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regressionschool · 2 days ago

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going full toddler: part 3: so icky

Steve gave Marie’s puffy bottom one last pat before standing up, ruffling her hair as he moved toward the kitchen. “Daddy’s going to make lunch, princess,” he announced, already rolling up his sleeves. “You be good and play while I cook, okay?”

Marie nodded, still nursing from her fresh bottle, the slightly sweet taste of the special juice mix lingering on her tongue. She didn’t know exactly what Daddy had added to it, but she had a feeling she’d be finding out before long.

She squirmed a little, her warm, squishy diaper pressing against her with every tiny movement and Daddy had left her like that on purpose.

But he’d change her soon… right?

Marie sighed softly, settling back into her playpen. She picked up her bunny again, absently rubbing its soft ears against her cheek as she looked over her little collection of toys. The pastel blocks were still scattered from earlier, and after a moment of hesitation, she grabbed one and started stacking again.

At first, she tried not to peek at Daddy.

She really did.

But every so often, her eyes drifted toward the kitchen, where Steve was moving around with practiced ease, grabbing pots, stirring things on the stove, humming softly under his breath.

And then he caught her staring.

Marie squeaked and quickly ducked her head, pretending to be totally focused on her blocks.

But she wasn’t fast enough.

Steve smirked from across the room, his gaze warm, knowing, adoring. He didn’t say anything just gave her a look, one that made her tummy flutter and her face burn.

It was the kind of look that told her he knew exactly what she was thinking.

She whimpered softly behind her bottle and squirmed in her soggy diaper, feeling small and silly and warm all at once.

Steve chuckled but let her be, turning back to his cooking.

Marie tried to focus on her toys again, and the more she played, the smaller she felt. She lost herself in the simple joy of stacking and knocking things down, occasionally giggling softly when the blocks tumbled over.

Every so often, she’d glance back toward the kitchen—only to catch Steve looking at her again.

And every time, his expression was the same.

Steve’s expression was one of love and adoration, his eyes practically glowing with it whenever he looked at her. But there was something else in his gaze too—a hint of waiting.

Marie wasn’t sure what he was waiting for.

She fidgeted in her playpen, absently stroking her bunny’s ear between her fingers. The warmth of her soggy diaper was still noticeable, hugging her bottom in a way that made her feel hyper-aware of just how little she was. But there was something comforting about it too—the way Daddy had checked her, acknowledged it, and then just let her be.

Like it was normal.

Like she was supposed to be like this.

That thought sent a deep flush to her cheeks, and she quickly grabbed another block, stacking it carefully atop the others. Her pigtails bounced as she shifted her weight, her legs splaying out as she leaned forward, focusing intently on her tiny masterpiece. The plush blocks were soft beneath her fingertips, the pastel colors almost soothing as she built her little tower, block by block.

Marie giggled when the stack tipped over, tumbling in a small heap in front of her. Without hesitation, she started again, grabbing a new block and placing it at the base.

She was so lost in her play that at first, she didn’t notice it.

The gentle gurgling in her tummy.

At first, it was subtle. A soft little roll, an almost pleasant sensation deep in her belly. She barely paid attention to it, more focused on stacking her blocks higher, her little tongue peeking out in concentration as she carefully placed another piece on top.

And then… the sensation grew stronger.

Marie froze mid-movement.

A slow, deep warmth settled low in her belly, spreading outward in gentle waves. It wasn’t painful—just… different. A pressure that wasn’t quite insistent yet, but undeniable. Her eyes flicked up instinctively, landing on Steve in the kitchen. He was still moving around, still cooking, still watching her with that same expectant look.

Like he knew.

Marie’s stomach flipped for an entirely different reason.

Her heart thudded in her chest as she swallowed thickly, shifting a little in her playpen. The thick bulk between her legs crinkled as she adjusted, but it only made her more aware of what was happening. Of what she might have to do. Of what she had told Daddy she was curious about.

Months ago.

She had confessed it in a hushed voice, barely above a whisper, while curled up in Steve’s arms one night. She had told him that she’d wondered about it—that she’d thought about it before, about using her diaper for everything.

And he had listened.

He hadn’t teased. Hadn’t laughed. He had just held her closer, rubbed her back, and told her that one day, when she was ready, she wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. That it would just happen. That she would just let go.

But… was this that moment?

Marie’s cheeks burned as her fingers tightened around the edge of her bunny. Had Daddy given her something to make this happen? Was that why she had been so thirsty? Or… or was it just because she felt so small?

She wriggled a little, trying to distract herself, reaching for another block and pretending to focus on it instead. She stacked it neatly, her pigtails swaying as she moved, but her belly had other ideas.

A small cramp rolled through her, stronger this time.

Marie sucked in a soft breath, her thighs pressing together instinctively. Her toes curled slightly, her body tense. The pressure was more insistent now, sitting low in her tummy, warm and ready.

Her fingers trembled slightly around her block. This was happening.

Unless she stopped it.

She hesitated—just for a moment—before blurting out the words before she could stop herself.

“D-Daddy?”

Steve glanced up from the kitchen immediately, his eyes locking onto hers. “Yes, princess?”

Marie squirmed, her cheeks burning, her fingers gripping her bunny so tightly that the soft fabric bunched under her hands.

“Can I… um…” She gulped, suddenly feeling very, very little.

Steve raised an eyebrow, stepping closer. “Can you what, sweetheart?”

Marie sucked in another breath, her tummy gurgling again, sending another slow, heavy wave of pressure through her. She knew what she needed to do.

But she wasn’t sure she could.

“Can I go potty?” she whispered, barely audible.

Steve stopped.

For a moment, he just looked at her. Then, very deliberately, he tilted his head.

Marie’s stomach flipped at the expression he gave her next—soft, patient… but completely unyielding.

“Oh, baby,” he said smoothly, stepping closer. “Where are you sitting right now?”

Marie’s face flamed. She knew what he meant.

But still, she mumbled, “M-My playpen…”

Steve nodded. “And what’s my little girl wearing?”

She swallowed hard, squirming. “A… a diaper…”

His eyes twinkled.

“Exactly,” he praised, reaching in to cup her cheek, stroking it gently with his thumb. “So, princess… why would you need to go potty?”

Marie felt so small under his touch, her heart pounding, her tummy still churning with slow, insistent pressure. Her legs pressed together on instinct, but Steve’s hand was right there, sliding down to her knee, gently easing them apart.

“You don’t need to go anywhere,” he murmured, his voice warm but firm. “You just let go, sweetheart. That’s what your Pampers are for.”

Marie let out a tiny, high-pitched whimper. “B-But Daddy—”

“No buts,” Steve interrupted, brushing his lips against her forehead. “You wanted to know what it felt like, didn’t you?”

She had. Months ago, she had.

But now that it was happening, she wasn’t sure.

Her tummy tightened again, her body practically begging her to just do it. But her mind… her mind was racing.

Steve cupped her cheek again, forcing her gaze to meet his. His expression was so gentle. So knowing.

“It’s okay, baby,” he whispered, his voice soothing. “You don’t have to hold it anymore. Just be a good girl for Daddy.”

Marie whimpered softly, feeling herself tremble. She could feel it—right there. Ready to happen. She squeezed her bunny, clenching her thighs just for a moment longer.

Could she really… just do it?

Steve gave her bottom a firm, reassuring pat, rubbing slow circles over the thick bulk of her diaper. “That’s my girl,” he murmured. “Just let it happen.”

Marie whimpered again. Her tummy churned.

And then…

She took a slow, shaky breath.

And stopped trying to hold it.

Marie’s breath hitched as she squeezed her bunny tighter, her fingers gripping the soft fabric like a lifeline. Her tummy gurgled again, a slow, rolling pressure that made her shiver. She couldn’t fight it anymore—not with Daddy right there, not with his warm, patient voice guiding her.

Her legs trembled as she hesitated for a split second longer, clenching her thighs before finally… releasing.

A deep warmth bloomed low in her belly, spreading downward in slow, deliberate waves. She gasped softly as her body took over, instinct giving way to something deeper, something far beyond her control. The thick padding beneath her swelled with warmth, hugging her snugly, accommodating every slow, inevitable push. She whimpered, her cheeks burning hotter than ever as the mushy sensation spread, pressing against her as she filled her diaper right there in her playpen.

She hadn’t even realized she was whimpering until Steve’s voice broke through, gentle and full of praise. “That’s my good girl,” he murmured, brushing her bangs back from her damp forehead. “Such a good little princess, just letting go like she’s supposed to.”

Marie whimpered, her body still tingling from the experience. The sheer helplessness of it, the warmth cradling her, the way she could feel every shift, every squish as she settled slightly—everything was so much more intense than she’d expected. Her mind swirled with emotions, hot and messy, just like her diaper. She had wanted this. She had asked for this. And yet…

She felt so little. So vulnerable.

And so, so icky.

A sniffle escaped her before she could stop it. The heat of shame mixed with the lingering flush of arousal, her emotions tangled in a way she couldn’t quite understand. “Daddy…” she whimpered, shifting slightly, her mushy diaper pressing into her in a way that made her eyes go wide with a fresh wave of embarrassment.

Steve’s hand was on her instantly, warm and grounding as he cupped her cheek. “Shh, baby, I’ve got you.” His voice was all comfort, all reassurance, but Marie still squirmed, her lip wobbling.

“I—It’s so yucky,” she whimpered, pressing her face into his palm.

Steve chuckled, completely unfazed, rubbing slow, soothing circles against her back. “I know, sweetheart. But that’s what Daddy’s here for, isn’t he? To take care of his little girl?”

Marie nodded, but the sting of embarrassment remained. The warmth in her diaper was starting to cool, the heavy, sticky feeling making her squirm even more. “It’s so messy,” she whispered, voice thick with emotion.

Steve’s smile softened as he reached down, slipping a hand under her bottom, palm pressing firmly against the full, squishy bulk of her diaper as he scooped her up into his arms.

Marie gasped, a fresh wave of humiliation crashing over her as she felt the mess shift, pressing against her even more as Steve lifted her effortlessly. She whimpered, curling into him, her small hands gripping his shirt tightly. “D-Daddy…”

“Oh, princess,” Steve cooed, rubbing her back as he bounced her slightly, making her feel every little squish. “It’s okay. Daddy’s got you.”

She sniffled again, feeling overwhelmed as he carried her toward the changing table. Every step made her hyper-aware of the state of her diaper, the way the full padding pressed and squished against her with each movement. She buried her face in his neck, her breath warm against his skin as she fought back another sniffle.

Steve laid her down gently, his touch careful as he set her on the padded surface without squishing her too much. Marie’s breath hitched as she stared up at him, her emotions swirling.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Steve murmured, grabbing the wipes and fresh diaper from the shelf. “Let’s get my messy girl all clean.”

Marie bit her lip as he popped open the tapes of her swollen diaper, the cool air hitting her skin immediately. And then—then the smell hit her.

Her face burned hotter than ever as she realized just how strong it was now that the diaper was open. She clenched her fists, looking away in pure shame. “D-Daddy…”

Steve, however, didn’t even flinch. He just chuckled, wrinkling his nose playfully. “Whew, baby girl, you really did make a big mess, huh?”

Marie whimpered, her hands flying up to cover her face. “It’s so stinky…” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Steve’s warm, reassuring touch was back in an instant. “Of course it is, sweetheart,” he said cheerfully, grabbing a wipe and starting to clean her up with practiced ease. “That’s what happens when little girls go poopy in their diapers. But that’s why Daddy’s here, remember? To clean up his princess and make everything all fresh again.”

Marie peeked at him through her fingers, her heart twisting. How could he be so unfazed? She was lying here in the stinkiest, messiest diaper she’d ever had, and he was still smiling at her like she was the most precious thing in the world.

Tears pricked her eyes, but this time, they weren’t from shame.

Steve worked quickly, wiping her down with gentle care, humming softly as he made sure every inch of her was clean. “There we go,” he said as he slid the used diaper away, balling it up neatly before grabbing the fresh, pastel-printed unicorn diaper she loved so much. “Almost done, princess.”

Marie sniffled as he lifted her legs, sliding the thick new diaper beneath her before dusting her with sweet-smelling powder. The familiar scent was comforting, grounding. As Steve taped up the fresh diaper snugly around her, she felt… safe.

Loved.

By the time he was done, the overwhelming emotions she had been holding in finally spilled over. With a soft, shuddery breath, she reached for Steve, her lip wobbling. “D-Daddy…”

He was there instantly, pulling her into his arms, cradling her close. “Shh, baby,” he murmured, rocking her gently. “I’ve got you.”

Marie clung to him, fresh tears spilling over as she buried her face in his chest. “I—I don’t know why I’m crying…” she hiccupped, overwhelmed by everything—by the release, the mess, the shame, the care, the love.

Steve just held her tighter, rubbing her back in slow, soothing circles. “It’s okay, princess,” he whispered. “Sometimes little ones have big feelings. That’s what Daddy’s also here for—to hold you through them.”

Marie sniffled again, curling into him, her new diaper soft and crinkly around her waist. “I love you, Daddy,” she whispered.

Steve kissed the top of her head, squeezing her just a little tighter. “I love you too, baby girl. Always.”

#ab/dl diaper #diaper stories #regression school #ab/dl stories #ab/dl caption #diaper captions #ab/dl girl #wetting diaper #diaper bulge #ab/dl

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gold-onthe-inside · 6 hours ago

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critical asset

n. def. a specific entity that is of such extraordinary importance that its incapacitation or destruction would have a very serious, debilitating effect on the ability of a nation to continue to function effectively.

who? spencer reid (s7) x analyst!reader summary: the one where you and spencer finally get closer, even if it's just because penelope's too busy. content warnings: pining spencer, r and penelope argue word count: 1.8k

It’s painful how much Spencer likes you, wishing he could just transfer to counter-intelligence and be around you all the time, especially these days. You don’t come downstairs as often anymore, not since they put away Doyle, and it makes him all the more restless. He pursed his lips, looking at the chess game he was playing out, his interest in it sapping the more aware he was of your absence.

A few weeks ago, you would have been sitting right across from him, contemplating your next move, toying with the bishop between your fingers, so focused on the game that he could stare at you as long as he liked. He liked watching your sharp eyes dart around the board, assessing threats to your victory, liked watching you chew your lip as you thought about what to do. He could notice the exact shift in your expression when you knew you were either going to win or lose.

“I see it in 4,” you said, running the tip of your tongue over your teeth, glancing up at him as his gaze shifted to the pieces, the litte furrow in his brow as he wet his lips, trying to see what you did.

“How?” he asked. He was so sure he hadn’t given you a way out… until he watched you arrange each move delicately and his lips pursed into a pout. “Rematch?” he would ask, noticing your smug smile.

“Maybe tomorrow,” you’d say, standing up and squeezing his shoulder before you’d walk away, and he’d sigh, like he’s doing right now, sweeping the pieces into the cloth drawstring bag and folding up the wooden board to put back in his desk.

He’d get one over you more often than not when playing chess at least. He couldn’t say the same for everything else. But if anyone would say yes to a meditation sci-fi film, he knows it’s you — you’re one of the rare few people in his life who has obscure interests like his.

“My Russian isn’t that good,” you said as he waited by your cubicle for an answer, watching you turn off your desktop, drumming his fingers on the top of your transparent divider.

“I can translate anything you don’t understand,” Spencer offered, able to sense that he was close to prying a ‘yes’ out of you.

“I’ve heard your Russian,” you replied, raising a brow at him as the two of you stroll to the elevatory. “Just cause you can memorise the language doesn’t make you fluent, Reid.”

“Well, how am I supposed to become fluent if I don’t immerse myself in the language?” he asked, knowing exactly how to modulate his voice to melt your resistance. He sees your nose twitch and he knows he’s got you.

“Fine, but you’re buying dinner,” you replied, pointing at him and he frowned at you.

“How’s that fair if I’ve bought your ticket too?” he asked, pressing the elevator button. “Plus paying for snacks, and you know those places charge extra than normal—”

“Ugh, fine, jeez,” you replied, leaning against the wall. “I’ll buy dinner.” He was content with that, waiting for you to get in the elevator before following you. A thought crosses his mind, unbidden, that he had never said anything about getting dinner together, and hope flares in his chest. Maybe you wanted this to be a date as much as he did.

It’s dashed when he overhears your argument with Penelope when he’s supposed to be asking her to track down gas stations close to their crime scene — “Well, maybe I wouldn’t be feeling left out if you weren’t constantly shutting me out!” you cried. “God, I mean, you didn’t even let me know you were going to work this early, but you seemed fine calling up Kevin to carpool with.”

“It’s… That’s… It’s just complicated, okay?” Penelope cried, already on the edge since they’d lost Emily.

“Yeah, a lot of things seem complicated with you lately,” you said, scoffing. “It’s kinda hard to support you when I don’t know what’s going on with you, Pen. You’re either working or you’re with Derek or you’re with Kevin—”

“Yeah, well, I could say the same about you!” Penelope shot back. “Been on any dates with Reid lately?” she asked and his breath stuttered where he stood, out of sight, behind the slightly ajar door.

“What else am I supposed to do when you’re always bringing Kevin home?” you demanded. “Seriously, it’s starting to feel like he’s a third roommate lately. He certainly eats like one.” His heart sinks at your words — were you only hanging out with him because you had nowhere to go? Spencer pressed himself back against the wall. “You know what, if he’s gonna hang around that much, you could at least get him to split the groceries,” you snapped at her, heading for the door.

“Yeah, well…” Penelope struggled to come up with a retort as fast as you did — she didn’t have a cruel bone in her body. Or at least, she wasn’t as quick with using it. “Well, if you’re gonna spend that much time with Reid, the least you could do is throw that boy a bone,” she called after you as you stormed out, slamming the door behind you and letting out an enraged huff as you stalked down the corridor, oblivious to Spencer.

He swallowed, watching your retreating figure and letting a beat pass before contemplating whether he should go to Penelope. Maybe he should just have Morgan talk to her instead. He turned on his heel, making his way back to the briefing room instead.

Spencer stared at the clock, watching the hands tick round until you would finally leave. All this week he had been trying to convince himself that you were avoiding him, but that was just his paranoia talking. You’d been avoiding everyone, really — him, Garcia, Morgan… your behaviour towards other people was almost exactly the same. Almost, but not quite. You had been colder to him specifically.

He just couldn’t help thinking you were upset with him.

“You okay?” he asked, catching up to you outside the building, a slight pant to his voice due to the short sprint he had to do to catch up to you in time. Your pace had slowed, and with your gaze to the floor, you let him fall in step beside you. Spencer tried not to pay too much attention to the distance you kept between the two of you.

He noticed everything about you. He couldn’t help it. He had noticed the stiffness in your shoulders, the rigid way you carried yourself.

"Fine," you replied half-heartedly, turning your keys over in your pocket. "I just hate taking the train home."

“Why not get an apartment that’s closer to here?” he suggested, stuffing his hands in his own pockets, his messenger bag slung over his shoulder as he fell into step beside you. He’d noticed you had been taking the metro a lot more than usual. He wondered if everything was okay with your roommate.

"I like living in DC," you replied, walking with him to the station. He hated driving as much as you hated the train.

He nodded, walking alongside you. He wished you’d look at him, though. He could never guess what was going on in your head — was everything okay? Had he done something wrong? You seemed colder to him these days. “What’s been going on with you?” he asked, his voice soft. “You’ve been a bit down lately, are you sure you’re alright?” You finally looked up at Spencer and he had to catch his breath — he’d never get used to your eyes, the sharp intelligence in them, the focus.

You sighed, looking ahead again. "Penelope's been... I dunno, things aren't great between us."

“Why’s that?” he asked, reminded of your argument again. The two of you were always together, you were inseparable. “Is everything okay?” He was about to reach out, touch your arm, but he second-guessed himself, not wanting you to push him away. He couldn’t take it if you did.

"I don't know," you confessed, your nose tinged red with the cold, still turning over the key in your pocket to keep yourself grounded. "She's working overtime, if she's not on a case, she's working on something with Derek that she won't tell me about, which is fine, I get it. If anyone understands classified projects, I do. And then she's always with Kevin and I just..." You let out a breath, like you haven't let all of it out in a while, and it fogs up a little, your eyes glassy. "You know, you see yourself as this central person in someone's life and then suddenly... all these other figures come in and you just... don't know where you fit in anymore."

The look in your eyes made him ache to comfort you and he had to look away to stop himself from being overwhelmed by what he saw there. “People get busy,” he said, softly. “It doesn’t mean she doesn’t value your friendship, or that she doesn’t want you around as much as you want to be.” His fingers twitched against his own palm as he spoke — he knew the feeling in your words all too well. He hated the idea that you were going through what he did on a daily basis.

You blinked the dampness in your eyes away, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. "It's whatever," you murmured, tucking hair behind your ear.

