#I definitely let my walls down on this one

[gtgbabie0]

-Sevika x Reader

Synopsis: {Sevika has some trouble with her mechanical arm, you offer her help}

For my other works my Masterlist is here <3

softSevika,softSevika,softSevika! Enjoy my lovelies <3 💕

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The pale light of the moon was drowned out by the neon signs that flicker soft colours of pink and blue which bleed through your small apartment, it was the only source of light guiding Sevika through the room before she finds the light switch, clumsily flicking it on.

It had all gone so horribly wrong so quickly, what was meant to be a simple drop off and pick up turned into a violent mess— fucking useless, she thought bitterly. It’d be the last time she would work with some newbies who couldn’t tell their left from their right.

Her frustrations were bubbling over, that much was clear when she slams the front door shut, immediately wincing at the loud noise and once again she silently curses, this time at herself.

It was well past midnight and you were definitely knocked out like a light, it was endearing how quickly you fell asleep, one moment the pair of you would be talking then the very next you were snoring your head off. The thought of you curled up in your shared bed with your face smushed against the soft pillows makes her smile— the type that softens her hardened features.

It almost made her forget about the dull ache that seized her muscles, almost. She needed a drink.

So with a bottle of whiskey and her toolbox, you had so kindly brought for her spread out on the coffee table she sat down on the couch trying to fix the mess that had become of her mechanical arm— which was so much more harder to do by herself, without you there to unscrew the screws she couldn’t reach or to hand her the right tools… or to caress her cheek with those soft hands of yours, fuck, she had missed you more then she’d like to admit.

Sevika had been at it for hours, fumbling with one stubborn screw that had been lodged stuck. It refused to come loose for love nor money and it was driving her up the damn wall that she throws the stupid screwdriver across the room, watching it bounce across the wooden floorboards with a loud clang and a thud.

She stares down at it with a small scowl, scoffing before reaching for the bottle of whiskey.

“Sev?— what’re you doing?” Your soft voice, heavy with sleep ripples through the silence, breaking down the spell of anger that seemed ever present.

“Nothing, go back to bed, I’ll be there in a minute.” She mumbles the reply, ducking her head down to look at the floor beneath her, it was almost ridiculous how fast the guilt hit her. She’d woken you up at god knows what time with her banging around.

You shake your head at her dismissal, padding your way over to her with a small frown— your hands tightening the silk robe you had wrapped around your body. Without a word she moves her legs so you can perch yourself on the edge of the coffee table, sitting in front of her.

“You won’t be able to fix it if you’re drunk.” You tell her, a small smirk ghosting over your lips as you watch her put the bottle of whiskey down on the table with a small huff.

“It’s not the alcohol—” Sevika replies gruffly, her heart skipping a few beats at the feeling of your hand against her knee as you rummage through her toolbox. “It needs a specific part.” Gods, you made her feel like a lovesick fool sometimes but damn if she didn’t absolutely adore the feeling.

With a soft hum, you let your fingertips graze along the metal fixings of her prosthetic arm, the joints were all broken and a couple of cogs were missing— it’d be easier to fix if it was detached and by the look on Sevika’s face she knew this… but it was a pain to do.

“I could-” you go to offer her an alternative, eyes skimming across the mechanical arm as your tired mind runs a mile a minute.

“Just help me take it off,” She concedes with a weary sigh, nodding over to the screwdriver which you’re quick to pick up.

She didn’t like having it off, to feel so vulnerable and defenceless. In a strange way, it scared her. Sure she could probably knock a guy or two out with one hand but it was still daunting to feel so stripped in such a way.

You stand up from the coffee table, situating yourself in between her legs as you begin to gently unscrew the bolts, handing them over to her one after another as she puts them safely into a bag. Then with a soft hiss of air, the arm comes loose, the weight falling from Sevika’s shoulder and down on the sofa beside her.

“We’ll fix it tomorrow… get that specific piece.” You promise her with a tender smile, looking down at her from where you stand with her rough hand resting over the curve of your hips from between the opening of your silken robe— caressing up to your waist slowly.

“Mmhm.” She hums in agreement, leaning forwards to bury her face into your soft tummy with a heavy sigh that borders on a groan as you skim your fingertips along her cheek and through her hair ever so slowly that it has her nuzzling into you like a damn cat.

Gods, you knew just how to dismantle her… you were a dangerous woman— her kryptonite.

“C’mere.” She mutters, pulling you down onto her lap without a single second thought. Her strong arm wraps around your waist, holding you against her as you melt into her body— her fingers brushing along your hip.

“Come to bed Sev— you look like you’re about to pass out.” You whisper, turning your head to get a good look at her with those soft eyes of yours… so tired and sweet.

“I will just let me hold you like this for a minute.” She replies back, bumping her forehead against your own— pressing a kiss to your cheek then burying her face into the crook of your shoulder, a muffled ‘I love you’ spoken into your skin.

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[defmaybe]

Pros of Pursuing Photography as Your Career

Red Velvet’s Son Seungwan/Wendy x Male Reader

0.6k words

Prequel to Reticence

“Who’s your mommy, huh?” Seungwan asks, one hand shuffling your hair gently, the other pumping your throbbing length up and down.

“You are my mommy,” you reply with your mouth on one of her pert breasts, a hand kneading the other under that midriff-revealing top. Satisfied hums come out of her closed lips.

She’s sharp in her seduction—so tender, yet so effective. That Grooverhyme campaign sparked the fuse within you—for her, but there’s probably zero chance. You thought she was just being nice from all of those interactions, but one confessional kiss in the bathroom at the company’s party was all it took for you to fall under her spell. She fell for you too—a part-time photographer for SM—after all.

“Do you like being jerked off by mommy like this?” Seungwan asks another question, hands unbuttoning your shirt. “Does it feel good?”

“Yes, mommy. I love being jerked off by you like this.” It’s a rhetorical question, really. You don’t expect yourself to answer anything else when you’re lying down on the couch with one of her nipples in your mouth like this.

“Hmm, what a lovely mouth you have, baby boy.” She draws shapes and patterns on your scalp atop of the handjob, making you groan in pleasure.

Her chest feels so soft in your mouth and your hand—brown nipples, small size. You’re ecstatic that she lets you do this. You fucking love her tits. Fuck, you just love everything that’s hers.

With a few swift movements, your shirt comes undone, revealing your abdomen. Seungwan can’t stop herself, of course. She draws her hand from playing with your hair to your chest. Your moans grow louder under her lively touches.

“Your hands feel so good, mommy,” you say, so lost in the throes of delight she’s giving you. You wish you can just stay like this forever, being jerked off and sucking her tits like this.

Seungwan giggles. “Thanks, baby boy.”

Her hand plays with your cock so adeptly, taking swipes off your leaking slit when she’s at the top and tightly grip you when she’s at the bottom. Your orgasm cannot come sooner.

Every good thing must come to an end, though, as Seungwan looks at the clock on the wall.

“Baby boy, I’m so sorry. I’ll have to finish this quicker than I thought.”

You whimper in disappointment, but you understand the busy nature of her job. “Okay, mommy.” You prepare to get up, but Seungwan presses you down, not wanting you to leave yet.

“I’m gonna make you cum first, baby boy. On three, alright?”

“Y–Yes, mommy.”

She quickens the pumps, determined to make you reach the precipice. You can feel it in your loins—that feeling.

“One.”

It’s there, the wave is coming. Seungwan goes even quicker with her hand. Your breath comes out in shallow pants onto the firmness of her chest.

“Two.”

She grips you like a vice. She’s so eager, yet so gentle in making you cum. You pant even more quickly as she smiles brightly. It’s sincere. She wants to make you cum. She wants her baby boy.

“Three, cum for me, baby boy, cum for me.”

Your dam breaks. White spurts land everywhere—on your firm chest, on Seungwan’s face, on her hand, even some can be found on her tits. You moan in satisfaction, over and over. Your eyes flutter in ecstasy.

Your orgasm then subsides. You finally look up again to see Seungwan beaming at you, cum-smeared on her angelic face. She laughs softly.

“You did so well, baby boy, you did great for mommy,” she says.

“Thanks, mommy. Are we doing this again?”

“Definitely, baby boy, definitely, well, maybe.”

—

[aquasarsstuff]

GUYS GUYS OMAGINE THIS WITH LILIA:

You know that trend with gf singhing break up song and bf is like 🤨

Now imagine you're upset at Lilia. Of course, like the green flag he is, he persuades you in an attempt to reconcile. You'd find random wild flowers place in spots you often go. Like your bedroom, in a classroom, in your bag, and sometimes it just randomly fell down from the sky and in your hand perfectly.

The man himself always for some reason appears in the weirdest of place. One time, you even had the fright of your life. You were deep in slumber, but the insistent poking at your window woke you up. Still in a haze, hundreds of red eyes stare at you outside your window. Turns out it was just Lilia and his bats. The fae got an earful from you that night. It's okay though because he has flowers

Now, you weren't outright ignoring him, but it was obvious that you were still a little mad at him. It seems he have to up his serenading.

---

You were passing by Lilia's room after visiting the other dia boys, when a loud sound erupted from the walls of his dorm room. It startled you because it was so suddenly. You stop in your tracks, a little bit curious at what the bat is doing, then he pulls this:

"Good for you, you're doing great out there without me, baby." He sang with such dramatic despair that could rival Rook's.

You're jaw drop. Yeah, it definitely wasn't a coincidence.

"I wish I can do that. I've lost my mind crying on the floor of my bathroom."

You just stood there. His voice was great but it wasn't really doing anything. Bruh, what are you doing??? Do you even know how desperate we are to hear his voice???

"But you're so unaffected. I really don't get it."

At that, you walked away, but not with him trailing after you, and singing the song in the ceiling.

---

"Lilia! What— get out of here!" You exclaim, accidentally throwing something at him. He hums, avoiding taking a hit but still remaining upside-down.

"No can do, beastie. We're going to talk, and then, I can leave."

"This is not the ideal time, Lilia!"

"As I've said, I won't let this fester for long."

"OMG Lilia, I'm taking a bath! Get out!" You look at him furiously with cheeks adorn with a red tint.

His eyes slightly went round, as if he didn't notice it earlier. "Oh..." he grabs the previously discarded soap with magic. "Then you might need this," he went closer to you. It was a cheeky attempt to get a good view.

"Go away!"

"You can't bathe without this, or perhaps you're already done. Why don't I help you, hm? I'll be your shower for tonight. Consider it my apology."

"NO!"

"I'm really sorry. Let me do this the least."

[shouyuus]

very 18+, vi-shaped, modern underground fighter!au tw: in which vi uses a vibrating strap d1ldo and also fucks ur throat

popular underground fighter vi! x reader in which vi "soft launches" your relationship with this photo posted on instagram with clear red nail marks down her back and just the caption "post fight ritual 💋" and it's obvious that her knuckles are still bruised, but someone else made those marks on her back and they're definitely not from any fight she's ever been in.

and it's not like she's a stranger to people thirsting over her posts -- she kinda knows she's hot. or at least, she's been told enough times to know it empirically, but it still stuns her a little when she catches you staring, or when she sees the way your pupils literally dilate in her presence; it's not something that she grew up hearing, always being told that she's too tomboy or that she's not feminine enough, even though her own family never cared, and they've always supported her no matter how she wanted to dress or what she wanted to do.

you, though. she doesn't know how she got so lucky with you.

she might call it a chance meeting, but later on, you'd admit that you'd had your eye on her for weeks, thought she was so, so pretty, even with all her black eyeliner and her choppily cut hair (she does it herself; oh, you could tell? why? what gave it away? the weirdly uneven buzz or the fact that she totally missed a patch at the back of her head?), and you'd put yourself squarely in the line of her sight and hoped (prayed, really) that she'd notice you.

and notice you she did.

wearing that pretty little sundress of yours, leaning up against the bar of her favorite lesbian haunt, the one she goes to nine times outta ten after her fights, the adrenaline's still high, eating through her veins, the tattoo of her pulse pressing against her ribcage.

she'd pushed off the far wall and caged you in against the dark wood of the bar, turning her charm up to eleven and hoping against hope that she wasn't just imagining things when she saw your gaze run up and down the length of her body (she wasn't).

"hey pretty. thought you might wanna take a closer look."

you'd grinned then, caught someplace between bashful and triumphant.

"but... it's so dark and so... loud," you say, letting your hand linger on her shoulder even as you put up the very convincing front of uncertainty, the blatant tease of your words the only thing cueing her off that you were picking up what she was putting down.

"yeah? then... wanna go somewhere quiet where you can... take a better look in peace?"

vi's apartment, despite all the winnings from her fights, was a modest place, a small studio in the heart of the city, though the floor the ceiling windows are really what caught your eye that first time she brought you over.

that, and the giant mirror that covered the length of an entire wall opposite the windows.

"so i can check my form," vi says when you ask, running a tall glass under the tap water, holding it out to you afterwards.

and she'd be lying if she said she hadn't been expecting a hookup. and honestly, so had you. but somehow, the pair of you had just ended up curled on the couch, sitting face to face, sharing stories and laughing. the next you looked up, the pink of dawn was teasing across the far skyline and vi was frowning at the dying phone in her hand, her eyebrows hitched.

"holy shit... it's 6am."

you bury your face in the cushions of the couch, your hands still wrapped around a half-empty cup of spiked apple cider (a bottle of martinelli's at the back of her fridge, along with a half-empty thing of grey goose she'd found, tugging the cap out with her teeth), feeling the tiredness drag at your eyelids.

"oops... sorry," you grin sheepishly at her, "usually, when i keep people up all night, it's not like this."

vi laughs at your tired little innuendo, but her eyes soften when she catches you watching her. and for some stupid, unfathomable reason, she feels her cheeks heating up.

"yeah peaches. i figured. but... i don't mind being kept up like this."

your brows furrow even as a grin threatens your lips as she nudges you with her hand. you shift back, making room for her as she sits down in front of you, close enough for you to feel the heat rolling off her skin.

beyond the windows, a brilliant sunrise is peering out over the city, and the sharp, shard-drawn light of it pierces vi's studio as she reaches out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, her thumb and forefinger trailing the line of your cheek till she's coaxing your chin up towards her.

"peaches?" you ask, your breath a bit short.

"yeah," her eyes flicker towards the tiny little stud earrings you'd put in, truly miniscule peach-emojis that you'd picked to match the shade of your dress. and you laugh, the tiredness making the air around you both effervescent.

and that was the first of many nights you'd proceed to spend at vi's, though eventually, she does drag you forward to kiss you, her lips insistent against yours, with you pulling back to gasp -- "took you long enough --" against her only for her to sink her teeth into the bared skin of your neck, letting her fingers curl around the delicate pulse-point nestled there as she says --

"they say good things come to those who wait."

neither of you can truly pinpoint the moment where this... thing became something more. something that neither of you had the words or will to deny any longer.

it might've come up the first time vi pressed three fingers into your sopping cunt, her eyes fixed on the way your expression goes slack, how your hips kicked up at every curl of her expert fingers. or perhaps the first time you'd pushed her back and kissed a line down her front, lavished her body with your lips, teasing and nipping at her tits before making your slow, arduous way down to her clenching cunt, licking up the wet slit before latching your mouth around her clit and sucking hard enough for her eyes to roll out of her eye-sockets.

or maybe the first time she'd pulled out her bright pink strap, the base equipped with a vibrating function and an opposing dildo that hooked into vi's pussy as she rucked her hips into yours, fucking into you so hard that tears had creased in your lashes after she was done with you.

"fuck peaches -- you just look so good cumming on my cock, don't you?"

and that's all it takes these days, a smirk, a slap on the ass, and her voice saying peaches for you to feel your body clench over nothing, for your stomach to curl with heat, even if she's just coming over to press a kiss to your cheek or murmur against your skin, asking how your day went, though sometimes, you'd get shy and your voice would get a bit too quiet.

"c'mon, speak up, doll. and look at me when i'm talking to you, yeah?"

her fingers squeezing your jaw, just tight enough to make you gasp.

and no one questions it; bc why would they? her coach is ecstatic -- not like vi's ever been an unfocused fighter, but these days, she's in such tip-top form that he's not got much feedback for her after her long training sessions.

"whoever she is," vander says, grinning even as vi flushes and sighs (she knows it's useless to lie, vander's known her for way, way too long), "she's good for you."

he presses a hand to her shoulder, shaking her slightly, "and my advice? when you find a girl like that -- you grab on with both hands and you don't let go."

so that's what she does, and what she's still doing now. it's been months -- almost a full year since you've made it all "official", though neither of you have posted much about it online (her fans have been speculating for a while though, specially the hardcore ones, the ones who have been with her long enough to know her, to spot how she scans the crowd before and after every right, how her smile's just a bit different these days, how there seems to be one particular girl she's always winking at, always hidden in the shadows but she's always swiveling around the first thing after a fight, win or lose).

"f-fuck -- that's a good girl --" vi groans, her hips jerking against yours as she fucks you through your third orgasm of the night (she'd wone her fight that night -- as she does most nights -- and you'd come over to celebrate), your nails biting into the skin of her back, dragging down the expansive tattoo there.

she feels the burn in her own thighs, her arms flexing, the veins popping blue as she drags you down the length of the bed by your hips, fucking into you, her eyes trained on the sticky white ring at the base of her pink strap, the sight in and of itself enough to send her over the edge.

"c'mere -- open your mouth, peaches," she says, guiding you towards her even as she pulls out of you, a thick string of cum slicking off the head of her strap as she inches up the bed to position herself over your chest and shoulders.

you let your jaw fall slack, moaning thick as she presses the tip of her strap to your tongue. you blink up at her, lashes fluttering as she sinks her fingers into your hair, hissing out a long breath as you swallow around her length.

"sweet fuck that's hot..."

she pulls you over her cock in shallow thrusts, her breath growing quick as she watches the way you eagerly clean your own cum off of her with your tongue, the completely fucked out, blissed out look in your eyes as you look up at her, so utterly besotted and at her mercy.

her feels the coils twist in her gut seconds before she shoves you down over her, the combined sound of your gagging and the pinpoint vibrations of the dildo sending her right over the edge.

"shit, shit -- shit oh -- fuck... mm..."

her fingers fist in your hair as she jerks around the dildo end of the strap, tugging out of your mouth with a lazy, lopsided smile.

"such a good girl for me, hm?" she says, tugging you up for an open-mouthed kiss. you mewl against her lips, so soft, absolutely melting into her arms as she shifts the both of you into the center of the bed.

it's not till she goes to shower later, with you sound asleep in her mussed up blankets, that she sees the marks -- red and raised on her back, scratched over her tattoo. a soft smile lifts her lips as she stares at her own reflection in the mirror, her neck twisting over her shoulder to get a good look.

and before she knows it, she's grabbing her phone and turning around to snap a pic, with the full intent of keeping it just to show you in the morning but... well, she thinks as she stares down at the photo with a dopey sort of grin, her heart thudding dangerously close to her mouth.

maybe the best gift she could give you on your one-year anniversary is this -- telling the world that she's yours.

[tetzoro]

˖˙ ꔫ — SPITFIRE ˚

꒰ synopsis ꒱ : you and kid have an unspoken understanding but of course you need to test his limits to see how he truly feels.

꒰ contents ꒱ : MDNI. eustass kid x reader ; unprotected sex, brat taming, possessive kid, creampie, slight dacryphilia, mentions of overstimulation, impact play if you squint — WC : 1.5k

Kid was brash, reckless and mouthed off to anyone who dared to step in his way. Never one to back down from a challenge no matter the odds, he was driven and hardworking in his own way. And when it came to you, it was no different.

The little arrangement between the two of you was nothing new. The crew was unfortunately well acquainted with it as well, always forced to listen to you guys bicker to no end. Insults would fly left and right until he was red in the face, irked beyond belief at the audacity you held against your captain.

Kid demanded respect but something in him would falter at treating you like the rest of the crew. Besides Killer, you were the only one to truly get away with speaking to him in such a way. But that’s because he soon learned a failsafe way to have you begging for forgiveness, apologizing to him and giving him the well-deserved admiration he sought out from you.

But tonight you had gone too far.

The Victoria Punk was docked at an island for the evening for a typical restock and of course, the crew ended up at the bar. The alcohol was pouring and Kid held his smug smirk on his face as you sat next to him, chatting away with Killer.

The crew had decided to poke fun at the way you were stealing glances at the captain, making bets on when the two of you would sneak off.

That’s when you decided to play a little game, skipping off to one of the patrons of the bar and tapping their shoulder, gaining their attention.

The attention that belonged to Kid.

But you didn’t care. All you wanted to do was prove that you weren’t stuck under Kid’s charm, that you weren’t falling for him no matter how hard you tried to resist him.

A resounding bang boomed off in the cramped bar, silencing the room and halting you from getting too close to brushing your lips with the stranger whose name you never bothered to learn.

“Hell no!” Kid roared, standing straight up. All of the contents on the table were knocked around after he had slammed his fist against the hardwood, a definite crack splitting down the middle. “Get your ass over here.”

“Is that an order, Captain?” The question that sealed your fate. Within moments, Kid has you within his grasp and leading you far away from the bar. His cheeks are almost as red as his hair but you know better, the flush was more from just the anger boiling up inside of him.

It was far too easy to let yourself fall victim to his sinful touches as soon as you returned back to his quarters. The familiar dip in his mattress cocooning you further into his hungry jaws, refusing to let you flee from his grasp. Not that you were planning on it anyway.

“What happened to my little spitfire?” Kid smirks, the tip of his cock nudging against your cervix in a way that has stars bursting behind your eyes. The intensity was almost too much, the pressure of his heavy length splitting you open was enough to make you come. But it wouldn’t happen until he said so. “I give you a little bit of cock and suddenly you lose all that attitude?”

It takes you a second to come back down from the initial pain as he begins to move, a brutal pace that never gives you a chance to catch your breath, stealing all the words you wanted to throw back at him but the only thing you could move were your hips. Your legs shook from the intensity, the back of the headboard slamming against the wall but you don’t have it in you to care.

“Kid-” You gasp out, nails digging into the broadness of his lightly dusted freckled shoulders.

“No.” He hisses out, giving your thigh a teasing slap, not enough to hurt but enough to warn you of what’s to come if you don't fix your mood. “That’s not what you get to call me right now.”

“Captain!” You cry out, your legs falling helplessly to the mattress, unable to hold them up around his waist any longer. He kept plunging into you, eyes sharp on your expressions and waiting for you to continue. You knew what he wanted.

“What was that? You’re whining so much I can hardly hear ya, speak up.” His grip digs into you more, unable to get enough of the way your skin feels against his.

“‘M sorry!” The apology slurs past your love drunk lips, hoping that he’ll forgive you and let you come.

“Couldn’t be good for me and use your words so you decided to be a brat?” He pauses, shoving himself deep into you to watch you writhe underneath. “Just wanted me to fuck you till you couldn’t think?”

“Y-yes!” You concede yet you don’t have it in you to care. The way your thighs shake, hips jutting up to meet his thrusts, pleasure swirling in your head and washing over your body has you saying whatever he wants. “Let me come!”

“I don’t think so.” A low laugh escapes him, his cock throbbing within your walls and ready to fill you up. The thought of him finishing without you zaps through your head, frustrated tears brimming your lashes and threatening to spill over with every thrust. “Aw, pretty little cry baby. Let me see those tears and maybe I’ll give you what you want.”

A pitiful cry of his name escapes you, bottom lip quivering as the pleasure is too much to hold back. All you needed was his deft fingers pressing down on your nub and it would spiral you over the edge and have you floating above the clouds in a heaven he could only bring you. The tears glide down your cheeks, pleas spilling out of your mouth.

The sadistic grin Kid wears on his face so well only grows, captivated by your beauty as you lose your sense of self for him. To unravel you down to your core until all you craved was him just to build you back up and worship you like the treasure you are.

“Let go f’me.” Kid commands with a grunt, his fingers finally touching you where you needed him most. His heavy thumb pressing down on your clit was all it took for your body to lock up, shake with unadulterated need and release in a way that sends you heavenward. “That’s it, so fucking good for me.”

Moments like these you lay back, trying to catch your bearings as Kid uses you to finish himself off, thrusting into you at a pace that pleases him until he’s spilling his load deep inside of you, grunting out your name until he’s just as breathless as you.

The room is quiet save for the heavy panting coming from you both. Like clockwork, Kid hoists you into his arms, holding you close until your heart's fall back into sync and beat as one, planting soft kisses along your temple. There were never any words to say at this moment, just letting your bodies fall into a gentle rhythm together.

After a while, and the both of you settle back from your lofty state, he shifts slightly to face you. There’s a gentleness in his touch, one that is hard to miss as his knuckle sweetly kisses along your cheek. A caress so soft yet leaves a haunting ghost in its wake as soon as he pulls away.

“Back with me?” He asks, the roughness in his voice a comfort that has you curling closer to him. His lone arm coiled around you, letting you melt into his embrace. The closeness was not something that was always here, it’s something that had built overtime.

A foundation of trust and vulnerability that formed something so sacred that neither of you ever spoke about it – too stubborn to let the walls in your heart fall down before the other and truly lay everything bare.

“I’m here.” You nod, resting your cheek against his built chest. The steady comfort of his heartbeat lulled you into a drowsy state. The weight of exhaustion starts to settle into your bones, limbs tired from the way Kid never failed to manhandle you.

You knew you had to get up, clean yourself off and scurry back to your own bed. But it was just so cozy, so intimate that if you moved then everything might shatter and this time you may not be able to pull it back together.

Despite it all, you couldn’t fight sleep. Kid be damned, he can yell at you tomorrow for overstaying your welcome or hell, he can carry you back to bed like a true gentleman would. Not that you’d get your hopes up.

As your eyes flutter shut, fingers curling into his muscles, you hear the word that you’d never expect but the one you longed to hear.

“Stay.”

[thoughtfulfiction]

Little Duckling

Author’s note: reposting my old work on this side blog! Let me know if you’d like to read a specific one. Thank you for reading!

Warning: pregnancy and childbirth

Saturday 10pm

Justin had been asleep for almost two hours as you folded laundry and put it away in the nursery. Your induction was scheduled for Monday morning promptly at 8am and everyone within the Chargers organization knew that this was happening because your husband absolutely hated taking the day off. But this was understandably a special exception to the rule. You’d spent the last 9 months mentally and physically preparing yourself for this moment but the idea of having a human being relying on you for everything was still such a daunting task that you almost wished the day wouldn’t come. Not until you felt completely prepared at least.

