#I will also almost certainly be spoiling the hell out of myself because I have no self control on that front

[thebookworm0001]

I am just so genuinely excited for whatever we get of da4 this week

I have a couple things I think are going to happen plot-wise but I really have 0 expectations and I can’t wait to be surprised by the game we get

[bitchsister]

can we maybe get curt cockwarming bucky,, but he’s just unable to sit still and is being all bratty about it since he wants to get off but bucky won’t let him 👀

This is not the one and only cockwarming ask I’ve gotten! And anon, while there is some gentle kinda cockwarming in this… there’s a lot more happening too…. Because like I’ve said before. I need a muzzle.

(I kinda just did whatever I wanted.)

Top punk baby princess Curtie in this.

Bye

This has been very sloppily edited. It’s pure smut and filth if there’s any weird errors just ignore them and love me for my flaws.

I blame @swifty-fox for a lot of what is in this. But also I blame myself for being the one to write it. 🫶🏼

Look at their beautiful art for our baby Punk Princess Curtie!!

Here’s their art tag. They spoil me daily 🩷

☣️THIS PARTICULAR DRABBLE IS LONG AS ALL FUCKIN HELL AND IS A MESS. ☣️

Because there was no specifications made, this is yet another addition to our Lucky Charms AU!

If you’re not LOCKED IN for THESE THINGS, do not read : Curt and Rosie arguments, injuries and mentions of blood, lowkey blood play, TOP CURTIS, bottom Bucky, Sub Bucky turned Dom real quick, crying, whining, spit, kinda cockwarming? I tried for the circumstances I swear, Daddy is used a few times . Oh. And Green Day.

I definitely have more cockwarming requests. So a cute and sleepy cockwarming drabble will probably happen eventually.

Bucky’s place wasn’t close to campus, but if Curt managed to catch a lift from Rosie or one of his girlfriends, then he’d manage to bribe them into dropping him off near the skate park which was only about a fifteen minute ride away from Bucky’s, if he was really putting his back into it.

He’d gone a week without seeing either of them, and while FaceTime was certainly one of the greatest modern inventions to exist, it didn’t do anyone justice — either the bar Curt was in was too loud, Bucky couldn’t figure out how to add Gale successfully to their call or Curt was balls deep in an essay about the Navier-Stokes Equations and Computational Fluid Dynamics while the other two had free time.

“I can’t go all the way to his place, Curt. I got work in like — fuck. Twenty minutes.” Rosie stared at his watch, gaze fluttering to land on Curt who stood in front of him, batting his lashes as he held his board at his hip.

“C’mon, Rosie. You’re arrangin’ bouquets all day, not protecting the government from cybersecurity attacks.” Curt stepped forward and tapped his nose. “At least not yet, Mister Digital Forensics.” His lashes fluttered again. “How ‘bout the park, then?”

When Rosie told Curt he’d gotten a job as part-time florist downtown, he’d laughed right in his face.

Ain’t no way!

Rosie stared straight at Curt, his lips tugged into a solemn line.

Wait — yo, forreal?

“I’ll — fuck — hey, Monday I’ll get you a coffee. How’s that, hm? For your troubles.” Curt made his voice sound sweet, stood before Rosie with his headphones around his neck, a loose tshirt hanging to his thighs, cutoffs revealing his scabby knees.

He blew an obnoxious bubble with his gum into Rosie’s contemplative face.

A heavy sigh escaped him, his shoulders sagging under the weight of resignation as he realized that continuing this argument with Curt would consume more time and energy than simply giving in. "Fine," Rosie conceded, his tone exhausted. "But you owe me a muffin, too.”

Curt flashed him a smirk once he’d plopped into the passenger seat of Rosie’s old Bronco where nothing but FM sports radio played through the muddied coaxial far older than them.

They chirped at each other for a little while about sports. None of which Curt knew a thing about besides what Bucky had told him. “Well, B says they got a good season ‘head of ‘em.” Curt popped a bubble between his teeth again, fingers fiddling with the too-loose trucks of his board to tighten them.

“You listen to everything he says?” Rosie shot a sidelong glance at Curtis, a brow risen. “It’s almost like you have no singular thoughts these days.” He continued, though he shouldn’t have. “Bucky this, Bucky that.”

The radio statics, but drones on.

That’s baseball for you folks. The Kawasaki kid has ice in his veins! One swing of the bat can change everything.

“I got plenty’a thoughts of my own.” Curt grit his teeth but forced his jaw to relax the moment he heard Gale in the back of his head, reminding him right away that his first reaction is rarely ever his best.

Relax, Curt. Take a deep breath. It’s nothing to get all bent out of shape about. Tell me a few things you can see. What do you taste? What do you smell? What can you touch?

Redbuds blooming in early spring, spent bubblegum, the leak in Rosie’s busted exhaust, the textured and worn down urethane of the wheels on his board.

“Hardly.” Rosie drummed his fingers over his steering wheel absentmindedly, reducing himself to the songs in his head since the radio in his car failed to work half the time. “You think he’s gonna keep you around when you’re graduated? Or, god forbid, you turn twenty-six and Ruthie doesn’t pay for your health insurance anymore? Officially too old for Attorney at Law, Bucky Egan.”

They hadn’t talked about Gale all that much besides the fact that he and Bucky often worked on case studies together and were usually working the same if not similar court dockets — a good friend who he certainly hadn’t dropped to his knees for.

“Fuck off with that.” Curt waved his hand at Rosie, his head shaking in disbelief and his expression one of grand theatrics. “Ain’t mine or nobody else’s fault you ain’t been laid in months. Maybe if you weren’t such a fuckin’ downer, man,” he pulled his shirt up to tighten the shoelace threaded through his belt loops. “You been on my back about it now for a while.”

“Well, all you do is talk about ‘em.”

“And, so what!?” Curt tapped his board a few times over the dashboard to taunt him and make a big, loud fuss. “You goddamn leech! You suck the fuckin’ life outta me, Robbie!” Curt was huffing through his nose, red in his cheeks and far from remembering the things he could see, taste, smell and touch. “You know Nora calls you Rosie Raincloud?” He was being venomous now, his fangs deep in Rosie’s flesh. “‘Cause you fuckin’ smother us with it, Robert. We hardly know what to say to you these days.”

Rosie had stomped his foot over the brake in one of the picturesque neighborhoods, nestled in a dreamy suburban wasteland, so different from the city.

His chin wobbled and his gaze denied Curt the satisfaction of seeing it reduced to a puddle — that hurt, but he could only really blame himself.

It wasn’t the first time he’d taken a swing at Curtis Biddick and got hit back twice as hard.

“You don’t gotta say nothin’.” Curt swung the passenger side door open and jumped out, his head sticking into the window for one last twist of the knife in Rosie’s chest. “Coffee shop ain’t even fuckin’ open on Mondays.”

Rosie peeled off, leaving Curt to hop on his board and kick his legs as hard and fast as he possibly could, his headphones tugged back over his ears and the volume turned up as loud as it could go.

City of the dead, at the end of another lost highway.

Signs misleading to nowhere

He tried his hardest not to think about how he had acted, and the things he had said to Rosie — in truth, Curt was better equipped to handle what Rosie had been saying to him since after all it was his own opinion, which he’d reserved the right to.

Curt didn’t need to scream at him the way he did, or bring up Rosie’s sudden knack for draping a wet blanket over every conversation.

It didn’t get them anywhere.

His mind drifted so far away and his chest heaved with ragged breaths as he kicked his legs to the beat of the drum line in the song he listened to.

Angry, sloppy, reckless.

He stopped to take out some energy on the railings of concrete neighborhood staircases, finding his inability to make it down all the way in a front side a new irritant to focus on instead of the guilt he felt for hurting Rosie before his shift at the flower shop.

Until sunset he occupied his mind — or, until his exhausted body had failed him for the last time and sent his face into concrete. “I hear ya.” He mumbled at the sky, assuming it was all karmic as he reached into the grass nearby to grab his phone which had flown out of his pocket the first time the railing swiped him right between his ass cheeks and straight to his tailbone.

His body ached, his screen was cracked, there was glass in his thumb.

He hardly announced his presence anymore, fucking up the gate code a few times due to the shakiness of his fingers and dropping his keys to his feet while he attempted to unlock the front door, a wild and unabashed string of cocksuckingmotherfuckingpiecesofshit falling from his lips once he’d kicked the door closed with the back of his heel, limping into the kitchen to nose around for a snack, although he had really expected Bucky to be on his second glass of wine by then, his iPad an inch from his face as he browsed the internet for a new dinner recipe.

“Hey,” Bucky called from the garden where he lounged in his tightest swimming shorts — the ones that showed off the thick muscle of his thighs and the curve of his toned hips. “Hey!” He’d been calling to Curtis from the open French doors that lead to the pool, the sun still too bright to realize Curt was bleeding from an unknown source on his face with his headphones still blaring music into his brutalized eardrums.

Where have all the bastards gone?

The underbelly stacks up ten high.

“Dammit, Curtis.” Bucky got up from where he was laying, riddled with irritation that Curt didn’t come squealing into his lap like he always did, attacking him like a sucker fish on any bit of skin he left visible.

His footsteps weren’t detected by Curt that peeled a string cheese layer by layer, half of his body reaching into the fridge to find something else to eat. “If you’re gonna use my money for things like this, at least give me the satisfaction of -“ he’d reached to pull Curt’s headphones away from his ears which had inadvertently caused Curt to whip around, bright blue eyes starkly contrasted by the flow of crimson that stained his lips and neck.

This wasn’t the first time, nor the last.

Still, Bucky let out a sigh as Curt continued to feed himself strings of cheese, blinking up at Bucky as if nothing had been out of place — though, even John would admit, this got easier each time.

“What was it this time?”

Curt sighed, his shoulders shrugging. “Don’t even remember.”

He was so lost in his own thoughts about his fight with Rosie that he could hardly recall what he had landed and what he hadn’t — he had no notes to give himself and nothing he could set his intentions to improve on later.

He threw his body around for four hours and got nothing out of it. And, not to mention, he may have lost a friend.

Bucky shoved his face in Curt’s neck once he’d pulled him nearer, so damp with sweat and radiating heat like the surface of the sun. So bright, so warm, so absolutely gorgeous. “Need to keep all your braincells the way they are.” He murmured, drawing in the scent of him while his lips pressed kisses to the salty heat on the soft flesh of his neck.

Curt still felt sore about what he’d done to Rosie but with Bucky in front of him like this, his hands groping his sides to pull him closer, it grew more and more difficult to think about anything else. “C’mon, m’fuckin’ filthy, Bucky.” He whispered, his voice barely there.

“Oh, I know.”

The sun continued to set beneath the hedges in the garden and the breeze that blew through the open doors had cooled him down enough, but Bucky had done very little to stop his sweating — his palms splayed over the softness of Curt’s hips, the small of his back, the curve of his neck. “You need me to kiss it all better, don’t you?” Bucky could taste the metallic sting dance over his tastebuds. “Need me to lick you clean, hm?”

Curt had still felt the hot sting of anger in his belly, the annoyance with himself for getting it all wrong, the frustration of having no control over what he said, his emotions, and how he reacted to them.

He pushed himself forward, chest to Bucky’s until he was backed into the center island, his skin stained down to the neck of his tshirt. “You’d like that, wouldn’t ya?” The blue of his iris had darkened like the deepest parts of the ocean — the most dangerous. “Can’t wait to have me down your throat, huh?”

Bucky could hardly suppress the expression coloring his features as a searing chill trickled over every inch of his body. “Fuck,” his palms flattened again over Curt’s sides and down to the curve of his ass where he grabbed two handfuls, pressing his body closer and closer. “Look at you.”

He looked fucked up on himself, mesmerized by his own power, his own influence — Bucky was the softest, warmest putty between his bloody fingers. “Been thinkin’,” Curt grabbed Bucky’s jaw, forcing his lips to part as his own grew inches away. “When you cut your finger. Made me think, ya know — it made your face get all screwed up, made you whine a little.”

Bucky had sliced his finger clean open on a new set of knives Gale got him for Christmas months ago, the blades still sharp as the day he brought them out of the box.

“Think you can make me whine?” Bucky’s voice had drawn itself deep into his chest, teased by Curt who leaned himself in as if he’d finally give Bucky what he wanted, a true taste of what he knew he was missing out on, just to pull away a flash him a grin with front teeth slicked with blood.

“I can do anything.” Curt chirped back.

He pressed his hand into Bucky’s chest again, the other cradling his jaw as he walked him backward and himself forward, a wall behind them eventually where Curt slotted his leg between Bucky’s thick thighs. “What’s the over under?”

Bucky liked to gamble with his work buddies on Saturdays.

Curt would sit by idly near a high stakes poker table or the screen where Bucky and his friends would bet on ponies and he’d drink boozy milkshakes and flirt with the cocktail waitresses he had no interest in for a couple complimentary vouchers for the buffet where he only used the soft serve machine or the gift shop where a collection of cute coffee mugs were sold, and he had his heart set on acquiring them all without spending a dime.

“Not a chance.” Bucky tilted his head back against the wall, his narrow gaze fixed on Curt who hooked his fingers over the waistband of Bucky’s swimming shorts. “I don’t make bets on thoroughbreds without a track record, baby.”

Curt had yet to reveal this particular side of himself.

Sure, he was tough.

He’d bust his lip, his ass or his nose and get back up giggling. He’d fall off and get right back on. He’d argue his side of the story, he’d stand firm in his beliefs.

But he’d never claimed to be dominant in the way he’s portraying now.

The fact that he could wasn’t so much a shock, it was that he chose right then to do it.

“Smart man.” Curt shoved his fingers into Bucky’s mouth, holding him still with his thumb curved beneath his jaw. “On your knees.” He hooked his fingers a little tighter and guided Bucky down to where he balanced on his haunches until his knees fell forward, forcing him to sit on his folded legs where Bucky stared up at him expectantly.

So fucking beautiful.

He already knew what to do, as he’d done it for Curt plenty — his cutoffs were shucked down to his ankles and kicked across the room, his bloody tshirt following suit. Bucky had a hard time figuring how he’d be the one whining instead of Curt until he felt the familiar sensation of tiny fingers threading through his thick brown waves, tugged a little tighter than ever before.

“Go on,” Curt whispered in a shallow breath, “Get me wet for you.”

Bucky could hardly believe his ears, the shock drawing him quickly to obey a Curtis who was typically mounting himself over Bucky right about now, spouting off about how Bucky’s cock is so big and how he can feel it in his tummy.

He worked his tongue over every curve and vein of Curt’s cock only for hips to be drawn closer to his face, his eyes brimming with a sudden surge of cock-teased tears, “Fuck,” Curt grumbled, the blood drying now over his still damp and glimmering skin. “Look so fuckin’ hot with a cock down your throat.”

Rather quickly the spot in Curt’s belly where he held his rage earlier was replaced by the butterfly feeling of having Bucky’s mouth on him — until, of course, Curt had coaxed him into position atop an expensive area rug in the living room, knelt between his thighs once he’d removed Bucky’s slutty swim shorts from his hips.

“Didn’t know how pretty ya’d look like this.” Curt took in the sight of a pink-cheeked Bucky, his thighs spread and his cock achingly hard, curved deliciously over the little trail of hair beneath his bellybutton.

He’d yet to let out a whine, but if he didn’t feel Curtis closer to him soon, he’d be waving a white flag as he went down with the ship. “Kiss me,” it came out in an almost bashful plea as his eyes scanned the lips before him, the dull dried blood brought to life again each time Curt licked his lips. “Please.”

“Ohh,” it was an almost taunting coo. “Got your manners, huh?” A dribble of spit slid past Curt’s parted lips and between Bucky’s spread thighs, his cock slicked gently past the hole that tensed at the sensation. “Relax for me.” Curt whispered, his hips grinding his length against Bucky’s which already twitched. “Show me how good you are.”

Bucky hardly knew if he was able to be good, but he’d try. “Please.” He whispered again, though he was careful not to allow his desperation to show. “Just fuckin’ kiss me.”

Curt rolled his eyes, spitting again but that time it was at Bucky’s chest, tinged pink from the blood still lingering on his tongue. “You don’t make the rules, John.” He basked again at the sight before him — glowing cheekbones, parted lips, hands reaching to spread the dampness Curt had spat onto him around his chest and into his own mouth.

“Not when I got you lookin’ like this.”

It seemed Bucky had leaned into it, his body still tense but his eyes soft as could be.

Curt rut his hips between his cheeks, a rumbled string of groans bubbling from his loins as his right hand milked a couple little pearls of precum from Bucky’s cock that throbbed beneath his grip. “Y’like this, don’t you?” He whispered softly, his usual playfulness still dripping over every word; sticky sweet.

“Yeah, baby.” Bucky gasped, still willing his gaze to focus on what was before him although he was hardly able to discern if it was real or not. “Gonna fuck me?” He felt another sting of anticipation dance over each notch of his spine.

Curt grinned deviously, little body slotted between Bucky’s thighs that could easily overpower him but wouldn’t dare. At least not yet. “Need to get you ready for me,” he reached forward, his fingers slid gently into Bucky’s mouth and over his soft, warm tongue.

It wasn’t long before Curt could hardly stave off his excitement, fingers gentle but prodding against Bucky’s hole that took a finger to the knuckle easier than he’d been expecting, a gasp following suit. “Fuck,” Bucky whispered, his hips instinctively twitching at the unfamiliar sensation. “Fuck — fuck, fuck,”

A second finger, a third.

Lube from a drawer in the coffee table slicked over Curt’s thick fingers as he worked them into Bucky whose brows furrowed, pillowy pink lips parted as gentle huffs escaped them.

“Talk to me, Daddy.” Curt whispered, knelt down between Bucky’s thighs like a predator sizing up its prey that just so happened to be twice the size of himself. “Do I make you feel good?” His fingers worked Bucky open while he pressed rough and starved kisses over his thighs that twitch every now and then.

“Yeah, baby.” Bucky sucked a breath between his teeth, his heart flipping in his chest once Curt’s fingers had found his prostate.

He held in a whine that crept up on him in the very back of his throat and Curtis could tell. “Such a good fuckin’ boy, Curtie. Fuck —“ Bucky threaded his fingers through Curt’s hair, chest heaving once his fingers found a rhythm.

Curt could hardly believe his eyes, falling in love again with a new version of Bucky he’d never met before — all soft hues of pink and deliciously tanned skin, lips glistening with spit and his gorgeous eyes half-hidden behind eyelids that fluttered. “You look so pretty like this.” He mouthed at Bucky’s balls and the base of his cock, pressing sweet kisses against his sensitive skin.