Spencer looked at your profile as you walked and he had to look away again. He was starting to lose count of how many times he’d stopped himself from reaching out to you. He wanted to, he wanted to so desperately… but he was also terrified of rejection from you. He didn’t have an endless well of confidence, and he couldn’t bear it if you pushed him away. So he settled with wishing he could help you more than he currently was.

"How are you doing?" you asked, glancing at him. "With Emily and everything."

Spencer cleared his throat as he walked beside you, staring at the ground in front of him. “I think I’m still in shock,” he said, softly. “I miss her a hell of a lot, I’ve never connected with someone so quickly.” He didn’t even hesitate before he added: “Except maybe with you.”

You huffed a little, smiling. "Nerds of a feather, right?"

He nodded, smiling. “Yeah, I suppose so.” He glanced over and met your gaze, and he couldn’t help the way a grin bloomed on his face, your eyes meeting his.

You smiled at him, your eyes lighting up in that way he loves — not just with amusement, but with warmth, and his chest started to ache, just a little. He could do this forever.

His heart skipped, and for a moment he could forget everything. For a moment, everything was perfect, just you and him.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x analyst!reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #my fics

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angelsndragons · 3 days ago

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oh you want discourse? sure, buddy.

the queer characters in tevinter are all part of an underground organization started specifically by said queer characters. they're still underground. ya know, like dorian said way back in dai when he mentioned having no concept of how a queer relationship is supposed to work. of course it's tevinter where queer labels popped up, they literally need those words in a way the rest of thedas doesn't because the rest of thedas generally isn't queerphobic. same sex relationships are fucking normal in the rest of thedas, gender queer presentations and trans folk are just people in the rest of thedas. tevinter's queer population is oppressed in a way it wouldn't be in the rest of the world so yeah, they have fucking labels. also, as an out of world piece of commentary, they gave the roman empire/byzantine based culture our real world labels because said labels in english come from latin. ya know, the language of the roman empire.

the only change that's been made on the queer front in tevinter from what we've heard earlier is that trans folk can now legally serve in the military as themselves. tarquin has a convo about it. that's literally it. krem's situation won't happen again, probably thanks to dorian meeting him and working with mae to make it happen. that's the only change in ten years. mae was in dai in several war table missions, specifically about empowering the lucerni further, and she's been trans the entire time so yeah, there is precedent for queer folks to rise to power outside of veilguard. it doesn't happen often and the establishment took its first opportunity to throw her out but it's there. the queer folk outside the shadow dragons hideout? they're furtive, whispering requests for dates or nervously looking around to see if someone else heard the conversation. i caught four separate occasions where this happened in dock town.

the crows weren't defanged, did you not listen to any of lucanis, ivenci, or viago's conversations? lucanis and rook were tortured as part of their training (literally as children), viago talks about dosing himself with poison since a young age (and doing so to rook), rook and jacobus were kids from the street taken in and brutally trained for assassinations, etc. jacobus starts up his own house to continue the cycle in the save treviso route for fuck's sake. invenci talks about how crow infighting messes up/destroys the country's ability to function, disparages their whole "crows rule antiva" with snide remarks about how countries actually function -paperwork, which so casually dismisses-, and decries them as murderers with no oversight. they're right, the crows are literally doing that outside treviso, where circumstances have forced various houses to work together as a resistance cell. the crows are better than when we last heard of them from zevran, who's spent the last twenty years assassinating the worst of the bunch, but they're not good by any stretch of the imagination. the crows are absolutely presenting their best face to rook but all the factions are. they want the extra help and expertise rook and their team offers so they're trying to put as positive a spin on it as possible.

that stuff you say is a problem isn't if you paying any sort of attention to the game and the world it presents.

Is this a safe space to—HA. HAHAHA. (I'm well aware it isn't but I'm going to share my opinion regardless.)

I think there is a significant correlation between people who are mad at Dragon Age: The Veilguard's queer representation being "too in your face" and "not fantasy immersive enough" or whatever, and people who play Baldur's Gate 3 and other queer RPGs, pretending the queerness doesn't exist.

This is not dissing BG3; lord knows I'm in love with that game. I'm just pointing out that it is entirely possible to go through it and pretty easily ignore its queerness if you're an asshole set on doing so. You cannot do that with DATV. And I think that's why Taash especially gets the brunt of the bullshit reactions, because them being non-binary is such a core part of who they are, it is is unavoidable.

So, yeah. I like the overt queerness. As far as I'm concerned, that's one of the best things about DATV.

#veilguard spoilers #datv spoilers #good lord this take is exhausting #maybe just maybe the two open queers in power made a tiny bit of progress in ten years #who'd have thought back in 2005 that ten years later the us would rule gay marriage as law of the land #nobody #the answer is nobody #you waltz up to the queer underground literally magically locked behind two different store fonts #and still think 'yeah tevinter's so queer positive'#literally don't know what to tell you #'oh they're hidden because they're resistance fighters/abolitionists' they're also the queer speak easy #tevinter categorizes literally everything why is categorizing queers such a problem exactly

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scary-grace · 1 day ago

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sips drink. I am going to need. [ ring ] for shigraki

Thank you for the prompt! As usual, I went a little berserk with it, and there is. so much smut in this. If you're not a fan/this is not the vibe, let me know and I'll write you a different one, or do a better job with your other prompts! 9k, AU with demons, succubus!reader, tons of smut. If you're a big fan of super dominant Tomura, this is not the fic for that. MDNI + thanks to @dogblessyoutascha for beta-reading on short notice and putting up with tons of yapping and fic about this guy.

wanted (if you want me)

a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

You're a down-on-your-luck succubus who just got rejected by the guy who summoned you, and you can't go back to Hell until you find somebody else's soul to steal. Shigaraki Tomura, reeling from a Valentine's Day rejection of his own, is the perfect victim. Or so you think. (cross-posted to Ao3)

“Sorry,” the guy who just summoned you says, sitting back from the pentagram he’s drawn on the floor with a frown. “You’re not my type.”

“I’m – what?” You feel stupid, which isn’t how you’re supposed to feel. You’re a demon, and a mortal’s just summoned you. You should feel powerful and lawless, not embarrassed. Not rejected. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re not my type,” the guy says again. He gestures awkwardly at you. “I was hoping for somebody – more.”

“Did you want a guy or something?” you ask. You cross your arms over your chest. Your clothes are barely worthy of the title, and you don’t want this guy seeing your nipples if he’s not even into them. “If you wanted a guy, you should have summoned an incubus. It’s not my fault you can’t read.”

“I like girls,” the guy snaps at you, rather than addressing the fact that you just called him a moron. “You were supposed to look like this.”

He picks up the grimoire he was reading the incantation out of and holds it up to you. It must be a new edition of the same old grimoire, because the last version of it you saw didn’t include illustrations. The illustration in question is a demon, identifiable as such by her horns and tail, but she looks about as much like you as you do like an angel straight from Heaven’s hideous art-deco gates. She’s got the kind of proportions that don’t work on Earth or in Hell – tiny waist, enormous breasts, ass that needs its own zip code, and her outfit is so tiny that you can see her nipples and her clit through it. And then there’s the face she’s making, straight out of some seedy erotic magazine, with blown-out pupils and open mouth and a delicate flush across her cheeks, all ready to be ruined.

Your outfit is skimpy, sure, but not that skimpy. You have the parts you need, but they aren’t that exaggerated, and if you tried that stupid expression, you’re pretty sure your face would melt off. If this is what this mortal expected, of course he’s disappointed to have gotten you.

His disappointment isn’t your problem, and now you’re in a mood. “Let me get this straight. You summoned a succubus – a sex demon from the depths of Hell – to fulfill your fantasies, and you’ve decided that now’s the time to get picky.”

“I’m not being picky,” he says. “Girls like you don’t do it for me. Can’t you send somebody else?”

“Sorry. All my sisters are seducing hotter mortals than you.” You feel a surge of pleasure at the way the man flinches. Guys like these – when they summon a succubus, they’re always thinking about the sex part, not the part where you’re a demon. “They took one look at you and decided I was all you deserved, and you know what? I don’t think you deserve me, either.”

“Well, I don’t want you, so –”

“In fact,” you continue, rising to your feet and internally cursing the fact that you decided to materialize in fuck-me heels, “I don’t think you deserve to get laid ever again.”

The mortal blanches. “What?” he demands, taking a step back as you step forward out of the pentagram. “You can’t leave the circle unless I say.”

“You really should look into those reading lessons. You’ll have a lot of time on your hands.” You were just going to lay the curse, but you decide that’s not enough. You nail him in the balls with a sharp kick, and as he doubles over, you speak, your voice crackling with the fires of Hell. “May your erections always wither, no matter how much porn you watch or how many drugs you take. May you disappoint every lover you take to your bed, and may that bed lie as cold and empty as the grave where they’ll bury your impotent corpse.”

It's a pretty good curse, if you say so yourself. “You bitch,” the mortal spits, but you snap your fingers and seal his fate. You know the moment the curse settles over him. You see the despair in his eyes. “Take it back!”

“No,” you say. You grasp his chin in one hand and lean in close, so close that your breath huffs out against his lips. You scraped your tongue for this guy. He deserves all this and more. “I’ll see you in Hell.”

His eyes roll up in his head and he collapses to the floor. You step over his unconscious form and survey the apartment you’ve found yourself in, dingy and filthy and smelling unpleasantly of human body odor. This is the kind of mortal who thought it was wise to reject you, just because you didn’t exactly resemble the absurd sketch in his grimoire. This is the kind of mortal who thought you weren’t good enough for him. Your lower lip begins to tremble, no matter how hard you sink your sharp teeth into it, and sulfuric tears begin to leak from your eyes. You were so excited to be summoned, so hopeful that you could do a good job for once. Now you just want to go home.

But you can’t. When you try to dematerialize and let Hell call you back, you can’t, and you realize why not in the same second as you realize that you didn’t curse that human nearly hard enough. You were summoned to this world to serve a purpose – to fuck some mortal so hard that they’ll sell you their soul – and until you serve that purpose, you’re trapped here. You need to find a mortal to sleep with, immediately. And you can’t go out looking like this.

You ransack the mortal’s apartment. None of his street clothes are anything you’d be caught exorcised wearing, but he has a long coat that he probably thinks makes him look mysterious and cool. You shrug it on, noting that it covers your skimpy outfit while still providing easy access to your body when it’s time to take it off, and keep searching, in case there’s anything else you can use. Money, as it happens – this human has a bank account and credit cards, and even unconscious, it’s all too easy to read his mind for the PIN. You pocket all of it, hide your demon form with a glamour, then leave the apartment door wide open on your way out.

As soon as you hit the street, though, you realize that you have an even bigger problem than you thought. You assumed it was some featureless winter evening, the kind where a bored, lonely mortal has nothing better to do than flip through a grimoire and get himself into trouble, but every storefront you look at is decorated with hearts. Every mortal you pass on the street is on someone else’s arm, or carrying flowers, or making out in the glow of a streetlight. It’s Valentine’s Day. You’re fucked.

Contrary to what humans like the idiot who summoned you think, Valentine’s Day isn’t actually about sex. Sex is a side effect of what Valentine’s Day is really about, which is romance. It’s about love and soulmates and tenderness and affection and forever, which is exactly nothing you know anything about. Succubi and incubi exist on the dark side of all of that, in its nasty, sleazy, prurient shadow. You don’t court, you seduce. You don’t make love, you fuck. You don’t show people the face of God, or whatever that dumb-ass musical says; you show them the gates of Hell and walk them through. Seducing a random mortal is a tall order for you on a given day. Seducing one on Valentine’s Day is going to be damn near impossible.

You feel tears welling up again and blink them back. Crying over rejection from a filthy, useless mortal was bad enough. Demons shouldn’t feel that kind of pain, and if they do, they shouldn’t wallow in it. Demons get the job done. And it’s not totally hopeless, when you force yourself to be honest about it. For all the mortals who are happily coupled, there are plenty who aren’t, and if the mortal who summoned you is anything to judge by, some of them aren’t averse to a little salacious, damnation-worthy fun.

As far as places to find single humans go, you’re spoiled for choice; while all the restaurants have Valentine’s Day specials for mortals out on a date with their special someone, it seems as though every club or bar is advertising an event for singles. You peer into a few bars, but none of them strike you as having the right mood. Most of them carry a pathetic air of hopefulness, as if the humans within believe they really might find someone to love tonight of all nights. You don’t need hopefulness. You need desperation. You need a human so lonely and desperate that they won’t question why a stranger wants to fuck them. If you were attractive in your human guise, you’d have a better shot, but apparently you aren’t. Only a human who’s truly desperate would go for you.

Finally you come across a bar where the mood seems a little more appropriate. Some sort of singles event is winding down as you come in, and you sense the despair beginning to set in. Most of the humans here could easily pair up with one of the others if they were willing to alter their standards, but humans have gotten entitled these days, and they all think they deserve a partner who matches their ideals. They cling to that fiction even as the mood in the bar worsens. They don’t need to settle. They’re holding out for true love.

Pathetic. You square your shoulders and wade into the mix.

The gender of your target doesn’t matter to you. It doesn’t even matter if they’re willing to sell their soul tonight – once you’ve fucked them, you can come back as many times as it takes for them to give it over. But even with your criteria broadened, you’re having trouble. As you search through the humans, tasting the flavor of their emotions every time you brush against one, you don’t find a single one who feels the way you need them to.

You taste sadness. Loneliness. Despair. Resignation or acceptance – sometimes they’re hard to tell apart. A few strange humans have even found refuge in faith, some idiosyncratic hope that they’ll find what they’re meant to find when the time is right, as if God has time to ordain such stupid things. On another night, you’d take pleasure in crushing their hopes, but your own hopes of getting out of here are sinking by the second. You need a human. Any human will do.

But just as you’re resigning yourself to seduce a woman, one whose loneliness carries just the faintest tinge of despair, you’re hit with a wave of exactly what you’ve been looking for. Not just despair, but disappointment. Not just loneliness, but hurt. Not just resignation, but frustration and embarrassment, at feeling hurt and disappointed and finding themselves here at all. You turn away from the woman without ever drawing her attention to you and follow the thread of rejection through the bar to a booth in the corner, where a mortal sits alone.

Along with the relief of finding a target at last, the first feeling that crosses your mind is surprise. This isn’t the sort of mortal you’d expect to find alone on Valentine’s Day, just based on his looks alone – almost-delicate facial features, long white hair, a frame that’s broad-shouldered yet lithe, observable even when he’s seated. As you get closer, you see a birthmark below the corner of his mouth, scars over his mouth and eye, and long lashes framing his crimson eyes. This mortal is pretty. Some of your sisters don’t care what their targets look like, but you like your mortal men pretty.

The mortal looks up as you come to the edge of his table. He seems as surprised to see you as you are to see him. “You’re late to the party.”

“Apparently not, since you’re here. Do you mind if I sit down? My feet are hurting in these shoes.”

He looks down at your shoes, and just like you were hoping, his eyes trace upwards, over your bare ankle to your calf to your knee before it disappears beneath your stolen coat. “Go ahead,” he says. “There’s room.”

There’s plenty of room, but you sit down next to him anyway, your leg pressed against his. You feel him startle, feel him go tense, and decide it’s worth drawing attention to. “Did I scare you?”

“No,” he says, but you can hear his heart beginning to race. “Just wondering if this is a setup or something. People like you don’t usually want anything to do with people like me.”

“People like me?” you say. You turn towards him, elbow propped on the table, chin propped in your hand. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb,” your mortal says. “Looks like yours, there’s no way you’re single.”

You can’t imagine this mortal’s self-deprecating angle working on anyone, but the compliment makes you glow ever so slightly. “Strange. I was thinking the same about you.”

Your mortal doesn’t glow. He blushes. “Don’t lie.”

“Would I lie?” Yes, frequently and gleefully – but not right now. “You’re gorgeous.”

He scoffs, averts his eyes, but his heart’s beating faster. It’s cute, and since he’s opened this door, you might as well walk through. Time for a little touching. You start with the scar above his eye. “I like this, and this –” you trace the scar, then tuck a few strands of white hair behind his ear, letting your fingers graze across his cheek and down to his jaw before reaching the scar over his mouth. “And this –”

He speaks while your fingers are still against his lips. “Careful.”

“I’m being really careful,” you promise. You run your fingers over his mouth again, slow and teasing, then turn your attention to the birthmark. “And I like this. It really completes the picture. Whoever rejected you tonight, they were out of their mind.”

“I could say the same about whoever rejected you.” Your mortal’s hand brushes against your knee, then drifts away, and you shiver ever so slightly. You like this mortal. It’s always easier when you like them. “I saw you watching the rest of them. Why did you pick me?”

“Like I said, you’re gorgeous,” you say, and shrug. The shrug presses you a little closer against him, and you don’t pull back. “And you looked like you were having the same kind of night as I am. I thought we could make each other feel better.”

He gives you a skeptical look, but the flush in his cheeks gives him away. Oh, you like this one. Even if he gives you his soul tonight, you’ll come back to visit him at least a few more times. “How do you think we can do that?”

“By giving each other what we want,” you say. “Don’t you get tired of having to play a part, to be what someone else expects you to be, and never have your desires fulfilled? I could give you that.”

He scoffs. “You think you know what my desires are?”

“You’d tell me,” you murmur. “That’s the point.”

Your mortal’s skepticism doesn’t fade, but neither does his blush. “What about what you want? I don’t buy for a second that it’s just to sleep with me.”

The question gives you pause. It’s not one you’ve thought of before. Succubi don’t have sexual desires, really – your goal is always to seduce your target, which means it’s all about what your target wants. You aren’t very good at your job, but you’ve put up with all sorts of things, doing them or having them done to you, if it means the mortal you’re fucking will hand over their soul. What you want, personally, doesn’t factor in even slightly. What do you want from this mortal? You don’t know.

“You don’t know,” your mortal says, as though you’ve spoken aloud. His hand brushes against your leg again, settles there. “I’ll help you find out.”

“Only if you tell me what you want,” you insist, as he brushes your coat aside and finds your leg bare. His fingertips are dry and rough as they trail over your skin, brushing the inside of your thigh. “Oh –”

“Too much?” he asks. There’s an almost wicked glint in his eye.

You feel your own heart pick up the pace. This will be a challenge. You like a challenge. “Answer my question first. Every time you answer, you can move your hand.”

“I want you.”

“Wrong answer.” You close your legs, not that they were that far apart in the first place. You’re not easy. “I asked about your unfulfilled desires, and you just met me today. I can’t be the only thing you want.”

“Mm.” Your mortal makes a dissatisfied noise. Even as he leaves his hand in place, you see an awkwardness settle over him – nerves, or something like it. For such a gorgeous mortal, he’s an interesting contradiction. “I want – to be out of control.”

“Out of control?” You won’t open your legs just yet. “Tell me more.”

“You were right about me. I’m always doing what others want. I always have to be in control. I want to be outside my own control,” your mortal says. He can’t meet your eyes, and the flush in his cheeks looks almost uncomfortable. When you lean in to kiss it, his skin is hot beneath your lips. “I want someone else to –”

“Praise you? Worship you? Pleasure you until you can barely think?” You know you’ve got him by the sharp intake of breath, by the way he startles. “That would be my pleasure, too.”

You part your legs enough to free his hand, and his fingers, shaking slightly, work their way up the inside of your thigh. “What else?” you ask. “Be specific.”

“I want whatever you can give me.” He turns his head, looking away, which is an error on his part; it leaves his neck exposed, and you lean in to kiss it, feeling his pulse jump and race. “If I tell you it’s too much, I want you to give me more.”

“That was a good answer.” You part your legs a little further, and he takes it as the invitation it is. “Anything else?”

“I want to do the same to you,” your mortal says, and your face flushes. “It’s only fair. If you get to ruin me, I get to ruin you.”

Ruining him calls to mind all sorts of things, acts you’ve performed for other mortals by rote, acts you want nothing more than to perform for him, and the thought overwhelms you enough that you miss what he’s doing with his hand between your legs until he’s touching you, tracing your clit through the thin fabric. You realize with some degree of horror that you’re wet, and worse, that even his delicate touch has you spreading your legs wider. While you weren’t paying attention, your mortal made a bid for the upper hand, and he almost got it.

Not quite, though. You renew your efforts on his neck, feeling him shudder. You’ll do as he asks, as he desires – but not until he begs you, out loud, to give him what he needs. He shifts, squirms, in response to your attentions to his neck, much as you’re doing with his hand between your legs. “Mutual ruination,” you muse. “That sounds like a plan to me.”

Your hand’s been trapped at your side. You work it free and slip it behind his head, tangling your fingers in his hair. Then you turn him back to face you, drinking in the sight of him for a moment before you lean in to kiss him. The only way your mortal’s never had his desires fulfilled is if he’s never voiced them. You can’t imagine anyone looking at him, seeing him like this, and denying him what he wants.

