#SOMEONE HELP ASPERA....

[myownwholewildworld]

requiescat in pace (a "per aspera ad astra" drabble)

main masterlist | series masterlist | read on ao3 pairing: marcus acacius x emperor's daughter!reader. summary: you learn of marcus' son's death. a/n: welp... yea. can what i say, i enjoy making these two suffer c: apologies for the brief passenger's lyrics references. i appreciate comments and reblogs, they make me happy knowing that people enjoy my writing <3 take care x warnings: 18+, mdni. angst (what a surprise). mentions of death. marcus says "my lady" and i think that should be a warning. let's just assume that this whole series is pure angst, alright? w/c: 2.1k

“Did you offer your condolences to General Acacius, filia mea (my daughter)?”

Your father’s question broke the trance you had sunk into, the bronze spoon falling from your trembling fingers onto the porcelain plate set in front of you.

Leaning back, you looked at your father as if he had spoken a different language. Surely you misheard him — your mind still numb with grief, unable to process anything since you received the news of your husband’s demise.

It had been three days and the gaping hole in your heart had only gotten bigger. Like an umbra lurking in the shadows, you had stayed in your shared bedroom, crying your sorrow onto Resius’ breastplate, hugging the last piece of him you would ever hold. You grieved for your love but also for the life you would never spend with him, for all those precious moments that would remain in your memory as what if’s gnawing at the confines of your mind.

But now, right now, your pain lessened for a second, your brain focusing on something else.

“What do you mean, Caesar?” you whispered, voice cracking in the last inflexion.

The Emperor eyed you from across the dining table, silence lingering and stretching in the space between you. Your heartbeat picked up its pace, the wait almost forcing you up to stand on your feet.

“General Acacius lost his heir at the battle of Sarmizegetusa. He has asked to return to Dacia to retrieve the body of his son and bring him back home for proper burial,” he explained with caution, watching your every expression.

Your heart had now climbed up your throat, the pulse wild in your eardrums. You hadn’t misheard, your father had said Acacius very clearly, dragging the word out.

Mind racing, you fidgeted with your hands on your lap, twisting them in despair as you tried to recall your conversation with him a few days ago. “He’s resting now,” he had said when you asked about Augustus.

Resting. You had assumed he meant that his son was back at his villa, resting from the extraneous physical toll a battle would take on the body. Not for one second had you considered that Marcus actually meant resting in peace.

You had been so blind, letting your own grief consume you, you had not noticed the tells in the General’s behaviour. The feeble smile, the downcast almost solemn expression, the stiffened nod he gave you, the brevity of his response. It all made sense now, and you couldn’t help but feel… selfish. So drowned in your sorrow, Acacius had kept it together so you could cry your loss in his embrace.

Your stomach churned at the thought — the General had no one left by his side. No wife and no son waiting for his return, not even his best friend. How would he have felt in the emptiness of his home with no one there to console him? You at least had your family and closest friends, who had checked on you from time to time to ensure you were safe.

Had someone checked on the General?

“May I take my leave, pater (father)?” you requested with your gaze averted, a sudden need to find General Acacius, your hands twisting uncontrollably.

You needed to know he was… okay. Alive? He had talked to someone at least, asked to go back to Dacia to get his only son back home. You could only imagine his heartbreak, the hell he must be going through. The thought of him dealing with all of it alone… it fractured a piece of your soul.

The Emperor watched you attentively, eyes lingering on the full plate in front of you. There was something about his wary demeanor that didn’t click right away — and right now you were too preoccupied with something else to be paying attention to politics.

“You may go, but tread carefully, filia mea,” was his veiled answer.

With no time to waste, you stood up and curtsied before disappearing from the dining hall.

Marcus’ body was controlled by another being — a non-sentient one. He got up, attended his duties to the Empire, paid a visit to the barracks in the outskirts to train with his army, and then got back to an empty home.

It all felt like a sick loop, one he could not break from. His feelings had deserted him, leaving him be a hollow carcass of who he once was. There was no joy, no incentive to even pretend there was.

It took him a couple of days to finally let the dam crack in the solace of his villa. It all came to be because of something as simple as Augustus’ toy gladius. The one that Marcus himself had forged for his son’s tenth birthday. Little Augustus had been so excited, he had almost hit his head against the edge of the dining table while running around wielding his new toy. That memory had resurfaced unexpectedly and the smile that came with it quickly mutated into a sad grimace.

He longed for something that that was safe and warm, but all he had was all that was gone. Marcus felt as helpless and as hopeless as a feather on the Tiber. And the river was wide, so much he was scared he wouldn’t make it to the other side. And what would he find on the opposite shore? Did he really want to cross?

Marcus couldn’t, at least not yet. He needed closure before he could carry on with his life, if that was even a possibility. Augustus belonged in the family’s mausoleum next to his mother, so they could both be laid to rest in peace together. With Dacia under the iron fist of the Romans, he could retrace his steps and get his heir back home.

His leave had been approved that same afternoon. In a hurry, he had packed the bare necessities he would need for the long trip and headed towards the barracks once more. In the stables his stallion was awaiting, all prepped by one of the ostlers.

He was ensuring that the saddle was properly on when a gentle voice called his name.

“General Acacius,” as soon as you spoke, he recognised your delicate accent.

Marcus turned around, his back bending immediately at your presence.

“My lady,” he whispered, eyes fixed on the straw splayed across the dirt on the floor.

What brought you here, he wondered. The horses belonging to Traianus’ family were kept elsewhere, away from the mediocrity of the reminders of war. This was no place for someone of noble birth like you. It reeked of the musky scents of nature to which he was immune now, but you sure weren’t.

Your hand found the way to his shoulder, a light tap to silently ask him to straighten out his posture. He obliged, his brown orbs showing his confusion at finding you here. And you seemed unbothered about the mess surrounding you.

“How may I be of service?” his question was a trained response, the only reason for you being here was that you required something of him.

Perhaps you needed to know how everything unfolded so you also got closure. Perhaps you required details, something more than just a “General Atticus perished at the mercy of a Dacian sword” — had he been too concise in his explanation, too General-y? Or perhaps you were after the reassurance of a life well lived with your husband, a reminder that there had been light amongst the darkness.

The Gods knew he felt that way sometimes too.

“That is not why I am here, General,” you hummed with a broken smile, your hand dropping off his shoulder like the last needle-like leaves clinging onto a toppling, decaying cypress after a wildfire.

Your admission took him aback, unsure now of what else you could need of him. What else would he have to give for Rome to appease the Emperor — was his heir not enough? But you weren’t your father; Resius would always say you were too kind of a soul, would only speak high praise of you. But was not that what a husband was supposed to say about his spouse, especially Traianus’ daughter?

So perhaps he was mistaken in that regard, although he couldn’t know. Marcus had interacted with you multiple times, in serious and more relaxed settings, but the barrier was always there — he was just a General you graced with your presence because of Resius. You participated in conversation, laughed at Resius’ and his jokes and offered words of wisdom to Augustus like the mother he never had.

But despite all of that, he didn’t really know you. Knew your persona, the way you portrayed yourself to the crowds, but it was fair to wonder how much of it was just a front.

That was, at least, until three sunsets ago, when you cried your loss with him — something he had not expected. How your façade tumbled the moment his perhaps-not-so-carefully-delivered words furrowed through your mind until they took root. How he tried to console you in spite of his own sorrow.

The crease between his brows accentuated slightly, a small tell of his confusion.

“I heard,” you only said, a whisper that made his skin crawl with anguish, his throat squeeze.

The softness of your eyes left no room for misinterpretation, an unmistakable mist in them. About your son’s death, was the bit you did not pronounce out loud.

His chest tightened as his gaze drifted down, catching a glimpse of your fidgety hands, twisting nervously.

Did you feel guilty? Was that the purpose of your unexpected visit?

“My son lived and died for the glory of Rome, Your Highness. Honourable to the end, he gladly gave his life for the Emperor and the cause. A warrior’s death, I couldn’t be any more proud of his sacrifice,” he attempted to put your mind at ease, tone steady repeating the words he had been saying every time someone approached him with empty condolences.

Your hands paused wriggling, your expression shadowed by his automatic reply.

“Oh, Marcus,” you whispered, taking a step forward but stopping yourself before you reached for his forearm. “You don’t need to— to pretend this is okay. It’s not,” your trembling fingers played with the golden bracelet adorning your wrist. “War is a disease, an ailment to mankind, to ourselves and our loved ones. I regret to know that you have given so much for Rome’s thirst. You shouldn’t have to. My father… he asks too much of his people,” you added, the mist in your eyes developing into a single tear falling off your bottom lashes. “Far too much.”

Pain stirred within him, lost for words he was. What you just said was a good outline of his own feelings — thoughts he couldn’t put into words, because they would sound treacherous. Did you really mean it?

“I… thank you, Domina mea. I appreciate your sentiment,” he accepted with a stiff nod, his voice raspier than usual. But he wouldn’t let emotion overcome him.

“I was informed you have taken leave to bring Augustus back home. I came to see if you would accept a few soldiers of my own personal guard to escort you,” you offered, your tone gentle and delicate.

Marcus was moved by your offer, one he didn’t expect. Were you worried for his safe return? That the journey back with his dead son in tow would break him, his resolution? Because he was worried too.

“I am touched, my lady, truly. But it’s not necessary. Some of my men will be accompanying me,” he assured you.

Marcus was lucky to have loyal fighting men under his banner. People he could blindly trust in battle, and outside of it.

“Please, send for me upon your return, General. I would like to attend Augustus’ wake. Unless you want it to be private, in which case I completely understand,” you almost stumbled with your own words towards the end, lips pursed with nervousness.

Resius was right. You were too kind of a soul, worrying for him when you had your own demons to deal with. The dull ache blanketing his heart lifted ever so slightly, your petition soothing and a reminder that he was not alone in grief. You would understand.

So Marcus nodded, his throat tighter.

“I will, Augusta (Imperial Princess),” a promise he would keep.

“Safe travels, General. May Salus watch over you.”

[4zahara]

00 | The Star Child

Masterlist. Next→

Word Count: 1.3k

A/N: English is not my first language. Happy New Year! 🎊

—Ad astra per aspera—

Gotham's streets hadn't been designed to withstand rainfall over 30 milliliters per hour. A fact highlighted when some areas became prone to flooding due to the poorly thought out infrastructure of the sewer system. Built far too intricate and unnecessarily so, without consideration for situations such as heavy storms and raining season. The kind of problem Politicians would forever liked to preach about solving despite not a single soul believing half the funds for said project wouldn't be later on pocketed. Not a single uncorrupted branch was left on Politic matters.

Unfortunately and adding to the pile of reasons for a solitary boy to be wondering the streets drenched from head to toe at the whim of the storm—Clothes clinged uncomfortably to his skin; said kid was seemingly trying to shield a backpack with his body.

Car horns blaring in the distance in the alleys, speeding over the runoff from the storm pooling along the curbs. Streams formed, raising past ankles as the lone boy sprinted across the street, splashing in the filth to round the wrong corner. By the time he stepped in The Narrows his already worn off shoes became muddy puddles.

There was the chilling wind biting at his bones too. No matter how much he pulled at the hoodie, clearly a size too big, it did little socked and stained to provide any warmth.

A dog barking behind a fence became the only sound Jason could hear above his own teeth chattering.

He became the man of the house at a far too young age, the same day his father got arrested. Jason Todd’s survival on the streets of the country's most dangerous city hinged on a self-sufficiency no child should possess. Devastating was the burden thrusted upon him, forcing him to scavenge for food, scrape together money—stealing if necessary—and keep a eye on his mother.

He had learned through pain how things worked. Everything always getting worse over and over before ever showing signs of getting better—if they ever did. Lessons taught by the streets. Yet for all his toughness and bravado, the idea of losing his mother devastated him enough to seek help from anyone, anywhere. He'll do anything.

His mother, Catherine Todd, had never been so shameless before. Never like this, in her infinite wisdom, had she locked Jason out of the house with a storm in toe. Perhaps in her altered perception of reality, she did her son a favor. However, most children were far from far from stupid. The closest they'll have would be naivety, which her son wasn't. Jason wasn't blind and deaf like many seemed to view him as. What those days and afternoons locked out really were for Jason were failures for not having been able to stop them. Stop her.

The cure for her mother's illness was the same substance slowly but surely killing her, apparently, and according to the drug dealer that'll come to their home. As if Jason were stupid. As if he didn't know drugs were no magical spell and about his mother's addiction.

Overwhelmed, his resolve faltered. Losing on a betting game with all odds against him, Jason saw no choice but to force himself to go out under the lash of a storm in search of a new player.

Someone who had no name or face that he could remember, but whose existence was suspended in a forgotten photo half-embraced by fire; His sister.

Willis had not liked to talk about his oldest child, so you must've been a force to be reckoned with.

═════════════ • ✧ • ══════════════

One of the last threads of hope he had had, summarized in this ominous building. After this, Jason will ran out of ideas. For a while he has been standing in front of the door of an apartment in one of the many complexes nearby. After hitting one too many dead ends, Jason knew better than to let himself be haunted with What ifs.

Armed with an old picture of you, the sister he never had, in which he was an infant in your arms and your smile had missing baby teeth. Now he was ten and had to squint to find any resemblance to his old baby-self. You could've changed so much all could be for nothing if you had done as much as dyed your hair.

Just the walk from Crime Alley had costed him his backpack. Far more he should've allowed himself to for this to be worth nothing, so there better be a fairy behind this door. At the very least a decent human being.

He wasn't backing down. Jason just needed a moment, okay?

Lots of thoughts and thugs had been faced tonight—the longest walk his short legs had ever made in his short life was enough for him to get mugged by a group of drug addicts.

Facing disappointment, his great fear of being left alone, tightened his chest far more than the kick to the ribs he got a couple blocks ago. (Him being a child meant his backpack had proudly carried four pieces of gum, a pair of socks and an used toothbrush which hadn't been good enough for a bunch of crazy. God forbid a boy had his own problems.) However, he was lucky they didn't kidnap him or worse. Even if only because of knowing nothing would be gained from it after seeing the inside of his backpack.

You could be anywhere if not here, really. Even dead in a ditch. Children didn't get very far alone. They were all attracted by dim light of deception in a deep dark ocean and devoured by an anglefish or other predator lurking by.

After a deep sigh, his lungs filled with false courage and the pollution gothamies were so familiar with. Although His hand froze halfway to knocking on the door, three times did the sound echoed down the hall and Jason's arm flashed hidden behind himself just as fast.

An eerie silence settled back in before Jason tried again. Three knocks, louder this time, were intended. Jason got to one before the dull thud of something falling to the ground was heard from inside. The response had almost been immediate, followed by footsteps. Jason barely had time to take a step back before the door creaked open as far as the chain on the bolt allowed.

A somewhat gloomy looking girl peeked out. She seemed to have just woken up in any case, with her short hair a mess of spiky locks pointed in all directions. Adding to the frame of her face were blue drooping eyes lingered above Jason's head for a second too long as if she expected someone taller.

Great offense was taken at that by the way. He had gone through a lot, walked way too much, not for this—and you—to call him out like that. You weren't even that much taller than him. You weren't even standing straight hiding most of yourself behind the door. Then her eyes descended to meet him, and Jason's mind went blank.

He couldn't fully see her face. Didn't need to see to know this was you his sister. The picture he had of you felt heavy on his pocket as you looked just like your mother. His mother.

The lump in his throat made itself all the more present when he tried to speak, so he waited for a greeting of your own instead. Anything to not be the one who had to speak first would have been a good start in Jason's books.

The silence stretched despite the two. His tongue felt like it had been tied up, stammered the first thing that came to mind when nothing came of you.

“I am your brother,” he blurted out, with anxious energy so clumsy he instantly regretted it.

Taglist(?): @classicsimpforaaronwarner

[ireallyamabear]

The choice to put Una Chin-Reily on a Starfleet recruitment poster in the late 2370s seems a nod to the extraordinary person she is and her exemplary service, but Boimler’s enthusiasm for her as a personal hero cannot mask the fact of what Starfleet execs are really doing here: while it is Starfleet tradition to honour esteemed personnel from its centuries of history, we have to look at the poster as a product of its time: it seems clear that, shortly after the devastating death toll and the rapid militarisation of the Dominion War, putting a prominent figure of the Great Exploration Age - and notedly someone who had not served in the Klingon War - as the poster person for Starfleet is an indictment that contemporary young people of the Federation are not drawn to the service as it is in their time anymore.

Critically, Starfleet has to use somebody from a 120 years ago, a timeframe that would lap generations of even especially long lived member species like Vulcans or Denobulans, to attract new recruits. Boimler says himself that seeing Una as a representative and her motto - “Ad astra per aspera” was: “Uh, it was a really big reason why I joined.” Clearly there is a wealth of recognisable Starfleet officers from 2370 and onwards, but their entanglement in the Dominion War, or at least in the Borg threat makes them unsuitable as role models for people like Boimler who cannot help but associate these contemporaries with the horrors of war and intergalactic conflict. Thus, the retreat to a “safe” historical narrative, with Starfleet still being about peaceful exploration reflects the growing divide between the realities of a colonised galaxy, the ongoing need of new bodies to fill the posts on all those ships and space stations and the aspirations and values of young people today. In this essay I will question whether Starfleet can keep its promise of scientific integrity in the face of growing political unrest in the UFP and ask what “Number One” herself would have thought about-

[poppletonink]

Best Quotes From 'If We Were Villains'

"You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough."

"You can't quantify humanity. You can't measure it - not the way you mean to. People are passionate and flawed and fallible. They make mistakes. Their memories fade. Their eyes deceive them."

"I don't know, it's like I look at you and the sonnets make sense. The good ones, anyway."

"Do you blame Shakespeare for any of it?" The question is so unlikely, so nonsensical coming from such a sensible man, that I can't help but suppress a smile. "I blame him for all of it."

'She says, “Were you in love with him?” “Yes,” I say, simply. James and I put each other through the kind of reckless passions Gwendolyn once talked about, joy and anger and desire and despair. After all that, was it really so strange? I am no longer baffled or amazed or embarrassed by it. “Yes, I was.” It’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is, I’m in love with him still.'

'I need language to live like food - lexemes and morphemes and morsels of meaning nourish me with the knowledge that, yes, there is a word for this. Someone else has felt it before.'

'Below was the motto: Per aspera ad astra. I'd heard a variety of translations, but the one I liked best was Through the thorns to the stars.'

"We cracked up. [...] But we didn't really shatter until we were all back together again."

'The clock on the mantel struck twelve, and we stirred, one by one, like seven statues coming to life.'

'Actors are by nature volatile - alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy. Heat them up, stir them together, and sometimes you get gold. Sometimes disaster.'

[dashielldeveron]

soulmate trope | midoriya izuku, part two

Midoriya's route of soulmate trope. Part one here. “this doesn’t match the manga’s canonical ending!” correct. and isn’t that sexy? please read this route last, as it contains spoilers for all other routes. warnings: female reader. manga spoilers up to 411ish. angst. sexual content. moderate injury (not reader). indulgently meta on behalf of the author. a note: some meta elements in this route may lead you to think it’s the true route for this fic. not necessarily. the true route is whichever one is your favourite :) ~57k overall. ~17.5k for part two.

Life got better afterwards. Infinitely better to focus on the part of your life that sings rather than what you lack. You weren’t over it, of course, but you were growing. Choosing Izuku made little joys shine.

You finished jigsaw puzzles in the kitchen together. You went with him to the farmers’ market to get his brie. You sent him memes during long work days. On a late night, you caught him while he was sitting on a street lamp’s overhang to deliver a bento.

He’s beautiful. Izuku’s beautiful. When he’s playing as a paladin in DND in Tenko’s room, when he’s across the room at a press conference and you nearly walk into someone because you’re watching him, when you slide a cup of double-sweet tea across the kitchen table and he blinks blearily up at you with a throaty, “Yeah, baby?” Not beautiful just in his body, of course, but because his personality’s written all over his face, and who he is shines; he beams and shimmers, and you’ve discovered you need to see it.

Sunlight, after all, keeps you alive.

You still haven’t kissed him yet. The timing hasn’t felt right.

The closest you’ve come to it was when you were helping him transport snacks for his employees from his car inside his agency, and halfway up the ramp, he stopped pushing his cart. Ensuring your cart wouldn’t roll away, you doubled back to Izuku, muttering under his breath and pinching his lower lip.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, gracious,” he said, breaking from his stream of thought and gripping the cart’s handle again, “I was just thinking. The cobblestone façade for the building entrance is terrible design. It’s difficult for the wheels on the carts to roll up smoothly, so it’s got to be infinitely worse for wheelchair users and others who use wheels to get around. This needs to be smooth concrete to be more accessible. It’s strange,” he said, pushing the cart again, more slowly this time, to watch how the wheels engaged with the cobblestone façade, “I’m disappointed in myself for needing to live with a temporarily disabled body in our dream reality and a couple of snack carts to realise this.” He paused when you reached your cart, waiting for you before entering the building. “I think I should spend time thinking about how to make this agency more accessible. Consult some experts. At the very least, I should commission Cementoss to smooth out the front.”

As Izuku held the door to the elevator for you, you were overwhelmed with the realisation that the only reason this man wasn’t helping more people was that he literally did not know in what capacity he could be helping. So long as he was learning, so long as he was gathering information about new people and the ways they lived, he was going to put the information and his authority to use to make others’ lives easier. This was…an infuriatingly, aggravatingly, desperately needed, good man. And so shines a good deed in a weary world.

And you would’ve kissed him for it, but you couldn’t reach him across the elevator with two carts in between.

***

You were on set the day that Izuku filmed for the pilot of Uraraka’s miniseries, Ad Astra Per Aspera. You garnered that it was a space adventure-comedy sort of thing, and the first episode was supposed to be a subversion of expectations: Izuku’s character is set up to be the main character, playing into genre and gender expectations, but halfway through the episode, he dies so that Uraraka’s character can take over as the lead. It worked on several levels: one, reminding audiences that even in real life, Uraraka didn’t need anyone, particularly Izuku, to be capable, and two, ensuring Izuku would only need a one-episode contract.

Right now, they were filming an ensemble scene in a seedy, space bar, with the initial band of characters getting to know each other through all interrogating this one suspect simultaneously. For most of the scene, they had Izuku straddling a chair backwards, his character’s army insignia sash tied snugly around his waist to emphasise it, arms resting on the back of the chair while he looked down at the suspect with disdain.

At first, the script had had Izuku’s roguish, pseudo-Han Solo character smoking, but that morning, you’d walked into a conversation between the screenwriter and the director about how showing the number-one hero smoking might have negative effects on really young kids. Thus they changed it to Izuku sexily eating fruit, but even that had its problems: surely the same kind of fruit that grows on Earth wouldn’t be available in this shitty bar in a different galaxy entirely?

So, they had you peeling kiwis for each take, and without its characteristic brown skin, kiwis could pass as some sort of space fruit. You felt a little silly, with all the peelings piling up in your lap, but now you supposed you could put production assistant on your résumé.

“They have him biting into like an apple,” you said to Monoma, also involved in the production for his clothing collaboration with Uraraka to promote the series, “Why are they having him eat it like that? That can’t be any good.”

Monoma licked his finger and flicked the page of his magazine, crossing his ankle to rest on his opposite knee. “Defamiliarises the fruit from the audience because we’re not seeing it eaten in a typical way. Next question.”

“Oh, shut up,” you said, jabbing your kiwi-peeling knife his direction, “It’s going to ruin the scene if he bites down into the ring of seeds. That’s very recognisable.”

Raising a brow, Monoma looked up from his magazine. “Surely you’re accustomed to telling Midoriya how hard to bite down by now.”

You opened your mouth, closed it, and returned the knife to your lap, and you pulled your jacket more closely around you instead of answering, scanning the ceiling for what vent was the source of the cold.

“Oh, are you not prepared to be on a film set?” asked Monoma, indulgently settling into his puffy coat, “They keep the set cold so that the actors don’t overheat under the lights.” He closed his magazine and set it over the arm of his chair and strained for his messenger bag on the floor. “What’s up?”

“I’m not working the show—am I allowed to go to catering? My mouth is dry. Plus, there might be something better to peel,” you said, picking up your next kiwi, “I don’t really—hm.”

Your words caught in your throat, because across the room, Izuku was, in character, licking kiwi juice up the side of his arm, from mid-forearm to his palm. You didn’t realise Monoma was offering you a bottle of water and chapstick from his bag until he jostled you with it.

“Thank you,” you said, accepting it and unscrewing the lid, and after you’d drunk enough, you picked up the unopened chapstick, examining it. “Aren’t these supposed to be, I don’t know, less spherical?”

“I thought you’d appreciate that. It’s supposed to be one of the tie-in lip balms for the series. They’re doing flavours based on some of the characters.” Monoma pulled out a few more lip balms from his bag. “We’re still working on the packaging, so they’re not out yet. That one’s supposed to be Midoriya’s.”

“Explains why it’s green, then,” you said, popping off the spherical cap, “How original. Means they were thinking more of him and not the character he’s playing. Is it mint?”

“Matcha,” said Monoma, as you smeared some on your lips, feeling better almost instantly, in the dry cold of the set, “and lemon. Which wasn’t my first choice; originally I suggested matcha and vanilla, but what do I know. Do you like it?”

You nodded mid-drink from your water bottle.

“Does it taste like him?”

You choked, water going through your nose, nearly letting kiwis and peelings tumble from your lap while a grinning Monoma thumped your back. “Man, that wasn’t even clever. If you’re this easy to fluster,” he was saying, “I don’t even want to imagine how much fun Midoriya must have with you.”

“I need you to never open your mouth again,” you said, wiping your mouth with your sleeve, and you cleared your throat. “Now. I am invoking the no-judgments clause of our friendship.”

“What do you need?”

“I wanted your advice on video editing,” you said, pulling out your phone, “I’ve been putting together this, uh. Thing. And before I post it, I wanted you to check that it’s as good as it can be. It’ll be my first time posting in a fan community I’ve joined, and I want it to be good. Try not to make fun of me for it.”

Monoma only had to watch a few seconds of footage, the chorus of NCT’s “Baby, Don’t Stop” coming in softly through your phone’s speakers, before he looked back up at you in condescension. “This is a fancam for Midoriya’s nipples,” he said, frowning.

“See, I knew you’d make fun of me for it.” You scooted your chair closer to Monoma’s, and while you peeled kiwis, he critiqued your editing and helped you make it better. You were both so absorbed in the video that you didn’t notice that the film crew had taken a break until Izuku came up to talk.

“Hey,” he said with a wave, startling you and Monoma out of your skins (he hastily shoved your phone back to you before Izuku could see the screen). “What’s up?”

“Nothing much.” You held up your knife and latest kiwi. “Being on a film set is a bit different than I’d pictured, but it’s still neat to watch everyone work.”

“Ah,” said Izuku, mouth nearly a straight line as he took the peeled kiwi from you, “I started out the morning being quite fond of these. I’ll be content if I don’t see one for a while after this. Are you cold?” He nodded at how much you snuggled into your jacket. “I can go get my coat from the green room for you.”

“You’re not? It’s frigid in here.”

Izuku shook his head. “It’s the lights.”

“Yeah, Monoma mentioned something like that,” you said, glancing towards Monoma—and you could’ve sworn you caught Monoma staring at Izuku’s nipples through his shirt. “Is this your only costume, by the way?” You reached for your water again.

Midoriya smiled, teeth cutting into his lower lip. “More or less. I’m not wearing anything for my death scene.”

You stopped the bottle before it reached your mouth. “I’m sorry. What?” You cracked a grin. “Are you telling me you have a nude scene?”

“Nothing’s shown,” he said, smiling down at you, scooting out of the way of a crewman, and tossing the kiwi to himself.  “I don’t think I mind. Women have to be nude in movies a lot, so I’m fine with helping to balance it out. I’m told it’s supposed to be non-sexual nudity, anyway.”

You sat up in your seat, taking another drink before speaking. “How noble. What’d they say about it?”

“So, I was in costuming and makeup earlier because of an effects shot; it’s the last shot I’m in before I get killed. They were explaining that I have to be completely nude for it; it’s actually pivotal that the spaceship shard that kills me slices from here—” Izuku drew a line from his upper thigh to just below his nipple (Monoma’s eye twitched). “—to here, so I can’t be wearing anything. They want me levitating, horizontal to the ground, and I was describing to the costumer that the shot is actually really similar to this effects shot in an episode of Star Trek—Next Gen, season three, episode thirteen, ‘Deja Q,’ and I was asking the costumer and the head makeup artist if I should put some sort of makeup on my ass, because I only have freckles on the top curve of my asscheeks; the lower curve doesn’t exactly see the sun—but my character, with the UV light in his bedroom, where he gets killed—he’s getting proper sun on his full ass, but if makeup were to put fake freckles on my ass, it’d be extremely obvious that they’re fake, especially in contrast to the real ones. But we couldn’t get to a decision about it before call time, because we got so wrapped up in that none of the cock socks —because that’s what they’re called, apparently, those things that’re meant to protect your modesty—well. None of them fit. And I was just about to bring up that same episode of Star Trek, because John de Lancie had the same issue, but Uraraka came and got me so that we could start,” said Izuku, rubbing the back of his neck.

Dear God, you’re in love with him.

You’re in love with the biggest nerd on the planet, and something was deeply, deeply wrong with the universe, because you weren’t currently kissing him within an inch of his life.

“But I’m hoping we finish this scene soon, at least,” Izuku was saying, tongue rubbing the inside of his cheek, as if it weren’t a crime punishable by death that his mouth wasn’t on yours at the moment, “because my lips are all dry from how acidic the kiwis are; I may need to stop by makeup again to ask if they have any sort of moisturising sealant, or something.”

“I gave your girlfriend some lip balm earlier,” said Monoma, as quick on the uptake as you, zipping up his bag to hide the other flavours, and you couldn’t bring yourself to hate him for it.

“Yeah,” you said, mind blank except for you loved him you loved him you loved him, aggressively yanking off the chapstick’s cap and applying more to your own lips before you stood (kiwi peelings falling to the floor) and grabbed Izuku’s face to kiss him.

