#Do you know how much food I have in my inventory now… And random bits of nature. I have five jackolanterns. three gelatin

[fisherrprince]

my desire to start shadowbringers vs my desire to “finish some things up” before I just. To my understanding Leave This Plane Of Existence and not come back

[not-freyja]

For the prompts, maybe differences in flora (and their toxicity) between eras

This one was fun! (also if you have an ao3 I can't remember what it is, so let me know what it is so I can gift this to you)

Ficlet on ao3 or right below:

“Oh, mushrooms!” Wild bounces excitedly and then starts pulling them all into his Slate, happy to finally start restocking on some essential supplies. Like things for soup stock. They go through a lot of soup, his brothers and him, just by dint of it being an easy thing for him to make (relatively speaking) in relation to the number of mouths to feed.

And mushrooms are a Goddess-send when it comes to making soup taste like something that isn’t just water. And any kind of food lying around in Rulie’s time period is always a pleasant surprise.

All together a win-win. It’s a good day.

Wild does know to check with the others before adding any random food item into his edible inventory. He knows this very very well. He also knows that Hyrule’s era is particularly prone to non-consumable plant life.

But his Slate happily stores them in with the rest of his Stamella Shrooms, and that is that. Fantastic.

He forgets about the whole thing, and forgets it quickly. The idea of taking the time to remember every single instance of foraging is laughable, really. With the amount of it that Wild does? He would have no room left in his head for anything else, after all.

But it’s about six days later, maybe. And he’s handing out the mushroom skewers he made for lunch, because they are having a long day of walking. (Something about needing to get all the way over to a specific farm for some problem or another that Wild wasn’t really paying attention to.)

So they stop just long enough to get a fire going, for Wild to roast a few light morsels while they all rest their feet, and store a bunch for later, It’s efficient, and it is kind of tiring in it’s own right, but it is what they have to do at this moment in time.

As things are handed out, Hyrule, as usual, takes less than a second to go from food-in-hand to food-in-mouth. It’s impressive, frankly, but the novelty is starting to wear off.

What is novel, here, now, is the way that Rulie goes pale and spits the bite of grilled mushroom out. Before anyone else can do anything else, he is slapping Wind’s own lunch out of his hands.

“Rulie, what the fuck?” Wind scoffs, glaring sadly down at his lunch.

“No one eat anything!” Hyrule says, going around in a haphazard circle and just.. Slapping food to the ground. No one fights him, they are all just a little to stunned, a bit too caught off guard by the whole thing. “It’s poison.”

All eyes turn to Wild, shocked, confused,  but not accusatory. They know each other一trust each other一far too much by now to think that he would ever do something like this on purpose. 

“Where did you get these?” Hyrule hisses, finally coming around to Wild himself and yanking the skewer out of his hand. He holds it up, points to the green bits of grilled fungus, and waits.

That is a great question. Wild isn’t really sure where he got them. He gets food from all over the place all of the time, and it’s not like his Slate tracks which specific item is which when it collates together multiple of the same item.

That would just be ridiculous.

“Wild, these are poison,” his brother tells him. “I told you to ask me before you foraged anything in my era.”

Oh. Oh no.

Wild goes wide-eyed, the implications catching up with him. He needs to explain this. “Well, in my era, they are not poisonous. So… I didn’t think it needed to be checked.”

“Oh no.” Legend gets with the program. “Wild, how much?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No, we are talking about it,” the Vet says. “Wild, how much of our food stores are theoretically compromised because of time shenanigans?”

Wild looks down at his Slate, flicks through the inventory. There are things that he knows are good. Like wheat, and rice, and eggs, and honey… right? But all the pre-cooked meals, and the mushrooms and the berries and the一

Oh they are so fucking fucked.

[inevitablysomber-dark]

Shackled (Chapter 5)

Dark! Rafe Cameron x Pogue! Reader

Warning: There are some intense, dubiously consenting and nonconsensual sexual themes in this series, MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY. MINORS DNI.

Summary: You hate Outer Banks with a passion and are working hard to get out despite all the obstacles in your way. Rafe himself eventually becomes one of those obstacles after a night of low impulse control. Will you be able to overcome him or with you have no choice but to submit.

Slow Burn

Series Masterlist

Two months

That’s how long you had been adhering to your new schedule, which now included Rafe. 

When you arrived from the mainland, you went to Barry to collect your inventory and rested for a bit when you got home. 

Days were spent cleaning the house and making much-needed repairs courtesy of your father. Restocking food and supplies, again due to your father's negligence and chaotic behavior. Washing any and all fabrics in the house before having them ironed and folded in their designated areas. 

It felt like these errands and chores shouldn’t take long, but your father's destructive tendencies and residing deep into the cut without a vehicle made it very difficult. 

Every Thursday evening, without fail, Rafe shows up to pick you up from your home, blows your back out like a man starved, and drops you off at the ferry the morning after.

With Rafe requiring your attention, you needed everything to be done in such a short window of time that you couldn’t sleep two days out of the week. 

However, when you felt the need to complain, you remembered that you wouldn’t need to do this for much longer.

You only had about 16k left to raise before you said goodbye to Outerbanks for good. 

That didn’t meet you couldn’t dread restarting the week. 

When you get off the ferry and grab your luggage, walking out to the main road, imagine your surprise when you spot a familiar truck with a familiar face.

Rafe. 

You pretended not to see him and continued your journey to the bus stop. You and he had not discussed the status of your interactions outside more intimate settings, so you assumed it was to be kept on the low.

You weren’t complaining, despite your fronted devil-may-care attitude about the situation, you didn’t want Mary and Ether to know that you and Rafe were fucking.

You would repeat to yourself that you can’t betray friends you don’t consider friends. But nowadays you aren’t so sure. 

You sit by the stop and pull out your phone, sending Barry a message that you were on your way and to give you about an hour and a half. You pull up a random game, but before starting it, you hear a loud beep, and your attention is taken away from your phone towards the offending noise.

Who else do you see? But Rafe is across the street, staring at you.

“Get in, loser,” he calls playfully, a smirk adorning his face.

You’re positive it wouldn’t be a good idea to follow his instructions, so you stay where you are, unsure what to do about the situation. 

You see Rafe sigh deeply before hopping out of the truck and walking in your direction.

As he stops in front of you, he bends over to grab the handle of your bag; and before he can turn away with it, you grab it, stopping him from going any further. 

“What?” he asks 

“What are you doing here?” you retort 

“I thought it would be gentlemanly of me to pick you up from the ferry.” he places his free hand on his hip as if the answer were obvious. 

You give him a look cueing your disbelief.

“Alright, you caught me. I hoped we could hang out this week since your weekends are always booked.” 

Your look of disbelief carries on. 

“I mean it. I want to get to know the person I’m perpetually sticking my dick inside and vice versa.”

“I can’t,  I have things to do and -” you start, but he cuts you off, raising his hand.

“Yea, yea, I get it, your errands and chores,” annoyance lacing his tone.

This wasn’t the first time you and Rafe had this conversation, so you weren’t sure why he didn’t expect you to reject him this time. 

“That’s why I’m going to help you with your little to-do list,” he reveals.

You’re taken aback by his confrssion.

“Why?” you ask

“Are you gonna make me say it?” a frustrated sigh escaping his lips. 

You tilt your head in confusion.

“I’m horny,” he says, voice deadpanned and a serious expression plastered on his face.

“Oh,” you say 

“Right,” he grabs your hand and pulls you toward his truck. 

“I have to visit Barry first and go home to clean the house.”

“Done and Done, now get in the truck” he places your bag on the floor of the passenger seat once he’s settled. 

You walk around to the other side, hop into your designated seat, and wonder if it was a good idea to let Rafe push the boundaries like this, but the thoughts vanish once you realize how much easier it would be to get your chores and errands done for the day. 

Maybe you’re just overthinking it. 

*****

When Rafe took you to collect your supply, the shock on Barry’s face from seeing you and Rafe together was exactly as you expected. 

Once he overcame his surprise, your banter continued, except you were short again. 

“Barry?”

“Look, sweetheart, this wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last, but I always come through for you, right?” 

You nod 

“You have to understand my reluctance, Barry. Put yourself in my shoes. Understand the position I’m being placed in right now,” you explain. 

“I get it, sweetheart, I do, but I’m tight right now,”

“I’ll cover you.” 

You turn your head to Rafe, who has no dog in this fight, a tense look on his face as his jaw clenches.

“What?” both you and Barry say simultaneously.

“I’ll cover for you, Barry, but whatever she sells now is what she gives you next week, and you will get her the full amount.”

“Look at that, country club steppin’ up, alright, you got my word,” Barry says 

You don’t say anything as shock strangles your vocal cords. You give Barry an affectionate hug, and walk back to the truck with Rafe.

Rafe pulls out his wallet and hands you the amount you missed with Barry being short, plus more. 

You don’t touch it. 

“Why did you do that?” you asked 

“Because I’m horny and we still have to stop by your dad’s.”

You grab the money and placed it in your bag. It didn’t matter to you, this only meant that Barry owed Rafe, and you had nothing to do with it.

[foggyfanfic]

Leandra's Labrynth

Summary: “One day, we woke up and got out of bed, tried to leave our room to go down to breakfast only to find ourselves stuck in a labyrinth of caves.” Bruno has some anxieties to iron out.

Main Story

The tablet showed a familiar image, a slim old man with wiry curls holding a plump old woman with her hair in a large bun. The woman had her hand on the man’s chin and she smiled at him with warmth and devotion. The old man looked at her with a peaceful smile of his own, looking for all the world like he’d never had a worry in his life.

Bruno, being the guy who would someday be the old man in the image, knew for a fact that the geezer had spent his life worrying constantly. Usually for no good reason.

Point in fact, this was the fifty second time he’d had this exact vision. He knew his visions were certain, he had been looking into the future for thirty one years now, and the things he saw always came true. No matter how terrible.

Or wonderful.

Hopefully.

He sighed, closing his eyes. Their future was still happy. She still loved him.

To be fair to Bruno, she had snapped at him earlier. He had walked into the kitchen and found her mopping with Félix and Agustín. Well, she was mopping, Félix was doing the dishes, and Agustín was taking inventory of the pantry. Leandra and Félix seemed to be trying to purposely throw off Agustín’s count, throwing out random numbers of food items.

“There’s ten pounds of corn flour,” Félix called over his shoulder.

“No there isn’t, hush,” Agustín huffed, scowling at the bunch of bananas he’d been trying to count. 

“32 eggs,” Leandra said, grinning at her old friend’s back.

“Shut up,” Agustín groaned. Ever since Luisa had gotten her gift she’d needed twice as much food and the familia was still adjusting their grocery budget. Or more specifically, Agustín was attempting to adjust their grocery budget. This involved keeping track of how much their family consumed month to month so he could get a good average.

“Negative ten ears of corn,” Félix said, and Leandra laughed while Agustín threw him a dirty look over his shoulder.

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“An infinite supply of bruised mangoes,” Leandra joked, and both Agustín and Félix chuckled ruefully.

With so many mouths to feed, the Madrigals now got their groceries delivered straight from the farms. Their usual mango supplier had gotten a new delivery boy, and he was not particularly careful with the goods.

“Actually, I have good news,” Agustín said, “it would seem we are finally almost out of mangoes.”

This was met with cheers.

Leandra noticed a stain on the floor, something sticky that clung to her mop as readily as it clung to the dust it had collected. She scowled at it and worked at it with the mop while Félix and Agustín joked about the state the next mango delivery would be in. After an unsuccessful couple of minutes, she sighed, set the mop aside and got down on her knees to pull a scrub brush out of the bucket of sudsy mop water.

Bruno had inadvertently announced his presence by knocking out a quick rhythm on the wooden door frame.

The first sign of trouble was that Leandra’s face had paled. Agustín and Félix had exchanged a look, and both had done their best to look very focused on their individual chores.

“Here mí vida,” Bruno said, walking quickly toward her, “l-let me take care of that.”

“Bruno, we talked about this,” she hissed, glancing nervously at their audience.

“I know, I know, b-but this is-. I j-just want to help with the scrubbing, you can still mop! I’ll do-.”

“Oh gee, may I?” she cut him off, rising to her feet, “Are you sure?”

“Umm…?”

Leandra sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, “Bruno, I am perfectly capable of a bit of cleaning.”

“I know, I know, b-but I didn’t marry you so you’d be my maid, I-.”

“So you’ve said, and I’ve said that I want to clean, I want to contribute, and you said you understood and would let me,” Leandra frowned at him, “a-and the fact that I have to argue just so you’ll let me use a mop is-.”

“You can still use the mop, I just want to take care of the hard part for you,” Bruno rushed to say.

“The hard part?! Of cleaning the floor?!”

“You shouldn’t have to-.”

“The only thing I shouldn’t have to do is keep having this argument,” Leandra snapped, all but yelling, “I love you Bruno! I don’t feel taken for granted, or taken advantage of, or like a maid. And I’m not going to leave you if I get a splinter from the mop handle!”

Bruno paled, “You got a splinter?!”

“Oh for the love of-. Out!”

“What?!”

“Get out, go look at World War Three or something. I am cleaning. And you’re not going to stop me this time!”

“But-,” he started to say, but it seemed Casita was on Leandra’s side today, because the tiles moved beneath his feet ushering him out of the kitchen. He’d tried to walk back in, but Casita blocked him.

Meanwhile, Leandra got back down on the floor and began angrily scrubbing at the stain.

Reluctantly, he’d walked away, some voice in the back of his head telling him if he let Leandra do too many chores she would start to resent marrying him. She already did so much for him, gave him so much of herself, was so patient with his visions and migraines and the sand in their bed. Was it fair to make her clean too? He knocked on the nearest piece of wood he could find, and threw salt and sugar over his shoulder, but the worry remained.

So, he came up to his vision cave and had the same vision of him and Leandra, old and in love, for the fifty second time.

With his foot, he cleared off the only stone in his sand pit, then threw the vision down onto it. Being the fifty second copy of the same vision, the magic faded out of the emerald shards almost instantly. He gathered them up and sorted through them, putting the clear ones in a box to sell to the merchants, and the ones with parts of the picture in a bag for him to use in a mosaic later.

Evidence cleaned up, he left the vision cave and spent some time with his rats. Leandra’s dog joined him, watching the rats play on her massive paws.

Eventually, the door opened, and he heard Leandra’s footsteps coming down the stairs. He placed the rat he had been petting on his shoulder and got up to greet her. She entered the tent and then stood there, hands on her hips.

“I-I’m sorry about earlier,” Bruno said.

“Are you? Or are you just saying that because you don’t want me to be angry at you?”

He didn’t respond. Leandra sighed and suddenly rushed forward, she used both hands to gently cup his face, forcing him to look her in the eye.

“Listen to me, por favor, listen. I love you, I am happy I married you, I want to contribute to the familia, and I don’t care that our lives aren’t perfect because you’re worth it.”

Bruno smiled at her, gently taking her wrists and stepping closer to her, “I love you too mí reina.”

She searched his face, for what he didn’t know, but she must not have found it because almost desperately she repeated, “I love you.”

“Sí? I love you too,” he also repeated, using a slightly different tone in hopes of giving her whatever it is she wanted from him.

She groaned, crumbling forward to lean on him, “You don’t believe me.”

“What?! Of course I believe you,” he squawked, “y-you tell me you love me ten times a day. And well, n-nobody would put up with the things you put up with if it wasn’t for love.”

“And in your mind, what exactly am I ‘putting up with’?”

Bruno hesitated, feeling it was fairly obvious what she was putting up with. Despite her valiant efforts to improve his reputation, he was still the town boogeyman, and that had consequences for the way their marriage was viewed. For the way she was viewed. Not to mention the knocking, the salt, how often she had to take care of him because he had one of his migraines. He wasn’t smooth, he stuttered all the way through his vows. He snorted when he laughed, which reminded him, he snored. He wasn’t manly, in fact if she kept lifting weights with Luisa she would probably be stronger than him pretty soon, which he thought sounded really sexy, but he was pretty sure that was weird of him.

Dios, that’s another thing. All the other weird stuff he was into. She hadn’t seemed to mind being tied down, or tying him down, but he knew it must have been strange for her. And he was turned on by weird things, like her feet, or when she squeezed him with her thighs just a little too tight. She had outright refused when he’d asked her to hurt him a little, he knew for a fact that had freaked her out.

And he wasn’t an idiot, he knew it annoyed her when he stopped her on her way out of their tent to suggest she wear her shawl in case it was chilly, or insist she wear the new boots he got her in case Pepa was in a bad mood and it rained. She had thought it was sweet the first few times he did it, but since he’d started doing it every other day… not so much. He worried, he tried not to, but he did.

When he didn’t respond for a long time she sighed again, squeezing him tight. He held her back, feeling, for now, quite reassured that she did indeed love him. Despite it all.

They went about the rest of their day, Bruno feeling a little better, even if Leandra was slightly quieter than usual. At dinner he swooped up the last of the soup for her, since he knew it was her favorite, and she tensed but thanked him with a polite smile.

Then they went to bed and she kept sighing, tossing, turning, and occasionally sniffling. Bruno stopped feeling better. 

He lay on his side and watched her silhouette as she stared sightlessly at the tent’s ceiling. Clarity dripped through the cracks in his anxiety and he wondered what the hell had he been thinking earlier. Leandra hated when he tried to take over her chores for her, she had said so multiple times. Why was it every time he saw her tackle anything even a little bit difficult he forgot that and panicked?

“I don’t know why I’m like this,” he whispered in the dark.

“Is there anything I can do to make you happy?” she said, voice tight and shaky.

He closed his eyes, “You already do.”

That was the problem. It made him happy that she tried so hard to get the village to treat him better. It made him happy to have somebody to care for him when he had a migraine. It made him happy that she put up with the salt and the sand and the snoring.

And he was getting used to being happy.

Leandra didn’t ask for clarification, she just turned towards him and after a few shaky breaths whispered, “We’ll figure it out.”

He chuckled almost bitterly, and wondered how long she’d be able to put up with his anxiety. How long would it take for his fears to wear down her confidence.

She settled into a fitful sleep shortly after that, he stayed up a little bit longer, listening to her breath. Occasionally she would sigh or groan, or mutter his name in a pleading voice. Apparently he’d managed to infect her dreams with his bullshit.

Slowly, being careful not to disturb her anymore than he already had, he closed the distance between them and held her to his chest. Her curls tickled his nose, and he fell asleep trying to get up the energy to care.

All too soon, he woke up, and found her already awake. When she saw his eyes open, she started playing with his hair, and he drifted back to sleep.

When next he woke, it was because she was slipping out of his arms to get dressed. He watched her, trying to memorize every curve of her body as she stripped out of her nightgown and stepped into her underwear. She’d gained weight since they were married, most of it going to her hips and thighs, and some to her belly, but enough of it going to her chest that it had started hurting her back. At the advice of the town doctor, she’d transitioned to more structured underwear. Mostly corsets since the town tailor wasn’t that up to date on the latest in womans’ underwear.

Bruno was a fan of the switch, although it meant if he wanted to use her soft belly as a pillow for napping a bit of planning had to happen. That said, he loved the way she looked, and he loved that she wasn’t wincing every time she went down the stairs.

Since Luisa had gotten her gift almost a year ago and Leandra had taken up weight training, her shoulders had broadened, and the muscle she had had before moving into Casita had come back. Bruno wondered if it made him even more of a freak that he was happy to see her biceps return. He’d caught Leandra flexing once, looking very pleased with herself, so it couldn’t be that weird that he liked her like this, right?

She turned, and caught him staring.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her.

She smiled gently, then got that mischievous twinkle in her eye that sent a thrill up his spine, “Not that it’s a competition, but I would say my husband is just a little sexier than your wife.”

Bruno snorted, “Yeah, well, apparently my wife is a much better liar than your husband.”

“I’m pretty sure your wife is telling the truth and you should listen to her.”

“You would say that, you always take her side,” he huffed, but couldn’t keep a small smirk from pulling up the corners of his lips.

She chuckled, “Well, she tends to be right about most things.”

“Hmm,” he slowly got out of bed, stretched, grimaced at the cacophony of sounds his back made, then walked over to her, “she does, but this time she’s trying to argue that I’m sexier than her while she’s standing around in her corset and panties.”

Leandra looked down at herself, he doubted she was able to see past her rather prominent chest, “Hm, I suppose the outfit does hurt my argument a little.”

“Hurts it? Mí reina, it murders the argument, brutally,” Bruno wrapped his arms around her and muttered next to her ear, “it’s very gruesome really.”

“Yeah, well if you could hear what your voice sounds like when you first wake up in the morning you would know that your argument is just as dead,” she retorted, even as she leaned her head so he could better access her neck.