Bucky could hardly deny himself what he wanted anymore as he whispered a gentle plea, “Fuck me.”

Curt hummed between his legs, sitting up slowly to observe yet another angle once he’d carefully withdrew from Bucky altogether to line their hips up, his cock eventually replacing the fingers that gripped Bucky’s thighs instead to spread them wider. “Think you’re ready?” He leaned his chest over Bucky’s, chaste kisses pressed against his open mouth.

“Mhmmm.” Bucky mustered, their kisses hot and wet and sloppy — uncoordinated and needy. He’d never wanted anything more in his life than this. “Put that big cock to use for once.”

An interesting spot he was in to be making snide remarks, Curtis thought, and so he gave him exactly what he’d wanted.

He lined himself up nice and gentle before snapping his hips forward, pulling Bucky closer by his thighs once he’d abruptly buried himself within the tight, wet heat before him.

And there it was.

A long winded whine that started low and gentle had died out high-pitched and breathy right into Curtis’ mouth who continued to lick, kiss and nip at Bucky’s wet lips. “Oh, listen to you.” Curt drawled, allowing John to adjust before his hips had found a slow rhythm, watching as the man beneath him writhed.

“Gonna have you fuckin’ cryin’ for my cock all the time now, hm?”

Bucky choked back a whimper he couldn’t even pretend to hide, desperate and sweat slicked hands grasping onto Curt — anything to hold. “Feels s-so— fuck, baby - “ he could hardly form a coherent thought once Curt picked up his pace, hand hardly big enough to wrap around Bucky’s throat but he kept a tight grip, nonetheless.

Bucky still felt a little shy about this.

A little out of place.

Eventually, the unfamiliarity and pain had quickly tumbled and grew larger into an indescribable pleasure once Curt’s hips had little to hold back any longer, fucking into Bucky relentlessly who took it like he’d been meant to all along.

Uh-uh-uhs were forced out of him, his thighs spread wider and his eyes managing to focus again when he began to pant like he was reaching the finish line.

Curt was so far from done with him.

“Ah-ah,” he withdrew abruptly, watching Bucky writhe again and attempt to pull him back in. “I got you all worked up, don’t I?” His hands smoothed over Bucky’s damp curls, tugging gently. “Takin’ my cock so good, never knew you were such a fuckin’ —“

Bucky sucked in a deep breath and used his legs to flip Curtis onto his back, knocking the wind out of him.

“Think you’re tough now, huh?” He still looked like a fucked-out mess, his eyes half lidded and his heart pounding in his chest. “Had your cock in me and forgot how easy Daddy can have you gagging for him.”

Curt tried to push Bucky’s hands off of him, his cheeks still slathered in dried blood turning pink beneath the mess. “Had you close-“ his rebuttal was quickly snipped once Bucky had slicked his fingers in with lube and brought them between Curt’s cheeks, hooked into him and pulling him closer.

“Get the fuck off me.” Curt tried to put up a fight but his body had been betraying him as his thighs spread for Bucky, his feet lifted from the floor as he moaned at the roughness of it, a punishment it seemed for denying Bucky the pleasure he’d been so vulnerable to receive.

“Nobody takes it like my baby does,” Bucky basked in the familiarity and the tightness around his fingers that hammered into Curt until his thighs were shaking and the back of his knees dripped in sweat. “Isn’t that right?”

Big, fat tears had once again revived the dried blood that had smeared itself over his face by then, every moan that rattled out of him tumbling into a choked sob. “Fuck you.” He whined, his white flag waved with confidence as he went down with the ship Bucky had since abandoned and yet he still managed to put up a fight. “Mother fucker.”

“Oh, that’s not how good boys behave, Curtis.”

Fingers were replaced with Bucky’s cock, Curt’s features softening at the familiar sensation, the one thing he’d ask for on death row.

This is his truest Last Supper.

There was no movement by Bucky, though.

He buried his cock deep into Curtis, swearing to himself that when they were just like this, he could see the bulge of his cock in Curtis’ little belly. “You know what happens when you’re bad, don’t you?”

“I wasnt!” Curt barked, desperately trying to withdrawal from Bucky and snap his hips back again. “I wasn’t bad - I- I wasn’t-“ he was a mess of tears again, the emotions of the day crashing down on him in a heap. “You fuckin’ cocksuckin’—“

The exam he failed, his fight with Rosie, his busted face, and now this.

“Nah,” Bucky held Curt’s thighs to his chest, his cock staying right in its place, not an inch of movement. “Gonna stay just like this until you can show me how sorry you are.”

There, Bucky realized, was his place.

He had never minded being vulnerable with Curtis — in fact, vulnerability was his strong suit.

At first, he was the worst out of the two when it came to expressing his feelings, his thoughts and his emotions.

In the end it was only ever because of the judgement he feared of receiving for loving Curtis. Someone younger than himself, more reckless, with more life to live.

“I’m sorry,” Curt sniffled loudly, a puddle of old blood, tears and a runny nose that threatened to bleed again, the drip metallic and sour in the back of his throat. “I’m so sorry — I - I’ll never be bad again, I promise.”

They both knew a lie when they heard one.

“I’m so good for you.” Curt arched his back, anything for a little friction against his suddenly neglected and angry looking cock. “Look at me — I’m all yours, Bucky. Every part of me — I—“ he sobbed again, reaching down to touch himself but he was abruptly denied, his wrists held above his head. “Fuck me till I can’t fuckin’ breathe.”

Bucky felt sick for being so turned on.

A whimpering, whining, crying Curtis before him with a hot and hard cock that leaked beautifully against the little trail of hair below his bellybutton. “Oh, my pretty baby.” He cooed, reaching forward to wipe his crybaby tears away and granting him just a bit of movement when he did. “I couldn’t let you forget, honey — look what I’ve done to you.”

Curt tried again to surge forward and gain an upper hand, but it was disastrously useless.

Bucky was far stronger than he, even despite being fucked open just a moment ago. “Dunno what I’m gonna do with you.” He murmured, pulling away from Curtis at once and bringing him gently to his feet, holding him against the wall where Bucky felt he’d be doing his knees and Curt’s back a favor once he lifted him up off the ground and around his waist.

It was brutal after that, and for once Curt was unsure he could handle it. “Too much! T-too much,” he whimpered, but Bucky could hardly be bothered. “It’s too much — I can’t-“

If it was truly too much, Curt knew what he needed to say.

A safe word was set in stone the first time Curt had passed out and hit the floor, his brow split open.

All he cared about when he came to was finishing, though — even with an almost-crying Bucky and Gale in his face, worried beyond reason.

“Yes, you can, baby.” Bucky groaned, knowing full well Curt’s orgasm was dependent on the completion of his own.

Didn’t matter how much Curt was fucked.

If he wasn’t full of it, he just couldn’t get off.

A rather endearing blessing, but a curse just the same.

“I can’t Bucky, I can’t.” A wreck he was — and Bucky loved reducing him to such a state. Babbling, whining, his voice strained through the tears he choked on. “S’too much.”

Luckily, it was enough to sputter Bucky’s hips forward, hips rolling into Curt to milk his orgasm while Curt’s hole fluttered around his cock, his little body pulsing as he threw his head back against the wall where he thumped a few brain cells loose.

Bucky reached up to hold the back of his head, clicking his tongue. “There you go, honey,” he whispered gently to a Curtis whose body trembled through an earth shattering orgasm, “Let it all go, baby. Look at how much you’re givin’ me.”

Curt’s body was covered in sweat, blood, tears and now a splattered mess of his devotion to Bucky — hot and wet; sticky and so fucking sweet.

Bucky plopped them both onto the couch, Curt’s body wrapping around him and refusing to give his cock back despite it growing softer by the minute. “I love you.” He hiccuped into Bucky’s neck, the emotions flooding back to him once he’d been dumped right back into his reality — the one where he failed his test and more than likely lost a friend. “So much.”

“C’mon, Curt. Y’know I love you more than anything.” Bucky smoothed his hands over Curt’s damp curls, pulling his face away from the curve of his neck to look at him. “What’s goin’ on with you?”

He couldn’t talk about it now.

Just wanted to be here, in Bucky’s lap, the warmth of their love still burning inside him. “Later.” He whispered, sniffling loudly. “I’ll tell you later.”

[castlebyersafterdark]

Curious about your take on some of the big fandoms with canon gay couples that are popular right now as a guy whose super into Byler and how they stack up and if you're also into them. Mostly because I like all of these but they just don't hit as much as Byler for some reason and the possibility that they won't be canon haunts me. As much as I feel like we're being spoiled lately with good queer rep it would be so much bigger through ST. These: ofmd, rwrb, 911, wwdits, iwtv

I agree that nothing really hits as much as Byler for me and never has, but most of my previous fandoms have been very big ones with minimal possibilities of canon gay couples or even gay characters at the forefront. So that's what's exciting for Byler - that it is very very likely to be true and Stranger Things is as big as the other stuff I've fixated on, this time with a queer storyline that can't be edited out for the overseas box office or touted as the 34th first gay character who appeared for 3 seconds in the background and is a bug lady with a bug wife or some shit haha. Byler is gonna be a game changer - because of the size of it and how mainstream the show is. Hell yeah. Keep the faith! And best friend to lovers is my favorite trope and to have one so well done is rare and I think that's why the brain rot is invasive to the core here.

Hmm. Look at all those acronyms haha.

OFMD - Watched the first season and good for them! Much love to older gays. Cool that this show kind of had a major moment. Didn't watch the second season. Just wasn't that into it, the humor wasn't really hitting for me? Maybe one day.

RWRB - Maybe I would have liked it more if I read the book. It was cute? Kind of simple? Almost too cute? But always nice to see more gay love stories hit the mainstream. I'm sure readers were stoked it got made into a movie. This one was part of a 'smoke up and have a laugh' night for me and you know who hahaha Also, the American guy was hottttt but he was not a good actor!! This was based on fanfic right? I think that's kinda cool. But you could tell.

911 - I'm happy for yall and for yall's firefighters but I know literally nothing about this one.

WWDITS - Never watched it.

IWTV - Also never watched it. But it looks kinda interesting. Maybe.

I think the overall thing to take away here is it's so fucking cool there's a list to have opinions on at all?? I feel this barely skims the surface. We've a ways to go and fandom is certainly helping make queer love stories mainstream and widely accessible. Spent my younger days deluding myself that they were gonna make Stucky canon or Andrew Garfield's spiderman bi even though I knew that was super lame to hold out hope for and now here we are with the reality of Byler which is part of one of the most major IPs around.

[vitaminwaterreviews]

Agust D - D-Day

Song average 8.7. 10.0.

- I’m kind of putting this off for some reason, not totally sure why.

I have a … storied history with this album. Haegum was the first kpop song by a male artist that i’d ever heard (except ofc Psy). Likewise, D-Day was the first kpop album by a male artist I’d ever heard. It was also my introduction to kpop hip hop, and it’s probably the first thing I’d ever heard that was primarily written and produced by an idol themselves. And People Pt. 2 was the first IU song I’d ever heard, too.

I definitely didn’t appreciate this album the first time I’d heard it. But I gradually grew to enjoy Haegeum, and obviously People Pt. 2 was a mainstay on my playlist. But the more I learned about kpop in general, and Yoongi in particular, the more i wanted to hear his other stuff. So I started with Agust D, and then I went to D-2, and now it’s time to come fill circle and revisit D-Day.

But I’ve already spoiled myself a bit. I listened to the album start to finish (without lyrics) yesterday, and then today I watched the documentary. I will almost certainly not score anything on this album below a 7, and I suspect this might be my highest rated album overall so far. We will see what happens.

Maybe I’m putting this off because I don’t want it to be over. I still want there to be some mystery in what the lyrics are, what the songs mean.

Oh well.

D-Day

Love the opening here

God, I really love the aggressive autotune

9/10

Haegeum

I love this MV

I wonder why it’s the exact same plot as Daechwita

Hey look, it’s a Haegeum

Look? More like listen? Hey listen?

Freedom, liberation

But what the actual hell does this music video mean?

8/10 honestly, in fact it might just be one of the weaker songs on the album

Huh?! (feat. J-Hope)

“You don’t know anything about me but you want to be me,” interesting

This feels straight out of Agust D, lyrically

7/10, honestly this is probably my least favorite song on the album. It’s not very interesting lyrically, it’s not very interesting musically, and I don’t think J-Hope adds much to the song at all

Amygdala

What, there’s a trigger warning? On a youtube video? That’s interesting

Continuing with the aggressive autotune

But it really does work so well

Oh yeah, the scar!

9/10

SDL

Oh okay, “somebody does love”

Who does the female vocals?

Adora, dunno her

8/10 for the female vocals

People Pt. 2 (feat. IU)

Wait this has an MV?

!!! I never knew that!!

God I just love the harmonies back there

I should look at these lyrics side by side with part 1

Ohhh this is SDL part 2 isn’t it, that’s what he meant in the documentary, must be

10/10, totally biased, but … this song introduced me to IU.

Polar Night

When I first listened to this album, I saved Haegeum, People Pt. 2, and this song to my playlist

I would later remove this song

8/10

Interlude : Dawn

Because dawn comes after you dream

Jesus, this is so nice

9/10

Snooze

10/10

Life Goes On

9/10

[kimageddon]

Star Wars Fics

I was challenged by @ashotofspotchka . So I did it.

The Prompt

Made this a Tech x Reader fic. I got inspired. And became a bit longer that intended.

I heard y'like Tech?? @eyecandyeoz @fallenrepublick (tag a fan!)

The Wedding

Well this was a right mess to be in. How had you even gotten into this situation? Oh of course… Cid. As much as you admired her, she was a tricky one. If not for her you would have never been invited to her salon, nor would you have met the most frustrating band of men you’d encountered. And their adorable little sister of course.

Had you not taken that job with them a few months ago, you would not have gotten to know them so well. Not been put in so many ridiculous situations and nearly losing your head. You wouldn’t have that new scar across your thigh… and you wouldn’t have grown to like them so much.

Damn it. Your mentor always told you not to get too attached to people, one never knew when they would find each other on opposite sides of the field so to speak. Casual acquaintances were one thing. Friendship was not a good idea. Anything more was downright dangerous. You told yourself it was alright to have a little affection for them. That it was alright to laugh and make jokes, to share a meal with them, to make them smile. That was alright… wasn’t it?

You let out a sigh wishing the ceremony would soon be over. Not that it wasn’t lovely. Of course it was. The venue was beautifully decorated, from the flowers to the guests, everything was stunning. A perfect picture of romance and love and devotion.

You usually detested weddings. There was one incident when you were young and… well it spoiled the idea of them to you. Though this was… actually rather nice. The group, you included, were tasked with providing security for the wedding as a favour to one of Cid’s associates. It was one of the more ridiculous missions… though even you had to admit, you cleaned up alright in a silken dress and heels. It had been a while since you’d had to go undercover and this was… well it was rather fun.

The downside of course had been seeing the boys in their suits. It wasn’t good for your heart. If they looked a picture of badass intimidation in full armour, then the five of them in suits were just perfect.

Hunter even had his hair swept back, though it took you a second to recognise him without the bandana. Wrecker had been a little grumbly about feeling unprotected but was very pleased when you told him he was very handsome. Crosshair had rolled his eyes at first, but gotten very offended when you snatched his toothpick from his lips. Echo had a moment when he was finally dressed. You’d been tying his bowtie when he’d let out a little huff and gave a small smile, saying he “felt human again.” Your heart broke at these words because even with his brothers he still felt… lesser. You had been quick to assure him that he was more human than anyone you knew and that the prosthetics meant nothing on that. Seeing him puff up with pride again was worth nearly getting shot last week.

Even Omega had a pretty dress on and flats tied to her ankles with ribbons. You and she had picked a dress to match Hunter’s suit specifically, she looked up to her big brother so very much, you often thought he was more like a father really, but kept these thoughts to yourself for now.

The last one to join you was the one that affected you the most of course. Tech stepped out onto the landing platform looking like a million credits and like he should have a hot woman on each arm. Like he could make any woman swoon with just a wink.

Hot damn.

Of course he would not do such a thing, and was just looking around, observing the surroundings for possible points of attack, vulnerability and in general taking in the surroundings. As you were also meant be doing. Internally you swore and after drinking in his obliviously gorgeous self, you’d returned to praising the way Omega had pinned her hair without needing your help.

Tech had of course been one of the members of the self-proclaimed ‘Bad Batch’ that you had found the most interesting. He always knew at least five facts about the planet or target or mission that the others didn’t. Always reading, always observing. His eyes behind his goggles were never still. One could think him cold if they didn’t look close enough. But he had a deep passion for knowledge, for technology… its no wonder he had chosen such a name. Practical. To the point. You liked that about him. You like quite a bit about him as you recently discovered. The way he could fix anything. The way his eyes lit up when he talked about learning new things. The way he was so damn efficient at his job, he knew the Havoc Marauder inside and out. The little smile when the two of you shared an inside joke. Or the way he rolled his eyes whenever one of his brothers exasperated him. The way he was always right there to help Omega over large stones or down the stairs of the ship. He was so thoughtful like that, despite not really talking about it.

Actually no. No, you didn't like that. It was just positive observations. That’s all. He was a colleague… maybe a friend. Maybe. There was nothing more to it, you told yourself. There wasn’t anything meant in the little brushes of your fingers when you two passed items between each other. Or passed in the hold of the ship. Or when you were squashed together when hiding from Imps. He didn’t think like that. Right?

Currently, you were standing on one side of the large room, waiting for the bride to arrive. On one side were you, Hunter and Crosshair, standing alongside the pews. On the other, was Omega, Echo, Wrecker and Tech. You wished Tech was on your side of the room, then he wouldn’t be in your vision at least. Not that it meant anything! You were allowed to admire the handsome technician of course, but that's all it was. He certainly wasn’t looking back at you every minute or so either. You were probably imagining it. You had to keep your eyes out for any breaches in security. Any guests acting strange. Certainly not staring at the drop-dead gorgeous clone in glasses across from you.

“Feeling alright, Feisty?” Hunter asked in a low whisper. You smirked at the nickname, apparently you had made an impression on them in the first mission when the client had gotten too mouthy. “Your heart rate is higher than usual.” He added, and you could hear definite amusement in his tone.

You pursed your lips together, trying not to smile from embarrassment. “I’m fine Hunter.” You replied out of the corner of your mouth. Another sweep of the venue with your eyes-- oh kriff Tech was looking your way. Your eyes met for just a second before you tore them away. You heard Hunter chuckle.

