#and he tried to fucking commiserate this afternoon!!!

[short-hot-stories]

Castaways At College: Part 1

An April Fools Prank Goes Awry

By SilverFoxMullet. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.

Spring break was just that, a break. My leg, actually.

When I went home to Ottawa for spring break, I met up with a few of my old high school buds, and we took a day trip to the Quebec side for some skiing at one of the nearby hills, north of Ottawa. Mid afternoon, I hit a patch of ice and went down hard. It was quite a day for falls, as the hills were pretty icy this late in the season. I tried to get up, but my right ankle hurt like a bitch. None of my friends had stopped, as we were all falling a lot today, they just assumed I would get up and follow them.

"Aw fuck!" I groaned. I lay there in the snow for a few minutes, until someone slid to a stop next to me.

"Hey, are you all right?" the guy asks.

"No, I hurt my ankle. Fuck."

"Don't move it, I'll find the ski patrol. Hang on." He skied away to get help.

30 seconds later another guy stopped. Same question. "Hey are you all right?"

"I think I sprained my ankle. There was a guy here a minute ago, he said he'd send the ski patrol."

The guy turned and looked around, then waved and yelled "Ici! Over here! Vien! Here they are."

Two guys in red jackets stopped and asked what's wrong. This other guy said "Good luck!" to me, and skied away, as I recounted the fall and my symptoms. The ski patrol guys were great, they radioed for a stretcher and 20 minutes later they're loading me into an ambulance. The rest of the day was a lot of waiting, x-rays, and paperwork. The local hospital had a seasonal trauma unit for all the ski injuries, and they're used to dealing with the inter-provincial healthcare.

I called my Dad, who said he'd fetch me from the hospital, then called my buddies who were still in the chalet’. He told them to go home without me. They commiserated and said they'd drop by my house tomorrow and see how I was doing.

I eventually got a cast on my right leg. It spanned from my toes to my mid-thigh. I was issued a pair of crutches, and a whole ream of instructions (in both French and English of course) about what to do and what not to do. My Dad showed up somewhere during this tedious process and reassured me everything would be fine.

We got home really late, after stopping at a pharmacy for pain meds, and stopping for takeout, damn I was hungry by then. I was asleep in minutes after I took one of those pills after getting home.

Next morning, I had to take another pill, damn leg was throbbing like mad. I had to learn how to negotiate using the toilet with crutches, fuck, that's pain in the arse. Then I had to figure out how to shower. They gave me a shower bag for the cast but I couldn't get the damn thing on by myself. Mom was trying to be motherly (naturally) but I was way too embarrassed to be seen naked in front of her. My Dad was a trooper, he helped me with all the bathroom stuff, and I got my shower OK.

I wasn't going to be able to drive for a while, so my folks said they'd drive me back to school in Toronto. I could come home by bus and get my car once I was able to drive. Great.

"Actually, if I could have my car on campus, one of my buddies could drive me around. None of the other guys have a car." Not that my rattly old car was much of a ride, but it got us from A to B.

"OK" my Dad says, "Your mother can drive you there, and I'll follow in your car, then we'll drive back together."

"Awesome, sounds like a plan!"

The rest of the day my parents helped me work out how to deal with the cast and crutches and take care of personal stuff by myself, like getting dressed, showering, shaving (yeah, ever try to balance on one foot to shave? fuckin hell), and using the toilet. My mom went shopping and bought me a bunch of baggy sweat pants, something that would go over my cast.

My old friends dropped by with some hard coolers the next day, thinking it would cheer me up; but I had to pass on those due to the meds I was on. They laughed at me and drank it all, themselves. We all had a good laugh about my predicament, and they wished me luck at college. Gonna need it, eh?

Then it was time to head back to school. I'd been texting and calling my buddies at school, told them the whole idiot story of my misadventures. They laughed at me big time, and of course they worried about their ride, what was gonna happen to my car? I told them about the arrangements and they were happy that it would still be available.

The drive to school was really tedious, seemed to last forever, because it was so fricking uncomfortable to sit there with that stiff cast on. They got me and my stuff into my room in the dorm, and said their good-byes. I was so happy that I was on the first floor! No stairs here but there were stairs all over campus. Sure, there's elevators everywhere but I didn't know where most of them were.

First order of business, I gotta pee after that road trip. I used the big accessible stall in the bathroom, that was great. Grab bars, lots of room, it really was made for this kind of thing. Easier than the bathroom at home, that's for sure.

I was the butt of a lot of jokes and shit for the first few days, but otherwise it was fine. Down in the dining hall I spotted someone else who'd had a fun spring break. There was a girl with her whole arm in a cast, like from shoulder to wrist, with the elbow bent at 90 degrees. I wondered what happened to her. Skiing too I supposed. My buddies said we'd make a great couple and told me to go ask her out. No way, dudes, not gonna happen. I can't talk to girls, I always get freaked out and clam up.

The end of March rolled around, and I still had weeks to go before getting my cast off. There was a party on Saturday night, and I was weaning off the strong meds by now so I could have a few drinks. My floor mates were getting me drinks, too; so I ended up having a few more than I would normally have. I was feeling buzzed by the end of the night.

One of the guys suddenly showed up with a wheelchair. "Robbo! we got you some wheels, man!"

"Where'd you steal that from?" I asked, a little dubious about the idea of them scamming someone's chair.

"No No, totally not stolen, we got it for you from the Red Cross. It's legit, dude!"

"All right! Let's check out my new ride then!" I hopped over and settled into the chair. They adjusted the footrest out for me and one of them took my crutches, and they started wheeling me away.

 "Where we goin?" I asked.

"It's a surprise." says one of them, and then pull a pillowcase down over my head so I can't see where we're going. When I try to pull the covering off, they stopped me, and then the started grabbing my arms & duct taping them to the chair's armrests. We were outside by now, and I started yelling, until they taped the pillowcase tight against my mouth, to muff my yelling. Now I was getting pissed, but there's not much I could do, except literally ride this out.

They laughed and giggled and make goofy jokes as they wheeled me around campus. EventuallyI had no idea where I am, and it suddenly strikes me that it was now April 1st. The alcoholic buzz is wearing off fast under the rush of my adrenaline and anger, and I wondered what kind of demented nightmare game they've come up with.

I heard more laughing, girls this time, and they make whispered comments back and forth with the guys. I’m now in a building, but I had no clue where. My chair was pushed around some more, bumping into stuff, and then a body is dumped in my lap, then they yanked the duct tape off the pillowcase and I can again my mouth. The room is pitch black. The giggling and laughing is cut off by the slamming of a door, and everything goes quiet.

I think there's a girl in my lap, or a small, really nice smelling guy with long hair. She's quiescent, asleep or passed out, pressed against my chest.

"Hey. Hey, wake up." I said.

No response, she's just sitting there, draped over my lap. She's warm and breathing, so it's not a manikin or something. I wondered if she's okay.

I started to shift a bit, can't use my arms because they're taped down, but I try to shake her awake with my rocking shoulders. It didn't work, and now I'm afraid that if I move too much she'll fall off onto the floor.

"Hey, uh, miss, wake up." louder. She's out of it. I turn my head to the side so I'm not yelling in her ear and holler "Hey, enough crap, let me out of here!" Silence reigns. Well, fuck. Now what?

'Now what'. Then the fire alarm starts blaring. It startles the heck out of me, but still isn't enough to wake the girl.  I heard loud commotion in the halls for about 30 seconds, but then suddenly there is silence. Fuck, this is getting serious. What if it's a real fire? No, no way, it's April 1st now, gotta be a prank. I'll just wait for her to wake up, and we'll get out of here. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I began to see faint outlines of what is probably a maintenance closet or storage room.

The alarm rings for an annoyingly long time. 15 minutes I guess, I dunno, but it seems interminable. And I need to pee now. When the alarm finally stops the need to pee gets more insistent. I shifted uncomfortably under the weight of my passenger. Her hip is pressed up against my groin, adding to the struggle of my urge to piss.

More time passes, and damn, I gotta go bad, now. I'm gonna wet myself, and her too, if I don't get out of here right now. I've tried speaking to her, yelling, shaking her, and then there was another alarm that went on and on. She just isn't gonna wake up. Did those morons drug her or something?

I'm desperate now. "Come on, sleeping beauty, wake up!"

 Sleeping beauty? Yeah, fine, I'll try that before I piss all over her. I think a girl would be slightly less angry about a stolen kiss than wet pants. So I seek her mouth. There was a little light coming in under the door, but suddenly that light went out, and only a faint intermittent light glowed. Oh, crap! That would be the emergency exit lighting.

 I eventually bumped my faced against her nose, then lowered a bit and kissed her, probably a little too hard for a wakeup smooch, cause I'm dyin' here, gotta pee, gotta pee, gotta pee.

She's got nice soft lips, really quite kissable, and I kinda wished she was awake and under different circumstances. I kissed her again, even harder. No response. I try again, this time I let my tongue do the talking, and I push into her mouth. Helluva way to experience my own first ‘tongue-kiss’. Finally, she stirred & turned into the kiss.

Surprised, I pull back, and say "Oh thank god you're awake, help me up!"

She startled, yelping at me, "Who are you?!"

"Help me, please, I'm gonna piss my pants! Untie me!"

In the dim red glow of an exit sign I finally saw her face. She's kinda cute, not particularly pretty, and she has a cast on her right arm. It's the girl I saw in the dining hall a few times.

"Hurry!" I pleaded.

She struggled off me, and stood. “Where the hell did you take me!” she demanded. I told her that we were both abducted by campus hooligans and locked in some storage room, but I didn’t know which building. Then I said; “But I gotta pee right now and my leg is in a cast, and I’m bound to this wheelchair.

She felt the tape on my wrists. It's slow going for her to undo the tape with her one weak hand, the way she's pulling at it, she's obviously not left handed.

I'm not gonna make it, and I looked around. We're in a janitor's room or something. I spotted a stack of small waste baskets. "Quick, grab one of those buckets and put it between my legs."

She's quick on the uptake, I'll give her that, and she grabbed the bucket for me. "Pull my pants down, hurry."

"What? No!" she protested.

"Arrrrggghhh. Please, I'm gonna wet myself." I grind out through my clenched teeth.

She reached out with that uncoordinated left hand of hers and fumbles with my sweat pants. I squirmed to lift my hips a bit to help, and the elastic waistband slipped down, exposing my tight briefs.

"You gotta help. Pull me out, aim for the bucket. Please?"

I can see she's not happy with the situation, and she's fighting with her distaste at touching a man, a total stranger at that, in such a bizarre circumstance. But she perseveres, and that delicate hand fishes in my shorts for my cock. She paused momentarily as she made contact, then pulled my cock free. She picked up the empty bucket and aimed my ‘hose’ toward the container.

I groaned as I let loose. Oh god, finally! The relief was incredible. The poor girl was acting shocked as she dutifully aimed me at the bucket, and she even nudged the bucket a bit closer. I pissed on and on, holy fuck there was so much, and eventually I ran dry.

Her disposition is no longer shocked, but instead she appeared to be curious.

"Oh thank you, you saved me so much embarrassment. You can put me back in there now. Thanks."

She hesitated, and timidly tried to one-handedly stuff my cock back through the fly, and after a couple of clumsy tries I'm all set. And of course now my cock was growing fast in her hand, as I no longer had to pee, but there's a wonderful-smelling girl handling that most sensitive part of my anatomy. Something that's never happened before.

That last drop of pee evidently got on her hand, and she looked a bit frantic now, "Ew" she says.

"Just wipe it on my sweats, it's OK." I told her, and she rubbed her hand on my inner thigh. That doesn't help with my ever increasing boner of course.

She looked up at me, and her brow wrinkled. "Do you smell smoke?" she asked.

It's my turn to be startled, and I looked toward the door. Oh Fuck, there's smoke coming in under the door! That alarm was real! Why wasn't it still going off? "Quick, help me get this tape off!" She started trying to pull up my sweats, but I say "No, leave that, just get me undone!"

She started working on the tape on my left arm, and it took a few minutes to get me free. Working together, my right arm is unstuck in less than a minute. "Check the door." I told her as I looked around the room. No other doors, just shelves, a big sink, a floor pan for filling and emptying mop buckets, and stacks of boxes and stuff.

She tried the light switch but it doesn't work. Great, my idiot friends probably unscrewed the light bulb. Then she tried the door. "It's locked!" she says.

"From the outside? Why the fuck would it be set up to lock people in? Sorry. I swear when I get nervous."

"Is there really a fire, do you think?"

"I guess so, there was an alarm that went off when you were out cold."

"What do we do?" She started frantically searching her pockets and said; "I can't find my phone!"

"I didn't even bring mine to the party. No pockets."

The smell of smoke got stronger. I wheeled up next to the sink, and ran some water. Grabbing a package of paper towels, I ripped it open and dumped them in the sink. "Here, block up the crack under the door with these!"

I handed her wads of soggy paper, and she knelt down to stuff them under the door. The smoke stoped coming in, thank goodness.  But now the room is black. "Now what?" she said.

I shrugged, "I guess we wait and hope."

"I'm scared." she said in a small voice.

"Come here, sit on my lap here. Oh, uh, maybe pull up my pants first." She helped me with that and sat on me. I think the gravity of the situation is now hitting her pretty hard, I know it's got me freaked out. She burrowed into my neck and wraps her good arm wraps around me. "We're OK for now." I tell her.

I smelled her hair again, as she's crushed against me. Damn that feels nice. Shit, I don't even know her name. "I'm Robert by the way. Robert Green."

"Suzanne. Suzanne Shelton.", she informed me.

"I'd say pleased to meet you Suzanne, but under these circumstances, maybe the sentiment should be I'm ecstatic to meet you. If I was by myself I would have pissed my pants and suffocated."

She giggled, my goofy sense of humour somehow helped in this situation. "I'm glad to meet you too, Robert."

"So how did you get here?"

"I don't know, I was at the dorm party and felt dizzy, then you were kissing me." She blushed again.

"Sorry about that, I tried to wake you for like 20 minutes, but you were really out of it. I finally thought I would try the sleeping beauty trick, and it worked. Did you drink something someone else gave you?"

"Oh. Shit.” She seemed to recall. “I think so. One of my floor mates gave me a coke. It must have been spiked?  I had to take some of my pain meds for my arm earlier tonight, it was bothering me. I keep trying to do too much with it all the time."

"Oh, yeah, you don't want to mix booze or anything with that stuff, I know! Sorry about the pee episode. I really was going to wet my pants in another few seconds. Wet both our pants."

She blushed and giggled. "I never saw a guy like that, like your, thing, before."

"Wow. Okay, well, I never had a girl touch my co-, um, thing, before."

"It changed when I was putting it away. Was that, um, like...'

"Yeah, well, when a pretty girl touches me like that, I'm bound to get aroused."

Her eyes went wide at that statement. "Oh" she said. She paused a few seconds, then put her head back on my shoulder. There was that scent again. "So. Um, you think I'm pretty?"

"Well, yeah, of course. You're what I think my grandpa would call 'fetching'"

She giggled again. Damn, that sounds nice, and she smells really nice. Little Robert stirred down below. I heard a sharp intake of breath. Uh Oh. She felt that. I may have just ruined what might have been a moment.

"Am I pretty enough to make you, uh, aroused, then?"

"Oh, Suzanne, I am so embarrassed. Please, don't be offended, it's just circumstances, you know?"

She pulled back again and looked at the door. Still no smoke. Then she looked at me with a sad smile, saying "I didn't think so." Suzanne started to get up, and I realized where our wires had crossed.

I put my arms around her and said " Oh, no no. You're very pretty, and definitely arousing."

She looked surprised, but settled back down on my lap. "Oh." she said. "Thank you."

Just then we heard a muffled sound  of footsteps outside the door. We both yelled, and I grabbed a mop handle and rapped it against the door. The door opened, and a cloud of smoke poured in. A firefighter stood there, looking surprised behind his breathing apparatus. He hollered for help, and we were soon moved briskly from the building.

I was parked in my wheelchair next to the ambulance, where Suzanne was sitting on a gurney. We both had been given oxygen and been checked over for injuries. We told campus security about how we came to be there, and they got really grim. I named names, because I could've died there, we both could've died. It was a prank, but it went sideways pretty fast when that fire broke out. Cops came over and Suzanne also named a couple of girls who she thought were in on it too. Now we were finally cleared to go.

"Can I walk you back to the dorms?" I asked.

She laughed, "Don't you mean wheel me? You can't walk."

"Can too, if I had my crutches. My idiot friends left me with this chair."

"Okay, then, let's go." She beamed.

Off we went. She couldn't push me with just one hand, and I was crap at navigating that chair, but we eventually got back to the residence. We chatted amiably along the way, getting to know each other. She was really easy to talk to, unlike most girls I've tried to talk to. Maybe that was it, I wasn't chatting her up.

She was 18, a biology major, living in in the next dorm over. I told her I was in second year Computer Science, in the nearby dorm, so I had a single room.

I told her how I broke my leg, skiing near Gatineau, and the really long day I had as a result. "How did you break your arm?"

"Skating. I'm usually a good skater but sometimes you just fall wrong. I spent most of that same day in the ER, just like you. It's really hard to get dressed and shower and stuff with this thing."

"I know, believe me, I know all about it."

We were both so fired up on adrenaline after our ordeal there was no way we could sleep. "Would you like to, uh, come over to my room, for a bit? After all this, I'm not tired, and I'd be bored doing just nothing. We could talk for a while." Oh, nice, I thought, smooth man, very smooth. NOT.

She blushed, and it must've been a good one, to be visible in the dim light along the sidewalk. "I, uh, yeah. Yes. Yes I will." she stated with a bravado she didn't appear to have.

I smiled up at her. "I promise to behave, Okay?"

"What if I don't want you to behave?" she smirked.

"Then you're going to have to make your wishes known, in no uncertain terms. I don't do the pushy guy thing very well."

"I want to go to your room with you," she declared.

To be continued.

By SilverFoxMullet for Literotica

[stylishanachronism]

In my dad’s defense it wasn’t hidden as in, hidden, it was just not in an obvious spot, but it’s one in the morning and I don’t have my eyes in, so when I say I woke up from a vicious nightmare to discover my dad had hidden my purse and got mad when I woke him up screaming because I couldn’t find it and I have work tomorrow, you understand that I am reasonably upset about this.

#I need him to stop touching my stuff! #I’m having a horrible time in an ugly obvious way and if he cared about my health at all he wouldn’t be hosting these fucking parties #and the last thing I need is for him to keep! touching! my! shit! #he also moved a bunch of it around for ultimately no reason so now I’m also not going to be able to find anything #and he tried to fucking commiserate this afternoon!!! #‘I know if someone starting moving my stuff around I’d be pissed’ #then stop! stop touching my shit! #leave it the fuck alone before I start stealing all your shoes or something! #I am so fucking past the end of my rope death would be a kindness! #let me not worry about one fucking thing!

[gravegroves]

dude gotta know more about 7 (ghost barb)

7. Ghost Barb

Billy gets forcefully dragged into the weirdness of Hawkins by his own weird little quirk. He can see dead people. And Ghost Barb won't leave him the fuck alone.

Excerpt:

"He doesn't care anymore, you know?"

Billy jumps from his seat on the bleachers, almost trips and falls right off of them, but catches himself just in time. He looks down to find Barbara's face poking from between the slats roughly where his legs had just been.

She has a weird way of turning up when Billy is least in the mood for it. He glares at her and sits back up. Out of the corner of his eye Barbara melts up and out of the metal seats to sit next to him, she turns to look at him expectantly.

Billy aggressively sighs out a gust of smoke and relents, trying not to move his lips too obviously and look like he's talking to himself like a fucking loon.

"Who?"

"Steve Harrington."

Billy scowls. "Fuck off."

She laughs in a way he knows she wouldn't have dared had she still been alive. Billy supposes she's earned a cavalier attitude by way of being dead and all.

"If you apologise, he'll forgive you, I think.

"You think?"

She nods.

"He's different. I used to hate him. Even back before he dated Nancy. She used to get so flustered around him and he was such a… such a dick." She says the word like she expects the lord to strike her down right then and there. Billy doesn't know if he should tell her that out of all the dead people he's spoken to, none of them ever even mentioned a heaven or hell.

Billy sucks in another lungful of smoke, exhales into the cold February afternoon air.

"Lemme guess, she couldn't see what was right in front of her the whole time, right?" He smiles meanly at her and guesses if she could she might have turned a nice shade of pink.

She clicks her tongue. A thing Billy knows by now Barbara only does when she's trying not to cry. He lets up a little.

"That's how it goes for most of us, Barbie, don't feel too special." He says and hopes it sounds commiserating if not very comforting.

"You remind me of him."

Billy grunts, "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," She gets up and dusts the back of her pants off for ghost lint or maybe just by habit. She looks down at him, "And I think the reason he doesn't like you is because you remind him of all the things he used to hate about himself."

"Profound." Billy deadpans, trying to cover for the way his chest feels tight all of a sudden.

She leaves without saying goodbye that time.

*****

"Look little miss priss, I don't have to do any of this," Billy says, flicking a hand between them, "Actually, I'd really prefer not to, but your friend won't leave me the fuck alone until I do. So shut up, listen to what I have to say and we can go our blissfully separate ways, comprendè?"

"You realise how ridiculous this sounds, right?" Nancy crosses her arms over her stomach defensively, looking more bony and squared than ever.

"Almost as ridiculous as monsters running around Hawkins and killing your friend, right?"

Nancy's eyes widen. "You-- who told you that?" She starts loudly and ends in a whispered hiss, shoulders hunched forward as if they'd be enough to prevent passers-by from overhearing.

Billy imitates her posture and hisses back mockingly, "Barbara! Are you fucking deaf?"

Wheeler purses her lips in that awful way that reminds Billy of a cat's asshole, but she doesn't run off in a huff like he expects. She nods tersely and shifts on her feet, settling in to hear him out at least.

Billy sighs.

*****

"I used to haunt him."

"Who? Harrington?" Billy asks, bewildered "Why? More lesbian revenge?"

Barbara ignores him and settles onto the window sill, back disappearing through the glass to the outside.

"Why'd you stop." Billy throws down the pencil, finally giving up any pretence of getting any homework done with Barbara around.

"It was hurting him." She mumbles, picking at a non-existent loose thread on her pants.

