#and the contents of my closet are vast and great | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

holy-puckslibrary · 3 months

Text

━ 𝐬𝐰𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠.

main masterlist

pairing(s) — JT COMPHER x reader (main); TYSON JOST x reader (side); COMPHER x JOST (brief) wc — 14k synopsis — what's a reunion without some groveling?

note — this takes place a few of years after part one, go out with a bang (post-college/college au — tyson and kate are now out-going seniors!) sorry not sorry for the length of this behemoth, i got carried away per usual <3 there are more parts to come, and i would absolutely love to hear any theories/predictions if yall have any!

specific content warnings listed below the cut.

cw — cameos on cameos on cameos, we're at a party so drinking and mention of dr*gs + yacking (no description), drinking games, sorority terms/processes, me getting too invested in multiple subplots and potential background ships, soft!service!dom!JT makes my peabrain go brrrrr, everybodies a bit masochistic because i, registered heathen, am masochistic, reader’s wearing a short skirt for plot reasons, slight compher x josty, oral (reader receiving 2x), unprotected piv (i know, i know, i know i need help), me letting my brat self take the kink reins, praise baby praise, angst AND IM NOT SORRY, + happy fluffy bits... possible cliffhanger???

Staring up at the Alpha Chi house is like stepping back in time.

Like trying on an old pair of shoes you found while deep-cleaning your closet only to find their once-perfect fit gone. Growth is funny that way; you never realize just how far you’ve come until it pinches you.

You’ve outgrown this place, though not from a lack of love or any great tragedy. It occupies a different place in your mind, just as you’re a different person than you were three years ago.

Your younger self would balk at this development, wouldn’t believe it’d one day feel too small. You can’t fault her for that near-sightedness. In college, your whole world existed on one street. You had everything you needed then between two stop signs.

But your world is bigger now, and your needs are different too.

Still, it feels good to try on your past for the night. Even if it's a tad ill-fitting.

The drive between your new life and your old one hadn’t been too bad, but that’s probably because you didn’t do much of said driving. JT got the engine going before you could even make a grab for the keys and, despite spending the last year in the literal trenches of clinical rotations and shelf exams, refused to switch at the halfway mark. Yet, your boyfriend is practically vibrating with excitement as you cross the all-too-familiar threshold hand-in-hand.

“This is so weird,” JT remarks, his lips low to your ear. His musky cologne, warm and woody, does its best to soothe your nerves.

As you survey the crowd, you nod.

He didn’t need to elaborate further for you to understand because you were already thinking the very same thing. Watching students, the vast majority as unfamiliar to you as you are to them, milling around your old haunt stirs an odd, uncanny feeling akin to a surreal dream. You’re well-acquainted with the setting, almost to an uncomfortable degree, and you don’t think you’re all that different, but everything still feels foreign.

All the right pieces are there, and you’re sure you’ve put them in their proper places, but the image won’t behave.

You quickly realize the only thing that’s misplaced is you. Grief hangs from your back like a wet blanket.

“Look what the cat dragged in, boys!”

A burst of riotous laughter shakes much of the gloom from your system.

Gabe Landeskog barrels into your boyfriend like an overgrown puppy. Gray-blue eyes twinkling under the rainbow of LEDs, he embraces you both in a warm hug, not minding that the spontaneous act of affection has just cost him an entire Solo cup.

“Compher and the missus,” the blonde addresses you both with a wide grin and a big palm to a cheek each; he gives JT’s a quick pat but merely cups yours.

His breath still smells of spearmint and something spicy, an imposing combination your eighteen-year-old self could never find comforting. Just another thing that's different now. If you could package the scent for all the little moments of nostalgia, you would.

“I was starting to think we’d have to drag you from the city kicking and screaming, but alas! You've left the cozy, vanilla bubble of your own volition for a weekend of debauchery with your favorite degenerates.”

JT’s affectionate eye-roll is big and dramatic even in your periphery. The levity brings a smile to your face. It grows wider and wider, enduring until your cheeks burn. If anyone deserves some light-heartedness, it's your sleep-deprived, perpetually-stressed boyfriend.

“A night, Landy. We’ve got to be back by tomorrow night to relieve the dog sitter,” your boyfriend amends with a pat to Gabe’s flushed cheek, returning the favor.

The older man groans like the overgrown boy he is and will always be. “Look at you, Mr. Responsible. All domestic and shit. With a fur-baby and everything. I bet it’s as well-trained as your firstborn.”

Your eyes follow the line drawn by Gabe’s strong chin past the entryway through to the room used for table-top drinking games.

Half-kneeling on the rickety table you helped customize a few years back is Tyson Jost, head tilted to the sky as he guzzles down the center cup. More beer spills down his chest than into his mouth, effectively turning his white tee sheer. The crowd is comprised mostly of giddy sorority girls who don't mind a bit.

Free booze and a free show—lucky them!

Once the plastic cup is empty, he crushes it in his palm before sinking the balled plastic into the basketball hoop on the adjacent wall. The converted dining room swells with hoots and hollers so quickly you would’ve thought Tyson emerged from some mythic quagmire, blood-soaked and victorious. But there are no winners in Rage Cage; everybody loses.

Tyson’s loopy grin falters when he registers you and JT on either side of Gabe.

You would like to say nothing’s changed between the three of you over the past couple of years. That you’re just as close as you’d been in college, that distance hadn’t done as much damage as it has.

You'd be lying if you did.

You tried your best to keep him in the loop; you really did, but that didn’t end up mattering much.

JT hardly had time to socialize with you most of the time, and you’ve practically lived together since graduation. He, like you, tried, but at some point, his bandwidth could no longer accommodate Tyson’s sporadic texts and calls. Many of which came in the dead of night, when your boyfriend’s head was either buried in a textbook or in the pillow beside yours.

Whenever you could, you invited the forward to spend the weekend in the city with the two of you. You even went so far as to offer to put him up in a hotel between your and JT’s respective apartments, knowing your adult salary could stretch further than the Atomic tips he was splitting with Tyler. He always had something conflicting going on, and it didn't feel like your place to question the authenticity of his reasons, so you just kept extending the invitation, hoping things would align eventually.

After finally taking the leap and signing a lease together, you decorated the guest room with Tyson in mind. He’s yet to see it, still.

Your little Kate, on the other hand, needs a frequent flyer program.

A small part of you felt this shift was inevitable once JT went from best friend-slash-unrequited crush to full-blown, live-in boyfriend. Despite Tyson’s insistence on you finally hooking up and “putting everyone out of their misery,” his smile didn’t meet his eyes when JT broke the news that it wasn’t a one-night thing.

Maybe his “little crush” hadn’t been so little after all.

If that’s the case, you can't blame him for avoiding your slice of grown-up love like the plague. It just would've been nice if he hadn't left you in the dark, wondering where and how you fucked up enough to get iced out.

Tyson responded to every third or so text of yours, so you mostly kept up with him and his life through Kate, who briefly dated him between ill-fated Gunnar stints, and social media. You weren’t sure how often he spoke to JT; after several attempts that ended with your boyfriend clammed up and irritated, you stopped asking.

Judging by how tense he is beside you right now, you have a pretty good guess.

“Yikes,” Gabe drawls. “Trouble in paradise?”

You remain carefully quiet, allowing your boyfriend to decide what, if anything, to share. This—whatever it is —feels like it's more so between them two than Tyson and yourself.

JT clears his throat so hard it cuts through the music blaring through the packed house—some remix you don’t remember learning the words to. “Trouble? Nah, Josty’d have to give us the time of day for that.”

Gabe laughs, but you know JT isn’t trying to be funny. You can taste the undercurrent of bitter resentment. It’s impossible not to without an artificial buzz.

There’s no time to dwell because a flurry of red hair darts through the crowd dispersing out of the dining room and straight into your arms. A fresh, but faintly-candied scent tickles your nose as the cool metal of a bracelet digs into your neck.

Kate.

“Fuckin finally!” The almost-grad squeals directly into your ear.

Definitely drunk. Or high—or both.

“Don’t look at me,” you say, beaming when she pulls back. “I wasn’t driving.”

Kate swats JT’s chest with her open palm. “And this is why we don’t let you drive anywhere, Grandpa.”

The playful jab makes your smile deepen. His driving made her tardy to a ZBZ charity gala one time over a year ago when she made the mistake of hitching a ride with you, and she’s probably brought it up a million times since. Kate pretends to hold a grudge, JT pretends to find it aggravating, and you get to sit back, enjoying the warm camaraderie overfilling your cup.

The pair have been friends almost as long as you've been friends with either of them, but since your graduation, they’ve settled into something more serious and more genuine. Where your connection to Tyson wilted outside the conveniences of college, your relationship with Kate matured and flourished. She’s more than just your chapter-appointed Little Sister to JT now, having become more of a true sister than anything else. Hence the juvenile teasing.

“Well, we’re here now. Alive.”

Your little snatches your hand in hers, tugging you away from JT, who feigns offense.

“And now I’m stealing your girlfriend in retribution for making me wait. Go do… whatever it is you two heathens used to do at parties. We have a pong title to defend.”

“Excellent idea, Madame President,” Gabe declares, hands roughly massaging the male ginger’s shoulders. He tosses a wink in Kate’s direction.

Before the other ginger can drag you away for good, your boyfriend catches your free wrist, pulling you back to him so his lips can find your ear. Breath hot, he drops his voice an octave, “President’s bathroom. One hour. Nod if you understand.”

Your chin dips, quick and subtle confirmation.

“Good girl.”

As your respective keepers separate you, JT shoots you a wink of his own. Then, you lose him in the crowd.

Kate leads you through the sea of party-goers to the living room, her grip on you tight and comforting. Her thumb rubs small circles on the inside of your wrist as you approach the table, almost as if privy to your worry. Kate is incredibly perceptive; she can read someone’s mind without even looking at them. With you, her Spidey senses transcend county lines, so it’s no real surprise she deduced your current condition from no more than your erratic pulse thumping against her palm.

When you reach the bustling folding table commandeered for the BP tournament, Kate does all the talking.

It’s not too hard to get on the bracket despite the late entry with two newly-minted Alpha Chi brothers manning the post. The absolute last thing they want to do is get on the bad side of the president of their sister chapter (Kate) and the girlfriend of a legendary former chapter president (you). The pairs for the current game are only a couple of throws in, so it’s going to be at least ten minutes before it's your turn.

“You, my dear, look thirsty,” Kate declares through a mischievous grin.

You let her pull you towards the kitchen across the hall but have more difficulty than you expect actually getting there. Every few steps, someone stops either you or Kate. Mostly the latter, but she’s quick to show you off to whoever’s trying to seize her attention. Apparently, Kate’s been building quite the mythos of your time on campus, and it’s very… dizzying, to say the least.

“Kit-Kat!”

Kate abandons the poor freshman boy shooting his shot (and missing fantastically) in favor of the feminine voice sliding into the conversation.

In the blue-ish hue washing over the small space, you’re having a hard time placing her, but she seems very keen on making your acquaintance.

“Blake Meyers,” the newcomer announces, extending her hand with a smile.

You take it, giving her your name and a matching expression in return. The flattened vowels are distinct and recognizable, as is the last name.

“Meyers?” you ask, attempting to work it out.

“Ava’s younger sister,” Kate interjects. “And one of our best steals this past recruitment.”

Blake blushes so brightly her freckles disappear.

You remember that feeling. What it was like to have an older member, especially someone as established and accomplished as an outgoing ZBZ president, go out of their way to make you feel special. You have zero doubt Blake will be walking on air for the foreseeable future, any of the common little doubts about whether or not she made the right choice vanishing.

“I was really hoping I’d get to meet you tonight,” the freshman tells you bashfully. “Kate gave the most beautiful speech about you and your legacy on Preference Night, and when she told me you might be coming with your boyfriend, I had to put a face to the name. And Jenny was the one who pref-ed me, so it seemed like—I don’t know, a non-negotiable?”

Jenny is one of the twins Kate took her junior year, and she couldn’t have picked better. It gave you peace of mind knowing your Kate would have good people around her once you couldn’t physically be there for her.

You won’t be surprised if Jenny takes Blake as her little. Kate pref-ed her, and before that, you pref-ed Kate. It’s basically a family tradition.

Not long after you thank Kate for her generous words and Blake for her kindness, Thomas, one of the new initiates in charge of the beer pong table, flags you down for your game. Not ready to end your conversation, invigorated by the breezy, jovial chatter your new life lacks, you tug Blake along with you.

Between exceptionally beautiful throws (if you do say so yourself), you learn more about Blake and her roommate and fellow ZBZ spring initiate, Emory. They pepper you with questions: about your first-year college experience, advice on getting the best room possible on the sophomore floor for mandatory live-in, whether or not you got anything particularly valuable in the various leadership positions you held, and what fraternities to steer clear of. You’re more than happy to answer them all. Kate sprinkles in comments and jokes occasionally, but she mostly defers to you so she can celebrate the end of a smooth second term as president.

Once Kate and you have successfully defended your title, you pass the torch to the future of your chapter. Blake and Emory make quick work of the first challengers and are close to a similar sweep with the second pair when your little remembers her earlier mission: refreshments.

This time, you both keep your heads ducked as you speed through the dancing bodies and make a beeline for the dinged-up lockers propped against the wall. You can’t help but smile when you see her reach for the lock—your old lock.

Every upperclassman (and a few select friends of the chapter, like Alpha Chi Sweethearts such as Kate and, once upon a time, yourself) is assigned a secure, personal locker in the oversized kitchen for quick access to personal items. During parties, they essentially become personal coolers. At your very last formal chapter meeting, you will-ed the hunk of metal down to Kate, along with the more sentimentally valuable items you wanted to leave behind with her.

“Wait, can you even drink?” Kate asks you from where she’s kneeling. Sarcasm scrunches her brows together.

“Hilarious,” you reply with a playful glare. “And before you loudly ask about the non-existent fetus like the devious bitch you love being, don’t. Unless you want to give JT an aneurysm."

Kate fishes out two slim, chilled cans as she grumbles about how boring you two have become in your “old age.” She shoves a ratty sweatshirt—an old favorite of Tyson’s—back into the small locker, quickly refastens the lock, and scrambles the dial. Then, she returns to her full height beside you.

“So, do you want to tell me what that wink from Gabe was about?” you ask, brow cocked.

“Do you want to tell me what your horndog of a boyfriend whispered in your ear?” Kate counters.

“Touché.”

Kate cracks open a Spindrift Spiked and slots it into your waiting palm. She taps the rim with her own, then sighs back against the cluttered kitchen island. She’s going to crack, you know it. Kate, even when she has a secret she wants to keep, never stays quiet for long. Especially not when you’re the one doing the asking.

“Okay, so, d’you remember how Tyson was, like, completely apathetic after we broke up right before Heaven & Hell last Halloween?”

You nod, recalling how irritated she was over FaceTime while you helped her pick a costume out of your box of hand-me-downs. You did your best not to laugh because Kate was clearly distressed, but it was kind of hard not to when she was buried in a heap of red and white feathers, wearing a too-small tutu dotted with rhinestones.

Kate takes a sip of the spiked strawberry lemonade before elaborating, “Well, I was understandably pissed—Don’t give me that look, okay? I know I broke up with him, but he shouldn’t have been that blasé that soon—so, I hatched a plan.”

You shake your head, laughing. Kate and her schemes.

“I wasn’t planning on taking Gabe as my date, but when I ran into him at Atomic the day before… I don’t know; I just couldn’t resist. I mean, Tyson worships the man. If anyone’s getting a reaction, it’s Landy. I had to.”

“And?” you prod.

“And…” she stalls, eyes darting around the kitchen in search of pesky eavesdroppers, cheeks lit up like a Christmas tree. “…we might’ve done it in the backseat of his truck.”

“I’m scared to ask where.”

She buries her face in your shoulder. “The venue’s parking lot.”

Your eyes bulge so hard you, for a split-second, worry they’ll pop out of your head onto the sticky hardwood and land amongst the discarded cans.

“And I didn’t tell you because I was so scared you and JT would hate me,” Kate moans into your skin. She shifts to peer up at you, hesitant. “You don’t, right?”

“I don’t think I’m even capable of hating you, Katie-Kat, let alone for something as silly as banging a hot blonde,” you giggle, and she’s quick to join you. Lowering your voice, “Especially the hottest of hot blondes.”

“I’m so telling JT you said that,” she teases, pulling away.

You shrug and take your first sip. “Go ahead. He’ll agree.”

“And this is why you’re my favorite couple,” she says, bumping her hip against yours. “The worst part is Tyson didn’t even care about that either! At the post-game, when he saw my lipstick smeared all over Gabe’s neck, he high-fived him. Tyson fucking high-fived him for screwing me. His ex-girlfriend! How supremely demented is that?”

“I wish I had an explanation for you, but I don’t. I’m starting to think I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”

Kate takes hold of your unoccupied hand and squeezes it three times.

“I’m guessing things haven’t gotten any better?”

You shake your head, eyes downcast like there’s something super interesting between the floorboards. “I know he’s busy, and we’re busy, but he’s acting like our friendship meant nothing.”

“Not to start a therapy session in the middle of a rager, but did you... did you ever actually talk about That Night? I know you said JT whispered, but how positive are you that Josty didn't hear him?"

A few months after That Night, your guilt was on the brink of hemorrhaging. It was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped; you broke down in the middle of Talladega Nights. Fucking Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. All fat tears and snotty, incoherent spiraling, your chest heaved as JT rubbed your back. He was quiet, more concerned than confused, until you calmed down enough to explain what’d been weighing on your conscience.

Then, your boyfriend looked clueless—because he was. JT didn’t remember his heat-of-the-moment pseudo-promise to taint Josty’s image of you.

After a scene or two, you broached the subject you’d both been avoiding since getting together. You wanted to apologize, and not that you needed JT’s permission, but you felt it wasn’t entirely your amends to make. He agreed but was adamantly opposed to operating on assumption alone. If Tyson was truly upset by the pillow talk he overheard, JT reasoned, he was old enough to be frank about it.

You found yourself agreeing, but also not? On the one hand, you could see this being an instance of your anxious mind making a mountain out of a molehill, finding fault where there’s none. But you knew Tyson, and you knew how sensitive he could be.

Something shifted that night. You’d known then, too, even in the hazy afterglow. His despondency wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t uncommon for his dejected expression—his forced smile dipped in feigned nonchalance—to visit you in therapy sessions or in your nightmares.

But every time you typed and re-typed one remorseful novel after another, every time your gun-shy thumb hovered over his contact, every time you nearly drove out to your alma mater to track him down… You couldn’t get yourself to see it through.

At first, it was the nerves, the fear of hearing his pain and seeing his anger. Then, it was your own temper, stoked by indignation, that rose with every sign of withdrawal. Now, it’s just plain, garden-variety sadness.

It was—is disappointing how cleanly he severed ties. There one day and gone the next, no blow-out fight or melancholic hear-to-heart. Tyson was there; he was within reach, but at the same time, not at all. The casual dismissal is worse than outright rejection; the door ajar but wholly uninviting.

"In the moment, I was certain he didn’t. Now? Fuck, the percentage drops every time I replay it in my head,” you murmur, remorse bogging down your confession. "I know you made a point not to bring it up when you were together, but did he ever, I don’t know, say anything?"

Kate shakes her head. "No, sorry. But it's not like we actually did much talking anyway."

You snort despite your woes.

“Alright, that’s enough doom and gloom for one night. How’s my nephew?” Kate asks, bright smile chasing the blues away with all its might.

It’s a distraction and a good one, too. She listens intently as you prattle on about the bi-weekly training sessions you’re starting next month to help with the leash pulling and the ridiculous pet parents you’ve met at the dog park near your apartment. She inquires about the fluffy lamb she brought over the last time she stayed with you—it lasted all of a day in his over-excited grip—then gushes over another variation she saw last week while getting litter for Salem, her diabolical tuxedo cat.

By the time Kate has your phone in her hand, swiping through the designated album and asking more questions than each picture really warranted, you’re feeling a bit better.

Noticing the clock, you stumble through a totally-not-suspicious excuse to venture upstairs—alone. Kate shoots you a knowing look but doesn’t give you a hard time. To be honest, she’s just glad you came tonight. Instead of a witty jab or half-hearted guilt trip, she slips a gold foil square into your unsuspecting palm and sends you on your way with a supportive swat to the rear.

Access to the second floor during parties is typically mediated by two to three gatekeepers, depending on the scale and projected rowdiness of each gathering. Three’s the magic number tonight: two up-and-coming juniors and an outgoing senior. They grant you passage with little more than a nod of acknowledgment.

“What? No riddle this time?” you tease over your shoulder.

The senior, an engineering major with a penchant for brain teasers, answers with a hoot. Cale Makar shakes his head, both amused and flattered you remembered his signature move. His puppy crush on you is an open secret. “I was given strict instructions to ‘keep the shenanigans’ to a minimum with you, Your Majesty.”

“JT?” you venture a guess, hand paused on the paint-chipped banister. He’s the only one who still sprinkles in the silly nickname these days.

“Landy, actually.”

Well, close enough.

You shouldn’t be surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time the former chapter president enlisted Cale, his little, to assist in your and JT’s more salacious antics.

As soon as Gabe had the defenseman under his wing, he was putting him to work. Not that the younger blonde particularly minded, as his affinity for creative, slightly devious schemes rivaled that of Kate’s. It was Cale, you later found out, who ran interference during Semi Formal… while you were defiled on the balcony.

“Still doing his bidding, I see.”

He counters with that lopsided “Get Out of Jail Free” grin. “What can I say? The man puts up a mean bribe.”

As if cued, Cale’s companions, who you now recognize as Alex Newhook and Bowen Byram, step into view. In Alex’s raised grip is a case of Labatt Blue, and in each of Bowen’s, a bottle of bottom-shelf cabernet. You doubt the trio would notice or mind the subpar quality, though. Between their happy heads, Cale fists a bottle of champagne you know he’ll misplace before he can polish it off.

“Jesus, how drunk is he?” you tease, the follow-up to an exaggerated gasp.

Sure, the quality’s shit, but their haul is far more valuable than your appraisal of their job; it’s a frat house, not Buckingham Palace.

