#I was so nervous writing it

[woahjo]

APHRODISIAC! (Bakugou x Reader)

masterlist 

Pairing: Bakugou x Reader

Summary: Katsuki gets hit with an aphrodisiac quirk. You decide to check in on him. What could go wrong?

Chapter Content Warnings:  fem!reader, dubcon, smut, porn with little to no plot, aphrodisiac quirks, quirkless reader, prohero!katsuki, rough sex, borderline free use, biting, creampie, multiple orgasms (fem!receiving), masturbation, edging (kinda), manhandling, katsuki is dominant but also not idk he's desperate, possessiveness, overstimulation, size kink, scent kink, some light aftercare! woo hoo!, friends to lovers sort of

Word Count: 4.5k

A/N: yeah ik this isn't what i typically write but idk where this came from. i had a thought and it spiraled bad and now i have this. there is no deeper message. there is no meaning. i wrote this to make him FUCK and be kinda weird and desperate and pathetic about it. i needed to see him physically overpower us while also so desperate that it makes him look stupid. i feel violent. this bad boy is not going on ao3 lol. anyway, enjoy, heed the warnings.

Katsuki paces around the one bedroom apartment he rents in downtown Musutafu. His skin is tingling. Every nerve he has burns like it's been set on fire, needing some sort of touch to soothe it. His cock aches between his legs, hard and leaking against the side of his thigh. Katsuki grits his teeth, running his hands over his hair and then letting his palms slide down the sides of his exposed biceps. 

Sweat collects on his skin, the kind that comes from desperation or maybe a fever, and he feels it on his palms when he lets them drop to his sides and clenches his fists. Fuck, he can't believe he got hit with a non-fatal quirk and had to be sent home. It's humiliating. What's worse is that it hasn't worn off yet, rendering him completely useless. 

He sits on his couch, his legs spread wide, and leans back against the couch cushions, wincing as he reaches to unbutton his pants. He's never been this sensitive in his life and it almost hurts to grab his cock and pull it from his pants. Katsuki watches it twitch for a moment, rigid between his legs and leaking pre-cum from its angry tip. He doesn't even have to think about anything in particular, he's just turned on. Unbearably so. 

Katsuki wraps his hand around the base of his cock and jerks upward once, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth at his own sensitivity. Then, the desperation sets in fully and he squeezes the head of his cock with a wince and a low groan before beginning to slide his hand up and down. He pauses to spit into his palm, desperate for some sort of relief from the tension weaving its way through his body, his hand moving faster and fast over this dick. Katsuki only pauses when he touches his overly sensitive head, swallowing down an audible moan as he moves his hips to desperately fuck his fist. 

He tries not to think of the humiliation in this, instead focusing on chasing a high that seems to get farther and farther. He stays like this for a while, desperately fucking his fist with low groans and whines. His face is completely flushed, sweat beading on his brow and forehead, covering every inch of his skin with a pathetic, glowing sheen. God, he's almost fucking angry. The frustration, the sheer desperation for release, is making it difficult to control his temper and he knots his free hand into the soft pillow beside him, raising it to his face and using it to cover his head so he can be a little louder. 

He's desperately humping his fist when his doorbell rings. At first, it's only once and Katsuki thinks he can ignore it, but then it comes again, five more times and consistently more aggressive. 

"Katsuki?" your voice calls through the wood paneling of his door. "I heard you got hit with a quirk and sent home. Let me in." 

He furrows his eyebrows at the irony of the last person in the world he wants to encounter at a time like this. Pretty, quirkless, you. His long time friend and recent dispatcher at his agency. Someone he secretly wants to fuck even without the aphrodisiac quirk floating through his bloodstream. You really get under his skin. You’re exactly his type, right down to that annoying little attitude of yours that drives Katsuki insane. Of course, he's always respected your friendship a little too much to do anything about it, but tonight, he doesn't think he'll be able to and he sits in silence with his lip caught between his teeth while he fucks his fists and hopes you'll go away. 

"I know you're in there," you call again. "I can see the light on." 

You bang three times on the door and then ring the doorbell again, pushy and insistent the way you always are. A match for his stubborn attitude. 

Katsuki swears and stands up, his hands shaking as he tucks his sensitive cock back into his sweatpants and flips the head up into his waistband with a hiss. 

The crazy thing is, he can literally smell you through the door. The scent of you, that sweet and rounded perfume you wear, wafts under the crack of his apartment door. He pauses outside of it, resisting the temptation to open it, to welcome that smell into his apartment and use you to relieve the aching in his cock and lower belly. 

"Katsuki?" You ask, a little quieter now. 

Jesus fucking christ, don't call his name like that. 

He swings the door open, letting his hand rest on the side of it so that it is positioned above his head. You look taken aback at his appearance, covered in sweat and flushed from the neck up, his chest exposed and heaving. 

"What?" he says, looking you up and down. 

Katsuki bites back the urge to yank you in. Why is it he can literally smell the sweat on your body and every prick of your emotions? It's like he can tell exactly what you're thinking, or maybe it's what he wants you to be thinking. 

"Don't get on my ass about me still technically needing to be at work," you start, stepping forward. "I heard something happened and I just came to check and you look like shi-" 

Katsuki blocks you from coming in with his body. You stumble backwards lightly and raise your eyebrow at him. There's a pause as you register that you've just run into a solid wall of muscle, sweat covered and glistening, while Katsuki eyes you like you're meat on a platter. He knows he's doing it, but he can literally smell every turn of your scent, soft and sweet. And he may be fooling himself... but are you... turned on? 

"Let me in?" you say with a small laugh, side stepping to go around him. He blocks you again, his fingers gripping the door frame so hard that his knuckles are white. 

"Go home," he says quietly, his voice tense. 

"What? No," you furrow your eyebrows at him. "What's the matter with you?" 

You duck under his arm and place your hand momentarily on his chest. Your touch makes him tingle all over and he sucks in a sharp breath. 

"I'm not fucking around," he says. 

"Okay, me neither," you respond with a bit of an attitude. "I expected you to be worse for wear but you look like crap. Like you're... I don't know." 

You trail off a little. 

"Let me help," you say, shaking off whatever thought had come over you. "I'll make you some food." 

"Look, no offense, but I don't think you want to help me with this," he says, a frustrated bite in his voice. Food isn't exactly what he's hungry for. 

"That's too bad," you say slowly, seemingly put off by the desperate air about him and settling into his kitchen. You move to open the fridge.

Katsuki walks up to you quickly, taking your wrist from the door and holding it between the two of you. Cool air hits his exposed chest and arm as the door falls shut again. 

"I'm dead serious. Get the fuck out of here or I'm gonna do something I regret," he hisses through a clenched jaw. Your skin is warm on the pads of his fingers, wrist held flush against his palm. He bites back a genuine shudder. 

Your eyes are wide as you look back at him, glancing between where he's caught your wrist by your head and his eyes. Katsuki's gaze roams over your face, pausing as he hits the top of your blouse where a few buttons remain open. When he returns his eyes to yours, your mouth moves to open before a heady understanding settles over your features. You're so pretty. Everything about you is pretty, so delightful and delicate. Your eyes look glassy and wide. Katsuki has always found them tempting, but today he can't stop himself. 

He leans forward and kisses you, holding your wrist to his chest as his mouth comes messily into contact with yours. You squeak and freeze and it takes all he has to pull away from you. 

"Go home," he says again, his lips tingling. Katsuki feels the color creep onto his cheeks, his hand still holding your wrist. 

You don't say anything, looking at him with those pretty eyes. He swallows thick and feels the saliva drag against his throat. Then, his mouth dries completely, his expression twisting into discomfort as his cock throbs between his legs as the scent of you takes on a sharper turn. He's never felt anything like this before, something animal. 

Katsuki tightens his jaw, staring at you for a moment. Then, he takes a step towards you. You take one back, though he doesn't feel like you're afraid. Rather, you tilt your head down to look at him through your lashes. He lets out a breath through his teeth and walks you back until your ass hits the counter, his free hand coming to gingerly touch your waist. You inhale when he leans in to kiss you again, screwing your eyes shut and reaching to grab at his shoulder to pull him closer. 

Every touch tingles. It burns and he drops your wrist to manhandle your hips. You suck on his bottom lip, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him down to you. He ruts his hips against yours, desperate for any sort of friction to relieve the ache, and you gasp a little and let your mouth fall open. Katsuki takes the opportunity to bite down hard on your lip with a low groan, slipping his tongue into your mouth as the pads of his fingers press harshly into you. You whine, eyebrows pulling up. 

Katsuki’s eyes are slightly open, just so that he can look at you. Every aspect of his senses feel heightened and the relief of your mouth far surpasses that of his hand over his throbbing cock only minutes earlier. 

He pants, taking your hips and lifting you onto the counter so that you’re seated, pulling away for just a moment to lift the hem of your shirt and expose your breasts. Katsuki puts his face on the pillowy tops of them, biting and sucking at the exposed skin as his hand teases its way up the skin of your back to unclasp it. He thinks you’re probably looking at him, but if you are, he doesn’t have the mind to care about what sort of behavior he’s exhibiting. He can practically smell how wet you are from just a little touching and if he weren’t so fucking desperate for a little relief, he’d tease you for a few hours just to watch your pussy drool over him. 

The cool air of his apartment hits your exposed nipples. Katsuki takes it upon himself, without even a second thought, to roll the hard bud under his tongue. He feels the way goosebumps rise on your skin, his hands coming to rest over the tops of your thighs. Katsuki bites lightly on your breast and you fucking whine at it, tipping your head back and rooting your hand into the tufts of his blonde hair. 

His cock jumps in his pants and he’s no doubt leaked enough to leave an evident wet spot against the gray of his sweatpants. He stands to his full height, pushing your skirt up and pressing the outline of his cock to your crotch. Heat bleeds through your panties, the kind that makes him feel like he’s going absolutely fucking insane. You gasp, putting your hands on his shoulders and pulling him close again. 

Katsuki’s mouth hits yours messily, breathing hard as he ruts his hips up against your crotch, pulling you forward on the counter so he can feel as much of the pillowy folds of your pussy through the thick fabric as possible. You let him take your bottom lip between his teeth, sharp canines digging into the wet flesh of your mouth. He whines— high-pitched, desperate sound—as you position your hips to press your crotch against the head of his cock. His head falls onto your chest, forehead resting against the hollow of your throat. Katsuki humps at you, pulling you against him to match the rhythm of his hips, grinding your clothed cunt over the bulge of his cock. It’s a desperate motion, completely subconscious as he lets the quirk he’s been hit with take the lead.

His fingers dip into the crease of your thigh, fumbling as they reach for the waistband of the panties you’re wearing. Katsuki’s desperation is so palpable that he finds himself panting as he slips his fingers into the sides of your underwear, yanking them down. You gasp at the force of it and he swears he hears a small tear as he pulls them from your cunt, the crotch sticking to the lips of your pussy. 

He leans his hips forward again, sliding his cock between your folds with a deep grunt. His mouth finds your neck and he bites along the side of it, lathing his tongue over your pulse point. It’s like he can taste you. Salt and that stupid perfume, collecting on his tongue as you dig your fingers into his back, his dick rutting restlessly against your clit. At one point, he almost slips in, his eagerness and your wetness making him careless. Katsuki sucks in a breath through his teeth, his whole body on fire. 

The kitchen light shines down on his back and he can see the outline of part of his shadow on your thighs as he stares down at them, guiding the tip of himself to your entrance. He hears you wine when he presses against it and moves his hand down subconsciously to rub at your clit. An attempt to ease the stretch. 

You tip your head back in a moan and Katsuki takes the opportunity to kiss your neck before settling his teeth against your shoulder and biting down harshly on the muscle connecting your neck and arm. You yelp at the sensation and Katsuki shutters at the sound, willing out a choked I’m sorry as he slides into your wetness. His hands push into the delightfully soft flesh of your upper thighs, the fat spilling up around each individual digit as he uses your legs for leverage, sliding you forward even further to better seat you on him. 

Your legs are shaking and he can feel the way your nails dig into his exposed shoulder blades. Your bunch up skirt causes the fat of your tummy to fold over in a way that practically makes Katsuki drool. He urges himself to pause, attempting to come back to his senses as the quirk kicks into high gear. There’s relief in being inside of you, in feeling the flutter of your walls around his thick cock, but it also makes him desperate. Katsuki feels like he’s chasing something that he was desperately and it’s just out of his reach. 

You’re breathing heavily above him, he can see the rise and fall of your chest from where his head hangs down, his hands trembling on the tops of your thighs. He looks up at you through his lashes, his vision foggy around the edges as if he were peering through a tube. You’re at the end of it, your eyes glassy and mouth open, returning the look. Your eyebrows are knitted up in pleasure, but you almost seem confused. 

“What are you waiting for?” You breathe out, the first thing you’ve said since he started touching you. 

The tone of your voice is needy, with a delightful whiny lilt that makes him groan out loud. He can barely manage the words that come out next, his brain half mush, and he feels the way his cock jumps inside of you. 

“Don’t wanna hurt you,” he says through gritted teeth, his breath coming heavy. 

There’s a pause and he feels the distinct sensation of you squeezing down around his cock, like the idea turns you on. 

“Use me,” you respond cautiously, your voice still containing that needy lilt. 

Katsuki’s hips fuck up into you voluntarily and he feels the way his breath catches in his throat at the near desperate sound of your voice.

“Say that again.” 

“Use me, Katsuki,” you respond, choking on your words as he fucks his hips up into you. 

You reach for his face, taking it in your hands and drawing it close until it’s just in front of yours. Then, your palms slide down his shoulders and he screws his eyes shut and fucks into you again, harder this time, causing your body to jolt upwards on the counter. 

He curses under his breath, pushing one leg further to the side and fucking his hips up into you roughly. You’re looking right at him, your expression drawn and pleasure-soaked, sweat collecting on your forehead as your mouth drops open into an o-shape. You punctuate his thrusts with high pitched yelps, squeaking out your pleasure and the deepness of where he’s hitting through choked moans. 

Katsuki’s hands move up your stomach to roughly cup your breasts, his mouth so close to yours that he’s practically breathing in the sounds you make in exchange for his own hurried groans. He kneads at the fat of your chest, rolling your breast under his fingers before taking your nipples and pulling lightly on them. 

He’s aware of just how rough he’s being, just how hard his hips are slapping yours, but he feels like he can’t stop. Katsuki chases a high so fucking desperate that his body is on autopilot, reaching and touching and moaning unabashedly as the room fills with the wet sound of his balls on the backs of your thick thighs. 

You push your chest forward towards him, legs spread wide to make room for the width of his hips between yours as he bullies that perfect sensitive spot inside of you. Katsuki feels the way he makes you flutter. Every shift of your body, every involuntary squeeze of your cunt as he drags his cock along your walls, registers as if he were a part of you. His skin tingles everywhere you touch and the drag of your nails over his shoulder blades makes him want to crawl into the deepest part of you. Even the sound of your voice, drawn and desperate and mildly overwhelmed, feels like a drug to him. Every sense he has seems to be acutely attuned to just how badly he needs to fuck your lights out. 

His hands slink down to your hips, resituating you and pulling you flush against him. Then, he drags his cock all the way out of you and quickly ruts back in, moaning as he does. His pace picks up, manhandling you forward on the counter until he is supporting most of your weight. You gasp, your hands gripping his shoulders as you let him use you like a toy. 

