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#pretty good for an ‘unknown game’ :)
aleksikesa · 5 months
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The Game Awards may be over but #wakesweep continues as Old Gods of Asgard enter top ten on iTunes worldwide charts
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sudoscience · 1 year
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I am so glad your Pokémon don't auto-kill shinies because I'm a little slow sometimes lol. (The lack of the overworld sparkle doesn't help, either.)
I'm surrounded by Sneasels, so I sent out Koraidon to take care of them because they'll gang up on me if I don't, and there's this Snorunt standing there, so I try to sic my Angery Boi on it, and nothing happens. I'm like, "No, you were supposed to attack that," not thinking anything of it because sometimes it just doesn't register the Pokémon right in front of it. A couple seconds later, I realize it was a shiny Snorunt. Like, "Oh, that wasn't a glitch this time. Man, that would have been awful..." So, yeah, I have a shiny Froslass now, and I'm pretty happy about that. Second shiny of the game, and I'm not even shiny hunting.
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ziracona · 2 years
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Playing 999 has made me want to reexamine stories I haven’t touched in almost a decade.
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elfindreams · 4 months
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I’ve been dipping my toes into larp which is very great but also like. Especially with oneshots, what are you supposed to do when you’re still attached to a character but the story has ended and the made-up world they inhabited and the other characters who they’d interacted with no longer exist, so they’ve just Ceased To Be, where are those feelins supposed to gooooo
#admittedly the LARP today was uhhh. weirdly not well-written on several levels and I’d be iffy about playing other games by the same author#and the basic story premise was pretty dark in the first place#but we worked with it#and BOY OH BOY things went places#like the characters were all in a dungeon awaiting their execution in a few hours#for having been servants to an evil sorcerer even though some of them weren’t even working for him by choice#lots of arguing going on + debate over someone possibly snitching on the sorcerer’s apprentice to the guards in exchange for freedom#and/or how the loyal ones might help the apprentice character escape#my guy was in total despair for quite a lot of reasons but then formed a very sweet but brief and doomed bond with another prisoner#when she got the chance to escape alone he did what he could to help and spent their last few moments coaching her#on how to hide her identity and survive and find somewhere to live in the outside world#then he tried to save himself plus another character who was just a kid and didn’t deserve to be there but both couldn’t go#so he saved the kid (or at least did what he could bc there was no way of knowing if they actually got out)#and paid DEARLY for it but was totally at peace while lying on the dungeon floor as a bloody pulp because at least he’d done something good#his last IC words were something like ‘’I did what I could. I did as much as I could. I’m ready to meet god now’’.#also bc of magical fuckery as explicitly described in the rulebook it’s totally unknown where his friend ended up or whether she lived#we decided that she probably maybe hopefully survived though ;—;
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roosterforme · 6 months
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Wrong Number | Rooster x Reader
Summary: Bradley was planning on a quiet night at home with a beer and a basketball game on TV. When he receives a text from a wrong number, he's left looking at a beautiful photo of you. Now he just needs to persuade you to ditch the guy you meant to text and focus on him instead.
Warnings: Fluff, swearing, slight dirty talk, Bradley touching himself
Length: 4700 words
Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader
This was written for Rocktober. Check out my masterlist for more. Banner made by @thedroneranger
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Bradley had endured such a long week at work, all he wanted to do was change out of his uniform, grab a beer from his fridge and lounge around on the couch in his underwear without a responsibility in sight. Nobody should have to work until ten on a Friday night, but it had taken him that long to sort through the massive stack of paperwork from Admiral Simpson. At least now he had nothing planned for the rest of his evening.
His apartment was too hot, and the cold bottle of beer pressed to his bare thigh as he reached for the TV remote left some droplets of condensation. It felt good. He took another sip as his phone vibrated next to him. With a soft grunt, he abandoned the remote in favor of the phone and unlocked it with his pass code.
There was a new text from an unknown number. And there was a photo attached. He grimaced, afraid of what he was going to find if he tapped on it. He read the phone number twice, but it didn't sound familiar beyond the San Diego area code. He let his head tip back as he recalled the time he pissed Nat off and she gave his phone number to a random sailor in retaliation. Bradley really hoped he wasn't going to have to kindly ask someone to stop sending him dick pics like last time. 
Before he lost the nerve, he tapped on the message, and his screen was suddenly filled with a photo of a woman who looked just a few years younger than him. And she was hot. He paused with his beer bottle halfway to his lips before letting it settle back down to his thigh. 
Hey, Alan. It's me. So now you have my phone number, too.
Bradley didn't know who the hell Alan was, but he wasn't mad about the mix-up. This photo was something else. It almost looked like it was taken in the bathroom at the Hard Deck. The lighting was bad, and there was a paper towel dispenser in the background, but whoever you were.... damn, you were stunning. All pretty features and smiling like you had a secret. 
It took him a moment to stop staring at the photo and return to the previous screen and your message. He was going to have to tell you that he wasn't Alan and that you had the wrong number, but he just sat there and tapped his phone case instead. He didn't even like the name Alan, but damn if he didn't want to be Alan right now. That lucky bastard had you interested in him. 
Bradley was wondering how the mix-up happened in the first place as he drafted up a text to you. Only some sort of fucking idiot wouldn't check and double check that he gave you the right number. "Amateurs," he mumbled as he typed with a little smirk on his face.
Hey, sorry to inform you, but this actually isn't Alan. However, I wouldn't mind one bit if you kept sending me the photos that are meant for him.
He hit send and tossed his phone aside, assuming you'd just block him and move on with your night. He brought his beer bottle back to his lips and enjoyed the way the drink helped cool him down while he contemplated taking a shower, but when he reached for the remote again, his phone vibrated. 
There was another message from the same number. Intrigued, Bradley unlocked his phone again, and he was pleased to see another text and another photo.
Hi, Not-Alan. Sorry about that! I hope you have a great night.
This photo was similar to the first one, except that you were flipping him the peace sign and winking which made Bradley laugh. You seemed fun, even through this limited interaction. And he was sure that was the ladies' bathroom at the Hard Deck, which pissed him off, because he got out of work so late he didn't feel like going out tonight. Maybe if he had been there, you wouldn't have been talking to Alan in the first place.
"Damn it." He was intrigued. He wanted to know more about this.
My night is substantially better now that I have two photos of you. So where did Alan get off to anyway? And why is he trying to steal my phone number?
This time Bradley was dying for another response. But it didn't come. He stared at his phone for a solid minute before returning to his beer and downing the rest of the bottle. Still nothing. He stood and made his way into the kitchen, tossing his empty into the recycling bin before getting another one from the fridge and eyeing up the food situation. He should probably eat something, but he swore he heard his phone vibrating. When he looked over to the couch, the screen was lit up. 
He slammed the fridge door and opened the new bottle before heading back to his phone. There was no photo this time, but there was a new message.
I actually lost Alan in the crowd, so really, the man could be just about anywhere. And I don't think he was trying to steal your number at all, Not-Alan. He wrote it on my palm, and it smeared before I could add it to my phone.
"Okay," Bradley said out loud. "Now we're getting somewhere." He sat down on the couch with his beer on the coffee table and started a new message. 
Alan should learn how to write neater in the future, because he's missing out here. You have to double check that someone who looks like you got the number right. Everyone knows that.
Bradley decided that he was going to have no shame for the night. Not as long as you kept writing back to him. He was contemplating how to save your number in his phone when another selfie with a message came through. You were out by the bar at the Hard Deck with a smile on your face, and you were holding up your palm complete with Bradley's smeared phone number.
Does this number look familiar, Not-Alan? Still no actual Alan in sight, by the way. 
Bradley supposed that the 7 could have been mistaken for a 1. Or maybe Alan's phone number had a 5 that got smeared into a 6. It didn't really matter. Bradley was going to shoot his shot and hope Alan didn't resurface. 
Good, Alan can just stay lost. What's your name, pretty girl?
Then he saved your number as Pretty Girl, and this time he did manage to turn the TV on while he waited with his phone in his hand. He muted the Clippers game and picked up his beer before promptly setting it back down again.
Pretty Girl: Not so fast, Not-Alan. You tell me your name first. And how old you are. And your blood type and the last four of your social security number. 
Bradley laughed and started typing. He realized he hadn't stopped smiling for the last twenty minutes as he hit send.
I'm Bradley. I'm 34. O positive. 2305.
On a regular night, the basketball game would have held his attention, but tonight he couldn't stop looking at his phone. "Come on, Pretty Girl," he muttered, running his beer bottle along his thigh before taking a sip. 
Pretty Girl: Okay, Bradley. You have my attention. Send me a selfie exactly where you are, and I'll think about telling you my name. No changing into something nicer. No fixing your hair. Just a selfie. Right now.
Bradley looked down at himself in just his black boxer briefs and mumbled, "If you say so." When he set his phone camera to selfie mode, he looked at the screen and realized his hair still looked pretty decent from work. So he went ahead and took a picture where he was wearing a bit of a skeptical smirk, and he sent it before he could think twice. 
And now his heart was beating a little faster. This was probably where you'd stop responding. Oh hell, at least he went for it, but a few minutes later, you still hadn't sent anything back to him. Maybe he could have tried to hide the scars on his neck and cheek, but what was the point? Clearly you were sending him actual selfies you'd taken tonight, and he did exactly what you'd told him to. Then his phone vibrated.
Pretty Girl: Do you really expect me to believe that you're not just googling "hot shirtless guy with a mustache", downloading a photo, and trying to pass it off as yourself?
He tipped his head back and laughed. There was just something about you. He didn't even know your name or what your voice sounded like, but he could already tell he was going to like both of those things. If you ever told him or let him hear you.
That's really me. Promise. Will you tell me your name now? Or do I have to keep calling you Pretty Girl?
He was wondering if you were still at the bar, surrounded by guys like Alan who would love to take you home while you were chatting with him. And he hoped the next text would contain your name. But you just ignored him when you wrote back a few minutes later. 
Pretty Girl: Prove you're not just sending some photos of a random hot dude. Go stand by your open refrigerator and take a selfie. Then take another one with your toothbrush. 
"She's a handful," Bradley murmured as he stood with a smile. He carried his beer into the kitchen, opened his refrigerator and snapped a selfie where the fridge light somehow accentuated his features nicely. Then he left his beer on the counter while he went into his bathroom. He was actively trying not to smile for this one where he had his red toothbrush hanging out of the side of his mouth, but he was on the verge of laughing at how ridiculous his night turned out to be. 
He typed up a message and attached both photos and then sent them off while he finished his beer at the kitchen counter, Clippers game forgotten. 
What is this, Pretty Girl? A hostage negotiation? I already told you, that's really me.
It didn't take too long for you to respond this time, and Bradley wasn't even letting his screen dim long enough to need to unlock it now.
Pretty Girl: Are you naked in these photos?
"Jesus," he muttered. Of course he wasn't. Did you want him to be? Shit, he needed to stop thinking about that.
No! I'm wearing underwear. You told me not to get changed or anything.
He felt flushed and too warm as he set his phone down on the counter and went to open some windows. Then he walked a few laps around his apartment in an effort to chill the fuck out. He wasn't even with you, and you were under his skin. 
When he returned to his phone, there was a selfie and a message waiting for him. In the photo, you were sipping a drink, and the way the straw pressed to your perfect lips had him practically moaning. 
Pretty Girl: My friend thinks there's something wrong with me. I'm at a Navy bar in San Diego at the moment. There are hot guys galore, and yet I'm glued to my phone. 
"Shit, shit, shit." Bradley thought about getting dressed and heading out to the bar himself. Then maybe he could hear you tell him your name in person right before he pulled the straw away from your mouth and kissed you.
How much longer are you going to be at the Hard Deck, Pretty Girl?
Bradley started heading for his bedroom closet when his phone vibrated in his hand.
Pretty Girl: How do you know I'm at the Hard Deck? Do I need to smash my phone to bits and go into hiding?
"Fuck," he grunted, typing so quickly he had to go back and fix several spelling errors before he could send it. The last thing he wanted to do was make you uncomfortable, so he paused before getting any clothing out of his closet.
Because I'm in the Navy, and I live in San Diego. And I recognized the inside of the bathroom from the first photo you sent me. I swear I'm not creepy. You can ask Penny, the bartender and owner of that fine establishment. I spend enough time there. Show her my photo.
Bradley collapsed onto his bed with his forearm over his eyes and his phone clutched to his chest. He didn't have to check the time to know it had been a while since he texted you. He also didn't have to look at his phone to know it was after midnight now and that you and he had been chatting for almost two hours. Bradley jolted when the phone vibrated against his chest.
Pretty Girl: Okay. Alright. Penny is a sweetheart, and your story checks out. Also, she told me your call sign and then told me to have you verify what it is for my own peace of mind. So what is it, Bradley? And how do you know what the ladies' restroom here looks like?
Oh, he was going to owe Penny big time. He typed away as he lay sprawled out on his bed.
My call sign is Rooster. And as for your bathroom question.... are you really going to make me answer that?
Bradley closed his eyes and thought about the girl who had taken him into the bathroom with her last year. He was pretty sure she had brown hair, but other than that, he couldn't really recall. But he did remember looking at that paper towel holder on the wall and the framed photo of an F/A-14 that was hanging over it while he was in there with her. 
He wouldn't mind taking a trip there with you, that was for sure. Or maybe you and he could skip the scandalous bar hookup and just go right to dinner or a movie. For some reason, he thought he might actually prefer that.
Pretty Girl: Be back soon. I'm getting a ride home.
Bradley mused out loud, "It better not be from Alan." Shit, he could have offered to go pick you up and make sure you got home safely. He'd only had those two beers all night, and now he was picturing some faceless guy named Alan driving you home and pawing at you.
He texted you back.
Let me know when you get home, okay? And you can always just call me.
With a sigh, he got out of bed and plugged his phone in, not sure what to expect at this point. He went back into the bathroom and used his red toothbrush. And then he went back to the living room and closed all the windows. When he was in his room again, he had no new notifications as he climbed in bed. He was about to text you again and check in when his phone rang.
CALL FROM Pretty Girl
Bradley was smiling as he answered. "Hey, Pretty Girl."
A soft laugh preceded your voice, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek as you said, "Hi, Bradley with the O positive blood. Are you trying to tell me that you were in that bar bathroom with a girl?"
He found himself laughing. "Can I plead the fifth?"
When you moaned softly, he dropped his phone onto the pillow and had to scramble to get it. "Oh, my god. Even your voice is sexy."
Okay. He should not be on the verge of touching himself after you spoke three whole sentences to him. "You make it home safely?" he asked, trying to play it cool as he thought about those photos you sent him. 
"Mmhmm. A very nice man named Alan drove me home. He's right here next to me as I get changed for bed."
Bradley thought for a beat that he had met his match in you. "You better be lying. You know what, put Alan on the phone."
Your laughter filled him up as you said, "He's not really here. I had to ditch him, because he doesn't even have a mustache. Apparently that's a deal breaker for me now?"
Holy shit. Bradley was in trouble. He was getting turned on, and you weren't even really saying anything dirty. "You're killing me. You gonna tell me your name, Pretty Girl?"
"No. I think I'm going to hold onto it a little longer."
"Fine. But please explain to me how I've never seen you at the Hard Deck before. I'm certain I would remember your face."
Your voice sounded a little softer now as you said, "I just moved to Coronado. It was my first time at the bar."
If he hadn't worked so late today, Bradley would have probably been there tonight as well. "You had fun? You think you'll go back again?"
"Probably," you replied casually. "When do you think you'll be there?"
Bradley was so warm he was starting to sweat. "Pretty Girl, you just say the word, and I'll clear my whole damn calendar."
Your little sighs and soft giggles were going to be the death of him. "You know, I still have Alan's, or rather your phone number on my hand."
He imagined himself kissing your palm and rewriting his phone number. "Should be in my handwriting. I'll make sure I always bring a pen with me to the bar."
You cleared your throat softly, and Bradley imagined you climbing into bed. "Penny told me to watch out for some of the other guys. But she said you're okay."
"Just okay?"
"Actually, she called you a big, brown eyed puppy dog."
Bradley laughed. "I've been called worse."
"I'm sure you have," you replied quickly. "You deserve some sort of punishment for daring to look good with a mustache."
"It's a blessing and a curse. Now, are you going to send me another photo? Or are you going to just agree to meet me tomorrow night?"
He heard a rustling noise and then you softly said, "Alan is not going to like this one bit." And then another photo arrived, and this one had Bradley's mouth hanging open. 
"Now it's my turn to ask if you're naked in this picture." He was taking in every inch of your exposed skin and your bedding tucked up to your collar bones. You took your makeup off for bed, and you looked cozy and intimate. And you were talking to him. You were letting him see this. Bradley had to actively think about not touching himself. 
"Totally naked."
"Fuck."
"Send me another one?"
"Yeah," he grunted, swallowing hard as he tried to pose for another selfie just how he was, sprawled out on his pillow with his left arm bent and tucked back behind his head. But his cheeks looked flushed, and his eyes looked darker than usual. He was turned on. 
Fuck it. He snapped the photo and sent it. And about ten seconds later, he was greeted with the strangled sound you made.
"It should be illegal for someone with that mustache to look so good. It's rude, honestly. Bradley, you're kind of rude, because now I want to know...."
He was hanging on your every word. "Know what, Pretty Girl?"
The call went completely silent before you said softly and sweetly, "What your mustache feels like...everywhere."
A soft, startled laugh escaped his lips. You were on the verge of some dirty talk now, he could just tell. And his cock was hard as he replied with, "I'd love to let you find out. But before you respond, I need to know how much you've had to drink tonight. I don't want to take advantage of anything here."
You whimpered on the other end of the call. "A mustache, brown eyes, and a gentleman? All Alan did for me was buy me those two Long Island iced teas."
Bradley grunted and said, "That's enough about Alan. Why don't you go ahead and tell me where you'd like to feel my mustache first, Pretty Girl."
You squeaked and said, "I want to feel it rough along my skin right below my ear while you whisper to me. Oh my god, I can't believe I said that out loud. I should just go to bed."
"Don't hang up," Bradley said, panting with need now. "Tell me more."
"Okay," you sighed with another little squeak. "I want to feel it on my lips. While I'm sitting in your lap, licking the taste of that beer you drank from your mouth."
"Holy shit," he groaned, palming himself through his boxer briefs.
"I know," you whined with need. "And I want to feel it on the back of my neck while you do filthy things to me. And I don't even know you!"
"You will," he guaranteed. "Please, tell me what time I can meet you tomorrow."
Bradley listened to the rustle of your sheets as he waited. Then you finally said, "Seven o'clock? At the Hard Deck?"
"I'll be there, Pretty Girl. I can't wait to see you."
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It was barely even 6:30, but you were already at the bar all made up and wearing a cute dress. Penny recognized you right away, which was kind of nice and kind of embarrassing. When she asked if you wanted another Long Island, you waved her off and said, "Nothing yet. I'm meeting someone."
Her eyes lit up as she asked, "Is it Rooster?"
You'd barely slept all night, preferring to look at the four selfies he'd sent you after you ended the call around two. There was a little more dirty talk, sure, but you and he also learned a bit more about each other. And now you were going to meet this naval aviator who was originally from Virginia but loved the Los Angeles Clippers face to face. 
"Yeah. It's Rooster."
Penny looked truly delighted. "You have nothing to worry about. He's very sweet."
"Tell that to the butterflies," you muttered as you placed one hand on your stomach for a beat, willing the nerves to dissipate as you walked away. You'd told Bradley you wanted his mustache on your body. In several places. And then he told you he thought you were so pretty and fun that he wanted to kiss you everywhere. And right now you were just mystified as to how this could have possibly happened only a week after you moved to this neighborhood. And you still didn't know what happened to Alan after you went to the ladies' bathroom and saved the wrong number in your phone.
You laughed when you thought about it, and then you ran your hands along the fabric of your dress. You were so antsy, your palms were sweaty. You looked down at yourself and just got more nervous. Bradley hadn't seen much of your body in the photos you'd sent to him. You'd seen plenty of his though, and he looked tall and muscular even next to his damn refrigerator. And his face was gorgeous, right down to that sinful looking mustache. 
And you were just... you. Alan was really more your speed with his nerdy glasses and messy hairstyle and his lack of ability to even grow any sort of facial hair at all. You just hoped that Bradley wouldn't take one look at you in person and walk right back out of the bar. 
You were about to tell Penny that you thought you needed a drink after all when the door caught your eye, and Bradley strolled into the bar like he owned the place. "Oh...fuck," you whispered, gaping at him as he ran his fingers through his hair. The photos hadn't even done him justice. He had to be over six feet tall, and he was so broad and muscular, he looked like he could pick you up and toss you around a little bit. "Shit." He was wearing some snug fitting jeans and a tropical print shirt like he just knew he could pull off the most ridiculous look. "Damn." He was glancing around, trying to find you while you started scouring the room unsuccessfully for another exit. 
You were trapped in here, and he was walking further into the bar now. And you didn't think you could hide halfway behind this couple who was making out for very much longer.  
As Bradley's eyes scanned the crowd again, he looked a little apprehensive. His brow was scrunched, and he checked the time on his watch. You knew it was almost seven. So you took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then you scooted one step to your left. When his gaze came your way again, his eyes landed on you. And then his face softened. The apprehension melted away, and he smiled a cute and somehow sexy little grin that made you whimper.
Now he was heading your way, his gait sure and steady. And then he was just a few feet away and you could see the scars on his face that you'd studied all night in the photos. And you could see the flecks of gold in his eyes that somehow the selfies didn't capture. And then he was talking, and his voice was even better in person.
"Pretty Girl."
Okay, so he'd seen you up close, and he wasn't running away. That had to be a good sign, right? You managed to say just one slightly breathless word. "Hi." And then his smile grew, and he was closing the space between your body and his. He was reaching for your face and running one rough thumb along your cheek. And then he kissed you.
And the soft scrape of his mustache was even better than all of the ways you'd spent your night imagining it might feel. You couldn't help but return his kiss, and somehow your hands ended up pressed to the front of him, sliding up to his chest. 
When he broke the kiss, he stayed close, his lips not far from your face. He covered your hands with his, keeping them on his body. And then he leaned close to your ear, his mustache scraping along your soft skin there as he whispered, "Tell me your name, Pretty Girl. I'm dying here."
Soft laughter bubbled out of you as he pulled away from you a bit, and those butterflies were going wild. His eyes were fixed on your face, begging for an answer this time as he stroked your hands with his thumbs. And then you told him, and he tried your name out on his tongue a few times with that grin that you liked so much. He kept saying it softly until you kissed him this time, and then he guided your arms around his neck. 
"Listen," he said in that raspy voice that you'd love to focus on all night. "I have no problem staying here for a while if you want to. I bet you could even persuade me to join you in the ladies' room."
"Sounds tempting," you told him with a smirk.
"It really does. But we could also just ditch the bar and grab dinner instead? Maybe watch the Clippers game and have a drink at my place? I'm a little worried Alan might show up here and try to lure you away, if I'm being honest."
You practically snorted with laughter. "I can't even really remember what Alan looks like. He was totally gone from my mind after the first selfie you sent me. Let's get out of here."
He took you by the hand. "Anything you want, Pretty Girl."
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I love dreamy loverboy Bradley, and I love Pretty Girl too. Thanks to @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls
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Text
ATArena
Alexander's phone dinged with a notification, just as he left the exam. It was a beautiful summer afternoon, and he was still talking with a few other students, so, naturally, he ignored the unexpected noise. Even though Alexander was certainly a digital native, he found it rude to check his phone while in company of others. He didn't particularly enjoy his current company: He found Christopher the guy that was currently bragging about how easy the exam was slightly annoying, but that wasn't a reason not to show good manners.
Only after their ways split, Alexander unlocked his phone and saw the notification: "Your watched App, ATArena, is now available."
ATArena? Alexander didn't remember he had watched an app with that name. Still, the notification seemed genuine and lead him to the app marketplace where he could initiate the download. The description was sparse: "An epic battle with a revolutionary matchmaking algorithm that will extend into real life!"
That sounded like an AR game of some sort. Alexander had enjoyed the big Pokeman Run hype some years ago and certainly didn't mind giving this app a try.