“Not drunk enough to not see you here with us.” Cale’s voice tapers off, his pale eyes tracking someone stalking down the hall before nervously flicking up to the ceiling, “…and not up there with JTC.”

JTC — Talk about a blast from the past.

An anticipatory tingling erupts between your inner thighs just knowing he’s up there right now waiting for you. This is the part of your “homecoming” that excited you most and had been since the moment your boyfriend pinned the invite from the alumni association onto the fridge.

As blissfully domestic as your life together has become, it lacks the spontaneity your college life had been brimming with. Your sex life could never be categorized as mundane or clinical, but you’re finding it difficult to replicate the adrenaline rush stealing secret moments inherently provided.

Sometimes, in your more (admittedly) desperate moments, you’ve caught your fingers moving beneath the sheets to mindlessly chase the thrill of those fleeting intimacies, despite how awful the constant wondering and wallowing felt then or, maybe because of it, pain and pleasure are uniquely human indulgences sought in equal measure. When intertwined, they’ve been known to satiate masochistic cravings the way a sad movie or a sprawling, high-speed rollercoaster might.

However, this time, your risk-spurned euphoria will be at your own hand. The newfound agency—the ability to choose when, how, or if any risk is involved—has you darting up the stairs with a fire under your soles.

Before you round the corner and disappear down the hall, you make sure to call out, “Thank you for your service!” accompanied by a two-finger mock salute. You don’t stick around to catch their responses, though.

As you make your way down the dim corridor, you run smack into a very giggly Sarah Jones, just shy of your destination. Eyes distant and wide, she attempts to apologize for something—Something about sabotaging the Big-Little pairings your senior spring?—but it’s more bubbles than actual words. You nod along, still not quite sure what you’re accepting an apology for but too antsy to forge ahead to play detective. Your purposeful strides went unnoticed in her cloud of intoxication and nostalgia, but Erik Johnson, who’d been JT’s vice president, mercifully ushers his inebriated fiancé out of your path by the shoulders.

You offer him a faint smile of gratitude as they head in the opposite direction.

Over the music, you faintly hear Sarah begin chattering on about something unrelated, your reunion long forgotten already. You can’t help but chuckle a little on behalf of your younger self, who would’ve gawked at snobbish Sarah Jones drunk and voluntarily slumming it in a ramshackle house on Greek Row. And sporting a rock from a Degenerate on Ice (her nickname for your brother fraternity, not yours), too? That would’ve been the icing. But, the older, more mature, once-weekly-therapy iteration of yourself is happy she’s happy.

Thoroughly amused but happy nevertheless.

As you reach for the tarnished doorknob of the president’s suite, the rickety door flings open to reveal your boyfriend, all flushed cheeks and frenzied eyes.

JT pulls you inside, lips easily taking possession of yours, the heel of his lived-in/loved-on sneaker nudging the door shut. The hinges groan in protest to the rough treatment. Still fussy as ever. This house is a goddamn time capsule, you muse. Neither of you has the patience for benevolence. If it jams, it jams. That’s a future-self problem. Diligence now would only slow you down.

And would a prolonged stay on memory lane really be all that bad?

Your boyfriend cages you so close that when he manages more than panted praise between hot-and-heavy touches, the words barely fit in the gap between your mouths. “I was beginning to think you stood me up, sweetheart.”

The light-hearted accusation is semi-whispered, somewhat hoarse, in the way his voice always sounded when he came home from a long shift at the hospital downtown or post-game at the height of his collegiate career. JT isn’t a hard person to read—downright wolfish when he’s homing in on a target—but the low, raspy tone makes his intent glaring.

Your body thrums with anticipation.

“Never,” you croon back. A breathy moan sweetens your voice, courtesy of the calloused hand inching up the back of your bare thigh, bypassing the hem of your skirt with no effort or resistance. Arms looping around his neck, you make an inquiry: “Is there a reason we’re in your old bedroom instead of, I don’t know, the king-sized bed in the honeymoon suite you insisted we spring for?”

Tufts of faint copper tickle your cheek. Your boyfriend lands a kiss on your crowd-warmed forearm. Then, much to your displeasure, he steps out of the tight embrace.

“Y’know, I remembered something earlier when I was downstairs,” JT supplies in an apparent non-answer.

He guides you, as understanding rises in your mental periphery, through the barely-lit space toward the Jack-and-Jill bathroom between this room and the next. Then, he flicks on the secondary light, the dimmer of the two, before tugging you over yet another threshold. His fingers twitch at his sides, lascivious.

You stare back at him expectantly, vision tunneling as you wait, wait, wait.

The latch might as well have been a starting pistol; the subtle click ringing in your eardrums like the sonic crack of a live round; his breath a plume of smoke from a charged muzzle well beyond its flash point. Pent-up, needy tension burns hot and burns brighter. Residue from the night prior aflame; you, a moth seduced.

JT drives forward. Stalking, like a cat on a bird, until he’s pinned you to the door. His dash was easy, made short and hasty by the starting block eagerness in your dilated eyes.

Mouth descending on your sensitive neck, hips grinding his want into your squirming form, harsh belt buckle nudging just right with each sharp rut.

“There’s still one thing left on my college bucket list.”

He sinks the candor in with his incisors. Not hard enough to break the skin, but that was never his intention. The sting is a reminder. Of your shared past, of his unwavering desire—of who is in charge.

Message received. Loud and clear.

JT leans away to admire his handiwork. One big hand poised at your jaw, and the other braced beside your head, keeping your shyness from blocking the perfect view; you’ve never been able to hide from him and never will.

His curious thumb deviates from the original objective to caress the skin, now splotched violet and angry. Softly, at first, like he’s committing the damage to memory. Then, emboldened by a sudden piercing hiss forcing itself from your throat, JT pushes down on the tender spot. The cruel, unexpected pressure pulls pitiful bleating cries from your undulating chest.

This is no longer an expedition to gather intel; it’s a primal instinct.

For a few moments, he just holds you like this. A cloistered existence made worthwhile by him occasionally digging deeper into the column of your throat, the pressure taking on a raptorial quality. Your boyfriend wears his herald grin at a rakish angle. It unfurls with refined delicacy, an effective diversion for his next endeavor. Breathe like a precision instrument; the sharp phantom-edge fans across the sucked-raw skin with unhurried ease.

There isn’t enough alcohol in your system to dull the twinge — and you’re glad for it. It’d be a crime to dilute a burn this good, this all-consuming. You crumble between him and the door, your world only this big. His name tumbles out with a pulled-candy moan, completely devoid of dignity.

JT’s chest rumbles beneath your clammy palms. “You gonna be a good girl and help me tie up loose ends?”

His strawberry-blonde crown dips to nuzzle your cheek. Hot tongue tracing an experimental line, JT groaning as it does. The muscle trawls for tears you didn’t realize you shed, humming through the pursuit. The low-pitched moan sends a chill straight down your spine right to your toes.

The hand gripping your jaw lowers so his fingers are able to coil themselves around somewhere more advantageous — your neck. Your eyelids flutter, woozy. His firm squeeze, just enough to make everything spin and keep you still, has become blissfully familiar over time, but your breath still hitches like it’s the first.

“Hm, sweetheart? Don’t be rude. I asked you a question.”

Your lips part, a barbed retort to his condescension on your tongue, but all you can push out is the strangled yelp of a wounded animal.

The hand by your temple no longer rests against the door. In the fog, it snuck up under your skirt; JT never meant to get an answer out of you; he just likes to watch you squirm. Likes to have something to reprimand you for.

His nimble fingers dance over the thin, sodden material pulled taut over your heat. Less touching, more hovering. Small, lazy movements that betray how well he can play your body. They float above the tingling bundle of nerves, further movement pending, contingent upon your obedience.

“P-please,” comes your pouted whimper.

“Focus for me, pretty baby. Tell me what I want to hear. Come on, let me make things easy for you. I can feel how badly you want to — and you aren’t in a position to be difficult, are you?”

You give in, and though the words you babble are largely unintelligible, JT’s ultimately satisfied.

“Such a good listener I’ve got myself. But you’re always to eager to please, aren’t you? You might throw stones from behind that tough girl act, but it’s just that: an act. I have a puddle in my hand to prove it.”

His frankness sears your face.

You’ve acquired a tolerance for his raunchy silver tongue through months of close proximity, but the mechanism is shoddy at best. Stalls and misfires galore. Against all odds (said “odds” being his fingertips toying with the edges of fabric between your thighs), you summon up a tawdry retort from the growing arsenal. “Don’t l-let it go to waste, Compher.”

It's not your best work, but much better than the slurred gurgle that preceded it.

He loves how you manage to be any sort of cheeky with him, even with your head swimming, stuttering and all.

“I don’t think it matters, sweetheart. I know there’s no shortage. Plenty more where it came from.”

With your knee, you nudge his hard-on and supply some honey-tongued snark of your own. “Is that your ego, or are you just excited to see me?”

Your boyfriend chokes out short-lived mirth. Then, with an accompanying smile, his tongue presses to the inside of his cheek. Amused, but by the sting of the remark’s undeniable truth, not your cleverness. The protrusion moves just below his bottom lip as he swipes the muscle over his teeth, a half-second sardonic gesture. It calls attention to your impudence without dignifying it with a verbal reply.

His brow lifts to negate any confusion, feigned or otherwise. “Are you going to keep being a brat, or are you going to let me fuck you with my fingers?”

You gulp down your ready-mixed wisecracks.

“Nothing to say now?” JT taunts. “Funny how that works.”

Fuckin’ wisenheimer. His voice is so haughty you have to bite your lip to keep your foot out of your mouth, unwilling to jeopardize your impending pleasure for short-term gratification.

Your boyfriend’s smugness—and your subsequent annoyance—becomes irrelevant when your panties are roughly pushed to the side, and his thick finger slips past your taut entrance. Tip to knuckle in one succinct trust; your startled gasp drowns out the noise rising up through the floorboards.

Hips bucking forward—you just can’t help yourself—you're in search of some friction to marry with the blinding stretch. He’s made the tensile opening accommodate far more in length and thickness, but not like this. Rarely does he create space where there is barely any, having forgone tenderness. Slowly widening a gap with gentle pressure, not demanding room like it’s already his to occupy.

Your surprise drips down his hand.

The bliss—the relief, is palpable. Your head dips into the crook of his neck, and the gravity of the situation felt for the first time.

Before, you didn’t see any substance in a tipsy frat bathroom hook-up. The older you got, the more pointless it seemed, especially with an established, long-term partner. The novelty wasn’t lost on you, of course, but that’s all you’d written it off as.

Countless collegiate nights were spent imagining one like this one. A moment where your inescapable feelings for him would be matched outright. When the pressure of his stifled emotions would build too fast to keep them from boiling over, too mighty in stature. Suddenly overcome by unrequited feelings of his own, unable to uphold all the ridiculous unspoken platonic conventions with the same authority he commands now.

This is important. For your past and present selves. The significance of this overdone, soapy teen drama scenario cannot be overlooked because it underscores the progress you’ve made together. Years of dancing around one another, the unconventional catalyst and nontraditional timeline, every hushed conversation in the wee hours before responsibilities wake, the sleepless nights and the snooze-filled afternoons—this ostensibly clichéd moment is an amalgamation of it all.

One thought rises above the frenzied rest: Was this here all along?

Is this what was waiting on the other side of the aimless pining and the confusion and the hurt?

The journey might’ve been fucking hell, but the view from here is pretty damn heavenly.

Overwhelmed by your epiphany and his dexterous motions, you moan into his skin far louder than your pride would’ve otherwise allowed outside your shared apartment.

His arrogant laughter grates before it really registers. Venom secretes from your salivary glands when it does, but the melted retribution never makes it past your lips. His second finger robs it of the opportunity, and the third sends all thoughts out your ears. The light circles over your clit cloud your vision, nails digging into his jersey-clad back—I’m feeling nostalgic, he’d said. In more ways than one, apparently.

“S’good—wanted this for so long, Compher—k-kept wishing it was you that night, not Miles.”

JT seethes at the admission, curling his fingers until your knees buckle and you’re entirely reliant on him to keep you off the floor. Even as your mind slips further and further away, your hips manage to move in time with his hand. Meeting each stroke with equal hustle and vigor, a clear end goal on the horizon.

Then his thumb drops away, his hand coming to a halt, and he steps back.

Away.

Frustration pushes the amassed tears waiting in the wings down your cheeks. Emotion runs down your face; a heavy spill indeed.

“I don’t ever want to hear another man’s name outta your mouth when it’s my fingers buried in your pussy.” His jealousy is well-polished. Manicure-smooth, like he’s been maintaining its luster in preparation for this very occasion. "—'specially not the motherfucker that made sure I heard all your pretty sounds through the walls.”

You’d grin if you weren’t so miserable.

That’d been your intention. It wasn’t anything Miles had or did that made him different from the rest of the chapter (who all, at one point or another, tried their luck with JTC’s hot best friend), just simply when he decided to shoot his shot. The only reason you’d been out in the first place was because you reached your breaking point, no longer able to stomach what you felt for JT, and you made sure Miles knew this before you let him call an Uber.

Despite playing for the same team, the pair shared a touch-and-go rivalry. You never knew if the intensity would result in a sweeping victory or an in-house, all-out brawl. If they ever saw eye to eye, you’d of never known. Miles needed no convincing to push JT’s buttons.

There was some heavy petting, nothing more. The only time Miles saw you undress was to change into the pajamas he lent you before knocking out on his futon, leaving you to take the bed. But JT didn’t know that. If sitting in their chapter house’s kitchen at 5 o’clock the next morning didn’t raise suspicion, the non-Compher borrowed t-shirt and ruffled hair certainly did.

Back then, he refused to ask. Even though you could see how badly he wanted to pry. Miles didn’t have anything he worth sharing, so JT was left to fill in the blanks.

You’d tell him the truth later, but right now, you wanted to see what milking his assumptions could get you.

“Did you like what you heard?”

His jaw ticks. Your hips push against his with a knowing simper.

You lean forward, closing the space he forced, lips barely brushing his ear, “Did you get off on it? Fuck your hand picturing yourself in his place… wishing it was my pussy instead?”

You hear the thud before you feel your head against the door or his hand back around your throat, his fingers deep between your walls again. The everywhere-throb makes you laugh. Giggle, really.

He squeezes until you’re no longer capable of mockery. His pace hastens, leveling out only once your thighs have started shaking around his wrist, knees cutting off his circulation elbow-down. Somehow, he keeps going despite the icy tingle. His determination overrides physical discomfort, knowing how close you’re getting. Feeling it in the distinct fluttering around his digits, seeing it in your trembling, swollen bottom lip.

“You’re so full of shit.” His mouth twitches at your throaty moan. A defiant hint of levity circles his pupils; he never stays riled up for long when it’s you yanking his chain. “You’re lucky I love you.”

You kiss him then, messy and crude, love-drunk. He tastes like your chapstick and gin, with a biting citric aftertaste —Grapefruit, maybe?—and you suck it in like you haven’t had a drop of water in days. And, in turn, he drinks down every choked sob and nonsensical half-thought you babble, every drop shooting straight to his loins.

He drives into you with fervor, humming as his tongue slips against yours, iron bulge omnipresent. The hand around your neck loosens but never leaves its post, thumb stroking your pulse point. I know everything about you, his movements whisper. Over and over, in and out. He, just as much as you, gets lost in the repetition.

“Don’t want him, never wanted him. Jus’ you—Always you.” It comes out slurred, mushy like your head, like your heart.

JT’s cock isn’t immune to affirmation and twitches through his too-tight jeans. Groaning, “Go on, sweetheart. Scream my name. I want every single person in this house to know exactly who’s fucking you this good.”

You do just that, writhing on his hand, eventually burying your face into his warm neck when it gets to be too much. He continues fucking you, and you continue crying for him, the pathetic little whimpers muffled now by his body.

JT guides you through the rest of your orgasm, as he always does. He watches your face carefully on the comedown, searching for any sign of regret or discomfort. When he finds none, he cradles your shaking form against his solid chest, the hand that, only moments ago, tore you apart, soothing you back down to earth. Once you’ve settled, he walks you back and away from the door.

A startled yelp falls from your lips when you feel the chilly edge of the countertop. You pull away from your boyfriend, brows furrowing with confusion.

His hand taps the outside of your thigh. "Up."

You’re having a hard time keeping your eyes open, let alone stringing thoughts together, so the command is met with inaction. Impatient as ever, JT wordlessly hoists you where he wants you and sinks down to his knees, big hands cupping yours.

“What’re you doing?” Strained, barely above a whisper.

He stares up at you with dopey, lovestruck eyes. “Come on, Compher. You can gimmie another one, can’t you?”

You aren’t an idiot. Often sleep deprived beyond belief and, more often than not, fucked-out on JT’s… Well, anything—but definitely not an idiot. You knew exactly what that loaded gun of a pet name implied the moment he used it. It first slipped out during a frantic supply closet rendezvous midway through your company’s holiday party, then a few more times in the months after.

It hasn’t lost its sparkle. It does make you more and more impatient each time he flashes it, though.

Fuckin’ tease.

Your fingers burrow in his hair, tugging from the root until his eyelids flutter prettily. “As long as you let me return the favor after—need to taste you so bad.”

“Deal,” he mumbles into your skin a half-second later.

His hands push your already-short skirt up, bunching it atop your hips and out of the way. Your boyfriend takes the time to remove the fabric barrier this time, and you don’t miss the way he tries to slip them into his back pocket without you noticing. Likely because it’d normally be a tease-able offense.

But not tonight, not right now.

Instead, you let a shiver speak for itself. The risqué gesture reminds you of the pair he used as a pocket square when his parents took you two to a celebratory dinner following his white coat ceremony. The rumble of his chuckle tells you his mind went there, too.

JT leans in, big eyes never moving from yours, his warm exhale fanning over your swollen folds. The tooth-marked bruise forming on the side of your throat pricks in tandem response. The action, a repeat of your boyfriend’s earlier antics, naturally yields similar enough results. He catches on, inching forward to—

Something bangs against the door.

His face falls; your heart seizes.

“Occupied!�� your boyfriend barks, hands paused but gripping you tightly. He looks like he’s on the verge of exploding.

A full, lilting sound barrels into the door—too-good-to-be-true laughter. His breathy timbre is an unsteady balance of cocksure and skittish; a preference for one side or the other is blurred by the wood in its way. “It’s me, dickhead.”

Then, the curtain is lifted. A pocket of silence ushers in a stillness that cracks like a bolt from the blue.

Shocked doesn’t even begin to cover how you feel right now. You most definitely suffered a concussion somewhere in all JT’s reprimanding; you’re hallucinating right now. That, or the singular seltzer in your system magically turned psychotropic after consumption.

Waiting in the threshold is Tyson Jost. A quarter-drunk fifth of Jack in one hand and that goofy, irrepressible smile plastered on his face. Almost frozen in time—good-humored, untouched. As if nothing’s happened, nothing’s changed. Suave, and standing there like he hasn’t ignored you for months on end, like your and JT’s absence in his life wasn’t felt the way the Tyson-sized void in yours was.

Idle and morose, his eyes are the only defectors to his blasé demeanor. Timid and downturned, akin to a kicked puppy, they beg you and your boyfriend to assuage his guilt. An olive branch, a white flag in the wind. Amid their vulnerability, they still manage to cut into you in a way that feels too intimate, too honest—too much.

The worst part of this charged maelstrom is knowing Tyson isn’t capable of being cruel on purpose, then or now. It's bittersweet.

Careless or callous, it hurts all the same. It’s difficult to sift through the muck and decide which feelings should guide your actions when there’s no easy place to lay blame.

A gnarly, muddy morass of emotion climbs out of your gut and fills your throat, threatening to make an appearance each time you dare to exhale. You’re nervous and confused, elated and optimistic, angry and reproachful. The burn of betrayal rushes up your neck and across the bridge of your nose, but all the words you’ve stockpiled for this rainy day stick to your tongue like tar. Dark, thick, and flammable—your silence is probably for the best.

Bronze eyes, somber beneath the fan of flaxen lashes, adopt a strange aloofness that doesn’t suit his face. Lacquered just so as to protect the gooey softness beneath, the finish does nothing to obstruct or disguise his desirous longing or a brand of blues you’ve never seen in him before.

The intensity of your braided gazes is sanguine at best, duplicitous at worst, but disorienting all the same.

Anxiously, you chew on time; you’re trying your best not to swallow minutes and hours in big gulps. Your attempts to savor their confounding guilty-pleasure flavor are as futile as hoping the animosity would dissipate on its own. Or wishing the distance was just a nightmare you were on the verge of waking up from.

JT’s pulse races against your skin. He’s just as affected, just better at hiding it.

“Took you long enough,” is what JT says in greeting from the floor, dry words flung over his shoulder to curb the growing tension. Blithesome and biting and far more hospitable than you imagined.

All you can do is blink, slack-jawed; there are pieces you’re missing.

JT chuckles at your expression. He pecks your inner thigh to regain your attention. “Fuck now, talk later. Sound good?”

His words crack any and all inhibitions. Like opening the door to a cage, his reassurance grants your mind and heart the permission to succumb to the wave of emotions—lust overtaking the pack with ease.

Eyes still stuck on the ghost in the doorway, you nod your head in agreement. It’s as if you’re afraid your voice might rupture the bubble.

“Figured you’d be a little parched, baby.” Tyson, voice becoming jocular as ever, wags the bottle as he shuts the door behind himself. His tone might be light-hearted, but his gaze is anything but. Starved is the only way you can think to aptly describe the shadow. “And we can’t have that, now can we?”

You barely register JT vacating the prime real estate to accommodate his best friend, and subconsciously, you scoot closer to the edge. You knew you missed him, but you underestimated how needy you’d become if he ever stood before you again.

Both men notice.

Grinning, Tyson takes hold of your jaw. His hand emits a small tremor of unease, hesitant where JT had been demanding. The accidental brush of his fingertips over your boyfriend’s trailed claim rattles free a melancholic whimper. Your eyes glaze over, watering as your neck cranes up at him. He gently tilts your face to the side to assess the damage. You can feel his eyes raking over the marred skin, a sensation akin to your boyfriend’s weaponized breath. Goosebumps rise in their wake.