And then the ache in your back and hips reminded you that your baby girl was quickly running out of room and would be making her entrance soon, whether you and your husband were ready or not. On the bright side, your stomach had dropped significantly in the last few days, allowing you to breathe easier and for Justin to poke fun at your pronounced waddle. He affectionately started calling you Mumble last week, from Happy Feet. The dad jokes were coming in strong.

You heaved yourself out of the chair you were parked in and were headed off to bed before a slight pain wrapped itself around the base of your stomach. The pressure moved from the back to the front, settling on a spot underneath your belly button. You stopped walking and used the wall to support yourself, rubbing small circles around the area until it passed. As a Braxton-Hicks veteran, you continued your trek to the bedroom, completed your nighttime routine and headed off to bed.

Sunday 2am

It happened again. The slight twinge of discomfort had you holding your breath for about 15 seconds before letting go and you had to take several deep breaths to recover. After a few minutes everything was normal again and you had to turn around to make sure that Justin was still asleep next to you. Throughout your pregnancy he’d become a much lighter sleeper, often waking up at ungodly hours to get you snacks or a few nights when you caught him talking to your belly, whether it was talking about the playbook or just telling her he couldn’t wait to meet her, it warmed your heart just the same. But you were thankful for now that he just missed that entire exchange because you were definitely not in labor…right?

Sunday 7am

You were definitely in labor. On a Sunday, when the Chargers were playing the Broncos at home. Of course. You’d experienced three contractions so far, just about four hours apart so you had plenty of time. There was no way in hell you were telling Justin. As soon as it was appropriate, you scooted yourself out of bed and went down to the home gym for some prenatal yoga and a good stretch, hoping it would provide a boost of positive energy. Then you hopped in the shower, allowing the warm water would relax your tense muscles and maybe help you delay the inevitable.

By 8:30 Justin was awake and making breakfast for the two of you while you sat on the couch watching New Girl. He brought your plate and a cup of orange juice to you which you were grateful for, but the thought of putting anything but the juice in your body made your stomach turn.

“Are you alright? You’ve barely touched your avocado toast and you’ve been devouring it the last few days.” He ran a gentle hand on your forehead like he was checking your temperature and caressed your cheek when he realized you weren’t abnormally warm. “I can make you something else before I leave if you want?”

“No, I’m fine! Just not hungry yet, I’ll probably eat later.” You lied through your teeth, desperately hoping that he would let it go. The excuse seemed to satisfy him enough for him to head back upstairs to watch some film and get ready. An hour and a half later, he headed downstairs just in time to find you stretching out your back, the cramp beginning to wash over you.

He replaced your hands with his own, slightly lifting your stomach to take the weight off for a bit. “Your stomach is hard as a rock,” he observed furrowing his brows and starting to piece things together. “Are you sure everything is ok?” His soft voice attempted to mask his worry filled words.

“Yeah I’m having a fake contraction, you know they’re so common these days.” You rushed out, attempting to use his extensive research against him. He could probably write his own version of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” with his newfound pregnancy knowledge. It was both impressive and scary how much he had grown to know what’s going on in your body before you did.

Although he nods his head in understanding, his face is still full of distress. And you could tell he was analyzing your words and tone of voice for any sign that you were lying, leaving you to mentally curse at the fact that he knew you so well and you’d need to work extra hard to convince him to go on like this was a normal day.

Although he let out a deep sigh, he didn’t ask any further questions. “I know, I just hate the thought of you being in pain and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

You tap his wrist so he can slowly drop your belly and you turn around in his arms. “You’re so cute, but it really isn’t that bad. A lot less painful than playing with ankle that’s hanging on by a shoestring I can tell you that.” You chuckle, his hands rubbing soothing circles on your back and you felt compelled to return the favor, sensing he too needed some comfort. “Here’s what’s gonna happen today though. You are going to go and kick Denver’s ass then you’re going to come home, we’ll celebrate and then tomorrow you’ll be on your way to being the greatest dad to ever live. How does that sound?”

Justin chuckles, giving you a peck on the lips, nose and forehead. “If I’m half as good a parent as I know you will be, then I know I’ll be golden.”

“Stop it before I start crying, you know I’m super hormonal right now this isn’t fair.” You mumble, tears brimming your eyes. He gives you one last kiss before reminding you to call your friend Dani to stay with you, even though your moms were on their way to your home.

Once he pulled out of the driveway you could relax, letting out a deep sigh and patting your swollen middle. Crisis averted.

For now.

Sunday 12pm

Contractions were officially every hour and Dani was trying her best not to freak out in order not to freak you out. But she was definitely freaking out. What started out as more intense period cramps were becoming a lot sharper, so much so that you couldn’t even focus on Encanto, which was the last sign you needed to know that this was the real thing. You did manage to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and take a nap while she was with you, fluffing your pillows and telling you that you were doing amazing. Three hours later, there was a knock at the door and Dani went to open it for Holly and your mom. The two becoming best friends was probably the cutest thing in the world and your mom had even flown to Oregon three days before just to spend time with Holly and drive to California with her. They were the sweetest. And of course they brought snacks. There were lactation cookies for you in the freezer already but they brought more and they brought an abundance of food to eat during the game, which usually would have made your day, but today all it did was make you want to stick your face in the toilet.

You greeted the two women with hugs as Dani helped set up their spread and they immediately asked how you were feeling.

“I just woke up not too long ago so I’m feeling great now. Very ready to not be pregnant anymore so I can see my f—ohhh wow. Ow.” You groaned, one hand on your contracting belly and the other gripping the counter for dear life.

Dani’s eyes bug out of her head as she moves to rub your back. “That was the roughest one yet.” She was right, this one left your whole body sore, a loud reminder that things were definitely moving along.

“This one?” Your mom questions, looking between you and Dani. Then, she and Holly exchange a look.

“Oh my gosh sweetie, you’re in labor!” Holly exclaims, “we need to get a hold of Justin immediately. I’ll call Mark, I’m sure he’s already at the stadium.”

You cannot shake your head fast enough, “there’s no need to call him yet, that was the first bad one. And this game is important.”

“It’s Justin hun, every game is important,” Holly laughs, giving you a loving squeeze.

“But you know what’s even more important to him? You and that baby girl that’s getting ready to meet us soon. Are you sure you don’t want to tell him now?”

“I’m sure,” you sigh, allowing your mom to guide you back to the couch, sinking down into it with a groan. “Once the game is over he’ll be here and we’ll go have a baby. But not a moment before.”

Admittedly, it was getting harder to focus. Justin was playing great, but of course so was Bo Nix. The Chargers would score and the Broncos would answer. The Broncos would get a stop and the Chargers would force a punt. You were entertained but the battle happening within you was the most interesting one to the people in your house.

Your mom had gone down to find your birthing ball, which helped for about half a quarter, just in time for a Ladd McConkey touchdown to put the Chargers up by 10. By the end of the third you were forced into a squat behind one of the couches, spreading your legs to hopefully ease the increasing pressure on your hips. You breathed through the contraction, the sensation sending a pins and needles feeling near your tailbone. Holly made sure you stayed hydrated, having secretly texted her husband halfway through the fourth quarter when the game was firmly in hand to have their son home as soon as humanly possible. Contractions creeped on 30 minutes apart, leaving you panting and groaning in discomfort until your muscles relaxed.

Fifteen minutes later, you were pacing around the living room and you had to stop to hold onto the couch again, your mom helping you roll your hips as you felt thin beads of sweat building around your hairline. Things were getting real and scary and you needed Justin.

“What time is it?” You murmured, cupping your stomach with a hiss as the baby moved.

“It’s 7:15 and he’s on his way home, baby.” Your mom whispers, sensing your increasing distress, “he’ll be here soon.”

“My back hurts,” you state suddenly, a slight tremble in your voice. “Everything really hurts.”

Your mom grabs at your hips, squeezing them together to apply counter pressure, giving you momentary relief.

Dani was in charge of timing contractions and all you knew was the moment in between them where you could actually form a coherent thought. Time was no longer real. You headed upstairs for some time to yourself and a wave of nausea hit you and you emptied probably everything you’d eaten the entire day, which in hindsight probably wasn’t much. But you weren’t in the headspace to think clearly right now. You walked back towards to the bedroom and clutched the doorway, visibly feeling the heaviness of the baby moving down, almost sending you to your knees if it weren’t for the solid, calming presence that was suddenly in front of you.

“Hey babe.” You breathe out, feeling a little unsure that your legs were capable of holding you up until you could sit on the bed.

He pulled you into his arms as close as your belly would allow and pressed his lips your forehead. “Hi. Glad I could make it back in time. I knew something was off with you this morning,” he narrowed his eyebrows at you when he pulled away, walking you slowly back into the room placing a firm hand on the small of your back, making circles with it while holding your hand with the other. “Alright baby…long have you been in labor?”

You let out a dry laugh at his disappointed dad look. “Since 10 last night I think? But let’s focus on the important things, you played great and you won but man you guys really took a minute to shut the door on ‘em.”

“Right, the important things.” He says with a knowing smile. “I know you love football as much as I do now, but if you told me earlier I would’ve been at your side in a heartbeat. You know that, right?”

God, you hoped your baby had his caring heart. “I do know that, I really do. But I also knew that you’d be able to do both. The Chargers are your family too and—”

A contraction creeped up on you, leaving you to hold onto your husband’s forearms with a sharp sound of pain, the pressure reaching an overwhelming peak that you hadn’t experienced before.

“Squeeze as much as you want, it’s okay.” His voice attempts to soothe you but you couldn’t hear him over the animalistic grunt that escaped you. Your body tensed involuntarily and he could see your stomach hardening as the tension continued to build. There was nothing more he could do than hold you through it, until something gave way and the floodgates opened…literally.

Even he sounded breathless by the end of it. “Your water just broke.”

Sunday 10pm

Contractions in the house were terrible. But contractions in the car, with no cushion from the water bag made it feel like she was right between your legs.

“Justin, you have to go faster. Please.” You panted out, desperately clutching the grab handle and leaning your head back with a loud moan. “Can you turn on the air, I’m dying in here. And I need to put the seat back, my back is killing me, I’m sorry.” You felt like a turtle stuck on its back, waiting for someone to turn it over and set it free.

“Yeah, yeah do whatever you need. And you don’t need to apologize,” he pats you on the leg, “do whatever makes you comfortable, we’ll be there soon.” He kept looking between you and the road, slightly worried that he’d have to deliver the baby in the car. The only thing that slightly reassured him the whole drive was your sigh of relief when the fan came on. First babies were supposed to take a while but he’d missed the entirety early labor, so from the sounds that he was hearing he figured you were in or at the very least extremely close to the transition stage. His grip on the steering wheel tightened and remained that way until the birthing center came into view. Your parents had called ahead and would meet you there when given the word, so all you had to do was check in and you were brought to your private suite.

Seven centimeters dilated and without painkillers made your husband question any football toughness he thought he had. You were so close to meeting your baby and he was a mix of anxiousness, nerves and excitement. Most of all he felt so much love and admiration for your determination and strength. Holding off on telling him you were in labor so he could be there to get the job done with his teammates was one thing and it was a complete whirlwind to be there with you while you worked to bring your baby into the world.

Once he was finally able to tear his eyes off the baby’s heart monitor, all of his focus was back on you. He wasn’t going to say anything but the agony in your voice was really starting to take a toll on him. Months of mental preparation for this moment was nothing like the real thing and he felt utterly helpless, desperately trying to maintain some sort of control and be helpful in any way.

“Honey you’re shaking, are you cold?” Without even giving you time to answer he was up on his feet, reaching for his bag to grab the blanket he’d seen you drape over yourself on several movie night occasions.

You shake your head while your teeth continue to chatter, reaching for his left hand, “I think it’s the adrenaline. I’m okay I promise,” you shift uncomfortably in bed, trying to just go along with how your body is feeling and reacting. Your belly tightens, a white hot pain generating an unexpected moan as you palmed your stomach. Justin places his hand on top of yours, whispering to you that the contraction is almost over and constantly reminding you that you’re doing great.

The two of you decided to use gravity to your advantage and walk around the building since the entire floor was closed off at your husband’s request. He couldn’t risk anyone leaking the most private and cherished moment in his life.

“I can’t believe this is our last night as a duo.” Justin whispers, walking at a snail’s pace while you waddled alongside him. “It’s been a great ride, pal.”

“Wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else. And I have a feeling this ride is going to get a lot more interesting from here on out.” You gave your belly a soothing pat.

He strokes your back as you sway your hips again, “thank you for choosing me to be the one that gets to do this with you. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, more than anything in the world.” You grin, pulling him in for a soft kiss. His hand cups your face as he pulls you in even closer. The kiss oozed joy and gratitude. Your husband wasn’t a man of many words, but his actions spoke volumes.

You squeeze his arm again suddenly as pain bubbles deep in your core and you rip yourself away from him to press your lips together to stifle a yell. “We need to get back to the room. Now.”

The noises leaving your body would have horrified you if you weren’t already sitting backwards on the toilet wearing only an oversized t-shirt, with your legs spread and the man of your dreams digging his thumbs into your back. “Harder please,” you groan, feeling like your tailbone is seconds away from shattering.

“I’m not getting a break,” you cry, clenching your jaw, leaning back and asking him to help you up. He hooks his hands under your arms and basically lifts you to your feet. “It’s not stopping, I can’t—oh fuck.” It felt like you were going to throw up, but out of the other end, which could only mean one thing. “She’s—Justin she’s coming right now. I have to push.” You took a breath and focused completely inward, your entire body going rigid, shaky straining sounds of effort pouring out of you.

The quarterback immediately sprang into action,“easy babe, breathe. I’ve got you.”

You held onto one of his hands and moved into a squat on your shaky legs as he pressed the red button on the side of the bathroom door, allowing your midwife to come in.

The baby felt like it was seconds away from falling out, everything suddenly feeling like it was moving a mile a minute. The midwife was saying something but the ringing in your ears was so loud you couldn’t focus on anything but getting your baby delivered.

After another throaty shove, you came back to yourself a little, feeling a gentle hand rubbing your shoulder. “Babe? You gotta slow down. Take a second, I can already see her a little bit you can give yourself some time.”

“I can’t, the pressure is too much!” Tucking your chin to your chest, you let out a yelp as you push again, using him as a solid wall to rest against as you spread your legs to give your baby more room. “Holy fuck your baby is huge,” your husband and the midwife both laugh, “I’m sorry it’s just—this is really hard.”

Pushing felt good, even though it left you shaking like a leaf in a cold and sweaty frenzy. At some point during the delivery he’d pushed your hair back with his lucky headband that was always around his wrist if it wasn’t on his head. It was the most intense experience of your life but you took one look at those bright green eyes and he reminded you that he was with you the entire time and you knew you could do anything with him by your side.

Remington Grace Herbert was born Monday morning at 1:42am with those exact same eyes that you fell in love with.

“Hi Remi,” Justin sobs, kissing her cheek. “We’ve been waiting for you, baby girl.”

“She sure knows how to make an entrance.”

You hand her off to her dad after scooting over to give him more room on the bed. He wraps a free arm around you, securely holding her in his other one, totally in awe. “She’s so perfect. You’re perfect. You did so amazing, I’m so freaking proud of you.” He kisses the side of your head.

You cuddle into him with a content sigh, “Our perfect little duckling is finally here.”

[sunsetriwoo]

oh all the things i have to say about this.

i would **** *** **** ** ***** ** ** **** *** ***... ANYWAYS

I need these pics of riwoo all over my walls rn PLEASE... hear me out on secretary!riwoo mmmh I need that so bad RN.

MDNI.

bonus points if he's stressed out UGHHHHH...

imagine dating him and he comes home angry?? pinning you to the wall?? kissing you roughly?? hands all over you?? marking you maybe?? idk??

✶ — hear me out...

his lips instantly crashing on yours, pulling you impossibly closer, having barely any gap for even an oxygen molecule to pass through.

the kiss was so heated you would've lost your balance if he wasn't the one holding you up.

you could slowly feel his bulge on your stomach, twitching as you two continued making out, he slipped his tongue into your mouth, deepening the kiss even more.

he started lightly grinding into you, moaning softly into the kiss, feeling his anger from work start to dissipate.

riwoo carries you up and brings the both of you to the couch, never breaking the kiss.

while he sits on the couch, you're sitting on him, his bulge bumping your clit deliciously every time he grinds his hips up while you straddle him.

the brief moment that he pulls away, his hands finds home around your waist, pushing you down, essentially making you start grinding on him.

but when you get close and you start feeling the knot bubbling, he pulls you away from his bulge, ruining what could've been a heavenly orgasm.

"eager, are you? gonna let me fuck my anger out, darling?"

"f-fuck.. sanghyuk... do anything..."

i am actually so sick i most definitely WILL be writing a fic about this. I NEED HIM.

[phantomwithbreakfast]

~ Scarred For Half A Life ~

DP Phan Fic.

[“You want to see a danger? You should see me in a crown.”]

So uh—this is a scene I have in mind for my story. Because of the song, yes!

I mean, I already wrote it down, to add later on into the story! And I was really enthusiastic about it, so I drew Danny with a crown. An ugly crown (because it’s made out of paper). [sketch lurking at the bottom]

If you want you can read and follow it! But—BEWARE!

———————

Genre: Angst / Hurt And Comfort (and a little Horror)

AU — OOC

Trigger Warning: Emotional Distress — Violence — Graphic Content

Rating: M

———————

Summary:

Danny had been captured by the GiW once again, or so he thinks. Leaving him feeling utterly helpless—vulnerable. There was nothing he could do. What will happen to him? And why again? (Summary might change as the story goes on)

———————

So, this is a piece of that potential chapter:

“Wait! Don’t move. I want to take a picture!” Jazz exclaimed, her voice brimming with excitement as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

Danny groaned, rolling his eyes. “Seriously? A picture? What are you, my dad?”

Jazz ignored his protest, already angling the camera toward him. “Come on, Danny, it’s your birthday. Let me have this.”

He sighed, slouching slightly. “Fine, but make it quick. And don’t expect me to smile like an idiot.”

Jazz smirked. “Oh, don’t worry. You’re already an idiot. The crown just completes the look.”

Danny couldn’t help the small grin tugging at his lips as she snapped the photo, capturing him sitting there with the gold paper crown tilted slightly on his head, a mixture of amusement and irritation in his glowing green eyes.

“There,” Jazz said triumphantly, glancing at the picture on her phone. “Perfect. I’m definitely keeping this one.”

———————

And a piece of the scene with the song in my head that plays in the background:

“Phantom,” she said icily, her voice like a blade. “You’re not my son. You’re a danger. I was merciful letting you stay this long.”

That was it. That was the final crack that shattered the fragile restraint Danny had been holding onto. His aura flared violently, glowing with an intense, cold light that filled the room, making the shadows dance erratically on the walls.

“You wanna see a danger?” Danny growled, his voice dropping into something almost inhuman, vibrating with power as his feet lifted off the ground. His white hair swirled beneath the gold paper crown, caught in an invisible wind as the room seemed to grow colder by the second.

Danny’s arms hung by his sides, his fists clenching tightly. A brilliant green energy began to materialize, steam curling off his fingers like fire, licking up his forearms in tendrils of raw power.

“You should see me in a crown.”

A burst of cold ectoplasmic energy erupted from Danny’s palms, shooting straight toward Maddie with icy precision. She dove to the side, flipping the table over in one swift motion to shield herself. Plates shattered, the pancakes splattered across the walls, and the dining room filled with a deafening roar of energy.

———————

As for my own commentary about my DP drawing…

I hate drawing hands, and I don’t like to draw shoes. Maybe because I just can’t!! I’m not good at drawing mouths either, or I was just having a bad day at drawing. And we are definitely not going to talk about the nose. I have zero idea what went wrong with coloring/painting, and I couldn’t fix it at that moment. Maybe I was hurrying it, don’t care. I wanted it out of my head! And I really wanted to share this, because I like it for once, something of my own. As for the style, still searching my own, trying things out, so at the moment, I have no idea what I’m doing. Might redo it later.

[reign-summers]

Reign couldn’t help but grin as Violet settled beside him, her warmth against his chest making everything else in the world fade away. The way her fingers traced lazy circles on his skin sent a shiver of satisfaction through him. This was the aftermath he’d been hoping for: no awkwardness, no pressure, just a soft, comfortable moment that felt like it could stretch on forever. He gave a dramatic sigh, the kind that was clearly for effect, and then leaned back, propping himself up with one elbow so he could look down at her. His eyes twinkled with a mix of playful mischief and genuine affection. "Well, if this is part of the routine," he teased, "I think I’m definitely going to be clocking in for my shift every Friday." He gave her a wink, clearly enjoying the flirtation. "As for my rating…" He paused for a moment, pretending to think it over, then grinned. “Ten out of ten. No complaints. The view was exceptional,” he added with a chuckle, brushing his fingers through her hair. "But I think I can make it even better next time," he added, his voice dropping a little, teasing the promise of more. He leaned in, his lips brushing lightly against her forehead as he kissed her softly. "In all seriousness though, Violet," he murmured, his tone growing more sincere, "this was... everything I didn’t know I needed. You’re incredible." Reign let out another satisfied sigh and stretched out beside her, content to let the moment linger. The connection between them was undeniable, and for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t thinking about the things he’d lost—just the things he’d found. Reign’s voice dropped to a husky whisper as he brushed a lock of hair from her face, his eyes burning with a mixture of desire and satisfaction. "I have to admit, I'm surprised we didn’t make more of a racket. These walls aren’t exactly soundproof, but somehow, we pulled it off. And honestly?" His fingers traced her skin with a purposeful slowness. "I think I might like it even more if we didn’t have to hold back sometime in our future. No filters, no quiet… just pure us."

their lives couldn’t be called easy. they both had lost people who were everything to them. violet understood what it meant to lose someone that important—she hadn’t lost a husband, but she knew the deep ache of grief. she knew there was no filling that space in reign’s heart, and she’d never want to overstep his boundaries. she also knew she’d never be nala’s mom, and she’d never try to be. her goal was to be there for nala, to treat her with the same love and care she gave ayiden, but never to replace the mother she lost. violet had always been close to her students, and even with all her experience, she couldn’t fully imagine what nala was going through. still, whenever the little girl needed a hug because something had brought up her pain, violet was there—arms open, ready to hold her. all she wanted was for nala to be happy, just as she wanted for ayiden. as they finished up, violet looked at reign, her chest rising and falling as she caught her breath, a soft smile on her lips. “i hope this becomes part of the routine,” she teased, her voice light with a chuckle. she patted the spot beside her, wanting nothing more than for him to lay down next to her. if this wasn’t the start of falling in love, she didn’t know what it was. tugging on his hand, she gently urged him to lie beside her. “you’re amazing,” she said, her voice warm and sincere. “in every sense of the word.” she nestled into his chest, letting out a deep, content sigh. “i could get used to this,” she murmured, her fingers tracing lazy circles on his skin. she tilted her head slightly, a playful smile tugging at her lips. “so, how would you rate your first night here?” she asked, her tone light but curious.

[atleastpleasetelephone]

You are my absolute favorite Elvis writer. I have a request...😏🙏🏻. Could you doooo smut with either 1964 E ike Frankie and Johnny ...or bde.. I'm torn between the two. Can you doooo like the reader gets really mad at Elvis for some reason and she tries to dominate him but he puts her in her place?

Hot 'n' Cold

A/N: Thank you so much anon, that's so sweet! I went for 1964 E as I feel he doesn't get quite so much love on here. This turned out a little... mean? Perhaps the closest to a yandere Elvis I have ever written (but still not that close!)

Pairing: 1964!Elvis x reader

Word count: 1.6K

TWs: Slapping (reader slaps E), infidelity, rough sex, possessive kink, breeding kink, reader cries, mood swings, p in v sex.

“Don’t be silly, baby. I have to kiss her. It’s in the script.”

Elvis has just returned from filming Viva Las Vegas and he’s already a little frustrated with your lack of enthusiastic welcome home. He knew you’d be annoyed with all the stories in the papers, but he wasn’t expecting to be ambushed with questions the minute he walked through the door. He’s trying to play it cool though, hands thrust in his pockets, a neutral expression on his face. 

You draw yourself up to your full height (all five foot two of it) and shake your head determinedly. 

“It’s not just kissing, El, and you know it.”

“Baby. Come on,” he wheedles, closing the distance between you and putting his hand on your cheek. This sort of thing usually does the trick when you’ve heard something about some other woman.

You push him away, angrily. “No. You can’t charm your way out of this one, Mr Presley.” 

He sighs loudly, letting his hand fall back down next to his hip. “Whaddya want from me, then?”

He’s basically pouting at you now, and you don’t think that’s fair. He doesn’t get to pout, when he’s the one who’s been fooling around. You’ve seen the papers, you know the story, but this time it seems more serious than usual. What do you want from him? Marriage, commitment, babies… the whole fairytale. But right now? Right now you want to get even. 

“I want you to learn your lesson.”

Elvis cocks an eyebrow. “What lesson, honey?” You’ve never spoken to him like this before and he’s not sure he likes it. 

You huff now. “That you can’t mess around with other girls, El.”

He shakes his head. “I’ve told you, I’m not messing…”

You stare at him, angrily, trying to think of the sorts of things he usually says to you and how you can turn them back on him. But you’re too worked up, so you can’t think of anything other than slapping him across the face. 

“Ow!” 

He stares back at you in complete disbelief, his hand moving to rub his stinging cheek. You’ve definitely never done that before and he’s sure he doesn’t like it. 

“You deserved that!”

You kind of enjoyed slapping him, the rush of adrenalin through your body and the look on his face afterwards… In fact you enjoyed it so much you’re about to do it again, but he anticipates it, grabbing your wrist roughly. 

“Uh-uh, no you don’t.”

You try to wriggle out of his grasp but it just gets firmer and he catches your other hand now too, since it’s flying around dangerously close to his face in a way he doesn’t care for at all.

“Elvis!” You just about shriek, as he spins you around and walks you backwards until you collide with the wall. 

“Shush.”

He’s never known you to be like this, but then he’s never had a relationship go quite so public. He certainly didn’t want it all over the papers, it was embarrassing for God’s sake and he’d told Ann as much. But you can’t slap him. Whatever he might’ve done. 