He floundered. Froze. Held his breath. Which, sure, at this point it was more of a smushing of faces rather than a kiss, but you heard the tiniest clearing of his throat before he kissed you back in earnest, and nothing else mattered; everything else was just white noise. It was as if you didn’t even have matcha or lemon or kiwi to consider but instead just Izuku, Izuku distilled, sunshine and warmth, and oh, his hand was gliding up the side of your neck, the span of his hand wider than that of your throat, to play with your earlobe, and he was opening his mouth, sucking your lower lip inward just slightly, and—and you had to break away to breathe, and you wished you didn’t have to.

Chest heaving, Izuku’s lips chased yours after the initial separation, and he settled for resting his forehead against yours. “To think that I was going to introduce you to Uraraka’s soulmate today, as a final nail in the coffin that I belong to you. Now,” he said with a heady rasp, nudging his nose against yours, “I’d think you know that already, and I’d rather smuggle you back home to have you all to myself.”

“You’ll have me later,” you said, giving him another short kiss and appreciating how dejected he looked when it didn’t last for more than a second. “How much time do we have? Why don’t you still introduce me to Spike? Is she here?”

Izuku took a deep breath before releasing you, and he nodded, taking your hand. “She’s over there with Uraraka. I wanted you to see how differently Uraraka treats me compared to Spike. It’s evident that’s she really in love now.”

“Lead the way,” you said, waving towards Monoma, who was determinedly reading his magazine.

Uraraka and Spike were in conversation with the director, and while the two of you waited to the side, you looked Spike over: tall and imposing with blue-black hair in a harsh bob, and huh, she’s really putting that scar around her neck on display, isn’t she? Looks like she’s been beheaded.

“Wait a minute,” you said, whispering to Izuku, “I know her.”

“True,” said Izuku, crossing his arms as he leant down to your height, “But I figured I should introduce you in this context.”

You shot him a look. “Wait, how would you know she’s a cashier I met in Alderside? Back when I was investigating your Jackrabbit stuff?”

“That’s what you were thinking of?” It was Izuku’s turn to look confused, and, laughing under his breath, he pulled you by the elbow away from everyone, until he was sure that no one would overhear. “Sweetheart, you know that Spike is just Toga Himiko transformed, right?”

“What?” you said so loudly that people looked over. Izuku rubbed his hands up and down your arms to quiet you, so you dropped your voice. “How would I know that? Where would I have gotten that information?”

“I thought I’d told you,” said Izuku, grinning and shaking his head, “Toga has been at a local rehab, Sakura Grove, and Uraraka had been visiting for a while before they found out they were soulmates. They, uh. Both have matching symbols on the underside of their tongues.”

“I’m assuming I shouldn’t ask how they found out.”

“Toga—sorry, we should say Spike since we’re in public—Spike still lives at Sakura Grove but has been given a lot of privileges for good behaviour for this long. One of her long-time handlers doesn’t leave campus much and has consented to let Spike use her appearance, within reason. And to be fair, they’ve mostly used the transformation to go on dates,” said Izuku, glancing over her shoulder at them, “It's good to see them both so happy.”

The director ended the break before you could speak to them, and, with a final kiss to Izuku’s cheek, you left the set, went home, crawled into Izuku’s bed for the first time, and tried not to fall asleep.

***

But you did fall asleep, inevitably, and you spent an annoyingly long time in the dream world listening to Tenko tell Granddaddy Slapkins that Touya loved him very much before Izuku’s body stirred in his bedroll.

You knelt at his side while he pushed himself upright. “What took you so long?”

“I apologise,” he said, rubbing his eye as he accepted the slice of toast you had ready for him, “It’s just that I finally had a particular woman in my bed, and I took a moment to admire how gorgeous she is when she sleeps.”

“You sap,” you said, and you held up a phial of the soulwalking potion. “We need to talk without eavesdroppers for a moment.”

You got to the spirit realm before Izuku did, since he had to finish his toast, and when his glowing, green-tinged soul materialised across from you in the campfire circle, you pounced on him, pushing him back down to lie on his mirrored bedroll, hands planted on either side of his head, and you kissed him, heat blossoming from his lips, the only source of warmth on this side of reality. You hummed into it and raised a hand to trace along his jaw, but Izuku gripped the hair at the nape of your neck and yanked your mouth off of his, holding you in place.

“I thought,” he said, eyes half-lidded, chest swelling underneath you, “that we were here to talk.”

“Oh, stop it. Like I could make out with you in front of our friends,” you said, leaning down towards him again, but Izuku tightened his grasp so that you couldn’t move more than an inch (at the pressure at the back of your neck, your eyes fluttered shut). “Oh? Have I done something wrong?”

Izuku raised his free hand, his index finger tracing along your cheekbone before tapping your lips. “Yes,” he said, dragging the syllable out, “You aren’t kissing me like you love me.”

“Tell me what to do, then.”

Izuku blinked slowly, eyes taking on a hint of the OFA glow. “All right.” He let his hand fall to the side. “I want you to stick your tongue in deeply, as if you’re desperate to keep me near. You need to tangle our tongues together,” said Izuku, tilting his head backward to expose the jut of his Adam’s apple, “and suck them towards you. If you can handle that, then we’ll graduate you to the next class.”

“Okay,” you said, nodding when he released your hair, but you weren’t going to give it to him immediately. You shifted your weight to one arm as you slated your lips against his, finger-combing through his hair with your other hand while your tongue swiped over his lower lip, replaced, after a moment, with teeth gently tugging. Izuku parted his lips and accepted your tongue into his mouth, lips moving with yours, while you slid your tongue against his, guiding them with the tip of your tongue towards your own mouth, and you gave a soft nip to his tongue that made him hiss.

“Now,” you said, panting, moving to sit upright, “Surely that was—”

Izuku jerked you down by your necklace to capture your lips again, pinning you against him and completely reversing the suggestion of who was in charge, and you daren’t pull away, lest the chain of your necklace break. Brow furrowed, Izuku groaned into the kiss as he shifted his hips underneath you, and, tongue feeling around the roof of your mouth, he raised a knee for you to straddle and guided your hip so firmly that you were forced to grind down on it.

He released your necklace, mouthed, “Sit back,” and moved your hand to steady yourself on his sturdy chest, clutching your hand to his pec before joining his other hand on your hips to make you rock them. After a moment, a hand trailed upwards towards your shirt, trying to get underneath it, but once he realised he’d have to undo layers of medieval clothing, Izuku huffed and simply pressed his wide palm down hard against your lower stomach, staring you down while you ground against his thigh, quick snaps of OFA lightning sparking around his forearms as you went a bit glassy-eyed and flushed, despite the layers of fabric between you.

Izuku drew you down again, shivering in the moment your lips connected with his, kissing you hard for a final, few seconds before pulling away. “Good Lord,” he said, and perhaps it’s because you’ve been kissing, but his voice sounded sweeter. “I have never kissed you before today. I haven’t seen you, completely bare, before today. Yet I’ve never so thoroughly devoted my heart to anyone besides you. I know I’ve never felt this close with anyone.”

“And you have eight people larking about inside you,” you said, tucking a loose curl behind his ear.

“And I have eight people larking about inside me,” said Izuku, nodding, “I don’t know how I’ve lived without you. I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while, but today’s been—yeah. I felt like I could say it today.”

“You don’t have to say it, exactly. It’s been…subtext.” You tapped your fingers in a ripple on his pec. “But I appreciate it very much.” You dragged your fingers down his chest, catching fabric, but before you could reach the ties of his trousers, Izuku caught your hand, flattening it against his abdomen.

“No,” he said, smiling, “Not yet. The first time you have me, I want us to be in our reality, in our own bodies. As real and true as it can be.”

“That’s fine. Have anything special in mind?”

“Yes, actually. All according to my ludicrously evil plan. Actually, I—” Izuku frowned and sat upright, helping you off of him. “Actually, we need to get out of the spirit realm first. I think I’ve put together the pieces for how we can make Shinsou a frappe, and I want to see if it works.”

You clicked your tongue. “Izuku, why the fuck are you thinking about that? You literally have a boner right now.”

“That’s not—ignore it,” said Izuku, bending his leg to conceal it from you, “But if we’re going to make lo—have sex in the real world, then we should get other stuff done while we’re here. I’m thinking that we can achieve the frappe taste from your tea ceremony, and we might be able to get the texture and temperature through experimentation with Todoroki’s ice magic—”

“You are bonkers,” you said, leaning back on your hands, “and I don’t wanna have to witness that conversation. I…you go back first. I’m going to chill here for a bit; I need to collect my thoughts about what I want to plan for when we sleep together. I won’t even be able to hear my own thoughts if everyone’s blabbering at once. Now, get.”

Izuku waved goodbye, fading into the grey as he climbed back into his body, and gosh, it really was so much colder without him here. Well, if you transformed back into a cat, you’d be a bit warmer…And then, surely it wouldn’t hurt if you curled up in a ball while you daydreamed…tucked your little head underneath the tip of your tail…started to plan about what you wanted to be wearing, what you wanted the bedroom to look like, but you didn’t get very far…

***

You blinked awake to Izuku’s defined bicep in your face, his bedsheet pulled up to your chin, and you breathed in the scent of his laundry detergent deeply.

“Oh!” Izuku removed his reading glass to set them and his book on his bedside table, and he flipped onto his side to look at you, one hand cradling your cheek. “Are you all right? Does anything feel strange?”

“Uh.” You assessed your body for, like, anything bleeding out. “No. Situation normal.”

“Good.” Izuku let out a breath, shoulders losing their tension. “I was worried, but I figured it’d be good to have someone monitor you in the real world in addition to our dream world. They’re still—”

“Hold up,” you said, starting to feel more awake, “What happened?”

Izuku sat up, blankets pooling around his waist, and you followed. “After I went back to the group, everything seemed fine for about half an hour, but then your—well, you know how our bodies seem like they’re sleeping when we’re soulwalking, and that’s all. But, uh.” He held up his hands, as if he were holding a basketball, and then dropped them. “Your body—you know All Might’s soul crystal? You—when we eventually get back to his body to return it, he’s—he looks like this stone dragon, with a spot for the soul crystal to fit. You shifted into something similar, I think. You turned into Dango, not fully cat-sized, y’know, but very—small, statue-ish. A cat curled up in a ball. I could’ve fit you in my pocket. Your soul crystal was visible, but there was no way to remove it. And we were, of course, concerned,” said Izuku, grabbing you by the shoulders, “So I’m immensely relieved to see you like this. What did you do?”

“Dude, don’t look at me. I didn’t do anything; I can’t remember. I was—” You caught yourself and grinned. “Izuku. I don’t remember anything, because I was asleep.”

Izuku tilted his head. “What?”

“I fell asleep in the spirit realm, and I think that’s why—” You broke off to laugh. “Izuku, I got a good night’s sleep for the first time in almost a year. I wasn’t awake here or in our dream world. My consciousness got to rest.”

Izuku’s eyes widened for a moment, and then he hunched over on himself to mutter furiously under his breath, pinching his bottom lip. You reached over him to grab his phone off the bedside table, checking the time and if anyone needed him this early in the morning.

When you glanced over at him, he was still going at it, so you thumped his chest. “Hey. Don’t think about it too hard. I’d given up on trying to achieve dreamless sleep a while ago, because I—like seeing you all the time. So, don’t stress about if we can recreate it. Your brain is always going a thousand miles a minute. You can relax, y’know.”

“Well, perhaps I’d need to rest in the spirit realm, then,” said Izuku, sliding out of bed and pressing his hands to his lower back as he stretched. “By the way,” he said, coming out of a groan, “I wanted to share the most pertinent piece of information regarding our Sex Plan.”

“Don’t call it—whatever, Izuku. Go ahead,” you said, scratching your forehead.

“Two weeks from now—”

“You’re gonna make me wait two weeks?”

“Hey, no, listen,” he said, grinning, holding his hands up in defence, “There’s an emotionally resonant anniversary in two weeks, and besides, look who’s saying that. The woman who’s been stringing me along for almost a year.”

You threw your hands above your head. “I didn’t know it was you for a good part of that! I didn’t know you were real,” you said, tongue in your cheek as you smiled, swinging your legs over the side of the bed, “Okay, gorgeous. Lay it on me.”

Izuku bit his lip, rubbing it with his index finger before replying. “One. In two weeks, there’s a fundraiser we’re slated to attend. It’s hosted by the one we were at together three—well, four years ago. It’s grander in scale now, since the charity’s grown, but I think we can have a similarly adequate time. Two,” he said, raising another finger, “Since it’s more grandiose, our friends will be there. If you’ll allow me to be selfish, I’d like to take this opportunity to brag about our immense happiness.”

You laughed and covered your mouth. “Not even considering proving it to the press, since we haven’t made a public statement about our relationship in ages? Just our friends?”

“I admit that competition is a contributing factor,” said Izuku, taking his phone from you to return it to his bedside table, “but it’s not everything. I’m simply tired of suppressing my love for you, in public or otherwise.” He took both of your hands in his, and he knelt before you, parting your legs to get closer, to share your body heat. “Three,” said Izuku, much more seriously, “I think we should get married.”

You blinked. Okay. Not what you were expecting. “Right.” Your grip slackened, but his didn’t, keeping your fingers laced together. “To quell your fears before we have this conversation, my answer’s yes. Yes, I do wanna get married. I think it’d be wonderful. But.” You managed to free a hand from his grasp to cup his cheek. “Aren’t you concerned that I’m only just started showing you affection? That I’ve only recently opened my heart to you? Anyone else would’ve fallen for you immediately; of fucking course they would, once they saw how you shine,” you were saying, determinedly looking away from him, “but I’ve got all of these—strangely metaphysical hangups about whom I’m permitted to love, and I’m only just now starting to really get over them, and I can’t guarantee that they’ll ever really go away, so what if I can’t ever show you more love than I have recently—”

“Ohhh, my dear girl,” said Izuku, and he tapped a finger under your chin to get you to look at him, but you wouldn’t look away from the ceiling. “If we have to kiss to show we’re in love, then we’re not in love.” He tapped your chin again, and this time you met his eyes. “And we are. Haven’t you noticed? You’ve been showing me affection for so long. You’ve been proving your love to me in thousands of tiny choices you make every day, thinking of me with good intentions. Kissing is just another way of showing it. I’ve known you’ve loved me for some time now, even though you’ve been reluctant to admit it to yourself.”

You opened your mouth, scrunched your brow, and closed it. Because when you thought back, oh, he’s right; you’ve been living and working together for so long now, learning more and more about each other, both eager to dig into the minutiae of each other’s characters. He’s become a part of who you are, without trying much at all, and you haven’t noticed until he put the words in your mouth, and the feeling fucking flooded you, making your chest feel stretched like a balloon and pin-pricked in the same moment.

Because you don’t think about loving the sun. It’s just something you do. It comes built into your soul. You don’t have to announce it.

“Huh,” you said, really intelligently, “Cool. Then, yeah. Let’s get married.”

“Sweet,” said Izuku, standing and going to riffle through a dresser drawer, “I have the forms already; I hope you’ll forgive that I don’t have rings yet, because I figured you’d like to choose. I wanted to submit the soulmate quirk incident form as a marriage registration, but I didn’t know if you wanted to commit back then, so I’ve waited until—and if we can get the registration forms in by the end of the day, we’ll be in their system by Wednesday…”

You sat back on your hands, sinking into the mattress, and, feeling like you were in a dream, you listened to your soulmate ramble.

***

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

Wish you were here

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

The DJ keeps running tests of songs I thought I left behind in middle school

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

They got the Crawler as keynote speaker. Do you think he’ll sign something if I ask?

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

I’ve never seen this many chairs in my life

You were smiling at your phone as you walked through the doors of your hero agency, sweaty and sore from patrol. Izuku had to be dragged away from his agency around noon; the Foundation wanted him at the fundraising site early for setup, something about adjusting the heritage building for modern security. You waved to the front desk workers and stepped into the elevator, smushing the button for the ninth floor. More texts pinged before you could type a reply to the previous one.

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

THEY’RE TELLING ME I NEED TO MAKE A SPEECH

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

I WAS PLANNING ON DRINKING

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

I’VE BEEN WATCHING THEM SET UP THE OPEN BAR! AND YEARNING!!!!!!

YOU

lololol did someone else drop out of giving a speech

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

YES

YOU

okay lol. listen i just got back from patrol and am omw to my office. give me a minute to cool down, and then we can brainstorm what you can say

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

Wait, have you been away from your agency for more than six hours?

YOU

…yes? ito and i got lunch while we were downtown

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

You should have something waiting for you.

MIDORIYA 👉👈🌱💚

I asked them to put it in your office instead of the mailroom.

YOU

???

You sent the last while rounding the corner to your office, and you opened the door on a white garment bag hanging from your coatrack, the silhouette of the dress backlit by the late afternoon sun behind it.

Oh, this idiot.

You stopped at your desk, tearing off your support gear and dropping it unceremoniously next to a flat box, also from Izuku, at which you raised an eyebrow. But first, you grabbed a water bottle from your minifridge, chugged the whole thing, and wiped off sweat with a towel you kept behind your desk.

You began to undress, unfastening the front of your hero costume to let the A/C hit your skin, and you unzipped the garment bag, laughing through your nose at the dress: gorgeous, of course, but just a bit too slinky for your tastes and made out a material that wouldn’t be comfortable for all the hours you had to spend at this fundraiser. He must’ve been thinking with his dick.

So, you turned to the flat box on your desk, and you unfolded the tissue paper hiding a fuckin’ lingerie set, intricately lacy and deadly verdant. Izuku, you absolute nerd. Don’t you know that you can’t wear something with this heavy a design under something so blatantly silky as that dress? The lines will show. Plus—now that you were looking at the dress again—the straps on the bra were thicker than the straps on the dress, so you absolutely were not going to wear them together.

“Looks like he wanted something easy to take off,” came Ito’s voice from your doorway.

Grinning, you waved her in as you bent to retrieve another water bottle from your fridge. “Tell me about it. That dress screams easy access.”

“Like a horny couple at prom.” Ito caught the bottle you tossed to her, and she sat on your desk, one leg crossed over the other. “It’s lovely,” she said, shrugging one shoulder.

“It’s not exactly black tie,” you said after a long gulp, “It’s more of a sexy, expensive loungewear sort of deal. I don’t think I could wear that in public without everyone seeing everything that’s going on with me.” You gestured down your front. “I’m not gonna wear it.”

Ito rushed to swallow and wiped the back of her mouth. “Why not?”

“Think about it. What kind of idiot would I be if I hadn’t prepared an outfit for tonight? It’s not like the fundraiser is a surprise,” you said, pulling off the top of your hero costume, leaving you in your undershirt, “I’ve got something already. Izuku is damn lucky, though, because I’ll be able to wear that—” You nodded towards the lingerie. “—under the dress I have planned. Are you coming?”

Ito blinked. “Not at the moment.”

“I meant to the fundraiser.”

“Yeah, actually,” she said, twirling a strand of thick, white hair around her finger, “One of your friends invited me as arm candy. Said there was something I’ll want to see.”

***

Your PR advised you to arrive around 45 minutes late to avoid the initial buzz outside of the venue (some turn-of-the-century architect’s manor house before she died), but since that’d be 45 minutes of Izuku searching for you, you sneaked in through a staff entrance. You managed to locate your assigned table (thankfully in a corner, unfortunately near the front), where you hid your clutch in the pocket underneath your chair’s floral cover and listened to the musicians tune their instruments.

Where’s Izuku? They can’t need him every minute. You scanned the ballroom for his face among the early attendees, but he wasn’t to be found; some of your graduating class was already trickling in, and so, Asui, Hagakure, Ojiro, and Iida stopped by your table for a while.

“We’re over there with Yaoyo and Jiro, ribbit,” said Asui, pointing towards a far table, “I’m glad! Yaoyorozu has been to black tie events more than I have, so she can tell us if we mess up.”

“Come off of it, Tsu; we’ve been to black tie stuff before,” you said, smiling up at her from your seat, “It gets easier.”

Asui stuck out the tip of her tongue. “Forgive my cliché, but I always feel like a frog out of water no matter how many I attend.”

“Worry not!” Iida gestured stiffly. “If you’ll recall, I also come from, as you put it, old money! I can assist you if Yaoyorozu is otherwise occupied. However, you needn’t concern yourself with—”

“Why have they put you near the front?” Hagakure crossed her arms, evident by her elbow-length gloves, and held her clutch underneath her armpit. “There aren’t any awards being given out tonight. It’s just dancing and that silent auction.”

“No, but Izuku’s giving a speech,” you said, “Probably for convenience.”

“Either way, sorry about that,” said Ojiro, placing a hand on Hagakure’s shoulder, “I know you’re not too comfortable with being in everyone’s line of sight.”

“Eh, it’ll be fine. Though I remember this being a much smaller event. Has it grown that much?” you asked, eyeing the main entrance nervously, with how many people swarmed inside, “It’s—shadowy over here. The lights aren’t on us. It’s fine.”

“Ooh, I think they’re opening the bar,” said Hagakure, playing with the pendant of her necklace, “Good luck, and all. See you later!”

Not having the fortitude to brave the crowds yet, you stayed at your table, yanking out your phone to shoot Izuku a text.

YOU

have arrived. where are you???

Hearing the ding of a phone behind you, you turned over your shoulder and beamed as your soulmate approached.

“Hey, Izuku,” you said, standing to hug him, and oh, as you slid your arms around his neck, you breathed in the scent of his cologne (something like cedar and maybe apple?)—and that, paired with the way that he wrapped his arms around your waist and lifted you very slightly as he held you to his chest, the tips of your toes grazing the tile—made you just about black out. “Where have you been?”

“Back of house,” said Izuku, smushing his cheek to yours, savouring it, “They keep trying to give me more work. Something about how I’m too competent. But I can’t exactly say tonight is supposed to be some sort of psychosexual foreplay for my soulmate and me, can I?”

Your eyebrows shot upwards. “Oh, we’re getting right into it? I was hoping to have about half an hour in which I wasn’t horribly aroused.”

He laughed near your ear, the air puffing away some of your hair. “Relax. We’re not doing anything drastic, you know. Now,” he said, grip loosening, “let me look at you.”

You dropped your arms, but he held onto your waist at arms’ length while he looked you over, eyes half-lidded and warm. “Gorgeous,” said Izuku, wetting his lips, “Absolutely gorgeous. But. I believe I—” He cut himself off, and he stepped closer to you, speaking under his breath and looking for all the world like he was commenting on nothing more than the weather. “Aren’t you such a bad girl? Not wearing the dress I set out for you.”

Saliva weighed heavily on your tongue. He’s being pedantic, and clearly you’ve arranged for your dress to match his midnight black tux, with its subtle bottle-green embroidery, but the flowiness of your dress’s fabric contrasts how snugly tailored to Izuku’s body his suit is, particularly his thighs and shoulders, outlining every curve his muscles have. It’s as if his suit’s from a high-end version of Best Jeanist’s Moulded to Your Ass line, except he still manages to be a bit dorky, with his tiny lapel pin that read Suit Jacket.

It was messing with your head how dashing he looked, and he just called you bad girl, which you, unfortunately, were not immune to. Clearing your throat, you rubbed at your eye and resolved that you had to slow things down quickly, lest you walk around with soaked underwear the whole night.

Worse, that’s what your brain decided to bring up next. “I’m wearing what you told me to underneath it. Thought that’d be more important.”

“Oh,” said Izuku, sounding hoarse and bringing a fist to his mouth (was that a flash of OFA lightning?), “I didn’t—”

“Deku-san, sir,” came a voice from behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder, and—a Kazama? That was Kazama, or one of him, at least; Hero Commission personnel must be working the event—appeared. “You’re needed backstage.”

“Of course,” said Izuku, recovering in a single second and pulling down his suit jacket, and he leant in to kiss you on the cheek. “I’ll be back, love.”

You were alone hardly a minute before Monoma eased into the seat next to you. “Greetings and salutations,” he said, voice heavy with sarcasm, as he held up a champagne flute in toast.

“You didn’t bring me one?”

Instead, he slid you a glass bottle of sparkling water that he’d been hiding behind his back. “I know you usually don’t drink at these things. Pity they don’t have pink lemonade.”

You unscrewed the cap, leaning back in your seat when he did. “Do they have regular lemonade?”

“Of course not. Since when do people care about the non-alcoholic drinking crowd?” Monoma shrugged, tilting his chair back on two legs. “The dress work out well?”

“Yeah, thanks,” you said, brushing down your front, “Thanks for getting it made on such short notice; it’s really—”

“It’s fascinating from a design standpoint, because there are purely no so-called dark elves to pull a look from, as you wanted, in Lord of the Rings,” said Monoma, clanking his chair forwards again to dramatically steeple his fingers together. “The Moriquendi elves, of course, come closest by definition, since they have never seen the light of the Two Trees of Valinor, but considering that category of elves splits into several subcategories that I don’t think truly fit the spirit of the design you requested—maybe the Falathrim—but regardless, I’m thinking it was the right idea for my design team and me to simply adjust the palette from our Vanyar line, even though it goes against the lore, and people usually cut me off by now; are you all right?”

Honestly, you were still processing bad girl and how it went straight to your cunt. But you swallowed the sparkling water you were holding in your mouth and shook your head. “I’m fine. I think I’m just a bit put off that it seems like Izuku’s going to be away from me for a good part of the night.”

“We’ll ensure you’re not lonely,” said Monoma, tracing the rim of his glass, “In the meantime, would you like me to distract you? I’ve been keeping an eye on your fancam since we posted it; it seems to be doing well.”

Monoma pulled out his phone to scroll through the comments with you, and it served as a delicious distraction as the ballroom grew packed and noisy.

[video description: a Deku fancam set to NCT’s “Baby, Don’t Stop.” Clips from social media, photo shoots, behind-the-scenes of Ad Astra Per Aspera, and interviews flash in time to the beat of the song’s bridge, focusing on Deku’s nipples, both when deliberately on display and when accidental.]

igneousbastard: everyone say thank you to the production crew for making the set cold af and putting deku in the thinnest shirt known to man 🫡

midori-world: he is literally slutting himself out. can he fucking chill. in unrelated news i’m going to bite my hand off

blueberrybakugou: mr. deku……….

chargenut: hello i am going to obliterate this man

sakuraraka: okay i’ll just say it, since no one else will: BARK BARK BARK WOOF BARK

kirishimashairdye: shredding him with my teeth. putting him in my mouf like a fucken fuit Gummi

mmmmmidoriya: SUCKABLE.

dickuprint: @assortedsoftcheeses hey OP where did you get that clip at 0:33?? seems like it’s the kind of thing you’d find on some pro’s private account. kinda personal 👀 have i missed something?? who posted that????

momo-closet: been watching this on loop for a few minutes before realising my jaw was clenched hard enough to eat through my own enamel. Good work everyone let’s hit the showers

You and Monoma jolted out of your skins when Todoroki Touya slammed his plate on the table and yanked out a chair, legs scraping the tile, nodding your way as he straddled his chair. Tenko followed closely behind, a bottle in one hand and a Nintendo switch in the other.

“Are you playing a game?” Tenko gestured towards Monoma’s phone.

You laughed through your nose as Monoma stowed his phone away. “Not really. I see you didn’t leave home without one.”

Tenko scrunched up his face. “I had to bring something. No one outside of our DND group is going to want to talk to me without morbid curiosity, and you’ll be too busy to be at my side the whole time.”

“That’s why I’m his plus-one,” said Touya, holding up a crostini and waving with his free fingers.

“I was wondering how you were here, Touya,” you said, mouthing thanks to Shinsou as he set a plate of hors d'oeuvres in front of you and moved to sit in the seat to your left, “Tenko, I get, since he’s working with Aizawa-sensei in the underground hero scene, but—”

“Didn’t I tell you not to call me that?” Aizawa pulled out the chair next to Shinsou and eased into it, bracing himself on its back to make it easier on his prosthetic leg.

“You did. Shouta, I apologise,” you said (with Shinsou’s eyebrows flashing upwards), and you turned back to Touya. “You’re Tenko’s date?”

“Don’t say it like that,” said Tenko, scowling as Touya nodded eagerly, “Since he wouldn’t be able to come otherwise, and I’ve been told I can’t just latch onto you for the whole night…” He trailed off, and your eyes darted across the table to catch the cause: Aizawa, shaking his head ever so slightly, as he lifted one of the event’s pre-made cocktails to his mouth.

Weird. But okay, you’ll pretend like you didn’t see it. “So, what’re you playing?”

Everything went smoothly for a while, with Shinsou and Aizawa sharing hors d’oeuvres while Tenko explained the mechanics of his game, with scathing commentary from Touya and probing lore questions from Monoma, but then, two, innocuous things happened in quick succession that changed the mood of the evening entirely.

First, Aizawa got a text. “It’s from Haimawari Koichi—the Crawler, I mean. He says he’s about to go on. He can see us from backstage.” Made you think about Izuku, that he wanted his autograph and was probably talking to him right now.

At the same time, Todoroki and Bakugou showed up, since their table was next to yours, and Bakugou thumped you in the back of your head. “Looking pretty bored without us, sweetheart.”

“Wow,” you said, rubbing your head, grinning, and you spoke without thinking: “That’s everyone except Izuku.”

In the moment, it seemed like a perfectly normal thing to say. At Shinsou’s sharp inhale, Aizawa’s cautious glance towards the opposite side of the table, and Todoroki’s bracing your shoulders, it occurred to you that perhaps you said something odd, but then oh my god they would only react like that if they knew that you were their soulmate in another timeline how the fuck did they find out where’s Izuku you need to leave now—

“I think we should dance. There’s dancing,” said Shinsou, scanning your face for distress and grabbing your wrist as you pushed yourself up from the table in a rush, Todoroki still at your back.

The room’s too hot. The room is too hot, and it’s spinning.

The orchestra swelled as the lights dimmed. It must be time for the keynote speech.

“I really,” you said, swallowing with effort, sweat running down your neck and between your shoulder blades, “I need to go.”

Shinsou’s hand around your wrist. Todoroki’s hand on the small of your back. Bakugou grabbing your forearm, Monoma staring up at you from your side, Tenko and Touya peering across the table at you, the most compliant you’ve ever seen them.

