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ok. ok. every time. i need to remember to update this account too…

my main is @noudenet :)

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Any world, any medium, as long as there’s girl love!

Just do what you can and have fun~

I’ll be watching the tag #femslashfeb2019 , so make sure to use that in the first 5 tags if you want me to see!

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for when the light can’t guide you

fandom: persona character(s): shinjiro aragaki, takaya sakaki, jin shirato, chidori yoshino, akihiko sanada, ken amada ship(s): light shinjiro/akihiko synopsis: Shinjiro always knew; call it a trade secret. warnings: canonical character death. word count: 2359

note: shinjiro uses they/them pronouns.

For all the time Shinjiro knew Strega, they were certain in two things.

One, that Strega functions as a codependent unit — often, it seems Takaya is the only one who fronts for three, the one who breathes for all three and speaks for all three, the one who can mimic the way humans are meant to communicate, the one who can fake it well enough, but it is still clear enough to Shinjiro they all rely upon what they share. Shinjiro has never had a family, never connected the right way, from the orphanage to adopted arms, but they know you are not obligated to call the people who you live with your family. Still — they make it work.

Two, that they, and Strega, are unable to properly remember when they actually met.

They believe they met Takaya first. The one who speaks, who functions, who can walk around a corner without a sound but can’t keep his mouth shut when there’s a lie to weave, the one who probably found them at the peak of an Hour, and wrung the truth of their Persona out of them. He found enough inside the crushing void interesting enough to talk to them again once the sun came up.

When they cut the last splintered ties between their life and the purpose they had been given, they left in the night and took everything they had with them. October was unforgiving and the winds were waiting for November, leaving them cold and hungry in December. It was after a winter night well into the spring that they met the others.

Shinjiro goes on walks with them. The four sit at the waterfront when the sky turns green and the moon hangs like a tooth from a swollen gum, and Chidori looks at Shinjiro, and says, we wait for it to come closer.

It’s the first time they hear the word Nyx. Spoken by Takaya, because when Shinjiro asked what she meant, his voice crawled over Shinjiro’s shoulder. It’s the first time, and they ask to hear more.

Perhaps Takaya thought that was what got them. Perhaps he thought he had a third one, after just a couple of weeks of exchanging dried out pleasantries. Perhaps Shinjiro listened too hard, too long, because when they heard She was to bring the end, they looked back to the moon, and wondered how bad it could really be.

Shinjiro does remember when they took their first suppressant. It was not Takaya who administered and spoke, but Jin. Shinjiro recalls it being the first time they heard him say anything that didn’t start with ‘Takaya’.

They had never been certain if Castor could be seen during the fits. They always felt his hands at their neck, spade sized and pushing down, fingers shifting and drumming against their body — then he reacts to a word, a thought, or feels the muscle beneath his heavy hands fight to pull away, and tightens his grip, choking them. When it happens this time, hiding in an alley with Jin, Shinjiro felt the air cut off, clawing at the hands that find them, raking their nails down their own throat.

The light of the yellow moon as melting gold, the buildings as drab grey. Jin as blue and lime green, and then there’s that same blue and lime green dropping the silver it always carries, and Shinjiro sees a flash of orange before the light that makes Jin shoves a hand up against their mouth, two fingers and another hand wrenching their jaw open. They swallow, and they can’t breathe afterwards.

But it clears.

“What the fuck did you do?” they spit, and they’re still sixteen, and theynever learned how old Jin was but they thinks he is too, and while they both rot against the wall they’re reminded of how young they are.

“They’re called suppressants.” None-too-compassionate, always cold, like Moros found the way to his throat and took his voice. “They keep your Persona from killing you. You weren’t taking any.”

A statement, the remnants of what could be a question hanging.

The following week, Jin is handing them their own bottle. The prescription is for doxepin, but pulling off the cap tells a much different story.

“It'll cost you the next time,” Jin sneers, but it’s the tone he uses when he’s talking to someone he can remember the name of. Not friendly; just familiar.

He tells them the dosage times, then how much they’ll expect each week, and then they’re in mutual silence once more.

It takes a long time to see their Personas. Chidori reveals hers to Shinjiro first, when the four of them walk the streets, counting the rocks that roll under their feet. Medea is a figure of fire, and she watches the horizon with a vulture’s gaze.

Moros comes more violently, pulled from Jin when the Shadows crawled before them – acolytes of Nyx they are, the creatures of the Dark Hour cannot discern prophets from prey.

( Addendum, for the footnote no one will read in their obituary, forgotten and left behind: Takaya’s first mistake was pretending Shinjiro was one of them. )

The mechanical arm spins too fervently to fix your eyes on, and it’s one of the few times Jin keeps himself together, push-pinned and wrapped, engrained sickness not spilling out of his torn body — and it’s all to kill.

Takaya’s is —

Something that reminds Castor of home, among thirty thousand stars and speaking a language like radio static, two souls brought together between two corpses. He watches a corpse hang, back splintered and old bones sprouting to bone wings, all brought without an evoker. Castor bristles. Takaya throws his arms wide like he’s already accepted what the end looks like.

They never talk about it, not when there are weeks between time spent with them, not when there’s just Shinjiro and one or two, not all three. They never talk about it, not even when they are talking about the end, when Takaya talks and Shinjiro listens, quiet and with their gaze ahead. They never talk about it because Shinjiro wouldn’t know how to explain to Akihiko if they signed their peace and admitted they were running with a different crowd.

They never talk about it, because if they talked about it, it would be about what the four of them are doing, why Shinjiro doesn’t admit they’re working with them, when they ask about the boy he’s sometimes with and Shinjiro mentions he’s just a friend, and if Shinjiro told his friend that he had other friends —

Takaya would click his tongue and realize they won’t commit, for all of their bullshitting and how Shinjiro bargains for more time, they just won’t let go of the last threads keeping them held up.

So they don’t talk about it.

August approaches, and Shinjiro turns eighteen. They don’t tell Takaya, and they don’t tell Akihiko.

In that time, between Akihiko’s manhunt for him to drag him back to the dorm, Shinjiro learns more about them.

Chidori can sing, and she sings for Shinjiro, when Medea’s hands move from her hair and let her breathe.

She can draw, too. They have never seen Takaya during the day, and Jin shows up like he knows where Shinjiro is to deliver medication more often than to talk. But Shinjiro’s sat with Chidori at the station, waterfront and main city, all while watching her sketch. She says it calms her.

Jin touches no one and no one touches him — but Shinjiro cuts his hair, patient when he flinches and ignores him when he complains. He doesn’t thank them, and Shinjiro doesn’t need it. The electrical razor they lifted from a department store is then switched off, unplugged, and put away like it was never brought out. Jin reaches up and touches the back of his head, feeling the cut hair and scarred skin – and says it’s much better, as if he realized what had happened and Shinjiro wasn't there.

They have sat in their shit apartment on many days but slept in it for less, never wanting to stay in the same place for long. Takaya asks if it’s because their friend might find them. Silence is his answer. He doesn’t laugh over it — something Shinjiro has also learned — but he breathes sharply, like the air cuts itself on his teeth, and he calls it “disappointing.”

Akihiko finds Shinjiro eventually.

He finds them festering and with eyes so heavy they’re bloodshot, wrapped in a coat that barely keeps warm. The first question is if they have a place to stay. The second is how they’re planning on keeping their grades up if they never go to school. The third question is interrupted with Shinjiro’s own, asking why Akihiko keeps trying.

They never talk about it, but theirs is something else — the problem with Akihiko sits in Shinjiro’s chest like a sore, kept close like remorse and nostalgia. The it they have with Strega sits is at the base of their neck, ugly and awful and rattles like the refilled prescription bottle in his left pocket, pressure that rolls his head back and makes him stare at the sky, looking for the outline of the moon against blue.

Akihiko is the type to interrogate until he gets answers, never stepping back even when the other wants to be left alone – and he doesn’t ask about Strega. So it means he doesn’t know. Shinjiro feels relief, and it’s so foreign, that they’re unsure if they’re dreaming.

It’s a new school year, Akihiko tells them, like they don’t know. There will be two new kids in the dorm, and both hold potential. Akihiko says that it’ll be interesting to see someone besides Shinjiro and Mitsuru, and Shinjiro’s image almost cracks, almost gives away, like the back two legs of a chair, and nearly laughs.

Akihiko asks what’s so funny. Shinjiro nearly gives it away, that he hasn’t met their new friends, and tells him nothing.

