#A fic that was eating dust in my drafts

[thehopelessslacker]

Hope you enjoy it.^^

[florencemtrash]

Bedsides and Breakfasts

Summary: After Azriel comes home battered and bruised, he refuses to eat the meal you've made him... Why?

Warnings: Angst, character injury, fluff

Author's note: For context, Y/n is Helion's bastard daughter. In an earlier draft of my other (very long) fic, The Shadowsinger and The Inkbird, this was going to be a scene that takes place after Azriel gets hurt during the Battle on the Lake where Y/n figures out Azriel is her mate. I wanted to finish it up and get it out there because I don't want to say goodbye to that story just yet and I wanted to get back into writing so.... here ya go!

The Townhouse sang quietly as it worked. Its melodies lay in the shifting curtains that shook off dust into the wind. Its lyrics in the whistling teakettle. You liked these sounds as you moved about the kitchen, preparing your tea and a crust of bread slathered with butter and jam. 

When the Townhouse was empty, you didn’t need to fear your power — there was no one around for you to touch and steal memories from. Mor had tried to drag you out to Rita’s that evening — “Rhys says you’ve learned to keep your Clairvoyance at bay! Come dancing with us!” — but you couldn’t muster the courage or the energy.

Besides, you were awaiting a certain Shadowsinger’s arrival. 

“Won’t you come back and make me your home? You who’ve stolen my heart as simple as a whisper, calm as a storm,” You hummed to yourself. You swore the Townhouse sighed in contentment. “Do you like my silly little songs then?” You mused. 

The lights shone a little brighter, crackling the air with a flicker of energy. 

You were singing about Azriel — of course you were — and blushing all the while. He’d been the first to truly speak to you — the first to notice you — and the embrace you’d shared in Rhysand’s office had left you breathless for days. You could still feel the ghost of his breath against your neck as you’d buried your face in the hollow of his throat. The cracked leather beneath your fingers and the short hairs at the base of his skull you’d caressed as lovingly as any flower. It was the first time you’d ever been touched like that. Like you were something worth holding onto. 

When he was gone, the Townhouse felt too empty. You felt too empty. Even now, the edges of your patience frayed like a worn shirt without him. 

You spent the evening’s hours combing through every book you’d managed to lug over from the Library. It was quick, but taxing work as every touch against the weathered binding allowed you to absorb its knowledge without you ever having to lay an eye on the page. 

When the candle flickered dangerously close to your books and the dull throbbing behind your eyes had gone on for too long, you blew out the light and could do no more than curl up on the sofa before falling fast asleep. 

The whispers of shadows woke you. You couldn’t understand the words hidden within their overlapping voices, but their panic and relief were heavy in the air. You could almost taste their meaning on your tongue.

“Y/n,” Azriel moaned. He leaned heavily against the open door, forcing it open against the drag of the carpet. His sword clattered to the ground before his knees. “Y/n,” he called out again, more urgently this time. He prayed to the gods you were home. He’d flown through the night, tattered wings struggling to keep him aloft, to make sure he’d see you again… just in case.

Blood and iron burned your nose and your sleep-swollen eyelids split open. “Az—” Your knee slammed against the coffee table in your struggle to escape the blankets. “AZ!” 

Azriel was always greedy for the sight of you, and that familiar tug in his chest tightened as you rounded the corner and sprinted towards him. You tripped where the hardwood ended and the carpet began, throwing his arm around your shoulder. 

He smiled softly at you. Three months ago, you’d been too afraid to touch anyone. Now here you were half-supporting his weight as he staggered to his feet. He stole a few precious seconds to lean his head into the crook of your neck and breathe in your scent. For a moment, he believed it would be enough to heal him.

“How bad is it?” 

“Three arrows in the right wing, two in the left. Fae bane.” 

“Anywhere else?” You both stumbled down the hallway back from where you’d come. 

“I may have been stabbed a few times.” He offered the piece of information casually, like he was complaining about the price of eggs.

“What’s a few?” Your eyes were wide as the moon. Searching, searching, searching for wounds.

“Ten?” 

Your growl tore through the quiet of the night. 

Your hands were slippery with blood, and Azriel almost slid out of your fingertips as you deposited him against the table. You flung your arms out over the hardwood tabletop sending bottles of ink, pens, and sheafs of papers clattering to the floor before rolling Azriel onto the top and forcing him to lay down.

Under the chandelier, Azriel looked ghastly. The warmth was drained from his skin and the hollows of his eyes and the fullness of his lips were tinged purple from cold. His eyes drifted apart from one another.

“I need you to stay awake.” 

“I will.” His words were slippery as soap on porcelain, syllables sliding into one another as he promised you he would be alright and that he had suffered worse before.  

“Stay awake!” You commanded him and his eyes sharpened ever so slightly on your figure as you tore through the cabinets in the corner. 

Where is it? Where is it? Glass bottles clinked and tottered on rounded bottoms. There! 

You snatched one of the pale green bottles lining the back wall and bit off the cork top with a grimace, spitting it out onto the floor. You could taste the medicine inside coat your teeth with an acrid film. 

“Hey, hey, hey.” You slapped Azriel’s cheeks to keep him awake. “Drink this.” 

Azriel’s lips parted immediately and he accepted every bitter drop you forced down his throat. It wasn’t a cure, but it would help stabilize him long enough for help to arrive. In the time it took for you to call out to Rhys and light the candle that would wake Madja and call her to the Townhouse, Azriel’s cheeks had flushed with some more color. 

The sight did little to ease your worries as you worked on unbuckling the straps of his armor. Piece by piece they fell away with a wet thud on the ground. 

He grabbed your wrist before you could run in search of something to cut off the clothes clinging to him like a second skin. Elain had left gardening shears on the back porch. Perhaps the kitchen had scissors?

“Stay.” He begged. “Please stay.”

“Rhys and Madja will be here soon. I just need to get something to help you.” 

“Then stay.” His grip turned desperate, short nails digging into your forearm. “Stay and help me. Don’t leave me.” 

Azriel might have smiled if he wasn’t in so much pain. His hand slid up the curve of your arm to hold your neck, thumb tracing the line of your jaw. 

“I wanted to see you just in case.” His chest rattled with the effort, “Gods, I missed you.” 

He’d been gone weeks on the Continent, scrounging after every whisper of Koschei’s name as far as the eastern mountains. He’d scavenged and raged. Killed and tortured. And he’d missed you all the while. It was what had possessed him to fly all the way to Velaris, when he would have been better off breaking into the Day Court and throwing himself at the mercy of Helion — your father. 

You felt the tears prick at your eyes, angry and hot. “If you say another fucking word like you’re about to die, I will kill you myself.” You were not prone to violence, and Azriel felt some pride that he could elicit such an emotion from you. 

Luckily for you both, Azriel didn’t get a chance to say anything else, and you didn’t get a chance to murder him before Rhysand, Feyre, Cassian, and Madja were bursting through the front door and following the blood-red trail to the dining room. 

Azriel squeezed your hand once more. “Stay with me.”

“Where else would I go, Az?” You whispered, pressing a quick kiss to the palm of his hand before the others crowded close. 

You stayed at the head of the table, one hand always holding onto Azriel’s. He swallowed his pain, the faintest groans slipping from his lips as arrows were pulled out inch by bloody inch. It was no easy thing to endure, not even for Azriel. Wicked barbs lined the arrow shaft and caught onto the delicate membrane of his wings no matter how Madja twisted, pushed, and pulled. 

One particularly harsh wrench had Azriel crying out, his nails digging into your arm and drawing blood. 

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, feeling your skin break beneath his nails. His skin was tinged green now. A sickly sheen covered his face and fell over his eyes. 

“It’s ok. It’s ok. Just look at me.” You grasped the sides of his face. “Look at me.” 

Once again, Azriel was ready to listen to your commands. His eyes never left yours, not once, until the last of the faebane-tipped arrows dropped onto the table with a menacing ring of metal on wood.

Feyre closed his wounds as best she could, but the flesh inside would take longer to heal. For now all they could do was carefully wipe the blood from his body and carry him up to his bedroom. 

You lingered by Azriel’s side long after he fell asleep, fingers twitching with nerves as you counted every slow and steady breath of his. 

“Y/n.” Feyre gently touched your arm. “He’ll be alright.”

You nodded, still watching Azriel sleep. Then, to your mortification, you burst into tears. Your clothes were drying stiff with sweat and blood — none of it yours — and the red handprints Azriel had left along your arms were turning to copper rust. 

She shushed you, softly tugging at your arms. 

“He-He asked me to stay,” you said between gulps of air. 

“He’d want you to be clean and well-rested, Y/n. Don’t let him wake up feeling guilty.” 

If it weren’t for Feyre, you would have remained glued to the floor of Azriel’s room until you became one of the faces trapped in the wooden floors. You let her lead you across the hall to your own room where she filled the tub with warm water and soap. 

“Shit,” you mumbled. Your fingers shook so much you couldn’t undo the buttons of your dress. Shadows, loose and long as stalks of grass, wound around your back, plucking the buttons undone without a word. 

“He’ll be alright.” Feyre repeated this phrase many times as you scrubbed off the night’s events and turned the water copper brown. The magic of the Townhouse whisked away the grime almost as quickly as it appeared until you sat in a sudsy bath, milky and clean.

“What happened to him, Fey?”

“From what Rhys and I can tell, Koschei had over a dozen archers lying in wait for when he returned to Prythian. We’ve already warned Helion.” 

You nodded. Your head felt heavy on your neck, like a doll with a snapped neck. 

“He nearly died.” Once the words were out in the open, fragile and pure, you broke down again, knees drawn up to your chest in the tub. 

“But he didn’t.” Feyre smoothed back your dripping hair. “It will take more than arrows and faebane for Death to steal him from us, Y/n.” 

Gods you hoped that was true, or else your heart might give out every time Azriel walked out the door. 

You returned to his side the moment you were clothed, hair still dripping onto his gray bed sheets as you leaned forward from your chair and held his hand. He slept on his stomach, wings flared out and peppered with white gauze like a patchwork quilt. Beneath the drape of his blankets you knew more gauze covered his chest and stomach, dotted with blood like blooming roses. 

You didn’t know when you fell asleep, but you awoke to a deep ache in your back and a faint choir of voices in the air. 

Shadows. 

They kissed your cheeks, cool and soft, urging your eyelids open. Azriel was already awake and sitting up in bed with a grimace. One hand clutched his side and a leg hung over the edge of the bed, like he intended to stand. When he saw you, his hazel eyes widened. First in alarm. Then in guilt. 

“Az?” Your voice felt crusted with smoke and sleep and you did what you could to straighten the crook in your neck and your spine from the odd position you’d fallen asleep in. ““You’re not supposed to be sitting up.” Your bones cracked obnoxiously as you moved for the first time in hours, and the guilt in his gaze deepened. 

You pressed lightly against his chest, feeling the gauze scratch your skin, but he did not budge. 

“Az, you need to lay down. What were you even doing up?” 

Azriel’s eyes flickered off to the side. “I was… I was trying to move you to the bed.” 

You swallowed your yawn and blinked in disbelief. “Azriel, you’ve just been shot and stabbed. You need to lay back down.” 

He grabbed your wrists, tugging you forward until you almost collapsed against his chest. “There’s space on the bed. I want you to be comfortable.” 

“The chair is fine, and you are hurt. Now, please—” He did not move. No matter how you reasoned with him. No matter how you tried to shove him back beneath the covers.

“I will lay back down under one condition.” 

You frowned. He was much more stubborn when he was injured. “What condition?” 

“Sleep on the bed. There’s plenty of room.” 

“Az—” 

“Please.” His hands slipped into yours, fingers pressing against the pulse of your wrists. “Y/n, I will be comforted with you beside me.” He held up his finger before you could sleep. “And not in that gods-awful chair. You’ll wake up crooked.”

“I’m not a stalk in a storm,” you grumbled, because it only seemed appropriate that you should fight him on this. Otherwise, you’d have to admit that the thought of melting into his bed set off fireworks in your stomach, exciting and terrifying at the same time. You’d also have to admit the scent of mountain air embedded in every inch of his room brought you comfort. You could lay your head on his pillows and sleep for an eternity. 

I shouldn’t be here. But you let him tug you closer to him. You slid your legs over his waist, calves catching on the waistband of his pants and dragging in a way that had your heart leaping into your stomach until you were safely on the other side of him. 

Azriel’s bed was massive — over 12 feet across to better accommodate the span of his wings. You moved as far away from him as you could without eliciting offense and stared at the window. 

Your muscles clenched as he shifted closer to you, wings rustling against the silk sheets and whispering as he got comfortable. Every time he so much as shifted, your back prickled, as though you had eyes there that shifted to soak up every inch of him. 

He’s hurt and I’m taking up space and—

He reached out his arm and his fingertips brushed against the curve of your back. You stiffened like you’d been struck by lightning. If Azriel were awake, he would have apologized and wrenched back his hand as if burned. But he was fast asleep and the touch was a natural movement he made in his dreams where he was imagining that you were closer to him. So close that he could breathe down your neck and feel you melt beneath his touch. 

You didn’t sleep, as much as the lull of his breathing threatened to sink you into sweet and comforting dreams. The sky was but a lighter shade of black when you were slipping out of bed with barely a whisper. Miraculously, Azriel did not awaken, and his shadows ghosted over the floors drowsily.

You were no stranger to dawn as you padded down to the kitchens. You hummed to yourself, cracking eggs over a well-greased skillet with onions, tomatoes, and peppers tossed in. They bobbed up and down in a sea of yellow like ducks on water. Potatoes browned to your right, their skins crackling and spitting grease as bacon popped and sizzled beside them. 

You ate as you went, plating the final meal for Azriel, who—if you knew anything about him—would be waking shortly after the first rays of sunlight split his shadows in two. 

You slipped back into his room as quietly as you’d left, and then nearly leapt out of your skin to find a dark mass of shadow covering the bed. 

“You’re awake,” you said blankly. 

Azriel propped himself up onto his elbows, back rippling as he forced his stiff and swollen wounds to stretch until he could sit up in bed. 

“Where did you go?” There was but a faint slur to his words. “You weren’t here when I woke up.” 

“I was making breakfast.” You dragged over the ottoman from the foot of his bed as a makeshift table. “Did you brush your teeth already?” Not that it mattered. A sour mouth wouldn’t keep him from a meal if he was hungry. 

The flash of fear in his eyes was so subtle, so brief, that you missed it. 

“I’m not hungry.” 

“Well that doesn’t really matter. Madja said you should eat first thing. Oh!” You plucked a purple glass bottle from his bedside table. “And she said to drink this with a meal.” You pushed it into his hands, reluctant as they were to take the stoppered bottle from you. 

“I can’t imagine eating right now.” He said, shaking his head. His cheeks puffed out and he swallowed hard. “The smell… it’s… I can’t stomach it.” 

You frowned at that. He liked your cooking. It was only due to circumstance that you hadn’t been able to cook for him in months. 

“Can you please try?” you begged. “Just a bite.”

His skin turned pallid and the dark marks beneath his eyes stood out. He picked up a fork with a trembling hand, stuck it into a potato, then dropped it as if it burned. Suddenly, he regretted asking you to stay the night. Guilt ate away at his stomach, twisting it like spaghetti on a fork. 

You sighed in dejection. “I’ll bring it back downstairs.” You said. You began collecting the silverware from where you’d left them by his side. 

“I’m sorry.” He murmured, catching your wrist in his hand. 

You smiled softly. “Try and get some rest.” 

“Will you be back?” His words caught you by the door. 

“You won’t even realize I was gone.” 

He doubted that very much. Still, he settled back in bed, rolling onto his stomach to keep its rumbling at bay. He was quite hungry. 

You closed the door behind you, carrying the untouched plate of eggs and potatoes. Cassian stopped his whistling as he made his way down the hall, a teasing smile playing at his lips until he caught sight of your dejected expression. 

“What’s got our resident Librarian frowning? Did someone misplace a book in the House?” 

You didn’t rise to Cassian’s jests. You cast a sullen glance back at Azriel’s door like it was personally responsible for everything, and shrugged. “He hasn’t eaten since he’s been back and I’m starting to get worried. I read up on Illyrian anatomy weeks ago and he should be fine enough to eat by now.” 

Cassian leaned down, taking a careful sniff of the plate before grabbing hold of a butter and rosemary roasted potato and plucking it in his mouth. It was cold and the butter had hardened into a greasy slick, but it was still good. He told you as much as he walked with you back to the kitchens, stealing slivers of potato as he went.

“It’s nice to know my cooking’s not at fault.” 

Cassian jerked back in surprise and sudden understanding. “You made him that?”

“Yes. I know the House has its own will, but I like to cook. And it still feels strange having food just appear out of nowhere.”  

Cassian fought with all his might to keep the cheeky grin from his face. 

Poor Azriel, forced to go hungry because he was still too much of a sheepish fool to tell you about the mating bond let alone accept it. 

He clicked his tongue. He loved his brother to the grave and back, but Azriel had a horrible habit of getting trapped in his own mind. Cassian had hoped you would help with that, given you suffered similarly. 

“I wouldn’t take it too personally. Azriel’s a picky eater. Always has been.”

That was a complete and utter lie. Growing up in the Illyrian war camps meant you either starved or ate whatever gray-brown mush you could get your hands on. Rhysand and Azriel had been quicker to move on from the rugged Illyrian lifestyle, and Rhysand especially had used his High Lord privileges to cultivate a refined and expensive taste, but if they were hungry and limited they didn’t give two shits what went in their mouths. 

“I didn’t realize you could afford to be picky in a war camp,” You grumbled. You dropped the plate’s contents onto a skillet, patiently waiting for the House to light a toasty fire. There was no need to let good food go to waste.   

You thought over it, some minor irritation settling in that the Shadowinger had rejected the food you’d worked to make. It really didn’t make sense that Azriel would be so particular about food. Or anything for that matter. He’d always struck you as the practical, bare-bones sort, and you knew him well enough now to know that was true. His very job required it of him. But then again you couldn’t remember the last time he’d accepted any food that you’d offer-

You froze. Oh. Oh.

The first night he’d visited your apartment in the Day Court, he’d refused your tea and cakes before leaving abruptly. You’d agonized over that night for months, trying to figure out what you might have done to scare him off. But he’d been so kind and shy afterwards and then the whole matter of Koschei had arose and you’d never given it much thought because he just seemed so familiar and... Oh. OH-

“BASTARD!” You spat out in shock. The skillet dropped to the stove with a sharp cry that had Cassian blinking. He’d never seen you like this. So…agitated.

Had you always been this dull? A year ago you might have been able to blame it on your naïveté, but you weren’t so socially misinformed now and yet this was a bit much. And… oh you couldn’t wrap your head around your own stupidity to even begin to think about a mating bond with…

A mating bond with Azriel. You… you were his mate. He was yours. And you were his. And suddenly the pieces of it were falling into place so quickly you thought you might be crushed beneath the weight. 

Mate.