Billy stares at her.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"He gets nightmares. Keeps getting up to check the house for monsters. I used to make noise. Kept him awake and made him think he was hearing things. Made him cry more than once..." she trails off when she notices the expression on his face.

"That's real fucked up, Barbie. You know that?" Billy says, not bothering to keep the fury out of his voice.

"I was angry."

"Try again." He snaps.

"I..." she falters, stops, a terrible look of realisation spreading across her face when she realises he's figured her out. "Billy, I--"

"You're the reason Neil's been so jumpy lately," Billy hisses, gets up and approaches her, slowly, "You're the reason he went apeshit last week. You're the reason he hit Max.

"I'm sorry, Billy." Her chin trembles as she tries not to cry. "I just wanted to help, I didn't think it was gonna get worse."

"Get the fuck out."

"Billy--"

"GET THE FUCK OUT!" He roars and with a hushed gasp, she's gone.

#billy hargrove #barbara holland #tag game #harringrove #gravegroves writes

[skinsharpenedteeth]

RNM After Dark, Day 2!

Today's story is... different. Medical kink, lab sex, milking machines, barebacking, comeplay... it's a real mixed bag. Definitely rated Explicit. 6883 Words.

Here's a link to the story on AO3!

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"Compromised by a Foreign Body"

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Alex knew the way they were going about it was wrong. No matter how many times his father told him the aliens were nothing more than violent, seditious predators from another world, it never sat right. But, when it was time to do his duty, Alex had stepped into line. He’d even managed to pull his best friend, Liz Ortecho, into working in the biomedical lab for Project Shepherd. Being a Manes meant that even in what should be a strict, military hierarchy, Alex was a prince. So he made his own job, helped out where he wanted, and tried to not think about the things he’d done or seen when he went home at night.

“Alex, can you help me with the specimen extraction this week? I’m really behind on some notations from last week’s experiments. It would be a great help to me,” Liz said one afternoon. He’d been aimless all day, simply walking around the base to look busy but without an actual task. His stomach clenched, however, at the request. Specimen extraction brought him into very close contact with aliens, and there was one whose eyes never seemed to stay on the ground where they belonged. There was one whose eyes followed him, seeming to see through his fatigues and tracing every line of his body underneath.

“The females and males?” Alex asked, clearing his throat to get rid of his nerves. Liz gave him a curious look at the show of anxiety. She knew him well. She could tell this wasn’t something he wanted to do.

“Just the males. I just need a semen specimen. We’re seeing what happens if we crossbreed them with human female eggs and how that effects the DNA and RNA structures of any resulting hybrids. Just grab the three youngest and put them in the collection rooms. One sample from each should be plenty,” Liz went on, already returning to her microscope slides and file notations. Alex made sure to keep his face neutral as she glanced up to studied him while giving her instructions. He nodded shortly and left the lab, already mentally listing the tasks he’d need to perform in order to do a collection.

Alex had been given basic medical training when he’d been taken on at Project Shepherd. It was explained that at any point, one of their captives might have to be taken down with an injection if brute force was inadvisable. He’d also received extensive hand-to-hand combat training. Alex had found it interesting that de-escalation techniques hadn’t been taught as part of his training before coming onto the base. So far he’d only had to use the bare minimum of force to get his job done. He’d turned into something of a Jack-of-all-trades, however, when it came to medical or scientific technical procedures.

First, he stopped by the captive holding area and signaled his brother Flint over from the guard station. Flint gave him an annoyed scowl, but came over to where Alex was waiting.

“What’s up?” Flint asked, always informal to Alex by way of blood. If their father had seen, Flint would’ve been disciplined. Alex, though younger, outranked Flint and therefore should always be treated with the respect of a superior officer. Alex didn’t care as much. Flint was a stooge and would never be more than a glorified prison guard. His pantomimed respect wasn’t needed for Alex to know he was above him. But Alex knew if their father saw Flint being too familiar at work, he’d chastise him with a fist.

“I need male captives Max, Michael, and Noah to specimen collection,” Alex informed Flint formally. Flint gave him a speculative grin, but didn’t say anything. He nodded and went back to the guard desk to inform the other two soldiers on duty. Alex saw them share a glance and chuckle as Alex started towards the pharmacy. His next task was to pick up some Tri-Mix injection and then to make sure a few rooms were set up with the correct equipment for the procedure.

Alex tried to keep his mind on the business at hand. The laughing of the other soldiers needled at him in the back of his mind. He’d done this job a few times, but he didn’t take any pleasure from it. If the other guys could see what was involved in the process, maybe they’d realize that it wasn’t as sexy a scenario as they imagined. Maybe if Alex wasn’t gay, it wouldn’t have been an issue at all. Maybe if the aliens looked more… well… alien and not just like humans, it could’ve just been an abstract curiosity, a shitty work detail. They would’ve just commiserated with him for drawing the short straw. But he was gay, and they didn’t understand what happened behind the closed doors of the extraction rooms and these three aliens in particular were very attractive by human standards. He shuddered to imagine what deprived fantasies they’d built around him and the aliens. This only happened, of course, when he had to work with the males.

He made his way to the long hallway of rooms they used for technical procedures. Alex looked through the monitors over the tech’s shoulder at the monitoring station. Only one room was in use currently, and it looked like an autopsy was taking place. Alex grimaced inwardly to think they’d lost another alien to the ravages of time.

“Anything scheduled in rooms 5, 7, or 9 for the next hour?” Alex asked the monitor tech quietly. The soldier blinked up at him, as if just now aware someone else was in the small room with him. He cleared his throat and picked up the scheduling clipboard from the corner of his desk. Alex’s eyes strayed back to the occupied room, and he watched with sick fascination as things were taken out of the alien’s abdomen and loaded into bowls.

“Uh, looks like they’re free. Need to book ‘em, sir?” the young soldier asked, remembering protocol at the last moment.

“Yeah. Captain Alex Manes. Max, Michael, and Noah are being brought in for specimen extraction,” Alex told the soldier for his notes. He nodded and wrote down the details on his paper copy of the schedule. He’d type it into the online schedule later as well as any observational notes. With a last glance towards the wall of screens, Alex left the room and went to get the equipment cases out of storage.

Each case held a milking machine which included a cylinder with a latex liner, a connector hose, and a suction machine. Alex placed one in each room and plugged in the power supply to the suction machine so it could start warming up. He rifled through the cabinets that lined each room’s walls and found the lubricant, prostate stimulation equipment, and massage wands. He’d never needed to use the extras, but something about their presence made him feel like he was actually there to do a job. The machines would do most of the work. He was really just there to monitor and make sure the samples were collected and labeled correctly for Liz.

As he was just double-checking all his equipment, Dr. Valenti walked into the room he was in. Alex turned and eyed his ex-best friend warily. Kyle had been making strides towards repairing their friendship, but Alex was still skeptical.

“Hey man. Liz said you were doing a collection. I brought you the Tri-Mix injections. Mind if I help out?” Kyle asked, showing him the preloaded injection pens.

“Sure, I guess. There’s not much to do. Just inject them, sleeve them, turn on the milkers, and go get a cup of coffee until the sensors go off,” Alex said flippantly.

“You don’t do any manual or electrical stimulation before you sleeve them?” Kyle asked, sounding a bit shocked. Alex tried to shrug nonchalantly. He didn’t want to admit that manual and electrical stimulation felt like he was crossing a line somehow. He logically knew these were not humans with human feelings or cultural constructs about consent, but in his own mind it was a step too far. The injection made it medical, but if he actually started probing and touching… then it might just be what those soldiers at the containment area thought it was. Kyle must’ve read his thoughts, because he clapped Alex on the shoulder and gave him a patronizing grin.

“You get better samples if you stim them. I can show you on one if you like? Just so you can see it’s not what you think it is,” Kyle offered, squeezing Alex’s shoulder affectionately. Alex absolutely did not want to see… except that he did. He was going to hell for it, but he was curious. In fact, he was fucking fascinated, and he hated himself for it.

“I mean, if you’ve got the time?” Alex said, trying to give Kyle an out.

“Hey, what’s the joke about doctors and always being busy except they’re really golfing? Think of this as my golf break. I’m getting out of the clinic and getting to do something fun for a little while,” Kyle said with a laugh.

As if on cue, the sound of wheels in the hallway alerted them that the captives had arrived. Alex turned to see two men rolling in Max, the largest physically of their aliens, already naked and strapped to a gurney, gag in his mouth (to protect him from biting his tongue while coming off any medications used during the procedure). Alex felt a quick flash of rage that they hadn’t left him clothed or thrown a blanket over him. The guards placed his gurney in the middle of the room, locked the wheels, saluted to Alex and Kyle before they left. Alex watched Kyle’s eyes rove up and down Max’s body covetously. Max had been gagged and given a mild, but quickly dissipating sedative. Alex could tell that he was relatively aware of where he was, but couldn’t fight the bonds. He hardly did, even when the sedative wore off.

“Here, let’s reposition him a little. If we’re going to stim him, I need to have better access to his body. Did the guards flush their systems before they brought them up?” Kyle asked, already unstrapping one of Max’s legs. He reached under the gurney and pulled out a heel stirrup that he gently placed Max’s foot in before re-securing him for safety. He did the same with Max’s other leg, spreading him wide.

“Uh….,” Alex started, completely out of his depth. He looked up at Max who met his eyes and nodded, color infusing his cheeks like a blush. Kyle was finishing with the other foot when Alex finally answered. “Yeah. They did.”

“Good. That means I don’t have to,” Kyle replied with a laugh. He was transforming the gurney from a long bed into practically a chair in front of Alex’s eyes. Alex had no idea the gurneys had so many bells and whistles on them. With his legs spread wide, hips strapped down to the table, and naked, Max looked utterly exposed to them. Kyle was leaning over Max’s upper body, using a pen light to check his responses. “God, the meds they have now are remarkable. He’s already becoming cognizant again!”

“Yeah, they come to pretty quick,” Alex remarked dryly while he watched Kyle do a quick examination, checking reflexes.

"Let's get some gloves on and I'll show you what I mean about the manual stimulation. If he doesn't react, we can always give him the Tri-Mix, but this can sometimes remove the need to even use it," Kyle explained, moving over to the instrument cart and pulling out two pairs of non-latex gloves. He and Alex snapped them on and Kyle rolled the instrument cart over to beside the table. He grabbed a rolling stool that had been left in the corner of the room from another procedure and sat himself down between Max's spread legs. Alex could see Max's confusion as he lifted his head to try and see what Kyle was doing.

"Okay so," Kyle started, drawing Alex's attention back from Max's dark eyes to where he was covering two fingers in a copious amount of lubricant. Alex watched as he used the non-lubricated hand to spread Max's ass cheeks and expose his dusky, puckered hole. Max's leg muscles flexed against their restraints at the feeling. "Just like with human males, these guys have got something like a prostate. You'd stim it the same way you would for a human."

"I usually like my partners to be hard before I go sticking things into their asses," Alex mumbled, trying for a joking tone. Kyle beamed up at him.

"That would be preferable. But if that's the problem, you can stimulate the prostate first and the penis should start getting erect after. Have you worked with these captives before? Do you know if this one is able to get hard without the injection?" Kyle asked. He still held Max's cheeks open, exposing him as he carried on his conversation with Alex. Alex risked a glance up to see that Max was staring resolutely at the ceiling, flushed but stoic to his treatment. Alex wished they were allowed to speak with the captives and that they didn't have to stay gagged when out of confinement. He'd just ask Max if getting hard was an issue, or if it was just the degradation of being used as a lab rat that kept him flaccid.

"I don't know. Like I said, I've never tried to stim them before suctioning. Max has never come in already hard, but his body responds well to the Tri-Fix," Alex replied, trying to ignore the fine tremors he could see in Max's stomach muscles. Kyle was rubbing a thumb in contemplative circles over Max’s hole, spreading the lube from his fingers and almost seeming unaware of what he was doing as he and Alex talked.

"I bet he can! He's a hell of a specimen. Before we try the prostate, let's see if he responds to some other stimulation," Kyle said with an excited clap. He stood up abruptly and walked to the side of the table. Alex stood on the other side, promising himself he would be polite and watch but wouldn't participate. Kyle took his time looking over Max's physique. In a familiar gesture, he set his hands high on Max's chest.

"Hey handsome," Kyle crooned. He slowly rubbed his hands up and down Max's chest, trailing his fingers lightly over the skin. Max darted his eyes to Alex in obvious confusion and alarm. Kyle followed his gaze. "Ignore him. I'm going to take care of you today."

Alex let his eyes slip away and back down to Kyle's hands. They smoothed over Max's skin, down over his ribs and stomach, then back up so his thumbs could tease lightly over Max's dark pink nipples. Max shifted under Kyle's attention.

"You've got to convince the blood to come up to the surface of the skin," Kyle murmured to Alex while he kept eye contact with Max. Kyle started to rub over Max's nipples more firmly, stroking over the tightening nubs. Pleased with their erectness, he hummed thoughtfully before trailing his hands down to rest on Max’s hipbones. Alex noticed the uptick in Kyle’s breathing and dilation in his eyes as he moved one hand to cup Max’s cock. He rocked the heel of his hand gently before circling his thumb and first finger around the shaft and stroking. Max’s body started to respond to the attention, his cock plumping up in Kyle’s grip as he kept stroking over him smoothly.

“That’s it,” Kyle cooed encouragingly. Max shifted under him as much as he could, head pressed back against the gurney and staring resolutely towards the ceiling. His face was flushed and the red stain seemed to be moving down towards his chest the harder he got. Alex jumped when a hand came into his view suddenly. “Put some more lube on my fingers.”

Alex obeyed Kyle’s order and watched him push one slick finger into Max’s hole, making the alien jump in surprise. Expertly, Kyle crooked his finger and within a few searching thrusts was able to locate Max’s prostate. Alex glanced up to check Max’s cock and was surprised to find him almost painfully engorged. Kyle followed his line of sight and smiled, turning to look at Alex triumphantly.

“Told you man, nothing to it. Hand me the suction canister and we’ll get him hooked up and pumping.” Alex shuddered at the excitement in Kyle’s voice, the eagerness, but he did was he was asked. As soon as the canister was lowered over Max’s cock, cool plastic resting against his belly, Kyle flipped a switch to began low suction. Max’s cock jerked in response to the tight pressure build and release of the machine, and Alex heard a low groan escape from behind his gag. Kyle had managed to work two fingers into his hole while Alex had watched the machine begin its work and was thrusting them in time with the machine. A glance further down and Alex could see the solid outline of Kyle’s own cock straining against his scrub pants.

“Uh, I’m going to go get started on one of the other captives,” Alex spoke up, feeling awkward at continuing to stand by the scene in front of him. Kyle gave him a friendly smile, fingers and wrist still working away.

“Sure, go do Michael. Noah, from what I understand, is a tougher case and I’d like to commit my full attention to him. After this, we can go do lunch if you want?” Kyle offered easily. Alex nodded and made a non-committal sound before turning and quickly exiting the room. He wasn’t fast enough to not hear Kyle murmuring softly to Max before he left. “You’re doing so good, Max. Look at these balls, man. You’re going to give up a big load for us today, huh?”

Alex wished he could bleach his brain.

He quickly closed the door behind him and moved towards the room he knew Michael to be in. He’d seen Michael around the compound. He was hard to miss with his curls, sharp smile, and sad eyes. Alex had tried to ignore him, but he found himself more and more aware of him each time they crossed paths. When he entered the exam room to find him naked and conscious, strapped and gagged the same as Max on the gurney, he flushed hot with a mix of embarrassment and want. He shut the door quietly behind him.

“Hey Michael,” Alex greeted him quietly. Michael’s eyes roved up and down his body, undressing him, challenging him despite his position. Feeling exposed, Alex moved towards the gurney slowly. The closer he got, the more of Michael’s body he could see. His cock was nestled serenely against his balls, a short, dark thatch of hair surrounding his groin and leading up his stomach and over his chest. Alex wanted to run his fingers through the hair, tangle himself in it, bury his face against it… but he knew that was inappropriate. No matter how attractive he found him, the alien was not in any position to consent to anything, and Alex knew it. He was still tempted, however.

To try to hide the awkwardness he was feeling, Alex busied himself with positioning the cart next to the gurney. He gloved up and reached for the lube, immediately dropping it when Michael cleared his throat next to him. The bottle clattered loudly on the metal cart, knocking the milking canister onto the ground. Alex fumbled to try to catch it before it rolled too far away. A knock sounded at the door and one of the guard’s voices came through.

“You okay, sir?”

“I’m fine!” Alex called back, face flaming in embarrassment. He looked at Michael who gave him a smug and superior grin around the obstruction in his mouth. Alex set the canister back on the table and bent over Michael to hiss at him. “Don’t be a dick!”

Michael gave him a raised eyebrow in response as if to say ‘who, me?’

“Yes, you,” Alex snapped. He moved back over to the table and picked up the lube again. Again, Michael pointedly cleared his throat. Alex abruptly turned to look at him, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What?!”

Michael just looked at him for a moment, waiting for him to catch up. With a huff, Alex moved to block the view of the camera and loosened the gag enough to slide it out of Michael’s mouth. He watched Michael moved his jaw around and swallow convulsively a few times, resisting the urge to get him some water, while he waited for Michael to speak.

“What do you want, Michael?” Alex asked, trying to put steel into his voice to cow Michael’s nonchalant, almost playful attitude.

“I was going to say, you could at least buy me dinner before you start sticking probes into me,” Michael replied, his voice rough but steady. Alex stared at him incredulously.

“Are you trying to flirt with me?” he asked, unable to stop himself. Shock was an adequate description for how he was feeling about this turn of events.

“No. I am flirting with you, private,” Michael replied, giving Alex another once over before continuing. “How am I doing?”

“This is the least sexy situation I could possibly imagine being flirted with in,” Alex answered flatly.

“Well, you refuse to come visit me in my cell, so this is what I’ve got to work with. Besides, you’re about to have to get me hard enough to spurt for science. Maybe you should work on your bedside manner.” Alex stared down at Michael on the table. His eyes moved down to his exposed cock, still flaccid, and then over to the milking machine on the table. His ears felt warm and he was sure he was blushing.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem. After all, I could always just inject you with Tri-Fix if you don’t want to get hard naturally,” Alex countered, trying not to let how flustered he was feeling show through in his voice. Michael gave him a frankly filthy grin in response.

“With the right stimulation, I’ve never had a problem getting hard naturally. Besides, have you ever had one of those tubes on your dick before?” Michael whistled low in apparent appreciation. “Science is wonderful. I’m all for science.”

“No, I’ve never--” Alex started, affronted at the mere idea that he would use government property for his own pleasure that way.

“Maybe you should climb up here and give it a try….” Michael suggested in a conspiratorial tone.

“There’s no way. There are cameras in here,” Alex protested, wondering why he wasn’t shoving the gag back in Michael’s mouth and getting on with the sample collection.

“I can fix that, ya know. These drugs they have us on dull my powers quite a bit, but I’m still pretty good at shorting out electronics when I need to,” Michael countered. He rushed on as Alex opened his mouth to respond. “You can keep me tied down. You can, uh… manually… collect your sample for the lab from me and take a spin on the suck tube at the same time.”

“I could never…” Alex protested weakly. He hated that he was even considering it. He didn’t know what Michael’s plan was, but he was pretty sure getting his dick sucked by a robot was not acceptable protocol under any circumstances.

“You can gag me again if you want to keep me quiet,” Michael said, voice almost a purr. Alex contemplated the idea, eyes straying from Michael to the milking canister and then surreptitiously up towards where the cameras were. Curiosity was getting the best of him. Curiosity and hormones. This close he could smell the petrichor and salt scent of Michael’s skin and make out the green flecks hidden amongst the amber of his eyes.

“If you can take out the cameras…” Alex started, but before he could finish he heard a faint cry of dismay from the observation room. Panicking, Alex shoved the gag back into Michael’s mouth and hoped to God it hadn’t been visibly out on the video. A second later, one of the monitor techs came into the room looking thunderous.

“Everything okay?” Alex asked the tech who had grabbed a chair and angrily shoved it into a corner. He started to climb up onto the seat, his eyes trained on the small dome on the ceiling that held the camera.

“This fucking piece of shit. Always shorts out on me. Goddamnit,” he cursed, removing the protective dome to look at the wiring beneath. He cursed again and hopped down, coming over to stand in front of Alex. “I’m going to have to replace the whole thing. Something major burned up. Do you want to postpone this procedure or--”

“No!” Alex cut in, his voice sharply cutting off the tech. The tech gave him a wide-eyed look. “I just… I’m not going to have time later. Look, he’s secured down. There are guards outside the door. I’ll be fine. He’s not going to cause me any trouble, will you?”

Alex directed the last question at Guerin who looked between him and the tech and lolled his head as if he were still slightly dopey. The tech squinted at him, but seemed to take the act at face value.

“Fine. Just give me a heads-up when you’re done so I can get in here. And don’t fucking undo any of those straps, got it? They’re there for your protection!” Alex gave him a grave nod and the tech turned and strode out of the room. As soon as the door snicked shut behind him, Alex turned and stared wide-eyed at an obviously unrepentant Michael. Alex removed his gag again, bending close to his ear before speaking.

"If you tell anyone about this, I will have you thrown into solitary for a week," Alex threatened in a low voice. It felt empty because he knew if Michael told anyone, his father would find him and put him in a hole in the ground. There was something about Michael's offer though… a feeling between them that made Alex sure the risk would pay out.

"I won't tell," Michael replied quietly. There was a sadness in his voice that pierced Alex's heart and he moved to be able to see Michael's eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment, each searching for something needed but fragile and better left silent between them. Alex ended their silent back and forth by bending down and pressing their lips together. It was sweet and chaste, a seal for their understanding, and when he pulled back he felt like their bargain was solidly struck. Quietly, Alex moved the extra chair from the corner under the broken camera and wedged it under the doorknob. When he turned back to face Michael, he immediately began to unbutton his shirt enough to pull it and his undershirt off over his head. He leaned against the table to tackle his boots, pants, and prosthesis. With an embarrassing lack of grace, Alex proceeded to climb onto the gurney and straddle Michael's thighs.

