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bucky-fricking-barnes · 1 year

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Heroes in Our Midst

Title: Heroes in Our Midst

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 3.9k

Warnings: None, mostly fluff!

Summary: You invite the confused veteran at the grocery store to your Friendsgiving, but maybe you should’ve done a background check first.

A/N: Happy (belated) American Thanksgiving to those who celebrate! I’m so thankful for each and every one of you. I hope that everyone, whether you are celebrating today or not, is safe, healthy, and surrounded by those they love (and that love them back). Dividers are by @firefly-graphics

The man in the baseball cap has been staring at the stuffing for five minutes now, and you’re on a deadline. You don’t really want to tell him that he’s in the way and that he’s completely blocking the bags you need for your Friendsgiving, nor do you want to reach out and force your way in. He looks lost, the poor thing, and it’s when he flinches at the pre-recorded holiday message over the PA system that you decide to intervene.

“You can’t go wrong with Stove Top,” you say, stepping a little closer. He frowns, turning to face you just enough for you to see his profile.

What a jawline, you hum to yourself, and you, thankfully, manage not to say it out loud despite the fact that you’re running on only four hours of sleep. The holidays did you dirty this year.

“I’m sorry?” he asks.

And what a voice! You melt a little at the deep timbre of it.

You gesture at the red box to his left. “Stove Top. It’s pretty easy to make and it doesn’t taste half bad. It’s not homemade by any means, but it’ll do if you’re in a pinch.”

“Right.” He clears his throat and picks up a singular box, then sets it in his cart as if it might break if he weren’t careful.

Peering past him, you frown at his bounty. Along with the stuffing, this broad-shouldered man has selected a pitiful rotisserie chicken, a slightly smushed sweet potato pie, and a dented can of cranberry sauce. No doubt it was one of the last ones in the bin. People in your neighborhood apparently really love cranberries, much to your dismay. His isn’t the Thanksgiving dinner you would have chosen, but you remind yourself that not everyone is as lucky as you.

Some people spend the holidays all by themselves. A pang goes through your heart as the man steps down the aisle, finally allowing you to load up on the bags of stuffing you’ve been waiting on.

You toss four into your already overflowing cart and you’re reaching for a fifth when you feel the man’s eyes on you. Silently, you glance over in his direction before grabbing the bag and adding it to your bounty.

“Do you need another recommendation?” you ask, hoping that’s the only reason he’s watching you. There’ve been too many stories about creeps on the news lately and your heart skips a beat at the thought.

“You definitely look like someone who knows what they’re doing,” he replies. He nods at the cart and you grip the handle a little tighter.

“I’ve got a big family. And a boyfriend,” you add, just for good measure. “He’s waiting on me in the car.”

The man shakes his head and holds up his hands. “I’m not trying to hit on you, miss. I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression. I’ve…” He clears his throat again and drops his hands, glancing back at his almost-empty shopping cart. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Done what? Shopped for a Thanksgiving dinner?”

“Something like that. Think you could help me out?”

Carefully, you push your cart closer so you can get a better look at his. He’s wearing dog tags, you notice, and a swell of sympathy makes your chest tight.

Of course, you think, and you could almost kick yourself. No wonder he’s so overwhelmed by all of the options.

“Well, the first thing I’ll need to know is how many people you’re cooking for. That’s a big factor,” you tell him.

Now that you’re closer, you’re able to get a clearer view of his face. He’s got kind eyes to go with the sharp jawline and beautiful voice, and you smile a little as he glances down at his purchases.

“Just me,” he says. “I couldn’t find a turkey small enough, hence the chicken.”

You frown. “Just you? That’s it?” He nods in confirmation and you purse your lips for a moment. “Honestly? You’re better off just getting one of the pre-packed meals by the deli or just going out to eat. Cooking a whole Thanksgiving dinner for yourself is a whole lot of hassle and a lot of stress for nothing.”

He shifts a little. “I’d rather cook as much as I can. This is the first Thanksgiving I’ve had in a long time. I want it to be…” The man trails off, seemingly at a loss for what he wants.

“That’s understandable,” you say, nodding and offering him a small smile. “I noticed your dog tags. Where were you stationed?”

Automatically, he reaches up to tuck them inside his shirt, out of view. “Europe.”

“And you didn’t have Thanksgiving there?”

Your poor attempt to make conversation falls flat and the man forces a tight smile. “Is my dinner a completely lost cause?”

“Not necessarily. You’ve got a good foundation, you just need some fixings to spruce it up a bit. Some mashed potatoes, green beans, a salad, some mac-n-cheese, another pie…” He nods along, as if making a mental checklist as you speak. “That’s if you’re really dead set on this whole cooking thing, and obviously that’s more than just one person can eat. You’ll have a lot of leftovers to tide you over, which isn’t always a bad thing. Of course, there’s always another option…”

“Which is?” he asks.

The song changes overhead from a newer Christmas song to one of the classics and you can’t stop the next words that come out of your mouth,

“Come to my house for dinner.”

He seems just as surprised as you do, and you want to crawl into a hole. You scramble to correct yourself before the man, a complete stranger, can run away and tell all his friends and family about the weird girl in the grocery store who invited him to her house on one of the biggest holidays of the year when all he wanted was to know which brand of boxed mashed potatoes to buy.

“Of course, I’m sure you have other plans. I wouldn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, I’m not even really sure why I said that. I don’t normally—”

“I’d love to come, if it’s a genuine offer,” the man says, cutting you off. He smiles softly, a gratefulness shining in his eyes, even from underneath the baseball cap. “I’d hate to intrude on you and your family, though, or your fella. Boyfriend, I mean.”

You swallow thickly, looking down at your cart. “Well, it’s— I actually don’t have a boyfriend. That was more of a let’s-scare-off-the-creeps-with-a-fake-boyfriend type thing, you know?”

“I’m… familiar with the tactic.”

By the way he says that, however, you’re not really sure he is. It’s endearing that he’s trying to save face in front of you, and you smile a little. When you lift your head, he’s watching you.

“I can text you my address, and what time to be there,” you add. “No pressure if something else comes up. I’m actually celebrating later this weekend with my friends—you know, Friendsgiving—so you’ve got some time to think about it. You don’t even need to bring anything if you don’t want. I usually do a lot of cooking and everyone else just brings something to drink or their leftovers from their own family dinners. It started out as a potluck, but it’s grown into something more over the past few years.”

His posture relaxes slightly. “That sounds nice.”

Smiling a little more, you hold out your hand. “Phone?”

After a beat, the man digs into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out something you haven’t seen in years. You manage to hold back your laugh, but the surprised noise can’t be helped. He looks a little shocked at the high-pitched outburst, then embarrassed.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you feel bad, it’s just… I haven’t seen anyone with a Nokia in years. I mean, I think my grandpa probably still has one at his house… somewhere. We got him onto one of those little cheap smart phone things for senior citizens a few years ago.”

The tips of the mans ears are a bright pink as he hands the phone over to you, and you quickly start maneuvering your way to his contacts list. It takes a minute, but you finally get your name and number in, then hand it back.

“Y/N?” he reads, glancing up at you.

You nod. “And you’re…”

“Steve.” He stands a little straighter, a little taller, and you catch a glimpse of the great soldier he must be. “My name’s Steve.”

“It’s nice to meet you Steve. Send me a text so I have your number, okay? Then I can text back with the info. If you change your mind, though, there’s no need. I don’t want you to feel pressured to come, especially since we just met. I know that stranger danger is still a thing for adults.”

Nodding, he pockets his phone and grabs hold of his cart again. “It was nice to meet you, Y/N. Maybe I’ll see you soon. Thanks for the help with the stuffing.”

You can’t help but smile. He’s genuine, that’s for sure, and you watch him push his cart forward and turn the corner toward the produce section before finishing your own shopping. There’s a little bit more pep in your step as you head toward the registers.

Three days after Thanksgiving, Steve shows up for your annual Friendsgiving. He’s not the first person you’ve welcomed today, but you know for a fact that he’s been waiting outside near the bus stop for at least a half hour before he’d come up to the door.

Poor guy must be freezing out there.

“Hi! I’m glad you came!” You step out of the way so he can come in, then shut the door behind him.

Steve stands tall in the little entryway of your apartment. He’s got a bright blue tupperware bowl in his hands and he looks entirely out of place, so you decide to take a gentler, less enthusiastic approach. For someone who hasn’t had a real Thanksgiving in a long time, your cramped apartment filled with strangers, festive decorations, music, and several different kinds of cooking food is sure to overwhelm.

“Hey,” you say, coming around from behind him. You soften your smile and hope he perceives it as genuine. It is, of course, but you don’t want to seem unsure of your invitation, not after he’s made the effort to come and even bring something to share. “I really am glad you came. Do you want to put your dish in the kitchen? I can get you something to drink. Then you still have something to hold onto?”

He seems a little taken aback that you’d even noticed his tight grip on the bowl, but he nods anyway and follows you as you weave your way into your galley-style kitchen. Your neighbor is at the stove, stirring a pot of mac-n-cheese, and she smiles wide when Steve fills in the doorway behind you.

“You must be grocery store guy. We’ve been waiting for you,” she tells him.

You gape at her and whack the side of her arm. She laughs. “Gloria! Enough! Focus on the food, please! If you’re just going to gossip and spill my secrets, I’ll take care of the cooking myself!”

“No, we’re not having a repeat of last year,” she chides, still grinning. “You turn into a real mother hen when you’re in the kitchen. We all offer to help and yet you still complain that no one’s helping you!”

Steve’s cheeks are pink when you turn back to him, and you have a feeling it’s not just from the heat of the kitchen. Your own face feels a little warmer than it should and you force away the nervousness that bubbles up in your throat, instead trying to focus on clearing a spot for Steve’s contribution.

He sets the bowl down in the empty space you create and you try to sneak a peek. The silicone lid isn’t clear and your mind whirls with ways to ask him what he’d made, especially since he hadn’t seemed like the type of guy that can cook.

"Something to drink?” you finally offer, glancing up at him. “We’ve got beer, wine, juice, soda, coffee, water… Pretty much everything. There’ll be more options once everyone gets here.”

“Water’s fine, thanks.”

Nodding, you set about getting him a paper cup and scribbling his name on it with Sharpie, then making sure he gets his drink. You hand it off as the door opens and your work friends step in, cheering as the song changes to a newer favorite right as they arrive.

“I hate to just leave you like this, but I need to go say hi to them,” you say. “If you want, there should be some serving spoons you can use for whatever you brought. You can figure out what works best since it’s your dish.” You gesture towards the drawer next to the stove as you back towards the kitchen doorway, and Steve obediently nods. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” he assures you, a small smile on his face. “I don’t need a babysitter. I’ll get the lay of the land soon enough.”

You try to take Steve’s words to heart as you head back to the living area. It doesn’t take long before you’re sucked into conversations and shenanigans with your friends, however, and when you finally remember you’d ditched him with Gloria, of all people, forty-five minutes have passed and you’ve finished the drink you’d poured just before his arrival.

Grabbing the empty cup, you hightail it back to the kitchen, only to find him leaning against the counter and nodding along with one of her long-winded stories. He looks up when you stumble into the room and offers you a concerned look, but you quickly wave him off when he reaches out to help you. From the way he looks you over, you can tell he thinks you’re drunk, but you don’t know how to explain that you’re just frantic that Gloria is spilling your deepest, darkest secrets to the cutest guy you’ve met in months.

“Oh! Y/N! I was just telling Steve that story about my great aunt who worked for the USO during World War II,” Gloria says, and you glance over at her, confused.

“That’s great. I don’t think I remember that one. Did Steve tell you he was a veteran?”

Gloria’s brows furrow and she looks between you and Steve. He’s suddenly very interested in the empty cup in his hands and your stomach drops. Nerves set in as Gloria makes some paltry excuse for the two of you, then pulls you into the tiny hallway off the living area.

You wrench your arm from her grip in front of your closed bedroom door. “Gloria! What’s wrong with you? I mention that Steve’s a veteran and you suddenly start acting weird? I’m trying to make him feel welcome and you’re not helping!”

She shakes her head at you, scoffing lightly. Amusement twinkles in her eyes. “You have no idea who you invited, do you?”

The nerves are back, extinguishing any frustration you might have held with her. “What— I mean, I know he’s a nice enough guy. I didn’t exactly do a background check, but you’re starting to make me wish I had! Why?” you hiss.

“Y/N, that’s Steve Rogers.”

The name sounds vaguely familiar, but it doesn’t exactly ring any bells, so you just stare at her. “Okay? Does he work for the government or something? Is he a spy? Do I need to call the cops?”

She rolls her eyes and pulls her phone out of the pocket of her apron. You watch in silence, looking between the screen and the doorway to the kitchen. You can just barely see Steve still leaning against the counter, his shoulders slumped. Your heart clenches a little at the sight.

He looks so lonely.

“Here,” Gloria says, shoving her phone into your hands.

You almost drop it, but you quickly right it and start reading. With every word that you’re able to process, your heart starts beating faster and faster.

Captain America? World War II? Frozen in ice? Born in 1918?

“Holy—”

This time when you glance back at the kitchen, Steve is gone. You shove the phone back at your neighbor and hurry back down the hallway to see if he’d just moved out of your view to refill his cup, but there’s no sign of him at all.

The living room is filled with your friends chatting, leaning into each other, snapping pictures in front of your decorations, and chowing down on the appetizers, but there’s no Steve. You’re turning in circles when you catch a glimpse of him out the window. His cap is back on and his head bowed as he walks back down the street, his hands in his pockets. He looks every bit like he’s making a run for it, albeit a casual one.

Heart pounding, you throw on the first pair of shoes you can find and race out the door. You’ve never taken the two flights of stairs faster, but Steve is still turning the corner when you finally make it out onto the street.

Curse his long legs!

You have to push your way through the early evening crowds, throwing out “excuse me’s” and apologies every which way until you finally catch up with him a few meters away from the stairs down to the subway.

“Steve!”

You grab at the arm of his jacket. He pushes you away from him on instinct, sending you flying into another passerby. His reflexes are quick, however, because he’s steadied you before you’re even halfway to the ground and the other person is only a few steps away. They grumble at the both of you and you and Steve both send them half-hearted apologies as he leads you out of the flow of traffic.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Sometimes I forget—” He shakes his head. “Are you okay? I should’ve been paying better attention.”

“I’m fine,” you reassure him. “I’m more worried about you! Why did you leave without saying goodbye? Is everything okay?”

He drops his gaze to the pigeon scavenging around the discounted pumpkins nearby. “I’m fine, Y/N. You should be back in your apartment. It’s freezing out here, and it’s getting dark.”

In your rush to get out the door and catch up with him, you hadn’t thought to grab a jacket, but you hadn’t processed the cold until now. You shiver, and he quickly sheds his own to drape over your shoulders.

“You left your bowl,” you dumbly tell him.

The corner of his mouth crooks up, but it’s sad. “Don’t worry about it. I can get another.”

You shake your head. “Steve, I— Why did you leave? Is it because of something I did? Or something someone said? I promise that they’re all good people, it’s just sometimes when they drink, they get a little—”

“It’s not anything you or your friends did,” he says. “I promise. They were all wonderful and Gloria was very nice to me. I’m grateful that you welcomed me into your home even though we barely knew each other. Most people wouldn’t do something like that, not nowadays.”

