#Its late at night and I suck at remembering users

[magicalmyths]

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[osunism]

Summary: A young widowed sorceress seeks protection under the aegis of the Honored One, but he has a better idea for keeping her out of the clutches of her dangerous clan.

Warnings: Gojo might be a lil’ toxic, there’s some smut in this story [a lot actually the attraction is pretty instant], and it’s already on AO3 if that’s the format you prefer.

V.

         Gojo returns in the small hours of the night for the next three nights. Asabé, not wanting to face the frigidness and distance they’ve suddenly found between them, is sure to be in her room and asleep by the time he warps into the penthouse. Some nights, though, she finds herself staying up much later, and she wonders if he will comment on her unsealing herself.

     He does eventually comment, just not in a way she expects.

     Gojo has been observing her, of course. He can’t help it. After a long day, and most of the night, having to wear a blindfold to prevent migraines, he warps into his penthouse to find himself bombarded with Asabé’s deep blue cursed energy. It’s seeping into everything like someone spilled over a heavy bottle of strong perfume. Everything in the penthouse is touched by it, shimmering in his vision. He speaks a word of power to dispel it, and registers her surprised gasp in her bedroom.

     She comes out, looking alert and on guard. When she sees Satoru, watching her as if she had just paraded out naked, she comes up short.

     “Oh,” she says. “It’s you. I thought…”

     “I told you no one would come here even if you took the seal off,” Satoru says a little acerbically, with just a tad bit of condescension for added spice. He watches it hit her nerves like well-placed throwing knives. Why he is enjoying hurting her in these little ways he doesn’t know. The way her eyes water just a little, her lip quivers, and she sucks in that shaky little inhale to keep her composure?

     Satoru loves that.

     “Yes,” she says, her voice regaining its confidence. “I see that, now.”

     “Did I wake you?” He asks, his tone a tad sharp. Asabé shakes her head.

     “You’re not the only one who has been keeping late hours, Satoru,” she tells him. Gojo ignores how his name from her mouth—that pretty mouth he kissed until it was love-swollen and beestung just a few nights prior—makes his stomach leap. She shapes it with a strange inflection, a taste of her mother tongue on his given name.

     It’s surprisingly more intimate than spreading her legs and torturing her cunt with open-mouthed kisses until she doesn’t remember how to beg.

     It’s only been a few days but he’s been hoping their avoidance of one another would cool his blood. But the sight of her like this: casual, as if she has always lived here like some sort of domesticated girlfriend [or a housewife, he thinks with bitter irony]. His dick is hard and he doesn’t know why.

     Fuck her.

     He wants to—badly—but also fuck her.

     “Yeah? Well, try not to stay up too late. I may need you sharp.” He makes his way toward his bedroom, pausing next to her to add, “We’re down to three curse users, now. You’re welcome.”

     Asabé doesn’t see so much as a fleck of blood on his uniform, or his hair. He’s pristine as he was when he left this morning. Not only that, but as he stands next to her, she can finally feel his cursed energy, and it sends a chill down her spine.

     She has never felt anything so limitless.

     It’s like a bottomless well, neverending, steady and precisely controlled…overwhelming. She can feel the electric thrum of energy between them as she strays too close but never seems to be quite close enough: infinity.

Why does he have it on in the house?

     Why does it bother her that he has it on?

     Because it was only a few nights ago that she was trying to see how much closer than skin they could get. The memory of her panting and moaning in his ear, of the sweet, delicious stretch of his cock inside of her, and his deep voice talking her through her climax again and again. She can still taste the salt of his clean sweat on her tongue. She can still remember how delightful his muscles felt gliding under her clutching hands, her nails carving stripes into his back, her lips claiming the elegant column of his throat. She can still feel the ache in her muscles days later, and every time she looks at the couch she sees herself leaned back, her legs in the air, thighs pushed back, black lace panties dangling from her foot, and Satoru, on his fucking knees, his thumbs spreading her pussy open before he spit in it and got to work, and made her watch the entire time, those galactic eyes holding her gaze captive, his mouth and nose buried in her folds.

     Don’t you dare look away. I want you to watch me ruin you.

And she had. And he did. She’d never felt more electrified in her entire life. Nor would she ever again.

     She can’t even stay in the kitchen for long without thinking of how he had her on the counter, balancing her on his shoulders while he teased her swollen and wet cunt through her panties before finally sliding them to the side to taste her in full. Every single shared space is shouting their tryst to the fucking world, and anyone with eyes can walk in and see it, and it’s driving her insane.

     The only place she can exist without these damned memories is in her bedroom. And she’ll drag her pussy across broken glass before she admits that her hand strays between her thighs, replaying those lurid memories of the best sex she’s ever had in her life as she brings herself to a quiet, shameful, quaking climax. And then feels a delicious pleasure in thinking she’s gotten away with something under Satoru’s nose. The Six Eyes can see everything, but if she’s quiet, he won’t know this about her.

     You can take it. I know you can. You’re so strong for me, so wet for me, so goddamn ready.

Asabé shifts uncomfortably, trying to squeeze her thighs shut. Her pussy lips slide together she’s so damn wet already. If he doesn’t grab her and fuck her on the nearest surface she’s going to explode.

     Satoru smirks down at her knowingly, and walks away, leaving her with an ache she feels down to her marrow. He knows. He fucking knows. Shame and embarrassment make her skin hot from her chest to her ears.

     Fuck him. God she wants to, but fuck him.

     She doesn’t see how painfully hard he is when he retreats to his room, or that he can not only see but smell her arousal before fleeing. She doesn’t see him retreat to the bathroom, leaning against the wall in his shower, pumping his fat cock in his unyielding fist to the thought of fucking her again. She doesn’t see how he fantasizes about that couch, only it’s her on her knees, not him. He pumps his cock harder and faster, imagining those plump lips wrapped around his shaft, the bulge of his cock in her throat. God and those gorgeous eyes, the color of sunshot honey, looking up at him, wet with tears, silently begging him to flood her throat and mou—

     He comes with a guttural and primal growl to the sound of her voice in his head, moaning his name, begging him to come inside of her, to fill her up until his seed spills from her cunt like someone tipped over a bottle of honey. Then he thinks about lapping it all up, tasting them both on his tongue, kissing her so she can taste them too. Fuck, he’s never come so much to a mere fantasy, but knowing the woman of his fantasies is just down the hall just hits different.

     In the end, he is left panting, leaning against the tiled wall, steaming water streaming over his body while his cock goes stoft in his hand. He takes deep, shuddering breaths, and for a moment his awareness expands and he sees her in the guest room, a figure wrapped in the oceanic blue of her own cursed energy, and then the seals on the windows flaring to contain both of them. Gojo decides that if they don’t ever fuck again he’s going to kill every single person in this country and then himself.

     She doesn’t see any of that, though, and she doesn’t need to, because he fully intends to fuck her again as soon as he figures out how to thaw the ice between them.

     Satoru decides on a whim to test just how desperate clan Ruhín is by suggesting he and Asabé go out with her unsealed. Of course, Asabé balks at the notion of setting foot outside of the penthouse without her seal, but Gojo insists, and he is adamant about it. In fact, there’s no levity in his voice at all when he tells her they’re going out.

     “Satoru, what will you do if they come for me?” She asks, trying not to be nervous, but her power soaks her voice and it bumps against the edgres of his infinity, forcing him to pour more power into it. Asabé flinches when she feels it.

     “Control your cursed energy, for starters,” he chides. “The more your power pushes against mine, the stronger I have to maintain it. If you keep doing that, I will eventually kill you.”

     That sobers her, and she glances up at him wide eyed, but he is deadly serious, even with the blindfold.

     When she speaks, her voice is measured and careful, and he sees the irritated flits of her cursed energy have been wrangled. He understands she’s nervous, but this plan he has can’t work if she is not in exacting control of the one thing she can control. And so with her energy once more unleashed, Satoru takes his “wife” out of the penthouse and into the world beyond.

     Kimura, the concierge, does a double take when he sees them. Gojo knows what it is. Kimura cannot see cursed energy, but Asabé’s is unmistakable. She glows with it, like a star fallen to earth and given human shape. Her eyes seem brighter, her skin seems shinier, and she is quicker to smile. It’s as if something in her has been set free, and Gojo is silently smug that he was right. He’ll have to call and rub it in Nanami’s face later.

     As they step out into the sunlight, Asabé does a little twirl, sending her white sundress spinning around her legs. Gojo can’t help but smile. He cannot imagine ever shackling his power, let alone for nearly a decade. Without thinking he reaches for her hand, without thinking she surrenders hers. Their fingers lace, and they walk through the park together, for all appearances a happy couple.

     At one point, Gojo suddenly pulls Asabé into an embrace, leaning down to kiss her. Asabé is shocked at how easily she responds. For a moment, the park is forgotten. There is no one else in the world but them. Gojo lifts one part of his blindfold to peer at her with one beautiful, cerulean eye.

     “I believe they’ve taken the bait,” he whispers against her lips between kisses. “Look like I fuck you on the regular and spoil you often, baby.”

     Asabé has no idea what that would entail but if the other night is anything to go by, she’d argue that perhaps she should look a little more composed than that. Still, it’s not hard to spot the representative of clan Ruhín, especially as she turns, smiling and holding Satoru’s hand, trying not to forget it’s all an act, and comes face to face with her past.

     All at once, the ruse feels hollow and fragile, shattered by the force of her shock. She squeezes Satoru’s hand hard, eyes wide, pupils shrunk to points, her lips parted in a small sound of surprise.

     The man representing clan Ruhín is striking. Not in the same way as Asabé, but in a sinister and dangerous way.. He is tall, like himself, and wears his hair in neatly-kempt locs adorned with golden clasps. His face is stern, his nose aquiline, his lips full and framed by a neatly-kept mustache and beard. His eyes are dark, but there is no warmth in them. He is devastatingly handsome and that bothers Gojo more than the fact that this man is probably as ruthless as he is.

     “Ɗanjuma?” Her voice is soaked with her energy and both Satoru and this stranger, now named, feel her shock like the wet prickle of static electricity over their skin. The tall man smiles warmly, but Satoru notices that warmth never reaches his coal-black eyes. This is the face of a man who has taken many lives with his hands. There is no way for him to express genuine warmth or compassion. He subtly envelops Asabé in his infinity, and sees the man’s nostrils flare in surprise as he takes a step back.

     “Asabé,” he finally says, his voice a deep and gravelly baritone. “It has been too long since I last saw you. How have you been?”

     “Better than I was,” Asabé says without missing a beat. Ɗanjuma’s smile never falters, and those dark eyes watch Asabé like a predator would its potential prey. Gojo decides he dislikes this man.

     “So I see,” he says, sparing Gojo a glance. “You seem to have moved on from…what was his name? Jem?”

     “Jin,” Asabé corrects, and Ɗanjuma finds himself flinching as his nerves are assaulted with pins and needles. He laughs, holding up his hands.

     “Peace,” he says. “Please, I don’t want any trouble. I’m merely here to see how you’re faring in the midst of being a new, young widow. But it seems my worry was a bit premature. You are…?”

     Gojo wants to sneer. Cheeky bastard. Any sorcerer with two brain cells to rub together recognizes Gojo Satoru, be it by appearance or cursed energy. Ɗanjuma is being petty, and when it comes to sorcery, Gojo considers pettiness a province of the weak.

     “Gojo Satoru,” the strongest sorcerer introduces himself smoothly, his tone sickeningly saccharine. One does not grow up as rich and powerful as him without learning how to play politics, and malicious compliance is one of the key tenets of the society he inhabits that he wields with consummate skill. Ɗanjuma will need to do more than this petty bullshit to get under his skin. Asabé’s gaze darts between both men and she shuts her eyes briefly.

     “Why are you really here?” She asks tersely, squaring her shoulders. Ɗanjuma raises his brows slightly, and Gojo is beginning to wonder why he isn’t more afraid of him and seems determined to rattle Asabé. He’s getting irritated.

     “You know why I’m here,” Ɗanjuma says, wasting no time. “We let you have the space you needed, and more’s the better: being a wife and widow has likely taught you all you need know. Come home, we’ll seal the alliance between our families and you can be done with this cursed country.”

     Asabé’s cursed energy flares in irritation, and Gojo’s infinity increases. Now Ɗanjuma looks concerned. Good.

     “This is home,” Asabé says in a low and deadly calm voice. Gojo’s eyes see her cursed energy spilling into her words like fog, gaining pressure and power as the sound hit its intended target: Ɗanjuma.

     “Asabé,” Gojo warns affectionately. “Baby, remember what I said about controlling your cursed energy?”

     Asabé’s eyes cut to his like a blade and it’s the first time he’s seen such fearlessness. Normally his eyes are the ones stopping people in their tracks, but hers is…he wants to take her home right now and fuck her while she looks at him like that.

     “You can’t be serious,” Ɗanjuma says. “You’ll join the Six Eyes? You won’t last the year.” He catches Gojo’s glare. Gojo wants to smile. There’s the fear. He’s realizing he’s in over his head. He isn’t kin, so Asabé can use her power as she sees fit, and Gojo? Ah, he has been frustrated and he’d love to sink his teeth into an untried curse user. Already he can see everything. He can even predict the pattern of blood spray. He wonders if Asabé will mind a bit of a mess.

     “Satoru and I are getting married,” Asabé says. “It’s already been decided. And let’s face it: this is a better match, Ɗanjuma.” Gojo does smile at this, smug and superior. The venom in her voice almost sounds genuine. With his limitless shield slightly stronger, its pressure much more pronounced than usual, Ɗanjuma has no recourse. So he begins to retreat. Gojo’s grin is much too malicious to be considered pleased.

     “If this is truly your choice and not some ruse, I will respect it and report back to the family,” Ɗanjuma says slowly, and Gojo’s eyes tell him he’s lying. Every word comes out like he’s biting them and tearing them in order to process them better. Poor man probably thought he could scare Asabé back into the fold. Gojo loves freeing worthy sorcerers from the curse of banal anonymity and misery.

     “It is my choice,” Asabé says firmly, no trace of her cursed energy in her words, only simple, obstinate determination. “Call off your lackeys—whoever is left—and go home, Ɗanjuma. I will not be going back. Ever.”

     For a tense moment, Gojo wants Ɗanjuma to be stupid and make a move, but the other sorcerer is smart. He concedes with a duelist’s nod.

     “As you wish,” he says. He looks Gojo up and down with scarce-concealed contempt.  “Keep her safe, Six Eyes.”

     Gojo’s grin becomes an easy and arrogant smile. It goes without saying that he will do that and more. He thinks about how good Asabé looked in his arms, pressing lazy kisses against her lips. Safe. Right.

     Ɗanjuma takes his leave, and Gojo notes that several other curse users also withdraw, though they are never seen. Nothing escapes his notice, but even though Ɗanjuma promised to withdraw, Gojo does not release his technique around himself or Asabé. His arm goes around her, watching her face as her gaze lingers on the path Ɗanjuma took to leave. The wheels of her mind are turning and Gojo wants to know what she’s thinking.

     “So, I take it that was the guy you were betrothed to before you ran off to come here, huh?” He asks. Sometimes the least amount of tact yields the best results. Asabé blinks slowly before he sees the sleek line of her jaw set in pensive silence.

     “It’s more complicated than that,” is all she gives him. Gojo shrugs.

     “If we want to sell our marriage we’re going to have to be transparent, Asabé,” he says. “Tell me about Ɗanjuma.”

     Asabé inhales slowly, and then exhales.

     “Not here,” she says. “Take us somewhere private. And let’s get food. And dessert. And possibly alcohol.”

     “That bad, huh?” Gojo asks with a laugh. Asabé glances up at him sidelong, but she says nothing. Gojo slips an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.

     “Hang onto me, baby, I know a place,” he says, wrapping her in his embrace and the world blinks away. Asabé doesn’t see it, burying her face in Gojo’s chest and shutting her eyes. For a blink, there is only the two of them, wrapped up in each other. For a blink, there is only the clean scent of his cologne and him. For a blink her heartbeat races from the warmth of him so close.

     For a blink, everything feels just right.

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[helliontherapscallion]

Going Mining (Adrenaline Junkie Part 2)

Part 1     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5     Part 6     Part 7     Part 8     Part 9     Part 10     Part 11     Part 12     Part 13     Part 14     Part 15     Part 16     Part 17

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: swearing, OOC sbi

Word count: 2,582

It had been about a year since you told your family about your tendencies. Since then, you quickly became efficient in the art of redstone wiring. The precious dust became your saving grace in a way, it was because of it that you stopped skydiving. Of course, you missed the feeling you got when you got close to the ground going at mach speed, but they were just intrusive thoughts at this point; you didn’t make any move to fulfill your desire. Redstone wiring took your mind off from it.

Lately, you spent most of your time in the basement where you set up your workshop to craft most of your supplies and write out blueprints. You were working on finding out a way to somehow launch TNT to make igniting it safer. You figured out that you could use a dispenser to plant the TNT, repeaters to prolong the time the TNT gets placed, a button to press to initiate the whole process, and use redstone dust to connect everything together. Now you have a working TNT launcher, but you have to find a block to use as a wall to protect the user from the shockwave of the explosion. You found out the hard way that the shockwave is enough to knock you back a few feet and give you small burns.

You reached over for more iron to make another repeater, but your hand came up empty. You furrowed your brows as your hand patted around the chest before finally looking over to look more closely. The chest was completely empty. You groaned in frustration, you could’ve sworn that you had more iron to work with. Looks like you had to go mining again. Sighing as you checked your redstone dust supplies, you supposed that you could look for more of that too.

Prying your goggles off from your eyes and placing them on your crafting table, you checked the time. It was almost sunset, which means it’s close to dinner time. You walked up the stairs and to the kitchen, where Philza was cooking dinner.

Sitting down at the dinner table, you greeted him. “Hey Dad, what’s for dinner tonight?”

“Steak and baked potatoes. How’s the TNT launcher coming up?”

“It’s coming along. At this point, I just need to figure out what block I could use as a wall to block the shockwave and how many repeaters I need.”

You remembered earlier today when you got the unexpected knockback in your backyard where you were building the launcher. Philza got used to the constant explosions, so he wasn’t phased when the explosion was louder than usual. He just thought you were using more TNT than usual, so he just resumed chopping wood. Soon after the explosion, he heard a thud and a groan coming from you. When he glanced in your direction, he saw you laying in the grass a few feet from the launcher. He chided you for not being careful with how much TNT you used, but he was proud of you for being so innovative. After giving you a health potion for your burns you got, he told you that you were done building for the day.

He hummed thoughtfully as he flipped a steak. “Have you thought about using obsidian? It’s pretty durable and it could withstand quite a bit of damage.”

You slapped a hand to your forehead. Why didn’t you think about using obsidian? Most TNT technicians used obsidian to shield them.

“...No, no I haven’t. You don’t suppose that we have any laying around?”

“I’m sorry hun, but we don’t. I could go mining for some though.”

“No that’s fine, I was actually going to find a cave tomorrow to restock on iron and redstone. I’m running low.”

“If that’s the case, I’ll lend you my diamond pickaxe. The iron pickaxe you have won’t mine through obsidian. Dinner’s almost done, can you go get your brothers?”

“On it!”

You ran up the stairs, hearing the strumming of a guitar growing louder as you approached Wilbur’s room. Knocking loud enough for him to hear over the guitar, the strumming stopped and he called out a “come in”.

Opening the door, you smiled at him. “Hey Wil. Dad wanted me to tell you dinner’s almost ready. That new song sounds great by the way.”

He put his precious guitar back into its case on his bed as he turned around and returned your smile.

“Thanks (y/n). Tell him that I’ll be down in a moment.”

Nodding, you closed his door and went across the hall to Techno’s room. Before you could knock, the door swung open to reveal your oldest brother. 

“I heard you tell Wilbur dinner’s ready. I’ll see you there.”

You stepped aside to let him into the hall and started to walk to Tommy’s room. You swung open his door and chuckled lightly as he jumped.

“Hey gremlin. Dinner’s ready.”

“How come you knock on Wilbur’s and The Blade’s door but not mine? I could’ve been naked!”

“You do the same thing to me. Techno and Wil knock on my door, so I knock on theirs. Now, get down to the dining room before your food gets cold.”

He stood up to his full height and casually walked over to you. In the past year he has grown to be almost 8 inches taller than you and he didn’t show any signs of stopping any time soon. To your surprise, he shoved you to the side and sprinted out of his room.

“LAST ONE TO THE DINING ROOM HAS TO DO THE DISHES TONIGHT!”

“NOT FAIR, YOU GOT A HEAD START.”

You sprinted after him, but he was ahead of you by time you passed your other brother’s rooms. By the time you got to the top of the stairs, he was halfway down them. There was only one way you’d win. You hauled yourself over the railing of the stairs and jumped, extending your wings to slow your descent. You swiftly regained your footing and sprinted towards the kitchen with desperation. You weren’t going to do the dishes when it was Tommy’s turn; it was your night last night. You laughed in an early celebration when you neared the door to the dining room. There was no way Tommy could possibly-

You yelped as you felt your body being pulled back and a slight pain in your wings. Tommy must’ve grabbed your wings. Falling on your ass, you quickly reached to grab Tommy’s ankle to bring him down on the ground with you. He landed on his stomach with a thud as you pulled him back as hard as you could. You crawled towards the dining room door, only to feel Tommy grabbing your wings again to pull you back. Wincing as you felt some feathers being yanked out, you cursed your wings for growing to be almost larger than your body and easy to grab. You slid across the ground as Tommy pulled you back and tried to crawl into the dining room. You reached out with your other wing and started battering his head to disorient him. It worked as he stopped and you felt him trying to swat your wing away so he could see. Making haste, you crawled into the dining room.

“OI THAT’S NOT FAIR. YOU STARTED HITTING ME.”

“All’s fair in love and war, gremlin. Besides, you pulled my wings first, so you technically started it. I wasn’t about to do the dishes for you.”

“I don’t know why you are the one calling me gremlin, you’re short as hell.”

“Oi, 5’2 is average height! You all are just way too tall!”

Despite you and Tommy arguing, you both were giggling and smiling at each other. The rest of your family watched you two in amusement for a couple of minutes before Philza spoke up.

“Alright you two, dinner’s gonna get cold if you keep it up. Tommy, (y/n) won fair and square. You will also pick up the feathers you plucked out after dinner. (Y/n), don’t jump over the railing again. I understand that you can fly but still that’s dangerous.”

You both murmured “yes, Dad” before taking your seats at the table. As the dinner progressed, everyone had small side conversations about how their days were. Dinner went by faster than usual, probably because everyone was tired. 

Tommy grumbled to himself as he picked up the feathers on the ground. Taking pity on him, you picked up everyone’s dishes and took them to the kitchen sink and filled it up with soapy water for Tommy. You washed and dried them by time he got done picking up your feathers. He was an annoying little gremlin, but he was your little annoying gremlin. You loved your little brother.

“...Thanks for helping me. You didn’t have to do the dishes.”

“It’s not a problem, Tommy. You already had to pick up my feathers. Er, sorry for hitting you with my wings, that probably hurt.”

He chuckled, rubbing his head. “It kinda hurt, but I deserved it for pulling out your feathers.”

You moved your wing in front of you to examine it. Only a few secondary feathers were missing, it was probably mostly your semiplume feathers he pulled out. 

“You didn’t do too much damage, no worries. I’m going mining tomorrow, is there anything you need me to pick up?”

His eyes lit up. “If you find a diamond, give it to me. My jukebox broke today.”

“I gotchu. It’s getting pretty late, T. We should go to bed.”

