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lockefanfic · 4 years

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Business Trip - Part 3: San

“Look Sana, there are three takoyaki left!”

“Wow, Momo, there are indeed three. That’s more than two, but less than four. Three is a great number. My favorite number, actually!”

The two Japanese girls share a giggle as they share a joke amongst themselves. They are sitting as close together as humanly possible, their arms locked, their other hands covering their mouths in faux shyness as they laugh.

Sitting opposite from them, on the other side of the table, you have no choice but to accept their teasing. Two days have passed since your encounter with Sana - you needed the extra day to rest after the extended activities with the both of them - and now you found yourself having lunch with both ladies at a local takoyaki joint.

The two girls continue their little private conversation, speaking mostly in Japanese. Momo speaks a little slower than Sana, needing more time to come up with the correct words, but she nonetheless succeeds in eliciting a laugh from the younger girl with what you could only assume was a joke at your expense.

“Can I get subtitles for your little private conversation, ladies?”

Both young women, almost simultaneously, stick their tongues out at you before returning to their conversation. This time, they are obviously talking about your… length, as they each take turns estimating your size between two fingertips. Soon they are erupting in giggles, before giving you shy looks and then speaking excitedly again in Japanese.

You sigh, and look around to see if you can flag a waitress for the bill.

---

A couple of hours and a subway ride later, you find yourself on a bustling side street somewhere in the Ginza neighborhood, trailing a few feet behind the two young women as they walk, arms locked, talking and chatting to each other excitedly in a mixture of Japanese and English.

In your arms are half a dozen or so shopping bags filled with the clothing and cosmetics the two have accrued during the day, and you suddenly find yourself feeling a bit like a chauffeur or personal assistant following two celebrities around. They almost never acknowledged your presence, aside from shooting you the occasional sly look that was almost always followed by hushed comments in Japanese and varying amounts of giggling.

Suddenly, Momo stops in her tracks. She turns to face you, and as their arms are locked, she drags Sana around so that she too is facing you. Sana has a confused look on her face as Momo points to a shop window.

In the store window are stuffed toys of the three original starter Pokemon - Charmander, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur.

“Sana, which is your favorite starter Pokemon?”

The younger girl catches on quickly to Momo’s lead.

“Well, Momo, my favorite starter Pokemon is Charmander. What’s yours?”

“Mine is Squirtle, Sana.”

“But Momo, there are three starter Pokemon! There needs to be a third.”

“Yes, indeed. Sigh,” Momo says, actually saying the word sigh out loud, “If only there were a third person we could have fun with.”

Momo and Sana both turn to you and give you an over-the-top, exaggerated seductive look. Sana’s pink tongue licks her lips, while Momo gives you a head to toe scan with her best “fuck me” eyes.

Sana turns to Momo and says something in Japanese, to which Momo responds - also in Japanese, of course, although you do hear the word “Bulbasaur” in her response. Both girls giggle, and you are left standing there in confusion as the two new best friends continue on their walk.

You give the Bulbasaur stuffed toy a frustrated look, then hurry after the two young women.

---

You sigh loudly as you finally find a seat in the downtown Tokyo coffee shop, dropping the ladies’ bags under the table and folding your arms on the table before letting your forehead rest on your forearms.

“I’m exhausted,” you say, “you two are tiring me out.”

Momo, who has taken the seat next to you, gives you a smile.

“You’ll see,” she says softly, her voice almost at a whisper as though she were talking to herself.

“What?”

“Hmm?” Momo replies, as if she were unaware that she had said something out loud, “Oh look, there’s Sana!” she adds quickly, happy to distract you as the younger woman arrives at your table with three iced coffees. Sana places your iced coffee in front of you, and you pass your gratitude to the younger woman before you notice three black spots in the whipped cream - three chocolate covered coffee beans.

Sana acts surprised to see the three coffee beans in your whipped cream.

“Oh, how did those get there?” she says, with obvious fake surprise, “Look, Momo - there are three coffee beans in his cream.”

Momo lets out a laugh that she tries to stifle with a hand.

“Okay,” you finally say, having had enough, “I see what you two ladies have been doing all afternoon with all the three jokes. For the record, this wasn’t my idea.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Sana admits as she shares a look with Momo, “it was mine. Momo and I have had the chance to talk about it.”

“And?”

“And…” Momo begins, “tonight we’re going to fuck until none of us can walk tomorrow.”

---

An hour or three later and the three of you have found your way back to the hotel - specifically, Momo’s room. Since Momo’s admission of their intentions the rest of the afternoon passed relatively uneventfully, both girls evidently able to completely ignore the fact that they had just admitted to planning a threesome that evening, busying themselves in shopping and sightseeing around Japan’s capital city.

Indeed, even as the three of you entered Momo’s hotel room there was very little to suggest that anything particularly out of the ordinary were to take place - Momo was content to drop her bag and take off her jacket before collapsing onto the bed, while Sana undid the ponytail she had worn all day and contented herself with making a cup of tea using the in-room water kettle. For your part, you were content to drop off the dozen or so bags full of cosmetics, clothing, and geeky anime items the three of you had accrued over the last eight or so hours, before slumping into the leather couch, happy to be off your feet.

A few minutes pass. For you it is ridiculously awkward - you found yourself wondering if, and how, and when this thing would start - not that either young woman noticed, as you were convinced that Momo had fallen asleep on the bed and Sana was entirely content with the warm cup of tea she was sipping whilst admiring the view from the fifteenth floor. Sana was humming a soft tune as she took small sips from her mug, the pleasant melody seemingly at odds with the ridiculously thick layer of sexual tension in the room.

Suddenly, Momo bolts upright - she wasn’t asleep at all, apparently. She has an unreadable, blank look on her face as she turns to Sana.

“Hajimemashou, Sana.”

“Hai,” the younger girl answers, taking one more sip before setting down her tea on the nearby coffee table and approaching the bed where Momo was standing.

You hadn’t moved from your position on the couch. Momo stands in front of you, Sana standing slightly behind her. With the firm, strong tone that you have seen her use in business meetings whilst discussing an important report, she speaks.

“You’re going to sit there and not move a muscle. If you move, if you try to touch us, if you try to touch yourself, or if you try to take off our clothes or yours, then we stop this entire thing and you can go back to your own hotel room to jerk off alone knowing that Sana and I are fucking each others’ brains out without you.”

You look at Sana, who is standing just behind Momo, and see that she has the stern, serious look about her usually cute features. Your gaze returns to Momo, whose face is all business.

“Okay,” you say finally, your voice filled with equal parts anticipation and dread.

Almost immediately after the word leaves your mouth, Momo turns and places a deep kiss on Sana’s lips.

The action takes the younger girl by surprise, her eyes widening slightly at the sudden, brash movement, but it only takes a couple of seconds before she eases into the kiss, her arms wrapping around Momo’s neck as the older girl’s arms wrap around her own waist. Their lips press and crash against each other as though they are old lovers, passionate and intense, yet still soft and considerate.

Momo is slightly more dominant than younger girl, and her hands have begun to roam Sana’s body. The first article of clothing to hit the floor is the pink leather jacket Sana has worn all afternoon, as Momo pushes it over her shoulders and throws it a few feet away. Soon after her hands are wandering again, and they raise the hem of the thin white turtleneck Sana is wearing, allowing her questing hands access to the small of the Japanese girl’s back.

The move spurs Sana to reciprocate, and she runs her hands through Momo’s hair, the brunette strands running through her fingers as Sana cradles the back of Momo’s head. All the while the two are kissing, and you notice that they have turned so that Sana’s back is now to you and Momo is facing you. Knowing that your eyes are glued to the both of them, Momo takes the moment to bite Sana’s lower lip, before giving you a look with half-lidded eyes that were wrought with passion. After she captures your gaze she makes sure you see her tongue enter Sana’s mouth, before she finally closes her eyes and returns her full attention to her make out partner.

You shuffle your hips on the couch, as the first vestiges of arousal begin to stir your loins and send blood to your nether regions.

Momo’s wandering hands have found their way to Sana’s ass - the younger girl breaks their kiss to let a wordless sound of passion and surprise escape her lips, and Momo takes the opportunity to dive into that crook of Sana’s neck - she immediately finds, however, that Sana’s turtleneck sweater is impeding her progress, and the hands that were squeezing and fondling the younger girl’s ass reach for the hem of the white turtleneck and begin drawing it up and over the girl’s head. Momo tosses the garment away, as if she is determined to spread Sana’s clothing all over the room.

Sana is wearing a black lace bra underneath. In another bold move, Momo grasps Sana’s hips and turns her around, so that Sana is now facing you. You are immediately aware of the red blush all over the younger girl’s cheeks, one that only intensifies now that she is facing you in her current state of undress.

Momo has not ceased her assault on Sana, and her hands play with the soft skin on her flat stomach before coming up her body and giving her right breast a squeeze through her lace bra, eliciting yet another gasp of equal parts surprise and pleasure from the younger girl’s lips. Momo makes sure she makes eye contact with you again, and you watch as she gives you a devilish smile before she dives back into Sana’s neck, sucking and licking the soft, pale skin she finds there.

Sana turns her head so that she can kiss Momo, and Momo accepts the invitation. From this angle you can clearly see as their tongues duel with each other; you also see the pleasure written all over Sana’s features as Momo plays with her body. The older girl’s hands have drifted lower, deftly undoing the belt and buckle of Sana’s skinny jeans before slowly drawing down the zipper. Soon her hands are drawing the tight garment down Sana’s full hips, exposing more and more of the girl’s soft, smooth skin.

Eventually Sana is able to get her jeans off, and she kicks them away, clad now only in her underwear.

“You need to take your clothes off too,” Sana says to Momo, a soft, teasing smile on her lips.

Almost immediately, Momo almost rips off her sweater, revealing the simple red bra she is wearing beneath. Sana almost giggles in surprise at how little it took to get the older girl to undress, and she takes a second to gaze longingly over her own shoulder at Momo’s firm, sculpted abs and the round, full breasts above them.

Momo’s devilish smile hasn’t left her lips, however, and presses herself once more against Sana’s back while she continues her assault on the younger girl’s neck. Sana leans her head back to allow Momo better access, and Momo uses her kisses to distract Sana from the fact that she is reaching between their bodies to undo the clasp of Sana’s bra.

Momo brings both hands up the front of Sana’s body, palms pressed flat against warm, smooth, creamy skin, and cups both of the younger girl’s breasts with her hands. As she does so, Sana’s unbuckled bra gives way.

The gasp that escapes Sana’s mouth is one of pure pleasure as Momo fondles her breasts for the first time, giving the small but firm mounds a gentle squeeze before she softly lets her thin fingertips play across Sana’s nipples.

Sana, impatient as always, somehow finds the presence of mind to remove the bra altogether from her body, drawing the cups forward and away from her and Momo and allowing the intimate garment to fall to the floor to join the rapidly increasing pile of women’s clothing gathering there. She also finds the time to lock eyes with you, now topless, her eyes and cute features wracked with pleasure and passion as the older woman behind her fondles her breasts and kisses her neck.

Momo’s continues to assert her dominance over Sana, at least for the time being, as her right hand slowly, achingly slowly, makes its way downward, until it reaches the waistband of the simple black lace panties Sana is wearing. After spending a long second or so there, she reaches further, the tips of her slim fingers questing below the thin cotton.

When they reach a certain point the gasps and and soft sounds escaping Sana’s lips make way for a full moan of pleasure as Momo’s fingertips finally reach her most intimate parts. The second Sana moans, Momo locks her eyes with you with “look what I’ve found” written all over her face, her lips still locked in that devilish smile.

Momo refuses to cease her assault on the younger woman’s body, and with her left hand she draws down the waistband of Sana’s panties until the thin, ridiculously tiny slip of fabric is halfway down the younger girl’s hips, giving her more than enough access to her most intimate of areas.

You watch as Momo’s middle finger disappears between Sana’s legs, the rest of her hand covering your view - but the look on Sana’s pleasure-wracked face tells you all you need to know regarding what that middle finger is doing.

“Look how fucking hot she is, baby,” Momo says, her words dripping with devilish intent, “she’s so fucking wet.”

Sana lets her loudest moan yet escape her lips - the sudden thrust and twist of Momo’s wrist tells you that she has penetrated the younger girl with her fingers.

“And she’s tight too,” Momo adds.

You are squirming now in your seat as the full erection in your pants strains painfully against your clothing. You aren’t squirming nearly as much as Sana, however, whose hips and waist are moving in circular motions in rhythm with Momo’s fingers inside her.

“Did you like fucking her?” Momo asks, her voice soft over Sana’s shoulder, “Was she tight and wet for you?”

Momo’s ring finger has disappeared between Sana’s legs as well - and you know full well it has joined her middle finger inside the younger girl’s body. Sana’s legs have turned to jelly, and you notice that she has begun to lean her back heavily on Momo’s upper body in an attempt to stay upright. Your gaze leaves the action between her legs to roam up her body, past her flat stomach and alluring breasts to her face, those cute, innocent features twisted and wracked by pleasure and lust. Sana’s eyes are locked on yours, her eyes half-lidded with pleasure, her mouth forming a perfect “O” as wordless sounds of pleasure leave her lips.

“She’s so tight, baby. And she’s fucking drenched. I can’t imagine how you lasted very long fucking her.”

It all quickly becomes too much for the younger girl to handle - the fact that she is almost naked, being fingered from behind by a gorgeous woman, all while standing in front of a man who had fucked her hard mere days before and was mere minutes away from doing so again - and it threatens to overwhelm her senses.

“Momo, I… Momo-” Sana says quickly, as though she is barely able to form the words, “Momo, I’m going to… Momo…”

“Do you want him to fuck you again, Sana? Do you want that thick cock pounding your pussy?”

Sana’s only response is a long, passionate moan, the pleasure threatening to overwhelm her. She is suddenly unable to form words with her mouth - every sound that escapes her is a moan of pleasure.

“Did you like riding his dick? Did you like getting fucked in front of the window?”

Sana squirms, her eyes shutting as she moans softly, as if she were suddenly ashamed of how quickly and completely she had allowed Momo to dominate her body and manipulate it to the edge of orgasm. The self-restraint lasts only a second, however, as Momo moves her left hand to cup Sana’s left breast from behind, the index finger and thumb capturing her hardened nipple and giving it a soft squeeze. Momo locks eyes with you, her face all devilish intent.

“Did you like cumming in this pussy?”

Almost as if on cue, Sana lets out what is almost a scream, her legs spasming as an orgasm wracks her body. Momo loses control of her for a moment, but thankfully she is able to keep the younger girl upright, wrapping her left arm around her shaking torso as Sana gives in fully to the pleasure radiating from between her legs.

For several long seconds Sana writhes in pleasure in Momo’s arms, her legs threatening to give out beneath her. Momo holds her softly, keeping her standing as the younger girl’s orgasm finally subsides, her skin flushed and pink as she regains her senses.

Momo smiles devilishly at you from over Sana’s shoulder, as if asking you whether you liked the little show she had just given you. Your gaze returns to the younger woman in her arms, still somewhat breathless - but then you find the same devilish look appear on her features as well.

In a quick movement that Momo was not ready for, Sana turns and, putting both of her palms on Momo’s shoulders, pushes the older girl onto the soft bed behind her. As Momo falls onto the bed, Sana bends over and removes the moist panties she still had around her thighs - and she tosses them into your lap. She bites her lip softly as she does so, and you find yourself wondering once again at how such a sexual animal could reside within such an innocent looking exterior.

Sana returns her attention to Momo, whom she quite literally pounces on - like a cat, she climbs onto the bed on top of the older girl. You take a moment to admire Sana’s long, graceful legs and her full, round ass as she bends over the bed - but most alluring of all is the glistening flesh between her legs, and the trails of moisture that have begun to trail from her thighs.

Momo is not one to let herself be taken advantage of, and she meets Sana halfway, their mouths crashing together as the younger girl climbs on top of her. Thankfully, Momo has fallen onto the bed in such a way that her side is facing you, allowing you a perfect view as Sana breaks their kiss and begins to place passionate kisses on Momo’s neck. Momo turns her face to look at you, and now it is her turn to have the waves of pleasure wash over her features.

She lets out a soft gasp as Sana reaches an especially sensitive part of her neck, and the gasp gets louder as Sana moves downward, eventually reaching the older girl’s cleavage. Without any hesitation at all Momo raises her torso slightly and reaches behind her to undo the clasp of her bra, removing it from her body and flinging it away to be forgotten for the rest of the night.

Sana wastes little time, indulging herself almost immediately on the older girl’s flesh as she bends her neck down and suckles one of Momo’s breasts, her entire mouth enclosing the tip of her left breast and sucking softly, her tongue playing around the stiffening nipple. Sana reaches up her left hand to play similarly with Momo’s right breast. A long, passionate moan escapes Momo’s throat.

Momo’s face once again turns to face you as she locks eyes with yours, her eyes half-lidded and her beautiful features awash with pleasure. It’s a face that you have seen before, but to see it now, and seeing that it was another beautiful woman who was driving her to such heights of pleasure, was ridiculously arousing. She cradles Sana’s head in her hands as the younger girl switches to suckle her right breast as she fondles the left softly in her hand.

With gentle hands, the older girl pushes the younger one’s head downwards - the message is clear, and with all the impatience of a ravenous animal, Sana undoes the button and zipper of Momo’s denim shorts before almost ripping them off her body. You notice that Sana has taken off Momo’s panties right along with her shorts - Minatozaki Sana, as you’ve come to know, did not know the meaning of the word “patience” in bed.

Sana dives right in, so to speak, plunging her head between Momo’s pale, creamy thighs, her face disappearing and leaving a cute bun of black and purple hair poking out between the older girl’s legs. You can tell from the movement of her head that she has given Momo a long, slow lick from bottom to top - as she reaches the very top of Momo’s pussy the older girl lets out a long, drawn out sigh that she didn’t know she was holding in.

“Fuck…” Momo says, the swear word almost a prayer on her lips, her eyes opening at the end of the word as if she had just had an epiphany.

Sana has taken this to mean she is doing the right thing, and she repeats the action several more times, each time eliciting a similar reaction from the older girl, before settling into a rhythm.

From your position Momo’s right thigh is blocking your view of Sana’s work, but the pleasure written all over Momo’s face is all the evidence you need to convince you that the younger girl knew what she was doing. Every upward motion of Sana’s head is accompanied by a soft gasp or moan from the older girl, Momo’s eyes opening and closing intermittently. When they are open, however, they are locked on yours, a pleasured, almost pleading look on her face.

“Sana…” Momo says, “Sana, I want to suck his cock.”

Sana raises her head from between Momo’s flushed thighs, and you are aroused beyond words to see her mouth and chin are glistening with Momo’s juices.

“Then suck his cock,” she says, as plainly as if she were telling Momo the time of day. The suggestive look she has written on her features betrays the plainness of her tone, however, and she licks her lips of Momo’s juices and gives you a wicked look out of the corner of her eyes before bending her face and continuing her work between Momo’s thighs.

“Come here, baby,” Momo says, “Let me… oh! Fuck, that feels good…”

Momo is unable to finish her sentence, but you understood her fully, and you rise from the couch, taking care to place Sana’s discarded panties back onto your seat before moving towards Momo’s position on the bed. You are both fully aware of the massive bulge in your pants, and as you reach arm’s length Momo reaches out with her right hand to caress it through the fabric of your jeans.

“Take this off,” she says softly, the last word turning into a sigh of pleasure as Sana continues to eat her out.

With admirable patience you slowly undo your belt before unbuttoning your jeans and unzipping them - you wanted to tease the girl a little bit, after all, but the pleading look in her eyes convinces you not to linger too long, and within a couple of seconds your jeans and boxers are halfway down your thighs and your rigid cock is inches away from Momo’s face.

Momo grasps it with soft fingers and you let an involuntary breath escape your lips as her skin finally touches yours after an entire afternoon’s worth of teasing - and internally you gird yourself for the pleasure that is to come.

Momo gives you a look that is simultaneously lustful and vulnerable, and you take a moment to allow your gaze to wander, down past her naked, toned body, to the black and purple haired head nuzzled between her thighs, and the equally naked girl between her legs - you let your eyes roam over the female flesh before you, the curves and valleys and peaks and angles, and you wonder if there were anywhere else in the world you would rather be.

You have built a strong friendship with Hirai Momo, and the two of you have had your share of passionate, erotically charged moments together, but to see her here, lying naked on a bed with another woman between her legs pleasuring her and with your cock in her hand, only elevated the desire you had for her. You knew at that moment that she had never wanted her more.

After what seems like an eternity, but is in reality only a second or two, Momo breaks eye contact with you and literally pulls you closer by your cock. Once it is close enough, she envelops the head with her lips before running her tongue over the slit.

You let out a gasp you didn’t know you were holding as Momo wastes little time beginning the blowjob in earnest, drawing more and more of your shaft into her mouth, her right hand pumping slowly back and forth at the base. You close your eyes as you allow the familiar feeling of Momo’s mouth and the pleasure it brings wash over you - but a moment later the familiar feeling is interrupted by a moan as Momo gasps in pleasure, sending sweet, wonderful vibrations onto your cock.

You are more disappointed than you were expected when Momo releases your cock from her mouth and lets out a long, sensual moan - you’d known her long enough, and slept with her enough times, to know that was the face she wore when she was approaching orgasm.

“I’m fucking close, Sana, I’m fuck- ahh! Fucking close… fuck…”

She returns her mouth to your cock, interrupting your blowjob intermittently to let out a soft moan - any annoyance at the interruptions is alleviated by the sight before you, however, and you let your gaze wander at the bountiful amount of naked female flesh in front of you.

“I’m fucking cumming, Sana… I’m gonna cum… fuck!”

Momo lets your cock flop from her mouth one last time before she arches her back, her other hand reaching down between her legs to grasp the back of Sana’s head. She locks eyes with you, intent to let you watch as she cums.

“I’m cumming!”

Momo arches her back further than you thought was possible or even comfortable as an orgasm wracks her body, and she writhes from head to toe as Sana mercilessly continues her work between the older woman’s legs, her bobbing head evidence of the long, slow vertical licks she is giving to Momo’s most intimate of places. Momo’s eyes shut as she throws her head back, her mouth open and letting out a soundless scream of pleasure.

Long seconds pass as Hirai Momo allows the orgasm to wash over her, her sweat lending her skin a sheen of shininess in the soft bedroom light, the flush of blood throughout her body lending a soft rose tint to her cheeks and thighs. Sana rises from her work between Momo’s legs, her chin and lips glistening - she takes a moment to wipe most of the moisture from her mouth before locking eyes with you and licking most of it off.

The look in her eyes can only be described as devilish as she descends on the still recovering Momo and kisses her deeply, her tongue still stained with the older woman’s juices as their tongues duel.

Momo, for her part, has maintained her grip on the base of your cock even throughout her orgasm, and seeing the male organ right next to her, Sana decides she too wants a piece of the action. She glances up, shooting you a sly look before kissing the very tip of your cock as cutely as she possibly could.

You are about to consider how she could possibly do something so adorable in circumstances that were so lewd, but your mind has little time to consider it as she promptly takes the rest of your cock into her mouth, her own left hand joining Momo’s at the base. She gives you two, three, four long sucks, her head bobbing back and forth, and you involuntarily move your hands to cradle her head, weaving your fingers through her black and purple hair.

Momo is not one to be outdone, and she has apparently recovered enough from her orgasm to once again be capable of movement. She squirms from beneath Sana until her nose is almost buried in your crotch, and you feel her soft pink tongue begin to play with your balls.

Your eyes have shut - although you aren’t quite sure when that happened - but you force your eyes open to look down at the scene that is unfolding around your crotch. You are half afraid of looking down, as you wonder if the sight might be a little bit too much for you, but you force your eyelids open, because you know it was literally a once in a lifetime sight that awaited you.

You can only see the top of Sana’s head, but the soft, wet velvet tightness of her mouth as it moves up and down the top half of your shaft is more than enough compensation for the fact that you can’t see her beautiful features as they work their magic on your cock. You are fortunate enough that Momo is on her back, however, and thus you can see most of her face as she licks the underside of the base and lower half of your shaft. Every now and then she darts her tongue out to caress your balls.

It is a sight that most men would kill to see, let alone to experience - two beautiful young women, both naked and pressed on top of each other, both doing their best to please you with their mouths simultaneously. A small part of your mind wonders how it were possible that you were still standing, as your knees were quite literally weak with pleasure.

It brings you a significant amount of disappointment, but suddenly Sana rises from the prone woman beneath her until she is upright and you are face to face. You waste no time bringing your mouth to hers, and she welcomes your tongue with her own as you reach forward to embrace her, your hands searching for and finding soft warm skin. You give her ass a squeeze, causing the corners of her lips to stretch into a smile even as you continue to make out.