“Sit down,” Aizawa said, quietly, firmly, gesturing to your chair with his drink, and it’s like you’re hearing his voice underwater. You never wanted to have this conversation with them at all, but since they knew, why couldn’t it at least be one-on-one? Why did they all have to be here at once?

You need to be alone. You need to be with Izuku.

Feeling very, very hollow, you’re guided back down to your seat by both Todoroki and Monoma as the room finally darkens, with a spotlight on the podium onstage. The string section played a vaguely familiar song as Bakugou yanked his and Todoroki’s chairs from their table to sit behind you, and Shinsou uncapped your drink, holding the bottle out for you to take. The Crawler walks out onstage to thunderous applause, but you didn’t catch his opening words.

Shinsou gripped your hand, almost crushing your fingers. He kept his eyes on you, not the stage. But so was everyone else.

Eventually, you could speak, though you kept it down, since the Crawler was talking. “I’m so sorry.”

Most of the table started to protest, but Aizawa held up his hand to cut them off.

“My life is over,” you found yourself saying, blankly, far away, somewhere without strategic lighting or dress codes or crowds, “I—all of you aren’t going to be able to be the same around me. Our relationships are fucked, because you’re going to look at me and know, know that I’m the direct cause of your never getting a soulmate in this timeline, that I’ve ruined things for you. God, I love our friendships, and I really shouldn’t, because you deserve more. I’ve deprived you of a warmth that I get to chase until the ends of the earth. I,” you said, and you really hadn’t wanted to cry at this damn event, but whatever, man, “I can’t—fuck.” You buried your face in your hands. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry. But I can’t get around it, and I don’t really want to. I love you guys so much. But I’m in love with Izuku.”

At the soft, muted sound of porcelain being slid across the tablecloth, you peeked through your fingers to glance down at a plate with three dumplings left on it. Touya tapped the edge of the plate, staring you down. “Eat this fucking thing.”

Taken aback, you sat up straight and, since no one else was reacting to that, obeyed. You hated that the dumplings made your stomach feel less like one, big knot. How annoyingly simple of a solution.

“All right,” said Bakugou, leaning forward in his chair so that he could speak in your ear while you chewed, “Have you noticed us act any different lately?”

You rushed to swallow. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve known you are our soulmate in other timelines since the day you threw up on Bakugou’s carpet,” said Todoroki.

“I’m sorry. What?”

Bakugou scowled and shook his head. “You were there for that conversation. In the infirmary, remember?”

“No,” you said, taking your drink from Shinsou again when prompted, “I—you’ll recall I’d hit my head. I didn’t…” You sighed. “Are you kidding? And we’re all—” You gestured around the table, trying to catch everyone’s eye. “—okay with this?”

The table remained silent.

“Jesus Christ,” you said, stomach turning but reaching for the next dumpling, anyway. “I’ve fucking destroyed your chances of happiness—”

“Can you not rub your brain cells together for once?” Bakugou tugged your chair backwards a few inches so that you could look him in the eye. “You and Izuku are exactly the same. Shut the fuck up. No one has lost any shred of happiness because of you and your choices.”

“Don’t think you have that much influence on our lives,” Aizawa was saying, smiling, “You don’t have to hold back on our account. You’re allowed to be happy.”

You couldn’t believe it.

You couldn’t.

But the sick feeling in your gut was fading.

Sniffing, you rubbed the back of your neck, tears running down your cheeks. “Hold on. I need a minute.”

Before you could compose yourself, the Crawler wrapped up his speech, with the crowd clapping as the lights rose and music picked back up.

Touya spoke under the applause, leaning towards you. “Plus, I know that some version of me out there gets have enormously fucknasty sex with you, so I’m good.” Tenko elbowed him in the chest, not bothering to be subtle.

“Thanks, Touya,” you said, cracking a weak smile, “You’re not…actually, you are helping. Thank you.”

Monoma took your free hand, dumpling-greasy as it were. “Are you gonna be okay?”

“Yeah,” you said, suddenly aware of all the sweat draining down your back, “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I just thought—I thought I’d be keeping this to myself forever. Well, myself and Izuku.”

“And Ito,” said Bakugou, scoffing, “She won’t shut up about it. Says she didn’t mean for you to have a harem, but she’d be interested in seeing it play out. Claims she’s never seen one assigned from her quirk before.”

“Ito’s been talking to you about this?”

“She’s probably listening in somehow,” said Bakugou, jerking his thumb up to the second storey balcony, “Begged me to be my date for the night. Probably wanted a show.”

You followed his gesture to make out Ito on the second floor while she leant over the railing, her elbow-length, lace gloves recognisable even from this distance, and she was using opera glasses to look your way. Uraraka and Toga-as-Spike were laughing next to her.

“God,” you said, slumping in your seat, adrenaline draining completely, and you ran your hand back through your hair. “And everyone’s really okay with this,” you asked flatly, making a point to hold eye contact with everyone, and no one said anything. “Okay,” you said, setting your empty bottle on the table and moving to stand, “I’ll just be happy, then. Since you want me to. No take-backs.” You waited for any dissenting voices, but, again, they seemed content. “Cool. I’m going to the bathroom.”

“Agreed,” said Aizawa, and he batted at Shinsou’s arm. “Go with her. Make sure she doesn’t drown herself in the toilet.”

Taking a deep breath, you and Shinsou wove through crowds and away from the music, travelling down century-old, narrow corridors until you located one of the minute restrooms open to the event. Spotting a member of the kitchen crew exit it, you instead yanked Shinsou around a roped-off corner to shove him against the exposed brick.

“Hitoshi, you’ve got to tell me the truth,” you said, gripping his lapels, eyes bulging, “Are any of you actually okay with this?”

Shaken, Shinsou glanced down at your hands and patted one with his own. “You’re overthinking it. We’re fine. Spend less time thinking about us, and allow yourself to be selfish. You—” Shinsou shifted his jaw, and, keeping his eyes on the water-stained ceiling, he rolled his shoulders back. “I’m not supposed to tell you this. I am not supposed to tell you this.”

You released him to give him space to consider his phrasing, shoe scraping the wood when you took a step back.

“It’s good that you’re Midoriya’s soulmate in this timeline, instead of any of ours,” said Shinsou, covering his mouth with his hand, brow scrunched, “Because—I don’t wanna get into who loves you more, or anything, because who can measure—but Midoriya definitely loves you better than any of us. Because he’s the only one who loves you well enough to let you leave him. To let you choose who you want.” Shinsou swore under his breath and, running a hand back through his hair, he slid down the wall into a crouch, bunching up his suit jacket.

Leave him? He’s never…hm. You knelt next to him. “What do you mean?”

Shinsou fiddled with the button on his jacket before unbuttoning it. “Midoriya’s been tearing himself up. First, over that he was ruining your life, and he thought he had verification of that because of the constant soulmate pain he felt, but then—he said that you two figured out something about soulmates and timelines, so that brought on another layer of guilt: that you could find your happiness with someone else.”

Fuck. Fuck. Might explain why he hasn’t insisted on being alone with you. Why all the group hangouts. Lately, it must’ve been too painful—must be why he begged you to look only at him. “Why would he not say anything until recently—what’s wrong with him?”

“What’s wrong with him? What about what’s wrong with you?” Shinsou shot you a look out of the corner of his eye, laughing through a scoff. “Listen,” he said, and he, shifting to sit on his knees, took your hand to place it over his heart. “There’s nothing binding us together. You’re my best friend, yes, but that’s all. Feel that? Completely normal heartbeat.” Honestly, you couldn’t feel anything through the layers of fabric, but you let him continue. “I’m gonna be fine. We all will be. It should be a comfort that our lives don’t revolve around you. Not like we make up a solar system with you at the centre. You’ve also lost it if you think that romantic love is the only way we can lead a fulfilling—”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” you said, pulling your hand back, “I don’t want to rehash all the bitter stuff we’d say when we were all soulmate-less and hanging out with our graduating class.”

“Then stop rehashing all these feelings of guilt, too,” said Shinsou, “Allow yourself to live in reality, not in some daydream of what could’ve been.”

Every heavy feeling stirring in your gut for almost a year finally, finally evaporated, dissolving into air and floating far, far away like gossamer in the night breeze.

It left you feeling rather light. Almost foamy.

Nodding, you said through a dry croak, “I need to find Izuku.”

Shinsou clapped your knee in encouragement, and, pushing himself to stand, he helped you do the same. “I think we’re missing his speech right now.”

You rushed back through the labyrinthine corridors, almost knocking into some press and definitely knocking into a retired hero, sorry, but when you managed to cut through the throng, you weren’t even rewarded with the sight of Izuku at your table—Touya, Tenko, and Aizawa remained, the two former invested in the switch, the latter in the book he’d brought (fucking nerd). They hadn’t seen Izuku.

“Bakugou dragged him off towards the second storey,” Todoroki chimed in from his table, having taken a moment to swallow his crudité.

You thanked him and hurried off, first having to find a staircase and then a way to the outside balcony, but you caught a flash of Bakugou’s moonlit hair before you slipped around the corner to the alcove overhanging the backyard, and, holding your breath, you darted back inside the shadow to press yourself flat against the wall, hoping to God that you hadn’t interrupted anything terrible.

“You don’t even like beer, so stop bitching about not getting to have any,” said Bakugou, tilting his own bottle back to take a gulp.

“Sorry, Kacchan. It’s—I’m nervous. I don’t want to mess this up. It’s all so new to me.”

“What is?”

“Being in love.”

The words are spoken so softly you could’ve missed them under the distant, hollow notes of bamboo windchimes in the gardens. You heard Bakugou’s beer glass clink against the balcony railing, paired with a sigh, instead of answering.

“Thanks for not laughing,” said Izuku, sounding like he’d shifted to face Bakugou; his voice didn’t reverberate back as clearly anymore. “I just like being around her. We don’t have to say anything at all—like I can be switched to off. Like I can just be me, instead of someone everybody needs. It’s good. Calming. Feels like she’s always been a part of me, even when I didn’t know it. I don’t know how else to explain it. When I’m with her, I just feel like—like me, instead of any conceits of me that people have in their heads. And sometimes, she doesn’t even like me.” Izuku let out a laugh. “It feels good to have someone not see me as perfect and still love me for it. Sensual, even.”

“Control your dick, Izuku.”

Izuku laughed, and it echoed through the night air. “I don’t think she knows how much I think about it—building a life together. Genuinely settling in. Settling down. We’re already in deep, but I want more. I want to cook her breakfast. I want her house slippers next to mine by the door. I want to fumble for her soap in the shower. I want the empty spaces in our lives to be filled with her laughter. God,” said Izuku, accompanied by a clump, as if he’d banged his head against something, “I want to stop fisting myself every night thinking of her perfect tits, the curve of her hips—”

“Can it. I don’t need to hear—.”

“—it’s the kind of stuff I used to dream about.”

You couldn’t take it. You and Izuku were finally on the same page, and all of this running and chasing and finding was useless; you needed to be near him right now.

Retracing your steps, you approached the alcove again, this time making your footsteps obvious, and so while they were both expecting someone as you drew nearer, Izuku’s face lit up like a firework when he saw it was you—and then, for some reason, he turned bright fucking red.

“Hey, Izuku. Bakugou,” you said, nodding towards him before focusing on Izuku, lifting a hand to his heated cheek, “Are you all right? The heat was getting to me, too, earlier.”

Izuku shook his head frantically, and after he shut his eyes to take a heady breath, he steeled himself, looking at you with something next door to adoration as he placed a hand on your waist, he said, “I’m fine. I can’t stop thinking about what’s under that fucking dress.”

“O-kay,” said Bakugou, clapping Izuku on the shoulder, “I’ll be downstairs. Not that you’ll need me. Try not to break anything.”

Izuku didn’t even wait for Bakugou to leave the balcony before kissing you (you did catch Bakugou’s thumbs-up that you weren’t supposed to see), mouth opening the second he grazed yours, and you had to grab his face, squeezing at his cheeks while his cheek scuffed your palm, to tear him away.

“Hey,” you said, tapping his cheek in a ripple, trying to ignore how he grabbed at your waist almost desperately, staring at your lips, “Not yet. I wanted to tell you that I’m over it, over everything that’s complicating our situation, and that I love you.”

Izuku froze, cogs almost visibly turning, and he pressed his forehead to yours. “They talked to you, didn’t they? I asked them not to.”

“I was being weird about it, and they said some very comforting things—”

“Are you sure you want me? I’m not—not sure I’m what you want—I haven’t known you forever, like Shinsou, and I could never be as gentle as Aizawa—”

“Izuku,” you said, squeezing his face as you pushed him backwards to look him in the eye, “What I want is you, Izuku. No one else.”

He searched your face for any shred of deceit, and he pushed through the hand still on his face to hold him at a distance to kiss you again, tongue swiping at your lower lip, the grunt at the back of his throat so soft that he was almost drowned out by the bamboo windchimes again. While you sucked his tongue into your mouth, Izuku let his hands drift upwards, cupping one of your boobs, and Izuku broke the kiss with a hum while he stared down at his hand, circling your nipple through the fabric.

“Can you feel much through your dress?”

“Not especially,” you said, trying to catch your breath.

Izuku pouted, pursing his lips in thought, but a smile soon replaced it. “That’s fine,” he said, reaching for the slit in your billowing skirt, “Let me touch you? I wanna feel where I’m gonna come later.”

He didn’t need to know your underwear dampened at his words. “Izuku, we are in public.”

He paused just short of touching your bare leg. “Should we stop? We can stop.”

Huffing, you bit the inside of your cheek and looked down from the alcove, where a group had started into the gardens, laughing through their drunkenness. “We can keep going, but I’d like to be able to walk out of here without anyone knowing what we’ve done.”

“Got it,” he said, and he kissed you, hard, close-mouthed, pressing himself against you as much as he could. “Right,” he said, cradling your face when he broke away and guiding you backwards into the shadow against the alcove’s wall, “Then all we have to worry about is how much noise you make, hm? Can we trust that clever mouth to be quiet?”

Throat running dry, you swallowed thickly as Izuku’s fingers slipped through the slit of your dress, brushing over your inner thigh. “So long as you keep kissing me, I don’t think we’ll have a problem.”

Izuku grinned. “I like the way you think.” He kissed you again, hot as your back hit the wall. “But you’ll recall I want to watch.”

Without removing it from around his neck, Izuku rolled the end of his tie, pried your mouth open, and shoved it inside, its silk drying out your tongue as Izuku hiked your leg over his hip. He shivered, beaming, when one of his fingers grazed your clit through the lace, and he circled it slowly but firmly. Your breath hitched, and as the adrenaline spread to tingle in your fingertips, your cunt tensed up, clenching around nothing.

“Oh?” Izuku trailed his lips across your cheek to just before your ear, breath hot against it. He traced his finger down the lace flower along the gusset, and you felt his smile against your skin when he reached the wet patch pressing coolly over your heated entrance. “Interesting.”

“Hey,” you said, inhaling sharply when he dipped underneath the fabric, trailing his fingers up and down your labia, “Izuku—”

“You’re okay,” he said, pressing the calloused pad of his thumb against your bare clit, “We’re fine. In fact, we’re great, because, as you reminded me, we’re in public. I’d be sucking at you through the lace if we weren’t.” At your shudder, he ran the backs of his fingers down to test the dampening fabric. “Ohhh, that’s it. That’s nice. It’s just what I wanted to see.” Izuku lifted the gusset from you, cool air swishing up your heat, and he released it, fabric snapping back onto your cunt. “Eager to please me, aren’t you? Sick of trying to push me away?”

Izuku pulled back from your ear as his index finger circled your entrance, right around the rim as it began to curve inside. “Think you can take my fingers yet?”

You nodded and bit farther down on his tie to close some of the distance between you.

“Thank you. I need to stretch you out for later, anyway,” said Izuku, and he kissed your cheek before burying his face in your neck, rolling his hips against yours as he pressed his first finger into you. Its width caught you off guard, and you yelped into your gag.

“Hey, easy. Easy,” said Izuku, rubbing your clit as he drew his finger inside and out, so slowly, so fucking slowly, “We’re in public.”

It’s hard to articulate you rat bastard while gagged, but you got the message across.

Blood surged through your veins; you struggled to keep your eyelids from fluttering. Izuku flooded your sense: he’s licking at your neck and smelling so, so good, covering you with his warmth and ever-tightening the coil in your gut through his careful touches, and hey, when did he add a second finger? You’ll kill him, and he’s muttering the most frustrating things against your skin, like he didn’t care that you still had to walk out of here.

“C’mon, then,” said Izuku, surfacing from your neck, breathing heavily, like he’s just woken up, “Claim me. Mark me.” He removed a hand from under your skirt (the other, still pressing two fingers inside you, stretched to rub at your clit) to tug his tie out of your mouth, and he let it drop, saliva-heavy against his shirt. “Let everyone know that I’m your soulmate,” he said, baring his throat, “That you alone own me.”

“Izuku,” you said, panting, “Don’t you still have to give your speech?”

Izuku sighed, his fingers stilling inside you. “Yeah, I do. You’re right. You’re goddamned right,” he said, grimacing, and he withdrew his hand from underneath your skirt.

“Whoa, what?” you asked as he took a step back, “I—I, um.”

“Is there a problem?” he asked, a touch of smugness to his voice. “You have to say it, if you want something.”

Wetting your lower lip, you glanced over your shoulder and back at him. “I didn’t come.”

“That’s true,” said Izuku, adjusting his lapels, “but we’re in public, and I have a speech to give. How indecent.” He winked at you, and you huffed. “What a shame you’ll have to wait.”

You stepped towards him with murderous intent and froze as arousal gushed through the lace and down your leg. “Oh, God. I don’t think I can go out there. I’m too—”

“On it,” said Izuku, unravelling his tie and whipping it from around his neck, and he fucking parted your legs to wipe you down with it, pressing more into your cunt than someone cleaning up really should have.

“How do you manage to think through that horny fog in your brain?” you asked, as Izuku stood upright, examining the freshly wet spot on his tie.

“You get used to it.” Izuku watched your moonlit arousal glisten for a moment, and then he stuck the fabric into his mouth, sucking audibly.

“Holy fuck,” you said, shaking your head, “I can’t take you anywhere.”

“Don’t worry too much about it,” Izuku was saying as he guided you by the small of your back off the balcony, stowing his tie in his inner suit pocket, and he took your hand to thread his fingers through yours when you reached the staircase. “But we should go home, where I know how sturdy everything is. There’s a reason why Bakugou told us not to break anything.”

Izuku led you through the dance floor back to your table, and you had to be normal. You had to sit down with your rotating coterie of friends coming to socialise, and you had to be normal. You had to watch Izuku unbutton his suit jacket as he sat next to you, flipping the jacket away from his hip as he stuck his hand in his pocket, and you had to be normal. His ankle bone poked through his thin sock as his trousers rode up, like a slut, and you had to be normal. Izuku held his bottle of sparkling water at his crotch, peeling at the condensation-beaded label, thumb rubbing up and down the bottle neck absently, and you had to be normal.

Monoma hissed and glared over his shoulder at the orchestra as they transitioned into a new song. “Aren’t we over ‘Air on the G String’ as a society yet?”

Touya cleared his throat, holding up his champagne flute to the light. “I’m not over anything in a g-string yet.”

Monoma propped his chin on his fist. “Touya, you are a paragon of modern society. Tell me about your plans to bolster the economy.”

Izuku caught your eye, his own glinting as they dropped to your lips, and you had to be fucking normal.

Later in the night, long after the orchestra had packed up and after most press had departed, the silent auction began. Since Izuku had no interest in it and you were vibrating out of this plane of existence, Izuku moved to one of the standing tables at the back of the ballroom. More openly drunk behaviour was exhibited here, and near your table, a caution sign had been erected where a recent spill had been mopped up.

You shivered as he sneaked up behind you, wrapping an arm around your waist as he set a plate of the latest round of finger foods in front of you on the tiny table, and he leant his head against yours, rubbing his cheek on yours like a cat before kissing it. You craned your neck away from him, trying to seem absorbed in the flavours of meringues he’d brought over, but when he blew cold air into your ear, you jolted, eliciting a quiet chuckle.

“You are insufferable, Izuku,” you said, sounding controlled despite every part of you buzzing and screaming like a sparkler.

“Don’t I deserve to be? I’ve been waiting for so long,” he said, and he pressed a kiss in front of your ear, below it, and then on your neck. “I’m gonna make it really good for you.”

Izuku grinned into your throat when you stiffened, but you shook it off, taking a small step to the side and popping a meringue into your mouth just to have something besides Izuku to stimulate your senses. “Don’t just say things like that; I can’t take it.”

“You will.”

You would’ve choked if Izuku hadn’t timed his comment perfectly.

“I think,” said Izuku, tilting his head with a smile creeping in, “that you’re embarrassed, that you’re ashamed of taking so long to come around to your feelings, when I’ve been waiting with open arms and an open mouth all this time. So, in that gorgeous brain of yours, you’ve decided that you’ll acquiesce, that you’ll take every single thing I give you, because you feel like you deserve to be used as I please. Now, I’m not saying you’re right—” Izuku pushed some of your hair behind your ear, not that it needed it, and trailed his fingers down the side of your throat. “—because how rude, how mean of me would it be to think so? But. I shan’t deny that I’ll enjoy watching the tears prick at the corners of your eyes as you struggle to take me inside.”

You grabbed his shirt, right where his tie should be, and as you jerked him towards you, you caught a glimmer of excitement (and you were reminded that any manhandling on your part was because he was letting you push him around). “If your cock isn’t in me within the next five minutes, I am going to shred you into confetti.”

“You’re doing this to yourself, you know,” said Izuku, grinning, holding his tongue between his teeth as he held his hands up in defence, “You can safeword out of it any time.”

This is part of it? Of fucking course it’d be part of it. “Fuck you, Izuku,” you said, also grinning, livid, “Lotus. Now, call our fucking car.”

Izuku was quite compliant after that, ever so polite to your friends as you ducked out and to the driver, even apologetic to you in the car as you shook him by the shoulders when he admitted he’d given his speech while you’d been talking with Shinsou. Courteous and kind even when you held his hand in a death grip on the ride home and pulled up a list of medieval torture methods for tomorrow.

“Okay, well,” you said, toeing off your shoes once you were inside the apartment, Izuku locking the door behind you, “I guess I’ll go wash up, or—”

“No, you’re fine,” said Izuku, and you found yourself being spun around by your thighs, Izuku kneeling on the hallway rug and staring up at you with big, ol’ wet eyes (that bitch). “You’re perfect.” He pressed his hand flat on your lower abdomen to back you against the wall, and he tapped the inside of your ankle to get you to shift your weight to your other foot; he tossed your leg over his shoulder and parted the slit in your dress. Izuku’s mouth found your clit and, through the lace, sucked hard.

“Jesus, fuck,” you said, hand flying to his hair, “You—you don’t even have to, fuck, Izuku—I’m wet; you don’t have to warm me up. I’m ready for you.”

Gathering saliva on his tongue, he licked up the length of your cunt, dampening the final scraps of the fabric not already soaked. He licked where your labia met your inner thigh, down the trail of arousal dripping down your leg. “Gracious,” he said once he’d surfaced, “Good Lord, you’re drenched.”

“Izuku,” you said with a whine, “Get up. Fucking—fucking stop. I—I’m going—I need to—”

“I know, baby,” said Izuku, so gentle as he stood and cradled your face in his hands, and he kissed you softly. “I know what you need. Seems like you’re close to being fucked-out brainless without even coming. You’re adorable. You can relax now, sweet girl. I’m going to take care of you.” He indulged you when you kissed him again, and he guided your jaw open a little wider so that he could slip his tongue inside. “Oh, that’s good. You’re so good for me,” said Izuku, flicking away the gauzy thread of saliva between you, “While don’t you get on the bed, hm?”

You nodded, almost drowsily, because relief swept over you to such a full extent that you’re a bit boneless, and you trudged into his bedroom and crawled onto the bed, flopping over to sink into his pillows.

Wait, was Dango in here? Your cat shouldn’t witness you having sex. She might claw at someone’s nipple. You dangled upside-down off of the side of the bed, peering underneath it for Dango, unable to discern if that far shadow were her.

When Izuku entered the room, suit jacket draped over his arm, you explained the situation. You paused the sexual encounter to locate the cat, who was inside Izuku’s closet in his sock drawer, and once you’d shut her out of the room and washed your hands, you reconvened on the mattress.

“Did that kill the mood?” you asked, hair splayed around you on the pillow as you arched your back to unzip your dress, “I think that may have killed the mood.”

“It didn’t; trust me.” Transfixed by your boobs, Izuku fumbled to unbutton his trousers, and when he stepped out of them, you halted in your shimmying off of your dress: shirt stays pinned his shirt down, their straps digging into the muscle of his upper thighs, and sock garters did the same around his calves. “It does it for me, actually, knowing that you’re so conscientious about this sort of thing.”

“Come closer,” you said, holding out your grabby hands, and he, bewildered, came to the edge of the bed, legs touching the blankets. You traced down a strap of his shirt stays, and you pulled one out to snap it back, the elastic cracking against his pale thigh. You covered your mouth with your hand, throat constricting slightly as heat curled in your lower stomach.

Izuku lifted his knee to press into the mattress, and you scooted backwards to accommodate his body as he climbed on. “Everything all right?”

“My mind is about to melt out of my ears,” you said, sitting back against the headboard. “Please, continue undressing.”

Cute how you could tell he was making mental notes in how he watched your reactions to him, how he unfastened his sock garters and stays and tossed his shirt across the room, leaving him in his briefs that honestly seemed a few sizes too small because Jesus fucking Christ, that’s a bulge.

But Izuku wouldn’t let you look at it, tapping your chin upwards, and pulling your dress down to your hips, and when he’d gotten it off, he left to hang it up. You buried your face in your hands, kicking your feet in the air, because what the fuck; what did you do to deserve someone so strangely endearing.

He kissed you upon his return, tilting your chin to follow him as he guided you to lie back. That hand then slid down your neck, applying a slight, massaging pressure, and his lips followed, reluctantly parting your tongue from his. Izuku nipped at the flesh where your neck met your shoulder, hand trailing down your arm, touching so lightly that the hair on the back of your arms stood up, and as he rolled his hips against yours, he pressed another kiss to your shoulder, another onto your upper arm, towards your elbow, each open-mouthed kiss wetter than the last. He mouthed at the inside of your forearm, holding your hand up towards the ceiling, and he licked a wide stripe up your palm before deep-throating your middle and ring fingers, groaning around them.

The thought occurred to you that this man is a fucking freak when you realised he’s kept his other hand behind his back this whole time, but he bit down around your ring finger, holding your hand still when you tried to jerk it away. Izuku pulled your fingers from his mouth, admiring the teeth marks at the base of your finger. “The rings finished getting resized today,” he said, showing you the velvet box he’d been concealing, and he popped it open, your white-gold wedding rings sitting inside. He kissed the pads of your wet fingers. “Let me put it on?”

“Fine, fine,” you said, wiggling your fingers in his grasp. Izuku beamed as he slid your ring onto your hand to sit directly over the bite mark, and honestly, some lightheadedness started to creep in. Before it got to you, you took Izuku’s ring to put it on his finger, though you didn’t bother lube it up first (?), as he had.

“Hey,” said Izuku, both hands cupping your cheeks, tapping his ring finger against you, “I love you, by the way. In case you didn’t know.” When his lips pressed against yours, scorching, your hands gripped his wrists to hold him closer, your hips rocking minutely of their own accord. He smiled into the kiss and hitched his knee under your thigh, drawing both upward so that he could grind more directly onto you, and dear God—

“Actually,” you said, gasping as you slid your hands up his arms to squeeze appreciatively at his biceps (he didn’t stop pressing kisses along your jawline), “I think I need to hear you say that again.”

“Of course,” said Izuku, breath fanning over your ear, “I love you. So much, my dear, dear wife. My soulma—”

“Oh, shit, are we married?” You pried him away from you for a second to see if he were joking.

Hair dishevelled with curls blown out, he shot you an incredulous look. “Don’t you check your email? Yes. Yes, we’ve—the notification came in late last night—”

“I don’t check my email; that’s where the emails are,” you said, grumbling and wrapping your arms around his neck. “Just wondering. You may proceed to fuck my brains out now.”

Izuku braced his weight on his forearms, each on either side of your head, dipping into the pillows. “You know, usually I’d say that this kind of behaviour is strange and off-putting, but since it’s you, I’m fucking hard as a rock. Congratulations. You do strange and off-putting things to me,” said Izuku, stretching down to kiss your cheek.

A compliment? An insult? Who knows! “Uh, I meant that you may proceed to fuck my brains out now, sir?”

Izuku slapped his hand over his eyes, biting his lip, and he inhaled sharply (his cock twitched against you). He had to take another deep breath before he could speak. “Okay,” he said, dragging his hand down his face, “Yeah, I’m in love with you, you maniac. We should have sex before we both just—explode from talking to each other. That sound okay? Cool. Thank you.” He shifted his weight to drag his finger under the strap of your bra, stopping just before he reached the cup. “Bra on or off? You look wonderful in it, of course; I didn’t think your boobs could get any prettier. But if the wire’s cutting into…”

Taking too long. You twisted to unhook the bra yourself, and you threw it somewhere. Since you knew he’d take his time about the underwear, you yanked them off, too, laughing through your nose at their weight from how wet they were. “They’re lovely, Izuku. Notice how I’m not letting you rip them, because I want to wear them again.”

“Appreciated,” said Izuku, staring down at your boobs, fingers grazing the delicate skin. “Do you think you could come just from my sucking your tits?”

“Stop stalling,” you said, fighting the urge to whack him with a pillow, “You can have me any way you want, as long as you want, for the rest of our lives. Get on with it.”

“Right,” said Izuku, snapping the waistband of his briefs to break his gaze away from your chest, and he leant down to kiss you again, licking over your bottom lip, tilting your head to the right, and waiting for you to open your mouth for him. When you did, the hand resting on your thigh dragged upwards to your labia, still dripping and swollen from the lace rubbing against it all night, thumbing between them to part you, thumb sliding up to your clit and two fingers slipping inside you, prompting a full-bodied shudder at the first graze to your g-spot.