“Then why?”

He sighs and looks up through the windows of the store behind you, watching the customers aimlessly browse the aisles for a long moment. Steve doesn’t meet your eyes when he speaks again, but you watch him fervently, searching for any sign of dishonesty or distress.

“Because I was worried that you’d be uncomfortable around me now that you know who I am,” he finally answers.

You shake your head again. “I don’t understand. Who you are? I know who you are. I mean, I already did, before Gloria showed me that article.”

His jaw clenches and you draw the jacket tighter around you when he steps away and adjusts his cap against a chilly breeze. His face and ears are pink from the cold, too. It’s not quite winter yet, but it’s rearing its ugly head.

“You’re Steve,” you continue, closing the distance between the two of you. “And you’re my dinner guest.”

“Y/N—”

“If we made you uncomfortable, then I understand you wanting to leave. You have every right to go home, if that’s the case. But my perception of you hasn’t changed now that I know more about your past. Knowing all the amazing, wonderful, selfless things you’ve done makes me want you to stay even more now, because it reminds me that it’s people like you that I’m thankful for. Who knows, I may not even be here if it weren’t for you saving New York.”

You take a beat, catching your breath a little in the cold evening air. “Steve,” you continue, as earnest as you can, “I want you to stay. Please.”

He ducks his head and you have to crane your neck to see his face underneath the brim of his hat. If the lights from the shop were a little brighter, you might be certain that there are tears in his eyes, but you’ll play it off as a trick of shadows for his sake.

“I’m more than just that guy in the article. They exaggerated things, and I am a veteran. I’ve done things I’m not proud of,” he tells you, and you nod. After a moment, you hold out your hand.

“Then it’s a pleasure to meet you, Steve Rogers. I’d really like to get to know you. All of you, not just the published stuff, if that’s okay.”

Steve stares at your outstretched hand for several moments, and you’re inwardly cringing and trying to think of a graceful way to recover when he finally shakes it. You have to hold back a relieved sigh as you smile.

“I don’t suppose I could invite you to my Friendsgiving for a second time?” you ask.

Much to your surprise, Steve chuckles. His hand is warm around yours and you shiver once he drops it. You tuck your hands into the pockets of his coat as the two of you turn and start walking back towards your apartment. He measures his stride to keep step alongside you, his body a barrier between you and the surging flow of people on the sidewalk, and you glance up at him with a smile.

“Well, I did leave my bowl,” he says, smiling down at you.

“Of course. That’s irreplaceable, so you’ll have to come back and get it. And while you’re here, you might as well stay for some dinner. I’d hate to send you home hungry.”

He holds open the door to your building and you duck under his arm into the overpowering warmth of the lobby. “Of course,” Steve replies. “That would be rude.”

“And I’d hate to have you think I’m a bad host.” You’re still smiling as you head up the stairs and open the apartment door, and you and Steve are greeted once again by your friends, most of which had never even realized that you’d disappeared. They’re none the wiser to your little escapade, and to Steve’s identity, but that’s just another thing that you’re thankful for.

Thank you for reading! If you liked this, please consider reblogging my work so that others can enjoy it too.

I do not consent to have my work posted, translated, or published to any third party site or app. If anyone sees my work anywhere other than my personal tumblr, Patreon, or ao3 accounts, it has been reposted without my permission.

If you want to support me further, consider buying me a ko-fi! My ko-fi is also under my SPN fanfiction blog, but I promise it’s me.

If you would like to be added to my tags, please send me a message or an ask! I tag for Everything, Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Thor Odinson, and Peter Parker.

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chuuyascumsock · 7 months

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Helloooo

That rat reaction pic was both adorable and had me laughing my ass offf(my sense of humor is lowkey highkey kinda broken so apologies 😭)

ALSO

ME??? A MONSTERFUCKER??????HUH?? THAT SOUNDS DEPLORABLE! But youre right so anyway- (kinda actually saw a monsterfucker bingo and did it{yknow just for funsies and shi} and like i ticked off 10 of the 24 boxes? i mean i think thats enough to qualify??? Right??)

okie soo umm i kinda waited too long to type out the thoughts and they um *disssipated* so immm kinda gonna string together the crumbs i still remember🥲

(Also like to clarify when i say werewolf,i kinda mean like the something between like that one halloween official art and atsushi when he’s in his weretiger form?)

Imagine werewolf chuuya who just cant keep his hands off you when he’s in heat,he just NEEDS you,CARNALLY

While you’re cooking dinner he’ll come up behind you and wrap his arms around you,nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck,lightly nibbling on your skin and just slightly grinding his crotch into your ass.

After a while you can feel his hard on and how hes desperately trying to hold himself back.

so you do the only sensible thing you can think of~

You turn around and kiss him~

You have no idea how it escalated from a passionate kiss to this,but now he has you bent over the kitchen island,your underwear discarded and forgotten while he frees his hard cock from his now-tight pants.he coats his dick in lube and precum before he thrusts into your rear,(although he’d love to go right at it,he knows your only human and would never want to hurt you) going at an inhuman speed and illicitting the most lewd little sounds for you~

His claws sinking into your hips to hold you in one place,all the while he’s letting out breathy “good girl/boy” and “that’s it take it hnghh you take me so good doll” s as he ruts into your ass.as he feels his climax nearing he goes harder and deeper his throbbing cock continuously hitting your g-spot causing you you whine and moan out loud,all which makes him go harder,the feeling of your tight little hole driving him over the edge and when he finally comes its thick sticky and he doesn’t let a single drop seep out.he continues rutting into you,fuckin his come back into you while keeping you locked in a mating press.after around two to three more rounds(now having moved to the bedroom) he slows down and makes sure your okay.he loves to see the fucked out look on your face as he cleans you up and as he sees your silly little hole white and glazy with his come he has to resist the urge to plug you up and let you stay that way until your next session,but if youve previously said your okay with it he’s definitely gonna do it-

Once your tucked in all nice clean (and *cough*plugged up) he gets into bed as well spooning you and lightly licking the bites and hickey now covering your neck and collarbone.

(I wanna add some more but i think this is already long enough.i hope this makes sense and sounds coherent at least,i think i got a little lost in the sauce🥲)

Also yess i saw that voyeurism tag👀👀👀 (got me wet just thinking about it🫣)

Ooh and also of smut,fluff,angst and crack,What’s your favorite??

And bestie(am i allowed to call you that?) im like 99.99% your irl personality is just as great as your online one🙄🤚

That isnt debatable btw🫶

I speak facts not fiction 😌

Well except for the smut,that’s fictional-

ACTUALLY NO FRICK IT THATS FACTS TOO!🙌

And to end this silly,goofy and unreasonably long ask id just like to wish you a lovely day/afternoon/evening/night filled with snackies,dopamine-inducing events and a lot of,as you said, H2hoe!

Stay safe and slay safe😌💅🏻

(Help its 4.50 am😭🥲)

-🧀

YOU DID, YOU DID GET LOST IN THE SAUCE, YOU WERE DROWNING IN IT 😭 BUT IT WAS GOOD SAUCE, DELICIOUS SAUCE EVEN. (Fr made me choke on my mango and everything while reading).

Glad you specified that you didn’t mean Chuuya like full furry mode or that would’ve been awky 💀

Literally Chuuya— but THAT WAS SO GOOD ACTUALLY. I can’t believe you wrote almost a full smutshot in my inbox, you should rlly write this down and post your own smut LMAO.

I forgot to add something to my Detective Chuuya summary, but it’s ok, I fixed it 🤭

My favorite genre is crack, I feel like I write top tier crack ngl, my Ai chats also look insane with all the silly stuff I do with the characters (literally mostly Dazai bc I kin him so doing platonically silly shit w/ him is my comfort).

AND YES YOU CAN CALL ME BESTIE— I feel like we’re definitely past that 😈 But I will have to deny my irl personality being just as good as my online one because I am socially inept 🥰

ALSO GET SOME SLEEP BESTIE CAUSE THAT’S SUPER IMPORTANT (I’m a hypocrite). BUT EAT A GOOD BREAKFAST AND FUCK UP THOSE CLASSES 💪😼

#casual asks #chuuya x reader #chuuya nakahara x reader #chuuya smut

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sortumavaara · 2 years

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Growing fondness - and that which was cut short too soon

My beloved 1st piece of trsb22, also known as “Dusk”. This one will have no fic as its pair as the author who chose it is no longer with us.

I did not feel it right to ask anyone to take on the enormous task of completing one for me by the event’s deadline. It had been a dream come true to be chosen by my dearly missed author as they were an idol for me, but unfortunately some things aren’t meant to be.

I have decided to post this art, regardless of the fact there will be no other half by the end of the event, as a memory in hopes that it can still be enjoyed by others, even if the person who claimed no longer can.

Along with “Dusk” there is also a variant I made, that I call “Dawn”. With “Dawn”, I have included the original prompt, so you may imagine what the fic could have been or, if are so inclined, write a memento piece to go along with it.

Perhaps a giant cut down will sprout new saplings and the world will still be a merry place.

the prompt as it originally was: Glorfindel/Erestor (M/M) For this piece E & G have known each other for a while; first as co-workers but now have become friends of sort. The current deal with them is their (borderline alcoholic tendency) to get lost in the sauce once a tenday while complaining about the things they have to put up with. (You can get as mean as you'd like.) Somehow this always ends up with them sharing a bed (see picture). Imladris 2nd age.

MH: Deepening relationship between E & G, sharing a bed (at least one awkward morning would be appreciated) Do-not-want: Character deaths. If you want to put in something that would need a tag on ao3 just let me know and it'll probably be cool

@tolkienrsb if you feel this doesn’t belong, let me know and I will untag it.

#erestor #glorfindel #tolkien #glorestor #trsb22 #glorfindel/erestor #I wish we had talked sooner my beloved author #I wish we could have been good friends someday #keiliss

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hushed-chorus · 1 year

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Hello friends, and may this Wednesday be kind to you all! Or, like, super-dramatic and exciting; whatever takes your particular fancy. Thank you to everyone who tagged me on Sunday.

I’m making slow and steady progress with What Remains After The Storm. This past week I've mainly worked out some microscale issues; problem-solving small details and trying to get some scenes right. I’ll get into some proper writing again soon.

Here’s a little excerpt from the upcoming Chapter 5. Baz really wants to wash in the nearby stream, but his tail is proving an impediment and he’s not willing to accept Simon’s proffered solution.

“Let me carry you to the stream.”

I groan. “No.”

Snow wanders up to Rozen, whispering “there, there” as he gently shoos her away. His lips (Oberon, such lips) take on a playful tweak. “There’s soap waiting down there. Lavender soap. And clean clothes.”

“Delightful.” I scoff, despite how much I want both.

“And maybe you’ll catch yourself a little fishy.”

Yes, the fish in that pie was hardly satisfying. Cooked and drenched in sauce. I want my stare to convey annoyance, but Snow’s little laugh tells me I’ve let myself down.

Well, I’m absolutely not going to the bloody stream now.

Hello tags and a personal update (good news cosplaying as bad news) under the cut!

@johnwgrey @artsyunderstudy @erzbethluna @facewithoutheart @captain-aralias @raenestee @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @yeonjunenby @cutestkilla @ivelovedhimthroughworse @larkral @stitchyqueer @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @sailorblossoms @ileadacharmedlife @confused-bi-queer @aristocratic-otter @tea-brigade @whogaveyoupermission @nightimedreamersworld @fatalfangirl @thewholelemon @onepintobean @chen-chen-chen-again-chen @shrekgogurt @theearlgreymage @martsonmars

I’ve finally got a diagnosis for my chronic pain condition! The beast is named fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia doesn’t have a cure, and I’ve already implemented most of the suggestions for managing the condition. So why do I consider this good news?

Firstly, the ‘living with chronic pain’ part of all this has lost its sting. I’d already accepted that there was no fix, just ways to try to manage it. I’ve already grieved the things I’ve lost and learnt to live on a more “day by day” basis.

The reason I’m happy is because, when I’m in a situation where my chronic pain is a barrier, I no longer have to try and communicate that I have an invisible, undiagnosed and debilitating health problem (and hope it’s taken at least half-way seriously). It’ll be easier to communicate that I have a health problem, thus easier for me to find accommodations or explain my actions.

Just saying “I have fibromyalgia” isn’t going to solve all of these issues, but it will make my life just that little bit easier. Yay!

#wip wednesday #mer!baz #merman bullshit #ocean bullshit #What Remains After The Storm #WRATS #your merman can have a little fishy every now and then #as a treat

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serenaberngraves · 11 months

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this or that? tag game

I wasn’t tagged but I’m tagging along with @rownanisntwriting who left the floor open :) You can read their answers here!

historical or futuristic

The fantasy genre has been so dominated by Tolkien that I basically default to historical settings. It requires a lot of googling since I’m not the kind of person that really cares about history, oddly enough. I try to balance being somewhat accurate and hoping the reader is more invested in the events than the setting :’)

I think another part of it is that I don’t feel very confident in my ability to design futuristic technologies; whenever I try, I end up trying to draw my own blueprints and getting lost in the sauce. I find it more comfortable to rely on stuff that has already existed so I can focus on my blorbos

the opening or closing chapter

Oh my GOD how I love beginnings! I get to seduce the reader and oh how I like to play coy.

Closing chapters are wonderful in their own right, but it’s a goodbye. I poured my heart and soul into this piece and I never want it to end. Sometimes I actually cry

light & fluffy or dark & gritty

As much as I try to surround myself with nice, pleasant things, all of my work has to include a heavy dose of grit and strife to get that sweet, sweet payoff of relief.

Yes, I’m that guy who puts their blorbos in situations just for the narrative

animal companion or found family

You really made me choose.

It’s in my DNA to create a cast of characters that complement each other. There’s something so compelling about someone feeling like a black sheep, and then meeting people that show them love in a way they’ve never felt before. And that’s probably an insight about me but we won’t talk about that

horror or romance

Well I’m currently writing a romance…

Both genres can have a similar structure of suspenseful buildup. I just prefer the release of a romance climax hehe to a horror one. I feel that I can be far more self-indulgent, too >:}

hard magic system or soft magic system

There need to be rules

I often feel like soft magic systems are a copout but don’t take personally bc I know they have their place it’s just my silly little opinion

standalone or series

Whenever I start a standalone it always turns into something more whether I like it or not. I’m either too attached to the world or the characters — or both — to let them rest. I have to keep poking around in there…

one project at a time or always juggling 2+

Bruh I have so many. But I’m only actively working on one at a time.

one award winner or one bestseller

Awards don’t mean anything to me.

I’d much rather my work reach a wide audience that enjoys my story <3 also awards can’t buy me a new couch

fantasy or sci-fi

DRAGONS AND WEREWOLVES AND VAMPIRES AND HIPPOGRIFFS AND MAGIC ALL DAY BABYYYYYY

character description or setting description

I’m trying to be better, but describing people has always been tough for me. “He’s tall with blond hair and has the correct amount of limbs. Also he’s wearing clothes.”

Whereas describing a setting I find it much easier to delve right into the mood.

Realistically the two aren’t so different — something in my mind just blanks when I’m trying to tell you what a person look like. I think part of me wants the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks; your image of the villain based on his demeanour, dialogue, and actions is the most compelling version.

first draft or final draft

Again — I have a hard time with goodbyes!

