#a battle of strategies and wit??

[angelwishess]

Chess Anarchy !

Playing chess with Kyra is a nightmare. And Leona has to deal with that.

Pairing : Kyra & Leona (platonic!!)

When Kyra asked to play chess with Leona, he should’ve known something was up.

Kyra was never one to actually mean what she lead on. Always twisting her words, or hiding her true intentions behind a well crafted smile. Often for the most ridiculous of reasons.

Leona’s eye twitched as Kyra proudly pulled out several other Knight pieces, obviously belonging to another, different set. “See, while you weren’t looking the horses got busy and popped out more baby horses!”

She explained, happily setting down the several new pieces with a self-satisfied grin. Leona groaned, rubbing his temple as his tail whipped back and forth in annoyance.

Just earlier, while he wasn’t looking, she had stolen back the pieces he took from her fair and square— and re-placed them back on the board, deeming that they ‘managed to escape’ and ‘tunneled out and emerged in the middle of his royal palace.’

Of course, Kyra would never enjoy a game like chess, Leona was questioning why he didn’t realize that in the first place. “Seriously?” He grumbled, moving his hand just enough to get a peek at the gleeful girl sitting across from him.

“Yep! These are magical horses, so they reproduce fast!! Aand these are newly graduated knights from the training camps.” She continued on with her nonsense, keeping that same annoyingly sweet smile graced upon her lips the entire time.

“…You’re such an idiot, I don’t know why I even put up with you.” Leona growled. Even as Kyra continued, his sharp, green eyes spotted an opening. Even with so many additional pieces and so-called ‘rules’, Leona still had the satisfying chance to end this stupid game.

Her king piece, out in the open. Sitting pretty, and Leona won’t let that opportunity go to waste. Leona smirks, “Hah, whatever. Add whatever rules you want. The fact is—“ He huffs, placing down a rook piece, cornering her king.

Leona grins, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair as he takes in Kyra’s shocked expression, staring down at the chaotic ‘chessboard’, if you could even call it that. Looks like her makeshift ‘rooks’, which were really just thimbles, were of no use after all.

“Doesn’t matter. Cus’ I still win.” Leona chuckled, extremely satisfied that this silly game was about to come to an end.

“….Hehehe.” “…Hah?” Leona perks up, his ears twitching at the sound of Kyra giggling. Not a good sign.

“Ooh, looks like this is a good time to tell you, then…”Kyra looked up from the board, her eyes gleaming with mischief, like a neon warning sign. Leona has to surpress a groan, already feeling a headache forming as he braces for whatever stupid reason she has this time.

“See, before we started playing, my knights and pawns revolted and instituted a representative democracy!” Oh. That was it.

Kyra giggled, leaning back into her chair with a shrug, with the most annoying, smug, punchable grin to match. “So feel free to kill that puppet ruler… Who was the one remaining vestige of tyranny!” She opens her eyes, grinning as she pumps her fists into the sky.

“VIVA LA REVOLUTION!!!”

He’s.. So Done.

“Nope. Thats it. I’m done.” Leona gets up, the harsh dragging of his chair across the floor making Kyra wince. She reaches out to him, “Hey— waait! Big bro, come on the game isn’t over yet!” She whined, stumbling to follow him. “It is now. I’m not playing your stupid game.” He grunts, refusing to even look back at the young girl tripping over her feet just to chase after him.

“Its not stupid! You know this means I win by default, right? Put up a fight, coward!!” “Hell no. I am NOT playing some idiotic game that doesn’t even make sense!”

He huffed, storming off with his tail whipping around haphazardly. “Big brooo!” Her voice echoed through the halls with so much sorrow you’d think she was just dealt the worst betrayal of her life. Kyra dramatically fell to her knees, holding out the chessboard with fake tears in her eyes as she watches him leave.

Well, thats a lesson for everyone. Never play chess with Kyra. Unless you want a headache.

Im just gonna tag everyone who tagged me in their fics before, so please tell me if you dont want to be added, or if you do !!

@screamintoad @babyghoul138 @taruruchi @h0neybane @justm3di0cr3

[enbysiriusblack]

lily would win a magic fight. james would win a muggle fight. sirius would win a verbal fight. remus would win a speed knitting fight. peter wouldn't win a fight, but would win a war

[mentallyunstablemultifandom]

the parallels between lelouch and light will never leave me

[outtamynoggin]

Dick, at a family dinner: -and THEN the cheese in the fondue started spinning like crazy because he used the wrong kind of cheese, HAHAHAHAHA! I mean, it was basically string cheese. And the fondue spinner was going so fast it started levitating off the table!! So now this giant cheese tentacle is just whipping around, slapping people in the face, knocking over wine glasses, and the guy just SCREAMS and dives under the table like-

Batfam: *between laughing and annoyed*

Jason: I refuse to believe this happened. This isn’t fair, how could this happen without me there?!

Tim: PLEASE tell me this happened at a high-profile gala. Please, please, please.

Damian: *arms crossed, looking disgusted* Only you could witness a culinary disaster and recount it like a battle strategy.

Dick, sticking his tongue out at him: You’re just jealous you weren’t there to see it in person, little D.

-

Dick, in his head: The Marcalone family made a deal with the Sarvanos so they’re both going to be at the harbor on the 14th at 1AM. Julian Viscan knows about this deal because his thugs caught wind of it but he decided to stay out because he’s dealing with Bella Cane after she started a riot on his territory so she can get her hands on the shipment. But I can take out both the Marcalones, Saravnos, Viscan AND Eli Smith, the gun dealer, if I move Viscan to interfere with the shipment on the 14th. Cane's also making moves on Smirth's supply chain while troubling Viscan, which means if I pull Viscan into the fray, I can collapse all four of them in one night. But I need to make sure Vsican thinks Smith's going to betray him to do this.

Dick, to the batfam: *gesturing wildly, eyes laughing* So then, the cheese tentacle just SLAPS this guy's glasses right off his face and he screams and then he starts screaming even louder that he's going to start suing EvErYtHiNg-

Dick: If I remember, Viscan's sister works at Smith&Hopkins Inc so if I mess around with the BPD and get them involved with the company, I can control all 4 of them while causing trouble for-

[lyrablack1883]

Children of The River - frames and thoughts

This one has a really messy thought process.

Jiang Cheng’s mourning clothes were intentional. The siege happened only three months after Yanli’s death—not even a hundred days had passed. He was still in mourning. No guan, no Zidian. Just Sandu and his clarity bell.

I wanted, later on to portray that one moment in battle where Jiang Cheng’s figure would mirror Yanli’s. Just for a second. Despite all their differences. The song was picked entirely for the line ‘I’m the river’s daughter’. It ties back to their childhood—the three of them children of Yunmeng Jiang. ‘Jiang’ means river, so it felt fitting. Too fitting, honestly.

⸻

When I drew their expressions, there was one emotion I wanted to show most. Most depictions of the siege go straight into revenge, fury, rage. But for these two? I didn’t want anger to be the main thing. I wanted to show grief.

That kind of hollowing, simmering grief that sits in your chest and never leaves. Especially with Wei Wuxian—it’s complicated. You can feel how hard he’s trying to keep it together. To stay calm. To control it. And then you see it—red bleeding into his eyes. For Jiang cheng, There’s that one line where Wei wuxian describes Jiang Cheng’s face as full of hostility… but also incredibly gloomy. I just went on with it.

⸻

The blindfolded panel was very much on purpose—a way to show how both of them were just pieces in someone else’s game. A center piece of this animatic, you could say. One small detail is I made Jiang Cheng’s sword point toward his own neck. Just a hint. A quiet suggestion. That start with one truth —Jiang Cheng could never have won against Wei Wuxian. And at the same time, Wei Wuxian could never let Jiang Cheng die.

To be blunt, Yunmeng Jiang was weak at that point. They were barely standing. The sect had been rebuilt, yes, but it hadn’t even been five years. They’d lost so much. You can see it in how little they received after the Wen war—basically scraps. Their strength was gone. What kind of people were crazy enough to follow Yunmeng Jiang back then— to stand behind a leader who held a single flag alone in the middle of a war?

Probably the kind who had nothing left.

The kind who’d already lost the same.

Calling them a major force was more of a political statement than reality. they were made into a shield. Something to take the hit. Something to use.

⸻

Why make Yunmeng Jiang the main force in the first place?

A sect barely standing, rebuilt on ashes, carrying grief like second skin.

They didn’t have the numbers. They didn’t have the strength.

But they had Jiang Cheng.

And that was enough.

Not because he could win—but because he was the one Wei Wuxian couldn’t kill.

That was the play. That was the advantage.

They made him a commander, not out of honor—but because he was the only sword that could get close without being struck down.

The only one who could hold that line while the rest moved in for the kill.

They handed him the siege—

because they knew he’d walk straight into the fire, and Wei Wuxian would flinch.

⸻

The cultivation world had witness something. They saw what happened in Nightless City. They saw the two of them face each other—and how Wei Wuxian let Jiang Cheng live. And they made their bet.

Not just on strength or strategy. They bet on history. On loyalty. On love—if you want to call it that. Not romantic, but something deeper. Something messy. The love that comes from being raised together, losing the same people, breaking and still somehow holding on.

That’s why Jiang Cheng made the perfect shield. Maybe even the perfect knife.

They weren’t just betting on power.

They were betting on love.

And they bet right.

[himasgod]

Can I request a leona x reader where the reader is like really smart in a out of the box why like the reader can throw him off in chess or something (sorry I’m really bad at explaining stuff I hope you have a good day/night :])

Leona x Reader

Where he can't beat you at chess

Where you are the only person who has ever been able to compete with him at chess, the only person who has ever truly captured his attention.

I used to know how to play chess but when I was little, I've forgotten it now so I couldn't describe the moves very well sorry 😿 but I hope you like it!

Under the awning in Savanaclaw, a group of students watched with growing amazement the chess game unfolding between Leona and you.

Leona, with an expression of absolute confidence, rested one arm on the back of his chair as he analyzed the board. From the start of the game, he had tried to play with his usual tactics: aggressive moves, baiting, and ambushing. However, every move he made was dismantled by you with an ease that irritated and amused him in equal measure.

"Tch, I've never seen anyone play like that," he murmured, resting his chin on his hand and squinting at the new position of your pieces.

"I'm playing with you, Leona, I'm not really playing chess." you replied with a smile, moving a piece.

The spectators let out a murmur of surprise. Jack, who was also watching the game, frowned.

"What does it mean, not playing chess?" he whispered.

Leona clicked his tongue and gave a crooked smile.

"Hah. Don't tell me you're manipulating the game on purpose."

"Technically, no," you said, your expression amused. "But I know how you think. I'm not looking to win the traditional way. I'm playing in a way that makes you doubt, confuse you, and force you to change your style. Basically, I'm making you frustrate yourself."

Leona rested an elbow on the table and covered his mouth with his hand, hiding a husky laugh.

"Interesting."

The murmurs among the students intensified. Everyone knew Leona was a born strategist, someone who used his intellect more than his brute force, and that very few people could even match him in a mind game. But here you were, not only dismantling his strategy, but also pushing him out of his comfort zone.

With a heavy exhalation, Leona moved a piece.

"Fine. If you want to play with me and not chess, then I'll adapt."

The tension in the air increased. Leona had accepted your challenge, and although it seemed like the game was merely a contest of wits, you both knew it went much deeper. It was a battle of perceptions. A fight seeing who of you were the most intelligent.

And, for the first time in a long time, Leona felt someone could match him at his own game.

Maybe, just maybe, he'd found someone worthy of his attention.

The next few plays grew more intense.

Leona completely abandoned his carefree attitude and began analyzing you with those sharp predatory eyes that made many tremble under his gaze. But you just smiled back, unperturbed, enjoying his change of attitude.

"You know," he murmured, crossing his fingers under his chin as he studied the board, "you're quite annoying."

"Thanks, I try hard," you replied with a smile.

Leona let out a low growl, as if he couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or amused by your attitude. Then he made an unexpected move, one that seemed like a trap, but actually hid a deeper strategy.

This time, it was you who narrowed your eyes. You recognized the change: Leona was no longer testing you, he was taking you seriously. And that, somehow, made you smile.

The end of the game came with an unexpected draw. Not because either of you could win, but because both of you, at some point, had decided ypu didn't want the game to end yet.

"Oh, tie," you said, leaning back on the table with a satisfied expression.

Leona held your gaze for a moment, and then, with an almost imperceptible gesture, his tail swished lazily to the side.

"Let's play another game," he suggested with a half-smile. "But this time, without spectators."

The students around you let out surprised gasps, but Leona didn't even pay attention to them. He only had eyes for you.

"Oh, you want a rematch?" you mocked, leaning slightly toward him.

"Hah. Call it what you want," he murmured, resting an elbow on the table and looking at you with a different intensity. "But I have a feeling I won't get tired of playing with you."

So, having scared the others off with Ruggie's help, as night fell, you spent a few more hours playing, with neither of you giving in to the choice of winning or losing.

Neither of you wanted to end that game.

So Leona ended up yawning, showing his large teeth and raising his eyebrow at the board again, saying, "So I guess we'll have to continue tomorrow. Don't go running away, herbivore."

"Run away? Why would I? You couldn't even beat me. It seems you're running away like a cat with its tail between its legs."

Leona gave a lazy smile before yawning again.

"You've got a lot of nerve, herbivore. No one dares to talk to me like that."

"No one dared to challenge you in chess either, and look at us, we've been playing for hours."

Leona got up to go to his room, but not before turning around, analyzing you with his green eyes and letting out a lazy smile

"Get ready for tomorrow, because this time I'm really going to beat you. I'm going to devour you, herbivore."

"Whatever you say, scaredy-cat."

And with a wide smile, you returned to Ramshackle, dreaming of the next hundred plays you would make against Leona just to hear his concentrated growls or his eyes fixed on you.

[lokischocolatefountain]

Battlefront | At Your Service

Fandom: Gladiator II Pairing: General Marcus Acacius x Empress!Reader Rating: M Word count: 5.3k words Summary: General Acacius returns energized by battle when an unexpected guest makes themselves at home in his tent. Warnings: Historical inaccuracies, some historical accuracies, poor description of battle strategy. A/N: Listen, I know Rome never had a single reigning Empress. But seeing loyal husband Marcus Acacius has made me eschew historical accuracy. If Ridley Scott can have characters reading newspapers before their invention, I can have Marcus Acacius being devoted to his powerful Empress wife. I'm thinking of making it a lose series with snippets of these characters' lives together. Like my Married Javi series. So lmk if there's anything you want to read about them.

“What are you doing here?” 

The sounds of battle still rang in his ears. The strategies he’d laid out playing out in his vision as he sought to identify problems he could have failed to spot. His heart was restless, every beat reminding him how high the stakes were, reminding him that every young man there was his responsibility. And then you appeared. 

Like the brain cooled the body, the sight of you cooled him. 

“You dare ask what I do at my own battlefront?” You asked, an eyebrow raised. He stood in place as you took small steps towards him. He rushed ahead, calling attention to his broad shoulders that narrowed down to his waist. Your pace was wholly inadequate for his liking.

“This is not the battlefront, Caesarea,” he said, stopping in front of you and taking your hand in his. “These are my private quarters.” He bowed and placed a kiss on the back of your hand, looking up at you from behind soft brown eyes you did not believe capable of inspiring fear until you witnessed him in battle. 

“You forget your place, General. You have no authority to deny me entrance to my husband’s quarters,” you teased. His eyes darkened at your words and the implications they bore. Your relationship had been a delicate one since the two of you left childhood behind. But it was only more so with you on the throne and him the General at your command. 

“If you wish to assert your marital rights at this moment, know I will have to as well,” he warned, his hands itching to be upon you. Unlike his soldiers, Acacius had gone many months without the touch of a woman. Some high ranking officers brought their wives and some indulged in whores. Not Acacius.

“What man asks to claim his marital rights? I believed I belonged to a man who knew what was his and conquered it.” 

It was all he needed to close the distance between you. In an instant, your fearsome general, covered in the blood of enemies and grime of their land he claimed, pulled you to his chest. His large hands engulfed your face. His lips came crashing against yours, desperate and sloppy. You instinctively reached up to one, caressing his rough hand with your soft one. Teeth clashed against each other. Saliva dribbled down his lips, transferring the dried blood on his face to yours. Smearing you with evidence of his devotion. To you and to Rome. 

His hard iron armor covered in leather and embossed with gold dug into your chest in his desperation to feel you. One hand slipped to your neck, holding you in place with the force of a soldier and authority of a husband. His other hand slipped to your hip, rough as he guided you towards the thin mattress on the floor.

“I must have you…” he growled into your ear as his hands groped around through your clothes. He grabbed every part of you he could think of, squeezing as though planting flags on a territory he’d already claimed.

You nodded, the gold and gems that dangled from your ears glinting under the light of the torches that illuminated his quarters. 