Izuku breathed a fuck against your lips, and as he pulled away, you caught the fading scent of his cologne, sweet apple and cedar mixed with the beading sweat. “You have such a tiny cunt. I—hm,” he said, watching the way his fingers pumped in and out of you, and he pulled his other hand away from toying with your clit to tap his fingers, one by one, in your pubic hair. “Baby, I need you to answer me honestly. How many orgasms do you think you can handle tonight?”

Is this a test? “As…many as you’ll let me have?”

“No, I need a real number. I may legitimately be too big for you, and the more relaxed I can get you, the farther I can sink inside. To your benefit, you’re already very wet, but you’re still pretty tense in here,” he said, fingers curling against your g-spot, making you spasm a bit; he held you down at your hip.

Since you’ve been fucking edged all night, your greedy little mind didn’t supply a number, but you also knew that once you got that first orgasm, you’d probably chicken out quickly. “Probab—probably two.” You grasped his forearm, halting his fingers. “I want at least one of them around your cock.”

Izuku nodded, and he kissed the back of your hand before placing it on his chest (he flinched when your nail grazed his nipple). “Two. All right, then,” he said, pushing his fingers in you while grinding on your clit with the heel of his palm, but he’d hardly bent to wrap his lips around your nipple before you were gushing around his fingers, clamping your hand over your mouth to stifle any noise.

Izuku pulled away from your tit, brow furrowed as he extracted his fingers, strings of arousal connecting them. “Wha—that was—that was too easy.” Izuku crawled over you, searching for anything the matter in your expression. “I know I’m okay, but I’m not that good—”

“I don’t know either,” you said through a breathy sigh, eyelids heavy, “Guess I needed your permission. Guess I need you to fill me that badly.”

A line of white-green lightning sparked from his arousal-coated fingertips and scorched all the way up his arms, fizzling out in a hiss at his bicep. Adam’s apple bobbing, Izuku pushed himself off the bed. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” he said, stepping towards the bathroom, and he turned back, jabbing a finger in your direction. “Stay—stay horny, in the meantime.” He closed the bathroom door behind him.

A full minute passed.

He poked his head out of the bathroom. “Yes condom? No condom?”

You’re on another type of birth control, too, but let’s make him more flustered. “Why not forgo the condom? After all, it’s our wedding night.”

Eyes bulging, Izuku hurked and shut the door again.

When he came out, he had fresh determination in his eyes and water along his hairline. “Hey! Hello,” he said, returning to the bed, “Sorry about that. Thought I was gonna come in my underwear. Had to splash water on my face to calm down.”

“It’s fine. It’s cute. You know, usually I’d say that this kind of behaviour is strange and off-putting, but since it’s you, I’m drenched. Congratulations. You do—”

“Stop that,” said Izuku, kissing your forehead. His thumb hitched under the elastic of his briefs, and he sighed. “In all seriousness, we may have to restrict tonight to just the tip.”

“Yeah? And what if we restrict our breathing to once every five minutes?”

“You’re ridiculous,” muttered Izuku, and he yanked down his underwear, and you saw fucking red while he readied himself, grabbing lube from his nightstand and moving to kneel between your legs, because why hadn’t you really looked at his cock when he was naked and flirtatious at the waterfall? No way would it have not been burned into your brain, been the only thing you fantasised about for months, because who is this man, and who gave him permission to have that kind of cock, annoyingly, infuriatingly pretty (how loathsome), twin veins twisting around the thick shaft that were even vaguely green like his quirk, crooking upward, sporadically dotted with freckles (which, in conjunction with the freckles on his ass, brings into question how often this man must sunbathe naked), and fucking aching for you, pink head smeared with precum, but, most importantly, way too fucking big why is it coming up that high on your stomach when he rests it atop your mons pubis he is going to break you in half.

“Cool,” you said, normally, like a normal person, “I don’t need to see that.” You nodded towards how much of your lower abdomen his cock was lying across, and you grabbed his hips (thumbs pressing against his hipbones, that slut) to manhandle him away from you, and Izuku looked very pleased to let you.

“You’re gonna be fine.” Izuku guided his cock down your slit and nudged the head between your labia near your entrance. “Take a deep breath, okay?” he asked, leaning his forehead against yours and taking your hand in his. His cockhead spread you, stretching you in a sort of stinging pleasure, and he stifled a groan that vibrated through his chest.

Heat coiling inside you, you rolled your hips, but Izuku was quick to stop you, splaying a hand across your stomach. He cleared his throat. “Just wait. I’ll give it to you in a minute. You’ll be all right.”

But you couldn’t take it; you went about it more subtly this time, rocking your hips ever so slightly, working them back and forth (and if he actually wanted to stop you, he had the means), and even though it’s just his tip, your insides were boiling, clenching and fluttering around him; you’re really, truly, quite too small for him, but another gush of arousal allows another inch to slide in, and Izuku’s eyes snapped open.

“Doesn’t hurt,” you said, before he could ask, and you brought his lips to yours while you curled your fingers into the hair at the base of his neck, tilting your hips to encourage him to push just a little more, but as Izuku found a shallow rhythm, working more of his cock inside you bit by bit, you found your eyes watering—not hurting, no, but overwhelmed, realising that yes, this was Izuku; this was the rest of your life, and how lovely it will be to spend the rest of your life feeling so full. You were his, and he was yours. This is how it’s always been. From everyone’s soulmate, to simply Izuku’s soulmate. And from there, the beginning of a life unfolded.

He's thrusting hastily, shallowly, and he’s closed his eyes again, grinning with every thrust, because he can hear how sticky and wet it was as you opened up underneath him. He rolled his hips, groaning and hunching in on himself, and he squeezed one of your boobs, rolling your nipple under his thumb, bringing the buzz in your head to a clamour.

But both of you froze when his hips met your ass: he’s fully seated inside, pressing against a spot that’s making you dizzy.

“Fucking hell,” Izuku said under his breath, “You have all of me.” Running his tongue over his lower lip, he grinded into you, eliciting a choked gasp as you clutched as his back, and his hands were on you again, and everywhere he touched was singing.

Izuku’s rambling against your skin, but you’re so close that you can barely make out what he’s saying. “I’m so glad we found each other. I’m so glad it’s you. I’ve—I’ve loved you for so long, y’know? But I was shy back then, and so I studied and improved myself and became confident for you, to become to kind of man you could always feel safe around. The kind you could always come home to. When Uraraka found Toga, I dared to hope. Dreamed about it, about you, until the dreams shifted into waking up in the northern lands, frigid, waist-deep in snow, and dealing with dragons. And we found each other again. Got to be around you in my dreams when it felt like every waking force deliberately kept me from you. And then you hated being bound by fate, when I cried that first night with relief, and I bore the pain of rejection because it meant you were thinking of me in any way at all.” He pressed a wet kiss to your jaw. “I’m so glad we’re here. I’m so glad I love you. I’m so glad I’m supposed to love you. I want to spend the rest of my life learning about you, angel. So, please,” he said, rolling your clit between this thumb and index finger, “like I asked earlier tonight: mark me. Leave some sort of evidence on my that I’m yours. The rings, yes, always the rings, but I’ll always look at your ring and think about that bite mark, so please, mark me in some way, and I’ll wear it for the rest of my life like a fucking collar. Please—”

You’ve been holding off your orgasm to listen, but, unable to bear it, you let it wash through you, clenching your teeth, twitching and gushing around him with your heartbeat pulsing in your ears and, for some reason, the roof of your mouth. You wrapped your legs around him, drawing him in deeper in a motion that made him gasp.

“Oh, very funny,” Izuku sputtered, “You’re hilarious—” He managed to get in one more, jittery roll of his hips before he was coming, releasing the breathiest, most pathetic whines you’ve ever heard, and it only made you want him more.

But as both of you were coming down, the bedroom exploded in a cloud of shining, pink specks.

Neither you nor Izuku spoke, both trying to catch your breaths. Izuku grunted as he pushed himself upright, straining his muscles to support his weight, watching the glitter fall to the blankets and fade upon impact.

“The hell is this? The hell,” you winced, hissing as he pulled out of you, cum dribbling out (for a second, a filmy string of cum linked the two of you, but it broke when he sat back), “is it?” You tried to snatch a pink speck, as one snatches dust from the air, but you couldn’t grab hold. “Is this some One for All aspect I don’t know about?”

“No, I—” Izuku placed a hand on his chest, as if he could control how steadily it rose and fell in the process of regulating his breathing, “—it’s pink. Must be Ito’s quirk. Oh, gosh,” he said, frowning, moving to kneel (and inadvertently displaying his softening cock, glossy with cum), “I hope it all fades; I wouldn’t want Dango to get sick if she eats any. Pivoting—eating reminded me—dream Todoroki, mage Todoroki, said he thinks he can finally get the frappe consistency when we try tonight. He’s been practising with coconut milk and has achieve something close to a slush.”

Teeming with affection, you reached for Izuku, pushing a curl behind his ear. “It really is one thrill after another with you, isn’t it?”

Izuku snorted, covering his mouth in surprise that he could even make that noise, and he smiled with his eyes back at you, eyelashes dark against his cheeks. “We should clean up,” he said, dropping his hand, “Shower together?” He patted your thigh as he slid off the bed.

“Oof, ouch, my bones. My bone marrow,” you said flatly, holding the back of your hand to your forehead (eyes on his broad shoulders as he stretched, on the dip between his shoulder blades, the indent of his spine above the swell of his pretty, freckled ass—no, stop), “I can’t move.”

“I’ll get a washcloth,” said Izuku, and he started towards the bathroom. As he turned, you caught the beginning of a small, boyish smile meant just for himself—looking very much like sunlight.

Apt. You planned on basking in his warmth forever.

(Just being next to Izuku lit up your world in a colour you’ve never known. His love brought changes, changed you, in such tiny, indiscernible ways that you couldn’t notice until the light shined back on them.)

You were trying to make some sort of photosynthesis joke about it, but the pieces weren’t coming together. You shook yourself out of your thoughts to register Izuku, standing in the bathroom door, staring back at you, head tilted, eyes somewhat glazed over.

You cleared your throat, sitting up in bed. “Izuku? Is something wrong?”

Startled, Izuku snapped out of it. “Oh! No, I’m fine. Sorry about that,” he said, scratching the back of his neck, “I was just so taken with you. You’re lovely. So lovely.”

He shot you a small wave, and as he disappeared into the bathroom, it occurred to you that he may just look at you in the same way you look at him.

You heard his burst of laughter echo against the tile. “In regard to your aching bone marrow,” called Izuku, smile so evident in his voice, “does that mean you’re not up for a second round?”

Rolling your eyes, you collapsed back in the bed, snuggling into Izuku’s pillow, excited for when he comes back outside so that you can spend more time together. “Yeah,” you said, heart so full it may burst, “In your dreams, jackass.”

soulmate trope taglist: @bakugouspsycho, @pansexualproblemchild, @doonaandpjs, @sunsetevergreen, @the-coffee-is-on-fire, @liberace2, @ladymidnight77, @nonomesupposedto, @gooooomz, @kissmebakugou, @pachiibatt, @celestair, @tiredkittykat, @cheshireshiya, @90s-belladonna, @infjsnightmare @eunchaeluvr

[thesapphictimelady]

Ad Astra Per Aspera

Word Count: 2.6K

TW: Implied previous domestic abuse, references to alcohol

A/N: Been working on this for like 2 months lol. Not proofread at all, but I had fun with it. Comments are appreciated :) Hope you enjoy!

“Hi, I’m looking for principal Coleman?”

The red head leaning against the desk turned, “Yeah, she’s not here today.”

“That can’t be right. I’m supposed to be meeting with her today. It is Thursday, right? I know my head isn’t always screwed on right but I was sure it’s Thursday.”

“Yeah, it is. Wait, are you the one with the dumb name?”

“E-excuse me?”

The red head tossed her hair, “Ava told me there was someone coming in with a stupid name and I should welcome her and “show her the ropes” and that she’d be helping in my classroom.”

“My name’s Cassiopeia,” she said, shuffling her things around to shake the older woman’s hand.

The older woman scoffed, ignoring her hand, “The hell kind of name is that? Nah, I’m calling you Cassie. And that’s how you should introduce yourself. The kids’ll end up calling you Pee or something. Come on, I’ll take you to the break room.”

“I don’t think I caught your name,” Cassie said, trying to keep up with her long strides.

“Yeah, that’s cause I didn’t give it to ya,” she swung open the door to the break room, “I found fresh meat looking for Ava,”

“Melissa Ann Schemmenti, you know we don’t speak about our colleagues like that!”

Melissa shrugged and took a seat next to the other teacher, “Sorry Barb, just callin’ it like I see it,”

Barb swatted Melissa’s arm and turned to face Cassiopeia, “It’s nice to meet you dear, I’m Barbara Howard, I teach Kindergarten”

“My name’s Cassiopeia. It’s nice to meet you.”

Melissa groaned and pointed at the young woman, “Didn’t I say to introduce yourself as Cassie? I wasn’t kiddin’.”

“Jacob Hill!” another teacher blurted from by the fridge, “I’m Jacob Hill. I teach history. I like your name. Cassiopeia, She was the queen of Ethiopia according to Greek Mythology. Her daughter Andromeda was saved from a sea monster by the hero Perseus. Did you know-”

“Jacob that’s enough,” Barbara said, gesturing towards a chair for Cassiopeia, “I’m sure she knows the history of her own name.”

Cassie sat and smiled gratefully at Barbara before she reached into her bag to retrieve her notebook and a pair of earbuds, deciding it was best to just sit quietly until the kids arrived.

“Pineapple absolutely goes on pizza,” Jacob said, picking up the conversation they had been having before her arrival.

“Not this again,” Melissa groaned, “It does not go on pizza!”

“It does! It’s been put on pizza since 1962! Contrary to the term that’s frequently used, it actually isn’t from Hawaii though. It was created in Ontario, Canada. The man who made it was actually Greek and-“

“Hey, new kid,” Melissa interrupted, “What kind of pizza do you like”

“I actually haven’t had pizza in a long time,” Cassie said, pulling her earbuds out.

“Oh don’t tell me you don’t like pizza!”

“No, I do! My…my ex used to make homemade pizza for date night. She was not a good person. Which is why I’m here. Miles away from anyone I know.” Cassie shifted and tugged at her sleeves, making sure the yellowing bruises from the night she had left were still covered.

The room stayed quiet for a few minutes before Barbara finally said, “Well now you know us!”

“Yeah,” Melissa said, her emerald eyes trained on Cassie, “You know us. And based on what Ava told me, you’re in my room for now,” she glanced down at her watch, “So grab a cup of coffee and let’s head over there now so ya know where stuff is. We’ll see youse at lunch.”

Melissa patted Barbs hand as she stood and grabbed her coffee mug, holding the door open for Cassie.

“Good luck, Cassiopeia!” Jacob called

Cassie waved at the other teachers, hastily gathering her things and following the redhead out the door.

“So you don’t got anybody out here?” Melissa asked as she flipped the classroom light on.

“No ma’am. I don’t know anyone here.”

“Why Philly? I mean, other than the obvious.”

Cassiopeia laughed softly, setting her things down on a desk, “I saw a job posting for Abbott and just…packed up my life and came here. I needed a change.”

Melissa nodded slowly, setting her mug down and looking the new teacher up and down, “Well listen kid, we got recess duty this week. I don’t know where you’re from but it gets hot. You might wanna reevaluate that grandma sweater.”

Cassie flushed and tugged the sleeves down over her hands, “Thanks but I’ll be fine.”

Melissa hummed thoughtfully before shrugging, “Suit yourself. You can put your stuff back here. How do you feel about science?”

The morning went smoothly and before she knew it, she and Melissa were standing outside watching the kids recess. The older woman had abandoned her leather jacket in her classroom and tied her hair up in a ponytail.

“Aren’t you hot?” Melissa asked, fanning herself with one hand.

“I’m fine,” Cassiopeia lied, pulling her hair off her neck in an effort to cool down.

“At least let me cuff your sleeves!” Melissa said, reaching for Cassie.

“No! No, I’m fine.”

“Kid, it’s a million degrees and you’re wearing a Mr. Rogers sweater!”

“I’m fine,” Cassie insisted.

Melissa sighed, before turning back to the kids “5 more minutes my little eagles! Ms. Schemmenti is too hot so we’re going to go inside.”

“Yes Ms. Schemmenti!” the kids called back to her.

“They really like you,” Cassie said.

“Yeah, well, the older ones had me when they were in second grade so they know the drill. We’ll take them to the gym and then head to the break room for lunch. By the way, you can eat the school lunch, but I do NOT recommend doing that.”

Cassiopeia laughed, “Thanks for the heads up, but I don’t usually eat lunch”

“Whadya mean you don’t eat lunch. You gotta eat”

“I eat breakfast and dinner! I’m just never hungry at lunch”

Melissa shook her head, “You can have something from my lunch”

Cassie opened her mouth to argue but the redhead was quick to cut her off, “It’s not up for debate kid. Alright my little eagles it’s time to line up!”

All the kids came running over to the door, lining up single file to follow Melissa inside and to the gym. Cassie stayed at the back of the line, closing the door behind them. Once the kids were inside the gym with the other recess duty teachers, Melissa dragged Cassie to the break room.

“Cassiopeia! You’re still here!” Jacob cheered.

“Where else would I be?” Cassie laughed.

“Melissa has a habit of running people off,” Mrs. Howard said, smiling fondly at the redhead who had sat down next to her.

“I do not!” Melissa said, pulling food out of her lunchbox, “Only the incompetent ones. New kid is smart.”

Cassie flushed and went to go perch on one of the windowsills but Melissa stopped her.

“Where do you think you’re goin? I told you it’s not up for debate.”

“Ms. Schemmenti, really, I’m fine!”

“Sit.” Melissa said sternly, grabbing a paper plate from the cabinet and putting some ziti on it.

“I wouldn’t try to argue dear,” Mrs. Howard warned when Cassie opened her mouth, “It’s better to just do what she tells you.”

Cassiopeia sighed and sat in the seat the older woman had indicated, taking the plate of ziti, “Thank you, Ms. Schemmenti.”

“Don’ worry about it kid.”

“So, Cassiopeia,” Barbara said, “How was your morning? Was Melissa nice to you?”

“Ms. Schemmenti was very kind to me. And the kids are wonderful! I don’t know how she manages to have such a well behaved class when she’s juggling two different grades!”

“The kids know better than to mess with me,” the redhead said, glancing up from her phone.

Cassie smiled and took a bite of the ziti, “Holy shit this is amazing!”

“It’s my nana’s recipe,” Melissa said, “She used to…” She trailed off, brow furrowed, “Did youse hear that?”

The room went silent as all the teachers listened to a timid knock at the door. Melissa jumped up to open the door. One of the older girls was standing on the other side, sniffling.

“What’s wrong hon?” Melissa asked her, bending down slightly so she could whisper in the redheads ear, “Gotcha. Let’s go to my classroom, okay? Hey, new kid, I might need you and your huge bag. Follow us.”

Cassiopeia grabbed her purse and was quick to catch up with them.

“What’s going on?” she asked once inside the classroom.

The younger girl looked nervously at Melissa.

“It’s okay hon, Miss Cassie is gonna be more help than me. She started her period. Nurse isn’t here and I don’t need the products anymore. Got anything in that bag of yours?”

“Oh! Oh of course, give me a second,” Cassie dug through her purse, producing pads and a small heating pack, “Do you need anything else? Tylenol?”

“I need new pants,” the student whispered.

“I’m afraid that’s the one thing I don’t carry with me,” Cassie said apologetically, “Is there somewhere we can get those?”

Melissa sighed, “Yeah, Ava’s office. But she has that place booby trapped since the last time I- actually I think that’s not important right now.” Melissa said, throwing a look towards the cameraman right outside the door who quickly ducked out of sight.

“That’s okay,” Cassie said, “What’s your name sweetheart?”

“Kya,”

“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do Kya. We’re gonna tie my sweater around your waist to hide the stain and then Ms. Schemmenti is gonna give your mom a call to bring you some new pants, okay?”

“Okay,” Kya whispered.

“We can use Barb’s bathroom,” Melissa said, “She won’t mind.”

Cassie nodded and unbuttoned her sweater, folding it and gently tying it around Kya’s waist, “There. Now go with Ms. Schemmenti and she’ll get you taken care of.”

Kya took the pads out of her hand and followed Melissa out of the room. Cassie busied herself putting things back into her bag, completely missing the look the other teacher had given her. A breeze came through the open window and she shivered, rubbing at her arms before she froze.

“Fuck,” she whispered, “Please tell me I have a back up sweater somewhere in my bag!”

Cassie turned her bag over on the desk, searching the contents for something, anything she could use to keep the bruises on her arms covered.

“So, new kid,”

Cassie jumped, whirling around to see Melissa leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed.

“Hi, Ms. Schemmenti! I-I didn’t hear you coming!” Cassie quickly tucked her arms behind her.

“Uh huh.” Melissa said, walking into the classroom, “Thanks for your help with Kya. You sure were protective of that sweater all morning but you didn’t hesitate to give it to her.”

“I remember middle school. She didn’t need anyone teasing her for the stain”

Melissa nodded thoughtfully, “Whatcha got behind your back?”

“Nothing!”

“So if I walked behind you, there wouldn’t be anything to see?”

“No, there’s nothing back there!”

“And there’s nothing, say, on your wrists?”

“No ma’am.”

“Well then I’m sure you have no issue going back to the break room with me.”

“Actually I think I’ll stay here and…start grading the science tests!”

The redhead frowned and shook her head, “What’re you hiding kid. Just show me. You’ve been hiding something all day.”

Cassiopeia swallowed the lump in her throat and brought her arms back to the front, looking anywhere but Melissa’s face.

“Kid,” the older teacher whispered.

“I don’t want your pity. That’s why I kept them covered. I’m completely fine.”

“Hon…”

Cassie looked up in surprise at the gentleness of the teachers words. Melissa’s emerald eyes were soft and she gently took Cassie’s arm in her hand.

“Hon, this isn’t nothing,”

“I don’t want anyone’s pity, Ms. Schemmenti. I’m going to go home. I don’t have a back up sweater and it’s bad enough that you’ve seen them.”

“What-?”

“What happened?” Cassie cut her off, not wanting to hear her ask, “My ex. I told you this morning she wasn’t a good person. She wasn’t too pleased with the news that I wanted to break up. Now please, let go,”

Melissa let go of Cassie’s arms, backing up so the teacher had space to grab her things, too stunned to stop her as she quickly left the classroom.

When Cassiopeia got home, she threw everything onto the couch before going to the small kitchen to retrieve a bottle of wine and a plastic cup. This was supposed to be a new beginning and already she had someone pitying her.

“I knew I should’ve pushed off my start date,” she muttered to the small apartment as she filled her cup and collapsed on the couch. It didn’t take long after draining the bottle that she fell into a fitful sleep, using her bag as a pillow

It was her phone ringing that woke her. She glanced at the screen and was immediately filled with dread when she saw the “Unknown number” on the caller ID. Hesitantly she accepted the call, sitting in silence while she waited for the caller to speak.

“Hello? New kid? You there?”

“Ms. Schemmenti? How did you get my phone number?”

“I know a guy. Listen, what do you like on your pizza?”

“What? Ms. Schemmenti it’s…it’s 3 in the morning! Why are you calling?”

The line was quiet for a moment before the redhead sighed, “Listen, I’m real sorry for pushin’ you today. I shouldn’t have made you tell me what the bruises were from. Let me make you a pizza to make up for it.”

Cassiopeia laughed softly, “This is a dream. A weird, alcohol induced dream.”

“No it’s not. Kid you can either tell me or I’ll show up with something random.”

“Show up? Are you driving right now?”

“Yeah, I had a late night. Are you decent? I’m almost at your place.”

“How do you know where I live??”

“Again, I know a guy. Are ya decent?”

“Yeah, I-I’m decent. Should I unlock the door or do you know a guy for that too?”

“Ha ha very funny kid.”

The call dropped, leaving Cassie alone in the dark again. She jumped up and started throwing things into the small closet, trying to make the tiny space look halfway decent, before giving up and instead throwing on an oversized sweater and unlocking the door.

Melissa had her arms completely full of grocery bags when she got to the door.

“Ms. Schemmenti what-”

Melissa pushed past her into the apartment, “I told ya, I had a long night. Where can I put this?”

Cassiopeia led her to the tiny kitchen, still not quite sure if she was awake or not. Melissa dropped her bags on the narrow counter and started pulling things out.

“Okay, what is going on? You don’t need to do all this, you apologized on the phone.”

“Trust me kid, that wasn’t enough. And your secret is safe with me. I told the others you were sick and I sent you home.”

“School starts in 4 hours.”

“Actually, the kids are off tomorrow so no one will care that you’re hungover and I haven’t slept. Trust me, Ava will be hungover as hell.”

Cassie sat down on one of the wobbly stools, “So you’re making me a pizza…as an apology?”

Melissa finally glanced over her shoulder at the younger woman, “Yeah, you got a problem with that?”

“No…I don’t think so.” Cassie put her head in her hands, “I think I’m too hungover for this,”

Melissa laughed and tossed her a bottle of aspirin, “Picked this up at the store. You probably need it more than I do”

Cassie took it gratefully, “Thank you, Ms. Schemmenti.”

“You’re welcome kid. Go lay down. I’ll take care of this and I’ll wake you when it’s time to head to school.”

[sideysvault]

𓍼ོ Ad Astra Per Aspera 𓍼ོ (PT. 7)

Ice and snow

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x fem!reader (Bonus Chapter, dated in the near vicinity of the series events)

WC: 4,310k

Tags: [sfw] Arranged marriage, slow burn, angst, mentions of dead, mature themes, panic attack, enemies to lovers, extreme hurt, comfort.

full series masterlist.

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No matter the circumstance, the wins, or the land conquered, they never seemed to be able to leave. Perpetually stuck inside the corner in which the blacks had forced them to hide in. The Princess spent her days studying, reading, desperately grasping for any piece of information that might help lose the collar on their necks. She tried hard to ignore the desperation that was boiling inside of her; Animals always make mistakes when they are scared. But it had become harder and harder to ignore, and it became harder and harder to stay on the sidelines, pretending it did not matter to her.

Prince Jacaerys Velaryon had come out of his peaceful hiding place and began to fly to every corner in the entirety of the west, trying to convince disfavored houses to join his suicide cause. Most of the men in power still had some resemblance of honor and an almost instinctive respect for the traditions of the old Valyria. In her opinion, that was one of the biggest threats to the legitimacy of King Aegon's rule. After all, haven’t they all bent the knee to a young Rhaynera Targaryen? Wasn’t her father, still mighty and publically present, right there to conduct the affair? And wasn’t Aegon proclaimed king in the privacy of the chamber of a dying man? A weak man? One poisoned and made compliant by milk of the poppy? Aegon´s behavior and the people's hunger were not exactly helping their cause, either. Something had to change drastically, as even she felt the desire to see someone else sit on The Iron Throne.

But what was one to do? Her husband was bent upon the Green’s right to rule, partially because of the wound that was inflicted upon him at youth, and partly because he was still convinced that Aegon could be conducted in the right direction. And the skilled sailor who was to tame the uncontrollable waves that Aegon had for judgement? Prince Aemond’s brilliant mind, of course.

A childish fantasy, yes. But she had become quite fond of her husband, and she deeply desired to help Heleana’s family.

What occupied the Princess’s mind was a rather simple task; To predict where the bastard Prince was going next.

She had begged her husband to give her details of whatever relevant information he heard on the Council, arguing that she was getting particularly bored and unstimulated with domestic life. When he had unexpectedly agreed, she, for a moment, had dreamed of a future in which she could serve the Kingdom as an adviser of sorts, perhaps even one with the common folk's well-being in mind. Such were the thoughts that powered her body through the nights of research. The Princess had spent every waking hour trying to trace the path the enemy was to take. She wanted to be absolutely certain before telling Aemond about her discovery.

What she did not know was that Prince Aemond knew of his wife's critically inclined mind, and he had always felt a strong desire for them to become partners, sharing information with one another, and assisting each other intellectually. But, knowing The Princess's need for control and secrecy, he figured she would much prefer it if he waited for her to confess to him her intentions.

That is why she did not expect that her husband would insist that she came along with him. Surprised, she realized that he wanted her company on this trip.

“Oh! Don’t be ridiculous, Aemond. I do not enjoy snow, it is at odds with my nature. You don’t need me to chaperone you”.

Her husband waved her hand dismissively, apparently unconcerned with her weather preferences.

“You crafted the prediction, it is only fair you get to travel alongside me on this diplomatic effort”. He stopped for a second, before cheekily adding “Besides, I thought you had grown bored by the domesticity of the castle”.

Aemond was right, and despite her discomfort with the scenery, being so close to the efforts of peace -or at the very least, resolution-Was what her heart desired. But the Princess knew that her ego would not be able to take the blow if she was to accompany him as a mere visual attraction.

“I do not wish to serve wine and smile to the northerners”

Prince Aemond laughed at her as if she had said something amusingly stupid. Dumbfounded, she slowly blinked at him, confused.

“Dear wife, I would not be taking you as a prop. I value your tact, I thought I had made that clear to you”

Even if she despised flattery, she still had a growing sensation that he was being truthful. So there it was. It had been decided.

——

The man in front of her looked like the northerner he was. It went beyond the provincial way in which he carried himself. While Ser Cregan Stark's youth of his time in this realm still adorned his round face, his recently developed manhood was made evident by the undoubtedly brash air to his presence. Even if he was similar in age to her, he portrayed a certain confidence in his gaze that she immediately felt both drawn to, and jealous of. The Princess had heard stories, of course. Boys in the North aged like metal: Tempered and shaped by the bludgeoning hammer of the winter; Forced to be strong, animalistic.

A smile formed on her lips. In a sense, they were much like the wolves they so dearly kept by their side. Loyal like lap dogs, partially astute, superstitious and dangerous when provoked.

How was it? That old saying? There is no King but the one in the North?

“Does it amuse you?” He was getting irritated at her, but more than feeling personally offended by the Princess’s incredulity, the man felt an exasperating disillusionment: she wasn’t as easily swayed as he had thought. She had a hard head on her shoulders, just like her unyielding husband.