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When he opened the app for the first time, it asked him for the usual: His real name as well as his nickname. Alexander put in the same for the latter that he used everywhere: Lex_88. A short busy spinner appeared and finally, a message box greeted him:
"Welcome to ATArena, Lex_88! A suitable opponent has already been found. Connecting now..."
After he tapped "Ok", a chat interface opened:
TopShot joined the game.
TopShot: Hi.
Alexander didn't know how to react exactly. He was socially awkward, but ignoring the unknown other player would be rude. So, he just typed:
Lex_88: Hi.
Before any of them could type anything else, a popup opened:
"Battle available! Tap to play."
Alexander tapped the button and wondered what would happen now. Was this some kind of word puzzle or quiz against each other?
What opened though, was a simple depiction of three six-sided dice. When Alexander tapped them, a roll animation appeared until they settled at 14 eyes in total. Not bad!
"Lex_88 rolled: 14. TopShot rolled: 10. Lex_88 wins!"
The screen changed to a wheel of fortune now, which was already in motion. When it came to a stop, it showed a muscled arm emoji and the sparkling word "Bicep size" appeared on his screen.
Immediately, Alexander felt a weird tingling in his upper arms, accompanied by a tightness in the sleeves of his sweater. He locked his phone and scratched his arms but stopped immediately when his fingers met unexpected resistance. His upper arms seemed to have... swollen? What was happening?
Still on the university campus, Alexander made a dash for the nearest restroom and pulled off his sweater. He could hardly believe his eyes: His biceps had grown *considerably*, straining the seams of the t-shirt he wore underneath. When he moved his arms, the muscles bulged and contracted. It was a surreal feeling for sure. Was that the doing of this game?
Alexander unlocked his phone again saw a new message:
"Challenge! Record a video flexing your guns and upload it to social media!"
When he dismissed the message, he typed a message to his opponent.
Flex_88💪: Holy shit! My arms just grew!
Alexander stopped for a moment. Flex_88💪? That wasn't his nickname. Yet, when he scrolled up, it clearly appeared that way - that was the name saying "Hi." in the message before. It wasn't that far off from his usual nickname, which was... Flex_88💪. What was he even thinking about? That was just his screen name that he used almost everywhere, because of his biceps, obviously. His last message didn't make much sense, though. He added a:
Flex_88💪: I mean, they're pretty big, as always. Never mind!
It didn't feel good to brag, but there didn't seem to be a way to delete the message. But he might as well do the challenge now. It wasn't that unusual for him to post pictures and videos of his arms on social media, so, he recorded a short clip, made sure to crop out his surroundings and his face and sent the video to his LaterGram profile.
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Just as he was done, TopShot had answered:
TopShot: Uhm, good for you, dude.
TopShot: Seems like you've won the last game.
Flex_88💪: Yeah, but it was pure luck. I'm sure you're gonna win the next one.
As if on cue, another "Battle available" popup opened. This time, Alexander's roll was pretty bad. The dice showed 2-5-2, bringing him to a meager 9, a bit below the expected value.
"Flex_88💪 rolled: 9. TopShot rolled: 9. Tie! Both win!"
Apparently, TopShot wasn't having a very lucky day, either. The wheel turned and showed a drop emoji. Alexander was still thinking about what could be the meaning of the drop, when the word appeared: "Libido".
Libido? So, this was an 18+ game? Still, Alexander felt hot all of a sudden. His cock was stiffing up and he realized that it had been ages since his last jerk-off. Hornyness clouded his mind, when the next popup opened:
"Challenge! Use a pick-up line on someone you fancy."
Alexander was usually way too shy to approach another guy, but in his current situation even thinking about sending someone a pick-up line seemed like a good idea. He could just send that TopShot guy one, he had the advantage that Alexander didn't know him and probably never would meet.
He thought about his options and decided that a classic would be the best choice.
Flex_88💪: You know, my arms aren't the only thing big right now ;-)
It only took a moment for the other player to respond.
SwitchHit: I know what you mean.
SwitchHit sent an image.
Alexander hesitated only a bit before he opened the image. Yep. It was a picture of a tented boxershorts, snapped from a hastily opened pair of pants. Alexander could feel his cock throb. If he wasn't in public... No, he had to restrain himself. Even though he was still horny, which really wasn't unusual for him, he took a breather and tried to fight his boner down. He had just masturbated before he left for class, it was just amazing how needy his cock could be. His phone dinged as he readjusted himself and left the bathroom.
SwitchHit: Looking forward to the next game. I mean it's just dice rolling and stupid challenges, but it's fun.
Even though Alexander agreed, something seemed off. Had SwitchHit changed his screen name? No, didn't seem that way.
"Battle available!"
Alexander immediately rolled his dice and hardly could believe his eyes: three sixes, a solid 18.
"Flex_88💪 rolled: 18. SwitchHit rolled: 15. Flex_88💪wins! Critical!"
15 was a pretty good roll, but nothing could beat Alexander's 18. He grinned as the wheel stopped on "Confidence".
"Challenge! Approach a local gym and negotiate a free trial using nothing but your charm and confidence. "
Xander grinned. Yeah, that was an awesome idea. He was originally on his way home, but finally joining a gym was long overdue. Luckily, there was one right on his way. Half an hour later, he had a full two month free trial and also a protein shaker as a gift. It had been easier than Xander had thought.
Suddenly, he remembered the game.
Flex_88💪: Hey SwitchHit, you still there?
SwitchHit: Yeah, sorry, I didn't want to message so much. Sorry!
Xander rolled his eyes. That guy needed to grow some balls. He was just about to reply, when the next battle was available. Xander really had to admit, what SwitchHit said was true: It was kind of fun!
This time, Xander rolled bad: The three dice showed a measly 8 points. Unsurprisingly, SwitchHit won.
"Flex_88💪 rolled: 8. SwitchHit rolled: 14. SwitchHit wins!"
Damn, this was the first time Xander lost. The wheel landed on a brain-emoji, and, unsurprisingly, it was labelled with "Smarts".
Xander scratched his head. What did that mean? Would he have some penalty challenge now? He would see soon enough.
"Challenge! Skip reading your usual news or books for the day. Instead, binge-watch a reality TV series."
Xander scratched his head again. Did he really want to do that?
Well, of course he wanted to! That sounded like a fun evening. Why would he read books?! He didn't even own books!
Flex_88💪: Man, those challenges are really ez. I need to watch some TV this evening, not read sum bokshit.
Xander typed the message as he arrived at his apartment. He fixed himself a quick dinner and sat down on the couch, turning on the TV.
SwitchHit: I agree. I have to read some Ovid tonight, which I find rather light literature.
Flex_88💪: Whatev you say, man. Hey, by the way, what's your name?
Flex_88💪: Mine's Xander.
SwitchHit: I don't know, I probably shouldn't share my real name on the internet.
Flex_88💪: Aw, come on. As if I could find out where you live with only your real name.
SwitchHit: ...Right. I'm called Chris.
Flex_88💪: Like Christian? Christopher?
SwitchHit: No, just Chris.
Flex_88💪: K. Hey, that pic was pretty hot back then.
They chatted a bit during the evening and exchanged some more pictures of tented pants. Xander was only half paying attention to the reality show on his screen, as one of his hands was more or less constantly in his pants. Still, it was just friendly teasing, no downright cyber-sex.
Eventually, Xander had finished the season and went to bed. SwitchHit - Chris - had called it a night an hour ago, but he still had to finish the last episodes. Good thing he didn't draw the book shit. That would've taken a week, not an evening.
When Xander woke up the next morning, the next battle was already waiting for him. He rolled the dice as he crawled out of bed, again rolling abyssal. Only six eyes were visible on his dice.
"Flex_88💪 rolled: 6. SwitchHit rolled: 10. SwitchHit wins!"
This time, the wheel landed on "Personality". Weird. That was a pretty vague category.
"Challenge! Show someone their place."
Xander raised his eyebrows. What a weird challenge. Anyway, time to for groceries!"
Xander drove over to the store in his old and cheap car. However, when he arrived, another visitor to the gym took the parking spot directly in front of the entrance. What an asshole!
Xander parked and got out of his car, quickly approaching the unsuspecting guy that just stole *his* spot.
"Hey, asshole! What do you think you're doing?!"
The man, a young guy with glasses and a bit on the nerdy side, looked up, surprised.
"What's your problem?"
"I'm the problem. Your problem. You just took my parking spot."
"Your spot? Don't be ridiculous."
Xander's hands balled into fists. That guy was really annoying!
"That was my spot, asshole. If you don't get your ass moving, I'll *make* you move."
"Alright, alright, chill down. Geez."
The other guy got in his car and parked in another spot. Xander nodded satisfied. He had shown him. Oh. Right, the challenge.
Entering the building (without moving his car), Xander checked his phone and sent SwitchHit a message:
Tank: Man, people are crazy today. Some asshole took my parking spot and I had to show him.
SwitchHit: Sorry to hear that.
SwitchHit: Did you change your screen name?
Tank: Nope. It's Tank, as it has always been. Because I'm a fricking TANK!
SwitchHit: Yeah. That makes sense.
"Battle available!"
Xander was collecting stuff from the shelves when he rolled the dice in-between. He rolled a solid 14, but Chris beat him by one point.
"Tank rolled: 14. SwitchHit rolled: 15. SwitchHit wins!"
Xander cursed loudly, making a few heads turn in the shop. The wheel turned and finally landed on a heart shape. "Empathy" it read. Another one of those fuzzy words.
"Challenge! Cut ties that hold you back!"
Xander scratched his head. What was that supposed to mean? He really wanted to win this game, so what did he have to do now?
As he thought about this, another message popped up, this time from the chat group with his closest circle of friends, who were planning their next meet-up. If Xander thought about it, he was really annoyed by those guys. They were all nerds and losers who always had shit ideas like board games and stuff. Without a second thought, Xander replied to the group.
Tank: I'm not coming. Those gatherings are a waste of time. Get lost, losers!
With that, he left the group and blocked the numbers of his so called friends. He had better things to do.
"Battle available!"
Like that, for example. Chris, who went by the silly nickname of CuddleBug, was at least a horny bastard like Xander himself. With a tap, he rolled the dice.
"Tank rolled: 12. CuddleBug rolled: 10. Tank wins!"
Oh yeah! The roll wasn't even so great, yet still he won. Xander smiled even broader when the wheel landed on a muscular torso, labelled simply: "Muscles."
In an instant, Xander felt his whole body swell up. No wonder. Axel basically *lived* in the gym. As he looked down, the fabric of his shirt had turned almost transparent with the sudden expansion of his muscles. It wasn't just his torso, of course. Axel didn't skip leg day, so his quads and hamstrings grew to impressive size, too. His shoulders were getting broad and wide, as well, to the point where he had difficulties reaching his back.
"Challenge! Show your gainz, buy a muscle shirt!"
Axel could have slapped his forehead. Why didn't he think of that himself - and sooner? He needed to share that thought.
Tank: Hey Chris, what ya tink? I should get a muscle shirt, huh?
Tank sent an image.
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CuddleBug: Omg, yes. That will look awesome. I wish I had muscles like that.
Axel grinned. Right. No wonder that Chris agreed, Axel's muscles were a sight to behold. Good thing he was already in a store. He quickly bought a few muscle shirts, enough to replace his usual wardrobe. After paying for his purchase, Axel put on the new shirt right on the parking lot before squeezing himself into his car.
"Battle available!"
The game was pretty fast-paced. Axel tapped to roll the dice and was pumping his fist, when one after another, all three dice ended up showing a six.
"Tank rolled: 18. CuddleBug rolled: 4. Tank wins! Critical!"
"Ha! Yes!" Axel cheered and the wheel spun until it showed "Dominance".
A surge of excitement and satisfaction rushed through Axel's veins. He felt *good* all of a sudden. And *powerful*.
"Challenge! Assert your dominance! Challenge a gym bro today!"
Axel grinned. Yeah, that was exactly his thing. He needed to get to the gym anyway. That free membership was hard earned. Also, Chri- Kit seemed to like his gains. Time to make some more.
It was still early afternoon, and the gym wasn't packed with visitors yet, when Axel arrived. There were a few regulars, as always. A short dude with a moustache that looked like a wannabe porn star and a big dude with a neckbeard were currently occupying the bench press, while a girl in her 40s did lat pulls.
Confidently and arrogantly, Axel readjusted his half-hard cock and approached the big guy.
"Yo, man. You're pretty buff. But I bet I can still take you easily. Wann wrestle?"
The large dude looked at Axel for a moment. Axel could see a vein on his neck throb.
"You little shit. You think you're better than me, huh? Fine, let's do this."
In the pocket of his gym shorts, Axel could feel his phone vibrate.
"Ha. Lead the way, I'm gonna wipe the floor with you."
As he followed the big guy to the mats, Axel checked his phone.
"Battle available!"
Great! Before he kicked some ass, he could play some more! While walking, he rolled the dice and scored a 15!
"Tank rolled: 15. CuddleBug rolled: 9. Tank wins!"
He didn't have time to watch the wheel this time, so he didn't notice that it landed on "Stamina." He also didn't see the challenge, which simply read: "Kick some ass!"
The big guy was already waiting for him on the mats, but Axel felt incredibly cocky. This was gonna be easy!
"No rules, no limits, no mercy." Axel said and the other guy nodded.
"That's the way it's gonna be. No mercy, punk."
"Bring it, tubby."
The big guy was the first to charge and he was surprisingly fast for his size. However, his speed and strength were no match for Axel's new found muscles. Even though they wrestled for a few minutes, Axel found himself not even tiring much. Finally, he was able to flip his opponent around and lock him on the ground. He tried to struggle, but Axel held his arms and legs firmly in place.
"Give up, man. You can't win."
The big guy tried to wiggle out of Axel's grip, but to no avail. He could struggle and shout as much as he wanted, but Axel was the one on top.
Finally, the guy gave up and admitted defeat.
"Ha! Loser!" Axel cheered and got up. He had a full boner now, both from the sweaty wrestling as well as from the display of dominance, but he didn't hide it. Instead, he headed to the showers and let Kit know of his triumph on the way.
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XxBeastxX: I just *dominated* some fuckin weakass in the gym. Wrestled him down and he was crying and everything.
Kit answered right away.
CuddleBug: You're awesome.
CuddleBug: I wish I could have been in this place.
XxBeastxX: Ha. Course I am.
XxBeastxX: Huh? Whatya mean?
CuddleBug: Nothing. Never mind.
Axel was about to answer, but yet another "Battle available!" message popped up.
This game was seriously addictive! Axel rolled the dice and had a 10, which was decidedly less than what Kit had.
"XxBeastxX rolled: 10. CuddleBug rolled: 11. CuddleBug wins!"
"Damn." Axel said, but the wheel landed on "Generosity." He was almost glad he lost. Otherwise, the challenge would probably have been something like "Donate to the homeless" or some shit. What did the homeless ever do for him?
Instead, the challenge was:
"Challenge! Sell something of sentimental value!"
Huh. Well, Axel didn't really have anything he would consider "sentimental". His old PS2 that he got from his uncle for his 10th birthday was a bit sentimental, but other than that... Oh! His old car would probably qualify.
Axel thought about it. On the one hand, his old car was a piece of shit, and he shouldn't care much about it, but on the other hand... It would be a shame if he would have to say goodbye to his baby. Would it? No, not really. It was a pain to squeeze into it anyway. And if he played his cards right, he would even get some good money for it.
The decision was easy, and after showering, Axel drove to the nearest car dealer. It was a hard bargain, but in the end, he managed to persuade the guy to buy his car. It wasn't a high price, but it was more than what the piece of crap was really worth.
Just as he finished the contract, his phone dinged. It was rude, of course, but he didn't give a flying shit about that and checked his phone. It was from Kit, of course.
TwinkyKit: I just donated some money to the homeless. That felt good!
Axel snorted. Of course, how pathetic.
XxBeastxX: Good. Maybe now they won't be so fucking lazy anymore and work a little.
"Battle available!"
It seemed like the game always interrupted their chats. Well, anyway. He quickly rolled the dice, while the car dealer waited patiently to return his attention to him again. The dice turned out lower than Kit's again and after reading the wheel result and the challenge, Axel looked back up to the car dealer. For a split second, the "Money" challenge was still visible on the screen: "Challenge! Buy a muscle car! You know you want it!"
Damn right he did. Jax had always wanted to have a muscle car. He just never had the money. Bullshit. He never had the balls to take on some debt to buy one.
The car dealer was more than willing to help Jax chose and set up the necessary credit paperwork. He didn't even read this shit and selected a car immediately. A shiny, silver beast with a huge engine. It was a bit pricy, but it was worth it, at least to Jax. After he received the keys, he messaged Kit.
XxBeastxX: While you were busy giving money to some crackheads, I got myself something new. Check this out!
XxBeastxX sent an image.
XxBeastxX sent an image.
The first image was the car of course. The second was a dick pic, for good measures. Jax didn't really care that he was still at the car dealer when he lowered his pants for a moment to snap the pic.
TwinkyKit: OMG. You're such a stud.
XxBeastxX: Thanks, Twinky.
XxBeastxX: By the way, show some respect!
He drove back home, feeling great.
At home, the next battle was already available. Jax grinned and rolled the dice. He could hardly believe what he saw: 3 single eyes. He rolled a fucking 3.
"XxBeastxX rolled: 3. TwinkyKit rolled: 3. Tie! Both lose! Critical!"
What a pathetic roll, for both of them!
The wheel landed on "Impulse Control". This was getting interesting. It was true, Jax was notoriously bad at controlling himself. He just bought a new car, on a whim. So whatever challenge was coming his way shouldn't be too hard.
"Challenge! Get that tat!"
Jax didn't think much about it. Sure, why not. He would probably regret it, but that was something future Jax would have to deal with. He started his shiny new car again and drove to a nearby tattoo studio.
When the artist asked what kind of design he wanted, he only thought for a second, before deciding: "A dragon, obviously!"
As the artist started working, he massaged his dick with his other hand, earning him a condescending look from the artist. He couldn't help it though. Kit... Kitty would surely love his new tat.
When he sent a pic later, he was proven right:
TwinkyKit: OMG! That's hot.
TwinkyKit: I wish I had one, too.
TwinkyKit: I mean: Sir.
Jax smiled and was about to type a reply, when another "Battle available!"-message distracted him.
He quickly rolled the dice and grinned at the result: 15! That beat Kittys sorry little ass for sure, and he was right. Kitty had a mere 7 points to show. This time, the wheel landed on "Aggressiveness."
If possible, Jax felt even more powerful and manly. The challenge read "Start a bar fight!" and that was exactly what Jax wanted to do this evening. Well, that or fuck some ass, but really, a good bar fight was probably even better tonight.
He quickly messaged Kitty.
Ass_Crusher🍆: Talk to you tomorrow. Gonna kick some ass now. Think of me when you jerk off tonight, boy!
Kitty responded almost instantly, with a picture of his uncut dick.
TwinkyKit: I will, Sir! Have fun.
Jax drove to the nearest gay bar, a shady joint called "Diesel". The music was loud, and the lights were dim. Jax didn't mind the atmosphere, though, instead, he went straight to the bar and ordered a double shot. He downed the drink and ordered a second. Just as the bartender placed the glass in front of him, he grabbed it and threw the liquor right into the bartender's face.
"The fuck?! What are you doing?!"
"What do you think, asshole?" Jax answered, his voice dangerously calm.
"You can't do this!"
"Yeah, I can. And you're going to shut the fuck up."
With those words, Jax slammed his fist in the bartender's face, who immediately fell to the ground. There had been really no reason for him to punch the bartender, but it had the intended effect: From one moment to the other, there was a barfight in full swing.
Of course, everyone tried to overwhelm Jax, but he fought back with vigor and stamina. Several black eyes and a broken nose on his enemies later, the patrons and the bar's bouncer managed to throw Jax out, but still, Jax had a great time, kicking ass and punching dudes. Before someone could call the cops, Jax went home, happy and content.
When Jax woke up the next morning, he almost didn't notice any bruises anymore. Instead, he grabbed his phone while he was doing his morning piss and checked ATArena. Yep, there was another battle available. Time to see if Kitty was already up.
He rolled the dice and only a minute later, Kitty's results came in. Easy win. Jax had rolled only a ten, but Kitty didn't beat him with his pathetic five. However, Jax laughed out loudly, as he saw the wheel's result: Dick size.
"Challenge! Show your assets!"
*That*, Jax could do. He watched as the cock in his hand grew longer and fatter by the second, instantly forgetting that it had once been smaller. No, Jax always had a big, fat and juicy cock, the biggest, actually. With a few last strokes, Jax sent a pic of his cock, the tip glistening wet.
Ass_Crusher🍆: Check that out. That's what a real cock looks like.
Ass_Crusher🍆 sent an image.
Ass_Crusher🍆 sent an image.
Ass_Crusher🍆 sent an image.
Jax sent several more images of his magnificent rod, both naked and wearing tight underwear. As if there was another kind. For Jax, all underwear was tight.
Finally, Kitty responded.
CrushersToyBoy: Fuck. You're so hot, Sir.
CrushersToyBoy sent an image.
Jax smirked. Kitty's own cock was tiny, especially compared to Jax' equipment. It didn't matter much, though. Kitty didn't need it, he needed to have his ass crushed.
Ass_Crusher🍆: I know, babe. I know. You know what I'll do with it now?
"Battle available!"
God dammit. This was getting annoying.
Jax quickly rolled the dice, scoring the top available score! 18 points! But apparently, Kitty was just as lucky, rolling an 18, too.
"Ass_Crusher🍆 rolled: 18. CrushersToyBoy rolled: 18. Tie! Both win! Critical!"
Jax didn't even need to read the attribute to feel it. It was "Libido, again." His already mostly hard cock surged up, becoming a firm steel pipe in his pre-cum soaked underwear. There were no pants on earth that could hide his constant arousal - on some days, even a firm pair of jeans left nothing to imagination and showed a wet patch where his cock was constantly leaking pre. He was a walking and breathing sex machine and Rex knew it. His name was fitting, too. He was a fucking king among men. And today he was going to breed the fuckable ass of that twink.
Ass_Crusher🍆: Get ready, boy. I'm cumming over and I'm gonna split open that ass of yours.
Rex closed the game and deleted it. There was no point in wasting his time with some stupid mobile game. He got back into his car and revved the engine. Oh yeah. Time to get some ass!
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What a great game! I know I wouldn't mind playing if ATArena popped up on my phone, would you?
822 notes · View notes
iliektehhaxs · 1 month
Text
Toxic ex-boyfriend Simon 🫠🫠
It’s the same routine ever since you broke up with Simon. Call after call, decline after decline, you’ve changed your number twice now and he’s still managed to find you.
He doesn’t take no for an answer, though I suppose you knew this already—The break-up was a pretty big indicator of that, or in his words, your “break.”
“You’re just a bit overwhelmed,” he said to you, not budging a little even with your full weight on him, trying and failing to push him out of your apartment. It’s as if you weren’t even there. “Never had a man treat you like you need to be treated, scared of new sensations?”
That certainly wasn’t the problem, but it was in one ear and out the other with Simon. Honestly, you’re not even sure if it even managed to go in one ear.
“Please, don’t make this difficult,” you begged, giving up on your attempt to push him out. “Just…leave. I don’t want to call the cops.”
At the mention of police he laughs, almost mockingly. It almost scares you.
“Alright then, I’ll entertain your little tantrum for now,” he says, stepping out into the hallway. “But when you’ve finally come to your senses, know that I’ll be waiting for you.”
A pause, and then: “Of course I’ll have to teach you a lesson about being a brat when you do, but you always love my lessons don’t you pet?”
Weeks later his words still ring in your ears.
Weeks later your phone still rings in your hands.
You don’t need to check the caller ID—it’s always an unknown number, but you always know who it is. You let it go to voicemail like usual, but today is a first—a small notification being visible from the corner of your eye.
One voicemail left by: Unknown Caller
Your curiosity peaks, with stubbornness quelling it soon after. It’s a voicemail from your ex, what could he possibly say to you that you haven’t heard a million times before.