The first draft is filled with emotion: frustration, enthusiasm, novelty, disappointment, desperation, epiphany! The roller coaster is not an easy one to ride, but dear god it makes me feel alive

love triangle in everything or no romantic arcs

…I love a love triangle, but in everything? No, there are too many ideas and concepts to explore than has nothing to do with romance.

But I mean, it would be funny to insert a love triangle in every work. It would be a running gag. It doesn’t have to be the main characters — make it some tertiary characters. If I had a following, I would go feral waiting for my readers to guess who would be in the triangle this time

constant sandstorm or rainstorm

I think a constant rainstorm would be kind of dreary in a setting but having to think about how crusty a sandstorm is would make my skin itch. I couldn’t possibly endure

We’re at the end! I also don’t have anyone in mind to tag, so if you’re up for it tag me in your responses! :)

#misc #this or that #tag game #writeblr

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scoups4lyfe · 1 year

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Bipolar Essay Extra #4

A solid a$$ explanation of BD from Ian:

So, to add in some of my own experience here, I'll put in some of my journal entries, and then go a little in-depth:

[Friday, June 3rd 2022]

(20:54 — 8:54 PM)

Oh, great. The insanity is back.

Now, this type of insanity is hard to describe. Just…wired energy. Like anxious energy spazzing through me like I just took 9 shots of caffeine.”

(End of entry.)

My thoughts:

Okay--so I still vividly remember the energy. Ian said there's so much energy, so much ideas, and that it gets to a point where you start losing sanity, and that's the point I was at. I just had all this energy inside of me, my mind was going 200 miles a minute but with 3 different voices, my hands were trembling, and I couldn't do anything because the energy was too my mortal coil to handle 🤪.

...

[September 15th 2022 — Thursday, 2:24 AM. ]

Currently fvcking tripping right now. I don’t think my mood stabilizers are doing the thing that they should be doing. Like I am out of my mind right now. I feel inSANE. Not bad-insane yet, but I know I’m going to have trouble sleeping. I….want to write and draw and watch Donbrothers but all this energy doesn’t want to do any of this. Like for some reason I want to go out running and screaming maybe, like I could jog five miles— but? This energy does not want to write or draw or watch sh*t or liveblog. It’s frustrating, but I can’t even be frustrated? Because my mood is just elevated lol. I feel fvcking crazy right now.

The Moodswings movie (part 1) for this album [DPR Ian’s] is…something I greatly relate to. I see myself in that video. That’s me. Dude, it’s like looking through a mirror. Damn, it just reminded me of how shaky I was like a month ago when my thoughts wouldn’t stop racing and I felt like I was spiraling out of control at work. Dude that sh*t was hard. Right now I feel good, but I know this high isn’t….normal lol. These last few days have been somewhat like this, but this is the most energized and elated I feel. To the point that I can’t even get upset. Like, yoINks.

[End of entry]

Bro I hit that euphoric mania and got lost in the sauce And --warning ahead, the next entry I'm putting under this one was when I was deep into that euphoric mania. You can tell too cause my thoughts are all over the place.

[October 3rd, 2022]

Monday, 5:35 PM

Too Much, Too Much, All at Once, ah FvCK

Everything is glowing. Like all the light sources are especially bright and so it’s hard to focus on any one thing because all this light is shining at me and my eyes are going in and out of focus. Right now I can’t stare at the computer screen. I can’t focus on it, it’s like my eyes start seeing everything in this room at once, and it’s all so bright, and I can’t think when it’s like this. Tomorrow is trash pick up day, so I finally got the garbage out of my room and …now there is a lot more space— fvck. I feel like I’m trembling but it’s not my body—maybe just my eyes.

Man trying to gesture draw like this is going to be real sh*tty I can already tell.

Uh, I hope this entry is coherent, I don’t feel very coherent right now. Just zazzed.

I got a tab up, “Guide to Mental Health Acronyms,” because I want to finally know and remember what the fvckin acronym for “bipolar disorder” is. BitJazz borderline personality making everything all complicated. (Damn, mfer I am TRIPPING.)

[6:12 PM] WhOOPS—sorry, y’all. Got distracted texting J (and then this other acquaintance). Though all I’m inclined to text rn is just nonsense gibberish, occasionally in a nonsense rhyme scheme, and featuring a few thrown in completely-made-up words that just feel right. Man, on tumblr today — I was on the manic depression tag — I saw a post talking about grandeur delusions, but their delusions were “the belief that I could finally change for the better, start eating healthy everyday, working out everyday, cooking and cleaning everyday” and I was like—

Damn, holmes! I guess I was more fvcked outta my mind then I thought. (I remember, idk how many weekends ago, having that same exact thought process and feeling because DAMN was I capable in that moment—ah. )

[6:28 PM]

Sorry—was texting an acquaintance again. Wanted to share the above meme, and so I sent it once, and then a few texts later I sent it again. (Because it makes me laugh, LOL!!!!) Anyways, when I read tha— I need to get myself some more multivitamins lest I evaporate and die.

FVCK

[6:40 PM]

Damn I wish I could read. Right, right—that tab with the Mental Health Acronyms thing. Riiiiight. The Mental Health Acronyms tab ,,, the tab involving mental Health Acro—

(lol)

[8:28 PM]

I’ve done some gesture drawing. Decided to move the 30 second timer (since I’ve done 70 drawings with it) to 2 minutes. My mind is fireworks. AAhhHHHHLHH;hhHH. Just read a tumblr post that said, “Being manic is feeling stuck in a perpetual loop of vertigo” and yah. I’ll drink to that bro. (LOL).

I just found the perfect description. (Found, in my own thoughts, that is.) Right now, what I’m experiencing is like if I put on those red+blue 3-D glasses at the movie theater, except it's not red or blue, just light and so now I’m tripping tf outta my mind.

(Unrelated) But a solid description of how I’ve been with my money these last like 5 months, literally the equivalent of: “Wow! I spent $50 on buttons in a variety of colors because I saw them and thought, ‘aw those are such cute little fkin buttons! I can place them all over my house and every time I see one I’ll be filled with immense joy because they’re just so fkin cuteeeeeeeeeee.’ And then when the buttons arrive being like, “What the fvck???/ What tHE FVCK?????” But then buying $50 more like 2 weeks later.

Absolutely, 3 billion percent embarrassing behavior.

[End of entry excerpt ....it goes on for much longer LOL]

Anyways, I think these do a good job of showing what the mind of someone going through a manic episode is like--constantly switching thoughts, getting distracted, not all coherent, yada yada yada.

PPT Essay: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]

PPT Essay Extras: (1), (2), (3), (4)

Visuals of a Depressive Episode: (1), (2)

Journal Entries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

[Prev]. [Next]

#my thougts #bipolaire #bipolar disorder #manic depression #actually bipolar #mental health #neurodiversity #neurodivergencies #dpr ian #dpr we gang gang #christian yu #fvcking moodswings ⚡️✌️#a scoup of life 🔫🦆

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lokilickedme · 2 years

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Since I’m now apparently this town’s version of Steve Harrington I’m going to have to start an OPC ISTG tag (Other People’s Children I Swear To God) because the generation I’m working with have zero peopleing skills and even less common sense and if I have to say “that’s not how life works babydoll” one more time I’m going to stand with my mouth open under the hot caramel dispenser on Monday morning and dare management to say a word to me.

Last week a teen girl who’s been working there only slightly longer than I have was following me around, micromanaging literally every move I made with the haughty tone of a boss trying to bully a worker into quitting. She’s recently turned 18 and acts like this to everyone. I, being the mom of two boys (one of whom is a teenager almost as old as this girl) have complete mastery over the unconcerned dismissive “Okay thanks” response that precedes turning around and walking off to the point where I can do it without the victim even realizing I’m humoring and subsequently ignoring their annoying ass. But this girl is relentless and after just about two hours of nonstop badgering I stood up from where I’d been loading the vanilla sauce and said our manager’s name, loud enough to be heard in the lobby.

Teen girl stopped where she stood, silent for the first time all morning, obviously confused.

And then she started in on me again.

“Actually the way we normally do it is you - “

“Okay thanks hon, why don’t you go take care of your own business now I got this.”

“Well actually - “

“Okay, I guess we’re doing this the other way then. KATRINA!!”

Our manager (Katrina) pokes her head out of the office and I head straight for her and proceed to spend the next two minutes telling her why I’m going to walk out and unlock my bike and go for a nice long ride around town during the upcoming lunch rush if she doesn’t do one thing and one thing only, and that is to get Teen Mansplainer away from me so I can work without the constant haranguement of a know it all child yammering at my face.

Manager immediately sends Teen Mansplainer home, because of the two of us I’m the only one who does much of anything besides talking and I’m also the one she hopes won’t quit because I’m literally the only adult on staff except her (and I’m 20 years older than her as well). Teen Mansplainer grabs her gear and leaves without a word, but I yell “Be careful going home babe!” as the door slams behind her.

She’s off the schedule for the next two days, which are coincidentally my two other workdays for the week.

Have I mentioned that I love Katrina the manager?

So on Friday I’m home enjoying the start to my weekend when I get a call from an unknown number, but it’s local and I’m expecting a call from my maxillo-craniofacial surgeon, so I answer it. It’s not my maxillo-craniofacial surgeon.

It’s Teen Mansplainer.

She proceeds to whine to me that she didn’t get enough hours last week and she’s not going to get enough hours next week either because she’s suddenly only scheduled for two days instead of her normal five (coincidentally her two days on are my two days off LOL) and anyway, could she have my Monday shift?

I think I must have sat there with my mouth open and speechless for a full minute. She got sent home and taken off the schedule for harassing and constantly bothering me and then had the unmitigated balls and testicles to call me up (dunno how she even got my number) and ask if she could have one of my workdays to make up the time she lost by being an annoying little asshole...to me.

My my my, what do we have here? Is it a consequence? Oh my goodness look at all this consequence coming back on me as a result of my own actions, wow, didn’t see that coming!

I tell her no and hang up.

Other people’s children, I swear to god.

This week should be interesting if she’s managed to wrangle any days out of anyone else and we happen to overlap in the process. I’ve made it clear to management that I have two other places ready to give me better positions than this one and the only reason I chose this job was because it’s right next to my house, but I can absolutely ride a little bit further to get away from the noxious self importance of kids that don’t belong to me, all she’s gotta do is not take me serious.

My manager is extremely understanding on this matter.

Today is Sunday. She’s called me twice to make sure we’re cool and that I’m coming in on Monday.

Watch, in just about two weeks I’m gonna get a raise.

I give Teen Mansplainer just about the same amount of time before she’s turning in her application at Wendy’s.

#other people's kids #I stg #there's an entire generation out here that never got raised #they just spawned and got turned loose on the world #and they suck lol #manager and I have both tried fruitlessly to teach this kid how to act right #it slides right off her purple-dyed skull #this is my rant for the week now I return you to your regularly scheduled programming

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embossross · 2 years

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From His Mind to Yours

Chapter 5 >> Chapter 6 >> masterlist

✣ REPOSTING because it got eaten in the tags

✣ Pairing: Hanma x AFAB fem!Reader

✣ Warning: 18+, minors DNI; unhealthy relationships & dark content

✣ Chapter CW: Exhibitionism (Hanma), Voyeurism (reader), oral (m receiving – not with reader), conversations about drugs (meth)

✣ Story CWs: patient/doctor relationships; smut (oral, ptv, pta, etc.), degradation, stalking, torture (not of y/n), murder, discussions of trauma and abuse, drug use, and more

✣ Synopsis: Forced into therapy, Hanma expects to waste his time and yours, but you’re not about to let the chance of a high-profile and higher paying patient slip through your grasp. The fact that you’re both attracted to each other doesn’t hurt either.

✣ Word Count: 7.5k+

Diners line up outside the door of the ikazya, only to be turned away. You were lucky to secure a low table for two with tatami mat seating. On a Tuesday at seven in the evening, the bar hums with office workers sharing an obligatory after-work drink. The dim lights force a strange kind of intimacy among colleagues that could not survive under the artificial LED lights of the office. You hoped some of that intimacy would possess you and your companion, but you are disappointed.

Half-empty dishes of gomae-ae, kushiyaki, and hiyyayako litter the table. Sake and beer sweat through glass cups to leave wet rings on the wood. There is a bunched-up napkin from where you spilled soy sauce earlier.

The meal is ending, but you have yet to bridge any of the distance between you and your companion: Miyasato Rie.

A senior of just one year at university, Miyasato has existed at the periphery of your existence for over a decade. In school, your classmates considered her a conscientious senior if a little disingenuous. She purposefully sought out all the first-year psych students, offering study tips, the best spots for a cheap beer, a sympathetic ear for the homesick. She helped you find your first apartment. With her advice, you survived the first few years of university. You are pretty sure she detests you.

“You didn’t finish your dinner,” Miyasato chastises, gesturing at the dishes you picked at earlier.

“I don’t have much of an appetite,” you say.

“Hmm, I suppose that was always true. Remember in school? You would never accept invitations to go out with everyone to dinner,” Miyasato says.

“I couldn’t afford it,” you say.

It was true then, when every yen you earned was shuffled straight into tuition or rent payments. With a full bank account, it’s no excuse now. You lost your appetite ten days ago along with your dignity in the back of a town car. You can’t eat. Coffee and chocolate parfaits are all you can manage. Like your stomach will only accept the very sweet or the very bitter.

“Well, I was surprised when you called me, but we should do this more often. We live so near each other, and it’s lovely to talk to another therapist. My husband tries, but he just can’t understand what it’s like to listen to patients’ problems all day! I don’t want to come home and listen to his next,” Miyasato laughs.

Angular cheekbones and premature sunspots age Miyasato by at least ten years, and you think the lovely young woman who would bully you into attending social get-togethers is gone. You feel sorry for forcing your company on an old acquaintance, not sure what you hoped to get out of this encounter.

Following your brush with death, the emptiness in your life echoes. The unlived in apartment, the cold office, the uncelebrated weekends. You want to regain some connection with the outside world. During university, at Miyasato’s prodding, you were almost a person in the world with acquaintances that bordered on friends.

Now, when you reflect on your life, you feel like you are at an airport, helpless as everyone whisks by you on a moving walkway. No matter how you hurry to catch up and join them, they glide further out of reach. Some people were born on the moving walkway, but you were born on the cold, hard ground. No father, a mother who refused to love you, no money to survive. How could you hope to ever join the moving walkway and its inhabitants, loved from the moment they were born?

The bill paid, you exit onto a quiet street. The red paper lantern above the shop casts Miyasato in a flushed glow.

“Remember what I told you,” Miyasato says. “About Dr. Kasai. If he doesn’t immediately have any openings, tell him that it’s at my referral. He’ll definitely book you then.”

Dinner was not a complete failure, and you thank Miyasato sincerely for sharing Dr. Kasai’s contact info. He is a therapist specializing in the treatment of other therapists. With no appetite and insomnia that stretches the night into little eternities, you recognize that you need help.

A car door slams, loud enough on the quiet street that you glance up and freeze. There is Hanma. You look away and back, but he is still there, looking at you. No illusion. No coincidence.

You make your excuses to Miyasato, who blinks in offense at the abrupt dismissal before heading in the direction of the subway station. Then, you hurry across the street to where Hanma waits for you.