He stands, pressing you against the wall with his body, holding your hands out to either side of your head for just a moment. Your head swims, wondering what he’s going to do next, your body reacting embarrassingly quickly to him being so close and so dominant. You’re supposed to be pissed with him but your panties are already soaked. His lips collide with yours in a bruising kiss and you can’t help yourself, moaning into his mouth. His hand is under your dress and pulling down your panties and then you hear him undoing his belt. He grabs your leg and forces it up as high as it will go (which is pretty high, you used to be a gymnast), stopping kissing you to watch your reaction as he thrusts inside you in one quick movement. Your eyes roll back in your head and you groan. 

“Whose pussy is this?” He growls, lips and teeth finding the skin below your ear.

“Y-yours, El…” you moan. 

He’s let your wrists go since you’re impaled on his dick now, trapped between him and the wall, and your fingers find the hair on the back of his head and knit themselves into it. 

“Good.”

He starts to move, short little thrusts, trying to drive himself somehow even deeper inside you. You whimper, fingertips pressing into his scalp, feeling almost uncomfortably full. 

“I decide when I want it,” he continues, his voice low and dangerous. “You make sure it’s always ready for me. Y’hear?”

His eyes are staring into yours now and it’s all you can do to nod and tell him yes. He starts to thrust a little more now, drawing out slowly and then slamming back into you full force. Your body rocks and you cry out. 

“No tellin’ me who I can see and who I can’t.”

You look down at him through tear-filled eyes as he keeps up the torturous rhythm. 

“I’m Elvis Fucking Presley and I’ll fuck whoever I want.”

You’re still whimpering, so he stops moving, grabbing your cheeks with one hand and squeezing them, forcing you to look at him. A tear runs down your face. 

“Did you fucking hear me?”

“Y-yes. Yes. I’m sorry. I sh-shouldn’t expect you to j-just want one girl.”

He lets go of your face, suddenly seeing the tears there and gently wiping them away with his thumb. 

“Good girl,” he says, softly, picking up a much gentler pace now. “Takin’ me so well.”

You try to steady your breathing but you feel all over the place, he’s being so gentle now it makes you want to cry more, somehow. 

“I love this pussy, baby,” he murmurs, sensually. “It’s so good to me.”

You still can’t speak so you just sniff in response. He starts to kiss your neck, rolling his hips into you in a way he knows is guaranteed to make you cum. Your sniffs turn to soft moans. 

“You gonna cum for me, baby?”

“Mmmm. Yes.” You bite your lip, trying to control the tears. His mood swings can be so difficult to deal with.

You can feel the edges of your orgasm as he keeps rolling into you, his heavy breath hot on your ear, little moans falling from his lips as he feels your walls start to flutter in anticipation. 

“C’mon baby. You can do it.”

The words of encouragement push you over the edge and you squeeze him, your orgasm ripping through your body and making you moan. He moans too, feeling you and hearing you, and he knows it won’t take much for him now either. He starts to pick up the pace, quick thrusts that slam your body into the wall repeatedly. 

“You want me to make ya a mama?” He pants. 

Your eyes go wide like saucers and you nod quickly. “Yes, y-yes please.”

“I’m gonna fill ya up… make ya mine…”

You can’t believe what you’re hearing. He’s never spoken to you like this, he always pulls out and cums somewhere else, so worried about accidentally getting you pregnant, so sure about it not being the right time for a baby yet.

“Please… please El…” you can’t believe you’re begging him right now, when you’ve already cum, but you want a baby so much. 

“Can’t wait ta see ya growing that baby inside ya…” he continues, thrusting even faster. “Knowing yer gonna be mine forever…”

“Yes. Yes. Fuck, yes.” It’s like his words alone are pushing you to another orgasm. 

“That what you want?”

“More than anything, El.”

There’s a wicked glint in his eye as he pushes your leg somehow even higher and hits somewhere deep inside you. You cry out in ecstasy and another orgasm hits you, almost as strong as the first, and you find yourself hanging on to him desperately as your legs turn to jelly and he pounds you through it. 

“Fuck!” 

He cries out, shooting his release into you, your walls squeezing it out of him for what seems like minutes. When he’s finally done he staggers backwards and pulls you with him. 

“Lie down on your back and put your feet up in the air.”

You stumble over to the bed and do as you’re told, your brain foggy and confused and unable to fathom why you’re doing what you’re doing. Eventually you ask.

“What’s this for, El?”

He’s lying next to you, holding your hand kind of sweetly. 

“It’s the best thing to do to make it take.”

You look at him, baffled. 

“To make a baby, honey.”

Your eyes go wide again. “You meant it?”

“Of course I meant it, honey. Imagine a little Presley runnin’ around the place. Can’t think of anything better.”

“So… you… are we gonna get married?” 

He nods. “When the time is right. You’ll see. For now you just concentrate on eating right and growing that little baby inside you. And if this one doesn’t take, there’s plenty more chances to practice…”

You smile and let him kiss you, enjoying the feeling of his lips against yours, but you can’t help wondering when exactly the time will be right. As you curl up in bed with him later that night, and he rubs your belly and tells you he can’t wait for it to be full, you wonder if this will mean he’ll stop wanting to be with other girls. Surely if you’re married and you give him the baby you both want so much, he’ll be happy? And surely you will too?

***

Taglist:

@vintagepresley @arg-xoxo @from-memphis-with-love @msamarican @blursedblegh @returntopresley @eapep @everythingelvispresley @i-r-i-n-a-a @sissylittlefeather @arrolyn1114 @jhoneybees @cattcb @polksaladava @lookingforrainbows @jkdaddy01 @ccab @epthedream69 @lustnhim @elvisslut @pomtherine @that-hotdog @ladelinee @angschrof @fairybloodsucker @deltafalax @makethemorning @elviswhore69 @ilovequeen978 @wildhorseinkansas

[gallaghersgal]

WILD & FLUORESCENT, lip gallagher

c5. of BORDERLINE, lip x bsf! reader (nickname: MK)

TAGS & WARNINGS → MATURE 18+. underage drinking, smoking (🚬), kissing!!!!! theyre kissing in this one guys. mostly fluff, a bit of emotional angst. but this is just the clubbing & graduation chapter, really!

CHAPTER SUMMARY → the last two months before graduation are a whirlwind, but you take all of it in stride. teetering on the edge of friends and something more, lip is by your side for all of it.

A/N → final chapter is here!! but don't worry, there is much more mkverse content to come. stay tuned!!

WC → 2.1k

After convincing Ian to drive the three of you downtown for the night, You, Lip and Adri pile into your car. You let Lip sit in the front seat to guide his brother, still newer at driving at only sixteen. Though, you remember a time when he’d driven a truck that Frank had… acquired. All the way down to the docks and back, at twelve. To say Fiona was pissed? That would be the understatement of the century.

You peer around the headrest, craning your neck while the car rolls to a stop in a crowded city lot. A deep color lines your lips, and you apply a shiny gloss on top. For a moment you glance at Lip, your heart quickening when you see he’s already looking at you. 

“Look like a whore,” he teases, drawing a giggle from your lips. You don’t mind it. You know he’s just being coy.

“Yeah well,” you gesture at his half undone button up, “could say the same about you.” You swat the back of his head with one hand before retreating to step out of the car.

Lip and Adri do the same, and the boy shrugs as he walks around to the drivers side where you are. The front window rolls down and Ian peeks out, “hey man, y’said you’d give me a ten for this.”

An unlit cig hands from his mouth as Lip pats his pockets for a lighter. You hand him yours when he’s unsuccessful. “Did I though?” Lip responds to his brother, “cause, I don’t remember that.” 

Adri fishes a ten five from her purse, then holds her hand out to Lip. “Come on, pay up.” He rolls his eyes at her but obliges, five dollars wasna sacrifice he could make. Adri hands the money to Ian with a pat on his arm, “thanks Ian, drive safe okay?”

He smiles and nods, rolling up the window before pulling away. Lip eyes her as the three of you walk towards the entry line. “You know AJ, there’s no use in hitting on my brother–”

She laughs in disbelief, “what? No, Lip–oh my god–I play for the other team too.” Lip’s eyes widen in surprise, his wit silenced, and Adri nearly doubles over. 

“Oh yeah?” Lip asks, “good to know.”

“Yeah. If I was going for anyone in your family, it’d for sure be Fiona,” she tells him, and then it’s Lip’s turn to stumble from the intensity of his laughter as you approach the end of the line. 

You check your reflection in the window of a closed shop, “If I don’t make out with someone fine tonight, I’m throwing a fit. Seriously.”

Still recovering, Lip pants out, “you look pretty like always MK.”

You raise an eyebrow in response, “really. ‘Cause earlier y’called me a whore.”

“Mm-hmm,” he nods, taking a drag from his cig before exhaling the smoke away from your face. “A pretty whore, yeah. What’s it Adri said, slutty chic?”

At his comment, you remember his words this morning. 

Lip and Adri wait for you outside the corner store as you get your picture taken for a new fake, dead set on getting a good one. This could last until your actual twenty-first birthday. When you finally emerge Lip takes your newly updated card from your hand, inspecting it closely. “You definitely got a discount ‘cause y’r hot. Mine cost like, twenty dollars more and wasn’t half as nice as this shit. But it scans, so I can’t complain.”

Adri eyes you at the comment, lifting an eyebrow behind Lip’s back. He’s indecisive in that way, always half hitting on you but never making a move. It drives you up the wall.

Why does Lip Gallagher have to be so infuriating?

You dismiss him as Adri pulls three smirnoff shooters from her purse. “Fuck! Forgot I had these in here still, meant to take them in the car.” She quickly passes you one each, unscrewing the top to her own. 

“Wait, I wanna make a video,” you tell her. “For our future selves.”

“Of course you do,” Lip complains, but there’s a smile on his face as you prop up your phone. 

You step back between the two of them, raising the small bottle. “Cheers! To… uh–”

“To your twenty-first,” Lip supplies with a smirk. He throws an arm around your shoulders after uncrewing his shot. “And to many, many more.”

“Many more!” Adri toasts, grinning as the three of you clink the bottles and down the shots. 

A bit of a lightweight, you’re feeling the shot by the time you approach the bouncer. By batting your eyes and flashing your ID while telling the large man how excited you were to finally get to try adult things, you distract him enough that he doesn’t check Adri’s ID. Only when the two of you make it to the bar and look back for Lip do you notice he’s still outside the door. He peers around, scowling at the two of you for abandoning ship while he’s left to shell out the cover fee. Thank god you’d known not to pick somewhere too fancy, a little divey club with a dated soundtrack and cheaper drinks. He only had to give the bouncer fifteen before he was allowed inside. 

You offer to buy him a drink as an apology but he refuses, placing a ten on the bar. “I’ll have the three for ten shots, just pour something y’think these girls would like?”

You watch the bartender shoot him a grin before grabbing a bottle of house made strawberry syrup. He rimmed three shot glasses with the syrup before pouring rum and a splash of lemonade. He passes them over and Lip hands the shots out, “on me,” he says with a grin as he elbows you. 

The rum goes down the hatch with ease–it’s your favorite liquor–the bartender made a pretty accurate guess. While you shake off the burn of the shot you hear music that you immediately recognize. You place the plastic cup down on the bar and grab your friends’ hands. “Come on!”

You drag Adri onto the floor, grinning when she takes your other hand and the two of you twirl around. Your hand had slipped from Lip’s as he stayed by the bar, ordering drinks. You pray to god he’s putting them on separate tabs. Lip wades through the crowd with three plastic cups in his hands. He passes two fruity cocktails to you and Adri before gulping down half of his own whiskey sour, his hips beginning to sway to the beat. You twirl around on your own, surprised when a warm hand lands on your hip. 

From behind you Lip murmurs, “this ain’t weird, right?” He guides you to face in Adri’s direction, shes lost in some girl’s eyes. 

You stammer out, “n-no ‘s not–” before he’s swaying you to the beat. He downs the rest of his drink, placing the empty cup on a ledge to your right. Two hands now guide you to face him, looking like the cat that got the cream the way he’s grinning at you.  

And it isn’t weird, really. You’ve always had this unspoken thing between you. Always flirted with the edge of friendship and something more. Regardless, you’re comfortable with it. 

The night goes on just like that, Adri swaps kisses with the girl, smudging a nice shade of brown all over her own lips. You stumble out around two-thirty in the morning, clinging to Lip’s side as Adri hops in a cab home. She offered the two of you a ride to the station but it was in the opposite direction, and Lip insisted the two of you could walk the two blocks there. 

“C’mon MK, lets get you home yeah?” Lip says, his arm holding your waist securely. 

You focus on your steps, blurry eyes pulling away from Adri’s cab as she leaves. You look up to see Lip’s sparkling blue eyes turned toward you, and you’re grateful to the cool wind for excusing the flush on your cheeks. 

“Thanks,” you slur, heading down the street. It’s a short walk which you fill with comfortable silence until your tired body is collapsing into a seat on the L. Within seconds your head finds Lip’s shoulder, drawing a chuckle from the boy. “Lip?” you ask softly, looking up at him.

He smiles graciously, his lips curving into a tipsy grin. “Yeah? Wha’s up kid?”

Your flush worsens at the soft nickname and gentle tone of voice he uses. “Will we be best friends forever?” you ask softly, feeling childish. But you need to know, and they always say drunk words are sober thoughts.

Lip’s smile dips and for a second you fear the worst, but his gentle hand moves to ruffle your already messy hair. “Oh yeah, no doubt about it,” he murmurs. Before you know what’s happening he’s kissed your head. A soft peck right on your crown. 

You stare up in awe, and as if moving on their own you see your fingers tangle in his curls. You pull him down until his lips are on yours, teeth knocking but you don’t find it in you to care. He tastes like the whiskey sours he’d been sipping on all night, smooth bourbon mingling with the acidic taste of a vodka cran on your tongue. 

After a moment you come to your senses, kissing him like this on a public–although empty–train. “Fuck! Lip, ‘m s-so sorry, jeez–”

He cuts you off with a soft finger running over your bottom lip. He traces up to the corner, lifting it into a pretty curve until you’re smiling on your own. He kisses your smiling lips, then murmurs, “‘s okay, y’know. We can be friends who kiss.”

You can kiss Lip Gallagher. Whenever you want. You’re too elated to care about the friendly label. 

Graduation rolls around in due time. Lip looks good in his cap and gown, khaki shorts and a crisp button down underneath. He has you tie his deep blue tie for him, up in your bedroom before heading off. He kisses you in the proximity, holding your cap flush against your head as his own knocks it backwards. All while Caroline and Ian wait downstairs. 

The four of you ride in your car over to the school, and you hold back your tears in the parking lot as you hug your little sister all, dressed up to sing the National Anthem at your graduation. You sit far from Lip during the ceremony but find each other afterwards, walking to the front of the school arm in arm to take a few pictures. Adri surprises you on the way, catching up after sitting right in the front for the best view. You shriek with laughter as she hugs you, you hadn’t even seen her. The three of you take a picture together, Adri sandwiched between Lip and yourself. When you look back at it, you see Lip smiling like the sun in your direction. 

When everything is done and your camera roll is sufficiently full of graduation shots, your little group disbands. Lip says goodbye to his own family, Fiona needing to return to work and Veronica taking the kids back home. You hug your parents tightly, taking one last photo with them by the school sign before they head off. Adri takes a hint from the glance you shoot her, and offers Caro and Ian a ride in her jeep, with the windows down. Of course they say yes. 

That leaves you and Lip alone in your car. You shift into reverse, and when you turn your head to check behind you, he catches your lips with his own. Just a peck, you wish it was more. “You’ll call me every Friday when I’m in Mass, yeah?” he asks, face still close to yours. 

“Of course I will,” you murmur. “I’ll update you on everything.”

“Everything?” he questions, as a smirk plays at his lips. 

“Yeah, everything. Promise.”

You hold out your pinkie, and he does the same. You lock your fingers in the same way you would as kids, swearing to be friends forever. Distance won’t break this bond, right?

“Even your hookups?” Lip asks, drawing his pinkie back from yours. “I want it all, y’know. Girl talk and everything.”

You laugh at him before turning your gaze forward again. “Yeah, right. No fuckin’ way I’m telling you about my sex life. I’ll have Adri for that.” 

He laughs too, goodnaturedly, and clicks his seatbelt on when you glare at him. “Well, I’ll be tellin’ you ‘bout mine, so just know that. Dunno if I’m gonna make too many friends with those mathlete pricks and daddy’s money jagoffs,” he scoffs. 

You roll your eyes, “yeah, I’ll be your phone diary, ‘kay?” From the corner of your eye you can see him smile.

THX 4 READING → the final installment of borderline is dedicated to mkip nation; @notsonian, @ariiireads, and @dearpyramus. beta'd by the lovely @carmybrainworms <33

[vhyunjinverse]

Dirty Dancing !

P. Seonghwa x f!Black reader || (18+) || reblog if you like!!

warnings: public sex, drunk sex, unprotected sex, reader isn’t wearing any panties, twerking, pink haired seonghwa :), use of pet name (Bunny), Ateez mentioned

How the fuck did you get here?

“Please..”

“Please what? I can’t hear you over the music Bunny.” That nickname. He knew what he was doing. Fuck he was so fucking sexy.

“I want you. Bad- I don’t care who sees just..stick it in yeah? I’m not wearing panties.” But that much Seonghwa knew. A smirk dancing on his pretty plump lips. Long fingers moving to between your legs as he balanced your body, your legs wrapped around his waist while your back pressed up against the wall. Both of you tucked away in a secure corner, only the rest of Ateez being able to view you- and anyone else who could tell who Seonghwa was, his pink hair standing out in the crowd of moving bodies. No one really paid attention to the both of you, having their own festivities.

Your pretty brown lips parted, Seonghwa’s finger taking a dip into your soaking heat. You gasp- his finger teasing your hole. His cock twitching in his suffocating pants, he’s been hard since the moment you told him to hold your waist and not let go on the dance floor.

“I’ve always wanted to meet you all, face to face that is.” A nervous giggle left your lips as the boy group you adored showed you their respect. You understood they were a busy group of people- as were you, schedules never aligned, but it was on your bucket list to meet Ateez.

Being a celebrity yourself, it made being a fangirl even more fun. Being able to meet the people you’ve been a fan of. But here…the club? Your thighs being swallowed by a tiny denim skirt, the only cover being the fishnets you wore underneath. No panties. Your shirt was a denim halter to match your skirt. You were perfect, accessories completing your look, as well as your hair. The eyes on you now, though full of respect, also showed signs of lust.

“Alright, let’s become friends now.” You happily joined their group. They were just sitting around. You always wondered how Idol’s partied. Your mom was an Idol, but she never told much about her crazy life outside of performing. Drink after drink, you somehow ended up in Seonghwa’s lap, shot glass in your hand as he stared at you with low eyes.

“You’re my favorite, don’t tell Hongjoong.” You winked, wiggling around. The man below you chuckling, downing his shot. “I won’t tell, Bunny. It’s..nice to finally meet you, though. I’m a fan of your mother’s too, and watching you become a celebrity as well is so nice. I’ve been saying we should have you help with our choreography one day.” He turns a shade near the color of his hair. Pink. You loved pink haired Seonghwa,

“Hell yeah. I’d definitely do that. You have my number now just call me. I’ll let you know when I’m free.” The buzz, the rush. Everything felt so…good. Being in Seonghwa’s arms. You tuned out everything else. Having such a long conversation with him. It made you feel wonderful- it was your love language after all.

“Let’s dance. I wanna- wanna do something with you hm?” Giggling, you dragged the taller man to the dance floor. You stayed close to the rest of the group though. Hands over your body, you leaned into his touch. Small sounds leaving your lips, he pulled you back into him, sharp eyes never leaving your frame.

Suddenly, a more upbeat song starts playing. The rhythm hooking you immediately. Your hips moved on their own. You looked back at Seonghwa before biting your lip. “If I tell you to hold my hips and not to let go would you?” You made eye contact. Smirk littering his lips, he slowly licks them, nodding at you as you started to grind your ass against his crotch.

He was such a…god, such a man. If anyone saw you, they’d think you were fucking. The way you touched the floor, moving your ass to the best against Seonghwa’s crotch. Each beat you hit perfectly. You almost forgot you weren’t wearing panties, and Seonghwa must’ve caught that. Aside from his hard-on nearly fucking you right then and there, he held you close to him with one hand while the other pulled your skirt back over your ass best he could.

“Just like that?” He groans against your neck. Even in the corner of the room he pulled you so close so that no one could see your body- no one but him. “Like that..please.” You whine, eyes fluttering. He’s so long and thick. Leaking tip playing against your folds. Your clit wet with how much he leaked against you. Your own juices mixing in with his and he hasn’t even stuck it in yet. “Oh god…” You panted. You felt hot. You wanted to take your clothes off- the fabric hot against your skin. You couldn’t, though, and you knew that much. At the pace you were going you wouldn’t want to be in a bedroom. You needed each other now.

“Deep breath for me Bunny.” His voice sounded so thick. The beautiful dip in his brow almost made you cum. The way he watched you breathe in as he started to push his cock through…Your juicy breast rising so slightly, nipple slipping from the tight denim. Your mouth agape, fingers clenching his arms. This was so..nasty. People were around, so many people and yet inch by inch disappeared inside your wet cunt, sucking him in, taking it so well. You whimpered loudly, head falling back against the wall. 14 pairs of eyes watching you both intensely. You were aware, so was Seonghwa.

“You’re so warm inside Bunny. F-Fuck….shit.” a broken moan escaped the man. Even the way he moaned was beautiful. His eyes shut tightly for a second, cock twitching inside of you. Seonghwa felt his hands beginning to sweat. He held your pretty brown legs so securely.

He fucked into you slowly, long cock passing through your walls it was agonizing. So slow that you felt everything, every inch every vein. He looked like he was about to cry from the pleasure. You whimpered his name, breath picking up. “Is this the spot Bunny?” He murmurs softly, cock pressing against your walls. “N-No…” your legs shook, pussy throbbing around his size. He chuckles, lips parting as he moved around. Anxiety crept up your body. Who could see you other than the rest of Ateez? Would someone record and upload it? Both of your careers could end from this very moment.

“Oh!” You gasp, legs tightening around him. Your body jerks. “Right here Bunny?” Seonghwa’s teasing voice made you look up at him. He stared down at you longingly. “Yes- right there.”

“Good. I’m going to speed up now okay?”

[mulberrymyrtle]

COSMIC ─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

[various!pjo x child of urania!reader]

CHAPTER ONE : stargazing...petty fights... weird guy who smells of sewer water.

SUMMARY : in typical sibling fashion, your half-sister forces you to engage in bonding activities to get closer to your godparent. however it's 1am, and gods? they never cared anyways.

YOUR SISTER WAS A WEIRD PERSON, or rather your "half-sister" was the epitome of whimsical shook into a bottle rapidly to create a highly-superstitious woman.

You could say she was obsessed or in her own terminology - a "passionate" astrologer who's hands were blessed by Urania's knowledge of the cosmos. (As she uttered in her theatrical matter, in front of the Hermes table. You wished with clutched hands that Zeus should strike her down with his fearsome lightning.)

Yet, in your own terminology she was a nerd who loved the stars too much she'd disintegrate herself if it ever decides to come near her vicinity. (both literally and metaphorically)

She'd wake you up in the chill-breeze of dawn, hands slapping at your sweat-filled forehead (because being squeezed in the Hermes cabin is definitely anything but cold). Her fingers gesturing to the destroyed window, (a polite gift of the Stolls) with excitement coursing over her star-speckled eyes. With drowsiness choking you by the brain, fogging everything that hurls out of her mouth - the only thing it can make out is your name.

"The constellations!" She sputtered, words spilling from her chapped lips. "They're clearer!"

"Uh...clear, cool. Woah."

"Oh my Olympus," she sighs knocking at your head, "It means Urania is giving us a sign! We need to talk to her or something!"

"Why does it matter if she..." you paused, shifting your crumpled blanket closer to your body. "Or Urania makes the constellations clearer? You know the gods don't care at all. Making up for neglect isn't making stars clearer or whatever." Rolling your eyes, flopping yourself back on the floor.

With a whine of your name, she smacks you (like she always does) "That's our mom, you have to respect her."

"That's a god." You spit out,  "She's probably out there creating more half-siblings to cramp us in this cabin."

"I hope she makes better siblings than you." She huffed, her arms crossed.

"You'll just betray me like that? I was joking, you were supposed to say you're the best ever!"

She gives you a look of disgust, her head shaking rapidly. "In a hypothetical sense, you're doing the betraying here."

You gave an awkward cough, eyes shifting away from her face. With a stiff laugh, you murmured under your breath. "In Capture the Flag... maybe?"

She tilts her head, your words processing in her mind. "Huh- wait! You're not teaming up with me?"

"Well, I wanna win for once."

"You think Clarisse will make you win?" She raises her brows, her face scanning over you like it was a joke.

"Better than be dunked in the toilet that's for sure..."

"We had a plan!"

"I barely have anything to do there," you shake your head, putting the blanket over your head. "It's probably Annabeth saying that Athena always has a plan." Replicating Annabeth's confident tone to perfection as you utter the phrase. "I am practically dummy bait for Clarisse either way."

Your ears pick up on her groan, her back hitting the wall with a loud thump. Under the covers, you shift to turn away. Your mind was on desperate measures, forcing itself to shut off - away from your half- sister's insistent pleads. The thin sheets you slept yourself on was better than lying on prickled grass, the hurls of harpies screaming in the distance, paired with the stories your sister’s would wander about was anything but delightful.

"Just let me sleep," you tell through muffled sheets, moving around the tight space.

"You're so difficult." She murmurs in exasperation, almost tired. "I'm just trying to get us closer, that's what she..." Her tone falters, like the next words were impossible for her to voice out.

You hear the deep breaths she takes in, the sigh she releases - even a clink of the necklace Urania gifted her. The subtle movement of the blanket tells her that you're prodding the next things she'll say, eager to listen.

"Oh," you finally hear her voice after the moments of silence, you find yourself shifting closer to her.

"Oh, i'm sorry Peter," she utters in a soft manner, "Did we wake you?"

Who the hell is Peter?

