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percy jackson x fem reader

chapter thirty-six | everything in its right place

It wasn’t a real spider. Not completely. But it moved like one over your hands, and so you’d thrown it so far away with one almighty shriek that the spider jumped—a tiny automaton thing, built by Hephaestus himself.

The whole thing felt like one, big joke on you.

It begun as a silver chain previously in Eurytion’s possession. He said he didn’t need it, and had no need to go into the Labyrinth or make contact with Hephaestus. If you needed to find the god, this would lead you right to him. At first, turning it over in your hands, you felt grateful that finally somebody was helping you properly. Until you pressed down on the tiny button in the middle, and it turned into a spider.

The good news: it led you straight to him. Right to Hephaestus’s doorstep. Or, entryway, for a better word. The spider had been scuttling and crawling along the tunnels for a good distance, enough so that you were starting to get tired. Percy had been nearly bouncing in place, both with anticipation for what you might find, and eagerness to get this over with; he wanted out as much as you and Grover.

If you weren’t so good at running, you might have lost the creepy little thing. By the time it finally stopped, all eight legs perched like broken wires, you were hot on its trail and pretty breathless. Grover slowed to a pace at your side, raising his hands to run over his sweaty t-zone from the exertion that was chasing the mechanical spider. Percy slid into your back, and brushed himself off like nothing happened.

You could have described it as developing a funny feeling that something was about to happen.

You stopped only because of one thing.

The giant cave, a spectacular hole in the ground inches away from the tips of your Converse. You watched from the corner of your eye Grover settling back from the jagged edge, and became aware of Percy’s fingers winding round your backpack. Human nature or stupid curiosity, you dug for your flashlight in your pocket, and leaned forward over the abyss. Percy tugged violently on your strap.

“Hey, come on, dont.” He sighed. “If you fall down there—”

“I’m not gonna fall down there!” You protest.

“Do you see with your own eyes right now? You’re literally leaning over a cavern.”

“I’m not gonna fall. But if I did I’d just take you down with me. For company ‘n all.” You drawl, turning to face him with a sly smile. Your brows jump, and Percy huffs, giving your bag one last tug until you avail, and step back.

“How kind,” he deadpans.

“I try my hardest.” You shrug.

“I think we have bigger problems than falling right now,” croaked Grover. He raised his flashlight and flicked it on and off to highlight the problem: a series of metal bars strung up to the ceiling, half-corroded.

You bark a sudden laugh at your luck. “Hope everyone’s had their tetanus shots!”

Between the rotting bars jammed into the cave roof, the tiny spider was swinging across with its strange silky webs, and crawling with its sticky feet across the ceiling. Unless you wanted to stay stuck down here at this junction, you’d have to follow it. And heights were not your speciality.

You clap your hands together; it echoes in the vast space. “So, any first takers” Neither boy answers you. “Brilliant. So, the thing is, I’d rather die than do the monkey bars. Do you guys see my arms? They weren’t made for this shit.”

“Have a little faith,” gulped Grover. “If a mechanical spider with no physical brain can do it, we totally can!”

“I like your enthusiasm!” Percy snapped his fingers. “It’s just the kind of leadership style we need!” He leaned forward and clapped Grover on the shoulder. “Onward, my friend!”

Grover tittered on the spot, and a nervous belch boasted loudly in the air. All the while he argued back and forth with Percy over how he should go first, you decided that it was best to shove down your nerves for the sake of the ever-furthering spider, and stepped back twice. The boys hardly noticed, caught up in their silly back-and-forth debate. You made your choice, and decided to make a run and jump for it.

The second your hands touched the first metal rung, they stung from the impact. You couldn’t prevent the shriek escaping your throat, but everything after that was blocked out. The brain has a funny way of focusing when it senses danger; it blocks out everything it deems unneeded. In this case, you knew though you couldn’t hear them that the boys were probably yelling something. You focussed on the strain in your shoulders, reaching forward for the next bar with halfway decent momentum. Halfway across, your palms started to sweat, and the panic set in even further.

“Guys—” you swallowed, choking on it. “What are the chances I die on impact? Don’t answer that—I already know the answer. It was in this book I read a while ago. It was 31,000 people in 2000. That’s the last time they looked at the statistics. They’ll probably go up—”. Your hand slipped from the bar, and you wiped your palm on your pants before reaching for the next one. You take deep breaths as your body is suddenly hit with panicked sweating and heat, and you know you’re not too far from a panic attack. There’s nothing anybody can do to help you here—it’s all on you. And it’s a horrible feeling knowing that.

It’s hard to move when your fingers start to tingle and grow stiff, another oncoming sign that your body has had enough, it’s working too hard. The brain works in tandem with the limbs—the control centre tells everything else what to do. If it says calm down, it’s going to calm down everything else; even hundreds of feet above a plunging cavern.

When you touch the ground again, you feel rather shaky. But there’s no proper time for rest, or to wait for the boys. The spider is scuttling further away, and it’s literally a race against time to catch up to it. With legs like jelly, you bolt as fast as you can after the spider, the tiny clicking of its mechanical legs sounding through the narrowing tunnel. It’s dark and damp, and your flashlight is beginning to flicker as the batteries run out. You lose all sight and sound of Percy and Grover, and your chest screams with the exertion of holding yourself above ground for so long and then moving instantly into a sprint.

The spider really doesn’t care, though.

You run and run, until something crunches under your feet. You ignore it until you can’t anymore, and gradually slow down, as the crunching becomes too loud. You bend down to inspect the pieces: wood chips, like from…pencils? There’s a shard of lead from the end of one just laying around, and another a bit away from it. Who the hell needs pencils down here? Is somebody else lost, too? The pieces slip through your fingers as you get to your feet, falling back down.

You pick up your flashlight from between your neck and shoulder where you’d been holding it, and twist it in your hand. The light still flickers, except this time it has enough of a glow to show you just who left the pencil scrapings.

Skeletons. Dead, very dead skeletons.

And they look a little different to the ones in gothic movies.

Some are white, like they’ve been bleached, but mainly they’re a weird yellow-brown and mottled, rotting away. They don’t smell, weirdly. They could almost be props. You’re not naive enough to believe that though.

A set of footsteps is growing louder nearing your position. It’s Percy, calling your name. And when he falls to step next to you, a hand on your shoulder, you can’t help but nodding grimly to the skeletons he hasn’t seen yet. You flash your light on them, and he gags.

“Let’s keep going,” you say, and nod to the literal light at the end of the tunnel. You can already see it opens into a big room. “I don’t wanna meet the thing that left those.”

You wait for Grover to catch up before you move on towards the bright light at the end of the tunnel. It feels weirdly intimate, all quiet and settled as you near it.

But…yeah, you take that back. Because you meet the thing that left those skeletons pretty quickly. Just when you thought things couldn’t get weirder down here.

You stop short, and can’t help your jaw dropping in disgust at the creature perched on the glittering dais on the far side of the room. With the body of a lion and the head of a woman, you quite honestly feel like vomming. She wore makeup like a clown, and her stringy hair was tied back way too tightly—how the hell did she even do her hair, with paws?

Grover gagged. It echoed. “Sphinx.”

You scrunch your nose in response. “Ooooh, are we talkin’ that weird thing that does riddles?”

“Funny way of putting it, but yes.”

You want to reply to Grover, but you’ve lost sight of the spider, your only way forward. You can hear it in the quiet, tapping away down the only exit: right next to the Sphinx.

You try your luck; you suck in a deep breath and make a run for it, but the creature is quicker than you are, and it dives down to block your path, roaring in your face with such ferocity that you’re left only with shock. Your face stings with the heat. You gag, and step back. Metal bars slammed down across the exit, and the way you’d come in, blocking your way out indefinitely. Looking longingly through the bars, you lost sight and sound of the spider, heart sinking.

When the bars were settled, the creature smiled. Somewhat horrifying, the voice to leave its mouth was on par. “Welcome, lucky contestants! Are you ready to play…GUESS THE RIDDLE?!”

Spotlights cranked into place and blinded Grover, who slapped a hand over his eyes. Canned applause blasted like there were a dozen soundbars in the room. Something popped from the ceiling, and glittering rained down, sparkling purple, pink and silver in the spotlight.

The Sphinx prowled the room and flicked back her head like you would tossing your hair over your shoulder. “Pass the test, demigods, and you get to advance! Fail, and I eat you for dinner! So! Who will be our contestant tonight?”

“Grover,” you point instantly, and then feel terrible because he looked rather sick. Coincidentally, both boys looked at you. “What, you think I’m smart enough for this shit?” You hiss.

“Absolutely!” Percy encouraged. “And we’ll be right here to fight for you!”

“Totally!” Nodded Grover. He reached into his pocket and produced a stick, and began munching on it instantly. A nervous habit, you’ve come to realise.

“How romantic,” you roll your eyes to Percy, but inside your stomach says SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! You deflated at the shoulders, and squeezed your flashlight between your fingers. Approaching the CONTESTANT podium, it wasn’t difficult to notice the dusty skeleton in a school uniform still leaning over the platform, jaw hanging open.

Holding your flashlight by the very end, you gave the skeleton a shove, and then a kick for good measure. It toppled off the side and clattered to the ground, bones rattling. You side-eyed it and quickly looked away. “So sorry, man.”

“Welcome, daughter of Athena!” The Sphinx cried in a cheesy, televised tone. “Are you ready for your questions?”

You point your flashlight at her. “Uhhhh—no.”

“I need an answer!”

“Sure, yeah. Give me the question, then.” At the side of the room, Percy sends you what is supposed to be an encouraging set of a thumbs-up, and a large smile, nodding his head.

“Riddles, actually, get it right dear. Anywho! Twenty riddles coming your way!” A drumroll sounded overhead, rattling your organs the bass was so deep. There may as well have been a band up in the ceiling. Hell, maybe there was. “What is…the Capital of Bulgaria?”

Embarrassingly, you almost fall flat. “Pffttt, I know this.”

“You know this!” Encouraged Percy from his place, except when you turned to look at him, he was leaning against the wall and sweating. Very encouraging. “You’ve got this, B!”

“Isn’t it, like Sofia, or something? And that isn’t even a riddle, that’s just basic knowledge—”

Applause screamed above. The Sphinx smiled too sweetly, and her sharp canines showed. “Correct! Now, mark down your answers in the booklet with the yellow pencil.”

You eye your empty hands. “What pencil—?” With a solid POP! the pencil, sharpened to a point, appeared on top of the little booklet like magic.

“Now,” said the Sphinx. “If you need to erase an answer, be sure to do it COMPLETELY! Or else the machine is unable to read the answers.” She smiled with closed eyes. A horrible sight, really. The nightmares will be anticipated, when you’re out of here.

Waving around your pencil, and growing slightly annoyed with the creature, you huff. “What machine?”

With a large paw, the Sphinx made a pointing movement to the giant bronze thing situation to the side. It had appeared under a spotlight, and was covered in the Greek letter Êta. If you weren’t wrong, that was Hephaestus’s mark.

Another nail in the coffin of life being a total joke.

“Now!” The Sphinx clapped her paws. “Next question!”

“Shit question,” you mumbled. You set your hands on either side of the podium and waited.

“I beg your pardon?” The Sphinx grew still instantly, clearly annoyed.

“Nothing. Continue.”

“What is the square root of sixteen?”

“Oh. I cant do math. Uhm…”

“Ten seconds on the clock!”

A loud and irritating ticking began with an audible countdown from invisible voices, making your eyes ring. Suddenly uncomfortable, you dip your head and discreetly look at Percy, whose hand moves at his side.

“Four?” You frown.

A bell rang off. “Correct! Which United States president signed the Civil Rights Act?”

“Lyndon. B. Johnson? I th—”

“Correct! Which planet spins clockwise?”

“Venus?”

“Which part of the human body is incapable of healing itself?”

“I think it’s your teeth?” You shift on your feet, feeling way too under pressure.

“Need a definite answer!” The Sphinx pointed to the ceiling with a paw, and the countdown began.

Tiredly, you drawl, “It’s your teeth.”

“Correct again! What comes into the world with more bones than the adult human?”

“A baby?”

“Correct!”

The questions go on, and on until your mind feels like a battered sieve, bent out of shape and a little corroded. You passed twenty questions, and stared at Percy, unimpressed, as a dozen layers of glitter and confetti rained down upon you. A techno electric song began blasting over the invisible speakers in celebration. Grover was taking deep breaths, mumbling under his breath, probably thanking the gods. When you found your place next to Percy, he huffed a laugh, and glitter shifted from your face as he did.

“Oh, you did great!” He offered. The metal bars ground out a horrid noise as they rose back to where they came from. “I knew you could do it.”

“You offered me up like paint at an artist’s house.”

Grover, still praying, took off with his eyes closed, doing a little jig. The Sphinx took a seat at dais, eyes closed. She looked somewhat frozen, barely breathing. When Grover passed on by, it was as if she’d never moved at all.

Clapping a hand down on your head, Percy shook the confetti and glitter like dust from your hair. “I’m sorry,” he said, though he said so with a humoured smile. “I’ll never do it again. Friends?”

“Suppose so,” you shrug, and glitter dances to the ground.

“Let’s go, disco ball. We need to find that spider.”

You skedaddled past the Sphinx whom paid you no mind, and out the tunnel way, leaving a trail of glitter. After a few wrong turns, and following Grover’s voice, and finally managed to locate your friend and the spider, which threw itself at a metal door, a little bit of light spilling out underneath it. In the middle of the door, old and creaking despite not touching it, was nailed a big sign, wilting like it had been melted, dashed with the same sign as the answering machine ten minutes ago: the Greek Êta.

“Are we ready to meet Hephaestus?” Grover asked nervously.

“I’m ready to ask why he spends his time down here,” you grumbled. “Why not somewhere nice?”

Deciding you’d done enough today, Percy reached out around you for the door handle, and gave it a good push. The door screamed, slowly opening, revealing all inside.

The room was bigger than words could describe. It was filled to the brim with machines and makings, some working, some not. There were cars, half-built just lying around, and bits of mechanical animals waiting to be put together. A fire burned in the corner of the room, not tended to though. A dozen tools hung from the walls and were splashed across work tables.

Nobody noticed him until the door slammed shut, you screamed, and he shifted out from underneath a car. A giant man in dirty work pants, and a leg in a metal brace.

“Well, what do we have here?” He boomed. Maybe it was wrong to be so terrified, but you were, and you found yourself shifting slowly, subtly, taking your place beside Percy.

Unfortunately, your slinking act didn’t last for long. When Hephaestus stood properly, he towered way over the three of you.

“I didn’t make you demigods, did I?”

Percy coughed. “No, sir.”

He was tall, and his beard was smoking. The metal spider perched on his head.

“Good. Terrible workmanship.”

“We’ve met, sir,” said Percy.

“Have we, now?” His tone indicated that he couldn’t care less. “Well, if I didn’t get rid of you the first time I won’t need to now, I suppose. And a Satyr. Wow. You’re all far from home. There better be a good reason for disturbing me.”

“We’re looking for Daedalus—”

The god’s beard flickered ten times brighter, and he seemed to get taller. “Daedalus?” He roared.

“Yes, sir, please.” Grover pleaded nervously.

“You’re wasting your time.” He stomped over to the corner of the room, and began to tinker with some pieces of metal. “I understand you met my mother.”

“Yes, sir,” Percy nodded.

“What did you think of her, daughter of Athena?” You jolt at your place, and wish the ground would open up and take you. Side-stepping, you remain half behind Percy, grimacing. “She’ll smile to your face and talk about important values, family values. Didn’t stop her pitching me off of Olympus.”

Why me? You wish you could ask. Why are you asking me?

“I thought that was Zeus?” Percy tries to deflect.

Hephaestus spun on his feet like a top, facing you. “She likes telling that version. Makes her more likeable doesn’t it? The truth is, my mother loves families, but only certain types of families. She influences, and she lobbies. She likes to get involved.”

Finally, he looked up from the metal in his large hands, and focused on Percy. “Oh, this one doesn’t like me. I’ll bite, demigod—what do you want?”

“We told you,” Percy snapped. “We need to find Daedalus. It’s important. There’s this guy, a son of Hermes, and he’s working with Kronos. They’re trying to find a way to navigate this maze to take over everywhere. If we don’t get to Daedalus first—”

“And I told you, son of Poseidon—you’re wasting your time. He won’t help you.”

Hephaestus shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Some of us are thrown off of cliffs and some of us learn not to trust people. Ask me for gold, or a new sword. I can grant you those things. But a way to Daedalus? Well, that’s an expensive favour.”

“So you know where he is?” Asked Grover. “He’s down here at least?”

“It isn’t wise to go looking.”

But isn’t looking the nature of wisdom?

Hephaestus made a deep, rumbling sigh. “If I help you, there will be a price. I need a favour, too.”

“Name it,” demanded Percy.

“You heroes! You like making your promises. How very…refreshing.” The god reached out with a giant hand to push a button in the wall, and it instantly changed. The concrete and metal combined twisted and glowed until it became a television screen, showing mountains, and a forest. Smoke bellowed from the background.

“One of my forges gone, but this used to be my favourite.”

“But that’s Mount St. Helens!” Pointed out Grover. “But you said it used to be your favourite?”

“Well, the monster, Typhon, is trapped there.”

“What do you want us to do? Fight him for you?” Ah, Percy; ever the brave.

Hephaestus snorted meanly. “Well that’s suicide. Someone or something is using my forges there. They sense me coming, and they go, when I try to search it. There is something ancient and evil waiting there, and I want to know who has invaded my territory.”

“You want us to find out who it is.”

“Correct!” Your brain aches, thinking back to the Sphinx. “Find what you can and report back to me, and then I’ll tell you everything I know. Promise.”

“Fine,” Percy nodded. “How do we get there?”

Hephaestus clapped his hands together, and the mechanical spider fell from the rafters, right at your feet. You jumped about ten feet in the air, and screamed so loud it was bolstered by the metal walls. “My creation will show the way. Try to stay alive, young ones. Humans are much more fragile than automatons.”

For a while, you followed the spider without any trouble. The paths seemed unusually normal, just straightforward tunnels of concrete, or metal park slides the whole way down. But the ground began to change to dirt, and trees sprouted in the darkness, and a singular tunnel led away from the original path—Grover was headed straight for it, as if in a trance. He slowed, and slowed and stopped, just before the entrance.

“Come on,” you groaned. “Let’s go, man, It’s not far.”

“This is the way, guys!” Grover mumbled. “This is it! I can feel it!”

“What way?” Probed Percy. “You don’t mean…you know he’s there? Pan? Really?”

“Yes!” He exclaimed, suddenly reinvigorated. “This is it, guys!”

You followed after the spider, intent on not losing it, but held back when neither Grover or Percy followed.

“I have to follow this. I won’t get this chance ever again. You know that, right?”

On the one hand, you wanted to tell Grover to not be selfish. This was the original quest and it was important. But on the other, saying that would mean you were being selfish, holding Grover back from the only thing he wanted. He’d gone along with your plan for a while now, and outwardly telling him that he shouldn’t be doing the one thing he’d ever wanted would feel like stabbing him.

“Percy,” said Grover, “we will find each other again. We have the empathy link, remember? I have to do this. I have to; he’s…so close!”

Because, at the end of the day, this was all Grover had wanted for so long. Really, it felt cruel to tell him no.

Percy sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I hope you’re right.”

“I swear it, I am.”

“Just be careful, yeah? And find us, afterwards.”

Maybe it was to be your last sight of Grover. Perhaps you’d never see him again, although you really didn’t want to think so. You looked after him, as he wandered into the tunnel surrounded by darkness and tree roots winding from the ground until finally he’d gone completely.

It left a strange feeling that something was going to happen.

“We shouldn’t have split up,” you shake your head. “This is a horrible idea!”

“We’ll see him again…” Percy tried to sound confident, but even he fell a little short. He chewed his cheek, still looking at the tunnel Grover had left through. “Don’t worry. Come on, let’s catch up with that spider. It won’t wait for us.”

And it didn’t. The tiny spider scuttled through tunnels and tunnels, down slopes and up them. They grew tighter, and hotter, until your face dripped with sweat. The flashlight slipped in your hand, and you’d been forced to put away your dagger for fear of it slipping away.

More than once you had to stop in place and wipe the sweat dripping into your eyes, sticky and slippy. Your hair grew damp, uncomfortable around your face.

Percy seemed to be struggling the same way. When you turned back to him, his cheeks were bright red like cherries, highlighting the green in his eyes. Somehow, he managed a smile, nodding encouragingly. You swallowed hard, throat as dry as anything.

“Keep going!” He urged. “It’s not far, now, I know it.”

You didn’t want to tell him that he was a little too optimistic for it to be true, but who were you to burst his bubble?

It realistically didnt take a long time, but it certainly felt like it did. Eventually, the spider stopped short and curled into a ball, rolling down a little decline before it popped back open, and crawled a small distance. At last it waited for you and Percy.

The room before you now was the size of a large football stadium, times two thousand. It was so big you could scarcely see each end. The worst part, when you pushed aside the fact that you couldn’t really see properly, was the fact the floor was not floor at all but a plaza of bubbling lava, and your only way to get across should the need arise was two lengths of metal bridges, which ultimately, if the pool of lava was anything to go by, would be too hot to walk across for human beings. Here and there on little platforms were machines bigger than you, rumbling, whirring. Perhaps they weren’t the weird things though—the creatures, dark and shapeless and moving around the solid concrete platform around the lava, paid you no mind. Maybe they’d yet to see you.

“Let’s go, while they’re not looking,” hissed Percy. He snatched up your hand and pulled you along, despite how sweaty you were.

“Hold up!” You pulled back on him, but he persevered. “Percy, wait! We need a plan.”

“We don’t need a plan. We just need to get some information and get out of here.”

“Exactly why we need a plan!”

Your eyes began to burn from the heat of the lava, and your lungs ached from the smoke. It became difficult to even see, so it didn’t take long at all for something to go wrong.

“Agh!” Percy screamed, and you reached out blindly in the smoky haze to slap your hand over his mouth—you missed, and your palm found his eyes instead. “Ow!”

“Shut up, idiot!” You couldn’t help but laugh. “What did you do?”

“Kicked a cart by accident. I can’t see a damn thing with all this smoke.”

Near enough four years ago, when you met Percy, you wouldn’t have thought you’d be creeping around a pit filled with lava and carrying a deadly weapon in your backpack. At most, you’d believed you’d go through high school and eventually Percy would find other friends. You would see each other in hallways in brief glances and walk on by. Maybe in another life. In a normal life, if you’d been born to both mortal parents. You might have even had a dog in the mix. It was strange to think about, as he pulled you down behind a crate, not caring even a little bit about your sweaty palm, or the fact that you’d accidentally slapped him in the face. Life worked in funny ways. The Fates certainly chose you two for a reason, though you couldn’t be sure what that reason was, yet. Maybe, when you’d asked to be born again, the Judges in the Underworld decided you needed some more excitement in your life. Or maybe they hated you, and you’d done wrong before, whoever you were before, because to be here now you’d have to have been here once—after seeing the Underworld with your own eyes, there was no more questioning life after death. Did you reach Elysium? Were you a nice person?

Being a demigod had its pros, its cons, and its questions. It enabled deep thinking.

“Come on, just go around it,” you nodded to the sight up ahead. Percy went to climb to his feet…

That was when you heard the voices.

“Shit! Get in the cart!”

Pulling back the tarp, stinging your fingers, Percy clambered over the edge and into the pile of metal pieces, flat and smooth between the hot cart. He raised his hands, holding up the tarp as you shot a hasty look in the direction of the voices; shadows were growing bigger on the wall. You flopped into the cart in an uncomfortable position of squashed-up legs, Percy’s longer set digging into your side. You tried to move over as far as you could to make room for him but really there wasn’t much point. He flipped the tarp over your heads, and together you held your breath.

It turned red. With the tarp now covering the pair of you, light from the flowing lava pit illuminated the red tarp, casting an amber glow.

Riptide? you mouthed to Percy. Your dagger sat in your backpack, crushed under your weight and between the cart.

He raised his hand ever so slightly, and twirled the pen in response.

“Bring it in?” One voice asked. It was deep.

“Yeah, movie’s just finished.”

Lowering your gaze from the side of the cart, you meet Percy’s. Movie?

Suddenly, the cart jerked, and tipped forward. You jostled into Percy, and thrust your hands out to either side of the cart. The metal was warm. You slammed your mouth shut, hoping nobody heard the surprised squeak.

“Hey! Thought you said this was a small load? Thing weighs a ton!”

Rude.

“It’s celestial bronze, idiot,” the other voice laughed. “What did you think, it’d be light? Hurry up and set it in the back, for crying out load. Hey, younglings! Watch the damn movie. I’ll answer your questions later.”

Had you found some secret school? Were people living here? Younglings didn’t sound very human, however. Nobody in their right mind would use that language.

But a movie did play. You strained your ears, trying to make some sort of sense of where you were. Growth spurts, and hygiene working in the forges.

“And lastly, don’t neglect your flipper hygiene!” The soapy voice rang over speakers. “Good flippers equal good mind!”

Percy spun Riptide between his fingers, dashing back and forth and swapping hands. His dark brows furrowed in concentration, tired eyes pinned on nothing in particular. They seemed brighter in here, somehow. More ‘calm before the storm’ rather than their usual ‘storm’.

“So, younglings, what is the correct name of our particular species? You, at the back!”

“Sea demons!” A voice cried.

“No,” the ‘teacher’ flatlined. “You?”

“Telekhines!” Another voice grumbled.

“Brill! And why are we here, guys?”

“Revenge! Revenge against the Greek god Zeus, for casting us down to Tartarus!”

“Indeed! And only after we created their weapons, might I add!”

So, you were dealing with a bunch of salty monsters. Great.

“Zeus cast us away,” the teacher continued in a mocking, sad voice. “Down to Tartarus. We had no control in this, young ones, no choice! Which is why now is our perfect time for a takeover! We will start here, in the very forges of Hephaestus! And soon after, the undersea furnaces, too!”

There was a huge uproar of applause and yells, some barking, some screaming. Terrible noise, honestly. And that was only the very tip of the iceberg.

You’d done your research after being at camp for so long. You’d come across their names, the Telekhines, but the gross result of the previous Titan takeover remained a subject to be avoided. To you, even reading about the ugliness of that period was enough, never mind looking at pictures of the creatures produced then. Maybe Ares was right, so long ago—you valued prettiness and vanity so much that you may as well have been a daughter of Aphrodite rather than Athena. Is that why your mother wouldn’t connect with you? Did she see her sister, rather than her daughter? Brains and beauty go hand-in-hand, but the Gods have their own set of values and expectations. You didn’t live up to too many of them. Maybe you were vain—perhaps a little too much. Probably ignorant, too.

On your head it was, then, that you had clue what you were up against.

“Who do we serve, Telekhines?”

“Kronos!”

“And when you all grow to full maturity, who will you serve? Whose army will you fight for?”

“Kronos!”

“Lovely. Now, at the back we have brought some scraps for you to practice making weapons with. Go ahead and take a look—but share! We don’t need any arguments today.”

You scrambled in place. Percy’s elbow kneaded into your stomach as he tried to set up Riptide early. Reflexively, your foot shot out at the feeling, and booted his knee cap. Your hand fell to his shoulder, urgently whispering, “backpack. Open my backpack!”