He is dressed down for the heat in a white t-shirt that highlights the easy flex of his arm muscles and black jeans. The tail of a tattoo peaks from the collar, curling at the base of his throat. He isn’t wearing glasses either, and you wonder whether he is currently blind or wearing contacts that so eerily resemble his own natural shade. One side of his lip is red, too full, a little bruised.

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” you demand.

“You cancelled our appointment,” Hanma says, eyes trailing your figure. Dressed up in a little black dress that ends a few scant centimeters above your knees, you are exposed.

“I did,” you agree.

Hanma sighs. “Look, I wanted to give you something.”

His head and torso disappear into the backseat of his car, and then he returns with a bouquet of flowers tucked into a tall porcelain vase painted with red and gold flowers. Your face must show your skepticism because Hanma forcefully places the offering between your palms. It is heavy.

You aren’t well-versed in flowers or their meanings, preferring to grow herbs and vegetables on your balcony garden, but you can pick out several in the overflowing bouquet. There are sprigs of deep purple lavender, blushing hydrangeas, and most of all, there are rich blue morning glories that look clipped straight from the garden.

“You got me flowers?”

“I’ve been taking the lithium as prescribed for eight days now, and I’ve been filling out your little app, and I’ve even made plans with Hakkai for later this week,” Hanma says.

“So, what is this supposed to be? An apology? A peace offering?” Your nose grazes a petal, seeking a sniff of morning glory, but you rear back at the feeling of plastic. “These are fake. They aren’t even real?”

“Exactly. They’ll last longer,” Hanma says.

The dead thing – no, not dead, because dead implies they were ever alive – weighs heavily in your hands. You don’t trust Hanma’s act of contrition. Every piece of this act is calculated to some purpose, most likely to convince you to resume your sessions.

When you reach for a kernel of the rage that drove you before, you can’t find the spark of it. All your anger towards Hanma was used up when you fucked him like a thing possessed, lapping at his blood like milk. You thought of him in the days since, wondered at your next step, but mostly you moped about your unfulfilled life, not much energy spared for Hanma’s place in it.

“This is not appropriate. I cancelled our session for a reason. Now, please call my office during business hours, and my receptionist will help you reschedule,” you say.

“But we’re both here now,” Hanma says, and he smiles in a way that is likely meant to charm, but only makes your stomach twist. You remember he smiled when he pulled the trigger, too.

“I cancelled because I have plans, Hanma-san. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

You move to step off the sidewalk and cross the street, but a bike hurtles past and stops your progress. That one moment of pause is enough for Hanma to try again.

“What plans do you have now?” Hanma argues. “Your only plan was to get dinner with your friend. If you leave now, you’ll have hours with nothing to do but sit in your empty apartment and wait for the sun to rise. Why not come with me instead? At least that way you won’t be lonely.”

There are no pedestrians on the secluded street, but you can hear the low rumble of conversation and laughter slipping through the cracked door of the bar. You live on the tenth floor of your apartment building. The only sounds that reach you there are car horns, sirens, and the roar of an airplane drifting overhead.

You know that you and Hanma are not alike. Not really. The differences stack up like used plates at a sushi bar. He is mercurial, dangerous, uncaring. He feels strongly and acts just as strongly in turn. But, beneath those differences lies a camaraderie, a shared emptiness. You are both life’s window shoppers, looking in through dirty glass at the lives you can’t afford to lead.

Nothing waits for you at home.

“Besides, I have questions about the lithium. Surely, you don’t want me to get lithium toxicity. It sounds dangerous,” Hanma goads.

“You want to discuss your medication?” you say slowly.

Hanma bends at the waist until his face is level with yours. “Yes.”

“I suppose I could accommodate you this once.” Seeing Hanma’s smile tilt too close to satisfaction, you rush to add. “But you’ll need to pay me double for this session. Out of your pocket, not Kisaki-san’s, as it’s your fault I cancelled the session.”

Hanma thumbs a stack of bills, so crisp and pretty you salivate, from his wallet. “This should do it.”

“And I have conditions,” you add, though you wait to pocket the money before continuing. “First, you will never again so much as indicate, no insinuate, that you have a gun while you are with me. If I see it, we’re done. If you gesture to it, we’re done. And I mean completely. Failure to meet these conditions, and I will call Kisaki-san myself to terminate our arrangement for good.”

“A gun? How would I even get a gun in Japan?” Hanma jokes, a tacit acceptance.

“Second, I have a safe word. And get that look off your face. A safe word for our sessions. If I say…Anpanman the session is immediately over. No discussion, no debate. You leave, and I call you to reschedule not the other way around.” You wait for Hanma’s solemn nod before continuing. “Third, no following me around like a stalker. I don’t know how you knew I’d be here today, but that’s the last of it. We meet at my office or a previously agreed upon spot. No finding me on the streets like a creep.”

“It’s really just a coincidence,” Hanma argues.

You shift the vase onto your hip so that you can point a finger at him. “And finally, and most importantly, you do not touch me.”

“Without your permission, yeah, yeah.”

“No. You do not touch me. Period. Ever. Do we understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” Hanma agrees.

He opens the passenger door with a chivalrous flourish, and you worry that he accepted your deal far too easily. Today he drives neither the Bentley from Hell or the town car from Hell…and actually, why do you keep getting in cars with this man when nothing good ever seems to come from it? You wonder if he isn’t running a chop shop with the number of vehicles he flaunts.

Hand on the top of the door, you pause. “Wait. Are you wearing contacts? Or are you blind right now?”

Hanma smiles widely. “Just get in the car, Doc.”

Against your better judgment, you do.

There are two Tokyos. During the day, one hides beneath the other, but at night they converge. The intersection where Hanma belongs squarely to the seedy underbelly when the sun goes down, the Tokyo of nightmares. Touts throng among the crowd, waving flyers and promises of pussy. Every face is underlit in neon, a sinister glow to their features.

Hanma leads you towards a storefront with blacked out windows. Hanging on each is a poster of women in bathing suits, posing with their tongues out or eyes crossed. This is the pleasure district.

“Absolutely not,” you say, stalling to a halt outside the entrance. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I refuse.”

“Oh, come on, Doc. I don’t mean anything by it. I just have business with the owner. We will be in and out,” Hanma says.

“In and out,” you warn.

Hanma slips away to speak to the owner, leaving you seated at the bar. You have never been in a strip club before, and the interior provides a feast for your eyes. Arranged in the western style, there is a single stage at the center of the room and table seating for patrons around it. The only other place to sit is the bar, where rows of liquor hang in glass cabinets. Panels of mirrors surround the stage, so that as a woman toys with the hem of her slip, drawing the fabric higher and higher, the mirror reflects her image out in every direction.

You should have refused Hanma at the door. Already, you are slipping back into the pattern of conceding too much to this man. Despite his claim that he needs therapy today, you barely spoke on the car ride over, merely discussing his recently improved sleeping schedule. Now, he has left you to fend for yourself at a strip club.

The woman on stage shimmies out of her slip entirely, revealing a lithe body and two impossibly large breasts. You don’t consider yourself a prude, but you find yourself staring hard at the bar, anything to avoid looking at her bullseye-shaped nipples.

A shadow appears at your side, tall and lean. You glance up expecting Hanma, but this is a stranger. Dressed in an impeccably tailored suit and towering over you at well over 180 centimeters, he looks like a model. How else to explain the hair-dyed violet?

“Can I buy you a drink?” the man asks. There is a special mortification in being propositioned at a titty bar.

“I can’t. I’m working,” you say, and then cringe when you realize what that implies. “I mean, I don’t work here…I’m a…never mind. I just can’t drink right now.”

The stranger motions to the bartender, who drops the customer he is actively serving to hurry over.

“A bottle of water for the lady,” he orders.

The gesture of respect is ingratiating enough that you shift on your bar stool to open up your space a bit. He slots into the opening without hesitation. It is the subtle language of flirtation, and you can tell he is fluent.

“I saw you come in with a man. Who would leave a woman like you all alone in a place like this?”

“An asshole,” you mutter under your breath, and then louder for this man’s benefit. “We’re not together, and we’re not staying. He has business with someone here. He’s going to be in and out.”

“What kind of business would a respectable man have at a strip club?” he laughs.

You shrug. The intricacies of Hanma’s work are interesting, but you make it a point to know as little as possible about the incriminating details.

“Is this your first time here? You seem…uncomfortable,” the man says.

“You can tell?” you ask dryly. Your fingers dance up and down the side of the water bottle, painting patterns in the condensation. “This isn’t much of a place for a woman. I feel sorry for the girls who work here.”

The man turns around, so that his elbows lean against the bar and casts a surveying eye around the club and the stage where a woman is now griding her panty-covered crotch into the hardwood. Sweat and glitter cover her body in a filthy sheen. Her eyes are closed, and you can only imagine what she thinks in moments like this.

“It’s true that many of the women here are exploited. But there’s something raw, something free about their work, isn’t there? To strip away all of society’s pretenses and reveal the base animal underneath? She knows the truth about men, about people after working here. She knows who the devoted family man truly is, who the buttoned-up businessman hides beneath his tie. And that knowledge equals a kind of freedom, a kind of power. It’s up to her how she wants to use it. That’s freedom.”

“Maybe for some women, but not for me,” you say coldly. This stranger is a honeyed devil in your ear, promising that at the other end of abandoning self-control and dignity lies paradise. It is a convenient myth, and he makes it sound dangerously convincing.

He smiles at you, eyes hooded and attentive, no different than when he trained on the stripper’s naked body, but then he nods. “Well, it was nice to meet you. Maybe you’ll let me buy you a drink next time.”

The man leaves, and you watch him walk right through the front door and out of sight. Very charming, you think, but off somehow. He reminds you of someone, but you can’t quite place it.

No one else approaches you in the five minutes you wait for Hanma to conclude his business. You polish off the water bottle in four, grateful to the stranger as you gulp down the final drops.

When Hanma returns, he doesn’t even meet you at the bar, beckoning with his head for you to join him at a table near the stage. The silent nod, disrespectful, arrogant, sets your teeth on edge. He is so confident that you will participate in your own shame, let him make a mockery of your work, that you won’t ever pull the trigger on him, the way he will on you. You don’ want to go home to your apartment, but you know you can’t stay here any longer.

“This is not in and out, Hanma-san,” you say through gritted teeth as you approach him.

“The owner is getting something for me,” Hanma says. “We just have to wait. Sit down and enjoy the show.”

A new woman saunters on stage to jeers of appreciation from the crowd. Hanma grins wickedly at her legs as they strut by.

“Anpanman,” you blurt out.

The club doesn’t quiet at your invocation of your safe word, but the turmoil in your chest does. You have the power to set your own boundaries. Like a child, Hanma may hurtle himself bodily at each one to test for weakness, but you can reinforce yourself like a castle and stay tall.

“Fair enough,” Hanma says, and the easy submission sends your mind reeling. You thought he would kick and scream and break your conditions. “Do you want a ride home? Or can you make it to the subway alright?”

“I can make it to the station,” you say slowly.

“Alright, I’ll wait for your call to reschedule,” Hanma says.

Already, his eyes return to the dancer on stage. Without his glasses, his scrutinous eyes are twice as intense. You can see the stage reflected in the black pupils; there is no reflection of your own face.

“Why…why do you want to stay so badly?”

“Like I said, I have to wait for the owner. Plus, believe it or not, but this place serves good food. I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.”

Once you watched a documentary that compared pre-modern and modern hunting styles. The trick of trap hunting, it explained, is to camouflage the trap so well that the animal stumbles straight into its death with a smile. Your stomach rumbles from days of fasting. You see the trap, yet you still edge closer.

“I’ll stay but only if we sit over there,” you say, gesturing to the empty table furthest from the stage and its performer. “You need to face away from the stage, too…and you’re buying dinner.”

Hanma snorts, genuinely snorts, a puff of sound from his chest expelled from his nose and says, “Have you considered a career change, Doc? Because you would make a hell of a negotiator. I’ll even put in a good word for you.”

“You can’t afford me,” you sniff.

Stuffed into the corner, you can almost pretend you aren’t at a strip club. The flashing lights are no different than any club you would find in Roppongi, and if you fix your neck in place and focus on Hanma, you can’t see the stage. The music breaks your immersion somewhat, a low, griding bass that settles in your stomach, but the little table where you sit is innocuous.

Hanma orders a plate of chicken wings to share, a beer, and steamed vegetables. He is right that the food here is delicious. Fried and greasy, so that flavor drips onto your tongue. Your hunger must finally be getting the better of you because you find it simple to eat your half of the wings.

“So, you said you wanted to discuss how you’re feeling on lithium,” you prompt as you pick a piece of meat from bone.

“Yeah, or rather, how I don’t feel on lithium.”

“Is it numbing you out?” you ask.

“No, I don’t feel any difference. It’s like you gave me sugar pills or something. I’m going to the damn lab and getting stuck like a pig for bloodwork, and all the while, I don’t feel a damn change,” Hanma says.

“I know you’re used to popping a pill and feeling the effects within the hour, but lithium isn’t like that,” you say. “It takes a month for it to take effect for most people. We want to monitor in the meantime because the difference in dosage between what’s prescribed and lithium toxicity is so narrow, but I don’t expect you to have any real benefits to report for a few weeks yet.”

“And when it does kick in, what should I expect? Because I read through the side effects, and they’re a doozy, Doc. These things better make my dick rock hard and help me grow wings, or I’m going to be disappointed,” Hanma says.

There is a spot of sauce staining his upper lip, which he seems unaware of. He chews on without a care, smearing it further with each bite. You wonder if you should tell him. Decide it’s not your place. Discretely, you wipe your own lips with a napkin.

“The point is to moderate the wild swings up and down that you have in any given day. I looked at your log, and you are all over the place. My hope is that they will help you achieve a more manageable average. Most people remain at a steady baseline from day to day without all these big variations.”

You assigned Hanma the daily log before he threatened both your lives, so you had not expected him to actually follow through. For the past ten days, however, he has steadily logged his moods with little notes to indicate the source of the shift. Favorites include an eight on Friday with the note, ‘pussy,’ and a ten on Sunday with the note, ‘good pussy.’ Other sources that trigger a high or manic episode appear to be hearing a song he likes on the radio, seeing a middle schooler trip on a curb and eat asphalt, and evading a speeding ticket. There are just as many dramatic valleys in his log. Causes range from something as simple as running out of beer or missing a boxing match on TV. What concerns you is how often a peak of ten is followed mere hours later by a craterous one.

“Most people, huh? In my line of work, you don’t see a lot of steady. We must have gathered up all the neurotics in Tokyo,” Hanma says. “What about you though, Doc? Are you most people here?”

“I would say so. I spend most of my day at a steady five with some minor dips up to a six or down to a four. Unless there’s a big exception, I’m not going to leave that zone,” you explain.

A half lie hides in your answer. If you were honest, your baseline dropped to a four recently with a mere papercut pushing you down to a three. Good exceptions are few and far between to the point that you can’t quite remember the last time you were as happy as a six.

Time with Hanma breaks the scale entirely. You can’t say that you are happy or enjoying yourself in his company, but neither can you say that you sustain a bland four like you do throughout the rest of your day. You find your time with him exists in a completely different universe, one with reverse gravity where up is down and north is south.

“Sounds pretty fucking miserable if you ask me,” Hanma says. “Yeah, I sometimes hope a truck takes me out, but I also get to feel the opposite, like the world was made for me. Don’t you wish you spent more time at a ten? Or even just a seven?”

