#He probably doesn't even remember he had a form different from now

[fatcatlittlebox]

I find the recent comments from showrunners Payne and McKay interesting particularly when they state that Sauron did not want to kill Galadriel in the finale duel but for her to acknowledge him and "give him credit." Now why would that matter so much to him if not for the possibility that what he had done was done so with her in mind? Meaning, Sauron was thinking of Galadriel this whole time. His return to Mordor, the rings, his conquest. They are the broad strokes to the greater masterpiece he is shaping for her. She is his inspiration. She is his audience. Which brings me back to the theme of eyes. His eyes and hers. Eyes that see and look. The Eye is the mark of Sauron. But more than anything he wants Galadriel to see him. I made this last gifset to illustrate how this is the focus of Sauron's obsession and motivation.

Throughout his existence so far, he has been gifted and plagued by his ability to shapeshift and change form at will. He "has had many names." You see how this weighs upon his soul. He has had too many names. He has worn so many faces to too many people. He’s weary and the burden of not being seen for so many years, thousands - he almost comes apart.

This is why he desperately longs for Galadriel to see him. Not as the “abhorred” but as himself. Because to be seen is to be whole. To have one, true name even if it isn't uttered aloud. This is what Adar asked of Galadriel and I think it's meant to reflect Sauron as well. The difference is that Adar embraced the name he had earned while Sauron rejects his. Sauron hates his earned name because it is a constant reminder of how alone and misunderstood he feels in his purpose. That is until he meets Galadriel. She doesn’t abhor “Halbrand.” She loves him. She sees him. To her he is “friend" and "king."

"Galadriel. Look at me.” I believe that she did fall in love with the real him and he knows it. It's why he will always keep “Halbrand.” He will linger in the memories of when Galadriel knew him this way. That's why he continues to look like some variation of Halbrand. Because that's how Galadriel saw him. This the illusion he created for himself and one he is reluctant to leave. As long as she can see him. Just the possibility and the hope.

And while Galadriel can claim fondness for the part of him that was soft, vulnerable and human, that is not all she fell for. And Sauron won't let her get away with excusing herself or denying that she loved the parts that were truly him. This gesture, when he has her impaled with the crown and she averts her eyes away from his gaze.

He jerks her eyes upward as if to say, "Look." She fell in love with this person too. Sauron is Halbrand. The rage-filled, domineering and ambitious, violent spirit. He won't let her deny it. He won't let her look away. This is what they shared. She did not shrink before him when he pushed her away, when he told her of his darkness, when he told her, and showed her of how cruel and manipulative he could be. Remember, he saw her rage and vengeful side too. "Galadriel. Look at me." He says it aloud and presses these words upon her mind like a phantom prayer. His words probably haunt her soul. She feels it. It's what she hints at when she admits to Elrond that Gil Galad doesn't trust her alone with Sauron: You know why. The constant question that gropes her thoughts. It's the open invitation that still keeps the door open to his mind. She says she perceives "all of his mind as it concerns elves." I don't think that's because that is all that Sauron allows her to see. I think it's because that is what most occupies his thoughts. Her.

That's why, as I have previously wrote, I think the events of season 2 were setting the groundwork for manifesting the plan Sauron has for shaping the world as he saw it with Galadriel. He is going to enact their shared vision and, he believes, Galadriel will see its beauty and worth and return to him. Which leads me to her parting words to Sauron in episode 8. She tells him to heal himself. I think by now Sauron has enough insight to see that he is indeed a broken spirit. It comes up in his confessions with Celebrimbor and the showrunners have already hinted that Sauron is becoming increasingly aware that there is something about his very essence that poisons every meaningful relationship he has and dooms him to failure and despair. He also says to Galadriel at the start of their swordfight that he want to "heal..." and before he finishes with "Middle Earth", he pauses. He was going to say that he wants to heal himself. So by the time the viewer sees Galadriel tell him to basically fuck off and heal himself, those seeds are actually already planted. He has to cure himself of this blight. He has to purge himself of it. And now he has explicit instructions from Galadriel. He sees and remembers everything, right? He's going to do it. He's going to try to repair what he may see as his defect. It will be interesting to see how he interprets his marching orders from his queen. I think that is where the One Ring comes in.

The showrunners have already hinted that the forging of the One Ring will be an upcoming storyline soon. They also hinted that he's going to fuck something up. Furthermore, the audience has already been shown that the more of himself Sauron puts into a ring of power, the more corrupted and less potent of a creative, benevolent force it imparts. They've also shown that when Sauron tries to make rings on his own, he fails in the final product. He even went through a whole batch of mithril on his own without success. So if the writers have hinted that Sauron errs in the making of the ring, what could they possibly mean? Where did he go wrong? Is it that Sauron had different intentions for the Ring's purpose than what it ended up becoming? Or that he fulfilled its malicious purpose but with unintended side effects? If the former, I wonder if his true intention with the One Ring is to create another healing ring of power, his own ring as a mate of Galadriel's. Maybe he forges it, believing that this would meet Galadriel's demand to heal himself. The shownrunners have already shown that they like to put unexpected layers to the most well-known parts of Tolkien: “One ring to rule them all. One ring to find them. One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.” Maybe those words have additional meaning.

[radiance1]

Cha know that space whale au that was made because of @puppetmaster13u calling Danny a space whale in a tag on a post they made?

Yea so I'm thinking of that again.

Now, hear me out. Instead of there being an active alien invasion happening when they arrived, they're faced with a completely calm looking Earth that looks about the same as Danny remembers.

Not that Vlad would remember, considering his time spent in the void where he forgot basically everything.

Of course, this giant whale does NOT go unnoticed by the people living on Earth and especially the Justice League.

They manage to make their ways onto Earth without being stopped by the Justice League, however. Suddenly, there was a giant whale that could clearly be seen from space with the human eye, and just as suddenly there was absolutely nothing there anymore.

Of course, it caused widespread panic, calls to the government for them to do something about this and especially multiple people asking the Justice League to explain whatever the hell that was.

Was it a new enemy? Another insanely powerful being hellbent on taking over the Earth? Maybe a scout?

Nobody knows anything, and that makes it worse. The Justice League are currently looking around for information, spearheaded by a highly paranoid Batman.

And I do like @bet-on-me-13's take that they lived in Atlantis before it sunk!

So imagine this, Danny and Vlad turn into their human forms (Which probably don't have human legs since they can't remember how to use those) and they try to find their old home. Danny? Is suuuuper excited about this, because he hasn't been home for a really long time and he knows that he's missed so much!

Even Vlad finds himself curious, his memories and (most of) his emotions eroded away by the void. But Danny says that this was his home before he became touched by the void, he's heard stories of what he used to be and that he greatly loved a certain team so he's a bit curious.

So, ancient space whale and void touched being goes towards where space whale believes- knows their home should have been.

Only to find nothing but water.

[yeyinde]

appetite | Alpha!Simon Riley

it's been decades since Alpha!Ghost had a rut. something that's probably for the best, really. his want is as hideous as he is. as ugly as his goddamn mug. it's best kept tucked away, secured under lock and key.

but then he finds you. and you're all alone. unclaimed, on the verge of heat. poor thing. it triggers a voracious rut. decades worth of want spilling out over you. you're it, he knows. feels the certainty in that statement simmering in his hindbrain, in his essence. he'll have you—now, forever. non-negotiable. where you go, he will follow.

but you run from him. stupid girl. didn't anyone teach you not to run from a starving wolf?

dubcon. size kink. size difference. a/b/o dynamics: knotting, rut. breeding kink. spit kink. implied virgin!reader. obsessive behaviour. possessive!Ghost. semi-public sex. reluctant reader bullied into submission lmao. forced bonds. implied kidnapping. basically, you're hunted down and fucked by Alpha!Simon who growls in your ear about how he's waited his whole life for you. and lucky him. he finally found you

AO3

It's been years, decades, since he had a rut. 

(Broken Alpha. Ruined.)

Trauma, they tell him, will do that. Sever the drive in the back of his head, the one that rears—vicious and angry—each mating season, bringing with it the urge to breed. To claim. Own. 

A form of self-preservation. It pitches a plexiglass of protection between him and his instincts, not letting them merge. Join. Done so because to be in rut, to want, to need, is vulnerability. It costs hypervigilance. Turns man into beast. Animal. 

This bodily reaction makes an alpha extend themselves, like an overarching limb, to shield the omega they pick as a mate. Bearing their own neck to save another. 

Naturally, they say, if he couldn't help himself, how could he ever hope to protect a fragile little omega? 

They tell him it could be as permanent or temporary as he allows. Healing, they say. Time. Laughable, really. And utter nonsense because Ghost is fine. 

Trauma tampered. Revenge sought, found. There's no one out there who could ever harm him, and still—

His last rut was before the mission that buried him alive. That turned him into the living dead. A mockery of man. Frankensteinian beast. 

It's not something he cares much for, anyway. From what he remembers of his youth—vague snippets of memories, disjointed, blurred sensation; a profound need, an urge, to sink his cock into something, to plug them up, to bite—ruts have always been a nuisance. In the way. An annoyance that took time away from what he'd rather be doing. 

And as Johnny enters his—skin pallid, waxy; cheeks flushed, eyes darkening like a brewing storm on the horizon; snapping at anything that breathes, whining like a dog, miserable and hot, all the time (ahm’a bleedin’ furnace, s’what ah’m)—he finds he doesn't care very much to go reclaim what he lost. 

No skin off his nose. Nothing to concern himself with. 

Besides. Omegas know better. 

Even before he lost himself, dying, rotting in a tumulus, pretty little omegas with their soft hands and bashful smiles always went out of their way to avoid him. Miserable alpha. His scent alone wards them off—burnt leather, charred bones; sarcophagus dust, dirt—and he found himself alone during his burgeoning ruts more often than not. 

No pretty little thing to tender the sweat on his brow, or bend over and present for him—offering up a sweet little cunt he got to bury himself inside, tie up nice and tight on his knot. 

It was usually his hand. A bottle of bourbon. A printed porn stash he swiped from Tommy, who nicked it off their old man—

And when he did find a partner, it was always transactional. Hand to hand, an exchange of money. All clinical and detached. Empty. Fucking into a concept instead of a person; a vacuum eating away at his soul because he knew, then, that they wanted to be there almost as much as he did. 

But what choice did either have when their home was the rotted gullet of a dying beast?

(Simon told them to stay away from shitty men like him, who broke bones in the throes of his heat, snapped his jowls at anything that got too close, and had to be chained to the bed like an animal during it—)

Nothing to miss. Nothing to mourn. 

And it's not like he doesn't get the urge. Wanting to sink his cock into something warm, wet, is as recurring as a sweet tooth. A prickle in the back of his head after he devours his dinner that says, dessert might be nice. 

He can fuck, but his knot never pops. A worry the doctors had—unsure what the consequences would be in the long run for such a virile, young Alpha already experiencing nature's version of erectile dysfunction so early in life. 

(“pity the poor omega who has to deal with that rut,” they whispered. “might not be much of anything left of them when he's through.”)

Inconsequential now because he's pushing forty and his last rut was a false trigger. One dragged out of him by drugs and torture. The last true rut, natural and instinctual, was when he was eighteen. 

It's doubtful he'd suddenly be cured at his age. 

This is what he tells Johnny when he asks, pries. Broken fuck, ain't he? Unmated. Can't knot. Piss poor excuse of an Alpha. Doesn't he think it's—

“a shame,” Johnny grouses, words muffled slightly by the way he's hunched over the cheap plastic table in the canteen. His fingers dig harshly into his temple. “Alpha like you—” it's enunciated in clipped Queen's English, the barb makes Ghost scoff. “—ack! a waste. ma mam would be livid. no grandbabies t’show off? sacrilegious.”

—funny. If he's being honest. Laughable:

because for as long as Ghost can remember, he's always had a predilection to ruin his favourite toys. slaking his unquenchable lust on their tender skin, biting down to the bone, sipping on their marrow—

not really the sort of thing omegas today go for, is it? 

his want is as hideous as he is. as ugly as his goddamn mug—

Instead, he shrugs. “hardly.” 

“yer no’ missin’ it?” 

“missin’ what, Johnny?”

“knottin’, ye surly prick.” He jeers, then, jabs his elbow into Simon's arm. “a bonnie omega to stick yer prick in. ain't missin’ th’, no?”

“no,” Simon gripes. The last thing Price needs is another order of protection against his Lieutenant. But to humour the alpha in an early stage of rut, he jabs out, hollow and full of wretched derision. “i can barely remember what it felt like. must be heaven, though. is that your plans for tonight, Johnny? gonna go and knot some sorry omega?”

It's meant to prod, poke. Sharp barbs aimed at Johnny's threadbare control, the same one held in place by a fraying, unspooling knot. Alphas in the early stage of rut are considered safe enough to be around. Not yet mindless drones, hosts to an ugly little parasite; a being forced to obey a single, instinctual drive to mate, to gorge themselves into a post-rut stupor. 

Safe. Or so they say. 

But Ghost knows what Johnny's feeling in the same sense as a phantom limb. A broken, fragmented memory. So, he twists his mockery in deep. All in jest, of course. 

And Johnny pales suddenly. Wavers in his seat. The affirmative comes after a bout of contemplative silence. A jagged, choked yeah slips from his Sergeant’s mouth as he drops his head to the table, and groans. Miserable. 

“go fuck yerself, Lt.”

Simon intends on taking Johnny up on that offer, lazying out on the futon with his hand stroking lazily along his flaccid cock, thumbing through the latest series of snapshots Johnny—ever the photographer—snapped up during his previous rut. Images of pretty omegas dressed up in fine silk, blood-red lingerie, and coy little grins on their faces, a vixen pastiche of demureness. Jejune appeal in all its coquettishness.

Innocent sluts—Johnny's preferred type. Ones who'll bat their eyes at him, nervous and full of faux modesty, while they rock back and forth on his face, tugging on his mohawk to make him lick their cunts just the way they like. Sweet, like candy. Dressed in sin. 

He likes to take before and after photos of them—often with the pretty models unaware (adds to it, aye, Lt?). Ones with them batting their eyes at him, soft and shy in all their twee delight, and then fucked out, ruined and chewed up like a broken toy when he finishes with them. Bitten off more than they can swallow. Cheeky brats sobbing for mercy on his bed. 

Likes, even more, to send them to Ghost. A little tease. One he has no compunction about partaking in. Enjoying to his heart's content. 

Or—

Intended to, of course. Because what ends up happening is this:

Price calls just as he's getting into the new series sent to his phone—the tear streaks streaming down this omega’s face are particularly appealing, bound in intricate Celtic knots (Johnny, the artist), and gagged with their own panties—and tells him he has a job for him. 

Something simple. Discreet. And local, too. Bears have been sighted in town—a mama and her cubs. Dangerously close. 

The prelude to the phone call is a clipped take care’a it before the line goes dead. 

Ghost doesn't need to pack much—he can't remember the last time he unpacked his duffle bag, anyway—and stays in the recliner until the mission file comes in, idly stroking his thumb across the pixelated, tear-streaked face of the omega in Johnny's clutch. Moussed. Messy. They make the prettiest picture, don't they? Drool dripping down their chin, a spillover from what the lacy, white panties couldn't catch. 

Flesh peppered with jagged circles, bite marks. Johnny knows better than to claim them, and their neck is bereft of his teeth. Smooth. Unblemished. 

To claim is to bond. To bond—

Well. 

His earliest recollection of a relationship is his parents’. His mum, tied and trapped to a man she wanted no part of, but stuck. Unbondings, divorce, were rare during that time. Unheard of. Even now. 

And under his old man's influence, he's always seen claiming as ownership. As possession. A lingering remnant he’s told is wrong, but can't shake. Can't change. It glues in the fibrils of his mind. A rotten, pulsing scab that no amount of sanctioned reconditioning can ever seem to get rid of, to scrape out of his skull. 

(one he knows would be there no matter what because his sole purpose is exsanguination; bloodletting— 

in his warped desire to protect the things he cares about, he ends up smothering them in the end. a child holding a firefly too tight in its chubby fist.)

But Johnny knows better. Good Catholic boy. Knows to keep a muzzle on himself when he sucks desperate kisses into the small omegas' sweet neck, breaking apart the blood vessels of their scent glands, soaking himself in their musk—potent pheromones of a needy omega in heat. Aching for a bite. To be held down and conquered. 

It's wrong, they say. This ugly mass sits inside his chest like a foreign body. Scandalised eyes drilling into the side of his head like he's a monster for thinking this way. 

And he is. 

(always has been)

But he knows better. Knows to keep those uglier, rotten parts of himself hidden away from prying eyes. Got good at it, too. Enough that they let him into the brothels time and time again. 

Still—

He can remember the closest he'd come during a rut to biting a shrill omega who screamed in his ear until his head rang, ached. Nearly did it, too. Teeth razoring over their jugular, pinching delicate skin. 

Clarity came like a gunshot when he tasted blood. Chiselled a hole through his delirium, broke up the haze, and snapped his jaws up tight, locking them as he finished with a muffled growl, tongue swirling over his teeth for another taste. Another drop. 

His ruts have always been messy. Bloody. Got him banned from several centres, brothels, where they offered up betas drenched in the artificial musk of an omega in estrus. Ones resilient enough to withstand the harsh coupling of an unhinged Alpha in need. 

He had a problem, they said, with treating their workers like chew toys. Biting to break skin, drilling in deep enough to scratch his teeth on their bones. 

Deranged, they hissed. Fuckin’ mental, mate. Stay the hell away!

Some are just prone to violence. Need to be half-sedated before they can mate without ripping their partner to pieces. Ghost has always been that sort. Aggressive. Hard to control. Rabid. 

His appetite is bigger than the expanse of their skin. He sometimes thinks he could eat the whole world and still starve. 

He hums, thumb sliding to cover the omega's neck. Trapped in his hand, his clutch. They're cute when they're ruined like this. Begging. Whimpering. 

His cock gives a half-hearted twitch. His work phone chimes, signaling the end of his leisure. 

shame, he thinks, squeezing his hand until the metal dents, the screen cracks, splinters. Pops. Hairline fractures split across their distorted, tear-stained face. He closes his fist over it until it breaks. Goes black. 

really. such a goddamn shame. 

Some things are just not meant to be—

—but they have a habit of falling into his maw, anyway.

It's a simple set up. 

Man—

beast, monster, thing

—with his empty, growling stomach and teeth made to bite, tear, goes out hunting for a meal. In that search, he finds you. 

You, Persephone personified: damned (eternal), standing beneath a spruce tree. Limned, halo gold, in the waning sunset's bashful kisses, you lean on the rough bark, idling your timelessness away. 

Postcard beauty. Pinup demure. Alluring. 

(creature of sin

and oh, do you reek:

The air is saturated in the tantalising scent of honeybush, roasted hazelnuts, and clove. Saccharine—almost nauseatingly so—but with a hint of spice, black cardamom, cinnamon. He drags in lungful after lungful until it tangles deep within his chest, nearly suffocating. Smothered in this earthy sweetness. Drowning. Drowning—

the perfect dessert)

It unleashes something in him. Chips at the lock buried deep in his mind, cudgelling through the hinges until they pop. Rusted, slick with oxidising oil. It peels back from the gate, unveiling this gaping, ravenous chasm, polluted and gangrenous, rotten down to the marrow. Noisome. Noxious. This frothing pit sloshes, geyser-like, and greedily foams at the maw, the mouth, aching for a taste. Something to quench this gnawing hunger. 

This bottomless abyss hadn't seen light since he was eighteen, and—

The hollow space where his rib once sat throbs, aches. phantom bone. He holds his chest with his hand, feeling for the gap, the chasm, stolen from him. Ripped away, taken.

By you. you—

—so,

it's only fair that he steals something back. 

(quid pro quo, or something, right?)

You greet him with a small nod when he wanders close, eyeing him warily under the black rim of your ballcap. Tense. Small hands curl into fists, partially hidden under the rain-soaked windbreaker nearly two sizes too big. It smells like you—honeyed milk, molasses; lilac, lavender and warm bread—and he fights the urge to pull his mask down, to shove his misshapen nose into your neck, and breathe it in right from the source. Drinking, feasting, on it. 

This want is visceral. It coils in his guts, bubbling in his veins. His musk—heavier than yours, pungent—beads along his scent glands, mushrooming into the air like a fine mist. 

Your nostrils flare. He takes a step closer, eyes skewering into you, taking in everything you have to offer. The rucksack left at the bottom of the tree, stained with dirt and leaves. A sprig of Saskatoon berries peeks out from the lopsided flap. And—

Ah. 

Foraging is off-limits in this area unless granted a permit. One you don't seem to have based on the skittish way you keep avoiding his eye.

His scent thickens, tainted sour with faux suspicion, and you wince, ducking your chin, tucking it close to your chest, hiding from his spearing gaze. 

All it does is give him a voyeuristic view of your fragile nape, your vulnerable neck. 

His teeth ache. Jaw clenched up tight. 

It looks so bare. So naked. 

(Be a shame to keep it that way forever, wouldn't it?)

“Hi,” you stammer, seemingly oblivious to the musk you leak into the air, into his lungs. Forcing some sense of staid indifference into your tone. Like being here, out in the middle of the forest is normal. “Did you need something?” 

On the verge of a heat like this, wobbling where you stand—

He wants to chew you up. Spit out the pieces on the pavement. Drink from the gash he'll rip into your jugular,

quench this unbearable thirst. 

He doesn't know how you made it out here as long as you have, smelling like you do, and the thought burrows through the haze spuming, clotting, on the fringes of his muted periphery. Anger is an icy deluge of white water raging through his veins. 

Under the mask, the remnants of his scarred lip curls. His hands close into tight fists. Balled up. He feels the tension crackling along his muscles, his body. Coiled spring. Ready to leap—

But:

There's clarity. Focus. Where he was meant to become a mindless monster, driven by instinct, he instead feels the pieces of himself snap back into place. Missing puzzle pieces. It shifts. Settles. Locks. 

He wants you. Will have you. It's non-negotiable. Ironclad. You just—

Belong to him, don't you? Pretty little thief. And wandering around like this, reeking like you do, you must want him, too. Need him. 

(protect, protect, protect—)

Honed in, drilling into your face to catch every expression that flickers past, he sees the moment you take a sniff, when realisation blooms in the inkpools of your gaze that you are less than an arm's length away from a starving predator. Supple, soft. All plush flesh seated seamlessly against brittle bone. Fragile. 

“hi,” he echoes, and it sounds hollow. Garbled. Like he's speaking underwater. Thinks, for a moment, that he's buried again. Drowning under the crushing weight of dirt. His own tumulus. Suffocating. Choking on dirt—

But you twitch. Feral little thing. It breaks him out of this nightmarish obtundation; shaking the cobwebs loose. He tracks it like a viper. Attention narrowing, shrinking, into nothing but the way you move. Smell. You anchor him in his place, keeping him stable amid this horrific onslaught of emotions that rip talons down his chest. 

“I–” you breathe in again, lashes fluttering. Strains of silk batting over your etiolated cheeks. You breathe him in. Deep. He sees your chest grow, expanding with his air. His musk. Has to bite down on a growl before it forms, the lash of a whip in his throat. Aching. 

There's something spellbinding about you—caked in a layer of grime, briny sweat clogging your natural scent; wild and untamed. Uncharted wilderness, untouched by man and their dirty hands. A corrie after a rain shower. Snow melt. He wants to bathe in it. Carry it with him wherever he goes. 