You gestured for Tommy to follow as you started to walk back into the dining room and into the kitchen. You two made comfortable small talk as you walked back to your rooms for the night. After changing into your pajamas, you plopped onto your bed and buried yourself in your sheets. You struggled to cover your wings before giving up and leaving them to droop off the side of your bed. You really needed to ask Philza how he covered his wings, they were larger than yours so he probably had a little technique he uses. 

Having wings kinda sucked sometimes. Besides not being able to cover them with a blanket easily, they didn’t fit on your bed if you wanted to stretch them out to their full length. When you were younger, your wings always fit on your bed and you would always keep them covered. But now with your wingspan being longer than your height, they were a pain to manage, especially at night. You always had to either sleep on your stomach or side and you couldn’t roll over without pulling a muscle in your wing. Because of this, it usually took you a little longer than most to fall asleep.

Your blissful slumber was interrupted by the light peeking in through your curtains. Sitting up, you stretched out your wings, smiling in satisfaction when you heard them crack. You stood up and grabbed your clothes for the day. Since you usually woke up a little earlier than your brothers, you always got first dibs on the shower after Philza. You yawned tiredly as you flicked on the water faucet and stepped into the shower. Now slightly more awake, you stepped out and started to preen your wings. Another downside to having wings is how high maintenance they are. 

After taking care of the rest of your morning routine, you went down to the kitchen where Philza was sitting at the table drinking some coffee looking as dead inside as ever. 

“Mornin’ Dad.”

He grunted in response. He was never a morning person, even after adopting four kids. You walked over to the chest where the food is kept and pulled out some eggs, bread, and beef. Usually, you made breakfast while Philza made dinner. You hummed a small tune as you flipped the eggs and turned over the beef sausages. One by one, your brothers joined Philza at the table and waited while you cooked. 

You grabbed four plates and sets of silverware from the cabinets and put on an appropriate amount of food on each, placing them in front of your siblings and dad. You grabbed your own before joining them at the table. 

“So, I’m going mining today. Is there anything you guys want me to get?”

They all chimed in with their needs. Philza wanted you to grab more iron and diamonds, Techno wanted some gold, Wilbur didn’t ask for anything, and you already knew what Tommy wanted. It sounded easy enough.

While the boys wrapped up breakfast, you excused yourself from the table and went back to your room to grab your satchel, pocket watch, iron pickaxe, and iron sword. Walking back downstairs, Philza gave you the supplies you would need today: a diamond pickaxe and a plethora of torches. “No staying out past sunset. Don’t mine down. Stay aware of your surroundings. If you see a mob, do not try to fight it, just try to run. If you get hurt, come straight home. If you get lost, follow the torches.”

“You worry about us too much.”

He sighed as he pulled you into a hug. “I just want you to be safe, hun.”

You smiled as you hugged him back and wrapped your wings around him. “I know, Dad. I’ll be safe, promise.” 

“You better, or else you’re grounded,” he joked.

You chuckled as you pulled away and said goodbye to your brothers for the day. Heading out into the brisk morning, you took in a deep breath and smiled to yourself. You had a feeling that this mining trip was going to be bountiful. You spread your wings and took off into the sky. 

Flying for a while, you spotted an opening in the ground. Grinning, you gradually landed before walking into the cave.

You spent hours mining precious ores, working your way deeper and deeper into the cave. You still had at least five hours before you had to start heading back to the house, so you thought going deeper wasn’t going to hurt anybody. 

You hummed to yourself as you passed multiple stalagmites. This cave was seemingly never ending, you’d have to mark it on your map so you could come back to it. The mouth of the cave kept getting larger and larger until it melded into a huge, winding cavern. You’ve never been this deep before, so you were excited to explore. Being mindful of placing down torches, you explored the cavern before you came across a strange looking block you’ve never seen before.

It glowed a luminescent green as weird looking projections (tentacles maybe? Was this thing alive?) flailed about before they fell into a relaxed movement and stopped glowing. Reaching out to poke it, you cringed as it felt weirdly moist and it made a slight squelching noise. It flailed about again as it glowed. You saw movement in the corner of your eye and turned to see another one of the blocks doing the same thing. How weird. 

Suddenly, the nearby lights started to flicker on and off, even your torches, as you heard a rhythmic thudding sound bounce off the walls of the cave. The thudding got louder and louder gradually as you frantically looked around for whatever it was and pulled out your sword. Hearing movement from behind you, you turned around only to freeze in fear. 

What the fuck was that?

[echos-newlegs]

would you be able to do 12 from the prompt list with Hunter, preferably smut?

You Help Me Calm

Heck yeah 😳 you didn’t give pronouns and I feel bad assuming even though half the users are she/her, so it’s gunna be a teeny vague— so NB reader

Hunter x Reader: “Your lips are so soft, I could kiss them all day.”

Warnings: smut, little vague, hunter receiving, touch starved reader and hunter

You dug through some scrap metal, a pair of headphones covering your ears as you listened to music. It helped you concentrate, but you couldn’t listen to it on the radio, or even too loud for that matter. Or else Hunter would complain. That or you would just feel bad, because who likes overstimulating your sergeant?

You were humming softly as you worked on patching up some of the damaged panels on the ship. You guys didn’t realize have a choice of a new ship, so they were all thankful for your ability to rewatch things.

Hunter was on a run for supplies that you requested. He wasn’t really sure was he expected to see, but he didn’t expect you to be swaying your hips and murmuring the lyrics to the song playing into your ears. He could hear it, it was nice. It wasn’t something he would typically listen to, but he did enjoy it. Quite frankly.

He watched you for a moment. He loved how relaxed and yet so concentrated you were. Watching as you flicked the welding helmet down over your face and began welding the scrap metal to the side of the ship. Chewing on his bottom lip. He could watch you for hours honestly. You just had this calming effect over him. He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that you were just a calm, relaxing individual. Or the fact that he had genuine feelings for you. Which the both of you knew about since he admitted to it while drugged up on meds after being shot. You hadn’t confronted him over it since the incident though. You weren’t sure how.

You turned to head over to the box and grab a few more pieces of scrap metal. Removing the helmet so you could see. Setting it to the side. Smiling up to hunter when you caught a glance of him. Though after you realized it. You froze.

You ripped the headphones from your ears, letting them drape around your ears. Skin turning red as you looked up to the Sergeant. “How long have you been standing there?” He chuckled. Approaching you further. Handing over the box of supplies. “Long enough,” He hummed and you smiled sheepishly. “Uh-huh, alright,” You spoke, rocking onto your heels. Then backing up and turning to set the box of supplies down. “Why don’t you take a break? You’ve been working for nearly three hours.” He told you, and you sighed. “Alright, fine.” “that was easy,” He chuckled, and you shoved him a bit with a grin. “You can convince me to do about anything and you know it.” You giggled and he shrugged.

the two of you boarded the Marauder, everyone else was out and about. Running around town or at the local cantina looking for a date for the night. You were too focused on work, and Hunter? Well you weren't sure.

You sighed as you plopped yourself in a chair. Hunter taking seat near you. "So why aren't you at the cantina or something? Scared Cross is gunna get laid before you?" You teased and he rolled his eyes a bit with a chuckle. "Hmm, no, I just don't wanna. Plus I figured I'd get in some alone time with you."

You could tell he regretted his words by the way his nose scrunched. "Oh?" You spoke, intrigued. "What do you mean by that." A small smirk finding its way to your lips.

His eyes darted around, looking for an escape. But there wasn't one. "Well.." he shifted a bit, then looked back to you. "I just figured we could.. talk?" He had been in a sensitive mood lately, so this was new. He must be feeling better. His stimulations died down a bit. Which really did give you ideas.

"Alright, what do you wanna talk about, Hunter." You questioned raising a brow. Watching as his eyes scanned over your face as you leaned forward a tad. "Hm.." he hummed, then blinked and shook his head. "Well, I wanted to ask you something, more so."

You grinned, and tilted your head. "Yeah? Is it about that night in the med bay?" You joked, halfly.

His tanned skin turned a bit red, and he nodded a little. "Yes, actually." You raised your brows slightly. Shocked he wanted to talk about it. "Okay, alright.." you hummed. Licking your lips. "What about it?"

"Do you remember what I said?" He asked, and you nodded. Glancing down with a small smile. " 'Oh, y/n.. have I ever told you how beautiful you are? Or stars.. I just wanna kiss you so bad, feel your skin, hold you.' " you imitated his voice with a goofy look.

You broke into a small giggle when he glared and folded his arms. "I did NOT say that," "oh, but you did." He huffed, and then sighed. "Okay, maybe I did, BUT, I didn't sound like that." You shrugged your shoulders with a titter.

He sighed once more and rubbed his chin. "I just wanted to know if you felt the same way?" He asked and you licked your lips. Then pulled your bottom lip in to rest between your teeth. Watching as his gaze watched the movement. "For a guy with overestimated senses you sure ask some dumb questions."

He looked at you with shocked eyes, and he smiled. Hope written on his face. You thought it was adorable, really.

"Yes, I feel the same." You spoke with a smile. Watching and his eyes softened. His whole body softened. "Especially the kiss part," you spoke with a sly grin, and he smirked. Cocking a brow. "Really?"

You sighed, standing, and soon he did too. "Yes, Hunter, don't make me repeat myself." He stepped closer, and you stepped closer as well. Holding your hands over his shoulders. Giving him a questioning look, and he nodded.

You pressed your skin against his blacks. Watching as he tensed and then relaxed. His hands reluctantly coming to your waist. "Can I kiss you then?" You hummed, leaning in closer. "Nah, just decided I'd toy with you." You spoke and saw his expression begin to fall. "I'm kidding, yes, please."

He didn't leave time for you to change your mind. Moving in to press his lips to your. You wrapping your arms around his neck as his hands explored your body.

The kiss was soft, and heated all at once. Hands running to his hair which made him grunt in response. You always loved his hair.

He pulled back, the two of you huffing and panting. "Can we take it?" He motioned towards the bunks with his head, and you nodded. "Thought you'd never ask." You teased, yelping when he grabbed you by your ass. Lifting you up to wrap your legs around his waist.

Letting out a small giggle as he began kissing your neck, and then lips coming back to meet your own. "You're so perfect," he praised as he walked the two of you to the bed. "So kriffing perfect." He spoke. Voice lowering with each passing second it seemed.

He laid you down and you let your eyes fall shut as he climbed on top of you and began kissing on your neck. You didn’t move the others shirt. Worried that the skin on skin contact initiated by you would cause the other to overstimulate. You loved, but also hated how the other could do so, so easily.

He noticed your hesitance. Still working on kissing your neck. Though this time he brought your hand and slid it under his shirt. You took the invite with pride. Letting your hand slide up. Listening to the small whine he let out with amusement. Locking your legs around his waist. Then tugging his shirt up.

He shredded his shirt off, you doing the same. Allowing him more access to your body. Lips traveling down to your collar bone. Beginning to suck and scrape his teeth. “Hunter..” You mewled. His hands moving over your stomach. You could tell the way you said his name had him riled up even more than before. “Hunter, I want..” You panted, catching his attention.

“What do you want, Cyar’ika?” He purred against your ear as he leant up. “I wanna make you feel good,” You whined, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on edge. The others would be out for a while, so the two of you would have the time for it. Not only the events itself, but the fact that it would take hunter a while to recharge. So to speak.

He looked you over, fingers running up to brush against your nipples. Making your back arch off of the bed. He smirked as he leant in and pressed another kiss to your jaw. “Hmm, I was thinking of making you feel good tonight.” “Me first,” you spoke and he rolled his hips into yours. Making you both gasp and moan.

Your lips crashing into his and meeting him in another heated kiss. His fingers tracing shapes in your body, and if you weren’t so drunk off of lust right now. You might actually pay attention to what he was drawing, but you couldn’t stay concentrated enough for it. Especially with another roll of his hips.

He pulled back to look you in the eyes. “Your lips are so soft, I could kiss them all day..” He added with a small pant, making you smile with a bit more of a blush. On your already red face. “You’re such a fucking sap, now why don’t you roll over?” You asked with a brow cocked. Hunter doing as told.

He laid on his back, you sitting on his stomach now. Groaning a bit at just the sight of the other. You had been waiting for this for almost as long as he had.

Sliding down him, making a point to rub against him. Causing him to gasp again, fists balling.

You tugged his pants. Pulling them down when he lifted his hips up from the bed. Your hands moving to work, once this was done. You palmed him through his briefs. Hunter throwing his head back with a rather loud groan. Eyes snapping shut, then fluttering open again to watch you.

You trailed kisses and left your own trail of marks down his chest with a small hum. Licking, and then mouthing over one of his nipples. Your hand snaking into his pants, then pulling his member out.

He bucked into your hand, but you moved your hand with his motion. Refusing him the friction he wanted. Making him whine. Maker, you were glad the others were out doing their own thing.

You smiled at his small babbles and praises when your mouth got closer to where he wanted the attention most. Moving to the inside of his thighs. Teeth scraping at his sensitive skin. Causing his eyes to fall shut again. Hands carding in your hair.

You finally made to where he wanted you to. When he was already nearly toppling over the edge from how overpowered his senses were getting. From the smell of you both, to the sounds, to the feelings. Let alone the look of you as you trailed his body like you owned him. He was shocked he was still pieced together.

He let out a rather loud moan when you licked a strip up his dick. Making you groan a bit when his fingers tugged at your hair. Licking his tip, then sliding it into your mouth. He was panting and whining. making you wanna take more of your time. You had never seen him this desperate before. He was always so stern, so strict. Easy to tell you what to do, and honestly? You kind of enjoyed this side of him more than you ever thought that you would.

He let out a groan when you slid as much of him as you could into your mouth. One hand rubbing what you couldn’t get while you bobbed your head. The other arm holding his waist down to keep him from bucking his hips into your face.

You moaned around him as he buried the back of his head deeper and further into the pillow. “Kriff, y/n, ah, stars, I’m so..” He lasted longer than you thought. Hollowing your cheeks and taking more of him in. Soon he was cuming into your mouth, and there was nothing either of you could do about it. Not that you really mind.

He let out the loudest noise yet. Eyes snapping shut and face contorted as you milked him dry. Pulling off him with a ‘pop.’ Swallowing all except for a little that dripped down the corned of your mouth. Though you just wiped that off with your thumb.

He looked so exhausted just from a blowjob, and you weren’t sure what to do now. Should you move, touch him, go in the other room, throw a blanket over him? What now?

“Lay next to me,” He murmured. Voice soft and tired. “But won’t that bug you?” “Just lay next to me, please, you help me calm.” He spoke through half lidded eyes. So you did. Climbing over to lie next to the other. Facing him and he pulled you over to his chest. Arms, well, whole body trembling like he was coming down from a sugar high. “Just, give me sec and then I’ll make you wish we had the whole night to ourselves.” He mumbled, and that made you smile and giggle. Kissing his cheek with a small hum. “I’m sure you will.”

[taeescript]

29+1 (Part One)

𝔰𝔶𝔫𝔬𝔭𝔰𝔦𝔰: In which Seokjin is the Devil from The Devil Wears Prada, Taehyung is your work Jesus and Jimin is your handsome successful brother. 

𝔭𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: seokjin x reader (taehyung x reader if you squint real hard) 

𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢: slice of life; ceo!seokjin (diva!seokjin)

𝔴𝔠: 3.6k

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: heavy use of alcohol as a coping mechanism, a plethora of sarcasm (please don’t be offended) and a sprinkle of softness (is that a warning?). 

𝔞/𝔫: this sat in my unwritten folder since 2017 no lie. I wrote the premise and a singular paragraph at that time, then just gave up. I opened it a few days ago, got inspired again and this word vomit came out (heavily influenced by a midnight Zoom call with my friends). Ngl this was so much fun to write, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. This will probably be in three parts.  𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔯: I did not know that DailyHive is an actual online news source when writing. This work is purely fictional and has absolutely nothing to do with the real DailyHive. 

part two

Your friends have a saying: After 29, nobody shares their age until they’ve accomplished something. 

In the past, you didn’t understand it. What’s so bad about saying you’re 30 or you’re 32? That’s still a young age! Sure, you’re not exactly in your prime anymore but you’re not old, right?

So, you continue in your own wondrous world of naïveté until that fateful day at your class reunion. You had simply been walking around, minding your own business when you had been stopped by an old colleague.

“Hey, Y/N, right?” she waves you down. 

You smile kindly, not even bothering to try and remember her name (you sucked at names, what could you say). 

“Hey…you!” you chuckle lightly, “How have you been doing?” 

An everyday question leading to catastrophic effects. 

“Oh you know,” she says and rolls her eyes as if you truly did know, “I’ve just been out and about. Did I tell you though? I got married last year!” She holds out her hand in which a giant diamond adorns her finger. “Wow!” you gasp, feigning interest. It’s not that you aren’t happy for her, but you are reminded of just how single you are currently. When was the last time you felt another human’s touch? Does kissing come back as easily as riding a bicycle? “Hey!” she says suddenly, “I’m actually meeting with a couple of friends from our class. You should come join! I’m sure they’d be happy to see you again!” You want to wave her off, but against your better judgment, you find yourself following in her footsteps and listening to her speak about wedding venues and honeymoon destinations.

“Oh my god!” another female voice filters in.

The “couple of friends” this old classmate had mentioned is in fact a fairly impressive size of twenty. This is also the third time the wedding announcement has been made. 

“Last year?” the female continues, “Weren’t you young?”

Yes, you want to respond. Yes she was young. A full 365 days younger than she is now.

Your classmate, Sooyoung (or Kiko as she insists going by now) titters in front of you. “I mean, you can sort of say I’m a late bloomer. I got married when I was 31.”

Her words unintentionally cut into you. Here you are at 29 without a beau in sight. You take a fast swig of your beer and end up hitting the empty glass with a clink to your teeth. Nobody notices.

“Enough about me, however, how about you?”

“I started my own business actually. It’s been doing really well and it’s been a crazy mind. Imagine me, my own boss at only 33!”

You nervously join them when they suddenly laugh together.  

“Hi, can I get another pint please? Actually add a tequila shot to that,” you whisper the last part to the waitress you had just stopped.

And that was how the rest of the night went. People asking one another what they had accomplished. Any moment in time after 30 would not be mentioned until somebody travelled to Uganda to build houses at 31 or another gave birth at the same age. Below 30, anything would be attributed to luck or in your case…

“What are you doing currently?” somebody asks you, “The little baby of our class.”

Swallowing your third tequila shot of the night, you wonder for the umpteenth time how you had become a part of this giant sharing circle. You wonder if it’s a blessing or a curse that you had graduated a little early and thus was younger than most of your peers.

“Well,” you start, “I’m currently working at DailyHive.”

“Ohh!” a man gushes. You recognize him as the once-upon-a-time science partner you used to cheat notes off of. “I use DailyHive nearly as much as Instagram these days. You guys cover everything from news to sports to fashion.”

You shrug. “Yeah. It’s, uh… it’s a pretty big company!”

“What are you doing there?”

Kiko-ex-Sooyoung hits the man teasingly on the shoulder. “Y/N is probably the Director of Marketing or something. Remember how she used to spend all class doodling in her notebook?”

“Or sleeping!” someone quips.

You don’t join in when they all laugh.

“I’m…an intern,” you say with as much pride as you can in a group of established professionals ranging from dermatologists to that one guy who had flown around the world as a TedTalk guest speaker.

A hushed silence befalls everyone.

“That’s…cool!” the same man encourages you, “Interns are totally rad! Everyone wants an intern spot these days.”

His girlfriend pats your arm, almost empathetically. “Yeah. I know a bunch of people who first start off as interns and then they shoot up the ladder quick enough. As long as you’re no longer an intern at 30, you’re golden!”

Once again, the entire group laughs as if she has said the most hilarious of jokes.

She composes herself and says to you, “Because after that, you should have accomplished something.”

Her words still ring in your ears as you sit at your desk this morning.

Yeah…something. All you need to do is accomplish something in the next three months before you are officially, 29 + 1.

Your fingers tap against your thighs silently while you observe the current debate that is occurring in the conference room. You barely have time to sweep the falling hair back behind your ear as your fingers ferociously fly across the keyboard to keep in track with the meeting.

Fei is arguing that the implement of a new search word system would boost users while Daniel says that it is a waste of resources. Instead, everything should be put into updating the entire system as a whole. You have long since lost track of their words as neither pertain to what you do as an intern.

“Enough,” the CEO of DailyHive holds up a hand. His one word causes the entire room to hush over – truly, the words of a god.

And that might as well be what he is. With his hair swept back and a lone tendril curling perfectly above his brow, Kim Seokjin is legitimately a walking god. Off his broad shoulders hang an expensive white linen suit bought with his pocket change and your yearly salary. A pair of sunglasses hangs in the V of the collared shirt dipping low enough to blur the lines between being fashionably professional and just downright sexy.

The snap of his fingers brings you back to the present.

He dramatically rolls his eyes and accepts that you are an incompetent minute-taker.  

“I have to remember that the world just doesn’t move as fast as I do.”  

                                                            - Quote: Rolling Stones 2019 Kim Seokjin.

Now if only he’d remember he had once said that.

He points at each of them with one finger, then swipes to the left. “Both of you, solve this outside. I don’t want to hear your voices any longer. You two from the marketing team, Ungroomed Stache and Acne Chin, create me a report if we are to implement Ms. Song’s idea. The two of you from…” he takes a pause here clearly having forgotten who his employees are, “The two of you do the same thing but for Mr. Hwang.”

The pair from accounting open their mouth to protest that they are in charge of only numbers, but they are ignored.

“All of you out now. Except you,” he points his finger directly at you, “Stay.”

Nobody utters a single word until they have all left and you are left alone with him. Standing before him with your hands folded nicely in front of you, you blink and wait.

He stares right back at you, picks up his coffee mug and drops it. The clatter of ceramic smashing against the ground causes a pause in the loud buzz outside the room. You know everybody’s focus has been shifted into the room.

“Do you want to kill me?” he drawls.

You take a long inhale. “No,” you say.

“No?” he repeats the word, “Well I think you do. Did you check this coffee before you brought it to me? I tasted cinnamon in it. You know how I’m allergic to cinnamon. Get me a new cup. And this mess, get somebody to clean it. I don’t want the smell of coffee in this room when I have my next meeting here in twenty. I’m taking a smoke a break.”

He stands up and brushes past you without saying anything else.

Nobody can be allergic to cinnamon. Besides if he had actually tasted cinnamon and was that sensitive, he would be dead. And good riddance to that.

Of course, you say none of this and wordlessly begin to pick up the broken ceramic pieces of the dead mug. The bustling outside the meeting room has returned back to its normal state of chaos. Seeing the ugly stain of coffee on the once pristine carpet causes you to swear beneath your breath.

“Who the fuck is allergic to cinnamon?” a new voice says, sliding up beside you.  

The second god in DailyHive; the much nicer and evidently preferred Kim; Taehyung takes the mug pieces from you and drops it into the garbage bin.

Blessed with not only intelligence but devilishly model-like features, he is your desk buddy in the small space allotted for interns and your sole friend in the company.

“Tae,” you sigh with exasperation upon seeing your lifesaver, “What am I going to do about this stain? He’s going to return in fifteen and there’s no way I can get a coffee stain out of this expensive-ass carpet.”

Taehyung taps a long finger to his lips, leaves the room briefly, and returns with a roll of Bounty sheets and a can of Febreze. He promptly blots as much of the coffee off from the carpet then proceeds to pull the meeting table.

“C’mon, Y/N, don’t just stand there. Help me! Time is of the essence!”