“I am deeply sorry, My Lord” the breath of her laughter still echoed in her voice as she continued, “You meant for me to tell my husband, who is pragmatic to the extreme, a tail of monsters and snow?”

As she smiled at him, amused, her mind brought her to think of the Prince himself, who had a beautifully angular face, but his characteristics gave away his birthright. Targaryen features; Delicate, elegant, sincerely blue and with the character of an elusive dragon flying gracefully through the skies. There was power in their lineage, yes. But it had been given. A gift from the gods, or, more feasible than the later, a stroke of luck. However, since the Jaehaerys tragedy, she was now inclined to believe that the technicality escaped her area of expertise.

The Northern Prince, however, had common features. Handsome, strong, rough, and all different from the one before him in the familial tree. A look much more suited for a republican, a man that was given power by his own merit and capability. It was a trustworthy look, and even if she knew better than to judge people on their presentation alone, it was easy to see why the North people followed the Stark line, and why everyone always flinched around the Targaryen's homogeneity.

She felt kin to Cregan Stark, and she was certain of the North’s key role in putting an end to the war, so she felt inclined to go through the trouble of trying to put sensible thoughts on her stubborn husband’s head. Besides, it had been her idea to come this far, she owed it to the both of them.

“It is imperative for you to try to speak some sense to your husband. We are people of honor, and we bent the knee to Rhaenyra Targaryen. But it is certainly true that protecting our people is our primary duty and responsibility. Above all else. Do you honestly believe that my ancestors spent blood, sweat, and centuries building The Wall because of a troublesome tale?”

The Princess sighed and decided that the best path forward was to be honest with him.

“Since I came into the region I have experienced things that have changed the way I see reality. But this-, well, with all the respect your House deserves, Lord Cregan-” The look on his face made her choose her words with caution “A lot has changed since the era where we were afraid of fire and thirsty for blood. However, I-”

“I have heard stories of your people being pedantically elitist. But I’ve never thought it would be in a more insidious manner than the Targaryen's”.

She winced in embarrassment, reprimanding herself with murmured words. Her harsh manners were getting the best of her. She could not even refute the comment that she knew to be true. “I was trying to say that I agree with you, Ser Cregan”.

A look of surprise washed over her as the unthinkable happened; He laughed. Loudly and unapologetically. The sound of his strong palm hitting on the wooden table and his laughter continued had startled you. But the absurdity of his unceremoniously joviality made you laugh as well. She was grateful for the opportunity to get out of the oppressive tightness of the walls on the Red Keep.

A sudden change in the Wind caught The Princess's attention. She had been wrong about the North, despite the numbing sensation on the tip of her fingers, the snow had captured her heart and made it malleable, filled with hospitality and reverence for the beauty of the Natural World. It was very different from where she had come from, that was perhaps the culprit of her distraction. The sound of the wind against the window and the contrast of the castle against the pristine confines of the land had taken her far away from the room she was in. Far away from the horrors of war.

Realizing she might be being rude yet again, she tried to explain herself to Lord Stark.

“I bet there is nothing that burns like the cold of Winterfell, but, God. It is a marvel to experience”.

“You don't go out often. Do you, My Lady?”.

A burst of laughter emerged out of her, and her teeth and gums were happily exposed for a second, before she covered her face with her hands, embarrassed one again. But suddenly unconcerned with her manners, at ease.

“Is it terribly obvious?”

Ser Cregan looked at her for a moment, before smiling.

“Yes, very much so”.

They smiled at each other. The Princess thought of what her life might have been had she been forced to spend it with a person who could be a friend to her. For a moment, just for a moment, their eyes lingered on each other. It was cut short by a sudden remembrance of the state of affairs. They were both in that room for a reason. It was like a curtain was abruptly raised on a stage, and they were back to the insipid negotiations, however honest they may have been.

“I made a great error once, and it cost someone’s future. I do not wish for my pride to blind me ever again. I will speak with my husband, Ser. But I doubt it will make any difference”.

Cregan Stark knew at that moment that she was making a vow to him, that she sincerely wished for the war to stop, to move forward.

“I did not take Prince Aemond to be a man willing to ask for loyalty, much less to be as diplomatic as he has poorly tried to be. I can clearly infer that it was by your design, Princess.”

She did not answer to him, unsure of how safe it would be for it to be known that she sometimes had a voice in her marriage.

“He listens to you”. He uttered those words as if they were gospel, something obvious to the most ignorant of onlookers. Lord Cregan took a breath as he looked into her eyes, one again “I do appreciate your efforts, even if they turn out to be futile.”

——

The Princess did not take into account that her husband was in the room next to her, and that he might have heard their laughter. The shred of hope she had felt while talking to Ser Cregan was violently taken away by The Prince.

He was being unreasonably stubborn, and she had felt disappointed, for she was not property, and did not believe her husband to think of her that way.

“Please, Aemond”.

“I did not take you for a fool, wife. Did he charm his way into your heart with his stories of honor from the Old World?”.

She felt an exasperating fix of rage. The Princess had spent endless nights without sleep, reading interminable, useless files, papers, books, maps, trying to work hard to alleviate the weight of her husband's sins and pressures, and it was all ruined by a misplaced fit of jealousy? Did Aemond not realize all the work she had put into this prognosis? How much she had hoped it would be able to help him? In some way, any way, really? Was he lying about valuing her insight, did he consider her as just a prop and a hand to hold when he was sorrowful?.

The intoxication of patriotic feelings and lineage royalties had always been something alien to her. But she did profoundly believe in one's duty to struggle against the forces that threaten to hurt your family. The Greens had given her a home, and Aemond had been an agreeable husband, and Gods, they killed sweet Heleana´s babe. Furthermore, if she could do something to alleviate the people's hunger, and to shorten the sorrow of war, was it not her duty?. Faith had given her a husband who she thought saw her as an equal. And, despite her best efforts, sometimes, late at night, her husband's teary eyes whispered tales of affection to her, and his hands, always blessed with decisiveness, kept her mind strong and far away from the dreaded terrors of the past.

Prince Aemond, on the other hand, realized the moment he heard his wife's laughter, that he had never made her happy like so; That in their marriage, the strange moments of tenderness and mutual support had only come from sadness or despair. Never, never from a place of innocent happiness or joviality. For even his cardinal sin had been a way to protect her. The whispers of court were not foreign to him, and he had heard the pitiful remarks made to the Princess when the news of their betrothal were made public. How could he call himself better than his brother, if he were to force upon his newly-wed wife the same pain that was inflicted upon him in infancy? How could he truly know if her advances were sincere, or if it was due to a resigned fearfulness? And even if they were, how could he, inept as he was on those matters, fulfill the expectations of a Targaryen Prince?. He had not lied to his wife. In these troubling times, especially with his Uncle, it was dangerous to so recklessly conceive a child. He had, after all, been mutilated in infancy, in the very walls of his home, and war had not been unleashed just yet. What type of father could he be, if he were to expose his child to a similar, or worse, fate than him?.

He did not expect for their laughter to hurt as much as it did. Aemond knew that it was most likely due to his own inadequacies. What other reason could there be, for his wife to laugh and be happily sweet with every person she encounters? Everyone but him?. Was the mistake made on that night she wanted to consummate the marriage, utterly unforgivable? Had he not made it clear that he values her beyond the marital arrangement? Or was it something inside of him, something rotten, poisoned, that repelled her? Is that what made his wife treat him with the usual defensiveness? Was she scared of him, as everyone else seemed to be?. Or had he embarrassed her beyond any reparations, when his brother had told the entirety of the Red Keep about his submissiveness to Sylvie? Perhaps, there would have been a time when none of it would matter much to him. But he found her fascinating, and on occasion, sincerely kind. He had grown painfully fond of her.

His thoughts were promptly interrupted by his wife's pleading “There may be some truth to what he is saying”

Aemond sighed, and grabbed the bridge of his nose. This conceit mannerism further exasperated The Princess. It reminded her of her parents, dismissing her yet again.

“I can’t promise him my-, our family's army. And if he is so concerned with honor, what guarantees us that he won’t later support the usurper?”.

“He is desperate enough to forsake the honor of his clan. I believe that he is profoundly concerned with the white walkers. It is inconsequential, whether we believe it or not. What matters is that he believes them to be a pressing threat to the kingdom”.

Aemond was convinced by the North's importance in the War, and he could not help but smile at his wife's vehement trust in his political influence. A mere misconception, he feared.

“I would never be able to convince Aegon, or the council. The Northern's are prideful superstitious people; malleable, a liability”.

“A liability is losing territory and alliances every day” She took a deep breath as she paced around the room, “Aemond, I’m not a believer, but how can you explain Heleana’s gift?”

“That’s different. Peculiarities of pure Targaryen blood. Unlike the bastard sons of Rhaenyra”.

She laughs in exasperation. There it was, again. She truly believed that her husband could be a good leader, if he was somehow able to release the bonds that made him a servant to the power of his own vanity and lineage. Yes, the Targaryen's were said to be of pure Valyrian blood, dragon lords of ancient lineage. Will he ever be able to let go of such a tyrannical tale? From her point of view, it was one of the few things that kept him far away from greatness. The only one he could control and change, at least.

“Is something funny, My Dear?”

She felt like crying out of pure spite. The Princess was the one who convinced him of coming to The North, and it had been all for nothing. He had failed her, and she had failed him as well. She tried strenuously hard to not take her husband's negation personally, but she failed to do so. The mind of the Princess was simple that way, goal-oriented. And tragically prideful, as she usually was.

“Dear Gods! You cannot be this blinded by hate. Your own resentments are clouding your judgement, husband. This is the best decision available to us” She tried to take a hold of her emotions, as this was not at all how she planned to present her case, "Given the northerner's attitude towards the Wall, the only natural step is that we consider exploiting their needs in the interest of our Kingdom”.

Aemond did not know why he could not say it. He agreed with his wife, this was the best possible route. Even if the plan had its flaws, in their precarious condition, it was as good as they could strive for. But he, in his insensate state, could not bring himself to admit in front of her, -In front of himself, really - that he truly held no power. All of it. His futile plans, it was a delusion of his. And he was deeply embarrassed by it. As much as he had tried to turn the odds in his favor, it never seemed to work. The Prince could not stand to even imagine the look she would have when his wife realized that he was as powerless as she was. So, he said something else.

“It is a bargain. What do you always say? A cry of desperation? Furthermore, I doubt that the usurpers are able to make such abiding promises, even in a stage of crisis”.

Even as those words left his mouth, he could feel that for the first time since the attempted consummation, he had truly hurt her. It went beyond not getting her way, and it went far beyond the matters of war. It was something more personal, far more domestic. He knew that this discussion, as many in their marriage, were a mere result of that something, -What it was, he could not say - that did not quite fit.

Crying was not at all alien to her, as a matter of fact, for someone who took such satisfaction in their strength, she cried rather easily. Of course, she didn't when Aemond was there, or anybody else, but still, this night, The Princess did not have the energy to hide it. It all came together, convulsing and hitting her like a swell. She suddenly felt like no air was left in the chamber, and, warning to grasp for anything solid, she fell to the cold floor. Such hysterical episodes happened to her, on rare occasions, how much less than when she was an infant. The woman felt an indescribable shame infect her throat, further obstructing the air to enter her lungs.

“Aemond, besides Helena, I have no one. Besides you, I have no one on the Red Keep. Those Walls are my whole life now. Do not reprimand me for having cordial interactions with others. Especially when you won't ever talk to me”. She crawled -how pitiful-, to the nearest wall, in an attempt to further anchor herself to the material surroundings, before she continued, “I worked every fucking night to help you on this, and, and this is how you react?”

She knew that it was hard to talk to her husband about her case, because he is oh so wise, and he loves himself so. But there she went and promised it anyway to Ser cregan Stark. And she did not make out a very good case for herself, for she was crying before she had finished.

Aemond was not as unfeeling as she had thought, because as soon as she saw her drop to the ground, and crawl to the wall, it did not take him very long to hit the ground, and move on hands and knees to sit beside her. She laughed through the tears. Oh, the great Royal Couple, dragging themselves on the floor like babes. Unsure of how much she would like being touched, Aemond opted for grabbing only her index finger, and slowly, trying to synchronize it to his breath pattern as much as he could, he began to draw circles on it.

“I am sorry, but it seems like you are in a constant war with me. Saving grace and being charitable to everyone else. Do I scare you? Did the incident in Silver Street disgust you to that extent?”

The Princess got inexplicably angry when he felt ashamed about that, and perhaps being rather insensible, she spat out “Do not be stupid, Aemond. Or think that ill of myself. Of course not”.

He laughed. And said her name in a quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible. And then he said her name again, softly, sweetly. Soon enough, you were resting your head on his extended legs, hugging them tightly, as he stroked your hair. Breathing became an unconscious action after some time, and your eyes and heart began to feel tired after the crying.

“I wished to do nothing more than to help”.

“I know, Darling. And it was a brilliant move.” He took a breath before continuing his confession, having finally decided to be honest to her, despite how much he loved her respect “But the truth is, despite your high opinion of me, is that I have no real power on the council. It is a smart move, but it is not doable, Love. I cannot do it. I do not have the political capability, or my brother the sense to listen”.

As soon as he said it, he felt like a whole month of fog and rain finally had cleared. The Prince did not know why it had been so hard. And the fact of the matter was that she already knew that. And yet they had both traveled to the North, as an act of Faith for one another, and as an attempt to escape the horrors of their incapacities. They were full of magnificent illusions. What the Princess might not have been aware of, is that the situation had made evident to her husband that change was necessary. Not only for him, but for his wife as well.

“Sometimes I forget that we are at the mercy of others”. He laughed, after all, he often forgot too.

“The Blacks are most likely to support his fantastical crusade. But at least we can now know for certain that we will lose the North. That must give us some time for preparation”.

“Thank you for coming with me, Aemond. I really am grateful”. Her husband wasn’t sure if she meant it for listening to her, for coming to the North, or for the conversation they just had, but by the time the conversation was over, she was sitting straight again, but with her head now resting on his shoulder.

That morning, at breakfast, he heard her laugh again, only this time, it was with him. She smiled at him for the first time, without any irony or jabs, it seemed like a burden was lifted from her chest, from their marriage.

────────

Notes: This is it folks! This is the first chapter (and my favorite) i ever wrote on this series. I got the idea while i was bored watching gladiator 2 (Ik). It has been plaguing my head ever since. This is a long one but I hope you can enjoy it!

-Sidey xxo

[theexhaustedqueer]

I’m relistening to 5.4, and the thing that really gets me about VR-LA’s alternate timeline where he saves MR-SN is that that timeline is a bad ending tragedy for literally every other member of the crew except maybe Finbar. If the Per Aspera never drifts aimlessly through the Astral Sea, it’s never picked up and sold to Oto, Dani never gets her hands on a spelljammer. Maybe she and her brothers eventually get out from under Oto’s thumb, but without easily accessible planar travel it’s hard to imagine them leaving Brass. And for Dani, who grew up on the streets of Brass and for whom Oto taking her in meant so much to her because of how much of an improvement it was to her life, it seems unlikely that she’d make a home for herself in Brass outside the Heap. In this version of events Dani, Roy and Egan never leave the Heap. Dani never gets to see Mechanus or the second layer of Acheron. She never gets her ship.

Finbar’s life is probably the least changed. The Searing Tongue would probably assign him to a different spelljammer and he’d do his thing as normal. He probably even still gets involved in the Zuggtemoy conspiracy, since that was based around the Searing Tongue. Assuming the ship he ends up on is of similar skill to the Per Aspera’s crew, he and his other crew take care of Azotico and he maybe even makes up with Elyse. That all assumes events play out in a pretty similar way, but given that he’s got a completely different crew, things could go in any number of directions.

Vhas, without the crew of the Per Aspera, never escapes Tu'narath. There’s not much else to say for this one, it’s just generally bad for his prospects.

And, of course, Kyana. Without the crew of the Per Aspera to pick her up on the Astral Sea, she eventually swims her way to a portal. Whatever plane she ends up on, she’s hopelessly naive, and maybe she gets lucky and meets someone willing to help her, but the odds aren’t in her favour. Eventually she’s dragged back to the monastery. She— and Ione— are turned into mindflayers as the mindflayers’ plan to escape then destroy the planescape proceeds unchecked.

And then it comes to the NPCs. Enoch dies in Avernus. Ione and the rest of the monks get brain wormed. Cressida stays a mercenary. Roy and Egan never leave the Heap. Davion never meets the rest of B-team. Depending on the Finbar situation, Karrundentrassi might die to fucking fungus. Elyse might make up with Finbar but she just as easily might not. Hans has an even worse time making it to Mount Celestia and HE-11/Vice probably dies in Acheron. Emi eventually builds herself a working body and becomes an amoral murderbot wandering the Planescape, maybe after killing Casimir. And uh… things don’t look great for Maxim either. Yes, he still knows VR-LA in this timeline, but we know that A) in the current timeline, a big part VR-LA’s draw to Maxim is that he’s the only link VR-LA has to finding his old crew. If he still has his old crew, that draw never forms and they might never form a closer relationship. And B) we know that pre-amnesia VR-LA was more closed off than post-amnesia VR-LA, which to me indicates that pre-amnesia VR-LA probably wouldn’t put the same time and care into breaking down Maxim’s walls. It seems likely to me that in this alternate timeline, Maxim and VR-LA never become friends. And even if they do, Dani doesn’t discover Create Spelljammer for Vr-La to cast, so Maxim never gets his home turned into a spelljammer and never leaves his Sanctum.

I just wonder if when VR-LA thinks about that alternate timeline, he thinks about how saving the life of someone he cared about so much would inadvertently ruin the lives of all the people he cares about now, and I wonder if that keeps him up at night.

[her-satanic-wiles]

Dawn Chorus - IV

Dracopia x Fallen Angel!Reader

When you question the Almighty for a third time, you find yourself on the run and escaping a horde of wrathful angels ready to punish you for your insolence. Whose garden should you fall into than Cardinal Copia’s? And he has more nefarious plans for you.

Masterlist ⛧ Commissioned by anonymous ⛧ Series Masterlist

Words: 6.1k.

Reading Time: 25min.

Warnings: blood extraction, body control, corruption kink,finger sucking, forced sexual activity,gaslighting,irrelevant character death,mentions of death by sun exposure, non-consensual sexual activity,objectification, religious disillusionment, religious trauma, sexual harassment, taking advantage of innocence, use of needles,use of the word “bitch” unkindly

Taglist: @da-rulah @teenage-birt-dag @akayuki56 @dopey-fandom-girl @ravensbars @copiaspet622 @onlyhereforghost @ultrahalloweengirl @ad-astra-per-aspera-1976 @whitepawfics @dolceterzo

🔞 MDNI 🔞

As this fic is quite dark, I'm choosing to rate it 21+. Please respect my decision. Thank you.

“I feel as though thou hast drained all my blood and brought me to the brink of death.” You tried to stand but your body was too weak. “For how long hath I been in slumber?”

“Five days,” the Cardinal looked back to his book, “your recovery time is getting longer. We’re going to have to start rationing if this keeps up. Or get another angel. Say, do you think we could use you as bait?”

“I pray thee choke and perish upon my blood.”

The Cardinal laughed. “If that happens,” the door to his bedroom knocked, then opened, “you’ll be stuck in that cage forever - ah! Brother López. Come in, please!”

The Brother opened the door wider and stepped inside, looking polite as he watched the Cardinal stand to greet him.

“Angel,” the Cardinal addressed you, “this is my new cleaner, Brother Santiago López.”

You couldn’t help the wave of disappointment and fear take over you. But as you spoke, you tried to keep your voice level and nonchalant, “Oh. What befell thy previous caretaker?”

“I found out he was trying to help a certain prisoner escape, and so he needed to be punished.”

“If thou has slain him, I swear by the Almighty I shall smite thee!” Your anger bubbled up far too quickly for someone who was supposed to remain nonchalant.

“Oh relax, you crazy bitch. We sent him to an abbey in America to shovel pig shit.”

You exhaled a sigh of relief, feeling your muscles relax knowing that he was okay. “For what reason?”

The Cardinal tapped Brother López on the shoulder and gestured for him to leave, which he did promptly, fearing what he was going to see. “You know why.” The Cardinal said, simply. His voice quieter than usual.

Your voice was less sharp, but still loud. “I can assure thee, I do not.”

“You mean to tell me that you weren’t trying to escape? That you and Brother Hayward weren’t attempting to break you out of that little cage to get you to freedom, hm? Come on now, Angel. I’m more than happy for my pets to have pets, but when they start rebelling against me, lines must be drawn.”

“Thou wast aware he visited here?”

He took in a long breath through his nose, so sharp his nostrils retracted with the inhale. “Could smell him Every time I came home and his scent was stronger than usual - knew he was here a while. And then when he was under the bed, his heartbeat was so loud.” The Cardinal walked over to the cage and rested his hands on the bars, leaning his whole body on it. “His fear would have tasted so good.”

You spat in his face, hearing some of your spittle sizzle against the metal bars. The Cardinal sighed, and wiped it away before hitting the side of the cage.

“The next time you pull something like that, Angel,” he began, his voice loud and so enraged, “I will personally make sure your little pet dies in front of you, and I’ll make it slow and painful. Do you understand?”

When you didn’t answer, he hit the cage again. “Understand?”

“I understand.”

He stood up to his full height and straightened his hair, then began fiddling with his clothes. “I don’t like getting angry with you, Angel. But sometimes you leave me no choice.” He turned to walk away, but stopped at the door. “Oh, and angel?” He said, his voice soft and sweet like butter wouldn’t melt. He looked at you, mismatched eyes piercing into your soul. “Brother Hayward may be in a different country, but one word from me and all 6 litres of his blood gets delivered to my fridge, and his corpse will be buried beneath abbey soil. I’ll be back.”

The threat of his return felt even more sinister with the tone of voice he used, and for the first time since this whole ordeal started, you felt the sharp pang of fear that had the small amount of blood inside you run cold. Your safety didn’t matter. You were just you. But now Thomas’ life was in jeopardy and it was entirely your fault. Memories of Brother Thomas’ kind eyes and gentle words flooded your thoughts, each one a painful reminder of the danger he now faced because of you. Guilt gnawed at your insides like a ravenous beast, twisting and clawing at your conscience until it threatened to consume you whole. You had thought yourself strong, resilient in the face of the Cardinal’s torment. But now, faced with the consequences of your actions, you felt nothing but fear and despair creeping in, threatening to engulf you entirely.

As the Cardinal’s footsteps faded down the hallway, leaving behind an oppressive silence, you couldn’t shake the weight of his threats echoing in your mind. The air in the room felt heavy, suffocating, as if the walls themselves were closing in on you. For though you may be trapped in this gilded cage, your spirit remained unbroken. And as long as there was breath in your body, you would fight tooth and nail to protect those you held dear, no matter the cost.

Your own body continued to repair itself, slower than it usually would. The five days it took you to regain consciousness turned into twenty more of total healing time. The Cardinal kept a monitor of your levels based on how you smelled, which meant every day, his long, rodent nose would poke through the bars as he inhaled your scent, making sure his tavern was restocking perfectly well. He didn’t try and pry any information from you in that time, which you hated to admit that you were grateful for. But he had developed a habit of sitting and staring at you, taking joy in watching you squirm uncomfortably. He’d brought in a red, velvet armchair from the living space to do just that. Every evening, he’d waltz into his room with a glass of your blood, now tainted red from your essence, and sit and observe you, like an animal in a cage. You never said anything: always believing he wanted you to start a conversation, but you’d never let him win.

At first, the Cardinal’s constant scrutiny had been unbearable, like a stifling weight pressing down on your chest, making it difficult to breathe. His presence had been a constant reminder of your captivity, of just how at his mercy you truly were. But as the days stretched into weeks and the Cardinal’s routine became an unsettling rhythm in your life, something shifted within you. You found yourself growing accustomed to his gaze, almost welcoming it in a twisted sort of way. Not that you enjoyed it, by any means. Just that a routine was being established and the Cardinal became the only constant in your life. The only entertainment, too. And so, instead of shrinking away from his viewing, you began to meet his eyes head-on, a silent challenge in your gaze. You refused to cower under his oppressive stare, refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing you squirm. You found yourself seeing him in return, studying the lines of his face, the way his eyes glinted with a predatory gleam. There was a darkness lurking behind those mismatched orbs, a darkness that chilled you to the bone. But even as you studied him, a sense of defiance burned within you. You refused to let the Cardinal break you, refused to let him strip away your dignity and humanity. You were more than just a prisoner in a cage; you were a warrior, a survivor, and you would not be defeated so easily. Heaven couldn’t get you, neither could he.

So, you met the Cardinal’s gaze with steely determination, a silent reminder that despite his best efforts, you would not be broken. And as you stared back at him, you couldn’t help but wonder what secrets lay hidden behind those calculating eyes, what darkness lurked within the depths of his soul.

The Cardinal’s entrance into the room that night was accompanied by an air of smugness so thick you could practically taste it. His smirk was evident as he sauntered in, a book tucked under one arm and a glass of your blood held casually in the other, a smile so wide, you could see his fangs underneath the skin. You watched him with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity, wondering what had put that self-satisfied gleam in his eyes. It was rare to see him so openly pleased with himself, and it set your nerves on edge.

As he approached your cage, he made no attempt to hide his triumphant grin, relishing in the power he held over you. He settled into the red velvet armchair with an air of satisfaction, taking a leisurely sip from the glass of blood as if it were the finest vintage wine, because, to him, it was. His eyes flicked over to you, and you met his gaze with a steely resolve, refusing to let him see any hint of fear or weakness. “So, Angel,” he began, his voice dripping with arrogance, but his words slurred slightly from the drink, “I’ve been doing some reading lately. Did you know there’s a whole chapter in this book dedicated to angels like you?”

Your stomach twisted uneasily at the implications of his words, but you kept your expression carefully neutral, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing you flinch.

“It seems there’s quite a lot I didn’t know about your kind,” he continued, his tone laced with malice. “But don’t worry, Angel. I plan on remedying that very soon.” With a chilling smile, he opened the book in his hands, his eyes gleaming with a dark intensity that sent a shiver down your spine. “Do you know this book?”

You shook your head.

“It was written by Lorenzo Giovanni during the Renaissance, the last time an angel knowingly fell to Earth. A vampyre, like me. Spent most of his days studying the angel, finding out what makes you tick - turns out, he got pretty far. Unfortunately, his work was unfinished. A mob found out what he was and got to him in 1492, tied him up and let the Sun do all the work. But, do you know what he did find?” He didn’t wait for you to shake your head this time. He cleared his throat, and began to read aloud. As he began to read, you couldn’t shake the feeling that this was just the beginning of something far more sinister. “‘In celestial governance, once the manner is known, it is a simple matter. The heavenly messengers utilize the dread of the Almighty to manage their subordinates. However, those angels who have questioned the supremacy of the Lord are subject to the influences of their sacred radiance, the origin of which is their halo. Thus, one who attains an angel’s halo possesses the capability to command the entity, as well as the sacred radiance enveloping it.’ This we know, correct?”

You remained silent. So, the Cardinal continued, “‘This process assumes two guises: one to govern the physical form, the other to govern the intellect. To command the physical form, one must initially acquaint themselves with the name of the angel. As is observed with infernal entities, names possess a potency beyond human comprehension. Consequently, an angel bearing a name can readily relinquish control of their physical form merely by disclosing this fragment of information. Subduing the intellect, however, presents a greater challenge.’

“Basically,” he said, closing the book shut for dramatic affect, “I know your name, your body becomes mine.” He sighed, “Giovanni then goes onto say your mind is fully intact during this process, that you’ll feel your body moving but have no control over it.” He set his glass down on the dresser and walked towards your halo in its cage.

He grasped hold of it and you notice his hand was gloved, taking note of the care he was using to touch it. Your halo was just as dangerous to him as it was to you, but for different reasons. Without your halo, you were dead. Without your halo, you were controlled. For him, his skin would burn at the touch of it, like yours did with hellfire. For him, one wrong move and he would evaporate in the holy light. There was a part of you that wanted that to happen - wanted to see him perish in one of the most painful ways you had ever known. Yet there was an overpowering guilt that ate at you when you thought about it - knowing that the Almighty wanted you to love everyone, even at the detriment to yourself.

He took a step back and looked at you, smugness oozing from every pore. “I haven’t told Sister yet,” he mumbled, sitting back down on the chair. “I wanted to find out if it worked first. Tell me your name, Angel.”

“Thou must deem me a fool to willingly disclose such information.” You retorted, your voice barely above a whisper. Your mouth was dry.

He chuckled, a dark sound that shook you to your core. He nestled into the armchair, becoming comfortable in his throne of power. All of his movement was in his hips, lifting himself off the velvet to help him slide down it a little more, legs spread wide to exude his dominance. He was disgusting. “I thought you might say that,” he commented, his grin widening, “but you forget who I have.”

Thomas.

“You’ve experienced firsthand what I can do, Angel,” he continued, “except, I’ll make sure I’m much worse with him.”

“Thou would not.” You protested, trying to quell your panic. “The constabulary would be aware. Thou would be compelled to answer to the authorities.”

“I never said he’d survive.”

A chill ran down your spine. Your mind raced with fear and uncertainty as the Cardinal’s threat hung in the air like a dark cloud. Thomas was now in grave danger, and you were faced with an impossible choice. Would you sacrifice your own identity to save him, or would you stand firm and risk his life? You did know what the Cardinal could do - you’d been subjected to it since the moment you met him however long ago that was. You knew you could survive going through that again, especially if you had nothing to lose; but you couldn’t be sure about Thomas. He definitely didn’t deserve to feel the Cardinal’s wrath any more than he already may have. And could you live with yourself knowing you’d condemned a man to death just to save yourself, even if he did belong to the Satanic Church? By robbing him of his life, he’d never get the chance to return to God, to see the light and repent. You’d never get the chance to meet him again in Heaven. You’d rob him of his salvation, but you’d save yourself from the Cardinal’s damnation. Either way, you lost.