He smiled as he pressed a kiss to the place her broad shoulder met her sensitive throat. He opened his mouth to leave a love bite right below her chin, when the rats started squeaking at him. Hearing the squeaking, Leandra’s dog bounded through the tent flaps and began nosing at her leg. They both sighed.

“Yours started it this time,” Leandra grumbled.

“Oh believe me, I’ll be having a word with them later,” he said, even as he exited the tent to give his beloved little assholes their breakfast.

The cave’s entrance was gone.

He stared at the stone wall where it should have been.

It did not reappear.

“Um, mi reina? Did you uh, did you move the door?”

“What?” she stepped out of the tent, buttoning up her blouse, “Oh. Huh.”

“Sí.”

They stared at the stone wall some more.

“Where’s the light coming from?” Leandra asked, stepping further out of the tent so she could better look around. She stared up at some holes just below the ceiling, that were filled with glass prisms in order to channel the light in, “Huh. If this doesn’t turn out to be an emergency, that’s actually kind of neat.”

Then she turned and began looking around the rest of the cave. Bruno joined her inspection and quickly noticed two things, the first was that their pool was gone, the second was a new tunnel behind the tent.

Leandra came to stand beside him and they stared at the new tunnel together. 

“Boof,” Leandra’s dog, Queso gruffed, sitting next to her empty food bowl.

“Do you mind? We’re sort of dealing with something,” Leandra said to the dog.

Unconcerned, Queso replied, “A-woof.”

With a chuckle and some eye rolling, Leandra walked over to the cabinet they now kept their pet supplies in and fed her dog. Meanwhile, Bruno took care of his rats, putting the three girls away so the four boys could wander around the cave to their hearts’ content. Once all the pets were sorted, they returned to staring at the new tunnel.

“I-I guess we should see where it leads,” Bruno said, rubbing nervously at his arm.

“I guess so,” she nodded, then glanced down at her boots, she was wearing one of the very fashionable pairs Bruno had gotten for her, “I’m going to put on some better walking shoes.”

Bruno looked down at his pajamas, a ratty old shirt and comfy linen pants, “Hm, I’ll get dressed.”

They returned to their tent and Leandra went to her wardrobe to switch out her boots. Bruno took off his shirt and tossed it on the bed then startled when his wife wolf whistled at him. He blushed, grinning sheepishly as he took his pajama pants off as well. She responded by clapping.

When he put some trousers on she booed.

“W-well I’m not going in there in my underwear,” he said, trying not to laugh as he pulled a shirt on over his head.

“Naked is also an option,” she pointed out.

“Reina,” he groaned, giving her a look of fond exasperation.

“Guapo,” she breathed, giving him a look that usually ended up with them in bed.

“We- we- need to get this whole, uh tunnel thing figured out,” he said, blushing crimson and hoping she would argue.

She pouted and heaved an exaggerated sigh, “I suppose you’re right.”

“I mean, I-I could be wrong.”

Leandra giggled, kissing him on her way out of the tent. With a last forlorn look at the bed he pulled his ruana on and followed her. He found her standing at the edge of the tunnel, hands on her hips. When he joined her, she wrapped one arm around his and together they marched into the tunnel.

The sunlight channeled into the cave by the glass prisms faded and darkness slowly swallowed them. Up ahead, the tunnel was lit by glowing green rectangles in the walls. Bruno watched those rectangles approach, and wondered what visions they would be. Maybe a few of his favorites? Or some that had impacted him the most over the years?

They reached the visions and Bruno gulped, very carefully not looking at Leandra as they passed the same image over and over and over.

“I uh, I can’t help but notice a theme here,” Leandra pointed out, after the silence had become too heavy.

Bruno let out a high nervous chuckle, “Y-yeah, a lot of uh, o-of rock.”

“I was referring to the fact that the tunnel is lit by that vision of us old and happy together.”

“Hm? Oh, sí, I uh I guess it is.”

“Bruno-.”

“Oh look, sunlight,” he all but shouted, as a glimmer of golden light appeared just in time. He disentangled himself from her and jogged ahead, reaching the light seconds before her. He could almost swear he’d seen an exit out of the corner of his eye, but when turned to look at it, it was gone.

“Huh, so that’s where the pond went,” Leandra noted.

Indeed, the natural pool that used to be next to their tent now sat in the middle of this new cave. Shattered visions sparkled in the walls and ceiling, and more of those prisms channeled light in from the outside. There were rocks along the pool’s edge now, some perfect for sitting on, some perfect for lying on, and some perfect for jumping off.

“It’s nice,” he said.

“Oh yeah, real pretty, but where’s the exit?”

“Well…” he trailed off, pointing at another tunnel on the opposite side of the cave.

Leandra puffed a sharp breath at a wayward curl, “Getting to breakfast is going to take forever.”

“Ay dios, I do not want to wait this long for my coffee every morning,” he wiped a hand over his face.

“Come on, we got this,” she took his hand and all but dragged him onward. After a few steps he matched pace with her, glancing back over his shoulder at where he thought he’d seen the door. Probably just an optical illusion, he told himself.

Like the last tunnel, this one was lit by visions, or rather the same vision. Them, old and in love, again and again.

Leandra kept sending him pointed looks.

Unlike the other tunnel, this one had twists and turns. They walked for a long time without seeing another cave or scrap of sunlight. The entire time Bruno did his best not to look directly at his wife, or the visions on the walls, while she did her best to catch his eye.

“They’re getting bigger, if you’re interested,” she suddenly said, and Bruno looked up to discover that yes, the tablets were getting bigger. Certainly much bigger than he could ever produce with a vision.

He watched them grow as they passed by.

“I-I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything,” he muttered and she made an unconvinced noise.

They walked on.

When they finally came to another cave, it was mostly empty, but the walls were filled with little pathways perfect for the rats. Bruno made a sound of interest and spent some time looking around at the little obstacle courses and mazes carved into the walls. He turned around grinning, only to see Leandra standing under the glass prisms, knocking on the solid stone wall with her ear pressed against it. She was frowning deeply.

Rather abruptly, he remembered they were a little trapped in here. He waited for her at the entrance to the next tunnel.

Eventually she shook her head and rejoined him.

Now the silence was punctuated by her occasional sighs. Bruno stared down at his toes as they ate up the ground below him. 

The ground tilted upward, so they were climbing a gentle hill. The visions on the wall were getting so large they were pressed together without an inch of stone between them. Bruno glanced guiltily at them, then looked at Leandra.

“So uh, I-I should probably, maybe tell you something,” he said.

“I think you probably should.”

Bruno grimaced, but powered on, “I’ve had this vision fifty two times.”

Leandra stopped walking, “Fifty two?”

“Fifty two.”

For a long time she didn’t respond, she just examined him, then in a quiet voice she asked, “Do you really doubt me that much?”

“Doubt-? What?! No! No, no, no. Of course not,” he shook his head quickly while holding his hands up as if to ward off the very idea, “I-I’m just checking-.”

“That I’ll still love you? That I’ll be loyal? That I won’t leave you?”

He pressed his lips together, “Ok well, when you put it like that it d-doesn’t sound great.”

Leandra shook her head and started walking again, her steps quick and closer to a stomp than anything else. Bruno followed inches behind her, waiting for her to say something.

They reached the next cave before she did, this one filled with shelves carved into the walls and big armchairs under ornate lamps.

“What do I have to do so you’ll trust me?” she asked, staring once again at the prisms that funneled in light.

“I do trust you,” he insisted.

“If you trusted me you would trust that I love you, that I would keep my vows,” she whirled around, her voice bounced off the smooth floor and ceiling of the cave, but the slight hitch in her breath was swallowed by the empty shelves, “you would trust that I’m committed to you.”

“O-of course you are,” Bruno stepped closer to her, reaching out to hold her, but she took a minute step back from him, he sighed, “ok, come on. It’s n-not that I think poorly of you, b-but I mean, being married to me isn’t easy. You probably wouldn’t have had to deal with anything like this i-if you married Omar.”

“I also never would have had a real orgasm,” she retorted, then advancing on him kept going, “or had somebody throw me a private ball, or laughed so hard I fell out of bed, or seen robots on Mars! If I had married anyone other than you, I would be just as dissatisfied as all the other poor wives in our village.”

“I-I mean they’re not all dissatisfied-.”

“Well, they’re certainly not as lucky as I am.”

Bruno gulped, staring at her as she crowded into his space, poking a finger into his chest. She opened her mouth to say something, made a frustrated sound, tried again, then with a snarl whirled away from him and into the next tunnel.

He stood for a few seconds, listening to her steps echoe away. Just when they had faded, the walls under the prism began to shift. With a great groan, a door opened in the wall.

“Leandra!” he yelled, running to the mouth of the tunnel, “Leandra quickly! There’s an exit!”

Her footsteps came back and soon he could see her emerging from the dark tunnel. He stood back, waiting for her, watching the door. Then, just as she got near, it began to close.

“No!” he shouted, rushing to the opening as if he could stop the rock, “no, no, no, no.”

The last crack of sunshine sealed itself up just as he reached the wall, and she entered the cave.

“It closed?!”

“Sí,” he banged somewhat desperately on the wall.

“Ugh,” she joined him and gave the wall a frustrated kick. Then she turned and sat against the wall, scowling at her knees.

After a moment’s hesitation, he sat next to her.

He twiddled his thumbs for a while.

Finally, he quietly cleared his throat then said, “I-I doubt every married woman in Encanto is unsatisfied.”

Leandra snorted, “I will admit, your sisters are probably very happy. And so is Rosalie. But that’s it, the rest chose crappy husbands.”

“You’re saying there are only four good husbands in the entire village?”

“Sí.”

“That’s unrealistic.”

“Oh yeah? You dated a man, how attentive to your needs was he?”

Bruno rolled his eyes, “Alberto doesn’t count, the only one of us with good taste in men is Julieta.”

She didn’t have to ask who “us” was, “I mean, Pepa did end up with Félix.”

“After dating some of the worst men god ever created, claro.”

Leandra didn’t initially respond, and when she did it was to change the subject, “You know, when most men start feeling insecure about their marriage, they cheat.”

“What?!” he wrinkled his nose, “No way, that’s-. If the goal is to not lose your wife, why would you do something guaranteed to make her hate you?”

“It’s true, why do you think Jose Sanchez cheated? First he was down at the cantina complaining to Felípe about how it was only a matter of time before his wife stepped out on him, then he was banging little Ellie.”

He gasped in horror, then hissed, “She’s barely nineteen.”

“I know, right?!” she shook her head, then shrugged, “But an older woman would have seen straight through his lies, soo…”

Bruno frowned, wondering what a man their age would even have to talk about with a nineteen year old. Then again, talking probably wasn’t the point. But still. Bruno had never understood people who could tell right away whether or not they wanted to have sex with somebody, he needed to have at least three conversations before he knew whether or not he was attracted to that person.

He’d had passing conversations with Leandra when buying cheese from her what must have been hundreds of times before he realized how beautiful she was. He remembered the moment it clicked for him very clearly, he had handed her a vision of dead goats and she had sighed morosely, then said, “Well shit. Thanks for the warning. Hope it wasn’t too gruesome for you, watching it happen I mean.” He had stuttered a response, and she had wished him well before leaving to take the vision back to her father, the goat herder. 

It was only a year or two after that, that he started to get to know her, and fell in love with her.

“My point is, you start feeling insecure about whether or not I love you, and suddenly I have to fight tooth and nail to do chores. You’re a good husband Bruno, a wonderful, amazing husband, in fact.”

He looked at her, searching her face, “It-, I-I know you think that… now. It’s-do you really want to spend the rest of your life being Bad Luck Bruno’s...”

He trailed off, not daring to repeat the nickname he’s overheard some of the less pleasant men in the village call her.

“Being Bad Luck Bruno’s whore?” she finished for him, “Better your whore than the madonna of any of the guys who call me that.”

“B-but just the fact that people call you that at all! You shouldn’t have to deal with that!”

“And you should?!” Leandra huffed, “Come on, I knew people were going to be assholes about us when we married. Honestly, it’s kind of fun.”

“Fun?!”

“Well yeah, makes me feel like I’m some sort of rebel,” she gave him a small smirk, “here I am, married to THE big bad Bruno, reputation be damned.”

“The ‘big’ bad Bruno?” he asked, flatly.

“Alright, the normal sized when he stands up straight but otherwise short, bad Bruno.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle, “Now there’s a title.”

“I like being your wife, I don’t know how many ways I can say that before I start sounding like a broken record.”

Bruno let his head fall back against the rock and blew out a long breath, until his lungs felt like flattened balloons, then he took just as long breathing in. It didn’t calm him down like he was hoping, but nothing really ever seemed to calm him down.

“Bruno?”

“I-I just, I just want to make it all worth it.”

“Bruno, if you’re trying to pay me to love you, then I really am your whore.”

He squawked indigently at that, “What? I’m not-. I just want to give you as much as you give me.”

Leandra shook her head, then leaned over so she was resting against him, “And I’m trying to tell you that you already do.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

He leaned his cheek against her hair and scowled at one of the armchairs.

“Because why, Bruno?”

“Because being married to you is easy,” he finally said, “you don’t have migraines, you don’t snore, you don’t have surprise visions of the future, you’re not the reason there’s always sand in our bed, the village didn’t hate you until you married me, you have a cute laugh-.”

“Hey! You have a cute laugh too!”

“I sound like a donkey choking on a kazoo.”

Leandra pressed a hand to her mouth, trying not to giggle, and despite it all it still gave him a sense of satisfaction that he said something his wife found funny, “That’s- no you don’t. I mean, it’s a bit loud, and you do sorta wheeze a little, but it’s sweet. Charming.”

“Charming?!”

“Sí. It’s charming, I am charmed by it.”

“Well, at least I’m bringing good taste to this marriage,” he muttered, “that’s clearly something you don’t have.”

She elbowed him, “I have great taste!”

“You think asphyxiating donkeys are charming.”

“Oh hush! You’re wonderful, deal with it.”

He smiled quietly, and for her sake made an effort to believe that. When he couldn’t he sighed and turned his head so he could kiss her curls. 

“We should keep looking for the exit,” he said.

“It was right here,” Leandra retorted, “clearly there’s some trick to making it appear.”

He made a thoughtful sound, thinking about what he had been doing when the stone walls opened up. Honestly, he had just been standing there, listening to her leave.

“What were you doing when I called your name?”

“Muttering angrily about my stupid, sexy husband.”

“Hm, I guess we might as well try it.”

“Claro, why not? ‘Fucking Bruno, been married six years and he doesn’t even trust me’-.”

“I do trust you though,” he interjected.

“Right, which is why you’ve felt the need to check whether or not I’ll still love you when we’re old fifty two times.”

He huffed, and stood up, “You don’t get it.”

“No, no I don’t,” Leandra also stood, following him as he stormed into the tunnel, “I don’t understand how you can’t see how wonderful you are. I don’t understand why you don’t believe I love you.”

“I believe you,” he said, insisted really, since he’d already told her he believed her.

“If you believed I love you then you wouldn’t be worried about me leaving when the going gets tough.”

“The goings already tough, the goings been tough, and it’s going to keep being tough. For the rest of your life. Do you really want to put up with that?”

“Yes. Of course I do, why don’t you get that?”

“Because I wouldn’t,” he whirled around, and she stopped abruptly to keep from trampling him, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being the bad guy. I hate the way-. I’m stuck with this, but you’re not, you can leave. You can have a better life.”

Leandra frowned, “If our situations were reversed, w-would you not want to be with me?”

He froze, brought up short by the question, then quietly said, “They wouldn’t be. If you could do what I do, you’d probably, I don't know, you’re always so good at putting a positive spin on my visions. You’re good at-, you’re good with people. It’s-. If you were-. Of course I’d want to be with you, you’re amazing.”

“But say I didn’t put a positive spin on the visions, I have a shorter temper than you, say I got frustrated with people and started throwing the tablets at their heads and everybody hated me for it. Would you still want to be with me, if it came with the same challenges I face being with you?”

Bruno gulped, because he knew the answer, but he didn’t know what it meant. He thought about lying, just so he could avoid losing this argument, but he couldn’t hurt her like that.

“Yes, I would still want to be with you.”

“So why are you so worried about me leaving you?”

“I-I…”

She waited for him to come up with an answer. He stared at her helplessly, but looking into her warm brown eyes he could see her settling in to wait forever if she had to. He could see her preparing herself to give him all the time he needed. Abruptly he turned and sped walked away.

Behind him she made a frustrated sound.

After a few beats, he heard her start to follow him.

He reached the next cave, there was a doorway on the far wall but as she approached, it closed.

A horrible thought crept in from a dark corner of his mind. He tried to shove it aside.

“Oh, well, this is interesting.”

Bruno turned to see what she meant, then wished he hadn’t. The only thing in the cave was a plush chair on a raised dias. He would have called it a throne, but thrones don’t have chains and manacles. Leandra drifted closer to it, then abruptly stopped and backed away.

“Do we want to discuss this?” she asked him.

“No.”

“Do you want to talk about why you’re worried I’ll leave you?”

“Also no.”

“Do you want to spend the rest of our lives in these tunnels avoiding necessary conversations just because they’re hard?”

Bruno didn’t answer.

“Bruno?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

Leandra rolled her eyes and crossed the cave to the next tunnel, he watched her go. Waited as her footsteps faded. Then he turned to the wall under the glass prisms. 

When he couldn’t hear her anymore, the stone shifted, opened. Slowly, Bruno walked through the doorway. It closed behind him.

He turned, for a second worried he wouldn’t be able to get back to her, but when he reached for the stone, it opened again. Bruno breathed a sigh of relief. He stood in the doorway, so it couldn’t close again, and looked out at his room. They were halfway up the canyon.

He re-entered the cave and followed her down the tunnel, trying to figure out how he would explain his discovery to her.

Leandra was waiting for him in the next cave. A room that seemed to be devoted to arts and crafts.

Under different circumstances he would be thrilled.

Idly playing with some scissors, she asked, “So, if you don’t want to talk about our marriage-?”

“I uh, I figured out how to make the exit appear.”

She put the scissors down, surprisingly, her face paled. There was dread in her eyes as she waited for him to continue.

“It-. You-. I can leave. B-but uh.”

“But I can’t,” she whispered.

He nodded.

Leandra closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, “Alright, we’re hashing this out.”

Bruno looked down at his toes, he braced himself for her next question.

“Why are you worried I’ll leave you?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “Leandra, I don’t know why I-. I know it isn’t logical, I know you love me, I know my vision will come true. I know you’ve already faced so much by being with me, a-and it hasn’t changed how you treat me. B-but I just can’t stop worrying-.”

He paused to groan and stalk over to one of the crafting tables. He threw himself down on the chair by the table and put his head in his hands. 

Her boots clicked closer and a warm hand appeared on his shoulder.

“I-it’s not just that I worry you’ll leave. I worry you’ll get sick and-. O-or every time you get a cut or splinter I worry it’ll get infected and Juli won’t be able to-. I worry I’ll lose you. That my life will go back to the way it was before w-we started dating, only worse. Because now Pepa and Julieta are so busy with their kids-. Why am I like this?!”

Leandra wrapped her strong arms around him and a sense of peace flooded him, he closed his eyes while he leaned on her.

“If I didn’t have to deal with the knocking, and the salt, with the obsessing and the worrying and all the stupid rules I make so I can feel ok, i-if I could just, just, not have these problems,” he shrugged, “I wouldn’t.”

Bruno didn’t say anything else, he didn’t have anything left to say.

He listened to Leandra breathe and tried to match his breaths to hers. She drew in a breath as if to say something, then slowly blew it out.

“I-I guess that makes me a little selfish, if I had the opportunity to get rid of all your obsessing, I don’t know that I would,” Leandra finally said, “I would be too worried that if I changed any of the inconvenient things about you, that would change the wonderful stuff as well.”

He turned in the chair so he could wrap his arms around her waist.

She started rubbing his back.

“Although, I- now that I’ve seen how much it hurts you, I guess I wouldn’t be able to not-. Bruno, your obsessing and knocking and worrying sometimes drives me up the wall, or makes me feel concerned about you, but it doesn’t hurt me the way it’s hurting you,” her voice wobbled, “I-I won’t be driven off by all that stuff because it’s just not as big a problem for me as it is for you.”

“It is now,” he said, voice muffled against her stomach.

There was a pause, then he felt her shift, he was pretty sure she was shrugging but didn’t care to lift his head to check, “We’ll figure this out. I won’t be trapped in here forever. We’ve got this.”

“Ay, I love you,” he breathed.

“I love you too.”

They drifted into a contemplative silence. He turned what she had said over and over. She had long since shared her opinion that you couldn’t love somebody unless they occasionally annoyed the hell out of you, so he felt alright hearing that his worrying annoyed her. He could deal with that.

And he was glad she wasn’t suffering from this stuff the way he was. 

