife with a pout on his face. Father gingerly took it and the fire-resistant gloves from him. “Where did the two of you even get this knife?”

“You can’t tell her,” Logan said.

“You stole a knife from the kitchens?!” the king asked.

“We borrowed it,” Logan said.

“Can it be used for cooking anymore?”

“…Well.”

“In the intended manner.”

“No.”

“Then you stole it.”

Logan just frowned and looked away.

“I’m going to go put this in a secure location,” Father said, grimacing at the fire knife in his hands. “No more experiments for you two for a month. I’ll sic Patton on you.”

With that, he picked up what was left of the fire extinguishing powder (just in case) and turned to exit the room.

“Well,” Logan said once he was gone. “That was irresponsible.”

“I could steal it back from him.”

“N-no don’t do that.”

“I definitely could though,” Virgil said.

“I did not hear you say that,” Logan said, putting his hands over his ears. “I am not responsible for any more of your actions in this matter. I am going to the library.”

He walked out of the room then and Virgil followed him to the upstairs library. He said nothing more about the fire knife, but Logan would be a fool to suppose he forgot about it.

Chapter 56 (Thomas)

“Good day for a picnic,” Helen commented as she handed over the basket Thomas had requested from her a few days before. He was taking Logan, Patton, and Virgil to the cliffs today and it was perfect weather for it. Spring was truly here, which meant that those of Thomas’s duties that had laid dormant over the harsh winter were about to start up again.

The world had been on pause for a bit considering no armies or agents from any kingdom could get through the snow the last few months, but the concerns of last fall were showing their heads once again.

Thomas had just gotten word a day ago that the queen of Lamir had routed out a second assassin hiding in her ranks over the winter. The assassin had been sent shortly after it was made clear that the queen wouldn’t bow down after the assassination of her mother. Luckily, the assassin sent for Queen Cecil had not managed to complete her mission during the winter months.

While there had been no similar attempt on Prijaznia soil, Thomas couldn’t help but feel it was only a matter of time now that the snow had melted. They were already working on increasing security in the coming weeks and, though it was doubtful an assassin had managed to hide in the castle all winter without revealing themselves, they’d be closely scrutinizing all of the newer staff members.

It would be a stressful time in the coming months, which is why, despite everything Thomas needed to do, he was still going to take his son and his son’s friends on a picnic today. Logan had already started taking on royal duties as of late, but he still hadn’t taken them all on quite yet. Considering this was last summer before Logan was of age, they should at least try to take advantage of it where they could. Patton was a year younger, but the sentiment held for him as well.

Then there was Virgil. Despite their best efforts, they still didn’t know enough about Virgil, but Thomas was fairly sure he’d never had a summer to enjoy until now.

“Thanks for prepping lunch for us,” Thomas said to Helen with a smile.

“No problem,” she said waving them off. “I put in some of Virgil’s favorites.”

“Great,” Thomas said. “Do you know where the kids are?”

“Patton said they were going to go pet the cats, so I’d guess they’re in the gardens.”

Thomas thanked her again and told her to have a good day before exiting the kitchen. There was a nearby door that led straight towards the part of the gardens Patton and Logan had always favored. He figured they’d either still be around there or they would have wandered towards the stables by now knowing that they’d be taking horses to the cliffs.

So, he decided to simply walk the normal path from the door to the stable, hoping to find them.

His prediction ended up being hilariously correct. They were indeed on the path Thomas had chosen. It was clear they (or at least Logan) were attempting to make it to the stable. However, as was typical, a portion of the party had been waylaid by whimsy.

Logan was standing further down the path, arms crossed and frowning as he watched his friends. Patton and Virgil were surrounded by cats. Patton was sitting down, holding two of them in his lap and watching Virgil’s legs being swarmed by the rest of them, maybe two dozen in total.

Virgil looked confused, but not unhappy about the presence of so many cats. He was leaning down to try to pet them all.

Logan met Thomas’s eyes as he approached and waved a frustrated hand at the two of them. Logan couldn’t help but smile.

“Virgil fed one of them,” Logan complained as though he wanted Thomas to somehow go into the past and prevent this crime.

Patton and Virgil looked over at Thomas, noticing him when Logan addressed him.

“You’re going to make Princess Marisol jealous,” Thomas said. Logan frowned at Thomas as he used the ‘Princess’ label for the cat.