There’s three of them, not two, which Shinjiro finds out a while later.

Chidori asks them why they were at the hospital not too long after, and Shinjiro takes to asking Chidori if she spies on them on Takaya’s orders, or if she does it on her own volition. She shrugs her narrow shoulders. “It depends on what we have to do that day.”

They shake their head and offer her the packaged sandwich Akihiko insisted on pushing into their hand from the hospital cafeteria. She takes it without a word, and eats it just as quietly.

It took a very long time to win Shinjiro over. And when Akihiko did —

Well. They stopped talking to Takaya, first. Jin wasn't long after. Those two always suspected Shinjiro got along better with Chidori, and with shit getting worse, it'd make sense. But when they lost Chidori to one of the louts Shinjiro was playing pretend with, it got a lot more personal.

Shinjiro wondered if it had to be anything official. If they had to pick a fight with the remaining two, standing over Chidori in the hospital, and pretend they only just picked a side now and hadn't once Akihiko caught up to them. But it happened over time, just like what it was when they would listen to Takaya's sermons and started shoplift what they all needed with Jin. Over time by staying in the dorms at night and telling Arisato different routes to avoid the two ghosts when they'd head to the school. It almost felt natural.

But they had a feeling, too.

Anniversaries were always Shinjiro's thing.

Takaya liked his gun. He stole it and he was proud of it. He showed Shinjiro how it worked and explained he had a partial attachment to what it meant, how the evokers always worked, what it was meant to symbolize.

He showed it to them when they were sitting too close to the edge of the river. Takaya got them into smoking, so they were sharing the same roll. Shinjiro said he was full of spiritual shit, and Takaya said, maybe so. He let them hold it and aim it down the cold water, tracing the shapes in the water. They've seen swimming Shadows, but they didn't last. Maybe if they took a shot, they'd bring something up, lost in the dark water. Float down the river into the sea, found only when the body catches on a boat's hull.

Takaya looks at the water, far below. "If you were thinking of jumping, I would like my revolver back."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Shinjiro replied, handing it back without looking at him. "There's too much shit left to do for that."

Which is all to say: Shinjiro knew how Takaya was holding the damn thing, and how he enjoyed pulling the trigger, and how he knew there was nothing left to mourn between them.

It didn't feel like betrayal. The betrayal was the lying, if you think about it. Not like Takaya really hid anything from Shinjiro, even if he didn't explain everything thoroughly, clearly, concisely. Meandering through his sermons like you'd forget the point and just admire how slow he could talk and how quick you were to care about his cause. Maybe, instead of taking out an obstacle, this was just revenge for ghosting him. If it didn't hurt to breathe, they'd have a good laugh about it.

Ken struggles to apologize. Akihiko struggles to hold Shinjiro's hand. There's a lot going through their head, a lot of blood pouring out of them, a lot of last regrets creeping up and choking what little breath they can catch. Everything is sharp, like a gunshot - which makes them laugh, soft and out of breath, leaning into Akihiko's grip, like it's the funniest thing that's left in the world.

They say their piece. They knew they could only apologize like this; to Amada, and to the other three. Maybe only Chidori's going to understand what it all means. They can give her a better apology in Hell.

The sky is no longer green. Death catches up like a falling building does the ground.

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thinking about you

fandom: hotline miami character(s): biker, jacket ship(s): biker/jacket, jacket/beard synopsis: His mind goes elsewhere. Biker’s not sure how to feel about that. warnings: explicit sexual content. word count: 1989

the word count was completely coincidental lmao. second pov.

You haven’t heard his voice. Not really. There’s grunts - pain, pleasure, frustration, acknowledgement. Sighs, hums. Once a laugh, but it wasn’t happy - humourless, brought about when you two shared a pipe and someone told a bad joke. You don’t even remember what it sounded like. Might have been handsome. Might have been scratchy and harsh on the ears. You really don’t remember.

You asked if he was mute, and Jacket said no. You asked if he was ever going to talk, and Jacket said no. And at that point, you stopped asking. You don’t make habits of beating your head against brick walls, and at times, that’s what Jacket is like. Impenetrable and nondescript. Silent. Kind of depressing. Really depressing. He looks around at the colours in your bedroom like he’s never seen them sometimes. All yellow and pink with black zebra carpet that sticks out, pops a little louder. Maybe it’s for the best you never get the chance to see what his place is like.

But he likes it. You think he likes it. He has a spot on your bed he sits on every time, leaning back against the headboard and slouched against the wall. Doesn’t settle himself between the pillows, even if you’re eventually just going to pull him down there. But - you take your place over him. Feels good, and you haven’t even kissed him.

Jacket’s eyes are heavy. They’re sunken and tired and hang heavy on his gaunt face. You push your nose against the inside of his cheek to tilt his head back, and he does it for you. Cigarettes and whatever it was you shared earlier in your living room. Like tongue kissing a dream.

His mouth falls open for you. You hold his bottom lip with your teeth, and you kiss him with purpose, and you start to slip your arms around him. It feels weird when he doesn’t touch back right away, like he’s letting himself be pulled and moved until he can find it in himself to reciprocate. You get the impression he isn’t sure he’s allowed to. It’s all in the cues he tries to hide; the way his elbows press against your side when his arms are up, but his hands wait to touch you. The way he doesn’t kiss back until you’re pushing his head into your psychedelic pillows, finding what you want yourself.

Pencil. Fence post. He’s so fucking wiry you’re surprised he’s managed to do all the things he’s done. You’re larger, just enough that your frame covers his when you finally pull him onto his back, leading him with a heavy kiss that wants with tongue. Jacket doesn’t know how to do that, but he lets your tongue break him open so you can show him. His breath is warm on your cheeks and yours is the same on his. You twist your body so when you lower your weight into him, your hips hit him first.

You can feel the outline of his legs in his jeans, the vague shape of his dick pushed against yours. Your hands are wide with short fingers, and his are long like spindles. You pull apart his belt and then shove your hand down, enough force to make it mean something. He knows you want to fuck him. It just means something when you’re actually touching him.

Jacket looks down between you two. You can feel him tense, like he’s hesitating again. It’s not something you can crack. You’re not a patient enough person, but saying it like that gives the wrong idea. You aren’t patient. But - you still notice it. And it still rubs you the wrong way when he denies himself. Are you really that accepting of what you are, what you’ve become?

"S’alright," you insist, with a brush of your mouth against his cheek, close to his ear. "You good?"

He nods against you.

"Push me off if you’re not into it anymore."

There’s not much space for your hand and his dick inside his pants. It’s hard to twist your wrist, but the pressure and constriction makes Jacket open his legs farther, breathe in through his nose a little sharper, and tips his head back for you to look at. You grin against his cheek and then meet his face with yours. He looks you in the eye when you pull him out of his pants. You keep the grin when his eyes shut because you pressed your thumb against the head. Averting his eyes from the kind of look that says you want to rail him. You don't like beating around the bush. Hopefully, he likes that in you. Otherwise he probably wouldn't let you lead him into your bedroom every so often.

Jacket’s hands aren’t soft. Yours aren’t either, but the blow is eased by your gloves, which you took off ages ago. It’s all skin against skin while you coax his dick to attention in your hand, pushing your mouth against his throat and mouthing on the memory of marks from before. Jacket’s hands are up your back, over your arms, testing every corner to find what he wants. Maybe he’s looking for what feels the best to hold. You give him some kind of hard squeeze thinking about that, and Jacket’s breathing sharpens like ice.

You don’t have a belt on. Pushing your own jeans down is easy, letting go for just a few seconds to shuffle out, but your underwear stays. Oversight. You don’t wait to pull Jacket in, bring your weight against him, chest against chest and arms around his back and waist inside the lining of the varsity. Hips into hips. You groan into his shoulder and his voice rolls over your back, into your room, like a smoke cloud. He finally can push into you, wire against brick as he looks for that kind of weight again. His jeans push up between the two of you and the zipper scratches your thigh. Breaking apart to take everything off is the longest couple of seconds. Your shirt is on, the vest isn’t anymore. Jacket loses his jeans and undergarments. He looks at you like he’s caught between arousal and a different thought. Hazy and in between. That’s the kind of people you two are. Or maybe that’s just Jacket.

You hold him by the hips when you go back in, hard and rough. Your hips are harsh and you grind into him like he’s your purpose, like each shaking breath is yours to take in. You don’t know if this is what you should have with him. The thought breaks into your mind like a hole in the glass. You don’t know, suddenly, if you should want him so bad.

