#And all three of them terrify me without knowing it

[ratatoilett]

katsuki is back in town, and he already regrets coming home for christmas this year.

now he’s standing in front of your house, holding a box of chocolates he thought you’d like. the kind you used to crave after long days together. he doesn’t even know if you still like them, if you even still think about those things he remembers so well. three years have passed, and yet here he is, feeling like a fool for every step that brought him to this moment.

he rubs the bridge of his nose, trying to push down the nerves. why is this so hard? what if he’s changed too much, and you don’t recognize anything familiar in him? or worse—what if you’ve changed, and he’s holding on to someone who doesn’t exist anymore?

he’d thought it ended on a good note. that’s what he told himself all those years ago. so why is he so afraid to see you now? why does it matter so much?

fuck it, he raises his hand, giving a quick knock on the door before he can talk himself out of it. but before he finishes, he hears movement from inside, and the door opens, catching him off guard.

“oh, fuck, you scared—”

it’s you. the words die in your throat, and for a moment, the world seems to stop. even the snowflakes look suspended in mid-air as you stare at each other. he opens his mouth, but only manages, “uh—hey, I, uh… sorry.”

your expression is unreadable. he used to know every glance, every little movement, every sigh. now, you’re a stranger, and it terrifies him. why can’t he read you anymore?

“katsuki, hey—” you finally say, and he hears that voice he’s kept buried in the back of his mind, replayed on endless, restless nights. he feels an urge to reach out, just to touch you, as if that would bring back something of the past.

“i—it’s been so long, katsuki.”

“babe, who’s there?” a voice calls from inside, and he freezes again, the world suddenly colder.

“it’s just—it’s a friend! this’ll just take a minute,” you say, glancing over your shoulder, almost apologetically.

a friend. the word stings, cutting deeper than he expected. he looks down, shaking his head, and forces a small, wry smile. “sorry for interrupting. i just-was gonna give you this anyway, so—”

“no, no, you can—i mean, if you want to— you say, trailing off, eyes uncertain.

he swallows the ache in his throat. he’d known this was a bad idea. but still, some part of him had hoped, against all sense, that you might feel something too, that maybe you were still who he remembered.

“nah. m' fine. just take it.”

you reach out slowly, your fingers brushing his as you take the box from him. “thank you, katsuki.”

“t’s nothin’. should get goin—”

“how—how have you been, katsuki?”

he stops, the question hitting him harder than he thought it would. he feels the world hold its breath again.

“great.”

“why did you come back, katsuki? you never—” you hesitate, your words hanging in the air. “i’m sorry, that was—i shouldn’t have asked.”

he shoves his hands into his pockets, rocks back on his heels, the words he wants to say caught somewhere deep in his chest, tangled and painful. he wants to tell you about every night he lay awake, thinking of this exact moment, of how he’d imagined you waiting for him, of how he’d never truly let you go.

“somethin's always bringin' me back to ya, i guess.”

you blink, your face shifting, as if something in his words struck a place you’d tried to keep buried. your expression softens, and he feels something in you shift, something he hasn’t seen in years. he gestures back towards your door, a small nod.

“go inside. he’s waitin’ for ya.”

but you don’t move. you just stand there, looking at him, your expression a mix of things he can’t quite read. it’s like you’re searching for the boy you knew, and instead, seeing a man who’s weathered years without you. he wonders if you’re feeling what he’s feeling now—a kind of regret that lingers, that quietly seeps into the cracks left by time.

“gotta go,” he murmurs, the words tasting hollow as he says them. “i’ll—see ya around.”

he turns to go, but you speak up, voice catching in your throat. “wait. just—katsuki, look—”

he stops, his back to you, the words sinking into the silence between you. for a moment, he stands there, torn between staying and leaving, between the past and the present.

slowly, he turns, his eyes meeting yours, and in that gaze, everything he’s ever wanted to say seems to spill over.

“i—” katsuki starts, his voice shaking ever so slightly, like he's struggling against a tide of emotions that’s threatening to drown him. he looks at you, the words weighing heavy on his tongue. “i don’t know what i thought would happen.”

there’s a vulnerability there, one you haven’t seen in years, one you didn’t even know he still carried. it hits you harder than you expected. and suddenly, it’s like the air between you two is charged with everything you’ve been holding back—everything that’s been buried deep inside for so long.

you swallow hard, but you can’t bring yourself to say anything. not because you don’t want to—because you don’t know how. nothing feels right anymore.

“you didn’t have to come back,” you whisper, but the words sound like they’ve been stripped of meaning, like they were meant to be something else, something you can’t quite reach.

“i know.” he shakes his head, frustration tightening his jaw. “but i did anyway.”

the silence that falls between you both is heavier than any words could be. it’s thick, pressing down on both of you, pulling at all the things you wish you could say, all the things you should’ve said. there’s so much left undone, so much left unsaid, and it’s suffocating.

you look at him, searching his face, trying to see the person you used to know—the one you loved, the one you lost. but instead, all you see is a stranger. a person who’s still a part of you, but someone you can’t reach anymore.

“i—” he stops himself, his hand clenched by his side, like he’s holding back everything he’s feeling. he looks at you one last time, like he’s trying to find something that will make this easier, something that will make it all right again. but it’s too late for that. It’s been too long.

“take care of yourself, yeah?” he mutters, his voice almost a ghost of what it used to be—small, broken, like the words are falling apart before they reach you.

you can feel the emptiness of it. “yeah. you too.”

it’s all that’s left to say. there’s nothing more. you both know it, but neither of you wants to let it go, even though it’s already slipping through your fingers.

katsuki turns away, his steps slow, deliberate, like he’s dragging the weight of every unspoken word behind him. the snow falls harder now, swallowing his footprints, erasing him as if he were never here at all.

but the ache stays. it’s in the pit of your stomach, twisting with every breath. the world moves on, but this—this moment—will never leave you.

you stand there for a long time, watching him fade into the distance, knowing that this is the last time. the last time you’ll see him like this. the last time you’ll ever have a chance to say all the things you wish you could.

and just as he disappears into the snowfall, your chest tightens, your breath catching in your throat. you want to scream, you want to run after him, but you know it’s pointless. the distance between you is too great now. it always has been.

but before he’s completely gone, you see him look back one last time. just a flicker. just a moment. and you wonder, for the briefest of seconds, if maybe—just maybe—he feels it too.

then he’s gone.

and all that’s left is the quiet. the snow. the space between you both, filling up with everything that will never be.

[icarusflewsworld]

Rhysand & Cassian & Azriel X OC

Hello, here is the chapter 7 of a fanfiction on the world of Acotar where our three favorite Batboys are the mates of a single woman.

I hope you like it! Please feel free to comment and telling me what you think of the story, it would make me very happy. In any case, thank you for reading ❤️❤️

! Don't forget to read the previous chapters ! : Here

Happy reading!

Chapter 7

The time had come. They had flown at a crazy speed after crossing the wall but had still not been fast enough. When they had decided that they could finally return to the Archerons' domain to find out if Feyre's sisters had received answers from the queens, none of the three Illyrians, despite the amount of work they had to do, had wanted to miss this opportunity to see their possible soulmate again.

They hadn't even had time to go see the Suriel and in fact, none of them really wanted to. They had wanted to do it but every time one of the three suggested going, a ball of anxiety formed in their stomachs. They were far too afraid of what the Suriel could say because in both cases, it would change their lives forever.

They were afraid that the Suriel would tell them that this link with Luxiana was a lie, that this link with this sunny, cute and pleasant young woman was not true, and then, they would never recover. They had felt so many emotions, fear but especially happiness when meeting her that telling them that this link was false would make them feel like they were losing their true soul mate even if she was not.

But deep down, that wasn't what the three Illyrians feared the most. No. What they were afraid of, what kept them awake at night, wasn't that this bond forming between the three of them and their soulmate was false, but that it was true. Because that meant a whole world of change.

It meant that their sibling relationship with their brothers would change forever, that they would be connected in a much greater and deeper way than before.

It meant they would have to share the woman of their lives with two other men and they wouldn't be able to have her all to themselves.

It meant putting their soulmate in danger because of who they were. It meant days of anguish and fear trying to protect a fragile, seemingly suicidal human who was absolutely not going to help them in the process.

But most of all, it meant that their time with her was limited. She was human and so, she would grow old. She would grow old without them. And she would eventually die without them. Of course, they would never get over it. They didn't know her but it was already a certainty for them, they would follow her anywhere even in death. That said, knowing that their days with her would be so short killed them with sadness. When they thought about it, their shoulders hunched, their eyes faded, their stomachs exploded and their hearts tightened. They would not have an eternity with their soulmate but a few precious days numbered. And that terrified them.

But it also meant one thing, that they had already wasted too much time away from her. Their bodies and minds couldn't stay away from her for too long without driving them completely crazy anyway. Their hearts, their stomachs, their skins and every single muscle they had were aching with every second they were away from her and their minds were slowly killing them by making them imagine the worst. By making them visualize Luxiana's body in another man's arms, laughing with another, or by making them imagine her cute little face looking lovingly at someone who wasn't them. Sometimes, when they were really not well, when they were worried, they remembered that their soulmate could get sick and even die because of a simple stupid thing. They imagined her injured or sometimes even lifeless and it destroyed them. It would destroy them.

They were already worried sick even though they didn't even know her. It was all that anxiety and sleepless nights that had made Rhysand decide. He had waited as long as he could, but those few weeks away from her had been hell. He knew he should have waited a little longer before returning to the Archerons, and that he had to give the queens a little more time to answer him, but he couldn't wait any longer. He needed to see her. He needed to make sure she was okay. He needed to make sure she could still be his. Theirs.

He hadn't even asked his two brothers if they wanted to come, knowing full well that these last few days had been as hellish for them as they had been for him. He had simply gotten up this morning and given in to his desire to want to find her. "It's time," he had just said to his brothers when he arrived in the dining room this morning and they had followed him hastily without even asking what he was talking about, knowing full well that it was about their soulmate. It was always about their mate anyway.

They hadn't even had lunch. Actually, they hadn't eaten much these last few days. Even Cassian. His love for food had completely disappeared, which worried Mor and even Amren a lot. In fact, the way the three brothers had been behaving since they had met that girl worried Mor and Amren. They didn't know what they could do to help but Azriel was on edge all the time yelling at the first thing that pissed him off, Cassian had become as silent as Azriel before and Rhysand had lost his taste for everything. In fact, the only time they had seen excitement and joy in their eyes since they had returned from the Archerons, had been when they talked about that girl and this morning.

The three Illyrians were breathing again. They were going to see her and that was all that mattered. Cassian was flying around, smiling with joy and excitement at the thought of seeing her again. Rhysand was flapping his wings with all his might to get to her as quickly as possible. Azriel was fighting against his anxiety at the thought of finding her injured or with someone else.

They weren't even sure if she would be in the Archerons' house today but they knew that either way, they would look everywhere for her and not leave until they saw her or made sure she was okay.

As they landed, invisible, in front of the door of the mansion, the excitement and reluctance bubbling in their bodies nearly made them jump on the spot. Cassian knocked on the door, much louder than necessary.

After a few moments, an old woman, a servant, comes to open the door for them. Seeing no one at the door, the three Faes being invisible, she frowned as she looked a little more closely at the door frame. But Rhys allowed himself to get into the old woman's head to force her to go and warn one of the Archerons of their presence. Which she did, her gaze devoid of life.

The maid left, even leaving the door open, having only one goal: to warn one of the Archerons of the presence of someone important at the door. Azriel closed the door, not wanting to let a cold that could make his soulmate sick enter the house.

Unfortunately, the old woman returned with the coldest of the Archerons, Nesta.

Nesta descended the stairs with a heavy step, almost irritated, going with an anger visible on her face towards the front door. She did not want to see the Faes again and in addition to not having announced themselves, they had dared to enter the head of their servant to force her to do something. Nesta was shaking with anger and if it had not been those powerful Faes on her doorstep, she would have left them outside. Especially since they had announced during their first visit that they would return next week, why were they already there? She opened the door a little wider than necessary, silently inviting invisible Faes to enter by pointing to the hall with her hand and moving to the side.

Seeing the sister who had opened the door for them, Cassian grimaced, Azriel sighed and Rhysand closed his eyes tightly. They would have preferred to come across someone else. A pretty blonde, with almost white hair for example.

The three faes rushed into the house in a hurry. Fortunately, because Nesta slammed the door a little too quickly, probably hoping that one of the Faes would take it in their face. A little disappointed that this was not the case, Nesta grimaced with disdain as the sound of the door closing violently still echoed in the hall. She rushed with heavy steps up the stairs while the Illyrians followed her reluctantly. She climbed up to the first floor where she opened the door to one of the rooms.

Nesta half-stepped into the room, pressing herself against the door to let the faes enter. The Illyrians looked around the vast chamber from floor to ceiling, noting the gold silk sheets on the enormous bed and the blue velvet curtains on the large bay windows.

“I am not dealing with that,” Nesta spat coldly as she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

The Illyrians frowned as she left, thinking they would be left alone in a room, but suddenly a white-haired head came out from behind a three-drawer dresser at the other end of the room and slightly away from the wall.

Luxiana's head raised, her eyebrows furrowed, a confused and surprised look fixed on the door, on Nesta who had just left.

Rhysand, Cassian, and Azriel's eyes widened as they noticed the blonde in the room. A ball of anxiety and a weight of disappointment left them, allowing them to take a deep breath. Then their chests swelled with joy, excitement, and apprehension. She was there.

She still had a completely undone bun that made the Illyrians smirk. She looked careless and they loved it, especially since she looked so cute with all her strands of hair hanging around her face.

Luxiana straightened up fully from behind the dresser where she had been, a butter knife in her hand, making every muscle in the Illyrian tense. What was she doing there with a butter knife? She could hurt herself.

“Huh?” she said simply, still staring at the door, not seeing the faes who were still invisible. “Nesta?” she called out, almost running towards the door. “What are you talking about?”

A wave of fear electrified the Illyrians as they saw her running with a knife in her hands. What if she fell and stabbed herself? When she put her hand on the doorknob to open it and catch Nesta, Rhysand put his hand on the blonde's, stopping her and Azriel almost threw himself on her to snatch the knife from her hands.

Luxiana gasped in surprise as she felt an invisible person's fingers on her hand while another stole her knife. She turned and put her back to the door, her brow furrowed, her muscles tensed ready to defend herself but her hand was still in Rhysand's.

The three Fae made themselves visible and Cassian raised his hands in the air in front of him in a sign of appeasement. They could not, however, help but examine her greedily, feeling relieved, almost believing that she was a dream. She was there, in front of them and she was fine. She was fine.

“Forgive us, we didn't mean to scare you,” Rhysand whispered, smiling kindly at her, looking at her with concern.

When she recognized the faes, Luxiana relaxed, blowing out all the air she had been holding. And to think that she had nearly slit their throats, to such sexy creatures, what a sacrilege it would have been. She placed her free hand on her heart, a relieved expression on her face. “Are you crazy? I could have hurt you!”

The Illyrians looked at each other in surprise before bursting into laughter as they looked tenderly at the young woman. Cassian's hands pressed against his stomach and Rhysand had to reluctantly release his soulmate's hand on the doorknob.

Luxiana opened her mouth in shock, before gritting her teeth and narrowing her eyes, glaring at them, realizing they were openly mocking her. She crossed her arms. If only they knew she could knock them down whenever she wanted, and she didn't know what was stopping her from doing so when she had made others eat the ground for less than that.

“Forgive us,” Rhysand repeated, seeing the blonde's annoyance and wiping a tear of hilarity from the corner of his eyes to stop laughing softly at the same time as his brothers.

The blonde huffed as she relaxed. They were lucky they were so hot and that one of them had saved Feyre. “So you’re what Nesta was referring to, I guess.”

Cassian grimaced as he suddenly stopped laughing, “I think she doesn’t like us, actually.”

Luxiana laughed softly as she turned her head to the side “Don’t take it personally, she doesn’t like many people.”

But when she turned her head to the side, the Illyrians could notice a huge bruise on the corner of her jaw, the skin of which was completely damaged and still had dried blood on it. Someone had hit her. They froze from head to toe, their eyes widening and their smiles faded away.

Rhysand's heart tightened in his chest. Cassian tensed every muscle in pain. A wave of anger washed over Azriel, paralyzing him entirely.

Sensing the change in the atmosphere, the blonde looked at them and lost her smile when she saw their serious, angry and surprised expressions. They could almost seem intimidating like that.

Cassian blinked and went to ask her what had happened to her, but Azriel reacted without being able to stop himself. He grabbed the blonde's chin with his thumb and index finger, tilting her face to the side so he could observe the purple, bloody angle of her jaw. The sight made his anger raise. His breathing rushed. He couldn't breathe. They couldn't breathe. If anyone had hurt her, they swore they would set the world on fire.

“Who did this to you?” scream the Illyrian with the red siphons with a mixture of surprise and anger in his voice.

The blonde pulled away from Azriel's hold - who groaned as he felt the blonde's skin leave his - then she stepped back in shock, sticking herself completely to the door behind her. She frowned a little more as she looked at them one by one with incomprehension. What were they playing at? In which way could it possibly matter to them? That said, it was cute.

“Did someone hurt you?” Rhysand asked, taking a step forward, his body almost pressed against Luxiana’s.

“Someone hit you,” Azriel added in a cold voice, detailing her with anger so strong it rang in his ears.

Luxiana's eyes widened in realization. "Ah, that," she exclaimed, pointing at the angle of her jaw. She fake-laughed, running one of her hands over the back of her head, embarrassed. She couldn't help but look away, blushing in shame. "Uh, yeah, I fought," she tried to find an excuse.

“You fought?” Cassian repeated, his eyes widening in surprise. This little woman fought?

“Uh yeah, yeah. Ha ha.” she looked away again, searching in the four corners of the room for a solution. “That was quite a fight, the guy i fought never got up.” She adorably threw her fists in front of her as if she were hitting someone.

Azriel frowned.

Cassian grabbed her fists, forcing her to stand still and eyeing her seriously. “Easy, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“And you’re lying to us,” Azriel added with a little uncertainty, looking her up and down with narrowed eyes. He wasn’t sure, but she seemed embarrassed to talk about something. She seemed to be making something up.

Luxiana twitched, frowning for a microsecond. “What?” She giggled at Azriel’s accusations, blushing a little more. “No, not at all… I…” She stopped under the accusing and scrutinizing gaze of the three faes in front of her. Ugh, she really was a bad liar. That was her only flaw. She sighed in resignation. “Yes, yes, I’m lying… I fell.”

“You fell?” Rhysand repeated, almost shouting in surprise. “What do you mean you fell ?”

“Yeah, miserably.” Luxiana grimaced, her face now completely red. She bit her lip. Damn, those Faes weren’t going to be intimidated by her after that, if they ever could have been. “I just splayed out like a pancake on the floor.” She pursed her lips together, making them almost disappear into her cheeks, grimacing embarrassedly.

The Illyrians looked at her without being able to do anything else. She fell? She fell? Their soulmate fell ? And she told them this while making the cutest face possible.

Rhysand stared at Luxiana with narrowed eyes. Was she that clumsy? Was it possible? He took a step back. Had fate really given him such a clumsy soulmate when his own life was filled with danger? His heart felt like it was trembling with fear and apprehension in his chest.

Cassian smiled as he detailed the blonde's expression. She was cute. He relaxed his muscles slowly, one by one. He released his fists which she let fall limply to her sides. He crossed his arms as he stared at her with a mocking look that Luxiana intercepted by shooting him with her pupils, accentuating the Illyrian's hilarity.

Azriel took a step back, huffing as he did and pinching the bridge of his nose wearily. His soulmate fell. Was he really going to have to bubble wrap her and lock her in his room to make sure she didn’t hurt herself? Damn, she could have broken her neck. He clenched his fists. He really didn’t like this ball of anxiety in his stomach. He was already worrying too much about her.

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking.” Luxiana chuckled. “And the worst part is that it happens to me a lot… Like… A lot…” She crossed her arms, suddenly staring into a blank space with sadness. She wanted to take a step back, but she was already backed up against the door. She grabbed the bracelet on her wrist. A simple silver chain with blue gemstones on it. She stroked it with her fingertips. “I… I kind of lost my balance when I was little.” An infinite sadness crossed her face for a second. A sadness of such power and depth that it disarmed Rhysand, who had been the only one to see it.

Luxiana shook her head, her usual haughty demeanor returning. Rhys narrowed his eyes, realizing it was one of her defense mechanisms. He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. What had she been through to act like this?

“But I still can kill you with this butter knife,” Luxiana said as if nothing had happened, pointing at the knife still in one of Azriel’s hands. “So do not mock me.” 

She took a step forward and with a quick movement tried to take the knife back but, although Azriel was surprised to see her move so quickly, he had the reflex to avoid her, withdrawing his arm and raising the knife in the air.

Luxiana started jumping to try to get it back but she was too small. “Give it back to me” she shouted out of breath from her jumping.

“No,” Azriel replied coldly without meaning to. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on his tone, obsessed by the vision of the blonde jumping near him and disturbed by her proximity, making his heart explode in his chest. Luxiana’s scent climbed up to Azriel’s nostrils. Vanilla. She smelled like vanilla. Azriel had to grit his teeth. He loved it.

Cassian laughed, taking a few steps back to rest his butt on the foot of the bed, admiring the scene mockingly but the truth was his heart filled with joy.

Rhysand in turn detailed the scene with a smile but a bitter aftertaste remained on his palate. He hoped with all his guts that he was wrong and that the sadness he had seen in his soulmate was just him imagining things.

“Why did you steal it from me in the first place?” she screamed, jumping around Azriel trying to grab the knife still in his raised hand as high as she could. “Give it back, damn it!”

Rhysand huffed with a smile, he placed his hands on the young woman's shoulders, immobilizing her. She gave him a questioning look from her small heigh and Rhysand thought he would melt inside. His soulmate.

Cassian laughed heartily. She was so cute and she fit in so well with him and his brothers. “Why were you walking around with a knife anyway? And what were you doing behind that dresser?”

“That's…” she huffed, scowling and crossing her arms. “You're always asking questions. It's none of your business.”

Azriel raised an eyebrow at her, urging her with a stern look to tell him what she was doing. It concerned him, after all.

Rhysand narrowed his eyes, leaning slightly towards her, trying to see through her, even trying to catch a thought of hers that would be the answer to his questions but her mind still remained closed.

Cassian looked at her intently, tilting his head, a smirk on his lips.

A silence settled where the young woman's gaze oscillated between the three Illyrians who stared at her with a piercing gaze. Luxiana did everything not to feel intimidated, or at least not to show it because inside she was completely red under these intense looks. She took a step back, lowering her eyes for a second and clearing her throat to give herself composure. How did these three faes manage to disconcert her every time? She sighed in resignation. "Elain lost the key to her dresser so I was trying to unscrew the back to get the inside."

The three Illyrians smiled satisfied to see the effect they had on their soulmate and that they had managed to make her give in.

“You wanted to unscrew with a butter knife?” Cassian laughed at the top of his lungs.

She glared at him, biting her tongue. He was annoying and his superior air was getting on her nerves. He honestly had no idea what she could do with that butter knife and she was dying to show him but he was way too sexy to ruin his pretty face with scars.

She groaned and then rolled her eyes. “But you’re surely not here for that,” trying to change the subject of conversation and trying to regain control of her emotions.

Cassian could see how much he was getting on the little blonde's nerves and boy did he love it. She was so cute when she was angry.