Michael's eyes were wide and darkened with lust as they scanned over Alex’s naked body. He looked hungry in a way Alex was all too familiar with. Alex noted to his smug relief that Michael’s cock had gotten half hard at his striptease and was growing firmer beneath him. Without a word, Alex reached over and grabbed the lube bottle, squeezing some into his palm before slicking Michael's cock with it. The friction made Michael groan quietly, his eyes fluttering shut as Alex stroked him with a firm hand and brought him to full hardness. Alex’s own cock was beginning to throb and ache with neglect, but he didn't want to touch himself too soon. The risk of the situation was turning him on almost as much as Michael beneath him, his hips flexing into Alex’s grip in aborted thrusts.

Alex let go of Michael and lifted onto his knees. Keeping eye contact with Michael, he took his still slick hand and reached behind himself to push two fingers into his hole. It was almost too much too soon, but Alex liked the burn and needed this part to go quick. He didn’t realize his eyes had slipped shut, unable to concentrate on anything but the stretch and pressure of his digits as he rocked his hips back and twisted his fingers to make the stretch go faster.

"Oh shit," Michael breathes out beneath him. Alex opened his eyes and pinned Michael with a hard stare before swooping down to kiss him again. This kiss wasn't sweet. It wasn't chaste or simple. Alex licked at the seam of Michael's mouth once and barely gaves the other man time to accept him before he was pushing his way in. If Michael was hungry, Alex was fucking starving. Not that he’d gotten a taste, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.

Michael moaned into their kisses, his body shifting restlessly, claiming as much movement as he could against the restraints.

"Shhhh," Alex warned, breaking their kiss. He shuffled forward enough to be able to reach behind himself and grasp Michael's cock. Goosebumps broke out over his skin as he pressed the blunt tip to his wet hole. Biting his lip, Alex forced his body to relax and accept Michael's generous girth. It was almost too much and after a few slow drags where he only managed to shove a few inches at a time into himself, Alex pulled off and added more lube. The next time he pushed down, it was like his body just accepted Michael and made room accordingly. Both he and Michael let out harsh, gutted breathes when Alex managed to fully sheath Michael inside him.

"Fucking christ," Alex groaned, trying to stay quiet but already feeling his body scream for him to start fucking himself stupid on the perfect cock stuffed in him. Beneath him, eyes squeezed shut, Michael nodded and Alex watched as his hands and fingers flexed in an echo of Alex's own need to move. Slowly, Alex began to rock his hips and get his first exquisite taste of the pull and push of Michael's cock lighting up his insides. Wrapping a hand around his cock, Alex noted how wet and messy his shaft was from the leaking precum drooling out of the tip. He used that wetness to ease the way as he stroked himself lightly in time with the undulations of his hips.

"Please," Michael gasped out beneath him. "Oh fuck, please."

Alex knew what he wanted, wanted it himself, but also knew they made a plan. Carefully, he reached over to the instrument table and picked up the plastic cylinder end of the milking machine. Inside it was a PVC sleeve that molded itself around the recipient's penis once the suction was started. Then, according to the dials on the machine, the sleeve would go taut and relax with a rhythmic click and hiss, effectually sucking off the wearer until he blew his load and the sample collection sensor went off. The load would then be scraped from the inside of the sleeve and collected into a tube to be given to the lab. Alex knew all of that, had the technical knowledge down pat in his brain, but was unprepared for the foreign feeling of sliding his own cock into the smooth, cool fabric of the milker cylinder. With a barely trembling hand, he pressed the ‘on’ switch and waited for the first pull.

He didn't know what he’d been led to expect, but it wasn't the vice-like, fluid pressure that made his hips hitch forward instinctively to get more of that tight clutching feeling. Alex felt a moan get dragged past his lips, echoed by Michael as he began to fuck forward against the milker and then back onto Michael's cock.

"Oh god," Alex moaned brokenly, curling forward over the cylinder in helpless abandon. The angle pressed Michael's cock hard against his prostate, and Alex indulged himself in a few shallow thrusts that brushed the head of Michael's cock against that spot over and over. His body felt like it was getting expertly rung out, and he now understood why there wasn't more of a revolt against the collection process by the alien captives. They were getting an expert blow job by a robot on the government's dime.

When Alex could drag his eyes open, he looked down and saw his own helpless pleasure echoed on Michael's face. His lips were parted in an "oh" of surprise, eyebrows drawn together like he wasn't sure if he was in pain or in ecstasy, and sweat beaded his hairline and neck. He looked like a ravaged Greek demigod laid bare at Alex's whim. The sight made Alex’s body shudder with a wave of lust for the alien beneath him. He didn’t know if it was because he was alien or because Alex was in the midst of intense pleasure, but he wanted to never leave in that instant.

"Fuck, look at you," Alex couldn't help saying. He pushed back, arching and reaching until he could brace his hands on Michael's legs to grind back down in his prick. The cylinder jut from his groin obscenely between them, position change not effecting its mechanical precision. Michael opened his eyes and stared up at Alex, a look if wonder on his face.

"I wanna touch you," he said, voice quiet enough to almost get lost under the hum of the machine. Alex smirked down at him, feeling fuck drunk and bold at his naked worship.

"Where do you wanna touch me? Tell me," Alex demanded, voice breathy.

"I want to touch your neck. I want to twist my hands in your hair and put you where I want you," Michael said, voice serious like he was in a confessional booth telling his sins. Alex hummed in response, sitting up straight and moving his hands up his chest to his neck and then into his hair.

"Like this?" Alex asked, smiling at the covetous, feral look on Michael's face as Alex acted out his words. He let his eyes slip shut so he could imagine that instead of restrained, Michael was simply dictating his desires to him.

"Yeah. Like that," he agreed. His eyes trailed lower and he began talking again. "I want to rake my nails down your chest. I want to pinch and suck your nipples, abuse your tits until you're begging for me to stop."

Alex let his hands fall from his hair down to his chest. He raked his fingers down the front of his pecs and stomach, not stopping until he was almost at his pubes. He slid his fingers back up to his nipples and plucked at them with savage, twisting, pinching fingers. The zings of pain shot down to his groin, where his balls were drawing up tight to his body, the finish line in sight for him. The rhythm of the machine picked up and Alex opened his eyes in time to see Michael looking intently at the knots that controlled speed and intensity.

"Where else?" Alex gasped, the increased setting of the machine making him tip forward to brace himself with his hands on Michael’s chest, so he could fuck himself harder onto Michael's cock in time. He could see in Michael's face he was getting close too, trying to hold out until Alex busted.

"After I come in your ass, I want you to sit on my face and let me eat you out. I want to taste you and me on my tongue. I wanna watch you squirm, oversensitive and mewling as I tongue fuck you into a second orgasm," Michael managed to say through a gasping, pained groan. His hips were flexing minutely under Alex, trying impotently to reciprocate the harsh pounding he was getting as Alex rode him.

"Fuck!" Alex almost yelled, his body starting to seize at the thought, thrusts going erratic as he rode through his orgasm on with his body on automatic pilot. A beeping sensor on the machine went off and the machine automatically shut itself off. Gingerly, he broke the suction around the base of his cock and slid the cylinder from his body. Feeling wrecked and still impossible full of cock, Alex looked down at Michael who was breathing hard and looking pained at the full stop of their activities. Alex gave him an evil smile when their eyes met.

"Your turn, cowboy," he said. Michael looked at him in momentarily confusion until Alex pulled off his cock with groan. He felt so empty without Michael inside him. He felt like his ass was gaping where his legs were still spread on either side of Michael’s hips. He twisted around and slid the used cylinder over Michael's hard-as-nails prick. Machine in place, Alex reached over and flipped on the machine again, overriding the collection sensor and making sure to turn up the speed to bring Michael off swiftly. He turned back to Michael's face, watching him go from shock to stricken within seconds. Alex bent low, resting some of his body weight on top of Michael’s chest, and mouthing at his jaw and neck. He felt the vibrations of whimpers and quiet moans against his cheek as he nibbled at Michael's ear.

"Once you cum in the cylinder, I'm going to make sure you get a taste of us before I dump the sample due to compromise by a foreign body. That means we'll have to do this again tomorrow. And tomorrow? I'm going to fuck your throat while the machine gets a clean sample from you," Alex whispered into his ear. Michael made an unmistakable noise of release, a tight, gasping sob as his cock was milked dry. The selection alarm chimed again and Alex turned off the machine with an easy flick of his wrist.

Good to his word, Alex twisted and broke the suction of the cylinder. Because of the double load, when he moved it off Michael's cock, he could see their combined spunk coating Michael's length in a pearlescent sheen. Inspired, Alex bent down and dragged his tongue down the length of Michael's softening cock. He turned back to Michael, dumping the cylinder haphazardly onto the instrument cart before sealing his lips over Michael's. Michael opened his mouth hungrily, tongue tangling against Alex's and greedily stealing all traces of their combined flavor for himself. When they broke apart, Alex smiled down at Michael for a moment, giving him one last kiss, before moving off of him and the gurney.

He once again leaned against the side of the gurney and put himself back together. By the time he was completely re-outfitted in his fatigues, his mind was once again on business. He turned and pushed the gag back into Michael's mouth before he could say anything. Michael stared at him in confusion until Alex grabbed a hand towel and laid it over Michael's lap to cover his nudity. He gave Michael a sad smile before he went and removed the chair from in front of the door and stuck his head out into the corridor.

"Captive is ready for transport back to the pen," he called to the guards on duty. He backed away when they came back in the room and unlocked the wheels of Michael's gurney. Michael stared at him in something like betrayal as he was wheeled away. After he was gone, Alex washed out the cylinders sleeve and wrote a note on Michael's chart to schedule him for a second collection the following day.

Alex wasn't sure how he felt about what had just happened. Now, in the quiet of the empty collection room, he wondered if it had been an elaborate dream. He wondered if he'd wake up soon in his own bed, tired and disoriented and dreading another day of work at Caulfield. He also couldn't deny that what had just happened definitely wasn't a dream if the ache in his muscles and the slick feeling between his ass cheeks were to be trusted. He felt guilty for judging Kyle’s lasciviousness when he couldn’t stop himself from riding his captive like a rodeo bull. Was he as bad as the other guards thought, or was it just Michael? Alex couldn’t imagine doing anything that had just happened to another captive or man that he knew.

One thing was for certain, he was already in too deep to want to stop. He hadn’t come that hard since he’d learned where his prostate was. He just didn’t know how he was going to schedule in more time for him and Michael to see each other after tomorrow. With a sigh, he left the room and went back to his office to think through his actions. A flask of bourbon waited in his desk drawer to help him find the answers.

#rnmafterdark2021 #rnmafterdark #malex fic #malex #michael guerin #alex manes #blink and you miss it valevans #medical kink

[sleepyseguin]

tyler seguin | i still see your face (nsfw)

summary: you and tyler break up. it’s harder than you thought it would be. 

a/n: highly recommend listening to driver’s licence by olivia rodrigo to get the whole vibe. my spotify must think i have a problem by the constant repeat. 

It’s not like you haven’t had a break up before. It’s just that this one feels different. Raw. A ragged edge that’s been torn. You drink too much beer and sleep too little. Your friends rally around you, of course they do, drag you to clubs with too many teenagers, tell you they never liked Tyler anyway. But the lie is thin, and in the dim bathroom of the bar one says, but why did you guys break up? What happened? You blink at her, mouth tasting of tequila. I don’t know.

-/-

Of course you know. You’re an adult. You made this decision together, sat on his couch. One of his throw pillows hugged to your chest so he couldn’t see the way your hands were shaking.

“If this is really what you want,” Tyler had said, and you could hear the scratch in his throat, the way his eyes shone too bright. Unshed tears.

 You hadn’t been able to speak, tongue too thick, hot tears on your cheeks, fresh ones ready to replace as they dried sticky on your chin.

 He was away from home too much. Your lives were going in different directions. You had opportunities to travel with work, and it’s not like he could come with you. It was best to do it now, a clean break, rather than struggle on, slowly tearing.

 You’d cried all the way home from his house, struggling to keep the wheel straight. Your mother would have been horrified by the reckless driving. When you’d finally dared to look at your phone, that first night alone, Tyler’s text made you sob all over again. I love you. Always.

-/-

You talk to him, sometimes. You can’t help yourself. It’s like an itch that becomes unbearable. You have to scratch. Meaningless text message chains. How are you? Fine, you? I’m okay. I miss you. I miss you too. You know it’s not helpful, not the path towards healing that your married friends preach. But it makes it easier to sleep. Knowing he’s still out there. It’s a blissful kind of agony when he texts you unprompted, in the middle of the night, sometimes the middle of the afternoon. I think of you all the time or I dreamt about you or I thought I saw you at the game. Your own misery overwhelms. Winter sets in. You struggle through grey days, take the long way home to drive past his street. Pray you don’t see another car next to his.

-/-

You cry on the phone to your mother, great big sobs like a child does when they’ve lost their favourite toy. She tells you she’ll fly out.

 “No, it’s okay. I’m a big girl. I can do this.”

 “You can,” she assures, but the surety seeps away as soon as you hang up. A bottle of wine in front of the television. Take out. You’re either starving or not hungry at all now. You only watch ten minutes of an episode before you’re switching to the NHL channel. It’s too hard to forget the schedule. It’s like a reminder in your brain when you wake up in the morning, he’s playing today. You used to nap together, in the afternoons before games. The weak sunlight, the dancing dust mites. A Friend’s episode turned low. Tyler would reach for you in his sleep, nuzzle into your neck. Like he could never get close enough. Like he knew you would leave one day.

-/-

A mutual friends birthday. You’d tried to make excuses, but even you didn’t believe them.

 “It’s worse to avoid him,” your friend says, “It will only make it harder later.”

So in an effort to do the Right Thing, to be a Big Girl, and Move On, you find yourself drinking too strong punch, pieces of apple and orange floating in a plastic cup, leaning into a guy you just met and laughing too loud.

 And it is fun. For awhile. A mix of old friends and new. Loud music. And for most of the night, he’s not there. He’s so late you think he’s not coming. And you pretend you’re crying because you’re relieved and not because you’re disappointed. You’ve been smart enough to take yourself to the bathroom for the small meltdown, bent over the counter and taking deep breaths. You’re too old to be getting this smashed at a house party. It’s hard to focus on yourself in the mirror, bending light. It’s a good thing he’s not coming, you tell yourself, and wish you could believe it.

 You’re headed to the kitchen, the sink full of ice and hiding your drinks. Tyler is there. Tyler is there, standing in the hallway, talking to the host. His big hand makes the beer he’s holding look like a kid’s toy. He’s laughing, crinkly eyes, the sound reaching you. Slapping the guy on the shoulder, enjoying the joke. He’s so happy. How can he be so happy?

Dark eyes meet yours, the fall of his mouth from the grin. He goes to say something, call out maybe, but you’re turning away already, pushing back into the lounge room, the backdoor. Fresh air. Cold crisp of a Texan winter. The weather reporters are saying it might snow this year. He finds you. Of course he does. In the back-garden, looking up at the moon, counting stars. Your name in a familiar voice. The way he says it makes your heart hurt. You can barely look at him, the grass moving under your feet as you turn to face him. Curls peeking out from under a beanie. Black hoodie, dark jeans. You recognise the hoodie. You used to wear it to bed sometimes.

 “Hi,” you say, trying to be causal, wanting desperately to be, but at the same time you’re reaching out, clinging onto his arm. Don’t ever let go again.

 Tyler smiles, sad and small, “It’s nice to see you.”

 “Yeah,” you breathe, head back, gazing up at him. The moon has nothing on Tyler. Come back to me, you want to say, but this is your fault. You did this. You made this happen.

 “I wanted to talk to you,” he says, and you think yes, yes, just ask me, I’ll come back I promise, “I think it’s better if we don’t talk anymore. It’s too hard.”

 “Oh,” you say. It suddenly seems so much colder out here. “Okay.”

You watch him walk away, back into the house, the light of the party. And if you cry in the Uber on the way home, no one else has to know.

-/-

The first time you sleep together, afterwards, you could almost convince yourself it’s an accident. Not talking hadn’t lasted long. A loss, a commiserating text, a wish to just go back to the way things were. We can, you’d said, just for one night.

 It’s almost awkward, the way he’s a stranger around you again. He looks tired, sore, sweatpants and a hoodie. Pink cheeks from the cold outside. His hair is still damp from the shower, curling around his ears. You want to stay here, like this, forever, letting him sit you down in the bed, holding your face in his big hands to kiss you from where he stands between your knees. The way Tyler says your name, wanting, needy. The press of his body on yours. You missed this. You missed this so much. It would never be the same with anyone else. The way he touches you, so carefully, so purposefully. He knows just how you like it, just how you work together.

 It’s a habit, for you to be on top after a game, not worth making him expend any more energy. But he fights you for it, doesn’t let you settle, rolls you over onto your back again. You protest, mildly.

 “It’ll make you sore,” you say, can’t stop touching him, his hair, his face, his back, his chest. His skin is warm from the hoodie.

 “Don’t care,” Tyler says, a crooked smile, nudging his nose against yours, “I want it like this, want to see you properly.”

 Your heart is broken and remade simultaneously. It’s all you can do not to pull the doona over both of you and hide forever, keep him here like a prisoner. Cherish him for an age. His mother would never forgive you.

 Your body aches for him, as he nudges open your legs, kisses your mouth, your neck, your breasts. You should take your time, enjoy it, the last time, but you can’t help but surge towards the end.

 “Want you inside me,” you whisper, fingers on his hips, angling him.

 “Yeah,” Tyler rasps, aligning himself, “Fuck. Yeah, please.”

The relief of him sinking home, the opening of your body to him. It’s too easy, almost, the rhythm he settles into. Your legs tight around his waist, groaning when he pulls one up over his shoulder, finds a new angle. A big hand palming at your breast, the way he says your name, thick and low. You come a few moments before him, get off on the way he watches you, holds you, fingers caressing just above where he slides in and out of you. It takes everything not to cry, the final release, the drop of endorphins.

 Tyler shakes when he comes, a whole body shudder as he holds himself deep, panting against your ear. You stare at the ceiling and blink away tears. How could you ever have walked away from this? Nothing feels right unless he’s here.

 Later, he gets up to leave, but you reach out before he can get out of bed.

 “Please stay,” you whisper, pathetic. Tyler’s a shadow in the dark, but he’s warm when he slides back under the covers, gathers you up against his chest. You can hear his heartbeat as you fall asleep.

-/-

It takes you another week to swallow your pride. You call your mother, again, cry on the phone, again.

 “I think I was wrong, I think I made a huge mistake.”

 “If he is who you say he is,” she counsels, “He’ll forgive you.”

 “What if he doesn’t?”

You’re convinced that someone will be in your parking spot the whole drive to his house. A new car. A girl’s car. You can’t breathe along his whole tree lined street, until you see the empty spot. Like it’s waiting for you. Like it has been this whole time.

 You almost slump into him when he opens the door, the relief, the grief. He’s surprised to see you. Sleepy. Got in late last night from a Roadie. The dogs are everywhere at once, bumping you into each other as they try to get a cuddle. Tyler stumbles into you, forced by Marshall’s heavy tail. Your hand on his ribcage, steadying. Are you really going to do this? On his front step? Behind him, you can see your red coat on the coat hook. So that’s where it was. You’ve been looking for it in the cold. And he’s kept it, this whole time. Waiting for you.

 “I’m sorry,” you say, “I’m so, so sorry.”

Tyler shakes his head, confused, furrowed brow, “What’s going on?”

 “I made a mistake. I made a stupid mistake. I got scared, and I panicked. The truth is. I love you. And I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. And it’s scary. I’m so scared. But I shouldn’t have taken it on you like this. It was wrong. And if you can’t. If you can’t forgive me I understand. But. I really, really want you, too.”

 He says your name, quietly, prayer like. Your hand is still on his chest.

 “Are you sure?” He asks, and the dogs are still all around you, the front door is wide open. Tyler’s socked feet on the porch.

 “I’m so sure.”

And he’s laughing. He’s laughing. And he’s kissing you. Warm and fresh and familiar. And then you’re laughing and then you’re crying and Tyler is just holding, holding, holding you.

And along the street, a warm breeze blows through the trees. The promise of summer.

#tyler seguin #tyler seguin imagine #hockey imagine #hockey fanfic #nhl imagine #tyler seguin smut #hockey smut #imagine

[ackerslut]

For your requests: Lower Decks senior crew meeting when they talk about dumb stuff. I saw the bar stool meeting in moist vessel and honestly, that was favorite part of that episode.

My apologies! I know this has been sitting in my inbox forever!!

Set in season 1 II AO3 Link

T'Ana is three fingers into her whiskey when Carol drops into her chair. Stress lines combined with her haphazardly styled hair indicates that she's been dealing with a certain wild ensign again. T'Ana feels equal parts amused and exasperated by the fact that Mariner could so easily get under the skin of their captain, but makes no mention of it.

"Aren't you on duty?" Ransom asks, sitting in his chair backwards like he's William fucking Ryker. Whatever, she's not going to ruin his dreams.

She throws back the rest of her drink. "And what of it?" T'Ana lets a bit of a growl into her voice.

Ransom holds up his hands placatingly. Carol eyes her empty glass longingly.

"Sorry-!" Billups yips, flying through the doorway so fast it almost doesn't have time to open for him. "-I didn't realize we had a-"

"It's fine," Carol mutters. "Take a seat."

Billups sits next to Stevens, who's been making weird eye contact with Ransom.

T'Ana doesn't want to know. She pulls her flask out of her lab jacket and takes a swig.

"Is this about the away mission?" Ransom asks, sighing. "Because I swear I didn't know the Gadaorianzes believed bathbombs were devil worship-"

"It's not about that," Carol interrupts, rubbing her temples. By the look on her face it's clear she and Ransom are going to be discussing that in great detail later.

"Okay then," Ransom glances around the room puzzled. "Then what's-"

Carol mumbles something incomprehensible to everyone but T'Ana. Sometimes having enhanced hearing is a perk.

This is not one of those times.

T'Ana pulls out her second flask from her boot and drains it.

"Uh, I didn't quite catch that-" Stevens begins.

"It's about Mariner!" Carol snaps.

T'Ana flattens her ears and rolls her eyes. "You've got to be kidding me."

Shaxs, who's been relatively quiet thus far, exchanges a commiserating glance with her.