“You sure?” He muttered, folding his arms,

“Shut up, Hunter.” You retorted with a soft huff. He chuckled again and you felt your face grow hot. By the nine moons of Endor you wanted to run. It was then the music began and you steeled yourself. The ceremony was beginning.

It was lovely, really. Very sweet, lovely and romantic. The Togruta and his Twi’lek bride seemed very in love if the look on the groom's face was to be believed. He practically lit up like a beacon on seeing her. You had the brief thought... would anyone do that for you? Before immediately pushing it away. Those sorts of thoughts were dangerous. You were sure that it was going to be boring… but you couldn’t help but get a little distracted when they began to say their vows.

“...my darling. There is so much I want to say to you. So much I have felt and left unsaid, I am sure you know just how I feel just by the way I look at you.”

Your eyes instinctively flicked to the otherside of the room. You glimpsed his eyes on you and was immediately caught in the depths of his soft brown eyes. The gentle and kind look you had seen many times, but thought nothing of. He was just kind, that’s who he was. In this moment though-- you were sure there was… a little more to it.

“...It was not easy to let myself open up… to bring myself to acknowledge my feelings but in one moment I knew they were endless and unrelenting. I love you from the depth of my soul and I never want to be apart from you…”

Oh hells… these vows were so saccharine sweet that normally you would be gagging… but these ones hit a little too close to home. You couldn’t stop your eyes from being tugged toward the suited clone trooper opposite you, no matter how you forced them away, to scan the room for danger, they were always drawn back to him. Always him.

“...When I met you you were just so wild. Such a firecracker…!”

There was a laugh across the room and you almost jumped, reminding yourself you were in a crowd. Though none of them paid attention to you. Only one.

“...It was like seeing the sun for the first time, with you in my world colours were brighter, food was sweeter, I found myself longing for times when we could be together, even in the small moments…”

You recalled the times Tech and yourself had been together, doing maintenance, repairs, listening to the music through the entertainment channels. The little laughs, the simple things.

“...not everything was easy, and there has been so much danger…”

You remembered your last serious injury, the piece of twisted metal sticking out of your leg while you hauled ass back to the ship, firing behind you to cover the boys. The way Tech’s eyes had become as big as moons when you finally collapsed, and they saw how bad the injury was.

“... but I always trusted you to get me through anything. I love you, my darling. With all my heart, and soul and with every beat of my heart and breath in my body. I will be yours even after all the stars in the galaxy burn out.”

You had been unable to tear your gaze from Tech’s for the last minute or so and you could feel your face burn. It was only when the vows were done and the bride and groom kissed, their hands wrapped together in a red ribbon and the other guests clapped in support that you snapped out of your little reverie. You joined, half-heartedly in the applause but you felt… strange. You really wanted this mission to be over. Or a drink. Yeah, a drink would be good.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 310: A Tale of Two Kacchans

Previously on BnHA: Flashback!Deku was all, “hey, you know what sounds like a good decision? Abandoning my studies at the safest place in the country so that the bad guy who wants to find me and kill me has literally nothing standing in his way of doing that.” All Might was all, “I fucking knew you were going to say some bullshit like that so whatever, but I’M COMING WITH YOU and I’m also going to invite the Hawksquad to come with us, mostly so that I can steal Jeanist’s car.” Jeanist was all, “okay fine you can borrow my car, All Might, but only if you wear jeans.” All Might was all, “okay sure” and he wore jeans and also sunglasses and a leather jacket and it was pretty rad. Anyway so now they’re out there fighting crime and hunting down the LoV and stuff, and absolutely none of it is going to end well, I’m just letting you know now. But I guess we’ll let them enjoy it while it lasts.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “happy belated Kacchan’s Birthday makeste, here’s the flashback you really wanted at long last,” and proceeds to pull the old vestige flashback out of the kitchen drawer and upend its contents all over my Friday afternoon without the slightest bit of warning. OFA III is all “WHAT’S UP I’M JUST SOME GUY, HELLO,” and okay?? Hello yourself. OFA II, on the other hand, is all, “okay yeah I have different hair and stuff, but I’m like 98% sure I’m either Bakugou or his goddamn twin, I mean look at me.” Which, yeah. I looked, and he really is though you guys. Anyway though, so he and OFA II basically just showed up in the First (who goes by Yoichi now)’s prison cell one day all “HEY THERE, WE’RE HERE TO SAVE YOU, APPARENTLY, ALTHOUGH WE SEEM REAL CONFUSED ABOUT IT TBH BUT HEY.” And so they saved him, and Yoichi was all “hey nice to meet you do you want to join my super-exclusive Saving The World Club”, and so they did, and then the chapter ended lol. I would have said yes too.

oh my sweet lord?? I didn’t realize we were getting a color page this week, but LOOK AT THIS

this could have been a fucking volume cover. I’m almost mad that it wasn’t, lol but I mean fkldjslklk just look at it??! Horikoshi out here spoiling us and making sure we’re well fed since next week the manga is on break for Golden Week. well this will certainly help to tide me over. hot damn look at those colors

so now it’s raining on some dumb building in the middle of somewhere

is this where the Hawksquad has set up camp for the night? or are we actually cutting back to the League? that’d be unexpected (but not unwelcome)

ffff nevermind dammit it’s just more random citizens under attack

feels like this is the third or fourth scene we’ve had of civilians being Under Attack since this arc started. I mean no offense, but I think we get it by this point. it’s the end times, etc. etc. we’re well aware that things have gone to shit

so apparently these two guys are facing off against a girl with a mutant quirk. and she’s telling them that she’s not a monster and she was just scared, oh shit. I believe her btw, you can see it in her face

but these assholes don’t believe her at all and they’re pointing what looks to be some type of support item gun at her

you know what’s interesting, is that this kind of random quirk discrimination is the exact kind of thing PLF and the like were swearing up and down they’d put a stop to with their glorious revolution. it’s almost like those guys were completely full of shit. huh

so yeah, fortunately for this woman someone is stepping in and intervening before she can be blasted to bits by this trigger-happy asshole for absolutely no fucking reason

looks like a hero actually stepped in and saved her?? but no that can’t be, heroes are the ones that ruin everything and make everything worse, or so I understand. lol where did all of this sarcasm come from out of nowhere dlkdsjlk I’m sorry guys I just suddenly got swept up in the hypocrisy of certain people’s philosophies out of the blue idek

anyway so it is of course Deku saving her, and now he’s trying to talk thess jerks down all diplomatically instead of just kicking their asses, which is certainly a choice

MOTHERFUCKER I’M

fucking impossible to miss the real world parallels here. shit. this woman nearly died for her crime of Walking While Having A Mutant Quirk huh. and meanwhile Deku is just letting this guy scurry away and even letting him keep that fucking bazooka of his, like, ????

fucking hell she’s crying!!

lmao this chapter is actively trying to make me mad now huh. that’s some genuine righteous anger I’m feeling on behalf of this fictional ferret lady whom I only met two minutes ago. girl you are not the one who needs to explain herself here!! you didn’t do anything wrong holy fuck. everything about this situation sucks so much

fkKJKLMMMHFGH

“I’m sorry I made you upset, please enjoy this panel of tiny!floating!Deku hefting this lady’s massive beach umbrella up for her like the fucking gentleman he is” well okay then thank you sir

and JUST LIKE THAT the tension is broken and I’m entirely incapable of taking the rest of this conversation seriously because Deku’s trying to be all calming and authoritative, but now the illusion has been broken because I know he only comes up to like her knees

“well thanks again for saving me young man. I’ll leave you to it, I’m sure you’ve got more important things to do like protecting your Lucky Charms cereal from all those greedy children”

oh hey All Might

you wouldn’t have just let that guy with the bazooka just walk away to commit more attempted murders would you?? man

OH MY GOD DEKU IS IMMEDIATELY DITCHING HIM AGAIN

I ~CANNOT STAY HERE~ oh, well, sorry to keep you detained I know you’re busy

dfslkjlk oh my god

fucking told you Deku didn’t pack any food lol. it’s literally all notebooks in that bag you guys. he couldn’t just leave them all in his dorm room when he left, because what if someone tried to read them and came across one of the pages where he absentmindedly doodled Kacchan’s name surrounded by little tiny hearts oh gosh

AWWWWW

I needed this Horikoshi. thank you for this wholesome soul-cleansing interaction after all of that bullshit earlier

so now Deku’s climbing up this tall building to eat his lunchbox more dramatically. Tokoyami would be proud

and Banjou is saying that society right now is just like in The Good Old Days (read: bad old days) when quirk society was even more of a mess than it is now

which is exactly how AFO likes it, no doubt

so now Deku’s having a whole conversation with Banjou seemingly out loud lol, weird. and he’s basically saying that they don’t have any clues as to where TomurAFO and the League are hiding right now, and none of the Tartarus escapees they’ve found knew anything either

mmmmmfmhm, marge simpson noises

but you think you can?? you, alone, by yourself?? you think you stand a chance?? I just need you to think this all through a bit more kid

Deku it is NOT JUST YOUR RESPONSIBILITY ALONE, PLEASE REALIZE THIS ALREADY. YOU MAY BE THE CHOSEN ONE, BUT EVEN THE CHOSEN ONE NEEDS HIS FRIENDS BY HIS SIDE GODDAMMIT

and of course my pleading is all in vain, because he’s a fictional character who can’t fucking hear me, and also because I’m pretty sure there’s only one character who is going to actually be able to get him to hear reason here. I’ve been saying it, and I’ll keep saying it lol. so until then I guess I’ll just have to be patient

anyway so it appears we’re segueing into another flashback??? HORIKOSHI PLEASE GIVE ME SOME BAKUCRUMBS BEFORE THE TWO WEEK BREAK, I BEG YOU

dlKSDJLFKWJELKGHSLGKLEKJLFKHLGK

YES, THANK YOU, I KNOW WHERE THIS FUCKING IS LOL, IT’S NOT LIKE I’VE BEEN OBSESSED WITH FINDING OUT WHAT HAPPENS IN THE REST OF THIS SCENE OR ANYTHING LMAO. BUT ANYWAYS DON’T MIND ME, YOU WERE SAYING??

oh my god oh my god I’m not readyyyyy, but also FUCK YEAH I AM SO FUCKING READY LOL LET’S DO THIS

YOU GUYS

I’M ABOUT TO STEP IN THAT ROOM AND YEET ONE OF THOSE FUCKING CHAIRS AT YOU ALL

NOOOOO

I’M ABOUT TO GRAB BANJOU’S GOGGLES AND STRETCH THEM OUT AND SNAP THEM BACK SO THEY SMACK THE SHIT OUT OF HIS FOREHEAD!!! IT’S WHAT HE DESERVES!!! I’M ABOUT TO MOVE TO JAPAN AND GET A JOB WITH DOORDASH AND FIND OUT WHAT HORIKOSHI LIKES TO ORDER FOR LUNCH SO I CAN BE THE ONE TO DELIVER IT SO THAT WHEN HE OPENS THE DOOR I CAN FINALLY ASK HIM “HEY WHAT THE FUCK” IN PERSON

AHHH NO EVERYBODY SHHHHH STOP TALKING!!!!

SOMEONE PLEASE TELL THAT PERSON SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS IN THE BACKGROUND TO SHUT THE FUCK UP, OH WAIT, THAT’S ME

(」゜ロ゜)」 щ(゜ロ゜щ)

LOL THIS FUCKING ASSHOLE!!! LOOK AT YOU!!! YOU’RE NOT KIRISHIMA OR SHINSOU OR IIDA IN A WIG OR ANYBODY LOL. YOU’RE JUST A DUDE. BROOOOO ABOUT FUCKING TIME, WHAT’S GOOD

I CAN’T SCROLL DOWN AHHHH BUT I HAVE TO BUT IT’S TOO INTENSE AHHHHHHH

I CAN SEE THE TOP OF HIS SPIKY HEAD, IT’S FINALLY THAT TIME AHHHHHHHH OKAY I’M GONNA DO IT HERE GOES

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

IT’S HIM. IT FUCKING REALLY FUCKIGN IS HIM OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. WHY AM I SO SHOCKED LMAO I’M THE ONE WHO’S BEEN SAYING THIS THE WHOLE DAMN TIME LMAO. OH GOD. O H MY FUCKING GOD

well okay then sir. so are you an ~ancestor~ or a Kacchan from another timeline or so what’s your deal then

YOICHI WHO IS YOICHI

YOICHI ALWAYS KNOWS WHAT’S UP. LMAO WHO IS YOICHI

(ETA: I’m going to punch myself in the face lmao. he’s Yoichi. he, the First. that’s his name. name reveal at long last what what!!)

MORE IMPORTANTLY SHOULD I BE IMAGINING NOBU’S VOICE RIGHT NOW BECAUSE LMAO I AM ANYWAY BUT YEAH

(ETA: I actually think he’s going to end up being voiced by Nobuhiko whether he ends up being Kacchan or not, just because it fits right in with the general “identical in almost every way” aesthetic he’s got going on.)

TUMBLR HOW WE LIKING OUR ANGSTY ALTERNATE UNIVERSE KACCHAN?? EVERYONE HATED YOU SO MUCH BEFORE THEY EVEN MET YOU, BUT THEY FORGOT TO CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY THAT YOU MIGHT BE HOT LMAO WHAT A TWIST

“some bright-eyed brat” oh come on. IT’S GOTTA BE HIM LOL

oh my god you all are probably TIRED AS FUCK of all my screaming but I’M SORRY IMMA HAVE TO DO IT ONE LAST TIME BECAUSE...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

that face. that expression!! THE FACT THAT HE’S OUT HERE OPENING DOORS WITH HIS FEET, LIKE HOLY SHIT!! JUST ADMIT THE JIG IS UP ALREADY

and so they really are the ones who busted First out of his jail cell huh

so how did they know you were in the room?? why did they come and break you out?? and how, pray tell, did they know to get you to transfer OFA to them?? hmmmMMMMMMMM

oh MY GOD

you guys. oh my god. it’s too much. every last bit of it lines up exactly with the Bakuverse theory sdkjfj I’m short-circuiting. it’s really fucking happening oh my lord

HELLO SEXY ALTERNATE UNIVERSE KACCHAN WITH HIS SEXY FUCKING SCAR, FUCK YEAH WE REALLY ARE EATING GOOD THIS CHAPTER

HELL YEAH WE’RE GOING. WE’RE GOING FULL SPEED YOU GUYS. LMAO I’M SO FUCKING HYPED RIGHT NOW I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF WEFKJLDKFFFF

SO, EVERYONE, LET’S RECAP. -- ACTUALLY NO, I STARTED TO WRITE UP A LIST, BUT I IMMEDIATELY REALIZED IT REALLY JUST NEEDS TO GO IN ITS OWN THREAD. SO I MADE IT AND POSTED IT, AND NOW I’M FINISHING UP THIS HOT MESS OF A RECAP POST. SO NOW WE’RE BACK TO THIS ONE FINAL PANEL OF DEKU EATING HIS KATSU ALL SERIOUS

YES SIR. YES SIR, WE GOING, FULL SPEED AHEAD, WHATEVER, IDK WTF IS HAPPENING BUT YES!!

lol, anyways so as I said in my other post, mysterious sexy guys with tragic pasts are what bring us together as a fandom, so whatever your thoughts are on the rest of it, let’s just rejoice in that. it’s what we deserve

[vampireloverz]

jus watched a horror movie so im gonna be horny to ignore my fears 💞 and no i will not explain why a puppyboy is making nests! idc abt real world comparisons i am a whore and i am free!

cw. hybrids, implications of heats/ruts

we have bkg x puppygirl but then this got me thinkin abt bkg as the buppy ..... you walk into the adoption center and immediately lock eyes with him; he's got the prettiest eyes you've ever seen, the softest hair too—how was he still in this place? i mean, look at him!

you get closer to the glass partition, even pressing your hand to it, and you get your answer. without breaking eye contact, he barks and bares his sharp canines. he goes right up against the glass and this is when you realize that not only does he have a gorgeous physique, he's also way larger than he looked sitting down with all the other hybrids.

it took a lot of worry and sympathetic looks from the staff as they brief you on his owner history, how he's been adopted by nearly every hybrid lover on the block and returned within the week. took even more barking, growling, biting, and flailing to get him into your car and back home.

he's prideful. headstrong and stubborn in a way that only younger pups can be. why did his claws have to be so good at tearing up your throw pillows? why did he like snapping at your fingers as you brushed his teeth? how the hell did he even get muddy tracks on the ceiling!? each time, he shoots you that pitiful puppy look and you can't do anything but sigh in exasperation as you let him off easy, each and every time. he looks so sure of himself as he stands by the door, your one week with him almost up. unfortunately for him, it was just too satisfying to wipe that smug look off his face.

not much changes when you go past your one week and even breach two, three months. he's still as spoiled as ever, pushing you around because he knows you don't have much of a choice unless you wanted to give him the satisfaction of giving up. well, not much changed until now.

he's been disappearing when he thinks you aren't looking, coming home looking on edge and frustrated. one night, he can't go out to do whatever his business is because of an awful thunderstorm. this has been the only time he willingly accepted your invitation to sit together and warm up, stiffly taking his place beside you in the blanket.

it's so warm, such a perfect nest you made for the two of you. a bit rudimentary; he could certainly add a few of his shirts there, scent those blankets for you, but this could all be improved the more you nested together.

he takes all your preparation with such gratitude and he intends to show it all through his actions. of course, you've caught on to what he's been getting up to, and this is as good a time as ever to give him a taste of his own medicine. there's an obvious wet patch on the front of his boxers as he mindlessly humps your leg and looks up at you, shooting you that same pitiful puppy look that he knew would get him everything he wanted.

unfortunately for him, it was just too satisfying to see that pitiful look on his face. he'd better get used to it, 'cause the night's just barely begun.

OK I BETTER STOP I COULD CONTINUE W A PT. 2 CUZ IM .... 🤯 PUPY.... BUT I GOTTA HOLD MYSELF BACK I CANT KEEP UNLOADING WEEKS WORTH OF HORNY EVERY TIME I VISIT UR INBOX 💔 ...... also i gladly take you up on the housespouse offer! but i demand that you resign from your job so that i can take care of everything. yes i do the taxes yes i do the cleaning 💌

— Ray

PUPPY BAKUGOU IM !!!!!

i could fix him… i dont care how bratty he is i could deal with him… i care him so much…

[fairyhee]

Chocolate eclairs (pt.1)

“Aren’t you a Valentine’s day hater, though?”

“Only because I don’t have a date and I’m bitter about it, but you can change that.”