Still, it eats away at you. It wasn’t like him to leave a message when he could just call. Hell, knowing him he’s more likely to show up at your door.
It lingers in your mind. You think about it for the rest of the day and it’s now you truly understand the plight of the cat when curiosity seems so enticing.
You relent when you lie awake restless, a losing battle as you find your inbox and hit play.
Your ears are greeted with ambient silence, unsure if maybe Simon left his voicemail open on accident. The moment the thought crosses your mind you hear it, the distinct rumble you know as wholly and purely Simon. There’s a shuffle, then his voice cuts through the empty air.
“Hey there pet. Missed ya.”
You find your eyes rolling as he continues.
“I know, I know, you want to keep me away,” he says breathlessly. “But I’m not sure how long I can keep playing this game.”
There’s a rustling, a deep inhale followed by the sound of something squirting.
“Had to take a minute, forgot I had these,” he says, then takes a moment to laugh. “I’m talking like you can see me, so lemme paint you a nice, clear picture.”
A rather familiar sound of skin against skin has your face growing hotter. You’re in disbelief, willing to deny what you think you’re hearing until Simon confirms it for you.
“Hear that, pet?” He growls. “That’s all me. Could be yours too, if you’d stop being such a fuckin’ brat.”
The sound of his hand is slow, methodical in his purpose. “Nice and wrapped up in those panties I love so much. Pink and satin, the ones you got for valentines—you know the ones.”
A sigh, as if he’s reminiscing. “God, you were a real animal that day. Purred so nicely when I stuffed that cunt of yours.”
Whatever anger you have towards him for stealing your underwear is soon replaced with lust, the sound of the fabric in sync with his hand enough to have you squirming in your bed. His voice like gravel echoes through the speaker, even worse is the slick sounds of what you’re certain is your panties stroking his cock, stained with pre-cum.
More noises, his breathing getting faster and faster. “So fuckin’ soft. Feels good wrapped around me, reminds me of when you’d get so needy you’d need to grind yourself on my thigh.”
Long stretches of time where all you can hear are his breathless moans and his hand moving faster. On instinct your thighs close around nothing as you listen to your ex-boyfriend jerk off in your ears.
“Should see me right now, nice and hard just for you,” he gasps.
Your pussy throbs as if on instinct.
One of your favorite traits about Simon was his undeniably large cock, how it would blush the prettiest shade of rouge at the sight of you, how you struggled to take it every time and how you could feel it in your chest when he fucked you. It’s all you can think about now, any reason you had for breaking up seemingly lost to you.
Another laugh drags you from your thoughts. “You were thinking about me just then, weren’t you?”
Embarrassment burns through your body. You have half a mind to turn off your phone, but you can’t bring yourself to do it. You can practically hear the smugness in his tone.
“Don’t worry, I’m thinking of you too.”
You hate the fact that he’s right. You hate the fact that he knows you so well. You hate the fact that you’re still listening.
You especially hate the fact you want him to do something about the increasing wetness in your panties.
“Just the thought of you, your body—that tight cunt of yours…” He cuts himself off with a moan, the distinct sound of slickness echoing in the speakers.
“God, just thinking about how hungry you must be for my cock…the things I’ll do when I get my hands on you.”
The laugh that emits from him is unhinged, animalistic. It excites you, as guilty as you feel for admitting it.
The sound of his hand speeds up as he talks. “You been taking good care of her in my stead? Touching yourself, getting her nice and prepared for when I come back? I’d hate to re-train her back into my shape.”
He’s so damn vulgar and you love it.
“Just remember, when you’re awake at night, and your thighs are pressing together so pretty, begging for something between them..”
His voice is clear as day, dark and unchained. It sends a full-bodied jolt through your own body, just barely resisting the urge to call.
“…That my cock will always be better than your hand.”
408 notes · View notes
webslingingslasher · 3 months
Text
Unknown Sender
happy valentine's day!
MONDAY: 13:52 
‘hi.’ Peter squints at the message, then the unsaved number. He's not sure how, but it’s a scam. 
‘i’d like to have your attention, please.’ Peter rolls his eyes, swiping left to not only delete but report the number as junk. No doubt it was a bot or someone with a flair for sextortion. 
A new number. ‘that was actually so rude of you, parker.’ 
‘unblock me right now.’ 
Peter shifts in his seat, he does a slow look around the room and finds nothing off putting or alarming. 
‘Who is this?’ 
Green bubbles pop up. ‘unblock me and i’ll tell you.’ Peter was right to guess about extortion. Another swipe, blocked and reported. Peter wasn’t participating in any games. 
A new number. ‘oh, now you’re just being cute.’ 
Peter feels his heart pick up a bit, it’s a tad threatening and now he’s overthinking it a little. What if someone has it out for him? Is there a mark on his back? ‘Please leave me alone.’ 
‘no.’ 
‘can we play 21 questions?’ 
Peter’s face scrunches up, he spins his head around one more time, someone is fucking with him. He has no clue who has time for something like that in university, but he’s not a willing participant anymore, not since high school. 
‘Leave me alone. Go torment a freshman.’ 
‘i don’t like freshmen. i like you.’ Peter chews at his bottom lip, there was a second of hesitancy but he knows the truth deep down. ‘I’m blocking you.’ 
‘sure. i’ll keep texting you, too.’ 
‘I’ll change my number.’ 
‘noooo please don’t do that. i had to work hard enough to get it the first time.’ Peter doesn’t respond. He blocks the number and moves on, and they don’t try to text him again.
Until the next day and Peter knows two things for certain. There is a note in his backpack, and it wasn’t there before his econ lecture. He remembers pulling that pocket open before he started notes, then when he went to zip it up, a note. 
This upsets him. What good was any sense when someone could get that unnoticeably close to him without him knowing? Second, it’s a little frustrating not to know who this person is and how it most likely is connected to the texts he had a few days ago, and that it’s an extremely long played joke that’s mostly boring. 
‘Peter Parker- 
You’ve been secretly admired. It might not be very secret, because I think you’ve caught me staring at you a thousand times. I like you a lot. 
Hopefully liked back, 
-X’ 
But a part of him believes it’s true. He’s trying to think of who’s in his lecture, if he’s caught them staring then they’re either to the side or behind him. There are too many faces, too many times he’s been looked at, he’s almost centered, it’s his fault for choosing a focal point. 
Instead of throwing it away, he refolds the pink handwriting and puts it back into place before hitching a strap over his shoulder and sliding behind chairs. One, two steps up he glances at your face, you have a weak smile, he returns the same kind, it’s more like a polite nod. Peter’s always thought you were pretty and he thinks you're nice. 
But really, he’s wondering who left the note. 
10:30
‘did you get my note?’ Peter does his normal scan across campus, again, his fault for being out in the open. This person could be anywhere, he’s on a picnic bench with a group of friends. If he’s smart, he’d start limiting himself to contained spaces and make you show yourself. 
‘Yeah. Who is this?’ Peter’s thumbs dance around the screen waiting for a reply, it comes quick. ‘i told you. x.’ He stops himself from rolling his eyes, he doesn’t know anyone with an ‘X’ anywhere in their name. 
‘Is that an initial?’ 
‘actually, i’m pretty sure it’s british for kiss.’ 
‘That’s a wild take. Are you saying the UK is responsible for XOXO’s?’ 
‘i’d like to make you responsible for my xoxo’s.’ Peter chews his bottom lip, he won’t play into anything in writing. He doesn’t believe this for a second, everything about this feels off. Someone’s fucking with him and they’re also in his class, or they have someone in on it in his class. 
But this is too advanced.
‘sorry. i don’t mean to like harass you or anything. you’re really hot but you scare me, i don’t think you would like me so idk, maybe if you talk to me you’d like me for me or something.’ 
‘i just think i’m punching wayyyy above my weight class here and i may be making this worse because there is no doubt you think im weird.’ 
‘i am weird. i should leave you alone now. i’m sorry.’ 
Peter reads his screen four times, it’s still not clicking. He’s nothing special and he doesn’t mean that in a way to dog on himself, he’s just nerdy and quiet. It seems a little too authentic to be fake, but he’s got to make sure. 
‘How’d you get my number?’ 
‘your friend. they have been sworn to secrecy but they know what i’m doing and they are in full support. take that as you will.’ 
‘Depends on the friend.’ 
‘i’ll tell you when you find out who i am.’ 
‘I’m going to find out? You’re not going to tell me?’ 
‘i don’t think i’ve been hiding it. you just haven’t been paying attention and now i want you to.’ 
‘Oh, but you’re shy?’ 
‘i’m about to pass out on the lawn behind this fucking screen, don’t play with me parker.’ A slip, you’re around him and you just admitted it. ‘Tell me, admirer, what are you wearing?’ The more detail the better, but he could work off of just a color. 
‘nice try. but you’re looking mighty handsome in the blue.’ A glance down, he suddenly feels watched. ‘Are you stalking me?’ 
‘oh no! no no no. i PROMISE you i’m not that fucking psychotic.’
‘i’m just a “sneak a note into your backpack” level of crazy. i’m here with my roommate and her boyfriend. i saw you and just wanted to know if you got it, i promise.’ 
‘You do understand that this situation makes you seem psychotic, right?’ 
‘yes. but i am not.’ 
‘That sounds like something a crazy person who got my number from a third party would say. Especially after I blocked you six times.’ 
‘it was three and you didn’t understand my intentions but okay. you have a fair point and i extend the olive branch of brett. he gave me your number and he knows me pretty well.’ 
Brett? Easy enough, he nods his head towards him and slides his phone across the table. “Explain.” His friend scrolls through the thread, a trustworthy smile spreads. “Yeah, I gave her your number.” Her. Okay, it’s something. “Who is she?” Brett shrugs, “you know her. She’s kind of a firecracker, you just make her nervous.” 
“That gives me nothing, Brett.” His friend blinks, “she’s not crazy. She likes you a lot for whatever fucking reason and has no idea how to approach you.” Peter’s letting his words soak in, “don’t believe me? Ask her about the grilled cheese, and make sure you tell her that I told you about how she went on for five fucking minutes about the grilled cheese.” 
“What grilled cheese?” Brett slides Peter’s phone back, he’s telling him to ask you. Something tells Peter it’s enough to embarrass, or it might be Brett being the ultimate wingman.
‘I’ve been told to ask you about the grilled cheese.’ 
‘oh god. there is no need to ask about the grilled cheese, did brett tell you about the grilled cheese?’ 
‘He told me to ask you. And to specify that you went on for five minutes about it.’ 
‘five is excessive, it was more like three. second, there is nothing to speak about.’ 
‘I would like to hear about it.’ 
‘i’d prefer if you didn’t.’ 
‘But you’ll do it for me?’ 
‘i’m weak for you and you know it. it’s sicking, parker.’ 
‘i heard you talking about making one in class and you said something about the crust and i really fucking love grilled cheese’s so i had a trip to fantasy land where you made me one and how it’s probably the best thing i’ll never get to taste.’ 
‘Wow. Five whole minutes on that?’ Peter won’t admit it made him feel a little warm on the inside, the most mundane of things to have someone so squirrely makes him feel unworthy. 
‘three.’ 
‘Tell me who you are and I’ll make you a grilled cheese.’ 
‘you have no idea how much that almost worked.’ 
‘What’s the plan then, master manipulator?’ 
‘i don’t know yet. i’m hoping you show me how smart you are and figure me out, then you can do all the hard questions.’ 
‘Hard questions?’ 
‘you know, do you wanna go on a date, do you wanna be my girlfriend, do you want to take my hand in marriage and have a summer home in the french alps? that kind of stuff.’ 
‘Totally not psychotic.’ Peter tucks his bottom lip between his teeth to hide the smile that wants to spread. 
‘mostly not.’ 
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WEDNESDAY: 13:57
Peter doesn’t know who X is, but they’re clever and have zero effect on his sixth sense. He doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. Either way, he’s reading a note scribbled in blue pen and as he studies the words he knows it was rushed. It’s proof that he wasn’t being followed everywhere, instead you saw an empty table and an opportunity. 
‘Peter- 
You use mostly gender neutral pronouns. I think that’s very cool. Is it weird that I notice those things about you? Also- what is it that you’re always drinking from Nuthouse? Asking for a friend… 
Have a good day! 
-Your not so secret admirer, X. 
‘Not so secret,’ Peter isn’t sure about that. You’ve done a good enough job at not trying to be obviously known, he might have looked up your number last night to find dust. One was from an app, but the one you’ve been using is a burner phone. 
What he’s really not understanding is how you’re able to get so close to him without him noticing. You had to have been millimeters away when you rested the letter on his backpack, he was gone for less than two minutes and he had zero awareness. 
Peter folds up the note and sticks it in the same pocket as the other one, his back slung around one shoulder as he moves up the stairs for the library. At the same time, you come down the opposite side, Peter gives a friendly acknowledgement. 
You choke down the lump in your throat. “Hi, Peter.” He’s already past you, it’s echoed behind his shoulder. “Hey.” It’s something. You’re trying, you’re trying to be bold for him. But he’s not going to notice, he’s never going to notice you and if you tell him who you are you’ll never live past his disappointment. 
Your phone vibrates, the other phone. Your heart picks up, Peter texted first. 
 14:02 
‘Dirty chai.’ 
‘best of both worlds. how fitting. you’re such a nonconforming king.’ 
‘I don’t even know what that means.’ 
‘But thank you?’ 
‘you’re welcome!’ 
‘anything fun on the roster today?’ 
‘Roster? Who are you?’ 
‘idk you make me nervous. blame yourself.’ 
‘Well, coach. Nothing fun on the roster, just some math. Wanna swap places with me?’ 
‘gross. i hate math so if you like it that’s good with me. one of us has to be smart and it’s not me.’
‘Smart enough to use a burner phone.’ 
‘oooooh, someone tried to find meeee.’ 
‘Can’t blame a guy for being curious, can you?’ 
‘were you disappointed when you found nothing?’ 
‘A little bit. But, you know, it keeps the imagination alive. A little unfair advantage on your side though, you already know what I look like.’ 
‘if it helps, you already know what i look like too.’ 
‘I do?’ 
‘yeah. we’ve talked before.’ 
‘Wait, so I know who you are?’ Brett said he did but Peter thought he meant you’d be familiar, not that he actually knew you. This just opened the floodgates to a million more possibilities. 
‘not really but yeah i guess. you know i exist but we’re not friends or anything.’ 
‘I’d like to think we’re friends, but okay.’ 
‘not outside the texting.’ 
‘That’s your decision.’ 
‘HATER.’ 
‘Anymore hints?’ 
‘.... no.’ 
‘HATER.’ 
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FRIDAY: 12:15
You’re about to spill hot tea everywhere but it’ll be worth it to see his face. You ignore your pounding heart and stand in front of him. He’s got no clue you showed up, zoned out looking at the clock on the wall across from him. 
“Hi, Peter.” 
Full frontal attention, he’s looking at you. He’s perceiving you, he’s smiling at you. “Hi,” your eyes expand, he knows your name and it sounds so nice coming from his mouth. Sure, you’ve chatted with each other- even shared a few highlighters, but nothing serious. You’ve always been too scared to try anything else but maybe your fear has been mistaken for indifference. 
“I um, I lucked out today at Nuthouse so if you like dirty chai’s I got an extra one.” Your knees feel weak at his bright eyes, “my favorite. I’d love one, thank you.” You pass over the paper cup, your fingers brush and you think you’re about to collapse. 
“Yeah,” a weak laugh. “I had a feeling.” Peter tilts his head at you funny, you wonder if you pushed a little too far. “Okay, um, I’m gonna… have a good… lecture.” Peter nods and watches you go two rows up, he’s finally got a gut feeling. And it tells him to keep an eye out for you. 
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TUESDAY: 12:10
Not that Peter was reliant on your attention, he was used to it. So when the texts stopped for three days and he was unable to find any letters he assumed you had lost interest and moved on. That felt fair to him, no harm no foul, at least he never really got to know you. 
Nevermind, there’s a folded notebook page on his miniature desk and his heart speeds up. His next task, put eyes on you. Bottom level, book and pencil in hand. He makes sure to note it’s a pencil and not the green ink that’s spread across the page. 
Peter thinks it’s a mind game, you were smart enough to know he’d look. Unless he was totally wrong on his guess. 
‘Peter- 
I ran out of minutes on my phone and I’m having a broke college kid moment. However, a friend took pity and donated a twenty to the campaign. I hope you’ve been good- I’ve missed talking to you. 
- Your not so secret admirer, X’ 
ps. stop keeping your backpack so close to you.’
It wasn’t anything personal, you just ran out of minutes. Peter smiles so wide he has to drop it, he almost clutches the paper to his chest in a thank you. Eyeing his backpack, he nudges it a little further behind him, following instruction. He’s kept it close in hopes to catch you, but instead he’s pushing you away. 
Peter’s committing the writing to memory as if he’s going to find you by the handwriting alone. A quick glance at footsteps, you’re three steps away when you smile. “Hi, Peter.” He nods, “hey.” You pause for a moment, mind racing for words. 
“Did you, um- did you do anything fun this weekend?” You’re about to crawl into a hole and die, it takes a moment to click that you were speaking to him. He went as far to look behind himself, then he spewed the answer to try and make up for the lost time. 
“Oh, uh not really. My aunt got a new bed so I had to lug the old one down seven flights of stairs.” Your eyes widen, you feel your mouth go dry and your tongue go thick. “By yourself?” Peter crosses his arms over his chest, a boyish grin swept over and you feel heart eyes form. 
“I’m a good nephew.” You want to pat his head and tell him you’re sure he is, then maybe hold him at gunpoint and tell you more stories about how he’s a perfect humanitarian. But you act like a normal human and smile back, “you sound like it.” 
Peter thanks you and you return to your seat with wobbly knees and a weak stomach, it’s silent torture to tease yourself like this with him. But you can’t help it and it’s only in effort to go after what you want. Even if it blows up when he figures out who you are. 
12:13
‘you’re looking mighty handsome today, mr. parker.’ 
‘I’m wearing a hoodie, but thank you.’ 
‘i said what i said.’ 
Boldly, ‘i see someone had another dirty chai. can’t stay away from them, can you?’ 
Another tick in Peter's stomach, he almost looks behind his shoulder at you, but he doesn’t. ‘It was a generous donation from a classmate.’ 
‘oh? pray tell, peter. pray tell.’ 
‘What? You don’t have a clue about who gave it to me?’ 
You swallow thickly, before you could get something out he sent another message. ‘No chance you didn’t see it go down?’ 
‘how could i? I was still on my way.’ 
‘... or was i?’ 
‘Tell you what, X. It one of the best teas I’ve had in a while.’ 
And you’d be damned if that didn’t make your entire chest flutter. 
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FRIDAY: 15:29
“Here,” Peter’s hand clasped over the paper slapped into his chest. A hint of a syllable, Brett cuts himself off. “She asked me to give this to you.” Peter quickly read it and stared down before confiding in his friend for a second. 
‘Peter- 
Roses are red, violets are blue, all that I think about is you. 
It’s sweet in a cringy way, right? Boo on you for skipping class today, if you want, I could get you some notes. 
I hope I’ll see you Tuesday. 
-Your (really) not so secret admirer, X
ps. A pen exploded in my pocket. 10/10 chance my thigh will be stained.’
“I think I might know who it is.” 
“Uh, huh.” 
“But, she’s way out of my league.” 
“Correct.” 
Peter raised his eyebrows, “so it’s her?” He clarified with your name, Brett shrugged back. 
“I won’t be confirming or denying.” Peter knows what that means, “the lack of a no usually means yes.” 
“Bro,” Peter starts sputtering, “oh, c’mon! You know what I meant, I just meant that, I just- c’mon, Brett. Is it her?” 
“I have no idea who that is.” Peter wants to call bullshit, he has a gut feeling and he swears it’s you. You’re right, it’s not so secret. In fact, you’re painfully obvious. 
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FRIDAY: 23:14 
‘you are soooooooo cute’ 
‘like your hair is so cute’ 
‘i looooove curly hair on guys and you have that!!!!!!!!!’ 
‘and you’re really funny cause like it’s so quick and witty like you have such good one liners’ 
‘also you’re really fucking hot and i KNOW you’re hiding something under those fucking sweaters and the second i see skin i WILL go feral.’ 
‘Something tells me you’re at the Kappa party.’ Peter’s pretending he doesn’t have a searing blush. If he’s got an inkling this could be you… then he might have proof for the non-believers that god exists. 
‘yes!!! are you here?? i should come see you.’ 
‘I hate to disappoint you, but I’m currently at a friend's house playing a Mario Kart drinking game.’ 
“But it’s nice to know that you’d give me your identity that quick.’ 
‘oh i can tell you who i am.’ Peter frowns at the text, he’s been doing nothing but crave the answer to who’s behind the love letters but it feels wrong. It’s not satisfactory enough for him, it’s also not what you want, you’re just drunk- and Peter’s going out on a limb here- horny. 
‘Save it for later.’ 
‘And maybe drink some water.’ 
‘i’d do anything for you cause you have the world's prettiest brown eyes’
‘Thank you for the compliments.’ 
‘you’re super welcome i try to hold them back because i’m a good girl but you’re just so cute i had to let you know’ 
‘I think you’re going to super regret this in the morning.’ 
‘false. maybe fact idk’
‘i should trust you tho because you’re super smart and you’re a nerd.’ 
‘I fear this is taking a turn for the worse.’ 
‘and that is so fucking HOT’
‘Oh. Back to compliments. Thank you.’ 
‘if you were here i’d give you a kiss’
‘IGNORE THAT!!!!’
‘I DIDN’T MEAN TO SEND THAT!!!! IGNORE IT’ 
‘Not ignored. How cute.’ 
‘screaming crying throwing up’ 
‘i really didn’t mean to send that it was a joke ha ha funny.’ 
‘Idk, sounded authentic to me.’ 
‘peter?’ 
‘Yeah?’ 
‘i’m a little drunk rn. and you should know how cute you are.’ 
‘Oh, I’m talking about record breaking levels of regret. This is amazing.’ 
‘i have to pee but i do not reget this!!!!!!’ 
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SATURDAY: 09:54
‘i stand by my claim and do not regret a thing.’ 
‘correction. i regret this hangover and the way my previous texts are not very cool girl of me.’ 
‘but i would like to know if you won mario last night.’
‘also, who’s ur fav character?’ 
11:12
1. Proud of you for owning it, that’s very cool girl of you. 
2. I did not win. 
3. Petey Piranha. 
‘who tf is petey piranha.’
‘Mario Kart Sunshine. Came out in 2002. (Originally on GameCube but recently released on switch.) (Hell yeah.)’ 
Your heart thumps, he’s such a nerd and you wanna kiss the air out of his lungs. ‘out of all the characters and u choose him. why petey piranha’ 
‘One guess.’ 
‘PETEY PIRANHA.’ 
‘OH MY GOD.’ 
‘you’re petey piranha <333’ 
Peter fights a grin, ‘I am.’ 
‘you’re so cute. i love that.’ 
‘Personally, in the past 24 hours I don’t think I’ve heard enough about how cute I am.’
‘you’re insufferable and it’s sexy.’ 
‘Oo, new one to the mix. You’re making me blush.’ You really are. He’s never been considered sexy before and it feels really nice. 
‘and i bet you look super cute.’ 
‘Super true.’ 
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TUESDAY: 12:34
‘white t shirt white t shirt white t shirt WHITE T SHIRT.’ 
‘You like?’ 
‘i’m about to cry i’m biting my fist so fucking hard.’ 
‘:)’ 
‘you’re so ubuibabeyia.’ 
‘Bless you.’ 
‘?’ 
‘Sorry, I assumed you sneezed.’ Peter never whipped his head around so fast at an audible laugh behind him. It was short, it had escaped without being thought about. He’s looking for you, but it doesn’t seem like it was you who laughed. You’re engrossed in chatting to your neighbor. 
On the other hand, you almost blew it by clasping your hands over your mouth. Instead you looked next to you and said, directly and with a burning gaze, “I need you to pretend we’ve been talking this whole time.” 
‘Someone’s losing their edge, you’re just begging to be caught.’ 
‘oh, i’m begging all right.’ 