“If I divulge,” you began, puffing your chest to sound more confident and unafraid, “can thou ensure his well-being?”

The smugness faded from the Cardinal, if only for a moment. “Of course.” He responded, genuinely. “How else would I get you to do things I wanted?” He let the second sentence slip out, but paid it no mind once it had been released. He planned on using Thomas’ safety to continue to control you. You never should have let yourself get close to him - it allowed the Cardinal to win.

“And wilt thou demonstrate that he is unharmed? Wilt thou prove that thou speakest truthfully unto me?”

“I’ll get him to video chat you every week.”

You frowned, “I comprehend naught of thy words.”

“Video chat? FaceTime? Angels have no technology up there at all?” The Cardinal sighed at your blank expression and rummaged in his pocket to pull out the device you first saw him use. “This thing lets you have conversations with people that aren’t there with you. It shows you their face and hear their voice and, boom, conversation.”

“And thou wilt employ that contrivance to contact Tho- Brother Hayward?”

“Yes.”

You sighed. “___.”

“What?”

“My name. It is ___.”

“___.” The Cardinal nodded and set down the device next to his glass. He stood and unlocked your cage, before returning to his spot on the couch. He gently maneuvered your halo into the palm of his right hand, and brought it up to his mouth. “___, I command you to exit the cage.”

You laughed. You laughed at him. He lacked conviction which was why it failed, and it was so funny to watch him fumble. He cleared his throat, and now, with more confidence, repeated his order. Your body tingled in response, and despite you fighting it with great strength, your legs moved of their own accord. Your bare foot stepped out of the cage and onto the floor, barely feeling the textures beneath your feet. Your body ducked around the metal, wings tucked tightly to your body to stop any part of you from getting injured. Even under control, your body still did what it could to preserve itself. This was a new sensation to you, as you’d never been under someone else’s control before - you’d never needed to be because you were always a good soldier, even when you had your doubts. You’d never known anyone be subjected to this, either. Within seconds, you were out of the cage, standing in front of it with your wings outstretched. He hadn’t ordered you to stay still, to wait for the next instruction. But you did anyway, fearing that defiance would bring a painful end to Brother Thomas.

“___, I command you to spin on the spot.” The Cardinal ordered, a mischievous smile on his face and a glint in his eye.

When you did as he commanded, he laughed. It was a guttural laugh, hearty and jovial, clearly he was having fun with this. “Like a game of Capitan Giro. Capitan Giro dice stand on one leg.”

You did as commanded, and the Cardinal screamed in delight.

“Wait, I don’t need your name? I don’t need to be so formal? What if… put both feet to the floor.”

You did as commanded.

“Incredible. I wonder what else I could get you to do. How else I could humiliate you…” He stopped and thought for a moment, eyes darkening. “Come here.” This command was lower and deeper than the previous ones, quieter and somehow more intimate.

You fought against this command, but to no avail. Your feet, slowly, dragged you towards the Cardinal and only stopping when you were right in front of him, between his open legs. “On your knees.”

You obeyed. The whole time you made eye contact with him, staring daggers into his face and still hoping that the halo hurt him.

He held out his left hand, the one not holding the halo, and said, “Remove the glove.”

Your hands immediately sprung into action, grasping onto the hem of the leather and peeling it gently off of his hand, exposing the skin beneath.

“You know,” he grumbled as you pulled the final finger of his glove off him, “the Sister told me about you.”

He moved his hand to your face and tried to caress your cheek, but you moved away. “Come back, don’t fight me.” Slowly, you moved back to your original position, feeling your cheek meet his fingertips. His hand was large, taking up most of your face as he stroked it with such gentility, you weren’t entirely sure that this was the same man who had caused you great pain for so long. His thumb sat beside your nose, and gently stroked your skin.

“She told me about your purity,” he continued. “How you’re still the good angel Yhwh intended.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Open your mouth.”

You did. You opened it a small amount, but it was enough for him. He slotted his thumb inside and rubbed the pad over your tongue, as if he was studying your mouth. His knuckle, briefly, hit the tip of your small fangs - not enough to hurt him, but enough to have him fascinated by them.

“Suck on my finger.”

Your mouth closed around the digit in your mouth, lips stretching just a little over his skin, and you heard the Cardinal exhale a shaky breath. He watched the obscenity in front of him, how your cheeks hollowed around his thumb that he slowly began to move in and out of your mouth. His cheeks were flushed, partially because of your blood, but also because his own was rushing around his body, still pumping life into it despite his insides being almost dead. His pupils were blown, and his eyes were hooded, making him look a little crazy. His lips parted, and his breaths were laboured, chest rising and falling as though his lungs still worked - a force of habit, you thought.

You didn’t understand this - what he was doing. You’d never seen anyone do this before, but your mind was racing with possibilities. Perhaps he was testing your mouth, making sure your health was good. Or maybe it was some strange form of comfort for him, you pondered. Perhaps he found solace in this bizarre act, a fleeting moment of intimacy amidst the chaos of his life. As his thumb moved in and out of your mouth, you couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease mingled with curiosity.

You should bite down.

You couldn’t. Not that you weren’t trying, but you were under the influence of the halo. You just couldn’t get your teeth to clench around his thumb.

Despite your confusion, you continued to suck on his finger obediently, just as the Cardinal had ordered. You focused on the rhythm of his movements, trying to make sense of the strange sensation in your mouth.

“Cazzo.” He let out a whisper, barely audible but because of the quiet of the room, the humming of technology barely covered the sound.

As time passed, it couldn’t have been more than a minute, you couldn’t shake the feeling of discomfort that gnawed at you. Yet, you dared not speak up, afraid to disrupt the fragile peace that enveloped the room. So you remained silent, your mind still racing with unanswered questions, as you obediently continued to suck on his finger.

Suddenly, the Cardinal’s eyes widened, a look of shock appearing on his face. He yanked his thumb from your mouth and physically pushed you away, grasping onto the halo a little tighter than he should have. “B-back in the cage.” He said quickly, standing up and walking over to your halo’s cage.

He didn’t need to use the halo to order you back behind bars, you were already scrambling to your feet and rushing to fit yourself in through the bars. He refused to make eye contact with you, noticing that he was feeling shame. Shame for what, you couldn’t say, but he spent most of the time staring at the floor as he locked you back inside. Your eyes wandered, too. From his face, over his body, until you saw the tent in his crotch every time he stood side-on. You weren’t completely foolish, you knew what that meant. You’d spent enough time with mortals, and saw a varying degree of sin that they would commit regularly. But you still couldn’t piece together the correlation between his finger in your mouth and the reason for his body’s reaction. He didn’t say a word, instead grabbing the glass and all but running out the door.

Perhaps you were feeling some of his shame now that you knew he’d used you to sin. He’d sinned with you before, every single time he caused you pain was sin enough, but this felt different somehow. Before, it was all the sins that were done to you; because of your implicitness due to the halo’s control, it felt like he was sinning with you. Shame, anger, and a deep sense of discomfort gnawed at your insides, making you feel vulnerable and exposed.

You had been subjected to a degrading and humiliating act, one that left you feeling powerless and violated. The Cardinal’s actions had stripped away your dignity and autonomy, reducing you to nothing more than a mere object for his pleasures.

Anger simmered within you, fueled by the injustice of being treated in such a deplorable manner. You resented the Cardinal for his blatant disregard for your dignity and for his abuse of power. How dare he manipulate and exploit you for his own perverse desires?

The deep sense of discomfort stemmed from the violation of your boundaries and the invasion of your personal space. His unwelcome advances had left you feeling exposed and vulnerable, as if your very essence had been laid bare for his scrutiny.

But then, the feeling dawned on you, was this not a similar way the Almighty had treated you? How He would get His subordinates to send you down to the mortal realm and commit atrocities on His behalf. In Egypt and Canaan, and even the shores of Italia, in His name you enacted awful things, bore witness to tragedies no person should ever see. While the Cardinal used you for some kind of sexual gratification, the Almighty used you for egotistical gratification, and either way, you were a pawn in someone else’s game, an object to be used at will regardless of your own opinions. You could never condone or justify the Cardinal’s behaviour towards you, but you’d also never had autonomy over your own person, so was it any different?

In some weird twist, you had come to realise that despite being trapped in a cage, your mind was freer than it ever had been in Heaven, your thoughts were your own, and your feelings went more-or-less unpunished. And in comparison, who was truly the Devil? Lucifer, or the Almighty?

The Cardinal didn’t come to visit you the next day, or the day after that, or the subsequent week that followed. He wouldn’t even come back to his chambers to rest, opting to spend his time elsewhere and avoiding you - an easy task, you were sure, given that he had kept you in the cage the whole time. You were unsure how to feel about this, whether this was something you should be grateful for, or if you should be afraid.

The longer you were around the vampyres, the more you’d begun to understand them and their ways; their thoughts and feelings, and what made them tick. Given that you’d not seen the Sister in so long, you could assume that the Cardinal hadn’t told her about his discovery. If he had, she’d have charged into his chambers, gripped hold of your halo, and practiced on you herself. Her insatiable thirst for power and control outweighed her thirst for your blood, and thus, if she knew your secret, you’d know too.

But then, why had the Cardinal kept that secret? Both he and the Sister wanted power, specifically power over you. They had been working together from the start to make sure they got what they wanted, your health and safety be damned. So why hadn’t the Cardinal told her everything? You pondered these questions in the silence of your cage, the only company being the dim glow of your halo, a sense of unease washing over you in more ways than one.

By the time you had healed completely, the Cardinal had returned with the empty bottles, but still found it difficult to look you in the eye. His gaze flickered with a mixture of guilt and apprehension, a silent acknowledgment of the unspeakable acts he had committed in his pursuit of power… or pleasure?

You watched him closely, noting the tension in his movements and the weariness etched into his features. Despite the disguise of indifference he attempted to show, you could sense the conflict raging within him, a storm of inconsistent emotions that threatened to consume him whole. He’d not rested well enough - you wondered if he’d even eaten properly. Then you wondered why you cared.

As he went about his task of arranging empty buckets around his bed, you remained silent, studying his every move with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. Why buckets, this time? There was an obvious shift in the air, a tension that hung between you, heavily shrouding you both an an intense suffocation.

With each passing moment, the weight of his silence grew heavier, a burden that bore down upon you with unbearable force. You longed to break the oppressive stillness, to confront him with the questions that burned in the depths of your soul, but you held your tongue, wary of the consequences of speaking out.

In the end, it was the Cardinal who broke the silence, his voice barely above a whisper as he addressed you. “I won’t bind you when I let you out… I’m trusting you to be on your best behaviour.”

You simply nodded in response.

“No funny business, no trying to escape… no attacking, got it?”

“I shall not undertake such actions today,” you told him, “yet I offer no assurances for the morrow.”

He laughed as though you were telling him a joke. His laughter echoed through the chamber, a hollow sound that reverberated off the walls. Despite the tension that lingered between you, there was a sense of relief in his amusement, a fleeting moment of levity amidst the heavy atmosphere that surrounded you. “Well, I suppose that’s better than nothing,” he replied, his tone lightening slightly. “Just remember, Angel, I’m not afraid to put you back in that cage if you step out of line.”

You met his gaze with a steady stare, your eyes alight with a quiet defiance. “I understand,” you said, your voice firm and unwavering. “But mark this, Cardinal - I shall not be imprisoned anew, not without resistance.”

There was a flicker of something in his eyes, a spark of recognition that mirrored the fire that burned within your own soul. In that moment, you saw a glimmer of respect in his gaze, a grudging acknowledgment of your strength and determination.

“Very well,” he said, his voice tinged with resignation. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

He moved towards your cage, unlocked and opened the door, and took a step back, still holding it as though he were a gentleman holding the door for his wife. With apprehension, you climbed out, wings cocooning your body again until you were completely free of the metal. You chanced a glance at your halo, which was still locked up tight in the cage, and somehow you felt relieved. You stretched your entire body out, wings included, grateful for the feeling. All the while, you still watched the Cardinal potter around the room until he invited you onto his bed again.

You hesitated until you saw the plea in his eyes. “What dost thou withhold from me, Cardinal?”

He shook his head, “If you don’t let me drain you now, things will end up worse for us both. Just do as I ask this one time, please.”

You regarded him with a mix of wariness and resignation, knowing that you had little choice but to comply with his request. With a heavy sigh, you moved towards the bed, your movements slow and deliberate as you approached him.

As you settled onto the plush mattress, you couldn’t shake the feeling of unease that settled over you like a heavy cloak. The Cardinal’s intentions were clear, his desire for your blood palpable in the air, and yet you found yourself unable to resist his command. You felt the first needle prick into the crook of your arm, and watched as your blood began to pour into the bucket. Then you saw him prick the second needle in, and the cycle repeat. Usually, the Cardinal would stand back and watch menacingly. But this time, he gently crawled onto the bed, lifted you up, and slotted you on top of him, so you were using his body as a pillow instead.

As the Cardinal cradled you in his arms, using his body as a makeshift pillow, you couldn’t help but feel a surge of discomfort wash over you. The intimacy of the gesture was unsettling, a stark contrast to the usual brutality of your interactions with him.

With each drop of blood that left your body, you felt a sense of vulnerability creep in, the realization dawning on you that you were completely at his mercy. Despite your instinctive urge to resist, you found yourself unable to muster the strength to pull away, trapped in a state of submission that left you feeling powerless and exposed.

You passed out, despite your body fighting it.

You were barely conscious when you woke, the needles still in your arms and the Cardinal still behind you. This time, you could feel his hands running up and down your biceps and stroking your hair, as if he was trying to comfort you. You wanted to recoil from his touch, to push him away and reclaim the boundaries he had violated so mercilessly more than once. And yet, a part of you couldn’t help but crave the warmth of his embrace, the fleeting sense of connection that offered a brief respite from the cold reality of your captivity.

Your body lost consciousness again, the last thing you felt were his fingertips tracing light patterns into your skin.

You roused from your uneasy slumber, disoriented and groggy, the memory of the Cardinal’s touch haunting your exposed flesh. As your senses slowly returned, you realized that the needles were no longer piercing your skin, their absence bringing a faint sense of relief amidst the lingering discomfort.

You looked around the room, heart heavy, seeking any sign of the Cardinal’s whereabouts, but all you saw was the empty space of his bed and the stifling silence that enveloped the room like a blanket. Feelings of fear and panic started to seethe at the borders of your mind as you struggled with the disconcerting realisation that you were alone in the room, and not trapped up in your cage where you’d normally be after such an extraction.

You strained to get yourself upright, your muscles protesting with each movement as you forced yourself to look around more closely. However, no matter how hard you looked, there was no sign of the Cardinal, no clue of where he had gone or what he was plotting next.

The sound of voices coming from the living room sent shivers down your spine, breaking the strange calm that had encased the Cardinal’s quarters. You strained your ears, nervously attempting to figure out who was talking and who was there.

Your heart pounded in your chest as you listened closely, the murmur of voices becoming louder and clearer with each passing instant. Their tones conveyed a sense of urgency, a palpable tension that appeared to linger in the air like a building storm.

For a tiny moment, you cherished the hope that Brother Thomas would return to liberate you from your captivity and deliver you from the Cardinal’s tyranny. But deep down, you understood that such dreams were nothing more than desperate illusions created out of your own sorrow.

One of the voices belonged to the Cardinal… the other… the Sister.

You strained to catch every word of the furious discussion between the Sister and the Cardinal, their voices rising and falling in a chaotic symphony of wrath and frustration. From your position in the bedroom, you could feel the tension crackling in the air like electricity, heavy and stifling.

The words they exchanged formed a bleak picture, indicating a flaw in their carefully crafted relationship. It became clear that the Cardinal had acted with purposeful intent by draining you of your blood before the full moon night, undermining their plans to perform the second ritual.

Confusion blurred your mind as you tried to make sense of the Cardinal’s strange choice to sabotage the ceremony. It didn’t make sense; why would he go to such extent to foil plans that he had personally set up? You felt lost and confused, as if the puzzle pieces would not fit together in your brain.

You couldn’t shake the notion that the Cardinal’s acts were more than just what they appeared to be. His intentions remained a mystery, and you couldn’t help but wonder what underlying agenda drove his betrayal. Was he behaving in his own self-interest, or was he motivated by something else that you couldn’t figure out? Or was there a deeper, more nefarious motive at work?

Prev. / Next

Anon commissioned artwork by @taylaedraws - I believe the full version is on their Patreon! Please be sure to check it out when you can!

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

Re: many of the various about the Gorn or listing SNW's handling of the Gorn as one of its major problems.

Perception not matching reality, what is/is not a monster is a huge theme throughout SNW.

Ghost of Illyria – Those light monsters didn’t murder the Illyrians, they are the Illyrians and were trying to save Pike and Spock all along. Everyone (except Una ofc) learns a lesson that Illyrians can’t be lumped in with the Augments and need greater understanding Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach – Turns out that nice lovely civilization is literally torturing children. The terrorists are actually trying to save those children. The Serene Squall – Surprise the counselor is a pirate Ad Astra Per Aspera – Continues with the Illyrians deserve understanding theme. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow – That helpful reporter is actually a Romulan. Even notorious tyrant and mass murderer Khan Noonien Singh was once a scared child. Lost in Translation – Starfleet is the monster, accidentally torturing and killing a life form they didn't know existed. Under the Clock of War – Turns out the lovely ship’s doctor is actually the Butcher of J’Gal and capable of murdering someone in cold blood. War can make a monster of anyone.

Yet so many people seem to think they’re not going to pull something similar with the Gorn? Even though the show has taken time to establish that the Gorn are intelligent and have a religion?

The thing about the Gorn is that people have died - La’an’s family, Hemmer, some other members of the Enterprise crew, nearly the entire crew of the Cayuga, multiple colonies - and possibly Marie will be added to that list before the two-parter is done. That creates an environment where it’s understandable that the SNW characters would not want to have their perception that the Gorn are monsters challenged, because the harm they have caused is so personal.

It creates a really interesting conflict for the crew, because how do you find understanding, how to you fight the will for revenge, when there’s been so much pain?

I could be wrong about this being the route the SNW writers are going down, but I’m really excited to see if they do.

Posting this as a response to several earlier confessions.

[laciefuyu]

「Their Origin? They originated from two gods, the God of Fragrance and the God of Music.

Both were in charge of Music, so they can also be considered "partners".

According to the legends, they fell in love, got married and performed for the gods together.

Perhaps that was why stories of them have been passed down as them being one entity.

Yes, people often have fantasies of the life of Gods, and even then, "love" is usually the end.

They walked upon the same path, met, got to know each other, fell in love and ended up spending the years together.

Their souls merged as one, spreading love and beauty throughout the world.

And now we, who have the privileged witnessing this legend are equally blessed....

We are blessed to have discovered a kindred soul, one so remarkably akin to our own, amidst the countless lives that surround us. 」

Okay so, I have to gush about this part for a bit. As always I love when they incorporate others (this time with gods) stories and means to be seen with Artemrosa dynamic, but I especially love the fact how much they are being partners is always one of the most constant because quintessential Artemrosa is having each other side by sides, spend the rest of life together, and shared the duty (therefore burden) while walked upon the path they've chosen. The best way to describe them is indeed partners.

At the same time I adore the whole soul merged as one too and a kindred soul akin to our own, which makes me recall Per Aspera Ad Astra:

That she would trust his interest and reputation as if it was hers and how he trusts her like he trusts himself.

Artemrosa has always been a sense of similarity which I always call them kindred spirits since I encountered them. Similar in their core ideals, who would fight justice for those who cannot fight it themselves, someone who couldn't stand the idea of being unable to help someone to fight their rights.

That's why no one but them would understand each other struggles better about the work they have, the path they've chosen, the battlefield they've taken more than each other. As a life partner and work partner their lives have become entwined as their existence has become an irreplaceable part of each other's souls.

This is also a good time to recall a certain line from Main Story Chapter 1:

"I need a mirror, not a clone. "

We always return full circle, and this is truly the spirit of live service games which is a continuation. Similar yet different, A mirror.

In the end, amidst countless lives, their souls have found each other as fates have brought them to the path of their encounters.

.

.

This is less coherent then I would like but just so you know the upcoming cards for Zuo Ran in glb server is totally something you all can look forward to. I love those cards so much and I hope when you get to read it, you will enjoy it as much as I do!

[slavghoul]

Hello Slavghoul, I'm new to Ghost and you seem like a very knowledgeable person (ghoul?) so I hope you don't mind me asking: is there a canon source of information about the third Papa? I know Secondo had Papaganda, Copia has the chapters on youtube and there's not much about Primo, but I've seen a lot of various tidbits floating around about Terzo and it's hard to tell what has been stated in an official interview, what is someone's headcanon and what is an interpretation, especially when a lot of it is contradictory. Thank you in advance. I hope you have a great day :)

There were some 'The Summoning' vids on YouTube during Papa III's times, it was mainly Sister announcing various things but sometimes there's bits of other info.

Other than that these posts may be helpful as they provide some characterization for Papa III and can be considered canon given they were part of official press/promo.

(Context for above: Zbigniew Bielak is Ghost's illustrator and has been credited on the records and on two occasions gave interviews as a sort of character, Bp. Necropolitus Cracoviensis, the text was shared Ghost's special media)

[browniefox]

The Very Best Fics - 2

I am making a second 'best fics according to me' because it is very long. You can access the previous post from here.

On this list is: Daredevil, Disco Elysium, Trigun, Psych, Mob Psycho 100, Undertale, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy VII

Daredevil

My Guardian Avengers (Can I Get A Refund?) - prettybirdy979

Daredevil needs to protect a certain law firm in Hell's Kitchen. He's a little slack about protecting this Matt Murdock fellow though, and the Avengers are only too happy to step in to help. Matt is SO not okay with this. (Shut up Foggy, so what if it's his own fault!)

Prettybirdy979 has done 'Daredevil meets the Avengers' like ten times, and you know what? they hit it out of the park every time. Hell yeah! This one is just as fun, and it's always nice to read a new (uh, new-ish) fic from an author you love :D

Disco Elysium

Excerpts from the Case Notes of Kim Kitsuragi - Hosekisama

Excerpts reference Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Du Bois' belief that he can (and does) "reload" his own life after failing, like some kind of video game character.

Disco Elysium plays with so many fun video game mechanics, like the 'jamrock shuffle', so honestly the idea that Harry would think in terms of 'reloading' is way fun! I love the ambiguity of whether or not there actually are saves or loads.

Trigun

Start here - AsterAspera ( @aster-aspera )

The first time he wakes, he is in a room. Heavy curtains hang over dusty windowsills and there are crumpled sheets on the bed and crumpled sheets on the floor. The world is quiet while his body screams. Every soft, fleshy, vulnerable part of him is on fire, writhing and roiling in unbearable agony. He wants to move, get away from the mattress that digs into his skin like fingers, like knives, like roots, but his body is frozen without his consent, time stretching endlessly around him as he fights an ocean of pain. And suddenly there are hands on him and worried grey eyes and he wants to scream but his throat is already scraped raw.

We love QPR Vash/Meryl/Wolfwood, and we love stories that drop you into something and you have no idea what's going on. Such a good and interesting fic that drops ideas of what has happened, but also you're not totally sure, and it really puts you into Vash's head for the fic.

I Just Want To Slow Dance With You by easternCriminal

"Wolfwood swears at the radio, and then finally the static parts like the sands after a storm and the warm, slow sounds of a guitar comes out from over the dunes and fills the small room." oOo A soft domestic moment, inspired by Start Here by AsterAspera

Inspired by the fic above, a scene between Meryl and Nicholas (and Vash) as they try and figure out what their dynamic is now. Wonderfully domestic.

Rinse and Repeat by easternCriminal (@the-east-art)

Somehow, Meryl can head the monotone flatline of his heart. And she wakes up again on the road. Meryl starts to realize what is going on.

Time loop, time loop, time loop! Time loops where you're trying so despeartelyl to save someone! Time loops where you start realizing some sacrifices have to be made! Time loops that make you hate and love someone like you never have before!

Press my Corpse against the Wall by Rayawastaken

Meryl kept thinking back to Tonis, small and still so young in his mothers arms. She kept thinking about the fact that if she held onto him a bit stronger, if she had more conviction, he might still have both of his arms. And about how if she had any less of it, Wolfwood might have not woken back up again in that bar. Surely, getting a bit scratched up was worth saving someone’s life. But that’s not how Wolfwood saw it. To him, she’d forever be just some defenseless little thing that stumbled around helplessly and had to be protected. And for all that he complained about Vash having a self-sacrificial streak, he'd rather bleed out on the floor than admit he had needed help. - Wolfwood almost dies, Meryl saves him and gets hurt in the process. They have a fight about it.

I love Mashwood, but the dynamic between Wolfwood and Meryl is often under represented. I especially love this fic's exploration of the fact that Meryl, of the trio, is the most human and the position that puts her in a lot of the time.

CHANGING NATURE (‘TIS THE SEASON) by ainosyn (@tristamp-gunpede)

“How could anyone kill you without killing a part of themselves?” and “I can’t help it, it’s my nature.”

An exploration of all the different ways the story of Trigun could have gone, or could have been told, and about what is inherent to someone's nature. I love this, such a great character study of Knives and Vash.

Never understood a single word he said by aboxthecolourofheartache (@aboxthecolourofheartache)

Meryl drums her fingers on the steering wheel, and Wolfwood gets the sinking feeling of spotting bullshit at a hundred yarz and being unable to do anything about it. “Is it really buried treasure? I don’t believe you,” Meryl sniffs. “You’re stalling or something.” Vash’s lips curl up at the corner and, yes, there’s that mischievous little dimple that heralds doom. “Only one way to find out. If it is buried treasure, next night at a motel is on me. What do you say?" “Hot showers and everything?” Meryl squints at Vash sidelong, she the very picture of suspicion and he of innocence. “Cross my heart,” Vash vows, making a solemn X over his chest. ~~~ A detour turned nightmare, water from the rock, Three Dog Night, and unconventional gestures of trust.

MUST READ MUST READ MUST READ!!!! Best Trigun Fic I think I've ever read, with perfect characterization of Meryl, Vash, and Wolfwood that all feel distinct and accurate, a lot of fun interactions, and just a hint of the good good 'Vash isn't human' stuff I live for.

Psych

All We Are by jumpfall

"I want eyes on Spencer ten minutes ago!" Shawn thinks that maybe another hostage situation is just what they need to bring the team together again.

Love when you find a fic that captures the vibes of the canon so well! The team-as-family in psych is so good and fun, it's what makes it all worthwhile, you know? The characters in Psych are really good, and I'll be honest I live for the times that Shawn manages to actually be selfless and care about others.

the robbed that smiles steals something from the thief by EclipseWing (@shadow-of-the-eclipse)

That one in which Shawn is a con-artist, a liar and a thief.

Hell yeah, EclipseWing, all my homies love EclipseWing! This one is so fun! It's nice to see a Shawn who doesn't get into crime solving but still needs to find something to preoccupy him becoming a theif instead, it's so in person I love it!

Mob Psycho 100

Come Morning Light by NotHereForIt

Reigen is standing in a world that exists, but doesn't, in front of a house that is Mob's, but not, with a man that's dead, but isn't. In which Reigen thinks he's dreaming, and he very much is not.

Dream walking time, hell yeah! In which Reigen helps Mob through is dreams. Poor Mob has PTSD, but at least he's not alone.

knife trick by ruthwrites (@ruemilley)

There wasn’t a rule, exactly, that said that Ritsu wasn’t allowed to spend time with his brother. It was just something that was understood, like how Ritsu understood he wasn't supposed to press his hands along the sharp edges of his mother’s kitchen knives. (or: an age swap where only Mob and Reigen's ages are changed. Shigeo asks his little brother if he wants to walk him home after school. Ritsu should say no. Ritsu does not say no.)

The ending of this one sticks with me, ugh it's so good. Swap au's are so interesting, and I love the way it's done here, especially with Mob and Reigen being swapped, but Ritsu still being the same age.

citrus by orphan_account

He can just barely see Reigen pacing, purposefully quiet. He’s not smiling or laughing like he usually does on the phone. He looks sad. No, he looks upset. Shigeo doesn’t get a chance to wonder why before Reigen is walking back out, eyes carefully trained on his phone before he flips it shut. “Mob, we have a client to go to. I would have taken you home, but your parents aren’t there.” “Why would I have to go home?” Reigen goes quiet for a moment. “We aren’t dealing with a spirit.”

Reigen getting to deal with big problems through his job, and baby Mob learning important life lessons, what more do you need?

I know who I am when I'm alone by RedWritingHood

I'm something else when I see you. The world revolves around the suffering of Kageyama Shigeo. It fails to anticipate the determination of the Greatest Psychic Detective of the 21st Century.

In which Reigen is in Mogamiland and is as stubborn as a mule - even if he doesn't know what he's fighting against or for. A great moment of Reigen being able to comfort Mob - more or less. There are struggles that come with trying to accomplish that.

Undertale

Second Contact by Ononymous

To the participants, monumental days in history rarely feel very monumental when they wake up that morning. A young man at his summer job in the middle of nowhere was about to learn this the hard way.

I love this fic, of Asogre and Frisk meeting the first human outside of the Underground, told from outsider pov. It's a fun continuation of the story, and of how a poor service employee has to be the one to deal with the mess first.

What Little Monsters Are Made Of by Mangaluva

Nobody understands why you keep Flowey. You're not always sure why you do. But you found a way to save everybody else.

A story about love, and a story about believing in someone or something, and about how it's never too late. Post-Game, exploration of the relationship that builds between Flowey, Frisk, and the rest of the monsters over the years.

Kingdom Hearts

Scar Tissue - mimiplaysgames

Terra doesn’t remember certain things. He’s not in control. Even after everything they have been through, he still has the Guardian to contend with.

A little confusing to read sometimes, but super interesting look into after effects of having one's heart stuck in various places, and how it impact Terra without him even knowing it. At the end of the day, Terra is a guardian.

Umbra, Penumbra - end_alls

Roleswap where Vanitas is the one raised with care and compassion in the Land of Departure, and Ventus… is not

A fun and interesting role reversal. In general, the concept of 'too much light' is not explored enough in Kingdom hearts, so a fic that goes into how Ventus is left so incomplete without Vanitas is great.