In a sudden movement, you fling your blanket off. Head emerging from the soft comforts of your dingy pillow to face whoever decided to join the conversation. You swore, there was never a Peter unless it was a spirit that decided to wander in the dead of dawn. But, you also know that your half-sister couldn't see ghosts. You were sure that in the entirety of Camp, only one person could do that - the cabinmate beside you whose snores irritated your ears.

Your head turns to the person, like a crane cranked up in slow motion. Your vision clearing up, the blurred figure of the person fully coming into view.

Ohh, so that's Peter.

You turn to your sibling, then back to him as your memory tries to recollect on who he was. Eyes looking over his closed off form - he's a bit close, you think. His sea-breezed hair has been swept by the constant turns in his sleep (he's restless as well, why were you beside two annoying sleepers?)

He was reminiscent of men who spent their summers lazing in the warm sands, letting the grains supple over their bodies. A man that looked like he thrived with the waves splashing in their hair and the chemical smell of sunscreen that he’d pile on endlessly. You wouldn’t be surprised if his godparent was a related to water (if Poseidon still had children, he'd be top one) or his whoever his parent was, must’ve been an avid surfer.

But, you wished he smelled like the fresh seas or of summer's refreshing taste. Instead a vague scent of rotten sewer water invaded your senses, as you shook your head. Meeting the gaze of your sibling once again, a common understanding of apologizing to him came over the two of you - his squinted eyes seemed to tell you he was irritated.

You sighed, resting your head against the creaking walls (does Chiron even have enough budget to fix this, you wonder) "Sorry Peter, we didn't mean to - "

"It's Percy." He clears up with a rather deadpan tone, his arms clutched around a rather curved object. "Can you tone it down?"

You share a look with your sister. "We're sorry, we'll quiet down."

"Will you?" He questions, hold tightening on the object in his arms. You’re pretty sure that comment was meant to jab at you two, hearing your sister mutter something inaudible.

A few awkward glances is shared between the three of you, the sudden creak of the floorboard disrupts the moment. The shuffles of your sister's footsteps is heard within the empty cabin, all you can do is observe her movements, her body reaching over to a corner.

Rustling is heard from a distance, bunches of papers being smashed into one thing. The heavy thuds of books, she stuffs countless books about astronomy (that she probably let Travis steal from the camp's store) pencils that seem to clack at every moment, pens scattered with vast colors. She slings the filled bag over her shoulder, as she faces the window, fingers nimbly opening the creak. Then with a soft breath, she turns to you two - her mouth moving in a familiar manner. She's ran away from too much cramped sleeping beds in the dead of night for you to immediately understand her.

Don’t tell Luke.

With a lazy nod, you shoo her away - an action that makes her mouth quirk up, a little "you'll pay if you snitch" emerging from her tongue. Then in a blink you find her figure blending into the starry sky, the stars seeming to twinkle a bit brighter when she did.

"Does she do that often?" Percy asks with a tilt of his head. "Isn't that, against the rules?"

"Well," you trail off with an awkward smile. "Rules never bothered her, really."

"The harpies?"

"She's good at avoiding them," shrugging him off. "Got a collection of their feathers, weirdly enough."

Percy doesn't say another word, noticing the chest set beside you — overflowing with the collection.

The nightly-air washes over your body, dancing around you playfully. It’s cool, different from the compacted warmth that Hermes’ cabin offered behind the doors. Leaning your head on the window-still, you see the glowing splatters of the stars glint in your sight. It contrasts against the abyss, like it usually does without fail - despite your reluctance, you do admit it was ethereal.

“Ah, it is clearer,” you mumble in defeat, eyes taking in the constellations that appeared within the etched sky.

Your breath awes at the different collection of constellations that pooled beneath. Immediately catching the bright gleams of common constellations ranging from the Zodiacs, drifting over to beam at Cassiopeia. You stop your observations for a moment, with a furrowed brow. Your dart your eyes to the seemingly duller shine of stars that mixed to create another picture - eyes widening at the newly found connection.

"Perseus," you whisper amongst the silence, awe filling your body - it gleamed beautifully. It took over half of the field, completely stealing the show — a rare constellation appearing?

"Excuse me?" a voice calls out within the silence, confusion evident in their tone. You flinch at the intrusion, seeing Percy look at you with a pursed lip.

"Perseus, the constellation?" Pointing to the sky above, connecting the brightest stars together to show him the picture. “You know, the Greek hero?”

"I know," he states, when you blink you find a presence settled beside you. He's close, you think, the proximity has your mind jump. He focuses his sights on the sky before him. His breath stutters unevenly, you see his throat almost bobble up — his face is a mix of everything. It's dull mostly — like the constellation isn't something he awed at. "Slayed Medusa, saved the princess, happy ending, all that." He spits out, a hard edge to his tone.

"Not a fan, huh?" you tease with a glint of mischief, hugging your knees close to your chest. "Me too," you confess, burying yourself deeper in your knees. "Heroes with a happy ending, seems weird."

"Yeah, real weird," he croaks out, his tone slightly pitched up —lips quivering when he continues to stare.

You observe him quietly, how he clings tight to the material close to him. Hugs it like it's the only warmth, the comfort he's had — it resembles how a child sticks to his mother. It makes your chest tight, your hands clammy.

With a little sigh, your body finds itself shifting closer to him. You come shoulder-to-shoulder to him, his warmth ever so present.

"Man, you do hate him huh?" you utter with a surprised tone, fiddling with your blanket. Bumping his shoulder in a light manner, you linger a bit long. "Don't worry, he doesn't show up all the time," you inform him softly, hoping it'll lift up whatever anger he has directed to him. "You'll mostly find common ones, like the Big Dipper or Cassiopeia here — just don't look too hard and Perseus won't show."

"No," he interrupts you, his eyes back at yours. The closeness has you forced to stare into his pierced gaze — it's clouded almost, like seas crashed with storms and overlapped. "No, I don't hate him."

"Then what?"

"It's just weird," he whispers. "We share a name, I find it weird."

"Perseus?" With a raised brow, you tilt your head. "You share a name with him? Perseus? Who named you that?"

He takes a second to register your question, yet his breath hitches — almost stopping his lungs from functioning.

"My mom," he rasped out, a heavy sigh ; the confession a burden to vocalize. There is a crack entering his words, mourning coloring his very body. The object he's been embracing the whole time is tighter than before, you can see the outline. Curved and pointed, a minotaur horn which was penetrating itself in his chest  — he does not stop ; he continues to press deeper.

Oh.

Minotaur horn, Percy, mother.

Minotaur horn, Percy, mother.

Minotaur horn, Percy, mother...

Then, it finally clinks in your mind ; an echo of previous events emerge within. It's him. You knew of him in the rumors that spread by both campers or by the satyrs who's hands tended the stables. The tale of a new camper brought in the hazing storm, killing the famed minotaur with brute strength — his endeavour marked by the remnant of the horn held by his hands. It was a story that'd be etched in the stars, you imagine the giddy smile your sister wore when she heard of it.

A new legend, she sputters with excitement. A story that the constellations will love.

But, your mind did not think of "legends" or the myth in a making. The boy before you, who's blanket was not neat, who's eyes started to water a bit, and choked with the overwhelming pressure of learning of his heritage — he looked too human to you.

The creation of a legend is never beautiful, it is from harsh treatment — to be attacked mercilessly of battles that the gods force you in.

You were aware of that, every demigod was.

So when you hid yourself deep in the vines that hugged the White House, hearing the worried murmurs and rabid shuffle of pinochle ; hearing news about the newest recruit. Your heart becomes heavy. Grover's tone is shaky, the tin cans that clattered as it crunched underneath his mouth. His reporting is messy, unclear, the quiet sniffles interrupt it from the clarity.

What about his mother? He quietly voices out, it is silent. Mr. D doesn't have some snarky comment nor does Chiron bring out any advice like he'd always do. What are we gonna say about his mom? Grover says, filled with desperation — it's coarse, demanding.

She's gone. He cries out, his tone is weighed in by grief ; a failure, he thinks of himself. The way how utters the words is so similar, bringing you to a moment years ago.

You try to shake off the previous events, focusing on Percy.

"Your mom," you repeat, careful to say it with caution. "She... she must've been cool to name you that."

"She was," he answer back, his tone softer. "She was the best, actually," he whispers tenderly. You feel your chest tighten at how he mentions her. He has a little smile on his face, how his dullness is now shining at every moment he thinks of her positively. He parades his memory of his mother like a cherished gift, a woman he never wants to ever forget.

You never thought it was possible to think of your own mother that way, to hold her tightly to your heart.

You give him a reassuring nod, taking in the softness that surrounded him briefly.

"Hm," you hummed, fingers playing amongst the gathering dust at the window. "Naming you after Perseus, names are pretty strong thing here, you know?"

"Grover said the same thing," he says confused. "When I almost said Diony — Mr. D's real name. What's that about?"

"Uh, my sister says it kind of seals your destiny," you trail off. "If you're named after something, your fate's gonna be written out for you." But you put a shushing motion to your mouth, "I don't believe whatever she says — she's ultra superstitious, really. It might be her fear-mongering again."

"But," you continue. "Your mother must've loved you a lot for you to be named after a hero who gets a happy ending."

He squints his eyes, wondering what you were trying to imply.

"If we do take my sister's words, she wants a happy ending for you," you say slow, thinking of how to convince him. "Then you should follow that destiny, let yourself reach a happy ending that you want," you ramble off to him, hoping he'd listen. "I mean, that's why you were brought here? You must've felt outcasted, like most of us — and now, you're not different anymore, you're just you."

You take a breather, the next words crashing on you. "That's something happy isn't it? To finally be with people who understand, — here you don't have to be scared. You can do everything without fear of judgement."

"Will I?" he spoke in a hushed tone, insecurity evident. "I mean, I did get dunked in a toilet first day in, very welcoming." He uses a sarcastic tone, the displease is displayed loudly.

That alone makes you laugh, "So Clarisse did that to you, that's why you smell weird."

"H-huh, I don't..." leaning down to sniff a part of his clothes, "I wasn't even wet by the toilet water!"

You were a bit stunned at his claims, shaking it off quickly. "Well I can still smell it!"

"Are you messing with me?"

"Well, we are in the Hermes cabin, try guessing," you cheekily reply, using your elbow to nudge him. He playfully shoves you off with a huff, making you smile.

"It's hard to read your face — it's a blurred mix," he scoffs at your words.

"Blurred mix? That's a new one," you expressed amusement, shaking your head. "Has camp been mentioning that again?"

"Well, it's not a joke, it is kinda blu —"

"Well, since you faced Clarisse's toilet ritual" you cut off his words, reaching out to pat his shoulder. "You definitely will, you'll belong here just fine."

You'll belong here just fine.

Percy pauses, your hands still placed on him — you flinch, immediately removing it. He mulls over your words, blooming something within him — you think that after being kicked out almost every year, that he'll never find a place to be. Everywhere he steps in, trouble catches up and is ready to grab his collars and sink him deeper into the pits.

To himself, he is an outcast — he has never belonged, he is the kid a Nancy Bobofit like-persona would pick on every chance, the weird kid who couldn't do well in school. A trouble-maker who'd burdened everyone.

Yet, Camp Half-blood entered his life — and everyone shares the same story. He isn't alone anymore, he's not different, he's everyone else — just like he'd dream.

Okay, I'll belong here, just fine. Percy thinks deep inside, giving you a half-smile. A shared silence falls between you two, turning your attention back to the beaming stars. You hear a stifled yawn beside you, Percy body sways like the calm winds — sleepiness overcoming his every being.

He crawls back, uttering a curt goodnight. His snores now adding on to the never-ending piles of sleepy campers — it's annoying, but it's starting to lull you to your own sense of slumber.

"Goodnight, Percy," you reply back, already finding his body deep within the covers. You observe how his face flinches, before coming down to a little smile - he was thinking of his mom. You come closer to his side.

"May the stars guide you,"  you whisper, it's unfamiliar on your tongue. It better suits your sister, however you wished the words wrapped the nightmares that plagued him. It worked when your sister uttered them when you tossed and turned at sleepless nights, gentle hands soothing you down.

You pray to that the boy beside you, who's face shone brightly at the mention of his mother. That he would not succumb to the horrors being a demigod would bring him. The grief that weighed on your , the flashes of other campers before him, who crumbled under the gods.

Do they even care?

You hope they will, someday. Turning over to observe the brightest star, a speckle of hope in your heart.

"Goodnight..."

Your voice halts at what you want to say next - "mom." Shaking your head, you return the blanket over your heaving chest.

"You really did make the stars nicer," you blurt out, a tinge of frustration in your tone. "It's not that bad." you snicker mockingly, hoping it'll anger her a bit.

Maybe, if you squinted hard enough, the star twinkled back for a brief moment. Urania's weird way of scolding, you wished - but the gods never cared, do they?

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

first chapter done! wohoo, hope you enjoyed this is the first ever book i've written and decided to post so im shy, hehe... reblogs and comments are HIGHLY appreciated, would love to gain insight on how to improve this story -- so any beta reader who can give me advice thank you!

also i lowkey bawled because I DELETED A GOOD PORTION OF THIS FIC I HAD TO REWRITE IT AUGHHH.

fun fact : the camper who can see ghosts is actually another reader insert i plan to release, someday :0! (try to guess who's their godparent is)

[artralichoard]

Rock Climbers au

Last and definitely NOT least, Raph is the Boulderer of the brothers. He loves pushing his strength on really complex routes and intense overhanges. He is either in an intense focus trying to complete his latest boulder problem, or doing the most rediculous things on the wall. He will rope anyone and everyone into his shinanigans. "ok but what if we do this route with JUST our left hand and leg? yeah? that would be fun!" or "what if we put our hand here on this hold, then use this hold to keep your self on the wall- what? yeah I know mean you'd be upside down but thats fine! it goes. trust me" or "oh wait! this hold is perfect for a bathang, donnie c'mon lets see who can hang the longest!"

Boulder is also really fun for Raph because it helps him work on his problem solving skill and thinking ahead. Theres been plenty of time where the brothers are cheering Raph on while he works on a particularly hard problem, only for him to pause mid route. when asked Raph can only respon "I didn't think I'd get this far! wheres the next hold? where do I go from here!?" before falling off the wall in defeat. Donnie tries to instill routereading into Raphs head but it never sticks.

Outside of Bouldering, Raph also like Top Rope. He like working on his stamina, which Top Rope climbing definitely puts to the test. Especially when he has Mikey belaying him, who will bring out Dr. Delicate Touch to get Raph up the wall! "ok I don't think I got anything left, you can bring me down Mikes!" "Nope! you aint getting down till I say so! now go one more time!" He like the burn of a good work out, but hates the idea of Lead Climbing and refuses to try it despite Leo's askance. Top Rope however give Raph the security to climb taller walls reletively stress free.

Mikey | Leo | Donnie

Hooray all the boys are done!!! I really enjoyed making all of these, I can never draw Raph too well so I am exteremely happy with how this turned out! (I may be a little biased as Raph has always been my fave in almost any iteration and I am a boulderer at heart)

Like I mentioned in Mikey's post, most if not all of the inspiration for this au come from my irl experience climbing with my friends. some of the poses I used even are straight up from pics I have of us in our shinannigans XD.

I might come back to this to include April, Casey and Jr. but i'm not 100% sure so for now that is all!! thank you for tolerating my self induldgant au!

[perpetualcontrolleddrowning]

Zui Xian Peak Fic

alright, that's enough, let's get you home

JRaylin441

Summary: Liao Qinglan spends her days making wine, drinking with Shang Qinghua, and having a good time. Surely, this will never be disrupted.

Written for the Gotcha for Gaza prompt "would love a fic about Zui Xian, the Cang Qiong Mountain devoted to...alcohol. What are they doing over there?"

Content Warnings: there isn't much here beyond a LOT of drinking and getting drunk. It's not presented as an unhealthy coping mechanism but please just take care of yourself. Also Liao Qinglan has some bias against demons that she works through. It's not a whole deep thing and I keep the tone light, but be aware of that too.

Read it on ao3 here (x)

Cang Qiong Mountain Sect has twelve peaks. That's something they don't talk about a whole lot. Well, okay, so they talk about the fact that there are twelve of them, all the damn time. Twelve peaks. A nice, round number.

But who can actually remember all the peaks? Who could actually name them? Sometimes it feels like the literal members of the sect can't do it, let alone any of the common folk or the people from other cultivation sects around them.

Sometimes, Liao Qinglan lets this get to her. Sometimes, it really bothers her, that no one seems to give enough of a shit about her peak to even remember that it exists, let alone the names of its peak lord and disciples.

Usually, though, it kind of kicks ass. Like, all of the benefits that come with affiliation with the most prominent and highly-revered cultivation sect in the jianghu but none of the actual obligation, expectation, or responsibility. Not too bad a deal, when you think about it.

"I'd take that any day. Please, someone come and give me a single day when some peak lord or another isn't pounding on my door, begging me to come fix another thing, give them more money to replace the wall again, and they pinky-promise that this time, this time they definitely aren't going to break it. I mean, fuck, you know? What am I beyond a money purse, if you think about it?" Shang-shixiong flops his head down into his arms, resting against the fine oak table in Liao Qinglan's home and groping across it to take another sad sip of his wine. It drips down the side of his mouth and onto the wood, since it's almost impossible to drink when you're laying down like that. Liao Qinglan can do it, but she's kind of an expert, when it comes to things like this.

"I mean, what was I thinking? Why does a money purse need to have feelings and the ability to be tired? Could have just made it a magical, floating cave full of riches. Psychically read the mind of everyone who comes and gives them the money they need if they deserve it. Fuck. But no, had to go and make an overworked lackey of it all. Should have known, with my luck."

"Truly, your suffering is never ending," Liao Qinglan drawls, reaching out to refill Shang-shishu's cup, because she's nice like that. He's not making any sense right now, and he'll start making even less sense if he drinks the new cup, but that's fine too. What kind of peak lord could she call herself, if she wasn't prepared for such things?

Liao Qinglan, peak lord of Zui Xian Peak. Specializing in alcohol.

You might be wondering how it is that a person can ascend to peak lord status on alcohol alone, but anyone who had ever partied with Liao Qinglan back in the day wouldn't dare. She knows how to hold her liquor. Can really put it away. Will trounce your ass at literally any drinking game, just come and try it.

And then, of course, they all ascended, and suddenly the other peak lords were so busy being all prim and proper that they forget about the person who literally ascended with them from the force of their partying together. They're pretty much all on her shit list, if she's being honest.

Well. Not everyone. Shang Qinghua is fine. He comes by every couple of months to get rip roaring drunk and then cry on Liao Qinglan's table, and that's not too bad. Certainly isn't a change from how he always used to behave. Pretty much the only change she's seen in him since they first met is the increase in workload and, subsequently, the volume of tears he can produce when three sheets to the wind.

Shen Qingqiu was as stuck-up and reserved as ever, but he never really talked to her in the first place, certainly never went out drinking with them. So, you know, he was fine. Didn't drop her when he achieved notoriety because he never really picked her up in the first place. Can't be too pissed off about something like that. Then, in the last decade or so, after the huge change in personality (Liao Qinglan is still betting on possession, fuck what the relics and artifacts all said), he mostly just smiles vaguely when he notices she's there. Harmless and inoffensive and unremarkable. She's pretty sure he doesn't know her name.

And, you know, Huang Qinghao. Fuckhead of all fuckheads. The stuck-up asshole who has never had a drink in his fucking life, certainly never went out partying with them. Where Shen Qingqiu has always been a distant and vaguely superior presence, Huang Qinghao has always been the vocally judgemental and holier-than-thou dick who Liao Qinglan kind of wants to push off the mountain. Over on his all-male, ascetic peak. Sure, fine, to each their own, fucking enjoy it. But don't come over to Liao Qinglan's peak to give her another fucking lecture on why everything that she has built her peak on is stupid. Just because he's sworn to be a lonely and boring stick in the mud for the rest of his life doesn't mean everyone has to.

She's complaining. Again. It's fine. Shang-shishu is drunk as a skunk and definitely not processing anything she's saying. There's no one else around to overhear, because she always clears them out before he gets drunk like this. Says a whole lot of shit that might freak out the other peak members. Better to keep this kind of thing just between them.

Liao Qinglan has a few working theories. She isn't dedicating any particular effort to investigating or anything, but she toys with them now and then, notices when something happens that adds more evidence to one column than the other.

Theory One is that Shang Qinghua has fully and completely lost his mind. He's living in a daze or lost in some memory of a past life or something else equally disorienting, and it's making him think he designed this world. Sure. He seems to be managing the finances fine and hasn't died yet. If this is what that does to a man, then she's just glad An Ding was never for her.

Theory Two is that Shang Qinghua is actually a fucking god. Like, fell from the heavens, currently walking among them, had a hand in the creation of the world kind of god. Which, obviously, is completely stupid and impossible. He's literally laying on her table right now and drooling while he tries to work out the very complicated technique behind taking a drink while keeping your head flat on a horizontal surface. That's barely even advanced disciple shit.

So, of course, it's impossible and ridiculous. Still, though, she's been around him drunk more than probably anyone else in his entire life. People say things, when they're drunk. And, you know, while those things are almost always ridiculous and dramatic and overblown, they're also often true. Rarely the whole truth. It's all base emotion and instinct. The things you don't say on a day-to-day basis because some other part of you is blocking it. Whether that's common sense, shame, manners, morals, or some horrifying combination thereof. That's a part of people too. It's not like the things people say when they're drunk are the whole truth. There are other parts of them that matter as well and are also true and are the reason they haven't said this before.

But it's really, really rare. Rare, like, the peak leader of Zui Xian Peak has never seen it happen, for someone to get drunk and then start just spouting off reckless lies without any kind of truth behind them.

If Shang Qinghua is here, drunk at her table every few months, murmuring about the fact that he should have designed the world in a different way, well. That's something that someone as smart as Liao Qinglan has learned to pay attention to. Besides, she didn't get to the point of Theory Two just because he likes to talk like he's a god. If that were true, she would probably think he just has some kind of heart demon that's twisting his perception of reality. But, beyond mumbling about design choices for the world, Shang Qinghua has an uncanny ability to mention future events, that he couldn't possibly know about, that come true. He has a tendency to casually throw out very secret and personal details about people that they never would have told him but that also turn out to be true.

Like she said, Liao Qinglan isn't the type of person to go digging into mysteries like this. She's found that things in this world mostly unfold in the most dramatic way they possibly can but have the good-nature to ignore her peak and her disciples. Zui Xian Peak tends to mostly sit back, watch it happen, and make drinking games out of the events. Nothing she does either way has much of an impact, so it's more about just keeping her head down and keeping her peak safe.

Some people might think it's shameful. Huang Qinghao certainly makes it clear that he thinks so. But he's been slamming his tightass head against the solid wall of the higher peaks' indifference for literal years and has made exactly no progress. It's kind of pathetic to watch. He can feel as superior as he wants, over there on his all-male peak where Liao Qinglan assumes they sit around telling each other what a good job they're doing and punishing anything that even looks a little bit like pleasure, every hour of the day.

Liao Qinglan provides a service, here. Sure, night hunts and Qian Cao Peak's Dragon-Bone Cantaloupe seeds help bring in a lot of the income that the sect relies on. But that's all external stuff.

Liao Qinglan has been in charge of the alcohol peak for long enough that she knows the truth of things. Cang Qiong Mountain Sect is enormous, practically a small town unto itself, between all the peaks. There are a lot of people who need to live in the same space, endure incredibly physical training, experience upsetting things.

They may not be the source of income for the peak, but Zui Xian Peak is the thing that keeps all the members of the sect able to talk to each other. They keep conversations calm and civil, provide a break from all the work, set a framework for socializing.

What Liao Qinglan knows, and Shang Qinghua knows, and no one else on this entire mountain range seems to know, is that this whole place would collapse without the work that they do. So, you know, every now and then, when it all gets to be a little too much, she and Shang Qinghua meet up and get absolutely wasted and complain about what it's like to be the two most underappreciated and easily-forgotten of all the peak lords.

Which, of course, brings her right back to this little tableau.

"Shang-shixiong," she calls, laying her head on her arms, so that they're both looking at each other, sideways on the table. "I have a question for you. How do you think this is going for you?" Even as she asks the question, Shang Qinghua tries to tip his cup into his mouth and ends up dribbling onto the table and his chin in a way that is definitely going to drip down onto his robes. Liao Qinglan isn't even sure that he managed to get any of it in his mouth.

Because she's always been competitive and a little bit petty, and because this is her best buddy Shang Qinghua, which means he's her most frequent victim, she reaches for her own cup and tips it gracefully into her sideways mouth. Advanced techniques. Like she was saying.

"Your elder sect brother thinks that you haven't been doing your part to drink this wine." He pushes the jar in her direction, and Liao Qinglan is more than happy to refill her cup. He's not wrong. They've been drinking the same amount, but her tolerance is much higher than her dear Shang-shixiong. It's going to take some work to meet him where he's at.

"As my Shang-shixiong says," she demurs, then reaches out to take a hold of the jar, raises it in his direction, and knocks it back.

There's another jar beside the table.

They're just getting started tonight.

*~*~*

After that lovely night, it's an unusually long time before they have the chance to visit again. Shen Qingqiu, who was always kind of distant and tragic after the loss of his most treasured disciple, just recently died in some dramatic self-destruction. Right in front of the disciple that was, supposedly, dead all this time. Which sounds like a whole lot of drama that Liao Qinglan knows literally nothing about and will probably never get answers to. The way that they do things in this sect, though, with not appointing another peak lord until everyone is ready, means that Shang Qinghua probably just had to take on a bunch more work to adjust. She's waiting to offer a warm smile and listening ear, when he finally finishes figuring out just who will be in charge of what, but that's going to take a long time and they both know it.

Until then, she supposes she should focus on her own disciples.

Yan Yazhu is her head disciple, and she knows better than to think for even a second that the place would survive without her. Sure, Liao Qinglan's got the whole charismatic-leader and maintaining-relationships-with-other-peak-lords thing down. And she generally has some pretty spectacular ideas about how to make everything run even better than it was already, but that's, sadly, not all that it takes to run a place like this.

Sure, you can have all these fabulous ideas, and even start them up, but a lot of time they require ongoing and consistent daily check-ins, after that, and the minutiae of things like that is not at all where she tends to shine. So, when she picked her head disciple, she picked her carefully.