Sana breaks the kiss and brings her lips to your ear.

“Come fuck me.”

With that she lies back down onto the bed, and Momo, for her part, makes way for her. Sana lies down on her back on the bed and you move forward slightly between her spread legs.

You have always been one to savor the moments before the first penetration, when you can tease a woman before entering her, but this is not one of those moments.

Hirai Momo won’t let you have that moment, as she reaches down and grips your shaft before placing it right at Sana’s entrance. Sana’s pussy is drenched, and you feel the heat of it on the tip of your shaft.

“Fuck me,” Sana says, louder than perhaps she was expecting, “fuck me now.”

The pleading evident is in the tone of her voice. The young woman is squirming in anticipation, her hands on her thighs spreading them apart in a gesture of invitation.

You are not one to leave a woman waiting, and with one smooth, slow thrust, you enter Minatozaki Sana, your cock parting her soft, wet, warm walls as you finally make your way inside her.

You take a split second to enjoy the sensation as you bury yourself to the hilt inside of Sana, savoring the look of pure pleasure that has washed over the gorgeous young woman’s face, before you begin to withdraw your cock. Within seconds you have settled into a steady rhythm, your cock plunging in and out of the young woman as the bed creaks softly in protest.

For a few precious seconds you almost forget that Hirai Momo is there as well, but she isn’t one to be forgotten, and she rises to crush your mouth with hers in a torrid kiss, her tongue plunging into your mouth even as your cock plunges into Sana. The sensations are almost too much - Momo’s soft tongue in your mouth, moving wildly, skimming across your teeth; her hands pressed against the back of your skull, entwined in your hair; the soft skin of Sana’s thighs as you grip them, her own hands squeezing yours; the gasps and moans coming from the young woman’s throat with each thrust into her willing body; and most intense of all, the feeling of soft, warm, wet silk wrapped around your cock as you fuck her.

Momo ends the kiss and she looks down at the scene beneath her as Sana’s body rocks back and forth on the bed. You follow her gaze, and savor the sight of Sana’s bouncing breasts as her slim form is rocked by each thrust.

“Take his dick, you slut,” Momo says sharply, the lewdness of the comment striking both you and Sana, “take it.”

Momo brings her mouth to your left ear.

“You like fucking her, baby? You like that tight pussy squeezing your cock? You like making her moan?”

“Fuck yes.”

“Then fucking pound her pussy, baby.”

You aren’t one to refuse such an order, and you increase the speed and depth of your thrusts, eliciting increasingly louder moans of pleasure from Sana as lean forward somewhat in an effort to enter her as deeply as you can. You bring her legs up until the back of her knees are cradled by the bend of your elbow, her feet dangling in the air, shaken with each thrust into their owner’s willing body.

“Fuck!” Sana says, the curse word being by far the most common word spoken so far, “fuck that feels so good!”

Momo is content to watch you fuck Sana for a minute or so, but even she cannot bear to stay away from the action for every long. Even as you continue to plunge in and out of Sana’s warm, tight pussy, Momo climbs on top of the younger woman so that she is straddling Sana’s body, her full, round ass and toned back now dominating your field of view.

You reach forward, almost instinctively, and squeeze a handful of Momo’s right ass cheek. Momo leans down and captures Sana in a soft kiss before diving into the crook of the moaning woman’s neck.

“It’s my turn,” Momo says, looking over her shoulder at you, “fuck me. Fuck me right now.”

You were being the kind of orders any man would love to hear, and you weren’t about to disappoint. You look down and watch as you give Sana one last hard, deep thrust, before withdrawing your cock from her tightly grasping pussy to find it shiny and glistening with her juices. Then, raising your hips slightly whilst pressing down on the small of Momo’s back to find the right angle, you slide your hard shaft into Hirai Momo’s pussy.

Brunette hair flies backward as Momo throws her head back in pleasure at the feeling of penetration, and you gasp at the wonderful change in feel from Sana’s pussy to Momo’s. Sana was tight, almost unbearably so - Momo was not as tight but made up for it by being extremely warm and wet.

Sana is disappointed by the abrupt end to your fucking, but she is more than contented by the body of the older woman straddling her, and she contents herself with the pair of breasts dangling in front of her, taking one of Momo’s nipples into her mouth whilst playing with the other with a free hand.

“Damn… fuck, fuck me like that. Baby, that feels so good,” Momo says as you settle into a comfortable rhythm fucking her from behind, “fuck me hard. Fuck me like you fucked her.”

You increase your pace slighty, your wet shaft plunging in and out of Momo’s body in a quickening pace - you were worried somewhat that setting such a fast rhythm so quickly might hurt her, but if it hurt she didn’t show any outward signs of it.

Sana adjusts her position from beneath Momo - now that she didn’t have to be on her back to allow you access to her, she shuffles her body so that she is leaning on her elbows on the bed, her face at level with Momo, who is on her hands and knees. She wastes little time in kissing the older woman, which proves difficult initially as her body is rocked back and forth by your thrusts, but eventually Momo is able to absorb your thrusts enough to maintain a kiss. Their tongues continue the duel they have been fighting all evening. The sight in front of you is intoxicating - your wet shaft plunging in and out of Momo’s pussy, her round, firm ass shaking with each thrust, her naked body covered with a sheen of sweat, all while she makes out with Sana.

Sana breaks the kiss, and presses her mouth to Momo’s ear, ostensibly to whisper into it, but she ensures that the words that escape her mouth are clearly loud enough for you to hear.

“He came in me,” the younger girl says, “it felt so hot, being filled up with his cum. Does he cum in you when you fuck? Do you like his cum in your pussy?”

“I love it when… oh!” Momo replies, your thrusts interrupting her mid-sentence and turning her syllables into passionate growls as her body rocks back and forth, “I love it when he cums inside me. Like he did… when… ahh! When he fucked me... for the third time... the morning before he fucked you.”

A look of jealousy, tinged with a slight bit of anger, washes over Sana’s features at Momo’s revelation, and she decides to get back at the older woman straddling her by reaching around and spanking her firm, toned butt, even as it is rocked by your thrusts.

Momo lets out a shriek, and a stream of syllables escape her mouth, some Japanese, but mostly English. Her pussy is almost unbearable, all tight and wet and hot around you.

You need to slow down - you wanted to extend this experience as much as possible, and you knew that if you kept going at your current pace it would end before you wanted.

You grasp Momo’s ass with both hands as you continue to plunge in and out of her body, but eventually you ease her forward until your cock leaves her entirely. Momo lets out a gasp that is almost angry in its tone, and she reaches back with a hand to grasp your cock, ready to thrust it back into her body - but you have already moved away.

With more calmness than you thought you had, you slip your jeans and underwear off - thankful to finally be rid of clothing - and lie down on the bed next to the two naked, panting young women.

“Come ride my dick, Momo.”

Momo moves quickly, almost cat-like, straddling you before reaching between her legs and taking your slick, wet shaft in her right hand. Before either you or Sana have a chance to react, she has already eased her body down, and you are savoring once more the sensations of her body as you re-enter her pussy.

She was done with foreplay, done with extending the experience - she wanted to cum on your cock, and she wanted to cum now.

With the experience she has gained from the past several months of experience with you, she begins to ride your cock, her hips moving expertly as they flex up and down and back and forth, rubbing and thrusting and grinding her pussy onto your cock. For a second earlier, while you were fucking Sana, you forgot that Momo had existed - now it was Sana’s turn to momentarily be forgotten as the young woman riding your cock dominates your attention.

Sana isn’t one to be forgotten for long either, and the hands that snake around Momo’s torso to capture her bouncing breasts remind you that she is still there, still wanting to be a part of this intense experience. You watch as Sana captures Momo’s nipples with her thumbs and forefingers, teasing the already hardened nubs to full stiffness.

“I’m gonna cum soon,” Momo says, almost matter-of-factly, as though it were something inevitable that were going to happen, like the sun setting at the end of the day, “I’m gonna cum. I’m gonna cum so hard on your dick, baby,” she says, glancing down at you with the face of a woman on the brink of orgasm.

Sana hears all this, and pulls back on Momo’s breasts until her back is pressed against her chest, her own breasts pressed against the older woman’s sweat-slicked back.

“Cum for him, Momo,” Sana says, “cum for both of us. Let us watch you cum.”

Momo lets out another sharp moan as she does just that - the young woman’s world shatters as an orgasm overtakes her senses, and she throws her head back against Sana’s shoulder as she cums, her entire body becoming taut and tight as she allows the waves of her second orgasm of the evening course throughout her willing body. Her pussy tightens around your cock and for a split-second you come close to cumming yourself, but you find the strength you need to fight off the orgasm building in your loins.

You watch as the older woman of the two is wracked by pleasure, her face flushed a darker pink than it already was, her hands digging, claw-like, into your shoulders as she searches for something, anything to grasp. Sana’s hands have not left Momo’s breasts, although she has ceased pinching her nipples, content with merely cradling the soft mounds of flesh. Sana plants soft kisses on the older girl’s neck and shoulders as she comes down slowly from her orgasm.

“It’s my turn, Momo. I haven’t cum on his dick yet.”

A measure of reality returns to the older girl, and she smiles as she slowly rises and lifts her body from your cock, her glistening pussy dripping a few drops of her juices onto your crotch as she finally lets you leave her body.

Minatozaki Sana, true to her impetuous nature, ensures your cock was not outside a pussy for long.

With a quickness and aggressiveness that impresses both you and Momo, Sana moves into a reverse cowgirl position, her back facing you, her round, full ass and thighs braced in the air for a moment as she reaches down with her hand and ensures you are at the right angle. With no pretense or preparation, she slams her body down, driving your cock into her body to the hilt.

Sana lets out a gasp that is equal parts pleasure and relief, as if every moment your cock spent away from her pussy was painful and she was just now being relieved of that pain. She begins to grind her body up and down, sending your cock plunging in and out of her body with a rhythm that surprises you. It appeared all three of you were now past the point of savoring things - past the point of wanting to prolong the experience. There was only one thing left for you and her to accomplish, and that was to join Momo in having orgasmed.

You are more than content with watching Sana throw her pussy up and down onto your cock, and from this position you have a perfect view of your shaft as it slides in and out of her body, the younger girl’s full, round ass bouncing up and down with each entry and exit. The tight wetness of her body is more than enough to bring you to orgasm in a minute or so, but you wanted more than just that - you wanted an experience that only the three of you could have.

You press forward on the small of Sana’s back, and she takes it as a hint that you want to fuck her on her hands and knees - she eases herself off your cock and gets on her hands and knees, preparing herself for you to take her from behind. You rise to your knees behind her and give her a firm slap on the ass, savoring the sight of her full butt cheeks rippling with the impact. You grasp your cock with your right hand before you re-enter her body, savoring the tight ring of her entrance and the way it tightly grasps every inch of your cock as you penetrate her.

Not wanting simple doggystyle sex, however, you reach forward to Sana’s shoulders and pull her back towards you, until her torso is almost upright whilst you continue to fuck her - thankfully you are endowed enough to maintain significant penetration whilst in this position.

Momo takes the hint and realises the opportunity you have given her - she moves so that she is on her knees and facing Sana - and the three of you are now upright on your knees on the bed as you fuck Sana from behind, the younger girl’s body sandwiched between you and Momo.

The intimacy of the new position strikes all three of you hard, the proximity of your warm, sweaty bodies creating an intense heat that only increases the passion that has built up all day between the three of you.

“Oh fuck, this is so good,” Sana says, collapsing forward so that she is practically leaning on Momo for support, “You fuck me so good. Fuck. Fuck me!”

You intensify your thrusts in response, trying to drive yourself deeper and deeper into the younger woman’s pussy, pounding her from behind even as Momo supports and fondles her from the front as their firm breasts mash against each other. From this position the tip of your cock was pressing against the front of her pussy, the moans and gasps leaving her throat proof of the pleasure that each thrust was generating in her young body.

Momo locks eyes with you as you fuck the younger girl between your bodies, and you hold her gaze for a moment as the intensity of the moment you are experiencing together hits the both of you. Here you both were, good friends in a foreign city, having a threesome with a woman you had both met just days before, her body trapped between the both of yours - it went beyond sex, and had become an experience.

You feel the need to kiss her, and you reach forward with your left hand to grasp the back of her head before bringing your own head forward and mashing your lips against hers in a deep, passionate kiss.

“Fuck my pussy.. Fuck me… fuck me… fuck me! I’m cumming!” Sana announces, the sharply increasing volume of her moans tearing you both from your reverie. The tightness around your cock increases significantly until in one bright moment Sana cums, the younger woman between the both of you finally succumbing to the waves of pleasure emitting from her pussy.

It’s Sana’s turn to lose control, and Momo’s turn to support her as she does so, embracing the young woman’s quivering body and sandwiching it between yours and hers, allowing the waves of pleasure wracking the young woman’s body to run their course.

You slow your thrusts in and out of Minatozaki Sana’s body as she cums - firstly because you didn’t want to hurt her, and secondly because having had both women cum on your cock had brought you dangerously close to your own orgasm.

“It’s my turn,” you say softly, and both Momo and Sana give you their attention as you slowly, softly reach down and withdraw your cock from Sana’s body.

A long couple of seconds pass as you stay on your knees, contemplating the possibilities for your orgasm, but Momo is quick to assure you of what they want.

“Cum for us, baby. Cum wherever you want.”

Sana has collapsed in Momo’s arms, but she has recovered enough from her orgasm to look up at you with half-lidded eyes and give you a soft nod.

“Yes,” the younger woman says softly, her voice apparently hoarse from her loud moans, “give us your cum.”

The thought of plunging yourself into one of the warm, wet orifices in front of you and thrusting until you came was appealing, but doing so would limit the experience to just one of them - you wanted both of them to experience it.

With that in mind you lie back onto the bed, and both women realize what you have in mind, both of their young, firm bodies moving until they are both between your legs, their faces level with your cock.

Momo takes advantage of the still-recovering Sana and grasps your cock with a hand before wrapping her lips around the tip and giving your shaft a long, hard suck from tip to base, your cock entering the familiar but no less pleasurable wet cave of her mouth and touching the very back of her throat. Sana contents herself with licking the base of your cock, until Momo lifts her head off your shaft - at that point Sana takes over, steering the shaft towards her waiting mouth and giving you a suck of her own, her cute, flushed cheeks pressing inward with suction as she takes her turn.

The sight of both women sharing a blowjob immediately brings you to the brink.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you say, and just barely, as you are almost at the point where forming coherent words is a challenge.

“Cum for us,” Momo says softly, every syllable heavy with desire and lust. She jerks your shaft with her right hand whilst Sana fondles your hanging balls, their faces pressed together in front of your tip.

Almost as if on cue, your orgasm finally hits you, and you feel cum rushing from your balls, through your shaft, and finally erupting from the tip to land on Momo’s cheek, a long stream of semen hitting her soft, flushed skin. The second stream lands on Sana’s jaw, and the younger woman almost reflexively darts out her tongue to collect it. The third lands almost squarely on Momo’s open tongue.

You try to force out every drop, but you don’t see where they land as at that point your eyes close involuntarily as you lean your head back and allow the orgasm to run its course, content to have finally reached the moment you have been waiting all afternoon for. You are content to lie there, your body weightless, the orgasm washing through your body and limbs.

After what seems like an eternity you force your eyes open to look down between your legs at the faces of two gorgeous young women, their faces written with passion and lust and satisfaction, their skin painted with warm semen and glistening sweat.

The next few minutes are a bit of a blur, as all the pent up tension and exhaustion of the entire day finally hits you all at once. You watch as Momo and Sana share a soft kiss with one another, tongues finally ending their duel with a soft caress. Momo leaves for the bathroom and returns with a hand towel that they both use to clean themselves off.

Eventually you are aware of Sana cuddling up beside you as you lay on your back, her head soft on your shoulder and arm splayed across your chest, her soft, warm breasts pressed against your side. Momo has curled up into a ball on your other shoulder, her back facing you as she decides to use your arm for a body pillow. Sweat is still glistening on her toned back. All three of you are panting heavily as you recover from the intensity of the experience.

You sigh contentedly as you savor the feeling of both warm young women’s bodies pressed up against yours, and before you know it, the welcome bliss of sleep overtakes you.

#kpop fanfic #kpop fanfiction #kpop smut #pov smut #reader insert #male reader #twice #sana #twice sana #minatozaki sana #momo #twice momo #hirai momo

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not-close-to-straight · 4 years

Text

More Than Words (Eighteen)

MTW MASTERLIST

*******************

One hundred days and counting…

“I didn’t know it would be this easy.” Peter stretched out sideways on the bed, feet kicking idly at the air on one side, arms reached out to touch the floor on the other. His hair was long enough to fall into his eyes now, and the Omega blew at his bangs half heartedly, making only the barest effort to keep them from tickling his nose. “Did you?”

“Sweetheart.” Wade peeked at his mate from over an armful of logs. “Pretty sure everything is easy when you’re lounging around lookin’ pretty all day instead of doing chores.”

“Hmmm.” Peter rolled onto his back so he could watch his mate at the fireplace. The upside down view did nothing to ease his migraine but it gave him great leverage to leer at the Alpha’s butt, so he grimaced over the headache and kept right on ogling. “Pretty sure I’d be happy to help if my bossy mate hadn’t ordered me to stay in bed. I promise I’m good for more than just looking pretty.”

“I know you’re good for more than looking pretty.” Wade got to work filling the kindling box, looking up only long enough to smile at his Omega. “But I also know that a few days ago you weren’t hardly breathing through your cough, and that scared th’hell outta me. I’d much rather do all the chores and let you stay over there being pretty than risk you getting sick again, Pete.”

“I’m not going to get sick again.” The Omega took an exaggeratedly deep breath, inhaling noisily and letting it out overly loud. “See? No cough.”

Wade’s cedar scent dipped with worry, and Peter scrambled up to sitting, holding out his hand for the Alpha and tipping his head to trill coaxingly. “M’fine, my mate. I promise.”

“We’ll see what the Doc says when he comes to check on you.” Wade grunted. “He was s’posed to be back up the hill yesterday--”

“--maybe he figured I was fine and didn’t need a last check up.”

“--but until he listens to your breathing and tells me everything is fine, you’ll keep your ass right there on that bed and let me do the work.” the Alpha finished. “Not gonna let you get sick again, Omega.”

“Wade--”

“Pete.”

“Okay okay.” Peter fell backwards into the pillows and dragged the blankets up to his chin, hunkering down so nothing more than his nose and eyes peeked out from the quilts. “Better?”

“Better.” Wade kept chopping kindling but he ran his tongue over his fangs and smiled anyway, crooning approvingly at his mate. “Thank you.”

“Big tough Alpha.” Peter scoffed teasingly, “Gettin’ all fussy about his Omega staying in bed. This is the wild frontier, my love, I can’t stay bed ridden because of a cough. Omegas are expected to have babies and immediately go right back to choring, aren’t they? Pretty sure that’s what my history books told me.”

“Yes, Pete.” the Alpha said blandly. “I expect you to have a child at night and then immediately haul spring water from up the mountain the next morning. The wild frontier, Omega. That’s exactly what it’s like.”

“I knew it.” Peter whispered and this time his Alpha laughed a little. “Oh thank God, you still know how to laugh. I was starting to miss that sound.”

“I’ve been missing some of the sounds you make too, Pete.” Wade admitted, his smile sliding towards wolfish, and the Omega didn’t miss a beat when he replied, “You mean the sounds I make in bed, right? Like when I snore?”

“Yes.” the Alpha sighed like the idea pained him to his very soul. “Yes, I mean when you snore. I’ve been missing that sound specifically.”

“I knew it. I knew you missed my snoring.” Peter scrunched his nose in delight, but his expression mellowed softer as he whispered the same thought he’d had earlier-- “I didn’t know it would be this easy, my mate.”

“You gonna make me tease again you about how everything's easy when you’re laying around?” Wade piled kindling in the fireplace and dropped the rest in the nearby bin. “Cos I’m sure I could find another joke or dozen to--”

“I didn’t know it would be this easy to love you.” Peter blurted, and the Alpha went very still. “I mean-- I mean no, that’s not what I mean. I didn’t know it would be this easy to say I love you. I used to be scared of it and now-- now it’s the easiest thing in the world.”

“What um--” Wade cleared his throat, fiddling with a piece of wood so he wouldn’t have to look up at his mate. “What was scary about telling me you love me?”

“No, not you.” the Omega shook his head. “Not that, I mean I’ve been scared about saying those words forever but now I’m not. Does that-- do you know what I’m trying to say?”

“Pete, you’re saying a whole lotta things but not really saying anything at all.” Wade’s heart was tight in his chest, breath a little harsh as decades of insecurities reared their ugly heads, every fear he’d ever had about his skin and his bloody past and the differences between he and his mate rushing forward to lodge in his throat. Peter had been scared to love him? “So no, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Alright.” Peter drew his knees up under his chin, chewing at the inside of his cheek as he thought through his words. “Alright, it’s like this. I’ve read hundreds of romance novels, right? Literally hundreds and across all these genres and different plots and varying levels of--”

The Omega made a vaguely crude motion, blushing a little bit, “-- you know, varying levels of sex in them? And I’ve gone along with Gwen and Mary Jane to at least a million romantic comedies and I’ve always loved the more romantic fairy tales cos even though I never managed anything resembling romance, I still like to watch, right?”

It was plainly obvious that Wade wasn’t really following Peter’s train of though yet, but the Alpha nodded anyway with a slow, “...right?”

“Right. And all the books, all the movies, all the fairy tales?” Peter paused for effect. “They all end at ‘I love you’. It’s the climax of the story, the ultimate romantic ending. I’ve read through entire series or sat and watched hours worth of television and ‘I love you’ is always built up to be this huge deal! These super important words that you can only say at the end because ‘I love you’ means the story is over. All the adventures, the journey, it’s all over once ‘I love you’ is said because that’s the best, most important part of their relationship.”

“...okay.”

“I’ve been afraid my entire life that I would never find someone to say it to.” Peter’s dark eyes dimmed in remembered sadness. “I told you I’ve never had a real relationship, I’ve never had an Alpha outside my heat. I’ve never even really wanted to date. The only people I’ve ever loved have been family and friends and I used to be terrified that I’d go my whole life without finding someone else to say these ultra important, life defining words to.”

“And then.” the Omega sat up straighter in the bed, clutched the blankets tight in his fist. “Then I started to worry that I actually would find a person to say ‘I love you’ to, and they wouldn’t say it back. Or maybe they would say it but it wouldn’t be true and we’d split up. So many marriages end in divorce now, and you can chemically break bonds so there’s nothing to ensure those words actually mean anything at all! But everyone acts like without those words, without ‘I love you’, you’ll never be complete, that your story isn’t worth reading or watching or even really fulfilled until someone says it and I gotta tell you--”

Peter shook his head. “That sucks. That feeling? That-- that fear that you’ll never be complete? It sucks.”

Wade rocked back onto his heels, clasping his hands loosely between his knees and cocking his head curiously at his mate. “I still dunno what you’re trying to say, Pete.”

“Yeah, I’m doing a really bad job at this.” Peter pushed his hair out of his eyes and tried again. “I’m saying that my-- my whole life I thought I was probably doomed to be incomplete cos I couldn’t imagine saying ‘I love you’ to someone, I couldn’t imagine my life story just being over once that milestone was reached. No more adventures, no more goals or journeys. ‘I love you’ would be the end of that, because it’s always the end in the love stories.”

“But?” the Alpha prompted. “You don’t feel like that anymore?”

“Loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” Peter finally finished. “I didn’t have to think about falling in love with you, didn’t have to worry if it was real, and when I finally said the words, I realized it was sorta weird that we hadn’t said them before.”

Wade fully agreed with that, and the Omega trilled happily before continuing, “I love you my mate, and you love me, and it’s just words. Just one minute out of our day and our story isn’t over. ‘I love you’ wasn’t even a main event. This isn’t the last page in our book or the fade to black at the end of a movie or the most exciting moment we are going to have together.”

“Not even close.” Wade allowed and Peter whispered, “I can’t believe I used to be so scared of those words. Can’t believe I used to be scared my life would be incomplete if I never heard them.”

Wade pulled out his flint stone and lit the fire, poked and prodded at the kindling until the flame held steady then asked, “Would anything be different if we hadn’t said ‘I love you’ the other night? Would you feel any different?”

“No.” the Omega answered immediately. “No. It was nice to hear it, but it was just words, just something audible for what I already knew. I already knew you loved me.”