You shut the thought up by kissing him and pushing up with your next hip roll. Jacket groans. You want to fuck him. He wants you to fuck him. That is what you are going to think about.

Again, you part. This is to prepare yourself. You brush your hair out of your face for a moment to watch him while you reach to your bedside drawer, filled with shit for this. He watches your hands, and watches how you stroke yourself. Eyes wide. Mind elsewhere. You frown and you keep touching yourself.

"Hey," you ask again, "Ready?"

It brings him back to look up. He seems surprised you have a second eye after all. He nods.

You take your time, because you get Jacket’s eyes to eventually roll back into his head and his body to relax. You hold his legs apart for him and push, and you feel a heaving breath push through your lungs from how good it feels. Jacket. Fuck. Jacket. When you’re in him, when he is everything you feel against your thighs and chest and hands, you lean forward.

You fuck him. Hard.

One hand grips his side and the other curls into a fist by his short blond hair, supported on your arm while you push forward, deep, then back again. Your mouth reaches his jaw and cheek and you form an open mouth kiss while you breathe, sloppy and not put together. You can feel him breathe, even with his mouth by your ear, because you can feel each sharp breath in when you pound into him. You feel each tense muscle and each roll forward, each twitch in the hand that grips on to your plain white shirt to keep you close. You’re louder, with grunts into Jacket’s shoulder that are humbled by his varsity, but you can still feel the way he hitches, and shudders, and his knees in your side.

Between your rags of breath and mounting desperation, you’re saying his name before and after every curse. Jacket. Fuck, holy shit, Jacket, c’mon, oh god, Jacket. It never hits you that isn’t a name. It can never reach you when you’re like this, pressed against him and breaking him in two. Jacket. Jacket. Yes, oh my god, Jacket, Jacket.

Jacket, handsome and heaving Jacket, is all hard breaths and harder groans. He draws you in, rolling his head away and giving you more neck to bury yourself into. Breathing in then grunting out, betraying his hesitation with a deep groan in his throat. You’ve always been louder when it’s you two. He’s quieter. Begs through action and keeps his voice to a minimum. He breathes in your ear and you feel his hands twist in your shirt, like he’s starting to fall apart. And when you feel that, you push on your knees to get to a deeper angle, bringing his legs up a little higher.

Jacket groans a heavy “Lieutenant” quietly against your shoulder when he comes.

Like the epiphanies and revelations before, you don’t register it when you’re busy. It sits in your brain and you feel it take up space when your own pace breaks, feeling your finish rush out of you with a stiff back. You roll inside of him a few more times, each more sober than the last, until you settle. You pull out only when you then realize, and mask it as your heaving breath.

You lay down next to him. On your side, but you don’t want to - yes, you do. You do want to touch him, but you don’t want to move. You try to think, but the haze of sex clouds you just enough that you can only remember what his voice sounds like. A whisper doesn’t hold much of a voice, but it was rough. Smoke worn. Said a name. Military rank. It tells you everything you need to know.

You roll on your side, and his back faces you. The brown and gold of his varsity looks at you, and you wonder why you didn’t help him out of that. Idly, you fix your hair, lifting your head off the pillow and looking around. Your room is the same, but it’s larger. Uncomfortably so. Like there’s more inside that there should be. You don't know what you should do. Maybe cover Jacket’s eyes.

You don’t touch him, though. You don’t touch him until he rolls on to his back and stares at the ceiling. Your eyes roll down to the mess he made on the lower half of his shirt, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t notice you staring at him. He only keeps his eyes on your ceiling. You settle a little closer, chin against his shoulder.

Your hand eventually, cautiously, reaches over to his other shoulder. He doesn’t react. If he wasn’t blinking, maybe you could trick yourself into believing you were fucking some boy shaped object. Maybe a creature. Maybe a dead body. Something you could grab and fuck and grunt against without it saying anything after all. Jacket allows you to rest your head against him, but doesn’t move, and you don’t say anything either.

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by the moonlight

fandom: league of legends character(s): akali, irelia ship(s): akali/irelia synopsis: At the peak of midnight, Irelia forces herself awake as dread claws through her stomach. Akali keeps her company as she laments her worries. warnings: implied sexual content. word count: 1288

It’s warm in her room. Summer heat crawls through the open window, running over her body lain bare over the covers. Unintentionally, she’s got Akali pinned beneath them, the thin cloth stretched against her hips. Akali moves slightly.

"Can you move?"

Irelia rolls away. Akali pulls herself free, and Irelia returns to the girl’s side. She stares at her profile, uncertain and hesitant - like the intimacy she had was removed from her, filled with a lukewarm, vague temperature, a shapeless feeling. She likes the way Akali’s skin feels, and the breathing sounds nice, but something in her is fighting the peace. Something that doesn’t know what it wants to hold, what it wants to love. Almost tentatively, she puts her hand on Akali’s arm.

Akali opens her eyes and turns her head. Her profile is pretty, but looking at her makes it a little easier. Irelia doesn’t know what 'it' is, but it feels like facing a fear, or accepting a truth. Akali is very sharp without the mask. A lot of people expect women like her to hide a secret softness, that the jawline and lips are meant to be softer than her eyes. But Akali’s admitted to her before she only wears it to keep the blood out of her mouth.

“Yeah?" Akali asks. It’s a question that tries to be friendly. Irelia already realized a while ago what the difference between Akali being friendly and Akali being cold is. Irelia looks at her hand, like she doesn’t know how it got there.

"I don’t think you’re asleep."

"It’s too hot. You don’t look that tired, yourself."

Irelia gives something like a laugh through her nose. She rolls over, laying herself on her stomach, and tucks her head a little closer into the pillow. "I won’t keep you up, if you don’t want me to."

"I don’t really mind. I don’t think I’ll be sleeping much." Akali bends her arm at the elbow to reach up, grazing her fingers against Irelia. "Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?"

Irelia sleeps through heavy nights and limitless heat. She wakes herself up at the slightest threat, and is vigilant, even in the depths of slumber. She doesn’t like that Akali can see through her, because it means that cover isn’t taken. But - in the end, she doesn’t think she minds that truth. Akali’s different. Akali knows she’s different - she makes that clear enough in her attitude.

"Tomorrow, I'm attending a council meeting," Irelia laments, resting her cheek down into the supported pillow over her arms. "Karma wants me to present forward Placidium security ideas."

"What's the problem?"

"The recommendations aren't my own. They're just suggestions and ideas come up by her representatives." Irelia looks up into Akali's eyes. "It doesn't feel genuine."

"Politicians don't like listening to the truth, Irelia."

"It's a lot easier to say that when you're not communicating with them yourself, isn't it?" As Irelia speaks, Akali supports herself and sits up a little, resting on her hand to watch Irelia, a hand drawing down her back lightly. Irelia sighs. "I hate making progress only to regulate it to something... agreeable. It's taken months to get the Council to realize we need more than barriers at the Placidium's walls - we need armed soldiers."

Akali's eyes remain on Irelia's pale back, her nails scratching gently into her back. Irelia flinches and rolls herself over, and Akali's hand lingers over her navel instead. It's Akali's turn to frown. "They don't want to protect the capital more?"

"The villages past the rivers are barely fortified." Irelia stares at the ceiling, her gaze distant. "The coastlines, the islands... we have farmers who have blades, but they don't know what to do with them."

"You'd rather be militarizing us."

"Protection isn't going to come from prayer and hope, Akali. You know what that allows."

"It was years ago," Akali replies, only a little more terse. Irelia looks at Akali, the light that sparks between them a moment of battle, the kind of flare that happens between unstoppable forces and immovable objects - it's not an argument, and it'll never get to an argument, because they know where the other stands. Irelia is the first to close her eyes, and exhale through her nose, but Akali continues speaking. "Maybe we need some kind of organization. You think you're going to get the chance to tell that in your once-in-a-lifetime meeting tomorrow?"

"I don't think so," Irelia says, sighing a little louder. "It's--I'm tired, but I can't sleep. It's keeping me up and vexing me."

Akali traces lazy circles over Irelia's bare navel after a beat of silence. Irelia glances down, at Akali's thin hand on the moonlight. It's better that she can see her. It gives the fighting part of her the calm it needs to lower the guard and let Akali's hands roam a little more.

"Pushing yourself's going to kill you--probably," Akali says, and the way she says it makes Irelia's eyes roll upward, shaking her head, but stays there. "But I'm not one to tell you to quit what you're doing."