You laugh and join him in moving the table so that one of the legs cover the stain 80% of the way. Once he is satisfied, he takes the Febreze and sprays until the whole room smells like “Hawaiian Aloha”.

“You’re welcome.” He gives an extravagant bow, the motion popping open the top button of his shirt to expose a surprisingly chiseled chest.

Fei returns back into the room holding a phone to her ear and a clipboard in her left hand. “What the hell? It smells like a Bath & Body Works in here. Intern, aren’t you supposed to be filing or something? Stop standing around and be useful.” She grips Taehyung’s arm and drags him out of the room. “Button up. This is a professional workplace.”

You give him a tiny wave as Taehyung is steered away by his girlfriend and back to the cubicles.

Taehyung may be your saviour at work, but outside, it cannot be denied that your brother is the true Fountain of Life.

A week has passed since the coffee incident (you suspect a cleaning personnel had found the stain and cleaned up after your improv as aforementioned stain can no longer be found), but Jimin still brings it up.

“I still can’t believe that he said he was allergic to cinnamon. I’ve never heard of such bullshit before,” your brother says over the phone. You can practically hear his eyeroll from across the world.

As a renowned ophthalmologist, you have not seen Jimin for close to a year as he has been initiating his new clinic, a flying eye hospital.

“You should hear his Starbucks order. I always feel like I’m ready to launch my next EP whenever I’m at the counter,” you say.

Jimin laughs. There is the muffled sounds of voices as his never-ending flow of patients have arrived for the day.

“I shouldn’t keep you,” you say upon hearing that, “You’re probably really busy.”

“No,” he says, “I’ve got a few minutes if you’ve got a few. I miss talking to my baby sister.”

“I’m not a baby anymore, Jiminie,” you say using the nickname he hated.

“Oh that’s right. Your birthday’s in a little under three months, right? My baby sister is turning the big three-oh.”

“God, don’t remind me.”

“Want me to come visit you?”

You contemplate the idea once, having not seen Jimin in quite a while.

“Only if you have time. But I feel like Mom and Dad would probably want to see you more. Speaking of which, um… How are Mom and Dad?”

“They’re good. I hear Dad is finally going to retire this year. He’s giving his practice to Kibum, you remember him? Mom will probably start pestering us about what to do for his retirement party.”

There is a pause.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt to say hi to them once in a while.”

You sigh. “And say what? Hey, it’s me. The child that ran away from home at 18? Yeah, I’m not a doctor like everybody else in the family but a 29 year old intern at a popular app company. Whassuuup?”

“Y/N, that’s not what I – ”

“It’s okay, Jimin. I’ve come to accept that not everybody is cut out to be a doctor. I just wish Mom and Dad could realize that.”

Jimin sighs on your behalf. There is the sound of a crying child coming through the earphone. “Well, your contract expires a few weeks after your birthday, right? Who knows, you might be the next Mark Zuckerberg.”

He has never explicitly inquired about your life plan and you know this is as much as he is willing to push without asking, “What’s next after this intern hiccup?” At least he had the decency to compare you to a controversial Internet entrepreneur.

The child is crying much louder now.

“Again with my birthday. But I’ll let you know,” is the only reply you can come up with at the moment. “Okay, brother, go forth and heal the blind. I bless thee in the name of the Holy Spirit, Son and Ghost.”

There is true laughter that rings from Jimin as he ends the call. “It’s Father, Son and Holy Ghost you dweeb. I love you sis.”

“You too.” You hang up first before he can add anything else.

With that, you enter into the 7am Starbucks queue and prepare yourself in running the first single of your long overdue EP.

Seokjin leans back in his chair, watching you from inside his office. Today he has chosen a black turtleneck and a brazen maroon-nearly purple suit jacket to complete the outfit. For once, there is an empty mug of coffee beside him and his morning headache has been appeased.

He knew he had given you an impossible task.

“Compile all the troubleshooting errors we have received since the launch of DailyHive. Organize it in a manner that allows me to identify the most prominent problem. Run it through whomever you please before giving it to me. I don’t need to waste my time correcting your mistakes.”

There is an amused smile that bubbles beneath his otherwise stoic features. He cannot deny that there is, might he dare say, a cute quality about you as you manually scan through the received concerns on your laptop dating back to the initial beta tests – the ones that were lost in a data crash and only backed up with unintelligible scribblings of previous interns.

The moment you had been introduced as the new intern, you had caught his eye. You are exquisitely mundane, and perhaps the reason you had even caught him the first time was due to solely to the fact that you were older than most interns – himself even. Nevertheless, you continue to present him small surprises in your tenacity and capability to tackle challenges.

“Mr. Kim.”

His intercom comes alive with the voice of his secretary.

Seokjin’s eyes do not leave you as he answers.

“Mr. Hwang is on line two. Would you like me to defer him to a later time if you are currently busy?”

Seokjin cannot help but sigh. Hwang Junho, his co-founder, while a genius in international business is also a notorious chatterbox and gossip. There is seldom a reason for Junho to call him except to relay the cover titles of E!Magazine.

“Did he mention a reason for calling?” Seokjin inquires.

His secretary seems to be reading from a note. “He says it’s to do with the company. Something he read from Cosmopolitan this morning.”

So not E! but another sister celebrity gossip blog. He checks his watch and duly notes that he certainly has no meetings scheduled until later in the afternoon where your report would be needed to run a preliminary analysis.

“Sir?”

“Yes, put him through. But tell him I’ve got only five minutes, so he’s better give me the Cliffnotes version,” Seokjin sighs again.

Before he can be connected, Seokjin quickly says, “What’s the name of that intern again?”

“Who?” his secretary asks, “We’ve hired four since the beginning of the year.”

“The one who keeps wanting to poison me.”

“I’m sorry, Sir?” she sounds concerned.

“The one who keeps forgetting that I despise cinnamon.”

There is no response.

“The older one. Spilled coffee a while ago but still has enough coordination to pull together a decent report.”

“Ah,” she says.

He waits patiently as she searches through the database, eventually giving him your name. He gives a slight pause and then says, “Good. Now patch me with Junho.”

There is a momentary buzz as the call becomes connected in which Seokjin turns over the syllables of your name wordlessly.

“Mr. Kim. The man of the hour. How are you, my brother?” Junho’s baritone fills the office in a manner of seconds.

Despite the little annoying quirks, Seokjin cannot help but smile when hearing the voice of his best friend.

“You’ve got three minutes, Junho.”

Junho grumbles. “That’s not my fault. You were the one still on the line with your secretary. Is it still Yerin? ‘Cuz I won’t blame you if that’s the case. Did I catch you doing some naughty phone sex during office hours?”

“Two.”

“Holy hell. Fine. It’s always business with you. That’s why the tabloids are always writing you as an uptight asshole.”

This shifts Seokjin’s attention to the phone. His name is seldomly mentioned except for the features in business columns. He prefers to stay out of the limelight.

“What?”

“Put your name on Google.”

Seokjin does as he is told.

There are millions of results, but the first few pages share the same headline. He clicks on the first one with a grimace.

“Kim Seokjin. Mr. Worldwide Handsome as noted by his fans, has recently sparked Internet outrage.”

A quick skim of the otherwise trashy article brought to the surface a summary: his last dating scandal had ended badly and the repercussions of blowing off a famous celebrity’s daughter had finally caught up with him. The Internet was calling him arrogant, narrow-minded, and even greedy. “The young Chief Executive Officer of booming social media app DailyHive has been accused of using his relationship with actress XYZ to further his own business. Once he gained recognition from aforementioned relationship, he has cold-heartedly cast her away to pursue his next.” “You’re calling me for this bullshit?” Seokjin scoffs. Junho tuts his tongue loudly. “This is not bullshit. It’s affecting the image of your company. Do you think people want to download and support an app that is run by somebody who is being called cruel and dishonest? You’ve got to address this soon before it gets out of control. You’re lucky I have alerts set for these type of things. I caught it for you just in the nick of time.” Seokjin inhales deeply. “You’re also lucky that I’ve got the perfect solution in mind.” “That is?” “The Silver Gala,” Junho references the prestigious event. The Silver Gala is hosted annually and attended by the largest celebrities as well as other wealthy investors and guests. Those in the social circle shared between Seokjin and Junho often yearned for tickets to attend events such as this, as they serve as excellent networking opportunities. Besides the above, such events are circled by reporters and writers of gossip columns to get the exclusive scoop on any eyebrow-raising rumours. “The solution lies in such an event,” Junho continues, “You know how many people will be there. All you’ve got to do is show up with your average girl-next-door type and it’ll show how you’re actually really humble and down to earth. Kim Seokjin is perfectly capable of dating like any regular human being. He doesn’t use “love” or whatever to further his business. Love is the connection between two souls; two individuals who – ” “Beep. Your time has run out Junho. I’ve got another meeting scheduled right this moment,” Seokjin interrupts. “Dude, seriously. Think about it. You could bring Yerin. Everbody loves a good CEO and his secretary affair. And if that’s too juicy for you, I can introduce you to some girls. Or maybe we could go back to our university days and hit a bar, y’know?” Junho tries his best to persuade. “Fuck!” you swear beneath your breath right as you walk into Kim Seokjin’s office. His door had been open and, in your excitement to show your completed report, you had dropped all the loose papers on the ground. Four hours of organization gone, just like that. You hope that at least Seokjin hasn’t heard or noticed you as he had been engrossed in his phone call. Seokjin had in fact noticed you. He can’t help himself but follow the curvature of your bare shoulder as your bangs escape the hold of your scrunchie and sweep across your skin. “Don’t worry, Junho, I’ve just thought about it,” he says with a smile.

[giorno-plays-piano]

Abominable Part 1

Pairing: mage!Peter Parker x mage!Reader

Warnings: yandere, obsession, stalking, murders, possible gore in the future chapters, pretty dark story overall.

Words: 1543

Summary: An investigator of the Mage's Association, you are sent to discover the mystery behind a series of murders before more sinister events take place.

P.S. This was inspired by The Garden of Sinners particularly. I loved it dearly when I was a teenager.

To avoid any confusion, the reader is neither good nor bad due to the nature of her profession. Peter is an adult.

____________

Stepping on a platform with a vintage Samsonite briefcase in your hand, you looked at the people standing aside, most of them waiting for other passengers to leave the train. Although you knew the face of a magus who was supposed to meet you, it was hard to recognize him in the crowd, and you stared at all those people in front of you, clenching the briefcase’s handle. You hated waiting.

Of course, Lord Pierce wasn’t too happy with your arrival: the old fool thought he was untouchable even after a series of murders and an unnatural magic activity in Tombra that got the Mage's Association alarmed. You remembered the revulsion in Mr. Stark’s voice when he talked of Alexander. The old aristocracy, Lord Pierce was an outstanding magus who had long abandoned practicing any decent magic and instead preferred to exploit the strength of his numerous successors. While he still had some friends in the Association, Stark hated him greatly and was happy to remind him who was in control.

Naturally, Pierce knew why you came to Tombra, and the conversation between you two didn’t go well. You didn’t hide your intentions: you were the Investigator of the Clock Tower, and your job was to figure out what was happening in that megalopolis where Lord Pierce resided proudly. It meant you were going to be a great disturbance and a possible danger to many aristocratic families under Alexander’s protection. 

It wasn’t surprising he chose the most useless assistant to help you find out the truth. His name was Peter Parker, and he was class D+ magus who attended neither Clock Tower nor Atlas Academy. His role was to slow you down, you thought and sighed. 

Suddenly, you saw a familiar face when a young man hurried to you, his cheeks red, sweat running down his face: apparently, he was late. You snickered, looking at his formal attire - his black tie was so long as if he stole it from his father.

Once he was close enough, the young man stood tall, at attention, waiting for you to say something as he stared at you with awe and horror.

“Lady Ragna of the Clock Tower,” you named your rank coldly, and your companion nervously bit his lower lip, acting exactly how you expected of him.

“Peter of Tombra! Pleased to make your acquaintance!” He sounded too excited, and his hands were trembling a little, although he tried hiding it.

Gods, what was he good for in a situation like this, unless he possessed some extraordinary powers not stated in his file? Well, now was the time to discover that, you thought as you narrowed your eyes at the young man.

"Your primary magecraft?"

"B-bounded fields and healing!"

Nothing spectacular there, but bounded fields could be of use to you if you would ever be attacked while performing magic.

"Elements?"

"Water and wind!"

This was better: magi controlling more than one element were still rare, and the boy could make a nice apprentice if he were to be send to the Clock Tower. Besides, with Tombra surrounded by a river, a liquid manipulation skill Peter definitely possessed could be valuable, too.

"Magic circuit composition?"

"N-normal?"

"Any familiars?"

"None."

He was clearly feeling like a mouse in front of a snake, his face getting even more red with every second, and you found the situation rather funny.

"Your motto?" You stared him dead in the eye.

For a second Peter looked horrified, his mouth slightly open as if he were to say something, but you heard no sound coming from him. Then, as if struck by lightning, he gibbered with fear, "Live p-proudly?"

Oh boy. He really thought you were being serious when you talked rubbish with a stony face. If anybody was to talk about a personal motto, even the most pretentious magi of the Clock Tower would burst out laughing.

Rolling your eyes skyward, a gleam of deviltry in them, you smirked, "It was a joke. Don't ever use a motto, it's a terrible idea."

"Thank goodness! I thought it's something high magi of Clock Tower have." The next second Peter made a sigh of relief, and then the both of you laughed loudly, making other people on the platform throw glances at you.

Although you realized the young man had much less experience than you, you still felt he would be fun to have around. If he could make your life a little easier, you would accept his help.

Moving away from the platform and soon passing through the station's hall, you went straight to the city streets instead of catching a taxi. Peter hurried after you, still perplexed at your refusal to let him carry your bag - you guessed he expected you to boss him around, and it made you chuckle. What Pierce was doing with young magi here if Peter had such an impression about higher-ups?

"Lady Ragna, I was informed that the cottage where you chose to stay is in the suburbs. Did you decide to change it?" He asked, seeing you walking to a completely different place.

"No, it's the same cottage. If you wonder why we aren't driving there right now, I'd prefer to patrol the streets tonight to get to know the city. We can discuss the details of the job in the meantime."

You walked away fast, not looking at your companion anymore and watching the night city instead: you had never been to Tombra before, but many magi from the Clock Tower were born there, and their talk about the city always made you a little jealous. Born in a small town to a simple human woman who knew nothing of magic, you always wished to know what it was like to grow up in a true magic society like the one in Tombra, a home to many noble families, albeit smaller and less significant than those living in the capital. 

The city looked exactly like you imagined it: giant grey buildings stood besides the streets, and while they didn't look particularly pretty, you loved those countless neon signages and bright posters that were shining even in the darkness of the night. The streets were busy with tourists admiring the city, couples walking out of the fancy restaurants and cinemas, and young people, recklessly snooping around some nightclubs and bars, trying to get in despite the security glaring at them and requiring them to show their ID cards while the kids pretended they forgot them. There was also a small marketplace with colorful food trucks and booths, offering both local and international cuisine, and you blended into the crowd immediately, taking some crepes and then buying takoyaki - Peter, following you like a puppy, looked shocked.

"I can't do my job on an empty stomach," you smirked and handed him some takoyaki.

Funny enough, he accepted the second you showed the plastic plate into his hands, eating so hungrily as if he had been starving the whole day.

"Well, now since I feel a bit better, let's talk business," you motioned the young man to follow you, and turned to a narrow alley, leaving the noisy market that was going to be full of people for at least a couple of hours more. "Do you have any idea why I have been sent by the Association?"

Licking his fingers, Peter looked somewhat shyly at you, probably afraid he would say something silly, "From what I understand, the reason is some unnatural magic activity the Association couldn't trace, and the involvement of its user in several murders."

"Correct." Crossing the alley, you scratched the chipped paint from an old building in front of you and looked at your fingers, furrowing your brows. "To be precise, the reason why the Association didn't leave these murders to a human police is the method how these murders were carried on. Whoever did it pretty much sucked the soul out of victims' bodies."

Peter frowned, staying still while you kept examining the concrete wall in front of you, drawing strange symbols that started glowing immediately as you finished them.

"It may sounds funny, but the ritual necessary to prevent the soul of a dead person to come back to Akasha is known only to a couple of magi, and each of them is considered a great danger to the society by the Association. This alone is a threat, but Mr. Stark's other concern is the indefinite nature of magic practiced in Tombra. It is likely that the magus responsible for the deaths is planning something much more sinister, and we can't allow this to happen."

Finding what you were looking for, you nodded to yourself and moved further, Peter walking right beside you with a concerned expression on his face. He was probably surprised you didn't need his guidance, but you spent the last three days memorizing Tombra's map.

"Do you mean that the souls of victims can be combined to become a power source for some... dark ritual or something?" He asked nervously, licking his lips.

You smirked, turning to him and pointing to the wall of the next building that started to glow subtly as you got close, "Exactly, Peter."

__________

Tags: @finleyjayne @alexakeyloveloki   ​@helenaeisenhower @villanellevi @hurricanerin @inlovewiththefictionalcharacters @chris-evans-indian-fanfic @navegandoaciegas @rosalynshields @sllooney @angrythingstarlight @lookiamtrying @buckysbunny @soleil-dor @stargazingfangirl18 @dillybuggg @literate-lamb @cosicas-cuquis @sarge-barnes-sir @buckybarnesplumwhore @jaysayey @megzdoodle @gotnofucks @lux-ravenwolf @ximebebx @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123 @sourpatchspinster @biiskuitx

[themaribatpit]

Jasonette July Day 1: Suit Up

EDIT: Written by The Maribat Pit Content warning: Swearing, there is a quote that is a reference to Titans!Jason, references to Chloe’s actions in “Battle of the Miraculous”. Rated: T Inspired by: that one Tumblr post that suggested what would happen if Jason used a Lucky Charm.   Prompt: Suit Up The kidnappers had Marinette, and Jason knew that desperate times called for desperate measures.  Marinette hadn’t returned home from her mission the night before, Plagg returned that morning without her.  He explained that Marinette had managed to free most of the kidnapped kids, but she was captured shortly after being depowered.  They assumed she was one of the kids that hadn’t managed to escape. 

Jason went from slightly worried to absolutely frantic.  Roy was still in rehab, and there was no time to call in the Bat clan for help, it was up to him.  In his mind, the more time they wasted, the closer she came to sharing his fate.  “Great, just fucking fantastic”, he muttered to himself “the bad guys have the girl you love and you’re here looking for her jewelry”.  If he went in guns blazing as the Red Hood, they would probably just kill her instantly and without a second thought.  That being said, she would probably kill him later for tearing through the apartment like this.   He was flipping the bed on its side, opening all the drawers and pulling out all of the contents.  He was trying to find the Chinese Miracle Box, thinking maybe someone in there would help him if it meant saving their Guardian.  He remembered a conversation they had when his curiosity about her powers got the better of him.

“So what if you were to, hypothetically, use several of these things at once?” He remembered asking.

“I did once, the Multimouse clones were using different fusions.  Wearing them all at once can be pretty draining, even the fusions can be pretty taxing at the best of times if I’m not careful” she explained.

She also explained what happened when her old classmate tried to put on various Miraculous at once and started demanding power from them. Suffice it to say she didn’t get her way.  So, by the sound of things, Tikki was his best bet, or he’d probably end up pissing off the other ones like Chloe did.

He found the box in her closet and opened it, to find that Plagg’s ring was missing and so were Tikki’s earrings.  He closed the box and pushed it back into the closet, before searching the room for the earrings.  She had said something before about Plagg and Tikki being the least suspicious of him.  Probably because their combined magic was what created the Lazarus pits, the very reason he wasn’t still six feet under.  He finally noticed the small red and black box sitting on the chest of drawers, and he popped it open to find the earrings inside.  He wasted no time putting the studs in one ear, before a pink ball of light appeared in front of him. The ball of light turned into Tikki who gave a little stretch and yawn before being startled to see Jason instead of Marinette in front of her. “Hey Tikki, sorry, no time to explain but Marinette’s in trouble” he spluttered, “please I need your help, I wouldn’t be asking otherwise”.

“If that’s true, then there’s no time to waste, let’s go!” Tikki exclaimed, “Just say the words and I’ll help you.” Jason’s mind suddenly drew a blank, as he tried to remember what words Marinette used to transform into Ladybug.  

“Bug Prism Power Make Up?” he tried.

“He doesn’t know the magic words?” Plagg asked slyly, “our Guardian’s life is on the line and he doesn’t know the magic words”.

“I know that you’d make a nice chew toy for Brutus”, Jason snapped as he tried to think.  “Go go Lucky Charm?” he tried, Tikki shook her head.

“Lucky charm usually comes a bit later” she rubbed the back of her head, “keep trying, if Marinette is in trouble, then she needs our help”. 

“Okay let me think, uh…It’s Magic Time? Ladybug Up? In brightest day, in blackest night...?” He kept throwing out suggestions, but Tikki continued to shake her head.  “Uh, Shazam?” he had to give that one a try at least once, Tikki sighed.

Tikki thought it was admirable watching him at least trying to figure it out, even if Plagg was no help at that moment.  It was clear to the little Kwami, she didn’t need to look that hard to know that this boy cared deeply for Marinette, even if he was hesitant to admit it at first.  Tikki remembered gently encouraging Marinette to confess her feelings towards him, while Roy and Jason’s brothers took a more…direct approach.  

“All right Jason, I’ll tell you the magic words but first,” Tikki told him and they both heard the Kwami’s stomach growl, breaking the awkward silence in the room.  Jason remembered why Marinette usually kept a cookie on hand whenever she brought Tikki along, while the faint smell of cheese usually meant Plagg was in tow instead.  

“Come on, let’s go get you a cookie” Jason said, “and some cheese for you” he shot Plagg a slightly irritated look.  As Jason looked around the kitchen, the only cookies and cheese they had were the cheap stuff.  Tikki tried to be polite about the fact that the oreo wasn’t going to cut it, Plagg just turned up his little cat nose at the processed American cheese. “Sorry Tikki, Marinette’s been a bit busy lately,” he told her before rounding on Plagg “what’s your problem?”

“You don’t happen to have any camembert, do you?” he asked, still refusing to even look at the slice of processed cheese.

“Camembert? Who was your last user?” Jason asked incredulously.  Desperate times were calling for even more desperate measures, “just hang in there Marinette,” he thought.

Jason wouldn’t be racing over to Wayne Manor if it wasn’t a dire emergency. Tikki was safely tucked away in his jacket pocket, while Plagg was clinging to the hem of his jacket as it billowed behind him.  Jason brought his motorbike to a stop just outside the gates, before hopping off darting past Damian, petting a sleeping Alfred the cat in his lap.  Right now, he was hoping Alfred the human was baking something that would catch the Kwami’s eye.  Sadly, he was not, a note on the kitchen door explained he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.  Sadly, this couldn’t wait until tomorrow.  He opened the kitchen door, the cookies from Alfred’s last batch were stored in a cookie jar on top of the fridge.  There was one cookie left, he unzipped his pocket and gestured to the cookie in the jar.  Jason reached up and grabbed the jar, before opening it and grabbing the cookie inside.  He also reached into the fridge and grabbed the camembert for Plagg.  With the Kwami munching on their snacks of choice, he dashed out of the kitchen. Plagg had practically inhaled the wheel of cheese all at once, and glided alongside him. Meanwhile, Tikki clung to the cookie with one hand and the hem of Jason’s pocket with the other. 

That morning, Bruce was not expecting to see Jason rushing past him.  He wasn’t expecting to see a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie threatening to fly out of his jacket pocket.  “Hi, can’t talk now, Marinette needs help, bye.” He called before disappearing down the hallway. Jason dashed past Dick who had just woken up, and Tim was on his way to the kitchen for some more coffee. 