Azriel put the butter knife in one of his pockets under Luxiana's dark gaze that was glaring at him. There was no way he was going to give her back her knife when she could hurt or even kill herself with it. He crossed his arms but his muscles were still tense, ready to intervene to prevent her from getting the knife back if she wanted to. She actually had no interest in even thinking about it. It would drive Azriel crazy. He would have to teach her to obey.

Rhysand regained a minimum of seriousness, still looking at the blonde with tenderness, not even able to think properly anymore. Why did they come here? They were here to see her, right? “The queens,” he reminded himself. “We came to know if you received a response from them.”

Luxiana tilted her head with a frown, eyeing them suspiciously one by one. Why were they already here? “I thought Feyre had told me this visit would take place next week. Was I mistaken? Was there a problem that would require moving this appointment forward?”

Rhysand holds back a grimace. He had to find an excuse, and fast. “No. That was what we agreed to, indeed.”

Luxiana looked at the high Lord waiting for an explanation that didn't come. "Then why did you come today?" she insisted.

Cassian smiled “because we were a little too eager to see you again.” Luxiana narrowed her eyes at him, electrifying him once again. It did that to him every time she laid eyes on him, damn it.

Luxiana knew that these words were not true and that it was only to hide the reason for their visit today but she couldn't help. She had to hold back a smile of pleasure. She would have loved for Cassian's words to be sincere. She huffed and rolled her eyes, giving up on the idea of getting the answer she wanted. They were apparently not ready to tell her why they had moved up the date of their meeting. She would have to investigate and find out why herself.

She turned her eyes back to Rhysand, ignoring Cassian and his words or Azriel’s intense gaze. “To answer your question, yes, we did receive a response. Yesterday, in fact.”

Luxiana grabbed her pale blue petticoat to lift it up. She first revealed her ankle, then her calf and her thigh where a white lace garter holding a folded sheet of paper was located.

Rhysand froze, Azriel's gaze flared, and Cassian had to sit up straight. What was she doing? Her legs were thin and her skin felt so soft. Their hearts began to pound wildly in their chests.

Luxiana grabbed the piece of paper from under the garter to pull it out. She handed it to Rhysand as she released her skirts which fell back down to her legs much to the dismay of the three Illyrians. “This is the letter we received.” She kept it on her to make sure no one got to discover it.

Rhysand blinked a few times to come back to reality and grabbed the piece of paper she handed him.

“They agreed to meet you,” Luxiana added. “They gave a date.”

Rhysand unfolded the letter and began to read it, once done he smiled as he gave a hopeful look to Cassian and Azriel who returned it to him.

Luxiana intercepted this look and expressions with great curiosity. “Can I ask you a question?” she asked Rhysand.

“Whatever you want,” he replied, looking back at her.

“Why are you doing this? Why do you want to help humans? I mean, you clearly have nothing to gain from this.” Luxiana looked at him, hoping to understand something in his expression. No matter how hard she torments her brain, she didn’t understand why he was doing this. He had nothing to win from this. She had thought about the fact that maybe he was trying to betray them and that he was on the side of the King of Hybern, but none of her sources of information, that she had devoted the last few days, had found any connection between him and Hybern. And then, he had saved Feyre, she simply refused to believe that they were that bad.

Azriel, Cassian and Rhysand smiled as they looked at her. She was so beautiful and she seemed so intelligent.

“My mother dreamed of seeing humans and Faes living in perfect coexistence together. She considered all living beings equally. I wish I could make her dream come true.” Rhysand said, his voice heavy with meaning and feeling.

Luxiana heard his sincerity and understood the sadness in his eyes. He had lost his mother. “Then why not let Hybern destroy the wall, we will all be forced to live together.”

“Not like this. Cohabitation must be wanted by both sides and Hybern doesn’t just want to destroy the wall, he wants to enslave your species. I won’t let him.” Rhysand lifted his hand, gently placing it on Luxiana’s soft, plump cheek, caressing it with his fingertips. His gaze went blank. “I couldn’t let him hurt humans, not when you’re one of them.”

Luxiana frowned for a second, surprised by his words. He seemed absent and had given the impression of thinking out loud which added a bit of sincerity to his words. But she didn't really understand the meaning of his sentence. Why would he do that for her? She glanced at Cassian and Azriel to see their expressions and try to get some kind of answer but they were both looking at her intensely with a serious face. She frowned even more and then gave Rhysand a suspicious sideways glance. She leaned towards him with a mischievous look, causing Rhysand’s arm to fall limply to his side. “Is this some way of flirting with me, my lord?”

Rhysand came back to himself, smiling. He looked down on her but not in a haughty way, in a tender way. “Maybe so, does it work?”

Luxiana smiled, holding back a laugh. “Maybe.” She remained mysterious despite herself because, holy shit, it worked.

Rhysand smirked and took a deep breath to speak but was interrupted by the door opening abruptly. He took a step back to avoid getting hit in his head and grabbed Luxiana by the arm to shift her to the side. Azriel reacted just as quickly by grabbing the blonde by the forearm to pull her towards him, but due to lack of balance, Luxiana stumbled and crashed into the chest of the Illyrian with the blue siphons. He wrapped his arms around her to catch her and prevent her from falling. A wave of adrenaline and worry surged through Cassian's body who straightened up with wide eyes, hands raised, ready to catch Luxiana if she fell.

Nesta remained in the entrance of the room, positioning herself under the door frame. She detailed the scene before her, observing Rhysand holding Luxiana's arm, Cassian a few centimeters away standing with his hands outstretched towards her and Luxiana in Azriel's arms. She grimaced with pronounced disgust.

Cassian and Rhysand breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that Luxiana hadn't hurt herself, then glared at Nesta. Azriel didn't even see the oldest of the Archeron sisters, too disturbed by the waves of warm feelings that stirred in his body because of the blonde's face buried in his pectorals and her body so thin and fragile glued to him. He had never felt such a feeling of comfort, warmth and tenderness. Such a feeling that made his heart melt in his chest.

Luxiana leaned her palms on the Illyrian's chest to straighten up but Azriel could only tighten his grip around her, preventing her from moving away. Luxiana threw him a questioning look from below although her cheeks were completely red as she was embarrassed by the situation. It was the shame of her life. She had been so absorbed by Rhysand's violet eyes that she had not reacted when Nesta had opened the door. She had had to be saved by Rhysand and Azriel and she had almost fallen again.

“I can’t keep the servants from entering the corridor and passing by the door much longer. They’ll hear your voices eventually,” Nesta said coldly, still eyeing them with a grimace. She noticed the queens’ letter in Rhysand’s hands. “You got what you came for. Go away.”

Cassian's arms fell limply to his sides and his nostril flared in anger. He hated this sister, she had nothing to do with his soulmate.

Azriel finally noticed Nesta, raising a dark look towards her. How dare she speak to them like that and above all, how dare she look at his mate with so much disdain? If Luxiana had not been in his arms making him the happiest fae in the world, he would have wanted to tear out the tongue of this viper.

Rhysand fought back a grimace. Nesta’s tone was clear, they had to leave. They couldn’t stay with their soulmate any longer. He could get inside the eldest sister’s head and force her to leave them alone, but as much as a part of him wanted to, wanting more than anything to stay with his soulmate, his good conscience screamed at him that it was wrong and that Luxiana would surely hold it against him. And he couldn’t jeopardize a potential meeting with the queens in a perfect place like this anyway. He nodded. “We’ll leave.”

Azriel and Cassian looked at Rhys in surprise before understanding and glaring at Nesta. Luxiana detailed the silent interaction between the three Illyrians, trying to understand those reactions. She put her hands on Azriel's chest again, propelling herself further away from him with a little more force than before.

Azriel looked down at her, growling as he felt her try to pull away from him but eventually reluctantly let go of her, knowing they had to go.

Luxiana was able to take a few steps away, lowering her head, dead with shame and completely red.

Cassian, Rhysand, and Azriel felt like every muscle in their bodies was vibrating and their chests were swelling at the sight of how cute their soulmate was. She was adorable like that.

Cassian raised his hand to the blonde's face with the intention of raising it and admiring her blushes with a proud smile, but Rhysand, not wanting to let anything show in front of Nesta, grabbed his brother's wrist and lowered it.

“We're leaving,” said the high lord, taking a step toward the door.

Nesta pressed her back against the door to let them pass. “You know where the exit is.”

Rhysand nodded and then took another step towards the door, stopping beside Luxiana. He leaned towards her, shivering at her vanilla scent. He placed his lips gently and quickly on her cheek, giving her a little kiss. “Be careful, please.”

Luxiana shivered at the contrast of the heat that exploded in her lower abdomen at the high lord's breath on her ear. She raised her now even redder face towards him at his words.

Rhysand straightened up, a smirk on his lips, proud of the reaction he had provoked on his soulmate. He took a few steps forward, past her and closer to the door, reluctantly moving away from his mate. Then he glanced at Cassian and Azriel, nodding towards the door, silently indicating that he had to leave.

Cassian huffed through gritted teeth, disappointed that he wouldn't be able to stay with his soulmate longer, then he looked at her and relaxed. She was so cute. Damn, he couldn't stand being away from her for much longer. He didn't even feel like he could breathe without her anymore. These weeks away from her had already been pure torture when they didn't even know each other. He needed to touch her so much. He slowly closed the distance between her and him and then gently took her in his arms, jealous of what Azriel had done previously. He put his hands on her back, pulling her closer to him, furtively placing his nose on the top of her head to breathe in her scent. He had to stop himself from growling. Her scent tickled him all over.

Luxiana's eyes widened, throwing her hands up in the air next to Cassian, surprised by his gesture. Was this fae hugging her? She had frozen but as she was about to come out of her stupor to hug him back, feeling far too comfortable in his arms not to, Cassian quickly released her, not wanting her to feel uncomfortable.

He put his dark pupils into the blonde's electric blue eyes, his hands on her shoulders. "Don't fall and don't start a fight." He smiled at her tenderly before looking her over one last time and then releasing her to stand next to Rhysand.

Azriel stood in front of the blonde, placing his index finger under her chin to force her to raise her head towards him and look him in the eyes. The blonde blushed a little more under the intensity of his gaze and his gesture, making Azriel smile. He slowly leaned down and gave her a kiss on the forehead, his lips barely brushing the blonde's skin, too afraid to scare her. "If anything happens to you, I won't be happy, so be careful."

Luxiana shivered again, her eyes shining in surprise as the three Illyrians turned invisible and exited the room. Nesta gave her one last look of disdain before closing the door, allowing Luxiana to let out a huge breath. What had just happened here? Besides, she needed a new butter knife now.

[giantkillerjack]

Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!

You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!

You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!

You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!

Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!

Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!

So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.

Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!

You need to show the world that you KNOW you are bad by punishing yourself constantly! After all, think of all the people who BENEFIT from you punishing yourself! - No, really! Think about it! Think about who benefits from your pain.

Think of alllllll the definitely-good people that your definitely-necessary self-torment definitely helps! I mean, you can't just cut off their definitely-life-sustaining supply of your suffering, right?? Sure, everyone else has a breaking point, but you're probably the only person in human history who doesn't, right? Best not to question it probably. Sure, it's a symptom that billions of people with trauma have had, but who knows? You could be a one-in-seven-billion exception. Anything's possible!

Instead, better just accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues deserve to suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you until you drop. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.

Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.

Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*

Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...

Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.

Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.

Better not get confident.

Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)

Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people

- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties

- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations

- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you

- you might start loving the effect you have on a room

- you might enjoy conversations more

- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently

- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations

- you might stop apologizing so much.

- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.

Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!

Why, it would be carnage!!

In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things if you're not careful!

If you start giving yourself even the tiniest amount of grace at a time, you will find that you've accessed a gateway drug with extreme long-term side effects:

- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.

- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.

- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.

- You might come to know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.

You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.

So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to start granting your awkward self free pardons for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.

[neverendingford]

.

[mostly-imagines]

Moonstruck

jason todd x reader

aka sober thoughts and all that

warnings: intoxication

Jason has a thing about drinking around you. He’d kind of skirted around it for a while when you were first dating, but after a while you’d noticed he never really has more than a drink or two regardless of how much you had. The only times you ever see him drink more is when he’s downing whiskey as a pain mitigater when he needs stitches. You’d initially assumed he just wasn’t a big drinker, but eventually you’d come to realize it was more of a matter of not wanting to lose his inhibitions around you. 

You know he’s still working on trusting himself, even sober, because he’s terrified of accidentally hurting you. But you have a hard time imagining him losing control like that in any state and you’re nearly certain he’s just being hard on himself.

You’ve been falling in and out of less than peaceful sleep for the past few hours, having trouble easing yourself while your boyfriend is still out. You at least attempted to get to bed earlier tonight because for once he isn’t out fighting crime and risking injury, though you haven’t found much more luck than usual. 

You lie on your back, half ready to give up and turn on a movie while you wait.

You’re momentarily startled to hear Dick bellow out your name, no regard for the fact that it’s nearing three in the morning and you have neighbors. He’s not much of a shouter so you’re instantly on alert, worried that he or Jason are hurt.

You fumble out of bed and rush to the living room, surprised to find your fire escape empty. You turn, proceeding towards the front door, opening it cautiously. 

“Dick? What—” You don’t need to finish your question because the second you take one good look at the two of them, the state of them is immediately clear. Dick, who’s barely standing upright on his own, supports your boyfriend's weight via Jason’s arm slinged around his shoulder.

“Hey!” Dick grins at you, far more lively than he has any business being this late at night. “Sorry, couldn’t remember which apartment was yours.”

You nod pensively, “Well the perspective’s different than when you’re coming in through the window.”

He continues on past that without thought, “I’ve come to deliver,” he says, gesturing up to Jason with a bit of a strain. You’re pretty sure there were supposed to be a couple more words at the end of that sentence but you understand well enough anyway.

You nod, eyebrows raised and try to hide a smile. “Thanks, Dick.” He shifts your boyfriend off of his shoulder to lean him up against the door frame, where Jason places a majority of his weight.

You eye him warily, not confident in his steadiness. He seems to hold well enough against the heavy door though, his eyes drifting around the tiled floor. Your attention shifts to Dick, who’s clearly satisfied with a job well done and ready to go.

You tilt your head, seeing him turn away. “You good?”

“I’m great!” He calls out with a thumbs up. You watch as he staggers away, nearly missing the exit.

You look back over at Jason, who’s already staring at you with a soft gaze. “You’re pretty,” he fawns, irises blown out and flickering all over your face.

“Oh you’re drunk drunk.” You grin, watching him stumble forward a bit.

He shakes his head, looking a bit dizzy after, “Shoulda seen Tim.”

You pause mid laugh, “…Who drove you here?”

He falters at that, gaze falling to the floor. “Uh…” He winces, “Damian…”

You nod slowly, eyes wide, “We’re gonna talk about that tomorrow.”

“He’s better than you’d think.” You’d hope so. 

Well, at least he’s spending time with his brothers.

You sigh, straightening your posture in preparation for the job to come. “Alright, come on big guy,” you pull him up from his slant against the wall, hauling him into the same position he’d been in with Dick—though you’re struggling significantly more to hold him upright. “You gotta help me out here, Jay,” you grunt, trying very hard not to fold under his weight. You swat the door shut behind you, making peace with the fact that he’ll scold you in the morning for not locking it.

He presses an uncoordinated kiss to the side of your head as you try to shuffle him along, not interested in the least in easing your labor. His self discipline isn't quite gone, but his awareness of how big he is sure seems to be. 

You wobble from the heavy weight of his arm around your shoulders, holding onto him by his waist. You manage to get him to sidestep your cat, narrowly, though Salem hisses at him all the same. Jason takes no notice. You stumble into your bedroom with only about 30% of his usual balance aiding your effort.

He collapses onto the bed the second his legs hit the frame, pulling you down with him. You lie, somewhat awkwardly, on his chest as he holds you tight—probably tighter than he would if he were sober. It feels nice though.

You lie your cheek flat on his chest, relaxing against him. “What’d you guys do? Thought you were just having an easy night.”

He takes a deep breath before answering, “Raided Dick’s liquor c—” he stops, mulling over his words. “...Bruce’s liquor that was in Dick’s cabinet.” He annunciates every word in that sentence very carefully.

You squint speculatively, “Didn’t take Dick for the stealing type.”

He grumbles, “He’s not. ‘Less it’s Bruce.”

You can’t help the smile that breaks out on your face, “Aw, you really do take after your big brother, don’t you?” 

He scoffs at that, “I don’t. I’m the one who gave him the idea.” Yeah, that sounds right.

He taps on your cheek lightly and you pick your head up to find him looking at you with puppy dog eyes.

“What’s that look for?”

“Can I kiss you?” his eyes drop down to your lips, “I really wanna kiss you.” He’s nearly whispering and you feel your heart skip several beats at the feeling of his eyes on you like this.

You press a light kiss to his lips and he practically purrs.  

You pull back, admiring the serene expression on his face. “You taste like whiskey.”

“I like whiskey,” he says honestly.

You smile, nodding. “I know. Don’t know why, but..”

He leans in for another kiss but you parry, only letting his lips meet your cheek. He frowns grimly, attempting to chase your lips. 

“Lemme kiss you,” the pout on his face is adorable and while you hesitate to deny him, you retreat, resting your chin on his chest.

You smile wistfully, tracing his cheekbone, “You’re drunk, baby.”

“‘M not that drunk,” he tells you, though everything about him says otherwise.

Your hand falls flat on his shoulder. “Your eleven year old brother drove you here.”

He shrugs, “He can drive the bat…batcar? Bat…”

“Batmobile,” you finish.

“The batmobile.” he nods, as if he was seconds away from remembering. You suspect he wasn’t. 

“Bruce lets him drive it?” you question, wholly disbelieving.

“No.”

Enough said.

“You’re gonna be hungover as hell in the morning,” you mumble, taking in his uninhibited demeanor.

He nods that off, “‘S okay. You’ll be here, right?”

You tilt your head, observing him chalantly. “Where else would I go?”

His arms snake tighter around you at that, giving you a little squeeze before relenting. 

“I wanna marry you,” he murmurs, brushing your hair out of your face and tucking it neatly behind your ear. 

You blink rapidly a few times, “What?” You push yourself up on his chest, sitting up on his abdomen.

“Wanna marry you.” He repeats, eyes lidded as he breathes easy under you. “You’re m’favorite person…want you t’be my wife.”

Your breath gets caught in your throat. “..You want me to be your wife?”

His lips are slightly parted and his pupils are wide as he stares up at you, taking in your features carefully. “‘Course I do.” He brings his fingers up to your cheek, touching you softly with all the wonderment of a little kid. “You’re so pretty.”

You’re quick to return, “So are you.” Especially right now.

He shuts his eyes momentarily, shaking his head morosely, “You gotta stop bein’ so nice t’me,” he lets his hand fall to rest on your thigh. “Don’t deserve it.”

“Shut up,” you lour, “You deserve it more than anybody.”

“No. Not more than you,” his hands knead at your thighs like it’s an instinct. “You deserve everything.” He closes his eyes, tilting his chin up as his head sinks further back into the pillow. “Think I’d do anything you wanted.”

“Jay—”

He continues on, “Want you t’be happy. Wanna make you happy.”

Your face falls into an expression of dazed awe, “You do make me happy.”

He dwindles at that, “No, really happy. Take care of you. Build you a house, give you babies. Wha’ever you want.”

He paws at your thighs, trying to get you to come closer again to him. You lay back down on top of him and his hand instantly buries itself in your hair, stroking softly. “You’re just…you’re so perfect…” He turns his head to mumble against your forehead, “Feel like I dreamed you, sometimes.”

You breathe deeply against the crook of his neck, eyes feeling glassy. “I love you.” It’s all you can get out, and it’s not enough, but it’s all of it. 

“I love you,” he says like he’s trying to turn it into gospel. “So much. I love you so much, so fuckin’ much.” His words start to get lost in his weary babbling.

Your chest feels full and you can distinctly feel every beat of your heart against it. Or maybe it’s Jason’s heart. But what’s the difference?

You press a tender kiss to the nape of his neck. “You’re really sweet when you’re drunk, you know that?”

He hums lowly, head lulling against yours.

You still for a second, finding his breathing has slowed and his hand has seized its movement in your hair. His soft breaths fill the air as you press a kiss to his collarbone before settling in completely. “You’re gonna love when I tell you about this in the morning,” you whisper, letting your eyes shut too.

💗 likes are the poor mans reblog 💗

[raccooninapartyhat]

There are two main kinds of reactions people have to seeing someone using a white cane walking towards them: fearful and aggressive.

The fearful are the ones who press themselves flat against walls as you pass by, the ones who see you coming and cross the street to not walk by you, the ones like the guy who walked into my path and then, upon seeing me, leapt two feet backwards shouting, "Oh shit!"

The fearful are an annoyance, but they're not usually dangerous. They don't seem to grasp that the path is generally wide enough for both of us, that my cane only takes up two more inches either side of me and isn't going to kill them. They're the ones that my friends remark on most, because once you realise what they're doing you can never stop noticing that people do this.

The aggressive, however, are a different story.

The aggressive are the ones who stare you down as you walk towards them like they're playing a game of chicken, the ones who wave and say hello and when you reply they use it as evidence you're not blind. They're the ones who try to hopscotch over your cane. They're the ones who will kick your cane and try to trip you up for fun. They're the ones that deliberately slow down, giggling as they look back at you, because they want you to walk into them and to hurt yourself. They're the ones who you'll walk by and, even though neither you nor your cane even brushes them, they'll get angry at you because don't you know you could hurt someone by walking around with that thing? Don't you know you should have someone with you at all times to make sure you don't hit someone?

There's a different kind of aggressive, too, and I don't know a single blind person who has not encountered this kind. This is the kind of aggressive who tries to "help" you, the kind who grabs your arm and drags you across roads without talking to you or asking. The kind who pull you into oncoming traffic and expect you to be grateful. The kind who pick up your cane to lead you. The kind who will get you hit by a car in the name of helpfulness. This kind does not realise or even care that it is terrifying to have an unseen person grab you and start dragging you away, who don't get that the cane is your contact with the world around you and they have stripped you of knowledge and safety by picking it up off the ground. This kind does not realise or care that it is still kidnapping, still assault, and they expect you to be grateful that they deigned to "help" you.

All three kinds don't see you as a person. The fearful see you as an obstacle, the aggressive see you as an idle amusement or a threat, and the helpful aggressive see you only as a way to feel good about themselves.

The second you hold a white cane you are unpersoned.

Do your local blind person a favour and cut that shit out.

[hoshigray]

love love LOVEE your toji/sukuna fics, mean big guys have me in a chokehold, but even more so if there’s aftercare right after destroying u , I’d like to see how you write that! No pressure, just a suggestion lol

𝐚. 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: no but you're so valid, idk why i keep forgetting about after care, ughhh!! ty for loving my tojikuna stuff <3

⊹ 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: true form! Sukuna + Toji x fem/afab! reader - explicit content; minors DNI - size difference - monster-fucking (kuna got 2 dicks) - double penetration; anal and vaginal - cowgirl dp position - breast fondling + nipple play + sucking - biting/nibbling - dacryphillia - unprotected sex - aftercare; taking a warm bath together + tending wounds - pet names (baby, [little] dove, pet, princess, sweet thing) - tojikuna being snarky partners; good luck, lmao - mention of blood, drool/spit and tears.

⊹ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.9k

“Ahaaahhn! T-Tojii, t-too fast, going too fas—Shhaaa!!”

“Heh, y’re complainin’, but y’re the one squeezin’ my dick like crazy.”