“Yeah, Pete. That’s cos ‘I love you’ is just words.” the Alpha finally stood up and wiped his hands down his pants, checking his palms for splinters before crossing the room to the bed. “But we’re mates. Bonded. Soon to be mated--”

Peter’s honeysuckle scent lifted bright with anticipation and Wade grinned, flashing curved fangs at his Omega. “-- and what we got is more than words, baby boy. Words aren’t even enough for it. That’s why ‘I love you’ isn’t scary, why it barely matters. More than words, Pete.”

Wade would never be over how pretty Peter was when he blushed, the way his freckles disappeared into pink and his smile stretched wide enough to be corny, and this time was no exception. Peter blushed and Wade did the only thing an Alpha could do when presented with his mate being so beautiful--

--bent and kissed the Omega until Peter was breathless and purring and trying to wiggle out of the blankets to throw both arms around his Alpha’s neck.

“Stay in bed.” Wade spread a hand across Peter’s hip to keep the Omega on the mattress. “Rest, Pete. You need to rest.”

“But I need some attention from my Alpha.” Peter countered, undoing the buttons at Wade’s collar and yanking clumsily at his shirt. “Especially since you were just real romantic with me. You can’t say things like that and then not take my clothes off. Stop doing chores and pay attention to me.”

“Omega, I am always paying attention to you.” Wade stilled his mate’s greedy hands and Peter pouted up at him. “You’re always on my mind, sweetheart. But until Bruce gives the okay--”

“--I’d rather be on your hands than on your mind.” Quick as a flash the Omega snatched at Wade’s hand and pushed it down to his own rear, giggling triumphantly when Wade instinctively groped at him. “See, isn’t that better?”

“You’re being ridiculous.” Wade couldn’t resist just one more quick grope, but then dragged his hand away and re-deposited Peter onto the blankets. “And absolutely bratty, which means you must be feeling better. When Bruce checks you out and say you’ve recovered all the way, I’ll pay all sorts of attention to you. But until then, I won’t have you getting worn out cos you can’t keep it in your pants.”

“Okay well what if I just get wet through my pants?” Peter asked seriously. “Does that-- does that count?”

“The mouth on you, Omega.” Wade tried hard not to laugh. “Guess you got over feelin’ shy when you’re horny, huh?”

“Definitely not so shy anymore.” the Omega finally relented and flopped onto his pillows. “Well if you aren’t going to kiss me, at least feed me? I’m hungry. What’s for lunch?”

“You know what’s for lunch.” Wade waggled non existent eyebrows at his mate. “Stew.”

“WADE!” Peter’s mouth dropped wide open. “You didn’t!”

“I absolutely did.”

“SHE WAS A WEE GOATY!” The Omega walloped Wade with a pillow, hitting the Alpha as hard as he could from a sitting position and then scrambling up to his knees to hit him again. “PRACTICALLY A LAMB! TELL ME YOU DIDN’T MAKE GOAT STEW!”

“Stop that.” Wade snatched a pillow with a huff and shoved it into Peter’s face “Of course I didn't cook the damn goat. It’s elk, Pete. Elk stew. Calm down.”

“On principal, I’m going to be avoiding any chunks of meat in the stew.” Peter sniffed and the Alpha retorted, “On principal you’re going to eat every bite cos you lost too much weight when you were sick and now you’re feeling bony.”

“Fine.” Peter eyed Wade suspiciously for a minute longer. “And I think you mean I’m feeling horny. And you know I hate that word so obviously it’s a serious condition.”

“I know you hate that word, and I appreciate you using it anyway.” Laughter and teasing aside, Wade bent low to leave a tender, nearly chaste kiss on Peter’s mouth. “My mate. All those other stories you read or watched or whatever might end with ‘I love you’, but ours doesn’t, alright? This is just our beginning. I promise.”

“Yeah, well I’m gonna hold you to that, Alpha.”

Peter waited until Wade had turned his back before sinking into the bed and quieting a whimper of relief.

The Omega was so tired these days and his mate was so worried, so it wouldn’t do any good to let Wade know how exhausted he was all the time, how the cold had settled in his bones like an ache and just never really went away.

Wade didn’t need to know that Peter’s fingers shook if he spent too much time writing, or that more than a few bites of food made his stomach hurt, or that his teasing and cajoling for a kiss wasn’t so much anticipation as it was desperation to be close, to be held and warm and safe.

Peter felt like time was slipping right through his fingers lately, faster and faster until the clock on their life together ran out. He didn’t know what that meant or how every thing would end but he could feel it looming all the same and the Omega was terrified.

Before all of this-- before the fall, before Wade had spent days at Peter’s bedside begging him to get better, before Bruce had whispered to Wade that maybe they needed to call Cable back-- before all of this, Peter had asked that their first time together be outside of heat. He wanted to remember everything about a night with Wade, didn’t want to be lost in a heat daze or pushed too far into mindlessness and miss out on the wonder of his mate.

But time was running out, the end creeping closer with each wheeze and cough the Omega tried to hide and every day the need circled lower in Peter’s core, centered heavier beneath his heart, cried out louder from his soul as every inch of his entire being clamored to complete their bond.

He needed to be stretched and filled by his Alpha, burning from fangs in his throat and clenching tight around a knot between his legs, needed to be screaming himself hoarse while his mate growled into his ear, needed bruises at his hips from being held so tight, and needed to be full, he needed to be full, he needed to be--

“Omega.”

Peter didn’t realize his eyes had closed until they snapped back open in response to Wade’s growl, and he bit back a gasp when he saw hazel eyes gone dark red with desire, hooked fangs dotted with crimson where Wade had bit through his bottom lip trying to force himself still.

The Omega’s back arched in instinctive response, knees falling open in a helpless reaction to the wash of possessive from his mate, greed and mine and mine jolting heavy through the dark licorice scent.

“Omega, what are you thinking about?” Wade licked at his fangs and Peter moaned like he could feel it. “Smell good, sweetheart, tell me what you’re thinking about?”

The Omega only whined in response to the display, tilted his head to bare the line of his throat, clutched at the blankets and whimpered, “I need you. Alpha I need you--”

The Alpha’s growl shook the floorboards and Peter swore he could feel it through the soles of his feet.

“I need you too. Soon, my mate. Soon.”

**************

One hundred one days and counting...

“You’re fine.” Bruce put his stethoscope away and spent another minute feeling along the glands at Peter’s throat for any swelling, down over his ribs for any additional bruising. “I don’t hear anything in your lungs, hows your cough?”

“Fine.” Peter started to say but his Alpha interrupted, “Still around, wacky Omega just thinks I don’t hear him secretly coughing.”

“Well, it’s not good to keep secrets from your mate.” Bruce pressed gingerly at the healed cut on Peter’s head. “And basically impossible when your mate is an Alpha, Wade can probably smell the sick in you still.”

“Smell the sick--” Peter shook his head. “You said I was fine.”

“I did.” the doctor acknowledged. “You’re fine, which means I’m not worried about an onset of pneumonia or any broken ribs from your fall. Nothing appears swollen and your color is almost back to normal. You’re fine, meaning you don’t need any additional medical care but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still sick. This sort of thing could linger for a while, you need to keep your activity limited and continue resting as much as possible.”

Wade made a thoroughly disgruntled noise, one Peter almost immediately copied and Bruce pinched at the bridge of his nose and sighed, “You are healthy enough to resume all activities but keep it less vigorous than you might have previously done, alright? I don’t mind house calls for emergencies but I’m not going to come up here cos neither you nor your mate listened to the doctor's orders and tried to break the bed frame.”

The Omega squeaked something wholly embarrassed and Bruce finally cracked a smile. “You’ll be fine, Pete. Wade, can I speak to you outside for a moment?”

“Oh, I can go outside.” Peter was off the bed before either of the other men could protest, taking Wade’s heavy jacket from the hook and bundling into it. “I promise I’m warm, my mate. I just want some fresh air. Please? You’ve barely left me off the bed for weeks, at least let me look at the stars a little.”

“Eddie is out there.” Bruce reminded him, and when Peter paused uncertainly, the Doctor clarified, “You’re in no danger with Eddie, Omega. But don’t go rushing out the door either. Slow steps, easy movements, alright? He’s fine, but even the most stable of Alphas jump and get growly when they are startled. Slow and easy.”

“Got it.” Peter waited until his Alpha met his eyes, and smiled. “Alright?”

“Go on, sweetheart.” Wade jerked his thumb towards the door. “Go get your fresh air.”

“I love you.” the Omega blew him a quick kiss and ducked out the door, and the moment it shut behind him Bruce asked--

“You haven’t mated with him yet? I thought nearly losing him would push you to hurry the bond.”

“Not yet.” Wade shook his head. “Soon, though. Can’t take the wait much longer.”

“This is how you lost Vanessa.” the word were mild but the Alpha still recoiled, still growled and Bruce clicked his tongue in sympathy. “This isn’t the same thing. Peter is not Vanessa, Wade.”

“No. he’s not.” the Alpha pulled a handful of bills from his pocket and showed them to the Doctor before dropping them in the black medicinal bag. “But Pete’s time is limited anyway. I had most of twenty years with Vanessa, I’ll be lucky to have most of six months with Pete. It hurts, Bruce.”

“I know it does.” Bruce tried to hand Wade back the money. “And I’m sorry.”

“Took me fifty years to stop missing Vanessa.” Wade took the money back, then shoved it immediately into the bag again. “Another twenty years to realize I’d finally stopped missing her. And when I lose Pete, will I have to do it all over again? Seventy years being alone before the universe sends me another mate so I can fall in love and then lose them too?”

“Some of us would love to have twenty years with our mate.” Bruce said quietly. “Some of us consider it a blessing to live long enough to love three mates.”

“It’s not a blessing, it’s a curse.” Wade looked away from the sadness written in the Doc’s face. “And I know you’re right, I know Cable needs to come back and take Peter to his own timeline so he can heal and continue on but I-- shit. Seventy years I grieved for Vanessa before finding love again. But in Peter’s world they don’t even scent match, they don’t believe in soulmates, they just date each other and fall in love and get married. How long will it be before he moves on from missing me? Or when Cable takes him back, will Peter even remember me? Will I be stuck in this timeline with all our memories while he lives in another with nothing?”

“... I don’t know the answer to those questions, Wade.”

“That’s alright.” the Alpha fell into a chair and buried his face in his hands. “I don’t think I’d want to know the answers anyway.”

*****************

Eddie was darker than the shadows, darker than the night sky, an unnatural stain in the gathering dusk and when Wade’s Omega stepped out from the cabin and onto the porch, they shifted further back into the trees and narrowed their eyes to watch.

The Omega was gorgeous, pretty eyes and soft soft skin and the sort of beauty Eddie wasn’t allowed to touch anymore. The Omegas in Haven ran from them, the children ducked away and stared from behind their mama’s skirts. The Alphas watched them, studied them, pretended not to jerk away from the scent of oil and danger and mess and Wade’s Omega--

--Wade’s Omega was the sort of beauty they weren’t allowed to touch anymore so Eddie clenched their fists until skin tore beneath their claws and blood pooled in their palms and forced themselves still.

“Eddie?”

They couldn’t stop their eyes from blinking wide, staring at the Omega in surprise. Was he-- was he talking to them?

“Eddie? Are you out here?” Peter gathered the coat tighter around himself and perched on the bottom step. “Bruce said you were out--”

The Omega sucked in a quick breath when Eddie shifted forward, when their deeper dark separated from the shadows and moved closer. “Oh. Oh there you are. Um. Hey.”

“You shouldn’t be out here, Omega.” Eddie hovered at the edge of the porch, right at the line where light and shadows met. “It’s cold. Go back inside.”

“I’m plenty warm.” The Omega shrugged as if he didn’t realize how much danger he was in. “I have my Alpha’s jacket. Aren't you cold though? You’re only wearing a long sleeve shirt.”

“We are never cold.” Eddie pulled themselves tighter together, a rattling sound like scales clicking into place filling the air as they hid the black away deeper and pushed closer towards human so they wouldn’t scare the Omega away. “What are you doing out here, Omega?”

“It’s just Peter.” The Omega Peter peered into the early evening gloom like he was trying to piece together a body connected to Eddie’s glassy eyes. “And I came out here to say thank you. Wade said you saved me, that he got busy on a project and didn’t realize I was gone. You found me and save me, right? Carried me up the mountain to the cabin and then went to get Bruce?”

“Yessss.” Eddie blinked until their eyes returned to normal, until they felt nearly real. “Yes, we did.”

“Well um--” Peter cleared his throat and smiled in their direction. “Thank you for saving my life. I wish I had a-- a gift for you or something, but Wade hasn’t let me leave the cabin in like two weeks so all I can say is thank you.”

Silence, because Eddie didn’t know how to respond to ‘thank you’ anymore than they knew how to respond to a willing smile.

But finally they stretched from the shadows, detached from the night and sat heavy on the other end of the porch. They needed plenty of distance between themselves and Wade’s mate, plenty of distance so they wouldn’t scare Peter. Nothing good would come of frightening the little Omega and Eddie didn’t want to scare him away, not again, not like they’d scared Peter the last time--

“Oh I’m sure it was my fault.” Peter laughed softly. “Wade warned me not everyone in Haven wanted me to ask them a thousand questions but you know what they say about curiosity and cats, right? No harm done.”

Eddie paused, confused, and Peter realized, “Oh. You didn’t know you said all that stuff about scaring me out loud. Should I have not answered?”

“Most days we only have each other to talk to.” Eddie struggled to enunciate the words, struggled to be sure they were purposefully speaking out loud this time. “We forget other people are listening.”

“You don’t talk to Bruce?” Peter hummed sympathetically. “Clint and Logan? My Alpha said all of you are friends, or that you were friends or that um--”

“Logan’s Alpha would drop me in pieces from the sky if I came near his mate.” The urge to smile was foreign to them, but the Omega was so earnest in his questions that Eddie almost couldn’t help themselves. “Clint is not afraid of us, but we are not allowed near his mate. We are not supposed to be too close to Omegas.”

“That seems awful.” Peter scented like lavender and honeysuckle and something lower Eddie recognized as Wade. He scented like truth but more importantly he didn’t scent afraid, and for the first time in a very long time, Eddie felt a little bit less horrifying.

“Wade isn’t nervous about you being around me.” Peter was still talking when Eddie tuned back into the fairly one sided conversation. “I don’t know if that’s because Bruce trusts you whole heartedly, or because you saved me or because he has known you so long but--”

“We are sorry for scaring you that night in Haven.” Eddie interrupted and Peter’s mouth clicked audibly shut in the night air. “You are not from here, you are not mutant but you are not a human that belongs so we thought you were like me, like us. We thought you would recognize us, so we jumped out at you, but you didn’t know us.”

“You thought I was like you?” Peter’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Really?”

“We are not mutant.” Eddie hated to say these things, to admit they weren’t all the things that made everyone else normal. “And we are not human. We do not belong, and neither do you. We thought you were the same and whenever we feel anything too strongly, we… we flicker. We blur. And we are sorry.”

“You--” Peter was obviously, visibly still stuck on Eddie thinking he was like them, but he cleared his throat and said softly, “You don’t have to apologize.”

Yes we do, it’s important. Eddie didn’t know if they said that out loud or not, but the mantra clamored through their mind all the same. Apologizing was important, it was important for others to hear, important to say so they knew what they’d done. So many things Eddie had done they could never apologize for, so now they apologized for everything.

Yes, we do.

“You don’t have to sit so far away from me.” Wade’s Omega was so honest, so unfiltered and Eddie didn’t know how to take it. “I’m not afraid of you. Come sit closer, the edge of the porch is super uncomfortable and I know I said I wasn’t cold before but seriously, it’s freezing and--”

“We aren’t supposed to touch.” Eddie whispered. “No no.”

“But I’m cold.”

“Go back inside.” Eddie was already moving, already inching across the porch closer to the pretty Omega cos they couldn’t resist-- they didn’t want to resist. Any second now Peter’s scent would burn horrified and he would leave but until then Eddie wanted to maybe be just a little close. “Go inside to your mate.”

Eddie waited for the Omega to run, but when they were too close to turn away, Peter only smiled encouragingly and that-- that gave them the courage to settle.

“...no one touches me but Bruce.” Eddie held out their hand slowly, fingernails lengthening to claws before shortening again, black coiling in their palm before fading away further up their arm. “Sometimes we miss-- we miss it. Omegas run away, we are not allowed to be close, never too close and we miss it. We aren’t supposed to touch.”

They weren’t supposed to touch, but they held out their hand anyway and waited for the Omega to pull away--

--but Peter took Eddie’s hand with out hesitating.

It was a clear cry for physical attention, not romantic, not fond, not what mated pairs would share, not even the kind Omegas gave to Alphas they trusted. Eddie was asking for basic human contact, the sort of casual touch one would receive on the street as someone else tried to pass, no more intimate than a hand shake or pat on the back and despite the scent of oil and anger, despite the way even the air felt thick around Eddie, Peter reached out and slid his fingers across their palm and clasped their hands tight together.

No hesitation.

“Oh.” Eddie shuddered, rolled, and black flickered across their skin. “Th--thank you. Sweet Omega. Thank you.”

“Can I ask you something?” Peter watched in fascination as Eddie’s nails lengthened to claws again before retreating. “You can say no. I always have a thousand questions to ask but you don’t have to answer anything.”

“Ask.” Eddie made a visible effort to pull the black back even further, his shoulders hunching and frame folding in on itself as if he were trying to hide. “Go ahead.”

“Bruce told me Cable brought him here to help you after--” Peter squeezed lightly at Eddie’s hand. “--after everything?”

“Everything.” A ripple through Eddie’s body. “Yes. Yes, that was when Bruce came.”

“Will you tell me how… how you became they?” Peter was practically whispering. “Because you are… you are them, right? Not just you. Not just Eddie.”

“We are Eddie.”

“Right. Of course. Sorry, I just--”

“We found each other in the forest.” Eddie smiled a little, too many teeth glinting in the light from the windows, their voice gone deep and fond. “I was hunting at Starfall Peak and found a rock covered in black. I touched it, and they swarmed up through me.”

“...they.”

“I thought I would die.” Eddie said softer. “It hurt, we hurt. We were hungry all the time. Fighting for my body, fighting for my mind and my soul. But Anne-- Anne helped me. We learned to be us, we learned to be together, to keep calm and hidden but when we lost Anne--”

Their fingers tightened too hard around Peter and the Omega trilled soothingly. “--when we lost Anne, we thought we would die all over again. Wanted to die all over again. Wanted to do terrible things so we-- so we did. Terrible things. And when the terrible things were over and we still wanted to die, we couldn’t. We-- we tried.”

“Eddie--”

“Cable stopped us.” Eddie said then. “First Cable. Then Bruce. Cable stopped us and Bruce saved us.”

“How did Bruce save you?”’Peter whispered, and Eddie whispered back—

“His monster is bigger than our monster. He saves us like Anne saved us and we– we love him very much.”

“You love him?” Peter shivered in the night wind and huddled further into the coat. “Do you love him like I love my mate?”

“We are different.” Eddie said slowly. “And terrible. We are different and terrible but Bruce is– is beautiful. Like you, Omega. You are beautiful too.”

Peter reached out carefully carefully and brushed his fingers over Eddie’s chin, swept through the loose curls around their ears and watched in fascination as the black in Eddie’s veins fled from his touch before rushing to fill in again.

“What– what are you doing?” Eddie almost sounded afraid and something twisted sad in Peter’s heart. “Omega, you shouldn’t touch, we aren’t allowed to touch.”

“You’re beautiful.” Peter said softly, earnestly, and Eddie reared back in surprise, eyes snapping reflective and teeth crowding sharp. “No no no, you are. You’re– you’re incredible. I can’t believe I have the chance to meet someone like you. I want to know everything about you but I promise I won’t ask a million questions cos I know that’s annoying but–”

Eddie leaned in slowly, gently, pushing his forehead into Peter’s and holding his breath until the Omega scooted closer so their knees bumped too.

“Sweet Omega.” their voice was raw and awful but Peter didn’t pull away and Eddie purred low in his throat in gratitude. “Thank you.”

The curtains at the cabin window twitched as Bruce turned away from the glass, and Wade asked, “Is my mate okay? Eddie?”

“They’re fine, just sitting together.” The Doctor hesitated, then added, “Your mate really is perfect, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” the Alpha answered immediately. “Yeah Pete is just about fuckin’ perfect.”

Bruce put a hand on Wade’s shoulder and murmured, “I’m real sorry he can’t stay, Wade.”

“Yep.” Another immediate answer, but shaky and pained and devastated. “Me too.”

*************

“Alpha my Alpha.” After Bruce and Eddie had gone on their way and the cabin was quiet again, Peter came up behind Wade at the fireplace and wrapped both arms around his mate. “You scent sad, why do you scent sad? Bruce said I was okay, that my health is fine. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Wade was lying, dishonesty bleeding into his cedar scent but when Peter frowned and started to ask about it, Wade hushed him and gathered the Omega closer.

“Nothing’s wrong, baby boy. Let me take you to bed, hold you alright?”

“You can hold me naked.” Peter corrected and Wade swallowed back the threat of tears so he could tip Peter’s chin up and give him a gentle, gentle kiss.

“I’d love to hold you naked, my mate. Get that adorable ass in bed.”

****************

One hundred two days and counting…

“You aren’t supposed to be working, Pete.” Wade didn’t think he’d ever been so disapproving in his entire life, but somehow not even his best scowl stopped his mate from dunking blankets in the bathtub. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I’m tired of resting on sicky blankets.” the Omega didn’t pause in his chore. “And if you are going to disapprove, could you at least disapprove while helping me wring the blankets out? Because they are very heavy and I am very petite.”

“Oh, so when you want to ride Arthur while screeching like a banshee, you’re a strong independent Omega that doesn’t need a saddle, but now that you want help with laundry, you’re petite?”

“That’s exactly right.” Peter attacked one of the sheets with a scrubbie. “I’m petite and I need some help, so come and help. That’s your job, you’re my Alpha. Help me wash sheets.”

Wade pursed his lips and growled in frustration, but his mouthy mate only held out a bar of soap and made his eyes extra big and extra soft and damn it, the Alpha had no chance of resisting that.

“I’m only helping cos resting on clean blankets will make sure you recover faster.” he informed the Omega and Peter’s smile nearly split his face in two. “Not because you’re petite or beautiful or because I love your smile. Stop smiling. You haven’t actually won this argument.”

“Are we arguing, Alpha my Alpha?” It was impossible for Peter’s smile to get any bigger, but it stretched anyway. “What are we arguing about? I thought we were just doing laundry together like couples do when they are in committed, healthy and mutually beneficial relationships.”

“Throwing big words at me isn’t going to get you outta trouble for workin’, Pete.” Wade stripped out of his shirt and tossed it away, then dragged over the big pot so he had something to drop the wet blankets in. “After this I want you to sleep th’rest of the day. I’ll take care of the chores, alright? I want you in bed.”

“I wasn’t planning on helping with chores anyway.” the Omega said pertly and Wade retorted, “If I wasn’t so happy you’re feeling good enough to sass me, I’d make you do the chores yourself. Feed that stupid goat you won’t let me eat.”

“You’d never make me do chores alone.” Peter’s dark eyes tracked over Wade’s shoulders, down his chest and across his abdomen to the sharp cut of the Alpha’s hipbones above his pants. “I miss you, Alpha.”

“I miss you too.” Wade hefted one of the soaking blankets up and began wringing it out as best he could before dropping it in the pot. “But if you keep looking at me like that, we won’t get this laundry done and I’m pretty sure you’ll shriek at me if I try to get you naked on wet blankets.”

Peter muffled a laugh and set to work on the next blanket. “Are you gonna try and get me naked tonight, Alpha?”

“Last night you threatened to throw my clothes away if I didn’t get undressed exactly when you wanted.” The Alpha pointed out. “I figured I wouldn’t have to try to get you naked at all.”

“You don’t have to try.” Peter was blushing, but his smile was half past wicked. “But you’re right. I’d shriek about wet blankets. We better get the laundry done first.”

It took another hour, but Wade managed to get the blankets and sheets scrubbed to his mate’s specifications, and after a meal that involved Peter poking suspiciously at chunks of meat and whining when the Alpha all but forced him to bundle up in the one dry blanket left in the cabin, the Omega finally fell asleep.

Then Wade got to work stoking the fire extra high and re-hanging a cauldron of water, started a fire in the yard and piled full pots there as well, wiped out the tub to get rid of harsh lye residue and crumbled up pieces of lavender soap instead.

It had been two weeks since the first attempt at a bath, but this time Wade wasn’t letting Peter out of the cabin so there would be no missing Omega, no panicked searching, no nights and nights of terror waiting for his mate to wake up.