"She's never where she should be, she disregards mission protocols, she sasses her superiors, she's not even adhering to dress code half the time-"

"Just demote her then," Ransom says, looking relieved that he's not about to be reamed out in front of the entire senior crew. Yet.

Carol narrows her eyes. "I can't," she mutters.

T'Ana raises an eyebrow. Or her equivalent of one, anyway. "What, she some bigwig's daughter? That make sense," she snorts.

The Captain's eyes get even more squinty. "What's that supposed to mean, Dr. T'Ana?"

"Oh, you let her get away with waaay to much shit for her to be anything less than an Admiral's daughter."

"I heard she's a spy for section-"

"Everyone knows you can't trust shit from the rumor mill on this ship, Billups."

"I'm saying it would make sense! Do you know how much she can bench press?"

"And she's so tiny too," Ransom says, mournfully.

"Eh-"

"Not really-"

"Actually she's taller than me-"

Ransom, who has about eight inches on everyone present, just scowls at the table.

"Cool, so Mariner's making the Captain spazz out," Steven's says, leaning back in his chair. He clearly trying to pull off casual and suave, but not succeeding due to the fact that you can only lean so far back in the swivel chairs before toppling over. "What are we supposed to do about it?"

"This isn't 'problem solving meeting,'" Ransom hisses, "it's our weekly group therapy session, Steve, keep up."

"Wait that's a thing?"

"How long have you been on this ship?" T'Ana asks.

"Four years."

"And you haven't noticed that Freeman calls us in here at least once a week-if not twice-to complain about her mentee?"

"She's not my mentee!"

"You're emotionally attached to her, just sign the adoption papers already," T'Ana shoots back, earning a chuckle of Shaxs.

"You do get this strangely constipated look around her," he adds.

"Hmm, just like the one you get when you look at Ensign Rutherford?" T'Ana adds, smirking.

"I don't have fatherly feelings toward-"

"You all disgust me," T'Ana says, shaking her head.

"Don't worry, someday you'll find an adorable, wide eyed Ensign to adopt," Carol says, patronizingly, something of a grin melting away the stress in her face.

"So you're admitting that you wanna adopt the problem child?"

Carol scowls. "I didn't call this meeting to be-"

"We are in fucking basement levels of denial," T'Ana groans. She drops her head onto the table and feels around in her back pocket for another flask.

"Just throw her in the brig again and be done with it," Ransom mutters, circling back to the original topic at hand. "It's not as if she can get up to much trouble there."

"Don't say that," Billups moans, probably remembering the last time Mariner was thrown in the brig. T'Ana hadn't been there for it personally, but she knows Carol deleted the security footage for therapy related reasons.

"Can't you just bribe her? Can she be bribed?" Steven muses.

"That's against regulation." Carol's considering expression is at odds with her words.

"Find her weakness and use it against her," Ransom says, filing his nails.

"She doesn't have weaknesses." Carol's face is now intense.

"She has friends right? Surely they're an influence on her."

Carol scowls. "Trust me, I tried that. Her best friend has some sort of loyalty crush on her and the rest of them would sooner break the rules than try and intervene."

"You have only one choice than," Shaxs says, voice rumbling.

Everyone turns to look at him.

"Give up."

"What!"

"Did he really just say that?"

"Shaxs!"

"No no. He's right."

T'Ana grabs the bottle of vodka ducktapped under the table and uncorks it. It's going to be a long afternoon.

[anthrofreshtodeath]

Untitled

Inspiration struck last night 👀 - putting this here so you can let me know if it's worth continuing/if you would want to read more of it. Super AU!

Jane cut the engine of her Ford Ranger just outside the tiny strip mall off of Sixth Street. It had been a splurge just after she got brought on as the head baseball coach of Empire High School, a treat for herself for finally getting a big-person job and generating some regular income. Her mother had convinced her to do it, actually, because Jane had been on the fence for months, waffling so many times that Angela piled her in the family Buick and dropped her off at the dealership. Find your own way home, Angela had said, and it better be in that brand new truck.

Now, Jane was thankful for the push, because southern California summers in her old Civic with the busted A/C were no fucking joke. They were still no joke now, but at least she could blast cold air on her face when needed. Like now: even at six thirty in the morning, temperatures climbed above eighty in early August, and she settled into the discomfort of an already damp back. At least her front still looked fresh. She glanced in the rearview mirror one last time before she got out, taking off her adjustable black cap with her school’s insignia and smoothing the tied-back black hair on top of her head. Presentable and believable: a baseball coach with a ponytail and a Nike dri-fit short sleeve windbreaker over her t-shirt.

She hopped out, satisfied enough to not be looking like a hooligan, and when she planted her turf shoes, she could tell the asphalt was already on fire. The boys were gonna be whiny as hell this afternoon. That made her grin just a little bit. She ambled up to the donut shop-slash-panaderia on the corner, straightening her posture when the door jingled and signalled her entry.

The short, middle-aged woman with her graying hair in a bun and an apron around her waist brightened when Jane approached the counter. “Buenos días, Coach Rizzoli,” she greeted with a smile and voice so cheery, she’d obviously been up for hours already. Probably baking as Jane finished weight-lifting in her backyard before the sun came up.

Jane smiled softly in return. “Buenos días, señora Gutierrez,” Jane said, deferential even though at nearly 5’11”, she must have been almost a foot taller than Mrs. Gutierrez. “Como está?” Short Spanish phrases sounded pretty darn good in her mouth, she had to admit, for all the Sicilian she heard growing up, and for being a product of Santa Ana. Spanish was more common than English in a lot of her friends’ homes growing up, so she caught on quick. At least enough to carry on a polite conversation, if needed.

“Bien, gracias. Tengo sus conchas aquí,” Mrs. Gutierrez asked as disappeared behind the counter to find what she was looking for, Jane’s order, reappearing with six pink donut boxes.

Jane opened her nostrils wide to take in the smell of flour, sugar, and a hint of cinnamon for the white conchas, her favorite. It was enough to feed a small army, which felt just about right for the staff meeting she had been tasked with supplying breakfast for. The first of the new school year. “Qué bueno,” she replied, not sure if she was referring to Mrs. Gutierrez’s overall well-being or the pan in the boxes. She pulled out her cash to pay, slipping her wallet in her back pocket, and in the seconds that it took her to do that, a single, piping-hot styrofoam cup of coffee appeared on the counter in front of her.

“Y un cafecito come le gusta,” said Mrs. Gutierrez with a wink and a smile. Occasionally, she did this, and it was her way of taking care of Jane, one of their family’s best customers.

Jane had learned not to refuse it. She just blushed and bowed her head a little bit, her lips pursed in a bashful smile. “Muchisimas gracias,” she said, taking a sip. Mrs. Gutierrez always left the cinnamon stick in it and added minimal creamer, just how Jane liked. Jane held back a moan. She decided she’d partake of the rest in the car, and then pocketed her change.  She picked the boxes up by the string tied to them and huffed, ready to begin the day. “Y el Jonny?” she asked, and Mrs. Gutierrez nodded her head towards the back of the bakery.

Jane nodded and made her way toward the door so she could pop around. “Qué tenga un buen día, Coach,” Mrs. Gutierrez called after her.

“Igualmente!” Jane replied, already on her way. She deposited her haul on her front passenger seat, keeping her coffee in hand, and then walked over to the alley between the Gutierrez bakery and the block wall separating it from the Cardenas market just across the way. She put her hat back on, threading her ponytail through its opening, and adjusted her Oakley sunglasses as she stood by the dumpster that Jonathan Gutierrez currently filled with broken-down cardboard boxes.

He heard her shoes scuffling his way, so he turned. “Coach Rizzoli! It’s early as hell,” he said, “what’re you doing here?” He sweated through the ribbed tank on his torso and the black basketball shorts on his hips. Jane commiserated, having helped her dad out on many a plumbing job in the summer when she was in high school.

“Well, first day for teachers is today,” she said, sipping her drink. “And I had to get some of your mom’s pan for the meeting. They’d expect nothing less. I’m here lookin’ at you because she exhausted all my Spanish skills, and I needed to remind you that practice starts at one today.”

Jonny, as tall as her, lanky too, smirked. “I’m sure you could’ve found a way to say that to her,” he teased, knowing that she couldn’t have, not well.

“You’re a riot. One o’clock, and not a minute later, a’right? I will not hesitate to bench our centerfielder for opening day if he’s late,” she warned. Then she started to turn.

“That’s like seven months from now!” Jonny whined, setting his box cutter down and running a hand through his thick black hair. “I got work today! Last day before school starts next week!”

Jane rolled her eyes. “The perfect hair thing may work on the girls at school, kid, but it won’t work on me. Find a way to make it happen - if you get into Fullerton, it won’t be because I sent you, but because you did it on your own. Part of that means showing up to practice on time. Even in August.”

Jonny sighed. His mom would understand, but his wallet would be crying. “I’m tryna save up for a pickup like yours, though, Coach,” he tried, batting his eyes for extra sympathy.

Jane laughed, and then he did. “Listen. You show up for practice on time every day this year, and you and me’ll have a talk about replacing today’s wages for that new Ranger, a’right?”

“Ok,” Jonny said quietly. He knew that Jane knew they didn’t have much money. And he knew that she knew most everything about him - she meant what she said. She’d taken him under her wing when she’d noticed his boundless talent and his faltering attendance. When she found out it was to make enough money to keep him and his brother on the team, she’d covered the cost in full. That was two years ago, and now that Jonny was an incoming senior, they’d righted the ship together. There was only a little more to go until he applied to the school of his dreams, the one with the killer baseball program and just miles from home.

It didn’t hurt that Jane was the first woman to play ball there as a range-y second baseman, was eventually drafted from Fullerton. He wanted to follow in her footsteps as best he could. “Good. See you then, kid,” she said. He knew that she knew the best way for him to do that was to grind. To eat, sleep, drink, and shit baseball.

“Hey Coach!” He called after her as she made her way back into the alley.

She turned around. “What’s up?”

“I wanna focus on my forearms this year. Should I go the Altuve way?” he asked, smiling.

The Jose Altuve way: banging sledgehammers into tractor trailer tires. Jane guffawed. “I’m not saying do it, but I mean hey, guy’s 5’5” and hitting thirty dingers a year in The Show, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jonny said. “I’ll take it under advisement. Thanks,” and with that, he waved Jane off. She spent the rest of the ride to school thinking about how to safely incorporate forearm work into the team’s regimen in a way that didn’t involve sledgehammers.

The bread had made her truck smell like heaven, and it was the perfect olfactory accompaniment through the working class neighborhoods of Coronita Heights - the part that she felt more comfortable in. She’d grown up down the 91 in Santa Ana, one of Orange County’s most vibrant cities, and her street looked a lot more like these than the ones that Empire High School sat on.

But Empire was one of the top 15 baseball programs in the state, and she had jumped at the opportunity to coach when she’d been approached about it. She packed the few boxes from her parents’ house, used the rest of her signing bonus to put a nice down payment on a house in Coronita Heights, and hadn’t looked back. It had been good for her - she kept in shape, used that teaching credential she’d worked on at Fullerton to teach PE, and led the Knights to a CIF championship in the five years she had been there. She hunted another.

Soon, the burger joints, smoke shops, and insurance spots gave way to expensive houses and palm trees, and she saw the massive campus come into view. She hopped out of the truck once she parked near the office toward the front, downing her coffee and tossing it in the trash. She tugged her belt, looped through her white baseball pants, making sure the fit was good, and then she took the breakfast out.

Another school year was about to begin, and she was determined to make it a victorious one.

___

Maura smoothed her dress in the full-length mirror of her bedroom for what must have been the hundredth time. It was tasteful: sleeveless, dark blue, with a thin black patent-leather belt around its waist. She paired it with black heels, and she looked good. She knew, intellectually, that she did, but this happened every time she started something new: the nerves kicked in and she doubted herself. She curled her impeccably styled hair behind her right ear out of habit, and then made her way downstairs for breakfast.

Her palatial home in Anaheim Hills sat overlooking the city below, still sleepy at six-thirty in the morning. She was anything but, having already completed her run and entire grooming routine. She perused the options within her double door refrigerator, still quite imposing even under the expansive wooden beams on the ceiling that ran from wall to wall. She thought about eggs, protein always a good start to the day, but then remembered the expected temperature and decided a cold breakfast of yogurt and berries would be best.

Again, it was too hot for warm coffee, but the massive cold brew dispenser she had readied just a few days prior called her name and she filled a tumbler with it and her favorite almond milk creamer. She’d have one cup with breakfast and a refill for the road, as she always did from May to October. She reveled in routine; it was what helped her not to shake as she brought a spoonful of honey, dairy, and strawberry up to her lips.

Today, despite her several years of doctoring, would be her first job with the living since residency. In fact, it would be her first non-clinical job, well, ever. Even when she had volunteered for research, it had been in pathology labs, or oncology centers, or Alzheimer’s wards. Now, she would head the pilot program for a pre-med track at Empire High School. Well, pre-pre-med, she corrected herself. The point of the program was to prepare students from non-private and non-charter school backgrounds for the rigor of medical school. And, as a graduate of the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, as well as Boston Cambridge University for undergraduate work, Coronita Heights Unified thought her very qualified to head its inception.

Maura was humble, so she did not consider that they also factored in her copious research articles within the field of pathology, nor her several awards from the Medical Board of California. But they did, and so today she started her teaching/counseling position that included Advanced Placement Anatomy and Physiology, as well as Advanced Placement Biology and an elective of honors molecular pathology to boot. She had negotiated that last one to retain a taste of her passion outside of teaching.

Satisfied both with her breakfast and her mulling, Maura rose from her stool at the kitchen island, its white marble counter still gleaming from its recent clean this weekend, and made her way to the sink. She rinsed her bowl, placed it in the dishwasher on the top rack with the others, and then washed her hands for twenty seconds. Soap on, palm scrub, back-of-the-hand scrub, webspace scrub, for as long as it took to hum happy birthday to herself, twice.

She reveled in routine.

She unscrewed the lid of her tumbler and placed it under the dispenser in the refrigerator again, watching dark coffee wash over ice cubes with pleasure. The properties of matter, their predictability and regularity, calmed Maura. She could predict where each rivulet would go with accuracy, and then watch the change of color with no surprise when she poured in her creamer. She could control how light or dark it became, and thus control its flavor. She savored that one last ounce of control before she screwed her lid back on and walked over to where her purse and rolling cart awaited her at the front door.

She took one last look behind her, at the open concept living room so large it needed a sectional couch that no one used because people hardly ever dropped by, at the kitchen with state-of-the-art, industrial appliances that often cooked meals for one. It was her home, even if all of that were true, and the way that the southern California sun poured in through her floor-to-ceiling windows thrilled her. It thrilled her the way it had the first time she set foot in LA, for her first day of classes. She let that embolden her as she locked the door and stepped into her S-Class.

Navigation popped up as soon the engine roared to life, already pre-programmed with the route to Empire High School. She saw the calculation of a twenty minute drive, rearranged a few numbers in her head as she thought about the day of the week, the time of the morning, and the unpredictability of the 91, and decided twenty minutes was probably just about right. She’d given herself a cushion for twenty-five, and with a glance to the men’s style cartier on her wrist, she smiled and pulled out of the garage towards the main drag that would lead her to the freeway.

She jumped out of nerves and surprise when the system notified her of a call coming in. She smirked when she saw the caller ID: Dr. Nina Holiday, Hoag Hospital. Maura pressed the call accept button. “Need a consult already, Doctor?” she teased, her own voice always just a bit foreign in the morning after not having heard it for hours.

Doctor Holiday scoffed on the line. “You wish,” she replied, and then there were beats of silence. “I just wanted to call to wish you good luck on your first day. And to see if you’d reconsider.”

“If this is Hoag’s way of trying to lure me back, by making their premier neurologist do all the dirty work, I think I’m going to have to pass,” Maura said, and Nina laughed.

“No, this is just a friend saying you’re gonna be missed is all,” said Nina. “But I respect what you’re doing.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it,” Maura demured. “Pathology is in... very capable hands with Doctor Pike,” she said, and then immediately the two women guffawed.

“You couldn’t even get it out before you started laughing!” Nina asserted, “see? We’re up a creek with no paddle!”

“Whom the department decided to hire in my stead is not my business,” Maura replied professionally, “especially if they do not take my recommendations into account,” and then with more spice.

“You right, you right. And I know I said it before, but I respect you for this. I think my road to medicine might have been a lot easier if I had someone like you at my high school to guide me through,” Nina said seriously. “Just answer me something: you didn’t leave because of Ian, did you?”

Maura stiffened. She hadn’t wanted to think about that on her first day, but here Nina was, dredging it up. Maura wrung her hands on her steering wheel. “No. Not really,” she answered, and that was the truth. The timing of it all had just been awful.

“Ok. I just… with him being gone, I didn’t know if that would be better, or if you’d be haunted by ghosts, you know? If you stayed.”

“I think I needed a fresh start either way, Nina. I really do,” Maura said.

Nina took the hint that they were done talking about it. Her voice turned chipper again. “I’ve got a call at seven, so I have to go, but I’ll talk to you soon, ok? You can tell me all about your first week. Maybe over bottomless mimosas.”

Maura sighed with relief. She would need that. “Sounds great. Nina?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for calling. I’m… I’m going to miss you, too,” Maura confessed.

“Aw, Doctor Isles, don’t get all mushy on me,” gushed Nina. “Bye. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye,” Maura said after the line had gone dead.

Nina’s call had lasted most of the ride. Maura was grateful. Nina had been one of the few people to get to know her at Hoag. The hospital itself had a very competent staff. Excellent, really. And Maura was one of the best, so this led to a never-spoken, always-felt air of competition. It didn’t really lend itself to friendship. But Nina had consulted with Maura so often, that a comfortable working relationship eventually morphed into a casual friendship. That turned into drinks on the rare weeknights they had off and brunch on Sundays at some of the best spots in Orange County.

They promised to continue, and they would of course, but for the first time in their friendship, they didn’t work a floor away from each other, and Maura resolved that while she would do everything to keep it alive, she had to acknowledge the change. Fittingly, as soon as she did so, she drove into the staff parking lot at Empire High. Her new beginning.

Her welcome e-mail mentioned a staff meeting today, Friday, in the lecture hall at the front of the school, refreshments provided. So, she pulled next to the gunmetal gray Ford Ranger to her right, and gathered her things. Her cart could wait until they were dismissed to ready their classrooms, so she deposited her fob into her purse and sipped on her coffee for fortitude as she followed the sidewalk pathway past the front office to the lecture hall. She had mapped out the route when she had found out about the meeting, deciding that touring campus on her own before she began would reduce her anxieties, as well as the possibility of unknown factors. It was also why she had arrived right on time: early meant possible one-on-one conversations with strangers, and late meant all eyes on her as she hustled in.

She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head when she reached the glass double doors of the hall, and breathed in one last time. It was a big, 360 degree breath: it engaged her pelvic floor and spread her ribs equally. It lowered her pulse and calmed her nerves, and then she was ready.

When she entered, she heard chatter. Lots of it. When she turned the corner and yanked open the wooden door of the room itself, she was shocked to see what looked like most of the staff already deep in conversation in their seats. Some stood, others stretched their legs over a couple of seats at once, some laughed and some nodded seriously. For a moment, Maura panicked, then checked her watch again. She felt her heartbeat fall a little bit when she looked up to the front and realized that no-one had started the meeting. In fact, there was a small line at the sign-in sheet, so she decided that rather than have a breakdown in the walkway, she should join the line.

She mustered as much courage as she could and stood behind the last woman, who smiled at her politely. Maura smiled back and thanked whatever powers that be that the woman didn’t try to engage. The line moved quickly, and staff members grabbed what looked like sweet bread just off to the side of the table as they signed in. She forewent the sugar and decided just to take the requisite printouts instead. By then, things started to feel a little more like a normal job orientation, so she turned on her heels to make her way back to the crowd.

The confident turn ended up being another mistake, however, because as she started to walk, she saw no openings. It was like the middle of a very bad dream, in which she needed so desperately to blend in, but all she could do was stand out. She felt eyes on her as she passed tables full of other adults, she heard conversations quiet and alter when she walked by.

However, just as she was about to give up and stand all the way in the back, someone called out. “Hey,” the voice was firm, raspy, and kind. She turned instantly and it kept talking. “You need a spot? I was savin’ this one for my brother, but, big shocker, he’s late.” Seated at a table in the middle of the hall with an all-white backpack on the empty chair next to her, two aluminum bat handles sticking out on either side of it, was… “Oh, and I’m Jane. Rizzoli. By the way.”

Jane Rizzoli. Maura thought the name fitting. Jane was so tall and so dark-featured and so handsome that she needed an Italian surname. And by god, she had one. One with a trilled-r and a plural i and everything: it was perfect for her in the way that all its sounds signified abundance. Maura’s mind rambled and she caught it; she wasn’t even sure how the phonotactic rules of Italian applied to Jane’s physicality, but they did, and Maura sat next to her without hesitation. She chanced one glance to the length of Jane’s torso as she curled to put her elbows on the table, and then she met Jane’s dark brown eyes.

It was then that she realized that Jane probably awaited some kind of response. “Maura Isles,” said Maura, holding her hand out. Jane shook it and Maura was not at all surprised by the firmness of the shake.

“Hey Maura. I’m uh, I’m the head baseball coach here. I also teach PE,” Jane explained. Then she looked down at herself, her uniform and the bats in the backpack now on the floor. “But you probably guessed that.”

Maura smirked, and laughed softly. “I don’t like to guess. It puts people in awkward positions. But I would say there’s lots of evidence to that fact, yes.”

Jane laughed openly and then took her hat off. “Well, I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess you’re the hotshot doctor that they hired for our new pre-med pipeline.”

Maura raised a perfectly-sculpted eyebrow. “And why would you assume that?”

“You talk like a doctor. And you dress better than everyone else in this room. Real doctor-y,” Jane wagged her own eyebrows up and down.

Maura watched Jane’s crooked grin, rapt. “One…” she began slowly, “doctor-y is not a word. Two, what if I were independently wealthy and taught, oh say, English?”

Jane shrugged. “Words are made up. And are you? Independently wealthy?”

Maura’s mouth twitched in humor. “Yes,” she answered. Jane threw her head back in defeat. “But, I am also the doctor piloting the pre-med program here.”