Alas, you both prepared too late. The tarp was thrown away by…human hands. Except the creatures they belonged to one-hundred percent were not human beings. A dozen faces looked in, with snouts like dogs, wet and slimy, and bodies of sea lions, all black and shiny.

“Demigods!” One growled.

“Eat them!” Cried another; from the back of group, there was a sound like nashers clashing.

Fortunately for you, they had also prepared too late. Riptide appeared in full form, and in one strong swoop, Percy decapitated the whole row. They disappeared in puffs of dust, sent straight back to where they came from.

“Back off!” Percy yelled, jabbing at another one.

You swung your arm back with your torch still in hand, and swatted one on the snout. It barked, but retreated, giving you the room you needed to clamber out of the cart.

You came face-to-face with a hunched over, crouching Telekhine with the features of a Doberman, snarling. Your shoes squeaked the further you backed up, right to Percy’s back. The back of his head very briefly knocked the top of yours. He had your back, and you most definitely had his. Very slyly, his free hand rose and made contact with your side, following the strap of your backpack and skimming across it blindly. What was he doing?

“New lesson, class,” said Percy. You clutched the flashlight harder, as the six-foot Telekhine began to advance, its fangs making an appearance briefly. The zipper of your bag jingled, and—ah, Percy was trying to get your dagger. “Monsters tend to vaporise when slashed with a celestial bronze sword. Just like this—!”

The Telekhines dove, driving Percy into gear. He abandoned your backpack, taking one firm swipe to the next set of monsters. They dissolved instantly, little clouds of ash and dust sending puffs in the air. The warm handle of Riptide was pressed into your palm straight after, and you dropped your flashlight. With both hands around the hilt, you swung the sword over your shoulder and back again like you would a baseball bat. The speed at which you did so enabled you to get a surprise hit on the advancing, taller monster, and you split him down the middle. Its essence went up like a bomb. The rest of the monsters were backed up, but you didn’t have long.

You threw the sword back to Percy blindly. Turning, he reached out a hand for yours. “Let’s go!” With eyes wide in anticipation and adrenaline, still furiously red in the face, he pulled you along. In tandem, you made a dive for the exit tunnel, where a door had been placed.

Bingo. Sliding into the safe space, you threw your body back against the door and held it in place while Percy’s deft hands made quick work of the wheel handle, spinning it until it locked. Monsters thudded on the other side, the sound like thunder in this winding tunnel.

Back in the open lava room, you noticed a couple of things that weren’t there before: one, four sea demons even taller than the rest, at least nine-feet; two, the statue and work of which they hammered away at in the middle of the room by the first bridge; three, the harsh language they spoke did not register in your mind. An old language, then. Old as hell.

“What are they making?” You muttered, trying to get a good look without exposing yourself. Sparks flew from the large piece of metal between them.

Percy sighed. “Whatever it is, it isn’t good. They were banished to Tartarus by Zeus for a reason. Now, I don’t like the guy, but I’m pretty sure he’d have a good enough reason for doing something like that.”

You’d nearly forgotten about the locked door at the end of the tunnel, until the creatures came falling through. Crawling over each other, they began to run towards you.

Percy grabbed you by the shoulders, sword dangerously close to your face. He’d never let it touch you, you trusted, but even the aura of it was unsettling so close to your skin. “Start running. Get a head start.”

You shook your head and scoffed. “Ha, no. We leave together.”

“We don’t have time to leave together!” He exclaimed, “I’m gonna hold them back while you get a head start. If you get to Hephaestus first, he might help us. Tell him what we found out, and I’ll be right behind. Got it?”

You liked to think, later, that the final look in Percy’s eyes was determination. It certainly seemed that way, storming bright, his mouth set firmly. You weren’t to fight a whole army with a flashlight and a dagger stuck deep in your bag with no time to grab it.

“Just go!” He ordered. You took a single step back, unsure, until he reached out with one strong hand and gave your shoulder a confident push. “I’ll be right behind you. I promise.”

The army advanced and by this point, the taller, grown ones had taken notice of what was happening. More of those came out of the walls, too, and the dark shapes from earlier finally paid attention to the two of you.

In one movement, not thinking at all, you threw yourself forward, and threw your arms firmly around Percy’s neck. He smelled like sweat and boy and dirt from being down in the maze for so long, but you didn’t care one bit. He was warm and solid and sure and here, and his free hand touched your back, before tugging on your shirt. You moved away, to see something not unlike real desperation on his face.

“Now go,” he ordered, one last time.

And you listened.

You made a run for the way you’d came, and the sounds of the forge were drowned out the further you ran away. At first, it was fine—lights like the metal ones of an old Cold War bunker lit your path. Nausea reigned, until you and your heaving chest took a break against a wall just for a second. You hadn’t gone too far, but the Telekhines weren’t here yet. Percy said he’d be right behind. You’d wait here for him.

Or you could go back.

Kneeling, you slid your bag from your back and unzipped it. Percy had moved the zipper not even halfway in his mission to get your dagger for you. It sat between your jacket and your packets of food. You pulled out a water bottle and sipped slowly. Shrugging your bag back on your shoulders, you waited a second on weak legs, trying to regain some strength.

The tunnel remained silent if you excused your laboured breathing. The lights on the ceiling began to flicker, dimming and brightening again, probably trying to move you along and change itself. It wouldn’t have been unsettling if Grover and Percy were with you, but they weren’t, and you felt completely alone in this maze despite knowing they were still down here too. You laid your hand on your forehead and ran it through your sweaty hairline, trying to wipe the remains of your overheating from your face. As you did, and slowly got to your feet, the lights flickered even more intensely.

That was just before the ground began to shake. At first it was a tiny amount of trembling, and soundless, beneath your feet. Its intensity grew in size pretty quickly, from a little shaking to full-blown rumbling, like an explosion was popping off and heading your way. You stepped back once, trying to make sense of the direction, and only looked up the way you came just as the lights went out silently. It was like a bomb exploded, or some part of the tunnel had blown apart. A fierce gush of wind blew, so forceful you had no choice in being shoved to the wall, hot air hitting you square in the face. Bits of debris and dirt were blown in your eyes, gritting and painful. Just as it began, it ended, and the sound of the maze changing again came through loud and clear.

Which left you with two bouts of knowledge:

One: Percy had definitely just been killed.

and Two: you were totally, utterly lost, without even a flashlight.

Standing in the aftermath of hot, diffusing air from the direction of the forges, breathing in bits of explosion, there was absolutely no denying that your best friend had just been blown to smithereens. Nobody survived an explosion like that. Nobody.

Even so, your mind turned on autopilot. What happened after the explosion was numbed and distorted, like looking through murky water and only half-awake.

“No,” you mumbled, “no, no, no. Not happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.”

Horror began to sink in, and you felt suddenly extremely, permanently wounded. Percy was, without a doubt, very, very dead. You scarcely moved, scarcely breathed. Staring at a wall replacing what you thought was where you came from, but now couldn’t be completely sure, because you’d dropped your flashlight back in the blown-up cavern, and your best friend was lying in bits and pieces of body somewhere you couldn’t reach. The mind runs rampant in panic. All you could think of was blood, and bones.

You might have screamed. You thought you did. Your throat turns sore and raw, and you figure you’ve been screaming for a while in the darkness on your own.

How strange it was that Percy had been the only thing keeping you safe this whole time. Without him, you feel exposed even when nothing can see you. They can definitely sense you. You hear something coming, like a body being dragged along the ground, and decide now would be a good time to get up and go. But your hands and feet are numb and tingling, evidence of a panic attack. Your head swims without sight, and you can’t feel the wall when you touch your fingers to it.

Your feet hurt when they take step after step until you’re running, dragging your fingers blindly along the dark tunnel as some semblance of a path finder. The walls change, and twice you fall. It’s embarrassing, scraping your chin on brick, eating dirt. You stumble up stairs, walk through cobwebs and feel things crawling up your neck, and scream now and again out of sheer annoyance, sheer exhaustion. You begin to pray, muttering insanely under your breath to anyone who will listen: first your mom, and you beg her to forgive any doubts you had. Then you beg Hermes, the patron of travellers, to at least give you direction here. And finally Ares, because the only thing fuelling your body is determination to not die down here.

Someone has your back.

Just as you’re beginning to freak out again, you feel the wall begin to curve around, and dip. And…grow…lighter? And it is, growing lighter. There’s a glow coming from a door at the end of the tunnel, and you’ve seen this door before.

You’ve made it back to Hephaestus’s workshop in one piece.

You think about knocking. And then you realise how stupid that idea is, and burst right in.

Heaving, sweating, and rubbing your sore chin, you stand wilting in the doorway of his workshop. He’s hanging from the ceiling on some sort of platform, but jumps down when he notices you.

“Ah,” he cleared his throat. “It’s you.” Hephaestus raises his hand to his beard and pats at it, putting out a great deal of fire burning there.

“Percy’s dead. And Grover is as good as.” You swallow, and kick the door shut blindly. “I want a way out of here, and you’re going to help me.”

“Look at you, making all the demands!” He laughs. It’s bellowing, and it rumbles the room. “Little demigod. Get a hold of yourself. You’re getting tears on my floor.”

You flinch in place at his cruelty. “My best friend just died!” You yell out. “Percy’s dead, because you told us to do something. This is your fault.”

Hephaestus looks up from the screwdriver in his hand, to meet your eyes head on. It’s like tiny fires are burning there. “Hold your tongue, daughter of Athena. It’s unbecoming. And I didn’t kill the other one—whatever was in there did that.”

“Telekhines,” you spat. A gritty tear rolls down your cheek. “That’s what’s in there. Or, was. It’s all blown apart now. So we went there for nothing. I hope you know they’re all against you. Kronos’s army is rising, and they’re coming for you.” And I can’t say I blame them.

He paused, raised a brow briefly, and scoffed. “Demigods don’t scare me.”

“No, but Kronos does. And he’s still coming whether you like it or not. You killed my friend. So I have a request.”

Hephaestus threw down the instrument in his hand, colliding with a metal worktop and echoing somewhat off the walls. You cringe, but refuse to back up. “Look at you, demigod, making all the requests.” He pauses for a moment. “But I cannot deny you, I suppose. You did as I asked. You want a way home.”

“Of course I want a way home,” you seethed.

He cocked his head and huffed. “Go out of here. Follow the tunnel left, and all the way down. You’ll find your way home, daughter of Athena.”

Without a ‘thank you’ you find yourself marching out of his workshop, abandoning the door. You do as he says, and it feels ridiculously easy, hand on the wall again and sliding your fingers across to follow the way it bends. Left, and all the way down. Your fingers hit a bump in the wall, and that little bump instantly begins to glow dark blue.

It makes you think of Percy, but you have no energy left to cry with.

Hephaestus wasn’t misleading you, then. Stepping away from the hole opening up over your head, dirt caves in and crumbles around your feet. A dirty ladder begins to shake its way out of the dirt wall, all the way up to the new gap in the earth.

You hear voices, as you heave up the ladder. It’s short, and doesn’t take long to reach the opening at the top, where a hand has reached down to help you up, a face peering in—Clarisse.

Her expression is one of apprehension, and it’s as serious and firm as ever. Her muddy eyes flick over your face, and you imagine you must look a state. Your chin still burns with your ground collision, cheek smarted.

For a second, as she pulls you with a strong hand from the Labyrinth, she doesn’t say anything. You barely look at Clarisse, crawling out of the hole. A distance away you can hear voices.

“They’re all patrolling that way,” she grumbled. “Bit of a stupid move on our part. You’re lucky I was here, and not…” she trails off. You’re not quite short who you were lucky she wasn’t to be, because you can’t find anything in yourself to question her.

Instead, you shake your head. Clarisse pulls you to your feet, and you’re vividly aware of the smell of camp, strawberries and the smell of the trees. The air is a cold shock above ground.

Finally you look up. You meet Clarisse’s somewhat concerned look. She stares expectantly.

“Percy’s dead,” you swallow. Clarisse’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second, then everything falls from her face. “Grover’s gone. And I need to talk to Chiron.”

“Wait—” you stumble past her, tearing your arm from her grip. The world feels blurred. “They’re—they’re both dead?! They’re gone?”

“That’s what I said, Clarisse!” You snap, raising your arm to wipe your eyes.

“We all thought that you’d be fine down there!” She follows after you. “You’re—capable, at the least! I don’t understand!”

You walk quickly through the woods, tearing past groups of people on guard, and some kids playing by the cabins. Up ahead is the Big House, your destination. People call your name when they see you, but there’s nothing left to answer them with.

You wished you could smiled, walking into the house. You wished Grover and Percy were right behind you, laughing at something stupid as usual. You might have been greeted by your friends with cheers, quest completed successfully.

Murphy’s Law says anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. If you have a handful of opportunities of things that can go wrong, the one most likely to cause damage will occur. You’ve deducted that Murphy’s Law is charging your life.

So, you walk the creaking, fading steps of the Big House and along the porch. You thought of Percy at the very beginning of all of this, recovering on this porch. It made you think of returning here after Bianca passed. You throw open the door, bordered by white drapes, met with silence.

“Hey,” calls Clarisse. “Hey, look, I know how you feel. But we should get you to the med bay first. You look about to pass out.”

And you feel it, too. But you can’t rest until you’ve settled this.

Chiron’s face lights up when he hears you, standing in the doorway. Brown eyes warm and welcoming sadly fade, like he knows.

You choke on a sudden flow of tears, the back of your hand flying to your mouth. “He’s dead,” you tell him outright. “Percy’s dead.”

That’s the most important thing to tell. Not that you didn’t find Daedalus, or that you insulted a god down there, nor that you abandoned Nico. After all, it is the worst thing imaginable, in your eyes. All-consuming horror, taking over every inch of you. Your best friend, your longest friend, is dead.

“He saved me,” you whisper shakily.

There’s a lot of hush on camp, after that. The daylight was already fading when you came up above ground again, and it’s nearly gone now, the sky a dull, sad shade of dark-blue. Clarisse declared the time to be six o’clock in the evening exactly when you climbed out of the Labyrinth. You spend two hours going over everything in excruciating detail, from the second you stepped foot in the maze and the meeting with Hera, the blown-up forge, and what you saw. Everything feels strange after spending, as Chiron tells you, a week in almost complete darkness, with no way to tell time, in a setting altering itself every few minutes. The distant sound of laughing campers and the kids playing by the lake are long gone, as if the whole camp knows what has happened—maybe they do know. But nobody can feel the grief you feel, the struggle to really accept what happened. Logically, Percy is very, extremely dead and gone. Your heart is beginning something to change.

You don’t sleep well that night. Chiron writes down every little thing you say, and has Clarisse bring up some food for dinner for you. It’s kind, and unusual for her. She keeps her gaze lowered the whole thing you’re there, but she isn’t mean, so that’s something.

It’s nearly nine o’clock, and you’ve washed and dressed, ready for sleep in the spare room on the third floor of the house. There’s absolutely no way you can face company tonight—you’re drained completely, and know the second you hit the pillow you’ll be out. Nursing a cup of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows per Chiron’s sympathy, you settle at the table, swirling around the pink and white delicacies in your mug with a teaspoon. It’s a kind thought to make it for you, but you don’t need hot chocolate; you need to scream. You need to grab the nearest bat, and smash up the kitchen. You notice a rolling pin hanging from the wall…

“We need to talk about the maze,” says Chiron in a low tone.

It’s late and you want to sleep. “We already did.” You clink the spoon against the mug.

“It’s just…my dear, nobody navigates the maze like that. The way you described, coming back in the dark… Chris Rodriguez and Clarisse were down there for weeks, separated, and neither managed to find a way out alone. Someone found them. Alone, they might have been stuck down there for a lot longer than they were. They were the last people to go down before yourself, Percy and Grover. You walked alone, and found your way not only to the workshop, but back out of the maze again in one short go.” He pauses. “How did you do it?”

You swallow and breathe in order to ebb away the annoyance you’re feeling a lot of. You shrug. “I uh…I just knew what to do. Hephaestus told me which way to go before Clarisse found me but—well, I just walked the rest. Couldn’t see a damn thing.”

“You just knew?” He repeats. Raising your head, Chiron is frowning deeply. “To me, it doesn’t seem right. Put it this way, my dear—nobody has been able to navigate the maze like that since Luke.”

You slam down the mug in an instant on the hard wood table, spilling the contents all over the table, dripping to the floor. “Alright, so you think I’m working with Luke? Because I walked a couple of tunnels alone? If you really believe after my best friend was killed by the very people Luke is working with, that I’d work with that guy, your head needs a good tap, no offence.” You stand up swiftly, knocking the chair back. He calls your name but you ignore it and stomp up the stairs to your temporary bedroom.

In there, you lock the door, get on your knees, and pray. Your tears soak your clasped hands at the side of the bed. You get on your knees, and you beg.

I’ve added the song ‘everything in its right place’ by Radiohead to the capsize playlist on Spotify if you want to give it a listen! Figured it worked well with the end of this chapter. After all, these things are Fated to unravel whether our main gal likes it or not ☺️ the song absolutely hits me in the gut. It’s the epitome of ‘oh, it didn’t go the way you planned? tough. it’s meant to be this way’ and the realisation that things are falling as they should.

taglist:

@bl6o6dy @embersparklz @lilyevanswhore @rottenstyx @rory-cakes @i-am-scared-and-useless-bisexual @marshmallow12435 @lantsovheiress @distinguishedmakerpandapatrol @twsssmlmaa @gayandfairycore @padsfirewhisky @emu281 @charlesswife @jessiegerl @tojismassivemantiddies @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @nothankyou138 @obxstiles @mxltifxnd0m @cxcilla @itzjustj-1000 @sp00kcanwrite @randomesthings @fratbrochrisgf

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dykeofmisfortune · 8 months

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being a pretentious fuck is embarassing sometimes. bc if someone asks me what video games i play im like "yeah i only play story based indie games about depression and guilt" like omfg shut UP

#i should play a game involving shooting or cars #having a great taste in story based indie games is so hard actually. im so sexy and everyone wants me #i do think a lot of it is my pretentious english double major tendencies like a lot of these games ARE just literature u can interact with #something like omori is actually such a well written narrative like some of the lines and scenes execution scenes still get me #LIKE THE THEMES AND MOTIFS GOT TO ME #also undertale is kinda ugly. but god is the writing so tight... asriel boss battle literally is my favorite final boss in any game IDC!!!!#like i rly think undertale is so brilliant bc the visuals aren't SPECTACULAR and that's not temmie's fault that's toby's for rejecting #the good designs because they'd be 'too good' but so many hard hitting scenes are just. dialogue. and descriptions. and music.#it's actually insane how well written it is that you don't see anything happening but someone talks about it and you cry #rn im playing isat... deserves a place on this list #im also playing mother 3 which is suprirsingly like... the most radical game i've played? i mean that it's genuinely anticapitalist?#love to see communist propaganda and drag queens in video games

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envy-of-the-apple · 7 months

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Sun Eats Moon

Dark!Gojo Satoru x reader

Word count: 9.1k

Part two: Earth Kills Moon

Part three: Moon Starves Sun

Synopsis: Your boss takes on Gojo Satoru as his newest client. Much to your relief, he doesn't seem to recognize you.

(Warnings: noncon, dubcon, rough sex, oral sex, bullying, harassment, one mention of choking, penetrative sex, afab!reader, coercion, forced relationships, implied baby trapping attempt, hint of pregnancy kink)

You wanted to quit the second you read the name.

You should have. It would have been so easy to hand in your two weeks, tell your boss that you just couldn't. Or maybe you could have convinced one of the other paralegals to take your place.

It's pathetic. Almost a decade had passed and you still felt yourself slink into the girl you once were, rolling under his thumb, utterly helpless. You should be better than that. You worked so hard to reach where you are now.

You were different now, you told yourself over and over again. You were older, smarter. Besides, it'd been a decade, would he even remember you?

It's Higuruma who notices your restless fingers. You shouldn't have underestimated him, despite how exhausted he looks, nothing goes past your boss. He asks about it when you two are seated in a beige room, waiting for the client.

"Is everything alright?"

You're still staring out the window. How high were you? 16 stories, maybe even higher. Resentment, you can feel it rise up your throat, build throughout your body. Of course, he has fancy cars, pretty buildings, and limitless money. Men like him will never know what it's like to have nothing. All men were born equal. What a fucking joke.

Higuruma shifts, and you jolt out of your thoughts. "Yes," you console, "apologies, I'm just tired."

The lawyer hums, and you're not sure if he believes you or not. Before he can say anything, the frosted doors open. The rest of the legal team comes in, sitting at the long table you and Higuruma inhabited.

He comes in last. He'd always had a liking for theatrics.

Not much had changed within a decade. He was taller, bigger. He'd switched out of his high school uniform, opting for something more business-friendly. He still made heads turn. Became the center of attention.

It's his smile that throws you. Sincere, real. Lingering on his face like extravagant jewelry. Hard not to notice.

You react better than you anticipated. You don't shake or tremble or cry when he passes you. You just squeeze your fists, bunching your skirt in your palm. It helps.

He sits down, right at the end, so everyone can see him. One foot elegantly crossed over the other. When he tilts his head, his soft white hair threatens to shift over brilliant blue eyes.

"Well, I'm sure you don't need me to explain why we're all here." A few chuckles resonate from the small group. "Let's just do our best and hope nothing gets too out of hand."

His eyes slide over to meet yours, and you steel yourself for his eyes to widen. For something wicked and cruel and nasty to sink into his face.

Nothing.

Gojo Satoru maintains that same smile. The blaring sun. Painfully innocent. His gaze lasts barely a second before moving to the next face, and the next, and the next.

"I look forward to working with all of you."

𖤓

If you could describe Gojo Satoru in one word, it would be: celestial.

He's like a shining star. Brighter than the sun. Everywhere he went, he was bound to attract attention. Much like how the Earth is drawn towards the sun, people are drawn towards Gojo Satoru. It's the natural order.

But, if an insignificant planet resists the Sun's gravitational force, it'll get crushed. You learned this the hard way.

Gojo had always been in your class for years. The third year was no different. Despite the commonality, you two never talked to each other. You had no reason to. Until the vending machine gave you two cartons, and you suddenly remembered from an overheard conversation that Gojo liked chocolate milk too.

"Want it?" You hold it out to him during lunch break. He was in the middle of a boisterous conversation with his friend. They did intimidate you, but you had no reason to be scared. It's not like they were bullies.

Gojo's sunglasses dip down. He eyes what you're holding in your hand, before his gaze drifts back up to you.

"The machine gave me extra," you supply, "do you want it?"

"Oh, sure," he says after a moment. Your hands brush. "Thanks."

You nod, and then you walk back to the cafeteria. It was meaningless. A favor between acquaintances. He was helping you more than you helped him. You didn't want to carry chocolate milk around in your backpack. You forgot about the interaction within a few hours.

𖤓

The meeting ends hours later. When you stumble home, it's barely evening but you can still feel the stress creeping through your legs and arms.

You go straight to your laptop. Fumbling through the keyboard, desperate, searching.

He's famous. Of course, he is. In his mid-twenties, but already a multi-millionaire. The head of an extremely elite family. Your eyes scan picture after picture after picture. Photos of him drinking with models in skimpy bikinis. Fancy cars. Huge houses. Private jets. Gojo Satoru: the man behind Gojo Co., Gojo Satoru and supermodel Menza hinted at relationship, Gojo Satoru, Gojo Satoru, Gojo Satoru, Gojo Satoru.

You pull away when it starts to burn, when the rage and sorrow become too much. He has everything. Everything he could want. He made you go through hell for months, and yet he never got punished for it. The universe rewards him with lavishness you'd never be able to touch.

It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not fucking fair.

Through your blinds, the sun happily shines.

𖤓

You don't notice it until it becomes painfully unbearing.

Gojo calls you by your name now (until that day you bet he didn't even know you existed). He's like a ghost, constantly appearing out of nowhere to sling an arm around your shoulder, eager to chase off any of your friends to talk to you about things that don't matter.

He constantly offers to walk you home (and then Gojo ignores your refusals and does it anyway). It stays like that for a few days, never bordering beyond friendliness. You think he's harmless. Maybe he just hasn't had someone genuinely do a nice favor for him. Besides, you're flattered by the attention. Even you can be swayed by the pull of Gojo Satoru. It feels nice to be wanted.

You reason it'll just be for another week. A week later, you two will be nothing but acquaintances, sometimes exchanging quick smiles during class.

It doesn't truly dawn on you as to what he's doing until he comes out and says it.

"What?" Because you must have misheard him.

"We should," he says, not even bothering to repeat himself, "I mean, we're practically dating already. Let's just make it official."

You stare at him. As always, he's utterly beautiful. The light of the setting sun makes his skin glow gold. Whenever he's walking you home is one of the rare times he removes those sunglasses. His eyes are like jewels, pretty things that you wish were yours.

You laugh. It's high and panicky because you still think he's joking. He doesn't laugh with you. You stop.

"Oh-oh, I'm sorry Gojo-I wasn't-I didn't think. I'm just not...interested in dating anyone right now. It's not you! I think-I think you're great, but it's just the wrong time, and school is getting so much busier and-" you keep rambling, coming up with excuse after excuse because you're convinced Gojo would cut you off with an awkward laugh, tell you it's fine.

He doesn't do either, letting your flounderings get more and more pathetic. His smile had dropped. You can't read his expression anymore.

Eventually, you grow quiet, standing with him in that silence. When that gets too much, you timidly tell him to have a goodnight and walk home. He doesn't follow, staying rooted to the sidewalk where you left him. You're not running away, you tell yourself over and over again. And yet, you can't help but feel relief as soon as you can't feel his eyes.

Don't resist the Sun. It'll crush you.

𖤓

It was something minuscule.

Barely considered legal work. The case would most likely be finished in a couple of weeks. The defendant had nothing on Gojo Satoru, at least from what you and the other paralegals could see. You highly doubted it would even go to court. Higuruma always had a knack for bringing anyone to the table. Gojo would be let off from whatever he did without a hitch. No punishment. Just like always.

"Word of advice, don't think about what happens in the private sector," Higuruma says, over whiskey.

The firm was celebrating another victory at a fancy bar. You were still stewing over the face of that young woman's face when the judge ruled in your client's favor. She looked heartbroken. You can still remember the sleazy smile your client had given her.

"It's a job," he says, "do it. Boost your resume, and get out."

He takes another dainty sip of his glass. Tonight, the circles underneath his eyes seem even darker. "You're a young kid. Do something else with your life."

When he offers to buy you a round, you accept. You think about that night sometimes, and you wonder if Higuruma wished someone else would have given him that advice when he was younger.

Do the job, and get out. Easier said than done. Especially when the job involved Gojo Satoru.

Associating with him was dangerous, you knew that firsthand, especially when he was interested in something you had. You'd left, but that wouldn't save you. The space of decades would not help.

Burn Gojo once, he won't forgive you. Burn Gojo twice? You don't think there's anyone alive who did that.

Over the coming days, you expect something from him. It's a nagging feeling in your stomach. The delayed response to a gunshot. Dread. You expect him to snap. Push. Break.

He never does. Gojo remains pliant, the same to you as he remains to your boss. There's no additional touching, no disgusting nicknames, no scathing looks. Nothing.

You don't get the confirmation until a week later, when Gojo stops you near the elevator.

"Higuruma's...assistant, right? Sorry, never got your name," he says, and you steel yourself because the two of you are alone and here it comes but if you yell loudly enough maybe-

"He asked for some paperwork, and I finally found it for him." Gojo hands you a stack of sheets with a cheery smile. "You won't mind giving that to him, will ya? Thanks!"