“I guess you’re kind of edging up against that age old question: what is the meaning of life? You actually sound like the Cyrenaics.”

You explain that the Cyrenaics were a Socratic school of thinking in ancient Greece that believed the meaning of life was to maximize the pleasure of every single moment. They argued that because the future was not guaranteed – you could die tomorrow, the unpredictable could tear your best laid plans asunder – it made no sense to do anything but live in the moment.

“It makes sense on paper,” you continue. “If I die tomorrow, don’t I wish I enjoyed every moment of today? But…my mom kind of lived that way, and it ultimately ended with her dying in poverty and agony. The future makes me too anxious. I need to prepare for it, even if that means denying myself something in the moment. Otherwise, I’ll get too worked up to enjoy anything in the present. So, sure I would like to be at a ten more often, but I can’t get there if I’m risking a future one. My brain just doesn’t work that way.”

“I think you just haven’t experienced true pleasure,” Hanma purrs.

“You might want to think that through,” you tease and then remember that you don’t want to remind this man of the pleasure and terror he inflicted upon you.

“I mean it. Real pleasure…it’s addictive. Pain and pleasure have a lot in common. They’re the only two forces in this world that make you exist fully in the present. And I’m talking about true pleasure here, not just a little jolly here or there. True pleasure wipes out everything else. If you have any room in your brain to worry about the future, then you’re feeling something different,” Hanma says.

Once upon a time, you would have dismissed these pretty, seducing words altogether, but you know what he means now after the mind and body games of your last session. There was no moment but the present when you rode his cock, no fear of what came next as you bit through skin to return a fraction of the hurt you felt to him. Thinking back to that time, you don’t remember it being pleasurable in any sense of how you would normally describe the term. Rather, it was transcendent. Not all good, but all-encompassing instead.

“If you never mitigate risk, you will find yourself in a situation where you can’t experience pleasure anymore. Say tomorrow, I quit my job and blow all my money on a shopping spree, that will feel good for a day, and then I’ll be living on the street when rent comes due.” Another example of this philosophy crosses your mind. A necessary reminder that despite the multiple men who have urged you to throw your inhibitions to the wind tonight, there would be consequences to dropping your professional mask. “I think the Epicureans had the right idea of things. They were another school of thought, said that one should maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Though even that I struggle with. No human being could ever get that equation right. Only an omniscient god could aspire to that.”

“You have a tiny, and truly, Doc, I mean miniscule, point there. Delayed gratification is only worth it if the prize is big enough. If I did what I wanted most right now because I might take a bullet tomorrow, that would stop me from getting something one hundred times better in the days to come. Sometimes we have to work for our meal,” Hanma says.

You catch a glimpse of the stripper on stage as she lifts one of her breasts to her mouth and suckles on the nipple. A cacophony of hoots rises up at the lewd act. Heat blossoms in your chest. Hanma’s mouth looks wet from where his beer lingers on his lips, sauce licked away.

“And I plan to eat well,” you toast him, tipping your can of grape soda in his direction. Sometimes you look at Hanma, and all you see is zeroes in your bank account.

“Is that your meaning of life then, Doc? Enriching yourself? And then one day you finally relax and enjoy it?”

“Maybe. I’m more interested in what your meaning of life is,” you counter.

Hanma picks around the bone of a chicken wing, teeth precise as they tear through flesh. A man of endless appetites, he reaches for another.

“I haven’t studied any fancy ideas like you. I don’t know the Epicureans or the whatevers. I don’t know the meaning of life. What I know is what gets me out of bed in the morning. And that’s that there is no alternative. I can’t stay in bed all day, or I’ll die. I can’t stay in bed all day, or I’ll die of boredom. Even if getting out of bed offers nothing better, I have no choice. I don’t think there is a meaning. People just are. We live because we have no choice but to live unless something kills us. And then, we’ll be dead with no choice but to remain dead, same as living.”

You are less studied in “fancy ideas” than Hanma imagines, only taking one elective philosophy course in university. One of your professors suggested you dabble in that side of the human condition as patients often require a grounding purpose to guide their recovery. Still, you recognize in Hanma’s musings the shadow of a real philosophical framework.

“That sounds like pessimistic naturalism. Some nihilist thought considers boredom the inevitable foundation of life. They say nothing humans do is ever meaningful enough to matter, so we suffer from boredom as a result. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s definitely not helpful. So many things already bring you joy, so isn’t it better to recognize that those things are inherently meaningful because they matter to you? That goes back to the mood stabilizers. I want to get you to the point where you can suffer a low period because you know that a high – which is the whole meaning of your life – is around the corner,” you explain.

Inconsiderate of everyone around him, Hanma lights a cigarette. He nods along as he puffs a plume of smoke that dances erotically overhead before disappearing into the neon lights. There is no ashtray at the table, so he dabs the stub into a table napkin.

“Sounds good to me. I know good things are coming,” Hanma says with a nerve-inducing smile.

“What is your goal exactly?”

“Oh no, Doc. That’s classified information,” Hanma tuts. More seriously, he adds, “I’m not sure what I’m going to do after I finally…get what I want. If I still have years of life ahead of me, I can’t picture myself old. I look around at other people and how they define their lives around money or success or family. I already have money and success, have had it since I was young. Nothing left to do there. And, I never had a loving family. Once I’ve done everything there is to do…I don’t know what’s next.”

Sharp pain slices through you, and you realize you were picking the skin of your cuticles raw. A bead of blood wells on your ring finger, and you pop the wound into your mouth. The bleeding stops, but the wound sits open and red. Pointedly, you fold your hands in your lap.

Without a family as a template for how to interact in the world, you often feel formless. There is a very clear schedule that women are expected to follow: it’s okay to worry about your career in your twenties, but your primary responsibility is to become a wife. Then, your thirties and forties are defined by the role of mother. Maybe a short break in your fifties to focus on yourself as a person, but then you’re hurtled back into the role of grandmother to wait for death. Even more career-minded women, like Miyasato, capitulate to the template and tell you their families come first.

Every choice you make is dedicated not to family but the accumulation of a fat nest egg that will keep you secure in your advanced years. Never mind that you don’t know what you will actually do with yourself once you retire and money is no longer the motivator.

Would you find a hobby? You love to cook, already dedicating two hours every evening to the preparation of multi-course meals, researching new recipes, and shopping around for rare ingredients. In retirement, you could embark on some kind of cooking challenge, like learning a dish from every country in the world. And then, you could set those scrumptiously prepared dishes out to a table of one, eat a few bites, and watch the garbage consume the rest.

You are aware that you are feeling sorry for yourself, but it is hard not to when even the bartender at the titty club is laughing and bantering with customers who know him by name.

“Well, I think you’re in no danger of doing everything life has to offer,” you say after too much time passes. “Focus everything you have on your goal for now, and then, if you achieve it, you’ll find something else to look forward to.”

The conversation draws naturally to a close. Good timing, as you see a man moving in your direction. He is dressed in a white button-down and gold jewelry, limp black hair combed to conceal a receding hairline. A waitress smiles solicitously as he passes, and you know he must be the owner.

“Hanma-san,” the man greets with a blow. To you, he gives a half nod, like he is unsure what courtesy you merit. “I spoke to my colleague about the situation, and we are in agreement. Thank you for trusting us with this. As a token of our appreciation, please enjoy your time here to the fullest. On the house, of course.”

He passes Hanma a folded-up napkin. Inside is a baggie filled with white crystals, almost pretty in the light. You have never seen drugs in person, but you can recognize crystal meth from your textbooks.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Hanma says.

“Um, I mind,” you say immediately. The owner starts like he’s heard a gunshot. “You absolutely cannot take that while on lithium. You are going to overdose and die, and then where will you be?”

Hanma rolls his eyes. “Ten feet under, I suspect.”

“We just had an entire conversation about how you have to live to achieve your goals,” you snap, and then turning to the owner. “Thank you for your…generosity but take it back.” The owner is so pale his black eyes stand out like bugs on his face. He does not move to confiscate the meth.

“You have a point. How about a quid pro quo? If I can’t have my fun now, you need to help me have my fun some other way,” Hanma suggests.

“Not just tonight. All the time. You absolutely cannot take any drugs while you’re on lithium. I shouldn’t have let you even drink that beer, but I allowed it because it was just one. You need to be careful,” you snap.

“Let me…” Hanma rolls the words around on his tongue consideringly.

“Let you,” you restate firmly.

“Well, then, if my life means so much to you. I’m sure you’ll agree to a little something in return.”

Disastrously, you do.

There are nine beautiful women working the club tonight. Every one of them is paraded before Hanma for his selection. Each woman is as beautiful as the last, one for every imaginable type: curvy, lithe, glamorous, oxymoronically demure. Hanma picks a woman with long dark hair, dressed more like an idol than a stripper in a frilly multi-colored dress, who calls herself Naomi.

Officially, the club offers lap dances in a row of cubicles partitioned by black curtains that are mere bolts of fabric. Naomi confidently leads you past these seedy receptacles to a private backroom.

The room is dark, lit up by the same pink and purple lighting as the rest of the club. There is a small stage at the front – presumably for private shows, but you suspect is really covers for the illegal activities conducted here – and a three-cushion couch opposite it, where Hanma immediately seats himself. You demure from joining him, choosing instead to sit on the stage. The platform is raised, so your feet dangle off the floor.

“How should we start, Doc? What would you like to see first?” Hanma asks, voice battling the loud EDM music blaring from a TV in the corner.

“I want no part in this. I’m here per our agreement. That’s it,” you say.

“Why did I figure you’d say that?” Hanma laughs.

“Pretend I’m not even here.”

“Does that mean I shouldn’t even look at you?”

“Yes.”

Hanma agrees easily, which surprises you, makes you wary. You wrap your arms around your body protectively to ward off the cold. A fan winds listlessly above your head and an HVAC blows cool air directly onto your skin. Dancing must be sweaty work.

With no regard to the cold, Naomi shimmies out of her garish dress, revealing a pair of panties and no bra. You try not to look but instinctively catalogue the curves of her exposed body and judge it against your own.

You look up, anything to avoid leering at the two of them. But, above their heads, is a mirror mounted to the ceiling that reflects the action back to you. From this angle, you can’t see the expression on Hanma’s face, but you have an unfettered view of his dick, hard and wet.

Naomi lowers to her knees in front of the couch, so that you are presented with her back. She unbuttons Hanma’s pants. This is the first time you’ve see the cock that was inside you. Hanma’s cock sits tall and curved against his stomach. Black hair, the same color as what trails down his stomach thatches at the base.

The head of Hanma’s cock is red and angry, more inflamed than Naomi’s pink tongue as it strokes along the underside.

Long, wet brushes of tongue. Barely started and strands of thick saliva already cling to Naomi’s chin as she slobbers all over the shaft. The impressive length of him becomes glaringly obvious when Naomi holds his cock against her cheek. The tip extends beyond her forehead, the cock taller than her entire head. And that fat, angry, red cock, had been inside you.

As Hanma receives a professional grade blow job, he leans back like nothing is happening. He lights yet another cigarette. The smell of smoke is eaten up by the air freshener that pumps away from an outlet near the stage.

Even as Hanma’s cock is worshipped, you are undeniably aroused.

Naomi moves to suck on Hanma’s balls, face tilted upward, so that you can make out her features through the ceiling mirror. Now that you look closely, there are some surface-level similarities between the two of you. Something in the line of her jaw, similar age. Glancing down, you think the way her ass sits, dimpled as it rests on her high heels is similar as well, the shape of it.

The similarities are enough that if you squint, you can almost imagine that is you on your knees. That you are seated before Hanma like a supplicant.

Naomi abruptly swallows half of Hanma’s cock, making space for something that should not possibly fit.

You touch the base of your neck carefully. Feel the hard cartilage beneath the flesh.

Hanma is different than you might have imagined. Not that you did. Somewhere instinctually, you simply envisioned that he would be rougher with a lover, forcing a woman’s head down and ignoring the choking. The kind of thing you see in porn. Instead, he dominates Naomi’s movements with a casual certitude that doesn’t require roughness. He makes little corrections to her technique with a tug of her hair or a push on her head. Never enough to make her gag, just a signal to adjust.

Your earlier conversation about the pursuit of pleasure returns to you. Perhaps it’s his confidence in the value of pleasure that grants him this effortless ability to pursue it now. You remember nights in the dark, when a lover missed your clit over and over, mashing uselessly at your labia, and you simply let him. Too detached to correct his form.

The intensity of the blow job increases by degrees. First, Naomi’s throat opens up, more of Hanma’s length caressed and sucked with each bob of her head. Then, her hands join in a sticky rhythm to massage the base of him. A line of spit dangles off his shaft every time Naomi returns to the head and is then swallowed up again on the downward descent.

Throughout, Hanma never glances in your direction. His eyes stare to the side and the door, or they study the woman on her knees. He follows your instructions to pretend you’re not there to the letter, and you desperately wish he would stop.

For the first time since you saw him on the street tonight, you feel a yawning distance, like there’s a glass wall, between you both. He is having an experience completely separate from you that you can’t hope to touch. You can’t reach him. You hate it. No different than if you were alone in your living room, scanning through cable TV for lack of anything better to do.

Because he is not looking, you don’t think too carefully as you uncross your arms, and let your fingers trail down the exposed skin of your arms. It tickles a little, a tease that chills your body and heats the spark in your stomach. You shouldn’t do this, vowed that you would not let him touch you again, but you deserve pleasure, too. Don’t you?

Again, you rub tenderly at the flesh of your neck, the shell of your own ear. You watch Naomi as you do. No matter how bored he looks, Hanma must feel good with Naomi laboring over his cock, and now you do too. You feel the distance between you shrink a little, a crack in the glass that separates you from him.

The look on Naomi’s face galvanizes you. Shimmering in her eyes are unshed tears, a furrow to her brow as she forces past her gag to satisfy him. Hanma’s cock must be a battering ram in her throat. You wonder if she is soaked through at having such a big cock inside her. If you were in her place, you would be.

You can’t resist escalating when such simple touches light your blood from within. You rub your bare thighs together to put pressure on your cunt. You pinch your nipples through the fabric of your dress. They are painfully hard, and you bite your lip to contain a gasp at the excruciating contrast.

If Hanma looks at you now, honest and shameless in your feelings, you will combust.

He doesn’t look. Emboldened by his continued obedience, you ruck your dress up over your hips, revealing your panties. They are damp, hardly a barrier as the fabric presses into your folds. You search for your clit and find it peeking (and peaking) through your clitoral hood. Sparks fly in your stomach at the barest graze of your fingertips over the fabric. Greedy, you rub it firmly.

Already, you are close to an edge and desperate to tip over. You imagine Hanma might be as well. You imagine that you are on your knees with that hard cock battering the inside of your throat. He was piercing in your cunt, and he would be in your throat, too, no matter how gently he treated you. He wouldn’t pull out. He would blow his load down your throat, and you would swallow him down with a smile. He would return the favor, drinking from the source of you, eating your pussy with no mercy until you cried.

You couldn’t stop your orgasm now if you wanted to. It approaches with terrible certainty. Your thighs quake before the crest and you close your eyes against the demand it makes of your body. Heat flares, and you whimper pathetically. When you cum, it will damn you.