“Good,” he muttered, pushing your coat off your shoulders, catching it before it fell to the ground and discarding it on a chair. The clips and fasteners that kept your linen, silk, and wool too intricate for his impatience, he tore through anything that did not yield. Delicate fabrics met their end at the hands of the ravenous beast he became at the battlefront, revealing delicious skin underneath. He needed this. Needed to plunge into your tight, wet hole and spend the aggressive energy that coursed through his veins.

He took whores, but that was before he wed you. Married men took other women both back home and especially when at war. As long as they were whores or any other women lower than his wife’s status. It was expected, encouraged. But he was married to the Empress. Anyone he took would be a disrespect to her. Sure, many mocked him behind his back as the Empress’ wife. It did not bother him. Not anymore. 

When men depended on one’s instructions to survive each day, they ceased to question his manhood. Further, it was hard to question a man’s ability when he lead the mightiest army the world had seen to victory. 

You were beautifully exposed in front of him, your veil, stola, and palla lying in defeat on the ground. Only your tunica, exposing your legs and the shape of your breasts. His lips claimed your neck, biting and sucking on everywhere he knew you favored the way he expertly mapped and attacked the vulnerabilities of enemy territory.

Every bit of skin he touched lit a fire in your belly, replacing the weeks of agonizing solitude with only your inadequate fingers for release. 

Buried in your neck, he inhaled your scent, of your sweat combined with the roses and attar from Arabia. He licked, grunting when your gold necklace tainted the taste of your skin. Reaching behind you, he tugged at the fastener, growling when it proved too delicate to be undone by his large fingers. You let out a laugh before slapping his hand away and undoing the offending jewelry in one swift moment. He liked you bare. Needed to rid you of any object that interfered with his preference be it fabric or lustrous gold and gems.

You were an oasis in the desert. For a man surrounded by young men with nothing but rage and fear coursing through their veins. No bath fully cleansed him of enemy blood, mud and grime. Grace to the gods, you were not a woman repulsed by his gory state of being. 

You whimpered as he forced you to the ground, laying you out on his small mattress before climbing atop. The pteruges of his armor tickled your thighs as he hovered above you.

“Marcus…I have longed for you every night,” you whispered, your words clenching his heart. You did not have the luxuries that other royal women enjoyed. The wealth and adoration came with a sword at your neck and the weight of all of Rome and her people. Rare was the opportunity to only be a woman in the arms of your husband.

“I think of you day and night. My duty to my Empress by day, my duties to my wife at night,” he said, peppering kisses along your jaw. You sighed, curving away from him to expose more of yourself for his kisses.

“Do your duty then. And allow me to do mine,” you said, reaching below to caress his thigh. 

He searched under his pillow and retrieved his dagger. He tucked the tip of the cold blade under your strophium. You gasped as he cut through the layers, your breasts spilling from their restraints. Hands that for months only knew the reins of his horse and the handle of his sword relished in the softness of your breasts. He was no barbarian. He knew to treat a woman with gentle touch and loving words. 

His appetite, however, was quick to defeat the gentle Acacius who was allowed his Empress’ hand in marriage. Your breasts filled his hands perfectly, like the gods had shaped them for his sake. For his touch. For his children to feed from. The image formed in the back of his mind, his child drinking from your full breasts as your belly grew with another. His cock twitched at the thought and he acted, forcing your legs apart with his knees.

Fear joined a familiar ache in the pit of your stomach as he slid the blade down your chest, resting it near your core. Your nails dug into his arm and your core throbbed with need. You yelped as he cut through your subligar. The night air caressed your cunt forcing you to feel how wet his bestial acts made you. Your hips bucked up in search of him, desperate to fill the void he’d left in his absence. 

He traced the dagger further below and rested it on your thigh. His eyes exuded a hunger you’d seen only in the exotic beasts that devoured gladiators. “Stay still,” he said and placed a soothing hand on your trembling thigh as the other reigned terror on its counterpart. With your nod of understanding, he moved the blade closer and closer until–

You shrieked as the cold blade sat at the edge of your opening. Before you could comprehend, he brought it up before your eyes and licked the blunt edge. His eyes closed and a moan rumbled from his chest as he tasted your arousal. 

“You drip for me, melilla.” 

“I have been aching for you,” you said through trembling breaths, thinking of every night you touched yourself in his memory. He had made your body his, rending separation tartarus on land. The closest your cunt had felt of him was the ring from his pinky he placed on your middle finger before his departure. 

He tossed the dagger aside and it landed with a clang. Your cunt clenched at the sound, thrilled by his animalistic want for you. He cupped your core in his hand, parted your lips and plunged two fingers inside you. It was already much more than you had in his absence, his thick fingers filling you better than your own. 

“Please,” you whimpered as he worked you open, your cunt dripping around his fingers with each stroke. He was always gentle with you, but not this time. You didn’t want him gentle. In peacetime, he bowed to you as your loyal subject. In war, when he overflowed with masculine power, you wanted him forceful. Wanted him atop you, taking you with the same ruthless power he did enemy land. You wanted to be unburdened of the weight of your empire if only for a moment. Be husband and wife, not General and Empress.

His hand slipped under your head, grabbing your hair between his fingers. You hissed at the sting of his grip on your hair and reached for his arm instinctively. He withdrew his fingers, pushing them between your lips when you whined to be filled. As you tasted yourself, he aligned his cock up with your weeping entrance. You choked out a sob as he split you open with his cock, your walls burning at the stretch. Tears clouded your vision, but you blinked them away to see your dearest, handsome even in war. Your bejeweled fingers weaved through his dark curls, needing to touch the familiar parts of the man you’d so long yearned to reunite with. 

His own hand and a few whores was satisfactory when he was a lone general who did not know the taste of a woman he called his own. He doubted he could find someone else to satisfy his desires now that he had you. His men found this sentiment strange as they chose to relieve their stress with whores and slaves. 

None of those fools had the fucking Empress waiting for them at home. 

“Look at you…” he rasped, luxuriating at the vision. You were divine. All goddess-like in your beauty even lying on his thin mattress, hair strewn across his pillow and your hairpins coming undone under his grip. No dingy military camp was worthy of a visit from such an ethereal creature. But you were no simple Lady content to stay in the palace surrounded by your riches. He doubted he could stop you from visiting him even if you weren’t the Empress but only his dear wife.

“You like me this way,” he said instead of asking. He did not need to ask. He had seen how you looked at him when he wore his armor. No stranger to combat, the blood and gore did not seem to rattle you. His other campaigns found you in the camps for celebrations. Too many times, he had to keep you at arm’s length out of respect for your station. Now that you belonged to him…

“Always… Always liked my General so. Always wanted to pounce upon you and fight those girls you chose over me.”

He snorted at the jealousy that returned to your visage though he was now all yours. “My severed head would have joined the barbarians had I defiled the Princess, my dear.”

“You should have abstained,” you said, the smile that played at your lips all he needed to know it was but a jest. 

“And deprive you of the fruits of my experience with the female form?” He taunted, angling himself to stroke the particularly sensitive place inside you. Your lips opened in a small circle, whatever witty remark you’d concocted now dissolved into a pathetic moan.

He pawed at your breasts, his large hands and the loss of etiquette making you feel mauled by a beast. You pushed up from the ground and into his hands, sobbing as he tugged your nipples, adding to the pain of penetration. He took you in long, hard thrusts, your needy cunt pulling him back in each time he withdrew. Each stroke soothed the pain he bestowed, eased by how he had you leaking around him.

“I need, I need… please,” you begged, too occupied by your lust to find better words.

“Anything you want, Carissima,” he whimpered, bending down and claiming your lips. He smelled of war. Of mud and blood and something vile that should repulse you. He did not kiss like he usually did. Did not explore you and drink your sweet sounds. He took you, forced your lips apart and invaded with his tongue. He bit and drew blood, the taste of iron adding to the familiar taste of your beloved.

“Anything,” he growled, filling you deeper. “I will make you feel me between your legs for days. Make you wince in pain when you ride your horse,” he said, his hot breath and the threat making you shudder. “Would you like that? Like the people who bow to you smell me on you? Make you strategize with my seed dripping down your legs under your dress?”

“Macrus, want…please” you blubbered, your intelligence leaving from his vicious ravaging. Your thighs burned from how wide he spread you to fit himself between your legs. It was an agonizing stretch without the aid of any oils, without his lips easing you open for his thickness. But none of it mattered for you ached more with longing. 

Fully immersed in you, he placed his forehead against yours, his eyes closed as though he were meditating. He was heavy, his large frame that mowed through enemy men and swung weighty swords through necks now being used to contain you. He took your breath away not only with his stature but with his beauty. You liked to believe him sculpted by the gods to put you in his thrall. To tame the wild princess into the tempered Empress Rome needed.

You needed him to move, to fuck you so thoroughly you would feel him with every move you made until you could reunite once again. But you did not have heart to push him. Not when he looked like a devotee at the shrine of his goddess. 

All men thought of in the midst of war was the people they left behind. It did not change when one rose to command the entire Roman army. He opened his eyes, sighing with relief when he found you still there beneath him. He had dreamt so many times lying all alone that he was home with you. He dreamt that the war had ended and he was sat by your side as you read scrolls from senators and discussed fucking sanitation of all things. He dreamt of you returning to his arms, of your kisses and your tight cunt holding him inside you. You were never there when he woke up. 

He pinned your wrists above your head, desperate to contain you so he wouldn’t be separated from you again. 

This was no dream. Even dreams of you didn’t feel as elysian as your true form. He fucked you in short thrusts, grinding against your clit as he did. You dug your heels into his lower back, your hips rising up to meet his thrusts. He cupped your cheek in one hand and you melted into his touch, confounded by his contradictions. He brought your hand between your bodies and you took his direction, rubbing your clit as he returned to a brutal pace. 

He grabbed your hip for purchase, his other hand mauling your breast. His balls slapped against your skin, the lewd sounds of skin against skin sounding through the camp. 

You cried his name as he rammed into you over and over until you could no longer find an ounce of regard for propriety in you. Word would’ve spread that you were here. Everyone knew the General to be fiercely loyal. Now they would know it was their Empress in the tent moaning like a whore taking their General’s cock. You clenched tight around him at the scandalous thought, wrapping your arms around him to anchor yourself to reality. 

He pulled you up off the ground and onto his lap, bouncing you up and down his cock as you kept yourself wrapped around him. You grabbed his hair and pressed yourself against his chest. His dark brown eyes bored into yours, soft even as he fucked you with animalistic vigor. You kissed him, his growl devolving into a mewl like a lion tamed. Your heart beat against your ribs, longing to escape its confines to find the man it belonged to. 

You trailed kisses across every bit of exposed skin. The patch above his jaw where his beard never grew called out to your lips and you rewarded it with kisses. He returned them, his strong aquiline nose pressing against your cheekbone. 

Full of him, the world disappeared from your thoughts. Your hips moved of its own accord, taking him deeper as he bounced you up and down his cock. 

“What d’you think they would say?” he taunted, breathless from the exertion. “Their unshakable Empress being used by her husband in the camps. Your perfect hair tangled, your jewels on the ground,” he growled and you simply mewled, the shame coursing through you only aiding him as he hammered into you. 

“Answer me,” he commanded, punctuating the words with harsh thrust. You opened and closed your mouth, eyes trained on his fiery ones as he demanded what he made you incapable of doing. A sob emerged deep from your chest, the only sign you were present in your body. 

He let out a mocking laugh. “All of Rome bows to your rousing speeches yet you become mute with a cock stuffing you full.” 

You whimpered his name, or you thought you did. You couldn’t be sure of anything in this state. Your thighs shook from the force of his thrusts and your hip hurt where his fingers dug in. Sounds you did not know yourself capable of producing escaped your lips. The fire in your belly blazed wilder and your vision blackened. You felt the pressure wind tighter and tighter. You threw your head back in pleasure, whimpering when you felt his lips on your neck. He lapped at your skin, devouring your natural taste and your sweat. He nipped and bit, mumbling words of praise you couldn’t make out in your dazed state. 

His name mixed with curses flowed from your lips as pleasure hit you like lightning. You felt your back hit the floor, your legs folded up as he rammed into you. Your hole spasmed around him as he continued taking you for himself but you lay limp, spent. His warm sticky spend spurted inside you, dripping out onto your thighs and his thin mattress as he buried himself deep before collapsing on top.

He tucked his head in the nape of your neck, panting as you both came down to Earth from the heavens. His body weighed heavy on you, as did his armor. He took the breath out of your lungs but you did not want to be without him. It was the antidote for your aching heart.

“That was quite the welcome, General,” you said, placing a kiss on his cheek. “I did not receive such treatment the last time.” 

“You were the crown princess when you last visited me in the battlefront.” 

“Ah. You needed me on the throne before serving me this way?” You teased, knowing full well how it pained him to restrain himself from having you before he won approval for your hand in marriage.

“I needed the Emperor to not have my head for defiling his daughter so,” he said, rolling you over and pulling you down by your arms against his chest when you attempted to sit up. You giggled as he placed kisses all over, delighted by how playful he became once he took his aggressive energy out on you.

“He should not have given his General his daughter’s hand in marriage if he was worried about that.” 

“Mmm, I don’t know dear. The princess was quite insistent she would only wed the General. Threatened to be caught in the General’s bed if denied.”

“Yes. I hope you are grateful,” you said, giving him your hand adorned in rings, the one he gave you from his little finger gleaming brighter than the rest. He took your hand and kissed it, his eyes so soft with love and devotion for you that you could hardly reconcile them with the hunger they exuded just moments before. The words were merely a jest, but he was indeed grateful. 

He was celebrated for his prowess in battle. For the many victories he brought Rome. Many men deluded themselves into the belief that this entitled them a victory of the princess’ hand. Not Acacius. Though your hearts reached out for one other through the years, you were the only one with the courage to act upon it. The one to show the Emperor why only he would be the right companion to a woman on Rome’s throne. For that, he would forever be grateful.

“How goes the battle?” you asked, getting up and depriving him of your warmth. He grabbed a scrap of fabric that was once your tunica and tossed it at you. You caught it and whispered a thank you before cleaning yourself up.

“Who is asking? My Empress or my wife?” He asked, propping himself up with his hands.

“Would your answers vary?” 

“They would.” 

“Give me both answers, General. Husband.” You asked, wrapping your furs around you and sitting back on his chair. 

“Caesarea,” he said, finally rising up. Something shifted between you. Your voice had altered from its girlish relaxed state. Wool covered your body. You were perched on his seat while he stood in front of you in submission to your authority. “We anticipated many deaths from illness but have been spared such tragedy by the grace of the gods. The Eastern front has advanced into the barbarians' territory and they have retreated. However, I expect them to recuperate and retaliate. Our men are advancing faster to take advantage of their momentary retreat. The Northern front is not faring well. Not as we’d hoped. We have received intelligence that the barbarians have armed even women and children to attack.”

“What is your next course of action?” 

“We’ve sent troops up North and we need more men to replace them. I was hoping you would grant approval for a few more men from our reserves.” 

“How many?” 

“One century and a centurion to replace the ones I sent north, and twenty cavalrymen.” 

“And how soon do you need them?”

“We can not hold out longer than seven days. Or we stand to lose ground in the East.” 

“I’ll see what I can do. Seven days are… It is not enough time. I must send word with Decimus and the men would take time to arrive.” 

“I understand.” 

“I hope you have told the men you’ve sent North to limit casualties. We are to rule over these people once you have conquered their land. I imagine killing their wives and children wouldn’t endear them to us.” 

“I have, yes. They are under the leadership of a good man- Faunus. He trained under me. I know him to be determined and level headed. Has children of his own as well.” 

“Being a father doesn’t stop many men from killing children. They simply learn not to see those children as children at all.” 

“I have seen that too.” 

“I trust your judgment, Marcus. Let us hope you are right about Faunus and his men. What of the rations? Are they adequate?” 

“I hear more grains are coming our way from the last harvest. If true, we will not be in want of food.” 

“It is, indeed. Is there anything else my General needs?” You asked, an eyebrow raised. 

“No. Nothing that needs your immediate attention.”

“Well, then tell me what answer you would give your wife. About how the war is going.” 

He smiled, his eyes softening and his shoulders relaxing at the permission to change role from General to husband. He stepped closer to you and caged you in with his hands on the armrests. He leaned down and placed a kiss on your lips and felt you relax. As he spoke, he peppered kisses across your face, enjoying his effect on you. “I would tell you that the end of the war is closer than it was the last time I wrote you. That I long for you every hour I spend in this wretched place. I would reassure you that I am unharmed and ask you to prepare our home for my arrival.” 

“Are you?” 

He tilted his head in question, making you clarify yourself, “Unharmed. I need to see.” 

“Is that why you have come so far? To ensure I am unharmed?” 

“Perhaps. I did not want my men to believe their Empress had forgotten them. I come bearing gifts. Letters from families who have not accompanied officers. Fresh fruits and nuts. Toys and books for the children. Some hearings to handle as you said in your letters. To boost morale.” 

“You have already succeeded with me there, my dear. My morale is higher than ever,” he said, nipping playfully at your ear and making you giggle. “Back to bed now,” he said and you obliged, wrapping your arms around his neck and allowing him to carry you. 