As if scenting this thickening desire, your eyes widen. You take a step back, swallowing audibly when he follows. Marionette on strings. Your shadow. 

“I should go—”

And he knows he can't let you do that. 

Won't. 

He hums, a fickle, brittle thing in the far reaches of his chest. 

“Go?” he flicks his hand toward your bag, head cocking to the side in a mockery of contemplation. “Don' think you got a permit for that, do you?”

“A permit…”

He has you. Your eyes lower, falling to the badge on his chest. Game Warden. You stare at it, eyes widening. Swallowing thick. 

With you distracted, he leans in. Curves his body over you mockingly, like he's bending down to whisper a secret in your ear. Cupping a pretty little firefly in the palm of his hand. 

When his shadow falls over you—dark and damning—you flinch back, fists trembling under the hem of your jacket. Brows furrowed, knotted tight. Your lower lip wobbles. You try to hide that, too, by sinking your teeth into your flesh until it floods white under the strain. 

He wants to pry it apart with his own teeth. Take the bruised flesh into his mouth until you start to drool, whining from the abuse he inflicts on you in a mockery of a kiss. 

(wants to tear through it, taste your blood on his tongue—)

“An’ I don't reckon tha's a good idea, pet.” 

You shiver when he places his hand on the truck above your head. Boxing you in completely, nothing to spare—not even an inch. 

He hums at that, cock giving a vicious jerk inside his trousers at the almost impossible dearth between your sizes, at the way he swallows you up in an instant. Has to take a deep breath to steady himself, to keep the inkblack tendrils swirling, gathering, at the edges of his periphery from bleeding in. This starving murder of crows. 

When he speaks again, it's low. Deep. Kittenish licks from the tongue of a tiger; abrasive, rough. Mocking baritone of a shifting canyon, a mountainside, before it buries anyone alive under rubble. 

“Not reekin’ the way you do. Might ‘ave every alpha in a one square mile radius frothin’ at jaws for a taste. Ain't safe out there.”

And it's definitely not safe with him. 

He watches, transfixed, the moment this clicks. When your eyes waver between the hard bulk of his body—spread out, laxed; plumage unfurled—and the noisy clatter of the town just within reach. It's this thicket that cups your scent, that protectively curls over you, and keeps the Alpha's prowling about the market square from sniffing you out. A beaten trail. Hidden desire path no one was supposed to wander down. 

Except the bear problem in the woods, infringing on town, and him, the gun bolstered on his thigh still hot from his warning shots into the bush.

(lost little Lamb—

wandered too far from the herd.)

You take another step, cautious. Small. It brings you flush against the tree. Your polyester jacket whines at the friction. He can see indecision play out on your face. Oscillating between the badge on his uniform shirt, the gun on his massive thigh, and the clamour of muted noise from the town just within reach. Alphas prowling. Their acrid scent is unmistakable even through the dense foliage spreading around you.

It's an impasse. Neither option affords you much choice in the long run—it's either stay here with him, with the heady scent of want, of an Alpha on the incipient cusp of a voracious rut; or risk yourself in town. There are police officers patrolling. Ones who can sedate an alpha who gets too out of hand, but still. 

The mimesis of desire pooling around you might send you into heat sickness. That, or you'll get in even more trouble for fleeing a pursuing officer. Resisting arrest. Jail time, certainly. 

The pendulum wavers. Your knotted fists wobble. 

Then—

Your eyes leave his chest, the gun, trailing over his shoulder. Widening in surprise at whatever is there in the distance. 

He ought to commend you, really. The rouse is quite believable—

But: 

“Not bad,” he murmurs, leaning down further. If you won't jump, he'll push you—

He sees his mistake as soon as it happens. 

As he bends, you drop. Waiting until his attention seemingly drifts elsewhere, to when he's distracted and off balance. Lured in by your faux attempt at distraction. 

And it might have worked on a lesser being, but all Ghost has ever been is raw, unadulterated instinct.

He lashes out as soon as you move again, palm curling over your wrist in an instant. Snapping jowls of a defensive snake. Shackled. Locked. He tugs—

But the movement costs momentum. You use this against him, going limp. Forcing him to take the brunt of your weight on the spread of his fingers. Tricky little minx. His mouth breaks out in a feral smirk, tugging harshly on scars, on burns. Stretching skin. Distorting it under the mask, ugly and vicious. 

Your scent plumes up around him, sickly sweet. His jaw aches, gums itch. He wants to bite, snap his jowls around the scruff of your neck, chew on your skin until you sob out his name—

In seconds, you twist. Swinging your body back in a beautiful pivot, clumsy as it is. You're all animal now. Reckless in your pursuit to escape. Throwing out pheromones at him—purposeful, he realises a moment too late. 

And it works. Distracts him long enough for his grip to slacken. Your arm slips out of his grasp, and you're on your feet in an instant, darting through the thicket in a maddened dash to escape the heavy, starving alpha and his burgeoning hunger. 

Escape, or—

Weighed down by the afterbirth of his sudden rut, a prickle of his old self buoys, brims, from beneath the mess. He shouldn't chase you. Should leave you alone, call someone—Price, perhaps. Bark out between a clenched jaw that he needs a tranquiliser and chains. Will have to break Simon's teeth to stop him from biting into you like a man starved, famished. Tie him to the back of his pickup truck, drag him to the edges of the forest. Knock him out. Knock his teeth in. 

Anything.

Because they said this might happen. The doctors’ who poked and prodded. Therapists—all mandatory, non-negotiable, when he signed his name on the dotted line—murmured about unravelling. His self-control snapping like a twig. Sense of self retreating. All hiding away, protecting itself from the torrent of chemicals flooding his hindbrain. A heavy, unrelenting accumulation of a decades-long bout of rut celibacy all washing over him, all at once. 

Said to lock himself up if it happens. Chains. Shackles. Nuts and bolts. Heavy tranquiliser. Immediate sedation. 

And in Price’s office, in that messy filing cabinet he keeps, is a folder. A playthrough of everything that's supposed to happen if this happens. 

(“but that won't happen, will it, Simon?” 

and he'd rolled one massive shoulder in an easy, effortless shrug. 

“no.”)

The failsafe is that he's meant to call in if it does. Precious seconds of clarity, cognisance, enough time for him to dial the number, to bark out the order. To be hunted down, rounded up, and thrown in a pit. 

where he belongs. 

He should. Should. It's the book. Rules. Coloured in red ink. No option to negotiate. 

But as you slip through the dense foliage, angelic gold against the phthalo green bosky, the knot in his shoulders abates. Uncoils. In this sense of ease that permeates within him, he finds that he's shockingly cognisant. In full control. The plexiglass shatters, and in the ruins he finds purpose. 

You smell good. Too good. Any alpha will scent you in an instant, will claim you. Take you. It makes something in his broken, moulted head shift. Crack. He can't let that happen. Has to protect you the only way he knows how—

To wrap his paws around your throat before any other Alpha has the chance to sink their teeth into you. To claim you. 

All his. Little Persephone tucked tight against his ribs where you belong. 

And if the way the air clots with your cloying smell—heady, potent; the unmistakable ripeness of an omega in heat—then you must want him to chase you. Want him to follow. 

(escape, or—

a game.)

He tracks your movements, honed in on the rustle of the underbrush. When you're out of sight, Ghost flexes his hand, curling his gloved fingers over the leather on his palm. There's an itch in the back of his head. Festering. Rotting. He wants to reach in, rake his claws down the mass, shred it to pieces, but it affixes one simple truth inside of him: 

you need him. want him. why else would you run in the opposite direction of help if you didn't want him to give chase?

And so, he does.

You're a crafty little thing. To throw him off of your trail, you leave scent markers on the tree trunks you pass, doubling back to run in the opposite direction. 

It might have worked on someone else, but Ghost has spent half of his life buried in this thicket, and knows better than to follow smells in the forest. A vacuum, a great chasm; it plays tricks with sounds. Distorts scents wafting through the canopy, mingling with the natural loam, the disturbed humus underfoot. 

Instead, he hums at your cleverness—his smart little omega—and shifts his gaze to the forest floor, roaming over the footprints sinking into the soft soil, the peat and moss. A breadcrumb trail leading right to you. Broken twigs, crushed bushes. 

Ghost follows it. Places each foot down carefully, nose angled upward to catch the fresh wave of your heat leaking through the tangled furze. It beckons him forward. Calls out to him. 

(come, come, come—)

This lost little lamb needs a shepherd. 

He intends to give you just that. 

(—find me)

The path you cut through the forest is a twisting sawtooth meant to throw him off your trail. Traps laid out in tall tussocks, weaved through sweetgrass all drenched in your scent. Pieces of your clothing torn at the hem, the shorn fabric pressed on pine needles and tangles furze. 

These breadcrumb trails—a neat nest of wile, it seems—are cunning, he'll give you that. 

Even with his eyes to the forest floor, he finds himself throwing a wayward glance in the opposite direction, snagged in your webbed subterfuge. Somewhere between the visitors centre and the first trail meandering into the thick taiga, you seemed to have realised that your boots leave indents in the mor. He follows the deep impressions in the podsol until he finds them shoved under a Saskatoon berry bush. Another dead end. 

Clever little thing, aren't you?

But even when strays from the path, he's right on your tail. Confident in his scenting abilities. His prowess has always been tracking down wily little rabbits when they try to flee, picking them off in stasis from high above. The layout might have changed—his perch closer to the ground instead of a deer stand—but his eyes are just as keen. Your winding trail is ingrained in his mind. A long loop through the eastern trailhead, and he knows, instantly, that you'll try to throw him off at the placard where the west trail branches off through the dense conifers, and the east meanders downslope to the hidden stream where hunters like to trawl. 

He feels a pinch of pride simmering low in his guts. Anyone else would have lost you three pitfalls back. He's enraptured by this pursuit. Smitten by you. Your clumsy little escape. Your sweet little ploys. He wants to chew into you, let his teeth leave jagged scars, false starts, on your bones. Permanent. Starlight—dusting meteor showers in milk white. 

Ghost’s belly gives a tremendous growl. He huffs at the ache clawing against tissue, ravenous and unbearably empty. 

He'll have you soon. All to himself. 

The thought makes fresh blooms of pleasure spume from the rot in his chest, prickling through the layers of muskeg and peat, etiolated little sprout. Germinating in wet gangrene. Feasting on necrotised flesh. 

He swipes his hand over a honeybush, catches the lingering scent clinging to the leaves. You must have fallen here. Tangled yourself in the furze, overcome by your heat. 

Poor thing. Tired already. 

He holds his hand up to the fading gossamer of twilight trickling through the dense canopy, clenching the lingering remnants of your scent in his fist. It's fresh. He wants to tuck it in his pocket, carry it around with him. 

He finds you in a small clearing, bent down with your palm resting on the trunk of a tree. Nails digging into the rotting bark, desperately struggling to catch your breath. Your heat is a wildfire. It scorches the earth. Burns his nose. 

You're no longer on the cusp of it anymore, but in the throes. 

His rut, he finds, isn't too far behind. 

Perfect synergy. Meant to be. You call to him, and the gaping, gnarled chasm inside of him answers with a growl—

Before you can blink, he moves.

He falls over you, felled timber. The earth shakes under his indomitable weight. Palms slam into the rough bark of the gnarled spruce you've taken respite against, boxing you in. 

You fall against it with a gasp, hands pushing against his broad chest as he backs you into the tree. Little fists pounding on his sternum, mouth pinched, twisted in a snarl. There are pieces of bush caught on your clothes, tangled in your hair. Leaves. Sticks. A spot of dirt on your nose. 

It's mesmerising. 

The ballcap falls first. Morning sunlight over a boscage in bloom. Pitfalls, ravines. The canyons of your eyes quiver; this new topography shifting, sliding. Tectonic beauty in muted midnight. 

He wants to reach in, feel these granite walls of yours with his bare hands. Clamber up the colluvium, the scree, until he reaches these rugged peaks gleaming at him, angry and feral, in fading twilight. 

Time is endless. There's no limit to how long he has to know you—drink from your rivers, feast on your valleys; find all the hidden nooks, the crannies, shaded under the towering monoliths of your body. Chart your couloir. Defile your flume. Bathe in your estuary. Tangle himself inside your dells. Tame your chaparral. 

Fastidiously. Expertly. Until no part of you is unknown to him. 

Your chest heaves, mouth open as he crowds you further. Pressing into you. Over you. 

He wedges his broad thigh between your legs, presses it tight against your pussy. Your thrashing stills when he touches you, when he angles his knee up, up—

There. Through the layers of clothing that separates his bare skin from your cunt, he feels the heat bleeding out against him. The wetness from your sodden panties. Undeniable proof of how much you want him. Need him. 

 “All wet f’me?”

“Fuck you—!” You spit, angry and feral, but you arch into his touch, pushing your pussy onto his thigh. Aching for friction. 

It makes him hum. A low growl caught in the back of his throat. 

“Reckon I'll be the one fuckin’ you, pet.” 

And he will be. This is fact. 

You shudder, brows notching together in a vicious glare. “I don't want you.” 

It's hissed between the sliver of your clenched teeth. Full of heavy conviction. Forging truth out of lies—

And that's all it is. A lie. A fallacy. 

(and even if it wasn't, unlikely considering the way you arch into him, needy despite the disdain dripping down your brow—he really just can't find it in himself to give a fuck; he'll make you want him—)

Ghost leans down, muzzle pressed against your neck. He inhales deep, audible. Chest expanding, lungs swelling. Full of the aroma bleeding out of your pores. Proof of just how much you do, in fact, want him. Betrayed by your own body. 

He huffs out, paints the air with his derision. “Is that so?” 

Ghost drags his hand down the solid line of the tree, dropping it to rest against the jut of your hip. He ducks his head, watching. Staring at the way his palm nearly swallows you up when he rests it over your waist. Spanning nearly the entirety of it—hip to hip. 

It bludgeons into him. Knocks the air clean from his lungs. 

He's always had a hunger for things he can cup in his palm. The barrel of his rifle. The hilt of a knife. Your wrist in his hand. The curve of your hip. 

His gloved fingers slip under the hem of your shirt. Pads ghosting over your skin. Warmth bleeds through the leather, an unmistakable tell of your heat reaching its first equinox. It'll be all fire, all smoke, from this point onward. Desperate. Feral. 

Groaning deep, wanting, he pushes into you further. Chest rumbling. Eager. 

It takes a great deal of effort to pull his hand away. To bring it up to his mouth, fingers hooking over the edge. 

The fight in you abates—marginally—and you watch him with a keen look of suspicion dancing in the moulted dirt spread over your nullah. Wary. Anticipatory. 

He fights the urge to laugh—deep and delirious—and instead works on prying his mask down over his crooked nose, his mangled mouth. Letting the hem snap under his chin, kept there. Bearing himself to you for the first time. Naked. Exposed. 

Your eyes widen, trailing down the jagged lines, mauled ridges of scar tissue. Drinking in everything he offers in the fading embers of a summer twilight. 

He grins—a rivened, ugly thing—when you let out a heavy, quick breath, and your hips drop, rutting your sopping cunt over the wide heft of his thigh. Gyrating subconsciously. Quietly pleased by the way he looks—as maimed, as beastly as he is. He lets you. Lifts his knee, pressing his cap tight into the bark, and bumping the top of his flexing quadriceps at the apex of your groin, right where he knows your clit sits. 

The breath you take is pulled in through clenched teeth, biting on the rind of a moan. Its shapeless silhouette ducks, hides from sight. 

He lets you have it. Lets you run. 

But it's not without recompense. 

With his upper lip curled, he sinks his teeth into the leather tip of the glove above his middle finger. Letting you see them for yourself—these thrawn teeth he'll bury into your neck. Claiming you entirely as his. 

Your pupils start to eclipse your irises. Lagoons of liquid black blotting over rugged peaks. 

Ghost slowly tips his head back, dragging the glove with him. Eyes setting along his lashline, he drinks in the sight of you swallowing thickly, your gaze darting between his teeth, his mouth, and now—his bared neck. Voracious, greedy, in the way you feast on him. Drilling into the stretch of skin slowly unveiling itself to you. 

The muscles in his neck flex against rimy skin. Adam's apple bobbing with his slow swallow. 

You follow it all, but your gaze seems to fix itself on the brawny arch of his neck, falling—and then glueing— to the thick vein protruding from his flesh, pulsing with the steady rhythm of his heart, and the small, swollen bump of his scent gland beneath it. 

Hunger, he finds, paints such a pretty picture on your face. The greedy, anfractuous glances a bludgeon into him; so heavily affixed with desire that the shake of your head when he pulls the glove free, letting it dangle from between his teeth, and drops his hand back to your skin, is minute. Meaningless. 

You want him as much as he wants you. 

The clause in this, the axiom, is ironclad. Irrefutable. Bound in brass when you shiver at the touch—feverish skin on feverish skin—and arch into his palm for more. Panting through clenched teeth, each hiss striking against that fraying coil leashing his threadbare control. To distract himself from the unspooling knot, the ache in his gums, he charts the first inch of skin he passes with his thumb, committing the sloping plains of your body to memory. The jut of your hip, the stutter in your breath when he runs the rough pad of his forefinger over the slope of your underbelly. 

It's easy to marvel at the sheer enormity of his size compared to yours. Simon hitches his thigh firmly into your clothed cunt, nearly lifting you up off the ground. You teeter on the tips of your toes, falling forward into his chest to stabilise yourself. Little fists curling into the fabric of his jacket, knuckles tight against his the last rungs of his ribcage. Your head lifts, a glare chiselling into the soft fields of your face. 

You hiss something at him—feral and scathing. He drops the glove, leans down to meet you in the middle, and eats your feeble protests from your lips in a bruising kiss. Scorching. His teeth knock into yours. Tongue lashes out to catch the vitriol dripping from your fangs. You make a noise in the back of your throat, and he swallows that, too. Devours it all. 

It's a vicious kiss. All teeth, tongue. Bullying. He lets you sink your teeth into his tongue, huffing into the seam of your lips when you coo, victoriously, at the first drop of blood spilled. 

In retaliation, he sets his hands over your ribs, and lifts you up off the ground. Making you gasp. Mewl. Your legs kick out as the back of your head catches on loose bark, raining it down over your shoulders in flakes. He doesn't stop kissing you throughout. Eyes half-mast, still open, as he drinks in the sight of yours rolling back in your head when his thigh, one the width of both of yours—fuckin’ hell—catches the perfect angle on your clit. 

Loose-limbed, caught, you have no choice but to wrap your ankles around his waist, curl your arms around his broad shoulders. Clinging to him desperately to remain grounded, held aloft. 

His hand falls down, cups the back of your thigh, fingers spanning the entire curve of your cheek. Held tight in his palm. He bucks into you—quick, hard. Letting you feel the unmistakable bulge of his stiffening cock, leaking spend already in the tight confines of his trousers. This groin, inner thighs, already sticky with the mess dribbling out. 

You fall apart at this. Head tipping back, crown thudding against the truck of the tree. He has your lower lip between his teeth, and it pulls, skin stretching until he huffs out another breath, mocking, and unhinges his jaw, letting you go. 

Mewling, whining low in the back of your throat, you clumsily rut your cunt into the hard press of his cock. Eyes hazy, liquid, with your blooming heat. 

Its approach is quicker than he thought it would be, and he hums, tongue rolling over his teeth to catch the lingering taste of you. Under his hand, your skin burns. Singing with the urgency of your desperation. He answers it with a grunt, falling forward to smother you under his weight. 

There's a flash of clarity in your eyes when they crack open. Brief. Fleeting. He feels your sluggish attempt to push him away, to free your hands from between your chests, and he has to dip his head to stifle another groan. It feels good to have you under him like this. Covered entirely in his bulk, his shadow. 

His hand pulls away from your flesh, snaking between your bodies to catch your wrists in the palm of his hand. Only one swallows them up, and the easy way he subdued you—effortlessly—has him nearly coming undone in his trousers. Untouched. 

“Fuck, want it bad, don't you?” he snarls, hips bucking into you. Chasing pleasure. He pulls your hands out, lifting to arm to trap yours in the shackle his fingers make high above your head, and—

It's devious, this. 

Somewhere in the loosening agency of his self, his autonomy, he knows this is becoming dangerous. Something that ought to be stopped before he rips into you with a rabidness that promises nothing at all will remain intact when he's finished. When he's had his fill. He needs to clear his mind. To get away from the way you fit against him so perfectly. Tiny in his wicked embrace. 

Like you were made to fit between his ribs. His teeth. 

He gnashes them together, trying to stem the ache in his gums. 

He wants to fuck you. Needs to—

But as ripe as you smell to him now—tender melon, warmed honeycomb—he knows that you're not yet ready to take him. 

Ghost steps back, letting your feet drop to the soil below. With the sparse inch of space between your bodies, he breathes in the lingering scent of your breath—sharp, burning; imbued with a heady thrum of adrenaline electrifying your nerves—and finds the musk a near-perfect pantomime of ozone. The arid tang in the air just before the air. A lightning strike. It rolls over his tongue, tastes of wet pennies in the back of his throat. Heavy with anticipation. 

Something he feels very keenly as well. An eagerness he hasn't met in decades. Absolutely famished for it, for this familiarity of want. Potent desire. 

He mourns the loss of the way your ass fits in the cradle of his hand when he pulls it free, fingers trailing over the feverish skin of your hips, your belly, as he goes. He doesn't stop until he comes to rest on the button of your trousers, eyes flickering down to catch your gaze. Purposeful, now. Intent clear. 

Nothing is stopping him from taking. Your protests are paper-thin, dissolving the moment it touches the dense blanket of humidity in the air, but he wants your submission. Wants to see your resolve break, crushed by your own hand. 

The gossamer wings of a butterfly, crumpled up in your palm, and offered to him for the taking. How sweet—

You seem to realise his intentions when his thumb dips below the hem of your pants. Just a tease. Brushing against the soft skin he finds there with the curve of his nail. 

Your glare is instant. The sharp tug of a drawstring pinching tight between your brow. Mesmerising as it closes over your lax expression. A fierce snap. He wants to pry it apart. Wedge himself between the seam. Create a gap wide enough for him to fit. 

“I won't beg,” you grind out, acidulous. Firm. 

He huffs, quietly amused by the fight still sparking in you despite the evidence of your arousal, your want of him, evident in the stain at the seam of your pants. His other hand rests on the trunk of the tree above your head, boxing you in when he leans closer. Taunting. “That so?” 

You don't respond, but your glare sharpens, mouth tugging downward in a harsh frown. Displeasure sparks in the air. Cutting into him like fine glass shards. He lets it graze his naked flesh, the warning ghosting over him in needlepoint pinpricks. Entirely too captivated by you to notice the sting. 

Your ire is a heady, tangible thing dripping down your brow, slashing over your cheeks. Anger, however misguided it might be, paints a pretty picture over your face. Darkens the inlets nestled in the corner of your eyes. Drenches the ravines, gorges in a startling chiaroscuro. Limns the alpines, the valleys, in a halo of golden starlight. 

He wants to drink it down. Hold your fury in the palm of his hand—

Crush it between his fingers. 

Because despite the dissent, your desire cuts through, and hews the air in a thick tapestry of want. 

mutinous, teeth bared, but your eyes burn, rage against the prison walls, and scream, please—

His fingers dig into the bark above your head, catching flecks of sap between his nails. Knuckles turning white under the flaxen hair dusting over them, strained. The grip is unintentional. Unconscious. He keeps thinking about you beneath him. The heat of your thighs around his waist was a mere tease. A morsel when he wants a meal—

The pressure in his knuckles grounds him. Cuts through the phosphenes blanketing the edges of his vision, smothering the clarity, the cognisance, that lingers in the centre. Threadbare as it is. 

