#Ring of Heroes Enemies

[unofskylanderspages]

Did you know? Chompies are the only enemies that appear in every Skylanders game.

[heart-star]

Don't know why but I feel skylanders vibes even in Transformers one, maybe because of the child friendly designs in 3d of the bots,

and I relate the holograms from the archive at the beginning to the book you enter in superchargers.

Plus remember when I said that the Spellslamzer may be a fragment of the entity of Dormin from Fumito Ueda's games?

It could actually make sense because besides being the only of his "Skylands native kind" to have odd eyes and be all covered by the cloak but obviously all darkness he also could spit in fight like the full body of Dormin became many shadows beings like in Ico and like the Queen of the game he's smart and can talk and apparently can open portals to bring the opponents to another dimension like "he" does come from an outer world.

[madamechrissy]

If I didn't Know Better

Pairings - Sylus x f! reader

Summary - You are arranged married to the powerful Sylus, sight unseen- and the moment you meet him, the two of you butt heads. He seems so arrogant and self sure, and he sees you as a bratty little Kitten - but that first night changes everything. Your duty is to make heirs, but Sylus gives you the choice - not to be with him for duty, but because you choose to. You both find yourselves interested to learn more and more- but just because it's good, does it mean you're in love?

Warnings- NSFW- This is SO smutty, fluffy, cute and sweet! Arranged marriage trope, a lil bit enemies to lovers, oral (f and m receiving) explicit sex, Sylus calling you Kitten and sweetie bc YES, teasing, asking for consent ofccc, talking you through it, getting 'tied up', cervix kissing, riding Sylus and making him whimper, lil bit of a spit kink hehe - you know there's a breed kink - happy endinggg - oneshot- wc- 11k!

Based on the Arranged Husband Sylus headcanons! Happy birthday to my Aries Dragon <3 Comments/rbs appreciated if you enjoy!

The rustle of silk and the clicking of your heels along the marble floor is the only sound that seems real as you descend the altar steps, as your pounding heartbeat resonates in your ears and drowns out the organs playing in the background. The dress you wore was a pristine white, along with a ruby red brooch that the attendants had pinned on your bodice, and fuck it feels heavy, a weight of the truth.

You’re about to be his.

You’re going to belong to him, a stranger. You eye him across the room in a bit of a daze, as eager onlookers study you, as if every step you make is being assessed. You can barely breathe with the pressure, let alone comprehend that you're about to marry a stranger you have only heard rumors of.

Sylus.

His name echoes in your mind, a dark, enigmatic man - some know him as a philanthropist, but rumors are there is much more to him. The dark interior of this grand hall, all reds and blacks and antique, are a stark contrast to the soft, romantic notions usually associated with weddings. You wear white, and it’s even more of a contrast to what is happening around you.

You had dreams of a day where you’d fall in love, you were still young, at least too young to marry in your opinion, you’re twenty four, and that to you is still plenty of time to find love. Though, your work tended to leave you always on assignments, always busy before this, so love was not on your mind. But the choice being taken away from you is hard to swallow.

You didn’t have parents to talk to about this, just a guardian who’d arranged this long ago. You have no clue just what you’re getting into, are the dangerous rumors true, is he ruthless? The leader of a dark, underground crime ring, or are they mere fiction, and he’s the sweet, generous hero of the N109?

This isn't a romance. This is an arrangement. You must do your duty.

Duty, always duty.

As you finally stand before him, endless steps across the elegant hall, your gaze instinctively locks onto the figure before you, and your heart skips just a beat. To say he was handsome was an understatement, the man in front of you is much more. Sylus is breathtaking, a sculpted masterpiece of sharp angles and striking features that you’ve never encountered. 

He’s insanely tall, towering over you and everyone in this room, silently watching behind their masks, as if this were a masquerade. Sylus is wearing a blood-red suit screams power, and mirrors the color of his ruby eyes, god those eyes, lidded and framed with dark lashes, in contrast to silver locks. Those eyes that seem to pierce through you now, glinting in the dim lights.

His lips part just a bit, full and glossy, as his insane eyes are assessing, judging, dragging them down your face, and across your body, you feel it so vividly- like a fucking caress. God he is beautiful, undeniably so, but a chilling undercurrent of danger radiates from him, causing your fingers to tighten around the bouquet, the mix of black and red roses.

You’ve heard whispers, rumors that paint him as the richest man alive, a titan of industry, and a force to be reckoned with. You knew you were marrying into power, but the reality of it is far more overwhelming than any briefing could have prepared you for, money is one thing, this was quite another, intense power and energy unlike anything you’ve ever encountered.

Sylus frowns at you, feigning disinterest, but he loves beautiful things, his manor is full of the finest jewels, rarities from centuries prior, and the finest art. The finest music, anything beautiful was something he collected, and of course he enjoyed a beautiful woman, but nothing quite has prepared him for you and just how stunned you’d have him.

You’re trembling just a bit as you tilt your head up, the brooch settled right on your intricate bodice, he watches your breasts rise and fall with your nerves, perfect and silken skin, pressed up high from the corset of the gown. Sylus tenses just a bit, he hadn’t expected this, this beauty of yours was not exaggerated, no perhaps it was understated.

Your eyes are full of apprehension, of fear, but they’re gorgeous how they glitter under your lashes, your lips stained with the same ruby red that adorned those roses, as if they themselves had stained them. Your body is perfect in its silhouette, you’re so small compared to him, most people are of course- his neck hurts from constantly having to look down at others with his huge frame.

But this was different.

He has a vivid image of just how easy it would be to pick you up like you’re nothing, to carry you and sit you right on his bed. Your scent, something so familiar yet foreign, fills his nostrils, as intoxicating as your beauty. For a moment he can’t even think of just a word to describe you, he planned to complain about the wait, he needed this done with after all, the loss of some of his freedoms.

But he finds it hard to think when you’re right here.

Then you notice it, you see on his shoulder as something lands, drawing your attention in the eerily quiet hall. Perched on his shoulder, a mechanical crow sits, its metallic eyes blinking with what appears to be genuine confusion, a gold coin in its beak.

"What's a crow doing here?" The words escape your lips before you can filter them. It was a genuine question, born out of surprise and a desperate attempt to break the suffocating tension and quiet, but big mistake.

His reaction is immediately full of irritation, his gaze hardens, and you feel the full force of his displeasure. It's clear: you've committed some grave fucking offense.

"Don't dare disrespect Mephisto." He growls, the first words you hear from him, and god if the man’s voice isn’t as sexy as it was intimidating,  a deep, raspy rumble that sends shivers down your spine.

Is that desire or fear!?

Both!?

You feel the heat in your cheeks now, as others murmur around you, going on about ‘how dare you offend your husband like that’ which just makes you curse internally. The room was filled with those who orchestrated this union, the judging faces all around you. The very room seems to shrink around you, practically suffocating with all these fucking eyes on you, it seems one comment and you’ve already offended everyone here.

Including the irritated, arrogant man in front of you, as Sylus himself fixes you with a glare that could melt steel. "Now, on with the wedding. You’re late."

Late!? You are on time, holy fuck you’d been preened and done up like some stupid damn doll, and he has the audacity to call you late!? You feel it now, the anger and annoyance, because really fuck this, not only has the man got a crow cawing and flapping at you, he’s going to also be a whole dick?

"I am not late! I'm on time!" You stomp your foot just so, as he scoffs, raising a thin silver brow.

“We’ve been waiting, and I hate to be kept waiting.” You roll your eyes, arms crossed under your breasts.

“I’m here now, let’s just get on with it.”

“Lets,” comes his bored tone, a dismissive sound met with it that only ignites your irritation at this man’s audacity. He turns to the masked man holding an enormous, faded black book. “On with it.” 

Is that all he had to say?

This man.

The ceremony proceeds in a blur, a fucking whirlwind as you panic now, the crow cawing it’s agreement, and you see Sylus actually smile - at the fucking crow - as if he’s marrying him instead, while the priest's words are an echo. You barely focus when the vows are exchanged, Sylys couldn’t look more bored.

The thing was, he didn’t seem cruel. Just so bored!

As if this is exciting for you, you’re giving up your entire life. The exchange of your vows feels so empty, just going through the motions, you’re in your head completely, imagining a life with a stranger. One who likes a damn crow better than you already - snapping out of it only with the touch of his hand.

When he touches you for the first time?

He’s not just annoying, or pompous, or arrogant, he feels good.

Fuck him for that.

He pauses too, the tingles of your hands exchanged, making him tense up, as he struggles to focus, eyeing your little hand being held by his - something feels perfect, it feels natural, like it’s always been there. He pauses completely, Mephitsto is holding the ring in his beak, a black ring of obsidian and rubies, one he’s had for far longer than he’d admit.

Now it’s going on one of your pretty little fingers.

Your eyes met his, they were so full of fire, determination and anger despite how small you are in his comparison, cute like some… kitten. An angry kitten who thinks she has claws, but then, you seem to have them, nails filed all pointy and painted blood red, doing erratic things as he thinks of having them…

Why is he thinking this way?

It’s an arrangement.

Sylus would not be cruel or treat you poorly, but he surely wasn’t going to enjoy you, having his choice taken and being forced to just have heirs, as archaic as he himself is. “Gonna do it?” You make him glare again with your bratty little question, even as your hand trembles in his.

“Tch. Impatient little thing, aren’t you?” Your eyes narrow, while he slips the ring onto your finger. The metal feels cold against your skin, fuck it feels heavy, you’re looking at it carefully, eyes now meeting his, the same ruby as your ring and your damn brooch.

Like he owns you - but you guess, he does.

Now, you’re bound to Sylus, forever and that weighs so heavy you can hardly breathe - forever with a stranger. Not for love, no, a contract, with a man you don't know, a man who already seems to dislike you. Fuck, you’re tied to a man with a mechanical crow that won’t stop cawing, while Sylus acts so casual, like nothing even happened, hands in his pockets, bored look on perfect features.

“Let’s go, I guess. Come now.” The dismissive gesture is not met with holding your hand, leading you, no, just a fucking look with eyes that bore through you. “Going to keep me waiting?”

This man!?

Soon you’re stepping - rather than being romantically carried - over that threshold, right into Sylu’s decadent mansion, as imposing as it is beautiful. He does have your luggage, the few important things that you’ve brought, handing them to two large masked men, whose eyes are following you behind those masks eerily. ‘Mephisto’ or the mechanical crow, is flying forward.

You swear the crow tells you to fuck off in his own language.

You glare at it, only for it to ‘caw, caw’ at you, and Sylus’s perfect, gorgeous face - damn him  - to look at you with an arched brow. “This way, or you’ll get lost.”

You follow him, his dress shoes glimmering as they click on his marble floor, looking at your surroundings, draped in elegance, his mansion is impeccable, gothic in fact. You peer around at the choices of black and red everywhere, there are no bright tones aside from bright rubies glinting, and the elegant chandeliers that catch your attention overhead.

Roaring fires crackle and fill it with warmth, something from so long ago, almost homey in an otherwise cold, gloomy manor, the home screams Sylus truly. He snatches up a bottle of red and one glass as the two of you pass his massive banquet hall, you suppose it’s a dining room but is basically a banquet hall. He glances at you, arrogant brow up, you want to smack his pretty face.

“Am I drinking from the bottle?” You earn his smirk.

“You want some of my wine, then?”

“What sort of host are you!?”

“You’re not a guest. More like a pest.” You scoff as he picks up another glass, with the greatest effort, clearly annoyed by your existence. “Come, then.”

You’re already tired of following him, passing those large men again, who are laughing softly and whispering at each other. “You have a mechanical crow and two weirdos living here, huh?”

“Weirdos!? Boss!” One of them says, but Sylus actually laughs softly, god that sound is way too pleasing, shaking his head and continuing to walk with his stupidly long legs, as you try to keep up.

“You’ll get lost if you don’t walk faster, sweetie.” His tone is so mocking, so annoying it drives you even more crazy, as you rush through the halls of the elegant manor, footsteps softly echoing.

“I have heels on, you know.” You’re lifting your dress up, ascending another stupid flight of stairs, trying not to notice just how nice your husband’s backside was with a flush- did the pants have to be that tight?

“You can take them off when we get to our chambers.” Finally you both get to a huge wooden double doors, where Sylus opens them with a heavy creak, as you blink in confusion.

“Our chambers? Who has chambers anymore? I… oh…” When he reveals the enormous, beautiful room you realize why it’s called that way. Soft red plush rugs over marble floors, a fireplace that he roars to life with a fucking snap - four post bed big enough for several people, black beams with a black thin curtain around them.

You blush as you do focus on that bed, its velvet blood red blankets and silky golden pillows, like something you’d expect in Dracula’s castle.

Was Sylus a vampire?

He looks like one.

Your eyes narrow, studying him then, eyeing the bottle of red. Was it blood?

“You’re staring, sweetie.” He murmurs, even though his back is turned, and he’s opening the wine bottle with a satisfying pop.

“You wish.” He chuckles once more, while you take in the rest of the room, sleek sleek dark wood furniture and high ceilings, some mix of ancient and modern that shouldn’t make sense, but it does.

“Your stare is intense.” You roll your eyes, leaning against a long side table to ease off each heel carefully, sighing in relief as you do. “I bought you a wardrobe, it’s right in that dresser.”

“A wardrobe? How would you even know…”

“Think I didn’t know about you?” Sylus eyes you now, they’re glinting, the fire casting shadows of his long, tall figure across the expanse of the room, shadows enveloping you, while you stand there, heat blooming across your cheeks.

“Did they give you all the statistics first?” Your question is full of venom, but for some reason you still scream kitten to his mind.

“Go get in something comfortable, there is a bathroom right there.” He pours two glasses of dark cabernet then, as you tentatively go to the dresser, blushing when you see the top drawer, filled with black lingerie. “Something wrong?”

“N-no.”

You’re to have his heirs, that’s the whole purpose, marrying the heir to her own fortune - though much, much less than Sylus’s - to the richest, most powerful man. To have a family and babies was good for his image, and of course everyone must have pressed him to do this as well, but you wonder then, would he even want to do that with you tonight?

“You don’t have to put them on, there are pajamas in the next drawer over.” You clear your throat just a bit, opening that drawer, seeing black and red silk, running your fingers gently over them, feeling the smooth texture as you peer in the mirror, and catch him eyeing you for a moment.

“You really like red, huh?” You see his smirk in the reflection, as you take the red silky slip and pull it out, delicate lace running across the neck.

“You could say so.”

“I um… could you unlace me?” Your words shoot through him then, he has never been nervous around anyone, not a man with his power, and as long as he remembers he has always been at ease with women.

You do something quite irritating.

His hand almost cracks his favorite wine glass, while you wait, brushing your hair to one side, and he slowly steps behind you. “Kitten, can’t even undress, hmm?”

“Kitten!?” You glare at him as he tugs on one of the laces, jerking you just a bit with the force, deepening your scowl.

“You’re an angry little kitten, who thinks her tiny meows are intimidating. Hmm…” He further tugs, stepping back a bit as you eye him in the mirror, biting back a gasp when you’re unlaced, and he traces his fingers down your spine. Your tummy clenches, breath catching as he does, body reacting so intensely it makes no sense. “Was too tightly laced…”

His murmur is met with him touching the criss cross marks left behind, imprinted on your delicate skin, eyeing the goosebumps that rise then, as he imagines everything he’d like to do to you. The urge to kiss your annoying mouth for the first time is almost too strong and vivid, followed by kissing every mark left by your corset. You shiver a bit, and he catches your eyes, his own dilating - almost black.

“Something wrong? You’re all unlaced now.” You pull yourself together, blinking rapidly and turning, far, far too close to this man, his hand suspended in the air, exhaling slowly, as you clutch the pajamas tightly to yourself.

“Nothing, um, over there?” He nods, when your top slips down just a bit, revealing too much of your breasts, your shoulders, he has to stop himself from touching them, stiffening just a bit.

Though he was furious he was forced into this marriage, he has to admit looking at you all the time was not something he’d dare complain about, even glaring you’re far too pretty. You back away, turning, clutching the dress, giving him far too much of a view of your skin, and he has to clutch that dresser, shutting his eyes as he feels it.

He’s hard looking at your back.

He curses softly, willing it to go down but nevertheless failing, waking back over to grab his glass of wine and sipping it, letting the rich flavor hit his tongue, shutting his eyes to push back all of the thoughts when you come out. He sees you in it, the red silk slip of material, your nipples pressed against it, as if they’re begging for his mouth to suck on them.

You stand in front of him, taking the proffered glass, and that’s when Sylus almost spits out his drink, as you down the little bit in one gulp. “Do you know what vintage that is!?”

“You’re stupidly rich, it’s fine.” You grab his bottle and pour more, he smacks your hand like you’re some bad child, making you laugh just a bit. “It’s yummy.”

“You’re supposed to savor it, tch.” You drink this a little slower, tilting your head now.

“We should get this over with, right?”

“Excuse me!?” His deep voice gets raspy, ruby eyes narrowing while you shrug just a bit, a little wine dripping down your lip, wiping it and wrecking his mind.

“Making an heir. The sooner we do it, the better, right?” He almost loses it, as you down the glass again.

“That’s a two hundred dollar gulp, Kitten.”

“Hmm, it’s tasty - crow.” You both scowl again, he sets his glass down angrily, and that’s when you feel that power of his again - intense and beautiful - it makes you pause for a moment, before you set your glass as well, turning. “So we should get on with it, right?”

“Get on with it!?” He sputters, you are by far the most insolent creature he has ever met.

“Yes, I know what we are here for, let’s not pretend with each other, all right?” You’re shaking even as you speak, when his hand brushes against your arm, and the light hairs raise from the contact, your tummy clenching.

“You’re cute, Kitten.”

“Stop calling me Kitten, Crow.”

“You know what to do then, hmm?” You nod shyly, when he lifts you suddenly, making you gasp, hoisting you on one fucking arm like you’re nothing, walking you over to his bed now. He tosses you in the middle then, leaned over you, his dress shirt falling gently open, revealing his strong, pale chest, as your heart races.

You can’t answer him, not when he laughs at you, so mocking, right in your face, and two of his hands grip your delicate wrists, pushing them over your head. You bite back a whine, you shouldn’t be soaking wet already, what the fuck was this man doing to you? You struggle to keep your composure, feeling his thick, hard length pressing under his slacks, making you flush.

He seems to notice his effects, as he leans down too close, heavy weight pressing you further into the soft mattress. “Are you scared, sweetie?”

You manage that glare again, but almost moan when you speak, just barely holding it back. “N-no. I’m fine, just do it and then let me get some sleep. I’m tired, you know.”

“Ah, I see, you think this would be quick, that’s cute.” He sighs now, releasing your wrists, leaning on an elbow and slipping his hand down your waist, slipping under your silk shirt, touching all your skin on your waist, humming quietly to himself. He wants to whisper of your beauty, but holds himself back, instead smirking so mockingly at you.

“Sylus just-” He slams his lips down on yours then, plush and firm, and your thighs grip his hips, as you sigh into them, your hands gripping his luxe blankets. He delves his tongue inside your parted lips, hot and messy and nothing like you’ve ever felt before - making your tummy flip with desire.

“Just what?” He murmurs softly, eyes lit up so bright it’s difficult to even look at, sighing now as he studies your body slowly, thumb brushing your nipple over your soft silk, bringing it to tighten and press harder on the fabric. You cry out before you can stop it, and the sound ends him.

But as badly as he wants to fuck you?

He won’t if it’s not your choice, if it’s to ‘get it over with’. He’ll only do this if you beg for it, writhing under him soaking wet, and even then, you have to want it, for more than your situation. He doesn’t tell you just yet, because god he is loving toying with you, eyeing you under dark lashes as he unbuttons your shirt, one by one, maintaining his casual stance as he throbs for you.

Fuck his cock twitches when he reveals one of your perfect, pretty breasts, breath ghosting over the sensitive nipple. “What are you… doing, I- ah!”

You’re gripping his silken hair before you could think any better, pulling at his roots, while he sucks your nipple into his hot, hungry mouth, making your cunt gush until he can fucking feel it, your heat, even over his clothes. Your back arches, bringing your cunt further against him, he almost shakes with how badly he is filled with the need to take you, barely holding himself in.

“You seem to enjoy this a lot for wanting to ‘get it over with’. Hmm?” You don’t acknowledge him, letting go of his hair only to grip it again as he sucks your other nipple into his mouth, hand trailing over your tummy, feeling it tremble under his touch. “Something wrong, sweetie?”

“No… I just… ngh…” He’s brushing his fingers over your hot, slick pussy, groaning out as he does, eyeing you while he balances himself over you.

“Awfully wet for your duty, aren’t you?” You glare again, just making Sylus grin, white teeth glinting as he kisses down your body, tasting your sweetness, lapping a trail down the valley between your breasts, kissing lower and lower, his hands now on your waist as your thighs tremble.

“What are you doing?” He laughs again, against your skin, making it tickle, you’re getting wetter just from that, your entire body reacting to every soft brush of his lips along your skin.

“I enjoy playing with my food a bit, before I eat my meal.” Your shorts are slid down your thighs now, you’re closing them just a bit as he sees all of you, so intimate you can’t make some witty reply.

“A meal?” Your weak little squeak would amuse him if he wasn’t staring at the prettiest pussy he’s seen, fuck even it’s like art to him. He thumbs your plump lips apart, watching the slutty little hole pouring wetness out of it, making him groan, inhaling you and sighing. “Are you like sniffing me, just get up here and- oh, oh I-”

Your words are cut off as his tongue slips up your slit then, you cry out at how fucking good it feels, hot eager tongue slipping up and collecting the juices there- then when he tastes you, his nostrils flare, lips glossy from you. His hands grip and press into your thighs, losing the tentative control he has with just how sweet his bride happens to be.

“You taste so sweet for a bratty little thing.” He smirks, those glossy lips shimmering with you, and you can only blush in response, breaths so fast you feel yourself overheating. “So quiet suddenly, where’s all that talk, hmm?”

Your only words are muffled moans as you try to cover your mouth, screaming out when his tongue laps at you again, this time on your clit, moaning as you feel it, sensitive, twitching in response. Suddenly your arms are bound by swirling red energy, thrown over your head, and he chuckles at your expression - eyes already fucked out, mouth open in a gasp.

“What is this, your… evol?” You’re not well versed with this sort of thing - you’ve only heard things. He chuckles, breath alone making your clit twitch in response, which he avidly stares at now, humming to himself as he spreads you wider.

“I’d like to hear those moans, so I need you to stop covering them. Now…” He drags your ass closer, you feel the lines of his teeth as they’re against your cunt, and you’re already dangerously close. “Has anyone drank you, kitten?”

“Drank me!? I… oh fuck, fuck!” You’re whining as he teases you, body twisting under his firm hold, his fingers are pressing into the plush of your inner thighs, slurping you up then - yes, drinking you - as if you’re wine he’s downing, except that he’d sip, not devour.

“Oh you love it, don’t you? Thought you wanted to get it over with, but she’s soaking wet f’me.” Sylus fucks you with his tongue then, your gummy walls fluttering around his wet muscle, as you feel the very texture inside you, yanking at your own arms and gritting your teeth not to scream.