Even the thought of the word crashed around your mind incessantly, like an anxious dog trying to settle down to sleep. Yet it all made such perfect sense. The way Azriel always found you when you were in danger or grieving. The awful days when Azriel had been away and you’d felt like a piece of your body had been severed. The way that the world felt right when he was beside you. Maybe it was the bond, maybe it was just something born out of love, or maybe they were one and the same. It was impossible to tell but it didn’t change anything.

Mate.

Cassian glanced sideways at you and said cautiously, “We’re both bastards, Y/n. I don’t think that’s much of an insult coming from your mouth.”

Your eyes snapped to his, suddenly remembering that he was in the kitchen with you. You brandished a fork in your hand like a weapon, pointing the pronged end up at him like he was a piece of meat to be skewered. You were shorter than him, but the sharpness in your eyes made him pause.

“You.” Such a simple word, yet it sounded so threatening. “You knew didn’t you?”

Was he sweating? The room felt warm.

“I don’t know what-“ You snatched his wrist and with your magic, you stole the information from him that you needed. It was as easy as plucking a flower from a field. 

Fuck. Cassian groaned at the same time you did. You knew now. Not that you really needed confirmation from Cassian. Still. It was rather embarrassing to learn you were the last of… well everyone to know, even if it was your fault for not noticing the signs. In your defense you had been preoccupied with other matters…

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” You muttered, heating up the remaining food with a great deal of force before setting down a fresh tray, plate, utensils, and mug of tea on the countertop.

You keep muttering to yourself, your joy disguised by your embarrassment and no small amount of shock. Cassian watched nervously as you prepped the plate. 

You’d no sooner growled, “Move,” before Cassian leapt to the side and you set off out the door and down the hallway back to Azriel’s room.

She knows. One shadow whispered in his ear. Azriel felt his heart skyrocket and his stomach plunge to the cradle of his hip bones. 

She seems… upset.

Upset was a mild word. You were alight with every emotion possible — fury, fear, anxiety, excitement, love — and Azriel struggled to tease them apart. It was like he’d been hit in the chest by a tangle of snakes, each a writhing, living, ever-changing thing. One moment you seemed nervous, the next angry. 

“You.” Your knuckles were pale as they gripped the tray. Sunlight molded to your form like a crown, and it became all the more apparent that you were Helion’s daughter — his bastard daughter, but daughter nevertheless. 

He scrambled into a seated position just in time for you to drop the tray in his lap with a clatter that sent fork and knife skittering over the dish.

You looked down at the tray, then up at his eyes, wide and molten as amber. “You didn’t tell me.” You didn’t need to elaborate any further. 

“I didn’t think—”

“You’re right. You didn’t.” You blinked, suddenly shy. “Did I not make it clear enough that I liked you? That I loved—love you? Or perhaps you don’t… perhaps you don’t want me.” That was a possibility you hadn’t thought of in your excitement to see him again. 

Oh gods, you hadn’t thought of that possibility had you? You’d just aggressively thrown food at him, expecting that he would—

Azriel gripped your chin, forcing you to look at him again. Your cheeks were warm and painted with color. 

“I always worried I was reading into actions that meant nothing to you. But, never think for a moment that I don’t want you.” He smiled then, a shy, secret smile reserved for you. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you.” 

Now your cheeks were burning, but Azriel did not mind feeling this kind of heat on his hands. He let go of your chin, twirling a fork with his fingers like it was a knife. It was one of his few nervous ticks whose knowledge was reserved for the people he trusted. For the people he loved. 

“Being with me will put you in more danger than you know.” 

“But I expect it will bring me more happiness than I could have ever imagined.” You raised a hand up to his face, twisting away a stubborn curl of hair that fell over his forehead. “And you forget who my father is,” you reminded him. “Maybe it is I who will put you in danger.” 

“Maybe,” Azriel whispered. His breath fanned over your cheeks, soft and sweet. 

You picked up the fork, lifting it up in between you. 

“Eat.” You commanded him. 

Azriel smiled, plucking it from your fingers and stabbing a potato. He sighed. “I never could deny you anything, and I would never want to,” he said, before chewing carefully. Cautiously. 

You blinked in surprise, instinctively taking a step away when you felt something new and warm begin to burn in your chest, like someone had taken a drop of the molten hazel in Azriel’s eyes and dropped it into your heart. 

“Oh.” You breathed. 

“Yes,” Azriel murmured, “An unusual feeling, I know.” He placed the tray beside him and he’d no sooner opened his arms before you’d buried your face in the crook of his neck. You wanted more of that warmth in your chest. You wanted to slip into Azriel's skin as close as possible to his beating heart. To feel the mating bond wrap around you both like a curtain to block out the rest of the world. 

Azriel groaned in pain, but would not let you leave his embrace. No pain had ever been worth so much. 

You forced him to finish eating, even though all he wanted was the taste of you on his lips. “Later,” you promised him. When he was healed and whole there would be more breathless kisses and urgent touches, but for now he had to content himself with eating his meal and drinking his draught. But he would not be denied the press of your skin against his as you slipped beneath the covers and curled up beside him. This time, you fell asleep quickly and your dreams came over you like water. 

[genshinluvr]

Failed Attempts

Pairings: Various Genshin Men x Isekai'd!Reader

Summary: An AU in which you and the men aren't dating (yet). This is about the men and their failed attempts at flirting with you and getting some alone time with you away from the others.

Note: Hello, I typed this out while I was sick, so I have no idea how this turns out. I did have a first draft at first, but then I didn't like how it was turning out, so I deleted the first draft and started a new one. Which is this one! ;v; I hope you all like it or at least find it decent. I type the entire thing while having a fever and during my midterms week 💀 Since Valentine's Day is coming up in two days, I guess this can count as one. Especially towards the end of the fic, maybe 🤔 To the new and returning readers, please remember that I don't post anywhere else but on Tumblr (Genshinluvr) and on AO3 (Aaliah_exo).

Warnings: None that I know of unless Childe wanting fourteen children counts.

Word Count: 10.1k

There are many times when the twenty-five men have attempted to flirt with you and ask you out on a date, but their attempts would fly over your head. Imagine trying to ask your crush out or flirt with them, only for them to stare back at you cluelessly or brush it off as any other comment. The reaction is like a kick to the gut, but in this case, a kick to the ego and pride. It’s a hilarious sight for Lumine, Paimon, and anyone who witnesses it in person. The failed attempts are entertaining for any person that sees them in person. Not only is it funny, but it’s also hard to watch.

Here you are, pinned against the wall. Childe’s arms cage you between the wall of the estate and his body. He gazes at you with intensity while you stare back at him owlishly. The look on your face is so cute that it makes Childe want to lean down and bite your cheeks. The upstairs cheeks, but the downstairs ones are good too— for the bedroom.

“So, [Y/N], what do you think about us having a future together? You, me, us living in Snezhnaya and having fourteen children?” Childe asks casually.

You look at Childe with wide eyes. “Fourteen children? I don’t think I’ll be able to handle that many children, Childe. I can barely handle twenty-five men living under the same roof as me,” you say lightheartedly.

Childe opens his mouth to reply, but the timer next to the oven chimes, startling both of you. You peek from under his arms, and your eyes light up. Before Childe had you pinned to the estate’s wall, you were baking cookies because you were craving chocolate chip cookies. And now they are done baking in the oven!

“The cookies are ready!” You said.

You duck from underneath Childe’s arms and trot over to the kitchen, grabbing oven mitts, opening the oven, and pulling out the tray of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The smell of freshly baked cookies wafts in the air, almost making you moan at the delicious aroma. Childe is left standing there, his mouth agape, looking at you in disbelief.

Pantalone snickers and props his arm on Childe’s shoulder with a smirk. “Maybe [Y/N] doesn’t like the idea of being trapped in Snezhnaya with mini Tartaglias running around,” Pantalone teases Childe.

“I don’t blame them for avoiding Childe’s strange proposition! Sounds like a nightmare for us all! One Childe is enough already,” Scaramouche rolls his eyes, smirking at the annoyed ginger Harbinger. 

Itto snorts and smirks at Childe. “Maybe they’re not interested in you, Childe. I think they might be into onis like myself,” Itto says, flipping his hair over his shoulders.

Childe makes a face at Itto, brushing Pantalone’s arm off his shoulders with an eye roll. While in the kitchen, you place the chocolate chip cookies on the cooling rack and take your oven mitts off after closing the oven. You set the timer to five minutes for the cookies to cool down, placing the timer next to the cooling rack.

You walk out of the kitchen and dust your hands on your apron. “The cookies should be ready to eat after five minutes! Although I can’t guarantee that it won’t be hot. I think it’s better to eat them fresh than eat them days after it's fresh out of the oven,” you said.

Kaeya approaches where you’re standing and stands before you. Kaeya caresses your face in his left hand, brushing the tip of his thumb against the apples of your cheek. Kaeya smiles at you and gazes at you with the softest expression you have ever seen. You look at Kaeya, breathless. Kaeya brushes a strand of hair away from your face, tucking them behind your ear. Childe, Itto, Pantalone, and Scaramouche stare at Kaeya blankly. How dare Kaeya make such a suave move on you right in front of their very own eyes? Especially after Childe’s failed attempts of getting you to elope with him, move to Snezhnaya with him, and raise fourteen children together. Not that they think about it— Childe, Itto, Scaramouche, and Pantalone can see why the red-headed whine tycoon dislikes his adoptive brother so much.

“Once the cookies are done cooling down, care to eat the cookies with me in front of the fireplace? Just you and me?” Kaeya asks.

To you, Kaeya’s voice is soft and gentle. But to the other men around him, Kaeya’s voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Of course, the Calvary Captain is suave with the ladies! It’s no surprise that someone like Kaeya would be able to scare a total babe like you. Right? You stare up at Kaeya, and a big smile appears on your face.

“That sounds perfect, Kaeya! We can all sit in front of the fireplace and eat freshly baked cookies! It’s a perfect atmosphere!” You said.

Everyone almost burst out laughing. Kaeya didn’t have a strong reaction to your obliviousness. Instead, Kaeya continues to smile at you and nod. Kaeya doesn’t mind that other people will be joining the both of you in front of the fireplace, eating freshly baked chocolate chip cookies that you have baked. As long as you’re sitting next to him, he doesn’t mind having other people join you two.

Kaeya’s bottom lip juts out. “You’ll be sitting next to me, right?” Kaeya asks. He reaches for your hand and interlocks his fingers with yours.

The little display of affection causes the men in the room to go silent. Eyes narrowing, their eyes zeroed in on your and Kaeya’s laced fingers. You squeeze Kaeya’s hands and nod.

“Of course, we can sit next to each other, Kaeya! You don’t need to ask,” you reply. “Besides, I think everyone sitting around the fireplace while eating cookies would be a perfect time for us all to get to know each other more,” you said.

Itto holds his hand in the air. “What if we don’t care about the others, but we only care about you?” Itto asks.

You snort. “Itto, I think you all should care about each other regardless. Plus, since we’re all living under the same roof in the abode, it would be nice if we all got to know each other and formed a friendship,” you reply.

“What about a relationship?” Aether asks.

You stare at him and at the other men, who are all anticipating your response to Aether’s question.

“I mean, if you all want to get into a relationship with each other, go ahead!” You shrug your shoulders.

Everyone in the room either face-palmed or stared at you in disbelief. How are you this dense? Well, technically, Aether wasn’t as specific as he should be, but your response is something they did not expect.

“No, no, no, sweetheart. I think Aether meant forming a relationship with you,” Capitano says, rubbing your shoulders.

You shrug your shoulders again. “A relationship can mean anything. There are many terms for relationships,” you murmur, stroking your chin.

Kaveh slams his forehead on the table. “Dear archons! This is getting us nowhere,” Kaveh groans.

You wince at the sound of Kaveh’s forehead meeting the wooden table in front of him. The tension in the room is interrupted by the sound of the timer chiming from the kitchen. You walk to the kitchen to check on the chocolate chip cookies, leaving the men to their thoughts.

“I can’t believe that [Y/N] assumed that we wanted to date each other,” Gorou shivers, shaking his head.

Ayato sighs and rubs his temples. “I can’t tell whether they’re pretending to be oblivious about us trying to make a move on them or if they’re being serious about it,” Ayato murmurs, looking over in your direction.

“Judging by the expression on their face, I’m afraid they’re not joking around,” Diluc replies.

A few minutes later, you emerge from the kitchen with a plate of chocolate chip cookies in your hands with a big smile. You gesture for the men to follow you to the living room and set the plate of cookies down in front of the fireplace. The cookies are warm, and you broke one cookie in half in the kitchen to see how well the chocolate has melted, and it was perfect. 

“The cookies turned out perfect! It’s a perfect amount of gooeyness to the melted chocolate, and it’s warm and soft,” you said.

Thoma walks up to you and drapes his arms over your shoulders. “The cookies look perfect, [Y/N]! I can never get my cookies to turn out as perfect as yours. Care to show me how to bake a cookie as perfect as yours?” Thoma asks, smiling down at you. 

You smile and nod. “Of course! I’ll write down the instructions for you and give them to you tonight!” You said, grabbing a piece of cookie and biting into it.

The chocolate melts on your tongue, and the flavor bursts in your mouth, making you moan. You close your eyes with contentment and lick the chocolate from the corner of your lips. The cookie tastes heavenly, and you certainly died and went to heaven after taking a bite of the cookies. When you open your eyes, you notice that no one is eating the cookies. Instead, their eyes are focused on you, more specifically, your lips. 

“What? Is there something on my lips?” You ask, feeling around your lips to make sure there aren’t any crumbs sticking to your lips.

Albedo nods his head and steps forward. He cups your face in his hands, tilts your head up, and wipes the small piece of crumb near your chin. Albedo wipes a tiny bit of chocolate stain at the corner of your lip before lifting the same finger and licking the chocolate from the tip of his finger. 

Albedo smiles at you. “There’s no need to worry about stains and crumbs on your face anymore, [Y/N],” he says softly. 

Albedo walks back to where he was standing earlier and crossed his arms over his chest with a faint smug smirk. The men around him look at Albedo in disbelief. How can someone like Albedo make such a bold move on you? Especially when it’s in front of other people who want [Y/N] almost as much as Albedo does. 

Kazuha lets out a low whistle. “How suave of you, Chief Alchemist,” Kazuha says, smiling at Albedo while gazing at the Chief Alchemist from the corner of his eyes. 

“So… are we not going to eat the cookies?” You ask, tilting your head to the side. “Of course, none of you have to eat the cookies if you don’t want to! I’m not going to force any of you to eat the cookies,” you chuckle, walking over to the couch and plopping down on it. 

Baizhu leans to Al Haitham and whispers, “Did Albedo’s action not affect [Y/N]?”

“I’m not entirely sure. [Y/N] is hard to read,” Al Haitham mutters.

Heizou grabs a chocolate chip cookie and sits on the couch beside you, looking over at Kaeya with a smirk on his face. Kaeya stares at Heizou with his eyebrows raised, a humorless smirk appearing on Kaeya’s face. Heizou taps your shoulder and motions for you to rest your head on his shoulders.

“If you need a shoulder to lean on, you can always lean on my shoulders. Only someone as special as you can lean on my shoulders,” says Heizou, shooting you a charming smile.

Without a second thought, you happily lean your head on Heizou’s shoulders while taking a bite of your cookie. You look at Kaeya and reach your hand out, making grabby motions with your hands. Kaeya feels his face heat up before walking over to you. Kaeya sits beside you, pulls you onto his lap, and reaches for a chocolate chip cookie to snack on while the men are glaring daggers at him.

“You’re really comfortable,” you murmur, snuggling into his arms after finishing your chocolate chip cookie.

Tighnari purses his lips. “I will not eat a chocolate chip cookie unless [Y/N] gets off of Kaeya’s lap,” Tighnari comments, sticking his nose up in the air with a huff. 

Cyno raises his eyebrows at Tighnari. “Well, that’s an unusual thing for you to say, Tighnari. I can see Childe be the one to make a comment like that, but you?” Cyno asks.

Pierro rolls his eyes. “Not only is it unusual, but it’s also childish coming from someone of his caliber,” Pierro looks at Tighnari from head to toe with an eyebrow raised.

A few minutes later, you end up getting off of Kaeya’s lap and walking back to the kitchen to grab a glass cup of milk. The cookie would taste even better with milk, so why not get some milk to drink with your chocolate chip cookie? When you walk back to the living room, everyone is already standing, and the cookies are missing from the plate. You look at the men and notice that their cheeks are stuffed.

You point at the plate and back at the men in front of you. “Did you all eat the cookies while I was gone?” You ask.

Venti quickly chews the chocolate chip cookie in his mouth and nods. “Yes! The cookies are delicious! We couldn’t help ourselves and decided to eat them,” Venti clears his throat after almost choking on a piece of crumb.

A big smile appears on your face after hearing what Venti said. “That’s great! What do you guys think of the cookies? Anything I need to change or improve on?” You ask.

Xiao shakes his head. “There’s nothing you need to change. The cookie is perfect, just the way it is. The same goes for you,” says Xiao.

Xiao hears a faint chuckle coming from behind him. Xiao’s head snaps towards the person’s direction, and he sees Dottore chuckling behind his hand while standing beside Pantalone, who is also chuckling.

“The Yaksha flirting with [Y/N]? How precious,” Dottore coos, giving Xiao a teasing grin.

Zhongli gives Dottore a disapproving look and shakes his head. “Dottore, I wouldn’t be speaking if I were you. Xiao has a subtle way of complimenting someone without being overbearing like someone in this room,” Zhongli says, turning to look at Dottore. 

The corner of Zhongli’s lips quirked up when Dottore’s smile slipped off his face. Dottore narrows his eyes at Zhongli and rolls his eyes, looking away from the ex-archon with his arms crossing over his chest. 

“Should I make more cookies?” You mutter, staring at the plate intently.

Dainsleif smiles at you. “That is up to you. Do you have enough ingredients for extra batches of cookies?” Dainsleif asks.

You puckered your lips and sighed. “I don’t think I do, but that’s okay! I can make more cookies next time!” You said.

You look at Dainsleif and notice that he has tiny little crumbs at the corner of his lips. You place your cup of milk down on the table before walking over to where he’s standing. You stand on the tip of your toes and wipe the crumbs away.

You look at Dainsleif through your eyelashes. “There were crumbs from the cookies at the corner of your lips. I had to wipe it away,” you murmur. “Although you look cute with cookie crumbs at the corner of your lips.” You giggle.

Dainsleif stares down at you, his cheeks bright pink. You give him a small smile and let your hand fall to your side. You turn and see the others looking at you and Dainsleif with a blank stare; all of them have crumbs at the corners of their lips.

Heizou points to his face. “I have crumbs on my face too. Care to wipe them away for me?” Heizou asks, flashing his pearly whites at you.

You snort and playfully roll your eyes. You walk up to Heizou and dust the crumbs from the corner of Heizou’s lips and cheek. Without saying a word, the men all line up behind Heizou, waiting for you to wipe the chocolate chip cookie crumbs off their faces. 