“Was that the last cookie?” Dick asked, slightly groggily.

“Oh that had better not be the last cookie” Tim groaned, someone had better be dying if that was the case.

Jason rushed to his motorcycle, and slammed the gate shut behind him before hopping on and putting on his helmet. Tikki was halfway through munching on the cookie, when she gave him a quick rundown of the powers that she would be giving him.  Jason knew that the Miraculous granted the user enhanced speed, strength and endurance, he just hadn’t thought there would come a day when he would have to use their power.  It was probably for the best that their guardian didn’t choose him when he was 13, for reasons that a bunch of guards were about to find out very soon.

Meanwhile, Marinette found herself in a cage inside a warehouse.  There were two men guarding the cage, neither of them knew that Marinette was the girl in the black leather catsuit. They caught her just as the clock had run out on her powers, and they assumed she was one of the kids that had been captured.  She was a petite young woman, and they found her dressed in a polka dotted hoodie, shorts and tights.  She sent Plagg to go get help, and he had been gone for a few hours now.  She was getting increasingly antsy,  Jason was probably worried sick about her.  

Jason arrived at the suspected gang hideout as fast as could, leapt off his bike and grappled to a vantage point. “Ok, relatively small time trafficking racket. Now where is Pixie Pop?” Jason thought to himself, scanning the area from his vantage point. “Plagg, go find Marinette, and tell her to not transform until I arrive.”  Plagg flew out of Jason’s pocket and made his way there.  “Alright Tikki, what's the magic word?” The Kwami flew out of Jason’s pocket as he spoke, Tikki glided to Jason’s ear and whispered to him the phrase. Jason repeated “Spots On” and felt power coursing through his veins. It felt like Venom without the addictive or berserk tendencies, pure energy was flowing through him. He felt the uncontrollable urge to pose and move with the flow of energy, doing a flourish of kicks and punches.  It ended with him raising his left leg to his head, as if it was a vertical split and slamming it down. “Owwwwwwwwwwww” Jason groaned, “My thighs were not meant to do that.” He was not expecting the compulsive flourishes for the transformation itself.

Jason looked at his reflection in a nearby puddle, he could see he was wearing a full spotted suit and domino mask like Ladybug, yet his leather jacket stayed during the transformation and received its own ladybug pattern. Jason sucked up the pain and pushed onwards to the gang hideout.

Jason snuck in through a vent and approached a large main room, housing most if not all of the guards and their “merchandise” with cages strewn across the room with mostly women and children locked up. He finally sees Marinette, alive but imprisoned in a cage with a few other people in a corner. Jason needed a distraction so that Marinette could transform into Lady Noire. He had to do something to take the attention off every single person in the room. 

Jason sighed and thought of a plan, it may not be the most flattering, but it worked and it would not be so threatening as cutting out the lights. He burst from the air vents and landed in a crouch, standing straight and shouting “Halt Evildoers, it I...Red Bug?” 

This indeed worked as planned, as every guard, goon and hostage set their eyes on the intruder.  The guards began pointing and laughing, “Good, they don't think I’m a threat” thought Jason. The guards underestimating Red Bug was what he needed, so that they would not find him threatening or harm anyone just yet. 

Marinette took this opportunity to transform into Lady Noire. She wasted no time and began with Cataclysm, bringing down all the cages and making her way to Jason’s position. Both Lady Noire and Red Bug began fighting the guards, buying the hostages time to make their escape. As the last person successfully escaped the gang hideout, both Lady Noire and Red Bug stood side by side.  More of them began to trickle in as they heard the commotion and began to surround the pair.

Marinette needed to think fast, she didn't have much time left after casting Cataclysm. She said to her partner, “Lucky Charm, Now!” Red Bug raised his eyebrow, “Lucky Charm?” he repeated. He suddenly felt the same compulsion as he did during the transformation, his arm suddenly shot upward with the yo-yo spinning. He looked up to see a swarm of ladybugs converge to form...a purse? Red Bug caught the purse with a look of disbelief, Lady Noire looked around the room for a plan to use the purse. Lady Noire got a burst of inspiration and turned around to tell her partner of her cunning plan, only to be greeted by thin air. She was brought out of her stupor hearing her partner yell out “LIGHTS OUT BITCH!”.  She whipped her head towards the source of the noise to see Red Bug beating the guards with the Ladybug-themed purse.  “I guess that works too” she said to nobody in particular. Knowing she had little time remaining as Lady Noire, she started running for the exit. Red Bug had no issue dealing with the remaining goons. Marinette hadn’t expected Jason to suit up with one of the Miraculous, not that she was complaining.  She had expected him to come charging in as the Red Hood, or maybe start by picking off the guards one-by-one.  She was surprised, but it wasn’t an unpleasant one, mostly.  Since leaving Chat Noir behind in Paris, the fight left her feeling oddly nostalgic.  Sometimes she missed fighting alongside a Miraculous user, though Tikki might have something to say about his...unusual use of a Lucky Charm.  She walked over to Jason’s parked motorcycle and waited. Within minutes Jason followed suit and walked out the front door of the hideout.  A swirl of green light surrounded him as he changed back, and Tikki zoomed over towards Marinette.  Tikki nuzzled against Marinette’s face for a moment, before Jason walked towards her.  He pulled his girlfriend into a big hug,  Marinette is left breathless for a moment as he nuzzles into her neck.   He didn’t say anything, but neither of them really needed to say anything at that moment. Touched by how much Jason cared for her, Marinette returned the hug. She stayed in that warm embrace for a long moment, before reaching up and gently patting him on the head.  ���Let’s go home...Pixie Pop.” Jason pulled away at the mention of the nickname he gave her, and before she could react, Jason began pinching her cheeks. “What did you call me?” Jason jokingly interrogated, while Marinette giggled like an idiot. EXTRA: Jason is sitting next to Dick and Damian in the Wayne manor lounge with two ice packs on his thighs Jason:  I don’t know how you do it Dickie, my thighs were not meant to do that. Dick (covers Damian’s ears): Soooo did you and Marinette…. Jason:  I literally beat up some guys with a purse today, don’t push me.

[vemuabhi]

No Mate - Soulmate AU

A bond between souls is ancient – older than the planet. - Dianna Hardy

Annyong Haseyo!!! Happy Birthday @gg9183​ I hope I am not late. Here is my submission for your Soulmate AU Collab. I hope you like it. I made it as soft and adorable as possible.

Pairing : Sugawara X Fem! Reader

Word count : 1.4K

Genre : Angst to fluff

Summary : A world where Soulmate’s name and first words appear on a person’s 18th birthday, you were one of those who didnt have a soulmate. Or you thought. (Please read the story. I suck at summaries)

A/N : Ahhh!!! this is my first time writing for Sugawara san! I hope you like it! I recommend Paradise (BTS) song to go with this fic!

copyright © vemuabhi

Please support me by reblogging if you like my writings.

‘5 more minutes to go’, you thought as you looked at your wrist. Everyone gets their soulmate’s name and the first words they say on the 18th birthday. It was almost time. You were never this excited for your birthday before. You closed your eyes and your thoughts started to run wild in your head.

‘What would they be like?’

‘Would they also like me? Do they already have my name on their wrist or are they younger than me?’

‘Agh I cant wait to know what their name is!’

You saw many people around you, getting the names of their soulmates name and words. Some people turned out to be close friends. Some found their soulmates soon after their birthdays. All these made you to hope more.

You opened your eyes slowly and looked at your wrist. Your eyes widened at the sight infront of you. It was… blank.

There was nothing on it. You checked the time. It was 12:01 am. You started to get phone call from your friend Hitoka. But you didn’t pick it up.

You kept rubbing your wrist to see if something would appear. No matter how much you tried you couldn’t see anything. Your tears started to roll down your cheeks as you stopped rubbing your wrist.

‘Why is it blank?’, you thought as you bit your lip to prevent sobbing harder. ‘Don’t I have a soulmate like other people?’

That night you cried yourself to sleep. The next day you woke up and cried again. This was one of the worst days. That day when you went to college your friends asked you about your soulmate and when you reviled that you didn’t get anything they were shocked. Some consoled you but the information spread like wild fire in your college. Everyone was surprised that you didn’t have a soulmate. Some people started to spread rumor's about you. But what hurt the most was the rumor of your soulmate being already dead.

“Why do you have to listen to them? Just ignore them. Stop listening to them Y/N. I hate to see you this sad”

“Yeah Hitoka… You are right. I should ignore them… Its already been a week… From now I’ll not even think about this stupid soulmate stuff. I’m fine all alone. I have me”, you said as your friend held your hand.

“You have me. I am your friend. Remember that”, she said making you smile.

The soulmate topic did hurt you a lot. So you searched on google about people having no soulmates and interestingly you found some. Upon deeper searching, you found an app called ‘No Mate’ where people who have no soulmate were using it. You wanted to feel better so you downloaded it and started to use it. You typed Fluff101 as the user name, because you didn’t want to use your real name. People shared some of their experiences and you felt like you weren’t alone. There were people who were like you. You even made new friends in the app. Especially a mutual became really close to you. Though you guys didn’t share contact info and more personal information of course. He introduced himself as Kowa to you. Apparently, he didn’t have a soulmate and only the people close to him knew about it. He decided to not anyone about to not create drama.

From then on you kept pushing away the thought of having no soulmate aside and focused on yourself more. The topic came up more times in your life even though you tried your best to avoid it.

One day while you were in a café sipping on your cold drink as you scrolled on your social media. You noticed a silver haired man enter the café. He was tall, slender, had a mole under his eye and was fairly attractive. The man got his coffee and sat in the empty chair a few feet from yours. Opening his bag he took out a book and started to read it.

‘Ah… He is so my type’, you thought. Your eyes lingered on the man longer than they should’ve and the man noticed it. His brown eyes met with yours and cheeks turned pink due to the embarrassment of getting caught staring at him. He gave you a soft smile and returned to reading his book.

You wouldn’t be judged in one place and you knew where it would be. You couldn’t help but to open No Mate app and typed to your mutual.

‘-Hey Kowa, I am at a café and I saw a guy who is so damn cute. Like he is so my type’. You messaged and continued to watch some youtube shorts while you waited for his reply. After 5 minutes your got a notification from the app. Opening it you found kowa sent you a message.

‘-Woah! Is that so?! How does he look? Tell me about him!!’

‘-So he is tall and looks really handsome. He is so my type dude... I didn’t talk to him but he smiled at me and agh… It gave me butterflies… I would’ve talked to him, if I knew he doesn’t have a soulmate. But I know… Its not the case for everyone. So I won’t talk’.

‘-Oh my… I know that feeling. It sucks but… its not wrong to atleast look at the people who are our type right. We don’t have soulmate but it doesn’t mean that we aren’t humans, aren’t I right?’

‘-I know right. We are just looking at people who are our type’

Well Maybe just send me a photo of him, I wanna see what your type is’, he said and you replied back saying, ‘-But… isn’t that wrong to take pictures of people without their permission?’

‘-Tsk, just send it to me. Its not like we are going to spread his photo’, he replied back with a sticker of pout which followed by, ‘-oh and I made a cute girl blush today’

‘-Woah Kowa!!! C’mon hero! That is so cool!! Check if she has a soulmate and try to talk to her’, you giggled as you sent a sticker.

Honestly you wanted to take a picture of the man so without glancing away from your phone you opened the camera and looked at the man from your mobile. He was looking at his phone now which was on his table. You took a picture of him without anyone noticing. You felt bad but you did take his photo. ‘Tsk… if only he wasn’t having a soulmate…’

‘-Kowa you win. Im sending the pic’

‘-Yes please!’

When you sent the picture you didn’t get a reply back even though you could see that Kowa read the message and saw the picture.

‘-Hey? What happened?’, you messaged him but didn’t get any reply back.

“Excuse me”, a soft voice made you to look up. There stood the silver haired man with a shocked look on his face.

‘Oh no… Did he find out I took a picture of him?’, you thought and then he asked the most unexpected question, “Are you Fluff101?”

You were shook. How could this man know your No Mate account name? You didn’t reply then he showed his phone to you. That looked like… your conversation with your app friend-

“Kowa?”, you said and shifted your vision to the silver haired man. His expression softened and he smiled at you.

“Fluff! Yes its me. I’m Kowa. What a surprise I never knew you were living in the same area as I did”, he said and you indicated him to sit, to which he obliged.

“Oh my god. You are Kowa. I cant believe it”, you said as your eyes shined with excitement to meet the internet friend.

“Yes I am. Look”, he pulled his sleeve up and showed his wrist. “No soulmate”, he said and smiled. It was the first time he ever smiled genuinely as he said he had no soulmate.

“Look at mine!”, you showed him your wrist and he smiled looking at it. You both talked for a while then he mentioned about you saying technically, he was your type to tease you. You contered him by saying that he called you cute. You both laughed about it. After that you exchanged real names and contact information. Already planning to meet again.

You both felt so happy to talk to each other… maybe… you both were soulmates. Thanks to the app, which brought you two together.

copyright © vemuabhi

Comments and reblogs are always appreciated.

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[everlarkficexchange]

the song of my heart (plays in you)

Written by: @thelettersfromnoone

Prompt 108: Everlark fall for one another over a blood transfusion. It happens not once, but twice. His blood runs through her veins, and now hers runs through his. What are the odds they would save each other’s lives? [submitted by @mandelion82]

Rated: Teen and up; mentions of: car wrecks, physical and mental trauma, amputation.

Tags: One-shot, Soulmates, Time Jump(s), Blood-Oaths.

Word count: 2342.

Notes: Unbetaed. All mistakes are my own. Thanks to @javistg and @xerxia31 for being amazing hosts for this exchange ❤️

“The blood [of the covenant] is thicker than [the] water [of the womb].”

“Mama, tell the story again?” Grey eyes peek up shyly through dark eyelashes, fingers curling the folds of her mother’s nightgown. “ ‘bout the dream-people?”

“It’s late, darlin’,” Mama murmurs with a soft smile. She presses a kiss to her daughter’s brow. “Papa will tell the long version tomorrow, hm?”

The girl’s lower lip pops out in a pout- papa is the better storyteller, but she wants to hear the story tonight. She snuggles against her mama’s belly, whispering a ‘night-night’ to the baby they say is growing in there.

“There once was a boy who was called to war, to fight for a king in a land far from home. Though he survived many times in battle, one day, an enemy struck him, and he was hurt, something terrible. At death’s door, his friends brought him to a healer’s house, who saved his life. As he recovered, he grew to love the healer’s daughter, and she grew to love him. In time, when he was recovered, his king came calling on him again. Before he left, the boy and the healer’s daughter made a blood-oath. They drew their own blood, and held their wounds against one another. They vowed that, from that moment until they met again, the song of their blood would call out for one another, no matter how far.”

Her little hand reaches over to mama’s, pressing their palms flush. “Like this?”

“Mhm,” Mama interlaces their fingers, kissing her daughter’s knuckles. “Just like this. Every night, while he was away, all they needed to do was close their eyes, and they could feel one another’s feelings, and see through one another’s eyes.”

“Till forever?” The little girl’s eyes are growing heavy, a yawn coming in spite of her best efforts. “Mama, it’s til’ forever, right?”

Mama doesn’t answer straight away. When she does, it’s soft as a butterfly’s flight; “Till forever, until they found each other again.”

The little girl’s breathing evens out, eyes slipping shut. 

(She’s always wanting a happy ending.)

She’s twelve and using the computer unsupervised the first time she looks it up on a whim. She is meant to be researching poetry, but that quickly becomes dull. 

Instead, the rabbit hole of the web sucks her in.

According to the internet page that comes up, a Blood-Oath Soulmate is defined as a myth, steeped in legend: a couple who, when faced with separation, make a blood-oath that allows them to see, hear, and feel one another across the thousands of miles. 

The origin, exactly, is unclear. It’s a myth with several cultural variants- in her own region, Twelve, and in the northern regions of Åtta, Tio, and Tretton, the war is won, and the boy returns to the healer’s daughter. By contrast, in the southwest, they say the boy earned a glorious warrior’s death, and the girl grieves but honors his memory. In almost all the other regions, the myth is drawn out, many side-adventures and evils hinder the boy’s path home, and by the time the boy finds his way back to his love, amidst a continent of misery, they both are old and grey. It’s not clear where the myth started, some say it’s a retelling of an old Sumerian tale; others, that it comes from Viking oral lore. Some, still, argue that they all are true, that the same fate spreads itself throughout time, throughout the world, in different ways. 

All modern experts, essentially, concur on the matter of the story’s implausibility. The human body replenishes its blood count within weeks, one discussion board points out.

It was just a myth to make humans feel their love could be impermeable, or withstand the tests of distance and challenges, claims another. Or, one user with a profane avatar states, the modern meaning is just guess-work and the cultural context and any kernels of truth will forever be lost.

And everyone knows there’s no such thing as a soulmate.

Kat feels her stomach clench as she quickly exits the browser, lonely in the wake of her father’s death, and her mother’s subsequent depressive episode, and still clinging to her mother’s hushed telling of a love that is palpable down to the bone.

(She can’t decide if knowing it’s ‘just a story’ hurts or helps more. The veneer of childhood is always treasured for a reason.)

She is seventeen when it happens. 

A flash of a medical room. Harsh fluorescent lights. Thick, strong hands trying to block the light out. Starched sheets, scratching skin. A pinch of a needle and stifled shout- 

She wakes covered in sweat. 

Something is wrong, niggles at the back of her mind. Her pounding heart beats out wrong, wrong, wrong. She pushes it away, presses the thought down. She manages to lull herself back to sleep, a deep, imageless thing, but the wrongness sticks with her. 

The next night is nearly identical, except the stranger’s hands are tearing off the bedsheets. A stump of a knee rests where a leg should extend. A panicking voice, a nurse, shouts for help as the struggling and screaming begins-

“Where’s my fucking leg?!”

Kat wakes with a jolt, strangled gasps as she pushes her own blankets off, hands grasping at her limbs, the phantom terror and horror bringing bile up her throat. 

What was that?

A dreamless sleep doesn’t find her again, her eyes bruising with nights of nightmares and days of exhaustion. The hospital, the scratchy sheets, the nurses and medications and injections. 

One week, then another.

She’s in Civics class when it occurs to her. 

The blood drive, at the beginning of May. She’d turned seventeen, and finally weighed enough to donate blood.

Could it be…?

She sleeps in, one Saturday morning, when they are fitting a prosthetic on her stranger; crutches and halting steps as those beefy hands grip support bars.

“Just a step further,” a voice encourages. 

Shame and frustration, and a deep, croaking voice lashes out of the throat-

“I can’t!”

You can, you can, you can, she tries to will the stranger her confidence.

The figure stills, and for a moment, she thinks they can hear her. 

“I’m done,” they say, and in spite of the disappointment on the nurse’s face, a man in a white lab coat agrees, and helps them back into a wheelchair.

Kat feels the sinking failure, the desperate yearning to help this person, this stranger. There are only nurses and doctors, in her dreams. She knows what it means to be lonely, even when there are people around; what it means when you wake up in emotional pain, but have no one to share it with.

She wants to tell her stranger it will all be all right, but the weeks pass and she can only confide her secret to herself. They wouldn’t believe her, even if she could say it in person.

Where is your family? she tries to ask.

They never seem to hear her.

(Waking becomes harder, but she can’t confide in anyone that she wakes wishing she could live in her dreams without them thinking she’s gone mad.)

They are kneading dough, seated at a wood table in a cluttered kitchen. The prosthetic is fitting to the leg, tender today but not sore, exactly. She can smell the flour and feel the silky-smooth texture between her fingers. Smoothe jazz music is playing, from a radio over on the counter. She feels a hand squeezing her stranger’s shoulder.

“Looks good, Pete.” It’s a gruff voice, but not unkind.

“Needs to rise,” her stranger- ‘Pete’!- retorts. They don’t look up, but she can feel a flush on her ‘Pete’s’ cheeks.

“We got some coursework from the school, then.”

(She doesn’t realize this is the last she will dream of her stranger.)

The dreams evaporate, after eight weeks, as abruptly as they had begun.

In the aftermath of her first dreamless night in over a month, she wakes to the dawn breaking with no images from her stranger. 

‘Pete’. 

She tries to will herself back to sleep, compel visions back from the brink. It’s the first night she thinks to try and remember the names of the doctors and nurses, or the location of the hospital. The nametags are foggy in her memories, a nurse Jackie or Jenny and a last name they had abbreviated to, ‘A.’ 

The internet doesn’t help her any more than her own mind can. ‘An amputee named ‘Pete’ who likes to knead dough and is doing high school coursework at home’ doesn’t do much in a White Pages search. 

She writes it all down, then, each snippet and sound she can recall. She keeps the journal under her mattress, knowing her mother won’t bother, and her baby sister wouldn’t dare to look. 

Like a madwoman, she rereads her own accounts, adds notes to it every morning, hoping the dreams will start again. But every morning, the dreams seem more as if they were fantasies, and her journal reads like fiction.

A year passes. 

Her dreams now are either blank, or memories of ‘Pete’.

She could blame it on her family friend, and his stupid insistance that she attend Prom; or maybe the girlfriends she eats lunch with, who guilt her by saying that everyone needs a life outside of school, and after-school jobs.

Kat had only driven into town because she needed a damn dress. Two weeks later, and she would have been exhausted from Prom as she crossed the school stage, collecting her high school diploma.

Nothing pans out the way she imagines it will, though.

She’s alone in the car when a truck in the oncoming lane overturns at a curve in the road.

Pain bursts on her head. Flames against her skin. Crushed metal, and broken glass. In the distant fog of wailing sirens, she can hear first responders attempting to call out to her. 

The only thing she remembers seeing clearly, between the accident and the hospital, is smoke rising into a blue, cloudless sky, through a shattered windshield.

“You lost a lot of blood, Kat,” the doctor says, tone not unsympathetic. “We had to do a transfusion.”

“Oh.”

She blinks, a haze of morphling in her preventing her from fully comprehending. Some broken bones. A neck brace. Burns on her face and arms, but not as bad as they first had thought- she won’t need skin grafts.

All small mercies.

Her sister and mama are there, balloons and flowers and hugs a-plenty. Get-well-soon cards from several classmates and family friends.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” her mama murmurs, as the doctor leaves.

“Okay.”

Mama runs her fingers through Kat’s knotted hair, while her sister clings and tells her how much she loves her.

She’s not numb, not beneath the morphling. But she’s so damn tired and her skin itches under the bandages. 

(She can’t comfort her family while they try their hand at comforting her.)

She is washing her hands in the hospital room sink, when she feels a jolt, a compulsion; a chill down her spine and gooseflesh down her arms. She looks in the mirror, and feels in awe, feels a foreign elation. A burst of affection, a warmth. 

She can’t reckon with it, can’t justify it. 

It’s just… her own face. Sloppily braided dark hair. Healing stitches on her cheek, and forehead. Silver eyes, surrounded by a bruise, set in a narrow face. She gulps, leaning in closer, and trying to grasp the sensation. Out-of-body, might be the right term- dissociative, she’d read about once, for Health and Wellness. 

There’s a knock on her door, the nurse doing a check, and as Kat turns, the warmth dissipates.

The nurse comes in not long after, checks her vitals and asks a series of questions.

“My name is Katniss Everdeen.”

That warmth in her chest is back, the hair at the base of her neck stands straight.

She scrubs her hands over her face, focusing on the simple questions the nurse is asking.