In reference to the Neanderthal surveying you over his shoulder, Tyson sniggers. “Filthy bastard.”

Charming as ever.

“She deserved it.” JT’s nonchalant shrug is more dismissive than his verbal nod.

Wicked eyes twinkle. “Oh, I don’t doubt that.”

You pinch his side, offended. Nevertheless, you purr at the certitude dripping from his husky vibrato.

He yelps and bats your hand away. “Got you good, didn’t he?”

You nod.

The baby talk-adjacent voice is demeaning, but with your only shield burning a hole in your boyfriend’s back pocket, lying about the effect it's having would be pointless.

Propriety is becoming increasingly moot, as this conversation circling around you carves space for new possibilities.

“Poor thing,” Josty hums, his thumb coasting back and forth over your jaw. His breath is smokey-sweet, honeyed. “M'gonna make it all better. Open up, baby.”

It’s something straight out of an early aughts raunchy teen comedy, the way he holds your mouth open to pour whiskey straight down, doing so without the lip ever touching either one of yours. The thin stream drags slightly as it goes down, but you’d never know watching the pillowy spirit disappear into you. You’re too eager to impress them both to give in and react—to the burn in your throat or the circumstances of this affair. You guzzle the oaky vanilla-clove flavor, smiling dumbly at the toasted aftertaste, all too happy to take anything and everything you’re given.

Still, either by virtue of Tyson’s lingering tipsiness or your inattention, some of the amber liquid escapes over your bottom lip, dribbling over your chin and down in between your cleavage. There isn’t enough time to consider wiping it off; Josty’s mouth is sucking you clean before the bottle even hits the counter beside you.

“Would be a shame…” Tyson starts, briefly interrupting himself with a succession of wet, open-mouthed pecks he’s decided to spoil your décolletage with, “…to let it go to waste.”

JT’s begrudged scoff cuts through the trance. “Jesus, kid. Where’d you learn that? What the fuck have you been doing? Or should I be asking ‘who' you've been doing?"

Tyson flinches at the coarse overtone the questions carry. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of reaction only you’re close enough to feel. He just laughs into your neck rather than humoring JT or feeding into whatever he’s implying.

You’re too woozy to toss in your two cents in favor of either side.

Cold countertop lapping up your wetness, the burning palm cupping your face to aid the pursuit of sugary lips, the memory of his tongue gliding over your sticky skin—your boyfriend a few paces away, watching. That’s more potent than any liquor, mixed or straight. It doesn’t take long for you to pull away, in a there-but-not state of mind, to slouch against Tyson’s chest. Head heavy, warmed and spinning.

Happy.

“Somethin’ special, aren’t you?” Tyson muses as he kneads the tender spot where your hairline meets your neck. You peck his forearm.

“As sweet as this reunion’s been, you came up here for a reason. Get to it; we don’t have all night. I imagine La Tornade will be wanting his bathroom back eventually.”

You whimper at the sharp edge of his voice, even though you weren’t the intended target.

JT’s dark drawl was laden with protective affection for you, his devotion hardened by a hue of discontent reminiscent of a paternal chide. An outsider looking in might not see beyond the mediator-in-shining-armor ruse, mistakenly pruning away JT’s thorny pain and rotted grief, but you know better. The situation and him. While genuine, his defense of your bruised feelings is a trojan horse for his own. He’s conveying his rage how he can: under the guise of selflessness.

Tyson gulps, eyes downcasted, then nods. He understands as well as you do. When he finally looks up, the shadow’s fallen over his face once more, cloud drooped low overhead.

“You’re scaring me, Josty.”

This makes him laugh, his mood brightening a tad. “If anyone should be scared, it’s me.”

In your periphery, you catch JT urging him to continue with a stiff glare.

“I-I’ve been such an ass. I—I just care so damn much. About you. About Compher, and our friendship. When you graduated, m-my whole world changed. Like someone gutted my life, scooped out all the good, comfortable stuff and left me with the shell. I felt like I lost my people. Like I was left behind. And then I had to watch you two get closer than ever—without me. It fucking sucked, and I didn’t cope well. Didn’t cope at all, really. Kate’ll tell you, she took the brunt of my tailspin.”

You can’t help but snort despite the thick emotion welling up behind your eyes. The boys smile, too. Things look up.

Tyson takes your hand in a tight squeeze; his pulse jumps into your palm. “But that’s no excuse for what I did—didn’t do. How I treated you. You were trying so hard, and all I did was punish you for it. For constantly reminding me you guys are there and not here. For moving on with your life like you’re supposed to.”

He claims JT’s old spot knelt between your parted knees. “And I’m sorry. So deeply sorry, baby. Please let me make it up to you—let me apologize properly.”

Tears of his own shine up at you from his flushed cheeks. Gently, you take his face in your hands, rubbing away the spilled emotion with the soft pads of your thumbs.

A silent pardon.

The walls throw back the echo of his low, audible content—of relief.

“Is this okay?” His voice is barely a whisper, dwindling to a hush as the question tapers off.

Too determined to quiet his audible fear of rejection—and to have his mouth on you as fast as humanly possible—to bother with words, you nod immediately.

“With how much she’s been dripping onto the counter since you walked in, what do you think?” JT interjects, mood vastly improved.

Your cheeks and neck heat just as he intended.

The younger forward chuckles, hands massaging up and down your sensitive thighs, gripping them as if holding himself back from lunging too soon.

A predator lurking in the brush, lying in wait.

“I wasn’t gonna say anything. Didn’t want to embarrass her.” He winks up at you, confidence rising to the surface once more. You have to fight to maintain eye contact; he’s that stupidly attractive. “ —was try t’be a gentleman.”

You’re a flurry of butterflies, a whimpering mess.

Tyson wants to tease your body; it’s in his nature. But he won’t. Namely, because he can’t. No matter how good some old-fashioned edging would eventually make you feel, he’s already on JT’s shit list as is.

Besides, he’s only been fiending for a taste since you introduced yourself to him. And there's no time like the present...

Your guttural scream—an appropriate, albeit mortifying reaction to his baby pink lips enveloping your swollen clit—pumps his chest full with pride. Tongue flat, he charts the length of your heat with a gentleness you hadn’t thought your collective excitement would allow for. His hands coast over your legs, syncing with his mouth, until he physically cannot wait any longer. One final pass, one so agonizingly slow your greedy hips thoughtlessly vie for more of anything, brings his wistful, fidgeting digits to rest at the apex of your thighs.

“Pause.”

JT’s clipped command is a bucket of ice water.

Your vocal annoyance is matched by Tyson’s, but you both know how delicate a game you’re playing.

With his thumb still lazily swirling to your clit, Tyson’s inquisitive head begins to turn around. Before he gets anywhere worthwhile, it’s swiftly spun back into place by your boyfriend’s firm hand.

You can’t even convey how hot you find JT’s fingers casually twisting in his friend’s curly mop—just the way you love; all you manage is a warbled, mostly airy cry. Your distressed state worsens watching the show unfold between your lax, parted knees: reluctant, fluttery lashes over neon cheeks; a rosy, glistening bottom lip sacrificed to cage mousy whimpers, his ragged breathing betraying all effort toward feigning indifference to JT’s self-assured manhandling.

Your boyfriend snickers at your expression, a fish lingering open-mouthed for a surface sip, an ill-attempt to supplement a natural mode gone inadequate. No matter how much oxygen your widened jaw draws in, it never feels sufficient. A bottomless pit, a balloon with a fatal puncture wound. Gone before your depleted brain could make use of it.

“Have to make sure he does it right, don’t I, sweetheart?” JT’s voice is smooth and low, charring by the second; he’s enjoying the view as much as you are.

Tyson rolls his tawny eyes. Half-hearted annoyance. “Controlling much?”

“I know what my woman needs.”

The look you share with your friend is unequivocally feral.

And the growl JT hurls back, a low-pitched rumble permeating the tight space with little effort on his part, is just plain mean.

His attitude could not be more arrogant. The cavalier persona makes you shiver, and Tyson’s breath hitch. Humming, your boyfriend tugs on his curls until the two’s eyes are locked. Inescapable. The brunette gasps as he tries desperately to hold his eyes open, waiting with bated breath.

JT licks his lips, triumphant. “Open her up for me, will ya?” Mischief catches in the light as quickly as it falls into your boyfriend’s lap. His grip tightens, and Tyson whimpers like a naughty puppy caught red-handed. “Don’t screw around, ‘kay? She needs all the help her tight pussy can get, and we don’t have all night.”

Panting, his nod is the only affirmative he can muster up. And the only one his limited range of motion will allow for. Smug and pleased enough, JT all but throws his friend into your fire, his nose bumping where you’re most sensitive.

You actually yelp.

Holding your torrid gaze, Tyson dips his marriage and middle into you. You groan out what you meant to be his name—But who knows? And who fucking cares?—unable to control yourself while he’s finally touching you like this. Finally back.

Tyson finger-fucks you at an even pace, steadily pushing you up the hill. His satisfaction is tangible when he pulls out and away, so very delighted by your wonton hiss of annoyance. Even more so when the volume hikes up in response to the slippery pads of his fingers circling your clit. Your lewd whines harmonize with your audible arousal as he works it back into your fragile skin, playing with your wetness, utterly fascinated.

“What d’ya think, baby? Think you’re wet enough to take another finger?” JT’s tone is as cocky as his stupid rhetorical question. He, however, made no move to conceal his growing impatience.

“Mhmm,” you murmur, head like a rubber ball hitting the pavement. Still, you remember your manners. “Please—c-can I? Can I have another?”

His smile is pure adoration, dreamlike.

JT’s reverent eyes stay with you, but his words pour down over the eager man on the floor as he coaxes you halfway to heaven. “You heard her, kid. Give the lady what she deserves.”

Kid—Tyson hates when people call him that, but he especially loathes JT's usage. There’s barely an age difference, but with the way everyone acts, it might as well be decades. It seems like no matter what he does to prove himself, he’s still the baby. Every additional candle is like an annual slap in the face, a mockery that won’t end.

He can feel anger and frustration curdling low in his stomach just thinking about all the attempts that fell flat, and he decides to put the grumbling to good use. The vibration is red-hot and deliberate against your responsive, slick center, irritation like lighter fluid.

He gives you more than just three fingers. He splays all three—wide. Even as they stroke your soft inner walls, Tyson keeps you stretched so as to leave no slack. Your boyfriend wants you open? Tyson will fucking tear you apart, happily. (Yes, spite is a factor.)

Highly sensitive and spread to the limit, you ascend far quicker than usual. Fisting a bushel of golden-brown curls, nails digging rapt half-moons, you guide his willing face to the necessary places to see yourself through. Every slight adjustment has your entire body jerking haphazardly as it struggles to process the rocketing shockwaves.

JT’s hand retreats—only slightly—to make way for yours, to give you more leverage to fuck yourself through it. Less than a foot away, your boyfriend’s chest heaves in time with yours, his eyes pits of lust you dive into with clumsy enthusiasm.

During one particular, delicious pass, the tip of Tyson’s tongue catches your strained entrance, and when you unexpectedly gush against his mouth in response, he begins lapping over and around your carnal connection.

“Holy shit — Ty, I-I’m — I’m — “

The denouement of your climax is nothing short of glorious, as rude of a sentence interruptor as it was. Half-mewls and purred praise rain down from your loosened lips, eyes screwed shut.

Tyson melts over the way you take control of your orgasm, so unabashed and authoritative. You go after what you want; he respects that majorly. And getting to feel and taste what makes you tick doesn’t hurt either.

Neither do you and your pretty, throbbing walls cutting off blood flow while your boyfriend tugs his hair from behind.

“Just like that, keep fucking her through it. Did so good—doin’ so good for us.”

JT’s praise sends the brunette’s unoccupied hand right to his bulge.

This is the best he’s felt in months.

There’s the mythical balance of bliss-to-tension to key up his senses, shooting white-hot tingles of want from his head to his feet and flaming between his ribs, affection for you. You forgive him, JT forgives him, and, most importantly, he forgives himself.

He feels buoyant with his face coated in your climax, so much so that it runs down from his chin to his neck, staining the collar of his beer-soaked tee; he hopes you might return his favor later.

Josty’s guilty hand is knocked away by a firm toe.

“Y’haven’t earned it, bud,” his mentor chides.

The delinquent appendage flops lamely at his side for a split second, then lifts beside his nose to join its partner at your slick core. As if remembering there’s work to be done, a goal to attain. Beneath this new asset, your achy, spent clit pulses, egging him on with every thump, thump, thump.

Tempting him to do something, to take it further…

He thinks about it. Fuck, does he think about it—you can see the tape winding in his eyes.

JT can read Tyson’s mind through his skull, apparently. “Don’t even think about it, kid. Her last one’s mine, but you’re more than welcome to watch from right here.” —Your boyfriend points to the remaining space between the sinks, knowing it’ll be close quarters for you both— “Just remember: I only said watch. This is groveling, not a treat.”

And Tyson does. Without question or complaint, he’s just fine sitting next to you, sitting pretty.

He’s always been the perfect teammate. Always willing to do whatever it takes, regardless of the role. The only difference is he no longer wants his anxiety to be the sole motivator behind said selflessness.

Finally ready to play fearless.

JT helps you down; Tyson hops up.

Immediately, your attention fractures. Split between messy brown curls and lust-blown pupils and your own disheveled appearance: smudged makeup, knotted hair, mauled neck, and spit-stained, bruised lips. Thank fuck you’re graduated and gone. Otherwise, you’d never live this down—Kate might treat you to a taste of would-be campus humiliation later if she’s feeling particularly charitable, though.

Your boyfriend’s grip is heavy on your hips. Happy to have you back. You feel one hand coast over your lower back and down to grope your ass as if trying to keep you in the palm of his hand. White-knuckle hold withstanding, JT presses his chest flush to your backside and uses his free hand to yank every remaining hindrance to your navel.

He wants you on display.

Your gasp is rivaled only by Tyson’s pitiful whimper and twitching, touch-happy fingers.

The ginger’s chuckle is molten and deep, mouth barely a breath from your ear, his eyes pinning Tyson still.

Your mind rewound back to when he made this proposition, wondering how the hell you got from there to here.

“Bend over, sweetheart. Arch that back nice and pretty so we can show Josty what a good girl he’s been missing out on—what a filthy thing you’ve turned into.”

As soon as you’ve done just that, your boyfriend drives home. It’s fast and dirty; primal. He knows there’s no need, but JT marks his territory anyway.

You watch Josty’s mouth part like he’s about to ask you something. Staring through his eyes as if ducking into his pesky daydreams and up-too-late musings, all specifics watery and indistinct.

Ultimately, you wind up disappointed by silence. But, with the slow return of your boyfriend’s bare cock between your soft inner walls, it dawns on you; JT had used a condom last time. Even made Tyson retrieve it for him. The depth of your relationship is sinking in; that’s what you’re now watching. He’s mulling over the information, caught somewhere between wanting to swallow his guilt one go and choking on his own assumptions.

JT follows your charged concern, performs a similar triage, and then gives you a concise nod through the fogged-up mirror.

I’ll handle it.

At that, your walls noticeably ease, and he shudders, groaning as even more of him sinks deeper to occupy the newfound space. He gets a few strokes out before Josty slots his body between your palms to lean in. Here, he does something that collapses the simple but effective status quo.

“Fuck, kid. K-Keep doing that.”

Keep rubbing your clit.

Keep playing with you.

Keep being an accessory to his pleasure. To yours.

Be present.

Be here.

“Such a fucking mess, baby. Don’t know how Compher gets anything done with you there, sweet and ripe for the taking.”

The two halves of Tyson’s demeanor are antithetical, and infuriatingly so, a saccharine smile split open by filth. It paints a sordid picture that must stand for itself, as you find it impossible to pluck out of thin air any coherent thoughts.

Be that as it may, your friend did not set out for a reply. At least not one other than the befuddled stuttering you’re doing.

A familiar palm shoots to your raw neck—tender, inside and out—lightning quick. You're yanked up before you can blink. JT mercilessly nips at the gaps in between his tight grip, hips pushed just as firm against the swell of your backside.

Still, he furthers their madcap banter. “I dunno either, Josty. And, believe me, the little vixen sure as hell doesn’t make it any easier. Sometimes I think she’s tryna milk me dry for good.”

If Tyson Jost were ever going to cream his pants—post-pubescence, it would be now.

Like, right fucking now.

The proclamation of your third orgasm is wondrous. Proud. Grateful. One of your hands flies back to catch the nape of JT’s neck to steady yourself as he continues pistoning in and out of you. Tyson's generous touch stays, too.

Your back arches this go around, head rolling against your boyfriend's shoulder before slipping back down towards the counter, free palm absorbing the impact of the abrupt sway. Too much, too much—it’s all too much for your tender muscles and soupy brain to handle. You surrender to the plethora of sensations, each more overwhelming than the last—half-collapsed back against into your boyfriend, half-crumbled forward into his best friend’s damp, tented lap.

“Not gonna last, sweetheart—y’feel too damn good, s’tight and warm, always strangling my cock—know you’re close, too. Gonna give me what you promised, Compher? Please, pretty girl—need to feel your perfect pussy squeezin’ me dry.”

It's refractory; your world goes from washed-out to vivid and back, over and over, as though impatiently flipping between channels.

You’re a tangle of sticky limbs and physical reverie, blanketed by a warm afterglow and cleared air. Body scaffolded by muscular forms on either side, your mind gives your body permission to slacken at last. JT’s arm winds around your midsection when it becomes clear the all-consuming exhaustion is giving way to the relaxation that eluded you for so many months. Tyson massages your arms, your hands still cemented to his knees. Your head drops to his shoulder, too heavy for your bruised neck.

For a long while, no one says a thing. Not intentionally or for fear of disturbing the peace; there’s simply no need. No words exist to shoulder that much weight, none able to capture precisely what emotions swirl between you. Silence says enough—silence says it all.

Banging cuts through your sex-drunk stupor. Again. The abrupt sounds function like metaphorical smelling salts, restoring consciousness and rousing decorum laid dormant. Your mutual, unadulterated bliss circles the drain in the absence of a psychological plug, ripped free, half-baked.

JT reluctantly leaves you empty and dripping, tucks himself away, and cracks open the door—only as wide as is necessary. Behind his imposing physique, you remain hunched over Tyson, waiting for your boyfriend to make the problem go away; you’re too tired to take any initiative.

Golden hair and familiar grey-blue eyes fill the gap, shining in your periphery. Barely a sliver, that’s how much of this your boyfriend’s willing to share with the world. You like that, and judging by his lopsided grin, so does Tyson.

“Paging Mrs. Compher!” Gabe hollers over JT’s head. “Clean up on aisle ‘Kate.’”

Just hearing her name puts you back in action. Damn you, maternal instincts.

You scramble to right twisted fabric and smeared makeup to a soundtrack of expletives. It’s pointless, though, because nothing settles how it should. No amount of smoothing, brushing, or tucking seems to help. Hazy vision and the legs of a newborn fawn don’t exactly lend themselves to effective primping.

And it’s not like you’ve got a hickey-remover magic wand stashed in your purse, either.

Accept your fate, you acquiesce with a sigh.

Tyson does a piss-poor job muffling his laughter, which lands him a crisp swat to the chest.

As you stumble over, you catch the end of your boyfriend’s irritation. “—and you’re sure there isn’t anyone else to hold her hair back? Why can’t you do it?”

The gears in Gabe’s skull clank so loud you can hear them over the audible chaos seeping into your haven—he’s intoxicated, not stupid.

“CupKate wants her mommy.” The blonde winks at you over JT’s shoulder. His tongue gives a knowing click of approval at Tyson’s equally disheveled state. “And what do you care, Compher? Smells like you three already made your express trip to Pound-town, USA. How was it? I hear the weather’s hot and steamy this time of year.”

“Real mature, Landy, real mature,” JT scoffs.

The sound just revs him up. “Says the fucker who’s locked in a frat house bathroom with his girlfriend and his best friend. One of whom, might I add, looks like they got mauled by a hormonal freshman after a high school dance.”

“Can you two go measure your dicks, I don’t know, anywhere but in the way? I have a child to tend to.”

You almost have to laugh. At the situation and at the words coming out of your mouth. At Kate, sick to her stomach like a kid who ate too many sweets on a holiday.

Years have passed, but you’re all still the same.

“Me-yeoh!” Gabe sing-songs while miming what you assume are claws scratching at nothing.

Again, his drink is the sole casualty of his jubilation. A golden wave sloshes over the rim and onto the floor. The spray makes JT’s jaw tick.

The former winger offers a sheepish grin in repentance. “Whoops?”

Your boyfriend steals a glance to check that you’re decent, then side-steps out of your way with an exasperated sigh. His dilated gaze flits over your ruffled appearance, shamelessly drinking in the state of your throat but tripping over the questions dancing in your eyes.

He juts his head in Landy’s direction with a sardonic eye-roll. “Go on. Save your damsel, Mother Hen. I’ll fill you in on in the Uber back to the hotel.”

“Meet you out front?” You ask, and he nods.

You dart back to Tyson, plant a chaste peck on his flushed cheek, and then repeat the gesture with JT and his peeved lips. It’s faint, but they instantly soften for you.

Before they know it, you’re slipping out the door. Gabe gets an affectionate pat on the shoulder as you squeeze by him before you disappear in the direction of the Girls Only bathroom; no significant differences, only marginally cleaner and occasionally stocked with helpful accouterment—chivalry isn’t dead!

Lingering in the wake of your departure, Gabe sways like an inflatable man on the curb of a car dealership. A smirk twists his lips. “Nicely done, boys. Nicely done. Can’t say I thought we’d see the day—or that either of you had it in ya—but I feel like a proud father.” He wipes a phantom tear, the final straw. “Makes you wish you listened to Daddy Landy sooner, huh? Think of all the lost ti—”

JT slams the door in his face. Through the wood, Gabe cackles.

The two men slip back into sync as they wordlessly scrape themselves back together with the time and privacy you were not afforded.