“A happy General makes for happy soldiers.” 

“Perhaps I’m not happy enough,” he said, laying you out on his bed, gentle unlike the man he was a while ago. “You must do more, my dearest. For the sake of the poor soldiers.”

You giggled and pulled him down to your chest, sighing when his weight settled on you. You traced the gold plating on his armor with a finger idly, saying, “Oh, iff it is for the soldiers…” 

He laughed with you and the two of you lied together, quietly taking each other in. Other high ranking men in your army had the privilege of bringing their families to the barracks, but not your husband. You hadn’t the duty to keep your home but to keep your empire. Though opposition to having you on the throne had begun to dwindle, you did not feel secure in your position. You couldn’t afford peace of mind. There was disease and conflicts awaiting your attention. Plebeians to care for without angering the patricians. Marcus unburdened you of all worries about the war for you knew he would bring victory to Rome. But you worried as wives did about whether their husbands would return at all.

“I will be here for four days,” you spoke up, needing a distraction from your burgeoning fears. “I must see to a few disagreements. Inspect the troops. Maybe I will even polish your swords like a good wife ought to.” 

“Oh? What else will you do?” 

You squinted, thinking of what else the women in the barracks did for their men that you knew to do. You couldn’t cook. Didn’t know to wash clothes. Did not yet have children to raise. You could spar with him, but that was frowned upon and not at all wifely.

“Clean your quarters?” 

“My quarters are clean, Princess,” he laughed softly. You pushed at his chest playfully but he didn’t budge. It had been a long time since you could push him around physically.

“I am not a Princess anymore.” 

“I meant it as a term of endearment, not as your title.” 

“Surely there is something I can do. I will have time aside from my duties to our people.”

“When you do, mea vita…” he whispered, hot breath tickling your ear. “Lie back here and open your legs for me.” 

“Whatever for?” You teased, wearing an expression of confusion as you pretended to think of the answers. 

“To do your duty to your husband. To please me,” he said, parting your coat and cupping your sex in his hand. He swept his ejaculate that dripped down your thighs and pushed it back inside you. He wanted it to take. Wanted you full and round with his child when he arrived in Rome victorious. It was their duty, yes. But he wanted children for more than duty and legacy’s sake. He wanted to experience the joy he witnessed in his men when they shared stories of their fatherhood. He could recall a time when he fought only to sate his bloodlust. Since you became more than his friend, more than his Princess, he began fighting to return home to you. He wanted one day to fight with his children in mind. 

He pumped his fingers in and out of you with practiced ease. You trembled, sensitive from his rough use, but did not pull away. You needed this.

“Have I not pleased you enough?” You asked, only half teasing. You did not have much experience with carnal pleasure. There were a few men and several women in your past. But the men were not interested in teaching you to please them. It wasn’t entirely their fault, of course. You did not want to please anyone before Marcus. It was a source of insecurity. You’d seen how women swarmed him since he developed from a little boy who sparred with you to a broad shouldered man with a deep voice. What if you were inadequate?

“You are simply too delectable, my dear. Each time I believe myself satisfied, I only want more of you.”

“I have duties to Rome. I can’t always be in your bed.” That was another insecurity you had. That he would find you lacking in wifely duties as compared to other women, those who did not have Rome on their shoulders.

“We barely had each other a week before I was sent here.” 

“Mmm… She sounds cruel, your Empress. Separating you from your new wife so early.” He could see how you sought to bury your fears with humor. Duty to Rome and your love plagued you despite reassurances of his unconditional support. The elders often turned their nose up at you, found you lacking as a woman. Though you’d proven yourself both in battle and in administration, old men set in their ways refused to accept you as Empress. Many already whispered about you not having conceived a child. 

“She is not cruel. My Empress,” he said, smiling. He wouldn't have you doubting his trust in you, be it as Empress or wife. Everyone was you tartarus, but he would only be your peace. “She is just. She is brave and kind with intellect as sharp as the tip of my sword. The right person to lead Rome into prosperity.”

You melted into his arms and he held you close to his chest, heavy with the weight of doing right by the Roman Princess who lent little Acacius her sword when he couldn’t afford one.

⌘ ⌘ ⌘

Read Part 2 Reward here

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[sayruq]

I want everyone to understand that even if Israel wins this (I mean it won't but just imagine), it won't recover from this. It won't recover from getting caught off guard on Oct 7th. The government and the IDF spent days unable to have a strategic response to the Palestinian fighters while their own soldiers deserted and their allies openly questioned the wisdom of a ground invasion in Gaza. That's why they're bombing Gaza, it is the only way to project strength to the world but it is also alienating billions of people. The world has never been more pro Palestine than this moment in time.

Just like how America being forced to flee Afghanistan led to a series of Ls globally, Israel struggling against Hamas, PFLP, Islamic Jihad, and other groups will have disastrous effects locally and internationally. I mean, the political class is already falling apart with Netanyahu blaming government officials for this disaster. The Israeli government have no unity or cohesion which is not a great sign to put it lightly. War usually binds people, even rival political groups, and especially allies. America has been hinting that it doesn't approve of some of actions taken by Israel. It could be just Biden and his people trying to softly distance him from the genocide in Gaza but you also have former and current military leaders disapproving of Israel's military strategy.

The thing is you don't see Iran openly questioning the Palestinians. You don't see Hezbollah running to the press to let them know they think Hamas' strategy is weak. Every single Palestinian militia group, including the ones in the West Bank, are working together. Iran, Hezbollah and the Palestinians are all coordinating. In the past week, they would attack Israeli settlements and military bases and American bases in Iraq and Syria at the same time. They've even managed to get new support from the Yemeni Ansar Allah group.

Israel's main export is security- meaning weapons manufacturing and training. How many countries will rush to have their police or soldiers train with the IDF after witnessing them fold while in battle (in the latest ground incursion, the IDF lasted only 15 minutes inside Gaza according to Al Jazeera)? How many countries will line up to buy Israeli tanks after seeing them get taken out easily by guerilla fighters? How many countries and individual investors will want to invest in Israel when it can't go 5 years without a war or genocide?

I believe with all my heart we will soon see a liberated Palestine.

[gav-san]

Cosmic Joke: Donquixote Doflamingo (3/3)

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3/3: Doflamingo x Reader Length: 12.5 k+ Rating: 18+(This one's not a joke) Warnings:  mature audience, 18+, Mdni, Strong Language and Sarcasm, Psychological manipulation, Stalking/obsessive behavior, Power imbalance, Violence & threat of violence, Dubious Consent, Sexual Content, Enemies to Lovers, Psychic Warfare, Emotional Damage via Soup, Doflamingo Being Doflamingo, Slow Burn That Becomes Fast Burn, Mental Breakdown But Make It Horny, Predator/Prey Dynamics, Capture Chase, Reluctant Attraction, Dubiously Consensual Psychic Bonding, Threadplay (Because It’s Doflamingo), Unhinged Romance, Verbal Sparring as Foreplay, Fluff (But Deranged), Sexual content (18+)

You coped with sarcasm, soup, and psychic insults. He turned your every thought into a battlefield—and now he’s come to collect. What started as a telepathic Cold War ends in a chase, a thread, and the worst possible truth: you were never going to win.

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Previous

-X- Hostile Territory-X-

Cue The Flamingo Courtship Protocol (God Help You).

It starts with silence.

Yours.

After the incident—the one where you emotionally terrorized an actual terrorist and he threatened to track you down—you cut him off. 

Hard.

You build mental barriers. Tall, grim, emotionally fortified. He offers dating advice mid-battle. And strategy. And fashion criticism. You stonewall.

You stop talking. Stop reacting. Even your thoughts become sterile, wordless. Dusty.

You’re furious, and more than that, embarrassed. So you say nothing. Not to him. Not even to yourself.

He doesn't deserve soup. 

He deserves a cold, quiet tomb of apathy.

You think you're brilliant for it. Strategic. Dangerous.

He tries to say something. You mentally roll up the window like you’re in a taxi in the middle of a drive-by.

“Hey—” 

“[dial tone]”

You are livid.

How dare he. How dare he interrupt your first-ever attempt at making a friend. How dare he psychologically pants you in the middle of eating pineapple bread.

And then have the audacity to laugh about it.

You whisper into your sleeve:

“We’re in the Ice Age now, you fuchsia-feathered furry.”

He’s been trying to say something for three days now. You simply will not allow it.

You devote your days to reenacting entire Muppet episodes and envisioning parades of potatoes in increasingly elaborate hats. It brings structure. Purpose. A terrifying sense of control.

You’ve taken to monologuing again—not to him, never that—but near him. Loud enough for the psychic ether to pick up, like you’re performing Shakespeare into a cavern and imagining he’s chained up in the back row, gagged and furious.

You’re the star now. He doesn’t get a box seat. He doesn’t even get tickets.

And it fits you.

Because the truth is, you’re a talker too. You just didn’t know it, because he never shut up long enough for your unraveling to hit its theatrical stride.

You gesture grandly at nothing. At air. At the hypothetical audience of sock puppets and imaginary critics in your kingdom of spite and leftover soup.

“You know,” you begin, pacing like a deranged professor, “I could’ve been quiet. I was ready to be mysterious. Ethereal. I had a whole aesthetic planned. But no. You forced this arc.”

You dramatically point a spoon at the window. There’s no one there. You know that. But the point stands.

Somewhere in the psychic void, you hope he hears it. Hears you.

Not because you miss him. Never that. But because now you’re on your villain origin arc. And someone needs to witness your descent into power and petty theatricality.

You take a bite of cold mashed potatoes, nod solemnly, and declare, “Hat number seventeen will be a fedora. For menace.”

And so it continues.

You line up tiny rocks like audience members and give them names. You practice your speech for the Potato Council. You start writing letters to the editor of a newspaper that no longer exists.

“I’m not talking to you,” you think coolly, scrubbing your socks in the river like a wartime exile with a vendetta and excellent posture.“Don’t expect a single thought with value. You lost your privileges. No more soup for you. No more homegrown ingredients. Scraps, just like your manners.”

The wind picks up like it’s trying to interrupt you. You ignore it. You have hats to plan. Sock rotation schedules to revise. Imaginary awards to prepare for. He should’ve thought of that before weaponizing charisma and emotional damage.

You rinse a sock, lift your chin, and whisper to the trees, “Hat number eighteen will be a crown. For me.”

He doesn’t respond.

Not once.

He’s quiet. Which is more concerning than anything.

By day four, the silence starts to itch.

Maybe—hopefully—you finally bruised his enormous, swollen ego. Maybe he’s pouting. Maybe he’s sulking somewhere dark and overly upholstered, licking his wounds with brandy and a pity threesome.

You picture it vividly: Him, shirtless in a red velvet monstrosity of a chair, sighing like a war widow. Diamante fanning him with something ridiculous, like a gold-gilded leaf. Trebol weeping in the corner, playing a tiny off-key violin with gooey enthusiasm. Monet languidly licking his toes, unbothered. And Señor Pink delivering a heartfelt soliloquy about love and loss between drags of a cigar and war flashbacks.

You scoff out loud.

Absolutely pathetic.

“Good. Let him suffer.”

You begin constructing a mental fortress; stone by stone, potato by hat-wearing potato. You assign each one a role: Gatekeeper. Watchtower scout. Emotional customs officer. No feelings get in without a warrant. Especially not his.

Doflamingo hasn’t said a word in five days. You’re proud of yourself. You’re untouchable. You have the high ground.

You’ve been on the move again. Another town, another stiff bed. Your boots are wearing thin. Too many soggy dinners. A roof that drips with sniper-like precision, always right onto your forehead. You’re exhausted in that deep, bone-cranky way where even the mildest inconvenience feels like a personal attack sanctioned by the gods.

“God, I miss that clam chowder. The bread was even better, but they don’t have any anymore. Stupid supply chain shortages.”

A fleeting thought. Casual. Weak. Forgotten within seconds.

By day seven, the silence has settled into something unnatural. You start monologuing again. Not out loud but in your head, sharp and dignified in your imagined courtroom:

“Just so you know, I’m not talking to you. You broke the Treaty of ‘We Don’t Talk in Person.’ This was a gross violation of emotional sovereignty. You owe me reparations. With interest.”

Still, nothing. Not a flicker. Not a scoff. Not even a psychic sigh.

You get smug.

“Wow. He really is mad. Sulking like a baby. Good.”

You pace your room in nothing but your socks and your pride, the picture of righteous solitude. You pause at the window, striking a pose like a romance heroine abandoned at the altar—only more vengeful, more tired, and slightly soup-stained.

It’s the most peace you’ve had in years.

You hate it.

It’s strangely off-putting. The quiet. The absence. The unnerving sense of psychic space not being invaded. Without Doflamingo, who else could possibly fill the supervillain-shaped void in your soul?

Soup, you decide. Soup will do it.

You dig Pancake the stuffed frog out of your bag—faithful, unblinking, a veteran of many mental breakdowns—and set off in search of comfort in a bowl.

You pass a field of fennel.

You think:

Huh. I forgot this grows near the coast.

You start talking more in your head. Not to him, but around him. The commentary turns passive-aggressive. Then muttering. Then a full-blown internal radio show hosted by your ego and your spite. Featuring special guests: Grievance, Petty, and the ghost of Emotional Stability.

You list towns you wouldn’t go to. You rant about bad roads, loud inns, a soup stand so offensively mediocre it should be arrested. Your head has never echoed so loudly.

You think:

At least this place has good tomatoes. I need to find a tomato soup place.

You’re crouched by a fire, making tea out of something questionably herbal and entirely bitter, proud of your hard-won silence. It’s been ten days. Double digits. A personal best.

Then a flicker. Not words. Just… static.

A faint buzz at the back of your skull, like a match trying to strike in the rain. A presence you almost forgot how to brace for.You freeze, one hand hovering over the kettle. The fire crackles. The fennel rustles in the breeze.

And in your head, that dangerous, familiar hush, the kind that always came before he thought something deeply unhinged.

A memory. His. Not yours. Unwelcome, uninvited, infuriatingly crisp.

Silk sheets. A crooked grin. A loaf of fresh-baked bread—still steaming—torn open with his teeth. You feel it in vivid, traitorous HD. The sound. The texture. The flake of crust caught on his lower lip. The crunch.

You flinch like you’ve been shot.

Your stomach growls. Loud. Pathetic. Treacherous.

“Stop that,” you mutter. “I’m not talking to you.”

Silence. Almost.

Then the crunch plays again. Replay. Close-up. Slow-motion. You try not to think it. Try not to taste it.

And then—

The final insult. The crowning act of psychic violence.

Soup. Tomato bisque. Red, velvety, luscious. Steam curling like a lover’s finger. He dips the bread—that bread—into it, slowly. Casually. You feel it hit his tongue. You feel his satisfaction.

You shudder in anguish. And something uncomfortably close to—

“Oh my god,” you whisper. “Did I just—soupgasm?”

Your knees give out. You slump forward, face in your hands, dignity leaking out of your eyes. Pancake the frog tumbles from your lap and lands facedown in the dirt, radiating silent, plush disapproval.

You try to recover, but it’s too late. You can still taste the soup. You can still feel the crunch. And worse, you can feel his smugness about it.

You convulse again, a full-body shudder of psychic betrayal and the closest thing to a real orgasm you’ve ever experienced.

From bisque.

“Where the hell is this bitch getting soup?”

And right there. Right there is the moment he wins.

Not with threats. Not with flirtation. Not even with a feathered monologue.

But with soup. And you will never forgive him.

-X-The Slip Up-X-

Doflamingo, somewhere in a rain-soaked stronghold, has not been pouting.

He’s pacing.

Plotting.

He’s got maps. He’s got maps. He’s got reports. He’s got a psychic thread stretched across corkboards like a serial killer trying to solve a very emotional bakery heist. There are pins. There are annotations. There is a list titled “Soup Crimes: Ongoing.” He’s investigating your favorite grocery store chain. He’s reverse-engineering your soup thoughts into climate data.

He’s narrowed your scent down to two regions based on the way you mentally screamed the word “radish” two weeks ago.

He’s using your psychic silence as a heat signature.

“She doesn’t get this annoying unless she’s somewhere with shitty soup,” he mutters. One gloved finger traces a curved coastline. “Which means backwater. Which means South Blue. Coastal. Humid. Rural. Bread supply is inconsistent.”

Vergo stands awkwardly in the doorway, holding three folders and a growing sense of dread.

“Sir,” he says carefully, “are you… Triangulating her with soup?”

Doflamingo doesn’t even blink.

“She just gave me a direct clue,” he says, eyes gleaming with purpose. “No flour access. Traveling on foot. Unwalled town. Likely fewer than two hundred people. Find me every coastal village that’s had a bakery fire, bread riot, or grain shortage in the past year.”

Vergo nods, silently regretting literacy.

He circles a region on the map.

“She also saw wild fennel,” he adds grimly. “She’s within twenty kilometers of the Roska inlet. That’s coastal farmland. Three bread shops. No rail system. Likely hiding in the dockside rotation.”