“Princess Marisol decided not to come,” Virgil said with a shrug. He continued to pet one of the cats.

“She’s probably sleeping on my pillow,” Logan said, sounding grumpy.

Thomas just chuckled. Princess Marisol was technically Logan’s cat, at least that’s what the kids said, and she did spend much of her time in the royal rooms. However, she was very clearly actually Virgil’s cat. Virgil just spent a lot of time in the royal wing as well.

In fact, Thomas still didn’t know where Virgil was supposed to be sleeping. He and Mr. Deknis had actually tried to tail him a couple of times, but he always ended up sleeping in Logan’s room those nights.

Knowing Virgil, he might just sleep in the walls. Though that still did not answer the question of where his parents or guardians were. They still had not figured it out. Thomas would assume he was an orphan who’d snuck onto castle grounds for safety, but Virgil had told Mr. Deknis during their first meeting that he was supposed to be in the castle, and it had not been a lie.

Then again, it had slowly become apparent that Virgil was good at dodging the multrum’s powers. It was starting to seem more likely that he’d somehow inserted a second meaning into his answer to Mr. Deknis that night than he somehow had some ghost guardian no one was able to locate working in the castle.

“She deserves the pillow more than you,” Virgil said, bringing Thomas’s thoughts back to the situation at hand. The look of audacity on Logan’s face made Thomas chuckle.

Thomas cut in before it could become a fight. “I could get Princess Marisol a pillow, so she doesn’t sleep on yours. Or we can get you a new pillow if you’d prefer, Logan.”

“It’s not about the pillow for her,” Logan argued. “It’s about her inflated sense of superiority.”

“She deserves it,” Virgil declared. Thomas could tell he was just trying to rile Logan up, and Thomas was sure Logan knew it too, but still his son reacted exactly in the way Virgil wanted him to.

“You have enabled and encouraged this behavior from the start!” Logan seethed.

“She’s a Princess.”

“She is not a princess!”

Patton shook his head while squeezing the cats in his arms, completely used to this behavior at this point. He ran a chin idly over one of the cat’s heads while watching the argument.

“We’re never going to make it to the picnic at this rate,” Thomas said to him, “and after your mother made all of this wonderful food.”

“You’re the dad,” Patton said. “Make them stop.”

And, of course, Patton did just mean that he was Logan’s dad with that statement. However, when he glanced back up at the silly argument still going on between his son and the cat covered boy on the ground, it did almost look like a fight between siblings.

Especially with the dark hair and stubborn but mischievous look in Virgil’s eyes, Thomas could almost imagine the boy being his own child.

He shook away the thoughts and glanced at the picnic basket in his hand.

“We do have a lot of food in this basket,” Thomas said, pitching his voice up so that Logan (and more importantly) Virgil would hear them clearly.

Virgil immediately turned to look at him, abandoning all interest in antagonizing Logan to look at the basket curiously.

Thomas was never sure if he should be amused or worried about how food motivated Virgil often was.

“What’s in the basket?” Virgil asked.

“I’m not sure,” Thomas said. “Patton’s mom made it. We’ll just have to see once we get to the picnic area.”

Virgil nodded in understanding and began to gently scoot all of the cats out of his lap. Logan rolled his eyes, but didn’t seem inclined to continue the argument he’d been dragged into. Virgil and Patton got to their feet and they continued on their way towards the stables.

The horses Thomas had requested be prepared for their trip were already in saddles, though the stable hand who had been handling Mr. Apples seemed a bit dirtier and more exhausted than the rest.

The stable hand seemed as happy to hand Mr. Apples over to Virgil as Virgil was to have Mr. Apples handed over to him. Thomas received Bella with a smile and Logan and Patton got their own horses as well.

The Cliffs were about half an hour's ride from the main castle. There was a mostly well-maintained path to it, though it was easy to get lost if one didn’t know the way. Mr. Apples knew the way perhaps better than Thomas himself and seemed annoyed by the fact that Thomas was trying to lead the way.

Virgil and Thomas ended up side-by-side whenever the path allowed it to placate him.

He still marveled at how willing Mr. Apples was to let Virgil ride him, especially when he tossed his head in Thomas’s direction, a horse’s equivalent of giving Thomas a stink-eye.

“Are you excited for the picnic?” Thomas asked the boy beside him.

Virgil glanced over at him and nodded.

