Identity: Bisexual, Word of God
Notes: Referred to as bisexual by Vivienne Medrano and in official promotional pride materials.
Propaganda: N/A
vs. Aaron Victon/Jury/Verdict (Heroes Rise/The Hero Project)
Identity: Bi/Pansexual, explicit
Notes: Can be romanced by the protagonist regardless of gender.
Propaganda: 1. "so much of his whole deal is posturing, bitterness, and trying to be harder than he actually is, which makes it very satisfying when the cracks start to show. he’s not lovable because he’s nice, he’s lovable because there’s clearly something sad and angry and badly handled underneath all that rivalry energy. he starts out as the player character’s rival, and later goes through redemption and a new identity, which is a big part of why people stayed attached to him."
2. "He’s arrogant, touchy, competitive, and constantly making everything more personal than it needs to be, which is exactly the kind of character people get obsessed with in interactive fiction. And because it’s Heroes Rise, that rivalry can carry a ton of weight depending on how you play it. There’s a reason people kept talking about him long after the trilogy - he has that very specific “annoying little freak with hidden depths” energy that works incredibly well in a character people can push against or soften toward. Fandom spaces around the series kept treating him as one of the big emotionally loaded rival figures for exactly that reason."
*thinks about Jury from the Heroes Rise trilogy* boy I sure am glad that he and my MC are happily married and in love and not broken up for some reason :)))
After all has been said and done, Jury and Conduit sleep together for the first time.
She shares a heavy secret and he figures out some things about himself.
Companion piece to 'Miss You Something Rotten'.
The first time she had kissed him, right there in front of the cameras during the fight against between the American Protectorate and the Millennial Group, had been beyond surreal. Conduit – his arch-nemesis and the last person he would have ever admitted to finding even the slightest bit attractive – had been kissing him, deeply, sloppily, publicly. Something had made him react after the initial shock had passed, something that may have been a thought along the lines of ’I can’t move anyways, might as well fuck it all and enjoy it.’. Never had a kiss felt so electrical.
Never had a kiss he had taken part in been shown in every single digital paper and 3V show one could think of, either. Who could blame them? It had been scandalous. Jury and Conduit. Lawful neutral and chaotic good. Aaron Victon and Sasia Rosado. Unheard of.
(Sasia. Now that he knew her name, he never called her Conduit in his thoughts anymore. She had changed from an abstract concept to an actual person with a name. Someone with relevance rather than just – someone.)
It was only a while after the fact that he realized he had never wondered what it would be like. There were so many things he had imagined about her, imagined doing to and with her, yet he had never had a fantasy of kissing her. Even if he had, however, he was fairly certain the idea would not have measured up to the reality of it. Hers was the kind of kiss that you got addicted to on the first hit, the kind of kiss that made you want to drown in her.
Something he also never in his wildest dreams could have made up was the possibility of developing feelings for her.
And yet here they were, in his apartment after spending the afternoon together like an actual couple. And also the afternoon before that. And the last weekend, too. On every single one of those occasions, he had enjoyed her company wholly. No uncomfortable silences, no thoughtless comments that were taken the wrong way, no need to censor themselves. They should not have worked, and yet, somehow, they simply did.
After all that had transpired over the past few years and specifically the last several months, maybe it was time for something to be easy for once. Not that every aspect of it was easy, mind you – her family made no secret of their disapproval concerning him, and he was certain that if he were to ask his imprisoned father, he too would have a choice few words to say about it.
As long as she wanted him, they would find a way to deal with all of it.
They were sprawled out on the bed together, him sitting upright and leaning against the headboard, switching through the 3V channels without really looking for anything specific. She was on her back, perpendicular to him with her head resting on his thigh, a book in hand. On the cover, there was a tree during the fall, and he was certain reading it would have bored him to no end. But she seemed so be completely in her own world, only barely reacting with soft noises whenever he would play with her hair.