As JT yanks his jeans back into place, his belt clanking around like a bell’s hourly chime, a black velvet box tumbles to the floor, and Tyson’s stomach along with it.

The air shouldn’t, but it turns on a dime. Their progress is seemingly more fragile than expected.

“If—uh, wow.” A crunchy, anxious bark of a laugh cuts his thought in half.

JT doesn’t interrupt; he holds space for the blossoming discomfort.

Tyson rubs the tense knots along the back of his neck as his eyes drill into the floor. “If I’d known this would be our swan song, I would’ve tried to enjoy it more. I don’t know—savored it, I guess?”

“This,” JT says, scooping up the dud he hopes isn’t hanging fire. “— is what I wanted to talk to you about earlier.”

Before they got into it in the garage, before they’d been forcibly separated by Erik and Nate. Before they, punch-drunk and drunk-drunk, teetered between tears and anger in the shadowy, too-quiet backyard.

They spun in circles until they had nowhere to move but on. To make amends, to stumble through chary half-apologies that mean more than they say.

JT’s alleviation was short-lived; his calm trepidation squashed before it could fly. Tyson now understands why.

Tyson balks. “Me?”

Your boyfriend sighs through his nose, pinching the bridge. He’s bidding time. Digging for the right words but knowing there are none.

“I love her—and I know you do, too. I’m not upset; she makes it hard not to fall for her.”

Tyson’s head hangs lower, chagrined.

JT continues, “I’m going to ask her to marry me, but I didn’t want to do it without talking to you. Without making sure you’d be okay. Eventually. The last thing I wanted was for you to be blindsided or to feel even more left out.”

Tyson can’t help but snort at the sheer absurdity. “Left out… God, how pathetic am I? Getting all butt-hurt over a relationship that isn’t even mine.”

“Pathetic was going AWOL.”

Josty winces. He doesn’t argue because he has zero ground to stand on.

“But feeling something? Far from it.”

“I didn't—don’t want to take her from you. You have to know that, Compher.” The hurt’s been hammered from his voice. Left behind is softened sincerity.

JT’s smile is just as downy. “I do, and you’d be wasting time by trying.”

Josty chokes on an unforeseen bubble of laughter.

You love JT Compher so openly and ardently it might as well be a neon sign plastered to your forehead. He’s always been it for you. There’s never been any competition, Tyson Jost included.

“Thank god we got this ironed out before the wedding,” the older forward chuckles as he leans back against the counter.

They’re side-by-side, as they should be.

“Why’s that?”

JT digs into his other pocket and pushes something into the palm of his best friend, whose cheeks flame tout de suite in response. With a bump of his shoulder, your boyfriend tacks on, “Something to remember tonight by.”

Tyson shoves the memento into his own pocket, then raises a quizzical brow.

Your boyfriend grins.

“The best man pining over the bride while giving the groom the cold shoulder would make for an awkward wedding, don’t you think?”

⤑ to my inbox💌

⬸ back to the catalog

⬸back to the main blog

All of the stories and fantasies written or discussed on this blog by the owner or by followers are purely fictional and are not intended to offend any parties.

©2024 @holy-pucks, all rights reserved. I do not give consent for any of my work to be copied, re-posted, or translated here, on Tumblr, or on any other platform. Reproduction of any content from this blog is considered plagiarism.

66 notes · View notes

darkened-writer · 2 years

Text

imagine| Adoring Veneration

summary || ❝Would you have me dust my knees in the white powder of the snow, just to apologize to you about my lack of faith? Or the way I pray to you?❞

pairing || Morpheus x Worshipper!Reader

word count || 1,405

warnings || Morpheus being a sexy, stubborn, horny, immortal mf.

notes || @beautifulbows924 inspired this fic with her works with Worshipper! Reader! So please, go check out her fics about the concept!! Also, this fic is heavily inspired by Cirice by Ghost, so go take a listen to the song!!! And enjoy.

For generations, upon generations, your family line had a very vast presence within religion. Not any normal religion however, but one worshiping a group of entities known as the “Endless”. Your ancestors were keen on these mysterious beings, but your family had adored one endless in particular. Morpheus, Oneiros, Dream, Lord Shaper, Dream of the Endless.

Plenty of imagery of Oneiros’s ‘haunting’ figure lingered within childhood memories. Painted walls of your childhood room adorned with sand like specks and an ever-looming black shadow. He was, without a doubt, a force to be reckoned with based off of the tales your mother read to you before bed.

‘He knows of your deepest dreams, and your most haunting nightmares.’

But as you grew up, into teenagehood, rebelliousness struck swiftly. You denied the claims of any “endless”, shunning the once child-like love for the Sandman away with anger. It had brought great pain to your elders, but within the rage of rebellion grew a curiousness as you were never aware of his watchful eye.

He watched you grow.

Watched you grow angry and distasteful.

And even in your dreams, he contemplated why you would stray from your family’s worship of him. Were you going to be the end of the family tradition? Was he simply not good enough for your endless devotion?

You grew into a stunning young woman, personality to match it all.

And he grew even more keen when he witnessed you looking into a box within your own walk-in closet.

It was a large, wooden chest-like box, carvings of runes on the edges of each side. They read, ‘Worship and Adoring Veneration’. The contents of the inside being filled with altar materials for him. Black and white candles, a small pouch of sand, strawberries preserved in a vastly tight bag, and a dagger that glittered with the shine of a stone in the grip, a Dream Stone.

You were lighting the candles with a lighter, repeating the prayer that he had heard for years upon years, and he felt a smile tug on his lips, feeling foreign but right.

“Oh, gentle King of Dreams, Honor me with your presence, Morpheus, ruler of Dreams and Nightmares. Bless me with pleasant dreams and comfort the nightmares of mine within your care. Bring peace to those within disarray, and comfort to those with no hope.”

Oh.

The blouse that was sat around your figure was now being slid off from the shoulders, your fingers gripping the pouch of sand as you began to sprinkle the individual grains across your chest, head lent backwards; eyes closed.

“Hail Morpheus… and Praise be…”

Your voice was laced with the erotica of creme and vanilla, Morpheus’s own self shuddering at the view.

What has made you change your mind about him? How were you so sure that he was listening to the prayer being uttered by your saccharine lips?

Perhaps he would toy with you and cause a bit of mental chaos.

The notebook sat on your desk suddenly flipped open, rousing your eyes to open at the disruption.

“Wha…-?”

A slam, as the paper finally settled and stood still, but the discoloration of the pages alarmed you from afar.

“Go to the paper… and be enlightened, my precious acolyte…”

You didn’t tell yourself to move and yet, your body moved on its own volition towards the notebook.

Sand was everywhere across the desk, almost set upon to show a design, and you had recognized it immediately. It was a recreation of Morpheus’s helm, although poorly done, it was still vivid. And the words scrawled onto the paper sent a tremor up your spine, the haunting feeling from your childhood suddenly ever more present.

‘I’M REAL AND I’M LISTENING TO EVERY PRAYER THAT PASSES THROUGH YOUR LIPS’

Ever since the message was scrawled down within your home, you had felt as though you were being watched. Not just watched; but inspected, taken apart. You never felt truly alone for any moment at all. And that fact truly instilled fear within you.

Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams and Nightmares was frighteningly real.

And while finding this out was frankly terrifying, you still carried on with your days; committing to worship before you were to sleep. And like you had asked, he had blessed you with many precious dreams, of great happiness and pleasure.

He really was always listening to your praises, and that struck a question.

Had he been watching you all these years? Even when your faith wavered?

Hopefully, he would show himself to speak truly face-to-face.

“Can’t you see that you’re lost without me?”

The winter landscape came into view within a moment’s notice, the haziness making you immediately aware that you were within a dream. Was this of his creation, on purpose?

The particles of snowflakes fell down gently, settling onto the already covered ground. There was a green fence to your left, painted with what seemed to be many coats of paint. The pale blue sky was nostalgic and reminiscent of many winter mornings, walking to school wrapped in a warm coat; nose reddened from the sheer frozen air. But what had caught your eye was the bright streetlight. The light bouncing off of the pure white of the snow, making your eyes squint.

“Hello…? Morpheus of the Dreaming? I recognize the feeling of sleepiness here… I know you sent me here for a reason-...!”

The area was dead silent except for the crunch of the snow against the shoes you had on. Your nose felt like it was going to fall off, along with your fingers that lacked gloves. Cold and distant, just like the Endless.

“You’ve intrigued me, acolyte. Years of inactivity within worship and suddenly you are willing to give your body to me.”

You turn to the streetlight, eyes widening at the difference of Morpheus’s dark robes compared to the snowy ground. He was striking, skin pale like the ground and yet he looked as beautiful as the books had drawn him to be.

“How could you have really known if I was real, hm? You were practically serving yourself on a silver-platter for an Endless you didn’t believe in. Seductive to the air.”

His tone was harsh and yet as you walked closer to him, the feeling of being picked apart arose once again. You liked to watch you, the way you move, the way you carry yourself, it was alluring; the pinnacle of humanity’s lustful grace.

“Would you have me dust my knees in the white powder of the snow, just to apologize to you about my lack of faith? Or the way I pray to you?”

He scoffs.

“You really think that would be enough, acolyte?”

“Surely.”

His pale fingers wrapped rather tightly against your clothed shoulder, arousing a shudder from your form. You oozed power and yet, he could make you weak with just a touch.

Down.

He pushed you down until your knees were thoroughly submerged within the snow, the wetness seeping into the once dry fabric of your pants. His gaze looked down upon you, while you looked up at him with a feeling of.

Lust?

How could you feel these scandalous and unbecoming thoughts about him of all people. He was an Endless, a being to be worshiped with words and offerings. Not the flesh of the loins or the offering of one’s bodily autonomy.

“My lord… I apologize for my absence within worship. If you’d allow me too, I’d like to show my adoring veneration for you.”

Your voice was like sliding honey across toast, slow but sweet; sultry but coarse. It could bring any man to his knees; it could bring any man to shed their clothing and submit. But was he just like any human man?

“I have no desire for your… services. You may offer me regular offerings made just like your ancestors before you. Pray to me every night before you sleep. And maybe, just maybe, I can forgive you of your transgressions.”

“Yes, my lord. Anything for you, your majesty.”

His once rough hand was now on your cheek, thumb caressing the skin of your cheekbone with a deep caring.

“This Dream is over.”

A gasp, sweat covering you head to toe.

And the feeling of his hand on your shoulder, the coldness of your knees within the snow; it all lingered even in real life.

Praise Be, Hail Morpheus.

#xreader #fanfiction #morpheus x reader #the sandman #dream x reader #neil gaiman #the sandman comics #the sandman x reader #sandman x y/n #sandman imagine #morpheus dream #morpheus #dream the endless x reader #dream of the endless #tom sturridge #tom sturridge x reader #possible part 2?

939 notes · View notes

nieded · 1 year

Text

AALS, an essay

I have written down my thoughts on how AALS came about and why it's written the way it is. This has spoilers for the story up until Chapter 14, so if you're waiting to catch up, tread carefully. But also, consider this a fair warning about the content of the story if you have heard things and are wondering whether you should pick it up.

When I started writing Sit Tight, Take Hold, I was terrified. I had recently entered this newer phase in my writing where it became ugly and personal, but also therapeutic. If you ever go through my back catalog, you may find a weird story or two. I tend to write a lot either about personal identity or found family, but STTH was the first time I began to address some of the biphobia and insecurities I have experienced in my life in such a specific, acknowledged way.

To preface this, I am Crowley. I am also many other characters in this universe, and Crowley is also other people I have known in my life in this universe, but mainly, Crowley is me. So if putting STTH out there was nerve-wracking, Accept a Little Spin has been doubly so. And the accusations that I am supporting infidelity or emotional cheating or whatever is inaccurate despite these things appearing in the story.

This is why I wrote AALS, to address two specific ideas in my head: self-growth and queerness, and I will explain how it affects both of the main characters.

Self-growth

Ezira is a young man. Twenty-six isn't super young, I suppose, but for me, I had just finished grad school and packed up all my belongings to move halfway across the US to a state I had never visited before, where I knew exactly one person, in a demanding, emotionally exhausting and isolating field I had limited real-life experience with. In short, I felt like a colt on fresh legs. In this way, Ezira is similar. He has been so deep in the closet that he has gone without acknowledging his sexual orientation and how it affects his identity. And now that he has the freedom to explore, he doesn't know who to listen to or where to begin. He has had one job, limited public education, and has now been asked to be the face of gays in sports. That's a big burden.

Ezira makes a lot of mistakes moving forward in this story, but to reach his final form in Part Three, he needs to do the work to self-assess and learn. He needs to experience good things but also the bad. He needs to confront the vast opinions out there in the world and figure out what he wants and what he believes in. Ezira isn't a likeable person in this story, but he is relatable, I think. He is, at least to me. I have rarely liked or fully trusted individuals who are in this stage of life, but it's telling to me that there are readers out there who don't relate to what he's going through. I'm not sorry to say this. If you are someone who doesn't at least get the pressure Ezira is under or that individuals are flawed while still being inherently good, this story isn't for you.

AJ, on the other hand, is well-settled. He has steadfast opinions on the world. He knows what he wants (though he is still learning how to ask for them), but he still has all of this baggage. AJ is a person who has had his trust degraded by people who should have loved him. His parents. His past relationships. His employers. Life taught him that he was a commodity, and he still bases his worth on what he can do for other people. The idea of Acts of Service can be sweet, but in this case, it comes from constantly undervaluing himself and feeling like he has to earn love from people.

His arc about growth is a little longer because the damage is deeper, but he makes great progress in AALS.

Mild spoiler: **There's an upcoming scene in Part Three where Crowley is confronted by this idea of unconditional love, and it doesn't come from who you think it does! But it really feels like the perfect bookend to his arc. It's not necessarily the climax of the story, but it is for me.**

The final quarter of AALS, particularly chapters 16 and 17, are about doing the work individually to not just be a better partner, but to be a better person as a whole. I do not want this story to solely focus on how they can be better for each other. That is not the point of this story. It's about how they can better for themselves and how that positively impacts their interactions with others. These chapters may not feel entirely satisfying, but it's intentional because in my mind, that work never ends.

Queerness

I set out writing AALS to explore the idea of queer identity and queer community, including confronting the bias and misconceptions queer people have of each other. I identify as bi. Hi. I am not out to most people because of fear of judgment, that I will be considered less-than or not 'really queer.' I have had worse reactions coming out to gay and lesbian people than I have had straight people, but let me tell you, straight people have not been great either! Queer comes in every flavor, which is why every queer character has different opinions on what that means and what it looks like. This causes conflict in the story.

The story also addresses the constant microaggressions queer people face. In Chapter 14, Ezira and AJ both hint at Hungary. It's briefly mentioned as well in STTH, but I've never addressed it fully. Something did happen, and it was ugly, but I've never had the energy to put it into words. We have to deal with this shit every day, and despite this story being a reflection on my real life, it was one area I didn't want to explicitly address.

But from misgendering Beez to biphobia to outright legal barriers (hey, did you know it's illegal for homosexuals to marry in Greece? Never mind all the extremely homophobic countries and states both Formula 1 and IndyCar visit), to the internalized homophobia that someone like Lili carries around, queerphobia is a constant, belittling experience across both stories.

To counteract that, however, I very much wanted this story to be about queer community. Does Nolan have stupid opinions as an uneducated, young 19-year-old? Yep! But does he also now have a community of peers that he can learn from? Yes! Spoiler, Nolan remains a prominent member of the brunch club, and no, he does not get dropped as a friend for his gross comments. We don't see his growth because he is a very minor character, but that brunch club and Marnie and Stephen are very much there for him as much as they are there for Ezira. And to counteract Nolan, there's Adam, who seems to be the angel on Ezira's shoulder and a source of reason.

And Lili. Whyyyy Lili? She has been a controversial character in this story. Some of that has been intentional in order for Ezira to confront his own biases. Remember, Ezira has been surrounded by straight people his entire life, comes from a homophobic country, and grew up in a hyper masculine sport. And some of his initial opinions come from a place of misogyny and biphobia. Yep. It's not because he's a bad person, and I wanted to make a point of showing their friendship evolving without some aha! moment.

But Lili is also there to be supportive of Crowley. I never intended for it to come off as Crowley emotionally cheating with Lili, but I do see the point commenters have made. That's part of the joy and burden of putting a story out in the world. It no longer becomes mine but a shared experience. I don't mind these interpretations, but I do get upset when people think she's outright malicious for growing up in a rural Midwest town, feeing lonely, and in need of support.

Lili is for Crowley because I could not imagine him going through IndyCar alone, or confronting his past with Javier, or going through a break in his relationship. He's not necessarily being open with her (is he ever with anyone???), but he has a friend to lean on. And Crowley is for Lili, too. This is her first sense of real queer community where she can be out and open, and it's giving her space to evaluate her past relationship with The Ex because she's never had anyone to talk to before.

And Beez. It's no secret Beez is my favorite character. They aren't featured a lot in this story, but their touch is felt through every moment. They connect Crowley and Lili, and let me tell you, they did it for Lili more than they did it for Crowley. But to my point above, they are also not a perfect character. They sometimes give bad advice, which leads to Crowley and Ezira not talking about their issues for too long. Beez also helped Crowley hide his meeting with Eve. But Beez was the first person to ever love Crowley without conditions, and it steered him away from the self-destructive road he was going to go down alone. Up until now, Beez has been the only family Crowley has had.

Beez is the community in this story. They approached Crowley first. They encourage Lili to connect with Dagon and go back to school. They aren't the oldest character in this story, but they are the one who has been out the longest and knows what it feels like to be without a family, so they push for others to make to those connections.

The point is, AJ and Ezira are endgame, yes, but for me, that's not what this story is about. For me, the story is about growth and community and how it can shape a person to be their best self, so they can share all the love they've received with someone else.

#accept a little spin #rainbow road #ni speaks

29 notes · View notes

prismolette · 1 year

Text

Sometimes I wonder if my art traveled.

If anyone stumbled upon it and thought about it a couple days after, or if someone saw it, liked it a bit, and decided it was good enough to save for reference later and is now buried somewhere in their camera roll. If someone sent it to a friend and it’s in the history of a text convo. If maybe it was on someone’s home screen for a day or two before they found a different aesthetic to try. The internet is so vast and we take it for granted, but it’s wild how, with how much text and media and images and content we’re forced to consume— how much stays in our heads and hearts, despite how simple or meaningless.

I still have albums of art from artists that I love laying around, that I like to wander by on occasion, cause they meant something great to me, even if it was only a humble throwaway sketch for them.

I still have an entire digital sketchbook that I bought from an artist for a donated $5 because they finished it, scanned it, and wanted it to be a cool reference for those trying to learn anatomy. I look at it all the time. I wonder if they still think about it. I wonder if they still even remember it.

I have stickers on my walls from zines long past.

I have posters in my closet that I still cherish, despite the way they sit in dust, because INPRNT was having a sale and the artists retweeted the work they had up.

Art’s a timeless kind of thing, where most of the appreciation is invisible. And, idk, I think I’ve kinda fallen in love with that notion. :]

#art #digital art #illustration #doodle #lexo gabs #internet #tumblr #I don’t know how else to tag this #think piece #writing #art appreciation

1 note · View note

barnesbabee · 3 years

Text

collab || J.Y

ᴋɪɴᴋᴛᴏʙᴇʀ ᴅᴀʏ 2 - ᴋɪɴᴋᴛᴏʙᴇʀ ᴍ.ʟɪꜱᴛ

Summary: Two famous porn stars have a fun collab together.

Pairing: Jeong Yunho x gn!reader

Words: Just enough

⚠ although there is no mention of gender, the reader wears makeup and lingerie, so if you are uncomfortable with that, don't read ⚠

As Yunho dried his hair with a small towel, he heard the familiar ding sound from his social media. He had just finished uploading the edited version of his live stream, so it wasn't unusual for him to be contacted by a bunch of people right after, however, he didn't expect to see you.

You weren't well known in the porn scenario, as you were fairly new and the competition was vast, but your 'Around The World' series had become a huge success and a major hit for its originality.

Yunho was quite a fan of the series, so when he saw your message, his fingers were crossed.

Y/N: Hello! My name is Y/N, I'm not sure if you know my work, but I am a porn star that is currently doing a series called 'Around The World' where I... well, fuck people all around the world. My next stop is South Korea and I have seen your work before and I think our style is very similar and I would love to do a collab with you! Feel free to check out my work on my page, I hope to hear from you soon! xoxo

The tall man squealed like a high schooler getting a text from his crush, he's always wanted a collab and now he was about to get one in one of the biggest series of the moment!

Yunhxxx: Hello Y/N! I am aware of your series and I am a fan! I would love to do the collab with you! I'll send you my number so we can talk about the details more comfortably :)

Part of your anxiousness died down at his response. Most porn stars were very polite and kind in front of the camera, and in business discussion, all for that quick buck, but you'd find, with your series, that a lot of them were just assholes with a huge ego. You had a good feeling about Yunho, but you didn't want to get your hopes up and then be disappointed.

The arrangements didn't take long, as you were both excited for the collab to happen, making it very easy to communicate. Yunho was kind enough to offer his own home for you to sleep in, arguing that 'whoever fucks me gets to sleep in my house for free'.

Yunho spent the weekend preparing everything for your arrival on Monday morning: he cleaned his whole house, stocked his fridge and cabinets with all sorts of food, and sanitized every toy of his. By the time he received your 'I'm on my way!' text, his house was the cleanest it had ever been.

The man showered, put on his best cologne, and applied some dark eyeshadow under his eyes. As he stood in front of the closet in his briefs only, he wondered what he should go for. A sophisticated look? A sexy look? An outlaw-looking look? He wanted something to get you immediately attracted to him. Yunho wanted to make you feel good, not to make you act as if you felt good.

Ultimately he chose a black button-up and black suit pants. He decorated his long fingers (that he had come to learn was something many people liked about him) and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

Yunho was aware of his innocent appearance. He had had his cheeks squeezed one too many times, so he caught on quickly. However, the man loved to play with his looks. He loved to make people wonder what kind of person he was, with a cute face, yet an intimidating look.