You fail completely.

Letting go and hoping those two men weren’t just - what listening, or that damn crow wasn’t somewhere cawing about this - your hoarse cries echo in his enormous, elegant room, mixing with the crackling of that fireplace and Sylus’s loud moans while he sips every bit of you up. His tongue fucks you, long, so long, while he eyes you, red ruby eyes glinting with hunger.

“What is… you are… oh my…” You’re getting toppled over that goddamn edge now, when his straight, perfect nose bumps your engorged clit, and he curls his tongue up, you can’t stop it, your orgasm starts in your tummy, hot and torturous before it spreads through every inch of your body. “Sylus!”

Sylus pulls back finally, licking his lips, you flush as you see the mess you’ve made of his perfect features, when he grins down at you, psychotically hot, and you’re so disoriented you can barely understand. “And do you like fingers buried inside you, sweetie?” He asks, you just bite that lip one more time, nodding.

He shoves two fingers inside you, studying your face like a predator would his fucking prey, groaning as he watches you now, feeling your quivering hole gripping and spasming around his lengthy fingers. You’re so ready for him it’s ridiculous, imagining him naked- god you can feel those muscles, that cock.

He’s got you cumming again like it’s nothing for him, like he’s in twenty minutes figured out your body better than you do. You’re writhing under him, crying from the force of them, of cumming over and over as he watches with pure delight, dying for more, to feel him so deep, but you can’t even articulate it.

“So beautiful like this,” he’s sucking on those fingers, cheeks hollowing, moaning again at your taste, when he lets go of your wrists, and you respond by pressing your nails into his back over his dress shirt, earning his moan. “Sharp little claws.”

“Fuck, I’m ready please no more teasing… I c-can’t take it…” he sighs then, standing and confusing you. He waltzes over to grab wine then, sauntering back to you with a sway of his hips, though you see it - the huge outline of his cock. “Sylus, I said I’m ready.”

“For your duty, right?” You hadn’t even thought of duty, of anything but him then, you try to focus, clearing your throat, when he tilts your chin up, your hair falling back, lidded gaze on him. “No, I’ll sink my cock inside that pretty cunt when you ask me too, not because you have to.”

God what is this man!?

You just blink as he leans down, fingers gripping your chin, taking the glass of wine and pressing it to his lips. “You’re… wanting me to decide?”

“Mmhmm. Open that pretty mouth.” You do as he says, how can you not? And he sips that wine then, humming as he leans over, pouring the wine in your mouth from his, you swallow it down, the action itself causing that ache to build. He pulls back as you look up, wiping a droplet from your lips. “So you can listen.”

“I… huh? You… aren’t you sleeping in here?” You ask softly, he sighs then, pressing a kiss far too sweet to your forehead.

“I sleep during the day mostly,” is he a vampire!? “But I’ll lay with you when you want me to as well, not until then. I expect an answer when I get back.”

“What, like how long?” You hop up, dressing quickly, and he pauses at the door, looking back at you.

“Less than a week, I had to put the mission on hold for the wedding. When I’m back, you let me know what you decide - my role as your husband.”

He leaves then, and you feel empty without him, cold even, stumbling over to his expensive, fancy wine, about to gulp it down, then sighing, sipping it instead, looking at the fire still roaring. You pull up a seat, sitting in front of it and watching as the flames lick and snap, thinking of the man you’ve just married.

Who is he?

*****

You’re trying to actually go out, tired of getting lost in Sylus’s mansion a few days later, and you swear he’s cursed it at first, you couldn’t find the damn front door for days! His staff makes sure you have everything you need, but you’re alone, nothing but a phone Sylus bought you, with one damn number- his.

He texts you mockingly the next couple days, as you finally get the two men - Luke and Kieran - to escort you out, so you can breathe fresh air, but they just follow you like lost puppies- as Mephisto circles overhead. Every time you look at something they’re just buying it for you.

“I didn’t even-”

“Can’t make the boss look bad.” Luke scolds, buying you a pretty bracelet that you’d just touched.

“Not with all these eyes.” Kieran agrees, and you touch a little rose, cursing as he buys that now too. “Everyone knows the boss.”

“Caw!”

“Mephisto I didn’t ask you!” You scowl at the crow, and it flaps its wings at you, cawing even angrier. You finally get your phone out, video calling the only number, surprised when he actually answers.

“I’m busy, what is it?” He says, and you take in his surroundings, likely some fancy suite as he sits with his gun.

“Busy? Not a way to greet your wife.” He rolls his ruby eyes now.

“Mmm, and what does my wife need?”

“To know why are these two bozos following me everywhere I go and watching me like a hawk, hmm?” 

“Bozo, who’s a bozo huh?” Luke crosses his arms then, tilting his head, and Kieran does the same.

“Boss, you need to get your girl under control.” Kieran says.

“Caw!” Mephisto is circling you, as you’re just trying to shop, but no of course now you’re all a spectacle, everyone is whispering about the three - four if you count Mephisto- of you all standing there.

That’s Sylus’s wife!

She seems a little angry.

She’s yelling at that bird!

Oh fuck everyone.

You sigh as Sylus laughs at you. “You seem really worked up, do you need anything?” His intentions are clear, and you act as if it’s the sun warming your skin and not his words.

The memories.

His tongue and fingers pushing you to climax over and over, god your tummy clenches just thinking of it. And missing a man you barely fucking know - one that you want to learn, a mystery of a person truly. What was there about him that was making you this way? 

“What I need is to not be babysat by these two, and your crow! Everywhere I go.” You’re scowling at Sylus’s amused face on the video call, as he sets you down on his desk, raising a brow and pulling out a gun, cleaning it calmly, meticulously, as if everything is peachy. “What are you even doing?”

“I’m resting before a mission, sweetie.”

“Cleaning your gun is… relaxing?”

“Mmm, you should try it.” You giggle then, you can’t help it, and the sound over the phone along with your pretty face lit by the sun does something to him then, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Would you trust me with a gun?” He shakes his head as he looks down where he’s polishing that barrel, lips quirked up.

“Absolutely not. Now,” he sets the gun down, picking the phone up and looking directly at you. “You are my wife, and that’s why they’re there - to protect you.”

His wife.

The way he says that does something, as badly as you want to be annoyed- there’s another part that’s touched by him, his care, his words, even if it’s overbearing, overprotective. You want to shove it down, the longing for someone you barely know, who overall annoys you with his arrogant attitude, but something just clicks as you meet his eyes on the screen.

“Okay fine, but… Mephisto?”

“Caw, caw, caw!”

He laughs genuinely, running a hand through his silvery locks, leaning an elbow on that table as he looks at you. “Mephisto is for me to keep an eye on you - ah there’s that cute little scowl, angry kitten.”

“You say that like you don’t purr.” Your turn to smirk as he glares, then you hang up on him, facing the two angry men now. “Look, I was rude, okay? I’m sorry.”

They look at each other, then at you, both nodding. Mephisto caws and flaps his black and gold wings, and you hold out your arm for him to land, gently touching one of his gears. “Caw?”

“I was rude to you too. I just… it’s a new, stressful situation. Maybe you all could teach me more about him?”

“About the boss?”

“We know all about the boss!”

“Caw!”

Soon the four of you are back home, and you’re in one of Sylus’s room- his music room, it seems, there is an organ that looks like it belongs in beauty and the beast itself, a record player sitting there, you gently push down the fine bronze point, as music fills the room. It’s slow and beautiful, the sounds from it, your eyes close and it’s as if you feel him there.

Every day you’ve tried to explore this mansion, slowly and bit by bit, to reveal more of the mysterious ‘boss’ and ‘leader’. But moreso, the man that instead of lying with you that night, let you have his room to yourself, pleasured you and asked nothing in return, let you have the choice.

Who was Sylus?

“Boss loves music.” Luke states the obvious, you giggle a bit, turning to look at them now.

“Well I see that. And he loves art, and pretty jewels.” You walk up to the display glasses, where he’s gathering trinkets like some dragon in a cave.

“He loves beautiful things. Probably why he was so adamant about us watching over you- oof!” Kieran gets elbowed by Luke then, and you shyly look back down at the glass, fingers hovering over, afraid to leave a print.

Did Sylus find you pretty like these jewels?

*****

One week without Sylus, and it seems like the longest week of your life- when what was without him before? You lived without him all of your twenty four years, but you find yourself giggling at his texts, playing silly phone games with him even, as if the two of you have become…

What are you?

He sends a ‘Good Night Kitten’ you send a ‘Good night Crow’.

He sent a picture of himself ‘on accident’ he says, but you don’t believe him at all, apparently he was trying to video call you and it sent - him shirtless, towel slung low over his hips, body glistening. You think he’s trying to thirst trap you - that damn man knows how fine he is and makes no act to appear humble about it. He keeps making little remarks as if you could forget that night.

Kitten seems angry, does she need something?

You find yourself sleeping in his bed alone, touching yourself to the memory of his lips sucking in your clit, humming on it, his long, thick fingers stretching you out. You can’t help yourself, every time you try to not think of him, there he is, hovering right over you. You know he’s coming back tomorrow, and you feel like he’ll get his answer then, an unequivocal yes.

Sylus walks in quietly that night, just a little early - but he’d be lying if he didn’t admit he was dying to see you, to feel you. Fuck, he couldn’t stop himself from stroking his cock thinking of you, remembering your sweet taste and how you coated his face with your arousal. God you did things to him, but more than that - he wonders who you are.

The teasing all week on the phone - yes, he meant to send that image - had him even more intrigued, you’re funny and smart - too smart at times. A smart ass, and he would know, he tends to be one himself. Mephisto’s reports along with Luke and Kieran were showing how they were in just a week falling for the lady of Sylus’s manor, and that’s what you were.

His.

The need to claim you is so fierce, to fucking breed you, but he must let this be your choice, he wants you to come to him. That night his steps are quiet, when he opens the door, expecting you to be asleep, but he hears it then, your whine out, that sexy little moan. He pauses, fingers gripping the brass knob, as he sees the blankets raise just a bit - hears your soft whines.

Fuck, are you touching yourself?

“Mnh! Ugh, it won’t work.” You let out a frustrated huff, shoving your blankets down, when you see him.

Shit.

“Sylus!? I thought um… you were… I had a bad dream, is all! Nothing else is going on here!” You’re panicking, as this man just smirks, shutting the door behind himself casually, taking off his black leather jacket and propping it on the coat stand then, as you shift in his bed.

“Oh, is that so? What was the dream about, sweetie?” His soft, husky voice just makes you ache more, as he so casually sits, undoing his laces of his boots.

“Um… just a weird one. Do you… need help?” You ask then, he pauses, nodding a little, watching you leave his bed now, your shorts so askew it told right on you, you’re wearing a little black top that covered nothing and a pair of black panties, revealing too much of your pretty body.

“I should ask you the same - if you need help.” He murmurs, brushing your hair back when you get on your knees before him, making his mind go wild, while your fingers tug on the thick black laces.

“Need help with what?” Your innocent question is met with your eyes meeting his, easing his boots down, one by one, placing you right between his thighs, Sylus tilts your chin up then, calloused thumb brushing your lower lip softly.

“Sounds like you were having trouble, I could help now that I’m here.” He smiles as that color hits your skin, as your cheek is hot to his touch, and your shaky hands touch his thighs over his jeans. “Shouldn’t a good husband help his wife?”

“You love to tease me, don’t you?” Your knees press against the plush rug, as you unbutton his jeans, watching the usually confident man pause, his hands gripping your hair then, at the nape of your neck, while the sound of his zipper echoes off the walls. “Something wrong, Sylus?”

“What do you think you’re playing at?” His voice breaks then, thoughts of you sucking his cock nearly ending him - it was one thing to please, he’s very confident in his abilities to make a woman cum, but seeing you like this would end him.

“Maybe I’m returning the treatment. Should I leave a week after you cum over and over too?” He glares now, standing, so lanky and tall you hardly reach him on your knees, having to look up at him, towering over you, cock outlined in silky black - begging for you to touch it.

“You have the brattiest attitude, should we do something about that?” He slips his top off then, and you’re met with that perfect, sculpted physique, tracing your fingers across a sculpted abdominal, watching his head fall back, moaning softly, making your cunt throb around nothing.

“What do you have in mind, a lesson?” He can’t stop his moan when you tug at his pants, slowly revealing more of him, until he yanks you up, earning your pout. “Do you not want me to?”

“Do I not want you to, what a stupid question, foolish kitten.” You glare again, just becoming more attractive, when he lifts you up, sitting you on his bed now, slipping off your top and moaning softly as your breasts spill out. “I don’t want your knees to hurt.”

“Oh…” You’re so touched then, by his thoughtfulness, while he slips off his boxers, revealing himself now - thick, hard and so pretty, reddened tip leaking white pearly precum. You see how big it is, almost intimidating, touching it then with your hand, feeling it burning and so heavy, and eliciting a…

Is that a whimper?

Fascinated you repeat the action, he instead this time moans softly, huskily, eyes darkening as he strokes your hair back gently. “Touch yourself for me, show me what you were doing, hmm?”

You nod, a jerky motion, as he spreads your thighs, and you reach under your panties, finding your soaking wet clit and whining, right when Sylus tugs gently at your chin.

“Open, Kitten.”

You obey him so easy, where is the feisty little thing he knows? She’s in there, but you’re sweet, pliant, shy even, as you open your mouth looking so wanton, and his cock leaks even more, twitching when he finally brushes it on your tongue. You’re lapping his sweet pre cum up then, tonguing the slit and trembling when your hands falter on your pussy.

“Rub circles on that little clit, hmm? Press up a bit. F-fuck… you’re doing such a good job, sweetie.” He’s gripping your hair as you suck him, and you do as he says, feeling your clit tighten up, as you’re ruining your panties, looking up at him under your lashes. “Beautiful…”

Beautiful.

You tremble more as he gazes so intensely down at you, staring at you like you’re the only thing there is, you know you shouldn’t think that way - you know he’s probably just enjoying this, but there is something so addictive to his look. To how he’s stroking his cock in and out of your mouth, so easy with his motions, gasping when you suck harder, tongue lolling on the ridge of his tip.

“Still can’t cum without me, hmm?” He’s whispering, but you pull back, strings of saliva dripping from his blushing tip, pulling back your fingers and showing them glistening.

“I can, I just… am failing currently.” He shocks you then, climbing onto the bed now, laying on his back. You go to suck him again, when he flips you around, dragging your panties off in one motion, then putting your thighs on either side of his head, your hot eager cunt right on his face. “Sylus!”

“Hmm, fuck I missed your taste.” Did he say that out loud? Or was it muffled into your perfect cunt? He parts your folds, seeing how wet you are as it drools down him, slipping a finger inside you. “Miss me?”

“Just a bit,” you try to tease, leaning over him now, arms on either side of his thighs for balance, hair falling against his bare thighs, as you lap a line down his cock again, making him groan. “You miss me?”

“Just a little.” He drags you back down on his face hungrily, licking a filthy line from your clit all the way to your ass, and you almost choke on him as you take him deep in your throat, body shaking over him. “Mmm, she sure missed me.”

“She did.” You admit after pulling up with a suctioned pop, and then your eyes roll back in your skull, as he sucks and hums against your clit. “M’gonna cum!”

“Mmm,” he’s just humming quicker, feeling your mouth fail to hardly move, you’re in the throes of cumming all down his handsome face. He urges you then, hands gripping the fat of your ass, pressing you down even further until his face is fucking buried against your cunt.

“S-Sylus!”

His name, you moaned his name.

You’re trying to press hasty kisses to his hips as you cum so hard you can’t think, gushing down his face and drenching him in your arousal, his face, his throat, his fucking lips. He almost cums from just that, feeling you shake and tremble while you blink back your vision, which has gone black from how hard your release rocked you, walls fluttering around nothing, dying for more.

You feel so greedy then, thinking of how badly you want him inside you, stroking his pretty cock gently, as he drinks up all he can. “Oh my god…”

“Mmm, you got wetter than last time, didn’t know that was possible.” You’re covering your nervous blush against his thigh, as he chuckles softly. “You don’t have to finish, Kitten, I can just do this.”

“Sylus, I…” You ease off him with his help, turning and straddling with trembling thighs, making Sylus tense when he feels it, you pressing on his cock, he grabs your waist bruisingly, eyeing you.

“That’s dangerous, sweetie, I can only hold back so much.” You lean over him now, lips hovering just an inch, gripping his wrists with your little hands, and he smirks up at you. “Are you a big, bad, scary kitten?”

“Maybe I am, and you’re a sweet little crow.” He scowls just a bit, only making you wetter, as you grind on him now, and he immediately loosens your grip, hands flying to your hips as his tip twitches against your slit.

“Are you…” You press him back down, making him huff, blinking up at you as his eyes glow bright fucking red, and you’re cupping his face, thumb tracing a cheek bone.

“Sylus, I have your answer.” He swallows then, breathing heavier and heavier, as his hands trail up your spine, then back down, cock leaking all that precum right against you.

“Do you now? What’s the answer then, sweetheart?”

You press a kiss on his lips, both of you taste each other, one of his huge hands entangling in your hair, as your bodies move just slightly, casting your silhouettes across the dark walls in the night. “The answer is yes, I want this Sylus. I want you.”

“Oh, sweetie…” He can’t stop himself, his emotions he always holds back, when you whisper those words. “Not just because you have to?”

His words break you, tears burning your eyes, as you shake your head. “How could I not want you?”

He’s ended then, drowning in your kisses, letting you take control - for this moment, he muses - and reach down as he lifts your hips up, and you rub his tip along your folds, earning the most pornographic and filthy moans, mixing with your soft ones as your head falls back, hair falling like a curtain down your shoulder blades. He watches you, hands holding you up, suspended, eyeing you again.

“Still sure?” You nod eagerly, he exhales at that, pressing you down just a bit, watching your tight little cunt try to suck him up and struggling, so tight he could cum just from his tip sinking in.

“Oh my god, s’big I…” You’re struggling when he yanks you forward, until you’re resting on his chest, and he’s pulling back, sliding deeper while he watches your every expression, hands slipping down to your ass to grip you.

“If it hurts, tell me, you’re so tight…” He whispers, and you nod, so touched by his care, before he sinks you half way down, groaning and kissing you now, you kiss him back, hungry, messy, your nails pressing into his shoulders. “Oh, fuck feel you, this tight around me? Does she want more?”

“Yes, yes, please…” He manages a breathless laugh, lifting you up and dragging you down more of his inches- god how many inches - stuffing you so full while you gush all around him, clinging and trembling.

“Please, is this what I had to do to make my kitten sweet?” You’d glare but he’s shoved more of his cock - how much was there god you couldn’t take it all - you’re shaking as your cunt stretches to accommodate- the pressure building in your tummy while he caresses your face, brushing your hair behind your ear and exhaling.

God, you feel perfect around him.

“You tell me when you’re ready to move.” He whispers, you nod, trying to adjust, gasping as you shift your hips and his tip drags on your spot, and he feels those walls just clench around him like a vise, eyes avidly watching your face and just how pretty it is when in pleasure.

“I’m ready, please.” Your throaty whisper destroys him, he picks you up once more, yanking you down his length fully now, you scream out at it, head falling back, your breasts right in his face, he catches a nipple between his sharp teeth. “Oh! Sylus mnh!”

“Perfect, you’re perfect.” He can’t stop it, the words from spilling, as he pumps up into your cunt now, flats of his feet on the enormous bed, jerking his cock so deep he bottoms out as much as he can in you, tip kissing your cervix.

“Ah! Mnh! F-fuck… you’re so big.” You’re sobbing the words out, when he grinds you on him, hugging your body against his, and you’re cupping his face, lips just hovering, noses touching.

“Can you take more in your perfect little cunt?” He groans as you nod, and he fucks up into you harder now, sounds of skin slapping and your soppy cunt echoing, he’s flipped you then, holding one of your thighs up high, eyeing the bulge his cock makes inside you and getting fucking feral.

“So deep!” You buck off the bed, and he moans now, slowly pulling out, sole of your foot on his chest while he watches your cunt suck him in so greedily, disappearing his huge cock in your body, watching your tummy move. Fuck he was getting ruined at the sight, but when you cry out and jerk and he pauses.

“Are you hurt?” His soft ask is such a delicious contradiction to his commanding presence, huge body tense, as you shake your head, take a breath, letting him sigh in relief as he tilts your chin down now. “Look at me inside you, can’t even take all of me, can you?”

One moment sweet, one moment sarcastic and cocky, but you cannot think of anything when you see it too, the way your stomach expands with his cock so deep. All you can do is bite your lip, hands slipping up his obliques, feeling the muscles move as he shoves hard then, it hurts so good, and he notices, repeating it then, over and over again.

“That’s it, you like that, don’t you kitten?” You weakly nod, there are no more words, not when Sylus is pounding your pretty pussy with his huge cock, leaning lower, letting your legs wrap his narrow hips. “You’re close, aren’t you?”

You just nod again, it’s apparently all you’re capable of as this man fucks your brain out. He moans softly when he kisses you, jerking his hips just so, as you fall apart underneath him, orgasm rocking through you, he has to pause, you’re squeezing so fucking hard and pulsing. “Ah, S-Sylus - ngh!”

“Milking my cock, already,” he’s losing it with you, fucking you through one orgasm and into another, feeling you gush down him, down your ass, his heavy balls smacking it, then futher- soaking his covers. “Fuck…”

He slows his thrusts now, laying on top of you, hand entwining as his eyes drink your pretty face in, you grip him then, struggling to breathe, as his heart races so fast against your breasts, and you both pause. You stare into endless rubies of his eyes, as he squeezes your hand so tightly, the red ropes of energy binding your wrists together even more tightly.

You look at it then, nervously, then back at him, as he stares at the connection. “Are you…”

“It’s not on purpose.” He murmurs, looking as it swirls, and you feel him throb inside you, his tip oozing against your abused cervix. “Another choice, kitten. I can cum inside your perfect cunt,” he thrusts once more, watching your eyes flutter shut in pleasure. “Or I can pull out, and we wait until you want it.”

Your choice, again.

But you want him inside you, buried to the fucking hilt, opening your eyes and feasting on the man on top of you. “I want you to cum inside me, Sylus.”

Fuck.

He almost busts then, but he pauses, clutching your hand and pressing you deeper into his mattress, taking you over. “You want me to fill you up, sweetie?”

“Please,” Sylus moans heavily, kissing you as he fucks into you deep, long strokes, and your hand grips him, the other entangling in his hair as your tongues dance with each other, and he pounds harder and harder. “Please, please, please- ah!”

“Fill you up so much, you won’t be able to walk, kitten.” His eyes flash dangerously as he slams into you one more time, white hot cum pouring from his cock, and when he does, the light red rope glows more, burning hot on each of your wrists as he cries out against your ear, burying his face in your neck. “Oh, fuck, f-feel her…”

You’re a pathetic mess, twitching around him as he coats those walls, trying to catch a breath. He leans up then, the ropes fading, pulling out his cock, you watch as the cum just pours out of your slutty little hole, and he delights in seeing it. A mix of all your arousal and his load is slipping out of you as your hole puckers and quivers, spasming from the aftershocks of him.