"Thank you," Irelia says, closing her eyes and turning into Akali, her body pressing against hers, ignoring the summer night's heat that threatens to bother her some more. "I suppose I will tread my discussion carefully, and keep doors open."

"How remarkably mature of you."

"Watch it."

"For a dancer, you're awfully brutal."

"You know what my dance does, Akali."

"I know two of its forms," Akali teases, and Irelia's arm makes some attempt to nudge her, a mock-threat that lingers under sleep-deprived irritation. It makes Akali grin. Irelia laments she cannot see it, so she lifts her head to watch the other girl, at her shadowed smile. "It's not my fault you've shown me it."

"You're hilarious," Irelia says dryly, but sits up to match Akali's cuddling, an arm slipping over her bare hip. "Because, for one, it is your fault."

"And two?"

"Consider yourself lucky you're the only one who has," Irelia remarks, before kissing her lightly. Akali reciprocates immediately, a passionate push that leads Irelia to her back once more, Akali's long black hair spilling down over Irelia's rich blue. It lingers, and Akali's tone thigh meets Irelia's own, but it does not progress. The fire ignites, and Irelia almost wishes it did, even with the sweat on her body from an entirely different problem.

Akali kisses her again, again, over her lips and against her cheek. Irelia allows her to roam, hold herself about her and kiss, touching her body in chaste brushes - over the shoulder, over her bare breast. Irelia's hands dance through Akali's hair, scratching her scalp and making her sigh with deep content. Her hands move as they would with the blades; ethereal grace, with beauty slipped through fingertips that go unnoticed to untrained eyes. Akali's eyes are all she wants on her, even in the darkness. She knows shadow - she can see whatever she wishes, and Akali chooses Irelia.

One kiss finds Irelia's nose, and it makes her lips, hypnotized and warm, break into a grin. Akali's pursed lips on the tip of her nose feels funny. When Akali ends up kissing only teeth, she pulls back to see Irelia smiling, and she returns it.

"It's too hot," Akali says, sadly. "Otherwise I'd wind you up again."

"It's best if I sleep," Irelia replies, with a shared mourning. "You too. Perhaps when I return from the council."

"You'll keep them busy all afternoon."

"What does that mean?"

"You can talk their ears off, Irelia. But it'll be worth it." Akali kisses her once more, before lowering her body down carefully, resting atop of her own. "I know you'll win."

[hoverbun]

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[hoverbun]

cypress

Claudette Morel and Quentin Smith have told him many times to care for the lives of others, because death of the soul is going to take one of them some day, and running back from an open door to freedom is a good thing to do, because it means you are looking for ways to escape.

Claudette Morel and Quentin Smith are dead right now.

Keep reading

[hoverbun]

The look David Tapp gives him is less than enthusiastic. To that, Ace rolls his eyes, smile never fading.

“What? You’re not big on dares?”

“Not ones that involve entering dark shacks when I could be working on escape solutions, no,” David shakes his head, and he shifts how he rests on the log. Ace elbows him in the side, and David doesn’t move.

“Now that’s a bold faced lie, mis’er Tapp. I thought you enjoyed mysteries.”

David exhales through his nose, and Ace rests on one arm to lean in his direction when he’s waiting for whatever response David’s decided to dignify him with. “Ones that have a purpose, mister Visconti. Playing tag around the shacks isn’t a mystery I particularly care for, you know.”

“It’s not tag.”Ace stretches his legs out, straining in relief when his knees lengthen and pop the way old man knees pop. “It’s taking risks to help others out. Anyway, you don’t want to try. Why not bring all of the broken gears we’ve collected and bring them to the centre of the area?”

“You really think messing around is a productive way to spend your time, don’t you?”

Ace’s arms, resting on the old bark of the fallen log, return to his lap, one hand now holding his face to rest upon. The way David looks at him is an equal share of entertaining whatever nonsense Ace decides to impart on him, as well as disappointment at the very notion of that nonsense. He mirrors how Ace rests, opposite hand bringing himself up.

“Rather see time get killed than get killed yourself,” Ace replies, and David shakes his head again.

“That doesn’t make sense,” David replies, voice a little less terse - sometimes talking to Ace requires the same patience you’d have with a child. Or a very, very disruptive dog. “Are you just making things up now?”

Ace’s grin is long and lazy, and he casts it over his shoulder when he lolls himself towards David. He shifts how he sits once more - arm leaning back on the furthest stretch of log, past the curve of David’s jacket, just so he can rest against him. “You need to get better at just playing along, darlin’. Asking so many questions oughta get boring after a while, don’t it?”

“Asking questions is what I am paid to do,” David replies, reaching one hand to push Ace’s cap up his forehead so he can see his raised brows just a little better. “And don’t roll your eyes at me, Visconti.”

“Oh, bullshit, you can’t see through these.”

David then hooks one finger over the bridge of the glasses, and drags them down Ace’s nose. He looks over the edge of them, grin stretched all the same. “I’m just used to your habits.”

[hoverbun]

“Explain, Visconti.”

“C’mon, now,” Ace doesn’t look away from the gentleman behind the bar, watching him fetch for the bottle of cognac that has been passed around and poured into the glass of many a patrons his evening. With the way the boy holds the bottle, it seems light - Ace wouldn’t be surprised if it’s near empty. A shame. “Picking fights in the middle of the night isn’t very nice of you, Harv.”

Harvey MacAllan leans in close, his cigar laden breath rolling over Ace’s neck like the billow of mist on a dreary spring day. Still, Ace doesn’t betray his posture - he keeps the grin of the night on his face when he tips a nod to the bartender, pulling his third glass of the rum and coke towards him. The boy looks, nervous, and shuffles to the other end of the bar. Smart kid. Can’t be much older than twenty three, but he knows when to dip from bad looking customers.

Ace takes a long sip. It tastes like a forgotten night on Bourbon Street. The decor might be less than divine, and the company even worse; but there’s more than enough words to go around with the way it burns his throat.

Harvey MacAllan doesn’t move.

“I’m done playing nice with you, Visconti,” Harvey MacAllan threatens again,  this time pounding a fist on the wood of the bar. Oh, he means business now. “Three weeks you’ve been blowin’ off Jacob, and Pierce, and now me - you either gonna explain what your deal is, or there’s gonna be more than words.”

“More than words?” Ace looks at the way his glass glimmers in the light of Miami’s lesser bars. “Whatever else could there be to say that can’t be settled like gentlemen, Harv?”

“Call me that again and you’ll be pickin’ your teeth outta your shit.”

“You’re laying the threats on a little thick, you know. There won’t be much of me left if I’m to be chopped up to itty bitty Ace pieces.”

Ace finally looks at Harvey MacAllan - the man is quite tall, and the way he lumbers over Ace in the mosquito buzzed light makes him look worse than he smells. The cigars are strong, and so is the alcohol, but Ace can hear every steady syllable in his debt collector’s words, and that’s what makes it exciting.

What kind of gun did he get into the place with? If there was a couple less people to his left that might get hit with the wrong kind of collateral, Ace might test the threat a little more. Gamble the odds, up the ante.

“How about this,” Ace marks his words by gathering up the glass and pressing it to Harvey MacAllan’s burly chest, stuffed into a dress shirt that doesn’t want to be on his thick body. “You give me another week and a half-”

Harvey MacAllan puts his hand on Ace’s throat. There are five men around them, and there are five men who grab his would-be assailant and pull him back and off the smooth talking timebomb of a man. Ace’s smirk (a part of him that never leaves, just like rings, wallets and cards) flashes that broken canine.

“-and I leave you with what I’ve got tonight. Plus your Uber home. I assume Jacob’s pinching pennies on gas, right?” Ace pats Harvey MacAllan’s shoulder. “I don’t blame him, five dollars for a gallon? But, come on, it’s your best pal.”

The men settle Harvey MacAllan back against a bar stool. Ace has been creating space between them with every breath, stepping back like a snake in the limelight. The fury on Harvey MacAllan’s face is indescribable. Luckily for Ace, he gets that a lot.

Ace slides his wallet down the length of the bar.

“Keep it. Just a spare of mine.”

He turns, and with the last of his bills, drops a handful of paper and coin in from of the nervous bartender with - everyone’s guessed it - a smirk.

In about an hour, a young woman will realize she doesn’t have her wallet. In less than five minutes, Ace Visconti will be driving back to Orlando in the back of a taxi.