Just like that, the slender column of Jane’s neck brought her head forward again. “Thought so!” she said. Just as she did, The man who Maura knew from his photo online as the school principal walked in. People started to hush as he made his way to the front podium. Even she turned her attention, until there was the distinct warmth of whispering by her ear that dismantled all other thoughts. Jane was speaking. “Well, Dr. Isles,” she responded, “welcome to Empire High, then.”

#rizzoli and isles #rizzles #lauren writes rizzoli and isles fan fiction #the high school teachers baseball California AU no one asked for lmao #not sure if it's too niche or if there'll be interest for it #but it feels like if I do continue it it should be long? #idk we'll see

[btsslowburnfic]

BTBY Chapter 13

Series Summary: For Namjoon, the moment he set his sights on being the #1 rapper, he pushed the symbol to the side and hated it. Love should be chosen, not forced on you. He didn’t believe in fate and this mark on his wrist was a big “fuck you” to all that.

Chapter Summary: Where the fuck is Ben?

Previous Chapter here 

Namjoon wakes up with a start as he feels something kicking his foot. He looks up to see Xavier holding a tray of coffee. He rubs his face with his palm and shakes his head. “Hey.”

“Sorry, I tried just saying your name but it wasn’t working. Coffee?” He asks and holds out one of the cups.

“Yes, thanks.” He takes the cup and looks over to see you’re still sleeping.

“Any updates?” Xavier asks as he sits two coffee cups on the side table. 

“No. They brought a doctor in to show her the skull xrays and then she passed out. Anything on your end?”

Xavier takes a deep breathe in, sitting on the window ledge. “Yeah, I went to their apartment. I have a key because you know, best friend,” he gestures to himself. He pauses and looks over at your sleeping form to make sure that you are really out of it before he proceeds. He lowers his volume slightly and looks over ta Namjoon. “And Ben is nowhere to be found. The shower was wet though so he definitely went home and showered. Their car is gone and he’s ghosting me, Gina, and Joe.” 

“Wow. What a dick.”

“Yeah, well Ben and I aren’t on the best of terms anyway so yes, I agree with you a million percent. I just don’t know what I’m going to say to [y/n] when she wakes up asking about it.” He sips his coffee and then gets his phone out.

Namjoon takes out his phone to check any messages he may have gotten in his sleep. He has several from the other members and their manager. 

[Tae]: ok. I’ll fly out tonight. Are you feeling better now that she’s awake?

[Manager Sejin]: That’s fine. We understand.  Just lay low and we’ll sort it. I booked the hotel for the rest of the week. Lmk if you need longer.

[Jin]: Im gOiNg To GeT My SOulMarK rEmOvEd -_- 

[JHOOOOOOPE]: Are you feeling better now? Tae says you are staying there for a while. BE NICE.

[JIMINISSI]: We miss you. Take care.

Namjoon sends replies to everyone except Jin. And then scrolls through social media.  

“I’m ordering non-hospital food. Do you want anything?” Xavier asks, breaking the silence.

“No. I’m fine. Thanks. I think I’ll head over to the hotel and nap if you’re going to stay here?” He says getting up out of the chair.

“Yeah. I’ll be here until around 2 and then Rafael is going to stop by. Just wait a minute, I’m going to ask the nurse if [y/n] can eat food from out or not.” Xavier says not waiting for an answer as he exits the room.

Namjoon walks over to your bed and covers your foot that you’ve kicked out from under the sheet. The pressure cuffs are still on your legs, preventing blood clots. He feels guilty once again that he had been so selfish when you were lying here with so many tubes and devices stuck to you. He decided last night he will make it up to you. Somehow. As much as he can in the next few days.

He walks over to the hospital table and takes out the small memo pad and writes down his phone number with a note.  “I’ll be back this afternoon. If you need something before then: xxxxxxxxxx” He puts it on your bedside table underneath the coffee cup.

Xavier walks back in. “Two breakfast burritos on their way. Yesss.” He says, satisfied with his breakfast order. “Did anyone say how long she might have to stay here?” 

“No. I think she’s getting her legs evaluated today.” Namjoon responds as he packs up hs phone charger and puts his trash into the small bin.

“Thanks for coming RM. And more importantly for staying. I know you didn’t really want any of this,” Xavier gestures to the whole area. 

“Call me Namjoon. And how long have you known about…” he pauses not sure how to word it. “Me and [y/n] being soulmates?”

Xavier laughs, “Uh since day one. Best friend, remember?” he says dryly. He looks towards the door, making sure the three of you are the only ones in the room. “I also know about your extracurricular activities.”

Namjoon feels his face grow a little red. 

“Your secret is safe with me.” Xavier pauses for a moment. “So. When are you flying out?”

“I think I’ll stay for the rest of the week. I’m still not really up to performing yet, and also I want to stay and make sure she gets better.” 

Xavier raises his eyebrows at this but doesn’t say anything. “Ok. Well then I guess I’ll see you around then?”

“Yeah, see you,” Namjoon responds as he leaves the room to go see Tae before the younger man flies out.

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

You wake up to sunlight streaming into your room. Fuck your head still hurt. But your arms feel much less stiff today, you noticed as you slowly started to wake up more. You blink the sleep out of your eyes and smelled coffee. YEsssss you thought. It had been forever. Well maybe a week. And you were unconscious for a lot of it, but you were still excited. You wiggle your body into a more seated position and use the bed remote to raise you. You saw the coffee cup next to your bed and reached for it, and also saw a note with a coffee ring. You pick it up and read it. Namjoon’s number? Wow, you think as you took out your phone and added the contact. 

“Hey babe,” you hear Xavier’s voice and look over towards the doorway. He’s holding a bag of food and is once again your favorite person in the world.

“Hey. Sorry for yelling at you yesterday.” You say. You felt super embarrassed as you remember all the yelling and crying you did yesterday.

“No worries. You got hit by a car. I freak out when they get my coffee order wrong,” Xavier commiserates as he walks closer. “The nurse said you can have real food. Do you want some?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” you respond immediately, your stomach growling and aching. You had eaten a few crackers yesterday but didn’t want to push your luck. Today though, you were ravenous. Xavier walks closer and tosses a burrito onto your lap. HE is dreading the question he  knows you are going to ask him so he stalls.

“I talked to Namjoon a bit this morning. He seems a lot nicer.”

You are chewing your burrito as you nod your head, “Yeah. I guess so. He was nicer to me yesterday too. Weird. And, he gave me his number.” You hold up the piece of paper.

“Honey that’s nothing, I’ve been texting him for days.” Xavier teases you as he bites his burrito.

You laugh, covering your mouth full of food. “Such a brat. Thanks for the food.”

“Of course,” he responds.

You check your phone to see if you have any messages from Ben. Nothing.

[Y/N]: Are you ok? I’m worried about you.

You send the message off. “Have you heard from Ben?” You ask Xavier. You can tell by his shift in body posture that he hasn’t.

“No.”

There’s more to it….”Did you go to the apartment?”

“I did. He had been there and showered, but he was gone by the time got there.”

You feel knots in your stomach. “What if he’s been in an accident or something?”

Xavier can’t help but feel annoyed. If Ben would just answer his fucking phone you two wouldn’t be here worrying about his stupid ass. 

“He probably just needed to clear his head or something. If we haven’t heard from him in a while we can call jails and hospitals.” Xavier says nonchalantly.

You felt nauseous at the thought of your fiance being in either one of those places. You put your burrito down, suddenly unable to finish it. 

“You gotta eat [y/n] even when your boyfriend sucks.” Xavier says flippantly.

You pout. “Fiance. And he could be in trouble Even if he’s busy sorting shit out in his head, it’s a lot to take in that your partner has a soulmate and didn't tell you.”

Xavier rolls his eyes, “ Yeah. Except he should be here with you, talking it through. And supporting you, you just got out of a fucking coma.”

You sigh. You and Ben’s relationship had become a point of contention between you and Xavier over the past few months. Ben had been distant while you were on your summer tour, rarely responding to your texts and almost never facetime-ing you. When you complained about it, he had called you clingy. Xavier sent you a million memes on gaslighting and toxic behavior until you got annoyed with him and told him to stop. You lowered your expectations of Ben. After all, you were the one who had decided to spend your summer traveling around the country. You were lucky to be with someone so understanding of your schedule. At least that’s what you tell yourself.

And then he didn’t pick you guys up at the airport. He forgot. Even though you reminded him several times and forwarded him the flight confirmation. The two of you waited at the airport for two hours just in case he remembered before Xavier angrily called Joe who arrived after 20 minutes. 

“See [y/n]? This is what a good boyfriend looks like.” He snidely commented to you as he walked around and hugged and kissed Joe.

“You can’t control what anyone else does babe. You can only control your reaction to it. You eating that burrito or not isn’t going to make Ben appear, but it will help you feel better.”

“Yeah,” you say and pick it back up, taking small bites to make Xavier happy. 

The rest of the morning passes quickly after that, with various doctors and nurses coming in and out, checking the screens, reading off blood counts, cognitive checks, and examining your legs. You tell Xavier to get his butt back to work, promising him that you will take care of yourself.

A cheerful woman pops in with a walker. “Hello! I’m Mandy and I’m one of the physical therapists here. We’re going to see how your legs are doing. Is that alright?” 

You nod your head. “Yeah. I’ll be glad to get these things off,” you gesture to the cuffs.

“Yes, hopefully you’ll be able to bear weight and we can work on lessening the cuff time.” She walks over and gently removes the pressure cuffs off your legs. “Now it’s been a week since you’ve usd your legs so we’re going to take it nice and slow. We don’t want you falling.”

“Ok,” you say and swing your legs over the side of the bed and gently slide down, allowing your feet to touch the hospital floor. You can tell they don’t quite feel normal, like they belong to someone else.

“Let’s just start with this. You’re going to use this and stand. Ok?” She places the aluminum walker in front of you. You nod your head and grip both sides of the frame. Holy shit she wasn’t kidding. Just standing there your body feels so heavy and foreign to you. 

“Good. Good. Just stand there for a few more seconds and then we’ll have you sit down and do that a few more times.” She makes a few notes on her tablet. 

You stand there for a few more seconds and then you see Namjoon in the doorway. “Hey,” you greet him as you take a seat on the bed.

Mandy turns and casually looks over at the doorway. And then looks again, clearly missing how hot he was the first time. You notice her eyes widen a bit as she makes eye contact with her tablet. You get second hand embarrassment and blush as well. 

“Can I come in or is this a bad time?” he asks.

Mandy clears her throat, “It’s fine with me, it’s up to you.” She says to you. “Stand up again please.”

“Sure, come in. But no making fun of me.” You say as you stand up again. You feel your joints starting to loosen up a bit this time.

“I don’t know if I can comply with those terms.” He says from the doorway. You admire how his solid frame takes up so much of the space there. 

“Yeah, well just remember if I fall it hurts you, so encouragement is encouraged.”

He laughs, “Encouragement is encouraged? Wow. And English is your first language.”

You smirk. “Go sit down and read a book or something.” 

You continue with your standing exercises for a few more minutes.

“Ok that’s all for right now, we don’t want to wear you out. Keep doing that a few times every hour and we can keep the cuffs off during the day.” She smiles at you reassuringly. “I’ll be back at 4 and we are going to do work with therabands. I’ll see you then.” 

“Great, thank you.” you respond as she leaves the walker and exits the room. “Ughhh that was so tiring.” You complain as you swing your legs back into bed and place them under the covers.

“Hey, it’s way better than yesterday.” Namjoon says from his chair by the window. 

“True. How are you feeling today?” 

“A lot better. I grabbed a nap and shower at the hotel and talked to the team.”

“When do you fly out?” 

“Trying to get rid of me so quickly?” He asks, feigning insult.

You roll your eyes, “I feel like you have a very important day job that you should get back to.”

Namjoon smiles, “I’ll leave in a week. I guess less if you kick me out.”

“No, I like having you here. You know other than the constant insults, your eye candy factor helps balance it out” You tease him and he laughs You hear a noise from the doorway. You recognize it instantly. It’s Ben clearing his throat.

“Sorry. Am I interrupting something?” NEXT CHAPTER

Tags:  @calling-dips-on-j-hope​ @ghostkat23​ @cuteipat​  @marianeamine​     @thisisval​         @almonte12​    @themisunderstoodblackswan​ 

#bts fanfic #bts rm fanfic #bts rm x you #bts au fanfic #bts fanfction #bts rm x reader #bts rm scenario #rm x y/n #rm x reader #namjoon x you #bts namjoon x reader

[houser-of-stories]

I posted 205 times in 2021

38 posts created (19%)

167 posts reblogged (81%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 4.4 posts.

I added 94 tags in 2021

#asks - 21 posts

#my writing - 16 posts

#lu’s holiday hullabaloo - 12 posts

#doodles on a sunny afternoon - 10 posts

#robin anon - 7 posts

#z plays monopoly - 7 posts

#sanders sides - 6 posts

#podcast big bang 2021 - 5 posts

#ask game - 5 posts

#anonymous - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 81 characters

#i thought this was in the original hamlet and i was so disappointed when it wasnt

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

My art for @sometimes-love-is-enough’s fic for @sandersidesbigbang, chessboxing for beginners (and other exciting post-apocalyptic sports). It‘s such a fun read and I couldn’t recommend it more!

[IMAGE ID: a digital, colored drawing of a bird's-eye-view of a chess board, combined with a boxing ring. The floor is a checkerboard and there are ropes cording off the ring, with corner padding. In the top right corner is the red padding, and in the bottom left corner is the blue padding. On either side, sitting on a black floor, are neon purple chess pieces. Written across the floor, are the words: ‘chess boxing for beginners (and other exiting post-apocalyptic sports)’. Underneath these words are the author's tumblr handle: ‘sometimes-love-is-enough’. END ID]

23 notes • Posted 2021-09-08 05:41:59 GMT

#4

Arranged wedding au where the two don't like each other but daM your sibling is hot (3/?) -Z

“I don’t want to marry you.” Will says, staring up at the stars. The picnic blanket is a little itchy against the back of his neck, but he can ignore it if he tries hard enough.

     “Touché.” Bianca replies, and her head tilts as she stares at a constellation. “That one’s Virgo, I think. And that might be—“

     “I think I’m in love with your brother.” Because he’s spilling all the secrets he hasn’t told anyone tonight, so why not add another one to the mix?

     “I’m sorry, you’re what?”

     “Nico,” he says, and it settles comfortably in his mind. “I think I’m in love with Nico.”

     Bianca has sat up, and is staring at him like he’s just proclaimed his love for dressing up as a goose-platypus hybrid while skydiving in a tutu. …He made it weird, didn’t he? In his head he’s just made it weirder.

     After a long moment of confused blinking, she flops down onto the blanket again. “I thought we were going to commiserate on how an arranged marriage is ridiculously old fashioned and how our parents have lost their marbles—”

     “We can still do that.”

     “You’re closer to Nico’s age than mine. And Father wanted me to marry you.” She sighs, and turns her head to look at him. “Life sure loves to screw us over, doesn’t it?”

     “Yeah.” And there’s an endless amount of stars above him, and he’s head over heels with someone who might just hate his guts, and Bianca is kind and confident and clever but they both know they’ll never love each other. “I think we’ll be okay though. Is that one...Cancer?”

     “Libra,” Bianca corrects, “and that one is Boötes. I don’t suppose you’ve got a talent for postponing weddings?”

     “Do you?”

     She smiles. “Let’s just say, I know a girl.”

27 notes • Posted 2021-01-02 14:12:17 GMT

#3

LU HI i humbly request steph and jason bonding over a book and tim regretting his entire life now that they're acquainted

“What the fuck.”

    “Hey Jason,” Steph says breezily from his sofa, “how do?”

    There are things Jason expects from life, and then there is Stephanie Brown. “Get out.” Steph raises an eyebrow, and she’d better not be bleeding over his favourite sofa. Only sofa. He doesn’t need to explain himself to her when she’s ruining his record of only one slightly noticeable bloodstain. “Please.”

    “Nope.”

    “You’d better not be bleeding on the best bit of furniture I bought. That was expensive.” And legal, which is something he’s never doing again.

    “I thought your table was your best bit of furniture.”

    “Because I made that table, why do you think— Don’t you usually do this at Tim’s place?”

  “What, steal his food?” Steph wrinkles her nose. “You have better leftovers. And books.” Is this a hostile enemy takeover? Do they usually start with vigilantes raiding your fridge? Can they be bribed into leaving? He’s asking the real questions here. Not that he’s expecting any real answers, but still. “Plus,” Steph says, and that better not be one of his books— “I’m not leaving until I’ve finished this.”

    It’s The Rest Of Us Just Live Here. Jason has no reason to be interested in Steph’s taste in reading material, he doesn’t. She isn’t even making much of a mess, and that’s all Bats do. When did this become his problem?

    “Don’t you have fucking college essays or something?”

    Steph doesn’t even look up. “Probably.”

   Jason does not have the time to reevaluate his life choices. “...Where are you at?” His fridge is thoroughly raided, and now he’s playing nice with Spoiler. Batgirl. He doesn’t know what iteration of pain in the ass she is.

    “Come see for yourself.” This is unfair. Jason should be throwing her bodily out the window right now. Maybe he should call Replacement, make her his problem. Protect the leftover pasta with the nice sauce. Anything that isn’t elbowing her so she isn’t hogging the entire sofa and reading over her shoulder. Or snort as she makes sarcastic comments under her breath and then shifts so she’s using Jason as a makeshift pillow, like all he’s good for now is being glorified upholstery.

    Somehow, though, he can’t bring himself to mind.

28 notes • Posted 2021-03-07 23:07:36 GMT

#2

Characters play truth or dare. Hijinks ensue + “I dare you to gargle this whole jar of mayonnaise.” “WHY?” “Because I hate you.” (32/50)

“Truth or Dare, Roman?”

“Dare,” Roman says immediately. He decides to ignore Virgil muttering that this is the worst decision he’s made this evening.

Remus grins. “Oh?” Before Roman has a chance to make a tactical retreat — and it’s not playing chicken — Remus pulls a jar out of his bag. No one has questioned the contents of the green duffel bag since Virgil poked at it and the contents promptly started writhing. The jar is... fairly unassuming. If he really thought about it, it faintly reminded him of the mayonnaise jar that had gone missing from the kitchen cupboard.

Hold his magnificent princely horses, it looked like the mayonnaise jar that had gone missing from the kitchen cupboard.

...Remus wouldn’t. Roman likes to think of himself as an optimist, but he can still remember the feral cats. But Remus wouldn’t.

“I dare you to gargle this whole jar of mayonnaise.”

Apparently he would. Roman doesn’t know why he bothers to doubt his brother anymore. “Why?”

“Because I hate you,” Remus supplies helpfully, and drops the jar into Roman’s lap.

30 notes • Posted 2021-02-10 10:55:16 GMT

#1

Character A’s best friend rigs the Secret Santa, because they know Character A has a crush on Character B (25/50)

“I,” Janus announces, “am a genius.”

    Logan never appreciates any of his flair. Logan is always wrong. “Did you rig the Secret Santa?”

   “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

    He says nothing and turns a page pointedly. Behind him talking animatedly in their own world are Patton and Roman, the former’s lovesick grin never wavering. Janus doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and doesn’t exactly care but— there it is. If he watches Roman a little more intently when Patton laughs…

    Oblivious, the both of them. Logan pushes his glasses further up his nose, and Janus can tell he’s gotten to the part where Sherlock is about to unveil the answer. Will his prediction be right? It usually is, and even when it isn’t Janus can’t help but be enthralled.

    What was he saying? Ah, yes, oblivious indeed.

34 notes • Posted 2021-01-09 22:15:13 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[taizi]

i’ll find a ring if you’ll find a shaded tree

good omens pairing: aziraphale/crowley word count: 3203

read on ao3

x

There were plenty of ways Crowley might have imagined his afternoon going, if he had spared the idea any mind. It’s miserable out, the sky sponged gray all the way across with heaving rain clouds, so one could safely assume it would be an afternoon spent largely in the warm indoors until his dinner date with an angel later in the evening.

This assumption, if made at all, would be markedly dashed (pointedly, even, with a fat red marker and a pair of eyebrows raised above the clipboard as if to say ‘you really thought you’d get away with a quiet day in?’) by said angel himself.

The door jumps open, locked at all times but never at all for Aziraphale, and then closes again with two identical slams. There’s a brief stutter to Aziraphale’s hurried steps as he presumably tries to adhere to politeness and toe off his brogues in the foyer without losing any forward momentum.

“Crowley! I’ve been calling you, your stupid answer-thing is full!”

In the time it takes Crowley to sit up from his boneless sprawl on the sofa, Aziraphale is there in all his pale creams and butter yellows, as well as a criminally soft dove gray sweater vest Crowley gifted him four Christmases ago.

He’s lovely, as always, and there’s a happy, squirmy little creature in Crowley’s chest stirred to life by his voice and proximity alone; but he’s wearing a look of wide-eyed panic better suited a man at the wrong end of a firing squad, and working furiously at the signet ring that’s adorned his pinky since the actual beginning of time.

“Angel? What’s-- “ Crowley seizes up in some alarm when the angel keeps coming, piling onto the sofa with such disregard that Crowley has to either yank his knees up to his chest or lose them. “Oi!”

“Give me your hand,” Aziraphale whispers furiously, like a man afraid to be caught speaking in church. He catches hold of Crowley’s wrist, pushes the ring onto the traditional finger, and goes on, “Do exactly as I say, and for the love of all that’s holy, don’t ask questions.”

There is absolutely no way Crowley can abide these terms. If the threat of Falling wasn’t enough to keep his mouth shut in the Beginning, an Aziraphale-brand snit certainly won’t be, so-- just as soon as Crowley can get his jaw to stop hanging open, and kick his backfiring brain back into operating speeds, and do anything besides sit there and ogle Aziraphale’s ring on Crowley’s finger-- then there are absolutely going to be questions. Loads of them.

However, beating him to the punch, is the flashbang arrival of an Archangel.

Gabriel, to be precise.

Aziraphale tenses. Crowley’s hackles go up in as textbook a Pavlovian response as there’s ever been.

He feels his skin spring to scale, sharp canines lengthening, and the way the room swims into fuzzy, heat-based vision means his eyes have probably gone all yellow, too.  