They had been out in the early afternoon and then decided to return to his home when it had begun to look like rain. By now, the drops had started falling, creating a soft background noise from the outside and darkening the room despite it still being day.
After a while, her arms lowered and she let the book fall shut, dropping it on the bed next to herself with a sigh before stretching her arms and legs a bit.
“You good?” he asked, pushing a strand of hair from her forehead. She caught his hand in between both of hers and pulled it to rest on her stomach where she idly played with his fingers.
“Yes. Just at a slow part of the story and too bored to continue just now,” she replied, pushing her fingertips against his to compare the size of their hands.
“Sorry our plans were ruined by the weather,” he apologized once more.
She only laughed softly in reply. “I actually really don’t mind.” Pushing her short fingers in between his, she laced their hands. “I like this, just spending time here. Feels domestic in the best sense of the word.”
“’Here’ as in at my place or ‘here’ as in on my bed?” he teased. “Aren’t you afraid I’m gonna tackle you and have my way with you?”
Despite how immediately sexual their first kiss had been, they had now been dating for a few weeks and were yet to sleep with each other. It was unusual, at least for him, but he found that he genuinely did not mind. He wanted her, yes, and had been wanting her for the longest time, but he had decided to do things on her terms. In a sense, this was part of proving he was on his way to becoming a better man.
So far, she had not sent him any clear signal that she wanted to take things further, and so he had done nothing of the sort either.
“Afraid? Why would I be? Maybe I want you to.” Head still in his lap, she looked up at him with a toothy smile.
He could not help but smile back, running the fingers of his unoccupied hand through her hair some more. “Seriously?” The excitement in his voice must have been quite obvious. “I’m just trying not to pressure you into anything if you’re not ready for it.”
At that, she let go of his hand and sat up on the bed, turning to face him. “That’s uncharacteristically sweet of you. And now, come here.” She beckoned him with one finger and he dutifully moved to kneel between her legs, leaving only a few inches of space between their bodies, their breaths mingling.
“I’m here,” he smirked, putting a hand on one of her thighs and squeezing gently. “What now?”
“Now you kiss me and have your way with me.”
He did not have to be told twice. He swallowed her sigh as their lips met, soft pecks soon turning into a mix of their tongues. She tasted heavenly, like always. One of his arms wrapped around her waist to press her torso against his. She held his face in both hands, caressing his cheeks while they got lost in each other.
Then, she let herself fall backwards onto the large mattress, pulling him with her and wrapping a leg around of his thighs, surprising him with her tangible eagerness.
When he left her mouth to explore her jaw and the side of her neck, her fingers threaded into his hair, long, dark fingernails scratching along his scalp and sending shivers down his back. She mewled when he pulled some skin between his teeth and – very softly – bit down on it before letting go and dragging his tongue across the marked spot.
Her body pressed itself against his as she arched her back, dragging her fingernails down his clothed back and then dipping into his pants from the top, pulling his pelvis against hers. Knowing she wanted him even nearly as much as he wanted her was almost too much for him to process. “Sasia,” he moaned into the skin just above one clavicle, his large hands moving across her front, stopping to pay special attention to her chest, the supple flesh giving under his touch. He nearly lost himself in the imagination of what she might look like underneath her clothes.
“Aaron,” she breathed into his ear, her arms falling to her sides before she propped herself up on her elbows to push her bust further into his touch. His name sounded different when it fell from her lips, as if it held more meaning then.
He took it as an invitation and moved below her oversized sweater, running his fingertips across her stomach below her navel, touch light enough to tickle. Her automatic response was to giggle, but she quickly stiffened. That had been unexpected.
“Are you okay?” he prodded, pulling back and resting his hands above her hips, this time over her clothing. She did not meet his eyes for a moment and that seriously threw him off. It was nothing like her. At least not since they had begun dating. She never seemed embarrassed of anything. So why now?