After Childe and Kaeya’s failed attempts at flirting with you, everyone assumes that you are either not interested or they just suck at flirting. Your stay at the estate continues to be peaceful, albeit a little bit awkward, because of the tension between the men and their unspoken competition to see who can ask you out first. While the men have been trying to flirt with you, you see their comments as them showing that they care about you and how attentive they are to you.

One way the men showed that they care about you is when that one time when you fell ill and couldn’t get out of bed because of how fatigued you felt and how weak your limbs were. You woke up one day and could barely open your eyes. All you wanted to do was to sleep in and do nothing at all but sleep. 

Your eyes crack open to the sound of knocking coming from your bedroom door. You roll over on your side and keep your eyes close, snuggling up against your blanket and pillow, feeling yourself drift off to sleep. You’re woken up by the sound of a knock coming from behind your door.

You swallow your saliva, feeling it slide down your severely dry throat, causing you to wince. “Yes?” You call out weakly.

You almost didn’t recognize your voice because of how scratchy and dry your throat feels. You clear your throat and weakly reach over to your nightstand for a glass cup of water. You sit up and pour water from the pitcher into the glass cup. The door to your bedroom cracks open, and several men peek into your room and see you chugging the water as if you haven’t drunk anything in days.

After drinking an entire cup of water, you put the cup down on your nightstand and wipe the water from your lips. Even though you chugged a whole cup of water, your throat continues to feel dry and scratchy.

“You don’t look too good, sweetheart,” Gorou frowns.

You smile at him weakly. “I don’t feel well either, Gorou,” you reply. 

You clear your throat and plop down on your bed, staring at the ceiling. Baizhu and Dottore push past the men and rush over to your bed. Baizhu and Dottore look down at you. You look like you’re about to pass out at any minute. You have dark circles underneath your eyes, your skin feels cold and clammy when Baizhu presses the back of his hand against your forehead, and your neck feels almost hot.

Dottore frowns and caresses your face in his hands. “Oh, sweetheart. It looks like you have a cold,” Dottore whispers, tucking your hair behind your ears and wiping the sweat from your forehead. 

“Stay in bed, alright? We’ll get you medication, and Thoma will make you some soup to eat,” says Baizhu; he turns to look at the blond.

Thoma nods and quickly rushes out of your bedroom and down the stairs to the kitchen to make some soup for you to eat. Baizhu and Dottore leave your side and walks to the infirmary in the estate, leaving you under the care of the other men. Diluc walks over to your bed and sits at the edge, watching you slowly get under the blankets, pulling it up to your chin.

Diluc leans down and presses his lips against your forehead, catching you and the others off guard. Diluc slowly pulls away and brushes the strands of your hair away from your sweaty forehead.

“Get well soon for us, alright? We don’t like seeing you sick,” Diluc murmurs, brushing his thumb against your flushed cheeks. 

You pout and attempt to poke his cheek in return, but you feel so weak that your hand falls onto the bed halfway. Diluc’s gaze softens, and he reaches for your hand, giving them a gentle squeeze. 

“I don’t know how I got sick. Maybe it’s my lack of sleep that got me sick,” you murmur, curling up into a fetal position and gazing at Diluc with bleary eyes. 

Al Haitham leans against the doorway. “Have you been around anyone that’s sick? None of us are sick,” Al Haitham gestures to everyone in the room with an eyebrow raised. 

You shake your head. “I don’t think so, but then again, I’ve always had a weak immune system. Unfortunately, having a weak immune system makes me vulnerable to many illnesses and diseases,” you reply. 

“Oh no,” Tighnari breathes, rubbing his temples with a sigh.

Kaveh points at you. “So, what you’re telling us is that we should put you in some kind of a bubble to protect you from all kinds of sicknesses, got it.”

You snort and nod, clutching tightly onto your soft blanket. “Yes, Kaveh. That is correct,” you murmur.

Aether looks like he is about to burst into tears; seeing you sick and in this condition worries him a lot. You mentioned that you have a weak immune system means that you’re very vulnerable and are susceptible to getting sick easily. Aether doesn’t want to see you suffer and be bedridden because your immune system isn’t strong enough to fight off many diseases and illnesses. Aether walks to you and sits across from Diluc, close to your thighs.

Aether leans down and rests his head on your stomach, wrapping his arms around your waist. “Please get well soon. I want you to be healthy, happy, and with me,” Aether looks up at you with a small pout on his face.

You chuckle and run your fingers through his soft blonde hair. “Aether, I’m always with you and the others. I hope I can recover from this cold because it’s a pain in the ass to be sick,” you murmur, pinching his cheek lightly.

Aether pouts after seeing that you didn’t know what he had implied earlier. The sound of stifled snickers fills your bedroom. Aether narrows his eyes and slowly turns to the group of men by your door, hiding their grins behind their hands. 

“Another failed attempt, but this time, it’s by Aether,” Venti whispers to Xiao, hiding his snickers behind his hand.

Xiao rolls his eyes, looking away from the bard while biting back a smile that threatens to appear on his face. Aether gets off of you and walks over to the two anemo vision wielders, scrunching his face up at them. A few minutes later, Baizhu and Dottore walk into your room with medicine in their hands and a surgical mask for you to wear while you’re sick.

Thoma enters the room a few minutes later with a tray of food in his hands, setting the tray down in front of you after you sit up on the bed. The aroma of the soup made your stomach rumble with hunger. You place a cloth napkin over your lap while Diluc holds your hair back, adjusting it so your hair wouldn’t fall into your soup while you eat. 

“You should take your medicine after eating because the medicine might make your stomach feel queasy when you take it on an empty stomach,” says Thoma. 

You nod. “You’re right, Thoma. Especially when it’s a liquid medicine for a cold,” you murmur, holding the medicine bottle up to your face and reading the words. “Are these the type to be taken during the day, or is it the one that will knock me out cold?” You ask, looking up at Baizhu and Dottore.

“Since when are there two different kinds of cold medicines?” Scaramouche asks, walking over to where you’re sitting and taking the bottle from your hands. 

“One type of cold medicine is taken during the day, the other is for the night because it should help you sleep through the night without waking up to a coughing fit,” replies Ayato.

“Which is what happened to me last night,” you sigh, eating the porridge that Thoma cooked for you. “I feel like I got run over by a sumpter beast,” you grumble.

“You look like you got run over by one too, but that doesn’t take away from your beauty, snookums!” Childe says, trotting over to you with a smile on his face.

Dainsleif rolls his eyes. “What a charmer. Is this how you land the first date with [Y/N]?” Dainsleif asks Childe, the corner of his lips quirking up into a smirk.

Childe stops in his tracks, turns around, and stares at Dainsleif with his mouth agape. You’re too busy eating your food to notice the tension growing between Childe and Dainsleif. You suddenly drop the spoon in the bowl and reach for the cloth napkin on your lap and sneeze into it.

“How heavy is the dose of medicine? I need it to knock me out cold,” you sniffled.

Albedo grabs the medicine bottle from Scaramouche’s hand and looks at the label. The bottle didn’t have a specific label on how strong the medicine was, but what it did have were instructions on how much a certain age group should take. 

Albedo holds the bottle out in front of you and shows the instruction to you. “It didn’t specify how strong the medicine is going to be for your sickness, but it does have dosage on how much you should take. Since you’re an adult, it’s best to take the highest dosage every five hours,” Albedo says, pointing at the top of the mini chart.

Your face pinches up, and you reluctantly grab the bottle from his hands. “Alright, I will take these after I’m done eating,” you grumble before continuing to eat your breakfast (or is it lunch?).

After finishing your bowl of soup, you take the tiny plastic cup off the bottle and place it on the food tray in front of you. You attempt to twist the cap open, only to fail. You stare at the bottle before squeezing the sides of the lid and turning it. You let out a frustrated huff of breath and put the bottle on the food tray, glaring at it. Either you’re weak from your sickness, or you’re dumb.

“What’s the matter?” Kazuha asks.

You grab the bottle and try to open the lid, failing once again. You let out an annoyed groan and nearly slam it on the food tray.

“I can’t open it,” you grumble, looking over at the twenty-five men with a deep frown on your face. “It’s a new bottle too! I swear, I followed the instructions, and I still can’t open the dang bottle,” you groused. 

Without saying a word, Xiao walks over to you, takes the bottle from your hand, and inspects it for a moment before twisting the cap open with ease. He hands you the lid and bottle, staring at you.

“You were supposed to squeeze the side of the bottle,” Xiao says.

You stare at Xiao in shock and grab the bottle and lid from his hands. “I did do that! It also said to press down on the lid, pinch the sides, and twist the cap,” you explain.

Xiao gives you an odd look. “You don’t need to press down on the lid. You just squeeze the side of the lid and twist it open,” replies Xiao. 

Xiao takes the bottle from your hand, closes the bottle with the lid, and demonstrates how he opened the bottle. You stare at Xiao’s hands, watching him twist the bottle open with ease. You try to do the same, only to fail.

“That bottle has favoritism,” you accuse, pushing the bottle away from you with a glare. 

A few seconds after pushing the bottle away from you, you grab the bottle, mimic what Xiao did, and successfully open the bottle. You let out a slow sigh, shaking your head. You pour the liquid medicine into the small measuring bottle for the appropriate measurement. After getting the perfect measurement of the liquid medicine, you close the bottle and down the liquid medication. The taste of the medication was something you had never tasted before. It’s disgusting, but you know that if you want to get well soon, you need to take it. 

You force yourself to swallow the medication and reach for the water pitcher and the glass cup, pouring water into the cup and chugging the water. Once you have emptied the glass cup, you put the pitcher and cup down on your nightstand; violent shivers rack your body.

Your face pinches up with disgust. “That tastes disgusting,” you shiver, shaking your head.

Cyno shrugs and chuckles. “Hey, it’s medicine. Medicine isn’t supposed to taste appetizing like candy,” says Cyno.

Dottore and Baizhu take the liquid medicine from your hands while Thoma takes the food tray and napkin off your lap. You want to lay down on your bed, but you think you should let your food and medication settle down in your stomach before lying down. Or else there’s a possible chance that the food and medicine will come back up.

“Are you not going to go back to sleep?” Pantalone asks.

You shake your head. “Not yet. I’m letting everything settle down in my stomach first before going back to sleep. Other than that, have any of you eaten anything?” You ask.

“We ate already. We assumed you were going to come downstairs for breakfast, but you never came down,” replies Capitano.

You give Capitano a weak smile and run your fingers through your hair. “I was so tired that I could barely get out of bed. I didn’t even notice that I slept in until I woke up to the sound of knocking at my door,” you said.

“When you’re feeling healthy again, what do you think about joining me in having lunch or dinner at the Liuli Pavilion?” Zhongli asks, sitting down beside you and caressing your face in his hands.

Your eyes light up, and you nod eagerly. “Ooh! I would love to, Zhongli! I just hope I heal soon because dining at Liuli Pavilion sounds amazing right now, even though I just ate,” you said.

Zhongli smiles and strokes the apples of your cheeks with the pad of his thumb. Zhongli looks at the others from the corners of his eyes, a faint smirk appearing on his face. The men shoot a glare in Zhongli’s direction after seeing a smug smile on the former archon’s face. 

Pierro clears his throat. “I heard that Liuli Pavilion serves a lot of food for their customers. If it’s just you and Zhongli going alone, would you two be able to finish all of that food? I think everyone should be able to tag along as well,” Pierro says gruffly. 

You blink at Pierro and look at Zhongli, who seems displeased. You shrug and rub the back of your neck awkwardly. You have gone to Liuli Pavilion before, but it was never alone with Zhongli or anyone else that lives in the abode. You think they only bring out a certain amount of food if you ordered certain food on the menu.

“I mean, Zhongli did invite me. I think it should be up to him to make that decision,” you murmur, looking at Zhongli through your lashes.

Zhongli stares at you, then look over at the men, who are giving him puppy dog eyes and mischievous smiles. Zhongli rolls his eyes and sighs through his nose, rubbing his temples. If Zhongli declines, it will make him look bad. If he agrees, then he wouldn’t get to have some alone time with you away from the others. It’s a lose-lose situation for the former archon either way.

“If the others are free and have nothing on their schedule, then they can join us, dearest. If they’re unable to join us, then it’ll be just you and me at Liuli Pavilion,” Zhongli answers, squeezing your hand gently. 

You turn to look at the men. “Zhongli says it's up to all of you whether you guys want to join Zhongli and me or not,” you said.

“We’ll clear our schedule when the day comes,” Pierro states.

The men behind Pierro nod their heads in agreement. While you give them small smiles and prepare to take another nap, Zhongli is giving the men a not-so-subtle glare. Some of the men collectively smile at Zhongli innocently, while others give Zhongli a smug grin at Zhongli’s irritation at not being able to spend time alone with you.

After you have found a comfortable position to lie down and sleep, Zhongli presses a gentle kiss on your forehead. You smile up at Zhongli and caress his face in your hand. Zhongli places his hand over yours and closes his eyes with contentment. Feeling a sneeze coming up, you pull your hand from Zhongli’s face and sneeze into your elbow twice. 

“Alright, little one, you need to go to sleep now. If you don’t get enough sleep, your body won’t be able to fight off the illness,” Dottore says, smiling at you at the entrance of your room.

You feel Zhongli press one last kiss on your hot forehead before getting off your bed and walking over to your bedroom door. The others soon follow behind Zhongli: they all give you forehead kisses before leaving your bedroom to let you sleep in peace. 

A few weeks later, it was Venti’s turn to attempt to flirt with you. The anemo archon has a stack of ballads prepared just for this very special day. He is excited to perform for you and impress you with the poems that he has created. You have always been the source of his inspiration, and he cannot wait to showcase something special with you.

You’re laying on a hammock outside of the estate under the trees. The wind rocks the hammock back and forth while you look at the early afternoon sky through the orange leaves. You stretch and let out a groan, feeling a satisfying pop. You hear a soft melody flow in the wind, making you prop yourself up on your arms and search for where the melody is coming from.

You see Venti strolling up to your hammock while gently strumming his lyre. Venti smiles at you and stops next to your hammock. You sit up and hug the pillow against your chest, looking at the bard curiously.

“Care to listen to a few ballads of mine? Just to let you know, you’re the source of my inspiration,” Venti says, winking at you.

You feel your face heat up. “I would love to listen to your ballads, Venti!” You chirp.

You scoot over to the left and pat the empty spot next to you on the hammock. Venti gracefully lifts himself onto the hammock, sitting beside you. Venti clears his throat and adjusts his lyre in his hands. Venti begins strumming the lyre, the soft melody filling the quiet air between you two. Venti starts humming and swaying to the song. He looks up at you and gives you the sweetest smile.

Before Venti could sing, the strings of the lyre snapped. Venti gasps in horror and looks at the lyre, freaking out about how he is going to fix the lyre before the other men start to butt into your and his quiet space. You and Venti hear a slow clap coming from a distance, looking up to see the men walking toward you and Venti.

“What a performance of a lifetime, Barbatos,” Kaeya chuckles, crossing his arms over his chest.

Venti gives the twenty-four men a fake smile before turning to you with a fake laugh, the apples of his cheeks almost as red as Diluc’s hair.

You look at Venti and his lyre worriedly. “It’s okay if you’re not able to perform for me, Venti. You can perform for me any time!” You reach for Venti’s hand and squeeze it gently. 

Venti looks defeated; if he had dog ears, they would be flat on his head while giving you puppy dog eyes. You give Venti a sympathetic smile and pull him into a hug, catching him and the others off guard.

“When you get the strings fixed, come to my room, and you can play all of the ballads you like,” you murmur into his ears, tucking his hair behind his ear. “I’ll be expecting your visitation, Barbatos,” you stroke his hair.

Venti audibly gulps, pulling away from your hug with a red face. A big smile breaks out on Venti’s face, and he nods his head eagerly, planting a big kiss on your cheeks before scrambling out of the hammock to get the lyre fixed as soon as possible. Sure, he can fix it by snapping his fingers, but the look on the other men’s faces is scary, and he needs to disappear for a few hours.

“So much for ruining the moment between [Y/N] and Venti,” Itto mutters, crossing his arms over his chest with a frustrated sigh.

Childe nods. “Yeah, no kidding. Instead of ruining their moment together, we pushed them together. And now Venti will be showing up to [Y/N]’s bedroom after he gets his lyre fixed,” Childe grumbles, kicking the dirt beneath his foot like an angry toddler. 

“It would be a shame if we walk into [Y/N]’s room before the performance starts,” Aether shrugs his shoulders. 

If you think the men walking in on your and Venti’s supposed quiet moment, imagine the men insisting on keeping you company while you’re in the hot springs. Butt naked. You dip your hair into the hot water and wring the water out, leaning against the walls of the hot spring with a sigh, feeling your muscles relax.

The sound of water running in the hot springs is interrupted by the sound of chatter approaching the bathhouse in the abode. Your eyes shoot open, and you sink into the water until the water reaches your chin, your arms over your chest to preserve your modesty. The doors to the bathhouse open, and the men walk into the hotspring. All are shirtless, wearing towels around their waist. The towels hung low at their hips; the towels looked like they could slip off at any moment. 

“Oh, [Y/N]! What a pleasant surprise to see you here at the bathhouse!” Pantalone says casually, smiling at you as he stops in front of the hot spring you’re currently sitting in.

You couldn’t tell if your face was feeling hot because of the temperature in the bathhouse or if it was because of the twenty-five shirtless (almost naked men) in front of you. You audibly gulp and give them a wary smile, continuing to keep most of your body submerged in the waters. 

You laugh awkwardly. “I didn’t think all of you would be coming to the bathhouse at the same time that I do,” you say, keeping your arms pressed against your chest.

“Oh? Are we not allowed to visit the bathhouse while you’re here?” Capitano asks, propping his hands on his hips.

Your eyes trail over Capitano’s bare chest. His chest was littered with scars, fresh and old scars. His pecks are definitely bigger than Al Haitham and Itto’s pecks. But they don’t compare to Pierro’s pecks. Your face gradually becomes hotter, making you sink further into the water. You look away from them after seeing knowing smirks on their faces. 

“No, no! You can visit the bathhouse whenever! But uh, there are empty hot springs over there,” you point over to the hot spring three feet away from where yours is located.

Kaveh huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. “What if we want to keep you company in the same hot spring?” Kaveh asks, raising his eyebrows at you with an overly exaggerated frown.

“Then you can keep me company from a distance! Just not in the same hot spring as me,” you reply as you point over at the hot spring three feet away from you. 

There’s no way in hell you’re going to let these men sit in the same hot springs as you. All of you are naked, and you don’t want people to see you naked. Heck, you never looked at yourself naked in the mirror before! These men have great physiques, and you have seen them shirtless plenty of times before, but have you seen them naked before? That is something you won’t be talking about right now.

“Alright, but that won’t stop us from coming over to talk to you,” Tighnari says, patting your head as he walks to the nearest hot spring.