Just as quickly as he arrives, he leaves, shoes clicking down the hall as he goes. You can only stare at his rescinding back, the palpable feeling of relief nearly making your knees buckle.

The best news you could have possibly received. Gojo Satoru had completely forgotten about you.

When you got home later that evening, the rain was heavy, and the sun was nowhere to be seen.

𖤓

You don't have proof it was him.

It's unjust to accuse people of things they didn't do. You lack any evidence. It could have easily started by itself. You'd always been meek and timid. People were bound to take advantage of that.

But the timing was just too perfect for it to not be caused by him.

In the weeks following the incident with Gojo, school went from tolerant to hell. It started small, at first. Tiny. Unoticable. Insignificant. Some people (Gojo's lackeys, you'd later realize), would nudge you as they passed you by the halls. They apologized, mid-laugh, and in the beginning, you truly thought they were sincere. Then, the nudges turned into pushes, then shoves. That's when you knew you had a target on your back.

At first, you found it kind of hard to believe. Bullying? It sounded so childish. Something reserved for petty middle schoolers. You were in your final year of high school. You were already an adult. You laughed it off, for a bit. Mostly because it was so ridiculous. Only when it starts becoming more severe, more apparent that you were his target, do you start taking things more seriously.

There was no proof, but everyone knew it was Gojo. And being on Gojo's bad side wasn't something people were willing to risk. One by one, your friends started to disappear, reducing their involvement by sending strained smiles during passing period. The more stubborn ones who were more adamant about staying by your side were chased away too. They'd skip school for a few days, before coming back and completely ignoring you.

Teachers and staff were no help either. Why would they? Gojo's family held them in the palm of their hand. The most your homeroom teacher would do was avert his eyes whenever something was thrown at you for the third time in class, and quietly remind students to settle down.

You fell on the ground with an embarrassing thump. A chorus of laughter, and a mocking 'sorry' is all you hear from the crowd. Other students step over your scattered papers, giving you looks of sympathy but never bothering to help. You'd call them cowards, but you know you'd do the same.

Instead, you focus on collecting your papers. You avoid the lump in your throat. The tears that threaten to break over your waterline. It's humiliating, being stuck on the floor like this. It's only Wednesday, but you already feel like breaking.

Hands, scarred, move past you, collecting the rest of the sheets. His face is carefully blank as Geto Suguru neatly tucks his share all in one piece before handing it to you. You give your thanks. He ignores it.

“Are you hurt?” Geto asks, his voice barely loud enough to hear.

You think you scrapped your knee during the fall, but other than your pride, you're fine. You shake your head. Geto sighs. It's not out of relief.

“That's good,” he says anyway.

You found it ironic that Gojo's best friend is the only one who bothers to help you these days. It makes sense, in a way. It's not like he'll send his goons to Geto, instead. In this solar system, Geto Suguru is the only person unaffected by Gojo's solar flares.

You work in relative silence, collecting the mess that fell out of your bag. Geto hands you the last of the supplies, idly watching as you tuck them away.

“Take my advice,” he says just before he leaves, “give in.”

He stands up. Geto Suguru has always been taller than you, but now the difference feels even worse. When he looks down at you, a flicker of pity lingers in his eyes. It's gone before it can mean anything.

“It'll only get worse from here if you don't.”

Worse, he had said. God, what could be worse? You were already at rock bottom. All you have left is your dignity. Something you intend on gritting your teeth to keep.

You quickly learned something about Geto Suguru: he knew his best friend.

Friday. The end of the worst week of your life has finally arrived. The week after is break, and then maybe Gojo will move onto some other hyperfixation, and finally leave you alone.

Classes were out. You were done, free to run home and cry the entire week away. And then, you noticed, your locker was open.

Smashed in, was a better term. Completely, irrevocably, destroyed. It looked like someone had taken a wooden bat to repeatedly smash in the metal until it cracked open like an egg.

You don't want to look, but you have to. The busted door is barely hanging on its hinges when you push it open.

It's worse than anything you could think of.

Your books, textbooks, journals, are all torn apart and written on. All the contents of your bag have been thrown around. Your assignments, your notes, your pens and pencils. But it's your laptop that makes your throat stop. Smashed, broken without any hope of being salvageable. Your everything was in there. Why why why would he do this to you?

This wasn't bullying.

This was abuse.

Fuck pride. Fuck dignity.

You were so tired.

Despite the hell his lackeys put you through. Gojo Satoru himself never bothered you. In fact, you hadn't seen him all week. He doesn't make himself impossible to find. You know where his group hangs out after school. You're barely holding yourself together when you hear his voice. His pretty laugh. You don't care about how you look, close to breaking, your voice high-pitched and shaky.

"Why?"

Your voice catches his attention. He falls into silence, just like the rest of the group. Gojo surveys you for a moment. There's a scoff, a hint of amusement before he waves off the rest of the group.

"Get lost."

They comply, dispersing in multiple directions. For the first time, in a long while, you and Gojo are left alone. You and Gojo are left, alone.

"Well?" he tilts his head, completely bored.

"What do I have to do?" You ask desperately, "What-what do I have to do to make this all stop? Please I'll-I'll do anything, just-just make it-"

It's all too much. You can't hold your sobs in, bursting into tears as you fumble through your words. He tuts in mock pity. You flinch when you feel his hand against your cheek, but he doesn't let you shy away.

"Anything?" He asks when your sobs simmer into hushed whimpers, "Really? Anything?"

You blink, looking up at him with rough teary eyes. He's grinning, wide and manic. Your heart drops when he lowers himself to whisper in your ear.

"Anything, right?"

You nod once. He sighs in pure delight. His breath tickles your cheek.

"Get on your knees."

You jerk back, but Gojo doesn't let you go far, a hand on your shoulder, keeping you rooted on the spot. At your look of pure panic, he only laughs a little.

"I-I-Gojo you-"

"And call me Satoru now. Since we're gonna get to know each other a lot better," he interrupts with a chiding grin, ignoring your wide eyes. "What? I thought you said anything, right?"

He's asking, but it's clear you don't get a choice anymore. His grip on your shoulder is tight, close to crushing skin and bone. You're trapped. No, you were trapped the moment you talked to Gojo Satoru.

To think this all started because of two cartons of chocolate milk.

You relent when his grip gets too painful, sinking down to your knees. The grass is cool, and you know it will leave damp spots on your skirt, letting everyone know what you did for him.

"Good girl," he coos, and you shudder at his hand petting your hair. Like you're some precious pet. To him, maybe you are. How could anyone think of treating a human like this? You should be grateful he does it for you, instead of demanding you to pull him out. Still, the jiggle of his belt makes you wince. You turn away, not being able to bring yourself to look. Only when the tip of his cock reaches your peripheral, do you look back. It's big. You should have expected it, considering his height. It's already leaking, a bead of precum that makes you shudder. He moves forward and you instinctively grip his thigh.

"Gojo I-"

"Nuh-uh. Satoru," he ununciates, "Satoru. You gotta' start listening to me baby, or else we're gonna have problems."

You look down at the grass. Green, soft.

"Satoru."

His eyes flash in satisfaction.

"Open up, pretty girl."

The last of your fight disappears, sinks into the soft grass. You swallow, once, before you take him. It's a slow, torturous process. He's too big, your jaw is already starting to ache. Satoru barely notices your discomfort, sighing in contentment when you start to gag on his cock, reaching down to tuck a lock of hair behind your ear.

You make a muffled gurgle and he tilts his head down. His sunglasses fall forward, two pretty eyes stare at you.

"What? Don't act like this is your first time-" he stops himself, mid-thought.

"Wait...this can't be your first time, right?"

If you weren't humiliated enough. You can't even lie, averting your eyes to avoid any further shame.

"Poor baby," Satoru says, all too delighted, "lemme' walk you through it. Gotta' suck on it, just like a lollipop-that's it-use your tongue," he encourages, still gripping his cock in his hand, like he was feeding it to you.

You can feel your mouth open wider. Tears stream down your face, not just from your pride, but also from pain. Satoru lets you take him in like this for a few more moments, just enjoying your warm mouth.

"There we go," he breathes, "take-fuck-take all of me."

But Satoru isn't known for his patience. You've barely taken all of him in yet before he grabs your hair to fuck your throat properly. You choke, sputtering all over his cock. He barely pays you any mind, his head thrown back as he rams himself down your mouth without a care in the world.

"Y'know, our first time together could-could have been nicer," he says through gritted teeth, the heat was starting to get to him, "but you just had to go and mess it up, huh?"

If you were stronger. If you were braver. You would have rejected it. Screamed. Fought. At the very least, you would have denied his delusions. But you weren't strong. You weren't brave. You were weak. Stupid. This was all your fault. Had you just given in the moment he asked, this wouldn't be happening to you. Or maybe, he'd be a bit nicer about it.

He hisses, gripping the back of your head before something warm and disgusting fills your mouth. Above you, Satoru lets out a shameless groan, a mix of your name as well as a curse. He releases you then, finally letting you sink to the floor. You fall forward, resting on your hands and knees, panting, trying to regain your breath, some semblance of sanity. You can still taste him. It's salty, a sickly tang. You spit as much as you can on the grass. It doesn't help.

He kneels, getting down to your level. With the way he's silently watching you, you know he's waiting for the right answer this time.

Don't resist the Sun. It'll crush you.

So, you drop your gaze down. You take in a deep long stilted breath.

"Yes, Satoru," you say, voice quiet, pliant, "I'll go out with you."

His demeanor drops in just a second. He smiles, painfully innocent, like you hadn't spent the last few moments choking on his cock. He cups your face with both hands and you wonder how he could look at you like that, gently, as though you weren't covered in tears and his cum.

(You still feel it drip down your mouth. Tonight, when he finally lets you go home you'll cry for hours in the shower, hoping the water will wash away all the shame you feel. It won't.)

"Finally!" He exclaims, laughing, light, happy, elated, "I'm so glad you finally came around. I was starting to think I was ugly or something."

You stay like that for a while. Underneath him. You let his hands run up and down your body, like he's feeling the space that makes up you. Soon, you'd realize Gojo Satoru liked to touch things that were beneath him. A thought muddles it's way through your numb brain. You bring yourself to look at him.

"Satoru?" you ask. He sighs in satisfaction, stroking your hair.

"My laptop...it's broken."

You didn't know what else to say. It sounded accusatory, even to your ears. Righteous. You wondered if he heard it too, if he'd do something about it.

Satoru only scoffs.

“that old thing?” You flinch. It was a gift from your aunt, you highly doubted he cared enough about the sentimental. He hugs you closer, almost like a snake, constricting you within its scales before it devours you.

(You think the worst part is that he didn't even deny it.)

“I'll just get you a new one, baby.”

He walks you home later that evening. When he demands a kiss, you comply, numbly pressing your aching lips to his.

The sunset is pretty today.

𖤓

It's not a particularly hard case, but Gojo has a knack for keeping those who work for him busy. Higuruma had asked you to stay behind, once again. The two of you were stuck alone in the office building, a room that Gojo had graciously supplied.

You were milling through a stack of papers when someone new walked in. You didn't recognize her. She was tall, pretty, sparkling jewelry littered her neck and wrists. Your eyes drifted up and down her outfit, something that definitely wasn't business-appropriate. A part of you wants to ask where she got that lipgloss from.

"Oh," she tilts her head, surveying the two of you with pretty eyes, "is Sato not here?"

You inwardly cringe at the nickname, but choose not to show it. Higuruma is the one who saves you, in the end. He speaks on both of your behalf.

"Mr. Gojo isn't here at the moment," he says, "feel free to wait."

She does as she's told, plopping down on a seat right next to her. Higuruma goes back to ignoring her, dutiful in everything like he always is. You, on the other hand, don't like the way some of the other associates eye her legs. When you wordlessly hand her your jacket, she gratefully accepts.

"Thanks. I love your bag, by the way," she cheerily says and a part of you feels bad for her.

Minutes pass. She crosses her legs and then uncrosses them. When she crosses them again, you have to look up from your paperwork and ask if she's feeling alright.

"Just nervous," she admits, "I-I haven't seen Sato since our...last meeting."

Everyone in the vicinity knows this wasn't a casual business meeting, you don't get why she's avoiding the elephant like that. Probably to save face. It's clear from her behavior that she wasn't expecting so many visitors, so perhaps this situation is new for her. You found it strange that a booty call would be called up to an office building, especially when people were clearly watching, but you doubted Mr. Gojo cared about that. He was always shameless in that regard, uncaring about anyone's reputation, even his own. That's why he's in this legal mess in the first place. Besides, you were part of Gojo's Satoru's legal team. Part of your job is to be discreet about his extracurricular affairs.

Gojo Satoru hadn't changed at all since high school. Why would he? His personality has gotten him this far, after all. The Sun would never change, it's a constant sphere of fire. You wouldn't want him to change. You were banking on his stagnant nature to slip by. You couldn't imagine if he did change, improve himself, and realize how horrible he'd been to you. How would you be able to keep yourself together if he pulled you aside one day and tried to apologize? You'd break. Things are better the way they are now. Let Gojo Satoru indulge himself in all this lavishness, forgetting about the people he's tortured. It's better this way.

You glance over at the girl. She's young, maybe a couple of years younger than you. You can see the flush on her cheeks. The clear swooning. A part of you wonders what she'd think about that man if you ever told her what he did to you. What a monster he is-

"There you are!" Mr. Gojo strides in, just as silent as always, making himself known when he wants to.

The girl jumps up, her eyes lighting up in pure excitement as she practically drags herself into Mr. Gojo's arms. He places an arm on the small of her back, scarily close to touching somewhere inappropriate as she chatters away. They disappear off to wherever rich men like him go.

It's so quick. You must have imagined it because, for a second, you were sure he'd glanced back at you.

𖤓

By now, everyone knows you're Satoru's. That means, like him, you're untouchable.

You're not celestial. If Satoru was a star, then you were a stray meteor he'd found hurtling through space, and he couldn't resist forcing it to revolve around him. In exchange for suffering through his solar flares and radiation, he protects you from bigger planets that are all too eager to smash into you. The one relief is that no one seems to bother you anymore. You haven't been shoved around, pushed, or prodded. Sometimes, you receive glares from Satoru's old ex's, but it's more tolerable than burnt homework.

Satoru has officially chased away all your friends, but he's more than happy to keep you company. You sit next to him in lunch now, quietly listening as he prattles on to the rest of his friends (you recognize some of them, the ones who messed with you, they never seem to hold your gaze for long). You used to study on campus alone, right after school let out. Now, you still do it, but with Satoru watching. It's hard to concentrate with his wandering fingers and wet lips.

He takes all of your firsts. You don't give them to him, much less, he demanded it of you. The first time he fully takes you is far less romantic than you'd ever hoped. It was on his bed after he'd practically dragged you over to his house that night. You went home the next day covered in marks that took nearly a week to heal. A little while after that, Geto came to talk to you again. For the second time ever.

"Here." He offers you a packet. Pills. You're confused for a moment until you realize Satoru didn't wear a condom.

"Thank-"

"Don't," he cuts you off, "Don't thank me."

He says it with so much hate that you think it's directed at you. It isn't until years later that you realize the disgust was towards himself.

There are theories that the Moon once had color.

It wasn't just white. It was green and blue, and red. 70 million years ago, it could have been much like the Earth. It didn't have a strong atmosphere, however. The gaseous layer was slowly stripped away. The sun didn't help. With no atmosphere, the unfiltered solar radiation slowly began to bleach the once colorful celestial body a dull white. Before long, the sun had created the moon to be its image. Now, the only color the moon has to offer is the sun's reflection.

When the moon was out, you often stared at it, reveling in its beauty. Now, trapped in between Satoru's arms, you find its skeleton a bit too haunting to look at.

Three more weeks. Just three more weeks.

Graduation is coming up soon. You already had your college picked out, far far away from this backward town. From his conversations, Satoru was planning on going to some high-end college in Tokyo. With the way he kept looking back at you, you had a feeling he was planning on dragging you there too.

You were intelligent enough to keep your mouth shut about your plans. Satoru never asked, so you guessed he assumed you would let him bully you into whatever he wanted. He was right, so far. It's not like you'd ever argued with him.

Your parents were the only people who knew about your plan. They were excited, albeit for the wrong reasons.

"I'm so glad to see you're this interested in higher education," your mother beamed, "why the sudden change?"

You look at your mother's face. People have told you that you share the same smile. You wonder if she'd keep smiling if you ever told her about what Satoru's been doing to you, the bullying, the harassment.

You can't. You won't, because you can't bear to see her give you the same pitiful look your classmates give-the one Geto gives. You don't want her to see you as something broken.

"I'm just starting to think I might go into law," you finally say, "definitely need college for that."

On Thursdays, you have to sit inside the gym during Satoru's basketball practice. You wait on the bleachers, reviewing notes, and listening to the squeaking of sneakers. Satoru's good at the sport. You know last year they won a few tournaments. Whenever he scores a point, he gives a cheer, turning back to see if you saw it too. In those moments, you remember he's just a kid. He's your age. You can feel the envy. There, but too insignificant to do anything. He pleasantly lives his childhood, even after he stole yours.

Practice ends, always a little later than it's officially supposed to. Coach gives the final whistle and then Satoru is jogging back to you. Your things are already neatly packed into your bag. His breath is barely ragged, you can smell the hint of sweat as he kisses you on the lips. You can feel eyes on you, same as always. It's getting easier to ignore the gawking. After all, you're Satoru's now.

"Miss me?" he asks when he pulls away. He grabs your stuff before you can, hauling your backpack away. To others, it may look like he's being a sweet boyfriend. To you, it's another leash, tugging you to where he wants to go. You're not sure how Satoru sees the action.

You clamber out of the bleachers, following him without a word. Usually, Satoru would walk you home. You'd share a kiss with him on the front porch. And for the rest of the day, he'd finally leave you alone.

He grabs your hand, shooting you a wink when you lightly jostle into his body. Instead of heading out the door, Satoru turns his gaze towards the empty locker rooms. The light's automated. It flickers an unsettling white, casting a sick glow along the tiles. You are barely through the door before Satoru's pinning you against the lockers, kissing you as aggressively as he can.

Your hands immediately find their way to his shoulders, squeezing. It's not enough to hurt him, but it grabs his attention anyway. He lets up a little, relaxing into your touch.

"Sorry, baby," he says not sounding apologetic at all, "just be good f'me, okay? Need you."

He's pent up, you realize and you look at the door. School's out. The campus is nearly empty. But people are still around. And the door he just shoved you through doesn't have a lock-

Oh, wait. Would it even matter if someone came in and saw you? Everyone knew you were Satoru's.

Three more weeks. Just three more weeks.

He's trailing down, dropping to his knees. He flips up your skirt, pushing aside your panties, and attaches his hot mouth to your pussy. He's ravenous, today. Sucking on your clit like he can't bear to do anything else. You gasp, immediately assaulted by the shocks of pleasure running up and down your back.

You press against the wall, arching your back, giving him even more to suck on. He hums in approval, his voice getting lost in your wet folds. You're practically dripping now, and Satoru, with all his debauchery, gladly licks it all up as you writhe and whimper above him. Your thighs grow tighter around him, threatening to crush his skull if both his hands weren't carved into the fat of your thighs, squeezing.

Your initial panic is washed away, crumbled by his insistent tongue and fingers. You whimper out his name again as his tongue circles your clit and two fingers continue to move in and out of your sopping pussy. You're crying now, tears of pleasure and brokenness floating down your cheeks. Despite how blurry your vision is, you can see Satoru looking up at you.

"Getting close?" he's breathless, but there's still a hint of playfulness in his voice, "gonna sing, pretty girl?"

He gives a particularly hard suck on your clit and you're gone. You seize, throwing your head back as your legs shake from the force of your orgasm. It's a scream, so loud and shameless. Satoru gives a groaned pant, lapping up your aftertaste, making you jolt from the overstimulation before he finally gets to his feet. You watch as he haphazardly wipes the remnants of you with his sleeve before he's kissing you again.

"Always so sweet f'me," he purrs, biting at your lips before he fumbles with his belt. His cock is already red and strained. He pants, head shifting to fall at the crook of your neck as he lines himself up and sinks into you with one full thrust.

You whine a mix of a sob and a hissed moan. He hushes you with a stilted breath, barely keeping himself together as he pumps himself into you. Both of you are sweating now. You can feel the beads draw down your neck. He licks at your clavicle, biting when he starts to get more aggressive. When it's too less, he hikes your thigh over his waist, keeping it there so he can go even deeper.

"Fuck, I'm crazy for you," he slurs against your skin. You can barely pay attention to his words, barely keeping your own voice in check, "’would do anything for you, pretty girl."

He raises his head, looking you in the eye. His sunglasses have been tossed on the floor. You can his beautiful eyes, two cosmic galaxies of blue. You could stare at them for hours, discovering each variant of cerulean, naming each one. You bet each day you look, you'll find another shade. They're so pretty.

You wonder how pretty those eyes would look floating in a jar.

"'Toru-!" you gasp when Satoru rocks himself into again, even faster. The name you accidentally gave him when you're too fucked out to comprehend language makes him laugh in pure delight, his smile uncontrolled, delirious.

"Right here, baby," he moans into your sweaty skin, hand reaching down to rub your clit, "your ‘Toru's right here. Just where you need him."

His fingers move under your shirt, squeezing at your tits, exploring, roughly grabbing at your chest. The sensation makes you wince. Your walls draw even tighter, choking his cock.

"Too-too much, 'Toru, p-please." He growls at your begging, burying his face in your neck again. He nips at your damp skin, you flinch.

"I gotcha' baby," he breathes, "just-just lemme-" He presses on your clit. It's all you need.

You come with a sob, your pussy squeezing, milking Satoru for all he's worth. He's not too far behind, hips stuttering before he whines in your ear. Something warm fills your cunt.

You flounder, sagging against the wall. Satoru's the only thing that keeps you upright as you fight to catch your breath. He isn't in any better shape, panting just as hard as you are. He lifts his head, pressing his damp forehead onto yours. There's a dreamy smile on his lips. A look of absolute adoration.

"I love you."

You look at him. There's nowhere else to look.

"I love you," he repeats, leaning forward to kiss the corner of your lips. His lips trail down, caressing your cheek, your jaw, your neck. It would almost feel nice, but you can only stare straight ahead. You can see the dull green lockers in the distance. You can smell the mold in the damp locker room. You can feel Satoru's cum slowly seep out of you, trailing down your thigh.

Fuck three weeks.

You needed to get out, now.

𖤓

The only reason you went is because you were told Gojo Satoru wouldn't be there.

His assistant had off-handily mentioned that he had a meeting on the other side of town. Very last minute. The building as a whole would be empty, just a skeleton crew and a couple of security guards to keep the place running. It made sense, it was 8 pm- long past any proper business hours.

Higuruma could have easily gone, but it's clear the sleepless nights have been getting to him, or the stress. His paralegal is more than qualified to act like a middleman between him and Mr.Gojo's associates. It's an easy mission. Just grab a few things, and get out.

Gojo Satoru wasn't supposed to be there.

And yet, there he was, leaning against the door, blocking you into the room.

His assistant had always been a mousey thing. Tonight, however, he'd been extra ansty, looking around the room. Babbling out excuses as to what was taking him so long. Now, when he can barely even look at you, you realize he was just a distraction.

"You're off the clock, Ijichi," Gojo finally breaks the silence, "take tomorrow off too, okay?"

His assistant quickly nods, keeping his head down to flit out the door. You can't even bring yourself to be mad at him. Gojo always had a habit of singling out the weakest, crushing them within his fist, unless they bent or broke.

The door shuts with a click.

"You know, I didn't even recognize you at first," he starts. He takes a small step forward.

You take one back. He puts his hands up.

"Okay, don't be like that," he sighs, exasperated, "It's been what, 10 years? How you've been?"

He steps around you, barely brushing against your shoulder to get to his desk. He reaches down, grabbing a wine bottle and two glasses from a cabinet, setting both down on mahogany wood.

"Wanna drink? Technically, it's against company policy to serve alcohol in the building but I won't tell if you don't." He grins. It looks bloody.

He looks so casual, the man who's haunted your nightmares, leaning against a desk in a building he owns. Your heart's beating in your chest. It's so loud. You wonder if he can hear it too.

When you don't respond, he rolls his eyes.

"Figures." He pops the cork. "You were always such a stickler for the rules."

"What do you want?" You ask, your tone weaker than you'd liked.

"What? Don't you wanna catch up? I missed you." You flinch at his words, looking away. "A paralegal, huh? Gotta' say, wasn't what I expected, but it fits you." It sounds condescending, but you don't poke the bear, opting to stay silent.

He seems to take an issue with that, regardless.

"Are you mad? If anything, I should be the one upset at how you just ran off like that. After all that time we spent together too. I didn't even get a breakup text."

His last words, send a chill up your spine. A warning. Staying here any longer would be a mistake.

You go to move.

Satoru's faster.

Your head slams against the wall. Hard. Enough to hurt. You struggle anyway, clawing at the hand that's gripping your throat, the body pinning you down. Above you (he's gotten so much taller now), Gojo tuts in disappointment.

"I tried to be nice and look where that got me. You tried to run again," he muses, like he's disappointed, "I shouldn't be surprised. You've always needed something with a bit more teeth." At his threat, his hand on your throat tightens. You freeze.

It's barely choking you, but it's enough of a warning. His other hand is playing with the end of your blouse, feeling the fabric. You can feel the tears start. They're a familiar taste. Only this time, they're twinged with bitterness.

"Don't do this," you whisper, "Don't-don't-"

"Yeah, I don't think you're in any position to make demands right now." He's grinning, but when you look into his eyes, you can see the anger. A fire that has burned for a decade. At that moment, you realized Gojo Satoru had changed. Now, he was better at hiding how he truly felt.

You should have quit the moment Higurama got him as a client.

Gojo's dragging you over to the desk, haphazardly pushing away the stuff already on it. The computer, the bottle, the wine glasses all fall to the floor with a deafening crash as he shoves you down, splaying you across the table. He follows you down, leaning to meet your lips in a frenzied kiss. It's different than all the other times he'd kissed you. He'd lost all the inexperience, more keen on making you stay put and bleed. When you try to turn your face, pushing at his chest, he only growls. A large hand grabs your chin, keeping you in place for him.

When he pulls away, there's a hint of blood on his plush lips. It's not his. He licks it up regardless.

You're full-on sobbing now; barely in sucking air as your body shudders and jolts. You don't expect comfort, least of all from him, but he's cooing, wiping away your tears.

"Missed this," he purrs, ignoring the way you weakly push at him, "'guess that was my mistake. I was expecting you to be different. Nah, you'll be the same crybaby you always were. That's how you managed to slip under my radar."

He buries his face into your hair, sighing in contentment as you shiver underneath him. His lips graze the crown of your head, a complete juxtaposition to his words.

"Scream all you want. No one's here, baby." No one's gonna save you from me.

Still, you try anyway. Your hands grip his broad shoulders, digging in your nails until he hisses.

"Fuck maybe you have changed." He rasps, fiddling with his belt. "You're bitchier now."

"Gojo-Gojo what are you-" He bites on your bare clavicle. You squeal, stilling underneath him again.

"Satoru," he insists. You slump over the desk as he takes both your hands, wrapping his leather belt around your delicate wrists. You wince when he twists it into a knot. The leather bites into your skin. The fight dissolves just as rapidly as it arrived. He hadn't even lifted a finger against you. You were just that pathetic.