“I’m eighteen years old. I’m graduating from PPH12 in Sommen in one week. I’m at Merchant Memorial Hospital.”

In the bathroom that night, she stares at her own reflection, and wonders if maybe that feeling of someone looking over her shoulder- more like looking through her eyes- if maybe….

She fogs up the mirror, and writes her room number. She stares at it, for a time, before scoffing at own ridiculousness, and wiping it away with her towel.

She only has one day left before being discharged, though she’ll miss graduation and the parties that would entail. She can’t say she is particularly disappointed; she’s never been a party person.

She’s awake when the door to her shared hospital room opens. She pays it little mind. The curtain around her bed is pulled taught, her roommate jabbering away on their phone about the food service as if this were fine dining, rather than a hospital. Kat is reading a get well card, this one signed by the whole senior class and class advisors.

There’s a thrumming in her veins, but that might be them weaning her off of the morphling.

Curtain rings scrape against metal, and she barely glances up, the nurse rounds due any minute now. Normally, though, the bubbly nurse who does the day-shift is already bustling with an overwhelming enthusiasm that makes Kat question how exhausted the nurse is at the end of the day.

Maybe it’s a different nurse or a doctor or mama, or- 

The blue eyes that are boring into hers are ones she has only seen in her dreams; she can finally see blonde curls framing them, familiar thick, strong hands brushing through the curls. 

“Pete?” she croaks, certain she’s finally lost her damn mind.

His eyes widen at the sound of his name, lips parting. 

“I found you.” 

A tone of surprise, as if he’d driven all this way, but in expectation of disappointment.

“Peeta,” he introduces himself, edging closer. His hand carefully takes hold of her own. “And… I’ve waited a long time to meet you, Katniss.”

(Her name has never been spoken as sweetly, and her heart has never felt so full.)

[detectivecarlosreyes]

A delicate touch

Ao3 | 3k | Rated: Teen | Hurt Carlos / Tarlos 

Summary:  Carlos gets injured at work and ends up at the hospital before being sent home, TK comes home to find him in need of some TLC and does what we know he would do and takes care of him

Tropetember Day 3: Hurt/Comfort / Sickfic / Whump

Of all the ways Carlos expected his day to go, he wasn’t expecting this.

Though, how could one expect to be chasing down a perp on foot in the late hours of the afternoon to an abandoned building where they could be hiding anywhere. He radioed his position for backup and his partner was already circling her way around to the other exit.

Carlos couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease over the situation as he stepped inside the threshold to assess its interior. There were sheets of opaque construction plastic hanging from the ceiling. Portions of the wall, incomplete in its framework, still in need of drywall. From where he was standing, Carlos could only assume that through the door ahead of him, he would expect to see much of the same throughout.

Maybe he and Mitchell should have stuck together.  

At least then he would have the backup for what was about to happen.

The man they were after came charging out from behind the plastic sheets in a side-on assault from the doorway where Carlos was standing. He didn’t have the time to react before a swinging hand connected with the side of his face, hard enough that Carlos knew it would instantly bruise.  

It didn’t help to know that the man in question was a known bodybuilding steroid user and had the muscles to boot. Carlos couldn’t even get his gun around before a hand grabbed on the front of his uniform and he was literally lifted off his feet and thrown several feet into a stack of metal beams that were hidden behind more sheets of plastic. The impact causing his breath to escape him all at once.

He lay there in a stunned stupor for a moment as he regained his breath, pain blossoming along the left side of his ribs and back. With a groan he rolled from his back off the beams onto his hands and knees, eyes following the retreating silhouette of the perp exiting through the door and steeled himself to get back on his feet and give chase.

He was prepared to ignore the lancing pain each breath sent to his ribs and winced with each step it took just to get back to the doorway. He breathed out a shallow sigh of relief upon seeing the flashing lights of the requested backup had already arrived and were taking the perp into custody, thankful he wouldn’t have to send himself on that painful mission. Watching them struggling with four officers to get him in the back of one of the patrol vehicles, provided Carlos with some modicum of relief from his innate sense of embarrassment from being overpowered so easily.

With an arm wrapped around his side, he radioed for Mitchell with an update and moved towards the corporal who had taken charge of the perpetrator’s apprehension. When she caught sight of him, she moved to meet him, eyebrows raised in thinly veiled concern at his appearance.

“You’re looking worse for wear Reyes. What happened?”

“I stepped inside one of the entry points to assess where he could have gone and he charged me, ma’am,” he said, gesturing to his blooming cheek, where he felt the drying crust of blood which he hadn’t noticed before, “knocked me, before throwing me into a bunch of metal beams.”

“I am not surprised he managed to do that, considering how much manpower it took to get him under control,” She gave him an appraising look, “report to your CO, let them know what happened, then I’d strongly suggest getting yourself checked out at the hospital. I’d imagine your CO would say the same.”

“Yes ma’am.” He responded with a grimace and turned to leave, seeking out Mitchell who was waiting back at their patrol car and did as the corporal ordered. He wound up at the Emergency Department with his partner in tow, following the same recommendation reiterated by his CO.

By the time he finally got home it was dark. All he wanted to do was wash away the day and fall into bed with an icepack attached to his side. However, thinking about doing those things and actually doing them did not factor in how much torso movement was required.

It was easy enough to get out of his button-down uniform shirt at the station and had assistance to get out of his APD undershirt when being examined but now that he was home, the muscles surrounding the offending ribs had seized up and were spasming with every movement. All he could do was stand in the bathroom half out of his shirt while continuing to remain clothed from the waist down, looking mournfully at the already dark bruises in the mirror that made it near impossible to bend over without pain.

So preoccupied with the task before him, he didn’t hear TK arriving home.

*  *  *

TK entered their home in the late hours of the night, firehouse duffle bag on his shoulder and exhausted from a long and busy 24-hour shift. He knew that from the calendar of their work schedules hanging by the kitchen that Carlos’ own shift would have ended not long before his own, meaning that his boyfriend should already be home, likely already passed out from his own long shift.

With a yawn he dropped the bag by the door, noting with a furrowed brow that the entryway was bathed in darkness, an unusual occurrence for the two of them. It had become a regular habit for them that whoever got home first would leave a light on in welcome, especially if they knew the other would be arriving home in the dark hours of the night.

knowing the man was home after seeing his car in the driveway and keys in their customary place by the door, he called quietly, “Carlos? You still up?” not wanting to wake the man if he was indeed asleep,

He padded through the house, noting that there were no lingering smells of reheated pre-made dinners prepared for such an occasion as nights like these. Toeing off his shoes by the stairs, TK felt the cool temperatures of the wood seeping up through his socked feet as he made his way upstairs to the bedroom.

It’s not until he’s partway up the stairs could he see light filtering from the partially closed bathroom, indicating that Carlos was not yet in bed. Just as he stepped on the landing TK heard the quiet hiss of pain from the man he was looking for.

Concerned and curious at the same time, he peered through the crack in the doorway to see Carlos’ reflection. His eyes were immediately drawn to a deep purple bruise decorating his cheek that had stretched to shadow around his eye as well. He couldn’t contain the small gasp at seeing Carlos hurt and pushed the door wide open, startling his boyfriend and causing him to turn towards him with a pained wince, catching a hand on the basin with a white-knuckled grip.

TK pushed past the door, stepped into the bathroom, and sucked in a breath as he saw what he couldn’t before. The mottled bruising wrapping around Carlos’ side to the back of his ribcage which he could now see in the mirror’s reflection.

“What happened to you?” He asked, ghosting his fingers over the blossomed bruises as his eyes catalogued the small cuts and grazes adorning Carlos’ shoulder and forearm.

Carlos shrugged in the barest of movements with a bite of his lower lip. “Got thrown into a stack of metal beams by a guy I was chasing down today. Bruised some ribs.”

TK could tell that Carlos was brushing over the details, but what he said was enough and the main takeaway TK got from it was that his boyfriend got hurt and was in a decent amount of pain just from the small movement of twisting his body. It was then that he took in Carlos’ appearance, taking note of the shoes still on his feet and the half-worn t-shirt.

Slightly bemused, he bit back a smirk, “You can’t get undressed, can you?”

Carlos just gave him a pained expression as he huffed out a short breath sounding defeated, “No, it hurts and spasms every time I try to move.”

“Come here,” TK said softly turned Carlos enough so that he could easily manoeuvre around him. From here he helped to finish the undressing process, making quick work of removing the shirt, shoes, and pants, minimising the pain dramatically compared to Carlos’ attempts by himself.

TK stood up when he was done, eyes lingering on the bruise to his boyfriend’s face, “Shower?”

“Yeah,” Carlos breathed out shallowly.

TK moved past him towards the door, “I’ll leave you to it,” he paused by the door, half turning, “unless you want some help washing.”

Carlos waved him off, “I think I can handle it.”

“Alright then, I’ll have ice packs and bruise cream for you when you’re done,” he said over his shoulder as he stepped out, eyes already scanning blindly as he tried to remember the last time they had used the bruise cream, and where they would have put it last.

It didn’t take him long to mentally replay the cream’s last use and found it in his bedside table drawer. Triumphant, he put it on the bed along with Carlos’ pyjama pants. Having already showered at the end of his shift, TK got dressed in his own pyjamas before heading back downstairs to retrieve two icepacks from the freezer and two clean dish towels to wrap each of them.

By the time he was back upstairs Carlos was already out of the shower, attempting to dry himself with minimal bending or twisting. TK smirked slightly, rolling his eyes as he picked up the pyjama pants and rejoined his partner, seizing the towel from his hand. He quickly finished drying the spots that Carlos was reluctant to reach before grabbing the pants and wordlessly crouched down, offering each leg hole for Carlos to step into.

“Thanks,” Carlos murmured when he stood up and moved back to stand beside the bed. TK responded with an acknowledging hum as he picked up an icepack offering it with an outstretched hand and a soft smile, “Come on, I found the bruise cream.”

He watched as Carlos stepped towards him, accepting the icepack, and sat on the edge of the bed as he brought the icepack to his cheek with a wince. TK folded his legs underneath him as he sat behind Carlos and untwisted the cap of the tube. He rubbed it between the fingertips of his hands in an attempt of warming the viscous cream and started lightly applying it to the dark purple bruises adorning Carlos’ back and side.

Carlos stiffened slightly at the touch and his breath hitched in obvious pain, “Sorry,” TK murmured and lightened his touch as he smeared the cream over the mottled skin and gently rubbed it in.

There was a sense of quiet intimacy between them as he worked. It wasn’t often that their roles were reversed with TK being the one to take care of Carlos, having been on the receiving end of numerous injures since they’ve been together. In a way, it was nice to finally be able to return the favour.

He could feel Carlos taking quiet measured breaths beneath his fingers, definitely not taking full breaths as he should. TK hummed, “Babe did you go to see a doctor?”

“Yeah,” Carlos breathed out in a strained exhale and shifted uncomfortably.

“And did they say anything about how you should be breathing?” TK probed as he finished up his ministrations to Carlos’ left side, already knowing what the answer should be.

“They did.”

TK scootched up close behind Carlos and wrapped his arms loose and low across his waist, pressing his cheek to the side of Carlos’ neck, “And are you doing what they said to do?” he asked warmly.

“I suppose not,” Carlos admitted in defeat, clearly aware of what TK was alluding to.

“They prescribe any meds?”

“They said to take some Advil if I needed it and they gave me a prescription for some stronger stuff if it doesn’t help.”

“Trust me, I know you want to tough it out but you’re better off taking them so you can breathe properly, I don’t want to see you get pneumonia.” He pressed a kiss into Carlos’ neck and moved off the bed.

“You know?” Carlos asked, concern colouring his voice as he turned his head to look around at him.

TK shrugged nonchalantly, “I may have fallen through an unstable floor once back in my second year on the job, got some nasty rib bruises like you have. It sucked.”

“Oh gee, thanks for making me feel better about it.”

“You’re welcome.” TK leaned in and pecked Carlos on his uninjured cheek, and then picked up the other ice pack from behind him, gently pressing it to the worst point on his ribs, “Hold that, I’ll get the Advil.”

Carlos replaced his hand holding the icepack in place and called quietly to him, “Should be somewhere behind the mirror,” as he walked back towards the bathroom where they kept the medicines. Finding it where Carlos had said, he returned with the box and picked up a water bottle left on the dresser before taking up his place back in front of Carlos.

Carlos abandoned the icepack he had been holding to the right side of his face in favour of holding out his hand to which TK distributed two pills from the blister pack. He popped them in his mouth and took the bottle to wash them down, scrunching his nose as he swallowed.

TK looked at him questioningly as he picked up the bruise cream again and Carlos answered with a simple, “stale water.”

He let out a huffed laugh and shook his head at his boyfriend’s dramatics as he started dabbing away at the now icy skin around Carlos’ eye, making quick work of rubbing the cream into his skin before gently caressing his cheek below the contusion when he was done, “There, how’s that?”

Carlos gave him a soft smile, “I already feel better.”

TK stepped in closer between Carlos’ legs, bracketing his arms around his head and kneaded his fingertips in the back of Carlos’ head as he tilted his face up, giving him a kiss on the forehead, “Much as I would like to believe you, I can’t imagine that the ibuprofen has kicked in just yet.”  

“Well, maybe it’s because of your excellent caretaking skills.” Regardless of his words, Carlos couldn’t completely hide the pain and discomfort from TK. It was plain to see in his eyes.

“Mhm hmm, I’ll take your word for it,” TK said, humouring him as he continued to lazily scrub his fingers against his scalp, “In any case, we should get some sleep. It’s late and we’ve both had long days.”

He stepped back, leaving Carlos to sit on the end of the bed as he turned on one of the bedside lamps and turned off the bedroom and bathroom lights, and flipped back the covers of the bed. With an assessing gaze, he turned back to his partner, noting which side the bruising was on. “How do you want to sleep?”

Carlos cleared his throat slightly and immediately winced at the action, “Definitely on my side.”

“Thought so. With me in front or behind you?”

Carlos stood up with a grimace, “You in front of me, I think, I don’t think I could handle anything touching my back right now.”  

TK nodded understanding what he meant, “In that case, you sleep on my side of the bed.” He offered.

Carlos gave him a tired smile before his gaze slid down to the abandoned ice pack and made a move to pick it up, forehead creasing as he bent over, grunting slightly at the action. He collected the ice pack and cream from the bed and straightened back up, removing the second icepack from his side, and returned it to TK with the other items, an unspoken request for him to put the icepacks back in the freezer downstairs.

“You didn’t want to keep them for tonight? We’ve got a couple more in the freezer to rotate through.”

Carlos shook his head, “Nah, I think I should be right. Think the Advil is starting to kick in.”

“That’s good.” TK shook the packs slightly, “I’ll be right back.”

He returned from the kitchen to find Carlos gingerly easing himself beneath the covers on his side of the bed. He slotted himself in on the other side on his back, allowing Carlos to properly turn onto his side and nestle against him. His top side was slightly leant forward pinning TK’s arm against his side, and a firm arm snaked across his waist, hand tucked under TK as far as it could go like an anchor to keep himself from falling backwards in the middle of the night.

TK craned his neck slightly to look down at Carlos who had his head angled just so on his shoulder that his cheek wasn’t touching anything but air. “Comfy?”

“As much as I can be,” mumbled Carlos, voice already heavy with sleep.

TK reached over to the lamp switch and turned it off, sending the room into darkness. He placed his hand over Carlos’ arm and turned his head against his pillow until his cheek was resting against the top of Carlos’ head. Feeling the steady and fuller rise and fall of Carlos’ chest against his arm.

They managed to stay like that all night, both somehow falling into a deep and heavy sleep. The following next few days had a repeated similarity with TK doing what he could to assist and accommodate Carlos limited movement. Their nights ended the same as the first unless TK happened to still be on shift, then he was replaced by a pillow, in the same position until Carlos could move more freely as the tender muscles around his ribs healed.

Carlos couldn’t remember the last time someone looked after him that wasn’t his parents, it was nice, and he appreciated TK’s diligence even if he went a little over the top with his caretaking. He supposed that’s what you get when your boyfriend is a paramedic who knows what it’s like from his own misfortune. And that’s something that he will always love.

[midnightmoonkiss]

Esoteric.

Witch!Izuku Midoriya X Fem!Reader

Summary: What was a witch, exactly? Someone who casts spells? Dabbled in medicine? Fought in battles? You didn’t know. That was, until you met one.

WARNINGS!: Soft!Dom!Izuku, Face-sitting, Fingering, Potion-play

Category: Smut

Word Count: 7.3k (more than half is like.. pure smut..)

A/N: The final day of the Izumonth Collab!

P.S. I really love Witch!Izuku, idk if you can tell,,, Also, I made the witch!collage above! ‘Tis just to suck you into the mood. And sorry this was.. a bit late.. heheh,,,

Just To Clarify:

You’re both consenting adults

Witches, though actually fairly rare, are seen as common beings

Witches aren’t human

Fantasy-ish au!

Tag List:

@coupsieddori​ @desia2​ @strwbrry-lia​ @my-bnha-things​

Every castle has a witch.

It’s been that way for as long as you, or anyone else, could remember.

It was normal.

Mundane to some.

Just something you’d hear about time and time again.

They were workers, just like you. 

But yet, that never stopped your sense of wonder.

They never were in plain sight, not for a peasant such as yourself, anyway.

It always brought up so many questions whenever you’d stop to think about it. 

What did they look like?

Were they nice, or wicked?

How did their magic work?

What did they wear?

Depending on the kingdom, most witches were treated like royalty, especially those who worked in castles.

Of course, how could someone so powerful not have such a title?

It made you question if it was given out of fear, or respect.

It wasn’t until you met the witch of Thidel castle, the ever-so-generous Izuku Midoriya, that your questions were all willingly answered.

You truly weren’t anticipating meeting him during such a catastrophe of a day. Looking back, it was quite embarrassing.

You were the baker’s assistant, tasked with making the batter to elaborate sweets for the King’s ball that evening.

The flour was freshly ground from the mill, the vanilla was as pure as a white daisy, the sugar ever-so-sweet, eggs fetched that morning, everything was perfect.

In fact, everything was running all nice and smoothly, until the King decided to ask for triple the amount of baked goods he had originally requested.

Not only did that mean running to town and back in shoes already falling apart, but that also meant stirring and stirring and stirring until it felt as if your arms were on fire and about to melt off.

You were covered in ingredients and sweat, the other bakers and assistants were running around, spilling things on each other, and making large messes as they pulled their hair out to get everything done on time.

It was chaos.

And that’s when he showed up.

You forgot what he was originally there for, herbs, perhaps?

Batter smudged on your cheek, you were carrying a large sack of flour to the mixing station when the door opened.

You slipped comedically on an egg that had fallen on the floor, and of course, you had to slam into this sudden brick wall of a man.

White powder flew everywhere, and the clock stopped in your head as you watched in horror as the last bag of flour you had was just about to spill all over the dirty cobblestone.

That’s when you saw it for the first time.

Magic.

He had simply flicked his wrist and all of the flour was back in its bag, and such a high ranking individual was on his knees, sputtering apologies to you.

To you, of all people.

A lowly peasant.

It felt unreal.

But that was how you met him.

He looked up and the first image he had of you forever imprinted in his head was wild (H/C) hair coated in sweat and flour, cheeks smudged with chocolate and dried batter, eyes wide with panic, and cheeks a burning red.

He never let you live it down, the bastard.

That night at the ball, you met him again. He had the gall to note how you cleaned up fast, all while sheepishly smiling at you like you were the only girl in the room.

You wanted to punch him at the time. Or die of embarrassment. He was still the witch after all, and never before had someone so high class spoken to you before. You were filled with so many emotions that night, you were sure you were going to throw up.

Instead, you smiled, offered him a pastry, and walked away.

He just had to follow you, though.

His reason being, “I was looking for some entertainment at such a boring event.”

It had made you laugh, as IF you were any entertainment. From then on, though, after having spent an entire night chatting the time away, he was as hooked on you as you were with him.

Nowadays, you got to frequent his studies often.

A privilege not many had, as apparently- witches were quite stubborn with letting people into their sanctuary and touching their things.

Perhaps it was a possessive trait of theirs, one that kept them from misplacing important potions, books, and ingredients, but nevertheless you were absolutely honored to be allowed somewhere so.. otherworldly.

The King and his youngest son were the only ones besides yourself allowed in.

But stepping inside would always be a slap to the face, no matter how many times you actually did enter.

It wasn’t exactly clear to you how he did it, or how the witch before him did it, but the small study tucked away on the east wing of the castle wasn’t a small study at all.

The old, heavy brown door was signed with words of a language unknown to you and others, the hinges creaking ever so slightly as you pulled it open, only to be met with a two-story home inside.

Your nose was always immediately hit with the earthy scent of rain and plants, no doubt from the plethora of the heavenly greens hanging about the place, glowing orbs of light hovering near the ones doomed to never touch true sunlight.

The place was cluttered yet neat, parchments piling up in one corner, yet another where they laid organized.

It was almost like a different world crafted by steady and loving hands.

Old maps were tacked to one of the walls, scribbled writing and red circles pointing out certain areas of the land beyond the one you knew.

Witches apparently had their own realm, or at least, “a pocket of Earth hidden away from humans by magic”, as Izuku had thoughtfully explained one night as a thunderstorm raged on outside.

Old books smelling of age are scattered about, the large bookshelf barely able to contain them all.

Candles lit by a green flame surround a large wooden table, herbs such as chamomile, ginger, ginseng, valerian, lavender, and saffron are neatly placed by a bowl, wrapped in bundles. Clearly, he was going to try and make some more anti-depressant mixture for the prince again.

He was more of a naturalist when it came to the sick, unless worse came to worse.

He was essentially a glorified doctor who was far more knowledgeable on plants rather than bone structure and types of sickness.

He was a sweetheart who helped all he could.

Hell, he was even taken to some battles as a last defense.

Despite looking so innocent, with his baby fat still hugging his cheeks and freckles splattered all about, the definition of youth, he was quite powerful.

Scarily so.

You had heard hushed whispers from fellow servants about how he had taken down armies alone multiple times before, coming back with nothing but burns and a broken bone or two.

He was terrifying to those who didnt take a mere second to glance at him.

But those who did were greeted with nothing but a warm smile and the fleeting wave of a busy man.

It was a mystery how you had managed to capture his undivided attention, enough so that he had made you his, the plain-looking bracelet made from leather string holding an emerald sealed with magic signifying that.

You were untouchable.

Once gutted with fear, you walked the polished grounds of the castle freely.

After all, not even a King would so much as dare to harm witches beloved, lest he wanted to be burned alive by immortal flames and sent to the ninth level of hell.

A level solely made by strong users of the past, the ones who carved the road for witchery, having bent time itself to do so.

Truly terrifying how powerful they could be, but yet it was so mystifying.

You’d be lying if you said you haven’t spent nights wide awake listening to him ramble about their history, about how they came to be and how they flourished.

They didn’t start off as human-like creatures, they started off as a ball of magical light in a land filled with nothing.

It was said that witches built the Earth from the ground up until greed overtook the lands and the humans overpopulated them.

And yet, they work harmoniously together.

Humans fearful of their power, and witches just naturally seeking to help people and continue their craft in harmony with all those who share the lands they grew from scratch.

 It truly was a peaceful existence they led, you couldn’t help but admire it.

Just like you always have.

Pulling the door shut, it locked behind you as you stepped over some paper with doodles, knowing better than to mess with his disorganized things without him in the room to see it.

Speaking of, you were asked here this evening, something about wanting to try out a new potion he had made.

He was always making new things, an inventor of sorts, but never one to have you as a test subject.