Katsuki chases his high, his stomach seeming to wind tighter and tighter but never finding that perfect snap and release. His movements grow faster, using all of his strength to fuck his hips up into you, barreling his cock against your gummy walls and bullying your sweet spot. He feels the way you tighten down around him, your body tensing and fingers digging crescent moons into the tops of his shoulders. 

“Ka-” you choke out desperately, your voice breaking. “Wait, Katsuki, wait! I’m gonna-” 

You shudder, your thighs squeezing around him as he continues to fuck you. 

“Do it,” he seethes, “just fuckin’ do it.” 

The end of his sentence comes out as more of a whimper as you cry out and squeeze down around him, squirming in his grasp as you begin to twitch with every additional thrust. Your body shakes, legs locking around him and struggling to hold him inside as he fucks you clear through your orgasm and then to the other side. 

Katsuki’s voice breaks, almost whimpering like an animal as he buries himself in your pussy over and over again. He wants to smother you, he wants to completely cover your body and get as close as he possibly can. He’s already so much bigger than you, so much broader, how hard could it be to swallow you completely? 

Katsuki’s hands come up under your ass as he wordlessly lifts you from the counter and moves to the couch on desperate, shaky steps. He lays you down, slipping out of you for a moment, before pressing a hand to the inside of your thigh, spreading your legs, and sinking his cock back into you as he crowds his body over yours. 

“You know what?” He says, not really sure what’s going to come next. His head is so clouded with the quirk that he can’t think straight. “I’ve wanted to do this forever. I’ve wanted to fuck you for so- long-” 

He screws his eyes shut, almost angry with the way he can’t seem to hit that high, teetering on a desperate and near painful edge. 

“Those fuckin’ pencil skirts,” he says, unable to control his words or sharp tone. “The way you wear your hair, that damn look in your eye that constantly makes you seem like you’re beggin’ for it.” 

Katsuki whines, a sharp sound from the back of his throat, as you tighten up around him. He meets your gaze, clouded and watery eyes accented by the delightful furrow in the center of your brow. 

“And then you show up here,” he groans, not even sure of what he’s really saying. “Blouse unbuttoned, looking for trouble. I’m gonna fuck your lights out. ‘Till you can’t even think about fuckin’ anyone else.” 

He leans in close, his mouth right up against yours. 

“This is g’nna make you mine, right?” 

You nod, your movements clumsy, and pull him close to you. 

Katsuki loses all of his sense, burying himself in the feel of your pussy and the way he sinks into you, giving into the desperation of the quirk. He can feel just how deep he’s hitting, the way you suck in sharp, whiny breaths with every inward thrust. Katsuki’s hands grip your waist, pulling your ass up off the couch so that his angle is better. 

His cock seems to drag endlessly against your overstimulated, pillowy, insides and you practically drool around. He feels like a dog slobbering over meat, any semblance of politeness completely gone from both his expression and his movements. This is going to fucking ruin your friendship, but he doesn’t even have half of a mind to think about it, so drawn into the delightful feel of your body and the aching in his cock that only seems to subside slightly with every thrust. 

You try to choke out the word ��again” and he feels like he knows what’s coming. Your whole body tenses, legs locking around him as you cream over his cock for the second time. 

This seems to get Katsuki somewhere, the sensation of your pussy clamping down finally giving him some leeway to relief. He hits the edge of an orgasm, leading himself to the finish line. 

The tension in his belly grows, cock twitching inside of your fucked out cunt. His fingers dig into your hips and he collapses forward, rolling his body so that the head of his cock catches perfectly inside of you, massaging and churning you up. You’re moaning, though maybe it’s more adjacent to whining, and Katsuki can hear himself mimicking the sounds, his body leading the way. 

Then finally, on a pathetic and broken whimper, Katsuki cums. His whole body tenses, weight pressing down on you as he buries his face into your neck and lets his voice out beside the hollow of your throat. The relief and pleasure is so intense that Katsuki feels the way every muscle in his body tenses and lets go, filling you up with as much of him as he has to give. 

His hips continue to pathetically rut into you, little choked moans escaping his lips as he uses his own cum as lube for his weak little thrusts. Then, he completely relaxes. 

Katsuki feels the way his skin stops burning, the way the desperation at the back of his throat subsides, how his body rids itself of the quirk as quickly as the arousal came on. He shudders, coming back to himself and raising his head to peer at your expression. 

You look exhausted, hair a mess and face covered in a thick sheen of sweat. You still flutter around his cock, your hands gripping his shoulders as you try and ride through the overstimulation of just having him inside of you. Katsuki furrows his brows, exhaustion creeping into his muscles. He raises his hand and uses it to push stray strands of hair from your face with his palm on your forehead. Then, with a clear mind, he leans forward and kisses you. 

You blink at him for a second, before giving a weak smile, raising your eyebrows and letting your head fall to the side. Katsuki winces when he pulls out of you, sucking in a sharp breath and standing to his full height. He places a hand on his forehead like he’s assessing the situation, staring at your body, still fully clothed with your skirt pushed all the way up your stomach and your blouse missing a button at the top. 

He wordlessly walks to the bathroom and wets a washcloth with warm water, walking back over to you and wiping down the exposed parts of your body. You don’t really say anything to him, but you smile quietly while he gingerly wipes you down, your smeared makeup accenting just how much of a mess he’s made. 

“Fuck,” he says. “I’m sorry, this isn’t how-” 

“How you wanted this to go?” You say softly, the corners of your lips turning up. 

Katsuki feels the way he flushes, all the way to the tops of his chest. 

“No, it’s not,” he admits, running a hand over his face as he crouches beside you. 

You laugh a little and he furrows his brows at you, frustrated and embarrassed. 

“You’ve got a bit of a possessive streak, huh?” You tease lightly.

“I got hit with some asshole’s fuckin’ quirk and-” he begins explaining himself, something he probably should have done when you showed up at the door. 

“It was good though,” you say, tilting your head at him from where you lay.

Katsuki blinks at you, his expression completely flat. You should really know just how fucking crazy you drive him. Then, he scowls a little, not because he’s upset, but because he’s currently feeling the opposite and that makes him awkward. 

“You’re into that shit?” He says, a bit incredulously. 

You shrug and give him a coy smile. 

[daistea]

Laios, Mithrun, and Kabru x Reader Headcanons

Word Count: 1,483

Falling In Love With You & Relationship Headcanons

* . °•★|•°∵ ∵°•|☆•° . *

Laois

It takes a little while for Laios to realize the truth of his feelings, to be honest. He doesn’t have much experience with romance, and actually not much interest in it either, so he sees you as a really good beloved friend. 

He falls in love without realizing and spends quite a while having no clue that he’s in love. Everybody else knows how he feels and are impatiently waiting and watching for him to realize it too.

Laios thinks of you often. Between the pages of monster doodles and notes are very badly drawn doodles of you. (He’s made you a monster-sona, it's very cool, but he's too nervous to show you.)

Laios says the sweetest things without realizing they’re sweet. He’ll always tell you that you look nice. He’ll always make sure you’re well fed. He’ll always make sure you’re safe.

He spends a lot of time around you. A lot. He’s like your shadow, or a puppy at your heels.

He only realizes how he feels after a big event, such as you dying in the dungeon, getting hurt, etc… 

But even then, he’s not really sure what to do with himself. He starts to get more nervous and pulls away a little bit, but his actions with you also become more weighty and serious. His touches are more meaningful, he looks you in the eyes deeply often when he’s talking to you, he tends to put a hand on your back to lead you through the dungeon (though he gets flustered when he does that.) Laios basically starts trying to put more thought into how he acts around you, trying to be cooler or more charming, but this isn’t very sustainable because he’s not being himself anymore. This is probably fixed by someone in the party telling him to stop, or by yourself.

Laios is a clingy partner. He’s very touchy and unashamed about it. He doesn’t realize he’s touching you half the time, it’s just habit. He’s the type to absently draw circles on your thigh or hand. 

He isn’t particularly jealous, mainly because he doesn’t realize it when people are flirting with you unless they outright say it. Then he’s just worried about you, and how you feel. He can be protective though, he just doesn’t really know what to do if it’s a human threatening you. 

Buy this man a bouquet of flowers once and he’ll start thinking about marriage. He likes affection from you. 

Laios’s love languages? All of it. Every type. Gift giving and physical touch are big for him though.

You ask Laios for a baby and he just thinks for a minute… His cheeks are a little pink as he asks, “What kind?” Preferably human, you say. He tries to hide his disappointment but agrees nonetheless. 

Kabru

Kabru is immediately aware of what’s happening with himself. The very moment he hears you laugh and thinks to himself, “Wow, what a pretty sound…” He’s like haha hold up! No. 

Kabru is a charmer and knows how to handle people. I believe he’s been in very light, casual relationships before, but nothing serious. At first, he’d assume his feelings for you are light, like usual. Nothing to be concerned about. 

He starts getting the urge to dissect your thoughts and put each of them into little jars for him to inspect. He does not say this out loud and tries not to show it, but he stares a lot. 👁️👁️

His feelings for you quickly become a chess game that he’s determined to win. Unfortunately, you’re eating the pieces when he’s not looking. 

He worms his way into your life very subtly. One moment, he’s asking you how you feel about the weather, the next moment he’s urging you to spill your childhood trauma. It’s only when he takes a step back and asks himself, “Why do I care so much?” that he realizes how serious of a situation this is. 

Of course, Kabru cares about a lot of people. He likes to know things. But this is different. He wants to know every little detail about you simply for his good pleasure. Sure, he files it all away into neatly organized cabinets in his mind, but he has no intent to use that information for anything but your happiness. 

For example: Kabru will most definitely remember that offhand comment you made about preferring a certain table at that one restaurant you visited three years ago. He’ll make sure you get that table. He knows exactly what you’ll order too. 

When he’s wrong about you, though, it baffles but simultaneously charms him. 

You people-watch together. He can probably read lips, and he tells you what the people around you are saying. 

He needs to keep you away from the dungeon. Not because of anything you did, but because he might go a little mad if he doesn’t at least try to keep you away from that lifestyle. 

Kabru is chivalrous and kind. He kisses your knuckles a lot, like a gentleman. He puts his hand on the small of your back. He fixes your hair if it’s messed up. He isn’t much for pda, but it’s obvious you two are a couple with the way he often whispers to you, catches your eye, and smiles at you. 

He’s a blanket hog. He doesn’t mean to be, but he is. 

Jealousy isn’t a big thing with Kabru. Sure, he feels it, but he stays calm and will simply wrap an arm around your shoulder and start a conversation with the person flirting with you. He’ll end up actually making their acquaintance and have a relatively okay conversation. He's still jealous, but distracted enough for it to not consume him. 

Kabru's love languages are acts of service and physical touch.

You ask Kabru for a baby and he just laughs. He thinks you’re joking. After a moment, it sets in that you’re not joking and he gets flustered.

Mithrun

Mithrun is vaguely aware of what’s happening when he’s falling in love, it just doesn’t seem like something he needs to acknowledge, think about, or act on. He’s wrong. 

To be honest, he doesn’t believe he’s capable of romantic love. He’s wrong.

It starts out very subtly. Mithrun starts to take more notice of the little things about you; the color of your hair in the sun, the color of your eyes, how your voice sticks in the back of his brain and refuses to leave. Mithrun knows what this means, but he doesn’t really care at the moment.

Then, it starts getting more intense. Without meaning to, he notices the shape of your lips, the feeling of your skin, the sound of your footsteps… 

This is when he starts getting a little curious. Is this a desire the demon missed within him? Is this a new desire forming? Huh.

Pre-ending Mithrun chooses to ignore it because what’s the point? This results in some irritation for him, longing looks(he doesn’t look longing on the outside, but it’s there on the inside. What everybody else sees is just... a slight look of determination on his face. He has no idea he's making that face either nor does he really care.) and unexplained protective tendencies that shock the canaries and, occasionally, himself.

Post-ending Mithrun chooses to dig deeper because this is a desire forming and he wants to hang onto every tiny molecule of desire he possesses with all of his strength. This results in soft touches at every opportunity he has, willingness to do whatever you ask, and his constant presence with no discernible explanation. 

Are you dating? Nobody quite knows, not even you. 

Mithrun was naturally jealous and possessive before The Incident. He doesn’t get like that again until you come along, and then it’s like his old self wakes up a little. Just a little. He doesn’t make scenes or get emotional over it, but he will calmly walk up to somebody that’s flirting with you, touch their shoulder, then teleport them away from you.

 If someone asks what you are to him, he simply says, “Mine,” or “Does it matter?” with a straight face.

He can be seen frequently wrapping his arms around you from behind and resting his head on top of yours if you’re shorter, or on your shoulder if you’re taller. 

On occasion, he will be caught with a small smile as he holds you. It’s rare, but it happens. What’s he thinking at those moments? No one knows. 

The canaries are incredibly nosy— aside from Pattadol— about your relationship, and Mithrun has no qualms about answering their invasive questions. 

Mithrun’s love languages are acts of service and physical touch. You’re the only one he likes touching. He doesn’t say I Love You often but he will definitely lean on you a lot and protect you even if you don’t need it. 

You ask for a baby and he calmly says, "Give me a week... What color do you want?"

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

[lomlkenji]

༊*·˚ pretty boy | peter parker

main masterlist

for you, peter is the literally definition of pretty. his big brown puppy eyes and his perfectly structured face, his lean but muscular built, his cute little pout when you don’t give him a kiss before he goes patrolling.

he is just so so very pretty.

you don't know know how long you have been staring at him for, but he didn't seem to notice. too busy focusing on his science project, and his concentration is very hot.

his long slender fingers moving carefully and slowly to put the pieces together and your attention only zeroed on them. such, such pretty hands.

the weight of your stare was starting to make peter nervous. peter gets flustered very easily. and with you? you didn't even have to try.

peter suddenly put down the components for his project and turned to you, “i know i'm hot but can you please stop staring at me like that?” he mumbled, as a soft blush appear on his face. his tone was confident but you can sense his nervousness.

he tried focusing on his project again as you chuckled, the kind of chuckle that sends tingles all over peter's body, “sorry pete, but you are just so very pretty.”

wow. okay he didn't expect that.

peter chocked on his saliva, his body hot all over, nearly dropping the pieces of his homework.

“baby, you can't just say things like that.” he looked at you, eyes wide and soft. and it makes you grin.

“it's the truth.” you shrugged, “you're my pretty boy.” you know you're testing his limits, but it was fun teasing peter.

peter's mind malfunctioned. he's trying to ignore you, but the way you said my pretty boy is replaying over and over in his head.

“damn it.” he quietly swore, putting down whatever left of his project and turning to you.

your eyebrows rose in a teasing manner as a smirk finds its way to your face. “what?” you innocently asked, but you know exactly what you're doing, and he knows it too.

peter chuckled as he walks to where your laying at the bed. the sound send a shiver up your spine and now you're the one who's nervous.

he leaned closer to you, you could feel his breath on your lips as you both took a moment to admire each other. peter was staring at your eyes to your nose and your soft lips, bringing his eyes to connect with yours again and you could feel your stomach doing flips.