🍫optional bias x reader (h/n means his name)

🍫enemies to lovers, kinda slow burn?, flirting (smut in pt.2)

🍫inspired by: 5sos-valentine

[I know Valentine’s Day has already passed but I got this idea while daydreaming a few days ago and I couldn’t help myself. And also maybe I love this made-up celebration a bit too much and I don’t want to accept it’s over. If you dislike cheesy stuff this might not be for you lmao]

When it comes to Valentine’s, people are always either hardcore fans or hardcore haters. While you were definitely part of the first category, you just couldn’t understand how anyone can dislike a celebration that’s meant to spread love. And also, the pretty lingerie, the sweets, the champagne and the sex, hello?? You would have them any day of the year if you could. And if you had someone to celebrate with, in the first place.

As for people in the other category, they could hate it all they want but in your eyes they were probably just painfully single. Not that you weren’t, but you never wanted to let that spoil the fun. So what if you were single? What one can do with a partner, you could very well do on your own. So every year you made plans to do everything you wanted, but on a solo date instead of with somebody else. Love yourself first, right?

So on the morning of february 14th, after you were done with your self-pampering ritual, you stepped out for coffee and pancakes. The plan was that after breakfast, you would stop by the lingerie store and treat yourself to a nice set, then buy some sweets from the french bakery, then go home and get all dolled up for the evening, when you had reserved a table at a pink-themed restaurant, beautifully situated on the top floor of one of the highest buildings in your town. It was definitely among the most popular spots for that day, but you couldn’t care less that you were going by yourself. You could have gone with one of your girl friends, if they weren’t all already taken and spending the day “watching netflix”.

Thinking about the peaceful day that was ahead of you, you had almost reached your first destination. Your favorite cafe held an event today and served red pancakes with chocolate hearts as a special menu, as well as v-day themed coffee cups that you couldn’t wait to take photos of. As you entered the cafe, you spotted a familiar silhouette by the counter. He didn’t have to turn around for you to confirm it was him, because as soon as you heard him order his ice americano, your perfect day was already ruined. It was h/n. 

Instead of saying hi, you groaned as you approached the counter. “Who drinks iced coffee in february? You have serious issues.”

He turned around, seemingly suprised to see you at first, but he quickly got to back to his usual self. “Only cool people can drink iced coffee, you wouldn’t understand. And also, a ‘good morning’ would have been enough.”

“It was good until I saw you, so now I can’t say that anymore, can I?” you said while scanning the menu. “One rose lemonade and the special strawberry pancakes with fresh cream, please.”

From where he was standing, you heard a dramatic gasp. “How can you tell me I have issues when you ingest so much sugar from this early in the day? If this is what you have for breakfast, what the hell are you having for dinner?” You wanted to slap that overly exaggerated shocked expression off his face.

“None of your fucking business. Now if you don’t mind I’m gonna walk to my table and go on with my day. If I spend another minute with you I’m afraid it might turn bitter and cold, like you and your beloved americano.”

You were beyond irritated that you had to put up with his shit today, too. You had met h/n at a party during university because of a mutual friend, and you immediately found out you had absolutely nothing in common, except both wanting to excel in your field and to be right at all times. Both of you had strong opinions and just wouldn’t back down. Every time you met, your personalities clashed, and the useless arguments and snarky remarks wouldn’t stop coming. It certainly didn’t help that he was so handsome and so good at what he did (he was a singer in a band) and that everyone else always complimented and admired him, because that made his ego grow and everything just annoyed you even more. Handsome boys always had to be over-confident and you hated that with a passion. The worst part was that he had every right to be confident, but you would never admit that. You weren’t sure what his opinion was of you but you didn’t care to know.

While you were sat at your table, scrolling through your phone and trying to block the previous conversation from re-entering your mind, he just casually sat down across from you at the table, putting down not one, but two iced americanos.

For a few seconds you stared at him blankly. “Can I know what the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m gonna try to convince you that americano is the best coffee.”

“Ha, nice try. What makes you think I would even try it? It’s way too cold outside to drink. Haven’t I told you I don’t want bitterness in my life?”

He smirked. “I asked the barista to put 3 pumps of sugar syrup in it so it can be at least remotely drinkable for you. You will also need someone to watch over you, since I expect you to have a heart attack from all the sweetness, so, before you ask me to, no, I don’t want to leave your drink here and fuck off. So since you’ll be stuck with me until you finish your breakfast, tell me, what have I done to make you dislike me so much?” he placed his chin on his left hand and took a sip of his americano. “I’m curious.” rather than annoyed with you, he looked rather playful.

“Wow, you seem to be having a lot of fun interrupting my day. Glad at least one of us is having a good time. If you want me to touch that drink, you better take out at least half of that amount of ice cubes. After that, we can talk.”

You didn’t expect him to actually do what you said, but he stood up without a word and slowly walked to the counter to ask the barista to fix it. He was so tall, that the strings of the heart shaped helium balloons that were floating around the ceiling reached his eyes, so he walked around the cafe shielding his face with his hand. Why did you find that cute all of a sudden? It’s like you had just realized that his height was very attractive to you. When he turned around, you were smiling at him.

He gave you a wide-eyed look while he was placing your drink down for the second time. “Now you’re smiling at me? Did the sugar from those pancakes get to your brain already?”

“It’s just kinda funny seeing you between all those heart-shaped pink balloons after our last argument.” He had argued that all these holidays, like Halloween, V-day, Mother’s day and so on are made up for purely capitalist purposes and people who celebrate just feed into the consumerism. Besides, his social media posts had appeared on your feed the other day, because he had shared a bunch of memes poking fun at the cheesy traditions. “So what are you doing here today anyway, I thought you were a Valentine’s day hater?” 

“Only because I don’t have a date and I’m bitter about it, like you said. But you can change that.”

You quickly looked up from your plate to check for any sign that he’s joking, but he definitely wasn’t laughing. His eyebrow was cocked up and an annoying smirk was planted on his face. He looked so hot, it was absurd.

His proposal, combined with your own thoughts, made you burst into laughter. You were annoyed at the fact that you were considering it. “Aren’t you getting a bit ahead of yourself? Of course I can change that, but do you really think I will?” you asked ironically. You took a sip of the iced americano, hoping it would cool down your brain and help you think straight again.

He smiled. “I don’t know, but the fact that I just made you laugh is a good sign. Also,” he said pointing at the coffee, “you just drank that and didn’t complain. You just accepted my drink and I got you convinced it’s not bad, both at the same time. That’s three wins in a row for me.”

Shit, he was right.

“I love it when you talk back to me, so I’m almost feeling sorry I left you without any comeback to that.”, he laughed. “So what other plans do you have today? What else do I have to try to ruin?”

“Oh, just a bunch of uninteresting things. I’m sure a self-proclaimed cool dude like yourself would be bored just hearing about it.” That was it. Your defense had fallen, you were actually starting to like him, but you still wouldn’t admit it, so now you were adamant to prove you were completely uninterested in him and he didn’t affect you even in the slightest. You were even willing to accept him tagging along when you went shopping if he wanted. Half because you wanted to spend more time with him without actually accepting his half-hearted date proposal, and half because you wanted him to think you don’t care even if he tries to bother you.

“Well, I don’t have anything better to do today. You asked me what I’m doing here, I actually simply came to get coffee. So do you mind if I come with you? Annoying you is more fun than doing nothing on a sunday.” 

Perfect, you thought. You fake-rolled your eyes. “Whatever. You’ve already ruined my day, it can’t get worse no matter how much you’ll talk. Let’s go shopping, I know men are absolutely crazy over this activity, so let’s see how much fun you’ll have there.”

“Try me.” he said while finishing his drink. 

You smiled and, having finished your breakfast, you stood up.“You might want to have another americano to-go, to keep you from getting tainted with my sweetness. Get up, we’re going to buy chocolate eclairs.”

...

part 2

[him-e]

what did you think of shadow and bone? have you read the books? i only read the duology

Thoughts on Shadow and Bone, now that you've probably seen it?

I think the show is alright? It lacks a real wow factor as far as I’m concerned, but it’s enjoyable. It’s especially enjoyable in those parts I didn’t anticipate to like / didn’t even know would be there. 

Whereas the main selling points leave a lot to be desired.

The good stuff: the visuals. The aesthetic. The overall concept. Production, casting and costumes are excellent, the setting is fascinating. The worldbuilding isn’t perfect and is sometimes confusing, which is probably due to the show jumping ahead of the books and introducing elements that happen much later in the book saga, but I’m loving the vague steampunk-y vibe of it mixed with more typical fantasy stuff and slavic-inspired lore, the fact that it’s set in dystopian Russia rather than your usual ye olde England.

I find it interesting that in this ‘verse the Grisha are simultaneously superstars, privileged elite, legendary creatures and despised outcasts, according to the context and the type of magic they wield. It’s A Lot, and so far it’s all a bit underdeveloped and messy, like a patchwork of different narratives and tropes sewn together without an organic worldbuilding structure. (there are hints to a past when they were hunted, but how did they go from that to being, essentially, an institutionalized asset to the government isn’t clear yet. There’s huge narrative potential in this, and I hope future seasons will delve into those aspects)

Many of the supporting characters are surprisingly solid. I appreciated that Genya and Zoya eventually sort of traded places, subverting the audience’s assumptions about them and their own character stereotypes, despite the little screentime they were given.

Breakout characters/ships for me were Nina/Matthias, and even more so the Crows, i.e. the stuff I didn’t see coming and knew nothing about (having only read the first book). (I thought the entire Crows subplot was handled in a somewhat convoluted way, at least in the first episodes; it was hard to keep track of who wanted Alina and why, but the Crows’ chemistry is so strong it carried the whole Plot B on its shoulders).

HELNIK. As an enemies to lovers dynamic, Helnik was SUPER on the nose, I’d say bordering on clichéd with the unapologetic, straight outta fanfiction use of classic tropes like “we need to team up to survive” and “there’s only one bed and we’ll freeze to death if we don’t take our conveniently damp clothes off and keep each other warm with the heat of our naked bodies��� (not that I’m complaining, but i like to pine for my ships a bit before getting to the juicy tropetown part, tyvm). And then they’re suddenly on opposite sides again because of a tragic misunderstanding - does Bardugo hate high-conflict dynamics? It certainly seems so, because between Helnik and Darklina I’m starting to see a pattern where the slow burn and blossoming mutual trust is rushed and painted in broad, stereotypical strokes to get as fast as possible to the part where they *hate each other again* and that’s... huh. Something.

^That’s probably why I’m almost more interested in Kaz x Inej, because their relationship feels a bit more nuanced, a bit more mysterious, and a bit more unpredictable. (I didn’t bother spoiling myself about them, so I really don’t know where they’re going, but it’s refreshing to see a dynamic that the narrative isn’t scrambling to define in one direction or the other as quickly as possible)

-

Now, as for Darklina VS Malina... I found exactly what I expected. 

Both are ship dynamics I’m, on principle, very much into (light heroine/dark villain, pining friends to lovers) but both are also much less interesting than they claim to be, or could have been with different narrative choices. I’ll concede that the show characters are all more fleshed out and likable than their book counterparts, and the cringe parts I vaguely remembered from the books played out differently. And, well, Ben Barnes dominates the scene, he’s hot as HELL, literally every single second he’s on screen is a fuck you to Bardugo’s attempts to make his character lame and uninteresting and I’m LOVING it, lol.

But yeah, B Barnes aside, Darklina is intrinsically, deliberately made to be unshippable. 

It makes me mad, because it’s - archetypally speaking - made of shipping dynamite: yin/yang-sun and moon, opposites attract, COMPLEMENTARY POWERS AND SO ON. And what does Bardugo do with these ingredients? A FUCKING DELIBERATE DISASTER:

^ Placing the kiss so early on (season 1, episode five) effectively kills the romantic tension that was (correctly) building up until that point, and leaves the audience very little to still hope for, in terms of emotional evolution of the dynamic. 

Bardugo lays all the good stuff down as early and quickly as possible (the bonding, the conflicted attraction, the recognizing the other as one’s equal, etc) only to turn the tables and pull the rug so y’all sick creepyshippers won’t have anything to look forward to, because THEY’VE ALREADY HOOKED UP AND THAT BELONGS TO THE PAST, IT’S OVER, THEY’RE ENEMIES. This, combined to the fact that she falls for him *without* knowing who he really is, is the opposite of what I want from a heroine/villain ship (it’s basically lovers to enemies, and while that can be valid too, I wanted to see more pining and more prolonged, tormented symbolic attraction to the Shadow/Animus on Alina’s part). 

But here’s the trick: it’s not marketed as lovers to enemies - it has all the aesthetics and trappings of an enemies to lovers (the Darkling is, from the get go, villain-presenting, starting from his name), so it genuinely feels like a trollfic, or at the very least a cautionary tale *against* shipping the heroine with the tall dark brooding young villain, and I don’t think it’s cool at all. It makes the story WAY less interesting, because it humanizes the villain early on (when it’s not yet useful or poignant to the story, because it’s unearned) but it’s a red herring. The real plot twist is that the villain shouldn’t be sympathized with, just defeated: there’s a promise of nuanced storytelling, that is quickly denied and tossed aside. So is the idea of incorporating your Shadow (a notion that Bardugo must be familiar with, otherwise she wouldn’t have structured Alina and the Darkling as polar opposites who complement each other, but that she categorically refutes)

Then we have Malina. The good ship.

Look, I’m not that biased against it. I don’t want to be biased on principle against a friends to lovers dynamic that antagonizes a heroine/villain one, because every narrative is different, and for personal reasons I can deeply relate to the idea of being (unspeakably) in love with your best friend. So there are aspects of Malina that I can definitely be into, but it troubles me that in this specific context it’s framed as a regression. It’s Alina’s comfort zone, a fading dream of happiness from an idealized childhood, to sustain which the heroine systematically stunts her growth and literally repressed her own powers, something that in the books made her sickly and weak. But the narrative weirdly romanticizes this codependency, often making her tunnel vision re: going back to Mal her primary goal and centering on him her entire backstory/motivation, to the point that when she starts acting more serious re: her powers and alleged mission to destroy the Fold, it feels inorganic and unearned. 

Mal is intrinsically extraneous to Alina’s powers, he doesn’t share them, he doesn’t understand them, he has little to offer to help her with them, and so the feeling is that he’s also extraneous to her heroine’s journey, aside from being a sort of sidekick or safe harbor to eventually come back to. People have compared him to Raoul from Phantom of the Opera, and yeah, he has the same ~magic neutralizer~ vibe, tbh.

The narrative also polarizes Mal’s normalcy and relative “safety” against Aleksander’s sexy evil, framing Alina’s quasi-platonic fixation on the former as a better and purer form of love than her (much more visible and palpable) attraction to the latter. This is exacerbated by the show almost entirely relying on scenes of them as kids to convey their bond. I’m sure there are ways to depict innocent pining for your best friend that don’t involve obsessively focusing on flashbacks of two CHILDREN running in a meadow and looking exactly like brother and sister. LIKE. I get it, they’re like soulmates in every possible way, BUT DO THEY WANT TO KISS EACH OTHER?

Which brings me to a general complain: for a young adult saga centering on a young heroine and full of so many hot people, this story is weirdly unsexy? There are a lot of shippable dynamics, but they’re done in such a careless, ineffective way that makes ZERO EFFORT to work on stuff like slow burn, pining and romantic tension, and when it does it’s so heavy handed that the viewer doesn’t feel encouraged at all to fill the blanks with their imagination and start anticipating things (which is, imo, the ESSENCE of shipping). The one dynamic that got vaguely close to this is, again, Kaz and Inej, and coincidentally it’s also the one we didn’t get confirmed as romantic YET. Other than that, where’s the slow burn? What ship am I supposed to agonize over during the hiatus to season two? Has shipping become something to feel ashamed of, like an embarrassing relative you no longer want to invite in your home?

Anyway, back to Alina/Darkling/Mal, this is how the story reads to me:

girl suspects to be special, carefully pretends to be normal so she can stay with Good Boy

the girl’s powers eventually manifest; she’s forcibly separated from Good Boy

the girl’s powers attract Bad Boy who is her equal and opposite but is also a major asshole

girl initially falls for Bad Boy; has to learn a hard lesson that nobody that sexy will ever want her for who she is, he’s just trying to exploit her

also, no, there is no such thing as a Power Couple

girl is literally given a slave collar by Bad Boy through which he harnesses her power (a parody of the Twin Scars trope)

you know how the story initially suggested that the joint powers of Darkness and Light would defeat evil? LOL NO, Darkness is actually evil itself and the way you destroy evil is using Light to destroy Darkness, forget that whole Jungian bullshit of integrating your shadow, silly!

conclusion: girl realizes being special sucks. She was right all along! Hiding and suppressing her powers was the best choice! She goes back to the start, to the same Good Boy she was meekly pining for prior to the start of the story.

... there’s an uncomfortable overall subtext that reads a lot like a cautionary tale against - look, not just against darkships and villain/heroine pairings, but also *overpowered* heroines and, well... change? Growth?

Like, it’s certainly a Choice that Alina starts the story *already* in love with Mal. That she always knew it was him. The realization could have happened later (making the dynamic much more shippable, too), but no. 

[remusmainhoe]

sirius x reader

warning:smut, language.

not sure what it is, I wanna say friends, to lovers, but really I just got carried away. I hope you love it, I had fun writing it.

I was laying on the grass, near the black lake. The sun shined on the water, the warm breeze lifting the pages of my book, my mother had gotten me about medicine since she worked at st. Mungos, but I always preferred the greek mythology books my dad had left me. I saw him from a distance, sitting down on the grass, sheltered by the shade of a tree, his back relaxed against the bark. Two other girls near him were giggling at each other, stealing glances of him every now and then, their cheeks flushed with anticipation for his attention. Even from a distance, I could make out his face, unbothered by the girls, his dark, smooth hair dancing in front of his face every now and then. His eyes remained closed, his mouth carved into that faint grin he wore so much. James was next to him, his mouth moving, grasping the snitch before it got too close to freedom, and letting it go once more. Seeing how James ran a hand through his jet black hair, careful enough to leave it perfectly messy. Remus crouched down on the floor, eyes hungrily reading every word of the paper in front of him. A strand of his sandy brown hair on his face gone ignored, his hands grasping his quill, focused. Peter was watching James, as his hands clasp around the snitch for the 100th time.