Your eyes flutter open at the height of the peak and find Hanma’s staring you down. Not through the mirror. Direct eye contact as he strokes his own cock while Naomi mouths at his balls. You cum on the spot.

Your whole body seizes up with it, pussy begging as it flutters around nothing. Waves of euphoria wash from your stomach to your cunt to your fingertips as you buck and moan and continue to rub your aching clit through it. Just as you think the waves are weakening, Hanma grunts and cums on Naomi’s face. The sound incites you, and two more waves of pleasure burst unnaturally from your clit.

Later, you will castigate yourself for your choices today. If only you showed more self-control. If only you remembered your responsibilities as a therapist. Using your body has worked to a degree in capturing his interest and maintaining his focus, but it is not sustainable. You can’t sell your body and pleasure to Hanma in exchange for cooperation.

But, for now, as you slump backwards on the stage, back cold and chest heaving, you can only think that you are doing a damn good job at maximizing your pleasure.

And a damn bad one at minimizing your pain.

#hanma shuji #hanma smut #tokyo revengers smut #tokyo revengers x reader smut #tokyo rev smut #hanma x reader #from his mind to hers

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ferusaurelius · 2 years

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tag 10 people you want to get to know better! I was tagged by @bluerose5 and @bonksoundeffect -- both wonderful fellow creative people. thank you for thinking of me!

relationship status: SINGLE AND FERAL (like my name don’t you know)

favorite color: wine (a slightly purple-y maroon, in some lights) and/or warm reddish brown

favorite food: lentils if I had to choose one thing to eat on a desert island, otherwise trout

song stuck in your head: Ferrari (james hype, miggy dela rosa)

last thing you googled: movie times at the local theater.

dream trip: unsure? I’ve been a bit of a mess over the pandemic and I travel semi-regularly for various conferences. there are a few remote things I’d like to do and/or arrange with outfitters so I don’t have to do the logistics. nothing too extreme...

time: 9:43 pm

last book you read: technically graphic novels the ‘March’ trilogy - John Lewis with Andrew Aydin (currently reading ‘embrace fearlessly the burning world’ ... and like three or four others, including a biography called ‘Boyd’).

last book you enjoyed reading: the left hand of darkness - ursula k. le guin; I enjoyed reading it but in the end did not end up liking it. just got sad over the ‘ace’ relationship and felt a bit fridged as a person. yes I know that’s not the philosophical point.... just. -shrug- it is what it is. the writing was lovely and the outcome was Not For Me.

last book you hated reading: the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime (lol). apparently there was a reason it was in my ‘to read’ pile for so long. I have no idea what all the big fuss was. at least it was a speedy read and now I can move on with my life.

Bonus:

favorite thing to cook/bake: doesn’t really count since it’s cold and I just mix ingredients together but ... smoked trout dip. NOM NOM NOM. I found a recipe I like and it’s great with white wine. can’t say I bake or cook that much since my favorite food is fish and I just settle with various canned or tinned preparations because cooking for one is um. hope you like leftovers. I am pretty good at roasting things or being patient with sauces. love savory flavors.

favorite craft to do in your spare time: writing? I guess. when I was a kid I built model rockets and that kind of kit work can still be diverting. I once whipped up a scale model of a chance vought f4u corsair (with a working propeller!) made out of nothing but printer paper and wood glue. sadly it got water-damaged or I’d still have it around. I don’t make much in my spare time since my actual job has pretty tangible outcomes.

most niche dislike: pumpkin pie. my hatred is endless and nonsensical. I cannot stand the texture or the flavor. I have tried. I cannot.

opinion on circus(es) now and in history: with non-domestic animals not so much. human performers who chose the life and are well-paid? cool.

do you have a sense of direction and if not what is the worst way you ever got lost: my sense of direction is so bad that most people don’t believe how bad until they witness it for themselves. it is generally common knowledge that if I tell you to go some way you should do the exact opposite. if I go into a store I cannot tell you from which direction I have entered. even when I have lived some place for more than 10 years I can get turned around and/or in the wrong lighting get so disoriented that I miss a turn. back in the days before good GPS maps going anywhere was terrifying because I was just moving through space while driving ... I had no or very little sense of orientation. while active mapping and other experiences have helped me over time, I still ask friends and coworkers to help me orient while I’m driving. it would be funny if it were not so pathetic.

No pressure tag: @c-rowlesdraws @vampirepunks @pip-n-flinx @datsonyat @expertmakodriver @andersonsbiceps

I only apologize A LITTLE for the spam but you’re all lovely people and I am a bit harried with life so.

#tag games #ferus chats

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star-fall-system · 2 years

Note

“A trans person has an opinion I dislike so therefore they’re not actually trans!!!” You’re funny af lmaoooooo

LMAO THEY SENT ANON HATE it’s been a while since that happened! I did block em tho so they shouldn’t be coming back if tumblr works

For anyone who missed it: someone who self-identified as a radfem/terf/GC etc had a bunch of posts on their blog that were like “as a woman”, referring to themselves as a lesbian, putting terms referring to trans men in quotation marks, etc; and then claimed to be a trans man.

I’ve also been a bunch of terfs flooding the trans man tag with bullshit like “your fave is a lesbian trans man” stuff; “lesbian trans man” appears to be the new TERF way of saying “butch lesbian” in the hopes of being taken more seriously for their transphobic views. So I’m assuming that “ftm lesbian” + terf views = not actually a trans man. (someone who’s very nonbinary could ID as both plausibly, but just check their views if you see it since terfs are using the term a lot more than I’ve seen it used innocently)

Yes, it could be something self-hating trans men are doing, but the flooding of the tag makes me think it’s more of a deliberate attempt at getting not immediately dismissed in trans communities. Even if it’s a self-hatred thing, you don’t need to engage with that as though it’s in good faith when it most likely isn’t and engaging with self-hatred in good faith doesn’t work anymore than engaging with those acting in bad faith does.

I wouldn’t bother arguing with these people on it, mainly because I wouldn’t bother arguing with terfs, but if you’re worried it’s self-hatred and they are actually trans not engaging and just blocking them is a good course of action there as well.

(The point of pretending to be trans is so that they can send asks like these, basically, and make it seem like their voices are trans voices and should be listened to on trans issues. My point is that they are either not trans voices, or so lost in the terf sauce that it’s not coming from a place of genuineness anyway, and in either case should be ignored and blocked as usual)

#terfs #radical feminism

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princematcha · 2 years

Text

whatever princess wants, the princess gets

autre titre: At Your Service

a valentine’s day special! here i am back again with princess reader :P

guard!midoriya izuku x fem!afab! princess!reader

wc: 1.8 k words

summary: izuku wants something sweet for valentine’s

cw: nsfw, cunnilingus, fluffy, they both cry but in an “m havin a blast” kind of way, soft, praise, royal au, porn w half of a crumb of plot, they love each other, face-riding/sitting, reader is called princess but no pronouns are used for reader, both of them are 22+ in this, izu calls reader a deity, princess has a body hair (you determine how much hair)

a/n: the only time i will ever write for deku ever again is if someone asks me to, got lost in the sauce a little. was fighting demons to not make this angsty. neb’s title is better omg

i edited tf out of izu for the cover, s mine i made it

4 @teddiiursula hope ur valentines has good pokémon fortune

tagging: @speedmetalqueen

MDNI | ageless blogs dni | you will be blocked // 18+ BLOG

Izuku Midoriya would do whatever you wanted. Yes, he is required by the king to fulfill your every wish within his power. But he’s devoted to you, deeper than just a guard to crown royalty. Izuku feels the pull of the stars when you call his name or when he sees your honey-kissed face. He knows in his soul that even in another life where he doesn’t kneel before you with a sword sheathed at his hip, he would follow you to the ends of the earth.

So it’s no wonder that you found a way to get him into an inn outside the castle walls for the day of Saint Valentine, hastily pushing at the commoner’s clothing you both donned.

One might think that with his large stature, hardened by years of training with the head of the knights, he would be manhandling you. Using a strong tanned arm to pull his highness’s body wherever he pleased. (He would never pull you to and fro like that— unless you asked.) He could, but he won’t. Izuku enjoys being needed by you, to be whatever you need him to be at the moment. And right now? He can tell you need him.

Warm wet kisses laid against his neck and jaw, his shirt is half-unbuttoned— pulled a little over his shoulders to reveal his freckled biceps and tight chest— he can feel you grabbing at the hair near the nape of his neck, your other hand running across his pecs and idly tweaking his nipples. His stomach whirls as you accidentally pull a touch too hard. He can’t remember when he removed your trousers though he’s glad he did, letting his calloused, scarred hands grab at your waist and thighs with little abandon.

Izuku moans louder than he expected himself to when you start to suck harshly around his neck. He knows he should tell you to stop as his usual guards’ wear doesn’t cover there, but he can’t even stop himself from grinding against your illy-covered heat.

“So good angel, so aH-” You push him down onto the bed with both hands against his shoulders, smiling as you slowly trail them down to his shirt to unbutton the rest. His chest rises and falls with deep breaths that move you as well, admiring how gorgeous you look above him. The warm light that the various candles and fireplace supply flickering over your face. Izuku kneads your thighs while you undress him, watching the way your grin grows as you bite your soft lip. All the while he’s muttering how pretty you are, how much he loves you, how good you feel against his cock. Whispering your name like a prayer.

You pull your tunic off after slipping his arms out of his shirt and working his pants down to the mid-thigh. Izuku feels his heart squeeze in his chest when you look at him with big eyes (and a hand stroking him over his underwear), “Want you Izu, need you so bad,” you moan against his chest. He will happily meet this need for you.

After tasting you properly.

“Up, my love,” he says as he pats your ass softly to motivate you to move. You pout and he would usually falter and quickly work you open with his fingers to let you have your way with him, but today he wants. Izuku knows that you won’t move, so he places a hand under each of your thighs then lifts you so your pussy and thighs rest against his collar bones. You yelp when he moves you, hands catching yourself on the bedding above him at the sudden movement.

He recognizes that look in your eye and cuts you off before you can find a way to get back down, he tuts at you, “Not yet princess, I haven’t gotten my Valentine’s sweet today.” Izuku pulls you closer, blushing at what he said and quietly laughing at the way your eyes widened.

When your cunt is right above his mouth and your knees resting on either side of his head, he tears your underwear apart and tosses the flimsy fabric aside. He hears you make a sad noise and apologizes on his exhale. Lifting his head enough for his nose to brush against the coarse hair above your slit he inhales, basking in your smell and whimpers.

“Ku…” you whine, making him smile against the hood of your clit. Izuku feels himself get even harder against his undergarments when he watches your pussy get wetter next to his mouth— then all at once he wraps his arms around your legs, groaning at the feeling of your soft thighs between his fingers, spreading you even more, and diving straight in. You both cry out, him at your taste and you from the sudden stimulation.

Your hand shakily slides from the bedsheets to his green curls, gripping his hair while your hips twitch back and forth against him. His eyes roll back at the feeling of you tugging on his hair, pulling you closer, his tongue swirling around your clit before going back down to your sopping hole. He begins to fuck you on his tongue, moaning against your pussy when he hears your little sniffles and cries. Nose nudging your hood, his hips thrusting against the air.

Izuku realizes his Valhalla is between your thighs, right where he is. All he can feel is your sweet skin, all he can taste is your flowing slick, all he can smell is your sweat and your cunt, all he can hear is your beautiful noises, and his sight is blessed with the image of you falling apart against his mouth like there’s no tomorrow. The sweat on your skin glowing like the deity you are.

He adjusts his hold on your thighs and rests his head back against sheets. You sigh as you look down at him, a dazed teary smile on your face. Izuku grins up at you, face covered in your juices. “You’re so messy Izu,” you breathe, hand leaving his scalp and going to rub at his face. Your thumb pauses as it’s moving over his cheek before you laugh, “Why are you crying, baby?”

Izuku didn’t even know he was crying. He smiles and kisses your palm, leaning his cheek into your hand, “You’re too good to me. I can’t believe it. Can’t believe you’re here with me. You’re so beautiful,” he rambles.

You scrunch your nose at the compliments, “There’s no one else I’d rather be with,” you reply and try to get out of his arms to kiss him, but he keeps his hold. He leaves dry chaste kisses against your inner thighs and core, watching you with hearts in his eyes. Sticking out your bottom lip and massaging his chest, “ ‘Zu let me go, I wanna kiss,” you whine as you bat your lashes.

Feeling that familiar pull in his chest to do anything to get you what you want, he shakes his head and repositions his arms on you. “But I wan-” You cut yourself off with a squeal when he wraps his lips around your clit, your nails pressing into his wrists.

Your back arches as you rock your hips against his mouth, Izuku following each movement with his tongue. Down his chin, he can feel you dripping, your ambrosia flowing over his adam's apple and running down his neck. With each of your thrusts onto his face, he grinds his aching cock against his clothes. Your thighs shaking from Izuku’s constant attack on your pretty pussy.

He thinks he might find his release from seeing you in such a state and hearing the luscious noises falling out of your mouth.

“Too much Izu!” He hears you cry out, but you grind yourself harder onto his mouth when you say it. Izuku hums an innocent “hmmm?” against you, relishing in the way you jump and the slick that gushes against his face.

His arms keep you close while his hands reach towards your mons, pulling your hood up and spreading your pussy. He whispers wow once before laying his tongue wide and flat at the back of your cunt, quickly swiping his tongue back to your clit. Izuku watches the chills race up your spine and repeats the action again, again, and again.

The tears falling down your face and the way your pretty little hole kept flexing around nothing every time his tongue passed over it, he knew you were close. He was as well. The sounds of your hot wet cunt combined with your stuttered gasps and crescendoing moans made his dick find reprieve in any small friction.

Izuku places his tongue back on your clit, his mouth in an open smile, tongue gliding back and forth. The lewd sounds made his cheeks and ears burn, but he finds himself thriving in it. Your soft, high-pitched ah, ah, ah with each flick of his muscle makes him flex his stomach to not cum before you do.

Not wanting to shorten the experience but knowing he can’t last much longer, Izuku finally removes one of his arms from around your thigh. He traces his hand over to your behind, squeezing your ass hard before bringing his thick fingers to his sweetheart’s pretty pussy. He watches you vigorously grind your clit against his tongue three more times before sliding his middle finger in with ease. He can feel you clenching around him, but your drooling cunt gives him more than enough lubricant.

You make the sweetest sigh at being filled with one of his fingers, riding the digit. You give an even sweeter sound that bounces off of the walls when he slips his ring finger in and presses against that gooey warm spot inside of you. He is only able to curl his fingers twice and suck on your clit once before you shake and cry out, “I love you! Love you s’ much!” then release hard all over his face and hand.

No matter how many times he hears it, every time you tell him you love him it always makes his body warm and his heart full of sunshine. Izuku’s body jerks twice at your voice then he cums into his underwear, a low groan vibrating through his chest.

Both of you deflate after finding your climaxes, one of your legs stretched over his torso and the rest of you slumped near his head. Izuku’s arm hangs lazily over your thigh, panting and rubbing a hand on your back.

He waits for your breathing to even out, spending his time tracing hearts into your skin and you tracing a finger over his freckles. Once both of your heart rates seem to have slowed, Izuku sits up and goes to get a towel and a basin, but a small foot at his chest stops him. His eyes follow the ankle to you, where you lie next to him with big eyes and saccharine pouting lips.