There’s an ache in his jaw. 

(the need to bite—)

He pulls it off, and shoves his hand tight between your thighs, cupping your cunt in his palm. Feeling the heat bleed through the gusset of your pants. The touch is harsh. Firm. He bullies his fingers into your flesh, letting out a mocking chuff when he feels the fabric dampen.  

“Somethin’s’ tellin’ me otherwise.” 

Your hand lashes out, grabbing the thick of his wrist. Holding firm. It should be a warning, but the obvious gap between your middle finger and thumb makes him groan instead. 

“You're wrong.”

“Am I?” 

You twist away from him when he leans down, chin ducking to your shoulder. Hiding. Denying him your mouth, your taste. This meagre measure of control you grapple for is easy to give. He presses his lips to the shell of your ear instead, letting you run. Flee. For now. 

His voice is thick when he continues, husky. He pitches it low, lets it swirl into the seashell coil of your inner ear, earning him a shiver in response. Your nails biting into the skin of his wrist. Holding tight. 

“‘m a lot of things, pet—” rucked gravel, sodden with his derision, spills into your ear. Your shudder makes him want to bite, to maim. “Wrong ain't usually one of ‘em. But you'll learn that soon enough.” 

Your breath hitches. Expression morphing, shifting. Changing into something adorably beleaguered as he encircles you like a tiger, eyes drilling through the tussock, aimed directly at your head. With his body boxing you in, coiling over you like a hideous shadow, he has you trapped, caught. Little lamb writhing between the paw of a tiger.  

You seem to be keenly aware of this. Your eyes are shrewd, searching, as you probe around for any escape route, but he's a bulwark around you. Inescapable. 

Finding none, you suck in another breath, and slowly lift your chin, glancing up at him through your lashes. The look on your face is—

Enigmatic. 

Something changes in the morphology of your mien. Fracturing. Cracking. 

“Yeah?” You breathe, soft and goading. Your hips buck into his hand, rutting shallowly against the tops of his fingers. Unconscious. Like you just couldn't help it. 

And he supposes you can't. 

A fine sheen of sweat has been building since he took after you into the forest. Gathering around your temple, your hairline. The harsh reminder of your festering heat, once dammed by your raw disdain for him—hatred, he'd say, and doesn't the thought just make him want to laugh; you're all bark, no bite, and he knows he'll have fun breaking you in, breaking you apart—but flooded over by the primal drive to mate. 

And he's perfect for you, isn't he? 

Hideous bastard that he is. It's a sharp juxtaposition to your prettiness, your earthly beauty. 

Under the spinel sky, you break. The hand on his wrist tightens, your hips flexing into his palm. Seeking friction. Needing pressure. Needing him. And pissed off about it. Delicious. 

“Prove it,” you snap, irritation blanching the corners of your eyes arsenic white. Edging into a frenetic desperation hot enough to burn the threads of your resolve. But there's a gleam of reluctance pushing through the syrupy murk folding over you, heavy molasses. You want to give in, but there's something about him, his appetite, that makes you hold back. That makes you visibly sick at the sight of him—

Unfortunately for you, he has no such compunction to shelf his barbarity. To leash his desire, to muzzle the overwhelming urge to crush you under the weight of his accumulated need. It's decades of listless apathy. Divorced from anything resembling human emotion at the root. Carved out, scraped off bone. He was left to stagnate. A misfortunate creature submerged in a bog, dead but unable to rot. 

The deluge of his savage, bestial hunger rages in his veins. It's corrosive, vile, and—

unrestrained. 

Ravenously esurient. He wants to sink his teeth into you and never let go—

but first: 

he needs to eat. 

His meal is a feast, it turns out. Simon gorges himself until he's full. Promises that he'll stop as soon as he's satiated. 

(but he's lying to himself, and to you, because he never is—

never will be.)

Tears pebble along your lash line as he feasts on your sopping cunt, licking at your fluttering rim, slurping up your slick. Your clit is pressed tight against the crooked arch of his nose, sliding and catching on the jagged ridge each time he moves his jaw to dig deeper inside of you as if he's trying to taste the seal of your womb. You pant, whine. The noise muffled half-heartedly behind your palm. Teeth sunk into your skin, lodged against your bone. 

Angry rivulets rain down your cheeks, dangling like fine beads, gems, on your jaw. He wants to taste them next, as soon as he fills his gullet with the earthy tang you release. 

Your tears remind of that pretty omega Johnny sent to him—a brat, he'd said; the best, Lt—and it churns in his stomach, dredging up something awful. Terrible. He wants to make you weep harder. Wants you sobbing, begging. His own little brat to take over the knee whenever he wants—

But that's where the uncanny resemblance ends. 

You're not a brat. No. You're a headache. The kind that will have him written up, sat like a bad dog in his best suit, as they level him with charges, and orders, and the like. The sort of thing that even the old man wouldn't be able to string him out of—not that he would. Price is three days away from a much-deserved retirement to the mountains and sitting on his hands to keep from snatching up the pretty conservation officer who moons at him whenever he passes by. 

He won't be much help to get Ghost out of trouble. That leaves only Gaz and Soap. And while he's sure they can swing it, he doesn't really want to be under their ahh, guess ye/ya owe us one, Lt/Riley. 

So—

It stands to reason then that he should have you tamed before dawn. Shackled down, locked up tight. Only right considering he's the best in town to keep bears at bay. Do you really want to deal with a mama grizzly and her defenceless cubs? Or a starving male clumsily pawing his way out of hibernation? 

Probably not. 

So. So. 

He pulls back, rests his chin on your thigh. 

“Gonna be good for me, pet?” He asks, lowering his tone considerably until it catches on the gravel below. 

He's not surprised when you hiss through a cloud of tears. “Go fuck yourself—”

Ghost tips his head, suckles your clit into his mouth. Tongue laving over your flesh. Blunt teeth pressing flat against the swollen bead, a tease. You tense, gasping. Hand pushing his head back, back—

“Don't, don't—” you're mewling, nails raking over his scalp. Hips bucking, pulling back. Struggling to get away. The bite marks along your thighs weep fresh blood in your struggle, filling his nose with the heavy scent of iron. 

They serve as a harsh reminder of what he can do with these jagged teeth of his. 

He chuckles, mouth still closed around your clit. The vibrations have you choking, spine curving into a beautiful arch. 

Fingers digging into your hips, keeping you still. Trapping you. He's not quite done with your cunt, yet. And all this wriggling is something he can do without. With his hand pressed to your hips, he notches the other down your thigh. Tracing his index finger over your soft skin, dragging it close to your outer lips. Catching the tacky slick drying on your flesh with the tip. 

Tiny fists rain down over his shoulders. Urging him forward, eager for more. Selfish, spoiled little thing. 

What a monster he's made—

“Patience, pet,” he coos, mocking and mean. Likes the way you react to the patronisation in his tone. All taut shoulders, shaking fists. Bearing your teeth at the slight, the stinging barb. Shaking in an amalgamation of embarrassment and shame. 

You seem to like it when he's a little awful to you. A little mocking. Cruel. 

“Shut up—!” You hiss, lips curling as you glare down at him. “I'm not your pet—”

He ignores you. Bends down to sniff at your cunt instead, and finds his answer is the white hot desire he can taste in the back of his throat when he breathes you in. 

His fingers pry apart your folds, and he greedily drinks in the sight of your drenched hole, clenching down on nothing. Poor you. His heart thunders in his chest, rages. He wants to sink inside of you—impossibly deep—until the beginning of him and the end of you ceases to exist. Rolled into a single being, atoms merged. Bodies fused. He wants to take everything from you. All of it. Eat it out of the cup of his hand like pomegranate seeds, let the skin get stuck in his teeth. 

He wants to devour you whole.

(to eat—)

Settles, instead, for pawing at your cunt. 

Pressing the width of it against your slit, feeling the heat of your core on the palm of his hand. Branding himself with the intensity of your desire. Another scar among many. An uncountable number of jagged asteroids cratering along his flesh, making a home out of a ghost. A shell. 

Reinforced, too, by the absurdity of how terribly contrasted his flesh is to yours. Monstrous. His scarred hand rests over your pussy, encompassing it entirely with extra digits to spare. Folding each finger on top of the other to wedge between the basin of your thighs. And as his gaze comes to rest on the way he swallows you up, he is struck by the garishness of his hand—hideous scar tissue, burns—falling over your pretty cunt. 

Sinful. Frankensteinian beast palming the sweet pussy of a pretty, human woman, and—

Fuck. 

His cock twitches, spits out a thick glob of pre-cum.

Ghost has never wanted to ruin something as badly as he wants to ruin your cunt. You. Mess you up so badly that everyone will know you belong to him, and him alone. To brand you with the tattoo of his teeth on your mons; force a claiming bite on the pillowy skin above your clit. His ownership bracketed between your thighs, at the very apex of your hip bones. Buried into tissue right under the bulge of your womb. A fecund valley for him to lay waste; for you to grow beauty from the rot, the ash. 

Cinder scraps over his nerves. Fells his resolve in a brutal sweep. 

He comes undone at the seams, unravels. 

Simon curls his fingers into a loose fist, passing the rugged peaks of his bone over your soft flesh. Gathering slick on thick, scarred knuckles. He holds it there, folds pried apart by his hand, content to luxuriate in the softness of your flesh, the scorching heat.

Possessively, he unhitches his thumb from the coil of his fist, and swipes it over your clit. More slick leaks out as you keen. 

“Sweet omega like you should ‘ave been claimed by now,” he rumbles evenly despite the sour twist in his guts at the thought. “Might not ‘ave ended up ‘ere, would you ‘ave? Beggin’ the first alpha you see to fuck this sweet little cunt.”

“Begging?” 

“Practically gaggin’ for it, weren't you?” And even though the words are his own, they sit in his gut like a stone. An angry knot tangled in his intestines, snaking its way up his gullet. Bitter. It's quelled by the sight of your bare neck. Ripe for his teeth. And his alone.

But even if you had a pretty ring made by another alpha, Simon knows that wouldn't have stopped him from taking you, anyway. Biting over the claim. Breaking it between his teeth. Precious, loving union shattered by his crooked greed. He'd have relished in it, too. Basked in the way you sobbed as he tore your alpha into pieces. An obstacle turned into a pretty effigy at his feet. Wicker pyre burning to keep him warm.

(he'd have caught dinner for you, too; hunted caribou, moose, and roasted it over the open flame. Fucked you under the blume of orange. Let the fire lick across your skin as he sunk in deep—)

He rocks back on his haunches. Mood labile, quicksilver, as his rut grows. Festers. 

You deny it, breathless, as he slips the mountainous peak of his bent middle finger into your hole, stretching your rim around the scarred cartilage. You pulse around him like the fluttering wings of a hummingbird. Rapid, quick. Wanting. It draws him in. Makes him want to spit on your pretty pussy, and then break you apart on his cock—

“Such a needy cunt, eh? Starving for a good knot, ain't it?”

You hiss out your protests, but clench tight around his knuckle. He chuckles, and it's liquid. Wet rot. Lungs polluted, spitting nocuous, black smoke into the air. 

“I'm not—”

“You are.” 

He pulls back, pursing his mouth, and spreads your lips apart, opening you up wide and vulnerable to his prying eyes. Saliva puddles on his tongue. He gives you a moment to clue into what he's about to do, your fingers tightening, nails digging into his scalp as you do on a shallow gasp of disgust. Then, brutish, he leans forward, and spits. Lets the glob hit your clit, and he has to hold you still when you jerk, cringing away from him, snarling out your displeasure.

“You're disgusting—”

The protests are weak. Your knees tremble, giving away the growing slickness gathering on the insides of your thigh. 

He hums, watches as it oozes down between your folds, over your fluttering hole, before it falls to the ground between your legs. He lets his hand fall back over your cunt, middle finger gathering his spit. Rubbing it around your pebbled clit. It's done detachedly, perfunctory. A means to an end with hardly much concern for your pleasure. Not yet, anyway. 

You've given him nothing in return yet. 

He intends to change that soon. 

As you grapple with the harsh reality he presents to you—one of ownership, humiliation, and pleasure on his whim—he drags his finger down, sliding it between your soft lips until he reaches your hole once more. Petting around the drenched entrance slowly, softly, humming under his breath about how wet you are. 

Your hips drop, greedily chasing after his finger. You won't ask—not yet—but he likes the way you rut against him: all hateful, spiteful. Like you can't decide on what you want more—to bash his head in, or keep it locked tight between your thighs. Sweet thing. 

“Need me, don't you?” He sinks his finger in. Nearly whites out at the pressure, the tightness, he feels. Soft, wet. Squeezing him in a vice as you yowl, whimpering into the stretch like it matters. Like his thick, scarred finger is the most you'd ever taken before. Sweet girl. So naïve. 

He drinks in the sight of your flesh forcibly being parted around his knuckle, matting the wisps of blond on his skin as it leaks down to his wrist, until that, too, is pushed up into you. His whole finger now engulfed in the wet heat of your body as you squirm around the stretch, pulsing around him like a heartbeat. 

He groans when he tastes your discomfort on the back of his tongue. 

“Don't worry, lovie. M’gonna take good care’a you.”

You watch him with slitted eyes as he pushes you down to the forest floor, glaring over your shoulder as he adjusts you the way he wants. Maneuvers you around like a little toy. Forearms braced against the trampled grass, knees sinking into soft moss. Thighs spread. Cunt bare, drenched. Ready to be claimed. Taken. 

He drops to his knees, shuffling close from behind you. His hand drops to your lower back, pressing your torso down further into the ground below. His cock aches between his thighs. Heavy, fat. He reaches down with his other hand to where it droops, smearing pre-cum over his inner thigh. He catches it in his fist, flushed the colours of a fresh bruise—angry red, purple—and strokes along the sensitive skin of his shaft, dragging it up and over his engorged head. Pre-cum weeps from the tip, drools long strains down to the forest floor. Puddles thick between your knees. 

A prelude, perhaps, for what's to come. When he has you tied like a bow around his knot, milking all the pent-up spend from his heavy, full balls. 

It's been decades since he had this—

(“shame.”

he concurs.)

Simon pulls his cock up, taps it against your pebbled clit. Drinks in the sight of you keening, cunt gushing more slick out of your empty hole, dribbling down your thighs. Mingling with the mess he already started making. 

It shocks him how good it feels just to tap his cockhead on your pretty pussy. To drag it through your slit, teasing it against your fluttering hole that drools copious slick over him. 

He wants to make a mess of you. Fuck your pussy until you cum, until all you can feel is the split of him inside of you. Filling you. Ruining you. 

Until all you can think about is the thick drag of him against your stuffed walls. Empty without him plugging you up. Desperate for his cock, his knot—hungry little slut just for him. All for him.

He presses the head of his cock against your rim, letting it catch. Holding it there. A tease. Just a little taste. 

Likes when you whimper, head hanging between your shoulders, fingers curling into the moss below. You make such a pretty picture like this—the expanse of your back bare for his eyes to roam, locking on the dimples of your hips, the curve of your waist. The plump shape of your ass inviting him in—eager for a bite. Your flesh looks bare, lonely, without his mark. The contrast of his own inked palm—fingers webbed with faded lettering, some slogan he picked up in his youth. Hands etched in black. Lines bleeding, bulky. The unmistakable tremble of an incipient artist’s first brush of a needle on real skin. Jagged, garring. Ugly. He lets his hand rest against the small of your back, groaning at the way it looks. 

Sinful.

You're made for soft silk and a fluffy bed. Head resting on a plush cushion instead of your arms, forehead braced over the uncomfortable squeal of your polyester windbreaker that he didn't even have the courtesy to let you take off. No. Just trousers. Panties. Pushed haphazardly down your legs, left in a pile by the spruce tree so he could throw your ankle over his broad shoulder, feasting on your cunt. 

There's a spot of dirt on your asscheek. The curve of it is scraped from the bark, red and raw. 

The glare you aim at him from over your shoulder is venomous. There's a smear of moss on your cheek. 

You're made for epsom salt baths. Being tended to by a besotted alpha who treats you like fine china, only to be taken out on special occasions. Brushed, always, in a fine layer of dust from disuse. Sweet, tender lovemaking under the waning summer sky. Your alpha apologising for ruining you like this, for making you take the brunt of his rut. Poor thing. Gentle kisses, and hands clasped together. 

He can see it so vividly in his eye. So viscerally that it almost feels like a crime when he glances down at his cock, the weeping, engorged head almost comically too big for you. The thick of him could easily swallow your cunt up if he flattened his length against you. Covering you wholly by his girth. 

It's a thought that makes his hand tighten, and nearly chokes him on a moan. 

Even his thighs bracketing the backs of yours is hideous to look at. Bigger, broader—there's a considerable gap on both sides of his legs that he thinks nearly his whole fist can fit there, notched against the outside of your thigh, covering the expanse of his own. Garish. 

He can't wait to lay you down on your belly, lock his thigh tight on either side of your own and rut into you like that. Crushing you under his weight. Swallowing you whole. Until anyone misfortunate enough to wander by thinks he's fucking the cold ground. 

His thumb strokes along your fevered skin, collecting the sheen of sweat building up on the pad. Rubbing it in. He feels it too. This unrelenting swelter. A cage, pushing down from all sides. Inescapable. 

The only way to quench it is on you. In you. 

“Ready for me, pretty girl?” The words are mangled in his throat, thick with want. 

Your shoulders tremble. In worry, he thinks. Scents the air like a viper, letting your emotions curdle in the back of his throat. “Just get on with it—”

He meets you in the middle of that taunt, teeth against your throat. 

Ghost pushes inside with a groan, eyes rolling back at the way you swallow him up. Stretching around the considerable girth, fluttering around him. Pulsing like a heartbeat. 

It's heaven. 

Nirvana nests between your thighs, bracketed by rings of blood. Red. Absolution imbued in tender flesh, parting perfectly around his cock in a loving embrace. 

You haven't confirmed it for him, but the tightness of your cunt around his fingers, the heady scent of discomfort burning the back of his throat when he buried them inside of you, make him mutedly aware that you're inexperienced. A fact he pockets for later because if he thinks about being the first alpha, the first man, to ever claim you, take you, then he might lose his mind, he might fall down that yawning chasm that reeks of damnation, of brimstone and ash, and never recover—

So, he doesn't. Won't. 

Can't. 

His pace is slow as he feeds you the fat length of his cock, eyes drilling into the way you swallow him up. Rim stretching taut, flesh paling under the strain of taking him. With one hand anchored against your hip, holding you tight, and the other curled over your shoulder, fingertips resting on your collarbones, he slowly, slowly, sinks inside of you, bottoming out with a deep groan. 

The outstroke drags with it an iron scent in the air. He huffs, nostrils flaring. Greedy for more. There's discomfort leaking from your pores. His girth is more than you can conceivably take, even with the preternatural help from your heat, leaking slick down your inner thighs in thick rivulets. 

He holds himself there, breathing—heavy, tremulous—through his nose. His hands shake. The pressure, the pleasure, is indescribable. It coils in his guts, spumes liquid bliss in his veins. The way you feel pulsing sweetly around him is—

Equilibrium. 

Every misfiring synapse inside himself is slowed. Imbued with a potent sense of ataraxia. His mind comes to a standstill. Thoughts looping over themselves, tangling into the gossamer threads of control floating in stasis. Unmoored. You unravel him. 

It's further proof that you are his missing part. His ruts in the past have been calamitous. Snarls wrenched from the trenches of his chest; a gluttonous feast—a sacrifice to Hēdonē. Violent, vicious. 

But this—

It's drinking ichor from the vein of Anteros.

There's a crack in the back of his head. The sound of everything, all of it—

Falling into place. 

His hands tighten. Tighten some more. He holds you, sure and firm, keeping you nestled in the anchor of his embrace, unable to run, to flee. You're his. Settled. The caveat is ironclad, bound in permanence. 

And Simon moans. Deep, and low. The noise jutters out of his chest, and seeps into the evening air. Fine mist, crystallising in front of him. Phosphenes of ice cemented his decision, gluing to his cheeks. The nape of his neck. 

His ears burn. 

“Fuckin' hell, sweet thing,” it's a guttural growl in the hollow of his throat. “Where ‘ave you been all my goddamn life?”

It's a nauseating confession, one scraped out from the vacancy between his ribs. It peppers the air in a soft, saccharine kiss. Makes you shiver beneath him, gasping in lungfuls of loam, dirt in your throat. 

He grunts. Stills. He doesn't want that for you. Ever. Would rip off his own limbs before he ever let you feel the crushing weight of dirt congealing inside of your lungs. 

The way he arches over you is damning. Nauseating. He curls his arm around your shoulder, your chest, traps a heaving breast in the palm of his hand, holds tight. The other falls from your hip, closes over your mons. Greedily feeling your slick, hot sex pulsing wildly around him when he passes over your clit, toying with your stretched, swollen rim. It's perfection, this. 

He pulls you up, up, leaning back on his haunches until you're balanced on your knees, nearly sat on his lap. Taking him deeper than before. He drops his head back with another moan when he feels your slick gather, dripping down to coat his balls. 

Everything about you is just—

Perfection. Absolution. 

Your hands fly up, curling over his forearm, mewling when he pinches your nipples between his middle and ring finger. 

“C’mon,” he rasps, leaning forward to press his face into your nape. You smell sweet. “Play with ‘em for me, pet.” 

Nails bite into his skin. You whimper. Squirming around on his lap. But you do as you're told. Slowly, slowly, reaching up. Touching yourself the way you like. Fingers ghosting over your flesh, brushing across your nipples. Pulling, petting, the way you like. He hooks his chin over your shoulder, watches. Devours. Commits each movement to memory. Every sound, every breath. Everything. 

He keeps a slow, languid pace like this. Content to just feel you pulsing around him, listening to the slick, wet squelch of him filling you up. Over and over again. A lazy rut. 

It's unexpected, he knows. You've been bracing yourself this whole time, fingers digging into the podsol, spine tightening up. Waiting for the savagery to befall you. 

When it doesn't come, he feels your quiet acquiescence come in a soft breath. In the way you slowly drop down to meet the deep rut of his hips. Taking your pleasure, pulling him in deeper. There's an edge to your voice, one still dipped in threads of discomfort, a waning pain that rings out, shrill, in the satin spill of moonlight over the indigo forest. 

It's good like this. Tender. Not something he'd have ever imagined for himself, and the reality of it is dizzying. 

Reedy, he groans. Nuzzles his misshapen nose into your scent gland. His gums pulse, ache—

But he ignores it. Swallows it down. 

He's not sure what compels him to do so. Spellbound, maybe, by this unnatural softness that spools silken threads between you. Sutured in tenderness—so unbefitting of the man he is. The monster—

His hips stutter. Jerk. 

“Simon—!”

You whine into it, arching back. Sweat gathers, drips down your spine, smears into his chest, belly. Matts the thatch of hair running in sparse, patchy clusters down the thickness of his midsection. A bountiful spring fattened him up. Made him soft and pillowy over his abdomen. Something you can't seem to get enough of—pressing the flat of your back against him, leaning into it. Groaning when his arm shifts, boxing you in. Crushing you to him. 

Wily little kitten, purring so sweetly in his lap. 