It’s unnervingly effective.

A lesser man would’ve resorted to brute force. A weaker bond wouldn’t have held long enough to weaponize tomato bisque. Truly, it’s a miracle he hadn’t figured this out sooner. All he had to do was—god forbid—shut up and listen.

But then again, you were both such yappers. Loud, petty, psychic disasters. Made for each other. Soup-fueled and tragic.

-X-Home Invasion-X-

You knew something was wrong the moment you docked in Illusia.

The air was too still. The docks too orderly. Ropes coiled with intention, barrels stacked like soldiers. The scent of the harbor was sharp with citrus oil and absence; no fish guts, no spilled rum, no shouting dockhands cursing the weight of their catch. Only polite greetings and well-swept planks.

Something was off.

The market buzzed, but it was the wrong kind of noise, civilized, rehearsed. Too clean. Too calm. As if the town had dressed itself in its Sunday best and was waiting for someone important.

And he hadn’t said a word.

Not in months.

No taunts. No midnight jabs. No smug, velvet-laced commentary about your poor life choices or questionable soup standards. The Link—once full of static and swagger—had gone eerily quiet. And his silence was louder than thunder.

You slipped off the main road immediately. Took three back alleys to the inn. Paid a man in salt and secrets to swap rooms with you. Bought a sack of turmeric and invented a whole new name, pretending to be a spice merchant’s tired apprentice with a limp and a speech impediment. You reactivated the old charm tucked beneath your shirt, the one meant to dull the psychic tether between you, long since abandoned out of pride and habit and because it was probably a piece of shit that didn’t work.

You felt the blankness settle over your mind like frost.

It was safer this way.

You’d been running for months. Ever since the last skirmish. Ever since the last psychic jab that went too far.

Ports blurred into jungle. Jungle into sea. Sea into nameless cliffs and smuggler trails and hidden sanctuaries carved into wind-bitten rock.

Because you had mocked him.

For years.

Mentally. Telepathically. Viciously.

You mocked his voice, his wardrobe, his vocabulary. His metaphors, his allegories, his dramatic monologues at inconvenient hours. Once, during a blizzard, you spent four uninterrupted hours internally berating the cut of his coat and the structural instability of his stupid little sunglasses.

You won every war of words. Every petty jab. You got the last psychic word more often than not.

Until he disappeared, the bond had always been a constant. A low, electric thread humming at the base of your skull. Sometimes unbearable, sometimes infuriating, sometimes oddly comforting in the way a storm is comforting—predictable in its chaos. His voice would come and go, slipping through your thoughts like silk dragged across a blade. Taunting. Laughing. Commenting on your life choices with smug amusement and theatrical menace.

Then it stopped.

The silence was absolute. Not wounded. Not sulking. Just gone. You told yourself it was a blessing. You told yourself you had won. You didn’t believe it.

The morning it shifted again began like any other. Quiet. Unassuming. The sort of morning where nothing is meant to happen. Pale light crept over the low hills, brushing the rooftops in the distance. You stretched, slow and cautious, rising from the thin mattress on the floorboards of yet another nameless room in yet another borrowed identity.

There was no sound inside your head. No sarcasm. No psychic jabs. Just stillness.

But the bond was awake.

Not loud. Not sharp. Just present. Steady. Focused like a held breath behind your ribs. A coiled presence that did not speak, but watched.

You pushed it away. Ignored it. Ritualized the morning like you had every morning before it. You poured water over the embers in the hearth, stirred the ashes, opened the shutters to let in the sea breeze.

And still, that weight sat behind your eyes.

You breathed in deep. Salt and damp wood. You told yourself it was nothing. Told yourself he was far away. Told yourself you’d blocked him out too thoroughly for him to find you.

But the air disagreed.

It held that prickling pressure. The kind that came before lightning. The kind that whispered you’re not alone.

Then came the second sign.

The birds.

They were everywhere. Perched in perfect stillness along rooftops, chimneys, gutters, wires. Thousands of them. Not moving. Not chirping. Not breathing, so far as you could tell. They stared down at the streets in eerie silence, their heads tilted slightly, like they were listening.

Okay, that was pretty weird.

You left. Calmly. You packed your things in silence, slipped out the back, took a long path around the market square. You passed the baker you’d never spoken to, the dockhand you bribed last week, the boy who sold fennel for twice its worth. You cut through alleys. You made sure you weren’t followed.

Halfway through a narrow lane near the edge of the port, you felt it.

The voice did not come from behind you. It came from within.

"You made it interesting," it said, rich with that low, infuriating amusement. "But those last jokes were too far. Tomato soup? Here? In this backwater?"

There was a pause.

"...The don’t even put cream in it. I feel personally attacked."

Your heart clenched.

No. No. No.

You turned too fast. Looked down the alley. Empty. Looked up.

The birds were still watching. But now, they were moving. Not naturally. Not like birds. They turned in unison, each head tilting with the same angle, the same delay, as if waiting for instruction.

You burst out into the marketplace.

That was when you saw it.

The threads.

Fine as hair, catching the morning light. Barely visible unless you knew how to look. They connected wings to wires, chimneys to claws, rooftops to sky. Strings, delicate and terrible, pulled taut by an invisible hand.

Your stomach twisted.

Not because of the voice. You had endured that voice in your sleep, in battle, in moments of unbearable grief. You had withstood it when everything else broke.

But this was different.

Now, you felt him.

Not in your head. Not through the tether.

In the air.

The atmosphere shifted.

The heat fell away, replaced by something colder, heavier. The kind of pressure that bends trees and makes water go still. The kind that makes you feel like your skin is not your own.

Every hair on your body rose. Your breath caught.

You knew that feeling. That tension. That invisible hand tightening strings not just on birds, but on you.

And somewhere, faint as silk brushing stone, something moved.

He was here.

“No fucking way.” you hissed, barely breathing.

And, of course, he answered. 

Gleeful. Smug. Downright cheerful.

“Yes,” he said, like this was a brunch date and not a full-blown psychic ambush. “I decided to take a nice little vacation. Somewhere warm. With no bread. Just to suffer.”

You felt him before you saw him.

The air shifted. Not loud, not showy, but subtle in the worst way. Like the moment before a wave crashes. Like when every bird in the forest forgets how to sing.

The pressure dropped.

The breeze died.

And the silence that followed was sharp. The kind that makes your skin remember things your brain isn’t ready to process.

The orange in your hand slipped through your fingers and hit the stone with a soft, traitorous thud. It rolled once. Twice. Then stopped. Just like everything else.

You turned your head. Slowly. Carefully. Like prey pretending it isn’t prey.

You sensed him before you saw him. That old, cold whisper along your spine. That too-familiar vacuum pulling at your mind, the one that always came just before he decided to say something unhinged about soup or power or silk..

You had dared to hope.

You told yourself he’d moved on. That he’d gotten bored. That somewhere out there, someone else had insulted his coat and taken your place in his mental crosshairs.

You thought he might have stopped looking.

You were wrong.

He stepped out of the shadow of the bell tower, and for a moment, the world remembered it was made of predators.

The light hit him like revelation. Like a warning. Nine feet of silk-draped terror: broad-shouldered, long-limbed, the raw outline of power wrapped in soft pink and the kind of stillness that animals recognize before storms. The coat billowed slightly behind him, too clean for the road, too elegant for this town.

Birds lined the rooftops like sentinels, and now you could see why. Each one tethered—barely—to shimmering threads strung through the air like a web. They weren’t perched. They were placed. Controlled. Held by fingers you couldn’t see but now felt like ice under your skin.

He was using them.

Not to spy. To announce.

A silent, grotesque heraldry of string-bound wings and glassy eyes, watching from every roof, every post, every chimney stack. A puppet theater of nature held still in deference to its master.

Doflamingo.

He stood at the far end of the street, just outside the crooked inn where you’d slept restlessly the night before. Not moving. Not speaking. Just... there.

Still.

Not like a man. Like a blade balanced on its point. Like a guillotine before the drop.

The pink of his coat caught the light of the dying sun and seemed to burn with it. His shirt was open, the fine silk clinging just enough to show how monstrous he truly was; cut from stone, not flesh. His chest broad, his arms built like ruin, veins like lattice under golden skin.

His glasses sat low on the bridge of his nose, and though the sun had dipped behind the rooftops, they glinted. Bright, mocking. His mouth curled into a smile like a curved blade, sharp and slow and sure.

You didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.

And then he took a step forward.

Not fast. Not loud. Just one smooth, unhurried step. The kind that spoke volumes. The kind that said: I don’t need to chase you. You’ve already lost.

He walked like he had all the time in the world. Like the gods owed him interest. Like he was the storm you thought you outran.

His head tilted. His smirk widened.

Taller than memory. Taller than reason. Built like a cathedral made for war. His voice, when it came, was low and deliberate, silk dragged across broken glass.

“You didn’t think I’d find you,” he said, eyes hidden, smile gleaming. “That’s cute.”

And it was happening again.

The pressure. The stillness. The part of your brain that had spent months in retreat now screaming behind your eyes.

You hated how hot it was. You hated him.

You hated the part of you that had memorized the cadence of that voice against your will. And worse, you hated the jolt it sent down your spine, sharp and electric and unfamiliar.

He took another step.

You knew that step. You’d heard it in dreams. And you’d spent half your life making jokes to hide the fact that you were terrified he’d take it for real.

He tilted his head, just slightly, like a curious animal right before it pounces.

You ran.

You didn’t scream. You moved.

The crowd broke around you, instinctively parting like water around a knife. You didn’t stop to apologize. Didn’t pause to calculate. You dropped your weight into a shoulder, smashed through a stack of shipping crates, and kept running.

The dumbass charm at your collarbone flared uselessly against your skin, too late. The bond was already breached. He was already here.

You darted into a narrow alley behind a spice vendor’s stall, knocking over baskets in your wake. Dried limes scattered across the stones. Cinnamon cracked underfoot. The scent clung to you as you scaled the outer wall of a tailor’s building, your boots scrabbling on the chalky sandstone.

You climbed. You scrambled.

You vaulted the sloped roof of a flower stall, nearly lost your footing, and tumbled hard across the stretched canvas canopy of what was—upon brief, horrified realization—the brothel’s side parlor. Silk sheets and painted fans fluttered below. Someone shrieked.

“Very creative,” came his voice, smooth and amused, somewhere between admiration and hunger. “How long have you been practicing this escape?”

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.

You launched yourself down the back stairwell, slid through a sun-drenched hallway of some private gallery. The marble floor flashed under you as you ducked beneath a tapestry, kicked over a statue with a grunt, and sprinted into the open.

Your bag caught on something and was ripped from your shoulder but you didn’t stop.

Your satchel—maps, coins, everything—was gone. Forgotten in the panic. Your boots slid on the dust just shy of the plaza’s edge. Your breath came in bursts. Your heart beat like war.

He laughed.

Not a chuckle. Not the mocking little hum he sometimes sent through the bond. This was laughter. Real. Full-bodied. It echoed against the stone walls and rang through the bond like a bell with a crack in it.

Sharp. Delighted. Like he couldn’t decide whether to savor this moment or talk through it.

“Oh, cariño,” he called lazily, somewhere too close behind. “We’re really doing this, huh?”

You didn’t look back.

You ducked through an alley where laundry snapped in the wind. You vaulted a fence with rusted nails and no dignity. You scattered a flock of chickens like falling starsand cursed every choice that had brought you to this moment.

The jokes. The psychic soup battles. The year you mocked his coat collection. The fennel.

You raced like your life depended on it, because for the first time in a long, stupid, gloriously ill-prepared time, you were absolutely certain it did.

Your brain, ever helpful in times of crisis, offered up pearls of wisdom such as:

“He’s taller than most horses. Can string people like puppets. Can literally fly. Why didn’t I take up fencing? Why didn’t I fake my death more convincingly? Why did I think soup jokes would be enough to keep him away?”

You cut through a walled garden, grapevines clawing at your arms, leaves slapping across your face as if nature itself wanted you to feel stupid. You tasted copper and fear.

And then, his voice. Inside your skull. Velvet-wrapped and awful.

“You run like you’re used to being prey. Did I haunt you?” 

A low chuckle. Satisfied.

“I love that.”

You didn’t look back. Couldn’t.

But you felt him.

Moving like velvet and gunfire. No footsteps. No shouting. Just the whisper of motion behind you, strings brushing stone and air and possibility. The invisible marionette threads of his power tugging at the edges of the world.

Up above, he walks. Calmly. Stepping from one rooftop to another like gravity has grown bored of him. His coat flutters in the wind behind him, a sail of indulgence. His hands stay in his pockets.

He doesn’t need them.

You hit a marble railing at full speed, vaulted it. The edge cracked beneath your palm. A roof tile gave way under your boot, sent you skidding. You caught yourself—barely. Pain shot through your ankle. You hissed. Kept going. Didn’t dare stop. Didn’t dare breathe too loud.

From the balcony of an abandoned café, he leaned, watching.

Leaning forward slightly, one boot perched on the sun-warmed railing like a predator taking its time. His sunglasses were low, catching gold from the sky. His grin was sharp, wolfish and wrong. That damn pink coat billowed behind him like a sail soaked in blood and champagne, trailing just enough to mock physics.

He said nothing.

Didn’t need to.

He watched the crowd around you shift like schooling fish. Watched how they sensed the weight of something hunting and veered away without knowing why.

You sprinted harder.

Hair wild, dress hitched above your knees, boots slamming against sunbaked stone. You leapt a market stall, cracked another tile, grabbed a broom mid-flight and swung yourself around a second-story railing like you were born for this nightmare.

You were movement now. Raw adrenaline. Blistered fury. Just enough terror to make it sharp.

Above you, somewhere between the linen lines and the city’s gold-drenched skyline he was there.

Not flying. Drifting.

Watching. Trailing you like hunger on the wind.

“Mm.”

That was all he said at first.

Just that low, indecent hum; half-pleased, half-predatory. The sound of a man growing increasingly unholy in his enjoyment.

He wasn’t chasing you.

He was curating your fear.

Pacing the tempo of your escape.

Letting you think, for one brief, shining moment, that maybe you could outrun him.

The rooftops stretched golden ahead of you, the tile beneath your boots cracked and crumbling, the air thick with heat and falling sun.

Your breath came ragged.

Your hands were raw.

Your body was slipping into that thin, bright edge between panic and survival.

The city glowed in the late light. Towers kissed the horizon. Banners stirred in the stillness. Bells tolled in the distance. You leapt across a broken archway, landed wrong, rolled hard, caught yourself on trembling legs. Your knees scraped stone. You hissed.

Silence.

No footsteps.

No shadow.

No laughter trailing in your mind. Just breath and blood and the echo of your pulse. For a moment, you believed.

You almost believed. That maybe you’d lost him. That maybe the spell had broken.

But Doflamingo doesn’t chase like a beast. He hunts like a spider. He watches. Waits. Tugs one thread, then another, and smiles as you dance.

“Look at you go,” his voice drawled, somewhere too near, too casual, silk-wrapped and awful. “Scared little soup girl.”

Your breath tore out of you. Hot. Furious.

Your heart slammed against your ribs, the way a bird does inside a closed cage. Your hands shook, muddy, scraped, bleeding through grit and desperation.

The city had changed around you.

You’d crossed into the high quarter now: the part of town where the nobles built their sanctuaries above the dirt of the world. Marble arches and carved walls. Shrines and green courtyards. Trimmed hedges. Fountains that didn’t have to work for their water.

No crowds.

No chaos.

Only stillness and space and hiding places.

You shrieked when your foot hit the edge of a cart and vaulted it without grace, nearly catching your shin on a wheel. You burst through a narrow stone arch, past rows of manicured citrus trees, into a wide garden trail that arched toward the edge of a park.

Trees. Roots. Cover.

You flung yourself off the path, into the underbrush, your body scraping bark and branches until you found it—a fallen log, broad enough to shield your shape if you curled tight enough.

You collapsed behind it.

Pressed your body to the dirt. Shoved your hands over your mouth. Bit your own wrist to keep from sobbing. Your lungs heaved. Screamed. Refused to be quiet.

Every inhale scraped your ribs raw, your breath too loud, too human. You pressed yourself lower, chest to dirt, cheek to leaves. You counted heartbeats.

You waited.

No footsteps.

No strings.

No voice in your head.

Maybe.

Maybe you got away?

“Hi.”

You looked up.

He was standing on the branch directly above you, crouched like a goddamn jungle cat in a coat worth more than most kingdoms. One hand casually braced against the bark, the other hanging free. Sunglasses low. Smile wide.

He had scaled a tree.

A tree.

Silently.

To leer.

You shrieked again, more from principle than surprise, and flung yourself backward. Rolled. Scrambled. Bolted.

Down the slope.

Through the brush.

Skidding on fallen leaves and loose dirt like your legs had become usless.

“I love this game,” he purred, following at an infuriatingly relaxed pace. Not running. Not even flying. Just moving, the way storms do, the way plagues do, inevitable and unhurried. “It’s so adorable that you think you can win.”

