#I grinded for several hours to get the coins for these parts

[spiraling-stardust]

I made Loop in Pixel Petz

[xxxdragonfucker69xxx]

I'M BEHIND SCHEDULE

HOUR IN BLACK, PART THREE : THE UNDERWORLD

im skimming really fast because CHARMS have already dropped and i need to get there

!! the outline: lethe and the sea of shadows, but now islands jut out from it which are afterlives. some afterlives are ritual afterlives formed by funerary ceremony and ancestor worship, some are primeval afterlives about the manner of your death. big change! it's full of ghosts, who you mostly know. ghosts aren't their full living selves, death takes a lot from them and theyre defined by their passions and grow weirder after death,

soulsteel.....

phantom beasts! vesper-wolves and pyre-maggots.... cool

prehuman ghosts! omg even dragon king ghosts.... yes yes yes

the history of the underworld is so incredible. im usually sort of tepid on these sections, even though i like the idea of having a history, but for whatever reason this one is soooo cool to me

stygian archipelago!!!

"Bereft of stable stars or predictable trade winds, ghostly sailors develop other means of charting  their course, whether following in the wake of phantom leviathans, piloting their ships under the  auspice of oracular trances, or reconciling the movements of the Calendar of Setesh with local  geomancy" BANGIN!!!!

the old laws are so fascinating to e... the little hints have me a little bit obsessed. man imagine playing stories like the fallen london stories about correspondence and discordance but to repair the old laws... mmm

ugh i looove the different aterlives so much

whispers... and the labyrinth

"Specters in the thrall of Thundering Dissolution join their minds  with his in the Symphony of Omnipresence, a psychic whirlpool that shears away the borders  between their consciousnesses" oh y god i have to use this shit somehow

stygia!!! hot damn... extreme politics at the heart of the underworld

i have a soft spot for the calendar of setesh ever since i made The Wheel And Weight of Grinding Time Crushes All Beneath Its Passage, an abyssal obsessed with hijacking the calendar via pirate radio to install a new constellation

"Each district’s boundaries are reinforced on the first day of each year with a ceremonial  procession. The regent must touch each of the district’s ancient boundary-stones, and shifting  those stones as part of the rite allows one district to expand at another’s expense. Whoever  completes the procession is the regent; regents surround themselves with bodyguards to prevent  coups during that vulnerable time. " OH my fucking god. what a heist movie. holy shit

GFKDNGDSG GENTRIFIED BY THE SILVER PRINCE

theres a whole subsection for the sewers. this is worldbuilding.

culture... architecture... a dole of black bread and white cheese...

"Weeds signify  persistence and thriving in the Underworld; a dandelion represents passage into Lethe. Fish  symbolize ghosts, while a fishhook means either love or money, depending on who you ask. And  blood — or, indeed, anything crimson — holds many meanings depending on context, including  power, food, artistic fervor, endings, new beginnings, and Creation itself." why was this made specifically to caer to me

"A few places  specialize in stoking negative emotions, luring perverse customers with discordant choirs,  noisome odors, or the like. Several wineshops on Seawall offer bone-dry hardtack and skunked  beer; the Kudzu Bell’s boarding house specializes in stale bread, mildewed cheese, and  vegetables boiled into a sulfurous mass." oh my god

"Some ghosts hoard coins whose psychic residue resonates with their own feelings; money  changers sort obols by emotion for arbitrage." to me this is what exalted is about. this is what no other game has. lets take a wacky fantasy concept and do irl economics about it

:000 mausoleums! places where prayer distills down and bathes ghosts... sort of like a pseudo manse?

....huh! people heard of stygia as a heaven, expected to go there as a ritual afterlife, and now there are spots in stygia for them

collegia! the ultimate in dark academia. ghosts who keep ancient traditions and skills, and are doing quite a lot of politics about it

and the mansions, which are pimeval afterlives of sudden death. these and the collegia alone give stygia such incredible depth already

"In the Underworld’s first days, the Resplendent Mansion stood  foremost among its peers, comprised of a host of Exalted and other  heroic ghosts who’d died in battle against the world’s makers. But  new members slowed to a trickle, then stopped entirely before the  First Age’s end. Today, their ancient seat atop Shining Hill stands all  but empty, inhabited by a few reclusive timeworn ghosts and a host  of guardian spirits and automata." .... so now that primordials and neverborn are out in the world beefing again someone might suddenly take up that seat huh

oh wow i love the transcendent course as a cult. it feels so, ironically, alive. and the DUAL MONARCHS

"The Incarnadine Path was Stygia’s native religion before the Dual Monarchs. Its creed reveres  the River of Blood as the literal and metaphorical lifeblood of Creation and Underworld alike.  Ghosts of the Mansions find a sense of superiority in their ancient ties to the faith, while the  collegia uphold it in opposition to the Transcendent Course. Its stronghold is the rust-red steeple  of the Cruor, where Incarnadine blood-priests sacrifice animals brought at great difficulty from  the living world to anoint the faithful in gore. Since Stygia’s founding, the Cruor’s priests have  been a law unto themselves, offering sanctuary to fugitives; the Signatories show little respect  for these traditions, but citywide rioting the last time the Legion Sanguinary violated Cruor  sanctuary makes them cautious." MORE CULTS. MORE

and now the stygian pact, with thirteen signatories, wich do not correspond to al deathlords! which i thought was fun. skull pirate aikeret! fathom hermit puppet for the underwater eemi!!! ukhala enlightened-in-blood... i am free on thursday... white thyrsus the youth pastor for a cult to a ghost-eating forest, sesim ruseka the bird bitch. god frankly any of these guys would be fun deathlords as well

WOW namtar is fun

ok im gonna cut myself off before dari of the mists... charms one day i will reach you...

[writerpeach]

Drained

Dreamcatcher SuA x Male Reader

2246 words

categories: smut, rope bondage, mommy kink, femdom

-------------------------------------------------------------

masterlist

Over the past few weeks I’ve tried to slowly get back into writing, but finding I don’t have much interest in it still. I’m not sure if the spark I had for writing will ever come back, but I wrote this in the brief time I was inspired.

This was supposed to be a two-parter, but I lost motivation in finishing the second part so I decided to post the first part. It’s possible this is the last thing I write, so I wanted to write something that featured all of my favorite things.

Just like there are two sides to a coin, there are often two different sides to a person. Kim Bora was no different. One side was the sweet, loving girlfriend who you loved spending romantic evenings together cuddled up on the couch. The other was a lust-filled vixen, clouded by a strong need to be in control and have everything she desired. 

You loved both sides, and just like a coin flip you weren’t sure which side you were going to get.

On this night, Kim Bora had you just where she wanted. 

It wasn’t the first time you had found yourself in such a familiar situation. The all too familiar, almost routine act of thick dark rope wrapped around each of your wrists that Bora expertly tied to the bed the same way she had done dozens of times before. 

If that wasn’t enough you were stripped of your clothes, your shirt ripped and disposed of as if it were tissue paper, pants finding a similar fate as you were left in nothing but your boxers. You couldn’t help but form a bulge through the cotton of your underwear at the fact that you were under Bora’s control. 

You lost track of time, you could have been there for five minutes or five hours. Bora was a master of teasing, keeping your restricted cock nestled in its prison knowing it desperately needed to be freed and refused to give in. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” Bora said, flashing a devilish smirk on her lips as she cupped your face, bringing her lips to yours for a brief moment before pulling away before you could have any satisfaction. 

“And what are you going to do with me, Bora?” 

“Bora? You know better than that, it’s mommy to you now,” she said as she delivered a hard slap to your cheek, causing it to sting right away. Her eyes glared deeply at you as you felt a mixture of fear and arousal.

“I’m going to ruin you. You’re going to be mommy’s little fucktoy for me to tease and play with for the next few hours,” Bora said as she bit her lip and licked the side of your neck.

Bora smirked wider and leaned back, letting you see the perfect view of her amazing body in the lacy black lingerie she had chosen that sent blood to your loins. 

She tested you right away as her hands ran her hands all over her tight body, squeezing her covered supple breasts and knowing you were desperate to do the same to her.

Each and every move was carefully made as Bora’s thighs wrapped around your waist as she traced your chest with one finger, drawing her name into your bare skin as she looked deep into your eyes. 

“This is going to be fun. Let's see how fast mommy can drain you.” 

Bora moved quickly as a cat, and before you could take your next breath your boxers were stripped off and your shaft was freed, throbbing as it was exposed to the cool air. 

"Hard as a fucking rock. Are you that turned on for mommy?” Bora asked as her slim fingers wrapped tightly around your needy cock and she gave a firm squeeze, touching your bare cock for the first time of the night. You could only moan in response. 

Bora gave a handful of painfully slow strokes, rubbing the underside of your swollen tip with her thumb before she released your throbbing shaft, causing a whine to involuntarily escape from your lips. She licked your tip once, gathering the plentiful precum around your slit as your hips bucked. 

Bora looked up with evil intentions in her eyes, slowly swirling around your cockhead and giving a quick peck on your tip. Bora didn’t give in one bit as she rubbed that sensitive area of your cock with her thumb again that drove you crazy, giving several slow licks before withdrawing completely as she gave one more kiss. 

"That's all you get for now, baby. You need to earn this."

Bora got off on control, and you'd be lying if you said you weren't equally as turned on at being stripped naked and tied up at her mercy. 

You waited with deep anticipation for Bora's next move as you felt small delicate hands caressing your bare thighs and nails digging into your skin as you laid there helplessly. Bora kissed the tip of your cock, unwillingly to do anything else as she blew hot breath against your sensitive balls, causing a shiver to shoot up your spine.

“Such a needy boy, aren’t you, baby? You want mommy to suck this hard throbbing cock don’t you?” 

“Y-yes, mommy. P-please.” 

“Are you begging already? Need my pretty lips wrapped around your shaft that bad?” Bora asked, as she let out an evil laugh, kissing each of your thighs deeply enough to leave her lipstick imprinted on your skin. 

“Well, it doesn’t matter what you want. Your cock belongs to mommy tonight.” 

Bora kept her gaze on you, biting her lip deeply again as you waited for her next torturous step, always keeping you guessing. With one hand she grabbed your stiff cock, squeezing it hard as she slid her panties to the side with the other. You let out a deep breath at the sight of Bora’s exposed pussy, moaning softly as she rubbed your needy tip against her wet pink flesh as you felt the slickness of her hole already. 

“Fuck, I’m so wet already. I’m going to use you, and I won’t stop until I’m satisfied.” 

Bora didn’t give you much of a chance to prepare as she lifted her hips, lined herself up with your cock and impaled herself to the hilt, letting out a loud moan that was louder than expected. 

“Baby...fuck,” Bora moaned as she began to move, rocking her hips back and forth. She braced her hands on your chest, keeping her eyes locked on you as you felt her tight walls clenching around your cock.

“Ride my cock, mommy,” you said, moaning at the pleasure that was filling up your body. Bora glared and slapped your cheek again, a loud smack echoing as you felt an even harsher sting. 

“Shut the fuck up, don’t tell mommy what to do. You’re just a toy for me to cum on, understand?” 

“Y-yes, mommy.” 

You groaned loudly, cursing the restraints that stopped your wrists in place. You wanted nothing but to touch Bora’s body and run your hands all over her soft bare skin. Bora sensed your frustrations. 

“You want to touch mommy so badly don’t you?” Bora asked, lips curling into a devilish smile that you had seen many times. 

“It’s too bad you can’t,” Bora said, giving another harsh slap to your cheek.”You’re just going to lie there while I use you.” 

You certainly weren’t going to complain about that. Bora began to ride you as she finished her sentence, finding a rhythm as her hips rose and slammed down harshly. You felt extreme tightness squeezing your cock as Bora bounced on your cock. Every movement of her wide hips created more wetness as she impaled herself repeatedly on your shaft, moaning with every movement. 

“You like that baby? You like when mommy uses your cock? ” Bora asked as she upped her pace, slamming her thick thighs against your own. 

“Y-yes, mommy. I love when you fuck me like this.” 

“Good, baby, mommy loves it too. You’re doing so well for me, I’ll give you a little reward,” Bora said, pulling her bra down enough to expose her full round breasts. You were hypnotized by the way they bounced beautifully, trying to focus on them instead of the tightness and wetness hugging your cock that was driving you insane. 

“Your cock feels so fucking good inside me, baby. I’m going to ride you until you can’t take anymore,” Bora said as she repeatedly slammed her wet pussy on your cock, not caring if she was hurting you. The bed creaked loudly with every bounce, matching the volume of her loud moans as you felt even more wetness drenching your shaft. 

“Fuck, baby, mommy is going to cum soon,” Bora moaned, as she wrapped one hand around your throat, squeezing with a firm pressure that restricted your airflow. You could only watch as she rode you mercilessly, her breasts bouncing up and down as her eyes filled with lust and only was interested in her own pleasure. 

Bora rode you even much harder, bouncing her ass on your crotch and impaling herself repeatedly on your cock as she threw her head back, keeping her mouth agape as she neared her peak. You clenched your teeth as you could feel your own climax sneaking up on you, trying your best to hold out to at least let Bora finish first, knowing the consequences would be dire if you didn’t. 

The small hand around your throat squeezed tighter while Bora’s hips never stopped moving, taking you deep in and out of her tight wet cunt as chased her release. Moans and the squelch of Bora’s wetness filled your ears as your bodies combined and the loud sounds of hot flesh on flesh filled the room. It took little time at all as you felt the tight walls around your needy cock pulsating, signaling Bora’s limits had been reached.

“Baby, I’m cumming!” Bora cried out as she slammed herself on your cock as hard as possible, instantly feeling more wetness dripping down her thighs as she came hard. You watched as her eyes closed shut for a moment as her juices drowned your cock with slick more as her delicious thighs trembled violently around your body, her toes curled as she screamed out in pleasure. 

You wanted nothing but to guide her, to hold on to her perfect hips and take you as deep as possible but you were at her mercy. Bora didn’t let up as she selfishly came a second time, the intense tightness surrounding yourself queuing up your own orgasm and you nothing could prevent you giving in.

“M-mommy, I’m going to cum too,” you desperately moaned out. Bora slowly moved her hips, grinding out every ounce of pleasure before her eyes opened, filled with desire and wanting even more. 

“Do think you deserve that, baby?” Bora asked, the tone of her voice considerably softer and quieter. You kept quiet as she rode out her climax, trying to anchor herself on your chest carefully as her nails sharply clawed at your skin. 

“Answer me, baby,” Bora said, as you expected another slap and could only give a nervous nod as she smiled widely in return. 

“You do deserve it baby. You made me feel good with that cock, so I’m going to return the favor. You’re going to cum inside mommy.”

There wasn’t much you could do either way, not that you ever would have rejected her demands. Bora returned to her ruthless pace as she rode your cock until you felt that tightness in your stomach that meant only one thing. 

“Cum for mommy, right now. Fill me up,” Bora demanded, as you could only focus on her tight body and the bare skin your eyes roamed, her breasts bouncing with every movement and equal amounts of loud lustful moans.

“M-mommy...I’m going to-” 

Unable to finish your sentence Bora had every intent on draining you as promised, rendering you powerless to hold out any longer as your cock throbbed inside Bora’s tight pussy and you began sending thick hot semen inside her, emptying everything you had deep into her womb. 

“That’s a good boy,” Bora said, continuing to milk your cock dry with her tight cunt. She always knew when you had finished, but she wasn’t ready to end things as she kept on riding you with her pussy filled with your thick warmth, causing your quivering body to cry out in protest. 

“M-mommy, please s-stop, I can’t take it,” you said, and were immediately met with a slap across your other cheek. 

“What did I say about telling me what to do?” Bora said, backhanding you one more time. “I told you I was going to ride you until you couldn’t take it.” 

The mixture of painful pleasure was too much to take, and you could only lie there incapable of doing anything but being used by Bora as she kept riding your sensitive cock for what felt like hours until mercifully winding down her motion little by little.

“Had enough?” Bora asked as her mood changed and she smiled sweetly, returning back to her usual self. 

“Y-yes, mommy.” 

“Good, you did well,” Bora said and slowly began to lift her hips, letting your cock plop out of her as your load dripped down her thighs and down onto your crotch. Bora took the opportunity to clean off what she could, lips attacking your shaft for the first time as you whined as you felt her lips go deep, pulling against your restraints and gritting your teeth. 

“All empty,” Bora said as she gave your balls a gentle squeeze and removed the ropes from your wrist, checking for any marks as your circulation slowly began returning. 

“You can rest for ten minutes, then mommy will be back for round two. If you can make it, then tomorrow will be a special surprise.” 

“Surprise?” 

“Yes, I think you’ll enjoy it.“

[white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen]

Imagine Being a Musician and Losing the Ability to Play

(Alternative title: Music in You)

Word Count: 950

A/N: Requested by anonymous. Wound up longer than most imagines, so enjoy!

If your parents were to be believed, then your love of music had started when you were a baby. They could rock, bounce, coo, and talk until their arms were sore and their throats hoarse, but sometimes you would never settle. The only thing that calmed you every single time was a melody.

Elementary school brought a slew of potential interests and new experiences, but the one that you remembered most clearly was seeing the music students perform during an assembly. Starry-eyed, you knew exactly what you wanted to do. Knowing your affinity for music, your guardians let you take your pick of the instruments and invested in your skills.

That investment paid off in the end. Musical talent and hard-earned skill paid most of your tuition through a college scholarship, and some years after graduating, you landed a full-time position with a professional ensemble. Now you played for hours every night, from Thursday to Sunday, and practiced even more. You were living comfortably while doing what you loved.

The day a doctor came into your hospital room and told you the prognosis of your injuries, you felt like your entire world was crumbling down around you. The very foundation of not just your livelihood, but your life, was shattered by the same accident that had shattered several bones in your hand, including fingers. The extensive hand trauma ensured you wouldn’t be playing your instrument for weeks, but more realistically, months.

“Even then,” the doctor cautioned, sympathetically frowning, “Full recovery is not the same as new condition. You’ll likely find you have difficulty carrying out the same motions, particularly over extended periods of time.”

“No,” you denied flatly. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. “No, I’m a musician, I need both of my hands. Whatever it costs. Fix it.”

“Miss Y/L/N, I’m afraid it isn’t a question of expense. It’s a question of human anatomy.” The doctor was firm as she refused to let you get your hopes up. You needed to make your mental adjustments now so that mind and body were on the same page as you healed. Briskly, but not unkindly, she added, “The insertion site of the pins may feel very itchy soon. Don’t itch; call for a nurse. We can get you a topical numbing agent.”

You sat there in shock after she left. Part of you wanted to scream after her but the other part wanted to curl in a ball and sob until you woke up in bed, safe and sound and with both hands completely functional.

A kind nurse, worried by your quietness and stillness, offered to call someone for you, so you gave her Neal’s phone number. She left the room, presumably to call him, and your mind slowly began grinding into motion again. What were you going to do? You had the savings for a few months, but not much longer. How were you going to tell your coworkers, your employer? What about the terms of your contract – was there a clause letting you out if you were too injured, or would you be in breach for not playing? How were you ever going to be happy when your strongest passion was being taken away by force, through something that wasn’t your fault?

By the time Neal arrived, you were crying to yourself, consciously choosing not to scratch at your very itchy bandaged hand and trying to self-soothe with the melody of your favorite classical piece. Your humming wasn’t working; it was too broken up by your sobs. The melody itself reminded you that you wouldn’t be able to play it for a very long time, and possibly never play professionally again. The hours you spent practicing every day were going to be painfully empty. There went the peace and the joy of creating aural beauty.

It took a lot of gentle coaxing and patience, but Neal was able to wring the whole story from you about what had happened and what the doctor warned. As an artist who relied on his hands, you knew that he would understand better than most how crippled, frightened, and robbed you felt. After all, paint and sculpture were the visual versions of the stories you told through music. Your crafts were opposite sides of the same coin.

“My whole life is gone,” you whimpered, barely holding in more cries. Any embarrassment you might have felt about Neal seeing you bawl like a kid was overridden by your devastation and anxiety.

“Your whole life isn’t gone,” Neal comforted patiently, putting his hand on your back and slowly rubbing in circles. He scooted his chair closer to your bedside with a screeching sound that made him wince. “Music enriches your life, but it doesn’t create you. You have other interests, friends, and ambitions. You can still listen and sing to music, and no one said you can never play again, either.”

“But my hand!” You gasped for air, leaning to the side. Neal wrapped his other arm around you in a hug, holding you against his chest. “I can’t do the one thing I’ve always loved!”

“You can’t do it professionally,” Neal corrected you sternly. His touch was the opposite – soft and gentle. “At least not right now.” The hand on your back stilled. He put his fingers under your chin until you looked up at him, and then he met your eyes with his calm, clear, and certain blue ones. “Rigorous professional or passionate hobbyist, it doesn’t matter. You’re a musician and music is in you.” Neal kissed your forehead as you sniffled, his words striking a chord inside you and helping you to finally start to settle. “Nothing can take that away.”

[asweetprologue]

Geralt decides to retire to Toussaint. He takes Jaskier with him.

Words: 4360, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: The Witcher

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Jaskier | Dandelion

Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion

Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Retirement, Getting Together, Domestic, Fluff

I promise I’m still writing stuff!! this is a soft little one shot I wrote a while ago and just cleaned up. read on tumblr below the cut!

In the end, it’s the weariness that does him in.

Once when they were both younger men, Jaskier had asked him about retirement for witchers. If they retreated to Kaer Morhen in their old age to train the new pups, or if they settled down across the Continent, or gave up the hunt to have families of their own. Geralt had snorted. “We don’t retire,” he’d said, mixing potion ingredients by the light of their camp fire. Jaskier had looked at him with wide, curious eyes. “We get old, and slow, and something kills us. We don’t - buy seaside cottages, or whatever.”

Jaskier had hummed at that, a mournful note that seemed to resonate in the air. It was unfair, Geralt had thought, that his friend managed to convey so much in such a sound while the witcher always managed to say so little. “Seems a bit unfair,” Jaskier added.

Geralt had blown out an amused breath, not quite a laugh. “That’s life, bard.”

But now, three decades and countless battles older, he just felt tired. Jaskier no longer traveled with him as frequently, and the Path was a lonely place. He and his brothers no longer met at Kaer Morhen to winter, not once Vesemir had passed. They would stop occasionally to meet up on the road, but never for too long. Even Ciri was going her own way nowadays, though he saw her the most frequently. As the years wore on, Geralt found himself visiting Oxenfurt more and more often. Itching for companionship, for a cease in the ever grinding motion of the Path. The routine that had once been a comfort was now grating.

Maybe it was time to take a break.

It was with this mentality that he turned to Jaskier on the last day of his stay in Oxenfurt and said, “Come to Toussaint with me.”

Jaskier blinked at him owlishly, the expression making him look ten years younger. These days his hair was streaked with gray at the temples, and when he chose to grow out a beard it was as silver as Geralt’s. “What’s so important in Toussaint?” he asked. They were seated at a table in the rooms Jaskier had been provided, for accepting a temporary lecturing position. The term had ended a few weeks ago, hence Geralt’s visit. Jaskier shuffled his gwent deck as he spoke, the cards weaving together like a cascade. Geralt found himself watching the bard’s slim fingers dance through the motions with an old fascination.