“and you're my pretty baby.” he whispered softly before cutting off a whine that rose up your throat with his lips.

his lips were a little chapped, but it fits your perfectly. your hands move to tangle on his hair, giving it a little pull making peter groan into the kiss. he leaned back, his warm hands move to find comfort on your waist as he brings you onto his lap.

peter felt like his heart was about to burst. every single sense of his is override and all he can focus on is you. you. you.

his home.

reblog for a kiss <3

[alienoresimagines]

Just some words I've been needing to hear for a few weeks now and once I finally wrote them down, I thought maybe there were other people who might need to hear them too ❤️

You don't need to be anyone's favorite writer for your writing to be good.

The worth of your writing is not measured by whether or not you're included in fic recs or the amount of comments/asks you get.

Your works don't need to be recognized as some of The fics of the fandom to be good or worth reading.

'Popular' writers in your fandom are also just writers (and humans!!) : you don't need to impress or be noticed by them to have a place in your fandom. Fandom should be fun so don't let your brain ruin it with a misplaced sense of competition <3

You don't need to post a fic every week to be considered a writer. You don't need to write every week to be a writer. There is no limited places in fandom: come and go as you want and as life allows you to. Post when you feel like it, there is no trend to surf on to stay 'relevant' as a fic writer or a content creator. Fandom will always wait for you.

Your writing is good, and the more you write, the more you find your style, the better it gets.

Your writing made someone's day. Your writing is helping the fandom stay alive. Your writing should make you happy, and that happiness should not be proportional to how recognized you are in your fandom.

I know it can be discouraging to see tons of fic recs in your fandom and none of them including your fics. But yesterday, when I was feeling down, I re-read my own published works because they were the stories I wanted to read. And I enjoyed reading them, so much. And that is enough to keep me writing, because it showed me there is no better person to write the stories I have in my head than myself (a huge progress considering months ago, I couldn't reread something I'd written because I was cringeing too hard to get through two sentences).

Find your people that will always hype you and your fics up: you and your writing don't have to appeal to every single person in your fandom. Write niche fics! Rarepairs seemingly no one brought up before! Include headcanons and takes and interpretations you've never seen written before!

Write the stories you are dying to read, and I promise you, you'll find other people who were hoping to find that story somewhere, too.

Your writing is unique because it can only ever be yours and same goes for your stories; your writing is worth reading and your stories are worth being written <3

[that1notetaker]

I was thinking what to write here but the dog just ran away with my marker. Anyway I love taking stories with potential for lots of angst and making it lighthearted. AND THEN plunge into the depths.

[kamaluhkhan]

anti-curse

pairing: percy jackson x daughter of apollo!reader

summary: whether he knew it or not, percy jackson made the world a better, brighter place — and you intend to protect him, no matter what path the fates leads you down. fuck prophetic dreams. the future wasn't written in stone.

warnings/disclaimers: mentions of typical demigod things (battles, weapons, etc.); this is set during the heroes of olympus series so roughly follows that plot + features the seven demigods; mainly inspired by book!percy (dark hair, sea green eyes) bc that's the one i fell in love w growing up; characters are aged up from the book (reader + percy are meant to be 21-22 y/o) bc i imagine there was more time between prophecies/series....anyways, please enjoy <3

when you first met percy jackson, he almost shot you through the chest with an arrow.

given that apollo is your godly parent, you often found yourself at the archery field, which happened to be one of the first stops on percy’s tour of camp half-blood. after that first mishap, your other half-siblings were, understandably, too scared to let percy try again — frankly chiron seemed a bit hesitant as well — and you could sense that percy felt disheartened. so, you flashed the boy a reassuring smile before giving him a few pointers and a second chance. when he smiled back at you, you felt a fluttering in your stomach that told you percy jackson would be more than a little important in your life.

archery still wasn't percy's strong suit, but your gut feeling turned out to be true. you and percy had dealt with a lot since then — a handful of quests, several prophecies, more than a few near-death experiences, a titan war, and, maybe worst of all, high school. you couldn't imagine getting through any of it without him by your side, and you knew the feeling was mutual.

so, you were entirely anticipating that percy would be hurt by your announcement during dinner. 

“no way that’s happening.” percy laughs, as if he can’t believe you’d suggest something as ridiculous as not having him accompany you on your quest. he remains unfazed, takes a sip of his electric blue coke before gesturing to the empty seat next to him. “come on, sunshine. have something to eat.”

the nickname sends your heart into a frenzy as you sit next to him. you and percy had never been anything other than friends, but sometimes....sometimes you look at his dangerous ocean eyes and wind-swept dark hair and it makes you blush. sometimes you consider the way his laughter fills you with warmth and his smile holds a thousand memories, the way he teases and winks at you and you decide that he makes your world so much brighter. sometimes you remember how sarcastic and thoughtful and loyal and reckless he is, his heart of gold and unpredictability of the sea. and you start to think that maybe possibly you'd fallen in love with your best friend.

that was not the issue at hand, though. you summon your favourite food and drink, but don't particularly feel like having either. percy returns to his conversation with hazel about how the two of you would drive up to montauk after you finally got your license, any time either of you needed to escape your reality, even just for a night. you'd sit on the beach, stargazing and roasting stale marshmallows and wishing to stay there forever. hazel seems to think that sounds like a nice escape, and percy promises that once the eight of you fulfill this prophecy, you'll all go to the beach house together, which makes hazel break out into a grin.

you can't help but smile at percy who loves his friends, who has loved you for so long. that feeling is quickly replaced by a pang in your chest that reminds you what's at stake. from the corner of your eye, you notice annabeth across from you, who looks at you like you’re a puzzle she can’t quite solve. you're trying to hide it, but if anyone can read you better than percy, it's annabeth. she knows something is weighing on your mind. you briefly lock eyes with jason, who you had gone to earlier for help, from the other side of the room, where he sits between piper and frank. 

if you weren’t so distracted, you would have been able to enjoy dinner. the eight of you — all demigods of the current great prophecy — hadn’t been all together in a while, and it was nice to share a meal aboard the argo ii despite the reality of why you’d all been traveling together. leo had equipped the ship with magic plates and cups, and with the lively jokes and stories filling the air, you could almost imagine it was an ordinary summer evening at camp. you could almost forget that tomorrow, you had to go on a quest to rescue apollo and artemis from python, a monster so powerful your father barely defeated him thousands of years ago. you could almost ignore the impending war with gaea and the giants, and the doomed fate of the world if you were to fail. the one thing you could no longer ignore, however, is the gut feeling you have about the fate of the boy sitting next to you if your quest is to unfold the way you had first planned it. 

you clear your throat, an attempt to interrupt the group's conversations. 

“i was serious earlier,” you declare. “you’re not coming with me, percy. jason is.”

the smile percy had on his face fades. his eyes are filled with concern and disbelief, as he glances at you. “i – i don’t understand.”

"percy,” jason jumps in carefully, aware that he’s treading through dangerous waters like you had warned him. “y/n and i were strategizing earlier and it seems to make the most sense, given our powers combined." 

percy shakes his head. “but — but you can’t just make last minute changes. we’ve already got everything set. right, valdez?”

leo shrugs, swallowing a mouthful of chicken before responding. “i don’t know, man. i’m no expert in quests, but it seems like i’m not the one who should be deciding this.” leo looks at you, and you nod gratefully.

you've been on edge since last night, and to calm your nerves you fiddle with the gold chain around your neck. it was a gift from your father: a necklace with a music note charm that can transform into an electric guitar or a bow and quiver. thankfully, you hadn't had to need both at the same time.

“it's up to me. and i want leo and jason to come with me.”

“then i’ll come too,” percy's voice remains calm, but insistant.

“isn’t there that thing about quests usually being done in threes?”

“that is true, piper,” percy agrees. he tilts his head towards you, like he's calling on you to remember. "exceptions have been made, though. like that one time with zoe." that had been years ago, when demigods from camp half-blood and hunters of artemis joined forces. five had been sent out on a quest, but only three came back. you shiver at the thought.

"or my quest through the labyrinth," annabeth recalls.

"but won't that also change our other plans, though?" hazel asks.

"not necessarily," you pipe in, your voice more assertive. "if jason and percy just switch. no harm done."

"we're not interchangeable," percy grumbles.

"hera sure seemed to think so!" leo searches the room for positive responses to his joke, but the most he gets is a half-hearted laugh from frank. "too soon?"

you take a deep breath. "it's not a big deal, really."

"it kind of is," percy counters. "you've never gone on a quest without me."

"you've gone on quests without me," you point out.

"that's...that's different."

"why? because i'm so weak that i need the son of the sea god to protect me at all times?"

you're giving percy the coldest stare you ever have. he hesitates to hold your gaze.

"you know that's not what i meant," he sighs.

"then what did you mean?"

percy looks at you, his eyes and tone softer. “look, sunshine, let's just stick with the plan, alright? we can just —”

“gods, you never listen, do you?" you finally snap. "you're not coming! i don’t want you there, percy!”

percy stares at you, stunned. you look around the table, and everyone looks back at you, wide-eyed. they weren’t used to this side of you, your sudden outburst not fitting in with your usually sunny disposition. 

“well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” leo jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood, with less than ideal results.

“you saw something in your dreams, didn’t you?” annabeth realizes. 

her conclusion makes you freeze.

demigod dreams are always significant, carrying vivid images of monsters, messages from friends or enemies. some children of apollo like you had visions of the future — pseudo prophecies that are supposedly set to unfold given the path you’re on. technically, you weren’t supposed to share your visions, something about messing with fate or destiny, but that didn’t mean you had to accept the way things were. 

what you saw in your dreams last night, what might happen to percy, made your blood run cold.

you would defy all the laws of the universe and divine rules if it meant you could protect him. so fuck the path the fates are attempting to lead you down, and fuck prophetic dreams. you refuse to let percy die. no matter how frustrated you’re acting towards him in this moment, you know he would still do the same for you.

you figure that the future isn't written in stone, right?

either way, you're willing to challenge destiny for percy jackson.

without answering annabeth, you get up from the table and take a deep breath, carefully avoiding percy’s gaze. 

“i go with leo and jason, or i go alone.” your voice is steady, fighting the heavy beating of your heart and tears caught in your throat. “either way, i leave in the morning.” you exit the mess hall before anyone — before percy — can protest.

[miraclewoozi]

DO YOU DREAM OF ME? - c.hs

the first time you kiss your soulmate, you’ll open your eyes to a world of colour. the problem? vernon hates the thought that he might pull away from you and still see in monochrome.  or, five times he wanted to plant one on you, and the one time you beat him to it. 

pairing ; vernon x gn!reader.  content ; all the tropes. 5 times fic. soulmate au. slight college au if you squint. f2l. fluff, some angst. pining. one (1) hint of suggestiveness if u squint. MINORS STILL DO NOT HAVE MY CONSENT TO INTERACT.  content notes ; mentions of reader having a(n unnamed) partner & thereafter, going through a breakup due to said partner cheating. reader is maybe implied to be shorter than him but hopefully not too obviously or frequently. alcohol is mentioned & is a key theme in scene #3. pov switch for the final part (necessary for logistical reasons.) PLEASE let me know if i've forgotten anything. w/c ; 9.6k note ; welcome to thee most self indulgent fic ever lmao. i hope u enjoy this slight break away from what i usually post here (as if my entire brand isn’t writing losers in love. ANYWAY) -- this was very fun and a little bit special for me! <3

“What was your first kiss like?”

Initially, Vernon swears he just didn’t hear you right. It’s dark up here, where you’re hiding away from a party on the roof of his university accommodation and he’s starting to get tired. There’s some sort of siren wailing away in the distance to his left, and on the street below, a gaggle of freshmen are cackling as they walk past the building. His ear closest to you is currently listening to your favourite song. 

All the signs suggest that he simply got it wrong. 

But he doesn’t know if he believes those signs, especially not seeing as when he looks over at you, you’re staring pointedly up at the stars overhead. He doesn’t doubt that you’re giving yourself an ache in your neck in the process, too.

“Hmm?” He asks, taking out the earphone that connects him to you. The other one is still nestled away in your ear and he reaches to gently pull it away. “What was that?”

You still don’t look at him, but you do repeat yourself. Quietly. “What… was your first kiss like?”

“Oh.” 

He was right. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” you hurry to say, hugging his jacket tighter around yourself to block out the cold air that blows across the rooftop. He shrugged it off and told you to take it the very moment your teeth started chattering — almost an hour ago now. His arms are bare, shoulders and biceps only covered by a t-shirt so thin it’s practically sheer, but he isn’t cold. He’s always run hotter than most. “Sorry.”

He nudges you with his knee, silently telling you that you don’t need to apologise. He doesn’t mind — you just caught him off guard; Vernon hasn’t given this any thought in a long time, and he has to really put his mind to coming up with an answer. It was forever ago — when he was eleven or twelve, maybe, with his first ever girlfriend. They dated for a whole two and a half weeks. He doesn’t know if it really counts: the kiss was a dare, after all. 

“Kinda…” He starts, trying to follow the line of your sight, wondering if he can find the exact stars you’re looking at. “She’d just put this weird lipgloss on. It was real tingly. And like, neither of us knew what we were doing? So it… got everywhere. I think I ended up swallowing some, I don’t know. My mouth felt weird after. Thought I was having an allergic reaction.”

You laugh softly at him. “I think that would put me off for the rest of my life,” you say. 

“It almost did,” he chuckles. You hum at him and lean back on your elbows, leaving Vernon more than a little bit confused. He readjusts his hold on his knees, bringing them closer to his chest as he tilts his head down at you in your new position. 

“…why?” He asks, just as you close your eyes and take a deep inhale of the cool air. 

You just shrug. “I guess I just… wondered.”

He nods, and it’s his turn to fall short of a response, but that’s okay. You’ve known each other for too long for these silences to feel uncomfortable. He grew up with you. In fact, he’s reasonably sure he’s told you this story before. He must have done. 

Then he realises, maybe he hasn’t. Because he doesn’t know the story behind yours, and maybe that’s just a line the two of you never came to crossing. He knows he told his other friends, back then, because he was the last one in his circle to have a first kiss and he felt like it made him more grown-up, or something. Naturally, he left out the more embarrassing details. But maybe you just told your other friends who weren’t him, and went on with your life. Maybe yours was just… normal. 

Either way, he’s interested now. And there’s no time to ask like the present. 

“What was yours like?” He asks, fiddling with the strap on his wristwatch. You don’t answer straight away; he doesn’t think anything of it, because neither did he, but when he’s still waiting for you to speak a small eternity later, he prompts you again. “Hey, it can't have been worse than mine.”

You snort. 

“You’ll laugh at me,” you say, shaking your head. Vernon furrows his brows and drops his legs flat, twisting to one side to look at you. 

He doesn’t know where you’d get that idea from, but he’s… almost a bit offended by it?

“No I won’t,” he tells you softly. Maybe at first, he might’ve laughed with you, if your story happened to be as dumb as his own. But not at you. Never at. Not when he’s been the butt of the joke in too many friendship circles, for about as long as he can remember. 

You take a shallow breath, pursing your lips. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not…” you start to say, before you clear your throat and try again, this time heading in a different direction. “I don’t know. It’s dumb, I guess.”

“Don’t make me come down there,” Vernon threatens playfully, poking you in your side. You squirm, giggling despite yourself, despite the serenity of the sanctuary you two have found, despite the fact that you, too, were on the edge of falling asleep before your question came out of nowhere.  