"It's been a while since our friend Shang-shishu came around for a visit. Who else is supposed to be sympathizing with me about all of this work we have to do?" Yan Yazhu sits upright at the same desk that her peak lord is currently slumped across, because she's also one of the most proper and polite people on the entire peak. Sure, Yan Yazhu can cut loose with the best of them when it's time, but she tends to enjoy things like gently plucking out the notes of flavoring in an expensive liquor, and sipping slowly, rather than getting involved in some of the proper games that younger disciples on the peak like to make.

"You could always come and complain to the cruel peak lord who assigned you so much work," Liao Qinglan drawls, because this is how this conversation always goes.

"Ah, but how could this lowly one dare to do such a thing, when surely her peak lord has assigned so much work in order to better manage her own, much larger workload?"

"Yes, yes, the head disciple of Zui Xian Peak is humble and devoted." Liao Qinglan nods sarcastically in Yan Yazhu's direction and she grins the same smile that she does every single time they have this conversation. Liao Qinglan has tried to delegate the head disciple's workload before. Yan Yazhu ends up claiming that no one else is handling it correctly and taking it all back anyway. Liao Qinglan has also tried to do more of her own tasks. Yan Yazhu doesn't tell her that she's doing them wrong, but she does follow along behind her and redo all of it anyway. So, for now, she lets it be. "This Peak Lord will have to drag Shang Qinghua back to this peak by his ear if he does not come back to visit soon."

Yan Yazhu grins and waves her out of the room before she can distract her further.

Liao Qinglan takes a leisurely stroll across her peak. It was so thoughtful of the sect to claim these twelve lovely mountains for themselves. Sure, the scenery and environment are perfect for meditation and cultivation and all that. More importantly, though, the view kicks ass, and it makes for a lovely backdrop to all sorts of activities, no matter the time of day.

There are disciples training in one of the fields, since it is late in the afternoon. She watches as some of the older disciples guide the younger in slow drills. Some focus on combat, but most of the efforts are focused toward learning how to properly circulate qi through the body. A good way to burn off alcohol as you drink it. A good way to stave off a hangover. A very good way to recover from a hangover, should you forget to do any of this in the middle of all the fun.

There are disciples napping in the sun, just beyond the training fields, draped in the dappled shade from some of the trees. Some of them might be sleeping off a long night. Others may simply be joining their friends in a lazy way to pass the time. Liao Qinglan lets them be, either way.

Deeper into the peak, and there are a few of the elders sitting in a hot spring. A cup floats between them. When it drifts within reach of someone, from the natural current, they raise it to their lips, drink, and then utter a line of poetry. The cup goes back to floating toward the next person, who will have to drink and then add a line to the verse. Liao Qinglan knows that, when the other players judge a line to be insufficient, someone will have to drink the entirety of the cup and go to refill it. She also knows that, after playing games like this for as many years as they have, that will rarely happen. They can keep this kind of lazy game up for shichen without tiring.

Other members of the peak, crouching together before barrels of liquor as they debate over tastes and notes and distilling techniques. A visit to the class where some of her most precise and attentive students are teaching others the art of drinking and appreciating a fine rice wine. Checking in for just a moment on the juniors who are only just about to reach full adulthood, pretending not to notice as they hide the disastrous and far-reaching impacts of the newest drinking game they have tried to invent.

It's a mess, and it's silly, and it's her favorite place in the whole fucking world. Liao Qinglan still wonders, sometimes, what possessed Cang Qiong Mountain Sect to have a peak like this. She suspects it was simply a group of twelve friends, there at the beginning, and they let everyone do what they wanted and went back and made it sound mysterious and important later. That's her favorite theory, and so it's the one she chooses to believe.

No other sects have anything close to this. They take themselves so seriously, focus on meditation and fighting and ridding the world of evil. That's good and all, but is that really all that they want to focus on, throughout their whole life?

Liao Qinglan's cultivation is legendary in its fine technique. She can take effortless control over her own body. There's always been a bit more trouble, though, when it comes to pushing it outside of herself, in a fight or with some kind of seal or talisman.

So, maybe she's not out ridding the world of evil. But she likes to think, sometimes, that she's putting a little bit more peace and comfort into it. And that's always been enough for her. The world is chaotic, and the struggle for power is endless. She isn't strong enough to go out and make anyone stop what they're doing, but she guards a peak in the shadow of the strongest cultivation sect. They are secure, protected, and forgettable. The trials and tribulations of the world may lap against the edges of the sect, but they rarely ever touch Zui Xian Peak. There's something good there, for the disciples that live here.

Maybe she keeps an eye out, when the kids are out there in the dirt, digging their little holes. Everyone else watches eagerly for the ones that are particularly strong, particularly determined, particularly strategic. Liao Qinglan tends to focus on finding the ones that seem frantic, desperate. The ones with arms a little too thin, or marked up with more than just dirt.

It's not everything. She can't offer them strength or notoriety or the ability to fight back. She can build the kind of peak where people like that can come and rest in the sunlight all day, learn to take care of their own bodies, and pass the time away with games.

It's nice, to see them working to perfect the taste of alcohol. To watch them teach each other the ways and methods they have for preparing such things. It's even nicer to see them lazing together in the sun.

So. It's nice. It's a good time. She likes it. Fuck off, why is anyone interrogating her about this shit anyway? Liao Qinglan can be whatever kind of peak lord she wants to be and she doesn't have to explain herself to anyone. That's one of the many great things about being a peak lord in the first place.

Shut up.

*~*~*

"You know, I really should turn you in. You're not supposed to be here." She's teasing, a little, with her tone, but only because she doesn't know how else to talk about something like this, with her oldest friend. With someone she could genuinely get in trouble for seeing. With Shang-shixiong.

"You wouldn't do that to poor, little old me, would you?" Shang Qinghua slumps across her table again, a perfect mirror of his previous positions from every other time they've done this, even though he's defected from the sect and run away to join up with the demons and shouldn't have been able to get through the wards in the first place.

"You shouldn't be able to even get onto the mountain." She wants to send him away again. She wants to be the kind of person who holds the line and cuts him off, after it was revealed that he had betrayed the sect to the demon realm. She wishes that was all that it took for her stupid, soft little heart to leave behind all the years of shared friendship.

"No one else knows how to go through the process of banishing someone from the mountain except for An Ding Peak, and they still keep reaching out to me to help make sense of my notes and shit." Shang Qinghua throws back the wine in his cup. Liao Qinglan doesn't refill it. When it becomes clear that she's not going to do that, Shang Qinghua sits up and focuses a little bit more. Maybe the break in their routine is making it clear enough that she's certainly not happy with him. Maybe they won't have to talk about feelings at all, and he can just leave, and then she doesn't have to learn that she's not the kind of person capable of sending him away.

"You know, my Yan Yazhu is ending up with more work, now that you're not here to take it on. She already works hard enough." Liao Qinglan is holding onto the parts of this that are easy to be angry about. That make more sense. She doesn't know how to make the version of Shang Qinghua that has fallen into drunken sleep on the floor of her home make sense alongside the version that apparently colluded with demons to plan the massacre at the Immortal Alliance Conference.

She doesn't know how to make those two things make sense. She is maybe hoping that this evening will help with that. It's almost definitely a wasted effort.

Still. She reaches out, grabs the jar of wine, refills his cup. Hers is still full. She hasn't even touched it.

"It's not my fault I was banished! Besides, if the sect wanted to be able to carry on without me, then they shouldn't have made me the one in charge of literally every single thing." He drinks from the cup. Shang Qinghua has been sloppy in his movements and whiny for the past hour, but she is suddenly aware of the focus of his gaze. He is not nearly as drunk as he has been behaving. It's a trick she's pulled on people before. She doesn't particularly care to have it reversed on her now.

"I would argue that there is no one else we could blame for your defection. If you didn't want to be pressured into leaving the sect, perhaps you should have pondered that prior to causing the death of hundreds of children."

Shang Qinghua flinches at the unsheathed steel in her voice. If he hasn't been able to talk to anyone in the Human Realm, other than his own disciples begging for his help, then she might be the only person who has taken the time to address this with him. Or, maybe no one else has tried to do this because they know better than to think it will make any difference. Maybe she should listen to their wisdom.

"Ah, well, I could see how you would say that, yes. I definitely could see why it would look like all of this was my fault. And why you would blame me for, you know, all the things that...happened."

"The child murders." She refuses to let him run away from this. If she is going to let him sit at her table, if she is going to be the kind of person who cannot send him away, then he is going to explain himself. She needs an explanation for the fact that she still sees him as a friend.

"Yes, ah, the child, ha, the child murders." She lets the laugh slide, because Shang Qinghua has always been the sort of man to laugh when he is feeling uncomfortable. It still pisses her off, though.

"So. You're seated at my table. You're drinking my wine. Are you going to offer any kind of defense or explanation for yourself?"

He looks a little cornered, a little frantic. She watches his eyes dart around the corners of the room, stare off into the distance for a bit. Maybe he's swept up in the memories of it all, feeling guilty. Maybe that's her soft heart again, and he's just putting on a show to manipulate her. Before she can get an answer, he starts to shift like he's getting up.

"Ah, I can see that Liao-shimei is upset. Rightfully so, rightfully so. Maybe it wasn't the best idea, for us to try and meet up for drinks like this. I'll see myself out. Don't worry, don't worry. I won't be seen by anyone else on the peak."

He's got a jade token in his hand, carved with a sigil she is unfamiliar with. It strikes her, suddenly, that this is likely an artifact of the Demon Realm. It strikes her, suddenly, that he is so casual with such a thing because it is familiar and rote to him. It strikes her, suddenly, that she does not know much about her friend at all.

Still. This is her friend. She wants to cast him away, but she cannot just yet. When he moves toward the door, she rises to her feet and steps in his path. They pause there, staring at each other, neither of them as drunk as they have been pretending to be. Neither of them drunk at all, really.

"Sit back down, Shang-shixiong." He sits, unable to avoid following the command in her voice, even though he outranks her. Outranked her. It doesn't matter. He sits. "You are seated at my table. You are drinking my wine. For many years, I have considered you a friend." She meets his eyes, raises her cup, takes a long drink for the first time since he walked through her door. "Show that friendship the respect that it deserves. Explain this to me."

She is not pleading. She is ordering him. It's the sort of thing he usually folds beneath like a golden foil palace. This time, he acquiesces, but his eyes are still and clear while he takes a drink himself.

"Our friendship is important to me. I will not be able to explain the Immortal Alliance Conference in enough detail to set your mind at ease."

"Shang-shixiong has yet to explain the Immortal Alliance Conference at all. Perhaps he should try before he determines what would be enough for this peak lord." She can't believe this happened. Her friend betrayed their sect and then succeeded in hiding that for years, while she was still meeting with him for drinks and gossiping with him late into the night. It's been years that they've been doing this. At least seven, since everything happened at the IAC. How is she meant to reconcile that?

There is something strained and tense held in the air between them. This is not what their friendship looks like. Liao Qinglan will cry about this, later, if it remains like this all through their evening. This will be enough to make her stay up the rest of the night, weeping alone in her room, as she almost never does. But it is not her job to fix it. She is not the one who broke it.

"Ah, yes." He takes another drink of his wine and she stares at him unceasingly, feeling rather like a snake watching a mouse, quivering in the grass before her. She does not like feeling like this. She reminds herself that it is necessary. "Well, there is very little that this humble one can say." She bares her teeth at that, tired of him pretending to be helpless, tired of the equivocation, and he flinches at the face she is making. "This humble one knows that his actions are unforgivable. He cannot explain why it was necessary for the Demon Realm to attack at the Immortal Alliance Conference. Would Liao Qinglan accept the explanation that this was what fate decreed was necessary?"

He is cringing underneath the insufficiency of his words, and Liao Qinglan is sick to see it. The decree of fate, as if that would be enough to explain the death of so many Cang Qiong Mountain Sect disciples. So many Huan Hua disciples. Zhao Hua Monastery and Tian Yi Overlook.

And yet, despite it all, she cannot help but look closer at her dear friend. He looks shifty and suspicious, knowing that his words are not enough to explain his actions, just as he said they would not be. Beneath that, though, he looks sad. He looks resigned. As if he has already accepted that there is nothing he can say to convince her.

She cannot help but think again about Theory One and Theory Two. Fully lost his mind or a fucking god. It was funny, to think about, for all those years while they were building a friendship and nothing was serious and no one's life was at stake. Back when it didn't really matter one way or another, because he was doing his job just fine and it was more of a fun thought experiment than something that she actually wanted or needed to solve.

And then, the Immortal Alliance Conference.

And then, the death of hundreds of children and young disciples.

And then, defecting from the sect.

Now, her friend is sitting before her. He didn't even have to sneak back onto the mountain, because no one knows how to stop him from coming and going. He is telling her that this was fated, and already looks like he is preparing to lose her over that explanation.

Maybe he should lose her over that explanation. It's not enough. Of course it's not enough. There would never be something that could justify actions leading to this kind of atrocity.

Fully lost his mind or a fucking god. Sitting before her and saying that it was necessary. If this is all part of some great delusion, pushing him to do this because he thought it was right, then he has the potential to be someone very dangerous. If he is a god, and he knows this was right, then he absolutely is someone very dangerous. In either situation, he should not be sitting at her table.

So, what, is she meant to kick him out? Send him back to the Demon Realm, so that he can live among demons and never interact with another human again, except when his own disciples reach out to him for help? In what way will that help to prevent him from hurting anyone else again? In what way could any of her actions prevent him from doing something like this again?

Perhaps she should not allow him back on her peak. It is a space that she has built to be calm and safe and unremarkable. A place to protect the members of her peak. If there is someone dangerous and unpredictable, perhaps she should prevent him from ever setting foot here, for all the danger he brings with him.

But to what end? So that he could wander alone, only talking to those who might agree with his actions? And, if she starts removing anyone who could potentially be a threat to her peak, where does that stop? Does she throw off her own disciples, when they are teenagers and angry at the world and lashing out at everyone?

"I want more of an explanation than that. I want to know why you think fate required you to do such a thing. I want to know if you will ever do something like that again."

He is shrinking down smaller and smaller with each word, cringing in on himself. He glances again at the corners of the room, the door out of her home, vaguely into the middle distance. When he looks back at her, finally, Shang Qinghua's eyes are cold and distant. His voice is a dead thing.

"I cannot answer why I did what I did. I cannot tell you how I knew what fate required. I can tell you that I have no intention of doing such a thing again."

"And, if Fate were to suddenly make such a demand again? Would you take such an action then?"

It's his turn to grimace and hang his head, an answer unto itself.

"Would you be able to tell me, warn me, if Fate were to make such a demand of you again?" At least this, maybe this much, and then she would be able to set her mind at ease. Feel like she isn't betraying the whole of her sect due to her soft heart.

He hunches in even further, so small now that she can barely see him over the low rise of the table. That is an answer. That is a perfectly clear answer, and she should throw him off the peak right now, before her heart has any more of an opportunity to argue with her.

"Do you regret it?" She cannot help it. The words are stone cold, but they come from a desperate place and they both know it.

"How could this one even deserve to regret something like that, when it changes nothing of the actions he took?" He still won't look at her, but he's speaking now, and the words are drenched in distance and emptiness. Cold. His words are a windswept tundra. This is not how her friend speaks.

"That is not an answer. Do you regret it?" Her voice is hardening, the fury boiling up within her, that he will not give her anything at all to hold onto and justify the fondness that still lives within her.

"It is the only answer that I can give."

And that is not enough. She slams her palm against the table, frantic, breath heaving through her like the flame of a dragon. Her sword is in her hand and she is across the room, holding its point to his throat. She is not an incredibly strong cultivator, but she is stronger than him, and they both know it. They have dueled a few times, when they were both still disciples, and then as a game when they were older. Shang Qinghua has reached again for that token around his waist, but he has not done anything with it. He is watching her, calm and steady, waiting to see what she will do next.

"Shang Qinghua, banished peak lord of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, do you regret the actions you took, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of disciples across the jianghu?"

She wants to see him break. She wants him to cry and fall into a kowtow, apologizing and begging her to forgive him. His eyes, when he finally responds, are flat, dead things.

"Of course this one regrets. What would that matter to the disciples lost? What would that matter to their families, their friends, their sect? It is the action this one took, and there is nothing this one can do to bring them back, and so what would anyone care about whether or not this one regrets?"

Is that enough? It shouldn't be. It really, really shouldn't be enough to justify his return into her regard. It certainly has not erased all that he has done. But, in all of this, what would be gained by casting him out now? What could she do to punish him that has not already been done by his sect? That he has not already done to himself? To leave him alone now, how would that accomplish anything other than to put more pain into the world?

Many would say that she is wrong to do this. Many would disagree with her actions, and perhaps they would be right to do so. But she has spent so many nights with this man, and they are friends, and he has done something horrible. She wishes that would wipe away all the good that exists between them, but it doesn't and it won't. Not when a friend of hers looks like that. Not when he is sitting calmly and dully at the end of her blade, waiting for her to decide his fate.

"Leave my home," she bites out, because she cannot look at either of them, knowing the choice that she is about to make. She needs some time alone, some space from him, to make sure that this really is the decision that she's going to make. (She knows herself, though. She knows what she is thinking and feeling. She will take him back as a friend, and she needs some time to come to terms with this fact. Come to terms with the fact that she has just learned what kind of person she is, and she's not proud of it.)

He stands without argument, drawing back from her naked blade and moving toward the door again. He makes it only a step before she reaches out to take his arm.

"I will expect you back in a month. Just because you are living in the Demon Realm now does not mean you can neglect your friendships here in the Human Realm. If it's so simple for you to enter this sect, then there is nothing preventing you from continuing our meetings."

She watches the words hit him, a physical force in his eyes. Shock, then confusion, then a creeping hope and wonder. What does it mean, what does it mean about her, that she is happy to see something like that? Is she willing to accept this about herself? What else is there to do, now that she knows it?

"This one will return." The words are faltering. They both pretend not to notice.

"See that you do. And next time, maybe you could bring some wine with you. I have heard about the spirits of the Demon Realm, but no one has ever been willing to retrieve such a thing for me."

He stares at her for a moment longer, nods once.

He steps through the door. By the time she moves to the window to watch him walk away, he is gone.

*~*~*

"You shouldn't have him around. It's not safe," Yan Yazhu scolds when she comes in the next morning, tiding up the room even though that very much is not her job.

"I don't know who you're talking about," Liao Qinglan replies, because she's the peak lord and also because she doesn't want to talk about any of this until she has had at least another week to ruminate on it. Late at night. Without anyone else's input, thank you very much.

"I know what it looks like when Shang-shishu has been to visit." The tone is chiding and frustrated, because this is the dynamic they have made for themselves after decades of shared leadership. Yan Yazhu is trying to lean on their trust in each other to get more of the answers that she wants. Too bad. She is underestimating Liao Qinglan's ability to avoid thinking about things.

"This peak lord does not know why her head disciple would be so daring as to imply that this peak lord is violating the banishment of that traitor Shang Qinghua."

Yan Yazhu, who had been stooped to pick up another empty jar of wine off the ground (something Liao Qinglan may have drunk all by herself after Shang Qinghua left), straightens up. She stares, dead-eyed, at her peak lord for a long moment. Liao Qinglan tilts her head innocently back. Yan Yazhu quirks an eyebrow. Liao Qinglan smiles winningly.

"Okay," Yan Yazhu says. The doubt on her face smooths into the perfect expression of a filial disciple. She smiles the same sort of smile Liao Qinglan has seen her give to members of other peaks when they suddenly remember that Zui Xian Peak exists, just in time to come and acquire the alcohol they'll be needing for this or that ceremony.

"Great."

"Then, Peak Lord Liao, this humble disciple would like to discuss the plans for the upcoming ascension celebration."

What a good head disciple. That's more like it. The ascension celebration. The annual commemoration of when this generation of peak lords stepped into their positions.

"Sect Leader will be wanting his mulberry wine," Liao Qinglan ponders. Yan Yazhu wrinkles her nose and she cannot help but sympathize. "How are we stocked in that?"

"The batch from several years ago should still be available and prepared. It is not as though anyone else in the sect will be drinking it."

Their poor sect leader and his poor, terrible taste in alcohol. What a shame, what a shame. Yan Yazhu and Liao Qinglan spend the rest of the day talking through the annual plan to pretend as though everyone is drinking the same wine while working to provide a much more palatable option to everyone else at the banquet.

Here. She's competent at this. It's all fine.

It's going to be fine.

*~*~*

The next time she sees Shang Qinghua, it's been exactly one month. She is fairly sure that he counted down the days. She is only able to make that kind of guess because she definitely counted down the days, and so she can't bring it up at all, because then that would show what she had done.

Okay. Maybe the point of this is that she's trying to repair the relationship and everything. Maybe it would be helpful for him to know that she was eager to see him again, worried that he wouldn't come back. Too fucking bad, though. If he wanted her that open and vulnerable, then he shouldn't have betrayed the peak in the first place.

It takes a while. A long while. That first visit, they end up sitting mostly in silence. They keep trying to start the conversation up again, complaining about their days and the kind of people they have to put up with, but the rhythm's all off, and they keep getting distracted by thoughts in their own heads, so that they're missing the natural flow of when it would be their turn to talk again. Liao Qinglan is a sharp, vicious thing at times, and she wishes that weren't the case but she doesn't know how to make herself stop. Shang Qinghua is cringing and anxious, sweating and laughing too loudly at jokes that aren't funny. It's terrible. She wishes it weren't like this at all.

He brought some of the most expensive wine available in the Demon Realm. It's delicious, made from wolfberries grown in the Human Realm but fermented with methods that are legendarily secret to the one particular family that makes it. It's light and delicate on the tongue and burns like a song down the throat. She would normally spend hours talking about the finer details of it with Shang Qinghua. He might not have been brought up on Zui Xian Peak, but after all their evenings together, he is more than able to keep up in a conversation about wine.

It's even worse, then, that they're just sitting here, drinking the best wine she's ever tasted, and they're not even talking about it. They're not talking about anything. Nothing that matters, anyway. Or, maybe, too much that matters and not enough that feels like the way that they have always talked in the past. Whatever it is, it's awful, and it's turning this beautiful wine into tar in her mouth, and she wants nothing more than to crawl out of his skin and fly away from all the vulnerability and discomfort of this.

They sit and drink until morning, then both go their separate ways to sleep it off.

She wakes up without any of the effects of a hangover, and by then she's furious.

*~*~*

"We haven't even thought about other kinds of fruit wine that we could have at the Ascension Celebration."

"Right," Yan Yazhu drawls in a way that she clearly stole from Liao Qinglan. They are walking through the peak together, today, even though there are never really any emergencies on Zui Xian Peak that would require the presence of both the peak lord and the head disciple. There's never really any emergencies at all. That's kind of the whole point. "Because we both agree that the peak lords are much more willing to accept a rice wine and that fruit wine is rarely worth the effort it takes to prepare."

"Of course," Liao Qinglan replies absently, still thinking about the delicious way that the demonic wolfberry wine had sat on her tongue and left no after-effects. "Unless, of course, we've been neglecting fruit wine because of that and haven't actually figured out the way to prepare it correctly."

Thinking about it, this is a glaring oversight on Liao Qinglan's part. Who knew that it was possible for any fruit wine to be so delicious? Especially for it to leave no hangover or negative effects the next day? But, then, who else on this earth should have known, if not the peak lord of Zui Xian Peak herself?

Yan Yazhu is staring at her questioningly, as though she has just opened her mouth and let out a donkey's bray instead of words, but Liao Qinglan barely notices it. She's distracted, too busy running over the exact taste and notes that she detected in that demonic wine. It's hard to remember, because everything was tainted by how stiff and awkward the conversation was. She was too busy tasting the stilted air to notice what she could detect of the specific flavor profile and techniques used.

They continue their walk through the peak, resting for a while in the sun with those who are circulating their qi and napping. They check in on the little junior disciples, which is one of Liao Qinglan's favorite parts of her job. They aren't allowed to be drinking much yet, but that doesn't mean that it's too early to begin developing a discerning palate. The juniors spend much of their morning cultivating and learning various techniques for the circulation of qi, and then much of the afternoon cooking and tasting and working on developing the ability to channel their qi to their mouth. Tasting at a level most people could never dream of.

It's important, when you're working on creating new drinks. Just because a normal person, or even another cultivator, might not be aware of the nuance, it doesn't mean that it won't influence their experience of the drink. Even if they can't put their finger on what it is that they like, the Zui Xian Peak disciples should be able to take account for every note of flavor in something they produced.

It's fun, to sit with the juniors and talk through every detail of what they are tasting in the food and drink that they're eating. It's fun, to watch them start to find the perfect words to describe things, even if it means making up new words or metaphors. It's fun, to show off a little when she takes a turn at their little tasting game.

Best of all, it's easier to focus on something like this than all that nonsense going on with some big-shot traitor out doing who-knows-what.

*~*~*

The month after that, Shang Qinghua comes to visit again. It's still stilted, and it's still awkward, but it's a little bit easier, because at least this time they both knew what to mentally prepare for. Also, he brings more of the wine, and Liao Qinglan sets one of the jars aside without providing anything close to an explanation for her actions. Shang Qinghua, wisely, stays silent and allows her to do as she will.

*~*~*

"Yan Yazhu, did you know that we have an entire section of the peak that is set aside for making fruit wine that we've been neglecting?" She is slumped across the cluttered desk of her head disciple, because this is the proper pose for bothering one's head disciple.

"I believe that we have a section dedicated to fruit wine that you have been neglecting. If I'm not mistaken, some of the older peak members have been teaching a few of the previous class of juniors about how to use it. They gather there every few nights for a club that they think is secret." Yan Yazhu sits at her desk and casually ticks off another number on her incredibly comprehensive rota. She's a little bit terrifying, the kind of head disciple who can keep track of the schedule of every other member of the peak while also keeping up to date on secret goings-on. Every few weeks or so Liao Qinglan lets herself get smug all over again at how clever it was to pick this one for this position.

"Right, well, that's only because fruit wine is a waste of time compared to the other kinds of alcohol we could be making." The words jump to her tongue with the practice of the thousands of times she's said it before.

"As you have said before. Repeatedly," Yan Yazhu says dryly. "Which, again, might make someone wonder why it is you are suddenly speaking of it so much."