“Hmph, right, like some dirty whore…Shit, ass’s so tight…”

You were the partner of both Tōji Fushiguro and Sukuna Ryōmen—a fact that many would be astonished to know and for you to go dizzy thinking about.

How does one lure in the deadly, cursed being proclaimed the King of Curses and a cold-blooded assassin dubbed the Sorcerer Killer? You couldn’t even think of a quick answer to such a question. What you do know is that being a spouse of the terrifying two in this polyamorous relationship was the definition of intense. And that would go for tonight as well.

Being bent and forced to be taken advantage of by your two lovers was nothing out of the ordinary. If anything, it’s almost a daily occurrence when either of them comes and pulls you aside to appease themselves. Nonetheless, what else was a little cute wife like you supposed to do: sit there and look pretty? Not tonight, at least.

You were all confined in your shared quarters, all three bodies atop the futons pulled to the tatami flooring—three bodies stripped from their discarded attire, now nude and meshed together in hot and wanton passion.

Toji was beneath you, yet that didn’t diminish his control over you. You may be straddling him and moving your hips to take in his erect cock into your aching cunt. However, his hands are stationed firmly on your waist, influential to your pace as he bucks into your wetness stuffed on excessive come. The fast ruts make it grueling to find the rhythm—but that’s what the dark-haired man wants, to see you all desperate and wailing from up above. “How ya feelin’, sweet thing?” 

As if you had any room to speak, so winded that wails were the only words you could say. 

“Oi, pet, answer when you’re being talked to.”

And the voice behind you doesn’t make this scene any better.

From your backside, Sukuna’s massive frame hovered over you and Toji’s, his gigantic frame easily dwarfing you both. His lower arms hold you down by the calves, and his upper left keeps him upright from easily squishing his partners. And the upper right crawls up to your throat, suffocating your airways lightly with just his thumb and forefinger.

As the other has you from below, the gigantic cursed man deals with you from above. His lower member is plunged into your rear hole, stretching you to the point of tears with his hefty girth while the other rubs on the crevice of your ass with every push of his hips. The hands on your legs come up to your waist, brushing Toji’s, who moves his to your chest.

His guttural purrs send shivers up to your ears, and the tongue of his stomach probes you with a lick on your sweaty back. “We need words, or else you’ll be crushed without knowing, little dove.”

Because that is what you were: their little wife tending to them as a spouse would. 

You swallow spit before the grip on your throat gets any tighter. “I–I…Feel sho goood…!” You twitch when the behemoth licks and nibbles on your ear so dangerously as if he’s tempted to eat you—he just might be. “—Mmmhh! S-Shoo fuull..”

Toji notices and snickers, “Yeah, baby?” His hands on your breasts are rough, making you whimper. “Doin’ good so far,” he tweezes a nipple, earning a sharp yelp to leave your puffy lips. “Hehm, so adorable, mama…” you cry even more when he pops the other nipple into his mouth; the feel of his tongue on your bud had you hot. 

“—Hnnm!! Fucking hell, this ass…!” Sukuna’s groans are felt, the vibrations rattling your bones. “Keep grippin’ me like that, princess..” He adds more weight and has you howling like no tomorrow. The nails of his fingers leave dents that you’re sure to see later on—just more to add onto the collection harboring all over your skin – bites and marks galore. 

Your eyebrows screw together, drool escaping your agape lips. The laps around your nipple become feverish along with Toji’s thrusts, and Sukuna pistoning his cock so harshly; it makes you wobble, yet you maintain your balance for the older man beneath you to keep sucking and playing with your chest. 

“—Taahh, uhhgg, sh-shiiit,” your hands grip the sheets as your eyes roll to the top–a sign that you were to fall into your release in mere seconds from the constant rubs of your sensitive spots.

Clamping onto their shafts, you shriek during the impending climax, the walls of your holes puckering and contracting around the limbs that graze your sensitive nerves. You finally give in and fumble atop Toji, luckily catching your expected reaction with a smirk. “Fuck, feel so good and tight,” he kisses your cheek and chortles when your arms sling around his neck. “Stay still, baby; let us finish here.”

The two men still undulate their hips, their dicks ravaging your insides even when you’re stuck in your crescendo. You nearly choke on your spit, wailing as you’re forced to submit to their frantic bucks, and the sounds of them moaning and groaning only fuel your ears to clench them even tighter. It has both men hiss and tighten their hold on you, Toji burrowing his face to bite your shoulder while Sukuna’s fangs dig into the other. And you can tell blood was drawn as the giant licks the inflicted marking.

At your scream, they simultaneously bust their loads into your trembling frame, stuffing you with more of their essence in your cunt and asshole. And Sukuna’s upper cock dispels its semen out to paint your back. The sensation of their lengths pulsating inside you has you quiver, hiccupping when they sneak in short yet fierce pounds into your sore holes until their sweaty frames succumb to tranquility. Then, they remove their limbs with a blissful groan to your sob, come sliding and dripping down to your thighs. 

Finally, you sigh into Toji’s chest as he kisses your forehead and kneads your ass lovingly. I can finally rest now…

However, you squeak when your body is pulled upward so quickly, and you’re now being held by Sukuna, who straightens up and stands up. He scoffs, “Relax, dove.” The hand under your legs squeezes the flesh of your thigh. 

Leaving Toji to the futon, the cursed ancient man thunderously strides out to the room two rooms down from the shared room. He slides the shoji door open after the changing room, and you’re instantly met with a wave of humid air from the bathing area. Ripples from the humongous stone bath become more evident as Sukuna closes in, and the water climbs when he gets inside with his massive volume.

He sits, the water sitting above the mouth of his abdomen. He has you sitting on his lap, yet his lower arms still hold you close to his chest. With the upper left, he brings the wooden bucket the servants left behind to scoop with water and pours it gently above your head. 

Your hands wipe the water from your face, but a washcloth and a colossal hand wipe it down for you. “Y-You know, I can clean myself,” you inquire with a scrunched expression as Sukuna wipes your cheeks a little too rough. 

“With your shaky legs, I’d be amazed if you’d even make three steps out of the room.” You pout at his tease, and it only has him want to poke fun at you more. “Like a baby deer trying to walk.”

You snatch the washcloth with a heated face. “Quit it!” Humiliated, you sigh and raise your left arm to dap on the markings decorated on your skin. However, he takes it away from you, his lower left gently grabbing your arm for the lower right to compress the damp cloth on your sore markings. 

“Let me.” He wasn’t asking, leaving you no space to interject his company. He pulls an ointment from the other wooden basket into the washcloth; the lavender scent pleases your nostrils while the minty sensation cleanses your skin. “Sit back,” he orders you, and you allow your back to rest on his torso, watching the man tend to the wounds he and his partner inflicted on you. It almost puts you to sleep, sighing pleasingly and relaxing to the monster’s touch. 

Speaking of, “Wow, so ya leave me at the room to clean up after you two, huh?” Toji enters the bathing space, joining you and Sukuna in the warm water. “What am I, y’r maid?”

“You seem to have walked here on your own just fine.” Sukuna bends to place a kiss on top of your head while the raven-haired other approaches closer. “You have no room to complain, Fushiguro.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you observe Toji come to you between Sukuna’s legs. “Hey, mama, feel better?” You nod to him meekly while he cups your cheeks with one hand. He then brings you to a soft kiss, mewling to his lips while his wet thumb brushes your cheek. “Mmm, so cute…Stand up fr’ me.”

He takes the wet cloth from Sukuna’s grasp while you slowly rise. He helps you turn around to have your back to him, your hands clinging onto Sukuna’s thighs while the giant gives the human male a cream to place on the rag. Toji then rubs circles on the red crescents of your waist–dents marked from Sukuna’s nails–and you jerk and hiss at the contact. 

“I know, sweetie, I know,” he coaxes you with whispers to the ear and a kiss on your shoulder. “Blame ‘Kuna for doin’ a number on ya.”

“Keh, I know you’re not talking,” the salmon-haired one sniggers as he grabs another dry cloth to wipe your collarbone. “I can count with three hands how many of these hickeys aren’t mine.” 

The other barks a laugh. “Now I know y’r ass is lyin’.” The two men humor themselves on the trauma they just put you and your tiny body through, and you can only shake your head at their insufferableness. Yet, at the very least, they’re taking their roles as your lovers to take care of your body. Not so bad, isn’t it?

Especially when the bathing is over, and you’re all clean from the event that transpired an hour ago, sleep stops evading you, and you return to the shared room ready for slumber. To end the night, the candles are blown out, you’re adorning your yukata robe for your soft skin, and Toji and Sukuna wait for you on the futon to conclude this session. 

Toji has you to his right, arm around your figure to keep you close to his warmth. This gives you the view of his easeful sleeping face; the moonlight from the opened shoji window panels makes it easy to trace his handsome features and the deft scar on his lips. To his left was Sukuna, his tremendous size unavoidable, and his strength still evident as his upper arm cages you and the other older man in proximity. The pink-haired beast purrs at the rub of Toji’s hand on his nape and hair, and you giggle at the display—like a giant cat.

Seeing the Sorcerer Killer and the King of Curses act so leisurely around someone is inconceivable; not many live to see such a picture when met with their brute force and killing instincts. And yet, you suppose that makes you more valuable than anyone, their sole and precious partner.

And as you bury your face and let the blanket of sleep take over, you rest for yet another night, knowing you’re in the best care you could ask for.

© 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐲2024 – reblogs and comments are appreciated wholeheartedly ☆ header edit done by me + dividers by @/animatedglittergraphics-n-more.

[felassan]

June 14th 2024 Developer Q&A (from the official BioWare Discord) - Complete transcript

Under a cut due to length.

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

[Link to video recording of Q&A] | [Link to equivalent post for second Q&A (August 30th)] | [Link to video recording for second Q&A]

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here. This blog post is linked in the description under the video. ( ˶´ ᵕ `˶ )

Corinne Busche, John Epler, Matt Rhodes and Community Manager Katey were the devs that were there.

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Katey: Hello!

John: Hello.

Katey: Beautiful, your mic sounds beautiful. How's everybody doing?

John: Excellent. I, just as a headsup, I have some folks doing some service, in the next room so, if I, if you hear background noise, that's what that is.

Katey: No worries at all. Well I hope that everybody who's been waiting in here is really excited, because I'm super excited. I'm Katey. I'm the Community Manager. If you don't already know, you can usually see my name at the top of this Discord server. But I'm joined here with some awesome guests that I'll let introduce themselves. Let's start with Corinne.

Corinne: Can you hear me okay?

John: Yep.

Katey: Yep, we can hear you beautifully.

Corinne: Great, perfect. I'm Corinne Busche, Game Director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

John: Awesome. I'm John Epler, Creative Director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Corinne: John!

John: Hello.

Katey: And then we've also got Matt Rhodes, who may be struggling to find the unmute button which is at the bottom left.

Corinne: Our, our resident artist-poet, Matt Rhodes.

Katey: I could unmute him, actually, I don't know if I can unmute him, but if he needs help, he can message me on the side.

John: The joys of being a giant nerd is I spend a lot of time on Discord anyway, so.

Corinne: Well there you go, right?

Katey: Fair enough. Alright, well, we have a ton of questions to answer. We probably won't be able to get to all of them today. You all have sent in so many really really great answers, sorry, questions for us to answer. And if we don't get to them today, we're hoping to be able to do things like this in the future. So without further ado, I'll get started. First question's a bit of a soft ball, I feel. If you could belong to any of the main factions shown in the game, which would you choose?

Corinne: I mean, listen Katey, you say softball, but like, this is hard! I’m gonna cheat, and I’m gonna give you two. So for fashion, the Antivan Crows, all day long. Their threads, you’re gonna love it. For vibes, though, like the ones that capture my vibe, Mourn Watch. Gimme those necromancers.

John: Those are good answers. I have, I have one for fashion, and also for, just general faction I’d like to be a part of. Veil Jumpers. Who doesn’t like a nice walk in the forest, y’know? Even if that forest is filled with horrifying monsters and terrifying anomalies, but yeah.

Katey: I love that. I know that Matt has a few technical issues – oh, he’s unmuted. There we go. Or maybe not. That’s okay, I think we can move on.

John: The Fade has taken Matt.

Corinne: That’s right, that’s right.

Katey: Yes. One quick thing, if you check your settings, the cog-wheel in the bottom left, make sure that your voice, like, your audio is all good. If you’re still hearing the music, feel free to maybe, force-quit Discord and rejoin by just joining the stage directly. And mute the music before you come in. Okay. I can move on to the next question for now. I’ve seen, so this question was from Acra. I’ve seen a lot of talk about only having two companions in your party instead of three for this game. What is the reasoning behind this and will we still get the same companion conversations and banter as seen in the previous Dragon Age games?

Corinne: Ooh, this is such a good question. Thankyou, whoever submitted this one. Yeah, I’ll guess I’ll start and then I’ll turn it over to John Epler. So, first of all, as you saw in the gameplay reveal, this is a much more intimate experience. We’ve pulled the camera in. For those that aren’t aware, the reason why is we want you to feel like you actually are in this world, right? Like, you’re walking these city streets of Minrathous, you’re looking up, seeing the buildings all around you, you’re a part of this place. So it’s much more intimate, and we believe as the narrative unfolds this creates a lot more immersion. Now, how that relates to companions is in doing this, we went back and forth on it a lot, but we actually found, with this perspective, having two companions, really allows them more visibility and presence. We’ve talked about the incredible depth and focus we’ve put on fleshing out these companions, they’re very fully-realized. So here, you really get to see them more clearly, you get to see them shine. When you see Lace Harding jump into the air and unleash a volley of arrows, you can only really get that because of that more intimate view. So I love the spotlight that’s been put on them. But, I think, in addition to the banter, one of the things that people are wondering about is, okay, but what about gameplay? So again, this has come about from our testing, working with the internal team, also our lovely Council of players. We just found that when you’re playing in the combat system, when you’re planning your strategies, two really felt like the right number to manage. So keep in mind, Rook has a lot of different types of actions, Abilities, individual attacks that are more fully fleshed-out than ever before. Timing and positioning matter a lot. So this really felt like the right balance to have. The number of inputs and actions we’re asking you as a player to take, including directing your companions, is higher than ever before. And I will also say, I engage with the companions, like I actively control what they’re doing more than I ever have before in any of the other three games. But John, I’ll toss it over to you for the banter. That’s kind of like the, we got a two-for-one there.

John: Yeah, yeah.

Corinne: I think that’s a, a great question.

John: So - it’s a great question, yeah. I mean honestly, I don’t think you could actually stop the writers from writing banter. I will say for myself, it’s, it’s one of the more light but fun things to do. You get to write little stories, little arcs between different characters. And I mean, The Veilguard is no different. Banter is still absolutely core part of it. You know, we’ve got global banter, you know, the general stuff that you get in all spaces, as well as mission-specific stuff. But, yeah, it’s definitely still a big thing. I think it’s, if anything it’s the most we’ve, we’ve ever done for pairings of companions. Beyond that we’ve also made sure, and I mean I’ve been on Dragon Age for a while, and I know there’s been issues, you know, things like, okay, well I don’t wanna miss this banter. So we’ve even added stuff like some interruptible and resumable banter as well, just to make sure that, because again, it’s a core part of the experience. Everyone loves hearing these companions talk to each other, everyone loves hearing these little stories and relationships develop over the course of the game and, as mentioned before, companions are the heart of this experience and banter is a big part of that, so, you still have it, it’s, if anything, like I said, you could not stop the writers from doing it even if we tried, so.

Corinne: That’s right, that’s right. Well, John, you know, listening to you speak, one thing that comes to mind, maybe people are wondering, with two companions in the field do I get less interaction between, that, like do I get to see my companions interacting in a broader group more often.

John: Oh -

Corinne: And, the way you’ll gather them around the kitchen table, there’s just so many of those moments where they’re all interacting with each other.

John: Well, I think –

Corinne: Those are some of my favorite parts.

John: Yeah, and I think, yeah, and actually that’s a, a good call, because I think the other side of it is, we’re not talking too much about your home or anything, but, we also want to make sure that they feel like they have a relationships and a life outside of just, the times you take a certain pair of companions out on the field. So we made sure that, they have those interactions there as well.

Katey: Love that. Let’s see. Um, Matt, are we, are we all set, are we good? Yes? No? Okay. I can continue and we can come back to some of your questions. Alright. So that, I loved the answers to those. How customizable is the backstory of Rook? Will we get to determine their past in the Character Creator? And that was asked by Briar.

John: Yeah, so. Absolutely. So, one of, each, Rook has six different backgrounds that you can choose from. Each of them is tied to one of the major factions in The Veilguard and each one sets out who Rook was before they recruited, were recruited by Varric, and. Well that sets out the broad events. As you go through the game, as you’re gonna have conversations, either with members of your faction, other characters, you can define, not just what those events were, but what they meant to you, what was your motivation, what was the kind of person you are as you build up Rook, because again, we wanna make sure that roleplaying is at the heart of this experience. And taking Rook, giving them, again, giving them background to ground them in the world but then letting you decide what that means and what that says about you is also a big part of it, so. And again, there are six different factions in this game, two which, anyone who’s played Dragon Age for a while will remember. You’ve got the Grey Wardens. You’ve got the Antivan Crows. We also have, in addition to that, we have four new ones, because we’re in northern Thedas. We have the Veil Jumpers. We have the Mourn Watch. We have the Shadow Dragons, and we have the Lords of Fortune, so. Again, a lot of different options, a lot of different background, and a lot of opportunities to really define what your, who your Rook was, and who they are now, so.

Katey: Amazing. Will crafting return? If yes, has it been improved over the system in Inquisition? Asked by Some Dude.

Matt: Testing.

Katey: Oh hey Matt!

Corinne: “Some Dude”, is that, I’m gonna assume “Some Dude” is a username. Great question.

Katey: Yes.

Corinne: Welcome Matt, the lovely Matt Rhodes.

Matt: Testing, testing.

Corinne: Welcome, welcome, hello. Alright, so, will crafting return? You can absolutely improve and customize your gear, yes, that is a big part of RPG progression, so yes you can improve and customize it. I will say, though, it’s different this time around, and it does get into spoiler territory, so I, I’m gonna be a little bit cagey about it, but there might be a mysterious entity that assists you with that that’ll be an important part of the narrative.

Katey: So mysterious.

Corinne: Oooh!

Katey: Matt, I’m gonna actually go back to our first question so that you can answer, so everyone knows.

Matt: Thank you.

Katey: What faction, what faction you would choose if you could choose one for yourself?

Matt: Absolutely, oh, for me it’s definitely the Lords of Fortune. I’ve had a chance to try out a bunch of them, but I think I’ve finally settled on them. And it’s largely just because pirate-barbarian is just such a great combination of elements, so. Treasure-hunting plus beaches and palm trees and all that stuff, it’s a, it’s a really good mix, so that’s kinda my default.

Katey: I think I’m with you there, for sure. How about this one - this one was definitely asked probably amongst the most in Discord. Axolotl asks, can we kiss or romance Manfred the skeleton?

Matt: Uh, I, I would say, not that skeleton, but we’re not saying no skeletons.

Katey: I love that answer.

Corinne: This is my favorite answer so far.

Katey: Alright, so I’m gonna get back on track here. Alright. What, what were some of the development considerations that you had to take into account to ensure that this new game flows and functions with prior games, and Dragon Age Keep, if Keep is being utilized?

Corinne: Ooh, that’s a good one too. So, first of all, I would, I would point everyone to, we did an interview with IGN that goes into some of the details there, so, like, if you want a deeper dive on it, check out that article. But just to summarize, we have taken a different approach on how you import your decisions this time around. It’s now actually been fully-integrated into the Character Creator, and kinda serves a dual purpose, to be honest. I, I playfully, it’s not called this in-game, but I playfully think of it as ‘Last Time On Dragon Age’.

Katey: I love that.

Corinne: Right? Now, when I talk about its dual purpose, it’s been ten years since the last Dragon Age game released, so it serves as a refresher on critical events as well as allowing you to re-make those decisions that are critical to you. The thing I love about it is, it’s very highly visual, it uses the familiar tarot card aesthetic, so it’s actually really visual and playful experience as you go through it. It is very much important to us that it’s built into the client, though. You can play this game entirely offline. No connection. You don’t have to link to your EA accounts, like that’s been a really big request. So, the refresher plus make those decisions in-client, I think we’re all pretty happy about that. I don’t wanna spoil anything by revealing what decisions you can import, like, look, y’all don’t want the spoilers, but I will say, it’s been a really interesting creative intersection for us, because on the one hand, this is a whole new adventure. You’re in northern Thedas, these locations that you’ve literally never been to before. So that affects some of what will matter and what we’re not using this time around, as far as decisions. But obviously there’s some very, very clear connections to existing characters. It’s no secret that the Inquisitor, our dear Inky, is gonna show up, so, that’s, that’s a factor.

Katey: Peachy asks, will this next game be an open-world game, or is it just contained to Tevinter?

John: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, you are in northern Thedas, but the game only begins in Minrathous, it doesn’t stay there. I’m, I think one of the most exciting things for me, honestly, and again, to Corinne’s earlier point about spoilers, I don’t wanna get into too much spoiler detail, but getting to go to, and work with the art team, work with the narrative, work with the design team to build out these locations that we’ve talked about. Places that characters have referred to as where they’ve come from, places that characters, obviously, in previous games, have hailed from, has been absolutely exciting. So, it’s, you do start in Tevinter, you do start in Minrathous, but again, that’s not the entire game by any stretch. So yeah.

Corinne: Yeah, and the first half of it is, is it an open-world game? We’ve gone back to what we believe delivers the best, most curated –

John: Mhm.

Corinne: - intense narratives. So, this is a hand-crafted experience, it’s mission-based. Now, these locations can open up. You can go back, solve mysteries, do some really great side-content. Not fetch-quests, not grind-quests, some really great side content.

John: Mhm.

Corinne: But, I wanna be clear. It’s, it’s a really curated, hand-crafted experience.

John: And just to, just to bounce off of that very quickly. The most important thing for us, to what Corinne was saying about hand-crafted, obviously we’ve talked about how, you know, narrative, story, characters, are the most, are critical to us, and this has allowed us to build these experiences in a way that emphasize that, extremely long, while still, again, tying into the story threads and the story beats, so.

Katey: Awesome. TastefulToxel wants to know - will the companions have unique specializations like Dragon Age II, or will it be the same ones we will have access to as the player in like DA: Origins, or Inquisition?

Corinne: Oh, cool. Hey TastefulToxel. Yeah, so, cool question. I think the best way for me to describe this is that, yes, our companions will have Abilities that are truly unique to them. But also, the companions do fall into the archetypes of mage, rogue, and warrior. Like, for instance, you might be surprised to hear, because she has a bow, but Bellara is, in fact, a mage, and I, I love that. So, some of the Abilities, the bulk of the Abilities of the companions are based on their own unique personality. Like, Neve is the only mage that is an Ice Mage, so you get distinct Abilities for her. But, because she’s a mage, she does have access to Abilities that all the mages share, like Time Slow. So we really like the balance there. It’s like a good mix of representing their archetype, their class, and also their distinct specialization or personality, whatever you wanna call it.

John: Yeah, actually, I would actually say the word ‘personality’ is a really great one because that’s, again, each of these characters exists, each of these characters have a history, have a story of how they became who they were, and part of that was finding that intersection between narrative and gameplay, and making sure that, again, we, we serve the needs of gameplay but also allow these characters to breathe and exist as their own people, not just in conversation, but out of conversations, as well.