He draws lazy circles over your clit, grunting with each clench of your cunt. You're soft in his arms. Malleable. He slides his hand up from beneath your breasts, catches your jaw in his palm. Fingers spanning from cheekbone to temple and, oh—

Doesn't that just make him preen. 

He drags your chin to the side, catching your mouth in a sickening kiss. All tongue, teeth. He wants to taste, to devour, every part of you. Bones and all. 

It's a fight, though. You tense in his grasp, lidded eyes snapping open, wide and around. Cheeks bulging between his fingers when you twist, trying to pull away. 

“Don't—I don't want to—” he bites the protests from lips. Messy, sloppy. He flicks his tongue over yours, wrapping it around you like a satiated snake burrowing in after a heavy meal. “Don't—f–fuck—”

It earns him a nip. Teeth digging into his bottom lip. Drawing blood. 

He huffs into the seam of your mouth. Only fair, he supposes, and then pulls you down—hard, fast—onto his cock. The air is punched out of your lungs, flooded into his esophagus. 

“Be a good girl for me,” he warns, bucking into you. It's harder this time, deeper. Tempo increasing. Growing. He feels himself thicken. Knot fattening up. Each piston of his hips seems to knock something inside of his head loose. Common sense, maybe—

The fraying knot of his self-control winding tight. Pulling taut. 

He huffs again, feeling himself slip. Lost in the sensation dripping down his spine, the unified pleasure blooming in the pit of his stomach. 

The air plumes with the thickening tang of your arousal—all sweet, spice. You can take it, now, he knows, and tries not to growl when you hiccup his name wetly into the air. 

The muscles in his thighs bunch tight. Corded and powerful. He arches up, up, forcing his cock deep inside your cunt, splitting you apart. Rutting desperately, edging into something animalistic. 

It runs a knife along the thin skin of his hindbrain. Come out, come out, come play—

He moves you again, pulling his hand away from your jaw and pushing you back down the forest floor. He stays glued to your back. Tucks his arm under your chin, and smothers you under his bulk, groaning when your thighs give out, sliding on the sweat-slicked moss below.

“Simon, ah—” your voice tapers off into a breathless cry when he pulls his hand free from beneath you, wrapping it around to join the other. Holding on, clinging to you. Keeping you locked tight against him, under him. You can't move at all like this—

The swell of his knot bumps against your stretched rim. He presses the brunt of his weight into each thrust now, spurned on by the needy way you yowl into his forearm, drooling all over his skin. Begging for it. 

“Please, please, please—”

Your body is jostled forward with each harsh buck of his hips as he gives you everything he has, feeding his cock into your sopping cunt over and over again. Eager now to fill you up, to flood you with his cum. Make you swell with it. Overstuffed. 

Perfect little omega, you rut back into him with each thrust, taking his thick cock to the root. Mewling sweetly when his knot begins to catch. Too much, he thinks. It might just wreck you for good—

pomegranate seeds splitting over your teeth, blood red juice leaking from the tear. spilling into your mouth. just a drop. just a drop, and Persephone is all his

—Perfect. 

He teeters on the edge of ferality and control. Spinning, spiralling. Loosefooted on the wobbling chossy. Coming undone in a magmatic end—wicked heat, ashes, brimstone; he catches fire, and smoulders you under his heat. Letting the flames lick across your skin until you whine his name, desperate and needy, in the back of your throat. The thrill a bludgeon against his skull, spilling pleasure, bliss, in the broken hole you wrought. 

You tighten like a vice around him—tight, tight—and he pistons into you, burrowing deep. Deeper still. Until you thrash around beneath him, soundlessly screaming his name into the dark forest. Begging for mercy, mercy, please—

He won't. Can't. 

He can't get enough of the way you feel wrapped around him like this. Silken, whitehot. Tight. Tight—

It squeezes the air from his lungs. Static in his head—

And then you let go. Pulsing, throbbing around him. Pulling him in deeper, blanketing his mind in white noise. In nothing but magmatic pleasure. 

“Fuck—!” He snarls, almost angry. Vicious. Chasing after his end in the aftermath of yours. Instincts are at war within him, banging against his skull. Demanding recompense. Paid it's pound of flesh. 

It's what he's promised. What it's owed. 

(and he always keeps his promises, doesn't he?)

Most describe their ruts as mindless, driven by instinct. No control. But Ghost has never felt more present, more alive, than when he sinks his teeth deep into your nape, nearly choking, drowning, on your blood.

For the first time in decades, he feels the crater inside himself, suffused with spare, broken parts, seal when you yield with a mangled yowl of his name, raw and fractured as it splits between your teeth. Pretty pussy swallowing up his knot when he bullies it in deep, locking you together.

pretty little lamb—

a perfect fit between his teeth.

His rut is a voracious thing. 

Ghost has you on your back for the second and third round, heels resting on his shoulders as he bucks into you. Makes you stare at him—don’t look away from me, pet—as he commandeers your body with an ease that seems to break apart all demurrals as they form, rendering you sweet, malleable, beneath him to do with as he pleases. 

And you are, aren't you?

So fuckin’ sweet. 

(“gonna give me a cavity,” he rasps, thick with pleasure, into your ear. he has you on your belly now. holds you down with his weight, crushes your chest against the soft moss below, thighs squeezed tight between his own. you can barely make a sound with his forearm digging into the dirt right above your crown, swallowing you whole under his bulk. 

(owns you like, he finds. no one would be able to see you beneath him if they wandered by. encompassed wholly by every iota he has to give—

he cums like that. nose buried in your crown, moaning low, scorched, in the back of his throat as you twitch beneath him, unable to move at all—)

It's early in the morning when he finally finishes, when his rut begins to slowly recede, and a fresh bloom of clarity yawns over his periphery. Moonrise peppers soft kisses over his aching shoulders as he glances at you curled up against his side, sleeping soundly. Exhausted by the hours and hours of mating, fucking. Taking him, his knot, drinking down everything he has to offer. 

The sight that greets him is gnarled fingers wrapping around his rotting heart, affection peeking out between the brackets of his ribs. His appetite for you is dizzying. Unquenchable. He wonders if he'll ever be able to look at you without wanting to crawl inside your body. To reshape your tender flesh around his bulk until it is indiscernible from himself. 

This want is agony. It's dread, desire. Greed. 

His shoulders bite back in protest when he reaches up to drag his dirt-crusted nails through the prickly hair on his scalp. As dawn slowly unfurls across the midnight blue aether, he knows he'll have to leave soon. Can already feel the creeping heat gnawing in the pit of his belly. His rut starting anew. The scant hours he has of mental clarity, moments meant to eat, to feed, and regain strength for the next marathon of fucking, are needed to feel out his next move. 

He glances at you again, and feels the same covetous tug in his chest as he did before, when he was thickly entrenched in the urge to mate. But as the burnt orange of the sun smears hazy fingerprints across the moulted sky, he sees you in a new, cleaner light. You're young. Much younger than he is. 

It's something he ought to worry about. To feel some shred of shame, of despondency over shackling you to himself—a defective alpha with more scars than morality—when you're in the burgeoning bloom of your freshly untethered youth. All jejune beauty outclasses nature itself. Snow melts on the alpines, trickling down to feed the valley below. Life itself—

But you are his. 

The ugly rings around your throat—mangled tissue swelling in the morning dawn, caked in a thick river of blood—all signify that you belong to him. And while it's a little extreme as far as claiming bites go—one would suffice, but he buried his teeth in you over and over again, biting down on both sides of your neck, your jugular, your nape; inner thighs, mons, wrists—it’s proof enough that you are meant for him. Made for him. 

His pretty omega. 

The rest doesn't matter. He ought to feel shame, but instead he luxuriates in it. Stares down at you with a needy sort of possession spuming in the putrid remains of his chest, mapping out the marks he put on you. And the ones he'll add to later, not stopping until covered in the perfect impression of his crooked teeth. Tattoos of his ownership all over your body. 

Mutual, of course. There's a scant patch of skin, restive and empty, above his heart, save for a fine, jagged line from a serrated dagger. He'll have you bite down on the flesh until your teeth meet inside his muscle. Scarring down to the bone. He'll go, then, to the man who inks him up whenever he has the whim to desecrate scar tissue, and have him etch midnight black against fine silver. Permanent, forever. Always. 

And anyone who kicks up a fuss—stupid as they might be—he’ll sort them out. Prove to them that you are meant to be his. 

(unshakeable:

his spend leaks out of you, drying, tacky and thick, on your thighs. under the sleepy citrine of the dawning sun, it's tinged pink, and looks just like pomegranate juice.)

Ghost rolls his shoulder, and reaches for his discarded trousers. He's covered in a thick layer of dirt, and reeks like soil. But the thought of being buried alive is miniscule compared to the want of being buried inside you again. The urge. Insatiable. He groans with it, cock throbbing already. 

He leaves you naked. No point in dressing when he plans on going home and sinking back inside of you before midday, anyway. An unneeded obstacle, really—

The clearing is close to his truck, and he sets a leisurely pace, yawning into the dawn, as he gathers you into his arms. Carrying you to it as you drool on his chest, brows pinched at the soft jostle of him trudging through the thicket until he reaches it. 

He's not in a rut when he stretches you out in the back seat, spreading your sticky thighs around his hips, sinking inside, bottoming out just as you come to, waking up with a gasp. 

The intense fucking from before lingers in the air. You're soft, molasses; arching into his chest, whimpering out the name he hissed into your nape only hours ago, folding into him with a somnolent submission. It won't last, of course—

You're a vicious little thing, and his back and chest twinge with the rivers you carved into his flesh when he didn't move the way you liked. Wolfish, aren't you? Spitfire hiding under the soft pelt of a slain lamb. He wants to devour you, bones and all. 

He takes his fill of your malleable concession, rutting into you with a sluggish ease. Mapping out the starlight sparking in the depths of your glossy eyes. Magnetic. It pulls him deeper. Unravels him at the seams. 

His hand spans the expanse of your jaw from ear to ear. He holds you like this, thumb buried in the tender embrace of your soft tongue, and begins to understand the reason behind Johnny's niche appetite when you toy with his flesh, coquettish and sweet, suckling him in—pretty seductress—and then mewl when he pushes in too deeply, bringing crystalline gems to corners of your eyes. 

Angelic innocence. The type that demands he prostrates himself at your altar, let his bones be picked clean when you so wish it. And he'll give it to you—body, blood, tissue; all of it. The entirety of him, however broken, shattered the fragments might be. 

He promises it all to you without a word, drilling holes in the gaps of your eyes, chasms wide enough for him to fit. When he cums, it's to a songbirds sonata. Your moans are a whisper, your pleasure swallowed down as it ghosts over his lips, clenching around him like a vice. Pretty bow. He doesn't hold back—groans, baritone; woodsmoke, into the gathering symphony, filling you to the brim. Thick, copious. He wants it to stick. To root. 

When the blood sputters back to his head, he gathers you in his arms once more. Keeps you seated on his lap—shush, pet; s’alright, jus’ close your eyes an’ I'll ‘ave us home in a bit—as he starts the old pickup, and puts it into drive. One hand on the wheel, knuckles blanching white in the glimmering sunrise; sparse forests of muted blond catching, limned in the coruscating light. The other is placed on the small of your back, holding your belly to his. 

Quietly, your body eases. Melts. You press your face into his chest, fingers curling into the fabric, and nuzzle into the heady scent of his sweat, his musk, still clinging to his shirt. Signing, soft and twee, in the cup of his embrace as you slip back to sleep. 

He drives home like this. Mind a quiet place for once. Silent in its contentment, it's comfort. There's an itinerary still left to do, but he pushes it back for now, gaze roaming the dense green of the forest bracketing the road. 

You'll like it, he knows. There's a fen on the outskirts of his territory, a little pond where wild rabbits have been known to make burrows. Deers, elk. Bears. They all come and go. You'll amuse yourself in the untamed wilderness of his abode, drawing delineations of your own as you carve out places in his home just for you. 

And as he makes the turn to his hidden driveway, this buried sanctuary, he can't help but glance down at your crown, and think—

Persephone, finally home.

He finds your identification in your rucksack, nestled underneath the contraband you smuggled from the park—mushrooms, berries, bark, feathers—and sears your name to memory. Every part of you will be unravelled in the coming days, pulled from the depths of your being until it's all ingrained in his head. A gaping chasm chiselled into bone just for you. All for you. 

Your address is a rental. He'll have to call them later today to cut your lease. Your job, too. They'll need to be notified on both your off time for his rut (and your burgeoning heat), and to update your contact information. 

But that's later. Now, he just wants to get home. Sink down into his bed with you beneath him, and fuck you until sundown all over again. Stain the house with the scent of you. With the potent tang of your coupling. 

It's yours too, after all. Should smell just like you. 

And when you wake up later to him fucking his tongue into your drenched hole, fingers toying with your pebbled clit, Johnny will be busy packing the rest of your things into the pack of his pickup truck. The majority of it is already stacked on the porch, waiting for you to rearrange it all in your new house. Lease cut. His name added to your contacts as spouse, husband. Address updated. Marriage certificate laying on the table, only one line unsigned. Waiting for you. 

Maybe it's too fast. You'll certainly protest like it is, bearing your teeth and hissing at him from across the room about too much, too fast, slow down, you don't even know his last name—

(“Riley,” he grouses, arms folded over his broad chest. Eyes burning in the cresting twilight. “S’your last name now as well, pet.”) 

Fast—sure. He might think so too for a brief moment when he as you purring against his chest, submissive and docile after he fucked the fight right out of you, bullied you into agreeing to everything—it's for the best, after all. No one could ever protect you like he can. 

Made for each other. Reinforced when he presses your fingers to the soft spot where his last rib once hung—

(“stole it,” he murmurs into the seam of your lips. “right from under my nose. only fair that i get to steal somethin’ right back, ain't it?”

the look on your face is rapturous when you press your hand to your side, eyes widening when you feel the extra rung—)

He's had decades of waiting. Waiting. And now that he's found you—

He's never letting go. 

You're it, he knows. Feels the certainty in that statement simmering in his hindbrain, in his essence. He'll have you—now, forever. Non-negotiable. Where you go, he will follow. 

(after all, there's something about three-headed dogs and their bones—)

[junityy]

🕸 — stay.

pairing. spider-man!jake x fem!reader genre. fluff, slight angst, slightly suggestive?? wc. 2k warnings. for context, this is the #infamous scene in the amazing spiderman 1 when peter shows up hurt at gwens window!! and yes im including the lizard LMAO and jake is kinda down Bad note. THIS TURNED OUT SO LONG.... and also NOT how i wanted but erm well.. spiderman jake is truly all i can think about so i hope you enjoy!!!

You were just finishing up your chemistry homework when Jake leaned against your window frame outside, and lightly knocked against your window. By now, this had become a routine-like thing, so you didn't even flinch.

The first time he did that, though, you felt slightly creeped out before letting him in regardless - because, after all, you do live on the 21st floor. The second time he did that, you started getting used to it. After all, your boyfriend just so turned out to be Spider-man. It was just something you'd get used to sooner rather than later.

Turning around and telling him, “Come in.”, you could already feel your lips form into a smile like that of a little kid's. Jake does as you said and opens the window, slowly climbing inside while you quickly save your homework document in the meantime.

“So, big guy, what was saving New York like today?” you joke before turning around to look at him. Though, once you see Jake holding onto your armchair for stability, your smile fades as quickly as it appeared and you get up when your eyes scan his body - three major scratches across his chest, along with other small wounds across his face (though these are a given by now). But also- scratches? No, it looks more like someone tried to slice him up with.. you don't even know what. Knives? This big? You can only imagine how he got these.

“Different, for sure.” he replies in a joking manner (even though there is no smile), and you can hear just a tiny bit of the pain he must be in in his voice.

“Jake?” you end up whispering as you walk towards him, and he simply lets himself fall onto your armchair before you sit down beside him.

“Seems that reptiles aren't my biggest fans.” he jokes; now smiling as he lets his head fall back while trying to catch his breath. In the meantime, you can't help but scan his wounds up close and - it's safe to say, someone (or something) possibly did try to slice him up from the looks of it.

“Reptiles?” you repeat, the confusion in your voice being very easy to identify; something Jake had already seen coming though, so that is far from surprising.

Before speaking up to elaborate further, he lifts his head again to look at you up close, then explains; “Remember that thing on the bridge yesterday? The thing that was ‘bigger’ than a human.. Well, turns out it's actually some kind of giant, mutant lizard. And it's living in the sewers, apparently.”

“A what?” raising your eyebrows in shock immediately, you can't help but blink in utter confusion a few times - at least before your eyes find their way back to his chest, and some dots start to connect by themselves. Well, his wounds make a little sense now at least. Still, neither of you could deny that ‘giant mutant lizard’ doesn't sound absolutely insane - so naturally, it takes you a second to process and.. imagine what that fight must've looked like just now.

“You're..” you frown; making eye contact with your boyfriend again after breaking it shortly. Jake on the other hand can't seem to even think about taking his eyes off of you. As per usual. “You're telling me you're fighting.. giant lizards?” you simply add. You're also certain that no matter how you would've worded this, it would sound equally just as crazy.

But, well.. your boyfriend IS Spider-man after all. So really, nothing should probably surprise you anymore. If you had to guess, things would, most likely, only get crazier from here on.

“Yeah. Well, they suck.” Jake scoffs, followed by another smile on his face, but he quickly groans in pain right after; your eyes still fixated on his wounds. It’s not like he'll die of them, so you try telling yourself to stop being so dramatic, but still.. it's a sight you'd rather not get too used to.

You hate seeing him like this. Usually, you're pretty used to seeing him with small or at least smaller wounds by now, but this? This is.. low-key crazy. You keep telling yourself that he is literally Spider-man, and that there's.. kinda no way to avoid getting hurt, yet all you hope for is to see him in one piece every single time. And it seems that the longer he keeps doing what he's doing, the chances of seeing him at all keep getting slimmer. Which is something that truly keeps you up at night, easily causing goosebumps all over your body.

“Hey.” Jake quietly says, simply to bring you back to reality once he notices you're lost in thoughts, and the next thing you feel is his hand on your cheek, softly cupping it.

Once you're actually back, you properly reconnect the eye contact you so love with him again. “What is it?” he questions not too long after, barely whispering while trying to read your expression. You, on the other hand, just remain silent; swallowing, before taking a sharp breath.

“Take this off, I'll take care of it.” pretty much avoiding the question, you point to his suit instead (or at least the upper part of it) - since, every time Jake has come here, you took care of him and his injuries. And today was gonna be no different.

While he makes sure the city is okay, you need to make sure he's okay. And vice versa, Jake has to make sure you're okay, by coming back to you every time like promised. New York could be safe for all he wants - only seeing your face every time makes him feel truly safe and sound.

And so again, he does as you say; moving to sit on the floor while leaning against your bed, he watches you do your little magic in silence. Silence, awe, admiration - it's all the same when it comes to you, really. He doesn't even deserve you, Jake thinks to himself. Like he does everyday.

Your ‘little magic’ though, simply includes disinfecting his wounds first; a process the both of you have gotten used to by now.

Once he's rolled down his suit a little, you begin to carefully pat his chest with the tissue again and again, so careful as if he'd break if you made one wrong move. Which.. seems sort of funny. You're patching up the Spider-man after all.

Jake, in the meantime, can't seem to take his eyes off of you again, so he simply doesn't. Instead, he watches your every move like his life depends on it. The look in your eyes has changed. You've gone quiet. Like, awfully quiet.

“Y/N.” he tries again after just a moment - after you clearly avoided his question the first time. When you look up just the tiniest bit, you're immediately met with his eyes on you already in no time. Oh. His eyes. “What is it?” he repeats, hoping to get you to talk this time.

Looking at him, it takes you a few moments to even form a somewhat coherent thought. Sometimes you wish you could just stop time and stay like this. With him, here. Forever.

Sure, being Spider-man's girlfriend had its perks - like Jake taking you with him to swing around New York together. Surely.. an original experience! But it also meant praying he'd come home to you every time there was trouble in the city.

“I'm just scared for you, is all.” you sigh quietly, tilting your head a tiny bit. For just a moment, silence enters, and it feels like you're falling in love with him all over again. You're just glad he's here.

“You won't lose me.” Jake assures you in the softest tone possible and immediately brings his hand back to your cheek, only to bring your face closer to his. Close enough to place a kiss on your lips, a reassuring one. A kiss that, as you both know, says something words wish they could truly encapsulate. Breaking the kiss for a short, simple “I promise.”, he immediately reconnects your lips again like he'd suffocate if he didn't.

What starts as a lovely, reassuring kiss, quickly seems to turn into something much more intimate when you feel Jake rest his other hand on your waist only to pull you as close as possible; to feel your body right against his.

Spider-man might have impressive healing abilities that are above those of the average person, but Jake felt as if having you near him was already enough healing.

“I love you.” he breathes into the kiss, and quickly tries to catch his breath when you do the same for a second. Your faces still dangerously close, all you seem to be able to get out is a “I love you too.” that sounds very out of breath, like you were the one fighting a giant mutant lizard just before.

Bringing your hand up to rest on the side of his neck, Jake can't help but sigh when he backs off a tiny bit, only so he can get a good look at you. God, you're beautiful he thinks to himself. Basically looking at you the same way he did when he first told you he loved you, he automatically moves the few strands of hair out of your face; tucking them behind your ear, while his eyes simply shine with admiration. But mostly love.

“I just love you, Y/N.” your boyfriend repeats while shaking his head slightly, and sounding completely hopeless as if he just accepted that he is, indeed, hopelessly in love with you. Though, that was more or less the case anyway.. it still is, actually. Watching his eyes go back and forth between your eyes and lips, Jake speaks up again in a low voice, “You won't lose me.”. However this time, it's a promise rather than a reassurance.

Your eyes lighting up with pure love at his words and the look in his eyes, you can't seem to hide the way your lips are forming into another tiny smile - so you decide to just let them speak by placing them on his once again.

It's like your lips were perfectly made for each other, especially when Jake tilts his head a tiny bit more to deepen the kiss - his hand still on your neck, and if it were to go after him, he'd never remove it again. It's like you were perfectly made for each other.

“Jake.” you mumble into the kiss, yet keep it going because his lips feel a little too good moving against yours. Although you don't wanna let go, you (sadly) do end up breaking the kiss - which causes Jake to immediately look at you as you're gathering your thoughts one by one.

“I need to ask you a favour. It'll sound really selfish, though.” you begin quietly, only to receive a promising nod from his side, waiting for you to continue curiously while his eyes go back and forth between your eyes and lips again. Swallowing, you carefully ask, “You know I love that you're Spider-man, but can you just be Jake for tonight and stay?” Yeah, you were right about it sounding kinda selfish. Jesus.

But, like, it's true, and you couldn't really figure out a better way to word it. I mean, obviously you love that he's Spider-man - literally who wouldn't? But it's true that you love Jake Sim more. Even if just a tiny bit, which is why you want, - or need, actually - him with you tonight. Just Jake. Just the two of you.

“It doesn't sound selfish.” is the first thing he says in response, slightly shaking his head for further assurance. You're not only glad about it, but you feel your heartbeat increase rapidly when you see yet another smile form on his face, which (thank god), he doesn't even try to hide as it's getting too big. “Actually,” he lightly scoffs, biting on his lip as you watch him do so (it drives you nuts every time).