He pokes you again, and again, and then starts to tickle your ribs instead. You squeal, swatting his hands away to no avail and you move to sit up, grabbing him by the forearms to physically make him stop. The grin on Vernon’s face is wide and heart-shaped. A warm feeling spreads through him: it has everything to do with the sweet sounds of your slowly dissolving laughter. 

You sit cross-legged across from each other like this for a moment or two. Your knees are touching. Your hands move down his arms until you’re holding him firmly by the wrists. Your eyes lock together: his crease with the sheer force of his boyish smile, while yours are narrowed, daring him to try and wiggle free and attack you again. 

He doesn’t, but for the first time ever, he’s struck with the urge to do something maybe more scary. 

The urge to just… lean in to you. 

It makes his heart do a backflip, in a way that it hasn’t done since he had his last crush. His head goes empty, and he forgets what he was even asking you before: the only thoughts he can muster are ones regarding what your lips taste like, whether they’re half as soft as they look, if you’d lightly touch his shoulder or his arm or his chest or his cheek—

Do you smile when you kiss?, he wonders. Do you sigh? Do you—

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” you answer, looking away now and letting go of him. He’s gone so loose in the moments since you grabbed hold of him that when you’re not supporting their weight, his arms fall like two cinder blocks onto his knees. 

True to his word, he doesn’t laugh. He’s surprised by your revelation, sure, but in no way humoured; actually, he feels a little saddened by it, for a reason he can’t put his finger to. He ends up not saying anything, just biting the inside of his cheek; he wants to ask why, but knows maybe that’s a bit of a dick move, and if it’s something you’re sensitive about he doesn’t want to risk hurting you.

But he’s watched people fawn over you for years, and he doesn’t think you’ve ever been short of attention from those who have thought you were attractive. So it can’t be that you’ve been lacking in chances? Surely?

“I thought… maybe I should save it,” you go on to explain. Your hands keep busy by playing with a thread at the cuff of his jacket sleeve, wrapping it around one finger until the skin beneath it pinches before you unravel it again. 

“Save it?” He asks. You nod your head.

“For when I thought I’d found them.” You pause, swallowing hard. “Like I said, it’s s—.”

“No it’s not,” Vernon says abruptly, shaking his head. He holds onto you now, one hand slipping around your back until it rests on the shoulder furthest away from him. You scoff. He squeezes you into his side. “Hey. It’s not stupid.”

He doesn’t like how this admission has, somehow, made his desire to kiss you stronger. He hates that he feels even more drawn to you, a magnet finally finding its opposing pole. It freaks him out a little. He’s never wanted to kiss anyone this badly. 

Red button theory, he tells himself to try and get back on the straight and narrow. If you hadn’t said anything, none of this would be happening.

“It’s romantic,” he says finally, swiping his thumb in small motions over the top of your shoulder. You nod, mumbling a ‘thank you’ (for what, he isn’t sure), and shiver. Vernon doesn’t know if that’s because of his proximity to you or because you’re finally starting to feel the cold. Either way, he takes the initiative to stand up and holds a hand out for you to take so he can tug you to your feet too. You get up with a little hop. 

It’s… devastatingly cute.

“Where are we going?” You ask, brushing off your jeans before shoving your hands into the jacket’s pockets. He’s already on the retreat, walking backwards towards the door that took you up here.

“To get food,” he tells you, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “That party was dead, anyway.”

It doesn’t cross his mind again until your twenty-first birthday. 

He’s not your soulmate. He couldn’t be. The thought he had on the roof that autumnal night was little more than a passing fantasy; besides, he doesn’t have a thing for you. He doesn’t want to kiss you, or date you, or have you be his soulmate. The reason you work so well together is because you’re just friends; he thinks you’d drive each other crazy if things ever went romantic between you. You bicker with him for sport. He drowns away hours at a time with his headphones clamped over his ears and forgets to answer your texts. It would be a nightmare. 

Not that he’s ever thought about all that. Not actively, or even passively. Not when he should be listening to college lectures instead, for example. Not awake, nor in his dreams. He hasn’t. Not once. 

He swears. 

“You can save it ‘til tomorrow, if you want.”

Vernon bounces his leg nervously, fidgeting with the edge of your comforter as you sit on the floor in front of him, styling your hair for your party. He arrived half an hour ago while you were still waltzing around in your bathrobe, holding a small, neatly wrapped box in both of his hands. It’s several degrees too warm in your bedroom. He feels a bead of sweat roll down his back as you grumble what seems to be a threat at a strand that won’t cooperate. Thankfully, you don’t seem to notice his discomfort. (If you do, he’s grateful that you don’t say anything.)

“But it’s my birthday today,” you pouted, taking the box from him. “Let me finish getting ready, then I’ll open it. Come on.”

His wrist still aches with the pressure you held onto him with as you dragged him up the stairs. Your parents are away for the weekend and the house is all yours, so there’s a speaker blasting your favourite playlist full volume on your nightstand and there’s nobody to tell you to turn it down. He flits his attention between his phone and watching you, but he can’t fully concentrate on either; he’s too nervous that maybe you won’t like his gift, and he’s never been the type to splash out on birthday presents before but this… well, it burned a hole in his wallet, that’s for sure. 

“Okay. Wait here,” you tell him as you push up off the floor, limping on the leg that had started to fall asleep thanks to the way you were sitting. 

“All right,” he says back. As if he’d go anywhere, anyway. 

You grab a hanger from inside your closet and scurry off down the hall to the bathroom. For the first time, Vernon feels like he can actually breathe. He drops his phone onto the comforter between his crossed legs and cradles his head in his hands, telling himself that he needs to get it together. You’ve never not liked anything he’s given you, and you’ve known him now for more birthdays than you haven’t. 

Your friends said you’d love it. So did your mother, with a sparkle in her eye as she held it delicately in her fingers. He has nothing to worry about. It’s only you.

And yet—

“You’ll be honest if it looks bad?” You call from the other side of the door, interrupting how his lips move wordlessly in an endless mantra of self-reassurances. 

Vernon snaps his head up and he clears his throat, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Aren’t I always?” He answers.

You click your tongue, evidently disagreeing, but you pull the handle and take a step into the room anyway. When you see him, he looks exactly as he did when you left, no trace of his anxieties anywhere to be seen on his face or otherwise. 

When he sees you, he feels like the world could end any moment and he’d be okay with that. 

His mouth runs dry and his eyes seem to be stuck open, unblinking, fixated on you in your all black outfit as you stand still as a statue with your hands behind your back. You cough quietly, waiting for some kind of a response other than a dumb stare, but it doesn’t come. 

Eight seconds later… still nothing. 

“Do you hate it?” you fret, because Vernon is a very good hype-man and you’ve never known him struggle to find something positive to say. “All right, uh— okay—”

“No!” He rushes, almost shouting in his urgency to assure you that that’s not the case at all. He scrambles up to his feet, taking a breath, and pushes a hand through his hair. He’s been growing it out lately, and he kind of hates how his fingers catch on a tangle even though he brushed it meticulously before he left his apartment. You keep telling him it looks good, though, so he hasn’t been to get it cut. “God, no. I’m sorry. You look amazing.”

It doesn’t sound like much to the untrained ear, but the warmth of his compliments comes less in the words he says and more in the sincerity he says them with. Your face softens, and Vernon can see the way the thoughts of changing into something else fizzle out behind your eyes. He takes a backwards step to try and tempt you further into your own bedroom, and you move in tandem with him, closing that space and coming better into the light. 

“Wow,” he says, swallowing hard and looking you up and down. “I-… wow.”

It’s your turn to clam up, now. You look down at the floor, kicking at the carpet with your toes. “Shut up,” you say. “I’m not...”

“Yes, you are,” he protests, leaving no room for argument as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t know who you’re trying to impress but… yeah, it’s gonna work.”

You walk past him with a scoff, barging against his shoulder on your way; he dramatically staggers to the side, rubbing at the impact site, laughing. When he faces you again, you’ve picked the gift up from the end of your bed and are moving to sit on the mattress yourself. Your eyes flicker between Vernon and the empty space in front of you. He takes the hint, settling back down with one foot tucked beneath him, the other still planted on your rug. 

His heart shoots back up into his throat and he stares down at the box, licking over his lips and frowning at how dry they feel. He glances away, lifting a hand to his mouth, running his fingertips over his lips. What would they feel like pressed against yours? He thinks, and then he cringes again. 

You misread his reaction and hesitate with your finger pressed underneath a strip of tape, tilting your head at him. “What’s going to jump out at me when I open this?” 

“Nothing,” he says, rolling his eyes at you. “What do you take me for?”

“The kind of guy who puts glitter in birthday cards because he thinks it’s funny,” you retort, earning a click of his tongue. 

“That was one time!”

“One time too many.”

“I swear,” he laughs, tight shoulders easing, both hands falling to his lap. “No sparkles, no loud noises, nothing jumpy. Cross my heart.“

You eye him a little suspiciously but eventually tug your finger beneath the wrapping and make the first rip in the paper, allowing you to tear into the gift after keeping Vernon on edge for almost an hour and a half. You peel it away and it falls to the bedsheets, in your hands now a small, square box not too dissimilar a shade to your comforter. You look from it, to him, and he thinks you notice how his cheeks are a little darker than they were before. 

He nods at you once and you slowly pull it open. On a plush, velvety bedding sits an elegant, dainty bracelet. A small gemstone is set in the metal of the bar in the middle of the chain. You skim a thumb over it, your breath held.

“Vernon,” you murmur, tearing your eyes away from the bracelet to look at him. Now, even the tips of his ears have grown flushed, but you’re kind enough not to comment on it to avoid spoiling the moment you’re in. “This is…”

“The lady in the store said it was your birthstone,” he says, twiddling his thumbs. “I mean… I’m really just taking her word for it, ‘cause they all look the same to me, but—”

He’s interrupted as all of your weight topples against him, arms thrown around his neck in a hug. He hesitates a moment before he wraps his own around your waist, drops his head to your shoulder and he smiles wider than he thinks he ever has. “Happy Birthday,” he says, dragging his thumb up and down over your hip. 

“Silly,” you scold him playfully, still pressing wholly against him and showing no signs of moving. Your voice sounds thick, a little like you’re tearing up, so Vernon squeezes you tighter. 

“I know you are,” he chuckles. “But what am I?”

You swallow hard, finally now pulling away from the hug but sitting entirely too close for comfort, one knee pressing into the outside of his thigh. 

Your surprise attack has left him dishevelled. With a quiet apology, your fingers innocently try to smooth everything back into place, but Vernon doesn’t hear you say you’re sorry. His pulse, thundering in his ears, drowns it out while also skipping a beat with each little touch. You’re not looking into his eyes as you shyly put him back to rights, too busy working to tame his — at the best of times — unruly hair. 

He’s looking into yours though, and he can’t stop. 

Your eyes, which dart all over to find strands out of place, so your hands can move them to where they ought to sit and lay them down flat. Your eyes, that drop down the length of his throat as you realign the neck of his t-shirt over his broad shoulders. 

Your eyes: the ones crinkled at the corners as you pick the bracelet back up from your bed and admire it under your bedroom light. Your eyes, landing on his, finally, in a silent plea for help. 

“The best?” you answer, now, extending your wrist to ask him to put it on you. He takes the chain from your fingers and unclasps it, slipping it beneath your hand and holding it in place. 

“I know you are,” he says again, but it’s quieter now as he concentrates on trying to reconnect the two pieces. “But what am I?”

When he successfully fastens your gift onto your arm, he looks up to see your watery eyes still staring down at it. He decides this is the time to reveal part two of the surprise. Pulling up the sleeve of his t-shirt, he reveals his own wrist to you, and you now see there’s a matching chain hanging off it. A little stone set in the metal. His stone, presumably. You choke out a laugh around your tears, shaking your head. 

“You got us friendship bracelets,” you giggle, holding your hand next to his and admiring them together. Your skin touches and he feels butterflies erupt in his stomach, which he hasn’t felt around you since…

He nods, breathing a chuckle too. “Yeah,” he says. His heart is pounding. “I guess I did. Is… that okay?”

“I love them,” you insist, leaning forward to affectionately press your lips to his cheek. “Thank you. It’s perfect.”

Your doorbell sounds downstairs and Vernon’s words die in his throat. Maybe that’s for the best, though; he’s got so much nervous energy rising up inside him and he’s scared it might accidentally force up something he’ll regret saying. You spring off the bed again, fussing in the mirror, and he watches you rush out the bedroom warbling about how you’re not ready for anyone to be here yet. It’s too early. What’s going on? Who is it?

He shifts his legs so both his feet are planted on the floor, letting out a breath he doesn’t remember sucking in. 

I love them. Thank you, you said. 

It’s perfect. 

He groans when he stands up, too, tugging his sleeve back down as he starts to follow after you.

“I know you are,” he mumbles under his breath, hearing your relieved laughter at it just being the FedEx man on your doorstep. It makes him feel warm. Everywhere. “But what am I?”

Five hours later, Vernon is seeing double. 

He has Seungkwan’s hands massaging the tops of his shoulders and there are two Juns sitting across from him at your dining table. He remembers feeling fine around 9pm, distinctly: like nothing he drank was having any kind of effect on him. Like he could walk home on his hands — like he was invincible. Now, after spending exactly five minutes out in the fresh air, he’s blinking four times for every breath he takes and his friends’ voices keep phasing in and out of focus.

“But what if they’re not?” Vernon stresses for the eighth time, fingers clumsily peeling at the label on his bottle.

“And what if they are?” Jun tries. Again. Also, for the eighth time, because apparently when Vernon gets tipsy, his skull gets really really thick and nothing in the world can penetrate it. “You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

Vernon shakes his head, sitting back so heavily that his chair tips and he sends Seungkwan stumbling into the wall behind them. His friend gives up trying to rub the stupid out of him and settles into the chair at Vernon’s side instead. 

“I don’t know-…”

“If you’re about to say you don’t know what you’ll do if it isn’t them, I’m putting you in an Uber and sending you home.” Seungkwan claps his hand down onto Vernon’s knee for good measure. “It’s not even been a day.”

Vernon groans, threading his fingers into his hair and tipping his head back. “It hasn’t, though,” he whines. “What if it’s been like this since… and I just kept ignoring…”

Jun and Seungkwan exchange a look. An exhausted one. They both know Vernon turns into a complete baby when he’s had a drink and can just about manage a trip to the bathroom without somebody holding his hand, but neither of them have seen him like this before. Neither of them want to see him like this ever again.

Hell, neither of them want to be dealing with him like this right now.

“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” Jun’s (remarkably) calm voice repeats as he pushes up from his seat and glances towards the doorway. His ears lock onto a voice just beyond it, and in an instant, the older man recognises his chance at an exit. He casts an apologetic glance at Seungkwan, who has resorted to rubbing Vernon’s earlobes to try and get him to stop stressing, and he dips out before either of them can argue. 

On his way, though, he throws in a sly little remark. One that raises Vernon’s– and Seungkwan’s– blood pressure to a level that would get them prescribed a week of strict bed rest.

“Besides – everyone can see the two of you were practically made for each other.”

Vernon whips around to face Seungkwan with shock written into every line of his face. It paints perfect full-signal WiFi creases on his forehead; it makes his jaw hang loose. 