But now that she had put the fact that the obsessing was hurting him into words, it was suddenly hard to ignore how much pain he was in. He sniffled, then tried to swallow back the tears. It didn’t work and they started flowing, swiftly followed by sobs.

Leandra held him, waiting it out.

Her feet must have hurt by the time he was calmed down, but she didn’t budge or complain.

“Sorry, I got your blouse all uh-,” he pulled back and gesture at the stain of snot and tears on her shirt.

“That’s alright, my stupid, sexy husband is constantly buying me gifts I don’t need,” she said, “I have a bunch of blouses I haven’t had the chance to wear.”

He chuckled, then groaned, “I have bought you a lot of stuff, haven’t I?”

“You really have.”

“What are you going to do with all the scarves I got you? You don’t wear scarves!”

“I don’t know, but I appreciate the thought.”

“Do you think the fact I’m always buying you expensive gifts is why those men…”

“Why some people assume you’ve bought your way into my heart? Probably. Although it’s sorta a weird assumption considering you very publicly saved me from being raped. You would think the number one theory would be I fell in love with you because of that.”

“It’s what I thought.”

“It’s a very straight forward assumption. Incorrect, but straight forward.”

He sighed, staring at her stained shirt, “Even now, even though I-I’ve just listed all the reasons this fear isn’t logical, I’m still-. Why am I like this?”

“Maybe the constant worrying is a side effect of the visions?”

“Maybe,” he said, then with a slight grimace, countered, “although, sometimes the ability to, you know, check to make sure the thing I’m worried about isn’t going to happen, well, sometimes it helps.”

“Hm, well that was my only idea, sorry.”

Bruno chuckled dryly, then slowly he stood, “L-Let’s go back to the tent, a-and try to figure out how to get you out of here.”

Leandra nodded, and held out her hand for him to take. He did so and they started the journey back down to the beginning. The visions on the walls had returned themselves to a normal size, which Bruno took as a good sign.

When they got down to the first cave Queso was laying down on her bed, cleaning one of the rats. Leandra had tried training her to see the rats as herd animals to be guarded, but had to compromise and instead train her to see them as puppies. Apparently, small furry things that made squeaking noises when they wanted food had more in common with mountain dog pups than they did goats.

Queso thumped her tail at them, distracted by their entrance long enough for the now very damp rat to escape his bath.

Undeterred, Queso found another rat and began bathing him instead.

Bruno sighed, “I thought you got her to stop that.”

“Box likes it when she bathes him, so he’s been undermining me,” she said, pointing out Box, who was creeping ever closer to Queso.

Bruno narrowed his eyes at Box. He was one of the younger rats, and a bit of a trouble maker. To be honest, Bruno wouldn’t be surprised if Box was only pretending to like doggie baths because he somehow knew Leandra was trying to train Queso out of them.

He shook his head and pushed through the tent flaps, he would have to figure out how to get Box to behave after he figured out how to free Leandra.

Bruno sat slowly on his cushion pile, and once she had changed into a clean shirt, Leandra followed, pressing herself to his side. After a split second of hesitation, he wrapped himself around her, and pulled her legs over his lap. Leandra didn’t protest, seemingly content to let him cling to her like an octopus. Her chest could be best described as pillowy, so he rested his head on it.

“So.”

“So,” he agreed.

They both thought for a little, then she asked, “What would make you… not worried that you’ll lose me?”

“Well, first of all you need to be immortal,” Bruno muttered, “and second, you have to let me trap you in a labrynth so you can never escape. Oh wait!”

“Come on Bruno, we’re trying to solve this, remember?”

“I know, I know,” he said, “b-but now the self loathing is setting in.”

“Does it ever go away?”

He didn’t respond at first, then decided to change the subject, “So, getting you out of here. M-maybe if I go have that vision again-.”

“You’ve had it fifty two times, are you going to have to have that same vision every time I want to get out of bed in the morning?”

He made a thoughtful noise, “Well, there are definitely worse visions to have everyday.”

“What if… what if you had a worse vision,” Leandra gulped, “if you saw something you don’t like, that disproved something you’re afraid of, w-would it help?”

Bruno didn’t like the sound of this, but asked, “What are you thinking?”

“You said you're worried about me dying any time I get a little hurt, so what if you had a vision of, you know…”

“Leandra,” he breathed, lifting his head, “I-I don’t want to watch you die.”

“I know, but would it help? If you knew for sure when it was going to happen, would you stop expecting it to happen every second?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, but nodded once, tensely saying, “Sí. It would help.”

Leandra also nodded, then shrugged, “Ok, then let’s put that solution in the maybe column and try to come up with something we like better.”

Bruno nodded, he desperately cast about for another solution to suggest, something to knock that one down to an unneeded last resort.

After a while, he groaned, cheeks warming up as he thought of something.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Um.”

“Do you have an idea?”

“S-sort of? Actually, uh, no. No I don’t.”

She paused, then said, “Bruno.”

He sighed, “Do you uh, do you remember when I-, when we-. You know what? It’s-, I can think of something else, just give me a moment.”

“Now hold on, now you got me all curious,” Leandra gave him a squeeze, “when we did what?”

He screwed his eyes shut and in a rush said, “When you let me tie you up?”

“Oh,” he didn’t dare open his eyes while he waited for her to say more, in case his embarrassment had taken a physical form and was waiting for eye contact to attack, “sí, I remember. That was good.”

He peeked an eye open, so he could search her face for sincerity, “Was it?”

“Sí, it was,” she said, and she seemed sincere, “did it live up to your expectations?”

“I uh, sort of? It,” he gulped, but forced himself to keep going, “I-I ended up liking it in a different way than I expected.”

“How so?”

“Well, I um, I thought the best part would b-be being able to do what I want without you rushing me,” he admitted, “b-but I actually-, I just kept thinking about h-how much you must trust me, t-to let me do that.”

“Oh, of course I trust you, you’d never hurt me,” Leandra said, and he felt both very warm and very hot.

“A-anyways, after we uh we did that, I-I felt, I don’t know, not as worried. I guess. More confident.”

“So, would you like to do it again?”

“If you don’t mind, we don’t have to, we can think of-.”

“I want to, Bruno, I do,” she began playing with one of his curls, “honestly I would have asked sooner but I assumed it wasn’t as fun for you as it was for me.”

Bruno felt surprise ripple through him then slowly asked, “Why? Did- was tying me up not uh, not fun for you?”

“Meh, it was a few extra steps, I didn’t mind, but uh you usually let me do whatever I want anyway,” she gave him a somewhat sheepish grin, “and you know how much I hate waiting. I liked when you let me blindfold you though.”

He blushed, and averted his eyes, chuckling nervously, “I-, yeah. That was good. But it’s like you said, I thought it was more fun for me than it was for you.”

“Ay, por favor, you have no idea how impossible that is,” she chuckled, shaking her head.

He smiled, but didn’t say anything. When they first got together, they had each made a list of things they wanted to try, and for the first year of their marriage they had worked their way through it. Leandra had asked to repeat some of the things she’d liked a few times, but he’d never had the courage. Eventually, Leandra had stopped asking for any of the fancy stuff, probably because he never got up the nerve to tell her how much he enjoyed all that.

Bruno braced himself, “I liked playing the villain too.”

“Really?” Leandra said, voice becoming rather eager. The Villain was a favorite of hers, well theirs, but he’d never told her that before.

“Sí. It was nice, you know, actually being as horrible as everybody thinks I am, and still being wanted,” he said, managing not to stutter through some miracle.

“You are very wanted, villain or no villain,” Leandra said, then added, “but also, The Villain is very, very wanted. I like how confident you get, and it always seems like you’re having the time of your life.”

“It is fun, and not just in a sexy way.”

“It is so fun,” she agreed, “I keep telling you you need to try out for the town play. You are such a joy to watch.”

He rolled his eyes, rasping out a dry laugh, and almost gave her the usual excuse. Then he paused, and instead told her, “I don’t think I could-. If I tried out a-and did well, and they still turned me down just because… because I’m me, I don’t think I could-.”

He cut himself off, swallowing thickly. 

Leandra didn’t respond at first.

“Oh,” she eventually said, “I never thought of that.”

“Really?”

She shrugged beneath him, “Since you do seem to be unaware, I am absolutely smitten with you. Head over heels, sun shines out your ass, in love with you. I don’t really-, I’ve never really understood the Bad Luck Bruno thing, even before we got to know each other. And now you’re my wonderful husband, who buys me too many expensive things, and tries to take over my chores, and has stopped letting me go down on him because even when he’s feeling insecure he’s still the sweetest man ever. I would throw myself into every mud puddle I could find if I thought it would make you laugh, work my fingers to the bone if I thought you wanted diamonds and gold, and walk to the end of the earth and back just to spend time with you. I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t.”

He squeezed her tighter, when he couldn’t think of anything else to say, he said, “I don’t mind if you go down on me.”

“Except, apparently you fucking do,” Leandra huffed, “because you haven’t let me in five months.”

“Oh, it hasn’t been-.”

“It has though,” she pushed him until she could look him in the eye, “it’s enough to make a girl think you don’t like what she’s doing down there.”

“No! No, I love the things you do.”

“Then let me do them!”

“Ok, claro,” he held his hands up in surrender.

“Do you promise? Because you are always saying you’re going to let me do chores and then-.”

“Sí, I promise,” he nodded, then mimed crossing his heart.

Leandra examined him, then pulled him back into her arms while muttering, “Test it after this is taken care of.”

He gulped, and kept his lips sealed tightly shut.

She took a few deep breaths, calming her irritation.

They both waited for the other to say something.

Leandra eventually sighed and said, “I’ve been feeling off kilter, I don’t want to make you feel bad, but having you constantly dote on me makes me feel like the relationship isn’t even. Like I’m trying to catch up to all the nice stuff you’ve done, but you won’t pause long enough to let me. I feel like-, like if I say the wrong thing, I’ll completely destroy you, and I hate that feeling.”

“I kinda figured,” he admitted, “sometimes the anxiety settles long enough for me to actually think straight, a-and then I start thinking about how not fun this all must be for you. Which, you know, just ends up feeding right back into the anxiety, so. It’s a whole-, it’s this whole vicious cycle thing.”

She sighed again, “It’s not fair.”

“The way I treat you?”

“The things you have to deal with,” she corrected him, and when he lifted his head from her chest, she was pouting up at their tent’s ceiling, “you have all these visions that ram into you like a steam engine, migraines, fears that defy your sense of reason, the villagers are all assholes, and nobody knows how to help. It’s not fair.”

Bruno almost started crying again, he closed his eyes and lay his head back on her shoulder, with a stuttering breath he said, “I-it kinda helps hearing somebody other than me say that.”

She kissed his head, “I’ve been thinking it a while, I didn’t see the full extent of all this when we were dating. I knew things weren’t great, but I just didn’t-. Now that-. It’s not that I haven’t noticed your life is hard, or that being married to you has challenges, it’s just that I don’t have the right words to-. I feel like a toddler stamping her feet, but all I can think to say about all of it is it’s not fair.”

“You’re overwhelmed?”

“A little,” she paused, “you?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he squeezed her and muffled his words against her shoulder, “this is what my life’s been like since I was five.”

She took a few aborted breaths, started a few aborted sentences, then repeated once again, “It’s not fair.”

Bruno lifted his head again, he examined her face and met her warm brown eyes. They sparkled with unshed tears. He shifted his weight so he could rest his forehead against hers, “It’s alright mí reina, I’m alright. I’m better, happier, with you in my life.”

“I’m still pretty sure I have married the most wonderful person in the world,” she told him, “I don’t think a better life is possible, than the one you’ve given me.”

He smiled softly, and kissed her. They lay there, gently sucking on each other’s lips for a while. When they parted, Bruno lay down next to her on the cushion pile so they were both staring up at the cloth ceiling.

“Anything else you can think of that’ll help?” she eventually asked, “Should I stop bringing up budgets every time you get me another super expensive gift?”

He laughed sheepishly, “A-actually, since we’re uh being honest, the gifts are uh are more of an ego thing.”

“They-, what?”

“I mean, they do make me feel a little better, temporarily of course, but um for the most part I just like that I can give you those things,” he said, turning to look at her, “I don’t know, I don’t usually care about feeling like a man, b-but that must be what that feeling is, right? When I see you wearing something nobody else could have afforded to get you and I feel all tall. That must be-. It’s definitely some sort of pride.”

Leandra looked a little more shocked than he felt his admission warranted, then she laughed a little, “It’s never occurred to me that you might have a bit of an ego.”

“I uh, I don’t about most things,” he allowed, then shrugged, “b-but for some reason, I do about this.”

“Huh, ok, we’ll have to talk about that later,” she said, “I still would prefer if we had some sort of budget.”

Bruno bit his tongue to keep from pointing out that they didn’t need one, that for all of his gift’s many faults, it turned him into a walking emerald mine. He could basically just make her gems out of thin air, or technically out of sand, but still. Monetarily, he could give her things nobody else could, and a part of him wanted everybody in town to know it. He remembered how much people had pitied her when they first got together, a part of him wanted to not just shower her in emeralds, but rub the fact that he was showering her in emeralds in everybody’s face.

All the same, he decided he would at least hear her out before he ignored the budget and got her another pair of earrings.

“So! Other things to help you feel secure,” she barreled on, and he turned his head once more to watch her screw her face up in thought, “renewing our vows? Would that help?”

“Maybe on our tenth anniversary,” he shrugged, “it’ss… it really isn’t you, mi reina. It’s me, it’s all this stuff I’m bringing to the relationship that, that-, well, that you have to put up with. A-and I know, to a certain extent, that you don’t mind as much as I do, but I-. It’s like you said before, I feel uneven, I feel like I’m constantly trying to make up for how much I put you through.”

“But you’re not putting me through it, none of these extra challenges are your fault.”

“I know! But it doesn’t matter what I know, I still feel-. There’s a big difference between knowing something and believing it,” he slowly shook his head, “and I just can’t get myself to believe it’s not my fault I’m like this. That being me- I mean, being with me, could possibly be worth it.”

“Do you?”

“What?”

“Do you mean ‘being with you’ or do you mean ‘being you’ isn’t worth it?”

Bruno didn’t look at her, he let the sentence revolve around his head for a few seconds and very carefully didn’t look at her.

Eventually, finally, he said, “Both. Depending on the day.”

Leandra sighed and they sat in silence for a few beats.

“When I’m with my sisters, when I’m with you, or any of the kids, or even Félix and Agustín, I like my life. All this stuff, the visions, the obsessive worrying, the sand in uncomfortable places, it’s worth it to be somebody who gets to be with my familia,” he kept going, voice a quiet croak, “b-but then I worry that I’m asking too much, being too clingy. And sometimes I get overwhelmed you know? Sometimes I need time alone even if it means being alone with my thoughts. It all just feels like such a burden, and I can’t get over the feeling I have no right to ask you to help carry it.”

“I’m catching the theme that it doesn’t matter what I say, I can’t change how you feel,” she said, voice wobbling just a little.

“Believe me, I’ve been trying to talk sense into myself for years,” he answered, squeezing her hand.

“All the same, I’m happily volunteering to help carry any and all of your burdens,” she said, then paused and thought for a little, “Do you want to do chores with Agustín, Félix and I? Without having to take the sponge out of my hand mid scrub?”

“Would- would that be alright? I don’t want to-, you deserve time apart from me.”

“Ah yes, because that’s what I was hoping for when we got married, time apart from you,” she muttered sarcastically, then in a brighter voice said, “Sí, if I really need some me time, or to discuss something in private, I’ll just tell you that. I know you’ll understand, I trust you.”

“Then uh, yeah, I would like that, if you think they won’t mind,” Bruno nodded.

“Of course they won’t, they love you,” she waved his worry off, “you’re their brother.”

He smiled quietly, “I hope so. That they see me as a brother, that is. I uh, that’s how I see them.”

“They do.”

He rolled back onto his side and she followed suit. They stared at eachother contemplatively for a while.

“I do genuinely believe my life is better with you as a husband,” Leandra eventually told him in a quiet voice, “in case you’ve forgotten, I broke up with Omar because he didn’t believe Rosalie, even when I was vouching for her. I didn’t think I would have been as happy married to him as I am with you.”

“There are other men in the village.”

“Most of whom also refused to listen to Rosalie and I,” she argued, “you’re sweet, and you respect me, and you care about what I want in life. Add in the fact that you’re sexy as hell and I really hit gold.”

He snorted, rolling his eyes.

She didn’t have to ask what part he doubted most, “Hey! You are sexy, really, really sexy. Don’t roll your eyes.”

“What can I say, I’m not my type.”

“Then you really do have crappy taste in men.”

He scoffed, “You’re the one who thinks asphyxiating donkeys are sexy.”

“Ay, I do not think asphyxiating donkeys are sexy, I think they’re charming, keep it straight,” she swatted his shoulder, “I think your hair, your cheekbones, your jawline, your beard, your stubble, your voice, your hands, and your chest hair are sexy. Also your calves… and your eyes, when they’re glowing. When they’re not glowing they’re beautiful, which is just as good as sexy, but a different vibe.”

“Well I think your eyebrows are sexy so clearly I’m better at picking a spouse than you.”

“Your eyebrows are sexy,” she said defensively.

“Nuh-uh, you don’t get to add things now, you made your list-.”

“Well, if we only get one shot, then the only thing on your list is eyebrows, so clearly-.”

“Wait, hold on, that’s different.”

“No it isn’t, I win, you lose, my spouse is sexier than yours. So there.”

He laughed, then when he caught her giving him a warm grin made a couple of donkey noises at her. She giggled, curling forward until her forehead was against his.

“This is worth everything,” she breathed, when her giggles petered out, “do you think everybody gets to feel this way?”

“They should,” he responded, “if the world was fair, everybody would get to feel this way about somebody at least once.”

She nodded minutely, the motion limited by their point of contact, then tilted so that she could kiss him. He smiled into the kiss.

When she pulled back he asked, “Can you see why the thought of losing this has me acting crazy?”

“Sí. Can you see why the thought of losing this keeps me sane?”

He inhaled sharply, blinking a few times, then muttered, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.”

“Have to be an idiot to give this up,” she pecked him on the lips again.

“And you’re not an idiot,” he murmured.

“Thank you for noticing.”

“De nada,” he said, faintly, automatically. She giggled a little.

The light from outside the tent shifted, becoming just a tiny bit brighter, the change was so small that Bruno almost didn’t notice it. He sat up and stared at the tent flap, slowly, barely daring to hope, he stood and walked to the tent’s entrance. He heard Leandra get up and follow him.

He opened the flap.

Leandra laughed out of sheer joy, “We did it!”

She raced past him to the newly formed exit, well, newly reformed exit to the cave. The sand curtain didn’t split for her like it did for him, but she didn’t let that stop her from running straight through it. 

He followed her at a much more sedate pace. When the sand curtain opened, she was standing by his storytelling tent, grinning at him.

He smiled back at her.

“Come on, don’t you want some coffee?” she said.

“Breakfast is probably over by now,” he pointed out, even as he started up the stairs.

“I’m sure Juli left some food aside for us, actually, I’m kinda surprised they didn’t come looking for us,” she caught up with him and grabbed his hand.

“Maybe they did, found the cave sealed up, then left to get mining supplies,” he shrugged.

She laughed, “Then we better let them know we’re free. Come on, let’s go eat, then we’re gonna come back here, and you’re finally going to let me blow you.”

Bruno felt his cheeks burn, “Only if you promise you want to.”

“I do want to,” she gave his hand a squeeze, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said, mostly because he didn’t know what else to say. It seemed that no matter how much time passed, he still struggled to respond to her advances.

Bruno stopped at the door, he needed to make some changes, he knew that. And there was no time like the present.

“After uh after you do that, I um would like to do one of the other things we talked about,” he told her, not quite meeting her eyes.

She kissed him, a long, lingering kiss that was filled to the brim with promises, “I would like that.”

“Great,” he said, although it sounded like a choked squeak, he cleared his throat and tried again, “I mean, great.”

Leandra gave him one more mischievous grin, then grabbed the doorknob and opened the door.

He was almost bowled over by the wall of noise that greeted them. Leandra’s grin dropped as they raced over to the railing and looked down into the courtyard. It was filled with people, many of whom were shouting. After pausing for a second, Bruno realized they were shouting questions and one voice kept saying, “Please, save him!”

Julieta suddenly raced out of the kitchen with their Má at her heels, shouting, “Step aside, everybody move.”

The crowd parted, revealing the last person Bruno had ever expected to see again. Kneeling on Casita’s tiles was Señor Gutiérrez, he clutched a baby to his chest with one arm, and with the other supported the head of a young boy who was laid across his lap.

The boy was bleeding and bruised, he didn’t seem to be either conscious or unconscious, he muttered unintelligibly, awake but unaware to the world around him.