Most mortals you’ve seduced lose patience with kissing quickly. The kind of mortals who summon a succubus only have one thing on their mind, but your mortal doesn’t know what you are. He kisses you eagerly, if inexpertly, and it’s only right for you to reward his enthusiasm. Besides, there’s something about kissing him that feels right, too right for the unholiness of what you are. If being with a mortal feels this good, you’re probably doing it wrong.

What does it matter? As long as you sleep with him, you’ll be free to return home. You’re a demon. Wrongness and rightness don’t factor in. You kiss your mortal carefully, paying some mind to the sharpness of your teeth and the delicateness of his skin. He’s less careful with his teeth. They nick your lip and blood wells out, and he licks it away without a moment’s hesitation. That flick of his tongue makes you consider other places it might belong, and you catch your breath. Or maybe it’s because he’s tugged your underwear aside to touch you directly, and you can no longer ignore the way he makes you feel.

You lean back, struggling to clear your head. A thought crosses your mind. “What’s your name?”

“Tomura.” Your mortal’s crimson eyes are dilated with want, the desperation you were so drawn to evident across his face. “Please –”

You kiss him again, and as he begins to finger you in earnest, stroking your clit and dipping his fingers shallowly inside you, you untangle your fingers from his hair and trace the inside of his thigh. Tomura startles at your touch, but spreads his legs at once, and your head spins with want. “How long have you wanted this?” you murmur against his lips. “Tell me.”

“Eternity.” Tomura twitches as you brush your hand over his groin before returning to toy with his thigh again. “But it’s not what they want me for. Nobody asked what I wanted until you.”

“Then they were missing out.” You bite back a gasp as Tomura sinks two fingers inside you, curling them just so, but his touch is only half the reason – the other half is the thought that you’re the first to see him this way, the only one to see him this way. “If they could see how pretty you are like this –”

“Do you want them to?”

“No,” you decide at once. You brush your hand over his groin again, noting how tightly his pants are stretched over his hardening cock. “I want you all to myself.”

His body jerks, craning upwards into your touch. “Now,” he says, almost demands. “I need it now.”

“People could see,” you warn. “If they walk by, they’ll know we’re up to something. Do you care about that?”

“Yes,” Tomura says, and you run your thumb over the tip of his cock through his pants. His body jerks, and you do it again. Again. “Fuck –”

“We can leave whenever you want,” you say, even as your body tenses around his fingers. You feel wound tight, your legs shaking from the strain, your lungs feeling as though they can’t hold on to even a single whisper of air. Mortals have choked you before while you’re seducing them and it’s never been like this. “Tell me to stop and we’ll go.”

Tomura doesn’t tell you to stop. You undo his belt, unzip his pants, and the instant your hand closes around his cock, he moans, loud enough to attract attention if anyone from the failed singles event is still around. He’s embarrassed by it – you can tell – but he doesn’t tell you to stop, and you keep stroking his cock. “So pretty,” you say, your voice catching as the heel of his hand presses against your clit. “Does that feel good? Let me make you feel even better.”

You grasp his wrist and pull his hand from between your legs, thankful for the reprieve. Tomura tastes his fingers, savoring them in a way that makes you feel almost awkward. “I wasn’t done.”

“No, but you’re about to make a mess.” You give a pointed glance down at his cock, which is oozing enough precum to stain his underwear. “I’ll be right back.”

There’s plenty of space for you under the table, and better yet, you’re out of sight, which means Tomura can’t see your reaction to the way he spreads his legs for you. And you haven’t vanished a moment too soon. You can hear footsteps approaching, and you sit forward and take his cock in your mouth just as the newcomers arrive.

“You sure you need this whole booth when you’re by yourself?” whoever it is asks. You hear Tomura start to answer, but you suck lightly on the tip of his cock, forcing him to bite back a curse. “What is your problem?”

“No problem,” Tomura grunts. You put your tongue to use, tracing it over his tip as you wrap your hand around the rest of his length. “Fuck – fuck off. There are other places to sit.”

The newcomer might say something else, but you can’t hear it around your own heartbeat thudding in your ears. Tomura wants you. He wants you so badly that he’s letting you blow him in public, that he won’t tell you to stop even when the two of you might be caught. The instant the other mortal leaves, you’re cradling his balls in your free hand, then sliding your hand a little further to press against his taint. Tomura’s entire body jerks and trembles. “Careful,” he forces out between gasps of air. “I’m going to – come –”

You wish you weren’t under the table, even if being under the table is necessary to contain the mess. You wish you could see Tomura’s face as his composure shatters, as he tries and fails to thrust upwards into your mouth and spills a ridiculous amount of cum down your throat. But he’s not quite out of control, not yet, and if you’re going to steal his soul, you really should give him what he wants first. You keep stroking his cock even as the shaking subsides, your tongue still dragging over his tip. He hasn’t gone soft just yet. You’re kind of impressed.

You’re impressed, too, with how he holds out. You know you’re overstimulating him, but he hasn’t told you to stop yet. And he asked you to keep going even if he told you it was too much. Still, you don’t like the idea of hurting your mortal. You renew your efforts, employing all the tricks you’ve learned to keep mortal men hanging on your every move, and to your shock, Tomura comes again. This time he’s almost sobbing, and you draw back at once, climbing out from under the table to check on your handiwork.

There are scratches in the couch cushions and on the tabletop, and both the napkins that were on the table have been crumpled out of existence. Tomura looks wrecked. He’s been yanking at the collar of his shirt, running his hands through his hair, and his face is flushed and sweaty. His eyes are blurred, and he’s still breathing hard, but when you lean in to kiss him, he obliges instantly. He’s unsteady, and yet there’s a strange hunger in the way he kisses you, a hunger that takes yours and amplifies it in a way you can’t quantify, let alone guard against. You find yourself melting into his touch, needing closeness, needing contact. And he gives it to you.

You’ve only just settled into a languid pace, your hands in his hair and his arms wrapped firmly around your waist, when someone smacks a server’s tray down on the table and startles you out of it. It’s the bartender. “Do you mind?” she demands, her face red. “This isn’t that kind of place! Take it outside.”

That’s fine with you. A little PDA is one thing, but whatever happens next between you and Tomura, you want privacy for it. You start to slide out of the booth, but Tomura won’t let you. He kisses you again, and you realize he’s giving himself cover to button his pants. But as long as you’re here – “What did I just say?” the bartender explodes. “Get out!”

You and Tomura stumble out onto the street, and the instant the door shuts behind you, Tomura pins you against it to kiss you again. “Does that feel good?” he asks, the same question you asked him earlier. You didn’t give him a chance to answer, and he doesn’t give you one, either. “Let’s go somewhere. You’re not the only one who doesn’t like to share.”

“Where should we go?” you ask. “I’d rather not go to a love hotel. Your place?”

He hesitates for a moment. “My place. Come on.”

You kiss on the train platform, mostly to keep out the cold, but on the train, you find yourself simply looking at Tomura, talking to him. You find out that he got rejected tonight, too, and came to the bar to mope about it. “They’re nothing. Their opinions don’t matter,” he says. Even his disdain sounds like yours. “That doesn’t change how it feels.”

“I know,” you say. You lean against him, your head on his shoulder, your left hand intertwined with his right. “My – date – said I wasn’t his type, then showed me this ridiculous drawing –”

“May his dick shrivel up and fall off,” Tomura says matter-of-factly, and you find yourself giggling. “If you aren’t enough for him, he doesn’t deserve to have any at all. Still –”

He trails off. “His loss, my gain.”

“You’re just saying that because I blew you.”

Tomura snorts. “Don’t be stupid. You asked what I wanted. Nobody’s ever asked me that. That’s not what I’m for.”

“What do you mean?” you ask. He doesn’t strike you as a sex worker – he’s too earnest, too vulnerable, in how he responds to you for it to be his day job. He shrugs, shakes his head. “I think you’re for whatever you want to be for. That’s how you are to me.”

His grip on your hand tightens for a moment, then loosens again, fingers tangling with yours. A strange spark, like an electric shock, ripples across your hand, and you look down to see an odd shadow around your ring finger. That wasn’t there before, but then again, you’ve never spent this long in the mortal world without fulfilling your purpose. “What about you?” Tomura asks. “Why don’t you know what you want?”

“I never thought about it before.” Some of your sisters enjoy their jobs, but it’s always felt like a job to you. Something to get through, so you can go home. “It hasn’t really mattered.”

“It matters now,” Tomura says. “When we get back to my place, I’ll show you.”

Tomura’s place is in a downtown high-rise, the third floor from the top of the building, and he gives you long enough to finally step out of your awful shoes before he peels you out of your jacket. For a single moment you’re convinced you’re about to see the same reaction as the mortal who summoned you, but instead Tomura’s eyes travel slowly over your form, lingering in every place you’d expect and a few places you didn’t. “This picture he showed you,” he says. “The one he thought was better than you. What did it look like?”

“Uh –” Where do you start, really? “The proportions were totally off. Its waist was tiny, and its breasts were huge –”

“Huh.” Tomura’s hands are at your waist, running over the curve from torso to hip and back with a firm, steady touch. One stays there, but the other migrates upwards, cupping your breast through your scant clothing. “What else?”

“It had this stupid outfit on. Like, way smaller than mine. You could see everything,” you say. Tomura’s thumb brushes over your nipple, then comes back to circle it, and heat begins to pool in your lower abdomen. “It barely covered her nipples – or her clit. It just looked kind of – I mean, I can hang in there with the best of them, but –”

Your voice catches. Tomura’s hand slides from your waist down between your legs, stroking your clit with his middle finger. His touch is featherlight, compared to the way he’s playing with your nipple, pinching and tugging it, making you squirm. “What else?” he prompts.

“The stupid face she was making. It was straight out of a porno – like, one of the really cheap ones. What some guy who’s never seen a woman come before would –” You startle as Tomura’s fingers slip further between your legs, then sink easily into you. “Tomura –”

“This drawing sounds like a fucking mess,” Tomura says. He reaches down and grasps your thigh, hiking your leg up around his waist and leaving you even more exposed for him. “I want to see the real thing.”

He wants you to come for him. You know how to fake a convincing orgasm – or an unconvincing one, depending on the target – but you don’t want to fake for Tomura. You promised him he can have what he wants, and he wants this, you. Your chest goes tight. “I don’t know if I can, like this.”

“I’ve got lots of ideas.” Tomura kisses you, and that need to melt into him resurfaces, even as your body responds to his onslaught. “Show me.”

You try to keep kissing him, but you can’t. Your legs are shaking again, and it’s hard to breathe, and you have to draw back to gasp for air. Somewhere in the back of your mind is the thought that this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen, that something went wrong in your seduction of this mortal if he’s the one trying to please you, but it’s stifled by other, more pressing matters. The heat flooding through you, the awful and yet indescribable exposure of your legs spread this way, Tomura’s hand anchoring you so you can’t pull back off his fingers until he’s done with you.

Or until you’re done with him. You come hard enough to blur your vision, hard enough that your legs almost give out, and Tomura keeps his fingers inside you until your twitching and squirming subsides. When he draws them back, you can see that his hand is soaked. He brings them to his mouth to taste them again, and you spot a shadow around his fourth finger. It can’t hold your attention for long. “That was good,” he decides. “But I want to see more.”

“More?” Your voice is shaky, and you’re hanging onto Tomura for dear life. “What do you mean?”

“You said I could have what I wanted,” Tomura reminds you. “This way.”

You follow him down the hall on shaky legs, into a bedroom with an enormous bed. Finally. You’re not getting into bed with Tomura still wearing your horrible outfit, so you peel it off, then turn to help him with his clothes. You undress him slowly, kissing every inch of skin you uncover, trying to regain some of your lost composure. But it’s hard to compose yourself when there’s so much of him to explore, to praise. So pretty, so noisy, so needy even when there’s no need for it – because you want him to have what he wants, and you want to be the one who gives it to him. The only one who gives it to him.

And that’s what you find yourself murmuring, as you guide him down to the bed to lie on his stomach, as you brush his long hair aside to kiss his back and his shoulders. I have what you need. Everything you need. You’re mine.

Tomura’s breathing turned quick and shallow a while ago, worse as you kiss the small of his back, the arch of his hip. He stirs beneath you. “I want to see more,” he says. “On your back.”

He’ll fuck you now, and he’ll come, and then you can finally go home. You spread your legs, leaving room for him to settle between them, and he does – much further down than you expected. He anchors your hips to the bed before you can stop him, holding you down with strong hands as he lowers his head between your thighs. The way his hair brushes against them tickles. The marks he leaves on them are oversensitive, making your legs twinge long before his tongue drags over your clit, and you wonder how you’ll explain the marks when you get back to Hell. How you’ll explain the fact that this mortal seduced you almost as skillfully as you seduced him.

Tomura eats you out messily, enthusiastically, until you’re arching your back and thrashing in his grip. The heat of his mouth against you, the pressure of his tongue against your clit or the way it feels when he licks inside of you – it all feels almost sinful. Too good for you to have, too good to want more of, too good not to beg him to keep going. You can barely manage to praise him for it, but when you do, his grip on your hips tightens and he grinds against the mattress. It’s wrong. There’s something wrong, and you want it so badly, and for the first time, you understand a little bit of why humans are so quick to sell their souls.

Tomura makes you come once, then a second time while you’re still trying to recover, and you barely manage to scramble away before he can slide his fingers inside you and try for a third. “What happened to not being in control?” you ask, and he shrugs, half a smirk on his face. “Lie down. It’s my turn.”

You crawl over him as he lies back, tasting yourself on his lips when you lean down for a kiss. Tomura relaxes so easily for you now, so much that he lets you grasp his hands one by one, raising them above his head. For the first time since you cloaked your true form, you engage in a little bit of demon magic. Enough to conjure restraints, and tie Tomura’s hands to the headboard before he can so much as open his eyes.

You’ve shocked him. You can see it, and better yet, you can feel it, in the way his skin heats up and his heart races. “You said you didn’t want control,” you remind him. “And I said I’d pleasure you until you couldn’t think.”

“Are you?” Tomura’s voice goes raspy. He watches you with wide eyes as you shift further down on the bed. “What are you going to do?”

“Everything.”

You learned all sorts of magic in the course of stepping into your role as a succubus, but this is the first time in a while that you’ve used any of it. And it’s for small things – the restraints on Tomura’s hands, the feather you conjure to trace all over his body until he squirms, the lube you coat your fingers with before you start working them inside him. Tomura doesn’t stop you, but he has a request. “Don’t fuck me like that. Not tonight.”

“Just my fingers,” you promise, and he nods, his eyes dark with need. “Whatever you want.”

You haven’t had the chance to watch Tomura come yet, and you get a chance as you finger him to an orgasm. He takes your breath away, your mortal – so pretty, so vulnerable, so loud and expressive and lost in it that you can’t help but stroke his cock with your free hand while you work him up a second time. In an ordinary seduction, with an ordinary target, now is when you’d stop. Now, when all he can do is beg for you, now when he’d give you anything to keep going; right now is when you’d ask for his soul in exchange. You know how to phrase it so that the mortals never guess what they’re truly giving up. It would be easy.

And it’s not what you want. There aren’t words for how much you don’t want that. Not when you’ve earned your mortal’s trust, not when he’s certain enough that you’ll give him what he wants that he doesn’t feel shame in begging for it. You know Tomura’s close when he starts squirming away from your fingers rather than clenching down on them. “Ride me,” he pants. “Ride my cock.”

Demon magic cleans your hands, and you slip down onto his cock with only a little strain. “You’re perfect,” you tell him as he stares helplessly up at you. “We fit so well –”

Tomura’s hips jerk upwards beneath you, making you gasp. “If we fit so well, come on my cock,” he pants. He’s been yanking at the restraints. You made them soft, but his wrists are chafed. “I need you to. I can’t – fuck, I need you –”

You’ve never needed a mortal before. You’ve never needed anyone before, but you need him, enough that doing what he asks doesn’t feel far-fetched at all. You ride him slowly, finding an angle that suits you, realizing how sore you are in the same moment. It’s been a hard night’s work. Usually mortals can’t keep up with you, and usually it feels like work. Tomura’s fingers curl and uncurl uselessly as he fights the restraints, and you reach up to grasp them, to hold them steady. And that’s when you notice it – the same shadow marking around his fourth finger as around yours.

Where did that come from? What is that? The restraints you conjured vanish in the space of a single heartbeat, and Tomura’s hands clamp down on your hips, guiding you as he thrusts upwards. His hair is glued to his forehead with sweat, to his chest and his shoulders and the sides of his neck, and the same heat writhes beneath your own skin as Tomura takes control over your pace. His thrusts are unsteady, but every time, he finds the angle you need him to.

You can’t breathe. You can barely think. Everything narrows down to heat and pressure and friction and pleasure and agony, because your body’s wrung out and still needs more, because Tomura’s falling apart beneath you and pressing his thumb over your clit to take you down with him. Pleasure explodes through you, collapsing you on top of Tomura. His grip on you barely loosens, even as your efforts to hold onto anything fall away. Anything includes your human guise.

Damn it. You untangle yourself from Tomura as quickly as possible, only to tuck yourself in against his side, uncomfortably relieved when he holds you tight. If you keep your tail under control and he doesn’t get a good look at you, he’ll never know what you really were. He’ll know something’s up, though. When he wakes up and finds that you’ve vanished out of this world, leaving evidence only in the chafe-marks around his wrists and the taste of you still on his tongue, he’ll know there was something strange about you. And he’ll have a lot of questions when you come back.

And you will come back. That’s the only thing that makes the knowledge that you’re mere moments from being drawn back to Hell bearable. Most of the time you can’t wait to leave your targets, whether you’ve collected their souls or not. This time, though – “I don’t want to leave yet.”

But you weren’t the only one speaking. Tomura said the same thing, on the off-beats as you spoke. “You’re leaving?” you ask. “This is your house. Where are you going?”

“Where are you going?” Tomura retorts. His grip on you tightens further – tight enough to bruise, if you were human or mortal. “What –”

He sits up suddenly, pulling you with him. Hell is pulling you back, but not quickly enough. Tomura looks at you, sees you – sees your horns, sees your tail, which is lashing anxiously in spite of your efforts to calm yourself. But you see him, too. You see the ram’s horns curling from beneath his white hair, the sharpness of his teeth. He’s not trying to control his tail at all. It wraps around your leg tightly. “You’re a demon.”

“So are you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you know?” You try to separate yourself from him. Tomura should be letting go of you, should be shoving you away, but he’s still holding on, tighter every time you try to pull away. “Let go. If they find out –”

The world tears open around the two of you, well before you can pull away, and Hell pulls you back in at warp speed.

You don’t end up back in the spot you dematerialized from, and you doubt Tomura does, either. The two of you crash down on a rocky plateau, just on the outskirts of one of the cities, a desolate place no one comes to unless they’ve been cast out to wander amongst the souls of the dead. Why are you here? Is it because you came back together? Maybe that’s why – it couldn’t return you to your separate summoning locations when you’re so close together, so it split the difference and dropped you off here. Maybe there’s still time for you to hide this.

“Wow,” a familiar voice announces from somewhere behind you, and your heart sinks, “have the two of you fucked up.”

Tomura swears under his breath. “Is that your boss?”

Your boss, or your mother – nobody’s clear on which. Nemuri is picking her way through the jagged stones towards you, a vicious smirk on her face. “I can explain,” you start. “It’s not –”

“I tricked her,” Tomura interrupts. You stare at him in horror. “It was me. Not her.”

“No,” you snap. “I seduced him. I’m the one who –”

“I’m sure you believe that.” Nemuri’s smirk broadens, showing her fangs. “You’re so pathetically incompetent that –”

“Now, now, Nem. Let’s not let my guy off the hook here.” The new voice, loud and rich and full of almost-insane laughter, can only belong to another elder demon. Like Nemuri, he’s wearing a vicious smirk. “Remember, my guy’s the one who got rejected by his summoner and packed it in for the evening. At least yours gave it a second shot.”

“That’s my boss,” Tomura mumbles. “Fuck.”

“In fact,” Tomura’s boss continues, “one could argue that your girl’s off the hook. She did her job. It’s not her fault that my guy’s aura of misery was so strong that it made him actually look human. Or that he was so desperate to be wanted by somebody that he forgot to check whether she was actually a demon trying to steal his soul.”

Tomura’s shoulders hunch, and a surge of anger runs through you. “When you put it that way, Hizashi, it does sound like my nymphet is off the hook,” Nemuri says. “But when your pathetic little imp tried to take the fall for her, she wouldn’t let him. It seems they’re terrible at everything demonic, lying included. They’re telling the truth.”

“They really did seduce each other,” Hizashi muses. “That’s cringe.”

“More importantly, it’s against the rules.” Nemuri’s standing over you. Hizashi joins her, and the two of them leer down at you and Tomura, practically licking their lips. “Whatever shall we do with them?”