She seemed to have to force herself to look at him, but when she did, she was smiling, and her hand on his cheek reassured him. She chuckled, but it did not seem all that genuine. “There’s probably no way this is gonna work if I keep my top on, hm?” she inquired, an unsure tone that was entirely unlike her making its way into her voice.
He did not know how to react and decided to deflect her with a joke. “If you’re trying to bargain here, you got nothing to worry about. You want my shirt off, you need only say it.” One swift move and he was, indeed, topless.
Beneath him, she laughed, reaching up to run her hands down his toned pecs and abs, scratching just hard enough to leave slight red lines on his skin in their wake. “You look even better than in that stupid calling card. It’s not fair,” she complained, a contemplative half-smile gracing her lips that were a deep red from kissing him so often over the past few hours, days and weeks.
“Thanks, lover. So, wanna tell me exactly why you intend to keep that amazing body of yours hidden from my sight?” He desperately hoped his tone was enough to tell her that he was only trying to lighten the mood and that pressuring her was the last thing on his mind.
“You might wanna reconsider that evaluation.” She sighed and took a deep breath, gathering her courage. It was weird, the contrast between the way the conversation was becoming more serious by the second and how he was still hovering above her in a clearly sexual position, her legs on either side of his body. “I have scars.”
“So do I. You know that, right?”
“I’m not talking about that kind. I’m talking huge and dark and a fuckton and everywhere on and around my breasts.” When he did not say anything in reply, she seemed to grow embarrassed again, eyes avoiding his face. “From back when I’d just become a hero and Wisp tried to kill me. He…” She swallowed. “He crushed my body and broke my ribcage. And my broken ribs cut through the skin and when Sparrow, I mean Prodigal, healed me she managed to save my life but she didn’t have enough power left to reverse the non-lethal damage to my skin. And I have the scar tissue to show for it now and forever.”
A crass story if there ever was one.
He did not know what to say. No one was more surprised than himself at the instantaneous realization that it did not matter to him. There was perhaps nothing in the realm of possibilities that would put him off her, and it was scary to think what that might mean if he were to follow that thought to its source. But that was a consideration for another time. For now, he just needed to make her understand the fact that it did not make a difference to him whether she was flawless or marred or anything else.
“I don’t care.” Her eyebrows raised in surprise at his declaration. “I mean it. I don’t care about the scars, there’s no way you’re anything but perfect with or without.” It did not even sound as corny to his own ears as he had expected it to. He meant it, maybe that made the difference.
But saying it would not suffice, and he knew that. So he decided to show her that he was very much serious about what he had just told her. “You can keep your sweater on if you want, I don’t mind. You don’t need to show me if you don’t feel ready.” He remembered how just before, she had laughed at merely the suggestion that she was not ready to sleep with him. It seemed they both had been right to some degree.
“Can I take the rest off?” he asked her, and she nodded frantically, reassuring him in the assumption that she did not want to let the mood go to waste either. He dug his fingers underneath the fabric and pulled both her leggings and her underwear down in one go, baring her lower half to his curious gaze. She seemed a lot more comfortable with that since, instead of pressing her legs together or otherwise trying to hide herself from his view, she let her knees fall to the sides a little more, opening herself up further to him.
He lowered himself so he was comfortably lying in between her thighs, stroking the inside of one a few times to get her to relax fully before using a thumb to pull her labia apart, leaving her open and ready for him. Despite the difficult topic they had just breached, he recognized the arousal in the wetness collecting at her center.
He had never much been the type for giving oral sex. He had done it, yes, and he knew what to do – but when sleeping with any of the many bar exploits (who had gone with him mainly because of his last name, he was certain), he had never felt the want or need to. Sure, he wanted the women he slept with to enjoy themselves, but his own sexual fulfillment took precedence over theirs. And if he could make them come while fucking them, why eat them out, right?
But this was something else. This was Sasia, his most intimate fantasy come true, and he wanted to taste her. If it managed to convey a message at the same time, all the better. She smelled good, dangerous and perfectly inviting, and he could not wait to find out whether the taste matched. So he did.