‘can you hear me whimpering too?’ 
‘Easy, killer. Let’s not start sexting at noon on a Tuesday.’ 
‘are you saying there is a time for it?’ 
‘Give me a little wave and we’ll see.’ 
‘too late, i’m passed out on the floor. the only thing that can resuscitate me are those thick arms wrapped around me.’ 
‘Let these strong arms sweep you off your feet, all you gotta do is come talk to me after lecture…’ 
Peter says that, but he doesn’t mean it. He’ll definitely eat his words when he sees it’s you, then he’d be coming up with a thousand ways to back out of it. He’s so much more than you deserve, you feel so safe behind a keyboard but in person you can barely say a sentence. 
It’s stupid and a little humbling because you’ve never felt this way about a guy before. 
‘trust me, i’m better in your imagination.’ 
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WEDNESDAY: 14:22
‘Peter- 
You know a little about a lot and I think that is one of my favorite things about you. Or maybe it’s your voice. I could listen to you talk forever. 
-Your not so secret admirer, X’ 
A note under his textbook, if he follows his hunch then he’d be looking for… you. Conveniently three tables away and to the right of his own, you’re not looking for his reaction, you’ve got your focus on your own textbook but he swears you’re retaining none of it. It’s a distraction, or maybe it’s a diversion. 
Peter doesn’t mind. He’s going to wait. He has all the time in the world today and he’s going to sit here with his eyes on you until you look up at him because he knows you’re going to and once you do, he’s going to have his answer. 
If he’s right, and he swears he is, he’s going to absolutely lose is shit because what do you mean you like him and are intimidated? You boldly lied when you said you were punching above your weight class. Does it make him a jerk to say he wasn’t even thinking of you as a suitor and maybe a girl with a much more average look?
 Peter counted to sixty twice, you glance up, eyes shooting to the note you left on the table. The next stop, Peter’s face. And oh, you were not prepared to have him looking right back. Panic, you shoot a wave, a desperate attempt to pretend you’re seeing a familiar face. 
Peter waves back but he looks much more satisfied than you did, you wonder if the jig is up. Did he crack the code? Was he just trying to find a friendly way to let you down? Deny til death, he has no proof it’s you. You pack your things up, a hurried scramble before you could lose your cool. 
On the way out you almost stop breathing, your forearm caught in Peter’s hand. You’re staring down at it, he’s not removing it. It burns in the best way. “Hey,” you wait, you can’t stop looking at his hand, the muscle, the subtle flex, his fingertips paler to show his grip. “Hi, Peter.” 
It’s breathless, you think you’re about to die. If he asks, you don’t know how you’ll lie your way out. 
Guess who’s got a stained pocket? The corner edge darkened with black ink that would never be washed out. Peter has his answer. You’re her. You’re X. “Thanks again for the tea.” 
 Maybe you wanted more, you feel a bit deflated when it’s all you receive.
“You’re welcome.” Your arm feels cold when he drops his touch, you linger for a second too long, you’re not sure when you’ll be this brave again. It was too much of a close call. “I hope the rest of your day is good.” 
Peter’s got a charismatic grin, he feels settled now that he knows you’re the anonymous lover in his life. Even more so when you find yourself shy and reserved in person, it almost makes him giggle to think of the stark changes in confidence.
“You too.” Your body engulfs into flames when your arm is caught again, you’re struggling to keep calm at his boyish smile. “Quick question,” you nod slightly, trying to show zero paranoia for the following words. 
“Do you have a boyfriend?” 
Short circuiting. You see black spots, you think you’re about to pass out. There is only one thing that means, no guy asks that if they weren’t interested in changing that, right? 
“No.” It’s anything but graceful. It sounds like you’ve never had a boyfriend before. It makes you sound like you’re scared he asked it. 
But, Peter doesn’t take it like that. He smiles wider, like he already knew the answer before he asked it.
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THURSDAY: 16:37
A new letter, stuffed under the top handle of his backpack. Peter listened and stopped setting it next to him, in return he was rewarded. He can’t stop the small smile, you make it involuntary at this point. Peter’s never felt so special in his life, a little part of him wants this to never end. But he’d much rather look you in the eyes. 
‘Peter- 
I had a dream with you in it last night. Don’t worry, you had your clothes on. I’m not sure what we were doing but you were across from me at a diner and we were sitting in those super thick booths and our friends were there. 
I don’t know who these friends were, and I don’t think you do either. But I knew them as our friends. 
It felt really nice. I’m happy to know you, even if I just get this little piece. 
-Your not so secret admirer, X’
Peter’s been wrong a lot in his life but this time he really thinks he has it figured out. He’s much more bold now, this letter tells him it’s not infatuation, it’s love. 
You love him and he thinks he could love you too. 
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FRIDAY: 20:08
‘Hey.’ Peter could be making the worst decision of his life here, he could be reading everything wrong and ruining this for himself. 
‘hi peter!’ But he really thinks he’s got it right.  
‘I really, really liked talking to you for the past few weeks but I think I should tell you that I like someone else.’ 
Gut wrenching despair. You knew it was too good to last, you knew he’d find someone more in his league. Someone who’d be willing to show him their face. There was no reason to respond because what would you say to that? 
‘thank you for letting me know that opening up to you was all for nothing!’ 
‘thanks for making me doubt love!’ 
‘hope you and her are so fucking happy together!!!!!’ 
Fuck it all and fuck Peter. He just liked the attention until it came from somewhere else. You don’t think you like him all that much anymore. You think you’re lying, too. Before you can give into the desire of hurting him just as bad, you calmly turn the phone off and stuff it in the back of a desk drawer to never be uncovered again. 
You slowly sit in bed and tug the blankets over your head. And only then, do you allow yourself to sob. 
Peter chewed on his bottom lip and waited an hour with constant phone checks before he realized a response was never coming. It really set in during the weekend but even further when he got no note or letter on monday. Not even when he left his backpack unattended for five minutes. 
TUESDAY -he was able to see you and how you avoided his eyes. How you pretended you didn’t see him send a small wave. How you had pulled back from him. 
And if he hadn’t hurt your feelings, or X’s feelings, why would you do that? 
You look up at a two fingered knock at the corner of your desk. “Hi.” You blink and ignore the white noise buzzing in your ears at the sight of Peter standing in front of you. “Hi, Peter.” 
“How was your weekend?” Bitter. Terrible. Lonely.
“Fine. Nothing exciting.” Besides you breaking my heart. 
Watching his fingertips dance on the edge of the plastic, you feel everything in you brighten. “You look sad.” There’s a burn in your stomach, he’s the reason for both the sting and the sadness. 
“Do you need something? Or are you just doing a friendly check in?” Peter bites back the grin when you snap at him, he’s so, so, so right and it feels so, so, so good. “Neither. I’m just confirming my suspicions.” 
“Suspicions?” 
“Yeah. You passed.” Your eyebrows furrow, before you could try to question further Peter was giving half a wave, saying bye, and skipping a step to his aisle. 
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FRIDAY: 12:08
You stop breathing for a solid second before feeling your brain spark back to life. It could be anything, it could be from anyone, but you know there’s only one person who would’ve left a note on your desk. 
Your fingers slightly shake when you unfold the graph paper, little squares bled through with black sharpie. 
‘X-
Am I right?
Hopefully, 
-  Peter’ 
You can’t breathe, you can’t talk, you can’t move and you definitely can fucking not look at him. No, no, no. You can feel his eyes on you, you know he’s watching for your reaction. Peter figured you out and had his own fun along the way. 
You were the girl he liked. Oh, wow. Is this how special you’ve made him feel? Something just for your eyes, from him. A secret you both shared between lines. 
You spin and swear you can feel his gaze running over your back, he’s aching for the answer. You almost scream at a tap on your shoulder, a peek lets you know it’s the person you’re hiding from. 
Another note, folded up just like the other one. It’s pushed into your hand, Peter doesn’t say a word, he just offers and leaves. He’s not watching this time, he’s sitting and focused on the front, you feel air leak back into your lungs. 
Full on panic shaking, you’re so happy he’s not watching. 
Your name is addressed on the front, just like you do for him. 
‘I like you. 
I think you not so secretly like me too. 
We could talk more about it at dinner tonight. Will you let me take you out?
Circle yes or no. 
- Peter.
PS. XOXOXO now you’re responsible for mine, too.’ 
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Text
YASASHII NO DE
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HE CAME IN 20 PULLS……………….. ……… ….. …. . … …. .. .. . . … . .. . .. . . . TRULY YASaSHii OF YOu, GOOD SiR 😭
***Crowley Groovy, chibi sprite, lesson lines, and vignette spoilers below the cut!***
Unfortunately, we do not get any more details on his profile. It’s the same as the profile he had before the update. Age and birthplace unknown, 185 cm tall, favorite food is wild game, and his hobby is vacationing.
SDFHEGYOGYFQEN;jkhaCWIDODB A LOT OF CROWLEY'S LINES ARE VERY CHILDISH OR GOOFY... Like he has one where he complains about Grim eating his snacks, tells on students who are sleeping in class, and gets distracted by shiny objects (which, I guess, is par for the course for a crow).
Crowley cannot attend Alchemy class and does not have Chats. His Buddies are Deuce, Vil, and Grim (with Grim being his Duo Magic partner). Deuce and Vil are interesting choices, I wonder why those two in particular... (Some friends and I were memeing earlier about how "all those characters have single parents so Crowley must be a single parent" and, "Vil is the Evil Queen and Meleanor is a princess of evil", etc.) Crowley can, however, attend the other lessons and it’s every bit as awkward as you think it is. (He has a pre-lesson line where he expresses surprise taht he has to do homework 🤡)
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THE CROWLEY DOPPLEGANGER ALLEGATIONS ARE TRUE 💀 He can just straight up run into a clone of himself during lessons… THE DEVS KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING, they even goofily have Crowley say, “Oh! Hello, me!” while the other Crowley is in class for the special lesson… THEY KNEW HOW DUMB THIS WOULD BE 😭 (The dialogue states the Crowley that barges into class is a magical projection…?)
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Here are some of his chibi sprites, as well as his Groovy candy. Crowley is not only very yasashii, but also very cute!!
He does, in fact, have vignettes but they are unvoiced. The first part is him running an assembly with the dorm leaders present. Crowley discusses the health of an adolescent apple tree in the school's courtyard, and no one seems to be interested in his speech. Malleus barges in late and, in a fit of anger at having not been invited, starts unleashing lightning. Wow, just like how Meleanor shoots lightning at Lilia... Like husband, like wife/j Everyone retires to their dorms, leaving Crowley to deal with an upset Malleus. The second part features Crowley having lunch with the other staff members (Sam included!). Each staff member is eating something different (Vargas is of course having eggs), and Crowley is revealed to have a great appetite in spite of his age. Crewel and Trein wonder how many decades old Crowley is, since he was apparently still headmaster when Crewel was a student and when Trein started teaching at NRC. Finally, Crowley is walking down main street and spots Yuu, Grim, and some mob students skipping class… so he uses his Lash of Love to discipline them! He binds everyone together and proceeds to drag them back to class. (It was surprising, we haven’t seen the Lash of Love since like… what, the prologue? I almost forgot about it.) Crowley alludes to the fact that even though the students joke about him, he is actually a very powerful mage that shouldn't be taken lightly, you know?? The vignettes end with Crowley referring to his students as "apple trees" that he is nourishing and watching over as they grow, which rounds us nicely back to the apple tree he mentioned in his first vignette.
BUT ANYWay HEREmS thE GROOviY in JUICy DETAIL INkjoW YOU WERE ALL WAiTING FOR
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It’s so pretty AaAAaaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaAaaAHHHHH 🥺 His grotesquely detailed hand reaching out to the viewer, who appears to be awaking from within a coffin… and do I have to mention the parallel between Crowley here and the mysterious hand that is offered to us in the mirror at the very beginning of the game????? Which could imply that Crowley is beckoning/summoning us into another world... The dim room, light spilling onto the Mirror of Darkness… So atmospheric!! If Crowley knows how to do one thing well and consistently, it’s drama~ The Groovy totally reminds me a lot of the prologue when Crowley tells Yuu to go before the mirror to get sorted. Omg guys... He's posted like Masquerade Malleus/j
One detail I super appreciate in this illustration is that you can see the dorm leaders in the background! If you squint, you’ll realize that there are 5 of them posing exactly like how they are in the following promotional artwork:
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The one without a matching pose is Idia, who is present via his tablet. Though… I feel like we’re forgetting something 🤔 … Eh, I’m sure it’s nothing, nothing at allllllllll~
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ode2rin · 10 months
Text
“you’re cheating.”
you accused firmly, your conviction unwavering. there was not even an ounce of doubt in your judgment. it seemed to be the only logical explanation for what was transpiring right before your eyes.
“i swear, baby, i am not,” reo pleaded, but you were having none of it. you clung to your accusation, refusing to back down.
there was simply no other way to interpret the situation.
unable to contain your incredulity any longer, you pointed directly at the perpetrator of your accusation— an unbelievably unfamiliar word that reo had placed on the scrabble board.
“phpht”, is he fucking serious? how were you supposed to even pronounce that?
scanning the jumble of letters on your own rack, you conceded defeat. “you’re cheating. i'm out,” you declared, playfully rising from your seat as if to emphasize your point.
reo stood up, facing you with protests laced with laughter, vehemently defending his outrageous choice of word. “i’m not cheating! i swear it's a real word. i'm not making it up!”
“who the hell comes up with that? phpht,” you scoffed, crossing your arms over your chest and arching an eyebrow. “and did i even pronounce it correctly?”
“google it, it’s a word.”
“sure it is,” you retorted, voice dripping with sarcasm. “i’m done with this game.”
reo sat and leaned back to his chair, seemingly unfazed by your antics. “may i remind you, love, that this was your idea?” he teased.
the worst idea, apparently. 
if you had known how insufferable your boyfriend could be when it came to board games, you would have scoured every genre available on netflix to find a movie you both could have enjoyed instead of suggesting this battle of wits that you were clearly losing.
“yeah, because i thought it would be fun,” you huffed, “but here you are, taking it so seriously as if we were in a competition for the title of best scrabble player of the year!”
reo let out a laugh at your outburst that turned into a boyish grin adorning his face, “what can i say, baby? i simply have a wide vocabulary,” he playfully boasted, clearly enjoying your annoyance. “besides, you’re into smart men. i like to remind you of that from time to time.” he even had the audacity to wink.
“show off.”
“only to you.”
“i’m still not playing this with you anymore,” you declared, rolling your eyes, yet unable to suppress the tugging smile forming on your lips.
“how about this one then?” reo proposed, placing another board game on the table, his eyes seeking your approval.
oh, hell no. 
approval is the last thing he is going to receive for his choice of game.
playing monopoly with a man who religiously checked the stock market every day at 7 am like clockwork? you weren't crazily in love enough to endure that (you are, just not tonight).
“and have you criticize every property purchase i make? nope, thank you very much.”
a mischievous grin once again danced on reo's lips. “you could just admit and tell me i'm good at everything, baby.”
“good at everything, you say?” you asked, a hint of teasing in your voice. “i’m pretty sure you suck at hiding your jealousy, especially when—”
“alright, let's play snakes & ladders instead,” reo interrupted, a playful surrender evident in his tone. “i’d even let you win.”
and sure enough, you both played snakes & ladders, in which you miraculously lost twice. perhaps luck had ceased favoring you after you earned yourself a boyfriend like reo. 
you couldn't bring yourself to complain about it, though. you were indeed lucky to have a man like him, even when he’s pulling up words unknown to anyone in a scrabble game.
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note. just a silly drabble because i miss him and i'm having the biggest writer's block rn. also, i swear that's a word don't make me defend myself here╰(‵□′)╯
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evilminji · 6 months
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Gold can be exchanged for goods and services (o.o )
Pariah's Keep probably has a shit ton of Precious Goods from various places.
Danny is become King?
If Danny becomes King... then the Zone will somewhat obey him. The Crown and Ring could EASILY tell him where the next natural portal is, where it opens up, and for how long. How many there are. Could probably make a few.
Probably WAS supposed to be making them. Consciously. But, well, Coma(tm).
Would probably count as Kingly Duty to filter and collect. Clean Ecto goes out for souls that remain, a Gateway home for those that wish to LEAVE, so forth and so on.
Effectively, being The Grim Reaper. You don't CAUSE Death. You just guide the way home. If folks so choose.
And that's neat! Horrifying, but neat! And Danny can TOTALLY see how it would eventually drive him completely breakfast cereal fruity nuggets! LUCKILY, he's got a vaguely bro's/Mentor thing going with the ghost who has ALL OF POSSIBLE TIME flowing through HIS head! So Danny should be Gucci!
The headaches suck though.
But WHAT... to do with all this Gold and valuable Space Goods? Most of these aren't even recognized currency on earth! Like the Shells. You could buy a mansion with one of those... on the right planet. On Earth? Pretty paperweight. Hmmmm >.>
Wait.
WAIT!
<o> *points to top of head!* CROWN! It can? Predict and make PORTALS!
Portals lead any WHERE and any WHEN!
:O
Gold... can be exchanged for goods and services. He remembers, holding a gold brick, about to eat so, SO much pizza.
But WAIT! I hear you wondering! Surely, you mean? Within his past? The history and region of space he knows, right? Ha ha :) Nope! Cowards.
Danny is on the alien otter's planet, trading those sweet, sweet Shells for some snacks no human could eat and a shawl for his sister! He's hiding, badly, behind a food stall in the Martian market place. Hoping future hero J'onn Johnes doesn't notice him.
Lying to the Space Cops, bout where his untraceable Space Money came from, on an alien trading satellite. The Green Lantern's not buying it. Oh noooo >.> sudden Fright Knight. Looming Menacingly by the loading doooocks. Everyone's upset! Definitely not related to him! Better go check on that! :) *gets the heck out of dodge* (my king. Please stop using me as a distraction.) (No promises)
But! It's all fun and games? Until your human friends get sick. Like... REALLY sick.
And then you suddenly remember time and space mean nothing to you. One 15 minute flight that way, two doors, a quick flight of stairs, and a literal child's play place slide? You could be in the 32nd century.
That disease is AT BEST, an unpleasant afternoon, there.
Here, your friend could die.
You trade a student two Spanish dubloons. They have no idea what they are. Just like the look of them and know they're real metal. They walk into the pharmacy for you. Don't question your "social experiment paper" lie.
You're back in less then an hour.
The screaming argument about ethics and mortality lasts hours.
She still takes the medicine. Gets better. Won't talk to you for months. Because why does HER life matter more? Why bend the rules for HER? And you can't bring yourself to say what pulses as Truth from both Crown and Ring.
You could because she didn't Matter. Time... would not notice, nor change. She was in no way pivotal to the flow of history, must one more ant beneath its unrelenting march. Mattering only because those who love her CARE. Because one or two little things might change for the better.
But it takes the shine off of it, a little.
Being able to go to the FUTURE. Watch movies and see aliens and humans alike in the crowd. Read books and dance to songs from people who won't be born for hundreds of years. Eat snacks from the farthest reaches of the cosmos. Or the early BCs!
And that's BEFORE other time travelers clock him as That Shopping Guy. The one who keeps popping up... buying things. For what? Unknown. Probably dinner. Half the time it's food. Trinkets. Once it was a really, REALLY nice goat. (His aunt was THRILLED.)
It probably drives Bart crazy. Because NO ONE knows anything about the guy? Everyone just universally goes "oooh yeah! HIM! Yeah, he sure does Exsist(tm). Very... present and exsistant." Like that's not CRAZY! He has so many question. So Many! What is he even BUYING!? Why? Is there an order? Or is he winging it?!
*pulls out list* he needs ANSWERS!
@hypewinter @hdgnj @ailithnight
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yoursweetwife · 4 months
Text
Synopsis: chess game didn't end the way Ratio wanted it to, but he's definitely not complaining.
Warning: kisses, fluff, a little shy reader, self-confident Ratio, female reader
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"Do you want a rematch?"
Ratio looked up from his book and looked at you calmly, as if he was ready for this question. You were standing right in front of his desk, your face inches from his. Sometimes you forgot about your personal space (although who is he to talk about it?).
"That's right, this time I'm going to defeat you!"
You spoke excitedly and started giggling. Ratio couldn't deny that it was a pretty sight, but he needed to keep himself in check, thanks to his excellent self-control.
"So," a loud bang echoed through the huge office and the book ended up on the table. "I see mistakes don't teach you anything."
Ratio grinned and waved his hand. A chessboard appeared not far from the table.
"The rates are the same as before. Any wish of the winner."
You looked defiantly at the man in front of you. You may not be as good at chess as Ratio, but days and nights of training should do the trick. You've managed to take his strongest pieces before, so there's a chance that you'll win today, right?
"Mistakes help us achieve perfection, even you weren't always a chess master.
You said, sitting down on the chair in front of Veritas.
"Over the years of my life, I have honed my playing skills to perfection," he put one foot on the other, not breaking eye contact. "it's going to take a lot more than a few months of amateur play."
Did he just call your game amateur? Did he even know how much time you spent training? You smiled irritably, trying to remain calm, although, judging by Ratio’s teasing look, he saw your emotions perfectly.
"I'm starting."
Your hand moved towards the pawn. Veritas has been watching you closely.
"Yes, it's better that way."
It is unknown how long this game lasted. The students and almost all the teachers went home, but you two didn't care.
A drop of sweat trickled down Ratio's forehead, his hand lingered over one pawn, then another. He couldn't help but see your progress, that's what he likes about you, your tenacity and desire.
For the first time, he felt such a huge adrenaline rush from just playing with someone. He glanced at your tense face. Your gaze never left his hands, waiting for the long-awaited move.
After Ratio's move, you saw the gap he left for the King. Without giving your opponent time to think, you "ate" the King.
"Checkmate, Veritas."
Ratio's gaze did not leave the King's figure. His wide-open eyes expressed shock and bewilderment at defeat. Did you really just beat him?
"It can't be..."
You didn't pay attention to the man's confusion and continued to celebrate your little victory. Finally, you will be able to carry out your little plan.In an instant, the chessboard disappeared. You looked at Ration in disbelief. Veritas turned away, as if considering something.
"Veritas?"
You gently called his name, an action that is only allowed to you.There was a slight blush on his cheeks after you called him by his first name.
"Defeat is defeat, you can ask for anything you want."
You instantly perked up and smiled shyly. Your body ended up in front of a seated Ratio, who was intrigued by your strange behavior.
Your eyes met.
"Kiss me."
Ratio looked at you like you were an idiot.
"Kiss you?"
"Why are you asking again!"
Your face has turned incredibly red from embarrassment. You were sure you were ready for this!
"Idiot, how can you ask such a thing."
He closed his eyes, trying to put his thoughts in order. No matter how absurd it may sound, but Ratio had the idea of kissing you for a long time, but he did not know that today he would have to face his worst fear face to face.
"Compared to what you told me to do, a kiss is just a flower."
Veritas's heart was beating against his chest with great speed. He wanted to listen to his rational side, which says to stop it, but the soul wants to continue. This may be the only chance to get closer to you than standing next to you.He sighed and looked at you seriously.
"So be it, I will fulfill your wish."
A soft sigh escaped your lips when Ratio abruptly pulled you in. He really decided to kiss you! Your lips met each other. The feel of his soft lips on yours made you relax and put your arms around his neck. To your surprise, Veritas's arms wrapped around your waist, gently stroking it with his big hands. You behaved almost like a couple...
Veritas moved your face away from his. The scientist couldn't see himself, but he could tell with certainty that his face was a mess, just like yours. The sunset outside the window, heavy breathing, heartbeat in time and your red faces created an atmosphere of romance in which you wanted to stay. Just like your lips, painted with strawberry balm.
You smiled sheepishly because of the intense attention of the golden eyes. Still trying to put your thoughts in order, you moved away from Ratio (you couldn't help but notice how his hands were trying to hold you back). You weren't an expert in romance, but there's no denying that there's something between you and him.
"Ah, a simple kiss on the cheek would be enough..."
Ratio snorted and stared at you.
"Be glad you got it. If all your next wishes are the same, then I won't let you win anymore."
Lie.