"Satoru," you breathe, waving your flag of defeat. He hums, licking at the bitemark. You can feel the heat bloom on your skin. They'll be a mark tomorrow, and much like Satoru, it would go away so easily.

"There's my good girl," he groans, cold hands fiddling with the buttons on your blouse, opening it up until your bra pops out, "I know I should be more mad, but I've always had a soft spot for you. Guess things will never change, hm?"

His mouth dips down, tracing your collarbone to your breasts. He wiggles down your bra, letting your tits spill out and into his hands. He squeezes one while taking another in his mouth, swirling the bud with his tongue before devouring. His moan is barely muffled by your tits. Yours is clear, high-pitched and breathy. Satoru always had no problem being shameless. And he often dragged it out of you too.

He's mouthing something against your skin, but you're too distracted by his other hand, slinking down your waist, pushing up your pencil skirt, letting it bunch around your hips. In the moment, you chastised yourself for wearing something so easy to get rid of, but it wasn't like you were expecting for him to be here, to bring you down just like he did when you were in high school. It's not like you were expecting to fall.

Satoru feels around your pantyhose, running up and down your thigh, searching. He squeezes the sheer fabric, before he rips a hole into it. You gasp, jerking at the action.

"That's-"

"I'll buy you new ones," he says, voice muffled by your tits. The conversation feels familiar.

He bypasses your panties immediately, finding your pussy with practiced ease. You're already soaking. At this, he raises to look at you. You can't keep eye contact, timidly looking away. He laughs. It sounds sickenly affectionate.

"You're so cute." He purrs just as he leaves another mark on your chest. Your tits bounce under his attention as he pushes two fingers into your tight sopping hole. Your back curls, arching off the desk as he starts pumping his fingers in and out of you. Disgust grows within you, not at him, but at yourself, for letting yourself get this low. This desperate.

It doesn't stay for long. He's cruel like that, moving in a way that makes you forget your humanity. His fingers get even faster, digging into your cunt and curling somewhere deep inside, hitting a spot that makes you gasp. You're reduced to whimpering moans by the time he finally stops, fingers exiting your pussy with a wet noise. He brings them to his mouth, sucking on his fingers, eyes rolling to the back of his head at your taste.

"Fuckin' sweet," he moans, taking his fingers out with a sickening pop before wiping the drool on your heaving tits.

Your eyes float to the window. The moon is out, you blearily realize. It's a blood moon, a rusty red. Once every 3 months, it'll lose its heavenly glow. The innocent milky white will get shadowed by the Earth's rusty atmosphere. It'll regain its color eventually. The Sun doesn't like to be overshadowed.

Something hard and blunt slides between your legs. You're barely given a second to comprehend it before Satoru grabs you by the hips, filling you up with one thrust. You yelp, a semblance of his name on your lips, but it's shrouded by the moan you give out.

He stays like that for a bit. You should be grateful he is letting you adjust to him. His cock is sickenly familiar to your walls. Satoru's hair brushes your cheek as he leans up to whisper in your ear.

"How many?" he sounds like he's gritting his teeth, barely in control, "how many guys have you let fuck you since you ran?"

You blink, wondering if he's seriously asking, but you can hear the seriousness in his tone. Even now, he's concerned with the wrong things. He's always been petty like that.

"You," you say because there's no point in lying, "it's only ever been you."

You say it like it's a curse, because to you, Satoru had cursed you. He'd stolen something you'd never be able to enjoy, devouring it, keeping it for himself. A part of you will always hate yourself for letting him do that, just like a part of you will always be his.

Satoru deflates, as if he's relieved, easing his face into the crook of your neck, placing an almost loving kiss on your shoulder. He starts slow, slowly drawing his cock out, just until his tip is barely still in, before he pushes himself back into your hole. His pace is slow, controlled. It's different than when he was younger, more eager to get himself off more than anything. Now, it's like he's enjoying the intimacy, the feeling of your walls squeezing him. The wet noises. He's barely affected. Unlike you, writhing underneath him, close to falling apart. It's his length that gets you, forcing your pussy to stretch just to fit him. His cock hits everywhere, all at once, an endless torture of pleasure.

It takes you a while to get your brain back together, to collect the mush, and realize that Gojo isn't wearing a condom.

"S-Sato-" You try, just when he spreads your thighs apart, pushing them close to your chest so he can get deeper and kiss you at the same time. His hand slips down to your swollen clit, rubbing tight circles and you feel yourself getting even closer. You squeeze your eyes shut at the onslaught.

"Try again," Satoru huffs, "What's my name? I know you know it, pretty girl."

"'Toru," you beg because it's all you have left. Your breathless gasps make you sound even more unconvincing but you still manage to stutter out, "I'm-I'm not on anything, so-so please-"

"That's okay," he mutters, though it's clear he's half-listening, "I'll take care of you and the baby."

"No-I-I-can't-"

He drops his leisure pace in exchange of shorter, faster thrusts. His cock barely leaves your pussy, grinding in your hole as his breathing starts to get a little less controlled.

"I'll make sure it takes this time too."

Your eyes open, and you forget your panic to stare at him. You think back to the pills 18-year-old Geto had handed you. Always discreet. You'd...you'd always thought they were Satoru's idea.

He hits something inside you, right then. You implode, crashing and burning as you gush around his dick. He's not kind enough to ease you through it, ramming his cock even harder inside your battered pussy until he's hunching over you with a shudder. You can feel his cum settle deep inside your womb.

You stay like that for a few moments, not saying anything. It feels like hours before Satoru is moving again, drawing his softened cock out of your overstimulated pussy. You can feel the cum drip out of you too, spilling onto the desk, but you don't think Satoru's too mad about that. He flicks your clit a few times, watching your hips jerk and you give an exhausted whine.

He kisses your breasts. He kisses up your jaw, before finding your lips. Dazed, you find yourself kissing back in reluctant acceptance, your body aching for any semblance of gentleness.

"I love you."

You look into his eyes, and you realize he's right. Gojo Satoru loves you, and this is how a man like him loves. He meant it, all those years ago, just like how he does now.

Satoru loves like the Sun. Too bright. With enough heat to burn your soul away. It's why you ran.

"I love you," he repeats like the phrase doesn't kill you each time he says it, "so you're never leaving me."

"Not ever again."

There are theories that the Moon once had color.

It wasn't just white. It was green and blue, and red. 70 million years ago, it could have been much like the Earth. It didn't have a strong atmosphere, however. The gaseous layer was slowly stripped away. The Sun had eaten it. With no atmosphere, the unfiltered solar radiation slowly began to bleach the once colorful celestial body a dull white. Before long, the sun had created the moon to be its image. Now, the only color the moon has to offer is the sun's reflection.

If Satoru was the Sun, then perhaps, you were the Moon. Stripped of your color. Unable to create light of your own. Reflecting only what you're given.

How foolish of you to think you could ever escape his radiation.

#yandere jjk #yandere #yandere gojo satoru #dark content #dark jjk #dark gojo satoru #x reader #gojo satoru #reader insert #afab reader #bullying #harassment #forced relationship #tw: dubcon #tw:noncon

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luveline · 2 months

Note

YES to luna lovegood/dreamy!reader!!!!!!!!! Can we possibly get one with Spencer? <3

“It’s not as bad as you think.”

Hotch appreciates the softness of your voice, as someone who also speaks in a very measured tone, but the sound of it has his brow furrowing. You’re a brilliant analyst, and a worse distraction whenever you’re in the main office.

“It sounds terrible?”

Hotch peers through the window to get a good look at the scene. You’re sitting in Spencer’s desk chair with your hands stretched out in front of you. Your outfit is very pink, considering the occasion, but it’s a non-abrasive light pink that flatters your skin. You have a clip in your hair, a small silver star with pink jewels embedded along the lines.

Emily sips at a cup of coffee, leaning against the desk, her face to the side. Hotch can see her perturbed smile.

“It’s fine! I’ve just been sleeping on the sofa.”

“Well. That’s a call to pest control.”

Spencer returns to his desk with a frown and two mugs. “Pest control?” he asks, the mug he places in front of you steaming.

“There’s a raccoon living in her bedroom.”

Spencer burns himself on his coffee, swearing as he puts it down hurriedly beside yours. “There’s a what?” Spencer asks.

“He’s friendly. He came in through my vent.”

“So friendly he’s stolen your bedroom?”

You lean back in Spencer’s chair like it’s a La-Z-Boy, blowing at the hot surface of your drink with a similar lazy smile. “Imagine being that little and having such a big bed? When you usually sleep in the garbage?” You give a breathy laugh. “He must be having the time of his life.”

“How are you getting ready in the mornings?” Spencer asks worriedly.

“We’re cohabiting.”

Spencer licks his lips. He likes you, and you seem aware of that fact, and that’s nerve-wracking for everyone involved.

“Um, maybe we can make him a house? Like, outside? Raccoons are far happier in their natural habitat, and they’re also, you know, highly diseased and contagious compared to humans. I really don’t think you should let him inside.”

“Spencer,” you say, giving him a dozy grin, “I didn’t let him in. He knows how to get in all by himself.”

“I’ll call a repairman, too,” Emily says with a groan.

She walks away, probably to find JJ and get her in on the repairs. Spencer looks at you for a long time, just drinking your tea, and Hotch mentally goads him into making a semblance of a move. Even if it’s just to fix your drooping hair clip.

“You’re looking at me strangely again,” you say.

Winces all around. “Am I?” Spencer asks.

“Yes. Is this about Thursday?”

“No.” Spencer swallows. “Yes. You didn’t answer my texts, after. I just want to know what you’re thinking.”

“What I’m thinking?”

“Yeah. I thought about it a lot, so maybe you did too. Or maybe you didn’t, and it didn’t mean anything.”

“Of course it meant something, Spencer.” You put down your mug, dusting your knees off before you stand. Spencer is not much taller than you where you’re standing in front of him, but you look up at him anyways. Your face tips ever so slightly to one side. “Would you want to do it again?” you ask softly.

Spencer looks around the office. He neglects to check Hotch’s window, perhaps because the blinds are more often drawn than not, and so he doesn’t realise Hotch is watching as he draws you in for a kiss.

You preen and lean back, hands fighting to cup his cheeks, a gauzy, practically gleaming aura around you as you smile into his mouth. Your fingertips tease his hair, and Spencer’s hand settles in place against the small of your back. You kiss back for only a few seconds before you’re laughing.

Spencer moves away quickly, taking your wrists into his hands to pull them away from his face.

“You give up too fast,” you say.

“I don’t think this is the place for it.”

“Well, we can’t do it at my place. What if the raccoon sees?”

“Good point. How about Marina’s, would that be better? We can get dinner at the same time.”

Hotch feels oddly proud of Spencer’s suave suggestion, but he also has a migraine brewing between his brows. He really doesn’t need the extra paperwork.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction

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honeypiehotchner · 23 days

Text

Juno (Hotch x Fem!Reader) -- one shot

Hello again! This goes from zero to 100 in two seconds flat don't @ me!! Sabrina's new album came out and reawakened something in me (everyone say thank you Sabrina) (also this is not beta'd I wrote this in a short n' sweet haze)

Summary: Aaron is working from home but what paperwork he needs to do is the absolute last thing on your mind.

Warnings: smut! 18+ only! this is so filthy! in no particular order: multiple orgasms, cockwarming, choking, brat tendencies, stoplight system, unprotected sex, breeding kink (briefly), face fucking, overstimulation

WC: like 3,400 I lost my damn mind clearly

You’re not sure what’s gotten into you. Blame it on period hormones (probably) or the fact that Aaron looks absolutely delicious right now in his tight black t-shirt (most likely), but you’re going to go insane if either of you have clothes on for another five minutes.

The problem is, Aaron is trying to focus. It’s one of his days where he works from home, an idea you gave him when you realized how easy it would be for him to do the same paperwork just from the comfort of your living room. It was a brilliant idea at first. You got to see him more, and were able to do your own thing around the house while he did his work. You got to have lunch together, and offer a genuine mental break in between his mountain of paperwork.

Now, though, you can’t find it in you to give a single fuck about whatever needs to be signed, who needs to clear what, and what phone calls he still needs to make.

“Honey,” you call sweetly from the kitchen. You watch him from over the island, your thoughts going all sorts of ways -- namely, deep into the gutter. “Want to break for lunch?”

You see Aaron shake his head, still typing furiously on his laptop. “It’s not even noon yet.”

“Brunch?” you try again, walking out of the kitchen. You lean against the doorframe, crossing your arms over your chest in the way you know he loves because of the view it gives him of your cleavage. And you’re wearing a v-neck shirt today for that exact reason, too.

Aaron still doesn’t look up. “I’m sorry honey, maybe in an hour?”

You let out a huff that you know he hears because he finally looks up, eyebrows raised just so. It’s a look that you love. Curious, veering toward that playful annoyance that you can’t seem to go a few hours without his undivided attention.

Which, you can, by the way. You’re more than capable. It’s just that right now, it’s a crime that his eyes have been looking at paperwork when they should be looking at you.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and there’s some hesitation in his voice. You know he’s assuming the worst. That you’re not okay mentally, and that’s why you need him to take his lunch break now or maybe for the rest of the day. He’s done it before on your darker days.

But you’re okay. You’re perfectly fine. You’d just be even better if he put the damn laptop away and put his fingers to use somewhere else.

Which is exactly why you come to a stop in front of him and reach forward, tilting his screen down and down until it closes. He lets you.

He lets you take his laptop and put it on the table beside the couch. He watches you, his fiery brown eyes taking in every second. He lets you straddle his hips, your arms circling his neck.

“I see now,” he smirks, his hands finding their rightful place on your waist and squeezing lovingly. “By ‘lunch break’ you mean…”

“Put a baby in me,” you blurt, rocking your hips against his.

He stills, his hands making you stop your movements, too. His eyes are darker now in a way you haven’t seen in a while. “What?”

“Please,” you say, leaning your forehead down onto his, trying to move your hips again. “Need you.”

“Honey, we can’t have--”

“Yes I know the semantics, Aaron,” you mutter, now annoyed and lifting your head to glare at him. He has a vasectomy, you get that. “I mean fuck me like you’re putting a baby in me.”

His hands squeeze again. “I see.”

You frown. “Don’t tease me.”

“I’m not,” he smirks, one hand leaving your waist to stroke your cheek. “You’re adorable when you’re horny.”

You roll your eyes, peeling yourself off his lap. He lets you go, albeit with a curious look. You turn and head for the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” he calls out after you, still with that damn smirk lacing his words.

“To get myself off,” you reply in a deadpan. “Since someone--”

You don’t have a chance to finish your sentence before Aaron is right behind you, hands on your hips, spinning you around to face him. That look full of fire is back again, stern this time.

“Did I say you could do that?” he says in a low tone.

“Did I ask?” you retort, backing out of his grasp and darting into the bedroom.

Now there’s a smirk on your lips. It’s quickly approaching shit-eating grin territory, which you know will only egg Aaron on further. This little game of cat and mouse happens to be your favorite, and he knows it.

You’re barely two steps into the bedroom when Aaron is attached to your back yet again, this time wrapping his arms around your waist, locking you in.

“Color?” he whispers, his lips right at your ear, sending shivers straight down your spine.

You groan. “Green. Neon green. So green, I need you to--”

He spins you again, this time backing you into the wall and attacking your lips. Finally, you think, though you know you’re in for it now. The thought has a grin crawling up your lips, and you’re unable to stop it.

“What’s so funny, hm?” he scolds, moving his lips to your neck instead, to the exact spot he knows makes you weak in the knees. Like clockwork, he has to wrap an arm around your waist to keep you upright, your knees buckling when he bites down just so.

“Nothing,” you manage through a moan, tipping your head back onto the wall. “Shit.”

“You’re ridiculous sometimes, you know,” he says, but he’s smiling against your skin. “Can’t let me focus on work because you need me to fuck you.”

“In my defense,” you try, your hands scrambling for his shoulders, for something to ground you. “You didn’t fuck me this morning.”

“I fucked you last night,” he reminds you, as if you needed the reminder. It’s the reason you slept so soundly. “Was that not enough?”

You can’t help it; you laugh.

He lifts his head, raising an eyebrow at you. The same question as before on his lips.

“Sorry, I thought you were joking,” you say.

“You’re insatiable.”

“Guilty,” you grin, grabbing his face and pulling him back in for another kiss.

You make out against the wall for too long like two teenagers behind the bleachers at school. You hook one leg around his hips, pulling him in and grinding against his obvious erection. It’s enough to have him groaning into your mouth, pressing you against the wall with renowned vigor.

You can feel how wet you’re becoming and fuck, neither of you have even taken a single article of clothing off yet.

Aaron notices, one hand traveling south without you paying attention, too busy relishing the way he licks into your mouth, stealing your every breath. The kissing becomes increasingly sloppy when he works his hand into your leggings, under the waistband of your underwear, and into you.

“Oh my god,” your back arches against the wall, pushing his fingers deeper. He doesn’t bother with one, starting right away with two, curling them when you grind harder.

“You’re soaking my hand,” he practically growls into the next kiss, adding a third finger after only a few thrusts. Your body accepts it willingly, always ready for him. “Jesus.”

“More,” you gasp, pushing him deeper. “Aaron, more, I’m serious--” Your words break off as he scissors his fingers, making your eyes roll back instantly.

“I can feel you already,” he smirks against your cheek, pressing a kiss there, an action so sweet and gentle compared to what the rest of him is doing. “Come on, honey. You’re cumming as many times as you want.”

That makes you inch closer to the edge at a frightening speed. He says you can cum as many times as you want, but what he means is he’s going to force as many orgasms out of you as he can. Until you tell him to stop or he decides you need a break.

The thought of being an overstimulated mess in his embrace later has you climaxing against his fingers, your head falling onto his shoulder as his movements never cease, milking every last wave out of you.

You lift your head in search of his lips again, which he willingly gives to you, his fingers slowing to soothing strokes as you whimper into his mouth. You’ve only had one orgasm and you already feel ruined. He can tell the way you tremble against him, so he checks in once more.

“Green?” he whispers, kissing your forehead.

You nod. “Green. You?”

He smirks. “Absolutely.”

He picks you up into his arms, inelegantly tossing you onto the bed behind you. You giggle as you bounce on the mattress, tugging your shirt over your head as he does the same to his. His hands move for his belt and you practically jump to the end of the bed, swatting his hands away.

“Since when is that your job?” you frown up at him, unbuckling his belt without looking.

He laughs, petting your head gently. “So sorry, you’re right.”

“What was that?” you tease. “I don’t think I heard you.”

“Don’t push it.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” you smirk, pulling his belt out of the loops and tossing it somewhere. You don’t wait for him to reply before you unbutton his jeans, yanking them down with his boxers.

There’s just something about his dick. You hate that you love it, or maybe you don’t hate it at all. All you know is you need it in your mouth right now.

So, you do that, without any warning. Aaron thrusts forward into your mouth on pure instinct, not expecting you to wrap your lips around him so soon. You slide down the edge of the bed onto your knees, pulling him back to you by his thighs.

You take your time, pushing his jeans and boxers down further. When you pull back for air, he steps out of them and kicks them elsewhere, returning to you quickly, knowing better than to keep you waiting.

You swallow him down again, moaning around him in the way you know he loves. It takes all of two seconds before he gently holds the back of your head, asking silently for permission that you were already about to grant. You look up at him, batting your eyelashes as you squeeze his thigh twice. Go ahead.

The thing about Aaron fucking your face is that it took a while for him to do it as hard as you really wanted. He’s always so gentle, a quality that drew you to him initially. You love how gentle he can be. But you love it equally as much when he is rougher with you.

Like now, when he has you pinned against the bed, one hand on the back of your head as he fucks into your throat. It’s blissful, quite frankly, the way he feels, and you thank the universe every time for your lack of a gag reflex.

He holds you there with a deep groan, and you feel him twitch in your throat once before he pulls you off entirely. You frown up at him, once again not getting what you wanted, but he doesn’t have any time for that.

He picks you up by your armpits, hauling you back onto the bed. Your leggings and underwear are gone in a single second, along with your bra. He’s crawling up your body and crowding your space before you have a second to protest that he wasn’t down your throat for near as long as you wanted him to be.

All frustrations leave your mind the second he pushes inside of you, immediately sliding home, his hips flush against yours.

It’s a feeling you’ve grown to love, the way he hits you so deep. Another thing it took him a while to be comfortable doing.

He’s not average sized by any means, and you’re the first to admit it made you salivate the first time you saw. The first time he fed himself into you and worried that he was hurting you, meanwhile you were clawing his back because you wanted more. It hurt for a moment, only an uncomfortable pressure because he was bigger than your vibrator, but as soon as you were used to the size of him, you wanted all of him.

He stays there, deep in you without moving for a moment, grinding against you. His lips attack yours again before he pauses to lean his forehead on yours, trying to catch his breath.

“You drive me crazy,” he says on a shaky exhale.

You wrap your legs around him, thrusting your hips up to take him a little more. His hips stutter, pushing in the way you wanted him to, the way you know you can make him do involuntarily.

“Fuck,” he bites out, turning his attention to your neck again.

You thread your fingers through his hair, tugging. “Exactly. So why aren’t you moving?”

He nips at your neck. “Because if I move, I will cum right away.”

“Who said I only want you to cum inside me once?”

He groans again, fingers digging into your hips as you circle them, though he doesn’t try to stop you. “Greedy” is all he says, but he finally moves.

The thrusts are slow at first, Aaron clearly trying to pace himself. You can’t say you’re doing the same, already chasing your second high as he slams his hips into yours. Your hand reaches down to rub your clit, but is promptly smacked away by Aaron’s hand as he glares at you.

“Since when is that your job?” he echoes you from earlier, only this time, there’s more heat to it. He grabs both of your wrists, pinning them above your head to stop any other temptation. “Not this time.”

His thrusts pick up speed and depth, his body moving against yours in the exact way that makes you fall apart. It’s not often that he doesn’t let you cum from added clit stimulation -- not that you can’t without it; it just makes the high feel that much better -- but sometimes he does. It’s an ego trip for him as much as it is for you.

It also adds an unpredictable nature to it, which is why your second orgasm takes you by such surprise. You seize against him, your hands doing all sorts of squirming to try to break free of his grasp, but he doesn’t let you, and he doesn’t let up. You don’t realize why until you feel the warmth spreading into you as he reaches his own peak.

You’ve clearly worked him up as much as you worked yourself up because his thrusts barely slow down, and he doesn’t soften inside of you.

Instead, he pulls out only to flip you on your side, sliding in behind you and pulling your leg up and back over his hips. The action causes some of his cum to spill out of you, but you don’t have any time to focus on that before he fucks back into you.

You’ve ceased to have any coherent thoughts as Aaron whispers dirty nothings into your ear, one arm wrapped around your body to keep you pinned against him. The pleasure doesn’t stop and at one point, you question if your second orgasm stopped at all or if it has continued this entire time.

Aaron reaches underneath the pillow where he knows he’ll find one of your vibrators because he heard you using it this morning. No, he didn’t fuck you this morning, but you fucked yourself, and truly, at 8am, he should’ve known you’d end up like this by eleven.

Your mind doesn’t register what the sound means until the vibrator is pressed against your clit. Your body jerks, scrambling for some grounding, your hands finding it in wrapping them around his arm.

He switches hands on the vibrator, so one hand is free to wrap around your throat. Your eyes roll back as soon as you feel the gentle pressure, your body practically going limp against him.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he murmurs directly into your ear, his thrusts slowing to deep strokes. “You’ve got a couple more in you.”

“A couple?” is all you manage to say, your hand squeezing his wrist so he knows to squeeze your throat a little more.

“Mhm,” his voice rumbles in your ear, sending goosebumps all over your body. “Is it too much?” His question is laced with just the right amount of pity that makes you shake your head against him. “I thought so,” he replies, switching the vibrator to a higher setting.

It sends you into your third orgasm instantly, squirming violently against him as he pushes into you deeper. He knows how much you love that, and loves how much you squeeze around him as he slides inside, fighting against your muscles that threaten to force him out. You’ve done it before, a mesmerized look on his face and yours when you both realized what happened. Since then, you told him you liked it more when he fought to stay inside.

He takes the vibrator away as you calm down, his hips also pausing, keeping himself deep inside you. The pressure is soothing, and you take a moment to take a deep breath. His palm falls away from your throat, instead propping underneath your cheek.

It takes a few seconds before you feel yourself spasming around him. He chuckles against your back, pressing a kiss to your neck. “Still?”

You nod dumbly, rocking your hips again. “Yeah. I don’t know, I just-- Need more.”

“I’ve got you,” he soothes, pulling out again to roll you onto your stomach instead, one of your favorite positions.

You’re floating as you settle into the pillows, letting Aaron manhandle you wherever you need to be. You groan in your happy, blissed out state as he slides home again, draping himself over your back.

He is gentler now, knowing that’s exactly what you need at this point. The last orgasm he pulls from you is just as gentle, and he pushes deeper into you, letting you ride it out.

He pulls your hips up and thrusts once, twice before he’s spilling into you. You didn’t realize he was that close again. The warmth is soothing this time as it spreads through you.

Aaron leaves you only to settle behind you, spooning you once again. Your hand reaches behind you to find him, and he catches your wrist.

“You need to rest,” he chides softly.

“I know,” you whimper. “Need you inside me.”

“Okay, okay,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your neck as he slides in again, still half-hard, but it’s enough. You settle down as soon as the weight of him is tucked inside you again. “Better?”

“Mhm,” you sleepily nod, pushing back into him so he holds you tighter. “Do you have to go back to work?”

He chuckles against you, sighing. “No, I’m done for the day, I think,” he says. “I’ll tell them you weren’t feeling well.”

That makes you laugh. “We need a better excuse.”

“Or I need to go back to working in the office.”

You roll your eyes. “Like that’ll make a difference.”

He shakes his head, his mind remembering the same memories that you are. The many lunch hours when you went to eat with him, and ended up with your back pressed into the couch, his tie stuffed in your mouth to keep you quiet.

“Go to sleep,” he says, pulling you impossibly closer. “I’ll make us lunch when we wake up.”

“Perfect,” you smile, nuzzling into him. “Love you.”

“Love you too, honey,” he says, pressing little kisses to your neck and cheeks, wherever he can reach. “Now sleep.”

You’re already halfway there. The combination of him nestled inside of you and the post-orgasm exhaustion is enough to lull you into a restful sleep.

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x fem!reader #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner smut #aaron hotchner fanfiction #hotch x fem!reader #hotch x reader #hotch x you #hotch x fem!reader smut #aaron hotchner x fem!reader smut #criminal minds smut #aaron hotchner one shot #criminal minds #aaron hotchner songfic #my usual

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entitled-fangirl · 25 days

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A brilliant melody.

Cregan Stark x quiet!reader

Summary: Cregan marries a woman who never speaks. When she finally does, he feels his heart melt three times over.

Warnings: SMUT (p in v), talk of abuse, tears

A/n: I've been wanting some kind of cool transitions for my writing. Like instead of the "...", some people have really cool art there. Does anyone know how to do that? I hope that makes sense 😬

Masterlist

..................................................

She was quiet.

Being surrounded by the loud men of the north made her a quiet girl.

Cregan wasn't sure what to do with her.

…

"You're a meek thing, aren't you?" Cregan asked as the two walked the courtyard of Winterfell.

In one day, they'd be wed. Bonded for life.