Pushing his tongue between her lower lips, the warm and swollen flesh parted under his motions, and a contented sigh from above told him how eagerly she had been waiting for this action. Her fluids covered his tongue and he pushed in deeper, right into her hole in hopes of gathering more of her taste. Her inner muscles moved in accord, meeting his actions with reactions in the shape of slight spasms, tightening her channel around his tongue.
“Aaron…” she whispered softly, almost lovingly, running her fingers through his hair. He looked up at her from between her legs and found her watching him with half-lidded eyes, lips slightly parted as she breathed heavier already.
“I’ve barely started,” he murmured against her core, moving up towards her swollen clit, pressing a kiss to the sensitive organ. She commented this with a shaky sigh, moving one leg over his shoulder and pulling him into her with her heel against his back. He liked teasing her so. “This isn’t your first time, is it?”
“Bullshit,” she laughed and he decided not to wait anymore, pulling her clit between his lips and sucking softly, but persistently. “It’s just…” She paused to moan and squeeze her leg around him tighter. “First time in a long time.” She said it so quickly it sounded like it was all one word.
He sprawled his hand next to her pussy, slowly moving his thumb closer and then pushing it inside her while he kept pleasuring her, switching between sucking on her clit and licking it, the strokes of his tongue varying in pressure and angle.
He did not push in and out with his thumb, opting instead to keep it inside and press against her inner walls in circular motions. Just for a moment, he abandoned her clitoris to slightly nibble on her inner labia, pulling a sound of protest from the woman who had begun to move her pelvis to slightly grind against his face.
Obediently, he once more focused his attention on the small, but hardened nub, feeling her clamping around his thumb. He pulled it out and decided to stretch her a little by pushing both his pointer and his middle finger into her in one swift movement. She very obviously did not mind as her muscles tightened around them with rising frequency, coaxing them back in every time he pulled back out even a little.
Soon, she was – most likely unintentionally – pressing her hips downwards into the mattress, a little as if her body was trying to escape him, but he had a notion that it was because she was getting close and did not know how to handle the intensity. So he of course refused to let her get away, instead using his free hand to hold onto one of her hips, keeping her in place and sucking on her clit in earnest. His fingers were fucking her quickly and deeply until he stilled his wrist and bent them inside her instead, rubbing against the front of her channel repeatedly and harshly.
When she came, she cried out his name, back arching off the mattress as he carried her through her high. He scissored his fingers inside her, offering resistance to her tightening muscles and still placing one or the other calculated lick against her clit. He tried to make it last as long as he could, and although he seemed to have lost his sense of time somewhere between then and now, a certifiably good while had passed when she lay in front of him motionlessly and beautifully spent.
“Oh fuck,” she stated, the contentment and happiness in her voice impossible to miss.
He rolled over onto his back to relax his arms and laughed out loud, softly petting one of her – still slightly trembling – legs. “Enjoy that?” He did not even try to keep the smugness out of his tone, it would have been an exercise in futility anyways.
“’fcourse.” She was still a little out of breath. “Uhm. Thank you?”
“Did you just thank me for eating you out?” She never ceased to surprise him, he thought, grinning widely.
“Not really. I mean, kind of, but mainly for… you know, for being cool about it and everything.”
He did not know how to respond to that, even if it demanded a response. ’Don’t worry about it.’ was too nonchalant. But he also did not want to come on too strong along the lines of ’I honestly believe that nothing you could reveal would ever make me want to back off of you, because you’re you, and there’s so much I feel when I’m with you, and it’s scary, because you’re you, and because I don’t deserve you.’.
While he was lost in thought, the sounds of her shuffling around did reach his ears, but he did not interpret anything into them. Until she came into view above him, pressing a kiss to his jaw before straddling him, naked as the day she was born.
He had not expected that. And suddenly, the mood had shifted again, from a light, joking, post-sex haze to a heavy sexual and emotional tension.