Bruno rushed down the stairs, still holding Leandra’s hand. After a few steps, she seemed to process what was happening and began walking even faster than him. They reached Señor Gutiérrez just after Julieta had placed a shred of an arepa in the boy’s mouth.

The boy didn’t respond, and the arepa shred hung loosely from his lips. Señor Gutiérrez made a high, distressed sound.

The baby started to fuss.

Bruno was closest to the baby, without having to think about it, he stepped forward and gently pried the infant from the other man’s arms. Señor Gutiérrez barely noticed, so focused on trying to get the boy to chew.

He gently cupped the baby's head, like he had done with his nieces and nephew so many times before. The baby blinked up at him, struggling against the blanket they were swaddled in, eventually a pudgy little hand reached out for him. He gave the baby his finger and they gripped it with all the strength an infant could muster.

It wasn't that all of Bruno's fears suddenly disappeared, on the contrary, he suddenly had triple the worries he did before. But he knew how to do this, he knew how to hold a baby, how to comfort a fussing child.

That was what he did, took care of the baby girl in his arms, allowing everybody else to focus on saving Gabriel. The rest of the day rushed by in a confused panic, and by the time he and Leandra had a minute to talk about the labyrinth they'd woken up in, they were parents.

Somehow, every worry Bruno had the day before seemed to pale in comparison to that.

[softness-and-shattering]

Why is there an outfit of the absolute in a tollhouse room that seemingly hasnt been opened since the shadow curse? The room with the barred door, that you enter from above, with the super convenient secret door out to the street. Is it an error, or was the absolute around and into fashion 100 years prior? And how old is Halsin still?

So the beach fight was actually really fun, havent had that kind of a crowd control challenge before. I actually failed the first time round, only made it to round three. It took a wall of fire, multiple glyphs of warding and 2x turn undead. Discovered that the fire only lasts a couple rounds and then it turns to fire ground only which was bit weird? And then Wyll died walking over it for idk what reason, after ddciding to run through the wall earlier for some reason. Didnt save him in time and had to ressurect.

I respecced him as a paladin cause I struggle with warlock. He only has one channel oath charge at time? At level 8?? My usual team is my bard, karlach, astarion and shadowheart, and after the first attempt i swapped astarion for wyll, but he didnt do that much. Did smite sone wraiths, that was very useful, I just thought hed have nore turning undead, maybe more area of effect stuff. As it was, shadowheart and bard carried most of the battle and the others picked up the pieces. Necessary support. Idk I just expected more from Wyll I guess?

Super cool fight though. first wall of fire, glyph of warding, and guardian of faith. The guardian looked super cool, unfortunately disappeared the turn before it was needed, because I cast it pre-battle and the Halsin conversation took a few turns/wasnt in turn-based mode. I wonder if i started the conversation, switched to shadowheart in turn based, went back to the conversation if that would work.

Also tried the thing of throwing a healing potion at someone, it never works for me. It just destroys the potion, idk what im doing wrong.

And then shadowheart and karlach were silenced fighting the tollkeeper, for some reason it still thinks karlach is silenced even q long rest later. Ill see if thats still happening when I boot up my game again.

I really like the little area under the tollhouse basement. I wish there was more to explore there, but. Little secret romantic hideout. Who was down there anyway? During the shadow curse? They seemed peaceful. I dont mind skeletons as that kind of environmental story telling. I just find the piles of bones and stacks of shrouded corpses and random dismembered limbs to be no thank you.

I also didnt kill the devil so astarions big mad at me now. Offered my neck up but i forgot to check if its improved his opinion of me. Need my sneaky rogue man! I just dont at all like or trust Raphael. Creepy man. Offered me food that was definitely suspicious.

I started watching someone stream the game, totally new to dnd, so its interesting watching what they do and dont pick up on compared to like, eg I started off knowing to look for a dash option, and about spell slots, and im familiar at least passongly with a majority of spells and feats and things. It is starting to give me that experience of "no one understand my fave like I do", also looking on ao3 for karlach. Its a looot of "tall demon bondage mommy lady" and thats just not her personality at all, shes incredibly sweet and genuine and free spirited and also vulnerable and new to being around people she cares about, to trusting. Shes not a practised dominatrix. Maybe I should also look for lower rated fics and see what comes up too 😂.

Also the funniest thing happened in the tollhouse fight. I had asterion pickpocket the tollkeeper so he had her key. We're in combat, Karlach happens to run past the safe, I get the magic pockets pop up and suddenly Karlach is running on the attack encumbered! So I pull up the inventory, send the chest to camp, and she keeps running. All in six seconds! 😂😂

And I forgot to check what was in the chest!! Ill have to do that, lets be real, probably tomorrow. And then as long as there isnt more to do on the Thaniel quest immediately, on to moonrise towers! And a level up. Hopefully. Im eyeing it. Collecting fifth level spell scrolls, want to learn em already 👀. Gimme those cool spells!

(And the way you specify where you want the wall of fire to be? Very cool and well done).

[lunathebee]

Pairing: Marc Spector x  florist!fem!reader (with hints of Steven Grant x florist!fem!reader)

Warning: fluff (no I mean, me trying to write fluff for the first time), Steven loves his burrito, Layla doesn't exist just for the sake of this story

A/n: THIS IS PART 1, I repeat PART 1 😭😭😭 Istg I messed up some stuff and I have no choice but to write a bit more and call it a day, I am terribly sorry, part 2 will be post soon!

Summary: For the first time ever, Steven might be better at talking to a girl than Marc, but that doesn't mean Marc just gonna stand and watch him does so.

Steven is chewing down on a vegan burrito, talking to Gus about how his day at the museum went when suddenly Marc speaks up. "Steven, since when do you like flowers so much?"

It was a totally random and offset question for Steven, but not for Marc though, he is a man who knows what he wants and how to get it in the most subtle way.

"Oh whut? You mean those books? They're not mine, Y/n was kind enough to let me borrow it, nice to learn something besides just alien and Egyptian mythology init?" Steven smiles when mentioning your name, taking another big bite from the burrito while Marc is still starting at the big pile of books about floriography.

"And... who is Y/n?" Marc asked while trying his best to be clueless, of course he knows Y/n; she owns a small flower shop on the road where Steven takes the bus to work every day, always looking so perfect and flawless at 7 a.m.

Sometimes Marc feels a teeny tiny bit guilty about how he takes over the body whenever the bus gets near to Y/n's flower shop, and after a few seconds of staring, hoping to see you, he gave the body back to Steven, leaving the British man confused like a deer in front of a headlight.

"Oh Y/n is this absolutely wonderful florist that I met when I tried to find some flowers for my first date that... didn't go quite as well as you remember..." To be honest, Steven just wants to eat his burrito in peace and finish it quickly, but if the topic is about Y/n and not Khonsu then he would be glad to join in.

"Ah well then, I was wondering if you could introduce --- " Marc's voice starts to fade out because Steven is too into the burrito.

But wait, why is he eating this burrito so fast in the first place? Steven thinks to himself for a moment, and the memory of Donna talking to him floods into his mind, making him yell out. "OH BLOODY HELL, DONNA PUT ME ON INVENTORY TONIGHT, I gotta go now talktoyoulaterMarc!!" Steven bolted out the door, clutching his work bag, leaving Marc *behind* disappointed; perhaps he could continue this conversation with Steven over the weekend?

===☾︎ ☾︎ ☾︎===

"No way... Marc, are you serious? You have a crush on Y/n?!" Steven can't believe what Marc has told him, this is even more shocking than the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

"That is a childish way to say how a man is interested in a woman Steven, and I swear if you laugh at me-"

"No no no, why would I? Wow, good for you mate. I thought you would stick to fighting forever! With that silly old birb Khonsu, am I right Gus? " Steven exclaimed while sprinkling some fish food into the tank and missed how annoyed Marc looked.

'Tch, gimme a break' Marc thinks to himself while thinking about what Steven has said. Did he really spend that much time being an avatar? To the point where he gets lovestruck and doesn't even know how to talk to a girl?

"The main point is are you gonna introduce me to her or not?"

Steven feels strange after hearing Marc say that, what now? A guy who is not afraid of fighting and blood is scared of this sweet florist girl? "Why don't you just... introduce YOURSELF to her? Besides, I wouldn't know how to explain to her that you and I are basically the same, but at the same time we are not, bit odd init?"

Steven has a point though, it would be harder and more confusing if he told you about Marc. It seems like the only option left is for Marc to say hi to you himself (even if he wants to or not). God, how Marc wishes Monday would just come soon so he can meet you.

[thatoneteadrinker666]

Another random request. Ranboo or Tubbo get Mad at the reader. It was a prank gone wrong. The reader was not the culprit but was framed and blamed for the prank. The reader didn't know about said prank. So the reader walked in on a manhunt to search for them because they went on a trip after the prank happened. So now they have a Very Goat Hybrid or Endermen Hybrid on their tail. Noms are the punishment and some fluff and angst pls.

Warning: soft and safe vore, some fearplay, reader assuming that noms are fatal

Lacking Logic

They blamed you for the incident. To be honest, you didn’t even know what had happened until you heard yelling and swearing. From what you could gather, someone (it wasn’t you) had set up a pressure plate trap that dumped anyone who stepped on it into lava. Right after dropping them down a very deep hole. At least, that’s what you think happened. After all, you could only learn so much while being chased by probably the tallest person on the server.

“I didn’t do it! How could I?! I’m tiny!” You screamed, managing to duck under a fence and scurry towards a house.

“No one else was around! You were probably planning that for months! I had so much stuff on me!” Ranboo had to take a second to mine the fence, since he couldn’t go under or over it. But with his extremely long legs, the head start was nothing. “It took me ages to get all that!”

You weren’t sure where to go. As an enderman hybrid, Ranboo could probably sniff you out anywhere. Plus he was tall, so running would be useless. But you weren’t about to just give up.

You ran inside a building and slid behind a chest, trying to breathe as quietly as you could.

Ranboo appeared a second later, growling to himself. He scanned the room, and when nothing popped out, began moving things around.

Now this just wasn’t fair. You couldn’t have set up the trap! The pressure plate weighed more than you! You were positive that Tommy had something to do with this. And now because of him, you were cowering in a corner, hiding from a very peeved Ranboo.

You looked through your inventory for something useful. Oak planks, cobblestone, water bucket, cooked beef, and leather. That was everything that could be used. If only you hadn’t cleared your inventory earlier. You made a crafting table and made a stone sword and a stone pickaxe. You’d try to escape through a wall. And if he caught you, well, you had a sword. It was pretty pathetic, considering he had netherite armor, but it was something.

You turned and started mining at the bricks behind you, planning on digging a tunnel to escape. If it worked in manhunts, it could work here.

About halfway through mining the block, light suddenly beamed upon you. At the same time, air hit the back of your neck. Uh oh. You grimaced and turned around.

“You’re not going anywhere.” The red and green eyes seemed to pin you where you were. Just for a second.

You yelled and swung your sword at him.

“Now that is just unnecessary.” Ranboo plucked the sword from your hands and tossed it over his shoulder. With an equally fierce yell you swung your pickaxe at him. “That is also unnecessary.” He took your pickaxe.

“Dammit-“ You managed to grunt before he scooped you up. “I didn’t do it!”

“Uh huh. If you weren’t guilty, then why did you run?”

“Because this stupidly tall enderman guy came running at me! I wasn’t going to just sit there!”

“Hm.” The bicolor eyes gazed at you for a bit. You stared back, trying to make innocence seep out of every pore.

After a couple minutes, he shrugged. “I still think you did it. And since I lost most of my stuff, you’ll have to pay for it.” Ranboo pinched the back of your shirt and lifted you up.

You stared with horror as his jaws opened wide, eyes wandering past the sword-sharp teeth and slithering purple tongue. “Ranboo, don’t.”

The cave in front of you clicked shut. “I had a lot of food on me when I fell into the lava. You’ll just be there for a bit. Make up for those golden apples that burned.” Once again his jaws opened.

You screamed loudly as the forked violet tongue wrapped around you, rubbing drool all over your small form, and brought you inside Ranboo’s mouth. The sharp teeth clicked shut with an awful sound that you felt in your bones.

The tongue unwrapped itself from your waist and instead pushed you around Ranboo’s mouth, apparently having a good time tasting you. If you weren’t fearing for your life, you’d poke fun at Ranboo for purring and drooling over you like some cat-dog.

Instead you were frozen, at the edge of tears, and hoping that maybe he’d spit you out. That wasn’t the case. You felt yourself sliding back, back towards the drop of doom. If you went down, you wouldn’t be coming out again. But it wasn’t like you could do anything. It seemed like this was it. The end.

Ranboo pushed his tongue back and swallowed your small form, putting a hand on the bit of armor over his stomach. He licked his lips as he waited for you to finish your trip.

You didn’t bother squirming much. It wasn’t like you could do anything. So you just let the strong muscles pull you down, shivering and weeping, until you were deposited, very unceremoniously, into the hybrid’s stomach.

“Just give me a few hours, then I’ll let you out.” Ranboo’s voice rumbled around you.

“I’m not even going to last that long..” You couldn’t help but sniffle sadly.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You know what happens to food..”

“I can control my digestive system.” Ranboo said very matter-of-factly. Your surroundings jolted as he began to return to his project that he was doing, before he was very promptly dropped in lava and all.

“What? How does that make sense?” You stared around, unsure if you should be concerned or not.

“It just happens. You’re fine. I wouldn’t ever hurt you.”

You blinked, taking in what he just said. And then you punched his stomach.

Ranboo yelped. “Hey! I said I’d let you out in a few hours!”

You scowled. “Scared the hell outta me, you idiot.” You sat back, too tired to scold him for nearly frightening the pants off you. Suppose you’d just have to wait a few hours for freedom.

[storiesbyjes2g]

Early the next morning, Hunter's baritone, echoed barks woke me. I dashed outside to meet him before disappearing. I could not contain my excitement at seeing my old friend again, but I had to try as it was 4 a.m. We played as quietly as we could, but Hunter was never one to stay silent, so I brought him inside. He trotted around, sniffing everything and checking it out, as if to ensure everything was still in order. I love how protecting me is still on his agenda from beyond the grave. Come to think of it, I still have one ambrosia pet treat from the first time I took Shiloh to the vet and bought every single treat they had. How mad would she be if she found out I gave it to Hunter? I'd better stick a pin in that thought, though. I have much more pressing issues to deal with before adding a newish fur baby into the mix. Plus, reviving him may be tough to explain to my family.

Hunter had to return to his resting place around 6:00, so I took a brief nap and began my day. I had a ton of soy wax collecting dust in my inventory, so I went to the maker's space to make some candles. They probably won't be worth much, but at least if they sold I could make a little pocket change. Because it had been a minute, and I'd only made one candle in my life, I began slowly to get my bearings. Ali said I was a natural. Such a bittersweet memory. We had such high hopes and big plans for starting a family business. Gosh. Not only did I destroy our marriage but also Ali's dream. My thoughts made me a little weepy, but I pressed on. It's important for me to keep busy or I'll regress.

Getting comfortable with the process didn't take long at all. I made a few regular candles before trying something a bit beyond my skills. Someone left a few molds behind, so I tried making a block and cylindrical candles. Getting the hot wax from the melting pot to the molds before it cooled took some doing; I guess that's why these types of candles are on the intermediate level. But after a few tries, I got it down. It took patience to make them because the candles are more dense and take longer to cool. But I did it and was so proud. And I had fun! Perhaps Ali could look at them for me to confirm if they're as good as I think they are.

After a few hours of candle making, my stomach reminded me lunchtime had long since passed, so I ordered a hamburger from the food truck in the courtyard. A familiar-looking young lady sat next to me. She sipped on lemonade from the stand a few feet away from us. I didn't want to stare, but she looked so familiar but I couldn't place her face.

"Forgive me," I said, "but you look familiar. Have we met?"

She smiled awkwardly. "Yeah, kinda. I deliver your mail."

How embarrassing. She's right, though. We've never officially met, but we've seen each other a few times.

"I noticed Ali hasn't gotten mail in a while," she said. "Are you... Is he still living at your address?"

The audacity!! Ok...ok... Breathe, Emmy. It's an innocent question. But, still! What made her think she may ask me that? And why would I tell her? We're strangers! Audacity aside...it's so creepy how random strangers can know intimate details about our lives. People are always watching, even if the intent isn't to be hurtful. Me and this young lady were never going to be friends, but now she has ruined all chance of that happening. I'll never look at her the same again.

[nohoney]

I Just Want It To Be Us - 1.1

note: Part 1 of the Us series which is originally posted on my ao3 here

Us series masterlist

characters: Dabi/Touya Todoroki, Hawks/Keigo Takami

warnings: 18+, drug use, toxic relationships, cheating, angsty-ish

summary:

That question always rang through your mind every time he comes back smelling like one of his side whores and cash in his pocket. He’s your boyfriend but he’s been doing this since way before he met you, and he wasn’t going to stop just because you’re together. It was a condition that you pretty much forced yourself to accept from the very beginning because well… you really did like Dabi that much.

Dabi knows that it makes you upset but he’s not going to stop for your sake.

You know that he won’t.

1.1 ✧ 1.2  ✧ 1.3

Your mother would be so disappointed if she saw you with your current boyfriend.

“Marry a nice man, honey.”

“When you find someone to settle down with, make sure he’s the one.”

“Don’t flit about from guy to guy, it’s not lady-like.”

All these rules your mother set you up with when it came to finding a boyfriend, you knew it came from a good place in her heart. She was only looking out for you when she told you these things but didn’t she get that dating now was different in this age and time? You’re a free person and you can see however many people you want or you could see no one at all and that was perfectly fine as well.

She has a feeling you’re seeing someone but you haven’t confirmed with her. To be honest, you don’t think you’ll tell her anything about your current boyfriend. It would be for the sake of preserving her little, fragile heart. How horrified would she be if she found out her precious daughter was dating the local drug dealer in her college campus?

He didn’t like being called by his surname and he didn’t seem to like being called by his first name either. The first time he speaks in front of your intro to philosophy class, taking it just to fulfill one of grad requirements, he says to just refer to him as ‘Dabi’. It’s curious to the people who don’t know who he is already but who are they to argue with someone how they should be addressed?

So you call him Dabi.

You called him Dabi the first time you spoke to him in class, asking for notes from the day you missed before in class. You called him Dabi when he found you sitting alone in the library and he kicked your chair to get your attention. You called him Dabi the more you spent time together with him, even past the semester once your one shared class is over and final grades were submitted. You called him Dabi the first time he ever rails you on his cock in the backseat on his car.

You almost forget sometimes that his real name is Touya.

In his off campus apartment, he sits in a chair in front of the bathroom mirror and you stand behind him with plastic gloves over your hands, helping him dye the roots of his hair black. The dye stinks, you hate the smell of it, but he kind of suckered you into doing it for him this time. He promised that if you’d help him, he’d sit through one of your stupid romantic-comedy movies you’d been dying to watch for a while. But you had to tack on a condition if he was going to give you an incentive.

If Dabi watched a movie with you and wasn’t entertained by it enough, he’d always leave to smoke a joint and come back high just so that he could get through the rest of the film.

“No break of any kind unless it’s a snack or pee break, you understand me?” you tell him as you put the final layer of dye on his roots. “And no doing it before the movie starts! I want you sober when we watch it together.”

“Yeah, yeah doll. You have my word.” Dabi passively waves his hand at you as he looks down at his phone.

Your eyes casually glance down at his phone screen and see that he’s in his messages app.

Wonder if someone is trying to get him as a connect. You think to yourself as you dispose of the plastic gloves and the remaining hair dye. You’re cleaning up the hair dye tools and open the window to air out the awful smell of the dye, all while Dabi sits in his chair and stares at his messaging app. The sounds of incoming messages from his phone tell you that there’s a conversation going on but his fingers don’t move over the keyboard to respond. It’s not your business how he runs his operations.

“How long do I leave the dye on?” he asks as he stands up from the chair, putting his phone on the countertop, and literally rips the shirt off his body from the neckline down the middle. It’s just a regular t-shirt he bought to protect his skin from the dye dripping onto his body dispensable from the very beginning, but he didn’t have to make a show of it. The shirt drops to the floor in a heap and he kicks it off to the side; you are not picking it up for him.

Dabi’s hot, ridiculously hot, that’s the first thing anyone notices about him. Both his ears have multiple piercings and his nose as well sporting three studs on his right nostril. If he’s wearing short sleeves, the first thing anyone will see that his both arms are tattooed all black, save for where they end, at his hands and shoulders it’s detailed to look like his skin is being held together by staples. On any other person it would look ridiculous to you, on Dabi not so much.

He notices you staring and winks at you, but you scoff at him and push past him to exit the bathroom. “You know how long it stays on, you’ve done this plenty of times before by yourself.”