“I have an estate there,” he replied, pulling his gaze from the cards. He meant to look Jaskier in the eye, but a brief moment of contact with the bright cerulean had him turning his head, his heartbeat growing ever so slightly faster. It was too hard to ask this if he could see Jaskier’s face. Instead, he looked out the small window, overlooking the red tiled roofs of Oxenfurt. The city was painted a rich gold in the light of the evening sun, reflected warmly off of the river beyond the docks.

Jaskier spluttered across the table. “You have an estate? Since when?”

Geralt felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips. “It was payment for a job,” he said. “There’s a vineyard, gardens. I can send word ahead for them to start renovations on the guest bedroom. Come with me,” he said again, softly. He wasn’t above begging, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to.

Jaskier looked at him with a confused but affectionate look spread across his fine features, and said, “Okay.”

~

Geralt sent a letter ahead to warn the staff of their plans to summer at the estate, and they began their journey to the Duchy.

It was a long journey, but not an arduous one. For once, Geralt allowed them to stick to the main roads, and at this time of year even Velen was bearable. The sweeping fields spread out around them in swaths of green and gold, punctuated here and there by defiant patches of wildflowers. Jaskier wasn’t as quick as he used to be following Geralt on the Path, but they weren’t on the Path anymore. They purchased a second horse and rode side by side at a leisurely pace. When the day grew hot, they would post up in a convenient spot of shade and let the horses graze, lunching on sun warmed bread and sweetmeats. Jaskier rambled the hours away with stories of his students and old antics at Oxenfurt, and Geralt responded with his own tales of hunts and growing up in the keep with his brothers. It was good to have another voice on the road again after months of traveling alone. It was good that it was Jaskier. Geralt had missed him. Once he wouldn’t have been able to admit it, even to himself, but it seemed silly now to hide it. A wall put up against someone who had been inside for years.

They slept beneath the stars and in cramped inns, sharing small spaces like they had for decades. It was different, Geralt thought. Something had released in his shoulders when Jaskier had agreed to come with him. They weren’t in a rush - there were no contracts to fill, no galas to play at. Jaskier’s purse was heavy from his time spent lecturing, and Geralt was able to pick up a few simple contracts as they went. Easy jobs that would put some extra coin in his pocket and lift the tension from the shoulders of the locals. But for the most part it was just the two of them, drinking sweet summer mead and browsing morning markets, getting accustomed to each other’s presence again.

Sitting across the fire from him one night as they camped, Jaskier said, “You’re different, you know.”

Geralt lifted his head from where he’d been skinning the pheasants for supper. “Hmm?”

Jaskier smiled, his eyes soft. “Well, maybe not that different.” At Geralt’s odd look, he went on. “You told me once that witchers never change. That they’re set in their ways. I think you were talking about something like your potions routine when you said it at the time, but I thought it applied to the whole of the witcher experience.”

Geralt hummed again. “It’s true. We age slowly. Get set in our habits.”

“But you changed,” Jaskier said. “I’ve seen it. After Ciri, and now, since we’ve left Oxenfurt. You’re different.”

Geralt shifted uncomfortably. They’d never been on the road together like this, just the two of them as companions. Before Geralt had been focused on the Path, and Jaskier had been cataloguing his deeds as if he were some kind of hero of legend. He knew Jaskier admired Geralt’s drive, his ability to push on towards the next contract. Maybe the bard would think less of him, knowing that he was content to leave the Path behind for so long. “I’m still me,” he said aloud.

Jaskier gave him another smile, warm and honeyed. “I know it’s you, daft man,” he said. “It’s good. To see you… put down the torch for a bit.”

Geralt wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he just gave an agreeable rumble in his chest. And then, because he’d spent so long learning how to use his words around his daughter, he said, “I’m glad you’re here, Jaskier.”

A brief moment of surprise passed over Jaskier’s features, his eyes widening. Though Geralt had become better at voicing his affections over the years, he knew that the bard was always taken aback by the behavior. After a second Jaskier’s smile became a grin, and Geralt felt something in him relax even further. “I’m glad to be here, my friend. You know I can’t resist an adventure.”

~

They arrived in Toussaint quickly after that, both eager to end their days on the road. The countryside spread out around them slowly transformed from the muted colors of the north into the vibrant greens, purples and reds of the vineyards and forests. Geralt always forgot how stunning the Duchy was, with its colorful houses and flashy clothes. For once Jaskier fit in with the crowd flawlessly; it would take more than a bright doublet to stand out in Toussaint. Geralt had always liked it here. The peasants tended to be less prejudiced against non-humans, witchers included, and the knights he’d met always treated him as a brother in arms rather than pest control. The winters were mild and the summers sweet, and the wines were rich even if they were impossible for him to pronounce at times.

Of course Jaskier proved to be fluent in the local language - “What do you think the Seven Liberal Arts even entail, Geralt?” - which was helpful when they passed through smaller villages. Those away from the common crossroads or larger settlements tended to have fewer people who spoke the common northern tongue. They made their way to Geralt’s estate through a series of inns, barns and guest bedrooms as Jaskier relentlessly charmed the locals in grandiose displays of hospitality.

As they approached the estate, Geralt pulled Roach to a stop at the top of a hill. “This is it,” he said, nodding to indicate the view.

Jaskier gaped, craning to look out over the small collection of buildings and the dozens and dozens of grapevines that were nestled in the valley below. Geralt could see several workers out tending to the fields; his majordomo must have been overseeing things as agreed upon. They would have to get to know the rest of the staff while they were here. “This is all yours?” Jaskier asked, snapping Geralt’s attention back to the present.

“The house, most of the fields. I’ve not paid all that much attention to it before now, honestly. The house needs work. Never had any reason to sink funds into it before now.” He’d sent a fair sum of gold ahead to Barnabas-Basil to get started on renovations, but it likely would have only been enough to make the main complex habitable. Geralt was confident that he could undertake much of the repairs himself, in time. It would be good to have a project.

“It’s expansive. You produce wine here?” Jaskier asked, turning back towards him.

“Yes, but you’ll have to ask the majordomo which ones.”

Jaskier nodded to himself as they continued down the hill, soon approaching the main gate to the small villa. Members of the staff bustled throughout the property, though many stopped to look as the two of them passed by. As they settled their horses near a storage shed, the majordomo approached them, apparently already made aware of their arrival.

“Ah, Master Geralt, I trust that your travels were smooth? Please, come inside - I will have someone come and tend to the horses.” Barnabas-Basil Foulty was a clean shaven, bald man with sharp, almost bird-like features, and the head of the estate in Geralt’s stead. He stood at perfect attention at all times, shoulders back and head held high. A proud man, if not also an extremely polite one. Geralt liked him immensely, because he was good at his job and could keep up in the cups the one time the two had drank together.

“Ah, this must be the famous Barnabas-Basil. Fantastic to finally meet your acquaintance, my good man,” Jaskier said, jumping in to give the majordomo’s hand a firm shake. “Geralt has praised your skills from here to Redania and back.”

Barnabas-Basil inclined his head towards Geralt, though his spine did not stray an inch. “I thank you, sir, for your kind words. Please, allow me to show you the progress that we have made on the main house so you might get settled.”

The domo walked them through the estate, giving Jaskier a brief tour and pointing out new additions to Geralt. He’d not been to the estate in at least two years, but it was clear that the workers were making good use of the space. The small collection of colorful houses down the road had fresh coats of paint, and children played in the courtyard below the main house. A garden flourished in the space between the manor and the vineyard, dominated by root vegetables and herbs.

“If you would like, we can have it cleared out so that you might use it for your own purposes,” Barnabas-Basil said. His face betrayed no feelings on the issue.

Geralt grunted. “No need. The staff can use it as they wish.” He refused to meet Jaskier’s gaze as the bard beamed at him proudly. After decades of friendship Jaskier still seemed to find it a delight anytime Geralt did something he thought was particularly chivalrous. Geralt was not eager for him to meet the knights, with their virtues and heroic deeds.

The house, as he suspected, was functional but only just. “We’ve done what we could in a short amount of time, sir,” Barnabas-Basil said, his tone politely apologetic. “I assure you renovations are far from complete.”

“It’s fantastic,” Jaskier said, already darting off to explore the other rooms. There was a small kitchen, a bedroom, bathroom and an upstairs loft that could be made into a second bedroom. The additional bed wouldn’t arrive for another week or two.

“We can share,” Geralt said without looking at Jaskier, and did not elaborate further. “Show me what else needs done.”

~

They fell quickly into a routine. Geralt spent his days working with the locals on renovations, slowly breathing vitality back into the old manor. When he grew tired of working with lumber, he waded into the vineyards, to help pluck the delicate grapes from their twisting vines. A pair of women admonished him for his sloppy work on the first day and taught him how to gently cut the branches away and check the grapes for ripeness. Jaskier fluctuated between helping out with the building work and composing, though he also made the occasional day trip into the city to perform. In the evening they would retire to the house to eat, drink and chat over games of cards. At night they would curl up in Geralt’s bed, as they had when sharing quarters on the road.

It was a strange new intimacy, to learn what Jaskier was like in his bed. They had shared bedrolls many times over the years, but never with any consistency. When the nights were too cold or the inn too full, they would sigh and grumble and agree to share a space for the night, as a matter of convenience. But as soon as they had the coin or the resources to do so, they would always put distance between themselves again. Geralt supposed it had been a kind of self preservation instinct, but he now found little threat in the warmth of Jaskier next to him at night. He learned that some days Jaskier woke before the sunrise, throwing himself out of bed in a tangle of limbs to scramble for a quill. Other days he slept late, sprawled out across the sheets and dozing until the heat of the day forced him up. Often Geralt woke to the bard curled around him, an arm thrown across his broad chest, nose tucked under the witcher’s jaw. Those times always made something tighten in Geralt’s throat. No one should trust a witcher like Jaskier did, but he was grateful for the bard’s foolishness. Jaskier had always believed that Geralt would keep him safe, even when the witcher had refused to even admit that they were friends. Jaskier deserved better, but it didn’t stop Geralt from turning into his warmth each morning, wishing to reach out.

When the second bed came, Jaskier made no effort to relocate to the guest room. Geralt didn’t bring it up.

It only took a month for him to openly think about it, but when he finally did he was surprised it hadn’t come sooner. He looked up from where he was carving a notch in a new post for one of the fences and saw Jaskier sitting on the steps of the manor, the end of his quill hovering near his lips. His mouth moved around abstract syllables as he reached for the next lyric in a new song. The soft, repetitive notes rose and fell in the still summer air, and Geralt could see a small spot of ink on Jaskier’s cheek where he’d tapped himself with the quill by accident. Later that night, Geralt would point it out and they would both laugh, and Jaskier would play at being angry Geralt hadn’t brought it up sooner, and then Geralt would offer to help him clean up. Jaskier looked up from his place on the stairs and met his eye, feeling the attention on him as he always did. When he saw Geralt looking he smiled, as brightly as if he’d not seen the witcher in months, instead of moments. Geralt’s chest swelled with an unspeakable feeling, thick and heady affection and trust and something else even beyond that, and he thought, Oh, I love him.

~

Geralt suggested a picnic. Jaskier was ecstatic, though he tried to act as if he had to consider the notion.

“Will there be wine?” he asked, eyebrows raised playfully.

“Jaskier,” Geralt said, fondly exasperated, “we live on a vineyard.”

So they grabbed some bottles from the storeroom, packed a light cotton blanket and some food leftover from lunch and set off up the nearby hill. It took them about twenty minutes to reach the top, but once they did they were quite near the place they’d first stopped to look over the estate. It was nearing evening, the sun hanging low in the sky and making the shadows of the workers coming in stretch out long across the fields. The two men spread out their things, sitting to watch the landscape move below them as they uncorked one of the bottles.

Geralt let Jaskier chatter away about nothing for a while, letting the sound wash over him as they shared the bread and wine. After a while Jaskier fell quiet, leaving them both to gaze out at the beauty of the land around them. Geralt turned to look at Jaskier. The sweep of his brow, the soft bow of his lips. The smattering of freckles he’d collected from weeks on the road, lying in fields and letting the sun kiss his cheeks. To be jealous of the sun, Geralt thought wryly.

Jaskier turned to meet his gaze, realizing that he was being watched. “What is it?” he asked.

“Why did you come with me?” Geralt asked.

Jaskier chuckled a bit, leaning back on one hand. His shirt was unlaced a ways down the front, leaving his dark chest hair exposed. Geralt wanted to put his nose in the hollow of his throat and just breathe there for a while. “I’m not one to turn down a free holiday, my dear.”

“No,” Geralt said, trying to ignore the way the pet name made his stomach flip. “I mean, why did you always come with me? Everyone… People come and go. But you always came back. Why?”

Jaskier gave him an admonishing look. Geralt didn’t know what to make of it. “You know the answer to that,” he said, and his tone held a warning that the witcher didn’t understand.

“I know you value our friendship,” Geralt replied, “but I could say that of many. It’s not the same.”

“Oh Geralt,” Jaskier sighed, his face full of fondness and exasperation and, strangely, an old sort of grief. “You truly are the most unobservant man in the land. You’ve been far more than a friend to me for many years.”

Geralt felt his heart rate pick up at that, the slow thud speeding up to match Jaskier’s. “You’re saying…” He found himself unable to complete the thought. Even after so many years of trying to do better, it was still impossible to form words past the thundering in his ears. This moment felt delicate, like the wrong phrase might shatter it apart.

“I assumed you knew,” Jaskier said with a shrug. The line of his shoulders was just slightly too tense, his body radiating faux casualness. Anyone else may have been fooled, but Geralt had been watching Jaskier for years. “I would never have let it change anything between us, you must know that. You were always involved with someone else - Yennefer, and then Triss and Shani… I didn’t want to get in the way of that. Something that could make you happy.”

“I thought it would,” Geralt said honestly. His gaze flickered over Jaskier’s impassive face. The bard rarely showed his nerves in his expressions, too much a performer for that. Instead it made its way to his hands, twitching over his thighs and worrying the fabric of the blanket, and his heart, which raced in his chest. “I wanted to be the right person for them. Yen wanted me to be useful. Triss wanted me to be a knight in shining armor. They made me feel like I was better than just a witcher.” Jaskier’s lovely mouth twisted slightly, a note of bitterness in his gaze as he looked out over the vineyards. Geralt hurried on. “But you’re the one who made me feel like being a witcher was already good enough.”

Jaskier turned back to him, blinking in surprise. “Well of course it is,” he said, and naturally the bard had missed the point, honing in on his favorite subject: the reputation of witchers and Geralt’s sense of self worth. “You’re already useful, and noble, and good and kind besides all that. You don’t have to be more than what you are to deserve - fuck, basic human connection and love.” He settled slightly, his gesturing hands falling into his lap once more. “Is that why you left them?”

“The Path always calls,” Geralt said with a shrug. “No one but you ever wanted to follow me.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said, blushing. Geralt watched the color rise up over his cheek bones with something like fascination, or maybe hunger. “Well, now you know why,” he continued, with obviously false cheer. He gave Geralt a rueful smile. “I promise I won’t make things awkward. I’ve had decades to practice. I mean, it’s been thirty years. If you were going to fall in love with me you probably would have done so already, hmm?”

“You’d think so,” Geralt agreed. “Sorry it took me so long.” And then he leaned into Jaskier’s space and kissed him.

It wasn’t a very good kiss. Barely a kiss at all, really, considering that Jaskier had frozen under him. Geralt pulled back, lifting a hand to run it gently over Jaskier’s side. The bard was absolutely still, his eyes closed tight. There was a small crease between his eyebrows that Geralt wanted to kiss away, but he wasn’t sure if he should. “Sorry,” he said softly.

Jaskier’s eyes fluttered open. It was unfair that a man could have beautiful eyelashes, Geralt mused, but here they were. “You mustn’t toy with me, witcher,” Jaskier croaked. His voice was raw, as if he’d been singing for hours.

Geralt moved his hand to the bard’s face, his thumb following along the line of his jaw and up to trace across his cheekbone. Freckles like stars under his fingers. “I’m not,” he rumbled. “I swear it, Jaskier. I just -” He paused, trying to marshal his thoughts. “You were always there. No matter how shitty the Path was, or how miserable people were to you because of me, or how much I pushed you away. You stayed. You made me feel like I was worth something, and you made other people think that way too. Every day without you on the Path was always misery. I should have realized sooner, but I’m not… good at this. I’m sorry.”

Jaskier’s head dropped forward, his brow resting on Geralt’s collarbone. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you apologize in the span of a minute,” he said, voice thin. “This is a lot to take in. Are you saying that you… that you love me? You, Geralt of Rivia, are in love with me?”

“Yes,” Geralt said, smiling into Jaskier’s hair. “That’s what I’m trying to say.”

Jaskier pulled away to stare at him. Geralt tried to let his affection through, drinking in Jaskier’s beloved face like he hadn’t allowed himself before. The last rays of the sun played over Jaskier’s hair, turning some of the strands to brilliant amber. His eyes were over bright. Whatever the bard saw in Geralt’s expression must have been enough, because the next moment they were kissing again.

It was, Geralt thought, a miracle that he had ever gone so long without doing so. Now that they’d begun, he never wanted to stop. Jaskier’s lips were warm and soft against his, and when Geralt licked slowly into his mouth he tasted of old wine. They stayed like that for a long time, Geralt holding Jaskier close, decades of tension not so much breaking as releasing like a quiet sigh of relief.

Finally they pulled apart, Geralt nosing at Jaskier’s cheek as he hummed contentment into the bard’s skin. He could feel deft fingers petting through his hair, easily working around the tangles that had formed on the walk up the hill. “I love you,” he said, pressing the words below Jaskier’s ear as if he could speak them into his core that way.

Jaskier shivered once under him. “I love you too,” he said, and Geralt could feel him smiling in the way his jaw moved. He knew Jaskier in his bones. “I’ll follow you wherever you go, you know.”

Geralt pulled back, pushing Jaskier’s fringe back with one hand as he met his eyes. “Maybe I’ll just stop running from you,” he said, smiling. Jaskier grinned back, and neither of them mentioned that his eyes were slightly damp. Geralt pushed himself to his feet and reached down a hand to his bard. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

[butternuggets-blog]

OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER [MA18+, NSFW CHAPTER]

@baldwin-montclair @adowobsessed @sylverdeclermont @nicki-mac-me @thereadersmuse @kynthiamoon @adowbaldwin @profoundme444 @beautifulsoulsublime @lady-lazarus-declermont

Part Fourteen

Summary: Baldwin de Clermont manages to upset an ancient hag. He wakes up.. different.

Author’s Notes: They take a trip to pound town, they bump uglies, they knock boots, they check the oil, feed the kitty, do the no pants dance, do two person push ups..

THEY HAVE SEX. I CANNOT OVERSTATE IT ENOUGH, THIS IS THE NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY CHAPTER SO CHILDREN, LOOK AWAY NOW

________________________________________________________________

It had been five days since Liv had returned home and she had been busy re-opening the shop. She had spoken to Baldwin several times on the phone, and sent him numerous text messages, but she desperately wanted to see him again in person so she had invited him over for breakfast.

-Bzzztt...bzztt-

‘The door’s open’ Liv pressed the intercom button, fidgeting with excitement. Baldwin looked up into the camera and waved, then stepped forward out of frame. She fixed her hair one last time, grinned, and bounced her way downstairs.

‘Hello you’ Liv bundled Baldwin into a bear hug, then took a step back to look at him properly. ‘You look good’

Baldwin beamed. He had put on a little weight since Christmas but still fit comfortably into his black jeans, and a cherry-red collared shirt he’d feverishly dug out of the wardrobe five minutes before he left Sept Tours.

‘So do you’ 

Liv did a small half-twirl, smiling. She had been flip-flopping since she woke up between wearing her green slacks with a cream turtleneck, or her old burgundy skirt and blouse. In the end, because it was newer (and she’d tossed a coin), she picked the pants.

"Shall we go upstairs?"

"By all means, lead the way!"

Liv led Baldwin through the sliding wall panel behind the counter and up the servant's steps. As they reached the landing, Baldwin noticed something hanging on the wall in front of him, and stopped short.

The bouquet he had sent to Liv had been mounted on the wall, hanging in a simple wooden frame. The arrangement had been dried and pressed, then preserved in a thick layer of clear resin. It would have taken hours.

Liv turned back around, then smiled when she realised what Baldwin was staring at. He blinked furiously, and she gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

'May I kiss you?' Baldwin asked, hoarsely.

Liv nodded, suddenly shy, and stepped back down the stairs to stand on the landing beside him.

'You may'

They had both brushed their teeth so the taste was mostly peppermint. While Baldwin’s lips were chapped and still cold from being outside, Liv’s were soft and warm. Baldwin felt his toes curl, and raised a hand to cup the side of Liv’s face. She leant into the kiss, and gently wrapped her arms around Baldwin’s waist.

They broke the kiss, both dizzy and a little breathless.

‘Do you want to skip breakfast and go straight to making love?’

‘If you’d said ‘desert’, I would have had to spank you’ Baldwin deadpanned.

Liv grinned. 

‘Promises, promises..’

________________________________________________________________

They made it up into the flat without tripping, pausing briefly in the living room after Baldwin insisted on carefully draping his jacket over the back of a chair. Liv giggled into his shoulder at the ridiculousness of the moment.

Baldwin lost both shoes in the hallway, Liv mockingly trying to put them neatly to one side until he backed her into a wall, kissing her thoroughly. She was really regretting not choosing to wear a skirt.

By the time they reached the bedroom they were both down to their underwear and panting like they'd just run a marathon. Baldwin tried to back Liv up onto the bed but she grinned and flipped him, so that he was underneath her.

'Got-uh-any-uh-condoms?' Baldwin wheezed, slightly winded.

'Nope' Liv straddled his lap, and ran her fingers up his sides, pressing soft kisses along his jaw while he got his breath back.

'We should probably get some'

'Oh absolutely'

Liv slipped a hand down the front of Baldwin's boxers and slowly wrapped a hand around his cock. It twitched and Baldwin moaned softly, lying still, with his hands curled into the sheet beneath him She gave a languid pump; a prickling, tingling sensation rolled up through Baldwin, from his toes to his neck, and he had to focus intently on federal income tax so he didn't spill immediately.

He was busy. It had been a while.

Liv rolled her hand up and Baldwin arched slightly, eyes closed. She took advantage of the moment to slip his boxers down below his knees; Baldwin kicked them off and opened his eyes in time to see Liv pulling off her briefs and guiding him inside.

Liv fell forward onto her elbows, shivering. It had been a while, and Baldwin wasn't small. She took a moment to adjust to the wave of sensation sending goosebumps rippling up her back, her breathing shallow.

'Move'

Baldwin grabbed her hips and thrust, making Liv choke on the moan forced between her lips. The second time he sat up, now fully seated inside her, both trembling. The third time, Liv wrapped her legs around Baldwin's waist, raking red lines down his back with her nails.

Baldwin set a steady pace and Liv matched it, grinding down every time he pushed. Soon, Liv was panting into his mouth, moaning and kissing him desperately between shallow gasps of breath.

‘-UH-UH-NEARLY-’

Baldwin sped up, pounding inside her. He gently scraped his teeth against a sensitive spot behind Liv’s ear and her entire body clenched, twitching, as she tipped over the edge. Two more quick thrusts had Baldwin seeing stars as he came, fingers clutching Liv’s sides.