You shut your eyes and cover your face with your hands when you hear towels dropping to the ground and splashes of water coming from the hot spring near yours. You assume that everyone has gotten into the hot spring a few feet from yours and uncover your eyes. You look around for your towel and nearly cry when you realize that your towel is hanging on the wall five feet from where you’re at. You sink into the water, feeling shame and embarrassment for leaving your towel there because you’re unaware that the men are going to join you at the bathhouse. You continue to press yourself against the wall of the hot spring, praying that no one will approach the hot spring you’re sitting in. You’re not in the mood to talk to anyone because everyone is naked, and you don’t want to see anyone’s bare asses (that’s a lie, you do, but let’s pretend that you don’t), nor do you want them to see your bare ass.

“Are you okay, [Y/N]?” You hear Gorou call out to you.

You turn your head and see Gorou looking at you curiously, his head peeking from the edge of the hot spring. You give Gorou a fake smile and nod. You might as well pretend that you’re okay, or else they’ll approach you while naked. If you continue to stay, who knows what’s going to happen?

You clear your throat. “I’m fine, Gorou! I, uh, I’m trying to relax in the hot spring,” you say, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

“You know, going to the hot spring alone isn’t fun. It’s too quiet, and it feels a little bit lonely, don’t you think?” Heizou asks, resting his arms on the edge of the hot spring.

You nod. “That is true, but sometimes, it’s nice to have some alone time for yourself. It’s a good way to clear your mind and relax,” you say.

You push yourself away from the wall of the hot spring before fully submerging in the water. You emerge from the water and push your hair out of your face, wiping the water from your face while keeping most of your body hidden in the water.

“You look lonely over there. Doesn’t [Y/N] look lonely over there, Thoma?” Ayato asks, peeking over at you from where he’s sitting before glancing at the blond man beside him.

Thoma peeks at you and nods. “Yes, they look quite lonely over there, my Lord,” Thoma agrees.

You narrow your eyes at the men and slowly sink into the water up to your chin. “What do you guys have in mind?” You drawled out. 

“Oh, nothing you need to worry about! We’re just commenting on how lonely it must be over there. If you do feel lonely, you can always come over here and join us all, or let us keep you company over there,” Baizhu says, leaning back in the hot spring.

“I’m actually going to leave the bathhouse very soon,” you reply, internally panicking about how you’re going to leave the bathhouse without the others seeing you butt-ass naked. 

With your towel hanging far from the springs, there’s no way the others wouldn’t see your bare ass when you hop out of the hot spring and run to the towel. Plus, running isn’t permitted in the bathhouse because that is a hazard waiting to happen. You’re not going to risk slipping and cracking your skull open in the bathhouse in front of everyone with your bits on full display.

“Oh? You’re leaving so soon,” Albedo says, frowning while slicking his hair back.

You laugh nervously. “I have been here for a while. My fingers are starting to get pruney,” you said, holding up your hand to show the men your wrinkly fingertips. 

“You can still hang out with us while wearing a towel. We’ll make sure that everyone behaves,” Kazuha says, turning to look at the men with a look.

You point at the towel on the wall. “I would get my towel, but the towel is far, and I don’t want to leave the hot spring to grab the towel,” you said, puckering your lips.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it. I got this,” Scaramouche says.

Scaramouche uses his anemo vision, ignoring the look the other anemo users shot in his direction. Despite Scaramouche possessing both an anemo and electro vision, he uses his anemo vision the most and his electro vision to zap those around him. You grab your towel that was hovering in the air and gesture for the men to turn around or shield their eyes. The men turn around and cover their eyes.

You get out of the hot spring and wrap the towel around your body. Once you have tightened the towel around your body, you let the men know you’re covered. The men uncover their eyes and motion for you to walk to where they’re sitting. While walking over to the hot spring where they’re relaxing, you wring the water out of your hair and grab an extra towel on the towel rack and wrap your hair in the towel, letting it sit on your head.

“Are you free three days from now?” Al Haitham asks, watching you dip your legs into the hot spring.

You pause and contemplate. Three days from now? What day will that be?

“I think so? I don’t think I have anything planned that day other than going to school….” You murmur, tightening your grip on the towel around your body. “Why?” You ask, looking at Al Haitham quizzically. 

“He’s just wondering if you’re free on a Tuesday, that’s all,” Cyno interjects, shooting Al Haitham a not-so-subtle glare.

Al Haitham glares back at Cyno and rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his bare chest. You look away after finding yourself staring at Al Haitham’s chest. You clear your throat shyly and shrug your shoulders.

“Well, I don’t think I have anything planned that day. I should be free,” you said, trying to distract yourself from the naked men in front of you.

Diluc nods. “Good, then that settles then,” Diluc states.

“Settles what?” You ask.

“You’ll know when the time comes. For now, we can’t tell you what it is,” Dainsleif says, slicking his hair back.

You scrunch your face at Dainsleif’s response and the men’s vagueness. “Aw! You guys are no fun for not telling me what you guys have in store,” you huff.

Pantalone chuckles and squeezes your calf under the water. “You’ll see when the time comes, sweetheart,” Pantalone says.

Fast forward to a few days later, you’re out in Mondstadt buying flowers to plant in the abode. Recently, you have decided that you wanted the abode to have a garden. To be more specific, you wanted the other floating island (next to where the estates are located) to be full of flowers from all over Teyvat. It would be nice to sit in a field full of flowers from different regions, and why not start doing it now?

Plus, the men gave you this idea earlier in the morning and sent you out into the world to gather some seeds to plant these flowers in the abode. Now, what they didn’t tell you is that you can buy these seeds from Tubby. After purchasing the seeds of the flowers you’re looking for, you bid Flora goodbye before turning to leave the city. The next city you’re going to stop by is Liyue. When you’re about to leave the city of Mondstadt, Diluc, and Kaeya walk up to you.

“Oh, Diluc and Kaeya! What are you two doing here?” You ask, placing the small packet of flower seeds into your bag. 

“We’re here to keep you company, if you don’t mind,” Kaeya says, smiling at you.

Your eyes light up. “Of course, I don’t mind! I’m about to leave for Liyue to buy flower seeds! I’m thinking glaze lilies, silk flowers, and violetgrass,” you said, pulling your small notepad out from your bag.

“Instead of silk flowers, why not go for Qingxin instead?” Diluc asks, raising his eyebrows at you.

You purse your lips and sigh. “You know, I would do that, but I already placed my order for glaze lilies, silk flowers, and violetgrass,” you sulk.

Kaeya gives you a sympathetic smile before pulling you into his arms, stroking your hair, and pressing his lips on the top of your head. Diluc crosses his arms over his chest, looking unamused after seeing the display of affection between you and Kaeya. Kaeya smirks, and Diluc turns and walks off with you in his arms. Diluc rolls his eyes and follows the two of you, pulling you out of Kaeya’s arms. 

While you, Diluc, and Kaeya are in Liyue, the men are scrambling around the abode, making sure things are going well and according to plan. So far, everything has been going smoothly. The flowers are arriving on time, and so are the decorations. Diluc and Kaeya are instructed to return to the estate while you’re in Sumeru, picking up the last order you have placed for Sumeru roses and Padisarahs. Their main goal is to keep you distracted and out of the abode until you have picked up every last order of the flower seeds from the four nations. 

“You don’t think [Y/N] is going to return to the abode so soon, do you?” Venti asks Dainsleif nervously.

Dainsleif shakes his head. “I don’t think they are. If they were to return to the abode earlier than expected, then everything should be fine,” Dainsleif says.

“Exactly! Plus, things have been sailing smoothly, and arriving earlier than expected. It’s fine because we don’t know when [Y/N] will return to the abode with the flower seeds they have ordered from four different nations,” Aether says, fixing his shirt and smoothing out the creases.

“Was it necessary to have [Y/N] run around Teyvat to buy flower seeds when they can buy them from Tubby?” Heizou asks, pointing at the teapot spirit. 

Cyno walks into the estate, holding a vase of Sumeru roses. “For today, yes. It’s necessary,” Cyno replies.

“What if they’re allergic to some of the flowers that are being brought into the estate?” Itto asks, poking the Sumeru rose when Cyno walks past him.

Al Haitham rolls his eyes and fixes the sleeve of his blazer. “They’re not from this world, Itto. I don’t think they would want to have a large garden if they were allergic to the flowers we’re bringing into the abode,” Al Haitham mutters.

“Nor would we send them out into Teyvat with Diluc and Kaeya to buy flower seeds,” Kaveh interjects, giving Itto a look. 

Back on Teyvat, you, Diluc, and Kaeya step into Sumeru. You smell the fresh air and tuck the flower seeds into your bag. Sumeru is your last destination, and you can’t wait to go back to the abode and start planning how you want the garden to be arranged. You weren’t sure if you wanted to have a large dome for the separate island or let the flowers be fully exposed to the abode’s sunlight.

You walk to the flower shop in Sumeru with Diluc and Kaeya by your side, checking off the items on your list. You made sure to choose around two to three flowers from each nation. You’re mainly choosing the flowers the men have recommended for you to get. That includes an amakumo fruit, and you’re not entirely sure why they wanted you to pick the amakumo fruit, but you did, and that is probably the last time you visit Seirai island. Needless to say, you didn’t like the atmosphere of the island, nor did you like the sound of thunder booming in the sky while you were searching for the fruit. 

While you’re waiting for the merchant to come out from behind the shop with your order, Diluc and Kaeya informed you that they have businesses to tend to and would meet you back at the abode. You watch the two men leave before looking at the list in your hand.

“I don’t think I’ll have enough seeds to fill the floating island with flowers,” you grumble, pulling the small packets of flower seeds. “Five packets for each flower is not going to cover the entire island,” you deadpan.

“[Y/N]? I have your order here! Five packets of Sumeru Rose seeds and Padisarahs, am I correct?” The merchant asks, emerging from behind the curtains and holding up your order.

He walks toward you with a clipboard in his other hand. You give the merchant a nod, now realizing that the number of packets you have isn’t enough. The merchant has you sign the paperwork to confirm that you stopped by the flower shop and picked up the order Tighnari has placed under your name.

After signing the paper, the merchant hands your order before giving you a small note on how to take care of the flowers. You put the packet of Sumeru rose and Padisarah seeds into your bag before walking out of the shop, reading over the note the merchant wrote. To be honest, you don’t think the instruction was necessary because Tighnari has informed you that he will be showing you how to care for the flowers. 

“Back to the abode I go,” you said.

The abode is located in the small corner of Sumeru City, tucked away from the public eye. Only you and the men know where the teapot is placed. You yawn and stretch your arms. You stand in front of the teapot and let it whisk you home. Once you have entered the teapot, you walk to the estate and stop in your tracks almost immediately when you notice the entrance to the main estate is wide open.

“Did someone forget to close the door?” You mutter.

You adjust the straps of your bag on your shoulder and jog to the entrance. When you enter the estate and close the door behind you, you notice the interior of the estate is very pink and red. Flowers are lined up against the walls of the estate; balloons are tied to the railing, and party streamers are hung from the ceiling. 

“What is the occasion?” You ask, turning to the formally dressed men in front of you. “Also,” you pull the packets of flower seeds from your bag, “these are not going to cover the entire area of the floating island next door,” you said.

“[Y/N], what’s important right now? The flower seeds, or us attempting to ask you to go out with us?” Thoma asks, quirking an eyebrow at you.

You stare at Thoma blankly and at the other men. Not only are they dressed nicely, but each man is holding flowers from their respective region. Some flowers you have never seen before, but they’re beautiful. Speaking of them dressing nicely, how come they look nice and you look like you’re going on a walk? 

“Are you guys trying to ask me to be your significant other, or are you guys trying to ask me to be your Valentine?” You ask, taking your bag off and setting it down on the table near the entrance.

“Uh, both?” Baizhu says.

“What’s Valentine’s Day?” Scaramouche mutters, looking at Xiao quizzically. 

Xiao shrugs his shoulders in response. How in the world is he supposed to know what Valentine’s Day is?

Childe steps to the front and pulls you toward him, your chest pressing against his chest. Childe caresses your face in his hands and smiles at you.

“Do you know how hard it is to flirt with you?” Childe asks.

You blink at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’re intelligent, but you can be a little bit dense. I think the better term for it would be oblivious,” Albedo interjects, the corners of his lips curving up.

You hold your hand up in defense. “Listen, I have never had anyone flirt with me before. Whether in this world or my world, I never flirted with anyone, nor have they flirted with me. Even if they flirt with me, I wouldn’t know how to respond because, well, I….” you trail off.

Do you have to explain to the men that you have no game? You never had a boyfriend, you never flirted with anyone, no one has ever flirted with you, and you’ve never been out on a date before, so how in the world are you supposed to be able to notice it?

“Oh, trust me, many of us have tried to flirt with you. It would either go over your head, or one of us would ruin each other’s chances of asking you out,” Ayato chuckles.

“And some of us,” Tighnari looks over at Childe, “has made it blatantly obvious too.”

Dottore pushes Childe away from you, grabbing your hand and planting a kiss on your knuckles. “What do you say, [Y/N]? Will you be my Valentine?” Dottore asks, gazing at you through his mask.

“Your Valentine?! I’m sure [Y/N] would much rather be my Valentine and not yours,” Xiao huffs, glaring at the icy-blue-haired Harbinger. 

You puckered your lips, your eyebrows narrow, and you gestured to them. “I have to pick between all of you?” You ask.

“That is correct. Unless you have another thing in mind?” Zhongli raises his eyebrows at you.

“What if…. I reject all of you?” You ask jokingly.

Gorou looks at you nervously. “Please don’t. I don’t think my heart will be able to handle it,” Gorou whispers, clutching his chest.

“Well, if I can’t choose all of you, then I might as well reject all of you,” you huff, crossing your arms over your chest.

Kazuha raises his eyebrows at you, and a small smirk appears. “You want all of us?” Kazuha asks.

You press your lips into a thin line and nod. “That’s correct. I mean, we all live in the abode together. I either take all of you for myself or none of you,” You said, shrugging your shoulders. “I know what I want, but do you know what you want?” You ask.

“Yes, we know what we want, and it’s certainly not each other,” Capitano says, earning a snort from you.

Pantalone pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “Is this going to be another failed attempt of asking [Y/N] to be ours?” Pantalone murmurs to Pierro.

“Archons, I hope not,” Pierro sighs.

You shrug and look around the estate. “It won’t be a failed attempt if I get to choose all of you,” you said nonchalantly.

Heizou clasps his hands. “How about this: you will be our Valentine, and we’ll be your Valentine. None of us,” Heizou gestures to him and the other men around him, “will be a couple of any sort with each other. We date you, and you date us. We have no interest in each other. We’re only interested in you.”

You squint your eyes. “Okay, that doesn’t sound bad. But what about the jealousy? I know some of you can get jealous and possessive,” you said, giving certain men in the room a side-eye.

Dainsleif sighs. “We’ll get used to sharing you, eventually,” Dainsleif says.

“So? Will you be our Valentine? More importantly: will you be ours?” Thoma asks nervously.

“Did you hear a no?” You smile at them.

“We didn’t hear a yes,” Childe scrunches his nose at you.

You roll your eyes playfully. “Yes, I’ll be all of your Valentines. And yes, I gladly accept being your partner,” you said.

Did that make sense? You scratch your head. 

“Oh, thank archons, this isn’t one of the many failed attempts,” Aether sighs in relief, tackling you into a hug.

Tighnari bats at Aether. “Hey, move it. I want to give [Y/N] a hug, too,” Tighnari’s ears twitch with irritation. 

Cyno pushes Tighnari to the side. “Then get in the back of the line and don’t cut,” Cyno retorts.

Al Haitham snorts. “How juvenile,” he mutters, gazing at Tighnari and Cyno with an amused look on his face. 

Note: I'm going to try to update my navigation post soon because I don't like how it looks. I think a makeover is what it needs, but I never got around to it. The only thing I'm debating on is to make a new navigation post or change the one I have currently pinned to my blog 🤔 Anyway, next week's fic is a request. I have been planning this one request for a few weeks now and I hope it turns out how I want it to. Anyway, for those who want to be on my new taglist, here is the link to the taglist [Genshinluvr Updated Taglist Form]! Please make sure that you allow people to mention you/tag you in posts, or else I won't be able to tag you in any future fanfics! And as usual, I ONLY post on my Tumblr (Genshinluvr) and my AO3 (Aaliah_exo)! Nowhere else except Tumblr and AO3!

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[visceravalentines]

fever dream

Bo Sinclair x AFAB!Reader

7.6k words. dubcon ofc. reader is absolutely mentally bankrupt. stockholm is where we live, it's where we are, it's where we'll die. sporadic smut, pnv, fingering, and oral (fem!rec). blood and sweat everywhere. Bo calls reader a bitch a couple times but like, it's out of love or some shit. somno. alcohol use. nightmares. ghosts. swamp things. the ever-looming threat of death and depersonalization.

welcome back to my youtube channel. I have been. working on this fic. since May of last year. and it's finally done(?) it is long and weird and maybe bad and meant for you to get lost in. a journey with no destination. a haunted house only you are the haunted and the haunt and the house. tbqh I'm rewatching HoW today for the first time in months and months and I had to get this out of my drafts so I can check back into the sanitarium with minimal baggage, y'know?? I hope it makes you feel some type of way.

The summer heat is in your blood and the swamp is in your lungs and he is under your skin. 

You’ve never known an August like this, like a blister. You go to bed sticky and wake up drenched in sweat. The ceiling fan is a hurricane agent that offers no respite, just blows the humidity in vicious cycles. There’s no air conditioning in the house; it’s too old. Instead you wrap ice cubes in dish towels and press them to the back of your neck. 

A storm’s been hanging on the horizon for days. Thunder rolls out of a wall of iron gray, an idle threat. The air is soupy and super-charged. No rain comes. 

The nights are delirium. You go to bed on opposite sides of the mattress, oil and water. He sleeps naked, sprawled out like a water skeeter. The quilt sits scrunched at the foot of the bed for the season and he kicks the sheets off around midnight like something forcing its way out of a soft-shelled egg. 

You lie awake, listening to the cicadas and waiting. Just when you’ve started to cool down and drift off he reaches over and fumbles at your leg, grabs your arm. He pulls you on top of him, hands on your body beneath his old t-shirt. You ride him with your eyes closed and your breath hot on your lips. It’s a fever, the sweating, the shaking. 

You wake every morning suffocating under his arm in the center of the mattress with honey between your thighs. 

.

He drinks his coffee hot even though the steam can barely rise above the rim of the mug in the humidity. You pour yours over ice and savor the feeling as it seeps down your throat and into your stomach. You curl your toes on the linoleum and almost smile at him across the table. He’s golden from all his time in the sun. You can trace the lines of his wifebeater over his shoulders, across his chest. You stare at him across the table and think about the taste of his skin. You want to run your tongue along that tan line. 

He catches you staring. “What?” he says flatly. 