“I wanted to ride your pretty cock, Izu.”

And well, Izuku Midoriya would do whatever you wanted.

ahdbcb a thanmk for reading, have a nice day ₍ᐢ ̥ ̞ ̥ᐢ₎ ♥

#everybody say thank u nebula for betaing #i was arguing w grammarly ngl #she just doesn't get me </3 #4th time writinf .nsft. and i gotta say it's hard #wink wonk get it #im kidding #i did have a hard time lmao #matcha writes #deku x reader #deku x you #deku smut #bnha x you #bnha smut #izuku midoriya x reader #izuku midoriya x you #deku lemon #bnha lemon

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buckybarnesdiaries · 3 years

Text

destructive

bucky barnes x reader. ⎢ masterlist.

Bucky confesses his feelings for you and why that scares him.

word count: 990 words.

warnings/tags: none. a little of angst maybe??? just bucky being a puppy.

author notes: this was my first story (in english) written for bucky three years ago. i posted it on my other blog, but nobody used to read for him and it has a special place in my heart, so i wanted to post it here. i hope you like it. none of my stories contain reader’s body descriptions to be inclusive.

Join the tag list here.

Your eyes snap open by the sound of whispers passing away the door of your room. Rolling over the mattress to grab your phone from the nightstand, you check the hour on it. The guys have come back more late than normally from —what was supposed to be— an easy mission. Focusing your hearing on the heavy steps walking through the huge hallway, you only can count two people. Steve and Sam. Where is Bucky? You scowl inevitably tossing the sheets away and leading your bare feet to the exit of your dorm.

The lights are turned off outside, only the pollution from the city that never sleeps keeps it barely illuminated. Continuing your path to the meeting room, where James likes to enjoy the views since it has the largest window in the penthouse, you glance at his anatomy inside the gloomy place through the glass wall-like. His gaze is lost somewhere in the jungle of buildings that shapes New York. A rocks glass is held by his right hand with —what you think— vodka inside. Not sure of walking in, you wait a couple of seconds studying his posture, trying to figure out what could have happened. Bucky doesn’t move a muscle in the next minute, really worrying you.

Not doubting much more, you make your way to his position, silent like a cat; although he knew you were there from the very first moment. You lick your bottom lip briefly raising a hand to the union between his skin and the cold metal. It always calms him down. On the reflection, you can watch him close his eyes when your fingertips touch him over the rough fabric of his leather jacket. Moving them to his neck slowly, without rushing, you wrap your arm around it as the other surrounds his lower abdomen.

Bucky let out a sigh when, on your tiptoes and using the tip of your nose to put away some locks of dark-brown hair, you place a kiss on his nape with so much tenderness and care. The soldier is not a man of body contact, still getting used to being back to reality —one year after—, but there’s something about you he can’t explain. Like the music that tames the beasts, you can control his heartbeat and push away the darkness from him.

“I, uh... I may be falling in love with you...” Bucky confesses in a wrecked thread of voice, hurrying for a sip of his drink to find some encouragement.

It doesn’t really take you by surprise. You feel the same. And you feel his devotion and adoring for you in every single way of acting with you. None could deny it.

“But it terrifies me”.

With so much delicacy, the soldier moves away from you to turn around and face you, resting his back against the huge glass. His head is bowed towards his boots, not being capable of looking at you as you have noticed the shame hidden behind his words. Steve had told you about Bucky before you met him —before he found him, due you were one of the first people who the Captain trusted in. James is quite the opposite now. He’s mostly in silence, watching his back more than he’d like to recognize. Something easy-to-understand, keeping in mind what he has been through since being captured by HYDRA.

“In my life… there are no good things… but you. I— I destroy everything around me… I can’t see the li— light”. As he raises his chin, you can see his oceanic and deep eyes covered in tears. His lips shivering. His nose wrinkling with a sniff. “I do— don’t want to… destroy you”.

“Bucky…” The consternation takes control of your vocals, quickly shortening the distance between the two of you to cup his cheek into your palms. “James, you won’t destroy me. You won’t hurt me in any way…”

The soldier can’t help but laugh bitterly, cleaning his tears using his forearm before taking a long sip till emptying the drink.

“Look at me. Look at me, please…” Urging him to put his eyes on you after placing his gaze away for a second, he simply obeys. “You are a good man, James. You are not responsible for your past. You are not a monster, nor a robot, nor the Winter Soldier anymore, you hear me?”

Bucky nods his head gulping a soft sob, inhaling by his nostrils as your left hand lands over his heart whilst the other remains to warm his cheek.

“You won’t destroy me”. You reply then, keeping a firm tone of voice. “I will stay by your side anyway, no matter what. I will help you whenever you need me. I will close your open wounds, and chase away the demons of your past”.

“How are yo— you so sure?”

“'Cause you’re wrong, Bucky… You’re looking for the light outside when it’s right there”. Pointing at his heart, he feels the imperious necessity of grabbing your hand and bringing it to his mouth. He kisses it, once and again in silence. “I will fight for you. For your light. For your future. And you can’t change my mind, alright?”

He knows that last thing. He knows how stubborn you can be sometimes. But he loves it. Leaning his head closer, he presses his lips close to the corner of yours, leaving them there for some long seconds as you close your eyes by inertia. His hand is still holding yours, tightly, connecting your chests by the touch of each other. And you can swear you feel his heart beating under his clothes, under his skin.

“Can I— Can I stay to— tonight with you?” Stuttering, Bucky rests his forehead on yours, praying anything he knows to not receive a no in response.

“Please”. You ask him back, showing to the soldier a tender and lovely smile curving your mouth slightly. “Stay with me tonight”.

feedback is appreciated, please, leave a comment to let me know if you liked it.

and REBLOG!!!

support the writers 🤍

TAG LIST: @mystic-232 @homesicam @theresnoplatypus @i-love-scott-mccall @slutfornat @goldielocks2004 @whatrambles @spidergirla5 @fanofalltheficsx @nocturnalherb16 @valenquei @golden-hoax @hunter-of-baker-street @missusstark @vhscherry @warm-sensations @addictedtofictionalcharacters @sarahsmcu @tinylumpiaa @amelia-song-pond @heartislubbingdubbing @stolenxkissess @clean-and-claire @winchestersgirl222 @virgoroses @marvel-ousnesss @me-a-hopeless-romantic @rvgrsbrns @maccasbeard @haileygarciasunshine @lewd-alien @kait-is-always-late @mckenna @weenersoldierr @mxltifaves @soldierstucky @theboldandthebootyful @arkofblake @isabellamur @kiwisa @spider-man-lover @rosiebrands @stealapizzamyheart @koressecretidentity @asemistablehundredyearoldman @mayans-sauce @petlaufeyson @megapeacelovemusic-blog @phoenixhalliwell

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan fluff #the winter soldier x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #james bucky barnes x reader

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nerdyfangirl67 · 3 years

Text

I'm Here - NCIS Reader Insert

Pairing: Gibbs x fem!reader

Warnings: angst with a fluff ending, language, descriptions of kidnapping, torture, and pain

Word count: 1417 (Yeah...this drabble got away from me)

Prompt: "Don't be scared. I'm right here."

Request by: @leroyjethrogibbsgirl

A/N: This was a great prompt for a Gibbs fic so thank you for requesting darling! The prompt itself will be bolded in the fic. I had a lot of fun writing this one (I sat down and it just flowed right out, which doesn’t happen often for me!). I hope you enjoy it!

You shift the grocery bags to your non-dominant hand as you fish around in your jacket pocket for your car keys. After a few moments, your fingers close around the cool metal and you pull them out of your pocket, hitting the unlock button as you do. You reach for the handle just as you feel a hand wrap around your wrist in a vise grip, yanking you backwards.

You let out a yelp of surprise, dropping the plastic bags of food you’d been holding onto, as you stumble and fall onto your knees. Broken glass from the jar of marinara sauce you’d purchased only minutes before bites into your hands, causing you to cry out. A hand weaves into your hair, pulling you up with a jerk. Your hands fly to your hair in an attempt to stop the stinging pain spreading across your scalp. You hear the screech of tires and then you are being shoved into the trunk of a vehicle. The masked figure brings something down hard to your temple, a flash of white hot pain exploding in your head. Black spots dance across your vision and you struggle to stay awake. You feel the vehicle turn twice before the darkness around the edge of your vision consumes you.

A heavy pounding in your head wakes you up sometime later. You groggily blink open your eyes, expecting to see the wall of your bedroom or the bookshelf of your living room, but an unfamiliar dingy gray wall greets you. It rushes back to you as you try to move, finding that your hands and feet are tied down to the chair you’re sitting in, the coarse rope biting into your wrists and ankles as you do.

You attempt to push down the fear rising in your chest as you take in your surroundings. A dim ray of light shines in from between a pair of thick, black curtains. The carpet beneath your feet is old and worn, the original color so faded you couldn’t make out what it used to be and a cheap wood door marks the only entrance to the small room. You stare at the door, imagining Jethro knocking it down as he comes to rescue you. You can almost feel his arms pulling you close when the sound of the door banging against the wall snaps you from your daydream.

A tall, lean man with a crooked smile and greasy black hair saunters towards you. The light bounces off something in his hand and you realize with a start that it’s a knife.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the bitch shaking up with Supervisory Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.” A shiver runs down your spine at the dark way he says Jethro’s name. He reaches your side, a dark glint in his eyes as he lifts the knife. He reaches out, dragging it slowly down your arm as he continues. “Who would have thought you would be so easy to take, especially after what happened to his wife and daughter.” The knife is at your chin now, tracing along your jaw and moving to your neck, where he holds it still, flush against your throat.

And for the first time since you’d been taken, you truly wonder if you’ll make it out of this room alive. You wonder if you’ll ever see Jethro again, if you’ll get to feel his strong arms around you one more time or stare into the icy sea of his blue eyes.

He leans in, his breath hot across your face, as he says, “I’m going to kill you slowly and I’m going to make him watch.”

“Well then, you’re dumber than you look,” you say quietly, mustering up the courage to look him square in the eyes. “Agent Gibbs is going to find me and then you’ll be spending the rest of your miserable life behind bars.” And almost as if to punctuate your sentence, you spit in his face, a small feeling of pleasure running through you at the look of utter shock crossing his face.

His face quickly contorts in anger and he blindly reaches behind him, grabbing a heavy book off the shelf, swinging it at you. You raise your arms above your head to defend yourself, but it doesn’t stop the blow from landing on your head. He continues to hit you with the book until your world goes black.

You slowly regain consciousness, your eyes scanning the room once you open them. A figure draws nearer to you and you realize with a start, that it’s Jethro. He is at your side only a moment later, a gentle hand pushing a lock of hair away from your face as he leans towards you. “You’re safe-” His words are cut off by a faint yelling and the sound of heavy footsteps. You try to ignore the noise and focus instead on the man at your side, but he has disappeared like a wisp of smoke, proving to you that he was one more in the line of illusions that you had been experiencing in this room.

You slowly lift your head as the sound of yelling draws closer. You can’t make out what is being said but the door soon slams open, the blood dripping down your forehead blurring your vision and preventing you from making out the features on the person’s face. You see the dark blue of a uniform as that same person comes to kneel down in front of you.

The officer gives you a once over before untying the rope around your wrists and ankles. “Y/N, I’m officer Davens. I’m going to get you untied and then we’ll make our way upstairs to the paramedics, okay?” You give him a tired nod as he finishes untying you, offering you a hand to help you stand up. Your body is sore and a few of the spots you got hit ache with pain as you stand. The officer practically carries you up the steps, bearing more of your weight than you were, as the two of you make it out of the house and to the waiting ambulance in the small driveway. You aren’t even paying attention to what the

A sob catches in your throat as you see him climb out of the black car and stride towards you. You push away the paramedic’s hands as you stand. Pushing back the wave of dizziness that rises up as you stand, you stumble into a jog, not slowing down until you are almost crashing into him. Your arms instinctively wrap around his torso as you press your face into his chest. His arms wrap around you tightly, the feeling of which brings your fragilely constructed walls crashing down. Your chest tightens and you are sobbing into his chest before you can stop yourself.

“Don't be scared. I'm right here.” His words are soft and you almost don’t hear them over the sound of your own crying. “I’m here. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.” He continues to whisper comforting words to you as your crying slows to a stop. He waits until he is sure you are no longer crying before he pulls back enough to look at your face. His brilliantly blue eyes draw you in immediately, a familiar sense of warmth washing over you as you get lost in his gaze. He lifts a hand up to cup one of your cheeks, his rough fingers brushing lightly over your cheekbone and wiping away a few stray tears off your face.

“I was so scared, Jethro.” Your whisper brokenly, leaning into his touch as you cover his hand with one of yours. “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again.”

“You don’t have to be scared anymore.” His words are firm as he pulls you back into his arms. “I’m not going to ever let anything happen to you again.” You feel him press a kiss to your temple. “You’re too important to me.” His voice is soft, as he murmurs in your ear, tightening his hold on you. Being in his arms helped keep the memory of what happened to you in that basement at bay. His words reminded you that you were safe and you would be as long as he was at your side. Because he was the kind of man that would spend the rest of his life making sure he did everything to protect you.

----

Tags: @madamsnape921 @drakelover78 @ncisfan

#ncis #ncis reader #ncis headcanon #ncis fanfic #ncis x reader #ncis imagine #ncis reader insert #leroy jethro gibbs #gibbs #gibbs x reader #gibbs x you #gibbs x fem!reader #gibbs reader insert

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drabbles-mc · 3 years

Text

Pick Up The Pieces

Opie Wintson x F!Reader

Request by Anon: Opie being gutted when he finds out Lyla doesn't want more kids, cheats on her with his best friend who actually turns up preggo. I feel like it could be a angst, smut, fluff combo. Idk thank you!

Warnings: language, angst, cheating, unprotected sex, vaginal fingering, pregnancy, (this really really has it all my friends)

Word Count: 3.8k

A/N: While it is usually against my moral code to inflict pain on my lumberjack husband, I got pretty into this. I hope this is what you had in mind! xo

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You heard the knock at the door and you instantly became confused. It was late on a Friday night and your place wasn’t exactly known for being a party spot. Case in point, you were bundled up in a fluffy bathrobe with a bowl of popcorn and a bottle of wine while watching He’s Just Not That Into You for the millionth time. You tightened the belt of your robe as you stood up and made your way to the door.

Looking through the peephole, you see Opie standing on the other side of your door. It was too dark to get a good look at his expression, but if he was showing up by himself on a Friday night you had to assume that he wasn’t in the best of shape.

Unlocking the door, you opened it and greeted him with a soft smile, “Hey, Ope.”

He didn’t even have it in him to muster a smile, “Hey. Sorry to just show up like this.”

You shook your head as you gestured for him to come inside, “No need to apologize. My door is always open for you,” you shut and locked it once he came inside, “What’s going on?”

Opie towered over everyone, yourself included, but he looked so small as he stood in the middle of your living room. His head hung low, his shoulders slumped, and you could see the defeated look on his face. You stepped in and hugged him, pressing yourself tight against his chest. His arms looped tight around you and rested the side of his head against yours. You felt his chest rise and fall slowly as he took one deep breath after another, trying to keep it together.

“You can talk to me, you know,” you stayed leaning against him, “Did something happen?”