Her scars were indeed a heavy sight to take in. Some of them smaller, almost circular, some of them lengthy and jagged. They started about an inch below her clavicles, became the most jarring on and between her breasts and continued to bottom of her ribcage. They stood out gravely against her skin. He had never seen anything like it.
And yet, he felt himself hardening at the sight, the semi he had developed while making her come with his mouth replaced by a proper erection. Not because of the scars, and not even despite the scars. Simply because she was beautiful, and erotic, and the perfect realization of all of his wishes, with or without the markings. He traced a scar above her left breast with two fingertips before he leaned up and pressed a kiss to a particularly dark one in the valley between them.
The tension broke like a rubberband strained beyond its snapping point and he completely lost himself in her, in the pure sex she exuded, in the intangible gift she had given him by baring herself to him completely like this.
“You’re perfect,” he heard himself say solemnly, and it felt as if it had not really been him at all. “Everything about you, okay?” He pushed his still-covered erection against her wet core to prove to her that he meant it.
Taking first one, then the other nipple into his mouth and sucking until they had become hard and sensitive, he simultaneously massaged the flesh of her bottom with both hands. Where her breasts were rather on the small side, her buttocks in contrast filled his palms nicely. She was everything he had imagined and more.
Meanwhile she was busy unbuttoning his pants – which proved a challenge with his head obscuring her sight – but after a few attempts she managed, one hand brushing against the head of his cock when she shoved the fabric down his thighs.
Unsure whether he had consciously made the decision to or was acting out of pure instinct, he moved one hand to her hip and the other to her shoulder before skillfully flipping her over. He hesitated just one second to take in the gorgeous view of her lying before him, open and welcoming, legs parted and hair fanning out across his sheets. The love bites on her neck and her visibly erect nipples were only the finishing touches of the work of art he had the privilege to be witness to today. She smiled up at him and he hurried to push his pants and boxer briefs down his long legs and pull them off.
And then, because this was reality and not his fantasy where nothing unplanned ever happened, he gathered a packaged condom from the nightstand, ripping it open and rolling it onto his erect length.
When he turned his attention back to her, she was just in the process of changing her position. He stopped her by putting a hand on her waist.
“What do you think you’re doing, Sasia?” he asked playfully, kneeling in between her legs once more.
The tiniest smile played on her kiss-swollen lips. “Thought you might’ve liked to take me from behind.”
It both surprised and amazed him how well she seemed to know him without even having to try. Ever since he had begun to imagine fucking her, having her kneel on all fours while he took her had been a central and recurring theme. She could not have known, yet somehow she did. But all of those fantasies had been based on gaining power over her, both physically and sexually, and had lost their appeal once she gained humanity in his eyes. He was working with a completely different framework now.
“Some other time. Right now, I want to be able to look at you.” At you – at your face, at your eyes, and yes, at your body and the reality of it.
And although he did not vocalize the latter part of his statement, she seemed to gather a certain vibe from him. “Okay,” she simply said and wrapped a leg around his hips to pull him closer.
He kissed her once more, kissed her like it was the last time he would ever get to. Slowly, he lowered his body onto hers until there was not a single part of them that was not touching. They fit together like a puzzle.
Pushing a hand in between their bodies, his fingers found her clit and began to rub gentle, yet persistent circles around it, never ceasing to kiss her all the while. A shudder went through her entire body at the stimulation and she sighed into his mouth before breaking away to let out a long moan.
“Oversensitive?” he teased, never fully able to suppress his obnoxious nature.
She did not seem to mind; she simply chuckled and pecked his lips before throwing her head back. “No, just sensitive. Hurry, please.”
Without further ado, he swallowed any other comment his brain offered him and decided to obey.