There aren’t many punishments that can affect demons – you’re basically gluttons for it. Then again, there aren’t many rules for demons to break. “I’m not sure,” Hizashi says. “Offer them up to Heaven for punishment? Banish them to the mortal world until the trumpets sound? Throw them out to wander with the restless dead forevermore?”

You might not love your job, but you have your sisters. If you’re cast out, you’ll never see them again. The only thing worse would be getting thrown to Heaven as an offering, one of Hell’s not-infrequent tithes to keep the peace. Tomura’s tail wraps around your waist, and you cover his left hand with your right as you wait for your fates to be decided. The thought crosses your mind, pointlessly, that you won’t spend an eternity of exile entirely alone. You’ve dragged someone else down with you, which might be the most demonic thing you’ve ever done in your life.

“Now that I think about it,” Nemuri says, her smirk broadening still further, “I don’t think we need to punish them – not when they’ve punished themselves so effectively.”

“What does that mean?” Tomura snaps. Hizashi is guffawing, his voice echoing off the jagged rocks. “Don’t laugh. What does that mean?”

“What does it mean, you gloomy brat?” Hizashi wipes at his eyes, still chuckling. “Take a look at your hands, both of you.”

You let go of Tomura’s and lift your own. Your right hand is clear, but your left – you remember noticing the shadow around your fourth finger, feeling the faint spark as it darkened a little further. It’s not a shadow anymore. Instead it’s a thin golden shackle, encircling your finger below your knuckle. No, not a shackle. A ring.

It won’t come off. You yank on it, try to dig your nails beneath it, but it won’t come off. Next to you, Tomura’s doing the same, cursing fluently, and Hizashi and Nemuri are laughing at you both, leaning on each other to stay upright. “It’s the first rule we teach you all when you’re spawned. No fucking your own kind, and this is why!” Hizashi is laughing almost too hard to speak, while you try to chew your ring off and Tomura breaks his own finger trying to remove his. “Thanks to your little tryst, the two of you are bound forever in unholy matrimony!”

“My congratulations to the happy couple,” Nemuri says. “The two of you are never going to live this down. You’ll be the laughingstocks of Hell. You’re going to beg us to banish you!”

“And we won’t,” Hizashi says. “I can’t think of a better object lesson than the two of you. We send you to the mortal realm to collect souls, and not only did you end up fucking each other, you didn’t commit a single demonic act!”

“I cursed somebody,” you protest.

“Me too,” Tomura says. “The mortal who –”

You remember what Tomura said about the mortal who rejected you: May his dick shrivel up and fall off. “You cursed the same mortal,” Nemuri says. She pauses a moment. “I will admit, it’s a fairly creative curse. The imp’s little add-on will make a nice insult to the injury.”

You’re better at cursing mortals than you are at seducing them, but you can’t imagine Tomura’s bad at it. Not with the way he worked you over. You duck your head to hide the heat coming up in your face. “Well, we’ll leave the two of you to enjoy your honeymoon,” Hizashi says. He shrugs off the ornate robe he’s wearing and drops it on the ground in front of you, revealing body chains, nipple piercings, and nothing else. “Wear this on your way back into the city. Maintain a little dignity.”

“Here, imp. Just for you.” Nemuri drops her robe over Tomura’s head, and he shoves it off into the dust. “Everyone’s going to know about your little bout of lovemaking, but I imagine you’d prefer if they didn’t know exactly how you’ve been chewing on each other.”

The two of them stroll back towards the city, arm in arm, still laughing. It’s a long time before their laughter fades, and then you and Tomura are alone on the outskirts. The wind, blowing hot a moment before, changes direction, growing cold and carrying sharp shards of ice. You put on Hizashi’s robe, then turn towards Tomura. He’s already shivering, arms crossed and shoulders hunched, Nemuri’s robe discarded in front of him. You pick it up and settle it back around his shoulders, shifting his hair aside so it won’t get caught beneath the collar – and then you realize what you’re doing. You freeze. “Sorry.”

Tomura shrugs, but the robe stays on. “You’re better at this than your boss says you are,” he says without looking at you. “I believed you.”

“I’m worse than she says I am,” you say. “I wasn’t lying.”

Tomura looks up at that, and you look away, your eyes stinging in the freezing wind. You never lied to Tomura, not from the moment you approached him. This would be so much less embarrassing if you had. If you’d listened to any of the moments where you sensed that it was going a little too well, that it felt a little too good. If you’d kept your distance instead of falling under his spell as quickly and easily as he fell under yours. “Your boss was talking out of his ass. Your whole thing worked really well on me.”

“Yeah. Except it wasn’t a thing.” Tomura’s tail wraps loosely around your wrist. “Mutual ruination. You were right.”

He’s got your right wrist. You study your left hand with its ring, and Tomura lifts his alongside yours. His ring looks the same as yours, although he’s dislocated his fourth finger in addition to having broken it. “Want me to fix that?”

“Demon magic doesn’t fix things.”

“It’s not supposed to marry people, either.” You’re not expecting that argument to work, but Tomura lets you capture his hand anyway. You relocate it manually, then try to work some magic over it. All your magic serves to make a seduction easier, so it shouldn’t be hard to twist it into something you can use for the sake of your – “I think it worked. How do you feel?”

“Like I fucked up,” Tomura says. Fair enough. “And I’m not sorry.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Tomura’s hands slip inside your stolen robe, settling into the same place he was holding on as you rode him. “This isn’t that weird. Mortals do it all the time.”

“Except mortals who get married in Vegas can get divorced,” you point out. Somebody has to play angel’s advocate here, even if you’re already unfolding yourself from seated so you can get into his lap. “We didn’t even make any vows.”

“You did,” Tomura says. “I heard you say it.”

You’re mine. Is that really all it took? It makes a certain kind of sense, when you force yourself to look at it honestly. Mortals almost never doom themselves consciously. It’s always a moment of weakness, a split-second lapse, an instant where desire rules over reason. “Then you can break us up. Since I’m the only one who vowed anything.”

“No way.” Tomura’s lips brush the side of your neck, making your nerves twinge. “I agreed.”

You set your hands on his shoulders and push him backwards, and he goes willingly. The way he’s looking up at you counts as a sin all on its own – crimson eyes half-lidded, pupils already dilating, his cheekbones already dusted with pink. “Did you figure out what you want yet?”

“I have some ideas,” you say. You collect his hands from your waist and pin them on either side of his head, leaning down for a long, slow kiss. “But I’ll start with you.”

#shigaraki tomura x reader #tomura shigaraki x reader #shigaraki tomura x you #tomura shigaraki x you #shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x you #man door hand hook car door #x reader #reader insert #a bisquared production #asks #throwing this at the internet and running away forever #this consumed me yesterday

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riboism · 3 days ago

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haunted ═╬ act IV: the cat

♱ content tags: centuries old vampire! seonghwa x fem reader, vampire au, gothic romance, gothic horror, story takes place circa early 1900s, reincarnation, smut, angst, forbidden love, slowburn, lots of yearning, no happy ending, blood, satanism, animal cruelty, nosferatu/bram stroker’s dracula/edward scissorhands vibes

♱ a/n: sorry for being late with an update (depression sucks lol). I’ll try to be more consistent with the remaining parts. as always, reblogs and comments are highly appreciated.

♱ wordcount: 2.7k

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The rest of the morning felt off, as if your reality had begun to blur at the edges. Every time you wandered through the estate’s dimly lit hallways, the creak of the old wooden floors sent a strange sense of familiarity crawling up your spine. It was maddening, like the walls were whispering to you in a language you almost understood, their voices just out of reach.

You couldn't take it anymore. The strangeness of the Count, the mysteriousness of the estate, and the dreams—God, the dreams—had become too much to ignore. There had to be answers somewhere. Without another thought, you grabbed your winter coat and strode down to town, determined to find them.

By the time you reached the bank, you were breathless from the steep steps leading up to its grand entrance. Steadying yourself, you approached the front desk, where the same bank teller from before sat, her glasses perched low on her nose as she sorted through a stack of papers.

"Is Mr. Kang available?" you asked, still catching your breath.

She didn’t bother looking up. "Do you have an appointment?"

"Uh, no, but—"

"Mr. Kang is only available by appointment," she cut in flatly, flipping another page.

You clenched your fists, willing yourself to remain composed. "Please, it’s urgent. I don’t mind waiting."

This time, she lifted her gaze just enough to regard you with practiced indifference. "I’m sorry, but unless you have an appointment, I cannot help you."

Frustration simmered in your chest as you turned on your heel, ready to leave in defeat, until a familiar voice called out behind you.

"Miss Y/L/N!"

Relief flooded through you as you turned to see Mr. Kang hurrying toward you, his ever-present smile wide and warm. "I knew that was you! What brings you here?"

His friendliness was like a breath of fresh air. In a town like this, it felt good to have even the semblance of a friend. You smiled, grateful. "Good afternoon, Mr. Kang. Actually, I was hoping to talk to you about something."

"Of course," he said smoothly, placing a guiding hand on the small of your back as he led you toward his office. "Anything for a friend of a friend. I have a few minutes before my next meeting."

You cast a smug glance at the receptionist as you passed, satisfied with your small victory.

Once settled in Mr. Kang’s office, your eyes were immediately drawn to the painting you had delivered just days ago, now proudly displayed on the wall.

"Really livens up the place, doesn’t it?" he mused, following your gaze.

You nodded absently before shifting in your seat, sitting up straighter. "Actually, Mr. Kang, I came to ask about my employer."

Yeosang leaned forward slightly, his curiosity piqued. "Oh? Is this about his account? If so, I’m afraid I can’t discuss financial matters without his presence."

"No, no, it’s not that," you said quickly, hesitating as you tried to find the right words. Now that you were here, you realized you hadn’t exactly planned how to phrase your concerns without sounding ridiculous. "It’s more… personal. I suppose I’m just curious about his background. He’s very private, as you know, and since I’m living under the same roof as him, I just—well, I guess I’d like to be sure I’m not in any…"

"Danger?" Mr. Kang supplied, raising a brow.

The word felt too strong—maybe even rude—but you didn’t know how else to put it. After a beat, you gave a small nod.

He chuckled, shaking his head. "I understand your concern. I was worried the townspeople’s gossip might be getting to you. But I can assure you, Count Park is a good man."

Somehow, that wasn’t as reassuring as he probably intended.

"That said," he continued, "if you're looking for more information about him, I’m afraid I’ve already told you everything I know. Your best bet would be the town registry. They may have more records on his estate and lineage."

The town registry. The thought hadn’t occurred to you before, but now that he’d mentioned it, you couldn’t shake the feeling that something important could be waiting for you there.

After thanking Mr. Kang for his time, you set off toward the other side of town in search of the Town Clerk’s office. It was a bit of a trek for your tired feet, but your curiosity urged you forward. You weren’t even sure what you were expecting to find. Mr. Kang was right—Count Park was strange, yes, his habits somewhat odd, but he had never been unkind. He had done nothing to warrant this growing unease that had settled in your chest. And yet… something wasn’t right. You couldn’t shake the feeling, nor could you bring yourself to sleep another night in that castle without at least trying to uncover the truth.

The Town Clerk’s office was an old, run-down building. The doors barely held together, their hinges rusted and weak, and thick cobwebs clung to the corners of the entryway. The wooden floorboards groaned beneath your hesitant steps, kicking up the scent of dust and decay. The air was stale, tinged with something unpleasant. Behind the counter stood an older man, his posture slouched with the same disinterest you had received from the woman at the bank. He barely looked up as you approached.

"Hello," you greeted, keeping your voice low. "I’m here on behalf of… Count Park Seonghwa."

At the mention of his name, the man’s gaze snapped toward you.

"He’s my cousin," you lied, forcing a nervous chuckle. "He asked me to come down and request a copy of his records, as he’s thinking of moving soon. You see, he’s been quite sick and—"

The clerk didn’t seem to care for your fabricated sob story. Without a word, he turned around and pulled out a long, rickety drawer, his fingers skimming over aged documents. After a brief pause, he retrieved a worn file and handed it to you without so much as a glance.

"Thank you," you mumbled, taking the file gingerly. You wasted no time tucking it into your shopping bag. The sun was beginning to set, casting an eerie golden glow over the town, so you stepped back outside, eager to return to the castle before nightfall.

As you walked back up the path, something felt… off. The air had changed, thick with something heavy and foreboding. An unsettling silence blanketed the town, save for the distant murmurs of people gathered in small clusters. Their faces were drawn and grave, their voices tinged with fear and anger. As you drew closer, you noticed more dead cows strewn along the dirt roads, their bodies limp and lifeless, eyes wide open. The scent of rot and blood stung your nose.

People were no longer merely mourning their losses—they were furious.

"That bastard! First my sheep, now my cows—someone’s doing this on purpose!"

"You think I had anything to do with this? You’re out of your mind!"

"All of us are suffering! God has abandoned us! First the cattle, then who’s to say our crops next?"

"You heard the stories! It’s the devil’s work! I told you he was cursed!"

Their voices rose in hysteria, their rage spilling over into accusations hurled at one another. Some men had begun shoving, women whispering behind their hands, their eyes darting toward the looming silhouette of the Count’s estate in the distance.

A cold dread seeped into your bones. The shift in the air wasn’t just in your mind. Something was happening. The people were on edge, their patience worn thin. It didn’t take much to see where their anger was beginning to turn.

Your pulse quickened, panic setting in. You had to leave before anyone noticed you lingering. Pulling your coat tighter around you, you hurried up the path, your boots crunching against the gravel as you retreated toward the castle.

⸺

You busied yourself in the kitchen, hoping the rhythmic chopping of vegetables and the simmering pot on the stove would distract you from the unsettling events of the day. But your mind kept drifting—to the townspeople, their anger, the lifeless cattle, and most of all, the Count.

The sound of footsteps echoed through the hall. You turned, surprised to see him standing in the doorway, dressed immaculately as always, as if the night before had never happened. He looked almost… untouched, unaffected.

You studied him carefully, searching for any sign of weakness, any lingering trace of last night’s affliction. But there was none. His complexion was as perfect as ever, his posture poised, his expression neutral. If anything, he seemed even more put together than usual, as if whatever had weakened him had vanished without a trace.

"Good evening," he greeted, sounding well-rested, as if the last twenty-four hours had been nothing but a dream.

You hesitated before responding, gripping the wooden spoon in your hand a little tighter. "Good evening, Count." You swallowed, forcing your tone to remain casual. "How are you feeling?"

He tilted his head slightly, the faintest hint of amusement flickering in his dark eyes. "Why do you ask?"

You faltered. He was toying with you. "Well," you began carefully, "you were quite ill last night. I was worried."

"I was?" He stepped further into the kitchen, trailing his gloved fingers over the edge of the counter as he studied the meal you were preparing.

"You were coughing up blood," you pressed, watching his face closely. "You collapsed."

He leaned against the counter, as if trying to remember. "Ah yes…That must have been troubling for you."

Your lips parted in disbelief. What kind of response was that?

"It was more than troubling," you snapped, frustration seeping into your voice. "You nearly collapsed in my arms. I stayed with you the entire night, worried you wouldn't wake up."

His eyes softened, but not in the way you'd expected. It wasn’t gratitude, nor regret. It was something else—something knowing.

"And yet, here I am," he said smoothly. "Alive and well."

You narrowed your eyes. What was he doing? Why was he acting like this? Was he trying to play it off that nothing had happened last night, that somehow you were the delusional one? "That doesn't explain anything."

He sighed as if indulging a particularly stubborn child, then turned his gaze to the pot simmering on the stove. "What are you making?"

You scoffed, incredulous at the way he was so effortlessly dodging the conversation. "Clam chowder," you muttered, stirring the pot with a little more force than necessary.

"Smells lovely," he murmured, though his interest seemed distant. He looked at you then, his gaze lingering just a moment too long before he spoke again. "Thank you for your concern."

It was dismissive. A conversation-ender. And you hated it.

But more than anything, you hated how much he unsettled you. Because despite his feigned nonchalance, despite the way he refused to acknowledge what had happened… you knew he was hiding something. And you were going to find out what.

⸺

As soon as you finished your nightly duties, you retreated to your room, locking the door behind you. Your body was exhausted, but your mind refused to rest. The weight of the documents in your lap felt heavier than paper should, as if they carried a truth too burdensome to bear.

You lit a candle, its flickering light barely illuminating the delicate, crumbling pages. The handwriting was difficult to decipher, the ink faded and the style archaic. You squinted, running your fingers over the words, tracing the loops and sharp angles in an attempt to piece together a story lost to time.

And then you saw it.

Park Seonghwa.

Your breath hitched. It was his name—unmistakably his, written in elegant script. You frowned, flipping through the pages, your heart pounding faster with every word you managed to make out. It was a marriage certificate.

This Certifies that Count Park Seonghwa & Lady Alya Were United In Marriage on the Seventh Day of June in the Year 1836.

Your breath grew shallow. Eighty years ago. That was impossible. The Count was so young. He couldn’t have been married eighty years ago. He couldn’t have been alive eighty years ago, not looking the way he did now.

Your hands shook as you turned another page. There was no birth record for him, nothing to confirm when or where he had come into existence. It was as if he had simply appeared one day. You turned a few more pages, until you stumbled upon another document:

Deed of Land. Let all men know and understand that as of the Third of February in the year 1621, Count Park Seonghwa is the true and original land owner of this following parcel: Lot 1117. The Interior of this land belongs to, and is under the control of Count Park Seonghwa. In the event of his passing, all rights and ownership herein shall be bestowed upon his lawful spouse, the Countess Ha-Rin.

None of what you read made any sense. You wondered if the ink had faded with time or if your weary eyes were simply deceiving you. Yet, no matter how many times you reread the words, the documents remained clear, official, and indisputable. A deep unease settled in your chest as you traced the elegant, aged script with your fingertips.

Just then, a brittle newspaper clipping slipped from the stack, fluttering to the floor. You leaned down, picking it up with trembling hands. The paper was fragile beneath your touch, its edges yellowed with time. Squinting, you carefully deciphered the small, faded text, your breath hitching as the words sank in.

A cold shiver ran down your spine as you read the details. It was about the fire. The west wing of the estate had burned to the ground, the family suffering one casualty. Lady Alya was 68 when she died. But as you scoured the pages for more, for proof, for confirmation, there was none. No death certificate. No record of her remains. Nothing.

You swallowed thickly, your fingers clamming as you reached the last document in the stack. It was a photograph, old and wrinkled. You brought it closer to the candlelight, and your breath left you in a sharp gasp.

It was her.

The old woman from your dream. The same hauntingly familiar face. The soft curve of her lips, the gentle slope of her nose, the sorrow lingering in her eyes—eyes that mirrored your own.

Your hands grew clammy, and the paper slipped slightly from your grasp. How was this possible?

The air in your room felt suddenly thick and suffocating. The candle flickered violently as a sudden gust of wind rattled the windowpane. And then—

Thump.

It came from outside. A strange shuffling, wet and guttural.

You hesitated, Count Park’s words echoing in your mind, his warning to never go outside at night. But your curiosity, your fear, your need to understand, overpowered your reason.

Slowly, you reached for your coat, draping it over your shoulders before stepping toward the door. You moved carefully down the hall, the manor eerily silent, save for the howling wind beyond the walls.

You stepped outside the castle. The night was colder than usual, the wind sharp against your skin. The moon cast a dim glow over the grounds, stretching shadows across the frost-covered earth. Your breath came out in quiet puffs as you followed the sound, your feet crunching softly against the gravel.

Then you saw it, the origin of the sound.

It was a dark figure crouched over something in the grass, its shoulders rising and falling with each grotesque movement. There was a sickening squelch, a wet tearing noise that filled the air. You felt your stomach churn as you took another step closer, a sudden crunch of the autumn leaves giving away your presence.

The figure’s head snapped up.

Your heart stopped.

It was him.

The Count.

But he wasn’t the man you knew.

His lips were stained red, fresh blood dripping from his chin. His eyes, normally dark and heavy, were an inhuman shade of crimson, glowing like embers in the night. His fangs, long and glistening, protruded from his parted lips. And in his grasp, limp and lifeless, was the body of a cat, its black fur matted with blood.

A choked gasp left your throat.

Count Park froze, his expression undecipherable, though something flickered in his monstrous gaze—something almost like regret.

But it was too late.

Your vision blurred. Your head spun.

And then, the darkness took you.

taglist: @a1sh1teruu @filmnings @professormingisglasses @felixs-voice-makes-me-wanna @yunyunrin-reads @seonghwasstar @innocygnet @oreoqueen

for taglist request or removal, please send me an ask

act V: the fire ➜

#seonghwa fanfic #seonghwa scenarios #seonghwa smut #park seonghwa smut #ateez smut #seonghwa angst #ateez angst #park seonghwa fanfic #seonghwa x reader

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revelboo · 15 hours ago

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Ok but why do we have the same music taste?? I didnt even entirely realise outsude of the I Fight Dragons songs at first but I listen to every single one of those

Great minds think alike 😅

Everything Is Alright Pt 130

IDW Starscream x Reader, Soundwave x Reader, Megatron x Reader

• Servos pressing against his chassis over his spark chamber, it’s hard not to fixate on that fragile, little spark tangled in him. Something Megatron had never actually thought to want. Never allowed himself to even consider it as an option. But now that it’s happened? He just desperately wants to protect this. Remembering the feel of you drifting through him, that you’d felt like sunshine, bright and warm. Addictive. It’s not like he’d lied- the spark will need contact with you. Strengthening it by spark bonding again and again. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work, but the carrier is also supposed to keep the spark.