“I was hoping you'd say that, princess.” is the last thing he says before pulling you in for a kiss much, much more intimate than the ones before.

taglist @tyunni @geombyu @jaeyunverse @yjwfav @sieuneo @beombisou @neos127

[ohmygraves]

some more period related stuff cuz i hate bleeding and being born with a uterus

inspired by this piece by @dmitriene !

okay, so say that the reader is someone who grew up in a "traditional" household. being taught that period is an "embarrassing" thing, that you clean up after your own mess, even if you're feeling like your body is being torn into two pieces. even if the job takes two person to do.

it took a while for you to get out of that kind of family dynamics, and now that you're together with simon (either married or dating) you understand that maybe your period doesn't have to be something that's so shameful.

one day you bled through your pads or whatever period products you use, the blood leaked everywhere. On the shorts you wear to bed, the new satin sheets you just bought, the thick comforter on the bed, simon's... oh god you even bleed on him.

of course, you panicked. one because now you had to somehow clean everything yourself and then get back to bed to get some rest before the sun goes up, and that you had to wrangle those pants and sheets from simon so you could clean them properly. this was your nightmare and you're not sure if you could even deal with everything.

you were about to cry and pass out from the sheer overwhelming feeling before simon wakes up, seeing the blood on the bed and on him and on you and he just let out a sigh before pulling you to the bathroom, giving you a pat on the back and kisses your forehead to calm you down.

"y're bleedin' onto the floor, sweetheart... c'mere..." he whispered, didn't expect you to start crying instead after he said that. oh god, i have to mop the floor too, you thought.

"what're you crying for, love? it's okay. i'll handle the mess."

you tried to form words, but all that came out were sobby mess. "b-but... 's blood... dirty..."

if he could roll his eyes further he could've seen the inside of his head.

"love, really? you think i'm bothered by a little bit of blood?" he let out a sigh. "do you remember what i do everyday?"

"it's different!"

"'s not. blood's blood," he sighed, "take off your pants."

you didn't want to make him more angry, so you obliged, letting him throw the stained clothes away. he took off his own stained pants, grabbing a clean one for himself before telling you that you should probably shower and get yourself settled down, he'll be outside cleaning everything off the bed. you reluctantly agreed, you felt really gross anyway and shower might help.

when you're done, he prepared you some new pads, clean set of clothes, the dirty clothes you wore earlier were now gone. the bed is cleaned, though missing the comforter and the sheets have been replaced. the blood on the floor is also clean, he must've mopped the floor while you were inside.

"how's my love doin'? better, i hope?" he came up behind you and hugged you. "threw everything into the washer, everything's sorted."

"simon, i have to handwash them..."

"do you want to handwash the comforter too? be my guest, then."

you sighed, hand washing the comforter would've been absolute hell.

"just come back to bed, love... everything's clean."

"bed's stained, right?"

"'s all good, i flipped it over."

good enough.

you laid back down with simon, the clean sheets feel nice on your skin. it seems like he got another blanket, though not as thick as your usual comforter, still better than nothing. hopefully the stain on the comforter will be gone by tomorrow.

"sorry that i woke you up..."

"just go to bed, love. 's late." simon grumbled, pulling you into a hug. seems like he's not used to the thinner blanket too, seeing how he's snuggling into you closer. it is quite cold without it, the two of you just got used to the thick comforter.

"okay," you closed your eyes, feeling better. "i love you, simon."

simon only grumbled in response, his face already buried in the crook of your neck.

you hoped that there won't be anymore leakage later.

[tritoch]

i have seen people be like "if you think what the dawntrail protagonists do in zone six is valid you have to conceded emet's approach/perspective was valid, what you do is basically what he does" and it's like...nah. it's obviously intentionally very similar ("it's like poetry, it rhymes") but there's some key differences:

emet is disgusted by sundered life, which he sees as inhuman, and longs to return to the unrecoverable past. so he does seven(ish) planet-wide genocides. the endless aren't new life, their ability to grow and learn is specifically in question (at the very least they are fundamentally incapable of taking in new sensory experience of certain forms), they're shades from the unrecoverable past, and you are destroying them in favor of those still alive.

also, we aren't disgusted by them nor do we think anything is fundamentally justified if done to them (everyone pretty much no-sells cahciua "we aren't alive so it doesn't matter if you kill us :)," in fact). we don't have like 12,000 years and the most advanced magic known to anyone alive. we are forced by serious exigency to destroy them due to a political impasse with their leadership's policy re: resource extraction. this tonal difference is in fact extremely important.

the endless themselves seem pretty ambivalent about the whole deal. they're bored or they're wary of the way their world keeps shrinking, and it's very explicitly neither a functioning society by any recognizable human terms nor a paradise.

related to the above, basically every named endless turns to the person most relevant to them (cahciua to erenville, krile's parents to her, namikka to wuk lamat, otis to you) and is like, huh, i really appreciate having this moment of grace at the end of my journey to see that it was all worthwhile and to resolve my lasting regrets, but i understand what you're here to do and yeah, it's probably time for us to go. (does the writing put a finger on the scale by doing this? sure, but the writers also designed and built the scales and everything they're weighing on them, so i find it hard to discredit any one aspect for being the writers' invention.)

finally uh no one in the party has kids with the endless or lives a full human lifetime as one of them lol.

it's important to remember that emet was definitely at least somewhat lying about not seeing the sundered as real people. the fact that he has "lived a thousand thousand of your lives . . . broken bread with you, fought with you, grown ill, grown old, sired children and yes, welcomed death’s sweet embrace" makes everything he did soooooo much crazier than what you do. if i managed to convince an endless to fall in love with me and i had a kid with them and i loved that kid so much that their death threw me into a permanent grief spiral then like. yeah i guess i would have to be like "well hats off to emet, folks." but luckily the game doesn't make you do that.

even if you insist everyone in living memory was a full living person that we killed, you're still weighing like a city of people versus 7+ planet-wide mass murders. you do not under any circumstances got to hand it to him.

living memory absolutely is evocative of everything that happens in shadowbringers. but rather than placing us in emet's shoes, it forces us to relive what we already did, to really fully face up to what we have done by promising to remember emet's culture after destroying any chance of its return. after two games going hard on the hope part of the game's central theme of hope arising from grief, now we're doing grief. we are forced to see the past of our memories not as a cold, ghostly art deco cubus-plagued socratic method hellscape but as the most beautiful technicolor theme park where everyone's happy and no one's sad and there's parades every day and your parents are alive and they love you so much. and then the game's conclusion is, yeah, you were still right to let go. in fact, you were and are morally obliged to let go. the living were and are worth more than the dead. our grief in letting go of them may be immense and turns our world to bleak nothingness for a time, and that is important to recognize, but at the end of the day our most pressing duty is to those we can yet save, not those we have lost.

[kquil]

JAMES POTTER | 01:15 ⏤THE PRETTY MECHANIC

SUM. : james borrows sirius' new motorbike and ends up breaking down on the road, thankfully he remembers a mechanic shop nearby and heads straight for it - he doesn't expect to meet the prettiest mechanic there though

TAGS. : fluff ; modern au ; muggle au ; mechanic reader ; biker james ; reader is oblivious ; reader is just doing her job ; james being the love sick puppy that he is ; james is a loveable dork ; james breaks a promise ; sirius doesn't have to know ; legal vandalism? ; vandalisim is never legal kids ; don't try this at home ; james and sirius are BFFs!

LENGTH : 1.1k

NOT PROOFREAD OR EDITED

James was FUCKED!... 

He had borrowed Sirius’ new motorbike but now it was shutting down on him and he didn’t know what to do! This has never happened with his best friend’s previous bike before. That bike was easy to handle, not at the beginning, but over time, James had grown familiar with it and now that he was on a new bike, he didn’t even know where to begin with trying to remedy the issue – whatever the issue was! 

“Padfoot’s gonna kill me if his sweet new ride breaks down,” James’ voice shakes as he panics silently to himself, “and it’s all because of me…”

James remembers spending an entire week trying to convince Sirius to allow him the privilege of riding his new motorbike. A matte, all black Triumph Daytona 660. It was a beautiful ride, and one that Sirius was proud to own and made him promise to handle with the greatest care. Sirius’ love for the motor vehicle was contagious and made James just as much of a fanatic over bikes. James had his own Suzuki SV650 in red and black finish. 

Handling of Sirius’ Triumph was unparalleled, not only did it look artful on the road but it was also incredibly agile. The footpeg was well placed and, accompanied with the raised clip-on handlebars, the position it locks you in for a speedier cruise was so much more compelling compared to his Suzuki. The Triumph definitely didn’t shy away from staking its claim as a sports bike but that only meant it was more addicting to ride. 

And now, here James was…

After breaking down at the side of the road, he had been pushing and pushing the bike all the way into the previous town he had passed and was now on his way to the mechanic shop he had caught a small glimpse of when passing.  He worked up quite the sweat but didn’t pay it much attention; too worried over Sirius’ disappointment and anger. James made a promise to take care of his new motorbike and he had just broken said promise. Staring up at the mechanic sign, James took a breath and clung onto the slight hope that whatever happened could be fixed. 

“Damn,” the new voice makes James’ head snap towards the open garage of the shop, “is that your bike?” 

“Uh…” James struggles to form any words because, how could he when you were staring at him with such pretty eyes and sweet-looking lips? When you were dressed in the typical motorbike mechanic overall-type uniform, all black and clearly oversized, swamping your figure in the most adorable way. Just a moment ago his heart had been racing in fear of Sirius’ fury but now it was racing for an entirely different reason. You’re so pretty… pretty and with the kindest eyes. Your lips are moving… so you’re probably talking to him right now but he can’t hear anything when his eyes are so focused on the way your lips shape around different words. Oh! But he bets your voice sounds as pretty as you so he should probably start listening to you again. 

“--ou okay?” you finish with worried eyes and James could only guess what you were just saying. 

“Y-yeah!..” he bashfully turns away from your gaze, “Sorry about that,”

“It’s alright,” when he turns back to you again, James has to stop himself from sighing dreamily and openly drooling over just how pretty you were. But you were smiling at him! And so sweetly too that his insides melt around the butterflies fluttering around his stomach, “what can we do for you today?”

“My uhh…my friend’s bike. I was just borrowing it and it broke down a few miles from here,” he admits as a frown marks his features with guilt and despair, “I-I don’t know what could be wrong with it…”

“Don’t worry,” James watches you tilt your head in a gesture of welcoming him inside, “we’ll can take a look for you,” if James thought you were pretty before, now he think you’re angelic – he can’t help but believe in your words fully and feel all his worries wash away, banished by the shine of your bright smile and warm gaze, “I’m sure we’ll get you back on the road in no time!”

Forget melting into a puddle, James was evaporating into mist! 

The problem with Sirius’ Triumph Daytona 660 was that it ran out of fuel and James was too busy panicking and stressing over being a bad friend for breaking his promise. That was the good news, the bad news was that he totally just embarrassed himself in front of the cute motorbike mechanic AND now he has no reason to ever see you again! 

Desperate times call for desperate measures…  

…James faces his Suzuki SV650 with his well beloved hockey stick in hand. A sacrifice has to be made and he doesn’t mind it being his bike. Should he aim for the front light or the back? He read somewhere that submerging the engine in water whilst running it would get water in and the air intake wouldn’t be able to compress in the cylinders and end up bending the conrods and smashing the valves. The pool would work for that one.

James looks at his hockey stick again before making a final decision. He can do this for now and when you fix his bike, he can say he ‘accidentally rode his bike into his pool’. Yeah that would work! James raises his arms above his head, aiming for the front light of his Suzuki and takes a breath before swinging down—

“James!” Sirius’ panicked shout makes him seize up entirely, his powerful swing down paused mid-air, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” his best friend had been staying over and was wondering what he had been doing spending so much time in the garage and came walking into an unfathomable scene. 

“Uhhh…” I want to see the pretty mechanic again! 

“The ‘pretty’ what?” Sirius pulls a disbelieving face. This was all for a girl?... It’s not surprising considering the way James used to act around Lily but vandalising his own motorbike? 

Shit! I said that out loud.

“Yes, yes you did…” James can’t bring himself to answer. However, he didn’t have to as Sirius stalks over to the toolbox and grabs a wrench. He didn’t even need to explain himself. Both share a smile before beginning to do a number on his once very beloved Suzuki. 

“Thanks Siri,” panting, James wipes the sweat off his brow and faces his best friend with a boyish grin. Out of everyone else in the world, of course Sirius would have his back and not ask questions–

“Wait– why were you at the mechanics in the first place?”

“Uhhh….”

“James?...”

A/N : like most of my timestamps, i wrote this incredibly sleep deprived but inspired and couldn't wait so here you darlings go <3 please forgive any spelling or grammatical mistakes and i hope you enjoy the fluff hehe~

NAVI.

TAGLIST : @melinajenkins @aastonishment @until-i-found-you @corp0real @celestcies @lovelydoveval @inlovewithremusjohnlupin @calums-betch @futurecorps3 @hihihi1112 @simpingforthe80s @yrluvjane @chaosofmanyfandoms @storyofaromance @loving-and-dreaming @somewereinthegalaxi @ashreblogsficshere @cassandra-nerezza-black @stray-bi-kids @ttkttt

@notasadgirlipromise @desikudisworld @volturissideslut @arilxup88 @fallencrescentmoon @topaz125 @xxrougefangxx @starchaser-lily @probablypossesedbysatan @agent-tempest @veryberryjelly @th3-st4r-gur1 @sousydive @delusional-4-fake-people @linaax @girl-detective16 @riaa-moony @ericityyy @ahukk0 @ghostgardn @rosalyn-s @seungtelevision

[nyonismywife]

RANFREN HEADCANONS:

Luther:

Was researching humans when he first decided he wanted to be one. Found out they're 60% water. Is now hellbent on making sure everyone is hydrated

Only formed a family because he thought it was what humans are supposed to do

Only reason he got Randal a pet human is because he was tired of Randal terrorising his catmen and wanted to teach him some responsibility

Has been around for so long that he's had at least one cult formed around him. The cult has long since disbanded, however

Used to be ALOT more evil in his 'youth'. Even more so than Randal. A truly horrifying entity. That was a long time ago, though. He's a nice young human man now

Sometimes Randal REALLY pisses him off. Like A LOT. But Luther reminds himself that this is just 'Randal's Rebellious Phase'. (Even though Randal's been in the same age range for years)

Randal:

I don't really have any for Randal. Let me think of some

Is incredibly good at biology, sucks at the other sciences

Otaku

Can't keep friends but somehow keeps making them

These were pretty weak. Sorry bout that. Anyways..

Nyen:

Doesn't feel a shred of embarrassment or shame about existing as a cat for Luther despite being a grown man (feels no shame about being pet, purring, making biscuits etc and thinks anyone that thinks he should feel that way is a weirdo)

Knows Luther usually likes his catmen's faces smooth but sometimes neglects shaving because he likes when Luther does it for him (drawn from a canon image)

Doesn't like smoking weed and sometimes judges Nyon for it but has no problem drinking beer and smoking tobacco

Thinks he's all that

Bullies Nyon but Nyon is literally one of his only friend besides Luther

His backstory is like the most simple thing ever with no trauma or anything. He was just a regular guy that got into a car crash or something and Luther revived him

His opinions about Kurt Cobain have always been the same even before he became a catman

Harasses Nyon whenever Nyon tries to do pushups or pullups or anything resembling arm workouts because he wants to be the only pet with beefy arms (he likes when Luther compliments his muscles (drawn from canon))

Inherited parts of Luther's violence

Nyon:

Epitome of nonchalance

Seems to have been around with Luther for a WHILE as well. (Guessing because he likes reading Fyodor novels for "nostalgic reasons" and Fyodor was around in the 1800s)

His life was better after he joined Luther's presence

Probably fought in at least one war

Remembers EVERYTHING from his past life but just doesn't talk about it. If you ask, he'll give you silence and go back to whatever he was doing. The conditions for hearing his backstory are so rare. You'd need to find him at 4:23am while he's greening out in a loaf position on the ground and even then there's only a 15% chance of him telling you. If he ever did tell you how he came to be what he is, it'd be the most bizarre, otherworldly and brilliant damn story you ever heard. Then you'd wake up the next day and, strangely, you wouldn't remember any of it anymore..? Like it was a snippet of a dream

He likes Nyen's abuse if he's in the mood for it (this is actually a little canon)

Has so many connections to so many different weed dealers it's actually ridiculous.

Inherited parts of Luther's timidity (yes, Luther is indeed shown to be a bit timid at times)

..bottom.

[galaxygermdraws]

Finally designing the Sonic cast. or. at least. Some of them. There are too many characters in this franchise these are just the ones I think about the most often. So uh. Ya. I will leave any notes under the cut since I have a lot, although not every character will have notes because we haven't explored every character (and share them with @shadesofvermillionvoid)

(reblogs with tags/comments are appreciated. Thankyu)

Sonic

Sonic's earring is Chip's bracelet. I don't think Sonic particularly likes having anything on his wrists, and Sonic Forces made that worse

The regulators are based directly on Sonic Prime, as I love the regulators in that show and think the idea of giving Sonic something similar to Shadow's Inhibitor Rings makes a lot of sense

He got those little markings due to accidentally absorbing some of Chaos' DNA

Tails

Tails has goggles like in Sonic Boom, because I like Boom Tails' design

He still has his robotic bits from Sonic Lost World, he still managed to keep his free will, but what happened was Zavok used his ability to control robots to force Tails to fight Sonic. Since then, Tails has updated his cybernetics so he can filter out any suspicious frequencies that could take his free will.

The cannon arm from Lost World is now basically like the guns from Mario and Rabbids, where you hold it in your hand and it like covers your arm. It's like that

Tails is a skeptic. This is the funniest bit but also thanks to Boom (the bad luck episode) it has some precedence

Knuckles

Knuckles in our lore is deeply spiritual (we are developing Mobian belief systems because we are Insane) , and the first time he saw Sonic he noticed he looked similar to the murals in Hidden Palace. So when Sonic turned out to be good, that made sense to him, as Sonic was common in a lot of prophetic murals around the island.

Knux actually thought Sonic was a god at first. Then he saw him choke on a Chili Dog.

He put beads around his spines after the events of Sonic Forces, since the war was over and he could relax for the first time in months.

Amy

Amy, like Knuckles, actually has a deep connection to her belief systems. We haven't figured out everything exactly, but she and Knuckles quickly bond over this aspect of their lives

I styled her quills differently because I kind of like giving her something that makes it obvious she is a hedgehog

Similarly, I gave her a back spine, and the hedgehog nose, since I had never realized she has the same kind of nose as Tails or Cream

Shadow

Shadow wears eye makeup. He puts it on every morning. For a while he had to have help with it (from both Rouge and Amy), but eventually figured out how to do it himself

He has yellow sclera due to the Black Arms blood. Similarly, he has a longer tail than most Mobian hedgehogs, and he cannot retract his fangs. His blood is green

He has some less favorable urges. Mostly related to the whole "Black Arms feed on living creatures" things, but they don't crop up often

He and Rouge have matching earrings

Rouge

I based her design off of Sonic Prime because I honestly prefer that design more. One because she looks like an actual spy, and two because it's based on her Sonic Heroes design. Similarly, she has Prim's hair tuft

Gave her the bat nose a lot of people do because I like the way it looks

I don't have a lot of thoughts about Rouge as of right now I am so sorry.

She and Shadow have matching earrings

Silver

Silver has a lot more scrapes and burns from his future, even though it's been fixed several times

He is displaced from time. He doesn't feel connected to his current future, especially since in our lore he is one of the few people to remember Sonic 06 (it's because in our lore, Timeline B Silver got his powers from Mephiles, in the sense that those time powers had to go SOMEWHERE after the timeline reset.)

I am going to be designing a weird messed up form for Silver (like Werehog or Doom Morph for Sonic and Shadow) based probably on Mephiles to some extent

Blaze

Like Silver, she has remnants of powers from the previous timeline. She already had fire powers in Timeline A, but she has much stronger ones now, as she still has Iblis inside of her, although the powers are no longer destructive, as they were never provoked

Her dimension is actually a result of Solaris ceasing to exist. That power still existed and had to go somewhere, so it ended up resulting in the Sol Dimension.

[meownotgood]

astarion x gn!dark urge!reader. pure fluff and soft feelings

when astarion feels the sudden thrum of the tadpole stirring, psionic energy flooding into his head and spreading through him like dense, rippling waves, he isn't keen to open the door for whoever wants in. his brows knot, his eyes flutter open as he exhales a frustrated breath, his meditations rudely interrupted. wind flutters over his tent, crisp night air whispering in blades of grass. he can hear the crackle of the distant campfire. and yet, this new persistent ringing in his ears drowns out everything — it echoes through his veins, calls out to him, somehow.

trying to ignore the sensation proves futile. he almost starts to push back against it. he thinks of channeling some sort of rebuttal, a potent force of his own to tell whoever is letting their tadpole loose to shut up, but he doesn't. at once, as the feeling begins to change, he stops. sharply, he inhales, warmth inviting him in to stay, enveloping him in a sudden, extrasensory sense of comfort. fog fills what remains of his thoughts.

there's a heavy feeling that roots into him; the sensation of wading through thick, muddy water. then, your presence, your mind, entwining with his. visions form in the wake of your bridged connection. astarion realizes with a lilt in his heart that he is seeing what you're seeing.

except, the first thing he sees is himself.

hazy and dizzy, all blurred lines and smudged edges. pointed ears that stick out from fluffy white hair. a confident smile that flashes sharp teeth. pretty features, and stark, red eyes. he's looking at himself. he knows it's him; the heat in your brain tells him so, even if he was hardly capable of making the connection.

his throat grows dry. in the illusion, you're standing close to him. he senses the nervousness in your veins, feels the careful palm that settles on your shoulder as if it had settled on his own. when he moves — his vision counterpart, not actually him — it's reminiscent of strokes of paint on parchment, everything seeming indistict, real and fake at the exact same time. briefly, he wonders if he's truly this beautiful, or if it's just your own mind's assertion. faux-astarion tilts in closer to you, breath warm on the column of your neck, and your body shakes with a full-blown tremor.

oh. you're dreaming.

how sweet. real-astarion can't help but feel a smile tugging at his cheeks. he props his head up on his arm, getting comfortable, and allows the misty connection to drown him. this afternoon, you were just arguing, going back and forth over something he barely remembers now. yet, here you are. and here he is, showing up in your dreams.

for someone who's been turning him down at every opportunity, frequently reminding him to watch himself at every enticing comment and fanged grin, shooting him a glare made of daggers each time he "accidentally" bumps into you, or leans close enough to mutter words into your ear he definitely could have just said aloud — for someone who claims to hate him, clearly, you must feel something different. he knew you didn't like him. thought you couldn't stand anything to do with him. but gods, the dream you're having right before him, of him, is a pleasant, gratifying contradiction.

you probably hadn't meant for him to intrude, he figures. fast asleep in your bedroll, you're curled up all alone, finally getting some rest after a long day of travelling. your tadpole might've reached out on its own, or perhaps he's the only one to see, because he's the only person still awake.

regardless, astarion doesn't dwell much on the logistics. he focuses on the vision, on the sensations swirling through you, and then through him, in turn. you relax when his palm brushes your lower back — astarion feels the sensation from your point of view, but he tries to imagine how it might feel for him. how your back would arch into his touch at the simplest brush of his fingers.

he watches himself, lips trailing your neck, teeth grazing your pulse, making your eyes close and your shoulders tense. and when he speaks, it's what you remember of his smooth, honeyed voice. the words are muddled as they echo in your skull, then his.