You both understood that.A smile spread across your face.
"Then I'm waiting for the next game."
With that, you left the office, slamming the door. Ratio did not scold you because of the loud sound, left to himself, instead he continued to stare at one point and reflect on this situation.
Veritas could tell for sure that from now on, your relationship will be different. Not that he was against it.
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midnightarsenal · 7 months
Text
𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬
Summary: A match with Brighton is interrupted by a pitch invader.
Pairing: Arsenal Women x Arsenal!Reader
Warning: Assault | Avoidance | Anxiety | Some Angst
Word Count: 4.6k
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Meadow Park, Borehamwood
///
"Y/L/N!" Katie yells from across the pitch and you waste little time in punting the ball over the heads of half a dozen players to her, leading to certified banger of a goal in the seconds that follow and making the score 2-0 in the 61st minute after Caitlin's screamer near the end of the first half. You sprint over to the Irishwoman and launch yourself onto her back, cheering ecstatically as the pair of you are swarmed by the rest of your team.
.....
You had been with the club for over a year now, one of several promising names signed to the Gunners in the summer of 2022, and while you hadn't yet been with the team long enough to cement your place in it as one of its icons, you hadn't needed a lot of time to make plenty of friends among its roster.
Prior to joining Arsenal, you had been Everton's star girl, having played with the Liverpudlian side for over four years before moving to North London in a change that had caused almost as much upset among the Blues fans as it had excitement in the Gooners. It had been a tough decision, but both you and your manager had known that you needed more room to develop your talent and that such room could only be found at a team that regularly fought at the top of the league.
Besides, it had been a far better choice than the alternative of moving to Liverpool. (You still couldn't believe they had been bold enough to even offer.)
Initially, you'd been worried by the prospect of moving both city and club, leaving behind the team you'd grown so close to and entering a new, unknown environment filled with some pretty impressive (and subsequently intimidating) talents. Generally, you were a very confident person and not someone who tended to doubt yourself, but even then, the idea of playing alongside the likes of Miedema and Williamson with reputations known far and wide was a little daunting for a player with a relatively lowkey profile.
But, despite that you had more than proven yourself in your first full season with the club, serving as a reliable forward and netting yourself a handful of goals in the process, even if you weren't a regular in the starting eleven. (You tried not to take it personally given that it was your first season, though your competitive streak made the task a little difficult at times.)
The girls had accepted you with open arms as one of their own, and any reservations you'd had about switching to Arsenal had all but vanished by the time international break had started and you'd gone off the World Cup down under. The teammates on either side of you today were more than just co-workers, they were your friends, and sometimes they even felt like family.
.....
"Alright, you've all done a very good job this half." Jonas starts approvingly as you and the rest of the girls gather round for a brief strategy talk, with Cloé sitting on the pitch not too far away being looked over by the medics. There (probably) isn't anything wrong with her, but it's a good excuse to get a quick chat with the coach in before the game continues. It's the 75th minute and Brighton has been putting on the pressure, propelled forward by an influx of their benched players and possibly some added desperation after Katie's goal.
"Jen, Kyra, Kat, we cannot get complacent now, we need to reassert control over the midfield and lessen the pressure on our defence. Remember, their number 10 loves to make those late runs, so mark her tightly." Your coach continues, his attention turned to the midfielders as he makes quick work of the review while Cloé gets back up to some applause from the crowd and limps towards you and the others, heading for the nearby bench with the team physio and a pair of medics by her side. Already, Lina is taking her jacket off to sub in just behind you.
The chat concludes and the game continues, having only been paused for around a minute and a half as you share a glance with some of the other girls while you all run back onto the pitch with haste. You aren't normally the type to feel as if the result has been decided before the final whistle blows, but you feel confident that you'll be walking away with a win tonight, content with another strong performance.
If only.
It's the 83rd minute when it happens, 8 minutes after your group chat and 7 until the match's conclusion. You're not doing anything when the first signs of a problem arise in the form of distant gasps and disapproving yells from the crowd, you're just standing there with your hands idly on your hips, walking slowly along the pitch and keeping track of the ball as it's passed around in the midfield, a sizable distance from where you are.
You aren't paying attention to what's behind you.
"Y/L/N!" You hear Katie yell again from some ways away, but this time there's something different in her tone that alerts you, there's an urgency in it that's uncharacteristic, one that makes you think something's wrong, and it doesn't take you long to find out what it is.
"Stupid cow!" Is what you hear slurred from behind you before a searing pain suddenly springs forth from the side of your head, the impact of something hard sending you stumbling to the side before you quickly lose your footing and tumble to the ground, the left half of your face hitting the grass with such momentum that it briefly bounces back up before dropping down again.
Your vision blurs for a second or two as you instinctively reach for the sides of your head to cradle it protectively, your legs lifting up until you're just short of a fetal position. You quickly understand that you've been hit by someone and brace for a second attack, one that fortunately doesn't come as you hear sounds of a scuffle nearby.
Your right temple pulses with hurt and you can't help but scrunch your face up, closing and opening your eyes in a rabid blink to try and adjust your sight and shake off the disorientation that has you locked in its grip. For a few moments you lose track of time, wrapped up in your own world of pain before you see someone kneel down in front of you and feel their hands cup over your cheeks, turning your head up to face them.
It's Beth.
"Jesus Christ, you alright?" She asks intensely, her face shaped by a mix of exasperation and concern as you feel someone else's hands slot under your armpits and sit you up, you feel a minor sense of relief at the fact you don't immediately become nauseous at the movement, and the world starts to filter back to high resolution as your disorientation dissipates.
"Yeah.. yeah, I'm alright." You finally find the strength to speak, frowning as you continue to rub at your right temple and look around, trying to get a grip on your surroundings. Your head still hurt, but not quite as bad now and you're sitting up, surrounded on all sides by a wall of red and white football kits, all belonging to women who's gazes were entirely focused on you and who all looked either worried sick, pissed off or both.
Behind them, you could only just see another gathering of bodies that was leaving the pitch. A sea of high-vis jackets, some emblazoned on their backs with 'Security' and others 'Police'.
"Fucking maniac." You hear one of the girls around you say, "How'd they let that happen?" Someone else asks to no one in particular, "Stupid dickhead, should throw him in the sea." A third voice suggests angrily and the accent leaves little room for candidates who's surname isn't McCabe.
You feel some of the girls pat you on the shoulder or rub your back, and Beth takes one of your hands in her own, hands disappearing from your face so they can help you stand up before the wall of Arsenal red parts to let in the team physio and doctor who quickly disapprove of the idea and sit you back down before you've even had the chance to get your bum off the grass.
A light is flashed in each of your eyes, causing you to wince, and you're bombarded with a series of questions that lead you to assume the pair are checking for a concussion. But- after what feels like forever, with the hairs on your skin standing up as you become increasingly aware of what a cold night it is now that the warmth from your exertion during the game has worn off- the two medical professionals get up from their crouched position and carefully help you stand up too.
The crowd cheers for the development and you let out a breath, shaking your head with a small, cynical smile as you were met with looks of sympathy from your teammates. The side of your head still hurt, but it had diminished to the point that you could probably ignore it, though it was still far from comfortable.
"Had to happen to me, eh?" You say to Beth, who can't help but let out a short breathy laugh.
"Maybe he's an Everton fan." Jen proposes and you laugh with a nod. "Left it a bit long, didn't he?" Steph replies with a feigned confusion.
You walk to the bench with the physio, doctor and Beth, with the rest of the team giving you a few more supportive words and pats on the back before heading back to their places on the pitch. It wasn't as if they were going to cancel the game over one rowdy wanker, after all, besides there was less than ten minutes left.
"Are you okay?" Jonas asks as you approach the Arsenal bench and you nod, being brought in for a quick hug before he adds, "That was totally unacceptable. We'll need to address it with the club. Get more security." He sounds angry, and not just with your assailant. You hadn't really had the time to process what had happened given how fast it had all been, but as you sit down at the team bench, receiving another warm reception from the girls there, the ones who'd been playing in the first half, you begin to get where he's coming from. How could that be allowed to happen? What if the guy had a weapon? What if-
"My girl." Your thoughts on what could have happened are interrupted by an unmistakable voice, Leah. Putting that Southern pronunciation on the word 'girl' that you loved so much, but sounding just as worried as everyone else who'd spoken to you did. The blonde wastes little time in leaning down to envelop you in a hug from where you sit, and you return it with a smile, letting out a breath you hadn't known you'd been holding in, and it coming out shaky much to your confusion. You felt fine.
"Good thing you weren't on the pitch, otherwise that prick probably wouldn't have left it." You joke with a small smile as the two of you pull apart and Amanda to your left budges up so Leah can sit down next to you, her brows furrowed in that steep arching frown she liked to do. The match in front of you continues as it had before. Alessia sits on your right, trying to be considerate by not unnecessarily intruding but occasionally giving you a side glance with a smile.
"Honestly, if they hadn't gotten to him first. Fucking wanker." Her blue eyes dart to the side, momentarily looking out to the pitch before returning to you. She reaches out an arm and wraps it over your shoulder, pulling you close, you have no objection, and you can't resist the amused huff of air you let out at the thought of what Leah might have done if she had been there and had two properly working legs.
A small comfortable silence settles between you both until the defender asks, "You alright?" and you nod almost on instinct, giving her a smile. "Yeah. Head hurts a little, but I did just get punched." You joke, but Leah doesn't laugh, or even smile, instead penetrating you with those deep blue eyes. "I know that, dummy, they wouldn't sit you on the bench if you were hurt like that. I meant the other kind of alright."
You shrug and for the first time since you'd seen her, your eyes drift off to the pitch and you shift in your seat. Yeah, you were fine. But, the idea that you might not be didn't sit right with you, or rather, the idea that Leah and by extension the rest of the team might not think you are.
"You mean if I'm all... shaken up? Quaking in my boots?" You retort with some dry wit and a slight smirk, putting some faux dramatism on your words as you glance back to Leah for a moment before returning your eyes to the game. You felt fine, but the question seemed to stir something in you, applying a light pressure to your chest that wasn't there before. You didn't like it.
Leah didn't seem amused and you feel her stare boring into the side of your face, inspecting you almost. "Yeah." Is her short reply, as if she isn't looking to entertain your attempts at humour. As if she takes the incident more seriously than you do.
You shrug again and look over to the blonde with an expression that borders between nonchalance and indifference. "Then yeah, I'm all good in that department too. If fucking Jack Grealish can handle a punch then I think I'll be fine." That one seems to have some effect on Leah's stern, concerned demeanour and she gives a small smile, shaking her head slightly as if reprimanding herself for not knowing better to expect any other kind of answer from you.
But she tightens her arm around you just a bit regardless, pulling you in just a little more than you already were, even as she turns away to face the pitch as the game approaches the final whistle, her eyes lingering on you a little longer. "Alright.. but if that changes, you know I'm here, right?" She asks with a sincerity that makes you a little uncomfortable, partly because you'd always been a little awkward around more heartfelt exchanges of emotions, and partly because.. well you couldn't really figure out that other feeling, but it adds to that small pressure on your chest.
"Yeah, I know." You get out with a firmness, more to reassure the defender that you'd be willing to open up in that sense than anything else. You weren't sure if you ever would, even if your feelings did change. But, you were.. confident that they wouldn't. You felt fine, after all.
The final whistle blows not long after.
.....
The hum of fluorescent lights fill Meadow Park's comparatively humble locker room as the team trickles in, sweaty and exhausted from a relatively hard fought win. There's the usual post-match banter, the teasing, the recounting of the odd tackle and the two winning goals. But there's also a.. tension in the air, an undercurrent of concern and empathy directed toward one player in particular and unfortunately you're all too aware of it.
You take your usual spot by your locker, trying to blend in with the post-game routine as seamlessly as you can. You begin to unlace your boots, your fingers working with a rehearsed, mechanical precision. You didn't like it when people fussed over you, and you always tended to think that their attention was better spent or even better deserved elsewhere. You didn't really like being the centre of attention either, positive or negative. So, sitting here, and knowing that every now and then a different set of eyes would glance over at you, or that every second conversation featured you in some capacity, it wasn't a fun feeling, even if all of it derived from the most kind intentions.
You slip your cleats off and lean back against your locker as you sit in your cubby, looking up at the ceiling and releasing your second shaky breath of the night against your will. That pressure on your chest hasn't gone away and it's beginning to annoy you as you close your eyes and try to relax yourself, feeling oddly tense.
Between the chaos of the initial aftermath, your conversation with Leah and some of the banter you'd tried to get yourself involved with during the short walk to the locker room after their celebration, you hadn't really had the time (or the desire) to really think back to the incident or process it. It'd happened what? Thirty minutes ago? Yet, it already felt significantly longer.
Your hand reaches up absentmindedly to rub at your right temple as images flash one after the other of the experience. You on the ground, Beth kneeling in front of you and those two words that you hadn't even recalled until now. "Stupid cow." You scratch at your temple for a moment and open your eyes, shaking your head for a second or two as if to ward off the memory.
You let out another breath, and while this one isn't quite shaky, your breathing has gotten a little heavier.
Your hands clasp together and your fingers interlock as you idly rub your thumbs up and down the hand opposite to the one they each belong to. That pressure on your chest makes itself known a bit more and you swallow, your eyes surveying the locker room, not quite knowing what you're searching for but compelled to do it all the same. Why would someone do that? Why would a person just run out onto the pitch and hit a player? Hit you?
"Relax." You tell yourself.
It doesn't do much, and you have to put a hand down onto your knee to stop one of your legs from tapping itself up and down. "What the fuck is wrong with me?" You internally ask yourself. You felt fine. You had felt fine five minutes ago. You had felt fine after being punched in the side of the head. Why are you feeling like this now?
You shift in your cubby and take a deep breath (another shaky one, much to your frustration), trying to regain control of yourself. That fucking weight on your chest is still there.
"Y/N." You hear someone- Katie- say nearby, and you curse to yourself. "Yeah?" You ask with a slightly raised brow, trying to remain lowkey as you look to your left to see the forward standing not too far away next to her own cubby, shoving her boots into a large black duffel bag as she stares at you, most of the other girls are still in their own conversations. Thank God.
"You good?" She asks the question that you've become almost annoyingly familiar with in the past half hour and like before you nod impulsively. Though unlike then you're no longer quite so confident in the honesty of that natural response. "Yeah, all good. Why? Am I getting a bruise?" You say in an attempt to be light hearted, giving the brunette a small smile, but she only frowns back, causing you to swallow.
"Nah, just seemed like you were.. thinking 'bout something."
You break your stare and go back to what you're supposed to be doing, getting changed, leaving Katie unsatisfied as you find your own duffel bag next to you and begin putting your cleats into it. You begin to feel a slight burning at the bottom of your throat but try to ignore it, feeling the corners of your lips reactively curl downward even as you busy yourself with getting changed.
"Fucking idiot." You angrily say to yourself on the inside. "Stop being such a baby." You take off your Arsenal shirt and shove it into the bag with an unusual amount of force. That pressure on your chest grows heavier and your breathes with it. You aren't sure why you feel this way and you hate it. You've never felt like this before and you hate it. Why is this happening? You were fine before.
"Y/N." Your name is called again, only this time it's Leah, and she's standing right behind you, causing you to jump just slightly. Your heart beating a little quicker as you'd been facing your locker, back turned to the rest of the team. Katie must have gotten her.
You take your third shaky breath of the evening before responding with a falsely inquisitive, "Yeah?" as if you hadn't a clue what she'd want to talk to you about. You continue to face your locker, opening it up to take out your casualwear to give yourself a valid reason not to turn around.
"You wanna come with me? Need to talk." She says with a nonchalance that is deceptive. Ordinarily, if Leah needed to talk with someone, she wouldn't hesitate in using her regular old sternness to get the importance across. But, right now? Her tone was light and casual and you weren't an idiot. You know that she was treating this like some kind of sensitive situation when it wasn't. You'd gotten punched by some dickhead and that was it, end of story. It probably happened to a thousand people every day in Britain and you were no different.
"Yeah.. just lemme get dressed first." You reply, sliding on your trousers and feigning your own coolness and composure, though not nearly to the same effectiveness as Leah. Your breathing's still heavy and with each passing moment you begin to feel a growing sense of claustrophobia when you'd never suffered from that in the past. You want air. Maybe you need it. But, you can't let that show.
"Mind turning round, Y/N? It's bad manners not to look at someone when they're talking to you."
You won't let it show.
"Look, Leah. If this is about that dickhead again, I told you I'm all good." You retort dismissively, wanting to put the questioning to bed.
That pressure grows heavier.
"Well, I don't think you are."
Your heart beats faster.
"Oh, and what? You're in my head now are you?" Your frustration peaks through the façade.
Why are they still asking you about it?
"No. I just know when my friends aren't okay." Leah's concerned tone fades and she takes on a sterner one, a tough love one.
Why aren't you fine?
"Well you might want to get your radar checked because I'm fucking fine, Leah." Your brows furrow and you almost grit your teeth as that burning sensation creeps further up your throat. You shouldn't have sworn.
The rest of the locker room is becoming quieter.
"Then why won't you look at me?"
Everyone's looking at you.
"Because you're fucking bothering me!" You yell angrily. And if there had been any conversations left in the room, they cease instantly, cloaking the team in a deafening silence.
You swallow and it almost hurts your throat. You blink and your eyes have a wetness in them that wasn't there ten seconds ago. Your chest lifts and falls dramatically and your hands have a light tremor in them.
But, you were fine ten minutes ago.
You feel a pair of hands take you gently by your waist and you presume them to be Leah's, having that presumption confirmed quickly as the defender turns you around slowly to face her. You don't resist, but you feel almost ashamed as you're rotated to face the rest her and the rest of the girls. You can't even look any of them in the eye, with your eyes dropping to the ground and becoming fixated on your feet because it's easier than looking at anything else.
"You're okay, my girl. You're safe." Leah says, her sternness morphing seamlessly into an almost painfully sincere softness and care as you're pulled in slowly for another hug, though your arms hang almost limply by your sides. You don't know what to do, or what to say, but you feel a stinging in your eyes and a pain in your throat that's becoming more pronounced by the second.
You bury your head into Leah's shoulder because you know you're about to cry, and you feel a surge of intense shame at the realization. Your arms reach up and finally wrap themselves around Leah. You know the rest of the girls are watching you, and it's embarrassing, but you don't know what else to do. You don't feel safe.
"I don't know what the fuck's wrong with me." You finally let out into the blonde's shoulder, feeling the first tears roll down your cheeks. "I was okay and then.. this shit just came out of nowhere. I'm sorry."
Leah pulls away from you, but only slightly, one of her hands lifting your chin to level with her as she looks you dead in the eye, while her other hand reaches up to stroke your cheek. "You have nothing to be sorry about, understand? Nothing. No one thinks any less of you for this, Y/N."
You aren't entirely sure if that's true or not, but Leah, being the natural leader that she is, had a way of making people believe things or feel them even if they otherwise wouldn't. And you're not immune to that effect, nodding somewhat hesitantly in agreement, but nodding regardless as you feel that pressure on your chest lighten ever so slightly.
"The pitch should be a safe place for us and that dickhead tried to take it away." You hear Beth speak up, both to you but also to the rest of the room, with nods and murmurs of concurrence following throughout. Concern and heartbreak can easily turn to anger and a need for justice, and even in your frustratingly vulnerable state, you can see that change begin to take place in the confines of the locker room as the scene between you and Leah made it perfectly clear to everyone that you had been effected by that attack on more than just a physical level.
"Everyone's here for you, alright? Nothing like that is ever gonna happen again. Not to you, or anyone else in this game." Leah says, that steeply arched frown returning to her expression as a hint of determination reaches through her words.
She wipes away some of the tears that hadn't quite made their way down your cheeks and pulls you back into the hug, running her hand in circles along your back. "We're gonna make sure he regrets ever coming to this game." The Vice-Captain whispers into your ear with an intensity that almost makes you shiver, and in that moment, you find a piece of your confidence back.
You were confident that the girls had your back. You were confident that Leah would do whatever it took to get justice, and you were confident that one day that wanker would indeed regret ever even coming near you. But, most importantly, you were confident that you wouldn't allow him damage you, that you wouldn't allow him to have anymore significance in your life than a fucking footnote. Regardless of whatever happened next, revenge or not, justice or not. You were simply more valuable than that, and the girls would always help to remind you of that, even if sometimes it was hard to see.
Sometimes, your team felt like more than just a team, and tonight was one of those times.
///
End Notes: Hey, everyone! So this has been my first ever woso fic. I'm still trying to get to grips with pacing and getting some proper good angst, but I hope this is an enjoyable read and a good start!
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topperscumslut · 7 months
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Kiss Me With Your Eyes Closed (Sejanus Plinth x Reader)
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Summary: (Y/N) is the victor of the 9th Hunger Games and the beloved girlfriend of Coriolanus Snow, though she’s secretly in love with his best friend (in this au the hunger games progressed more quickly, for example mentors were already present before the 10th games etc etc). title inspired by Hot Freaks’ Puppy Princess!
Warnings: not much rlly tbh, a wee bit of angst but mostly FLUFFY FLUFFFFF. might write a smutty sequel if this does well (or just if i feel like it lol) but even then it would be more fluffy smut, like sweet love making rather than getting absolutely railed lmao yk? (i probably will so stay tuned if u like this and lmk if u wanna be tagged!)
spoiler free apart from references to coriolanus x lucy gray!!
ok actually it is a pretty good amount of angst nvm lmao
Word count: 2k
You sigh as you run your fingers over the tattered poster, so shiny and new only a year before, reading the now barely legible words. (Y/N) (L/N) Victory Tour, In Honor of the 9th Hunger Games, Arriving Soon in Your District. You remember your victory tour all too well. Despite the traumas you had endured as a victor, you’re grateful for how far you’ve come. Sure, you still have nightmares of your games every now and again, yet even still you have the best fate a girl from District 3 could ever hope for - you had fallen in love with a boy from the Capitol.
From an outsider’s perspective, it was the perfect love story. A doomed romance from the beginning; star crossed lovers, one might say, a Capitol boy and a District girl. When you had arrived at the Capitol for the 9th Hunger Games, near certain you had no chance of winning, your dashing mentor Coriolanus Snow had immediately taken a liking to you. He took you under his wing and coached you through your games, and when you had miraculously emerged victorious and returned to the Capitol, he decided that he wanted you for his own, and who were you to say no? Not even a few weeks before, you were just another girl from District 3, completely unknown, barely scraping by. Now you had been thrust suddenly into a lavish lifestyle with a handsome suitor to boot, adored by all of Panem; the nation’s sweetheart. After your games, you could have left it all behind. Sure, you would never be granted total anonymity being a victor, but you could have gone back to your beaten down home in District 3 and lived a relatively quiet life. After all, it’s not like the Snows had the finances to buy your freedom from your district and turn you into a full fledged Capitol citizen.
But the Plinths did.
You never particularly enjoyed Strabo Plinth as a person, but you couldn’t help but be grateful to him for what he had done for you. You had, however, immediately taken a liking to his caring wife, as well as his juxtaposition of a son, Sejanus, who clearly took more after his mother. In contrast to your rugged, analytical lover, Sejanus was gentle, complex. The two of you had become fast friends while Coriolanus had helped you prepare for the games.
And so before you knew it, this was your new life. At first you were anxious, concerned that your becoming a Capitol citizen and Coriolanus associating so intimately with a girl from the Districts would be seen as an act of rebellion and put you both in danger. However Coriolanus assured you that the nation loved you, both as an individual and as a couple. Sure, it was unexpected, yeah, it broke the (admittedly unwritten) rules, but that’s what made it oh-so fun to watch. Because at the end of the day, the games weren’t a competition - they were a show, and everyone loved an underdog.
There was only one minor flaw. You had fallen in love with a boy from the Capitol, yes, but it wasn’t the one you had so publicly given your heart to.