[hoverbun]

a single fucking shape

fandom: dead by daylight character(s): the pig, the shape synopsis: He infuriates her, because he is the essence of what she hates. word count: 1151 

He’s a Shape. She hasn’t found out his name, if he even has one.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t answer questions, or respond to demands, or acknowledge any of the taunts she spits at him when they linger in the Mist together, between trial and nonexistence. She dares him to move. Breathe. Blink. Kill her, even if she knows he can’t.

He kills for the Entity, as she does; as others do. It, capital, is displeased by his service. Him? It? Is it John’s will taken form? No. She thought it was at first, when It called for her in the darkness of death.

Amanda knows it isn’t him. Isn’t, cannot. John was a person. If his will took a form tangible enough for her hold, it would be the puppet, as corporeal as it could become in a realm like this. It wouldn’t serve as the mouth of whispers by her ear. It, the Entity, seeks hope through a ritual she doesn’t care to find out. In death, It is a service she anchors herself to.

Whispers in the fog tell her he wandered into Its realm. She searches across the fragments of memories, locations and half-homes brought out of the fog, to find his name.

A shape is a shape. It simply is.

There is no morality, logic, or instinct within a shape, for it only is. Things don’t work like humans - humans form what they are, for better or for worse. Shapes are pieces in the fog, memories she searches for through minds opened in webs. Memories that aren’t hers.

Humans, as cold and terrible as they are, are still predicable. They use codes and creeds to be selfish and destructive and ungrateful. And if they are like her, then they are not bound to morality. Logic applies. Instinct applies.

She can pick out what is right and what is wrong. What could a Shape know about right and wrong?

Michael Myers.

Projected through forgotten memories of that street, and telling the story of a house of pain - Michael Myers is just a shape, but a shape with a name, and a knife, and no motive. Simple evil as a figure in the fog.

Amanda watches him. He watches her, as he watches everything. Stalking is his thing.

“What are you?” Amanda asks. Asking gets you nothing, just eyes as blackened as the devil catching no light. In the period between reality and rest, she grows restless. “Did you die?”

Michael doesn’t move. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to die. Nowhere to avoid her frustrated glare, but it isn’t something to celebrate. Bothering the Shape doesn’t break him.

He doesn’t speak, but he does breathe.

“I thought you were just some thing It made Itself,” she says, folding her arms and hunching her shoulders. “Like pretending to make a body and kill on Its own.”

Michael is a thing. He looks at her, and tilts his head, and Amanda is frustrated all over again.

“So you don’t talk much.”

One of the girls died with him. She knows all of the hiding places on that street.

Amanda tries to leave her for last each time.

She drops her arms at her red coat’s side. Inhales, and exhales through her own mask.

The frustration has moved farther back. She’s just curious now.

There’s nothing to sit on in the void of fog, but she takes her place by him. The air that manages to pass through the mask John gave her so long ago is thick, and warm.

“I don’t want to talk,” she admits. “Just want to stand next to something.”

Michael looks at her. The way he breathes sounds like a hum of acknowledgement. She ends up folding her arms, ends up staring at nothing, ends up keeping herself quiet for long enough that Michael fucking Myers gets back under her skin, ripping her patience out like frayed wires in a machine. Amanda’s never been one to be patient, nor mature.

“Do you understand what I say?” she asks, sharper, the frustration tough behind her teeth. Michael stares, and he nods, once. The darkness of the realm’s fog keeps his eyes so dark, so much she wonders if he has them at all - if they’re just figments projected at her, looking for the shape of a human in the fiend’s form. A human delivering wickedness and evil makes more sense than an apparition created by a reality she can’t control.

He revels in the violence, just like others. Why kill without a purpose? A purpose is a way to live. A purpose stops your anger from boiling over.

Amanda rips her mask off. She grabs the fake rubber flesh at her neck and lifts it up, feeling the longer, clumped and wet hair drag up her short cut. When she breathes in, the air is far more cooler, and it feels better to breathe, as grainy as it remains. As much as emotion can dwell inside of him, Michael takes note of what she looks like.

“There’s always someone under a mask,” she says, staring up at the tall force. “You ever take that off?"

He tips his head while he shakes it slowly. Her mouth frowns, and she pulls the suffocating headpiece back on.

“Fucking freak,” she murmurs into the head. When its secure over her head once more, she takes note of his clenched fist, once hanging open.

Every trial she is called to has been on that street. Maybe Its indulging her curiosity. Or maybe punishing her for it.

She cuts the throats and palms of every sobbing survivor. Looks them in the eye so she can dig through the house with the pumpkin on the porch. When she breathes in the stale air, it tastes like wet leaves and old wood, just like autumn.

There’s never anything here. Just debris of whoever lived there before. She sits in a room with the memory of a little boy in it, and thinks of the path he took to get a knife and kill the sister. The fog tells her everything - pieces of what once happened, the torment and pain that doesn’t rip at her anymore. She felt a little bad the first time she was pulled within the shroud and made to kill; not anymore.

Feels like routine.

Amanda finds a kitchen knife, but they’re all dead. She leaves it in the ribcage of one of the men that she ripped the throats out of.

Shapes are shapes, but she thinks it’s possible they can exist as human ones. Maybe that explains all the rotten lives she got to put out before - just figures in a fog from the future, tormenting and destroying everything they get to rip apart. A Michael Myers that exists in the worst of living beings.

Amanda curls up on the front porch of the house as reality bleeds away.

[hoverbun]

the aftermath of a funeral

fandom: league of legends character(s): karthus synopsis: This is what it’s like to rot after you die. This is what it’s like to die by a curse. word count: 1176

He begins to die a second time.

In years time, when the flayed lungs and ache in every bone have long since faded, and the wasted muscle wrapped around his bones is just sinew and unpleasant to hide, he will have forgotten what it was like to die a second time. For he will always consider the plunge into the cold ocean with a prayer in his mouth as the moment when he shed his mortal coil and freed his soul into the maw of the undead - but it is in the days that followed that his body was being taken.

He met the Shepherd. He turned him away from the monastery, no matter how many times he returned to waste away on the steps. 

It was on the fifth day that he continued to search the stretch of islands, beyond the single shore that met the monastery’s dying front. Karthus found his heels ached with every step, like feeling the bones inside of his half-ripped boots try to cut through his skin.

His voice felt like it was ripped in half. When he exhaled, it came through a hole in his throat.

Karthus finds an empty church. He does not leave the church for some time.

Spirits eventually gather. They brush too close to his body when he slays on beds older than the empire he came from, like they’re trying to get under his already thin skin.

He realizes he does not need to sleep, for exhaustion ceased to cast its weary shadow over him after what he could only presume to be when the day crawled to the next through the endless cycle of night. But it feels like a routine that he needs - even if he doesn’t particularly want it. It will be one of the many things he sheds upon the islands. He already has forgotten what day it is.

But Karthus lays upon the mattress stuffed with feathers and wool so old that laying upon them felt like resting on straw. The spirits get closer, and he can see eyes where there are none, looking closer into who he is, like they’re looking for the blood inside of him that doesn’t beat anymore. His body is dead, his mind is not - in the land of the undead, that is common. 

But he hasn’t lost his body just yet.

Is it punishment? No, only natural progression. Decay. Loss.

He doesn’t need to sleep. He’s not tired. He still can’t lift his head. The memory of whoever it was dries his lips, forcing him to breathe in its dry and cold air. When he smiles, he breaks the skin.

Walking hurts so much.

Karthus holds himself against the wall of a building that could have been a house, could have been a library, could have been something more before time got to destroy it. There is water in his boots, wearing through the soles and numbing his feet. Every step cuts. He cannot feel a single one.

A hand drags against the wall. The magic waxes, wanes, like a moon. He hasn’t been able to lift himself into the air since his ascension.

He tries to take a step. The bones are ripping through his skin. Karthus lifts his head, and with it one leg, and tries to step into the air, summoning all of his dizzied focus. Like ascending a single step, he leaps into the air, and then drops back down to the ground, sloshing damp grass and jolting horrific, numbing pain up his calves.

He doesn’t scream. But he almost does.

The worn, torn, pulled leather comes apart with just a couple of tugs. He’s bleeding, but he can’t feel it while walking through cold water from past rain. 

Fire, as it naturally should, catches and burns in a hearth within the church. But it is only light, and does not warm his skin, no matter how close he sways his hands to the flames.

His robes have long since lost the deep navy colours they once had, before the islands, before even the cove of Bilgewater, however long ago it was. They rest, damp against his legs, beginning to wear near their hems. He does not think he could stitch them, for he cannot feel anything through his finger tips. Death and an icy curse alike blacken his fingers, swelling them around his bones.