Corinne: I would also say as part of that core mage kit, healing spells are there, so any of your mages, you wanna make ‘em a healer, do that.

Katey: Lunasoul Darkmoon asks, will The Veilguard have tactical combat still?

Corinne: Ooh, such a good one, such a good one. Okay. Yes! Combat gets quite tactical, like, obviously this is an evolution of the combat system, and I talked about immersion, wanting you, to put you in the world, like you’re actually living and existing in it, but it is very tactical. And, I will say, we have a robust difficulty system. The tactics are increasingly important the higher difficulty level you go. So like, look, if you’re showing up for a highly tactical experience, I would crank that difficulty level in particular. But I wanna make clear, I’m, super, I wanna make sure I’m super clear in my answer. You saw the gameplay reveal. Our pause-time tactical mode is not overhead. It stays close to Rook. It does allow you to cycle between targets, both in and out of combat, there’s a reason for that. As the game progresses, and you didn’t see this in that opening hour of the game, but it’ll display strategic information on the enemies, so like, what are their vulnerabilities, what are their elemental weaknesses, their enhancements, what are they resistant to? So your type of Abilities, learning into elemental gameplay, matters a lot. I’d also say, this is a long answer, it’s such a good question – tactical decision-making also takes the form, I would say this is front and center, of coordinating your Ability usage between Rook and your companions to create synergies, or really devastating – we call them – detonation combos. So, let me give you a couple of examples, because it can be a little hard to visualize, so hopefully this helps. So one of the tactics that I personally enjoy in my own builds, I just recently played as a Veil Ranger, I love it, it’s one of my favorites. If I’m fighting Fade-touched enemies in Arlathan, I like to use Bellara’s Galvanized Tear to pull enemies together, it’s like a gravity well. You then Slow Time with Neve and, Slow Time affects the world around you, but it does not affect you, so you clump them up, you Slow Time, and then with Rook, I come in and do, like a devastating AOE or damage over time spell or Ability, and it’s even better if it’s a lightning-based Ability, because the Fade-touched in Arlathan are vulnerable to that. So there’s so many layers of coordination and strategy and tactics. Now we did talk about the devastating, like, detonation combos, honestly, that’s probably one of my favorite features, because that’s when you’re really leaning into explicit teamwork between your companions and Rook, or, the companions together. So when I, when I build out my team and I’m going into a mission, I try to ensure that I have at least a couple of possible synergies, detonation combo synergies within my team. Might be between Harding and Neve, or it might be between Neve and me, or it might be both. So here, I would go into battle, I’d pause time, open the Ability Wheel, get information on the enemy, and the Wheel will actually tell me that there is a synergy combo, you might have seen a screenshot that says “combo available”. It will remind you of those synergies between companions. You can queue both of those Abilities up at the same time, go, close out of the pause-time menu, they’ll both execute, both Abilities will happen, then the detonation AOE happens, applies debuffs to all the enemies in a radius of it, it’s so satisfying, it’s so satisfying, I can’t wait for y’all to see it. But the interesting thing is that too is a tactical choice. I’m choosing to use my companions to do that, and that means, in that moment, I’m not using them to heal me, or to give me that defense bonus, or to knock an enemy off a ledge, so it’s about the opportunity cost. I, I could spend the rest of the session talking about this, I, apologies for being long-winded, but this is just one of my favorite parts of, of the game.

Katey: That was a great answer. Can you choose Rook’s pronouns? If yes, being, is being non-binary an option? And also, how detailed is Character Creation?

Corinne: Hell yeah you can select your pronouns! Absolutely. You can actually select both your pronouns and your gender, because those are related concepts, but they’re not actually the exact same thing, so. It’s really cool. Yeah, you can be non-binary. We have they/them, she/her, he/him. Yes, emphatic yes. How detailed is the Character Creator? Oh my goodness, y’all. Like. Very! I don’t wanna give away too much just yet, but it’s very, very deep. It has been revealed, it’s out there in a couple of articles, about the focus on hair, the focus on skin-tones that are done respectfully, full-body customization, hell yeah, we love to see it. But we’re, we’re gonna, we’re gonna come back, we’re gonna show you a lot more on Character Creator, but we wanna make sure we have the time and space to, to do that.

Katey: Will there be a Photo Mode in-game?

Corinne: So that is something we’re actively looking into. We know there’s a tonne of interest, so stay tuned on that one. But we are very much looking into it.

Matt: I can add to that, is a feature that is, that, we like, we like the idea of, and, and, it’s not just player-facing but internally, it’s a really helpful thing for us as we’re, as we’re building things out to have that so it’s, it’s, we’ll let ya know.

Corinne: Yes, yeah, absolutely. We, we are as geeked on that possibility as you all are.

Katey: A lot of people were asking about Abilities. This one is from Clemmy. Abilities, I don’t think I saw this answered yet, but are we going to be limited in how many Abilities we can pick from the Wheel?

Corinne: Ah! Yes, yes, yes. So, Ability Wheel does have a capacity. You have to choose which three Abilities you wanna bring for Rook, which three for one of your companions, and which three for another companion. And what I, what I like about this is there is, kind of, an emergent gameplay depending on who you and your companions are coming into the mission with. Now the reason for that is, it actually creates really interesting balance of strategizing, having to do that strategy about your kit, your combat kit, before the mission. And then the tactical decisions once you’re in the field in combat, deciding what to do. But, I do wanna clear one thing up, because, while there are three Ability slots for Rook, there’s so much more than that. Other actions that you can perform directly from the Wheel include, you’ll have an Ultimate Ability, associated with your class or your specialization, so there’s variance there. There’s a type of items that you’ll get that function like Abilities, they’re typically like buffs and enhancements in form of Runes. So you’ll control that for Rook and/or the team from the Wheel. You may have also seen that you can direct which targets your companions will focus on, but what you might not know is that a lot of the companion gear really synergizes with that directing your companions. When you issue those commands, that too will proc based on the gear they have equipped. Really interesting and strategic effects. They can be more Ability-like, more, like, procced effects, there’s just so much from the Wheel, that once you get in and see everything working together, becomes more and more apparent.

Katey: We have another question from TastefulToxel which is, will Fireball and Cone of Cold be back as skills, or as spells in Dragon Age: The Veilguard?

Corinne: Ohh, I love, all these combat questions, really good. So Fireball and Cone of Cold aren’t specifically back, however, their successors are. Frost Nova and Meteor. So these serve the exact same combat role and function as those other Abilities. I would also say, it gives ‘em quite the glow-up, so. Meteor in particular, like, so satisfying nuking a group of darkspawn with a well-placed Meteor, it’s really wonderful.

Katey: What accessibility features are available? I would love to know if there’s an arachnophobia mode. Will there be mod support?

Corinne: Oh my goodness, arachnophobia. I am wicked afraid of spiders too, my partner always laughs at me. I’m just terrified of them. That said, that’s one we’re going to save for a little bit closer to launch before we’ll go into full details about accessibility features. But I do wanna assure you, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this topic so you can play the game in a way that really works for you. I’m, I’m excited to share that with you when the time is right.

Katey: So this one is from a username named Cookie. How long is the time-skip from Inquisition to The Veilguard? I know we’ll probably get more info on this, but I’m so curious.

John: Yeah, so, anyone who’s paid attention to Dragon Age, and I can say as somebody who’s been on Dragon Age since Origins, timelines are always a little iffy. They change, and they morph over development as we see how long events taking. But, for The Veilguard, we were actually pretty consistent from the start. It’s been about ten years since the events of Trespasser. As you may or may not have noticed, Varric’s become a little bit of a silver fox. I know, I’ve heard, seen, I’ve seen a lot of comments on that on social media, but, yeah, ten years. Solas’ ritual is taken time to set up and you’re kinda coming in at the end of that hunt, so.

Katey: Siddy is asking the hardest-hitting question which is, is Solas still bald?

Matt: Yeah. I mean, if you’ve watched the gameplay thing, we can all confirm, yes, Solas is still bald, Solas is still Solas. We’ve, we’ve, I really, I really like how Solas has turned out this time around. I will say, here’s a comment on this specific question that’s gonna sound like a non-sequitur, but, once you get a chance to play it a little bit more, maybe you’ll see it. In Thedas, ancient elves, they go bald when they’re like millennia old, so. Solas wasn’t always bald. So if you were to end up, end up seeing what Solas looked like in the past, things might be a little different. You’ll have –

John: - Now, now that said, I’m sure some of you are wondering what happened to Solas’ wig from Tevinter Nights. I’m sure he still has it somewhere, so.

Katey: He’s just taking care of it elsewhere.

John: He’s just taking care, it’s, it’s his most important possession.

Corinne: The Pride there, huh?

Katey: I have another one for Matt. This is, will we be able to, will we be able to change companions’ appearances and outfits, or are they fixed, similar to Dragon Age II?

Matt: Yeah we, Dragon Age II was, we loved how the followers turned out in that but it was, it was sad given, given our constraints that we had to keep them with just one, one basic outfit. So we really tried to make some space for them this time around. So they’re, they still have, kind’ve iconic color palettes and things like that, but they do have a wider range of appearances that you can, that you can find for them. Some, some are just cool, but then there are some that are tied directly to their, to their narrative and just kinda what’s happening in their life.

Katey: Another one for ya, which is, will we be seeing or visiting Kal-Sharok? It’s, and, Tyrant says that they’ve been obsessed with it forever.

Matt: Yeah, me too. I, I will say, what’s, what’s been really cool, so in previous games, we’ve kind’ve alluded to this before. It was a lot of fun to hint at the locations that were off the map, the mysterious places that you weren’t gonna go, you weren’t going. And so you could just bring in some props or some characters, a piece of art, things like that, and you know, even Tevinter was only vaguely hinted at and then we would just add drips and bits and pieces, so that stuff was really fun. In The Veilguard, we’re actually getting to visit, most, like a whole lot of those locations that had only been hinted at for real, so you actually do run around Tevinter and a bunch of the other locations that we’ve revealed. But this also means, like, we’re not completely filling out the map, and so that there are actually new things that we can start hinting at, that we can start drip-feeding, and so, it’s, it’s kind’ve fun. I’d say, yeah, for what we can show of Kal-Sharok, and, and other locations, it’s just, there’s, there’s more to do.

Katey: Awesome. MrFightmonster118 asks, will the dialogue wheel slash options be similar to Inquisition and Mass Effect: Andromeda in the sense that it’s more tone-based?

John: Yeah, so, we have a number of different types of wheels in our game. All the dialogue wheels are based off the same principle. Anyone who’s played a Dragon Age game remembers what they look like. In Dragon Age: The Veilguard we have tone wheels which are, you know, again, roleplaying your character, picking consistent tone. We also have emotion wheels where you can pick specific emotional reactions. And choice wheels which are, I don’t have a strong emotional or tone tie here but I do want to make a choice based on what I do. Investigates obviously return as well, but. We do want players to understand as much as possible what it is they’re going to be picking, and understand, and again, choice and consequence is fun, we wanna make sure the choice is clear, even if, again, one of the best parts about consequence is making sure that’s not entirely clear, so.

Katey: How extensive are Rook’s decision trees for dialogue going to be with the companions and also with NPCs throughout the game?

John: Huge. I mean, again, it’s a Dragon Age game, we wanna make sure you have choices, we wanna make sure you can choose both your roleplaying but also choose outcomes of conversations, choose how events unfold, so, I mean, again, it’s a Dragon Age game, we wanna make sure that we also react to decisions you’ve made, so. For example, you may be talking to a follower who is an elf, and if you yourself are an elf, obviously you’re gonna have a different perspective on events than someone who’s not an elf. Sometimes that means different conversation options, sometimes that’s going to mean entirely deep dialogue trees, as well as based off decisions you’ve made throughout the game so, again, making sure that the game feels like it’s noticing what you’re doing is a huge part of how we’ve written out the dialogue wheel, or dialogue trees, in this game.

Corinne: Blueberry has a question for Corinne. It was mentioned that there will be, that we will be able to romance who we like. Does that mean that all companions are romanceable by all player characters regardless of race or gender, as it has been in the past?

Corinne: Yeah, yeah. So, we have talked about this in some of the interviews, I’ve seen a few articles about it, so I’d recommend everyone check out those articles. But let me just give you a quick overview. Each of the seven companions have full romance arcs and they are romanceable by all genders, absolutely. But something that’s really important to, to us on the team, so I wanna make sure that we clarify and just double-down on, that doesn’t mean playersexual. And if anyone’s unaware of what we mean by that, it doesn’t mean that they can form or twist their identities to who you the player are, like they, they won’t suddenly have a preference for men or women based on what you’re playing, right? Instead, they have their own fully fleshed-out identities, they are true and authentic to that. So in this game, they are all pansexual, with their own histories of romance. Sometimes you’ll hear about preferences, or things of that nature. And what I really love is, if you don’t pursue a romance with them, they’ll actually build their own romances with each other. So, in one of the interviews I talked about Lace Harding and Taash getting together. I give that example because honestly, it’s one of my favorites. I’m gonna put a question back to the community, though. I’ve heard we’re going with “Laash” for that ship-name? You tell me, like, what is that ship-name?

Katey: That one just rolls off the tongue, I feel like that works. This next question is from FallenArtesia. What are the markings on the faces of the elven Warden and Veil hopper?

Matt: So there’s a, quite a few, probably, I think, easily more than we’ve done before, tattoos from various, various cultures. We’re bringing the vallaslin back, of course. But there’s, yeah, ton of different options, especially when we’re, again, going into all these new regions. Each, each area has its own kind’ve visual language for that. But yeah, we are bringing the vallaslin back and then a couple of the characters have them, but we’ve kind’ve customized them a little bit, they’re a bit more specific to their personality.

Katey: And this is a question for all of you. What are you, what are you as a developer most proud of about the game, and what are you most excited for players to experience when it’s out?

John: Ooh, that’s a good question.

Corinne: Isn’t it?

John: Corinne, you wanna go first?

Corinne: Yeah, sure. Gosh. So I suspect for most of us, myself included, it is really gonna be the depth and authenticity of the companions, journeying along with them on their arcs, learning about their hardships, what they care about, being by their side, that, that authenticity is just so good. They all feel like my dear friends. But, I have to say, the closest runner-up for me, has to be the Character Creator, has to be. That Character Creator, the makeup options, the range of sliders. I’m a qunari fan, so even just the, the way you customize the horns and combine that with the really great-looking hair. Character Creator has to be my, my, like very close runner up.

Matt: Oh yeah. For me, I would say, as far as, what, what I can say I’m most proud of on this one, the, I can speak for the art team. We worked incredibly hard to make the story more visible than ever. Games are a visual medium, but, you know, it’s, sometimes it’s easier to do things in text format or written in a Codex somewhere or alluded to off-screen. But we really leaned in to trying to make sure that every design, prop, character, environment, the VFX we’re choosing, everything, all, all these choices, were putting the story on-screen so that you can really see it unfold. And I think, having worked on all of the Dragon Age games, I would say Veilguard represents one of the best attempts at that we’ve made yet.

John: I’m gonna cheat, because I’m going last and I get to do that when I go last, and kinda combine both Corinne’s and Matt’s answer. Honestly, the companions are, for me, the absolute highlight of, just, being able to work across all the disciplines, building characters who look and sound and behave in very specific and characterful ways. These are the deepest companion arcs we’ve ever done. Not just on Dragon Age, but at BioWare in general. Each, each companion has their own story arc, you can go through decisions you can make, they really do take center-stage, and I think, as you play through with them you see the care and love that the team has put into each and every one. I mean there’s, there’s moments in each arc that make you cry, make you angry, make you excited and, and the way that they integrate into the story as a whole is just, for me, something that’s been really fun. Finding ways to bring these characters together, finding ways to make this, this narrative, this story of, you know, you need to put together a team and stop the end of the world, it’s just been absolutely exciting and thrilling. And again, you see the team’s love in every single piece of it. As for what I’m most excited? For me, I’ve been, I mean Dragon Age has been part of my career, part of my life for literally the last decade and a half. I’ve worked on it since Origins and there’s something about The Veilguard that feels like a amazing mix of, novelty but also familiarity. It’s like coming home in a way that I think is going to be very exciting for people who are existing Dragon Age players, but there’s also so much here that’s just new and exciting for people, new players and old players alike. And going to parts of the word, seeing things we’ve never seen before, and just getting to take this amazing world, this amazing series and expand on it and build on it in ways that have just been, honestly, an absolute thrill, the best part of my career. And I’ve been in games for seventeen years now, this has been the absolute highlight for me, so. That’s what I’m excited about.

Corinne: John, that was, that was such a good answer, and I just, I just wanna “yes, and -” that. It, I so completely agree with you. There’ve been times in the companion arcs where even, knowing exactly what’s going to happen, we work on the game, with some of these decisions, I, I’ve had to set down the controller, let out a heavy sigh and go “oh my god, what am I gonna do here?” Yeah, the depth of them is wonderful. And, I do wanna say, I, I’d be, I wanna put this out there, when we talked about as a developer, what are we most proud of, can we just give a big shout-out to the dev team? I am so proud of them. This team has poured their heart and soul into this.

John: Absolutely.

Corinne: Anyone from BioWare who’s listening in, thank you so much, y’all are just the best.

John: Hear, hear.

Katey: I absolutely love that. I knew that question was going to have some of my best, some of my favorite answers, and it delivered, so thank you three. This one’s a fun one. Why does Varric have dark hair now? I feel like John mentioned this a little bit earlier, but.

John: Just for [inaudible].

Matt: He’s been, he’s been adventuring for a while now. His hair is, is more gray, but he’s been in very dark scenes so far, so. We’ll see him in some more contexts.

Katey: In this question, we actually took from Tumblr, because there were a few really good ones in our ask box. Will the Inquisitor be appearing in the flesh, or are we just choosing their major Dragon Age: Inquisition decisions?

Corinne: Alright! Yeah, yes! They will. The Inky does appear. We know how attached y’all are to the Inquisitor, I’ve seen the love for your OC. Yes, the Inquisitor shows up. Now, we, we’d already confirmed that in a few places, so, let me just say, you can also customize them, includes some of our new customization options, yeah, they’re gonna show up and they’re gonna be your Inquisitor.

John: And I think, I think beyond that, I mean, the story of Solas and the story of the Inquisitor, obviously are tied, they’re tied together as much as any story, so. It would have been strange for us not to bring them in for this one. They have, they’re gonna be a part of the story, so.

Katey: Will there be any planned DLC? Just curious, as I always love the DLCs. Oh, and transmog armor. This one came from Lavell.

Corinne: Oh, heck yeah, good question. So, right now, our focus is entirely on the quality of the game. Like, it’s so important at this stage for us to be all-in, all attention on, just, finishing this game and delivering on the quality, the promise of it. So honestly, like, that’s all I can really say about it. We’re 100% focused on this being the most complete game we can make it. I will say, kind’ve related to that though, and I just wanna underscore this, I wanna emphasize it. There’s not gonna be any microtransactions, there’s not gonna be any battle passes, you don’t have to connect online, our focus is making this the most complete singleplayer game we possibly can. Now, this was kind’ve a two-for question, I love when we do that. Will there be transmog? Hell yeah. I’m the kind’ve player that, that believes fashion is the real end-game. Yeah, there’s a transmog system, absolutely, it’s sick.

Katey: And then this next question is from Scott. I was asking if any of the characters will be explicitly asexual, or on the ace spectrum?

Corinne: So good. Such a good question. So, look, I’m just, I’m gonna be really forthcoming with y’all and a little bit vulnerable here. I’m ace, I’m a gray-ace, I don’t mind sharing that, I’m kind’ve public with it. I will say though, that none of our companions this time around are explicitly ace. When we look at the characters, their motivations, who they are, we always assess, like is, is this the right time? This time it wasn’t. But what I will say for everyone on the ace spectrum out there, I would love to represent an ace relationship sometime in the future when it feels like the most authentic fit for a companion, when we can do it best. Oh, and I do see some questions, you know, some questions, what do we mean by ace? Asexuality. We often refer to it as the ace spectrum.

Katey: Can mage Rook do blood magic? Will blood magic be a skill tree separate from regular magic?

Corinne: Okay. Um, this gets a little spoilery, so let me just say, Rook has some pretty good reasons to avoid blood magic. Rook is not gonna want to be interested in that. But I will say, the mage skill tree is packed with all kinds of spells, traits and perks to give you a ton of flexibility in your magic. Gonna go off-script just a little bit, because –

John: Oh no.

Corinne: I’ve seen, like, can you tell us about the specializations for mage? I’m not gonna tell you the deets, but there is a necromancer one, there is an elemental one, and there is one that’s actually more of like a combat mage, it’s my favorite.

Katey: Can we name the griffon? We also have a griffon emoji now in this Discord server.

John: Excellent. So, someone on your, in your party, again, spoilers, may have already named the griffon, but, don’t worry, Assan is a very good boy, so.

Corinne: All these griffon emojis are, y’all are killing me.

Katey: Yeah, I love that, griffons in the chat. Let's see. Will we have a camp/home/headquarters that we’ll be able to customize?

Matt: Well this time around, in Inquisition you had Skyhold. In this case you have a headquarters called the Lighthouse. More to be seen on that. But, it’s, it, narratively it, it serves kind’ve a different purpose but also the same purpose. As far as customization goes, there are elements of it that change over time, and some things that you can adjust. I, I don’t know how much we’re really going into that at the moment.

Katey: This one is –

Matt: But yeah, I would say, it’s like, there’s some, it, one thing I like about it is it definitely does start to feel very much like a home over time.

Katey: Sorry for almost cutting you off there Matt. We have another very hard-hitting question, if I'm, if I do say so myself.

John: I love this one.

Katey: We need to - Same. We need to know, does pasta and noodles exist in Thedas? Thank you.

Matt: Well, and I’ll take it as a chance just to geek out about worldbuilding, because, again, we’re, The Veilguard for us is a really kinda dream opportunity to go to places that we’ve only ever heard reference to, or we’ve seen hints at. And so, in going through the worldbuilding process and trying to, trying to build these places out, not just as neat things from the IP but also as, you know, if you’ve, if you've read about this stuff, if you’ve been following along, you’ve got your own version of it in your head. You’ve imagined what it might be like, you’re, and probably hoping for something spectacular. And our brains are always far better at creating this stuff than any game developer, any artist, or anyone can really do justice to, so you really have to swing for the fences to make something very satisfying and exciting. You know, is, that can be everything as big as architecture and landscape and biomes and ecosystems, but it does get into things like art and culture, costume design, and also food, and this time around we did, you know, that was one of the many things that we, that we did, looking to, just to try to catch the character and the feel of a place to make it feel believable and lived in, so. That’s my really long answer for, yeah, I’m sure, I've, at least one place does have pasta.

Katey: I loved that. This next question is from Spectre Karro. Are we getting a mabari?

John: Ooh, that’s a good question. I will say, you’re spending most of the game in the north of Thedas. Mabari are not nearly as big of a thing up there, so. In this particular instance, no, you will not get a mabari, sadly.

Katey: Honestly, I should’ve pulled this one up to where we answered the first question about the griffon, but, can we pet the griffon?

Matt: You, I’m really sorry to have to be the one to tell you – nah, I’m kidding, yes you can. But it’s not even just petting the griffon. I’ve, this isn’t a spoiler, I think you can actually, I’ve actually hugged the griffon, so, that feels like, even there, a step up. Yeah.

John: There’s lots of opportunities to interact with the griffon.