Your relationship with Coriolanus was practical, and that was about the only positive thing you could truthfully say about it. Neither of you were particularly wealthy or powerful individually, but together, you had potential. If you could keep all of Panem tuned in to your epic love story, you could almost certainly ensure mutual survival. You offered Coriolanus the opportunity to be known as not only a mentor to a victor, but a lover as well. And though nearly a year later his eyes had started to wander, the dapper blond had been quite infatuated with you when the courtship had begun, and Coriolanus was notoriously possessive. While his family was in the midst of financial hardship at the current moment, becoming a Capitol resident gave you the opportunity to get by still much more comfortably than you had in your impoverished home district. And who knew what volatility Coriolanus was capable of if you had rejected his advances? You had been coaxed into this very moment and had no other option but to grin and bear it. After all, all the girls you knew back home would kill to be in your position. A handsome sweetheart, financial stability courtesy of the Plinths, and the whole country all but worshiping you. Coriolanus Snow had offered you not only fame and fortune, but more importantly, security. Safety, in return for your undying affection.
Coriolanus was sweet at first. Charming, for sure. He was certainly attractive, yet he had never really had much of an effect on you. Maybe it was simply intuition. Or maybe it was the fact that he could never compare to his best friend, Sejanus Plinth.
Kind, pure Sejanus. The type of boy that, unlike Coriolanus Snow, truly made your head spin. The chemistry between you and Sejanus was unspoken, yet undeniable. However, you had already reluctantly sworn yourself to Coriolanus, and knew running off with his best friend would certainly put both you and your not so secret admirer in a treacherous situation. Sejanus Plinth was a risk you simply couldn’t afford to take.
What stung the most was that in any other situation, it could have worked. Sejanus was certainly more wealthy and influential than Coriolanus, not that that was what truly mattered to you. If you had been just a bit more fortunate, you could have had the boy you truly loved as your mentor and still have the same security and more that you were now so gracefully granted, if you had simply found your way to Sejanus before Coriolanus had set his sights on you and claimed you as his own. But unfortunately for you, your current romantic relationship was one built upon the grounds of survival rather than love.
If you were fully honest with yourself, you never truly loved Coriolanus - well, not romantically, at least. There was once a time where you had loved him as a dear friend, but in the time you had known him, he had become cruel and vitriolic. You knew from the start that he had always had it in him to become this way, though you had always naively hoped that he wouldn’t, that he would control himself, but the poison within his soul had soon taken over his cold, uncaring heart. He had become hardened by the misfortune of his family and gradually more complaisant in the ways of the Capitol, as well as secretly resentful of the great fortune of his supposed best friend and honorary brother Sejanus.
Now just over a year since you had met, the 10th Hunger Games were nearing to start. You had heard the whispers of Coriolanus sneaking around with his newest mentee, your replacement in more ways than one, Lucy Gray Baird; however it never bothered you. Lucy Gray knew that your relationship with Coriolanus was nothing more than a facade, and the two of you had become unlikely friends. You weren’t sure just how much of his affections for Lucy Gray were genuine, or how much was motivated by a desire to flatter her in an attempt to gain another victor to further his own career. Though Coriolanus’s mood was recently heightened by his new lover, he was still resentful of being assigned such an impoverished district for two years in a row and was prone to fits of rage over this perceived insult. While your home of District 3 was never much of a spectacle, Lucy Gray’s District 12 was miraculously even more down trodden, the poorest district of them all. You couldn’t help but wonder if this assignment was actually made to compliment Coriolanus, to show that if he could made a diamond in the rough out of you, that perhaps he could do the same for Lucy Gray.
As you sit alone in Coriolanus’s bed, still running your fingers gingerly along the photograph, you hear a knock at the door.
“Sejanus?”
“Oh, hey. Is Coryo around?”
You shake your head. “He’s out right now.”
Sejanus’s jaw tightens at your response. “With her?”
You nod unenthusiastically and can see the disgust and anger wash over his face as he makes his way over to you.
“It’s not her fault, Sejanus. She’s actually really sweet.”
He sits down on the bed next to you, careful to leave enough space between the two of you as to not make you uncomfortable. “I know it’s not. It’s his. Does it really not bother you at all?”
“Not particularly.”
He chuckles to himself. “You’re better than me, (Y/N). I don’t know how you put up with it. If I truly loved someone, it would kill me to see them with someone else.” He’s subtle, but you can tell exactly what he’s implying.
“Well good thing I don’t have to see it.”
“Fair enough.”
Sejanus looks sympathetically at you for a second, blissfully unaware that his kind, beautiful brown eyes are making you melt, before noticing the poster in your hand.
“Is that-”
“Yep.” You shiver, remembering your games, the things you saw… “I don’t think it ever occurred to him, the things I had to do in there.”
“It occurred to me.” He gently places his shaky hand on your knee, carefully surveying your expression to make sure you’re okay with the contact, to which you nod slightly, nearly involuntarily. “Look, I’ll say it since no one else in this screwed up place will, I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
You bite your lip, feeling butterflies in your stomach once again as he gives you that look and it takes everything in you not to lean in and kiss him right then and there. Your boyfriend could come home any moment, after all, and you quickly compose yourself, breaking Sejanus’s gaze. “It’s okay. I won. It’s the Hunger Games. It’s an honor.”
He inches carefully closer to you before speaking up again, his deep voice barely above a whisper. “(Y/N), you don’t have to pretend around me.”
You shake your head in denial. “I’m not pretending.”
“Then why haven’t I seen that light in your eyes that I love so much since you’ve left the arena? Why don’t you care that he’s always off with Lucy Gray? Why are the rules different for you than they are for him?”
And suddenly it hits you all at once. Sejanus is right. If Coriolanus is sneaking around with your friend everyday, even when they aren’t training, then what’s to stop you from doing the same to him? What do you owe him when all he’s ever done is keep you like a bird in a cage?
You don’t stop yourself, you don’t even think as you lean in and kiss Sejanus. He gets over the initial shock quickly and melts into it, cradling your body in his arms and pulling you in by the small of your back. You both pull away at the same time, not quite sure what’s gotten into you, but whatever it is, you like it.
“Coriolanus has never kissed me like that.”
“Go figure.”
His nerves kick in once again as he starts to stutter an apology before you shut him up by kissing him softly again.
“Since I first got to the Capitol… Sejanus, nothing here has felt right, except for you.”
“I could say the same about you,” he muses as he leans in once again, kissing you slow, both of you pretending the moment could last forever. If only…
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flemingsfreckles · 26 days
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Too Sweet (18+)
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Jessie Fleming x Reader
Preview: You and Jessie don’t belong together, but you find yourself addicted to her. (loosely based off Hozier’s Too Sweet, doesn’t really follow the lyrics)
Warnings: it’s pretty angsty, smut without being explicit smut, but definitely 18+, mentions of alcohol, some pretty heavy self deprecation
WC: 2.3k
A/N: I was in an angsty mood, my apologies
You rolled over to the side of the bed, moving yourself from your position on top of Jessie. You both laid panting with red cheeks, sweat covering both of your naked bodies.
You knew this was wrong, you and Jessie shouldn’t be spending your nights together in bed. You shouldn’t be whispering praises and muttering her name into her ear as she lay beneath you. She shouldn’t be wrapping her strong legs around your head, hands tangled in your hair. You were bad for her, you both knew it but neither of you dared to admit it. She was sweet, gentle, and genuine. You were, for lack of a better term, an asshole.
You don't know how you ended up being her hookup of choice. The first time it happened you were both drunk so you wrote it off initially as a mistake on her part. In celebration after a big win you had both gone out with the team and had more than your share of drinks. But then you found yourself above her naked figure again and again. You and Jessie never got along. You were polar opposite. She was small, kind, she wouldn’t hurt a fly. You were lucky if you came away from a game without a yellow card, you were a tall, tattooed, muscled defender, you didn’t care for other people, often called selfish or egotistical.
The two of you had a teasing relationship. You knew how to push each other, you were one of the only people that Jessie would be upfront and confrontational with. You pushed her nerves in the worst ways.
Weeks ago, the night of your first time, you had watched as Jessie was talking with an unknown girl across the bar the team was celebrating at. For some reason watching her talk with the girl made a bubble of rage fill your chest. They chatted briefly, before the girl walked away and Jessie was left alone. Feeling like more of a dick than normal with the added rage you find yourself walking over to where Jessie stood.
“What do you want?” She scoffed at you as you walked over. She knew you were coming to push her buttons. You wouldn’t have come over to have a nice conversation, she knew that.
“You going home with that pretty little thing?” You point over in the direction of the girl Jessie was previously talking to.
“No, I’m not.”
“Of course you’re not, I was joking.” You had already known she wasn’t, Jessie wasn’t the type to take home a random girl from the bar. She rarely would go on dates, at least that you knew off. She wasn’t one to get around, unlike you. As long as she said yes, you’d practically take any girl back to your bed.
“What does that mean?” You’re not sure why she asked, she knew the reputation she had for being more reserved than the rest of the team when it came to sex.
“You’re little miss innocent, you’re probably waiting until marriage aren’t you?” You knew full and well that she most likely wasn’t as innocent as she gave off but it was so easy to push her.
“Why are you such an asshole?”
“Ooo, hit a sore subject didn’t I virgin?” You send her a smirk, feeling proud of yourself. It was a low blow and you knew it was. You normally didn’t take stabs at her sex life or romantic life, you really couldn’t care less if she was a virgin, that’s her choice, but the drinks already in your system decided that’s how you were going to annoy her tonight.
“I’m not a virgin.”
“Whatever you say. Maybe I’ll take your girl home and show her a good time.” You take a sip from your glass of straight whiskey . You start to turn away, deciding you should leave the poor girl alone and starting to look for someone to take home.
“She’s not my girl and I’m not innocent.” Her words have you turning back toward her. You can notice Jessie’s grip tightening on her glass that is filled with something you presume would be too sweet for your taste. It makes you want to laugh, how easily she was frustrated by you.
“Okay, whatever you say, but I’d rock your little innocent world Fleming.” You pat your hand on the top of her head, adding to your degrading comment.
“Do it then, rock my world.” She turns to face you. You weren’t expecting that, for once she was pushing back at you, standing up for herself. It was fucking hot.
That’s all it took, you grabbed her hand, throwing cash at the bar, more than enough to cover both of your tabs and pulled her out of the bar and into an Uber.
She followed you all the way into your bed where the two of you spent the night. Jessie surprised you that night, definitely showing she was the opposite of innocent. You also proved to her that you could in fact, rock her world. You had her writhing under you, moaning your name and making a mess of herself in your sheets. But as much as you rocked her world, she rocked yours.
Something about her whispering dirty things to you, touching every inch of your skin, all while she kept the innocent, blushed cheeks, blown pupils with a small ring of her usual brown eye look, made you want to ruin her. Seeing her in ways you know many people haven’t gotten to, made you tingle. It was intoxicating, the mix of innocence and sinful that she was able to portray.
Since that night, you were addicted to her.
You both couldn’t seem to stop falling into bed with each other. Sometimes you didn’t even make it to the bed, it happened in the kitchen, on the couch, in the car, against the wall, it was happening every day.
But like clockwork, you’d leave or kick her out, shortly after you were both done. You’d both go back to your usual hatred of each other, ignoring each other at training, making smartass comments to her, picking on her. Only to end up in her bed, on top, behind, to the side, or under her, as you watch in awe of her every move.
It was becoming a habit, one you knew you had to break. You started to see Jessie’s behavior change. You had quickly mentioned to her that the sex was no strings attached, a way for you to both get your frustrations out at both each other and at the world. She had agreed to those terms but it was becoming clear, she was no longer no strings attached.
She started to follow you around more, coming up to you at training, giving you a wave when you’d walk into a room, she was less crass with her comments. Your teammates started to notice, asking if you were suddenly friends again, asking when you stopped hating each other. She’d offer you dinner or lunch or breakfast depending on what hour of the day you two were in her bed. It was becoming too much. It felt like it was moving toward a relationship, toward commitment. You knew it had to be the end.
That’s what made this time different. When you rolled off of her and onto her soft pillow, you didn’t have the energy to get up. You stayed laying next to her. So badly you wanted to roll toward her, put your arms around her and stay. But that’s not who you were, you never had been, you didn’t know how to be that type of person. You knew you had to go, everything in your brain was screaming at you to get up. You weren’t good enough for her, you never would be good enough for anyone. You couldn’t stay here with her. Staying would give her the wrong idea.
“You could stay, you don’t have to go.” It was as if she could read your mind, the debate between your self hatred and the small sliver of hope you had for yourself one day.
“No, I do.” You push yourself off her pillow and sit up on the side of the bed. You look around trying to find where your clothes ended up.
“Not if you don’t want to.” You can feel her eyes burning into the back of your head as you stay facing away.
“I can’t Jessie, I need to leave.” Standing up and moving over you find your discarded boxers, throwing them on before finding your shorts. “We both know we can’t do this. This is just sex. I’m not good for you.”
“You could be good for me, we could do this.” Turning around you saw her. She looked like an angel. Her hair slightly messy, a smile across her face, the bed sheet wrapped tightly around her waist. You could see the dark marks you had made on her chest peeking out from the top of the sheet. She was looking at you with a hopeful glint in her eyes. A hopeful glint you were about to kill.
“No, Jessie. I’m not good for you, I’m not good for anyone. I’m an asshole. I’m not respectful, I’m not responsible, I’m not nice. You’re Canada’s baby. I’m basically every team’s enemy. I can’t stay, I can’t lead you on, thinking this could work. It won’t work, we can’t be anything, that's something I can’t give you. I can’t give you what you deserve. You’re too sweet, you deserve the world, and I don’t have it to give you.” You definitely say a lot more than you planned to. You spew all the things that would make the two of you being together impossible. With every word that comes out of her mouth, some of the light in her eyes diminishes. You were killing her hope, just like you had planned and just like you wanted to.
“How do you know, how do you know there’s no chance for this to work?”
“Look as much as I maybe act like I hate you, I really don’t. I just can’t get too close. I know myself, I can’t let myself hurt you. And I would, Jessie. Despite what your optimistic Canadian little brain may tell you, I would end up hurting you.” You walk out of the bedroom and make your way toward her front door prepared to leave her apartment for the last time. You hear a scramble and Jessie follows behind you.
As you look at her you see every reason you can’t be together. She was someone you took home to meet your parents, you were not. You had never had a stable relationship, you did flings, you ghosted girls after spending the night with them, you blocked numbers and unfollowed girls. You had always done it, you didn’t know any other way.
She shouldn’t have to fix you.
“I think we shouldn’t do this anymore.” You say as you place your hand to the door, Jessie standing behind in just a shirt and underwear.
“Why?”
“We just shouldn’t, I don’t want to hurt you. This is becoming more than sex to you.”
You feel her place her hands on your shoulders, pulling you back. You turn to face her, having to look down at her small figure as she pushed her chest to yours.
“Just one more time then?” Her eyes begging, it was moments like this that made your brain short circuit. Here she was, big brown puppy eyes, the innocent look, all while asking for you to fuck her, one last time. Her fingers come up to trace patterns on your chest. She knew your weaknesses and she used it to her advantage.
You grab her chin, placing your lips on hers before moving your hands to the back of her thighs, picking her up and walking back into her bedroom.
“Last time.” You say as you place her on the bed and begin to remove her shirt for the second time that afternoon as she frantically nods at you. You took your time, trying to commit every aspect of her to memory, her taste, the way her skin felt against yours, the way her hands moved, the sounds she made.
“Just stay for 5 minutes.” Those were the first words out of Jessie’s mouth after a long string of moans and profanities as you had made her cum for the second time that round and fourth time today. She moved off of where she was laid on top of you, keeping one arm and leg draped over you.
“Just 5 minutes.”
Those 5 minutes quickly became an unknown amount of time as you woke up, disoriented, too hot, with a weight across your chest. The weight you quickly realized was Jessie’s arm draped across your middle, the same way it had been when she asked you to stay for 5 minutes.
Giving her one last look, she was peaceful, fast asleep, you gently move her arm off of you, sliding out from under her touch and out of bed. You quietly find your clothes, get dressed and move to the front door. You look back to her bedroom door for a second, hand on the exit to her apartment. Her bed had felt safe, warm, relaxing, you had been able to fall asleep with her, but you had to go, you told yourself. So you did. Before you made it through the door into the hallway you opened your phone, blocked her number and made your way down the stairs and out onto the street. You’d have to see her next week at training but at least you could avoid her for now.
When you opened your own apartment door, you felt your world collapse. A tightness deep in your chest consumed you. You let your back hit the door, sliding down it until you were sitting on the floor, against the door knees tucked to your chest. Hot tears ran down your cheeks.
You would never be able to have someone like Jessie. You didn’t deserve someone like Jessie. You’d likely end up alone, once you get through sleeping with as many girls as you can manage. She’d end up with a picket white fence, a wife, and a couple of kids. You were not a good person, she was. She deserved a happy ending, you didn’t.
You were bitter and she was too sweet.
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yeyinde · 4 days
Text
the soft blue of a pale moon | Yautja x f!Reader
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He keeps his claws fixed against the scruff of your neck. Forcing you down, bowed on your knees with your face tucked tight against his massive thigh, breathing in the stale scent of him. Even through the foreignness of it—the sharp burn of oxidising iron, rusted metal, and old, rotting blood—he smells good. Intoxicating. It makes you dizzy. Makes you greedy. For something. Survival, maybe. That instinctual drive, self-preservation, needling in your hindbrain to keep you alive.  Despite your reticence, you angle your chin up, glaring at this creature, this beast. This Cimmerian god of old. Stygian king in his throne of bones, his pretty pet, his plaything, supplicant by his side. You won't ever submit. Ever. 
warnings: noncon/dubcon. captive reader. predator/prey. forced submission. noncon D/s dynamics. forced mating. rough sex/violent sex. broken bones. belly bulge. biting. size difference. mentions of violence. scent kink (slight). marking/scarring (territorially, possessively). alien biology. alien genitalia. female presenting reader (female anatomy).
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Yautja terms:Kainde Amedha — hard meat (refers primarily to xenomorphs)
Ooman — human
this is basically a Dark (from the 2010 avp video game lmao) x Reader fic. Yautja is not an OC. but you don't need to know anything at all from the game to read this.
lore:
comics, novels. divine wisdom.
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The bed of furs is soft beneath you.
It's an odd juxtaposition compared to the uncanny harshness of the room you've been left in (held captive for days, weeks, months—) with its severe lines and its stark, unfamiliar geometry. The walls stained a strange, unearthly colour of brownish-gold, towering high into a domed ceiling etched with symbols and runes you've yet to decode. Ones you know you never will.
This whole place is otherworldly. Seemingly beyond the scope of science fiction, or what your meagre imagination can dream up. Reality. Fantasy. The two blend together to form this archaic, rustic interior that's somehow far too futuristic for your mind to understand, and yet shaded in use, in age. Space dust. Caught between old and new—new: unknown, unknowable—and utterly mesmerising despite the garishness of what lies outside beyond the edge of the pelts you rest on. 
Adorning the walls are an uncountable number of skulls and bleached white bones. Weaving spines strung up. Spindly, alien vertebrae. Fantastical creatures. Mythological beasts. It's something only the most inspired minds can conjure—
And yet, it all sits within reach. 
(The human skull on the wall, still attached to its spine, is perched over your head like an omen—)
You tear your gaze away from it, sliding over the trophies immortalised in a shrine dedicated to the prowess of the being who took you. An alien. Yautja, you’ve come to learn. Predatory hunters who roam the galaxies in search of the best prey. A race made of warriors with a strict honour code. 
Though—
You don’t know how honourable keeping captives are to their society, but none of the other massive beings had tried to intervene when he had taken you on the ship, hauled over his shoulder like a conquest, beating furious fists into his broad back. They stood back, chittering to themselves in what you know is laughter. Mocking clicks. Low trills. They thought it all so funny, outlandishly so, to see him stalk through the thick haze of fog that blanketed the ground with a yowling ooman clawing futilely at his back. 
(As if your weak, feeble fists could ever hope to maim, to hurt—)
You don't know why he decided to take you. Even now, aeons later as you pass by an unfathomable number of solar systems, all glimmering like crushed gems just beyond the domed window above your bed, you have no idea what brought this on. What made him look at you, and think—
Pet (mine). 
And it's not for a lack of trying, either. But trying to prise anything out of him is near impossible. Chiselling for gold with a plastic spoon. 
It leaves you with only one other villain in this story, and you very readily blame Weyland-Yutani for this mess—dig deeper, explore faster, mine harder—but yourself, more so, for signing your name on the dotted line in the first place. You knew it was a terrible idea from the beginning. Not too many planets are truly desolate these days. Not with those things, xenomorphs, roaming the solar system unhindered. 
Nothing good ever comes from meeting them. Death, inevitably, follows. 
Though, comparatively, you'd rather be sprawled out—naked, collared—on a bed of strange, soft fur than being used as a breeding sow for a race of parasitic monsters hellbent on devouring the galaxy. 
Panic is white hot, electric. The thought alone makes you lash out, a paroxysm of pure adrenaline, fear. Your hand flies to your chest instantly. Fingers knotting between your heaving breasts, feeling around for any movement under your skin. A beat. Several. All erratic. Thumping harshly against your ribcage. And—
Nothing. Just the erratic flutter of your heart, bragging senselessly in your chest. 
(stupid thing—)
Of course. Of course. 
Out of everyone on the ill-fated expedition, somehow only you survived. Holed up in the armoury, listening to those serpentine creatures tear into the flimsy metal of your ship. Taking out the ones who managed to sneak in with a well-placed shot to their domed heads. Hiding in a corner waiting for them to find you, wondering if the last few bullets should be used on them or yourself. 
It was days of that. Of piling these awful monsters high, and hoping the corrosive blood didn't ruin the hull to make an opening wide enough for them all to pour in, overwhelming you with your dwindling ammo. 
Breathing in ragged breaths, all the while listening to the hisses skirting across metal, grazing talons down your skull. They liked to taunt you, a fact that nearly drove you to the brink when all the meandering words uttered around about their hive-like simplicity, their insectoid stupidity, fell apart. These creatures are deadly, cunning. 
And smart.
They adapted easily to your patterns, overcoming your bullets and your patchwork ingenuity with ease. The only thing that kept them at bay was the metal being too thick to penetrate with their claws. 
(And you watched, helplessly, as they realised this after the second week, and sacrificed the smaller drones to splash their corrosive blood across the thickened alloy, melting it slowly down to nothing—)
They would have gotten you soon enough. 
Had to, really. Because the Queen was waiting. You heard her hisses in your head. Felt her in the air, disturbed and agitated, around you. Pulsing like a heartbeat. Hammering against your resolve with each nightmare she pressed into the folds of your subconsciousness. Luring you to her. Showing you the wonders of giving in, granting her access. 
Coming home—
You don’t know how anyone could withstand her influence. The siren’s call from down the hall, showing you image after image of her children curling protectively over you. Nestled in a tight embrace. Safe and sound from the howling winds and the scorching sun, from the awful hisses outside, and the horrific sound of metal giving way, melting into a puddle on the floor. 
It was madness. One you wanted nothing more than to give into—
And then they came. 
Appearing out of thin air just as your bullet pierced her jaw when she finally came for you, her child—
She fell, taking out several of the others with her—ones not on your list of alien species to look out for—and left behind nothing but a passel of intimidating creatures and you. 
He, their leader, was the first to find you. Grabbing you by the scruff of your neck like a misbehaving kitten, and pulling you close. Taking stock, you think, of the bodies behind you and the holes in the Queen made from your gun. 
An uneasy, stifling silence fell, broken by a series of drawn-out, low clicks. 
You realised then, right as he bent down and tore the claw off of a dead xenomorph, what these beings were. Hunters. Predators. It was rare to see them on earth, but you’d heard of several run-ins with these creatures whenever humans decided to mettle with their preferred prey. 
It was even rarer that any human survived the encounter. 
He cocked his head to the side before pressing the bloody tip to your cheek, branding you with the mark of the blooded. One that matched his own. Purposefully done, of course. 
His crest on your skin, unique as a thumbprint, is the loudest proclamation of his claim. Anyone from any number of clans that roam the heavens in search of prey, of hard meat, know, immediately, that you belong to him. That you bear his mark, branded with the scar of his respect. 