“I– what?” Vernon splutters, shooting a hand to the back of his head. Seungkwan hasn’t taken his eyes off the doorway since Jun slipped through it. Vernon doesn’t notice the fact that his older friend’s full genetic line is currently being cursed out. “What does he mean?”

“You don’t have to do anything tonight,” Seungkwan tries, now acutely aware of the fact that Jun has just given Vernon a nudge he should never have. There’s a fine line between bolstering a friend and straight-up causing chaos. This could get messy. Seungkwan doesn’t like messy.

But… It's too late. 

Before Seungkwan can wrangle him back into his seat, Vernon has broken away from the table and is on the hunt for you. Seungkwan follows behind, doing his best to summon Vernon back, but he can’t. He’s on a mission now. And maybe that mission involves giving in to the thing that eats away at his brain when he should be waist-deep in music theory assignments. Maybe that mission is to finally, after two years, know what it feels like to kiss you. He’s going to find you, so help him God. He has to. 

And yes. He does. He finds you, eventually. As soon as he reaches the top of the staircase, there you are. 

Being pressed into the wood of your bedroom door, wrapped up in the arms of some pretentious looking art student in an oversized button-down and baggy, ripped jeans. Your mouth is covered by theirs, your fingers are threaded through those glossy fucking locks, both of you are laughing breathlessly as you drop one hand and it fumbles blindly to reach for the doorknob. 

Vernon spins away, turning his back as he hears the door click. At this exact moment, Seungkwan comes stumbling up the stairs too and plants his forehead into Vernon’s sternum. 

But his good friend’s skull is not the only thing Vernon is struck with, not the only thing knocking the wind out of him. 

Simultaneously, he’s swept up with the sobering realisations that either this guy is your soulmate, or you’re not the same person you were when you were nineteen. 

It’s eleven o’clock and two years later when he hears your secret knock on his apartment door. 

Maybe it’s luck. Maybe it’s fate. He only took his noise cancelling headphones off a few minutes ago before he washed up and settled into bed; his head has hardly even had time to make a dent in the pillows. But whichever force is at play, the thing that matters is that he hears you and he knows it’s you, straight away. He doesn’t remember how it started, exactly. He thinks it might have been while he was in his exam-season hermit stage in his first year of university and refused to come to the door unless it was something important. 

You’ve been knocking the same way for years now though, and he slides out of bed with creased brows at how desperate your fist sounds as it pounds against the wood. He pulls on an old t-shirt and perhaps the loosest fitting pair of shorts anyone’s ever owned, at least making himself decent before he answers. He’s still tying the drawstring when he gets to the door.

When he looks through the peep-hole to make sure he’s right, you’re drying your eyes on the back of your sweatshirt sleeve. You’re shivering quite violently, and you’ve got a bag on your shoulder that’s weighing you down on one side. Vernon’s heart sinks. He unbolts the door, pulling it open just as you lift your hand to knock again; your knuckles punch the air between you as your eyes land on him, and your bottom lip wobbles in despair. 

You fall into his chest with a sob. Tears start to soak their way through his shirt until it clings to the skin underneath. 

“Hey,” he soothes you, locking his arms so tight around you that there’s a strong chance they’re the only thing holding you upright. 

“I didn’t— know where else to go—” you choke out, your arm trapped between your chest and his as he rests his head on top of yours and pats your back softly. “I’m s-”

“Don’t you dare,” he murmurs, tilting his chin down to press a soft kiss to the top of your head. “It’s okay. I’m here. You can always come to me.”

He holds you until your shakes start to subside, trying to talk you through whatever this is with soft reassurances and gentle shushing sounds. When you pull back from him, Vernon guides you into his apartment, flicking on the lamp in his living room so he can see to settle you down on his couch. He throws a blanket over your legs before he sits down himself, pulling your hand into his lap and holding it between both of his own, his thumb moving absently over your knuckles. You’re still crying, but when you shuffle against the seat to be a little more comfortable and finally turn to face him, he finds his voice long enough to ask you what happened. 

“He kissed— kissed someone else,” you tell him, sniffling and shaking your head. 

His blood reaches boiling point in what must be record time and he knows he accidentally starts to grip your hand tighter, but he can’t stop. 

“He what?”

Vernon knows this guy wasn’t your soulmate. You told him, a few days after your birthday. You said everything was still black and white when you pulled back from the first of — what you spared no detail in explaining was — many, many, many kisses with him that evening. But you didn’t care. Not then, and not for the whole time you’ve been together. 

He asked you about it once. About four months in (when he figured things were starting to get serious), late at night, if it bothered you. Whether you were going to keep seeing him. If you still thought about finding your soulmate. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget what your replying message said. 

I mean, sure, I’m curious. But maybe I don’t need to see in colour. I think being in love is enough :)

So… you were in love. 

With someone who wasn’t him. 

He didn’t speak to anyone — not even you — for two whole days after that. He felt like he’d gone ten rounds with a peak-form George Foreman. He felt like he’d never be able to get rid of the pit that had developed in the depths of his gut. He couldn’t sleep, he could barely eat, he couldn’t focus: it was the worst he’d ever felt.  And, well… Vernon knew it was immature. He knew he was acting like a child. If he could’ve shaken it off, the way he’s always done with so many of the things in his life that have bothered him, he’d have loved to. But he couldn’t.

Besides. Only about four people noticed his silence, anyway. You weren’t one of them; your boyfriend was keeping you plenty busy.

“He went to a club and got completely wasted and he— he—” you say, squeezing his hand even tighter than he’s holding yours. “But-… he says he-…” Hiccup. “Everything. Straight away — his…”

You don’t need to say it out loud; if anything, he’s a little disgusted with himself that he didn’t figure this out sooner. “His soulmate,” Vernon ruefully finishes for you. He groans the words out, feeling rotten to his core. “I’m so sorry…”

Your shoulders start to shake and he wastes no time in pulling you sideways against him, both his arms locked around you again, just like before. 

“It’s so stupid,” you cry, laughing emptily. His stomach turns; he hates this. Your anguish is an assault on his eardrums, especially when he’s got you so close, but he tries so hard not to flinch, not to move away. You need him, no matter how agonised it makes him feel. “I knew he wasn’t mine, but I thought-…”

Your voice fades away to nothing. You shake your head.

“You thought he was happy the same way you were,” he finishes again. You just nod, sobbing harder. “That's not—… stop saying the way you feel is stupid.”

Vernon doesn’t understand how that loser could ever not have been happy with you. How could he dream about going out in search of something more? Hell, Vernon doesn’t think there’s a soul alive better than you — how could anyone stand to just throw you away?

He wonders briefly if you can hear his heartbeat, thundering in his chest with the rage he feels all the way into his bones. You’ve always told him that you admire how chilled out, how collected he is, but Vernon has never felt less calm in his entire life. It’s only as he acknowledges that he has no right to feel like this, that he takes a few deep breaths in an attempt to bring his fever down. You mimic him, trying to do the same, and by the time his pulse starts to settle, you’re back to just sniffling against his shoulder. 

“Stay the night here,” he tells you. It isn’t a suggestion, or really even a request. It’s an order. There’s no room for negotiation. “We’ll go get your things in the morning. I’ll be right there with you.”

You open your mouth to speak, but Vernon gets there before you do. Before you can protest the offers he’s made. Before you can ask him if he’s sure. He knows you, a little too well: he knows these are the words that are going to come out of your mouth next. “I’m with you, okay? Always.”

You sit back from him with a quiet chuckle, wiping your eyes again on your damp sleeve. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you,” you murmur. “You’re the best— the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He just rolls his eyes at you and shakes his head, standing up from the couch. (I know you are, he thinks. This isn’t the time for jokes, though.) He wishes you knew what you mean to him; how, in his eyes, you deserve the world, presented to you on a shining silver platter. Wishes you knew that he’d give it to you if thought he could carry it. 

“Go wash up,” he says, ignoring the ache in his chest at the way your watery lashes flutter when you look up at him. “I’ll find you something to sleep in.”

He locates a spare toothbrush from a travelling kit he’s never used and sets a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants on the heated towel rail, leaving you alone in the bathroom to go about your business. You emerge some fifteen minutes later to find Vernon perched on the edge of his bed, scrolling through an app on his phone. He can’t help but swallow at the way his clothes fit you. How the steam from your shower clings to your skin, casts a heavenly haze around you. He hopes it isn’t obvious. This is about more than his dumb little crush. 

“Were you asleep?” You ask him, nodding towards his comforter, still pushed back on one side. He turns to glance over his shoulder, following the line of your sight, before he looks back at you and shakes his head. 

“Not even close,” he says. “I’d just got into bed when you got here.”

You worry your bottom lip between your teeth and nod. Vernon doesn't think you look totally convinced, but he can’t force you to believe him, even if it is the truth. 

It’s unspoken but accepted that you'll sleep in the bed with him; he’s never let you stay on his couch when you spend the night, and you never agree to displacing him even though he always tries to insist he doesn’t mind. You’ve been friends for enough time now that it’ll never be weird to crawl beneath the sheets with him, anyway. At first, he didn’t really like sharing (he’s a bit… particular with how he sleeps, after all), but he got used to your weight on the mattress beside him quite quickly and makes a point to say he always sleeps better with you. 

He hasn’t curled up next to you for the night in over two years. It’s awful, that that’s what he thinks about now as he turns off the lights and you settle down, shuffling under the comforter until he slides in next to you in the dark and you can lay your head on his chest. He knows it’s selfish. He thinks it probably makes him a bad person, too. 

“Do you think—” you start to say, cut off by a long, vocal yawn. Your breath feels so warm through his t-shirt. “If you fall out of love with them… do the colours go away?”

With his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling he can’t even see, Vernon feels his heart shatter beneath the soft cushion of your cheek. He’s suddenly grateful he’s still fully clothed, as if the cotton barrier is the only thing stopping you from getting scratched by the splinters beneath his skin. He wonders if you hear it. It would be an easier explanation for why he doesn’t say anything than whatever his mouth could come up with, that’s for sure. 

“I don’t know,” he says after a few seconds too long. The arm wrapped around your shoulders slips down to your waist and he squeezes you. Briefly, he wonders if it can force your broken pieces back together. 

Vernon knows he would never do this to you. He’d never hurt you this way. Out of everyone he’s ever met, he thinks you’re the sweetest, the kindest, the most thoughtful of them all. The last person he’d ever wish a heartbreak upon. He even used to joke that he’d go to war with anyone who dared to try. 

But now he’s seeing it happen? He feels as if he really could. 

“I just hope you never have to find out,” he follows up, blinking back the thoughts that start to bubble away as your breaths slow down. 

He wrapped a band-aid around your finger when you got a papercut once and you asked him, then, if he would kiss it better. 

When you bumped your head in the playground, the same. 

He’d kiss it all better now too, if he could. He’d show you how you deserve to be loved. 

And he doesn’t just think it, anymore; Vernon knows that this makes him a terrible person. 

“I hope you don’t, either,” you mumble back. “... and I hope we find them soon.”

He’s so proud of you.

Okay, it never took much. He’s been proud of you for every good grade you’ve ever achieved, every doctor's appointment you booked for yourself, every trip to the dentist you stressed over. He’s been proud of you for finishing projects you were struggling with. Proud of you for learning new recipes. For every milestone, personal or professional, it’s the first thing he makes sure to say. 

[ hey, look at u go!!! proud of u :) ]

Now? He’s seen you crawl from rock bottom to the top of the world. It hasn’t been easy. There have been hurdles and barriers and sometimes, sixty foot high walls you’ve had to climb up and over, but you’ve done it. You’re thriving. Every time he looks at you, these days, if you’re not wearing a smile there are at least traces of one in your eyes, on your face, in your voice. Happiness suits you, and he’s so, so proud of you for getting here. 

He knows you’re doing better, because between Christmas and New Year, you asked him if he wanted to come to a party with you. At first, he wasn’t sure; the holidays left his wallet feeling a little light and he’s been on a really good streak of not drinking anything lately, but when you promised that you’d stay sober too, he kind of couldn’t say no. 

[ i just wanna see in the new year with my favourite person ever <3 ]

[ ha. flattery will get u everywhere ]

So here he finds himself, out in the backyard of somebody he’s never met, a can of Coke in one hand and your gloved fingers holding tightly onto the other. You dragged him outside at five minutes to midnight and — though he doesn’t know why — you decided you didn’t want to let go. Vernon certainly wasn’t going to be the one to make you. Your warmth down his left side is settling the slight unease he’s felt all evening while also making him feel tipsier than he’s ever been under the influence of any amount of soju; he thinks maybe this should scare him, but he’s just… so glad he came.

With sixty seconds until the clock strikes twelve, somebody stands up on top of the picnic table in the yard and starts to try and coordinate a countdown. With forty-five, Vernon squeezes your hand, butterflies where his stomach ought to be. With thirty, he takes a long drain of his drink, finishing it as if it’ll give him some courage, maybe, or… he doesn’t know. Zero sugar, zero caffeine — there’s no logic behind his process, just a lot of bubbles and artificially sweetened syrup. All the same, he crushes the can against his thigh and slips it into his pocket to throw away later. That alone relieves a bit of his adrenaline. 

Not enough, but some. 

With ten seconds remaining, the first shout drowns out the white noise in his ears, the chaos of his thoughts. 10. He joins them. So do you. 9. 8. Your voice is the loudest, the most excited sounding. You want this year to be over. You want the rest of your life to begin. 

7. 6. 5.

The crackers are set. Flames dance at the end of the garden on fire lighters, ready to send rockets shooting into the sky. 

Some people here are going to see them as they truly are. Brilliant and vibrant and colourful against the black canvas of the midnight sky. Vernon won’t. Neither will you. But what was it you said to him once?

4. 3.

Maybe I don’t need to see in colour. 

2.

For the first time, he thinks he agrees. The feeling of loving you, even if he never knows green from red, blue from orange? He doesn’t care. He has you. He loves you. That’s enough. 

1.

Happy New Year. 

As if dawn has broken early, the world becomes impossibly bright, pyrotechnics bursting not only over your own heads but everywhere, as far as his eyes can see. After the first few, he permits himself a glance over at your face: there are tears running down it, and his heart stutters, but then he hears you laugh. Brightly, wetly, more resonant than any of the booms and crackles and cheers he can feel all the way down to his toes. 

For whatever reason, Vernon starts laughing with you. 

You pull him closer into a bone-crushing hug and blink your damp lashes against the side of his neck. “Thank you for being here with me,” you say to him, practically shouting to be heard. “I love you so much.”

“I’m always gonna be with you,” he says as you pull back a little. Your arms are still around him. The chain of the bracelet he bought you all those years ago is bitterly cold against the back of his neck. He can’t feel his fingers anymore, all he knows is that they’re resting on the curve of your spine. He thinks he can see something in the way you look at him, so softly and tenderly and yet, in the twitch of your brow… 

Like you’re searching for something that might not be there. 

He knows his gaze moves in a perfect triangle — from your left eye, to your slightly parted, wind-chapped lips, to your right. He knows he stops breathing. He swears you do, too. Something builds — a spark catches, an energy festers, egged on by the curious murmurs of the people around you. 

You could do it, his brain tells him. 

So what if he’s a few minutes late for it to be traditional? Does it really matter? 