Today it would just be a bath, just Peter splashing around in the water and ending up gorgeous and soft and scenting so sweet. It’d be drinking and teasing and kissing until his Omega was purring and pliant and hazy in Wade’s arms. It’d be the present Wade had bought in Haven so many weeks ago, the one he’d wrapped and hidden away so his mate would be properly surprised. It’d be clean blankets and freshly plumped pillows and the firelight on Peter’s skin and the taste of his mate on his tongue and that gorgeous body spread out beneath his own and--

Wade shook his head and forced the thoughts away before he burned himself on a too hot pot and woke Peter up with a very un-Alpha like yelp of pain. Nope, tonight had to be perfect. No injuries, no accidents, no drama. Just perfect.

Absolutely perfect.

Before leaving to get more firewood and start the evening chores, Wade tore a piece of paper from one of Peter’s notebooks and scribbled a quick note to his mate:

Pete,

For the love of god, do not leave the cabin. Having to look for you in the woods once was bad enough, I’m not ready to try it again. Open your present, take a long bath, I’ll be back in after chores to spend all night with you.

And then feeling absolutely ridiculous, but knowing full well Peter loved when he was ridiculous, the Alpha put a dozen or so hearts at the bottom of the note too.

“This Omega is making me soft.” he muttered, and left the note on top of the beautifully wrapped present at the foot of their bed, lingering long enough to brush gentle fingers down his mate’s cheek. “S’good thing you’re gorgeous.”

Wade closed the door as quietly as he could, and the literal second it latched shut, Peter’s eyes popped open and he lunged for the present the Alpha had left behind.

“Yayyyyy presents.” he whispered, tearing at the paper and already laughing a little. The Omega was well aware how weird it was to be excited by new notebooks but there was something very good about piles of blank pages and brand new pencils, there was something exciting about having all that space to fill up with thoughts and ideas and memories. The most recent book was only halfway full but seeing as how the enough with his mate was going to change very very soon--

--Peter clenched his thighs together and bit his lip to quiet a thready moan, focused on opening his present instead of how long it had been since Wade had held him down in bed and kissed him senseless or let those thick fingers track low between his thighs or growled into his ear just before baring his fangs and--

“Whoo boy.” the Omega shifted on the bed uncomfortably and fanned at his face with a self conscious blush. “Alright. Presents not--” naked. “-- yep. Presents. New notebooks and maybe new pencils and this will be…”

The words trailed off when the last of the paper fell away and Peter gulped when he saw his present. “...amazing. This will be amazing.”

A vanity set wasn’t what Peter had expected from his mate, but the gesture took his breath away all the same. Beautiful rose gold gleamed in the afternoon sun, the scrolled details on the brush handle perfectly matching the design on the coordinating hand mirror, and the ivory comb was fine tipped, delicate and gorgeous.

This was a courting gift, the sort of thing Alphas used to give to their intended. Intimate and personal, a vanity set meant to lay in an Omegas boudoir and be used in their private dressing rooms. Vanity sets were wedding gifts, expensive and usually custom made and meant to last decades, carefully restored when they began to fade, meticulously repaired if the mirror cracked or the comb bent.

A gift from one mate to another, intimate and beautiful and thoughtful and after weeks of being sick, Peter could blame his sudden tears on emotional exhaustion and not on the overtly romantic gesture from his Alpha. It was left over achiness that had his breath catching, not the thought that Wade must have picked this set out months ago when they spent the night in Haven. His rough around the edges, mountain man Alpha had wandered through Mr. Lee’s store to find this pretty set, or at the very least let Mr. Lee talk his ear off about a thousand different options before settling on this one and it was incredible.

Peter lay the pieces aside gently and clambered off the bed to see his other present-- a still steaming bath full of fragrant soap, fluffy towels laid out to warm by the fire and a small plate of dark chocolate and tangy, dried fruit.

“Romance novels and love stories have nothing on you, my mate.” the Omega whispered as he dipped his fingers into the almost too hot water. “Nothing at all.”

*************

“So how long after I left did you wait to open your present?” Wade shook the snow from his boots and jacket and set them aside, eyeing the full bath tub and water wrinkled Omega with a knowing smirk. “Five minutes? Ten?”

“I opened my present the second the door closed.” Peter’s cheeks were pink, hair curling around his ears from the steam, skin flushed from the heat. “And I love them. I love you.”

“I love you too.” Wade bent over the tub and kissed a dot of dart chocolate from his mate’s lips. “I know the vanity set is sort of a useless gift, and courting gifts probably aren’t a real thing in your time line but--”

“I’ve combed my hair ten times.” the Omega interrupted. “Ten times, Alpha. And if the mirror wouldn’t fog up in the bathtub, I’d have that over here too. I love it. Thank you.”

“Well your hair is amazing.” the Alpha kissed Peter one more time, hiding any lingering self consciousness from the gift in the motion. Peter was from a time line without scent matches, without old fashioned traditions like courting, hell the Omega had barely believed in soulmates when they met. A vanity set was a useless present, especially here on the mountain where Peter didn’t have a private dressing room or even an actual bedroom. A useless present but his mate was smiling anyway, so maybe it was alright.

“Come in here with me.” Peter wove their fingers together and tugged at his Alpha coaxingly. “Please?”

“Pete.” Helplessly, Wade’s gaze dropped to the bathwater and all the perfect skin on display beneath the water. “We should get something to eat and then maybe--”

“Two weeks, Alpha.” Peter cut in. “Two weeks since I fell and got sick. I miss you. I miss holding you and kissing you and I miss your bite.” he tilted his head and tapped at his bonding spot. “Don’t you miss me?”

“Of course I miss you.” the Alpha’s voice went rough, cedar scent jolting hungry. “My mate, I miss you so bad I can’t even stand it. Want you, want to bite you, want you--” Peter’s eyes widened and Wade swallowed. “-- so I should get naked right now.”

“Right now.” Peter laughed in delight when Wade started stripping right away, but the laughter fell away to quiet awe as the Omega suddenly remembered just how big his mate was. Wade was huge, massive shoulders and a broad chest, thick arms and heavy legs and the Alpha’s cock was--

“Eyes up here, my mate.” Wade teased and Peter didn’t even make an effort to look away, going so far as to lick his lips as he answered, “I’ve made my viewing choice and I’m happy with the decision.”

The Alpha practically preened under the scrutiny and approval from his mate as he scrubbed down with the cloth in the wash basin, but he raised his eyebrows when he stepped towards the bath and Peter was still staring.

“Gonna make me self conscious, Omega.” Wade hissed a little as he settled into the water. “Starin’ at an Alpha like that.”

“Is that all I’m going to make you?” Peter’s eyes were practically glowing, mouth swollen and slick from biting at his bottom lip in anticipation. “Self conscious? Not anything else… bigger?”

“Jesus, the mouth on you.” Wade grinned and felt around in the water until he could wrap a hand around each of Peter’s slim ankles, tugging gently until the Omega slumped further into the bath so Wade could massage up his calves to the back of his knees. “I’ve missed your sass, my mate. You were so quiet when you were sick, m’glad you’re smiling again.”

“You make me smile, Alpha.” Peter settled back into the hot water and lay his head on the rim of the tub, closing his eyes and thoroughly enjoying the feel of his Alpha’s legs crowded up against his hips. Wade was so big he had to bend his knees just to fit in the bath and when Peter stretched out he could put his toes against the Alpha’s stomach and feel every breath his mate took.

Perfect.

Skin on skin was perfect after so long apart, and the water made every moment slick and smooth. The air was hazy with steam, the fire crackling and light spilling gold onto the water, and Peter felt like he could happily drown in the warmth, slip under for his mate and float away into bliss with nothing more than Wade’s touch grounding him.

“Settle.” Wade’s hazel eyes had gone soft red as he watched his mate drift, voice pitching low and coaxing. “My mate, settle.”

“I’m settled, my love.” Peter ran his fingers through his hair, shaking the droplets away only to have them land on his lashes and drip down his cheek. “So so settled.”

“More.” The cabin seemed small tonight, secure and safe and hidden away from the winter, from the cold, from how sick Peter had been and how inevitable Cable was and Wade couldn't believe how badly he suddenly needed to see his mate soft. “Give me more, Pete. Settle. Relax. Get all sweet for me, yeah?”

“Mmm, my Alpha, I’ll be sweet for you when you put me to bed.” Peter’s gorgeous mouth curved into an adoring smile. “You know, I can feel you staring at me. What are you thinking about? Besides me being naked, I mean.”

Wade watched the Omega-- his Omega-- for another moment, and his voice cracked, his fingers tightening at Peter’s knee when he finally whispered, “I want you to be mine, Pete.”

“Alpha.”

“I can’t stand not having you anymore.” his fingers tightened at Peter’s knee and the Omega shuddered. “We were ready for another enough before you got sick, and I know bonds don’t usually take outside of heat but we are soulmates, Pete. We are soulmates and you came through time to find me. We’re meant to be.”

“I--” Wade’s throat jerked as he swallowed. “I’m tired of waiting. I want you.”

“You have me.” the Omega shifted forward in the bath until he was straddling Wade’s thighs, inched closer until he was sat squarely on his mate’s lap. “Alpha my Alpha, you have me. We don’t need to wait for a heat, we don’t need to wait at all anymore.”

Peter flattened his hand to Wade’s heart and counted the beats for a moment. “Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel me?”

“Yeah, baby boy.” Just like he’d done every other time, Wade covered Peter’s hand with his own. “Yeah, I feel you.”

“I’m yours.” the Omega pushed their foreheads together, notched tighter on Wade’s lap and mewled when he felt his Alpha harden beneath him. “My mate. I’m yours. You’re mine. We don’t need to wait.”

“You’re mine.” Barely audible, hushed and almost reverent. “I’m yours, Omega. I swear it. This is your first time and I swear I’ll take care of you. I’ll be everything for you baby boy. Gonna give you everything, anything, whatever you want. I promise.”

“My mate.” Peter turned his nose into the Alpha’s palm, purred soft and sweet and submissive. “I only want you.”

****************

SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE CHAPTER!

#ncts fics #spideypool #peter parker #wade wilson #bruce banner #eddie brock #soulmate au #abo dynamics #time travel au

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d-criss-news · 4 years

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Ryan Murphy’s (Kinda) True ‘Hollywood’ Story: 1940s Meets Gay Stars, Interracial Romance and (Gasp!) a Female Studio Chief

The prolific TV creator and Netflix unveil a revisionist take on the golden age of movies, showing how much (and how little) has shifted in entertainment and beyond: “'Hollywood’ can change the world.”

On an abnormally cold January evening, on the steps of Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium, history was being rewritten.

Two actors, one playing Rock Hudson, the other Hudson’s African American screenwriter boyfriend, Archie, were tucked inside a teal blue Packard Club Sedan, awaiting their cue. Outside, it was Oscar night, 1948, and despite warnings of grave backlash, the pair was prepared to step out as a couple for the first time.

Archie exited first, his eyes wide with trepidation, then Rock. In matching white tuxedos, they grabbed for each other’s hands and shuffled nervously down the red carpet.

The press box erupted in hisses, then boos.

“Are we doing the right thing?” Archie whispered.

“Absolutely we are,” Rock replied.

The two exchanged smiles, exhaled and made their way into the theater. Then they stopped and did it again. And again.

Ryan Murphy, the scene’s chief architect, was a few miles east, buried in one of his dozen other projects, but his fingerprints could be detected everywhere. The reimagining — part of his new Netflix anthology series, Hollywood — offers a world in which Hudson (played by Jake Picking) walked openly as a gay man, as opposed to the real-life heartthrob who remained closeted until his death from AIDS in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere in Murphy’s revision of history, an African American actress, played by Laura Harrier, is cast as the star of a major studio picture, written by Hudson’s black boyfriend (Jeremy Pope), helmed by a half-Asian director (Darren Criss) and greenlit by a female studio chief (Patti LuPone) and her gay head of production (Joe Mantello).

If Pose was Murphy’s effort to champion the marginalized, Hollywood’s his shot at imagining such marginalization was undone decades ago. The series, his first without his longtime collaborators at 20th Century Fox Television, drops in its entirety May 1, with a sprawling ensemble of real and fictional characters. It was supposed to feel timely, its period backdrop a reminder of how much and how little has changed in 70-plus years; now, landing in a world grappling with a global pandemic, its 1940s setting could be the escape so many are seeking.

“I’ve always been interested in this kind of buried history, and I wanted to create a universe where these icons got the endings that they deserved,” says Murphy, 55, who’s been waiting out the virus at his home in Los Angeles, with his husband and two young sons, who now require homeschooling. “It’s this beautiful fantasy, and in these times, it could be a sort of balm in some way.”

The Netflix executives who shelled out roughly $300 million for Murphy’s services in 2018 can only hope so. Already, they’ve had to cancel influencer screenings, scrap subway ads and punt on potential plans for a premiere benefit for the now hard-hit Motion Picture Television Fund, which houses several stars of the era in its L.A. retirement facility. As for the show itself, it’s certainly not the broad-sweeping, four-quadrant fare that Netflix is widely thought to prefer. The pilot episode alone features six sex scenes — a mix of gay and straight — and nearly all involve some sort of financial transaction. By episode three, which the show’s writers have nicknamed “night of a thousand dicks,” the characters have found their way to one of director George Cukor’s infamous pool parties.

Still, Netflix head of originals Cindy Holland says that Hollywood is exactly the kind of elevated, inclusive and ultimately hopeful programming that the company wants from Murphy, and the seven-episode limited series was fast-tracked as a result. “What I love,” she says, “is that Ryan is creating a world that he wants to will into existence.”

***

Murphy’s first inkling for Hollywood came over a celebratory dinner with Criss following their fruitful awards run for the Versace installment of American Crime Story. With rosé flowing, the two began discussing a next possible collaboration. Murphy wanted to do something young and hopeful; Criss proposed 1940s Hollywood. The 33-year-old actor had been fascinated by the lore surrounding characters like Scotty Bowers, the L.A. hustler who operated out of a gas station on Hollywood Boulevard, along with golden age stars like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and he was eager to explore the era with Murphy.

“There’s a blinking red light on it that says, ‘Ryan Murphy, Ryan Murphy,’ ” says Criss, “because it’s sexy, it’s fun, it’s glamorous, it’s dangerous and it has resonance now.”

Murphy didn’t disagree. As a student of Hollywood history, he’d already gone down the road with his FX series Feud, which centered its first season on Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. This would simply allow him to dig deeper on figures who’d long captured his attention, from Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star, who was effectively run out of Hollywood, to Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar and not be allowed to sit with her cast in the theater. “I’m always moved by these characters who weren’t fully seen or didn’t get their moment,” says Murphy in an interview on the Paramount lot earlier this year, where he was directing Meryl Streep in The Prom, another Netflix production. At one point, he’d even toyed with the idea of doing a Biography-style anthology series with an episode devoted to each.

Not long after that dinner, Criss was at a bachelor party when his phone rang. It was Murphy. “He says, 'Do you mind if I just do my thing on this?’ ” says Criss. “And I’m like, 'You’re Ryan fucking Murphy. Do whatever you want!’ ”

So, Murphy picked a collaborator, Ian Brennan, with whom he’d worked on Glee, Scream Queens and The Politician, and the two began quietly tossing around ideas. With the help of a few researchers, they landed on a story that revolved around a Bowers-esque service station, with a staff full of actors and directors looking to be stars. “It was super fun and sexy and salacious,” says Brennan, “but it was also about the #MeToo underbelly of 1940s Hollywood, which felt very, very contemporary.”

The men found it exhilarating to depict sex so explicitly and in every possible combination. “To be able to describe exactly what is happening is really, really cool,” says Brennan. And despite the appetite for such racy content varying dramatically around the globe, Netflix brass was passionate about its inclusion — a marked difference from his and Murphy’s experience on previous shows, where they fought tooth and nail over the mere mention of sexual terms. “I hope this isn’t speaking out of school,” he adds, “but the one thing [Netflix’s vp original series] Brian Wright said to me, was, like, 'Thumbs-up on the sex. If anything, dial that up.’”

From the Pose writers room, producer Janet Mock would see Murphy and Brennan huddled in a nearby room and wonder what the latest “secret Ryan Murphy project” was all about. At one point, Mock found herself pumping intel out of a writers’ assistant, who told her, “It’s a thing called Hollywood, it’s about this gas station.” Having seen the 2017 documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, she figured, “OK, there’s no place for me in that. I’ll continue with Pose.”

But that would soon change, beginning with an eye-opening discussion in the writers room about which of the ensemble’s contract players would be picked to star in the film at the center of Hollywood. The role was that of real-life actress Peg Entwistle, a blonde Brit who jumped to her death from the famed Hollywood sign. “At first, we were like, “Well, it can’t be the black girl [Harrier’s Camille], they wouldn’t have done it. …’ And then it was like, 'Well, wait a second, what if it actually was? What if Peg becomes Meg,’ ” says Brennan. One what-if led to another and then another, and before long they’d decided to go back in and start revising history — this time, with Mock as a credited writer.

Now, rather than use the series to, say, showcase the powerlessness of a studio head’s aging housewife, in this case LuPone’s Avis, they tweaked the story so that suddenly it explores what would happen if Avis gained control of her husband’s studio. It was the same for several others, including Rock Hudson, says Murphy’s co-creator. Instead of telling the tragic tale of a person forced to hide, they allowed themselves to explore what would happen if he refused to do so. “Once we began asking, 'What if?’ it became a different show,” says Brennan, with Mantello adding: “It became a fable of what could have been.”

With Netflix execs eager to get the series up on the service, Murphy began loading the cast with his usual mix of familiar names — from Jim Parsons, as Hudson’s real-life closeted agent Henry Wilson, to Rob Reiner, as the head of the fictional Ace Studios — and newer discoveries, like Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) as Reiner’s daughter, or Picking as Hudson and Pope as his fictional boyfriend. As with other recent ensembles, he listed all of them not in order of importance or seniority but rather alphabetically on the call sheet. The message was clear: “The star of the show is the show,” says Murphy. Still, initial hires Criss and David Corenswet, who’d made his debut on The Politician, were given executive producer credits, along with backend points on the series. (There’s already talk of a season two, which would pick up in the late 1960s, with many of the same actors in entirely new roles.)

At some point in the production process, Murphy found himself scaling back the graphic nature of the series, too — a byproduct of his own personal recalibration, he says, having spent so much of his pre-Netflix life fighting to show so much as a woman’s nipple. “When you’re finally free, you have this tendency to go full tilt boogie, but ultimately I became much more interested in the emotion of the characters, and, frankly, I became protective of them,” he explains, suggesting every episode had an X-rated version, an R-rated version and a PG version, and, to the delight of participants like Corenswet, who plays an actor-cum-sex worker, Murphy would almost always select the R one.

“I think Ryan realized as we were shooting that the best part of the sex was the romance — and that’s always great to hear as an actor, especially when it applies to your five-page sex scene with Patti LuPone,” says the 26-year-old Corenswet. LuPone, for her part, was just thrilled she was still asked to do a sex scene at age 71. “Finally!” she bellows, praising Murphy for having both the vision and the courage to take the risks he does: “Ryan’s fearless,” says the Tony winner, who also popped up in Pose, “and I’m so happy to be in his world."

***

Long before Murphy was a household name, with a big fat Netflix deal to ostensibly take all the risks he wants, he was a frustrated former journalist fighting to change a system that wasn’t built for him. His own secret had been revealed at just 15, when his mother found a drawer full of love letters from his then-22-year-old boyfriend at their home in Indiana. Horrified, she and Murphy’s father threw their son into counseling, hoping he could be "fixed.”

A decade or two later, after his first career as an entertainment writer, Murphy carved out a place for himself in television, where he could exist comfortably as a gay man — so long as he didn’t try to write anyone like himself into scripts. “There were lots of words that they’d use to discriminate against you,” he says, “too flamboyant, too camp, too theatrical, and they were all code.”

By the mid-1990s, he’d joined forces with 10 or so other out or soon-to-be-out creatives, a group that included Nina Jacobson, Greg Berlanti and A Beautiful Mind’s Bruce Cohen. Giving themselves the name “Out There,” they’d meet in courtyards and living rooms to swap horror stories and try to plot a path forward. “We were young and didn’t have much money, but we had a lot of energy and a need to connect with and support each other as gay people working in a straight environment,” says Jacobson, who’d later collaborate with Murphy on American Crime Story and Pose. “And for a lot of us, it was, for the first time, that feeling of community.”

In time, Murphy, like the others, found a way to “monetize [his] pain.” His first creation, Popular, debuted in 1999, and other opportunities followed. Popular begat Nip/Tuck, Nip/Tuck begat Glee, and before he knew it, Murphy had moved from TV’s fringes to its red-hot center. As The New Yorker once wrote, “He changed; the industry changed; he changed the industry.” In early 2018, he signaled that power by signing a nine-figure deal, among the most lucrative in the medium’s history.

So it is perhaps fitting that Murphy’s first project wholly for and from the service includes a scene that trumpets what he calls “the thesis statement” of his career. It begins with Criss’ character, Raymond, being regaled by the story of Anna May Wong’s awe-inspiring screen test for the lead role in the 1937 adaptation of The Good Earth, a part that ultimately went to a far less deserving Caucasian actress. Suggesting it was one of the saddest stories Raymond had ever heard, a film executive played by Mantello responds:

“What’s so sad about it? The picture was a hit. [They] were right. You can’t open a picture with a Chinese lead or a colored one, a number of theaters won’t run it.”

Raymond: “But you said she deserved the part?”

Exec: “Yes, but the hard fact is, had she gotten it, the picture is not a hit.”

Raymond: “How do you know that? You never made the movie, so how do you know it’s not a hit?”

Criss’ character continues with a monologue that is so perfectly Murphy you can almost close your eyes and picture him saying it.

“Sometimes I think folks in this town don’t really understand the power they have. Movies don’t just show us how the world is, they show us how the world can be. If we change the way that movies are made — you take a chance and you make a different kind of story, I think you can change the world.”

Criss himself would argue that Murphy already has. “His dial is always in extremes. So, if he’s doing Glee or Scream Queens or this, it’s at an 11, almost as a middle finger to reality,” says the actor. “It’s like he turned the dial over to say, 'This is how I’d like to see the world in my wildest dreams. Ain’t it fun?’ ”

In the past two years, since he moved his creative hub from 20th Century Fox TV, where he still maintains a considerable roster, Murphy been responsible for producing roughly 200 LGBTQ characters, many featured as leads. At least a third of his Hollywood cast is older than 70 (“Seventy is the new 40,” he teases), and nearly every project he launches is fronted by a woman — and that’s just in front of the camera. “If you see it, you can be it,” Murphy says often.

It’s a worldview that appeals to Netflix’s Holland, for whom he’s already prepped two films (Prom, The Boys in the Band), two docuseries (Circus of Books, Secret Love) and five seasons of inclusive television, including a Halston miniseries that, along with his 20th programs Pose, American Horror Story and American Crime Story, shut down care of COVID-19 in March. In the weeks since, when he isn’t toggling between Tiger King and MSNBC, Murphy’s kept busy writing two new decidedly hopeful series, each with the express purpose of providing viewers and himself an escape. “Ryan’s the rare creator who speaks to many audiences,” says Holland. “It’s not just gay people or straight people or older people or younger people, it’s really all people who are interested in the human condition.”

To date, Murphy claims he has yet to hear the word “no” from his Netflix bosses, though he’s definitely been nudged in certain directions. “They don’t want me to do small, niche things,” he says, acknowledging that not too long ago a project like Hollywood would have been deemed just that. “But they know how to market this,” he explains, noting that Netflix will push his latest series on viewers who also like love stories, young adult series and LGBTQ fare.

For those who worried the ultra-competitive producer would chafe in a system that doesn’t provide a public report card (aka ratings), he argues that that’s been liberating. Brennan backs him up, revealing how they received initial numbers for The Politician a week or two after it premiered late last summer and then another trove of data a month or so later; and though the latter could effectively game out how many people would watch the series over time, Brennan says, “We were sort of like, 'I don’t think that’s helpful.’ ”

Murphy takes it a step further, insisting he’s no longer interested in the old metrics, like how many people are watching or how many awards a series has generated. “All the things that people tell you will make you feel successful … I have those things, they don’t,” he says. What matters to him now is being able to tell stories that he wishes he or others could have seen. To that end, he can’t help but wonder what his own life would have been had he witnessed Rock Hudson walking the Oscars red carpet as an openly gay man — and though it’s too late to change his own experience, Murphy would like to be able to improve the experience of others. So, he took a chance and made a different kind of story. “Hollywood,” he says, “can change the world.”

#darren criss #the hollywood reporter #ryan murphy #hollywood #press #april 2020

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daydreaming-nerd · 4 years

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The Dark Side of A Broken Heart (Anakin Skywalker x Reader)

Hi guys I just recently had a surge in requests so I’m gonna try and pound them out as fast as I can! Please be patient with me and know that each and everyone of your requests are important to me and I’ll be writing each and everyone as the plot forms in my head which can vary from prompt to prompt. I do every request completely randomly.