“Such a messy girl, aren’t you…” He sighs as he pulls back, toying with his own cum, smirking as your hips jerk.

Is he sweet or an ass!?

Is he both?

He is something else then, when his eyes are so red they’re shining, and he’s slipping his two fingers up and down you, making your sensitive cunt throb in response, aching from his stretch. “Ah-ah, you said you wanted it, you even said please, yet here it is, wasted. That won’t do.”

“What do you- ah! F-fuck!” You’re breathless when he shoves his own cum back in your cunt, smirking down at you, silver hair falling over his brow then. “Sensitive mnh!”

“Mmm, you don’t want to keep it in? That won’t do.” He’s pouting, slipping more of the cum inside your sore little entrance, enjoying you far too much, you’re covered in a sheen of sweat, face so fucked out, there’s just a little drool on the corner of your mouth dripping.

You’re so beautiful.

“Be a good kitten.”

“Mean crow, mnh!” You yank his wrist then, taking his hand, and he glares as you put it to your lips now, lapping him off you with a stroke of your tongue, smirking right back at him. “Can’t take it?”

“You’re a brat.” He flips you over then, you gasp at it, slipping two fingers back inside you and pressing up.

“Sylus, we just…”

“Think I’m done with you yet?”

*****

Two weeks later

Sylus cannot stop fucking his new bride- no he needs to fuck her in every room of his mansion, hear her moans and cries, feel her perfect pussy clenching him. He has to make sure every inch of the room has had her arousal dripping down onto it, that he makes sure to have her taste on him constantly. He soaks in you like the sweetest perfume there ever could be.

He left for days again, in his office, and you eagerly came to meet him, kissing him deeply, only to get bent over it, his cock shoved so deep as he lifted up the skirt you’re wearing, his hand on yours over the desk. Breathing heavy in your ear, he can’t get enough of you, not even fucking close, reaching under your chin to cup it and tilt your lips to his.

“Miss me, kitten?” He whispers, and you shock him then, arching your ass for more and earning his groan, as you nod.

“I missed you.” Sylus pauses then, hand squeezes yours brutally, his other on your hip, his cock twitching inside you, as the two of you inhale and exhale each other. “Don’t stop, please.”

“You missed me?” He says again, you nod, you’re tired of acting like you don’t, like you aren’t falling for your husband.

Like he doesn’t make you so happy.

Like he doesn’t drink you up at every opportunity.

Like you don’t love being held in his fucking arms at night.

Like you don’t just literally enjoy him - his laugh, his kindness, his humor, god everything about his presence.

Like is a weak word, a wrong word…

“I missed you too, kitten.” His husky declaration is met with him fucking you harder, deeper, hand choking your throat and squeezing, taking your oxygen as he kisses you, drinking up your cries, busting his hot ropes so deep you’re cumming right with him.

When he’s done he never just leaves, no he’s cleaning you up - lapping his own cum out of your cunt eagerly as you’re spread on his dark wood desk, head falling back while he makes you cum again. He lavishes every inch of your walls as he scoops out the taste of both of you, pulling back and kissing you deeply, saliva dripping so you taste it too.

“Fuck, you distracted me. I got you something.” He murmurs then, taking a shaky breath and pulling up his pants, leaving them undone just a bit. 

“Y=you did?” You swipe at your mouth, standing with his help, when he pulls out a black, rectangular velvet box.

“I went to an auction, this belonged to a princess.” You’re gasping as you see it, glittering diamonds and rubies - almost as beautiful as his eyes.

“Sylus you didn’t have to do this…”

“No, sweetie, I do. Hold up your hair for me, turn around.” You obey his gentle orders, lifting your hair for him, feeling the cold metal hit your collarbones, as he rests the necklace on you. He clasps it now, sending shivers down your spine as his fingers dance across your neck. “Let me see.”

You turn back around and he sighs, looking how beautiful you are, your breasts rising and falling with every breath. He wants to say it - foolish words - that he’s falling, but he is terrified. A man like him, who can annihilate a room of monsters like it’s nothing, a man who is feared has just one weakness.

You.

“It’s beautiful, thank you so much.” You whisper, touching it, seeing how the prismatic gems reflect the soft lights. “I love it.”

“It looks perfect on your chest.” He tilts your chin up, kissing you then. “Go get ready for dinner, I want you to wear it.

After dinner Sylus’s always perfect - until you - control slips.

You’re on his lap, as the two of you sip the wine, and you giggle suddenly, the sound that makes his heart always race. “What is it, kitten?”

“Remember you spit wine in my mouth?” He blushes then, and you giggle more. “You’re so cute.”

“Cute!? I’m not cute, that’s you.”

“Mmhmm. What if I do it to you?” He pulls you closer, brushing your hair back gently, as you sip the red wine.

“I’d let you do anything to me.” His words are so soft, so impactful then, your heart hammers as the blood rushes to your ears.

“Anything, hmm? Where's the big bad leader?” You’re trying to keep it light, teasing, but he lowers his gaze to that necklace, thumbing the delicate skin around it, making you gasp.

“I’m afraid he’s been destroyed by a kitten he loves.” You blink rapidly, the words don’t feel real, there’s no way he…

Does he…

Feel the same way?

You’re so quiet he looks away, his hand falling. “Endless ammunition I just gave you against me-”

“Sylus…” He looks back, and you’re crying then, tears streaming down your cheeks, he falters, swiping at them gently.

“Yes?” His words are quiet, careful, you lean in, cupping his face, fingers tracing his sharp jaw.

“I love you too.” He slams his lips on yours, desperate and messy, as he lifts you up, propping you on the table and shoving plates away, you gasp as they clatter down to the floor, eyes wide on him.

“Say that again, kitten. Louder.” He’s shoving up your dress, eagerly slipping his hand between your thighs, your back arches as his fingers fill you, fingers you missed for days, his lips trailing up your neck, loud, messy kisses.

“I love you, Sylus.” He exhales so shaky, pulling back and gripping your hair at the nape of your neck, fingers entwined as he finds your spot, making you drool on him, while you fall even deeper into his gaze.

“I love you, , you mean, angry little kitten. Ruined me.”

“Hey now!” You’re laughing softly, but it’s cut off by his fingers, and your laugh is turned into a desperate cry. Sylus fucks you right there, uncaring of poor Mephisto flying by, who darts out as quickly as he came, and you soon find yourself in only the necklace, on your hands and knees on his bed.

“Mine, mine…” He keeps repeating them like a mantra, pressing his thumbs in the simples of your back. “Can’t wait to breed you, god. You want that?” He whispers, bending over you, and slamming so deep, necklace dangling as he hits every spot, hands gripping your hips hard.

“Breed me.”

“What do good kittens say?” You glare, just making him closer to cumming, and he pauses, reaching around to press a hand on your tummy. “Do you want all my babies so deep inside you?”

“Y-yes. I do.” You bite your lip, and he smirks again. “Please?”

“Good girl.”

Sylus will give his pretty bride anything she wants - if it’s a mating press where he fucks endless loads of cum inside her, if it’s just holding her in his arms and stroking her hair after a bad day. He’ll give her any snacks she’s craving when one day she’s full of his babies, and he’ll make sure she stays full of him. He’ll buy her anything that catches her pretty eyes and makes her smile, he’ll sing her to sleep.

He’ll do anything for his wife, a wife he fell so in love with - some would say, he became obsessed with her.

With you.

Ahhh I hope you all enjoyed this!! I had way too much fun - I love arranged Marriage tropes and had to do one for Sylus. Happy birthday Lil S! If you'd like more Sylus lmk in the comments or inbox any ideas for our dragon bc I love him<3

taglist 1 - @moggleatlife @sunsets-and-crows @musiclover2119 @ghostskilledmyaddiction21 @sylvieisoffline @littlecatjn @rwirxles @byssel @storiesbyparadise @saiouma-owamiki @emochosoluvr @simp-plague @thejujvtsupost @venussakura @kavya-gangwar @katcafe-zz @angelzrulez21-blog @maisiefrancesca @terriblesoup @bimbohkitty @sanzy4 @everythingseasoning @harmonyrae @tinyweebsstuff @genshingeeksworld @monster-effer @ninikrumbs @curlyhairkk @queenexplosonmurderr @lighting-and-shadow @coldhoneyy @take-metothe-moon @dairyfaerie @genshingeeksworld @uarmyhopeworldwide @sen-nes @cchiiwinkle @jellyfishstarx @iluminaya @96jnie @demon-master-zero @milkynymphsworld @justpassingdontworry @coldhoneyy @chich1ookie @satansdaughter123 @ilovegojo7

[heartthrobin]

the hate game (1)

oliver wood x female!reader

wc: 13.3k

warnings: enemies to lovers, so damn much pining, set in poa, timeline is a bit wonky, limited use of y/n, super grumpy!oliver, oliver's scottish accent (it's a warning in itself), alcohol consumption, super! duper! cheesy! (sorry not sorry)

an: just survived the worst two weeks of my life, but the fic is finally here! this fic was originally a full 50 chapter fic i had planned for wattpad like three years ago but i found my draft for it recently and decided it needed a revival. so enjoy it, and don't forget to comment and repost to support your favourite writers :)

summary: the only thing more grating than Oliver's foul moods and his permanent scowl, has to be the fact that he's so damn pretty. you fucking hate him for it.

part two/final part

Movies, as is their premise, glamourise plenty of things - high school, politics, tiny Greek islands - but none more than the classic sucker-punch.

The teeth-crunching, blood-spitting moment where skin meets skin in a satisfying thump that sends an unsuspecting victim to the floor. Music plays and the hero grins, grabbing the girl round the waist: dipping low to kiss her.

What’s consistently (conveniently) left out is how bloody painful it is to be on the sending end of that fist.

The first, and only, time you’d ever punched someone was in second year.

It had seemed like a great idea in the moment, quickly succeeded by the mind-numbing pain that shot up your arm where knuckle met face.

You’d aimed for his jaw, but as it turns out: in addition to painful, punching someone wasn’t a particularly accurate sport for a beginner and your slippery skin found a round-tipped nose instead.

A collective gasp and a month’s worth of detention waited for you on the other side of your act of rage.

And sure, while afternoons in Snape’s classroom every Friday sucked: it was all worth it.

Every purple knuckle that throbbed with the slightest brush, the points lost to Hufflepuff, the pages and pages of Hogwarts Does Not Condon Physical Violence you’d been forced to write was worth seeing the trickle of blood running down from Oliver Wood’s nose.

To see that smug fucking look wiped clean from his face. To watch how he doubled over in pain, grappling onto his friend for balance.

“Tyler fancying you? Any bloke would rather snog a goblin.”

His little comment had earned him a broken nose.

It had been the start of a five year long feud.

It’s the reason - now - why the ground is racing up to meet you, the nose of your broomstick pressed down towards it and wind whipping so hard against your face it draws tears. You knock into the ground, catching yourself on wobbly legs. A few feet away, Oliver Wood has done the same.

He’s marching towards you with the same ferocity that’s curdling in your chest:

“Tha’s blatching and you know it!” His accent is ringing, thick and blistering with heat like it always is when he talks to you. At you, rather.

The accusation is crystal clear, and loud despite the echoing din of the quidditch stands above. From the field where you're parked, you can hear the chatter and the cheers and the boos all conglomerating into a fuzzy uproar.

There’s still twelve brooms floating in the air, spewing irritated shouts from players in both yellow and red:

Just let it go, Wood!

Come on, Cap, can we just finish the match please!

You promptly ignore them. Oliver follows suit.

“What?” You scoff, face hot as a kettle on a lit stove. “As if Laurel and Hardy haven’t been elbowing my girls all game!”

It goes without saying that you’re referring to Gryffindor’s red-head twin-set of beaters.

“Bullshit.” He seethes, it’s purposefully quiet enough that McGonagall’s approaching figure doesn’t pick it up.

She, unlike yourself, is less patient and knobby vein-webbed hands come out to knock you both against your chests: widening the gap to a safe enough distance between the opposing captains.

“You two are exhausting.” And she sounds it too. Her glasses tremble at the edge of her nose, sun shining down on her aged face. "If one more match this season is interrupted because you two can't control your tempers, you will both be stripped of captainship and you will not fly until you graduate. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

But Oliver isn't looking at her. His eyes are focused on yours over her cloaked shoulder.

He's taking the predictable route of not replying first.

"Crystal clear, Professor." You resign to speaking first, skewing a grin at his anger-sewn face.

It’s another long boring moment before he cuts his gaze from yours, kicks up a patch of grass and grits through his teeth.

“Yes, professor.”

As can be imagined, things between you and Oliver Wood have been tense since the day he’d hobbled up to the hospital wing with a palm over his face and blood dripping down over his already red tie.

But with age, came ferocity, and what started as passing glares in the corridor melted into anger-drowned faces and sharp words flung with intent to scar.

Things got infinitely worse when you were elected captain of the Hufflepuff quidditch team in the same year Oliver was made captain for Gryffindor. It stoked the already sizzling embers that made moments around him warm and stuffy and hard to breathe.

The murky history swirled with what should be friendly competition, instead frothing into a bubbling pot of annoyed teammates and exasperated teachers and more sessions of detention than you would have ever had if you'd never met the son of a bitch that is Oliver Wood.

It's what puts you in situations like the ones you find yourself in the middle of before you even know how you got yourself there.

"You two," Professor Burbage had never held you in particularly high favour. It was just your luck that Oliver received the same courtesy. "One more word out of either of you and I will be seeing both of you this afternoon for detention in my classroom."

It was even unluckier that she'd sat you two barely three wizards away from one another and one fly-away comment had blown out into another heat-filled exchange. It always does.

"But professor--" you try.

"Right then. I'll see you both at five o' clock."

Oliver sighs, hands running up over his head between chestnut locks: "Fucking perfect. Thanks, big-mouth."

"Would you like to make it two days, Mr Wood?"

He huffs like an angry dog, tightening the grip on his writing-feather but says nothing else.

The end of the lesson doesn't come soon enough and when it does, Oliver is first out of his seat. You're grateful for it.

Cherry bumps you in the shoulder where she throws her bag over it. "You just can't help yourself, can you?"

You grin, despite the sunken feeling hollowing your chest with the acknowledgment that you're gonna be spending yet another afternoon at the mercy of an under-paid staff member alongside the hothead that was the Gryffindor captain.

"Come on, that wasn't my fault and you know it."

Her tight red curls dance when she shakes her head. They match her blood red tie. "Somehow it never is."

To your dismay, but not surprise, Enzo shares Cherry's views when he waltzes into step beside you in the corridor between Muggle Studies and Divination. His arm drapes over your shoulders and his tall frame shakes when he laughs.

"You know," his voice is thick and gravelly. "You two are gonna have to fuck it out eventually."

You roll your eyes, shoving him off you with a chuckle. The sentiment isn't anything new. "Oh, shut up."

The day folds blurrily between classes and lunch and greenhouse visits that by the time you look up it's just about five o clock.

Burbage's office door stares down at you.

The corridor is ghostly all the way behind you and it's emptiness means it's easy to make out Oliver's heavy footsteps down the stone floor. They're not slow, in an arrogant strut, neither quick like he has somewhere to be.

He trudges. Like the weight of the world is strapping him to invisible pins in the floor. It's easy to figure that your existence doesn't lighten his load any.

You don't turn. He simply falls into place beside you, keeping a good foot distance between your tightened shoulders.

The door opens.

Charity Burbage is insufferable in the way that she forces you and Oliver to sit almost on top of each other behind a scratched up desk where she can watch you under the curtain of her ratty blond hair.

You inch the chair dramatically away from Oliver's.

She's set a stack of pages by him and a wet stamp. "Stamp these and sign the date."

Additionally, she's dropped a stack of envelopes under your nose. "Tuck and seal. When you're done, you can leave."

You eye the papers. There must be hundreds.

To Whom It May Concern,

Hogwarts would like to remind all parents and guardians that the third-years will require prior permission before being allowed to visit the nearby village of Hogsmeade--

You jump when Oliver's elbow knocks yours (more violently than what was really necessary). He holds the first page out to you silently, face dripping with impatience.

When you take the page, his thumb brushes yours.

The paper is delicate in your fingers where you fold it. You tuck and seal, and by the time you've set it aside Oliver is offering the next page to you again.

His thumb brushes yours for a second time.

You find that it does for every letter that's passed on.

It's hard not to watch him out the corner of your eye. Oliver has this dark brown, nearly black, hair that's thick and almost too long and untamed all over. It's matched by bushy eyebrows and speckled freckles over the bridge of his nose.

If you didn't hate him as much as you did, you might think he was pretty. You might think that anyway.

Time stretches until the sun is setting the classroom afire with golden light and it's boredom that causes it, or possibly a desire to hear his voice at such tight quarters, but you speak.

"You know," it's soft enough that Burbage doesn't look up from her Witch Weekly magazine. "Even if - in some act of God - Scotland qualifies for the semi-finals, Luxembourg is gonna flatten them. I mean, think about it unemotionally, Wood: they have Luca Schmit as seeker. It's really a no brainer--"

"Are y’really just stupid or are you purposefully trynna start another argument?" His gaze flickers up to eye Burbage's desk warily, she still doesn't react.

Maybe it's both. After all, the subject of the Quidditch World Cup had been what put you both there in the first place.

You shrug, unfazed by his scathing remark.

"I'm just trying to make conversation."

"Well don't."

His hand brushes yours again.

-

Every second Friday, generally at the tail-end of lunch, Hooch's grey barn owl swoops low over your head and drops a smaller-than-average white envelope right into your mashed potatoes. Cherry yelps in surprise every time.

Then you watch the bird drop the same over the Gryffindor, Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables.

Good afternoon,

Reminder of Captain's meeting this afternoon in my office. Six o' clock, don't be late.

Regards,

Madam Hooch.

The letter says the same thing it has since you became captain and it's a wonder you still take the effort to break the seal on the envelope.

But come six o' clock, you're traipsing towards the west end of the castle. Lavender streaks caress the sky under the last impression of sunlight through the ornate stone arch of the corridor windows and an autumn chill creeps up your arms where your sweater isn't thick enough.

Hooch's office is in a quiet alcove, nearly impossible to find if you didn't know where to look, and the lamps are lit. Beyond the door, you can hear voices: you grin.

The door creaks noisily where you push it open. Inside it's cramped and cluttered with shelves of quidditch equipment - broken brooms, punctured quaffles and loose kits draping every open surface - but it's warm and smells like leather and is maybe your favourite little room in the whole castle.

The quidditch legend herself, Rolanda Hooch, has her legs kicked up on her desk and the boys are standing ahead of it locked in animated chatter.

She's laughing at something they said, and smiles when you enter.

"Sorry I'm late, coach."

It's nothing new and she waves you in with a smile. "Come in, poppet."

"Merlin," Marcus' shoulder finds yours and the force of the bump nearly sends you off your feet. "You'd be late to your own funeral hey, Puffers?"

You laugh, shoving him back with as much force as you can muster against the giant brute that is Slytherin captain Marcus Flint. It barely nudges him but he barks out a laugh, rough like tractor tires over crumbly concrete.

"I'm worth the wait." You quip back, leaning around Marcus to wink at Roger Davies. "Isn't that right, Rodger?"

He flirts back, "Always, sweetheart."

Roger is the antithesis of Marcus: all pale skin, blue eyes and short blonde hair. Easy on the eyes.

Oliver lingers just behind him, the tallest of the captains. You catch his eye, face slipping into something more serious, and nod. "Hey, Wood."

He nods in return, curt like how a ministry wizard's might be.

"Right," Hooch sits up straight in her high-back chair. "There are just a couple things we need to get through tonight, we won't be long."

The dynamic between the captains would be easy, if not for Oliver.

You're the only girl and that made for tough beginnings. Marcus is naturally brash and brutish, but - as you found - easy to impress with a couple showy tricks on the broom. A single promise to show him how to pull off a Woollongong Shimmy had him eating out your hand: the favour of a couple Slytherins was generally hard to buy and invaluable to a plushy Hufflepuff such as yourself.

Roger popped out the womb with a wink at the nurse. Impeccably charming and impossibly negotiable. Beyond being slightly dim, it was hard to say a bad thing about the Ravenclaw captain

On the other hand, Oliver was … well, Oliver.

Hooch tapped the sharp end of a writing feather rhythmically at a spot on her desk, eyes roving her clipboard.

"Next week we're doing a clean up of the supply room down by the pitch. I've set you each up on days, the whole team needs to be down to help unless they're excused by a teacher: I want a written letter."

She offers a piece of parchment without looking up.

"As you all know, it's the Slytherin versus Ravenclaw game next week."

You bump your elbow to Marcus'. He looks down and grins a mouthful of crooked teeth before turning to Roger. "Ready, pretty boy?"

Roger rolls crystal blue eyes, but he's smiling too. "Bring it on, tough-shit."

"Oy," Hooch interrupts them with a cool sigh, "The last thing, you all submitted your autumn practice requests for the pitch: Roger, Marcus, you have the days you want--"

They nod. Your shoulders stiffen.

"--Oliver, Y/n. You both want Wednesday afternoons. Monday afternoon is open, I'll let you two decide between each other who is gonna move their practice. I want a decision before tomorrow night."

Marcus is sniggering under his breath. The edges of your mouth sink into a frown, of course he wants the same day as me.

You can feel the heat of Oliver's eyes on the side of your face. You don't indulge him, keeping your gaze settled on Hooch's face.

"We'll figure it out, coach."

"Unlikely." Roger's quip is barely a whisper but you catch it.

"Alright." Hooch doesn't. "You're dismissed, go get some dinner kids."

The office door bounces back off the stone wall where Marcus tosses it carelessly open, echoing all the way down the empty corridor.

Frosty air chases over your face and the boys start down towards the Great Hall. Roger is complaining about a potions essay he hasn't started and Marcus is shrugging him off with a suggestion that includes something along the vein of blackmailing a sixth year into doing it for him but you can't focus long enough to follow.

"Oliver." Irritation is prickling at the surface of your skin. It flares into an almost rash when he stops walking, glancing over his shoulder with an unconcerned expression. "Who's giving Wednesday up?"

His arms fold against his chest. You're working extremely hard not to look down where his biceps stretch the seams on his Hogwarts jumper. "Well, you obviously."

Marcus barks another laugh, he calls down the corridor: "We'll see you kids at dinner."

"Yeah, don't kill each other! It's only practice!"

You huff in disbelief, unconcerned with the running commentary.

"Uh," you mirror Oliver by folding your own arms. "no it's not. Come on, we can negotiate like civil people can't we?"

Thick caterpillar eyebrows disappear beyond the overgrowth hiding his forehead. "Negotiate? I'm the one who wasted three hours of my life in detention last week thanks to your big fat mouth. Wednesday is mine."

"That was a joint effort, twat." You can feel where your throat is flush with rising anger. It wires your jaw tight. "Are you really so bloody difficult that we can't even come to a simple agreement?"