They stayed locked together for a while, Liv slumped breathlessly in the crook of Baldwin’s neck, his head resting on her shoulder. When he felt like he could speak again,  he stood, carefully cradling Liv as he picked her up and then lowered her down onto the bed on her back.

‘Do you want to go again?’ Baldwin asked, gently nuzzling Liv’s nose.

Liv smiled, and stretched.

‘Ok’

________________________________________________________________

They made love two more times, and Baldwin managed to find the energy to eat Liv out to a fourth, and final, orgasm. They cleaned up with aching, burning muscles, and slumped beside each other, legs entwined.

Baldwin’s hair hung limply in his eyes, while Liv’s was plastered to her face. Her face was flushed and her eyes were closing, a dreamy smile on her lips. Baldwin hurt in places he hadn’t felt in years, but in a pleasant, warm way. He pulled a blanket over them and curled in closer to Liv, reaching out and wrapping an arm protectively around her as he, too, drifted off to sleep.

[greenninjagal-blog]

Deja vu pt2

Wow, I did not expect this to get the following that it did. I’m so glad you guys are enjoying this! Here’s part 2  But if you missed part 1 you can find it [here]! 

Summary: Four years after Remus runs away, he makes a friend and gets to see even more death.

Words: 5293

Read on Ao3 || My general writing Masterlist

Remus spends his twenty first birthday at his favorite location: The Basilisk Casino. Its a nice place, the type of place that drains life forces with people along with their wallets. The golden walls shimmer like scales if you look too long at them, which is all the more reason to focus back on the dice, the slots, the chips and coins and cards. The coins all have snarling snakes on them and Remus just loves rolling his thumb over the crevices of the design while he watches his opponents sweat. He can’t count the number of times he’s been cursed out at the table, the number of times he’s been checked for bugs by the debugging crew, the number of times that he’s had several dealers and security watch him as he played at the tables, the number of times where he cashed in his coins and called himself “Lucky”. 

Luck, of course, has nothing to do with it.

But he usually walks out of the casino several thousand dollars richer and it’s nice. To have money, to have a room in the upstairs hotel that he paid for himself, to have clothes that he picked out, to wave his excess cash in the faces of every person who’s tried to figure out how he’s cheating.

(Because they all know he’s cheating. One doesn’t go a full night at the tables without losing once. It's actually impossible.)

((Unless, of course, you can see the future.))

Remus is twenty one and he’s never lost a game of cards.

The staff has mixed feelings about him and Remus knows this, because they hate cheaters when it reflects badly back on them-- and boy did a lot of them get yelled at those first three weeks before Remus had asked his poor dealer to invite her boss to the table to play-- but the number of cheaters that Remus outed purely for the fun of seeing their eyes go wide has landed him in the good graces of a few.

Which is weird, being in the good graces of people. And so is knowing that if he finds that one cute dealer with the scar on his knuckles, they’d go up to Remus’s room and they’d spend the night with two bottles of Baileys and no clothes.

“Hit” Remus sings as he knocks on the table behind his cards. His dealer, a girl who’s been working for a while and knows his tendency to give her instructions before she’s finished dealing to everyone at the table, nods to show she’s seen him. The players to his left and his right both glare at him.

Remus smiles, because he already knows what cards they’ve got and what they were going to bet now that he’s announced himself: the old guy with the silver watch was going to stand, the loser with the mullet was going to hit as well, and the woman who’s tag was sticking out was going to hit then split. 

Only that old guy was going to walk away with any money earned, four rounds later, after the lady loses everything she made in a risky gamble and the slots catch Mullet head attention.

Remus stays because he likes Blackjack, likes the easy memorization, likes the repetition and the exchange of chips, and he flips one of his Barneys in the air as he waits for the table to refill. 

“That’s certainly impressive,” A voice says sounding like silk even over the chattering of the slot machines to their backs. 

“This? Its nothing!” Remus flips the coin again, letting the stranger catch it in the air. “I’m more impressive in the bedroom.”

The man hums, twisting his wrist to look at the coin he caught. “Do you often let people steal 500 American dollars from you?” The man asks so very teasingly as he rolls the coin between his own gloved hands. 

“You’re going to give it back,” Remus says with a grin, “One way or another!”

The man has a nice smile-- a smile far nicer than the one the dealer with the scar on his knuckles has-- and its prettier in the present time than looking at it in the future. His teeth are all aligned and straight and his molars grind together just enough to look like a threat. He was dressed better than most of the people out tonight: no fancy tourist with rented suits that barely fit, and he had an actual handkerchief. 

Remus wonders if he pulled it out would it be tied to another and another and another like every other clown he’s met? 

--No. The man just laughs at him and and twirls the Barney between his hands.He does not ask for it back.--

“You’re awfully confident about getting your money back when this is a game between the house and I,” the man says. He’s got green eyes, and black hair that’s gelled right back out of his face. The way he leans against the table makes him so easy to push--

--The man hits the ground spilling his rack of chips and the nearby tables pounce on them like panthers. Its honestly funny to watch and Remus laughs the entire time as the police are called.--

“I’m confident about a lot of things,” Remus wiggles an eyebrow at him. “How confident are you?”

Instead of answering the man places the purple coin in the betting square on the table. Remus tosses a pumpkin just to top him. 

“I heard a rumor that there’s a man here who’s never lost a game before,” The man with the green eyes says and even though there are four other people at the table (betting far lower than them of course; the table minimum is twenty five), Remus feels almost as if its just the two of them in the world. “Can I assume that man is you?”

“You know what they say about assuming,” Remus laughs as the dealer begins her deal, “It makes an ass out of me and you!” 

There’s a four of spades in front of him, and an ace of clubs in front of the stranger. The dealer has a five of diamonds. 

--He hits and receives a King of diamonds that puts him at fourteen. The stranger also hits, and receives a matching King of diamonds. He stands and the dealer reveals her second card: a jack of clubs. Fifteen to Fourteen to the house.--

--He hits and receives a King of diamonds that puts him at fourteen. The stranger also hits, and receives a matching King of diamonds. He hits a second time and receives a three of clubs. The dealer reveals here second card: a jack of clubs. Seventeen to fourteen to Remus--

The stranger is watching him, Remus notes with a feral grin as he taps the table behind his cards for their lovely dealer. The stranger who was betting using Remus’s money, scans the table and then taps as well.

The dealer gives Remus and Dee their matching Kings of diamonds.

“What are the chances,” The stranger muses. “Perhaps I should bet with your money more often.”

Remus taps the edge of the table behind his cards again. 

“Don’t worry about that!” Remus waves him off, “You’re going to lose it in Poker in an hour.”

“Are you challenging me to a game?” the man says, half turning from the table to wave down a drink waitress. “Why would I ever want to play a game of cards with a man who doesn’t lose?”

“Beats me!” Remus admits, “but we end up over there anyway!”

The stranger laughs. It sounds like a melody to Remus’s ears, something soft and warm and Remus thinks he should hate it. Whats the point of soft and warm things when there are chips and cash and not-completely-terrible-whiskeys? Soft and warm things are illusions anyway: no mother’s love is unconditional, and no late night blanket forts in his brothers room last forever.

Isn’t it great? That whole “growing up” thing?

He’s thought about making a call with the payphone but Roman’s old number is someone else's now and Mom answers the landline with a different last name.

Remus is twenty one. Roman should be too. If he managed to stay alive this long without Remus being his godforsaken guardian angel.  

The waitress returns with the drink and its a screwdriver that smells like oranges even from where Remus is standing. The stranger gathers up his chips won in the game, and slots them back into his rack.

“Well?” He says, “I would like to see this cheating trick of yours.”

Remus laughs at him taking his own tray. “No one knows my trick.” 

“Oh?” The man sips his drink, “No one knows? Do I get a prize if I figure it out?”

Remus’s shoulder brushes with the man as they walk towards the poker tables. Its quieter here, away from the slot machines, and the tables are thick with intense glares at cards. The craps tables are going strong and someone must have just won big because everyone is clapping and someone is screaming. The roulettes are hardly any better, although Remus nearly cleared out a whole dealer last week with his multitude of correct guesses that got him physically dragged from the table because its literally a 1 in 36 chance every single game and theres no way anyone should be able to win three times in a row, much less fifteen. 

“I’ll tell you what,” Remus says as they join a table for poker that was just clearing up. “If you can figure out my trick, I’ll do one thing for you.”

“For me?” The man echoes, “Interesting. Anything I want?”

“I will fuck you on this table if you tell me to,” Remus says, making the woman next to them choke on her pina colada.  

“Charming,” The man hums, “But I believe I have a much better thought in mind.” 

He’s taking it surprisingly seriously and Remus knows he should probably be concerned, but the truth of the matter was, he wasn’t. After all, he spent nine years physically telling the people closest to him that he could see the future, and they didn’t believe him. A strange man who was going to lose the first three hands is never going to believe in a magic like that.

The irony of it all. Remus wonders what he did that pissed off the big G up there so badly that they cursed Remus to never be believed. Maybe he should have just changed his name to Cassandra and started wearing tunics around the casino (because hell yeah those things would have been much more breathable than these slacks and button up he was currently wearing). Plus a tunic would totally show off his calf muscles. 

--He gets to play three more games of roulette before he’s forced out by security who ask him very nicely to put on pants before coming back and Remus just thinks its funny how he got in to play in the first place. Turning the poor door boy bright red and stammering--

There’s something fascinating about the way the strangers lips look around the straw, the way his eyes settle on the cards of the table the way his gloves fingers weave over his chips with the certainty of someone who knows what they are doing. Remus thinks that he might have played a game with this man before, once or twice, (because he comes here often enough, doesn’t he?) but his memory hasn’t been great since he was seventeen and thought about crushing his brother’s windpipe.

Remus is twenty one and this stranger looks like danger no matter which way Remus squints at him. But is that such a bad thing?

“Are you going to look at your cards?” The man asks without looking at him.

“No,” Remus says, because he already has in the future and he’s got a seven and an eight both of diamonds. (The strangers fingers hover over his own cards-- a five of clubs and a jack of spades-- and his green eyes darting to glance at Remus in suspicion.) The other players at the table shift nervously and Remus thinks that even the old lady at the end is going to pitch a fit about Poker etiquette but she holds her tongue. 

He sees ahead to the rest of the hand, something he glanced at earlier. By the time the dealer draws the turn card, Remus not looking at his cards makes the the business man to their left  over confident about his chances about his straight. The couple on his right have both individually decided to back out, and the old lady is holding nothing but a two pair. She folds when she realizes that neither Remus nor the very attractive stranger to his left are going to fall for it. 

The stranger folds, the businessman checks, and Remus wins the round with a straight flush without having picked up his cards before revealing them.

“You’re cheating!” The business man yells and Remus grins at him as he takes the two blacks and the quarter that the man bet with.

“Not in any way that you can prove, big boy.”

He’s twenty one and he wins the next three hands before the table clears out of all but him and the stranger who followed him there. Security is called twice to deal with another debugging ritual at the old lady’s insistence and the the dealer is screeched at by several parties. Remus thinks the old guy handles it with grace and elegance: threatening to have security called over if the players don’t sit down right then and there.

“How much do you make in a night?” The stranger asks, as the dealer changes from the older gentleman to a young girl.

“Are you planning something?” Remus asks, inhaling the scent of oranges that waft off this stranger, “Gonna get me drunk and in bed and then steal my money? Slit my throat for good fun?”

“I don’t think I’d have to get you drunk for that,” His eyes slide past Remus for a moment to something across the room. 

“Oh, so true,” Remus agrees, “Everyone loves a good bit of knife play!” The dealer begins to shuffle the cards to nicely. 

“Besides,” Those green eyes come right back to Remus, startlingly close and perceptive in a way that makes shivers run down Remus’s back. “Shouldn’t you already know the answer to that?”

Remus is twenty one, spending his birthday in a Casino as far away from where he grew up as he can be. And despite not having talked to his family in four years, he can still hear Roman’s voice in his head, chanting a mantra of “I don’t need you”, “I don’t need you”, “I don’t want you”. 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, pretty boy,” Remus says picking up his cards to look at them, to feel them, to remind himself he’s here in this casino and not back in the room with his hands on Roman’s fluttering little pulse.

The stranger rolls a Barney from his tray, Remus’s Barney, and places it on the betting pool. “Interesting.”

Remus wonders what that means, but there’s no answering vision. Any time he pushes the stranger laughs it off until the dealer motions for them to play or leave the game. 

Remus is twenty one and the way that this stranger said “interesting” is the way a scientist says it before they start dissecting a frog. Clinical, cold, like a knife straight to Remus’s throat. His green eyes are dangerous pins holding Remus in place at this table, but he can’t find it in him to wish he was anywhere else.

The stranger picks up his new cards and pretends to look at them. Remus isn’t sure what that means, isn’t sure why this stranger suddenly seems so much different, isn’t sure what could possibly be more interesting than the card game they're playing.

Until he is.

Of course because--

-- He places another three blacks in the betting pool in front of him and he turns just in time to see the stranger lunging towards the crowd that was passing behind them; towards the armed security guard that was wheeling the fucking cash box of the casino towards the elevator to the vault across the floor fuck. Several guns go off and and there’s a couple hundred screams that break Remus’s eardrums in the moment, but all he’s aware of is the body at his feet, the body of the stranger with pretty green eyes, with welts of red bursting out the back of that nice tailored suit that was suddenly shredded and that face smashed into the floor, but there’s no mistaking the way his skin on the left half of his face wasn’t--

There’s something in the back of his throat that tears him up inside, like he’s regurgitating a bunch of swords he forgot he had swallowed. Every hair on his body stands on end, curling with an electric current that didn’t actually exist but one that Remus couldn’t get out of his veins even is he started carving with a knife--

He forgot-- how did he forget? He hated the color red so damn much; how could he have forgotten that?

He grabs the stranger beside him with an iron grip and pressed him to the table as that cash box rolled by, as that future twists away, as that sight fades from his vision from something plausible to a nothingness in the back of his mind. 

“Sir?! Sir!” 

The stranger gasps for air, looking caught between surprised and not, with those fake green eyes and that stolen black hair, and that completely unmarred face and makes Remus’s skin crawl. Remus wonders if this stranger--this stupid idiot of a stranger-- knows his body reverts to normal once he’s dead and gone and passed.

The rest of the table is in chaos, and Remus isn’t sure if its because both his and this stranger’s chips just got tossed across the table with the viciousness of a life or death (or death or death or death) situation, or because the Dealer dropped her deck, or because Remus just grabbed a man and that wasn’t poker etiquette or something else entirely.

He doesn’t care.

He lets go of the stranger (the living, breathing alive stranger), and he shoves through the buzzed, singing pair behind him, knocking them both to the ground. His hands-- oh fuck his hands sting and shake with some emotion that Remus can’t remember the name of.

“Sir! Your chips!”

Remus rips at the collar of his shirt, tearing off an entire button as he struggles to get enough oxygen in his lungs. The golden walls shimmer and shine and distract, but Remus throws himself through the crowd to the exit.

Remus is twenty one the first time he meets someone else like him.

Well not entirely like him, because this stranger who stumbled upon him by chance doesn’t see the blood, or the deaths, or the future. He doesn’t know all the consequences, doesn’t know the feeling of seeing living, breathing people just stop, doesn’t know what it smells like to mix blood and a half finished screwdriver on the floor of a casino for a box of cash that he had no chance of leaving the building with in the first place.

The night air hits him like an eighteen wheeler (which Remus knows what that feels like, he does, because he thought about it once out of curiosity four years ago when he couldn’t quite believe that he had wasted seventeen years of his life on someone who would never been willing to do the same). Its bitter cold and harsh and it tears his skin almost right off his bones.

He stumbles and nearly falls, does fall, is caught.

Caught by the back of his shirt and hoisted back up, with a second hand stabilizing him by his chest. Remus starts to laugh because he didn’t see this coming. Of course he didn’t see this coming.

Its almost like that day when he didn’t see that argument with Roman coming, except back then he was looking ahead and that wasn’t an option, and now he just hadn't been looking long enough, hard enough, close enough.

Remus feels something against his back, solid, cold, oh its a wall. The stranger who followed him from Blackjack to poker, who bet with Remus's money, who just caused Remus to lose his first game of cards ever-- that stranger with green eyes that aren't real is right in front of him pressing him to the wall and holding him steady.

Remus laughs harder like he can dislodge the cancerous lump in his throat by the force of his will alone. 

"Did I die?" The stranger asks as Remus wheezes for air.

And isn't that just hilarious?

"Everyone...dies!" Remus convulses under the man's touch, "Everyone dies... someday, Scales!"

The stranger isn’t like him, because instead of seeing things and wondering if they’re all in his head, he fucking changes his appearance.

Remus hiccups painfully-- a gasping air that shreds his diaphragm as he laughs with tears on his face. He forgot again: how he hates the sight of red, how he needs to breath if he wants to keep living, how he's too old to be crying over every single, little, itty, bitty death he sees.

"You can see the future," the man says like a statement while Remus drags his nails over his own face and through his hair to get rid of his worthless tears.

"Its funny!" Remus grins with all his teeth. "It's always funny! Did you know you revert back to your natural half snake self when you die?"

The stranger flinches, just like everyone does when Remus opens his mouth and talks about death, just like someone who’s afraid of dying, just like Roman.

“You,” Remus says gaining enough sense of his own to shove the stranger off of him and back, “You are…batshit fucking insane!” He laughs, because what else is there to do? Scream? Cry?

(He’s screamed and cried before. It doesn’t work, because they never believed him and then they go and get hurt and tell Remus to shut up, shut up, I don’t need you--!)

“How far in the future can you see?” The stranger asks.

“Take me to dinner first,” Remus twists a hand through his hair, then drags it down his face, smushing his nose and flattening his mustache and then dropping it into the empty air.

The stranger catches his hand, and the silk touch of the gloves freezes Remus’s where he stands, against the wall of a casino in a dark alley where the shimmering light doesn’t touch and the sound is strangely diluted.

“Answer me,” the stranger demands.

Remus laughs, “Or what? You’ll turn your hands into claws and rip my throat out? Maybe roll your body into a giant python and choke the life out of me without leaving a fingerprint? Can you secrete poisons too? Spit them right into my eyes--”

His other gloved hand goes right over Remus’s mouth, squeezing the hallows of his cheeks until its just borderline painful. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Remus already knows the answer before this stranger asks, already knows that despite the burning closeness between them, despite the cool indifference he’s been portraying, despite the millions of ways that he could kill Remus, he’s not going to, not in any way that matters.

He’s a good guy like that.

Kinda.

“You must think I’m insane,” Remus gurgles, shoulders shaking from laughing, with the future in his eyes and no air in his lungs.

“Are you?”

“Not that insane. Not yet!” He pushes off the wall and leans forward into his companions personal space until their faces aren’t more than a few inches apart. “Can’t you tell? I’m the pinnacle of stability, Slitherous Snape!”

“Stability is a lie made up by society to sell more products.” The man waves him off, easily without putting so much as an inch between them. “You are a seer. And I’m in desperate want of someone who can see the future.”

“Because you want to rob the casino we just left,” Remus says.

It sounds different coming from his own lips rather than the man before him. It sounds different hanging in the space between them. It sounds different being a real thing.

“Because I want to screw over the owner of that casino for some unsavory acts he performed against someone who was dear to me,” The man corrects.

“An altruist!” Remus does a shimmy with his upper body. “All that money is just a bonus then, right?”

“Oh yes absolutely! And How…” The man hesitates and clears his throat innocently, “How much money…did you say?”

Remus laughs at him, again. The hysteria is fading leaving another pesky emotion that Remus doesn’t know if he likes or not. Its dangerous, he knows that. Dangerous because even while he stands here, talking to this shapeshifter who is every bit a lie as a person can be, he feels his heels beginning to dig into this idea.

This stupid awful terrible idea. This What if---

---oh…. Oh no.---

“How many times do we die?” The man asks, breathlessly excited. “How many times do we get away?”

Remus is twenty one and he knows that stealing is morally wrong.

But.

But there’s a man in front of him who likes money far too much and a casino behind him that’s filled to the brim with cash waiting and six hundred fifty million futures where they both die painful, violent, expected deaths.

And for once Remus can’t even focus on that part of this frankly awful idea. He’s too busy focusing on the way that in every single future-- all of them-- there’s not even a little--

Remus watches them again and again, as many times as he can until he almost forgets that they haven’t even happened.

And oh. 

The stranger is looking at him and there’s something in those green eyes that he can’t hide even if he wanted to.

“There’s a dealer,” Remus says, because he needs to see it happen for real. “Two inches taller, blue eyes, scar on his knuckles. Turn into him.”

The stranger blinks and his eyes are blue, his skin ripples like a puddle when a child jumps in it, and suddenly Remus is staring at someone completely different and yet entirely the same. The man before him is the dealer from the casino, but when he smiles so softly all Remus can see is that stranger who didn’t hesitate at all.

And oh. 

Remus knows he’s in trouble, because he can feel electricity in his veins, that burns all of his nerves and hijacks his brain. Because this is what its like for someone to trust his power, for someone to have complete and utter faith in him.

This is what someone believing him when he said he could see the future is like.

“You’re bleeding,” The man says tentatively.

“Happens,” Remus says cupping his hand under his nose to catch the red splatters before they hit the ground. In the shadows he can’t see just how scarlet they are and he thinks that’s a relief. “You really….you really didn’t hesitate.”

“Should I have?” The man cocks his head to the side, half a grin on his face, as if he doesn’t quite get the joke Remus is telling. (There’s no joke, and that fact alone makes Remus’s stomach flip.)

The question is a loaded gun anyway and Remus doesn’t feel like pulling the trigger on himself today at least.

Remus is twenty one and he helps rob his first casino.

Which seems insane, because Remus is a lot of things, but he wasn’t really a lawbreaker until that moment he talked the man who could shapeshift into anyone straight through the four levels of security and the cameras and figured out the codes that he needed to get in to the vault and the path he needed to take out, which led him all the way up the stairs to Remus’s hotel room.

There’s enough money on the floor to fix the world hunger. The man, his partner in crime, the shapeshifter sits in the middle of it like a dragon watching his hoard, scribbling mathematics on the hotel provided pad of paper so that he can count it all. His shapeshift is off, allowing Remus a look at his green scales and yellow eye without all the blood.

He’s grinning like the cat that caught that little canary. Remus thinks its a good look on him.

Remus holds one of his poker chips in his hand, a Barney that wandered off from the casino floor and found its way to Remus’s hotel room.

“So,” He says, because silence has never been his type of thing, “What now? We split ways?”

The man makes another mark on his pad of paper shuffling through the green papers. “I’m afraid not. You still owe me.”

“What?” Remus turns to face him, and if there’s a spark in his chest, a nudge of excitement, well who can blame him? Its not like hes spent his whole life waiting for people to leave him.

Another dash on the paper. “We made a deal, unless you’ve forgotten. You said that if I could figure out how you were cheating, you’d do one thing that I want you to do.”

Remus snorted and waved to the money around them, “What do you call this?”

“This?” The man gave him a shark-like smile, “You did this of your own violation!” He held up a wad of cash, a smug superior smile on his face, that makes his fangs glisten.