Request by anon: Can u make a Anakin x Reader with number 2, where she turns evil and the two are forced to fight. But he loves her and she loved him but he understands it’s not the same Y/N

#2: “You did this to yourself!”

Warnings: Dark Side reader, angst, sad ending

It was one of those things I never wanted to see and was never supposed to see and despite it all, still saw.

I had loved Anakin for many years. Ever since we were slaves together on Tatooine. My father left us and my mother died when I was three, Shmi took me in and treated me as her own. When Qui-Gon and Obi Won rescued Ani from Tatooine he wouldn’t leave without me, so I became a Jedi with him.

Many years passed by and my love for him grew stronger. I thought that perhaps he had felt the same but that all changed when I saw the terrible sight. I was walking into the Jedi temple after having met with Chancellor Palpatine to find Anakin and Padme hiding behind a pillar. I stopped to hear what she was saying.

“Oh Ani I love you,” she swooned before locking their lips.

I felt my heart break in two, there was a huge pit in my stomach as my whole world and everything I knew was collapsing around me. I clutched at my heart feeling the physical pain of it all. At once I stormed out and got back in my speeder and ran to the only person I felt as though I could seek council from, the man who had become a father figure to me. The Chancellor.

----------

When I arrived I bursted into the room with tears running down my cheeks.

“Child whatever seems to be the matter?” asked Palpatine.

“Chancellor Palpatine, Anakin is in love with Padme,” I half cried.

“But you were so sure that he had feelings for you,” he said opening his arms to me. I ran to him.

“I was wrong,” I cried into his robes. “why does it hurt so bad?”

“It’s the pain of a broken heart child,”

“I hate her,” I said my demeanor going from sad to angry in a flash “I hate her so much I could, I could-”

“Kill her?” He finished.

“I want to,” I cried, “but it’s not the Jedi way,”

“It seems as though the only solution to your problem is to dispose of her,” he said setting off a light bulb in my mind.

“You’re the Sith lord master Yoda has been looking for,” I said standing up defensively activating my saber.

“That I am child,” he started “but if you kill me you’ll lose young Skywalker forever,”

“What do you mean?” I said lowering my saber a little bit.

“I know whats been troubling you. Listen to me, don’t continue to be a pawn in the Jedi council, use my knowledge of the dark side, I can teach you the power to make Anakin love you forever.” He said causing me to think “I can feel your anger towards Pamde, it gives you focus, makes you stronger. With my help you can be stronger than any Jedi there ever was. I can give you everything you ever wanted”

I turned off my saber.

“Become my apprentice, learn to use the dark side of the force,” he said standing up.

“I will do whatever you say master,” I said falling to my knees “Just please give me Anakin, I can’t live without him”

“Together... we can discover the secret,”

“I pledge myself to your teachings,” I said in defeat.

---------- ANAKIN’S POV----------

“Master Yoda did you feel that,” said walking into the council room.

“Yes, powerful the dark side has suddenly become,” he said shaking his head.

“What is it?” I said.

“It seems that the Chancellor is not who we thought him to be, the Sith lord we’ve been looking for he is,”

“I’ll alert Master Obi Won,” I said “We will see to it that he is arrested.”

“Wait young Skywalker, more to this there is. Your companion y/n has also turned to the dark side.” he said sadly.

“It can’t be,” I said feeling my heart shatter “Y/n would never do that I know it,”

“True it is, stop her you must.”

“I can’t,”

“You are the only one who can,”

----------YOUR POV----------

My ship landed on Mustafar and before I exited I looked to the back to see that Padme was right where I left her on the ship. Lord Sidious required that I kill the reminder of the population on Mustafar but I knew that Master Yoda would sense my change from Jedi to Sith and send Anakin after me. I wanted to kill Padme right in front of him. I wanted him to feel the pain I felt when he kissed her, and then I wanted to use whatever tricks Lord Sidious had up his sleeve to make him mine forever.

With my new powers it had never been so easy to murder the people left inside the control center. As I ran back to the ship I saw Anakin carrying Padme out of my ship and I used the force to push him back causing him to drop her. I stood in front of her with my lightsaber out, but not ignited.

“Y/n why are you doing this?” he said “ You’re not this person!”

“You broke me Anakin,” I said coldly.

“How?!”

‘I saw you, I saw you kissing her,” I said pointing to an unconscious Padme “You led me on all these years and then you chose her. You broke my heart Anakin.”

“Y/n you’re wrong it was always you that I loved, I just never told you because of the code! She was in loved with me! She forced herself on me! Stop this insanity! Come home!” he cried.

“YOU’RE A LIAR!” I screamed in pain pointing my saber at Padme.

“Please y/n... please don’t do this, I love you,” he begged. “If you do this you leave me no choice but to fight you.”

“You’re love for her started the fight Anakin...not me,” I said igniting my saber finishing her once and for all.

Anakin ignited his saber and ran toward me but I raised mine up and they clashed. We fought tooth and nail making our way into the control room once again. I force pushed him into a wall making him drop his saber. I charged him but he used the force to reach his saber and block my hit. From the ground he swiped his leg under mine knocking me over and getting on top of me putting his saber to my throat.

“Stop this y/n! You don’t know what you’re doing!” he screamed.

“You did this to me!” I screamed back.

“You did this to yourself!” he cried before I kicked him off of me.

The fight continued outside to the lava river. All of the sudden Anakin forced pushed me to the ground causing me to drop my saber into the river. It was like I had been hypnotized and he had woken me up. When I stood up again I realized what I had done. I looked into Anakin’s eyes and it was clear to us both that whatever had taken over me was gone now. Before either of us could get a word out I felt a disturbance in the force. Sidious was coming to Mustafar to collect me.

“You have to go,” I said running over to him.

“I won’t leave without you,” He said putting his hands around my waist.

“You have to, Lord Sidious will kill you,” I said resting my hands on his face. “He won’t rest until he finds me, he knows he can’t take over without me.”

“Y/n please,” he said starting to cry “I can’t lose you. Come back to the Jedi temple with me they’ll forgive you!”

“I can’t take back the things I said and did Ani. After today I could never fully be a Jedi. But I can still save you! Now go before it’s too late.” I said crying pressing my forehead against his.

“I love you,” he said with a shaky breath.

“I love you too,” I replied and with that he took off towards his ship.

----------

“I’m sorry Lord Sidious but he rid me of my lightsaber, I had no way to kill him” I said down on one knee before my master.

“We will dispose of him at a later time,” he said over me.

We boarded the ship alongside dozens of storm troopers and I knew my fate now.

Once on board I stood by my masters side and overlooked the galaxy. I donned a black cloak and armor.

“Here,” said Master Sidious handing me a strange looking lightsaber “This is the weapon of a Sith.”

I ignited it to find that it was fiery red and duel ended similar to the infamous Darth Maul’s saber.

As I looked out over the galaxy I knew what my fate now was and I hoped to never see Anakin again, for if I did, I would have to take actions that would result in breaking my heart yet again. Wherever he was out there I hoped he was safe and I hope he will soon forget me. I can’t run from what I have become.

“Where do we go next Master,” I asked.

“The Death Star,”

#Anakin Skywalker #anakin skywalker smut #anakin skywalker imagine #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker fluff

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degenerate-perturbation · 3 years

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Chapters: 22/32 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Dragon Age II Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Prostitution, Drowning, Wilderness Survival Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

Loriel’s routine was by this point quite well-developed.

She woke at dawn, with the sun. Usually the light was enough to rouse her, but in case it wasn’t, she had a timed rune of frost under her bed set to go off half an hour after sunrise. On the rare occasions that she was inclined to laze in bed, it was enough to get her out of it.

Breakfast would be waiting for her, and it was never late. Loriel did not micromanage. Things in her Keep were done correctly the first time, or they were done by somebody else. Her breakfast varied little. One egg, hard-boiled; porridge, salty, never sweet; fruit, whichever seasonal. She could draw some energy from the Fade, but repeated use of blood magic attenuated her connection to the Fade enough that she still needed to eat. Someday she would look into eliminating that need entirely, once her other obligations were met. She would eat on a balcony as the sun rose, less out of a desire to see the day begin, and more out of a removed knowledge that some sun was necessary for her health. Someday she would fix that flaw as well, but for now, if she had to waste time eating, she could at least get that out of the way while she was at it.

Within a quarter of an hour she would be at her desk. A stack of letters would be waiting there. She would skim them; few really required a personal response. The ones from Avernus, she put aside to deal with later.

When she finished with that, she would indicate for her seneschal to enter. Her name was Brigit; she was bright-eyed and fervent, relentlessly competent, utterly indispensable. She was most of the reason the Keep still functioned at all. She would be waiting outside the door, a cup of tea in hand. The tea—bitter, biting, oversteeped—was Loriel’s one indulgence. She would drink it and listen to the daily report. Brigit respected Loriel’s time, and began with what Loriel cared about—first, had there been any sign of the Architect? Second, had any Wardens begun to hear the Calling? And third, had any been killed?

There was never any sign of the Architect. Most of the Wardens at Vigil’s Keep were far too new for the Calling. But every once in a while, there would be deaths. Loriel would ask for their names. She forgot them as soon as she heard them, but it was important she hear them.

The rest of the half-hour was an abbreviated exchange of questions and instructions. If there was anything that absolutely needed Loriel’s personal attention, Brigit would ask for it—but few things did. People needed or wanted the entity known as the Commander of the Grey, or the Arlessa of Amaranthine, or the Hero of Ferelden. Loriel held those titles by an accident of history; she had no personal characteristic that suited her for them.

Then Loriel would hand off any letters that needed replying to. Brigit could mimic her hand and her signature easily enough, and Loriel received far too much correspondence to deal with it all herself.

With the business of rulership out of the way, Loriel would descend to her underground chambers. She would work for ten or twelve or fifteen hours. If she tired early, she would sit and read. She avoided falling asleep underground—it was too disorienting. Each day she ascended, changed into the clothes left for her freshly laundered well in advance, cleaned her teeth, and slept. Once a week, she would bathe, whether she needed it or not—the alternative was to forget to bathe entirely. She did not bother to fall asleep naturally—there was a simple spell for that, and she saw no reason not to use it.

Her research went slowly. But it went.

And so the clockwork of her life ticked on.

tck

The work itself was going better than it had.

Her methodology was much like her daily routine—plodding, relentless, as bland as it was efficient. She followed procedure, did what needed to be done, even if she had no appetite to do it. Her reams of close-written notes were meticulous to the point of exhaustion. She lived and breathed rigor. Almost everything she tried failed, and each failure was a step closer to success.

Eventually—something would work.

A dim awareness fluttered in her mind that the bright scalpel of her mind was now little more than a crude cudgel, but what did it matter that she wasn’t brilliant? The work still got done.

Her underground lab had grown from a single rough chamber to a warren of interconnected tunnels and specialized chambers. The Underkeep stretched nearly as far as the Keep above. In one room, the vastly expanded lab space, tables of glass devices and cabinets of reagents. In another, her library, swollen with tomes both common and rare, with her own notes and manuscripts and diagrams. Another room stood lined with cages holding dozens of creatures subject to her experiments—rats, it turned out, reacted very much like elves and humans to the Blight, and they bred fast. Lines of entropy enchantments lined their cages, keeping them in stasis until it was time for them to be of use. An underground stream provided water, wrested from the depths of the earth and channeled through pipes of stone. All of it climate controlled with her elegant runes. It was never too hot or too cold, never too wet or dry; no mold, no pests, no sunlight, save that which she made herself.

And below that, another tunnel, deeper than the other, longer, and layered with more protections; it lead to the Deep Roads. She ventured there; sometimes for some purpose—to collect a sample, to check for deliveries from her friends beneath the earth—but most often simply to sit in the dark, to feel the miles of stone pressing down on her, and be empty of thought and of feeling and being.

tck

One of the few reliable reasons that Loriel ever left her Keep was when she went to see Avernus. Letters passed between them frequently, almost entirely of a technical nature—what reagent could be used to evoke such and such reaction? What were the best ways to keep blighted flesh preserved for study? Where were the most promising leads to follow up on to search for lost Tevinter literature on the subject?—But often letters weren’t enough. So once or twice a year, Loriel would gear up and make the journey to Soldier’s Peak. She would stay there for a handful of weeks, making aggressive collaborative progress with Avernus until both their tolerances for other people dried up and Loriel returned to her Underkeep.

“I see you are still being unreasonable about human subjects,” Avernus sniffed on one such occasion, while they both watched a cauldron boil in silence.

This was a frequent subject of complaints in his letters. “I see no reason in deliberately poisoning a well. Do you imagine the work would go faster if I was driven from my fortress with torches and pitchforks?

“Torches and pitchforks, hmph! As though peasants with torches and pitchforks are any threat to you.”

“Peasants, no. A Chantry army of Templars? A new Exalted March?”

“Do not tell me you still fear Templars. If that were truly your chief concern, you would not have let so many join your Order. ”

He was baiting her, and it wasn’t going to work. “I do not need to fear them to understand what is prudent, what is necessary, and what is not. The work will continue as it has.”

“And in the meanwhile, your Wardens will continue to die, because of what amounts to self-interest, hm? Because you fear the consequences of a little risk? Because you do not like to think of yourself the way you think of me?”

Bait. This was bait. She was too good to fall for bait. But Maker, Avernus could be really irritating in person.

“I am working with you to cure the Calling,” Loriel said evenly. “To save my wardens from a terrible fate. What sense would it make to sacrifice their lives in order to save them?”

Avernus snorted. “Very well, child, suit yourself. At your age I felt much the same.”

Something in the way he said child— not a word he often used for her, a word he clearly used now because he knew it would enrage her—sounded so much like Irving that she nearly lost control of herself. Who in the void did he think he was? If not for her grace, his desiccated corpse would be enriching the soil by now. She could have killed him when they’d first met. She could kill him now, if she wanted.

The old bastard watched her with a defiant, mocking eye, daring her to try. She could, couldn’t she? She was younger, faster, and yes, stronger. For all his experience, she had the more raw power to throw around. They had both seen battle, but his battles were a century old while hers were fresh and bleeding—and she’d bested him before. Granted, she hadn’t been alone then...but she was stronger now. Yes, she could kill him—

But the old blood mage was all she had.

“My title,” she said crisply, turning her eyes back to the slowly boiling cauldron, “is Commander.”

He rolled his eyes at her, and asked how her experiments with draconic gall had gone, and they spoke no more of it that day.

Avernus wasn’t all bad. He could be a cantankerous, amoral, belittling bastard, but he was clever, and not the worst to talk to. Sometimes he would be taken aback by her original ideas, rendered silent and thoughtful by her insights. Sometimes she would make a remark that seemed to her perfectly obvious, but which would send him consulting his notes and tomes, muttering under his breath. Each such instance left her smug and glowing for hours. Avernus never rendered praise—which she preferred—but this was better.

Pathetic, that she cared what he thought of her. And she did care. Commander or not, intellectual equal or not, she was his pupil. Avernus had plumbed depths of magic yet unknown to her, and his mind held secrets it would take her years to extract. And whatever his faults, he never lied, not about anything.

How badly she had wanted to please First Enchanter Irving as a child. How much she had lived for his praise, for his assurance that she was so bright, so special, so different from the other children. How pathetic he had looked when she had saved him from the Fade, how much she had hated his mealy-mouthed supplications to his Templar master. Each time she remembered it, she coated the memory with a fresh layer of poison.

Loriel was no fool, and she had no love for self-deception. She knew exactly what Avernus was, and what he was to her. But he, at least, was honest.

tck

Before she’d found Brigit, Loriel had managed intelligence of her keep with a network of enchanted crystals. Padding invisibly around her own Keep like a thief in te night would never have served for long. The crystals studded the halls of the Keep in unassuming braziers and in decorative sconces, transmitting everything that they saw and heard to a circle of polished silver in a dedicated chamber in the Underkeep. Crystals had special properties of resonance and purity that made them excellent for conveying sound. The real challenge had been getting crystals in a size and index that suited her. They didn’t occur naturally often enough to be worth harvesting, so she had had to figure out how to make them herself, with heated water and powdered minerals and careful spells of entropy to control their growth. It was finicky business; large enough to work, small enough to not be noticed, of just the right purity. The key was blood—her blood, connecting the network to the mirror and to herself.

The next problem was how to limit the flow of information. The Keep was just too busy to monitor all at once. She’d had the thought to fix it by keying the crystal network to particular activation words, to keep from picking up on discussion of that evening’s dinner—but even then, it was too much. Loriel had lost hours to the mirror, hypnotized by every irrelevant word and image it sent. On bad days, it was all she did.

Three chief things Loriel learned from her mirror:

First: The kitchen girl she’d so thoughtlessly forced to forget her on the first day of her new life was never quite the same afterward. She often cried for no reason, couldn’t remember whole weeks of her life, and she didn’t know why. Her dearest friend—a scullery maid—would comfort her, let her weep into her shoulder, assure her that no, she wasn’t mad, that she needn’t give herself over to the mercy of the Chantry, that surely the Maker would send relief soon.

Loriel regretted making her forget. She would not have done it, had she known it would break her mind. But neither did she indulge her guilt and shame. What a waste that would have been. Of course Loriel had hurt her—was that not entirely expected?

She knew perfectly well what she was.

Second: Nearly everyone in the Keep she ruled feared her. Some hated her, some revered her, some loved her, but everyone feared her.

That Loriel was a maleficar was not exactly an open secret. The new recruits didn’t know, and the old recruits weren’t sure or bold enough to tell them outright.

But oh, there were rumors.

Some seemed convinced that she had died long ago—that her seneschal had killed her, usurped her position, and only pretended to take her directives (after all, how long had it been since anyone had seen her? On these occasions Loriel occasionally made a point to appear briefly in the great hall). Others asserted that Loriel was the usurper, that the old commander had grown too popular and beloved and had planned to betray her, and so Loriel had betrayed and killed her first. Another version had it that Loriel kept the old commander imprisoned somewhere in the depths, chained up and tormented with blood magic. And that was well related to—

Third: People still spoke of the old commander. Anytime something went wrong— the old commander never would have allowed this. The old commander would never have allowed the patrol schedule to change so inconveniently. The old commander never would have stood for substandard breakfast offerings. The old commander wouldn’t have tolerated this. The old commander would have kept us safe. The old commander cared. Many in the Keep were very confident on what exactly the old commander thought and felt about any subject on the sun you could care to name.

The first of Vigil’s Keep wardens were the worst about it. They gathered together some nights to play cards and drink, just the three of them, and the old commander would come up. Anytime the three of them met, Loriel would be there, too, invisible, intangible, unwanted. It was almost an addiction. Oghren would tell embarrassing stories from back during the Blight, and insist that he’d taught her everything she knew about fighting. Velanna always looked vaguely angry when this happened, but she listened anyway, and even asked questions, and many times Loriel caught her suppressing a genuine laugh. They’d wonder where she was, what she was doing. Sigrun would crack a forced smile and say, probably having a great time without us. They’d laugh. They’d miss her.

Loriel had never heard anything so insulting in her life.

In the end, the crystals turned out to be a mistake. It had been a fun project, but a wasteful one. One day she shattered the viewing mirror. If she really needed it, she could always make a new one, but for now, she was done.

You couldn’t spend your life entranced by what you couldn’t have. You just couldn’t.

Anyway—she'd found Brigit by then. Brigit ran things better than Loriel could ever hope to. If Brigit made a popular decision, the Wardens all agreed that perhaps they were on the right track after all, with the Hero of Ferelden at the helm and all. If Brigit made an unpopular decision, the Wardens muttered that the old commander would never have stood for it, and if the Hero of Ferelden knew what was happening she would surely put an end to it.

Loriel herself rarely thought of the old commander. She had too much work to do.

tck

The first to go was Oghren. It had been for his own good. The Wardens had only ever been an escape for him, an excuse to wallow in his own refuse and avoid the wife and child he had been too weak to face. Well, no more. Loriel waited until he was sober, or as close as he ever came to it, to break the news.

“Go home, Oghren,” she’d told him. “Or don’t. Lay down in the gutter and finally drink yourself to death, if that’s what you really want. You can go wherever you want, but you can’t stay here.”

He’d sputtered, protested. Demanded to know why, and why now . Weren’t the Wardens supposed to take any old sod? Didn’t she have any respect for their long friendship? He’d kept an eye on her since she was naive little mageling fresh out of the Circle (now that was a funny joke) and now she was really just going to get rid of him? Just like that?

"Just like that," she confirmed, unmoved. “You don’t belong here. You have a family.”

He swore at her, so luridly that she was almost impressed. And then he calmed down. He called her a sodding waste of space, but his heart wasn’t in it.

She made arrangements to have him taken care of. Supplies, escorts, whatever he needed. She wasn't a monster. She tried to be good to her people, when she could. She hoped he really did go back to his wife and child, though both their names escaped her at the moment. Of course she hoped for the best for him.

But she never did end up following up, and whatever became of Oghren Kondrat, Loriel never learned it.

tck

What was really surprising was how long Sigrun stuck around.

Loriel had assumed for years that Sigrun’s presence in her life was just on the verge of ending. They hadn’t been on good terms since the Dragonbone Wastes, and these days Loriel was not on good terms with anyone at all.

And even if Sigrun was too loyal and true to simply desert, she was foolhardy. She fought like she didn’t care if she died, because she didn’t. Each morning when Brigit recited the names of the dead, Loriel waited and waited to hear Sigrun’s name. That she’d died saving a fellow Warden, or charging a group of darkspawn to give the rest of her squad time, or that she’d simply not returned.

But Sigrun was still here.

How fitting for a dead woman to haunt her Keep, one who continued not to die. If Loriel didn’t know any better, she might have even thought that Sigrun missed Oghren, though Maker only knew why. If Loriel didn’t know any better, she might have even thought that Sigrun missed her, in some strange way. Of the original Wardens of the Keep, Sigrun was the only one who occasionally knocked on Loriel’s chamber doors, tentatively calling out her name and even waiting a few minutes before giving up.

As though Loriel would tolerate her pity.

She hated to think of her. Hated to remember that she was still there at all, accusing Loriel of wrongdoing just by existing, even though she had no right at all to judge her. Hated to remember how much of herself she saw in the dwarf when she first saw sunlight.

Finally Loriel could take it no longer, and had Sigrun transferred to the Warden fortress in Orlais. Sigrun made only a cursory attempt to say goodbye, and within a blessed month, she was gone.

tck

Velanna was the last to go.

Velanna was not her friend. She had never liked her, and tolerated her solely because Loriel represented something that Velanna wanted—justification for what had happened to her sister. But she had understood her, in her own way. For that reason alone Loriel half-expected her loyalty.

Even so, it was not altogether surprising when it happened.

Unlike the last time, Velanna did not succeed in barging through the door. The weave of enchantments on the door was far stronger than before. And Brigit was there to intercept her.

“I said, let me through. I know for a fact that she’s in there—you were just about to go in yourself. You go in there every day, I’ve noticed.”

“I am sorry, Warden, but the Commander expressly forbids visitors who have not been cleared beforehand. If you like, I can make your request today during my daily report.”

“I don’t think so.” A burst of unfamiliar magic rattled the door. Loriel was mildly impressed. It wasn’t anywhere near enough to get the job done, but that she had managed to affect it at all was impressive.

“Alright, fine. You don’t need to let me in but I know that you can hear me, so you are going to listen, whether there is a door in the way or not.” A furious inhale. “Has some demon taken your mind and driven you mad? You are not the woman I agreed to follow.” False. Velanna had never agreed to follow her at all.

“For what purpose do you exile your friends and surround yourself with enemies? Are you ignorant or foolhardy that this Keep is now full of Chantry fools and their attack dogs?” True, but flawed. Yes, the Vigil had a great deal more Chantry-faithful, as well as former Templars, in its employ, than before. But all Ferelden was full of Chantry fools and their attack dogs. All Loriel did was permit them the opportunity to die in the name of some higher calling.

“You aren’t doing any of this for us. You care nothing for us, if you ever did. Are you even trying to cure the Blight? Perhaps you are not!”

False. Loriel was trying. Of course she was trying.

“And if I am wrong—if a lick of what I have said is not true—then open this door and call me a liar to my face, you wretched cowardly betrayef." A beat.“Well?”

It sounded like Velanna really expected her to respond to any of that.

Loriel heard a final frustrated slam against the door, hammering footsteps, and then silence.

After a time, Brigit entered, trembling and hiding it. She alone had the enchanted, invisible ring which allowed the wearer to enter.