"Difficult?" His arms have shifted from his chest to perch against his hips. "Just because I'm not giving you what you want? Cry me a fucking river, darling. Sorry Puffers, but I'm not your precious Marcus or Roger. I'm not gonna fold just cause you bat yer pretty little eyelashes at me."

Pretty?

You blink in surprise. It's brushed quickly aside for more pressing matters. Your hands scrunch into fists at your side:

"Well. I'm not giving it up. I want Wednesday."

"Neither am I."

"Fuck you."

"In your dreams."

-

Oliver collapses loudly into the open spot at the Gryffindor dining table. His callousness knocks Archie's goblet of pumpkin juice across the shiny wooden surface between dishes of sausages and peas and roast potatoes.

"Bloody hell, what's got you in a mood?" He's patting down the table with a serviette, transforming it into a orange lump under his palm.

Shaking his head, as if it would joggle the thought of you loose, Oliver stabs a chicken drumstick from the top of a nearby pile with his fork. He doesn't respond.

"Wait, let me guess." Archie presses the elbows of his red jumper into the still wet surface beside his plate. "Something to do with your little Hufflepuff sweetheart?"

Oliver grunted around a mouthful, looking annoyed. "Not mine and not a sweetheart. A fucking brat."

Archie seems to find something funny, leaning back on the bench with a haughty laugh. "Right. What she do this time?"

"Wants the pitch the same day as me for practice." He's mumbling around a mouthful of chicken, tipping forward to shove a spoon teetering with peas alongside it. "Refuses to give in, despite the fact that she put me in detention last week with Burbage."

Shifting to the edge of his seat, Archie leans around Oliver's frame to find your figure across the Hall at the yellow-lined table. He nods, seemingly finding you. "Yeah, she don't look too happy either."

"I don't care."

Oliver is trying very hard not to give into the itch to look back.

"Whatever," Archie's gaze finds his again. "in better news ... I spoke to the twins just before dinner. They're still on for tomorrow."

He's twitching in his seat, eyebrows dancing and grinning around his words like a kid who's found a matchbox.

Right. The twins.

Specifically, Daisy and Delilah Dawson: two Ravenclaw sisters a year below Oliver.

They're peng, Archie had reasoned, you need a little fling to get your mind off quidditch. You're too strung up, mate.

And sure, they were, but Oliver had more important things to do than gallivant across Hogsmeade attached to the hip of some sixth year who just wants to earn her I Kissed The Quidditch Captain! badge.

He'd groaned and whined and glowered at the prospect. Was it petulant? Naturally, but spending five sickles on subpar hot chocolate and making false conversation with some Ravenclaw was a waste of precious time in Oliver's humble opinion.

His priorities are, as they've always been, crystal clear in his mind.

1. Win Gryffindor the Quidditch Cup 2. Refer to point (1)

There was little wiggle room for the introduction of girls into any spot on that list.

You're the only one who came almost close to the tight list. Only because if there had to be a third priority, "shove winning the cup in Hufflepuff's face" might just crack it. He thought about you significantly more than any other girl in the castle and maybe that might mean something if he thought about too long about it, but fortunately, he refused to.

Regardless, Archie was adamant and more than a little pathetic when he mentioned that Daisy only agreed to see him if he had a date for Delilah. It was all settled very quickly.

And it's in this show of loyalty to his dearest friend that Oliver finds himself walking the cobblestone path down into Hogsmeade on a crisp Saturday morning.

The little village is bustling with students - it normally is - and the crowd has him knocking shoulders with Delilah who's walking in step beside him.

He's uncomfortable to find that she's staring dreamily up at the underside of his jaw.

On Oliver's other side: Archie is talking Daisy's ear off, making another pitiful attempt at holding her hand. He doesn't quite manage it and Oliver can't tell whether it's because she genuinely doesn't notice or she just can't be arsed.

"So," Delilah's voice is light and sweet. Delicate. "You mentioned that you take Arithmancy? I've heard it's tough."

Oliver nods airily. "Yeah ... yeah, it's difficult."

He tightens his jacket closer over his frame. The wind is whipping between their bodies and he thinks that maybe she didn't hear him over it's howling if her confused expression is anything to go by. He finds he's not bothered enough to repeat it.

The entrance of Madam Puddifoot's comes into view at the end of the walkway.

Oliver’s relieved. It's freezing out here and maybe he'll be more in the mood for flirtatious conversation once he's gotten some food in his stomach (Archie had insisted they skip breakfast: we have to order something to eat, so we can sit longer).

There's a jingle of a bell overhead when Archie pushes the door open, standing awkwardly aside to let the ladies in first.

Inside the shop, it's more than busy: powdery blue walls barely visible beyond the sea of Hogwarts couples crammed around tiny circle tables and waiters in red uniform knocking the back of their chairs with wobbling trays.

There's music coming from ... somewhere, it sounds like The Weird Sisters and at the sound, Oliver can't imagine how this morning could possibly go any worse.

Oh wait, yes he can.

You could be sitting at a table right by the door across a too-small-table knocking knees with some Slytherin prick. Like you are right there right now.

Delilah tugs on his wrist, it's gentle and he almost doesn't feel where he's being lead between tables towards an open booth across the room. He falls unceremoniously down against the torn leather, eyes never leaving your table.

You haven't noticed his presence, he knows because your lips are stretching around a giggle he can't hear but can already imagine. You don't smile around him, that's for sure.

Oliver's stomach is frothing and bubbling and he's trying really hard to tune back in where Archie's knocking a menu into his hand.

Of course you're there. To ruin his mood and his day, because you're just bloody perfect at it.

"So, am I seeing you girls at the Quidditch match on Saturday?" Archie's voice carries somewhere over his head.

Delilah laughs. Or maybe it's Daisy, Oliver doesn't look.

"Maybe," she says, "Depends if Oliver's gonna be there. You're gonna be there, right?"

He feels a hand nudge at his forearm. Definitely Delilah.

His gaze floats back over the table to offer a fraction of eye contact, he nods. "Oh, uh ... yeah. Sure, definitely."

Archie saves him by speaking again and your table finds Oliver's attention just in time for him to watch the boy sitting across from you swipe away a smudge of hot chocolate over your cheek. You smile, looking bashful and a little bit flushed.

A suffocating, searing heat rushes from the soles of Oliver's feet up between his every organ and over every tendril of hair on his head. His jaw tightens.

Of course he recognises the pratt across you.

Ryo Yoshida.

Every girl in the castle's wet dream, if the rumours he's heard are anything to go by. With his fucking sleek black hair and his Japanese accent that had witches flocking to him in the dozens.

He doesn't wonder why you're here with him.

Oliver is a proud man, but even he could admit that you're beautiful. Albeit reluctantly.

With your wide wet eyes that make him a little sick in a way that turns his stomach warm and the way you do your hair and those fucking dangly earrings that clink when you loose your cool on him.

That's without even mentioning the sound of your laugh - the one he only ever overhears - and your legs in the school uniform skirt and the way you look when you're diving on your broom under the light of a sunny day.

Alright, maybe he couldn't admit to all of it ... but you were okay.

Okay enough to crack a date with Ryo Yoshida or any other schmuck in the castle if you wanted.

"Anything good to eat here, Oliver?"

He pretends he doesn't hear her at first, but the kick at his shin under the table is harder to ignore.

Archie is glaring at him across the table. Dude, don't fuck this up for me.

Oliver's eyes find Delilah. She's scooted up close under his elbow and, to be fair to the poor girl, she was pretty too. Red lipstick smeared across her smiling lips, painted nails edging closer to his arm and perfectly styled hair sitting over her shoulder.

He nods, reaching for the menu: "Yeah. Actually, last time I had the Merlin Meal and it was pretty good."

She perks up, cherry red smile widening at his reply. "Oh, I thought that looked good!"

Training his eyes on the menu, Oliver wills himself not to look back at you. You're already souring his mood and you haven't even said a bloody word.

It's just what you do. What you do to him: infuriating him with the threat of an argument around any and every corner.

The waiter comes by and Oliver finds himself generous enough to gift Delilah with an arm draped over the back of her seat. She giggles and he pretends he doesn't notice when she mouths something that looked suspiciously like 'he's so hot' to her sister across the table.

Archie seems pleased too. Daisy has granted him, finally, her hand and his arm bends at an awkward angle to maintain the grip in hers under the table. He's positively beaming.

But despite Oliver’s best efforts to stay engaged, he still catches himself - only when it's too late - and his eyes are already glued to watching the way your jeans are hugging your thighs where you shift in your seat.

Your table is sat by the door. The chime of the bell calls for his gaze every time it tolls and every time he finds you let off a violent shiver in your seat as the autumn crisp rolls over your shoulders.

The door shuts again and you still.

Oliver can feel where the tips of his ears are burning red and his bones are itching: Ryo’s black suede coat is hanging over the back of his chair.

You’re still talking - hands rubbing together, fighting for warmth - he’s leaned over with his chin in palm to listen and his jacket sits unused behind his shoulders while you fucking shiver in the breeze.

It’s pathetic, really. He’s not sure whether he’s referring to himself or you: but Oliver is still looking and you’re still shaking like a leaf and he’s halfway to flipping tables to get to you and just give you his own fucking coat so you’ll stop shaking and stop annoying him—

“Oliver was just telling me about wanting to join the Hogwarts Choir.” He turns again to find Archie waiting with an expectant face, it's laced in a little bit of smugness: caught you. "Weren't you, mate?"

When he looks back you’re gone.

There's a short pile of sickles abandoned on the table and he hopes that Ryo at least had the good sense to pay for your drink after forcing you to sit in the freezing cold.

He shakes the thought off. Who cares.

In fact, he hopes you catch a cold.

-

The day passes like swimming through molasses: slow and sticky and exhausting.

It's nearly seven when Oliver presses a sympathy kiss into Delilah's cheek - Daisy allows for no such thing from Archie - and the two sisters skip off down the west wing corridor with a wiggle of their fingers over their shoulders at the boys.

"I think that went well." Archie's grinning, hands on his hip and glasses edging down his brown nose.

It's the first thing that genuinely brings a jolt of life out of Oliver all day. He teeters back on his heels, hands gripping his stomach where he laughs. Laughs like a madman.

"I think you need to get yer fucking head checked, mate."

The tail end of his outburst is simmering down, now barely a breathy chuckle, when a voice washes over him from down the other end of the corridor. "Wood!"

He'd recognise that voice anywhere. From the dead of sleep or the depth of the ocean.

He's slow when he turns on his heel, the remnants of his smile dripping all the way off the edge of his jaw until he's nearly frowning.

You're jogging, scarf bouncing at your shoulder with the movement, and coming to a stop right under his chin.

"What?"

There's a sharp edge to his tone - there always is - but he really hopes you haven't noticed how the syllable wobbled at the end. Now that you're right beneath his frame and not across the room, it's harder to ignore the lashes kissing at the corner of your eyes. You're wearing lip gloss and he knows it's for Ryo.

His stomach is churning and your face is twisting into something he is struggling to recognise.

"I--" your hands wring, eyes flickering behind to where Archie's watching curiously (you wave awkwardly). "You ... you can have Wednesday."

It's not what Oliver is anticipating. He almost takes a full step back in surprise.

"Why?"

Your eyes roll in a comfortably familiar way, "Because Hooch wants an answer tonight and one of us had to be the bigger person."

His brow tightens, eyes roving down the stitching of your sweater. It's cute. He's quiet.

"You not gonna argue?" You throw your words quickly, snatching them back before he can answer: "Perfect. I'll send her an owl before bed."

You're marching back down the corridor before he has chance to say anything else and he's watching your retreating figure with the hope - that he’s not gonna address - you’re not going to cozy up somewhere in the Slytherin dorm room.

“Well.” Archie’s running a hand over his thick black curls. “That was unexpected.”

Oliver huffs. “It’s been a weird day.”

-

An uneasy air has settled over Hogwarts.

It came in like a storm front, drifting in on the wind that dropped the article at the door of the castle. 

The same copy of The Daily Prophet has been doing the rounds between dormitories and class rooms all week: Sirius Black, Azkaban’s most infamous prisoner and recent escapee, has been sighted in Dufftown by an astute Muggle, The Daily Prophet reports. 

Dufftown. A barely twenty minute ride by carriage from Hogwarts bridge. 

It’s got the castle on edge, it’s got you on edge. Creeping around the castle like Sirius Black is gonna jump out from around any corner. 

Dumbledore stationing dementors at the edges of the castle was the tipping point for the cold drip of trickling fear in your chest that's become easy to ignore in daylight - when Cherry and Enzo are flittering around you between classes - but in moments like these, like now, when you’re on the tail end of a quidditch practice, grow like a poisonous black vine up around every nerve in your body. A Monday night, the team’s kit weighing heavy in your arms - broomstick tucked precariously in the bend of one elbow - and following the siren call of the dormitory showers. 

You’d promised the team you’d get them to the house elves before the upcoming match on Saturday. The match against Gryffindor. 

But for tonight, they’re gonna live in a pile at the end of your bed. 

You’re exhausted: calves burning, sweat sticking loose hairs to your forehead and probably smelling like wet socks and broomstick polish. 

The touch of night is suffocating the flicker of the corridor lamps. It’s long past the recently set curfew and you know that if McGonagall finds you out you’re likely in deep enough trouble to get you off Saturday’s match roster. 

Despite the prospect, you don’t dwell on it. You find you’re more worried about escaped Azkaban convicts: the echo of your own footsteps setting you further on edge. 

You’ve craned your neck over your shoulder enough times to form a knot there. Each time you’re relieved to find that Sirius Black hasn’t crept up behind you. 

Suddenly, the squeak of your boots against the stone floor are un-alone. 

Someone is marching and right in your direction. Your heart bangs wildly on the inside of your ribcage - blood turning to an icy slurry in your veins, but you don’t move. 

The corner is sharp when the figure turns into the corridor you stand and the scream is halfway out your throat when your eyes find his face. 

Absent is the matted black hair and sunken eyes you’re anticipating. Instead, warm brown rings reflect the fire of the lit torches. 

Your broomstick clutters to the floor, warm relief flooding down to your fingertips. “Fucking hell, Wood.” 

He looks just as surprised as you. Only for a moment, though, before his gaze is tightening in annoyance again. 

“I thought you were Sirius Black.“ 

“Well that’s stupid isn’t it.” 

You huff, shifting the weight of the team’s robes precariously between your arms: squatting to try scoop up your broomstick off the floor again. You’re halfway successful when it clatters loudly back against the stone floor. 

“What are you even doin’ out here so late? You know curfew is passed, don’t you?” His voice curls with something that might be mistaken for concern if you didn’t know who you were talking to. 

“I could ask you the same thing.” 

You’re reaching down again. A robe on the top of the pile slips off, landing beside the broomstick. 

“Aye right. Whatever, goodnight.” 

He’s brushing past you. 

In a movement neither of you anticipated, driven by the fear shooting up your spine again, your hand finds his wrist. “Wait—“ 

Oliver freezes: eyes dropping to where you’re connected. You rip your hand back, as if scalded. 

“I …” the words mash and wrestle at the back of your throat. “Could …”

You glance down the darkened corridor awaiting you in the journey back to your dorm before meeting his face again. It’s unreadable. 

His brow scrunches. “Yes?"

"Could you want me to walk my common room?” 

Embarrassment sears at your cheeks. On a normal day, you’d sooner go dancing naked under the Whomping Willow before asking Oliver Wood a favour but that was before the image of Sirius Black swum behind your eyes everywhere you looked. 

Oliver would be fairly useless if faced with the criminal, naturally, but at least you wouldn’t die alone. 

“Please?” Your voice is quiet and you think it’s the gentlest word you’ve ever said to him. 

There’s a long stretch of quiet. His eyes flicker between your face and the broomstick on the floor. It’s quickly stretching past the blurring boundaries of an appropriate time for consideration. 

You’re practically melting in embarrassment now, electing to make the decision for him. 

“Never mind.” You squat again, successful this time in sticking the broomstick back under your arm. The dropped robe is more difficult but you manage to replace it. “Forget I asked.” 

Oliver’s moving before you’re stood straight up again. He’s reaching for your broomstick, you instinctively yank it back but he sticks you with a firm look and his thumb is unexpectedly soft where it caresses over your knuckle wrapped around the handle. 

Your grip loosens and he perches the broomstick over his shoulder with ease. He surprises you again by taking half the load of laundry in your arms into his own. 

“C’mon, before someone catches us out here. I’m not doing any more detention because of you.” 

He’s already three feet ahead when blood rushes down to your legs, prompting them to chase after his figure. The movement is easier, lightened by Oliver’s surprise act of kindness. 

You fall into step beside him, half-tempted to comment on his willingness to share your burden, but knowing him, one wrong word and he’d dump it all back into your arms. 

It’s quiet. 

You don’t make a move to talk and Oliver doesn’t look your way. It dawns on you that Gryffindor dormitory is in the other direction and you’re still deciding whether to feel guilty or flattered over the fact when Oliver speaks. 

“Why’re you out here alone?” 

You look, met with the side of his face: it’s still like he hadn’t said anything at all. There’s a tugging instinct to snap at him. 

Why do you care? 

But his tone is perceptibly gentle enough that you think maybe, just this once, it won’t end in an argument. You test the tepid waters. 

“Uh …” your head knocks sideways, tilted as you speak. “I let the team come up early while I sorted the quaffles in the sports closet by the pitch. Didn’t want them walking up in the dark.” 

You’re tempted to mention that it was his team last week that left it in such a mess. You don’t. 

"And now you’re walking in the dark yourself? Smart move, princess."

Your breath hitches. 

It’s not the first time he’s called you that. Princess. A couple times over the years, usually in the heat of a spiraling argument, but never so benign. While still ungentle, the tone is soft enough that it rings in your ears.

You choose not to succumb to the antagonization of his reply. Humming, you shrug. "Rather me than them."

His eyes flicker, almost barely, to the high apple of your cheek. You notice in the corner of your eye how his jaw twitches, like he wants to say something. 

He seemingly decides otherwise because he focuses his eyes ahead of him and stays silent. 

The overhanging ceiling art is sloping down, air going sticky with the scents of the kitchen the further you go: it’s the trademark of the approaching Hufflepuff common room. 

Another two turns and it will be the end of your little journey with Oliver Wood.

"‘M surprised Ryo didn’t walk you up."

You're more surprised than you've been since finding him, eyes widening in confusion. He grants you another look out the side of his eye.

"How do you know about that?"

Oliver shrugs, shifting your broomstick to the other shoulder.

"The whole world saw your little date down at Madam Puddifoot's the other day."

Of course. Word travels faster through seventh year than a new Firebolt.

"Yeah. Well." You hum. "That's not gonna be happening again anytime soon.” 

It had all been good and well. The rush of having Ryo Yoshida, Hogwart's most eligible bachelor, ask you out and - to be fair - the date had been fine. Ryo was funny and made good conversation but nothing near thrilling enough to daydream over and you'd allowed yourself to brush over a couple red flags because of it, until Cherry came bursting into your dormitory less than a day after your date relaying how he'd caught her between classes to ask her out to the same spot.

"Why's that?"

You're confused now, why Oliver cares or how he'd become curious enough to actually ask. You're even more confused as to why you decide to answer him. You shrug, "He asked Cherry out the very next day. She said no, obviously, but that was enough to let the whole thing go."

You expect him to say something malicious, quip something spiteful about What you did you think would happen? You're nowhere near in his league.

He doesn't.

"He's an idiot."

Not for the first time in the last five minutes, you're not sure what to say. You think this is the longest a conversation has gone without an argument. You sigh, "Yeah."

The stack-up of barrels comes into view. You dig into you the deep pocket on the inside of your robe, emerging with your wand.

Oliver stops, eyes flickering between the barrels and his shining black boots.

You step ahead, tapping the barrels in the rhythm that's become second-nature and the entryway opens.

Turning to him, you offer out an arm and he sets the robes back into your hands. The awkwardness is stifling. He leans forward, tucking the broomstick under your arm, hand wavering to make sure it doesn't fall again. The gesture makes the hold in your knees wobbly.

He nods. "Right. Goodnight."

You nod back, so quickly that you hear your earrings jingle. "Yeah, g'night."

Oliver turns, marching back the way you came and you watch him: biting your bottom lip so hard you're half expecting to draw blood.

"Thank you!" It leaps from your mouth before you have you moment to let it marinate on your tongue. You wince immediately.

He pauses, turning halfway on his heel. He smiles, it's not wide enough for teeth, but definitely wide enough to have your heart falling through your stomach. He nods again and then he's gone.

-

Saturday arrives gloomy and dripping.

It makes for good quidditch conditions, but the chill in the air is still hard to ignore when you step out into mushy grass under stadium lights. The roar of the crowd nearly deafens you, but it'll only take a couple minutes in the air for it to burn down to a soft hum.

In the middle of the stadium floor: Hooch is standing with a whistle to her lips, her figure blurred by the drizzle. Oliver stands beside her, and behind you, your team is clambering onto their brooms and rising into the air with the freshly washed kit over their backs.

You go to walk, but the icy glance Oliver is sending your way convinces you into a jog. He's always impatient before a game, itchy, antsy.

"On time as usual." Hooch hums when you land beside her.

"Got the whole bloody school waiting on her." Oliver mutters but Hooch shrugs him off, pulling the game coin out from inside her robes.

"Perfect." She positions it so we can see, "Gryffindor?"

Oliver straightens out, chest swelling: "Heads."

Hooch nods and before you can suck in another breath, the coin is in the air. She catches it with a skilled hand, flipping and revealing it to the set of captains.

"Hufflepuff, first ball!" She shouts loud enough that the floating players can hear. They nod, some groaning.

The coach turns back on the captains, "I want a fair game kids, no fighting."

"Me and Ollie? Fight?" You smile, "Never, coach."

Oliver rolls his eyes. "Yes, coach."

Suddenly you're above the pitch, sucking in breaths of wet air and struck with that familiar feeling like you could conquer the world on just your broomstick.

The quaffle flies and you stoop to catch it, twisting around Alicia Spinnet to snatch the ball before she's even noticed you're there.

Rain pelts on heads and the game goes on.

Oliver is shouting like a madman from his place in front of the goals behind you - you’ve long learnt to drown it out. He does it half to annoy his own team and half to distract yours. 

You're spinning, flying, swooping and - as you predicted - the crowd has become a distant call, a blurring sight of yellow and red.

An hour passes and the game is already halfway into the next when there's a rise in the crowd. It's not the normal yells and whoops and hollers, but you still don't look up: you're calling over to Jane and Wyatt, your beaters.

“Get between the twins, and stay there!” 

Below, Harry Potter and your own seeker, Cedric Diggory, are flying in circles around each other. The call of Cedric's name is on the tip of your tongue when there’s another ripple of sound off the crowd and this one draws your eyes. It’s there for a second before you find the army of figures descending on the pitch. 

Your breath catches in your throat, freezing solid so you can’t swallow. 

The dementors are even more ghostly this close. You'd never seen so many.

A darkness is permeating the air, the sight of the supporters in the stand dissipating into black. They’re floating in from every corner, drifting at a pace that’s too fast for you to make a move in any direction. 