“I like it when you tell me doll.”

Ah Dabi could be so charming when he felt like it.

You roll your eyes at him but peck him on the lips. “Shut up, I’m going to order in some food for dinner today.”

“Wow, ordering in for dinner tonight. Such housewife material (Name).” Dabi pokes fun at you.

“And you’re going to be the perfect husband Dabi.” you tease back.

You’re not certain if Dabi is long-term boyfriend material, you’ve only been dating for about five months. It’s not a long period of time you’ve spent as boyfriend and girlfriend but you’ve had a lot of fun with him. Although you have to admit that part of the fun you were experiencing with Dabi was because of what he’s introduced you to.

Before Dabi, you’d only smoke a little bit of weed every once in a while or take the occasional edible to wind down. You never had your own stash of it, you’d only partake if a friend supplied or if you were at a party. There was no point in having your own selection if you didn’t really partake in it that much. You were okay with smoking from a joint or a bong every once in a while, maybe take an edible if you wanted something a little stronger than smoking flower.

After Dabi you’d indulge in the occasional gram of coke and maybe some ecstasy if you felt like you could afford to take two days off from work for the come down. There were still others you hadn’t given a try yet, like shrooms or 2CB or do a candy flip, but you were slowly working up the nerve to give them a try when you were ready. Dabi offered you a Percocet but god, never again because you were too fucked up the one time you tried it.

You didn’t really think in your life you’d be involved romantically with a drug dealer but honestly it’s not as bad as you thought it would be.

Oh yeah, try explaining that to Mom…

Dab treats you right for the most part, he’s never yelled at you or ever taken his anger out on you either since dating each other, he just sells narcotics on the college campus and he got you into it too, it’s not a big deal. It helped that Dabi took it easy on you rather than just pushing you to do more than you were comfortable with. The first time you were curious about coke, he made you a little thin line of it and it took you more than an hour to decide you were ready before finally snorting it. After that first one, he let you decide how long and thick you wanted your lines to be. He’d cut it nice and neat for you and point to which one was yours to take. Coke felt good but the drip was disgusting in the back of your throat.

Speaking of disgusting…

“Hey, it should have been long enough so wash that gross stuff out your hair and let’s eat dinner.” you called from the kitchen as you plated the takeout food that arrived not too long ago.

You and Dabi sit at his little dinner table with the television streaming some random drama for background noise. Dinner topics for the evening range from school, homework, family news if there is any, and when to coordinate seeing each other next in between classes and your part time job. Conversations go smoothly and you’re cleaning up the kitchen when Dabi comes up behind you and presses a kiss to the back of your head, nuzzling you as you wipe the plates you just ate off of. You feel a sense of dread because every time he does that it means…

“Hey, there’s a house party this Saturday and I gotta work.”

You bite your tongue inside your mouth and exhale through your nose.

He has to work so he’ll be gone for a while, has to disperse his inventory and has to please his regulars as well as find any potential new customers.

If it was just selling, it wouldn’t be an issue.

The real issue is that you know he fucks some of his female customers. No no no, they don’t just get free coke or acid or whatever they’re asking for by spreading their legs for Dabi. He still expects cash as payment, but if he thinks they’re pretty enough then he doesn’t mind getting something extra aside from money after a sale. He’s handsome so why wouldn’t someone want to hop on his lap and go for a ride?

Dabi saves you the trouble by just being upfront about it, swears to you that you’re his favorite and that he only sees the other girls if he’s making a sale, they’re just customers. He goes to them, he goes to their location and fucks them where they meet him. None of his side whores have ever been brought back to his place, not like how he lets you in so easily when you knock on his door. He doesn’t take them out or treat them sweetly like he does with you; it’s just a sale and a fuck. It still doesn’t matter to you though, it still makes you jealous. It makes you clench your jaw in anger and want to just deck him right where his nose piercings are.

You’re his girlfriend but did that title mean anything if he was still going to sleep with other girls?

That question always rang through your mind every time he comes back smelling like one of his side whores and cash in his pocket. He’s your boyfriend but he’s been doing this since way before he met you, and he wasn’t going to stop just because you’re together. It was a condition that you pretty much forced yourself to accept from the very beginning because well… you really did like Dabi that much.

Dabi knows that it makes you upset but he’s not going to stop for your sake.

You know that he won’t.

“Fine.”

━━━━✧

If Dabi gets to fuck other girls then surely you have the right to do just the same with boys right?

The thing is though is that you did one time just right before the two of you made your relationship official, you hit up an old fuck buddy of yours while Dabi was out selling at another house party in the middle of the night. He left a measly text saying not to wait up for him and that he’d see you for breakfast. It would have been sweet if not for the fact that he came to your apartment smelling like another girl, just spending just two hours with you before flitting off into the night. Two hours of him on your sofa smelling like someone else, not even offering to shower to get their stench off, and he did his best to placate you before giving up and letting you stew in your own anger.

So you hit up your old fuck buddy and you go to him, you just get straight to the point when you’re let into his dorm and fuck your frustrations out on him. You intended to go straight back to your home but angry fucking took a lot out on you so you just spend the night there instead. “Don’t cuddle me, I’ll be gone in the morning.” you tell him after patting his cheek and pulling the blanket over your body.

It’s a quarter before eight when you’re trudging back to your apartment and you see Dabi leaning against your front door. You’re going to ask how his night was but he abruptly pulls you to him and growls in your ear to, “Get in your fucking apartment… now.”

He knows you went out to get fucked, doesn’t want to know who you went to.

You and him argue for over two hours inside your home, pacing back and forth in the living room. It’s back and forth of ‘it’s just business with those girls’ from him and ‘why shouldn’t I be allowed to do it to you?’ from you. Dabi says it’s just business and they mean nothing to him, claims to you that you hurt him more because you did it out of revenge. He really got you screaming at him after he said that but he didn’t dare back down. He stands firm and so do you, that really gets him angry with you even more.

He didn’t apologize and neither did you.

You were jabbing your finger in his chest when he grabs you by the wrist, irritation and exhaustion evident in his turquoise eyes. “Don’t fucking do that to me.” he growls at you.

“Get your fucking hands off me Dabi.” you spit back, shaking his hand off your wrist. “Get out.”

“No, we’re not leaving it like this.” he insists. “We’re fucking talk about this.”

You throw your hands up in the air in exasperation. “No, you want to ‘talk about it’ until I yield to you which is never going to happen! We’re going around in circles! You’re not going to be sorry and I’m not going to be sorry!”

A tense stare off between the two of you for a few seconds.

Next thing you know, you’re pulling off each other’s clothes and you’re forced on your hands and knees in your own bed. The only foreplay you get is a few seconds of rough kissing and Dabi spitting on his fingers to prep you as quickly as he can. When he pushes in, it’s rough and a little uncomfortable but you’re quick to adjust to the punishing pace. He pulls your hair too hard, you backhand him in the face, he spanks you until your ass is red and aching, you dig your nails into his back and scratch achingly slow down his flesh to make sure it really hurts.

Hate fucking with Dabi was a whole new level of intensity for you but you keep up with him until it turns into slow love making.

The biting, angry dirty talk from the beginning turns into whining praises; from ‘you spiteful, fucking bitch’ to ‘my pretty, little angel’.

“Fuck babydoll, you know how good you feel? I think I’ve fucked you so much that your pussy’s shaped to take just my cock. This cunt damn near drained me dry but I still want more. Cum on my cock more, tell me how bad you want it.” Dabi whispers into the skin of your shoulder before licking a trail up to your chin and pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“Ugh, baby it’s so fucking good, only you know my body like this. I don’t want it from anyone else but you… shit, I’m going to cum again!” you groan as you clamp down on him once more and your pussy strangles his cock for more cum.

You fall asleep after two hours of fucking, your head resting in the crook of his neck and his arm around your shoulders to keep you close. The both of you are all fucked out but your mind is still fixated on the fight. Despite the intimate sex that’s brought you closer together after rounds of hate fucking, it doesn’t change the fact that Dabi still fucks his customers sometimes and you’re still resentful about it.

“If it makes you feel better then fine (Name), you can fuck who you want.” Dabi says to you when the both of you wake up and are pulling your clothes back on your bodies. “But know this, if you want to be in on this then you’re just going to have to accept that I’ve been doing this since before I met you and it’s not going to stop just because we’re together. So go ahead, fuck who you want but as long as you always come back to me. I always come back to you, don’t I sweetheart?”

You’re smoothing your hair down, taking in his words before looking up at him and asking, “We’re together?”

Dabi’s eyes are full of mirth as he approaches you, pulling you close to his body and squeezing one of your asscheeks in his hand. “You’re my favorite, my number one, I like you (Name). The things I do for you, what I’ve done to you, no one else gets that from me.”

He didn’t apologize and neither did you.

But funnily enough even though he gave you permission to sleep with whoever you wanted, you didn’t really have the desire to do so. He comes to you smelling like other girls sometimes and that should be your cue to go find your own rando to hump on but you just… don’t.

Part of you wonders if Dabi is happy that you don’t go around like he does despite his blessing. You’re resentful towards yourself sometimes that you don’t go out and have some fun with someone else too. He gave you permission so you should take him up on it, that makes sense given the circumstances. Apparently the only thing that was important to him was that he always be your priority the same way that you were his.

Maybe at the time you just wanted the rush of revenge and now it was different that Dabi took that away from you by giving you permission. Maybe he knew that once he gave you the green light that you weren’t going to bother anymore with seeking anyone else out.

You were certain that he was manipulating you but you didn’t have solid evidence so there wasn’t much you could do. What the hell were you supposed to say to him?

Hey Dabi you tricked me into not sleeping with other people?

Dabi did always give you a heads up at least when he was going out to sell and he always tried to make you happy when he comes back. He offers to order in your favorite food, bring your favorite bottle of alcohol with your favorite juice to chase, eat you out until you’re a quivering mess on his mouth, or nudges half of a tablet of ecstasy in your hand and says that he just wants to put on music and house roll with you.

It still doesn’t change that you get jealous no matter how many sweet things he does for you.

But you like him enough to deal with his shenanigans… just barely.

━━━━✧

“Why don’t you come with me?” Dabi asks you as soon as you’re back from work. You’re tossing your purse onto your sofa and drop your body onto the cushions, your head in his lap and seeking his warmth. His hand goes to your head to start massaging your scalp, his fingers working magic and making you groan in pleasure. “Come with me tomorrow doll.”

You roll your eyes and turn your head to look at whatever show Dabi was watching while he was waiting for you. “To watch you flourish your business? I don’t think so. I’ll stay behind like I usually do.” you scoff, pressing your cheek against his leg and sighing.

He’s never asked for you to come along before, he doesn’t need the distraction of babysitting you. You wonder what’s caused him to ask you to tag along.

“Come on doll, just come along. Odds are I won’t be coming back the night of the party and Keigo will be there tomorrow, he can keep you company.”

Ah you loved Keigo, he was the only one that Dabi really considered to be a friend to him. Maybe it was because he could keep up with your boyfriend in regards to their drug consumption but you could see that they had a bond beyond just getting high together, more than just pills or powders or tabs that keeps them together. Together they both seemed like laid back individuals but Dabi only seemed laid back due to how apathetic he was whereas Keigo was actually a chill person because that’s how he actually was, it wasn’t just the air about him that made him seem so.

You loved being with Keigo, he always spoiled you silly and made you laugh.

“I don’t know, what exactly will I get out of it?” you shrug your shoulders and huff out quietly.

Suddenly two little baggies come into your view, one filled with white powder and the other with a little pink tablet. “Is this supposed to be a bribe to get me to come along?” you ask, staring at the bags and not bothering to take them from your boyfriend’s fingertips. You won’t lie that it is a little bit tempting, just a little bit.

“Maybe so, you know that my merchandise for you is discounted doll. Nothing but the best for you, my shit is always clean.” Dabi shakes the little baggies as if the contents are going to be more enticing if he does so. There’s definitely a big truth to what he said, the quality to his inventory is nothing less than superb. It’s why his clientele always kept on coming back to him but the absolute best was either for his favorites or it was apart of his own personal stash.

You’re staring hard at the baggies and start debating in your mind. Dabi would still give it to you even if you insisted that you stay home but there was no fun in doing it alone. You had some friends that could help you kill the coke if you asked them over but god forbid they start feening, that’s when they became difficult to deal with. There was no point in you holding onto them either if you weren’t going to do anything with them right away.

Since Keigo was going to be at the party tomorrow and if Dabi was going to give the baggies no matter what…

“Alright, only since Keigo is going to be there. Nothing else.” you give in and pluck the two baggies from Dabi’s hand and sit up on the sofa. “Now how much do I owe you for your merchandise sir?”

Dabi smirks at you as he crawls over you until you’re lying flat on your back, like you’re his prey and he’s the predator. “Just your usual payment madame, if you please.”

[flor3nces]

live streams | matthew gray gubler x fem!reader

this is sorta long but like not really. i started this at 5 and ended at 7. BYE ASF IVE NEVER TAKEN THAT LONG ON A PIECE. ENJOY READING DARLINGS <333

“matthew! you wanna live stream with me?” i rarely live streamed as i didn’t really know what i was doing but i got the hang of it as i went on. matthew always stayed silent when i did live stream not wanting to give away that we were dating or that we were even hanging out. as far as the fans know we were just friends.

“are you sure? i was just about to go to the living room so i don’t bother you.” matthew wasn’t very ideal with the fans knowing that we were together as some of them can be really rude when they even hear a rumor of matthew possibly dating someone.

“yeah, come on. it’ll just be two friends hanging out and doing a little live stream.”

convincing him was difficult. he kept thinking about how people would figure it out and all that jazz but after a while it worked. i helped set up his area beside me, leaving space in between us so we could move our mouses without bumping our hands.

i notified people on my instagram and twitter that i was going to be doing a live stream with matthew. matthew doing the same. i laughed as he said that he wasn’t going to do so.

“hey guys!” matthew gave a small wave and smiled at his camera. “wait.. what are we playing?”

“oh! i forgot to tell you before we started. we’re playing minecraft!”

i let out a giggle at matthew’s face at the games name. “what is that?”

“a game. i already have it downloaded on your imac.”

“why? i don’t play that game and how did i not notice?”

“because i play it when i use it. you not noticing is so weird because it’s literally right there.” i reach out and point to the bottom of his screen. matthew lets out a small ‘oh’ and pushes me off.

“do you want me to join your realm or do you want to join mine?”

“you can call all the shots. i don’t even know how to play this stupid game.” matthew grumbled as he watched me. i send him a small smile and start a new realm. “don’t i have to like friend you or something?” i shake my head. “nope, i already have you friended.”

matthew nods at my words and looks at his screen. “do i click this?” i nod and he presses the button to join my realm.

i immediately ran over to the trees and started to get some wood. matthew looks at me as if i’ve grown two heads. “uh.. y/n how do i move?” before i can help him he starts pressing random buttons. “no, matthew!”

he ends up clicking a button that allows him to see his skin. “oh! oh, wow! hey, look i’m rumple!” i smile as i remember spending hours working on that skin for him. “i know. i made it for you.”

i lean over and teach him how to move, jump, run, crouch, hit, and mine. the last two things were basically the same thing but it was easier to teach him that way. teaching him how to craft, open his inventory, drop stuff. and scroll on his hot bar was the easiest thing he learned. as i’m doing this matthew says small comments. “matthew, shut up!”

“i didn’t do anything!”

***

“matthew! get out of my house! make your own house!”

this had been an on going battle with him. he wanted to live with me and i insisted that he live alone. “but y/nnnnnn we’d save more space for more builds if you just let me live with you!”

matthew had a way of always getting his way. no matter what is was that he seemed to want, he’d get. i guess it was part of his charm.

“fine-”

i get cut off by matthew cheering and jumping out of his chair to hug me. “but you’re sleeping in your own room not next to me.” his cheering dies down at my words. “what? why not?” he pouts but i refuse to give in. he’s already lving in my house for god sake.

“y/n pleaseeee. i won’t steal your stuff or anything.”

i shake my head and continue building my house making sure to add another room for matthew. he continued to beg as he helped build the house.

“okay! you can sleep next to me! now quit yappin’.”

a huge smile took over his face as his minecraft character made his way over to my room and placed his bed next to me. i couldn’t help but smile at him as he did a little happy dance.

***

“y/n i swear to god if you take that dog.”

“you’ll what? there are other dogs around gube! this is my dog, i found it first!”

“no! the others ran away you go find them. i refuse to run around to find them when one is right in front of my face.”

i smirk as i start to give the dog bones. matthew catches on and tries to give her bones but fails. hearts go above the dogs head after i gave her three bones. “ha!”

matthew hits me and my dog starts to attack him. “what the fuck? y/n help me!” a loud laugh rumbles through my body as i sit her down. “guess you better run and go find those other dogs before she kills you.”

he turns to me and pokes my side. i smack his hand away not taking my eyes of the screen as i was trying to get my dog back home safely. matthew turns back to his screen and starts his “quest” as he called it to find the other dogs that ran off.

***

we’ve been on the live stream for a good three hours and matthew was starting to get the hang of it and so far we haven’t had any slips ups on us dating.

in those three hours we had found diamonds, made a farm for both crops and animals, made a roller coaster, tried to make a small cafe but gave up and just made a fishing shack. we were now going to the nether.

“gube, are you sure about going to the nether? this is literally the first time you’ve ever played this game.”

“yeah but i’m basically a god at this game now.”

“oh please. you’ve died at least a hundred times.”

“nuh uh! you are such a liar! don’t lie to the people.” matthew winks at the camera and i roll my eyes. “you can be such a boy sometimes.”

i grab some food, my bucket filled with water and three extra buckets, and my bow along with some arrows.

“can i light it?”

“be my guest.”

matthew takes out his flint and steel and lights the portal. “woah, it’s so pretty.” he stares at the now purple portal in awe. i jump in and the nether starts to generate. “wait till you see the actual nether.”

he doesn’t say anything when we’re in the nether and i start to think he thinks it’s ugly. “um.. matthew? you good?” he doesn’t respond as he just keeps looking around. it wasn’t until i punched him in the shoulder that he snapped out of his trance.

“what?”

“you alright?”

“yeah, yeah. it’s just so beautiful. almost as beautiful as you.”

i snort at his cheesiness and start to walk around.

things were doing just fine until a ghast found us while we were making our way towards the nether fortress. both matthew and i screamed as the ghast made a noise. it shot at us. luckily, we had made a small platform before entering the nether fortress.

“how do i shoot it back?!”

“hit it back with your sword!”

it knocked down matthew. “oh my god! babe, i’m gonna die!”

i didn’t even notice that matthew had called me babe while we were live as i was trying not to die. “i died lol.”

a laugh came out of my mouth as matthew said lol. “oh! i killed it! my love, you better get your ass back here right now!”

i start to mine down and run over to where i saw a ghast tear fall. “look! i got a ghast tear!” matthew’s character came running up behind me. “you want it?”

“no, you killed it. plus, i don’t want a memory of that stupid thing. it killed me for no reason!”

“it’s a mob.. it doesn’t need to have a reason to attack you.” matthew lets out a whatever under his breath and starts to make his way back to the nether fortress.

***

“okay guys thanks for watching!”

“yeah, she really appreciates it when you guys tune in and watch her die half the time.”

“matthew! i didn’t die as much as you did and we only played for like three fucking hours!”

i read some of the comments that were popping up. some of them were ‘bye’s’ and the rest were just freaking out that we were dating. my eyes widen a bit at the comments until i realized that matthew had called me babe and i had said my love when the ghast was attacking us.

“gube... cats out of the bag.”

he looks at me for a second before looking at comments and scanning through them. “well, looks like i can kiss you on camera now.” my laugh gets swallowed by matthew as he presses his lips to mine.

“okay. bye guys! have a good night!”

“byeee!”

i click off the stream and turn to matthew. “i thought you didn’t want our relationship to get out?” a smirk comes across my face. “yeah, but there was no way on backing out on that one.”

“you’re not mad?”

“what? of course not! why would i be? i finally get to show you off, though i did want to keep you to myself a little longer but it’s cool.”

i smile at his words and kiss him again. “i’m going to make coffee. can we watch charlie and the chocolate factory?”

“hm. whatever you want princess.”

i press a small kiss to his nose before running off to get the pot started. 

[deiliamedlini]

WIP Wednesday

I wrote this last night and really don’t know where I’m going with it because I wrote another section of this that’s completely different from this first part, but I’m having too much fun so this might become a long oneshot or like a two/three chapter short fic eventually. I signed into my Guild Wars account for the first time in forever to watch the chat and apparently Lion’s Arch isn’t as interesting as it used to be. Not that any of that is really relevant. 

This is Zelda and the Champions as internet friends playing a MMORPG video game called Hyrule Warriors. 