Slowly he pushed inside her. She was warm and soft around him, tight but still giving as he stretched her. Once fully inside, he stilled, pushing his face into the side of her neck. “Sasia,” he whispered, admittedly overwhelmed with the weight of the amazing reality. He was inside her. Him, perhaps the most undeserving asshole in the world, had received the privilege of sleeping with her, perhaps the loveliest and most profoundly good woman he had ever met. It was surreal.
He realized he had not moved in at least a minute, maybe more; but rather than to push him, she had simply waited, caressing the length of his back with her nimble fingers. He reached up to grab one of her arms, pulling it from its position around his back and pushed it down into the mattress, entwining her fingers with his own, much larger ones.
And then, he began to move. His strokes were deep and on point, pace slow and not increasing as time passed. His eyes roamed over her, starting from where they were connected – in and out, the condom glistening with her natural lubrication. Then her breasts, small but not too small to shake with every deep push into her. And finally her face, the tip of her tongue protruding from her parted dark lips, eyes widened and focused on him – an expression that he would call reverent for lack of a more fitting description.
From then on, his eyes were locked with hers. He would have been unable to break that invisible connection even if he had wanted to. Something had him trapped in her gaze, and if she had asked him to now, he would have promised her the sun and the moon and his life. He belonged with her, belonged inside her, and he was hers entirely for as long as she would have him.
Fingers still linked, he felt her other hand caress his cheek and then saw it disappear downwards from the corner of his eye. He knew she was stimulating herself in addition to his emphatic thrusts, and it was a good thing too as his own peak grew insistently closer. He watched her pupils dilating, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment before she forced them open again, her entire body shuddering.
“Aaron…” she whispered, and her whisper was louder than a storm as it pulled him down below along with her.
His thrusts had become erratic without him noticing, and he kept pushing into her, over and over and over, squeezing her hand in an attempt to ground himself in reality while his orgasm lasted.
When his perception began to return to him, he was lying on top of her like dead weight. He had never completely pulled out and she was breathing against his neck softly, absentmindedly drawing shapes into his back with her fingernails.
She noticed he had come back to his senses and laid a gentle kiss on his jaw. “Hey,” was all she said.
“Hey,” he replied, using all the strength that was left in him to pull out of her and move to the side a little so he would not completely crush her. He was however still touching as much of her body with his own as possible.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
And this time, he did not crack a joke. If he had opened his mouth at all, it would have been to thank her.
None of the fantasies of her he had come up with while pathetically coaxing lonely orgasms from his body could have even come close to the intensity of the real thing. And pulling her closer to plant a kiss on her damp forehead, he knew for certain where the difference lay.
Sex had never meant anything to him, and just now, sex with her had meant everything.
She meant something to him – and together, they meant something, too.
Identity: MLM, explicit
Notes: In a relationship with Hugh (a man).
Propaganda: "He and his husband are the first openly gay couple in Star Trek! He also made himself part tardigrade to save the space tardigrade they were using to fly their ship"
vs. Aaron Victon/Jury/Verdict (Heroes Rise/The Hero Project)
Identity: Bi/Pansexual, explicit
Notes: Can be romanced by the protagonist regardless of gender.
Propaganda: 1. "so much of his whole deal is posturing, bitterness, and trying to be harder than he actually is, which makes it very satisfying when the cracks start to show. he’s not lovable because he’s nice, he’s lovable because there’s clearly something sad and angry and badly handled underneath all that rivalry energy. he starts out as the player character’s rival, and later goes through redemption and a new identity, which is a big part of why people stayed attached to him."
2. "He’s arrogant, touchy, competitive, and constantly making everything more personal than it needs to be, which is exactly the kind of character people get obsessed with in interactive fiction. And because it’s Heroes Rise, that rivalry can carry a ton of weight depending on how you play it. There’s a reason people kept talking about him long after the trilogy - he has that very specific “annoying little freak with hidden depths” energy that works incredibly well in a character people can push against or soften toward. Fandom spaces around the series kept treating him as one of the big emotionally loaded rival figures for exactly that reason."