(Respect—such a weighty thing to carry across your shoulders, too. Something you'd been eager to obtain, hungering for it all your life. And now—
The blunt, almost suffocating heft of it feels permanent in a way you can't even begin to unravel.)
He'd taken you, then. Despite thinking of humans as soft meat, cattle, he'd thrown you over his shoulder and marched you to his quarters where he stripped the xenomorphs of their skin, and hung their bones on the wall—your trophies. Sat next to his own. A bold display. A show of respect, however rare—and unwanted. 
And then he'd stared at you through the black slits in his horned mask. Just watching. Studying. It took a great deal of composure not to weep. To beg for—
For something. 
Leniency, maybe. For whatever crimes you inadvertently perpetrated against them. For being here, of all places, because of the insatiable greed of Weyland-Yutani. 
For believing in them in the first place, maybe. Following, desperately, in the footsteps of your fallen idol. 
It never mattered much in the end, though. After a careful, blank scrutinisation, he'd simply reached down, talons digging painfully into your skin, and tossed you into the softest bed of furs—of pure, hedonistic luxury you'd ever felt—and followed you down with an inhuman growl that rattled through your bones. That seemed to echo throughout the ship, shaking the walls, and trembling through the floors.
The kicking and screaming never happened. Futility paints a desperate picture, doesn't it? And in those moments, now lost to time, you knew, somehow, that it was useless. Is useless. 
He wanted you. Him, the captain of this ship you've been left to rot inside of. The one who knows your language, but refuses to speak it. Preferring, instead, to let the guttural clicks and the chirring of his foreign, unspeakable mother tongue take precedence. 
The one who hunts, viciously, and wears his trophies around his neck. Strung up for all to see as they dangle across his broad, mottled chest. Black. Endlessly so. His colouring is shades darker than your own galactic canvas where midnight itself spills across satin, but the comparison itches in your chest, rotting along with your sickening heartbeat. 
And you think he knows this. Because despite his fury as he slashes his way through the oddest assortment of extraterrestrial creatures you've ever laid eyes upon, he's cunning. Smart. Adaptable. 
It's this, the strange, almost preternatural patience he exudes which keeps you where you lay now. The innate knowledge that he's a primal hunter, one who uses both instinct and a keen, calculative sense of awareness to ensnare his victims wholly, unquestionably. One who'd undoubtedly hunt you down to the very edges of the star system you escape into until you're bent down on both knees, supplicant to his prowess.
His little pet. 
And oh, how he luxuriates in it. This little moniker given to you by his clanmates seems to make him preen each time you hear the familiar, rasping click of their scornful mockery. 
Soft ooman. His ugly little trophy. 
He snaps his mandibles at them in response, but keeps his claws fixed against the scruff of your neck. Forcing you down, bowed on your knees with your face tucked tight against his massive thigh, breathing in the stale scent of him—ozone, leather, spice, and a potent musk of mildew and loam, humus; the stagnant waters of a swamp teeming with algae blooms. Even through the foreignness of it—the sharp burn of oxidising iron, rusted metal, and old, rotting blood—he smells good. Intoxicating. It makes you dizzy. Makes you greedy. For something. Survival, maybe. That instinctual drive, self-preservation, needling in your hindbrain to keep you alive. 
Despite your reticence, you angle your chin up, glaring at the creature, the beast. This Cimmerian god of old. Stygian king in his throne of bones. 
You won't ever submit. Ever.
But you can play the part—if only until he eases his grip, allowing you to slip away again. 
With a glower, you lay open kisses along the hard, leathery ridges of his black scute, chasing the oily tang of his musk on your tongue. 
The feel of your soft mouth makes his thighs tense—all firm, corded muscle; raw, primal power sheathed in a thick, aggregate pelt of marbled colours. It feels like warm stone under your fingers. Oiled leather. Crocodilian. 
His maw opens, and the sound that tumbles out is full of fractured syllables and inhuman chirrs, gutteral crepitate. It's not something your human tongue could ever expect to replicate, and your lips tug downward in a sharp frown, your displeasure at this game of his growing by the minute. His staunch refusal to speak your language despite clearly knowing it—and knowing it well—is aggrevating, if only for the sole reason that he kidnapped you. That you being here, listening to him, is not of your own free will. 
The scorn is thick on your tongue, the vitriolic rebuttal taking shape already, but he silences you when his thumb grazes your jaw. The air in your lungs tumbles out in a shudder when you feel the unnaturally soft, yet firm, skin of his palm slide around the back of your nape. 
The fight in you is numbed by the realisation that his hand alone spans the entire length of your shoulders, now curled possessively around your neck. Fingers overlapping, folding over each other easily into a perfect collar. 
His hand closing over your throat draws your eye to the ringed gorget he wears around his neck. 
The comparison makes you sick. 
The talons on his fingers are warm, powder-soft like the beak of a bird, when they tap against your throat as you swallow, thumb still stroking along the ridge of your jaw. It's shockingly intimate, and the humanness of it settles in your stomach like a sinking stone. Granite needling against soft tissue. Mercury bleeding into your guts. You hate it. 
Hate how much you don't hate it. 
The juxtaposition fills you with a fit of vicious anger. You don't want to seek comfort from this beast. 
Your gaze drops, resting churlishly on the thick skin of his belly. Despite the raw, indomitable strength that coils through his muscles, malleable obsidian, when he sits, the softness of his belly pudges out, jutting over the brass-coloured belt of his loincloth. 
It's—
Another marker of his uncanny likeness to the human form. 
But where you might have expected to see coarse hair, his lower belly is sparsely covered by a dense, thick cropping of quills trailing along his abdomen. They feel like softened polymer under your fingertips, but catch on your skin if you're not careful, the sharpened edge digging in. It's not as painful as the press of his nails, but itches like a thorn. Needles of a cactus. 
They stretch upward. Arching along in a perfect mockery of a happy trail that stretches to form a heavy bushel on his chest, small whiskers on his chin, his brow, dotted along the crest of his crown where his tresses fall. 
Dragging your gaze up this path leads you back to piercing amber set deep inside the bracket of his skull. They seem to glow, an unnatural light spilling out of their sockets, highlighting the rigid lines of his bones. 
He's watching you. Always. 
(You blame the rapid thud of your heart on fear.)
Knowing he has your attention now, he makes the noise again. Lower this time. A snarling rasp breaking apart between his flexing mandibles. The sound akin to the rumble of an avalanche; the roaring screams of a forest on fire. 
You have no hope of ever mimicking it—not without drinking down acid to corrode your vocal cords first. The anger that lashes through you is a whipcord cutting its tip against your resolve. 
“What are you saying? I don’t understand—”
His massive crown dips, mandibles clicking. His thumb presses into your skin. Intentional. Pointed. 
It's then you piece together that what he's saying isn't a command or a taunt, but rather his name. One you have no hope of ever repeating unless you want to turn your vocal cords into tatters, strips of unusable tissue. Wasting your words on his name is not something you think you would ever want to do. 
And so, you don't. 
Maybe it's to spite him. Or to put some semblance of distance between yourself and the alien holding you hostage, touching the skin of your neck with a soft sort of reverence you hadn't known he was capable of. Whatever the reason, you twist the ugliness inside of your chest, the rage and sorrow, into a brutal knife, wedging it into the scant space between your bodies, prying them apart in a shallow victory. 
He's a hideous thing, isn't he? This brute. 
Raw power. Untameable malice. All hidden under this pantomime of honour. How laughable, really, to think these beings know anything of the sort. Or maybe it's just him in particular. The outlier of the lot. One with a confounding obsession with ooman pets. 
Ugly, you think, staring up at him. With his sunken eyes, and his mane-like crown. His tusks clicking together in quiet pleasure, smug in his throne of metal and bone. 
Ugly, like the mossy green surface of a still swamp. Stagnant waters. A black lake. Shrouded by a dense, impenetrable cropping of weeping willows and mangroves. Shading the water so much that the algae blooms turn black like tar. 
Dark, like him. 
And so, you whisper it. Not his name, but this vindictive moniker you pieced together thinking of the lingering swamplands covered in moss and peat.
“Dark.”
In response, his nails rake over the back of your neck in both a warning, a reprimand; the same harsh touch used on an unruly cub by its mother. The comparison makes you bristle, hissing out a series of cruel jeers at him, but he barely pays it any mind, too busy chittering to himself now, humoured instead of insulted by this tangentially human name you've bestowed upon him. 
The juxtaposition, the humanness of it all, is almost too much. 
How can a creature that ripped a xenomorph’s jaw apart with his bare hands have these soft rolls along his midsection. Feel humour the same way your friends back home might have at your taunting barbs? 
The contrast is nearly comical. Sour. 
You don't like it when he's too human. When he scratches his warm talons along your nape absently. Thoughtless. A little twitch of his hand offering threadbare comfort in an unconscious whim. When he's tactile with you. Tensile. Gentle. Touching your skin with an exploratory sense of curiosity, of fondness. Laying you down on the furs with a tenderness that is at complete odds to the rough, demanding way he'll inevitably mate with you. 
Mate. Because your coupling is always animalistic. Brutal. There's no tenderness to be found when he presses you into the furs, rutting into you like a beast. Growling, snarling. Making you take, and take, and take until he's satiated—
But you think you like it that way. 
Especially when he's fresh off of a hunt. 
When he fucks you into the mattress with nothing but harrowing, inhuman roars spilling from deep within his heaving, blood-drenched chest. Guttural snarls. Harsh, demanding. Moulding your body to his liking. Grasping you in a crushing clutch, and drawing your aching hips back to swallow down the intense thickness of his cock as it buries deep—impossibly so—inside of you. 
You like him angry. Like him rough. It rents the moments when he's docile with you; bifurcating the peculiar sheen in his beady eyes when he lifts his mask off, placing it on the metal mantle with all the others, content to just stare at you. Looking, watching. Assessing. 
It's the unnatural stillness of his gaze that sets you on edge. The heavy, unerring way he takes you apart with nothing but deep amber drilling through your skin. 
Through because you've pieced enough together to know he can't see you the same way you can see him. That all the sharp angles of your features are hidden. The infinitesimal detailing lost to some wavelength your human eyes can't begin to take apart. 
He hides this weakness by touching you endlessly. Long, sharp talons dragging over the bridge of your nose. The dip in your chin, the angles of your jaw. The plumpness of your cheeks. 
He buries himself inside of you, and plays an exploratory game of committing your topography to memory with the soft, thick palms of his hands. Lets his long, rubbery tresses brush across your face as he sets a maddening pace that promises to one day snap your pelvis in half again, eyes glued to the centre of you where you burn the hottest. 
Between these moments is where you linger the longest. Oscillating between a pet or a mockery of a queen; supplicant to its owner, it's King. Head resting on a terribly massive thigh as he commandeers a ship that makes all the technological advancements of your home world seem rudimentary and crude. A child's rendition of a spaceship brought to life with broken crayons. Left there to bask in his prowess, his glory. Surrounded by artefacts and trophies of all his kills—but considerably lesser than the vastness of his quarters where he keeps his most prized possessions. 
Yourself included. Polished diamond perched on a satin pillow. 
One he keeps dressed up in armour, in plating; decorated in the traditional fabrics of his own kind—mesh netting that keeps you perfectly comfortable, acclimated to the unbearable swelter of their ship, the temperature almost too much for your fragile skin to handle; breastplates over your chest; a bronze loincloth with intricate webbing and a heavy belt to keep it in place. 
Adorned with pretty gems and metal bands around your neck, your arms. His mark on your skin. 
Belly bare, and offered no shoes. But this fact is not a pointed statement about your imprisonment or your status amongst them—it's just for the simple fact that he doesn't wear them, and so: neither should you. The axiom is so irrefutable, that the bare, gnomic revelation is almost obvious in hindsight. 
Obvious. In the same way a lightning strike is. Being torn to pieces for getting between a mother bear and her cubs. Falling off a cliff after dancing too close to the edge. Trying to swim in aerated water. 
Obvious. It's all so obvious, isn't it? 
You spend most of your days in this liminal labyrinth. Lost in your own mind as space flickers past the large window in front of you. Pinpricks of light in the distance of an endless, unfathomable black nothingness. Perched on the precipice of complacency and dread. Never knowing when he'll grow bored of this game, and turn you from a living emblem to a skull on his mantle like all the rest. 
If, of course, you're even worthy enough of a place there.
You just don't know. And that's the crux of it all. Not knowing. Kept on the brink. Shrouded in uncertainty. 
You'd think it intentional if you hadn't seen the way he preens under your stare sometimes. Flexing in his metal throne, showing off his array of scars; the trinkets he picked up on worlds unknown. The open, wanting way he regards you—this little human, barely a scrap of thing compared to him, to the sheer vastitude of his bulk. Hungry. Possessive. Always snapping his mandibles at the other Yautja who get too close, claws raking down flesh, spilling luminescent green blood across the floor. Injuring his own kind for attempting to touch you—
The King’s conquest. 
But his ire doesn't abate for you, either. You've learned the hard way what it means to try and flee from his grasp, and while it wasn't nearly as bloodied, as brutal, as it was for his kin, it was terrifying. 
You thought you were toeing the line before when you'd dig your human deep into his thickened hide as he kept you tucked to his side, on your knees for him; or when you tug so harshly at his tresses that green blood leaks from his skull and he howls in pain, but you realised then that you were wrong. That those little moments of mutiny were akin to foreplay to him. Small, inconsequential. Spilling his blood earned you marginal amounts of his respect, and he showed it by dumping you on his bed, and burying himself inside of you until you'd passed out into the furs. Overwhelmed. Punished. But it wasn't. You weren't being taught obedience by his hand, but rather getting a playful slap for your antics. 
He'd snatched you by your throat in an instant. His warm, soft palm enclosing over the fragile length of your neck with too much to spare for you to ever be comfortable. Long fingers overlapped across your nape, and he'd heaved you forward, slamming you into the hard plains of his body with a growl. Talons prickling into your skin, spilling blood down your back. He'd snarled so loud that the ship seemed to quiver, quaking under the sheer weight of his anger. 
Amber eyes drilled into you, widened with the fever of his fury, burying deep into your being. Your head wrenched side to side in a slow, agonising jolt as he assessed you. Taking stock of the silly pest that tried to run from him. That had the gall to slink off like an insect scurrying over his feet. Dishonourable.
This, though. 
Running from him—
Well.
In that moment, the air wrought with the metallic tang of his indomitable rage, you had thought: this was it. He was going to kill you. Flay your skin from muscle, and hang you in the rafters for the rest to gawk at. Easy prey. A fickle kill. 
And with everything you'd gleaned about this strange tribe and their odd customs, it would have been a mercy. 
But he didn't. 
Doesn't. 
His mandibles flare open, stretching out wide across his boxy jaw. The pinpricks of his teeth gleam in the hazy, saturated light of the ship; white, jagged peaks against fluttering, angry red. It shudders as he growls. The decibels pitched low, unfathomably so. You catch the spear of it rattling through his body, the rasping snark bellowing from the depths of his chest, and shaking the air around you. You can feel it reverberate from his flesh, the tight grip he has on you a conduit funnelling his anger straight into the middle of your throat. 
It reminds you of a territorial crocodile bellowing in the shallow water, making it vibrate and splash around him as the shattering frequency ripples outward. 
It's terrifying. Electric.
You feel it rattle through your bones. Feel the ripples trembling through your flesh. 
It's primal, this fear. Animal. 
But in the end, he doesn't kill you. 
You're simply tossed over his shoulder like a rowdy, misbehaving pest, and taken back to his room, much to the amusement of his gathering tribemates peeking out of their room to see their leader tend to his wilful, misbehaving pet. He strips you of your armour with a careless, almost cruel disregard before pushing you back on the bed. There's a rigid line to his shoulders you'd never seen before; a damning flex to his jaws that make you shake, quivering in fear. 
You know better than to speak, to beg. All it gets you in the end is a mocking series of clicks that you know enough to recognise as laughter. Instead, you take your punishment with your chin in the air, unwilling to submit the way he so clearly wants you to. 
Your supercilious scorn has his mandibles widening in anger once again, and he exercises his control by shoving you face-first into the bed, and burying his tusks into the meat of your shoulder, keeping you still under him. 
It's a clear warning. Move, it says, and his tusks will catch on your spine and rip it clean from your back. You still. Quiet. A prey animal lying prone, unmoving, at the feet of a chuffing predator as he mounts you from behind, rutting into you with a savagery that renders you into nothing more than a ruined heap under his bulk. 
For your attempted escape, you end up with more of his scars on your body, indents in the shape of his flared mandibles on your shoulders, and a fractured pelvis. It could be worse. You could've died. 
Should have, maybe. 
(is that a plea? an orison? 
and if so, why is it drenched in misery?)
And there is something vicious about the way he tends to your broken bones after, plunging the needle into your skin despite your howling, or the way you thrash. It's pure agony. The sensation how you imagine it must feel to be burned alive from the inside out. 
That, you think, is why he has no qualms about leaving you alone now. Wandering off, chasing trophies and honour on a planet just outside of the domed window above your bed. A vicious, red world tidally locked around a small dwarf. One half shrouded endlessly in black while the other burns, charred from the intensity of its star. In the middle, you know, is a small strip. A habitable zone, if only just. 
It's a place where a large, lumbering predator roams. One with towering antlers akin to the moose on earth, and jagged, spiked teeth protruding from its maw. The length is too much like a Sabre-toothed tiger for you to ever want to meet it face-to-face in the dark. 
Proper prey. A worthy trophy, they consider it. 
And, from the chittering you picked up, it seems that xenomorphs—kainde amedha—have found this place as well. 
The thought of them down there—spreading, growing, infecting—fills you with a potent sense of dread, one that gnaws on your insides with serrated teeth. Vicious and ugly, it lingers in crevasses where it pokes and prods at your fear, and your worries, until they split open, leaking putrid rot all over. 
It’s not that you’re worried about him. Not at all. 
(despite the nagging in your chest that whispers you’re a liar when you press your face into his side of the lavish bed of furs, greedily inhaling as much of his lingering musk as you can—)
He's gone off on hunts many times since you've been taken, and most of them end up on worlds already broken apart, infested, by those parasites. 
The notable difference is that brushes with them in the past never incurred much worry from you. If anything, you think you rather preferred it. Enjoyed the respite that came when he was gone, giving you a meagre ounce of freedom to think about all the (futile) ways you could escape. 
And mostly waiting. Waiting for someone at Weyland-Yutani to notice the glaring absence of one of their engineers. 
How laughable, really. Its echo is a false prophet whispering poison into your head, telling you that things will be over soon, that the higher-ups care less about profit margins than a whole fleet that went missing under garish circumstances on a planet you're soon beginning to think you never should have been sent to at all. 
Saves money on wages, you suppose. And the expense of sending a rescue fleet in to investigate costs more than your yearly salary. 
The bold, unignorable truth in that is a cruel, twisting knife to your agency. To the lingering remnants of your humanity, and worst of all, your hope. 
No one is coming. You've known this for a while now. The toxic hisses are part of the reason why you decided to try your luck on a massive, earth-like planet the first (and only) time you've tried to run. Because without that, without this fraudulent hope, what else are you left with if not him?
And now—
It's been an uncountable number of days. Weeks. 
Time in interstellar orbit is inconsequential. The beings themselves—yautja, you remember him hissing; garbled words mangled in his throat, and feel the burn in yours when you try to echo it in his tongue—have no reason to keep time, it seems. And even if they did, it's doubtful you would be able to interpret its abstract meaning. 
But even without traditional clocks or human measures and scales of time, you know that he's been gone much longer than before. Agitation seems to simmer in the air. The yautja—unblooded younglings; juveniles in their comparably archaic youth—that come to deliver your food seem—
Restless. 
Their maskless faces whisked in agitation. Shoulders set in a tense line. Eyes skewed toward the vast windows of the mothership, fraught with an eager sort of intensity. 
You know, first-hand, how brutal their hierarchy tends to be, and have seen Dark use a brute, savage dominance over the younger, disrespectful, ones who ignored his warning in the past. The amalgamation, then, of their excitement and their uncertainty screams one thing: 
he should have been back by now. 
And it—
It does something to you. 
Changes things, maybe. Skews your perspective. 
Because the reality is this: 
As much as you hate your circumstances, you're under no compunction that Dark isn't the sole reason you've been left, untouched, for so long. Why you're allowed to stay alive; to linger in his shadow, trailing after him like a lost dog. And you're barely certain that Dark won't turn around and kill you when the whim strikes him, much less his compatriots. His clanmates. 
It leaves two brutal truisms for you to contend with: that you need him; and that without him, you're dead. 
In that, you find there's almost too much to think about. 
So—
You lean back, staring up at the pale blue moons outside of your prison, and think of nothing because if you can't see the pendulum, if you don't stare down into the maw of the pit, then you can pretend neither are really there at all. 
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You wake from a restless slumber to the door opening with a mechanised whirr, the rasp of heavy metals sliding against each other filling the air. A plume of thick fog billows up in response, shrouding the entrance in dense white. 
The cloud conceals their identity, but it doesn't matter much. No one has access to these chambers. No one but him. 
The long, sharpened talons on his toes clink against the floor as he approaches. Each footfall makes your heart jump, scattering in a strange, off-kilter rhythm. 
Through the fog, he appears. Battleworn, and filthy. Splotches of dulled green blood cover his body from head (where you note a few tresses have been ripped off, some at the crown where a pock gapes open, deep forest green, and others at the ends) to toe. The majority of it is covered in the low, angry light of the glowing metal, the colour of molten rock. It's shielded from your prying eyes as he moves forward, strides purposeful as he lugs his wares over the threshold. 
He comes to a stop at the foot of the bed, broad chest heaving with each breath he takes through the mask still on his face. You take stock of him as he stills, cataloguing each change to his appearance now—a new scar down the length of his chest, blistered and scabbed over from the healing salve they carry on their hunts. Part of it is hidden under a thick patch of burnt skin. The splatter whipping over his lower belly, and raising the toughened skin up half an inch. 
The infliction of both are immediately recognizable in their unmistakable pattern. 
The slash of a xenomorph’s claw ripping through skin, shredding through it like paper; and the jagged, rough burn of their blood as it rained down, unhinged, on bare flesh. 
He fought quite the battle, you note, and pretend the rapidness of your breath doesn't reek of relief. 
His hard-earned victory sits in his hands. 
The skull of a queen. 
The sickly white already polished and primed, ready for its place on his mantle. It should be there already. Should have been his first stop. Per tradition. 
But he breaks it by standing before you now, covered in grime and dried blood. Reeking of stale sweat. Of rot. And holding his wares in his hand for you to see. To take note of. He waits even though you know it costs him a great deal of effort to stand here, beaten, bruised, scarred, burnt as he is. Half of it is the same, undeniable stubbornness that they all seem to inherit; a weaponised sense of pride. The other—
Well.
The significance of this moment, of this break in a sacred routine, isn't lost on you, despite your best efforts to pretend otherwise. As much as you want to ignore it, it itches behind your ribs, pulsing like an infectious wound. 
It's only when he sways slightly in exhaustion, the movement almost indiscernible if you hadn't been watching him so intently, do you release him from this strange moment. Bowing your head down in quiet, muted submission; a reverent surrender to his indomitable prowess. 
This gentle, almost desultory yielding doesn't seem to click at first. He tilts his head down slightly, gazing at you through the black slits in his mask, seemingly uncomprehending as he takes in the sight of you—this errant little human who caused him nothing but trouble, offered nothing but mocking respect—bowing down to him after an indefinite time fighting to free yourself from under his thumb. 
Until—
It does. 
The massive, bleached skull of the queen is shoved in the air in a sudden chirr, pitched to the ceiling as he stomps his feet on the ground in an effort to widen his stance. Knees bent, he throws his head back, and lets out a ravenous, blood-curdling roar of victory. 
It bludgeons into you. The force of it winding when it hits, bruising along your skin in a throbbing ache. 
This doesn't so much as feel like toppling over the precipice, but already being caught in an unstoppable freefall. 
(one you're not sure will be an indefinite fall to the stagnation, stasis; or will send you crashing down to the jagged rock at the bottom of this vertiginous drop. 
the one thing you are certain of is this:
it's much too late to go back when you've already lept off the edge.)