There’s a scream and your gaze finds the body falling through the sky: it’s Harry.

The ground is racing up to meet him and adrenaline drives your hand to tip your broom, to chase after his quickly disappearing shape when a blurry figure blocks your way. 

Someone yells your name but you don’t hear it. 

You’d never imagined examining a dementor, much less this up close, but even if you had: nothing your imagination could conjure up would ever come close to the harrowing darkness of its empty eye-sockets. 

Its silhouette spreads over every corner of your vision, black like night and blocking the view of the sky. Your nose is so close you could tip forward and meet it's silken cloak.

A cold washes over your body like you've never felt, like you're freezing over: ice creeping up your fingertips, shoulders and face.

Your brain looses all grip on thought, replaced with a seeping dread. It barely acknowledges where a scabbed, decomposing hand is reaching out to you.

Charcoal fingertips brush your cheek when you're tugged back, all the way off your broomstick.

There's not even a last coherent thought to panic when you're engulfed in a warm chest, a hand stabilising around your waist onto a new broomstick. It dips and the green grass is reaching up to you.

The new heat engulfs you through to your bones. You grasp blindly for the expanse of a thick veined neck, wrapping yourself around him.

Digging your face into his shoulder, it takes one glance at the scarlet robes to know who it is. Oliver's panting, one hand holding you against him while the other steers the broomstick down to the floor.

You're trembling, no thought occupying any space beyond Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, Oliver--

"What the bloody hell were you thinking?"

The voice is distant, said against your temple but echoing as if from the end of a long corridor. You don't register where hot tears are wetting your cheeks, erupting over your face without being called.

His words prompt you closer: a tight arm furling over his shoulders and wrapping around him like a vine around an old tree.

"O-Oliver ..."

The hand over your waist tightens. "Sh ... it's fine. You're fine."

The broomstick lands shakily, Oliver's boots squelching into muddy grass. You barely realise you're back on ground when another hand is tugging you off, but you cling tighter to the sweaty red neck: shaking your wet face against his well-pressed robes.

"C'mon, princess ..." His calloused hands pry you from him, gently like you're a piece of china sitting on the very edge of a high shelf. "It's Pomfrey, she's gonna look after you."

You think you feel a kiss press into your hairline before you're being scooped up into a new set of arms. Madam Pomfrey is warm too, smelling like antiseptic and maple syrup.

There's another swell of noise erupting from the supporters above and you're being lead away.

Oliver watches your figure, slumped against the school nurse until you've disappeared into the medical tent.

His heart is going wild, slamming against the walls of his ribcage. Beside him his hands are shaking and he's sucking in thick gulps of air, he finds it still isn't enough oxygen.

There's another splatter where Angelina has landed a few feet behind him. She's panting too, tugging on the edge of his robes and pointing up into the sky.

"Wood!" She's frantic, "They won, Cedric caught the snitch!"

His mouth is dry when he swallows. Rain catches in his eye when he looks up, half the Hufflepuff team is no longer in the sky and the Gryffindors are all on their way down.

"I ..." feeling is returning to his fingertips, "is ... where's Harry?"

Angelina points in the direction of the medical tent. Above, the pitch is engulfed in a bright white light and Oliver catches the wispy end of a shining phoenix chasing between disappearing Dementors. It's a patronus. Dumbledore's, Oliver figures somewhere in his muddy brain.

"Is everyone else okay?"

Angelina nods. Her eyes flicker to the medical tent then back at him. "Is she?"

The image returns to him: the mass of darkness engulfing your figure in the sky. The terror that ripped through him like he was being torn apart from the inside, the whistle of the wind that stung over his ears and how it blocked out his mutterings of please, please, please--

He shakes his head. "She's too tough for her own good. She'll ... she'll be fine."

But it comes out like he's trying to convince himself more than Angelina.

-

Oliver doesn't see you for a few days.

Two, to be exact, and his skin itches the entire time. A deep itch, like it's coming from his bones.

It's only on Monday evening at dinner, with the Hufflepuff table whooping, that you come strolling back into the light of his eyes.

Your head is down, flushed with all the attention, and when you sit, kids are rising from their seats to tackle you into side hugs. He can tell you're embarrassed but he can't gather himself enough to care: the warm rush of relief flooding his stomach so much so that if he dared open his mouth it would all come rushing out.

You look fine. All limbs attached and smiling, it settles him.

He doesn't snap at Archie when he knocks his shoulder with a "you're staring" and his dinner suddenly looks more appetising when he peels his eyes off your figure down to his plate. He finds that he doesn't care as much as he usually does where Enzo's lanky arm is strung over your shoulder.

The week passes in a flurry.

While you share several classes, Oliver doesn't share a single word with you. It's hard not to notice that you're working very hard not to interact with him.

In Muggle Studies, you arrive late and keep your nose tucked deep into the pages of a textbook he knows you couldn't care less about. You're up and out of the classroom before he's even zipped up his bag. It's the same in Potions and Arithmacy.

While going days without talking to each other is not unusual, this time he can tell it’s on purpose. He pretends that he doesn't care.

The rain has cleared and when Friday arrives the sunset is red and orange and purple, granting Oliver with a rare enchanting view out his bedroom window where it's setting behind the East tower.

It's in this quiet, peaceful moment that Archie comes bouncing in with some news of a party happening in the Ravenclaw dormitory.

He's indifferent but Archie is nothing if not convincing.

"Come on, dude. You're literally a hermit crab." He sighs, falling back against his own poster bed across Oliver's. "There will be girls."

"There's girls everywhere, Arch."

His eyebrows wiggle, "And alcohol."

It takes a bit more pestering and the Weasley twins rushing in after him with the same news (and a far less patient approach) to get him up off his bed.

He digs in his cupboard for the last pair of clean jeans and a somewhat suitable purple jumper, tugging them on with a grumble, before he's being dragged by both arms - a twin on each side - across the castle to the West tower wherein resides the Ravenclaw population.

The common room is bustling with seventh years, he recognises them from all houses, and a table set up to the side with some trays of food. He's barely made himself comfortable when Katie Bell is shoving a red solo cup into his hand:

"It's Angelina's brew." She informs him.

He can believe that. The liquid is strong, burning down his throat followed by the barely there after-taste of pumpkin juice. Oliver downs the whole thing in one go.

The music swells louder and he's three cups of Angelina's concoction deep when you come tumbling through the entrance portal.

You're drunk yourself, he can tell by the way you're giggling and half leaning on Cherry Stretton. Bumping through people, not passing without leaning back to apologise to them tipsily, you head straight into the arms of Angelina and Alicia Spinnet. They smile in surprise, engulfing you in their arms.

Despite his and your long-held rivalry, it had done nothing to stop the rest of his team from sweetening up to you. The twins called you their favourite yellow tie at regular intervals and the girls found you nothing less than endearing. Oliver could lie and say he hated it.

Instead, he wrestles his way to where Katie is situated with more to drink, filling his cup and downing it.

-

The room is twisting in a flurry of colours and faces and it's the lightest you've felt in almost a week. You giggle against Enzo, his dreads tucked safely back in a bun while Cedric sets a Dragon-Barrel Brandy shot on fire and hands it carefully over.

Enzo's head knocks back, slipping the burning liquid down his throat with a wince. There's a cheer at his accomplishment, and suddenly Cedric's knocking your elbow: "you're next, Cap!"

After the match-gone-wrong, Madam Pomfrey had held you down in the infirmary until Monday morning. You were fed copious amounts of chocolate - in the form of bars and drinks and cakes and ice creams. By Saturday night you were - surely a couple kilograms heavier - and feeling fine, but Pomfrey was nothing if not paranoid:

"That was no light ordeal you went through, dear. I'm not letting you out of my sight until I'm happy with you."

In all honesty, you'd prefer if the whole school forgot it ever happened.

If Pomfrey didn't fret and your friends didn't come by every meal time and your team stopped sending you get better! letters and nobody mentioned it ever again.

More than anyone, you wished Oliver would forget. The ordeal, or maybe just you as a person.

You'd made a stupid decision under the heat of stadium lights and the influence of racing adrenaline, trying to chase for Harry, and he'd made a stupider decision coming to save you from yourself.

When it got quiet in the infirmary past dusk and Harry's shadowy figure was long since snoring in the bed across yours, you could feel Oliver's touch. Could feel it's strong hold wrapped around your waist and the voice against you the back of your neck and the lips at your temple.

You never reminisced long: for with his touch came the writhing, scalding fear burrowing a hole in your chest.

He could tease you, he will tease you.

Oliver had saved you from the clutches of a dementor moments from your soul being sucked out your body and you'd cried in his chest the whole time, refused to let him go in front of the whole school. It was a mortification you would never live down. And if Oliver decided he was going to use it against you, even once, you were sure you'd melt into the floor in shame.

It's what's made the Firewhiskey and Lemon squash concoction Cherry had handed you back in her room so easy to toss back. It stung and steam rose out your mouth where you'd panted for air. There was another ... and another, they went down the same.

The walk across the castle to reach the Ravenclaw Tower had been wobbly and you'd laughed with your friends loud enough to wake up the whole castle you're sure, but it dissolved the fear that clung to your bones. The fear that he was here, lingering between the people in the crowded blue common room.

Now the liquor is fading. Numbing to a dull buzz and you decline Cedric's offer at a burning shot, thinking about how proud you'll be of yourself when you wake up tomorrow morning in bed rather than wrapped around a toilet seat and hauling up guts into the bowl.

The party, not unlike yourself, is dimming.

Students are crawling away into all corners, each with their own excuse. I have a potions essay to do or No, dude, I'm too drunk for this or Flint wants us down at the pitch for drills at eight tomorrow morning, I gotta head to bed.

The crowd, though thinning, is beginning to clump into respective circles across the room. You glance annoyed at the fireplace where the flames crack merrily. Even with your short skirt and thin satin top, the heat of the common room is stifling.

Enzo is on his fourth burning shot, it's lost it's appeal to the crowd but he seems undeterred, knocking Cedric in the shoulder with the empty shot glass motioning: another! You yawn, playing mindlessly with the ruffled sleeve of your shirt.

"Oh no," A harsh tug at your hand draws you from the lure of sleep that's fogging your mind. "The night is young, no yawning!"

Cherry has your wrist in her grip, Enzo's in the other. He blinks blearily down at his friends.

"Huh?"

"Come on," Cherry's brown eyes roll far back in her head. "Fred says they're starting Seven Minutes In Heaven. Let's go join--"

"Seven minutes--?" you laugh between words, "Cher, are you mad?"

She whines, pouting like a kicked dog. "It'll be fun. Besides, when last did you have a good fucking snog? Too long, I say!"

Somehow, you're not only convinced across the room into a spot onto the floor in a circle of a couple others, but a drink has ended up in your hand and its contents quickly down your gullet.

For the nerves, you assure yourself.

Before you know it, Angelina - who's conveniently settled beside you - is topping up your plastic cup with a nearly empty bottle of Daisyroot Draught. "This is the good stuff. Katie stashed it in, her sister works at a brewery."

You smile nervously, nod, and take a tentative sip. The pre-existing buzz in your head convinces you it's not so bad.

In the circle is a couple Gryffindors you recognise, some giggling Slytherin girls, a Ravenclaw you can't name and three members of your quidditch team. There's an open spot on the side you don't take note of.

That is until Archie Kumar is steering a grumpy, visibly drunk Oliver Wood into the open place and collapsing beside him.

Your breath catches in your throat, heart sinking into your stomach like a stone. You're halfway off the floor, suddenly desperate for the loo, when Cherry - on your left side - drags you back down to the floor.

Maybe it's Katie's sister's brew, but you tumble too easily back onto your bum.

"Relax. Just don't look at him, okay?"

You suck in another breath, eyes trained on the white moon outline sewn into the rug. "Yeah ... okay."

It doesn't hold long and when you find the Gryffindor captain again, his gaze is trained on your face. It's stone cold. You gasp quietly and look away.

"Right!" George Weasley is on his feet, setting an empty Firewhisky bottle into the centre. "Who's first?"

Alicia shuffles forward on her knees, the first of the group to move, and the bottle goes spinning. It lands on the Ravenclaw boy. He grins and she does too: Fred wolf-whistles when they stand.

The "heaven" in question is a tall oak cabinet leaning against the back wall of the common room. The pair disappear into its depths and conversation rises again as the circle waits.

You sip your drink in large gulps, trying to hold conversation with Angelina against Oliver's hot gaze that's burning a hole through the side of your face. It's difficult: the Gryffindor girl is so drunk that she's talking with her eyes closed.

Seven minutes later, there's a chorus of "time's up!", Alicia and the boy emerge another ten seconds later. They're rearranging their clothes and Alicia is as scarlet as her quidditch robes. The boy is grinning like the cat who caught the canary. You're suddenly struck with the violent urge to throw up.

The game goes on like that, round after round. Lee Jordan and Jane Emmet (your beater), Katie and Wyatt (your other beater), Cherry and a pretty Slytherin girl you don't know - she's especially chuffed when she returns, red lipstick smeared over her chin.

You're working very hard not to look at Oliver, much less think about him, but it's proving difficult. Every time the bottle takes its spin, your stomach churns.

It had occurred to you during the time that Alicia and that boy were in the closet that there was a very real chance that Oliver could be called up when one of those pretty Slytherins take their turn at the bottle. The thought had made you down the last of your drink and immediately want to vomit it all back up into your cup.

The image of their slender arms curling around his criminally wide-set shoulders, Oliver pushing them back against the inside wall of the grand closet. Would he make noise? Would he sigh or groan against their lips or whisper something about how beautiful they looked tonight in their ears--

"Ollie, you're up mate."

You can't remember who said it, but the words stripped your gaze off Angelina and straight into the pooling brown eyes you'd been avoiding all week long.

He sighed, grumbling under his breath and only with a less-than-gentle nudge from Archie, did he lean up on thighs that flexed unfairly -- bloody hell, stop it! -- and wrap his hand over the neck of the bottle: it went spinning.

The only sound you could hear was the twist of the glass against the woven rug and the hum of your own blood rushing past your ears. It stopped.

"No fucking ways." Enzo cracked from two people down.

A hand landed on your shoulder, shaking you half off your arse: Angelina. "You're up, babe! Go!"

The bottle was pointing irrefutably at your little spot in the circle.

Oliver's face was as white as you'd ever seen it when you dared look up.

"I-I'm not going in with him--" It was the first thing that came to your mind and went spluttering out your mouth.

George was laughing so hard that he'd fallen all the way onto his back. The roar of the group was ear-splitting.

"There's no ways I'm going in with her!"

"Let's end this feud once and for all," Katie bellowed over their heads. "Captain versus captain!"

You're being knocked from all sides, hands crawling under your arms and lifting you off the floor. Across the circle, Oliver is experiencing the same and before you know it: the wooden doors of the cabinet are creaking open.

"Go on!" Lee's finger is piercing your side.

Oliver is beside you but you won't look. You take one last look over your shoulder at Cherry back on the floor, she does nothing but offer a sympathetic shrug and mouths "sorry, dear".

Your hand reaches before Oliver's, flinging the door open with maybe a little too much force. It bangs against the wall behind it.

"Let's get this over with." You mumble, only half concerned that he heard you.

You slouch climbing in, the top is low and the space is even more cramped than what you assumed. To your surprise, Oliver is stepping in after you. He takes his turn at slamming the door, shutting it this time.

It's dark inside, but not enough that you can't see. Light is peaking in through the cracks and he's leaned back against the opposite wall to you.

In the narrow space, your legs are twisting around each other to stand: his one knee situated between yours. In the dimness, he folds his arms and you notice for the first time the jumper he's wearing. The purple one, you recognise it as the one he's had for years. Time has taken its toll where the jumper is clinging to life around his frame, Oliver having grown at least three times wider while the jumper has remained the same size.

"Go on, Wood, give her a kiss!"

The voice is unrecognisable but it knocks your tongue back into your mouth where you'd been ogling at his torso.

His arms are folded, proffering you with a glare that could cut through steel. He makes no visible sign that he'd heard the shout at all. You mirror him, folding your own arms.

"I'm not kissing you."

His head cocks. "Oh, so you're talking to me now?"

You suck in a sharp breath. It's not the response you're anticipating. "What?"

"So we're playing dumb?" He leans just a fraction closer. You can smell the linger of alcohol on his breath, but it doesn't work hard enough to drown out the smell of peppermint that follows him around. "Doesn't suit you, princess."

"I'm not playing anything. I don't know what you're talking about." You double down. It's probably not sustainable but the heat of his body almost against yours and the thrum of liquor in your blood makes the decision for you.

"Y've been avoiding me all week."

"I haven't"

"You're a bad liar."

You swallow hard. Embarrassment is rising again, making your head spin. Oliver's chest is puffed up in anger, you can tell because you've had five years to learn the look like the back of your hand. Except, now - as it has been for a longer time than you care to admit - it's harder to focus on the waves of fury reflecting off of him when his face is just so ... beautiful. Nose scrunched and lips pulled tight into a grimace.

It's what makes you change tactics, you think.

"So what if I was? Why does it matter?"

His arms unfold, eyes rolling so far that his head knocks back against the wood of the cupboard.

"Why?" you press, "Did you miss me, Wood?"

"Maybe I did."

He's looking at you again. For what feels like the hundredth time just tonight, your breath escapes you in a rush and your lungs struggle to grasp back at it. Your face softens without meaning to.

You blink at him.

"You did?" It's a whisper.

His arms are still folded but something clement passes like a shadow over his features.

"No."

His face betrays his words, eyes soft and lip daring to curl up at the edge.

The air in the tight space goes cold. Or maybe it's your blood. It's more likely the look on Oliver's face: like he hasn't just turned your organs to slush. You're all the way sober now.

"I'm not kissing you." You repeat dumbly, but it's gentle.

Merlin, you want to kiss him so fucking badly.

"You mentioned." He's almost, almost, smiling. It's gentle too.

The space between you falls quiet. You're suddenly overly focused on the brush of his knee between yours. His swirling brown eyes catch on the split of light creeping in past the hinge on the door.

It stays like that until your voice creeps nervously out. "I was embarrassed. Am, I am embarrassed."

A thick brow tightens in confusion. "Why?"

You huff, almost annoyed. Your eyes train on a dark spot by your intertwined feet. "Come on, Wood."

"What, about the match?" The alcohol thickens his accent.

Your silence seems to answer his question. The apples of your cheeks are warming again.

"What was I supposed to do, leave you to have you bloody soul sucked out yer body?" His voice is rising, "No, princess, I'm not apologising for that."

It's an outpour that you're not expecting. Oliver's clearly in the mood to shock and surprise tonight.

Your lips tighten around the words that are all fighting for the spot at the tip of your tongue. Silence reigns while they argue, he's still watching you with exasperation set into the lines of his face.

"Princess." You settle.

His expression twists again. "What?"

"You always call me that. Why?" It's a question that you buried long ago. But his proximity, in conjunction with the night you've had, unearths it.

It's his turn to look surprised. He grumbles some indiscernable Scottish blabber before-- "It's because y'are a princess. Spoilt and bratty. Always gets her way."

There's no malice to his response, you find. It draws a chuckle from the depths of your chest.

"Aye, right." You mimic his accent and his quip, one he's used many times at you.

He laughs. It's not a sound you hear often and it's setting your whole nervous system alight like a tangled bunch of christmas lights. His whole body's shaking with it, head resting back against the wood again, and you really do think you might grab him and kiss him -- when the door flies open again: seeping his whole body in yellow light.

Alicia's standing at the opening, grin wide as night is wide and clearly expectant on catching you with your tongues down each other's throats.

If she'd given you another three seconds she just might have.

"Oh." She slumps in disappointment, looking back over her shoulder and shaking her head to the expectant crowd. They groan collectively. "Well, love birds, your time is up."

You'd almost forgotten where you were. Oliver clears his throat, the ghost of his laugh impossible to find on his face, and clambers over your legs out into the common room again. He doesn't pass without brushing his hand over yours.

-

It's nearly three in the morning when Enzo finally lets up.

His long legs are sprawled across the midnight blue couch in the middle of the common room. Fiona, a lovely Ravenclaw girl you'd met just tonight, shrugs at you: "Don't stress it. He can crash here tonight."

The party is long since dead. Seven Minutes In Heaven had looped another three rounds before everyone had gotten their chance in the dusty cupboard and began to grumble in boredom.

You'd avoided Oliver's eyes the whole time again, sure that if you looked he'd be able to read the fondness on your face.

It wasn't long after that the last of the students dissolved in the direction of their respective bedrooms. With your dear friend in good hands with the Ravenclaws, you loop your arm with Cherry - knocking against her side towards the portal.

You've barely pushed it ajar when she breaks off you, "Hold on, I need to get my Transfig notes from Jacob!"

"Cher, it's three in the morning?"

Alcohol is directing her legs in the opposite direction clumsily, "I'll wake him. If I fail another quiz, Mcgee's gonna have my arse."

She's gone before she catches your call: "I'll find you outside!"

The portal creaks where you shove it open again. The corridor is dimly lit and colder than the common room and a shiver chases up your exposed legs.

"Bloody hell." You run a hand over your forearms.

It's quiet too, and empty besides the Gryffindor captain leaning against the stone wall closest to the entrance you've just emerged from.

"Merlin," your eyes find his. "Not you again."

The flush over your cheeks is warding off the chill.

Oliver shrugs. "Me again."

An awkward silence permeates. Against better judgement, you shuffle forward, leaning against the wall beside him. He doesn't react, arms folded and staring into the inky abyss of the corridor leading out to the rest of the castle.

"Why're you out here?" You ask, tucking your hands between your back and the wall.

"Archie." He huffs out, voice wrapped in annoyance. "He's in there with Penelope. I gave him ten minutes."

Ah, Penelope Clearwater. She'd joined the game in the last round. A good thing too because Oliver's friend was looking more crestfallen as the bottle spun again and again, surpassing him each time. Penelope had taken the last turn, ending up with her hair in every direction and Archie's spectacles leaning half off his face when they emerged from the cupboard.

"You?"

The eddy of average conversation is strange, but you find you like it.

"Cherry." You hum. "Something about quiz notes."

He drops his head back against the wall.

"That what they calling it now?"

It startles you, head tilting to stare up at the side of his face with a grin: "oh, Wood’s got jokes now? I didn’t know it was possible for you to make a joke."

His eyes flutter shut, a twinkle of laughter bubbling out of his frame. Tucking his head down to his chest, he shrugs against his own light chuckle. "I have them. I just don’t share them with you."

You giggle back at him. "Right. Well then you better stop smiling there, someone might walk past and think we’re friends."

He shakes his head, the sound of his snicker fading but leaving behind the imprint of a smile. "Nobody’s gonna think that."

You lean back again, eyes drifting over the low ceiling. Quiet falls again - not uncomfortable - and you let it linger for a moment. A thought tugs on a loose string in your mind, not a new one, but one you’ve carefully buried over time.

It comes falling out your mouth. "You ever think about how it might be ... if things were different?"

The question grants you a look out the side of his eye. "Different?"