• Frustrated, he lets himself into the Constructicons’s habsuite looking for Hook and somehow isn’t the least bit surprised to see the biggest of them, Bonecrusher, leaning forward cooing at a little human sitting on his thigh as he offers them a package of some kind of human food. Because of course they’ve got a human, too. Suspects there’s more than a few of them smuggled aboard the Nemesis at this point. It’s the thing they’ve built against the wall that gets his attention, though. Bending slightly to study what they’ve done without his permission. And all of them are frozen, watching him. “What is this?” He asks, forgetting that he’d wanted to ask the medic about sparklings and spark bonds.

• Watching Scrapper come forward, hands away from his frame, Megatron resists the urge to smile at the mech’s obvious discomfort. ‘Just a little habitat. For the human.’ The Constructicon shrugs slightly even as he manages to look guilty. Putting himself between Megatron and his brothers, taking responsibility. ‘No one’s fraggin’ it,’ Scrapper adds as Bonecrusher curls his hand protectively around you. If the Constructicons aren’t fragging theirs, it’s probably just a matter of time until one of them tries to. What is it about humans that makes his troops lose all control? The interfacing can’t just be that good. But studying the little structure with its facilities, he can’t deny the Constructicons are onto something. Maybe you’d like something like this? “Can you build more of these?”

• Staring after his cassettes and their little human, Soundwave’s servos flex against you. Not wanting to give you up, wanting to spend time with you. Ask you to bond to him, do it right this time. Not deal with whatever is going on there. Rumbling when Starscream reaches to take you from him with a haughty, ‘looks like you’ve got a mess to deal with.’ And you look back at him as the Seeker carries you off, your expression making his spark ache. Because there’s always someone else needing him, demanding his time. So used to ignoring what he wants to look after everything else. And he just wants some time with you.

• Soundwave looks so lost, staring after you as Star carries you back to his habsuite. Just immediately sitting on his berth and mass shifting. Wrapping himself around you with a shuddering intake through his vents. And it’s the first time you’ve been alone with him since what he’d done. Since he’d stripped away Soundwave’s bond. Hurt you and Soundwave. “Why did you do it?” You ask, unable to just let it go as his servos run over you, like he’s checking for injuries. Reassuring himself that you’re okay.

• Denta gritting at the soft, hurt question, his wings flick. Because no answer is going to be good enough to excuse that. Doesn’t even know how to start making amends for it. Helm brushing your forehead so he can focus on those eyes he loves, he vents softly. “Jealousy. Fear,” he admits, gripping your arm when you try to lean away. “I thought I was losing you piece by piece. That I was being replaced.” Other hand cupping your cheek to keep you from turning away, his own optics shutter. Ashamed of what he’d done in a fit of jealous anger. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Our sparkling. You’re all I have.”

• That doesn’t make it better. Not by a long shot, but you’d driven him to this. Made him feel that Soundwave was replacing him. “I love Soundwave,” you say and those red optics open, leaning forward to stay pressed against him when he tries to lean back, you grab onto his shoulders. “And I love you. This is all really messed up and I know it.“ Unable to choose between them and accidentally hurting them both over and over. It’s all you, isn’t it? “I don’t know how to stop loving him.”

• And you sound so lost, pressing your face against his shoulder as he cups the back of your head. “I knew when I started falling in love with you, that this wouldn’t be easy. I tried to do what was right by you. To let you go and couldn’t even do that,” he growls, tucking you more firmly against him. “We’re both a bit fragged up.” Hears you snort at him as he forces your chin up. “Are you leaking again?” Venting affectionately, he brushes his mouth against your forehead. “We’ll figure this out together.”

#transformers x reader #starscream x reader #megatron x reader #soundwave x reader #starscream #megatron #soundwave

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helaintoloki · 10 hours ago

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Stuck in the Middle

pairing: Bucky Barnes x avenger!reader

warnings: angst, language, reader is a bit mean to Bucky but it’s deserved

notes: so i saw the thunderbolts* trailer and immediately scrambled for my phone to write this. hoping to write some more bucky/mcu related pieces so lmk if you have any ideas !

summary: you come home from work to find the last person on earth you want to see cooking dinner in your kitchen

You can sense the shift in the air the moment you step foot through the front door. Lamps that you know for a fact had been turned off before you left now glow warmly throughout your apartment as you cautiously set your gym bag down in exchange for the bat you keep strategically placed against the doorframe. Your knuckles turn white with tension as you grip the handle, rolling your shoulders back and cracking out your neck before silently treading towards the kitchen.

You live alone, so there’s no reason for the sound of pots clanging together or the smell of homemade cooking to be invading your senses after coming home from your mundane job as a pilates instructor. Despite this, there is not an ounce of fear within you as approach the intruder; in fact, you welcome a little action in your life, no matter how inconvenient it may be. Your training under Natasha’s watchful eye is paying off now as you creep into the room undetected, weapon raised at the ready and focus dialed in on the stranger as you raise the bat and swing it forward with all of your strength.

An arm immediately shoots forward and stops your assault with ease, the abrupt movement causing you to lose your footing and stumble forward. Heart pounding in your chest, your eyes widen as you take in the sight of the familiar metallic fingers clutching the bat with unrelenting force. You’re at a loss for words as you trail your gaze along the prosthetic arm and up to the face of its owner. His features are solemn and his eyes dull of the light you once remembered, but his faint smile is still the same as he finally relinquishes his hold and watches you stagger forward.

“You’ve lost your edge,” he comments jestingly before turning back to the meal he’d been meticulously preparing in your absence as if he hadn’t broken his way into your home. “Hungry?”

“What… the hell are you doing here?” You breathe out in aggravation, shoulders rising and falling rapidly with the ragged breaths you take. Your body feels as if it’s on overdrive as you try to process the fact that Bucky is standing before you in your apartment, uninvited if you might add, after having not been a part of your life for a good three years. Your stomach is in knots, hands perspiring, heart fighting to escape your ribcage, eyes struggling to hold back tears of relief and frustration, and mind trying to decide whether this unannounced visit is unwelcome or appreciated.

“Making us dinner,” Bucky offers as if it should be obvious, as if the last time he cooked for you hadn’t been ages ago. “Don’t worry, I’ll clean up after myself.”

“You broke into my apartment and you think my main concern is about whether or not you wash the dishes?!” You retort in exasperation.

“It’s not breaking in if I have a key,” he argues defensively while plating your meals.

“A key you were supposed to give back after we broke up!”

A heavy silence follows your words as Bucky finally stills. Hands planted firmly against the counter, he lets his head hang with a defeated sigh before finally turning to face you.

“You’re right” he relents with a wry smile, “I know I’m not welcome here, and I shouldn’t have ambushed you like this, but I knew if I called you wouldn’t have answered.”

“And whose fault is that?” You murmur bitterly much to his dismay. You don’t miss the look of hurt that flashes across his features, but there isn’t a single part of you that feels guilty about it. Not after all the hurt he’s caused you in his absence.

“Look,” Bucky starts carefully, hands raised in surrender as he approaches you. His mannerisms are similar to that of a hunter approaching a wild animal, but can you blame him with the way you’re still gripping the bat like your life depends on it. “I know you don’t owe me anything, and the last thing I deserve is your forgiveness, but I need you to hear what I have to say.”

Though you know it’s against your better judgement, and though every part of your conscious is screaming at you to throw him out of your apartment for good, you find yourself slowly lowering the bat until it falls to the floor with a deafening thud.

“You get five minutes.”

And that’s how you end up seated across your ex-boyfriend at the dinner table enjoying a plate of garlic basted steak and pasta while you look over the different files spread out before you.

“US Agent, Red Guardian, Yelena Bolova…” you quietly read aloud, gaze faltering on the familiar photograph. There’s no mistaking that face, not after the millions of times you’d stared at this exact file and wondered whether there was any semblance left of the girl Natasha had so often described to you. “Interesting bunch you’ve got here. Not sure why you’d break into my apartment just to show me these though.”

“I assume you’ve been watching the news lately, seen what’s going on out there,” Bucky counters, arms crossed as he pensively leans back in his chair.

“I’m familiar with the Void,” you hum quietly, and Bucky doesn’t miss the way you uncomfortably begin to shift in your seat. “It’s awful what’s going on out there.”

“It is, and there’s no one to stop it,” he utters carefully, prompting you to look up from the files.

“Please tell me you’re not about to say what I think you are.”

“I know they’re far from the best options of heroes out there, but they’re all we’ve got. The Avengers are nowhere to be found-“

“I’m an Avenger,” you bite back defensively.

“An Avenger who spends her time teaching pilates classes,” Bucky corrects humorlessly, and it takes everything in you to not lung across the table in retaliation at his demeaning comment.

“Banner said to lay low,” you remind him through gritted teeth, “and we both agreed to that before you decided to leave me with only some half assed note explaining your abandonment.”

“Y/n/n,” Bucky sighs in frustration, but you’re adamant that he’s not about to get a single word in until you’re done.

“You can make whatever comments you want about my life, about what I’ve chosen for myself, but you don’t get to make me feel small for choosing normalcy over the bullshit I’ve been through. The people I love are either dead or scattered across the globe, and I’m on my own now, so I get to choose what’s best for me.”

“Even if it means leaving the rest of the world to fend for itself?” He counters in disbelief.

“The world is ungrateful, they don’t appreciate what we do. They took Tony and Nat’s sacrifices in vain. Why would I put myself through torture for people who think that after everything that happened, everything we lost, Thanos was right?”

As Bucky sits across from you and stares you down, he realizes now that the woman before him is no longer the same woman he’d left three years ago. Whatever had occurred in his absence had changed you, and you were no longer willing to fight for others like you once had done so fiercely before. You had hardened, and his chest tightened with the realization that the girl who once wore her heart on her sleeve had now locked it away and gotten rid of the key.

“Y/n, I came to you tonight because I know I can’t do this on my own,” he admits solemnly, metal arm whirring quietly as he clenches and unclenches his hands in his lap. “If you say no to this, then there’s no point in rounding up these guys and attempting to form some sort of mediocre team of heroes. They’re not heroes, I’m not, but you are. Even if you don’t feel that way right now.”

Another heavy silence drowns the room as you contemplatively chew the inside of your cheek. Your gaze has landed back on Yelena’s file, but your mind can’t help to drift over to the thought of her sister. Natasha had always believed in you, supported you, trained you under her wing, and helped pushed you forward even when you felt like you couldn’t go on anymore. Your inaction would be a dishonor to her memory whether you wanted to admit it or not, and despite how much resentment you held for the man before you, you knew that whatever personal qualms you had did not hold more importance over the fate of humanity.

You knew the choice you needed to make, and you didn’t like it one bit.

“If I help you get this team together and stop the Void, will you let me return back to my own life?” You prompt hesitantly, and you hate the way your heart flutters at the soft quirk of his lips in response to your question.

“If you help me pull this off, you can have whatever you want,” he promises earnestly before apprehensively reaching across the table towards you. He tests the waters by placing his hand atop of yours, and when you don’t pull away he takes hold of your hand in his own and gives it a comforting squeeze.

“I really hate you,” you confess with a defeated sigh, but there is no trace of malice in your tone. In fact, you return his affectionate gesture by squeezing his hand back and offering him the first smile you’ve had since his arrival.

“I know,” Bucky says tenderly before lifting your hand and pressing a kiss to your knuckles. Heat crawls up your neck at the act, and you have to look away to prevent him from seeing the smile that fights to play itself along your lips. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t happy to be with Bucky again, and a part of you appreciated that it almost felt like old times, but you also knew that it wasn’t going to be this easy. You’re still angry at him for leaving you heartbroken and without so much as a goodbye, and Bucky himself is well aware of the fact that it’s going to take a lot more than dinner and pleasantries to get you back.

But this is a start, and you’re both ready to throw yourselves into the lion’s den if it means mending a broken past alongside the person you love.

#mel writes #thunderbolts*#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #marvel #mcu #mcu x reader #mcu imagine #avenger!reader

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banana-can-do-art · 2 days ago

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Guys I just finished the well it’s not the entirety of Riddle’s dream there’s still like an hour and a half that hasn’t been translated on Gasmask’s channel but I finished the part that they did translate and omg heeelp this is the best dream yet. This is so sad omg I have to ramble about it also all translations I’m using are from gas mask on YouTube.

First of all omg he’s so happy it’s making me sad. Also him saying that he would be tired of everything being the same all the time right after I made that post rambling about how his implied OCD causes him to always do everything in a “samey” manner I aaaaagghhhh. And he’s saying that he’s going to have a chaotic band because in his dream he isn’t upset when things aren’t in order and he can just let himself be happy. You can’t do this to meeee! But there’s more!

Look he’s happily breaking the rules and feeling no anxiety about it whatsoever. (OCD be gone). In his dream world he can do what he wants with no terrible parents or mental illness holding him back. Look at him he’s adorable. And then we have this though agghhh.

This is so sad! When Ace and everyone tells him about what he’s like in real life as though they are talking about another person, Riddle immediately hates the person they are describing. Because he doesn’t like who he is irl. In fact, Riddle even says here that he hates school and studying and that it makes people miss out on the fun things in life. It’s so sad because who he actually is irl is the complete opposite of what he wants to be. He’s so isolated and self loathing I can’t.

Also in the dream Riddle isn’t even a mage. Because he doesn’t even actually like doing magic because all of the joy was sapped out of that for him because he’s always expected to do it perfectly. He never just gets to do magic because he wants to or because it’s fun but rather only because others expect and pressure him too. It feels like the idea of a hobby losing its charm and fun when people have to make it into their jobs. (I hope that doesn’t happen to me heeeelp)

Also I felt so bad for Trey during this because he knows the most about Riddle’s reality and he is the entrenched in it himself. Riddle’s mom screamed at him for five hours as a child and he’s scarred from everything that happened with Riddle and his mom as a kid and yet now he’s supposed to just walk into Riddle’s house like nothing’s wrong. That must be so jarring and unsettling. Props to Trey for managing to do that honestly that’s freaking terrifying.

Also I can’t with all of those pictures on the wall. What do you mean he hates his real life so much that in his dreams his entire memory has become fabricated. His real life memories are completely different from his dream memories. And what do you mean that in his dream his parents are together and they love him and neither of them are mages and he just lives a happy and normal life?! What do you mean?!

Also, even though his parents love him in the dream, his mom has been so awful to him irl that even though everything is fake he can’t even actually picture her face saying nice things to him so it’s just the house talking to him. That’s so awful!

Also then we get this whole reference to the scene in Alice in wonderland where Alice has the big tears and people are drowning. Except it’s tea this time lol. Also Riddle crying that he wants to get out of the house is so sad even in his dreams he can’t escape agshdjdjdj. Omg Cater is so funny in the drowning scene though, he’s just like stop crying we’re gonna drown lmao. Also I know Chenya is fake but it is still so unbelievably funny how he is literally drowning in tea and yet he just has this huge smirk on his face the whole time lol. Chenya’s so silly.

Also the house became so creepy omg I saw someone saying it looks like an rpg maker horror game and like it really does! Specifically I think it really looks like Sunny’s house during the truth sequence of Omori.

Speaking of rpg maker horror games, Malleus was really channeling his inner rpg maker horror villain this update. Poor Idia lol. My condolences to Idia, he’s become the main character of an rpg maker horror game. I dunno Idia if we are going for Omori parallels then maybe you should open that door.

And then later when he gets pulled deeper the dream reflects false desires. To have control over the dorm while everyone bows down to him is was he thinks he wants but not his actual true desire. That’s why in the second layer of his dream even though he is in power, he still seems miserable because we know that he doesn’t even want to be a mage in the first place, much less have all of these rules.

And then Chenya pushes him over and he gets tangled in his cape lmao. That was so funny and then the screen is just Riddle with his feet in the air lmao. That outfit is not conducive to getting up from a fall.

But omg when the darkness is telling him that in the dream they respect him while irl he is isolated it’s so sad. Because he knows that irl his rules and strictness (and OCD) isolate him and that’s why it’s so difficult for him to make friends. He understands that he is lonely because he is a control freak like this, and yet it’s the only thing that he knows how to do because it’s all he’s been taught. (And also because he’s mentally ill you see).

This is all so sad I can’t. Twst! How could you do this to me?!

Anyway, in conclusion punk band Riddle is the most amazing thing to ever grace my eyeballs just look at him. We need a Riddle vocaloid band rhythm game spinoff immediately actually. Also his new fit is absolutely slaying look at him go!

Now I must wait in agony for the next hour and a half or so to be translated by the great and amazing fandom hero, gasmask.

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kawhh · 1 day ago

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Got up and took a walk after thinking about dark Jack in the early stages. He seems like a meticulous person (genuinely, even outside this) and he would have everything prepared for your forever and in place ready to go.

Coming home after your first date and he whips out his phone to check the GPS checker from the airtag in your purse he signed into.

He gifts you a plushie before leaving for his first roadie. At the hotel the next night he pulls up the live feed from the camera in its eye, and gets watch you sleep and learn what side of the bed you sleep on and moves to the other side on his bed back home to be adjusted by the time you start sleeping together.

You're having a movie night at his place and he gets up to get a blanket that is "coincidentally" the same one you have on your bed, pulling open his closet doors with a rack of his jerseys ready for you along with some clothes for when you accompany him to golf courses, corporate dinners, and other places he can no longer see himself going without you.

A month in you open his nightstand drawer to get a condom mid makeout, blindly fumbling over the engagement ring box and stack of papers with your forged signature to break your lease and push you into his arms forever.

I'll be taking a walk after reading this. You're all too good at this, it's incredibly unfair. I'm gonna have to learn to be normal whenever I talk about any of these men - once the thoughts are in my head it's basically canon lore lmao.

This man's putting fucking airtags everywhere you look. He's not risking that you won't change purses, won't drop the airtag. Needs one in your jacket, in your car, you aren't gonna move without him knowing exactly where you are.

I need the plushies to be a permanent event. You aren't afraid to do anything in front of a plushie - why would you? You're undressing? He's keeping an eye on your favourite types and colours of underwear.

Masturbating? He's taking notes. Needs to know what gets you off. How he should move his hands, how fast, needs to be the ideal man for you from the start. You'll have no complaints about his technique.

The way you cuddle the plushie? Smush it against you? The way you give me a first row seat to your tits at night? He's glad he has the best camera quality he could buy in there.

He's on an absolute mission to find out every single piece of information you have avaliable.

Stalking your social media accounts constantly, looking for any locations tags, food, clothes, anything from before he knew you. Anything he might've missed.

Food delivery apps? He needs access to them too. How's he supposed to have all your favourite foods stocked for when he gets you over? What if you have allergies? You need to realise how compatible you are. He's happy to change his own preferences to keep up the act.

#jack hughes #jh86 #jack hughes x you #jack hughes x reader #jack hughes fic #jack hughes blurb #jack hughes headcanon #jack hughes fanfiction #jack hughes x y/n #jack hughes imagine #dark jack

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misspelledwordswizard · 1 day ago

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How about a reaction from the Chain to a witch Reader, but in a Harry Potter style?

Reader, in addition to being scared at first, would undoubtedly be confused by the blatant display of magic without punishment. It doesn’t help that she quickly mistakes and identifies Twilight as an Animagus after seeing Wolfie just once. It would definitely lead to an interesting conversation where Reader reveals herself as a witch and explains how, in her world, the Statute of Secrecy exists, along with the reasons it was created.

The Chain would be horrified not by the massive concealment of magic itself, but by the reasons behind it, with the main one being the indiscriminate hunting of magical beings.

Hey, I'm back baby! After a while on vacation and having to deal with the return of my classes, I was finally able to organize myself to return fully, I hope. But hey, I'm sorry for the huge delay with the requests, and happy new year to everyone, considering that this is my first post of the year!

Oh, thanks for the request, I really love crossovers, and I love Harry Potter!

I’ve been here for a few weeks, traveling with this group of men who claim to be heroes of the realm, or something like that. I’m not sure how I ended up here, but it was obvious that this was a different world from mine. For starters, the humans here have pointy ears, like elves. Okay, I can deal with that. And then there are other races, which I’ve never seen anything like in my world. I mean, a race of stone men, seriously? Not to mention the totally different monsters.

But none of these things surprised me as much as the lack of care with the exposure of magic. Everyone, even the supposed “muggles” who don’t have magic, are fully aware of its existence. It’s natural, it’s normal. But it’s also strange that they don’t have any organ that regulates its use, considering how much it is used.