Of course, it piqued your curiosity and had you quickly cleaning up the mess you had made in the kitchen when the day was officially over just to get here as fast as you could.

The large window covered in vines holding a small couch beneath it glistened with the light of a crescent moon, casting the room lit with an array of colors in a cool glow.

Smoke from the candles blurred the light, only to collide with the wooden floor above them.

Humming, you grabbed an orb sitting on a side table,  holding it in the moonbeams so it would absorb its brightness. A candlestick of sorts made from magic. You weren’t going to risk going into complete darkness again.

He was obviously not in his work area, so he was probably upstairs.

And so, as quietly as you could, you crept up the old stairs, holding your breath and biting your lip whenever you came to a creaky step. You wanted to scare him, or at the very least surprise him

He was so easy to scare, and he always made the cutest of noises when you did it.

It was hard not to try everytime you were given the chance.

Once you made it to the top, fingers clasped tightly around the carved wooden railing, you looked around the darkened hallway, searching for the room he’s most likely to be in.

None of them had any lights on, which was eerily odd.

He never was much a fan of complete darkness.

It only raised questions as to if he wasn’t here yet, or if he was leaving you high and dry.

No, he would never do such a thing. Perhaps you’re early?

Chewing on your thumbnail, you stood dead at the top of the stairs, waiting for a sign that he was here.

“BOO!” 

“ARGGHH!” you shrieked, jumping away from the noise only to have your back slammed against the wall.

Horrified, you snapped your head to the direction of the noise, only to find a giddy Izuku covering his mouth with a leather-gloved hand, holding away his giggles.

Huffing, you placed a hand on your heart, ignoring the laughs that seeped out of him.

“Geeze, you scared me!” You chided, glaring up into his playful green eyes.

“Oh, like you weren’t trying to do the same to me just now.”

Laughing still, he bent down in front of you, offering you a hand to help you up.

Ever the gentleman.

Placing your palm into his own, he easily pulled you up to your feet, holding you against his muscular chest in a welcoming hug, to which you eagerly returned, arms wrapping around his slender waist.

Though you didn’t know the common body type of a witch, you had to admit, he was certainly buff. Not that you minded.

He could easily throw you over his broad shoulder, and you loved it.

Completely defenseless and vulnerable.

Oh, how sweet it was to trust fully in someone.

His foreign clothes were soaked in his familiar thick scent, the smell of the forest after it had just rained, dewdrops in the early morning sun, a hint of pine, and his own natural musk that always had your head spinning. He tends to travel the forests in the kingdom often, collecting natural herbs and stones he found interesting.

He had jars and jars of rocks and stones, sometimes cracking them open to reveal crystals tucked away inside. He’d always make little trinkets out of them, giving them to people he deemed as friends as a sign of gratitude. You only had one, made from the rarest crystal he had ever found, taaffeite. 

“So, why did you need me?” You mumbled against his chest, cheek rubbing against his familiar warmth.

“Firstly, I always need you.” The sap.

“Mhmm..” you hummed out, letting him pull away and grab your hand, taking the glowing orb and tossing it up and down as he led you down the corridor.

“Secondly,” he trailed off, leaving the orb to float in the air as he unlocked his bedroom door, pulling you inside.

“It’s a bit of a personal thing I can only trust you with testing.”

Smiling to yourself, you sat down on the edge of his large bed, running your fingers over the soft wool that made up his thick comforter.

Never one to use dead animal pelts.

“Is that so?” Your eyes naturally follow his being as he walks around the room, shuffling through different materials before snapping his fingers to light the stone fireplace off on the other side of the room, providing more light, as well as warmth, so he could see where he was going and not trip on the books scattered across the floor.

He didn’t like the windows in his bedroom open at night.

“Y-yes..” he stuttered, fumbling around with a few glass jars on his desk, muttering to himself as he examines the label on each one. Seemingly finding what he was looking for, he turned back to you, proudly showing that he had found it before making his way back to the bed.

“What is that for?” Curious, your fingers brushed against the cool glass containing the shimmering magenta liquid as he sat beside you on the bed, mattress dipping enough from his weight that your sides knocked together.

“A few weeks ago, Shōto had asked a familiar question, if I possessed the ability to make every potion out there. Of course I- I can’t exactly, but I’ve enough skill to make some rather.. exotic potions. He questioned if I ever tried something different than just potions to heal the sick or offer beauty, and I haven’t. I don’t know why, but realizing that upset me. As if my skill set was limited to just some average joe healer,”

“Izuku..”

“So for a while now, I’ve been branching out. Trying different types of potions and having him as the tester.”

“Is that why he’s been acting different these days?”

“Precisely. I’m just lucky I haven’t gotten in trouble for turning him into a frog yet..” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his head as you took the glass from him to ogle it.

“So what is this then?”

“Um..” Embarrassment was creeping up his neck and resting on his cheeks as he averted his shy eyes, “I have a hunch of what it might do. But.. secret?”

You pout at him, “Shouldn’t I know what this is?”

“You’ll know soon! I promise it won’t harm you, darling.” Leaning down, he pecks a kiss on your cheek, large arm wrapping around your waist to pull you into a side hug.

Taking the glass from your hands, he pulled the cork out, glittery, pink mist floating out like smoke from a blown-out candle.

“So, what do you say? Will you try it?” It was almost as if he was giving you no option other than yes with those big puppy eyes of his staring into your soul.

Licking your lips, an action his eyes followed, you gulped the nervousness away.

What had you to fear? This was Izuku after all. Had he ever done you harm? Absolutely not.

You had no reason not to trust the man who held your heart.

“Alright.”

Joy lit up his face, smiling so widely his eyes crinkled.

Huffing out a laugh, you took the bottle from him again, curiously sniffing its fragrance.

“Chocolate and.. maca?” The scent was certainly familiarly tasty, having worked with the foods before, being a baker. Judging how the liquid didn’t resemble them at all, it was off-putting. How had he managed to trap such a delicate smell inside?

“Mhm! That’s right! Apparently, when made, the potion takes on a heavenly smell. Most are usually bitter.”

“Ahh..” Trailing off you eyed it up one last time before finally bringing it to your lips, a shiver running down your spine at just how cold the glass still was, despite being in a warm room.

Tilting the glass up, the liquid glimmering in the light of the fire traveled down the shoot, pouring into your awaiting mouth, feeling as if you were swallowing a runny syrup.

It had the slightest hint of sugar and cinnamon to its flavor, but nothing else. How odd.

Gulping it all down just to get it over with, your eyes that unknowingly closed fluttered open as he pulled the glass away.

Feeling perfectly fine, you stared up at him with confusion, about to speak before his lips cut you off, tongue poking out to lick the renaming liquid from the corner of your mouth.

The clink of the bottle being set down echoed around the room before his gloved palm delicately cupped your cheek, tilting your head as to deepen the kiss.

His tongue eagerly explored the wet cavern of your mouth, as if he was drinking the little essence from his own creation left over.

Pulling away with a wet pop, his forehead rested against yours, mesmerizing green eyes staring softly into your own, waiting.

Waiting for what was what you didn’t know, perhaps for the potion to take effect.

You were eager to find out just what it was, but you had a semblance of a guess considering the position you found yourself in.

“How do you feel?” he whispered breathlessly against your parted lips.

Just as you were about to reply, your words got caught in your throat as your body began to heat up in a familiar way.

“I..” You pant, grip on his cotton shirt tightening as your gut suddenly twisted with a burning need for HIM.

Your (E/C) eyes glaze over with lust in front of his own, pupils dilating as your body began to shake, whimpers escaping your throat.

Thighs rubbing together to offer friction you didn’t know you desperately craved until now, you looked at him helplessly, so close to falling apart if it weren’t for his large hand on the small of your back holding you close to his steady figure.

“I-I feel hot.. Izuku..”

You whined, chewing at your lip as you wiggled beneath his excited stare.

“Good.”

Suddenly, his lips connected with yours once more, drawing a stuttered moan from your throat at the contact you unknowingly began to crave more and more as your lips connected again and again.

You clung to him like a koala, kissing him fervently like you would never be able to again, desperate to have his undivided attention.

Hands sliding to your hips, he pulled you onto his lap, legs hugging his own as hot breaths mingled together with the wet sound of kisses.

“Ah..!” You squeaked against him, your hips involuntarily grinding down onto his crotch, greedily searching for the pleasure your body desperately craved.

“M-mmm.. Izu.. I-” Your apology was cut off with a nip to your neck, “Don’t apologize,” he scolded. Grip still on your hips, he pulled you down rougher against his hardening dick, his hips thrusting up to meet your own, eliciting a sharp cry from your being as your head threw back at the sudden pressure where you craved it most.

He was quick to chase your lips, dragging you back into your heated makeout, swallowing every moan you let out as you both humped each other like horny dogs, the eagerness from him only adding to the pool of moisture leaking out of your body.

The button on his trousers was rubbing deliciously against your clothed clit, making your hips stutter every so often as you fought to maintain that hard surface.

Saliva began to drip down the side of your mouth from the intense kissing, but you hadn’t a care in the world.

No, your mind was too fogged to even think about it.

All you craved was him.

Him.

Him.

You yearned for him like he’d been gone a decade, and your body acted on it in a way you were typically shy about.

Biting your lip, he pulled away from the kiss, dragging a whine of protest from you before he hushes you by licking the outer shell of your ear, breath fanning across it only adding to the tingles of excitement shooting down your arched spine. “Hush,” he commanded, and as if you couldn’t disobey him, your words of protest died on your tongue, leaving only a parted mouth and heavy breaths.

Licking down the column of your neck, nose brushing against you, he searched for that familiar sweet spot on you, teeth grazing your flesh.

Still grinding on his hard cock covered by pants, a wet spot no doubt leaking past the underwear you wore beneath your hiked up skirt and onto him, you gasp once he found the place he was looking for.

Smirking, he nibble gently, holding you still as you began to wiggle once more.

Your head tilted to the side to give him more room as he sucked on your skin, teeth repeatedly nibbling at your sensitive flesh. Biting down harshly, you cried out with pain and pleasure, hips grinding down so hard onto him he groaned, the vibration making your heart jump in your throat.

“A-ahh… hnng.!” Moans poured salaciously past your thoroughly kissed lips, holding onto him for dear life as he controlled your being with every fiber of his own.

A button on your blouse popped open, and your foggy gaze traveled down just to see his fingers expertly undoing each one without looking, letting your bare breasts bounce out above your corset.

Not giving you a second to cover yourself out of embarrassment, his large hand cupped one of your tits, massaging it gently just to feel the soft flesh as your chin rested against his grounding shoulder, small moans now directly in his awaiting ear.

“You’re such a good girl, (Y/N).” He praised, eyes filled with nothing but love as he got to watch your unusually heated body search for the pleasure it craved.

You were usually so shy in bed, but with this potion pumping through your veins, he hoped it’d help give you the confidence boost you needed.

Though, that wasn’t the only thing it did.

He was filled with anticipation, if his throbbing member was anything to go by.

Thumb circling around your cute, perky nipple, he took the bud between his thumb and forefinger, pulling gently and rolling it between them, dragging high pitched whines from you.

You couldn’t help but pull away from him again, body constantly shifting from the delicious pleasure you were being given.

Fully pulling your blouse off, he left your chest completely bare, giving him the chance to dip his head down and latch onto the opposite nipple, lathering it in attention with his warm muscle, sucking softly and continuously rolling your other nipple with his hand.

It left you craving more, fingers threading through his messy green curls, pulling as to not lose yourself, only eliciting yet another deep groan that vibrated on your skin.

Feeling yourself slowly start to come undone, you desperately ground against him, pants becoming high pitched and moans being louder.

He could tell you were getting close, and from grinding alone no less, it made him feel so damn good to know he could get you to come purely from grinding.

But he didn’t want you to cum like this.

Certainly not.

And so, he fell back on his back dragging you with him as his lips found yours again.

Gripping at the hem of your skirt, he yanked it down, pulling it off your legs. Using a little handy magic, he effortlessly pulled your own shoes off, already working your underwear down your quivering thighs, eyes zeroed in on the drip of wetness attaching your core to them for a split second before they were across the other side of the room.

Corsets were always his worst nightmare.

He couldnt think too clearly to untie the knot in the back as your now bare crotch rubbed against his own, so without thinking, he ripped it off, the bare display of strength having you keening against him.

“Princess,” he whispered against your lips, dragging your hips upwards, “please, sit on my face.”

How vulgar of him to say, with a smile no less, but nonetheless it scent a throb of want to your stomach, and you found yourself, once again, unable to disobey him.

Your body burned red from embarrassment as you crawled up his own still fully clothed one, but you weren’t given the chance to dwell on it before he moved your hips directly over his face, tongue poking out to lap at your dripping folds.

“Gaah..!” You cried, fingers digging into the blanket beneath him as your hips once again helplessly sought the pleasure you craved, unafraid to press down against him.

Your juices tasted so sweet, he eagerly lapped at you like a dog deprived of water.

He had to hold you still against his face, drinking in the image of your breasts jiggling like jelly with every shuttered breath you took, head flung back and eyes shut tight as you focused purely on the way the flat of his tongue licked you up like a sugary treat.

He couldn’t help but occasionally press a kiss against your sobbing flesh, teasingly avoiding your clit begging for attention each time you moved against his mouth.

Your cries of pleasure filled the room, only sending his mind into a state of hunger, wanting to drag every noise out of you he could, along with the loud licking that caused your essence to drip down his chin.

His aching cock was straining against the flimsy button of his pants, desperate to be released and buried deep inside your soul-sucking pussy again.

Tongue dipping inside you and lips pressing against your sensitive, pink labia, he ate you out with earnest, squeezing your hips tightly with his fingers as he fought to control himself from shoving you to the blankets and fucking you raw without finishing his dessert first.

A choked sob tore from your throat with his lips finally encased your puffy clit, the tip of his tongue tracing around the bundle of nerves before flattening his tongue against it.

Your hips bucked involuntarily against his face, pressing him harder against you just so you could cry out his name like a sinful prayer.

His heart was full of love for you as he observed your reaction did everything blissful he did.

You were in heaven, walking on clouds as wet squelches from your own body surrounded your ears.

“Z-Zuku..!” You cried as he sucked on your clit like candy, enjoying the rough treatment. The tip of his tongue traced his name possessively over your button, marking you as his forevermore, silently vowing to never let another man do the same.

“I-I’m close..!” You cried, tears of pleasure falling down your flushed cheeks, dripping onto the thighs squeezing his head like warm earmuffs.

He hummed against you, dragging his tongue across the expanse of your womanhood before enclosing around your clit again, lathering it in the attention you needed to be pulled over the edge.

Your thighs clenched around his head, his hair tickling you, body stilling as you screamed out in pleasure, back arching and giving him a lovely view of your demise.

You came on his tongue, the stimulation he gave you throughout your orgasm sending you higher and higher in that clouded head of yours.

When you finally came down and slumped forward, catching your breath, he licked up the mess you made, pulling away from your lower lips and running a tongue over his own to greedily savor your delectable taste.

Placing you off to the side, giving you a second to calm down,, he hurriedly shuffled out of his clothing, throwing his cloak, gloves, and various other things on his person to the floor, kicking his boots off that landed with a heavy thump, leaving his underwear on as he crawled over on top of you.

Dazed, you stared deliriously up at him, a bashful smile on your lips, watching as he wipes your juices away with the back of his wrist before licking it clean. He was so sinful and messy.

The warm fire crackling in the corner hugged at his soft skin, making his eyes blown wide with lost twinkle like starlight. He looked so in love as he stared at you as if you were the only person in the world.

Breathing heavily, you reached out for him, and he was happy to lean in so you could wrap your arms around his neck, toying with the shorter curls at his nape as he kissed you again, your taste still on his tongue as your tongues intertwined. You weakly fought against his intrusion, teasing, only for him to grab a handful of your ass, making you gasp and effectively losing the battle.

He flooded your being with everything he had, his scent, his love, his passion, adoration, everything.

His knowledge on your own sexual human anatomy astounded you, but always left you moaning against him, much to his utter pleasure.

His thumb circled your twitching clit, bringing your attention back to his actions and the way you clenched helplessly around thin air, waiting for him.

You hungrily eyed the bulge in his underwear, licking your lips at the spot of wetness where his dripping head was.

You wanted to feel him inside you again, to clench around the very thing that drove you insane other than his skillful touch.

“P-please..” You begged, detaching yourself from him, pleading for mercy under his sharp gaze as he soaked up your wrecked self.

He loved hearing you beg.

“Please what?” he drawled out, running his lips down the side of your face and neck, pressing kisses against your collarbone. Moving his thumb previously giving you what you desire to your thighs, he held them in his grasp just to feel your smooth, warm skin against his rough, scarred palms.

You whined, shimmying your hips to draw his attention to them. He ignored your advances, peering up at your face with a glare and crooked smile that shot sparks down your body, “Tell me.” 

As if on cue, and unable to disobey his words that squeezed your heart, you sputtered a response, barely able to maintain eye contact, “P-please touch me..! M-more.. I, I need more, please! I want..” your breath was stolen from your lungs as he began to grind his clothed crotch against your wet core, “I want you! I w-want you to fuck me, please..! I- I can’t take it anymore.. Please, Izuku..!” More tears fell from your eyes, falling onto the mattress below you, “Please fuck me..!”

Happy with your response,  but still not quite ready to give in, he pulled away, circling your clenching hole with his middle finger, watching as your head flew back with tears as you meekly thrust upwards.

As much as he wanted to pull himself out right now and fuck you until his bed broke from the sheer force, he couldn’t risk hurting you.

Even if the potion was designed to make you ready for everything sexual, willing to comply with his every demand, you still were his princess, his angel, and he was going to treat you like one.

He didn't want you to wake with the soreness of not being properly prepared, even if he could heal you a minute after. That minute of you crying from the pain that HE selfishly caused would always be stabbed into his heart, and he certainly didn't want that, nor you to experience it.

“Sorry, love..” he apologized, finally plunging his thick finger inside you after thoroughly coating it with your slick, moaning at how tight you were for him. 

“Fuck..” he whispered under his breath, keeping your thighs splayed wide open as he sat back on his haunches to watch you react to him.

Your back was arched, begging for more as you gripped the sheets below you, cheek pressed against the mattress as low moans trickled out your sinful mouth like water.

Face hot, a boyish smile fell on his face as he added another finger, observing how you hotly throw your head back as he pressed against the spongy spot inside your walls.

“Aaahh..! T-there! R-right there..!”

“I know, darling, shh, shhh.” He cooed at you, curling his fingers against your G-spot with each thrust in and out of your sopping pussy. His fingers made wet clicks inside of you as they rubbed against your walls, dragging more and more moans out of you as you ground down on his large digits.

His eyes couldn’t leave the view of you sucking him back in every time he pulled his fingers out, it left him imagining more and more scenarios in his head.

God, how he wanted to destroy you.

Have you screaming his name so loudly you broke the sound barrier he had set up ages ago, letting all of the castle and its snobby guards know he was fucking the love of his life and doing it damn well.

He bet they would be jealous.

Those thoughts of it made his adrenaline spike, adding a third finger to the squelching party mixing your insides up, leaving you at their utter disposal.

Arousal poured from you like a steady stream, gushing down and leaving a wet puddle under your ass.

You were so wet for him it was hard to bear, but you felt so, so good.

Your mind was so muddled with lust, you couldn’t think straight, all that entered your mind was ‘more, more, more.’ 

You were being greedy, but you couldn’t help it.

Deciding you were prepped enough, his fingers pulled fully out of you, putting on a small display of licking them clean as you watched with wide, doe eyes, stuttering out about how dirty that was.

“More dirty than you using my face as a seat, my lady?” He teased, tucking his face into the crook of your neck.

“T-thats..”

He chuckles at your flustered response.

Pulling his underwear down, his cock slaps against his toned stomach, fully erect and dripping with precum.

Throwing them off to the side, he noticed the way your eyes greedily looked at his body, confidence burning his veins as he sees the impatience in your eyes as you stare at his member.

He was tempted to say, ‘like what you see?’ but he himself was far too eager and impatient to wait any longer.

Grabbing himself, he ran his thickness between your lips, gathering your arousal on him before leading himself to your entrance.

“Ready?” He asked whilst kissing the skin below your ear.

You nodded, hips wiggling in anticipation.

“A-ahh! Fuck!” You cried out as he fully sheathed himself inside you with one thrust, bottoming out immediately.

He bit at your skin, concealing the deep moan that rumbled in his chest as you strangled his weeping dick at last.

You were so intoxicating, you sweet aroma wafting off you with every breath.

Grinding himself inside of you, he waited patiently for you to adjust, leaving hickeys all over your skin with each passing second.

Gulping down air, you thrust upwards, dragging him out of his blissed-out state just to moan heavenly deeply in your ear.

“Naughty girl..” he seethed, making you giggle, only to be shut up as he pulled out and slammed his hips back into your own, drawing out a garbled moan.

Skin slapped wetly against skin with each rough thrust he relentlessly delivered, drinking up your cries for more.

Leaning back to watch you with hungry, dark green eyes, pupils blown wide with lust. He pinned your arms to the bed above your head, a punishment for catching him off guard.

His cock was truly a godsend, thick and long, curved upwards just to slam repeatedly into your soft g-spot over and over.

You could only hold on for dear life as he fucked you good and hard just like you wanted, just like you craved.

“O-Ohh!!! Izu!! Izuku-! Ahh.! F-fuck..!” You moaned with each thrust inside your wet self, body being pushed back from the sheer intensity of which he fucked you with.

He knew your body so well by now, he knew each and every way to make you fall apart by his own doing.

He knew how to break you in the most sinful way possible, and he loved it.

Your face was lewdly contorted with pleasure, eyes looking back, eyebrows pinched together, (H/C) baby hairs plastered to your sweaty forehead, and mouth gaping wide open so he could hear every slur of words and every noise you emitted.

He wanted to hear everything you had to say, every reaction to the way he fucked you.

He could feel you growing tighter around his throbbing cock, juices coating his thighs with each heavy thrust inside of you.

He loved how much he could turn you on, even if right now it was all thanks to the potion that added pink hearts to your innocent (E/C) eyes.

The same potion that had you openly moaning unashamedly, whereas you previously would have held them in by biting your lip and hands.

He was so happy to hear how good he made you feel.

At long last.

“(Y/N)..” he panted heavily, peering deeply into your glossy eyes, movements becoming more and more sloppy as he lost himself to the pleasure, a burning pressure building up in his gut with each shallow and deep thrust.

Falling down on top of you, he held you close to him, letting your arms go so you could dig your nails into the flesh of his toned, freckled back flexing with each movement.

The bed banged loudly against the wall, he momentarily worried it would leave a dent- but he couldn’t think about that now. Not when you were crying out his name so sweetly.

“I’m here, I’m here..” he soothed as you clung to him.

Your hips began to move in circles, drugging him with intense ecstasy as he thrusts into you. You kept him wanting more and more. He was addicted to you. 

Pushing your legs back against the mattress, he reached so deep inside you, you swore you could feel his head kissing at your womb. 

You were so helpless to the waves of infinite pleasure he washed you over with that all you could do was take it.

“You’re doing so.. hah… so good, baby..” he praised breathlessly.

“Gnnn! Gaahhah..! Izuku!!”

“Let me hear it.. let me hear you, princess.” He smiled against your skin as you let out an onslaught of sultry moans, fueling his inner fire.

“I’m..! I- gwaahhh..! I’m so c-close..!”

“Me too, me too..” He fervently pressed kisses to your cheek, letting his other hand travel down to coat his thumb in your spare wetness, just to rub circles on your puffy clit, applying the right amount of pressure that always drove you insane.