"what is it you want, darling?"

astarion, still smugly watching from the comfort of his tent as your dream plays out, breathes a slight, quiet chuckle to himself. he feels the heat of your anger, bristling and boiling underneath his skin. but he also feels contentment. excitement, perhaps.

"I don't want anything from you," you're snapping in response, quick and sharp, as always. your last word is particularly laced with vitriol, contrasting delightfully with the sweet moniker he uses for you instead. there's that familiar expression on your face again, an annoyed pout he's always loved to draw out of you. he wonders, if he were to see you in more than just your mind, would you be pouting in your sleep, too?

teeth gritting, jaw tense, you press your palm to the vampire's chest, threatening to shove him away — but somehow, you don't. you can't.

"honestly," he tuts, his breath fanning over your skin as he laughs, "if — for once — you did away with your blasted pride, we might actually get along."

you answer swiftly and concisely. "definitely not."

astarion grins. dream-him isn't wrong.

"if you're so insistent on refusing to admit it, knock yourself right out. but there is something you want. and there just so happens to be something I want, all the same."

he continues, as his palm moves up ever-so carefully, brushing over your spine while he goes. "this doesn't have to be complicated, dear. think of it as... a transaction. you let me into that complicated little head of yours," he's murmuring into your ear at barely more than a whisper, his touch is tracing between your shoulder blades now, with teasing and practiced precision; "and I'll help you forget. you'll forget your stresses. your worries. your... dark impulsions. isn't that what you want? what you need?"

you freeze, solid under his touch like a marble statue. astarion senses the softness in your heart, he feels the threads of your dream shimmer and quake. when he hears himself speak next, his voice is more assured. it's comforting to you, in it's own way. a solid rock to cling to, as your veins thrum with shadow, and emotion.

"I know how much they've been affecting you," he says, speaking carefully. "you hardly sleep, and even when you do, each night is restless. you're scared, aren't you? more than you've been trying to let on. tell me, how long do you think it's been since someone touched you? could you and a lover ever grow close, without the poor soul fearing you might wind up taking their head?"

astarion swallows, his focus on your dream fading ever-so briefly. those felt like your words, your worries, reflected in him, and echoed back. as if it were his own — just like his own, really — he can feel your doubt, your loneliness. no, the version of him you're dreaming of is different. until now, he never knew how scared you truly were.

your mind twists, as you try to recall something, anything, to no avail. your strain and hurt shudders across him, lessened only by the softest press of the dream's lips to your pulse.

"let me help you," he murmurs. "let me take everything away."

"astarion-"

your body tenses. several pictures flash through your mind, as if your dream can't decide which one to settle on. they're different from what he was expecting. you imagine astarion's hand finding yours, lacing with it tenderly, squeezing it tight when it only wants to wrap around his throat. you imagine his voice, cooing comforting words that bleed into one another until they're unintelligible.

your heart skips when you picture a kiss. the softest press of his lips to yours — his palm on your cheek, your hands in his hair; your mind blissfully quiet, for a change. but the dream continues with none of those choices. astarion watches you embrace him, his arms wrapping around you in turn. now, it's his turn to feel his heart run wild.

instantly, you relax, and he senses your comfort; he feels soothed in exchange. you seem satisfied. as if you've finally received something you've wanted for a very, very long time. and you savor it. he savors it, letting every second feel like hours, exhaling a breath that shakes his chest because this hardly feels like a dream anymore.

you hug him tighter, and he holds you just the way you've wanted — just the way he's wanted. the remaining details go fuzzy around you. astarion feels you beside him, against him, within him. the warm hold of an embrace sears through his system, more divine than any prayer, softer than anything he thinks he's ever known. your mind is filled with a sense of understanding. an aurora of elation.

this is what I've needed, it whispers, glowing fondly, brightly. this is what we have both needed.

he hardly knows how long it lasts, just that it doesn't stop. he doesn't want it to stop. the dream only fades, vanishing slowly but surely, as darkness creeps in to devour you at last.

without thinking, without knowing or caring if his effort is worth a damn, astarion tries to push against it. he feels the sharp claws of dread begin to sink into you. a chill surges up his spine. his brows knit, as he adds an extra jolt of psionic power to your mind, attempting to fend off the torment for what only feels like a few moments more. in the end, your dream fizzles out hopelessly — and so does the connection.

astarion's eyes fly open. darkness greets him once more, his lonely tent suddenly all too quiet. slivers of moonlight shine onto him, the tent's curtain wavering in the wind. astarion exhales, he smiles. he presses both hands to his face in exasperation with a heavy, theatric groan.

even now, even as he lies alone and cold in his tent, his heart calming and his own perceptions returning, he still thinks he can feel the warmth of your embrace. it feels like burning. like light. like a fragile bloom of heat in his stomach, intense with so much tenderness it makes him feel sick. he's dizzy, just from the lingering ghost of palms pressed to his back. your hands, touching him soft enough to melt him, fond enough to brand new gentle marks onto his scarred skin. he hates it. he loathes and craves such a feeling, and he can't decide which sentiment is worse.

gods. who would've thought, for as drunk on violence as you are, you're truly so terribly, utterly soft.

frankly, darkness has always been an ambiance astarion is quite used to.

huffing, he wills his heart to shut up, and presses his fingers to his temple, massaging it to try and alleviate the strain left by the wriggling tadpole. he'll keep this event to himself, he wagers. mostly. in the back of his mind, the last few ripples of his severed connection to you still linger.

he swears, when you were drug from him, there was resistance. the resistance of trying and failing to drag him back, begging for someone to stay with you in the darkness. pleading don't go in the shape of his name, as your blood-sick head crumbled into nothing but aching, endless ash.

as he sits up, he hears the telltale pad of almost-silent footsteps — clumsier than usual, possibly from the grogginess. he hears you sigh, he imagines you rubbing your eyes and settling with staying awake for the rest of the night. it's better than letting your nightmares consume you. with a thump, a log of wood is tossed onto the campfire, making the flames burn brighter, and warmer.

astarion takes a second or two to think of what he should say to you. it isn't in his nature to hesitate, but it's also not like him to greet you with kindness, to suddenly ask if you slept alright, or if you'd like someone to keep you company. he should handle this delicately. maybe, you don't even need words. you just need for him to sit beside you for a while. to not bicker, for once. to just be. honestly, he would like that too.

before leaving his tent, he takes in one last deep breath, and mutters quietly to himself.

"you are just full of surprises."

[radiance1]

Danny has been reincarnated.

Which was an odd thing to realize, it wasn't even a slow one he just... snapped into it one day. One moment he was staring at a wall out of boredom the next, well, he was staring for an entirely different reason.

It was a task for his now young -he thinks around three years old?- mind to work its way through the memories, but it wasn't like he had much else to do honestly. So, what does he know?

His name is Danny, like, his actual name and not just a moniker. He was once a halfa and he already knows he's going to be missing invisibility and intangibility. He, well, died. For like, a second time which actually makes sense because reincarnation-

Anyways.

He was a clone of two people from this thing called the Justice League which, weird name but probably some government or activist group. Wonder Woman and Superman. Which were pretty weird names to name your kids but eh.

He doesn't really remember much besides that from this life, or the one from before but he's an adult! He'll figure things out once he gets out of this containment tube thing.

Did he mention he was in a test tube? He's a tube baby now. He thinks? Or maybe it's more like he's being contained.

Whatever.

So he breaks out. Thank you apparent superstrength that he has no idea why he has but he's not going to complain! He then wandered around all of the other test tubes, able to remember just enough of English to see that yea, they're dead.

He probably was too, before he had memories zapped into him. Or a vegetable.

He then finds this really big container, checks it out, then opens it because the clone inside isn't dead!

'Project Match' it said. He'll just call him Match.

Was he thanked for helping him? Nope. You would think that he would be thanked or at least somewhat respected for saving this guy but nope!

He was, quite literally, held up by his leg and dangled in the air. Who dangles a three-year-old?! Well, he was technically and adult but still! The next few things were a blur but after pulling off the old Fenton charm he found him and Match outside as he tried to stop him from attacking random people.

Luckily the charms and privilege of the youngest (he's assuming he's the youngest, because he's physically three) was more than enough to get through to him. Sure, the guy couldn't form words, really aggressive for literally no reason, really weird but also absolutely cool looking eyes. But he worked around the first issue by developing their own personal language from like grunts and stuff, the second he once again used his youngest privilege to boss him around and the third a pair of sunglasses easily fixed.

He just had to steer Match clear of those random S crest mark thingies. Which was a weird thing to hate but hey, he's not there to judge.

[jvnluvr]

blue lock boys when they are drunk ♡

when the blue lock boys come home drunk, all they want is you.

ft. sae, rin & kaiser x f!reader

author’s note: im a sucker for my favs okay? fluffiest fluff i’ve ever written i almost cried ten different times send help hsish. also thank you all for 100 followers, i love u all sm mwah. i’m working on requests, they will come soon! otherwise please enjoy <33

itoshi sae:

god, he didn’t even know how he ended up in this position. all sae could remember was losing his game, walking out of that stadium with his usual blank expression, but then his legs took him to the nearest bar. he’s so drunk, heck, he even remembers smoking a cigarette or two while he was chugging down everything. he's overcome with a lot of emotions, but then he remembers.

he wants to go home. he’s up, and he’s walking home. it’s late, its dark, yet he’s still able to somehow manage to get to the front step before he knocks on the door, holding onto it because he’ll fall if he doesn’t. that’s when you open the door and sae falls into your arms. "sae-? what happened?" you ask, trying your best to not let him fall while shutting the door.

you already knew he lost, you were obviously watching the streamed game. but when sae loses, he shuts everyone out for a day at the very least. however, it's weird to find him falling onto you, at your doorstep, and incredibly late at night. he smells like cigarettes, and that's when you understand what is going on.

"sit down, i'll get you water." you guide him to the couch, slowly trying to let go of his arm so you can lie down, but he doesn't let go of you. instead, he pulls you down with him so you're lying down on top of him. "uh, what's this about? you gonna talk to me..?" to say you're confused right now is kind of an understatement. sae hasn't spoken a word to you since he entered, just mindless grumbles and sighs until now, where it's almost like he's searching into your eyes for something.

"y'know, you're a whole lot prettier up close, right?"

what..?

your eyes probably looked bugged right now. you know he's not sober, but when people are drunk, their true feelings come out. sae's never really been an openly affectionate man, you knew that from the moment you met him. so hearing him suddenly throw a compliment into your face has you stunned to say the least.

"c'mon don't look at me like that... this is new to me too.." he mumbles, a red tint starting to appear on his cheeks. he grabs you by your waist to sit you on his lap, and you start to turn red too. "seriously, what's gotten into you sae?" you ask quietly, you both letting out a small chuckle as you stare at each other.

"i don' know.. it's your fault." you tilt your head as his one hand intertwines with yours. "you have beautiful eyes too.. you know that?" you let out a little gasp as your eyes avert away from him. you can feel your ears getting hotter and hotter as each seconds by. now you're actually worried, since when has he thought of these things?

sae put a hand on your cheek to turn you back to him. he has that soft smile plastered onto his face. your gaze softens as he continues talking to you. "you've always had.. that bright light in your eyes... even the first night we met. 't was what got me so interested in you." you bite your lip at that, small water drops forming into your eyes. it wasn't possible for your heart to not melt as those words. "the only thing.. i could think about.. was how much i liked you. how much my heart yearned for you. for how happy i am, to have you in my life now."

he wipes a tear of yours while eliciting that little soft but deep chuckle you always adored. "c'mon, don't cry, was just being honest.." he hugged you, burying his face into your neck and closing his eyes. you were almost certain that after that the alcohol consumed him, that he was too drowsy to even remember all the words he just said. but it's okay. for the chance you got to see itoshi sae confess his love in his own way. you whispered out an "i love you' before falling asleep beside him.

michael kaiser:

"babyy, i'm homee!" yeah, he was definitely slurring over each word he said. you walked out the kitchen, staring as kaiser almost fell atleast 5 times trying to walk over to you. it was hard to try and not laugh at how adorable he was being all tipsy, it was like he was a little child again.

“michael.” you giggled, trying to get him to sit on the chair but you both fell against each other on the floor. “that hurt!” his cheeks are more than just flushed and his eyes are half open. "who are ya, and where's my girlfriend?" to be honest, you were kind of hurt that he couldn't recognize you even while you were right in his face, but kaiser can be a little slow even when sober.

"c'mon michael, 'is me, your girlfriend." you retorted, wrapping your arms around him in an attempt to get him to sit down on a chair. but of course, kaiser being kaiser doesn't want to be apart from you for even a second, so he pulls you onto his lap. "i know, 'was just messin' with ya. i'm not that drunk, y'know?" you could only blankly stare at him as he confessed to that. even the dumbest person alive could tell that lie straight through his teeth.

"you are seriously not gonna tell me you aren't THAT drunk. you slipped over the fuckin' air." you both looked at each other, slightly grinning at that. silence. ah there it is, you both burst out laughing not even a second after, because you know it was true. "honestly though, you REEK of alcohol, go shower or somethin'." you tried getting off his lap, you really did. but does he care? of course not.

"no, 'm gonna stay here, too tired to shower..." you let out a small sigh at that, but if he wasn't going to get into the shower, you weren't going to let him doze off in his uncomfy chair. both of your backs couldn't take that kind of pain right now. "okay okay, we're both tired, let's go to bed, hm?" kaiser quietly grumbled as a counter, not wanting to let you go. at that point, your sounds started to sound more grumpy. you should have dragged him to bed when you had the chance.

"hiii babyy, i love you." kaiser suddenly said, with a smile hanging ear to ear. you didn't know what he was up to, but you just quietly ignored his statement of affection. "you're really cute when you're grumpy," he added, followed by a bunch of little mischievous giggles. "but you're cute all the time, so it makes it absolutelyyy irresistible to stay mad at you." you're so embarrassed by kaiser's sudden overload of compliments that, you start to playfully hit him? one hit to the arm, one hit to the head, and you continue in order to stop being so flustered by the drunk man in front of you.

"ow! i literally said you're cute, why are you hitting me- stop! ow!" even if you were hitting him, kaiser couldn't help but let out more laughs when he realized why you were hitting him. "aww, you're embarrased, aren't ya?" he pressed you for a kiss, but you just put your hand over his mouth to push him back. you couldn't take being more abashed over your extraordinarily drunk boyfriend.

"if you're not gonna accept my love, let me properly confess it, alrightt?" again, you were too afraid to even blurt out a single world in fear of stuttering and having kaiser coo into your ear about how cute you were. so you just looked at him, waiting for him to continue his speech. "got your attention, pretty? i've had a crush on you since the first time i met you, like the biggest crush ever, like the moment i saw you i swear those hearts appeared in my eyes like they do in cartoon shows." he was stuttering as the alcohol was still rushing in his system, but kaiser sounded like a little boy who had been lovestruck with the mere thought of you.

"you're so stupid sometimes.." you mumbled, but nonetheless giddy with happiness and love. "maybe, but i'm stupidly in love with you." all you could do was let out a sheepish smile before pulling him into a hug. "i love you.." and that was followed with snores. you didn't really plan on how to move kaiser out of this awkward position, but what you did know that he was a pretty cute lovestruck man when he was drunk.

itoshi rin:

rin isn't one to typically get drunk, he's not even one to have maybe more than three shots of alcohol at most. but tonight, he went completely overboard. maybe the drinks just tasted good, maybe he had lost his mind. not the matter of how he got drunk, but he was stumbling into your shared apartment when you just barely saw you peeking through your bedroom door through his blurry eyes.

"rin, are you okay..?" you murmured, slowing walking towards him. "mm, 'm fine, were you sleeping?" even if he was on the verge of passing out, rin was one of those guys who was able to maintain his composure. he didn't like how he felt, so he stride towards the kitchen, aching for a glass of water. "was waiting for you, did you drink, rin?" he turned around to see you standing there waiting for him.

"mhm, sorry, don't know what got over me. wait in the room for me, i'll be in there soon." he replied, turning back around to put his glass in the sink, but when he shifted back, he could still see you waiting his in peripheral vision. "what are you waiting for, [name]?" rin asked, still feeling the horrible effects of the alcohol continuing to flow through his blood stream. "i told you, 'm waiting for you." you knew that if you went back, he would fall asleep on the nearby couch, heck even fall and just pass out on the floor, he was drunk out of his mind.

"alright, c'mon let's go." he slowly trailed behind you, the cold air hitting him in the face when he realized he feels way too hot. rin slowly discards his jacket and his shirt, moving to lie down with you. but the one thing he couldn't help but notice is that you didn't make direct eye contact with him, your eyes are averted in every direction except his, why is that? maybe the reason he hated alcohol so much is because of what it does to him. he wants your attention, he craves for your touch, it's weird to him.

so rin extends his arm towards you, he has a hold on your waist before you're too close to him. "what's wrong..?" he examines you, how you're still not looking into his eyes. "look at me, why aren't you looking at me honey?" he's surprised that it does the trick, because your eyes are finally in his direct field of view, and his heart melts. "nothin', just thought you might have wanted to sleep, so didn't wanna' bother you." you answered shyly, realizing now that he wanted nothing more than you. it's silent for a bit, just the both of you in each other's embrace, lying down in the dark.

"mm, you don't bother me, you know that?" he starts, rin doesn't realize that all of sudden he's rambling to you. "i say you shouldn't be nervous but the truth is.. i'm always a bit nervous around you. we've been together for a while but.. i don't know.. i just.. always want to know more about you. it drives me insane sometimes, 'cause i don't usually care about people like that. but for you i just-" he's pulling you closer into your chest, noticing how your grip tightens on him as he continues speaking. "i just want to know every tiny detail about you. i notice the small things about you. the way your smile goes slightly down, you touch the tip of your eyes when your embarrassed, and you always touch the same spot-" he intertwines his hands with yours, rubbing over the spot he's just about to mention. "you always touch the same spot of your hand when you're focused. i pay attention to those things because i care about you, i hope you knew that."

"rin.." you whisper, it's all you could physically verbalize. but all you could feel were the hot tears you were spilling onto his chest. you felt guilty, quickly trying to wipe them away, but he looked down to hush your sobs. "'m sorry, didn't wanna make you cry. i meant it though, even if i don't say it much." it's undeniable that you just want to be even closer to him than humanely possible, you wouldn't dare think of even letting him go for a second after that. "i think you should get drunk more often," which dragged a small string of chuckles from you two. "being drunk sucks, but we can compromise and i'll try and tell you how much i love and want to be with you more, yea?" rin shared, fumbling over his words. yep, still definitely drunk.

"mhm, go to sleep now, 'kay?" you acknowledged, content with how tonight turned out to be. "you go to sleep too, i love you." and rin let himself pass out in the comfort of your presence. not only until a few moments later could you say 'i love you' back, but he was secretly waiting to fall asleep until he heard confirmation of your feelings.

[marvelouslizzie]

No One Else Matters

Summary: Things between you and Bucky Barnes have been going great until an Avengers dinner party reminds you of that one night you spent with Steve Rogers. Now you are afraid that the meaningless past hook-up might jeopardize your future with Bucky.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Word Count: 4.1K

Warnings: 18+ NSFW MINORS DNI, secret relationship, alcohol consumption but no one is drunk, semi-public sex, unprotected p in v (on birth control and clean), begging, pet names, dirty talk, mentions of past hook up with Steve Rogers, eavesdropping, no mention of y/n

A/N: Another random idea that turned into a one-shot thanks to my amazing friends. Thank you so much @notafunkiller for beta-reading and editing. Also, some lines belong to her because she helped shape the story and I appreciate it a lot!

This story isn't any form of Steve Rogers hate. I just wanted to write a story like this and it wouldn't work with anyone else besides Steve. If you don't want to read a story where Steve is a past hook-up that didn't work out well, please stay away from the story.

All work is mine, please do not repost or translate without my permission. 

Every like, comment, and reblog is highly appreciated. Don’t hesitate to message me. I would love to answer questions or start a conversation as long as it doesn't include any kind of hate.

Read more tag starts after the first paragraph of the story.

Coming to this Avengers dinner might have been a big mistake. Essentially you were looking forward to this night because it had been a while since you saw your co-workers. Some are more like friends than co-workers, but working for SHIELD keeps everyone busy. Small events like this help people to get together, catch up and maybe plan other stuff for the future, but tonight feels somewhat different.

You were enjoying yourself until you saw Bucky and Steve casually chatting on the other side of the room. That doesn’t happen very often and it reminds you of things you'd rather not think about. Things that happened years ago. Like that one time, you hooked up with Steve. It was buried so deep into your memory, you simply forgot about it and it’s not like you see Steve that often. Occasionally, his team asks for your help and you try to do your best. And you have been nothing but friendly to each other since that night. You remember him taking it pretty well when you said you’d rather stay friends with him. He probably wasn’t looking for a relationship anyways.

It was before everyone found out HYDRA was nesting inside SHIELD for years. He was simply the golden boy. The first Avenger who unexpectedly returned. A savior. Everyone was in awe of him and tried to be their best version. It felt like a fairytale came true.

The problem is whenever people make an idol of someone expectations go over the roof. And when you meet that person, see what they are like up close, you just notice he’s just like anyone else. Even though they didn’t do anything wrong or bad, it still feels somehow disappointing.

He was different than what you expected him to be. You noticed that pretty quickly and decided to keep things professional. It worked out amazingly until… now. You look around, trying to calm yourself down, keeping that memory to yourself because this is definitely not the time to bring it up.

**

When the dinner finally starts, it turns out to be a good distraction. You chat with whoever is around you about recent missions, the latest gossip, and things SHIELD is planning to do in the near future. But your eyes keep wandering towards Bucky, who is seated across the table. It’s a huge relief to see Steve and him aren’t seated together or even close to each other. Everyone knows they used to be good friends, but that’s not the case anymore. Since Bucky is back to himself and started to work for SHIELD, things went downhill for their friendship. They slowly drifted apart.

You try hard not to glance back at him again, but he’s looking at you. That makes things even harder. You notice how his lips form a small smile whenever your eyes meet and how he tries to play it off as something he did because of his conversation. But you know his smile is caused by you and even though you don’t want to accept that, it melts your heart a little more.

After the dessert is served, people start to focus on their drinks more. Different groups are forming, and when you want to take check on Bucky, he quickly tilts his head to the right, signaling you to leave the room and meet him. You look around to see if anyone noticed, but no one’s focus is on you two. 

You do nothing but watch him discreetly walk away first, without waiting for an answer. He knows you will follow. And that’s exactly what you do: you place your empty glass on the counter and leave the room as subtly as he did. What you don’t notice is that someone actually has been watching you very closely.

You have no idea where Bucky went exactly, so you start to wander around, trying to guess where he’d choose to hide until he grabs you with his arm, pulling you inside an empty room before quickly locking the door.

“Bucky!” A half-yelp leaves your lips, but it’s muffled by his hand.

“It’s me,” he whispers against your ear before he starts to kiss your neck sloppily. “Relax.”

He doesn’t waste any time. His hands are everywhere on your body: grabbing your breasts over the clothes, squeezing your ass.

“I missed you.” His breathy whisper gives you goosebumps. 

“Oh, I missed you, too.” You grab his face with both of your hands and finally kiss him properly. He happily sighs and lets you take control. His lips are soft, tasting like bourbon, which surprises you because he is usually a beer kind of guy. Maybe he decided to try something different tonight since he isn’t the one paying. 