Corinne: Can we see, can we see Assan in chat if we wanna see him in the Lighthouse hanging out?

Katey: Assan in chat everybody.

Corinne: Assan in chat, alright!

Katey: I love it.

Corinne: Okay, y’all this was so important to the team too. Like, this is the team’s like, just such huge support for this feature, so props to them.

Katey: This one is from Coriander. Will we get to see any of the Character Creator before the game releases?

Corinne: Yes, yes you will. We’ve got a, you’ve probably seen, we’re laying out a roadmap for, you know, what we’re gonna show and when we’re gonna talk about, so, yes you will see it as we get a little bit closer to launch.

Katey: And then we’ve got this question which is, will we be able to play as a qunari, dwarf, elf, or human?

Corinne: Hell yeah, hell yeah you will. All four, and all four have that full-body customization. I already talked a little bit about, I mean listen, I’ve always loved the qunari. I will say in Dragon Age: Inquisition it was hard to get a good-looking qunari hairstyle, so yes you can play as them, you can customize them, the horn options are rad, the hair options are rad. And also, I guess related to this, your lineage gives you a lot of really unique dialogue options, so that’s a really lovely aspect of choosing your lineage as well.

John: Yeah, I would, so to actually just to bounce off that, to an earlier question about backgrounds, each lineage, there, depending on the lineage you choose and the background you choose there are some specifics call-outs to, for example, if it’s the Mourn Watch, the Mourn Watch being a faction from Nevarra of mages, you play as a dwarf, obviously your experience in that faction is going to be different than, say, a human or an elf, so. There are also specific call-outs tailored to those combinations and, with again, giving, the intention of giving each lineage their own little flavor as to how they're, they fit into that faction as a whole.

Katey: Okay, John, I’ve got a question from someone named Joe for you. Where is Barkspawn and is he okay?

John: That’s a Great question. Barkspawn is safely gnawing on a bone next to a fireplace somewhere in Ferelden, don’t worry, he’s fine. You may question, ask yourself, but John, it’s been so long, in which I say, mabari live exactly as long as they need to.

Corinne: Getting into the deep-cut questions now.

John: Deep-cut questions, yeah.

Katey: Yeah. We are really speedin’ through these. Let’s see. Will Rook have a set of default name?

John: Yeah so, Rook’s last name is defined based on their faction, again, we wanted to tie that into your backstory, but also, there’s a, that’s a name generator that can give you a selection of first names. Obviously if you want to make your own first name, that’s definitely something we support as well. If you’re somebody who maybe has a little bit more difficulty coming up with a name, so for example you name every single character “Bob” because that’s the only name you can think of, we also give that opportunity for that generation, so.

Katey: I definitely always have trouble coming up with what I wanna name my characters, so that’s great. This next question is, when will the voice acting cast be announced?

John: So, we worked with a lot of very talented actors on this one. I am super excited to talk about the voice acting cast. We’ll be talking a bit more over the summer, we’re not quite ready to announce names yet.

Katey: And I think we have a similar answer to this next question, which was, will there be a Collector’s Edition? When can I pre-order?

John: Yeah, same answer, we have, we’ll talk more about the different editions of the game soon.

Katey: Are there any special musical guests writing the sound-track? Will tavern songs return.

Corinne: Oh my goodness, yeah. There are tavern songs. And huge credit to the audio team and performance teams because they’re pretty great. There’s one in a little tavern in Minrathous called The Swan, and the song you hear there might just, it might be, it’s up there, it might just be my favorite of the tavern songs.

Katey: Let’s see, are there any – ope, I have just asked that one. What are the required PC specs?

John: Much like the other two, we will have more information on required PC specs soon.

Katey: Saph from the Discord server noticed that two, Dragon Age II’s main theme from the soundtrack brought back much of the iconic thematic material of Origins’ main theme, but I heard less of it in Inquisition’s. Can we expect The Veilguard’s main theme to recall more or less of that original thematic material than Inquisition?

John: So we’re not, we’re not quite ready to talk about music yet in specifics, but in broad strokes I can say the process for us is always the same. Working with the composer, working, figuring out themes, figuring out what kinds of elements we want to keep, tying specific elements to, maybe specific characters. It’s a really in-depth process and a really collaborative process. We have some fantastic audio people on our team that have done an amazing work, amazing job, working with composers, and, with the team as a whole to make sure that, again, we said earlier about cohesiveness. Making sure that the music feels like a cohesive part of the experience.

Katey: And this one, I see is also for John, but I think anyone can answer this. When writing the overall story of this game, what themes did you want to have as the prominent focus?

John: I mean again, it’s interesting, so it’s interesting, because when we were writing these games, and this has been true on every Dragon Age I’ve been part of, what you start with and where you end up aren’t always necessarily the same. Sometimes you start writing out a theme, you realize actually it’s more interesting if we attack from this angle, or maybe if we twist it a little bit. I will say for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, from the beginning one of the biggest themes has been regret. How regret’s shaped peoples’ lives, how people deal with their regrets, how people maybe move past their regrets and, each of the characters, you know, the stories as a whole, have elements of this tied throughout. We really wanted to have that thematic, that cohesiveness to the game’s story and the game’s writing so.

Katey: And I know that, you know, we’ve, we've kind’ve already answered this a few times, but can we play as dwarves and does the world react to your race and backstory? Probably be good to just directly answer that one.

John: Yes you can play as a dwarf. Yes the world does react to your race and backstory. And, again, you’ll have unique dialogues or unique conversation options based on that, on that backstory and as well as that race.

Corinne: I’ll give you a little nugget here, because I saw it scrolling through real quickly. Do you have beards, like. So when I think about can I play as dwarves I think about, do we have glorious fantastic beards? Hell yeah, we do.

John: Yeah, I can say, as somebody who plays a lot of games with character creator, the beards on, I don’t know what magic the character art team did for the beards, but they feel like a beard should feel like, it’s great. They look awesome.

Corinne: Just saw somebody say “it’s beard time”, I love it. It’s beard time!

Katey: Will our heroes and companions leave us if we go against their wishes?

Corinne: Oh my good – do y’all just love pain? Do you want us to make you cry? If you go against their wishes, if you make decisions they don’t like, I will tell you, you can piss them off, you can, they might not agree with you and they, they will take some time away. That said, this is the biggest threat to Thedas we’ve ever seen, so they’re, they are always gonna be willing to show up to defend Thedas but, yeah, you can piss them off and they’ll leave for a minute. As it relates to them showing up to defend Thedas, well yeah, they will, unless…

John: No spoilers Corinne!

Corinne: Aughhh, I’ll leave it there, I’ll leave it there.

John: No spoilers.

Corinne: Okay, alright, alright. But they want it!

John: Yep.

Matt: Don’t try to stop me, Smee!

Katey: This one’s a fun one about some inspirations for the game. Dracanmo would like to know if any songs, books, movies or anything have had inspired any of the writing for the characters?

John: I mean, honestly, the thing about art is, art is always a synthesis of your own experiences both in the real world but also the art you consume, the art you pay attention to. I don’t think that any characters have what I would describe as, this character was a direct reference or direct inspiration but, I mean, yeah, they’re all inspired by the things that we do, the things, both, again, in the real world, and also in the media we consume. And you’re gonna see elements of characters that, yeah, the things that we’ve enjoyed, the things that’ve shaped us, show up in these characters. I think, for me, it’s, it comes down to, and I, I, writing is a deeply, can be a deeply personal experience, so even if you don’t intend for it to be the case, things, parts of you are going to show up in your character, I think that’s true for all the characters in The Veilguard. And, you know, sometimes it’s, exploring, exploring the, y’know, things that, about yourself that you may like or may not like, and it’s also about exploring things about characters that you like or don’t like, so. That’s kinda my long-winded way of saying yes, it’s impossible to not have that happen when you’re creating art. But I wouldn’t say that there’s one where you can say, oh this is this character, this is this character.

Katey: What was the thinking process behind making Harding a companion this time around? Was she always going to be one or did it evolve into one because she was such a lovable character?

John: Ohh, yeah. So Harding, I mean. When we released Inquisition, it was impossible not to see the love that people had for our murderous girl next door dwarf. She’s always been a fan favorite obviously, but I think beyond that, it’s something that there, that Harding’s writer wanted to explore. There was more of a story to tell there, more perspective, and beyond that, Harding obviously has a strong connection to Solas, and to the, to Varric, and to the events of the past ten years, so. I wouldn’t say it’s always been, but I’d say Harding’s probably one of the first ones we settled on as like, yes, this is a character we want and the writer had a story that they wanted to tell with her, so, it just made sense.

Matt: You know, I think actually, to piggyback on that, that’s something I hadn’t really even thought about that much, but, and it’s not a huge part of her character, but, she tends to be one of the people that have the most insight into he was.

John: Yeah, that’s exactly it, that’s exactly, and yeah, that’s a great way of looking at it too. It also provides you with a little bit of that, that perspective. For players who’ve been around, you know, who played with previous Dragon Age games, but also for new ones, who was Solas? What kind of character was, was he?

Matt: Yeah.

John: Yeah, it’s a great, it’s a great, using characters to provide windows onto the world is honestly one of my favorite things.

Matt: And, and when I say was, I just mean, in Inquisition.

John: Yes, that’s, that’s exactly it, yes. Thank you for correcting that.

Matt: Yeah.

Katey: And what approach are you taking to quest and world design in The Veilguard?

John: I think for us it just comes down to relevance and narrative heft. We want to make sure that each quest provides either a perspective on the world or perspective on the characters, or feels immediately and obviously relevant to what you’re, what you’re doing here. You’re here to save the world and, again, at the end of the day, one of the things that we heard, we heard loud and clear, was some feedback about how relevant, or in this, in our case, not relevant, previous quests have felt, so for Veilguard, we really wanted to make sure that these quests felt like something that you, somebody faced with the end of the world would believe was necessary and important. So, again, there’s quests of all sorts and sizes, but all of them share that same feeling of, this is the kind of thing that The Veilguard would do. This is the kind’ve thing that my hero would do, especially faced with the end of the world.

Corinne: Yeah, that’s, that’s really good John. That’s so right. I would just, again, double-down on how hand-crafted all the quests are, and whether, whether you’re doing, like, the main story, or you’re journeying with your companions, or you’re out exploring and you encounter a mystery. Everything’s handcrafted, intentional. We spent a lot of time listening to what y’all said, and of course everyone has slightly different tastes, but, you know, you’re not gonna be gathering shards in the Hinterlands. Everything is built with intention, and, you know, a dev there lovingly handcrafting the experience.

Katey: Are there any locations in the game that can only be accessed by making specific story choices?

John: So I don’t wanna get too much into spoilers here because this does start getting into spoiler detail, but I will say that locations can fundamentally change based on decisions you make. Some of the parts of the world that you go to, you can have, the decision, the choices you make have an impact on how these spaces exist and develop, so, yeah, and again, don’t wanna too many into, into story spoilers, but, your decisions do impact how the world shows up.

Katey: And will we be able to control our companions in combat through tactical mode, or if the PC, or player character, gets KO’d, like in previous games?

Corinne: Right, so. If Rook gets KO’d, your player character gets knocked out, this time around it is time to re-load your save, or better yet, the companions have really interesting progression, you can spec them out to be able to revive you, but that’s, that’s if you’ve invested in their own progression and what they can do. And that said, I, I mentioned this earlier but I, I personally spend more time in the nature of this combat system when everything comes together, interacting and directing the companions than I have in any of the other games, so, like, like that, that interactivity between them, once you play it you’ll see how, just engaged the team is.

Katey: A user named It’s Sarah said, my real most important Dragon Age question is, will Solas still occasionally or dramatically speak in iambic pentameter?

John: You know, I was, I actually spent a little bit of time trying to figure out if I wanted to answer this question in iambic pentameter and then I very quickly gave up. Massive kudos to Patrick who, who always writes Solas so well. Again, Solas is a returning character, it’s the same Solas you know and love, or hate, depending on who you are. Same writer, so, I think, this has been, the answer is, well of, yeah, it’s Solas.

Katey: Will our decision of who in particular was left behind in the Fade be important?

John: So, while that decision does not show up, that – sorry, let me, restart. Not for The Veilguard. That decision doesn’t show up here. Now, that said, that doesn’t mean that’s that’s not a decision that will ever be important in the future, so. Again, not for this one, though.

Matt: I’m glad to hear you say that, John, because one of my favorite stories was Bob getting stuck in the web in reboot and it just feels like -

John: That’s a, that’s a deep cut!

Corinne: Very, that’s a deep cut.

John: Holy smokes.

Corinne: My goodness.

John: The sound of my childhood.

Katey: Will we have mounts again? If so, any hints to what types we’ll have?

Matt: So no, no, mounts, excuse me. Mounts were, they were, they addressed a need in Inquisition that we don’t have in Veilguard, and you’ll see why, when you get to play.

Katey: LightningStar asks, how is the side quest design? Will they be mostly story-based, or will there be a lot of radiant quests or resources or Power, like in Inquisition?

John: We talked about it a little bit earlier, but, no, they are all hand-crafted and story-focused. Again, narrative, the companions, not just the companions but the characters in the world as a whole are so much at the core of The Veilguard that, anything other than hand-crafted quests just felt like it would be a disservice to the game we were building.

Corinne: Yeah. And maybe, we can clarify as well, because, like Power was such a divisive mechanic in Inquisition. There’s no mechanic like that that blocks your progression until you fill a bar, right, like that’s just not a thing in this. You have the autonomy to engage in these, these quests as you like. There’s no, like, y'know, grind-out gates before you can progress.

John: That’s right, yeah. Again, we wanna make sure that, again, that doing this content feels as natural and part of the logical flow of the story as possible.

Katey: So, it looks like we only have time for three more questions, so I’m going to get through those. With this next one, is from someone named Jason. Will there be a similar system to the War Table missions?

Corinne: Ooh, interesting. So, we haven’t talked much about the player’s base, the Lighthouse. And we’re gonna save that for a beat, but what I will say is that the Lighthouse, your headquarters so to speak, it has its own unique purposes and functions this time. So that’s an area that we’ll, we’ll leave for you when we talk more about the Lighthouse, and then when you have a chance to hop in, you’ll be able to see what those unique purposes and functions are.

Katey: If there is dual-wield for warriors, will it rely on dexterity or strength?

Corinne: Ah, okay, yeah, yeah. So we did wanna bring dual-wielding back. It is part of the rogue kit this time. So warriors are really focused on mighty two-handed weapons, can’t wait til you see, when you swing and connect with those weapons, there’s, there’s a real heft to it. And then of course sword and shield, so. We’re leaving the dual-wielding to the rogues, but you, you can see just, the amount of hits you can get in in rapid succession dual-wielding as a rogue is really satisfying.

Katey: And the last question that we’re able to get to today, is, what have been some of the challenges and advantages of working on a single, on a single game for so many years? How did you sustain the work in yourselves and the process?

John: That is a fantastic question. I will say for myself, I’ve often joked, and I don’t know how much of a joke it actually is, that when this game is out and I suddenly don’t have to keep all these pieces of game and lore and story and everything straight in my head, I’m suddenly gonna be able to speak Latin or something because there’s gonna be a ton of brainpower freed up. But for me it’s just, you know, it's, the thing that keeps me sustained is just knowing the game that we’re building is the right one. Knowing that the beats are coming together, and knowing just how much people care about this franchise, care about these games, and how excited people are going to be when they get to see the fantastic work that the team has, has been doing. And that really is, I can say, I’ve been on this project since the start, and even today, I see things on a daily basis, I’m like holy – smokes, sorry, I almost swore, I can’t believe what the team is doing, I can’t believe the, how good this looks, I can’t believe. Because it’s a huge game. There’s pieces that I, I don’t see every piece of the game every day so, I get pleasantly surprised on a daily basis and that, I will say, you know, confession, sometimes if I’m having a particularly long day, I’ll spend about an hour late at night just watching cutscenes coming in, watching the work coming together and just, sitting back and being like, holy smokes, I cannot wait for someone who hasn’t seen this every day for so long as I have to experience this and just be blown away by the work, so.

Corinne: It's, it’s been very real, hasn’t it? And, and I will just say, speaking on behalf of the dev team, everyone’s working so hard, they’re putting so much passion, so much of themselves into it. Like this is a franchise they truly love, and seeing your support, cheering us on, it’s just meant a lot to them, so, let me just say thank you to all of you.

Katey: And I wanna say thank you to you three for taking the time to do this. I know that it matters a lot to the community to be able to, you know, get some time with you guys and, you know, make sure that some of their dying questions are, are answered, so thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to do this. For anyone who’s still listening I promise that I’m that I’m working on a way for these questions to be immortalized somewhere. Stay tuned for that so that you don’t have to worry about this, just, you know, disappearing into the ether. So, stay tuned, thank you all for your time. Anything else we wanna say before we jump off?

Matt: Thanks everyone.

John: Thank you. Yeah, I’m super excited to show more of this and, yeah, this is gonna be, hopefully this is the first of many of these opportunities to talk to you all directly. Again, it’s been a while, and getting to talk about this game has been absolutely exciting. I know for myself, as well for the rest of the team, so thank you all.

Corinne: Just thank you, it’s, the Dragon Age community, how much it means to you, how much it means to us, it’s just wonderful to see you all so invested and excited to come here and talk to us. Thank you again, truly.

Katey: We'll hopefully do something like this again soon. Okay, cool, have a great day everybody! Talk soon!

John: Bye y’all!

Matt: Bye.

[source: The dev BioWare Discord Q&A on June 14th]

Update: If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here.

[thewispsings]

Hello, can please request something Charles Leclerc and dating a very successful actress like an Emmy winner kind of actress, and him being the perfect trophy husband, and everyone's obsessed with them

trophy husband | charles leclerc

pairing: charles leclerc x horror actress!reader

summary: charles leclerc is the perfect trophy husband, even if he can’t quite bring himself to watch your movies.

liked by maxverstappen1, lewishamilton, landonorris, and 693,928 others!

charles_leclerc: some of my favorite posters so far 😍 make sure to go watch MaXXXine July 3rd, staring my beautiful wife!! ❤️

view comments below!

user1: i still can’t believe they are married 😭

user2: HERE BEFORE MAX!! I MADE IT 😫😫

maxverstappen1: are you going to be able to make it through the whole movie this time?

charles_leclerc: probably not!

user3: LMAO CHARLES JUST ACCEPTED IT 😭😭

user4: i remember there was a time when charles used to swear up and down that he could sit through yns movies..he’s grown 🥹

user5: to be FAIR; i can’t really sit through a y/n movie either. they are always so fucking terrifying, i have to take like 30 minute breaks each minute 

user6: the queen of horror will do that to you 😭

user7: charles supporting y/n even though he’s too scared to watch any of her movies is so funny

user8: i just looked at my bf and sighed

pierregasly: so excited 😁

user9: do you think they’ll do another y/n movie, movie night without charles 😂

user10: don’t make it sound like they didn’t invite him?? he CHOSE not to go because he was too scared to watch the movie 😭

yourusername: thank you for the support love 💚

charles_lecerc: HEHEHE ☺️ of course my love anything for you!! ❤️

user11: did this mf just giggle through comments

user12: sometimes i question my high standards, but then i see charles acting like this with y/n and i remind myself i should NEVER settle for less

landonorris: i stand with you Charles. her movies are way to scary. i will be streaming without watching tho 👏

charles_leclerc: thank you Lando 😁

yourusername: my two favorite scaredy cats 🫶

charles_leclerc: i should be your ONLY favorite scaredy cat 😕

landonorris: don’t be jealous Charles, we all know you two only want each other 🙄

user13: HELP LANDO 😭😭

user14: get yourself a man who supports you as much as charles support y/n 👏👏

liked by charles_leclerc, and 53,829 others!

ynupdates: y/n at the MaXXXine premiere today! she had on a total of three different dresses tonight and she looks gorgeous!

view comments below!

charles_leclerc: 😍😍

charles_leclerc: WOW 🤩

charles_leclerc: 🤤🤤🤤🤤

charles_leclerc: beautiful☺️☺️

charles_leclerc: 👏👏

charles_leclerc: holy 😘😘

charles_leclerc: obsessed 🥰🥰

charles_leclerc: MY wife 😻😻😻

charles_leclerc: gorgeous😘

charles_leclerc: stunning ☺️

user15: oh this? nothing just charles showing everyone that he is IN FACT the standard!

liked by charles_leclerc, lewishamilton, maxverstappen1, and 729,038 others!

yourusername: so excited for you all to see MaXXXine, i’m really proud of it 🥹

view comments below!

charles_leclerc: you should be proud gorgeous ❤️ it was an amazing movie!

maxverstappen1: you didn’t even watch it?

charles_leclerc: I HAD HER DESCRIBE IT TO ME.

charles_leclerc: you looks stunning! 😍

yourusername: thank you cutie ☺️

charles_leclerc: you think i’m cute? ☺️☺️☺️☺️

user16: is charles aware y/n is already his wife??

charles_leclerc: of course i’m aware! i would never forget the day y/n said yes 😡

user17: bad move think just because they’re married charles would stop acting like he’s trying to get at her

user18: i think it’s so crazy to see a man ACTUALLY love and appreciate his partner; like it’s shouldn’t BE crazy. it should be the standard, but yet.,.

lewishamilton: great movie as always! 🔥

yourusername: thank you lew 🫶

user19: “lew” 🥹🥹

landonorris: someone put y/n in a romcom please.

user20: lando does NOT fuck with the horror

user21: NO BUT PLS YNS AMAZING IN HORROR BUT IS IT A CRIME TO WANT TO SEE HER HAPPY IN A MOVIE FOR ONCE

user22: charles x y/n romcom when??

oscarpiastri: amazing movie! 10/10 loved it 🤩

landonorris: if course you like horror you muppet.

oscarpiastri: not everyone sticks to comedy’s because their scared of a little blood…

user23: READ HIM TO FILTH

user24: i’m so excited to shit my pants watching this movie!! (i hate horror but will watch anything yns in)

. . .

notes: can i just say how much i hate summary’s?? like i hate WRITING THEM, love when fics have them tho, but i feel like my summaries never make sense and they take me FOREVERRR

[gremlingottoosilly]

Deaf!Reader are struggling to earn money to pay off their rent and living expenses, by handing out leaflets on the street X Mafia!Konig

(one time, I was walking past the metro, and there was this lady handing out leaflets to men. I wanted to take the leaflet as well because I always wanted to help the people who were handing it out, but she looked at me super weirdly when I took the leaflet. Turns out, it was a leaflet for illegal prostitution sites (sex work is banned in Czech Republic) You just needed money. The disability payments are dogshit and wouldn't even cover half of the expenses of renting your own place - but all the other jobs are basically blocked to you on the basis of not having enough resources to support a deaf worker. You know it's just their saying, they simply don't want to hire you even for brownie diversity points - but still, the only jobs that you could get without much of an education is something as shitty paying as handing leaflets. At least you can just not read the lips of people who are clearly cussing you out for bothering them with an abysmal task of accepting a thing piece of paper. Only, the gig is just a bit too shitty. It's illegal; technically, sex work is still as banned as always - you stare at the leaflets with half-naked women printed all over, disguised as dating websites, and you want to puke over how fucking terrible it looks. Still, they were paying a bit more than usual, and cops won't bother you as long as it's not a direct sex work endorsement. The people on the streets are having weird reactions, however... Konig had a shitty day and an even more annoying night. Having to oversee a big drug deal himself because Horangi was out dealing with some transgressors, and Krueger can't be trusted with customer service, he had to stay awake at ungodly hours just to finish the deal...and now there is some dumb girl handling him a leaflet for his fucking sex business like she doesn't know who he is and can't hear that he said he doesn't want it three times already and- He notices the way you stare at his lips and ignore the yelling of other people crowding around during rush hour at the station. Oh. Konig guesses even the illegal business of his had to get more open for workers with disability...although he looks at your cute lips and just knows he is ready to promote you from handling leaflets to never holding anything heavier than his hand (and his cock) ever again. Needless to say, you were terrified when this big, grumpy man in a suit just fucking grabbed you hand and pushed you into an unmarked and clearly dangerous-looking vehicle. Of course, sometimes people are annoyed at receiving brochures, but not to the point of kidnapping...and certainly not to the point of bringing you to their lap and then forcing a hand between your legs, squeezing and playing with the flesh like you were nothing but a stress toy. Not being able to read his lips since you were pressed so closely to him, terrified you even more...although his intensions are pretty clear when you felt a kiss pressed to your forehead, and a gentle hold on your neck until you finally passed out in his hands.