“I apologise deeply, Commander,” she whispered. “She overpowered me with magic. I was paralyzed.”

“I’m very sorry you had to experience that, Brigit,” Loriel said flatly, not looking up from the letter she was reading. “No lasting harm done, I trust?”

Brigit collected herself and inclined her head. “No harm done.”

“Good. Then, if you might proceed with your morning report…”

Velanna disappeared that day, and didn’t return. When no one had seen her in days and it became obvious that she had deserted, Brigit pressed the issue during the morning briefing. “Do you wish her hunted down and brought to justice?”

By the ever-so-delicate crease between her eyes, Loriel guessed that this was certainly what Brigit wished.

“No. It won’t be necessary.” She paused, considering. "But if she ever tries to return, do not let her."

#dragon age #amell #surana #dragon femslash #please read my wizard lesbian fanfiction

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eponymous-rose · 5 years

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Writing some reviews and working on revisions today and realized a lot of folks probably aren’t aware of the hilariously messed-up process of academic publishing, so here’s how it typically goes for me:

1. Have a good, sciencey idea! If something is going to be published, it has to contribute to the overall scientific knowledge of your field in some way. Often this is the classic set-up of: “I have a theory. I ran an experiment to test that theory. Here’s what I found.”

2. Get a sense of which journal would be a good fit. Journals like Science and Nature have a massive general readership but an abysmal acceptance rate (and their broad scope means you’re competing with an absurd range of research topics). Smaller, more specialized journals may reach a higher percentage of your desired subfield’s audience, but those articles might also just vanish under the waves or keep you away from interdisciplinary collaborations. There are plenty of (even more) predatory journals out there that will publish your work with basically no oversight, and will be a black mark on your CV. Some research is important here, and I usually work out where I want to submit before writing any more than an outline.

3. Find the style guide for your desired journal. Oh god. It’s a mess. I learned LaTeX (a typesetting system) because a lot of journals in my field have a downloadable template to use. If you use Word, may god have mercy on your soul.

4. Write! This is the most fun part for me. In my field, a paper is typically a ~250-word abstract (sell your work to people skimming through!), a ~7,500-word paper, and maybe around 15 figures (never realized my science career would require so much graphic design knowledge!). Some journals will let you include supplemental material like animations that can be accessed online, and most now require that you provide all necessary data to allow someone to reproduce your results.

5. Get the coauthors on board. If I’m writing, I’m generally going to be the first author on the paper, and I want to make sure everyone gets proper attribution. In my field, first author is generally the one who did the most writing and editing (in an academic setting, this should always be the graduate student, even if they maybe got a lot of extra help on writing), with the remaining order of authors not really mattering (except, again in academia, it’s usually traditional for the grad student’s supervisor to be the last author). This varies hugely by field. The criteria for deciding who gets authorship is also really, really complicated and tied in to research ethics. I’ve given coauthorship to people who provided me with their own hard-to-find datasets, even though technically their contribution to the paper was just sending one e-mail with an attachment, because gathering all that data was instrumental to the study, even if they didn’t have my study in mind when they did it. Regardless, this is the stage where I send the paper to the coauthors and let them review it. This can be pretty intense and result in a lot of edits and back-and-forth until everyone feels good attaching their name to it. I’ve had this take two weeks, and I’ve had it take almost a year. Varies a lot.

6. Submit the paper to the journal. At this point, they’ll have you sign a cost estimate, which is basically saying, “I’m willing to pay a few thousand dollars to have this published.” Yes, you pay them for the privilege of publishing in their journal. Academic grant applications usually have a section for publication funding, so it’s unlikely to be coming out of your pockets directly, but that’s still an awful lot of money. There’s generally a charge per page, and then a different charge per figure. I’ve seen online-only journals that charge extra for color figures. Explain that one to me. (In my field, a couple of open-access journals that charge nothing or only a nominal processing fee are starting to gain interest, but pubs in these journals are often excluded from the metrics of publication prowess that may determine whether or not you get a promotion, so the only folks who can afford to publish in them are the ones who are already well-established. What a racket.)

7. After an initial okay from an editor (who is an unpaid volunteer), the paper is sent to three reviewers (also unpaid volunteers). Their job is to pick the paper apart (anonymously, so it can get nasty) and come up with a final recommendation: accept (basically doesn’t happen on the first round of reviews), accept pending minor revisions that won’t need a second round of reviewing (rare, but might occur), accept pending major revisions that will need a second round of reviews (most common), or reject (which also includes transferring to another journal that might be a better fit). This stage usually takes about 6 weeks with the journals I submit to, and the reply will often be several thousand words of reviews. The editor takes these three reviews and decides on the final verdict.

8. Revisions! Every single change you make (right down to fixing a typo) must be written out in an accompanying document, along with the precise line number and justification. Every sentence your reviewers write must be addressed. You can argue or defend yourself, but this is often the stage of scoffing at a suggestion for a while and then going “....aw man you right”. I’ve had comments that forced me to remake every single figure in the paper, and rewrite half the analysis along the way. My revision changelogs/justifications have, in the past, been longer than the paper (once almost 10,000 words).

9. Send those revisions to the coauthors and make sure you’re on the same page. This is often a bit of a hell of “I totally disagree with this reviewer and think you shouldn’t have given in on this one” and “I’m fine with your replies to these reviews, but while you’re here, let’s completely change this...” Cobble something together and throw it back to the journal. This stage can take up to a couple months. Often for this step, I send out the paper to all coauthors and give a hard deadline for either a reply or a request for more time---often coauthors who are only tangentially involved in the project are cool with just stepping back and letting the revised paper go through as-is.

10. Another round of reviews! If you’ve got that “major revisions” marker, your revised paper and replies go out to the same reviewers, again with that six-week deadline for their reviews. If you’re down to just “minor revisions”, the editor will take a look. If needed, another round of revisions will happen, followed by a third review if your revisions are still considered “major”. If things still aren’t working by then, the editor will generally intervene.

11. Pay that $$$$. Your paper goes into early online release (basically just the unformatted version your reviewers saw) after a week or so, and then after a month or so a nicely formatted and typeset version goes into circulation. From submission to final publication, in my experience four to eight months is pretty standard. I’m getting a lot better at writing a whole paper in only a couple weeks to balance that out. Also getting better at having several papers in different stages of this process simultaneously!

12. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Again, just to emphasize, this is what it’s like in my little corner of my field, publishing in a small subset of journals. I’ve reviewed for a dozen different journals at this point, and there are a lot of variations on this theme! The whole process is weird as heck and frequently soul-crushing, but there you have it.

#eponymous academia tag #long text post

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evilrubberducke · 5 years

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Strangers In a Strange Land Chapter 2: Hunt

The second chapter of my MHA meets Monster Hunter fic is up! In this chapter, Izuku and Mina explore the Ancient Forest, make some new friends, and take on their first monster.

Read it on AO3!

Or on FF.Net!

Teaser below cut;

Life in Astera started early. Before the sun even rose, Izuku was awoken by a massive horn being blown somewhere far above him. He bolted to his feet, nearly falling on his face as the sheets tangled around him. Near the foot of his bed, Ashido had leapt to her feet as well, her fur puffed out to nearly twice its usual size.

“Up and at ‘em, people,” came the voice of the Field Team Leader from the doorway. “You’ve got work to do!”

Apparently, Izuku had been placed in one of the smaller barracks, a fact which had earned him a few jealous looks from other hunters when he got the assignment. Even knowing that, he still had a hard time adjusting. Between the two-bedroom apartment he and his mother had shared since he was little and the spacious dorms that UA had built for its students, Izuku was used to having his own room. Sleeping in the same room as a half dozen other hunters had lead to him sleeping poorly. He’d been awoken multiple times when someone had snored a bit too loudly or went to relieve themselves in the middle of the night.

It certainly didn’t help that the dorms were co-ed. And that casual attire for most hunters consisted of a pair of skin tight shorts and an equally tight crop top-like shirt. He kept catching glimpses of the female hunters out of the corner of his eye and blushing furiously.

Ashido had seemed surprised by the arrangement as well, though she had gotten over it much more quickly. A couple of times while he was getting ready, he had caught her gaze straying away from him to a few of the more attractive hunters.

He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why that bothered him so much.

He and Ashido were friends, though they hadn’t spent a huge amount of time with each other due to being in different social circles at UA. It made sense that they hadn’t discussed romance with each other. He hadn’t even discussed it much with Iida and Uraraka, and he had spent nearly every day with them.

Still, he found himself glancing at the same hunters as Ashido, wondering if there was anything they had in common. He couldn’t see anything significant. While not as varied as the crowds he was used to, the junior hunters comprised a varied spectrum of skin and hair colors. The only ‘unifying’ traits were that they were almost universally tall and fit, although he imagined that was more to do with the demands of the job than an underlying set of traits.

He didn’t get much time to watch them, however. As disorganized and noisy as they had been, each of the junior hunters had their armor and weapons strapped on in record time, leaving Izuku in the dust. He kept having trouble with the various straps and clasps that kept the leather armor in place.

“Need some help there, pawtner?” Ashido said from behind him.

She had somehow gotten her armor on before Izuku as well, despite her lack of opposable thumbs. It appeared that the transition from human to feline hadn’t dulled any of her natural litheness.

“Uh... yeah. That would be great. Thanks Ashido,” Izuku said, turning his back to her. There was one strap in particular that was situated awkwardly at the center of his back that was causing most of his problems.

Ashido giggled when she saw it. “Pretty sure you’ve got this on backwards. There’s one like it at the front of my armor.

Izuku flushed with embarrassment. It wasn’t like anyone was expecting him to have a lot of experience putting on armor, but he still felt like he was letting people down.

At least he had Ashido to help him. She gripped his shoulder with a paw, then yanked the offending strap around until its buckle rested in the center of his chest. Then she spun him around to tighten it.

As she fixed that buckle, and a few others that seemed to have offended her sensibilities, Izuku marveled yet again at how little she had changed despite her new feline form. Somehow, despite the layer of soft pink fur that now covered her head to toe, her expressions were exactly the same as he remembered. She still brought her brows together in the same way when she was trying to concentrate on a problem. Her nose still wrinkled slightly when she got frustrated, though now her whiskers moved as well.

The only thing that had really changed were her eyes. The colors had reversed, leaving the center of her eyes a deep black, while the outer edges shone a brilliant gold. Izuku wasn’t quite sure if he liked the change. It was only a small thing, but it left her feeling just a little bit different to him. He had always liked her eyes. When she looked at him, it always felt like she was really seeing him—unlike the people he had grown up with, who had always seemed to look past him.

“Earth to Midoriya,” Ashido said, rapping him sharply on the forehead. “Your armor’s ready.”

He blinked, then looked down at himself. While he had been reminiscing, Ashido had finished adjusting his armor. It now sat much more comfortably than it had when he had adjusted it.

“Oh. T-thanks Ashido,” He said.

“No problem,” She replied, smiling broadly. “What were you thinking about?”

He stiffened slightly. Telling Ashido how he’d been thinking about her eyes for the past several minutes was the absolute last thing he wanted to do.

“N-N-Nothing important!”

She grinned wickedly. “Awwww, c’mon! You don’t have to hide anything from me! You said it yourself, we’ve got each other to rely on here. That means you can ‘tail’ me anything!” She shook her tail to emphasize the pun, and leaned in closer. She might not be as much of a gossip as Hagakure, but Ashido loved a secret as much as the next girl.

Izuku frowned. She made a very good point, and with his own words, no less. He really had no reason not to tell her what he had been thinking. Still, he resisted telling her the whole truth, even if he didn’t know why.

“I was just... I was thinking that I got really lucky to have you here. Even after you’ve been turned into an adorable kitty, you’re still helping me do my best. So... I wanted to say thank you.” He gave her paw a squeeze.

Ashido’s head whipped around, looking anywhere but at him.

Too late, Izuku realized his mistake. He had just assumed that the cat puns she had been making were a sign that she had overcome the shock of her sudden transformation, but she must still have been struggling to come to terms with it, and he had just poked the open wound.

“Ashido, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to—”

“No, it’s ok,” She said, facing him once more.

There was an expression on her face that Izuku couldn’t quite place. It looked halfway between embarrassment and... excitement? But that couldn’t be right. Maybe he wasn’t as good at reading her feline expressions as he had first thought.

“I just… got really hungry all of a sudden,” Ashido said, patting her stomach. “So I was just thinking that we should go get some food. C’mon!” With that, she scampered out of the room.

Izuku was a bit taken aback by the sudden shift in topic, but he did have to agree with Ashido. Despite the large meal he had eaten the night before, the smell of breakfast that was wafting down from the canteen was making his stomach rumble.

Shaking his head to clear the unnecessary thoughts, Izuku followed Ashido out of the barracks and into the sunshine that was already beginning to warm the planks of Astera’s walkways.

Read the rest on AO3 or on FF.Net!

#midoriya izuku #mina ashido #izumina #monster hunter world #my hero academia #monster fighting #action #fluff #mha fanfiction #bnha fanfiction #mha #bnha #dekumina #crossover #fanfiction #minadeku #alternate world transport

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minigenos · 6 years

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Holidays Part 1

Part 1 (you are here) ― Part 2 (soon)

Genos plans a romantic holiday evening for Saitama. However, as this is the One Punch Man universe, things quickly start going to shit when monsters attack.

Small snowflakes swirled through the chill winter air. Despite the cold, couples were walking hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm as they admired the myriad number of strung lights placed through one of the large parks of Z City. Other pairs had taken to the warmth of local department stores or restaurants as they enjoyed some last-minute holiday shopping or a snack. Everything was so picturesque and romantic that nobody there wanted it to end.

Suddenly a powerful breeze blasted by the couples, causing some to get knocked onto their rears. Responses varied from confused questions to angry shouts and even worried murmurs. Was that an earthquake? A monster?

Nope.

It was Saitama and Genos.

A certain hero had overslept and now the pair were going to be late to a very important event.

“WHY DIDN'T YOU WAKE ME UP, GENOS?!” the hero yelled as they dashed through the park at inhuman speed.

“I did, Sensei!” Genos replied. “You then proceeded to hit me on the head like an alarm clock! It took me almost half an hour to recalibrate!”

“Oh. Oops. Sorry,” Saitama said with what might be inferred as a guilty smile. He must have had another one of those vivid dreams were he took on an opponent that didn't fall after a single punch. Those were the best.

But maybe not the best for his room mate. Luckily for them Genos knew how to do most of the repairs himself in order to save time, though there was still a visible crack where the cyborg's face and hairline met.

Well, it wasn't that noticeable. Mostly... Kind of...

It... was actually pretty noticeable. But as long as Genos didn't get hit by anything else it would probably be alright until he could go off and get it fixed.

Saitama made a mental note to tone the vivid dreaming down a notch to be on the safe side.

After what seemed like ages running – but was closer to maybe five minutes max – the pair arrived at a large banquet hall. Normally such places would be busy with huge parties, though the parking lot of this one was mostly empty.

“Um, Genos, are you sure this is where we're supposed to be?” Saitama asked as they approached the door.

“Of course. This is the place. I double-checked before leaving to make sure.” The cyborg failed to mention the fact that he checked in on the hall in person half a dozen times since he reserved it to make sure that his reservation was still in their computer system and that the building itself was still standing. He wouldn't want to lose his reservation or find out that the hall had been destroyed at the last minute.

Saitama casually inspected the building's decorations. “Wow, this place is pretty fancy,” he commented as the LED screen plastered on the wall depicted a scene of Santa's sleigh being pulled over a forest of trees covered in snow. Numerous strings of LED lights hung along the top of the hall flashed in bright holiday colors and rhythmic patterns. Even the trees and light posts gussied up in tinsel and, not surprisingly, even more LED lights. The hero couldn't help but feel out of place here. This wasn't somewhere he'd normally visit.

“Genos, are you sure we're supposed to be here?” he asked again.

A wispy female voice cut off the cyborg before he could reply.

“No, you're riiiiggghhht where I want you~”

A over-sized string of tinsel quickly wrapped around Saitama's leg. Once it had gained some footing even more strings of tinsel shot out from the shadows and wrapped themselves tightly around the hero.

“Sensei!” Genos yelled as he jumped back to avoid getting caught in whatever had wound around his mentor. Despite the cyborg's worry, Saitama stood where he was, completely unperturbed by his predicament.

“Hmm, yessssss~” the monster hissed as it completely emerged from the shadows. Its main body was composed of many strands of thick, interwoven tinsel, which branched out into ten long independently-moving tentacles. The creature's head was shaped almost like a snake's, complete with fangs and even engorged jowls that contained massive venom glands .

Using built-in WI-FI to access the Hero Association's database Genos was able to narrow down their attacker to a single monster – Ten-SSSel, a fast and lethal Tiger-Level threat. He quickly read through the information on its page; its main weapons were venom, the ten tentacles that could easily pick up and strangle a human, and the innumerable number of tinsel-like strands that covered its body, which could be hardened at will to turn into ultra thin, razor-sharp knives.

“Sensei, watch out for-” the cyborg's warning was cut short as a tentacle struck him in the chest and sent him flying many yards back.

“Ssshut up!” Ten-SSSel hissed. It was only interested in fresh meat, not metal and plastic. With Genos out of the way the monster returned its attention back to its prey.

“You'll be a perrrfect holiday meal for me, don't you think~” Ten-SSSel cooed as its tentacles began to coil harder around the hero. After a few seconds it noticed that its prey had become... bored. Angered by Saitama's lack of any response and, more importantly, what should have been his death, the monster hardened every single strand on the tentacles that were wrapped around its prey.

Under normal circumstances most humans would have been killed just from the constriction alone. Some required Ten-SSSel to use its more powerful secondary ability to slice open and exsanguinate them before it could feast, though the monster personally never liked having to go so far as the meal just wasn't quite as filling without the blood.

But this bastard not only survived its first attack, every strand that should have cut him open snapped and shattered like toothpicks!

“Are you done?” Saitama deadpanned.

“H-how!? You ssshould be dead!” the monster hissed as it reeled back from the shock. It moved the damaged tentacles around and watched in horror as harmless pieces of tinsel fluttered to the ground.

The hero was too bored to wait any longer for an answer. With one lightning-fast punch Ten-SSSel exploded into countless pieces of tinsel, which landed on anything within a thirty foot radius.

“Oh. Pretty,” Saitama said with a small smile. It faded pretty quickly once Genos informed him that tinsel was bad for the environment and everything would have to be picked up before the rain washed it away.

Well, Saitama was sure the workers here would take care of things after the holidays.

“So, um, why are we here?” the hero asked as they finally entered through the hall's ornate double doors.

“I reserved the hall for us tonight,” Genos replied.

“No, but really. Why?”

“I reserved the hall for us tonight.” The cyborg was a little confused as to why his mentor doubted him. After a single second to think things over, Genos came to the conclusion that Saitama was more surprised that he had gotten the reservation rather than he had reserved the entire place for just two people. If that was the case then a simple explanation would clear everything up.

And so Genos started explaining, in painful detail, every step of how he rented the hall.

“I called back in June to ensure I could get my reservation in before the holiday rush. Because it would be just the two of us I didn't have to pay extra for chairs and tables, and since I wasn't sure what you would like to eat for tonight I ordered a hot food as well as a cold food buffet, as well as a fruit and salad bar. As for the alcohol-”

“GENOS! I GET IT!” Saitama exclaimed in order to shut the cyborg up. He sometimes forgot how ridiculously long-winded Genos could get with his explanations, and he really didn't need to know every step of the process.

But, he did mention something about food, and a lot of it to boot...

“Let's just get in there,” the hero said in a steady monotone. He pulled on one of the doors to the main hall, but it seemed stuck. It must have a stubborn lock or something; a bit strange for some place this fancy to have such faulty mechanics, but hey things happen. Saitama grabbed the handles of both doors and stood back as far as he could. With one good pull the doors flung wide open, allowing them inside.

And, of course, their entrance into the room was met with terrified screams as the workers rushed around them to escape.

“M-monster!” one of the caterers screamed as he dashed for the exit door.

“Well well,” said the creature as it turned around. It was a massive wreath at least ten feet tall, if not more, with dangerous weapons in place of the usual baubles. Barbed wire whips replaced strands of tinsel, live grenades in place of pine cones, and knives of various shapes and even colors instead of ornaments. One of its hands held a barbed wire whip while the other grasped a large red hunting knife.

“I don't know how you got past Ten-SSSel,” it scoffed, “but I can guarantee you ain't gonna be leaving here outside of a body bag!” A pair of glowing red eyes stared down at the two heroes as long tentacles made out of what seemed to be pine extended from its body. For the life of him, Saitama couldn't figure out where the damn thing's mouth was.

Genos looked at the floor behind them. Ah. It had trapped the people inside by blocking the door with its tentacles. He remembered seeing this monster's name when he was looking at Ten-SSSel's information.

“This is Gouliday Wreath, a Tiger-level threat,”the cyborg said to Saitama. “His powers are-”

His mentor wasn't standing next to him anymore. He had already run up to the monster.

“Oh? And what do you think you can possibly do to someone like me?” Gouliday Wreath laughed as Saitama stood in front of him. Their size difference was blatantly apparent at this distance, and for all intents and purposes it didn't seem like the human stood much of a chance.

But this was Saitama.

The hero grabbed a chunk of the monster's body and clamped down on it, preventing his opponent from escaping.

“Don't you know not to show up without a reservation?” Saitama said as he flung Gouliday Wreath as hard as he could. It sailed through one of the large windows and landed many, many yards away on the pavement, which caused some of its grenades to become activated by accident.

All that was left once the explosions were over was a large crater in the parking lot and tiny shreds of what had been the monster spread out over a roughly 200 foot radius.

Saitama turned to Genos, who had walked up to him. “That was a pretty cool line huh?” he said with a smile.

“Yes. But,” the cyborg pointed towards the broken window. “What are we going to do about that?”

Oh yeah.

Whoops.

“Uh, you bought insurance too, right?” Saitama said with a nervous smile.

He hadn't.

Genos made a mental note to leave a contact card so the hall's owner could call the Hero Association and get the window fixed.

With all the monsters taken care of and no further threats in sight, the hall's workers quickly barricaded the window and cleaned up the mess from Saitama's fight with Gouliday Wreath. As much as everybody wanted to leave and call it a night, they were almost positive that their boss would fire them if they left such a prestigious, high-paying customer to fend for himself and his one guest.

Luckily for them, all of the food was located in the direct opposite corner of the hall from where the monster had shown up and all but two items were covered in some way, which was easy enough to replace.

Saitama sat down at the only table in the entire place with uncovered seats. Genos sat down carefully next to him; the cyborg wasn't sure just how much weight his chair could hold and didn't want it suddenly collapsing on him. After a few quick tests he was sure that the chair had been reinforced to his specifications and moved to a more relaxed pose. What counted as relaxed for him at least.

The aroma from all the food was beginning to make Saitama's stomach rumble in anticipation. From what he could see there was a huge tray of various sushi and sashimi, a fragrant miso soup, and next to that was yet another large tray of seasonal as well as pickled vegetables. On another table was a container filled with steamed rice that sat directly next to a container of grilled fish sealed in – from what Saitama could smell – a sweet teriyaki marinade. And adjacent to that was the cold foods table – a big bowl of fresh garden salad along with a very sizable mixed fruit plate. The final table featured a tower of various miniature cakes and pastries sitting next to a small tray of obscenely fancy cookies. Built into one of the walls was a mini bar manned by an older-looking gentleman. From the looks of things he seemed to have more than enough drinks on-hand to suit literally any taste.

It was. A lot. Too much even. Saitama knew he couldn't finish everything, and even with Genos' unique metabolization process a good amount of the food would go to waste.

And since he was a hero he had to think and act like one.

He walked up to the caterers that were standing around with nothing to do since there were only two guests in the entire hall, and casually pointed back towards the buffet.

“Ah, yaknow if you want to grab some food go ahead. Genos and I can't finish all of that ourselves.”

Nobody seemed inclined to move. Instead they just gave each other confused looks. Their evening had already been bizarre enough, but now they were being invited, encouraged even, to eat right along with the Demon Cyborg and whoever the hell he had brought as his one and only guest.

“What are you waiting for? Saitama-sensei said you could have some food, so come and get some,” Genos said in an unusually stern voice. A couple of workers jumped in response; they hadn't expected him to say anything to them. Well, if the Demon Cyborg said it was ok, then it was ok, right? A few brave souls hesitantly made their way to the buffet and picked out a few pieces of their favorite foods from the selection there. Eventually the rest joined in, including the mini bar worker.

“Saitama-sensei,” Genos whispered, “why did you invite everyone to take some food?” He wasn't questioning the man's choice so much as why he decided to do such a thing.