But he’s reminded, again, this time with a whizz and a boom and a crackle, that you aren’t his to have this way. His storybook moment fizzles out, the final firework bursting into sparkles overhead. He sees every one of your perfect features brighten in wonder as you tilt your head back to look up at it. Sees it beautifully reflected in your glassy eyes. He has about enough time to commit the image to memory before you clear your throat and finally step away from him, losing all touch for the first time since you came outside. 

One of your friends comes and pulls you into an embrace, before passing you along to someone else, and then someone else again. He loses you in the crowd that rushes to get back in the warm, but he makes no effort to move with them. He just stays out in the dark for a while with his own thoughts for company, shoving his frigid hands into the pockets of his jeans.

He’s happy, though. It’s like you said. 

Being in love is enough.

“There’s just one more thing,” you say as the waitress returns with your bank card and a receipt. Vernon slides you a look as he stands, picking up his jacket from the back of the chair he’s been sitting in. 

He shakes his head at you. “Whatever it is, it better not be edible,” he laughs. “I think this is the most full I’ve ever been.”

In other words, you’ve done enough already. Stop spending money on me. Please. Thankfully, your final surprise is in-keeping with his unspoken rule. 

His birthday rolled around way too quickly. The start of the year has been so chaotically busy; you swear, you’ve hardly seen him since he dropped you off home after the party. You moved out of your parents’ house for the second time a few weeks ago and settling in, unpacking boxes, sorting through clothes and belongings and trinkets has taken you much longer than you care to admit. You’ve been busy at work, too. So has he. Your social calendars have barely lined up at all. 

But you were determined to make plenty of time for him on his birthday. 

To Vernon, this has always just been another day. He’s never cared too much about big celebrations: as long as he can spend some time with people he cares about, he’s happy, and this year he’s managed exactly that. He saw his family this morning, had some friends drop by his apartment later in the day, and now, he’s with you. 

You’ve never been great at the laid-back approach, though. Not with him. How could you be, when he does so much for you, always without even batting an eye? When he deserves to be doted on, and adored, and thoroughly spoiled? It’s the same every year. You make a fuss, he playfully scolds you for it; you and he are creatures of habit. It’ll probably never change. 

This year, you invited him to your new place to open the gifts you’d bought him: the new speaker he kept saying he couldn’t justify buying, a record he looked at in the store a few months ago but never bought, a sweatshirt to replace the one you stole off him on New Years Eve. Some candies he likes. Then, after he finally stopped pouting and sighing that you really didn’t need to go to all this effort, you took him out for dinner, making a reservation for two at his favourite restaurant. 

The pouting continued. 

Only up until your appetisers came out, though. The moment your food was placed down in front of you, his eyes doubled in size and his lips became a little too busy to stay pursed. Your own dinner almost went cold with how fondly you sat and watched him. This year, you even spared Vernon the embarrassment of having the restaurant staff sing at the side of your table. 

All right, you have an ulterior motive, but… it’s the thought that counts, right? 

He holds the door open for you now as you thank the waitress who served you one last time and without him lowering his arm, you step into place beneath it. Tucked up into Vernon’s side, you’re as happy as you’ve ever been. Nervous, too, but… you have a good feeling. 

“Where to?” He asks as you fall into step together. 

“This way.”

You emerge from the shelter of the canopy outside the restaurant’s front door and immediately feel the cool tickle of a snowflake landing on your cheek. They started to fall while you were eating and Vernon couldn’t stop watching through the window, small specks that grew over the hour into big clumps that tumbled towards the ground. He’s always loved the snow, and there’s no real destination for this gift, anyway. You guide him to the left and watch as peace takes its rightful home on his beautiful features. 

“We’ve walked in a perfect square three times now,” Vernon says after a little while of meandering about in the dark, making comfortable small talk and laughing as the champagne bubbles in your stomachs continue to fizz away. “Where are we supposed to be going?”

You wondered how long it was going to take him to notice, or even if he was going to realise at all. Looking up and down the street you’re on, you stop in your tracks, standing beneath the same flickering street lamp that you’ve passed twice already. Your footprints trail both behind and in front of you, neither quite covered yet by the snowfall. You break into a laugh when you notice that the convenience store on your left has closed since the last time you came down this road. 

“I can get a map open, if…” Vernon starts, reaching into his pocket. You stop him, stepping out from under his arm and wrapping your hand around his wrist instead.

“I might’ve told a little white lie,” you confess, 

He halts with his phone only half pulled out, pushing it into his hip for fear of it falling if either of you let go. “What do you mean?” He asks. 

You know he’s probably thinking back to your earlier conversations, trying to figure out which part exactly is the mistruth you’re now admitting to. But whether he gets there on his own or not, he waits for you to answer. 

“I had it with me this whole time,” you explain, readjusting your hold on his covered forearm. His eyes dart downwards, looking at the site of contact, but he quickly lifts them back up to your face. “I was just… waiting for… ”

“What are you talking about?” Vernon asks. 

“Close your eyes.”

You know.

Unfortunately for your best friend, as hush-hush as he’s managed to be all this time, the same can’t be said for the other person he entrusts all his secrets to. A few weeks ago, when you’d called Seungkwan to coordinate timings for Vernon’s birthday plans, he’d accidentally let something slip. It was your suggestion of taking Vernon to dinner that did the trick. 

“Oh, he’s going to love that,” Seungkwan had gushed. You could hear the breadth of his smile down the phone and felt yourself growing hot at the compliment.

“You really think so?”

“Pfft. You could take him to the Eiffel Tower or to a drive-through KFC, and he’d still have hearts in his eyes – because it’s you.”

Of course, he attempted to do some damage control immediately after. Make out that he meant it in strictly platonic terms. But once the idea planted itself in your head, it sort of… made sense. You mulled it over for a couple of days but when you finally asked Seungkwan, deathly serious, if he really thought you stood a chance with Vernon?

He practically screamed ‘yes’ down the phone. 

“The last time you asked me to do this, you killed me at laser-tag,” Vernon says, narrowing his eyes. He surely doesn’t think you’re hiding a plastic gun underneath the coat he literally just watched you don, but he doesn’t do as you ask and you suck your front teeth at him.

“Luckily for you, I left all my weapons at home,” you counter. “Come on, please. Just… trust me.”

“Said that last time, too,” he snickers. But, to his merit, he finally does it. He takes in a breath and follows your instruction. “I swear to God…”

Selfishly, you take a moment to bask in how handsome he really is. His eyes twitch underneath his lids and snowflakes cling to his lashes, moving with them. It’s in his hair, too. On his shoulders. Melting on his cheeks, leaving small wet spots on his face. One lands perfectly on the tip of his nose. You would immortalise this moment, if you could.

It made sense, when you found out, because thinking back? Nobody has ever loved you how Vernon does. He shows it in so many ways – he sends you the songs that he hears and thinks you’ll like, the pretty photographs that he takes when he’s away for work, some variant of a ‘good morning’ text, almost every day. He massages your shoulders, lets you fall asleep on his lap, follows you around like an obedient puppy when you have errands to run just so you don’t have to do them on your own. 

He tries, and often fails, to cook you breakfast when you stay over. He brings you coffees, or lunch. He looks at you like you’re the moon and the stars. People have teased for years that you could be psychically connected. That you were cosmically united. That it was fate for Vernon to move into the house down the street from you when you were nine. To be the only other child your age on the block. 

Two people, perfect for one another, lives intertwined eternally by fate. Or, in other words…

“Are you…?” He asks, breaking the quiet that has only been filled with your cloud-forming breaths. 

“Give me a second,” you breathe. There’s no doubt in your mind.

You lean forward to kiss him softly, free hand settling against the side of his neck. In the February chill, Vernon freezes, no part of his body reacting to you except for his lips. Though they twitch in a gasp, they press back against yours as if he isn’t even thinking about doing it. As if it’s instinctual. As if he was always supposed to kiss you – as if he’s your…

There it all is, when you finally pull away.

Brown eyes, framed by fluttering lashes that untangle from one another to finally see you, too. Brown, you know, because when you asked your mother to tell you about Vernon’s colours when you were younger, that was the only one she told you, saying everything else might change when he got older. Warm, brown eyes. Glistening with every blink, blink, blink of the bulb above you. Pupils slowly dilating, drowning the colours out of view. You see his lids shoot wide as he realises, as he glances left and right, as he takes this new world in for the first time, too. 

“I knew it,” you say on a stuttered breath, so overwhelmed you could cry. “My soulmate.”

A brilliant smile threatens to split Vernon’s features in two as he cups your cheeks and pulls you back to him, kissing you again, and again, and again. 

“I know you are,” he says against your lips, his bare thumbs pink and cold as they press into your skin. And, before you can kiss him quiet – “but what ‘m I?”

thank u so much for reading, i really hope you enjoyed this. as always, your likes/reblogs/comments and feedback are always deeply appreciated.<3

[tusks-and-claws]

Cold Love/Hot Blood

Miguel O’Hara x female reader

Summary: “Between teeth on a broken jaw/following a bloodtrail, frothing at the maw”

Miguel is struck with something that he’s never experienced before

Tags/warnings: smut (18+), oneshot, dubcon by way of pheromones, fingering, overstimulation, squirting, rough sex, unprotected sex, breeding kink, size kink, feral Miguel, biting, marking, blood drinking, paralytic venom

Wordcount: 3k

Ao3 link here

-

You opened your eyes, blinking at the soft light from the bleary haze. Wincing, you raised your hand to your head. It didn't necessarily hurt, but it definitely felt wrong. What had happened? You were on a mission. That's right. And it had been going so well, until… until the anomaly villain threw something at you and Miguel. What was it? It had such an awful smell to it. And, where was Miguel?

You traversed the rubble of the abandoned building you were in. You couldn't see him. You shouted out for him.

"Here, I'm here," you heard him from the distance. Following his voice, you found him under some pieces of sheetrock from a collapsed wall. He was pinching the bridge of his nose through his mask.

"Geez, Miguel, are you alright?"

"Been better." His voice sounded strained. "Got a transmission from Jess that she's got hands on the anomaly. We'll meet her back at HQ. You go on ahead of me."

"What? No, we have to-" you started grabbing at the rubble to pull it off of him. He caught your arm before you could keep lifting.

"Please," he said, trying to meet your eyes from behind his mask. "Just go."

"What the hell is going on, Miguel? You're not… you're not acting right. We have to get you out of here."

He brought his hands up, holding his head in frustration. "Please, just do it. Don't make me beg."

"LYLA, please check him," you said, the avatar popping up and saluting you.

"No, don't-!" He tried to catch her in the air but she evaded him.

"His heart rate is really elevated but he seems okay otherwise. I think he's being dramatic. I don't detect any major injuries," she reported. You thanked her and she disappeared.

You crouched down to where he was. "What's going on, Miguel?" Your tone was serious.

He tried to hold your gaze for a moment until he swore and looked away. "That bomb that the anomaly threw… it affected me in a way that it clearly didn't affect anyone else, alright? Are you happy now?"

You furrowed your brow. "I don't understand."

He sighed, his breath shaking ever so slightly. "Itwasapheromonebomb." He said it so quickly and quietly.

"...What?"

"It was a pheromone bomb. Just leave me here so I can wait it out. This is so shocking humiliating- I," he sighed again. "Don't make me explain any further."

You blushed, not sure what to say. But you couldn't leave him like that, half-buried and vulnerable. "Can I at least help you up…? I promise I won't make fun of you. I just can't leave you defenseless like this."

He seethed for a moment, considering your offer. "...Fine. Grab this stupid sheetrock."

You did so, lifting it off of him with some effort. He did his best to stand up quickly. Despite his best, though, you could see the source of his embarrassment. He had a rock hard erection, and a particularly desperate one, by the looks of it. It laid upward, reaching towards his abdomen and pushing up against the tight fabric of his suit, straining. The size of him was nothing short of impressive.

You turned your gaze pointedly towards the ground as he moved away from the pile of rubble. Don't react don't react don't react. Could you pretend like you didn't notice? Even though not noticing was impossible, even from a single glance? You swallowed a lump in your throat, your head swimming with unprofessional thoughts.

Miguel turned from you, crouching down, hissing out a slow breath. "Fuck, it's getting worse," he whispered to himself, his body starting to tremble.

You took a step closer, reaching a hand out to his shoulder.

"Your proximity isn't… isn't helping." He admitted without turning around.

You stopped, silently moving your hand away from him. Touching him would surely make things harder.

"Miguel, I don't think waiting it out is an option for you. You just said it was getting worse."

He swore under his breath to himself. "I didn't mean for you to hear that. This is- shock it- this is completely foreign to me. Never been hit by anything like this before, it's s-so intense."

You winced at that, you'd never heard his voice so pained. But, what was the other option? You shivered just to think about it, your body reacting in ways that surprised you. How could you possibly propose helping him without making him think less of you? Would he even want help from you? Across from you, he was in turmoil, on his hands and knees trying desperately to control his breathing.

“Miguel… how can I help you?” It was a foolish question, a loaded question.

“You know the answer,” he replied from over his shoulder, his tone cold. He cried out again. “I- I can’t- can’t do that to you.”

“What if I’m offering?” You asked, a little too quickly, pushing down your fear and embarrassment for even thinking such things.

He turned further to meet your eyes, though you still couldn’t see his from behind the mask. You didn’t even need to see his eyes, his body language was communicating perfectly on their behalf. His muscles were pent up and quivering. Every breath rocked his massive shoulders. “Why?”

You didn’t think he’d ask that question. You searched your brain for an answer. “Because it isn’t your fault. And I respect you enough that this won’t change my mind.”

His thoughts seemed to be diverting to his baser instincts, his voice becoming a growl. “Need you… to be sure. Don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”

“I’m sure,” you said.

In no time at all, he pounced, bringing you to the ground. He was on top of you, his taloned fingers caging in your wrists against the cracked concrete of the floor, your arms above your head. You landed with your legs apart and with him between them, his hips desperately close to yours. Your eyes widened at his feral energy, your chest rising and falling as you tried to catch your breath. He brought his face into the crook of your neck, inhaling. His exhale was shaky. “You smell so good… always smelled so good.”

Your body grew hot upon hearing that. Always? Had he thought about you in that way before? You smiled to yourself as he nuzzled the nose of his masked face into your neck, his hot breath coming through and ghosting over your skin. You could feel his huge frame shaking around you. He brought his hips down to your pelvis, seemingly being as cautious as possible as he began to grind his hardened length against you. His breath quickened at the contact, and he met you again with fervor, stimulating himself on you. His cock was unbelievably hard and hot, the temperature of him coming through both of your suits to meet your skin and overwhelm you. The feeling of him against you was sending shivers down your spine, the pleasant pressure made even sweeter by the promise of more to come. He positioned himself on top of you in such a way that each rhythmic, grinding rock found your clit and teased it with clothed contact.

You moaned lightly, the sound of it causing him to growl into your neck. You lifted your hips up, meeting him with the same tempo so he could grind into you more thoroughly, your bodies now writhing in tandem. His heavy breathing became panting. "Need to… need to touch you." He picked up his head and released your wrists, one hand steadying himself on the concrete, the other reaching down eagerly.