Maybe fire doesn’t actually work on the Shadow Isles. Maybe the spirits run through the flames, playing in the light, and steal away the heat. Or perhaps he just cannot feel anything anymore, running through water and dust on books and more water and there is so much water on the islands, not just around them, in grass and buildings and rivers.

Karthus manages to focus on his hands. He closes them, and presses his broken nails into his palms.

They look different. Longer. Still black, but deforming. Maybe it’s the death settling in.

He wishes he could die faster.

It had been three days since he walked across any surface. Dragging himself to the hearth had begun to hurt his hips, which snaps and pops in ways that reminded Karthus of older men in the almshouse. Elders that had managed to outlive the young. He doesn’t want to think about them anymore.

Each step breaks his focus that he has to force himself into keeping, his feet having bled themselves to black like his hands. Thin. Fragile. Don’t think about it like that. The last of his strength for the day allowed him to pull a chair from behind an abandoned study desk. It is a plan.

Karthus sat in it for an hour before he could rise once more. The book open in his lap is moved to the floor, and as best he can, he lifts himself on top of the chair.

Even without much weight to him anymore, the old wood does not agree with his decision. But he balances himself, hands at his side, and glances to the book, the incantation written centuries ago by priests who could not have predicted the fall of the islands. Karthus thinks about the services and the magic and the prayer, as he takes a step off the chair, bracing himself for the impact against stone and the darkness to follow.

Pain does not come. He looks down his withered body, and he is hovering. Weak legs hang uselessly in the air, like horrific sights behind the doors of the desperate. There is no pressure on any part of his body to keep himself above the floor - no pull on his shoulders, no seat for his rear, no invisible collar for his throat. Like plunging into deep water, Karthus levitates, feeling the peace below his hips.

He has the strength to smile. His jaw has begun to hurt in these several days. Death must be sweeping itself up his body, leaving gaunt eyes and thinning skins. He sighs the last of the incantation, and the chorus of several souls drag from his lungs.

[hoverbun]

the deathsinger’s dirge

fandom: league of legends character(s): karthus, yorick synopsis: The final day Karthus is alive, and the first song to be written. word count: 1394

It is on what he believes is the second day that breathing in the Mist starts to burn.

It is not warm, like the sparks of fireside light, or perhaps like warm ashes from smothered flame. There is not much time for him to question the complexity a statement such as the air is not warm but it burns my throat may contain, for ‘to burn’ anything one requires a source of potent heat to deliver char. But he knows that much farther north in Valoran there are lands of heavy snow that freeze the air in such a veil of ice that the body can stiffen, fall victim to the chill, and the ice is so sharp that it burns the skin. Karthus thinks the air on the Shadow Isles is as cold as the northern frostlands - perhaps colder.

Snow is cold. Ice is colder. But the seawater that lingers in the air burns Karthus’ throat the way swallowing small, sharp pebbles does. Gravelled debris that scrape down his insides no matter how he covers his mouth to filter the air, for even covering his mouth will dizzy him from eventual lack of any deep, meaningful breaths. The living dead boy stumbles through the deep forests of whatever numbered island he happens upon, the cold body of the sailor bobbing in the ocean as potent in his mind as it may ever be. It does not terrify him. The dead shell that washed ashore behind him did not, will not humble him.

But the pain in his throat might stop him, all the same.

He leans upon the staff to steady his step, the same one he had taken with him since the first step out of the walls of Noxus Prime. His teeth grit behind a grimace, from the pain of his throat and the pain down his wrist, where an insignia of the old churches bleeds down his drying robes. He no longer drips with seawater from the salt-laced baptism he performed on himself, but the memory of it lingers. Like the last bit of life inside of him that has yet to be wholly devoured by the Mist - eaten from the inside, picked apart like the last of carrion ribs.

His soul must taste like salt water and whatever crusts the underside of boats. It must be absolutely disgusting, and he starts to laugh at the idea of disgusting his new spiritual hosts, so he takes a deep breath to bite the spirits out of the sky, sucking in through his teeth. Karthus breathes in until his lungs can’t take anymore, the grit of the air cutting deep inside of him and twisting him dizzy losing his grip on the tallystaff and tripping to the earth.

The last of his bones collapse into the dust and dirt, and he coughs viciously as the island’s poison takes inside him. A bloody mist splatters against the ground, his tongue now seared with the taste of copper. Karthus wipes the back of his thin and worn hand over his lower lip, looking down at the bloodied saliva that now stains his skin. Carefully, he lifts the staff and pulls himself back to his feet, coughing into his sleeve to relieve himself of any more bloody remnants of his gored throat from staining his skin.

Magic flows through him, now. The last of his life is leaving his mortal coil, and it’s allowing him to get a little closer before it releases.

He’s dying. Is this what dying feels like? Warm and cold and a throat ripped by the grit and grain in the air? He’s dizzy. He’s tired. He keeps walking, and he keeps walking, until he thinks he’s walked the length of the island before there is still more to the path, framed by a forest’s grove. There’s a temple.

A temple.

Building.

The remnants of civilization?

Karthus doesn’t make it to the foot of the steps before he drops again, though manages to catch himself before his body crashes into stone steps and instead sits down it. One hand on a step ahead and the other gripping the staff still, he pulls himself up the steps, one by one, until the door opens.

It is a monk. He is short, wide and muscular. A vial of iridescent blue dangles around his neck. His hands rest upon a spade with a hook at the heel - and his eyes, terrifically beautiful and just as blue as the open sea, stare in wonder at the dying man.

Karthus smiles with horrible teeth stained red from a stolen voice.

The monk brought him inside, half on a note of desperation at the sight of lingering life inside of a being upon the Shadow Isles, however faint and unwilling it was to remain. 

He sits with Karthus, watching him in mournful wonder as Karthus stares at the point of his staff and pinches the pointed edye between two fingers. He pays the monk such little attention that he almost forgets his presence all together - until the monk heaves a heavy sigh and speaks. 

“You should not be alive,” he says, with a voice so soft it reminds Karthus of an old burial song. 

“You are correct,” Karthus replies. “I am not.”

“You speak my language, yet your accent... is foreign.” The monk seems confused with his remark. It is the most inflection he has had so far. “Where did you learn to speak that?”

Karthus looks in the direction of the monastery door. “Out there,” he says, and points a thin, starving finger to the outside view from a shattered window. “And even in here, among them - the spirits. They speak to me, here. I understand them.”

”From where do you hail?”

”Here. I am of these Shadow Isles, now.” Karthus wants to swallow, to aid his dry, drying, dying throat. But his throat will not allow him. The muscles strain inside and tense whenever he attempts to. It hurts when he tries. 

The monk frowns. “No. In life - where did you hail?”

”Noxus.” His hands touch the staff once more. Among the land of the dead, and his fixation only holds on the last remnant of his life. “I do not wish to return. I have travelled far from Noxus to discover the beauty of these islands for myself.”

”You are several centuries too late, my boy - these isles have not been beautiful for a long time.”

Karthus laughs. A dry, hoarse, cracking laugh that doesn’t hold itself together and hurts more than breathing. “Not at all. The spirits that have called me have introduced me to a land far greater than any forest’s grove.”

He does not understand the silent anger to cross the monk’s expression, for he remains as tepid and mournful as ever. Perhaps the only rage that exists within him anymore is holy rage. “Beauty does not bloom in such suffering.”

”It is not suffering - it is freedom.”

”I have endured the ‘freedom’ of the isles for much longer than you have known its myth.” The monk reaches for his shovel - he uses it to lift himself up. He only towers over Karthus’ seated form; he appears short, stocky. “Most who arrive on this land are among the throes of death from a terrible tragedy. I bid their bodies to the ocean, so they may not live in torment among the undead.”

He lifts the shovel, and knocks the spade on the stone. Firm, but without threat. Mist gathers around him like a shawl, and Karthus just wants to watch it swirl like chalk water. 

“I do not know many who have sought us as pilgrimage. I do not have what you seek, young man.”

”But you have already begun to fascinate me - give me your time,” Karthus requests, his smile a twisted hope as he reaches for the monk. He is returned with a swat from his large hand.

”No. I must ask you to leave - take with you your fantasy of death.”

He is dizzy when he stands. He is dizzy when the monk forces him out the door. Karthus leans against old stone and drags himself down the wall, a tired, dying smile over him while he presses his cheek to the door. 

Karthus doesn’t fall asleep, but he dreams of spirits come to claim him all the same.