‘And die already,’ Gabriel had said, to Aziraphale’s precious form. ‘Die already,’ like it was the last revision on an audit report and then he could clock out for the day and call it a job well done.

For what he would have easily-- casually-- taken from Crowley, there isn’t an end in sight to this wounded rage.

“Alright, dearest,” Aziraphale murmurs, putting a hand on the small of Crowley’s back. It’s so quiet there’s a good chance Gabriel can’t hear, and even with the thrum of nervous tension in every inch of Aziraphale’s corporeal form, he spares Crowley something soft. “It’s alright.”

“So this is where you’ve run off to,” Gabriel says, looking about in open distaste. “Who decorated this place, anyway? I love the empty space, don’t think I like the color.”

It’s the light pressure of Aziraphale’s hand on him keeping Crowley pinned to the sofa, and only that. He’s as good as chiseled from stone, mouth open only slightly to track Gabriel’s scent, to show off his teeth.

(He does make a mental note to change everything about the flat Gabriel even halfway approves of. No, scratch that, he’s starting over completely. He’s moving to Chelsea. Fuck you, onion eyes.)

“Well, I had to see it for myself,” the unwelcome creature goes on cheerfully. “Not that we didn’t believe you, Aziraphale, just that-- well, you’ve fudged the truth a bit before, haven’t you? No, don’t look like that, it’s forgotten!” He waves a hand over his shoulder, carelessly. “Let’s leave the past in the past, or whatever it is they say, I don’t know. And with Her approval, there’s not much room for argument from me is there?”

He laughs, inviting them to share in the joke. Aziraphale doesn’t even smile, and Crowley is actively waiting for Gabriel to come two steps forward and one to the right, where he would be just out of the way of the coffee table and well within striking distance. Aziraphale’s fingers bunch in the back of Crowley’s shirt as if to say ‘don’t you dare’.

“To think, we assumed you were fraternizing with the enemy all this time when you’ve actually been in love! There’s nothing wrong with love, is there? That’s as holy as it gets!” He sounds like a kindergartner describing their parent’s job exactly as it was described to them, with all the confidence and faculty of someone who has no idea what the words coming out of their mouth even mean. He either has no clue how to read a room or he’s bluffing his way through this uncomfortable situation like a pro. Clapping his hands together in a self-satisfied way he adds, “Make sure you save us a table!”

“It’s going to be a private affair, I should think,” Aziraphale says stiffly. “Close friends and family only.”

“Probably better that way, not too crowded,” Gabriel agrees with a commiserating nod. It’s as if Aziraphale slammed a door right in his face and he just chose not to notice. He turns to leave, and pauses, turning his hat in his hands. “I have to say, Aziraphale, I really am relieved this whole thing got straightened out. I thought you had lost your way.”

It’s an unexpected moment of sincerity. Aziraphale blinks, but Crowley isn’t so easily won.

“After six thousand years of making his life a misery, you want to extend the olive branch now? Now that you know he won’t drag you down with him?” Crowley bares his teeth. “How’s that for unconditional love?”

If a single lunch date at the Ritz watching Aziraphale eat both his and Crowley’s own vanilla custard and listening to him complain about some obstinate customer or another would cost Crowley absolutely everything, he would pay it. He would be a fool not to pay it. He can’t imagine the audacity of six thousand years wasted. All that time, all those angels were free to know Aziraphale, free to love him, and they chose not to.

As happy as Crowley is to fill that space, to take that spot, he’s angry it was ever left empty to begin with.

Gabriel is watching him with an expression that can’t decide whether it’s more startled or annoyed. Aziraphale’s free hand finds one of Crowley’s, working it free of its fist and threading their fingers together. His thumb rubs at the patch of shining black scales just under his knuckles, soothing. It’s as if he’s loosing plates of Crowley’s armor one by one, the way he did in Wessex once after a round in the tiltyard. He doesn’t speak but his body says hush.

Crowley bites the inside of his lip, so hard it almost draws blood.

“She said we could stand to learn a thing or two from you,” Gabriel says. It’s not so much annoyance as it is scrutiny, but that rankles even more. “I wasn’t sure what She meant before, but it’s love isn’t it?” He says it again like an animal mimicking a human word. The sound is almost right, except in its lacking of all meaning. “Demons aren’t supposed to know it, but you do.”

“Well, look at the time,” Aziraphale says loudly, not even pretending to look round at a clock or Crowley’s watch. “I can’t believe we’re nearly late for our appointment. I guess you’d better go, Gabriel.”

Gabriel lights up with the manic eagerness of upper management that every hourly employee knows to dread. “Would you mind giving a seminar? We could arrange a day-pass for you, and cater lunch! Aziraphale would like that, I’m sure. Just look at him.”

Aziraphale doesn’t react, but it’s a studied non-reaction that means the barb hit home. Oh, that complete and utter git.

Gabriel takes two steps forward and one to the right. Crowley watches with animal stillness as the archangel rounds the coffee table, saying something about PowerPoint presentations. He’s going to bite. One good snap. It’s Gabriel’s fault for coming over this way. You don’t just invite yourself into the snake’s den, do you? Not without a nasty repercussion, at least. And besides, Crowley’s not even venomous today. Probably.

At the last second, Aziraphale bullies him back against the sofa with angelic strength, an arm pinned across Crowley’s chest like an iron bar and his own body blocking access to Gabriel’s. Crowley hisses at him and pushes ineffectively at the solid weight of him, but he might as well have been pushing at the side of the bookshop for all the good he was doing.

“I really think,” Aziraphale grits out in the ‘we are very much closed for the day, no more sales I’m afraid, please make your way to the exit’ tone Crowley is intimately familiar with, “that you should leave now.”

“Al-right,” Gabriel says in his obnoxious accent. He looks disappointed, but bounces back too quickly for Crowley’s taste. “I’ll get back to you on that seminar. Maybe we can chat at the wedding!”

Aziraphale only sits up when Gabriel is well and truly gone, straightening his vest with unhappy tugs. Crowley remains coiled against the arm of the sofa, seething.

“Should have let me take off his arm, ” he mutters. “A hand at least.”

“It’s simply not worth the paperwork, my dear.”

Something’s wrong with Aziraphale’s voice. It wobbles a bit, in a way that sends alarm bells ringing in every square inch of Crowley’s form, and when Crowley leans forward to get a good look at him, sure enough-- there are tears in his eyes.  

The anger deserts Crowley as deftly as the light of the Host once did. Color returns to his vision, fangs retracting back into only slightly sharper-than-human canines, and the hands he reaches for Aziraphale with are smooth and scaleless.

“Angel,” he says hopelessly. “Hey, I’m sorry. I won’t bite anybody, swear.”

Aziraphale chuckles a bit, accepting the hands that curl around his own and squeezing Crowley’s fingers in turn.

“It’s not you who needs to apologize. I can’t believe I’ve done this.”

“The wedding sham?”

True, Crowley’s heart knocks a little harder against his chest than it has any right to at the idea of-- marrying Aziraphale, being married to him. There’s a ring on his finger and he can’t even think about that without a giddy, champagne-bubbles feeling making a nuisance of itself in the unguarded part of himself that’s been a lost cause since Eden. But…

Aziraphale nods, miserable. “They came to the bookshop to offer a performance review. A performance review, of all things, after a year-- anyway. Naturally, they want to know how we escaped their judgement, and all those clever lies we thought up just weren’t doing the trick, and Sandalphon started talking about going round to yours, and I-- panicked. I couldn’t let him-- “ He takes a fortifying breath, grip on Crowley’s hands tightening to the point that a mortal’s bones would have broken. “I made up some fanciful story about a union. I believe I called it a marriage of true minds,” he adds with a half-smile, and seems galvanized at Crowley’s amused snort. “Michael tried to call my bluff, had me sign the form and submit it right there with the four of them as witnesses, and…”

“And it worked,” Crowley surmises. He taps the back of Aziraphale’s hand with his thumb and tries not to think about ineffable plans or inscrutable mothers. He almost manages it.

“I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale whispers. “I knew it would work, I knew it would. I’ve known for… a long time. Since Hamlet, at least.”

Crowley feels himself go red, and abruptly can’t make eye contact anymore. It’s really quite something, to suddenly have to address the elephant that’s followed you room to room for roughly four hundred years. He gives a tentative tug at his hands, and Aziraphale absolutely does not release him.

“Please look at me, Crowley.”

He almost can’t. He certainly doesn’t want to. He’s babbling, he realizes with vague horror, saying something along the lines of, “It’s a human thing, Aziraphale, they made it up back when people first decided they needed heirs to inherit houses, you were there, we tried to talk them out of it.”

Lunch dates at the Ritz. Picnics in the park. Warm evenings in the back room, dozing under piles of worn quilts on a worn tartan sofa, the hearth left empty because fire in the bookshop makes Crowley twitch and Aziraphale can read him like any one of his precious books. Sharing chilled white wines and heady reds, cherry cordials that leave smudges on Aziraphale’s lips, thousands and thousands of years of stories they both remember a little bit differently.

It’s good. Better than Crowley knows how to ask for. He can’t stand the thought of losing it.

Fingers touch his chin, gently, and guide his face up.

“And furthermore,” Crowley insists hysterically, “it doesn’t have to change anything. You were clever to come up with it, and if it worked that’s even better, and we can just go through the motions, an addendum to our Arrangement. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Aziraphale says, “My darling, it means everything. Of course it does. Only this isn’t how I wanted it to go.”

His voice is tinged with tears again, but they seem borne of frustration rather than hurt. Crowley risks a nervous glance at him, heart surging up hopefully like some sort of stupid buoy.

“I wanted to do it properly,” Aziraphale is saying, brow furrowed, mouth all puckered. “You deserve champagne and flowers, all that fuss you pretend to hate. I see you get all misty-eyed at proposals, even ones on television commercials.” Crowley squawks, outraged at the flagrant slander, but Aziraphale goes right on, “There’s a meteor shower coming up that’s supposed to be the event of the century, and I had-- it was, I had everything planned. Your ring isn’t even ready yet. This is all horrible.”

Crowley stares at him. He thinks maybe he’s supposed to say something into this silence, but for the life of him, he’s got nothing. Aziraphale’s ring seems to burn on his finger. After the seconds melt into minutes, Aziraphale looks at him. His expression recycles its defeat into concern.

“Crowley? Sweetheart, what is it?”

The endearment sends a shiver all the way down Crowley’s spine. He opens and closes his hands like lobster pincers, to be certain he’s not gone actually paralyzed, and still Aziraphale doesn’t let them go.

“You said,” he says intelligently, and then doesn’t know where to go from there. “It wasn’t a lie?” he tries again, in a rather small voice.

“The marriage?” Aziraphale searches his face in the manner of a grad student desperately searching the footnotes of an incomprehensible text. “Of course it wasn’t. A fake marriage certificate would hardly have been approved by God.”

Crowley tries to say something and only manages to come up with a squeaking sound. Somehow, it betrays him entirely, and Aziraphale’s eyebrows come together.

“The proposal is meant to be a surprise, but I would have hoped we were on the same page with the engagement.”

Before he can make sense of literally any one thing about this situation, brain still struggling to jump the hurdle of the word ‘engagement’ in regards to them, Crowley finds himself so wholly embraced that he’s practically hauled into Aziraphale’s lap.

He sputters, puts up a token protest, and goes absolutely pliant when he feels lips against the crown of his head.

A halo used to rest there, shining like anything, but a kiss is much better.

They’ve kissed before, when it was culturally appropriate and even a few times when it wasn’t, but something is different about this time. Namely, that Aziraphale kisses him again, on the forehead this time, and then again on the bridge of his nose, and then again on the cheek, and then again right on the corner of his mouth, and Crowley is almost ready for it when their lips slide together, his breath almost doesn’t hitch when Aziraphale kisses him like they do in romance films, like he means to never stop.

They part because Crowley’s lungs have forgotten they don’t actually need air and because Aziraphale seems to want to gaze at him.

“I know I’ve said it before,” he says. “I know you heard me.”

‘They’ll destroy you.’

‘That was very kind of you.’

‘I won’t have you risking your life.’

‘I forgive you.’

‘To the world.’

“I heard you,” Crowley says, because he did.

He always heard Aziraphale, even when Aziraphale had no clue he was calling out. He heard ‘oh, you silly idiot’ and ‘you’re not as funny as you think you are’ and ‘please come in, please convince me to let you stay’ in a sidelong glare or the roll of his eyes or the downward turn of his mouth when they stood by the shop door.

And every lunch date at the Ritz and picnic in the park and evening in the back room was stuffed full of ‘I love you’s. A tartan quilt and an unlit fireplace and a cherry cordial, passed from an angel’s fingers to a demon’s mouth, were quiet, secret ways to say what it wasn’t always safe to say.

“Me, too,” he whispers.

“My Crowley,” Aziraphale says affectionately, another way of saying what he’s been saying for years, “I know.”

Desperately trying to get his footing back, Crowley rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand and sits back as far as Aziraphale’s arms will allow him to go.

“I still want that proposal,” he informs the angel. “During the meteor shower. With all the fuss you promised. I’ll be sure to act surprised.”

Aziraphale smiles at him. “You can’t act to save your life. I see right through you, you know.”

But that’s hardly Crowley’s fault. Six thousand years of being known would give away anybody’s edge. He rolls his eyes, and settles into where he’s obviously meant to stay for awhile, looping his arms around Aziraphale’s neck.

“The act is for everyone else’s benefit, angel. We know better, don’t we?” Crowley grins, crooked, and thinks of apples and flaming swords, freely given. “We always have.”

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #aziraphale #anthony j crowley #my writing #gomens fic #its 1am and i have no regrets #im invincible

[sunflwrvolume6]

to the end [pt 42] fin.

Poor man was outnumbered - on one side, a mother who loves his wife almost more than she loves her son, and on the other, a wife who has cried nearly every hour of every day for the past six days. In my defence, my baby is a year old now.

[ao3 ☆ wattpad]

[previous ☆ masterlist]

For the seventh time this morning, I take one look at my son and promptly burst into tears. Declan stares at me with wide eyes, then his lower lip starts quivering. He cries along with me. I scoop him up and hold him to my chest, still blubbering.

“Fucking Hell, Erin, knock it off.”

“I can’t!” Sniffling, I let Amber take Dec from my arms, and she turns away immediately. He’s giggling again in seconds. “My baby’s one now.”

“C’mon, pet, we can commiserate together.”

I stick my tongue out at my best friend before following Maura into the kitchen. Niall had told me to relax today - mostly because I can’t stop tearing up every time I look at Declan - and I’ve done my best to do just that. It’s hard, though. All I want to do is take over on the decorating.

Harry forced me from the living room the first time I tried. Zayn, having made a rare appearance in our lives, threatened to throw me into the pool the second time I tried - he followed through when I protested. Liam swatted my ass the third time I tried. And Louis... Louis did the worst: He vowed to withhold any and all coffee if I didn’t go away.

The only reason I didn’t attack him was because Maura and Niall intervened. The fact my mother-in-law knows of my love of caffeine (decidedly not an addiction, despite what my husband says) is hilarious. She’s been quick to get me coffee first thing in the morning. She even scolded Niall when he tried to tell me I needed to cut back over the last week.

Poor man was outnumbered - on one side, a mother who loves his wife almost more than she loves her son, and on the other, a wife who has cried nearly every hour of every day for the past six days. In my defence, my baby is a year old now.

Declan is no longer a wee thing. He feeds himself solid foods, and he even took his first steps just a few days ago. His personality is beginning to shine through. The only time he’s quiet is when he’s watching Phineas and Ferb. He still sleeps in bed with Niall and me most nights, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. We have a guest room if we ever want what we’ve come to call ‘adult time’.

His first word - to my utter displeasure - wasn’t “Mama”. It wasn’t even “Dada”. It was “Nana” after all the FaceTime calls with Maura. Thankfully, “Mama” was next. Niall took it like a champ, but I caught him dozens of times coaching the baby to say “Da”. It was only three months ago that Declan finally did. Niall cried.

I lean against the counter and sip at my tea. Ever since my pregnancy, I’ve actually cut back a bit on coffee, minus the last week, and Maura has recommended so many delicious teas. My favourite one at the moment tastes like Hot Tamales candies. She sits at the table and watches her son cross the room.

“I still can’t believe he got a tattoo,” she remarks once he’s out on the patio, and I snort.

“Neither can I.”

Niall hadn’t told his parents of his plans beforehand, but they certainly found out when I pinned him to the bed the day after I came home. He was half-naked and had expected something else, not me grabbing my phone and taking a photo of his chest. As soon as I sent the picture off with a Your son broke his own rule!, I gave in and gave him what he wanted.

Maura had called that afternoon demanding an explanation. Evidently, Niall had chosen to get the tattoo because I’d been talking about getting a tattoo of Dec’s name if he would. He’d kept saying ‘no’, but then Matt did what he did. Niall figured it would make me feel better.

I was in the nearest parlour two days later, watching as needles left inked kisses on my chest. I even got the Irish version of Declan’s name to match Niall’s perfectly.

Natalie announces her presence with a shout of “Monster is here!” Levi toddles into the kitchen, followed closely by his mother, and I lean down to scoop him up. Peppering his cheek with dozens of kisses, I inhale the scent that only a child can have. Amber stole my baby, so I’m stealing Nat’s.

The exhaustion on her face tells me she doesn’t mind a damn bit. I stifle a giggle then tap a finger against the coffeemaker. She lets out a long, low groan and kisses my cheek as she passes.

“Thanks for coming, Natty. I appreciate it.”

She pins me with an unimpressed look. “Dude, it’s my little chipmunk. Why wouldn’t I come?”

“I dunno, maybe you had other—”

“Gonna stop you there, Casper.” Natalie throws an arm around my shoulders, tugging me into her side. “Your anxiety is lying to you. Not a damn person in this house would rather be anywhere than right here celebrating Dec’s birthday.”

“My baby’s one,” I mumble, sniffling and wiping a stray tear away.

Before anyone can say a word, Levi grabs my cheeks with two chubby hands and presses a wet, open-mouthed kiss to the tip of my nose. I splutter out a protest but can’t stop laughing. I love kids so much; they always know how to cheer someone up. Even if I do end up with toddler slobber in my nostrils.

Maura, Natalie, Amber, and I take the boys out onto the patio for some last-minute sunshine before the party begins. And because the men have all but kicked me out of the house until they’re done decorating. I have to be thankful that Niall is just as particular about placement as I am.

My parents and half-siblings arrive an hour later. Jonna stomps through the house, dropping to sit in a chair on the patio, and I glance up my mom. She only shrugs.

“Dad took her phone because she snuck out of the house.”

“I only went to the park with Andrea!” my half-sister protests.

“Jonna!” I scowl at the teenager before winking quickly. “Haven’t I taught you a damn thing about not getting caught?”

“Erin!”

Jonna’s anger melts, and soon enough, she joins in on the conversation. When we go inside and my mother’s back is turned, I slip Jonna the phone I bought for her to use when she’s here but grounded from electronics. Our parents should really expect less of me - I’m always going to go against what they say if I think it’s unfair. Sneaking out and getting in trouble for it?

Definitely unfair.

All she’d done was hang out with a friend past curfew. I did so much worse when I was her age. Namely, sneaking into bars with lax rules and playing gigs to a bunch of drunks with my friends.

Niall finally deems the decorations appropriate for a good party, and everyone gathers in the living room. As I sit beside my husband, our one-year-old on his lap, I watch our closest family and friends celebrate the momentous occasion with us. My heart aches with the love I hold for these crazy, silly, amazing people who make my life Hell and Heaven wrapped in one.

Only a year ago, I was struggling with being a new mother. I felt alone and isolated from everyone I cared about. I drowned in the idea that they would all be better without me. But I’ve made it an entire year, and everything has settled. I know I can do this. I can be a daughter, a wife, a sister, and - most importantly of all - a mother to the most amazing little boy I’ll ever love.

And if Nat bought my kid a drum-set and play-microphone that plays children’s songs, how can I be angry?

This is my life. It will be to the end.

#to the end #niall horan #niall horan fanfiction #one direction #one direction fanfiction #nhff #1dff #dad!niall #original universe #ou #unnknown writes dumb stuff

[bittysvalentines]

How to deal with your ex like the adult you are

From @yoshiscribbles

To @thatsclassicsbaby

Rating: G. Relationships: Bitty/Parse, past Jack/Parse, pre Bitty/Jack/Parse. Tags: coffee shop au, trans bitty, trans parse, developing relationship, established relationship.

I hope you enjoy this fic! I had a lot of fun writing it and tried to incorporate elements you seemed to like, so enjoy :D

The door to the kitchen of the coffee shop slammed open and Bitty turned his head to see his boyfriend plastering his back against the door. Most of Kent’s face was blank, but there was a look of utter panic in his eyes that nearly made Bitty abandon the puffed pastry he was working on. Kent opened his mouth before Bitty could ask what was wrong.

“We can’t work here anymore.”

Bitty blinked, because that made absolutely no sense. “What are you talking about sweetpea, you love it here.”

Finishing up, Bitty folded the pastry before moving to put it back in the refrigerator, which incidentally brought him closer to Kent. The other boy had pushed himself off the door and was now pacing agitatedly in Bitty’s kitchen. “Okay, you can still work here. And so can I, I guess, but I can’t go back to the front.”

Bitty chanced a look at the front through the small round windows in the double doors that led to the kitchen, but there didn’t seem to be anything special going on. Certainly nothing that would warrant this reaction from Kent at least.

"The guy,” Kent said helpfully, though he still didn’t move from his prostrated position on the ground. “With a square jaw and stupidly blue eyes and that perfect fucking hair and-" 

Kent stopped himself with a groan, but Bitty felt like it wasn't because he had run out of material to talk about. The description was perfect though, because wow, the guy near the corner did have a perfect jaw, and hair that looked soft, and when he raised his head Bitty ducked under the windows too because those piercing blue eyes sure were something.

"So it's not just me, is it?"

Kent's commiserating voice let Bitty breathe properly again as he realised that his heart was beating far too fast for no discernable reason. "Does he always look at you like-"

Bitty couldn't find the words to express the feeling, but Kent and him were on the same wavelength  as usual. "Like you're the sole focus of his attention, yeah."