"Just because something doesn't taste good doesn't mean that it's a reasonable excuse to ignore it! How can we call ourselves Zui Xian Peak if we are neglecting such an enormous sector of alcohol production?"

"An inspired question, Peak Lord Liao." Yan Yazhu isn't even looking at her anymore. Might not even be listening. "Truly, your wisdom is endless."

"When did you say that secret club was meeting, again?"

"Every three days, with their next meeting tomorrow evening, shizun."

"Ah, good, good. I knew there was a reason I keep you around, Yan Yazhu."

Without looking up from her rota, Yan Yazhu throws an ink stone in her direction. It misses, because she wasn't looking. Liao Qinglan yelps like it hit her anyway, and she bustles herself out of that room to go find a place where she is more appreciated and respected.

*~*~*

Don't get it confused. Liao Qinglan's whole life does not consist of staying up late in the night and engaging in drunken gossip with an old friend! Just because she's been spending most of her time thinking about Shang Qinghua, recently, doesn't mean that she doesn't have a whole lot going on. She's a very important peak lord for the most prestigious cultivation sect in the jianghu!

No, she also stays up late in the night to engage in secret preparation of fruit wines! See? There are layers here. She's a complicated person.

She does eventually make it over to the part of the mountain that was set aside for fruit wine. She's known it was there since she was a very young disciple, and she did her lessons on fruit wine when they were required of her. She's been here before. It's just been a while.

Pretty much as soon as she had enough power to make such decisions, Liao Qinglan left the fruit wine life behind. She hasn't missed it for even a moment. The rest of the peak, following the example of their dazzling and charismatic peak lord, also left the practice alone. Maybe she should feel bad about all the ancient techniques that would potentially be forgotten by an entire generation of Zui Xian Peak ignoring research on fruit wines. But, well, there are certainly more than enough records, for anyone who might choose to take it back up someday! That's a central part of Zui Xian Peak! Even if every disciple tends to guard their personal recipes with the kind of possessiveness and ferocity of a dragon before its young, there are still a great many peak-wide records and references for the recipes everyone follows.

There are records of the teachings, and there are elders who have been here since long before Liao Qinglan took control and that will remain here long after the next generation steps up. The practice of fruit wine preparation won't die. Besides, she never forbade anyone from coming here. It was merely that, again, she knew what the correct opinion was and was not afraid to share it. Once everyone else was shown the error of their ways, what could they do but sing her praises and fall in line?

Well, she supposes, the thing they could do was form a secret club and continue to do it anyway. There is evidence of their efforts all over this room. (Though, the workspace in the building remains spotless. Good. Her disciples know better than to allow any kind of rot or decay or disarray to develop in their preparation spaces.) It's all so dramatic. She wouldn't have actually stopped anyone from doing what they wanted. The elders didn't need to go this far. That said, it's a little bit cute. She kind of wants to keep letting them have their fun. Besides, it's fun to feel like you're sneaking around and conspiring. Really, she was helping her peak by giving them the opportunity to have a secret club.

This is why she's here on a night when no one else is supposed to be. She's here at this time because she wants them to keep their cute little secret. It has nothing to do with the fact that she has been ranting against fruit wine for literal years and can't stand the blow her face would take if she were suddenly spotted here in the building they have fully devoted to the preparation and fermentation of fruit wine.

Liao Qinglan, peak lord of Zui Xian Peak, would never go back on her word. She still hasn't. If it wasn't for that fucking demonic fruit wine, she wouldn't have to be here at all. It's really all Shang Qinghua's fault.

She knows what she tasted in that wine, and she's made more than enough wolfberry wine herself, over the years she's been in this sect.  Liao Qinglan knows how to work with wolfberries. She doesn't know how to make them taste like that, though. She's done everything that's done with wolfberries, even preparing the pulp and residue to be used as feed or fertilizer across the peaks. It's all part of the approach to cultivation on the peak. She's experimented. She's labored. She's done this shit before. It's unfair, that someone else figured out how to make them taste like that before she did.

Wolfberry wine usually just tastes like almost nothing at all, slides down your throat, and leaves you without a hangover. Fine, sure, but what's the point? This demonic wine, though, still had all the positive effects of a wine made with wolfberries, but had somehow turned into something that she actually wanted to drink! She needs to break down the barrier between the human and demon realms so that she can pressure the demons into telling her everything she could ever want to know about their techniques.

There was other stuff in there, of course. She could taste it. She's trained her whole life to be able to taste it. The demonic wine was, at its core, a simple wolfberry wine fermented with a base of rice and qu. There were notes of du zhong, gancao, camomile, and lilyturf. She's fairly sure she identified them all, sitting alone in her office and taking slow, meditative sips of her pilfered jug of wine while circulating her qi through her mouth.

It should be simple, to make such a fruit wine. She has all the ingredients on hand. Even the wolfberries, since they often will use them to flavor some liquors or to brew medicinal tonics for Qian Cao peak. No one in the sect will notice that she took a few baskets of the dried fruit for herself tonight.

All the minor, long-term steps of the process have already been done. That's what a lot of the juniors do, to practice their cultivation. The peak makes meditation out of all the preparatory steps: sorting through fruits and grain to pick out any detritus, bugs, leaves; grinding steamed rice down into the finest powder and mixing it with water to pack into qu; preparing the base rice wine that is used as a foundation for so many other steps in more complex processes.

It means that, tonight, it might be possible for Liao Qinglan to move through the process and start something fermenting before anyone on the peak even wakes up to see her.

She prepares the flavorings first, just as she detected the notes of them earlier. It is an automatic process to begin adding the dried ingredients to a large pot. She throws in some dried leaves and roots from the wolfberry plant as well, to allow more of the flavor to come through. It is a long, slow boil to draw out the flavors. She knows that she's not going to get the proportions quite right, not without a few more attempts and failures, but she'll never know what she needs to change until she's already fucked it up once! So, she measures with her heart and writes down what she did, boiling the ingredients until the water is a rich, dark color like over-steeped tea.

While that is boiling, she also starts the dried wolfberries to boil in another pot, so that the bright red color pops out again and the water starts to take on some of the flavor as well.

There's time to pause after that, because she needs to allow the berries, the water they're in, and the steeped flavorings to all cool. It's easy to stay calm and meditate through the long cooling process. She's actually really good at stuff like this. It's how she ended up as the peak lord here

Simple, simple. She's done this thousands of times.

It's dark in this building. She has brought a lantern with her to light the way, but it is dim so that the light does not move beyond the circle of her work space. It would ruin everything, for someone to see her light from somewhere else on the peak, come to investigate, and find their peak lord in the one place that she had sworn never to go again!

In that circle of dim light, she waits for her first few steps to cool. Liao Qinglan pours the water with the flavorings through a cloth as it cools to filter out any of the bits left over from the dried roots and flowers and leaves. Finally, when there is no difference between the temperature of the berries, the brewed ingredients, and the air around her, she mixes the two together and begins making a large, fresh batch of rice.

Calm and patient. There is so much waiting in this process, so many starts and stops. That's a large part of the beauty of it. She has something she is focusing on. It will take as long as it takes and she will patiently wait throughout that time. Liao Qinglan breathes deeply as she feels her mind empty out of any thought but this one. It has been so long since she took the time to prepare something herself. She can't remember why, but that doesn't matter at the moment. All that matters is the project before her.

The rice is done. While it is still steaming and warm, she spreads a cloth across the floor of the building, in the space cleared and cleaned for this exact purpose. The rice spills warm and steaming and cloud-like across the wide swathe of cloth.

She breaks apart the cake of qu that she has brought with her. The dried, malted rice crumbles apart under the firm pressure of her fingers and she sprinkles the resulting crumbles out over the expanse of fresh rice. Mixing the two together was always one of her favorite parts of this process. The rice is warm and giving under her hands. It is a slow, repetitive motion to knead at the ingredients until the two separate parts become one, uniform mass. The qu was mixed in at just the right temperature. She knows it was, because she has done this before.

After that, it is nothing to pull over one of the enormous, smooth wooden bowls that the junior disciples have carefully and diligently carved. Their elder sect siblings have checked over every bowl for cracks or flaws anywhere in the process, before they are distributed throughout the peak.

Into the bowl goes the base rice wine, the fresh mixture she has just created, the combination of wolfberries and brewed water. This is a different motion, a different technique, but she combines all of these in the bowl with a rhythmic kneading as well. Then, all of it into a large clay pot, enough water to rinse out any residue in the bowl and fill the pot to just the right level.

She can easily lift and carry the pot out to the place where they set such things to wait and ferment, out in a large field and marked with the name of the disciple working on whatever is inside, as well as the date it was placed there. She is a cultivator, after all. It is no effort to pick up her large pot, carry it into the woods, and creep around the outside edge of the peak so that she can come up near where they brew their baijiu. From there, she finally starts making her way toward the fermenting field. Just in case anyone sees her and tries to guess what she's been working on. They'll never be the wiser.

No one does see her. They all seem to be settled in with their friends and their games or well asleep by now. Good for them, good for them. Liao Qinglan sets down the pot, labels it under today's date and Yan Yazhu's name, and then heads back to the the woods. She slinks back around to the building set aside for the fruit wines and cleans up thoroughly after herself.

As the sun is starting to just peek over the edge of the horizon, she knows that not a soul on her peak will be awake. The building is clean and the only things left behind are the fruits stolen by the secret fruit wine club and the pots they have secretly fermenting out at the back of the building.

Now that she has gone back through the whole process all over again, Liao Qinglan can admit that there are maybe a few parts of fruit wine making that are pleasant and enjoyable. She still stands by her belief that they are more effort than the product could justify, when there are so many other fantastic alcohols that could be created in the same amount of time.

Her final project, that wolfberry wine she just dedicated her whole night to, should be ready to be tasted in just 20 days. Of course, she could leave it to clarify for six months past that, but just those 20 days should show whether the taste will be worth justifying all that extra time spent to refine it to perfection. Given the fact that nothing she did tonight was any different than things she has done in the past, she probably won't go through the effort.

She doesn't have high hopes for any of this. She has made wolfberry wine more times than she can count. Of course, some of the flavors are different this time, and the proportions have been shifted. Maybe that will miraculously be enough to change the taste into something sweet and mellow and refreshing instead of watered-down juice with a little bit of medicine hidden in it. It shouldn't be, though. It wouldn't make any sense.

There is no way to make wolfberry wine taste like that. It is impossible. The very peak lord of Zui Xian Peak cannot make it, so it cannot be done!

She will wait the 20 days. And then she will try the wine.

Hopes are not high.

*~*~*

It's a simple thing, to sneak back into the fenced-in fermentation field where they leave their clay pots to sit. The peak has never been particularly active during the night. Or, that is to say, they are much more likely to be settled in by the night and are rarely out running across the outdoor work areas of the peak. That's left for the daytime hours, while the evening is for fun, resting, spending time with friends.

Liao Qinglan is quite proud of the culture she has created for her peak. She was proud of it even before she realized that it makes it very easy for her to sneak around on secret, fruit-wine-related missions.

It's been 20 days since she left the pot to ferment and the qu to work its magic on the liquid within. When she pulls off the lid, it's to see the thick, pale gruel of the rice and wolfberries that has gathered at the top. She stirs it up a little and then wedges a close-woven reed basket into the center. The thin spaces between reeds filter out any of the larger particles in the wine and allow only the foggy wine to gather in the center.

It could still be clarified, and it will take longer than just a few minutes for the wine to separate out from all the detritus. Still, she knows what wine tastes like at this point in the process. She knows how to taste for the flavor it will develop into.

She uses a small hand bowl to scoop out some of that clouded liquid in the center of the basket. It is dark. There is no one around to see that she is doing this.

A small sip, swirled in the bowl before it is raised to her lips. The wine sits light on her tongue. There are hints of wolfberry, the rice wine base. She can tell that there is camomile, du zhong, gancao, and lilyturf. Just like she could taste in the demonic wine that Shang Qinghua brought.

The notes and flavors are all there. It should be the same as the wine that her friend brought. If anyone in the world should be capable of recreating a wine, after having tasted it multiple times, it should be the peak lord of Zui Xian. In fact, the wine that she prepared should be even better that whatever dreck the demon realm is making.

So why, then, does it still taste mostly of diluted, slightly medicinal rice wine?

It's exactly the same thing that she is always complaining about, when it comes to any kind of fruit wine. Sure, it tastes fine. But why bother with something like this, when there are much more flavorful versions of liquor available? Why bother with something like this, when it is so much more satisfying to pull out the subtle notes of flavor in a well-prepared batch of simple rice wine?

Fruit wine, as far as Liao Qinglan is concerned, is rather like striking yourself over the head with a bludgeoning club of flavor. There is so little subtlety or nuance, when compared to the rich and various ways that one can bring out notes of flavor in rice alone. And then, even worse, once the fruit has drowned out all the nuance, it doesn't even have the decency to stick around. It hits you in the face and then leaves you with no aftertaste at all.

This batch is boring, even for fruit wine. She has never particularly enjoyed the taste of wolfberries. It isn't a surprise that she doesn't enjoy this. As far as the actual technique behind fruit wine goes, the flavors are delicately balanced. She has never tasted something prepared better than this. She should be able to walk away from all of this with her dignity intact, having proven that she can make a perfect wolfberry wine that she doesn't have a taste for.

But, if it were so simple as that, then she wouldn't have even been in the fruit wine building in the dead of night in the first place. No, the point of this all is not that she is doubting her ability to follow the steps and her own artistic ability to create a delicate and perfectly balanced wolfberry fruit wine. Her resulting product is as high quality a wine as any that might be purchased in the human realm.

The problem, is that, somehow, that anxious disaster of her best friend has brought her a version of wolfberry wine that sits mellow and sweet on her tongue and sparks along her senses as she swallows it down. He brought her wine that tastes rich and verdant, with a scent stronger and more alluring than any fruit wine she has ever encountered before.

She is the peak lord of Zui Xian Peak, dammit, and if there is a technique to making wine that can be learned, then how could she ever let herself rest without learning of it?

She does not pour the wine out of the pot and directly onto the ground, even though she really wants to. This is the field where so many other alcohols are fermenting in their pots in the sun. It would be careless to invite pests to the sweet residue the wine would leave behind, or to risk any kind of cross-contamination to some other wine that a disciple has been perfecting for years on end.

Instead, Liao Qinglan channels all of her anger at this situation into her arms, in order to hoist the pot of fruit wine over her head and haul it back out into the woods, where she can pour it out upon the ground without feeling any kind of guilt about it.

Well, okay, maybe there is the smallest amount of guilt. Someone might have benefited from this wine. It was perfectly fine the way it was prepared, by anyone else's standard. Perhaps it would have been more logical and reasonable to keep the wine and clarify it until it could be distributed out like many of the other products on this mountain.

But, unfortunately, every export of Zui Xian Peak goes before the careful eyes and thoughtful brush of Yan Yazhu herself. As the only fruit wine currently leaving the peak is the result of the secret club and the mulberry wine they prepare specially and specifically for the sect leader every few years, there is no way she would not notice the sudden export of several small jars of wolfberry wine.

There would be questions. And Yan Yazhu has an uncanny ability to sniff out any lie or deception on the part of her peak lord. It makes things terribly inconvenient for her, if Liao Qinglan is being honest, but that's the price one must pay in order to have a competent and self-sufficient subordinate. Think of all the work she would have to be doing herself, if Yan Yazhu weren't there to do it for her.

So, the wine, mixed all together with the pulp and residue, spills out onto the forest floor, far away from where any casual wanderer might come across it. Liao Qinglan lugs the pot to a stream nearby to rinse it out until it no longer smells distinctively of wolfberries, at which point she can place it with all the other pots that need washing by the younger disciples. They like to make a game of singing and cleaning them up, and she allows them this one chance to have fun with the tasks rather than turning it into meditation. Cleaning should be fun, anyway.

She's going to think about her cute little juniors and forget all about the infuriating demonic wine that she cannot reproduce even with centuries of research and experience and wisdom on this exact topic behind her.

It's fine.

She doesn't even care.

It's literally fine.

*~*~*

Months pass. Recently, it had turned out that Shen Qingqiu wasn't actually dead and was instead running around the jianghu causing problems. This had very little to do with Liao Qinglan's life, and seems to have recently settled down a bit, but she heard the rumors.

The fifteenth month after their falling out, Shang Qinghua doesn't visit at all, even thought they've been sticking to an unspoken, very strict schedule. Liao Qinglan does not worry, because she is a peak lord with a thousand very important duties to hold her attention. If that means that she spends the entire evening sitting in her home and completing any paperwork she can find, just so that she can be present and available should anyone else arrive, that's her own business.

Well, her business and Yan Yazhu's business, since she's the one who comes through the house the next day, gathers up everything that Liao Qinglan did, shoots her a very passive-aggressive glare, and redoes all of it to her own specifications. But, well, that's what she gets for being the kind of over-controlling head disciple who won't allow anyone to help.

Maybe Liao Qinglan's in a bad mood. Maybe she didn't sleep well the night before. Who can say for sure.

When Shang Qinghua finally arrives, three nights after the time when he was scheduled (not actually scheduled, but they both fucking know that he was) to arrive, he looks harried and panicked. There are no bruises or cuts visible on his body, because such things never trouble immortal cultivators for more than a few minutes, but there is blood on his robes, bright and still fresh and blooming out from a point on his shoulder. Not the way that blood tends to look when it's coming from someone else.

Liao Qinglan hasn't been worried about his absence for days, and she certainly isn't worried about him now, so she walks at a very normal pace to greet him and ask how his day has been. She can hear the ice in her voice. She still does not know how to go about melting it, even for a friend.

Shang Qinghua accepts her worried hand-patting like he knows what it means, anyway (which, rude, how dare he), and they stand in front of each other awkwardly for just a moment before moving this whole embarrassing display of emotions indoors and over to the table. Where there are cups that can be filled with wine. If this happens to be a convenient excuse to avoid eye contact and conversation for another second, no it isn't.

"Ah, it's been a few days longer than we scheduled. This one apologizes for upsetting Liao-shimei."

"Why would I be upset?" She snaps. "We didn't have anything officially scheduled. I didn't even notice if you missed the night, like you're saying."

"Of course, of course. This one apologizes for the presumption."

They sit in silence for a little bit longer, because Shang Qinghua is the talker between the two of them, and she is not going to ask about any of his injuries when he's been so secretive about his life over in the demon realm. She doesn't actually know where the lines are anymore. It fucking sucks.

After twitching and growing more and more visibly uncomfortable, Shang Qinghua finally speaks.

"This one genuinely didn't mean to be late. There was an uprising in the North, and we've been so busy on the front lines that I lost track of days."

"You've been fighting?" She can't help the skepticism in her voice. It's not fair, maybe, but it is also valid. She and Shang Qinghua always pair up for the showy spars between peak lords, because both of them are absolutely terrible at cultivation with the sword. She knows the kind of prowess he would be bringing to the table. They both know that neither of them are built for the 'front lines.'

"Ah, no, not me, not me. I have been attending to and advising My King, as he leads the charge."

"There's blood on your robe." Her voice is as flat and hard as the oak table between them. She doesn't know how to make it softer than that. She's furious. She's so worried. She had no idea any of this was going on.

"Ah, well, yes. Not from the front lines. There was an..." he trails off, gauges her reaction to all this talk of his new life, continues, "an assassination attempt on My King. Just before this, after the fighting had mostly wound down. There were some minor members of a noble family that we deposed and they were...less than satisfied with the results of the battle." He pauses again, still so hesitant to speak in anything more than vague generalities. One of his hands has come up to rub absently against the blood stain at his shoulder.

"I fail to see how an assassination attempt against a demon king would result in your injury." Unless the king had thrown his servant in front of the blow, in which case Liao Qinglan is worried that there will be no force in the human or demon realms capable of stopping her from going on a furious rampage. Even if she would likely be killed quickly, due to the aforementioned lack of martial prowess.

"That would be because I may or may not have gotten in the way of it. My King was asleep, you see, and he hadn't rested in days. I thought it best for him if I just...took care of it." There is a flicker of darkness in his eye as he says that last bit, and maybe this is the part of him that is able to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of children and keep on living?

None of this is painting the kind of picture that Liao Qinglan was expecting, whenever she thought about her friend's life in the Demon Realm. Which she doesn't do. None of this is full of the kind of abuse, violence, horror that she has always heard, when listening to stories about the Demon Realm before now.

Shang Qinghua, in the months that they have been repairing their friendship, has not talked about the Demon Realm. Not really at all. It's been an explosive array that they have both danced around on the floor without ever allowing themselves to touch it. They could, presumably, do that forever. It's also, probably, fairly impracticable, considering everything about her friend's current living situation.

It doesn't make any sense. Nothing is matching up with her expectations. It doesn't make sense, until she starts listening back to everything he has said so far. Particularly, the emphasis that he has been putting on the words My King.

Liao Qinglan has shared a sect with Shang Qinghua for years. She knows what it sounds like when he says their sect leader's name.

This is, Most Definitely, not the way that he says their sect leader's name.

This is something very different. Something reverent. Something soft. Something overwhelming.

And she wasn't paying close attention before, because she was too busy making sure that her friend wasn't fucking dying. But, now that that's all resolved and put away for now, she can really dive into the fact that that's not how anyone says the name of their boss.

That is, rather, the way that someone talks about someone they are desperately in love with. Someone they idolize and worship.

She is starting to get a picture of what may or may not be going on here, and it is absolutely ridiculous, and it is far beyond anything she could have ever known to prepare herself for.

"Oh," she drawls. "So it's like that, then."

Shang Qinghua's head whips up, and the cup of wine in front of him teeters on its side, almost tipping over and spilling everywhere before it spins its way back to center. Guilty, guilty, guilty. He's already completely given himself away.

"What do you mean?"

And it's against everything she expected, when her friend was heartily encouraged to leave the sect. When he ran away to live in the Demon Realm. She's always heard that demons are cold and cruel and violent. But, then again, demons are also always coming in, spouting all sorts of nonsense about cultivators. It seems that the hatred and misinformation might be going both ways. Either that, or her dear friend Shang Qinghua is more unwell than she ever considered before.

She never expected anyone might feel this kind of fondness for a demon, especially not a demon king. That said, Liao Qinglan likes to think that she is the kind of person who stands by her friends. Some might even argue that she stands by them long past the time when she should have left them behind. Those people may even be correct in that statement, but it's never stopped her before and it certainly won't stop her now.

"Tell me more about this king of yours, Shang-shixiong." He flushes underneath her knowing look, looking around all panicked again. At least, this time, it's not the kind of cornered panic of someone worried his life is in danger, or that his friend is about to throw him off the mountain or report him for crossing back over a rainbow bridge following his banishment from the head cultivation sect. She knows what that kind of panic looks like on her friend's face.

This is the much more familiar, much more damning, look of a person who has been caught out on a secret they very much hoped that no one would notice they were keeping.

Too damn bad. This is what he gets, for maintaining a friendship with the peak lord of the drinking peak, even after cutting almost all ties with the Human Realm.

Liao Qinglan reaches out and refills his cup, even though he hasn't taken a drink from it yet. A little of it spilled when it twirled earlier, and she's not really doing it for the practicality of the thing. Rather for the drama of it all. The unspoken implication.

They are going to get drunk tonight. They are going to get absolutely shit-faced and she is going to hear all about this king of Shang Qinghua's. It is her god-given right as one of the only humans that he still talks to and one of the few friends who has stuck around. This is the reward for all the effort they have put forward these past few months, rebuilding the relationships and finding all the new boundaries and limits within it.

And, miraculously, it all sort of goes to plan. Shang Qinghua talks to her about the king of the Northern Desert, his king, his Mobei-Jun. He doesn't provide details about tactical information, or the exact specifics of how they came to know each other. She can tell that he is still wary of giving her any kind of information that may be used against his precious king, but that's not what she's interested in anyway.

She wants to know what they talk about. How he makes Shang Qinghua feel. If they are together yet.

And she gets to learn all of it. One blustering, stuttering, blushing sentence at a time, she gets to hear about the story of a young disciple of the An Ding clan and the relationship that he built with the young, not-then-king of the Northern Desert in the Demon Realm.

Of course, it's not quite as simple as all that. She is a master of obtaining information from other people, and not all of that information is from what people will tell her directly. Shang Qinghua, as much as he likes to talk and ramble, isn't actually the sort to provide endless information about his life. The drink certainly helps with all that, as it always has with him, but there is also much to be inferred from the places he pauses, the information he omits, the look on his face while he's talking.

It's actually, strangely, kind of sweet. In a confusing, paradigm-shifting kind of way. Liao Qinglan would never have thought, for even a moment, that this would be something that her friend would want, but the more he talks, the more it makes sense. He's always been the type to need someone to ground him, stay calm while he sprints from one panicked task to another. She had thought, if he chose to have anyone, it would be a human, but there's really no reason it needed to be.

If this Mobei-Jun is capable of caring for Shang Qinghua in the same way that Shang Qinghua so obviously cares for him, well, then she supposes that she wishes them all the best. She just needs to take the time to make sure this demon king is treating her friend kindly.

"Are you actually his advisor, then?" She asks, because it's starting to sound like much more of a soulmates, best friends, lovers sort of situation.

"Oh, no, not officially or anything. I'm just a servant for him. A spy, for a long time," he cringes at that but they both continue on as if he hadn't said anything. "I guess, now, I'm not even that. Mostly I follow him around and do all the busywork that comes with running a kingdom that no one else wants to bother with."

And, well, that doesn't sound accurate at all. Not with the way that Shang Qinghua has been going on about his king. That can't be right.

"It doesn't seem like he's the sort of man to put up with someone if he doesn't enjoy being around them."

"Oh, god, no, not at all. You have no idea the number of times I've had to follow behind him and clean up all the messes he makes while speaking to the other members of demon royalty. My King will just say whatever he's thinking or feeling at the time and doesn't care at all about how that might impact the very delicate balance in the Demon Realm. Sometimes, if he's in a very bad mood, he'll just kill someone who frustrates him, and then I have even more work to do." He's wringing his hands, clearly still very caught up in his worry about all of this, now that he's been reminded that it exists. "Honestly, I almost never leave him alone. Can't be trusted not to go off and do something ridiculous. The nights when you and I hang out are probably the most amount of time I spend away from the court."