[hoverbun]

to live and die in liberty city

I’ve been writing a multichaptered series on archiveofourown, that I’ll crosspost over here once it’s completed in full. It’s a Persona 1 & 2 crossover with Grand Theft Auto - following Tatsuya’s experiences in 2014 Liberty City.

Here is the link to the first chapter! Please, consider following it to its completion - if not, give it a hit and a kudo! Thank you!

[hoverbun]

ok im done my mass writing posting, crossposted all from ao3, remember to follow me there for more frequent updates on my writing!

[hoverbun]

demon

fandom: league of legends character(s): jhin, irelia ship(s): jhin/irelia synopsis: A house call with a demon. warnings: explicit sexual content. word count: 1444  

"Don't."

She speaks clearly. Her tone doesn't betray her, though her words remain frosted. 

For once, in his God forsaken life, Khada Jhin does not smile back in the face of danger.

Maybe it's to set the scene. Maybe he's written the two of them out in his head, and has fitted them to the specific idea of how it would, should, will happen. She's broken the routine already, reached out and grabbing him, burying her intent for the passion. Irelia would glare at him, but her unfortunate reality is it this is not by Jhin's whims and plans that he is bound and bare for her. All the machinations of his arrangements are hers to dismantle.

Irelia stands over him, bare. It's the most she'll allow him in the moments between. She watches him, jaw set and her hands kept at her side, underarms brushing the brassiere she has to cover herself. Their clothing is long discarded. She'd bury his body and burn the last of his clothes if she could bring herself to, but he lays on his back with her legs on either flanks of his body.

Jhin is smiling. There - he breathes. And speaks, regardless of how she looks at him.

"Is this how you speak to every one of your bed partners?"

"Don't speak."

"Am I special?"

She's quick - Irelia clenches her fist while pressing a foot down on his chest, knocking him into the floor. She drills her heel into his left side, Jhin's hands shooting up to grab her ankle, but she stays steady, not allowing him a moment to move her strong calf.

"You won't say a word that I don't allow," she said, pressing further into him; she can hear the whistle of air forced from his fragile lungs and pass through the clenched teeth behind his smile. "or I will crush your windpipe."

Khada Jhin grins, and she thinks he'll doubt her - but all that remains is his breathing, thin and laboured as it is, so Irelia recedes her weight, though keeps her foot against his chest. Irelia steps back, her heel drags down his bare chest; to his hip; to the crux of his legs where he lays bare and half-hard. He's anticipating what she'll do; she can tell with how he firms against her heel and the arch of her foot. Irelia looks down his body, finding what she wants - and leans against him, more gentle than she had against his chest, but lacking any warmth, any intimacy. She can hear the hiss of his teeth when she rolls her foot against him, and she lifts her foot with a threat -

And then stands on both feet once more. Irelia kneels to his lap and takes Jhin in her hand.

She looks up from it with the touch of disdain, then moves her hand up once, watching him. Irelia twists her wrist lightly, and drags down, up, down in the same motion, looking for the shade of urgency to cloud Jhin's expression. He's staring at her hand on him, smile slackening to something closed mouth, sardonic humour slowly eking away. Irelia moves her hips and presses the head against her clit, and perhaps it's something in the way she makes no sign of caring for it that makes Jhin look at her a growing interest. 

Or maybe need.

Irelia pushes Jhin against, dragging down against her entrance, and slowly sits herself down. 

The way his breath doesn't catch might have her attention another time - but instead, Irelia closes her eyes for a passing moment, adjusting herself to the intrustion inside of her. Slipping her hand from underneath herself, she reaches for both corners of his sharp hips, pulling him in. Jhin keeps himself humble, but he breathes with enough surprise that she can tell he wasn't anticipating how she'd move. Irelia opens her eyes and looks down at him, frustration melting away as she lifts his narrow hips to the angle she likes it at. Jhin pulls his arms back to support himself, and she speaks.

"Stay like that. If you touch me, I'll break your hands, too. Do you understand me, Khada Jhin?"

For the second time in his life, Khada Jhin stays quiet.

Irelia angles her hips, rolling them experimentally one way, leaning forward to support her body. She is built, so much that she rivals the soldier shape of her countrymen - her thighs are large and thick, even if they were not pressing Khada Jhin's stick shaped ones into the floor of her home. Against him, his narrow, inhuman features and proportions are made an example of, his hips gripped in her stronger hands and pulled up in order to deliver the only thing she wants out of him. Irelia grunts, pushing herself back down and bringing him with her, pressing both hands against the ground beside his hips for the right angle. When she leans forward, her hair spills down on to Jhin's body, the only softness in their affair.

Her weight, her grip around him, the way she clenches when she pushes him farther against the floor - it pulls more sound from Jhin than it does Irelia, whose grunts of effort match the slow crescendo of Jhin's breathing, rising and twisting into sighs of a growing pleasure. Even as she crashes into him, even as she reaches her hands farther up the wood until she presses one into Jhin's shoulder and the other rests more near his ribcage - Irelia never allows her voice to reach above a tepid volume, feeling the build of pressure in her spine through her restraint. It's no need for humility, or a shyness - she does not want him to hear what he does to her.

She forces her eyes open, watching how he breaks under her with gritting teeth and a furrowed brow, forcing her expression into something of divine determination instead of the ravaging bliss that eats at her while she fucks him. He doesn't notice, and if he does he takes no pleasure in it - her body, all muscle and power, crushes his pelvis, and if it isn't the throes of pleasure taking him, it's the pressure against his bones.

I'll snap you in half, she doesn't say, when she breaks her unsteady silence to roll her head and push her chest out, one single moment of broken composure as her body loses itself in the press. Her eyes close, then open, and she stares at her ceiling while pushing against him, body as firm and unwavering as it was; is.

It takes more than that to break her adrenaline, with Irelia leaning forward once more and hovering over Jhin, her determination finding its way into her expression once more. Jhin's eyes open, too, and he watches her with enough awe and fear in his eyes that she feels satisfied. The hand on his shoulder once supporting her pushes him down, scraping him against the wood and eliciting a grunt with the patched breathing. Jhin moves his hips into her as best he can, no matter how Irelia holds him down, and it builds a second wave of pleasure inside of her that crashes like a low wave, no matter how he might push up with growing, stronger need. His hangs wring. He wants to touch her, but he behaves, and doesn't move them from his side.

Jhin's head rolls back into the ground, hair sprawled out at his side. He's close, too. In one motion, Irelia pulls back, hand off his shoulder, and brings herself up off of him. Jhin shoots his head forward with sudden shock, when Irelia then takes him in her hand, a tight enough grip to wrench his attention, as she gives it several pumps while directing its head towards Jhin's stomach. His right knee bends when his release exhausts him, body arching and his head falling back again, a dreadful groan rolling off his tongue. Irelia pants, short and silent - when he finishes, she releases him. With a pause for consideration, she wipes the small amount that stained her hand against his bent leg's calf.

Then, she pushes his knee to the side, half rolling Jhin on to his side, spent. It's a little more self indulgent than pulling him out, though just as self serving.

Silence catches them, like the night. Her gaze falls to the floor in that time, but she lifts it again when she hears the smile in his laboured breathing, and sees that he's looking at her. Snake eyes in the moonlight.

Irelia Xan remains impassive.

"Get out of my house."

[hoverbun]

softlight

fandom: league of legends character(s): riven, yasuo ship(s): riven/yasuo synopsis: She's the burning sun he's longed to embrace. He's the stars she's waited to see. warnings: explicit sexual content. word count: 1404

He loves her above him, below him, against and beside him - in every way, she is his, and he is hers, devoted deeply when their bodies intertwine and pull each other close.

They linger between too-close and not-close-enough, on the precipice of accepting that this is what they are to one another and loving it too much to stop. A fleeting kiss on her wrist, a lingering touch over her jaw, and a smile that's warm enough to tell him she likes it. He's learned she's the type to keep her emotions inside until the right moment - the passion is there, and she allows him to see it as often as it comes, but for all Riven is, she is a summer rainstorm on a distant horizon. Muted, with an intense wave under her surface.

She sits on Yasuo's lap, pulled in close, one of his hands trailing up to the back of her neck and tangling into the length of her hair, hanging down her shoulders and growing out. Her hands have found their way over his neck and she kisses him, drawing them around him when she's as close as their bodies can allow them. His back leans against the curve of the futon, swaying into it when Riven leans him back, mouth against him, body into him. Yasuo' hand drags down her back, down across her hips and rests there, hands steady like hers. 