I couldn’t help catching a glimpse of the boy, feeling like the other girls whose eyes also felt what I could only describe as a magnetic pull toward him. To me, he felt like a flame, you could appreciate it, and regard it as precious, but you know better than to get too close. I try to peel my eyes off him, staring back at the book in my lap. When my eyes tired of the words on the page that no longer meant anything, I looked up again only to find those piercing eyes staring back. The corner of his mouth lifting, flashing his teeth, his calculating eyes refusing to let me go. I tear away from him, refusing to give in. I stand up, picking up my things, and make my way back to the Gryffindor tower, rushing up the stairs to my dormitory. I laid in bed, refusing to acknowledge the way he made me feel. The butterflies that swarmed through my body, the warm feeling in my chest, because no one can have this much control over me. Falling asleep that night, his eyes being the last thought before I fall asleep, and my first thought when I wake up.

Waking up slowly, getting out of bed, taking the morning air deeply, letting it feel my lungs, and hoping it could erase that feeling he made me feel. The great hall filled with the first light of the day, my lids heavy as I sit down at the Gryffindor table. The table slowly filling up with students fueling up for the days' classes. I ate my breakfast in silence, lightly listening to the words the other girls were gossiping to me. When I felt those piercing eyes on me again, not wanting to believe my own senses, I ignored them. Lessons that day went by blandly and slowly, I plopped down on my chair in the astronomy tower at midnight. Opening my book to get ready for the lesson, I felt someone sit down next to me, I glanced quickly to see who it was.

“I hope this seat wasn’t being saved for someone else,” he says, clearly noticing the confusion on my face.

“Um, no, it's ok” I sputter out, he flashed another smile in response, in turn making those damn butterflies return, I fight the slight heat in my cheeks.

Before anything else can happen, the professor calls things into order, starting the lesson for the day. Any of the tiredness that I felt, fluttered away. the professor assigned us to fill a star chart of the different constellations with a partner.

“Well, what do you say, partner?” He said turning his body to my attention, certainty in his voice.

I had known him enough to know the charade he performed with other girls, making them stutter slightly, making their cheeks hurt with the smile he would cause. I was certainly not one to judge, for who could blame them? The way that he moved in a way that felt effortlessly yet still carried some precision, the way his words came out of his mouth like honey. The most frustrating thing that made it difficult to forgive him for the effect he had, was that he knew he was goddamn gorgeous, and he liked to see the effect he could have.

“I say, I'm tired, and I wanna get this over with,” I said, surprising myself.

His eyes flickered with something, his shitfaced grin refusing to leave. He turned to his telescope and started to get to work. His hand fidgeting with his quill, his other hand gracing the telescope. I turned my head back to my telescope, observing Perseus, Studying the made-up lines I imagined connecting the stars, picturing Perseus ‘the hero’ with his sword and shield. I started plotting the dots on the chart, his hand hovering on the paper before getting to work on another part of the sky. I then saw Canis Major, which wasn’t that hard to find due to the brightest star ‘Sirius’. Remembering the books I read on the stories and mythology of the stars. Picturing Laelaps the dog that always caught whatever it hunted. sent to hunt the Teumessian fox, a fox that could never be caught. Realizing that they were doomed to be the hunter and the hunted for eternity, Zeus turned them both to stone then placed them in the sky as the constellations Canis Major (Laelaps) and Canis Minor (the Teumessian fox). The irony, of course, is that they continue the chase in an eternal hunt, with Canis Minor rising in the winter skies about an hour before Canis Major, I couldn’t help but smile.

“Did you find a man on the moon or something?” Sirius’s voice pulling me back to the astronomy tower.

“Hmm?”

“You’re smiling at the stars” he pointed out, his eyes full of intrigue.

“Oh, it's nothing, I just like the constellations and the myths and stories they carry,” I explain focusing once more and filling out the star chart we were almost finished with.

“Like what?” He asked leaning closer as if it were a deep secret only he was to hear.

“Well… I like the pegasus,” I said drawing it on the star chart “The winged horse, in Greek mythology, used by Zeus to carry thunder and lightning,” I said not being able to hide an amused smile.

“ the stories become a bit tangled though, there are different stories about each of them…” I continued “like the birth of Orion, one story tells how his father was a poor shepherd called Hyrieus. Once, Zeus, Hermes, and Poseidon stopped by Hyrieus’ house. Hyrieus was so generous with his guests that he killed the only animal he had - an ox. Hyrieus was not aware that his guests were gods. The gods wanted to reward Hyrieus’ generosity by granting him a wish. Hyrieus’ biggest desire was to have a child. The gods told him to bury the hide of the bull he had sacrificed to them and to pee on it. After nine months, a boy was born in that place. The child became a very handsome and strong man. He became a very good hunter and threatened to kill all of the wild animals of the world, however, Gaia the mother of all animals was not pleased with his intention. Gaia set a giant scorpion on Orion, who soon realized that’s strength and sword were useless against the mighty Scorpio. Orion tried to escape, but was stung and placed in the stars along with the Scorpio set to chase him forever as a reminder from Gaia to protect the environment.” I stopped talking, realizing that who I had been ranting to. Instead of looking up to see a look of boredom, and annoyance that I was expecting to see, I was met with those eyes, laser-focused on me, his body slightly leaned in my direction.

“I told you, it's nothing, just random shit I think about” I dismiss it trying to not get sucked into his gaze.

“Is that we read so often outside near the lake?” He asked, not looking away from me.

“Among other things” I respond, before can think about it, I say “why do you care?”

He looked at me for a moment, “I don't” he said, and leaned back in his chair for a few minutes staring at the sky. Our star sheet laid out completed, and minutes to spare.

“But let's say I do,” he said leaning back toward me swiftly, his scent gracing my nose, my lungs filling lightly with cologne, leather, and cigarettes.

“Ok, humor me.” I say “what could Mr. popularity possibly have to care about? Apart from his hair”, I say, this time keeping eye contact.

“What do you have against my hair?” He said in the mocked offense.

“Nothing” I answer with slight sarcasm, slightly holding my hands up in defense.

I don't know what made me feel the need to not let him get to me. Hogwarts, although a big castle, I would always see how the girls would spoil him with love, and attention. I’ve read enough books, I don't want to be the “I'm not like other girls” bullshit, but I'm not gonna let him play his little game of cat and mouse.

He paused for a moment before speaking again, “well I just think that any book that can keep you from stealing glances at me, must be one hell of a book”

“Well, you think mighty big of yourself” I choke out a laugh, “you know, for a second there you had me,” I say without missing a beat.

“Is that so?” He countered.

Before I can say more, the lesson ends, I grab my things not trusting myself to say more. Getting to my dorm room, my head infected with him. His grin plastered on his face, with those eyes that see right through anyone. I'm not angry with what he said, it's what he made me feel that terrified me.

The next day, I sat at the Gryffindor table having breakfast, when I felt someone sit next to me. I turned and saw him sitting there, a bit further from his groupie.

“What are you doing over here,” I asked out of pure reflex.

“It is a free country” he responded as he served his breakfast.

“Yeah… sorry” he hadn’t done anything wrong, and it wasn’t my business, even if it was weird to see his hip separated from James. We ate in silence and headed to our first class, transfiguration, the moment I took my seat, he plopped down next to me.

“Ok, what’s your game here?” I ask him, frustrated that I even have to fight back a grin playing at the corner of my mouth. If he noticed, he didn’t say so.

“Nothing,” he said innocently. The class began, and we were assigned to transform bunnies into slippers. I managed to make some hoping slippers, with a tail at the back, Sirius chuckled at them.

“Don't judge them” I said, not even realizing I was smiling.

“I'm sorry,” he says, poorly hiding his amusement.

“Why don't you try it then” I challenge looking at his bunny.

“Ok, fine” he shrugged, with a swish of his wand, his bunny turned into a pair of slippers you would probably only find at a high-end store. “I could give you a lesson if you want” he teased.

“You know, one day you’re going to need slippers that jump,” I said catching my slippers, and transforming them back into the fluffy bunny.

The classes after that, he sat next to me, at first I thought he would come back to his senses and go back to his group, but after 2 weeks of laughing at his jokes in class, how he would pull a little prank, how he would know how to get me to start ranting about something, I didn’t think twice about it. He then started to sit with me in the library, and distract me from doing work. Later on, he and I would go out near the black lake where I once sat alone, I read to him the stories I held so deep to my heart. He would grasp every word of it.

It was inevitable, but after a while, I started to hang out with the others too. Remus and I would revise together, James would pull me into small pranks, and I would help Peter understand some of the charms he couldn’t do.

I tried not to think about the things I would feel when I saw Sirius. How I wanted to mess up his hair just a little bit because it was too perfect. How his laughter gave me a feeling of happiness that spread to my mouth that made me smile and laugh like an idiot. How I would think about the way that his muscles moved when he practiced quidditch with James, how his face looked chiseled by the gods.

I was back in the Gryffindor common room, trying to finish as much work as I could before I realized that the common room was empty, looking up at the clock to see the hands read 3:30 in the morning. I was about to gather my things to head to my dorm and call it a night when I heard the door to the common room open. Turning around, I didn’t see anyone there, yet the door started to close on its own, the fat lady fast asleep. Before I can even process it, I hear a thump near the fireplace, and all of the sudden see Sirius on the floor, a cloak next to him. Before I can even question it, I see the scarlet red that trails on his white shirt, I felt my eyes open wide as I rush to him, my legs forming a mind of their own.

“Sirius?”

He looks up at me, “y/n.. I-“ he's cut off with a hiss of pain escaping his mouth as the blood trails down.

“Take off your shirt so I can see”

“Isn’t that a bold request” he forces a teasing smile.

“Your a wanker” I say trying not to laugh, my heart still racing. “You know what I mean”

He lifts the white shirt, if it weren’t for the gash on his torso, I could have been easily distracted by the way that his muscles moved. The way that the low light of the fireplace reflected off his skin, the way that his skin glowed from a slight sheen of sweat.

“Stay here, ill be right back,” I say getting up, he grabbed my hand before I could move.

“You can't get any help,” he said, his voice laced with panic.

“It's ok, I have some bandages in my dorm,” I said. I rushed up to my trunk and grabbed what I needed, my mother always made sure I was prepared and was eager to teach me everything she could about her work. I rushed back to the common room, kneeling next to him. My fingers slightly shaking from the initial shock. The scratch was deep, so I started to work on some charms that my mother had taught me. Sirius was laying down on his elbows. After healing the wound as much as I could, I grabbed a small towel, drowning it in water, and brushing it lightly on his dark red blood now rusting slightly on him.

“How do you know all that?” He asked, I hadn’t noticed him looking at me.

“My mum” I answered wrapping him up in bandages. “How does it feel?” I asked

“Loads better” he answered.

“You better get some rest, take the bandage off tomorrow in the morning, if it hasn’t healed completely tell me,” I said, “did you lose a lot of blood?” I asked starting to examine him to see if he was paler than usual”

“I'm ok y/n, thank you,” he said, “aren’t you gonna ask me why I was butchered, or why I'm out at 3 in the morning?” He asked.

“If you want to tell me, id be glad to hear it, but it's non of my business” I answered honestly, he looked at me relieved, “thank you, it's not really my secret to tell”. He was sitting up a lot straighter.

“I get it,” I said sincerely.

“Why are you up so late?” He asked.

“I was just working a bit, got carried away. I was on my way to my dorm when you stumbled in” I smiled.

“Yeah, sorry bout that”

“It's nothing, my mum would probably thank you for giving some medical practice” I joke.

“Glad to help. It's hypnotizing seeing you so focused.” He said

I laid in my bed that night, feeling guilt for knowing that I got so close to the flame I promised myself I wouldn’t touch, yet also feeling a sense of relief that he was ok.

The next morning I sat in the morning, not being able to help myself, wanting to know how he was. He came downstairs, the look of surprise evident in his eyes at seeing me waiting for him.

“Y/n,” he said.

“Hey, sorry, I just wanted to know if you were ok”

“Yeah, It's healed” he answered making sure only I could hear him.

“That’s good… well I just… I just wanted to make sure”

“Thank you again,” he said, taking a step closer.

His eyes were piercing right through me, his hand hovering slightly over mine. I leaned up and kissed him, my hand over his jaw, my lips on his, my tongue tasting him like a drug I never knew I was sober from. His lips welcoming me, I snapped back into reality and pulled away, his eyes still close leaning in my direction.

“I'm sorry… I … sorry” was all I could spit out, I made my way back to my dorm feeling like a fool for thinking that a guy like Sirius would like me, that he regarded me any more different than the other girls that touched those same lips. I had been stupid, I had burned my house I worked so hard to protect, on that flame yet what scared me was that I would do it again. His hand grabbed my wrist. before I knew it, those lips met mine again, but this time they were prepared. He pulled apart just enough to speak.

“I want you y/n”

“You already have me”

I couldn’t even think about how stupid I was being, how cheesy this all was, because when his hands lingered on my waist as his lips enraptured me all thoughts and common sense went out the window. Up in his dormitory he closed the door, we both knew everyone would be in lessons. My hands tangled in his hair finally getting a chance to mess it up. His hands sliding my shirt off as he unclipped my bra, and I took his shirt off, and he pulled down my skirt, I slipped out of my shoes. For a moment he looked at me, revealed for him, exposed.

“My merlin you’re even more gorgeous than I thought,” he said breathlessly. I could feel myself blush, he started to massage my breasts, and I let out a moan. I unbuckled his belt and felt him hard for me. All this time I thought he was in control, yet he felt the same things I felt. I slipped a hand removing his trousers enough to relieve him a bit, he let out a low growl and I throbbed. He moved my panties, starting to draw circles on my clit making me unravel. I laid on his bed, pinned down beneath him, he stretched me out, and I let out a gasp of pleasure. His mouth began to play with my nipples, placing hickeys everywhere because I was his. I bit down a moan.

“Don't hold it back love, I wanna hear you scream” he said in my ear. His movements making the pleasure in my abdomen build-up, but I knew he would tell me when I could cum for him.

“Sirius” his name coming out of my lips like water.

“Cum for me darling”

[kjack89]

An Agreement Between Gentlemen (Chapter 4/?)

Continuation of the E/R Bridgerton AU, regency-era fake-marriage shenanigan-fest. This time, with duel-shenanigans as well! (Chapter 1 tumblr | AO3, chapter 2 tumblr | AO3, chapter 3 tumblr | AO3)

Dearest Readers, 

This Author recommends that young women prone to swoon do not read this most peculiar of updates without someone there to catch them, as the most shocking of scandals has broken, and not, as one might expect, from the city but rather from the country.

If you have guessed that it involves our two unlikely friends out for a country jaunt, you would be correct, but we doubt even the most voracious of readers would guess the nature of the scandal. It turns out Mr. Grantaire is not an only child, as many have supposed, but instead has a sister of the marrying age. Why she was not presented to society is anyone’s guess, but we expect she’ll be along soon enough, given what has occurred. 

Details are still forthcoming, but suffice it to say, the Marquess of Enjolras, perhaps least likely amongst his cohort to find himself in this situation, appears to have been found in a compromising position with Mr. Grantaire’s sister. A quick, quiet wedding is the fastest way to deal with a scandal of this nature, but the salacious nature of this situation doesn’t end here:

The Marquess has allegedly refused to marry Mr. Grantaire’s sister, so Mr. Grantaire publicly challenged the Marquess to a duel for his sister’s honor, and the Marquess accepted. 

Tales of Mr. Grantaire’s prowess in physical contests are well-known, so this Author hopes for the Marquess’s sake that his aim with a gun is less impressive. Fear not, dear Reader. This Author suspects that both the Marquess of Enjolras and Mr. Grantaire will emerge from the duel with all limbs intact, but we also suspect that Grantaire will emerge with a soon-to-be brother-in-law – and the Marquess with a fiancée. LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 4 May 1831 

It was, charitably speaking, ungodly early when Enjolras was roused from his bed by the ever dour-faced Le Cabuc. There was not even a hint of sunlight when he glanced out the window before getting dressed, and when he and Grantaire set off a half hour later, there was still just the beginning rays of sunlight creeping over the horizon.

Usually, Enjolras did not mind waking at an early hour, though he was more inclined to work late into the night and have a bit of a lie-in the next morning whenever possible, but he had slept poorly the previous night. Undoubtedly, he thought sourly as he followed Grantaire away from the house, because of what they were setting out to do.

Not that he had much real cause for concern – after all, if Grantaire was going to shoot him, surely he would have done it long ago.

That said, he would also have felt slightly more comfortable if he was carrying one of the guns, rather than Grantaire carrying both as he currently was.

But he suspected his tossing and turning was more related to the grand scheme they were attempting to pull off, and his very real concern that they were not going to be able to. Thus far, certainly, all pieces of the plan had fallen in place, but that as much as anything was setting him on edge. After all, it would take but one thing going awry from the whole arrangement to unravel, and Enjolras was not thoroughly convinced that—

Grantaire heaved a sigh and glanced over his shoulder at Enjolras. “Could you please be quiet?” he asked, sounding as tired as Enjolras felt.

Enjolras scowled at him. “I haven’t said anything!” he protested.

“No, but I can hear your mind going a mile a minute,” Grantaire groused, waving a dismissive hand. “It is positively spoiling what should otherwise be a magnificent morning.”

It was a lovely morning, Enjolras supposed, especially as the sun inched further up in the sky. “There is only so much I can do about the relative volume of my mind,” he told Grantaire, half-smiling as he did.

Grantaire pursed his lips slightly before shaking his head. “No, I suppose not,” he said, pausing in his stride to allow Enjolras to fall into step besides him. “Which means that I shall have to distract you instead.”

“And how do you intend on doing that?” Enjolras asked, more amused than curious.

“Well, I could regale you with what little I know about the vegetation in this area,” Grantaire offered, and when Enjolras wrinkled his nose, he laughed. “Very well. Then what conversation topic would you prefer?”

Enjolras considered it for a second. “I suppose you could start by telling me where, exactly, you’re taking me.”

“So banal,” Grantaire said, half under his breath, and he laughed and dodged when Enjolras tried to elbow him in the ribs. “Fine, fine. There’s a field not far outside of town that’s up on a small bluff. Isolated so that no one will see, but the elevation and lack of foliage between the field and town will allow the sound to carry, which is what I am banking on.”

“Not a lot of shooting out this way?” Enjolras asked, mostly jokingly, though Grantaire seemed to consider it for a moment before shaking his head.

“No. A fox hunt every now and then or something or the sort, but usually advertised well in advance and taking place further afield.”

The terrain sloped upward at that point, and both Enjolras and Grantaire fell silent as they trekked along. Finally, the slope evened out, and as Grantaire had promised, they were standing on the edge of a fairly flat field overlooking the town below. “Well,” Grantaire said, rather unnecessarily. “Here we are.”