Affecting Eternity - b-na_hime

One new Keyblade Master. Two new Keyblade wielders. Three thousand ways it could go horribly wrong…

Riku trying so hard to train Lea and Kairi when he's never been formally trained either. Great relationship building between them and how each of them feels about being a keyblade wielder.

reflections, refracted. - vvingblade (@vvingblade)

It's been ten years since then. Time has passed, and wounds are slowly healing. Ven thought he'd moved on, that the memories no longer bother him. All it takes is a single muddled spell to prove him wrong.

Ven has some serious PTSD and it rears its ugly head. Also, Ven can kick ass when he believes his life depends on it. Great Ven characterization that fleshes out Ven a bit more than he usually is.

Final Fantasy VII

The Fifth Act by Sinnatious

Cloud has an accident with a Time materia, and finds himself in the middle of the Wastes at the start of the Wutai War. There are people to save… and for that, there are three people who need to die.

My favorite time-travel fix-it for FFVII I've found so far. Good characterization, fun interactions, and I love how much it grapples with the question of 'should Sephiroth die, when he hasn't done anything'.

A Feather's Edge by Boomchick

Rescue arrives for Sephiroth while he is still a child. It arrives in the form of a blank-faced blonde-haired hero who cannot look at him; Who tends his wounds, and speaks kindly, but whose eyes are filled with hate and fear. If only Sephiroth knew the rules of this world outside the labs, maybe he could figure out how to stop making Cloud so angry...

An interesting look into, even if Sephiroth was saved, how messed up he is since childhood and how that impacts how he views people, sitautions, and relationships with other people. Kinda wish it was a little longer, but also I think it ends where it needs to end, if that makes sense. Really love Cloud trying to grapple with being a good adult for a child while battling his PTSD over said child.

In the Woods, Somewhere - DoveFanworks

On an ordinary day, two against one would hardly feel fair. But today was not an ordinary day, and Gods damn if this man wasn’t proving to be worth every bit of their combined effort. It was ludicrous. Unheard of. Before today, he would have thought it impossible. But somehow, someway, this man, this stranger who had come from out of nowhere, was fighting off two of the most powerful fighters in the world. At the same time.

Unresolved Time Travel au where Cloud takes on the three Firsts and kicks ass! I love how thought out the fight scenes are, taking into account the abilites of everyone involved and what they're capable of. Wonderfully orchestrated, wonderful to read.

Rebound - emrald_writes

Genesis knows the moment that they step into the little town that whatever it is plaguing them it isn’t a curse.

I Love fics that have surprisingly in depth worlds that makes you feel like you're looking into a world so much bigger and more thought out than you expected. Such an interesting magic system and a fun mystery to boot. I will say, the ending feels a little strange, but the rest most than makes up for it.

As They Bask in the Material World - Traxits

Every year, Reeve tours the outer reactors. This year, Veld is unable to escort him, so Tseng gets the job. It's just his luck that the car breaks down, and perhaps the best idea was not to spend the night in Cosmo Canyon…

Hi welcome to the beginning of the 'brownie falls in love with reeve' section of this. Anyway, great and interesting relationship between Reeve and Tseng, and EXTREMELY cool take on how young Reeve would react to Cosmo Canyon.

Before She Hangs Her Head to Cry - Traxits

Reeve had been reasonably certain that no one was in his office. It seemed like a logical assumption to make, given that he was not there and that no one short of the President had a key. One day, he would learn to stop assuming anything when he counted the Turks among his friends.

Not enough people talk about Reeve and kidnapping Marlene! Love the backstory that is hinted at for Reno here, getting to see Reeve's thoughts and such, and how Marlene's upbringing shows up throughout her actions. The characterization is just, *mwah*, beautiful.

Little Birds by katineto

Marlene's Papa is gone, and she is scared—or, the kidnapping, from Marlene's perspective.

Reeve is terrible with children. I love seeing Marlene's POV in the whole mess, trying to make sense of what is going on and feeling so scared.

Through Another's Eyes by CorsairOriginal

Elmyra Gainsborough had only wanted to live a life in peace, but war keeps coming to her door. She had only wanted her arrangement with Marlene Wallace to be temporary, but now that she's a part of Elmyra's life she has to face the consequences of that decision. Director Reeve Tuesti didn't choose to become a spy, but orders from President Rufus Shinra are not to be refused. He didn't choose to admire a group of renegades, but now that they're a part of his life he can't walk away so easily. ~ "Through Another's Eyes" is an in-depth view of the major notes of Reeve's story in Final Fantasy VII, starting from Marlene's abduction by Shinra to the end of the original game--rewriting some concepts and adding elements from the Compilation of FF7, including Before Crisis and FFVII Remake.

THE PINNACLE OF REEVE FICS. So so so good! Great relationship of Reeve with everybody, and how he deals with the events of FFVII. The moment at the end when he finally meets everyone? FUCK YEAH, that's what it's all about baby! Fic that got me hooked on the inspire!Reeve characterization.

I'm Fine - WinterEvenings

“Cloud!” His eyes snap open, but it doesn’t do much good. All he can see is darkness anyway. They were trapped. It was his fault. It was all his fault.

Cloud is so fucked up as far as priorities and his own health is concerned. it's terrible and wonderful at the same time. Gotta love a good dose of whump.

[everybodyshusband]

per aspera ad inferi ; chapter four

[aka: the university ghouls fic]

aeon & rain & swiss (the band ghost)

mature | gen. | 1.7k words (11.9k in total) | alternate universe (university), banter, fluff, alternate universe (coffee shop)

big thank you to @wrathofrats for helping me figure out the name of the coffee shop because oh goodness i was STRUGGLING and there's always a thank you to @ghoultrifle for pre-reading this for me and cheering me on :3

snippet and ao3 link under the cut !!

The first thing Aeon notices about the courtyard when he rounds the corner is that it’s completely empty at this time of the morning. The only sign of life is the sound of coffee beans grinding and a milk frother hissing filtering out through the open door of Rain’s cafe. Well, it’s not actually Rain’s cafe, Aeon reasons with himself, but since learning that Rain works here, Aeon has been unable to refer to it as anything other than Rain’s cafe in his head. The official name is Sunshine Cafe according to the sign hanging above the door, which makes him giggle to himself. He’s sure that Sunshine probably knows this is here and has made a plethora of jokes about it but he can’t help but run through a load of possible jokes in his head too, just in case he can come up with one that Sunshine wouldn’t have made yet.

Stepping into the cafe, he’s to be immediately enveloped by a sense of warmth and comfort. The temperature outside is much too low for Aeon’s tastes and he can only hope that Rain is actually working the early shift this morning and that he hasn’t woken up too early and braved the cold for nothing. Inside, the atmosphere of the place is incredible and definitely well-matched for the early hour, especially with those heaters cranked up to such a high setting to combat the frostiness of the outside world. The tables and chairs are all mismatched, with leather couches replacing chairs along the far wall. There’s a bench along the window that faces out to the courtyard too, with high stools lined up, ready and waiting for the customers who want to enjoy a spot of people watching while drinking their morning coffee. Three out of four walls are exposed brick, all decorated with a combination of framed artwork, posters advertising events and clubs around the university, and the creeping tendrils of houseplants. The other wall, the one behind the counter, is decorated with teacups, bottles of syrup and tins containing all manner of things. Underneath the decorations, it’s painted teal and it matches the coffee machine behind which someone who is decidedly not Rain is standing.

Damnit.

“Morning,” the man says cheerfully, stepping away from the machine to stand behind the register.

“Morning,” Aeon replies, stifling a yawn as he makes his way to the counter.

“Someone’s up early,” the man—his name tag tells Aeon that he is: Swiss, he/him—jokes.

Aeon nods. “I was hoping to catch Rain this morning, but I guess they’re not working until later?”

Swiss shakes his head in disagreement. “Nope, they’re here. They’re just doing muffins or something out the back, I can grab ‘em if you want.”

“Oh, yes please!”

[thesapphictimelady]

Ad Astra Per Aspera Chapter 3

Word count: 1.8 K

TW: Domestic abuse and verbal abuse

A/N: This chapter is a bit heavier than the previous two and we hear a little more about Cassiopeia’s previous relationship. If you or someone you love is affected by domestic violence, know that you are not alone and there are resources out there for you. As always, comments are appreciated! If you want me to continue this series, please let me know! Happy reading!

“Melissa what is happening?” Barbara asked quietly, “The poor girl looks awful.”

“I told ya Barb, she went home sick yesterday.”

“Melissa Schemmenti, I know there’s something more going on. Now tell me, how can I help Cassiopeia?”

Melissa sighed and set the apple back on Barb’s desk, “I can’t tell you.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“I can’t tell you because I don’t know very much and what I do know, I don’t think she wants me to tell you. She only told me because…”

“Because?”

“I’m sorry, Barb, I really can’t tell you. It’s up to her. I won’t talk without her permission.”

“Tell me this then,” Barb said, setting down the fan she had gotten from Ava’s office, “Is she safe?”

“Safe? ‘Course she’s safe!”

Barb pursed her lips and crossed her arms.

“Ms. Schemmenti,” Ava’s voice boomed over the intercom, “Please report to my office”

“What could she possibly want?” Melissa grumbled.

“Go, I’ll take this to Cassiopeia.”

When Barbara entered the classroom, Cassie was curled up on a beanbag chair in the back of the classroom. The older teacher plugged in the fan and then dragged a chair over to where Cassie was sitting. She gently brushed a strand of hair off the young girls forehead.

“How are you feeling, Cassiopeia?”

“I’m fine, Mrs. Howard, really I am. I just didn’t sleep very well last night.”

“Honey, that shouldn’t make you dizzy like this.”

“I didn’t sleep very well…and I had a bit too much to drink? Ms Schemmenti came over last night and gave me some aspirin but I’m just…”

“Melissa was at your house last night? That can’t be right because she was with Gerald and I until 10,”

“She came around 2 this morning.”

Barbara was quiet for a few minutes as she thought about this information. Melissa had seemed quieter than normal and visibly recoiled at the mention of Joe.

“Is there something going on between the two of you?” Barb asked slowly.

“No! No, Mrs. Howard, I just met her yesterday!”

“You talkin about me?” Melissa asked, tossing Cassie another bottle of gatorade.

“What did Ava need?” Barb said, quickly changing the subject.

Melissa rolled her eyes, “Wanted to see if I had any guys who can install a hot tub in one of the supply closets. How ya feelin kid?”

“I really am fine, you two don’t have to fuss over me,” Cassiopeia said, taking a sip of gatorade, “I feel much better now.”

The older teachers exchanged a meaningful look.

“Alright,” Barbara said, “Well I will see you two at lunch. Cassiopeia, please rest. Can’t have you passing out during whatever…delightful activity Janine has planned for us.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Howard,” Cassie said, smiling softly.

“Of course,” Barbara said, closing the classroom door behind her.

“We got like 20 minutes,” Melissa said, “why don’t you take a nap?”

“I really am fine, Ms. Schemmenti,” Cassiopeia insisted, “I don’t need to take a nap. I’ll do some more grading or I can do some of your prep if you want?”

“You can do some grading but you stay right there.”

The redhead grabbed a stack of papers, a red pen, and Cassie’s phone and brought them over to the beanbag. As she was handing everything over, the name Jenny flashed across the screen and Melissa froze.

“Kid,” she said slowly, “Is everything okay?”

“What do you mean? Of course it is,” Cassie took everything out of Melissa’s hand and her face paled slightly after seeing her screen but she quickly pasted a smile onto her face, “Let’s get to work! We only have 20 minutes!”

Cassiopeia waited until Melissa was sitting at her desk and working on her own grading before she checked her phone.

Jenny:

“I miss you”

“Look, I’m really sorry.”

“Cass please can we talk.”

“Stop punishing me for something I didn’t do!”

Cassiopeia bit her lip, tears starting to fill her eyes.

Cassiopeia:

“I told you I’m done. Stop texting me!”

Jenny:

“Baby please, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again!”

Cassie sniffled and glanced towards the desk. Melissa was still hunched over the papers, her glasses perched on her nose. She took a deep breath and blocked Jenny. Picking up her pen, she got back to work grading her math tests. A few minutes later, her phone buzzed.

Unknown number:

“I can’t believe you blocked me.”

“You bitch.”

“You’re nothing without me.”

“No one could ever love you.”

“You’re nothing.”

Cassie let out a shaky breath and put her head between her knees as the room began to spin.

“New kid?” Melissa said, sounding alarmed, “Cassiopeia, what’s going on?” the redhead was at her side in no time, “Hon, can I touch you?”

Cassie nodded and Melissa put an arm around her, rubbing her back gently, “Just breathe. You’re okay. Breathe. You’re safe. I’m here.”

Cassie took the water that the older woman was pushing into her hand and held it against her forehead. She coughed a couple times, trying to catch her breath and Melissa continued to rub her back and whisper in her ear.

“I-I’m okay now, Ms. Schemmenti,” she said shakily.

“Are ya sure hon? You’re shakin like a leaf.”

“I’m okay. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Ya don’t need to apologize. But…Cassie, I think you need to talk about this.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the fact that Melissa was now using her name instead of ‘new kid’ registered. Cassie bit her lip and shook her head.

“I can’t talk about it, Ms. Schemmenti,”

The redhead pursed her lips, “I know you don’t know me all that well but whatever is going on, you need someone to help you,”

“I don’t need help. Where’s my phone?”

Melissa grabbed her phone from where it had slid under the beanbag and handed it to Cassie, “If you ever need to talk…”

“Thank you, Ms. Schemmenti, but I’m fine. I’m going to go to the bathroom.”

Once Cassie was in the bathroom, she pulled her phone out of her pocket to see almost a dozen missed calls from Jenny along with nearly twice as many texts.

Unknown number:

“You’re pathetic, Cassiopeia”

“You’re crazy.”

“You don’t know what you’ve done”

“You’ve wasted the last two years of my life”

“I never put my hands on you”

“And everyone here knows I did nothing wrong.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself for the lies you’ve told.”

“After everything I’ve done for you?”

“You’re too sensitive”

Cassiopeia’s eyes filled with tears again, blurring her vision as she braced herself against the sink, trying hard to take deep breaths. Her phone buzzed again and her stomach dropped but she looked down at the screen. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw the name on the screen.

Ms. Schemmenti:

“Hey, just checkin in on you. You okay?”

Cassiopeia:

“I’m on my way back to the classroom.”

She quickly splashed some water on her face and tucked her phone into her pocket before unlocking the bathroom door and heading back to the classroom.

“I-I think…that maybe I do want to talk about it” she said to Melissa.

Melissa looked up from her desk and gestured for her to close the door.

“What’s goin on? Barb is worried, I’m worried, please tell me.”

“Mrs. Howard is worried? What did you tell her?”

“Nothin kid. But she’s smart and she knows something’s up.”

Cassie fidgeted in the chair next to Melissa’s desk, “Remember yesterday when I…I told you guys that my ex wasn’t a good person?”

Melissa nodded, putting her glasses on top of her head and leaning forward to listen.

“I-I think you know what I meant by that. But she’s…well she started texting me again.”

Cassie unlocked her phone and slid it across the desk. The redhead pulled her glasses down again as she began to read the messages. Her eyebrows furrowed as she read and there was barely contained anger growing in her eyes.

“Cassiopeia, ya know none of this is true, right?”

“I-well…”

Melissa set a hand over Cassie’s, “Hon, this isn’t true. Okay? Have you told anyone else?”

Cassie shook her head, “No, all my friends were hers first and my family adores her. She’s right, none of them would believe me.”

“Can I get Barb? I won’t if you don’t want me to but…listen, I was married to someone who was…similar to Jenny. He…towards the end of our marriage, I had to spend some time with Barb and she helped me to unlearn some of the things he would say to me.”

Cassie bit her lip and nodded, “If you think having her here will help me, she can come in.”

Melissa picked up her phone and tapped out a quick message. Moments later, Barbara entered the room and enveloped Cassie in a hug.

“I promise, Melissa didn’t tell me anything,” she said, “I just recognized some of the signs. And I’m here for you for whatever you need.”

Cassie nodded into Barb’s shoulder and hugged her tightly, breathing in her perfume. When she finally let go, Melissa slid the phone to Barb. As she read through the messages, her face fell, a deep sadness filling her face.

“Oh, sweetheart, none of this is true, you do know that right?”

“You can show her,” Melissa whispered, gesturing towards Cassie’s sweater.

Cassie slowly shrugged off her sweater, revealing the yellowing bruises on her wrists and Barbara gasped, her eyes filling with tears. Gently, she reached out and grabbed the young woman’s hands.

“Did she do this to you?”

Cassie nodded, tears beginning to fall. Barbara looked over at Melissa, who nodded, anger starting to slip through her calm exterior.

“Cassiopeia, have you told anyone?”

Melissa cut in before Cassie could respond, “She can’t. She doesn’t think anyone would believe her.”

“We believe you, sweetheart. We believe you. You aren’t alone. We’re here for you.”

Cassie let out a sob and Barbara gathered her into a hug, pressing a soft kiss to her temple.

Melissa picked up Cassie’s phone, quickly writing down the number Jenny had been using and tucking it into her pocket for later. Then she produced a box of tissues from a desk drawer and passed it to Barb.

“Barb’s right, ya aren’t alone kid. And we’ll do whatever you need us to.”

Cassiopeia sniffled and nodded, blowing her nose.

“Attention teachers,” Ava’s voice boomed, “Please report to the gym for lunch and…Janine do we HAVE to do this ‘team building’?”

“Yes, Ava,” Janine said, her voice quieter than Ava’s, but still loud enough for everyone to hear, “It’s important. Now read the teams,”

“Fine!” Ava cleared her throat, “The first two teams for team building are Melissa, Barbara, and Princess Leia…”

“Cassiopeia,” Janine corrected, “It’s literally right in front of you.”

“Whatever Janine, it’s Melissa, Barbara, and Peia. Team two is Jacob, Gregory, and Mr. Morton. We’ll see you in the gym.”

The intercom clicked off and Melissa sighed, “Guess we gotta head to the gym now. You gonna be okay for this? I can take ya home.”

“No, I’ll be fine. Let’s just go.”

[sharpfamily]

Per Aspera Ad Astra

Happy Birthday to our favourite ex-auror potions professor! Three birthdays in the life of Aesop Sharp, brought to you by@tea-withjamandbread and @aesopsharpmybeloved. Part of collections A New Chance at Life as well as The Sharp Family Chronicles. Aesop Sharp x (adult) MC!reader

word count: 9.4 k

tw: mentions of alcohol abuse, depression, suggestive content, tooth-rotting fluff

July 1st 1881

It’s been a few days since he’s been released from St Mungo’s. Again. Dinah still had a few more days to attend to her responsibilities in Hogwarts, however, for the time being, she seemed to trust Aesop not to do anything too crazy until the term officially ended. Aesop soon discovered that all of his liquor bottles, both empty and full, had disappeared. Wonderful. There was not a single drop of alcohol left in his house. At first he felt annoyed. Irritated. Already trying to think of a way to get at least a single drink, just a little something to take the edge off. 

He didn’t have an owl, and he couldn’t exactly Floo, much less walk to some shop or pub. Not in his current state. Wiggenweld potion could only do so much, and while it did heal the smaller cuts and scrapes and helped with the pain, his hands were still bandaged in order to keep the healing balm applied to them from drying up while it restored his mangled hands. If he didn’t look miserable before his breakdown, he absolutely looked miserable now.

There was no way he could go anywhere like this… and there was no way anyone would be willing to bring him anything either. Aesop didn’t know how many people knew about his collapse - he was certain Dinah would make sure the number was minimal - but he was absolutely certain his mother knew. Abraham too, possibly. And the very thought of flooiong one of his (now former) colleagues to ask them to send him a drink? He shuddered. No. They’d ask questions. They’d possibly come over. They couldn’t see him like this.

Dinah was right. As she usually was, of course. He probably should lay off the booze for a while. Aesop wheeled himself throughout the downstairs of his childhood home. The mirror in the ground floor bathroom was left nothing more than a frame - Dinah probably vanished all of the broken glass. As he slowly rode through his kitchen, a picture frame caught his eye. In it was a photograph, and Aesop almost couldn't recognise his own face in it. 

He didn’t even know why Ashley would get a camera - probably to take photos of her son, first and foremost - but she had brought it to his birthday dinner last year. She wasn’t a particularly good photographer, but a few nice shots were taken that night a year ago. This was one of them - he was standing by the bar in the Leaky Cauldron, actually looking quite handsome and very confident, Dinah next to him and Abraham on the other side. The photograph was moving like they were moving back then - grinning, laughing, clinking their glasses together.

And then, suddenly, Ashley appeared, peeking out from the corner of the photo, wanting to be in the picture while taking it. She looked like she always did - carefree, optimistic, confident. Her wild streak has lowered somewhat since she and her wife got their little boy, but she was still the kind of person who walked into the room and lit it up with her mere presence.

He wheeled over to the photograph and placed it face down on the shelf where it stood. He couldn’t look at it anymore. Those happy memories had been his reality only a year ago. To him, though, it felt like a century had passed. The man whose birthday was being celebrated in that photograph was someone else. A happy man with his whole life ahead of him. A man with a successful career, who still struggled with his love life to be certain, but who hadn’t given up on his dream of settling down and raising a family in the home in which he himself had spent his entire life. 

A family? He wasn’t sure he could even… Not that anyone would ever want that from him anymore. Who could see him as any more than the cripple that he was. That dream of having a family of his own died the moment he stepped on to that godforsaken ship. It had vanished the very moment he had led his partner, his oldest friend, the one he was supposed to protect, to her death. His hubris having cost her all of her dreams and plans as well.

He decided that the birthday captured in the photograph Ashley had taken would be the last one he celebrated. He would have more birthdays, of course, Dinah having knocked some sense into him after his breakdown. He had already been the cause of enough pain and suffering for those he cared about the most. So he would make a point to survive, to continue existing, for them, but he saw no need to boast about having circled the sun one more time. Not when his partner hadn’t circled it with him.

Suddenly he heard the door open. He wasn't expecting company, in fact he had specifically requested that no one visit him today. He didn't want to worry anyone but he also didn't want to face their feeble attempts at cheering him up, at making him feel special on the anniversary of his birth. He didn't want to see the sadness and pity in their eyes. They did their best to hide it, of course, but he knew it was there. He was a pitiful sight indeed. He wheeled himself around as fast as he could manage and drew his wand, not that it would do him much good in his current state, the bandages on his hands making his grip awkward. If it came to it, he didn't know if he'd even be able to defend himself and his home in the event of an unsavory intruder.

He recognized the footsteps instantly and pocketed his wand.

Of course she'd show up anyways. The nerve.

Dinah bloody Hecat.

He heard the door close and wheeled himself to greet his guest. He'd at least give her that courtesy. When the younger, now older looking woman appeared in his line of sight, he saw she had come armed with a large bag of groceries. She looked at him.

"You look like hell."

"Lovely to see you too."

Dinah walked right past him, heading straight for the kitchen. Aesop thought she might have walked straight into him if he hadn’t quickly wheeled himself backwards. He supposed he still retained some of his Auror reflexes even after everything.

Dinah set down her bag and started unloading everything, pulling out potatoes, carrots, parsnips, various herbs, a jar of broth, some dried mushrooms and a large piece of meat out of the bag. Aesop knew instantly that she had come here on someone else’s errand. She had never been much of a cook herself after all. Aesop however, recognized his mother’s venison stew when he saw it, even in its currently disassembled state. 

“Mum sent you, didn’t she."

It wasn't a question.

“She’s worried about you, Aesop. Especially today of all days”

“There’s nothing special about today. It’s just… a day”

“It’s your birthday, Aesop”

“Why does that even ma-“

Dinah dind't give him the time to finish, fixing him with a stare so intense, he had to stifle a tremble.

“It matters because 34 years ago your mother labored for about the same number of hours in order to bring you into this world. She then raised you along with your father until he was gone. Then she somehow found the strength to raise you AND provide for you by herself while grieving her own husband. It matters because she made sure you had everything you needed for your education, because she saw you through your Auror training AND career and earlier this year, she thought she’d be laying you to rest next to her husband instead of the other way around. So today, on the anniversary of your birth, even though YOU don’t want to see her, she STILL wanted to make sure you got to eat your favorite meal, so I am here, Aesop Theodore Sharp, on HER errand and I WILL see this through, even if I have to bind you to that infernal chair of yours and force feed you myself.”

Aesop pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew his mother deserved better than the worry he had put her through not just this year, but during his entire career as an Auror. And as much as he hated to admit it, he knew that Dinah could, and would follow through with her threat. Hell, the woman could have taken him down at his peak, let alone the sorry state he currently found himself in.

"Dinah-"

"As I was saying, I'm not here to celebrate. I’m here to make sure you don't starve to death. Also this house needs tidying up… you know I'm always afraid of tripping over something or another when I visit you nowadays. My balance isn't the worst for someone my…well for someone with the body I have, but it's not getting any better"

It was easy for Aesop to forget that Dinah, while exhibiting a strong facade and with her fierce personality, still hadn’t fully made peace with her own career-ending injury. Although she had remade herself as Hogwarts’ Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, he knew this was not her first choice. He would have to remake himself in due time, the pension he received from the Ministry barely covering his living expenses, but he wasn’t ready for that. Not yet at least.

Dinah busied herself browning the meat for the stew when she addressed her friend once more.

"You need to bathe, Aesop, you smell quite terrible."

"I… it's been a few days."

"I can tell. Do you need my help or can you manage on your own?"

"I think I can manage."

“Good."

Aesop wheeled himself to his bedroom where he carefully got undressed and discarded his clothes in the now overflowing laundry bin. Well, it wasn’t exactly his bedroom, the room had originally served as a study, however, following his injury, ascending the flight of stairs that led to his bedroom was no longer an option, so his mother had conjured a bed and had attempted to make the room as cozy as she could. He appreciated her efforts, but it just wasn’t the same. Nothing was, come to think about it. 

With a towel around his body for some semblance of privacy, he slowly made his way to the bathroom and took the bandages off his hands. They looked a little better today, but he would still need to reapply that healing balm for another week according to the Healers at St Mungo’s. He sat on the bench that had been conjured in the shower and turned the water on. He carefully went through the now considerably lengthy ritual of lathering his hair and body, being careful not to irritate his hands too much. 

The scars on his leg and face used to be excruciating, however the passage of time as well as rigorous desensitization as part of his shower routine had made them almost painless to the touch. If only his blasted leg would have improved in the same manner he’d maybe have a shot at a fulfilling life. However, he had been told to get used to it, to “learn to live” with his injury. He could never get used to this. He would never get used to it. Perhaps there was something out there that could help him.

He put those thoughts aside and shut the water off, dried himself and opened the door leading to his hopefully temporary bedroom. He instantly noticed that the windows had been opened, a warm summer breeze gently blowing in the large bedroom. His bed had been made, the overflowing laundry bin had been emptied and there were clean, comfortable clothes laid out on his bed, next to the armchair he sat on while getting dressed. 

That woman truly was incorrigible. As he got dressed though, he realized how nice it felt to breathe the fresh summer air that was cleansing the room, as opposed to the stale air he had been inhaling ever since he had been discharged from St Mungo’s. He hadn’t been opening the windows at night like he used to before his injury. In that moment, he remembered how much he enjoyed it, though. Tonight he’d make a point to open his bedroom windows before turning in. He also realized how his shower, how the simple turned not-so-simple act of washing his body had put him in a slightly better mood. He applied the healing balm to his hands and bandaged them before making his way towards the door.

As Aesop left his bedroom, he could already smell the stew Dinah had prepared, which had just started to simmer. He could also smell the freshly brewed tea she had prepared. As he approached her, seated at the dining room table, the chair that would normally be next to her having been vanished in what he assumed was an invitation to join her, he noticed she had already poured them both a cup, and that she was currently poring over his mail, which had accumulated over the past week. He hadn’t bothered to sort through any of it since returning home.

“Still only cream in your tea?”

“Of course”

Dinah handed him his cup as well as a pile of letters

“These require your immediate attention”

“I’ll… make sure I deal with them, then”

Dinah handed him a quill, barely looking up from her organizing.

“No time like the present, Aesop.”

Aesop took the quill without argument and started filling out the various forms Dinah had given him. Applications for additional disability pay from the Ministry, tax forms, appeal letters to send to the Ministry requesting they cover the various experimental treatments he had received to attempt to heal his injury sustained in the line of duty. Once in awhile Dinah added a form or two to his workload, while sorting out the mail she deemed as rubbish.

“This one appears to be an offer letter fo work for the Auror recruitment program”

“They told me to 'take all the time I need' but they’re really hoping I don’t need time at all don’t they. That I’ll just bounce back, so to speak.”

“It would appear so”

Aesop sighed. “I’m not ready, Dinah. I can barely take care of myself at the moment. I can barely even walk from here to the front door of my own house. How could I-”

Dinah placed her hand on his

“You don’t have to accept the position right now, Aesop. I read the letter and they appear willing to wait for you to recover more before you’d-”

“I’m not sure I even want that job. I don’t think it would be right for me to take it”

“You can think about it later. For now, let’s get us some fresh air.”

Dinah stood up and made her way towards the side door, past the kitchen, where the stew she had prepared was still simmering. Aesop followed her outside. She sat on the stone bench closest to the house, overlooking the now quite unkempt garden. Aesop wheeled himself right next to her, a difficult feat on the uneven terrain. He really ought to get walking again, lest he spend the rest of his life confined to his house. They sat in comfortable silence.

“That stew does smell delicious. You did a great job.”

“Well, your mother was very clear in her instructions. All I did was follow.”

“You did so much more than that.”

“I know you’d have done the same for me. You did, in fact, if I remember correctly.” Aesop had been there for her when Dinah had been wounded on the job. He had been there at the hospital, and had helped her tremendously when she moved back to her home. He had even offered for her to move back in with him. They were no longer romantically involved, but he had still been ready to put his life and plans on pause to help her in any way he could. She had declined his kind offer but appreciated it nonetheless.

“Yes, well… that’s what friends are for, I suppose.”