You got the memo, quickly slipping the pants of your suit down and throwing them aside so he wouldn't rip them off for you. You had at least enough hindsight to know you couldn't go back to HQ looking so disheveled. He dismissed the gloves of his suit and retracted his talons as his fingers found you immediately, honing in on the wet heat of your sex. Two plunged inside as he loomed above you, his muscles shaking again as he wet his fingers with your arousal. You shook right alongside him, your reaction bodily, as your back arched and your legs closed instinctively to hold his hand in place and not let him go. His fingers hooked inside of you, already relentless.

"Soaked," he whispered, almost to himself. The word resonated with a deep, animalistic hunger. Without removing his fingers from your warmth, he sat back on his knees and used his free hand to pry your legs open. "Need to see," he said. He watched the length of his fingers disappear over and over. The large hand that kept your legs wide was squeezing the soft flesh of your inner thigh, and he seemed fixated on the way it was yielding to his rough touches. Nearly everyone was small compared to Miguel, but you… you were different. He had his hands on you, inside of you, the comparison was tangible. You were small, soft, and his. His mind swam with how he would take you, how he would sheath himself inside of you until he bottomed out, how he would desperately fill you with his hot cum and hold your hips up to keep any precious drops from leaking out. It took everything in him to not reach down and start rubbing his impatient cock through his suit, but his fevered brain convinced him to keep his free hand on your leg so he could watch you fall apart from his fingers alone.

He was delirious as your walls started to spasm around his fingers, white hot pleasure pooling in your core, threatening to overflow as he kept up his efforts. The constriction of your muscles bolstered him, and he began to go faster and harder, starting to overstimulate you. You threw your head back, hands wildly trying to grasp at something on the concrete floor but coming up short. He removed his hand from your throbbing sex to start teasing your clit with abandon, and you moaned as your body lifted up off the floor.

"H-holy shit, Miguel," you gasped out. "It's- it's so much."

His hand moved so fast against your swollen clit that you could hardly think. The feeling was electric, and your orgasm was dangerously close. Your legs started to shake and tried to close around him again, but he kept them forced open as he intently watched, his chest rising and falling with quick breaths. You came and it utterly racked you, your body shuddering as you cried out, hot liquid spewing from you and drenching Miguel's hand and forearm. You squirted on him, because of him. You thought you should be embarrassed, but he gave you no opportunity.

As your head just started to clear, he recalled his mask into the neck of his suit. You quietly gasped at unexpectedly seeing his face. So strong, angular, and handsome. His red eyes looked wild, his mouth was open, his fangs fully extended. He studied his hand, turning it over so the mess you made could catch the light. As it started to dry down on him, he brought the two fingers that had been inside of you up to his mouth, and he licked them both clean. You gaped at him, almost fully unable to process what was happening.

When he was finished, he turned his gaze from his fingers and back onto you, as you sat up on your elbows to watch him. You saw that his cock was still as hard as ever, still pushing to break free. As if reading your mind, he recalled that part of his suit too as he grabbed your legs and yanked you toward him. He rested his cock over your abdomen, once again reveling in just how much bigger than you he was. The hot weight of his manhood on your skin set you ablaze once more and you eagerly awaited him. He thrusted but without penetrating you, sliding himself over you and wetting his cock on your cum. His exhales quaked with anticipation until he could wait no longer. Even on his knees, he towered over you, and so he needed to tilt your hips up further so your entrance could meet the head of his leaking cock. He shifted his grip to your waist, holding firm as you steadied yourself on your elbows and looked to him with bated breath.

He slowly pushed his hips into you, his cock sinking deep into your pussy. The steady penetration had you reeling. You needed to feel him, all of him. Every inch, all at once. It felt like it took ages for him to finally reach the hilt, but when he did, he waited inside of you for a brief, merciful moment. You basked in the feeling of being so full, so complete. He began to pull himself out of you, leaving you cold and empty for a split second until he slammed his entire length back into you, repeating and repeating at an unwavering pace.

Each powerful thrust reached so deep inside of you that it was nearly painful. Immediately, the head of his cock found your cervix and was hitting it with each hard pump that Miguel delivered. Your eyelids grew heavy as your eyes began to roll back towards your skull. His onslaught was so thorough, every smack of his hips against your pelvis reverberating through every inch of your body. The overstimulation of when he fingerfucked you had carried over, and you were already close to losing control all over again. He felt it too, as he growled in response to your pulsating walls.

"This cunt…." He snarled through his fangs. "This cunt is mine."

"Yours," you moaned, meeting his words a little too quickly.

"Going to mark you… so everyone knows."

"Mark me, Miguel." You agreed, not quite realizing what he meant. He started to lay you down onto the ground without removing himself from you, continuing to fuck you in missionary as he brought his face down to the crook of your neck. Your pulse quickened with excitement. He opened his mouth, his breath making your skin somehow even warmer. You wished that you could've seen the flash of his fangs before what came next.

He bit down on you, hard, and you could feel the course of his venom like molten lava through your veins. When the searing heat reached its crest, a soothing wash of warmth followed in its wake, leaving your muscles loosened and relaxed. Blood started to drip down your shoulder, the wet trickle quickly cooling as it made contact with the atmosphere. Miguel stayed latched to you as his tongue met your skin, lapping at the red stream, determined to consume it all.

You submitted to him fully, allowing him to position you how he saw fit so he could fulfill his feral need. His strong hands snaked around your torso to your back, lifting you up with him as he rocked back onto his knees. He helped you to swing your legs around his slim waist and to drape your arms over his huge shoulders. You let your face settle against his neck, the clean musky smell of him overwhelming your senses. His hands found your hips and he effortlessly lifted you up and down on his cock, fucking himself with your pussy like you weighed nothing at all. You moaned into him as you clenched around his cock, your limp body succumbing to the overpowering feeling of him. You started to shudder as your orgasm claimed you with a white-knuckled grip. You whined into Miguel's neck as it hit you with shock after shock, your vision going spotty while your cunt tightened around him.  

He couldn't hold it any longer, and his cock jerked inside of you as he came. You were still getting hit with aftershocks of your own climax, your muscles bearing down to milk every drop of cum that he filled you with. He held you closer and he thrusted himself as far into you as he possibly could, instinctively trying to make sure as little seed would have the chance to leak out of you as possible.

Your muscle control started to slowly come back to you as you and Miguel were chest-to-chest, both of you sweating and heaving. You weakly raised your arms so your hands could tangle with the hair at the nape of his neck. You lingered there for a bit, his strong arms holding you in the place as you played with soft locks of chocolate hair. You finally leaned back to see clarity slowly returning to Miguel's expression, and he looked utterly mortified. He held your gaze as he turned red, removing one hand from your body so he could cover his face.

"Oh my God," he whispered. "What the shock came over me?"

You were struck with sudden fear. "Do you… not remember?" The fact that he was still buried inside you should've been a dead giveaway.

"No, I do," he said, nervously. "I remember getting hit with that stupid bomb, and you helping me, then me wanting to split you in half."

You couldn't help but giggle at that.

"I tried to make sure I wasn't too rough with you. I was still in there, the whole time," he said, taking his hand away from his face to smooth your hair. He stopped when he reached your neck, seeing the bite marks he left. "Guess I didn't do all that well, did I?"

"It's fine. I can take it."

"Clearly," he said, raising his eyebrows, mildly impressed. "Thank you. I… don't know what I would have gone through if you hadn't been so… generous. But… for God’s sake, let’s not go around telling people what happened. We have reputations.”

You agreed, the secret safe between the two of you, the puncture wounds on your neck a silent souvenir.

[misc-obeyme]

You woke up in the middle of the night. You blinked your eyes open, thinking about rearranging yourself so you could drift back to sleep. And then you noticed the tuft of white hair that was peeking out above the edge of your mattress.

You reached out sleepily, burying your fingers in it.

The head shifted as Mammon looked over at you. It was dark in your room, but you could still see his gold-blue eyes. They seemed somehow dull, as though he wasn’t fully aware of himself.

“Mammon?” you whispered into the quiet. “Are you okay? What are you doing down there?”

Mammon was leaning against the side of your bed, arms around his knees. He shook his head a little, causing your fingers to ruffle through his hair. “Don’t worry about it, MC. Go back to sleep.”

You sighed. Like you could actually do that with him here like this. You sat up. “Don’t do that to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

Mammon didn’t move and he didn’t say anything, only sat there on your floor.

You pulled yourself out of the bed and sat in front of him. You leaned your cheek against one of his knees and looked up into his face. “Talk to me. Please.”

Mammon lifted his head and you were shocked to see the pain in his eyes. “Sorry, MC. Didn’t mean to wake ya.”

“Mammon…”

Mammon leaned his head back against the mattress. “Just had a nightmare, that’s all. Couldn’t go back to sleep, so I came here.”

You could tell you weren’t going to get any more out of him than that. But it didn’t matter. That was enough.

You stood up again and grabbed his hands, pulling him to his feet. He froze as you wrapped your arms around him, pressing him into you. For a moment, you could feel him trembling, but then he melted into your embrace. His arms enclosed you, his forehead resting on your shoulder.

You stayed that way for a long time, unwilling to let him go until he stopped shaking in your arms.

Eventually, you felt his body relax, enough that you felt he might be able to sleep again. You extracted yourself from him gently before tugging him into the bed with you.

Mammon was your guardian demon, the one who was always looking out for you, always by your side. But sometimes the guardian needed protection, too. And you would always be there to comfort him, even if he wasn’t sure how to ask for it.

masterlist | Thank you for reading!

[hellspawnmotel]

even after settling down, theyre pretty cautious.....

.......it doesnt last long

[mellowthorn]

Family cuddle

[altcvnningham]

canis major

adler x bell!reader

summary: adler doesn’t go back to berlin to forget, but he isn’t so eager to remember, either. after leaving you for dead on that clifftop in the arctic, he knows best to leave the past well alone. too bad that past seems to be alive and walking right in front of him; though where he wants to forget, it seems you’ve already beaten him to the punch. or; bell survives solovetsky and only has a hole in her head and amnesia to show for it. read on ao3

tags/cw: bell!reader, amnesia, light angst, referenced adlerbell, somehow bell survives the ending of cw, adler can't let shit go, adler is not capable of remorse but mayyybe a lil guilt?? dog symbolism always, no pairing yet but hopefully i continue this as a spicy drabble series idk wc: 2.7k

a/n: sooo this is my first fic for the cod fandom and the first fic i've posted online in a long time so hopefully this lil ramble suffices!! i've had adlerbell brainrot and wanted to get at least something out before bo6 ruins all of my headcanons so here's a snippet of something i hopefully find the motivation to continue into a mini series. enjoy :')

Sometimes, he goes back to Berlin.

Stumbling out of the muggy bar into the dank alleyway out the back, Adler fishes out a pack of cigarettes from the front of his jacket; two firm knocks of it against his palm before he plucks one out with his mouth, pockets the box, and flips open his lighter. The clink of the metal echoes into the empty around him, the sudden quiet suffused with the sounds of passing cars on the street, muffled laughter from inside the bar, and the distant barking of dogs. Strays.

The cigarette ignites, glowing a cherry red, and he gasps around the filter greedily. Upon exhale, he sighs.

Adler isn’t a sentimental man by any means. What little he clings to, he does so with a loose grip, less than happy but stolid enough to allow whatever else he deems unnecessary slip through his fingers. Places, people. Things. Memories. Tucks the important things- logic, rationality, work, duty- into orderly compartments at the forefront of his mind, archived and marked off ‘til he needs it, while the rest, the mess, gets done away with, thrown into the great black gorge of oblivion. Anything else that stays- more often than not a thorn in his side, an unbidden, wriggling tumour he can’t find let alone cut out- is sequestered to a dark aperture in the back of his mind, anchored deep where it can’t come back up. Yet somehow, some nights, they always do. The smell of his ex-wife’s hair. The day he got his scar. Vietnam. The lab. Solovetsky—

The next word, the name, forks across his mind like lightning, and he bites his tongue before he can think it. It sits at the back of his mouth, nestled like an aching cavity in his molars. A tremulous breath that he forces down with another drag of his cigarette. Out with the rest. Out with the rest.

The barking doesn’t cease. Dogs, a pair of them, he can hear a couple streets over. He pictures them from the gravelly register of their snarling- maybe German Shepherds, a Bullmastiff or a Rottweiler. Their fight enunciated by the violent rattling of chain-link fences, segregated, the only threshold that keeps teeth from necks.

But no, not a sentimental man. He tells himself that the itch to revisit Berlin every Summer is for superficial reasons, and by no means is renting out a shithole hotel room opposite a sewer-laden river considered a vacation from anything other than the luxuries he gorges himself mindlessly on at home- maybe this is to keep him humble, more than anything. It doesn’t do well to remind himself of old times, not when he’s lived the life he has. Remembering seldom accompanies itself with the bittersweetness of reminiscence, and the taste it leaves in his mouth is always acrid. He doesn’t miss Berlin any more than he misses that dismal safehouse, or that sterile room he wheeled you into, questioned- tortured- no, interrogated- well, he doesn’t care to remind himself of the picture. Or the person he strapped to the gurney. But he catches himself thinking back to the city divided more than he likes to admit, and for whatever ostensible reason it is that drags him back here, he relents to it every time.

He tells himself it’s the weather, the cool rain a nice reprieve from the scorching California heat. Or that the food is better, not so much overprocessed shit and sugars. Can take his coffee as black as he likes without the waitress turning her nose up about it and double-triple-checking if he’s sure. And it’s the people, maybe, who leave him well enough alone. Or the drinks. The views, some places. The- air.

Not like Arctic air. Not like—

The one dog’s snarl rips bloodcurdling through the night, all froth and venom, and as the chain-link fence screeches and judders in its rusted welding the other mutt quiets a moment. Cowers under the meaner dog’s ferocity. Then, like it had been wounded, it lets out a low, anguished howl, beast reduced to a scared little pup. Adler holds the smoke in his chest around a stifled breath anticipating a release. But the first dog just grumbles, the fence clinks, and there isn’t much noise after that.

But the quiet doesn’t last long- just as Adler drops his cigarette and snuffs it with a wrench of his heel, another sound resonates, yowling through the alley.

The grinding of tires upon wet asphalt crunches from just beyond the alleyway entrance. The streetlamp overhanging the entryway glares bright yellow as it bounces off of the garishly coloured taxi cab, pulling up to a groaning halt outside the bar.

He thinks nothing of it, pulling at the collar of his leather jacket. It’s getting cold, and he’s left his drink inside. Wouldn’t want to waste good beer. Adler turns, and makes for the door.

And you step out of the car.

A half-finished cigarette bounces on the sidewalk before you exit, the softened heel of your boot following soon after in a splash upon the flooded curb. Your German is rusty- always has been- but it’s easy enough to utter a quick and easy danke as you pull yourself up out of the cab. The door shuts with a slam, and you tilt your head back to gaze up at the sign above the bar- Der Fluss Lethe glaring in faded lightbox red- and you let out a contented sigh, your breath suspended in the frigid air. Pink, bitten fingers pluck at your gloves, fingerless faded green knit, shovelling them into your jacket pocket.

Adler’s fist is already curled around the handle of the back door as he clocks your presence in his periphery, a stranger like any other- but your image resembles the one that coagulates in the borders of old memory, the dried blood of you he hasn’t been able to wash his hands of since ‘81. Enough that he does a double take, his eyes wide behind tinted glasses, and he stops, his heart following suit.