She only nodded.

She only ever really nodded or shook her head.

He hummed as they continued walking.

Her father had told Cregan of this days before, as if it was a defect that could put a halt to their betrothal plans. Cregan made sure to assure her father that it was not.

After all, she could speak. She just chose not to.

"Winterfell is beautiful in the winter," he began to ramble. "When the snow falls, it covers all of this in its brilliant white. Do you enjoy the snow?"

She considered his question and gave a small nod.

He grinned, "That's my northern girl. Luckily, Winterfell is warm." He noticed the light shiver in her frame. "Perhaps we should go back indoors. Don't want my future bride to freeze before I can place my house cloak upon her shoulders?"

…

True to his word, Cregan managed to place his cloak over her shoulders the very next day. It was a wondrous ceremony filled with many from across the North.

Everyone gawked at the beauty of the new Lady of Winterfell.

But when one-by-one they moved to speak to her, Cregan was quick to deny them.

The two enjoyed the feast after. Seated at a high table, Cregan often leaned over to whisper things to her.

"You look radiant. Like the sun itself."

"I do believe the other lords may be envious that I have captured the most gorgeous woman of Westeros."

"I do wish you'd eat more. You've hardly touched the plate."

It was a strange sight, seeing such a burly brute of a man whisper sweetly to his wife.

"Is something bothering you?"

She shook her head.

Cregan sighed. "I've only known you for a few days, but I do believe I recognize the shaking of one's hands to associate with nerves."

It was true. Her hands shook violently.

"Is it the bedding ceremony?"

She shrugged.

His brows raised and he leaned closer, "You can be honest with me. I… I want you to be honest with me."

The woman looked down at her hands in thought. Finally, she looked back up at him and nodded.

"Aye. I see." Cregan leaned away and rested his elbows on the table, his head in his hands as he rubbed at his forehead. "Then I'll call it off."

He didn't miss the way her brows pulled together.

"The ceremony, lovely. I'll call it off."

…

Not long after, Cregan stood and held his hand out to her. "May I dance with you, dear wife?"

She grabbed his hand with enthusiasm. It seemed she didn't need words, for expressions were enough.

He smiled at her as he lead her to the dance floor.

Cregan was a lousy dancer. Being a northern lord meant there were many more important matters than learning how to properly dance. So, it was put aside.

He knew the steps in truth, and he could lead just fine, his steps were just too harsh, his movements too calculated.

It was just not how he expressed himself.

She, though, was marvelous.

It was as if each step was not one of a practiced art. It was as if it was how she naturally moved.

Cregan was in so much awe that he nearly forgot to continue the lead.

She didn't need words to express herself. Her movements were enough.

He felt as if he was finally seeing her.

And she was beautiful.

The song ended, to Cregan's surprise as he snapped from his thoughts, and the guests clapped for their Lord and Lady of Winterfell.

…

Honoring his word, Cregan forbade the ceremony. No other living creature would be a witness to their consummation but the two of them.

After laying her upon the rich furs upon their bed, he was careful to properly prepare her to take him.

Now, he forced himself to do so slowly, his hips slowly pushed to meet hers as he entered her.

She hissed lightly at the pain, and he swore he heard a small noise come from her throat instinctually.

He began to wonder what her voice sounded like.

Once seated in her fully, he paused to give her a moment to breathe. Her breath was quickened and her hands gripped his biceps as she tried to regain herself.

Cregan placed a light kiss to her lips, basking in the newness of her lips against his, as well as the eagerness she gave back as they did so.

Her hands slid up to cup his cheeks, suddenly gaining confidence.

"Have you adjusted, pretty girl?"

He shifted his hips, not thinking much as he waited for her response.

The sweetest breathy moan left her lips.

Cregan's eyes widened, and he had to stop himself from letting his lust take over then and there.

He tucked his face into her neck, laying heavy kisses along the way. "Easy now. Just tap me to stop."

And with that, he began to move his hips.

Not much came from her lips. She was used to not using her voice, that it almost seemed as if it was more work to use it then stay silent. It was hard for Cregan to tell her feelings, so he often had to tilt his head back up to gauge her reaction by her expressions alone.

He didn't realize how much he spoke in general until he was around her. How someone could happily be so silent, he wasn't sure.

But if the scratching against his back was any measure, he'd say he was pleasing her well.

"You're taking me so pretty."

She practically preened at his praise, her breath catching or escaping each time.

At one point, he pressed his hips firmly to hers, reaching deeper than he had before.

His face found its way to her neck again, her hands pulling at his hair.

But he paused, catching his breath and trying to instill a reaction from her.

Her hands recaptured his hair and pulled again. When he still didn't move, she tried to shift her hips to gain more friction. He was enjoying every second, despite the mere torture it was to not chase his own high.

He pressed a sloppy kiss to her neck, "Patience."

Her motions should have been enough of a reaction for him, but he wanted more. He'd do anything to hear her voice more.

One of his hands moved down to her clit, pressing his thumb down and circling the bundle of nerves.

A small whine came from her throat.

He felt warmth spread across his body, "Needy, aren't you?"

Her hand made a last-ditch effort to pull at his hair. He could hear her barely contained breath in his ear and a small voice.

"…Cregan… please…"

Cregan almost finished then.

Her voice was so soft. So sweet. Hoarse from its lack of use and so breathy.

It was beautiful.

But guilt overshadowed all of that. He shouldn't have pushed her to the point of speaking.

His hand trailed up her body to the bed, preparing himself again. "I won't deny you any longer. I'll give you what you want, sweet girl."

…

She began to speak to him after that.

The times were few and far between, but nonetheless, he never took a single word for granted.

Because she only spoke to him.

She never spoke her mind in full, so Cregan took it upon himself to do it for her.

In meetings, she'd pull at his sleeve, prompting him to instinctually bend his head down towards her to properly hear her soft voice amongst the others. That was how she contributed to meetings: to tell her thoughts to the only one there she trusted. Over time, the men in the meetings caught on, and would pause to hear what the Lady had to say. It was a game of telephone, barely hearing a peep from the woman as she spoke to Cregan, and he voiced it aloud in his own manner.

When they walked through the busy streets of the city, he kept his hand wrapped around hers, promising to give his attention to her when she squeezed it tightly.

Outside of their chambers, their form of communication was touch, often tapping one another gently.

Inside, however, soft exchanges were common. She would only speak calculated thoughts, not one to ramble, but she would talk of her day, her newest book, or questions of things she always wondered about the man.

In turn, he'd respond in the same manner, quieting himself naturally to match her tone as the two gazed into the flames of the fire that warmed the room.

"I wish you'd dance more."

Her head snapped up to him with furrowed brows.

"You're a beautiful dancer. I only wish I could see it more." He leaned against the back of the sofa. "Who taught you?"

"My mother," she spoke softly. "She was wonderful."

He smiled when he noticed the reminiscent look in her eyes at the thought of her mother. He pushed a strand of her hair from her face. "Tell me about her."

She leaned into his touch. "Father mocked me when I wouldn't speak. Said it was shameful. But mother always told me that feelings are expressed by actions rather than words."

"How so?" He absentmindedly asked.

"Men often say that they love their wives, but their actions are rather the opposite."

He hummed as he considered it. "Have I ever made you feel that way?"

"No."

It was the quickest response he'd heard from her. It only fueled his need to know as much as he could. To know her fully.

"Have you always been so quiet?"

As if a switch had been flipped, everything about her quieted.

Her breathing. Her voice. Her expressions. Her thoughts.

Silent.

Whatever had happened had to have been traumatic to instill such a reaction from her.

"Forgive me. That was too forward, even for me to ask-"

"-I don't wish to talk about it today."

He felt relieved that his question hadn't dissolved her trust in him completely.

"Well," he pulled her to him. "When you are ready to speak, I shall listen."

…

The next day, Cregan meticulously planned. And his efforts had paid off.

She walked into the meeting room at the same time she did every week, to see it lacking its usual members.

The table was pushed off to the side, and Cregan stood in its place as he donned a bright smile at the sight of her.

Against the back wall, a few musicians stood with their instruments.

Confusion spread through her and a wave of anxiety as well, prompting her to only stare at him blankly.

He was quick to correct it, stepping forward towards her. "I've excused the council today. I… I wanted to see you dance again."

Once her mind warmed up to the idea, a bright smile came across her face, accepting the hand that he extended to her.

"I must admit, my love," Cregan said as he stepped in time with the music. "I am not a gentle man. But I am trying. For you."

She nodded, not daring to speak her overwhelming thoughts at the moment.

…

After, they sat at the large dining table, the emptiness of it mattering not to the two lovers who sat together at one end.

"My uncle," she stated, breaking the silence.

His head tilted up to meet her gaze, "Hmm?"

Her cheeks turned a slight pink, "You asked how I became so quiet."

Recognition flowed over his face, "Ah. Yes, I did." He sipped his wine and leaned towards her. "Your uncle, then?"

She nodded.

"He was unkind to you?"

She picked at the skin of her fingers, seemingly reliving the moments in her mind.

A battle within herself.

He put a hand on her thigh, "I will not force you to tell me things you do not wish to."

"I do," she insisted. "But I know not how to."

"Begin to speak, and I shall piece it all together."

She took a deep breath. "My uncle hit me when I spoke out of turn. At first, at least. Then… it was whenever I spoke at all."

He felt ice go down his veins and a feeling like a rock going down his throat.

But being such a skittish thing, he knew not to react too harshly.

"When I told my father, he…" her eyes became glassy. "He said he was right for it. That… that a girl was made to only… shut her mouth and open her legs."

He couldn't keep it in anymore. "And you believed them?"

"When I spoke to you for the first time, I feared you'd be the same."

"I bask in the sound of your voice, my girl. I hope that you see that."

A warm tear ran down her cheek as she looked up at him.

"Oh, sweet woman," he cooed as he cupped her cheek. "Do not cry over false words."

When more tears began to fall, he quickly pushed her chair out from the table and pulled her into his lap.

She tucked her face into his neck, melting against him as if she wished to disappear.

He held her close, not caring when his tunic became damp. When he did speak, it was soft and assuring whispers.

Once she caught her breath, she pulled away from him. "Forgive me."

"I don't believe I will."

Her eyes widened, and he realized his mistake in word choice.

"Sweet girl, you've nothing to apologize for. That's all I meant."

She relaxed at that. She reached up and wiped her cheeks with a sniffle. "Actions have always spoke more than words."

He reached up and brushed a stray tear from her cheek. "Have they?" He asked softly.

She felt a smile come to her lips at his touch. "You are different. You could speak or act, and still, I'd only hear a brilliant melody to which I can always trust."

He never felt such love radiate as it did then.

.......................................

Taglist: @misswynters, @cosmosnkaz, @sithapprentice, @kaniromi, @lovemesomevesey, @its-jackie-bb, @8812-342, @thorins-queen-of-erebor, @kingdomzeldaquest @nyxbranwenn, @callsignwidow, @a1lexh-blog, @alyssa-dayne, @ethereal-athalia

#fanfiction #game of thrones x reader #cregan stark x reader #house of the dragon fanfiction #game of thrones fanfiction #game of thrones imagine #cregan stark x y/n #game of thrones x y/n #house of the dragon #cregan stark x you #cregan stark smut #cregan stark imagine #cregan stark fanfic #hotd fanfic #hotd cregan #house of the dragon fanfic #hotd fanfiction

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creatingblackcharacters · 4 months

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“Why’s she so rude?” (She’s Not)- Stereotypes, pt2

So I'm sure that you all thought I was going to give a blow-by-blow list of "visual stereotypes to avoid". I'm going to be honest here, I thought about it, and figured it would be redundant. My page already includes sensitivity on depicting Black people. So instead, I'm going to focus on stereotypical "character" concepts, so that you can 1) not write it in your stories and/or 2) recognize it in media (fiction and reality!) and in life!

Two major resources: the Jim Crow Museum website is an EXCELLENT resource to understand the imagery of antiblack racism in U.S. history and society. The other, White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad. The book focuses on the many racist stereotypes projected onto women of color and how that purposeful, systemic negative perception of us bleeds into every aspect of our lives- specifically by white women/white feminists who believe that they are not contributing to said oppression.

I'll start with Black women, just because I’m passionate about it (obviously) and there are so many things I wish I had and hadn’t seen growing up. We deserve better by the year of our lord 2024.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: mention of sexual assault, assault

Misogynoir

What I want everyone to understand, before I get into this, is the concept of intersectionality, and more specifically, misogynoir. Misogynoir is the specific type of contempt and prejudice that Black women face at the intersection of race and gender. I say this because you might read these things and go “oh, as a woman, I experience these things!” I get it, but I want you to PAUSE, and remember, that right now, we are talking about Black women’s experiences. And those will often be different, due to that intersection of identities. And that understanding will have an effect on how you understand (and thus, write) those experiences.

The Jezebel

The link goes into much deeper detail, but the Jezebel is the idea that a Black woman or girl who is sexual is somehow “fast”, “salacious”, “a hoe”, “driven by desire/doesn’t understand purity”, and at its worst, unable to be r*ped/a victim because she is less valuable yet somehow inherently seductive to men.

This gets thrown around CONSTANTLY in media and life for Black women (my first experience of treated like I was ‘fast’ was when I was like… twelve?) One major, visible example is Megan Thee Stallion. Meg has a college degree, she likes anime, she’s a brilliant rapper, and has an entire personality and struggles she’s shared… But she also likes to dress scantily clad and have sex. By doing those things, she ‘lessened in value’. And because of this, when she was shot at and assaulted, even Black people questioned her character, rather than understanding that she could have been anyone, and she still wouldn’t have deserved to be assaulted. She's not allowed to be multi-faceted; she "brought it on herself".

Black girls and women who happen to take charge of their own sexuality, to the discomfort of society, are treated as Jezebels- as whores. Think about it- if one of Taylor Swift's recent boyfriends shot at her, would the media question her value or her word? Question her equivalently high ‘body count’?

Question how you write your Black woman- she can enjoy sex! She can be sexy! We love to see it! But if you're punishing her specifically, or judging her within the narrative, versus your other characters who are allowed to safely explore and act upon their sexuality… Check your judgment! Why do you feel the way you do about this character? Why do you think that your Black character is the one that should be judged for her actions. Would you feel this way if it were a nonblack character?

The Sapphire/Angry Black Woman

Ohohoho, I have infinite amounts of feelings about this one.

This is the "sassy Black friend", the "aggressive Black boss", “step on me angry mommy”, the one who does the z formation and makes everyone "uncomfortable". She’s not allowed to be confident, assertive, or self-assured- she’s arrogant, rude, and aggressive.

I discussed it in part one, but I'll reemphasize it: your Black woman doesn't have to be an ‘Angry Black Woman’ in order to be angry! Just like any other human being on the planet, we are allowed to be mad. (In my honest opinion, we have a lot to be mad about, but I digress 😅)

If the only character that ever gets angry is your Black character, I want you to consider why. What is she angry at? Was this something you wanted the reader to understand or empathize with? Are we supposed to disagree? How does everyone around her treat her anger? Is her anger righteous? Is she always shut down or dismissed for it? Is it only meant to defend her friends, but never herself? Does the narrative suggest that it’s only good in use of others and not herself? Would this be the same reaction if one of the nonblack characters was angry? Is this something you did on purpose?

Very often, we're called 'angry Black women/girls' to invalidate our emotions. My therapist once said anger is a protective emotion. We might be hurt, overstimulated, sad, depressed, frightened, anxious… But we are often not allowed the grace of others digging deeper to see that. Even if the other characters do not understand her anger, even if her motives are not meant to be understood at the moment… you as the writer should be aware. But if every time it’s time to show anger or upset, it’s your Black character… consider why this is the one you thought would best convey that message, and how your Black readers might feel seeing that this character (who may not even be the ‘bad guy’) is the one that is ‘only’ angry. No other development, no other emotions, just… there to be mad.

I take this one to heart, as someone who feels very passionately about things… this is one of those things where I wish, in life and in media, people would have more grace for Black women. We're human, too. We have feelings, too.

The Mammy

This one isn’t as visually blatant anymore in media as it was in the past (like every Mammy doesnt look like Aunt Jemima), but you may have seen this one as "the mommy figure". The "lesbian that parents the silly gay boys". The one that’s always encouraging the ship of the white boys, but never the one allowed to be in the ship (especially when her ship is canon!)

A good example of this was how people expected Jessica Drew from ATSV to be "more loving" to Gwen, rather than the mentor and boss she was (plus, as a Black woman with a Black mother… trust and believe, she was quite direct and gentle). And in comparison to her counterpart, white man Peter B. Parker, was decried far worse for similar detrimental actions.

The Mammy often serves in opposition to the Jezebel and Sapphire/Angry Black Woman. What makes the Mammy particularly annoying is that it implies that the only good Black woman character is a ‘nice’, demure, unthreatening, homely, motherly figure whose job it is to make sure to center the (usually) white ones. The Mammy is expected to coddle everyone, to her own detriment. She's a ‘good Black’ because she causes no issue, raises no fuss, never shows a negative feeling, knows that she has to ‘be strong’ but to always defer because the white characters know best. She’s ‘not a threat’, and that’s why she’s ‘allowed’ to be around. We shouldn’t have to be those things in order for our stories to be heard and understood, in order to be empathized with or treated like someone of value.

The Strong Black Woman

If I never hear this phrase again in my life, if we eradicate it from future generations for Black girls and women, I'll cry of joy lmao. I hate it, and it's not for the reasons most nonblack people would expect. Lord, this one. Anyway. The ‘strong Black woman’ is meant to protect everyone, no help needed! Whenever something is wrong and we all need a pickup, here she comes to ‘let me do it’ and everything is going to be okay! She did all the necessary suffering so that your characters don't have to! She can sweep in and save the day!

Now here's the dissonance kicks in. This one on its surface probably sounds like a good thing. She's a hero! She’s resilient! She's great! Who wouldn't want to be superwoman? Who wouldn't want to reject being a love interest, all women are always love interests! Let us be the badass that kicks ass and shows the men what for! Who wouldn’t want that, 24/7?!

The answer: US. 👍🏾🤣

This is a long, separate conversation on its own, but we have to understand that Black women (women of color, really) and White women do not always share the same end goals and understanding of "strong woman character" or even feminism. We certainly aren't always the love interest. Very usually not, in fact. We are always pushed to the side. We are already the hero in our lives, we're already the "strong woman".

Not everyone yearns to be the Singular Hero who will Fix It All as many of us are already expected to do. It's exhausting having to swallow your own needs for everyone else all the time, especially when it's suggested that you have no value otherwise if you don't. Heroism is Exhausting, and it's something worth looking into when you’re characterizing your Black girls and women. I’m not saying that we can’t be strong! We are, and it’s impressive! But I also want us to add some nuance to that strength, the way we would for any other character. What it means to have community, rather than to do it all alone. How even if she wants to be the hero (and that’s okay! That’s fine!) how it would still wear on her. Surrounding your Black girl character with unconditional support, to have a lover that actually wants to pull some weight- that's something many of us actually would like to see, because we're usually shafted to the side as 'someone who can do it all herself' (in order to hide that no one thinks we need or are deserving of the help).

It's okay to let your Black woman and girls show weakness, to rest, to be taken care of! It's not "less feminist" to accept that we're humans that need help and can't carry it all, too. That it’s okay to want to feel valued and protected. Because god knows, I wish I didn’t grow up strong and resilient, I wish I grew up knowing that the world cared that I was safe.

Standards of Beauty

These standards are not the same! I've mentioned it before in my lesson on skin tones, but very often when we think of "beauty", it’s easy to fall into the idea of whiteness. Pale skin, thin hair textures, etc. If those are our existing standards of beauty, then it doesn’t matter what any of us look like- we’re ugly! When I was in high school, I remember a classmate saying that Swedish people were the most beautiful people because of "white hair and pale skin". Without even meaning to, that guy basically said everyone darker than a stack of loose leaf printer paper was ugly by proxy of not being Nordic White (no matter how pretty they actually might be!!) 🤣

It’s also of note that whiteness/paleness tends to be connected with innocence and cleanliness in western culture, while blackness/darkness tends to be considered dirty, sinful, fearful. Now, while the origin of this idea may not be racist itself, when you spend hundreds of years implying that Blackness is bad- to the point that, in the U.S. they came up with an entire slur one step past “negro” (meaning ‘Black’) to deem you less than- it’s hard to say that the societal connotation didn’t apply.

Now we've already discussed working on describing our Black characters better! I continually remind you all that you should be describing them as wonderfully made as you do your white characters. Keep in mind that we live in a world where from day one when we enter the world, Blackness and Black features are not seen as beautiful nor emphasized. Whiteness is the standard of beauty that we, for a long time and still, are expected to adhere to. If you'd like to do better by your characters, remember that you don't have to give them "white features" or use "white" as an adjective to do that!

Black Women as Women

“There was literally nothing, not a thing, that a white woman could ever have that was worth more than her sexual virtue, and this obligated mandatory chasteness and sexual vulnerability… If the most important thing a woman has is virtue, and only white women can have virtue, then by definition, only white women can be women.” Ruby Hamad, ‘Only White Women Can Be Damsels’, White Tears, Brown Scars

Often, Black women by definition are not included under the societal banner of “women”, from our features, to our personalities, to our 'role' in life. "True Womanhood" is denied us, cis and trans, because of our Blackness. The things that make women ‘women’, we are not included under, because systemically, the only ‘women’ that were meant to mean anything were white.

I bring up Megan Thee Stallion again. Meg is probably one of the most beautiful, feminine women I've ever seen in my life. Men still call her a man, due to her height, due to her confidence, and due to their insecurities. Same with Serena Williams; Serena is damn near built like a god in my eyes. She was told she was manly from the beginning of her career, no matter how beyond skilled she was in women's tennis. Even when she damn near died giving birth- the most basic of 'tasks' women are seen as having in this society, it didn't matter. Black women are 'less womanly', 'less valuable', 'less in need' of that protection and identity that society swears Women™ need (and not in the honest way that we do need protection).

Consider that you're making sure that your Black women have the options of range of gender expression and emotions (and if they aren't allowed to, is that on purpose). If you're only ever creating us and we're in service of some dainty white woman and never the other way around... consider how that may reflect what you think our role is in your story, and in your mind.

Adultification

“Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the innocent blond girl you imagine.” twitter: sw4q

It has been shown that Black girls the same age as their white girl counterparts are deemed older and less in need of protection, and supposed to 'be more mature'. Imagine that. Deemed inherently less innocent, due to your skin color. Having to parent our siblings, get jobs to contribute, do all the cleaning, and more. Yet, when we act with the maturity that we've been forced to grow into, we're "fast". A little 12-year-old girl, now to society, the Jezebel. All because she wanted to try pink lip gloss or wear a skirt; things that little tween girls might try to understand the big world around them and push boundaries. Now she's a woman, now she can never be a victim. Now she can be beat on and hurt and it's her fault.

I explain this for two reasons: One, for you to think about how your write your Black girls, and Two, for you to hold more grace for Black girls- real and fake. Do you hold her to a higher standard than your white characters of similar age? Does she inherently seem less innocent to you for reasons outside the plot? Is she as human to you as your other characters? Is she allowed to be a child? To act like one? To make mistakes? Are you as empathetic or understanding about that childishness as you are towards nonblack characters? Do you make these decisions on purpose?

It's not like Black girls can never be YA protags or anything- ofc we can. But keep in mind that she's not somehow automatically "stronger" by proxy of her Blackness, that she'd "be tougher". She's a kid. Let her be one.

Conclusion

There’s a LOT you have to consider when writing Black girls and women. I’m not going to sit here and say it’s easy, because being Black, and being a Black woman, is not easy. If you’re stressed reading it, imagine being stressed living it lmao. It’s a constant chain of quick-time events every day of your life to prevent nonblack nuclear meltdown in response to your every single action. I’m not going to apologize for it, either.

That being said, I don’t expect you to understand everything, especially not all at once. I just want you all to keep these things in mind, to question yourself when you’re writing your character- are you treating her differently on purpose? Or are you treating her differently because of a bias you might not even notice you have? It might help to go back, to read how you treat all of your characters. Or, if you’ve never written before, to maybe outline the traits of your characters and figure out where things balance out. As always, all you can do is practice at it. Because it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers.

Whew, I'm actually emotionally strained after this one. My chest is beating fast. Let me go get some groceries now.

#creatingblackcharacters #character design #black characters #black character design #writing #creative writing #stereotypes #antiblackness #racism

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evilminji · 7 months

Text

You know all those Cults in Gotham?

Bet at least ONE of them could spring for both a Legit Magic User and a Cloning pod.

Because The Wayne's? Hearts of Gold. Long standing pains in the asses. Probably the only thing standing between this gods forsaken wasteland of a city and Their Dark Lord. For GENERATIONS no less!

It's sooooo obnoxious!

So they want to Curse Um dead. Just a good ol fashioned bloodline curse. Destroy um from within, etc. BUT! To do THAT? You kinda need a blood relative to sacrifice!

And Bruce is... well... rather infamously An Orphan With No Biological Kids (at that point).

So? What do you do? Make one, obviously. You send in some of your own on a Holy Mission. Honeypot that playboy! Get us a kid to sacrifice! Our God will reward you etc! But... FFS! What? Are brunettes not your TYPE or something?! Pretty lady! Throwing herself at you!!

TAKE THE BAIT!

But he DOESN'T. Because he's both really used to that behavior, as The Wayne Heir and a False Playboy, AND because? He's fuckin Batman. He can see through your schemes.

Okay.

Okay!

Plan B!

Get us some DNA. We'll CLONE the sucker. That should be doable, right?

........OH COME ON! How?!

Batman: [REDACTED] / Cultists: 0

Fuck it! This is impossible! How are we supposed too... *eyes drift over to the Wayne Family Private Graveyard* .......Idea? Ideeeeaaaa~! Someone get us a shovel!

So they, cultist bastards that they are? Fuckin rob a grave for some DNA.

OBVIOUSLY though, it can't be one of the more RECENT graves! He probably VISITS those! Watches them! No we gotta be SNEAKY! Get one a bit further back! Mwahahahaha! We're so brilliant! Our God is gonna give us SUCH a Good Grade in follower!

A thing that is both REAL and possible to achieve!

So, while a Weirdly FURIOUS Batman? Is just... VIOLENTLY breaking ALL of their bones? Cultist 17 is furiously digging like his life depends on it. Either somebody snitched or Batman was hunting them down! Either way?

Gotta! Get! That! DNA!!! *digs faster*

Ah HA! Got it!

Fucking SCATTER! Run you fools, RUN!!! *everyone bolts*

And AT LAST! They have it! Wayne DNA! Now? Pop that sucker into the machine and make us a baby! Too sacrifice! *relieved noises* Man, that was hard work you guys. But we DID it!

Except??

Theoretical Babies? And "Real, slowly forming in front of me and becoming a human child" type babies? VERY DIFFERENT psychologically. It's ONE thing to sacrifice a HYPOTHETICAL baby... but when you're the guy running and monitoring the Cloning machine? Watching it slowly form and come together into... into a CHILD?

You start asking questions of yourself. Of God.

Of what, EXACTLY, you are willing to do.

What lines you find yourself unwilling to cross.

And yeah, your life was SHIT before the cult. Yeah, you were alone. Adrift. Without purpose. Angry at the world for all of its ugliness and failings. But... sitting, alone, in a dark room? Nothing but the steady hum of machines and the cool light of that pod? You are left with nothing but time... and your thoughts.