From what I could see, one of my traveling companions, who took me in for some reason when I fell on top of them after passing through a strange portal, has magic and uses it medicinally. I don’t know if the others can do things like that, but from what I’ve noticed, most of them have some object that has some magical property and makes things easier. That boy with the rings – I think his nickname was Legend – has one for every situation.

Well, okay, I know they’re all called Link, confusing, even more confusing when I found out they’re from different timelines. Is temporal magic really that normalized around here? I’ve only been with them for a short time, and I still find it hard to associate them with their nicknames, because not only are they all blond with blue eyes, which doesn’t help much, but each one seems to have about three different nicknames, and each one is weirder than the last.

Okay, I’m in a different world, where magic is common and doesn’t need to be hidden. I’m traveling with a group of heroes from different eras who consider themselves brothers, and are, from what I can understand, reincarnations... so why are they acting like this wolf that appeared is some kind of pet?

— Soooo... you know that this wolf is one of you transformed, right? – I ventured to say.

Everyone’s eyes turned to me, surprised. They didn’t know? Seriously? They looked at each other momentarily before someone finally answered me.

— Well, we do know, but how do you know? – The long-haired hero spoke, the Cook, if I’m not mistaken.

— And how could you not know? It couldn’t be more obvious, I mean, even the markings on his face are the same as the wolf’s, they’re never seen together in the same place, and, to tell the truth, Twilight kind of smells like dog. It’s pretty obvious that he’s an Animagus.

— Animagus? Huh, Wolfie, are you that thing she said? – The youngest of the group spoke, and the wolf just tilted his head in confusion.

— Oh, great, it takes her three minutes to figure that out while eight heroes took months to do the same. – Legend complained.

— Speak for yourself, I knew from the beginning!

So, they already knew about it, and were just pretending so I wouldn’t find out? Strange people.

While the others debated who had been the first to find out about Wolfie, he retransformed, without having to worry about hiding his secret, and approached me, visibly confused and curious.

— So, in your world, it’s normal for people to turn into animals?

— I wouldn’t say it’s common, but it’s possible, and all wizards know about it.

— Wizards? What about people without magic, don’t they know? – The hero with magic joined the conversation, visibly curious.

— No, of course not. We can’t let the Muggles find out about magic!

— Muggles? – The little boy asked, interested in the way I called the non-magic users.

— They’re the non-wizards, we keep magic hidden from them, or else we’d go to war... it’s very dangerous, that’s why the Ministry of Magic exists, to make sure wizards don’t reveal themselves.

— For Hylia, your world is confusing. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to live in a society as segregated as this one... – I heard the comment coming from one of the quieter boys, the one called Sky.

— Yes, well, but it is necessary, or else wizards would still be burned at the stake for using magic to this day.

— WHAT?! – Everyone gasped as they heard my last statement, shocked by the brutal concept. Oh man, I think this conversation will go on for much longer than I had imagined.

#link x reader #linked universe x reader #linked universe #tloz #linked universe fanfic #lu x reader #legend of zelda #x reader #harry potter

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fandomnerd9602 · 20 hours ago

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Grim Yearning

Wednesday Addams x Wick!Reader

Part Two of the Grim Series

You never thought you would find yourself connecting with anyone let alone two people. When you met Wednesday, something just clicked for you. And through her, you met her roommate Enid Sinclair. Enid was a perky girl around your age - a werewolf who had yet to learn how to transform. Her positive energy was a direct contrast to Wednesday’s. Your attitude was more quiet with a little bit of snarkiness.

When you weren’t studying or doing homework, you found yourself at a nearby shooting range. Something about firing the 9mm Pit Viper and effortlessly reloading another magazine always cleared your head. The force behind each bullet fired was almost as thrilling as being in the presence of Wednesday and Enid.

You found yourself wandering the grounds of Nevermore, wondering about the deathly girl in black who had stopped your heart when a familiar voice spoke up in hushed tones. You recognized the perkiness in her voice.

“Oh come on! (Y/N)’s so cute!” Enid spoke up.

You snuck around and spotted Enid talking with Wednesday. Despite being a werewolf, her sense of awareness was slightly off. Neither she nor Wednesday could pick up that you were hiding behind a stone wall, intently listening in, using the hearing and stealth techniques your father taught you.

“Drop it Sinclair” Wednesday spoke up.

“Why? It’s so obvious you like Wick!”

“I said drop it.” Wednesday responded, “I am a child of woe. I feel nothing as childish as love”

“Your secret’s safe with me” Enid said with a little laugh, “I’m as sure of it as I know (Y/N) feels the same for you”

That werewolf girl was very observant, you’d give her that. A small smile made its way across your face. You had been trained to be a weapon for most of your childhood. It felt good to feel something as normal and so fulfilling as love.

You quietly snuck away, crushing a little twig on your way out. Wednesday didn’t pick it up but Enid sure did. A little smile formed on the blonde girl’s face, in truth, she had picked up your scent the moment you snuck up.

You made your way to one of the nearby graveyards on a mission. Your father told you about a certain flower that bloomed near graveyards in this area. You found it after walking past a couple rows of tombstones: the black petunia. So simple, elegant and deathly black. It matched Wednesday to a T.

You grabbed a handful of black petunias and made your way across the school campus towards Wednesday and Enid’s dorm room. From a distance you could spot Wednesday playing the cello from the balcony. It sounded so haunting and gothic. To you it was the most beautiful composition of all, played by your angel of death.

You knocked on the dorm door. Enid answered quickly. The most intense and happy grin made its way across her lips.

“I knew it!” she whispered before ushering you and your dog Dusk into the room.

Wednesday walked in from the balcony, her eyes going wide at seeing you standing there with a bouquet of black petunias.

“Hey” you gave her a small smile.

“Hello” she responded, a slight little bounce in her step as she balanced on her feet a little. Probably for the first time in her life, Wednesday was nervous.

“I-I got these for you” you tried to answer with a calm face. “I saw these black petunias and I thought of you Wednesday”

“Black petunias” she states with a little quiver on her lip, “they only grow in-”

“Graveyards. Yeah. I-I like you Wednesday. A whole lot”

“I have the same admiration for you as well, Wick” she adds, “deeply”

Wednesday walks up to you, throwing the bouquet on her bed before wrapping her arms around your shoulders and hugging you tight. This emotion felt so new to her. If she was going to experience it with anyone, she’s glad it was with you.

“Oh look at you two!!!” Enid exclaims as she observes, “it’s so adorbs!!“

You give Enid a little acknowledging nod. Deadly would be the word to describe you and Wednesday. But yes, you suppose you and her were…adorbs.

News had spread of a vicious mauling outside of the school’s grounds. Some would’ve said a wild tiger or a bear even. But you and Wednesday knew better. You had studied ancient texts in your free time. It was a Grim.

Tags @lifespectator @henkermen @blindedyogurt @supercorpdanbeau @jacenradio7 @multi-fandom-enjoyer @moonlit-imagines @russianredassassin @pinklawyerwinnerzonk @iiconicsfan25 @orion-owls @marveldcfandom @scarletquake-n7

#wednesday addams #wednesday netflix #wednesday series #wednesday x reader #enid sinclair #jenna ortega #john wick #wick reader #assassin reader #the continental #addams family #the addams family #wednesday addams x reader

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nereidprinc3ss · 9 hours ago

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I didn’t mean to have so much to say about this but wow do I!!!!

Lots of people say they love domestic spencer reid but I don’t think they love domestic spencer reid like EYEEE love domestic Spencer Reid. Because I love domestic spencer reid where he’s doing nothing. Or he’s being kind of….. not an asshole but…… where it becomes clear that he’s just dealing with his own shit and he’s a flawed person and then I love domestic Spencer Reid where he’s dealing with his own shit and he’s a flawed person but he can still say I’m sorry!!! And they can hug and it’s okay because loving someone requires being close enough to sometimes hurt them!!!! And the realism of this kind of fic just fills me w so much joy like THISSSS is what I want from tumblr dot com I LOVEE the meditative fics where nothing crazy happens and the plot comes from the authors understanding of rich interpersonal relationships!!!! I love!!!!

This was also beautifully beautifully written like a breath of fresh air wow I truly am so lucky to get to read work from such talented people thank you for writing this and thank you for sharing it with us!!

So anyway here are the lines that jumped out at me. There is really no rhyme or reason, I tend to extra love lines that are a little philosophical and ponderous about human connection and boy was this full of that!! I am not a literary critic I am just a girl full of thoughts

You wonder if this moment is real, or if it is something you are inventing to survive.

I just think this is an jarringly astute and concise observation of something we as humans do all the time in relationships and again there is nothing I love more than an observation about human connection that I can point at and go MEEEE I UNDERSTAND THAT I KNOW HOW IT FEELS!!!! It’s very exciting to me!!

Or maybe you are lying to yourself, pretending love is something you can bear no matter how heavy it gets.

This to me was a kind of honesty most fanfic lacks and obviously most fanfic is supposed to be optimistic and perfect and reflect the readers desires back to them but quite frankly to me it hits harder when there is this subtle kind of interpersonal angst and strife that is something we can feel and recognize within ourselves it makes it easier for me to actually connect to the fic. Rather than watching it like a movie I can recognize this kind of sentiment and it’s far more immersive to me and therefore a lot more fulfilling and rewarding and interesting to read

Maybe that’s the point of all of this—not two people standing side by side, but two people learning how to take up the same space, how to move around each other without losing themselves in the process.

YEAH MAYBE THAT IS THE POINT!!! THE POINT OF EVERYTHING!!! THE POINT OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!!! This to me is just beautiful and very succinctly summarizes something I’ve been working on and will probably continue to work on for the rest of my life and I think really the whole point of love and the lesson most people need to learn!!!! Once again I like my fluffy fanfic tempered w this kind of realism!! It adds so much texture

"Oh, lovely. I've got you, it's me. I'm here, I've got you," whispered reassurances pressed into your hair, your ear, your cheek, as he moves.

No yeah actually this IS the sexiest thing a man could possible say or do!! Like care and pay attention and be present and observant!!! I won’t even be talking about this because I love it too much to dissect it

Anyways this is maybe making me look crazy I just haven’t been engaged with fanfic very much recently and I did not go into this with the intention of having anything to say about it afterward but to my own personal deep surprise was so motivated to!! And it was so beautiful and so lovely I had to say something. Pls excuse if I’ve gone overboard!! This is just such a good example of fanfic at its absolute best to me like this is what it’s forrrr this is what I wanttttt!!!! Thank you for writing thank you for posting beautiful

mouthful of sunlight (18+)

Some nights, Spencer can’t sleep. His mind runs too fast, too far, tangled in cases, in horrors he can’t unsee. But in the quiet of morning, wrapped in the hush of young sunlight, he finds solace in you—the warmth of your breath, the slow, steady rhythm of your fingers tracing his skin. The comfort is fleeting; distance is inevitable. His absence lingers in the empty side of the bed, in unfinished cups of coffee, in the soft weight of his sweater draped over your shoulders. But when he returns—exhausted, unraveling—you stitch him back together with soft reassurances, gentle hands, and the familiar ease of laughter. warnings: sexual content (who tf am I), very very wordy, mentions of a cannon-typical case, longing, some angst if you squint, mostly reader and spencer being lovesick fools wc: 7.6k

You wake to the sound of rain, soft against the windowpane. The sheets are warm, tangled around your limbs, heavy with the scent of sleep and him. Faint traces of his cologne linger in the cotton, something clean and quiet, the ghost of him woven into the fabric.

Spencer is still asleep beside you.

You turn your head, slow, deliberate - shifting too fast might startle him awake. And there he is, curled into the pillow, his body half-buried beneath the blankets, face softened by the hush of morning. His breath moves through the space between you in slow, measured exhales, lips parted slightly, lashes resting against his cheekbone.

You could spend lifetimes watching him like this.

The curve of his mouth, the way his curls press against his forehead, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes—the ones you're not sure he knows about yet. You think the mentioning of them would send him into a spiral about aging and lost time but you love their presence. It reminds you of how he's laughed with you in the past, their arrival a notion of his genuine joy. The body keeps score in freckles and scars, and time can be found in the weight of sleepless nights and too many days spent carrying more than he should.

In sleep, he is weightless. The tension he wears so often—creased brows, tight shoulders, fingers restless against his knee—has melted away, leaving only the quiet.

You reach for him before you can think of it, fingers trailing over the ridge of his knuckles where his hand rests on the pillow between you. His skin is warm, his palm lax, open. He doesn't stir so you let yourself press further, sliding your fingertips up the length of his wrist, feeling the slow pulse beneath his skin.

Spencer Reid is always thinking. Always calculating, always predicting, always existing a step ahead, untethered from the present moment.

But, right now, wrapped in the hush of morning, doused in soft rainlight, he belongs here. With you.

The thought is terrifying in its simplicity.

You swallow, pressing your fingers a little firmer against his wrist, grounding yourself in the proof of him. His pulse beats steady against your touch, and you let it lull you, let yourself fall into its rhythm.

Spencer stirs beneath your touch, just the faintest twitch of his fingers against the pillow.

You go still.

A part of you—the part still tangled in hesitation, in old wounds and old fears—worries he’ll wake, that he’ll blink at you with those sharp, knowing eyes and startle away the calm you've fostered. You love Spencer, asleep or awake, but the peacefulness of this moment is something to be cherished. You want to watch him more, to exist in this lulling moment between seconds where life doesn't matter.

He doesn't wake, though, and instead, he shifts closer, instinctive, unconscious. The space between you vanishes, his breath warming your collarbone, his hand brushing against your arm where it lies between you. He is reaching for you without realizing it, drawn in like something inevitable.

And god, that does something to you.

You exhale, slow, careful, and let yourself watch him again, let yourself sink into the quiet reverence of it.

The morning light has stretched further now, slanting through the window, gliding through the messy sprawl of his hair. He is all sleep-heavy limbs, the weight of him pressing into the mattress in a way that drags you forward, leaning against him.

Flesh and bone, heartbeat and heat.

He is here. He is yours.

The way he leans into you even in sleep, the way his fingers twitch like they are searching for yours, even now. The way his body gives him away, whispering the things his lips have not yet said.

You cannot be careless with this. With him. But before the weight of it can settle too deeply into your chest, before you can let yourself spiral, Spencer shifts again—his breath catching, his brow furrowing just slightly, lashes fluttering against his cheeks.

You barely have time to think before his eyes blink open, slow and heavy-lidded, thick with sleep.

It takes a moment, his hazy eyes focusing and unfocusing. Still, he sees you. Not just looks, not just registers your presence; he sees you.

His lips part slightly, and for a moment, he only stares, like his mind is still catching up, like he’s still tethered somewhere between dreaming and waking. Blinking like he's not sure if you're a dream. Likely, everything is clouded by sleepy eyes and fading memories of dreams.

Then, his voice, quiet, still wrapped in the softness of sleep, “Morning.”

You don’t trust yourself to speak, so you do the only thing you can—you lift your hand, still resting near his wrist, and press your fingers over his pulse once more. A quiet confirmation. A tethering.

Spencer exhales, slow, deliberate, and then he turns his hand, just slightly, just enough, so that his palm meets yours.

His fingers curl between yours, and you feel it—the certainty, the weight of something unspoken settling between your ribs.

There is morning, and then there is night.

There is sunlight spilling over Spencer’s sleeping form, gilding his cheekbones, illuminating the curve of his mouth. And then there is the stark contrast of shadow—of sterile hotel rooms, of the sharp, artificial glow of a bedside lamp casting his face in harsh relief.

His fingers, curled loosely around yours in the golden hush of morning, become hands gripping the edge of a desk, knuckles white, trembling with exhaustion. His voice, soft and thick with sleep, morphs into something raw, something fraying at the edges.

"I don’t know how to turn it off."

It takes you a moment to realize what he means.

He’s still in his suit, the fabric rumpled, the scent of cheap motel soap clinging to his skin. There’s a stack of case files beside him, a half-empty cup of coffee that’s long since gone cold. He doesn’t meet your gaze, just stares down at his hands, fingers twitching like they’re desperate for something to hold onto.

"Spencer."

Your voice is quiet, hesitant, as if anything louder might shatter him completely.

"Come to bed."

He shakes his head, exhales sharply, dragging a hand through his hair.

"I can’t."

A fight, sharp and cutting. His voice raised, your hands clenched into fists at your sides.

"You don’t get it," he snaps, voice raw, eyes burning. "You don’t know what it’s like to have a mind that never fucking stops—"

"I do," you interrupt, and the way he flinches makes your chest ache.

A pause.

Silence stretching between you like a wound torn open, bleeding into the space between your feet.

Spencer exhales, shakily, and when he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper.

"Then why do you keep trying to fix me?"

And there it is.

The knife twisting.

You inhale, but the breath never quite fills your lungs.

The thing is—you don’t want to fix him.

You just want him to rest.

To sleep without nightmares. To let you hold him without feeling like he has to apologize for the weight of his existence. To believe, even for a second, that he doesn’t have to earn the space he takes up.

But you don’t know how to say that in a way that won’t turn into another wound, another reason for him to step back, to pull away.

So instead, you say nothing.

"Fuck. I'm sorry." And it's that simple, really.

Sorry, arms finding each other, whispers of "I know" pressed into necks and soft conversations easing racing minds.

Spencer can't stop the relentless chase of the case in his mind. You can't stop the constant overthinking of being enough, of your body, of desires edging into too much.

Morning. Again.

Spencer, golden in the dawn, the soft breath of sleep still heavy in his lungs. Your fingers ghost over the ridges of his knuckles, tracing the delicate architecture of him, the places where bones knit together beneath skin. Flesh and blood. A body, human and whole.

Then, blood, dark and seeping through the gaps in his fingers, staining his cuffs. Not his blood. Someone else’s. A case. A mistake. A man who didn’t survive the night.

His hands shake as he scrubs them raw in the motel sink, crimson swirling down the drain, his breath coming too fast, chest rising and falling like he’s drowning, like he can feel it slipping between his fingers, the weight of every life he couldn’t save.

You touch his shoulder, and he flinches.

Time lurches.

His head on your lap, hours later. His hair damp, fingers curled weakly in the fabric of your shirt, like holding onto you is the only thing tethering him to the present.

"I don’t know how much more of this I can take."

Morning.

Back in your bed, the light different now, stretched across the sheets in delicate bands. You can’t tell if you’re awake or dreaming.

You wonder if this moment is real, or if it is something you are inventing to survive.

Spencer shifts beside you, a quiet sigh escaping him, and you watch, desperate to memorize the shape of him here, untouched by grief, by the heaviness of what he carries.

You want to wake up to this every morning.

But the truth is, you don’t.

You wake up to the version of him that drinks too much coffee, to the one who is always looking at things that aren’t there, playing scenarios in his head like a film reel stuck on loop. You wake up to the version of him that gets lost in thought mid-conversation, who chews at his nails until they bleed, who flinches awake from dreams he won’t tell you about.

And you love him anyway.

Maybe because of it.

Or maybe you are lying to yourself, pretending love is something you can bear no matter how heavy it gets.

Mornings like this, where he sleeps beside you, still and warm and untouched by the weight of the world—stretch, slow and unhurried, slipping into the day like honey dissolving in warm tea.

Spencer moves through your apartment with the careful quiet of someone who knows how to exist in shared spaces—how to make himself at home without ever taking up too much of it. He is measured, gentle, a man who has spent too much of his life folding himself into small places, and yet, with you, he expands.

You watch him from where you stand at the kitchen counter, hands wrapped around a chipped ceramic mug, warmth seeping into your palms. The coffee is slightly too bitter, but you drink it anyway, because Spencer made it. Because he takes his with too much sugar and no milk, and you take yours with just a little, and the contrast is something you love.

The morning light catches in his hair as he moves about the kitchen, curling slightly at the ends where sleep left it unruly. He wears his clothes loose in the morning—his pajama pants low on his hips, his sweater slightly too big, slipping past his wrists when he reaches for things. He is soft here, unguarded in the way that makes your chest ache.

You don’t say anything when he hums under his breath, something classical, a song you don’t recognize but have heard him play before on nights when he lets the record spin long past midnight.

You don’t say anything when he pours his coffee with one hand and flips absentmindedly through the book he left on the counter with the other.

But you do say something when he starts reading aloud.

“You know, according to the Journal of Neuroscience, studies show that sleep inertia—”

“Spencer,” you interrupt, smiling into your mug.

He pauses, blinking at you, book still in hand. “What?”

You shake your head, setting your coffee down, stepping toward him until you can reach for the book, plucking it gently from his fingers. He lets you take it, watching as you slide it onto the counter behind you, clearing the space between you.

“We’re supposed to be waking up,” you murmur. “Not filling our brains with research before we’ve even eaten breakfast.”

Spencer tilts his head, eyes flickering over your face like he’s considering it. Then, his lips curve, slow and warm. “That’s how I do wake up.”