And this time, Bitty realised that something was wrong, because Kent usually never sounded despondent when they were both noticing a boy like that. He stood up and moved closer to his boyfriend. 

"Okay, what did he do?" Bitty asked in all seriousness. He pulled Kent into his arms and the other boy moved easily enough. The tension in Ken's sturdy frame seemed to lessen as Bitty breathed with him, and he eventually answered the hug.

"We... used to date, Kent said eventually. And it hadn’t ended well judging by the way Kent was still refusing to look Bitty in the eyes.

Bitty chased every good thought he'd had about the man's attractiveness out of his mind. "Want me to kick him out?" he asked, though he wasn't expecting a positive answer. After all, Kent knew how much Bitty abhorred confrontation, and kicking that guy out without due cause would certainly count as such. As he’d expected, Kent shook his head in refusal.

They stayed like that for a few more moments, and it thankfully seemed like the ex wasn’t planning on staying in the coffee shop for long. The next time Bitty looked through the windows, Kent’s ex was gone, much to both their relief. 

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

Unfortunately, it seemed like the appearance of Kent’s ex wasn’t a coincidence the first time, but was instead the beginning of a new habit. Bitty usually wouldn’t mind, except that this was Kent’s ex and Bitty was thus contractually obligated to hate him on principle. This also wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for the café’s dreadful lack of clientele at 7 in the morning, which coupled with Bitty’s southern upbringing, forced him to make small talk with the man under pain of disappointing his mental mama Bittle. Actually talking to the guy emphatically did not improve things however.

“All of this would be so much easier if he was actually rude,” Bitty eventually complained to Chowder, who had the misfortune of being the only person in the vicinity other than Kent once the ex left.

“But he isn’t?” Chowder asked, but Bitty was too busy moping over how terrible of a boyfriend he was being to try and process what undercurrent of emotion the other boy had added in his tone.

“But he isn’t.” In fact, Kent’s ex – and Bitty was determined not to call him Jack despite having been given explicit permission to do so by the man himself – had been nothing but polite to Bitty, and even tipped generously, the bastard! How was Bitty supposed to hold on to his dislike in such a case?

“Talking to Kent might work?” Chowder’s reply had Bitty realizing that he must have said part of his inner monologue out loud and he flushed. Chowder waved away his attempts at apologies and simply continued. “That’s his ex, right? If they broke up, Kent must have tons of reasons as to why it didn’t work, and they might help you like him less.”

“Chowder, you are a genius!” Elated, Bitty engulfed the younger boy into a hug, nearly choking him with the force of his embrace.

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

Kent looked up as the doors to the apartment he shared with his boyfriend opened. He would usually have waited for Bitty to be done so that they could leave the coffee shop together, but he’d had an appointment with his endocrinologist that afternoon and had to leave earlier. Bitty crossed the threshold, arms laden with groceries and looking slightly dumbfounded. Kent chuckled and moved to help him.

“You look like you’ve discovered the answers to the universe, what gives?”

If Kent hadn’t been looking at his boyfriend, he might have missed the way his expression faltered slightly before coming back to normal. As it was, he had nothing to distract him from Bitty’s face and he didn’t much like what he saw.

It seemed like Bitty had learned that there wasn’t much he could do to keep Kent from finding out what he was feeling, for he relented. He greeted Kent with a kiss and crossed the room to put down the groceries in the kitchen.  “It’s about your ex.”

Kent grimaced even as he tried to ignore the pang in his chest that resurfaced every time he thought about Jack. It had been years already – 3 years and 7 months, not that Kent was counting – and yet his reaction still hadn’t abated.

He knew Bitty wouldn't push, especially not if Kent insisted, but maybe it was time to face his problems instead of spending another two weeks hiding in the kitchen like his life depended on it every time he caught a glimpse of Jack. "Shoot," he sighed, though he put on a cocky smirk to put his boyfriend at ease.

Bitty didn't seem impressed, but he still continued. He seemed to hesitate over his words, strangely enough. Kent briefly wondered how terrible the question he was going to ask had to be to cause this reaction. "I need you to give me all the reasons you can think of to hate him," Bitty said in a rush, as though the words were fighting to come out of his mouth.

"You... what?"

Kent's nonplussed answer must have opened a dam, because Bitty transformed under his widening eyes. The other boy spoke too fast, moving his arms so much as he ranted that the sleeves of his shirt slid down to reveal the strap of his binder. Kent managed to catch something about Jack, and nice, and too much hockey, and tips, and polite maybe? By the time the rant was over, he did have a very good idea about what the problem was, and grimaced slightly as he considered his answer.

"Yeah, Itsy?" Bitty turned, facing Kent again, and he opened his mouth. "Yeah, he's not-  I can't really help you with that." Kent admitted wistfully. "We didn't break up because he was terrible or anything, it was..."

He raised his hand to make some kind of gesture, to try to illustrate his feelings, but eventually let it fall down after it having hovered in the air. What was there to say? That they’d broken up because they were both in terrible states, which in turn made them terrible for each other? He sighed, before leaning against Bitty’s shoulder, who’d approached to stand at his side. Reaching out for his boyfriend’s hand, Kent looked at their entangled fingers and tried to voice his thoughts. 

“He hated himself and closed himself off, I hated myself and lashed out, it built up along with other factors until…” Kent interrupted himself, not wanting to be the one to tell Bitty about Jack’s overdose. It wasn’t his place after all, and Bitty really didn’t have to know.  “Something happened,” he continued instead. He shrugged. Turned his head to look Bitty in the eye. “We never officially broke up, I guess, but we never saw each other again and eventually moved away.”

Kent had thought he’d gotten over the whole train of events, but even years later there was still an ache in his chest when he thought about Jack. That, and he had to admit that his inability to face Jack didn’t solely come from the awkwardness of facing an ex.

“Nonono, Kent!” Bitty was pleading in that way that let Kent know he was being a drama queen rather than genuinely distressed. He even swooned toward Kent, and Kent couldn’t help the small laughter that escaped him at the sight. It was far too obvious that he was trying to dispel the tension, but Kent still felt grateful for it, ridiculous as his boyfriend was being. It was working after all. 

“You were supposed to help me hate your ex, not make me feel sad for the both of you” Bitty protested, though he was also smiling slightly now that the tension had been released.

Kent shook his head fondly and lowered his face to Bitty’s hair, breathing in his familiar scent. “Sorry Bitsy, he’s just that great.”

The tranquil atmosphere couldn’t last for that long though, not when Kent knew he’d let too much of his feelings show with the way he spoke.

“You still love him,” Bitty said eventually, and Kent flinched as he realised that it wasn’t a question. And he couldn’t in all honesty deny the statement.

“I love you,” he said instead. Even to his ears the words sounded like an exrather than honest, even if he meant every single one of them. 

Still, Bitty didn’t push him away. He didn’t even let go of the reassuring hold he had on Kent’s shoulder. Instead, he kept holding Kent close and used his free hand to guide Kent’s chin until they were locking gazes together again. 

“I never doubted that for a second, Kent,” Bitty said, and the words were fierce in a way that made Kent’s eyes mist over a little. “And I love you too, no matter what your feelings towards Jack may be.”

Kent couldn’t keep looking Bitty in the eyes like this. Not when he felt like his heart had grown three sizes and he had to bite his lip to keep it from trembling. Not when the weight and guilt he’d unconsciously felt piling on his shoulder seemed to have lightened with his boyfriend’s tacit approval and unconditional love. Not when he knew Bitty would support his decision no matter what it would be. 

Sniffling a little, Kent engulfed Bitty into a hug and hid his face into his boyfriend’s neck, relishing in the soothing motion a steady hand on his back. 

“You should talk to him,” Bitty whispered near his ear. Kent couldn’t see his face, but his voice was tremulous, like he was holding back tears too. “There’s enough place in your heart for more than just little me, and you could see where you want to go from there, alright?”

This time, it was Kent’s turn to pull back a little until he could press his forehead on Bitty’s own. “You’ve never been “just” anything to me,” he whispered hoarsely against Bitty’s lips. He closed the distance between their mouths to press them together gently for a few moments. “And if there’s a future out there that doesn’t include you I don’t want it. 

“Kent Parson!” Bitty exclaimed with a tearful burst of laughter. “You are not allowed to make me cry in my own goddamn apartment!”

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

It took a while for Kent to put Bitty’s advice into action. Bitty didn’t even push, even when Kent kept conveniently finding tasks to do in the kitchen where he could remain out of view of the customers. Jack must have seen him at least once by this point, unless he had truly become more oblivious to the way he affected people with time. It had to come to a breaking point eventually though.

“Okay, this can’t go on like this I’m going out.”

“Kent, are you-”

But Kent didn’t let Bitty finish his sentence before he’d headed off towards the table that had become Jack’s usual since his first visit to the café. Jack didn’t look up as Kent approached, nose buried in what was probably a history book, knowing him. He did raise his head however when Kent stopped near his table and didn’t move.

“Hey.” The word left his mouth like a prayer and a curse all at once. It was also like exhaling a sigh of relief, and Kent felt all the better for it even as he felt his senses narrow until everything outside of Jack and himself felt dulled.

Kent had been very careful about not stalking Jack on the various kind of social networks available to him, and maybe this was why he was so taken aback by the intensity of those blue eyes. Jack’s eyes looked Kent over with a clinical gaze for a few moments, and Kent felt ice begin to cover him as he pondered the possibility that Jack might have forgotten him entirely. After all, it had been years since they’d seen each other, he’d gotten on hormones since he’d broken up with Jack and though he wasn’t unrecognizable there were still some sizeable changes there. What if Jack had never tried contacting Kent because he truly didn’t care? This entire thing was a terrible idea, Kent should have remained in the kitchen after all.

After what seemed like too long, Jack finally opened his mouth, recognition replacing the confusion in that cold gaze. “Kenny?” said Jack, looking him up and down, and Kent felt the full weight of that stare on him. He didn’t answer verbally – couldn’t get his voice to work suddenly – but his expression must have talked enough for him because Jack suddenly looked both relieved and deeply uncomfortable. They stared at each other in silence, neither of them willing to break it.

“You, euh, you have thighs,” Jack eventually said.

Kent just. Stared. Well no, that wasn’t exactly what he did. He looked at his thighs first and noticed that yes, he did in fact have them, but then he let his gaze climb back up and stared at Jack. To be fair, the other man seemed as confused as Kent about the words that came out of his own mouth, so Kent decided to give him some leeway. Before he could speak, Jack hastened to correct himself.

“Not that you didn’t before, it’s just-” Jack gestured vaguely in the direction of Kent’s legs, and Kent couldn’t believe he still felt some sort of fondness for that awkward mess of a boy. “They got bigger since we-”

“Yeah,” Kent interrupted before Jack could mention their failed attempt at a relationship. “Um, I took up hockey again? And I work out too so…”

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, and Kent couldn’t take it anymore. He broke their staredown and turned on his feet, speed walking out of there as fast as he could. 

Bitty was hands deep in a new batch of what looked like croissants when Kent opened the door, so Kent hovered at his side and waited for him to finish before he spoke. “Okay, we need to move on to plan B.”

“Plan B, what plan B?” Bitty asked confusedly. Then his face split up in a delighted smile. “Oh, you talked to Jack! How did it go?”

Kent waved his concerns away. “We talked, but now we need plan B,” Kent repeated, and he couldn’t believe Bitty hadn’t understood him the first time. “Which is the one where you talk to him in my place, because I can’t focus when his face is just… Right there!”

“Oh honey,” was Bitty’s answer, accompanied by one of Bitty’s commiserating faces and a hand pressed over his heart. That’s when Kent knew that his plan of simply avoiding Jack until Bitty fixed his relationship would not succeed and he’d have to actually talk to the man himself. 

#bv2020 #bitty's valentines #bittykent #bittyjackkent

[foramomentonly]

Nail In My Coffin, Part Three

Part One    Part Two

Summary: Alex and Kyle are fashion designers on a Next In Fashion style reality show. Michael is their model. Dom/sub elements. Prompt courtesy of @signoraviolettavalery .

Author’s Note: This comes after Parts One and Two chronologically, but I will most likely include later parts that occur before this one.

The Spanish was done to the best of my limited abilities. If it’s wrong or straight up gibberish, I’d love to be corrected.

Read on AO3

Alex has been expecting this, is honestly surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. 

They’ve used Michael as their model the past three challenges and coasted through each one. They didn’t win streetwear—and weren’t expecting to—but they weren’t up for elimination and they came close to taking the past two challenges. And while Alex isn’t humble enough to think it’s all Michael selling their designs on the runway with his languid stride and truly indecent head tilt, it’s clear he’s an asset, and he’s becoming a highly-coveted commodity in the workroom. Alex breathed these exact sentiments into his ear just the other afternoon, pressing Michael against the wall of the studio bathroom with his whole body, one hand fisting both their cocks and the other gripping Michael’s chin, two fingers stuffed in his mouth to keep him quiet. Michael came so hard at the praise and the wicked twist of Alex’s wrist that he bit down hard enough to break the skin of Alex’s fingers, and Alex is only lucky it’s so common for designers to have multiple bandaged digits. 

So he’s isn’t shocked at all when the judges gather them together, models and designers alike, and announce that they’re switching things up, and each team will choose a new model.

What he isn’t prepared for is Michael’s reaction. He’s picked up quickly by a team of sisters who create their own graphic prints and patterns for all their fabrics. Alex tries to stay attune to him throughout the week—they’re only a few work stations away—but he has his own project to focus on and he’s been designing with Michael’s body in mind—not to mention under his hands—for so long that the transition is jarring. He hears little bits of gossip, mostly through Kyle, though, and it’s not good. There are ridiculous rumors about sabotage, that Michael has agreed to phone it in with other teams to boost Alex and Kyle’s chances in exchange for regular work once the show wraps. And then there are the jokes about Michael preferring Alex’s “firm hand” that leave Alex livid and Kyle looking uncomfortable. It doesn’t help that Michael and Rosa, the visionary behind the sisters’ dynamic prints, are clashing. He’s sullen and moody, and he doesn’t respond well to Rosa’s dry humor and abstract direction. 

A day before the runway shoot, during their initial fittings, Alex and Kyle are discussing the hem of a skirt with their new model Maria when there is a frustrated growl from their left, followed by a loud rip.

“¡Que chingados estás haciendo!” Rosa shouts, and Michael glares at her. 

The seam on the right sleeve of the shirt he’s wearing is torn, and Michael is looking from Rosa to the loose fabric hanging off his shoulder and back again. He gestures to the sleeve and spits something indiscernible back at her, and Rosa throws up her hands. Her sister Liz waves her off and puts a hand on Michael’s arm, and he seems to soften just a bit, but his eyes flit towards Alex and back again restlessly. Alex forces himself to turn back to his own work.

Then there’s Michael’s runway performance. He doesn’t trip or miss a mark—he’s a professional, after all—but his walk is listless and his expression under the bright, colorful make-up he’s wearing is severe, off-putting. In the designer’s lounge, Rosa is fuming, hissing at Liz in rapid-fire Spanish Alex couldn’t hope to follow, but based on the way Kyle winces, she’s not being kind. At the judge’s panel they receive warm, if muted praise for their design, and Alex credits Rosa for not publicly calling out Michael’s underwhelming display. But even the judges notice, and one asks Michael kindly if he’s feeling all right.

“Just having an off week,” he mumbles, and the judges commiserate before moving on. 

Alex watches Michael change quickly and escape out of the studio minutes after his team's post-runway interview is through, and he decides to take a necessary risk. He pulls out his phone while Maria slips behind their privacy partition and sends Michael a text.

My room at 10:30.

Michael responds instantly.

You got it, Captain.

***

Michael begins to babble the second the door to Alex’s room safely shuts behind him.

“I’m so sorry,” he says miserably. “I fucked up, I shouldn’t have let it get to me. I just hated having someone else’s hands on me and I-”

“On your knees,” Alex interrupts him.

Michael blinks and begins to lower himself, but there’s a flash of panic in his eyes that has Alex stepping forward to stop him, the hand not on his crutch gripping his bicep gently.

“Wait,” Alex says, “wait. I messed up. I didn’t check in with you first. I’m sorry.” 

Michael straightens and faces him.

“I know that you had a tough week,” Alex says, “and I want to give you what you need right now. But this isn’t a punishment. I need you to know that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Alex pauses, searching Michael’s eyes for understanding. He looks worn down and a little hesitant, but as Alex’s words sink in his eyes gleam a little brighter.

“I want to give you what you need, sweetheart,” Alex says, and Michael’s cheeks flush, “but I need you to tell me exactly what that is so I don’t mess up and make things worse like I almost did just now.”

Michael pauses, looking uncertain.

“Take your time,” Alex soothes.

“I want to be good for you,” Michael whispers, “I just want to show you I can be good.”

“You are good for me,” Alex assures him, “you always are. What do you want tonight?”

Michael shuts his eyes and breathes deep.

“I want to feel like I’m yours again,” he whines softly. “I hated this week, I hated feeling like I didn’t belong to you anymore.”

His eyes open and they’re dark and hazy. Alex feels his cock fill at the sight of his needy gaze.

“On your knees,” he breathes, gentler this time, and Michael hits the floor in front of him.

Alex takes a step back and lowers himself onto the edge of the bed, laying his crutch on the floor beside him. He’d debated leaving his prosthetic on before Michael arrived, not wanting to limit himself or what he could give, but it had been a long day on his feet and his leg was already stiff, hip aching. He was settling into the idea of exposing the more vulnerable parts of his identity, of his life to someone other than Kyle, but this is the first time he’ll be naked in this way during a scene. It feels like a turning point.

Alex spreads his legs wide and curls a finger at Michael.

“Come here.”

Michael moves unsteadily on his knees until he’s kneeling between Alex’s legs. He sits back on his heels and rests his hands on the top of his thighs, looking up at Alex eagerly. Alex chuckles.

“Look at you,” he coos, “so perfect on your knees for me.”

He reaches out and cups Michael’s face gently in his hands, guiding him up and pulling him close. Alex holds him there for just a moment, noses brushing, Michael’s warm breath on his cheek. Michael whimpers softly and something in Alex breaks wide open. He crashes forward, pulling Michael into a kiss that’s all tongue and wet heat. His hands slide into Michael’s curls and tug lightly, biting down on Michael’s bottom lip when he moans into Alex’s mouth. Michael’s hands slide up his thighs, squeezing and kneading his aching muscles. Alex tilts his head back and groans, letting Michael suck wet kisses up the column of his neck. Hands sliding down to Michael’s shoulders, Alex pushes him gently back until he’s settled again on his heels. Alex takes a moment to refocus, watching Michael succumb to the comfort of Alex’s control. He’s still and whining softly, pupils blown and cock a hard line against his thigh, a dark spot staining his jeans where he’s leaking precum. He looks gorgeous, already wrecked, and Alex decides to play with him.

“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, sweetheart,” he purrs, and Michael sinks further into his focused haze. “Think about you all the time. Fantasize about you. Your long legs and that stupid curl that’s always in your eyes.”

Alex watches Michael watching him, waits until he can catch his heated gaze before continuing.

“Your mouth,” he breathes, spreading his legs wider and squeezing his aching cock through his sweatpants, holding Michael’s gaze throughout. “You’re so good with that gorgeous mouth, baby, God.” 

Alex throws his head back as he snakes his hand into his pants, stroking himself slowly, deliberately. He hears Michael shift and whine, but ignores him, his breath catching as he rolls the head of his cock between his fingers.

“Dream about it,” he pants, leaning back on one elbow to give Michael a view of the long line of his torso. He’s already shirtless and he knows the hard muscles of his abdomen make Michael’s mouth water. “Dream about you on your knees, sucking me under the table while I work. I wake up so hard for you, Michael.”

“Alex,” Michael pleads, and Alex tilts his head forward to find Michael up on his knees again, practically drooling, eyes wide and locked on where Alex is stroking himself inside his sweats. 

Alex smirks, looks down at himself casually.

“Did you want to help, sweetheart?” he asks innocently, and Michael nods eagerly, still focused on the movement of Alex’s hand. The waistband of his sweats snaps against his stomach as Alex pulls out his hand and leans back on both elbows across the bed, spreading himself open for Michael.

“Use your words,” he teases, “and look at me.”

Michael tears his eyes away from Alex’s body and meets his gaze, saying, “Please let me blow you, Captain.”

Alex makes a sweeping motion with his hand, a silent go ahead, and Michael leans forward, hooking his fingers into the waistband of Alex’s sweats and dragging them down when Alex raises his hips. He hovers over Alex’s lap and grips his cock at the base, licking his lips. His tongue sneaks out for a taste of the liquid welling at the tip and he groans, sinking down until his lips meet his own fingers in one sudden movement. Alex’s toes curl as his whole universe is reduced to the wet heat of Michael’s mouth enveloping him. Michael draws his lips back up slowly, his tongue tracing the thick vein on Alex’s shaft and curling around the head.

“Dream about this, too,” he whispers, his lips brushing the sensitive head of Alex’s cock and sending shivers up his spine. Michael takes a deep, trembling breath and takes Alex’s wrist, guiding it to the back of his neck as he sinks down again onto his cock. Alex squeezes his neck lightly, hissing as Michael begins to work him over with his mouth and hand, sucking and twisting in a steady rhythm. From his position on his elbow Alex has a glorious view of Michael’s red mouth swallowing his cock over and over.

“God, your mouth,” he moans almost unconsciously, moving his hand from Michael’s neck to his jaw, feeling it work around him and tracing the corner of Michael’s mouth with his thumb. Michael pulls his hand away and slides his mouth lower still, taking Alex’s cock into the back of his throat. He holds himself there and groans, sending vibrations shooting up Alex’s cock and making him curl in on himself, his hands flying to Michael’s head to keep him in place. 

“Oh, fuck,” he cries, working his hips in shallow pumps. But it’s too much and he feels Michael choke around him. He uses his grip in Michael’s hair to pull him off.

“Yellow,” Michael rasps before Alex can even ask, resting his cheek against Alex’s thigh and breathing unevenly. “I just need a minute.”

“Take your time,” Alex says, stroking his sweaty hair away from his face. “You can finish me off with your hand, if you want.”

Michael swallows and wraps his fingers around Alex’s shaft, squeezing. 

“Will you still come in my mouth?” he asks, and Alex groans.

“Jesus. Course I will, sweetheart.”