Before he knew it, his doorbell rang. Yunho took one last look in the mirror, just to make sure everything was in its place and walked towards the door. The first hello wasn't awkward at all, as you'd already had a few zoom calls to discuss what would happen in your collab, just to make sure there were no misunderstandings.

Once you stepped in with your suitcase, you couldn't help but notice how neat, modern, and well decorated his house was. The walls were white with big windows, and the furniture was a mix of grey, light blue, and white. Yunho lead you to the guest room where you'd be staying, and it was a lot nicer than you expected. The bed was high and large, the duvet was grey with a bunch of fluffy white and red pillows decorating it. In front of the bed was a modern black vanity with lightbulbs around the squared mirror, and against the wall in front of the door was a black, sliding door wardrobe, with a large, orange, and red abstract painting of a couple. His house looked simple yet classy, with just the right amount of colour and decoration. You took a look at him, his dark look contrasting the house.

"You already got prepared?"

Yunho looked a little puzzled for a second, but then understood. "Oh! Oh no, you've just arrived, you must be tired! This is just... how I dress?" He said, feeling a little embarrassed.

You took a good look at his outfit.

"You always dress like that? Wow..."

Yunho's cheeks became a little red at the comment, and he stumbled over his words as he thanked you. He was used to receiving compliments when he had his clothes off, but with clothes on? Not so much... Before closing the door, Yunho told you to feel at home, and that when you were ready you could start setting everything up in the room he used to shoot.

The man had never felt that nervous, so when he finally closed the door, he immediately headed to his living room, and found the whiskey bottle he kept for emergencies. He poured a generous glass and sat on the couch, scrolling through his phone as he waited for you.

You were pretty much used to the routine, and since you had a stopover in a neighboring country and spent the night there, the trip hadn't been too tiring. You sat on the very convenient vanity and re-did your makeup. You liked to match your look to your type of content, so you went for a dark look: dark purple lipstick, a heavy, black smokey eye, and loads of mascara. You made sure to apply a lot, so it would run down your face and give the viewers the fucked out look they loved to see.

The lingerie matched your makeup: black lace lingerie with some bling here and there, and a garter belt to accessorize. You grabbed your robe from your suitcase and exited the room.

"Yunho?" You called, peeking your head from behind the wall.

"Hm?"

His eyes widened when he looked up. You were completely different from the person he had met.

"I am ready if you are!"

He nodded and stood up, downing the rest of his 2nd whiskey cup in one go. Yunho took you upstairs and opened the door to his 'studio'.

In the center of the room was a carpet, and a big, empty space behind it.

"I usually move the bed or the couch over there, depending on what I want to do that day. I found that it was easier to move the furniture than the whole set up." He explained, pointing at the empty space.

Against the wall, opposite of you, there was a bed, much like the one on your bedroom, and a nice, black leather couch. Beside you there was a closet, where Yunho kept all his toys, accessories, and streaming outfits. Other than that it was just the usual setup: a desk with a computer, professional lights, and a camera.

Yunho walked over to the couch and moved it with ease to the empty space.

"So we've already decided?" You asked.

The man smirked as if simply entering the room turned him into a completely different person.

"I already have everything planned out for you dear, it would be rude to have my guests work."

You blushed slightly, and sat on the couch, waiting for the green light.

You watched as he opened the closet, displaying his wide collection. He picked a bunch of stuff that he set on top of a towel on the floor.

"Alright, that's about it."

You cocked your head to the side, in confusion.

"You're not getting dressed?"

Yunho reached for the choker he had brought and softly placed it around your neck, tying it just tight enough. He hooked his finger on the big metal ring on the front and tugged on it. You followed his silent command and knelt on the ground, in front of the couch.

"I'm already dressed, for the concept we're gonna try."

You were getting curious and excited. You stayed still as he started up the live stream. Yunho turned on the lights, set up the camera, and pressed 'Start Live Video'. The screen counted down from five, until the live started.

Yunho sat on the couch behind you, and placed his large hand on your head.

The man smirked as soon as the comments started raining.

There was a mixture of fuck yeah's and happy cheers as they recognized Yunho, and became excited for what was to come. The live was obviously happening on your account, although you would always split the tips with the person you worked with.

"Hello," Yunho started, and you let him take the lead "welcome to the 24th edition of Around The World, I am today's guest, and we have such a great show for you today, don't we?"

Yunho tugged on your hair, making you wince. You looked at the camera and nodded.

The 30 dollar donation ding sounded, announcing that someone had made a request.

'Make her sit on your thigh'

You let Yunho take the lead once more, hooking his finger on your choker's hoop and pulling you up, to sit on his thigh. You hummed as you rolled your hips, causing friction between your core and his thigh. Your hand ran along his torso, feeling the fabric of his shirt.

"He has too many clothes, don't you think?" You asked the camera, in a flirty tone.

There was a rain of comments agreeing with you, and you immediately got to work, unbuttoning his shirt slowly. His dick print was already very visible in his pants, and you could now understand why he wanted to wear that look.

You removed his shirt, slowly and teasingly, as the viewers praised Yunho's toned body.

The male hooked his finger on your underwear and snapped it against your skin. Your little whimper at the sudden pain made him smirk.

Yunho ran his hands along your body, making you shiver from the cold metal of his rings.

Tips and donations rained down with many requests, and so you went back on the floor and laid your head on Yunho's thigh, your face mere inches away from his hard-on. You perked your ass up and traced the shape of his cock with your finger.

"What do you think? Should we reward them?" Yunho asked, petting your head as he stared into the camera.

As expected, everyone gave you the green light to continue, so you slowly opened his fly, to find he had no underwear on. You freed him from his pants, gripping his length in your hand. You kept eye contact with the male, and although you were a professional, you were always nervous when you had to take dicks on the bigger side.

You spat on his tip, and played with his cock for a second, before slowly inserting it in your mouth. Yunho groaned and threw his head back, taking in the warmth of your mouth. His hand was tangled in your hear, gripping it and tugging on it from time to time.

"Shit, you're doing so good..."

Yunho was very vocal, to your (and the viewer's) pleasure.

The 50$ notification ding sounded, and a message played right after.

'bby I wanna see you jump on his cock'

Yunho smirked and gripped your hair, in a firm, yet not painful way. He swiped his thumb across your bottom lip, cleaning the remaining saliva.

"Hmm, you know what, so do I."

You stripped from your underwear, in a sensual way for the viewers (and Yunho) to enjoy.

Yunho slapped his thigh, and you climbed onto his lap, slowly but surely sinking down on his length. You gripped onto his shoulders for stability and groaned as every inch of his cock disappeared inside of you.

His hands gripped your ass, spreading your cheeks in a beautiful way for the camera to see. The male helped you, as you rode him, not only by holding your hips and guiding you, but also by snapping his hips up against yours. Filthy slapping sounds along with the mixture of your moans echoed in the room, and the donations were reaching their peak.

"F-fuck baby you're s-so good, you're doing so well."

You gripped his shoulders harder, as his praises drew you closer and closer to your edge.

"They're c-close! Should we l-let them cum?"

It was impressive how professional Yunho was. How he looked so immersed in you, so tired and fucked out, with his fringe sticking to his forehead and eyes burning into your soul, yet he didn't forget to interact with the viewers.

There were many people leaning towards yes, begging to hear the way you sounded as you came, and so he worked hard until you screamed his name and tightened around his cock. He let you rest and recompose for a second, but the way you clenched around him made it impossible for him to hold it in any longer.

"Shit, get on the ground."

You gladly complied, and got on your knees for him, immediately sticking out your tongue, as you could predict what would come after.

Yunho jerked himself off to your fucked out face, and soon a string of curses came out of his mouth, as he spilled all over your face. He smirked and wiped some of his cum off of your face with his thumb.

"Say ah, pretty baby."

You smiled and opened your mouth. He inserted his finger in your mouth and you happily licked it clean.

Yunho cupped your face with his hand, and smiled.

"You behaved so well, I might have to reward you again."

His head tilted to the side, pointing to the couch, and you followed. You sat down on the couch, and Yunho knelt in front of you. His arms wrapped around your thighs and pulled you forward, so your hole would be of easy access to him.

The man teased you, as his tongue danced around your hole, not quite getting where you wanted him. You rolled your hips up, earning a slap to your inner thigh.

He looked up at you, with a hint of darkness in his eyes.

"Behave."

It didn't take long for you to get what you wanted, as he started tongue fucking you, with the help of his fingers. You gripped his hair, and your back arched as your high approached once more.

You came quickly, with his tongue still inside you, and he held your trembling legs and body, to keep you stable.

He didn't move for a second, giving you time to breathe and rest. After you had recomposed yourself, he helped you up, and the two of you shared a heated kiss, Yunho's hands never leaving your ass, that he definitely had a fixation with.

You finished the stream by thanking the viewers and donors and shut everything off. Once everything was done, you sighed and plopped onto the couch.

"Do you not want to shower?" Yunho questioned, as he saw the mess in your face and body.

You chuckled.

"Yes I do, very much, but I'm so fucked out..."

Yunho very kindly scooped you up.

"Well, I wouldn't want my guest to work too hard, I'll help you out."

#ateez #ateez smut #jeong yunho #yunho smut #jeong yunho smut #kpop #kpop smut #kinktober #ateez kinktober #ateez fanfic #ateez fanfiction #ateez gender neutral #ateez readder insert #ateez reactions #ateez reaction #ateez imagine #ateez imagines #ateez yunho smut #yunho ateez smut

667 notes · View notes

dragonmaiden39point5 · 2 years

Text

Professor Tsung 3

Black!College!Reader x Professor!Shang Tsung, Modern!AU

Happy belated New Year, btw. And Thank you for the patience with my inconsistency. I was very happy to finally produce this chapter for you all💙❤

Summary: Soooo, You didn't exactly get around to breaking up with Tay 😣😬. And now college life is different than what it was, yet familiar as ever. Navigating this new situation will prove... Interesting.

P.s. The idea is that magic coexists with the science of this world but, science is more accessible because not everyone has great magical ability. You're a part of the generation of youth that's been making the two worlds intermingle.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Star Student

*****Warnings: (story warning🐍) Audiences aged 18 and up, Explicit Content! BIG age gap, Professor x Student, inappropriate relationship, enthusiastic consent, bottled emotions, sexual relationship with teacher, (chapter warning🐍) Maybe Shang Tsung is a little bit of a sugar daddy?, jealous/rude bf, lying, cheating, sex on campus, creampie, messy panties*****

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

💚🐍💀🔥

The plane ride back to EMHM had been an anxious one, despite all of the expensive comforts of your round trip tickets. Jade had corrected your schedule to a reasonable amount of work the day of your meeting, and apologized for overwhelming you. She felt bad for not paying better attention to your mental and emotional needs as a student, and planned to check in on you every few weeks. The time remaing in the Wintermonth was spent in company of Professor Shang Tsung, who assisted in your continued experimentation with mind-linking.

He provided a thorough background of its uses, as well as how to prevent unwanted or accidental links. It was strange letting someone into your head, where all of your insecurities and secrets rested; And even stranger, to venture into theirs to converse in essentially a dream realm.

Shang Tsung's mind was like a room of a thousand doors, all in various states of open and unlock. Many of them full with imagery and libraries of knowledge. Yours was its own unique labyrinth, full of the twists and turns of your rawest inner-workings. Then there was the plane that you two communicated on; Vast and colorful-- Surreal, with a deep, bottomless valley separating each mind, the link itself in the form of a new sturdy bridge of stone and metal.

According to the Professor, everything within both spaces were simultaneously physical and metaphorical. It made you think of Tay, however brief the thought, wondering what the bridge between you two would look like instead. One thing was for sure, it certainly couldn't be anything strong.

Speaking of which, your supportive mentor explicitly *did not care* that Tay would be joining you at EMHM. As long as you gave him consent, he said that he'd (of course) be more than happy to continue your relationship; he wanted you completely and utterly spoiled, in everyway possible.

He took you to a few *very* expensive, high-end restaurants, and boutiques as celebration for inheriting the family Plaque, sharing about when he received his own. Back at his house and gave you a place to store all of your new items. It was the huge room that was connected to his bedroom, which apparently formerly served as a study before he expanded the attic. It only currently held the overflow from his closet, so your things fit right in.

It was hard to care how fast yall were moving, what the age difference was, or that you were 'cheating', at this point. Being showered with gifts and attention was too much of an amazing feeling, And the way he touched you--

Face buried in your neck, fingers caressing your tits, with your legs spread wide and hooked over his shoulders as his dick filled your insides,,, You were delirious within the bubble of your own hedonistic pleasures, 24-7 until class resumed.

💚🐍💀🔥

As fate would have it, Tay was placed in three of your classes; Elective study, Simple Blood Spell with Kotal Kahn, core study Elemental 1 with Raiden, and elective study Shapeshift... with Shang Tsung. The rest of his classes were on the technology based mirror/twin campus Edward Mac's House of Mecha.

He flashed in like the talented, handsome, social butterfly he was and gained an entire entourage within days. His standing with the teachers also became exceptional, as they had heard about his educational exploits. Partnered with incoming Elemental Olympian team tryouts, Artavius was swimming in a deluge of popularity, with you beside him as 'his girl'. Just like in highschool.

The only place where he *didn't* excel, was where you were right at home. Soul magic. Gray areas. Arbitrary concepts and vast imagination. He was a logical type of man, never able to conceptualize beyond formulas, numbers, and that which he could see. Its part of the reason why he didn't of show interest in what you did.

For those very same reasons, it was a huge mistake for him to have actually chosen Shapeshift class, even if you were in there.

💚🐍💀🔥

"Wrong again, Mr. Edson." Shang Tsung said, crossing his arms and scratching his beard. "Can anyone tell me why?"

"Maaan... This some bullshit." Artavius grumbled, as you stood to speak to the class.

"Because he prioritized the wrong segment of the hex stem." You announced with confidence.

"What?" Tay replied, scrunching up his face.

"Yes. If I may?" You asked Shang Tsung with a glance.

"The floor is all yours." He nodded, with a smirk.

"Well--" you started, walking down to the lecture hall stage. A hologram in the center of the room with the fractal for reflecting a forced transformation beam awaited you.

"Tay, you focused on this part right... here." You said, spawning your wand and circling the bottom right quadrant of the image. "But the shape of a deflection beam is naturally occuring and got nothing to do with its effectiveness."

"How the hell not though--! Circle shape rays always provide the most coverage. And they connect with a target harder, like a wall."

"Yeah, but if you focus on the rotation aspect then, it doesn't matter the shape. A star shape, a burst shape, or a pinwheel can all give as much coverage as a proper circle beam as long as you close the hex branch with a high velocity rotation seal...." You gestured, with your wand. "Do you get what I'm saying? Like for all intents and purposes most things spinning fast enough are a circle."

Artavius stared silently at you, glancing back at the hologram and rolling his eyes. "We haven't mentioned velocity one time in this damn class since I been here."

"I mean--" a voice from one of the back rows called forth, "Speed, weight, gravity, force-- Or whatever, in magic, they're all the same. They almost always form a close-and-deliver seal. That's basically Spell Construction 101, my dude."

Another chimed in: "Yeah when you're not Elemental."

"I guess when you know, you know." Said a third.

A few people snickered on the side and Artavius began to scowl. You weren't rushing to his rescue this time though; you had tried to show him some interesting general spells a long time ago, but since he rarely used them he didn't care.

"Shang Tsung?" You said, facing his desk and changing the subject. The very slight increase of static in the air spoke of how fuming Tay was at this time. "I think I see another way to improve the quality of this spell."

"I'm sure you do." He said, smiling with his eyes. "How about this; Everyone who feels the same about this deflection spell or want to make better notes, join my Junior on the lecture stage. When it is sufficiently adjusted I'll see to it that we practice application for Friday's lecture. If you don't see any changes, or otherwise need further assistance remain seated as I distribute a/v scrolls with the detailed breakdown."

About 10 people came to the stage with their wands and spellpads to investigate the hologram, while 5 just moved down to the first row to watch and listen. Only about 4 people, plus the annoyed Artavius maintained their original seats.

You stepped off the stage and headed for your seat beside Tay. "Ay, you good?"

"Oh yeah," He scoffed rolling his eyes, "I bet you thought that shit was cute, huh?"

"What?" You asked slightly surprised, as you grabbed a tome from your bag.

"Tryna clown me." He laughed dryly, "That's cool imma let you have that one. You got it." He nodded.

"I have no ide--"

Shang Tsung excused himself as he passed by closely, placing a scroll on each of your tables.

"--idea what you talkin about, Artavius."

"Nah, you good." He replied chewing on his bottom lip, clenching his jaw.

"...I'm not about to play with you." You hissed, reaching into your bag for the metal calligraphy pen that you wrote notes with.

Just as you slipped it from its pouch, a sharp jolt came from it, shocking your fingers and causing you to let out a small yelp. Tay didn't even bother to look ashamed, sitting with his face in his hands and a little smirk as he watched the pen fly from your fingers. When you looked up, Shang Tsung was already standing at Tay's desk, leveling him with a dangerous version of his usual smirk.

"Artavius." He said, tone hollow and sharp, though not a decibel above normal.

Something that you'd only seen when he was being scolded by his father flashed across Tay's face; Fear. His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed dryly. "Sir?" He replied.

"This is not your highschool. The act of utilizing magic on a non-consenting party at this university is a direct violation of the code of conduct. It will serve you well to remember this every single day that you continue to attend."

"I will, sir--"

"Yes, see too it that you do." He snapped as he picked up your pen.

"Thank you." You murmured, grabbing it quickly and walking away. It would've been easy to make one, but a scene or an argument honestly wasn't worth it, not anymore. There was no way you'd embarrass yourself like that for Artavius again. Not in your adult life. Its a good thing that Shang Tsung was so subtle, otherwise more people would've noticed what happened than who already did.

The rest of the morning classes dragged on in a blur-- It was crazy that Tay could have that effect on you still. You weren't a little girl anymore, weren't some emotional baby pinning after your true love's affections... So why did you still feel like this-- Like you couldn't just, let him go?

💚🐍💀🔥

Bracing yourself against a table in Shang Tsung's back room, you poorly attempted to conceal your sounds. His hands gripped your hips tight, as he pistoned in and out of you rapidly.

The smack of flesh and moans were all that could be heard as your professor took you from behind.

You'd stopped by for lunch as usual, but of course avoiding Artavius for the rest of the morning left you with little appetite by then. It didn't take but a few kisses and touches for you to let Shang Tsung hike up your skirt and pull down the satin panties that he bought for you, right there in his back room.

It felt so good to have him stroking himself against your wet, velvety walls. Your body yielded to him with ease as he turned you and sat you on the table. His face held a slight agitation, "Scared someone will hear you, my darling genius?" He purred, as he fully resheathed himself in your slick folds. "That someone will recognize your voice as you shout out your enjoyment?"

A broken whimper wheezed out the back of your throat in response.

Carefully, your calves were placed on his shoulders and his arms wrapped tightly around you, effectively folding you up and pressing your body flush to his as he continued fucking into your pussy. The angle sent pleasure bursting throughout your body, and you were yelping and babbling incoherently as Professor Tsung's tongue flicked out and gingerly tasted your full lips. He pushed your long braids over your shoulder and out of your face, swallowing up your moans into his mouth with kisses.

Lifting you up off the table your arms went around his neck as his thrusts became more desperate, wet noises of your dripping cunt filling your own ears. It only served to further your arousal, and you didn't care at this point how loud you got; The fire of your orgasm, threatened to break through your core and consume you. "Shit, Shang Tsung~~ Fuck!"

"Mmmmyesss~~..." He growled, "That's what I like to hear, my Darling. My Genius. My Princess.." You gasped and chills shot up your back, pussy gushing at that last one-- His princess...

"Ohhh..." He chuckled, "You like being my Princess? Spoiled and expensive, hmm?"

You slurred a drawn out yes and barely managed a proper nod.

"Of course you do..." He hissed through his teeth more to himself than to you, hips stuttering as his own peak fast approached. "Are you going to cum for me, my Sweet Princess? Hmm?" He asked sweetly. "I know you want to my Darling. Cum for me, now. Do it." He groaned the command as he reached his own peak.

You wailed your pleasure, eyes out of focus and blurry with tears from the overload as your walls clung to this man, who vigorously emptied his full load inside of you. "That's right..." He groaned, body shuddering in the aftermath as you finished together.

Both of you went limp, collapsing on the table top, bodies still humming as they settled down.

"Thank you, Professor. I needed that shit." You said, wiping your hand across your face. "Damn, I needed it." He stood up straight, still not having pulled himself out of you.

"Happy to oblige, *Princess*." Your cunt twitched at the words. And he smirked, leaning in for a kiss.

"No, no, no. Do not start again, I got another class today."

"Suit yourself." He shrugged, looking at where your bodies were still connected, "If only I had something to plug you up with..." He huffed.

"Should've been more prepared." You said playfully. "Guess I just have to walk around with your cum in my panties."

"One more remark like that and you won't make it to that class." He said, voice dropping to a deep rumble.

"Aight, aight! Ease up." He pulled himself out of you, reaching down to the underwear wrapped around your ankle and helping get them back on. As you stood up and hoped off the table, you felt your fluids and his gush into the formerly clean panties. You smoothed out your blouse to the best of your abilities, and he pulled your skirt back into place before buttoning his dress shirt and pulling up his pants.

"With your new schedule, who will you be seeing for your final session of the day?" He asked, as he looped his belt.

"Fujin. For Meditation and Stress Relief."

"Wonderful." He said taking your hand. "Of all my colleagues he is the least insufferable."

"Oh, so yall friends?"

"I didn't say he was remarkable. Just the least insufferable." Shang Tsung scoffed.

"Aht, aht, Professor Tsung! You said 'Wonderful' when I said his name. That's probably your bestie. You love him." You laughed.

He rolled his eyes in mock annoyance, as you walked together into his empty main lecture chamber. "He is decent. That is all."