“I seem to recall you asking,” Remus challenges.

“Not in this timeline, Love Muffin,” The man throws the cash at him. “You still have blood on your face by the way.”

Remus lets the cash fall to the floor because money is nice, but there’s something much nicer about the way that this man is looking at him, the way he’s still looking at him, like Remus is something more than a nuisance, more than a distraction, more than an unwanted, frustrating intrusion. 

“What do you want?” Remus says, because he hasn’t looked ahead this far yet and the uncharacteristic fear in his chest is slowly turning all his organs to butterflies. 

He knows what he wants this man to say, knows what he wants to hear come out of this man's mouth and he thinks that if he looks in the future and its not what happens, Remus will surely explode right there in his (their) room. 

“Hm?” The man says tapping his hotel offered pencil to his chin. “Well, you did say anything I wanted right? Anything at all?”

Remus nods, rolling his finger over the snake design on his stolen poker chip.

“Well then, the one thing I want…” He hesitates, “...is for us to stick together. I think we make quite the team, don’t you? My name is Dee.”

“Remus,” He chokes, because suddenly there doesn’t seem to be enough air in the world, and he’s afraid if he inhales too deeply trying to get more, the whole reality will shatter.

Dee makes another mark on the paper. “Well Remus,” He says, “Any other places you’d like to rob with me?”

Remus is twenty one and he thinks that this is the best birthday he’s ever had.

(Part Three)

[deathsmallcaps]

@boopboopboopbadoop

April’s Story

Shrek premiered 20 years ago this month! So I decided to honor it with my own illustrated version of the movie for my Win A Commission Contest! If you’d like to see the illustrations in context with the text, please

Once upon a time, there was a lovely Princess

But she had an enchantment upon her of an awful sort, that could only be broken by True Love's First Kiss

She was Locked away in a tower, guarded by a terrible fire-breathing Dragon

Many brave Knights had attempted to free from this dreadful prison, but none prevailed

She waited in the Dragon's keep, in the tallest room of the tallest tower. Where she waited for her True Love and True Love's First Kiss...

A large green hand ripped a page from the Book and revealed another part involving the whole kingdom celebrating on the Princess and her True Love's wedding day, laughing heartily as he slammed it shut.

"Like that's ever gonna happen!" A Scottish voice said dismissively. "What a load of-" A flush of a Toilet drowned out the last part of the sentence.

We look and see an outhouse. It was made of white birch wood, lashed together with a rope for a handle and a black crescent moon facing the right. There was some hanging moss on the tilted roof growing and a pathway of stones, weeds crowding in between. It was set right in front of a thick wood, facing towards a house. The strange thing about all of this is that the outhouse had plumbing with a flushing toilet.

The door slammed open, revealing no Prince Charming nor a Frog, but an Unlikely Hero: an Ogre. Yawning and stretching out before fixing his wedgie, he shook off a ripped page that was sticking to his shoe and stared at his house.

He lived in a giant, white, hollowed out mangrove tree, the trunk thinning out into a perfect chimney. Moss, ivy and weeds grew all around or on top of it, and there was a crude door and some small windows set into the side.

The Ogre breathed in and left the outhouse with the door slamming behind him as he began his day.

Using a bucket and scraping up some mud, he carried it over to a branch. The ogre undressed and pulled on a rope, causing the mud to pour onto him. He made an “Oof!” sound when it first hit him, but continued scrubbing himself with the mud like it was soap. He drank the last dregs of the mud and then spat it out, ending the shower.

Then the Ogre brushed his teeth. He grabbed a red caterpillar, and squeezing it like a tube of toothpaste, pushed its innards onto a bone. He scrubbed well, getting the insides of his teeth, then the outsides. It turned his already unhealthy teeth greener, and the putrid goo shown in his hideous smile caused his mirror to shatter and fall onto the floor.

Next, he plunged himself into a lake and made a huge splash, turning himself right and getting ready; the Ogre let out a loud, horrendous and terrible gaseous fart that bubbled behind him. Feeling relieved and making an “innocent” pose with his finger to his lip, he turned to see that there was not one, not two but three red salmon floating up to the surface; murdered by the deadliness of the stench that continued to plague the rest of the underwater native wildlife. He grabbed the one next to him and proceeded to leave.

Later army crawling into a hollowed husk of a fallen tree, pointing diagonally skywards, the Ogre pushed out a ton of mud as he climbed his way forward like a commando in the trenches of a battlefield. The final mud slopped out as his stained face popped out.

He smiled as he found a green slug right outside the tree trunk. The Ogre grabbed it and the slug squirmed in alarm as it was picked up by a giant green hand, leaving the small maggots once underneath the slug exposed to the air.

Closer to sunset, near a lake with verdant hills in the distance, the Ogre began painting a new sign. Having picked out a broken off- plank of moldy wood form his outhouse, he didn’t bother with a base coat of white. He spent several hours painting. Once he finished, the Ogre placed his palette down, took a good look at his newest masterpiece, and out of sheer joy of satisfaction he kissed the ogre in the picture on the lips. It left red paint all across his lips as he posted it next to an older sign that said, "STAY OUT". It was a rather hideous portrayal of his face with red eyes and red writing that stated, “BEWARE OGRE".

After The Ogre had ate his fishy and sluggy dinner and had lit a fire with the strength of his belch, he sat back on the crocodile flesh recliner. Just as he was settling in, the Ogre's tiny trumpet ears picked up a disturbance in the Swamp.

It was the sounds of people trespassing. With a groan he lurched to his feet and glanced out his window, spotting a group of Ogre Hunters in the far distance, mostly visible due to their torches. Within moments, the Ogre snuck outside his home and was tiptoeing behind them.

The Ogre Hunters, dressed mostly in green and sporting crappy haircuts, pushed aside the tall grass and foliage as they watched the Swamp House, lit from within by The Ogre’s Belch-Fire.

"Think it's in there?" The one with a bowl cut asked

"Alright... let's get it!" The one in the a tall hat declared, holding a torch and about to make a charge forward before he was stopped short by the one with the mustache next to him.

"Hold on, you know what that thing could do to you?" the mustached one said with fear.

"Yeah, it'll grind your bones for it's bread!" The one with the bowl cut told him.

They all froze when a loud chuckle echoed behind them.

Turning around, they saw the Ogre towering over them. He spoke in an almost friendly manner, but what he said was the opposite of friendly. “Ha, yes, well actually; that would be a giant!" He exclaimed, causing the men to back off. The Ogre stepped forward each time they stepped back. "Now Ogres, oh.. they're much worse! They'll make a suit from your freshly peeled skin!"

"No!" A man was horrified

"They'll shave your livers!"

“No!”

"And squeeze the jelly from your eyes!" The Ogre Hunters were cornered as the Ogre added, thoughtfully, "Actually it's quite good on toast."

The bearded Ogre Hunter swung torch at The Ogre’s face. "Back! Back, beast! Back! I warn ya!"

The Ogre simply raised an eyebrow before calmly licking his fingers and putting out his torch with a pinch and a smile.

"Right..." the Ogre Hunter dropped the extinguished torch.

The Ogre let loose an horrible and fearsome ear bursting roar directly into the faces of the cowering Ogre Hunters. Spit flew in their faces as their hair and hats were thrown back. They screamed in response as their torches extinguished as the roar continued. After a long moment, he stopped and wiped his mouth, but the Hunters continued to scream; when they finally stopped they looked like their wits had long been scared out of them.

The Ogre leaned in and whispered to them as the crickets and other hidden wildlife in the night went on in the silence. "This is the part where you run away..."

With a yelp they immediately dropped all their pitchforks and weapons and bolted out of the swamp as the Ogre chortled to himself. The bowl cut Ogre Hunter tripped but kept running in desperation.

The Ogre laughed whole heartily and yelled after the retreating party. "And stay out!"

A piece of paper they must’ve left behind caught his attention. He picked it up, and saw that it had the face of a solemn elf with a green leaf hat and white beard. There were bags of gold drawn around it, but no explicit price was given, just the word, “Reward” written in red. Above it he read, "Wanted: Fairy Tale Creatures...".

He realized they had wanted to capture him for the reward money. He looked towards the fleeing villagers in disgust and shook his head, throwing the paper to the ground as he went back inside to spend the rest of the night in peace.

The next day, as part of his new plan to get people to leave him alone, The Ogre set up some new new signs, even farther from his home. Just as he was setting up his last one (it had a green skull with the words ‘Keep Out!’ in the pupils), something ran into his butt.

The Ogre turned around to face what appeared to be a terrified mini-donkey.

Someone yelled, "He's getting away! Get him!" and the sounds of guards in armor scared the little donkey into hiding behind The Ogre. "This way! Turn!"

The local Captain of the Guard and his men ran up, stopping when they all saw the tall Ogre who stood before them. "You there... Ogre" The Captain grabbed a scroll his waist

"Aye?" Was The Ogre’s reply, hands on his hips and now seemingly irritated that his day was once again involving contact with humans.

"By the order of Lord Farquaad... I am authorized to place you both under arrest and transport you to a designated resettlement... facility...?" The Captain's voice was shaking and nervous due to the face that the Ogre was walking towards him slowly, now standing right in front of him as a deafening silence fell.

"Oh really?" He asked, leaning down so he was face to face with the Captain. "You and what army?" He asked as his teeth glittered with a smile, glancing behind him.

The Captain turned around to see what was once left of his men as their halberds fell down and a shield spun around onto the ground like a coin. He turned back to the Ogre; the mini-donkey smiled as the Captain took his men's example and made a run for it.

Now that confrontation is over with, the Ogre shook his head and walked away; but the mini-donkey had nowhere else to go and decided to follow his accidental savior. He trotted behind him.

"Can I say something to you?" He asked with the Ogre walking on. "Listen, you were really, really, really somethin' back here. Incredible!"

Now fully irritated, The Ogre turned around. "Are you talkin' to..." The Ogre saw no one else, just the ground lit by the sunlight within the forest of the tall trees. The voice was clearly gone. "Me?" He blinked and shrugged, turning before giving out a startled yell as the Donkey now stood before him.

"Yes I was talkin' to you. Can I tell you that you was great back here? Those guards! They thought they were all of that. Then you showed up and bam!" The little donkey caught up to The Ogre before getting up onto his hoofs in front of The Ogre and made a martial arts move with his right hoof, stopping him again. "They were trippin' over themselves like babes in the wood. I loved seeing that, made me feel happy seeing that"

"Oh, that's great. Really." The Ogre sarcastically replied

"Man, it's good to be free!" The burrito declared as the Ogre turned to him.

"Now, why don't you go celebrate your freedom with own friends? Hmm?" He suggested, leaning down to the little donkey, before walking off again.

"But... I don't have any friends, and I'm NOT going out there by myself!" Exclaimed the creature. A flash of inspiration came to him. "Hey wait a minute, I got a great idea! I'll stick with you" Donkey returned happily to the Ogre, deaf to his annoyance. "You're a mean green fighting machine! With you, we'll scare the spit out of anybody who crosses us!"

The Ogre halted and regarded Donkey for a moment. Then seemingly out of the blue, he fully turned and gave off an all might roar right into the animal’s face; hoping this would scare him.

The mini-donkey just stared, now with an impressed look drawn on his face. "Oh, wow! That was really scary!"

The Ogre just frowned and stomped away.

"Now if that doesn’t work, your breath will certainly get the job done, 'cause you definitely need some Tic Tacs or something 'cause your breath STINKS!"

The Ogre continued walking, but then looked back when he didn’t hear the none-stop chatterbox for about five seconds, to his relief and hope that he lost the annoyance.

To his irritation and surprise, the donkey appeared looking down at him from above; atop of a fallen tree over The Ogre’s path.

"You almost burned the hair outta my nose, just like the time..."

The Ogre covered the donkey's mouth, muffling his little obnoxious tale. The donkey still did not shut up as he kept it held there; continuing to talk either way; The Ogre removed his hand. "Then I ate some berries, man I had some strong gasses leaking out of my butt that day!"

"WHY are you following me?!" The Ogre asked, losing patience; nothing could shut this donkey up and he just needed to get away right now.

"I'll tell you why!" The animal leaped off the tree as he followed the Ogre, before breaking out into obnoxious song. "Cause I'm all alone, there's no here beside meeeee." He stopped in front of the Ogre as he wiggled his butt, the Ogre's right eye was half closed and his left eye was twitching in madness as the mini-donkey continued. "My problems have all gone, there's no one to deride me... but you gotta have faith-"

"Stop singing!" The Ogre yelled, he grabbed the burrito by the ears and tail as he moved him out of his way. "It's no wonder you don't have any friends!"

"Wow, only a true friend would be that truly honest!" The small donkey claimed.

The Ogre only groaned "Listen, little donkey. Take a look at me: What am I?" He held out his arms and stood tall before him.

The burrito looked from the Ogre's shoes to his head, whose face looked irritated while he thought to himself. "Really tall?" was his first guess. The mini-donkey wasn’t sure what The Ogre was asking.

"No! I'm an Ogre, you know. ‘Grab your torch and Pitchforks!’ Doesn't that bother you?" He imitated an Ogre Hunter before asking.

Donkey shook his head

"Nope." came the response

"Really?" The Ogre was a bit surprised.

"Really, really" The creature happily assured.

"Oh," The Ogre was not too sure on what to say next.

"Man, I like you, what's your name?"

The Ogre looked a little surprised. For all his time living alone in the Swamp, no one had ever asked him of his name. He had always been The Ogre, not a true individual to the people around him.

"Uhh... Shrek." He replied after a moment, before continuing his walk home.

"Shrek?" Th little donkey echoed, seeing if he got it right before following the now and forever named Ogre himself. "Well, you know what I like about you Shrek? You got that kind of I-don't-care-what-nobody-thinks-of-me-thing I like that. I respect that Shrek. You all right."

He continued to follow Shrek up the hill as they came overhead across a small grassy meadow hill above that overlooked Shrek's Swamp. Donkey (for that was his name) stared looked at the scene before him.

"Whoa! Look at that. Who'd want to live in a place a like that?" He asked with a hint of disgust, mostly discomfort, in his voice.

"That... would be my home" Shrek claimed, his hands on his hips before heading down the other side of the hill.

Donkey could only blink in response, he had really put his hoof in it now. "Oh! And it is lovely! Just beautiful. You know you are quite a decorator. It's amazing what you've done with such a modest budget!"

Shrek only shook his head as he continued downwards.

"I like that boulder, that is a nice boulder." Donkey followed him down. He continued after Shrek once again and stopped in front of the three signs: "BEWARE OGRE", "STAY OUT" and "DANGER". Donkey took a look at each of them all and asked,"I guess you don't uh.. entertain that much do you?"

"I like my privacy." Shrek claimed as he kept walking to his front door, Donkey trotting after him.

"You know, I do too. That's another thing we have in common. Like I hate it when you got somebody in your face. You've trying to give them a hint and they won't leave. Then there's that big awkward silence you know?"

Shrek turned to face him, silently willing Donkey to understand that the creature had just described their exact situation.

"Can I stay with you?" Clearly Donkey did not receive the hint.

"Uh, what?"

"Can I stay with you, please?" He added in the magic word.

"Of course!" Shrek declared lightheartedly as he smiled.

"Really?" Donkey asked.

"No." Shrek bluntly denied.

"PLEASE! I don't wanna go back there! You know what it's like to be living like a freak!" Donkey reconsidered for a moment as he looked at the large green humanoid before him as he pushed Shrek onto his front door with his hooves. "Well, maybe you do. But that's why we gotta stick together! You gotta let me stay, please, please!" Donkey was getting hysterical.

"OKAY! Okay..." Donkey dropped to the floor as Shrek opened his door inwards as he gave his one little stipulation. "But one night only." He was about to enter before Donkey bolted in.

"Ah! Thank you!"

"What are you...?" Donkey leapt onto Shrek's crocodile skin recliner. "No, no!"

"This is gonna be fun! We can stay up late, swappin' manly stories and in the mornin," He trotted around on the chair before sitting down as he finished with: "I'm makin' waffles!"

"Oh!" Shrek groaned as he held his hands out, as though he was planning to strangle the noisy intruder.

Donkey looked around and asked him. "Where do, uh... I sleep?"

"Outside!" Shrek screamed irritably.

Donkey's ears drooped upon hearing that response. "Oh, well, I guess that's cool. I mean, I don't know you and you don't know me, so I guess outside is best, you know. Here I go." He sniffled as got off his recliner and walked out sadly,"Goodnight..." He told him as Shrek slammed the door on him.

The mini-donkey kept talking, of course. "You know, I do like the outdoors. I'm a Donkey. I was born outside. I'll just be sitting by myself outside, I guess, you know. By myself, outside!"

Shrek looked out before shaking his head and sighing to himself, walking away from the door to enjoy himself for the rest of the day as Donkey began singing the same annoyingsong again; although more sorrowfully.

"I'm all alone, there's no one here besides me..."

That night, as the cauldron hanging by chains over the firepit bubbled solemnly; Shrek was enjoying himself with a nice dinner while Donkey was locked outside of his home. He dropped a eye on a stick into his martini glass and slurped it down as he looked at his dinner before him. There was a slug with orange eyes, what appeared to be green grapes, a jar of eyes, spice, worm stuffed pumpkin and a nice large piece of cooked skinless meat on his plate.

These were the times he enjoyed the most out of his solitary life, he was home, nice and warm and he wasn't bothered by anyone at all. Though he had to pause and glance at his front door. Shrek had ... mixed feelings about his new acquaintance. He talked WAY too much, but he was also the first person in a very long time to actually treat Shrek like a person.

He shook his head and sighed, scooting in further to his table as he felt that there was just something missing from the layout of the table. The man he figured out what ir was. He brought his hand to his ear and started to pull hard and painfully as the earwax built up came out like a spear and placed it atop a candle platform; lighting the wick made of ear hair afterwards with a match. Now he can enjoy his meal alone.

The same could not be said for Donkey, who peeked sadly into the window before making his way back to the front door. He laid down as he smiled bittersweetly and went to sleep at his new friend's doorstep.

Shrek continued to eat and enjoy his meal until the sound of his door creaking interrupted his silence.

He put his fork and knife on the table as he got up. "I thought I told you to stay outside." He was hoping to shove Donkey back outside, if that was what had come in.

"I am outside." Donkey’s voice came from the window.

In confusion, Shrek turned and saw a shadow move across the wall. Who was now moving around near his table? He returned and observed it. Everything was normal underneath the table, but then he heard voices from above.

"Well, gents, it's a farcry from the farm, but what choice do we have?" A blind mouse asked, tripping over Shrek's fork.

"It's not home, but it'll do just fine!" The second of the blind mice knocked over the jar full of eyeballs, spilling out the contents.

"What a lovely bed" The third of the blind mice was bouncing on the Slug, Shrek immediately caught him.

"Got ya!" However it escaped his grasp.

"I found some cheese" the third mouse said, biting Shrek's left ear.

"OW!" He cried in pain, grabbing at the mouse again who was now on his other shoulder.

"Blah! Awful stuff!" The tiny rodent jumped down onto the spoon and inadvertently launched a piece of gravy towards Shrek's left eye, which he wiped away immediately.

"Is that you Gordon?" One of them asked.

"How did you know?" A different one asked back.

"Enough!" Shrek grabbed all three of them by the tail, flipping the wooden spoon off the left side of the table as he turned his back and demanded angrily.

"What are you doing in my house?" The dinner on his table was then violently shoved off and Shrek's back was hit with an gold and glass fashioned coffin, labeled, ‘Here lies Snow White, under the curse by the Poison Apple infected by the Sleeping Death curse’.

"Hey!" He turned and saw the Seven Dwarves, one of the waved at Shrek.

"Oh, no, no, no. Dead broad OFF the table!" He shoved her coffin back to the Dwarves

"Where are we supposed to put her? The Bed's taken!" They shoved the coffin back to him.

"Huh?" Shrek stopped short. He hurried to his bed and opened the curtain separating the rooms and gasped. There laid comfortably and in grandmother's clothing, was a wolf of all creatures.

"What?" The Wolf asked irritably.

Shrek was now on the verge of rage, he dragged the Wolf out of bed and held him in the air through his house as the Seven Dwarves made themselves comfortable.

"I live in a swamp, I put up signs! I'm a terrifying Ogre!" He shoved his door open outwards. "What do I have to do to get a little privacy?!" He screamed as he threw the Wolf out of his house.

Then he saw a sight that would haunt him forever. "Oh no... oh no!" Shrek bellowed.

His Swamp. His lovely, silent, peaceful Swamp was no longer the way he intended it to be. It was now swarming with many, many Fairytale Creatures; many, many beings now living in his precious Swamp. Even the old woman brought her entire shoe to his Swamp, with many children running around. Tents were set up, fairies roamed around in the air, Pinocchio and a short yellow elf with a cone shaped hat were arguing and many people were conversing with each other.

“No!" A witch flew past him. "NO!" He screamed out, three more witches came zooming past him and Shrek had to jump for cover as they came flying down with elves helping them land.

"Wha?" Shrek turned his head to the side with the old woman hanging her clothes with a child and two other children pushing each other.

"Hey, don't push!" A girl in the blue shrieked.

The Pied Piper in red was calling over rats with his flute while many other Fairytale Creatures were waiting in line towards Shrek's Outhouse.

In the meantime, Papa and Baby Bear were sitting by the fire, the latter upset and being comforted by his father; no Mama Bear in sight, as many other Fairytale Creatures warmed themselves up by the fire before them. Elves, Lepricons, Dwarves, Fairies, Witches, Pigs, Wolves, a Unicorn and any Fairytale Creature you can think of were all there in Shrek's Swamp; shattering his peace.

"What are you doing in my Swamp?!" Shrek roared out as he got up, his voice echoed all over the sound of his Swamp; everyone and everything came an abrupt half as it was followed by screams and gasps. The Dwarves who held bowls to be fed with soup from the cauldron by the witch dropped them, the three fairies of Sleeping Beauty flew in the tent to hide and two Dwarves ducked out of sight and appeared holding each other out of fear behind a branch.

Shrek wasn't going to have all this; he eyed everyone and began to walk to some Elves and Dwarves. "Alright, get out of here. All of you, move it! Come on! Let's go! Hapaya! Hapaya! Hey! Quickly, come on!" He shooed them all backwards but some of the Dwarves and fairies ran into his home as Shrek turned back. "No, no! No, no. Not there, not there!" He ran after them as they slammed the door on him and a little green fairy, the door now unable to open despite his best efforts.

He stopped and turned to face the large group before them, especially on Donkey.

"Hey don't look at me, I didn't invite them!" Donkey replied.

"Oh, gosh, no one invited us" Pinocchio confirmed.

"What?!" Shrek came over, demanding to know what happened.

"We were forced to come here" He told the Ogre.

"By who?" He was flabbergasted until one of the Three Pigs told him.

“Lord Farquaad. He huffed and he puffed and he... signed an eviction notice." His brothers nodded in agreement.

"Alright. Who knows where this Farquaad guy is?" Shrek asked.

Everyone looked around at each other with no answer, until Donkey answered. "Oh, I do. I know where he is!"

"Does anybody ELSE know where to find him? Anyone at all?" Shrek was desperate to not to go with Donkey of all people.