He handed one of the pistols to Enjolras, who took it, feeling unusually out of sorts, even though this was hardly his first time wielding a weapon. “Ten paces?” he asked, mostly for lack of anything better to say.

“I suppose so,” Grantaire said, before winking at him. “Of course, in keeping with our attempt at verisimilitude, I could shoot you, if you wish. Just a flesh wound, in the shoulder maybe – just a little something to demonstrate how coerced you were into this whole affair.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “While I am certain that you would have no compunction shooting anyone, I really don’t think that’s necessary.”

Instead, he squared his shoulders and dutifully marched ten paces away before turning to face Grantaire again. “Here?” he asked, but Grantaire was frowning, his gun held loosely at his side.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

Enjolras blinked. “I mean, is this the correct distance?”

“No, by my not having any compunction about shooting anyone.”

There was something unfamiliar in Grantaire’s tone and Enjolras frowned, trying to figure out what exactly he had said to put Grantaire out. “I meant no offense,” he offered.

Grantaire shook his head. “I do not necessarily take offense,” he said. “But I would still wish to know what precisely you meant.”

Enjolras considered him for a moment. “I know that you are an accomplished boxer,” he said after a moment. “And I have it on good authority that you know also how to wield a blade, so it can only stand to reason that you know how to use a gun. That s all that I meant.”

“Know how, yes,” Grantaire said, “but I’ve never shot anyone, and I’m not certain that I could bring myself to, were it to come to that.”

Now it was Enjolras’s turn to frown and ask, “What do you mean?”

Grantaire shrugged, glancing down at the gun in his hand. “I mean, with boxing, with fencing, hell, even with street brawling as Bahorel and I are wont to do—”

“Wont is certainly one word for it,” Enjolras said sourly, too aware of how many times those two had gotten themselves into scraps.

“—with all of those,” Grantaire continued, ignoring him, “the goal is surrender. You wound or injure to get the offending party to back down. But with a gun?” Again he looked down at the gun in his hand, hefting it as if testing its weight. “With a gun, the outcome is too often death, no matter the intent. And I am not certain that I could bring myself to shoot a man, knowing the likely outcome is his death.”

It had not been at all the answer Enjolras was expecting. “Oh,” he said, a little stupidly. “I suppose I did not think of it that way.”

“What of you?” Grantaire asked, with a wry half-smile, as if aware of the absurdity of this conversation when the two men were facing each other with pistols in hands so as to duel. “Have you ever shot a man?”

Enjolras shook his head. “No,” he said, “but I don’t think I would have the same hesitation you would. Death is a tool, and there are times when, in order to bring about the best future possible, killing someone is the only option.” Grantaire shifted as if he was about to interrupt, but Enjolras did not let him. “But the law of progress is that this will no longer be the case some day, and that is the moment for which I would fight, and kill if necessary, so that none after me would face that choice.”

Grantaire was silent for a few moments after, and he was too far away for Enjolras to be able to read every line in his face like he normally would be able to. “I understand,” Grantaire pronounced finally, the two words spoken almost like a vow. 

Enjolras felt strangely tongue-tied at that, and looked away. “Shall we?” he asked, his voice strangely thick, and Grantaire nodded.

Both men faced each other once more, lifting their pistols to aim in the rough direction of the other, ready to get this over with. Later, Enjolras would never know what possessed him in that moment, but as he stared down the barrel of the gun at Grantaire, he could not help but blurt, “I could have sworn that you were going to kill that soldier.”

Grantaire lowered his pistol, his brow furrowing. “What soldier?”

Enjolras lowered his weapon as well. “Do you remember the demonstration we hosted outside of parliament last spring?”

“I am fairly certain the authorities deemed that less a demonstration and more a riot,” Grantaire said, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“Even so,” Enjolras said, refusing to allow himself to get distracted. “Soldiers were called in to ‘enforce the peace’, though I am certain they were more violent than any of us—”

“They certainly were,” Grantaire murmured.

“—and there was this one soldier in particular who seemed quite determined to…”

Enjolras trailed off, and Grantaire cleared his throat. “To beat you to death in the street?” he supplied, a false, sharp cheerfulness to his words. 

Shaking his head slightly, more at the memory than in disagreement to Grantaire’s words, Enjolras swallowed before continuing, “That’s one way of putting it.” He met Grantaire’s eyes. “But you stopped him.”

“Yes.”

“Quite violently, as memory serves.”

Grantaire’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “Yes.”

“But you did not wish to kill him?”

“Oh, I wanted very much to kill him,” Grantaire said, an ugly look crossing his face. “But I did not.”

Enjolras had the sense that continuing too far down that path was not going to end well, so he changed tacks slightly. “So then you too agree that death is a sometimes necessary tool.”

Grantaire jerked a shrug. “I suppose, yes,” he allowed. “If the circumstances were right.”

“And the circumstances were not right that day?” Enjolras asked, because he couldn’t resist prying, just a little.

Grantaire shook his head. “No.”

He did not seem inclined to elaborate any further, and Enjolras frowned. “Because you feared that you could have been arrested?” he asked, though he doubted that was the case, as Grantaire had been arrested as many times as any of their number.

Indeed, Grantaire snorted derisively. “As if the threat of incarceration has ever once stopped me,” he scoffed, before arching an eyebrow at Enjolras. “Or you, for that matter.”

“It helps knowing that you or I would only be incarcerated until the police realized who we were and released us,” Enjolras said dryly. “The perks of nobility – or gentility, I suppose, in your case.” 

“Gentility,” Grantaire repeated, smirking again. “I dare you to use that the next time you’re arrested, just to see what the officer placing you in irons has to say in response.”

Enjolras just rolled his eyes and ignored him, steering the conversation back on track. “What did stop you, then?” he asked, and when Grantaire looked confused, he elaborated, “From killing the soldier, if not the possibility of incarceration.”

Grantaire’s expression was unreadable as he locked eyes with Enjolras. “You were no longer in danger,” he said simply.

The stark words left Enjolras feeling as if his chest was suddenly a size too small, and it took him a moment to compose himself. To know Grantaire had reacted that way when the man was not convinced he could take a life, and all because Enjolras had been in danger...it was too much. Finally, he met Grantaire’s eyes once again, and hoped the two words he could muster conveyed everything that he wished they did. “Thank you.”

Grantaire seemed suddenly flushed, and he cleared his throat and looked away. “In any case,” he said loudly, “can we kindly get back to the business of shooting each other?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Shooting at each other,” he corrected.

Grantaire smirked at him, all traces of the previous conversation disappearing. “Is that not what I said?” he asked innocently.

Again Enjolras rolled his eyes before once again raising his gun and aiming it in Grantaire’s general direction. Grantaire followed suit, a half a beat later. “Are you ready?” Enjolras asked.

“As ready as I will ever be,” Grantaire said. “On your count?”

Enjolras jerked a nod. “On my count,” he affirmed, taking a deep breath before counting, “One...two...shoot.”

Both guns went off with a flash of powder and smoke, the gunshots echoing loudly in the still morning air, loud enough to make Enjolras wince – though that may also have been from the recoil, which left Enjolras’s arm feeling weak. “Do you yield?” Grantaire called, and it took that question for Enjolras to remember the absurd reason for which they were there in the first place.

“Yes, I yield,” Enjolras told him, the first and only times those words had ever come out of his mouth.

Grantaire smirked at him. “And do you agree to marry my sister?”

Enjolras gave him a look. “There is no one here to hear my answer, you realize.” Grantaire returned his look with one of his own, and Enjolras sighed. “Yes, I will marry your sister.”

“Then I have my satisfaction,” Grantaire said, sounding just a little smug.

But as Enjolras handed his pistol back to Grantaire, as lingering pieces from their conversation played over in his mind, he could not help but feel that they had both gotten satisfaction that day.

[genshin-scenarios]

By The Lantern's Light... (Xiao/OC)

A/N: Tysm to @windblumeodes for commissioning me 🥺🥺

this is an excerpt of the fic I wrote, centered around Xiao and her OC, Bedelia!

Wordcount: 1.7k

My commissions are still open! DM if interested + more info here!

Having moved to Liyue, Bedelia was reminded daily of just why she was so taken by the nation. Qingce Village was especially picturesque with a kind community, and when her vision sang for another adventure or story to pen down, she’d venture to other parts of the land to satiate that desire.

She felt spoiled to be able to wander through breathtaking plains and mountains as she wished, though perhaps this was a blessing from her homeland’s archon, who she'd like to imagine smiled upon the pursuit of such luxury. 

Lantern Rite festivities were well underway; children played around the marketplace whilst foodies perused the stalls, new and old friends alike gathered to release lanterns and enjoy feasts. 

The biggest finale, however, was scheduled for later tonight. Her neighbours insisted she venture here to witness it in all its glory, and so she did, booking a few nights at Wangshu Inn. It wasn't as lively there as in the main city, though it seemed that it was more than enough to deter a certain yaksha...

Bedelia had long left the bustling crowds in the city to search for a spot to watch the fireworks. It was earlier than needed, but she also wanted to walk off the food in her stomach and savor the quiet nature outside.

The grass underneath her feet crinkled softly as she made her way up. Bedelia was far enough from the city that it was quiet, save for the chirp of animals and random bursts of smaller fireworks. A nostalgic feeling hugged her shoulders like the ghost of a friend. Back in Mondstadt, she would wander out at night to watch the stars, a cloak and notebook in hand that made her feel the littlest bit like she was on an adventure.

She couldn’t help but smile to herself. Her life might not be the most eventful, but it was certainly far from a boring one; she’d make sure of that.

Bedelia encountered a few people in passing, finding stray lanterns that landed in the oddest places after someone or another released them. It occurred to her that social workers would have to clean them up eventually, earning a pang of pity in her chest. She looked up to notice one caught in the branches of a tree. 

Considering that it wouldn't be any good for animals, she made to retrieve it from its precarious position. These must be bothersome too… 

For reasons unknown, this made her think of Xiao. Perhaps he'd say this was why he didn't bother with human ways, calling them unfathomable and fickle. She could almost hear him saying it, arms crossed and all. The smile that crept onto Bedelia's lips turned a little regretful; it was too bad she never got to see him in the weeks leading up to today. The nation was celebrating a well-loved tradition after all, it would’ve been fun to talk to him about it.

Xiao must be busy… 

Lost in her thoughts, Bedelia wandered around the bend of the mountain rather than continue to climb it. She'd eyed a taller point earlier as a potential viewing spot, however, a small break was in order. She grew used to the weight of the lantern in her arms and was now looking for a convenient place to leave it. 

She noticed a chamber on the side of the mountain - a cave. It wasn't too large of a space, but it was enough to sport the traces of a campfire and adventurer supplies. 

Bedelia almost dropped the lantern when something moved. Beneath the darkness was the gleam of golden eyes, she summoned her weapon instinctively, lowered into a cautious position when she realised…

Xiao?

"Wait- What the hell are you doing here?!" She sputtered. For what reason could Xiao have to rest in such a dark place in the middle of nowhere? "Even the fire isn't lit! I thought you were a panther or something!"

"There aren't any panthers in the area." Xiao paused. His polearm laid beside him where he sat. "You surprised me too, I didn't expect to see you here."

"You don't sound very surprised." Bedelia held her head in exasperation. Slowly, she picked her way into the cave and lit the leftover wood with her vision, sitting down near it.

Xiao swirled the fire with anemo, helping it burn. "I could hear your footsteps, it sounded human enough."

She didn't want to imagine what could've happened if he mistook her for a hilichurl. With the campfire burning, the cave danced in its light. Bedelia turned to reply only to freeze at the sight of Xiao; his skin was littered with remnants of battle, fresh and untreated.

"Did you just fight something?" Her eyes scanned for any serious wounds. "Do you need healing?"

"It's nothing." At Bedelia's unconvinced look, he lifted his arm to demonstrate that there was no difficulty. "Just the usual."

What's the extent of your usual? Her mouth pressed into a line. Xiao hadn't been around Wangshu Inn in weeks, meaning that he was busy warding off evil spirits. Did enough people notice the sacrifices he made for Liyue in the shadows?

"Were you going to release a lantern?"

Bedelia blinked, then followed his gaze to the item in question. She waved her hand as she answered. "Oh, this isn't mine. I found it while I was walking around, thought I’d pick it up since it landed awkwardly in a tree.”

Xiao sighed. “Those lanterns aren’t truly needed for an adeptus to hear your calls.” He took the curious look in Bedelia’s eyes as a sign to continue. “So long as you speak our names in prayer, or with enough will… It is possible it’ll stand out among the rest.”

“Does that mean you can normally sense it?” Her body leaned forward in interest. She’d heard of gods and beings that had this ability but never looked into it.

He pondered, making Bedelia wonder if he was listening to someone’s words as he glanced away. “I can’t speak for the others, but I can at least sense the strength of people’s prayers. Wishes for good health, hopes for a brighter future…” Xiao’s eyelashes fluttered close. “Sometimes they can be desperate, but it’s like a pool.”

“I see...” The words swam away in a whisper. “Have you ever heard my voice in that pool?” As quickly as she said it, Bedelia thought of another question. “Have any adepti contributed to it before?”

At that, he opened his eyes. Xiao was never easy to read, but it was even harder now when she’d said a bit too much; always stepped on the line, never more. Bedelia felt an odd twist in her chest at the idea that if she did cross over, Xiao might never be willing to see her again. So she backtracked, and straightened, with an uncharacteristic hurry in her voice. “Ah... I’m sorry, I didn’t mean... Please pretend I never said that.” Her hair curtained her from having to see his reaction as she lowered it in apology. “I forget, it’s hard to call us friends, right? Or maybe we are friends-- But it’s still not something I should’ve said.”

Bedelia stopped herself before she could ramble more, the words pouring out like a dam broke open. She scolded herself in her mind; what was she doing?

The sound of fireworks outside drew their attention, louder than before. Bedelia almost forgot her reason for coming here after having been distracted by Xiao.

It's a buildup to the Mingxiao Lantern's release, she thought. If she wanted to watch the show, she should get to a higher place quickly.

As if reading her mind, Xiao gestured for them to leave and guided her around the mountainside. They exchanged no more than a few words as he escorted her up, taking shortcuts and supporting her climb at trickier parts until they reached their destination - a peaceful spot graced with a singular qingxin bloom, and a clear view of Liyue Harbour from afar. 

Bedelia did her best to calm her racing heartbeat and focus on the lanterns that dotted the city like fireflies. Like they had numerous times in the past, the pair sat and watched the scenery together in each other's company. Except this time, it was a view neither of them were too accustomed to.

Finally, Xiao broke the silence. "It's not unheard of for an adeptus to call the name of another." It struck Bedelia that his quietness was because he was considering what she'd asked. "But in my field, there's no one to call to other than myself."

Bedelia's throat dried at its transparency; he was the last yaksha. "I can't imagine how endless the pool must feel when you're the only one braving it…" Her eyes were downcast. How lonely… But I can’t offend him more by saying that.

Xiao picked the qingxin, studying the flower in his hand. "I'm used to it. It’s simply my job, there's nothing for you to be sorry about." He raised his gaze to catch hers; timeless and solitary, like an adeptus' should be, but clear. "It's not like you're the cause of demons."

He offered the qingxin to Bedelia, who accepted it with a smile curved with slight disbelief. "It's true what they say about the adepti’s benevolence." Should she be surprised at all? Xiao had always been… "Or perhaps it's just you that is too good for the world."

Xiao held her gaze, so earnest in her view that he could not bring himself to deflect it. Instead; "If you'd released a lantern, what would you have wished for?"

The launch of the Mingxiao Lantern interrupted them, booming and flaring to life like a thousand stars, though Xiao did not look away from Bedelia's lips as she answered, or the micro-expressions that flitted across her face.

He stored those words into the depths of his mind as he turned his attention to the Lantern Rite's finale. As he watched the likeness of an old friend gallop into the night, he wondered if his dreams would ever see the same path into the sky.

At the very least, Xiao was certain that Bedelia's would. For he knew she could shake the stars with her impossibly determined flames, and he'd make sure nothing could ever dare to extinguish it.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 290: It’s Touya Time

Previously on BnHA: Iida and Hadou showed up like a couple of Pennsylvanias and Georgias to bail Shouto out at the last minute. Ochako and Toga had an exceptionally strange fight which consisted of Toga being all “guess what Ochako, I used your quirk to murder someone, how do you feel about that”, and Ochako being all “I do not like that”, to which Toga was all “:(”. There was some doll-stealing and some bookcase-yeeting, and then Toga left in tears because Ochako was all adamant that murder has consequences. Anyway so I have absolutely no idea what Toga is thinking now, but I guess we’ll have some time to stew on it, because we ended the chapter by cutting back to the Iida+Hadou+Shouto VS Afomura battle, which was interrupted by Gigantomachia and the LoV showing up like a bunch of Floridas to ruin everyone’s nice day.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi hands the mic over to Dabi and is all “take it away, kid.” Over in Room 315 of Musutafu General, Rei is all “may I please watch some TV” and the hospital staff is all “sure”, and so she tunes in just in time to catch Todoroki Touya’s Peabody Award-winning documentary “Number One Hero, Number One Fraud: The Todoroki Enji Story”, which is being broadcast nationwide courtesy of Skeptic and his magic laptop. Meanwhile in Jakku, Dabi is all “I’M TOUYA, BITCHES”, and Shouto and Enji are all, “(゜◇゜ )”, and Dabi is all, “anyway so just to sum it all up, because of how much of a jerk Endeavor was, I am now Evil.” Everyone continues to be all “(ﾟoﾟ)” except for Dabi, who is all “└(˘▾˘┌ )≡ ( ┐˘▾˘)┘≡┗( ˘▾˘)┛≡┏( ˘▾˘)┓≡┗( ˘▾˘)┛” for pretty much the rest of the chapter. Idk. Just let the man have his fun, guys. He’s waited a long time for this.

y’all I have a confession to make. I am technically not spoiled for this chapter thanks to my robustly paranoid system of spoiler-tag-filtering, which is extensive enough that it pretty much will catch whenever someone so much as breathes something even remotely new-chapter-related. that being said, I like to think that I am capable of making basic logical inferences! and so the fact that for the past 36 hours, my dashboard has pretty much nonstop consisted almost entirely of this...