Riven's hips move a little. There's enough pause in the kiss for Yasuo to look at her, cheeks flushed with the warmth of their embrace. He grins something lazy, and she returns it with a smile of her own. 

"Eager," he says, cheeks flushed with the warmth of their embrace, and Riven laughs. 

"You have that effect over me," she admits, rolling her hips again to find the part of him she wants to grind against. She hovers herself close his his face, breathing his warmth and angling her hips the right way, and it's a few paces of her body against his and her softened breathing before he has his hands on her thighs, halting her. 

The pause concerns her, but it vanishes once he brings her up with him, half-standing to bring them both down against the futon and rolling in together. Her mouth breaks into its second smile as she kisses him, reaching to him again and pulling her body over his and laying flat on him. Yasuo's hands run down her back, one rubbing the curve of her hip and the other squeezing her rear - Riven hums into his mouth and moves her hips again, that him rolling into a satisfied groan when she feels how he's hardening. 

She's warm. Riven is all around him and she's so warm, like fire at night, or the roll of hot wind through a summer's noon. Her hands support herself against his shoulders but move in swift motions, feeling up his throat and along his jaw and back down to his shoulders. The passion comes through, like peeling petals back and seeing what reach forwards. Her hums and sighs etch against his skin, her body moving for what she wants, what he wants, but before stars stretch across the black of his closed eyes -

Yasuo puts both hands on her hips, keeping her steady. Riven lifts her head to look at him, curious, and the light in her eye a gentle one blooming into need. 

He nudges her. She sits up a bit more, until she notes he's pushing at her skirt, to which Riven pulls from him and hooks a thumb up under the folds and to the line of her underwear, down her thighs and left at her knees. She brings a leg up him, sliding along the futon and his thigh, the cloth of her underwear slipping down her calf. Her smile is coy; playful.

"Are you going to have me undress you, as well?" she asks, which in turn leaves Yasuo smiling.

"You don't have to do all that for me," he replies, and puts a hand on her hip again. "Sit up."

For the second time, the shade of concern dips into her curious expression, even as she obliges, perching herself on his lap and resting her weight on his half erection. The pressure feels nice - his softened expression eases the tension he can feel in Riven, her thighs relaxing around him.

Yasuo guides her - pulling up on those thighs to inch over his chest, and the last thing he sees on her is the thrill of excitement blossoming across her face as she takes her seat, carefully lowering herself against his face. 

"You are too good looking to hide under there," she teases, and Yasuo laughs gently against her warm centre, hands sliding up her thighs and resting there. 

Her body bristles with excitement, as does his - the beginning of arousal lingers against her folds, lightly damp when he presses a kiss up against her body. Between her legs, she is ffar greater than any summer storm or flash of heat; it is like tasting the sun itself, kissing her skin and tonguing her core like his world is only her. Even in the first lap of his tongue, Riven sighs with a deep content, holding her balance between resting on her knees and resting against him. She lifts herself just enough to entice him to pull her back down, and she grins lazily, sigh twirling to a giggle. 

Yasuo mouths against her, his eyes closed as a open mouth kiss slips enough tongue to taste her skin some more. Kissing, gliding his tongue over her clit, humming against her - the sighs and hums of Riven herself slowly entwine themselves into the warmth of her groans, a smile that falls and leaves her mouth hanging a little more open. The weight she was resting on her knees seems to give way, and Riven arches her body back to push the crux of her legs down into Yasuo's mouth. His hands move from her thighs to up her back, pressing into her spine. 

"Ya-- Yasu- please, a little..."

Like clouds in the sky, like fire over grass, her mind fogs and becomes only his mouth and the warmth he attends to, losing her sentence with a mindless moan. Her hands reach back, as mindful of his own body as she can be, to give herself some support.

"Gods, I-- Yasuo, I..."

Abruptly - she leans forward instead, hands landing above her knees and her weight pushing forward, a proper grind into his face, his eager, waiting tongue - Yasuo breathes against her, kisses her slick core and presses his tongue flat against it, and it twists another cry out of her. 

Her words blend to a hysteria of his name and sharp gasps, rolling to louder moans when her body tenses once more and the futon creaks on its wood base when her knee jerks and she straights completely, back slowly arching and her release crashes like a hot coil unleashed. She pushes against him and he draws her in, lapping at her and toying with her clit until her vision is is static and he's drank the words out of her.

Riven unleashes one more sharp cry and she lurches forward, his hands still over her thighs but the warmth between her legs lifted from Yasuo's mouth. He gasps, lungs rushed with air, mouth wet from worshipping her. 

Slowly, Riven crawls down him again, toned arms trembling before she drops herself down against him, half off his chest so he can keep breathing. She pants, and he does as well - the crux of her thighs are damp against his pants, but it goes unnoticed. 

Riven is the first to laugh. Shaky, and out of breath.

"Would you-" she takes another breath, eyes closed against his chest, "-care for me to reciprocate?"

Yasuo's eyes are open, and he looks at her - the top of her head, where he can see and feel her hair spill down the arm he puts around her. 

"I'm flattered your mind's gone there already."

With a smile curled on her lips, Riven lifts her head, opens her eyes, and leans up to kiss him. Yasuo regards her with a touch of bewilderment. 

"And impressed that you'd kiss the mouth that just went down on you."

She keeps the grin. 

"You may be impressed regarding many things about me."

[hoverbun]

silence of the night

fandom: persona 3 character(s): shinjiro aragaki, minato arisato ship(s): shinjiro/minato synopsis: A moment between the dying is like a heart in the back of your throat. (note: shinjiro uses they/them pronouns)   word count: 595 

They are a walking discomfort.

Bones that don’t fit their body wrapped tight in rough skin. A head full of teeth that knock together. They are made of broken wood charred from old forest fires and they feel like they’ll snap with improper footing. They deal with it. They’ve always had to deal with it.

Shinjiro feels like their body is at war with itself. Arisato looks at them like he can tell.

The others, in their overwhelming need to control their collapsing lives, pretending like they don’t know the world’s going to end, wash themselves in an optimistic hope, smile through Shinjiro and pretend the rot in the back of their throat isn’t belligerent and cancerous. Either they don’t know, or they do, and hope crushing their soul in their clean hands can help them. It doesn’t.

The smiles are understanding. The questions aren’t ignorant. They're a well meaning crowd, no matter who tries to break the glass wall Shinjiro has put up. Arisato, however, doesn't do that. He'll stand with Shinjiro on a street corner and not walk until they take the first step. He'll sit at a table and won't speak until Shinjiro does first - and sometimes they don't at all, because Arisato doesn't watch them like he's waiting for the silence to break.

Mutuality, dualism, metaphors that talk about woven destiny and purposed fate when both of them just question what really exists - their conversations are ripe with silence and understanding. They sit together. They look at each other a lot. Silent companionship.

They’re alone. The dorm isn’t their home, and Shinjiro knows this. The silence is consuming and rolls down the uneven angles of their skeleton, burrowed inside. Minato leans back and has one leg over another, like his comfort can be faked. Or maybe Shinjiro is just too dramatic.

It’s a couple of glances. It’s some question about plans for the night, if they’ll bury themselves alive or be back in time for the group expeditions. The silence tangles in the shallow breathing of Shinjiro's moth-kept lungs until Arisato tells them he'd like them there. Shinjiro puts their hands inside of their coat pockets, open hands laying over their thighs from inside. The couch is uncomfortable. As they do with everything - they manage.

They don’t like to lie around him. They might do it anyway, but Arisato will let them chalk it off to compulsion.

Arisato moves a little on the couch, and Shinjiro feels a pressure on their shoulder, all narrow and hollow and nursing the tired body of Minato Arisato, who wraps an arm around the one he's resting against.

It's not even midnight, Shinjiro doesn't say. 

It's not about midnight, Minato doesn't reply.

The kind of exhaustion that hits you when you feel your body's energy drain like a sink without a plug. The way your eyes sink down and your body wants to crash to the ground but sleep won't take you. The moment you feel your back start to ache, your eyes start to strain, but you keep going. A rest on a couch won't change that. There's no remedy for responsibility.

Minato isn't the type to tell you nothing is wrong when it isn't. He's just the type not to say anything at all. That's the kind of dying Shinjiro recognizes like a two year trauma, and they exhale as a response.

Shinjiro leans their head against Minato's. Minato hums a sigh and closes his eyes.

They're a long ways away from the end. A midnight respite together is still something they deserve.