That reminds you of the party and everyone inside. Including Steve Rogers. Bucky’s ex-best friend. And that make the anxious feeling in your gut returns. You need to tell him about what happened between you and Steve. Even if you’re afraid that it would change everything between you two. But you aren’t ready to lose him. Not when you’ve just started to realize how strong your feelings are for him.

He doesn’t fail to notice the shift in your mood. You aren’t as present in the kiss as if you have something on your mind. He stops kissing you unexpectedly, making you give him a confused look.

“Are you okay?” He sounds genuinely concerned.

You take a deep breath. Maybe it’s just better to tell him now and get it over with. What’s the point of delaying the inevitable?

“I gotta tell you something.”

You see how his concern grows even more. His expression is serious and full of worry.

“Do you want to break this off? Is that what it is?” 

God, the way he asked that question just hurts something inside you. He sounded so broken, so afraid.

“No, no! Of course not.” You quickly clear the air, leaving no space for any kind of misunderstanding. “But you might wanna break things off with me after I tell you… this.” 

You can see how your words confuse him. He squints, trying to understand what you are talking about and coming up with a reasonable explanation. You know whatever he’ll think about won’t be even close to the reality, but you didn’t expect his response either.

“Are you pregnant? Is that why you are nervous?” His hand caresses your cheek as he asks you. “You know I wouldn’t leave you for something like that, right? We can do whatever you want. It’s totally up to you.” 

No, you aren’t pregnant. That’s not even a possibility. You’ve been on birth control even before you two started to have sex. Still, hearing his soft-spoken words makes you melt inside. 

“No, baby, I’m not pregnant.” 

You both take a breath after eliminating another possibility. He looks at you fora few seconds, trying to decide if he should say it or not.

“Is it about you dating Steve?”

Words can’t describe how surprised you are. Questions flood your mind instantly. How much does he know? When did he find out? Who told him? And dating? No, you definitely did not date Steve Rogers. God, you have so many questions to ask. You don’t know where to start. 

“You know about that.” It comes out more like a question than a statement. The shock is so clear in your voice. 

“Of course, I know.” 

“How? When?” The questions come out one after another and make him smile a little. You stop yourself from asking even more and decide to make one thing clear. “And I did not date him. It was a one-time thing.”

“Oh.” He sounds surprised. Maybe he thought it was more serious, but if so why didn’t he bring it up before?

“When did you find out?” You have to know. 

“Not so long ago.”

“Who told you?” 

“Sam. He thought there was some kind of tension between you two, but I couldn’t see it. So he explained.” He doesn’t sound like it bothers him much, which is relieving.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I could ask you the same.”

He’s right. He can ask the same question. Your answer is simple, though.

“I actually forgot it happened.” Is he really smiling? “It wasn’t that memorable to me.” 

“That bad, huh?” 

You can’t help but laugh. God, you love him so much. You were worried sick about how he would react and here he is joking about it.

“Do you want an actual answer?” You finally ask. 

“Yeah, sure.” He doesn’t seem to mind.

“It was okay.” 

Now it’s his turn to laugh. “So it was bad.” 

“Like I said, not memorable.” You choose to repeat. You don’t wanna disrespect him that much, but you don’t even remember much about it. That was one of the reasons you wanted to stay friends anyway.

“Doll, it’s fine.” He finally decides to answer you seriously.

“So you don’t mind?” 

“It was way before us. It’s not my place to judge you for it.” 

That’s a huge relief. You were so worried he would just choose some kind of bro code over you but no. He chose you. You breathe out with a smile on your face.

“And if someone is gonna get judged for their past, it’s not gonna be you.”

You instantly frown because you understood immediately what he meant by it.

“That’s not the same thing. I chose to hook up with him. You didn’t choose to get brainwashed.”

“Yeah, of course, but I am the one who killed those people.”

“Bucky, no.” You touch his chest, trying to comfort him without realizing it. “Don’t go there. Please. That’s not a fair comparison.” You want him to be free of this guilt. He’s trying to redeem himself so hard, it has to end somewhere.

“Fine.” He finally accepts it. “I don’t care about your past. I only care about your present and future. Is that better?” 

“Yes, it is better.” You wrap your arms around his neck and close the distance. “You are always so forgiving, yet you are so harsh to yourself.”

“As long as you are mine, I don’t care about anything.” 

That does it. An unexpected jolt of arousal overwhelms you. Suddenly, you don’t feel shy anymore. 

“Can you…” You try to collect your words. “Can you fuck me like you did the last time?” Asking that out loud feels a little weird. Maybe you should’ve drunk a bit more.

You watch as his eyes widen in response. Oh, he wants that as much as you do. No need to feel shy.

“Which position exactly?” He sounds so cheeky, but you can see his question is genuine. He needs additional info because it wasn’t a one-and-done.

“Against the wall.” You bit your lip, remembering how good it felt. So rough, yet so full of pleasure. You can’t help but shiver when you remember that orgasm.

“Fuck.” He surpasses a moan. “We have to be quiet, doll. Can you do that for me?” His voice is really low.

You eagerly nod in response. You aren’t sure if you can actually do it, but you will try your best if he’s going to do what you asked for. 

“God, I love you so much.” You can’t hold yourself back anymore. Hearing those words from him sparks something unstoppable inside you. Grabbing him by the face, you crash your lips against him. 

“I love you, Bucky.” You keep kissing him. “So much.” Your hands move south, unbuckling him as quickly as possible. 

Your movements are rushed but not sloppy. Like you did this a million times before. It feels familiar, but it doesn’t change how much you need him. Urgently. And he doesn’t seem to mind that your act as if you are in a hurry. When you finally unbutton his pants, they pool around his ankles, and that’s when he decides to lift you up. His hands stay under your ass while he presses you against the wall, your dress already curled up around your waist. 

“Are you ready for me, doll?” He asks with that voice he uses when he’s really aroused. It turns you on even more and you didn’t know that was possible.

“Yes.” You want him inside you so much. You need his lips on you. “Please, Bucky, I need you.”

“You do?” Oh, youknow this tone too well. He loves to tease you and make you talk more about what you want, and it’s always so rewarding. So you don’t hold back.

“Please, fuck me, I need your cock so badly.” Even though it’s dimly lit inside the room, you see the shift in his eyes. Your words are feeding some kind of primal need inside him. “I need you, baby, please. I’m so wet.”

“Let’s see if that’s true.” He holds you with one hand and aligns himself to your entrance with the other. You shouldn’t be surprised by how strong he is, but every time he manages to astonish you. He doesn’t even struggle to carry or hold you. When he finally thrusts inside you, a loud moan escapes your lips. The stretch is so fucking delicious. “Shh.” 

“Sorry, sorry.” You quickly try to apologize. “It just feels ssso good.” A low moan follows your words.

“You know I love to hear you, doll.” He starts moving. “I love how you always beg for more.” His free hand goes to your head, pushing a strand of hair back so he can see your face better. “But this time we need to keep it quiet. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“I’ll be good, I promise.”

That makes him smile. You wrap your hands around his neck again, wanting to be close to him. That’s when you both hear a sound really close to you. So close that you feel like it came right at the door. You both still for a second, listening to find out if someone is outside, but there’s no more sound. So that noise is long forgotten in a minute.

You don’t even care if someone is outside. You don’t care if someone hears you fucking. Bucky Barnes loves you. No one else matters. Your lips clash against his. It’s such a sloppy kiss, but you love every second of it. His hand moves to your neck, holding you in place as he starts to pound on you.

“Is this how you wanted it?” He keeps asking, wanting you to speak, but you can't. “Is it that good you went speechless?”

You nod eagerly.

“Come on, darling. Use your words.” He’s moving relentlessly, taking your breath away with each stroke.

“Yes.” You finally manage to say. “Oh god, yes.”

“Yes to what?” He taunts you. “Is that what you wanted or is it that good?”

“Both!” You say louder than you intended, then you remember you promised to be good and you lower your voice. “Yes to both!”

“Good girl.” His flesh hand travels to your neckline. He quickly pushes the straps of your dress down more, finally revealing your breasts. You aren’t wearing a bra, thanks to the padded dress. “God, look at you.” He marvels at you. “Such a pretty little doll. All mine.” 

His mouth latches on your right breast, sucking and biting it while he keeps moving. He knows how to use his mouth well everywhere. It makes everything so much better. You can feel that pleasure starts to bottle up, your abdomen tensing.

Oh, he truly knows how to get you there. He knows how much you love it when you two climax together. It feels heavenly… like you are in your own little world and there’s no one but him there. Nothing else matters. As your legs start to shake with overwhelming pleasure, you imagine going back inside, talking to others while his come is dripping out of you. No one would know what you two were up to. Not a single soul. It’s your little secret. The thought makes you moan a little bit louder. Your hands grip hard on his shoulders. 

Bucky moans right next to your ear. “God, you feel so good.” His hands are gripping hard on your ass. “I wish I can stay inside you forever. I don’t wanna move. I don’t wanna go anywhere else. I just wanna keep fucking you, until you beg me to stop.” Does he know what his words do to you? Does he notice how it amplifies your orgasm? Or does he just say whatever he wants to say? “I’m gonna come.” He warns you. “I’m gonna come, baby. I’m gonna come.” 

You ride your orgasms together, as he empties himself inside you. His head falls on your shoulder while he keeps holding you. His lips press against the crook of your neck. While you keep taking deep breaths, you can feel his heart racing. 

“Are you okay?” He asks while moving away enough to take himself out of you.

“Okay?” You question as he gently puts you on your feet. “I feel amazing.” 

You lift yourself on your tiptoes and give him a full wet kiss. 

“Now I believe you.” He gives you a little smile that only makes you want to kiss him again.

“I’ll be louder when we go home so you won’t have an ounce of doubt.”

“Yours or mine?” His question comes instantly.

“I don’t care.” You really don’t. All you want is him. Where, when, and how are just details.

He helps you shape your hair back to normal while you pull the stripes up. Your underwear is a mess and you are dripping out already. Bucky takes a napkin out of his pocket and kneels in front of you. He gently pushes the serviette between your folds, cleaning you up enough so you can go back inside. 

“Thank you.” You love it when he takes care of you like this. “But you know that won’t be enough. I will keep dripping all night.” 

“I’m counting on that.” You can see on his face how much that thought excites him. “Keep dripping onto your underwear while talking to others. Remember what we did here. Imagine what we will do later.” He stands up while you fix your dress and you realize that you can’t wait to leave this party already.

“You have such a dirty mouth. I love it.” You grab his face with one hand and just force him to kiss you. Not that you can actually force him to do anything, but he lets you anyway. “Come on. Let’s go back.”

**

It’s been a while since you returned to the party. Everything seems normal. No one even realized you were absent. No one is suspecting anything. That encourages you to look around for Bucky. When your eyes meet, he gives you a teasing smile while casually chatting with Sam.

The whole night you didn’t say a word to him. Not around other people. But you don't see any reason to keep avoiding him. Everyone knows you two are friendly. So you decide to walk over and chat a little.

“Oh, look who remembered us!” Sam jokes as soon as he notices you.

“Hello to you too, Sam.” You don’t mind his teasing. “Good to see you missed me.”

“Hey.” Bucky raises his beer bottle to casually greet you. He probably got tired of the bourbon.

“How are you, fellas?”

“Oh you know, missions and drinks. Same stuff,” Bucky answers your question. 

“Nothing new?” You tease him, just to see how he would react.

“Nope. Just little old me doing the same things.”

“Really, I keep telling him to go on a date or something but no. He prefers this misery instead.”

You try to surpass a smile forming on your lips, well aware of the exact reason why he’s declining the offer.

While you’re staring at each other, Sam notices Steve on the other side of the room and raises his hand. 

“Hey, Rogers!”

That’s definitely the last thing you need tonight, but there’s no way you can stop Sam. Steve joins your group in a couple of seconds, but for some reason, he looks… kinda miserable.

“You alright, man?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” He absently answers. “I’m fine. Feeling a bit under the weather.”

“Maybe that super serum is finally wearing off.” Sam jokes and it manages to make Steve smile for a second.

“How are you all?” Steve asks while looking at the whole group, but his eyes stay on you for a bit longer than the rest.

“Oh, we are fine. We were talking about the lack of Mr. Barnes’s dating life.”

God, he isn’t going to let that go, is he? 

“Speaking of dating…” Sam continues while taking his phone off. “I met this guy the other day and he’s perfect for you!” Is he talking to you? He shows you a photo of this blonde guy who honestly looks alright, but he’s practically a stranger. “He’s a good guy and he fits your type. I can give your his number if you want.”

“What the fuck, Sam?” Your response makes the rest laugh. “You are playing matchmaker now?”

“I mean… someone gotta do it and I was hoping you would find someone to return the favor for me.”

You look at Bucky just to see he’s kind of enjoying this while Steve looks thoughtful for some reason.

“That’s definitely not my type.”

“Really?” Sam side-eyes Steve for a second to see his reaction, but it’s like he already knew that. 

“And I am already seeing someone, so…”

“Wait a second!” Sam sounds surprised. “You are seeing someone? Since when?”

“Why are you so surprised? You thought I would inform you about my love life or something?” Bucky is laughing quietly on the side, and Sam looks a little uncomfortable.

“I don’t know. I thought you were single. You are already off the market, huh?”

Bucky subtly nods to his last comment but doesn’t say anything.

“Yeah, it seems so.” You put your drink on the nearest surface and stretch your neck a little. 

“Tired?” Bucky asks this time.

“Yes. I’m thinking about leaving. Maybe I should call an Uber or something.” You make a move to take your phone out.

“Actually… I was considering the same thing. I can drop you home, you can save up the money.”

“Really?” You didn’t expect him to offer to leave with you. Usually, one of you leaves first and the other follows, but maybe after tonight's events, he decided that there’s no reason to hide anymore. “Sure, that'd be great.”

You see Sam rolling his eyes. “There go hours of effort.”

“You wanted to leave before?” It’s obvious you are talking to Bucky.

“No, not really, but he assumes that and tries to talk me into staying every time.” You start to laugh. It’s not hard to imagine why Sam thinks he’d rather be somewhere else.

“Sorry, Sam, but we are old. Apparently we need more sleep.” You are mocking yourself and Bucky at the same time, wondering how he’ll react.

“He is old, but you… not so much.”

“My soul is old and that’s enough.” You raise both of your hands and wave a goodbye. “Anyways, time to go. Good to see both of you.” Your thumbs and index fingers move around like two guns pointed at Sam and Steve.

“Good night,” Bucky simply adds.

While you two quietly walk away, Sam is already suspecting something is up.

“Did I drink too much or is there something going on between them?” Sam asks when you are far enough not to hear it.

“They are together.” Steve tries to sound as casual as possible.

“Wait! Really?” He thought something was just blooming between you two, not a full on relationship. “How do you know?”

“I heard them.” Steve notices how it sounds and quickly adds: “Talking.”

“And you are okay with that?”

“Yeah, sure.” That doesn’t sound convincing at all. “It’s not my place to say anything. It was never that serious.” He isn’t sure if he’s trying to convince Sam or himself. “I mean… I think she’d want to get serious, but she talked about staying friends and I jumped on the opportunity and agreed because I didn’t want a relationship.”

Sam nods. “Well, good for them I guess. They seem like a good match.”

“They really do.”

[mithosis]

Haven't posted in a good while, but seeing other folks enjoy talking and making content about their little blorbos inspired me to draw something i wanted to for a long time as well!

I've had this old man for almost a year, but i've never got to draw his true form as a mordrem aside from vague sketches, so he got kreature-fied. Blasts him with my kreature beam

Glow animation, some silly sketches and lore (warning: there is a lot, like seriously, even in vague terms, i probably should've made a separate post, but fuck it we ball) under the cut!

Tumblr scrunched it up, as always, but the gif was worse...

Even old men need to be silly sometimes. Also reworked his smaller "sylvari" form design a little to match the kreature one better

Onto the lore (which i reworked a little as well since his creation)

I am a sucker for characters that perceive themselves as monsters and learn to love themselves again, whether or not they're are actually a monster/cursed/etc (it does add points for sure), and i wanted a character like that, so this old man came along

As of now, Eamhrys is a mordrem minion, champion from the last Dragonrise 10 thousand years ago, though he remembers almost nothing about it now. He was intended as a specialized unit for highly efficient magic consumption both from the environment, magical items and living beings that it then returned to the Elder Dragon himself, much like Mouths of Zhaitan worked in that regard.

This resulted in a vampire-like physicality and abilities, including a nigh-immortality with extremely fast regeneration as long as the minion had enough magical essence. Shapeshifting into a smaller size to fit through vines and branches and plant manipulation was useful in traversing the jungle fast, so he was imbued with that as well. There probably were less successful versions of the same minion, but this one, charged with a huge amount of Mordremoth's magic, stuck around. Energy around the "tendrils" on his form is, in fact, magic — the swirls dull and disappear with its depletion.

As the dragons consumed all the excess magical energy of the world and returned to slumber, so did the minion, for there was no need for it anymore in the state the world was in, the other races safely concealed by Glint.

It rested for a long time, its memories eroding, until the tail end of the druids' residence in Maguuma as humans, some time before their approximate "disappearance" period of 970-1070 AE. Upon waking up because of the disturbances in the jungle, the minion resumed the task it was given, though the will and voice of the sleeping dragon was significantly more subdued this time.

The minion roamed around and consumed as much energy as it could for a number of years, meeting and snacking on different creatures until a fateful encounter with druids, their human forms now shredded to be one with nature. The champion was both curious and drawn in by the magical essence they exuded, and tried to absorb it, but ended up fighting the spirits — it quickly escalated into numerous hostile encounters with them, their primal essence slowly changing something in the minion over time. To this day Eamhrys doesn't know what happened exactly, as most of his memories that far back were mysteriously wiped out, but from that point onward he slowly started to become more self-aware, able to question and doubt the will of his master.

The minion's first venture out of the jungle didn't happen for at least another 10 years, but during that time it's curiosity with other races started to pique as it encountered centaurs, hylek and even some errant human adventurers who ventured too deep into the forest. Although their fate remained the same as other sources of magic, their presence spurred the champion to explore further — and one day it morphed itself into a smaller form of a centaur scout, whose patrol it recently wiped out in the Silverwoods (currently Silverwastes), though still plant-like. It took a couple unsuccessful tries before the disguise was enhanced first by an extremely uncanny, then — a believable illusion, the rudimentary ability to camouflage the minion possessed. Thankfully, the dragon's will waned the further it got from the jungle.

Thus began centuries of wandering Tyria, changing forms between races and creatures, curious to learn, to see, and starting to slowly recognize the role their existence played in the world. They witnessed many devastating and world-altering events along the way, the Sinking of Orr being one of the first — and it kickstarted the mordrem's understanding of the sheer devastation the dragons' presence brought, including their own. However, they were not very sympathetic at the time.

It was only through the very people they hid among, learned from, that their lack of morality began to develop into their calm, compassionate and kind attitude of today, having witnessed other creature's highs and lows, and horrors of losing someone dear.

Eamhrys lived among humans for the longest time among all other races, both from Central Tyria and as far as Elona, always in a disguise — he learned the craft and knowledge preservation from firebrands of old, but only incorporated their fighting style into his arsenal years later, after Mordremoth's inevitable defeat.

He joined the Durmand Priory a couple decades after it was established, driven by the allure of knowledge and longing for connection. He helped rebuild Lion's Arch, the first major city he visited long before, after it flooded as Orr rose again and Zhaitan awoke. He was first in line to visit the Grove once he heard of a mysterious new race of plant people — though he kept a substantial distance for the few weeks he spent observing the newcomers. He was afraid they were like him at the start of his journey, but was pleasantly surprised once he was proven wrong. Inexplicably different to them, mourning the life he might've had if the circumstances were different, he still abandoned his human visage for his "sylvari" one, and adopted his current name for good.

As a member of the Durmand Priory, though having repeated his enrollment a few times, Eamhrys participated in the Pact efforts to kill the Elder Dragon Zhaitan, both conflicted about and understanding of it — his own nature and eventual fate concerned him a little as well.

When the Call of Mordremoth first resounded across the world, all that effort to belong and understand crumbled as the will of the dragon overrode any miniscule resistance he had. He returned to the jungle as a servant, an enemy of the world again, devastating the populace there and, later, the Pact's forces. He was, indeed, not slain in the assault, and as soon as Mordremoth perished, he was free again, though part of the magical surge after the dragon's death was absorbed by him involuntarily.

Eamhrys remembered everything he did, and was mortified. He tried so hard to understand, to belong in such a fascinating world, and in the end his greatest fear was confirmed — he remained the same monster he always was. At least in his opinion.

He never really forgave himself, for he was not the one to do so, but, maybe compulsory or as a habit, he retreated back to his peaceful and compassionate self, now with an air of quiet grief around him, throwing himself at people that needed any help.

Though it didn't change the fact that he ran as far from the Heart of Maguuma as he could, winding back in Elona and finally remembering the ways of firebrands, lore keepers a tyrant tried to erase. He adapted it to fit his own style, fused his plant magic with righteous flames that purged any, who dared threaten the people of this world, and healed allies with a memory of those who fought for it.

He never came back to Durmand Priory, but eventually he met a team of people in the desert after Kralkatorrik's assault that were members of the Order of Whispers. They were professional and inspiring and in need of help, so he tagged along on their mission, familiar with the area. Perhaps they valued his insight or his help enough, but Eamhrys ended up joining their team and their Order, and carried out tasks with them for the foreseeable future, slowly becoming a part of something again.

Thankfully, after the Cycle ended, he had a good vacation.

Aaaand that's it, woah, this was a lot, sorry, and thank you anyone who read this far haha, i love you

[caitas-cooing]

"Being able to revive Chidori and save Shinjiro in FemC's route goes against the themes of persona 3" is a take a see a lot, but it's never been one I personally agree with.

Death is a big part of persona 3, but the inevitability of death is not the only thing persona 3 is about. This game is about death and loss and how nothing last forever, but it's also about life and love and the importance of making the most out of life. It's about how it's worth making connections with people even if parting with them is inevitable. It's about how fighting for the things that you believe in is worth it even if you can't save it forever. Even if you save Chidori and Shinjiro it doesn't change the fact that death is inevitable, in Shinji's case he is still going to die sometime soon unless they can speedrun research that undoes the effects of the suppressants that he's been taking which seems highly unlikely. Yet they were still saved today, and that matters.

Another thing I think people don't take into account a theme that all modern persona games share and that is that the connections that you form with other people can make you stronger, or to put it a different way the power of friendship is just as much a thing here as it is in a Kingdom Hearts game. Persona 4 is probably the most obvious with this ("bonds of people is the true power" is literally text the appears on screen after the ending sequence in the persona 4 anime I don't think you spell it out any clearer than that) but it's a theme in all 3 games and it's something that appears in both the gameplay and narrative, from the way social links and confidants increase the amount personas level up when you fuse them, the confidants abilities in persona 5, the way visions of your maxed out confidants appear in front of the protags at the end of 3 and 4 and urge you to keep going just a little bit longer. They are what help to form the great seal. They help Yu and Joker defeat the gods and in their games (and also his therapist that one time). This is just another instance of that. If you seek or Shinjiro and form a social link with him despite his rough exterior not only do you get stronger but you also gain the ability to stop his death. It's not easy, maxing out a social link in a month is something you have to be deliberate about, and the game doesn't tell you where to find the pocket watch. It's something you have to go out of your way to get, but if you do it anyway you can impact the ending of this arc of the story in a positive way.