You hit the treeline at full speed.

Branches clawed at your arms as you tore through the undergrowth, boots barely catching traction, pain sparking up your feet. You didn’t stop.

You couldn’t.

You doubled back, toward the city. Toward walls.

People. Witnesses.

Not that it would stop him.

But maybe it would make him pause.

Maybe.

You burst into a back street behind a closed chapel, nearly barreling over an elderly nun and two startled pigeons. She shrieked. You kept running.

The bells were ringing.

The city was golden.

And you were running out of places to hide.

He didn’t run.

He glided.

A single step off the edge of a rooftop, and his threads caught the wind like invisible silk. They lifted him through the air with obscene, lazy elegance. There was no strain, no rush. He moved like the wind bent to serve him.

You didn’t see him move. You felt it.

Like a shift in pressure. Like the moment before a storm breaks.

You tore through the dockyard, heart pounding, lungs on fire. Crates exploded under your shoulder. You ducked under swinging beams and leapt over coiled ropes, cutting across uneven ground slick with brine and grit.

Behind you, chaos erupted.

Pulleys snapped. Wood shattered. Men shouted in fear. Sailors who had never seen someone walk the sky were now screaming about devils and ghosts.

You grabbed the smoke bomb from your belt and hurled it behind you. It cracked against the stone. Smoke erupted in a thick, choking cloud.

For one precious second, the world disappeared.

Smart,” his voice came through the haze. Calm. Amused. Still too close.

You dove into the oceanfront warehouse through a side door and didn’t hesitate. The space was cluttered, narrow, and blessedly familiar. You had prepared for this moment.

A rope rigged to a false door. A dummy route through stacked crates. Smoke powder hidden in barrels. Your blades already placed.

You dashed. Fast. Focused. You cut every support beam as you passed, slicing wood with practiced precision.

Behind you, the structure groaned. Then collapsed.

The entire side of the warehouse caved in with a roaring crash. Dust and wood exploded outward like shrapnel.

You paused. Just long enough to breathe. Just long enough to listen.

Silence.

Then laughter.

It rolled through the wreckage like warm thunder. Low. Pleased. Not the sound of someone caught off guard, but of someone thoroughly entertained.

“You built traps?” he called, voice echoing between the fallen beams. “For me? You really shouldn’t have.”

It wasn’t mockery, it was genuine delight.

And that, somehow, was worse.

A thread grazed your neck, light as a fingertip.

You flinched hard.

He exhaled, long and slow, like a man savoring the taste of a meal he didn’t have to pay for.

You gritted your teeth.

Raised your chin.

Kept moving.

You didn’t see the threads until they shifted.

Just a flicker of pink at the edge of your vision.

A glint. A shimmer.

Then a snap.

The wind shifted.

A clay tile behind you split in half like overripe fruit.

You didn’t look back.

The alley narrowed. You dropped low, slid under a merchant’s gate, the rusted iron tearing at your shoulder. Crates toppled behind you. One hit your hip. You bit back a curse, just in time to scream.

A string cut clean across your path.

Not your skin.

Not your throat.

But your sash.

The fabric sliced away in a flash of motion, fluttering like a flag caught in a crosswind.

You caught it—barely—before it could be swept into the air, fists clenched around the soft, traitorous silk.

“Modesty, cariño,” he said sweetly. “Not that I mind.”

You growled and bolted again, breath ragged, sweat burning your eyes.

You hit the edge of a staircase, tried to pivot, and nearly broke your ankle on the slick stone.

Behind you, he hummed.

Low.

Mock-thoughtful.

Amused in a way that turned your bones cold.

“Hm… you’re faster when you’re angry. I like it.”

You spit out a breath, stumbling over the edge of a crate. “This is harassment!”

“Slow down, cariño,” he cooed, utterly unbothered. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

He sounded delighted. Like this was a vacation. Like you were the entertainment.

This wasn’t a hunt.

Not really. It wasn’t about catching you. Not yet.

It was about reminding you.

Reminding you that he could, That every step you took was permission, That he was letting you run.

Letting you taste the illusion of freedom, the borrowed high of control. Letting you remember every petty word, every psychic jab, every childish insult you ever lobbed into the bond from ages five to twenty-three.

Birdbrain.

Flamboyant sewer king.

Pink Princess Caesar.

Once, during a thunderstorm, you’d whispered into the Link that you hoped his next hookup tied his shoelaces together and tripped him face-first into his own ego.

“I remember that one,” he purrs, from nowhere and everywhere. “I laughed.”

You want to scream.

You want to throw something heavy at the sky.

Instead, you grit your teeth, press your back to cold stone, and slip into the shadows of the city’s northern quarter.

Your breath comes ragged, sweat sticking to the back of your neck like glue. The scent of ash, salt, and dried lavender clings to the air. You duck beneath the arch of a stone gate, shoulder scraping the wall, and press yourself flat to it.

You wait.

Silence.

No breath.

No footfall.

Just the dry rustle of wind weaving through the laundry lines above, cotton sheets fluttering like ghost flags.

Then, His shadow.

It passes over you like a curse.

You freeze. Your stomach turns. Your fingers dig into the stone.

You break left, bolting down a narrow corridor between two glass workshops, only to scream as the cobblestones lift beneath your feet, yanked upward by invisible threads. The world tilts violently. You lose footing. Your body slams into the far wall with a sickening crack of plaster and bone.

Your vision swims.

The air buzzes.

The Link thrums with glee.

You force yourself upright, shaking, blood hot down your arm. Your dress tears at the hem as you vault a low wrought-iron fence, barely clearing the spikes, and tumble into a garden terrace littered with potted citrus and fallen petals.

The city is turning gold around you.

Sunset pours like wine across the rooftops.

Everything gleams red and soft and final.

And still, you run.

He lets you.

Above, perched like a gargoyle on the slate-tiled roof of an ivory tea house, he watches.

Tall. Grinning. Silent.

A silhouette sharper than steel, framed in pink and dusk.

A shadow draped in rose-colored sin.

The coat still hangs from his shoulders like a living thing, molded to his frame as if it were stitched into his very anatomy. It moves when he moves. It waits when he waits. His sunglasses catch the last threads of sunlight, concealing his eyes—those merciless, glinting, gold-rimmed things that see too much and pity too little.

His hair is a golden mess of fire, windswept and wild, curling like it was scorched into place by something divine and terrible. His grin cuts across his face like it belongs to something older than men, the kind of smile that’s watched empires burn and laughed as they did.

He lifts two fingers. Casually.

The air shifts.

“Is that your favorite ankle?” he muses.

A thread, so fine you barely register it, snakes around your boot and pulls.

You fall. Hard.

Stone grinds into your palms. Your knee slams into the stone. Your breath leaves your lungs like it’s trying to escape.

You bite back a sob, taste blood and dust, grab the nearest flowerpot and hurl it through a window. Glass shatters in a spray of petals and clay. You dive inside.

Down the hall. Left. Up the stairs. Through the kitchen. Onto a rooftop.

You sprint past linens hung to dry, push off a chimney, leap over cages of startled pigeons that explode into the sky like feathers and panic.

You don’t see the threads until it’s too late.

They coil around your wrist with surgical precision; tight, deliberate, claiming.

You snarl and yank, the thin line biting deep as you stumble into a passerby who cries out in confusion. A middle-aged man with an armful of oranges stares at you like you’ve fallen from the sky. You rip free and keep running, half-sprinting, half-sliding down the slope of another tiled roof, boots skidding on the worn stone.

Down another alley.

Into someone’s kitchen, through a side hall, past a tea room where nobles stare in stunned silence.

Your feet hit polished tile. Then gravel. Then tile again.

You don’t stop to breathe.

You can’t.

The voice comes like silk through a razor’s edge.

“Sloppy footwork, cariño.”

It curls low in your skull. Warm. Familiar. Vicious.

“You’ve been mocking me for eighteen years,” he says. “I expected more finesse.”

You want to scream.

You want to throw every insult you’ve ever crafted right back in his face.

But your lungs are on fire.

Your legs feel like molten iron.

Your heart slams so hard against your ribs it feels like it’s trying to break out and leave you behind.

You crash into the side of a stone fountain, hands skidding wet across the marble rim. The water splashes up, stinging the cuts on your palms. You haul yourself over the ledge and drop down the far side, staggering through the rear exit of a perfume shop that smells like memory and poor choices.

Jasmine wraps around your throat like guilt.

You cough on it.

When you look back…

There’s a thread in the air.

Thin. Crimson-pink. Too fine to track, too sharp to ignore.

It cuts through hanging silks as if they aren’t there. Vanishing the moment you blink.

He could’ve caught you ten times by now. Could’ve ended this in the dockyard. On the rooftop. In the garden. Could’ve pulled your legs out from under you, bound your wrists, whispered your full name into your ear just to make you shiver.

And the whole time, He talks to you In your mind.

Like a lover. Like a ghost. Like the shadow you never fully scrubbed from your thoughts.

“You cursed me with sock puppets when you were nine,” he says, voice rich with delight. “You made up a sea shanty about my sunglasses. It had a chorus.”

You shriek, breath wheezing through clenched teeth, as you shoulder a door off its hinges and tumble into a silk-draped drawing room.

You’re dizzy. You’re filthy. You’re furious.

“Yes!” you yell, staggering to your feet. “Because you were in my head, monologuing like a goddamn novella villain with a boa fixation!”

Silence.

Then the creak of something shifting just out of sight.

And the slow, dangerous laugh that follows means he’s even more entertained than you feared.

It should have ended five alleyways ago. Six rooftops back. Twelve heartbeats after he found you in the spice market, frozen in front of a plum like the universe hadn’t just dropped a war criminal into your personal space.

But Doflamingo doesn’t end things quickly. He savors, He drags it out the way fire licks across parchment—slow, curling, inevitable.

The longer the chase goes on, the worse it gets.

For you? Exhaustion. Rage. A full-body sweat.

For him? Horny.

And not even pretending otherwise.

You crash through a citrus grove behind a bathhouse, knocking over two buckets and a laundry line, shouting “SORRY!” to the half-naked governor’s wife you just startled out of her slippers—

“Do that again,” he murmurs.

“What?!” you yell, ducking under a lemon tree.

“The panting. That little stammer. Say my name next time, cariño.”

You scream into your elbow. Loudly. In public. A pigeon drops dead from the sheer force of your embarrassment.

“God,” he groans with open appreciation. “Twenty-three and still feral. I adore it. Run harder.”

You glare up at the rooftops mid-sprint, spit a mouthful of hair from your face, and shout, “You perverted flamingo bastard—!”

“Say it slower. My pants are getting tight.”

You nearly trip over your own rage.

Then, Your bra strap unhooks itself.

While you are sprinting.

“No—” you gasp, clutching your chest mid-run. “No. Absolutely not—”

“My powers are very precise.”

“You bastard—”

“You’d be amazed what I can do with motivation and focus.”

You grab the nearest object—an antique candlestick from someone’s courtyard altar—and hurl it at the nearest doorway. It shatters. You may have hit a priest. You don’t stop to check.

You run faster.

By the time you reach the historic quarter, you’re flushed, breathless, half-hysterical, and not entirely from exertion.

Your face is burning. Your dress is crooked. You’re sweating through silk and slipping on the polished marble of a sculpture garden someone forgot to gate off. Statues of saints and heroes loom around you like stunned witnesses.

And he is thriving.

You can feel it.

Somewhere above you—sprawled along a colonnade, hanging from a clothesline, lounging on the side of a bell tower—he is thriving.

Because you’re losing.

And he’s enjoying every second of your fall.

Up on the rooftops, high above the fray, hands tucked casually in his pockets like this is a stroll through the gardens. His coat flutters around him, catching the breeze like it’s part of the sky. He breathes just a little heavier now, not from exertion, but from the thrill. From you as you try and find a safe little corner.

But your mind is fraying faster than your shoes.

Your soulmark is humming.

The Echo Link pulses like it’s bruised—raw and too open. His presence is pressing in from every angle now, too close, too much. It’s not even contact anymore. It’s invasion.

A ripple cuts the air beside your ear. You flinch so hard your vision doubles.

“Shall I fetch Mr. Pancake?”

The voice is velvet and pure menace. 

“He should see the vile things I’m about to do to you.”

Your brain short-circuits.

“Don’t you dare,” you hiss, hoarse and scandalized. “Mr. Pancake is innocent.”

“No he’s not.”

“I hope you choke on your own spit!”

“No, you don’t. I don’t think you hate me at all.”

You do hate him.

You hate how good he looks.

You hate how your bond has been echoing with his ragged breath for ten straight blocks and counting. Like he’s getting off on the chase, and you know he is.

You duck into the crumbling mouth of the old amphitheater, a ruin just above the edge of town. The sun hits it in fragments, throwing jagged shadows across broken stone.

Dust billows as you descend into the center of the stage. Ancient marble gives beneath your boots. You stagger. Your palms sting. Your legs want to give out.

And for just a second, you beg, for the world to give you one minute. One breath. One moment to catch the pieces of yourself before he turns them inside out.

The bond is humming.

“All out of clever tricks, cariño?”

The words crawl up your spine like heat.

You scream into the dirt.

A short, furious, inelegant noise, muffled by soil and failure and the kind of rage that burns more out of helplessness than pride.

“Stop calling me that!”

“I’d say your name,” he replies, lazy as ever, “but you’ve never given it.”

You bite down on a curse hard enough to taste blood.

And this time He moves.

You hear it first.

The whisper of his coat dragging over sandstone. Then the footsteps. Not rushed. Never rushed. A slow, measured cadence. Like he’s walking toward a lover.

Or a kill.

And then He’s there.

Standing between you and the only exit.

Tall. Impossibly tall. A living shadow framed in dusk and silk, sunlight catching only the gold in his hair and the gleam of his glasses. He’s a silhouette with teeth.

Donquixote Doflamingo.

He takes one step forward.

The coat whispers. His boots land like slow applause. Threads slither in the air around him; quiet, delicate, deadly. Too fine to see unless you already know where to look. But you feel them. The air around him is threaded with tension, vibrating at a frequency only prey can hear.

One flicks past your ear.

You flinch as it slices through a vine hanging above your shoulder.

It falls in two.

Neat. Clean. Effortless.

He doesn’t even try to hide it now.

Doesn’t have to.

He’s faster than you remember.

Or maybe you’re just slower.

Maybe it’s the running. The hiding. The year and a half spent dodging shadows across ports and kingdoms, hoping your petty psychic war never turned into something real.

You scramble up along the edge of the wall, but Five steps. That’s all you get.

Then something tightens around your thigh.

You fall hard, knees hitting cracked stone, elbow skidding, skin tearing. You taste dust and fury.

A second thread winds around your ankle, pulling taut.

A third flashes out like a striking snake, catches your wrist just as your fingers wrap around the hilt of the dagger tucked in your boot.

“You always did carry too many little toys.”

You snarl and twist, but your arm is already yanked backward, pinned by a thread that doesn’t need to tighten to hurt.

“You creep,” you spit, fury biting through the edges of your voice. “You’ve been in my head since I was five.”

“And you’ve spent eighteen years narrating my bald spot and calling me discount poultry,” he replies sharply.

His coat is half-fallen from his shoulder, his chest bare, skin flushed not from running but from enjoyment. His hair is wind-tossed and wild, gold in the fading light. His grin is slow and mean and terribly satisfied.

The threads lift you off the ground, dragging you to your knees like a marionette whose strings were always his to pull. You fight the motion, but your limbs move without asking.

He crouches down in front of you, boots planted, hands resting loosely on his knees, like he has all the time in the world.

“I waited,” he says, voice low and hard. “Longer than anyone else would’ve.”

You glare up at him. “You toyed with me.”

His fingers reach for your chin, just brushing, tipping your face toward him. The touch is warm. Too warm. Too careful. You flinch as if he’d slapped you.

“I let you mock me,” he murmurs. “I let you insult me. I let you run.”

There’s a pause. The air feels too still.

“I don’t feel like being generous anymore.”

It feels like the world is narrowing. Like all the wind has pulled inward, waiting.

“Twenty-three,” he says softly, looking at you like a thing he built from memory and obsession. “You made it a long time. I thought you’d break at seventeen. Maybe twenty. But you’ve always had that little streak of defiance. Haven’t you?”

You don’t answer.

You just stare, trembling and bruised, glaring up at the man who has haunted your head like a sickness since you were five.

“I dreamed about this,” he says, voice quiet now. “You. In front of me. Breathless. Furious. Mine.”

You swing.

He vanishes upward. Not gone, just higher.

When you look, he’s leaning against a support beam above you, completely relaxed, like gravity was never made for him. Threads drift around him in slow motion. His sunglasses are crooked. He is probably still laughing.

“You,” you growl, breath ragged, “are the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Untrue,” he says cheerfully. “You once shaved your eyebrows by accident. Age eleven. That was worse.”

You snatch a knife from your boot and hurl it. It splits in midair, sliced in half by a thread before it gets close.

He steps off the beam. Floating down.