They had been through so much together. A failed romantic relationship turned friendship for the ages. They had each seen each other at their worst and would eventually make peace with their respective situations, and see themselves at their best once more. For now, though, the present moment was all that existed.

"You know, you told me I'd hate you come September… you're going to try a lot harder to get me to that point."

"Term just ended. I have plenty more time now to be a thorn in your side."

Aesop chuckled, perhaps for the first time in a long time

"Thank you for being here today."

July 1st 1893

The last week of school flew by in front of Aesop’s eyes. Exams were done, and both teachers and students could breathe a sigh of relief. He had helped his sweetheart settle into the little house she rented at the edge of Hogsmeade throughout the last few days, her various books and tomes, the majority of her clothes, the little knick knacks and memorabilia she collected during her three years at Hogwarts. 

And, of course, the beasts. Some would be released back into the wild, as the poachers throughout the Highlands severely lessened in numbers, following this insane (former) Ravenclaw student crashing into their operations. A few more vulnerable ones would be found new homes, as would be the girl’s new apprenticeship at Brood and Peck, and some she simply wished to keep and care for herself. With Aesop’s help, they transfigured the inside of a large chest into something of a Sanctuary for the beasts his love would be keeping. Deek aided in their relocation, having a hard time saying goodbye to them. (F/N) had promised the elf he was welcome to visit them whenever he wanted.

The Seventh year’s ball rolled around, then graduation, then the teary-eyed departure of most of the students on the Hogwarts express. Aesop wouldn’t admit it, but he too had shed a few tears all those years ago, when he boarded that train for the last time. 

Today, however, was not a day for tears. It was Saturday, which meant his sweetheart had two more days to settle in and get her bearings before officially beginning her adult life and her new job. She usually woke up before him, but it seemed the turbulent few days left the young woman in a state of exhaustion. It was the first time she spent the night in her new abode, and Aesop graciously agreed to help her find  out if the bed was any good. 

Well, it definitely wasn’t as good as the bed he slept in at Hogwarts, nor the one in his own house, being softer than he was used to. However, he noted that his back wasn’t troubling him upon waking up, which was a small victory. Much bigger victory currently craddled in his arms. His beautiful young lover was curled into his side, her breathing soft and even, her hair matted and messy with sleep, and a bit of drool was dried upon her jowl. The potions master thought she looked like a dream come true. 

He took in his surroundings, the room was unfamiliar and had yet to be lived in, but it had every bit the potential to become a very cozy bedroom. The floors were straight and firm, the wallpapers pleasant to the eyes, the windows let in a lot of natural light. Speaking of the windows, they were currently open to let the fresh summer morning air in, and Aesop could hear the wizarding village waking up and coming to life. In a few hours, the streets would be filled with people enjoying what was looking to be a sunny Saturday. Aesop closed his eyes again with a content little hum, burrowing further into the light smooth sheets and his sweetheart’s arms.

It all still felt rather surreal, really. Every single night he went to bed with the lovely Ravenclaw, he expected to wake alone and realize it's all been nothing but a dream. And while he did wake up alone on quite a few mornings, it took only a few seconds for him to know that it certainly hadn't been a dream. There was the faint floral scent of his lover's perfume clinging to his sheets, to his pillows, to him. It was all around him in this intoxicating vapor, mingling with the cool air around him. There was sometimes a note, carefully folded upon one of the seats of the large leather sofa, directly in his field of view from the bed. There was the absence of the shirt he wore the previous day…

Even now, when she was resting in his arms, soft, warm and absolutely real, Aesop bit into his bottom lip to make sure it wasn't a dream. He was startled then, as a sudden loud sound came from outside, followed by some more commotion and the frustrated voice of Zonko's shopkeeper. Probably a firework gone haywire. The young girl stirred against him, groaning quietly.

"Good morning, you," Aesop said softly, a smile appearing on his face on its own accord. His beloved tilted her head and her eyes fluttered open. The first thing she saw was Aesop, and he felt his heart throb, when her own face stretched in a smile, her sleepy eyes immediately filled with love and devotion. She looked around the room then, an adorable little line between her eyebrows as she slowly began to realise she wasn't in Aesop's chambers, nor was she in her dorm. 

And then it hit her. The young woman released a breathy chuckle and her legs curled around one of Aesop's own. The potions master felt her warm cheek on his collarbone, he felt her hands caress his furry torso. It was then he had a little realisation himself - his sweetheart was also making sure she wasn't dreaming. And it was this knowledge that made him drop his head back onto the pillow, his eyes closing in bliss. 

“Good morning, Aesop,” she whispered before raising her head a little to place a kiss between his jaw and his chin. She released a soft sigh then, gently resting her forehead against his collarbone once more. Aesop’s heart beat loudly in his chest, and he was certain she knew it was only for her. “Merlin, it's so strange… no homework, no essays, no studying… so strange to wake up and know that I don’t have to do anything...” On her mouth was a content smile, very much reminding Aesop of a kneazle that got the cream. “Oh, yes,” he answered, voice light and teasing, “for exactly two days. Then off to work with you!” The girl snorted against his skin, and when she lifted her head again, Aesop was nearly certain she was keeping herself back from sticking out her tongue at him.

“Besides,” he continued, his large hands stroking over her sides and back, relishing at the feeling of her silky soft skin under his calloused fingertips, “don’t forget that you’re not in Hogwarts anymore. There are no house elves - you cook for yourself, clean after yourself, the full deal.” She was lazily twirling strands of his chest hair around her index finger, her face absolutely relaxed: “I can do that. I think. I can cook a little, and I tend to keep things tidy. It’s just… Well, my household spells are still a bit shabby. I think I’m going to get frustrated trying to wash the dishes using magic, and will end up just doing it by hand anyway.” Aesop chuckled, the girl atop his chest bouncing softly with the motion. “All in good time,” he said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day, and just like everything else, household spells need to be practiced in order to be perfected. I can help you with that.”

They lay in the girl’s bed, legs entwined, just enjoying the calm summer morning. “What will you be doing, by the way, now that you’ve no classes to teach and school work to grade for the next two months?” She inquired curiously. “Me? Oh, I’ll be staying in your bed every day, teasing you that you have to go to work!” the potions master grinned and promptly received a playful smack to the chest. “No, no. I still have some unfinished things at Hogwarts, not to mention my trunk’s still in my chambers, terribly unpacked, I'm afraid. There’s several teacher meetings during the summer as well. I’ll be brewing potions for the hospital wing throughout the two months so that it’s all stocked up for the following term. I'll be revising the curriculum - though I hardly ever make changes to it - and I also need to tidy up the house a bit. It does get dusty after ten months. However, that all can wait. It can definitely wait for the two free days.”

And so Aesop Sharp and (F/N)(L/N) spent the beautiful July day simply enjoying their freedom and their company. The young woman insisted on preparing their breakfast by hand, and while it was ‘just’ scrambled eggs and some toast, Aesop was certain they were the best scrambled eggs he’d ever eaten, simply because they were prepared by her and he was able to enjoy them in her company alone. 

Afterwards he showed her how to properly clean the dishes with magic, starting with a single teacup. They picked up and cleaned the singular dishes back and forth, until everything was clean. A single flick of Aesop’s wand summoned a towel from a hook, which promptly began drying the dishes clean. Another flick, and the dry ones floated to their respective spaces and stored themselves. With a smile, he observed his young lover’s awed expression. “No worries,” he promised, “you’ll have perfected it before the year is done.”

They decided to go for a little stroll along the banks of the Black lake later, talking softly, basking in the sunlight. Aesop, whose entire wardrobe was still at Hogwarts, chose to only wear his trousers, shirt and waistcoat, opting to leave his jacket and overcoat behind, as it was entirely too warm to wear them. He still applied a little cooling charm on all articles of his clothing for comfort. When his sweetheart got dressed, he realised that it really had not been often he saw her out of her uniform or her adventuring ensembles. He certainly couldn’t wait to remedy that, he thought, as he observed the dress she chose for their outing. It was light, sleek and simple, and it complimented all of her curves perfectly. She saw him staring and actually twirled for him with a wink. Little minx.

Aesop offered his arm to her, and his heart squeezed tightly at the display of emotion he saw in her eyes when she immediately accepted it. They walked all the way to the spot she brought him during their late night hippogriff flight. “You know, back then I had to use all of my energy not to just turn my head and kiss you,” (F/N) laughed quietly, a small blush on her cheeks. Aesop grinned and looked towards the dark, murky water, remembering that spring night. He could almost see the memory in front of his eyes. His sweetheart skipping stones at the shore, him standing behind her, longing.

A shuffle next to him brought him out of his thoughts. The young woman was currently pulling off her summer dress, baring the skin of her legs. “What are you doing?” he asked, eyes as big as saucers. Normally, her taking off her clothes would get nothing but positive feedback from him, however, seeing as they were out in the open, in broad daylight, he very much doubted the woman had some tender fun on her mind right now. She grinned at him giddily as she finally managed to escape the fabric and folded it haphazardly. She disposed of it on the same boulder he leaned against over a year ago, her shoes already sitting on it, and, with a wink, began running towards the water, in nothing but her chemise and drawers. 

“No way…” the potions master shook his head, even as the corners of his mouth began twitching. And then, with a single tiny squeal, (F/N) threw herself head first into the Black lake. He was smiling fully now, finding her youthful playfulness and unadulterated joy incredibly endearing. He walked closer to the water’s edge. His sweetheart emerged a second later, drenched from head to toe, grinning wildly. She was slightly flushed from the cold, but otherwise looked in utmost bliss.

“I hope you don’t expect me to jump in after you,” he said wryly, crossing his arms over his chest. The woman laughed with all the meriness of a child. She swam closer to the shore for a bit, so that she could stand while she pushed her wet hair out of her face: “Honestly, I was rather hoping you would, but I’m not going to force you. Although I’m telling you, you’re missing out!” And with that, she leaned back and began idly floating on her back. 

Aesop looked at her form. The white chemise was clinging to her body, her skin showing through the wet material. Dropping the cooling charm he put on his clothes, he noticed just how hot the day turned. Suddenly the water seemed all the more appealing. He admired the curves of his lover’s body, his hands already itching to trace them as he unconsciously pulled at his own clothes. He knew she was watching him out of the corner of her eye, actually saw her roll her eyes a little as he conjured a small leather holster for his wand and tied it around his bony ankle and shin. 

She rolled around to look at him fully when he took a step after step towards the water. Despite the hot weather, the water was cold, and it nipped at his skin, but Aesop didn’t let that stop him. Another step. The water was now at his calves, then knees, and getting higher. He winced slightly when he was half submerged, baling his hands into fists as he battled the cold. But then he saw her little smirk, the challenge still shining in her eyes. With a huff, Aesop dived under the water. The sudden shock his body experienced was quickly overcome when he saw his sweetheart’s legs underwater, kicking slowly to keep her afloat. 

He grabbed her just above her knees and rose above the surface. He faintly heard her little squeal before a pair of arms wrapped around his neck and her playful eyes connected with his own. Her legs found purchase around his waist and he released them in favour of curling his own arms around her waist. He stared triumphantly into her eyes for a moment, before chasing her lips in a very wet and a little cold kiss, prompting a happy humming sound from his beloved.

Aesop was done with missing out.

It was late afternoon when they returned to (F/N)'s new abode. They spent the better part of the day by the water, swimming, playing, and simply relaxing. While his sweetheart busied herself with conjuring up a blanket for them to sit on on the bank, Aesop cast just a few protective wards around them, so that they could enjoy themselves in solitude and safety. He couldn't even remember the last time he's had a day like this. They swam, they rested on the blanket, they swam some more. It was so simple, and yet Aesop's heart was fluttering with absolute contentment. Once they dried themselves, got dressed, vanished the blanket and dropped the wards, they simply apparated back to the little house. The potions master prepared a dinner for them with magic, since they were both starving by the time they arrived.

His sweetheart watched in amazement as some of the various food items she brought over to her new home the previous day floated about, cut themselves up perfectly and arranged themselves around a small baking dish. Chicken legs with roasted vegetables it was. Within just a few seconds, their food was ready, looking amazing and smelling even better. They ate their fill in a comfortable silence until: "You know, this is spectacular, and I'd surely like to learn how to do it," she said quietly, "however, I actually quite enjoy cooking by hand." Aesop chuckled, piercing a baked potato onto his fork: "So do I. Many people do, this is just quick and convenient. And while it tastes alright, you'd be moaning at the taste was I to prepare it by hand," he spoke confidently. His young lover giggled into her food: "You can still make me moan tonight, if you want to."

Aesop very much wanted to.

Later, as they were coming down from their highs, snuggled perfectly in each other's arms, the professor took some time to reflect. He really could not remember the last time he had such an amazing birthday… he tended to even forget he had one, not having celebrated it since that fateful day twelve years ago. But today, despite his sweetheart not knowing that on this day, 45 years ago, Aesop Theodore Sharp took his first breath, she very much made him feel like the birthday boy.

He cuddled up even closer to her, his strong arms squeezing her frame, still hot from their previous activity. His lips found hers in a deep kiss and afterwards, the professor rested his forehead against her own, breathing the same air as her. "I want to thank you…" he said quietly, only for her ears to hear, "this was the best birthday I've had in years."

He could feel her body tensing immediately. "Today's your birthday?" she asked, raising her head to look at him. Her beautiful eyes were wide and filled with panic: "Why didn't you tell me? I don't- I don't even have a present for you." He quickly pulled her up for a kiss, stroking her back in a calming matter. "I haven't celebrated my birthday for a long time... And as for a present - why, you already gave it to me!" His sweetheart fixed him with a curious gaze and Aesop sighed: "To be able to hold you, kiss you, love you… this entire day was the greatest gift I could've asked for. To have your heart in my hands, that is the most precious thing I've ever been given." 

The young woman sighed as well, and wrapped her delicate arms around him, nuzzling into his neck momentarily before raising her head up again, a brilliant smile on her face, a smile of love, devotion and incredible joy: "Still, we should celebrate. You deserve a day to be spoiled rotten!" 

"You are already spoiling me rotten!"

"Hah, I try to, but we should still celebrate. Let me take you to the Three Broomsticks tomorrow for a meal. We can have a good bite, champagne, who knows, perhaps Sirona will be able to get us a cake!"

Aesop chuckled, his cheeks warming up somewhat. It was strange - the idea of actually celebrating his birthday after he hadn't done so for so long. However, as strange as it felt, he could already feel the pleasurable tickling of anticipation. "Alright…" he breathed then, "if you want to. But know that I would've been happy enough to just spend the day in your company." 

His sweetheart fixed him with an intense gaze, her eyes sincere: "I want to. Because I finally can. We spent so much time sneaking around, I long to finally be able to show how I feel openly. I want to grab your hand in mine when we walk together, I yearn to be able to kiss and hold you whenever I wish. And I really want to celebrate that on this day, the most incredible man was born. I don't know what I'd do without you here. Perhaps I wouldn't be here myself, if you hadn't gone to the Astronomy tower that day. You are an exceptionally beautiful existence, Aesop Sharp, and your birthday should be celebrated."

The potions master swallowed heavily, willing away the tears that threatened to form in his eyes. Her confession shook him to his core, and, in that moment, there was nothing he wanted more than to hold her in his arms. Aesop truly did not think he'd ever celebrate his birthday again. Since Ashley's death, he really thought that he wasn't entitled to do so. But perhaps his sweetheart hadn't been entirely wrong. Perhaps him saving her life tipped the scales a little. If Ashley could see him now… well, she'd probably smack his shoulder very hard and tell him to pull his head out of his arse and seize the chance he's been given, like a proper Slytherin would. In that moment, he felt a sense of peace wash over him, and his breathing slowly evened out.

"Alright, my sweet," he said only, as her face once more nuzzled into his shoulder, more than content to stay there. Aesop breathed out slowly, his arms wrapping around the young woman's body in a protective manner.

The room was dark and Aesop could hear sounds of the village outside falling asleep. He could hear faint music coming from the Three Broomsticks, and he heard silent voices caught in a conversations, as their owners passed by the little house. The air smelled sweet with the sun having warmed it the entire day. Aesop closed his eyes, basking in the feeling of love, of comfort.

The next day, his sweetheart did exactly as she promised. She walked with him into the Three Broomsticks, hand in hand, looking proud and happy. She kissed him out in the open, before they even opened the door to the pub, absolutely uncaring to whoever saw them. The look she gave him afterwards… Aesop realised that she did want to do that for some time. That the fact that she was his own filled her with pride. That the young woman, who defeated a troll during the first week of her studies, willingly gave her heart to one ex-Auror potions professor. In a moment of giddy madness, Aesop grabbed her around the waist, dipped her ever so slightly, and snogged the living daylights out of her.

"Are you quite done? Your stew's getting cold," came the voice of Sirona Ryan, who was leaning against the doorframe with a mischievous look in her eyes. Aesop fixed his sweetheart with a curious look. 

"I may have written to professor Hecat to ask what's your favourite food when you were still sleeping," she admitted with a shy smile, "and I also may have written to Sirona, asking her to prepare it for you, as well as get us a cake afterwards." Sirona watched the scene unfold before her eyes, a big smile on her face: "Happy birthday, Professor Sharp." "Thank you, Sirona." 

It truly seemed his life was to be filled with strong-willed and strong-minded women. He was quite the lucky man.

July 1st 1908 

It was morning in the Sharp household and a summer breeze gently blew through the open window of Mr and Mrs Sharp's bedroom. The gentle sound of birds chirping could be heard but didn't wake the occupants of the bedroom, currently soundly asleep in each other's arms. A sound did manage to rouse Mrs Sharp though. The pitter patter of little feet and the creaking of floorboards. 

Someone was awake. Actually, judging by the sound of it, more than one of the children was on the move. She knew the children had been looking forward to surprising their father with breakfast in bed for his birthday, but she hadn't managed to piece together much more than that. She didn't know what they were planning to prepare, and thought it would probably be best if she made her way downstairs to assist or, at the very least, supervise.

As gently as she could, she tried to extricate herself from her husband's grip without waking him up. It was still early and she wanted to let him sleep for a little bit. Aesop had other plans though, having been woken by his wife's feeble attempt at leaving their shared bed. 

"Where do you think you're going, darling?"

He pulled her towards him and held her close, her back completely flush against his front. She could feel his morning arousal as he kissed her neck. 

"You weren't just going to leave me to wake up by myself, today of all days."

He continued gently nipping at her neck, his fingers drawing lazy patterns on her skin. With a sigh, she melted into his embrace and he took the opportunity to gently turn her on her back, moving his hands along her body and moving his kisses to her collarbones, her body semi-trapped underneath his large frame.

It had taken some number of years, but eventually (F/N) had managed to convince her husband that his birthday was a day that deserved to be celebrated, and he eventually got to enjoy being the center of attention for just this one day a year. Perhaps a little too much at times! It seemed as though he was already quite eager to unwrap his birthday present from her.

This morning, though, as much as she enjoyed the way his kisses and touch were slowly lighting her body on fire, as much as she wanted to give in and give him what he wanted, what they both wanted, she knew she needed to make her way downstairs, before their children would have the chance to set fire to the kitchen. However the feeling of her husband's very experienced hands making their way towards her more sensitive areas, the knowledge that his mouth would soon follow, was enough to make her momentarily forget about the possible disaster that she would find downstairs should she choose to indulge her husband.

"Aesop I-"

"Hmmm"

Aesop knew what he was doing. He trailed kisses down her abdomen and she knew then and there that she had lost the battle. She'd deal with the chaos later. Right now there was only one person that existed in the world and that person was about to…

CLANG!

The loud sound coming from the kitchen put an instant end to the couple's morning's activities, their arousal instantly replaced with concern. Concern for the structural integrity of their home, as well as the safety of its occupants. Aesop begrudgingly made his way back up to the head of the bed.

"I should go investigate that."

"Probably a good idea. Let's go see what the rascals are up to now."

"YOU are going to stay right here, sir, and act surprised when the children bring you whatever it is they planned on making you for your birthday breakfast. I will go downstairs and make sure we still have a house by the time they're done."

Aesop gave her a mock pout as his wife quickly got herself dressed for the morning.

"Don't worry, love. I'll make sure you get to unwrap your birthday present… after the rascals are in bed."

One quick kiss from his wife before she swiftly left the room and quietly closed the door.

Aesop heard his older son speak right outside the bedroom door, he had probably been on the way to ask for his mother's help with whatever it was the children had planned.

"Is he still asleep, Mum?"

His wife whispered

"Still sound asleep, dear."

"Brilliant!"

"Shhhhhh"

Eleazar lowered his voice

"Right. Quiet"

"Let's get downstairs"

Down they went and Aesop was left with his thoughts. He could hear the faint buzzing of his family in the kitchen, his wife no doubt deferring to their children's plans for his breakfast and letting them do as much as they were able to manage on their own. He remembered his birthday breakfast in bed from the previous year with fondness. A half burnt over-salted omelet along with biscuits (slightly undercooked), tea (weak) and a bowl of strawberries he ended up having to surrender to his 3 year old twins. It had been quite unpalatable, but seeing the pride in his children's eyes when they had told him they had cooked everything themselves had made the meal the best birthday breakfast he had ever had. He knew the children would outdo themselves this year.

He had been a father for a whole decade by now, but sometimes he still couldn't believe that the rambunctious bunch that was currently being supervised by his darling wife, those four bundles of joy and chaos, were his. That this was his life now. He had known as a young man that he wanted children and had given up on this dream at one point of his life. He had never expected though, that he could love these four little people as much as he did.

He was pulled out of his reverie by the smell of bacon. Wonderful, he thought, one can only mess up bacon so much! He knew his family would enter the bedroom any minute now to “wake him up” so Aesop laid down on his side of the bed, turned away from the door and closed his eyes. He heard the door creak open.

“He’s still sleeping”

“Shhhhh”

“Wait, no we need to wake him up!”

“I can do it!”

“Alright dear but be gentle”

“Okay Mum”

“Thedodore don’t jump on-”

Aesop felt the bed dip and braced himself for what he was sure was an incoming tackle from a rambunctious four year old.

“Hmphhh”

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!”

“My birthday isn’t until next week Theodore”

The boy stood up and looked at his mother in confusion

“He’s just pulling your leg, dear”

“That’s right, I’m just” Aesop physically tugged at his son’s legs, causing him to land flat on his back on the soft bed and dissolve in a fit of giggles “messing with you!”

The former professor looked at his family. Everyone was still in their pajamas, some of his children's clothes bearing the proof of their efforts in making his breakfast, little spots of dried batter the most evident. Both his daughters' hair were still in the braids he had woven the previous evening, now with stray strands sticking out in odd directions from their slumber. Theodore obviously hadn't brushed his hair yet, while Eleazar looked as put together as he usually did, wearing a light dressing gown and bearing the least bits of Aesop's breakfast on his clothes. He caught his wife's eyes - they were shining with pride. She was, of course, completely clean, her silky dressing gown as pristine as it had been before she left the bedroom. 

Four pairs of his own brown eyes stared up at him with excitement and anticipation, and Aesop felt his heart swell when he saw the perfect mix of himself and his wife in each of their beautiful children.

Maggie approached her father with a tray.

“We made you breakfast in bed!”

Aesop took a look at the tray from his daughter and from what he could see, the children HAD outdone themselves. He was right about the bacon, there were also scrambled eggs, pancakes, a lovely fruit salad, a cup of tea, and a small bowl filled with chocolate chips. 

“I cooked the eggs and the bacon and I tried to flip the first pancake, but it didn’t turn out nice, so we tossed it, then Mum helped me make the second one but the one on top I did all by myself!”

“That’s wonderful Maggs.”

“And (F/N) and Theo were in charge of mixing the fruit salad and filling the chocolate chips.” 

“That salad looks expertly mixed, thank you. Eleazar, what did you do to help?”

“I measured out everything for the pancake batter AND I brewed the tea. I even used the scales like you taught me!” 

Eleazar spoke with great pride. Last year his father had started to teach him the basics of potionmaking and the lad had taken to the craft like a fish to water. Aesop took a sip of his tea.

“That’s some very good tea, Thank you Eleazar”

The boy beamed.

The twins each sat on one side of him and Aesop made sure to grab himself a handful of chocolate chips before the inevitable happened and he’d have to surrender the sweets to his youngest children. 

“Alright, everyone, let’s let Dad eat his breakfast in peace now. Then we can all have fun. Shop’s closed today so we get to keep Dad all to ourselves for the day.”

(F/N) herded the children out of the bedroom and handed Aesop what was left of his little bowl of sweets. 

“Enjoy your food, darling, I’ll get the little ones dressed then we can do whatever it is you’d like.”

She gave him a kiss before leaving the room. Aesop was pleased to find out that everything had been seasoned well this year, most likely due to Eleazar’s precise measurement of ingredients. Once his breakfast had been eaten, Aesop got dressed and did his morning hygiene before joining his family downstairs, empty tray in hand. The weather seemed nice, perhaps they could go to the beach for a picnic and a swim.

The potions master walked into the kitchen, which actually bore less signs of the breakfast preparation than his children's clothes did. No doubt his wife's prompt work with a wand. His eyes were caught by the sight of many moving photographs displayed on a shelf. Aesop stopped for a moment, looking at the pictures fondly. The photo with Ashley taken 28 years ago on this very day was proudly standing among other happy photos. There was a picture of him and his wife on their wedding day, grinning at each other,  both looking incredible as well as incredibly in love. His sweetheart still looked at him this way, even 12 years after that beautiful June day, and he knew he did as well. There were the newer pictures, his children at various ages, from mere babies and toddlers, to a very recent photo of Maggie holding a very fluffy Puffskein. And then, there were some older ones, too. A moving photo of young Aesop, taken the day he got into the Auror program, looking proud and confident, as well as a single completely still photo of his dear wife, taken by a Muggle camera.

Aesop deposited the tray into the sink and with a flick of his wand, the dishes got to cleaning themselves. His wife walked towards him and put her arms around his abdomen, pressing herself against his back.

“You’re not supposed to be doing any dishes today.”

“It’s nothing, besides you already have your hands full with the children.”

“They can take care of themselves… mostly.”

Aesop turned around to face his wife. They had circled the sun many times together but she still looked as young and beautiful as the day he married her.

“I was thinking I’d like to take everyone to the coast for lunch, let the children play in the water.”

“Only the children?”

“I suppose we could also go for a dip, for old time’s sake.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

He leaned in and captured her lips in a quick kiss, before being interrupted by Maggie and Eleazar. 

"Dad, how old are you turning?" Aesop decided not to volunteer that information. The former teacher in him made him want to make his children work for the answer.

"Well let's see. I was born in the year 1848 and this is the year 1908."

The children to looked at their mother "Don't look at me, you know how to subtract."

The two eldest rushed to find the nearest quill and parchment and got to work, eager to get an answer to their burning question. 

Aesop let out a sigh. He was hitting a milestone today. "Oh come on, dear. If it makes you feel any better you don't look a day over fifty."

Aesop chuckled and pulled his wife close. "Thank you. It's strange, though. I don't feel old. Merlin knows I feel better now than I did for most of my thirties. My life significantly improved in my forties"

“I wonder what happened then”

“I met this incredible woman, you see, got to know her, fell in love with her, somehow she decided she’d entrust her heart to me. Sometimes I still don’t understand what she saw in an old cripple but - don’t give me that look, that’s what I was at the time - in any case, loving her was what turned my life around for the better. And now we have these incredible-”

“SIXTY!”

Both parents chuckled. “Well done, you two.” “That’s… six times as old as I am!” “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that Magdala Dinah Sharp”

Later that day, the family of six found themselves at the beach, all four children playing in the water, both older siblings keeping an eye on the younger children whose swimwear had been enchanted to keep them afloat. Aesop and (F/N) sat on a blanket basking in the sunlight and taking in the scene.

The gentle rocking of waves filled the air around with a soft fizzing sound, broken by the cries of seagulls. Aesop could hear other birds singing from somewhere behind them in the trees. The sounds of nature combined with the giddy squeals and chattering of his children was like a symphony of absolute peace in Aesop's ears. He looked at his beloved, and saw her eyes reflecting the same utter contentment that was held in his own.

A thought crossed Aesop's mind and with a mischievous smile, he whispered in his wife’s ear “I’ll bet you a kiss I can beat you to the water”

She looked at him, her smile matching his own “Hmm I don't know… I wouldn't want to make you look bad on your birthday” she teased, but standing up as to indicate she accepted his challenge "We'll see about that…" the potions master teased back

The children watched with amusement as both their parents suddenly broke into a full blown sprint towards the sea when suddenly a faint “pop” was heard and Aesop disappeared, immediately appearing in the water, a few meters behind the children.

“You cheat!”

“We never said apparition wasn’t allowed” Aesop swam over to the children who were all giggling. (F/N) finished making her way towards the water before taking a few steps in. Once she was able to, she dove in and swam over to meet the rest of the family.

“I’ll be claiming that kiss now”

“You cheated. I think that kiss is mine to claim”

“As you wish”

Aesop made his way over to his wife, gently kissed her lips before moving around her and wrapping his arms around her waist, both of them watching the children resume their play, Eleazar and Maggie having apparently decided on a little swimming race of their own as the twins tried to keep up.

“Thank you.”

“Whatever for?”

“For today. For every day we get to spend together.”

A few days from then, Aesop and (F/N) would celebrate his birthday once more, sans children, in a private room at the Three Broomsticks surrounded by their close friends. Today, though, Aesop couldn’t imagine spending the day in better company. 

Years had passed since the incident that took his partner’s life and nearly took his own. Years had passed since the simple task of making it through the day appeared monumental. Years had passed since he had made the decision that another circle around the sun wasn’t something to celebrate but rather something to feel guilt over. Today however, he felt nothing but gratitude for those who had pulled him out of the abyss where he once dwelled, who had patiently walked beside him, and who had lifted him higher than he ever thought possible, so high, in fact, he swore he could touch the stars.

Fin.

@aesopsharpmybeloved: I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to read this story, and I'd especially like to thank @tea-withjamandbread who wrote with me. Being able to read the wonderful words she used and build this story (that I frankly love and will re-read many times myself) has meant so much to me and brought me a lot of joy. To everything we'll yet create together! &lt;3 -Tess

This story is also be available on AO3. We'll be very grateful for any feedback!