“Ah, well, there was obviously too much food for us,” the hero replied. “And um, well, I just think it's better for people to eat together.” He couldn't tell if Genos believed him or not. Saitama quickly racked his mind for some sort of final reason to give his excuse some real punch.

“After all,” he bullshitted, “preventing wasteful use of food is something heroes gotta think about too.”

Oh god. That was bad, even for him.

Saitama glanced over to see Genos scribbling furiously in his notebook. Dammit don't write that down! he thought to himself.

“Yes you're absolutely right! Every little act helps” the cyborg agreed as he closed the notebook and stashed it away within his body.

Goooooddddddddd.

Not wanting to dig his hole any further and make Genos think he was smarter than he actually was, Saitama quickly changed the subject. “Merry Christmas!” he said while raising the bowl of soup he had poured himself.

“Merry Christmas,” Genos replied as he held up his own bowl of rice.

Despite the earlier setbacks, their night was coming together to be one of the nicest ones either of them had experienced in a long, long time.

#one punch man #opm #sagenos #genosai #minisfic #holiday #christmas

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besthostingforwordpressredd-blog · 5 years

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keep-calm-ask-the-librarian · 6 years

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The smell of coffee and scrambled eggs had lured him down, but they were nowhere near as compelling as the sight of his wife, dressed in PJ bottoms, a sweater and a pair of fluffy slippers. Quietly crossing the kitchen he came to stand behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

Immediately she relaxed back against him, her body intuitively knowing it was him and he bend down his head to kiss the sensitive patch of skin behind her ear.

“Good morning,” he murmured, his voice still hoarse from sleep.

Giving the eggs a last shake and turning the burners down, Olivia turned around in his arms, her smile radiant.

“Good morning,” she replied, wounding her arms around his neck.

Instantly he captured that smile with his mouth, groaning softly as she slid her hand up into his hair, pulling slightly at the strands.

“I love you,” he whispered against her lips.

“I love you too,” she breathed back, rubbing her nose against his.

It had been weeks since they had first declared their feelings for each other, but he would never grow tired of hearing her say it, or say those words to her.

“I thought you were going to sleep in this morning,” she admonished him gently, worry written clearly over her face.

The previous night he’d arrived home far past midnight after helping Larry out with a tricky situation and he was definitely feeling how few hours of sleep he’d had. But going back to bed wasn’t an option.

“The bed was too empty without you in it,” he replied, stealing another kiss.

Against his lips, she giggled. “You’re an impossible flirt, Jacques Snicket.”

“I’ll turn in for a few more hours after you and the kids are gone,” he compromised. “But now that I’m up, we might as well have breakfast together.”

Minutes later they were joined by the children and they all sat down at the breakfast nook to enjoy their scrambled eggs together.

With Esmé captured and safely behind bars it was as if a weight had been lifted off the Baudelaire children. There had been this tension that they’d been carrying with them for all those months and that had become so much ingrained with them that neither he nor Olivia had realized it had been there until it was gone.

But now, with only three weeks until Christmas, they were finally at peace.

As the children chatted around him, Jacques took a mediative bite of scrambled eggs and reflected on how much his life had changed since the night Olivia had been abducted.

In the days that had followed their ordeal, all of his concentration and focus had been on the wellbeing of his family.

Olivia, although not seriously injured, had been in a lot more discomfort than she had anticipated herself. When she woke up the following Friday she’d been barely able to move her limbs and he’d spend days drawing her hot baths, applying hot cherry pit pillows to her sore joints and very gently massaging the knots out of her strained muscles.

The children, albeit relieved, were still shaken, which resulted in the return of nightmares, especially in Violet’s case.

It had taken a week before everything had settled down somewhat and by that time, Jacques was ready to make the decision that he’d been contemplating in the back of his mind for months. Even though recently most of his V.F.D. related missions were already contained to assignments around the city, he’d still been away from home in all hours of the night far more than he felt comfortable with. And even with Quigley Quagmire now being find and reunited with his siblings, there would always be other fires, both literally and figuratively that needed his intervention as a volunteer.

So the solution had appeared to be a very simple one: it was time to step away for once and for all.

And all things considered, he was ready to take that step. His life was so different now from what it had been a year ago. He was once again part of a big family and to him that was more important than anything else in the world. He was tired of missing weekends and dinners with Olivia and the children, or arriving home at all hours of the night, too exhausted to function.

And then the most amazing thing had happened. After discussing his decision with Olivia, he had driven to the V.F.D. headquarters in Mortmain Mountains to hand in his resignation to Captain Widdershins. The Captain, not known for being the most flexible of persons, or enjoying any type of surprise had instead made him a counter-offer.

Instead of completely quitting the V.F.D., Widdershins asked him if was interested in task of rewriting ‘The History of Secret Organizations.’

Now that most of the fire-starting side was either dead or locked up, it was time to, quite literally re-write the book on how the organization should function.

The job would involve a lot of research, a lot of pouring over ancient documents and manuscripts and a lot of cataloging for which he would need the aide of a very skilled librarian.

It had taken one phone call to the Snicket Townhouse for him and Olivia to decide that they were more than eager to tackle this challenge together.

Apart from that he also agreed to become a mentor to new volunteers who were to be trained in the city and to his surprise he quickly discovered that once word got out that he was available in that capacity he was flocked with requests for advice and counsel, other volunteers apparently valuing his opinion and expertise a great deal.

At the moment he was still tying up a few lose ends, but with the start of the new year he would put away his gravity boots and wall-climbing equipment for good, while still remaining a volunteer.

Once breakfast was finished and everyone was dressed, Olivia and the children gathered their coats and bags to gear up for a day of Christmas shopping with Kit and Jacquelyn.

Ever since the night of the abduction the friendship between his wife, his sister and his now sister-in-law had grown with leaps and bounds.

He knew they had always liked and admired each other, but in the last few weeks their bond had become near unbreakable. They met up every other day for tea and Jacques never knew if they were exchanging innocent gossip or plotting world-domination.

He opted not to know.

But for today’s plans their friendship was a great help, because when Kit had suggested the shopping excursion for today, Olivia had readily agreed, not expecting any ulterior motives.

He had of course let the children in on his secret - he didn’t think Klaus would have otherwise agreed to spend his free Saturday shopping with five women - and they were every bit as excited about the plan as he was.

After handing Olivia the keys to the taxi and crossing his fingers behind his back as she made him promise her he go back to sleep for a couple of hours he waved them all off and remained by himself in the foyer, waiting nervously for the arrival of his compatriots.

Only a minute later a sizable van pulled up in front of the house and Larry’s cheerful face appeared in the window with Lemony in the passenger seat. “Good morning, this is Larry-your-flower-delivery-person!”

Hurrying outside to help them unload the van, Jacques looked at them anxiously. “Did you manage to get everything?”

“Every flower of the flower district,” Larry reassured him with a smile as he opened the backdoors of the van with a flourish.

And Jacques had to admit, Larry had outdone himself. The back of the van was packed with buckets and buckets of flowers. There was an abundance of Snowdrops and Lily of the Valley’s, Primroses and Gypsophila, but he had also managed to get his hands on roses of varies colors and even some orchids.

Behind the buckets were about a dozen boxes stacked and Jacques gave Lemony a hopeful look.

“Your wife has a magnificent obscure taste,” his brother commented, approval written all over his face. “But I did manage to get everything from the list.”

They spend the next hour bringing everything inside and as Larry went outside one last time to park the van, Jacques checked his watch.

“We have about four hours to put everything together…” he said, nerves coiling his stomach.

Lemony rolled up his sleeves. “Then we better get started.”

They barely gave themselves time for lunch, the three men working tirelessly to put everything together just as Jacques had envisioned it.

He would have never been able to pull this off just by himself, but knowing that their children, friends and family were involved actually made it all the more special.

It had been Klaus who had compiled an extensive list of all the books that Olivia considered to be her favorite and who had stayed in communication with Lemony as he had tried and succeeded to track each and every single one of them down.

Violet had invented the strings of fairy lights that he was currently putting in place, every lightbulb sparkling and twinkling brightly.

And it had been Sunny who had averted Olivia’s attention every time they needed to discuss something to make the surprise perfect.

With only half an hour to go before Olivia and the children were due home, Jacques hurried upstairs to get changed. Suddenly his shaking, nerveless fingers were useless for properly knotting his tie and it was a very good thing that Lemony was there to assist him.

“You know,” his brother told him as he put the tie around his own neck to knot it properly before giving it back. “It’s not like she is going to refuse you… you’ve been married for almost nine months now.”

“I realize that,” Jacques replied, pulling on the tie so harshly that he almost managed to choke himself.

“It’s not about her accepting me…” he continued once he was able to breath again. “It’s about her knowing how much she means to me… how important her happiness is to me… I want her to feel special…”

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height,”

Lemony quoted, before looking at him critically. “Give me that tie again, you’ve ruined it.”

Grumbling Jacques pulled and plucked at the knot until it finally gave away. “Elizabeth Barrett Browning said that.”

“She did,” Lemony deadpanned. “She would also tell you to get a different tie because this one now is a wrinkled mess.”

“A black tie goes with this,” Jacques protested.

“Don’t you have an ochre one?” Lemony asked. “It goes better with the ring anyway.”

“We have five minutes…” Jacques managed, breaking out in sweat as he dug though his drawer in search of the other tie.

“Which is enough,” Lemony answered matter-of-factly. “Just… give it to me and don’t touch it anymore once I’ve put it on.”

Within seconds the tie was properly fastened and Jacques breathed a sigh of relief.

“Everything will be fine,” Lemony told him. “You’ve married a wonderful woman. And I should know… I knew another absolutely wonderful woman once… I recognize those qualities immediately…”

Overcome with sympathy, Jacques reached out and hugged his brother. Lemony would probably love Beatrice for the rest of his life. In his heart and in his mind there simply wasn’t room for anyone else. But the bitter heartbreak was gone from his eyes and had been slowly fading in the past couple of weeks. And it had everything to do with the wonderful woman he’d married.

Lemony genuinely adored Olivia as a sister and the feeling was entirely mutual. Olivia, in her own, affectionate way had taken the blanket that was their family and wrapped it firmly around his younger brother, including him pointedly in all sorts of family events.

Lemony was fascinated by Beatrice’s children and went out of his way to get to know them. To the children he was a source of fresh information about their parents and the lives that they’d never known about and Lemony had already spend many evenings relating everything he remembered about them.

There would always be a Beatrice-shaped hole in Lemony’s heart, but the rest of it was steadily filling up with the renewed affection of his expanded family and he was slowly mending because of it.

As Jacques steadied himself and made his way over to the library, he knew there were a million reasons to propose this afternoon.

They’d had a wonderful day strolling through the city, gazing at festively decorated store windows and getting some of their shopping done, but as she carefully drove the taxi home, Olivia realized that being surrounded by her ever-expanding family was the best gift the past year had given her.

Jacquelyn was next to her on the passenger seat, practically sitting backwards as she was discussing the use of various nifty V.F.D. gadgets with Violet, who was in the backseat, slightly squeezed in next to Klaus, Kit and Sunny.

To her great amusement, Klaus and Kit were really hitting it off lately and Olivia contributed that mostly to the fact that they had a very similar, rather sarcastic sense of humor. All three of the Baudelaire children had little patience with foolishness and hypocrisy, especially after they had endured both of that in abundance from various adults and guardians in the past eighteen months. Olivia often felt that Klaus was most irked by this, but had always been too polite to actually say something unless the situation really called for it. Kit had no such scruples and managed to help him get out of his shell more and more.

They boy was definitely growing in confidence. He had, after endless preparations and practice sessions finally competed in the vocabulary olympiad two weeks ago, managing to bring his team to victory when he had been able to flawlessly give the definition of the word: crepuscular.

It truly had been a moment of victory, not just for Klaus and his team, but for their little family as well. After everything the children had endured in the year and a half that was behind them, they were still standing strong. Olivia hadn’t known that he was able to feel so much pride, but in that moment her heart had almost felt too big for her chest as he watched Klaus triumphantly lift the trophy into the air wile she, Jacques, Violet and Sunny clapped their hands red.

After a few difficult weeks and assisted by the guidance of Dr. Jack Jackson, Violet had decided that she really wanted to follow in her parents (both biological and adoptive) footsteps by becoming a V.F.D. volunteer. To both her and Jacques’ relief she wanted wait for another year so she could finish school, but after that she would be recruited.

And since her stunning inventing skills were already legendary within the organization, there were a great many volunteers extremely eager to become her mentor.

And even little Sunny had big changes ahead of her. In the new year she would start pre-school and out of all of the changes in her children’s lives, Olivia had to admit she was most nervous about that. Sunny was brilliant and resilient and she had no doubt the toddler would thrive in an environment where she could play and explore to her heart’s content, but Olivia would definitely miss having her around all the time.

Once Quigley had settled in with his brother, sister and aunt, the Baudelaires were quick to arrange another meeting to finally get to meet the third triplet, whom they’d heard so much of. The bonds of friendship between the Baudelaires and the Quagmires had become unbreakable with everything they had endured together and Olivia had a sneaky suspicion that in the future they would be a force to be reckoned with within the V.F.D.

Seeing the six children together, safe, reunited and cared for had also done wonders for Jacques’ state of mind and Olivia couldn’t help but smile as she thought of her husband.

He was her husband now in every sense of the word and the past weeks had been filled with more happiness and tenderness than she could have ever anticipated. Jacques absolutely doted on her and Olivia, who hadn’t had anyone dote on her in her life, hadn’t been prepared for how safe and special it would make her feel.

Jacques Snicket had shaken her quiet, lonely, well-organized life completely upside-down, but once they had finally admitted their feelings for each other, they had embarked on the greatest adventure of all: their own lovestory. And it was everything and then so much more than she could have ever imagined.

It was waking up with a thrill of excitement every morning because they were together. It was lying in his arms, late at night, wrapped up securely in his embrace and still not wanting to go asleep because she didn’t want to miss a second of being with him.

It had taken her a little over thirty years, but now she had all the family and love she could wish for.

When she drove up to the townhouse she immediately noticed something was out of the ordinary. The steps towards the front door seemed to be bathing in a soft light, but no matter how much she squinted, she couldn’t quite make out what was causing it.

Around her the car had become very quiet.

Once she had parked the taxi in front of the house and she was able to get a better look she blinked in surprise at the glass jars filled with flowers and lights that were placed all the way up to the front door, leaving a path for someone to walk through.

“Right, there has been a slight change of plans,” Kit announced, her eyes dancing with excitement. “You need to hand the keys of the cab to Jacquelyn. We are going to take the kids out for pizza, a movie and an insane amount of ice-cream and you should go inside.”

“But how… what…?” Olivia stammered, her mind running a mile an hour. Jacques had mentioned a surprise, but what on earth could he have planned?

“Just go!” Kit urged. “Knowing Jacques, he’s probably ready to combust from nerves… he’s been planning this for weeks, driving everyone up the wall with his perfectionism…”

“You’re going to love it,” Violet added.

“I… all right…” With shaking hands Olivia opened the door and slipped out of the car, the cold air of the afternoon welcome on her suddenly flushed cheeks. Five faces were pressed against the window, waving and urging her on and she took a few shaky steps towards the house.

The softly sparkling lights amidst the flowers gave the whole scene something magical and as she slowly walked up the path she could feel her heart fluttering nervously. The front door was slightly ajar and once she’d pushed it open fully she gasped in shock at what she saw. The flowers and lights outside had only been a little prelude to what was waiting for her inside.

The entire hallway was filled with flowers of all shapes and colors. They were arranged in tall vases and small jars, interspersed with sparkling, twinkling fairy lights that were glowing softly. The air was filled with a sweet, flowery fragrance and Olivia inhaled deeply, tears already stinging her eyes.

The flowers were arranged in such a way that they were creating a path that she followed slowly, turning around in circles every now and then to take it all in. The path lead to the stairway which was also completely covered in flowers and lights. Ascending carefully, Olivia realized this must have taken Jacques hours and hours to put together.

Halfway up the stairs she noticed that books were starting to pop up between arrangements and she gasped in delight when she recognized her very favorite titles. There was Jack London’s ‘To build a fire?’ and several books by Samuel Beckett, an author she’d only just recently come to appreciate.

When she arrived on the second floor the path of flowers, lights and books led directly to the library and picking up her pace she hurried forward, her heart suddenly beating furiously.

The inside of the library looked more like a garden than an actual library and Olivia paused on the threshold, completely gobsmacked, trying her hardest to take everything in. Books were placed artfully in colorful displays of flowers and attached to the ceiling was a canopy entirely constructed out of flowers, fairy lights and books.

Underneath that canopy stood Jacques, wearing a dashing tuxedo and a nervous smile.

“Jacques!”

Suddenly she couldn’t get to him soon enough and she rushed forward, almost tripping in her heels.

He reached out to catch her, his arms coming securely around her and she looked up into his face, feeling light-headed and giddy.

“What’s all this then?” she asked breathlessly, grinning so hard her cheeks ached.

Smiling at her he bend down and brushed his lips against her, the affectionate gesture making her stomach flutter.

“I got to plan a surprise for you, remember?” he asked, his voice low.

Twisting slightly into his arms, Olivia looked around the room once more, trying to take in as much as possible.

“It looks amazing…” she said quietly. “All those flowers… and the books… they’re all new, aren’t they?”

Her gaze fell on a beautiful, hardcover edition of ‘Waiting for Gadot’. She had borrowed Jacques’ copy a few weeks ago after he had told her it was his absolute favorite book and she had instantly agreed with him that it was indeed brilliant.

Reaching out, she gently stroked the spy, almost as if she were petting the book.

“You deserve a copy of your own,” Jacques told her, before taking a deep breath, clearly steeling himself.

Immediately all thoughts of books were miraculously gone from her mind and she stared at him wide-eyed, her heart beginning to hammer furiously as he took her hands in his.

“Olivia, the first time I saw you, running after that trolley outside of Mulctuary Money Management I knew instantly just how special you were. And of course I messed up straight away…” He gave her a rueful smile and she blinked at him in surprise.

“I was supposed to approach you and show you a picture of a baby,” Jacques explained. “That’s how we usually recruit adult volunteers. But instead of braking, I accidentally hit the gas pedal when I first saw you and instead I almost ran you over…”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that, letting go of one of his hands so she could stroke his face. “I never knew that…”

Laughing as well, he turned his head to kiss the inside of her wrist. Then his expression became more sober. “Yes, well… my point is, I loved you right from the start and I know you don’t want me to say it anymore, but I hate that I ever made you feel, even for a moment, that I was indifferent towards you.”

“Oh Jacques…” No matter how often she told him that they had both made mistakes and that they were both responsible for the crossed wires in the first months of their marriage, Jacques was still having a hard time letting go of that guilt.

“I love you more than I have ever loved anyone before in my life,” he continued, his voice turning slightly hoarse.

And in that moment she was done for it. The tears that had already been so close started to roll down over her cheeks, their paths interrupted by the creases of her smile.

“You’ve given me a home and a family again and I swear that I will treasure you always. In the past few months I have thought on a few occasions that our story was over…” his voice caught at the last word and then there were tears on his face as well.

“I thought it was over but…” his voice cracked again and ended on a dry sob and he shook his head and clasped her hands tighter.

“I had a bit more speech prepared,” he confessed, chuckling through his tears. “Bear with me, this might take a while…”

Olivia was crying openly now, her vision blurring with tears.

Taking another deep breath, Jacques managed to go on: “I know now that we have only just begun. And I am so happy that we get to write a new chapter every day that we are together. Of course I realize that I never actually asked you if you wanted that, so…”

He let go of her left hand and reached into his pocket and Olivia’s eyes went wide as she realized what he was about to do.

From the inside pocket of his tuxedo he pulled a square, black velvet box and as he popped it open, he sank down to the floor on one knee.

The ring, with its citrine gemstone on a band of gold was absolutely gorgeous and Olivia was instantly in love wit it. But more than anything else she was aware of the man kneeling in front of her, his dark eyes trained on her face, his hand firmly clapped around hers.

“Olivia, you’re the love of my life and I want nothing more than to make you happy. So I’m asking you, will you let me? Will you let me be your husband and will you be my wife?”

He was actually looking nervous, as if there was even the slightest possibility that she would ever refuse him.

“Yes!” She was laughing, crying and sobbing at the same time and she must look like a mess, but at her answer Jacques’ face split into the biggest, most wondrous smile she’d ever seen on him. Taking the ring out of its cushion, he very carefully slid it on her ring finger, the ring fitting as if it was made for her.

Then he was coming up just as she was falling into his arms and she buried her hands into his hairs as his lips hungrily sought hers.

He loved her. And with his arms around her and his mouth pressed against hers Olivia knew without a trace of a doubt that he would always love her.

Just as she would always love him.

Their story was far from over yet.

#jacques snicket and olivia caliban #sniciban #jacques snicket #olivia caliban #asoue season 2

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love-me-romantically · 6 years

Text

Distance makes the heart grow fonder

Request: “Something with EXO Lay after not seeing him for months”

You have never really had trouble falling asleep on your own. And you never really minded being in a bed alone before. Well, that was back when you were in your own small bed that had just enough room for you and a few extra pillows. Lying alone in a bed that is big enough for two is an entirely different experience. In the first night, it's amazing, you have all this room just for yourself, you can sprawl out your limbs, roll around, use two pillows just for yourself. You have all the freedom that comes with having a bed huge enough to fit two people all to yourself comes with. In the second night, the excitement is already less. You've had the bed to yourself, tried all the crazy sleeping positions, but in the end, you only ended up curled up on your half of the bed either way. By the third night, you start really feeling the empty space next to you. There is way too much room there for just yourself. A huge empty space right next to you. A cold mattress. The smell that is still lingering on the sheets is starting to wear off. And you start thinking that you should maybe change them soon.

From there on it only gets worse with every passing night.

Yixing has been gone for almost two weeks now. It's not the longest he has left you alone, sometimes he is gone for a whole month, suddenly and without warning. A call in the late afternoon, a flight early in the morning on the next day. Gone for a month just like that because of some filming or whatever. You don't know what kind of schedule it is that is keeping him busy right now but you sure do curse it every night when you lie alone in a bed that fits two. You always knew that it would be like this. That the busy lifestyle of a celebrity doesn't really allow for making time to have date nights every Friday and sleep in the same bed every night. And you keep telling Yixing that his work is more important, that you don't mind waiting for him. That distance makes the heart grow fonder. But nothing of that will ever take away the fact that you miss him like crazy.

Yixing makes time to text you whenever he can and sometimes he even finds the time for a short face-time call in the evening. Or rather he takes the time despite probably not having it. You feel a little selfish because of it. Because you know that he is probably already not sleeping enough, not eating properly, not taking enough time to take care of himself. Yixing has always been somewhat of an overachiever. Sometimes you joke that he would rather be married to his work than to you. He denies it, of course, but you still know that he takes his passion very seriously. Which is why you savour these rare occasions where he takes time just to call you so much. You always put on the brightest smile for your boyfriend and happily ramble about your day to reassure him that you are okay on your own for a bit. Sometimes you wonder if he sees through it. Actually, you are pretty sure that he does. But there is no changing the way things are.

He's coming back home tonight. After almost two weeks. You feel giddy with anticipation like a child on Christmas eve. And you pace up and down the hallway like a dog waiting for its owner to return from a shopping trip. The second you hear the key turn in the lock you are on full alert. You leap into Yixing's arms before he even has a chance to put down his suitcase. He catches you as if he already expected you to jump him like that, the suitcase trips over and you hope that there is nothing fragile in there as you wrap your arms around Yixing's back and bury your face in the crook of his neck to inhale his scent without saying a word. You don't need to say it. He already knows.

"I missed you too", he whispers into your ear, before he gives you the first kiss in two weeks. Many more will follow that night.

After that, you have dinner together as usual. Yixing tells you about everything that happened, shows you at least a dozen pictures he has taken with his phone and hands you a small present he got for you. A bracelet, small sheeps dangling from an elegant thread of silver that nicely fits around your wrist. You thank him with another kiss.

You are still only using half of the space the bed has to offer, legs and arms tangled around each other, snuggled together on his half of the bed. But it feels a lot less empty like this. Another kiss is exchanged, Yixing's hands roam your back, one more kiss, your hands slip under his shirt. Yet another one and his hands make their way down to your ass and carefully squish your buttcheeks. As if to test the waters. By the time your shirt comes off, you have already lost count of the kisses. It feels familiar, no matter how much time passes, it always feels the same. Yixing's hands know their way around, know where to touch and where to squeeze, where to stroke and where to put a bit of special attention to. And so do your hands. It's routine, but it's not boring. It's comfortable. Familiar. Intimate. You two are far beyond the stage of awkwardly exploring each other but that curiosity has never quite left.