"Right," Liao Qinglan drawls, because she's starting to put a few clues together and it's not looking too good for poor Shang-shixiong. "So why would he spend time with you unless he was enjoying it? It sounds like you spend nearly every moment together."

The shock of the words slaps him right across the face and leaves Shang Qinghua's cheeks burning.

"What are you talking about? No, that's not. No, it's not like that. He tolerates me because I take care of all the things that he doesn't want to have to deal with."

"Sounds like a lot of trust to be putting into a random subordinate."

"No, it's not. It's really not like that."

"And he listens to you, when you tell him not to do something?"

"I mean, sometimes." Shang Qinghua is viciously uncomfortable, clearly. Too fucking bad. He made her reevaluate her entire opinion on what it means to be friends with someone. He can take some teasing.

"He doesn't sound like the sort of man to listen to someone's input if they don't matter to him."

"I mean, no, of course not, but that's not-" His voice is shooting up an octave, hands in his hair and tugging at the loose strands. It's all falling out of his bun at this point, and he looks scattered and frayed. Honestly, as far as Liao Qinglan is concerned, it's about damn time he be the one to feel that way.

She takes another long sip of the delicious demon wine, paying close attention to savoring the notes and flavoring and technique of it all. If that has the added bonus of making Shang Qinghua stew in the ideas she's been putting before him, then good. That was the fucking point in the first place.

"He wants to be with you. And you want to be with him. You should probably do something about that." She gestures toward him with the cup of her wine, but quickly tilts it back to make sure that not a single drop of it spills on the table from such a careless motion. Damn her tendency toward dramatic body language. Sure, it gets her point across, but the number of drinks that have been lost to it are far too high. If only she didn't look so cool doing it, she would think about stopping. Instead, this is where a significant portion of her effort as a cultivator goes: in maintaining perfect balance of her drinks until she is too drunk to keep it up.

"I can't talk about this." Shang Qinghua stumbles to his feet. "I have to go. This isn't-. I can't talk about this anymore."

He doesn't look like he wants to stop talking about it. He's wringing his hands and glancing at her in between every word, and there's something in his eyes that is desperate to talk about this further. This is similar to the look he usually gives her when there's some fabulous gossip about another peak lord and he wants her to drag it out of him. What kind of friend would she be if she didn't comply?

"Are you going to go back to the palace, then? Perhaps your king is wounded as well and needs someone to tenderly nurse him back to health?" He makes some kind of horrified, shrieking squeak but, importantly, doesn't argue. "If you leave now, I'm afraid that's the only explanation I'll have."

"I can't talk about this. I really can't. You don't understand, it's not like that." He's shaking and mumbling a little bit, which is cute, if he thinks that's going to be enough to deter her. He still doesn't actually look upset. More like a man who is being forced to talk about a thing he hasn't allowed himself to think about for years on end. What is Zui Xian Peak for, if not something like this?

Liao Qinglan leans over the table and refills Shang Qinghua's cup. It actually was getting a little bit empty this time but, more than that, this is a well-established message between them. It is not time to leave yet. Shang Qinghua watches the wine pour from the jar into his cup with wide, round eyes. When she sets the jar back down, he lowers himself to his seat along with it.

They sit there until late in the night. The wine flows freely. Shang Qinghua's words are blocked for a while, but everyone's tongue loosens under the pressure of enough liquor, and Shang Qinghua is a beautiful accomplice in accomplishing that goal. By the time the rest of the world has been asleep for a shichen, they're both drunken messes and Shang Qinghua is finally willing to go into depth on just how desperately he yearns for his king. By a shichen after that, they have compiled a list of evidence that this king might see him the same way back. Perhaps some of it will even continue to make sense in the morning light.

It's strange, whenever she takes a step back to realize that she is helping her friend in his efforts to seduce a demon. That they are evaluating the behavior of another person as a potential romantic option, and it's a demon, and that's really not making all that much of a difference, beyond the fact that they're having to do all kinds of hasty research on demonic courting rituals and culture.

A year ago, she never would have even considered something like this. It was not simply taboo, or repulsive, or any other negative word. More truthfully, the thought would have never even entered her head for her to have a reaction to it. This reality is so incredibly unthinkable that there hadn't even been the precedent to establish a taboo.

Or, well, that can't be quite true, can it? Because the most recent story that's been flying through the jianghu is that the little disciple over on Qing Jing Peak actually turned out to be some kind of big-shot half-demon. So, presumably, at least one other person has violated the not-yet-a-taboo before. Strange, that no one ever really talked about that. It would have been super convenient for her to get the chance to start changing her opinion on demons years ago.

And then, now, that disciple is supposed to be in a relationship with his shizun. A little scandalous, perhaps. Liao Qinglan tends to live and let live when it comes to love and politics. As long as no one seems to be hurt, and just looking at them shows how pleased they both are with the arrangement.

Why has she been okay with hearing about that side of things? If that Luo Binghe is half-demon, why did she not have a problem with Shen Qingqiu's relationship as well? Would she have considered that relationship taboo, if she'd thought about it further?

This is stupid. And it's not the point. And she's drunk. It doesn't matter whether or not it's a taboo, because the point is that it's not taboo, or at least it doesn't feel like it. It feels like talking to any of her other friends about someone they are interested in. Not that it happens all that often, considering she has something of a reputation on her peak for being unsympathetic. As if that could ever be the case. She simply knows exactly what everyone should be doing and finds it ridiculous when they decide to do something other than what she said to do. Is that so wrong?

The point is that her friend, one of her closest friends, went off and fell in love with a demon king. Something that was completely unheard of and now it seems to be happening to two different peak lords of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. And it doesn't actually seem to be that bad of a thing at all, when she gets to hear some of the details about it.

She's drunk. This is ridiculous and she is so drunk and so is Shang Qinghua and they shouldn't be having any kind of revelations like this when it's this early in the morning and they still haven't even gone to sleep.

With that thought, and with their written-out evidence spread on the table between them, Liao Qinglan tips over and falls asleep. Presumably, Shang Qinghua follows suit, since he is still there when she wakes up hours later to a throbbing headache and scribbled sheets of paper she can barely read.

*~*~*

The next batch of wolfberry wine is remarkably similar to the first one. Because she knows how to make wine and she knows how to do it well, so why would she have created anything other than the most perfect result possible on her very first attempt?

She had changed some of the proportions of ingredients around, switching out some of the camomile for the lilyturf and adding in more of the wolfberry leaves and roots to deepen the flavor a little. She knows what she's doing. She knows how to create a delicious fruit wine, even if it's objectively inferior to all other kinds of wine. She knows what she's doing.

This time, she doesn't even taste it when it's first done fermenting out in the field. She filters it, just as it is meant to be, and leaves it to clarify for another month before she even touches it. Maybe that's what it will take for the flavor to develop. Maybe that's what's necessary for the taste to develop the same way that it does over in the Demon Realm.

When it is finally ready, she sneaks out at night to find where she has hidden her pot, separate from all the others and out in a clearing in the forest, because she cannot find a way to keep hiding this under Yan Yazhu's name without her finding out and getting suspicious.

Instead, she's become some kind of common, sneaking criminal. Apparently. There's a secret pathway out from her house and a secret setup and everything. It's ridiculous. She can't believe she's going this far for something as simple as wolfberry wine.

She sneaks out at night and brings a little snack along, because wolfberry wine pairs well with salty, light, fried things. She knows her shit. She knows how to make these things taste as good as it's possible for them to taste.

The drink pours clear and settled into the little porcelain cup that she brings with her. Liao Qinglan sits peacefully on a small cushion that she has brought with her and sets the cup and the food out on a folding lap table. If she is going to enjoy this drink, then she is going to set herself up to properly enjoy it. Perhaps that is the problem at the root of all of this. Perhaps it is not that the wine is better-tasting, just that she was drinking it while comfortable in her home and happily talking to a good friend. That's got to be why it tasted so much better than any other wine before.

When she sips the wine, the balance of flavors are delicate and much closer to those that she tasted in the original wine. She knows how to balance flavors.

It also has about one tenth the potency and richness of the fucking demonic wine.

It's not even worth it. She pours the rest of her cup out onto the ground and throws the pot with every bit of cultivator strength in her body. It flies through the air and smashes to pieces against a tree at the edge of the meadow. The wolfberry wine runs down the bark of the tree.

It's perfectly prepared. It's perfectly paired. It's perfectly balanced.

It's bullshit.

She goes back inside.

*~*~*

"And how has my friend been faring this month? Have you successfully seduced your demon king yet?"

"Ah, ha ha. Not yet. But, um, no, what have you been spending your time on this month? Anything interesting here?"

"Oh, no no no. Nothing interesting going on here. Besides, I asked you first, and I'll be needing more detail than that."

*~*~*

"I cannot help but notice that my shizun has been spending more time than usual outside of the house, particularly in the late hours of the night."

"Is there something you're implying, Yan Yazhu?"

"This lowly one would never dare to do such a thing. This one merely wondered what the peak lord could possibly be doing, to return home last night so covered in stains."

She returned home last night so covered in stains because this whole fucking fruit wine experiment is fucking bullshit and no one should ever try making something like this ever again. What's even the point, when the Demon Realm can come along and so effortlessly and indisputably crush any one of your efforts right into the ground?

She returned home last night so covered in stains because another one of her attempts to recreate the wine had matured enough for tasting and had turned out to be the same faint, inscrutable mess as the batch before it and the one before that.

She returned home last night so covered in stains because, after tasting the results of her weeks of effort, she had punched straight through the heavy clay of the pot so that the wine had spilled all over her. She was covered in the light pink-orange wine that smelled undeniably of wolfberries. And maybe she ran into Yan Yazhu as she was trying to sneak back into her home after that event. Maybe she could smell the guilt and secret missions all over her. Who can say? Liao Qinglan certainly won't. And, if she doesn't confess to anything, then no one can prove that any part of this is happening.

"This peak lord wonders what her head disciple's work load must be like, to have so much time leftover to wonder about her peak lord's personal business."

"Ah, of course, shizun."

*~*~*

"Did you hear? Shizun has been working with fruit wine again!"

"Do you think that means she'll start teaching us how to make it ourselves? I've always wanted to make loquat wine for my mother. She says it's one of her favorite things in the whole world, and I wanted to join this peak to make some for her."

"I heard that she's been working on a special project and that she's going to show it off and share it with the whole peak when she finishes! Maybe we'll have to wait until then before she's willing to share any of her techniques with any of us?"

*~*~*

"Liao Qinglan, I would like to officially introduce you to my friend, Red Tree." Shang Qinghua gestures between her and the enormous demon that towers behind him. He is quite a bit different, like this. Liao Qinglan had, of course, noticed the changes in his outfits as he became more willing to talk to her about his life in the Demon Realm. He has slowly and gradually taken to wearing more furs, more deep blues and soft silvers and greys. The cut of the clothing itself is a little different, even if he never tends toward some of the more revealing styles that can be popular among some of the demons Liao Qinglan has encountered.

Apparently, even the changes she saw were significantly toned down in an effort to make Liao Qinglan comfortable during visits, because that is not at all how her friend is dressed today. Sure, there is some of the same essence, but Shang Qinghua is carrying himself so differently. The overall picture is so different.

His simple cultivators robes have been set aside. Instead, he is draped in layers of thin blue fabric. They are all see-through on their own and, when layered together like this, make a beautiful scale of deepening blue as it moves away from his throat. As the color deepens, so does one's ability to see through the fabric itself. All this to say, she can definitely see much more of Shang Qinghua's chest than she has ever wanted to before this moment.

Over top of the thin blue fabric, he is wearing a luxurious cape with a thick ruff made from some kind of monster pelt that shines the brightest white and is flecked with little spots of black. It looks like it cost about the same amount as the entire budget for her peak in a year. As if that isn't enough, Shang Qinghua's wrists and neck and ankles all tinkle with the weight of dangling silver bangles and charms. Even his guan is elegant and detailed silver, dripping with diamonds and sapphires.

This is still her friend. He doesn't carry himself like this is the natural way that things should be, or with the elegant lines of old royalty. Instead, and even more unnervingly, he wears them with a kind of patient exasperation. She watches as her dear friend talks, occasionally huffing in frustration when one of his hand movements jostles his bangles in the wrong way. His irritated adjustment to the way they lay is practiced and automatic.

Shang Qinghua may not have been raised in this kind of luxury, but this is not a new way of presenting himself. Truly, there is much she has not known about her friend's life.

Liao Qinglan takes the time to look away from her friend. There's no more time to analyze all the ways that he is different when there's something much more important to focus on.

Her frustration had boiled over the last time he came to visit, several weeks ago and several hours into their drinking of the delicious wolfberry wine. She never would have allowed any of her shame to show itself without at least a jar or two of wine in her. But, when it had, and she took another sip of that damned wine, she couldn't help but explode her frustration all over Shang Qinghua, about how ridiculous is was that someone in the Demon Realm could come up with a recipe for wine like this when she, the peak lord of Zui Xian Peak, wasn't able to even replicate it. It was keeping her up at night and bringing shame to her entire peak and he had better take responsibility for the crisis he had caused by bringing it into her life.

She hadn't thought it would actually go anywhere. That's pretty much how their drinking nights have always gone. The two of them get drunk and shoot the shit and complain at length about anything that is pissing them off in the world. Then they yell at each other a bit and pass out on the table. It's great.

When Shang Qinghua had shown up at her home in the middle of an afternoon, long before he was due for another monthly visit and dressed like he was born and raised in the Demon Realm, she had been suspicious as hell. She is also very much not the kind of person who can leave a mystery alone when it arrives at her doorstep. Or, well, she's actually usually very good at ignoring mysteries, but not when they involve her friend.

Now, less than a shichen later (after a short flight through a hidden gap in the border between the realms), here she is: standing in the middle of a small plateau in the center of a desert in the Demon Realm. There is a pagoda nearby, a demon standing behind her friend, and very little else to be seen.

"A pleasure to meet you," Red Tree (the demon in question) says, through lips that are really more like a beak than any other kind of mouth Liao Qinglan has ever seen. The hands that are raised in a mocking salute are lightly feathered along the knuckles and fingerbones, with longer, showier feathers sprouting from the wrist like wristguards. Red Tree is huge, several heads taller than Liao Qinglan could ever hope to be. The feathers crest like hair atop their head and flow down their back. The feathers themselves are bright red and glaring in the afternoon sun. With so many feathers about them, there is very little need for clothing. They are wearing a few wrapped layers of thin red fabric in a shade that matches the feathers. Rather than the bangles that Liao Qinglan has seen so many demons wear, Red Tree seems to prefer golden jewelry that wraps closely against their skin. Likely in a way that keeps anything from interfering with their work. They would maybe be fascinating to look at, if they weren't so clearly uninterested in anything Liao Qinglan has to offer.

"And you, Red Tree," Liao Qinglan replies, dipping into a proper and sincere salute, because fuck you, that's why.

"Consort Shang has shared that a cultivator has developed quite a taste for our wolfberry wine." Liao Qinglan wants to roast the hell out of Shang Qinghua for the fact that people are running around calling him "consort" and he still doesn't know if his king is interested in him.  Instead, she shoots him a betrayed look, deciding to focus on the fact that he is going around telling everyone about the things that they discuss in confidence. "This recipe has been in my family for many generations. To think that such a great cultivator might take interest in our humble wine."

The words themselves are humble, but the tone is scathing and sarcastic. Red Tree watches Liao Qinglan with a fire in their eyes. The eyes are small and black, like a songbird's. Liao Qinglan can't believe Shang Qinghua brought her here for something like this.

"It would be this lowly demon's honor to share such a treasured and secret family recipe with Liao Qinglan, great cultivator of the Human Realm, at the behest of someone so renowned as Consort Shang himself." The smile that stretches across Red Tree's beak reveals that there are razor sharp teeth behind it.

"This is ridiculous," Liao Qinglan snaps, because it is clear that this demon does not want to do this and that Shang Qinghua is out here making some kind of political move that he doesn't even know he made. Liao Qinglan doesn't even want to be here in the first place. Also she is not the kind of person to go around taking someone's secret recipe when they clearly don't want to share. She has more honor than that. "Why are any of us here? Take me back home, Shang Qinghua."

She turns to leave but, before she can take another step toward her traitorous friend, the towering figure of Red Tree moves between them. They have returned to their mocking salute and the sharp smile on their face is so ingratiating that it loops back around to being threatening. Shang Qinghua cowers behind the figure of Red Tree, as if this entire situation is not of his construction in the first place. Liao Qinglan is going to kill him.

"Surely, Liao Qinglan would not depart so soon after Consort Shang went through all the difficulty of arranging such a meeting." Those sharp teeth are incredibly close to Liao Qinglan's hands. She grips tighter at the sword that she brought with her. Only she and Shang Qinghua know that it's a bluff. She is not competent with the sword. Red Tree doesn't know that. "This lowly one has prepared such a thorough tour of the process we use."

There is something going on here that Liao Qinglan does not understand and that no one seems willing to explain to her. Which, whatever, fine. It's a tour of a wine-making process. She knows how to do this sort of thing. And, besides, she has been trying to recreate this flavor for months on end. If the demons want to give away their secrets, if they're insisting on it even after she gives them an out, then that's not Liao Qinglan's problem.

And so, she smiles back, just as gratingly and insincerely. Red Tree gestures her over to where the materials for wine-making seem to be gathered, and Liao Qinglan goes without comment. Fine. If this is what her day is going to turn into, then she might as well get something out of it.

Red Tree, when they aren't threatening humans, does actually know quite a lot about the wine making process. It seems that they were right to say that their family had perfected this recipe over many generations. Liao Qinglan's knowledge of alcohol is broad and sizable, spanning all the various forms that it can possibly take. Red Tree's knowledge isn't wide, but it is deep. Clearly, their family has dedicated much of their time to the study of this sort of thing.

"I didn't know that demons spent much time on the preparation of food and drink," Liao Qinglan remarks, as Red Tree shows off their stores of preserved, dried wolfberries, shipped from the Human Realm. Red Tree doesn't have skin around their nose to wrinkle, but their brow furrows in a way that suggests a similar bad smell.

"Humans are unable to consume raw meat and remain safe. Of course you would develop ways to prepare food in a way that is pleasurable and safe to you. Don't look down on demonic cuisine simply because we are able to enjoy our meals with less effort required."

Liao Qinglan snaps her mouth shut, feeling chastised, even though that didn't actually answer the question she had been asking. Well, maybe she hadn't phrased the question as a question at all. Still, Red Tree doesn't seem like they would be much in the mood to answer no matter what she says, so Liao Qinglan decides to simply listen now and interrogate Shang Qinghua later.

Red Tree seems to have batches of the wolfberry wine sitting at all stages of preparation, as most families do, when they are responsible for meeting a demand. Red Tree shows how they prepare the malted rice and form it into qu. They show the store rooms where the qu sits until dried and ready. They show the rehydration of berries and brewing of additional flavors. The preparation of fresh rice as well as the base rice wine. They mix it carefully and store the entire thing in a pot, explaining that it will sit for 20 days before it will be filtered and left to clarify.

And.

It's.

The.

Exact.

Fucking.

Same.

It's the same. It's the exact same process that Liao Qinglan has been completing over and over and over again. She watches every single step. She takes visual measure of every proportion. She compares every timeline Red Tree mentions with the ones used by her own disciples. It's all the exact same damn thing that she has been trying for months with no result to fucking show for it.

"Is this some sort of trick?" She demands, when it is impossible to stay quiet for a moment longer. Red Tree, who is actually fairly pleasant in demeanor when they are so focused on their craft, straightens to their full height and turns their fathomless black eyes back on Liao Qinglan.

"Surely Liao Qinglan misspoke." It's a warning, and Liao Qinglan isn't going to listen to it. If this is the whole process that they're going to go through and she isn't even going to get the secret to the recipe out of it, then what the fuck are they doing here?

"Liao Qinglan did not misspeak." She gets up in Red Tree's space, even though they could easily crush her and they both probably know it. "The honorable Red Tree is speaking of the basic steps of the wine making process, as if this peak lord would not already have extensive knowledge of such things." Liao Qinglan is hissing with the fury of a thousand nights of secret wine preparation. "This lord has followed the exact process laid out today and the results taste nothing like the wine that I have tasted from this very winery."

A sneer starts to spread across Red Tree's face. "Has the great peak lord Liao Qinglan considered, perhaps, that it is not the process that is flawed, but rather the craftsman?"

Liao Qinglan is not the type of person to become upset easily. She could never survive as the peal lord of Zui Xian Peak if she were the kind of person who needed everyone to remember her and think she was great. But, she is good at one specific thing, has built her life around one specific thing, and it is unacceptable to her that Red Tree might challenge her here. Without another thought, Liao Qinglan draws her sword.

The razor sharp sneer grows even sharper, and then Red Tree is flying toward her and Liao Qinglan is discovering that, beneath those feathers, there are talons. She is discovering this as she feels them dig into the flesh of her bicep and press her flat on the dirt ground. There are razor sharp teeth pressed right up alongside her neck, a promise of retaliation for any further efforts. The fight is over before it even starts, with Red Tree so soundly defeating her that it would be heinously shameful were anyone else around to see it. Speaking of-

"Where is that coward Shang Qinghua," she huffs.

"I do believe he left us to ourselves ages ago, oh mighty cultivator. And," the teeth draw even closer. Liao Qinglan can feel the heat of breath against the join of her neck and shoulders. "I do believe you have more pressing concerns."

They're right. Liao Qinglan definitely should be more afraid right now than she is. Why is that? She supposes it just seems difficult to be scared of someone after you have just watch them talk for several shichen about a craft that they are passionate about. Red Tree has their teeth pressed right to Liao Qinglan's jugular, and it would be very difficult to kill her like this, but not impossible. Liao Qinglan is good at circulating her qi and healing herself quickly. Is she good enough to heal a torn-out neck before it kills her? She should definitely be more scared than she is.

"If you were going to kill me, you would have already done so." She's pretty sure. At least 60% sure. Red Tree certainly has every opportunity and hasn't taken it.

"You seem sure of that."

"I'm still alive, aren't I?"

Red Tree huffs a scathing laugh before pulling their teeth back. Just far enough that their unnerving bird's eyes can meet Liao Qinglan's own. They stay there for a moment. The talons dig deeper into Liao Qinglan's shoulder, drawing up blood onto her robes. When nothing changes, when Liao Qinglan doesn't make another move, Red Tree finally pulls away, flopping to sit in the dirt next to her. Liao Qinglan hauls herself up so that she's mirroring the position, circulating her qi so that the punctures in her shoulder are already almost healed.

"That's a handy trick," Red Tree murmurs, gesturing toward the place where the skin is already showing fresh and new through the blood.

"There is actually a reason I have managed to survive this long. A very good reason I don't have to be afraid of you."

"You are alive only by the influence of your friends, you know. Horrifying as it is that the king of the Northern Desert has taken a human as his consort."

Liao Qinglan can't argue much with that. She had felt much the same about Shang Qinghua's choice of romantic interest.

"Where did that little rat go, anyway?" She glances around before following the line of Red Tree's finger where they point at a small figure, dressed in blue, laying down on a flat rock and tossing and catching a pebble above his head. While they watch, Shang Qinghua fumbles the catch and it slaps down onto his face. He rubs at his nose, glances around to see if anyone noticed, misses them watching him, and returns to his little game.

"He stepped away just a few minutes into the explanation of the process. It seems not everyone is as interested in the noble process of wine making as you and I."

"You are hiding something," Liao Qinglan persists, unable to leave the point alone, even if much of the anger has left. "I've been trying to replicate your recipe for months now and I've done the exact same things. It does not carry one third the flavor of the wine you produce here."

"And it could never be true that the Demon Realm is simply better at wine production than the Human Realm?" It's the same conversation again, but some of the poison has been drawn out of it.

"It's not a matter of demon versus human. I am not upset because I think a demon has done something better than me," Liao Qinglan explains, realizing as she says it that it's the truth. "I am the peak lord of Zui Xian Peak. It is a peak dedicated to the production and consumption of alcohol, and I have labored my entire life to master the craft. There are generations of research and similar experts behind me. How can it be that I cannot even detect where your recipe might differ from my own?"

"Your crisis of identity isn't my responsibility to solve." Red Tree huffs again, and it rustles some of the feathers on their face and neck. "Doubt me or no, I would not dare to lie or conceal information when it is at the request of the King of the Northern Deserts."

Liao Qinglan flops back into the dirt and stares up at the way the bright sun of this realm turns the skies red.

"What did Shang Qinghua threaten you with, to make you so willing to share a secret family recipe?"

"Your little rat did not do anything," Red Tree says drily. "It was his king that came to visit, threatening to wipe out the entirety of my family home if I did not follow his consort's every request to the letter."

"So you're doing this out of fear for your life?" Liao Qinglan cannot believe that she is feeling protective over this demon she tried to attack only a few minutes ago, but this is not something she would have thought Shang Qinghua capable of. Red Tree waves a dismissive hand through the air between them.

"It is not an unusual thing. With demon kings, that's just how life is. They're powerful. Demons feel their emotions so strongly, when they fall in love, they might be willing to do anything at all to keep the one they love happy. It's best to just follow along, when there is someone stronger than you, asking for something on behalf of someone they love. I should be thankful he asked at all."

"Still, I didn't know that your family home was in danger." Liao Qinglan is waiting for some kind of further response, but Red Tree just kind of grunts a little and goes back to looking around them. There are more questions bubbling up inside Liao Qinglan, and this might be the only chance she'll have to ask any of them. "Where is your family home?"

Red Tree laughs again, clicks their beak mockingly, and gestures grandly to the dirt ground they are sitting on.

"Oh," Liao Qinglan murmurs, wrong-footed. "Right. It's beautiful."

"You're stupid," Red Tree snipes, spitting onto the ground. "Demons don't build above ground. The grand mansion of my ancestral home extends for stories into the ground beneath our feet."

"Right." Liao Qinglan shuts up again. She keeps fucking this up, so she's just going to shut up for the day.

"I'm not hiding any part of the recipe," Red Tree finally says, after they've sat in silence for what feels like half a shichen. "I don't know why the wine tastes different here. It simply does."

Liao Qinglan sits with that for a moment.

"I don't think I can accept that."

"Accept it or not, it is the truth." Red Tree stands up, brushes the dirt off their clothes and shakes it off their feathers. "And the time we are scheduled to speak is up."