~

Zelda Harkinian loved Fridays. Not that it was a rare thing to be obsessed with the weekend, but she maybe loved it a little too much. After a week of lesson plans, and cleaning the classrooms, and sneezing students, and emails asking for an extension on a paper that wasn’t even due yet, she relished the escape the weekend provided. Granted, she still had to grade about a hundred tests, but that was a problem for Sunday or even Monday.

Smiling down at her roommate, a kitten she’d raised when she found it in the street all alone, Zelda fed her girl—whom she’d named Duchess because she had every intent of treating her like royalty—and played with her for a bit before throwing down her bag in her room and then grabbed a water and a granola bar before heading to her desk. She flipped her laptop open and booting up Hyrule Warriors, her favorite open world MMORPG.

Her internet sucked, so she grabbed her phone to aimlessly scroll to see if there was any news or updates. But it was pretty dull.

Instead, she thought back to how this whole weekend ritual began.

She’d been in a cavern just off of Death Mountain for about three days killing fire keese, lizalfos, and beamos. As a mage, her AOE skills made short work of the larger groups, hitting them all at once. It was especially useful here because her main specialties were water and light, but she struggled when boss fights came out. The NPCs weren’t great teammates, and she constantly found herself resurrecting far from the boss, only to make a long run with a health penalty that ended with her getting killed again, until her heath penalty was maxed out and she had to restart for any hope of succeeding. As a mage, her light armor made her vulnerable to physical attacks, and this boss was very physical.

Zelda didn’t like interacting with people in this game. It was massively popular, and the chat was always running. Sometimes, she’d just sit at an outpost and watch people talk. Her favorite interactions were often the random ones. She’d begun to look up the acronyms everyone used in chat just to understand them better. WTS= want to sell.

Indigo2421: WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Indigo2421WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Indigo2421WTS: Guardian Short Sword 4k rupees

Britneigh4Horses: WTS My mother. 1 rupee. Will pay postage fee.

But after her days of suffering in the lonely caverns in Death Mountain, she relented.

A quick search had her hands shaking, but she typed quickly so she couldn’t back out after she’d hit enter.

xPrincessZx: LFG Dodongo’s Cavern

Holding her breath, she’d waited in the hopes of a private message being sent to her.

One did.

(PM): ThunderstruckQueen: What missin are doing there?

(PM): ThunderstruckQueen: Mission*

(PM): xPrincessZx: I have to kill the Dodongo boss for the main story

ThunderstruckQueen would like to join your party.

Biting her nails, she’d accepted.

(PM): RockRoast12345: Still need someone?

(PM): xPrincessZx: Yes! That would be great! Thanks!

RockRoast12345 would like to join your party.

That had been how it started: A goron warrior with a Warhammer and some serious defensive moves joined as the tank to take as much damage for the team as he could stand, and a Gerudo Paladin had joined her party. Zelda was jealous of the purchase-only red hairstyle the Gerudo had for her character. She had a sword and shield, but her body flickered with elemental lightening magic. In-game purchase effects.

They’d defeated Dodongo with ease, and had gone on several missions together that day, taking down their storylines with relative ease. But they couldn’t function with the NPC healer who barely functioned at all.

So, ThunderstruckQueen had taken to the map chat and put out a request.

ThunderstruckQueen: I found someone. She’s a Zora Cleric. Level 40

RockRoast12345: Let her in! I want to get this one over with

Rutella Zoran IV would like to join your party.

After that, the four of them realized they worked so well together that they’d formed a guild. The Champions. ThunderstruckQueen paid the guild fee, bought a hall, and began decorating it with merchants, and chests. Zelda still shuddered, wondering what she did to have so many rupees ready to go. Needless to say, she made herself the leader.

Some days, they didn’t play together. Other times, only two of them were on. But on weekends, they all came together.

But it had been a Monday when Zelda played, and she’d been alone. Having already tossed her tissue box across her room in frustration, she debated making a new character with more defense, but she sucked it up and went into the Castle Town map, ready to ask for help. She couldn’t wait until she could get to be a higher level. As it was, she’d only gotten to these level 40 areas as a 32 because of Rutella.

Suddenly, a random Hylian man in green with a fancy sword and shield ran up to her and bowed. Zelda scoffed at her computer screen, unsure if she was supposed to respond.

She didn’t need to.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Hey Princess

(PM): xPrincessZx: Hello?

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Jst wondering if u have a spare flower crown from yesterday’s festival. Missed it. Will pay

Zelda pulled up her inventory, forgetting she was still wearing her flower crown from the Flower Fest. It must have been what tipped him off. In fact, she had four spares.

(PM): zPrincessZx:  Yeah, I do. Come to the chest and I’ll trade.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: Thx

She’d never done a trade with anyone who wasn’t in her guild, so she’d felt nervous running to grab it.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: How much u want?

(PM): xPrincessZx: Actually, I’ll give it to you free if you’re willing to help me with a quest? Or 10k.

WildKnightOut2 would like to join your party.

She accepted and watched his character appear in the corner of her screen.

WildKnightOut2: That’s a rip off, btw. Crowns are with 15k at least. Don’t undersell

xPrincessZx: Thanks. I didn’t realize. I’m still kind of new.

WildKnightOut2: Howd u get out here then?

xPrincessZx: I had a run from a friend in my guild.

WildKnightOut2: Got room for a warrior in there?

Zelda introduced him to the other Champions when they’d signed back on, and after a few weeks, Zelda had leveled up enough that she didn’t need to constantly rely on a teammate. But still. She liked Wild the best after ThunderstruckQueen.

They’d brought in a Rito Ranger named TheBestYouveNeverMet, which immediately set Wild off.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: should I aggro a group over so he has to fight them for us?

(PM): xPrincessZx: No! Don’t do that! I’ll get sent over to deal with them!

(PM): xPrincessZx: HEY! I SEE YOU ON THE MAP!

(PM): xPrincessZx: WILD GET BACK TO THE GROUP

On the mini-map, she saw a hoard of red coming at them and rolled her eyes before joining TheBest to kill them with area attacks. Rutella stayed back to heal them, but Thunder and Rock both continued on, unfazed.

ThunderstruckQueen: Wild you’re an idiot

But that was then. This was now.

They’d been together for months as a guild, and now, the six of them knew how the others worked.

If Wild or TheBest took off on their own, no one would follow. They’d both been killed numerous times in an attempt to piss the other off. Zelda had learned to stay with Thunder and Rock. Rutella flitted between running back to revive the idiots, or sticking with the smarter members while letting them heal on their own.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: u wound me

Zelda chuckled, but he wasn’t done.

(PM): WildKnightOut2: After all ive done for u

(PM): WildKnightOut2: u leave me to die

(PM): xPrincessZx: Don’t run off next time

It was a Wednesday when she and Wild were playing alone, so they freely used party chat for ease. She’d surpassed his level, and towered as a 93 while he was an 87.

WildKnightOut2: Hang on. Fuzzball wants food

Zelda stared at his character on her screen, wondering if he looked anything like that avatar. Blonde hair, muscular, piercing blue eyes. She’d made her character look like herself, so it wasn’t hard to imagine others had. Plus, he was the only Hylian. She highly doubted that RockRoast12345 was actually a giant rock-man, or that Rutella Zoran IV was a short fish lady.

She knew everything about these people except their names, faces, and voices.

She knew that ThunderstruckQueen was a single mother who called her daughter Ri on chat. She was a chief of police, and had a few hundred of her force to look out for. Still, she wanted to quit soon to join the military reserve forces now that her daughter was getting older. Devoted and loyal, Thunder occasionally snapped when everyone would start fighting with each other, though it was usually directed at TheBest and Wild, the annoyance sometimes extended out to others.

She knew that RockRoast12345 was older than all of them and had a young grandson. He’d bonded with Thunder over their children at first, and then, without meaning to, they became the parents of the group. Recently, Rock had retired from working as a supervisor in a mine, and gaming had become his way of relieving some of that boredom. But he told the best stories when they were idling around, just stories about anything, and they were always captivating. Also, he was afraid of dogs.

She knew that Rutella Zoran IV was the daughter of a politician. She cared for her little brother like he was her own, and sometimes, he took control of her character, proudly revealing that his real name was Sidon. She was in school to be a doctor, and that made her family prouder than anything. She lived and breathed for her family.

TheBestYouveNeverMet was a pilot. His schedule was the most hectic out of everyone’s because of the flights, but he was sarcastic to the core, and sometimes, the sarcasm was simply rude and definitely didn’t translate well over chat. He was superior, and since he’d been playing the game longest, he thought it entitled him to make more decisions. But Zelda knew from her private conversations with him that deep down, he was sweet and caring. He’d always be the first to ask her how her day was, and he’d learned some of her students’ names to ask if they’d been nuisances.

But Zelda spent the most time talking to WildKnightOut2, so she knew the most about him. At first, they’d bonded over the fact that they both had cats. His was called Fuzzball, an orange, fat cat that needed to exercise more. He’d tried to leash him, but Fuzz wasn’t interested. Sometimes, Fuzz would crawl over the keys, send Wild running, and send chat a long stream of letters.

He was funny and made comments in her private chat while they were playing that had her roaring at times.

He was a rock-climbing instructor and in his free time, he was a free solo climber. When she’d looked it up, she’d been horrified to see that he basically climbed mountains without a harness or ropes, and a fall could kill him. She’d asked if he was good at it, or just did it for fun, and his answer had been an ambiguous “yes.”

She knew about his family. He didn’t live near them, but he kept in contact with his grandparents, his father, and his little sister.

WildKnightOut2: k back. Where we going princess?

xPrincessZx: I need to farm for new armor out in the Haunted Wasteland. Do you need to do anything?

WildKnightOut2: I need to help u farm in the haunted wasteland. What do you need?

xPrincessZx: 10 Rubies

WildKnightOut2: damn ok I have 2 u can have so u only need 8

xPrincessZx: Thanks. How’d that party go last night?

WildKnightOut2: Sucked

xPrincessZx: Cool details

WildKnightOut2: If ud been there, ud have hated it

xPrincessZx: Why?

WildKnightOut2: Bunch of self-absorbed idiots. Like TheBest is

xPrincessZx: Lol. He’s not that bad.

WildKnightOut2: if u say so

They headed into the Wasteland looking for red poes that had rare drops for rubies. She and Wild took out a few groups before they started to struggle. Neither could play and talk at the same time fast enough to warn the other that something was happening, and they both ended up at the shrine of resurrection more times than they cared to admit.

xPrincessZx: Hey Wild. This might sound weird, but do you have that gaming app where we could just maybe voice chat?

xPrincessZx: Unless you’re not comfortable with that. We can invite the others, and when we play together, and it would probably make life a thousand times easier

xPrincessZx: But it’s okay if you don’t want to

WildKnightOut2: yeah I have it

Oh, Zelda thought to herself. That was easy.

xPrincessZx: Do you want to add me? I have the same name

She watched her phone like it was food in the microwave, only occasionally glancing at her computer to see if Wild had sent her another message. She drummed her fingers and her leg started to bounce until her screen lit up.

WildKnight has sent you a friend request.

She hastily hit accept and grabbed her headphones from the drawer before typing into her phone.

xPrincessZx: Your name is missing a few things here.

WildKnight: Yeah HW already had someone with this name so I added on

xPrincessZx: The meaning completely changes

WildKnight: which do you like better?

Zelda froze, unable to make her fingers type. Was he flirting? Was that how people flirted online? She was really good at reading body language cues, and that was always how she knew someone was flirting. But this? There was no context! How was she supposed to know?

xPrincessZx: Which fits your personality more?

That was a safe way of getting out of answering while still sounding maybe like she was flirting. Right?

WildKnight: this one

Zelda’s face warmed up and she put her head in her hands, unsure how to respond. How does she respond to that? What if he wasn’t flirting? What if he was.

[herslipnslide]

my girlfriend has always had an odd habit of shoving anything and everything into her mouth and swallowing. she doesn't see anything wrong with it, she just gets an urge at random and will do it whether the object in question is hers or not. I'm pretty sure it's not unconscious, as it never seems to happen when someone who could get her in trouble is watching. I've seen phones, handbags, utensils, even the trailing sleeves of sweaters and coats dissappear behind her lips. she has a big appetite for food and non alike but it's never bothered me, even when I'm paying. Like I said, she's careful not to get in trouble and how happy she gets when having meals for three is worth every penny (not to mention, soloing an entire bottle of vodka then the bottle itself is a pretty neat party trick)

I woke up on a flat white plane. confused and with a head full of sleep-fuzz, I looked around. it was my bed. Except several dozen times larger than it was last night. shocked, I turned in place while processing what I was seeing. it's ridiculous, right? to just wake up, half a foot tall? I looked to my girlfriend, the nearest chance of help who happened to just be waking up. She yawned, stretched, and turned to face me before doing an obvious double take.

She gripped me gently in her hand and lifted me up to her face. I looked up at her, her now-massive eyes pointing down at me

"hey babe"

"hey"

"what's happening?"

"I'm not really sure"

she thought this over for a second, then closed her eyes and pursed her lips. I could only laugh as she gave me a kiss bigger than my face. that is, until, something crossed my mind

don't think it. don't think it. please don't think it.

my head slipped passed her lips, and my shoulders soon followed. she thought it. she sucked in more of my body, my head hitting the back of her throat and her lips around my hips. I'd appreciate the rhyme if the scenario weren't so bizarre. I had another thought

she's just messing with me. Yea, she's gonna pull me out any second now

my hopes were dashed again when I felt her finger placed against my ass. she pushed me in deeper until her knuckle was in her mouth, leaving me fully inside. she rolled over my body a few times with her tongue then began to swallow. as terrified as I was, the experience is really unlike any other. the softness of her throat and the tight grip of her muscles offset eachother, making it comfortable in the way a weighted blanket is. A very wet, heated weighted blanket.

it took a lot longer than I thought it would to reach her stomach. as I slid down her throat the area around me tightened gradually and I was pushed through into a wider space, where I trailed out of her esophagus like toothpaste from a tube. I landed on something soft but different from her, coarser and... fibrous?. A scarf? I took a moment to steady myself. Being scared wouldn't do anything for me right now. I felt around what space I had to get oriented, then took inventory. definitely a scarf, the elastic from... a pair of underwear, something hard and smooth, based on shape a glass bottle, a lot of sludge, and... holy shit my watch! I lost this days ago!

my excitement from finding it did not last long. I couldn't even see the face and it wasn't like it was going to be much use to me soon. I layed back with a squelch on the scarf. She still loves me right? this was just an impulse. She's eaten things she liked before and regretted it, it'll be the same for me. At least I'll be some nutrients for her. These thoughts weren't exactly helping.

"oh my god babe! ah. ah I'm so sorry." it was weird hearing her talk from inside her, but immediately I was at attention

"uhm. okay. I'll just... I'll-" she stammered further for a few seconds, before sighing. "I don't know. I don't know what I'll do." the world shook around me. "I'm sorry honey, I don't know if there's a way out of this." A bit of vertigo, then still. she must have sat down.

"can you hear me?" I called out to her. .... no reply. I settled into the comfortable, if gooey, scarf to wait out my demise. I know it sounds absurd to be so calm in a situation like this, but what am I supposed to do? when she started to whimper I tried to comfort her again, but was met by a lot of sudden movement and being thrown around in her stomach, which fell still again soon.

"oh shit I know!" she jumped up again, throwing me around some more. she moved around quickly and I heard the sound of her swallowing again. Bracing for something to cramp the space further, I was instead met by a piece of string that folded over me. "are you holding on?" she called out, and I scrambled to wrap my arms and legs around it, just in time for it to lift upwards. In a moment of quick thinking I hooked my leg around my watch to bring it with me. I struggled to keep hold against her throat which seemed insistent on keeping me down but before long, I was facing light and fresh air again, then herself as she dangled me in front of her on the string. I smiled weakly

"oh my god, I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me or what made me think that was o- hey, you've got a little gunk on you" she swung me back into her mouth, queueing me too start writing and kicking, not wanting to be swallowed again. but she just pinned me against the roof of her mouth with her tongue and started sucking until a thin layer of spit was all that wa left, then pulled me out again. "okay, that's better" her look of relief changed into one of worry "I'm so so so sorry, I never sh-"

"hey, shh, it's okay" I did my best to comfort her from my odd position. "it's okay. you didnt mean any harm, you got me out, it's all alright." she looked me over then pulled me in for a kiss, that didn't lead to impromptu swallowing

"okay. okay." i could tell she was very distraught, and wanted to help her.

"it's okay." I hugged her face as best I could. "let's make the best of the situation. If I could fit in your mouth, where else do you think I could fit?"

[votederpycausemufins]

This one’s short but it exists at the very least. Just had a busy few days and I’m exhausted but also wanted to write. So now we have this

scattered au by @hermitcraftheadcanons and pinging @helleborusangel as always because I can :3

“Alright! That’s going to complete contraption number one! Whack a Melon!” Zedaph said after writing the name on a sign. The sheep hybrid had set up a bit of a base in a clearing of the jungle he had spawned in. When he couldn’t contact anyone, his immediate thought was he could probably rig something up with redstone to send messages.

With that idea in mind, Zed dug down to get the redstone he needed. He also got some diamonds followed by obsidian so he could get into the nether for quartz. As he was finishing that up, he ran out of melons in his inventory, so he had to farm more. With that, he started thinking about a way to make a farm, and so when he finally got some quartz, instead of working on something for communication, he just made the melon contraption.

“Now… what was I doing again?” Zedaph asked himself, taking some of the melons that came out from the contraption courtesy of the parrot he had led in there. “Ah right! Communications! Oh but I’m all out of quartz! Guess I’ll have to go back to the nether.”

He started to go back to his nether portal, but then noticed his pickaxe’s durability was low. He could use his diamond one, but with everything going on, he had left it in a chest down where he was mining. So Zed trotted back down to his mining area and started looking through the chests. But no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find it.

Reluctantly, he just made himself another iron pickaxe, making his way back up the surface and into the nether. He would get more diamonds later. He’d have plenty of time once his contraption was done.

~~~~~

Tango stared at the two pickaxes he held, one in each hand. He knows he only crafted one. He’s absolutely sure of that. He had gathered enough diamonds to make it and some armor, but he hadn’t bothered to make a second pickaxe. So where did he get it?

Tango put both of them in a chest in his small base. The entire thing was made out of stone even though he was surrounded by trees. Or at least, he had been. He had noticed it a bit after the sun suddenly appeared in the sky when he was finishing up for the night before resting. In his shock and joy at something working right, he had suddenly set some nearby wood on fire.

Thinking back, Tango couldn’t think of it happening much before, though he had spawned near a lava lake in the jungle, so his flames and fire from the lava could have gotten mixed up. Still, it was definitely worse now, but he at least had a good way to cook food whenever a stray animal came by.

He was also trying to gather two sheep or cows for breeding as he was growing wheat for bread in replacement of meat. It wasn’t the best source of food, but it was like the whole jungle had been emptied of its melons. A few oak trees were here and there for him to get apples from, but that wasn’t guaranteed.

Tango had also tried going outside the jungle for better resources, but after getting hurt, he wasn’t healing and couldn’t get far with the jungle itself letting a good number of mobs spawn. So now his only chance was to hope a zombie dropped a carrot or potato, or somehow find at least one melon seed.

~~~~~

Zedaph came back through his portal, munching on more melons. They weren’t the best food, but at least he had plenty. Since he wasn’t sure what to do for food, he had just taken any melon he saw, filling his inventory with the fruit. Maybe he could go looking for something else, like chickens or sheep or something to get for food.

Pulling his tools away, Zed started exploring more of the surrounding jungle. For the most part, there were just leaves, wood and vines, but sometimes he could spot a parrot. “Hello? Any chickens out there? I’ve got some seeds and I’ve already got a parrot. Hmm, he doesn’t have a name yet though. Maybe he’s an Andy. Oh yeah! I’ve also got wheat for any cows or sheep. I’ve just-”

Zed reached into his pockets to switch the seeds out for wheat, only to find he had just a single piece left. It was pretty odd, because he knew he had at least six when he started looking. Or was it less than that? Anyway, it was at the very least more than two when he set off. Six or three, because he had thought about making bread, right?