You redirect your gaze to your hands. Shake your head. Wait for him to move on so you can resume your perusal of his body.

When he looks away, out the window, the sun catches those eyes and turns them to sea glass. He needs a haircut; walnut curls crest over his ears like kudzu. When you get up to clear the table your skin peels from the vinyl seat cushion with a sting that makes you wrinkle your nose. 

“Be good,” he tells you before he leaves. You wonder what he means, what he thinks you might get up to in this house full of dust and guns and ghosts. You know better than to ask, and you nod and kiss him goodbye and feel his lips on your lips for hours afterwards. 

The day languishes. They all do. You kill a thousand flies. You mop the floor and track your own footprints across it before it dries. You hang his shirts on the clothesline in the side yard and feel like an insect trapped in the sap of time. You shave your legs in a cold bath and examine your skin:  sunburn, bug bites, bite marks. 

When he pulls into the driveway you’re on the front step eating a popsicle and counting the minutes. He saunters across the gravel like John Wayne, shoulders exposed, hair plastered to his neck. You meet his eyes and wrap your lips around the cherry-flavored mess dripping onto your fingers. He spits into the weeds and eyes you through his lashes. 

“What’s for supper?” 

You suck on your sticky thumb. There’s a full spread on the dining room table, ready and waiting. “Whatever you want.” 

He licks his lips. 

Supper gets cold. 

.

He brings home a bag of saltwater taffy, all raspberry. 

“Thought of you,” he says when he hands it to you. To your recollection, you have never mentioned taffy or raspberries or anything of the sort. You wonder who he thinks you are, whether he has you confused with someone else. 

You sit on the porch steps and amass a pile of wax paper wrappers beside you. It’s soft and melty, peels out of the wrapper with a sticky crackling sound. It’s salty and sour and tastes like cheap sugar. Like a memory of summer that may be real, or maybe not. Could be yours, or could be someone else’s.

You eat more than you want, until your teeth hurt and you can feel the hot spot on your tongue where a canker sore will form. You rake that spot back and forth across your incisors. You can’t help it. Sometimes it feels like things have to have a hurt to them. 

“You ever been to the fair?” you ask him over your shoulder.

He grunts from the porch swing. “Used to go when Vince ‘n me were little. Took Les a couple times when he was old enough.”

“You ever take a girl?”

“Nah.” His boot thumps on the porch, an offhand punctuation mark. “Couldn’t find one to go with me.”

You doubt that; you’ve seen his yearbook photos. But then again, maybe he was off-putting as a teenager. Spooky. Hadn’t quite learned how to camouflage yet. Came on too strong, wore too much cologne, used too many teeth.

You survey the vast swath of woods that surrounds Ambrose and try to imagine a ferris wheel, red and blue and blinking, rising from the green like the hump of a whale.  “I’d go with you.”

He snorts. “Yeah?”

You look down at the piece of taffy in your fingers. You don’t really want it. You unwrap it anyway. “Yeah.” You gnaw on the candy like a dog savoring a scrap. “Be like a date,” you say thickly.

“What, you wanna skip down the midway holdin’ hands? Makin’ out in the Tunnel of Love?”

You can picture it, sunset and a sundress. He’s laughing. You’re laughing. The crowd is made of wax. “You could win me a stuffed animal.”

He scoffs again, but then he asks you, “What kinda stuffed animal you want?”

You think for a second, unstick the taffy from your molars and push it around your mouth with your tongue. “A Louisiana crocodile.” A souvenir from your time in the South. Maybe it’ll be wearing a little trucker hat and a smile that doesn’t reach its eyes.

“Ain’t got crocodiles here, sugar. ‘S all alligators.”

“Fine, an alligator then.”

You run your hands over your shins, sticky with the humidity. The chains of the porch swing creak rhythmically behind you. The sea of trees is dark and still and endless.

“Fair don’t come ‘round here anymore,” he says finally.

You force the taffy down your throat, swallow hard, and reach for another one.

“Figures.”

.

You’re buzzed and reckless, sucked down a pair of beers too fast just because they were frosty. The shears snick like some needy, nipping thing. You found them upstairs under the bathroom sink once upon a time and you always put them back when you’re done. They’ve been there longer than you’ve been alive. You comb your fingers across his scalp and loose locks drift onto your clean floor. 

“Don’t take it too short,” he admonishes into the mouth of his beer bottle. “You butcher me, I butcher you.” 

You roll your eyes behind his back. “Have I ever?” 

He grunts in acquiescence. That’s as close to a win as you’ll get. 

The windows are open; the thunder presses against the frayed screens. A gigantic moth flings its feathery body repeatedly at the ceiling light. You run your hand through his hair slow just to feel it between your fingers, thick and soft. Your thumb glances off the scar on the left side of his skull and comes back for another pass. 

He jerks his head, puts a stop to that. “You done?” 

“Almost.” 

You’re particularly fond of the curls at the nape of his neck, always save them for last. You coil one around your finger. You want to ask him if you can keep it, but you’re afraid he’ll say no or worse, that he’ll say yes. He’ll ask for something in return. You’ll give it to him, no matter what it is. You give him anything he wants, everything he wants. It’s the least you can do, the most you can do. 

You snip them one by one, bittersweet. 

“Done.” 

He leans over in the chair to examine his reflection in the window. “Good enough.” 

He stands up and drains the dregs of his beer. His hand finds your waist and he pulls you in and you bend like a reed, peering up at him, inspecting your work. He smells like sweat and sun. You grip his shirt in your fists and move with him as he sways lazily side-to-side. 

He gives you the gift of a smile, half-cocked and handsome. “You wanna dance, mama?”

Your fingers spider-creep up the shield of his chest and lock behind his neck. His skin is hot and sticky against your wrists, clipped hairs poking and itching. Your hips bump against his like a car on a back road, lost, no cell service. You wish there was music playing. 

He tilts his head towards you and you get caught in the trap of his mouth. The thunder moans. You can feel the sweat beading on your upper lip, in the pit of your elbows. His hands are heavy on your bones. 

His jaw scrapes along your temple like a razor blade and a fever chill rolls over your skin, hot-cold. “G’on upstairs, get those clothes off.” 

Have you always been such a good listener? 

.

He comes home drunk and fucks you on the table, in the midst of supper left cold and waiting for him. You knew he’d be hungry. You are right about some things and wrong about others.

You wince every time a dish topples off the table and shatters on the faded linoleum. He doesn't look at you, not once.

Afterwards, he disappears for a while and leaves you to clean up the kitchen. You are dazed, legs unsteady, leaning on the counter like an old friend. It’s been a bad day. Dinner has soaked through the back of your shirt and so you take it off, hang it over the back of a chair for later, and set to work on the mess.

You cannot puzzle out how he managed to get blood on every dish you are trying to wash until finally you realize it is yours, seeping quietly from a slice on your palm. When he comes up behind you your spine stiffens, arching like a snake making a final stand. He puts his hands on your bare waist and his lips against the back of your head like a sweetheart, like a husband, like a different person.

“Leave it, darlin’. Come sit on the porch with me.”

You bite your lip, lift your palm so he can see it, watch the world blur with saline. “I cut myself,” you say, and only then does the sting set in, so sharp you can feel it in your teeth.

He makes a sympathetic noise and cups your hand in his. “Now why’d y’go and do that?”

You open your mouth to answer but only a moan comes out as he lifts your arm and seals his lips over the cut. He sucks, gently at first and then harder, hard enough you feel the seam of skin separate and your fingers jerk like puppets to the pain. He lets you go and you cradle your hand to your chest as he laps your blood off his lip.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, takes your arm, tugs you from the sink. “C’mon. I need a smoke.”

You follow him onto the porch, curl up in his lap with a dishrag pressed to your palm and watch smoke and moths float around the light.

Your blood dries on the dishes with the gravy.

.

The clouds boom a reminder that they are still hanging above the house, but you are already awake in the split second beforehand. You are cocooned in the sheets and panic for a moment, arms pinned to your chest, bedroom black as a coffin. When you claw free, gasping, the air is like moss draped spongey and damp across your face. 

You worm out of the bed, out of the room, stagger into the hallway and down the stairs in the dark. You are mere steps ahead of some emaciated beast, its breath muggy on your cheeks and the back of your neck. You twist your shirt off and throw it on the floor of the den before it can strangle you, wrench the front door open and slam through the screen with both hands. 

The night is wet in your nose. One hundred million insects scream to God. In the back of your mind you think about joining them. Your toes scuff to a stop on the precipice of the porch and you peer into the darkness with round eyes, bare chest heaving for more air than you can hold. You are drowning here, surrounded by trees, surrounded by more green than you ever knew existed in the world. 

Somewhere out there, someone is mourning you. You can feel it tonight, crackling in the ozone like the storm that won’t break. 

You wrap your arms around yourself and sink to the ground, sit perched on the top stair in your panties and sweat-drenched skin. The nail of your index finger rips apart the cuticle of your thumb. Mosquitos float open-armed to your legs like swamp angels. It’s too hot to cry. 

The yellow porchlight struggles to life. The screen door bangs flatly behind you. He can’t ever pick up his feet, scuffing through the dust you haven’t swept. 

His fingers brush the bone of your shoulder. You don’t flinch nowadays, usually. “Y’alright?”

You don’t have to answer that. Let him wrap his hand around your throat and fishhook his fingers into your mouth to pull your jaw open, you don’t have to answer that. You grit your teeth and dig crescent moons into your thighs with all ten fingernails.

Your silence doesn’t bother him. He leans on the railing to your left, curling his toes on the concrete, looking out into the night. Sleep has mussed his hair to one side and left imprints of the sheet fanning across his chest. There’s a hickey in the shape of your mouth in the curve of his neck. Lightning flutters shy among the clouds and the thunder reprimands it. There’s something stuck in your throat, something you can’t swallow down no matter how hard you try. Moths flock to the porchlight. If anyone was alive in the town to look up the hill, they’d see you haloed, and him too. 

“‘S late. Come back to bed.”

You can’t remember your home address. You can picture the house, the sidewalk in front of it, cracks in the driveway. The rest is like a dream. The house behind you doesn’t have an address. No number, no mailbox. You can feel it sucking at the base of your spine like a leech, coaxing you in, tipping you backwards all wrong like a gravity hill. You feel eyes on you, all the time, no matter what room you’re in. 

“You listenin’ to me? Let’s go.”

You can’t go back inside. You can’t go back inside. Something in you doesn’t line up right. Someone is holding a pillow over your face.

“No,” you think you say out loud. The word flutters off into the night. You watch a mosquito drift beyond the reach of the porchlight and disappear. The stars bow gracefully into the arms of the clouds. 

After a beat, he shuffles out of your periphery. The screen door slams. Maybe this time. When you least expect it. Maybe he's sick of you at last. You pick at a scab on your knee until it comes loose and flakes off, and then you pinch the skin around the wound and squeeze until a bead of blood, scarlet-black, mounds and breaks and gets all over your fingers. You raise them to your mouth and suck them clean and it tastes familiar. Safe. 

He doesn’t come back with a knife, or a gun. He comes back with the quilt and sheet from the bed, a pillow stuffed under his arm. He unfurls the quilt on the porch. The pillow flops to the ground like something hunted to extinction. He follows suit. 

“C’mere.” He wrestles with the sheet, props himself up on an elbow and punches the pillow into place. “C’mon.” 

You breathe, just for a minute, watching him. You want to hate him so bad it hurts. You want him to hit you so you’d have a reason to hit back. You want to fight for your life because you can feel it slipping away, waning, evaporating in the heat. Already you’ve found shreds of yourself under the couch, covered in dust. You are drowning. You are thirsty. He is water, cold and brackish. 

You rise from the stairs and come to him because you need him, because he is all you have. 

“Get the light,” he says. 

You go and come back and his hand finds your calf in the dark, slides up the back of your knee, guides you to the ground. The quilt is a mockery of softness, the porch unyielding beneath. You curl up with him at your back and he folds his arm around you, thumb worrying aimlessly at your nipple. His breath is hot on the nape of your neck. 

The air roils in your lungs. The night surges in. You are alone, so alone, aching with loneliness, now and always. You close your fingers around his wrist and guide his hand between your legs. He rubs the cotton of your panties with something like pity and you let a moan seep from your throat. 

Your face lolls into the pillow and it smells like fever dreams and cold-sweat nightmares. The fabric of your underwear catches on your clit and you gasp, arching against his chest.

“Easy,” he murmurs as his fingers drag back and forth. He hooks his foot around your ankle, forces your legs open. You asked for this. You’ll take it and thank him. 

Lightning silhouettes the world beyond the porch in black and purple. When you close your eyes, you see the rooftops of the town in the colors of heaven. You rock against his hand and pretend you’re someone else somewhere else. You feel the thunder in your teeth and wish with all your heart the rain would fall. 

He puts an abrupt end to the friction and cups you in his palm, wide and warm. You make a plaintive sound and wiggle your hips, push your ass against him. You need to feel something. You need him to help you. Otherwise, you might disappear beneath the horrible blanket of the night. 

“Please,” you moan. 

He presses his lips to the back of your neck, whispers into the shell of your ear like a lover. “You love me?” 

You squeeze your eyes shut. “Yes.” 

His teeth graze your skin as he slips his fingers past the waistband of your panties. 

“Good.” 

You wonder if he knows he keeps saving your life. 

.

The house is a midden of family misery. There’s barely space for you between heaps of clothing and glassware and mass market paperbacks. You live sideways amid the boxes and bottles and beer cans. He refuses to let you throw anything away. No matter how much you sweep and dust and tidy, the clutter seems to crawl right back across the carpet like morning glory. 

Late morning finds you in the master bedroom. It’s sweltering up here. The air sticks to your face like tattered gauze. The junk in here is of a particular breed, more meaningful—photo albums, baby clothes. Much of it has been stacked high just inside the door like a battlement. A fortification between this room and the rest of the house. You’re not allowed in here. 

Neither is he. 

Beyond the wall, everything sits untouched. A layer of dust rests primly on the bedside tables, the vanity, the yellow quilt still neatly made up on the bed. The art on the wall is sun-bleached in evenly spaced lines from the half-open blinds. The silence crowds your ears. It feels like standing in a tomb, the family crypt. 

With courage paper-thin, you've decided you'd like to confront the heart of the horror. Like shoving your fingers down the throat of the beast trying to bite you. Like making a home in its mouth, a bed in its bed. You want to eat me so bad, you’ll have to savor every scrap. 

It’s eerie in here. This room is brighter than the rest of the house by far. You can feel that parasitic presence all around you, cajoling you with hands that are soft and dry. There is a faint, floating smell of faded flowers. You breathe slowly to keep yourself from sprinting back downstairs.

You gaze at yourself in the vanity mirror. The dust almost erases you from sight, almost. You reach a finger out and draw a single streak across the silvery surface. You’re in there, somewhere. Sometimes you forget. 

The front of the vanity holds a trio of slim drawers with tiny gold handles. You catch one with the tips of your fingers and tug, just slightly. It creeps open without resistance. The inside is lined with green velvet. You pull it open all the way and search through the contents with your eyes. Blush, lipstick. Eyeshadow in seven shades of blue. You slide the drawer closed and move on to the next one, the widest one in the middle. 

This one holds a treasure trove of golden baubles:  a jumble of earrings, half a dozen hairpins, a long, thin cigarette holder. A string of pearls that look too chipped and dull to be real. And a locket, oval-shaped and decorated with a halo of tiny vines. You pick it up and the chain slips over your fingers like a thin, shining snake. 

You dig your nail into the seam and pop it open. To your muted disappointment, it is empty. No husband. No children. 

It’s yours, you decide suddenly. You want it. You've earned it. A prize, a consolation for the hell you’ve been through. For the fact that you have survived him, and she has not. You wonder if he’ll recognize it. Part of you hopes that he does. You imagine the look on his face and his hands on you afterwards. Your mouth is wet. 

This might be her house, will always be her house. But you do not belong to her. You have been spoken for again and again, and perhaps you should thank him for that. 

In the daylight you remember that you aren’t scared of ghosts, and that you have nothing left to give. Plenty of dead women have laid claim to you already. This one cannot have you, and for that matter, she can’t have him either. 

You hear the rumble of his truck out front and the thrill of fear that shoots down your spine is so cold it’s almost welcome in the stuffy room. You shove the locket into the pocket of your shorts and fling the drawer shut. It closes with a soft, complicit thunk. 

You pick your way back through the boxes and slip through the door like a reptile into water; smooth, silent. You make sure it latches behind you before you hurry to the top of the stairs. 

Out of the corner of your eye, just before you dip out of sight below the banister, you see something bend the light that reaches through the crack beneath the door. You freeze, turn your head only slightly. You see nothing. Only sunlight. Certainly no feet, dainty and bare, padding across the carpet with red-lacquered toenails. 

Panic, delayed, breaks loose. You gallop down the stairs so quickly you forget to skip the ones that creak. 

By the time he comes inside, slamming the door fit to shake the frame of the house, you are hunched over the dishes in the sink like you’ve been there all morning. If you are unduly quiet, he doesn’t seem to notice, and if he notices, he doesn’t seem to care. 

.

“I think I love you.”

You say it half-casual, half-pronouncement, the way you might tell your mom you’re dropping out of college. Tell your boyfriend you’re over him. Tell your boss you’re moving to Louisiana. “I mean it this time.”

Bo snorts, lifts his beer to his lips. “That so?”

You shoo a bee from the rim of your glass and suck down the last of your drink. You just might be drunk. “Yup.”

“Think that’s the bourbon talkin’.”

You roll your eyes, shimmy a little in an effort to make the busted lawn chair more comfortable. You thought he’d be more excited. “Why don’t you ever believe me?”

He smacks his lips like he’s considering his answer. The sunlight shifts through the trees and you close your eyes, blissful. “Lemme ask you this. You ever set a snare, baby?”

You can feel it in your blood:  the sun, the breeze, the brook bubbling over your toes. It’s not so bad, you think. Sometimes. It’s not so bad.

“Hey.” He leans over in his chair and snaps his fingers, splintering your peace. “I asked you a question.”

“Nah. Never set a snare. Some of us were normal kids.”

He ignores this and you feel like you’ve gotten away with something. “Well, sometimes you catch a critter, but it don’t strangle to death like it’s s’posed to.” 

You frown. 

“So you gotta do somethin’ about it, right? But you gotta be real careful. Can’t get caught up by the sufferin’. Gotta keep your head about you, y’know?” He’s not looking at you, but you can picture his lips, twisted in something like a smile. “‘Cause it don’t matter what it is…raccoon, possum, bunny rabbit…that sucker’ll take your hand off if y’let it.”

Your throat is sensitive all of the sudden, feels closed off. Maybe you swallowed a bee. “What are you even talking about?”

His head lolls lazy to the left and he stares at you for a second in a way that makes your hair stand on end. Then he chuckles, winks at you, turns away and leans back in his chair. 

“Nothin’, sugar. You’re awful cute.”

.