"Me! Me!" Donkey tried to get his attention, jumping comically into the air. Baby Bear held his paw up, but was stopped by his father.

"Anyone?" Big Bad Wolf and a Green Wizard pointed to each other while Donkey continued

"Oh! Oh, pick me! Oh, I know! I know! Me, me!"

"Okay... fine." He reigned himself to being annoyed; Shrek knew that he would either go with Donkey or risk asking a human. "Attention, all Fairytale... things. Do not get comfortable, your welcome is officially worn out. In fact, I'm going to see this guy Farquaad right now and get you all off my land and back where you came from!" He pointed to the left before the entire crowd went wild.

Shrek shook his head and groaned before walking, four birds draping him in a flower cloak. "Doh!" He swatted them away as he sharply pointed directly at Donkey. "You. You're comin' with me" He told him darkly as he shoved the cape off him and started walking, the birds returning and dropping a flower crown on his head.

"Alright, that's what I like to hear man: Shrek and Donkey, two stalwart friends, off on a whirlwind big-city adventure. I love it!" Donkey rushed after the ogre.

Shrek tried to grab torch from a Dwarf while walking. He refused to let go, so Shrek simply shook him and then dropped the dwarf into the water where the dwarf resurfaced moments later.

"On the road again, sing it with me, Shrek. I can't to get on the road again!"

“What did I say about singing?" Shrek sharply turned to Donkey and grabbed his flower crown before throwing it off of him. They crossed a log that bridged the area between Shrek’s little island and the rest of the swamp.

"Can I whistle?" Donkey asked.

"No."

"Can I hum it?"

"Alright, hum it."

Donkey continued to hum ‘On the Road Again’ while Shrek

focused on the road ahead.

The two heroes marched off into the woodlands while being waved off by all creatures.

Art Explanation

So, it’s obvious I copied the title from the movie! It sure did make my life easier!

And I used a lot of references for my pictures. I hoped to make them true to the movie as possible.

The second picture is possibly my favorite, although I didn’t enjoy drawing all the scenery. It isn’t my specialty.

The third picture was fun! I remember being very jealous of Shrek’s belch power when I was little, lol.

To be honest, the fourth picture was my least favorite. It felt too busy.

The fifth picture is my other favorite, because it has Donkey!

The last picture was hard, for sure. I wanted to ge their reflections right, and not make the background look too crappy. It’s hard to adapt things from such a dark scene. But I think it turned out alright, although the scaling is a little funny :).

So, I was hoping to not have to write out these scenes myself, because it’s ten whole minutes of a movie and let me tell you, it’s hard to do from scratch. Luckily, I found a version, which I’ve left a link for below. I just polished it a bit.

Anyways, I hope you’ve enjoyed!

SOURCE

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/450448/1/Shrek-Adaptation

[mrobrotzly]

✨ and lighting the fuse might result in a bang ✨

so today is my birthday and i decided it would be a great gift to myself (and maybe to you) to write more geraskier smut!

(link on AO3)

Rating: Explicit 🔞

Tags: Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Rimming, Top Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Bottom Jaskier | Dandelion, Light Dom/sub, Jealous Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, (slightly jealous tbh), Spanking, Jaskier is a tease, PWP without Porn

Summary: [...] "You're a fucking tease, you know it?" he said burying his face in the curve of Jaskier's neck, taking a deep breath and making the troubadour shiver.

"I don't know what you're talking about" he wrapped his arms around the Witcher's body, tilting his head to the side, giving Geralt better access to brush his lips on the skin.

"You can't tease me like that and expect not to be punished" he snarled in the bard's ear, Jaskier tried not to moan "You know what that means, don't you?"

"Geralt..." he whispered, whimpering when he felt a light bite on his neck.

“Bed. On your hands and knees. Now." [...]

Geralt was sitting at a table in the corner while the music was playing, Jaskier had been singing for over an hour, wandering around the room and dancing with the people who were standing, occasionally swirling around the barmaid with a smirk. The bard winked, silently flirting with anyone who came close.

Geralt had left early that day and when he returned, Jaskier was already starting the performance, the Witcher just nodded and went up to the room to take a shower, with the atmosphere as it was, the room full of people - and him attracting attention for being covered in mud and blood - Geralt didn't look at Jaskier twice, but now, hiding part of his face behind a tankard, his attention was all on the bard.

His attention was on his fingers playing the lute strings, graceful and experienced, on how the tip of his tongue occasionally appeared between his lips, on how the yellowish light of the candles reflected in the immensity of blue that was his eyes and in how he made the room more vibrant with energy, cheering everyone around while more coins were thrown in the lute's case.

But what really made Geralt want to growl was the way he moved around, strategically to never leave the Witcher's visual field, but precisely, to almost always keep his back to him, because Jaskier was wearing pants that hugged every part of him, tight on his ass and thighs, showing how the years of traveling on foot have done him well - oh, very well - and the bastard knew that Geralt was looking, he knew that he was practically irresistible not only for the Witcher, but for most of the people who were in the room, and obviously he took advantage of that.

Geralt tightened his fingers around the tankard, watching the troubadour bend over - raising his ass a little 'cause of course he would that - to sing some of the lyrics to a young woman who was sitting next to him and practically drooling while watching the performance, not only she but the man beside her flushed, bright red, with the bard's sudden approach.

But what was really torture wasn't seeing Jaskier flirting or not being able to touch him or lick his lips and mark every part of his neck, no, the torture was the short breaks the bard did to drink or eat something before start to play again. Every time he approached Geralt's table, sitting absurdly close, sliding his hands on the Witcher's thigh in a false innocence, speaking in a lower than normal voice, the same voice he used in the bedroom (or in the open, against a tree, or lying on the ground or even in the stable for not wanting to wait to get to the room, well…).

And, fuck, he sat on Geralt's lap, grinding his hips, smelling strongly of arousal and lust, saying casually that he might have forgotten to wear underwear, making Geralt's blood boil and the bulge in his pants grow, but before the Witcher could pull him up the stairs, the bard stood up and continued to perform as if nothing had happened. The Witcher asked for another ale, feeling his control fading as he imagined tearing up those pants.

Another 30 minutes of this before Jaskier finished his performance and Geralt was ready to get up and lock both of them in their room until dawn, but Jaskier was still a bastard and decided it would be best to continue chatting, laughing and flirting, whispering things for men and women, drinking ale that he certainly hadn't paid for.

Geralt didn't consider himself jealous - not when he knew that Jaskier wasn't really interested in the people around him, that everything was part of the bard's persona - but watching the amount of fierce looks from people who seemed to want to devour every part of Jaskier's body didn’t ease the growl stuck in his chest, he wanted to pull the bard to him, bite and suck his neck, mark it to make it clear that he was accompanied.

The bard must have noticed that his grip on the tankard tightened, a smirked spreading across his face and he winked, it was at that moment that Geralt gave up, Jaskier would continue that performance for hours if he allowed it. The Witcher got up, going to the table where the troubadour was sitting (sitting on the table, sometimes the bard didn't know what chairs were for) and immediately the people around him stopped talking.

"Bedtime" he said, raising an eyebrow.

Jaskier laughed.

"Okay, mom" the people around him chuckled and he leaned over to whisper something to a young man in front of him, something that obviously Geralt also could hear "Thank you dor the ale, hope we meet again sometime" he winked, leaving the table and following a Witcher who did everything he could to keep the last remnants of control.

Less than five seconds after Jaskier closed the door to their room, Geralt pushed him against the wall, pressing his body to the bard's.

"You're a fucking tease, you know it?" he said burying his face in the curve of Jaskier's neck, taking a deep breath and making the troubadour shiver.

"I don't know what you're talking about" he wrapped his arms around the Witcher's body, tilting his head to the side, giving Geralt better access to brush his lips on the skin.

"You can't tease me like that and expect not to be punished" he snarled in the bard's ear, Jaskier tried not to moan "You know what that means, don't you?"

"Geralt..." he whispered, whimpering when he felt a light bite on his neck.

“Bed. On your hands and knees. Now."

He stepped aside, making room for the bard, Jaskier bit his lip pretending to be nervous, but the strong smell of his arousal, sweet and spicy, made it clear that this was exactly what he wanted.

"You do it on purpose, don't you?" the bard shrugged, trying not to smile, going to the bed. Geralt grunted, watching his ass on display and, finally, the Witcher pulled the cloth with both hands, tearing his trousers, hearing a yelp in response.

“You brute! I liked those pants!” Jaskier turned his head to look at Geralt, clearly offended.

"Well, this is supposed to be a punishment."

“For me, not for my clothes!” he pouted, but soon afterwards he let out a whimper as the Witcher tightly gripped his butt.

"Ten" he said hoarsely, making the bard shiver, eyes fixed on the exposed skin - he really wasn't wearing underwear "You count."

Jaskier only had time to nod before Geralt's heavy palm hit his ass, he whinned, lowering his head and feeling his cock throb.

"Count" the Witcher said in a grunt, repeating the act, the sound of his hand hitting the skin was loud this time.

"Two" Jaskier said and took a deep breath, they had just started he didn't want to show how affected he was and how much he liked it - even though he knew Geralt knew.

Geralt murmured, running his thumb over the smooth skin that gradually became red and marked and while doing so, without warning, he slapped the other cheek, causing Jaskier to let out a surprised groan.

"Not fair" he said breathlessly "Three."

"This is really not a punishment for you, right?" he slid his hand in front of the bard's body, feeling the bulge in his pants (at least the front of the trousers was intact, but he didn't think the rest could be fixed).

"Geralt..." Jaskier moaned weakly, trying to go forward with his hips, wanting more of the touch.

The Witcher denied him, making the bard growl, but when he opened his mouth to complain he was surprised by the hand hitting him firmly and he groaned. Before he had a chance to continue counting Geralt started a sequence, varying the speed, sometimes letting the bard catch his breath, other times not, without changing the strength of the hits, leaving the skin red and hot.

At number ten, Jaskier moaned loudly, it was stronger than the others, a sharp pain running through his body mixed with pleasure, he felt his legs weak as he gasped, his painfully hard cock begging for release, he whimpered something that might have been the Witcher's name.

"You stopped counting" he caressed the back of the troubadour's thigh "Maybe I should punish you for that too and not let you come."

Jaskier shook his head several times.

"No?" Geralt ran his fingers lightly over the bulge in his pants, with the other hand firmly gripped his hips to keep the bard from moving.

"Please..." he said in a whisper, closing his eyes and trying to focus on the touch.

"I didn't hear you, Jaskier" Geralt grinned, going with his hips forward and pressing against the hot skin of the bard's ass.

Jaskier's moan was mixed with a whimper.

"Geralt, please!" he raised his voice a bit, feeling the Witcher grinding against him, murmuring thoughtfully.

Fortunately Geralt moved to do something, but unfortunately that made him no longer touch Jaskier.

"Don't move" the Witcher got up from the bed, looking for something in one of the bags for a moment and when he returned to stand behind Jaskier he held a vial of oil that was half full. The bard propped himself up on his elbows, raised his ass and spread his legs, Geralt grunted.

"Fucking gorgeous" he said hoarsely, Jaskier moaned softly, feeling his face heat up.

The Witcher brought both hands to the bard's ass, squeezing it tightly, watching his fingertips sink into the hot, reddish skin.

Jaskier held his breath, not knowing what Geralt's next move would be, the Witcher realized that, a wolfish smile spreading across his face, he moved his hands, opening the bard's cheeks and lowering his head, bringing his face close to his hole and licked a straight, linear stripe, receiving a surprised groan in response.

He repeated it, teasing, running his tongue around the hole, pressing the tip and threatening to penetrate, Jaskier let his body slide, laying his torso on the bed, raising his hips, face pressed against the sheet, mouth open involuntarily letting out the sounds, his hips jerked trying to find something that he could rub his cock, his pants starting to get wet with pre-cum.

“Geralt…” he moaned, muffled by the sheet “Geralt, please…”

But Geralt was also a bastard, he penetrated the tip of his tongue slowly and so briefly that Jaskier considered it torture, he heard the Witcher chuckle at the disgruntled grunt he let out.

“Always impatient” he licked again - only around the hole.

"Fuck, Geralt, stop teasing!" the bard tried to move his hips, but was still being held tightly.

"You tease me all night and can't take a few minutes of it?" Geralt smirked, pulling his face away and finally releasing Jaskier "Don't even try to move."

The bard grunted, burying his face further in the sheet.

"I fucking hate you," he said muffled, listening to the sound of the cork being pulled out of the oil vial and the Witcher's hoarse laughter.

Geralt coated his fingers with the oil and poured some of the liquid into Jaskier's rear, watching him shiver. Doing the same movement he did with his tongue, seeing how the troubadour controlled himself not to move. Slowly he penetrated a finger.

Jaskier bit his lip, whining, closing his eyes feeling the finger moving inside him, Geralt watched his reaction carefully. He thrusted his fingers once, twice, three times, until he was able to find that bundle of nerves that made Jaskier moan loudly and arch his back.

The Witcher grinned, pressing his fingertip over the same spot again, the bard already clenching, his cock throbbing. The second finger slid in, thrusting and scissoring, opening and stretching Jaskier, Geralt allowed him to roll his hips - since he was doing it involuntarily - and seeing this reminded him that his own pants were uncomfortably tight around his cock.

He increased the speed, thrusting the fingers harder, making the bard moan so beautifully for him. With the third finger in, Jaskier was already a mess, hip jerking, babbling words and the Witcher's name over and over, asking, begging, crying out for more.

Geralt groaned, watching his fingers being sucked in the heat of Jaskier's body one last time before taking them out and finally lowering his own pants only enough to let his cock free.

He brought his hands to Jaskier's waist, laying him on his back. Jaskier's lips were reddish, eyes half open, the blue being devoured by the black of his pupils and he was panting, in the front of his trousers a very noticeable bulge and a spot wet with pre-cum

"Gorgeous" he said again and the bard closed his eyes, moaning weakly.

"Geralt..." he whimpered, the Witcher smirked, tearing the rest of the pants and throwing the cloth somewhere in the room, this time Jaskier didn't say anything, a sense of pride grown in Geralt's chest for knowing that the bard was already so wrecked that he didn't even complain.

Geralt stroke his own length, spreading the oil, a groan caught in his throat.

He pulled the bard's legs toward him and instantly Jaskier crossed them around the Witcher's waist, feeling the tip of his cock pressing against his hole. Geralt leaned over the bard, foreheads touching, drinking at the sight of those eyes full of love and lust before starting a kiss and finally sliding inside. And, fuck, Jaskier felt him deep, stretching and filling him so wonderfully.

The kiss didn't stop, increasing the intensity as they both felt fire run through their veins, melting at the touches, moaning low against each other lips as Geralt slowly rolled his hips.

When Jaskier started moving too, Geralt got the message, he pressed the bodies together, the bard tightened his legs around his body and took the opportunity to wrap his arms around the Witcher's neck, moaning loudly and breaking the kiss when Geralt went forward with his hip in a sharp and quick thrust. He didn't stop, repeating the movement without rhythm or warning, swallowing every gasp, moan and cry that Jaskier let out, kissing him intensely.

When he hit that spot that made the bard see stars, Jaskier dug his nails into his back, tipping his head back and exposing his neck perfectly for Geralt to bite, kiss and suck, the speed of his thrusts increasing while he fucked Jaskier hard. The bard moaned, curling his toes, repeating Geralt's name over and over. The Witcher slid his body over his, causing a delicious friction, the bard's cock trapped between them.

Geralt groaned, low and deep, feeling Jaskier clenching tight around his lenght as they kissed desperately, his hips losing pace as the troubadour tried to move even though it was a difficult task with the Witcher on top of him.

The bard felt his orgasm coming, hitting him at the same moment that Geralt bit his neck hard, he opened his mouth, but the sound getting stuck in his throat, eyes closed as he searched for something to grab - scratching the Witcher back even more  - curling his toes as a shock went up his spine and his vision whitened with pleasure.

Geralt came seconds later, Jaskier impossibly tighter around him, his hips failed the pace of the thrusts and he buried his face in the curve of the bard's neck, going as deep as he could and feeling his whole body tremble as he came hard inside Jaskier with a hoarse, muffled groan.

Both are panting, the Witcher giving small kisses on the troubadour's neck, mainly on the mark of the bite. He moved his hip slowly, pulling out and hearing Jaskier sigh at the feeling.

They kissed slowly and lazily, the bard stretching his legs on the bed, they looked at each other for a few seconds, smiling and enjoying the afterglow.

"You're going to clean us up" Jaskier said, patting Geralt on the shoulder, the Witcher rolled his eyes. "And I want a massage, my ass deserves it."

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, kissing Jaskier's forehead.

“You know you didn't” the bard stroked Geralt's hair “I like it a little rough.”

Geralt laughed, getting up, Jaskier winced when the movement spread some of his cum over his stomach.

"This was supposed to be a punishment" he grabbed the fabric of what was once Jaskier's pants, dip it into a small bucket of water they had in the room and approached the bed to clean up the mess they made.

"Say that to my poor pants," the bard said, making no effort to help Geralt as the cloth slid down his body. "Frankly, do you know how expensive it was? I thought you would like the way it looks on my body. ”

"Hm" finished the service he discarded the fabric, throwing it somewhere in the room "I liked it a little too much."

Jaskier laughed, opening his arms and pulling him to lie with his head on his chest.

They were silent for a few seconds, one hand of the bard stroking the Witcher's hair and the other holding Geralt's.

"You know," he said, a smirk on his face "I bought two of these."

Geralt murmured, wondering where he was going with this.

"Maybe one day I'll do a private performance only for you..."

The Witcher looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"If you deserve it, obviously."

"And do you think I deserve it?" he ran his fingers through the hair on Jaskier's chest.

The bard smiled.

"Only if you give me that massage, come on, Geralt, get the chamomile!"

Geralt laughed, rolling his eyes, but still got out of bed.

♡ if you enjoy my work, you can support me & buy me a coffee ☕

[rhosyn-du]

Never make a mess when a total catastrophe will do - Chapter Four

Pairings: Jimon, past Clace, background Clizzy, a bunch of other minor background pairings Rating: Explicit Art: @cor321​ Beta: @all-thestories-aretrue​ Tags:  Alternate Universe - College/University, fake dating, oh my god they were roommates, friends with benefits, idiots to lovers, pining, miscommunication, holidays, drinking games, mistletoe, symbolically significant Oreos, domestic fluff, brief mention of past character death, Jace’s self-worth issues deserve their own tag Summary: What do you do when you find out your sister is not only dating your ex and love-of-your-high-school-life but is also bringing her home for Christmas? Bring your annoying, hot, annoyingly-hot roommate as your fake boyfriend to show them you're totally fine with it, obviously! There's no possible way this could backfire. Link: AO3 , Tumblr Master Post

Chapter Four

Clary, it turned out, was very good at Land Mines. But so was Izzy. It only took a couple rounds for them to admit they played the game all the time, and a couple more rounds (both of which the Lightwoods lost) for Izzy to drunkenly (and loudly) explain that she thought it was hot when Clary got competitive.

Jace told her he didn’t want to hear about it, and he hoped he wasn’t tipsy enough for her to notice what a hypocrite he was in saying it. Because competitive Simon? Was so hot. And Simon was pretty much hot all the time, even when he was annoying the hell out of Jace, but Simon going all-out trying to prove himself, and doing it every damned time, was something else. It didn’t help that right now he was doing it dressed in a tighter than usual t-shirt that proclaimed him a “Jedi in the streets, Sith in the sheets” that Clary (who most definitely noticed Jace’s appreciation of how tight the shirt was) gleefully informed Jace had been a present from her.

“Another win for Team Fray-Lewis,” Simon proclaimed as his coin spun to a stop without touching any of the glasses on the table. He and Clary bumped fists without even looking at each other, and Simon flashed Jace a smug grin that did things to him. “Let’s see you top that, hotshot.”

Jace returned a cocky grin of his own. “You should know better by now than to question my skills.”

Thankfully for Jace’s ego, and his liver, his own spin came tumbling to rest right before hitting a double-size shot glass of tequila. The same shot glass Clary’s coin hit moments later.

Clary winced. “Sorry, Si.”

“All right,” Simon said, narrowing his eyes. “All right.” He downed his shot and licked the excess from his lips in a way that Jace found very distracting. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Simon was doing it on purpose. “We’ve still got this.”

“Damn right we do,” Clary agreed, knocking back her own shot and then grabbing Izzy for a messy kiss. “A kiss for luck,” she announced.

“I’m not even on your team, silly,” Izzy giggled.

By the time they finished the game, Jace and Izzy having only just squeaked by with a win, the party was in full swing, and Jace was feeling pleasantly buzzed. With several hours left to go until midnight, he decided to pass on the cocktail Magnus offered him in favor of plain soda. As much as he’d joked about hangovers, that was the last way he wanted to start the new year, especially since he had plans with Alec and Magnus the next day, and they both seemed to be somehow magically immune to hangovers.

Jace let himself get swept up in the atmosphere of the party: dancing, joking with his siblings, getting into an inane argument with Magnus’s friend Ragnor about which of Scott Joplin’s works was most influential. And somehow, he always managed to find himself back by Simon’s side. He should have been doing it as part of keeping up the appearance of being his boyfriend, but it was less that he was intentionally trying to spend time around Simon and more that he was allowing himself not to not be around Simon. The realization should have annoyed him, but somehow it didn’t.

Especially since Simon seemed just as drawn to his side. Which was probably Simon keeping up appearances, since he’d proven himself to be incredibly good at it so far. It was almost comfortable. Right up until it was something else entirely.

Jace and Simon had been chatting with Dot—a friend of Magnus’s who’d apparently been a neighbor of Clary’s and Simon’s when they were kids—when Clary, who had clearly not stopped drinking after their game, interrupted by throwing her arms over Jace and Dot’s shoulders. “You guys should come dance with me,” she told them. “Izzy’s busy talking to Magnus about shoes, and I wanna dance, and you guys are like three of my very favorite people who aren’t Izzy, so I want you to dance with me.”

“Of course,” Dot laughed, wrapping an arm around Clary’s waist and twirling her toward the makeshift dance floor Magnus and Alec had made in their living room.

“You guys, come on!” Clary called over her shoulder, tripping and nearly falling before Dot caught her and turned it into a shaky dip.

Simon looked at Jace and offered his hand. “There’s really no point in arguing. She’s even more stubborn drunk than she is sober.”

“That’s a terrifying thought,” Jace said, taking Simon’s hand and following him onto the dance floor.

Jace lost track of how long they spent dancing, first with Clary and Dot, switching partners every few minutes at Clary’s enthusiastic insistence, and then just with each other after Izzy reappeared and Clary abandoned them to go cling to her girlfriend like some kind of hyper-affectionate koala.

“I honestly can’t believe she’s still standing,” Simon said. “She’s had at least three margaritas since we finished our game, and I didn’t even want to think about drinking after that many shots.”

“She was probably consoling herself after you guys lost so badly,” Jace said, moving closer than the music or space strictly demanded. “I wouldn’t know what it’s like, but losing sure seems like it would suck.”

“Uh huh,” Simon said. “Because you winning by a single shot was so very impressive.”

“It really was,” Jace agreed.

The music made a surprisingly smooth transition from pounding bass to Duke Ellington, and Simon grabbed Jace’s hand to pull him into some kind of swing dance that Jace was not at all familiar with.