As Zed thought more, he didn’t really notice the fact that he was eating the last piece of wheat he had, not until it was fully gone and his hand was left empty. “What? Why, I think I’ve got a wheat stealer around here! Something really likes wheat, but it’s probably some sort of animal, so maybe I just need to find it and lead it back to my base. Yeah, that should help!”

~~~~~

Tango’s back in his mines when he finds a cave he hasn’t explored yet. Normally, he would just be cautious and explore, or even block it up with everything that was going on. But instead, it was all lit up. For a moment, he’s trying to think if he had just forgotten about the place, but then he also thought about his mysterious second pickaxe. This isn’t just his mine, at least, not anymore. Someone else was close enough that they claimed this place as well.

Immediately Tango was rushing back up to his base. Signs usually weren’t flammable enough for him to worry about, so crafting those could be helpful, and he definitely had wood to spare. He crafted up a few signs and then memorized his base’s coordinates before going back down. He wrote down that he had been there and the exact coordinates of his base.

Tango had no clue when the other hermit would return to mining, or if they were even working in that area anymore. As a precaution, he put more signs up with the same messages, but he still couldn’t help but worry they wouldn’t see the signs. Though right now, that was really his only hope if he didn’t want to be stuck in the jungle for who knows how long.

.

.

Etho was worried he wasn’t respawning anymore when all he saw was darkness. He didn’t know what was up or down or left or right. For all he knew, there was nothing. And then a comm smacked into his face.

It wasn’t his comm, he could still feel it in his pocket. He turned it on long enough to see it belonged to Bdubs. But the owner was nowhere in sight. Etho started to look around for him, but all around was just inky darkness. And then it was pain.

He had reached the part of the void that you couldn’t live in, that tore you apart. No matter how strong you were, the void could kill you, and it was killing Etho.

If it weren’t for the lack of messages of Bdubs dying, Etho would think he were stuck here. But why was his comm here if he wasn’t? As his vision was going dark, Etho had the answer. The void could kill anything, but apparently it wasn’t killing Bdubs. Who knew how far down he was at this point.

On his last hearts, Etho threw the comm down as fast as he could, hoping just maybe that extra speed would help it get to its owner. It was probably already at terminal velocity, but maybe it would work.

And then Etho died again, the void stealing the last of his health: and when he next woke up, he was in a desert, all alone. It was still early in the day at that point, but already the light sand was reflecting the heat back at him. He couldn’t even see any dead bushes for sticks, just cactus. Also lots of sand, the biome large enough that there was only desert around him as far as he could see.

Pulling out his comm, Etho was still grateful for the coordinates they gave. He was pretty far from spawn, but the desert, while hot, was mostly smooth terrain. He could go straight towards spawn with little trouble and hopefully get out of the desert before long. So, with little else to do, he startled walking.

Eventually Etho finally saw some sort of life other than cactus. Well, previous life, as it was some dead bushes which he broke for sticks. Still, it was better than nothing. But that begged the question of why there weren’t any to begin with. That likely would only happen if someone broke them.

Then Etho realized something. He died and suddenly appeared at Ren’s side. Killed and he was in the void finding Bdub’s comm. torn apart by the void, and now he was in a desert someone obviously had been. He wasn’t showing up in completely random places, he was showing up near the other hermits.

Etho stopped walking and immediately started digging at the sand with his hands. He was upset that the sticks were going to be lost when someone else probably needed them, but right now dying was actually more important. He used the sand to build up high below his feet, getting into the air, and then he jumped down, the amount of damage killing him.

As he had been falling, he made mental notes. Ren at a ravine, Bdubs in the void, someone in the desert, and now-

Etho opened his eyes and was met with Impulse’s face. He tried to breath in from shock from nearly being nose to nose with him, but instead of air, his lungs were filled with water. Etho knew he was already running out of time, so he quickly grabbed Impulse’s shoulders and shook him.

Impulse seemed to wake up a little, opening his eyes. It made Etho panic for a second as his normally brown eyes were red, and the ninja was reminded of Ren, but he wasn’t attacked. Instead, Impulse touched him, as if to make sure he was real.

As Etho’s lungs burned more, Impulse died first to drowning, which normally he wouldn’t like, but that meant neither of them were cursed. He started punching at a block, putting all his strength into it. Impulse hesitated for a moment, then joined Etho in his task.

Etho kept punching at the block until he finally died, but he did what he needed to. The cracks were large enough and Impulse still had enough time that even after Etho had died, Impulse was able to finish breaking the block. It didn’t open up to an exit, but Impulse stared at the sliver of air at the top of the space. Etho wasn’t back, but that didn’t matter. As Impulse died again, he started at the next block. That missing block might still be filled with water, but it was also hope.

[stupendousbookworm]

"I speak fluent English, French, German and bullshit"

"Do you think cinnamon rolls have a separate life before we eat them?"

"Rowan, can books fly?"

"What if every star in the sky represents a soul that departed from the world? I wouldn't mind ending up there"

✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦

Name: Ara Annora Rose Black

Nicknames: Ara Bear, annoying bitch, black, cursed kid

Gender: Female

Age: 16

Sexuality: bisexual

Alignment: Chaotic neutral

Blood status: Pureblood

Date of Birth: 18th February 1973

Ethnicity: French/British

Nationality: British

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In front of the students of Hogwarts, she's the infamous curse breaker; a person not to be messed with. But in the eyes of her friends, she's the silliest and idiotic Ravenclaw known to kind. A girl with a dark past but huge ambitions, a sharp mind and a knack for attracting trouble, she's a chaotic person. But will she be able to find her brother and save Hogwarts?

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Personality:

Brilliant: although she can be a tad bit daft at times, she's rather smart, and can solve problems quite efficiently. If she understands the concept, nothing can stop her.

Stubborn: she's pretty adamant when she wants to achieve something. She doesn't stop until she reaches her goal. It comes as both a blessing and a curse

Sarcastic: she can hurt you when she wants to. Her sarcasm is rather brutal, and she always regrets saying anything rude. She really doesn't filter what she says before saying it.

Musically talented: she can sing, and play many instruments, including the guitar, piano, saxophone, flute and drums

Short tempered: she really can't control her anger. She gets pissed off rather easily and it gets on everyone's nerves. It's all a part of her defense mechanism

Kind: she's the person who acts like a bitch but actually cares for you, and looks out for you. Don't worry, she's got your best interests at heart

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What are her likes?

chocolate, cinnamon rolls, her Ravenclaw jumper, astronomy, her friends, coffee, old books, reading Shakespeare, singing, playing music, dueling, messing around with Tonks, Tulip and Jae, and sleeping

What are her dislikes?

being woken up, strawberries, Tonks eating her special banana ketchup sandwich, dungbombs, Mrs. Norris the dumb cat, when someone tears a page out of a book, and History of Magic

Where does she live?

Tonks Cottage, London, with Nymphadora, Andromeda and Ted

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Appearance:

Hair colour: Black

Eye colour: grey

Skin Tone: pale

Height: 6'0

Weight: 118 lbs

Build: thin and lanky with a slight slouch. She eats a lot of junk food but it doesn't show because of her "good metabolism"

Aesthetic: astronomical, academia and grunge (?)

Inventory: her wand, a half eaten bag of chocolate chips, a old family heirloom time turner (that's rather faulty), black finger-less gloves and Moonshine the baby kneazle

Face Claim: Steffy Argelich

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Magic

1st wand: Ash wood, 12 1/2 inches, phoenix feather core, great for transfiguration, nice and swishy

The ash wand cleaves to its one true master and ought not to be passed on or gifted from the original owner, because it will lose power and skill. This tendency is extreme if the core is of unicorn. Old superstitions regarding wands rarely bear close examination, but I find that the old rhyme regarding rowan, chestnut, ash and hazel wands (rowan gossips, chestnut drones, ash is stubborn, hazel moans) contains a small nugget of truth. Those witches and wizards best suited to ash wands are not, in my experience, lightly swayed from their beliefs or purposes. However, the brash or over-confident witch or wizard, who often insists on trying wands of this prestigious wood, will be disappointed by its effects. The ideal owner may be stubborn, and will certainly be courageous, but never crass or arrogant.

2nd wand: Ebony wood, 13 inches, dragon heartstring core, brilliant for dueling, very flexible

This jet-black wand wood has an impressive appearance and reputation, being highly suited to all manner of combative magic, and to Transfiguration. Ebony is happiest in the hand of those with the courage to be themselves. Frequently non-conformist, highly individual or comfortable with the status of outsider, ebony wand owners have been found both among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix and among the Death Eaters. In my experience the ebony wand’s perfect match is one who will hold fast to his or her beliefs, no matter what the external pressure, and will not be swayed lightly from their purpose.

Boggart: herself, but as a death eater

Riddikulus form: being surrounded by friends, who have her back

Patronus: Black Raven

As a patronus a black raven represents knowledge, they carry intelligence and quick wit, matching perfectly with Ravenclaw. You find extreme comfort in those with intelligence and knowledge of past events, and how to handle new things calmly and with poise. You tend to have some moments of a delicate, sensitive side that comes out of them in times of fear or sadness.  You tend not to always a leader, but a follower because they know that others may have more experience or wisdom than them, but if you know you are the most intelligent, knowledgeable or wise, you take the reigns and lead the way. In the same way the owner of this patronus will give up leadership, to a wiser leader, they will do the same in a multitude of different situations. Despite this, you are very brave and cunning, but in other areas, when you do take leadership, you are a strong-minded and focused leader, you never let you guard down, even if you are scared or confused. You carry an extreme amount of knowledge with you at all times, waiting to find a use in the correct situation. This patronus matched with Ravenclaw, means that you are able to think of creative and innovative ideas for the better of the team, even when you are not the leader.

Patronus memory: When Andromeda and Ted accepted her as their own daughter. She realised that she did have a family who loved her and cared for her.

Animagus: a small Black Raven

Amortentia (what they smell like): old books, chocolate, a tad bit of cinnamon, coffee and lavender

Amortentia (what they smell): a library, petrichor, grass, cinnamon, and a very strong woody cologne

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Magical Abilities:

Legilimency and Occlumency:

Legilimency is the act of magically navigating through the many layers of a person's mind and correctly interpreting one's findings. A person who practices this art is known as a Legilimens. Muggles might call this "mind-reading," but practitioners disdain the term as naïve. The opposite of Legilimency is Occlumency, which is used to shield one's mind from the invasion and influence of a Legilimens.

Occlumency is the act of magically closing one's mind against Legilimency. It is ancient, and has existed since medieval times.[1] It can prevent a Legilimens from accessing one's thoughts and feelings, or influencing them. A person who practices this art is known as an Occlumens.

Favourite spells: Bombarda, Legilimens, Expecto Patronum, Reducto

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School:

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Organizations joined: Hogwarts, Circle of Khanna, The Order of The Phoenix

Apprenticeships: worked as an intern at the Ministry of Magic for a while, and helped Madam Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing with Chiara

Professions: Auror for a while, took a break after a bad injury and ended up teaching at Hogwarts for a year, and then became an Alchemist.

Best Subjects: Transfiguration, Potions, Flying, Charms, Astronomy and DADA

Worst Subjects: Herbology, History of Magic, Divination.

Extra curricular activities: Keeper of the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team, sometimes tutors first years

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Relationships:

Fuck her blood family, she's a part of the Tonks family now

Edward "Ted" Tonks

He might not be her father, but he sure is her dad. Muggle born Ted taught Ammie how to mess around with muggle tools, and introduced her to muggle movies and other random trinkets. He thinks of Ammie as his own daughter, and was the one who taught her how to ride a bicycle

Andromeda "Meda" Tonks (née Black)

Andromeda took in her niece when she had nowhere to go, treated her like family, and protected her from all sorts of danger. Provided love, care and support to Ammie during her traumatizing times. She was considered as a blood traitor, but that didn't stop her from saving her little niece

Nymphadora "Dora" Tonks

Ammie's sister, and best friend. Stood by her side for everything and supported her all the way. Provided comic relief and loves Ammie to death. With a stupid sense of humor, and a knack for creating mischief, she's Ammie's most beloved person

Jacob Black

The one who started it all. The idiot who got himself stuck in a portrait. All of this garbage began with him, and Ammie never lets him forget it. Very protective of his little sister and hates everyone for some reason

Misc family members: Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Walburga Black, Orion Black.

Friends: Rowan Khanna, Ben Copper, Bill Weasley, Penny Haywood, Nymphadora Tonks, Talbott Winger, Badeea Ali, Tulip Karasu, Jae Kim, Chiara Lobosca, Charlie Weasley, Barnaby Lee, and Liz Tuttle

Closest Canon Friends: Rowan Khanna, Nymphadora Tonks, Talbott Winger, Tulip Karasu, Jae Kim and Badeea Ali

Closest MC friends:

Alvina Arcane-Zheng ( @oneirataxia-girl)

Celeste Wheterstead ( @bananascrackersnuts)

Tessa Reed ( @hphm4ever)

Adel Young (@adellovesrowan)

Matthew Luther (@hphmmatthewluther)

Cato Reese (@catohphm)

Niky Dona, Sabina Ivylash and Persephone Palerosine (@nikyiscreepy)

Night Nur Rhea (@night-rhea)

(I don’t have much friends... Just lmk if your MC wants to be friends with mine)

Love Interest: Talbott Winger

Dorm Mates: Rowan Khanna, Tulip Karasu, Badeea Ali and Skye Parkin

Rival/ bestie: Merula Snyde

Enemies: Patricia Rakepick, R, The Wizard in White Robes

Pets: a female black kitten kneazle named Moonshine

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Trivia:

- Has a stuffed bear named Sir Boo Boo

- Really likes Indie Rock/Pop

- Ended up being in a band with Jae and Tonks by accident

- Pretty much hates the world in the morning

- Gets good marks in Divination by making up really tragic stories

- Can’t stand tea

- Fluent in French

- McGonagall claims to hate her, but she really thinks Ara’s rather daring

- Sings in the shower

- Annoys the heck out of Andre with her questionable fashion choices

- Stupid sense of humor

- Laughs like a witch

- Quotes Shakespeare when drunk

- Can skateboard like a pro

- Weird handwriting

- Messy yet organized

[thevioletjones]

31, because I can’t see it fitting Ian/Mickey easily and know you’re a good enough writer to prove me wrong ☺️

Thanks! I tried. 🙂

Prompt 6: “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.”

Ian’s Box of Crap

Being currently unemployed, Mickey didn’t have much of a leg to stand on when attempting to deflect Ian’s demands that he get chores and household tasks done while his husband was out earning an honest paycheck. He wasn’t even allowed to shake people down anymore, let alone pull robberies, or get back into the drug trade. Ian had made it clear that divorce wasn't off the table if Mickey deliberately did something stupid that got him thrown back in prison for a long stretch.

He didn’t much like being told what to do, but what he liked even less was not having Ian in his life. He’d had to go too many years without him in the past, and nothing good ever came during those times. Unfortunately, Ian Gallagher was it for Mickey Milkovich. That meant that he actually had to stay in line and put in the work if he didn’t want to lose him again. Ian wasn’t as soft as he used to be. Never really had been at his core, but the maturity of age had cemented his backbone rather rigidly, and Mickey was actually loathe to piss him off too badly these days.

So he did the bullshit grunt work requested of him, just to keep the peace. He was tired of fighting every day of his life, and what was the point of marrying Ian if they weren’t going to try and make each other happy?

In the past couple weeks, Mickey had done everything from laundry and dishes, to vacuuming and mopping. He’d patched up a couple of big holes in the wall that Frank had made, and fixed the loose parts of the wooden outdoor steps and banisters, both front and back. He’d even gone so far as to babysit the tiny, helpless Gallagher spawn a few times, which had been interesting and somewhat terrifying. Then Ian had given him this look when he caught the scene one afternoon, eyes shining, smile beaming. It reminded him of that brief time they’d helped take care of Yevgeny, which made Mickey’s head spin. He didn’t need Gallagher getting the whole ‘having kids’ thing back in his head right now. Mickey was in no way ready for all that. Hadn’t been the first time, and they’d all seen how that turned out.

Today, he was supposed to clean out the attic. He told Ian that asking someone outside the family to do it sounded like a bad idea. How was he supposed to know what shit the Gallaghers wanted to keep, and what they wanted to get rid of? What if he made a mistake? If anyone had asked him what to keep from the hoarded piles of shit in the Milkovich house, he would’ve laughed in their face, then set everything on fire. Mickey wasn’t the sentimental type. So did Ian want him to just toss everything?

Ian had rolled his eyes, clarified that Mickey was a Gallagher now, and given him a run-down. Anything that had obviously been made or cherished by a Gallagher kid, any family photos and albums, or small boxes of keepsakes, those stayed. Anything that wasn’t being used by anyone, but could be of use and handed down to the youngest or recently shacked up of them, set them aside to be put in rotation. Anything that worked, but they already had one of or didn’t need, donation box (because apparently they actually sometimes donated shit to the local shelter). And anything that looked completely unnecessary for anyone, throw it in a Best Choice trash bag, but don't take them to the curb yet. Ian would go over everything when he got home to make sure it was sorted correctly.

“So you’re gettin' me to do all this boring-ass grunt work, then you’re gonna have to go through it anyway? What the fuck, man?” he’d asked.

“It'll make the whole thing way easier on me, so can you just shut the fuck up and do me the favor? I’ll blow you later for your trouble.”

“Like you wouldn’t be doin’ that anyway.”

Ian had shrugged. “If you don’t, I won’t.”

“Threatening to withhold sex? That’s a bitch move if I ever heard one.”

“Whatever, deadbeat. You want me to support you, gotta help out when I ask. A blowjob would just be a bonus, because I’m generous of spirit.”

“I’m not gonna forget this hardcore manipulation, Firecrotch. I’ll get my revenge eventually.”

Ian merely kissed him on the nose. “Sounds like a plan. See ya.”

And he was out the door.

“Asshole,” Mickey’d muttered under his breath.

And now, a few hours later, here he was; sitting on the dusty, hard planks of the weird-smelling Gallagher attic, sorting through the memories and forgotten things of the family he’d married into less than six months ago. He’d dawdled as long as he could on the couch, eating junk food and watching his favorite daytime game shows, judge shows, and salacious ‘who’s the baby daddy?’ shows. The only hint of fun left in the remainder of his day was in the bong and the beer he’d brought with him up the rickety ladder. After every box sorted, he’d take a rip or two and chase the smoke with a long swig of cheap alcohol.

The most interesting things he’d found so far were some old pictures of Ian when he was little, his hair a curly mess, and his pale skin covered in dark freckles. His smile was too big for his face, and he looked goofy as all hell. Nothing like the hot hunk of man he was today. It was the Ian Mickey remembered from Little League a million years ago. And maybe he’d set one of the photos aside to keep for himself and taken some pics of others with his phone, so what?

Mostly he’d had to sift through little Debbie’s ridiculous girly shit, and Frank’s completely random assortment of insignificant trinkets with a side of what looked like bondage gear. He’d since moved on to a group of boxes obviously labeled by Carl when he was younger. He recognized the scrawl, occasional backwards lettering, and lack of possessive apostrophes. The words were short enough not to be atrociously misspelled, and consisted of a Gallagher first name in plural, followed by: ‘box of crap.’

Everybody had one, including Fiona, who hadn’t taken it with her when she’d left Chicago, and the kids she’d raised as her own, behind. The most scandalous item in there was a dildo of decent size that Mickey definitely would’ve packed in his suitcase if he’d been the one moving away as a single chick. The thought crossed his mind to pilfer it for his own collection, but he figured that Ian would be weirded out by the association. Sex toys were probably the only thing Gallaghers never shared between them.

Carl had a box of his own, semi-well-hidden compared to the others, and Mickey discovered why when he’d managed to get the copious amount of packing tape off. It was full of straight porn mags with big-tittied women and shaved pussies, underneath an array of dangerous weapons the family had forbidden him to have when he was underaged. He found everything from nunchucks, to throwing stars, to switchblades, to brass knuckles. No guns or attempted homemade bombs, thank fuck. He chucked the porn in the trash pile, cuz nobody needed to see that shit, and set the switchblade aside for himself, deciding to give the rest to Ian to sort out.

He saved Ian’s box for last, opening it up to find a grab bag of old army decorations, tattered paperbacks, comics, a bunch of loose paper covered in scribbles, and a stack of notebooks.

Mickey didn’t realize Ian was such a huge nerd that he’d kept his high school notebooks, but giving a quick flip through the first two revealed they weren’t school-related at all. He remembered Ian going through a phase when he was always writing shit down, ranting about having great ideas he needed to save for posterity. Before he went to the hospital. A manic phase. Probably one of many he’d cycled through, yet Mickey had missed some of those extremes.

Everything had been so chaotic then. He’d pushed Ian away, then gotten the same treatment in return. Their typical messiness pervaded everything back then. And now, he had in his hands Ian’s unfiltered thoughts about what happened back then.

“Fuck,” he said to himself, setting the notebooks down and going for the beer/weed combo again.

There were exactly two ways to go about this: he could put the notebooks back into the Ian box and not invade his privacy, or he could skim through them and hone in on the interesting relevant bits and maybe get a few long-pondered answers. On the one hand, Ian would probably get pissed if Mickey read them. On the other hand, Ian never had to know about it, did he?

It really wasn’t much of a choice… he’d always been curious as to what the hell was going through Ian’s head back in the day. They’d never exactly been great at talking things out, and he didn’t have it in him to try and make Ian relive some of the lowest moments of his life just to give Mickey some peace of mind. Plus, they were always facing some new bullshit obstacle head-on, so the past always just kind of got lost in the shuffle of their present difficulties.