...has led me to conclude that MAYBE, POSSIBLY, PROBABLY, BUT ALSO DEFINITELY, a certain someone is finally going to reveal his ~secret identity~ woop woop. lmao

anyway so everyone, please remember to act surprised though, as we would not want Dabi’s feelings to be hurt at all. he has been planning this moment for the last decade or so and I wouldn’t want him to feel like all of that effort was for naught. so just play along, okay. OH MY, IF IT ISN’T THE LEAGUE OF VILLAINS’ MYSTERIOUS DABI. WHATEVER COULD HIS ARRIVAL POSSIBLY BE HERALDING, I JUST DON’T KNOW

“Dabi’s Dance” lmao. I’m sticking with Touya Time myself. ngl I had this recap title planned out for at least the past year or so. just waiting for that day to finally come

anyway so some people in some building somewhere are all “TURN OFF THE TV IN ROOM 315” and idk. I’m guessing the LoV is hacking the airwaves to livestream the reveal, as predicted

-- oh shit. UHHHHHHHH

did she always have this TV or did she get it just recently?? jfc of all the times for the hospital staff to finally loosen up

um... so that’s... (・＿・；)

well but I mean, she was gonna find out one way or the other at some point though. like you can’t really just keep her locked up and isolated from all news of the outside world forever and ever and ever. granted, this isn’t exactly the ideal way for her to learn this particular bit of information, but it’s not really ideal for anybody else either! EXCEPT DABI, THAT IS. have yourself a day you funky little terrorist

oh shit what is this?? it’s not live???

over in Jakku, a red-faced, sputtering Dabi makes a frantic grab for Skeptic’s laptop. “WAIT, NO, JESUS, NOT THAT TAPE!”

lol. but seriously Dabi are you even wearing a shirt. like I’m not one to slutshame anyone bro, but it’s just, exactly what type of mood were you looking to set here??

anyway so we really are cutting back to Jakku now, and Gigantomachia is all, “MASTERS”! which, I wonder if he really did use the plural? that’s right Machia, both of them in one place now! that sure is convenient for you huh

lol what is this with all this AFO monologuing. you’re really gonna make me read through this when I’m sitting here all sleep-deprived from election week. JUST GET TO THE TOUYAS. WE WERE PROMISED TOUYAS!!

sigh

“tee hee it’s fucking hilarious how goddamn powerful I am now lol”

alas, in spite of myself I do have two serious takeaways from this. one is that AFO is still controlling most of Tomura’s body behind the scenes, which both does and doesn’t bode well for Tomura (like, at least he’s not dying, but the long-term implications of this for his free will and such certainly are not Good). and two is that this confirms that Ujiko did give Tomura at least one powerful mutant quirk, which explains why he was still so deadly and indestructible even when Aizawa was using Erasure on him (since Erasure doesn’t work on mutant quirks, just emitter and transformation ones)

MEANWHILE ON TODAY’S EPISODE OF “TODOROKI SHOUTO’S TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD LIFE”

I like how he doesn’t actually say that he can’t take on Gigantomachia. just that he can’t take on him and Afomura at the same time. that’s confidence, baby. that right there is why you always draft Todoroki Shouto in the first round for your fantasy team

HADOU!!!!

OOOH, TOMURA’S ALL “MAN, THIS GIRL’S WAVE POWERS AND THIS KID’S ICE POWERS ARE A SUPER-STRONG COMBO DAGNABBIT.” YESSS I LIKE THAT, TELL ME MORE ABOUT HOW COOL AND POWERFUL THEY ARE

HOT DAMN LOOK AT THAT

um but not to take away from this exceptionally cool moment or anything, but why is Endeavor dying and shouting “RUN” down there in the corner um

oh

excuse me. not to take away from How Bad This All Is, but!!

just a little, smol, IidaBaku for everyone. Iida, who apparently doesn’t know a damn thing about first aid and is all, “hmm that’s a pretty bad-looking puncture wound he has in his left shoulder there, I think I’ll just let his arm dangle freely like that and I won’t bother taking off his heavy gauntlets either. I mean. he’ll be fine, probably.” smh. at least Shouto probably cauterized the wounds

EXCUSE ME WHAT

TIME FOR MORE OF THAT GOOD OLD FASHIONED SHOUNEN RIDICULOUSNESS I GUESS LMAO. KACCHAN YOU HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO. THERE IS A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO, AND YOU LOST LIKE FOUR GALLONS OF BLOOD, BUT SURE. “PUT ME DOWN” HE SAYS. FIRST OF ALL, PUTTING ASIDE THE FACT THAT YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT BE CONSCIOUS, THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN GOING TO DO, LIE DOWN AT THEM?? LISTEN, YOU SWEET IDIOT. TAKE HEED, BELOVED DUMBASS!!

ah well. I guess he gets to watch the Touya Show now too then lol

LMAOOOO now Machia’s lifting Tomura carefully in his palm like a broken action figure and Spinner is all “THE FUCK, YOU LOOK LIKE DEATH WARMED OVER”

“oh hey there Spinner. well let’s see, I woke up from my three-month coma and destroyed a city, had my body incinerated, and am currently being possessed by a diabolically evil potato. but please, tell me more about everything you've been through”

AW YISS AND THE FOCUS NOW SHIFTS TO THE TODOROKIS. EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING EXACTLY AS WE HAVE FORESEEN

Endeavor my dude. it’s as if you want to die here. also holy shit, that bit about his lungs definitely does not bode well for him either

MOTHERFUCKER

GO AHEAD AND SIGN YOUR OWN DEATH CERTIFICATE, WHY DON’T YOU!! FLAGS UPON FLAGS. JESUS CHRIST

meanwhile Dabi’s just waving at ‘em

lmaoooo please oh please Caleb please keep this ‘EYYYYYYY’, it’s fucking perfect kdlshk;hg

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(ETA: so as you will see very shortly, I completely missed this detail in my first read-through because I was so anxious to get to the reveal page, but THIS MOTHERFUCKER LITERALLY DOUSED HIMSELF WITH INSTANT HAIR DYE REMOVER THAT HE’S JUST BEEN CARRYING AROUND IN A LITTLE HIP POUCH APPRENTLY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. MOTHERFUCKER. I HAVE NO WORDS.)

IS THIS THE TIME. IS THIS THE MOMENT?! HERE IT COMES SLKFHS BRACE YERSELVES LADS

EYYYYYYYYYYYY

OKAY EVERYONE JUST LIKE WE PRACTICED!! SURPRISED FACES ON THREE! ONE... TWO... (•̪ o •̪) !! okay how was that

LMAO ENDEAVOR

at least Shouto looks properly stunned. Enji just looks like endeavor.exe just straight up stopped working

meanwhile Deku’s out here trying to do the math on this latest surprise family reveal! first Tomura is related to Nana, and now this. what’s next. who are you related to, Spinner. he rips off his boots to reveal engine legs and declares himself Iida’s long-lost uncle

oh shit Touya

it’s as if a million fanworks suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly jossed. who knew that all this time he was secretly sporting a crop top scar

also, THIRTY?! holy shit son you been busy

la la la two-page spread of Touya casually driving the dagger into Endeavor’s hero career and rocking the foundations of hero society as we know it la la la

la la la!!!

OH IS THAT THE END OF THE STORY THEN

almost got confused for a sec. there’s two monologues happening at once here. Endeavor doesn’t even know that his dirty laundry is being aired out nation-wide as we speak ffffff

btw while I appreciate the close-ups of Enji and Shouto here for sure, ngl I would also really love to see everyone else’s reactions right now. SHOW ME BAKUGOU AND THE LOV YOU COWARDS

is his hair actually turning white all of a sudden?? your hair dye just reacts on command??

(ETA: in all seriousness though, the hell kind of hair dye was he using? all he has to do is pour a bottle of that stuff and not even lather it in and it’s just gone just like that?? what the fuck would have have done if it ever rained lmao.

and this motherfucker just goes and leaves the dye remover in afterwards, too. I have never dyed my hair in my life and even I can tell you that’s probably not a good idea, Dabi.)

is this it. is this the legendary Dabi Dance in action. lmfao

oh hey what the fuck

so you figured you’d just murder your innocent younger brother to get revenge on dad, huh. well that’s nice

is that really all there is to the origin story though?? feels like we’re still missing a huge chunk of it. what was it that finally sent him over the edge? or was the trauma of being created as Endeavor’s perfect little hero tool and then being subsequently rejected by him enough on its own? because I’m still kind of confused on the part where he goes from “abused and discarded by his father” to “killed thirty people and was plotting the murder of his own brother” to tell you the truth

(ETA: lmao the initial fandom reaction to this did not disappoint. listen guys. people can be traumatized and shaped by awful circumstances that are completely out of their control, and grow up to be people they wouldn’t have grown up to be if things had been better, and all of that absolutely sucks, but. it doesn’t mean they get a get-out-of-jail-free card for all of their future actions, either! the tragedy of this situation is that terrible things happened to Touya, and he then went on to do terrible things himself. the tragedy of it is that this is exactly how the cycle of abuse keeps repeating itself on and on and on. maybe one of the people Dabi killed had a child who will now grow up traumatized themselves, and potentially go on to pay it forward themselves when they grow up. the tragedy is that the eye-for-an-eye justice that Touya is seeking out won’t actually make anything better in the end. the tragedy is that we understand why Touya is so angry, but that anger has basically warped him into the gleefully sadistic dancing figure we see in this chapter who has stopped caring about anyone else’s pain or suffering and just wants his own revenge.

anyway. basically what I’m trying to say is that it’s possible for the concepts of “Todoroki Touya was an innocent child and a victim of abuse” and “Dabi is a grown-ass motherfucking adult who killed thirty people and PROBABLY NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THAT” to coexist lol. like, y’all wanted your moral grey, well HERE YOU GO lmao, eat up.)

lol but LOOK AT THAT BOY DANCE HIS LITTLE HEART OUT though

Todoroki Touya confirmed not a fan of the Endeavor redemption arc huh. well we all saw this coming lols

anyways here’s a sexy Touya for y’all

you really are the most theatrical bitch I s2g lmao

also for real though, what is happening with his hair? anime team in shambles here. they’re probably just gonna double down and keep it red. too bad though cuz this is a surprisingly good look on him

SO MANY CLOSE-UPS OF THE TODOROKI FACES

friendly reminder that Dabi without a doubt REHEARSED this speech like a thousand fucking times. LET US FALL TOGETHER!! COME DANCE WITH YOUR SON IN HELL. apparently if you fake your own death in middle school you will never mentally age past that point and will remain a permanent chuuni

OH LMAO THAT’S THE END

we really just gonna end on “DANCE WITH YOUR SON IN HELL”, huh. very well then. you know what song to play, Horikoshi. one, two... YOU ARE MY DAD. YOU’RE MY DAD!! BOOGIE WOOGIE WOOGIE

[mallowstep]

Twanypelt just bitching about Misty's comment the entire day and a half after Misty made it, until Blackstar is like. "Mistyfoot got a fucking point and you know it, so shut the fuck up." Twanypelt seethes.

But yes, Oakheart Reedwhisker clone! Riverclan just...loses their collective minds when he's born. Oakheart was a very much beloved honorable warrior, and Reedkit looking like him brings back some much needed memories of honor and pride. Like, Mistyfoot, Feathertail, Stonefur, and Storm are the only ones who actually chastise him/punish him when he does something wrong.

The other cats? Reedkit walks right over them, and Hawkpaw, Mothpaw, and Frogpaw kinda egg him on at times. They can't help it, they find it hilarious that Reedkit can get Heavystep or Leopardstar or Mudfur to *nearly* let him out of camp, until Misty, or Feather, or Stone, or Storm catches the older cats crumbling willpower. Even Blackclaw is different around him. He still hates kids, but he doesn't snap at Reedkit. Reedkit still has nothing to do with him, however.

("That kit has some sense in his head." Blackclaw remarks, watching Reedkit bat at a passing dragonfly. "Maybe he'll be half the warrior Oakheart was."

"He'll be better," Leopardstar pronounces, beaming at the kit. "Oakheart was a great warrior. Reedkit will be one too.")

y'all are Killing me lately, you know that? god. ilysm.

yesss...okay i already hc that shadowclan is pissed about tigerkit's name and like -- yeah. they're extra pissed here. a lil too tired to dig thru allegiances n also my back hurts but. russetfur? maybe? she's probably like "hey tawnypelt what the fuck" first.

and then blackstar -- who in the misty au has a somewhat parental relationship to tawnypelt -- is like "hey kiddo maybe don't?"

tawnypelt: counterpoint i've already named them and i'll kick the ass of anyone who tells me to change it

rowanclaw: i love u babe ur doing amazing sweetie

and that's how tigerkit keeps his name.

and yeah!!! oakheart was a Rock of riverclan for a long time. he was Charismatic. he yelled at his brother when crookedstar was being stupid. kits and apprentices loved him. warriors respected him. his kids were fantastic. and--

when reedkit is born, in this dark, reddish brown with stripes on his legs and tail, everyone knows instantly, "oh, he looks like oakheart."

and while tnp allegiances are a mess i don't feel like sorting out atm, reedkit is definitely well spoiled by riverclan. even if he didn't look like oakheart -- everyone is really happy for mistyfoot. but he does look like oakheart and like.

it's certainly crossed riverclan's mind that if oakheart had lived, tigerclan never would have happened. that oakstar never would have agreed to work with tigerstar. they're quiet about it, of course. it would only hurt everyone to say it out loud. but that doesn't mean they don't think it.

and so yeah. he's definitely well-loved and spoiled by the older cats. which is pretty much everyone. shadepelt, feathertail, and stormheart (as well as frogpaw, mothpaw, and hawkpaw) are the only ones immune to his oakheart charms.

mistyfoot and stonefur are also immune, but they actively choose to spoil him anyway. and also like. discipline appropriately. kits need Boundaries and Rules. riverclan in general believes that like. kits need clear boundaries and rules, with which they can then relax in. which makes sense: their camp is literally a clearly marked boundary within which kits can play and be safe in.

but like. oh man. as far as lakeshine, sunfish, mudfur, skyheart, etc., are concerned? reedkti can do no wrong.

and mothpaw, hawkpaw, and frogpaw 100% encourage it. for One they find it very fun to no longer be the young kit that feathertail is grooming because "you cannot look like you've been dragged through the mud by a badger, reedkit." and -- he's like. in that weird place where.

growing up, someone would be like, "oh yeah, XYZ had a baby and now i have a baby aunt you want to see a picture?" and like. that thing. reedkit is mistyfoot's kit and feathertail is mistyfoot's...kit? and that means ??? but it's still funny. they see him as a little brother.

anyway, i derailed myself, they also adore him. he's cute, and they find it hilarious to see what he can almost get away with. because they were raised in a Very tense time, right? like. feathertail was Very Protective very like Hell you are sneaking out of camp no sir. back in the nursery with you.

and reedkit is born into a really good time for riverclan. so it's -- kind of like. he's going to get into all the trouble we couldn't. but then he doesn't get into trouble which makes the whole thing even more fun and mistyfoot is shedding whiskers trying to get riverclan to please just say No to him.

and yeah! mistyfoot is the biggest Blackclaw you are Banned from the nursery. and also the nursery's surrounding territory. maybe just -- the whole side of camp the nursery is on.

but blackclaw...i dunno. he looks at reedkit and -- he feels guilty about what happened in a way he can't sublimate to anger. the only person to be angry at is himself. so he definitely has a soft spot for reedkit, even if reedkit never finds out.

and yeah! yeah. reedkit. he's well-loved. sometimes he and feathertail wait together for mistyfoot to get back from patrol and it makes her laugh because they have the same "i missed you so much i know you were only gone for an hour but it was the longest hour of my life" expression.

[pomegranates-and-blood]

νοσταλγία (Chapter 1)

(Gif credit to @kikuthestrange​)

νοσταλγία Masterlist

Pairing: Ivar/Reader (eventual)

Summary: This is a retelling/romantization of the Greek myth of Persephone’s abduction with Ivar as Hades and you as Persephone. The Reader character is a Byzantine woman, follower of the Greek Pantheon/Religion, and a devoted follower of Persephone. This takes place after 5A, but the universe of this is a little changed in relation with the series, of course. Thank you for giving it a chance, hope you enjoy!

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: As usual, mentions and descriptions of blood, death, torture, injury and people being burnt alive. Mentions or allusions to rape. If there’s anything else I didn’t mention, please let me know. Fair warning that the Reader Character may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but please give her a chance.

A/N: Um, idk. Hope you like this, and again, really sorry if this is OOC. That is one hell of an insecurity I have when I start writing for new characters, but I really hope I’m not messing Ivar or any of the others up.

You are focused on the blending of some herbs to help the pain of some of the warriors, when a round metal shield is dropped at your feet. You raise your eyes from the snake engraved on the old metal to the Saxon, giving away nothing except a small twitch of your mouth.

But you know what that symbol is. It is a mark of the Attics.

“Most of the Greeks are dead,” He states, certainly, viciously. Your eyes fall closed, and you heave a sigh. “And I will personally see that the survivors are hunted down.”

You knew this was going to happen. The Varangians cornered Stithulf into the confine of these walls and yet last night he sent a hunting party, the best of the best within his Arab mercenaries.

You knew he wasn’t going to try and kill Ivar the Boneless or his brothers. No, he was going to take revenge on the people he deemed failed him, the people he deemed owed him a victory.

And it makes the whole ground cave under your feet, the realization that it is done. That the last of the Attics lie bloodied on the unforgiving earth. That their faith in you, their love for you, was their downfall.

Just like Narses’.

“I always knew you Christians were just as bloody and cruel as the worst of us,” You say instead, looking down at the shield again and picking it up with trembling hands, “You slaughtered hundreds of innocents.”

“If you had fought for us…” He starts, but you interrupt him with a glare. Some things don’t change even if you get far from home: all it takes to stop an army, to make a man like Stithulf hesitate, is a heathen witch.

If only their God hadn’t taught him to fear yours, the world would be so different.

“We’d all rather be dead than slaves to a Christian.” You hiss out, curling your fingers over the cold and bloodied metal. And you mean more than this battle, this war not your own that regardless you lost; no, you mean Byzantium, and the home you left behind.

“You could have avoided all of this, Greek.” He insists, the scar that runs from his neck to his uneven sideburn stretching around the smile he offers.

For a moment you imagine letting your hand run a knife deeply through that scar, open it again and see it pour red and victorious blood. Trace with a knife over every scar, so that he only remembers the torment you brought him.

No, that’s wrong. Trying to hide the grimace at your own thoughts, you shake off the shame and stand up. Holding on tightly to the shield, you feel you carry the weight of thousands of Greeks on your hand.

And because you were taught speaking things helped make them real, you promise, “Our Gods live on, and the worship of them is not something blades and blood can smother. Quieten, yes, but never silence.”