He’s seen enough bodies in his time to fill the morgue in his mind twice over, and plenty ghosts to wander coldly among the unmarked graves. Vietnam alone is an unwinding cemetery stretching endless, catacombs along the inside of his skull, lined with what his old shrink would call remorse. Guilt. As if the feeling mattered. As if self-reproach could turn self-flagellation into something so incandescent as redemption. As if the bile in the back of his throat could bring back the dead.

And it couldn’t, because it isn’t… that’s not—

Bell.

It’s in the way you stand, your back rigid, that slight slouch to your shoulders, always dragged down upon you like they bore the weight of the whole world (and they did, once, do you remember?). The pelting of rain smacks off of the lapels of your jacket and ricochets like stars, caught in the light of the streetlamp overhead, but for all he knows or cares it could be raining diamond and all he sees is you- the wrinkling of your nose as you accommodate to the cold, how your cheeks flush at the chill (as they had those nights he pulled you into the darkroom, evidence of your apprehension drowned in the red glow of safelights); your hair is longer, unkempt, but still that same colour (clumps he’d find in his clenched fist when you’d argue yourselves into a wrestling match, pinning each other by the throats to dented walls in Die Landebahn); that scar upon your brow; that wavering line of your lip, pursed and hiding behind your reticence as you always did, and your eyes- your eyes—

—you feel someone watching—

—your eyes turn, and fix upon him with the startled softness of a doe, hunter betrayed by the snapping of a branch underfoot. Adler’s heel crunches against broken glass, his hand lingering right in that threadbare threshold upon the doorhandle, and he can’t speak, can’t move, can’t think—

Open the door, Bell, open the door—

—and you stop outside the cab, your breath caught in your throat. You see a shadow in the alley, in the shape of a man.

The darkness of the alley gives enough cover that you don’t see much, but what you do make out of the man prickles at a part of your mind long dormant: the haughtily broad set of the shoulders; the halo of blond tinted red just beneath the flickering exit light above the door where he stands; the shadow of a strong, clenched jaw; and in the brief glinting of passing headlights as cars rush on behind you, you see a face half gorged by a thick, forked scar, a fissure struck down his furrowed expression. A pair of dark aviator glasses hide those eyes that you know are looking at you, reflecting back nothing but your own bewilderment.

There is something you know. Deep inside that half rotted head of yours, where an incomplete recollection of your existence before you awoke bleeding on that clifftop lies, you feel a twinge of recognition. Familiarity. Something. Something stirring deep in your marrow- a fear inherited, a conditioned surrender, a faded polaroid, a kiss? Your migraine, chronic, comes clawing back with a vengeance, as it does most nights, but this time with a savage fervour that wrenches your face into an involuntary grimace. Where the hole in your head had once been all those years ago it tickles and burns, burrowing into your brain and groping greedy fingers along remnants of memory. It claws at you, digging through your amygdala to find something fresh, something old, something palpable, real, something- anything. Searching what little remains visible to you in the thick fog of your own mind to pin a meaning to this feeling, an answer to your question, a name to that face.

You’ve seen him before. You swear. Somewhere. In a dream, reoccurring, behind a red door. You don’t know how, or why you’d think you recognise him- in those dreams, the door never even opens. Your hand ever stuck on the handle, jammed and impenetrable, what sits behind it forbidden to you. Like not even your own mind wants you to know. It confines you to your ignorance, almost blissful.

Adler’s heart kicks violently in his chest. He shot you. He killed you. He’d heard your death rattle on that clifftop in Solovetsky and the sound was almost like singing, your last word, your last breath. A miserere for your short and fractured life. And he’s looking at your ghost, standing there all owl-eyed and as beautiful as the day he found you bleeding out on that airstrip. Before he took you. Before he took you and collared you and made a damned mess of things.

The only thing separating you from the Bell he knows he killed- his Bell- is the star-shaped scar split across your left temple. The only wound he never had to sit and heal as he belligerently patched you up, poking and preening you like his prize dog. Yet in spite of never seeing it before, he recognises the wound all too well. He put it there himself.

And as you stand there for that brief moment- no more than twelve seconds stretched to an eternity- he thinks for a moment that you’ve put it together. You recognise him. You see him. As he is. You’ve figured him out, Bell, as you always do. You’re the only one to have gotten away with it, nearly. Or so he thought. And now he’s watching a corpse having dug itself out of the grave he put it in, standing there, staring at him. Suppose you’ve always been a dead man walking.

You could do it, he thinks. Turn. Fling your heel round and barrel towards him with all the enmity of a cornered animal. He thinks of the strays, barking. Can picture your mouth frothing at the sides as you sink your teeth down into him- gnarled canines, hooked to your chain-link fence- which he probably deserves. Not an unfamiliar feeling by any stretch, but one faraway enough to seem almost sweet now through the hazy lens of nostalgia. If there truly is a sentimental bone in his body after all, then maybe it’s just for that. Still, he holds his breath, awaiting the killing blow he’s surely due. But it never comes.

You release your held breath, finally, tearing your eyes away from the callous faced stranger. It’s a ridiculous notion. Just an uncanny instance of déjà vu. You don’t know that man any more than you know yourself. You settle on a more rational answer- just one of those faces. And with a disgruntled sigh you rub the scar upon your temple to soothe the ache, turn around, and enter the bar alone.

Adler sighs, his heart sinking from up high in his throat back down to his chest. His hand has latched onto the doorhandle for so long it’s gone numb from the cold, bruised knuckles bluer than they were before (bar fights- not here, but another, as there will always be). He wrestles his jaw pensively, knowing he ought to take it off, keep the door closed, turn away, and leave. Slink back, tail between his legs, to that shithole hotel room to drink himself into a stupor. Let you haunt him there, instead. As you always have.

But he doesn’t. He has no idea what idiocy compels him, what soft, dewy-eyed weak link in him snags on that chain, to willingly wander back into the viper den of reminiscence, but he wrenches his fist around the handle, pushes, and lets himself back into the bar, the thick, hot air hitting him like a drug that he breathes in, tart and sour with the cloy of sweat and alcohol but still faintly- just faintly- of you. Like rain carried along the wind.

And Russell Adler is not a sentimental man.

But from across the bar he hides behind his beer glass, watches as you move about, a phantom, weaving through the faceless mass of people celebrating a championship he cares nothing to follow. You take your order at the bar with a smile he’s never seen on you before, boots folded to tip-toes as you lean over the liquor-stickied top, your perfect mouth pink and sweet and laughing and alive. The world seems to move about you in a haze, an indistinct mist of blurred faces and bottled voices and beyond all the light and life and joy that seems to burn bright around you like a halo all he sees is you.

Maybe, then, he’s a fool.

But it isn’t lost on him, how your fingers skirt across your hair in an attempt to hide the scar upon your temple. Nor is it lost on him how you wince at the feeling, the stars in your eyes dimmed for just a split second as you shiver, like a touch imperceptible running fingers down your back. Nor even the way you fight the urge to look, to follow the feeling of his eyes fixed upon you, and surely not the way you lose that fight, surrendered to it, your sweet face turning and finding him in an instant. Without so much as trying, like instinct, like something as pathetic and saccharine as fate. Your heart called to it, a lighthouse in the fog. Port in the storm. Ships passing in the night but called crashing to the same shore.

(The pieces of you are scattered everywhere, Bell. He finds you in every split seam inside himself. Splintered shrapnel dug through his temporal lobe, severing synapses ‘til they go dark. Even stars die quicker than that. Quicker than you. Is that what it felt like for you, too? When the lights went out, was it him you last saw- or the sky, waxen, over the Arctic? A waning night, a distant moon. The inconsequence of death- brief celestial ephemera.)

The stranger across the bar looks at you, offering nary a smile, eyes indiscernible behind shadowed sunglasses. And where you ought to find his apparent coldness disconcerting, instead you wring out of your chest with a white-knuckled caress a feeling like… comfort.

Sometimes, Bell, you go back to Berlin. You don’t quite know why.

[circuseyesofgod-if]

PLAY HERE 🎪 🎠

in this update, you will :

experience the Circus through the eyes of someone familiar

meet Pharo, the Ringleader (one of the RO's for MC)

have a glimpse of Odessa (another one of MC's ROs)

meet Melissandre, the tarot reader

experience Death. or something close to it.

listen to some creepy circus music heh

you can also change the theme colors! (black, yellow, or red)

happy halloween everyone 🎃 as promised, here's the demo release for Circus : Eyes of God (fireworks fireworks)!! this demo release contains only the prologue for now, so no MC related choices yet. even so, i hope you guys will enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it ^^ (also Vesper lovers especially, you guys are in for a treat🤭)

thank you sooooo incredibly much to @albywritesfiction for coding it and being super patient and understanding (because i'm a bit of a nitpicky person ><). without them, i wouldn't be able to finally release this game. and of course, thank you so much to my handsome boyfriend @childrenofcain-if for being so encouraging and bringing me back into the IF scene (and for pushing back his own demo update date to give me a chance to put mine out. best boyfriend ever award 🥇) bestest people ever actually <3

[lightnersdream]

i've been thinking about exactly why people portraying one of the other crew members successfully killing Jimmy as a "for what you did to Anya" kind of thing rubs me the wrong way a bit and it's because like..... this is just another form of taking agency away from Anya, in a way. it's kind of framing her as some meek, shivery woman-thing who's entirely at the mercy of the men around her, either to hurt her or save her.

(i understand these are mostly for wish fulfillment on the audience's behalf because everyone would like to see Jimmy pay for his crimes. whether or not this is the intention of the person writing it isn't really relevant, characterization happens with or without intent. i feel like it misses the point by portraying it as an 'ideal ending'.)

because... Anya is a capable person. she takes things into her own hands when she can. it was partially(?) her idea to get into the cargo,

(before he interrupts her.. remember when she interrupted Curly in the dead pixel segment?)

it was her idea to get the code scanner from the cockpit,

it was her idea to get the medication from behind the foam.

(the chance to do these things herself is not given to her.)

she'd been keeping Curly alive for months in a critical state somehow, her psych evaluations at the start are only so useless because Jimmy refuses to take it/her seriously and Curly is obviously biased when he puts it into his own hands. he's known him a long time, like he said. "I'll just put good for that one."

there's not a lot of material to work with because of how the game is framed, but it's there. we are working with two very biased perspectives and neither one lends Anya what she deserves

there's significant changes in how she speaks post- and pre- crash, and depending on who she happens to be talking to. i recommend re-reading her dialogue, because the difference is drastic

she acts the way she does around Jimmy because he has tangibly done horrible things to her, is actively hostile, and physically could not escape him by any means. she can't take away Curly's agency herself, in my eyes. you have to remember that Especially in the post-crash segments of the game, it's entirely from Jimmy's POV, and he obviously does not (and has never) thought very highly of her or treated her with a shred of respect

i've seen a general idea that she can't bear to hurt other people for any reason, but that doesn't really track to me. this is the real point of the post by the way

it seems based on the parts where she says she struggles to give Curly medication. "It just hurts him so much, I can't stand the noise." "It makes me nauseous."

it's not really the same thing as, say, hurting someone in self defense

this sounds like she did want the gun itself. this never felt worded like someone who would refuse to, at very least, threaten Jimmy with a gun, with violence. if she had been given the agency to make that decision on her own. she wasn't though

she still tries to reclaim some of it even as she's denied it

by the end she's still trying to keep that gun out of his hands

i think some people overly soften her, for similar reasons the game itself is trying to comment on. she's not a tender victim who couldn't cause pain to another out of the softness of her soul, she's a person who's had every last bit of agency ripped from her repeatedly until she couldn't take it anymore. that's the point. that's why framing her that way, "needing" someone to save her, is odd to me

she didn't need Curly to save her, she needed him to take responsibility

she didn't want to escalate things, but she's not an idiot. self defense was absolutely on her mind

but who knows im just saying shit *smiles serenely*

[crystalflygeo]

Kinktober Day 1 - Semi-public ft Blade (Honkai Star Rail)

Guess who is attempting this challenge wheeeeeeeeze let's see how it goes~ This one is lowkey dedicated to @zhongrin ehe <3

You squeak when he presses you against the stony outer wall of the house. The streets of the divination commission are empty and most people would be at home, asleep. The darkness shrouds you, it shrouds him until only his red eyes glow like molten lava, mysterious and intimidating. 

“B-Blade?!”

His body flush against yours, the man lets out a soft grunt in acknowledgement as he nuzzles at your hair. Time stops. 

“We’re in p-public , what are you…!”

His large rough hands roam over your body and dip down your navel, venturing past the waist of your pants. Calloused fingers brazenly touch your folds. You yelp, face heating up with a strong blush.

“Keep. Silent.” He murmurs, voice husky and deep.

You feel his warm ragged breath by your ear, he deposits kisses along your neck and shoulder, and then rests his forehead there. All the while his fingers sink inside your sweet hole, deliberately slow, working you open…

You whimper, squirming a bit, asking for more or wanting to stop you’re not even sure yourself, the line is already blurry with pleasure. Your heart thrums wildly in your chest.

“Sshhhh… you wouldn’t want anyone to hear, do you?”  

Shamefully, your pussy clenches at that.

He hums, the sound vibrating against your skin where his lips press. “You like the idea of that.” You can hear the hint of a smirk in his voice. 

It’s not a question but a statement.

“I-I don’t-!” You hiss.

“All the better… I can barely contain myself” He growls. 

His fingers dig deeper, their movement grows faster and more insistent, his palm pressing against your clit making you see stars. His other hand slides up from your waist to massage your chest, toying with a nipple over your clothes. He presses close, so close. and suddenly you feel his bulge against your ass. His cock hard in his trousers, no doubt a leaking mess. Blade buries his nose into the soft slope of your neck again and inhales deeply.

“Fuck, the things I want to do to you.”

You simply bite your lip to stifle a moan, trying your best not to call out, trying your best to keep hidden in this dark corner. 

Blade is a man of actions rather than words, and you’re absolutely certain he has dragged you into this alley with the express purpose of publicly laying his claim, albeit hidden in shadows and behind some large tarp-covered crates, you’re still in the Xianzhou Luofu, a place that once meant so much to him.

Perhaps that’s why he decided to throw common fucking decendy out of the window. 

And maybe you too, considering you didn’t do a damn thing to stop him. 

“Blade.” You murmur, a plea that borders on a little too loud, shuddering and needy at the edge of that mounting pleasure. “Please.”

Your hips buck and you’re close, so close, eyes closed shut, lower lip caught between your teeth making a soft keening noise. 

At once the delicious friction stops, his left hand starts pulling at your clothes and you gasp at the slightly cold night air on your naked skin.

“W-wait what are you-?! Oh-” You start scandalized, when the hand that was previously busy instead cradles your soft thigh up. Your foot off the ground, your weight on the other one and caught between him and the wall. Spread, exposed. 

“Blade…!”  Your head tosses back. There’s the rustle of clothes again and the engorged head of his cock presses against your entrance. 

“Quiet down.” His free hand rests on your bare neck, not applying any pressure, just so, large and warm. Your own hand grips at his arm, his clothes, his hair, desperately trying to hold onto something, anything. “We are just getting started.”

[tagetto]

he stinks of diesel fumes, solder flux & cigarette smoke which has caked itself over the years into the fan blades of a used prebuilt msi gaming PC bought from ebay dot com core 2 duo high performance rtx 2.5 tdi 1.6 litre engine top speed of 48.3mph.