“I am too,” Thomas said. “It’s always beautiful this time of year. I’m glad I could find the time to take you all there this year.”

“Are you very busy?” Virgil asked curiously.

“I am king,” Thomas reminded, “and now that the world isn’t snowed in anymore things will be busy.”

“With the war?” Virgil asked.

84582

Thomas paused for a few seconds. “Yes,” he confirmed. “With the war, but you don’t need to worry about that.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Virgil asked.

“You’re just a kid,” Thomas said.

“I’m 14,” Virgil said.

Thomas glanced at him. “Exactly,” he said, “a kid, and luckily, you’re in a place that can afford you the luxury of being one.”

“What do you mean?”

“The war has been mainly fought on Mocnejsi soil in recent years. Our boarders have held strong against invasions. Unless something goes horribly wrong suddenly, it would take a long time for the main conflict to get here. The only real threat in the castle would be assassins sent after me personally.”

“Right,” Virgil said. There was an awkward pause in conversation before he spoke again. “You’re winning the war then?” he asked.

“Something could always happen,” Thomas said, “but for the most part, yes, we have quite the advantage right now.”

“Oh,” Virgil said.

Thomas shook his head as they were coming up to a narrowing of the path. “Anyway, today is a day to not think about war. Today we’re going to have a lovely picnic and do some bird watching.”

“Right,” Virgil agreed from behind Thomas as Bella took the lead (to Mr. Apples discontent.)

When the path widened again, Thomas did his best to direct the topic to lighter subjects and soon they made it to The Cliffs.

Chapter 57 (Virgil)

Virgil had never been to a picnic. At least, that’s what Patton had informed him when Virgil had described his past experiences of eating outdoors. Logan had agreed even though he’d admitted that the definition of “picnic” was only eating a pre-packaged meal outdoors which Virgil had done plenty of times.

From what Virgil could tell, the main difference was just how much stuff one brought to a picnic.

In addition to the basket full of food (that Virgil still hadn’t gotten to look in yet), the king had brought a large soft quilt that he had Logan and Virgil spread out on the ground for them all to sit on.

Patton and Logan had also packed some things themselves to bring along. Logan had brought along a book to read, and Patton had brought along a board game (thankfully not checkers but something Virgil did not recognize). Virgil hadn’t brought anything (except for the fire knife he was definitely not supposed to have and was definitely not letting the king see) because he hadn’t known he was supposed to bring things. He wouldn’t have known what to bring anyway.

The blanket was soft and a much better alternative to sitting on the ground, especially because, while there was grass at the top of The Cliffs, there were also a good number of rocks.

The king set the picnic basket in the middle of the blanket once it was spread out and then lowered himself down to sit on one side. Patton quickly followed him, already fiddling with some of his board game pieces, though he wasn’t setting it up yet. Virgil highly doubted that Logan was going to be allowed to read his book unless Patton eventually got bored of the game.

However, they would, hopefully, be allowed to make use of the basket the king had brought along.

Virgil followed the king and Patton’s lead and got to his knees on the blanket across the picnic basket from the king. He peered at the basket curiously.

He didn’t quite know what picnic food was, but Patton had told them they’d be getting ‘picnic food’ and he was very curious about what that meant.

King Thomas smiled at him. “Let’s see what Patton’s mom packed us, huh?” He reached for the basket and flipped it open as Logan sat next to Virgil. “There is a lot more food than usual in here,” the king said, sounding amused. “Let’s see.”

He began to pull out packaged food and glanced in each package to identify it before setting it out.

“We have a few types of mini sandwiches,” he said, putting them down, “and some pasta salad.” He set down the bowl.

“We also have… er something else.” He showed it to Logan.

“They’re hot cauliflower bites,” Logan said instantly upon seeing them. Virgil perked up in excitement. That was one of his favorite foods.

“Ah,” King Thomas said, but shrugged and set it down. “We also have two desserts apparently: cookies and mini apple pies. That last one’s a bit extra for a picnic.”

“They’re very good,” Virgil said happily.

“And we also have.” King Thomas paused, looking confused. “Chicken alfredo?”

“Yes!” Virgil said.

“Why do we have chicken alfredo for a picnic?”

“It’s a Virgil picnic,” Logan groaned. “She packed us a Virgil picnic.”

“Hey, at least momma sent us something too,” Patton said.

#not writing #proofread stories

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