There were a million different things that it could be. The club had been a mess lately, you knew that things with him and Lyla had been rocky, and then there was the hot mess express that was his family. There were a lot of different things to choose from, you just wondered what had him in such a hurt place.

“Shit with Lyla,” he mumbled against your hair.

You sighed quietly, disappointed but not surprised. You had no problem with Lyla—she seemed like a sweet woman. She was a good friend to the club and she was good with her kid and Opie’s. But you always had the feeling that Opie was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with her. He wanted things to work but he also wanted her to change, which wasn’t fair to either of them.

“What happened?”

“She doesn’t want kids. Never bothered to fuckin’ mention it,” he shook his head, “Lied about being on birth control.”

You couldn’t hide your surprise. Usually, women who hooked up with the guys lied about being on birth control meaning they said they were on it when they weren’t, not the other way around. But it really shouldn’t have surprised Opie, especially given Lyla’s line of work.

“I’m sorry,” you told him.

He shook his head, “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. You told me from the jump that it wasn’t going to work.”

You pulled back from him, “That’s not what I said. I said it was going to take some work.”

His laugh was hollow, “Right.”

You let your arms drop back to your sides, “Take your boots off, stay awhile. I’m only like twenty minutes into my movie if you wanna join me.”

He looked at the screen and instantly knew what you were watching, which he hated admitting, “You never get tired of this one, huh?”

You shook your head, “Nope,” you walked to the kitchen and grabbed a second wine glass, “I don’t have any beer. Wine alright?”

He chuckled and nodded, “I’ll take whatever you got.”

You walked back over to the couch and sat down next to him, handing over the glass as you did. He picked the bottle up off the coffee table and poured himself a generous glass, immediately taking a long drink out of it. You were so used to seeing Opie with either a beer bottle or a shot glass in his hand that it was a bit of an amusing switch-up to see him sipping on Moscato.

“You wanna talk about it?” you’d been friends with Opie long enough to know that sometimes he just needed to brood about things for a bit before having a discussion about them. You still always offered the option, though.

He shook his head, “No.”

“Wanna watch Justin Long get his world turned upside down with me?”

He chuckled, nodding, “Sure.”

You leaned onto his side as you pulled your feet up underneath you. It had been a while since the two of you had gotten to spend some quality one-on-one time with each other. You wished that it hadn’t been brought on by him being so upset, but nonetheless you were glad that he still considered you someone that he could lean on.

“Thank you,” he said after a few minutes of silence, draping his arm around your shoulders.

You nodded, “Of course. Listen, I have movie night here with myself every Friday night. You’re always invited.”

He chuckled, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

You felt him press you tighter against his side, “I really am sorry, Opie.”

He sighed, “It is what it is. Just gotta…pick up the pieces I guess.”

You turned and looked up at him, and despite the fact that he sounded calm and collected, you could see it in his eyes how hurt he was. He’d always been a family man. In your eyes, he was a family man who got put in the wrong life, but there was nothing to do about that now. He was being forced to juggle it and figure it all out. Learning was tough.

“You’ll figure it out,” you nodded as you reassuringly rested your hand on his chest, “You always do.”

Behind the tears and underneath the sadness, you could see something else in his eyes. You ignored it, not wanting to make a bad situation worse. You pulled away, clearing your throat as you poured yourself another glass of wine. You offered the bottle to him, and he gladly accepted it and refilled his glass.

You found yourself curled comfortably against his side again, pretending not to notice that his hand had slid down to rest dangerously low on your hip. You could feel the slight pressure of his fingertips through the fluff of your robe. You fought to stay focused on the movie but it was difficult when you could feel him staring down at you.

“Something you wanna talk about?” you finally asked.

Despite the look in his eyes, he shook his head, “No.”

“You sure?”

You saw his eyes dart down and look at your lips, and instantly the heat began to rise in your face. You knew that he was just lost and hurting, and that you were just full of liquid confidence, but part of you was telling you that it wouldn’t be the end of the world. If there was anyone you could maintain a friendship with after a hookup, it was Opie, right?

“You’re beautiful.”

You chuckled, trying to pretend that you were less flustered than you really were, “And you’re full of wine.”

He reached out and cupped your chin when you went to turn away, forcing you to look at him, “I mean it,” his hand slid up so that it was resting on your cheek.

You placed your hand over his, “This isn’t what you need right now, Ope,” it killed you to say it but you knew that it was true.

“Please,” it was the most broken you’d heard his voice sound in a while.

That, and the look in his eyes, wiped away what little self-control you had left. You gave him a slight nod and he instantly leaned in, pressing his lips to yours. You’d imagined kissing Opie a thousand times, even if you didn’t want to admit it, but it never went quite like this. It was desperate, like he was trying to fill a void, and you let him try. His hands cupped either side of your face and you reveled in the feeling of the roughness of his hands against the soft skin of your cheeks.

His hands dropped, gripping onto your hips and maneuvering you so that you were straddling his lap. You kept your lips pressed to his as you tore the beanie off his head, letting his hair fall down to his shoulders. You raked your fingers through it as you bit down lightly on his bottom lip, causing him to wrap his arms tighter around you.

He pulled his lips off of yours, letting them slide down to your neck. You tilted your head back to give him better access, a soft moan escaping your lips as he began to untie the belt of your robe. He pushed it down off your shoulders and let it drop to the floor. He drank in the sight of you in nothing but your bra and underwear, hands exploring all of the newly exposed skin that he had access to.

You lifted the bottom hem of his shirt, tossing it off to the side. You gawked at his tattoos, the muscles that flexed throughout his chest and shoulders. You’d seen him without a shirt on countless times, but being able to look and being able to touch were two completely different things. You lightly traced your fingers along the tattoos that covered his skin, but your admiration time was cut short as he pulled you into another needy kiss, reminding you what this was all really about.

His tongue ran along your bottom lip as he pulled your panties to the side, tracing one finger along your folds. You shuddered and moaned into his mouth at the contact, wordlessly begging him for more contact. Your nails dug into his shoulders as he slid his finger into you, moaning at how wet you already were.

You bit down hard on his bottom lip as he slid another finger in to join the first. You hungrily moved against his hand, desperate for any and all contact. His other hand rested on the back of your neck, making sure that your lips stayed attached to his. You could feel the heat radiating off of his body as his grip on you tightened slightly.

You pulled away, hands instantly going to the buckle of his belt. As soon as it was undone Opie lifted his hips off the couch just enough to push his jeans and boxers down below his knees, letting them pool by his ankles on the floor. He gripped back onto your hips and pulled you closer, situating you so that you were right over him. You leaned in and pressed your lips to his as he pushed himself inside you, both of you moaning at the sensation.

Not wasting any time, you began to move your body against his. It was messy, desperate, but the two of you didn’t need anything more than that. His nails dug into your back as you mindlessly tugged at his hair. He swallowed your moans as his nails raked down your back, your hands roughly cupping his face as he did.

How years had gone by without you two ending up in this position until now was beyond you. But as your hips moved against his you knew that you’d dug yourself into a very deep hole that you didn’t know if you would be able to get yourself out of. You didn’t want to go back to how things were before this, regardless of how you ended up getting here in the first place.

Your anxieties were drowned out by the sound of Opie moaning your name, fingertips digging hard into your hips. You cursed under your breath as he bit down on your neck, sucking a dark mark into the skin there.

“Fuck, Opie,” you gasped, “I’m gonna cum.”

He let out a low growl as he gripped harder onto you, hands sliding down do your ass and speeding up your movements. You buried your face into the crook of his neck, the sound of his name filling the house as he fucked you through your orgasm. Your legs trembled beneath you as you blindly grabbed onto his shoulders to support you.

His voice was raspy as he tried and failed to get out at least one coherent sentence, “Fuck, I’m gonna, where…”

“Fuck it,” you pressed your lips hard against his for a moment, “I’m on the pill. Doesn’t matter.”

Moments later you felt him pull you as close as possible as he finished inside you, moaning and biting down hard on your shoulder as he did. He rested his forehead against your shoulder, fighting to catch his breath as he wrapped his arms tight around your middle. You leaned your head against his and lightly carded your fingers through his hair. His chest rose and fell against yours and you soaked up the contact, knowing in the back of your mind that you weren’t going to have it for long.

He stayed the night with you, and it was more of the same. You knew he was just trying not to think about the heartbreak, and you were in no position to turn him away. It was going to make it worse in the morning, but you didn’t care. He wrapped you up and held you against his chest, breathing heavy as he tangled his legs up with yours and slowly started drifting off to sleep.

You woke up the next morning to an empty bed, which shouldn’t have been as surprising or as hurtful as it was. With a heavy sigh you pulled on an old t-shirt and made your way out to the kitchen. You saw a note on the counter next to an already-made pot of coffee. You would be able to recognize Opie’s scratchy handwriting from a mile away.

“Sorry for crashing in and leaving. Thank you for everything. Love you. -Opie”

With a sigh you tacked the note up on the fridge. You knew you should’ve just crumpled it and thrown it out, but you couldn’t. Not yet. With a heavy sigh you went to shower off the events of the previous night in an attempt to get your mind right.

You walked into the clubhouse that night, and the weekly party was already well underway. Everyone was drinking and laughing, and it was a welcome distraction. You couldn’t pretend, though, that you weren’t constantly looking for Opie.

“What brings you here, darlin’?” Jax asked with a smile as he found a spot next to you at the bar.

You leaned into his hug with a smile, “I heard parties can be a good distraction.”

He nodded, smirking when he spotted the dark marks on your neck. He tapped them with the tip of his finger, “Looks like you’ve got a handle on that just fine.”

You laughed, face instantly getting hot, “Something like that.”

“That what you need a distraction from?”

You nodded, not caring to elaborate further, “Opie here tonight?”

Jax looked around the clubhouse as he nodded, “Yea. Got here with Lyla a few minutes ago.”

“What?”

Jax returned his gaze to you, not used to hearing such a bite to your tone, “Um. Yea. You alright?”

You nodded despite the fact that you weren’t anywhere near alright. Your heart felt like it had dropped into your stomach, “I’m fine. I just, I need to step out for some air. You see Opie tell him to come find me?”

Jax nodded but didn’t say anything else as you got off your stool and all but ran for the door. You sat down at the picnic table, running your hands down your face as you fought back the tears. You had assumed that he had ended things with Lyla and that’s how he ended up at your place, but of course not. He was never good at being alone, he wouldn’t put himself in that position if he could help it.

A few minutes later you saw someone take a seat next to you out of the corner of your eye. You didn’t need to look in order to know who it was.

“You didn’t fucking break up with her?” you weren’t expecting to sound so choked up.

“Y/N, I just—”

“Just cheated on your girlfriend with me? And didn’t bother to mention that to me?” you shook your head, “And then I fucking showed up here tonight and…” your bottom lip quivered, “Fuck, Opie.”

“I know.”

“Do you?!” you snapped, “Lyla didn’t deserve that! And I sure as hell didn’t either,” you stood up, pacing back and forth in front of the table, “Y’know what, fuck this. I, I can’t be here.”

He stood up to walk after you, “Y/N, don’t. Come on.”

You were already digging your keys out of your purse, “Don’t give me that. I can’t…I can’t look at you or be around you right now. Figure your shit out, Opie.”

That was the last thing you said to him. It’d been a little over a month since then, and you hadn’t spoken to him or been back to the clubhouse since. You were currently hugging the toilet bowl as you threw up what little was left in your stomach from dinner the night before. On top of the actual nausea, you had an uneasy feeling that you knew exactly what was causing it.

Once you rinsed out your mouth and brushed your teeth, you grabbed the pregnancy tests out of the bag from the pharmacy. It was a long shot but they did always say that even the pill wasn’t 100% effective. Just your luck, you would be in the 1% that could still get pregnant on the pill.

You set the test on the sink counter and set the timer on your phone, your entire body shaking in anticipation as you waited. You didn’t know what you wanted the result to be, really. You’d always wanted kids at some point down the road, with the right person. This just felt so sudden, with so many blank spaces.

The timer went off and with a deep breath, you looked at the test. Clear as day, the little screen said pregnant. For a moment you felt like you were going to throw up all over again. But you managed to keep your composure and take another test just to be sure, and you were rewarded with the same answer. You sighed, running your hands over your face as you tried to figure out what you were going to do.

You took out your phone and texted Opie, “Come over ASAP. We gotta talk”

After a month and a half of not speaking, that was probably an alarming text for him to get. It was effective, though, because within the hour you heard the sound of his motorcycle outside. He let himself in, finding you sitting at the kitchen counter with your head in your hands.

“Got your text. What’s going on?”

Before you got into it, you wanted some answers on a few things first, “How’s Lyla?”

He sighed, thinking that you had called him over just to continue berating him, “Wouldn’t know. Haven’t talked to her in weeks,” he paused, “Broke it off the week after that party.”

You nodded, “Right. Good. You tell her what happened with us?”

He shook his head, “No point. Didn’t want to drag you into all that shit if you weren’t even coming around anymore,” he waited for you to meet his eyes, “What’s this about?”

You sighed, waving for him to come closer. He walked into your kitchen, leaning on the opposite side of the counter from you. Your leg bounced nervously as you tried to put the words together, “I, um, fuck,” you took a deep breath and forced yourself to make eye contact with him, “I’m pregnant.”

His eyes went wide, “What?”

You nodded, “I’m pregnant. Missed my period a couple weeks ago. Took two tests today to be sure.”

“Is it…” he didn’t have to finish the sentence for you to know what he was asking.

You nodded, “Yea. Yours.”

“But I thought you were on the pill?”

Your laugh was hollow as tears appeared in your eyes, “I was. Called my doctor about it and everything. It happens. Not common but it happens,” you shook your head, “I’m not saying you need to be involved or that we need to be together or whatever. I just, I couldn’t not tell you.”

There was a long stretch of silence as he processed what you had just told him. He drummed his fingers on the countertop, “Do you want me to be involved? You want,” he gestured back and forth between the two of you, “this? Us?”

“I’ve been in love with you for years, Ope. I never said anything because you’ve always been in love with someone else. Which was, fine. It was what it was. But when you came over here that night? I almost had a fucking heart attack. And then when I found out that you hadn’t even left Lyla I was fucking…gutted. I felt so dirty and…and used.”

“Y/N, it wasn’t—”

You held your hand up to stop him, “Don’t lie. Not to me, alright? You were a mess and I shouldn’t have let it happen. But I did. That was just as much on me as it was on you. I just never thought that you would do that to Lyla. Or to me.”

“I came here that night because I trust you, because I love you,” he said, his eyes glued to the counter, “You’ve always been…safe. And I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have used you for that. That was fucked up. And I’m sorry. But,” he walked around to the other side of the counter, “if you want to do this, I’m here. For you, for the baby. I’m here.”

“I can’t just pretend…”

He nodded, “I know. And I don’t want you to. I know that I’ve got work to do,” he reached and thumbed the tears off your cheeks, “But that’s work I’m more than willing to do if you’ll let me. I love you.”

You let the words sink in for a moment as you shut your eyes and rested your hand on top of his, “I love you too.”

“And I’m sorry.”

You nodded, opening your eyes to look at him, “I know.”

“But I think we could do this. I really do. If that’s what you want.”

You paused, finally giving a slow nod, “I do. But I just…I need some time to get right with all this.”

He pulled you against his chest, pressing a kiss against the top of your head, “I got all the time in the world for you two.”

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