"Mhm." You said, teleporting your bag to your shoulder. He stopped once more to give another intense kiss, tongue passionately invading your mouth as he held you close. You couldn't bring yourself to pull back, not the with the tender softness of his lips. He slowed down, taking a deep breath before pecking your cheek.

"You know, you haven't spent the night with me all week, my Darling."

"I..." Of course you loved cuddling up with him and had grown accustomed to his heat, his strong arms. You just didn't know how often he would've wanted you to be there. It was his home, after all. "I thought you'd just invite me or whatever." You shrugged.

"You don't need an invitation. I very much enjoy your company." A heat began to creep across your face. "If you were so inclined, you could spend every night."

"So how would we...? Because obviously, fucking me is a 'conflict of interests' right? We can't get caught?"

He chuckled. "I suppose it is... I have a proposal for you."

"I'm listening."

He released your hand and went to his desk, grabbing the expensive black leather brief case that sat atop it. Opening it up, he went to exactly what he was looking for; a small, red velvet pouch. Grabbing a chain from the inside, he pulled until it revealed a large carved opal medallion. It was a gorgeous, white stone- Opal- that glittered and reflected every color across its polished surface. Its sigils were clearly carved by hand, with a unique written encantation style that you had only seen done by one person in your life. Placed in a setting shaped like the sun that has 3 small rubies in each point, it was absolutely breathtaking.

Your face heated up and tears prickled at the corners of your eyes. "What is that?"

"A gift for my Princess, of course." He said, coming closer with the necklace in hand. You moved your braids as he placed the necklace over your shoulders, a giddy smile on your face as you examined it more closely. It was completely smooth, and warm in your hand, feeling rich with a concentrated magic that only held a the faintest familiarity.

He caught you as you jumped into his arms, exchanging sloppy kisses. "Elder Gods, its *gorgeous*! Thank you..!!" A few tears spilled down your cheeks, "Who's the enchanter? It dont feel like you."

A pleased, devious smile spread across his face. "Are you so certain?"

"Uh--" Closing your eyes and taking a deep breath the ink on your arms began to glow, as you reached out with your magic towards the piece. Upon contact you were inundated with a raw, suffocating strength. The magic that sealed the piece was thick and strong, reaching back at yours and clinging heavily.

You can find out everything that you'd need to know about a person by the feel of their magic. Its texture, its form, its affinity, whether it was light or dark... In this moment, you could see so much about Shang Tsung; His magic was pure blackness and dense, so much so, that it reflected every color on the spectrum beautifully. It was also fluid, flowing smoothly like oil-- Or maybe even tar.

The most astounding thing about his energy though, was the unbridled, fearless, *power*. Sticky, focused, unbuffered power. And warm too. It was a staggering feeling, the magic packed so dense, and far more intense than the fragments of him that you were used to feeling.

"Wow." You breathed, exhaling as your eyes opened. He smiled happily, beyond pleased with your reaction; Many cringed or shyed away from the potency of his power, which had ended many relationships before. But here you handled it so well, even appearing elated by the feeling of it.

"Well?" He asked.

"Its definitely you." You nodded. "Everybody has lil bit of hidden strength here and there, but I ain't know you had all *that* goin on. Pretty amazing."

"Thank you, my Dear. If you continue under my tutelage, it won't be long before you work up to such a level. You have a great deal of potential."

"I appreciate that, I really do. But I'm sayin though, how this gon make it easier to see you?"

"Ah, yes! Forgive me. Simply call to me over the mindlink and I will transport you to my location or wherever else you want to be, by triggering the enchantment carved into the necklace."

"For real? I don't think I've ever known somebody personally that could do that." You replied in awe.

"Indeed. I will show you how to do it when next we have time, but for now would you settle for a demonstration?" He asked.

"Sure!"

"Very well." He said, stepping close and caressing your face, lightly pecking your lips. "I'll send you right to Fujin then." You kissed back, almost needy for the taste of him. He nipped your lip sharply, barely letting his tongue between your lips. Just as you slid your hands up his chest and moaned, he pulled back. "You'll be tardy, Princess." He whispered in your ear deviously. Before you could say something slick in reply, his magic blanketed you and his grinning face disappeared in a pastel colored flash.

💚🐍💀🔥

When your surroundings became visible again, you were standing directly in front of Fujin's door on the other side of campus. He was just about to close it before you apparently startled him. The glow of his eyes stared at you for a moment, before he composed himself. "Right on time." He said sarcastically, "When you enter, pick a spot of your choice to relax into."

"Okay." You replied, still feeling his eyes on you when you got into the room. He would probably know Shang Tsung's magic anywhere and was likely suspecting something.

Fujin's classroom was more like a large lounge with hanging plants, burning incense, and humidifiers. There were all type of chairs and pillows meant for maximum comfort. Even a mini fridge and a few cafe tables towards the back corner.

Its entire back wall was glass sliding doors that opened out to a patio and part of the EMHM's botanical garden. Still supervised by the now retired, Elder Councilwoman Cetrion, it was created back when Lady Ethel first set out on her journey as a versatile lead magician. These were the once barren grounds that she brought to life on her campaign to showcase her skills. It is said that the plants have empathy and that should you be bold enough to sit amongst them, they will reach inside and absorb your negative emotions. Only the most high workload, high anxiety students were ever considered for this course.

Deciding that inside wasn't for you today, you stepped out of the sliding doors to inhale the fresh air. At the height of spring with everything in full bloom, the air was sweet and the winds were gentle. Looking around you saw a few fellow classmates stationed on benches and at the edge of the grass. But the whether was so flawless, and the day had been a long one and you wished to be enveloped. The flowers, they whispered your name, calling out to you from around a chair that blended in with the surroundings so well that you hadn't noticed it. A round, egg-shaped seat that looked like a birds nest sat ensconced in plants and flowers, hidden right there in plain sight, just off of the patio.

You settled into the slightly levitating ball and curled up. Grabbing your phone to set an alarm for the end of the module, you saw a flurry of notifications that made your nerves spike sharply.

Artavius.

49 text messages, 13 pager flashes, and 23 missed calls. And you didn't need to open any of it to know what they said. You were glad you muted his number after you left class this morning.

The surrounding plants seemed to bundle closer and you felt a sudden rush of relief. You didn't feel like dealing with him right now, just indulging in the total relaxation that came with being one of Fujin's students and Shang Tsung's, what, girlfriend? The only thing you wished for was a shower after the fuck you'd had earlier, but even that wasn't enough to delay the impending nap that was on its way.

You'd get around to dealing with Tay at some point... But right now, the moment was just too peaceful...

💚🐍💀🔥

#dragonmaiden79 #dragonmaiden39point5 #shang tsung #black fans #black mc #black reader #black oc #black y/n #shang tsung mortal kombat #mortal kombat #professor shang tsung #college!au #black magical girl #x black!reader #shang tsung mk11 #professor x student

51 notes · View notes

retrogalwrites · 3 years

Text

Lara Croft x f!Reader

Title: “The greed of man” / see on ao3

Summary: You and your darling Lara are going to a fancy gala party.Or that was the plan, at least.

Contents: vaginal fingering, kissing, nipple play, fluffy lovers, tiny reader, tall Lara Croft, possessive behavior, slight makeup kink, jealous Lara

Words:1289

In spite of both her social status and profession, it was not often that Lara had to attend any fancy events or galas, but when these inevitably took place, it was always rather exciting to attend with her.

You had put on your most expensive gown, a red piece with rubies and gold accents that Lara had bought for you. A great meticulous effort was always put into your appearance for all the fancy things, not because you wanted to be impressing or fitting in with the upper crust, rather you simply wanted to always look your best for your darling Lara.

When you had finished doing your hair and makeup to perfection, you stepped out of the walk-in closet to see your girlfriend patiently waiting for you, sitting on that antique couch in the middle of her large bedroom.

She wore a sleek black dress that accentuated her beautiful curves in all the right places, her hair left in a carefree ponytail that still managed to look great on her. Looking up from an old, dusty book, her brown eyes glistened in delight as soon as she caught sight of you. The book was quickly put to the side and forgotten.

"Golly!" She exclaimed with a teasing smile. "Now that's a sight for sore eyes, no wonder you took so long. You look just marvelous."

"Well, you are one to talk, beautiful." With a giggle, you walked over to her. A muscular, yet lean arm quickly wrapped around your waist as she pulled you close against her, it was so nice how the curvatures of her body fit so perfectly with yours, like two puzzle pieces made for eachother. Soon her lips were gingerly kissing your temple, trailing a careful path up your hairline towards the crown of your head. Lara dwarfed you in height, so it was quite easy for her to.

"Nonsense!" She laughed against your hair, as her free hand waved at the air with playful, dramatic dismissal. "Whenever we go out like this, I can see how all those blokes stare at you like slobbering dogs."

You giggled again, leaning yourself against her taller frame with certain neediness, playful in nature. Lara joined you in your laughter, with both her arms around you she embraced you tighter, making so your face gently rested on top of her bust, as you stared at her with loving eyes.

"Are you kidding me? It's you who they look at!"

You meant it, and truly, how could you blame them? Lara was stunning in more ways than one, a woman of power and beauty that made you wonder sometimes just how an adventurous lady of posh status and you, a rather average person in most accounts, ended up together. Not that you were complaining of your luck, of course.

"Believe me, they are always looking at you, luv." She reaffirmed, one of her hands traveling to your face, her thumb playfully patting the plumpness of your lower lip. Those brown eyes burned with something, a strong longing that the tomb raider only ever felt towards precious treasures. "You're so beautiful, and men are a bunch of greedy bastards..."

It was a quick way to make your body feel hot, heat rising to your face as you stared into Lara's smoldering gaze. A cheeky smile on her face showing her delight at managing to make you flustered, as always.

"I can't believe it, you're jealous!" You breathed, smiling softly.

"I'm terribly jealous." And with that her lips claimed yours. The kiss was soft at first, the feeling of her soft lips like the touch of a feather, but soon she wanted more, and so did you. Pressing her mouth harder against yours, lips molding perfectly with each other, her tongue slid its way into the sweet inside of your mouth, allowed by your eager need to taste her. You did not even care about ruining your lipstick, because the moment Lara would kiss you all you could think of was her, and only her.

It was like she felt the same, the hunger in which she devoured your breath proving as much. Moaning into the kiss, your hands instinctively went to gently paw at the exposed back of her dress, the feeling of your nails on her skin making Lara groan against your mouth. You could feel your stomach burning with heat, a need for your lover's attention on your pussy growing with each second.

Her strong arms held you tight, hands soon moving to your ass, squeezing through the layers of fabric, making you whine softly. That sound seemed to be enough for her, quickly she was lifting you up effortlessly.

"Lara!"

You yelped, breaking the kiss just as she started walking towards her bed with you. A brief moment of lucidity as you whined. "We are going to be late...!" But you really didn't want her to stop.

And so she didn't. Laying you on the fancy mattess, your body bouncing on it's softness as Lara crawled above you, staring at your red face and ruined lips with positive pride, and possessiveness.

"Oh, let them wait." She reassured, her hand moving to the top of your dress before yanking it down, exposing your tits bare for her. "Right now, you're my treasure."

You gasped. Her lips were drawn to your supple mounds, peppering them with wet kisses as she sucked at the tender skin to leave love bites behind. One of her hands quickly lifted the layers of skirt of your dress until her fingers graced the silk and lace of underwear you wore underneath.

"Oh, Lara..."

Her attention on your tits moved to your tender erect nipples, her mouth latching to one of the hard buds. Her expert tongue teasing them as she suckled from your breast.

Meanwhile, her digits were already playing with your clit, the pad of her finger rubbing and stimulating the little bundle of nerves, making your toes curl, your body writhing underneath her. Soon Lara's fingers were teasing your slick folds, playfully and agonizingly.

But it wasn't until you felt two of them breaching into the fleshy insides of your pussy that you cried loudly to the vast echo of her room.

"Fuck, fuck, Lara...!!"

Your hands found purchase on her hair, messing up her ponytail. She groaned against your breast, pleased and proud to know she was already making you cry for her like that, so needy and desperate, for her an only her. Lara's fingers slid into you easily, pressing against your tight walls to find that sweet spot, curling and twisting until she had found it. You cried again, back arching against her frame, tears pricking your eyes made your mascara run down your cheeks.

"Oh my god, fuck..."

She pumped them into you with loving roughness, stretching you around them and hitting that perfect spot that soon had you pulling at her messy ponytail, you were so close to your peak that your head was turning blank, dizzy.

"Cum for me, darling."

When she whispered those words against your hot skin, you felt yourself overcome by pleasure, an orgasm ripping through your body making you see stars.

"Lara, Lara, LARA!!!"

You screamed, cumming on her fingers. Lara groaned, feeling your juiced coat her digits while your tight walls clamped around them.

As you breathed for air, she started kissing your face, with make up all smeared on it, tenderly before leaning back and watch you like the cat who got the cream.

With a triumphant smirk, the archeologist let out a breathy laugh."So, you still fancy going to the gala?"

"Oh, shut up, you idiot."

You pulled her down to kiss her on the lips again.

#lara croft thirst #lara croft x reader

179 notes · View notes

eleven-times-lively · 4 years

Text

Girls in One Room

I saw your post and your local thot has come to the rescue :) ooh can you write a fic where it’s Hermione and the reader staying the summer at the burrow and Mrs Weasley is like girls in one room boys in the other no funny business and they just crack up because they’re secretly dating? I just came up with that on the fly idk if it makes sense 🤷‍♀️ @birdie-writes

Summary: You’re dating Hermione, and thanks to Mrs. Weasley’s rules, you get to spend the night together. Word Count: 1520 Note: This is Hermione x fem!reader! Feedback is appreciated! Also this is the last fic for July!

Hermione gave you a quick kiss before you walked up the path to the burrow. It was summertime and Ron had invited you, Hermione, and Harry to stay for the season. You lightly rapped on the door, and were greeted by a bubbly Mrs. Weasley.

“Girls!”, she welcomed you inside. “I wasn’t expecting the two of you to come here together,” she smiled at the two of you, sending your bags upstairs with a flick of her wand. “The boys are in the backyard, dears.”

You and Hermione thanked her, heading through the house and out to the backyard of the burrow. The sun shone bright over the vast field, causing you to squint as you stepped out of the threshold. “Harry! Ron!” you called into the vast expanse. Not moments later came rustling from the tree line as the two boys soon emerged. You and Hermione giggled as you were embraced in bone-crushing hugs. “Hi,” you laughed out, embracing Ron.

“It’s been too long,” he exclaimed, smiling.

“It’s been three days, Ronald,” Hermione jokingly rolled her eyes. The four of you sat in a small circle in the grass, beginning to chat and catch up.

“So, ladies,” Ron began, “How have you two… been?” He cocked his eyebrow, trying to not seem obvious.

“Ronald we’re gay, not diseased.”

You snickered, wrapping an arm around your girlfriend. You gave her a peck on the forehead. “We’ve been great, thanks Ron. Hermione’s parents are really nice.” She gave you a warm smile as she returned the kiss.

“Well that’s nice,” Harry replied, “I’ve had to dodge stray bludgers and wayward pranks for three days.” He rolled his eyes.

“As if you don’t do that every day!” Ron retorted. “You knew what you signed up for!” You all laughed, feeling like you’d never left Hogwarts.

***

The hours passed by as the four of you reminisced about the past year, and looked forward to the forthcoming school year.

“The sun’s setting,” you remarked, yawning and leaning into Hermione’s side. She cooed softly in your ear in content.

“Shall we take this inside?”, she remarked. Everyone nodded and the four of you made way inside. “Remember,: she said, directed at Ron, “Your mum doesn’t know about y/n and I.”

“I don’t get why,” he said lazily, “You know she wouldn’t care.”

“We know,” you replied, climbing the back steps, “But then we couldn’t share a bedroom.” You winked at Ron as you slinked inside, leaving him standing there mouth agape.

“There you all are!” Mrs. Weasley remarked when the four of you stepped inside. “Having fun?”

“Yes, mum,” Ron sighed as the four of you crept past into the living room. You were met with the rest of the Weasley clan.

“Well there they are,” Fred quipped. “Ladies,” he winked at you and Hermione, earning an eye roll from you.

The four of you sat down in front of the hearth, enjoying spending time with the Weasley’s.

“So, y/n,” George began, “How’s summertime been? You were with Hermione, yeah?”

“Yes, George,” you replied, slightly annoyed, “It’s been fine,” you softened, “thank you.” Hermione smiled, reaching for your hand behind her back. She gave it a gentle squeeze, smiling at you reassuringly.

Another short time passed as the four of you were asked various questions about your plans for the coming summer months.

Mrs. Weasley yawned, looking at the clock. “Heavens!” she remarked, “You kids had an eventful day, and it’s getting late. How about you head upstairs to bed?” The four of you began the climb up the steps as she shouted from behind, “Girls in one room, boys in another!” She paused for a moment, and quickly climbed the stairs to meet you in the middle. “Y/n and Hermione, with Bill here for the summer I’m afraid his and Charlie’s room is taken. The guest room only has one bed, I’m terribly sorry.”

“Oh that’s quite alright Mrs. Weasley,” you smiled at the kind woman, “We don’t mind.” She nodded, sending you on your way. You and Hermione snickered, running the rest of the way up the stairs to avoid the nagging of the boys. “Oh like you’d have a girl to shag in bed anyway,” you quipped to a disheveled Harry.

“Gross! I don’t want to hear about anyone shagging!” He yelped and ran down the hallway to Ron’s room.

You and Hermione walked hand in hand to the spare bedroom, embracing once inside. Your hands came up to cup her face as you deepened the kiss. The two of you finally separated, staring into each other’s eyes for a moment. “Love you,” you whispered.

“Love you, too.”

The two of you unpacked all of your things into the drawers and closet, getting settled in for the season. Hermione sat on the edge of the queen-sized bed in the middle of the room, smiling at you. “Hi,” you whispered, flashing a goofy smile as you sat next to her.

She laughed lightly, pulling you into her side. “An entire summer together, y/n. How did I get so lucky?’

You hummed in response. “Even if we have to share a bed,” you sighed in mock dismay. You leaned up to kiss her. She reciprocated, grabbing your waist and turning you onto the bed. She hovered above you as she deepened the kiss. You hummed in appreciation, relaxing to her touch. “Hermione,” you muffled under her kisses.

“Hmm,” she responded, leaning down to leave a mark on your collar bone.

“Maybe not tonight, love. Perhaps any time other than our first night here?”

She giggled, hopping off of you. “Fair enough.” She nuzzled into your side, resting her head on your chest. “This will be a fun summer,” she whispered, cuddling in closer.

“Agreed,” you muttered, wrapping an arm around her. The two of you slowly drifted off to sleep, embracing each other and what was to come.

***

You woke up after Hermione, who was already out of bed. She was seated at the vanity, brushing her hair when she turned and saw you.

“Morning, love,” she smiled, resuming her brushing.

“Morning,” you groaned, turning over and getting tangled in the blankets. After nearly falling out of bed you carefully padded over to her, crouching down and resting your head on her shoulder. “Love you,” you said, leaning up to kiss her.

She pulled away, fighting a smell. “I love you too, but you smell.”

“That’s fair, dear.” You looked in the mirror, giggling at your appearance compared to hers. She was already dressed and put together, meanwhile you had sleep-matted hair and morning breath.

After freshening up for the day, you showed off your outfit to Hermione. You twirled, allowing her to admire you and your sundress.

“Beautiful, as always.” She smiled, standing up and walking over to you. She wrapped her arms around your waist, giving you a quick kiss. “It’s quite late, shall we head downstairs?”

“We shall,” you replied, giving her another kiss before leading her down the steps.

You were met with the loud bunch of Weasleys crowded around the breakfast table.

“There you girls are!” Mrs. Weasley smiled at the two of you, beckoning you over and passing two full plates down.

After breakfast you and your three friends ventured outside of the house. Mrs. Weasley had allowed the four of you out to explore Diagon Alley for the day. Once apparating to the center of the town, you and Hermione linked hands.

“So, boys,” you began as you were all walking, “How did you both sleep last night?”

“Oh, great,” Harry said, sarcasm poking through his tone. “Ron’s snoring was absolutely lovely.”

“Hey!” Ron interjected, “I do not snore! If anything, it’s you that snores. But I’m nice enough that I put up with it, and I don’t mention it to everyone.”

“Sure, Ron,” Harry chuckled. “How about you ladies,” Harry asked, “with your one bed?” He added in a wink for good measure.

“Quite pleasant, actually,” Hermione replied, giving Harry a polite smile.

“Bet they snogged till sunrise,” Ron whispered to Harry.

“Actually, Ronald,” you piped up, surprising him as he hadn’t realised you’d heard his remark. “We started with light kisses, which my wonderful girlfriend quickly turned into a full makeout session.”

“Absolutely,” Hermione replied, “And then in bed we-” She was cut off with the boys pretending to gag and run away. Laughing, the two of you shared a kiss and continued walking.

“You know,” you began, “I wasn’t expecting taunting the boys with our relationship to be part of our summer plans, but it certainly is fun.”

“Indeed,” she replied, giving you another kiss as she led you into the flower shop.

Inside you handed her a fresh daisy. “A flower for my flower,” you winked, absolutely knowing how cliche you sounded. She just chuckled and rolled her eyes, failing to hide the blush on her face. “Shall we go find the boys?”, you asked, paying and leading her out of the shop.

“We shall,” she replied, smiling as the two of you walked into the bright summer sunlight.

#hermione granger #hermione x reader #hermione fanfiction #hermione x fem #hermione granger fluff #hermione granger fanfic #hermione x fem!reader

461 notes · View notes

fluffyfranny · 3 years

Text

So hey! Might as well start posting!

Starting off with an oldie in my past writing archives when I was at my peak in the Markiplier fandom. Still love his content dearly, but I don’t think I’ll write for his egos anytime soon.

Posting this with a lil motivation from @yaysof11037 who has become such a great mutual earlier on this week! (If ya haven’t checked out their works you totally should btw). In return for the lovely angst they provided for me, angst is what you shall receive in turn >:3

Hope y’all enjoy this piece I conjured WAY back in April :0

TW for descriptive gore, past and present character death and overall angst in general under the cut >:3

~Gone Too Soon~

Paranoia.