[weaselle]

i wanna do a thing where i lay out studies that show things in different primates that show us parts of ourselves as humans. Call it Primates: Through the Looking Glass or The Monkey in the Mirror or something

There are studies and documentaries that show things about Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Baboons, Macaques... that just make sense to me. That if shown right would make sense to a lot of people, i think.

like... they were studying this one group of gorillas --

okay wait. First of all, you know a silverback (the Big Male) of the group is not the leader or in charge or anything, right? He has a role, and it includes a certain amount of control, which i’ll explain briefly, but he’s not, like, in charge.

wait, you know all that Dominance/Alpha theory about wolves is all wrong, right?

wait wait wait, and also that like, the bull or the stag or whatever in a herd is not in charge of anything, right? right?

hold on. the wolves is it’s own post, the herd thing i might get back to, we’re on gorillas, okay. Silverback is basically just the male head of an extended family in which plenty of the leadership is handled by the women of the family.

There are often 2-4 silverbacks, but one, usually the largest, will clearly be senior to the others who are often his sons or brothers. Silverbacks have three main roles

1: defend the group from all physical threats aside from people, these threats are mostly random male gorillas, chimpanzee baby-snatching gangs, and the occasional leopard. Just his alert presence handles most scenarios, and then maybe a few times a year he has to risk his life fulfilling this responsibility. It is this role that provides most of whatever actual power he has over the group, namely this: while he isn’t necessarily the one deciding when and where the group goes on a daily basis, if the most powerful/capable silverback does decide to travel a direction, they pretty much have to go with him, the family isn’t safe without him.

2: make babies. And this is one area where the ladies of the group will sometimes sort of vote with their ovaries, and favor a silverback that isn’t the main one, like “yeah, Frank, you are the biggest, but honestly you’re a dick and we’re going to make sure the next generation of silverbacks isn’t another one of you.” When you see a main large silverback in a group of gorillas, it isn’t, like, his blindly loyal harem, they have to approve of him. Also gorilla females move between groups, and sometimes they take members with them or start new groups and stuff. Anyway i’m getting off track, one of the silverbacks jobs is making babies

3. keep the peace This functions a lot like being in the back seat with your siblings with your parents up front. Basically any disputes within the group have to be handled within a certain parameter of decorum, because if it gets too out of hand HE’s going to come over, and He’ll be upset, which is low-key terrifying because He’s huge, and there’s no telling who He’ll decide is at fault or what he’ll do about it, so letting a situation get out of hand is a losing scenario for everyone involved really. Tho typically he will favor senior females in disputes, in a “don’t you talk that way to your mom” kind of way.

one last thing, silverbacks don’t actually transfer power between silverbacks via battle every time.

Like i was just reading accounts from a multi-generational observational study of some wild gorillas that featured one big silverback just straight up taking over by performing the silverback duties better and becoming preferred by everyone else in the group. There was no fight, it just became, i do the job better, everyone likes me better, kicking my ass can’t change that, and boom, he was the primary silverback. And the other silverback might have been a bit dull, or a bit of a bully, but like us their species’ success is largely dependent on social intelligence; once he saw the writing on the wall, that other, slightly larger sivlerback didn’t even bother trying to change the situation with a physical fight, he understood what had happened.

okay so all that was just to tell you all this story. lol. Here’s what i saw in one documentary:

This very big, getting old silverback, who was hugely popular and successful, with a very large and tightly bonded family group, and a couple of his hulking adult sons backing him up. Everybody in his group seemed to love him a lot, he was particularly calm in that gentle giant sort of way, a safe, emotionally steady presence, happy to help raise his sons and daughters with kindness, and who could become a raging nightmare if pressed by a leopard ... exactly what a band of gorillas wants in a silverback.

But one of his adult sons had plenty of silver on his own back, and was getting itchier and itchier to be main man of the group, and this is where we start our little drama

It seems to be coming to a head, and the observers are nervous about a fight for the position. The silverback and his son are both are huge, probably approaching 400lbs, mostly muscle, with long thick fangs and skulls topped with jaw muscles as big as human biceps to wield those teeth, which nature has given them primarily to fight other gorillas with. 

But then the next day, the old man leads the fam up the mountain.

it’s winter, which is why they have come down the mountain in the first place. But as we discussed, if he goes somewhere, they have to go, so they all follow behind.

up he goes, and then he sits. And waits. It’s cold and there is much less food up here at this time of year. There’s nothing to do but sit hungry in the cold. His size and metabolism makes him the most able to withstand the cold, but even he is pretty uncomfortable. 

And so he sits. And his family, perhaps confused, but loyal, sits around him.

But his son, the other huge silverback, with years of training even as an adult under his wise father, is ready and able to go off on his own. Finally, he stands up, makes clear his intentions to leave this uncomfortable place. A small handful of the other gorillas stand with him -- if he goes down the mountain, then they can safely leave as well. He turns and heads down the mountain. After a moment, a few more gorillas leave the main group to follow. All in all it winds up being nearly half.

The wise older silverback thoughtfully watches his son leave with about half the group. He sits a while longer in the cold, in the company of those most loyal to him, and then takes them along a different path down the mountain

And those two groups still ran into each other sometimes, and were friendly. And sometimes a couple gorillas would change between the two groups. They were still close.

But i just thought that was such an elegant, meaningful way for that gorilla to handle that whole situation. And it makes a completely human sort of sense to me. 

[httpsserene]

I have been having SUCH a thought since the Thigh Riding, and I NEED to tell you.

We know reader has been loving Max and Charles’ thighs, but have you seen those silicone thigh toys? They’re basically ridged pads you strap to your thigh and…well you can guess what they do with them.

I just- I feel like it would elevate it, their sweet girl opening up to the world of toys whilst in the comfort of something she loved.

𝐡𝐭𝐭𝐩𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞 | 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐋𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐬 | 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐒𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞: 𝐃𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞

summary: all my (terrified and oversensitive) homies hate vibrators!! max and charles introduce you to something better.  content warning: 18+ only. mdni. explicit sexual content. vibrators. thigh riding. sex toys. non-penetrative sex. edging. praise kink. corruption kink. dom/sub undertones. coming untouched. sub!charles. sub!reader. dom!max. pairing: max verstappen x charles leclerc x fem!black!reader word count: 2.4k words.

author’s notes: this is from december 2023, jesus christ. about fucking time right, @vetteltea? this has been haunting me in my sleep ever since this hit my inbox, now it’s y’all’s problem too < 333 psss, next post will either be toasty part two (toto) or a smau xxx

(if you’re unsure about what these specific thigh toys are, don’t worry, i would link an example but idk if that would get me put in tblr jail and i’m on thin ice with my mentions, tags, and even dms not working :| look up “grinding pad sex toy” to get an idea of what i’m referencing in this fic. )

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You’ve deeply repressed the memory of your orgasm-deprived outburst that kick started your sexual exploration with Max and Charles. Vaguely, you can remember saying that you possibly considered the thought of buying a vibrator to get yourself off since riding your pillow wasn’t enough anymore.

[…you’ve become depraved enough to consider buying a vibrator, but all packages delivered to this apartment have to be approved by max or charles to be sent up, and you’re definitely not bold enough to go out and buy one (and risk being seen by one of their fans or have to physically talk to someone to buy one)...]

[…you seem to have missed the fact that you sent their minds reeling and continue venting, “i don’t know what to do, maxy!  i’ve been doing the same thing, and it’s NEVER failed me before. it’s cruel that it stopped working when you guys left me for more than a month! no matter how i did it–if i did the exact same things i’ve always been doing, or tried something new, nothing worked! i was literally just considering buying a fucking vibrator! a vibrator, charles, i’d rather run naked in the street than buy that online and have to put in this delivery address–”

charles gently presses finger against your mouth, shushing you. he pulls you into a deep hug, rubbing a hand up and down the length of your back , the motion pacifying you. he hums, and it vibrates through his chest to yours, “mmm, we’re home now, mon ange. there’s no need to run in the streets naked–” “definitely not,” max jumps in, reacting possessively at the implication of other people seeing you undressed. charles rolls his eyes and continues (like he’s not just as jealous as max), “or buy a vibrator. i know it must be so frustrating…”]

Charles was right. You didn’t have to go streaking or buy a sex toy to get off, your boyfriends took care of you. That night, you were satisfied by riding Max’s thigh. Then a few days later, you learned how to pleasure your men with handjobs. A couple of days after that you were fingerfucked into an altered mental state, then followed up with watching Charles cum untouched as Max ate him out. You had Max’s mouth on you next and weeks later in a Spanish villa, you allowed them to take your virginity.

The five days you three spent in that villa were filled with pleasure, as Max and Charles fulfilled every request of yours without question. In bed, on the sofa, from the kitchen floor to the dining table, from the hot tub to the bathroom shower, horizontally, vertically, parabolically, from dusk to dawn—the two years of relationship you had without sexual intimacy had been put to rest. The understanding, the vulnerability, and the trust rooted within everyone had led to that moment. It was worth it.

So, one would understand your confusion when Max drops the idea of sex toys in conversation with you and Charles on a random morning. With an audible noise of confusion, you tilt your head up at him adorably, and genuinely question, “Why would I use a toy when I have you two?” Your tummy tightened when that sentence caused Charles to look at you with dripping molten eyes and Max’s mumbled grumble about corrupting your innocence goes unheard. Minutes later, you were bent over the kitchen island, the skirt of your sundress shoved up around your waist, and your white panties dangling off of one ankle as they took turns eating you out. Needless to say, you forgot about the subject of conversation the moment they knocked your legs open.

Eventually, they do manage to have a chat about toys without it devolving into sex. 

“Schat,” Max grabbed your attention, the clink of his silverware resting on his plate further interrupted your focus on spinning pasta onto your fork.

“Yes, Maxy?” you responded, meeting his eyes with a smile.

“After this discussion, we will never bring this up again if you are adamantly against the idea,” you brought your fork to your lips, munching away with a look of puzzlement, the Dutchman continued, “But, Charlie and I were talking…and we think, that—with your approval, of course—that there’s a chance you may enjoy experiencing and learning about sex toys, and how good they can make you feel. As long as either one of us is using them on you—and, with your hatred of them—they’re also not vibrators.”

You choked on your pasta, Charles making a noise of surprise as he rushed forward to pat you on the back.

Airways now cleared, you looked at Max with watery eyes, “There was not enough foreshadowing to let me know where the conversation was going. And, fuck vibrators. They are way too strong.”

The Monegasque’s eyes brightened with humor, “Hm. I think vibrators are nice, especially when they’re in Max’s hand.”

“You’re a menace and a freak,” the older man responded, “And she’s chronically sensitive. Don’t tease.”

Charles tugged at one of your curls, chuckling as he saw the brown skin of your cheeks redden.

“I mean,” you paused to play fight with your boyfriend, batting his hand from your hair cutely, “You guys haven’t been wrong with anything you’ve introduced me to. If you think that I might enjoy something…I guess I can try it. And, you’ll stop if I tell you to, right?”

“Always, mon ange.” “Of course, liefje.”

“Okay, then. I just don’t think there’s a toy that I’ll like?”

A smirk spread across Max’s lips when he glanced over at Charles, like they knew something you didn’t. His blue eyes were alight with humor as they looked back at you, “Let us worry about that.”

You did such a good job of letting your boyfriends “worry about sex toys” that you ended up forgetting the conversation happened. Until tonight, when you walked into your bedroom to see Charles on the bed completely naked, save for—what appears to be, a pink silicone pad strapped around his tanned, muscular thigh.

You freeze in the doorway, mouth parted, struggling to process the sight in front of you. The brunette is ruined. His hair is damp with sweat, strands of curls stuck to his forehead, and green eyes moist with dried tear tracks painting the ruddiness of his cheeks. His lips are bitten red, swollen, and moist with his spit—Max’s too. The bruises start on his collarbone, deep red marks brush along his clavicle and pecs, and there are visible imprints of teeth around his right nipple. Traces of Max’s unforgiving grip are painted on his waist, thumbprints obvious to your eyes. His cock looks painful; burning red, twitching randomly, the vein on his underside raised, and precome has been leaking out of his tip for a while if the puddle by the base is any telling. 

Employing his skill for perfect timing, the en-suite door opens, and Max steps into the room with a bottle of lube in his hand. 

“Charlie?” Max coos, walking over to the delirious man, pouting sympathetically when the brunette’s head falls forward to rest on his hip, ruffling his hair and scratching along his scalp. “Aren’t you going to thank our pretty girl for putting an end to your torture?”

“–rci, merci,” the exhausted man mumbles messily. Max hums in content, dropping the lube on the bed and gesturing for you to come closer. Tripping over your feet in haste to follow his order, you ask softly, “How long have you had him like this?”

“Around forty-five minutes,” Max shrugs, dismissively, “He was getting too excited as we waited for you to join us.”

Swallowing shakily, you inquire, “Excited about what?

“Your new sex toy.” 

You gasp and Max’s eyes flutter across your face as he gages your reaction. Max sees you shift on your feet and casts look downward; your thighs are pressed together for friction—you’re aroused.

“Do you want to try it?”

“Yes, Max.”

The Dutchman smiles at you, reaching out to tuck a stray curl behind your ear, and leans forward to press a multitude of chaste kisses on your lips, laughing lowly when you whine with displeasure as he ignores your attempts to deepen them. “You’re being so brave for me. Take your clothes off, pretty girl.”

Bare in the blink of an eye, you look at your older boyfriend for his next direction.

“Our Charlie,” Max starts, helping the fucked-out man sit up straight, “Has been so kind to volunteer his thigh to you. Strapped around it,” he pauses to slap his hand down beneath the toy, smirking at Charles’ delayed yelp, and squeezing the meat of his muscle warmly, “Is a ridged silicone pad designed to simulate the vulva and clit as you grind. The waves and spikes of silicone are malleable and soft,” Max drags his finger across them demonstratively, “and are smooth and bouncy as you slide across it, allowing for a continuous rubbing sensation—I did my research.”

Giggling nervously as your eyes flicker between Charles’ cock and the daunting pink slab of plastic, “I can tell. Um—I just ride it like it’s his thigh?”

Max nods and offers you his hand for stability as you move to straddle the pad. Charles blinks, raising trembling hands to rest on your hips, staring at you with hazy eyes. You sigh, tangling your hand in the nape of his hair and using it to pull him forward into a kiss. His lips are clumsy but eager as they move against yours, whimpers muffled into your mouth and beard scratching along your chin. He tries to tug you downwards to have you firmly sit on the pad but is halted by Max.

“Greedy, both of you,” Max snorts, picking up the forgotten bottle of lube and uncapping it to lightly drizzle some on the toy's surface, “I know you get wetter than the ocean but, better safe than sorry.”

He pats you on the ass in encouragement, and you shake your head with shame as you lower yourself down on the silicone, draping your arms around Charles’ shoulders and pausing to acquaint yourself with the new feeling. The chill of the lube startles you but aside from that, the toy is…comfortable. The raised hump sits perfectly against the curvature of your cunt and already, you’re anticipating the focused stimulation it will provide. 

Max sits behind Charles and the bed sinks under his weight, barely jostling the Monegasque’s thigh. However, it’s enough of a movement that it causes one of the soft spikes to clip your clit, pushing a quiet noise of surprise from your lips.

“Oh,” you murmur airily.

Trying to hide the quirk of his lips, Max leans forward to whisper directly into Charles’ ear, “This seems awfully familiar to the first time she rode my thigh, no?”

You whimper audibly, knowing that he purposefully spoke loud enough for you to hear his words. Refusing to fixate on Charles’ reply, you circle your hips, breath catching as the various textures set your nerves ablaze. You understand that Max added the lube to prevent any unwanted roughness—it’s rendered unnecessary as your arousal starts to leak. Digging your nails into the younger man’s back, you rock your hips back and forth slowly, moaning freely as the waves are a consistent friction against your labia. 

“It’s–fuck—i-it’s good.”

“Stuttering already,” Max tuts, and you feel the heat in your cheeks radiate down to your bouncing chest. Your rhythm roughens; dragging yourself along the toys in desperation, toes curling at every random press of the spikes against your outer lips and clit. Charles gasps in relief, your quickened pace causing his cock to bounce and rub against his abdomen in his puddle of precome. He gets lucky on every few grinds when you undulate forwards and his cock bounces to glide against your navel. His hands grip firmly around your hips and shove them into a jerkier motion, keeping you close to him so his reddened length can be soothed against your skin constantly. 

The change in angle and position has caused the spikes to form a barrage around your clit and the waves drag over your entrance, teasing you with the feeling of being opened up. Dropping your head to hide your face in Charles’ neck, you muffle your pitchy moans and shrieks by tasting the sweat beading on his skin.

“I’m jealous, schatje,” Max speaks, “I almost want to pull her off of your thigh and have her sit on my face.”

Fresh tears spill from Charles’ eyes as he begs, “N-no-no—mmmph—please, ‘m close.”

Your hips start to rabbit against the toy, and the texture between your legs is overwhelming but too pleasurable to consider slowing. 

Max yanks Charles’ head backward with a fist in his hair, “Do you want to cum, Charlie?”

The man in question babbles incoherently, chest trembling from lack of oxygen as he continues to sob; he tries to nod, but can’t, thanks to Max’s firm grip. The burning of his scalp doesn’t subdue him, it encourages him to keep tugging so the pain floods endorphins through his body. 

“You know what to say,” Max states calmly, the words sending shivers down your spine. Your own body starts to tingle as you taste your orgasm on the tip of your tongue; you’re too delighted at the new sensations to let any embarrassment build from reaching the edge quickly.

Charles struggles to get his tongue, lips, and vocal cords to cooperate. You see a frantic look light in his eyes, sure he’s trying to puzzle out what language he’s sane enough to communicate in. He manages to verbalize sounds that could be likened to Max’s name if you brush past his whimpers and cries.

“Plea–,” Charles tries to push the word out pitifully, “—ah, sss'il te pla—” his cock bumps against your navel, and his words cut off, eyes rolling back before he can finish begging.

A humorous laugh leaves Max; this is the easiest way Max has ever made the younger man lose his speech. He softens, and gives into the pillow prince, “You did so good, Charlie. You tried your hardest for me, yeah? You begged so prettily tonight, almost as pretty as you look. Such a good boy, Charles. You can cum.”

Strikingly, the approval works for both you and Charles. Twin cries of pleasure erupt as your orgasms blur your vision and burn through your muscles. The feeling of Charles’s cum splattering against your stomach sends another burst of light through your skin as you continue to grind fitfully on the silicone pad. A lake of wetness puddled on the poor man’s thigh, that squelches as you move. 

Charles is rendered silent as his cock continues to pulse even when the flow of his release ceases. Max brings his hand down to squeeze at his base and Charles releases a choppy scream as it pushes another couple of ribbons out of him. His hips thrust upwards with every string, forcing hisses of over sensitivity to slip from you as it drags the soaked pad against your cunt. You would happily crawl off his thigh, but you haven’t regained feeling in your legs yet. 

Thankfully, Charles deflates back into Max, his cock finally softening and slowly losing some of its flush. Tears start to leak from his eyes again, his chest shuddering through little sobs. You whimper softly at his tears and Max pulls you both to rest comfortably in the bed, as he shushes you two through the comedown. When the tears, shivers, and shakes halt, a pleased tilt of lips rises to Charles's face as his eyes dance between you and Max. 

The Dutchman unclips the toy from Charles’s thigh and smirks at the wet peeling noise that sounds.

“So…I assume this toy has your approval?”

© httpsserene2023

[hotshotsxyz]

hope for the future (got me on my knees)

(buddie) (s8 spec) (2.4k words) car crash spec <3 title from bastille's hope for the future, which, imo, is one of the eddie songs of all time cw: blood (like. a lot)

Eddie’s not supposed to be here. He’s not—

He’s—

God, he’s not supposed to be here again. He’s not even on shift. But Buck is.

It was a favor. He’s covering for a last minute absence on C shift. So now he’s—

He’s on shift and he’s lying in the middle of the road and he’s not moving. And Eddie. Can’t. Breathe.

“Buck!” someone shouts, and Jesus it sounds like their entire world just crumbled. Eddie’s throat feels raw like—

Oh.

He’s the one screaming.

Buck’s three feet away from him, sluggishly bleeding out on the pavement. Shannon’s six feet under in a graveyard halfway across the city. Buck’s ribs are giving way beneath Eddie’s hands. Buck’s blood is soaking through his jeans. It’s staining him, his skin, his mind.

He—

“Sir!” Someone snaps. “You need to—shit, Diaz?”

No, that’s—it’s not Eddie who’s broken and unmoving on the ground. It’s not Eddie who’s going to die with or without a tube down his throat.

It’s—

It’s—

Two pairs of hands grab him, yank him away.

“No!” Eddie screams, thrashing wildly at whoever it is that thinks they can keep him from Buck.

“Diaz, stop!”

He can’t. He won’t.

“You have to let them help him.”

They won’t do enough. Only Eddie will fight for him hard enough. Only Eddie knows how to bring him back. An animalistic snarl climbs out from his chest.

“I’ve got a pulse!” a paramedic Eddie doesn’t recognize shouts. She’s a floater, probably.

A floater is holding Buck’s life in her hands. Does she even know? Does she know that the world will stop turning if he’s not in it?

Eddie’s knees hit the pavement. Distantly, he feels the sting. Mostly, though, he feels Buck’s blood. It’s on his hands and soaking through his clothes, painting him red, red, red.

Two firefighters carefully roll Buck onto a body board and lift him to the stretcher. For a split second, it’s 2019. Eddie’s watching his wife die. He’s holding Buck’s hand and trying not to stare at his mangled leg.

“Diaz! Now or never, are you coming with us?”

He doesn’t feel himself move, but between one blink and the next he finds himself in the back of an ambulance staring down at his—

His—

Buck’s eyelashes flutter and Eddie can’t do this.

“Please,” he sobs, clutching Buck’s hand. “You—you have to—”

He’s squeezing too hard. So hard he might break Buck’s hand, but he’s terrified that if he lets go, so will Buck.

The floater moves to intubate, but before she can Buck heaves a shuddering breath and opens his eyes.

Eddie thinks he might be screaming again, only this time the sound is trapped deep inside him.

“Eds… hurt?” Buck manages.

He must be. He’s dying maybe, because that’s the only explanation he can think of for the creeping numbness in his limbs.

“He’s fine, Buckley,” the floater says.

She’s wrong. She doesn’t— how could she? She doesn’t know that every piece of Eddie that’s worth anything is dying right alongside his—

“I can’t wait any longer,” she says apologetically before shoving a plastic tube down Buck’s trachea. He chokes on it, and oh, Eddie’s choking too.