“Really?” Simon asked with obvious relish. “You don’t know how to Lindy Hop?”

“I’m not an old man or terminally nerdy, so no,” Jace answered, not quite managing to follow Simon’s steps, but not making a complete fool out of himself either. He supposed that was one good thing to come out of that ridiculous mandatory high school PE swing dance unit.

“So, are you calling Magnus old or a nerd?” Simon asked, nodding to the other side of the dance floor, where Magnus was twirling Dot like they were both professional dancers.

“Magnus is a special case,” Jace said.

“Because your brother would murder you in your sleep for saying anything bad about him?” Simon suggested.

Jace snorted a laugh. “I plead the fifth.”

“You know what I think?” Simon asked, doing a rock-step then smoothly maneuvering Jace into a gentle twirl.

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Jace said.

“I think you just don’t know how to deal with not being good at something. So you’re an ass about anything you aren’t good at.”

“Nah,” Jace said, attempting to mimic Simon’s earlier move and managing to awkwardly spin him into a twirl of his own. “You just always react so well when I’m an ass to you that I can’t resist doing it.”

“Ah, got it. So you’re basically saying you never matured past middle school.”

“You’re one to talk about maturity. Do I need to remind you that the first thing you did when I introduced you to my sister was ask to see her Lego collection?”

“In my defense,” Simon said, “I was trying to save us all from probable food poisoning.” He executed another twirl, this time one that ended with his arms wrapped around Jace from behind, which Jace definitely felt no way at all about. “Also, it was a really great Lego collection.”

The music changed again, back to a modern club beat, and Jace felt some of the tension leave his body. This was the kind of music he knew how to dance to. And maybe there was just the tiniest bit of truth to what Simon had said about him not knowing how to be bad at things.

It was just natural and not at all pettiness over Simon being right that had him rolling his hips with the beat of the new song, which just consequently happened to grind his ass back against Simon’s crotch. And, okay, there was maybe just the tiniest bit of satisfaction in hearing Simon’s sharp intake of breath.

“Just try not to do that when someone you’re actually dating brings you home for the first time.”

Jace wasn’t entirely sure how to identify what he felt when Simon leaned forward to speak directly in his ear. “And what do you think I should have done?” Simon’s breath was hot against his skin. “If we were actually dating?”

Jace spun around to face him. “If we were actually dating, Alec would have been on his own defending dinner from Izzy, because I wouldn’t have taken you back downstairs until I was done very thoroughly showing you my bedroom.”

It came out sounding much less like a joke than he intended, the truth behind his words bleeding through his shaky bravado. And he knew Simon heard it, could see it in the soft surprise of his parted lips, could feel it in the faint tremor of the hand he still held.

“I guess,” Simon said, tongue darting out to wet his lips, drawing Jace’s eyes, “it’s a good thing for our digestive systems that we weren’t actually dating.”

This had been a mistake. Dancing with Simon like this, touching him like this. Inviting him to the party in the first place. This whole damned fake dating plan. Jace wanted desperately to lean in and trace the path of Simon’s tongue with his own.

“I don’t know,” he said instead. “I think it probably would have been worth it.”

They weren’t even pretending to dance now, Simon standing stock still, watching him as if trying to puzzle him out. Finally, he took a step back, loosening his hold. “Jace—”

“Attention, dearest friends and tolerated acquaintances!” Magnus’s voice rang through the loft as the music came to a sudden halt. Jace stayed as he was, unwilling to bring himself to let go of Simon entirely, unable to look away, and Simon seemingly similarly caught.

“We have invited you here this evening to help us ring in the new year, which, if you direct your attention to the clock right over there, you will see is now a mere thirty seconds away. So, grab your drink, grab your sweetie—or an attractive stranger, I won’t judge—and get ready to count down to a brand new year!”

Jace barely noticed as the countdown began around him, focused as he was on Simon. He only really caught on to what was happening when Simon’s lips began to move, softly counting down with the crowd even as his eyes never left Jace’s.

Jace had plenty of time to think through what he was about to do, with enough left over to second- and third-guess himself. Some people might have said thirty seconds wasn’t long enough to make a reasoned choice, but for someone like Jace, who made an art out of making impulsive, split-second decisions, thirty seconds was practically an eternity. He watched Simon’s lips form the final count of “one,” heard the crowd around them erupt into shouts of “Happy New Year!” and then he was surging forward.

Simon met him halfway, the kiss bruising and desperate. Jace was dimly aware of people around him laughing and cheering, but his entire world was narrowed down to this one moment, to this kiss. If their previous kisses had been chaste and family-appropriate, this was anything but. Simon kissed like he wanted to crawl inside Jace, one hand on the small of his back, pulling him close, the other tangled in his hair. Jace kind of wanted Simon to crawl inside him.

When Simon finally broke the kiss, Jace had to hold himself back from chasing his swollen, spit-slick lips. But whatever Simon saw when he looked at Jace had him muttering a soft “shit” before diving back in for more, so Jace considered it an all-around win.

Jace licked into Simon’s mouth, sliding the fingers of one hand under the hem of his shirt enough to trace along the waistband of his jeans, just above his hip. Simon shuddered and made a soft, desperate sound, and Jace made it his mission to elicit more of those sounds, to drive Simon just as crazy as those sounds were driving him.

When they broke the kiss for the second time, it was prompted by a sharp whistle that Jace would have recognized anywhere as Izzy’s followed by a cheer of, “Yeah, get it, Simon!” from Clary.

Simon looked slightly embarrassed at just how carried away they’d managed to get in the middle of a party, but Jace just smirked and threw a wink at his sister and her girlfriend.

A quick look around showed that, despite Izzy and Clary’s very loud attention, most of the partygoers were too involved in their own celebrations to be paying much attention to Jace and Simon, although it also seemed like the rest of them had long since finished up their celebratory kisses. The only other people paying them any attention at all were Magnus and Alec, who were standing nearby.

Alec wore the look of long-suffering fondness he often wore around Jace. “Please don’t have sex in my living room,” he said when he caught Jace’s eye.

“We weren’t—” Simon spluttered. “We wouldn’t—”

“At least use the guest room like civilized people,” Magnus added. Much less fondly, Jace thought.

“Oh god,” Simon muttered as Magnus swept off to speak with other guests, Alec in tow. “I’m never going to live this down. Fray is going to be teasing me about this until the day I die. And I think your brother hates me now.”

“Alec doesn’t hate you,” Jace said. “You would know if Alec hated you; he is not subtle. I’m sure he considers this one-hundred percent my fault.”

“Okay, but Magnus definitely hates me.”

“Dude,” Jace said, squeezing Simon’s shoulder, “Magnus doesn’t hate you, either. He wouldn’t have offered us his guest room if he hated you.”

Simon gave him a flat look. “Pretty sure he didn’t actually intend for us to use the guest room. We’d have to have basically no shame to just ditch the party and run off to the guest room to have sex after Clary and Izzy drew so much attention to us making out like horny teenagers in public.”

“You’ve known me how long, and you still operate under the misapprehension that I’m capable of shame?” Jace teased.

Except. Except he was only half-teasing, because he would absolutely ditch this party to go have sex with Simon in the guest room if he thought Simon was even a little bit interested in that. Hell, he’d ditch the party to have sex with Simon in the fucking closet.

And he was pretty sure Simon knew it, because Simon was staring at him again, with that same intensity he had right before they’d kissed. Jace smirked and very deliberately ran a tongue over his lower lip.

“I hate you,” Simon said without heat before dragging Jace into a quick, filthy kiss. “Where’s the guest room?”

Jace didn’t answer, just grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the hallway that led to the guest suite.

It took them several minutes to actually make it into the guest room because Jace decided halfway there that he kind of desperately needed to be kissing Simon again. It was like a dam had broken, and now that he was allowed to kiss Simon, really kiss him, he couldn’t seem to stop. But that was okay, because Simon didn’t seem interested in stopping, either.

When they finally stumbled into the guest room, Jace found himself promptly pinned against the door, Simon’s body pressing against him in a long, hard line, a situation which Jace found himself more than okay with.

“This,” Simon muttered between kisses, “is probably a terrible idea.”

“Yeah,” Jace agreed, sliding one leg between Simon’s leg to press against the bulge in his jeans and trying to ignore the bitter twist in his gut. “You want to stop?”

“Fuck,” Simon panted, grinding against Jace’s leg. “Really no.” He slid his hands beneath Jace’s shirt, pushing it up in a clear indication he wanted it off. “Just making sure we’re both on the same page with regard to our mutual terrible decision making.”

“You know me,” Jace said, raising his arms obligingly and helping Simon tug his shirt over his head. “Making terrible decisions with pretty people is kind of my thing.”

Jace’s shirt fell to the floor, and Simon just sort of froze for a second before reaching out and sliding his hands up Jace’s chest almost reverently. “God,” he muttered, “you are just unfairly hot.” His hands stilled suddenly, and he met Jace’s eyes, brows furrowed. “You think I’m pretty?”

“Yes, dumbass,” Jace said, reaching up to cup Simon’s face. “Did the last ten minutes not clue you in?”

“I—”

Jace silenced whatever Simon was about to say with another kiss. With as much as he was feeling right now, kissing was safer than talking. He’d probably said too much already.

He flipped them around so he was pressing Simon into the door, breaking the kiss just long enough to say, “Oh, hey, I found an effective way to make you stop talking. Should have thought of this sooner.”

“Fuck you,” Simon mumbled against his mouth.

“Maybe later,” Jace told him, tugging at Simon’s belt. “Right now I just need to get my hands on you.”

“Yeah,” Simon agreed dazedly as Jace worked open his jeans. “Yeah, okay, that sounds really—” He broke off with an almost wounded noise as Jace reached inside his boxers and wrapped a hand around his cock.

Jace kissed him again, slow and deliberate just like the hand on Simon’s cock. Jace felt back on firmer ground, now. This, sex, was something he understood, something he was good at. Slick tongues and writhing bodies were far more straightforward—far less dangerous—than feelings.

For a few strokes, Simon seemed content to just take what Jace was giving him, but then he was kissing back with almost bruising intensity and fumbling open Jace’s pants to wrap a calloused hand around his dick, and it was everything.

Jace lost track of things at that point, lost in the feel of Simon’s deft fingers around his cock, of Simon thrusting into his hand, of Simon’s mouth on his own, of Simon. And then Simon was murmuring something unintelligible against Jace’s mouth as the movement of his hips became erratic and then he was shaking apart in Jace’s arms, coming all over his hand and abdomen, and Jace thought, as he followed Simon over the edge seconds later, it might have been the hottest thing he’d ever experienced.

“Holy shit,” Simon said after they’d both caught their breath. “That actually just happened.”

Jace let out a soft huff of laughter. “You noticed, huh?” He stepped back just enough that he could see Simon’s face and was dismayed at the wariness he found there.

“I guess,” Simon said, “I should probably get cleaned up and, like. Go?”

There was a pit forming in Jace’s stomach, and he hated it.

“Alternate plan,” he offered with far more assurance than he felt. “We both get cleaned up, and then we find out how nice the sheets are on Alec and Magnus’s guest bed. I was planning to sleep here tonight anyway.” Whatever this was, Jace wasn’t ready for it to end yet.

“Oh,” Simon said on a heavy exhale. “That’s—” He swallowed hard. “I don’t want to, like, intrude, or—”

He broke off as Jace took his hand, the one covered in come, and slowly and deliberately began licking it clean, eyes never leaving Simon’s. Simon watched, entranced, barely breathing.

When Jace was satisfied he’d gotten every drop, he smirked up through lowered lashes. “Simon. Come to bed with me?”

“Yeah,” Simon said breathily. “Okay. But if Magnus decides he hates me, I’m blaming you.”

“Do me a favor, and don’t talk about my future brother-in-law when I just had my hand down your pants.” Then, because it had proven such an effective way to get Simon to stop talking in the past (and definitely not for any other reason), Jace kissed him.

By the time they’d finished cleaning up and tumbled into bed, Jace was feeling loose and sleepy. He abandoned his previous, half-formed plans of getting Simon’s dick in his mouth in favor of lazy, unhurried kisses and caresses that were maybe too gentle for what this was. There would be time for blowjobs later. In the morning, maybe. After sleep, in any case.