I think Junpei and Chidori's situation is an even cooler instance of the power that bonds can have in this universe because in this case the protag is not even directly involved in the relationship. They only give Junpei the push he needs to keep the relationship going even though Chidori is trying to pull her walls back up. All he need is to be encouraged not to give up and he keeps trying to keep that bond alive and strong all by himself, and because he took action and she kept reviving the flowers with her powers every time he showed up Chidori was able to not only be saved but also had the effects of the suppressants reversed. Things aren't 100% as they were before, Chidori no longer has the potential which means she only has a vague idea of the time she and Junpei spent together (and that makes sense as well because Medea fused with Hermes after she revived Junpei, so her persona is literally a part of his persona now she literally could not get it back) but she's alive, and she remembers the warmth and kindness of the time she and Junpei spent together even if the specific events are no longer there, and based on the way Junpei reacted to finding out I think that's enough for both of them. Junpei and Chidori relationship saved her beyond all odds because he went out of his way to keep the relationship strong and she still cared about him enough to keep reviving the flowers. One of the most powerful examples of the way connections can save others in a persona game to me.

[kaeichi]

love is in the air.

. . . and maybe that's why mikage reo can view the world with such clouded, pink-hued vision, and why nagi seishiro cannot breathe at all.

series. nagi + reader + reo. no gendered terms, but some implications of m! reader. reader likes boys. bestfriend! nagi. valentines/white day. highschool setting. swearing. humor. fluff & angst.

a/n. repost bc it wasnt showing up in tags T-T i js want a shoujo anime w these two as the MLs...

prev ┊ next ┊ 01 … 02 … 03

⊹ 01 : my dear partner [wc: 4.7k]

TWO YEARS AGO

“…dude. you're scaring all the hoes away.” 

nagi watches your lips move, though he barely registers anything you've been saying since he has stopped listening a while ago—which, honestly, comes as no surprise to anyone.

there’s no real reason to be so lethargic at this hour (it's already late noon, plus he surprisingly had a decent amount of sleep the previous night for once), nor the time to think about trivial things, but he can’t help but think about how exactly every single thing stopped being so bothersome like it used to.

he can't quite pinpoint what brought on this gradual change, but if he had to, then it’d probably be three springs ago—when he’d wake up a little earlier than usual to the gentle kiss of the sun through his window and the cherry blossoms were in perfect bloom. around that time is when he’d received his quiet companion choki, he’d finally scored top 1 in the leaderboards after months and months of grinding in his favorite mobile game, and… when you’d first sat next to him in middle school.

for as long as he remembers, you were simply just there. an unexpected oddity that has not only forced its way through, but has also wedged firmly into every aspect in his life. and somehow, he’d concluded that maybe some things weren't so bad—that some things weren't such a hassle to him after all.

“move, idiot. at this point you might as well hold my hand.” the snow-haired male barely hears your voice over his wandering thoughts, stumbling from the light shove you give him. he has now become acutely aware of your swinging hand, wary of the close proximity and the faint buzz of static that lingers on his skin. huh. maybe it is better to move away.

still, he’d rather not reposition himself. it’s too much work, he’d like to reason, and it's certainly not because of anything else… maybe. he doesn't really know for sure. what he does know though, is that the space beside him suddenly feels strangely empty. 

when he looks at you to see a pout forming on your lips, he can't help but sigh. you're being unreasonable. there's something that's been nagging his curiosity for a while now, and it took him quite a bit to realize what it is.

“seishirooo,” you whined one day, allowing your head to sink against his mattress, taking up nearly the whole space while nagi sits at the corner of the bed. you came over to his place that day to bother him, stating that you needed some comfort because apparently, “no one ever looks at me. i feel so damn invisible.” he shrugged and offered you his controller, challenging you to a 1v1 with him as a distraction.

“…but i look at you all the time?” he replied.

“yeah, but that's different.” and he would've asked you to elaborate more, if not for the fact that you've been horribly vague about it when he does ask, and the perpetually sleepy gamer only has so much patience before he gives up and decides it's something not worth spending his energy on.

besides, you're always emotional like that. this was probably just another one of your fleeting phases.

it's not until he notices you've been longingly gazing at the couples on the campus, quietly seething under your breath that it finally clicks. now, he may not have the greatest understanding when it comes to feelings and all its complexities, but even he can tell you’re reeking with jealousy.

despite being pushed off only seconds ago, nagi shuffles closer again as he falls into step beside you. even if sparks prick his skin, it feels right in this way. “dunno why you ‘need’ hoes when you already have me.”

“just because i'm into guys doesn’t mean that i like you in that way,” you mutter, sending him an odd glance like you thought there’s something wrong with his head for even suggesting that. not knowing how to respond, he settles for staring right back without a word. 

“what's with that look? you know what i mean, seishiro.” you continue, averting your gaze from him. what look? he asks internally. “it's just, well, literally everyone is getting into relationships. and i know we're still first years, but… it just feels like i’m missing out, y’know? 

“do you really? sounds like a hassle to me,” he shrugs, and it truly does—he never saw the appeal of dumb crushes, of drama nearly every day, of possible unrequited “love,” or of wasting half your time and energy on someone just for it to not mean anything at all in the end. video games sound way more fun, and way less heartbreak inducing.

“you can't say that when you haven’t even experienced it,” you argue, still pouting.

“it’s overrated anyways. being single is better.”

“hah! of course you’d say that, you virgin.” 

“you’re one to talk,” nagi boredly quips. “i’m celibate purely by choice, but you on the other hand… if you really think about it, you're basically an incel.”

nearly choking on your spit, you exclaim, “hah?!”

“you don't even really talk to other guys except for me, and on top of that, you're barely approached by anybody,” he explains in a matter-of-fact tone, oblivious to the way his best friend’s confidence waning rapidly by the second the more he speaks.

“yeah? and who’s fault is it, you cockblocker!” 

nagi simply sticks a tongue out as you flip him off.

right after that, the two of you ended up breaking into a sprint as you heard the clicking sound of heels walking on the tiles around the corner, not wanting to get caught for skipping classes. well, you ran, and just dragged him by the wrist. he felt the warmth of your fingers even through the thick barrier of his baggy sleeve.

PRESENT

you try not to trip and fall face first as a cold hand guides you through the crowded hallway.

it's embarrassing enough as it is to be rushing through the middle of the corridor and pushing past the bodies of random students like you're a main character or some sort, but even more so when the (apparently) most popular guy of the campus that you’ve (never) seen is walking right in front of you.

and it gets even more humiliating when said popular guy has taken hostage of your wrist, leading you away to a more secluded area. shocked, harsh whispers echo throughout nearly the whole floor, and multiple eyes shoot daggers at the fingers wrapped around the sleeve of your uniform, and you’ve never wanted to bury yourself alive more than this moment.

after rounding a corner into a miraculously empty hallway, you finally skid to a stop, yanking your hand away, ready to pounce at the culprit who made you go through all that unnecessary attention. however, before you can get a word in, the refined male bows his head low in front of you, and you find yourself face-to-face with sleek purple locks.

“i’m sorry, but i have no time for dating. i’m really flattered, though. i hope we can stay friends still.” he hurriedly says, hope gleaming in his matching purple eyes.

…what. 

who is he again? and why is he rejecting you?

for some reason, you find the stranger’s gaze too bright that you have to look away; so you do exactly that, tilting your chin downwards instead and letting your hair mask your expression.

after a few beats of silence, he clears his throat. “i'm really sorry, it hurts me to see you look so down… i’m sure we can put this behind us and—”

“nice shoes,” you interrupt, still not raising your head to meet his now confused stare. “i can tell you really love wearing them, judging by the busted, worn out stitches. hey, is it just me or is that prada logo kinda wonky too?”

the male's jaw drops down nearly all the way to the floor.

“pardon me?” he says through gritted teeth, keeping his composure by flashing his usual award-winning smile, albeit a lot more stiffer. “i know i just rejected you, but you don't have to be so hostile…” 

when you finally raise your head, your expression can only be described as terribly and solemnly unamused, unimpressed beyond words.

then, you suddenly lean closer, peering closely into his violet irises with thoughtful hum. an unwilling flush of red creeps on the tips of the boy’s ears, his eyes widening comically at the sudden intrusion of space. “you’ll do,” nodding to yourself, you now grab his wrist and pull him away. “come.”

“w-wait, huh? where are we go—” 

“you're the one who made me late. let's go!”

reo isn't quite sure why he's the one being dragged away now.

he has only initially planned to gently turn down the person who last confessed to him, whose family just so happened to be related to his father’s business partners—but now he somehow finds himself on a whole date with that person? (the same one who brazenly insulted him by implying his shoes are fake, by the way!)

“i have other plans today, you know…” the heir says, subtly trying to inch away from you.

you tug him back by his sleeve, with twice as much force than he had used on you earlier. “i can imagine, my dear partner.”

“w-what?” reo stutters, and he's cringes at himself for how he's acting at the moment. the usually composed and charming mikage reo, now reduced to a stuttering and blushing mess? how embarrassing.

“normally my best friend would do this with me, but he slept in today.” leave it to seishiro to leave me all alone on the day that actually matters, you irritatedly mutter under your breath. “well, whatever. come on.”

as you and him enter the packed bubble tea shop, the fingers that were wrapped around his sleeve slides down to interlace with reo’s own clammy ones. he realizes this a second too late, and before he has the chance to let go, the clerk by the entrance greets them with an enthusiastic “welcome, lovebirds!”

“huh?!” reo’s jaw slackens, dumbfounded. he’s really starting to hate himself now—it's unbecoming of him, really, but it's hard to process everything when you're so close to him that the scent of your shampoo keeps invading his senses and subsequently messing with his head.

“here’s your special tickets for today. thank you for participating, and happy valentines!” you drag him straight to the back, where the colorful claw machines are set up. reo catches a glimpse of the pink posters set up on the walls of the quaint shop, which reads: couples get free special tickets! today only! …ah. that's why he's here.

“aoi-san… you're gripping too tight,” he says, gritting his teeth together into a forced smile. 

“aoi?” you repeat, your grip finally loosening until you let go entirely. “huh… i see. by the way, what's your name again?”

needless to say, the purple-haired male is beyond perplexed. “is this your unique attempt at a joke or something?”

“come on, rich boy. we've held hands and i don’t even know your name!” 

“right… which i totally wasn't being forced to do…” he lets out an awkward laugh. sure, some admirers of his tend to get a tad excessive, but they were never able to get far with him, much less forcibly drag him out on a date—and it's not even because they want him to spend his unlimited budget on them and spoil them rotten, but just so they can get… a free special ticket for a claw machine. how did he end up getting in this bizarre situation? more importantly, how does he get out?

you simply shrug. “your fault, rich boy. you should try thinking about anyone other than yourself for once.”

“excuse me?” he narrows his eyes, slightly peeved. he's had enough of your rude attitude; potential business partner or not, he hopes that he never has to interact with you again in the future. “stop calling me that. i have a name, and it's mikage reo.”

the way your eyes widen doesn't go unnoticed by him. “and what did you even mean by that?” he presses defensively.

you plop down on the seat, with reo mirroring you as you insert the rouge ticket decorated with pink hearts into the slot of the claw machine. “well, mikage reo. i’m sure you're aware how aoi’s family is important, right?”

yeah, this person is definitely a weirdo, reo muses. who refers to themselves in third person?

“i heard they had connections everywhere… just like you. it's crucial to maintain a good relationship with someone like that, right?” you conclude—that would explain why reo had taken the time to personally talk to “aoi” one-on-one instead of just flat out rejecting them on the spot.

reo tilts his head to the side. “i’m not following…?”

“mikage.” you emphasize, looking at him straight in the eye before turning your attention back to playing. “i’m saying that the poor kid’s still waiting for an answer. your heartfelt and sincere rejection, to be exact.”

a few seconds of silence pass. well, as silent as it can be with the loud chattering of the crowd and the mechanical whirrs of the claw machine you're currently messing with resounding in the air.

“you mean, you're not…” reo trails off, all color draining from his face. “i’m so, so sorr—”

“aoi’s the one you should apologize to, not me. oh, i got a double! how lucky.” you eagerly grab the prize, the limited edition valentine’s merch exclusive to this boba shop; a plushie collectible that comes with a redeemable code for your favorite video game. you want to collect all of them, but you’re broke as hell and you’re only here due to the free ticket. turning to reo, you shove the second plushie to his chest. “here, this is for you. since you did help me out with getting these.”

“ah, thank you…” reo absentmindedly accepts the small toy, still reeling on how he could make such a careless mistake. “listen, i do apologize—”

“i wonder how'd you even mix us up. is it ‘cause we have the same hair color?” you ask, slightly amused because aside from that, you and aoi look nothing alike. your fingers tap on the surface of the control panel, observing reo’s shame-stricken visage. “or maybe… is it because everyone just looks the same to you?”

at that moment, mikage reo realizes two things: (1) maybe he's more transparent and vulnerable than he thinks, and (2) you're dangerous, and it's better to stay far, far away from you. how could you see right through him so quickly? what if that's something you'll use against him?

he doesn't like to admit it, but it's true—in his perspective, everyone's the same. they're just after him for money and status, and at some point, they've all just become faceless, superficial pawns vying for his attention.

and of course, you’re no exemption.

noticing he’s gone quiet, you continue, “but i guess if my world was as vast as yours, i couldn't possibly keep up with everything either, so i get it. i’m not saying i’m in the same situation as you, but i can kind of relate, i guess. i only keep the ones who's important to me close, and the rest just exist and do whatever. i’m selective, but in that way, at least i can give my all to the ones that really matter.”

reo closes his mouth shut. here you are casually saying that you don't matter to him, and while that isn't a lie in the slightest, he still can't help but feel guilty. maybe it's just the people-pleaser in him, or maybe it’s the way the corners of your lips are slightly quirked up and to form a miniscule, accepting smile, but he wants to reassure you, “still, i’m sure you feel that—”

“i don’t.” you don't mind that he didn't know you, because you didn't even know him either—there’s no reason for you to take it personal. you’d be a hypocrite otherwise. “i really don’t.”

you smile at him. he thinks it's out of understanding, but unbeknownst to him you're actually just entertained by how his inner turmoil is so clearly reflected on his expression. “so don’t worry about it. plus, we’re even now.” you add, gesturing towards the prize.

hopping off the stool, you wave at him as you start to walk away. “...happy valentines. i'll see you around, mikage. maybe. er, probably not.”

“wait!” he hurriedly jumps off the stool as well, clutching the plushie in his hand as he follows after you. “i… let me drive you home.” the words stumble out before he even realizes what he's saying. you're probably just using him, and you're dangerous, and you see right through him, and he should stop wasting his time because his actual valentine's date is probably three seconds away from storming out the restaurant he's booked at—

so why is he doing this?

“drive?” you repeat, because of course he’d have a driver. damn rich people, you think internally. “nuh uh. it's like a ten minute walk, and i’d rather save the environment.”

“then i’ll walk with you.”

“you do realize i’m done dragging you for the day, right?” you quirk a brow up, amused; you could've sworn he was itching to get the hell away half an hour ago. “you're free. you can go home if you want.”

reo smiles, a more genial one this time. “i know.”

“so, you into popular guys now?” 

“hell no.”

nagi narrows his eyes at you. “you’re just into reo, then?” 

while you expected to be grilled first thing in the morning by random people about your apparent relationship with mikage reo (to which you simply replied, “i don’t know who that is, sorry,” and proceeded to run away), you didn't expect to be interrogated by your apathetic best friend as well. 

usually, nagi prefers to be completely silent during the 1st period (and actually all the way through lunch), not bothering to utter more than a few words, but today, he seems uncharacteristically on edge, waiting for you at the corner of the gym with a wrinkle between his brows.

“why are you on a first name basis with him?”

“everyone calls him reo.” he shrugs. “why him?”

“i never said i was into him.”

“then what's all that partner thing about?” he asks, which confuses you a bit. you doubt that reo would go around announcing to everyone how you teasingly called him ‘partner’ and practically dragged him to a date against his will, but it's not like him and nagi are close either, so you wonder where nagi has heard this information from. then, you suddenly recall back to yesterday, where you saw the curtain of your neighbor’s bedroom window swinging side-to-side, as if it was drawn close a mere second before you looked up. 

it seems that your mind wasn't playing tricks with you after all, and that a certain someone was eavesdropping on your conversation with reo as he walked you to your door.

“fake partners, you mean? and it was a just a joke—i met him that day.”

“that day? why are you acting so close if you've just met that day?”

“you're awfully talkative today, seishiro.” 

“i know. it's making me exhausted, and it's all your fault.” he then presses his weight against you, leaning his forehead on your shoulder—as he always does when he's tired and you're within reach. your eyes widen immediately, darting around the gymnasium to see if any of your classmates has noticed.

you don't want people to get the wrong idea about you two. it's not because it kills your chances with anyone due to the assumption that you aren't single (which you still very much are, by the way), or even because of potential issues of being a two-timer due to a certain rich boy—it's just that whenever you get asked if you and your best friend are together, you can't help but flinch from the idea, like ice is being poured inside the back of your shirt. you don’t really know what to call it, but you do know that you've answered the question a hundred times and you're positively sick of it.

“i told you to stop doing this in public,” you hiss, trying to push the giant, clingy sloth off you. “and stop whining, nagi. i’m not going anywhere. besides, i’m not even looking for a relationship or anything like that. not after… you know, what happened during our first year.”

he lifts his head up, frowning at you. “don’t call me nagi. just ‘cause you met a new guy doesn't mean you get to call me nagi.” 

you raise an unimpressed brow. what’s his problem? “only if you stop whining.” 

“…‘m not.” he slurs his words together, only proving your point.

“yes you are!”

“why do you have to be so annoying? you're such a pain,” he sighs, now walking away from you.

“i'm the annoying one?! and don't call me a pain, you—!” without hesitation, you promptly snatch a red ball from the steel ball cart beside you before swinging your arm at him, slamming the dodgeball right to his head. well, you tried to, at least; even with his back facing towards you, nagi only takes one step to the side to avoid it.

“your shitty aim sucks balls,” the tall male comments unenthusiastically, his white fringe falling over his eyes as he gazes at you over his shoulder. his nonchalance only spurs you on, now hauling multiple dodgeballs at him.

“how about you suck my ba—”

“give it up already. you're never gonna hit me.” and nagi actually has the audacity to yawn mid-dodge. of course, it only fuels your irritation even more. you eventually run out of balls to throw, so you mindlessly grab the nearest object to your right and chuck that as well.

…which unfortunately, happens to be nagi’s phone that he's snuck inside the gym, peeking under a face towel on the bench.

“oh, fu—” 

because of your (rightfully) so-called shitty aim, it swung way up high to the left, a few steps away from nagi. in less than a second, he realizes what you have flung at him, and his body moves instinctively; he throws himself towards it, swinging his leg upward and trapping it with his foot with perfect ease before it has the chance to plummet down on the floor.

“why are you making me move so much…” he sighs. “what a pain.” 

“you’re supposed to move anyways, we're in PE. you're welcome,” you smugly reason out. and then not even a second later you fold, shoulders curling inwards as you glance toward his phone; if it weren't for his godly reflexes, you would've broken it. with a small voice, you meekly add, “sorry.”

nagi shrugs in response.

when he saunters over to place his phone on the bench again, a silver glint catches your eye. a small charm swings lightly, small beads of white and black strung haphazardly together attached to the side of his phone case.

“wait, this is…” a phone charm crafted by hand, which is your birthday present for him four years ago. “i didnt know you still had that.”

“why wouldn't i?”

“where was it this whole time? this wasn't here a few days ago.”

“i just kept it in my drawer ‘cause i don’t wanna lose it.”

tilting your head to the side, you ask, “so why'd you suddenly decide to attach it to your phone now?”

he looks away, scratching the back of his neck. “…dunno.” 

eyes dropping into slits, you mutter, “you know, that kinda sounds sus—”

“hey! that was amazing! nagi, right? you should play soccer with me!”

nagi and yourself both turn to the direction of the sudden voice, seeing a familiar figure running towards you, vivid purple eyes gleaming under the gymnasium’s stark white lights.

“mikage?” you exclaim.

ever so slightly, nagi sharpens his usual droopy eyes. “nah.” he immediately says, turning on his heel.

“seishiro? wait, weren't you supposed to be looking for a club?”

“don’t really care.” you follow him, lightly jogging to keep up. as soon as you catch up by his side, the taller male glances at you as he asks, “will you join too?”

is he seriously asking you that… “no?”

“then i won't.” nagi concludes as he continues to walk away from reo.

“hey, wait up!” reo calls out, placing a hand on your shoulder. “ah, i was completely shut down… say, will you help me convince him?”

your brows shoot up as your gaze flicks down where he's casually touching you. after your initial confusion of who he is yesterday, you then recognize him after learning his name—the most popular boy in school, known for his good looks, charisma, and most especially, his wealth. he gets along well with literally everyone, and acts genuinely close with them even if they aren't.

“uh, why should i?”

“remember that limited edition merch you like? i can get you the rest of the collection. in fact, i’ll even buy out the whole place just for you.”

“wha– seriously?” you feel your eye twitch. damn rich people. “it was limited edition. they all ran out of stock already.”

“i have my ways.” well, that's not shady at all. he flashes a grin at your skepticism, winking at you, “anything for my partner.”

and you now understand why he's earned his title. this is probably how he always gets what he wants—with a smile like that, anyone would drop to their knees and do whatever he’d ask. two years ago, you would've keeled over for attention like this, but now, you're nothing but indifferent.

he places his hands on both of your shoulders now, completely stopping you from taking off. wide violet eyes scrutinize your own, making you scrunch your nose at the close proximity. “shouldn't you be begging him and not me?”

“yeah, but...” reo swears he feels an air of animosity radiating from the white-haired male, and that's why he has decided to turn you instead. “you wouldn't leave your partner hanging, right? as partners, we help each other out, riiiight?” he says, dragging his words out.

you lean as far as you physically can from his grip, but he doesn't seem to care, excitedly looking at you with stars evident in his eyes. “mikage, you—” he smiles at you, bright and blinding, and you find yourself withering under his intense gaze. “okay, fine, just—”

“well, that's settled then! they’re joining the club too, nagi seishiro. they can be our manager.” you briefly wonder why he didn't outright offer to have you join the team, but he probably saw how you threw the dodgeballs earlier… though it's not like you have to use your hands in soccer, so what the hell, this is kind of insulting.

“says who, mikage?”

“you're gonna come watch all our games?” he negotiates.

“why don’t you offer that i join the team?”

“ahahaha. haha. hah.” he laughs awkwardly, swinging an arm around your shoulder and ultimately evading your question.

because you were too busy trying to shrug him off, you miss the way nagi’s eyes zero on to reo’s arm around you, wordlessly observing the whole interaction with his lips pressed taut.

you still don’t know why reo hasn't moved away; he's so close that you can see the dark amethyst specks in his irises, the long strands that frame his face are lightly tickling your cheek, and if you lean in even just an inch, you can practically—

“you said anything i want, right?” your voice drops to a low whisper, and reo nods slowly, still seemingly oblivious to the lack of space between you.

“then... what if i said i wanted a kiss?”

reo’s smile drops immediately, recoiling away from you as if you've slapped him, his whole entire face heating up all the way to the tips of his ears. finally out of his grasp, you erupt into boisterous laughter, shaking your head as you leave the flustered boy alone and catching up to nagi.

likes/reblogs/feedback appreciated ♡