Drool dribbled down the side of your mouth as your tongue flopped out, breasts bouncing with each and every thrust, constantly captivating him as he could feel their softness against his pecs.

Holding you flushed against him, he let magic crackle to life on his hand, green sparks lighting up the area around the two of you just barely. His hand began to vibrate, magic he learned was good for massaging muscles, but of course, it had.. other uses..

The vibration against your clit, added to the pounding of his cock expertly slamming against your G-spot, sent your head flying back, white vision going black as your pussy strangled his cock like a python.

“Haaahh.! Aah!” You cried his name out so loudly it burned your throat, leaving you to cum harshly on his dick, the strange sensation of liquid squirting from your body making your mind go numb as all you were left with was burning hot stars in your eyes.

The display alone was enough to drag him over the edge as well, slamming his cock into you once more before warm ropes of cum spurted into you, completely coating your walls and spewing out from the sheer amount as he let out a silent moan.

His thighs twitched and his stomach felt empty when he finally came down from his high, the same time as you.

Love filled his gaze as you both peered into each other’s eyes, enraptured by the souls sealed within.

Heavy breaths blew past your lips, desperate to calm down your racing heart.

“How was it..?” He questioned lightly, moving hair out of your face so he could get a better look.

“How was… what..?” Your mind was still clouded. You hadn’t any idea how he could still think straight.

Giggling, he rubbed his nose lovingly against your own. 

“The potion. Could you feel its effects..?”

Staring at him in bewilderment, it took a second to register his words. 

The potion.. what had it done again..?

Oh..

You slapped a hand over your mouth, pulling away from him. “Oh gosh..!” 

You were so embarrassed! 

Gah, to be so loud!! You wanted to hide in a hole..!

“Don't be shy, my love,” He pleaded sweetly, placing a kiss on your sweaty forehead, “it’s just me.”

“That's the point!! I-it was embarrassing to- to be so.. lewd in f-front of you…”

“You say that, and yet I’m still deep inside you,”

“Izuku..!” You groaned, shoving his smiling face away with both hands, only for him to grab your hands and place gentle kisses on them.

“I.. I liked hearing you..” he flushed, bashfully looking away.

Though he could be quite the dominant man in bed, it was always endearing how he was still the shy witch you fell in love with at the end of the day.

“W-well I..” You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, “Well I’ll be louder for now o-on then..!” Your declaration surprised him, shock resting on his features before he broke out in another smile, flopping on top of your sweaty body just to hug you to his own equally as sweaty body.

“I love you, (Y/N)..” he sighed blissfully, burying his nose in your hair as he cuddled you, the crackling of the blazing fire just now reaching his ears.

“I love you too, Izuku.”

Though he could be a handful at times, with his insistent drive to be better and push himself beyond his current limits, as well as running headfirst into danger and getting littered with scars, you still loved him.

You always would.

He was your kind witch, and you, his darling beloved.

And nothing would ever get between a witch and the one he called his.

.

..

…

….

“So, are you going to pull out? I feel a little messy.”

“In a minute..”

“Izu!”

[travellingarmy]

║Ningguang║Inspiration

From Wattpad.

Gender-neutral.

Fluff.

Word count: 1.9k

---

She looked so beautiful sitting in the midst of those glaze lilies, a smile on her lips and eyes gentle with a soft glow from the sunlight as she looked at the flowers. She plucks a glaze lily and brought it up to her nose, pushing a strand of her long hair behind her ears.

At that moment, it felt as if the rest of the world stopped. Your eyes glimmered and your face dusted with a light pink. To you, she was a goddess under that one beautiful and bright day and hope that you could get to see more of her in the future.

You see, you were a travelling painter and writer who is inspired by anything and everything around you. Travelling all across Teyvat, anybody would thought that you would have already met that eureka moment at its highest peak but no, you didn't- not until your travel to Liyue, that is.

Liyue, like all regions of Teyvat, had a unique style that distinguishes itself from others: the aesthetic of buildings, the aromatic dishes, its culture, yearly festivals-- you name it. It draws many and all sorts of people- either for work or for fun and you were there for the latter.

The bustling of crowds and the bright lights of the city at night have you that peaceful yet lively atmosphere that made you look at everything in awe. There was simply too much things one could write about and many places surrounding Liyue to paint, but none of them really sparked that motivation.

It was only when you took a walk outside of Liyue, that you found your spark. In the field full of glaze lilies, there was a woman, alone, in Liyue esque clothing. She had hair that was white as the snow in Dragonspine and eyes that was the colour of a phoenix and full of love and life. Your heart pounded against your chest like never before. She was alluring.

You took a step closer but the sound of grass bring crumpled upon made her alert and her reaction to the sound was faster than a normal person, like she was a warrior on full alert. "Who are you?" she asks sternly and her soft gaze became sharp as soon as her eyes landed on you.

"Oh, um, sorry to alert you," you started, "I was just passing by when I saw you and um.." You didn't say what you were thinking- her looking beautiful- to save yourself from embarrassment and from the- what would have been- suspicious gaze on you.

"Oh, is that so?" she says and starts to inspect you from head to toe, taking every little details of you. "Hm, it doesn't look like you're from Liyue. Are you an adventurer?"

"Ah, you can say that.." You scratch the back of your head shyly. "I'm travelling across Teyvat for inspiration." The lady hums, bringing her fingers on her chin. "So, I'm assuming you're here for inspiration?" she clarifies herself and you nod. A smile forms on her lips. "Not a lot come by this place as there are many monsters and that there are glaze lilies that can already be found within the city."

She then stood up and turns her full body to you. "Then, I shall be leaving so I can give you the scenery to help inspire you," she says and bows politely, excusing herself from your sight. You watched as her figure disappears from your sight, returning to the city. When you turned around, the scenery before you felt different. It felt sort of lonely and empty without the lady who basked in the sunlight and that spark suddenly died as soon as your eyes landed on it.

You decided to call it a day out in the wilderness and return back to the safety of the city, but not before seeing something glimmer in the midst of flowers under the sun's light. You walked closer and see a jewelry just sitting there and you presumed that it was the lady's so you picked it up, but since she was far gone, you can't hope to catch up to her, so you just hope that you two will meet again.

On the next day, you found Luhua Pool and decided to paint the scenery. It was very beautiful indeed so you sat there and painted away. As you were painting, you couldn't help but let your mind wander to the lady from yesterday.

She was a local which means you would see her somewhere in the city. However, she didn't look like a simple worker of the local stores or restaurants which meant that you can't simply walk into buildings and expect her to be there.

You still remember of the jewelry that you found and rummage your satchel for it. It was kept well inside a small box that you bought not soon after returning to the city. You suddenly pictured the white-haired female, alone, in that field of flowers, looking so beautiful that it took your breath away.

Subconsciously, you picked up a new canvas and paintbrush and spent that day painting the scene from yesterday with the best of your memories. The field itself was pretty, but it was her that made it even more so beautiful than it already was. When you were finished, the sun was already setting in the horizon. You took a step back to look at your work and praised it. It was your favourite and the one where you put so much care and effort into. If only the lady was there to see it.

You packed your belongings inside your satchel and made your way down the mountain you were on. You felt that the sun was setting rather quickly because the moon and a couple of stars were already dusting the now dark sky and you were nowhere near the city.

Not being a vision user, it kind of sucked that you have to fear of hilichurls suddenly appearing before you. The thought alone made you clutch the strap of your satchel and began frantically looking around.

Then- to your dread- you see a bunch of hilichurls in the distance. Some were sleeping while others were awake and on guard; there was even a mitachurl which just made the whole thing much worse than it already is. You can make your way around the camp so that's what you did, not knowing there there was a sleeping hilichurl in the direction you were heading. It woke up and set the alarm for the others as well.

"Oh, for the love of..!" You gripped tightly on your satchel and made a run for it. Through the years of travelling, your legs gotten quite used to long travels, as well as running away from encountered hilichurls. It was something not worth bragging since it's for survival.

You looked back and see that a hilichurl with a fire bat-like weapon sped up than the rest. In a panic, you sprinted faster, but since you weren't looking forward, you didnt see the conveniently placed log.

You tripped over it and ended up scratching your chin from the impact. You turn your body and see that they the samachurls was no more than a metre away, ready to swing its axe. Closing your eyes, you expected for the worst.

When ten seconds passed and the strike didn't come, you open one eye and then both to see some sort of barrier in front of you. "Are you alright?" Upon hearing the voice, you looked over your shoulders and see the white-haired female of whom you just painted of not too long ago.

Not waiting for an answer, she casted little rocks that was strong enough to wipe all of the hilichurls out of sight and returned back to you, kneeling down to inspect your injuries. "You're lucky that I was on my way back to the city and found you," she states. "Archon forbids what might have happened to you if I were not around."

She gets up on her feet again and stretches out a hand for you to grab. "Come on, I'll treat your wounds at my place." You didn't think it through as you hastily accepted the offered hand and followed her back inside the city.

She lead you up a couple of stairs and to your shocking news, up to the Jade Chamber that you had heard so many praises about. "Um, excuse me, but isn't this place off limits for common folks?" you ask, your eyes darting across the place with a mix of uneasiness and excitement. "It is, usually, but since you are injured, I've made an exception."

The words caught you by surprise and stare at the back of the female who rummage through shelves and drawers, looking for the things she needed. "Wait, so, are you Lady Ningguang, the Tianquan of the Liyue Qixing!?" you exclaim. She hums, a small smile tugging her lips. "I see you're well informed of Liyue. Yes, I am and this is my home," she answers. Once she found the thing she wanted- which was a medical kit- she walks to where you were sitting and places the kit on the table beside you.

"This will sting so I apologise beforehand," she said and took out a cotton, dabbing some kind of ointment on it. She gently cups your face with her free hand and tilts it upwards before placing the cotton on the bottom of your chin.

She wasn't lying when it would sting and you hissed at the sudden stinging pain you felt. She apologises again before doing it a couple more times. "There, that should heal up in no time," she says as soon as she pulls away.

You watched her quietly from your seat, mesmerized by the sight of her as she cleans up. "Beautiful." Before you could comprehend what came out from underneath your breath, Ningguang heard it and looks at you with a baffled look. "I beg your pardon?"

You realized what you said and shook your head hastily. "A, ah, did I say that out loud?" you ask, more to yourself. I-it's just that.. Um, I really think you're beautiful, Lady Ningguang and I hope that we could meet more often.." You scratched your cheek, averting your gaze from the Tianquan.

There was a brief awkward silence which made you kinda wish that you hadn't said what you said just a few moments ago. Then, "Thank you," she says. You look up and see her smiling. "I.. I do like the thought of knowing someone outside of working matters."

Your eyes glimmered in happiness that soon reached your lips. "R-really? Then, I'm happy," you said and remembered something the slipped your mind. "Oh, right, I was wondering if it would be alright to ask what you were doing out so late?"

"Oh, I was looking for something that I had dropped yesterday. I had thought I dropped it by the fields.." she answers. You knew what that 'something' is and asked, "Are you perhaps looking for a jewelry?" She looks at you with hope in her eyes. "Do you know where it is?"

You nodded and look through your satchel. "I found it lying on the grass and kept it safe, thinking that it was yours," you say in honest and pulled out the box it was kept in before walking towards her, stretching the box towards her. "I'm glad to have stumbled upon you so that I could return it to you."

Ningguang smiles and accepts the box. "Thank you," she says in a gentle tone. "By the way, I haven't gotten your name, have I?" You shook your head. "My name is (Y/N)," you answered.

"Well, (Y/N), I hope we can become great friends," she says to which you happily nod. "Me too."

---

[perish-the-creator]

I posted 1,424 times in 2021

745 posts created (52%)

679 posts reblogged (48%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 0.9 posts.

I added 1,032 tags in 2021

#godzilla - 310 posts

#godzilla vs kong - 112 posts

#kong - 107 posts

#king kong - 97 posts

#anon ask - 90 posts

#mothra - 79 posts

#king ghidorah - 66 posts

#perish speaks - 65 posts

#gvk - 53 posts

#rodan - 53 posts

Longest Tag: 134 characters

#ima hide this in the tags but honestly it sucks putting so much effort into my works and barely get any reaction. its disheartening...

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Groomer in the Godzilla Fandom

Set your biases towards me aside as I have been given horrible information as far as the type of person this user is. @zillothekajiu​ is a 20 year old man (who has turned 20 as of February 20, 2021) has been in two confirmed relationships with minors in our community. 

He confirms his age in this post here:

Before this post was made, he was in a public relationship with the young creator known as @xxancienttitanxx​. Her character, Nightmare, is seen being drawn in ship art with Zillo’s persona/oc. 

I have also gained information from Titan herself exposing not only his age but her own as well. As you can see, I did not react kindly.

While the exact time the two of them got into a relationship is unclear, Titan only recently turned 14 as of January 30th, 2021. Regardless, Zillo was still a 19 year old dating a 14 year old if they got together after that. If before, this means he was 19 while she was only 13.

At some point Titan decided to break up with him. She informed me he was very demanding of attention and would try to message her at late hours during school nights. This information Titan wished I did not share the conversation between her and I. 

Earlier today, I was messaged by @rihannachubunnysposts​ “mother”. While this information is up to skepticism, that still doesn’t change the fact of what is going on. 

As of writing this, Zilla and Rihannachu have a public romantic relationship. Several post dedicated to her have been posted on both his blogs. 

While talking to Rihannachu during one of her livestreams, she informed me that she was atleast 15. While I have no true confirmation, it is understood that she is a child. If you listen to her livestreams, she sounds very young. 

It was today that her “mother” gave me another number for her age. The mother was reaching out to me via my nsfw account because Rihannachu had blocked my main. At that time, I was confronting Rihannachu about posting images of her face on the internet (which the mother was asking about). 

After that, she was quick to tell me not only the age of her daughter but of herself as well. 

It is hinted that English is not their first language, so the odd wording makes sense. However, with this new number means that we can safely assume that Rihanna is within the age range of 10 to 15 years old. Very much so a minor that a 20 year old man should NOT be “dating”. 

These are his two accounts that he is currently active on. 

Regardless of what you think of me personally, I am calling upon the community to get this creep out. IT IS CONFIRMED! This isn’t speculation or slander. This man has two cases of dating CHILDREN. Report him. Block him! Chase him from this community and help protect our children from monsters like him. 

I’m flooding the tags in hopes that as many people as possible see this. 

259 notes • Posted 2021-04-09 15:50:54 GMT

#4

Q-Force? Bisexual Stamp of Approval

So you guys remember that horrible trailer for the show “Q-Force”, right? The one where they made a lot of us prefer to just be called slurs instead?

Well turns out, once again, Netflix and marketing has purposely made horrible trailers for this show. It’s not the best, but it is a pretty good show for the demographic it’s aiming towards. 

At first glance, the characters do fit into stereotypes, but eventually you kinda get over them as the show makes sure to flesh them out side of their obvious tropes. 

The show actually tackles the real world ideas of people within the government pretty much getting sidelined or abused due to their queerness. Now it is very literal but still a decent attempt. 

There are the typical overly sexual moments literally here and there, but oddly enough after about episode 5 it stops trying to show needless nudity in your face. 

It’s not a perfect show, but it really does feel like there was more than one LGBTQA+ member in the writer’s room. I highly recommend it. 

Bonus Points for actually making me laugh out loud several times. 

266 notes • Posted 2021-09-04 00:44:38 GMT

#3

Mothra: Don't tell me you two destroyed Hong Kong and killed thousands over a petty rivalry.

Godzilla:

Kong:

Mothra: Well?

Godzilla: You told us not to tell you, so we aren't.

Kong: Mhm mhm.

290 notes • Posted 2021-04-10 22:19:09 GMT

#2

I saw my chance and took it.

329 notes • Posted 2021-04-03 21:58:20 GMT

#1

This community doesn’t pass the vibe check

362 notes • Posted 2021-04-03 01:22:54 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[strawberriegirl]

𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡 - 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐥𝐞𝐞.

mark lee is a nice boy. he isn't naive like most people thought he was but, instead, he is just another sweet boy who wanted to help everyone and would never do anything wrong intentionally but, this... this he knew that this was wrong and he was ambivalent about this.

he hated how he had to swallow his pride and tell his childhood bestfriend, haechan about the little crush he had developed on his step dad's mistress. if he had known that his parents open marriage would lead to this, he never would said that he was okay with it. listening to his problem and understanding his point of view, he gave mark the idea of calling her for a night and see if the attraction he had for her was purely physical and nothing more.

"listen, all i'm saying is that make an account on the site, find her account and message her and ask her out. maybe you don't even like her in that way, it maybe the 'thrill' of it being forbidden making you this hot and bothered."

he hated how he actually he took his advice and borrowed his step dad's laptop and stalked his history, lucky for him it wasn't deleted. but poor mark didn't really have the courage to look at the messages so he begged haechan to come over and help him, even if it meant that he had to deal with his 'following his father's footsteps like a good son' jokes.

"no, thats not her! i told you she is around our age and this one looks like she is in her thirties." he said groaning into the pillow, questioning all of his and his step dads's life choices.

"so is this the missus ? user sweetcandy ?"

"she is not my missus, i have only seen her like, thrice and -" oh its her. he knows that smile, its same smile that casted a love spell on him. the same eyes that made mark this weak even though he made contact with them for a second or two. its definitely her .

he loved how she looked on top of him, neck and chest covered with his marks, riding him and grabbing his shoulders to steady herself as he sucked on her left breast, whimpering his name and mumbling broken sentences. worth all the trouble this is not he had imagined his date would end but he wasn't complaining. although he was nervous about the dinner date and panic of her recognizing him was there, the date went more than fine, even when he made a mistake of asking a terrible question.

"why do you this?"

"oh ! um i do have a job. i am an intern at this company but they don't pay me enough for my college tuition and stuff that i want. sometimes i don't enjoy it, you know ? feeling guilty for getting so much "free" expensive stuff so yeah...what about you ? you are only a year older than me so why do you do this?"

"oh i like to spoil my girls." he lied instantly to her question and regretted it the very next second. he was so busy internally cringing at himself, he missed the smile that grew on her face after hearing the words "my girls".

he loved how she leaned to kiss him on his cheek from her car seat, and then apologized for leaving her lipstick's stain. he knew she wasn't sorry at all about it and took pride in the faint mark that she left. oh i'll show her how its done. unbuckling her seat belt, she moved towards his driver seat to straddle him and kiss him as a way to thank him for the diamond ear rings he gifted her and also because she imagined to this after she saw his profile photo. he was a little surprised by her bold action at first but then adjusted himself to give her space and try to kiss her back.

she loved how she fit so perfectly in his arms and how soft his lips felt but she didn't quite like how he seemed to be so tense. maybe i misread and took it a bit too far. but little little did she know, the reason why mark suddenly got so tensed was because he had seen her do this before but with him, it was purely by accident but still he couldn't get the image of him kissing her just like this out his head. he didn't even groan when she pulled back and asked him if he was okay. it's still not to late tell her. tell her now. but instead he decided to pull himself together and said,

"i am. now be a good girl for me and go back and lie down on the backseat, i wanna taste you."

he loved it and hated it when she told him softly to drive safe and to take care of himself. in his head, a loud voice was yelling at him to tell her the truth and that she deserves to know it but he ignored it again and kissed her for the last time and apologized again for ripping her blouse like that before driving back home.

the drive back to his home was numb, quiet and dreadful. he thought about the events of the past few weeks that lead him here but he still didn't know what he was going to do about it in the future, what he did know was that he wanted to go haechan's and shout at him for convincing to do this but also thank him for convincing him to do this because he had such a great night with her.

he didn't even remember how he got back home but he did and went straight to his room ignoring his step dad, who was in the kitchen making a sandwich. he knew exactly why he was there so late at night but didn't wanna think about it. he had other, bigger problems to worry about.

he tried to fall asleep but he couldn't. his brain couldn't focus on one thought and he felt his stomach hurt a little. being left alone with thoughts was probably not good idea but he knew he had to confront them sooner or later. you should have never done this. he knew he shouldn't have especially when he knew the attraction he had for her was never purely physically. but still he did to convince himself that he didn't like her in that way but at the same time he did it to get a bit closer to her.

he is a little closer to her now and he hates it. he hates it because he likes her even more now. he hates that he knows she really doesn't want this whole 'sugar baby' thing but has no other choice. he hates that she has to go and please other older men who could hurt her and use her just to make money when she could be with him and feeling safe in his arms just like she did tonight. he hates that she is a nice and a sweet girl but not naive...just like him.

his field of vision turns blurry from the tears forming in his eyes when he finally realized the bitter reality. the room is filled with the noise of his soft sobs. at first he thought she was worth all the trouble he went and will go through but now he saw how he selfish was. she didn't deserve this. all this of his fault. it was his fault that he mistook his possessiveness for protectiveness. it was his fault that he acted like he knew who and what was best for her. he told his friend that wanted to protect his crush from older men who liked her innocence a little too much. he told him he was afraid she might get hurt or be involved in some trouble but in the end, he was the only one who hurt her.

[calif0rnia-lovers]

MBJ Alphabet | Choker.

twenty-six fluffy/smutty stories, long over-due. a mixture of reader/oc fics divided amongst mike & the characters he has played. based on the word suggestions received for each letter of the alphabet. updated out of order, based on your votes. can be tracked under mbj alphabet in my tags for mobile users. check out the prompts & submit your vote for what you’d like to see next. feedback always welcomed

Link to the MBJ Alphabet Masterlist | Sign up to be tagged

Pairing: Erik Stevens x Black!OC

Summary: It’s midterm season again at MIT. Cue copious amounts of coffee and group study sessions. Erik’s distraction comes from Jaz’s favorite accessory

Words:  1.8K

Erik doesn’t play when it comes to his grades, but that’s not the reason he’s in the library at nine-thirty on a Saturday night. Any other Saturday, you wouldn’t dare catch Erik in the library. By this time, he is typically done working over one of the many girls he has wrapped around his finger.

Speaking of "one of the many girls" -- that’s why Erik has interrupted his usual Saturday night routine with a trip to the library.

Jasmine Stewart.

She may be one of the many girls that have entered the orbit of Erik Stevens, but she is definitely not wrapped around his finger. If we consider the sole reason Erik is in the library, it might be the other way around.

Erik can’t remember the last time he actually studied. He’s never had to. He hears the information once, and he’s good. That’s why he received the sight of rolling eyes upon his arrival.

“What?” 

Jaz bites her tongue as she watches Erik drop into the chair next to hers. When he chased her down, after class, with a smile and "you got one more spot on that list?" Jaz had extremely low expectations. 

She has crossed paths with Erik for the last year and has never witnessed him step foot in the library or attend a single study session. This is why, as her eyes pass over his lack of-- well lack of anything -- Jaz shakes her head. 

As she meets his playful eyes, she redirects her attention to the study guide before her. 

“You’re late, Stevens.” She replies, raising her pencil to point towards the clock. “Twenty-seven minutes late to be exact, without a single book. Which is why we started without you.”

“You didn’t think I’d show up?”

“Can you blame me?” Disregarding the rolling of Erik's eyes, Jaz easily swipes his hand away preventing him from dragging her chair closer to his. Instead, he settles for moving his chair closer. “It’s Saturday night, and trust me, we all know what you do on Saturday nights.”

Jaz’s eyes roll as Erik's arm drapes along the back of her chair. She knows pushing it away is pointless. Primarily because the smile she had intended on suppressing, has already made its way across her face. 