Jace wasn’t aware of when kissing Simon in reality bled into dream.

~~~

Jace wasn’t hungover when he woke. He kind of wished he were hungover, because that would provide an explanation for why the world didn’t seem quite set straight and he felt vaguely nauseous that had nothing to do with the cold, empty bed he woke up in.

It was stupid to be upset Simon hadn’t stayed. Jace knew it was stupid. He’d known going in that it wouldn’t be more than a one-time thing. Simon had flat-out said it was a mistake. But there was a part of him that had thought—had hoped—maybe Simon would change his mind.

Telling himself he was just upset over having lost the chance for that morning blowjob he’d been planning, Jace forced himself out of bed and into the shower. The shower in Alec and Magnus’s guest suite was kind of amazing, with one of those rainfall shower heads and hot water that just never seemed to end. It helped ease some of Jace’s tension, and by the time he finished showering and pulled on some clothes, he was feeling almost back to his normal self.

Alec greeted him as he stepped out into the living room, already having claimed a spot on the couch. The room was back to its normal configuration, couch and loveseat facing a large, flat-screen TV. The coffee table held a giant plate of nachos, a bag of dry roast peanuts, and a disgustingly large tub of Red Vines.

“Welcome to the land of the living,” Alec said. “I was starting to worry you were going to miss the opening kick.”

“Please,” Jace said, flopping down onto the other couch. “I haven’t missed the opening kick of a bowl game since I was eleven, and that was only because you gave me the stomach flu.”

“Don’t blame me for that!” Alec protested. “Izzy was the one who started barfing first. If anyone brought that into the house, it was her.”

“Izzy didn’t give me big, sad puppy dog eyes and ask me to hold her hair back.”

“Hey,” Alec said, “we don’t talk about the hair, okay? Everyone makes at least one big mistake in their life, and mine was my seventh grade Zac Efron hair.”

“It’s my duty as your brother to make sure you never forget any terrible fashion choices you’ve made,” Jace said around a mouthful of nachos.

“You know that means it’s my duty as a brother to do the same for you, right?”

“You can try,” Jace said breezily, “but you and I both know I’ve never made any terrible fashion choices.”

“Two words for you,” Alec said. “Parachute pants.”

“They were on trend at the time,” Jace insisted. “My parachute pants were cool.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Jace. Parachute pants were never cool.”

Jace decided to be mature about the whole thing and chucked a Red Vine at Alec’s head. Alec ducked, then picked up the Red Vine from where it had landed on his shoulder and popped it into his mouth.

“That’s disgusting,” Jace told him. “I can’t believe you still eat those things.”

“It’s tradition,” Alec said with a shrug. “I only eat them on New Year’s. Besides, I like the sweetened wax aesthetic they’ve got going on.”

“Disgusting,” Jace repeated, pulling a Red Vine out of the tub for himself.

“Hey,” Alec said, suddenly serious, “you didn’t have to stay, you know.” When Jace just stared at him in confusion, he added, “You could have gone to Simon’s family thing with him. I wouldn’t have minded.”

Jace scoffed. “Of course I couldn’t.” He hadn’t even known Simon had a family thing today. “It’s tradition, like the Red Vines. Just because I’m dating someone and you’re about to get married doesn’t mean I’m going to flake on our New Year’s tradition.”

“Well, you should probably be prepared to make it up to your man when you get home,” Alec said. “He looked kinda upset when he left this morning.”

Jace’s earlier nausea returned suddenly, with full force. “He did?”

“Oh, don’t look like that. I’m sure he’ll get over it. The guy clearly adores you.”

“Yeah,” Jace said, pasting on a smile. “He does.”

“And I am glad you’re here,” Alec added. “I love Magnus, but he doesn’t understand football.”

“Not a fan, huh?”

“Worse,” Alec groaned. “He’s a Big Red fan. And he always gets so smug when they win.”

“And you’re sure you want to marry this guy?” Jace joked.

“Yeah,” Alec said, his whole demeanor softening. “I really am.”

“Which is a good thing, because our catering deposit is definitely non-refundable,” Magnus interjected, bringing a wings-laded plate to join the rest of the snacks on the table. “Besides, if I can get over the fact that you actually attended Columbia, you can deal with my allegiance to the clearly superior Ivy League team.”

“I’m not sure you can say you’re over it when you still say ‘Columbia’ like it’s a dirty word,” Alec observed.

“Nonsense,” Magnus said, settling onto the couch next to his fiancé. “I say dirty words with a great deal more relish. That was, in fact, an insult to dirty words.”

“You’re lucky I love you,” Alec said, rolling his eyes.

“That, we can agree on.”

“If you two are done being sappy,” Jace said, grabbing the TV remote and unmuting the pre-game commentary, “there’s about to be a game on.”

They were not, it turned out, done being sappy, but their cheerful bickering was almost enough to distract Jace from having woken up alone. Almost.

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories by Robin McKinley. Not bad for a fantasy short story compilation, but as I read the stories I felt like too many questions went unanswered, or the answer wasn’t clear enough. I know there’s an art to not answering questions and making that intentional, but I didn’t pick up the feeling of the author being intentionally vague. It was still fun to read. I’m really just in a fantasy binge mode.

Fire and Water by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson. Both books are collections of short stories based on elemental spirits. Eh…. they were okay. Didn’t like them as much as the others.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Hard book to get through. There’s so much monologuing and it doesn’t all make sense to me. People seem to be talking trite nonsense half the time and then being unbearably deep the other half. It is an interesting look at morbid aspects of the human heart. Might be that it’s a bit over my head to appreciate fully, but I’d like to read at least one more by this author. Maybe The Brothers Karamazov.

Movies

Hello Dolly. (mini liveblogging of reactions) There are way too many musicals I have not gotten around to seeing, simply because I have old favorites and sometimes it’s hard to get out of a rut. I am two minutes and four seconds in and CLEARLY not watching this before now was a failure on my part. I am in awe of the opening sequence that is just a series of legs and feet, but they are all moving to the music and they tell a dozen different stories that are very easy to understand even without seeing anybody’s top half, this is EXCELLENT framing and shooting and I feel like I’m in for a real treat. (In the middle of “It takes a woman”) I cannot tell you how much I missed over the top satire. This very much has the feel of My Fair Lady’s “With A Little Bit of Luck”. But then it’s taken up by the protagonist with an entirely different tone and WHAM the feels hit. I’m not enjoying all of the musical numbers, but there’s this one bit in the middle of the song about dancing where Dolly accepts a dance invitation from the grizzled old groundskeeper, and seeing this high-class looking widow take his invitation without a shred of irony, and to see him take her dancing in such a way that shows he’s clearly done this for many years and may be a widower himself, it’s just this strange sweet kind of moment that’s meant to be savored. And then again WHAM this high class widow, whenever she has a musical number in private, just NAILS you with her song and performance and all her emotions. Barbara Streisand was incredible, absolutely incredible. A lot of the other characters don’t really feel real, they feel like Musical People. She slips on the clothes of a Musical Person but then she drops the facade and shows you how hard all this is for her and it’s incredible. The movie is worth it just to watch HER. Even if it is very stressful watching her manipulate conversations and move people around like pawns. I have to say I do not, for the life of me, understand why she wants a relationship with Mr. Horace Vandergelder, or why he agrees. They look like they’ll make each other miserable for life.

Honest Thief. I went in with low “dumb robbery movie” expectations and was pleasantly surprised. I think I was most surprised by the fantastic chemistry of the couple and pretty much everyone’s acting. Aside from the acting it wasn’t anything remarkable, but everyone took it up to the next level. Nice flick. Also it tickles me to hear the voice of Aslan talking about how he carried out perfect robberies.

Nezha. Holy. Cow. Okay it doesn’t make total sense to me, not all the way through, but I chalk that up to missing cultural/lit knowledge and translation issues. Setting that aside, animation was gorgeous. Story was fun, but also compelling. There was some gross-out humor, but I’ve seen worse. And the climactic fight scene? Man. It went SO LONG but I didn’t even care. Some fight scenes drag on, but this one could have been twice as long and I would have been fine with that. The creators of this film really went all out with creativity and variety all throughout the film. I don’t totally understand the ending but I would love to see more (as the credits scenes hinted that there might be more). Oh wait, there is more and it’s called Jiang Ziya…

The Mitchells vs The Machines. This movie was so full of heart and also so full of complete over the top dumb goofiness. It kind of reminded me of Despicable Me in that way. Definitely brought a smile to my face.

Shows

Star vs the Forces of Evil. I had to re-watch through Eclipsa’s and Meteora’s arc because I’d seen that much before, but too long ago to remember. I re-watched it, then settled in for the last season which I hadn’t seen before. Watching through the new content and… I’m… disappointed. Story seems to be all over the place. The conflict is so forced it hurts. People are flatter than flat. And they’re all idiots. I feel like the show is trying to reach for a moral and don’t even know what that is from episode to episode. Wow. And as I go into the final arc, it just gets worse. Ham-fisted with zero focus and twists out of the bloody blue that make zero sense. You know… this series was hard to get into because characters were annoying and gross at the start. But then it added depth to each character and made me care about them as it went along. But everything after Eclipsa became queen has flushed all of that down the toilet as fast as possible and it is maddening to see that story-trust wasted. Nothing means anything in this story, that’s the conclusion I end up coming to. Nothing means anything and there is nobody worth caring about. I am radically disappointed. And kind of angry at the sheer number of levels at which the storytelling became terrible.

Games

Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle another controller-based game after getting so accustomed to Breath of the Wild (I’m on a second re-play of that, I play it whenever my brain is on the fritz so badly that I can’t do anything else). But it turned out to be pretty easy to get into. The hardest part is getting stuck about how to solve certain puzzles and trying to figure it out over and over. Sometimes I figure it out, but sometimes I need to look up a hint online. I’m almost at the end of the game and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. I want to play more Zelda games...

Katamari Re-Roll. This is so stupid. I mean, SO VERY STUPID. And so much fun. You start off as this tiny little person just rolling a ball around and you can pick up anything smaller than you (thumbtacks, coins, caramel candies) and as your ball gets bigger, your options open up (mice, carrots, eggs, crabs) and open up (shoes, toys, cats, dogs) and open up (humans, food carts, cows). I hear you get to roll up houses at some point. I’m looking forward to that. For now I’m at the level where I’m rolling up a lot of people. They’re all wiggly and shrieky. It’s funny. There’s a time limit on each level, and you have to reach a certain size by the time limit, which is the only really annoying thing about it. But I’m still having a lot of fun.

World of Warcraft: Classic. Of all the games I never thought I’d play, this is probably toward the top of the list. I don’t like the concept of grinding. I like story. But after playing Breath of the Wild, I also found out that I love exploration/open world type games. My husband helped me build a character and we ran around doing quests and levelling up. Now I’m a level 17 Dwarf hunter who does skinning and leatherworking. I have a pet wolf named Chompers. I’m having a lot of fun. Probably not obsessive levels of fun, but enough fun that I’m happy to sink a couple several-hour sessions a week into playing.

[heartslogos]

no star in isolation [1]

i'm in genshin impact hell send help. also. as you know i'm live on slice of life genfic. so. *hands*

Diluc meets Aether’s gaze head on, unwilling to bend or cave to this. Not even with Paimon pouting and stomping her feet mid-air right next to him.

“And how old are you?” He asks.

“Old enough to drink!”

“And that number is?”

The Traveler hesitates and Diluc takes that opportunity to slide the cup of juice across the bar counter again.

“Until you know that number and say it in a way I can believe, it’s juice.” He says. “Angel’s Share is a reputable establishment. We don’t serve alcohol to minors. I don’t need more knights coming in here.”

“I’m not a minor,” Aether insists. “And didn’t you give some bottles to Diona?”

Diluc can't help raising his eyebrows, leaning back on his heels and crossing his arms.

“Diona,” he replies slowly, “That’s your counter argument? Diona? Did you see her drinking from any of those bottles? That was a delivery. She may work for a rival establishment, but they still have to carry Dawn winery’s vintages to some degree. Drink your juice.”

“Diluc is so stingy!” Paimon cries out. “Come on, Diluc. Aren’t you Paimon and Aether’s friend? Just one glass?”

Diluc pulls another glass out from underneath the bar and pointedly fills it with juice.

“Sure,” he says. “One glass. Enjoy.”

He turns his back on Paimon’s protests as he goes to take another order from one of the customers who had been patiently waiting while watching the exchange.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Aether quickly push up on the counter, lean forward and reach under the counter to rummage around and pull out one of the bottles he’s seen Diluc put there before.

Diluc gives credit where credit is due. Aether moves fast and quietly. And, for once, Paimon is appropriately subtle.

If Diluc hadn’t been expecting it, he might not have seen it. But Diluc’s had plenty of patrons think they can swindle him at his own bar right under his nose, before. And Aether is far from the first brat to think they’re smooth enough to sneak a drink from Angel’s Share and brag about it later.

Still. Honorary Knight, blessed by Barbatos himself, or not, no one gets away with that kind of thing on Diluc’s watch.

He’s about to turn to Aether to take the bottle back and maybe give him some kind of lecture about responsible business dealings and how Aether should know at least a little about it since he’s spent several weeks in Liyue, when blue catches his eye.

Far against the back wall Kaeya rests his chin on his hand and raises an eyebrow at him. Diluc’s teeth momentarily grind as Kaeya flips that stupid coin of his up in the air. Diluc recognizes that look.

There’s a faint twist to the corner of Kaeya’s mouth that turns the ever present half-smirk into something a little more genuine.

Kaeya would argue that all of his smirks and smiles are genuine. Diluc would argue that Kaeya’s sincerity operates on a sliding scale, capable of sliding straight off a cliff into complete falsehood.

But this one is sincere.

Against his will, Diluc is taken back. He’s taken back into the shadowed and unused hallways and corridors of his memory.

He’s young, younger than Aether looks to be now, and so is Kaeya. The exact number doesn’t matter because this is a memory that repeats. This is a moment that’s happened so often it’s become a template for memories identical to this one except for maybe one or two minor details.

It’s him and Kaeya, when they were brothers in both name and daylight. Kaeya, barely able to suppress his giggles and Diluc no better. Kaeya is flushed rosy with laughter, and Diluc is sure he’s no better. Probably worse off. He’s always been terrible at controlling his expressions. Or at the very least, worse than Kaeya.

Both of them are high on success because they’ve snagged a bottle of wine from the kitchens while everyone is distracted preparing for the big feast father is hosting for some visiting friends of his.

In the commotion of preparing for the event — the guests, the table settings, making sure the guest wing is adequately prepared, ensuring that the road up to the house is cleared and secured — no one was paying attention to two little boys.

Two little boys and a stolen bottle, giggling and hiding away in one of the little used rooms of the manor. They never even finished any of those bottles. Between the laughter and the fact that they were both so young — unable to really appreciate the taste or the feeling that comes with it — they always ended up having to figure out a way to sneak the bottle back. Usually they’d add a bit of water to make it look full and slip it back into the store room, or they’d swap it with one in their father’s study.

In retrospect, Diluc thinks that their father knew about the fate of those missing bottles, but never said anything about it. He’ll never know, now.

But in the present, Diluc knows that Kaeya knows. They’re both thinking of the same thing. Remembering the same laughter.

And when Diluc meets Kaeya’s eye he knows that he can’t turn around and face Aether and take that bottle back. If he tries to Kaeya is definitely going to comment on Diluc’s hypocrisy. Though he shouldn’t. But to tease Diluc he would definitely bend the laws and duties of being a knight of Mondstat. For a moment, at least.

Enough to make Diluc want to throw both him and the Traveler out of Angel’s Share for the night. Enough to make Diluc have to fight down a flush of embarrassment or anger — a fight Diluc knows he’d probably lose. As he does in most fights against his own feelings.

He feels his shoulders almost slump, but he pulls himself together to focus on making the next drink order.

He can’t hear Kaeya from here, but he can imagine his soft snicker as Diluc ignores the Traveler behind him.

Diluc supposes that there’s some humor to allowing the situation to unfold. After all. Diluc is going to turn around at some point. And Aether has to make that bottle go somewhere.

And knowing Aether, he’s going to want to figure out how to pay for his stolen bottle, which would require him to admit to stealing the bottle. It’s short sighted on the Traveler’s part, but maybe this will teach him a lesson.

Both Paimon and the Traveler catch onto this flaw in their little plan soon after Diluc does.

Diluc works on mixing a few more drinks and directing a few more orders of food to the back kitchen staff. But in the peripheral of his vision he can see Paimon start to flutter around. Her attempts at whispering are admirable, considering how poorly she normally does at subtlety and being discrete. They’re panicking, now.

He’s tempted to take pity on them and admit he already saw them. Maybe he’s growing soft.

Something flies towards his face and Diluc reacts on instinct to catch it.

He glares as Kaeya leans on the bar, squeezing Kaeya’s thrown coin in the palm of his hand.

“What.”

“I’m paying,” Kaeya replies, “As you do in a business establishment. For the drinks and the food.”

There was no food. Tonight Kaeya had been in the sort of mood where he wanted to sit in a corner with his cups and observe. Not unusual for him.

Kaeya pointedly flicks his eye towards Aether and Paimon before meeting Diluc’s gaze again.

Diluc sighs and slips the coin into the lock box underneath the counter.

“Fine. If you’re done get out.” Diluc jerks his head towards the two panicking thieves. Kaeya nods his understanding, smile flickering against towards familiar and sincere.

“Soft heart,” Kaeya mutters, eye crinkling a little at the corners, before rapping the the polished wood of the bar with his knuckles and straightening up and calling out to the pair.

“Oy, isn’t it bedtime for you two yet? I know we’re a city of free spirits but surely there’s some kind of curfew for the little ones, some sort of responsible bed time hour,” Kaeya says, looping an arm around Aether’s shoulders and bodily pulling him towards the door. “Come on. Time for all the good little kids of Mondstat to go to bed. You know if you stay up all night in the Angel’s Share the rest of us adults won’t be able to let loose without a guilty conscience. That’s terrible business for a bar.”

Diluc watches Aether quickly attempt to hide the bottle as he turns to watch them leave. Aether and Paimon both shoot wide eyed looks at Kaeya and Diluc, clearly distressed by their current predicament. It really doesn’t help their case in trying to convince people, Diluc, that they’re not a kid.

Kaeya calls out over his shoulder. “Put their bill on my tab, Master Diluc. It’s the least I can do for our great and noble honorary knight.”

“You don’t have a tab,” Diluc yells back as Kaeya whisks the two out the door and into the night, where they’re someone else’s problem.

[otheliame]

28?

I hope you guys don’t mind I combine your ask into something spicy? :) For this ask meme 

This takes place after they deal with Kuro but before they destroy the Castle (pretend it makes canonical sense)

...

Lance has had it up to here. 

It’s one thing for Keith to constantly run into danger without any clear exit plan, or backup, or fuck all else, but it’s quite another thing for him to do this. In fairness, he’s always been this way, even before he left for the Blades, Lance knows it. He doesn’t think he can feasibly change how Keith operates as a person, but he sure as hell isn’t gonna let this fucking slide, either. 

Lance would have gotten to him first, well before the rest of the team in fact, if he hadn’t gotten sidetracked by those Galra. It didn’t take long for him to get there, but by the time he finally arrived Keith was already surrounded by the others. He didn’t even look in Lance’s direction, too caught up in the battle plans being made for their next step, like he didn’t almost fucking-… he almost- 

So, with some serious effort, Lance bit his lip and bided his time. He waited for what felt like hours, waited for his opening, waited for Keith to excuse himself, and as soon as he did he made some bullshit excuse and went after him, steam practically hissing from Lance’s ears. He’d had enough of this selfless bastard acting like he wasn’t important enough to be kept safe, like he isn’t Lance’s whole fucking world. He’d lost him too many times to count, but after this stunt? Enough is enough. 

He manages to catch up to him just outside the containment chamber. He bangs open the door to announce his presence and right as Keith turns towards him with those stupid wide eyes, like he’s shocked to see him there, he slams his palms against the wall by his head and shouts, “What the hell was that?” 

Keith had gotten taller since his trip to the Quantum Abyss, and Lance doesn’t care for that shit at all, especially in this instance. Before, in this position, he’d have several inches over the other to look down at him with the true fire of his gaze, but now, Keith’s the one with the few inches on Lance… but he doesn’t let that deter him. He’s got shit to say.

Keith’s brows furrow and his jaw sets as he glares back at Lance indignantly. “What are you talking about?” 

Just like old times, Keith and Lance, neck and neck, at each other’s throats. 

Lance throws an arm dramatically to the side, gesturing back from hence they came, “That stunt you pulled, splitting up Voltron to go after Shiro!”

Keith sighs dismissively, making Lance bristle like an attack dog as he attempts to brush the raging Red Paladin aside, “Now is not the time, Lance-” 

Lance shoves him in the chest, hard, so hard that Keith stumbles back and slams into the far wall with a surprised gasp as he stares at him with utter shock from the blow. Lance closes the distance and grabs the front of his armor, pointing a finger in his face and shouting so maybe the fucking point might get into his stupid fucking skull- “You can’t keep doing that, man! That might be how you guys do things with the Blade, but not while you’re with us! Not while you’re our leader!” 

Keith grits his jaw and grabs Lance’s wrists in an attempt to get him to let go, “I didn’t choose to be-” 

“That’s right! The Black Lion did. We did.” Lance’s fingers dig into the material of his space suit to keep them from trembling, “I did.” 

Keith’s gaze meets Lance’s and there’s an intense moment of silence held suspended between them like a coin balanced on a wire. Finally he presses forward and snarls, glaring at Lance with antagonistic daggers, “What’s your problem?” 

Lance’s hands stall only for a brief pause as his brain stammers itself into motion. “I’m fucking pissed at you, dude! Because… because you left us.” He can’t keep the betrayal out of his voice, the hurt, the undying rage. “You keep leaving us like you think you’re… replaceable, or something, but you’re just not, Keith!” Keith grits his teeth and shifts again to break out of his grasp and in response Lance smacks his armor back against the wall, rattling him as he spits out, “You almost died! You could have died! I can’t fucking take that from you, I can’t let you just-… just-!” 

He has to stop. His words begin to warble and he can feel he’s slipping someplace dangerous, his voice cracks as he grinds his rant to a halt. 

Keith isn’t having it, however. He presses against Lance’s hold on him with an exasperated sigh, “What do you care?”

Lance sparks like a firecracker, his fingers hurt from their eternal hold, “What do you mean why- Because I care about you, you fucking asshole! I’ve always cared about you, but no, you’re too fucking-… I don’t know, emo, broody, whatever to think about how your actions affect people around you. How they affect me.” Lance’s voice cracks but this time he doesn’t find it in him to care anymore. He’s shaking with self-righteous fury, he can barely keep himself from trying to throttle Keith’s stubborn ass where he stands pinned against the wall, so he forges on with burning flame spitting from between his teeth, “I can’t do this without you! When you left for the Blades, it was horrible, not knowing if you were dead or alive- You never called, you never sent word, not even a, a- una jodida tarjeta de felicitación! The only way we knew if you were alright is when you would join those calls with Kolivan! But then you just had to sign up for that fucking mission and no one knew what happened to you and I thought you were dead-”

Keith’s eyes are wide as Lance goes off like a loose cannon, with a soft voice he tries to interrupt him, “Lance-”

“But then you just fucking show back up out of nowhere, like you weren’t missing for a month, taller and all grizzly with an Altean, a dog, and your mom and act like that’s not important enough to talk about because it’s not the mission-”

“-Lance-!” 

“-and then you run off to chase after Shiro, alone, like you always insist on doing and I-I just can’t fucking take that from you, Keith! I can’t fucking take it, you’re gonna be the death of me! I’m constantly worrying about whether or not you’re even alive and you don’t even care that I’m going to drive myself fucking crazy because I fucking care about you, you pequeña mierda-”  

Suddenly Keith manages to wrest himself from Lance’s grasp while he was distracted and grabs his wrists, before Lance can even take a breath between his biting words Keith whirls on him and shoves him against the wall so hard his armor audibly slams, making the room tremor with the rattling sound. Keith gets close to him, astoundingly close and Lance’s voice finally dies in his throat, tapering off and trembling as his red-rimmed eyes flicker across his features, and then to the side, to his wrists pinned on either side of his head where Keith holds them. 

Finally Keith growls, his breath hot against the exposed length of his neck, “Shut up.” 

Before Lance can open his mouth to argue, to tell him to fuck off, to fucking listen to him for once, warm lips capture his and the planets seem to snap into alignment with the violence of an earthquake. His breath catches as Keith presses closer to Lance, but otherwise he doesn’t move, his breath is baited like he’s waiting for the ceiling to fall in on them. 

Something in Lance surges, white-hot and burning, and this time when he grabs the front of Keith’s armor he yanks him forward with desperation, choking on the remains of his words as fresh lava bubbles on his lips and into Keith’s. 

The intensity in the atmosphere lights like a match. Keith’s breath catches and he presses Lance’s wrists harder against the wall, his lips parting in the exchange of hot air between them as he nips mercilessly on Lance’s lips. Lance gasps immediately, his skin flashing with pulses of heat and seized with need his hands rip from Keith’s instead to drag into his stupid mullet, Lances weaves his fingers through the abyssal hair he’s wanted to bunch his fists into for years and now he’s following that desire as far as Keith would let him, until it breaks him, dios, he wanted it to break him. When he tugs on the onyx locks Keith smirks, the proximity sweltering and smothering him in his armor as Keith responds in kind, his hands moving now to Lance’s sides, beneath the breastplate of his Voltron armor. Keith’s teeth mark and notch Lance’s bottom lip, Lance swears it’s about to bleed from the rigor, he disengages from Keith only long enough to pant, to complain or to plea for more he isn’t sure, “You’re so fucking rough-” 

“I said shut up.” Keith snarls in response, sealing his mouth back over Lance’s and drowning his voice by the skin of his teeth. For once Lance complies, balling his unyielding fists into Keith’s hair to pull him against him harder as his eyes roll into the back of his skull and Keith matches him in kind, his hands dig into his sides and tug him against his chest until they’re flushed, no space for anything but their pants and wants. Lance feels Keith’s hands invasively drag downward as his lips move in the same direction, suddenly with Lance’s mouth free from the abuse to gasp instead when Keith’s latch onto Lance’s pulse. He bites with harsh intent to bruise him, mark him, and Lance has never felt so fucking alive. Lance yields beneath him with wordless, gasping pleas, when Keith tugs on his thigh he obediently wraps his leg around his waist, his head falling back and resting against the wall as Keith sucks out his soul through his trachea like a vampire. 

His face bursts with roses when Keith’s lips travel to his jaw, demanding more skin and more of Lance as his hands travel up and down his sides invasively, full of nothing but desperation to the point that Lance gasps his name against his better judgement, “K-Keith-!”

Keith’s hands move then, up his chest, over each notch in the white, pearly surface of the armor before they reach his throat, his jaw, where they cup him with ferocity but undeniable gentleness, it makes Lance quake. When he opens his eyes he meets Keith’s and for a moment his lips fall open to press back in but something stops him, perhaps the cautious light in Keith’s, or the hesitancy of his thumb brushing against his chin. Finally, when Keith speaks, it’s soft, a complete and polar opposite to the rash and abrasive grabs and touches from before, “I didn’t… I didn’t know that’s how you felt.” 

Lance can’t help it. The rage was almost forcibly ripped from him, leaving him nothing but vaguely giddy and breathless like a broken vessel, he lets out a harsh, untested chuckle, “Was that revelation before or after you started sucking on my throat?” 

Keith sighs, that annoyance flickering back across his face for a brief moment before he touches his nose to Lance’s. It’s soft, gentle, yielding, and Lance leans into it without question, feeling strangely light and elated like a balloon. Keith’s voice shrinks as if from itself as he murmurs softly, inches from Lance’s aching lips, “Did you mean it?” 

Lance doesn’t know specifically what he’s referring to, but his response is the same regardless. “Every word.” 

Keith’s eyes slowly slip shut, his breath deepening as he catches it in recompense to the amount that Lance stole. He knows that there’s nothing more he can say. And frankly… he’s already said enough. Lance pulls his attention back to him with a demanding hum, pulling his hand on Keith’s chin to make the violets in his eyes bloom for him, “Now you gonna kiss me again or what?” 

Keith raises an eyebrow at him in surprise, his fingertips drag through the fringes of Lance’s hair as he murmurs, “This isn’t too fast?” 

Lance snorts and shakes his head with another dry laugh, “No. For me, you’re about a year overdue.” He adds on with another laugh as he rests his forearms on Keith’s shoulders, “I would’ve yelled at you a lot sooner if this is what would’ve happened.”