Slow. Controlled. Steady.

The grin has faded, but the amusement lingers. It radiates from him in waves.

“You ran well,” he says, voice softer. “You always did.”

You take a step back.

“Don’t,” you say, barely audible.

He keeps going.

“I let you go. Every year. Every nickname. Every insult you thought I couldn’t hear.”

Another step. You hit the edge of the broken theater.

Behind you, nothing but air and sky.

Your last option waits below. The drop. The smooth stone courtyard that would welcome you with shattered bones and sweet unconsciousness. 

You leap.

And stop.

Mid-air.

Your breath catches. Your body jerks, limbs locking at the joints like invisible hands have seized you. Your wrists twist. Your ankles stiffen. You dangle.

Suspended. Trapped.

The threads wrap around you like a net closing in. You can’t scream. The air leaves your lungs in a strangled rush as your body holds still against your will.

And he flicks his fingers.

Not like a man. Like a god wearing silk and bad intentions. Slow. Precise. Smile carved into his face like it was etched there at birth. His glasses reflect the bleeding sunset and nothing of your fear.

He lowers you to the ground gently. Carefully. As if you were something precious. As if he hadn’t just stolen gravity out from under you like a rug.

Your knees give the moment your boots touch stone. They collapse beneath you, spine bowed, hair falling forward. Every inch of you screams to run. To move. To break free.

But it’s too late.

He closes the space between you in two slow, deliberate steps. No rush. No threat. Just inevitability.

You don’t back away. You refuse to give him the satisfaction. Instead, you make a large, exaggerated motion, waving a hand in front of your face like his coat is giving you a rash.

“Ugh,” you mutter. “Smells like pretension and feathers.”

That stops him. Just for a beat.

Just enough for the smile to shift. For the flicker of amusement to settle into something sharper. He inhales like he’s breathing in your defiance, and it tastes exactly the way he likes it.

That smile—slow, curling, sharp as a snapped thread—deepens.

“You finally afraid?” he murmurs.

“Oh, I’m afraid,” you shoot back. “Just mostly of your wardrobe.”

He huffs. “You think I didn’t wear pink before you?”

“You think I don’t know you started wearing it after I said you looked like a discount Valentine’s Day piñata?”

He snorts.

“You compared me to a bird with commitment issues.”

“You are a flamingo with commitment issues. Commitment to good fashion.”

He laughs.

Not the practiced, smug laugh he usually weaponizes, but a real one. Low, rich, the kind that sounds like it came from somewhere deep, unhinged, and terribly pleased.

“You have such a mouth on you.”

“And you have a criminal record,” you snap. “Wanna compare stats?”

“You don’t sound like someone who’s just been caught.”

“That’s because I’m the only person in this room who didn’t fall into the trap of perceived soulmate affection.”

“Careful, cariño,” he says, tilting his head, voice velvet and warning. “You’re very close to flirting.”

“You’re very close to catching these hands.”

A long silence stretches between you.

Heavy. Crackling. Tense enough to hum in your ribs.

His eyes drop to your mouth.

Slow. Intent. Unmistakable.

The bond thrummed low in the background, steady and constant.

Like a bassline you didn’t ask for but couldn’t turn off.

A heartbeat that didn’t belong to you, but beat in rhythm with your own anyway.

“I hate you,” you muttered.

“I know,” he said. “Some part of you always will.”

“And you—”

You stopped.

So did he.

For a moment, the world quieted. The birds didn’t chirp. The threads didn’t move.

You both just stared.

Like neither of you was quite sure the other was real.

Like this was the first moment that felt true.

“You know,” he said at last, his voice low, careful, serious in a way he rarely allowed, “you’ve been the loudest thing in my head for half my life.”

“You deserved it.”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely.”

He grinned again. Not the wolfish one. Not the smirk that meant he was about to pull the rug out from under you.

This one was different.

This one felt like recognition.

Like a battlefield that had finally settled into a stalemate.

Not peace. Not yet.

But a pause.

“So what now?” you asked, folding your arms, jaw still tight but voice steady.

“Now?” he echoed. “Now we stop yelling across a battlefield.”

You braced for the twist. The gloating. The sharp edge.

You expected him to lean back with that smug tilt of his head, expected the venom, the charm, the bite.

Instead—

He crouched.

Right in front of you.

Down to your level.

No tricks. No flourish.

He tipped his sunglasses down.

Eyes unshielded. Gold. Wild. Raw.

Eyes like a warzone.

“You’ve lived in my head for almost two decades,” he said, quiet and sure.

“You don’t get to leave now.”

You blinked. The moment stretched.

“You walk like your legs are too long for your evil little secrets.”

Doflamingo blinked back. For a full five seconds, he didn’t move, didn’t breathe, just stared.

Then he laughed.

Loud and sudden and delighted, like you’d said something genuinely, terribly beautiful. It echoed through the ruined amphitheater, bounced off stone and sky, edged with something too sharp to be harmless.

“You’re so annoying,” he said between breaths, voice thick with fondness and threat. “Exactly the same. Inside and out.”

He took a step forward. Then another.

He was almost close enough to touch.

“And now?” you whispered.

His eyes narrowed behind the glint of his glasses. The amusement didn’t vanish. It condensed, pulled tight like a drawstring around something darker.

You moved before you thought. Tried to spit in his face.

He caught your jaw in mid-motion.

One hand. Swift. Strong. Unforgiving.

His fingers pressed into your skin; not cruel, not bruising, but enough to remind you who had you in his grasp.

“Try that again, cariño,” he whispered, voice honey-thick and dangerous, “and I’ll tie your legs apart and keep you on your knees until you remember who you belong to.”

Your breath stuttered.

Not from fear. Not just.

Because the bond was pulsing.

Hot. Electric. Furious.

Flooded with something you’d been running from for years. Something you buried beneath sarcasm and defiance and every petty insult you ever crafted to keep him at arm’s length.

Want.

Hunger.

Need.

He leaned in. Forehead nearly touching yours. His grin sharpened into something quieter. Something stripped of theatrics.

He looked like a man starved.

Your mouth went dry. Your chest lifted too high in a breath that didn’t want to land.

You weren’t afraid of dying.

You were afraid of what he wanted.

He smiled.

Not cruel.

Not triumphant.

Certain.

You slapped him.

Hard. Palm to cheek.

Sharp and clear.

He moaned.

Low. Honest. Almost grateful.

And then he laughed again, quieter this time, teeth bared in something close to reverence.

“Oh,” he said, voice thick, “that’s my soup goblin.”

-X-CAUGHT-X-

You're cornered.

He’s pushed you back against warm stone of colonnade. Sun bleeding down the nearby walls like wine. Your pulse thunders in your ears; raw, furious, humiliated.

And he’s standing in front of you like the door to your own mind.

Doflamingo.

All smug heat and slow shadow. His coat falls in lazy folds around him, catching the breeze like a beast’s mane. His glasses are pushed up, hiding his eyes; but you can feel the grin behind them. That awful, slow grin you’ve imagined strangling in your sleep since you were ten.

There’s no crowd here. No escape. No room to run. He made sure of it.

Threads line the exit. You saw them as you skidded in. Thin, pink, almost invisible in the sun, draped like tripwire between lantern hooks and crumbling vines. You could cut yourself free, maybe, if you hadn’t just burned the last of your energy. If your legs weren’t shaking. If your ankle weren’t bruised.

But you didn’t fall here. Not physically.

This is where he let you end up.

This is where he wins.

He takes one step closer. Then another.

His hand stays right where it is, braced beside your head on the wall. Not touching. But it might as well be.

Because the air between you crackles.

The bond hums like something feral and cornered, and every instinct you have is screaming; run, fight, lie, deny. But all of it hits the wall of his certainty. The way he looks at you like a man reading a prayer he’s memorized in a hundred languages.

“Let me go,” you say again, sharper this time.

He huffs. Almost fond.

“After all this time? I think not.” His voice drops, velvet and terrible. “You are mine, you mouthy little gremlin. I knew from the moment you started talking you’d be my personal torment. But mine all the same.”

You try to pull away. He doesn’t touch you. He doesn’t have to.

“I’m not yours—”

“You used to hum when you were nervous,” he says, cutting in. Soft. Like a man sharing secrets with a ghost. “You stopped at thirteen. Just went quiet one day. Thought I wouldn’t notice.”

Your jaw locks.

“You don’t know me.”

He laughs once; low and unamused. “I know your favorite hiding place at age seven. The orchard with the beehive and the broken swing. You hid there with a cracked jaw and mud on your boots.”

You flinch.

He steps just a little closer, voice steady.

“I know what your voice sounded like when you told your first lie. I felt it ripple through the bond like heat.”

You look away, trying to twist your shoulder. He leans in. A wall of silk and shadow. Blocking the alley, the light, your breath.

“I know what it sounds like when you cry and try to pretend you’re not,” he murmurs. “I know how you chew the inside of your cheek when you’re scared. I know how you laugh when you think no one’s listening.”

“Let me go,” you say, again. Through your teeth. The heat behind your eyes makes it hard to see.

He doesn’t move.

Instead—quiet now, almost reverent—he says,

“I know you dreamed about me last week.”

You freeze.

The bond goes silent.

For a second, you think maybe he’s bluffing. But he doesn’t press. Doesn’t mock. He waits.

Then tilts his head. Barely. Just enough.

“You said my name.”

He says it like prophecy. Like certainty dressed in silk.

Like he’d known it before you ever opened your mouth.

“I despise you,” you whisper—hating how it sounds more like devotion than damnation.

He lifts his glasses with one finger, revealing eyes that have watched empires fall and kings learn humility on their knees.

And he looks at you like the world has finally made sense.

“Then why,” he murmurs, soft as sin, “do I hear you moan when you think I’m not listening?”

You shove him. Hard. He doesn’t move.

His threads twitch at the atrium entrance—lazy, possessive, warning the city not to interrupt.

“You mocked me for eighteen years,” he says. “Made me your obsession. Your enemy. Your favorite pastime.”

He leans in. Breath warm against your cheek.

“You don’t get to pretend I didn’t become yours, too.”

You punch him in the chest. He catches your wrist without effort.

“You never ran because you feared me,” he says, low and final. “You ran because you knew exactly how this would end.”

You’re shaking. Your voice barely holds.

“How?”

His eyes gleam.

“With you. On your knees. Moaning my name like a prayer you swore you’d never say.”

That’s when he truly corners you. Not with hands. Not with strings. With the truth.

And your brain misfires.

You’re vibrating with rage. With adrenaline. With the humiliating echo of his voice in your head that has never gone quiet. Not this week. Not this year. Not your entire life. It is too much. Too loud. Too present. Too everything.

Too much running. Too much denial. Too much of him.

You’ve spent years mocking him. You made a game out of hating him. You’ve turned him into a punchline, a problem, a storm cloud that followed you from schoolyard to battlefield. But now he is standing in front of you. Close enough to touch. Close enough to bite. And suddenly you realize something awful.

You are not afraid of him.

You are aroused.

Dangerously aroused. Disrespectfully aroused.

You should run. You should fight. You should slam your fist into his face and tell him to go to hell.

You expect this to be a mistake.

And it is.

But not for the reason you thought.

It is not a mistake because it is bad. It is a mistake because it is perfect.

Your life does not flash before your eyes.

Instead, your brain picks the most mortifying memory it can find. The time you called Doflamingo “Super Fluffy Flamingo” in front of three diplomats and a royal escort. You had whispered it under your breath, half a joke, half a curse. He had heard you.

He had not said anything.

He had only smiled. Slowly. Like he was cataloguing the insult for later. Like he was already planning exactly how he would repay you.

And it was so damn sexy.

And now here you are.

Cornered. Breathless. One wrist wrapped in string. Your back against cold stone and your ankle still aching from the fall.

The world is dead quiet. Only your breathing and the low, wicked hum of the bond remains.

Doflamingo is standing in front of you like the final boss of your sex life. He is tall, flushed from the chase, his glasses askew, his coat slipping off his shoulders like he could not be bothered to wear anything properly. His smirk is pure crime. His hair still looks like a taxidermied poodle on a sugar high.

You open your mouth to say that.

You mean to insult him. To claw back the upper hand. But your brain betrays you in the most carnal, catastrophic way possible.

He looks hot.

Not charming. Not poster-boy pirate attractive. Not even hate-bangable war criminal.

No.

He looks feral. Smug. Like he is five seconds from sinking his teeth into your throat just to prove a point.

And you are tired.

You are flushed and angry and aching from head to toe.

And you are, with increasing urgency, completely and stupidly stimulated.

You do not know whether to slap him or kiss him. You only know this has always been inevitable.

“Five minutes,” you snap, seething. “You get five minutes.”

He blinks. Then tilts his head, slow and deliberate, like a lion being handed a knife and told it may do as it pleases.

“No safe word?” he murmurs. “You sure five will be enough, sweetheart?”

“You get five,” you growl, jabbing a finger at him like you’re casting a curse. “No weird puppet stuff. No evil speeches. No creepy string choking unless I say please—and absolutely no traumatizing flashbacks.”

He has the audacity to look amused.

“You’ve been narrating my haircut for years like it’s a middle school roast,” he says. “Pretty sure we’re past trauma.”

You shrug off your coat. “You look like a taxidermied flamingo someone dipped in sin and regret.”

He laughs. Full-bodied. Joyous. Like this is exactly how he hoped the evening would go.

“And you,” he says, closing the distance, “look like you’ve been thinking about this since you were eighteen and too proud to admit it.”

You open your mouth.

Then close it.

Then mentally refile your entire life under regret: pending.

The kiss is not tender.

It is a declaration of war.

You yank his hair. He binds your wrist to the window frame. You insult his abs. He responds by putting his mouth on your throat and acting like it’s a perfectly logical counterargument.

At one point, a thread loops delicately around your thigh and pulls, precise and possessive, and you scream something that might be his name—or possibly your childhood priest’s.

You can’t be sure.

“Still think I look like a poodle?” he pants against your stomach, grinning like the devil on recess.

“Shut up,” you gasp. “Four minutes—”

“And thirty-seven seconds,” he finishes, wickedly pleased. “Your generosity humbles me.”

Then he lifts you, just to prove he can, and kisses you like a man tearing down his own kingdom to build something unholy in its place.

Afterward, you collapse in a mess of silk, sweat, tangled thread, and something dangerously close to euphoria. Your shirt is inside out. His coat remains immaculate. You’re eighty-seven percent sure something has been dislocated.

He brushes your hair back from your face with exaggerated tenderness.

“Feel better?” he asks.

You glare up at him. Breathing like you’ve just fought off God.

“You are still,” you rasp, “a smug, overgrown, sociopathic tax write-off of a man with the emotional range of a damp swordfish.”

“And you,” he says warmly, “are the reason I haven’t burned down an orphanage in six months.”

You groan into your elbow. “Why are you like this?”

He leans in. Lips at your ear. Voice all velvet and victory.

“Because,” he breathes, “you like it.”

“Careful,” you sneer, breathless. “You tie me up too tight, and I might start liking it.”

He freezes.

Actually freezes. Mid-motion. Mid-smirk. His pupils dilate like a predator catching the scent of something new. Something rare. Something his.

“…Say that again.”

You hesitate. “That I like roasting you more than your coat likes feather conditioner?”

“No,” he says. Calm. Quiet. Unwell in the way only Doflamingo can be. “The other part.”

Your brain tries to backpedal. Tries to throw up sandbags and sarcasm and plausible deniability. But your body?

Your body has already betrayed you.

Heat blooms low and sharp beneath your skin. A confession in the shape of a pulse.

“You like it,” he murmurs. “You want it.”

“I didn’t say—”

“Oh, but you did.”

The threads move before you can think. They don’t hurt.

That’s the worst part.

They brush your skin like fingertips. Like a lover who already knows the map by heart. They wind around your ribs, loop your thighs apart, circle your wrists with silk and precision.

They caress.

And he watches.

The size difference is no longer something to laugh about. You’ve done that before—privately, half-mocking, calling him all wingspan and no substance. All bird, no bite.

You were wrong.

He moves with focused grace, every motion deliberate, as if he's unraveling you on purpose. His hands rest firm at your waist, steadying, directing, like he’s done this a thousand times before. Like he’s waited.

“You’re going to break me,” you whisper, half-breathless.

“I’m going to shape you,” he answers, voice low and certain. “And then I’m going to keep you.”

“It was supposed to be five minutes,” you groan, nerves frayed and pride in ruins, something inside you coiled too tight to name.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, brushing his lips to your throat, “that was just the prologue.”

His kiss lingers, and his hands don’t leave your waist. They settle there with the quiet certainty of ownership, not forceful, but final.

You lose more than control that night. You lose your edge, your rhythm, your lead in a game you thought you were winning.

He takes you like a man who understands the weight of promise. With patience. With focus. With a devotion that borders on dangerous.

When the last gasp escapes your lips, when your hands tremble and your eyes can’t hold defiance anymore, he doesn’t laugh.

He just smiles, slowly and quietly, like a secret unspooling.