The ambulance slows and Eddie’s about to bang against the wall, about to demand they keep going, when the doors are flung open revealing an entire trauma team dressed in pristine scrubs.

The floater rattles off Buck’s vitals and the injuries they know of.

As they pull Buck from the back of the ambulance, one of the doctors catches Eddie’s eye. He nods, and Eddie hopes to God that means he knows that Los Angeles will be swallowed by the sea if this man doesn’t live.

All at once, Buck is gone and Eddie’s left standing next to an ambulance that could be the last place he ever hears Buck speak.

“Diaz, you okay?” The C shift captain whose name Eddie can’t be bothered to remember right now asks.

No.

No.

No.

He doesn’t answer.

…

There’s blood on his face. Buck’s blood. Eddie doesn’t— he’s not sure how it got there, but now that he sees it, he can feel it too. It’s tacky and drying and God, there’s so much.

Gentle hands turn him away from the mirror.

“No,” Eddie says as his sluggish brain recognizes Bobby. “No, no he can’t—“

Bobby was there when—

He held Eddie. Let him weep into his shoulder. Stood steady as Eddie’s world crumbled to pieces.

“He’s in surgery,” Bobby says.

“They don’t know,” Eddie babbles.

Bobby’s face creases in concern. “Know what, Eddie?”

“He’s— he—“ He can’t force the words out.

“Eddie,” he repeats forcefully.

“I love him,” Eddie croaks.

Bobby, steadfast and solid, cracks.

One sob escapes his chest, then another, and soon they’re both sliding to grimy bathroom floor, trying not to shatter entirely.

“I can’t lose another—“ Bobby gasps.

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut. Bobby can’t lose another child. He can’t lose another spouse. Not now, not when he’s just begun to understand the depth of what he’s been denying himself for what feels like his entire life. Not now, not ever. Not— not, Buck.

The bathroom door bangs open and Hen steps in. Tear tracks stain her cheeks, but Eddie can’t bring himself to analyze her expression further. If Buck’s— Eddie wants to live in a world that hasn’t quite ended as long as he possibly can.

“No update,” she says quietly.

She grabs a few paper towels and wets them in the sink. She kneels in front of Eddie and brings one to his face. He flinches back.

“Eddie?” she asks.

He swallows past the lump in his throat. “What if…”

What if the blood staining his skin is the last piece of Buck he gets to keep? What if he dies on the operating table? What if he’s already dead? Eddie can’t— he won’t let anyone take the last of him away.

A harsh sob drags itself past his lips.

“Oh, Eddie,” Hen whispers, and why do people keep saying his name?

No one— he’s never heard it so many times from anyone but Buck. He doesn’t want to hear it from anyone but Buck. He shakes his head and presses his hands to his ears.

Hen says something else, but all he can hear is the whoosh of his own pulse, and it’s so unfair. Shouldn’t his heart know not to beat until he’s sure Buck’s will again?

“Eddie,” Hen says, taking his hands. “Let me, please.”

He can’t bring himself to agree, but he doesn’t fight back when she raises the paper towel to his face again. She pulls it across his skin in gentle drags, but it’s cold and Eddie can’t help but think uncharitably that Buck would’ve waited for the water to warm before he wet the towels.

When she’s done with his face, Hen guides him to the sink to wash the blood from his hands too. For a split second, Eddie wonders if Buck washed his blood away in this same sink after Eddie was shot. He wonders if Buck’s hands shook the way his are shaking now.

“That’s good Eddie, there you go,” Hen encourages him softly.

He bristles at her careful tone. Nothing she says can make any of this better or worse, not unless she can tell him with absolute certainty whether or not Buck will survive the night.

“I grabbed your duffle from the station,” she continues, and it’s only then that he notices his own bag slung over her shoulder. “Think you can get changed?”

Eddie nods mutely. Distantly, it occurs to him that this is part of what makes Hen such a good paramedic— her ability to meet someone where they are. He peels off his henley and exchanges it for the long sleeve LAFD crewneck she hands him.

He swaps his pants next, and for the first time, wearing a piece of the uniform feels wrong. He couldn’t— he wasn’t a medic today. If it had just been him and Buck out there, Buck would be dead already. He’d, what? Held his torn skin together? As if that was the wound that was going to kill him. Shannon didn’t even bleed when she died.

“Maddie and Chim are waiting for you,” Hen says, nodding toward the door. “I’m going to sit with Cap for a little while, okay?”

Again, Eddie nods. He stumbles through the door and into the arms of a woman who, for all they share, he barely knows.

He can’t bring himself to look her in the eye. She’ll know, he thinks, know that he didn’t do enough. Know that he failed one of the three people she loves most in this world.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks into her hair.

“For what?” she asks shakily.

“I should’ve— I didn’t—“

“You were there,” Maddie says. “You made sure he knows he’s not alone.”

Eddie swallows harshly.

“He knows what he’s fighting for,” Maddie continues. “Thank you.”

He wants to shake her. He should’ve done more. He’d demanded it once of a different team of doctors, and then he couldn’t even—

He was there and it didn’t matter. Buck’s still dying in a sterile operating room.

Maddie pushes him toward a chair next to Chimney in the waiting room, then sits on his other side. They talk to him, Eddie thinks, but he doesn’t hear a word.

…

“Family of Evan Buckley?”

Eddie’s on his feet before he’s even made a conscious decision to stand. Maddie follows quickly behind him, and— oh, Bobby’s in the waiting room now, too.

The doctor smiles at them, and while Eddie’s sure it’s meant to be reassuring, every second that passes without news is more excruciating than the last.

“Mr. Buckley did well in surgery,” she says.

Eddie’s entire body sags, like a marionette with its strings cut. Hen’s subtle but steadying hand on his back is the only reason he doesn’t collapse to the floor right then and there.

“He’s not out of the woods yet,” the doctor continues, “but his CT was clear and we were able to locate and repair the source of his internal bleeding.”

“He’s going to be okay?” Maddie asks, high and watery.

The doctor nods. “We’d like to keep him a few days for observation, but barring unforeseen complications, we believe he’ll make a full recovery.”

Maddie presses a hand to her mouth and nods, eyes shining.

“The effects of the anesthesia should be wearing off soon, I can take two of you to his room.”

To Eddie’s surprise, Maddie takes his hand. “We’ll—us,” she says.

Eddie looks at Maddie, then Bobby. “Are you—are you sure?”

“Go,” Bobby says. “He needs you.”

Eddie’s not sure that’s true, but he sure as hell needs Buck and he—he thinks this is probably one of those times when he’s allowed to be a little selfish.

“Through these doors,” the doctor says, leading them back with a wave of her key card.

…

He’s pale, unnaturally so. It’s like, despite the massive transfusion he received, there still isn’t enough blood pumping through his veins. Eddie wishes he could wring out his shirt and return every drop he took.

“Eddie, what happened?” Maddie asks softly.

Eddie shakes his head. “I, uh, I wasn’t supposed to be there,” he says haltingly.

Maddie takes his hand with the one that isn’t holding Buck’s and squeezes.

“I don’t think he knew I was there,” Eddie continues. “It was just… God, Maddie, it was a coincidence.”

Eddie closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath.

“It came out of nowhere. They were responding to a fender bender, wouldn’t have even been a call except one of the drivers was stuck in their car, I think. He was helping someone when it—there was a car. And then he was just—I couldn’t—he—”

Maddie squeezes his hand again. “You know, I—” she hesitates, then nods like she’s made a decision. “I’ve never seen him happy the way he is with you.”

Against Eddie’s will, a pained noise escapes his throat. “I don’t know why,” he admits. He looks down at his feet.

“Sure,” Maddie says, blowing out an amused huff.

“He’s so good. He walks into a room and everything gets brighter. He’s the sun,” Eddie says helplessly.

Maddie’s smile turns impossibly fond. “You love him,” she says. It’s not a question.

A smile of his own spreads unbidden on his lips. “How could I not?”

There’s a sharp intake of breath.

Eddie whips his head around and sees Buck, eyes open, lips parted.

“Eddie,” he breathes.

He should be panicking, maybe. Throat closing, heart racing, but—the singular feeling in his chest is relief.

“Hey, Buck,” Eddie says, incapable of and unwilling to keep the warmth from his voice.

“You—” Buck blinks twice, slow, like he’s trying to keep himself awake.

Eddie lays a hand on his ankle and squeezes. “Rest,” he says. “I’ll stay.”

“Stay… s’nice,” Buck slurs as he slips back into sleep.

“For what it’s worth,” Maddie says after a long moment, “pretty sure he loves you, too.”

Eddie watches the slow rise and fall of Buck’s chest. “Yeah,” he says, biting down on a grin that’s far too wide for the ICU, “I think he might.”

“Could take a second for him to work that out for himself,” Maddie says.

Eddie lets out a soft chuckle. “Oh, I know,” he says. “Gives me time to pick out a ring,” he jokes. Kind of.

Maddie laughs and shakes her head. “Is this your way of asking for my permission to propose?”

“Well I’m not going to ask your parents,” Eddie replies, wrinkling his nose.

Maddie’s eyes twinkle with amusement. “Could you imagine if I said no after all of this?”

“I’d ask him anyway,” Eddie admits.

“Good answer,” Maddie says.

Eddie laughs. “Oh, so that was a test?”

“No,” Maddie replies, shaking her head. “But he deserves someone that chooses him no matter what.”

“I do,” Eddie says with conviction. “I will.”

“Then yes,” Maddie says. “Just—don’t ask him in the hospital.”

[alchemistc]

"I am not packing your kitchen, Buck," Maddie says with a hard set to her jaw and a hand planted on her hip, and Evan sends her a warning look over his shoulder, elbow deep in packing tape and half-folded boxes. Tommy is clearly missing something.

"You found the ring cutter in there with the ladles too, huh?" Snipes Eddie from somewhere in the vicinity of the bathroom, and before Tommy can get a firm grasp on that Eddie's tipping his head back through the open doorway. "C'mon guys, seriously, you didn't pack this shit up before you forced us all to help you pack?" There's an unopened tube of lube in his hand.

"I'm getting things off of walls and that is all, Evan Buckley," comes Maddie's quick rejoinder, and Buck levels them both with a look.

"That could be for normal stuff! Sometimes rings need cutting! Sometimes you need to - lubricate other things!"

It is, of course, the moment Bobby wanders through the unlocked door.

Tommy's still familiar with the cadence of Hen and Howie, ribbing and mocking a form of endearment for them both, so he's not exactly shocked when Bobby just rolls with it and starts listing off the last fifteen calls they've needed it for. None of those things particularly improve the red rising up Evan's cheekbones, but Tommy catches the grin Bobby's hiding while he sets boxes of pizza up at the kitchen table, cleared of the latest seasonal decor Evan had dragged him through three different department stores to find, not that he could be bothered to care when the very existence of them was all it took to shift Maddie's opinion of him from tolerantly friendly to encouragingly approving.

("This loft was a minimalists wet dream before you were in the picture," she'd told him one evening, after she'd manipulated him into admitting he was terrified this didn't mean the same thing to Evan as it did to him. "He started nesting a month after my wedding, Tommy.")

And now they're here. Watching Evan pretend to be miffed by the teasing while he fights a roll of packing tape.

He's going to miss the upstairs shower, wide enough for two grown men to fit more than comfortably; and the balcony on cooler nights when he could tempt Evan out for a slow dance set to the late-evening traffic; the kitchen island at the perfect height to lift Evan onto and tilt his head up for an angled kiss.

He won't miss the open plan that makes it impossible to do much of anything with a snoring Eddie right below them, the tuba player two doors down who only seems to practice the moment Tommy's head meets the pillow at the end of any random days-long shift, the way the elevator always smells like tuna on Thursday afternoons.

There are things he won't have to miss, of course. Evan, on nights when they just can't make their schedules align well enough to justify the drive time. The extra fluffy towel set Evan had refused to reveal the origin of ("You'll buy your own and leave me, I know you're only with me for my towels."). The pictures plastered to the fridge that Tommy's spent the last few weeks plotting out space for on his own before deciding he'd need a new fridge just to fit them all. The plant he'd bought Evan to appease the grump, the first time he'd dragged him to the farmers market at the ass crack of dawn, lovingly named Herbert. The fancy adjustable bedside lamps Evan had bought the last time he'd caught Tommy squinting down his reading glasses at the book in his hands. Evan.

Christ, he wouldn't have to miss Evan anymore. They'd synched up their schedules more or less as well as they could, but Tommy's spent months now trying to ignore how quickly a sleepless night could turn restful with Evan in his bed - how fitful a night without him there had a habit of being.

Most of the loft is already packed. Evan's wardrobe has been dwindling for weeks now, a box at a time carted from the back of the Jeep up Tommy's drive, through the mud room, down the hall and straight to the closet that had never seen such a shock of color or variety of fabric. They'd sprung for a bigger mattress, once they'd gotten over the sticker shock and remembered how much they'd be saving by paying half a mortgage each with no rent to speak of, and other than the kitchen table most of Evan's other furniture was being donated.

All that really remained were the kitchen supplies Evan hadn't been willing to move until he handed over his keys, a few toiletries, a single drawer of clothes just in case he needed them. Pictures on the walls and stacks of books on the bookshelves - half a decade of life lived in this apartment and most of it was already half unboxed and slowly integrating into the fifteen years Tommy had put into his own solitary life.

Evan finishes taping boxes and makes a beeline for his itemized list, and Tommy has to pretend it's giving him as much grief as Evan's sister and best friend to see the clipboard in action. He's not entirely sure how well he sells it, when even Bobby's shooting him aggrieved looks only to grimace at whatever he finds in Tommy's expression.

And just like that, an hour passes and the pizza disappears; the boxes are loaded into the back of his truck; the kitchen table in Eddie's; and Maddie tugs her brother in for a hug, drags Tommy in for good measure too, kisses them both on the cheek as she leaves; Bobby tucks a wooden box filled with handwritten recipes on note cards into Evan's hand and Tommy pretends not to notice either of their teary eyes; Eddie hefts a six pack out of the otherwise empty fridge and promises to meet them at the house in forty-five.

There's still one picture stuck to the fridge - a candid from the first barbeque Athena and Bobby had hosted after their move, Tommy and Evan backlit by a setting sun, tucked up against each other leaned against a porch railing, and Tommy knuckles at it while Evan does a slow introspective spin to take in the wide expanse of windows and brick. He's still staring when Evan finishes and drifts towards him, hands tucking in at Tommy's waist, chin hooking over his shoulder.

"Is this one staying?"

Evan shakes his head, nose digging into the side of Tommy's neck. "Just wanted to keep it out so it could be the first one we put up."

He remembers the night. Karen had gotten him drunk and added him to the wives group chat. May Grant had stolen half his slice of cake right off his plate and dared him to protest. Jee had spent the entire night calling him Uncle Tommy and thrown a massive fit when she realized he wasn't going home with her to read a bedtime story. Christopher and Denny had spent half an hour trying to teach him how to play Fortnite and then been mystified when he trounced them in Mario Kart. He knows exactly why it's significant to him. "Why this one?" he asks, curving into the cradle of Evan's arms.

Evan's so much better with words than Tommy is, and Tommy's just grateful Evan takes his actions for the things he means with them. "That's the night I knew what our something was gonna be," Evan murmurs, and Tommy tips his chin back and angles his head to catch Evan's lips against his own.

[fastandcarlos]

Late Cravings : ̗̀➛ George Russell

summary: what baby wants, baby gets, even if she does want it at 3am, much to george's dissatisfaction

You barely managed to walk through the door before George appeared in front of you, his eyes were wide as his hands held onto your arms, studying you closely before closing the door. 

“George, at least let me get in,” you told him, being directed by his hold. “What’s going on? Why do you look so scared?” You questioned, sliding your shoes off and kicking them to one side. 

It was only once George stood still that you could see how nervous he looked. His heart was racing as he finally let you go, brushing his hand through his hair as he took a deep breath, taking a moment to pace and compose himself a little bit once again. 

The fear of stirring in the night and not feeling you there brought a terror that George had never experienced before. He had no idea where you were, terrified that one of his worst fears during your pregnancy had come true. 

“Where were you?” George frantically asked you, “what sort of person just gets up and leaves the house at three in the morning without telling anyone where you’re going first.” 

You felt guilty as you heard the panic that was still in George’s voice, encouraging him to take a seat beside you. Your hand rested against his leg, assuring him that you were there and that you were safe. 

Your free hand reached into your bag and pulled out what you had bought on your late-night adventure, with George’s eyes watching carefully to see many of the things you’d been craving in front of you. 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about these and I knew I wasn’t going to sleep without getting my hands on them,” you told him, ripping open the packet of crisps you’d bought. 

“But I could have gone to get them for you, all you had to do was ask,” George groaned, staring across at you as you placed a crisp into your mouth, throwing your head back in satisfaction. 

The thought of waking George did cross your mind, but you just couldn’t bring yourself to do it, he was peacefully sleeping beside you and you didn’t have the heart to disturb him. 

“You were asleep and with how busy you are you need to rest as much as possible,” you told him,  I wouldn’t have gone if I didn’t feel like I was up to it George.” 

George’s head nodded, he understood where you were coming from, knowing that you wanted to remain as independent as possible, but even by his standards this was a stretch too far. 

“I could’ve sat in the passenger seat and slept,” he suggested with a smile on his face, “at least then I would have known exactly where you were.” 

“But you know where I am now, that’s the main thing, right?” 

George’s eyes narrowed on you, as safe as you were now, half an hour ago he was worried that it was going to be a whole different story. 

“I wish you’d tell me when you’re planning on giving me a heart attack,” George joked. 

“It’s all part of the fun,” you argued, resting your head down against George’s shoulder as you continued to eat. “You know I am just pregnant though George, I’m not incapable.” 

Whilst George was overprotective, you were a little carefree making the two of you a little conflicted. George wanted to know every last detail while you tended to not tell him much about what you were up to, confident you could still take on the world, even if George was a little more doubtful. 

“Maybe going out so early in the morning wasn’t the brightest idea,” you reasoned, much to George’s delight, “I suppose I could have sorted out my cravings in a little bit of a better way.” 

“I know how you get when you’re craving though,” George mused, “if there’s one thing that I know about you it’s that you definitely get whatever you want when you’re craving.” 

You nodded in agreement with him, you were determined with everything that you did, but now you were more determined than ever to do as much as you could for as long as you possibly could too. 

“I don’t mean to constantly be on your case,” George told you, kissing against the top of your head. “I need to remind myself to trust you more, to know that you know how far you can push your body.” 

“I wouldn’t do something if I couldn’t,” you assured, “and as much as you might not believe me, if I need help then I will ask you for it George.” 

The corners of his mouth slowly turned up, “I know you will, and I’ll always be there whenever you need me to step in and help you out.” 

“That’s why you’re such a fantastic husband.” 

You weren’t oblivious to how lucky you were to have George by your side doing absolutely anything that you needed. He was beyond excited to have a baby, wanting to do as much as he could to help both you and the baby out, maybe sometimes a little too much, although you knew George always meant well. 

“I draw the line at three in the morning,” George then spoke up, sending you a knowing glance. “It’s dark outside and you can’t see where you’re going. No craving can be as important as keeping you safe in conditions like that.” 

“I was driving and my lights were on.” 

“Still,” George sniggered, dismissing your protests. “From now on if you need anything in the night then you can shake and kick me awake, regardless of how sleepy I might look beside you.” 

Your eyebrows raised as George spoke, “I can kick you?” 

“That’s the bit you focus on,” George grumbled, rolling his eyes at you as you threw your crisp packet into the bin. “You got anything else in there, I’m hungry now after all the energy I’ve just exerted panicking for you.” 

“Are you pregnant and craving?” You asked him as his head shook. “In that case then you get nothing, these are mine and mine only.” 

You reached forwards and opened up the packet of sweets that you’d bought, taking one out. Luckily for George you reached across and popped one of the sweets into his mouth, much to his delight. You leant back against his chest as you started tucking in, his arm wrapping around you. 

Despite the way his heart had raced just a few minutes earlier, it was a lot calmer as George noticed the content smile now on your face. He knew that pregnancy was far from easy for you, trying his best to understand your mood and emotions as much as he could. 

“Maybe we should stock up on some of the things you crave,” George suggested, watching your eyes light up. “You know like how people how emergency rations; we could have emergency cravings.” 

“That might not be the worst idea,” you agreed, “but only if you agree that they’re for my cravings and not for you to keep tucking into.” 

“You know what my appetite is like, when there’s food in front of me then I’m probably going to eat it.” 

“Think of it like this, would you deny your child food if you ate the food that is kept in the cupboard for them?” 

“Oh wow, now that is the ultimate guilt trip.” 

˗ˏˋ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ! ´ˎ˗

[sleep-0-deprived]

Hello Dimitri!

I really love your works - especially your yandere oc's and jjk content!- I was wondering if I can put in a request for a poly yandere of Geto and Gojo with a bottom male reader? I want to know how this relationship works when they were in their teens and now that their adults (Geto still choose to be a cult leader, also he does not die. My poor heart cannot handle the heartbreak of Geto dying and leaving Gojo and reader behind ). You can make it sfw or nsfw which either one you like! :)

Ps. Sorry for the long request, it is my first time requesting (0///0)

Two psychos is better than one right?~! (Yandere Geto suguru x male reader x yandere Satoru Gojo) ❀˖°

WC:. 5.7k

Tags: fluff-smut, threesome, spit roasting, poly satosugu, trio friendship, friends to enemies to lovers blowjobs, p in a sex, male on male oral, handjobs, ass eating, anal creampies, Yandere themes, dark content x male reader, dub con, non con, manipulation, drugging, Gojo just gaslighting reader

About: satoru and suguru become friends with male reader ending up in an obsession leading to Geto leaving, even after you split ways with him, he stays watching you from afar despite their separate paths they stay holding their obsession leading to trapping you.

A/N: this is a bit of a longer fic compared to others I’ve I’ve wrote, I put all my effort into this one! After some long writers block I’ve made it back around into writing again <33

Before the Riko incident you became a transfer at jujutsu high, you weren’t really strong nor weak, you were the prime balance of an average guy who just wanted to be in the middle- as long as you helped others then that was fine by you, being well known seemed overrated anyway.

You never thought you’d get between the infamous duo, they were tight knit after all, they were all any jujustu student aspired to be and after all you were just a boy looking to make it through the academy without any complications

If you would’ve known the outcome of transferring to this school you would’ve stayed far away, how did you even enter their lives? You were put on their team as a balance, you were put there to be guided and who was better to guid you than you once upper class men Satoru?

You were put on their missions, it started simple, the three of you going against curses together but you noticed very quickly that your friendship meant more to them than what met the eye. The friendship you thought of as normal or even just knowing them out of same interests turned dark far to fast.

What stool out at you the most was during a mission when you were saving a civilian from a low level curse, after a hour the fight was over and you were clean from any wounds, the man just ran up to you muffling his words between tears grabbing your hands.

“thank you—I don’t know what would’ve happened if you didn’t show up!”

The man hugged you and the next thing you knew you tilted your head and suguru was already pulling him off of you pushing the man away harshly throwing him to a wall of a near by store.

“What do you think you’re doing suguru?!”

You quickly ran forward to him pulling him away from the civilian leaving the man running off terrified, your hands reaching up to his uniform shaking him back and forth while yelling at him. All Geto seems to do is stare blankly like he didn’t care what you did in the slightest.