That was one of the primary emotions Eric felt all the time. The poor boy had been through a lot. He had lost a majority of his family, including his mother and the rest of his brothers, in a tragic accident, and he considered himself an “omen” of bad luck, of sorts, since things seemed to die around him.

Unfortunately, that was about to come true, once again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It all started one brisk night, when Eric was having trouble sleeping for what seemed like the fifth time this week. He tossed and turned underneath the sheets, clutching his worn-down, yellow handkerchief with an iron grip in one of his fists. This lasted for about an hour.

The primary cause for this state of unrest, however, was not only his ever present state of anxiousness, but the fact that a nightmare unlike any he had ever dreamt was roiling through his mind.

He had dreamt that the rest of the Ipliers currently living in the manor, including his father, had mysteriously disappeared. Eric had been wandering the halls, calling out for them, his cries becoming squeaky as tears threatened to spill over...

Before he found his family and the states that they were in...

But then, he shot bolt upright in his bed. His breaths were rapid and his forehead was layered with a fine sheen of nervous sweat. He pinched his hand to make sure that it was all a dream, and fortunately, it was.

Eric tried to stabilize his breathing then and there, attempting to calm down. “It w-was all j-just a bad d-dream,” he kept repeating to himself. “None of t-that was r-real.”

With a sharp exhale of air, he dragged himself out of bed and left his room. He figured a walk around the vast, ever-expanding halls of the manor would calm his nerves, along with a glass of water.

The weight of his prosthetics made the stairs creak, but the other Ipliers knew better than to interrogate whoever was making such a ruckus. When they heard the familiar metallic clunk against the steps, they knew it was Eric, and they either left him be or awoke to provide him assistance, if needed.

As he made his way down the stairs and into one of the bigger hallways, he sensed that something was off. The air felt thicker, as if some invisible force was adding weight to the environment without anything actually being there.

In addition, he thought he caught a whiff of something along the lines of smoke. He shivered slightly at all of this, but shook his head in denial, brushing these factors off as remaining slivers of his nightmare that still plagued his mind.

Eric was just about to step foot into the living room when one of his prosthetic legs slipped in something wet, nearly sending him careening to the tile floor. Fortunately, he grabbed onto the railing on the side of the wall with a less than elusive yelp to stabilize himself.

He caught his breath and, with fear laced in his vision, glanced down slowly towards the ground. He nearly started having another panic attack when he saw a smear of red coat the tile and flow around the bend. The red coloration was so deep, it nearly appeared black as ink.

With even shakier steps, Eric clambered around the corner to locate the source of the stain…

Only to be met with the pale, lifeless stare of his father, lying in a pool of his own blood.

This time, Eric’s screech could be heard across the entirety of the mansion, had it been any louder. He immediately knelt down and began inspecting Derek’s clothes with quivering hands. His red, white and blue polo shirt was now dyed with an even darker crimson due to the blood seeping out of a massive hole in his chest.

“D-dad?” Eric whimpered, his handkerchief slightly speckled with Derek’s blood after placing it next to him. “W-what h-happened? Pl-please get up!”

He began shaking his parent’s shoulders rather forcefully, causing his head to loll to the side rather limply, then softly thumping back down onto the floor once Eric had ceased his actions.

Before he could let loose a scream of his own, several more heart-stopping yells proceeded to echo throughout the living room and the halls surrounding it, followed by the crashing of bodies. Eric’s head snapped up and glanced in all directions to locate who was screaming. However, despite the noises sounding like they were coming from right around him, there was nobody else with him. Aside from his father.

Then, that’s when he heard them.

“Why, hello there, Eric.”

His head whipped to his left to meet the gaze of a man talked about throughout the household, but none too kindly. Said man stood before him in a red tailcoat and black dress pants, both of which had gashes torn in them, and from these gashes seeped both red and black. Various other cuts also covered his bare hands and face. The red was definitely blood, Eric assumed, but why was this man bleeding black as well?

Either way, it didn’t matter as the man strode in Eric’s direction and placed the blunt end of the cane he clutched on the area where his heart would be before giving the area a gentle tap and stepping back again, smiling wickedly all the while.

“Wh-what have y-you done with m-my friends?” Eric stammered, trying to lace some confidence into his voice. “M-Mark?”

“Oh, poor, sweet Eric,” Mark tutted, shaking his head and scattering loose flecks of blood and pitch-black ichor. “I’ve been waiting a while now to exact my revenge against your...family here.”

“R-r-revenge?” Eric questioned with wide eyes and a more noticeable quiver in his voice. “B-but the others a-are so sweet t-to me. They’d n-never do-”

“Oh, but my friend,” Mark interrupted with a wave of his hand. “You’ve just missed out on all the horrendous things they have done to others. Even to me.”

“T-that’s a l-lie!” Eric tried to shout. “They’d never d-do anything b-bad to others! You’re just t-trying to c-convince me o-otherwise!”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Mark began to raise his voice, inky-black ichor seeping out of the corners of his mouth. “You’re just too naive to see it! The others are evil…”

“No, t-that’s y-you!” Eric finally found the courage to retort back semi-confidently. “Y-you’re the e-evil one!”

At this, Mark’s eyes widened, and he turned his head slowly towards him, a pissed look in his eyes and on his face. He snarled, his lips quirking up to bare his teeth back at the boy.

“You insufferable brat!” Mark said, ever angrier. “Just for all that you’ve said and done, I’ll show you what has been made of your “family” and be on my way.”

Before Mark disappeared in an explosion of smoky black mist, he gave Eric one final glare and remark:

“Don’t be surprised if you end up being next.”

And with that, he was gone.

However, once he vanished, the air around the room began to shimmer before the environment revealed a truly horrendous sight from behind Mark’s illusion.

Blood and gore everywhere.

Eric felt like he was going to be sick at the sight of his friends plastered around the house, laying in their own life essence. He hesitantly gazed around and, one by one, took note of what happened to each of them.

First, he spotted Wilford in the kitchen, draped over the countertop with the broken end of a wine bottle stuck in his head, the jagged ring of glass biting into his scalp and sticking there, all the while drawing blood that flowed off of Wil’s head like tiny rivers.

Then, he saw Bim hanging from a taxidermy deer skull in the living room, the antlers emerging from above his eye sockets to make it look like he had sprouted the appendages.

As Eric shook his head in both fear and denial, he practically bolted out of the conjoining rooms and down the hall he came from. There, he saw both Google and Bing’s dismembered parts scattered across the floor, with a few limbs laying on the stairwell and a head posted atop it. Whoever’s head it was was barely recognizable, for the artificial skin was peeled away to reveal the mechanical insides.

Eric, surprisingly, only started to cry harder now, tears rapidly streaming down his cheeks as he realized that this was not just a dream.

It was a nightmare come true.

He then came across Dr Iplier, whose corpse was laying halfway inside a closet and covered with crudely stitched gashes that still leaked blood, which, to Eric’s horror, was a mixture of the red and black that Mark was coated in.

As he rounded the corner, avoiding going upstairs again, he nearly tripped over Host, whose blindfold was ripped clean off to expose his empty, bloody eye sockets. In addition, he was also missing the skin on one side of his jaw, exposing the teeth and bone beneath to give him a zombified look.

This drew a gag from Eric at the sight of Host’s mangled face, and he quickly fled deeper down the hall.

At this point, he had exhausted himself, so he simply let his back hit the wall and slide down to the floor, where he held his head between his knees. He then began to let loose gut-wrenching sobs that would make anyone else cry, as well.

He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and began to fidget with it, nearly tearing it in half with the force he was using on it.

Just as he was about to fling the cloth away, he felt the air around him drop in temperature, which caused him to look up. There stood Dark, his hair disheveled as if he were running his fingers through it all day. His jacket and shirt were both wrinkled, and his tie was missing.

At the sight of Eric curled up in a sobbing mess, Dark got on both knees in front of him and patted one of his own. He looked up to see the pale man smiling at him sadly.

“I’m terribly sorry, Eric,” Dark spoke at a low volume. “We couldn’t save them.”

Eric choked out another sob as he gazed up at Dark with watery eyes. “Th-they’re all dead! Even m-my d-dad is g-gone. My whole f-family is g-gone!”

He put his head between his legs again so Dark wouldn’t see him cry anymore. He felt a heavy hand rest atop his head and ruffle his hair, a seemingly kind gesture amidst these depressing times.

“Look here, Eric,” Dark said as he gently pressed a fingertip underneath Eric’s chin and raising his head to look back at him. “You still have me. We can be our own little family.”

“B-but what if M-Mark comes back f-for you?” Eric whined. “Th-then I’ll b-be all a-alone!”

“Trust me as you have in the past,” Dark drawled out, moving the hand away from his chin and dropping it back to his side. “He won’t be back.”

“P-promise?” Eric questioned, voice shaking harder than it ever had.

Dark merely responded with a nod and one word:

“Promise.”

Before he could get up and take Eric away with him, he let out a grunt and got back on his knees. Eric could only stare in horror as a spot on Dark’s dress shirt became soaked in black. The spot only grew bigger, as if he were hit with a bullet, and the blood was spreading further out.

Dark gently prodded at the fresh hoel in his gut before looking back up at Eric and uttering two words that would be the last he’d ever hear.

“I’m sorry.”

After uttering those final words, Dark collapsed right into Eric’s lap, his head landing in his cupped hands. He let out a shocked gasp and lifted Dark’s head up to look into his eyes and wave his hand in front of them.

“Oh...oh n-no, D-Dark, please d-don’t!” He began to babble uncontrollably, tears falling faster than ever, with a few landing onto Dark’s cheeks to make it seem as if he were crying. They ran down his face, which seemed to be getting paler by the second, even though it seemed impossible for him to pale any further.

“P-please don’t l-leave me,” Eric sobbed, cradling Dark’s head as he felt his blood soak into his own polo shirt, staining it black. “N-not alone in th-this place.”

Dark could only let out a faint wheeze that sounded like a chuckle before he took one final deep breath and let it out. His obsidian eyes seemed to dim as this last breath fled from between his lips.

Eric gasped as he heard this and, not wanting to lose the last friend he had left, clutched onto Dark’s body and held him close, his head lolling over and landing limply onto Eric’s shoulder.

He sat there, clinging to Dark’s body amidst the massacre of his family that had taken place just mere moments ago, and cried for hours on end.

This was truly a nightmare that Eric would never wake up from.

#markiplier fandom #markiplier egos #eric ericson #darkiplier #actor mark #wilford warfstache #bim trimmer #googleplier #bingiplier #dr iplier #markiplier the host

10 notes · View notes

firelxdykatara · 4 years

Note

I was the anon who sent the ask about cs, and you actually addressed some of the major arguments i've seen - being with hook turned emma from a strong, independent woman into just a love interest, hook pursued emma with no reciprocated feelings, and that he never really redeemed himself. I've also seen arguments that cs is abusive, which i've seen to some extent in anti-kataang posts. i try not to dive too deep into the anti tag for my own sanity but these are some of the main things i've seen

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

ok, sorry, i was just caught up in the euphoria of reminiscing about my captain swan feelings that for a moment there i lived in a world where the Anti CS Brigade didn’t exist. but no, yeah, i know exactly what you’re talking about and honestly i think i just......blocked 90% of it from my mind because so many of those arguments were so vitriolic and widespread but also baseless, like...

gods, ok, here we go. anon you have activated my dormant ouat wordvomit processors and idk if i’ll be able to shut up any time soon but i have A Lot Of Thoughts Here, and also a lot of really bad memories cause ye gods, the ouat shipping wars of the days of yore were vicious.

ANYWAY, like, the vast majority of these arguments came from the ‘swan queen nation’, which is where you can trace a lot of super toxic wlw ship stans back to--just for a little context, but clexa and supercorp both had their roots in swan queen, among other ships, but those are the Big Three i always go back to because what they have in common is ‘the main character of the series is explicitly abused/treated horribly by another woman and for some reason the shippers go nuts over this pairing and will insist the show is queerbaiting them if this specific pairing is not made canon’. and swan queen stans, in particular, had it out for captain swan, because they were incredibly insistent about regina and emma being in love, and naturally the existence of emma’s romantic arc with killian threatened that.

as a result, they quite literally made shit up.

it’s funny (not ‘funny ha ha’ but like funny depressing), because a lot of what they accused CS of is actually shit that happened explicitly on screen with regina and emma. they claimed that emma was no longer strong or independent because she fell in love with killian, while ignoring the fact that she’d become a literal doormat for regina’s many abuses (there are so many things regina did to emma even after her alleged redemption which, if she weren’t being so coddled by the narrative, emma would never have let her get away with--like blaming her for saving the life of a woman regina had murdered in the past, or like telling emma to her face that she wanted to tear killian’s throat out because he managed to come back from the underworld while the man regina loved stayed dead) because, for some reason, they interpreted emma being happy and no longer closed off to the people she loved, choosing to let down the walls she’d built up over a lifetime of trauma as her being ‘reduced to a love interest’ which just did not happen.

like, factually, straight up, emma was every bit as badass while dating killian as she was back in season 1. the only difference is, in season 1 emma didn’t trust anyone, she was closed off, she had a million walls built high around her by trauma, and she wasn’t willing to let anyone in because she believed that if she did then she’d only be traumatized again when they inevitably left. by season 4, when she started officially dating killian, many of those walls had come down, she was happier and healthier, she was falling in love and she was letting herself be in love, she had her parents, her son, the whole town full of people she loved. she was fucking happy, but she wasn’t happy with the right love interest, so swan queen shippers insisted they wanted ‘season 1 emma back’. because they would rather emma be miserable so they could interpret her antagonism with regina as closeted gay pining, than have her dare to be happy with a man and a family that didn’t include regina.

as to the other claims, while hook did make his feelings for emma clear once he realized he felt them, the ball was in her court almost completely. he made comments, told her how he felt, said things like ‘when i win your heart, and i will win it, it will be because you want me’ where the clear emphasis was on emma’s feelings--he believed she had some feeling for him, but he wanted anything between them to be because it was what she wanted. emma initiated every explicitly romantic interaction. killian made a flirty comment, which he was wont to do, and which she could easily have brushed off--instead, she grabbed him by the coat and yanked him into a kiss which lasted far longer than it needed to if all she wanted to do was make a point. (sorry, that scene is just burned into the brain of every CS shipper, i know it literally by heart lmfao) he made it clear that if she wanted him he would be there, but i she didn’t he wasn’t going to push her. he followed her through an entire damn portal into the past because he wanted to help her, because he’d go anywhere for her--to the end of the world, or time--but emma was the one who invited him to dinner with her family. emma was the one who noticed he hadn’t come in yet, and went to see him. emma was the one who kissed him, initiating their relationship.

like @storynightlight said in the replies to the last ask you sent, a majority of the important milestones in killian and emma’s relationship were initiated by emma. she was the one constantly progressing their relationship, it went entirely at her pace in large part because one damaged soul recognizes another, and killian had been through enough trauma in his long (long, long) life to understand that emma needed to work things through on her own terms. he wanted to be part of her life, but it had to be when she was willing to let him in. and he was perfectly content to wait for her to be ready.

as far as the ‘abuse’ claims go, that was honestly just straight up fabrication on the part of swan queen shippers mostly, which is intensely ironic considering the state of emma and regina’s ‘friendship’ for literally the entire damn series. most of them referenced things that happened while emma and killian were enemies (they called their sword fight ‘abuse’, which like.... i’m sorry but two people on opposite sides of a violent conflict having a fight is not abuse, and incidentally that’s an argument that zutara gets hit with too, to this day, clearly words don’t actually mean things anymore), and ignored the fact that killian’s behavior changed as his redemption arc progressed. he didn’t become a good upstanding citizen overnight, but he did feel remorse for his prior bad actions and the harm he caused, he went to great lengths to make up for that harm when and where he could, and he tried to be as good a man as he possibly could in later seasons, even when circumstances (like, oh, gold having possession of his heart and using it to control him, which anti CSers also blamed him for, go figure) made that nearly impossible.

meanwhile, as late as season 6, regina was still blaming emma for everything that went wrong in her life. regina happily browbeat emma about everything she ‘stole’ from her for basically the entire series. regina, in the context of their friendship after her alleged redemption, was constantly verbally and emotionally abusive to emma--and yet that behavior was completely overlooked, or deemed ‘pining’ or some other obvious evidence of romantic feelings, by swan queen shippers who would prefer to claim emma was being abused by her caring and loyal boyfriend who constantly believed in her even when she had trouble believing in herself. (incidentally, it truly is incredibly rich of regina stans (and rumple stans, a lot of them say this too) to claim that killian never redeemed himself, when regina is the one with a vault full of hearts she never returned to their proper owners, and regina is the one who murdered someone emma cared about and never confessed to it, let alone apologized for it; graham died in emma’s arms while regina crushed his heart, and it was never once brought up again. regina got away with it scott free, and it is just one on a list of crimes she literally never expressed even the slightest bit of remorse for, let alone tried to atone for. yet killian is the one who ‘never redeemed himself’ mmhmmm ok sure jan.)

I’M SO SORRY ANON, you probably had no idea the can of Worms you were opening with these asks, but CLEARLY i still have a lot of damn feelings about this fucking show lmfao. THANK YOU THOUGH!!! i haven’t talked about captain swan or even really reminisced much in a while, and i miss them a lot, so it was nice to dive back into my Feelings and remember so much of what i loved about them! i may do a rewatch soon >.> it’s ok if i just skip 4b except the finale and then turn it off immediately after emma and killian’s reunion at the end and pretend the entire show ended there, right????

i hope you’re having a good night! thanks again for the asks <33

#ouat #captain swan #emma swan #killian jones #anti swan queen #there's a tag i haven't used in a while #asked #Anonymous

137 notes · View notes

vaguelyominouscoconuts · 3 years

Text

When the Stars Collide

Laying comfortably on a blanket, Lina stared at the night sky. It was one of the rare nights that it wasn’t cloudy enough to obstruct the view. Not only that, but the power was out across the entire city. Lina planned to make full use of this opportunity. Breathtaking blues and purples swirled in her vision. Reflected in her eyes was a universe of twinkling stars, each one burning almost as passionately as she was. This was Lina’s favourite activity. Gazing into the vast expanse of open space, tracing constellations with her finger, she felt at peace. Lina was lost in her thoughts when a call came from inside.

“Madrina!” Cathy called, sticking her head out the door. “It’s really late. Aren’t you going to come to bed?”

“Wow,” Lina replied dramatically. “You? Telling someone to go to bed? I never thought I’d see the day!”

Cathy rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her face. “Ha ha, I’m a hypocrite. I know. Will you at least just come inside? It’s freezing out there.”

“Hmm.” Catalina pretended to thing for a moment. “No.”

“If you get sick, I won’t help you hide it from Jane-“

“NO.” Jane could be a bit… overbearing, to put it lightly, when one of the others was sick. The sickness she had contracted that led to her death in her first life resulted in her being extremely serious about health. Lina did NOT want to deal with a worried Jane. In fact, the only thing worse was angry Jane. “I’m coming!”

With a smug look on her face, Cathy watched as Lina neatly folded the blanket she had been laying on and tucked it under her arm. As she walked inside, Cathy handed her a flashlight. “We don’t want to waste the battery on our phones. Just in case.” Cathy said when Lina raised an eyebrow.

As she walked to put the blanket in the wash, Lina could hear muffled giggles emanating from the living room. After dealing with the blanket, she went to investigate. Using her flashlight to scan the room, Lina came across a large mass of blankets and pillows. The laughs were very clearly coming from underneath. She raised one of the blankets and stuck her light inside the makeshift cave, only to be met with a yelp of

“Hey! Are you trying to blind me?” Kat was rubbing her eyes. With her were Jane, Anne, and Anna, all sitting in a circle.

“Is this… is this a blanket fort?” Lina asked.

“Well duh.” Replied Kat. “What else are you supposed to do during a power outage?”

“We are grown adults.” Lina exclaimed, “This is not something adults do.”

“Uh, yeah it is” refuted Anna. “Why don’t you come in here with us? We’re seeing who tells the best stories!”

“I don’t know.” Lina said. “I kind of feel like going to bed.” As the queens under the blankets let out noises of protest, Cathy came up beside her.

“So, I may or may not have actually asked you to come inside so that you would hang out in the fort with us.”

Lina shook her head and smiled. Threatening her with Jane just to get her to hang out? She was weirdly proud.

“Alright” Lina relented. “you win. I’ll come inside your childish fort.” Lina entered the cave, Cathy behind her, and sat down with the other queens. She had to admit that it was actually quite cozy. Suddenly, Lina became aware of the fact that everyone was looking at her.

“…What?” she asked.

“Tell a story.” Jane said.

“Why me?”

“The rest of us have already gone.”

Anne nodded. “Yeah. I feel bad that you have to go after me. My story was amazing. I don’t know how you could ever compete with it!”

With a smile on her face, Lina accepted the challenge. “Keep dreaming, Bo-loser. We both know your stories don’t hold a candle to mine!” Lina thought for a moment about what story she should tell, when suddenly it hit her.

~~~~~~~~~~

She began to speak, her words painting a beautiful image of stargazing in Spain with her mother. She detailed the way the sky looked was so compelling that the others swore they could see it in front of them. As she spoke, Lina had a far away look in her eyes. She was back in Spain, lying in the gardens with her mother, watching streaks of light shoot across the sky. It looked almost as if the streaks of fire were being thrown from heaven.

“Look, Catalina.” her mother had said. “Do you see that group of stars? The one the lights seem to be coming from? That is the constellation the Greeks called Leo.”

“Leo? As in lion?” Catalina turned to her mother, and then looked back at the sky. “Mother, that does not look like a lion.”

Her mother smiled. “I know, mi niña. None of the constellations look like what they are supposed to. You just have to use your imagination.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Lina took in all the other queens enraptured expressions.

“We never saw those lights again. Knowing what I know now, I wonder if they were comets. I would love to see them again.”

“Well who knows?” Cathy said. “Maybe they’re the type of comets that come back every year?”

“Cathy’s right.” added Jane. “Why don’t you gloogloo it?”

“Google, Jane. Not gloogloo.” Anne said. Laughter filled the fort once again.

“Yes, I will gloogloo it.” Joked Lina. “Perhaps I’ll actually get to see it again! That would be amazing.”

As the queens continued to chat, the lights spluttered back to life. They all looked at each other and came to a silent agreement. I was way to comfortable in there for them to go to bed. And so they all stayed. In the morning they would complain about stiff necks and sore backs, but in that moment they were content to just stay there in each others arms.