And the baby.

The one... the one YOU made.

Almost... he's almost like a son, in a way. Your son. Floating there, innocent and unknowing. Destined to be born, only to die painfully, for a cause he could not even begin to understand. Because he's too young. Too small. Just... just a baby.

The baby YOU made.

Doubt seeps in like mist. Creeping into the cracks forming in your faith. Surely there's another way, right? Why not save up for a better magician? Or... or hire a hitman? Why involve a child? Surely... surely your God would not WANT this, right? Or if He did! Surely, he would want the boy to be able to CHOOSE, right? A noble sacrifice, for the cause?

The pressure builds. Batman is tearing the city APART looking for your fellow Believers. Leadership is pressuring you to get "It" ready all ready.

He's not an "it".

They are dismissing your questions. Threatening and posturing, as you grapple with your faith. Where? Where is the COMMUNITY that you joined? The camaraderie? Every day, Believers are being torn down. The faith has lost so many!

How can this be WORTH it?

Your faith is slowly, cruelly, strangled in your chest. A death, by ten thousand silences, and ten thousand more cruelties.

Your son is ready.

You do not tell them.

The Clone of Bruce Wayne's great-grandfather is small, but healthy, in your arms. A tiny warm body, with a strong beating little heart. You call the police. Leave your phone, call running, on the desk. No one thinks to stop you, as you calmly walk out the back door.

Why would they doubt?

You are Faithful.

You drive. Pray to a God you have lost faith in, beg forgiveness for what you do now. Your beat up old junker of a car makes decent time, as you leave Gotham. Your son, asleep in a carefully made nest of blankets, on the seat next to you. You drive. You keep driving.

Past towns.

Past cities.

Out of the state.

Stopping only to feed your son and fuel your car. You... you can not bring yourself to care about what will happen to you now. You know they will find you. Know this is the end. But something ancient burns in your chest. A caring you never thought was REAL.

You are afraid.

But you will not let them harm your son.

Finally, a town. Far from Gotham. Quite and cheerful. It calls to you.

Here. It... it has to be here.

You find the hospital. Tears choking you. There is a place to drop of children. You've seen them before. How strange, that now you stand before it and HURT. Your arms not listening to your command. You... you have to do this. You HAVE too.

He is just a baby.

He is your son.

You have to keep him safe. And... and that can not be with you.

You gently put your baby boy into the drop off. Press the buzzer. And then? You make yourself walk away.

Get back in your car, and drive. The gun in your glove box will insure they can never pry from you, what you have done. Where he is. He is safe now. He has to be. You... you did your job. As his father. You made sure he was safe.

You can barely see the road, through your tears.

You take your secrets to the grave.

And Danny? He grows up. Is adopted young and never knows different. Both a Fenton and a Wayne. Knowing only one of these, to be his. But... that Wayne? Was a damn fine man. A pillar of his community and a champion of the people.

Got tossed more then a few blessings, in his life.

They weren't the STRONGEST. But they added up. And more importantly? Were hardly the refined magics of the more powerful. They were cast onto "Him". By blood and bone, more often then not. Which was all well and good!

When there was only ONE of "Him".

Cloning technology did not exsist. So why would you word carefully against it? Danny becomes a VERY lucky boy. Survives many things he should not. In fact, the kindness and hard work of his original? Gifted back in magically powered well wishes? By this, he survives something NO ONE could possibly expect him too.

It saves his life.

His template would be quite pleased, knowing that. That his life of good deeds, saved the life of the child he never got a chance to meet. That it protected his children, from even beyond death.

And in Gotham? At long, long last. The program Bruce made in his helplessness and despair, to search EVERY child until the child made of his bloodline was found? Spits out a match.

A Watchtower engineer.

Daniel J. Fenton.

@hdgnj @hypewinter @lolottes @babbling-babull @nerdpoe @mutable-manifestation

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dc x dp #dcxdp #dc x dp prompt #danny phantom #that baby is my great grandpa! au #spice up the cloning au #minji's writing

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flowersandbigteeth · 6 months

Note

Looking for a saucy medieval tradition to weave into your historical romances? Have no fear, foot-of-the-gallows marriage is here! Basically, if a man was about to be hanged and a woman stepped forward and said “I will marry this man!” he was spared because it was was seen as like “oh, she’ll rehabilitate him so we don’t have to kill him.” Now, I heard this from tiktok, so I could be wrong, and it could just be a folk tale or something that rarely happened in actuality. Either way, it’s a cool troupe I think more people should use (and I myself will be using). I think it would work really well with Orcs and Elves!

This is such an intriguing idea! I had to try it. If you end up writing it, tag me, if you are comfortable! I'd love to see what you do with it ^_^

I keep getting Orc ideas, and I can't resist them *feral invasive Orc thoughts* （￣ｗ￣）Ψ

Orc (Saber) x GN elf reader

Word Count: 6K

TW: discussion of hanging, bad mother, sfw Orc fluff, a bit of melancholy with a happy ending, nonsexual mention of private body parts in the context of bathing

“Goodness, what’s this all about?” you grumbled, clutching your basket closer to you as you made your way through the crowd.

The stench of rotten vegetables and too many people lingered in the air.

“It’s a hanging,” a helpful imp beamed, hopping on his tiptoes to see over the crowd. Why people gathered all around to watch someone die, you had no idea, but more importantly, the crowd was blocking your path home. Industrious vendors selling ale and popcorn wove through the throng to collect what coins they could from the event. In the capital, everyone had a hustle, and few left the chance to make some money at the table.

“Out of the way!” You shouted, shouldering whoever was unlucky enough to be in your way.

The voice of the city guardsman who was reading off a list of offenses to the crowd drowned yours out, but with a few well-placed shoves, you managed to make it to the front. You were looking around, trying to figure out how to get across the plaza, when you glanced up to see a familiar face.

“It’s you!” you blurted as your eyes locked with the brilliant chartreuse irises of the Orc standing on the gallows.

He gave you a wan smile, lifting his tied hands to wave at you. His straight nose was up in the air as if all the rabble around him should be fortunate to have the privilege of watching him die. The thick olive locs you remembered being long had been roughly chopped short around his ears. Still, even dressed in an ill-fitting prison jumpsuit, he had a regal air about him. His barrel chest was puffed, strong muscles peaking between the frayed fabric.

“Fifty counts of robbery…25 counts of counterfeiting gold coins…seven counts of horse theft…”

The Orc you’d met before’s name was Saber. He’d helped you get your broken cart into town one rainy afternoon…, and then he’d also stolen your necklace, which you’d realized after he’d disappeared.

“As per the King’s edict, If any citizen pledges to save this soul from the gallows by way of marriage, please step forth.”

Though he was handsome, no one raised their hands to save him. Instead, they all booed. Judging by the rotten vegetables hurled at him, he seemed to have robbed almost everyone in the capital.

“Aye!” you shouted, hiking up your pants to pull yourself onto the stage.

The guardsmen’s eyebrows shot up when you’d straightened yourself.

“I’ll marry the sorry bastard.”

“Are you sure? He’ll most likely rob you and run off. He’s better off dead.”

“I have business with this one,” you informed him, snapping your fingers. “Come on then. Let’s get this over with.”

The guardsman shrugged and jerked the noose off of his neck, a little disappointed. The crowd wasn’t happy either, hurling insults along with their vegetables.

“Quiet! Quiet!” the guardsman shouted after shoving Saber forward for the “ceremony.”

He took a deep breath, jerking a notebook out of his pocket.

“Alright,” he began, snorting. “State your name for the record.”

“(Y/N).”

“Lovely elven name,” he murmured as he jotted it down. “Now then, do you (Y/N) take this here, criminal, Saber Wintermaple to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

You gave him a sharp nod.

“I do.”

He swung a lazy eye at Saber.

“Do you Saber Wintermaple, take this kind elf to be your betrothed?”

He gave you a bright smile.

“I do.”

The guardsman snapped the book closed, shoving Saber towards you.

“I hereby declare you two duly betrothed under the King’s law. This Orc is your problem now, citizen. You’d better keep him out of trouble, or you’ll be up here next to him!”

He handed you the thick rope looped around the binding, keeping Saber’s hands tied, and waved you two off. The audience, bored without bloodshed, had already started dispersing, making it easy for you to tug Saber towards the road leading to the forest.

“I didn’t know I made such a pleasant impression,” Saber said cheerfully, following you out of town.

You whirled around and jammed a finger in his face.

“I wouldn’t describe it as pleasant. You owe me a gold necklace! Give it back, or you can work off the coin you owe me!”

He chuckled.

“I’m fresh out of coins, little elf.”

He scratched his chin and looked up, thinking.

“I’m pretty sure I lost that necklace in a game of dice.”

He shrugged.

“You lost my only possession of any value in a game of dice?”

You scrubbed your hand over your face, counting back from ten so you didn’t explode.

“Maybe I should have let you die.”

Frowning, you looked over him from toe to head.

“At least you look strong enough. I’m sure I can find something useful for you to do!”

You stopped where the two of you stood in the middle of the trail and pulled a small charm from your basket.

“I was going to use this on my coin purse since there was a thief on the loose, but it’s probably better applied to you!”

You looped the charm around his neck, closing your eyes to whisper the spell. A gust of spirit wind, fluffed your hair as the magic twirled around Saber. When you opened your eyes again, there was a blue thread linking the two of you that only you could see.

“What was that?” he asked, narrowing his eyes on you.

“It’s a binding spell, so you can’t run off with my stuff again,” you explained.

His eyebrows jumped, and he tugged at the little talisman around his neck.

“It won’t come off.”

You nodded proudly.

“Exactly.”

He took a moment to examine you carefully, tapping his chin again.

“Interesting,” he murmured.

“What? What does that mean?”

He smiled and shrugged.

“Lead the way, spouse.”

You sighed, turning and pulling him through the bumpy trail in the woods to your little home. When you’d fled your homeland to the Capital, you’d been lucky to find an abandoned cottage outside the city walls. It wasn’t massive, with only the basic living quarters, but it must have at some point belonged to someone’s Saber’s size, as the door and counters were much too high. You’d spent much of the money you earned selling charms and ointments, buying stools and ladders to reach things.

“You poor thing,” Saber sighed as you passed through the magic barrier you’d cast to keep your home hidden from bandits.

“You don’t need to patronize me,” you huffed. “You’re the one almost hanged and run out of town.”

He ignored you, looking around.

“I feel kind of bad for stealing your necklace now that I’ve seen where you live. This place is a mess.”

You examined your home, trying to see it through his eyes. Every available surface was covered in books, alchemy equipment, or ingredients. Even the chairs were covered in cast-off scrolls, books, or charms.

“It’d be nice to have a workshop,” you admitted. “But that’s much too expensive.”

You straightened your slumping shoulders and lifted your chin.

“No matter, you won’t be spending much time sitting down. I’ve got loads of things that need doing.”

He gave you a sharp nod and held out his hands.

“You’ll have to untie me if you want me to work.”

Pulling a small blade from your basket, you sawed through the thick binding. Free to move as he pleased, he wrung his stiff wrists as he perused your living room. Occasionally he would pick something up, then put it down again, finally crouching to examine a bucket filled with water.

“What are you doing?”

He peered up at the leak in the roof that was letting rainwater drip through.

“This needs fixing, or the roof will rot out.”

Pushing off of his knees, he turned to you.

“How long have you been living alone?”

You blushed, embarrassed.

“I dunno, my whole life, I guess. The elven town where I came from didn’t have an orphanage or anything, so when I was old enough, I took off toward the capital. It took a while to get here…but here I am. I thought there would be more…I don’t know…opportunity here.”

“How has that worked out for you? Living in a house clearly not meant for you and marrying a man on the gallows.”

You gave him an indignant snuff.

“At least I’m not a thief!”

He chuckled, leaning against a bookshelf, rolling a gold coin on his knuckles. Your eyes narrowed on it, and you reached in your pocket to find you’d been relieved of your day’s earnings.

“Hey! You stole that!”

He laughed, revealing straight white teeth, and jingled the other coins in his pocket.

“Don’t worry, I can’t get away with it, right?”

You sucked in a deep annoyed breath.

“I have things to do. Make yourself useful and chop some wood. It’s going to be cold when the sun sets.”

“Whatever you say, spouse,” he replied, giving you a sarcastic salute as you dropped your basket and hurried to the kitchen to get started on dinner.

What had you been thinking marrying a criminal? You paused for a moment, eyes growing misty. You didn’t really think he still had your necklace, did you? You let out a sigh just short of a sob. Were you really that lonely? Maybe it hurt that he’d been so kind to you, just to trick you. You should have been happy to see him hanged, yet the lingering magic that followed all elves had whispered that you ought to save him.

But why? You weren’t in any position to support a husband. Though you’d instructed yourself on the knowledge of various potions and charms, you weren’t the only one. The city was teaming with Academy-bred alchemists who far surpassed your skill. They had access to rare ingredients and an army of assistants. You had to scrape out a living selling your wares far cheaper than the competition even to get noticed at the market. Hustling day to day, you certainly didn’t have the time or money to pretty yourself up to find a partner.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” you grumbled, returning to chopping tubers for soup.

A thick THWACK, drew your eyes out the kitchen window to Saber splitting logs across the lawn. He’d divested himself of his ratty shirt, and every thick muscle was on display as he lifted the ax over his head and dropped it down again. The logs felt apart like they were nothing more than twigs under his might.

Your eye focused on the dark, wet slashes across his shoulder blades where his jailors had beaten him. He must have felt your eyes on him because he glanced up and waved. Blushing, you hurriedly pulled the curtains, returning to your task.

Unable to get his injuries out of your mind, you felt bad for making him chop wood while he was hurt. When you’d plopped the tubers into your cooking pot, you gathered up some healing and numbing salves, making your way out the door.

“Need something?” he asked, looking up from his task.

“Sit down,” you barked.

A thick eyebrow rose, and he tipped his head.

“Why? Planning on lobbing my head off?”

You wrinkled your nose at him.

“No, of course not! You’re massive. How would I even go about burying your body? I can’t have a rotting corpse stinking up the place. Just sit!”

He leaned his axe against the stump he was using to brace the wood and sat down on it. You dug in your basket, pulling out some cleanser to clean the wounds. Beside the big ugly gashes, Saber’s skin was a smooth, pretty green, the planes of his muscles sharp and defined. The first brush of your hand on his back made him jump.

“S-sorry,” you muttered.

“‘Ts fine. Just not used to people touching me. Go on.”

You spread the thick gel you used carefully over each angry line.

“What do you mean? You’ve never had a partner before me?”

He paused for a moment before he jerked his head.

“I had a girlfriend once, but she left me.”

“Why?”

“Some noble offered her his hand and well…I couldn’t compete.”

He sighed.

“She was happy to keep me on as her side piece, but I’ve got too much of an ego to be someone’s toy.”

Your eyebrows jumped at his candor, but you just hummed, plastering clean wraps to his skin so the wounds could heal. His skin was warm under your fingers, making the tips tingle. When you were done, you found yourself tipping forward on your toes to peck the back of his neck. When you’d realized what you’d done, your ears burned, and you coughed loudly.

“Sorry, ah…sorry,” you muttered, unsure what to say. “You’re…ah…going to have to sleep on your stomach, so you don’t make these worse.”

He swiveled around to look at you, smiling.

“Thanks, doc!”

“I’m not a doctor.”

He shrugged.

“What’s the difference?”

“Ten years of special-”

You shook your head, realizing he was teasing you.

“I think that’s enough wood for tonight. Come inside. Dinner’s almost ready.”

He grinned at you, his stomach grumbling, as he scooped up some of the wood he’d cut and tucked it under one arm. You wondered how much they let him eat in prison, worried he was starving.

“What’d my sweet little spouse cook for me?” he asked.

“Just some sweet potato soup. It’s not gourmet.”

He frowned.

“No meat?”

You blinked at him.

“You have all the money I made today in your pocket. How can I afford meat with those few coins?”

He nodded, appearing to be thinking through the problem thoroughly.

When you returned inside, you dipped the two of you bowls of soup, filling his twice as much as yours. You assured yourself it was because he couldn’t work without proper nutrition, not because you liked him.

“So how far does this magic thingie let me go?” he asked as you sat down at the table.

“Why, trying to run off?”

He smirked.

“No, why would I want to run away from you?”

He chewed on a big spoonful of sweet potatoes before he continued.

“I’ve got a cute little spouse who makes me dinner and kisses my cuts.”

Your cheeks blew up in flames, and you choked on a mouthful of soup. You tried to retain your composure by quickly wiping your mouth with a napkin.

“A couple of miles in any direction.”

“Wow, didn’t think you’d give me such a long leash.”

You shrugged.

“I can’t be right at your side every minute.”

He gave you the biggest puppy dog eyes you’d ever seen.

“You don’t want me by your side every minute of the day?”

Unsure if he was joking or not, you jerked your spoon at his soup.

“Let’s…stop talking for a while. Eat up. You’ll need your strength.”

While the two of you ate quietly, you did your best to keep your eyes on your bowl. Every time you happened to glance up, he was watching you with an odd smile on his face. Almost like satisfaction.

You were relieved when you finally finished and could turn your back on him to rinse the dishes.

“You can take the bed if you want,” you called over your shoulder as you stood on your tip toes to return the bowls to the cabinet. As your arm stretched, Saber appeared behind you, plucking the dishes out of your hand and easily placing them where they were supposed to go.

“Where are you going to sleep?” he asked, extending a hand to help you off of the little ladder you were perched on.

“There’s a couch in the living room.”

He wrinkled his nose.

“It’s covered in stuff.”

You shrugged, trying to hurry past him.

“I’ll clean it up.”

You found your feet swinging in the air as he picked you up and tossed you over his shoulder.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“My spouse is not sleeping on the sofa. I never thought I’d have a spouse, so I’ve got to take proper care of you.”

He patted your butt for emphasis.

“Are you crazy?” you snapped, only not banging on his back with your fists because he was injured. “We can’t sleep together! We just met!”

Your body bounced on his shoulder as he chuckled.

“You weren’t concerned with that when you insisted on marrying me!”

“They were going to kill you!”

He flopped you down on your bed, caging you in with his big arms. His head dipped to drag the tip of his nose along the length of your neck.

“So you do like me!” he whispered into your skin.

“I do not,” you huffed, pushing his chest.

Though your muscles did nothing to move him, he rose so you could scoot out across the bed. You quickly scrambled into the bathroom to change into your pajamas.

When you came back out, Saber was slipping off his pants.

“What are you doing now?” You gasped, cheeks heating at the sight of the thick shaft hanging between his legs.

He glanced up, a slight smirk on his face as he folded his clothes.

“I can't sleep in these prison clothes. I'll get the sheets all dirty!”

You sighed, rubbing your eyes. He was right. He was filthy from sleeping on dirty straw in prison.

“Come on,” you said, flicking two fingers at him. “You need a bath. You’re probably covered in fleas!

Fortunately, your house came equipped with one large enough to fit Saber’s big body. With a flick of your fingers, the tub was filled, and with a few whispers of a spell, the water was hot.

“Get in,” you said.

Making himself comfortable, he looked back at you over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised.

“You tryin’ to watch? Naughty little elf!”

You let out a long sigh.

“No, I’m just going to ensure you don’t get your bandages wet, or it will all have been a waste. Supplies are expensive,” you huffed, picking up the sponge. “Now, sit still!”

Saber smirked but let you lift each of his arms as you scrubbed him.

“So how did your old girlfriend take it when you decided you wouldn’t be your affair partner?”

He glanced at you, eyes ever thoughtful. His long look brought heat to your cheeks.

“Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”

He shrugged, his jaw tightening.

“She was rather smug. She spent her whole life wishing to elevate herself.”

A long sigh slipped past his lips.

“I could never make her happy. I lied, cheated, stole; whatever I could do…but she looked down her nose at all of it.”

Your mouth fell open.

“I’m…I’m sorry. You don’t have to…”

He waved a thick hand, his warm palm gently landing on your head and lightly ruffling your hair.

“Think nothing of it. It’s kind of nice to get it off my chest.”

“So that’s why you're a crook? To make her happy?”

He smirked.

“I was a crook. Now I’m a married man. I can’t get into trouble. I have a spouse who relies on me.”

He pinched your chin.

“Prison was difficult enough without knowing I was missing out on such a cute little face. Now, it would crush me.”

Your cheeks burned even hotter, and you jerked your head away, grabbing the nearest towel and tossing it to him.

“Careful, don’t jostle your bandages,” you wheezed before making your escape. “Whoever lived here before left some clothes in the chest by the door. They ought to fit.”

You were so busy slowing your beating heart that you blew out the lantern and slid into your bed without thinking Saber would soon follow. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to feign sleep, when you heard his heavy footsteps approach. He paused for a moment, doing Goddess knows what, before he carefully laid down next to you.

The mattress dipped under his weight, and your body slid into his. You heard him draw in a sharp breath as your warm forms pressed together.

“Mind your wounds. Make sure you sleep on your side,” you whispered into the darkness.

You felt him adjust slightly, and then a heavy arm draped over your waist. Despite yourself, it was warm and the weight felt nice. Comforting. Now that he’d used your soap, he smelled like home. His breath brushed the hairs on your neck and another arm slid underneath you to use as a pillow. You would have pulled away, but you’d never slept so close to someone before.

Living on the street for most of your life, left you with scars. You didn’t realize how deep they’d cut you until Saber’s large body curled around yours. You felt safe.

When you woke the next morning, the bed next to you was empty. Your heart thumped heavily in your chest, wondering where he’d gone. Had it all been a dream?

The pile of dirty prison clothes folded and placed on top of a chest proved that it had not.

Breathing slowly, in the meditation you’d taught yourself, you stretched your awareness out, reaching for the blue thread. Saber was half a mile from you. You wondered what he could possibly be doing.

“Orc things, probably,” you muttered, making your way to the bathroom to clean yourself up.

It wasn’t like he could run off; there was nothing in that direction but trees. Through the window, you could see the sun up over the tree line, telling you that you’d slept much later than usual.

Usually, you’d have left at sunrise to sell your wares in the Capital market, but it was far too late now. Instead, you grabbed an apple from the kitchen and started fussing with your alchemy materials. Now that Saber was living with you, you were sure you needed to straighten up so he didn’t break something.

Walking across the room, you automatically skipped around the bucket on the floor; only the bucket was gone. You frowned, but looking at the ceiling, someone had replaced one of the boards with a fresh one. Had Saber done that while you were sleeping?

You huffed, returning to straightening your books. At least he’s putting himself to work.

You were trying to remember the order in which a pair of books written in ancient elven were arranged alphabetically when the bell above your door jingled.

Since your home was hidden with magic, the bell told you someone was nearby. It was a charm you rarely used. No one had any reason to look for you. The most it had rung was when you ordered a special cauldron or tomb and happened to have the cash to have it delivered.

Curious if a traveler was lost, you put your books down and wandered outside.

“Morning, spouse!”

Saber’s voice made you jump when he appeared hauling a deer on his shoulders.

“What’s that?”

He shrugged the creature off of his shoulders.

“Meat!” he announced proudly.

You nodded at him, your eyes catching on his bare chest, glazed with a sheen of sweat.

“Where are you off to?” he asked.

“Someone is here,” you murmured, forcing your gaze from the sharp planes of his muscles to continue down the path.

A shadow draped over you, and you glanced up to see him looming.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going with you. It could be someone dangerous.”

You shook your head but continued on your way with him in tow.

“Helloooo? Helllloooo?”

A female voice was screaming through the trees. When you rounded the bend, your eyes landed on an expensive carriage and a beautiful fairy shouting at the top of her lungs. Her pink hair fell in glittering curls around her shoulders, and matching wings emerged from her back.

“Damn it! Saber! Where the fuck are you?”

“Can I help you?” you asked as you stepped through your magic barrier.

Her eyes narrowed, but not on you. She looked directly behind you.

“Saber! There you are!”

She grinned, fluttering her winds and flying past you. Irritation immediately pricked your heart as the woman threw her arms around him. Turning around, you found him looking at her with wide eyes.

“Melody…what are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“I’m here to see you, of course. I heard you were going to be hung, but an elf saved you! I asked around the market and was told you’d been taken here. I was so worried!”

When she cupped his chin with her delicate hand, you crossed your arms, eyes narrowing.

“Not someone. Me.” you interjected.

You marched towards Saber and grabbed him by the arm.

“Saber is my husband. Who are you?”

She wrinkled her nose at you, ignoring your question. Her hand slid down Saber’s chest despite you.

“Is there someplace we can talk? Privately?”

Saber’s shocked face tightened.

“I don’t think that’s an appropriate ask in front of my spouse, Melody.”

She scoffed.

“You’ve been married…what? 8 hours? Saber, I think I more than deserve a little of your time. Especially as the mother of your child.”

Your jaw dropped, and your hand pulled away from Saber. It was true, you’d only known him for a few hours, but a child was something he ought to have mentioned.

His brow drew, looking between you and her.

“What child?”

She huffed, frowning at you.

“Fine…If you must do this, this way.”

She turned to the carriage and yelled.

“Nora, bring the baby!”

A maid climbed out of the carriage holding a small whimpering bundle. You gasped as the woman presented Saber with a little green newborn.

Saber’s eyes popped, his mouth opening and closing as the maid pressed the child into his hands.

“This…he…is mine?”

Melody nodded.

“Yes, and it’s time for you to take responsibility.”

He glanced up at her.

“You want to get back together?”

She let out a cruel but trilling laugh.

“Oh heavens no. I need you to take him. Dante hasn’t seen him yet. He thinks I’ve delivered his child. I had the maids tell him I was recovering for the past month so I could sneak him out. If he finds out I’ve been carrying your baby this whole time, he’ll throw me out on the street!”

Anger roiled under your skin.

“So what baby are you going to present to him?” you demanded.

She snorted as if that were a foolish question.

“I’ll get a baby from the slums. Plenty of mothers would happily give their child the life of a Lord’s son without question.”

She fluttered her iridescent wings.

“It only need be a fairy child.”

You could see the pain and confusion settle on Saber’s face. Stepping between the two of them, you gently pried the bundle out of Saber’s hands, looking at his cute little button nose and glossy baby curls.

“Of course, we will take him, but on one condition.”

She glanced at you.

“What do you want? Money?”

You let out a tight chuff.

“No. We never want to see you again. If he is our baby, he is ours. Don’t think you can change your mind and come running back here looking for him or Saber. The second you step foot in your carriage, this child and my husband are dead to you.”

Her eyes jerked to Saber.

“Saber. You can’t mean that. Of course, I want to see you…Dante, however, can’t know. You understand, don't you? This is everything we've dreamed about! You ought to support me!"

You scoffed, rolling your eyes.

"I grew up in the gutter, too," you hissed. "But I'd never treat someone the way you have treated my husband. He is too good for you and I won't tolerate you buzzing around us like a nasty fly."

She glared at you.

"He's my child! You're just jealous Saber and I have history!"

Saber's jaw locked, and he put his arm around you, giving her a disgusted grimace.

“Have you named him?” he asked.

She looked contrite but lifted her chin.

“I…ah…it didn’t occur to me...”

He nodded and glanced down at you, holding his child.

“Then…I agree with (Y/N). You’ll never know his name. You’ll never see him grow. You’ll never return to ruin our peace.”

“But Saber-”

“Don’t say my husband’s name, either.” you snapped. “You thought you’d come here and drop all of your responsibilities in his lap and then keep stringing him along as a toy? It’s not going to work like that. You have your family, and we have ours.”