“There it is,” he murmurs, voice thick with reverence. “There’s my girl.”

You gave in with a curse on your lips and his name on your tongue, tangled in silk and pride and a thousand things you swore you’d never feel. And still—he didn’t gloat.

He just held your gaze like he’d already known how this would end.

And now… it has.

You were supposed to win. To outrun him. Outmaneuver. Outlast. Maybe slam a door in his face, call him a bastard in four languages, and disappear again under false names and fading ports.

Instead...

You’re in his bed. On his ship. In his world.

And every plan you ever made is dissolving in the slow echo of the bond humming between you, and the warmth still blooming through your bones.

The sheets are a tangle. Your limbs are boneless. Your mind feels like it’s slowly dripping out of your ears. The strings around your wrists have loosened, no longer restraining. Just resting. Affectionate, almost. Like a promise with sharp teeth.

He is still upright.

Of course he is.

Nine feet of smug, post-coital menace. A god of war with the audacity to be pleased.

He looks down at you with that infuriating smile and bends, just far enough to rest one large hand on your bare stomach. His palm is warm. Heavy. Claiming.

“Well?” he asks, voice low and gleaming.

You twitch, intending to sit up, only for the threads at your waist to tug—subtle but firm—tightening like they miss you already.

You frown. “I’m getting up.”

He doesn’t blink. “No, you’re not.”

“I’m finding my pants and leaving you forever.”

“Mm. No, you’re not.”

His fingers tap thoughtfully against your stomach, and he adjusts his glasses with the other hand. Like you’re a calendar reminder he’s slightly annoyed with. Like your attempted escape is something he’ll deal with after brunch and a light coup.

“You’re going to lie here while I notify the crew that you’re mine. Then I’m going to feed you soup with real flavor, seasoning, and dignity. Unlike whatever you called ‘dinner’ last night.”

You stare at him, incredulous. “You’re—are you kidnapping me?”

He tilts his head. Innocent. Curious. Like the question is new to him. Like he’s never even considered another option.

“…No,” he says slowly. “I’m simply enforcing a logical outcome.”

You blink. “Which is?”

“You seduced me with bad soup and spite. Now you live here.”

“That’s not—”

He taps your thigh with a loose thread. It tightens, affectionate. Possessive. Threatening.

“Shhh,” he coos. “Don’t overthink it. That’s how you burned the potatoes.”

You stare at the ceiling and start planning your next five escape attempts.

He starts humming.

“Cariño,” he says softly, “you are in my bed. Wearing my marks. Bonded to my mind. And moaning in your sleep about my fingers.”

His smile sharpens. All silk and sin.

“You kidnapped yourself.”

You should run.

You should.

But you won’t.

Not with your legs still trembling. Not with your wrists bound in thread so soft and shimmering it might as well be spun from the word yes. Not with your bare back pressed into silk sheets that smell like money and sin and some forbidden citrus cologne. Not with a nine-foot war criminal currently adjusting your hips like you’re a living puzzle he intends to solve thoroughly before breakfast.

And definitely not with your voice breaking on his name for the third time in the last hour.

You were supposed to win this war.

For eighteen years, you had mocked him. Relentlessly. Creatively. The voice in your head called you cariño, so you called him Feather Boa Disaster. String Cheese Caesar. Violent Discount-Flamingo.

And now?

Now he was laughing. Actually laughing. While threads of Devil Fruit silk wrapped around your inner thighs, pulsing gently like they had their own opinions.

“Still got something to say?” he murmured. The grin curled through every word.

You tried to glare up at him.

But he was nine feet tall.

You weren’t glaring. You were looking up. Like a peasant before a god. A very smug, shirtless, devastatingly unholy god.

“You don't play fair—,” you croaked. 

“Fair? That was before you made the sound.”

You blinked. “What sound?”

“The one that told me you liked being tied up.”

Your brain rewired itself in real time.

One moment, you were squirming in protest, wrists gently tangled in strings that caressed more than restrained. The next, he was leaning over you, his chest broad enough to block the ceiling light, fingers sliding down your stomach like a blade through silk.

“You like the strings.”

“I like silence.”

“Lie again,” he said, “and I’ll pull them tighter.”

Your breath hitched.

Your thighs betrayed you.

That was his confirmation.

He chuckled low against your neck.

“Let’s tie the knot.”

Yes.

He’s the Devil.

But he’s your Devil.

And he likes it that way. He’ll never be good. He doesn’t want to be. He only wants to be your worst decision, your final mistake, your favorite regret.

And once you stop trying to escape him, he becomes something far more dangerous.

Steady.

Attentive.

Yours.

In that feral, hurricane-shaped, loyal-to-the-end way that only a monster like Donquixote Doflamingo could ever manage.

“You don’t have to love me,” he says. “You just have to stay alive long enough to admit fate gave you taste.”

-X-Honeymoon-X-

Cosmic Joke Status: Threadlocked

Congratulations. 

You’re now mentally shackled to a nine-foot-tall war crime in designer sunglasses who thinks “subtlety” is a personal insult. He’d flatten a nation because the waiter called you ‘miss’ instead of ‘your majesty’.

And the worst part?

You’re starting to think that’s… romantic.

-X- The End -X-

[wroetolando]

𝙳𝚒𝚍 𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝙵𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑 | 𝙻𝙽𝟺

𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: lando norris x fem!reader

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: the one where lando’s race win is ripped away at the last second, and he doesn’t know how to process the heartbreak—until you remind him that he is more than one race, more than one result

𝗺𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰: everything i wanted - billie eilish

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: none!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・

Lando was supposed to win.

Everything had gone so right—the strategy, the pace, the way he had controlled every lap with the confidence of a man who knew that this race was already his to take. But motorsport was never kind. It liked to take all you had struggled for and rip it away before you could even grasp hold on it.

And today, it had been particularly cruel.

A mechanical breakdown. A spotless, unavoidable, catastrophic breakdown that left him with no other option but to bring it in over the side of the track with four laps left. Four laps from crossing the finish line and claiming the win. Four laps from standing atop the podium.

Now, instead of applauds and champagne, he sat alone in his driver's room, in silence.

You had witnessed him angry previously—disappointed with a P6 that was meant to be on the podium, downtrodden when a penalty denied a good finish. But this? This was something else.

Lando sat on the couch, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, still wearing his fireproofs. The TV in the room showed the highlights of the race, the moment he had slowed, his voice crackling over the radio with a broken, "No, no, no—please, no."

Your heart twisted as you stood in the doorway, watching him.

He hadn't even taken off his gloves.

The knock on the door was gentle. One of the engineers, helmet and balaclava-clad. "Hey, mate—just wanted to deliver this."

Lando didn't raise his head, just nodding. The engineer lingered before glancing at you, giving a fleeting, knowing glance before leaving.

Silence crept back over the room.

You sat beside him cautiously, not quite touching him yet. You understood Lando—sometimes he required space, time to sort things out before he allowed others in.

But he wasn't very good at asking for comfort when he required it, either.

So you waited.

And then, after an eternity of a minute, he released a rough breath. His hands dragged down his face before he settled back against the couch finally, staring up at the ceiling.

It was mine to lose," he breathed, voice hollow. "And I lost it."

Your chest ached for him.

"No," you told him softly. "It was yours to battle for. And you did."

Lando spat a hard laugh, shook his head. "Means nothing if I didn't push it past the line."

"It does," you urged. "You ran a tremendous race. That wasn't on you, and you know that.".

His jaw tensed. He didn’t respond right away, just clenched his fists over his knees.

You reached out then, your fingers ghosting over his hand, waiting for permission.

After a second, he let out a shaky breath and laced his fingers with yours.

His hand was still trembling.

I could hear the crowd," he admitted quietly. "They were yelling for me. They wanted me to succeed. And I—" His voice broke before he swallowed it back down. "I let them down."

You squeezed his hand harder. "No, you didn't."

Lando turned to you then, turbulent eyes seeking. "Then why does it feel like I did?

You wanted to take the hurt away from him, wanted to make him see himself the way you saw him. "Because you care. Because this means everything to you."

His throat bobbed, his hold on your hand tightening.

And then, at last, let himself fall into you.

He shifted, forehead against the curve of your shoulder, body twisting toward yours as if seeking the only warmth capable of thawing the glacial disappointment in his heart. Your fingers sifted through his sodden curls, soft.

"I don't know how to release this," he admitted after a while, voice small.

"You don't need to," you whispered. "Not yet. Not tonight."

His arms wrapped around your waist next, holding you close, rooting himself to you.

Neither of you spoke for a long time. You just held him.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・

Later that night, when he finally came out of the garage, the press were waiting. Flashing cameras, microphones pushed in his face, questions shot—How do you feel about today? What happened out there? Are you disappointed with the result?

You watched him take a deep breath, rolling his shoulders back, before moving forward.

Lando responded with professionalism, with the demeanor of a man who'd done this a thousand times. He congratulated his crew, spoke of the unfortunate defeat, said they'd come back stronger.

But you noticed the slight clenching of his jaw. The curl of his fingers into his palm.

And then—something a reporter had said made your stomach twist.

"Lando, do you think that this was your best chance at a win? That perhaps… you won't have another opportunity like this?"

The tension in the paddock thickened.

You saw it—the momentary dip of Lando's face before he flattened it back into neutral.

"Not something I let myself think about," he answered quietly, voice level. "I do have faith in myself. And I think I'll be back up there fighting again soon."

And he walked away, that was it.

You didn't say anything as you walked with him to the car. You didn't have to.

The second you were in, his hand went back to yours.

And he held on to it.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・

That night, as you lay in bed together, the exhaustion finally overtook you. Lando was quiet, curled against you, fingers tracing ghostly patterns down your arm.

"What hurts the most?" he whispered into the dark.

You stroked his hair, holding your breath.

"It's that I did," he admitted. "I knew what it felt like to be so close. I imagined myself standing on that podium. I could hear my anthem playing." He swallowed hard. "And then it was over."

Your heart ached.

You shifted, nudging his chin up so he was compelled to look at you. "Lando."

His glassy blue eyes were full of emotions he didn't quite know how to express.

"Don't think you had just this one chance," you promised. "Not even close."

He took a slow breath, a deep one.

"I just—" He hesitated and spoke quietly, "I don't want to be forgotten."

Your heart tightened. "Lando."

"I know," he said in a rush. "I know it's stupid. I just—" His voice broke a tiny bit. "I've been racing for so long, and I just want to prove I belong."

Your fingers came up to cup his cheek, thumb riding softly against the skin.

"You do belong," you said sharply. "And you will prevail. It is not a question of whether—but merely a question of when."

A broken, shattered laugh issued from him. "You are so confident."

"I am."

He gazed at you for a moment or two before eventually—eventually—believing you.

And then, with a gentle sigh, he tucked his face against your shoulder again, breathing you.

And while he slept, holding on to you like his life raft, you murmured, "You'll have your turn. I swear."

And when it came, when Lando finally stood up on the podium, champagne pouring down his ringlets, the first thing he did was scan the crowd for you.

And you smiled—because you had never for an instant doubted him.

.・。・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。・゜✭・.・✫・゜・

masterlist

[rad-batson]

Batlantern Headcanons Because I Found My New Brainrot and I Cannot Contain Myself (Platonic or Romantic, You Decide <3)

Hal is the only one who gets away with calling Bruce nicknames. Oliver tried calling Bruce “Spooky” once. He still has nightmares.

Several long-winded missions combined with Hal’s couch-surfing escapades have resulted in Hal having his own official Wayne guest room.

Alfred has smacked Hal with a dish towel several times. Reasons include: trying to wash the dishes, using a mini vac that he brought from home, and spitting gum into the garbage without wrapping it in a tissue first.

Tim gave Hal all of their streaming passwords to piss Bruce off. Hal proceeded to make his own profiles because he fears nothing, so Bruce changed all of his profile names to “Parasite.” Since then, it’s turned into an all-out war of renaming Hal’s profile every time they’re using it.

Highlights so far have included Sugar Baby, Freeloader, Ring Pop, Green Abomination, Magical Girl, Noisemaker, The Better Side Piece, and This is Your Official Eviction Notice Hal. (Bruce still hasn’t changed the passwords.)

Hal: You need to let go of your fear, Bats. Let’s do a simple breathing exercise. Bruce: I am breathing. Hal: No, like calming breaths. Follow my lead, okay? In- no, not that fast. Maybe close your eyes first. In…and out-No. No. Are you having a panic attack? Do I need to call someone?

For one mission, a few other JL members had to go undercover as couples. Bruce and Hal were the spares and paired up out of necessity. To everyone’s surprise, however, they were the most convincing duo because they “bickered like an old married couple.”

Bruce: I’m growing soft, Clark. I’m weak now. Clark: You told Hal ‘Good job.’ What’s wrong with that? Bruce: It’s unprofessional! *in the other room* Hal: I think Batman just confessed his undying love to me.

They have each other’s coffee orders memorized and regularly prepare the other’s coffee for them out of habit when they’re together.

After a while, Hal stops playfully flirting with everyone and reserves it only for Bruce because he gives the best reactions.

At a ‘Thank You, Justice League’ party hosted by Bruce Wayne, Hal slips up and flirts with Bruce in his civvies, only for Brucie Wayne to flirt back without missing a beat.

Hal had to go cool down in the bathroom for a few minutes. He was not ready for that. (Bruce is so fucking smug too. He’s been waiting FOREVER to give Hal a taste of his own medicine.)

Hal, introducing Bruce to the Lantern Corp: This is my pet bat. Careful, he bites.

Bruce, introducing Hal to new JL members: This is my partner. He’s been in training for ten years.

During an important strategy meeting, Hal waves his hand around, and Bruce just sighs. “What now, Lantern?” “Your plan of attack has like four holes in it.” “Where?” Hal gestures to the areas and suggests different strategies, and suddenly Bruce is like Does anyone else think it’s hot in here?

He lies in bed that night contemplating every single life event that’s lead up to Hal Fucking Jordan turning him on with his impeccable battle strategy.

Barry: I think Batman’s mad at me. He didn’t even react when I told him about the great rescue mission from last week. Hal: What do you mean? He was smiling the whole time. Barry: His face didn’t move an inch. Hal: You didn’t notice the lip twitch?

Batman has blackmail material on every single Justice League member, but only Hal has blackmail material on Bruce and the guts to use it. (Hal knows Bruce gets pedicures for fun. And he gets little designs on his toes too.)

Arthur: So when did you and Green Lantern start….you know. Bruce: No, I do not. What did we start? Arthur: You know what?! I think I forgot to walk my fish. Bye!

*Barry sees Hal with a hickey while they’re drinking coffee* Barry, jokingly: Did Bruce give you that? Hal: Yes, actually. How’d you know? Barry, backing away frantically: Oh okay, cool! Okay okay. Cool. Cool cool cool. Okay. Bruce, entering: What’s with him? Hal: I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to like the mug you bought me, though.

The JL has a betting pool called “BatLantern FMK” where they bet on which will happen first: will they fuck, marry, or kill each other?

Only Clark, Diana, and J’onn know that one of them happened already

[oddyseye]

Odysseus is a very feminine character, now that I think about it...

Alright, let’s get something straight before anyone comes at me with a “bUt tHiS iS gEnDeR eSsEnTiAlIsM” take. I’m not saying Odysseus is literally a woman or that masculinity and femininity are these rigid, unchanging constructs. I’m talking about how the ancient Greeks perceived these traits. This is about Homeric gender coding, not modern gender politics.

Ancient Greek society had clear ideas about what was “masculine” and “feminine.” Men fought, conquered, and sought kleos (glory). Women used cunning, patience, and endurance to survive. Odysseus? He embodies the latter far more than the former. That’s the point. That’s what makes him interesting. I’m not slapping modern labels on him; I’m analyzing how he would’ve been understood in his own time.

Got it? Got it. Then let me explain.

Greek heroism is all about kleos (glory), right? You charge into battle, fight, die gloriously, and get immortalized in song. Odysseus? Not his style. His whole thing is survival. Achilles, the epitome of warrior masculinity, chooses an early death in exchange for undying fame. Odysseus chooses life, no matter what it takes. He hides, deceives, and grovels when necessary...all acts that a traditionally “heroic” warrior wouldn’t be caught dead doing.

Take the Cyclops episode: a classic strongman hero would just fight Polyphemus. Odysseus? He outsmarts him with wordplay, drugs his enemy (like a sneaky witch would), and escapes by disguising himself under sheep. You’re telling me this is masculine? If anything, it aligns him with figures like Circe and Penelope. Women who survive through wit and deception rather than brute strength.

This man’s mouth is his deadliest weapon. He doesn’t win with a spear; he wins with stories, persuasion, and trickery. The word polytropos (πολύτροπος), used to describe him in the very first line of The Odyssey, literally means “many-turned” or “twisting,” evoking the way a woman might spin or weave. The metaphor of weaving is all over his character, and weaving is, of course, the domain of women in Greek thought.