Mickey took a deep breath and opened one of the notebooks again. The pages weren’t dated, and a lot of it didn’t make much sense. There were many lists with lines crossed out, but they didn’t describe things ‘to do,’ more like an endless inventory of concepts and feelings. The thought patterns were totally abstract, and Mickey couldn’t really make heads or tails of them. It hit him sharply in the chest when he realized that when Ian had been out of it, he’d really and truly been fucking out of it. These seemed like the crazed rantings of an unmedicated schizophrenic babbling on public transportation. It pained Mickey to the core, and it scared the shit out of him too.

He flipped through it fairly quickly, then opened the next one. It seemed to be calmer, more legible, and less unintelligible. It was more like a diary with bad poetry sprinkled in, and it only took a few pages for Mickey’s own name to jump out at him among the wall of words. It must have been written during Ian’s lost months, after going AWOL from the Army when he was 17.

He described running away from Chicago, scamming his early enlistment, crashing and burning his way out of bootcamp, shaking and selling his ass as a club boy, snorting, smoking, and swallowing all manner of substances, and crashing anywhere from penthouses to flophouses with sexual favors sprinkled in liberally. It was like the chronicle of a person going mad and coping in all the wrong ways. It surprised Mickey how emotional it made him to read these things in vivid detail. He’d completely forgotten how worried he used to be about Ian. When he was gone, when he went missing again, and when he started doing irrational things that could’ve ended so much worse than they did.

Ian was the one that had to live out all the drama and trauma of his disorder, but Mickey was the one caught on the sidelines, not having a single clue what to do or how to fix it. He’d never felt so useless or helpless in his entire life, even through all the bullshit he’d suffered growing up with Terry as a father. Maybe it was because of his age, or how Ian made him feel a certain way he’d never felt before. He just remembered hating it, and being so fucking sad.

These pages reminded him that through the mania, Ian was a bottomless well of sadness himself.

It was tough text to get through, and more than once, he felt like maybe he shouldn’t be reading it at all. Ian had never intended for other people to see his innermost thoughts, even Mickey. But it was impossible to stop now that he’d opened that floodgate. It was like reliving a part of their shared history through the eyes of his partner in crime. It was too fascinating.

After countless pages of dark tales from the void, Mickey came upon a page that was actually addressed to him. Surely, Ian had never intended to hand it over, but it was his nonetheless.

Mickey— I never had the balls to tell you this, But you’re the only boy I’ve ever loved. I thought you loved me too, But now I’m not so sure. I’m so confused and I go back and forth, Never really knowing what to actually think, Or what the truth is. All I really realize now is that I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you. It took you forever to let me, And now I just do it with anyone, Cuz I don’t fucking care. I just miss you, And I wish you were here. But also, I don’t, Cuz I don’t want you to see me like this. I’m having a great time on my own adventure, But also not. You shouldn’t be a part of it right now. You’re on your own strange journey, I guess. Maybe one day we’ll be on the same road together again, And also for the first time, since we never really were.

Mickey barely had enough time to sniff and wipe away the stray tear that had fallen, when his husband’s voice startled him out of his reverie.

“You’re still up here?”

“Jesus Christ!” he cried out with a visible jolt of his body.

His head snapped toward the attic hatch, where Ian’s dumb red head was surveying the musty space. Mickey let the notebook fall from his grasp, but Ian was already climbing the rest of the way in before it occurred to him that he was about to be caught red-handed with journals that were supposed to be deeply private. He could only flip it closed and grab his beer to polish it off, before Ian was crouching in front of him and taking a seat.

“Can’t believe you actually did this for me, to be honest,” Ian said with a chuckle, glancing at the bong. “Anything left?”

“Baggie’s right there,” Mickey replied nodding his head to the left.

“Nice.”

Ian got distracted with loading a bowl, so Mickey very subtly tried to nudge Ian's notebooks aside with his foot, like maybe if they were slightly farther away, he could claim complete innocence as to knowing what they were.

He watched Ian take a couple hits before passing it to him, and Mickey welcomed the opportunity to temper his suddenly sullen mood.

“How was work?” he asked between hits, before passing back to Ian.

Ian snickered and furrowed his brow. “You never ask me about work.”

Mickey shrugged. “Don’t mean I don’t care.”

“Uh huh.” Ian looked even more skeptical, and finally glanced around at what Mickey had in his vicinity. That sent his brow up high, in a decent imitation of Mickey’s usual expressiveness. “Oh. That my box?”

Mickey gulped and nodded. “Yeah. Just sorting it out. Should’ve just left the whole thing for ya. Sorry.”

Ian’s gaze snapped to his face. “You read stuff.”

It was a statement rather than a question.

“Just a little,” Mickey admitted. “I shouldn’t have. Fuck, I’m an asshole.”

But Ian only shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay.”

“You don’t have to say that. I’d be pissed.”

“I’m not. I promise.”

“Really? You’re not mad?”

Ian shook his head again. “No. Actually, I’m kinda relieved.”

“How the fuck so?”

“It's all stuff I wanted you to know. I mean, part of me used to be really ashamed, maybe still is, but… another part of me always just wanted to be totally honest with you. In a way I haven’t ever been with anyone. Even Lip. But I didn’t have the words to say it, you know? And I know a lot of it is just scary rambling. I don’t even understand what some of it means, but the stuff that’s real… the lucid stuff… it’s depressing as fuck, but it’s the truth. We didn’t always tell each other the truth, but we showed each other. And this was something I couldn’t really show you. So maybe you were meant to find these. Do my dirty work for me.”

“Damn, Gallagher, that’s kinda heavy. These were… kinda heavy. Made me feel shit I’d forgotten about, you know?”

Ian nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t read ‘em in years, but I remember. It’s why I wanted to put ‘em away, I guess. Plus, I didn’t want someone else snooping around and finding out too much. I mean, you never know in this house. It’s possible every fucking Gallagher already read them, but I hope not.”

“Ian…” Mickey started, but didn’t know exactly what he wanted to say. Words of reassurance? It was all in the past, and Ian was doing so well now. He was diligent about his medication, and he hadn’t spun out of control since before prison. Anything Mickey said now would just be cold comfort, since that notebook version of Ian barely existed anymore. Ian was always afraid that it would recur, but Mickey wasn’t. They were truly in it together now, and he’d never let Ian cross the threshold into the uncontrollable. “I wish I coulda been what you needed me to be back then. However impossible it was. Some of it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even my fault, really. It was some shitty shit that happened to me. I reacted the only way I thought I could. There’s no use in either of us wishing we’d done things differently now. At least we got the right outcome, right? We’re together.” He clasped their left hands so that their wedding rings touched. “Forever.”

Mickey couldn’t help but snort. “Okay, you didn’t have to get that gay about it. I already had to suffer through a buncha your faggy teen poetry. I deserve a break from the high drama of it all.”

Ian laughed, kissed his hand, dropped it, then smacked him on the cheek. “Fuck you.”

“Just say when,” Mickey responded with a smile.

“After we go through all this shit, Romeo. Explain the piles.”

“Well,” said Mickey, pointing to the nearby corner, “Carl has a shitload of contraband in there. Weapons, not drugs. Frank has some shit that might be S&M gear, not sure, then aside from your lunatic journal ramblings, everything else is boring as shit. Oh, and Fiona left a big blue dildo.”

[danifics18]

↪  Tutor Sessions  (M)  ↩

Tags : Mature//Dirty Talk//switch! Reader//switch! Hongjoong//Slight throat grabbing//Slight Hair Pulling//Dorm Fucking//PWP//

Word Count : 3042

    General Masterlist    Ateez Masterlist

 A/N : This is my first requested, so I do hope it’s meeting expectations. I only speak one language, so I hope i’m not playing too much into bi-lingual stereotypes. Things said in English will only be bold, and things in Korean will be bold and in italics. Ngl this has a bit of a porn type of cheesiness to it. I don’t know why, but I got major switch! vibes when I was planning this out, so if anything seems a bit odd, please keep in mind that I am a bratty sub trying to write something that is way out of my league 💕

  “Mom, I know, I know. I’m really having a nice time here, and I feel like I enjoy it a lot more than I would’ve if I’d stayed back closer to home,” You say into your phone before briefly pausing to take a sip of your quickly cooling coffee “Mom, I’d really like to keep talking, but I do need to make it to my class. I’ll call you before I eat dinner, yeah?”. After a few more I love you’s, and a promise to go home for Christmas, you finally say your final good-byes before hanging up the phone.

   Your family never quite understood your need to move away for college, them preferring if you stayed closer to your small hometown. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to be around your family, you just took the first chance you could, to explore the world a bit before you felt like you really had to settle down. And while that was easier said than done, you had made the plan to move away for college since your first teenage job at a Korean Market, in the town next to yours. You’d been quite close with the owners, since you and their daughter had grown up together as best friends- you would be staying at each other’s houses multiple times a month since you guys were eight years old. As you’d gotten older, and had stayed around your best friend’s family, you ended up learning quite a bit of the Korean language yourself. It wasn’t until you got into high school that your friend’s grandma moved in from South Korea, and had decided that she would help out at the store by counting inventory in the back ( although that really meant getting invested in a Korean show, until someone walked back to check on her ). She didn’t know any English, and you only knew basic Korean, and feeling rude for not being able to effectively communicate with her, you enlisted the help of your best friend to help you learn. It took a lot of work, but you got a hold of the language eventually. And from that point on you were able to really connect with your best friend’s grandmother ( not to say you didn’t have a few language slip ups, because you definitely did ), but soon enough, one of your favorite past times became watching Korean daytime shows, and listening to your friend’s grandmother talk about her past time in her native country and all the places you should visit if you go. In your third year of high school, she unfortunately past on, but your past conversations sparked a need to travel in you, although you didn’t know how to make it happen. It wasn’t until your best friend brought up that she felt the same way, that you two made final plans to attend college in Seoul.

   Years later, and you two were in your second years of college, living in a dorm together ( even though you guys were excited to have a roommate, you were even more glad that you didn’t have to share any space with another person ). It was difficult learning how to live in a new country, but it kept you on your toes in a way that you learned to enjoy.

   Tossing your head back to down the rest of your now cold coffee, you walk to your last class of the day. Your counselor had convinced you that even though you were a foreigner who knew English, you should still take the English Language class for some easy credits- and it really wasn’t a hard class. You obviously knew everything, although, you did forget some words occasionally, due to speaking only Korean most of the time.

   Sitting down at your seat and pulling out your laptop for notes, you look to the side as your seat neighbor sits down, pulling his earbuds out from his ears. As he glances over at you, you smile and give him a small

‘Hello’

, smiling even wider when he does the same. Kim Hongjoong was a boy you didn’t really know personally, mainly because of how quiet he was, but you heard about him from the way people usually talk about him. At any of the good parties, you would hear both the cheers and complains if he would show up. The cheers due to the fact that people felt like they had a chance to get with the handsome and charming Kim Hongjoong, and the complains due to how he and his friends would be the only ones getting most of the female ( and some male ) attention- supposedly taking it away from any other men at the party. You didn’t really understand it, yes, he’s handsome, and you have no doubt in your mind that he could probably be charming, but he never asked for attention at parties. Most of his time would be spent helping his drunk friends not cause too much chaos, or just generally looking like he’s having a good time with his friends- you’ve never seen him talk to anyone else, unless it was to help a random drunk person from stumbling over as they walk by him.

  Shaking out of your thoughts, you focused on your professor and the topic of this week- human anatomy. You knew you really didn’t need to take notes, but you decided to anyway when the professor started showing slides that were titled with the scientific words of body parts- although they mentioned that you wouldn’t lose points on the test if you couldn’t remember the scientific words rather than the non-scientific.

  As class ended and you were packing up your bag you heard a soft “Excuse me,” from the seat next to yours. Turning your head to look at the blue haired boy, you raise your eyebrows with a small “Yes?” “I don’t mean to bother you, but you’re the only person in this class that already knows English, and I really didn’t understand these notes at all. If you have the time, do you think you could help me review?” he asks with a small hesitation before continuing his ramble “If you don’t have the time that’s fine too, I could probably find someone who could help, I thought it would just be easier since we sit next to each other,” He finishes with a slight hue of pink on the tips of his ears.

  Giving a small smile at his shy state, you tell him of course you’d have time to help him. Other classmates have asked you for help before as well, so it really wasn’t anything new to you. After exchanging numbers, you both decided to meet up the next day at your dorm, since your friend had work and school until later on that night- and his apartment would be way too noisy since he shares it with three other boys.

  The next day, you’d woken up at a decent time, and immediately cleaned around the house and got ready for your guest to come over for the day. By noon, you had a knock on your door, and you walked over to let in Hongjoong with his laptop, bag and two cups.

  “I hope you like fruit smoothies, because I feel bad that you’re helping me without any payment I would've got you a coffee, but I didn’t know what you liked, and I figured that most people like fruit,” he said while handing you the smoothie and kicking off his shoes. “Thank you! I really like fruit smoothies, I haven’t had one in a while, especially since I usually drink coffee to keep me up,” you retort,” Here, we could study in the living room if you want, but since we don’t have any extra plugs here, we’ll have to move to my room if we need to charge anything.”

  The first hour of studying went well, you both had taken pretty good notes, and your previous knowledge helped out quite a bit as well- so you two decided to order some food, and by the time it would make it to your apartment, you’d both be ready for a break from studying. The extra thirty minutes of the food arriving made you both restless, both shuffling and readjusting yourselves on the couch- occasionally brushing arms and thighs together- both getting up to get the food at the door. Chuckling at how eager you both were for not only the food, but for a break as well, you told him to wait at the table while you got the food.

  Settling everything out, you guys began eating and talking. You learned that Hongjoong is a music major, and he works at a local radio station, which explains why he comes into class with dark circles under his eyes at times.

  “You know, I’m actually really glad that you asked me for help. I haven’t had the chance to talk to you yet, and you always seem really friendly,” You tell him while taking a bite of your food. He looks up from his plate, with evident surprise in his eyes “Really? Well I’m really glad I talked to you then. You’ve always seemed a little bit intimidating because of how unbothered you act, but I like that...,” He trails off, eyes following the your fork leaving your lips, a stain of red sauce next to your lip,” Oh, you have a bit of..,” He gestures to the side of your lip, eventually just licking his thumb and gently wiping the sauce off your face and resting it on your bottom lip for you to lick off.

  With wide eyes, you wrap your lips around his thumb, licking it clean, with a heat rushing through your cheeks and core. Hongjoong cuts the groan erupting from his throat off with a cough and pulls his thumb out- letting the groan out when he sees the string of saliva from his digit to your mouth. As you both gravitate towards each other slightly, you rest your hand on his upper thigh and ask “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”, “I mean we do need to study, but I think I figured out a way we can study, and I can repay you for your kindness,” he replies with a devious glint in his eye.

  And with that, you put your hand on his jaw and guide him to your face to meet in a searing kiss that leaves your head reeling. Pulling back to leave a few pecks on his bottom lip, you catch his lips into a proper kiss, catching his lip with your teeth. The whine he lets out goes straight down, causing you to clench on air.

  After a few moments, he finally pulls back from you, chest heaving, and strokes your head. Humming in thought, you get up and pull his hand to follow after you to your room. You lead him to sit on your bed, while you stand in the middle of your room, with a hip cocked out to the side, as you eye each other with a hunger in your eyes. Running his tongue over his lips, he decides to speak, “Are you going to do something, or are we just going to stare at each other all day?”, “Depends. Are you going to be good for me?”, Seeing him vigorously nod his head, you continue “Good. This is how it’s going to work. I’ll ask you questions about the names of body parts, if you get them right, I’ll undress. Get them wrong, and I stay dressed. If you’re really good, I might even let you touch. Got it?” , “Yes ma’am,” He replies, now sitting forward on the edge of the bed, leaning his hands on his knees.

  Moments and a few items of clothing later, you were down to your lacy bralette and underwear, nipple piercings glinting through the see-through fabric, in the dim lighting of your room. Hongjoong was leaning back against the head board of the bed- clad in boxers only, after him whining about it being unfair that you were undressed but not him- with a hand poorly covering his covered hard on; while you sat on the foot of your bed, resting on your knees, legs spread enough that your arousal could be seen starting to run down your thighs.

  “Okay baby, here’s the last pieces. Since you’ve been so good for me, I’ll let you touch me once they’re off,” Once the words come out your mouth, Hongjoong jumps up, resting in front of you on his knees as well. Reaching your hands down, you cup your breasts, slightly teasing your nipples through the fabric. “M-mammary glands?” He hesitantly questions, before speaking with more confidence, “Most people call them breasts, or tits,” he finishes, face lighting up at you slowly taking the bralette off.

  Quickly pushing your hands away, he reaches around your back to pull your chest closer to his. Thumbing your nipples, he gently pulls on the metal barbell, relishing in the moan that leaves your lips. Clearing his throat, he begins “These are nipples. Fuck, I didn’t expect you to have piercings, you’re so fucking hot,” he finishes before leaning down to wrap his lips around your nipple, other hand gently pulling on the other. Letting out a whine as his teeth graze your nipple, you run your hand through his hair, feeling your resolve slip the more attention he gives you.

  Opening his eyes to peer up at you, he detaches from you before pushing you onto your back, and straddles your thigh, his leg against your hot core. Grabbing his face, you bring him into a kiss, sucking on his tongue while your hips move to grind on his leg. Swallowing your moans, he pulls back, hand resting on your neck to keep you from following him, “Sweet girl, you aren’t done helping me, are you?,” Watching as you dumbly shake your head with blown out eyes, he chuckles “I’ve barely touched you and your this fucked out? Poor thing. Maybe if you’re good I’ll let you come on my cock,” You let out a groan, not expecting him to sound this good while saying dirty things to you.

  Rutting against his legs, you beg for him to touch you, and you quiet down once he places his hand over your core. “Right here? You want me to touch your little pussy?” He mockingly asks, smiling at the gasp that leaves your lips. He tears the flimsy material off your body, and spreads your thighs, sitting back to get a better view of you. “What do you want me to do, little one?”, “Please just fuck me, I need your cock,” You plead, hips raising up to search for friction.

  He looks at you for a brief second, as if he were debating saying something, but chooses not to as he takes his remaining clothing off, his member slapping up against his lower stomach. Saliva fills your mouth as you realize how much you want to taste his leaking shaft, but you push that thought to the side as you whine for him to hurry.

  “You don’t want me to prep you baby? You seem so small, and I don’t want to hurt you,” He starts before you cut him off “Please just fuck me, I know I’m wet enough for you. Just really need your cock to split me open,”. With your final plead, he grabs his length, pushing into you with a groan. You moan out from feeling the delicious burn of his cock stretching you open. As he bottoms out, you feel his cock twitch in you, clenching around him, and you reach forward to pull him down to kiss you.

  Feeling you relax, he starts to pull out slowly, just to thrust back in with enough power to make you breathless. Leaning back up onto his heels, he increases his pace, one hand snaking down to rub your clit, the other being pulled by you to wrap around your throat. With the change of his angle, his cock hitting your sweet spot, you let out a loud whine, which makes him in turn thrusts faster into you while grasping the sides of your neck enough for you to see stars.

  “Fuck baby I’m so close, be a good girl and come for me. Let go for me,” He huffs out, sweat on his brow, somehow making him look even hotter than what he already was. The knot in your stomach felt different that it had any other time you’ve came, and although you were sensitive, you were curious to see how this would make you feel. Grinding your hips up, you didn’t know if you were trying to chase this high or get away from Hongjoong’s stimulation.

  “Stop running from me baby, c’mon, take what I have to give you,” the blue haired man says, his hips going at an even faster pace, his thumb following suit. Just as you feel him twitch inside of you before releasing, he slaps your clit- you cry out at the feeling, the knot in your stomach erupting, and your vision going white. Breathing unevenly, you come back to, seeing Hongjoong’s form looking down at your shaking body, giving you a tired, blinding smile. “You with me sweetheart? You did so well,” He says as he helps you sit up to sip the water bottle that was on your nightstand.

  After calming down, you finally look down, noticing that not only was Hongjoong’s lower half soaked, but so was your bed sheets. “Holy shit Hongjoong, you made me squirt,” you exclaim out in shock, “It was really hot, you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” He retorts before laying down next to you, wrapping his arm around you. “Like I’m the only one?” You huff out a laugh, “What happened to you needing help with English? You’re definitely a lot better than what you claimed you were,”, “Hey I needed some type of excuse to get to talk to you, alright?”, he explains as he presses a kiss to your forehead.