"Y’know," you shrug, the very last remains of alcohol are ebbing and unsureness is replacing where it stood. "If we … we had—"

"If you hadn’t suckered me in the bloody nose?" His words are unexpectedly fond.

You laugh at him, "If you hadn’t deserved to be suckered in the bloody nose."

He draws in a long breath, not answering. It prompts you.

"We could have been friends." You whisper, more to your chest than to him really.

But he hears it. "We would never be friends."

It stings sharper than it should. Your shoulders go stiff and the corners of your eyes sting inexplicably, turning the corridor blurry. A dying fire revives in your chest, blistering the cave, reminding you why Oliver Wood has been nothing but a stake in your side since you were thirteen years old.

"Of course. How stupid of me, for a minute I forgot what an absolute arsehole you are." You push off the wall, intent in going to dig out Cherry from the depths of the Ravenclaw dormitory. "Goodnight, Wood."

An arm wraps around your waist, not unlike it'd done a week ago in the air of the quidditch pitch, lurching you into him until you're pressed back against the cool stone of the corridor wall.

Oliver looms over you, crouched so that your nose bumps against his. "Don't sulk, princess."

It all happens at once: his hands grab onto the fat of your hips, digging in there like he really does hate you, and lips crash against yours like maybe he doesn't at all.

He stays there, unmoving for a second that feels a year long.

Where the inside of your brain had been buzzing with runaway threads of thought, ribbons streaking out in all directions: they disappear in a sizzling light. Oliver Wood is kissing me.

You melt against him, tipping up onto your toes and latch onto muscled shoulders. He seemingly takes that as his cue, pressing you closer against his body with his arm - lifting you half off the wall.

He tastes like the remnants of Firewhisky and pumpkin juice, the flavour setting every nerve ending in your body on fire. Lips soft but persistent while his hands grip onto you like you'd dissolve into dust if he didn't.

It's aggressive, but familiar in that way. Oliver is nothing if not hot-blooded and his touch, darting between your hips and your face is turning you tipsy again.

"If you want a friend," It's muffled when he speaks, punctuating his words with hot wet kisses, "go be friends with Ryo."

It's only in this moment, with his desperation mirroring in the glimpses of sugar brown irises you catch where he's fluttering his eyes over your face, that it dawns on you.

"Jealous much?"

He growls lowly and it makes you giggle against him, your hands slithering up into the hairs at the base of his neck. Oliver shakes his head against you, still huffing in disbelief.

"Shut up." It's accent-heavy and bleeds a hole through the bottom of your stomach. "You're such a fucking brat."

"And you're a fucking prick."

He huffs lowly, you press harder to him: solidifying the sentiment. Somehow the bickering makes it all sweeter, like you're dissolving cotton candy against your tongue where his swoops over it.

You'd just about forgotten where you were when a creak echoes down the corridor. Halfway to ignoring it in favour of Oliver's touch, your situation dawns on you in the same moment it does him.

Like you'd both licked the end of a live wire, you and Oliver jolt back a foot, hands diving to your respective sides.

Cherry is standing against the light of the common room behind her, a lanky Archie parked beside her. Their eyes are wide and Cherry's hand is against her jaw in shock.

"Oh my god." She mumbles against it.

Blood is rushing to your face and out the corner of your eye, Oliver is running a hand over the hair that's sticking in all directions from the influence of your fingers.

Cherry is laughing breathily, eyes still wide and white in surprise. "Oh my god."

Archie's eyes are flickering between you and Oliver.

"Sorry to interrupt." He says, a smirk curling onto his features.

It jumpstarts your entire system. You step forward, grabbing Cherry by the arm.

"Well," you nod at Archie and at Oliver, not daring to meet his eyes, "goodnight then."

You march with fervour, half-dragging her in the direction of the Hufflepuff common room until your figure disappears behind the next corridor.

Oliver stands with his hands hanging at his side dumbly. He swipes a finger of his bottom lip, still tasting the strawberry lip gloss you'd left there.

"Can't say I didn't see this coming, mate." A hand claps over his shoulder.

He groans, running both hands over his face, and Archie shakes him lightly.

"So ... how was it?"

With another groan, Oliver shoves Archie's hand off of him. "Bloody hell, Arch."

Archie throws his head of curly black hair back, laughing so loud it bounces off the wall. "That good, huh?"

(part two/final part)

-

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[locuas642]

Reading The Lord of the Rings and there is a small scene in Fellowship that I cant stop thinking about.

it's after Frodo and friends meet Aragorn for the first time. After they have slept the night in the Inn and are ready to leave, but they learn their poneys are no more. Let loose by the enemy to delay them even if slightly.

And because they need at least one for carrying everything they need for the travel, they decide to purchase one from the most hated individual in the town: Bill Ferny.

It was an old mistreated, malnourished pony that was on the brink of death. And which Bill sold to them for far more than the Pony was worth. But they still purchase the Pony because they have no choice. and this Pony does not seem that important, just a minor nuisance to make their journey slightly more difficult.

And then the book goes onto mention how the old pony, having changed owner, being fed and cared for, becomes healthier, more alive. Capable of actually moving and helping.

And then the book mentions how this pony has to carry Frodo. And how it makes an effort to find the least bumpy path to leviate the journey for Frodo.

And it's the way in which the book shows the kind nature of the heroes, in which even as they are trying to escape from danger, they were able to help this poor creature. and how it gives that kindness in return the best way it can.

The way in which Tolkien says a little bit of kindness can do so much.

[chaoticwriting]

WORLD CLASS HERO

Phantom is a world class hero that is often associated with the Justice League. Though he never officially joins them, Phantom is known enough that people will always treat him kindly.

His first major appearance is when a big tsunami about to hit Japan. All the other heroes can do is evacuate the civilian as they try their best to stop the tsunami. When all hope is lost, a figure with white hair and black and white jumpsuit appears out of thin air and releases an ice beam out of his hand. It takes less than a second for the tsunami that the whole Justice League struggles to stop to freeze and stop right then and there.

He doesn't stop there nor does someone get a picture of him as all his pictures are blurry at best. The only evidence that he is there is the eyewitness and the frozen tsunami that seems to melt slowly over time. After that, he is often seen in multiple parts of the world, mainly where there are no heroes based there. From the middle east, to south east Asian, all around the world he can be spotted stopping crimes and helping people.

It is not a whole year later that the Justice League finally got in contact with Phantom when a major attack by Darkseid almost killed all the heroes. Millions of his army swarm the earth from multiple portals around the world killing and slaughtering people left and right. It is also that night that the people figure out that so far they have only seen a fraction of Phantom's power.

A screech boom towards the whole world. To people of earth, it sounds like a cry of pain and despair, of sadness and suffering, sounds of their loved one asking for help but to Darkseid and his army it sounds like war cry, like deep anger and fury, like the cry of a warrior promising revenge. The results of the cry leave the people of Earth sobbing while simultaneously knocking down all of Darkseid's army.

Just as everyone thought it was over, hundreds of thousands of eldritch beings summoned from a giant green portal appear out of thin air. From the front a girl and a man leads the army.

The girl raises her hand and shouts "By the order of King Phantom, eliminates all the enemies." Multiple screeches and roars sound at the same time and those beings rush towards the Earth, slaughtering the unconscious parademons without hesitation. The Earth general population lets out a sigh of relief that it is not them that is the target and some sharp ones catch on the fact they receive order from someone named Phantom. Is it the same Phantom they know? That is later to be figured out.

At the same time the Justice League are watching as Phantom brawling against Darkseid and the man and the girl that came out of the portal fight against Darkseid's elites.

As time passes, lesser and lesser parademons are left on earth with all of them being dragged back into the green portal. When all the parademons are taken away, Phantom and the man and girl forms suddenly change into something more eldritch in nature.

The girl now looks more windy with her form still humanoid but a lot less solid than before. Her ears are pointy with like an elf and whenever someone looks at her, they feel free and unrestrained.

The man in comparison looks a lot more domineering. His fiery white hair and red eyes along with his buff figure gives off an oppressive feeling to people around him.

Compared to the other 2, Phantom form seems almost nonexistent. In fact the only reason people know he is there is because of the cold breeze that accompanied his surroundings. But to people that truly observe him, they feel like it is hard to focus on him. Like space itself warps light to make it hard to see him. His icy crown and golden ring makes it hard for people to stare too long at him. For if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss will stare back at you. That quote comes to mind when someone wishes to describe Phantom.

After they transform, the remaining battle ends as if Darkseid and his elites are merely children throwing a tantrum. When Darkseid and his army are dragged back into the green portal and with that, the whole world falls silent.

For the world, it is only a year later that Phantom returns as a hero and continues helping people. But for those in the knows, they know that in the year Phantom is gone, the other realms are thrown into chaos as one after another, tyrants and evil gods are either captured, imprisoned or straight up killed.

The Justice League first gains the news when Raven informed them that his father and his army had been slayed with his realm under new authority. Later Dr. Fate informed them that Klarion has been partially sealed. Batman also received news that League of Assassin has been disbanded after the whole league just disappears.

The JL tries to contact Phantom but no one can get in contact with him. Even after Phantom comes back, no one receives any explanation except not to worry.

[thealtoduck]

THINK LATER

Peter Parker x Male Black Cat!Reader

Warnings: Smut, bottom!Reader, top!Peter, rooftop sex, masks stay ON, enemies with benefits (kinda), unprotected sex, spit as lube, riding, doggy style, fingering…

Male Black Cat!Reader: Masterlist

Summary: Peter feels conflicted about your friends with benefits relationship and vents his frustration to the Black Cat…

——

Peter’s pov

——

Peter knew that you two weren’t exclusive.

But hearing Y/n had hooked up with his neighbour still stung his heart. He considered if he had started to catch feelings for him… but decided he didn’t want to get into all that and feel even worse.

He needed a distraction.

He layed sprawled out on his bed thinking when it hit him. Duh, he was Spider-Man, what better distraction was there?… He got of his bed, changed into the red and blue suit, opened the window and climbed out.

Luck seemed to be on everybody’s side but his that night… for once Queens was just a boring place where nothing happened, no one needing his help in the slightest. So as he swung around Y/n still lingered in his mind.

Eventually he gave up, swinging to the top of a building he sat down on the edge looking out over the city. Maybe he had caught feelings for Y/n, he thought to himself as he watched the city streets below.

Suddenly his Spider-sense tingled making him swiftly turn. Only to be met with a familiar face… or rather mask.

”Hey Spider” the Black Cat said in his usual purring voice.

——

Your pov

——

Spider-Man just seemed to examine you, noticing you didn’t have any stolen goods on you. So he just remained seated on the building edge and said tiredly ”Not now, Cat, I’m not in the mood”.

This was the first time he ever seemed indifferent to you. You HATED the feeling.

”What’s got you all moody?” you questioned. Spider-Man turned to you confused. ”Why would I talk about my feelings with you?” he questioned suspiciously. ”Crazy concept, right?” you teased and balanced playfully on the edge of the building.

Spider-Man let out a deep breath and thought, what’s the worst that could happen.

”So there’s this guy, that I’m kinda… messing around with-” Spider-Man started.

”What?” you cut in. He just looked at you for a couple seconds before you said ”Sorry, go on”.

”…And he slept with this other guy and it made me realise that I kind of want us to be exclusive but I don’t know if he wants that too” He finshed explaining. You stood and looked at the spandex clad hero and what he had told you bothered you…

Some little boytoy was bothering him to the point of keeping YOU from being chased by your favourite Spider, keeping him from doing his job of chasing YOU a WANTED thief. You didn’t know why but the idea that someone else had their claws dug in to him like this bothered you.

The thought that he had a life outside of the mask that didn’t involve you at all…

Jealousy flared up inside you like a flash fire.

”Oh, come ON” you said loudly. ”You are Spider-Man, you’re really gonna let him walk all over your feelings like that? You know what you need? You need to show him that you that you’re not just gonna wait for him” you told him.

Spider-Man just looked at you and then questioned ”How do I do that?”.

”Jesus, Spider take of the damn purity ring! Do I need to spell it out for you?” you said and he understood what you were getting at.

You got off the edge of the building and made your way behind where he sat. You pulled the zipper to your suit all the way down. You pulled of the form fitting black suit of your body down to your hips showing off your upper body.

”I still don’t kno-…” he said turning but stopping mid-sentence as he saw your bare upper body. ”Liking the view?” you teased. Spider-Man got up and walked over to you ”Cat, come on”

You poked a finger on his upper chest ”You need to show him that you’re good without him”

”He can’t see us”

”Then show yourself that you don’t need him”

——

Peter’s pov

——

The sight was mouth watering to Peter, usually criminals weren’t his type but Black Cat just had a hold of him. Maybe there was a reason he hadn’t managed to catch him yet, maybe he wouldn’t let himself. He had started liking the chase.

Peter tried to think of Y/n but was like hypnotized seeing Black Cat’s upper body. Peter slowly reached for him, touching the soft skin of his stomach with his gloved hands. He let his hans wander Black Cat’s body.

”Liking it?” Cat asked.

”Yeah” Peter mumbled completely transfixed.

Black Cat leaned in and placed a kiss on Peter’s mask covered lips. ”Wanna lift this for me?” he asked and Peter let go of Cat’s body and lifted his mask slightly revealing his lips. Soon Black Cat’s lips crashed against his as their arms wrapped around each other in a passionate embrace.

——

Your pov

——

You ended up laying on your back against the cold rooftop, Spider-Man who was on top of you pressed a button on his suit making it turn loose around his body. He pushed it of his body revealing his own muscular chest to you.

”Not bad Spider” you complimented.

The two of you continued to make out and Spider-Man pulled your suit further down revealing your tight white underwear. He threw your Black Cat suit aside and looked at your stripped down self. It almost felt familiar to him.

You slowly pulled your underwear down while looking Spider-Man in the eyes. ”So, how do you want to do this?” you purred curiously. ”Why don’t you start preparing yourself and give me a show?” he recommended.

You did as told, spreading your legs and started playing with your hole, fingering yourself as Spider-Man watched. He had let his own suit fall down to his ankles sat down on his kness infront of you. He palmed his erection through his boxers as he watched you stretch yourself open.

Spider-Man then pulled down his boxers slightly, letting his erect cock feel the night air. He jerked himself off as he saw you add another finger inside yourself. He then crawled closer to you, soon you were making out again with him on top of you, your naked bodies grinding together.

You then suprised him by rolling the two of you over so that you were on top of him, you pinned his hands over his head and whispered ”You ready?”. ”Yeah” Spider-Man answerd eagerly. You spit in your hand and rubbed it on his length.

You then lined up his cock with your enterance and sunk down on it. You supported yourself with your hands on Spider-Man’s pecs as you felt him fill you up with his cock. You let out a soft moan and said ”You’re cock is quite impressive, Spider”.

Once all of him was inside you, you rested for a moment, letting him fully stretch you out. Spider-Man let out soft gasps, from feeling his cock clenched in your tight heat.

Soon you started moving slowly up and down on his cock, Spider-Man let out a satisfied groan which made you smirk knowing you could give him that pleasure. You took Spider-Man’s hands and moved them to the globes of your ass letting him touch them.

He grabbed your ass tightly helping you roll your hips on his thick length. ”Fuck Cat- so fucking good” Spider-Man said through groans, his mouth hanging open.

You sped up the pace as you bounced up and down on his cock, feeling it deep inside you. You both let out heavy moans, the people down on the street might even hear what’s going on up on that rooftop.

”Can I- Can I-” Spider-Man tried but was unable to get out, so you slowed down the pace. ”Can you, what? Handsome” you said putting a hand under his chin. ”Can I fuck you from behind?” He asked in a polite yet needy tone.

”It’d be my pleasure” you said repositioning yourself so you were on all fours. Spider-Man positioned himself behind you. He re-insterted himself into your ass and put his hands on your hips, he then started thrusting himself into you, the sound of skin slapping together filling the rooftop.

”Fuck Spider- Y-you don’t go easy” you said feeling his cock plowing you.

——

Peter pov

——

Peter enjoyed the view, Black Cat had the most perfect ass and the thought of stuffing it full of cum made it even better. Peter’s cock was kneaded perfectly inside your heat.

He sped up his thrusts, wanting to fuck the orgasms out of the both of you. The whines Black Cat made beneath him implied to Peter he was getting close.

Through heavy panting Black Cat managed to get out a ”I’m gonna- c-cum”, Peter made sure to fuck deep into him as he let out a big groan. Peter assumed Black Cat had just shot his load on the rooftop floor.

Peter then felt his own orgasm approaching and asked ”Can I cum inside you?”. Black Cat said softly ”As much as you want”. Peter then animalistically thrusted into him, losing a proper rhythm.

And with a powerful last thrust with his cock stuffed deep inside Black Cat, Peter felt his seed spurt inside the the man beneath him. Peter panted heavily feeling completely drained.

Peter pulled out seeing his cum leak out of the other man’s ass and down his legs. The two then layed down on their backs next to each other, both exhausted and looking up at the stars.

”Feeling better?” Black Cat asked.

”Yeah” Peter said, his stress about Y/n having vanished for now.

After a while Peter stood up and offered Black Cat a hand but he remained laying on his back.

”You know, I’ll think I’ll rest here for a bit longer… Jesus, Spider, I didn’t know you were THAT big” Black Cat stated, touching his streched out cum stained ass. Peter let out a small laugh, he went and got himself dressed up in his costume and also brought Black Cat his suit and underwear.

”You know I should really use this opportunity to arrest you, I’ve never seen you so tired” Peter joked.

”Wow and after all I’ve done for you tonight Spider, that’s rude” he said back. Peter then bid Black Cat farewell and jumped from the building, swinging himself home.

——

As Peter layed down in bed again, his mind was fully focused on Black Cat, his body, his ass, his everything. Peter felt himself growing hard again just thinking about him, he slipped a hand in his boxers and down to his cock and started rubbing it, and he spent the rest of the night fantasizing about the Black Cat.

[four-rabbits-in-a-trenchcoat]

Obligatory and quite pertinent

[whirlybirbs]

— BRUISED EGO ; PART TWO ; TOSHINORI YAGI ; 俊典

summary: he should have waited for you. but no, toshinori felt like he had something to prove. now, roles are reversed and he needs your help. pairing: younger!toshinori yagi / f!reader ; hero name: derecho word count: 5k tags: afab!reader, fingering, oral (male receiving), piv, sex pollen trope but make it canon specific, dirty talk, praise kink, denied feelings, deeply needy fucking, size difference, toshinori being a good old fashioned lover-boy (again), enemies-to-coworkers-to-lovers hits hard a/n: oh wow a part two,,, i'm sick in the head ← previous | the tag

This ain't great.

This is, uh, bad actually.

Like, Toshinori has absolutely no idea what to do, bad. 

For Christ's sake, he's All Might. He should have known better. He should have known to wait for you — but no, he just had to calm his nerves by beginning your usual shared patrol an hour early. 

It's been one week, two days, six hours, and thirty-seven minutes since he last saw you. Not that he's counting. It's not like he's suddenly acutely aware of the time he's spent apart from you, or anything. 

Japan is locked in a heatwave. 

(Or, maybe it's just the fever in his bones.)

Large, calloused palms dig into his eyes as he leans back against the rooftop's barrier and groans. Toshinori drops his head against the iron railing in defeat, sending a twang through the hot air. Sweat is running down his back beneath his suit, tracing the curve of his spine.

Oh, and he's hard.

Painfully hard.

Like he said, this ain't great.

The call went out that they spotted the same love quirk user from last week holding some sex workers at gunpoint. He should have waited. The two of you could have handled him easily. 

But, no. Toshi had to go and think he had something to prove. 

He groans again, pounding his knuckles to the gravel.

It's going to be all over the evening news. That clip of him, panicking, and absolutely decking the very-much-not-a-real-violent-threat-of-a-man in the face on reflex after being hit with his quirk. He couldn't help it. It was like... a knee-jerk. It's like suddenly you're being touched everywhere and nowhere. It's strange. Sort of violating. It... I-It was just all he could do, okay? 

And he apologized! Plenty! A-And Officer Tsukauchi said it was fine, that he had it handled, as a bunch of officers began to help the now-unconscious offender out of the storefront's debris.

...Toshinori's phone is ringing.

He has half the mind to ignore it.

But it's the guitar riff from 'Bad to the Bone'. 

It's you.

He barks out a huffed 'shit' before digging his phone from the pocket in his belt. Even your picture glowing alongside the phone call notification is enough to make his cock throb. 

It's not even racy. It's blurry. It's in the All Might Agency's lobby. You're smiling. It's such a rare sight. You're holding up your official hero license and a big thumbs up.

He took the picture a few years ago. It was a big deal, a huge win. Your hair was a little shorter, and your hands weren't as scarred from Pro-Hero work as they are now. And god, that smile. 

...Jesus, you're just happy and he's this horny? 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

Toshinori picks up on the last ring.

"Where the hell are you?" comes your voice, cutting through the sound of wind — he can hear the thrum of your bike's engine in the background, "I've been looking all over for you, and I just got a call from Tsukauchi — are you alright?"

The sound of your voice is making his mouth dry.

"I'm fine."

He's not fine.

He's sitting here, aroused out of his mind and in pain, trying to battle through the mind-numbing, knuckle-breaking heat of desire. He can't even come close to the word 'fine'. He's a mess. All he can do is sit here and sweat because he knows no amount of trying to jerk off is going to solve this problem.

He's so not fine.

You can tell.

Tsukauchi gave few details — just that whatever the hell happened sent All Might hightailing it outta there. And, after getting a brief description of the prep, you had a pretty good idea why. 

Your fingers twitch against the throttle.

"Send me your location," you say sternly; the glint of your helmet's visor catches the passing lights of traffic as you talk into the built-in comms system, "I'm coming to get you."

"No," he grits out, tugging on a piece of his blonde fringe, "N-No. I'll be fine. I-I am fine. Just need some time—"

"Toshinori," you bark back as you check for an opening between cars; your whole body is hot and it's not just from the summer heat, "I'm not asking. Let me help." 

...Oh.

Help. Right.

It's ambiguous and sort of ominous but, if he squints, it's the first time either of you has even come close to talking about what happened last week. Y'know. When he kissed you in your entryway, the way he ate you out on your couch, or the way he absolutely fucked your brains out in your bed. All because you had been hit with the same quirk influence he's riding out now.

His location pings up on your visor's HUD. 

"Be there in five."

And you hang up.

Because — I mean, what else is there to say? You are going to do what you have to to help him. Just like he did for you. Then, maybe it will be even! And then, maybe, this feeling that has been eating your heart away for the last week will disappear. Right? And things will go back to normal!

...Right?

Ha! B-Because, yea, that feeling is definitely guilt, right? Like... You... uh. You feel bad. Because... he had to... help. And you haven't helped him. Right. Yes. 

Yep.

Not because you can't stop thinking about his hands on your face, cradling you tenderly as he drove himself deep into you. Not because you can't stop thinking about the way he looked up at you with his tongue flat on your clit. Not because you can't stop thinking about his voice, or his smile, or his laugh, or his—

The telltale roar of a motorcycle sets Toshinori Yagi's stomach ablaze. 