“He touched you [name], nobody should get up close and personal, unless it’s me or Satoru”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You two aren’t my damn keepers, we are friends Suguru- just friends!”

You look at him offended with your lips pressing in a thin line shoving him back and letting him go, walking off pushing past a confused Gojo leaving him tilting his head looking back at Geto with a ‘what did you do?’ Face.

The next few days to pass you avoided Geto like the plague, only being around Gojo when he wasn’t near Suguru.

Sitting in a café during the weekend with Gojo lifting your drink, the feeling was off and you weren’t the biggest fan of how Gojo kept staring over at you but your dad was pushing you to be more like other boys your age, that’s how you ended up calling Gojo on the water day morning after the incident with Geto.

“You don’t have to avoid him Y’know [name]?”

Gojo breaks the silent looking at you with his eyes rolled forwards under his glasses watching your every move when you take a bite of whatever pastries you made him buy you.

“He’s just so damn possesive Toru- it’s like he thinks I’m his property..it’s just weird”

Gojo just gives a shrug, of course he would. Always sticking up and vouching for Geto like he was some sort of fan boy. What did you really expect? Gojo knew Geto before you, they had an uncanny close relationship and knowing all you know now looking back on it that’s the reason Suguru didn’t mind sharing you with Satoru.

“I think you’re overreacting, he was probably just worried about you, I’m sure he did in in good intentions”

“Yeah, whatever you say Toru”

You shove down a few more bites while Gojo takes a sip of his tea, you couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched but you always feel that way. Gojo kept trying to bring the topic back to Geto, trying to persuade you two to make up and apologize but you were just creeped out with his actions.

“Come on? He’s our friend [name] you don’t wanna be the one to put a wedge in our trio right?”

Gojo did his best to speak sweetly to you. Trying to convince you, and if that didn’t work then he’d just whine and make you feel bad til you felt like you just had to forgive Suguru. You didn’t wanna be the reason your friend ship fell apart with them right?…

The next day was a Sunday and Gojo had practically done everything but force you to meet up with Geto. Gojo had used the fact he and Geto were on a mission looking after a girl as the perfect opportunity to finally get you three together.

You hear your phone ringing whilst you lay sprawled out in bed, it’s a Sunday morning after all, it’s the last day of your week to sleep in until next weekend.

“Hello Toru..why’re you calling me so early?..”

“I just wanted to ask if you wanted to come and hangout at the beach today? Me and Geto are gonna be watching after this girl for our mission and I really-really want you there [nicknaamee]”

You just let out a small sigh and groggily open your eyes up begrudgingly mumbling back out to Satoru when you hear his whiny voice on the other end of the phone pleading and going high pitch on the nickname he gave you”

“Fine I’ll come but don’t let him act creepy Toru”

After that day at the beach things fell right back in line, you and Suguru had made up, and Gojo was happy, after all his best friends had made up.

Then it went and happened, some assassin had killed who they were protecting- or so Satoru told you. You weren’t there the day it had happened, you were on another mission with your upperclassman Nanami. Suguru wasn’t the same after that point, he hardly talked to you or Gojo- he would just silently space out staring at you.

Then summer hit and when he had came back he wasn’t the same at all, he was cold and distant and snapped at you over the slightest things. If you spent more time with Satoru than him then he’d give you the cold shoulder until you apologized despite your lack of knowing what you did wrong.

“I just don’t understand why you’re acting like this Suguru?”

You walked along side Gojo after school one day following after Geto, your eyes were wide and your lips pressed firm.

“Hey! Where are you goin?!”

Gojo ran faster than you walking forward more when Suguru stops and turns facing Gojo, their argument starts leaving you chiming in every few seconds standing next to Satoru, by the end of their fight Suguru just turns forward to walk away.

“Suguru wait! What the hell are you doing?”

You stand in utter disbelief for what was happening right in front of you— this couldn’t be happening? Your friendship was splitting up right before you and suguru, the boy that was eerily close around you was leaving you now.

You didn’t think you were going to be that affected over the loss but it left you confused on how you felt.

The days following that incident the team had drifted apart but you and Gojo had a newfound closeness but you couldn’t shake the feeling of always being watched, it felt like all eyes were on you even when you were walking through your dorm, that must just be the paranoia that comes with being a jujustu sorcerer right?

By the time you had graduated from Jujustu high, Gojo was already number one, you were happy for him of course as any friend would be. Eventually by the ripe age of twenty you take up a teaching job at jujustu high after a long time of Satoru pestering you to take the job with him.

“If I take the job will you just shut up Toru?”

“Of course I will! I promise [nickname]”

You eventually get tasked over the same team as Gojo, which you found strange. Not that Gojo didn’t totally pull strings to make them place you two together. The teams you were mentoring were names Yuji, Nobara, and Megumi, the boy that Gojo had been watching after ever since he fought with his father- you think he’s the son of that assassin that killed Riko.

The Jujustu world became hectic, not that it was new but it became crazier than usual especially after finding out that Yuji boy had ate one of the king of curses fingers— how was he even alive after that?

Over the years of being a Jujustu sorcerer you had seen and dealt with many things and you couldn’t deny you never thought you’d see Suguru again, not after what he did to his parents- you had just assumed he was gone for good. For some odd reason Gojo never seemed too concerned it felt as though he knew something you never did.

You remember earlier in the day hearing Satoru asking you to take the subway with him later after classes had ended, something about this new place he wanted to take you too and knowing Gojo and his Expensive tastes you had just expected another luxury restaurant so imagine the confusion on your face when you see a old Japanese style parlor.

You walk right in behind Gojo, following confused seeing the dark colored interior and dim lights, non sorcerers walking out of the place wearing matching robes.

“What is this place Toru?”

“It’s just a parlor ran by an old friend”

The way he hummed those words with a smirk made you feel uneasy, this place felt cultic, the purple walls and candles lit around the halls leading towards a pair of Japanese styled double doors, Satoru opens them ushering you inside. Your senses feel different in this room, it smells sweet and all you can do is feel fuzzy inside, were you being laced?

When you come to again you open your eyes half way seeing two figures hovering above you. Softness is all you can seem to feel right now, you’re laying on something soft, maybe a pillow? It’s fluffy and all you wanna do is close your eyes and succumb again, your body is weak and you only muster up enough strength to open your eyes when you feel a hand undoing your pants.

Your eyes roll around a little in their sockets before focusing in on the two figures, they look like yin and yang- one has white hair, it’s Gojo…is that—

“Suguru?”

His name sounds pathetic when you slur your words looking up at him letting out a little whine seeing his robes, where has he been and why was he dressed like a messiah. What was happening? All those thoughts are postponed when you feel hands pulling your cock out of your boxers.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you [name], god you know how hard it is to not be able to touch you? To not hear my name from your mouth? It’s torture sweetheart”

“Awe suguru! You told me the cameras I put in his apartment were close enough?”

Satoru and Geto conversation while kneeling before your body, one of them on either side of you with Suguru’s hand on your cock playing with the soft flesh and teasing it. Your body felt too many things to let your mind properly think.

“You’re alive?”

Those words come out shakily with your body shuddering feeling the warm palm of his hand under the base of your cock pulling a few strokes while Satoru leans down more sliding your shirt up your body, lifting your arms up and discarding it while you lay on your back in the parlor. Your eyes seeing candles lit around the room next to a picture of Geto— this was a cult.

“Of course I’m alive? Why wouldn’t i be [name]?…you know me and Satoru will never leave you”

“Look at him Suguru, he’s so loopy, I told you that gas was too strong~”

Your cock pulses in his hand with your nipples erect from the cool air, your body heating up and your cock starting to leak precum.

“What’re you two doing?”

The words fall weakly while you lay on the pillows with your eyes circling in on Geto the whole time he touches your cock, your eyes rolling over to Gojo when he coos words to you talking you through it while your hands tremble pulling at the pillows.

“What we’ve wanted to do since day one [name]”

Suguru hums, leaning in more stroking your cock a little faster and moving his way between your thighs before craning his neck backwards whispering out something to Gojo. Gojo groans and pouts, taking his hands off your body and getting up walking off and out of the room leaving you and Suguru alone.

When Gojo comes back he’s holding a bottle of strawberry flavored Lube, Geto let’s go of your now hard cock and turns you over on your stomach, Gojo tossing Suguru the lube while he squirts the lube all up and down your crack, sitting the lube aside and squishing your cheeks together over and over making the lube smear around in between your cheeks.

“All I can think about is how you’ll taste, I hope Satoru don’t get mad I eat you up first”

Geto leans down kissing your arch and holding your hips sliding them down to your ass cheeks and slowly pulling them apart while grinning up at Gojo, watching the white haired man undoing his slacks and pulling out his cock, Gojo slaps his tip to your lips still soft.

“Toru please-“

“C’mon, suck it hard f’me?”

Before you can respond Geto has his faced buried between your cheeks eating you out like your his last meal, his tongue sliding up and down your crack and back down to your rim.

When your lips part to gasp, Gojo takes that as his chance to shove his cock down your throat making your lips wrap around him gagging and tearing up laying on your stomach with Satoru’s hand reaching down to grab a handful of your locks making you tilt your head back and look up at him.

“How’s it taste [name]?”

You can’t seem to muster a word, feeling Geto’s tongue going flat against your rim and pressing its way inside you while he reaches one hand under you to grab back ahold of your cock, Suguru starts stroking you in time with his tongue while aiming your cock down towards the pillows in jerking motions like he was milking you.

Gojo and Geto share gleaming looks, they were on cloud nine finally getting the intimacy from you they had longed after for years. Gojo thrusts his hips forward slowly making your cheeks bulge with every motion, his cock now fully hardened in your mouth hitting the back of your throat making vibrations around his base when you wail out.

“Poor baby is all delirious isn’t he Satoru?”

Geto smile against your flesh, pressing sloppy wet kisses to your rim rolling his own eyes back at the taste of strawberry and you on his tongue leaving a satisfaction in his stomach with his cock hard under his robes being pressed to his hip.

Gojo keeps stroking your hair before starting to lift your head by your hair and bob your mouth up and down on his cock making you deep throat him to the point your face was buried in his white pubes.

“Sugu—tworu ple~”

Your words come out choppy around his cock. You speak with your mouth full feeling your throat hurting and the hot tears in your eyes streaming down your cheeks being used by the two men unable to put up a fight due to the drugs in your system keeping you weak between the men.

The feeling of Geto’s tongue swirling around your insides makes your head go fuzzy again, you just wanna close your eyes but you can’t because yours are locked on Gojo’s bright blue ones, have they always been as blue as they are now? The look of pleasure on his faces makes knots build in your stomach knowing you’re the cause for his half closed eyes.

“Oh you’re so close aren’t you? Don’t even gotta answer I can tell [name]”

Geto can tell by the way your rim greedily puckers around his tongue and the amounts of precum oozing from your tip that you’re on the verge of your orgasm. His hand keeps working you between your thighs leaving your legs trembling laying on your stomach when a wave of heat floods your whole body making you moan around Gojo’s cock.

Your tip starts to swell angrily under Geto’s thumb, when his tongue laps your prostate it pushes you past your breaking point making you lose it, cumming all over the pillows, staining the purple fabrics with an off white stain making Gojo look down at you with his signature smirk.

“Mhmf— he’s a fuckin squirter Satoru”

“Suguru you should just feel how he’s gagging on me right now-“

They talk about you like you aren’t there, using you for their own pleasures you feel Geto pulling his face from your cheeks with one last lick pulling his tongue out of you leaving your s/c ass all sticky from a mix of spit and lube.

Geto starts lifting up his robes pulling them up over his head throwing them to the side with a smile, wearing black boxer briefs with a prominent bulge inside them with a dark patch of black hair trailing down his abdomen giving Satoru little to the imagination.

Suguru slides his fingers under his boxer waist band pulling them down his thighs allowing his cock to spring forward and press to his stomach.

“I would ask if you’re ready [name] but you probably shouldn’t speak with your mouth full~”

His voice is cold and mocking not giving a damn about Satoru face fucking you like a fleshlight. Suguru pulls your slick cheeks apart again thrusting his cock up and down your crack getting himself lubed up with the mixed substances.

Gojo reached his thumb down tracing over your full cheeks, watching how your throat bulges more and more the deeper he pushes himself inside your mouth fucking your eyes to reverse watching how they looked away from him and into the back of your head with a teary face that could arouse any man.

“I need-air tworu~”

Your drool running down your chin with your cock half limp between your thighs from how Geto jerked you off leaving you already feeling empty. Suguru reaches his hands up and grips your hips tightly nudging his cockhead against your rim watching while it stretches wide in a sad attempt to fit him, his cock feels like it’s tearing you in half.

“Fuck!~ hurts Suguru—“

You gasp when Satoru pulls his cock from your mouth leaving you fishing the purple pillows clenching up around Geto while he lazily pushes in, he doesn’t pay mind to it hurting you, he rubs small circles on your hips before bottoming himself all the way inside you with your rim leaving a little blood in with the lube from being stretched so much you tore.

“Shh, now you know you can take it can’t you [nickname]”

Gojo drops your head letting it fall forward with your teary face in the purple pillows, your lips all swollen and your throat feeling like razors doing nothing but keeping you from screaming anymore. Your voice is weak and all you can do is hold the pillows and let out little squeals around Suguru.

“Suguru- pleasee—“

You get shut up again by Satoru’s cock, he doesn’t tap his tip to your lips like last time, he forced his whole cock back down your drool filled throat making a slobbery mess running down your face while you reach one hand back trying to push Suguru’s hands off your hips.

“Don’t even try it [name] you know better, god you’re still as feisty as the last time I seen you”

Suguru reached one hand forward holding both your wrists tightly leaving promising red marks while he slowly thrusts his hips forward pushing your face more into Satoru’s groin when Suguru starts to fuck you from behind holding you and binding you with his hands keeping you all defenseless but at this point with the way his cock is sliding against your inner walls you can’t even properly think.

“There you go [nickname] you’re so good at this aren’t you? I think he was made for two cocks Suguru”

Gojo’s blindfold hanging around his neck with his large hand around the back of your head holding it in place while he rocks his hips forward making his veins start prodding against the roof of your mouth more showing you he was close.

“Hmfh!~ Toruu”

You whine wanting to reach your hand down and start touching your cock, you needed to come so bad but you couldn’t do anything but depend on them to make sure you got off. Suguru’s cock pressed against your prostate milking your insides with his base stretching your channel to fit his cock like he was trying to mold you.

“Does our boy wanna come that bad?”

Geto asks you with a fake confused tone fucking you a little harder holding your hands behind your back with one hand using the other to reach down and lift your left thigh up forcing his cock inside you at a deeper angle making you feel every vein and curve to his cock.

“Mh hmm-!”

You’re so far gone you can’t bother to care about every messed up thing these men are doing to you, all your mind can process is ‘needa come’ your back arches and you start trying to bob your head under Satoru’s hand trying to earn good graces from him when you look up at him with your wide eyes batting your lashes back and forth like a doll.

“Oh what’s this? I think he’s starting to be a good boy Satoru, you think we should let him come?”

Suguru asks Satoru with a smug smile holding your thigh tight fucking your insides raw with your rim all puffy and wrapped around his cock split open wide now accepting him with ease with the room in the parlor filling up with lewd squelches from the mix of lube and his spit making wet sounds when his hips hit your ass cheeks.

Plap-plap-plap, the sounds silently echo throughout the room while you just stare up at Gojo with a full mouth before feeling his load shoot down your throat spilling all over the back of your throat and running down the roof of your mouth leaving the pungent taste on your lips.

“I think we should let him come Suguru- he’s been actin nice hasn’t he?”

“I think you’re right Toru~ good boys deserve rewards after all”

Geto let’s your arms go reaching back down between your thighs starting to jerk your cock like he did before, fucking you rougher with his chubby cock head pulsing and twitching on your prostate putting a strong pressure in your stomach threatening to break over at any moment.

Satoru’s cock slips out of your mouth letting you finally breath and gasp for air while Gojo stares down at your face stroking his soft cock hard again and aiming it at your fucked out face watching you get pounded from behind by Geto.

“Close- just a little more- suguru pleasee~!”

You start letting out whiny moans and sounds you never new your voice could make when his thumb runs right across your slit, staring up at Gojo the whole time with your teary face ruined and covered in tears and drool with your hair messy from Gojo’s pulling. Geto keeps going bucking his hips forward harshly rutting himself into you going deep as he can pressing his balls to your backside feeling your rim spasming ready to orgasm around him.

When Suguru flicks his wrist holding the base of your cock it sends you over the edge arching your back under him clenching around his cock and holding onto the purple fabric beneath you, orgasming so hard your ears start ringing making everything in the room feel surreal when you come in Geto’s hand.

“There he goes Suguru- oh that’s such a beautiful face you’re making [nickname]”

Your come floods over Suguru’s thumb and spilling onto the pillows under you making you wail and cry at the nearly dry orgasm being pulled from your cock having you stiffening up under the two men with your nose scrunched in a over stimulated pleasure.

“I’m getting close [name], gonna flood these insides”

When Gojo hears those words he starts stroking his cock faster at your face watching his two best fiends fucking eachother with you laying all out of it and fuzzy from the drugs having you limp under Geto when he lets your thigh down to mount you more fucking your motionless body making you feel how his cock nudged you on its own before his flood gates break.

“O-oh hng~ suguru-“

The words come out high pitched and louder than the last when his come floods your anal cavity, the warmth surrounds your prostate in a hot sensation leaving you feeling all bloated and full from his seed, your hole instinctively starts to clench and unclench around him milking the rest of his load out of him while Gojo lets out a groan watching the whole scene play out before him.

“Here it comes [nickname]”

Those words were the only warning that Gojo gave you before his orgasm shoots across your face all over your nose and lips running down your chin, mixing in with your spit and tears leaving you completely ruined from the two men, with two loads in your tummy and another on your face leaving you spent.

“I can’t take no more Toru~ Suguru I can’t-“

“But you gotta [nickname] ! I haven’t even got to feel your hole yet~”

Gojo lets out a whine while Geto lets go of your cock and pulls out of your ass, using his thumb to push any come that oozes from your hole back inside you while he rotates with Gojo letting Satoru get right behind you swapping places, god! At this rate it was gonna be a real long night.

“Toru- I can’t take it”

You droop your head down feeling his hands flipping you over back into your back on the pillows feeling your come stained pillow fabric pressed to your skin making you cringe, Satoru lifts up one of your legs placing it up on his shoulder nudging your sore rim with his cock while Suguru adjusts himself now facing at your head pressing his cock against your come stained lips.

“Don’t lie, we know you can take it [nickname], you were made to take it baby”

“He’s right baby, we know you can handle it”

They don’t take your weak response as an answer, Gojo slowly pushes his cock into your already stretched hole, sliding in easily from Geto’s come and lube. Your chest aiming up at the air arching splayed on your back with your cock red and soft unable to harden from being milked to many times by the men.

Suguru pushes his cock pash your lips delving it into your wet cavern. Your throat bulges again from your now full mouth, your whole body aches and hurts but all you can do is lay still and take it. Gojo gives you no time to rest before he lifts your other leg up in the air holding you in a mating press while jackhammering into you.

“Fuck Suguru, you’re right his hole feels so fucking good”

Geto hums in response shuddering a little when your canines graze over a sensitive vein on the underside of his cock making him reach his hand down choking your throat a little bit as a warning making your fission blur from the lack of oxygen and the way Gojo was fucking you, reaching more spots than Suguru if that was even possible.

“Ah- careful with your teeth baby, don’t chew on it. Suck it”

Your thighs start trembling pressed to your chest with Gojo dipping his face down and burying his face into your pecks like a madman, taking one nipple into his mouth and sucking on it. His hips roll forwards lifting and reaching down to pull your hips, pulling you back onto his cock with your moans being gagged by Suguru’s cock.

“T’muush~ too stuffed Suguru~”

You roll your eyes back into your head looking up at Geto above you with your nose pressed to his balls from the angle he was fucking your mouth at leaving Satoru’s cum all smeared across your face like a sticky mess. Your cock half limp and tender against your inner thigh while it rests on your stomach leaking a little puddle.

“You sucked Satoru off fine, I think you can handle me too [name], now don’t start acting defiant again on us”

The way Geto spoke to you made you whine sadly unable to fight either of them, the drug still in your system and the way they were trying to consume your body whole left you mute sucking on his cock while Gojo pressed his chest up against yours making your toes curl up when he thrusts forward and nails your sweet spot head on.

“Don’t be so mean to him Suguru, he’s just about used up S’ all”

Satoru coos out to Suguru while he makes the pillows dip under the shared weight of him on top of you, Geto’s come swirling around your insides and trickling down your thighs around the base of Gojo’s cock while Gojo bites down on your nipple again only pulling his mouth off of your flesh to speak.

“I’m getting close [name], do’ you want it down your throat or face?”

Geto asks looking down at you feeling his balls drawing up against your cheek signaling he was close to his peak. Gojo on the other hand didn’t care about Suguru’s orgasm, he was too busy trying to chase his own inside your stomach. Your rim starts burning and stinging from being used and gaping around a cock for so long leaving you in painful pleasure.

“On m’ face~”

You whimper out quietly just not wanting to have to taste another load or feel more come inside your stomach. Reaching one hand down whining when you start to touch your cock, it felt like touching a stiff rod, your hand slowly moved up and down it crying to have to pull another orgasm but you needed to come so bad.

“You can’t do that [nickname] you gotta come from me or Suguru, so no touchin yourself”

Before you can respond or complain Satoru has his free hand slipping off your hip and down onto your cock, quickly swatting your hand away from it. His strokes aren’t gentle like yours were, his are fast and unorganized like his thrusts are. Gojo takes his mouth off your nipple and shoves his face in your neck while Suguru keeps fucking your mouth, his thrusts slow down pulling out of your mouth with his cock jumping on its own.

“There we go [name] see what you do to us?”

Your ass feels sore and red from hips slapping against them over and over but before you can complain a hot load shoots all over your face spilling into your eyelashes and into your mouth making you taste his come, he tasted sweeter than Gojo, his semen more thick and less opaque than Satoru’s.

“I’m getting close Sa-Toruu~”

Your voice cracks from a sore face fucked throat, your lips are all sticky and cracked in the corners from opening your mouth too wide, your lips part and ho agape making an ‘O’ shape when Gojo bites at the crook of your neck licking over the red marks he’s leaving on your S/c skin.

Your abdomen starts feeling hotter and more tense making you sweat underneath Satoru when his cock teases your insides making your legs feel like jello up in the air with your knees bent over his shoulders. By the way Gojo was tensing up and the muscles of his shoulders stiffened beneath your finger nails you could tell he was about to come.

“Me too- you’re just milking it out of me [nickname]”

His hand works harder and faster against your cock making you groan starting to orgasm shaking and crying with hardly any semen able to spill from you. Your tip starts leaking barely any pre come, you begin orgasming dry making Geto smile above you happy to know they had milked your body dry, Suguru reaches his hand down stroking your cheek while Gojo plows you between your thighs making the room spin through your eyes.

Soon the feeling of warmth in your gut hits you again letting you know Satoru had just found his release inside you, his semen seeping out of you overflowing your hole leaving the thin strings of his come running down your thighs and staining the pillows beneath the two of you.

“Toruu.. I’m soo sore-“

You whisper out under him reaching one hand up to his neck and grabbing his hair with your other hand still on his shoulder. Rolling your eyes forwards looking up at Suguru with your insides flooded and your face ruined- god you can’t handle these two insane men- They’re something else!