“You will die for your pagan ways, you know this, don’t you?” He asks, stopping you for a moment at the…honesty in his voice.

“I do not fear death,” You answer, and when you walk past an open window that looks over the foreign and cold horizon you add, quiet enough that only the Gods may hear you, “I welcome it. Let Hades summon me home.”

“I have reached an agreement with the Vikings,” Stithulf calls out, voice loud and echoing in the halls. You grip the shield tighter. “There will be…negotiations tomorrow.”

Your mouth smiles and your tongue runs with dangerous words before you can stop yourself, “You will sit and talk with the same men you scoured the world trying to kill?”

“I know when I am defeated, Greek. Something you lack.”

You say nothing else, the defeat finally setting over your shoulders and all you can do to keep appearances is to keep walking and pretend the tears are not clogging your view as you walk past unfamiliar halls, on unfamiliar grounds, with the weight of unfamiliar and familiar ghosts over your head.

Spending the rest of the day, almost till the sun sets, taking care of some wounds and fevers, you can almost pretend to yourself that the life you give here, the damage you heal here; can start to make up for all the death you and your mistakes have caused.

You raise your head from your work on the stitching when strange rhythmic sounds reach your ears.

Metal on wood. Dragging sounds. Metal on wood again. Something dragged again.

The door to the barren and almost empty home you are using as a makeshift infirmary opens, and the silhouette of Ivar the Boneless stands on the doorway.

Your heart pounds in your ears, and the warrior with his injured skin under your fingers hisses a breath when your needle pierces deeper than intended into his skin. You mumble an apology in Greek, but keep your eyes on the King.

“You don’t need healing.” You quip quietly in his language, rising to your feet and motioning for the Greek you were helping to remain in his seat.

To be honest, you don’t know why you stand up, why you straighten your back and raise your chin. You can pretend to be as tall as you wish, as strong as you wish, but everyone in this room knows if the Varangian wants you dead you will be so.

“I wanted to talk to you.” The Viking offers, forced nonchalance as he approaches. His legs don’t seem to work normally, and the contraptions around them are like you never saw before. The healer in you notes they look…painful.

He gets close enough you can see his handsome face clearly in the candlelight, but far enough you don’t feel threatened. The King remains standing, straight and proud, by one of the wooden pillars.

His pale eyes, you note in the now clear view the candles provide you, switch to the warrior sitting a few feet behind and then return to you. You resist the urge to play with your fingers.

“Why?” You ask, retrieving with trembling hands one of the linens you will use as bandages for the wound on the Greek warrior’s back.

“I’m…curious.”

“So am I,” You reply, rolling the needle you use for the stitches between your thumb and forefinger as you study the man. “It is not every day that I find myself meeting with a Viking King.”

“So you know who I am.” He states, and you cannot know if he is disappointed, proud, or a mix of the two.

“Of course I do,” You answer without hesitation, “And I also know it is not me who you are supposed to be meeting.”

“I wanted to talk with you, witch.” He insists again, reminding you of a spoiled child, but also showing you that, either for the foreignness or something entirely him, the Varangian is uncertain on how to talk to you.

It almost makes a smile curve at your lips, and your impulsive heart wants you to send the warrior off and talk with this strange man, this…Ivar the Boneless.

“I…am busy,” You answer instead, returning to your stitching. If your hand trembles a little and you cause a little more pain than you intended as you finish up the last of the stitches, no one can blame you. “I must tend to the wounded, Varangian.”

“A smart woman would know better than to deny me.”

“I never claimed to be smart.”

“Are you always this insufferable, woman?” He snaps, anger rises in his voice, making the warrior you are standing behind tense under your fingers as they wrap a bandage over his back and ribs to keep the wound from infection.

But you, past the fear, feel a small smile start to curve at your lips when you find the pale eyes of the Varangian King.

“I try.” You reply with a shrug, but a growl is the only answer you get.

You watch with wide eyes as the Viking unsheathes a small knife from somewhere in his chest and, instead of throwing it like you would expect, he flips it so that he grabs onto the blade instead of the handle.

His fist clenches around it, eliciting a sharp breath from the King and blood that drips between his fingers.

“There,” He grunts, opening his hand and letting the knife clatter unceremoniously to the wooden floor. He returns his piercing pale eyes to you and his mouth almost bares in a snarl, his nose furrows in cold anger, as he speaks, “Now you have to tend to me.”

So the rumors were true, he is actually crazy. Although you doubt a man that can topple Aelle, that can conquer York, is crazy.

No, he is clever. If maybe too angry and arrogant, he is still cunning. That thought alone reminds you to keep your guard up.

A part of your mind begs you to be sensible about this, not to do anything stupid, but you finish wrapping the wound on the warriors back with skilled fingers, and tap his shoulder so that he stands. Ivar the Boneless keeps his eyes on you, defiantly and terrifyingly, as he watches you move. You turn your attention to the Greek and nod as goodbye, “Go, I will be fine.”

The man looks between the Varangian and you, before putting his right fist to his heart, his left arm bent behind him in a goodbye and a sign of respect to you.

“Anassa.” He mutters in farewell, and you watch him go wondering how many days will it take for him to also die because of your mistakes.

And as the door closes behind the Greek, you notice truly how engulfing the darkness and the defenselessness are. The city moves on around you, but all that reaches the small cabin you are in is the faint sounds of a stray horse or farm animal. The Saxons wouldn’t want the heathen witch to be near their soldiers, after all, even in a city that was never theirs with barely any civilians on it.

All that means you are all alone and defenseless, with a Viking known for his cruel and vicious ways. Gritting your teeth and fighting to keep your heartbeat from drumming away in your ears, you turn back to the Varangian and motion for a chair near you.

He doesn’t move. Of course he doesn’t, because no one in this cursed land listens to a damn word you say.

His hand still drips red to the wooden floor, and you pointedly look at it where it rests on his side and back to his face. The King only cocks his head to the side, eyes narrowed.

“You speak many tongues,” The Varangian states, not even a question, “Our language, the Saxons’, but I don’t recognize the other one.”

“Greek,” You reply, “I am not from here.”

“I noticed.”

With a shrug, you state, “Probably why you haven’t killed me yet, isn’t it?”

But the Viking doesn’t answer. Instead, he limps towards you, but where there should be -to a sane woman, maybe- a threat, a danger, you only find your heart beating with the same fast pace it did when you were about to cross a dangerous and wild stream by Eleusis’ forests. A hint of fear, a hint of curiosity, and much more than a hint of freedom.

The rage of the stream deafened you, uncertainty beat quickly on your chest…but your bare feet still continued running towards the water.

You keep your eyes on his.

“You are…outspoken, witch. Are all Greeks like you?”

“You should lower your eyes when men are speaking.” He advises with more than a little anger in his tone.

You hear faintly of Sieghild’s mocking scoff, and you stand up from your chair and stalk to Narses in a few strides, keeping your eyes on him. A sick part of you is trying to test him, to dare him into laying hands on you to shut you up.

The lies would come easier if he did.

“I cower before no man, my love.” The endearment drips with poison, and the twitch in his expression tells you he is aware of it.

There’s rustling of armor, and out of the corner of your eye you catch sight of Lysander straightening to his full height, the mantle of the soon-to-be Anax of Sparta set well over his shoulders as he walks calmly towards you.

For a moment of distrust and panic, you think he will take the side that wants to silence you, but your cousin stands next to you, although slightly behind, offering you his support. His hand is comforting on your shoulder.

“You may do things differently in Attica, but in Laconia our women are not slaves,” Lysander promises, voice dripping authority and more than a slight threat, “Descendant of Theseus, aren’t you?” He breathes out a chuckle, “You will have to venture into the Underworld like your ancestor to make a woman of Spartan blood cave.”

You breathe out a laugh, “No.”

“So you are not afraid of me.”

You look into his pale eyes and wonder for a moment. What is there to fear? It is true his fame precedes him, even if you choose to ignore his name, his truth. Rumors of madness, ruthlessness, unpredictability, rage, cruelty; they all are kept safely in your mind, to torment you faintly with exactly the kind of beast you try to dance with.

But you remember the time that mad man in the flimsy boat offered to take you to cross the Aegean, and how the threat of pain and death and cold all hung over you like shadows; and yet the curiosity of what lay in the realm of what if made you still get on that feeble boat. You have a feeling it is the same kind of stubborn and reckless curiosity that makes you offer the King a small smile.

“I learned long ago not to fear any man, Varangian.” You answer, motioning with your hand to his injured one, hoping for response this time.

The Viking’s eyes are defying as they challenge yours, but you refuse to lower your gaze. He sits by you on one of the chairs, movements graceful and confident as he discards the crutch he uses to walk by the table.

After a breath, he offers you his injured hand.

You don’t hesitate, even if a part of you tells you that you should, and take a seat at his side, working instinctively as you start wetting a clean cloth in some water infused with honeysuckle and goldenseal.

Taking his hand and opening the rough fingers to your sight and touch, you clean off the blood and hope silently that you are not the one responsible for Ivar the Boneless getting an infection for a stupid wound on his hand.

“Why are you and your people here, if you are from the Mediterranean?” He asks suddenly, but it doesn’t startle you like it should.

With a deep breath and keeping your eyes on your work, you offer, “The obvious answer would be attacking your city, my King.”

“And retreating.” He points out lowly, not biting into your taunt.

Lifting your eyes to his, you search his pale gaze for a few moments. You offer him sincerity in exchange for his calm, “The Christians were going to surrender, we knew this the moment your army arrived. We had no interest in this war of yours.”

“Then why fight in it?”

“Obvious answer, my King?” You ask around a smirk, and the man’s eyes darken as he leans closer. A finger underneath your chin threatens you as much as a sharp blade could, and you swallow past a dry throat.

“Careful.” He cautions, and his lips curve around a smile as dangerous and poisonous as it is enthralling and tempting.

“Our commander agreed we aided the Saxons in exchange for their army’s help in our homeland. With my-…with the commander dead the Greeks were called to retreat.”

“But not you,” He points out, still uncomfortably close. “You didn’t retreat.”

You wish you had an answer to his unspoken question. But you don’t. You could have run with Galla and the others, you could have forged your own path with Sieghild away from battle, the Gods know you have done so before.

You could have, but still you fell back to the Saxon city as if survival was to be achieved only by acceptance of defeat.

“A lady ought to have her secrets, I’m afraid.” You answer instead, lowering your eyes back to your work. Although you can sense the young Viking wants to demand more, because of course he does, he remains silent.

______

Hi, thank you for reading! I really hope you are liking this so far, and that it isn’t boring lol

Again, thank you so much, and I’d love to hear from you!

[robin-the-enby]

Hey! I love your matchups and I really want one with on the black butler characters.

I am ISTJ and even though I was born in America I come from a Mexican family. So I am fluent in Spanish and English. Along side of Mandarin Chinese (still learning) and Japanese (still learning)

Appearance wise, I have olive skin, long wavy/curly hair that reaches my tailbone (i like putting it in side braid). I also have long bangs that quite often fall over my glasses. And just too lazy to move them. I also have dimples when I smile. I will bite anyone who try poke them.

Personality: I can get hard to know at first because I have trust issues (my heart has been broken okay) . Not too mention people don't try to get know me because of my major Resting Bitch Face. They think I am judging them or that I am scary. But I am not... I am attentive so I will stand up for myself and anyones else. I am patient. Also, after you get to know me you will realize I am a chaotic crackhead with a melodramatic persona. Like "your star is here!" "The stage is calling for me. Move out of my way" "the spotlight is on me so could you move you crusty face?" I like to tease and flirt with the people I am close to. I zone out or daydream a lot. And in the worst times. It could be a serious meeting and I am chuckling because of something in my head. Which have scared people. It could be during a conversation and I will stop listening. But I will always feel bad and apologize.

I also like to scare people. Like tell them the unsolved cases or horrific cases that I know (I love unsolved cases) . This is also why my little siblings hate me. Turns out talking kids murder cases and disapperinv cases was not appropriate for bed time story... woops.....

I like to pop out of nowhere and either flick or playfully punch my friends and say boo. I do accidentally roast people. I don't think before I say things. And don't realize until hours or days later. And I am like "shit"

I am sarcastic and that has gotten me in trouble before. My friend asked for my advice and I didn't know she was being serious. So I gave her a sarcastic advice and she came back to me mad. I was like "shit you believed me?"

Likes/hobbies: i like my anatomy class and I like to read, write, meditate (because I get stressed a lot). I really like to dance and listen to music. Which my music taste is everywhere: Kpop, classical music, jazz, jpop, Spanish songs, rock, metal. Every music genre except for country. I like to play the violin.

My passion lies in the arts and crafts. I would like to do illustration and photography. More specifically street fashion photography and and event photography. Like weddings and funerals. Yes funeral photography does exist and I will like to do it. Since it is also special event. I draw a lot of portraits and landscapes. I have been told that my art is either scary or mysterious. Though I can get a little caught up with my passion. I practice to get better with no rest.

Flaws/toxic traits: I am not empathetic or sympathetic. People always thought I didn't care about my friend's issues. I do i just don't understand them. My compassion does make up for this and will give advice. My other flaw, is the high walls I build to protect myself. I am there for other people. But people were never there for me. People have manupliated me and that cause me trust issues. I don't know how to handle negative emotions like depression, anxiety, self doubt, procrastination. So I just isolate myself in these moods. They really take a toll on me and make me think I can't do my passions. I am afraid of commitment because of toxic relationships i had before.

Love language: I am not obvious with affection. (Because no one ever gave me it). I show it through my teasing and flirting. My love language is however Act of Service. I will help my s/o with anything they need. Chores, work, advice, etc. Sort of the mom of my friend group. But a Savage mom as I have been told. "Stop crying, here I made you a cookie" "do I need to hurt someone" "don't worry I can get coffin with a lock in it". I am also an aggressive supporter. Like "No YOU are beautiful. YOU are gorgeous!" (This happened when someone gives me affection and time try to turn the attention to them as way to hide my fluster)

I will call my s/o like "stupid" "idiot" but in a endearing way. Okay. Occasionally I will use "beloved" and "Cariño/cariña"

I am not good receiving verbal affection or physical affection. I was never given affection so I am not used to it. I will start blushing and stop working. I will also probably say "idiot" or turn the attention to them like "no.. u" but I think fails because I am terrible at hiding my blush. I get easily flustered with affection okay. But I won't ever admit that I like it. Though it is obvious.

Sexuality: i am bisexual so it doesn't matter what gender I am paired up with.

Funt fact i guess?: I love small plants, plushies, and banana milk. Like I have hundreds of different kinds of plants and they each have their own name. Like GGmo, Lily, Melody, Edward. I love Banana milk as I said. I drink it every evening. It always get me happy so when I am sad or had a bad day. I drink banana milk and I am happy. It is also to make up for my coffee addiction. I am addicted to coffee. My friends said no coffee and I was like fine banana milk then :)

This is getting long now... bye.

I'm glad that you like my matchups, I'm trying my best tbh😅 I match you with:

Sebastian Michaelis

Sebastian is very curious in nature, so he definitely wants to know what you're really like, not the front you put on.

He's also very charming when he wants to, he makes it very easy to open up to him and get comfortable around him.

Sure, he, as a demon, doesn't really care much for humans, so when he doesn't have to play the polite, kind butler, he probably has a RBF as well, however, I think that changes when he's interacting with someone he loves.

His sweet words may have been a mask at first, so he could see the real you, but the closer you two become, the more he means every word of praise, encouragment or comfort he utters.

He would most certainly be amused by your crackhead self once you do get comfortable around him, but it's not really his vibe. He wouldn't scold you for being loud, brash or inapropriate, like he does the other servants.

If he's in a really good mood or when the situation calls for it, he can be dramatic as well. Sometimes he'd do it just to get on Ciel's nerves XD

One big pro of being with Sebastian is that he lets you off the hook a lot. If he was talking to anyone else and they'd space out, oh honey, he would stare them down so hard, it's sending chills down my spine just thinking about it. But if it's you it's like a complete 180, Sebastian can't possibly be mad at you, everyone spaces out sometimes, those things just happen.

The other servants make sure to be on your good side so that you could intercede with him on their behalf.

You can't scare him with your true crime stories, but you sure as hell can scare the others. And you can bet your ass Seb's gonna help! The plan is: You tell the story and then he's gonna pop up out of nowhere behind them, giving them mini heart attacks.

If you try to scare him though, you'll need to be on guard 24/7 until he gets you in return. And even if your on guard all the time, he finds a way to scare the life out of you.

Your humor is practically the same, I mean, Sebastian is great at off handed remarks/roasts and sarcastic comments that you have to look for to really see them. You two could be talking shit about anyone and everybody would be like "Oh yeah, normal conversation, yes"

Sebastian would love to dance with you. And trust me when I say this, he is good at any type of dance. If you two are ever at a ball, prepare your feet, because he's not gonna let go of you the whole night (unless his master is in danger of course).

He would be your #1 supporter, he'd go with you out to take photos, and if you asked him to look at some, he'd take a good long look at each and every one of them and describe in detail how he feels about them. Also would go to any art shows you'd host if it came to it.

When it comes to sympathy and empathy, Sebastian also has a hard time showing these feelings. He's been alive for far longer than any human on Earth and he's a demon. He's never had any of the problems humans have, so naturally he doesn't kniw what it feels like to have them. Plus, before you came into his life, he didn't care much for them either.

However, he's gonna be there for you whenever you need him, emotionally or practically, even though he doesn't get your feelings.

You both have walls put up, you because of bad past experiences, him because as a demon, he has major issues with being vulnerable in any way. And I'm not talking just emotionally here, but demons are almost undestroyable, yet they have very few weaknesses that they just need to hide away.

It's rare Sebastian has a problem, but even if he had, you wouldn't know, because he thinks you, as a human, wouldn't understand and so he won't burden your mind with it. However, he's very perceptive and so if your behaviour changes, be it due to anxiety or a depressive episode, he'll know.

Now, he's not the type of person to try and break down your walls by force, but in situstions like these, where he's not sure how to help, you gotta talk to him and he won't leave you alone until you tell him how he can help.

He's not above carrying you around and doing everything for you until you're embarassed enough to tell him

He is very appreciative of your help around, since the other servants are good at everything but what they're supposed to do.

You with your tough love and Sebastian with his teeth rotting compliments and affection, it'd be honestly really funny to watch. He adores how you show affection, because it's different from most people he's known. But on the other hand, you can't expect him not to spoil you afte all the hard work you do every day?

He would really shower you in love and affection, because you deserve it and because it makes you flustered XD