Now that her previous statement has had a chance to set in, Jaz's smile is gone. Erik's smile, however, has grown in size as he watches Jaz's gaze drop from his. It lingers on his lips for a brief moment before she pauses to clear her throat. 

Blinking, Jaz redirects her attention to the stack of study guides before her. 

"Um...I made these for everyone," she offers, blindly pushing a copy in his direction. 

"Thanks." 

Even after her focus has shifted, Jaz knows the remainder of the session will be useless. At least with Erik seated alongside her. He doesn't bother to read the study guide she spent hours creating. His gaze, instead, is preoccupied with regarding her.

The worst part about Erik's gaze is that it is unapologetic--shameless. It lingers on each of her features, somehow evoking vivid memories of how they felt beneath his lips. 

An all too familiar heat that only rouses in his presence spreads across Jaz's skin as she attempts to concentrate on her notes. Shifting forward, she rests her elbows against the table, trying to increase the space separating their bodies. The feeble attempt does little to help her focus. 

And he knows it. 

The last time Erik was this close was a week ago. Jaz was pinned against the fridge in his apartment. And Erik's hand wasn’t rapping against the back of her seat. It was wrapped around Jaz's throat while he watched her come undone for the second time that morning. 

The memories of last Saturday, that melded into Sunday morning, quickly flood her mind. The smile on Erik’s lips morphs into a grin as Jaz shifts in her seat, her legs uncrossing, fingers toying with the black lace around her neck. 

It was a nervous tick. One Erik noticed she only seemed to display beneath his gaze. No matter how quick she was with her words, Jaz toyed with her necklaces when nervous. A tick that made it impossible for Erik not to think about kissing her neck each time he witnessed it. 

Today’s distraction is Jaz's favorite black lace choker. With her long, dark locks pulled into a high ponytail, it’s easy for Erik to see that the evidence from their last encounter still marks her skin. 

If it weren’t for the fading hickies meticulously placed along her skin, barely covered by the thin lace, Erik would’ve accepted he dreamed their encounter. 

Because after he’d interrupted her making coffee for a round of half-sleep, lazy sex, Erik had stopped to take a shower. By the time he had found a towel and stepped back into the kitchen, Jaz was gone. 

She hadn't even bothered to leave coffee in the pot for him. Once they saw each other in class that following Monday, Jaz was back to addressing Erik Stevens with the same amount of energy she had the past several months. Little to none. 

When she came home with him that first night, Erik hadn’t initially planned on calling her the next day. 

Relationships aren’t really his thing.

But he did at least anticipate a phone call -- shit, even a text. 

They always come. No matter if Erik never bothers to respond half the time, they always come. Not from Jaz. 

“Speaking of Saturday night,” Erik sighs. His eyes drop to follow the action of her fingers as they trace the lace against her skin. “You lose my number or something?”

This question is enough to raise her eyes from her notes. Erik earns a smile as Jaz’s eyes meet his. 

"When you popped smoke-"

“Or something.” A light shrug accompanies Jaz's words.  Putting her pen down, she shifts in her seat to find Erik's eyebrow raised, his lips turned up into a grin. “And I did not pop smoke. Especially when you're Mr. Can't Sleep With The Same Girl More Than Once."

"Okay," Erik chuckles. He runs his tongue across his lower lip, dragging Jaz's mind straight back to the last Saturday. “Last I checked, we definitely went more than once-” 

Shaking her head, in a feeble attempt to clear it, Jaz ignores the smile she receives in response. 

"So, what?" Jaz huffs, the sarcasm in her voice surprisingly strong. "Is this where you tell me that you showed up tonight to say I'm the exception to the rule, and you suddenly wanna take me out?"

"I didn’t say all that-"

"Good," she smiles as she pushes her chair back. Standing, she retrieves the sticky note from her notebook. “I don’t have time for a boyfriend, so you can save the whole I'm not emotionally available speech."

"And pick up with what comes after?" He chuckles as he falls into step alongside her. 

She's not sure why the proposition throws her off, but Jaz glances in Erik's direction. 

"No," she laughs. The sound does not sound nearly as convincing as she intends. "Did you get up to annoy me or help me?"

"I'll help you," Erik shrugs as she stops to double-check the author on the sticky note. "Just tell me what you need."

"You wanna help me out?" Jaz lifts the sticky note. She presses it firmly against his chest, stopping his hands from finding her waist. "Help me find this book."

Jaz may have had pure intentions when she stood up from the table. Erik, on the other hand, might not have. 

In fact, if anyone in their study group could find the brainpower to look up from their notes, they would notice Erik is nowhere to be seen.

And has been M.I.A. for nearly ten minutes. 

While his classmates stress over the quickly approaching midterms, Erik is deep in the stacks. His teeth cutting into her lip, catching the whimpers that spill from Jaz as his fingers stretch her open. 

His thrusts are relentless and meticulous, melding into a torturous rhythm. Each time Jaz manages to regain control over her breathing, Erik's fingers move as fast as the stuttering of her heart. The second her fingers squeeze into his arm, her hips rolling forward to match his movements, Erik’s pace becomes teasingly slow. A chuckle is lost against her lips each time she whispers a protest. 

Erik’s tongue passes over his lips at the beautiful sight before him. 

Jaz’s head is tipped back, pressing into the books behind her. Her eyes gripped shut, chest heaving as she struggles to steady her breaths.

“We're in the library, babe,"  he teases. "You gotta be quiet."

It is the same taunt that comes each time he manages to pull a sound from her, and each time his pace slows. 

Jaz would try and shoot back a snarky remark, but the fear of something much louder slipping out presses her teeth deeper into her lip.

They both knew the problem could easily be fixed. 

All Erik has to do is lift his hand. Press it against her mouth, but that would be too easy. Instead of moving to muffle her voice, Erik's touch drags along the curve of her jaw. His lips follow its path, the brush of his tongue mixing in with heated kisses. 

His grip tightens as it finds the base of her throat, his thumb tracing the pattern of the black lace against her skin. Pushing it up, he allows his breath to pass over the bruises on her skin. The shiver that passes over her spine, arches her body into his. Each brush and suck of his lips work to pull out a fresh bruise. Between the pressure from Erik's mouth and his fingers, Jaz's legs are trembling in a matter of seconds. 

The wave of pleasure she has spent minutes chasing comes to an abrupt halt the moment “E-” passes her lips. 

In an instance, Erik’s touch is gone. His chuckle muffles the gasp that escapes Jaz’s lungs.

“You should head back.” Jaz’s hooded eyes open. The deadly look in her eyes is enough to make Erik’s smile morph into a cheese-eating grin. “Wouldn’t want your group to start wondering where you went.”

“I’m going to kill you,” the promise in her voice earns Jaz a chaste kiss. 

“You might need this,” Erik smiles. 

Jaz's gaze falls from his sparkling eyes to the deep navy book in Erik’s hands. The slowly ebbing high has left her mind hazy, meaning it takes her a moment to realize it’s the book she had initially set out to find. Pressing it against his chest, Jaz tries her best to ignore the smug look on Erik’s face as he takes a step back. 

“Use my number if you wanna finish later.” 

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[bonjour-rainycity]

Double Heart | Chapter Nine ~ Cosima

|previous part|

Pairing: Haldir x OFC

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 3476

Warnings: None

**Read on Ao3 under the user “bonjour_rainycity” if you prefer!**

A/n Sorry this was a little late! Happy reading :)

Translations: Mae govannen = well met! // Meleth nîn = my love

Two weeks after I woke in this strange world, we reach Imladris.

When Haldir tells me that the sparkling city in the valley is our destination, I can scarcely believe him. After endless days and nights riding through open country, to finally reach civilization, even if it’s not the civilization I’m used to, is so welcome I nearly cry with relief.

Four men on horseback race up the slope of the mountains to meet us. They wear heavy armor—more than what Haldir and the others wear—and carry tall spears. Their leader, fierce though he seems, takes my breath away. Even from here, I can see his face because it reflects an ethereal glow. His hair, which has to be spun gold, flows long down the back of his horse and glints in the sun. Whoever he is, he is no mere man.

“Elrond’s patrols,” I question, remembering someone mentioning them earlier.

“Yes,” Haldir responds, and I can hear a grin in his voice. “We have reached their outer borders. Congratulations, Cosima.” He twists to offer me a proud smile. “You have completed your first journey.”

I swallow, unable to keep myself from smiling back. Haldir can be so stoic at times that praise from him is completely unexpected. Warmth spreads through my chest.

The riders come to a halt in front of us and the one I assume to be their leader dismounts, striding confidently in our direction. Haldir slides off Faervel, approaching in a similar fashion. I take the horse’s reins in my hands, stroking his back affectionately. The horses’ height doesn’t bother me anymore and I’ve become much more confident in riding them in the past two weeks.

“Mae govannen, Haldir o Lórien!”

“Glorfindel.” Haldir clasps the man’s elbow jubilantly. They converse in that language I haven’t heard since I arrived — the others have been speaking solely in English for my and Alex’s benefit — and it’s jarring to hear the unfamiliar sounds. It serves as a reminder that, though I have allowed myself to become comfortable here, too comfortable, maybe, this is not my world. This is somewhere different.

Haldir turns over his shoulder and extends a hand in my direction. I catch my name and Alexander’s among the strange syllables and offer the man—Glorfindel, Haldir called him—a smile in greeting. He approaches, stunning golden hair shining in the light of the sunset, and bows elegantly. A laugh bubbles from my throat—startled by the action. Vaguely, I remember Rumil bowing to me when we first met. Whereas his motivation had been to make a joke, Glorfindel seems totally genuine, the gesture one of respect and welcome. He performs the same movement for Alex.

“Welcome, lost humans and my elven friends. Come, I shall keep you waiting no longer. Elrond is eager to see you and I am sure you are equally ready for proper food and a full night’s rest.” With that, he strides back to his horse and mounts.

I scoot higher on Faervel’s back to give Haldir room and hand him the reins. The horses must sense how close we are to extended rest, because they race faster than they did the entire journey. Despite my new skill, I have to grip Haldir extra tight to make up for the frantic pace and only being able to use one arm. Though the mountain slope is steep and the city surely has to be miles away, we arrive in less than an hour.

Streams of blue and white cascade above us, falling every way I turn and crashing down below. The air smells impossibly sweet and fresh — perhaps due to the flowers that bloom all around. The rays from the sinking sun, brilliant orange and gold, mingle with the water in the falls and, just as Haldir promised, send gently curving rainbows over our path. I let out a breath, completely stunned.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Haldir’s voice holds a reverence I’ve never heard before, but it is aptly placed. I could not fathom regarding this city with anything less than the utmost respect and admiration.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Even in my homeworld, I—” I blink, unable to comprehend the etherial nature of my surroundings. “I would have remembered it. This…”

“I know.” Theres a soft, almost vulnerable quality to his voice that caresses the phrase. I can imagine his eyes are alight like mine, taking in the splendor of the city even though he’s seen it many times before. I’d wager this is a sight one never gets used to.

Glorfindel pulls his horse to a stop before an arching, narrow bridge.

Oh no.

I suck in a sharp breath, gripping onto Haldir with both my injured and uninjured arm. My wound stings, but it is preferable to suffer this momentary pain than to loosen my grip and go plummeting off the edge.

Haldir chuckles, the vibrations rumbling deep in his chest. “The bridge is only the beginning. Look ahead—part of the main city is suspended on pillars.”

My stomach churns and I feel my heart race. By the way my arms constrict around him, Haldir seems to figure out that he has not employed the wisest strategy. His voice softens and he squeezes my hand like he did earlier, after the attack. “Faervel knows the way. Neither he nor I will let you fall.”

I take a deep breath. It’s either the bridge and the safety of Imladris or the orc-infested mountains. And, I suppose, Haldir has gotten us this far. Minor injuries aside, we survived a heavily out-numbered attack relatively unscathed. I trusted him then and I can trust him now. “Fine.”

He chuckles again but makes a big show of lining Faervel up with what will be the middle of the bridge. I resist the urge to elbow him in the ribs — armor covers them anyway. It would hurt me more than it would him.  

Glorfindel calls out in that language again, then directs his horse onto the bridge. The three other mounted guards follow. Then, so gently I barely register the change, Faervel steps from the lush grass to the stone of the bridge. Water roars and tosses below us, drowning out any words the others might say. And drowning you if Faervel doesn’t keep straight. That is, if the impact doesn’t kill you first. I fight the urge to whimper and keep my eyes locked straight ahead. Almost to the end.

The bridge is mercifully short and soon we are on much surer foundations, having crossed into the city. While the water still cascades around us, its noise has subsided, almost like it’s been muted. In its place, soft, lyrical music fills the air. Harps. Once we are far from the bridge, I look around. The buildings are made of stone yet seem a natural part of the valley. Chains of flowers spill from every archway, peek between small cracks in the stone, weave into the intricate designs in the masonry. Trees, the same ones that welcomed us at the border, make a home in the city, growing where they wish — even if that means rising alongside a fabricated pillar.

Haldir speaks softly, hesitantly, almost like he doesn’t want to interrupt my exploration of the city. “Is it worth the bridge?”

I realize we’ve come to a stop in front of a large dais backed by a constant stream of blue and frothy white. It’s like we’re in the waterfall. “Definitely,” I exhale. Though, I have no desire to cross that bridge again any time soon.

A tall man steps onto the dais. His face is kind and, though the edges of his mouth and forehead are lined with creases, he could be any age. He seems altogether outside of time. His eyes hold wisdom, more than I could ever hope to collect, and I know this must be the Elrond my friends talked about. He could be no other.

He spreads his hands and smiles warmly. “Welcome. Our friends from Lothlórien and the humans who accompany them, welcome to Imladris. We have dinner prepared for you. Leave your horses with the guards — they will be well cared for.”

I believe him. He could probably tell me the sky is green or Faervel is a mouse and I wouldn’t question it.

And if he told you that you’re in a different world?

I gulp and push the weighted thought away.

Haldir swings his left leg to meet his right and slides off Faervel’s back. As always, he keeps a gentle hold on me until my feet are securely on the ground, then clasps his hands behind his back in his most favored stance.

I peek behind me to locate Alexander. He shifts from foot to foot and darts his eyes suspiciously around the room. With his short hair, lanky stature, and clear discomfort, he looks so out of place here. With a start, I realize that I must, too. Though the physical differences are certainly apparent, there’s just something about these men…an otherworldliness I had somehow gotten used to during our journey. But here, in this unreal city surrounded by others who are so clearly not men…For the first time, I truly, honestly consider that they might not be human.

Rumil appears on my right side, practically beaming with excitement. “What do you think?”

I exhale on shaky breath, my recent realization having left me feeling a little lightheaded. “I think it’s a lot to take in. It’s gorgeous, though.”

At my left, Haldir eyes me curiously. He heard my reaction upon reaching Imladris and is probably wondering why I’m downplaying it to Rumil. Truth be told, I just don’t have the energy to take much more this evening. A good meal and sleep will hopefully help.

“Orophin!”

I tilt my head around Rumil to find the source of the delighted shriek and find myself staring at the most enchanting woman I’ve ever seen.

Her hair, coiled and dark, tumbles down her back in tight curls, brushing the back of her legs. Her espresso skin shines in the nearly-faded light, almost as if it has a luminescence of its own — perhaps a result of the joy that radiates from her. She wears a long, ruby-colored gown that sweeps gently over the stairs as she practically throws herself down them, sprinting in our direction.

“Meleth nîn!” Orophin calls back to her, breaking from our informal line and rushing to whom I assume to be his fiancée.

Indulgent chuckles run through our group as the two collide, gripping each other in a fierce hug. They pull back almost immediately, pressing their foreheads together and just staring into each other’s eyes. The action seems much more intimate than if they had fallen to the floor in a passionate embrace, and I avert my eyes, feeling the need to give them privacy.

“Come on,” Haldir whispers, ghosting his fingers over my elbow. “They will join us later.”

Elrond leads us through open-air hallways. Every way we turn seems to offer a view of the waterfalls and brings with it a light, fresh scent. He takes us right, bringing us through one final archway and into what looks to be a dining room. In the center is a long rectangular table surrounded by ten matching chairs. The table is already stacked with food — breads, salads, fruits, and various kinds of meat that smell absolutely mouthwatering.

Elrond smiles invitingly, entering the room and stopping behind the chair at one of the table’s heads. “I expected you would be weary this evening and would wish to dine in private. Please, sit and help yourselves.”

I follow Rumil and Haldir, hoping I’m not violating any social rules I am unaware of by choosing a random seat in the middle. Before I can pull the chair back, Haldir steps in to complete the task, gesturing for me to take a seat. I have to hold back my amusement at the antiquated gesture — perhaps it’s a custom here. He does seem more formal than Alex and I are.

Haldir and Rumil take the chairs on either side of me and, before long, Alex appears at my opposite. I smile at him. Given our recent arguments and the fact that I don’t really know if we’re friends in this life, I’m not quite sure where we stand. But he returns the gesture which allows me to breathe a sigh of relief. He’s familiar, at least. Baranor sits between Alex and Elrond and immediately the two healers engage in deep discussion.

I distract myself with the food and soon have more piled on my plate than I could possibly hope to eat, but I can certainly try. Before long, Orophin and the woman from earlier join us and are welcomed jovially.

Orophin beams, gesturing to the woman at his side. “Lavandil, these are the humans I was telling you about. Cosima and Alexander, this is my betrothed, Lavandil.”

Lavandil sets her excited gaze on both myself and Alex. “Hello, it’s so nice to meet you. Welcome to Imladris! We are pleased to have you here.” Her voice is warm, welcoming, and I find it impossible not to smile along with her, distressed though I am at Orophin’s clear distinction of me as ‘human’.

Orophin pulls out a chair for Lavandil and sits between her and Alex, who looks ridiculously uncomfortable in the presence of so many of these…humans. Though, I must admit, my resolve to call them that is steadily weakening.

Minutes later, Glorfindel enters the room accompanied by a demure man called Lindir. Haldir and Glorfindel fall into a spirited debate about patrol strategies and border security. Rumil piles something on my plate that he claims I have to try. He’s not wrong — it’s really good!

“So, Cosima, Alexander.” Lavandil props her elbow on the table and rests her chin on her hand, looking at us with interest. “Orophin says they happened upon you both near the river and that you haven’t any memories?”

All eyes converge on me and Alex. I don’t trust him to be polite, so I hurry to answer her question.

“Yes. We remember each other and tiny snippets of our home, but besides that, nothing.”

“How strange,” she muses, looking fascinated. “That must have been so shocking. How are you adjusting?”

I exhale slowly, playing for time. How am I adjusting? The weight of everyone’s eyes feels almost crushing. “It’s definitely a lot to get used to,” I say diplomatically. “But we’re really lucky to have run into good people who were willing to help.”

Despite his feelings towards our companions, Alex wisely remains silent. It would do us no good to offend our hosts.

Lavandil giggles, the sound bright and cheerful. “I’m glad they were helpful and not rude. I know Haldir has a tendency to interrogate first and help later. He’s slow to trust.” She shoots Haldir a teasing grin, to which he merely rolls his eyes, but his cheek twitches like he’s fighting a smile.

I try to suppress a grin. “Well, he wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, but he calmed down quickly enough.” I purse my lips, contemplating. “But now that I think about it, no one really left me unattended or gave me a weapon even though the trip was dangerous. Hold on, do any of you actually trust me?” I lean back in my chair and cross my arms, though I raise an eyebrow at Haldir to let him know I’m only kidding.

He shakes his head, huffing in mock exasperation. “We trust you now but at the start, how was I to know you weren’t some sort of spy?”

“A spy!” I huff. “I’m hurt. But moving on. Later, once you decided I was not a spy, how come no one gave me a knife or anything?”

Rumil chortles. “Have you seen the lines of your mending? You’re more likely to impale yourself than an enemy.”

I grumble indignantly. He’s right, but that doesn’t mean I have to tell him so.

Haldir quirks an eyebrow. “Would you like to learn? I can teach you.”

I think on this. Hmmm…do I need to learn how to use a weapon? Probably. But do I want to? Surprisingly, I find that the answer is yes. This world is obviously dangerous—I got a very real reminder of that just a few days ago—and I want to be capable in it. Haldir or the others might not always be there to defend me—I should learn how to protect myself.

“Yeah, I would. Thank you!”

Haldir nods, the edges of his mouth pulling into an expression of grim determination. I quickly discover why.

He’s psyching himself up, I realize with a quiet laugh.

He inclines his head towards Alex. “And you, Alexander? I can teach you as well.” By the gravity in his tone, it is clear Haldir’s offer is real, but begrudging.

Alex takes a bite of fruit. “No thank you.”

That’s to be expected. Though Haldir was angry earlier and probably overreacted, he did make a good point when he said that Alex has yet to make an effort to adjust to life here. He’s stayed on the edge of things since the moment we encountered him, always keeping one foot out the door.

A voice warns me that, rather than criticizing Alex, I should have been doing the same.

Elrond motions for an attendant to refill my glass of water. “Baranor says you were attacked in the mountains? That must have been very frightening.”

Flashes of grotesque beasts and shining swords enters my mind and I shrink away from the images. I know we’re safe inside these halls but the fear is still there, lurking at the edges of my thoughts.

Haldir cuts in and I realize I have been silent for longer than is polite. “We were attacked, yes, by about eighteen orcs, wouldn’t you say?”

Rumil and Orophin both nod — I didn’t even know they had a count. I had been focused trying to dodge the blades and arrows. To me, it seemed there was an endless stream of the monsters. Haldir continues. “We killed them all and had no trouble for the rest of our journey. It does make me wander though,” his eyes dart to mine and then quickly away. “Such a large party so close to your borders? Is that common these days?”

“Yes.” Elrond nods gravely. “We have seen an increase in scouting parties and attacks. Just last month, a fully armed company of forty attempted to breach one of our southeastern border stations.”

“No,” Orophin breathes, gripping Lavandil’s hand tightly, a stricken look of horror stretching his face.

She brushes his concerns aside. “Oh, I’m fine. I was up north visiting my mother at the time. I didn’t even know the attack had occurred until I returned home.”

Orophin’s reaction worries me. I lay my fork on my plate, appetite fading as fear gnaws at the edges of my gut. “That’s unusual?”

Haldir shakes his head. “It is not unusual to encounter orcs at the borders, but an armed, prepared, planned attack of such a large number is…telling.” He avoids my gaze.

My body runs cold. “Telling of what?”

“Sauron,” Elrond says simply.

“That name means nothing to them,” Orophin reminds him, still looking at his love. He holds so much concern in his eyes—and a measure of fear—and I wonder just how big of a threat this is. Is Lavandil in danger? Is Elrond? Are we?

Elrond elaborates. “Sauron is a being of great power and even greater evil. He was defeated once before, but whispers of his presence have been heard throughout the realm. I believe he is growing in power again, gathering his armies. He is preparing.”

I drop my hands into my lap, gripping the edges of the chair in an attempt to find an anchor. Across from me, Alex has gone pale.

I don’t have to ask what this being is preparing for. It’s obvious. He’s preparing for war.

If the orcs weren’t bad enough, now we’ve got an evil power looming over us all? I wonder…is my homeworld safer than this?

Glorfindel raises his glass of deep red wine. He holds a steely, almost feral glare in his golden eyes and, suddenly, I am very, very afraid of him. “As quickly as he rises, so shall he fall.”

All aside from Alex and me raise their goblets, a forceful, “hear, hear” resounding through the room of stone. My eyes meet Alex’s. He raises an eyebrow as if to say, what do you want to do?

And I know my answer.

I want to go home.

A/n Thanks for reading! Likes, comments, and reblogs make my day! Let me know if you would like a tag :)

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