Keith looks at him for a long time, the cautious light extinguished and giving away to a wanting darkness that makes Lance wanna see the moonlight within. Slowly, Keith smirks, he grows closer as he mutters in a husky undertone, “Funny… it’s been about three years for me.” 

Lance groans, letting his head fall back against the wall as he snaps, “Seriously? Still trying to one up me? I thought you were supposed to have matured or something while you were-”

“For fuck’s- shut up.” Keith growls again with that same domineering tone that’s beginning to make Lance’s knees weak, Keith once again seizing his wrists again to pin against the wall. As Lance takes a small breath Keith’s teeth brush his Adam’s apple as he snarls, “I liked you gasping my name a lot more.”

Such a gasp escapes from Lance as the space between them vanishes, leaving nothing in the air but distant, curling smoke and conjoined voices, aching for each other.  

[ruthoakenshield]

Guy’s Love

By Ruth_Oakenshield

Warning: for 18+age readers only!!!  Mentions of character deaths. suicide, fluff and smut.

It had been a month since Guy returned to Nottingham with a very irate Sheriff Vasey after their trip to the Holy Land.

Guy had been coming to see you more often now and you always enjoyed his company. Today was no exception. He showed up on his black steed and asked if you’d join him for lunch. You happily agreed and he helped you up onto his horse and the two of you rode into Nottingham and ate at the local tavern.

The two of you talked while you ate. He asked how your gardens were doing and you said they are doing well. He told you about his problems with Robin Hood and how Robin tried to kill him in Loxley.

You gasped at hearing that. “Why would he do that Guy, you’ve never mentioned him trying to kill you outright before?” Guy just shrugged.

“I’m worried about you, y/n, would you come join me in the castle where I could protect you from Robin Hood and his outlaws better?” He asked. You sighed. “Guy, who will tend my gardens and take care of my home?” You asked.

“I will have a few of my servants take care of them for you.” Guy promised. “Please, y/n, I would feel a whole lot better if you agreed to stay with me there. I will keep you safe, I promise.” Guy told you.

You sighed. “Very well, Guy, but I will need to go home and pack a few things.” You tell him. He nods and stands. He tosses coin on the table to pay for your meal and then he takes your hand and ushers you out to his horse.

He takes you back to your home just a 1/4 mile outside of Nottingham‘a walls and lets you pack your things. Then you lock up and the two of you head back to the castle.

Guy shows you to your room and introduces you to your maid. He tells you, “Do not so wandering around alone. Always take a maid or a guard with you. If anyone bothers you, tell them you are here as my guest and they should leave you alone.”

You nod and he turns to leave, then pauses and asks, “May I join you for supper tonight?” You smile and reply, “Of course, Guy, you are always welcome to join me. Whenever you like.” He grins and says, “I will see you for supper then.” And he turns to leave.

Your maid helps you unpack and get settled in. Then she takes you on a tour of the castle.

Guy joins you for supper and the two of you talk about your afternoon. After supper he takes you for a walk and asks you if you would consider letting him court you. He tells you how much your friendship has meant to him and especially now that Marian is gone.

“But Guy, you’ve always had a thing for Marian, where is she? Why aren’t the two of you together?” You ask.

Guy cringes. “She did not love me, y/n, she lied to me and played me so she could feed information to Robin Hood. She died in the Holy Land for her treason after planning to marry Robin Hood there.” He says sadly.

“Oh.” You reply. “Well if you are serious in courting me, Guy, then I will be happy to be yours. I have always liked you and cared about you. I missed you a lot when you left after your mother died. I was happy to see you had returned.”

Guy grinned and asked, “May I kiss you, y/n?” You blushed and nodded. He stopped walking, took you gently in his arms and kissed you. His soft lips kissed your hesitantly at first, but when you returned the kiss, he deepened it and parted his lips, his tongue caressing your lips asking for more. You parted your lips and his tongue explored your mouth as he deepens the kiss further.

You both moaned at the pleasure the kiss gave you both and as you pulled back for air, he began kissing and nuzzling your neck. His large, warm hands began to roam across your back as he pulled you close.

He held you for a few minutes and enjoyed feeling you against his hard body and he enjoyed the smell of your long, soft hair. It reminded him of fresh air and strawberries and sunshine.

Eventually he walked you back to your room. He kissed you sweetly and wished you a good night. Then left you to get ready for bed.

The next night he joined you for supper in your chambers and the two of you talked about your day. You had gone with your maid to the markets and had fun shopping. After supper he asked if you’d let him show you how much he loved you and how much you meant to him.

You blushed and nodded. He stood and took you in his arms and began to kiss you. He kissed your lips with such fervor and passion it made you weak in the knees.

He slowly backed you towards your bed as he kissed your lips, neck, shoulders and caressed your body. He paused to remove his sheathed sword and laid his daggers on the nightstand. Then he began to remove his clothing and yours.

Once you were both bare, he lowered you onto your bed and began to worship your body with kisses, love nips, his tongue tracing wet patterns on your body and his hands caressing every inch of you he could.

Your body tingled with sensations his ministrations were causing. You became lost to all but him and his body. That night he made sensuous love to you and worshipped your body, joining with you as he filled you with his member and his seed over and over long into the night. He reveled in your moans and hearing his name on your lips, the feel of your hands in his hair and the feel of your nails down his back.

The next morning he woke you with a kiss and a promise of more later after he joins you for supper.

Every night for the next few months he would join you for supper then either sit in your chambers talking and making out with you or he would take you to bed and spend all night making love to you slowly or hot and hard depending on both yours and his moods. He was always careful to never hurt you and was always kissing and pleasuring you in some way.

One night though, he came to join you for supper as usual. Only this night he was withdrawn and quiet. He constantly was holding your hand or touching your leg or arm. When you asked him if he was ok, he just replied he had a rough day and Vasey had said something that upset him. He seemed to need the physical contact to reassurance that you loved him.

You pulled him over to your bed and sat down with him. You pulled him into a hug and laid down. He placed his head on your chest and the two of you cuddled for a while as you ran your fingers through his hair.

After a while he sat up and removed his weapons as usual, placing them on the nightstand. Then he pulled you up and helped you out of your clothing. He sat back down on the bed and pulled you to stand in front of him. He nuzzles your breasts and sucked on them making heat pool in your belly and drawing moans of pleasure from your lips. You leaned forward and pushed him down onto the bed.

You began to kiss your way down his body and when you came to his hard member, you took it in your mouth and began to suck and lick and draw deep rumbling moans from him.

When he was close to coming, he pulls you off of him and pulls you up onto the bed and makes passionate love to you, over and over filling you full to overflowing with his hot cum. Finally you both fell into a restful sleep curled against each other as your limbs were entwined.

Several hours later near midnight, you awoke to find Guy standing stark naked by the small window looking out at the stars. He looked sad and lost in thought, arms crossed across his chest.

Guy stood there, thinking about Vasey’s threat to hurt you when he ordered Guy to do something earlier in the day, and Guy had finally refused. Vasey told him if he didn’t do what he was told to, that Vasey would make it clear, he would not allow Guy to continue to enjoy your presence.

Guy was lost in his thoughts, realizing he had unwillingly put you in danger. Guy knew Vasey would use Guy’ relationship with you as leverage to get Guy to do anything Vasey wanted.

Guy didn’t hear you get up and come up behind him. You wrapped your arms around his waist and pressed your warm body against his chilly skin. He startled, then groaned as he felt your hands caress his belly and slide down to his member and you started to stroke him.

“Come to bed, my Love. Why are you standing by the window? It’s late, and cold. Come...or you catch your death from a cold!” you said to him as he turned in your arms.

He let you drag him back to bed and he sat down on the edge of it. He pulled you onto his lap and you kissed him sweetly and passionately as you began to grind against his erection.

Guy let out a long, low groan and held you tight. He nuzzled your neck telling you he loved you so much. After a few minutes, you lifted up enough to slowly impale yourself on his member and then you wrapped your legs around his waist and peppered his body with kisses and began to rock with his body back and forth. He groaned again and tucked your head against his chest and held it there with his cheek as he lowered his head to yours.

He murmured into your ear how much he loved you and how much your love and friendship has meant to him. “Stay with me always, my Love. Never leave me alone in this world, no matter what happens.” He begged. You promised him you would always be with him.

He caressed your back with one of his hands and then used it to hold you close as he began to thrust harder into you. Moaning and grunting, he grabbed your hips with one hand and held you tight to him. As he felt you get closer to your climax he heard you say, “ I love you Guy, I always have and always will.”

He squeezed you and held you so tight as you cried out as you came and he plunged his jeweled dagger into your back, piercing your heart.

He wept bitterly as he held you and came inside you one last time, filling you with his seed.

The last thing you heard him say before your eyes closed and you took your last breath was, “ I’m sorry, my love, this was the only way I could keep you safe from Vasey. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t protect you any more, not here. I love you, y/n, now you can be where Vasey can’t hurt you and I know you’ll truly be safe.”

He held you and wept as he felt you go limp in his arms and he felt your last breath against his bare chest. He rocked back and forth holding your head and body against his chest telling you over and over that he was SO sorry, until he felt exhausted had no more tears left. He lifted you up and laid you on your side and positioned you so you cuddled your pillow.

He dressed and took a rag and cleaned off the dipping blood from your back. Then he closed his eyes and yanked the dagger from your back. He cried as he cleaned the blood from his dagger. He threw the rag into the fire and made sure it was fully burned. Then covered you up and kissed you one last time. “Wait for me, my love. Watch over me and wait for me. Be at peace. I love you.”

Then he quietly left your room and went to his own chamber and cried himself to sleep.

The next morning Vasey was furious when the maids found you dead in your bed and no one but Guy knew how it happened. Guy said nothing only shrugging when Vasey asked how it had happened.

Vasey blames Robin Hood for the death and ordered Guy to get Robin ‘or else’!

Despite Guy’s best efforts he could not catch Robin.

A week after your death, Guy had had enough of Vasey. Guy missed your company and felt empty without you. He knew his time serving Vasey was coming to an end. Robin kept eluding him despite all he did to try to catch the outlaw. It was only a matter of time before Vasey replaced him and killed him off. He refused to give Vasey that satisfaction.

After Vasey yelled at him, threatening him again for his failure to catch Robin; he went to his chamber, took off his jacket, and his weapons. Guy was in his black leather pants and black shirt and grabbed his jeweled dagger. He went over and faced the wall and pressed his forehead against the cool stone, steeling himself for what he was about to do.

He raised the point of the dagger to his chest over his heart, placed the hilt against the wall, and took a deep breath. Then he slammed his body into the wall, let out a grunt, and felt the dagger’s tip pierce his heart. He felt a small gust of wind caress his face and heard your voice and laugh “Welcome home, my Love!”

He slumped to the floor and sighed with relief as his vision blackened and his breath stilled. His trademark smirk on his face. Finally he was no longer at the whim of Vasey at finally felt at peace and could join you.

An hour later Vasey’s voice could be heard through the halls of the castle bellowing Guy’s name as they looked for Guy. Finally Vasey and some guards came to Guy’s room and found him slumped forward on the floor by the wall.

Vasey shrieked “NO! NOnononono! Damn it, not you too Guy!!!!” Vasey pulled Guy over so he was laying on his back and realized he was dead. His dagger plunged into his chest.

“GET ME ROBIN HOOD!!! I DONT CARE HOW YOU DO IT!!!! BURN SHERWOOD FOREST IF YOU HAVE TO BUT ROBIN WILL PAY FOR THIS!!!!” The sheriff bellowed. Not realizing that Robin hadn’t killed Guy.

The spirits of Guy and you watched Vasey’s reaction to finding Guy’s body and Guy’s spirit chuckled. “Serves him right. Now he will have to explain to Prince John how he let this happen. And Good luck with that Vasey! No one can catch and kill Robin Hood! So long Vasey!” Guy said and took your hand. You both turned and happily walked into the spirit realm happy and finally at peace.

@thetherianthropydaily @queenofmankind @fizzyxcustard @deepestfirefun @dumbassunderthemountain

[me-and-my-gaster]

Chronicles of Cor’ash, pt 4

I’m back at my Morrowind bullshit, my loves! The game is giving me all the dopamine kicks I need from the content. Angst, mystery, character growth. So I’ll continue spamming you with it here!

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

The thick plottens!

Despite feeling fulfilled and proud of himself to finish the Pilgrimage, Cor’ash couldn’t rest easy the night after he had returned. Was he indeed being followed? Or was it just paranoia acting up, since the punishment he’d got wasn’t severe enough? 

He remembered that Caius, the Blade’s Spymaster, was waiting for him to get acquainted with the land and to prove useful to the imperial schemes. If he was able to turn this around, the Blades could be useful to him in return. Give him information or, if need be, provide protection from the enemy that stalked him so far from Cyrodil.

Of course, it wouldn’t be easy. It seemed like, in Morrowind, nothing ever was.

The informant from the Fighter’s Guild wasn’t eager to share his knowledge about the Sixth House and some myth called “Nerevarine” unless Cor’ash did him a ‘favor’. The way he worded it already irked the dunmer and his gut feeling was on point - he was asked to retrieve some Dwemer bauble from the nearest ruins.

At least now Cor’ash could put a name to the building towering over the Foyada Mamaea’s entrance he’d seen during the last of his Pilgrimages. Arkngthand. Knowing that this is just a remnant of a long forgotten race made it a bit less intimidating. However, standing in front of the rusted entrance and waiting for the intricate mechanism to let him in sent a chill down his spine. Dwemers were advanced, after all. What could have possibly wiped them all out?

The Dwemer ruin turned out to be a maze, with air filled with clanging, hissing and grinding of the old machinery that was still, by some miracle, working. Like a metal heart, still beating deep inside the mountain. Cor’ash wandered around and about the turns and hallways looking for the bauble, and with each passing hour he felt like he had been sent on a fool’s errand.

There was nothing except old Dwemer metal and the heat under his feet. The only thing of worth he’d found after two hours of getting lost in the corridors was a handful of old coins. He took them, even if to feel like he didn’t waste his time.

When he’d finally found what he was looking for, he was spent, sweaty and frustrated. It was just a small cube with etched engravings that looked like a toy. It irritated him to be tested like this, to know that the Fighter’s Guild member made him go so deep into ruins that could have collapsed on his head at any moment for a piece of Dwemer junk. Was the knowledge really worth the risk? He really hoped so.

As he was nodding off in one of the colder corners of the ruins, getting his energy back to head to the surface, he saw a cold glint of metal in the shadows. Everything happened too fast. The struggle didn’t last long enough for any thought to enter his mind before he had a blood of a dunmer assassin on his hands.

Cor’ash only had enough clarity to thank his ancestors and ALMSIVI for keeping him on his toes the whole time as he picked up his bloodied weapon and rushed back to the ruin’s entrance.

He was back in Balmora before he could think straight about what had transpired.

The guard in town was the opposite of helpful. 

Cor’ash knew that outfit. He had never seen it but the descriptions he heard were enough to know who had attacked him and didn’t need an oblivious guard to tell him that. It was still chilling to hear him say it out loud, though.

The Dark Brotherhood had a contract on his head.

Instead of going back to the Fighters Guild to finish the ‘favor’, the dunmer returned to the Temple, feeling safe amongst the walls that smelled of ash and ink and incense. 

[sinemoras09]

Solatium excerpt: elevator

@innovativestruggles another excerpt XDD Obito, Madara, and Kakashi get trapped in an elevator.

(background: Obito’s been negotiating with Tokyo-like civilians to help modernize Konoha)

-----------

1.

They're in the sleek glass lobby of a civilian high-rise building, coming in for another meeting. Their escort smiles apologetically, then opens a slim suitcase. On the velvet lining are four syringes filled with some sort of serum.

"It's a synaptic dampener," the business escort explains. "It will inhibit you from molding chakra."

"Is this really necessary?" Obito says. Kakashi glances at Obito uneasily. The escort spreads her hands.

"My apologies. But my superiors have given me clear instructions that your being in the building is contingent upon receiving these injections."

Obito is about to refuse when Madara steps forward. "Give me the injection," Madara says.

Obito starts, "Madara--"

"A true shinobi is just as deadly without chakra as he is with it," Madara says. He turns. "Consider this checking our weapons at the door."

Obito's jaw tightens. Grudgingly he pushes up his sleeve, letting them give him the injection.

*****

There are two front-facing elevators in the lobby; it's too small to fit all of them, so the escort and the backup negotiators take one elevator, while Obito, Kakashi, and Madara take the other one.

"We're meeting at the 67th floor," the escort says. "Suite 652-A."

"Thank you," Obito says. The escort nods as the elevator doors close.

Madara strides toward them. "What are we waiting for? Let us take this 'elevator' to the 67th floor."

Kakashi presses the "up" button. The lights above the elevator doors blink.

Madara crosses his arms. "What is this contraption, anyway?"

"I'm not sure, from what I understand it's a room that's pulled up several storeys. It's what civilians use instead of taking the stairs," Obito says.

The elevators open. A crowd of business people step outside.

"This is kind of small," Kakashi says. He glances at Obito, frowning.

"Well what are we waiting for?" Madara says. He steps in, bedecked in his battle gear and his hair waving from the air vent above them. Kakashi glances over.

"Obito, would you rather take the stairs?" Kakashi says.

Obito stares up at the numbers above the elevator. "It's 67 floors."

Madara smirks. "Feeling a little claustrophobic, are we?"

Obito scowls, then walks in. The elevator doors close.

Ding. First floor. Second floor. Third. Madara cranes his neck, looking at the wonders of all this modern technology, while Kakashi thumbs through their papers. Obito stands silently in the corner.

"Hm," Madara says, crossing his arms. "I suppose I was a little hasty accepting that synaptic dampener. You could have used your Kamui to teleport us up there. A pity. But I suppose it's fine to experience life as a mere civilian, at least once in awhile."

"We're almost there," Kakashi says to Obito, and he points at the numbers. 30. 31.

The elevator grinds to a stop.

"The devil is this?" Madara says, as the lights flicker before changing from normal to red. Kakashi presses the button.

"I think we've stopped," Kakashi says.

"Well that much is obvious. How do we get it to start?"

"There's an emergency button," Kakashi says, and he presses it.

Madara's eyes slide sideways as Obito stares intently at the corner of the elevator, muscles tense and not saying anything. Kakashi keeps pressing the button. "I don't think it's doing anything, I think it's just making a sound," Kakashi says.

Madara can see Obito is struggling to maintain his breathing. The muscles in his neck and shoulders are tense. Battle ready. He can see the thrum of his pulse beating rapidly at the skin of his neck.

And then the elevator rocks, the red lights flickering again. The three men stumble.

"What was that?" Kakashi says. He presses the emergency button again. The elevator is dark except for the ambient glow of red lights from the floor.

The speaker on the panel crackles. "Did somebody call for help?"

"Yes, yes." Kakashi presses the button. "Our elevator stopped moving and the lights went out."

From the corner of Madara's eye, he can see Obito fumble in his pocket, before shakily pulling out a small bottle of pills. His hands are trembling as he shakes out the anxiolytic, quickly popping it into his mouth and dry swallowing. "Calm yourself, Obito," Madara says, in a low voice. His eyes slide sideways, meeting his. "This is nothing compared to what we've faced before."

 "Okay, we've notified our technicians. They're currently offsite but they will be here shortly."

"Do you know how long it will take?" Kakashi asks the technician. The speaker crackles.

 "We don't have an ETA for their arrival, but usually a couple hours, including repairs."

Obito swallows, trying to steady his breathing. The walls around him seem to be dark and shrinking.

"I'm sorry, did you say 'a couple hours'?" Kakashi says.

 "Yes, a couple hours, unfortunately."

Obito can't breathe. His throat is constricting. He hunches over himself, sinking onto the floor, his breaths sharp and shallow and his heart beating rapidly.

"Obito?" Kakashi rushes over. "Obito, are you okay?" He runs back over to the intercom. "Hello? Hello can you hear me? My friend is having a medical emergency--"

Rocks. A thousand rocks, crashing on top of him. The feeling of helplessness. He can't move. He can't breathe--

"Obito!" Madara says, sharply, and Obito's head snaps up, jolted by the sound of Madara's voice. It's as if he's in a deep, dark pit, where above him is a sliver of light, a coin-shaped opening where he can barely see Madara's head peeking in.

"Obito, listen to me. Think of the world that we trained in. The genjutsu world of endless white space. Think of that world. What would be in it?"

"I-I can't..."

"Focus!" Madara snaps.

"Gray skies." Obito swallows, then takes a breath. "Rin."

"And what would she be doing?"

Obito imagines it. Rin in her summer dress. The wind rising. Storm clouds rolling while she holds her skirt down and laughs.

Obito's eyes lose focus. Madara snaps his fingers. "I asked you a question. What would she be doing."

"Standing in the grass, in the wind outside."

"I cannot see this scene you're describing me, what else."

"Storm clouds," Obito says, and he can see the image with his words. "Cold air, the treetops moving outside."

"Excellent," Madara says, and Kakashi watches, awestruck as Madara crouches in front of Obito, staring into his eyes. "She is the reason you've done this all for, is she not?"

In the darkness of the pit, Madara reaches out hand. Obito reaches upward and clasps it.

Madara rises. "Have you calmed yourself?"

Obito nods, taking a breath. "Thank you," he says. Madara sniffs.

"Do not thank me," Madara says. He crosses his arms. "If my idiot apprentice were to shit himself, the two of us would be in even worse of a time."

"Tch." Obito stands and glares.

*****

2.

"Does anyone have a watch in this sorry place, or must we guestimate the time?"

They're all sitting on the floor of the elevator, Obito with his elbows on his knees while Madara idly twirls his battle fan. Funnily enough, the civilians didn't recognize it as a weapon, so when Madara breezily told them it was ceremonial they believed him.

Kakashi holds out his watch. "It's been an hour and a half, now."

"Ah, excellent," Madara says. "Clearly your subordinate is more well-prepared. You would do well to learn from him, Obito."

Obito glares at him. "Obviously we wouldn't be in this mess had you not agreed to take that synaptic dampener."

Madara shrugs. "I just assumed the assassination attempt would be more interesting this way."

"Assassination attempt?" Obito and Kakashi stare. Madara stretches, eyes closing luxuriously

"Clearly, if one wanted to kill the Hokage of the Hidden Village of the Leaf, the best way would be to isolate him from his companions, deprive him of his weapons, and take away his ability to weave chakra." Madara's eyes open. "I just thought weathering an assassination attempt without our usual abilities would be interesting."

Obito balks. "Wait, you suspected this was a trap - and you willingly led us in?!"

"You are the Hokage." Madara sniffs. "You could have overruled me at any time if you wanted to."

"Why would you do that?!" Obito says. Madara shrugs.

"I thought fighting a civilian assassin on their level would be interesting." His eyes glitter. "It has been awhile since I've been challenged. Other than Hashirama, I've yet to meet a worthy opponent. The thought of it makes my war blood boil."

Obito throws an incredulous look at Kakashi, who's reading an ero novel he had snuck in his pack. "Kakashi are you hearing this?" Obito says.

Kakashi turns a page. "No one's attacked us yet," Kakashi says. Madara frowns.

"What are you reading?" Madara says. Kakashi doesn't look up.

"It's an ero novel. Do you want to see?"

He hands the book to Madara, whose eyes widen.

"What sort of trash am I reading?" Madara says.

"Oh, this is the best part," Kakashi says. "The damsel has awoken to find she's surrounded by seven princes, and--"

Kakashi stops. His eyes grow vacant, rolling back behind his head.

"Kakashi?" Obito sits up as Kakashi wobbles, then crumples onto the floor. "Kakashi!"

"He is fine." Madara flips through the novel. He looks up and Obito can see his Sharingan is activated. "The genjutsu worked. It seems my visual prowess is returning."

"You can use your Sharingan?" Obito looks around. Madara sniffs.

"Can you not activate it?" Madara says.

"No, of course not, my chakra's dampened, I couldn't mold it if my life depended on it."

"Lucky for you, you are in the company of Uchiha Madara." And Madara closes his eyes, opening them to show his Mangekyou. "Rest well, my idiot pupil. Soon we will be making our escape."

"Wait, what are you doing?" Obito says, standing. He sees Madara start to activate his Susanoo, blue chakra flaring around his body.

"Wait! You can't do that! If you activate your Susanoo you'll destroy this building!"

"Your point being?" Madara says.

"There are people here. You could kill them."

"And?" Madara says. Obito glares.

*****

"How many euphemisms for the female orifice are there?" Madara says. He flips through Kakashi's book, Sharingan spinning as he turns the pages. "Hm. I don't even know why I asked you that question. Considering up until recently, you've had no intimate experience with other women."

Obito doesn't take the bait, which disappoints him. Madara leans back against the elevator, relaxing. He stretches and puts his feet up on Kakashi's head like a foot rest. "I know well enough that you had been celibate, and before that, you were an innocent child, so clearly going into this, you were still a virgin," Madara says, pleasantly. "Which is not anything to be ashamed of, mind, but it is unusual. Suffice it to say, it is admirable how much you dedicated yourself to the cause."

Obito is still looking at the elevator buttons, ignoring him. Madara leans forward.

"You did finally do the deed, I'm assuming? Or perhaps you are waiting until you're formally married? Well. I suppose if you've waited this long, it shouldn't matter that much. Of course, I am assuming everything is in working order. I cannot remember just how much of your body was crushed...."

Kakashi groans under Madara's foot. Madara frowns and kicks him in the head again.

"Can you not kick him?" Obito says.

"Why? He will not remember."

Obito makes a frustrated sound.

"There must be some way for you to share your chakra with me," Obito says. He gets up and paces, pressing his hands along the panels of the elevator, as if there were some secret button that could get them out. "If you could lend me your chakra, I could activate my Kamui and get us out of here."

Madara flips a page. "Once again, you are letting yourself be ruled by fear. You should enjoy yourself. Read this terrible novel. Revel in the momentary peace before the inevitable assassination."

"There won't be an assassination attempt." Obito bangs on the door. "Their shitty civilian technology is what's keeping us here. Besides, they'd have nothing to gain if they killed me. We're the ones with nothing to bring to the table."

"Listen here, my dimwitted disciple, there is always something you cannot anticipate." Madara flips a page. "'Expect the unexpected,' as it were. You were the one fond of excess plans, were you not?"

Silence. Obito paces around the elevator while Madara reads.

A sound. Madara and Obito turn.

"What was that?" Obito says. Madara lowers his book.

"I sense the heat signature of someone approaching." Madara's Sharingan glitters. He stands up slowly, crouching in a defensive position.

There's the sound of metal scraping on metal, the sound of footsteps stepping inside--

Madara lunges, slams the intruder against the elevator panel. Another man comes running and Madara grabs him and flips him hard against the floor. It's only then he realizes Obito is yelling.

"You fucking idiot!" Obito says. "They're the fucking repairmen!"

"What?" Madara says. He looks down. Two civilians in overalls are groaning loudly.

Madara frowns. "Well that was unexpected," Madara says.

*****

3.

"Okay, we can still salvage this," Obito says.

He's kneeling next to the unconscious repairmen, hefting one man onto his back and checking his wounds. Madara stands towering above them, arms crossed and a smug expression on his face. "Okay," Obito says. "All we need to do is heal their wounds and genjutsu them so they don't remember the last ten minutes. We'll have to replace their memories with a false one. How is your medical ninjutsu?"

Madara sniffs. "You are asking me, Uchiha Madara, if I do not have mastery over something?"

"I'm asking you because I can't mold chakra yet and Kakashi's unconscious, you're the only one who can do this," Obito says.

Madara smirks. "Of course I can," Madara says.

"Oh, good--"

"But I fail to see why I have to."

"Because they need to fix the fucking elevator," Obito says. Madara sniffs loftily.

"How do we know they were not assassins?"

Obito spreads his hands. "Would assassins be this incompetent?"

"Certainly he is," Madara nods over to Kakashi, "and he is a trained shinobi. Isn't he one of the best in your village?"

"Fine, whatever. Can you heal them, please."

Madara's eyes narrow. "It does not suit my purposes."

"You can't do medical ninjutsu, can you?"

"How dare you," Madara says. "I kept myself alive for centuries healing myself with only the Gedou statue's chakra. I survived a battle of attrition and a stabbing by Senju Hashirama. I am a survivor of the Warring Clans Era, whose comrades fell all around him and needed medical attention. I am the reason why you are alive, and yet you question me about my medical ninjutsu."

"Then can you please heal them and genjutsu them, so when they wake up they can fix this stupid elevator?"

"What happened to your silver tongue? I was told your powers of persuasion were unmatched," Madara says. Obito huffs.

"Obviously I layered my words with genjutsu, which I can't do since someone made us get a synaptic dampener. Why won't you heal them?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Madara's mouth stretches into a malicious grin. "How often is it that I can spend time with my adorable apprentice?"

They both stare at the unconscious repairmen.

"You don't know medical ninjutsu, do you?"