Immediately, the air gets thicker like the feeling before a summer thunderstorm. He knows you're here. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and before he can rub the feeling away, you're there. 

On the roof.

"You look..." you breathe out as your feet touch down with a crackle of lightning crescendoing around you, "Like shit." 

(Truly he looks divine. Rosey cheeks, his chest heaving. His eyes are half-lidded. There's a bead of sweat that runs down his jaw, down down down, down his neck, then disappears beneath the collar of his suit.)

Toshi sighs. It's a ragged sound. He pulls his knees up, trying his best to hide the apparent tenting across the front of his hero costume. He scrapes his rough palm down his face.

"Don't start—"

"Did I look this bad?" you ask, voice hiking an octave as you move towards him. You keep an even distance. Your face is morphed into a look of pity, but there's something in your voice that makes the knot in Toshinori's gut wind tighter, "He got you good, huh, Tosh'?"

He can't do nicknames right now.

"Ha, ha," he grits out, the trademarked All Might boisterousness dying in favor of the lackluster, dry humor he was born with, "You're real funny, zippy."

It's your favorite flavor of him. The man is out of the limelight. Though he may still be bigger than life biceps and thick steel-corded quads, the facade has fallen. 

"And you're a mess," you sigh as you squat down, rummaging in your pack for something. It's a water bottle. You offer it as you watch him. 

The condensation kisses his fingertips as he takes it and pops it open. 

He takes a long drink, caps it off, then presses the cold bottle to the back of his neck. It does little to dissipate the tension in his broad shoulders. The sensation arguably makes it worse. Another bead of sweat runs down his back.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

We're never gonna talk about this again echoes somewhere in the back of his mind. At this rate, they're gonna have to talk about this. Because once is just a fluke. Twice is a problem. A real problem. 

He places the bottle back on the ground after another long sip.

Your heart is hammering in your chest. Despite your desperate attempt to remain levelheaded, you know exactly how he's feeling at this moment. You gotta admit, his self-control dwarfs your own though. You could hardly keep your hands off him the second he walked in your door. 

You wrestle your bike helmet off, and Toshinori has to quell the wave of longing that rises in his chest. Your hair is sticking to your forehead and neck. He suddenly wishes he made you look this way — windswept and sweating. 

The jet-black helmet lands on the rooftop with a thwat. He can see his ragged, flushed reflection in the black visor. 

Your voice is soft. "Hey."

It brings his focus back to you. His mouth is dry. Big blue eyes swivel as they rake across your face — and he hates how his cock jumps at how softly you speak next.

"What do you need right now, Toshinori?"

His chest is rising and falling a little faster. The usual steadfast expression on his face has melted into something doe-eyed and boyish. It makes your heart clench. 

"Are you sure about this?" his voice cracks as he swallows roughly. It's a non-answer. It's a metaphorical boot-kicking-in-the-door, though. Toshinori rakes his hands through his hair, "I-I... I can wait it out—"

You exhale tightly; your rationale is clear. Totally unbiased and very much not rooted in an unabashed obsession with the way he touches you. 

"Tosh', you helped me. I won't sit around and let you suffer when the same hand is dealt your way."

He drops his head back again. Another twang echoes through the night air. 

"Plus," you offer with a slow, crooning smile, "I've always been a sucker for a damsel in distress."

It takes a second.

Then, one blue eye cracks open. Long, dark blonde lashes flutter a bit — and then, he's smirking. 

Ha. 

Right.

"You sure about this?" he asks, his head still dropped back and shoulders slumped. 

"Sure as I'll ever be, big man."

That's the only permission he needs.

Toshinori Yagi is fast. He has to be. He's the Number One Hero in all of Japan. Top of the popularity ranks, fan-favorite, best stats in history. Being fast is part of the gig. 

He's fast to sit up and catch you in a kiss that feels like a bruise — tender and aching and miscalculated. It's teeth and tongue and then a deliciously low noise that rumbles up from his chest and sets your whole body on fire. 

His grip is rough — his fingers fist your hair as he drags you closer, his mouth presses firmly to yours as you scramble against the rough rooftop. It's... 

Needy.

You're crawling towards him.

"That's my line," he breathes out, tugging your bottom lip between his teeth and pressing back in to steal your breath. His grip tightens in your hair. His voice is so low that it feels like someone lights a fire under your skin. It's rough and breathless and so not All Might.  

"It's a good line," you mutter back as your brain stutter-steps. You pull away to crawl closer and straddle his hips. Your knees pin his cape to the gravel. You're kissing him again, letting his feverish need set the pace, "Worked on me."

You can feel him through your hero suit. 

His suit's pants are thick, made of some patented material you can never remember the name of — but his arousal is more than apparent as you settle your weight down against him. The added pressure earns a throaty hum of approval. 

You always forget just how big he is in this form — his hands dwarf your hips as he drags his grip down, allowing himself a little bit of an edge when he unceremoniously bucks up against you. 

"Sorry," he slurs out, his boots scraping against the roof; it's utterly pathetic, "Sorry—"

"Stop apologizing," you breathe out as you follow his lead and continue the movement, grinding your hips down, "I asked what you needed—"

"Anything," Toshinori's words rush out with his blue eyes screwed closed tightly as he grips your hips and slots his mouth back against yours, "Anything you'll give me."

...How is he so romantic? Even in a moment like this? Even when he's blindly seeking friction through his pants, bucking his hips against your own, as he moans into your mouth. 

"Hands? Mouth?" you parrot his line of questioning from your previous encounter; it seems to knock some sense into him.

His breath catches. Blue eyes widen minutely. You feel him twitch beneath you.

"God, mouth, please—"

Who would have ever anticipated you'd be here? 

Who would have ever anticipated you'd be helping him work off his belt, work off his tactical pants? Who knew you'd be watching his taut stomach flex as you push his costume's top higher up his torso, who knew you'd be dragging his stupid All Might-themed boxers down his narrow hips to spring him free? 

Who thought you'd ever see him like this, so desperate and winded and needy? 

Not you, that's for sure. You never thought, in all those years you sat in prison, this would be your life shortly after: giving head — happily — to the man who put you there in the first place. 

And here you are, slipping him a tentative look as you wrap a gloved hand around his hardness and smirk. 

"Is this okay?" you murmur up at him, on your hands and knees. You're teasing him. He knows this. 

Toshinori laughs — an incredulous bark. It's all you need to hear as confirmation. 

The sound splinters into a choked moan when you bend down and take him into your mouth.

He sees stars.

This is going to be a problem.

All he can do is lean back and grip the guard rail over his head for dear life because ho-oly shit. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. His biceps go taut, his knuckles white, and he tries so hard to keep his hips still as you hum around him. His whole body shudders — his thighs tensing under your other hand as you balance above him. 

This is — son of a bitch. Your grip around the base of his cock tightens incrementally, and as you lap at the head of his cock, his thoughts die in a strangled burst of pleasure. 

Then, his hand lands on your cheek.

The touch is reverent. Holy. Tender and adoring.

"Jesus, Der'," he slurs out, his chest heaving up and down as he tries to keep his eyes on you; he can't stare too long. The sight is too much. Too pretty. Mouth full of him, "You're such a good girl." 

There it is. 

The little bit of praise he slipped you before. 

If the iron rail creeks beneath his tightening grip, neither of you pays it any mind. 

You're on your knees, gloved hand around his shaft, watching his face contort into something so wonderfully steeped in bliss. You've got more important things to mind rather than the structural integrity of some stupid rooftop rail. 

Like the way his stomach clenches — the way his abs tighten. Like the way he says your name or the way he chokes out a nervous laugh when you take him just a litttttle deeper. 

"Fucking shit," he hisses; you make a mental note to rib him for his language some other time. Hearing him curse like this is a hell of an indicator for your ego that you're doing a good job, "Der', if you keep that up—"

"What?" you rasp, spit connecting your mouth to his cock, "You'll cum?"

Something snaps. 

It's a flash of red and blue and silver and blonde, his cape tearing through the air. 

Suddenly, you're pinned to the rooftop — gravel scrapes as your boots kick and grapple for purchase. Your elbows scuff against the ground. The wind is swept out of your body and he's kissing you so roughly you swear you taste blood. One of his hands is locked around your jaw. You're effectively trapped. 

All you can do is let out a shaky, startled, yet painfully aroused laugh. 

His other hand isn't gentle — it's tearing at the bottom half of your suit, unceremoniously snapping the button of your tactical pants open and shoving his hand down the front of them. You can feel a slight shake in his fingers as they delve past your underwear and slip into your folds.

"I need you," he hisses; his eyes are dark, and you can see the edge of frustration building. You know the feeling. 

Another kiss.

Suddenly, there are two fingers in you. 

You whine against his mouth.

He doesn't waste any time. He can't. Not when all he can think about is splitting you open on his cock. You're right here and you're soft and beautiful and fuck, he can't even think straight when you clamp down on his middle and ring finger. 

"Be nice," you warn between pants and whines and whimpers. It's an empty threat.

"Or what?" he chirps back, working his fingers in and out; his voice hitches along the syllables, trying his best to sound unaffected by the little breathy sound you let out when he kisses your jaw, "You'll cum?"

It's your turn to laugh. Your hands grapple with his cape, trying to anchor yourself in any way possible. You fist it as his fingers continue the task at hand: opening you up enough to take him. His knees nudge your legs open a little bit farther. Toshinori's body feels like it's on fire. 

His heavy, hot cock drags up the inside of your thigh and he shudders. 

His face is pressed to your shoulder in a flash; it's good because he doesn't see the blissful smile working its way across your face as our own arousal builds. 

"You're soaking wet," he strangles out; his pride is overshadowed by the embarrassing need to have you. He feels like if he doesn't, this raging fever will just get worse and worse and worse. 

"Par for the course," your words hitch on a hot wave of arousal as his palm grinds down against your clit. You grip his wrist, trying to ignore the tell-tale shake in your legs. His hand is holding your face.

"At least I'm doin' something right," he whispers, his breath hot against your cheek as he relinquishes his fingers from your heat and drags your mouth across your jaw, "Y'think... Think you can...?"

Take him? Yea.

You're a brave girl. 

Yea, that shouldn't be a problem. 

What is a problem is your riding gear and hero suit — but Toshinori can't be bothered. He's grappling with them for you, hauling you into his arms as he drags them down enough. They get caught on the tops of your boots, but he doesn't give a shit. Not when you're here, spread, and glistening before him. Not when you're in his lap, half-dressed, and trying to maneuver yourself down onto him with some semblance of grace. 

Everything is bigger when it comes to Mr. Double Detriot Smash.

Again, you're a brave girl. You're not going to shy away from the upgraded dicking down you got last week. Hell, that was great. Filled you up perfectly, and hit all the right spots... and now, you're realizing that the already tight fit is going tobe a littttle tighter. 

Your knees are like jello as your fingertips dig into his shoulders. Your hair is wild — and you're sweating. He's no better off; there's a crease of worry in his brow, even amidst the blinding heat of desire that's eating him up inside. 

He knows he's big. He's huge. He's... 

This is the first time he's ever had sex in this empowered form. 

Not like he advertises this as a service.

He'd be lying through his trademarked smile if he said he wasn't nervous — but there you go, giving him just another reason why he should buy a ring tomorrow and give you everything you've ever wanted because fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuck, you're so tight and hot and wet and the sound you make the second you sink down on him—

"God, yes, Tosh'."

The gasp that wrings itself from his mouth is utterly pathetic. He doesn't care. He truly can't even think straight — all he can do is dig his fingertips into your hips and slam his mouth against yours to muffle the whines crawling up his throat. 

"Stay right there," you whisper; there's an edge to your voice of warning. He's trying to listen. He's trying to be a—

"Good boy."

You're holding his face and he can't seem to catch his breath. His boots scuff in the dirt, his brows knit, and he inhales sharply when you clamp down on him for good measure. Fuck. Shit. God, nonono. He needs to move. He needs — c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, please.

"Der'—"

You're kissing him again — and then you move. Slow at first, a little hiccup of your hips. Then, more assured, more confident. An easy up, then down. Then again, and again, and again. And again. 

"God, yes," he nearly cries; he smothers his desperate moan into a kiss that melts away time. Toshinori's hands are trying to find purchase, trying to help guide you up and down his cock as best he can. He doesn't want you to do all the work — he wants to help, "You're so fucking good, Der'."

"Y-Yea?" you breathe out, your entire body shuddering at the praise. Your hip tightens, and you don't even have the wherewithal to consider the cramp. You're not stopping for anything.

Not when this is, like, the hottest thing you've ever done. 

"You have no idea," he melts into another kiss that's all tongue and adoration, his bare thread composure snapping up like his hips in a testing manner, "Lemme fuck you, please, Der', please, please, I promise I'll be good—"

It certainly felt good.

All you can do is hold onto his shoulders. 

If you've learned one thing in the time you've known Toshinori Yagi, it's that he's a man of his word. He holds promises in the deepest homes of his heart, ensuring that nothing prevents him from honoring them. He's dedicated entirely to those around him and to seeing them prevail. Toshinori, even on his worst days, never makes a promise he can't keep. 

So, promising he'll be good?

I mean — it depends on the definition, doesn't it?

If 'good' is desperate, pathetic, fast drillings of his hips as you cling to him and gasp? If 'good' is filthy, muttered praise into your collarbone as he slams into you again, and again, and again?

If 'good' is scrambling in the gravel, being pressed flat as he takes you from behind?

Then, yea.

He's really good.

He's incredibly good — especially as he presses his chest to your back, and wraps his arm around your front. His fingers are greedily pushing through your folds as he keeps up his thoroughly rough pace. The thick, calloused pads of his ring and middle finger grace your clit and you nearly scream. 

The gravel is biting into your knees and palms but you don't care. Not when his mouth is on your neck and he keeps saying your name over and over and over and over again as he drives you into the ground. Not Derecho. Not some tender version of a nickname.

Your name. 

The hot fire of your arousal is building steadily — the wet, explicit sounds of him pushing his cock into you over and over again as he pins you are doing plenty, but it's the way he says your name that really seals your fate. 

Toshinori isn't here right now. Come back in two business days. He's lost in the bone-deep influence of this quirk, hellbent on filling you up and proving he's a good boy. He can give you everything. A ring, a house, a life — three more motorbikes and whatever you want on top of that. 

Fuck, he loves you.

Your fingers dig into the rooftop. 

"Oh, fuck, Toshi — yes," you cry; there's a crack in your voice, "Right there. K-Keep... Keep doing that—"

"C'mon, I wanna f-feel you cum," he babbles as you bury your face into his elbow bracing his weight, "Come on, Der', you're such a good girl, you're taking me so well, I know you c-can—"

Everything is Toshinori. His breath is hot against your neck as he pants, and his voice — so low and honeyed — is right in your ear as he moans.

Even now, he's ever so selfless.

"I need you to cum first," he grits as his fingers work your clit just a little faster, "C'mon, Der', you're doing so good — you deserve it, you deserve to cum so hard—"

Your knees jerk — and the world's best orgasm rushes up to meet you headfirst. A snap of lightning ignites your skin as you lose all control, and so suddenly Toshinori is right behind you, tumbling down the white-hot bliss of the best sex he's ever had in his life. 

He made you snap, he made you lose control, h-he made you cum—

His composure shatters. There's a guttural sound wrenched from deep in his chest and it's delicious. He finishes with a series of frantic thrusts that make you whine. His mouth is on your neck, your cheek, then your mouth. 

You crane yourself back, humming delightfully into the kiss that quells the rolling tide of desire into something softer. 

His whole body shudders as the after-quakes of your orgasm ripple along him. All Toshi can do is smother his sounds into another kiss. This one is slower. It's needy in a different way. 

When the kiss finally slows, it takes a second for him to peel his eyes open.

You look thoroughly wrecked. 

Your expression is that of a woman exhausted. 

Toshinori is suddenly aware of his own bulk, his own weight. Gently, he presses a hand to your cheek as he pushes himself up and off of you. His muscles burn — and pulling out of you makes his entire chest ache. 

The feeling wrings a gasp out of you. 

You exhale slowly, through pursed lips. Then, you brace yourself up on your elbows and hang your head. Toshinori flops gracelessly onto his back, his arms and legs spread with his half-hard cock sloped against his stomach. Your slick is coating him. His pants are half down around his ankles, and his usual up-right bangs have sagged. From heat or exhaustion, you're not sure. 

It sure as hell is cute. 

"You okay?" you ask after a second, taking him in as he begins to catch his breath. 

"Oh, yea, just peachy," he rumbles. The thousand-yard stare into the evening air is a hell of a thing on him. 

It makes you bark out a laugh.

Toshinori lolls his head to the side lazily, taking you in.

Your knees and elbows are bleeding. You're picking out the gravel stuck to your palms. You're in no better of a state — your pants are half on, wrenched down over your riding boots, and your uniform's top is pushed up over your breasts. His orgasm is leaking out of you, and the insides of your thighs are coated with your own arousal. Your hair is a mess. 

You're both messes.

You laugh again — and his own laugh starts shortly thereafter. Before you two know it, you're both locked in a laughing match that only ends when you try to reach to shove his shoulder. Your abs burn. Toshinori tries to muscle the grin off his face but fails.

Fuck. 

Fuck, that feeling hasn't gone away. 

It wasn't guilt.

Mayday, mayday, abort, abort, it wasn't guilt. He's smiling at you in the moonlight, looking so utterly wrecked and handsome and gentle—

His hand moves, a single crux finger gracing the curve of your arm soothingly. It's slow. Tentative. Hesitant. Not too much, not too little. 

Toshinori's voice is rough with sheepishness.

"Are we, uh, are we never gonna talk about this, too?" he asks. 

The touch and the question make your heart kick into a stutter. 

You swallow roughly.

"I..." you drop your head, as you wet your lips; play it cool, "Is it something you... want to talk about?"

"...Do you?"

A non-answer.

Your lashes flutter as your stare widens. You open your mouth, about to say something, but suddenly both of your phones are blaring with a city-wide alert. 

It takes a second for it to register — and as suddenly as the moment came, it went. 

ALERT, ALERT, ALL PROS REPORT TO CITY HALL, MULTIPLE HOSTAGES, ARMED GUNMAN, ALL PROS REPORT TO CITY HALL, ALERT, ALERT!  

You're struggling to haul your pants up as All Might fumbles with his belt. You hop on one foot, cursing as he scrambles for his phone in the gravel.

"You gotta be kidding me," he grits quietly, thumbing through the notification as you struggle in the middle distance behind him, tripping into your pack as you try and button your pants. 

"Time to go?" you ask pathetically as you try to ignore the feel of after-sex between your legs. 

"I guess that conversation is going to have to wait until later," he says apologetically, bending to grab your helmet. He offers it as you shrug on your pack; there's a sudden cocky confidence seeping back into his posture, "So let's make this quick, shall we?"

You swallow down a rush of worship. 

"I guess so," you remark easily, again trying your best to seem cool. That's your whole persona after all. Little miss spiteful, cold, rough-around-the-edges...

Beautiful, perfect, lovely, Toshi muses as you shove your helmet on and jut your chin his way. You flick your eyes toward the edge of the building.

He's already got a running start. 

"After you, All Might."

"Race you there, Derecho." 

[unofskylanderspages]

Poisoned Teeth is Chompy's special ability in Skylanders: Battlecast. When Chompy attacks, reduce the defender's max health by 20.

[invincibledc]

WATERBORNE

SUMMARY: a young waterbender who appears in Gotham gets the attention of a few birds a big bat. But one bird seems more interested than the others. Leaving them to be captured.

PAIRS||Yandere! Tim drake & Platonic Yandere!Batfam x Waterbender!Reader

“Nah fuck that!” Y/n yells, they immediately arises both of their arms. Water moves with the flow of his arms in the sewer. A figure with a big blue on his chest steps back. Eyes widen at rings of water surrounding the small bender. “You’re not taking me alive dick head!” Nightwing, aka Dick Grayson, nervously chuckles while putting his hands up.

“Aw cmon, how did you know my name—”

Immediately the vigilante gets hit with a wave of water, knocked onto his back by the pressure. Nightwing soon sits up coughing, shocked by the pressure knocking him back a few feet. He hasn’t even notice the hydro power house had taken off before he shook his head. Y/n, running with only an over coat and work out sneakers. They didn’t wish for these powers, they didn’t wish to be found. They didn’t wish to be anyone’s obsession! Nightwing finally got his bearings minutes later. “Damnit..” Nightwing puts two fingers to his ear, pressing down he talks.

“They’re on the run again. Tim it’s your turn.” Nightwing opened up a hologram map of the tunnels from his forearm.

“Got it.” Says another voice.

And that was Tim drake, aka Red Robin. Tim nods at the sound coming from his coms. He also had his map up as he readied his bow staff. It was electrified on the tip of it, ready to stun the young bender. He stopped pulling the map up when hearing loud footsteps and heavy breathing.

Tim grips his bow staff, leaning Against the side wall, he gets ready to swing only for him to drop his staff. He dropped it with a loud clank! There stood the hydro power house, y/n. Y/n had anger in their eyes as the other was engulfed by a hand shaped of water. Y/n held one hand out. “Won’t you damn people leave me alone?!” Tim tries to get out of the water, only for it to tighten. “I don’t know what you want from me, but I’m in no need for help. I don’t need anyone! I don’t need you, or anything!”

Tim frowns, he knew the water bender needed help. He looked about his age. Seventeen. Y/n look fatigue, not enough on their bones, messy hair, baggy eyes with reddish eyes. Before Tim could speak, he couldn’t even try.

Instantly the water bender swung their hand harshly, making Tim hit the other side of the tunnel harshly. A crack was dented there with Tim’s body. The young boy fell onto his stomach, groaning in pain. He tries to stand before gushes of water hits him, over, and over again.

“Leave. Me. Alone!” Y/n swung their hand, it was a undertossing motion as if throwing back a baseball. Y/n kept walking towards their enemy, each swing gets harsher and harsher. Tim tries to take a deep breath, but he’s practically drowning. He lays unconscious now, y/n breaths heavily. Their arms weak, sore, tired. His breathing starts to slow down, but not in the way he wants.

He leans against a wall, balling up his hands.

“Why..why am I so tired. My eyes, they’re heavy. What the hell??”

Y/N’s vision is slowly turning black, not noticing Tim standing up. Smiling widely as he walks towards the drugged water bender. “I see the narcotic worked.” Y/n tried to move their dominant arm, only to just stay limp. “What…did you do to me..”

Tim frowns, leaning towards the waterbender. “What I had to do. You need my help. You need me.” A sick grin reaches the boy’s face as Tim cups the hydro’s face. Y/n glare harshly at Tim who could only smile.

“You.. you and your damn hero complex! You should drown, drown like anyone that dare try to capture me!” Anger filled y/n’s soul. But Tim ignored it, seeing this aggression as a result of not being able to save them earlier. Tim frowns and lifts y/n over his shoulder.

“It’s okay. I’m here now, The others and Batman will help you! You won’t need to survive anywhere else.” Tim says lastly as the anesthesia kicks in fully now. Knocked out over the teen boy’s shoulder, the boy couldn’t help but smile more. When his bow staff fell, it released the drug only for you to specifically breathe in. And it worked perfectly, just like Tim knew it would.