The heat wreaks havoc on the lifeless inhabitants of the town. You trail behind him like a listless kite as he makes the rounds, checking for damage, hauling the worst afflicted home to Vincent. It baffles you how much he seems to care about them. How much investment he has in keeping the rot contained beneath a pristine cosmetic veneer. For what? For who?

You don’t tell him it’s all rot, all of it, the people, the buildings. The trees. The air. Him. You. 

Some days, most days, you can’t quite look them in their faces. It’s guilt, you suppose. Guilt and acknowledgement of a fear so pervasive you no longer notice the way it clings like a second skin. You’ve convinced yourself if you meet their eyes you’ll find them glaring at you, envious and accusatory. Or worse–you’ll see the future, suspended in the flat, glass pupils of a dead game animal.

Occasionally you punish yourself by looking too closely. You note the receding hairlines, where the skin beneath the wax has dried and pulled taut and shifted the scalp along with it. You observe the way the light shines through plump round fingertips that are only hollow shells of wax, all that soft flesh desiccated and shriveled to a skeletal wedge underneath. You wonder, sometimes, whether Vincent smoothed over any flaws–scars, moles, asymmetrical lips. You touch your face subconsciously and think about the things he might fix for you.

It makes you feel like you are tiptoeing on the precipice of sanity, arms wide, just waiting to topple.

You take a particular interest in their clothing, wonder whether it belonged to them or to someone from the town. You never ask Bo, although you know he could tell you. You ignore the obvious parallels like a badly stitched seam. None of the clothes you wear belong to you either.

There are more residents than you ever imagined, half the houses not as empty as you assumed. Ten years, three brothers, three hundred and forty-nine holes to fill. You were decent at math in a past life, but nowadays, you try your hardest not to solve problems, no matter how they howl and scratch at the door. You’ve become adept at avoidance of the obvious in favor of learning how to assimilate into the cobwebs and shadows. No one can kill you if you’re already dead. You believe that so hard sometimes you can’t see your own reflection.

You believe it so hard that when you find it, on a girl in a house on a street you’ve only been down once or twice, you can’t make sense of it for several long seconds, staring dumbstruck and stupid while the static subsumes your brain.

“Let’s go,” he barks from the sitting room. The couches are pink and floral and faded.

You cannot move. You are made of wax.

“You deaf? Come on.”

She’s wearing cutoff jeans and the t-shirt you bought on a trip two years ago, or maybe three. There’s blood, brown and faded from half-hearted washing, streaking the collar and left sleeve.

Her hair is lighter than yours, and shorter. Her feet are smaller. Her nose is bigger. But the shirt is yours, and so is the blood, and for a second, you know you are a ghost.

“Hey.” He grabs your arm and turns you around. You think maybe she’ll move, now that you’re not looking. “You got a problem?”

You cannot answer him, because you do not have a voice. Because your lips have been glued together and painted the perfect pink. His gaze flicks from you to the girl and back and you wonder if he kissed her the way he kisses you. You hope he can see it, the way you are withering under the wax. You hope he will pick you up, cradle you in his arms, take you home and take care of you, make you whole, make you human.

Isn’t that all you’ve ever asked for?

He snaps his fingers in front of your face and you flinch, because you are real after all.

“Let’s go.”

You let him push you towards the door, hear him close it behind you, feel the floorboards shiver as he follows you down the hall. He puts his hand on the small of your back and ushers you out of the house, down the sidewalk cracked and stuffed with weeds keeling over in the heat. You can feel your feet melting to the concrete, skin crawling, sagging. You try not to stumble. You don’t want him to leave you behind.

“She ain’t you,” he mutters at the end of the street, so low you barely hear him over the buzz of the cicadas.

You aren’t sure if he’s lying, now or ever. You don’t ask him where her clothes are and he doesn’t offer. She might not be you, but you might be her. And you both might be someone else.

Either way, the shape of her is burned into your vision in blue and green, and she shakes her head at you when you close your eyes.

.

You wake to the sound of rain on the roof and it pulls you immediately from bed, stumbling sightless over your feet to get to the window. You yank on the mangled cord to raise the blinds and sure enough, the dust of summer is melting down the window in waves.

“Bo,” you say hoarsely. “Bo, look.”

It is then that the silence of the room seeps into your brain, the conspicuous lack of snoring. Your heart sinks into your wringing stomach. 

In a perfect world, he’d be taking a leak. He’d stumble back to bed and wrap you in his arms, press a kiss to your temple, and you’d drift back to sleep in the bliss of air conditioning. 

Your world is a few dirt road miles south of perfect.

You have to go find him. Find him and haul him out of whatever dark place he’s waded into, before he comes back worse than he went in.

The hall is a throat you have to fight against to get to the stairs, black and humid with walls that breathe. You feel cobwebs on your face and slap them away only to realize it’s your own hair caught on your lashes. The glow of the TV laps at the bottom step like floodwater, makes the carpet undulate like something just sank below the surface. You hesitate, for just a second, before you step down and feel solid ground beneath your feet.

He sits slouched on the couch in front of a screen full of static, deadeyed, jaw clenched. He doesn’t seem to notice you, quiet, creeping thing that you are. The static sounds like rushing water. Mangroves rise from the shadows in the corner of your eye. Lilypads part around your feet. If you turn your head just right, his eyes flash red in the light.

You stop halfway between the stairs and the couch, unsure what kind of animal you’re approaching. Your hands float up like a shield, like a bridge. “Bo,” you say softly, and it echoes in the night. “Are you okay?” 

He blinks, like a person. You notice a bite mark, a purple half moon in the meat of his forearm. Your skin is well acquainted with the shape of his teeth. 

“Bo,” you whisper. You don’t want to get closer. “Come back to bed.”

You hear a splash in the kitchen. The carpet squishes between your toes. Something brushes your ankle and wriggles away. You need to get out of here. You can’t leave without him. 

“Baby…please.” You step towards him and freeze as he lurches forward, sits up straight. His hands dangle between his knees, his gaze still locked on the fuzz of the television. 

“I killed my mama, y’know.” 

His voice is pitched, low and dull. A sheen of sweat glistens on his upper lip and cheekbones. The color is gone from his face and here, in this place, he looks almost green.

You fight to form breath into words. “I…I know.”

He’s speaking again as though he didn’t hear you. You can see in his eyes he is far, far away. “I watched her die. Took a real long time. But I stayed…waited. Had to make sure.”

The water is rising, cold and slick, over your ankles and up your calves. Panic rises with it, packs into your throat like silt. “You were real brave, baby. You did it. You made sure.” Your voice is thin as a reed. 

A terrible, empty grin cracks his face and then vanishes without a ripple, and now he looks at you for the first time and his eyes are hollow and blue as marbles and he whispers, “Then why ain’t she dead?”

The water surges to your knees like it’s been displaced by something large, something prowling. You teeter forward, heart hammering, splashing as you regain your balance. Too loud, too loud. Do alligators eat each other?

“She’s dead, Bo. She is.”

“Don’t lie to me, bitch!” He rises to his feet so fast you lose your balance again, flinching back from him. “She ain’t and you know it. You’ve seen her, she’s here! In this fuckin’ house!”

You shake your head quickly and in your periphery something ducks beneath the surface of the water. “No. She’s not.” Convince him, convince yourself, make it true.

His chest is heaving, his gaze darting around the room, searching. You can picture a shadow in shadow, curled up and waiting in the corner of the ceiling like a fat black spider, fingers splayed wide and tipped sharp and red. 

Bo grips the back of his head and moans and it echoes off the trees, too loud, too loud. “Fuckin’...everywhere.”

Faded flowers. Blush, lipstick. A trick of the light. A locket wrapped in vines. Something hunting, just below the surface. If you let it rip him apart, would it come for you next?

“She’s everywhere…in my goddamn head….” He sways on his feet like he might fall and if he does, if the swamp swallows him, you’ll die here in this place.

“Hey.” You close the distance, push through the muck, brush his elbow. “Hey!”

He smacks you away, snaps his jaws closed. “Don’t touch me!”

You cringe and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Something groans in the dark. Something moves near the ceiling. 

His eyes on you are predatory, cold and empty, and his brow furrows. “Who are you?” he demands.

Wide-eyed, you open your mouth to answer him, but there is nothing on your tongue but moss. “I don’t…I don’t know.”

He leans toward you. “Who the fuck are you?”

You hold your hands up in front of you, backing away, mud between your toes. Your fingers are skeletal. Your nails are painted red. “I don’t know!”

A terribly low, vibrating sound is rising from the water, sending ripples in all directions, freezing your heart in your chest. He moves towards you and the swamp parts around him, allows him to pass like he is a part of it.

“You ain’t leavin’, baby.”

His teeth are sharp.

He lunges.

You scream.

The sound gets caught in your throat like a wad of feathers and bones and you choke, twisting, coming to in your bed. In his bed. Disoriented, you gasp for breath and release the death grip you have on the sheet. Your brow is so sweat-soaked your eyes are beginning to sting. The air is dry on your skin; the blanket is gone. The lower half of your body is tingling.

His head lifts from between your thighs and he looks at you with eyebrows raised. “Easy, sugar. Ain’t done with you yet.”

“Wh…what?” You rub at your eyes, trying to shake the sensation of water closing over your face. Somewhere, some version of you is bleeding in the silt.

His tongue makes another pass and you whimper, arms shaking with the effort of holding yourself up, of treading water, of fighting the maw of a monster. “Relax, baby. Go back to sleep.”

It’s all so insurmountable, the weight of it on your chest, and you sink back into the mattress without a ripple. His mouth is wet and warm. His dark hair is disheveled and you wonder absently if he misses it, that lock you stole. The room is silent save for the sound of your drowning.

“Is it raining?” you whisper, and hate yourself for the hope behind it.

He pauses, meets your gaze over the watery surface of your body. All you can see are his eyes and you could swear, for a second, they reflect neon red. “No.”

You let your head drop back onto the pillow, let him devour you, feel a tear slip over the brim of your lashes and disappear into your hair.

.

The storm breaks on a Wednesday. 

At first, you don’t register the rain on the roof. You don’t even take note of the thunder anymore, after weeks of torment. It’s become a fixture like the dust, like the pervasive smell of decay.

It starts slow, cautious, rolling into town like a tourist with a busted GPS. You mistake the patter for the familiar buzz of TV static even though that makes no sense, even though you’re the only one in the house, even though the TV is off in the next room. All you can hear is the rough swish of the scrub brush on the hardwood floor, coaxing flecks of blood from the gaps between the boards. It’s already beginning to reek in the heat.

You wanted to clean it up last night when it was fresh but he wouldn’t let you, strongarmed you up the stairs and pinned you to the mattress. You’d never admit it to him, to God, or to yourself—and really, is there a difference in Ambrose��but he fucks so good when he’s riled up like that, when it feels like he can’t get enough of the killing so he’s going to take it out on you, take everything you have to offer him plus a little bit more.

The cut on your palm is half-healed and hurts when you put your weight on it. There’s something about that—familiar, comfortable, not grounding, not really, but like static. Stable. Buoyant. Like the bruises on your knees. A constant that cradles you and takes you up and out of here, not too high, just above the trees.

A stair creaks behind you and you freeze like a hare in the shadow of a hawk. It could be Vincent, but he’s busy with last night’s batch. It’s not Bo.

You ease yourself up onto your knees, rock back, stand up, and creep to the foot of the stairs. They are empty. You are alone with the sense that someone has just disappeared out of sight, retreating up into the aching cranium of the house, skirt swishing.

You are never alone, not really.

It’s only then that the sound of the rain seeps into your brain, soothes the hair standing up on the back of your neck. A weight you have been holding on your shoulders since the end of July dissolves like sugar and your spine lengthens by inches. You drop the brush, forget the ghost, walk barefoot through the bloodstain on your way to fling open the front door.

It rains.

It rains even though the clouds are thin, the sun forcing its way through in places like it just can’t bear to admit defeat. It rains and pools in the potholes of the driveway that have been waiting open-mouthed to be filled. It rains and the grass and weeds release a sigh of bliss, stop begging for mercy.

You step down from the porch in a trance, palms up and open, trailing pink-tinged footprints that melt across the concrete like raspberry taffy. You walk across the lawn, scuff your feet in the grass, wonder if maybe you’re dreaming and decide you don’t care.

You sink to the ground, sprawl on your back, feel the damp soak into your clothes and your skin and it makes you whole, makes you new, makes its apologies for taking so long. You are floating, only eyes above the water, surrounded by salvinia and duckweed.

You hear his footsteps just before he calls to you. “The fuck you doin’, girl?” he shouts, but when you open your eyes, he’s losing a fight with a grin, picking his way up the slippery hill.

You sit up halfway. “It’s raining.”

“Y’don’t say.” He drops to his knees beside you, slumped with relief.

His wifebeater is splattered with blood and water but you grab it with both fists and pull him to you, catch his mouth and coax him to the ground.

“Crazy bitch,” he mutters, but he guides your hands to his belt and grips your ass with both hands as you fuss with the buckle, even rolls onto his back to ease your way and lifts his hips so you can tug down his jeans. “Right here, huh?”

“Yes.”

“In the front goddamn yard.”

“Yes!”

“It’s fuckin’ rainin’!”

“I know!”

He laughs and the heavens giftwrap it with a roll of thunder. You're giddy, beaming at him, and he traces your smile with the pad of his finger and something akin to admiration.

You're brand-new, him too, and both of you together. Like it's the first time, a better first, another universe. His hands are on your thighs and his shirt rides up above his stomach. Water drips off your nose and onto his lips and he licks it off like it might save him and maybe it just might. Maybe it’ll save you both.

Exhausted, exalted, you wash the sweat and grime off each other with filthy hands and thirsty mouths. You wrap your fingers around his bare shoulders and ride him with your eyes open and your breath hot on your lips. It’s a fever breaking, the panting, the shaking.

The locket taps against your chest, the lock of his hair tucked inside it. He cups your face, slips his thumb in your mouth, and there’s blood beneath his fingernail. You suck it clean with greed and obedience, savor it, turn your face to the sky and let the crocodile tears run down your cheeks.

“That’s my girl,” he growls, and you bask in the rare and wondrous glow of his approval.

You come apart in splashes like raindrops, small, staccato swells in your core while he kisses the rain off your skin. His hands find the bruises they’ve left on your hips and squeeze and it’s all you could ever ask for, to be held. To be hurt. To be his.

Maybe it’s not so bad, you think. Sometimes. It’s not so bad.

“Y'know, girl, maybe you're right,” he says. "Just this once."

You’re confused until you realize you’ve spoken out loud. You look down at him, cold skin, wet curls, a smudge on his jaw that could be mud or blood, his or yours or someone else’s. He looks back like he sees you.

“You love me?” you ask him before you can think better of it. Before the rain stops.

The corner of his mouth twitches. His gaze slides past you, goes somewhere else, above the sea of trees. The sky is in his eyes. “Sometimes.”

You don’t smile, don’t sigh, just push the hair off his brow and sink slow and gentle beneath the surface and into the green, not a ripple made in your wake.

“Good.”

[rottenpumpkin13]

HAHHAHA! Nothing’s stopping me from doing it TWICE!

BEAUTIFUL PERSON AWARD! Once you are given this award you're supposed to paste it in the asks of 8 people who deserve it. If you break the chain nothing happens, but it's sweet to know someone thinks you're beautiful inside and out 💕

(Bc you deserve a million of these, seriously!! But I will also send an ask to not waste your time x,D)

What are AGSZC’s YouTube search histories? >:3c

I've been wanting to tell you this for the longest time: the cable protector for my laptop charger is a Pikachu! It often kills my writer's block because I can feel its (positive) judgmental stare whenever I don't write. A+ involuntary Pichu motivation! Unfortunately I glanced at the ask this morning and completely mistook the question while I was drafting it at work

( ╥ ᴗ ╥) I unhelpfully present you:

AGSZC Google Search Histories

CLOUD:

• What to do if being stalked

• What to do if being stalked by dead man

• What to do if being stalked by dead man and mother

• Writhe meaning

• What does it mean when someone says writhe for me

• Was Sephiroth queer when he was alive

• How to talk to people without making it awkward

• Why is my memory poor

• How to tell woman I love her

• How to kill someone once and for all

• How to be a good puppet~

• HOW TO STOP MIND CONTROL IMMEDIATELY

GENESIS:

• Who would win in a fight Genesis or Sephiroth

• Genesis Rhapsodos aesthetic

• How to bully people in a goddess honoring way

• Genesis Rhapsodos video compilations

• Cowboys

• Where to rent horse

• Is Masamune heavier than Rapier

• Masamune weight

• How to fix a broken sword

• Super glue strong enough to hold sword together

• How to hide broken sword from friend

• Sephiroth sword replica for sale

• Where to buy replica of Sephiroth's sword

• How to convince a friend their sword was always broken

• Can a sword just break on its own

• Sephiroth x reader fanfiction

• Logical reasons for sword to break on its own

• Acting tips for looking surprised

• How to gaslight your friend

• How to deflect blame in conversation

• How to avoid eye contact when lying

• How to create a distraction during a confrontation

• How to flee the country

SEPHIROTH:

• Benefits of owning a cat

• Sephiroth costume

• BDSM meaning

• Name for device that extinguishes fire

• Fire extinguisher for sale

• Haunted by the faces of people long gone what do I do

• How to stop sitting on my hair

• Am I gay quiz

• Angeal Hewley shirtless

• What does it mean when you dream about being held by blue alien mother

• How to dream about blue alien mother more often

• Situations where it is appropriate to say fuck

• Can I say fuck randomly

• Where to look for items when you misplace them

• Where could I have misplaced my sword

• How to donate effectively to social causes

• Videos of people crying in regret after cutting their hair

• Can you consume a salt lamp

• DTF meaning

• Milf meaning

• Slang terms to use to sound normal

• Silly cat videos

• Why is piracy wrong

• Free movies watch online HD

• How to make protein shake taste like pasta

• Am I depressed quiz

• Spaghetti recipe

• How to put out kitchen fire

• How to remove spaghetti from ceiling

ZACK:

• Sephiroth bald

• can you die from licking batteries

• can you die from inhaling cheese puff dust

• Apple bottom jeans

• boots with the fur

• Reebok's with the straps

• Why does my husband look at other women

• Is it safe to eat pinecones

• Are moogles real

• How to befriend a moogle

• Can you die from licking hair gel

• What are the implications of string theory for quantum gravity in multidimensional spacetime

• Sephiroth x Genesis Rhapsodos fics

• How to explode things using mind

• Cool dog collar jewelry

• Cool dog collar jewelry SFW

• Sunflower tattoo

• Is it normal to kiss your friends

• How to kiss friends in a bromance way

• How to tell if I'm psychic

• Intersectional feminism

ANGEAL:

• Empanada recipe

• Where to hypothetically hide a body

• Tzatziki recipe

• Signs you're in a polycule

• Am I in a polycule how to tell

• Is it normal to plan your own funeral ahead of time

• Valid coupons printable

• Is it normal to vent to your houseplants about your problems

• Used dog cage for sale

• How to make friend realize that dreaming of blue alien mother isn't normal

• How to approach fact that friend needs therapy in conversation

• How to fix sword in case it ever breaks randomly

• Good gifts for teenagers with ADHD

• Chainsaw for sale

• Is a chainsaw a good gift

• Why am I so tired all the time

• Why is it that every time you search something online the internet makes you think you have an incurable disease

• Fun team building activities

• How to convince coworkers that trust falls are safe

• How to stop bleeding fast

• Encouraging words to calm down panicking crowd

• paramedic number

[koithelittle]

cg!cc!wilbur moodboard + headcanons!!

note; so like half of these? were from a hc post that was unformatted and turns out i messed up the request but i am- i can’t fix it without feeling absolutely horrible so. i turned them into this and just added like way more! i have plans for a couple new fics plus absolutely endless moodboards so be looking out for that! this moodboard was my first and has been collecting dust in my drafts for months. love it tho! otay das aww.

paci creds; littlemothshop on ig!

navigation

other moodboards

taglist; @jjtheresidentbaby @lillylvjy @wilmaslittleflower @whos-nicooo (ask or do to be added!)