You jerked your chin at her.

“Make your choice. Either leave the child or be prepared to explain to your husband who he belongs to. Those are the only options.”

Her pretty face contorted into an ugly, wrinkled mask, and she lifted her skirt to turn on her heels.

“Fine! It’s not like I want the child of a thief anyway!”

Snapping at her maid, she hovered back to her carriage, and they disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust. You smiled down at the little baby, who’d managed to sleep through the drama.

“Saber, I know I shouldn’t have spoken for you…I just- He deserves better than to grow up with the knowledge his mother believes him to be less than. Can you imagine him living as her secret? Sneaking around to hide him? If she passed him in the street, she’d ignore him to preserve her status. He’d be heartbroken. I won’t let that happen. I hope I didn’t overstep, but I’m not sorry for it.”

He dropped to his knees, eyes wet, and pushed his head into your shoulder. His big arms wrapped around your waist, squeezing you tight.

“You said just the right thing,” he murmured, then turned his head to look at his son. “What should we name him?”

You smiled at him.

“Let’s talk it over over lunch.”

The two of you walked back down the path together, both having a hard time keeping your gaze off the baby. He wriggled in his sleep, making you both see hearts.

“Maybe we should move,” you murmured. “Just to be sure…and to give him a fresh start.”

He looked down at you.

“You won’t miss this place?”

You sighed.

“No…this is just a house. We have a family now. He should grow up in a happy little town, not the capital…we’ll have to save for a few months, but I think we can do it.”

“We don’t have to save. I have plenty of money.”

You froze in your tracks, looking up at him.

“What? I thought you said you were broke?”

He smiled down at you.

“I meant I didn't have any coin on me. I didn’t just piss all of my ill-gotten gains away. I hid them. Follow me.”

He tugged the two of you into the forest, walking quite a ways until you reached an oddly placed rock. Saber crouched down and uprooted a bush with a stiff jerk. Then he cleared the soil away, revealing a wooden chest. He turned the little dial a few ways until it clicked, and the chest opened with a creak. Your eyes widened at the hundreds of gold coins piled inside. He casually tugged the gold he’d lifted from you out of his pocket and tossed it inside with a metallic clink.

“I think we can buy a nice place with this.”

You were still completely confused. He rummaged around in the coins, producing the gold necklace he’d stolen. Standing, he fastened it around your neck with the nimble fingers of a thief.

“I thought you lost it gambling?”

He shrugged.

“I lied.”

“Why did you keep it?”

He gave you a long look.

“I’m not sure, to be honest. Something told me not to sell it.”

“But…what about the rest? I thought you gave it all to Melody?”

“I tried to…we grew up in the capital, in the same slums she wants to buy a baby from. It wasn’t ever about what I could provide her. She wanted to erase her past. She wanted a title…to be a lady, to be able to lift her nose at the very people she grew up with.

I started saving after she failed at her first attempt at seducing some highborn. At the time, I had this romantic dream that I could surprise her with a big house, start a business, and be the Lord she wanted so badly…but… as time passed, I realized I was already tainted in her eyes. She wanted the right blood attached to her money. It took me too long to be ready to pull away. Dante was the nail in the coffin, so to speak.”

He tugged the chest from the ground, hauling it onto his shoulder before leading you back through the forest.

“Even though I knew I wasn’t enough…I foolishly still loved her. I was a mess when he proposed. That’s why I got caught. I went on a bender that lasted most of a year…Fortunately, I never touched this. Maybe I held out hope since Melody still entertained my attention…but I got sloppy and ended up in jail.”

His gaze dropped to the baby.

“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn't have ever known about him. Anything could have happened to him if you hadn’t-”

He choked a bit, a couple of tears slipping down his cheek. You didn’t push him to finish his sentence. You knew what he was trying to say.

“What about Arel?” you asked.

“Arel? That sounds like an Elvin name.”

You smiled at the little baby’s chubby cheeks.

“It is…it means ‘treasure’.”

He stopped, bending down to examine his son more closely. The baby’s eyes opened, and you saw that they were the same pretty chartreuse as his father’s. The two of them looked at one another in awe.

“I like Arel,” he said, brushing a thick finger over his cheek.

Arel’s big eyes grew wet, and he started to croon.

Shock and worry bloomed on Saber’s face.

“Is he okay?”

“I think he’s hungry. I have some goat milk at home.”

Saber straightened, and you had to almost jog to keep up with him, the two of you hurrying home to start your life as a family.

1K notes · View notes

natsaffection · 1 month

Note

Dont play with me, i got another idea!!! While I was listening to another song😭 Birds of a feather, by my baby billie.

Reader had always had a crush on G!P Natasha, but Natasha only viewed them as bestfriends, yet they constantly flirted. Tony was the only one who knew of reader’s crush due to “the look in her eyes” and he tried giving reader advice but they both were too late, Natasha had gotten with Bruce. Reader distances herself from Natasha as a way to get over her, but Natasha notices and an argument breaks out between , leading towards Readers confession, not knowing that Bruce and Natasha didn’t work out. Smutty n fluffy ending🥹

The lyrics that inspired me😇 “I knew you in another life, you have the same look in your eyes, i love you ,don't act so surprised”

-💋

Never letting you go. | N.R

Warnings: 18+! MINORS DNI!, G!P Natasha, unprecedented Sex, veeeery soft sex

Word count: 4,7k

A/n: My lovely 💋 I'm thankful for your service as always. I dont know where you always get your Ideas, but keep going, please.

You had fallen in love with Natasha.

It began as a fleeting thought, which you dismissed as mere admiration. But over time, that thought grew into something bigger. You felt drawn to Natasha in a way you couldn't explain. Every time Natasha entered the room, your heart skipped a beat. Every smile, every laugh, every touch, even the most casual felt like electric sparks igniting a fire in your chest.

But Natasha seemed unaware of your feelings. She treated you with the same friendly warmth she extended to everyone, but nothing more. To Natasha, you were a friend and teammate, someone she could trust in battle and share a drink with after a long mission. Nothing more.

You tried to push your feelings aside, convincing yourself that Natasha could never see you that way. But no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't stop the longing glances, the sting in your heart whenever you saw Natasha and Bruce together. The two had a connection that was obvious to everyone. Bruce, with his brilliant mind and kind heart, was the one Natasha had chosen.

Tony always had a knack for seeing through people. That was one of the reasons why, despite his often gruff demeanor, he was such an effective leader. He noticed how you looked at Natasha when you thought no one was watching. How your gaze lingered a little too long, your smile was a little too soft. Tony, being Tony, couldn't resist meddling.

One evening, after an especially exhausting mission, the team was sitting in the common room of the tower. You were sitting on the couch, sipping a drink and watching Natasha, who was quietly talking with Bruce. The sight made your heart ache with familiar pain.

"You're not exactly subtle, you know." Tony's voice broke through your thoughts. He sat down next to you, his sharp eyes sparkling with amusement and you almost choked on your drink. "What are you talking about?"

Tony grinned and raised an eyebrow. "Come on. I've seen the way you look at Romanoff. It's written all over your face." You felt your cheecks flush with heat. You looked away, unable to meet Tony's gaze. "I don't know what you're talking about.." you mumbled, though the lie sounded hollow even to you.

Tony leaned back, his expression softening slightly. "Listen, there's nothing wrong with having feelings for someone. But if you're serious about Natasha, you should tell her. You never know, she might surprise you."

You bit your lip and let your gaze drift back to Natasha and Bruce. They were laughing together, and Natasha's hand rested lightly on Bruce's arm. The sight made your heart sink. "I think it's too late for that.." you said quietly. Tony followed your gaze, and understanding dawned in his eyes. "Banner, huh?" You nodded, your throat tight. "They make a good pair. I could never compete with that."

Tony was silent for a moment, his expression uncharacteristically serious. "Y/n, listen. Love isn't a competition. It's not about being better or worse than someone else. It's about being honest with yourself and the person you love. If Natasha really means something to you, then tell her. Even if she doesn't feel the same, at least you'll know you tried."

You wanted to believe him, but the fear of rejection, of losing Natasha even as a friend, was too strong. You shook your head and forced a smile. "Thanks, Tony. But I think I'll just leave it as it is. I don't want things to get awkward between us." He looked like he wanted to say more, but instead, he sighed and patted your shoulder. "Alright, kiddo. But if you change your mind, I'm here." You nodded, grateful for his support, but the decision weighed heavily on you. Deep down, you knew you couldn't bear to risk the little you had with Natasha, even if it meant never knowing what could have been.

The days passed, and you continued to hide your feelings. You watched as Natasha and Bruce grew closer, their bond strengthening with each passing day. Every smile, every touch was a reminder that Natasha's heart belonged to someone else. That realization was like a knife twisting in your chest, but you buried your pain deep inside and masked it with a smile whenever Natasha was around.

One evening, after a long day of training, you found yourself alone in the training room. The rhythmic thudding of your fists against the punching bag was the only sound in the otherwise silent room. You were so focused on your movements that you didn't hear Natasha enter the room.

"Hey." Natasha's voice broke the silence, and you flinched and froze, your hands still against the punching bag. You turned around to see Natasha standing at the entrance, her expression unreadable. "Hey.." you replied, trying to keep your voice steady. Natasha stepped closer, her gaze locking onto yours. "Is everything okay? You seem distant lately."

You forced a smile, hoping it would convince Natasha. "Yeah, everything's fine. I'm just tired, I guess." Natasha studied you for a moment, her sharp eyes seeing more than you wished. "Are you sure?" You nodded, trying to ignore the pounding of your heart in your chest. "Yeah, really. I've just got a lot on my mind."

Natasha didn't seem convinced, but she didn't push further. Instead, she gave you a small smile. "You know, if you ever want to talk..I'm here." The sincerity in Natasha's voice made your resolve waver, but you quickly pushed the feeling aside. "Thanks, Natasha. I appreciate that."

For a moment, the two of you stood in silence, the weight of unspoken words hanging between you. You desperately wanted to tell Natasha how you felt, to let out everything you had been holding back for so long. But the fear of losing her, of ruining your friendship, held you back.

Butt Natasha seemed to sense the tension in the air. She took a step closer, her expression softening. "Y/n..if there's something you need to say, you can say it. Whatever it is, I promise it won't change anything between us."

You felt your heart clench at Natasha's words, the temptation to finally confess almost overwhelming. But before you could say anything, the door to the training room opened again, and Bruce walked in. "Hey, I've been looking for you."

Natasha turned to Bruce, a smile lighting up her face. "Hey, Bruce. Sorry, I was just talking to Y/n for a minute." Bruce smiled, but his gaze shifted to you, and you saw the understanding in his eyes. "Hey, Y/n." he greeted you kindly. You forced yourself to return the smile, even though it felt hollow. "Hi, Bruce." As Natasha and Bruce exchanged a few words, an overwhelming sense of inevitability washed over you. This was the reality you had to accept. Natasha was with Bruce, and there was no place for you in that picture.

When Natasha turned back to you, you had already made your decision. You took a deep breath and forced a smile, one that you hoped would hide the pain you were feeling. "I should go. I'm pretty exhausted." Natasha frowned slightly, as if she could sense something was wrong, but she nodded. "Get some rest, okay?"

You nodded, unable to trust your voice. Quickly, you gathered your things and left the training room, your heart heavy with unspoken words and unfulfilled desires. As you walked down the hallway, Tony's words echoed in your head: If Natasha really means something to you, then tell her. But now it was too late. Natasha had chosen Bruce, and you had to find a way to move on.

The following weeks were some of the hardest you'd ever experienced. You threw yourself into missions and training, anything to drown out the pain in your heart. But no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't escape the longing for Natasha. Every time you saw her with Bruce, the pain flared up again, sharper and more intense than before. You knew you had to find a way to let go, but it felt impossible. Natasha was everything you had ever wanted, and now that you knew you could never have her, the loss was unbearable.

Tony noticed the change in your behavior and tried to reach out to you again, but you brushed him off. You didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to admit how much it hurt. You just wanted to forget, even if it meant burying your feelings deep inside where they couldn't hurt you anymore. But no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't escape the truth. You loved her, and nothing could change that.

In the days that followed, it became increasingly difficult to be around her. The pain became too much to bear, and you decided to distance yourself. It started subtly. You found excuses not to be in the same room as Natasha. If you were assigned to the same mission, you requested to be reassigned, or, if that wasn't possible, you interacted with her as little as necessary. You stopped going for drinks with the others after missions because you knew Natasha would be there, laughing and talking with Bruce.

But Natasha noticed. She noticed how you no longer stayed in the training room to train with her, how you avoided eye contact during team meetings, how you left the room whenever Natasha entered. Natasha felt a nagging sense of loss in your absence, an emptiness that grew with each passing day as you pulled away.

One evening, Natasha finally confronted you in the hallway as you tried to sneak back to your room unnoticed. "Y/n, we need to talk." You froze, your heart racing in your chest. You had dreaded this moment, knew it was inevitable, but hoped it wouldn't come so soon. "There's nothing to talk about.." you replied, trying to keep your voice calm as you turned to face her.

Natasha's eyes narrowed in determination. "Don't give me that. You've been avoiding me for weeks now. What's going on?"

"I told you, it's nothing!" you replied, your voice tense. You tried to move past Natasha, but she blocked your way, refusing to let you leave. "You're lying!" Natasha countered, her voice growing sharper. "And this time, you're not getting away.."

Before you could react, Natasha grabbed your arm and pulled you into a nearby room, closing the door behind you. The sudden movement caught you off guard, and you found yourself trapped, with the door and Natasha both standing between you and the exit. "Let me go, Natasha." you said, your voice trembling slightly. "I don't want to go through this right now, please.."

Natasha crossed her arms and stood her ground. "You've been running from me for weeks. I'm not letting you run anymore. Talk to me, Y/n. Tell me what's going on." You felt the walls closing in around you, panic rising in your chest. You knew that if you started talking, everything would come out, and you weren't ready for that. "There's nothing to say." you insisted, avoiding Natasha's piercing gaze. "Just let it go."

"That's bullshit, and you know it!" Natasha snapped, her frustration evident. "This isn't you, Y/n. You're pushing everyone away, and I want to know why. I want to help you."

"Help?" you scoffed, the word igniting the anger you had tried so hard to suppress. "The only way you can help me is by leaving me alone, Natasha!" She flinched at the harshness in your voice, but she didn't back down. "I'm not leaving you alone. Not until you tell me what's really going on."

You felt yourself reaching your breaking point, the pressure of keeping everything inside finally becoming too much. You turned away from Natasha, your hands balling into fists as you struggled to hold yourself together. "Just stop, Natasha. Please, stop."

But Natasha didn't stop. She stepped closer, her voice softer but no less insistent. "Y/n..whatever it is, you don't have to go through it alone. I'm here."

"And that's the problem!" you exploded, turning to face Natasha, your eyes blazing with a mix of anger and pain. "You care about me, but not the way I care about you! And it's tearing me apart!"

Natasha's eyes widened, but instead of recoiling, she looked at you with a mix of surprise and amusement. "Wait...are you saying..you're in love with me?" she asked, her voice softening, almost teasing.

"Yes, Fuck, Natasha! I've been in love with you for so long, and it's killing me to be around you, knowing that you'll never feel the same way!" you shouted, your voice breaking under the weight of your emotions. Natasha blinked, and then, to your complete astonishment, she began to smile, a small, almost relieved smile. "Wow...you really just let it all out, didn't you?" Natasha said, her voice taking on a playful tone.

You stared at her in disbelief. The raw vulnerability of your confession seemed to be brushed aside, as if it was something trivial. "What..what the hell, Natasha? Is this a joke to you?" you asked, your heart twisting in pain. "I just told you I'm in love with you, and you're making jokes?"

Natasha's smile softened, a mix of affection and regret in her eyes. "No, Y/n, it's not a joke. It's just..kind of sweet, you know? I mean, here I was, trying to figure out how to tell you, and you go and beat me to it by just blurting it out. I should have expected that from you."

"Wait, tell me...what?" you asked, still off-balance and more than a little hurt. Natasha stepped closer, her hand gently lifting to touch your cheek. "That I'm glad you love me. Because I love you too." Your breath caught in your throat. You searched Natasha's eyes, looking for any hint of insincerity, but all you saw was warmth and something deeper, something that made your heart ache even more. "No, please don't..." you whispered, shaking your head as you tried to pull away. "Don't say things like that just to make me feel better."

"I'm not just saying it." Natasha insisted, her hands holding your face gently but firmly. "I mean it. I broke up with Bruce because it wasn't working, and honestly? It was because I couldn't stop thinking about you." Your eyes widened, disbelief battling with the hope that began to bloom in your chest. "You..what?"

"Yes." Natasha said, smiling a little as she moved even closer. "I realized I was lying to myself. I tried to make things work with Bruce because I thought it would be safer, less complicated. But the truth is, I've been in love with you for a long time, Y/n. I was just too scared to admit it."

You stared at Natasha, still unable to fully grasp what you were hearing. "But...you, you were with Bruce...?" Natasha nodded, her expression growing more serious. "I was. But it didn't feel right. Not when my heart was somewhere else. I couldn't keep lying to him, and I couldn't keep lying to myself. So I ended it. And then you started avoiding me, and I thought maybe I had missed my chance...until now."

Your head spun as you tried to process everything. The anger, the pain, the love..it all swirled together until you felt like you might explode. "Natasha, I..I don't know what to say.."

"You don't have to say anything." Natasha whispered, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she leaned in and silenced you with a kiss. It was electrifying, filled with all the unspoken emotions that had built up between you for so long. As your lips moved together, you felt the tension and fear that had haunted you for weeks slowly melt away, replaced by a deep, overwhelming desire for the woman you had loved for so long.

Natasha's hands moved from your face to your waist, pulling you closer as the kiss deepened. You could feel the warmth of Natasha's body against yours, and it sent a shiver of anticipation down your spine. You had dreamed of this moment for so long, but nothing could have prepared you for the reality of Natasha's touch, the taste of her lips, the softness of her skin.

When Natasha finally pulled back slightly, you were breathless, your face flushed, and your heart pounding wildly. You looked up at Natasha, your eyes wide with a mixture of excitement and nervousness. This was really happening. The moment you had only dared to experience in your dreams was unfolding right before you, and it was almost too much to believe.

Natasha smiled gently down at you, her gaze soft and full of affection. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly, her thumb gently stroking your cheek. You nodded, but the truth was that you were more than okay, you were overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the reality of Natasha being so close to you, by her touch, her kiss. It was everything you had ever wanted, and it made you feel both euphoric and scared.

As Natasha's hands moved to the hem of your shirt, her fingers gently brushing the fabric, you felt your breath catch. The anticipation of what was to come made your pulse quicken, and you could feel your cheeks growing hotter, your heart beating faster. "Is this okay?" Natasha asked, her voice deep and filled with concern. You nodded again, your voice caught in your throat. "Y-Yeah.." you whispered.

Natasha's smile widened, a hint of amusement in her eyes. "You're so cute when you're shy, you know that?" she teased, her tone playful but loving. Your face grew even hotter, your embarrassment increasing. You had always imagined this moment with Natasha, but you had never thought you would feel so vulnerable, so exposed. A tear slipped from the corner of your eye, surprising even yourself.

Natasha noticed immediately and froze, her smile fading as concern filled her face. "Hey, hey..what's wrong?" she asked, her voice full of worry. "We can stop. Did I go too far?" You quickly shook your head, raising your hands to cover your face as you tried to hide your embarrassment. "No, no, it's not that.." you murmured through your hands, your voice trembling. "It's just..I can't believe this is real. I've wanted this for so long, and now that it's happening, I'm..I'm just so overwhelmed."

Natasha's expression softened, a gentle smile playing on her lips as she realized what you were feeling. "Oh, Y/n." she murmured, her voice warm and soothing. "There's nothing for you to be ashamed of." But you were too overwhelmed to look at her. You kept your hands over your face, your cheeks burning with the intensity of your emotions. "I'm sorry.." you whispered, your voice barely audible. "I'm just..I don't know how to handle this."

Natasha chuckled softly, finding your shyness endearing. "You don't have to apologize for anything." Gently, she took your hands and pulled them away from your face. "Come on, let me see you." You resisted at first, your face still burning with embarrassment, but Natasha was persistent. She held your hands gently but firmly, raising them above your head and keeping them there.

"Natasha, please..no.." you murmured, your voice filled with embarrassment as you squeezed your eyes shut, your cheeks glowing bright red. But Natasha only laughed softly, clearly finding the whole situation incredibly sweet. "You're even cuter when you're shy and embarrassed."

Your face grew even hotter, your heart racing as Natasha held your hands above your head, your bodies pressed close together. The gentle, playful way Natasha handled the situation made you feel both exposed and loved, a combination that left you breathless.

"Please.." you whispered, your voice trembling, though you weren't entirely sure what you were asking for, relief from your embarrassment or more of the sweet torment that Natasha was so skillfully creating.

Natasha's eyes softened, and she leaned down to place a tender kiss on your forehead, then on your cheeks, and finally on your lips. "You're so precious to me." she murmured against your lips. "And I'm going to make sure you feel so good."

Your heart swelled with love, and you found yourself slowly relaxing into Natasha's touches, your nervousness fading as Natasha continued to kiss and caress you gently. Her hands began to explore your body again, her touch slow and deliberate as she moved with a tenderness that took your breath away. You felt the warmth of Natasha's body against yours, her weight comforting, grounding you in the moment.

"You're doing so well." Natasha whispered as she moved lower, her lips leaving a trail of kisses on your neck that made you shiver with anticipation. "Just relax and let me take care of you."

You nodded, your hands trembling slightly as Natasha's lips continued their journey across your body. Her hands moved to gently caress your inner thighs, her touch light and teasing, sending sparks of desire coursing through your body. You gasped, your hips lifting slightly in response to the sensations Natasha was stirring.

"Slowly.." Natasha whispered, her voice full of warmth as she leaned down to press a gentle kiss on your thigh. "We have all the time in the world." You nodded, your breath coming in quick, shallow gasps as Natasha continued her gentle exploration. You could feel the heat pooling in your core, your body aching for more of Natasha's touch.

When Natasha finally moved her hand to your center, a soft moan escaped your lips, your body trembling with the intensity of the pleasure Natasha was giving you. Natasha's fingers were gentle, exploring you with a tenderness that made your heart swell with love.

"Does that feel good?" Natasha asked softly as she continued to caress you, her fingers moving in a slow, deliberate rhythm. "Yes.." you gasped, your body arching into Natasha's touch. "It feels..so good."

Hearing your confirmation, Natasha guided you both to a bed, and it was only then that you realized you had been in Natasha's room all along. Natasha moved slowly over you, her touch gentle, every movement filled with a kind of reverence that filled your heart with emotion. Natasha was deeply connected with you, but there was no rush, no haste in her movements, just a slow, deliberate rhythm that allowed you both to savor every moment.

Your breath hitched slightly, your eyes closing as you focused on the sensations flowing through your body. You could feel every touch from Natasha, the warmth of her skin, the steady beat of her heart. It was a moment that felt almost sacred, and you lost yourself in the intimacy of it all.

Natasha watched you closely, her green eyes soft and full of affection. She could see how your body responded to her touch, how your breath quickened and your cheeks flushed with desire. "You look so beautiful.." Natasha whispered, and your eyes opened briefly, meeting Natasha's gaze with a shy but loving smile. She leaned down to capture your lips in a soft, lingering kiss, her movements slow and deliberate, as if she wanted to imprint this moment in her memory. You responded eagerly, your hands tangling in Natasha's hair as you pulled her closer and deepened the kiss.

When you finally broke the kiss, Natasha rested her forehead against yours, your breaths mingling in the small space between you. "Are you ready?" Your heart skipped a beat at Natasha's words, a warm blush spreading across your cheeks. "Yes." you whispered, your voice thick with emotion. Natasha smiled gently, her heart swelling with love as she closed her eyes and surrendered to the moment. She moved slowly, savoring the warmth of your body, the softness of your skin, the way your bodies fit together perfectly. It was a moment that felt almost otherworldly, a moment Natasha wanted to last forever.

As she moved within you, Natasha focused on the sensations, on the way your body responded to her, the soft moans that escaped your lips, the way your fingers dug into her back and pulled her closer. Every movement, every sound was a testament to the connection you shared, and it filled Natasha with a love she hadn't known she was capable of. "You feel so good.." Natasha whispered, as she gently rocked her hips, drawing out the pleasure for both of you. "So perfect for me."

You could barely speak, your body trembling with the intensity of the sensations flowing through you. "Natasha...this feels...it feels so..."

"I know," Natasha murmured, her voice full of understanding as she leaned down to kiss your neck, her lips soft and tender on your skin. "It's perfect. You're perfect." As the pleasure between you slowly built, Natasha allowed herself to get lost in the moment, her eyes closing as she savored the sensations. She moved with care, but also with tenderness, determined that you feel every ounce of the love and affection Natasha had for you.

Your breath came in soft, shallow gasps, your body arching into Natasha's touch as the pleasure grew more intense. You could feel Natasha's steady rhythm, the warmth of her skin, the gentle pressure within you, and it made you feel more connected to Natasha than you had ever felt to anyone. Natasha's breath also grew heavier, but she kept the pace slow, determined to draw out the moment as long as possible. She could feel your body trembling beneath her, the way your muscles tensed and relaxed with each thrust, and it filled Natasha with a deep sense of satisfaction and love.

"Are you close?" Natasha whispered, her voice full of affection as she looked into your eyes. You nodded, your breath hitching as the pleasure reached its peak, your body trembling with anticipation. "Y-Yes..please.."

Natasha smiled gently, her own pleasure rising as she continued to move in slow, deliberate motions. "Let go, Detka." she whispered, her voice full of love. "I'm right here with you." With those words, you finally let go, the pleasure washing over you in a gentle, rolling wave that left you trembling in Natasha's arms. It was a soft, sweet release, one that filled you with warmth and contentment, and you clung to Natasha as the sensations overwhelmed you.

Natasha followed shortly after, her own climax building and reaching its peak as she moved deeply within you, her body tensing as the pleasure overwhelmed her. She held you close, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps as she savored every moment of your shared release. When it was over, Natasha didn't pull away. Instead, she stayed close to you, her body still connected with yours as she pressed gentle kisses to your lips, your cheeks, and your forehead.

"You did so well.." Natasha murmured, her voice full of love as she stroked your hair. "You're so incredible, Y/n. I'm so proud of you." You smiled, your heart full of love and contentment as you snuggled into Natasha's embrace. You felt safe, secure, and completely loved as you cuddled into Natasha's arms. It was a feeling you never wanted to let go of, a moment of complete fulfillment that you would carry in your heart forever.

Natasha held you close, her hands gently stroking your back, her touch soothing and tender. She could feel your body finally relaxing completely in her arms, and it filled her with a deep sense of satisfaction and love. "You belong to me." Natasha whispered softly, her voice full of affection as she pressed a final kiss to your forehead. "And I'm never letting you go."

You nodded, your heart swelling with happiness as you slowly drifted off to sleep in Natasha's arms, knowing that you were loved, cherished, and completely safe. As you finally fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, Natasha stayed with you, her arms wrapped tightly around you, her warmth and love flowing into every fiber of your being. She held you throughout the night, guarding your sleep and ensuring that you found the rest you had been longing for in her embrace.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha x reader #natasha smut #natasha romanoff #dom!natasha x reader #natasha romanov x reader #nat x reader #natasha romonova #the avengers #natasha #natasha romanov smut

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roosterbox · 10 months

Text

Had this random thinky thought the other day.