~~~~~~~~~~

A week later and Lina was counting down the days until the Leonid meteor shower returned. Lina had had trouble at first figuring out what specific shower it had been, and then she remembered a detail that made it all clear. The lights streaking through the sky all those centuries ago had been coming from the constellation Leo. Now she could find out when they would come back. Through her research she had found that the Leonids only happened once every 33 years. It was a very good thing she had looked it up when she did, or she might have missed it.

5 days to go. Lina could barely contain her excitement. 4 days. She would finally see the lights again. 3,2…

Shit.

SHIT.

The ONE DAY Lina needed the weather forecast to be right. It was supposed to be clear tonight. Why was it cloudy? How was she going to see the meteor shower? Lina was crushed. She put on a smile for the sake of the others, but on the inside she was devastated. After lunch, Lina excused herself to her room.

“Okay.” Anna said once she was out of earshot. “Something is obviously wrong with Lina.” The other queens nodded.

“Could it be that she’s not feeling well?” suggested Jane, her eyes widening.

Cathy shook her head. “I don’t think so. Usually when she feels sick, she doesn’t come out of her room at all. But she’s been with us all day.” Jane relaxed a little at that.

“Did we forget her birthday or something?” Anne asked, brows scrunched in thought.

“Anne. Her birthday is in December. It’s August, you dumbass!” Anna playfully smacked Anne on the side of the head.

Throughout this whole conversation, Kat had been strangely quiet. She was running through every conversation they had had in the last week in her head. What could possibly have happened to make the great Catalina de Aragon this upset? As she was lost in thought, she looked out the window. It was a gloomy day, and a depressing grey haze seemed to cover everything. A thick layer of clouds covered the sky.

A thick layer of clouds.

Clouds.

“Guys, I think I’ve got it” Kat chimed in. All the eyes at the table turned to her. “You remember that time the power was out, and we were telling stories under the fort?” Everyone nodded. “Okay, well you remember how she told us about that meteor shower she wanted to see?” More nods. “I think today was the day. But look how cloudy it is. She won’t be able to see shit tonight. That must be why she’s so sad.”

Realization settled across the table. This thing that Lina had wanted to see for the past 500 years, she was going to miss because of some bad weather. Of course she was feeling down.

Knowing what was wrong, the queens’ focus shifted to trying to find a solution. There weren’t many ideas. It wasn’t like they could get a huge leaf blower and blow away the clouds. The queens mulled over the issue for quite a while before Jane raised her hand.

“Alright, it’s cloudy here, but could it be clear somewhere else? Couldn’t we just drive to a place where there aren’t any clouds?”

“Janey, you’re a genius!” praised Cathy. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“So our mission is to find a place where there are no clouds.” Commanded Jane. “It shouldn’t be more than a couple hours away so that we can get there before nightfall. Everyone understand?” The queens nodded. Everyone pulled out their phones and began furiously typing, trying to find a place they could take Lina.

~~~~~~~~~~

Lina was sat on her windowsill, forlornly gazing outside. She shouldn’t feel this bad about missing a simple meteor shower. So what if she’d probably never get to see it again? It wasn’t something to get worked up over. As she stewed in her negative thoughts, there was a soft rap at the door.

“Come in.” Lina called.

In strolled Cathy, looking slightly hesitant. “So, madrina, we want to take a little drive. We’re going somewhere I think you’ll like.”

“I don’t know, mija. I’m not really feeling up to going out today.” Lina replied.

“But the place we’re going is going to help you feel better! Don’t give me that look, it’s obvious you’ve been sad all day. So will you please come with us? Please? We won’t go without you.” Cathy gave the best puppy face she could muster.

Lina sighed. She really did not feel like going anywhere, but it was obvious that Cathy was worried about her. She would go, just to ease Cathy’s concerns.

“Alright Cathy. You win.”

Cathy pumped a fist in the air. “Yes! Grab a coat and meet us in the car.”

Lina did as she was told, picking a gold jacket from her closet before heading out to the van. Jane was sat in the driver’s seat, with Anna beside her. Kat was sat in the middle, and Anne and Cathy were at the back. Lina took her seat beside Kat and buckled up.

“So,” she began, “is anyone going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Nope!” said Anne, popping the p. “You’ll just have to wait and see!” Lina let out a deep groan, but ultimately accepted her fate.

~~~~~~~~~

They drove for longer than Lina would have liked. She did not enjoy road trips. When the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, the car came to a stop.

“You wait in here while we set everything up.” Ordered Jane. Lina was about to protest when Jane raised an eyebrow. She swallowed her objections. The other queens left the car. Lina sat bouncing her leg until Cathy and Anna came to retrieve her.

“Close your eyes. We won’t let you fall.” Promised Cathy.

“Yeah!” Anna laughed That’s why Anne didn’t come to get you. She probably would have tripped you or something.”

Lina complied with their demands, shutting her eyes and allowing them to lead her to… wherever it is they were going. She stumbled a couple of times, but the girls holding her arms always helped her steady herself. Eventually, they stopped walking.

“Alright,” said Cathy, “open our eyes.”

Lina allowed her eyes to crack open and let out a gasp. There were blankets layed out everywhere, and a campfire emitting warm light. Best of all, there were stars. More stars than she ever could have seen in the city, shining brighter and clearer than she had seen since she was a child. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

“I… you did this all for me?” The other queens nodded proudly.

“We remembered that you wanted to see the meteor shower, so we brought you out her to get a better view!” exclaimed Kat.

“We know it’s not the same as being with your mother, but we hope this helps at least a little.” Added Jane.

Lina was speechless. She couldn’t believe they had gone through all this trouble for her. She let out a choked “thank you”, and tears spilled down her face. Suddenly she was being tackled my five sets of arms, all trapping her in a rib crushing hug. Lina allowed herself to melt into the embrace of the queens, her family. Once she had calmed down, they all moved to lay down on the blankets by the fire.

They lay cuddled together, watching streaks of light cut across the sky.

#...so i did another thing #i wrote this instead of doing homework #anyway enjoy #six the musical #six the musical fanfiction

10 notes · View notes

plounce · 3 years

Note

do u have any reccomendations for how to read only comics involving rictor and shatterstar?? i used to be into marvel comics so i am immune to the usual comic shenanigans but i would like to learn more about these boys

here is a guide to reading xmen comics for rictor and shatterstar, my favorite canon comics couple! they were the first on-panel gay kiss in a marvel comic! they’re very special to me!

OKAY SO... ok. for anyone else using this, here’s a standard disclaimer that obviously there’s gonna be a lot in these that just absolutely sucks because 1. the 90s, 2. comics are an extremely cishet white male dominated industry. i do not vouch for everything written in these comics, but i think the gaycoding that eventually gets canonized is worth wading through a lot of stupid bullshit and very ugly art.

quick backstory on these two: rictor is a mexican teenager who was kidnapped by an anti-mutant terrorist group and was rescued by x-factor (the original 5). he hung around their auxiliary teen group the x-terminators for most of x-factor, being a delightful little punk (wearing a sleeveless leather vest a lot of the time!) and hanging out with boom-boom (who i love) and then got put into the new mutants for a very short time (where he had a thing with rahne/wolfsbane), before it was dissolved and transformed into x-force when rob liefeld took over the title. rictor hates team leader 90sdude cable because he thinks cable killed his dad in front of him. he tends to be the snarky asshole on the team.

the first part of this article has a lot of little rictor moments i’m not covering here. if you want the full rictor experience, check out x-factor (1986) and !x-terminators! x-factor starts very slowly but it picks up and improves when the simonsons take the helm.

rictor left the team. shatterstar was introduced by liefeld - he’s an Emotionless Warrior Guy Who Loves To Fight from mojoworld (a planet run by a despot who produces tv. it’s Commentary), where he was forced to be a gladiator from birth and doesn’t know a lot of earth customs and doesn’t have emotions (or rather, he represses them).

x-force (1991) feel free to read through all of it, but in case you just want to skip to these two, all of these issues have one or two good little Moments - just do some skimming. i tend to focus more on rictor than star in this era because star is made more interesting than Emotionless Warrior Guy by butting up against rictor:

13-16 (rictor rejoins his old new mutants friends)

19, 21-26 (the first phase of their relationship where they don’t really get along. in one of these issues rictor stares at star’s ass. big moment of star being autism-coded in here too)

29-30 (rictor drives shatterstar around and they seem to get along better, you get to learn a bit about star’s past, adam-x the x-treme is there)

32-33 (just some little moments of them hanging out, a couple good rictor lines)

34 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor backstory issue! AND this has the first big Subtext moment: shatterstar reveals he learned spanish from tv so he and rictor can have “conversations of a highly -- personal nature” HELLO?)

35 (some little moments where you can see star and rictor are now Friends and star is affected by that friendship)

39-40 (more good friendship - rictor asks if star has been watching dating shows and they just seem close. rictor also has gotten a haircut! we learn shatterstar’s mojoworld designation! they ride some motorcycles!)

43 (VERY IMPORTANT - the two go to a club. rictor tells star he’s a virgin then asks him if he has a dick. i am not kidding this literally happens. star learns what sexual attraction feels like and says ‘i don’t know what emotions im supposed to attach to that’, and rictor tells him he’ll help him learn.)

44 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor leaves the team because he doesn’t want to have the team communicate telepathically (VERY interesting for a character who is eventually revealed to have been a closeted gay man). shatterstar begs him not to leave - “you’re my best and only friend.” rictor tells him that if he ever needs him, he’ll come back.)

cable (1993) #22 (follows up directly on rictor leaving the team - star accompanies rictor to the airport and has a lot of Feelings and has great hair. “julio. one last time. please, change your mind. what am i going to do without you?” oh so you’re dependent on your best friend who you’re in love with? oh?)

45, 47-48 (star’s weird biology, star brings up rictor as his emotional touchstone in a situation where he isn’t relevant at all. also, a plotline where tabby gets treated terribly by her friends and the narrative!)

49 (VERY IMPORTANT - star wanders around at night wondering why rictor hasn’t contacted him yet. he goes to the club he and rictor went to in #43 and turns down a girl who hits on him. he thinks “i miss julio...” (in an earlier issue, rictor tells cable not to call him by his first name - “only my mom calls me that”), then beats up some homophobes in an alley. I AM NOT KIDDING.)

51-52 (51 has more weird star biology. 52 has two pages of star and james talking that is a nice look at star’s developing emotional state - the rest of 52 is a fight with one of marvel’s extremely fatphobic villains, just a warning to skip the rest of it. although the letter page of 52 has someone go HEY ARE RICTOR AND SHATTERSTAR IN LOVE? thank you roeland looman from the netherlands)

54-56 (the start of shatterstar’s weird bad benjamin russell backstory that is quickly forgotten, disregarded, and uncared about by everybody. BUT in 54, there is some extremely loud subtext where star’s feelings for rictor are explicitly compared to a het romance subplot!)

58 (star is very chill and flamboyant for like two pages, it’s great)

59-61 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor returns because star Needs him in the midst of his identity crisis!! it’s so joyful and sweet for them both, and the subtext is so LOUD here - there’s just. so much going on, i won’t describe it all, but it’s very good content and their emotionally intimate relationship is very apparent - really excellent gaycoding. the weird shatterstar backstory wraps up circuitously and to no great effect, but the art in the last issue is very nice, and rictor’s plain and uncomplicated concern for star is great.)

63-65 (some little moments - shatterstar and rictor time travel and beat up some nazis, star has a lovely conversation with siryn,)

x-force/cable ‘97 (the team goes to asgard! the important thing is that star says some goofy “ah... warriors...” things, and then rictor teases star for liking delivery pizza. it’s very charming)

67 (they hang out with tabby in a van. shatterstar has pigtails!)

70 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor and shatterstar exit the team together to go take down rictor’s crime family in mexico! they seem very devoted to each other. shatterstar’s hair is all the way down!)

post leaving x-force:

76 (VERY IMPORTANT - ricstar return for one issue - rictor gets held captive to force shatterstar to fight domino!)

x-force annual 1999 (VERY IMPORTANT - ricstar get their own story about what they’re doing in mexico! shatterstar has an ugly little goatee, but rictor looks great! they choose to share a room rather than sleep separately and then it kind of feels like they shared a bed! rictor has learned star’s alien language! they genuinely just seem so close and comfortable with each other, it’s incredible.) (if you’re using RTO, it’s within the rest of xforce’s issues)

they’re both in comics limbo for the first half of the 00s besides a couple random flavorless appearances. shatterstar at some point goes back to mojoworld to help with the war against mojo. then we hit peter david’s x-factor run in 2006, known as x-factor investigations (xfi). this directly follows the “house of m” event - what matters is that the vast majority of mutants have been depowered by the scarlet witch. rictor is one of them.

rictor is a main character of the team from the first issue (the series opens with him about to attempt suicide), so if you wanna read the run you can start from the beginning. x-factor is... well, there are worse-written comics. it’s an okay read, but i find PAD’s writing insufferable a lot of the time (he writes multiple man as a pretty blatant self insert, and literally every girl on the team wants to fuck him at some point or another). i read the whole thing and it’s decent comics, but you might want to skip to the ricstar.

PAD canonizes ricstar, which is great! but unfortunately: 1. he writes star as “slutty bisexual just can’t stop wanting to fuck people besides his partner who is uncomfortable with that!”, which is biphobic and sucks hugely, especially since it feels so different from xforce original shatterstar (see this post). rictor also just seems so annoyed with him all the time, which also sucks - they’re best friends!! let rictor like his boyfriend!!

anyway. if you choose not to read all of xfi, here are the ricstar highlights:

first issue of xfi for rictor's horrible mental state after m-day

14 (jamie implies that star would be jealous of rictor hanging out with quicksilver)

43, 45, 49 (star reappears!! he’s mindcontrolled, but it gets fixed, and he and rictor have the first ever on panel gay kiss at marvel!! yaaaay!! then they talk about their relationship a little)

after issue #50 it changes the numbering, so if you’re using RCO youll have to go to xfactor (1986) #200 to continue

200 (SHATTERSTAR FIGHTS THE THING!)

continue to read between here for star apparently being unable to stop kissing people. sigh. star sleeps with adult layla, which... sigh. whatever

207-208 (rictor and shatterstar semi-resolve the stupid biphobic plotline, resolve to work on their relationship, rahne discovers them (she and rictor had been sleeping together earlier in xfi), rahne is pregnant and homophobic, rahne and star fight, star is a delightful bitch)

209 (shatterstar on a pirate ship. that's it)

210 (rictor confirms that he is gay and it wasn’t legit when he’s been with women. there’s a moment where it's like "oh star makes rictor laugh" which is epic)

211-212 (star is said to be frustrated about rictor and rahne, rahne’s baby’s actual dad is revealed)

213 (rictor and rahne mostly resolve their shit)

216 (star and monet hang out, star thinks monet tells him to pee on rictor, spiderman is there)

217 (there’s a joke about the longstanding theory that longshot and star are related, monet is revealed as muslim in a very dumb way)

220 (star and rahne have a pretty nice conversation about their relationships to rictor and rahne’s faith. rictor does an offscreen internalized homophobia)

221 (star and rahne continue to hang out but it’s not as good as the previous issue.)

222 (oh my god, rictor cares about shatterstar being hurt! rahne owns up to how she kind of treated rictor like shit!)

pop over to avengers: the children’s crusade (a young avengers miniseries with good ol’ billy/teddy and i like it! but if you don’t want to read the whole thing - rictor and shatterstar appear in #6, and rictor is the first mutant to be repowered! they’re more tender with each other over their five page appearance than they are in xfi, so it’s a balm)

225-226 (PAD decides the first thing rictor does with his powers is be a scab [DEEP SIGH], rictor and shatterstar discuss rictor getting his powers back, the biphobic plotline is resolved again kind of in a very PAD-y way)

235-236 (shatterstar gets to be the main character of a mini arc. fights a mojo guy)

238 (ricstar go with rahne to help her find her son)

242 (they find her son. not as important imo)

248 (oh my god... they joke together :) they like being around each other :) also shatterstar goodboy moment. then in 249 rictor’s life is spared bc of shatterstar’s goodboy moment)

259 (SHATTERSTAR’S CRAZY CONVOLUTED BACKSTORY THAT ACTUALLY MATTERS TO HIS CHARACTER! YAHOO! and star has a cute little bob)

after xfi wraps up, there’s a couple years of limbo before they appear in secret warriors (2017) #2-3 (end of #2 and most of #3), which is a big crossover event or something. i don’t know, it’s an inhumans comic, and as an xmen person i am contractually obligated to roll my eyes at the inhumans. ricstar both have mustaches, star doesn’t speak, and rictor has the ugliest costume ever (green tracksuit with no socks??) (tabby also has a terrible costume). it’s just more inhumans trying to be a match to the xmen and utterly failing to not look & act like total jackasses (except, of course, for kamala and moon girl). rictor’s jokes that daisy johnson should get more original powers (she also has seismic powers - rictor predates her!), and then daisy blows up the xmen’s jet. while it’s in the air. this is a very neat summary of most mutant-inhuman relations.

now we enter the current era of “on again off again” relationship limbo.

rictor appears next in iceman (2017). in #9 he states that he and star have apparently broken up offscreen! and then he hits on bobby! sina grace is a cool person but this writing decision is so... aghhh. the next issue he and bobby go out on a date and he’s immediately like “yeah i only have my eyes on star”, so it seems to be more “it’s complicated” than “we’re broken up for good.” he sticks around to help out with a mission in #10-11.

they’re on again in new mutants: dead souls, where rictor is a part of the team and he’s hilarious and has so many great lines! shatterstar also makes a couple cameos throughout and they’re all super sweet! they seem very domestic and comfortable and happy, i love their dynamic in this. my favorite shatterstar panel ever is in #6, where he is making rictor pancakes and is only wearing an apron. please ignore all the big plot things that happen at the end of this, especially everything with karma. they are stupid, dumb, and do not matter.

related to nm:ds, rictor appears in multiple man #1 as part of that team and looks very very cute. and he isn’t whitewashed like in nm:ds!

off again in the shatterstar (2018) miniseries. i have a lot of mixed feelings about this because i LOVE all the rictor stuff, the first issue codes shatterstar as autistic in a very characterful way, it doesn’t whitewash rictor for once, and the covers are GORGEOUS! but it also attempts to retcon a ton of star’s emotional backstory AND arc set out in xforce, casting a black woman as his emotionally manipulative ex. also star is a landlord (ew). my advice with this one is to treat all the flashbacks as not-really-canon since they suck.

star appears in extermination (2018) #3-4 and gets mind-controlled into trying to kill the time-displaced teen o5 (timetraveling baby cable is trying to put them back where they came from), and the art looks great and i feel really bad for him. rictor makes a follow-up cameo in uncanny x-men (2019) #9-10, where you can see that he’s at the school in order to visit shatterstar since he’s with cecelia reyes. he then goes to fight nate grey/x-man, where he gets sucked into the age of x-man pocket universe/event.

around half the xmen get trapped and brainwashed in that pocket universe where there is no love or family, merely friendship and comradery (it’s an attempt by nate grey to ‘fix’ the xmen by getting rid of all the soap opera stuff - it’s a bit meta wrt how xmen are the soap opera superheroes). there are a couple different titles for this event: rictor appears in age of x-man: x-tremists #4-5. people have mixed feelings about this title due to the gay characters (northstar and iceman) enforcing no-romance laws that very intentionally parallel anti-gay laws from real life, but rictor is just chilling and running an illegal romance movies theatre, and then he gets drunk and then starts a riot and he’s just delightful in this.

everyone outside of the pocket universe thinks everyone who disappeared was killed. shatterstar is part of the team in x-force (2019) (there are two 2019 x-forces: this is vol 5, written by ed brisson) who are trying to track down young cable (baby cable, or “bable”), who killed older cable, who formed good old 90s xforce. boom-boom is the best part of this entire run, hands down. the art is expressive and interesting but i Hate how they draw warpath (the one time he’s free from comic book limbo!). shatterstar is in full “i only like fighting please let me fight i am a difficult asshole” mode, and talks about grieving rictor in #7 and #10. this is never really resolved since age of x-man is thrown over for hoxpox (BIG status quo changes & current era of xmen comics), but aside from my little ricstar heart i can’t really mind.

rictor is currently appearing as part of the team in excalibur (2019), and has been very... cozy... with apocalypse. at the time of writing (halloween 2020), it’s very heavily ambiguous what exactly their relationship is besides “intense” and i still have no clue what to think about it. he and star have been stated by the writer to be exes, but i also know tini howard is a ricstar fan so im holding out for good things! and it’s cool that rictor is getting a ton of focus and a lot of powering up. i remember reading xfi #1 and being amazed at how rictor described how soul-deep his earth powers were and wanting more of that, and excalibur has that for him in spades. (i am still withholding a lot of judgment wrt rictor’s writing in excalibur until i see how things pan out)

after reading to excalibur #12, switch over to x-factor (2020). read the first three issues because i love northstar and prodigy and rachel. please ignore a couple cringe comments towards poor daken. shatterstar appears in #3, trapped on mojoworld, getting traumatized, and breaking my heart as i write this. that last data page... free my boy!!!!

after x-factor #3, read x of swords: creation. more rictor and apocalypse being Close. after that, read x-factor #4 for apocalypse being very Attached to rictor, and then rictor looking very good and freshly resurrected. then continue reading excalibur. in may, x-factor is going back to mojoworld!!

that’s all there is so far! i think within the next year there will be even more content for us, and im very eager to get to that content. i will update this post as things come out.

#ricstar #xmen #rictor #shatterstar #julio richter #chirps #anonymous

53 notes · View notes