- he makes sure your regression is completely private, only the band knows and whoever of your friends knows.

- barely anyone even knows you're dating him, let alone that he's your cg when you're little. it's all very private!

- he has pacis, sippys, and toys all scattered around the house. although there's a special spot for it all, it's just sort of floats around !

- he's big on cuddling you when you're little, especially if you're having a hard time ! he'll hold you, calling you soft names to help you slip into or stay in little space.

- doesn't really mind any name but prefers daddy/dada!

- he likes to set up corners around his house that are safe spaces. pillows and blankets and one of your many favorite stuffies. he also likes to put a basket that has some coloring stuff n toys!

- when he's streaming and you're regressed, he'll usually set you up under his desk, blankets and a stuffie, paci and the switch with your headphones. he'll ruffle your hair and rub your back while he streams, making sure to keep an eye on you while he's talking.

- he's got pretty set boundaries with you. bedtime at a certain time, with quiet time before. baths are always fun! and they're always after playtime so you're a bit calmer !

- loves getting you custom pacis from shops, managed to get a lovejoy themed one and couldn't stop smiling at how happy you were.

- speaking of Lovejoy! he'll take you to band practice alot, little or big! the guys love to help care for you. hold you and play with you! Joe is your favorite, since he likes to let you sit in his lap and play with his beard.

- wil really likes to color with you, but he's also always up to play pretend too!

- keeps close tabs on you and knows your habits pretty well, so he catches when you slip way before you do!

- loves cooking for you all of the time, he knows your safe foods like the palm of his hand so he'll give you a few options to pick from at each meal

- holds you when you sleep, and rubs your back

- favorite names to call you are bunny, baby, and little one!

- his kitchen is packed full of all of your safe foods and favorite utensils and plates! it’s mostly in your favorite color, but he knows it helps you eat and enjoy eating so he doesn’t mind

- he has a little note on his phone that lists your favorite things, big and little. movies, shows, snacks, foods, sweaters of his— etc. he wants to remember everything he can!

- he’s very patient and soft with you, careful with his words and tone.

- he likes it when you lay across him, your head on his shoulder or his lap so he can rub your cheeks and hair. just loves giving you mindless affection!

- favorite part of the day for him is when he’s getting you to sleep. sometimes it’ll be through a vod he puts on, a cartoon or he’ll just sing to you.

- loves sitting behind you with you in his lap as you play. he likes to join in too, of course but sometimes he just likes to watch.

- he likes to color with you and help you find all the colors you need, handing them off to you whenever you ask

- piggy back rides!! although his favorite method of travel for you is holding you on his hip or carrying you when you face him. he just feels safer doing that, like he can keep closer tabs on you.

- whenever you pout or you’re sad, he’ll get you to laugh and giggle by making silly faces or noises but especially likes tickling you!

- reads you a story at every nap and bed time. sometimes he’ll make them up but he really likes the books since he can show you pictures!

- he sits you on the counter or on a stool while he cooks so he can keep an eye on you but still have you involved without you getting hurt or feeling obligated to help. he can do it just fine on his own, but he doesn’t mind you being there!

- he’s more strict when it comes to routines above all else. he just wants to make sure you’re healthy and well cared for.

- he likes to have some age appropriate and easy workbooks on hand, just to give you a few pages to work on while he works. you feel involved and you like filling them out (and he likes checking them so he can put stickers on it and draw a smiley face for good work!)

- he’s a picnic guy, so he’ll gather up a lunch in a picnic basket, pack your little bag and take you out to the park or an empty field or even a pebble beach and just have a lil picnic with you. he’ll read a book or write some music while you color and draw or play with whatever you brought!

- he loves it when you kiss his cheek to make him smile. if he’s ever sad a lil kiss on his nose or cheek or chin will just make him absolutely beam! and then subsequently attack you in kisses and tickles.

- loves calling you baby, but baby bear has a nice ring to it to him.

- jokes he’s your papa bear

- adores when the guys come over to work on music but end up playing with you and indulging you in your pretend play! mark gets really invested when your toy of choice is blocks, he’ll try to build the highest tower but joe always knocks it over. cue a very long bicker match!

- ash likes to color and draw with you. he’ll teach you cool techniques and show you all the fun stuff he can draw!

- joe really likes to play with your calico critters with you, coming up with silly scenarios or putting silly outfits on them.

- wil likes to watch from the sidelines, just gushing at how cute it all is. he has good friends, but an even better love!

- sometimes when he’s bored or lonely (when he’s on tour mostly) he has a habit of doing a bit of online shopping and ordering whatever thing you last mentioned. sometimes a stuffy, sometimes a paci but more often than not, a new toy. he just loves you and the thought of getting to see your face when he finds something for you just makes it even better.

- just overall a very attentive and sweet cg!

[billys-pretty-babe]

How Could You?

Pairing : Billy Hargrove x Fem!Reader

Summary : Sometimes, Billy needs reassurance that you love him especially after Neil gets into his head, using your name against Billy, knowing that hurts worse than when his father puts his hands on him.

Warnings : child abuse, Neil Hargrove, swearing, Billy makes a sex joke 😐

Word count : 835

A/N : My mental health has been so bad recently so this might be my last fic for a while that I actually take time to write. I have stuff in my drafts ready to post in case I need them.

It hurts you deeply, seeing him like this, so vulnerable, so hurt by his own father. Neil left with Susan, leaving Max and Billy at the house. Max was the one to call you, she heard everything that happened, and heard every word that Neil spewed at your boyfriend. You're pretty sure you broke almost every law in town to get to him, needing to be with him.

She let you into the house, hugging you quickly. "I left water and Tylenol outside of his room, I don't know if he took it." You nodded and thanked her and she went to her room as you went to Billy's, the water and medicine nowhere in sight. You knocked and walked inside, seeing him in his bed, shirtless and in shorts.

He looked at his ceiling, holding his necklace tightly and you knew the chain was digging into the skin, making it raw. "Baby," you said quietly. He didn't take his eyes off of the ceiling as he hummed to you, acknowledging you. You shut his door behind you and moved to the edge of his bed, his ankle against the bottom of your back.

Your heart sank when you saw what exactly Neil did to him, "Oh baby." He shook his head, "Don't do that, not for me. I'm not deserving of that." Still, his eyes never left the ceiling. "Yes you are." He shook his head, "I'm not, trust me." Slowly and with calculated movements, you reached for his knee, gently rubbing it, doing your best to not get knots in the brunette hair that dusted the skin.

"Why aren't you?" He sighed, "Because I'm not." You hummed, "That's not an actual answer, B." He stayed quiet. "Do you want me to leave," you asked after a few minutes of silence. "No," he deadpanned. You nodded, "Okay," you said as you got comfortable, sitting beside him, gently yanking a pillow out from underneath him.

The room was silent besides Billy's ragged breathing, his adrenaline through the roof as he tried to calm down. "Do you love me?" You looked at him, "Of course I do." He hummed, "Okay." You sighed before speaking again, "It was after our second date, when you brought me back here and you were working on that junk bike. You were so open with me, I was able to ask you anything and you immediately answered. I got to know William, not Billy or the keg king, but William Hargrove. So yeah, I can positively say that I do indeed love you, a lot more than I could ever express."

He nodded, hand reaching for yours and you held it, seeing little cuts on his knuckles. "Did you hit him back?" He shook his head, "I think I'd be dead if I did. Punched the bathroom wall, there's a hole now so I moved the picture over it." You nodded and rubbed his knuckles gently. "Did you break anything?" He shook his head, "Already checked myself like you taught me to." You nodded.

"Is it hard to love me?" You shook your head, "It's second nature for me, like breathing." He nodded and looked at you quickly, "You forget how to breathe sometimes." You grumbled and he laughed. "Shut up, Billy." His laugh made you smile, usually it was something just for you. "Imagine forgetting how to breathe that you have to watch your boyfriend do it." You rolled your eyes, "Imagine eating fucking bubbles in the shower." He thumped your thigh, "That was one time because you blew bubbles at me."

He leaned down and kissed the top of your head, murmuring, "I love you." You smiled, "I love you too now give me a kiss." He laughed and tipped your head back before kissing you. You smiled when he pulled away, "Man, is this what Disney is like?" He laughed, "I mean, you do get to ride your favorite ride." You gasped and he laughed, placing his hand on his stomach as his shoulders shook, head thrown back and you laughed with him.

"Billy, that's inappropriate." He snickered, "Look at who you're talking to. Of course it was." You laughed and shook your head, looking at the bottle of Tylenol on his bedside table. "Go tell her thank you." He groaned as he got up, trudging next door before coming back a few minutes later and he laid back down. "Need me to mend anything?" He shook his head, “I'm good, maybe my dick." You sighed, "Billy, shut up." He laughed before Max piped up through the wall.

"Yeah Billy, shut up!" You both laughed and he knocked on the wall, "Shut it, Maxine!" You laughed, shaking your head and got comfortable, kicking your shoes off. You curled up against his side, trying to be aware of his bruises and sore spots. "Love you." You smiled, "I love you too." He talked to you until you fell asleep, holding you tightly to protect you from anything and everything.

[heartthrobin]

your kiss carries me home

javier peña x female!reader

wc: 1.1k

warnings: none, just fluff

an: this has been sitting in drafts for eons but i thought y’all deserved a little sm sm while you wait on the Hotch fic :)

summary: every day is harder than the last, but Javier’s got you to kiss him drunk as soon as he steps in the door and that’s more than he deserves.

The light in the hallway outside the apartment had stopped working, it steeped the entrance in darkness.

Javier's eyes flickered up to it. He'd been meaning to put in a new bulb for almost a month now.

He didn't know why he was so bothered by it. The apartment wasn't his own, not really. It had been DEA appointed and the rows of apartments down the corridor belonged to colleagues who's faces he passed every morning but who’s names he couldn’t be bothered to remember.

He'd felt weird when he asked you to move in - considering it wasn't really his own place - but you bounced on your toes with a soft “really, Javi?” on your lips and kissed him like he'd invited you to Buckingham Palace. The logistics of the matter were quickly lost on him. 

Evening wind whistled through the corridor and unstuck the hair that sweat had plastered to Javier’s forehead.

Yellow light peeked out from underneath the door, you were home. He could hear you rustling around the kitchen: cupboards closing and plates clinking.

A wave of guilt washed over him. It was almost midnight.

You'd probably waited on him to eat dinner. Every day he promised to be home earlier, and every day he managed to arrive later.

He reached to scratch at his top lip, where the bristly brown hair sprouted out under his nose, and sighed. It had been such a godawful long day. A narco had run him down what felt like the full length of Bogotá and they’d lost another informant he’d been using to monitor Pacho Herrera.

Javier’s eyes dared a glance down at his state: his cream button up was caked in dust, sticking to his chest with sweat, and he reeked like a tobacco shop. He knew how you hated the cigarettes. Javier was coming home to you a mess, as he did every night.

It scared him that it wasn’t enough. The late nights, the cigarette smoke, the broken hallway light. That he wasn’t enough. 

The sound of a distant crash pulled his gaze back up to the door, it was followed by a faint "shit!" and he smiled.

God, all he'd thought about all day was you.

About getting home and crawling into your arms and tasting your lips. About your hands and how they would trail down his back and feeling the rumble of your giggles when he kisses your neck.

You never complained about his tardiness, only wrapped your arms over his shoulders as if every night he was returning from war, and told him you missed him.

The thought was enough to urge his hand over the door handle and it squeaked as it twisted. The door pushed open, it was unlocked.

Cool air rushed over him, the AC was cranking loudly in the corner: fighting to ward off Colombia's heat of the night.

"Javi?" Your voice carried from the nook of the kitchen. The smell of food was wafting after it and Javier's stomach nudged at him in hunger.

He set his gun and badge carefully on the counter before following the sounds of dinner being made. "Baby, it's me."

The kitchen was small and you turned from where you'd been mixing something in a pot on the stove to look up at him, he thought he might melt through the floor at the look on your face.

Your smile tugged on either end of your mouth and the fuzzy yellow light made your eyes sparkle.

"How many times do I have to tell you to lock the door when I'm not here?" In two steps Javier had you between his large hands, squeezing at your hips and pulling you against him so he could stare unabashedly down at your face. His tone was playful. "Hm?"

"I'm sorry..." you grinned, "I left it open so when my boyfriend arrives he can come right in."

Your eyelashes bat up at him and Javier wondered how he ever managed to look away from them.

"Oh, yeah?" He inquired, tilting his head and pulling you closer against him. "And where is your boyfriend now?"

Javier felt your hands slide down his back and into his bum pockets. You shrugged, playing along. "I don't know. He said he was going to be here by nine, but he hasn't shown up."

"Is he always such a flaky asshole, your boyfriend?" His tone was gentler now, less playful, concealing a soft apology.

Your hands slipped from his backside up to either side of his face where your thumb ran softly over his top lip. "Most of the time, yes. But I love him so it doesn't matter."

Javier pressed down against your lips tenderly. You tasted like the white wine that was sitting in a glass not too far down the counter and the pasta sauce warming in the pot.

"I'm sorry, baby." He whispered against your lips.

You shook your head, kissing him again. "You're here now."

Javier's hand tightened on your hip and licked at the seam of your mouth. His tongue slipped in and he didn't think he'd ever get over the little sounds you made.

The first kiss you'd shared had been a menagerie of melodies that left Javier's head spinning for hours afterwards. He'd known just then that you had to be his.

The hands cupping his face moved to drag scribbles against his scalp with your long nails and he was sure he was dying and dreaming and melting all at once. 

He guided you carefully until you were leaning back against the countertop. You pulled off him with a slight pop, never wandering to far: close enough that you could offer short sweet pecks to his glistening red lips, wet with your saliva.  

"I thought about you all day." His words slipped out like hot steam from the mouth of a kettle.

"You did?" Your fingers twisted the curls at the base of his neck. "Shouldn't you be thinking about catching bad guys and keeping Colombia safe from narcos, mi amor?"

He let out a chuckle. "Not when I have the most beautiful girlfriend in the world at home waiting to kiss me drunk as soon as I step in the door."

The blush that chased over your cheeks made Javier's chest bloom with pride. Knowing that he could do that to you with just his stupid words.

"Eres demaisiado suave, Peña." You tutted, the grin of playfulness ever present. "Es muy peligroso."

"Just for you, baby." He swooped down for one more taste at heaven, sighing as your teeth caught his bottom lip before straightening up. "I'm starving. Let's eat before your boyfriend gets here."

[skeletorrito]

first part of my new satosugu plasma vessel arc fic 😁

it's a rough draft, but i like where it's going so far !!! pls provide feedback 💕 thanks! ☺️

Okinawa

“Let’s just fly out tomorrow morning, Suguru!” Satoru Gojo called out to his friend as he splashed in the clear ocean waves of Okinawa. 

Riko Amanai’s eyes sparkled at this idea. She peered up at Satoru, who was initially tormenting her with a creepy-looking sea cucumber. 

Suguru Geto frowned, hand coming up to his brow to block the sun. “You know we can’t…” He called back, standing and dusting sand off of himself. He padded over to a shady spot. 

Satoru, bone-dry from head to toe, met him on the shore. “C’mon, Sugu, the weather will hold up, and there’s not as many curse users around. What’s one more day to go sightseeing?” He challenged with a pout. “We’ll just let the bounty expire while we’re in the air.”

Suguru’s eyebrows pinched together in concern. He leaned in and murmured, “You haven’t released your technique since yesterday, have you?” 

Satoru’s eyes grew wide. He remained silent, biting the inside of his cheek.

“You haven’t slept, either, and I know you don’t plan on sleeping tonight,” he looked Satoru up and down, taking note of the heavy bags under his eyes. “I’m worried about you, Satoru. You sure we don’t need to go back?”

He gave Suguru a playful punch and reassured him, “I’m fine, really, stop worrying. I’ve stayed up longer playing Stardew Valley.” He leaned in closer, grinning as he added, “Plus, you’re here too.” 

Suguru softened at this comment. 

Satoru smirked as he continued in a suggestive whisper near Suguru’s ear, “And you’re going to keep me up tonight, right?”  

Suguru flushed beet red, muttering, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt..."

“Hey, Riko, we’re staying!” 

Riko cheered at this. 

So, unsurprisingly, the group ended up sightseeing for the rest of the day. 

Satoru packed the day with fun activities: tandem kayaking, shopping for souvenirs, visiting botanical gardens, eating ramen, and finally, the best part, visiting Okinawa’s aquarium. 

If Suguru had any idea of what a “perfect date” was, this would have to be it. 

He gazed at Satoru lovingly, admiring how the glowing aquarium tanks reflected in his equally beautiful ocean eyes. Satoru, in his own impulsive way of course, planned this whole amazing day for everyone even while sleep-deprived and anxious. Suguru glanced over at Riko and Kuroi, both of whom looked on in wonder and excitement at the exhibits. He noticed Satoru’s attention also shifted to them, smiling to himself. 

He’s being so thoughtful today... 

Suddenly, Suguru filled with emotion. He reflected on how precious Satoru was to him and it almost hurt how intensely he wanted to cherish him. His fingers nudged at Satoru’s, and Satoru responded by lacing them tightly, uncaring of curious onlookers. Everyone else faded into the background, as they often did when he was with Suguru. They stood in comfortable silence as they watched sea creatures dart and weave around them. 

“It’s like we’re on vacation…” Suguru thought aloud, smiling softly to himself.

Satoru peeked at him through the corner of his sunglasses and matched his smile. 

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Satoru replied, fixing his gaze on the giant, majestic whale passing over them.

Suguru squeezed his hand gently. 

“Yeah, it is.” 

They rented a quaint, two-bedroom beach house for the night. Misato Kuroi, the only true adult present (because let’s be honest, two eighteen-year-old high-school students barely make up a single, functional adult), helped organize this with Suguru. He managed to smooth-talk his way into the last beach house vacancy in Okinawa for the night under her supervision.  