Pre-S4 Steddie are dating. Have been for a decent amount of time. They haven’t told everyone, but a few people know (Robin, Dustin). The thing, though, is that Wayne doesn’t know. Oh, he knows that Eddie has a boyfriend. He’s seen Eddie’s eyes light up like stars when he starts talking about this boy. About how beautiful he is. About how strong he is. And, most often, about how kind he is. After the buildup he’s been given, Wayne is pretty positive there’s no way for this mystery boy to live up to Eddie’s description. Especially with how loveblind his nephew is. But if the way Eddie lights up at the mere thought of him is any indication, he must be something special.

“Invite him over for dinner sometime, son. I’m dyin’ to meet this guy.”

Eddie agrees. And plans are made. But for whatever reason, said plans fall through. And keep falling through.

But then.

The events of S4 happen.

Steve manages to save Eddie, like he should have done in canon (but I digress). They end up in the hospital, and someone gets in touch with Wayne, who shows up almost immediately. And who does he see at his unconscious (severely injured) nephew’s bedside but Steve fucking Harrington.

Now I’m not saying that Wayne assumes the absolute worst upon seeing ‘King Steve’ Harrington in that room (the worst being that Steve has something to do with Eddie’s condition), but he does make his assumptions based on what he knows and remembers about Steve’s parents (especially his dad). Said assumptions are… not great.

He basically kicks Steve out. And Steve just… goes. Robin tries to protest on his behalf, but Steve tells her it’s okay. “Eddie needs him now,” he says.

Eddie doesn’t wake up for several days. Any time Wayne isn’t with him, Steve sneaks in. And gets kicked out again when Wayne comes back. Wayne, for his part, is getting more and more exasperated with his dedication.

But then Eddie wakes up, finally. Wayne and Dustin are there when he does. The latter leaves to give Eddie and Wayne their privacy for a tearful reunion, but he also calls Steve. A little while later, Steve shows up. He and Wayne lock eyes, and Wayne bristles a bit. He’s straightening up, preparing to kick him out yet again, before Eddie turns. And his entire face lights up in a brilliant smile. His eyes sparkle like twin stars.

“Stevie!” He says, imbuing the name with more emotion than Wayne ever expected.

Steve almost trips over his own feet to get to Eddie’s bedside, where he takes Eddie’s hand in his, twining their fingers together. He looks like he might cry.

And Wayne suddenly understands everything.

He lets them talk for a moment. They’ve seemingly forgotten he’s even there. There are soft loving affirmations, sweet names, and maybe even a kiss or two, before he clears his throat. The boys spring apart (Steve springs, at least), but don’t let go of each other’s hands.

“I really wish we could have gotten to meet each other over dinner instead, boys,” he says, gruff as always.

Steve looks nervous, but Eddie’s just embarrassed.

“Uhm,” Steve starts.

Wayne gently cuts him off. “I think you and I might have gotten off on the wrong foot.” And that wrong foot is entirely on me, he thinks.

Eddie looks between the two of them, confused.

“That’s okay,” Steve is quick to say. “You were just-“

Wayne cuts him off again, moving to the other side of the bed, hand outstretched.

“Wayne Munson.”

Steve hesitates, exchanging a glance with Eddie (who’s still terribly confused), before taking Wayne’s hand with his free one, shaking it.

“Steve Harrington,” he says as if Wayne didn’t recognize him on sight a few days prior.

“It’s nice to meet you Steve.” Wayne smiles. “Nice to finally see for myself the kid who makes Eddie smile like that.”

There are further discussions to be had. Eddie is angry (and a little heartbroken) to discover what’s been going on while he slept (“YOU KICKED HIM OUT HOW MANY TIMES???”), but in the end, it all works out. Eddie’s name is cleared. He (and everyone else!) makes a full and complete recovery (plus a few gnarly scars). And Wayne finally, finally, gets to sit down to dinner with his nephew, and his nephew’s boyfriend.

#stranger things #steddie #wayne munson #wayne munson my beloved #Wayne is a saint #but he’s also a bit protective #Steve doesn’t hold it against him #he knows better than anyone the person he used to be #also pre s4 Steddie my beloved

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bitterkarella · 5 months

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Midnight Pals: Patience

Thomas Disch: neil in the good omens game, is there a way to escape the dungeon without using the wizard's key? Neil Gaiman: ah! a very good question! Clive Barker: what? that's a terrible question Gaiman: ah but there are NO bad questions, clive Gaiman: curiosity is the rain that waters the seed of knowledge

Debbie Dadey: um excuse me sir neil gaiman but in Good Omens S2E42 aziraphale is shown performing the musubi dachi stance, but everyone knows that angels don't know karate Dadey:[pushing glasses up nose] i sure hope someone was fired for THAT blunder Gaiman: ah! a fine observation, thank you for sharing! Gaiman: so great to communicate with astute readers!

Gaiman: [putting gold star sticker on Dadey's forehead] i'm giving you a gold star for that Gaiman: in fact Gaiman: you all get gold stars! Koontz: oo! i want a gold star Gaiman: [putting gold star sticker on Koontz's forehead] and so you shall!

King: incredible! nothing flusters him! Poe: he's unflappable King: like the world's most patient kindergarten teacher Barker: no way, i don't buy it Barker: nobody's THAT patient Barker: i bet i could get him to snap Poe: clive

Barker: hey neil i've got a question Gaiman: yes? Barker: actually Barker:this is more of a comment than a question Gaiman: [sweating, veins in neck pulsing] ah yes, go on Poe: clive that's going too far

Neil Gaiman: you see dean Gaiman: you can see anything, do anything Gaiman: BE anything Gaiman: without ever leaving home! Dean Koontz: wowwww Gaiman: all you have to do is use your super power Koontz: my super power?? Gaiman: yes Gaiman: it's called Gaiman: IMAGINATION!!

Ray Bradbury: it was many years yonder when the open spaces were open and the blue skies were blue, and soda pop cost just a nickel and if you didn't have a nickel a smile would do, when you could see marshmallow dragons and candy corn castles in the clouds and you could do it all with the power of Dean Koontz: oh yeah imagination, i already know that Bradbury: and- what Koontz: yeah, neil gaiman told me Bradbury:

Ray Bradbury: listen neil i hear you've been going around extolling the power of imagination Neil Gaiman: ah imagination! the poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release- Bradbury: zip it bud Bradbury: there's ONE dream weaver in this town and that's me Bradbury: the limitless vista of a child's imagination ain't big enough for the both of us!!!

Bradbury: i have more child-like whimsy in my little finger, gaiman! Bradbury: and i will use it to paint a rainbow of nostalgic vibes that will have you crying! Bradbury: come at me, neil!! i'll make your childhood fuckin' magical!

Gaiman: wonderful, brilliant! just an excellent threat Gaiman: the craftsmanship of it was sublime, you should be very proud, ray Bradbury: Bradbury: are you Bradbury: are you being sarcastic? Poe: i don't think he knows how

Bradbury: you're so genuine, i can't stay mad at you Gaiman: perhaps, ray, there is room in the world of imagination for the both of us Gaiman: in fact, maybe there's room for ALL who seek to fly on the wings of a shared dream!

#midnight pals #the midnight society #midnight society #stephen king #clive barker #edgar allan poe #dean koontz #ray bradbury #neil gaiman #thomas disch #debbie dadey

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ddarker-dreams · 4 months

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BRILLIANT fucking idea: SR reader insinuating/offhandedly admitting… she has never been intimate. everyone hearing it like 🧍🏾‍♀️ how do you mean. idk j the flustered bashfulness of suddenly being like “wajt wait if im her bf ,,, im her first love”

SCREAMINGGGGG

[Scarlet Ribbons index]

Giorno

Giorno is a bit strange because he almost wishes he had a predecessor to analyze (and completely outshine). He isn’t disappointed per se, he’s not that weird, but having more study material never hurts. Positive relationships are foreign to him, since he’s been distant from others most of his life. He got along with people well enough — he just preferred his own company. Now that he’s had a taste of your company, he’s keen on making it a lifelong occurrence. Overhearing this admission has him wondering if traditional courting methods don’t do much for you. Or, more realistically, that they go over your pretty head. He's witnessed you interpreting the gang's flirtations as platonic. Consequently, he gives considerable thought to ensuring this isn't a fate that befalls him. Corny as it sounds, his new dream is to stand beside you as your husband. He's chasing this goal without abandon.

Bruno

Bruno feels immensely guilty for eavesdropping on a conversation involving something so personal, but he couldn't help himself. An immense weight feels like it's been lifted from his shoulders upon learning you haven't gotten romantically involved with anyone before. This relief is followed up with sharp self-condemnation — as your leader, he shouldn't get involved with your personal affairs. Maintaining any professional distance is difficult though, especially when you're so likable. People are naturally drawn to you and he's no different. That's why this revelation comes as a surprise, albeit a good one. He tells himself he'd be happy for you if you loved someone else... however, deep down, he knows the regret would eat him alive. He struggles to concentrate the rest of the day. His mind keeps wandering back to thoughts of you, specifically, finding solace in one another’s warmth. The most innocent thoughts make his heart flutter, the man is smitten.

Fugo

Fugo almost renounces his atheism — perhaps there is a God after all. Then he's reminded that you're completely out of his league, submersing him back into the Nietzsche headspace. His self-esteem isn't the best, so the way he looks at it is if no one else was good enough to catch your attention, what chance did he have? It's a miracle you even put him with him. He's blunt, stubborn, and easy to agitate, yet you're one of the few people alive who don't treat him like a ticking time bomb. When his initial pessimism dies down, he fantasizes about you getting flustered by things like a first kiss. It's a cute mental image. Would you fidget? Accidentally bump heads and apologize? Get sweaty palms? Before he knows it, he's invented an entire storyline in his head. It's mushy enough that he struggles to look you in the eye the next time he sees you.

Mista

Mista pretends he knew it all along, as if the Pistols hadn't kept him awake multiple nights, speculating over your relationship status. The little fellas held full-blown debates. Since he's a chill, go-with-the-flow type of guy, he wouldn't have turned green with envy had he learned you former lovers. If they brought you happiness, who is he to hold it against them? Regardless, he can't deny his budding excitement. Should you reciprocate his feelings, you'll experience all your firsts with him. Those initial milestones are the moments that stick with people throughout their life. It's your first kiss in particular that he'd like to have for himself. He intends to sweep you off your feet — literally. It's got to be like those old Hollywood flicks he grew up watching, or what's the point?

Narancia

Narancia has to stop himself from audibly cheering. The multiple abandonments he underwent in the past has him latching onto the few people remaining in his life. This includes you, naturally. You've brought him so much joy, the risk of losing that, losing you, it's a fear that eats away at him. He worries that if you had exes, you might compare him to them and determine he's subpar. Then he'd be cast aside like trash as he had been multiple times before. These insecurities nourish his possessive tendencies. Learning that he has no exes to fend off is a great relief because he would've defended you viciously. It isn't until later that he daydreams over the more innocent implications, like being your first (and only!) boyfriend. He gets so preoccupied by the thought that he walks into a few walls.

Abbacchio

He's actually surprised to learn about this. He considers using Moody Blues so he can hear the entire conversation, but decides against it, believing it to be an intrusion of your privacy. Abbacchio's of the opinion that to maximize your happiness, you should find love outside of Passione. He wants that for you, and yet... his heart physically aches whenever the possibility crosses his mind. What's the alternative, then? Would he make for a suitable partner? He finds the mere possibility laughable. Your brightness would be engulfed by the gaping maw that is his existence. He considers this an empirical truth, not some 'woe is me' sentiment. Ultimately, anytime your love life (or lack of one) is brought up, he distracts himself, so as not to fixate on his shortcomings.

#giorno x reader #bruno x reader #fugo x reader #mista x reader #narancia x reader #abbacchio x reader #jjba x reader #jojo's bizarre adventure x reader #part 5 x reader #vento aureo x reader #scarlet ribbons #my stuff

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violetbeauregut · 6 months

Text

In Defense of Feedism

I was absolutely struck when I read @fatliberation‘s beautiful, vulnerable post the other day. They always have brilliant ideas and they show unfailing grace and kindness to everyone, despite a ton of rude, ill-informed backlash (I would 100% recommend following them).

I can’t stop thinking about the reactions to that post and how incredibly strange it is to have to tiptoe around feedism (to use an umbrella term) in a movement that is supposed to be centered around ending the oppression of fat people.

I can understand why fat people who are not feedists would be weary or even repulsed by this kink. From the outside it may seem degrading and manipulative that the language and insults used against fat people are replicated in the bedroom. It is also harmful to be fetishized when you do not want to be fetishized, both in real life and online.

But these are the only points I’ve heard against feedism that I consider to be a legitimate argument in the discourse of fat liberation, as these are the only claims against feedism I’ve come across that are not based in fatphobia. If you are in favor of fat liberation, then you must see fatness as morally neutral. Therefore, the choice to gain weight is not inherently “good” or “bad,” it is instead a matter of autonomy– a right that should be granted to everyone, regardless of size.

The major issue with feedism is the same issue that permeates all kink and, by extension, all sexuality: consent. There are feedists, particularly feeders, who fetishize all fat people, regardless of their wishes; feedists who try to force fat people to participate in kink with or without their knowledge or permission. This is abhorrent behavior; there are no excuses for it. But the problem here is a violation of consent and not the kink itself. The unethical practice of kink does not make the kink unethical. And while feedees are often disregarded in discussions of feedism and fat liberation (which I have already talked about in depth here), there are most assuredly fat feedees, like myself, who are fully consenting to fat fetish play.

While I can only speak for myself, I know that I am not the only person who developed this kink because of weight-related trauma. When you grow up fat, when you are forced to go to Weight Watchers at seven years old, your brain comes to associate fat as taboo and taboo as sexy–but it goes beyond an attraction to something risky or frowned upon.

I live my life as a fat woman; I am fat at the doctor’s office and fat in tiny airplane seats and I am especially fat as a feedee. No matter if I’m engaging with my kink or not, I am fat and I don’t get to stop being fat outside of my bedroom. Out of all of the scenarios where I am existing in my fat body, engaging in kink play is the only one where I am experiencing pleasure because of my body, not despite it. It’s arousing to be praised for the thing that once made you hate yourself. It’s arousing to engage with something you fear or that has harmed you in a safe, controlled context where you have all the power to make it stop.

What anti-feedist fat liberationists need to understand is that feedism is, at its core, a resistance to fatphobia. When you see things that are typically fatphobic in feedist play– terms like “pig,” “cow,” “tubby,” etc. and comments about being “out of shape” or “ruined” by fat– it is not a replication of weight stigma, but a subversion of it. Feedism takes the harmful stereotypes of fatness and robs them of their power by putting them in a new context; a context where fatness is so desirable that feedists want more of it. By using the language and misconceptions of fatness to give and receive pleasure instead of to oppress, feedism not only creates a safe space to heal from fatphobic trauma, but it empowers fatness– it empowers fat people, which is supposed to be the goal of fat liberation.

#fat liberation

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adrienneleclerc · 3 months

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Hello, darling! 🫶🏻 You could write more about Charles Leclerc x Hispanic/Latina! Reader x Alexandra Saint Mleux I don't know maybe you see a second part of "The Happy Throuple"

Hello, querida! So there is already a second part of “The Happy Throuple” and its called "Nobody Everybody Knows", its on my masterlist right next to "The Happy Throuple" so you could go ahead an read that. But here is the third installment of your favorite Throuple

Family Meeting

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Hispanic/Latina! Reader x Alexandra Saint Mleux

Summary: the first time all three sets of parents meet each other.

Warning: spelling and grammatical errors

A/N: I hope everyone is enjoying the happy throuple story, there are many more installments such as a gender reveal party, shopping for the baby, decorating the baby’s room and figuring out a name, having Pascale and Alexandra’s mom host a baby shower, Charles proposing, giving birth to the baby, the classic struggles of being first time parents, the wedding, the baby’s first birthday, the baby’s first trip around the paddock, Leo and the baby being besties, the baby being a toddler, BIG PLANS but I expect everyone to be patient because planning it out does take time. Anything about Alexandra I pure made it up and I am SO UPSET because I had to rewrite the majority of the fanfic because it didn’t fucking save!!

(You know what’s FASCINATING? Becky G, Charles, and Alexandra were probably at the SAME LAKERS GAME!!!!!! My mind is BLOWN)

Y/N has met Alexandra’s parents when her and Alexandra first became roommates. Charles and Alexandra met each other’s parents when they first started dating. However, neither met Y/N’s parents and Y/N hasn’t met Charles’s mom, but she has met his brothers.

So Charles came up with a brilliant plan to fly Y/N’s parents out to Monaco so everyone can meet. Her parents said yes immediately. Charles was already nervous about picking up Y/N’s parents from the Nice Airport, Y/N riding shotgun obviously, she’s 7 weeks pregnant.

“Muñeco, this was your idea, relax.” Y/N said.

“How can I relax? The first time I’m meeting your parents is because I got you pregnant! Screw making good first impression, all your dad is going to see is the man that knocked up his 22 year old daughter.” Charles said, parking the car in the airport parking lot.

“Alexandra is preparing the apartment for our parents, she took Leo out for a walk and gave him a bath, he should be clean and wearing a cute little bow tie.” Y/N said. Both of them got out of the car, Y/N kisses him. “Everything will be fine.” They got out of the car and entered the terminal her parents say they were going to arrive in. “I’m gonna get some Dunkin’ for my mom, you okay to wait here?”

“Yeah of course, mon ange, here’s my card.” Charles said, giving Y/N his credit card. Y/N kissed his cheek before going to Dunkin’ and Charles waited for Y/N's parents to arrive. When Y/N was in line at Dunkin', some people asked for photos with her, same with Charles. Y/N was walking back with an iced coffee in hand and some donuts when her parents arrive with suitcases.

"Ay mija por favor, estás embarazada, no puedes tomar café, ya sabes eso." Her mom scolded her. Please, you’re pregnant, you can’t drink coffee, you know that

"Mami, lo compre para ti." Y/N said. I bought this for you

"Ay gracias, princesa, te quiero mucho." Her mom said, hugging and kissing Y/N on the cheek before taking the coffee. "Presentanos Y/N, no seas maleduducada." Thank you princess, I love you so much. Introduce us, Y/N, don’t be rude

"Mami, Papi, this is Charles Leclerc, my boyfriend." Y/N said.

"Pleasure to meet you." Charles said, leaning in for a hug with Y/N's mom and shaking Y/N's dad's hand.

"Nice to meet you too Charles, I'm Macarena, this is Jorge." Macarena said.

"Y donde esta la flacucha esa?" Jorge asked. Where is she

"Papi! Ella esta en el apartamento, ya vamonos." Y/N scolded her father. Charles helped with the luggage and they got into the biggest car he owned. She’s in the apartment, let’s go

“So how long have you been dating Y/N?” Jorge asked

“About a year.” Charles replied.

“Y la flacucha esa?” Jorge asked again.

“Papi!” Y/N scolded her father.

“Ay perdón! How long have you been dating Alexandra?” Jorge asked.

“A little over a year.” Charles replied.

“And what made you think you yourself ‘you know what, I would like two girlfriends, that’d be great’, hm?” Jorge asked and Macarena hit his shoulder.

“Actually Alexandra was the one that liked Y/N first. Alex would invite Y/N on our shopping trips and when she would leave me alone with Y/N, we would talk and I fell in love. We both fell in love with her.” Charles said, putting his hand on Y/N’s thigh.

“Ah, that’s nice.” Macarena commented. Charles turned on the audio of his car stereo and it was playing on of Y/N’s songs.

“That’s no way you actually have this song on your playlist, muñeco.” Y/N commented in disbelief.

“Of course I do! I have to support my girlfriend, after all.” Charles said and turned up the volume. He drove into this building’s parking garage and parked the car in his spot. Him, Y/N, and her parents got out of the car. “I put you guys in a hotel and I will drop you guys off later tonight, I’m just waiting for a few people..” Charles said and that’s when Charles’s mom and Alexandra’s parents, Mariana and Adrien, pull up in their cars. Pascale got out of her car.

“Charles, whats going on here?” Pascale asked.

“Maman! This is Y/N, my girlfriend, and her parents, Macarena and Jorge.” Charles introduced them. Pascale stepped closer to Y/N.

“It’s lovely to meet you.” Pascale hugged Y/N and Y/N hugged her back.

“It’s lovely to meet you too, Charles adores you.” Y/N commented.

“Ah, entonces es niño de mami.” Jorge commented to his wife and Macarena hit his shoulder again. Oh so he’s a mama’s boy

“No seas malo, Jorge, por Dios,” Macarena said before saying hello to Pascale. Don’t be mean, Jorge, god

“Oh Mariana, Adrien, these are my parents.” Y/N said as soon as Mariana and Adrien got out of their car.

“Hi, nice to meet you.” Adrien said to Jorge.

“You too. How do you feel about your daughter dating Charles?” Jorge asked Adrien.

“He’s a fine young man, perfectly harmless.” Adrien said.

“He got my daughter pregnant so he’s not that harmless.” Jorge commented.

“But they’re in love. My daughter loves your daughter very much, I can guarantee that.” Adrien said.

“That makes me feel better, thank you, man.” Jorge patted Adrien’s back.

“I can’t believe you came from New York, how was the flight?” Mariana asked Macarena.

“It was fine, her son got us first class tickets.” Macarena commented.

“That’s good, it’s a long flight. Charles, Can we go up? I’m getting cold.” Pascale told her son.

“Oh right, of course, let’s go.” Charles said before pressing the elevator button. When the elevator door opened, he held out his arm so everyone can get it before he did and once he was in, he pressed the button for his floor. Once the elevator opened on his floor, Y/N opened the penthouse door.

“Reina, we’re here, I brought Dunkin’.” Y/N said, putting her bag on the couch, and that’s when she heard the tippy tappies of Leo. “Leo! Ay, que cosita tan linda, me extrañaste bebé?” Y/N asked rhetorically as she squatted down to pet the dog before leo runs to Charles. The parents were observing the penthouse and Alexandra came in, greeting Pascale and her parents with a kiss in the cheek before she went over to Y/N parents. What a cute little thing you are, did you miss me, baby

“Hola, soy Alexandra, un placer conocerlos.” Alexandra said, hugging Macarena and Jorge, Hi, I’m alexandra, it’s a pleasure to meet youn

“Un placer conocerte también, flacucha.” Jorge said. Pleasure to meet you too

“Papi!” Y/N yelled.

“No se preocupe, me puedes decir flaca si quieres, no me molesta.” Alexandra said. Don’t worry, you can call me that if you want, I don’t mind

“Está bien flaca. Y cuéntanos, cómo conociste a nuestra hija?” Jorge asked. Tell us, how did you meet our daughter?

“Ah, la conocí en una fiesta. Un chico me estaba pidiendo el número, le dije que no pero me seguía molestando y Y/N vino al rescate.” Alexandra said. I met her at a party. Some guy was asking form,y number, I said no but he kept bothering me and Y/N rescued me

“Si, así es Y/N, siempre defendiendo a la gente. Se hicieron amigas por cuanto?” Macarena asked. Yeah, that’s how Y/N is, always defending people. How long were you two fiends?

“Creo que fuimos amigas por 2 años antes que me empezara a gustar.” Alexandra answered. I think we were friends for 2 years before I started liking her

“Y por qué te empezó a gustar? Como que cambió?” Jorge asked. And when did you start liking her? What changed?

“Ah pues creo que fue cuando empecé a recibir hate por salir con Charles, llamándome una interesada y otras cosas feas. Estaba llorando y ella me estaba consolando, diciendo que nada lo que ellos dicen es cierto, y la empecé de ver de otra manera. Desde ese entonces, todo lo que ella hacía me empezó a gustar. Me gusta como se arregla el cabello, como canta cuando cocina, cositas así. Es guapa, claro, pero es humilde, dulce, inteligente, talentosa, y la admiro mucho.” Alexandra confessed. Oh well I think it happened when I started to receive hate for dating charles, people were calling me a gold digger and other awful,things. I was crying and she comforted me, said that what they’re saying is not true, and I saw her differently. Since that day, I started liking everything she did. I like how she does her hair, how he sings when she’s cooking, stuff like that. She’s hot, of course, but she’s humble, sweet, smart, talented, and I admire her a lot

“Y de Charles?” Macarena asked.

“Yo creo que es mejor que él te lo explique. Mon beau, Macarena and Jorge want to talk to you.” Alexandra said. Charles excused himself from Mariana and Adrien and went to Macarena and Jorge. I think it’s better if he explains it

“Hello, what did you want to talk about?” Charles asked.

“Same thing we asked Alexandra, how did you meet Y/N and when did you start liking her?” Jorge asked,

“Well she was invited to the Miami Grand Prix in 2023 so that’s when I met her, she came to the Ferrari garage and when she spotted Alexandra, they started talking. That’s when they told me they were friends. It wasn’t until we went to this Peruvian restaurant that I started to like her. She was talking about how she went to Peru for this music festival and how her fans were waiting outside the hotel to take photos with her. Then I started sharing my experience with ‘crazed fans’ and it felt good to talk to someone about it. We both suffer from anxiety so she’s been helping me with mine, Alex can’t relate to what I go through but Y/N can,” Charles said.

“She does seem happier on our phone calls.” Macarena said,

“You’re a good guy, charles.” Jorge said. Y/N was with Pascale.

“So Y/N, charles mentioned he met you at a Grand Prix?” Pascale asked.

“Yes, I was invited by one of Ferrari’s sponsors and I got to meet him in the Ferrari garage. It was actually kinda cool, my uncle is a formula 1 fan so when I would go over to his house when I was younger, I would watch the races.” Y/N said.

“That’s nice, dear. What made you like him?” Pascale asked.

“I had this dog charity event, I’m a big animal lover, and he heard me on my phone arguing with the person who was supposed to host with me, saying he wasn’t able to do it anymore and Charles said he would host with me. I asked him why and he said because he wanted to help me and him being there would bring in more people. He wasn’t wrong, a lot of dogs got adopted that day. He’s selfless, humble, so kind, that made me fall in love.” Y/N confessed.

“He’s very in love with you too, he can’t wait to be a father.” Pascale said.

“Yeah, he’s very excited.” Y/N said.

“You seem like a good fit for him Y/N, I hope one day you could come over to our house.” Pascale said.

“I would like that very much.” Y/N said,

The rest of the day, the parents were sitting in the dining room, drinking wine, and sharing embarrassing childhood stories for their children.

“Alexandra flushed her sister’s goldfish down the toilet because she thought it led to the ocean,” Mariana said and everyone was laughing.

“Yeah, that’s enough wine for you.” Alexandra took the wine bottle that was in the center of the table and brought it to the kitchen counter where Y/N and Charles were eating potato chips. “Looks like our parents are getting along.”

“What embarrassing story did you hear this time?” Y/N asked.

“One of mine, actually. It’s crazy how they’re talking like old friends.” Alexandra said.

“It’s even crazier that they’re all cool with us being a throuple, I thought I was going to die.” Charles said

“Well I’m glad you didn’t, muñeco.” Y/N kissed him.

“Think we could stay the night?” Alexandra asked.

“Of course you’re staying the night. I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Charles said. The three observed their parents talking, looks like the family meeting was a success.

The End

Hope y’all liked it! It took me forever to write

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