"You like that?", Yixing asks while he gently nibbles on your ear. After all this time he still asks. Even though he should know the answer. You deem replying unnecessary and instead begin placing feathery kisses along his neck and shoulders, trying to reach his exposed collarbone to scrape your teeth against it softly because you know that this is what he likes. You let your hands wander down Yixing's exposed back, feeling the structure of his muscles that tense up a little under your touch. You missed him, missed having him close, missed feeling him, missed touching him. And the small moan he lets out when your hands have reached his hips tell you, that he has missed you just as much.

Yixing takes his time today. He always does. He makes love to you in a way that is actually worthy of being called that. Slowly and sensually, humming into your ear while he slowly rolls his hips against you, the moves of a dancer. And you love that. But today you want to urge him to go faster. You've been craving his touch so much it's driving you insane. You try pulling him a little closer and Yixing notices with a chuckle.

"Are you impatient my love?", he murmurs. He begins changing up his movements a little, thrusting into you with varying speed, going fast for a moment and then slowing down again when he knows that he's bringing you close. You squirm underneath his body, whimper with your lips pressed against his skin.

"Please", you whisper, voice cracking a little. And of course, Yixing gives in to your pleading. He just loves pleasing you way too much to keep up with his teasing. Can't resist when you are squirming and begging underneath him. He picks up his pace again, changes the angle slightly to perfectly hit that spot that makes your knees shake. After that, it's over fast.

You wake up a little early the next morning, the sun is just beginning to rise and you feel cold. Your blanket is on the floor and you roll your eyes at Yixing, who completely snatched the other blanket away from you. But he's there, next to you. And suddenly the bed feels a lot more comfortable. You carefully pull on the blanket to make room for yourself while you snuggle up to Yixing. Sleepily he moves over a little and wraps an arm around you, his eyes blinking at you in confusion.

"Go back to sleep", you whisper, before you give him a small peck on the cheek. You want to savour this moment just a little longer.

#exo #exo smut #exo imagine #exo scenario #lay #zhang yixing #yixing smut #fluff #I guess it's also fluff #idol x reader #exo x reader #reader insert #yixing x reader #lay x reader #requested #I've been having some problems with my internet lately #I'm sorry that this took forever

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rhysand-vs-fenrys · 6 years

Note

I noticed your posts stopped appearing on my dash and discovered I had been blocked. I know it’s your blog and completely your right to do it, but could you say what may get someone blocked?

Oh, sure!

I will say right off the bat- I probably am more liberal with the ‘block’ button than others would be. For 8 years now I’ve been on this site with varying degrees of involvement, and I’ve had fandoms ruined for me. After all of that I came to realize I hold the ‘mute’ button on the anti-content, so I use it.

I’m sorry if this stance upsets anyone, I just refuse to allow another fandom to be ruined for me. I still run this page with the same rules I put in place back when I had 10 followers. No matter how big this page gets, I won’t change that.

Here is what I block for:

Comments/Replies attacking a ship or character.

I don’t mean saying “I’m not a fan of this character because of _____ reasons”, I mean like really vulgar and over-the-top hate (they’re fictional characters everyone).

Comments/Replies attacking other users.

Reposting fan art in any capacity.

Spamming the tags

Like people who tag a Feysand post with “Throne of Glass” and every ship in each book.

This is more so that I can browse the tags without being bogged down by irrelevant stuff.

(Fic Specific) Commenting on my Elucien fics condemning that ship in favor of Elriel.

That’s just rude.

Leaving nasty comments to fan artists.

Anti-Maas posts or comments/replies

For posts- specifically if you tagged it “Sarah J Maas” or “Queen Maas” so fans in those tags see it.

Leaving anti-comments on a pro-post.

Anti-character on a pro-character post

Anti-Choice or Anti-control on a pro-choice or pro gun control post

Those two are important to me, so I draw a hard line. You can disagree with my beleifs, but if a post is clearly in favor keep it to yourself.

Belligerent disagreeing with a post

Disagreeing is fine if you make your own case, this is people who just comment “Fuck this” or “Stupid”, stuff like that.

I count that as spamming

Being unfortunate enough to have a “recommended” post

As you may know, “recommended” posts don’t go away, even if you reblog them. I always have to click the X and then say “This post sucks” (and it doesn’t, it’s just that I”ve now seen it 15 times).

Every now and then I look away or something and accidentally hit “block” or “unfollow tag”.

Trying to control my posts/page.

A couple have been blocked for this in the past month.

This isn’t just one-time saying “You should say this instead of that”, it’s repeatedly telling me what I can and can’t post.

I’m 27, not 12

Those blogs were given 3-strike warnings first.

You said something sarcastic and because it’s just words on a screen the sarcasm part didn’t translate through.

My weekly purge of spam blogs who follow me.

I try to skim the URLs and block any corporate or smut blog that follows me, plus anyone still using the 4Chan spam formula

This was a huge issue a few years ago, and one I’ve always kept an eye out for.

If your main blog had no posts and had a kind of randomly generated URL, then there’s a chance I blocked it mistakenly thinking it was a spam blog.

Almost forgot to say: People being dicks about the “Catwoman: Soulstealer” book.

Sending an ask during an anon hate-spam.

I’ve been dealing with this the last 3 weeks with about a half dozen messages per day. I keep blocking, but if your ask was mixed into the middle of the daily spam then it may have been taken wrong.

I should also note– I do a lot of my day-blogging via mobile and like 2 updates ago the app was incredibly glitchy. It’d freeze and then suddenly snap to attention and next thing I know I’ve blocked a dozen+ people.

I hope that helped clear anything up? If your URL was blocked by mistake just let me know and I will un-block it no problem. Even if you did do something on the list (other than fan art theft) I will probably give you a 2nd chance.

#ask #blocking

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cubesquareddigital · 3 years

Text

Declutter Your Inbox Like A Pro

If you’re anything like us, you keep a ‘zero-inbox’ philosophy. Right? Yeah, right! As much as we try (we really do), our inbox grows every day. We get more emails in than we can get out. Sure we get a lot of sales emails trying to convince to buy the latest ‘thing’, our fair share of spam and enquiries from people looking to hire us. That’s before the pandemic, Black Friday and Cyber Monday teamed up to tip us all over the edge.

Email is a necessary part of doing business in this modern age, but it can be a time drain, sifting through the inbox for hours at end separating the need-to-know from the I-don’t-even-remember-signing-up-to-this-email. A Zero Inbox isn’t a pipe dream, it’s achievable with a little discipline and a modicum of time-management.

We’ve put together some top tips to help you conquer your inbox and give you less stress and more time. No longer will you need to spend the best part of your day on emails and getting more anxious that you might be missing out on those messages you really do need to know about. It’s time to declutter that inbox!

Schedule Time to Tackle The Inbox

Dealing with emails can drain away time from your day like no other. They arrive at random hours of the day and night. Every time we check there will be something new to steal another few minutes from our schedule. No more!

You probably schedule your workday around meetings, lunch, presentations, pitches, and you know, actual work. We think nothing about blocking out time for these things, so why should email be any different?

The first way to help declutter your inbox and reclaim some time is to schedule one or two specific times of the day for email management. Obviously the time you choose is up to you, but, as an example, you could have 30 minutes at the start of the day and 30 minutes at the end. The times themselves aren’t really important. The key factor is that you’re creating time that is to solely focus on emails. One (or two) periods of email devotion will more you more productive, providing you learn to ignore them the rest of the time.

If you’re thinking that people will think think less of you because you’re not replying immediately to their email, then let us tell you why that’s not the case. Instead of half-hearted, rushed responses, you can give them a much more detailed and impactful reply. It will also give the impression that you’re busy and industrious, instead of someone sitting around waiting for any messages to appear.

Get Organised

Most people (us included) used to organise our inbox by solely date; the latest emails at the top and descending down chronologically. They all dropped into the same dark pit of chaos.

It can look daunting when it’s just a long, seemingly never-ending list of unread, unorganised messages from a multitude of different sources, but it doesn’t have to be like that. It’s time to add some logic and to tame that inbox and for that, you need folders!

Most people only use folders to organise emails after they’ve read them, to 'store (or hoard) them, never to be seen or looked at again. You can utilise them in real-time to categorise emails into manageable groups. Obviously the names and amount of folders is up to you, but good places to start include folders for each client, resources, contacts, etc. This doesn’t need any more time from you however.

You can automate your email software to immediately place certain emails into certain folders as they come in. For example, emails from different clients get channelled into their specific folders, based on the email address of the sender or the subject header. How this is done will vary from software to software, but it should be easy enough to find.

Reply Efficiently

When you’ve sorted your emails and it is time to reply to them. You might find that you spend more time responding using the same stock number of phrases. “Thanks for your message”. “Let me take a look and I’ll get back to you with an answer”, “Yes Mum, I should call you more often” or “Is that really the font you want to use?”. You know the type of thing.

If you recognise that you spend a lot of time writing the same (or similar responses), then it’s time to create a spreadsheet containing all those phrases in one place. You can even do it as an online document and bookmark it for easy access. With it open, you can just copy and paste the most suitable response and power through.

You can go one step further. Gmail, for example, allows you to create templates (go to Settings —> Advanced —> Templates) and you can set them up. Might take a little time initially, but will save you so much more time in the long run.

Speed Deleting

This one is really aimed at those of your who spend almost all of your email time on mobile devices. Move over Tinder, it’s time we got our swipe on!

Most mobile email clients have gestures that allow you to quickly delete (or archive) those emails that are just clogging up the inbox. If you only deal with your emails sporadically, then you might be surprised how much time it’s taken up, especially on mobile devices. Find the right folder for it to go in, can drain time from you day.

By using mobile gestures, you can swipe one way to delete and the other to archive. With little practice, you’ll be powering through your inbox like never before (just make sure you know which way is which!).

Break Away From The Email Chain-Gang

If you work in a larger organisation or a corporate behemoth, then you’ll know the pain of those long, rambling email chains where seemingly everyone is copied in and dozens of people are constantly chiming into its ever growing thread. You know the ones that never seem to go anywhere. For those of you who recognise this, we feel your pain, but we think we have a solution.

Rather than having 10 or 20+ emails all about the same thing clogging up your inbox, instead delete every email in the chain, except the latest one. All the replies will still be part of the latest email (even if you delete the earlier ones) if you’re interested or want to catch-up, but a quick purge it will keep your inbox at manageable levels.

Use Filter Software / Add-Ons

If all of these tips still aren’t doing it for you, then it;’s time to break out the big guns… and by ‘big’ we mean time to pay for additional stuff!

There are a number of pieces of software that are designed specifically to help you with this problem. From more consent-based software like HEY, which gives you a .hey email address when you sign up and holds unsolicited mail in a waiting room (they call it ‘The Screener’). It’s only when you authorise it does it reach your inbox. If you don’t, they don’t get in, ever!. Think of it like a bouncer for your inbox. This works great if you tend to get a lot on unsolicited mail. IT ultimately divides your email into 3 categories; one for important email, one for non-urgent messages (like newsletters) and the last one is for things you want to keep, but aren’t likely to read (like receipts or invoices).

There are a multitude of other apps, plug-ins and add-ons for most email clients that offer additional services. Some are overlaid giving you. new features, others might become the new client. Some are free, others might mean a small investment, but they’ll usually come with some sort of free trial to see if it’s for you.

Email management is a chore at times, but it’s also a skill that, once mastered, frees you up to do more with your working day instead of sorting out email. Everyone is different so if you’ve got some hints or tips that work for you and you want to share them with our community, just leave a comment below.

To keep up-to-date with all our latest blogs, please consider following us on social media or signing up to our newsletter. All the ways to do that are below. Thanks for spending some time with us, now get back to your email! ;-)

Blog photo courtesy of Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

#email #inbox #zero inbox #How To #Hey #Time Management #spam #Declutter Your Inbox Like A Pro #email management #junk mail

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asarsgyan · 3 years

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Chapter 6 - Don’t Need Tits!

It was in a sumptuous farm, owned by Morón, in the municipality of Zarzal, where Catalina began to write the novel of her life in pink ink. A helicopter was flying over the air of the ostentatious hacienda that landed with the host of the party in the center of a soccer field, next to a bullring full of asymmetrical arches, repeated many times and painted white. Several paths upholstered in very green and fine grass surrounded by flowered gardens served as tablecloths for the guests, many of whom were no longer surprised by such waste. The farm was the size of an Olympic village or a town and as many sports venues as that one. Tennis courts, beach volleyball, squash, racquetball, olympic pool and facilities for three more sports that the owners did not understand or play, but the bodyguards invented new rules during their free time. And what about the Turkish bath, the sauna and the life-size statues, looking with disdain at the 30 guests who came to celebrate the 50th birthday of the leader of the largest poster ever seen. Yésica was on all fours to get the sixty women they needed in the bizarre rumba scheduled to last three days and nights and in which the loyalty of each ally of the cartel was going to be awarded with two women, half a dozen bottles of a whiskey preserved for 18 years in the barrels of some Scottish wineries and the right to demand from the mariachis, the trio, the orchestra or the contracted DJ, the song that they wanted. It did not matter if the Mariachi played rock, the trancem trio or the vallenatos orchestra.

When the women arrived in two buses, after crossing the 18 holes of a well-kept golf course on foot, the capos, the capos assistants, the children of some capos, some capo apprentices and also some who boasted of bosses like Mariño, they launched to monopolize the prettiest. "El Titi" went to the fixed line and made the services of Paola and Ximena. Vanessa left with Morón despite the fact that her fat made her disgusting and Yésica left with Cardona more focused on locating Catalina looking over the shoulders of the guests than on what she had to do to satisfy the number two of the organization . Inexplicably, Catalina hadn't made her entry yet. Before entering the house, she angrily observed something that made her disappear for six and a half minutes. When he got to the pool beach where the party was to take place, he found a stage full of lights and a DJ slewing a console with the care that egg packers have in their baskets. Fifty-nine of the sixty women hired already occupied one of the arms of each tract, except for Cardona's left, which was still unoccupied, waiting impatiently for Catalina to appear. When Yésica pointed her out, he looked her up and down, ran his eyes over her legs and over the valley of her small breasts as if she were buying a kilo of meat and gave her the order to turn around painting a circle in the air with her index finger. He looked at her rear with anxiety and when she turned around, with a hypocritical smile, she was ecstatic in her eyes, welcoming the happiness that the girl projected although she did not know that it was due to the deep satisfaction she felt for something she had just done in the room. gate of the farm in such a short time. Catalina did not pass the exam anyway. Cardona began to secrete and laugh with one of his colleagues while looking at his chest. The girl felt herself dying of grief making a fool of herself in the midst of 59 women as poor as her, as idiots like her, as stupid as her, but with bigger tits than hers. he was ecstatic in his eyes, welcoming the happiness that the girl projected even though he was unaware that it was due to the deep satisfaction he felt for something he had just done at the gate of the farm in such a short time. Catalina did not pass the exam anyway. Cardona began to secrete and laugh with one of his colleagues while looking at his chest. The girl felt herself dying of grief making a fool of herself in the midst of 59 women as poor as her, as idiots like her, as stupid as her, but with bigger tits than hers. he was ecstatic in his eyes, welcoming the happiness that the girl projected even though he was unaware that it was due to the deep satisfaction he felt for something he had just done at the gate of the farm in such a short time. Catalina did not pass the exam anyway. Cardona began to secrete and laugh with one of his colleagues while looking at his chest. The girl felt herself dying of grief making a fool of herself in the midst of 59 women as poor as her, as idiots like her, as stupid as her, but with bigger tits than hers. It was then that Yésica launched herself to save her, interceding with Cardona for her. He told her so many and such varied lies that the second in the organization decided to change her for Yésica, who was more interested in staying out of the business so as not to lose her status as a businesswoman. He told her that wherever he saw her, that skinny girl without tetics, she was the one who "pulled" the best of all the sixty who had come. That no one knew the secrets of oral sex as well as she did and that if she didn't have silicone tits it was because many perverts loved the fantasy of making love with a schoolgirl. That he was not going to regret it and that he was certainly going to ask for it again in less than a week. With the benefit of the doubt, Cardona accepted the change and Yésica went for her, anxious that Catalina knew and quickly assimilated the lies she told the man who was going to get her out of poverty. "Sister," he told her as they walked the fifteen meters that separated them from Cardona, "you have 10 seconds to become the most whore woman in Pereira, in the best fuck in the world." The second hardest of all these motherfuckers here is waiting for her to prove it. Flushed and with her heart about to explode, Catalina had no choice but to become, in a second and without her boyfriend's suspicions, the most experienced prostitute in the whole city. On the one hand, in order not to make Yésica look bad and on the other, because he knew, deep down in his being, that this would be the last chance he would have in life to get, once and for all, the money for his operation. Yésica gave him all the possible primer so that the lie would come out well and with her "a priori" experience, Catherine went out to fulfill her mission. Cardona was so delighted with the stories that Yésica told him about the girl that he didn't even wait for his boss to sing Happy Birthday when he was putting her into his bedroom. Dead of fear, Catalina began to comply, to the letter, with Yésica's lies.

After a long and hectic day, Cardona was so satisfied, so impressed, and so breathless that he fell asleep while watching Catalina get dressed. From the bathroom she felt him snoring with his mouth open and she leaned out to confirm the disgust she had just acquired. She even felt the urge to rummage through a briefcase she was carrying to steal the money she needed and run away, but the blast of the mariachis' trumpets that at that time began to sing to Morón Las mañanitas intimidated her. They also conspired against her, her insipid intelligence, or her fear, but the fact is that she chose to win the will of the man who had just possessed her, for the fourth time in her life, relegating Albeiro to having the terrible possibility to become her fifth man. For this reason, when Cardona woke up, he found Catalina's head on his chest and on his head the fingers of a girl who combed his hair a thousand times with the submission of a slave. Cardona, was afraid that these things would be mixed with affection for what one day he adopted, as law, to immediately abandon any woman who touched his heart. Curiously, on this occasion he forgot his own statutes and allowed himself to be given unbridled affection. Then he was touched like a small child and hugged her. "Fall asleep, I'll take care of you." She said to him with total sweetness, awakening in him an unequivocal feeling of tampering and perhaps of affection, that he was not very used to giving someone other than Lina María, his official lover or Lucy, his fourth wife and with whom he lived today . When Cardona woke up again, Catalina's head was tucked between his legs, making him twist with emotion. She was willing to make him forget a woman's breasts and also to become indispensable in the life of that man with rough manners, but who had already shown nobility by entrusting his dream to her without having to tuck his briefcase under his pillow. When Cardona heard a trio of strings in the pool sector, he took it by the head and raised it to his mouth thanking him for his dedication and expressing his shame with Morón for not being in the celebration of his birthday. Catalina told her that she needed to talk to her about something very important, but Cardona excused herself as she dressed at full speed, although she promised that they would talk during the evening. "It's only five minutes," she insisted, and Cardona accepted, shortening the time to a second, albeit with some disappointment. -How much do you need? "Why do you know that silver is what I need?" "Oh, mommy, I know you like the palm of my hand not to know that what you need is money," he replied generously, pointing to the buttons of his shirt. "Five million pesos," she told him, making him smile. -Five million? He asked incredulously and repeated in a mocking tone, "I pay five million for a model, mamacita!" I already arranged with Yésica for 500 thousand for each one. Make up with her and if it serves you well and if not, too. I'm going to be with the boss. Catalina began to cry and told her that 500 thousand were not enough for anything, to listen to her, to make her do whatever she wanted for as long as she wanted, but for the love of God, to lend her that money because she needed get the silicone implant in the bust. —And why are you going to send yourself to put boobs? Catalina by God! If you don't need them! Catalina, you don't need them! As rich as you make it, you don't need them! —He repeated ad nauseam, sowing the worst confusion in her: How so, after enduring all the hardships he went through, after giving his virginity to three strangers, after aborting the child of one of them, after living Frustrated, after humiliating herself and degrading herself by the dream of having her breasts operated, a guy now appeared to tell her that she didn't need to have big tits? That for her was unheard of, it couldn't be. Confused and understanding life now less than ever, Catalina wanted to understand Cardona's words, but could not. That is why he engaged in additional explanations and pleas, attacking him with all the verbal resources at his disposal. However, Cardona was not willing to give her all that money for a single night of love. "Let's do one thing," he said calculatingly, "I'm going to lend you that ticket, but how are you going to pay for it, huh?" "As you wish, but lend it to me, please," Catalina told him, making all kinds of promises in a pleading tone and apparently she managed to soften him up because to the second Cardona declared: " Okay ... I'm going to lend them to you, but with one condition: you release your tits with me… Catalina smiled at the obvious condition and promised her this life and the other, but Cardona reiterated her conclusion from before: " Put on your boobs and whatever you want, mijita, but I repeat that you do so well that you don't need to fool around. with that… In order not to go crazy feeling the paradoxes of life raw, Catalina promised to return to Cardona's bed after the musicians finished performing the songs that Morón asked of them, and she did.

In the back square of the house, part of the guests and twice as many women were listening to boleros by "Los Panchos" performed by a musical group made up of three mature men who never smiled. The one with the maracas he closed his eyes for long periods of time and only opened them when he had to support the choruses of some songs with his stringy voice. The one with the leading guitar was the most concentrated because, despite having the most difficult mission, which was to make the strings speak with his fingers, he never looked at the stringing and walked the length and width of the fingerboard and through the woods of frets as if he had always known them perfectly. The one with the accompanying guitar, who was the same one who sang, kept his head directed diagonally to the sky and the arteries in his throat were insinuated whenever the high tones demanded it. You could see the great effort he made not to lose tune, perhaps aware of the risk he was running when unleashing the fury of those who hired him by not giving the size they expected. It was like singing with a guillotine around your neck because they had told them, with some exaggeration, that in the event of any out of tune the owner of the house could draw his pistol and shoot them. That is why they sang as they had never done before. The interpretation of each piece was masterful and drew much applause from the audience.

The women who accompanied the guests in pairs did not smile, at least sincerely. Late in the morning and after half-fulfilling their duties, they felt distressed. As if they understood, by waves of regret, that they were not doing the right thing. That life was more, much more, than finding comfort in the sacrifice of dignity, that the world extended beyond the beds and warehouses that they frequented, that their stories were not being written because in the universal annals they were not they record only the deeds, good or bad, of men and women willing and ready to change the course of humanity without destroying its integrity. They were aware of only going through life without transcending. One of them, for example, was fighting her dream, titanically. Her eyes went out for fragmented periods of seconds that she, immersed in her fears, counted as minutes and after which her companion in misfortune hit her with an elbow that left her as awake as she was scared and with her heart on the verge of infarction. She suspected that her client could be upset and panicked at the possibility of losing the 500 thousand pesos that she already had spent in her mind and that for a low-class prostitute like her it was enough for some basic investments: 50 thousand for Yésica, 80 A thousand for the mother, 80 thousand for Nacho the hairdresser, 30 thousand for the massage, 140 thousand for a pants, 60 thousand for a blouse, 10 thousand to buy trinkets for the little brother, 30 thousand to invite the groom to have a beer or to eat and 20 thousand for the buses. From the next job I would leave 80 thousand for shoes, 80 thousand for cosmetics and creams of all kinds and for each area of the body, 10 thousand for nail repair, 90 thousand for accessories, 30 thousand for glasses, 20 thousand for a watch and the same 190 thousand of fixed costs to distribute among the mother, the pimp, the boyfriend, the little brother and the buses. The guests, for their part, only differed from their sex slaves in two details: they fell asleep in his chair without asking permission and they did not allow any kind of remorse in their minds. For them, what they were doing was well done, they weren't robbing a rich man, they weren't breaking the laws of a just country. On the contrary, they harbored messianic sentiments in what they did for the fact of giving to a poor person for a medical formula, for a market or for the large number of jobs that their multiple investments and their large tracts of land generated. But the truth is that they only did charity works to wash their consciences and they generated jobs to increase and wash their capital. The rest of the party was made up of the escorts, the three great capos, the musicians of the famous orchestra, the mariachi, the DJ and the waiters. There was nothing particular about them. The musicians secretly made fun of the colleagues who were at bat in groups, the waiters tried to better serve the men and the bodyguards were on alert to take advantage of the moment when one of their bosses melted to fish for a favor sexual activity of her companions on occasion. At 4:30 in the morning and very enthusiastic about Cardona's promise, Catalina returned to her bed with full intensity and until late in the morning when Yésica woke her up to tell her that the bus was about to start, that if she stayed or left. Cardona answered for her: -Stays. Later I send her out. Yésica smiled happily at her little friend's change of luck and left shouting at Cardona to realize that she never told him lies. Minutes later, Cardona was informed that one of Mariño's bodyguards, a man with the surname Benítez, known by the alias "Caballo" had just suffered a fatal accident.

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