Alex isn’t going to last, between the scratch of Michael’s voice, his filthy request, and the way he’s squeezing the head of Alex’s cock with every pass. Alex leans back as Michael rises up to curl over his lap, stroking faster over his length as Alex’s moans and works his hips.

“Gonna come,” Alex warns, dropping his head back. He feels Michael wrap his lips around the head of his cock, sucking hard, and Alex cries out as he shoots down Michael’s throat and across his lips when he pulls off Alex’s cock, still working him over with insistent fingers. 

Alex is still breathing heavy, but he sits up and cups Michael’s jaw, watches him lazily licking Alex’s cum off his lips and hand.

“Do you want-” Alex starts, but Michael shakes his head, looking shamelessly down his own body. Alex follows his gaze and huffs a laugh. Michael pulls his hand out of his open pants, sticky with his own release.

“Oops,” he says smugly, and Alex raises an eyebrow at him.

“Do you want to be punished?”

Michael grins lazily and shrugs. 

“Another time I could be into it.”

Alex smiles softly at him, shaking his head. 

“Go to the bathroom and bring me a wet towel,” he says. Michael uses Alex’s thighs for leverage as he stands, stealing a kiss when he’s at eye level.

When he comes back, Alex has his pants on and Michael tilts his head in confusion. Alex doesn’t explain, just holds out his hand. Michael hands him the towel.

“Good boy. Now, strip.”

When Michael is completely naked Alex beckons him closer.

“Lean down,” he says, and when Michael bends to his level Alex catches his face in his hands and wipes the warm, wet cloth over his mouth and cheek, cleaning up his mess. Alex meets his eyes, gaze warm and steady, and Michael’s face breaks open, happy and dazed. Alex takes each of Michael’s hands in his and works the towel over them, then instructs him to stand as he gently wipes Michael’s stomach and groin, folding the towel over to a clean section before he passes it over his soft cock. When he’s through, he tosses the towel aside and points to the dresser behind Michael.

“Bring those to me.”

Michael hands Alex the worn tee shirt and sweatpants folded neatly on the top of the dresser. Alex shakes out the sweats—they aren’t brand new, but they’re new enough that he hasn’t cut and tied off the leg yet.

“I want to dress you,” he says, looking away as a rush of shame and uncertainty passes over him, “but I can’t do that standing. Will you-”

He feels Michael’s hands on his shoulders and he looks up. Michael stands before him, bracing himself on Alex with one leg raised in the air, bent at a 90-degree angle. Alex fumbles for a moment, but slides the sweats on one leg at a time this way, pulling them up Michael’s hips slowly. Michael squats so Alex can tug the shirt over his head, and Michael’s fingers linger on the faded Air Force emblem on the chest. 

“How do you feel?” Alex asks softly.

“Warm, safe,” Michael answers honestly. “Owned.”

Alex pulls him in close, kissing him slowly and drawing out a soft whimper when he sucks lightly on Michael’s bottom lip.

“Keep them,” Alex breathes, clasping Michael’s hand over the seal on his chest. “Wear them when you feel like you did this week. I don’t care who notices.”

He meets Michael’s amber eyes and strokes his jaw, soothing Michael’s hesitation.

“I take care of what’s mine.”

#malex fashion au #malex #alex manes #michael guerin #malex fic #rosa ortecho #rnm #rnm fic #dom/sub elements #my fic

[broadwaybaggins]

Toilet paper with any Mercy Street people - modern I guess? No idea was tp was like in the 1860s.

“It is Lord of the fucking Flies out there,” were Jed’s first words upon coming inside the house.

“That bad, huh?” Mary asked, her tone halfway between joking and sympathetic. Jed did have a bit of a tendency to exaggerate, and the store had been fine when she’d visited a few days ago on the normal weekly shopping trip. She got up off the couch and crossed into the kitchen, where she watched Jed unceremoniously dump several full reusable grocery totes onto the floor. Mary arched an eyebrow at his behavior.

“Good thing we didn’t need eggs,” she deadpanned.

Jed sidestepped her and reached for the handle of the faucet, turning it on full-blast and reaching for the soap. He immediately started to scrub furiously at his hands, as if he were preparing for surgery. Mary crossed her arms and waited, eyeing the grocery bags nervously and hoping Jed hadn’t bought too many frozen food items. Depending on how long his story took, they might be in danger soon.

“Absolute chaos. Shelves stripped bare. Cleaning products? Gone, or nearly. Wipes? Good luck. Sanitizer? Not even a drop. Oh, but hand soap--amazingly well-stocked. They’re even having a sale. A sale. Buy one get one fifty percent off. The one item that can help protect the most against this thing, and they’re not fucking buying it!”

Mary winced, then reached for the nearest grocery bag. The least she could do was help put them away, since she hadn’t accompanied him on the shopping trip from hell.

“The soup and pasta aisles were bleak. I grabbed some boxes of cheap Kraft macaroni and cheese, because I could--”

“Oh, nice,” Mary said, pulling out one of the aforementioned boxes. “Unicorn shaped.”

“Don’t judge me, Phinney. I haven’t even gotten to the worst part.”

“There’s more?”

“There’s more. There’s the wonderful woman who nearly mowed me down with her shopping cart to get into line before me. Who had the audacity to then smirk and say ‘beat you’. And...” he turned off the faucet and shook the water off his hands before reaching for a roll of paper towels. “No toilet paper.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I am most certainly not kidding you. Would that I were, Mary. The shelves were empty.”

“Damn. I didn’t think that could happen here. Want me to text Emma? She said she was going to hit up Target this afternoon.”

Jed waved a hand at her, and Mary did just that. She slipped her phone out of her pocket and quickly typed a message, sneaking glances at Jed out of the corner of her eye. He was leaning his elbows on the counter, looking exhausted. He went to cover his face with his hands, a go-to gesture of his, then stopped and shoved them in his pockets instead. Mary busied herself with putting the groceries away, stepping softly around Jed like he was a sleeping baby she didn’t want to wake. 

Her phone chimed in her pocket, signaling a text from Emma. She read it and frowned. “No dice at Target either. Emma sends many frowny faces.”

“Tell Miss Green I commiserate with her plight.”

“I don’t know why you insist on talking like some jaded Victorian, even in text,” Mary tried to joke as she responded to Emma. ‘no worries. we have some. just wanted to check. stay safe out there.’

‘u too Mary! xoxo ′

“Hey, it’s okay,” Mary said softly, abandoning her phone and coming up behind Jed. Gently, she rubbed his shoulders, hoping to ease some of the tension there. “It’s going to be okay.”

“This is bad, Mary. This is bad and it’s going to get worse, and people are losing their minds for all the wrong reasons. And we have to be on the front lines of it all.”

“I know. I know. But we can handle it. We always do.”

#quarantine fic prompts #is that what we're calling these? #drabble prompt #fericita-s

[thereluctantinquisitor]

❝ I’ll pay for your [meal/coffee/groceries/etc] ! ❞ for modern darrus? :))

Okay so I used the prompt for inspiration but didn’t really incorporate the exact quote, so… don’t sue me!

                                                         –

“I, ah… just a second. Hold on.” 

Cyrus could feel his cheeks heating up as he frantically dug through his wallet, checking every card slot for a loose coin. Despite what felt like desperate tunnel-vision on his fumbling hands, he was hyper-aware of the line behind him, other people’s groceries already lined up on the belt, fingers thrumming along the handles of shopping carts. God, this wasn’t happening. This wasn’t fucking happening. He’d find something. He had to have something lying around…

Glancing up at the unimpressed cashier, he swore softly to himself, tossing his wallet on the narrow counter and digging through his pockets. His fingertips brushed paper, and fora second he allowed himself to hope, but he just pulled out an old receipt, crinkled beyond recognition, stained slightly blue from his jeans. He threw that on the counter too, his heart hammering in his chest because he was at the front of the fucking line and he’d been rummaging for over a minute and people were watching.

The cashier cleared his throat. “Sir, do you need to—”

— “No, I don’t.” In truth, Cyrus had no idea what the guy was even planning to suggest. Use his phone to pay? Go to an ATM? Yeah, sorry buddy, neither option was going to make this shit any better. He must have spent the last of his money on gas, and his paycheck wasn’t coming in for another five days.

Fuuuuck.

He glanced at the bag of groceries. It wasn’t even enough that he could pretend he had just got carried away and over-shopped. It was basic shit - water, a couple of cans of spaghetti, alcohol wipes, bread. That sort of thing. Someone coughed behind him in the line and Cyrus felt the last of his resolve waver and crumble to dust.

“Just… forget it,” he muttered, snatching his empty wallet off the counter and shoving it back into his pocket. “I don’t—”

— “Hey, there you are!” 

A loud voice interrupted Cyrus’ living nightmare. He turned to see a tall blond man working his way through the line, smiling sunnily, murmuring ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’ as he wove his way towards…

… him.

“Phew, just made it! Thanks for stalling. Forgot which checkout you went to.” He winked at Cyrus and placed a small pack of ibuprofen on the counter. “Don’t you just hate it when you remember something at the last minute?” He seemed to direct the comment to the cashier before turning to commiserate with the person next in line. Apparently the plight was universal, as both laughed quietly and nodded, as though partaking in some kind of inside joke. Still smiling, the blond turned back to the cashier, slipping a bill out of his wallet. “Anyway, really sorry for the hold up. How much?”

The rest of the transaction passed in something of a blur. The stranger paid for… well, everything. All the irritation Cyrus had sensed from the people around him before seemed to give way into a strange kind of exasperated amusement as the blond gave the line a final apologetic wave, scooping up the grocery bag and nodding his head towards the door. “Alright, let’s go.”

“Uh… sure.” In truth, Cyrus had no fucking idea what to do. The guy had his groceries. Well, more like commandeered his groceries. He could just take them, really. They were technically his. As the blond moved towards the automatic doors Cyrus found himself following like a lost puppy, although without the requisite enthusiasm. It was wariness that kept him a few paces behind the man, his attention on the bag swinging absently by his side.

What was he up to?

They paused once they were near the edge of the carpark, near a cafe in the process of recovering from the afternoon rush. The tall man turned, smiled again, then seemed to realise with a start that he was still holding the bag. “Oh! Here - sorry. These are yours.”

Cyrus just stared at the bag, then glanced back up at the blond. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know.” He waggled the bag, the paper crackling as it swayed. “But I did, so… you might as well take them.”

Every fiber of Cyrus’ being wanted to tell him to keep them. That he didn’t need them. But the empty pit in his stomach was a constant reminder that he wasn’t in any position to skip another meal. Shit, he’d salivated over canned spaghetti. 

So he took the bag.

“Thanks,” he murmured, then cleared his throat. “Look, I don’t have a lot right now, but I can pay you back. Just… I don’t know. Tell me a place to meet you next week.”

The blond seemed taken aback by the suggestion, paused, then broke into a bright smile. “Hey, I’m more than happy to meet up with you next week, but I don’t want you to pay me back or anything. Just… think of it as a favour.”

Cyrus shook his head. Mostly in disbelief. “A favour?” he repeated. “I don’t even know you.”

“Oh! Right.” The blond immediately held out his hand. “Darren Miller.” 

Feeling like he was constantly on the back foot and racing to catch up, Cyrus shook his hand on instinct. “Uh… Cyrus.”

“Nice to meet you!” His grip was firm. If anything, it lingered a little longer than Cyrus was used to but… not necessarily in a bad way. He wasn’t really sure how to explain it. When Darren did let go, it was with a kind of amused half-smile that did something strange to Cyrus’ chest. “There,” he continued with a satisfied nod. “Now we know each other.”

“Not really…” Letting his hand drop to his side, Cyrus tried to salvage some remnant of his pride. “Listen, I was serious about paying you back. I don’t just take money from people.”

Darren cocked his head, a lock of his blond hair flopping from one side to the other. “You didn’t. I gave it to you.” He shrugged. “Besides, someone paid for mine once. It’s kinda like… ugh, what’s that thing from that movie? With the kid and the assignment…?”

Cyrus quirked a brow at the man. “Pay it forward?”

It was, apparently, the correct answer. Darren’s face lit up and he nodded excitedly. “Yeah! Wow, I haven’t seen that in so long…”

“It was… kind of a downer. From memory.” Cyrus didn’t remember much of it - only that he cried at the end. But he was a kid at the time, which meant there was probably nothing to really cry over.

“Yeah, I cried so hard at the end.” Darren laughed as Cyrus watched him, wondering if the tall man could read his mind somehow. “But then again, I cry in most movies. And some ads. Have you seen that Thai life insurance ad? It’s so…” Something about Cyrus’ expression must have finally registered because Darren trailed off and, for the first time, a pink flush crept up his neck and onto his cheeks. “I’m… rambling, aren’t I?”

Despite himself, Cyrus gave a snort of amusement. “Yeah. A little.” 

Was it weird that a part of him wanted to add ‘but I don’t mind’? 

“Sorry. I do that when I’m nervous. AH, I mean—” For a few seconds, it seemed like Darren was planning to salvage his sentence, but then he just sighed and gave up with a sheepish chuckle. “Just… sorry. I’m not normally this bad.”

Nervous? Why would he be nervous? He’d just sidled through a grocery line like Cyrus’ knight in domestic armour. Shit, Cyrus was going to eat tonight because of him. “No, I… you’re fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Darren favoured him with a grateful look. Then his gaze flicked back down to the small grocery bag and a faint frown creased his brow. “Those… aren’t meant to last you a week, are they?”

Cyrus froze. How did he…?

Right. He said he could pay him back next week. Fuck, why did he even open his big mouth?

“It’s enough,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t need much.”

“Right. Okay then.” Darren was nodding, but there was something about his tone that suggested he didn’t believe the lie. Admittedly, it was a pretty poor one. “Hey, how about instead of meeting up next week, we might up again later tonight?”

Cyrus frowned. “Why?” He already told the guy he wouldn’t have the money until next week. 

Again, Darren’s cheeks reddened, and he reached up, scratching his cheek. “I dunno… might be fun? There’s this bar a few blocks away that does open mic Fridays. You get a mix of things - singers and comedians and stuff. It’s always interesting. If you’re, ah… y’know… interested.”

It took a few solid moments before Cyrus realised what was actually happening. “Are you asking me out?”

Darren chuckled, seeming almost relived that Cyrus had at least understood that much. “Trying to! Although I’m getting the feeling I’m not doing a very good job.” He sighed. “Sorry. I don’t really… do this often. If I’m making you uncomfortable just say the word and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“No, you’re… you’re fine.” In truth, Cyrus wasn’t used to being asked out. Picked up? Sure. He cleared his throat, acutely aware of the bag of groceries in his hand. “Look, I want to go with you, but I don’t exactly have the cash for eating out.”

“That’s okay! My idea, my shout. That’s how it works, right?”

Cyrus supposed that was true. Besides, if all else failed, it was a free meal. One that wasn’t from a can. So, he relaxed, regarding Darren for the first time with something other than skepticism. “You know what? Sure. Why not.”

The grin the blond man shone back at him was dazzling - it was like Cyrus had made his whole year in a few simple words. “Seriously? Great! Here, let me give you my number…”

As Darren rummaged around for his phone, Cyrus couldn’t help but shake his head slightly in disbelief. Of all things he expected to happen today, having his groceries paid for and going on a date was the furthest from likely. 

But hey, maybe sometimes even he got to catch a break. 

#reluctant writes #reluctant replies #darrus #darren miller #cyrus #modern au #meet cute #where cyrus is doing his best to make ends meet #and darren goes from calm and collected to the living embodiment of Gay Panic(TM) #the dawn squad #anonymous

[fight-surrender]

Chapter 2: By the Light of the Silvery Moon

Rating: teen and up

Word count: 1276

Summary: “Fuck off, Baz.” Simon hisses. “I’m not transforming into anything. This whole thing is bollocks.” Um, actually, Simon- you are, in fact, transforming into something.

Chapter 2 of “Howlin’ Forever (The One Where Simon Gets Bitten By That Werewolf) Read it on AO3. 

Baz:

Google is a magical thing. Thank Merlin there is at least rudimentary computer access in the Watford library. Granted, it’s dial-up. How does that even still exist?

I admit, aside from basic astrology and vague musings regarding American moon landing conspiracy theories, I really haven’t given much thought to the moon. The phases. How long it’s actually “full.” It’s not like the moon has any effect on my condition. Simon’s impending “condition” is altogether different.

I can’t remember ever feeling this happy. I mean, Simon isn’t happy, he’s positively miserable. He’s off his food, just picks at his plate. Even his beloved scones aren’t piquing his interest. But I, on the other hand, am practically giddy at the thought of not being the only monster around here anymore. I’m finding it hard to maintain my facade of constant disdain for Snow, when all I really want to do is commiserate about the ups and downs of being a dark creature. Granted, he isn’t a dark creature yet, now is he?

As the date of the full moon approaches, I’m finding myself obsessing about Snow even more than usual. Is his patchy facial hair thickening up a little? Is he shaving more often? Do his cheeks look fuller? I should counsel him about the onset of fangs. The first few times are a bitch. I’ve never met a werewolf, is the transformation painful? Where does his human mind go when he’s a wolf?

Simon is growing more irritable and frazzled as the big night approaches. He’s not sleeping much. When he does it’s all sweat and shouting and fear.  Tonight, he jolts up panting, after a particularly violent nightmare. He rakes a hand through his hair, lit with the blue glow of the waxing gibbous moon. (I’m an expert at moon phases now.)

“I’ll help you.” I murmur, so softly, only a werewolf or vampire could hear.

“Help me what?” Simon responds. Irritably.

“With your transformation.”  The moon goes full tomorrow.

“Fuck off, Baz.” Simon hisses. “I’m not transforming into anything. This whole thing is bollocks.” Simon flings his sheets aside and stalks out the door. He slams it so hard a picture falls off the wall by my bed—my mother, at her leavers ceremony. In her cap and gown, face shining with pride and a rosy future. A fine crack slivers across the glass.

I cast off my blankets, put on my cloak, and go after Snow.

 ***

I find Simon at the ramparts, silhouetted against the rising moon. He’s got his chin out, shoulders back, arms flexed, and hands balled into fists. Like he’s going to pull the glowering orb from the sky and pound it to rubble. Like he’s going to grab fate by its hairy shoulders and tear it limb from limb. Simon Snow, always ready to go down fighting.

I leave him there, staring down the moon, and go back to our room.

 ***

 The next day Snow doesn’t get up for class.

Bunce flits into my face in the dining hall at afternoon tea.

“What have you done with Simon?” She buzzes, face pinched, hair billowing in an intimidating purple halo around her face.

“I’m not his keeper, Bunce. I thought that was your job?”

“Simon isn’t eating, he’s skipping class and looks a disaster. You’re looking both dodgy and smug. Spill.” Bunce retorts.

“The misadventures of your dumber half are none of my concern.” I turn on my heel and stomp out of the dining hall.

Why hasn’t he told Bunce? I ponder, hands in my pockets as I make my way back to Mummer’s house. I make sure to glare at anyone who dares look my way, it’s a form of stress relief. She’s his best friend. His only friend. A problem shared is a problem halved and whatnot.

My mind stops its spinning on as soon as I step into our room. The curtains are drawn and the space is stuffy. The heaving mountain of blankets (my blankets, wtf?) on his bed belie Snow’s location. “Get up you loaf; your sidekick is looking for you.” I sneer.

No response.

“Get up, I’m not having Bunce yapping at my heels over –” I stride to the bed and lift the sheet. Simon’s face is wrong. It’s pale, blotchy with a hint of grey. His hair is soaked in sweat and matted to his head. He’s shivering.

“‘M freezing, Baz. Fuck off.” Simon moans.

I place a hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up, Snow.” My heart is pounding in my chest as I feel a traitorous prickling in my eyes. This is no time to cry, but Crowley, this is happening.

Oh Simon. I allow myself to gently push his damp curls from his forehead. He doesn’t notice. 

I get up and begin pacing the room. How does this even work? Will it hurt? I searched the Watford library for all the Werewolf information I could find, but the world of Mages frowns on lycanthropy much as it does on vampirism. Beyond the Werewolf Code of Conduct of 1637 (which nobody signed), tomes of accounts of how to kill them (apparently, they’re flammable too, go figure), and lists of famous werewolves in history (Thoreau, Einstein, Twain, among others), reliable information is scarce. Just a few anecdotes on failed attempts at countercurses and some balderdash about premenstrual talismans using their fur. Nothing useful.

It occurs to me that there is a good chance I’m about to be trapped in a tower with a werewolf. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Is this how Simon finishes me off? The final battle? Death by werewolf? Will he even know what he did? Will he care?

Crowley, what if he bites me? Can I be a vampire and a werewolf? What a nightmare. 

Darkness has settled on the room. I haven’t bothered to turn on the lights. I don’t need them. In the gloaming, Simon’s breathing has settled, he seems almost calm.

I settle onto my bed to await the moonrise. My mind uneasy and thoughts swirling. Anxiety crawling like worms under my skin.

A moment or hours later, the night air is pierced by a sound I never want to hear again. Simon screams and curls into himself. He tries to get up but falls to the floor. Without a thought I go to him, but I don’t believe he knows I’m there. I’ve got an arm around his shoulder, steadying him. He’s on his knees, face in my chest. My other hand is carding through his hair. “It’s ok.” I whisper, “I’ve got you.” He doesn’t hear me. He won’t stop screaming.

His voice is going hoarse, sobbing as he shakes me off and falls to his hands and knees. There is a wet creak of bones breaking and flesh tearing. His back arches as his scream melts to a long howl, drenched in sorrow. I’m crouched on the floor, breathing in gasps, tears streaming down my face. I think I’m going to throw up.

I look up into a huge pair of ice-blue eyes. A long, dark muzzle, teeth like knives. Moonlit bronze fur with a bit of a curl. He lets out a low, menacing snarl, his eyes locked on mine. I feel the hair on my neck rise and my fangs pop. He growls again, like thunder, then leaps over my head and out the window in one fluid movement.  Disappearing into the waiting night, leaving me alone. The only sound in the room, the tumbled beating of my heart.

#carry on #simon snow #baz pitch #werewolf fic #my fic #carry on fan fiction #fanfiction #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #chapter 2 #fortunately I have a knack for publishing #at the absolute worst time for anyone to read my stuff #lolol