You roll your eyes, but there’s no bite to it. You both know that you love when Spencer rambles, miss it when he's gone, call him craving the sound of his voice when he's away on trips. “Come here.”

You reach for him, and he comes easily, stepping into the space you make for him, folding himself against you like he belongs there.

Spencer exhales as you press your cheek to his shoulder, hands slipping around his waist, fingers curling into the soft fabric of his sweater. His arms come around you in return, slow and careful, pressing you against him like he knows exactly how to hold you.

The shape of each other, the cadence of shared breath, the quiet rhythm of a love that is not loud or fast or reckless, but something slow and deliberate.

Spencer is slow to let you go.

Even as you shift, even as you move to pull back, his fingers tighten just slightly at your waist, anchoring you there for a moment longer. You don’t resist. You let yourself be held, let yourself stay.

But then his stomach growls. Loudly.

You grin against his shoulder. “Well, that’s attractive.”

Spencer groans, burying his face in your neck. “I knew I should have eaten before I went to bed.”

You laugh, pressing your hands to his sides. “Come on, genius. Let’s get you some food before you start reading case files on malnutrition.”

He sighs, exaggerated, but finally steps back, rubbing a hand over his face as you turn toward the stove. “I do have a study on nutritional deficiencies and cognitive function bookmarked somewhere.”

You glance at him over your shoulder, raising an eyebrow. “You have studies bookmarked on everything.”

Spencer shrugs, completely unapologetic, and moves to lean against the counter beside you, watching as you pull out a frying pan. He doesn’t help—doesn’t even pretend to help—but he does reach for the bag of coffee grounds again, refilling your mug and his, making himself useful in the way he always does.

“You want eggs?” you ask, already cracking one against the rim of the pan.

He hums, peering into the fridge. “Only if you make them the way I like.”

“You mean, as you proclaimed the first time you stayed over, the right way?”

“Yes,” he says simply.

Neither of you mention how he burned them immediately after, distracted by kissing you in the early light filtering through the curtains of the kitchen window.

You huff, but it’s all affection, and he knows it.

Spencer doesn’t sit while you cook. He doesn’t retreat to the table or get lost in a book. He stays right here, a constant presence at your side, sipping his coffee, occasionally nudging your hip with his when you get too focused.

When you plate the food, he takes his with an approving nod. “See? Perfectly cooked.”

“They;re just scrambled, picky,” you tease, nudging him toward the kitchen table with your hip.

Spencer grins, mouth full of toast. “I have standards.”

You snort, setting your plate down across from him. “Oh, I know. That’s why you’re dating me.”

He swallows, takes a sip of coffee, and then, without missing a beat, says, “No, I’m dating you because I’m in love with you.”

Your breath catches.

He says it so easily.

No hesitation. No grand declaration. Just a fact, spoken between bites of breakfast, like it’s something he’s known for years.

You blink, lips parting slightly, and Spencer—Spencer, who notices everything—tilts his head, eyes softening.

“Hey,” he murmurs, reaching across the table, brushing his fingers against yours. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” you say quickly, shaking your head, covering his hand with yours. “No, I—I just—”

You exhale, glancing down at where your hands meet, at the gentle press of his fingers against yours. Then, quieter: “I love you, too.”

The corner of his mouth lifts, slow, small, but full of something deep, something certain.

“I know,” he murmurs, thumb tracing slow circles against your skin. “But I still like hearing it.”

And so you say it again, just for him.

Just because he likes hearing it.

“I love you.” Spencer smiles.

After breakfast, Spencer lingers at the table while you move about the apartment, rinsing dishes, wiping crumbs from the counter. It’s a soft sort of silence. When you pass by him, his hand brushes against your hip, absentminded but full of intent, a touch that says I know you’re here. I know you’re mine.

You catch his wrist, squeezing gently before letting go.

Neither of you speak as you make your way toward the bedroom, but Spencer follows, because of course he does. Because his place is beside you, moving with you, orbiting within the same small universe.

Inside, the morning light has stretched further across the bed, creeping in golden streaks over the fabric. The air is warm with the scent of sleep, of coffee, of him.

Spencer moves first, tugging his sweater over his head and tossing it onto the bed. His hair goes staticky, curls fluffed from the fabric, and you reach out instinctively, smoothing them back into place. He stills beneath your touch, the corners of his lips twitching.

“You’re going to make it worse,” he murmurs.

“Probably.” You grin, carding your fingers through the strands anyway, just for the sake of touching him.

Spencer huffs a laugh, but he doesn’t move away.

You let him slip his fingers beneath the hem of your shirt, lifting it over your head in one fluid motion. Let him reach for the zipper of your trousers, sliding it down with the same care you’d shown him.

There’s nothing rushed about it.

Nothing frantic, nothing heated. Just this. Just hands smoothing over fabric, fingers brushing against skin in passing, the quiet, unspoken promise of I know you. I love you. Let me show you.

Spencer tilts his head, gaze flickering down, not to your lips, but to the hollow of your throat, where your pulse flutters beneath your skin. He watches it like a scholar studying something precious like he’s measuring the exact rhythm of you, the precise way you exist in this moment.

And then, with all the patience in the world, he leans in.

Not rushed. Not desperate. Like he has all the time in the world to memorize you.

His lips brush your jaw first—so soft it could almost be nothing, just a breath, just a thought of touch. Then, lower, trailing warmth along the delicate line of your neck, the curve of your shoulder.

Your fingers find his wrists, not to stop him, but to hold him there, to feel the heat of him seeping into your skin.

You shift—not much, just enough to press closer, enough to let your forehead rest against his, enough to let his breath mingle with yours.

His hands slide higher, fingertips grazing the curve of your ribs, the warmth of his palms bleeding through the fabric like sunlight through frosted glass.

Like he understands, without either of you saying it, that this is the sacred part. Not the wanting, not even the having, but the holding. The staying.

He presses his lips to your temple, soft and sure, and you feel it—the weight of love settling between your ribs, deep and real.

“I want you,” he murmurs, voice low, full of something aching.

You shudder, your fingers tightening around his wrists. “You have me,” you whisper.

Spencer swallows, pressing his forehead against yours again, his hands gripping you just a little tighter as he breathes you in.

You feel his adoration in the way he moves—hesitant, reverent. Like he’s unraveling you thread by thread, pulling you apart just to piece you back together in the way only he knows how.

His fingers ghost over the curve of your waist, not grasping, not pulling, just feeling.

Your breath catches when he finally presses closer, the full weight of him sinking into you, a slow collapse into something inevitable. His body is warm, radiating heat like a fever, like a star burning too close to your skin. You curl your fingers into the fabric of his shirt, twisting it tight in your grip, grounding yourself in the weight of him.

He exhales against your jaw, warm and unsteady.

“Look at me,” he murmurs.

You do.

And god, it’s unbearable—the way his eyes search yours, wide and dark and pleading.

His breath stutters when you reach up, cradling his face in your hands, fingertips skimming the sharp angle of his cheekbone. He leans into your touch like it’s instinct, his lashes fluttering, his lips parting slightly, his chest rising and falling in time with yours.

“Spencer,” you whisper, his name slipping from your lips like a prayer.

He answers you with a kiss.

Not rushed, not desperate. His lips move against yours, unhurried but insistent, a careful exploration, a patient claiming. His nose brushes yours, his breath mingling with yours, the quiet sounds of longing pressing into the spaces between you.

You sigh into his mouth, and he shudders, his fingers tightening against your ribs.

“Again,” he whispers.

So you kiss him again. And again. And again.

Until the space between you is nothing, until your bodies are tangled in sheets and sighs and whispered names, until everything is breath and warmth and wanting.

His hands find yours, fingers threading together, clinging, pressing, grounding. His forehead rests against yours, his breath uneven, his body trembling with the weight of this.

“I want you,” he whispers, voice wrecked, shaking, repeating himself.

You tighten your grip on his hands, pulling him closer. “I know,” you breathe. “I know.”

And when he moves again, when his lips find yours with a new kind of urgency, you know—you feel it in your bones—this isn’t just wanting. It’s everything.

Spencer kisses you like he’s searching for something.

Like the answer to every unsolvable equation is pressed between your lips, tucked beneath your tongue, hidden in the soft give of your sighs.

And you let him.

Because you know this—this rhythm, this language you’ve built together. The slow pull of hands over fabric, the careful way he unravels you. The heat that grows between you, steady and unrelenting, like a pot left to boil over.

Spencer exhales sharply when your fingers find the sharp ridge of his collarbone. You press your lips there, breathing him in, and he shivers.

Spencer is reaching for you again, already fitting his hands to the curve of your back, already tilting his head to press open-mouthed kisses to your shoulder, your throat, the place just beneath your ear that makes you sigh.

“We’re going to be late,” you murmur, though you don’t mean it.

Spencer hums, his lips still pressed against your skin. “I don’t care.”

You laugh—a breathy, delighted sound that he swallows with his next kiss, his hands smoothing over your ribs, pressing warmth into your skin.

His trousers slide lower on his hips, and he makes a sound—low, breathless, almost dazed.

And then—“I’m sorry,” he murmurs suddenly, against the corner of your mouth.

You blink, pulse stuttering. “For what?”

“For all the times I haven’t been here.” His fingers tighten at your waist, like he’s grounding himself in the weight of you, in the proof that you are here. “For leaving. For missing too much. For—”

You don’t let him finish.

You press your lips to his, pouring everything into it—forgiveness, love, understanding.

When you break apart, your voice is quiet but sure. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Spencer exhales, shaky and relieved, and then—

Then he laughs, something soft and breathless, because you’ve pushed his trousers past his hips and now they’re tangled around his ankles, and it’s clumsy, and it’s human, and neither of you can bring yourselves to care.

Your own clothes follow, piece by piece, scattered and forgotten, because this is more important.

Spencer is warm everywhere, all golden skin and careful hands and parted lips. He hovers over you, his breath fanning over your cheek, his fingers tracing slow, reverent paths down your arms, your sides, like he’s still memorizing you.

And when you reach for him, guiding him closer, pulling him in, he exhales a sound—soft, broken, something like ah, like yes, like finally.

You sigh into him, arching, meeting him where he waits, and the warmth between you turns molten, turns necessary.

Spencer presses his forehead to yours, his breath uneven, his fingers twining with yours in the sheets.

“I love you,” he whispers.

And you—You're lost in the heat, the smell of him. The gentle movement as there's nothing left but you and him and him and him.

"Ah, Spencer," you breathe, and he shushes you.

"I know, I know."

It's quiet, it's breathy laughs, it's warmth building building buildig until something cracks - it has to, it's necessary, it's perfect and lovely and hot honey dripping down your thighs to gather into something greater, something perfect, something more.

It should be impossible, the way you fit together.

Like something sculpted by hands that knew what they were doing, shaping flesh and bone with deliberate care, pressing you into each other until there is no separation, no beginning or end. A seamless thing. Thread looping over itself, over and over and over into infinity. Until it cannot be separated from itself, until it is one ball of mass and moving and friction.

Heat and pressure and warmth build into something more, more more. Spencer is calling your name as if you are lost, you're grasping his back to remind him you're right here.

He tumbles and you're stuck on the edge, unable to follow. It's a brilliant thing, watching him. Eyes screwed shut, tightly. Breath coming out in spurts and spasms. Love, love, love. Pouring out of him and into you.

It's warm, so so warm, and nearly enough to send you to the place of glass shattering and pleasure fluttering and complete unity.

It isn't until Spencer's hips are faltering that he notices you there, hanging on the precipice of masterpieces yet unknown.

"Oh, lovely. I've got you, it's me. I'm here, I've got you," whispered reassurances pressed into your hair, your ear, your cheek, as he moves.

And you fall after him, tumbling down into something safe and known and foreign and unlearnable.

When you clatter back onto Earth, Spencer is warm against you, chest rising and falling in the slow, steady rhythm of shared breath. His fingers—long, elegant, familiar—trace mindless patterns against your arm, mapping you the way he memorizes pages, theories, entire histories. As if you are something to be learned, something to be understood.

As if he hasn’t already written you into the marrow of his bones.

Your limbs are tangled in the sheets, in each other, some quiet aftershock of connection humming between your skin. He shifts, pressing a lazy kiss to your temple, the edge of your jaw, the corner of your lips, his breath still heavy with you.

Whole. Uninterrupted.

Until—

A loud grumble splits the silence, echoing off the walls.

Spencer stills.

You blink.

And then—

Your stomach rumbles again, louder this time, an undignified protest against your distraction.

Spencer bursts into laughter.

It’s warm, breathless, human, cracking through the solemn weight of the moment like lightning through a storm. He drops his head against your shoulder, shaking with it, his entire body vibrating with amusement.

“Oh my God,” you groan, covering your face with your hands.

Spencer’s still laughing when he rolls onto his back, his hand dragging down his face as he tries to compose himself. He fails, utterly, letting out another breathy chuckle before turning his head to look at you.

“I’m sorry,” he says between soft huffs of breath, his eyes bright with mirth. “It was just—so poetic, so profound—and then your stomach actually growled.”

You peek at him between your fingers. “You're going to give me shit when you essentially did the same thing earlier?" You ask, aghast. Spencer nods his head, cheeky smile overtaking his face.

You groan again, but it’s half-hearted, because Spencer is still laughing, and it’s the kind of sound you’d willingly make a fool of yourself for, over and over again, just to hear it.

"Did you not have any of your stellar eggs?" Spencer asks, pulling away from you.

You both wince as connection is lost, resisting the urge to pull him back in again, to be selfish and keep the warmth of him near.

He stretches, arms raised above his head, back cracking. You stay still, stretched across the bed as he moves into your bathroom and wets a washcloth.

"No, I don't really like scrambled."

Spencer hesitates, at the foot of the bed, one knee propped up on the edge. "What?" He asks, frozen, still as a statue.

"I'll eat them but this morning they were too eggy."

"Too eggy," Spencer mutters, voice aghast, cleaning you before pinching your thigh playfully. "Come on, time to get you to work."

The moment lingers, shifting into something softer, something easy.

And then—

You’re standing in the kitchen, hours later, Spencer in his undershirt, stirring a pot of something that smells like warmth, like home.

Your stomach grumbles again.

Spencer smirks, not even turning around. “Should I start reciting poetry, or—”

You throw a dish towel at him.

||||

There is the weight of Spencer pressed against you in the morning, the heat of his breath on your skin, the steady rhythm of his fingers tracing patterns into your ribs. And then there is the cold side of the bed, the imprint of him faded from the sheets, the silence of an empty apartment that settles like dust in your lungs.

He’s gone.

Not forever. Neer forever.

But the difference between knowing something and feeling it is vast, and this morning, you feel it.

The bed is too big. The air is too still. The coffee is too bitter without his absentminded habit of adding too much sugar to the pot when he thinks you aren’t looking.

His absence moves through the space like a ghost, turning everyday things into echoes of him.

A book left open on the table, spine cracked, a scrap of paper sticking out with notes in the margins.

A half-full mug beside the sink. He always assures you he'll finish it later but never does. You don't mind, savoring the reminder of him when he leaves in the middle of the day with little notice.

The sweater he left draped over the back of a chair, smelling like warmth, like him, like something undone.

You exhale, pressing your fingers to the edge of the table as if grounding yourself, as if it might keep you tethered.

You knew this would happen.

It always does—cases that stretch into days, weeks, phone calls that come at odd hours, the sound of his voice wrapped in exhaustion and apologies, the waiting, the not-knowing.

You reach for your own coffee, cradling it between your palms, letting the heat seep into your fingers.

Your phone buzzes. A message. Short, simple.

Spencer: I miss you.

The breath in your chest stutters.

Your fingers hover over the keyboard, a response forming before you can even think about it.

You: I miss you too. It’s too quiet here.

Three dots appear. Pause. Disappear.

You wait, staring at the screen, willing the space between you to close, even just a little.

Spencer: I’ll call you tonight. Stay in my sweater until then.

You let out a breath, something soft, something caught between a laugh and a sigh. You reach for it, slipping it over your shoulders, wrapping yourself in the remnants of warmth.

It’s not the same.

But for now, it will have to be enough.

||||

The door unlocks with a quiet click.

You don’t move right away.

You should—should stand, should cross the room, should meet him in the doorway. But instead, you sit still, curled into the couch, the weight of waiting still heavy in your limbs, pressing you down.

Footsteps. Familiar, careful.

“Hey,” Spencer murmurs, quiet, hesitant, like he isn’t sure if you’re asleep, if he should wake you, if he’s allowed to break the silence.

You inhale sharply, and that’s what does it—what snaps the moment in two. You push up from the couch, feet hitting the floor, your body moving before your mind catches up.

You are in his arms.

He exhales sharply at the impact, his bag slipping from his shoulder, his arms wrapping around you with something desperate, something relieved, like he’s been waiting for this moment just as much as you have.

The scent of him—faint cologne, the sterile bite of too many hotels, the quiet warmth that is Spencer—hits you all at once. You press your face into his shoulder, fingers curling into the fabric of his jacket, holding tight.

“You’re back,” you breathe, and it’s obvious, unnecessary, but you need to say it, need to hear it, need to confirm it.

Spencer laughs—soft, exhausted, fond. “I’m back.”

You feel the words vibrate through him, feel the shape of them beneath your hands, the weight of them settling between your ribs.

“Did you miss me?” You laugh, a quiet, breathy thing, your grip tightening on his jacket.

“Not at all,” you say, pulling back just enough to look at him, to see him. His face is tired, his eyes a little shadowed, but there’s something soft there, something bright just beneath the surface.

His lips twitch. “Liar.”

You hum, tilting your chin up just slightly, brushing your nose against his, letting the warmth between you settle.

“Say it anyway,” he murmurs.

So you do. “I missed you, Spence.”

His breath stumbles and he kisses you.

It’s not rushed. It’s not desperate. It’s homecoming, warmth where there was once cold. It’s touch where there was once absence. It’s the quiet, certain return of something that never really left.

It takes a while for Spencer to let go and, even when he does, he keeps a hand on you. Not even after the kiss fades into breaths, not even after his bag is abandoned by the door, not even after you’ve guided him toward the couch, pressing your hands to his shoulders until he sinks into the cushions with a sigh.

You don’t ask him about the case.

Not yet.

Instead, you move around him, nudging his shoes off with your foot, smoothing his hair back from his face, pressing your fingers into the stiff muscles at the back of his neck. His eyes flutter shut, and he exhales slow, like he’s unspooling one spiraling thread at a time.

“You look exhausted,” you murmur, brushing your knuckles over his cheek.

“I feel worse,” he admits, cracking one eye open to look at you. “I think I might actually be a ghost.”

You hum, tilting your head. Slowly, you press a finger into the center of his chest, thumping it against his sternum twice. “I don’t know, you feel pretty solid to me.”

Spencer lets out a breathy chuckle, shaking his head. “Okay, fine. Maybe I’m only part ghost.” He waves a hand in the air, "I hover between realms, or whatever those silly books you read would say."

“Well,” you say, ignoring the dig at your admittedly less-academic reading preferences, pressing your lips to his temple, lingering, “if you were a ghost, you’d be a talkative one. Following me around, rambling about hauntings and historic criminal cases—”

Spencer scoffs. “I’d be a great ghost.”

“Would you?”

“I’d be an educational ghost.”

You snort, letting your fingers trail down his arm, wrapping your hand around his wrist, pressing against the pulse there. “I think I prefer you educational and alive.”

Spencer smiles, but it’s softer now, more worn, and when he leans into you, it’s not just playful—it’s relief.

You shift, curling into him, letting him fold himself against you like he’s been waiting for it for days. He buries his face against your shoulder, his breath warm against your skin, and you feel the tension still lingering in him, the weight of something else.

Something he’s not saying. So you just hold him.

One hand drifts into his hair, threading through the soft curls, the other smoothing over his back, steady, slow. His fingers flex against your side, gripping, holding, grounding. He sighs, deep, exhausted, pressing closer like he’s trying to escape something.

You kiss the crown of his head. “You don’t have to tell me,” you whisper. “But you can.”

Spencer is quiet for a long moment, his breathing uneven, his fingers still pressed into your skin. “The case was a little boy,” he murmurs, barely above a breath. “He lost his—” His voice wavers, and he swallows hard. “His whole family. We nearly didn't find him in time."

It's the most he can give you, the most that the public has probably heard, too, but it's enough to impress upon you the true horrors he's facing.

You close your eyes, tightening your arms around him. “Spencer.”

He shakes his head, shifting just enough to rest his forehead against your collarbone. “I just—I keep thinking about him. How small he looked. How scared.”

You press your lips together, blinking hard, willing yourself to keep it together for him. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, voice thick. “I know that doesn’t help, but I am.”

Spencer exhales shakily, nodding against your skin. “It helps.”

You don’t know if that’s true, but you keep holding him anyway. Keep smoothing your hands down his back, keep whispering his name, keep pressing your lips to his temple, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, like you can will the heaviness away.