You were now, captured.

A/N: Ayo new series? Jk.. or maybe not? Anyone wants this to continue or what? Cause I actually enjoyed writing this

[hedwig221b]

Do you have any Bad Friend Scott sterek fic recs?

Sorry for taking so long to answer! Here are a few

Protect and Serve by MoonlitMemories

Stiles discovers the Nemeton starting to grow again in the preserve on Hale land. What does that mean for the pack? More importantly: why does the Nemeton seem so attached to Stiles?

Sparks and shadows by Nival_Vixen

Stiles has to figure out a way to maintain a balance between his spark and the darkness inside of him.

spiderweb of lies by pineneedlepants

Derek gets a chance to gain his alpha powers back. The only one throwing a wrench in those plans is Scott.

Can't Start a Fire Without a Spark by Nerdy_fangirl_57

After the whole ordeal with the nogitsune Stiles struggles with proving to himself that he can be good again. He starts learning to control his spark in hopes that he could be helpful to the pack once he manages to channel it's power. Everyone thinks it's a great idea and are willing to help him anyway they can, but Scott, Scott doesn't see the point in it. It's not like Stiles' tiny spark could ever be powerful enough to be an actual asset to the pack. Stiles just wants a chance to prove himself.

Stiles Must Die by xcaellachx

Diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia, Stiles is given 2-6 months to live. He and his father know Scott will give Stiles the bite to cure him. Scott says no. "Stiles must die to maintain the balance." The Sheriff finds a different way.

Made Your Mark on Me (A Golden Tattoo) by writteninthewolfstar

Beacon Hills High and Lycan Heights High are well-known enemies. Derek Hale, Lycan Heights' star quarter-back, is well-known for being aggressive and arrogant. Imagine Stiles surprise when he discovers that Derek Hale is actually his soul-mate.

The End, The Beginning by CoronaCrown

Scott had never trusted Derek, and even less so when he found out that the Hale Alpha was dating Stiles. Poor, naive Stiles, who was only human and broke easily. Scott would be damned it he let the feral wolf do anything to his friend, but even the Sheriff is wrapped around Derek's finger, it's not going to be easy to take what's his: Stiles back in the McCall pack. And so when a month after graduation and Scott had heard nothing of Derek, he is immediately suspicious. He's sure the wolf's done something to Stiles, the stupid human probably fell for whatever siren trick Derek pulled. In which Scott is so self-absorbed that he decides to play the hero for a prize that was never his to begin with.

Leave It All Behind by asarcasticwitch

A coil of panic tightens in his chest as, after just three short rings, Derek’s voice—raspy as if barely awake—echoes through the speaker. “Do you know what time it is?” he grumbles, and at any other time, Stiles would’ve made a joke or retorted with something so sarcastic it would’ve undoubtedly earned him a huff in return. But right now, he can’t think of anything to say.

To Build a Pack by Arieanna

Derek feels a pull in his chest, and it's a pack bond to Stiles. He thought the young man had betrayed him along with Scott, but finding out the truth, he makes Stiles a part of his pack. Now, with the pack coming together in a healthy way, they help Stiles discover that he's not just a sidekick, but a major player, and more important than Scott had ever given him credit for. The more Derek pulls Stiles into the pack, though, the harder it is to ignore the feelings that he's been having for the boy since they met. Stiles, on the other hand, has fallen out of love with Lydia, and can't figure out just why that happened.

Elastic Heart by HarleyJQuin

A wolf in shining armor comes to the rescue when Stiles needs him the most.

The Sound of Silence by Asterekmess (Livinginfictions)

Everyone is so sure Derek is dead, but Stiles can't accept it. Not when there are so many loose ends.

I'm (Not) Fine by Desmenn

Scott is finally old enough to get bitten and turned. He doesn't even hesitate. Which leaves Stiles alone while his best friend runs off chasing girls and wolves. But trying to cheer up some melodramatic teenage boy is not at the top of the list of things that need to be done- and Stiles' knows it. Because there are people in town threatening the Hale pack and Derek can't shake this sense of foreboding. Not to mention he's pretty sure one of Scott's friends is his mate.

Bare Hands, Scarlet Dawn

“With your bare hands, baby?” Derek chuckled quietly. “Damn.” And Stiles… laughed. It was short and stiff, full of disbelief and something raw under its skin. But, god, only Derek could make him laugh when his entire world was crumbling down.

Full and Void

Stiles could be meek, sure. In Derek’s arms, softened under the touch, pinned under his weight. He allowed himself to relax only in Derek’s sole presence. Stiles could also look meek. Small, scared. Let the enemies think he was hiding in his mate’s shadow. After all, no one would stop to think that the shadow could ever be dangerous.

[masterlist link]

[lilislegacy]

I really wish we could get a scene where Percy reaches his breaking point and uses all his abilities at once. I want to see a proper earthquake. I want to see what he can do with his control over storms. Like, I want to see him move mountains - literally move mountains - to take care of business. Maybe the world is about to end. Maybe Annabeth is in danger. Maybe Estelle is in danger. Maybe his own children are in danger. There are several things that could make him so angry and scared that his limits shatter.

Children of Poseidon, even demigods, are often referred to as monsters. Because like the sea, they are brutal and merciless. And Poseidon has implied that Percy has surpassed every hero he’s ever seen, even hercules, when it comes to his capabilities and determination. Leo and Hazel have said you can physically feel and see his power, even if he’s not doing anything. I want to see Percy really tap into the godly part of him. I want him to send his enemies running for their mommies. And I want to read it from someone else’s point of view. Someone who can describe what it really looks and feels like.

Becasue imagine the most frightening, intimidating man you’ve even seen - his wolffish glare, embodied by his sharp features, frightening enough to paralyze you in fear - flying straight towards you on an angry black pegasus. Hundreds of other angry pegasi fan out on either side of him, looking like something out of a mythical nightmare. Then a dark, gigantic wave spanning several miles, taller than mountains, rises behind him. It’s towering over the valleys and hills, casting a shadow over the land, and coming right towards you, ready to demolish and drown every semblance of your existence. Then all of a sudden the entire sky is dark and the air is cold, and the storm hits you with unforgiving force. The brutal winds and sharp cold rain is so strong that you can barely stand. The booming cracks of thunder make your ears ring, and the blinding bolts of lightning light up the sky like electricity is at war with itself. And now… now the entire earth is shaking. The ground is rumbling beneath you so violently that every part of your body is painfully trembling, your teeth chattering and eyes bouncing. The earth around you is splitting into wide chasms, boulders tumbling and tress falling. Oh also a fucking volcano just blew up. It’s suddenly hard to breath as rock and dirt rain down on you, and you’re about to be burned and buried by miles worth of molten ash. Pompeii part 2, brought to you by Perseus Jackson.

Only this is 10x worse, because every natural element is out for your complete and utter destruction.

Because Percy controls all of that. And if he hits his breaking point, there’s no telling what he could do if he set his mind to it.

[long-live-astronerd-ghost-king]

DPXDC prompt ~ Honor to Us All ~ Gotham as one true the most haunted city edition

~~~~~

Instead of a welcoming banner in front of a city was an old column, so familiar to a boy, with a warning inscription:

"To outsiders mad enough to attack Gotham: You will be forced to understand that dead soldiers will also go into battle. And having risen to protect, they will be ready to perish all again, So no one of the living would die near them."

Danny smiled with love. 'I’m home, Mother.' Ghost whispered into the void. And Gotham answered.

~~~~

Danny: My Lady, I brought you the crown of Pariah Dark. And The Ring of Rage. They’re gifts to honor the Gotham family. Lady Gotham: The greatest gift and honor is having you on my side, child.

~~~~~

Danny Fenton was born in Gotham and lived here until his parents decided to move. The city didn’t accept them.

'When I die, I want to be one of the Gotham Knights.' Little Danny with pride and eagerly reported to his parents after visiting the Battle Glory of Gotham Museum on a school trip. This evening, Danny learned that not all his plans should be told to his parents.

Danny know his parents are crazy about ghosts. and that all ghosts are "bad". But obviously, the ghosts they talk about, and his, or rather Gotham's, ghosts are completely different creatures. The spirits of the defenders are those who, even in the darkest of times, make the shadows of the Gotham a protection to the citizens.

But that knowledge is his little secret for now. Because if he starts arguing he’ll be punished and he won’t be able to run off to the roof where he’s arranged to meet Robin. Robin’s cool! He works with one of the 'still-living' knights. And he knows more about the city than anyone. Danny doesn’t want to offend his friend.

~~~~~

Mr Lancer doesn’t understand why the lecturer about ghosts, Constantine, after seeing Danny, said something about the bloody gothamites and their inability to stay underground. It wasn’t nice at all. Mr Lancer doesn’t blame Mr Fenton for smiling at the man a little aggressive and viciously. Poor boy probably didn’t know how to respond to his behavior. Danny moved to Amity Park a long time ago and did not stand out at all. So what was this man’s problem?

Danny only half dies because Lady Gotham blessed him when he was a child. So when Danny sees snow-white hair and glowing green eyes in the mirror, he is not frightened but surprised that the Lady protected him even though he is not living in Gotham now.

~~~~~

Danny knows gothamites don’t consider that Gotham is a part of the USA. Even their Metropolis neighbors are just pathetic cowards, unable to withstand the hardships of life. No, really. Why the hell would they be patriots of the country that thinks they’re its dirty secret? This opinion is shared by old ones and children, rich ones and residents of Crime Alley, heroes and villains.

Danny loves Gotham. And he likes local jokes about how if one of their supervillains ever took power enough to threaten the government, he would be obliged to release them from that citizenship. Otherwise, he would be shamed and ridiculed by the inhabitants.

Phantom is not a villain. But for Gotham? For their common purpose? He is ready to pretend to be.

~ A ghost can bring his city ~ Great honor in one way ~

Gothamites remember that the child of mad scientists was the only person Boy Wonder was willing to call a friend. They remember how boys' laughter was heard from rooftops and from alleys on particularly dark nights. And they know whose restless spirit has returned to mourn the death of the second Robin.

The boy’s parents must be fools. Many outsiders are. They call their blessing a curse. People die in Gotham. And not all of them come back. Residents know that these ones are chosen by Lady Gotham herself.

The public enemy of Amity Park number 1? What nonsense. He is not theirs anything! In Gotham they will accept the Phantom as a guard, as a silent shadow, as a villain or a hero. In any kind. Because he belongs here. He should be part of their dance between life and death. He should be amidst dark alleys and acid rains, gliding between fear and laughter in the air.

Even local villains experience strange yearning. Like something’s wrong. Like a piece of a puzzle that’s lost. Therefore, the local abandoned observatory is empty, and none of them is in a hurry to call it their territory. Because it will be in demand, it will be loved and needed. It’s only a matter of time.

Let the spirit of Gotham guide you home, child. Dead gothamite is still gothamite. Which means there will always be a place for you.

~~~~~

When Danny first enters his favorite cafe in his Phantom form and with a wound on his leg, he doesn’t expect a cleaning lady to yell at him immediately for the blood on the floor. With a mop in his hands and with already bandaged leg, Danny feels as if all his worries had gone. They are not afraid of him. Of course. No one in Gotham would avoid him because of glowing eyes and sharp teeth. And that’s nice.

The waitress throws a tray of food on a table next to him: Welcome dinner for the wandering son of the alley. Red Hood said it's your usual order. He’ll be waiting for you on the gargoyle. You should know which one.

~~~~

If parents listened to his childhood stories about good ghosts, they would know that the Phantom is not special. He is not an anomaly of ghost nature and not a mistake. He is one of many who always were and will be defenders of the city. Danny stands in front of the costume that he admired years ago. He's ready to take another shift at work. The remains of his colleagues can rest quietly this night. Lady will wake them only when in dire need.

[physalian]

Your colloquialisms are ruining the immersion (or, non-contemporary dialogue)

I am no expert here! Whenever I wrote historical fiction it was anachronistic historical fiction. This advice is from a reader’s perspective and from my experience writing high fantasy.

So what’s the deal with immersive dialogue? I’m going to ignore writing dialects and accents and so-called “old English” with the thee, thy, thou and such. Solely focusing here on the narrative telling me this isn’t set in present times, and yet the dialogue being painfully colloquial like present times.

This is coming from a book I had to read set in HRE times. In it, characters were spouting modern curse words, tacking on verbal tics and crutch words like “or something” and “um” and drawing out words like “daaaamn” and “nooooo”. Rip out the dialogue and toss it in a script with zero context and it would read like two high schoolers from 2009, not two adults from the Holy Roman Empire. Which is a problem, because it completely shattered the immersion. —

1. On so-called “formal writing”

Everybody knows that nixing contractions doesn’t do a damn thing to help your writing look more “formal”, it just looks robotic and stiff, right? We’ve gotten past this as a society? There’s a time and a place for replacing contractions with the full words, but not for every single sentence.

I swear this show keeps creeping into my writing advice but here we go. Transformers Prime. The context for Optimus’ dialogue has a lot to do with his aging voice actor, Peter Cullen, and the perception of the character over the decades from the corny 80s paragon hero everyman type leader to the grizzled and wizened old soul type leader. Optimus isn’t “one of the guys,” he’s old. Very old. He’s the dad of the group (one dad, his grumpy medic is the other dad).

So he gets lines like:

“I fear Megatron’s ambition is at its zenith.”

“But if his return is imminent as I fear, it could be a catastrophic.”

“I bore Skyquake no ill-will.”

He doesn’t curse like the other Autobots. His voice only raises in surprise, horror, or rage. He doesn’t go “um/ah/so/but/eh” and always thinks about what he’s going to say well before he says it. Despite him, Ratchet (the dad medic), and Megatron all being very old, Optimus is the only one who’s “proper” and collected and dignified with his lines. The writers didn’t achieve this simply by omitting contractions, he gets them where necessary and removes them when effective (e.g “We do not.” / “We don’t.”)

2. Thesaurus Rex

Continuing with the Optimus example, no other character in that show would use “zenith” unironically. Or “ill-will”. This doesn’t mean crack open and abuse a thesaurus but there’s a huge divide between:

“Megatron’s gone crazy and he’s going to implode soon” and “Megatron’s ambition is at its zenith”.

I can’ think of a better word to use than dignified, perhaps distinguished to describe his dialogue.

He doesn’t say “what?” when he’s confused, he pauses and says something like “please elaborate”.

This is both word choice and a syntax issue so if you’re struggling to fit a non-contemporary vibe for your work, pay attention to both.

3. When to abstain from cursing

There’s something very special about the dialogue in the Lord of the Rings movies: It’s PG-13 so they can’t curse, but if they had, it would have probably ruined the trilogy. These characters are able to yell in rage and anguish, spit vicious insults at their enemies, and stare down armies that are determined to kill them, all while never breaking the immersion.

Insults like:

“Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear.”

“Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth, you witless worm.”

“Your words are poison.”

And all three were said by or about Grima Wormtongue.

Characters aren’t dumbasses, they’re fools, with the exception of Gollum’s insults toward Sam, the “stupid, fat hobbit”.

Even devoid of name-calling, Denethor absolutely trounces his second son by asking (and I’m paraphrasing) “Is there any man here willing to do his lord’s bidding?” right after Faramir expresses some apprehension about a suicide charge with his remaining soldiers, completely ignoring him and implying that he’s not a real man.

LOTR is full of juicy lines beyond curse words, too. One of my absolute favorites is: “Dark have been my dreams of late” as opposed to “I’ve been having nightmares lately.”

Do you see?? It’s poetry. The motif of Shadow and Darkness as if they’re real, physical things, all the lines of poetry pulled straight from the books like Theoden’s “where is the horse and the rider” monologue just before Helm’s Deep.

It’s dignified.

—

This one was a bit harder to, ironically, put into words without doing a full-blown case study into either franchise’s ability to write dialogue and monologues. I didn’t even talk about Ratchet’s several monologues (one of which was done perfectly in the sound booth on the first take) because Jeffrey Combs has a voice like ambrosia.

TLDR: Immersion goes far beyond your vivid setting descriptors and the clothing or the names and languages. I mostly write fantasy and sci-fi and whenever I read or watch fantasy and sci-fi that isn’t meant to be a world different from our own, or about characters who don’t speak modern English, and they go off with modern slang, syntax, and verbal tics, it just feels sloppy and weak. Pay attention to the following:

Syntax

Modern slang and jargon

Filler words/verbal tics

Curse words/curses

Flat, unmotivated vocab

*All of the quotes were from memory because I watch both of these franchises way too often. So apologies if I got any wrong.

[devdozes]

Heyyy, I found your account two days ago and damn I love it❤️ I’m not sure if i’m doing this correctly ( it’s only my second time requesting), but could you please write spidey Phainon. We don’t know that he’s the spider-man, but one night the reader was in the city, trying to get back home from a hang out with her friends, then suddenly an enemy attacks the city, Phainon is already fighting it, but somehow the reader gets caught and held a hostage and that’s where our hero gets serious. 🔥

Don’t overwork yourself, take care and ty❤️❤️

Put. Her. Down.

AA THANK YOYU FOR UR CARE AND PRAISE ILYILYY AND NO PROBLEM REQS ARE ALWAYS OPEN :D

The neon glow of the cityy flickered against the wet pavement as you walked alone through the quiet streets, the distant hum of traffic filling the air. The night was cool, crisp, the kind that made your breath mist faintly in front of you. The usual vibrancy of the city felt a little muted—something about the atmosphere had shifted, though you couldn’t quite place why.

Maybe it was just exhaustion creeping in from a long day of laughter and teasing with your friends. You had gone out for a late dinner, indulging in greasy food, painfully stupid jokes, and chaotic behaviour that left you breathless from laughter. It had been fun. A perfect night, really. And now, all you wanted was to crawl into bed and let sleep take over.

But as you turned down an empty street, a strange prickling feeling settled over your skin, an instinctual warning you couldn’t ignore.

Something was wrong.

The realization hit you just as a sudden explosion shattered the calm.

The shockwave sent you stumbling backward, heat licking at your face as glass and debris rained down from a nearby building. A ringing sound filled your ears, drowning out the screams erupting around you. Panic gripped your chest as smoke curled into the sky, the acrid scent of burning metal thick in the air.

People were running—shoving past you, desperate to escape whatever had just happened. And then you saw him.

A towering figure emerged through the smoke, his armor gleaming under the city lights, his eyes glowing red. His body was covered in dark, jagged plating, almost mechanical, with massive clawed hands that looked like they could tear through steel. He wasn’t just a threat—he was something out of a nightmare.

And then, like a blur against the destruction, another figure dropped from the sky.

Spider-Man.

He moved like a liquid shadow, his black, white, and blue suit standing out against the chaos. His golden accents shimmered under the city lights, making him look almost ethereal. With effortless agility, he shot out a web, swinging low before slamming both feet into the villain’s chest, sending him skidding backward.

“Y’know,” Spider-Man quipped, flipping in the air and landing gracefully on a bent streetlamp, “I was really hoping for a quiet night, maybe some ice cream. But nooo, you just had to show up and start breaking things.”

The villain growled, his voice distorted by some kind of mechanical filter. “You’re a fool if you think you can stop me.”

“Buddy, I’ve been called worse.”

Then, they clashed.

Spider-Man moved with terrifying precision, dodging every lethal strike with fluid grace, countering with webbing, acrobatics, and sheer speed. It was mesmerizing—a deadly dance of power and skill.

You should have run.

You should have turned and disappeared into the crowd like everyone else, but something about the battle had rooted you in place.

And that’s when you made your first mistake.

A second figure—a masked subordinate of the villain—stepped out from the shadows behind you. You didn’t even get the chance to scream before a cold, metallic arm wrapped around your torso, hoisting you off the ground as if you weighed nothing.

Your stomach dropped.

The grip was tight, almost suffocating, your feet dangling as your captor lifted you higher, positioning you as a human shield.

“Let’s see if your hero can fight when there’s something at stake,” your captor sneered, their mechanical claws pressing against your ribs.

Spider-Man froze.

The moment his eyes landed on you, his entire body went rigid.

The playful air around him vanished.

His usual easygoing charm, the teasing remarks, the casual confidence—it all evaporated in an instant.

The city around you fell silent.

Then, he spoke.

“Put. Her. Down.”

His voice was lower than you had ever heard it. No jokes, no lightheartedness—just a warning.

The villain holding you only laughed, tightening their grip. “Or what? You gonna shoot me with your little webs?”

Spider-Man’s hands curled into fists.

For the first time, you felt something dangerous in him.

His breathing was controlled, but you could hear the underlying tension—like a thread pulled too tight, ready to snap. He took a step forward, his entire body coiled like a predator about to strike.

“You have three seconds,” he said, voice cold as steel. “Three seconds before I make you wish you’d never touched her.”

The villain’s laughter faltered slightly. They hadn’t expected this—hadn’t expected the change in him.

One second.

A web shot out.

Before you could blink, Spider-Man had yanked the villain’s mechanical limb clean off, the metal sparking as it hit the pavement. You barely had time to react before he was there, moving with a speed that was inhuman, snatching you from their grasp with terrifying efficiency.

His arm wrapped around your waist, holding you tight against him as he shot a web to the nearest building and launched the both of you into the air.

Your breath caught as the wind rushed past your face, the city lights blurring below. You clung to him instinctively, your fingers digging into the fabric of his suit.

It was only once you were safely on a rooftop that he finally let you go—reluctantly, almost.

His hands lingered, fingertips ghosting over your arms like he was making sure you were real.

“…You okay?” His voice was softer now, but still laced with something raw.

Your heart was still racing, adrenaline still flooding your veins, but you managed a breathless nod. “Y-Yeah. Thanks to you.”

He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair—only to freeze when he remembered he was still wearing his mask.

“God, you—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have been that close.”

“It wasn’t like I planned to get kidnapped,” you shot back, your voice steadier now. “But, uh—” You hesitated, your gaze lingering on him. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That.” You gestured vaguely. “The whole… 'put her down’ thing. You were scary.”

Spider-Man didn’t answer immediately. He turned slightly, looking out over the city, his posture unusually tense.

“…I don’t like it when people mess with things I care about.” "Wait no, uh I meant as in you are a citizen of this city so of course I care about you-"

Something in the way he said it sent a shiver down your spine.

The silence stretched between you, heavy and unspoken, before he took a step back.

“I have to go finish this,” he said, voice gentler this time. “Stay here. Please.”

But as he prepared to swing away, you couldn’t stop yourself from calling out—

“Wait—”

He hesitated.

You swallowed, suddenly feeling ridiculous. “…Be careful.”

His head tilted slightly, as if considering something. Then, with a soft chuckle—one that held the ghost of the usual him—he saluted lazily.

“Anything for you, sweetheart.”

And then he was gone, disappearing into the night.

But even after he vanished, you remained there, staring at the skyline, heart pounding.

Because you may not have known who was under that mask.

But something about him felt terrifyingly, painfully familiar.

HOPE U LIKED IT IM SORRY IT WAS SHORT THOUGH :(