“It’s only two bedrooms…” Kuroi commented as they all settled in. “Is that okay for you both? There might be a spare futon…”

“It’s fine,” they both replied in unison, side-eyeing each other and giggling quietly as they shuffled inside with their bags. 

Kuroi looked surprised at first, then her face softened and she smiled. “You two must be very close.” 

“Yeah, we’re boy-” Satoru started. 

“Best friends. We’re best friends.” Suguru finished. He shot a warning look at Satoru. 

Satoru clenched his teeth into an awkward, apologetic smile and escaped into the bedroom. Kuroi’s eyebrows rose as she studied Suguru’s face curiously. They exchanged uncomfortable, polite smiles and farewells, then scurried to their respective bedrooms. 

He frowned as he entered the room and shut the door behind him. “Can you try to be a little more subtle? We’re still on a mission, after all…” He muttered in a low volume, dropping his backpack on the floor next to the bed. 

Satoru flopped onto the bed with a relieved sigh, spreading out his stuff wherever he felt like it. His sunglasses were the only thing folded neatly on the bedside table. “Oh, whatever, stop being so uptight. Let’s just enjoy this little vacation together while we can.” He patted at the spot next to him, wiggling his finger in a “come hither” motion.

Suguru conceded, pulling the elastic from his bun as he joined Satoru on the mattress. “I’m glad we stayed. You planned a really nice day, Satoru.” He settled into a plush pile of pillows, his long, dark hair splaying in beautiful contrast to the white pillows. 

“I know. You’re welcome.” Satoru took this opportunity to wriggle closer, slipping under Suguru’s arm and resting his head on his chest. He snaked his long arms around Suguru’s waist, sighing happily as he squeezed tightly.

“Take a nap, you need it,” Suguru suggested, hooking his arm around Satoru’s shoulders and reaching up to thread his fingers into fluffy white hair. He pulled out his phone to set an alarm. 

Satoru yawned, fighting to keep his eyes open in Suguru’s warm embrace. “I can’t… Gotta protect her…” Despite his arguments, he nuzzled his face further into Suguru’s shoulder. 

“I’ll stay up and wake you in a couple of hours. I’ve already got curses patrolling outside. You don’t have to do this alone, y’know.”

Satoru forced his eyes to open as best as he could so he looked up at Suguru appreciatively. Then, he smiled deviously with another brilliant idea written across his face. “I’ll sleep… if you jump in the ocean with me later tonight.”

Suguru snorted as he scrolled through his phone, “Satoru, that’s a terrible idea.” 

“My ideas are never terrible,” Satoru mumbled, eyelids growing heavy again. He finally closed them as he mumbled, sadly and quietly, “You didn’t even get in today… I wanted to swim with you.” 

“I’ll think about it.” Suguru smiled, kissing the top of Satoru’s head. His hair smelled like sweet citrus. “Now get some rest.” 

Satoru hummed sleepily before he drifted off, “I know you’ll say yes.” 

Suguru laughed quietly to himself. 

I probably will.

Satoru woke in a panic two hours later, gasping and attempting to sit up. He was still firmly tucked against Suguru, who jolted at Satoru’s sudden movements. Satoru lifted his head, eyes wide with anxiety. “Wha- What time is it?! Where’s Riko!?”

Suguru patted him, coaxing his head back down. “Hey, it’s alright,” he soothed, shoving his phone into his pocket. “Riko’s sleeping, everything’s fine. It’s only 11pm.”

Satoru relaxed into the touch, sighing. “Good, I’m glad.” He sat up and stretched with a yawn. “Only 11? That’s perfect. Let’s go for a dip.” He grinned widely and stood. Clearly, an extra few hours of sleep did the job. “C’mon, we’re already in swimsuits.”

Suguru rolled his eyes, groaning, “Ugh I was really hoping you’d forget about that. It’s going to be freezing, Satoru.” He stretched out across the mattress, shaking the numb arm Satoru was sleeping on. 

“Exactly,” Satoru replied and booped Suguru on the nose with his finger. “It’ll keep us awake.” 

Suguru took a silent moment to consider. He hated (loved) that Satoru could convince him into these shenanigans so easily. He finally agreed, but on one condition, “I’m only going in if you promise not to use Infinity.” He squinted at him, a serious look on his face. “This is your idea, so you have to commit. Otherwise, I’m staying here.”

Satoru’s face fell. He pouted, “But-”

“We can take a shower together after.” 

Satoru immediately agreed, blushing wildly, “Okay fine. No Infinity.”

[pastafossa]

The last day of 2023.

And holy shit has it been a chaotic ride, one which you all shared with me, or that's what it feels like!

The Major Moments:

Feb: Cato's cancer diagnosis and discovery of weird mutated cells that likely won't be explained until after he passes away. He's still with me, fortunately! No idea how much time he has left but I'm grateful for every second

April: a small leak in my dining room ceiling turned into a bigger leak which turned into a massive hole in the ceiling, at least it wasn't winter???

May: DD Born Again Photos give us all a goddamn heart attack

May: I FUCKING REACH MY OVERALL 1,000,000 WORD COUNT ON AO3. 🎊 🎉 🎊 Next stop is 1mill for TRT!

June: Went to my first con since Covid! Drove all the way down to Philly to see Charlie Cox, WHICH WAS FUCKING AMAZING, HE HELD THE RED THREAD FOR OUR PHOTO, MY FANFIC DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE, AND I TOLD HIM WHAT DD MEANS TO ME AND HE WAS SO NICE I COULD CRY

June: At that same con, I finally FINALLY got to meet my bff @wonderlandmind4 in person after many many many late nights of chatting, and we just CLICKED like we'd been friends for years, which I should have expected, but still! And then I got to meet a bunch of my readers, too! Best con experience EVER

July: enter Whoops Covid Finally Got Me After 3 Years But Charlie Was Worth It ™

July: Finally dusted off my draft of Pasta's First Dark Fic cause even if my brain was too fuzzy to write, I figured I could edit a bit. And I did! And was pretty happy with the results!

August: Shit Now There's A Long Covid Heart Issue And I Can't Be Seen Until Late November Thanks Covid ®

August: leak in the garage leads to me losing about 65% of all the beautiful, special woods pieces I'd gathered over the course of six years for carving. Within a week I am gifted a huge bin of wood from a kind soul at my local witchy shop

Sept: TRT's 6th anniversary!

Nov: I was slowly getting back into the swing of things, doing a bit of writing in between learning to manage whatever was going on with my heart (which we'll hopefully figure out in January when I get all the results of testing in Jan)

Early Dec, and the worst week of my life: mom got sick. Within one day she went from not feeling good to needing an ambulance. By the next day, she was in the ICU - flu induced double pneumonia that was interfering with her breathing and heart issues. And with one more day, she was put into an induced coma and ventilated, without any of us sure if she'd pull through. They told us she'd likely be under for two weeks, potentially longer even if she made it. The amount of messages and supportive comments I got from all of you, the talks I had with @wonderlandmind4 and @shouldbestudying41, just the general sense of having a community to help me means more than I can ever say as you all helped me through that terrible, horrible moment, even if it was just gently messaging me to remind me to try to eat.

Mid Dec: against ALL odds, Mom was off the ventilator in a week. By week 2, she was out of the ICU. By week 3? Off to the physical rehab center. She was there a grand total of 1 week before she was allowed to come home to finish her recovery. Early December was the worst moment of my life, and yet it was also bookended by the best Christmas of my life even if it was spent at the rehab center, because I got to have my mama back, and hug her and tell her I loved her and make jokes, and now she's home and we've been watching Christmas movies and eating grilled cheeses, and as far as I'm concerned, that's what the holiday is to me: not presents and snow and lights, but this moment, this time with her. 'In all the places you find love, it feels like Christmas.'

In just a few hours for me, it'll be 2024. I have no idea what to expect going forward, or even what to plan for, much less a resolution. I know I want to get back to TRT when mom's a bit better (she still needs a lot of help, understandably). I know there are wood carvings I want make; friends I want to visit; witchy events at my local shop I want to go to. But other than that... who knows? If I'm lucky, things will be calmer than this past year. But even if they aren't, at least I know I have dear friends, all of you, and my family, including Pasta Mama, to help me through it.

Goodbye, 2023. Hello, 2024.

[a-b-riddle]

im.. eating my BBQ chips, and i decided "oh yeah, that one series!" i read it. the last line. THAT LAST LINE. oh my god, im trying not to cry. like, im blinking back tears. i know, im late but boy oh boy doesnt that just.. hurt.

i must see readers reaction, this series is amazing so far. but i have to ask, will there be a happy ending? (apart of me hopes so) this was deliciously written and i love how creative you are.

I would cut a bitch for some BBQ lays right now.

There will be a happy ending. All of my stories (even thoughts collecting dust in my drafts) have happy endings. Even if it’s a dark fic. Homie just develops Stockholm syndrome and copes 💀

[hiccupscloud-26]

Hicvember Day 1: Halloween

Hey all! Here's my first entry for hicvember 2024! I already know I'm probably not going to be able to complete the full list, so I've decided to combine a few of the prompts together randomly, lol.

Here are all the characters that appear in this hic fic. I really need to update that one with Indy's name. Including a super super rough draft of Calypso, Kai, and Lai's Halloween costumes

And now, without further ado...Enjoy!

Hicvember prompts used: Halloween/Embarrassed

Content Warnings

Hiccups

Embarrassment

Slight teasing

Annoyance of hiccups

“You look ridiculous,” Calypso snorted at her girlfriend. “Is this seriously what mortals do when celebrating Halloween?”

Kai rolled their eyes and posed in her Ch.at N.oir costume, “yes, now can you please change to match our theme? You'll make Lai upset.”

Lai, dressed up as Viperi.an, couldn't help the puppy eyes he'd given Calypso. Without another word, she stomped to their bedroom and changed into her chosen costume.

Lai looked at Kai quizzically and the taller one gently ruffled his hair, “don't you worry about us, sprout. We're fine, this party's gonna be great.”

The angel nodded in agreement as Kai headed to the snack bowl. Having organized this whole party, they'd kinda forgotten about eating. She grabbed a handful of hard pretzels and stuffed them into her mouth. As she quickly swallowed them down, the doorbell rang.

“Ooh, our first guest, I'll get it!” Kai called and headed over to the door.

When she opened it, they spotted Calliope and Indyko, dressed as Polym.ouse and Minota.urox respectively. Kai smiled, ready to greet them when a loud *HUUCK!* popped up and she covered her mouth, all confidence crumbling.

She could still salvage this. She cleared her throat, “sorry about that, lovebirds.~” Okay, so far so good…maybe it was only a single. “wel-*CUH!*-me-” Never mind…

“Excited to see us, bestie?” Calliope jokingly teased her.

“Ugh, why noooo-*HUCK'UH!*-oow?” Kai whined dramatically. “I have a party to ho-*KOLP!*-host.”

“Alright, I'm in my cos…tume,” Calypso paused as she saw an unrecognizable look on Kai's face as well as their body posture. She hurried over to her usually confident girlfriend and placed a hand on her back, “Kai? What's wrong?”

Kai startled and looked down at their partner, a blush dusting their cheeks. She couldn't hold eye contact and she was slouched, trying to make herself look smaller.

They whispered to Kai, “I got the *HICK'M!*” she blushed even more and covered her face.

Kai covered up a snort, “aww, really? This is what shambles your confidence? Hiccups?”

Kai whined, “they're embar-*RAH!*-ssing. How am I supp-*OLP*-sed to host a party like thi-*IP!*-is?”

Calliope shook her head as she and Indy finally fully walked inside, “classic Kai, always so dramatic.”

And soon after the two walked in, a bunch of other guests arrived as well, sporting the costumes of many Mira/culous Lad/ybug superheroes and heroines, following the party theme. Kai looked around at all the people they'd invited, their heart dropping to the pits of her stomach.

And then the Halloween music sounded on the various speakers around the place. Confused, Kai turned to see Lai giving her a smile and thumbs up. Kai looked at him confused, but at the next *HUCK!* no one even batted an eye, the music too loud for anyone to notice. Kai sent Lai a smile of gratitude before going into the kitchen to cure her ailment.

Five water drinking minutes later and she still had the hiccups. They were persistent on staying tonight. She groaned, interrupted by another *HUMPK!*.

“Sounds like someone's started early on the drinking.”

Oh shit, she'd been caught. She turned around and saw Melody and Sibylla, the latter clinging to the former's arm.

“Hehe-*HIP!*,” she huffed and looked away, shrinking in on herself again, “yeah, you ca-*HAUP!*‐ght me. How are you ladies doing toni-*HOLP!*-night? Great costumes.”

The two had arrived as the main villains of the series, Melody as May.ura, and Sibylla as Ha.wk Mo.th.

“Alright, had to step away, Siby was getting a bit overwhelmed by the lights and music,” Melody explained.

“Thank you for inviting us,” Sibylla bowed her head properly.

“Of course *HUP!* you two are my favor-ITE lesbians *HICKUP!*-ugh,” Kai wanted a hole to just consume them right then and there.

“They sound really bad,” Melody frowned concerned.

“It's fine *HIP!* just annoyi-*NGK!* and embarrassing and *HIP!HUCK!*...stubborn *HUCKUUUH!*-ugh,” they rubbed their chest, still avoiding eye contact with the two girls.

“Well, have you tried water? Or holding your breath?” Sibylla raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, and those *HULP!* usually work…I du-*HNK!*‐dunno what else to do *HMPK!*,” she whined.

Sibylla walked up to Kai with the most serious face and instructed, “prove it.”

Kai furrowed her brows, dumbfounded, looking at her for the first time, “what?”

“Prove it,” she repeated adamantly, “prove to me you have the hiccups and I'll give you a million dollars.”

“You don't even have that much money,” Kai argued.

“You don't know that,” Sibylla smirked, her moth wings shifting slightly. “Prove it and you'll find out.”

“This'll be easy, it'll be like I won the lotto- oh…they're gone,” Kai felt their chest and didn't feel like they were gonna hiccup anytime soon. “Oh my gosh, you're a miracle worker, Siby! Thank you!”

“Don't thank me, thank the hiccups for having performance anxiety,” Sibylla joked with a straight face as she walked back to her girlfriend and clung to her arm again.

Kai smiled and nodded before heading out to host her party.

Fin

[suguwu]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

monty @shibaraki beloved thank you for the tag! this is a lovely little tag game and made me rlly sit down and think about my own fics, which was fun! so my five favorite fics are below!

lover be good to me

You meet Kita Shinsuke on a rainy summer day, with a sea of hydrangeas swirling at your feet. You know him instantly, as only a soulmate can. He seems like a good man. Like a good soulmate. But it’s your wedding day.

i don't think it's a surprise that this fic ended up on this list—it's probably my favorite thing i've written ever. i put a lot of heart into it and it's my first completed longfic. i really feel like i told the story i wanted to tell and it is forever near and dear to my heart.

aftermath

Getou Suguru shows up on your doorstep. It’s not the first time, but when you look at him, at the blood spattered across his clothing, you think it might be the last. There will be consequences when the dust settles, you know. You let him in anyway.

i think i wrote this fic in a single day—i couldn't let it go. i'm fascinated by getou's defection and also think constantly about what it must have been like for him to suddenly have two little girls to care for. i feel like this fic has good tension and gets a lot across in very little.

maw

��I’m afraid I’ll eat them, sometimes,” you whisper. “I know,” Suguru says, curling a big hand around your nape, cupping your skull. He presses a kiss to the corner of your lips. “I know.” You think he’s the only one who does.

i was possessed when i wrote this one tbh. i wrote it entirely in my tumblr drafts in the span of maybe two hours. i wanted to explore getou's isolation and how he might have looked at a technique that seemed similar to his. this fic has some of my favorite imagery and revolves deeply around the idea of hunger, which is near and dear to me.

rules of engagement

All’s fair in love and war. You have no intention of marrying Zen’in Naoya. He finds this out the hard way.

this is another one where i love the imagery. it ties in with hunger in its own way as well, which again—near and dear to my heart. i also wanted a chance to write a clever, manipulative reader, and this felt like the perfect story to do it with.

erosion

Existence can erode you, can scrape away your skin. You couldn’t have known what was underneath his.

villain!nanami my greatly, greatly beloved. i wanted to examine what he might have been like if he'd broken under the weight of sorcery and everything he's been through. even though it's an au, i feel like i stayed pretty true to his character.

no pressure tags: @lorelune @firein-thesky @peachsayshi @touyangel @tyga-lily and anyone else who wants to!

[modanisgf]

i just know ur next katseye fic is going to eat just like the megan one that i still reread

GIRL I HOPE 😭😭 im ngl my drafts are collecting dust rn… i need to write 😞

[jbarneswilson]

5, 6, 14 and 29 for the ask game!

hi nonnie! thank you so much for this ask, i’m sorry it’s taken me so long. every time i try to answer it, the fucking page refreshes and i lose everything i wrote. it’s fine, everything is fine. i’m not mad i’m actually laughing

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

i was going to write this au inspired by “only skin” by joanna newsom. bucky comes home to delacroix late in ww2 and has to deal with recovery and ptsd. sarah has complicated feelings because he broke promises he made to her but she still loves him, she’s known since she was seven years old that she was going to marry him. but i just… don’t know if i will ever have the energy or inclination

6. Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

yes! about once a quarter i reread the infinite coffee and protection detail series.

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?

something to talk about, without question i would love to see that turned into a limited series. i would also love to see myself finish chapter fucking two but here we are lmao

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

here’s a bit from something in my drafts:

Bucky wakes with a start, heartbeat pounding in his ears as his lungs gulp in air. His eyes ricochet around the room and panic slowly recedes when his brain processes what he’s seeing: The walls of his room at Avengers Compound. Not the battlefield in Wakanda. Not the moment they lost, so many around them fading into dust.

Sam fading into dust right before his eyes. While he watched, helpless.

He flings the covers off and shuffles to the shower, trying not to remember what it felt like to gather the dust that used to be Sam. But, no matter how long Bucky spends under the hot spray—scrubbing until his skin is raw and his tears have dried up—he can’t stop feeling the oddly cold ashes of his friend on his fingers.

After his shower, he makes himself go to the kitchen, forces himself to eat a bowl of cereal that tastes like sawdust.

send me fanfic asks :)

[starseungs]

random thought regarding the my upcoming jeongin fic for my taylor swift series... the draft has been collecting dusts since last year pala because i was supposed to post it but i went hiatus and thinking about it, the plot has a massive potential 😳 now i regret not posting it earlier lol i only need 4k words to reach the wc limit but it may expand or lesser than expected. i also think it will be one of my favorite fics 🫢 byeeee

GRAAAA GRAAAAAAA 🚵‍♀️🏋️‍♀️🚣‍♀️⛹️‍♀️🤾‍♀️🏂🏌️‍♀️🧗‍♀️🤺 I NEED IT ... i will eat anything u serve me but the tropes i got so far from ur preview are my fav ones to read so im on queue bae