Even his lies are textile-like. He spins tales, unravels them, and reweaves them as necessary. And let’s not ignore that his narrative mirrors Penelope’s: she weaves and unweaves her shroud, delaying the suitors; he spins and unspins his identity to survive. He and Penelope are two sides of the same coin, both manipulating reality to stay in control.

If we take ancient Greek gender norms seriously, dominance in sex = masculinity, and submission = femininity. And Odysseus? The man spends years being kept by women. Calypso and Circe both hold him as a sex slave, reducing him to an object of desire rather than an active agent. That’s not exactly Achilles ravaging Briseïs, is it? He’s literally lying in bed (λέχος) while these women rule over him.

Even in Ithaca, his return isn’t some macho takeover. He sneaks in, disguises himself, and watches before making his move. Unlike Agamemnon, who storms into Mycenae post-Troy and gets murked by his wife, Odysseus waits, gathering intel like a patient, calculating woman.

He also cries...like...a lot.

Masculine heroes go out into the world to conquer (Iliadic energy). Feminine figures are more often concerned with the home. Odysseus’s entire goal? To get back to Ithaca, to his oikos, to his wife. He’s not seeking new conquests or greater glory. He wants stability, family, domesticity. He longs for the space traditionally occupied by women.

Odysseus is basically the Greek epic’s answer to the trickster woman trope. He’s wily, verbal, emotionally expressive, and constantly using the strategies of metis, not brute strength, to survive. While Homeric masculinity typically means fighting, dying, and achieving kleos, Odysseus thrives through deception, patience, and endurance. Traits that the ancient Greeks more often ascribed to women.

[ackermanrage]

Hey! It’s me again lol. I wanted to request a Levi x fem!reader one shot (not sure if I wanted it to be fluff, smut, or both) where the roles are switched. Like, we all know Levi presents himself as kind of cold, stoic, and standoff-ish. And by popular opinion he would be the dominant one. So what if reader was someone with a more dominant, confident personality who is able to melt that hard exterior away and she always makes Levi extremely flustered around her? I think it’d be cute to see everyone’s reaction to Levi being flustered and shy since they usually perceive him as scary. Hange would definitely take the piss out of this haha. Tysm if you accept this 🙏🏼

omg wait this is amazing 🤩

ᴄᴀᴘᴛᴀɪɴ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛᴛʜʀᴏʙ

levi ackerman x fem!reader warnings: none an: this was supposed to be a drabble 😭but i got carried away so its a bit long!

Levi Ackerman was known for three things:

His precision in battle

His obsession with cleanliness.

And the kind of face that made fully grown soldiers rethink their life choices.

But lately, there was a fourth.

You, with the swagger in your walk and the kind of confidence that made him—Captain Stone-Cold Ackerman—go rigid (in more ways than one) every time you entered a room. You, who could walk into a strategy meeting late, smirk at him across the table, and have him forgetting what the hell “flanking maneuver” even meant.

It had started subtly. A compliment here. A wink there. A playful graze of your fingers on his arm after training. Nothing outrageous.

Until you started doing it when no one else was around.

---

It was past midnight when you knocked on his office door, a sly smile playing on your lips.

He didn’t look up from his paperwork when you entered, but you saw the way his hand stalled, how his jaw tensed.

“You need something?” he muttered.

You crossed the room silently and leaned against the edge of his desk. “You missed dinner again.”

“I’m busy.”

“I brought you tea.” You set the cup down beside his hand. “It’s the kind you like. Jasmine.”

Levi looked up. That alone nearly made your breath hitch. Those sharp gray eyes—wary, tired, and so devastatingly pretty.

“You didn’t have to,” he said, but his voice softened.

“I know. I wanted to.” You leaned in just slightly, watching the way his eyes flicked to your mouth and then darted away. “You should take better care of yourself, Captain.”

“…Tch. I do fine.”

“No, you look fine. That’s different.”

He dropped his pen. You bit back a grin as a soft flush crept up his neck.

You moved to his side, fingers brushing his shoulder. “Want me to make sure you sleep tonight?”

The sound he made wasn’t quite a scoff. But it wasn’t a "no" either.

---

You found him cleaning his blades behind the stables, hands meticulous, shirt clinging to him from sweat. A towel hung from his shoulder, and his hair was damp from the river.

You leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. “I didn’t know ‘world’s strongest soldier’ meant ‘world’s hottest blacksmith’ too.”

Levi didn’t look up. “You say things like that to every man with a sword?”

“Only the ones who make eye contact when I touch them.”

This time, he did glance up—and held your gaze for just a second too long before snapping it away.

“…You’re a menace.”

You walked closer, knelt in front of him, and picked up a blade. “You like it.”

He didn’t deny it.

---

Later that week, the squad was gathered around the training field. Levi stood with arms crossed, overseeing drills. You were beside him, casually close.

“You’re staring again,” you whispered without looking at him.

“I am not.”

“Liar. You’re cute when you sulk.”

Levi’s hand clenched around his hip, and Eren—who wasn’t even trying to be subtle anymore—elbowed Armin with a grin.

“She’s doing it again,” he whispered.

“You’d think he’d be immune to flirting,” Armin whispered back.

“Bro is fighting for his life,” Connie added.

Hange leaned in from behind the formation. “I think we’re witnessing a courtship ritual. Do we give them space or take notes?”

“Shut up,” Levi growled, not even bothering to look at them.

But his face was glowing red.

---

You found him cleaning a kettle late one evening in the mess hall. You slipped behind him, sliding your arms slowly around his waist, chin resting on his shoulder.

He froze like always, body going rigid, hands hovering above the sink.

“…You shouldn’t sneak up on me.”

“I didn’t,” you murmured. “You just wanted me close.”

Levi didn’t move. But after a second, he exhaled, quietly, and let his hands relax in the water.

“You’re relentless,” he murmured. “Why?”

You smiled against his shoulder, letting your lips brush his neck.

“Because I like making you feel something.”

That time, you felt the faintest shiver run through him. You let your hands drag slowly across his stomach as you stepped away, and the noise he made—half sigh, half curse—nearly undid you.

---

It was raining that night when he opened the door. No words—just you and him and the soft flicker of candlelight behind him.

You stepped in, soaked from your run, and he handed you a dry towel without a word. Your fingers touched when you took it. He flinched. You didn’t let go.

“Levi,” you said gently. “You’re allowed to want things.”

His throat bobbed. “…I know.”

“You’re allowed to want me.”

He didn’t move. For once, he didn’t run. Just stared, like he was memorizing you.

“…You make it hard to think,” he admitted, voice low and rough. “I’ve never—let anyone in. Not like this.”

Your heart thudded. Slowly, you stepped forward, reaching up to cup his jaw. He let you.

“I’m not asking you to let your guard down for the world,” you whispered. “Just for me.”

His breath caught—and then, so softly you almost missed it:

“…I already have.”

---

He walked beside you the next morning, brushing shoulders. Nothing was spoken, but his fingers touched yours lightly, briefly, in the hallway.

And then—

“Oh my god,” Hange gasped. “Did you two hold hands?”

Levi didn’t flinch. He didn’t shout.

He just glanced at you, calm and quiet, before muttering: “Yeah. Got a problem?”

It was the first time he’d said it out loud. The first time he didn’t hide it. And when you turned to smile at him, his ears turned pink—but his hand stayed in yours.

©ackermanrage - please do not copy, translate, or plagiarize my work!

[ghostiidasponk]

"LET'S GET SPLATTIN!!!!"

A TWST x SPLATOON FAN EVENT

Summer is around the corner, the sun attacks NRC hard, and what better way too cool down than a turf war?! What? Crowley didn't approve of this? well, that surprise in his desk drawer will be sure to change his mind!

Come on now and join the annual NRC Summer Splatooza! A test of wits, dominance, strategy, and bragging rights!

Inspired by the lively and passionate spirit of DJ OCTAVIO students of NRC will pick a theme, and duke it out with a battle of the fresh!

and the theme isss....

DREAMS VS. DUTY

SO RALLY UP, CONTESTANTS!

Are you a dreamer, guided by passion, imagination, and the pursuit of what could be? 🌙✨ Or do you stand for duty, grounded in responsibility, honor, and doing what must be done? 🛡️⚔️ In this ultimate clash of ideals, it's time to show where your ink truly lies. Will you fight for your wildest dreams, or defend the values that keep the world together? The battlefield is your canvas—choose your side and let your spirit splat!

STAY FRESH!

RULES~!

No pro-shipping

No AI art

Anyone can participate!

No deadline!

tag me plspls! #NRCSUMMERSPLATOOZA

feel free to ask questions!

Only one team per character!

OUTFITS!

Any Japanese streetwear or Splatoon inspired outfits!

DREAMS MUST USE CYAN/GREEN FOR ATLEAST ACCESSORIES

DUTY MUST USE PINK FOR ATLEAST ACCESSORIES

DESIGN THE MOST RANDOM ASS WEAPONS YOU CAN! like Splatoon style- you can turn an entire laundromat into a canon or something and slap a magic gem on it, go crazy, go creative! SUCH IS THE SPIRIT OF STAYING FRESH~!

design example (NOT OFFICIAL!)

(DO NOT USE AS PALETTE REFERENCE)

ATTACH BADGE ANYWHERE!

CARD BACKGROUND!

TEAM DREAMS

TEAM DUTY

[sailorluna15]

ambessa with a bratty or like diva girl please thats all ive been thinking about for a while

🙏

Yesssss I actually love this!

Ambessa x bratty!fem reader! Minors and Men DNI!

"I'm not playing with you, child."

"I'm not playing with you, Ambessa." You mock with a tilted head.

All day, you've been acting bratty. Not listening, giving sass, and going word for word with Ambessa. She's tired of it and ready to teach you a lesson.

"You've been acting up all day and I'm at my wits end! Come here."

You turn your head away from her in defiance.

"No."

Ambessa's eyebrows slowly raise as she hears your words.

"No? Did you just tell me no?"

"Mhmm. Sure did."

Ambessa's face goes neutral as she gets up and dust herself off.

"Alright. If you wanna be a brat, you can be a brat by yourself. I'm not going to tolerate this sort of behavior. Goodbye."

Ambessa walks away from you, not bothering to look back.

Your eyes widen in a panic, but you're determined to stand your ground. The door shuts loudly and the room fills with silence.

She'll come back. She'll always does. She'll come back sit me on her lap and softly tell me what I did wrong then cuddle with me.

However, 20 minutes passes. Then 30 minutes. Then an hour.

"Oh my God, where is she?" You whisper to yourself.

Walking out of the room, you wonder throughout the house looking for your lover.

After a while, you find her in her office. You open the door and enter the room. Ambessa turns back, looks you up and down, and turns back around.

"So you're just going to ignore me?"

"I didn't ignore you, I acknowledged your presence. Do you need something?" Ambessa responds.

You roll your eyes and walk up to her desk.

"What are you doing?" You say as you look over Ambessa's work.

"Working on battle strategies."

You attempt to move Ambessa's arm so that you can slide into her lap like you usually do; however, Ambessa doesn't move an inch.

"Move your arm, Bessa, I'm trying to sit."

"If you need somewhere to sit, there's a chair over there," Ambessa replies without skipping a beat.

"That isn't my chair, you are." You retort as you fold your arms.

Without acknowledging you, Ambessa continues to work.

You attempt to push yourself into Ambessa's lap again. However, this time she pushes against you.

"Oh my God, stop being fucking rude!" You yell out in anger.

"Stop being fucking rude? Stop being fucking rude? You're the one that's been being fucking rude all day. You've been giving me attitude all day and then want to sit in my lap and cuddle. Absolutely not. If you want to be disrespectful, you can be disrespectful by yourself. Point-blank period."

Silence fills the air as you have nothing to say in return. Weakly, you continue to attempt to push yourself into Ambessa's lap.

"Bessa, please let me in. I won't have an attitude anymore." You whine out, every ounce of attitude evaporated from your body."

With an air of finality, Ambessa replies, "I will not let you disrespect me without consequences. If you want to be forgiven, you can apologize and accept your conseqences with grace."

"So I have to do the laundry again like last time?" You ask in a timid tone.

"No, go get the belt."

Your heart drops as you hear Ambessa's request.

The belt?!

"Bessa, I don't think that will be necessary. Is there any other punishment I could do?"

"I'm not going to tell you again, child. Either go get the belt or go back to the room."

You walk towards to door slowly in an attempt to draw out the punishment you're about to recieve.

"Hurry up and bring the gold belt, not the black one."

You pause for a second as you hear her demands, however, you quickly continue to go get the belt.

When you return back into the room, Ambessa is waiting for you, standing, and leaned against her desk.

You do the walk of shame as you walk towards Ambessa and hand her the golden belt.

"You already know what to do." Ambessa says to you.

You pull down your bottoms along with your panties and lay on your stomach.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Keep count."

"Yes, ma'am."

Smack!

The belt comes down hard on your ass. The burn is immediate and tears prick your eyes.

"One. I'm sorry, ma'am."

Smack!

"Two. I'm sorry, ma'am."

Smack!

"Three. I'm sorry, ma'am."

Ambessa continues her assault on your ass until she reaches the final number.

Smack!

"Fifty. I'm sorry, ma'am." You sob out as you finally find relief in the fact that this was the last number.

Ambessa opens her desk drawer and pulls out soothing lotion. She kneels and rubs the cream on your bottom.

"You know I hate doing this to do you, but I will never tolerate disrespect. Ever."

"I know, I'm sorry. I, I just wanted your attention. You've been so busy lately and I hate it." You say pitifully.

Ambessa hums in understanding and replies, "Then you need to communicate that, child. Disrespect will get you nowhere. Now, finish your punishment."

You grin as you hear Ambessa's belt hit the ground.

[andy-15-07]

Soft Spot

masterlist ! pairing Feyd-Rautha x reader

SUMMARY : you're going to marry Feyd-Rautha, but you didn't know he has a soft spot for you

GENRE: fluff, loveeee

The grand halls of the Harkonnen fortress echoed with the clinking of armor and the whispers of political intrigue as you, unaware of Feyd-Rautha's hidden feelings, prepared for the arranged marriage. The alliance between your house and House Harkonnen was to be solidified through this union, a union that held more secrets than you could fathom.

As you adorned yourself in the intricate wedding attire, your mind buzzed with the weight of responsibility. The marriage was a strategic move, a chess piece in the game of power. Little did you know, Feyd-Rautha harbored a soft spot for you that went beyond the calculated alliance.

As you walked down the aisle towards the ceremonial chamber, Feyd-Rautha stood at the altar, a stoic figure in his Harkonnen regalia. His piercing blue eyes, however, betrayed a subtle warmth when they met yours.

The ceremony commenced, the officiant reciting the traditional vows that bound you to Feyd-Rautha. Yet, amidst the formality, a flicker of genuine emotion appeared in Feyd-Rautha's eyes as he spoke, "I pledge my loyalty to this union, and to you, Y/N, my chosen partner in this intricate dance of politics and power."

His words carried a sincerity that resonated within you, and a realization started to dawn. Perhaps there was more to this marriage than just political maneuvering. The enigmatic Feyd-Rautha seemed to be unveiling a side of himself that few had witnessed.

As the ceremony continued, you exchanged vows, committing to the union with a sense of duty. Unbeknownst to you, Feyd-Rautha's words held a depth that transcended the political façade. "I promise to stand by you, Y/N, not just as a husband but as someone who sees beyond the political tapestry. You are more than a strategic alliance; you are the missing piece in my life."

The celebration that followed was lavish, a feast befitting the union of two powerful houses. Amidst the revelry, Feyd-Rautha found a moment to steal you away to a quieter chamber. The tension in the air was palpable as he looked into your eyes, his usually composed demeanor revealing vulnerability.

"Y/N," he began, his voice softer than usual, "there's something I need you to know. This marriage, yes, it's a political move, but for me, it's more than that. I've developed a deep admiration for you, one that goes beyond the expectations of our houses."

You were taken aback by the sincerity in his confession. Feyd-Rautha, the formidable figure known for his ruthlessness, was baring his soul to you. "I never expected to find solace in this arrangement, but in you, I see more than just an alliance. I see a partner, someone I want to stand beside in the battles that lie ahead."

His vulnerability resonated with you, and a spark of understanding kindled. "Feyd-Rautha, I may have entered into this marriage out of duty, but your sincerity has not gone unnoticed. Perhaps there is a chance for us to find common ground beyond the political landscape."

The revelation marked a turning point in your relationship. The walls that had separated you from Feyd-Rautha started to crumble, revealing a shared vulnerability that formed the basis of a connection neither of you had anticipated.

As the night unfolded, you found yourselves navigating the intricacies of this newfound understanding. Feyd-Rautha, known for his calculated moves, was now making room for emotions he hadn't explored before. The marriage, initially a pact sealed by duty, started to evolve into something more complex, a tapestry woven with threads of unexpected emotions and genuine connection.

And so, in the grand halls of House Harkonnen, a marriage born out of political strategy took an unforeseen turn, guided by the unspoken soft spot that Feyd-Rautha harbored for you. The game of power, it seemed, had made room for the unpredictable dance of the heart.