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—and so, the pit it is.
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His thumbs pitch under the board curve of his mask, grazing the soft underside of his boxed chin. Carefully, he lays down a single finger at a time, resting it against the smooth surface before slowly lifting it off his face. 
When the humid air hits his flesh, his mandibles flare out. Flexing. An unconscious response, you now know, after being folded against his mouth to fit inside the helmet for so long. Joints aching. Muscles hinged with disuse. 
It's with this motion that you notice the absence of his left, lower mandible. The stump a mangled mess of cauterised flesh. It's ugly. Atrocious, even. The scars crisscrossing against moulted skin of pale amber and black are a harrowing emerald smear, an awful amalgamation of dried blood and gnarled tissue. 
The shock of it is dulled under the weight of his success, and it's then that you know you're too far gone to ever go back. Where there should be pity, and—shamefully—disgust, all you feel is an overwhelming sense of borrowed pride. Chiselled from the staunch set of his shoulders, the flex of his muscles, as he openly preens under your stare. Angling his chin downward, giving you a better glimpse of his battle scars. A hard-earned victory. 
A queen is no easy feat, after all. 
His eyes find yours in blood-red gloom. Burning amber, chiselled into the canyons of his unique, unmistakable topography, seems to drill, intensely, into you. They stray, travelling down the length of your nude body, barely covered by the pelts of his conquests. 
You spare a thought to the idea that seeing you this way, wearing nothing at all but his kills, is what makes his broad chest expand suddenly, shoulders pulling back as he preens. Puffing his plumage in a heady pride, a deep satisfaction that runs bone deep. 
Waiting for him, you think. Dressed only in the hide he skinned with his bare hands. 
He rumbles suddenly. Bellowing out a low, steady growl between his sharpened teeth. This noise is unlike anything you'd ever heard before—deep, unfathomably so; but hollow. It echoes, reverberating from his chest in a timorous pitch. 
You could almost mistake it for a leonine pur. 
He stalks towards you, and each step ignites a war within you. The urge to flee from this predator is fierce. Instinctual. It burns through you with a vicious force, but in that rippling intensity, kindling burns in the scorch marks left behind. 
Just as potent as the urge to run is, the want, the desire, to roll over and submit to this massive, powerful creature rages, blistering through you. 
But you force yourself to stay still. To wait as he moves, seamlessly, to you. Lighter now that he's stripped himself of the wrist gauntlets, the cannon mounted to his shoulder, his trophies, his kills—the dangling skulls from around his neck, and waist. The belt and loincloth were the first to go, freeing himself to display his immodesty, completely at ease in his own nudity. The thermal netting peeled off next, and dropped into a pile by his mantle. The chill—if a near-constant swelter could ever be considered such a thing—made his jaws flare out in the only sign of discomfort he would ever give, flexing under the slow acclimation to this balmy heat that clings to air. 
The heat, though—
Such a relentless thing. 
You feel the humidity burn through you as he walks, unashamedly bare, to you. An incredible length of skin unveiled for your prying eyes, glinting a devastating obsidian in the pale luminescence of the locked moons just outside the window. 
In this sparse light that trickles in, you let yourself grow bold, greedy, for the fill of him, and let your gaze trail down the pockets of quills dropping down his chest, his belly, until you meet the thick thatch on his groin. It's here where your breath catches. Hitching loudly in your throat as he comes to a standstill within your reach. 
As human as he sometimes appears—usually in the most inopportune times—you can't deny the obviousness in his extraterrestrial anatomy compared to yours, to human morphology. Birdbeak warm claws, tusk tips on mandibles, leathery skin connected through a series of irregular polygonal shapes in mossy black and blazing amber, baleen teeth sharpened to needlepoints—you would be remiss to think him human in anything other than silhouette. 
But arguably, the biggest shock (outside of his maw) is, of course, his cock. 
Softened, it's kept tucked away inside of a slightly bulging cloaca shaded in the same dark green hue as his outer arms, back, and legs. A dense cluster of quills sit in a thatch around it, protruding near his black, pebbled scute. It's firmer than you'd expected it to be, but softens near the opening where his cock emerges, intimidatingly long, thick. The fattened length of him, too, is foreign. 
The end tapers into a fleshy point. Along his shaft are barbs, small ridges that resemble the scute covering his body, if only softer. The reminder of them makes you tremble, skin heating. Feverish. It's indescribable, really. The way they drag along your sensitive flesh on the outstroke, the sensation dizzying. 
Covering his flesh is an oily, slick substance, and it's really only this natural lubricant that even allows taking the full length of him inside of you possible. The sheen of it glints in the light when he flexes his muscles, and steps closer to the bed, smearing slick against his thighs. Your mouth waters, flooding with the veracity of your insatiable want.  
(You hate him. Hate him. Want so him so badly that it feels like you're burning from the inside out—)
The push-pull of your submission, still at war with your innate sense of self, dims, quieting when he reaches the edge of the bed, cock in full view. The jut of it, now fully extended from his sheath, hangs, heavy and thick, between his legs, bobbing with his movements, twitching in his growing excitement. Prespend, slightly more watery in texture compared to a human man, gathers at the opening, dripping down to the floor beneath his feet. A long, pearlescent strand clings from his weeping slit, dropping to land on the flesh near his knee. 
The sight of it shouldn't be as sinful as it is—you’ve yet to find god amongst the stars and you doubt, very much, you ever will—but seeing the thick glob of his desire spill, leaking steadily from his twitching cock, fills you with a heady sense of want. Desire. 
He hasn't touched himself at all. Content, almost, to stare at you, head cocking to the side as his beady amber eyes drill into your lower belly, fixed on the spot where you burn the hottest. The heat signature you give off, blistering; red-hot, is probably the biggest appeal to a creature like him who sees in shades of yellows and reds. The mismatch of your complexion, the nude state of your body, is inconsequential to him when at your core, you're molten. And all for him. 
He knows this, too. Knows your body well enough to see the unmistakable burn of your desire. Your desperation. The slick growing between your parted thighs turns into a heavy, hot flood; pulsing full of electricity. The depth of your need grows increasingly uncomfortable the longer he waits, watching. You want him. Want this massive beast who stole you away, who held you down and made you take him, made you submit. 
And he wants you back. This Stygian king cut from ashlar, limned in shadows, wants you just as much—if not more. Went out of his way to burrow past your pitiful defences to bury himself as deeply as he could, rearranging your humanity into a likeness of his image; branding you with his mark, dressing you in clothes tailor-made to fit. Giving you the gift of his prowess—bones, skulls: trophies from the most fearsome predators in the galaxy left at your altar—in this mating dance, this outré ritual. 
His desire for you is overwhelming. Dangerous. Your hips twinge at the reminder of when he exercised his punishment, exiguous as it was compared to his sheer strength, smarting with the phantom burn of fractured bones as he gave in, infinitesimally, to this voracious yearning that smoulders, a constant ember, in the sunken depths of his eyes. 
Something surges through you at the thought of him holding back as much as he has, at the way he thickens just at the sight of your blood red need. It's a strange amalgamating of animalism (pure, unquantifiable primalism, bestial in its savagery; feral), and a heightened degree of pride—the sort that leaves you feeling godlike, peerless: transcendent, in the very essence of the word. 
He wants you. You. 
And in that, the vestiges of your control cessate. 
Submission, you find, feels too much like finding sanctuary amidst a raging wildfire.
In response, he trills. The thundering bellow vibrates through the air. An unmistakable pur of a beast successfully conquering its mate. 
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He moves—soundless and surprisingly agile for such a mountainous creature; prodigious down to his every atom—and makes a slow, aching crawl to meet you on the bed. His knees, the size of your skull, press down first, making the basin of fur dip under the enormity of his heft. Encompassed in his shadow even with him kneeling before you, it makes the absurdity in your sizes more pronounced. Thighs thicker than the trunks of fir trees. Arms the width of your legs. His chest is the span of your own, just duplicated thrice. 
Dark is a beastly thing up close. 
There's a thrum in your throat; a heady pulse, throbbing with adrenaline cut by dormant fear. As if sensing death so close by, an atavistic caterwaul begins in your hindbrain, screaming at you to run, roll over, submit, play dead—the flickering of these prey responses an instinctual deluge that you quell, half-heartedly, with the knowledge that there's nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. 
He'll find you. Even if he has to hear the star system apart to do it. 
As if omnipotent to these weeping tendrils of animal fear, his broad chest trembles as he lets out a shallow pur. A softened bellow. The growl of a prowling cat on the Savannah. 
You shiver, fisting the fur in your slick palms until it bulges up between whitening knuckles. 
“Please,” is all you say, and you don't even know if this particular word registers to him at all. He never responded in the past to it (or stop, don't, no) outside of the rare occasion when he kept his helmet on, and mocked you with the garbled mimicry as he buried himself as deep inside of you as he could go. 
This time, though, his mandibles twitch. His maw gapes open, displaying an egregious set of terrifying teeth, and the flutter of his throat grows, undulating in jerking pulses of flesh, sliding over each other until—
Puh–le’e–suh—
It's butchered beyond recognition. Maimed in the flex of his corded, baleen throat. But the intention is there, and the implication more so. 
He spoke. 
And it's a broken, devastating mockery of your mother tongue, but the force of it all is a blow, a bludgeon unlike anything you'd ever felt. 
A whirlwind of emotions rage through you, all congealing into a muddled, indiscernible mess. It slips through your fingers, featherlight, but he doesn’t give you a moment to gather them together between your fists. 
His tresses fall over his broad shoulders as he prowls forward, tiring of this epoch already. The long, tubular strands frame you in a serried curtain of black as he looms—gargantuan, mythical—above you, head dipped down. The massive crown lists to the side when you lean back, instinctively, spine meeting the furs in tandem with his slow advance. 
The absence of his lower mandible when he flexes the others is novice in the liminal light that spills through the bulk of his body. You're not used to seeing him hurt like this. Ragged scars. Scorch marks tearing across his flesh. 
Reflexively, you reach up. The tips of your fingers are feather-soft against the dry tresses just behind the missing cluster. The ends of them are cauterised—a thick, metallic clump glued to the bottoms to keep him from bleeding. Another anatomical anomaly. 
Filled with veins and nerve endings, his tresses are far more sensitive to touch than the coarse hair of primates—the integument is different, too; rubbery to the touch, reminding you of polymer pipes or rubber bands, almost. 
At your gentle touch, he makes a noise, a shallow churr in the back of his throat; mandibles soon folding over his mouth after. Reactive, you find, and endlessly endearing for such a monstrous creature. Cute. 
A smile blooms at the notion of his sudden shyness. Such an outlandish thing for someone whose entire existence is narrowed down to honour and death. The pinch of his tusks elapsing over his maw fills you with a misplaced affection, a foreign growth metastasizing between your ribs. 
You're not sure what it is—survival instinct, maybe. The urge, the drive, to keep living despite yourself; a blot against the harsh reality of your predicament. It feels like the most likely one considering the other is genuine adoration. Unthinkable even now in spite of your willing submission. 
But thinking about this is a jagged dagger cutting through your insides. You shove it aside, hide it away. 
The soft touch—a mere whisper of your fingertips gliding along the surface of his tresses—takes on a more intentional drag, purposeful. You curl your index finger around a corded forelock, giving a small, impish tug just to make him jutter above you. 
His jaws flex, mandibles spreading slowly apart with a quiet, humid hiss. The heat brimming up once more as he curves his long mane over you, chin dipping down to encompass the entirety of your body under his. 
You can't help wondering if this is what it feels like to be devoured. 
And when he reaches the apex, eclipsing everything in your sight with the full, dark heft of him, hands fixed against the soft furs above your head, you think of a sanctum instead of a cage. 
(a swinging pendulum—)
The heat is unbearable with him over you like this. Made worse, somehow, when his hand lifts, falls to your waist. The width of it covers you entirely. Swallowed whole by palm. You tremble, and he eats your anticipation with a distinctive, preening click, turning you on your belly with an ease that knocks the air from your lungs. Barely a featherweight to him. The notion is scorching. 
The name he's given you is full rasping, mangled syllables your fleshy tongue could never begin to wrap around. In the absence of knowing how to speak it, you've begun to call him by your own human version of his namesake. It's this, the shortened, paltry whisper that rolls off your tongue when he presses the tapered tip of his cock against you. 
“Please, Dark—”
At the soft utterance of it, he snaps his hips harshly in retaliation, burrowing his cock inside of you in a quick, jarring thrust. 
It rents you in two, splits you down the middle. Your breaking point is surpassed in an instant; mettle fracturing, shattering on impact. It takes every ounce of willpower to cling to cognisance when he snarls through the last few inches of impaling you entirely. 
In the static tatters of your consciousness, the realisation—a startling polyphony of fear, trepidation, and awe—that this is him holding back lingers on the periphery. That, in itself, is the rekindling of your appetite; hunger gnaws on shallow need, unsatiated by the threadbare scraps it's been given to chew on. 
You say his name again. The whisper of it raw, wounded; scraping against your lacerated vocal cords, torn by the vicious howl, the shriek, that ripped through your chest when he seated himself deep inside of you. 
He responds by snapping his hips into yours, the barbed ridges on his cock licking across your nerve endings in the almost perfect zenith of pleasure and pain. It's nirvana, you think. With hell nipping sharply at its heels. 
The stretch—unlike anything you've ever felt before; incomparable outside of too much—burns furiously. The only thing keeping it from being impossible is the thick oil coating the length of him. The makeup of it must have analgesic properties, or some paralytic agent mixed in, because with each stroke, it soothes your raw flesh, erasing the pain of him inside of you, and leaving nothing but pure, unfettered sensation behind. It's just the thick, unrelenting press of him. The heaviness. The girth. 
It's good. Too good. Overwhelmingly so. 
A series of low clicks spilling out from his broad chest, the chirr of a rattlesnake. He must see it, the way your body floods with endorphins, with heat. The room, kept at an uncomfortable swelter, glues to your skin. Balmy, and achingly hot. The blister of it burrows deep, massing together into a molten core at the very apex of where he's buried inside of you. 
Drawn there, moth to a flame, your hand slides between the damp fur, now drenched in your sweat, and comes to rest on the prominent bulge shifting through your abdomen. His cock. 
Behind you, Dark lets out a susurrus hiss, and pauses the ruinous cants of his hips just long enough to let you feel for yourself how perfectly he changes your shape to fit himself inside. It's unmistakable, of course; but everything outside of raw feeling is liquified. Rendered numb. You know, somewhere, distantly, that this—feeling him through your muscle, your skin so distinctly that you can touch each ridge on his cock—is something that ought to break you, shatter you into pieces. The anatomical anomaly of having him stretch you like this, to this extent, is unfathomable. 
And yet—
He drags his cock out, and you whimper, mindless, stupid, at the sudden loss of him. 
You don't feel complete unless he's buried within you. 
And despite yourself, the somnolence lapping at you, a part of you wonders if this is a symptom of that paralytic agent—musk, pheromones, miasma, poison—blotting out all logic, and inducing a soporific desperation, a vacuous need for him and him alone. One that makes wholeness out of the heavy press of his cock. 
If it is, it doesn't matter much anymore. 
You're too far gone, lost to the throes of it, to care about anything else. 
A good thing, perhaps, because with Dark, it's always a selfish coupling. He pays no real heed to your pleasure, fully under the belief that his cock splitting you apart is enough. 
And damn you—damn your treacherous body—it is. 
Each brutal cant of his powerful hips slamming into you sends waves of pleasure roaring down your spine. To be pried apart, stuffed full of the overwhelming surplus of his girth notches against something inside of you that makes your bones liquid, your marrow running molten. Burning you up from the inside out. 
You clench around him desperately, fingers knotting into the furs below, squeezing it tight in a vice. Trying, futilely, to cling to some sense of cognisance despite the vicious way he takes you apart. Atom by atom. Synapses bloating, crackling under the strain. 
He fucks you like beast. All vicious snarls, guttural rasps; blood is drawn when his claws catch your skin, tearing it open like tissue paper. The sting is buried under the layers of sensation tunnelling through your body. 
Pleasure, pain: equilibrium met on the cusp. Aided, in large part, by the frenzied way he ruts you; fractured, careless. Bullying himself into you until the tapered tip of his cock bruises your cervix—more battering ram than flesh; eager to wrench you open, spill himself inside of your womb. 
You can't imagine what this must be like when he isn't holding back. Horrific, maybe. Blood, bruises. Torn skin. No wonder their hide is so thick. 
But even this—tamed, as it might be—feels like a battle. A war. He spears you open, chirring the whole time as he curls over you, protective and awful, the motion forcing the last few inches of him into you. Bruised, aching, you whimper at the feeling of his sheath, white-hot and soaked with your slick, cupping your drenched cunt. He holds himself there, as deep as he can possibly go—tip a bludgeon against your cervix, stretched wide around the thick of him—and lets out another long, low pur that rumbles through you. Teeth chatter from the vibrations, delirious and bordering on the equinox of absolute damnation, your pussy clenches around his cock, each ridge and divot more pronounced than before. 
Overwrought with bliss, with a nauseating pain, you keen in response to his deep bellow, feeling more animal than ever before. 
Driven purely by instinct, you push back into him, thighs slapping against his own. The power in his muscles, the contrast between your supple, soft body and his, iron wrapped in thick, crocodilian skin, is flint striking steel. 
A mere tinderbox, your body erupts in a devastating heat. 
The burst of molten red makes him reel back, barbs catching on your sensitive skin. It's too much, too much—
He thrusts back into your spasming cunt with a shuddering roar, the sound alone—the lewd, drenched squelch of him splitting you apart—tugs the knot inside of you past its breaking point. As his claws rip through the pretty fawn fur, shredding them to pieces as he grips tight in an effort to piston his cock as fast as he can into your aching pussy, you find yourself tipping over the precipice in a stumbling fall. The force of it, the suddenness, is agonising, edging immediately into overstimulation when the deep, heavy jut of his cock head burrowing into your fluttering walls doesn't cease. It's—
White noise. Static. Your head is galvanised into slush, slurried into liquid pleasure that thrashes and writhes in your core, nerve endings set aflame in a wet, hot inferno under his bulk. 
You puddle under him, burning with the aftershocks. Body melting, useless and spent, into the sheets as he drives into you with the single-minded purpose of reaching his own cataclysmic end. Numbed now, all you feel is an intense, dizzying pressure pulsing molten inside of you. 
Dark braces himself over you, content to just rut deep into you, barely pulling the full, heavy length of himself out of your aching sex. With anyone else, it might be considered sloppy—a messy, desperate coupling, but even this much with him is devastating. Ruinous. 
It's a maelstrom. A bleak, calamitous fall to the bottom of a blackened pit. 
And with a savage, brutal plunge, he buries himself inside of you again, prising the soft plug of your womb open with a brutish roar—deep, broken; bellowed at the heavens—and you feel the steady pulse of him inside of you, filling you. It's too much—his fat, heavy girth, and the copious amounts of his spent stretch you past your limit, teeth raking across your mettle, and the bulge in your lower abdomen grows taut as he floods you with his release. 
The end of the pit looms, and from the chasm, a jagged maw gapes open, gnashing its teeth at you in rapacious anticipation as you careen toward its empty gullet. Falling, falling, falling—
And in the midst of it all, you think this might be what dying feels like.
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Your cognisance is drawn together in pieces, inchmeal. 
A slow, gradual crawl out of slumber, the tugging threads of hypnagogia clinging to your rheum-heavy eyes. 
Furs stick to your damp body, some pulling loose when you shift away from the uncomfortable, sweat-soaked puddle of heat beneath you. 
Nausea roils through your belly, pulsing with dreadful synchronicity to the throbbing ache in your pelvis. In an effort to quell the feeling of your insides folding over themselves in a damning knot, you gingerly press the tips of your fingers to the spot that aches the most, feeling the raised indent of a contusion under your pads. 
It makes you blink up at the domed ceiling, head lifting to catch a glimpse of soft flesh near your hip. 
Through the midnight spill of your skin, you can see the tumid ridge bubbling up slightly higher than the rest of your flesh. In the middle is a small dot. An injection sight. 
You realise, with a huff, that he must have broken your pelvis again. Unintentionally, this time. Caught up in your feverish coupling. 
It makes sense. Your bones feel shattered beyond repair, but you know that they're knitted back together, suffused with the medicinal magic their healing injections have. 
The thought should scare you. Be it the ease in which he can break your bones, snapping them into pieces; or whatever it is he's pumping into your body to heal it, but it slips, diaphanous and ephemeral, from your tangled thoughts. Untouchable now, slowly fading into the background. 
The marbled quiet of your mind is broken when you feel him move beside you. His massive paw falls on your crown, covering the entirety of your head with an ease that you can't imagine ever not leaving you a little breathless at the scale, the vastness in your differing sizes. It rests there for a moment, leaching the warmth from your cap like a satiated, languorous reptile. A sluggish snake still digesting its oversized meat. 
A series of clicks spill when you lull your head over to meet the burning yellow of his gaze, everything awash under the heavy scent of sex and loam. Stale sweat, iron. You breathe it in, blinking in the soft blue light of the pale moons spilling in from the window of the ship. 
He lounges like a satiated cat. His legs spread akimbo; his other hand resting on his chest. The narrowing of his eyes, too, reminds you of a well-fed feline, squinting into a dewy oblivion. 
With a deftness you can't keep up with, his hands shift, reaching out to take hold of you when the sleep drips from your eyes. It takes no real effort at all for him to drag you to rest between his spread thighs, head pillowed on the tuffs of quills covering his lower belly. 
There's a twinge in your hips, but it's numbed by the palliative magic of the injection, pulsing like the soft beat of a headache through your bones. It'll hurt something awful later on when it begins to wear off, leaving you feeling more like a massive contusion than a person. But that's later. Much later. And as he rests his palm, warmed by your heat, against your nape, you find you don't mind the tenderness much at all, content to bask in the evidence of your coupling simmering, electric, between you, distinct in the air. An ozoneous tang. Heady. A sour, earthy miasma. 
You breathe it in. Breathe him in. 
And in the slow, soporific spool of your weaving thoughts, you can't help but wonder what he thinks of this, of you, as he reclines in the fur. Nothing at all, perhaps. 
Or maybe something. Something you can't even begin to unravel. An archaic, primordial sort of want—animalistic, alien. The kind that would make him scar his own kind for gnashing their claws at you in anger, indignant over your mere presence in their leader's nest. Who would take a creature not of the same species, and parade them around as they bared his mark for all to see. A mate. A conquest. A queen. A pet. The fickleness of it is not lost on you, but there's something about the knowledge that this is as taboo, as unprecedented for him, for his kind, as it is for you. 
And yet. 
He still picked you. Of all the humans in the galaxy, crawling around like lost, queenless ants, he decided to shun the staples of his culture and take you with him. 
That alone, you think, is enough. 
And so—
You relax. Melting into the wrought iron strength of his frame, liquifying under the raze of his nails grazing your skin, pulling you deeper into this sense of complacency. Where else do you belong, after all? 
You turn your head, nuzzling your nose into his quills. Into his skin. The potency of his smell is stronger here, so close to his groin, and you groan a little at the twinge in your cunt at the heady, briny weight of it settling on the back of your tongue when you breathe in deep. 
He chuffs a bit, quietly pleased by your obvious scenting. The way you bury your nose into the crease where his inner thighs bend, drawing in the pungence of his unwashed flesh. It drags your attention away from his heavy musk, head lifting to catch his blistering, intent gaze. It darkens slightly at the sheen smearing across your chin and nose, covered in the natural oils of his pelt. 
It's unlike yourself, but you find the depth of his intrigue deeply arousing, and slowly lick your stained lips, chasing the taste of him with your tongue. 
A rumble reverberates from his broad chest, shaking the bed with his quiet growl. It's the only warning you get, the only one he'll give, before the other hand folds over your lower back, pushing your belly into his sheath where he swells, hot and thick, between you. 
His eyes glow in the absence of light. Pale amber flickers when you arch into his chest, needy for him, and it unveils a catacomb desire much too primordial for you to ever dream of mapping. The deep pool of it unspools you, and you fall, weightless, to the bottom. 
Ensnared. 
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