“I’ve got you,” you murmur against his skin. “You’re home.”

Spencer lets out a slow, shuddering breath. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I am.”

Spencer doesn't move much, pressed against you, letting himself be held. His breathing steadies, his hands no longer gripping like he’s afraid of being pulled away.

You shift, just slightly, pressing your cheek against the top of his head. “You wanna do something mindless for a bit? Watch bad TV? Read a book with no footnotes? Stare at a wall together?”

Spencer snorts, muffled against your skin. “Tempting.”

“I'm very persuasive when I want to be.”

“That’s one word for it.”

You pull back just enough to look at him, narrowing your eyes. “Excuse me?”

Spencer finally lifts his head, and there’s something lighter in his expression now, the weight of the case still lingering, but no longer pressing quite so hard against the edges of his mind.

He shifts, settling further into the couch, his knee bumping against yours. “You bullied me into watching a terrible documentary about haunted dolls last time I came back from a case.”

Your mouth falls open in offense. “It was informative!”

Spencer levels you with a flat look. “It was ninety minutes of a guy holding up dolls to the camera and whispering ‘Do you hear that?’”

You press your lips together, fighting back a laugh. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t the most scientific—”

“There was a scene transition shaped like a skull.”

“You didn’t have to watch it!”

Spencer gestures at himself dramatically. “I was physically incapacitated by exhaustion!”

You shove at his shoulder, laughing now, and he catches your wrist easily, pressing a quick, warm kiss to the inside of it before letting you go. The gesture is so easy, so thoughtless, that your chest goes tight with it.

Spencer sighs, shifting so he’s half-leaning against you again, pressing his forehead briefly to your shoulder before pulling back. “But,” he admits, softer now, “it was kind of nice. Sitting with you. Not thinking for a bit.”

You hum, tucking your legs beneath you, leaning into his warmth. “I am great at the whole ‘not thinking’ thing.”

Spencer huffs a laugh. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You sure? I distinctly remember you asking me how I manage to not overanalyze things while I was eating a bowl of cereal the other day.”

“That was—” He pauses, brows knitting together. “Okay, yes, but that’s because you were reading the cereal box like it was literature.”

“It was a compelling narrative, Spencer.”

He tilts his head. “The ingredients list?”

“The lucky leprechaun’s backstory,” you clarify.

Spencer just stares at you.

You grin, nudging his knee. “It’s called escapism, genius.”

Spencer shakes his head, exhaling something close to a laugh-sigh, then shifts again, tucking himself more comfortably against your side.

"Unless you're calling me dumb," you muse, not ready to give up teasing him. He takes the bait easily.

"I would never say that-"

"i'm pretty certain that's what I'm hearing."

"Absolutely not." You sit silently, humming dramatically, hoping for a compliment that you're sure is to come. "You're one of the smartest people I've met, actually. That's why your taste in books and documentaries appalls me."

"You're good at groveling, Dr. Reid."

He doesn't answer, chuckling and pressing his lips against your shoulder in response instead.

After a moment, his fingers brush against yours, hesitant for only a second before twining them together. Quiet settles between you again—not heavy this time, not suffocating. Just easy. Just you and him. Spencer squeezes your fingers lightly, voice soft when he speaks again.

“You make coming home easy.”

Your throat goes tight, and you squeeze back. The shift in tone is palpable. You long to linger in the feeling of warmth and safety and the earnest way he mumbles it. “Good,” you murmur, pressing your forehead to his temple. “Because you are home.”

Spencer exhales, slow and steady. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I know.”

You don’t move immediately after Spencer settles against you, letting his weight sink into the couch, his fingers loosely tangled with yours. He’s relaxed now, softer, the weight of the week still lingering in his tired eyes but no longer pressing quite so hard on his shoulders.

It’s the perfect time to strike.

You reach for the remote, flicking through streaming options with intense purpose.

Spencer glances at you, suspicious. “What are you doing?”

“Putting something on to help you unwind.”

His eyes narrow. “What kind of something?”

You hum innocently. “Oh, you’ll see.”

Spencer watches as you select a YouTube documentary—one you know is riddled with inaccuracies, one that will absolutely send him into a spiral.

The second the dramatic narration begins, Spencer physically tenses.

You stifle a smile. You watched it when he was gone, something mind-numbing after a long day at work, and have been waiting to see his reaction to the ridiculous claims of the conspiracies.

The documentary wastes no time getting things wrong.

A sweeping shot of pyramids. An ominous, overly intense musical score. And then, in bold, serious tones:

"The ancient Egyptians, known for their fascination with aliens—"

Spencer inhales sharply, head snapping toward you, eyes wide with horror. “Their fascination with WHAT?”

You shrug, biting your lip. “Aliens, love. Keep up.”

Spencer throws his hands in the air. “Ancient Egyptian society was a highly advanced civilization with remarkable achievements in engineering, mathematics, and medicine—why does everything have to be aliens?”

You pat his knee comfortingly. “Shh. The experts are speaking.”

He turns back to the screen just in time to hear the narrator say:

"Some theorists believe the Sphinx was originally a statue of a dog, not a lion."

Spencer physically jolts, glaring at you again.

“A dog?” he scoffs.

You bite back laughter. “I don’t know, Spence. It kinda looks like a dog if you squint.”

He looks betrayed. “It doesn't. I know you don't think it does.”

You hum thoughtfully, pretending to study the screen. “Maybe, like, a bulldog?”

Spencer presses the heels of his palms into his eyes like he’s in pain. Give me the remote. There's a better, actual documentary, about 1940s Germany that I wanted to show you instead of this-” he gestures toward the screen, "garbage."

You grin, nudging his side. “Oh, you love it.”

“I do not—”

A new segment starts, this one even worse, featuring a so-called “historian” confidently stating that the Romans invented cheese.

Spencer makes a noise nearly resembling a laugh and you know you've got him.

“No they didn't," he says, deadpan, shaking his head and clicking off of the video.

You lose it. You cackle, curling into his side, shaking with laughter as Spencer queues up an actual documentary, switching on subtitles for you.

“I hate you,” he mutters, but his voice is fond, his arm still wrapped tight around you.

“No, you don’t,” you tease, leaning into him.

He sighs dramatically, dropping a kiss to the top of your head.

“No,” he murmurs, softer now. “I really don’t.”

And just like that, the warmth settles back between you, easy and earned.

Even if he’s still muttering about the Sphinx as the documentary starts.

You settle down like that, listening as Spencer adds his own interesting facts to the documentary. This is home, wholly and truly, sitting on this couch next to him.

You're sure to ask questions, keep him talking, until he falls asleep, missing the sound of his voice the second he dozes off.

#fic recs #that should be me #fic motherfucking recs

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ezrasxfics · 2 days ago

Text

i might be the brain of evil.

abstragedy

gangle pov

i sit alone in my red, white and black themed room, drawing, trying to avoid my mind being infested with thoughts of what happened that day. the spudsy’s adventure. you see, i’ve not been able to get it out of my head. no matter what i do, and how much people insist i’m forgiven, i can’t seem to forgive myself, to convince myself it’s all okay.

putting down my black mechanical pencil, i take a deep breath in, just the way ragatha had taught me to. i hold it in for a few seconds, counting down from 5 before i let it go, a small exhaling noise leaving my mouth. it doesn’t really solve the problem, but i suppose it’s a good short-term coping strategy. that, and drowning the thoughts out with the loud music blasting in my ears. or.. where my ears would be. it seemed to work when i put headphones over them, so i suppose it doesn’t matter what they’re called.

when zooble walked into my room, i didn’t even notice at first, listening to some old vocaloid song: ‘world is mine’. i had it turned all the way up, to the point it was almost painful. that way i didn’t have to think.

“uh.. hey, gangle?” zooble says, tapping me on the shoulder, making me jump and squeal in surprise, practically throwing my headphones off.

“oh-!! hi, zooble..! sorry.. i was just- just.. drawing!! yeah, that’s what i was doing!!” i ramble, and internally facepalm. zooble was so cool.. i couldn’t help but be nervous around them!! and, being nervous just lead to me acting like a total fool.

“..yeah, you were pretty distracted there. you okay?”

that single question - those two words - that was enough for tears to threaten to fall from my eyes, all the feelings i tried to push away all flooding back to the forefront of my mind, impossible to avoid.

“..yeah..! im- i’m finE-!” my voice cracks a little, a tell-tale sign. that, along with the relentless trembled in my body, slumped over due to my complete lack of energy.

“you’re a terrible liar. come on, what’s on your mind?” they reply, eyes narrowing a little in concern. despite all the clear signs they cared, that little voice was telling me otherwise. why would they care about someone like me..? someone so.. evil..?

“zooble.. do you think i’m a horrible person?” i ask before i can stop myself, and immediately regret it. they probably think i’m needy, that i don’t trust them, that i’m clingy, that—

“no, why would i think that? you’ve proved you’re a good person. is this about spudsys?”

“yes-“ i squeak, nodding at this.

“look, gangle, you f**ked up. that doesn’t make you a bad person. the fact that you feel like this on its own proves that you have good intentions. you’re taking accountability, sh*tty people don’t do that. everyone’s done things they regret. i know i have, more times than i can count. let me put it into perspective for you. say i did what you did, all the same. and afterwards, i hated myself for it, saw myself as an awful person and started isolating myself from everyone. would you see me as a bad person?” they look me in the eyes, waiting for a response, a glimmer of concern in their eyes.

“..no, of course not-!!” i begin, before getting interrupted.

“exactly. let yourself be happy, forgive yourself. you’ll never be happy if you keep beating yourself up like this.”

“..i love you—“

and that’s where i’m gonna end the fic becauseee im an asshole!!

reblogs are appreciated, and i take requests!!

#abstragedy #tadc zooble #zooble #tadc #gangle x zooble #the amazing digital circus zooble #the amazing digital circus #tadc gangle #the amazing digital circus gangle #gangle #tadc fanfiction #the amazing digital circus fanfiction #digital circus #amazing digital circus

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earlgreylatte · 19 hours ago

Text

Nothing to Declare

You and Mark try not to sync up your breakdowns.

Watching Mark solemnly gaze at his phone, his call with Amber cut because of the ship’s rising altitude, you shift, fiddling with your camera’s settings.

“It’s not too late to back out,” you suggest, “I should be fine to go on my own. Honestly, this might be overkill.”

“No way,” he immediately refutes, looking back at you, “I’m not letting you go to a planet that’s who knows where by yourself. And, honestly? You should still be resting. You can only now just eat solids—“

You press a hand to your abdomen. It’s been months now since your dad impaled you with his bare hand and took off. If you weren’t you, you’d be killed instantly.

You brought back into reality when Mark places a hand on your shoulder, “I just mean…you shouldn’t be pushing yourself back into work so soon. You’ve been going at it for years now.”

You grimace at the reminder, “I could say the same to you. You don’t need to put others before yourself all the time. You’re missing your first week of lectures, for god’s sake.”

“It’s fine, William will cover for me,” he shakes his head.

“You better take him flying when you get back.”

“I guess you’re right…”

“You guess?”

You and Mark take a seat as you see stars shine outside the ship’s windows.

The Thraxan piloting the ship, speaks up, “Are you comfortable, Mark Gray—sorry, Invincible, Singularity?”

“Very plush seats,” you compliment.

“Yeah, thanks,” Mark responds, sullenly. “How long until we get to Thraxa?”

“Approximately six of your Earth days!” The alien informs.

You eye your brother as he sighs and slumps into his seat. “Space sucks…”

You don’t disagree.

Mark shakes you awake, you try to batt your hand at him, “We’re here. Finally.”

Staring out the windows, you immediately notice the violet colour of the planet and its architecture, maybe you’ll take a picture or two. When the planetary threat was extinguished, of course.

Exiting the ship, you and Mark find yourselves surrounded by Thraxans starting at you two in awe, whispers of excitement filling the air. You take a picture. You can multitask.

“Uh, hi?” Mark offered.

Your alien guide, leans in, “Don’t mind them! The monarch wants to meet you at once!”

Mark steps forward first, into the direction of the purple palace at the centre of the city, cubic and with waterfalls. You snap another photo as two children duck under Mark’s arm, laughter filling the air as they eagerly try to take the lead.

For a planet on the cusp of supposed doom, they sure are cheerful.

“It’s certainly tranquil here,” you murmur.

“Wait, what exactly about this planet needs saving?” Mark questions, looking around. “What about the meteors?”

“Meteors? What meteors?”

You and Mark stop walking, and blankly stare at the Thraxan.

“The ones that are killing billions?”

“Ah, those meteors! Must be a touch of dementia, we age much quicker than you humans, you know! Don’t worry, the monarch will explain all!”

You and Mark exchange a look.

“Bro.”

Finally making your way in the Monarch’s abode, the outer-worldly architecture now filling up your camera’s gallery, you notice Mark softening at the serene aura encompassing your surroundings.

Approaching a grand and very red staircase, you observe what must be a throne like area above.

“Your Majesty,” the alien beckons making way for you, three Thraxans turning to look down at your party. “May I present Invincible and Singularity of Earth.”

You and Mark take a kneel, awkwardly lowering your heads in respect.

The Thraxans part, and your hear heavy footsteps sound against the floor. The ruler.

“Hello, kids,” A warm and agonizingly familiar voice greets.

Mark gasps and jolts up but you keep your head down for a second before slowly lifting your head up.

Your father, with his hand outstretched, smiles down at you two, “It’s been a while.”

“…Dad?”

You pull off your mask, letting it fell to the floor.

“Dad?” You call, as your brother clenches his fists next to you, breath shuttering, “Dad!”

You fly to embrace him, tears burning your eyes. He catches you, like he always does, strong arms wrapping around your form, bring a hand up to cradle your head that’s buried against his shoulder. You hear his heartbeat thump, slow and calm. You can almost pretend things are normal again.

“I…missed you two,” he admits.

Mark shouts your name, a thunder you’ve never heard in his voice before. The spectating Thraxans flinch, as Mark rips off his mask, approaching you with measured steps, grabbing you by the arm to pull you away and behind him as he stares down your father.

“This was all you? Bringing us here?” He grits out, “The Thraxans told us they needed help, but that was another one of your lies?”

“They do need your help,” your dad responds.

“Why?” He squeezes out, his grip on your arm tightening.

“It’s complicated. Come with me—“

“No, WHY did you lie to us again?” Your brother’s glare hardens, “You killed thousands of people. You nearly killed your own daughter after scaring her into silence! Who knows what else you did to her! You stuck a hand through her, like—-like she was nothing!”

You bite your lip, “Mark—“

“Why would you think we would ever want to see you again? That you would even deserve it. You called mom a pet,” his voice breaks.

“You broke her heart,” you whisper, backing away.

Your dad calls your names, “I need your help—“

Mark sighs, tired, before gesturing to the aliens standing behind your father, “And you made them lie to us?”

“Just listen—“

“I don’t need to listen to anything you say,” he retorts, turning away and pulling you with him.

“Look, I made a mistake. I thought about you two every day—“

“A mistake!?” Mark shouts, twisting around to face your father.

“Son—“

“No, you don’t get to call me that anymore!”

“What do you want me to say?” Your father looks defeated.

“You could have started with ‘I’m sorry’!”

A moment of silence passes over you.

“You know what? Don’t bother, alright? It wouldn’t mean anything anyways. I hope you like it here with your new friends,” Mark asserted, “Guess they don’t know you the way we do.”

You breathe out, “We can’t go back to how things were, dad. Not after everything.”

You follow Mark as he makes to leave, the latter glancing behind him.

“Fuck you.” Were his final words before you two took off into the sky.

You hear your father follow.

“You’ll never make it back on your own. It’s millions of miles, and you don’t know the way. Navigation was neither of yours strong suit. Come back, and we’ll talk,” your father explained, “Please.”

“And what are you going to do if we don’t? Knock out all my teeth again? Strand her in another planet with you to make a point?” he asks venomously, gesturing towards you before speeding up, you and your father following.

“I’ll get you a ship home, but there’s something you need to see first.” Your father bargains.

“No,” Mark refuses.

“Nol’Zak wasn’t lying to you, his people do need your help. Let me tell you why.”

“I don’t care.”

“I know that’s not true,” your father refutes.

“Mark,” you speak up, “If we leave now, we could risk being stranded for years or even forever without a way home. Let’s just help this planet and we can go home.”

Your brother slows to a stop with you, “Five minutes. For them, not you.”

He descends back down. You and your father hover for a moment.

“Dad,” you speak up, “If you try to do anything to Mark, I won’t hesitate this time.”

“I know.”

“So, you conquered this place, instead of Earth?” Mark notes.

“I didn’t conquer this planet, the Thraxans asked me to be their emperor.” Your father rebuffs, leading you through the palace halls before stopping at a door.

“Conqueror, emperor, what’s the difference?” Your brother mumbles.

“Consent, I guess?” You answer as you three enter a pastel coloured room, a lone female Thraxan standing within.

You and Mark watch in horror as your father… tongues her. You tried to step out of the room, but your back meets the door that closed automatically, the traitor.

The Thraxan turns to warmly greet you two, your father’s arm on her waist, oblivious to the looks on your faces, “Welcome to our home, my husband’s told me so much about you two.”

“Andressa,” your father near chides.

“What the fuck is going on,” Mark whispers, a second away from bursting.

With your back still against the door, you slowly slide down until you’re sitting on your knees.

“Did I mispeak?” Your stepmother asks as your father silently gestures for her to give you some space.

“I know this comes as a surprise—“

Your brother immediately interrupts him, “No shit, we’re surprised! What about mom?”

“I can’t go back to Earth, Mark. Not ever. That life is over.”

You and Mark stare at him, hurt, before your brother scoffs, “Alright, you’re all done with Earth. Super glad you got to show us how great your life is without us!”

You rise to your feet, “She’s still mourning you, beating herself up for not seeing you for what you really are, and you just—start over?”

You shake your head before moving a hand against the door to try to open it, Mark following behind you.

“That’s not what I wanted to show you.”

You bump your head against the door. “Fucking seriously…”

Mark whips around, “What else could you possibly mean—“

Nothing could prepare you for the sight of your dad holding a purple, but very human—-no, Viltrumite looking baby, his wife proudly at his side.

“Who is that?” Mark asks, denial etched on his face as you slowly raise your camera.

“This is your little brother,” your father introduces.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me!” Your brother explodes as your shutter goes off, before turning to you, “Sis, what the fuck!?”

“Instinct,” you say, a little shellshocked, blankly staring at the trio in front of you.

You stare as your…new little brother coos, cradled to his mother’s chest. Mark continues to berate your father, who explains that Thraxans ages faster than humans, which is why he’s so big for what should be a newborn.

Mark shakes your shoulder before pointing at your dad, “Are you even paying attention!? He literally—-with a grasshopper! Say something!”

“He kinda looks like you,” you observe, “When you were that young.”

He stares at you incredulously.

Debbie: Who’s the father!?

Singularity, holding baby Oliver: The better question is ‘who’s the mother?’

Debbie: Oh, honey, I’ve always known—

Singularity: Excuse me?

Mark: Yeah, things are looking up, I think.

Donald: The Graysons are back on Earth, but Singularity seems to have a purple baby??

Cecil: The kid has a kid now? They’ve only been gone for two months!

Donald: That’s what Debbie seems to be saying right now, at least. Well, we don’t have any information on how pregnancy works for female Viltrumites—

Cecil: Listen in!

Mark: I can’t believe the last thing he says to us is to read his books—

Singularity: Huh?

Mark: You were passed out, and what books??

Singularity: …is Space Rider real?

Singularity: If anything happens to this baby, I will actually end it

Mark: You got a lot of nice photos when we weren’t being beaten to death.

Singularity: Yeah, I’ll probably get a decent amount for them, Thraxa is a pretty place.

Mark: What are you going to tell them when they ask where the photos are from?

Singularity: That’s the neat thing; I won’t.

Mark:

Lol, Singularity took a family photo for Nolan, instinct from doing baby showers and family photos as a freelancer…

Yes, we do see some canon divergence here with Mark being abrasive with Omni-man from the start! He literally saw his dad stick a hand through his sister’s stomach and then found out their dynamic was a lot more harmful than he could have ever known! Mark seems to hold Nolan’s actions towards others against him more than his own pain.

And, have you noticed a pattern where sometimes the eldest child will be the nicest/most forgiving to bad parents while the younger one is more unhinged? I’m the younger sibling hehe

I would describe Mark’s weakness to be his inexperience while Singularity’s weakness is because of her experience, being unable to handle violence and responsibility, starting out as a hero at such a young age. If she were a computer, she’d have really good hardware that could run Elden Ring without overheating but software from the 2000s.

Masterlist, Series Masterlist

#invincible x reader #invincible imagine #mark grayson & reader #nolan grayson & reader #debbie grayson & reader #oliver grayson & reader #viltrumite #platonic reader #sister reader

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