Sure enough, Shang Qinghua is walking back from his perch on the rock. He's gaping and gesturing frantically about the dirt on both of their clothes, as if that was something they did on purpose.

Liao Qinglan shares one final commiserating look with Red Tree, and then they leave, mystery unsolved.

*~*~*

"So, oh honored peak lord, is there going to come a day where you start to explain to me where all of our spare budget is going, or am I going to have to go talk to Shang-shishu myself?"

Yan Yazhu comes striding into the room as if they are continuing a conversation, even though Liao Qinglan has been happily enjoying her time alone in her room, reviewing the notes she took so many months ago. When she returned from the Demon Realm, Liao Qinglan had copied down every single step of the wolfberry wine making process that she could remember, before it left her head. Every single thing that Red Tree did and said and showed, to see any moment when there may have been an opportunity to do something secretively.

It's possible, of course, that they had merely intentionally done a step incorrectly while Liao Qinglan was there, willing to throw out the results of that particular demonstration, so that there would be one ruined batch and no way to worry about the secret of the recipe escaping into the Human Realm. Which means, of course, that Liao Qinglan needed to write down not only everything that they did, but also everything that she saw while walking around the preparation area.

She had done all this right from the beginning, but there really wasn't anything that caught her attention. Now, two failed batches later, she figures it can't hurt to look through all of it again. The notes are...significantly lacking. In her defense, Liao Qinglan isn't accustomed to running spy missions like this, or actually putting effort into solving all the mysteries and theories she quietly forms in the back of her mind.

Also, and this is something she just realized the other day and has been incredibly frustrated about ever since, Red Tree had pointed out that all of their family's infrastructure was underground. Meaning that there was actually very little for Liao Qinglan to notice, visually, beyond the flat dirt plane and the roof under which the wine was prepared. There was an entire mansion's worth of places to hide the things actually used in the recipe.

"Right, so, is this how we're going to be playing this? You're just going to ignore me until I go away?"

"Huh?" Liao Qinglan realizes quite suddenly that her head disciple had definitely asked her a question earlier, and she hadn't done anything even close to acknowledging it, let alone answering.

"I asked if you were going to provide an account for where all of our peak's money has been going, recently." Yan Yazhu's voice is as flat and dry as the dirt in the Demon Realm where Red Tree makes their home. Maybe that has something to do with why the wine tastes different...

"Ah, no." No, Liao Qinglan is not eager to share things like the answer to that question with everyone. Shameful enough that it's officially become impossible to hide that she has been working with fruit wine. This can't get out too.

"Okay, so I'll just go ask Shang-shishu, then." This is possible because, infuriatingly, Shang Qinghua has recently been reinstated as the peak lord of An Ding Peak. After all that work that Liao Qinglan had personally done to decide what she thought of him, her friend was welcomed back to the sect as if nothing had happened in the first place, all because no one could figure out how to do the things that he does.

Yan Yazhu strides from the room before Liao Qinglan can stop her.

*~*~*

The money, of course, is going toward the very expensive process of sending letters back and forth between the Demon and Human Realms. With the improvement in relationship between the realms (mostly due to several specific members of demonic royalty), recently, it seems that a few enterprising demons have seen the opportunity for moneymaking and have started a business conveying letters through the few borders where the boundary between realms is weak.

It's not cheap, though. It's a very specialized service.

It takes Yan Yazhu a few more weeks before she comes back with the answer to her question. There is no reason that Shang Qinghua should have known the answer, but Liao Qinglan accepted, when processing through all the shit that came out, that her best friend is a sneaky, conniving snake who always knows more than he should about everything. So, when Yan Yazhu starts looking at her significantly and sighing loudly every time she sees her peak lord sitting at the desk in her room, scribbling away at another sheet of paper, well. It's pretty obvious that she's figured out what's going on.

The first time that Liao Qinglan sent a letter to Red Tree, it was mostly full of pleasantries and thank yous and politeness, because that was the only excuse she could think of for writing a letter in the first place. And because that was how a peak lord probably should write a letter to someone from a realm they were recently in a sort of angry stalemate with. And it also seemed like Red Tree had agreed to the tour in the first place because of the influence of someone from royalty, so why not remind them that Liao Qinglan also has a title and some level of clout?

She wrote the letter in her best calligraphy, with the finest ink, on her heaviest paper. She signed it with her full title.

When that hadn't worked, Liao Qinglan had sent another letter every day for a week straight, so that they all arrived one after the other. She had to pay extra to make sure the post didn't pile up and arrive in one big lump. She wanted there to be a letter arriving every day. She wanted Red Tree to feel pressured.

When the first return letter finally arrived, with simply a bold fuck off written across the thick paper, Liao Qinglan knew that she was starting to have an impact. It was a reaction. A response.

The next letter she had sent merely said no.

The one after that involved a breakdown of every part of the process that she had noticed Red Tree following during the tour, along with a request for them to edit any part of it that was incorrect.

It took a few more tries for Liao Qinglan to realize that Red Tree tends to ignore any letter that comes right out the gate asking about wine. But, if she just rambles on about this or that from her day to day, she can sometimes get a brief response. If she asks a question or two about Red Tree's day, she will sometimes even get a few word long response directly answering those questions. It helps when she includes enough of a payment for a return letter as well, because it is (again) not a cheap process and Red Tree could easily use that as an excuse.

It had taken months. It really had. But! As of yesterday, Liao Qinglan can finally say that it is starting to pay off! Entirely separate from the potential friendship that she may or may not claim to have with a demon, she also officially received a package of the specific dried wolfberries that Red Tree uses in their wine.

They may be from the Human Realm initially, but Liao Qinglan has tentatively given up on the idea of there being a secret ingredient that Red Tree is refusing to tell her. They are close enough now that Liao Qinglan can say that they are probably not the sort of person to maintain a lie for such a long time.

If there isn't some secret ingredient or technique, that means that there is a larger secret, unknown to both of them. There is definitely something different between the two recipes. If it's something that Red Tree genuinely doesn't know, then it's something hidden either within the ingredients or the process. Which means that Liao Qinglan has chosen to start by focusing on isolating which of the specific ingredients is causing the change in the flavor, since the process is (as far as she can tell) the same. No ingredient can be above suspicion.

So, Liao Qinglan finally managed to convince Red Tree to send her their wolfberries. She'll make a batch of the wine with this and see if it changes the flavor at all. It shouldn't, because, again, these berries are from the Human Realm and Zui Xian Peak already receives the best fruits available, but there's no way to know until she's experimented, and Liao Qinglan is not willing to leave any stone unturned.

Maybe Yan Yazhu figures out just what is going on, and maybe she sends a few dark glances over Liao Qinglan's way every now and then. She can't blame her. It would be confusing to her as well, to see the peak lord suddenly reverse her opinion on fruit wine in general, dedicate herself to the production of a very specific kind of fruit wine, and spend all the extra budget on communication with the demon realm, when that has never been an interest before now.

Maybe Yan Yazhu would understand better if she would just get a taste of Red Tree's wine. But that's not going to happen, because Liao Qinglan is not willing to share even a drop. The wine is too delicious, too rare, too precious for her to go sharing it around with anyone who's interested.

The important thing is that she's finally managed to convince Red Tree to share some of their materials, even if it's just one thing at a time, with the requirement that Liao Qinglan share any findings she makes as soon as she makes them. That's the part that matters.

She keeps sending the letters, though, even while the wine is fermenting.

*~*~*

This is an absolutely terrible idea, and Liao Qinglan is pretty sure that everyone here knows it. If they are all smart enough to know it, then it really shouldn't have happened in the first place, but they can't seem to actually live out any of that wisdom everyone says that these immortals are bestowed with.

All this to say: Liao Qinglan is sitting at a table in her house. Not the one that she usually sits at for the monthly bitch-sessions she has with Shang Qinghua, because that one would be too small. Instead, Yan Yazhu helped her cart in a huge table earlier in the day. Seated at the table are Shang Qinghua, his emotionless ice demon king, Red Tree, Yan Yazhu, and Liao Qinglan.

They've been here for almost half a shichen at this point, and you would think that would mean that some of the tension would have died down into a calm pattern of conversation. Not so. Not at all. Liao Qinglan is the most charismatic of them all by far, and they all know it, which leaves her to chatter away while almost everyone else sits in silence. Shang Qinghua is talking too, because he's literally never not talking, but he's so anxious and uncomfortable that his voice is two octaves above where it usually is, and it's just drawing everyone's attention to how weird this is.

Red Tree is sitting calmly on their cushion, sipping leisurely at the cup of wine before them. Liao Qinglan was maybe, potentially, showing off a little bit when she was planning this, so she set out rice wine and fruit wine and liquor and baiju and this delicious mixed drink that one of the older juniors has been trying to get everyone in the sect to drink. There are options and cups within reach of every single person at the table, and Liao Qinglan has been graciously pouring for anyone who indicates a preference.

Red Tree had brought a jar of their own wine and is drinking that. Yan Yazhu took the opportunity to finally try this drink that her peak lord has been trying to recreate and has been expressing her appreciation with little happy noises and praise. Mobei-Jun asked for tea and indicated that he did not intend to drink while he was here. Shang Qinghua has been trying the mixed drink and keeps talking about how delicious it is, even though he grimaces every time he takes a sip, and he's not drinking nearly as frequently as he usually does when he comes to visit.

Liao Qinglan has been sullenly drinking one of the rice wines that she takes the most pride in creating and that she believes is the finest drink produced by her peak. She is also moments away from slamming her head against the surface of the table until she passes out and wakes up once everyone has left.

"So glad that we all got together like this." Red Tree's voice is as dry as the desert they live in and Liao Qinglan considers wrestling them to the ground right there, even though they've already shown exactly how a fight like that would go.

"Yes, well, this lowly one thought it might be time for all these friends to have the chance to get to know each other." She can play this overly polite, shit-eating game as well. Take that, Red Tree. As if anyone wants to be here.

"Ah ha ha," Shang Qinghua, the motherfucker who actually planned this whole disastrous event, pipes in. "Yeah, there have been so many times where one or two of us has been talking to another and talked about someone else here. I though it might be good to all get to know each other, that way everyone has a little more context for the people everyone else is always talking about. In a good way! Like you do when there's a bunch of people who you think would all get along!" Liao Qinglan smiles at him and inclines her head in a graceful acknowledgement. It is a threat and they both know it. Shang Qinghua laughs again, even more uncomfortable.

"I had no idea that a peak lord of a righteous cultivation sect was spending so much time talking about the Demon King of the Northern Desert," Red Tree snarks.

"And I had no idea you spent so much time talking to Shang Qinghua about me." Liao Qinglan may not be able to win in a physical fight, but damn if she is going to let Red Tree get away with that when they're on her peak. "Had I known you thought of me so often, I would have been sure to write more. Although, I cannot blame you for being fascinated by someone who is an expert in your field." She smiles at Red Tree this time, a knife's blade in her mouth.

"Pretty sure Red Tree isn't the one spending all of our peak's budget on sending letters back and forth between realms." Yan Yazhu adds, the traitor.

"Can confirm." Shang Qinghua raises his cup in Yan Yazhu's direction and they both take a long drink in solidarity with each other. Shang Qinghua's nose wrinkles up when he remembers that he's only pretending to be enjoying his drink. Good. Suffer. Mobei-Jun doesn't say anything, but reaches over to refill Shang Qinghua's cup from the teapot sitting before him. Shang Qinghua glances up at him in worshipful gratefulness.

"Well, it would be quite rude to expect someone else to pay for such an expensive service. Of course this immortal master is more than willing to assist Red Tree in this method of communication."

"Of course, as someone capable of creating a wine that is so thoroughly enjoyed and treasured by so many," Red Tree gestures around at everyone except Mobei-Jun, "this one has never been lacking in funds. Perhaps, if someone finds that they are the only one putting forward all the effort to engage in communication, that may be a reason for that other than money."

"If the honorable Red Tree has something to say, then perhaps they should be so principled as to state it clearly."

"Oh, I'll speak clearly when I-"

"SO!" Shang Qinghua jumps to his feet to interrupt, speaking loudly and quickly while clearly unaware of what the next word to leave his mouth at any moment will be. "I'm just so happy that we all get to spend a time in community like this! How lovely, to be able to unite the Human and Demon Realms over something so simple and universal as a good drink."

"A very good drink," Red Tree mutters under their breath, at the same time that Liao Qinglan hisses out "as if anyone has even tried the drinks." They scowl furiously at each other before Shang Qinghua sidles over to stand directly between their line of sight.

"And how lucky we are, that the night has only just begun, and we will have the chance to try so many new things. There may be a few bumps in the road, but community can only grow stronger over time. Perhaps, next time, we could even invite Liu Mingyan and Sha Hualing, or Shen Qingqiu and Junshang!"

And that, the idea of the absolute catastrophe that would result from something like that, is overwhelming. The thought of that terribly shameless couple, one an immortal and untouchable peak lord, the other his adoring younger disciple who also would outrank everyone in the room in terms or status and power, sitting at this table and in this terribly uncomfortable moment with everyone else, it's so funny that it pierces right through all the tension and frustration that Liao Qinglan has been feeling all night. She finds herself suddenly slumped with her cheek against the smooth, cool surface of the table and giggling uncontrollably. Across the table and out of her line of sight, Red Tree lets out a single, derisive snort.

"That would be such a terrible, awful idea. I really can't think of a single idea worse than that," she stutters out between helpless giggles.

Shang Qinghua blusters a bit, but Red Tree backs up Liao Qinglan with "If you invite them to something like this, I am afraid I will fall suddenly and terribly ill and be unable to attend." Mobei-Jun doesn't say anything, but calmly pulls Shang Qinghua back down to his seat beside him. The message is clear enough.

Shang Qinghua slumps in defeat for a bit, but something about that really cleared the air anyway. And, suddenly, it isn't quite so awful to sit with all these people that she doesn't know very well. The night goes on, and Red Tree actually tries some of the wine that Liao Qinglan made, after all the wine that they brought runs out. Yan Yazhu seems to strike up an easy and cutting rapport with Red Tree, which is a horrifying thing that Liao Qinglan needs to keep a very close eye on. Shang Qinghua seems to actually calm down a little bit, once everyone else starts to, and Liao Qinglan gets to see the quiet and unspoken way that he and Mobei-Jun look after each other. The way that Shang Qinghua effortlessly directs attention and conversation away from him, and the way that Mobei-Jun pours him a cup of tea between every few drinks and makes sure that his cantaloupe seeds are always within reach.

And maybe Red Tree, at the end of it all, makes a quiet comment about how the rice wine wasn't all that awful. And maybe Liao Qinglan treats herself to one cup of the wolfberry wine before it all goes away. And maybe the night isn't actually that awful after all.

*~*~*

It has been months. Months and months and months of meeting up for drinks in any combination of the original five at that first night. Of making all kinds of wine. Or, more accurately, of making the same exact wine from the same exact recipe over and over and over again. There shouldn't be any difference in taste. There hasn't been any difference in taste, even as she substitutes in every ingredient from the Demonic Realm, one after the other. At some point, she started to come to terms with the fact that she is going to have to figure out what to try next. Nothing is changing and there is very little else that could be a secret factor. She is starting to prepare to travel to the Demon Realm herself for every step of the process, to see what individual stage contributes to the unique flavor.

She's tasting this most recent batch because it's the last one and she needs to check every option off the list before she starts trying something else. The only thing they changed this time is the qu, and that's barely anything at all, so she's not expecting any impact on the taste. It's not involved in the actual ingredients or flavorings, really.

That's why it's the last thing she tried. That's also why it's such a surprise when she draws a bowlful of wine from the woven reed basket straining out the pulp and rice from the actual wine.

The taste hits her at the tip of her tongue and floods along her taste buds. It's light and mellow and sweet, but the flavor is richer and more complex and layered than anything she has ever managed to draw out of a fruit wine in the decades of her residence on Zui Xian Peak. It's ridiculous. It slides down her throat like a song, leaving a warm tingle behind, followed by the sharp cold of alcohol.

She has, at this point, drunk enough of the wine produced by Red Tree to know that she has perfectly recreated it. She's the peak lord of Zui Xian Peak. More than that, she has trained for almost her entire life to taste every note in a beverage, beyond what any other human, demon, or cultivator could. If she can't taste a difference, then there isn't a difference.

This is a perfect recreation of the wine produced by Red Tree.

It's perfect. It's exactly the same. She takes another careful sip, cycling her qi through her mouth as she does so, just to make sure. Then she takes a deep gulp, because she really has to make sure.

And it is. It's the same.

She lets out a loud whoop.

Her project stopped being a secret ages ago. She has thoroughly trampled her pride and eaten her previous words about fruit wine, and all the peak already knows about it. Embarrassing, sure, but it means that she can shout one more time and then leap to her feet.

She's in the fermentation field, surrounded by so many other deep brown pots full of various fermenting things. It makes for a lovely little obstacle course. Liao Qinglan leaps on top of the jar that her wine is in, jumps from the lid of one to another, landing light as a fluttering bird's wing. She keeps throwing her hands in the air, shouting and howling, stomping the ground.

It's been over two years, at this point, that she has been so focused and fixated on this one thing, and it's finally done. She finally did it. Fuck yeah, she's literally amazing. She did the thing that no one thought she could do.

The qu. It was the qu all along. Fascinating, because she has managed to get Red Tree to write out the whole process at this point, if only to make her shut up about it in all her letters. Liao Qinglan knows that Red Tree makes theirs the same way that the disciples of Zui Xian do. Or, well, because they make so many different types of alcohol here, they have multiple techniques for creating various types of qu. The one that Red Tree uses, though, the one from malted rice, is prepared exactly the same way that their malted rice one is. It's the one that both of them use in their preparation of wolfberry wine. There shouldn't be a difference. There really shouldn't be a difference here.

However, the qu is the part of the recipe that takes the longest to prepare. That's an important part of the process, allowing the malted rice cakes to sit in the dark until they color and dry out. It can take months before it is ready to be used. Out of any ingredient, the qu is the one that has the most time to take in the qualities of the environment its in, if you think about it that way.

Red Tree had said something about that, right at the beginning. That merely being in the Demon Realm made them better at this than Liao Qinglan. Actually, Shang Qinghua might have said something too, back when she was hearing about this amazing wine for the first time. Something about the location of the winery being the reason that it was so famously perfect.

Yan Yazhu comes running before Liao Qinglan can think any further on this, presumably because some disciple or another went to her and told her that the peak lord looked like she was having a qi deviation in the middle of the fermentation field. Tattle-tales.

Still, this is a good day, and she's happy to share. She doesn't need to solve every problem right now.

"Yan Yazhu! Come try! I figured it out!"

She can finally stop worrying about it.

*~*~*

She can't stop worrying about it.

If it's the qu that's causing the wine to taste as good as it does, then that's complicated. If it's the fact that the qu came from the Demon Realm that makes it taste so good, rather than some technology in the preparation or some secret ingredient, then what does that mean about the wine that Liao Qinglan finally managed to make?

If the thing that finally makes her wine good is the qu from the Demon Realm, then does that mean that she's going to be taking credit for a taste that she is actually incapable of creating?

Or, is it just like ordering a very special and rare ingredient from somewhere else? Maybe the act of incorporating it into her recipe means that she is making it her own, and can still take credit for it.

But, then again, the actual process of making the wine is no different between them. Red Tree does it the same way. There's no difference at all between the art the two of them are making, except that Red Tree's is better. Because it was made in the Demon Realm.

*~*~*

Red Tree,

If I pay you for some of the qu that you make and then start properly making my own wolfberry wine (instead of just as an experiment), what are the odds that I end up being attacked in the night by a very offended demon? Just trying to get an idea of how much of this would be considered stealing your recipes.

Liao Qinglan

Qinglan,

I get wolfberries from the Human Realm. This is stupid. Stop worrying.

Red Tree

Red Tree,

Got your letter. Can't believe you're being so quick to dismiss this. If I start making the same exact wine that you do then you'll lose a lot of your income. This is serious. I don't want to take a step and then realize later that it was a mistake.

Liao Qinglan

Qinglan,

I'm telling you it's fine. Everyone who makes wine has a similar recipe. If you're paying me for the qu, then I don't know why this is such a concern.

Red Tree

Red Tree,

Is there something I could provide in exchange? Feels like this is going to make a strange imbalance between us. We have a supplier for our wolfberries that provides high-quality fruit as long it is in season. I am willing to send you the name, as well as potential access to our base rice wines. Additionally, we could compare closer notes on the exact proportions of flavorings you're adding? See if we can perfect the combination together?

What are your thoughts on this?

Liao Qinglan

Qinglan,

Holy shit. I'll just talk to you about this in person tomorrow.

Red Tree

*~*~*

Shang Qinghua still isn't quite sure how he got to a place in his life where he is cleaning up after a wedding ceremony between himself and the Demon King of the Northern Deserts. It all feels like something of a whirlwind, even though they have spent the last few decades knowing each other better. Even though there is not a single part of their relationship that moved quickly.

Still, he feels somewhat in shock, as he starts to sort through all of the gifts and tributes that arrived to the palace. They were piled onto several large tables in the receiving room of the royal suites. The wedding was several days ago, but this is the first chance that Shang Qinghua has had to actually start going through everything. There will need to be thank you notes sent out and appropriate appreciation shown to the clans that actually impact their political standing.

Mobei-Jun is lounging on the bed in the other room, with the door wide open, so that he can watch and throw judgemental looks in Shang Qinghua's direction. He is not thrilled about the decision to begin doing important work again, rather than spending another day in bed.

It's several shichen into the work before Shang Qinghua stumbles across it. He's been picking through each table methodically, writing down detailed notes on each item as he encounters it, as well as who it is from, what he thinks should be done with it, and potential implications of this particular choice of wedding present.

The jar of wine, when he comes across it, is elegant but, overall, quite unassuming when compared to all the other presents. It isn't eye-catching all on its own. Simple and light brown, with a detailed impression of a wolfberry vine on the outside. It looks, at first glance, exactly like the jars of wine that Shang Qinghua procured so many times to bring to the monthly hangs with Liao Qinglan. Expensive, but worth it in the effort to rebuild one of the only friendships he was actually able to make. (He'd put so little effort into writing Liao Qinglan, when he first made the world, that meeting her in person was actually like getting to know a real person, for once.)

He only notices, after setting the bottle to the side and catching an inconsistency from the corner of his eye, that a new seal has been added to the rim of the bottle. Rather than the simple red wax seal with a tree pressed into it, it now features a high mountain peak, with a tree growing from the top.

When he checks the letter that came with the bottle, he sees that it is from both Liao Qinglan and Red Tree.

[cerislabnotes]

Research Note 251: Lines West

This may not pertain to our work directly, but it definitely pertains to how it affects our patients, so IMHO, it counts.

It's yearly conference time, and this year, I had to take the train home. I haven't done it in the last 3 years because I've carpooled. Well, all alone this year, planes are out of the question, and the cars in the shop. (I had a little oopsie with my tail's scales and the upholstery…)

Which brings me to my point. I never thought about how our patients would have to adapt to public transit until now. Once they're end of treatment, most would never have to take it again. But all through the process? Well, let's just use my experience and what I've observed.

So I get on the train at Penn Station. As is my new norm, I'm being stared at the entire time in the metro lounge (perks of spending my life savings on a bedroom on the train). When we go down to board, my hands have difficulty fitting the handrails to get in the car's door. I haven't grown much in height, but my 'paws' sure have.

I turn down the hall and, surprise, even with my little f'd up wings, I barely fit, sideways or frontways. I slammed my hand against the wall and frustratedly contorted myself through the door. I set down my two bags, and as I turn to sit, a cow passes behind me with her friend. A cow, at the end of her treatment. So, effectively, a cow. I poke my head back out the door and watch this poor girl try and make the turn in the hallway. Her friend ended up having to push her around the corner. Between the few words and angered moo's, I felt bad. All I had was a little discomfort, they had a whole experience. They ended up in the larger 'family' bedroom for… obvious reasons.

Once we got underway, I was able to actually enjoy the trip. The trees and towns passing by as the light flashed across my muzzle was nice. What wasn't nice, was trying to fit all 6'2" with 4ft of tail me inside this itty bitty bathroom when it was finally time. I really didn't want to know how it felt to be packaged like an action figure, but here we are. The day passed, and I started to feel a bit normal again. So, when dinner came, I decided to go eat in the dining car. I… figured out a way to sit in the booth, sideways. Due to space, everyone gets sat in every available space. The cow's friend sat across from me while she waited to take their food back to their room. They had decided to take one more trip before "they went off to live on a farm upstate." But actually, they were. That's where their end-of-care program was. A petting zoo upstate from where they lived. "Sounds perfect! So you can still go and hang out!" She excitedly nodded as her food came. "Pasta, and the double salad for my friend! Perfect!" She ran back down the car, as my steak came out. Unfortunately, I couldn't maneuver the silverware. I was really frustrated real fast, so the entire car got to watch me two-finger pinch the steak, and sling it down like a shot of whisky. Perks of having a long neck and sharp teefies. But, when the other dragon does it with fish, everyone gets hard. When I do it, I get "oh my god, what the hell?" and asked to leave. I enjoyed the night, being able to get lulled to sleep. I spread my wings out as best I could, and cuddled my tail as the red lights flashed by. Morning came too fast, and I awoke to rustling in the room beside me. The others were getting off way ahead of me. And trying to get a cow down the stairs… well… the conductor wasn't prepared for the endeavor. After shoving her out into the vestibule, they essentially had to push her back and down the stairs, holding her front hooves so her chin didn't smash the stairs. They finally got down, their bags collected, and clear of the train. They stopped to wave at the train leaving, and I really hope they saw me waving back. Even tried flapping my broken lil wing for the first time in a while. My leaving was a repeat of my entering the car. Bump here, bump there, squeeze out and nearly tripping down the stairs. But, it was worth the experience. I think we take for granted that the people who operate things like this work with therians, as we are a very fringe and unique case. Maybe one day, things will be more accessible. For most, the point is to get away from everything humans deal with, especially the discomforts of travel.

But for some, these discomforts are just as enjoyable as being themselves. And the compromise, well worth it. Maybe I'll take the train next year, too. -Ceri

(Story and character inspired by Penny and her Bovine HRT story! Find her here: https://www.tumblr.com/pennymations @pennymations https://x.com/pennscrypt)