#all aboard for angst

[fistfuloflightning]

from the first

to the last

[gay-dorito-dust]

"I wanted to be unforgettable. Indelible. I wanted to haunt their hearts and minds—to be everywhere and nowhere, spectacular and out of reach. Only in the chaos did it dawn on me. Being remembered is not the same as being missed."

Author I just stumbled upon this quote & idk why it reminds me of ghost reader

You are absolutely right anon, this quote is quite literally ghost! Reader.

Ghost! Reader wants to be remembered and not missed and they’ll make that known by helping dipper and Mabel, keeping them safe from the unsafe poltergeist during summerween, meanwhile making Stan and Ford’s lives miserable as they possibly could.

They want this to be wretched into their hearts and minds forever, remind them all of what they did to them unfairly while tucking dipper and Mabel tightly in their beds, wishing them the sweetest of dreams and safest journeys home.

‘I’ll miss you great aunt/uncle y/n.’ They’d both say in their sleep.

‘I’ll miss you beautiful kids too.’ You’d whisper back, knowing they can’t hear you. ‘Til next time my ducklings.’ You then saw your bracelet and Mabel’s bracelet close together on Mabel’s bedside table and smiled, before looking over at Dipper’s side of the room and seeing him clutch the mothman plush you bought him tightly to his chest.

You will certainly miss these two and wished that you could’ve spent more time with them before dying. Now it was time to haunt Ford and Stanley by possessing the tv or lab equipment until the dawn of the new morning.

[rookinthecrownest]

"Yes your honour that's them, they're gonna keep dancing around their feelings for each other until the next Age bc they're both stupid, arrest them"

I have no idea when I'm going to finish Night 5, so here's an excerpt of what I've been working on so far. I desperately need to finish this second playthrough so I can see the end of Emmrich's romance.

[kitamars]

i know those eyes / this man is dead (pirate au)

[devilsrecreation]

Dear Diary….

Why do they hate me?

Why don’t I fight back?

Why do I act like such a creep?

Why won't mom love me?

Why did I bite him?

Why do I cry myself to sleep?

Somebody hug me!

Somebody fix me!

Somebody save me!

Send me a sign, God!

Give me some hope here!

Something to live for!

[klonoadreams]

Idia:living people can get through the Gates Of Underworld.

*Floof walk through*

Idia: AYO!

Post Ignihyde chapter is everyone trying not to say anything about it to floof while the entirety of Pomefiore fusses over her because Vil is on red alert after his close call but also has no fucking clue on how to deal with it like "hey, are we going to talk about it any—"

Rest of the OB gang: NO.

Idia already like on the verge of an anxiety attack because his mom WOULD use this as an excuse to examine the very girl her son(s) often talk about like, first it's Ortho sending messages about this fluffy Yuu (ewe), then post chapter 6, she starts to notice "oho?? Ortho too?"

Because the sheer hilarity of Floof is Idia trying to constantly shove her on Ortho when Ortho was trying to push her towards him.

And then uh oh, both Shrouds have a crush, but theyre still like "you should be happy" while floof is just blissfully unaware that the Underworld did not affect her at all. :V

[saintmurd0ck]

Congratulations, rhi!! 🥳

86th st

Prompt: “why are you really here? to mock me? to... make me hate you more?” “no. none of that. i came to be a friend, because it really looks like you need one right now.”

Character: Matt Murdock

Also, I don't mind if a confession or smut is involved somehow 🤣

glass ceiling

join my sleepover | main masterlist

pairing: matt murdock x vigilante!reader

warnings: canon typical injuries, brief mention of religion, angst, tinyyyyy confession

a/n: ok nonnie i couldn't fit the smut in cause matty low-key friendzones you in this prompt butttttt enjoy the mini confession 💗 thank you so much for participating !! (ps this is low-key unedited but hope you enjoy nevertheless)

There’s a coppery tang to the air as you drift  in and out of consciousness, akin to a wave receding upon a shore. Your eyes shutter open, unable to take stock of exactly what you’ve injured, but at least you have a faint idea of where you are, and how you ended up in this position. 

“Ow,” you wince, twisting onto your side, desperately trying to staunch the gash above your eyebrow. The pain in your side has faded to a dull throb, but a quick glance at the blood pooling beneath tells you the cut is anything but superficial. 

It’s a balmy night, but the wind dries the rivulets of sweat on your skin in cold increments. The cement rooftop is even more frigid underneath your spent body, seemingly siphoning your energy with every sawed breath. Anything remaining of your once ironclad resolve ebbs to a bare whisper. 

The constant ringing in your ears blots out your efforts in concentration, rendering your attempts to move, to sit up, utterly futile. You know your neurons stopped firing the second your assailant decided that this was the end, except the asshole didn’t even have the decency to finish the job. To make sure you wouldn’t come after him.

It was your luck he was cocky enough to leave you up here. 

You wiggle your toes, but even that action makes every muscle and bone in your body scream for help. The cracks in your defense widen to a chasm, and so you resort to basics. To your default programming.  

“Please,” you grit, jerking your chin up to the light-polluted sky, “make it quick.” 

You don’t know who you’re aiming your prayer towards, and you’re foolish enough to believe that someone would care enough to listen, to send an aide, but you hope nevertheless that it catches the attention of some benevolent force, deity or not.

The peals of a police siren shatters your  fantasy, making you whip your head to the side. Instead, it speeds off into the distance, carrying with it any last fragments of survival. 

This is it, you think. This is how I go. 

That’s not what happens, though.

As you settle into the ground, your fingers coming away sticky from the laceration in your side, you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stick up. A warning, maybe, but you’re too fatigued to tell. Still, it alerts you, causing your arduous eyes to widen.

Your head smacks the concrete listlessly, because all you see is the skyline of the city stabbing into the indigo sky, the lights haloing your vision. Jutting out amongst the landscape are the spires of a church, lackluster compared to the twinkling highrises. Your mouth contorts into a grimace at the irony it presents.

The lack of discovery doesn’t explain why goosebumps continue to prickle your skin, or why you hear the rustle of fabric carried with the wind — the sound too soft to notice to the untrained, unobservant ear. 

There. A glimmer of movement catches your eye, a crimson shadow dancing in and out of your sight. 

Out of the vestiges of darkness, a saviour emerges.

Him.

Matt bounds towards you, closing the distance in four short strides. He falls to his knees beside you, hands scrambling to triage your body. 

His expression goes grim, sweat forming a thin sheen along the exposed part of his face as he speaks. “This isn’t good.”

Your weak chuckle turns into a wet rasp. “Tell me the other guy got off worse, at least.”

Matt pauses for a moment, his tongue flicking out at the corner of his mouth. His voice dips to a murmur. “He’ll never make that mistake again.”

You nod slowly, training your gaze on Matt as he takes off his helmet, setting it down on the concrete before putting pressure on the wound in your side. White hot pain blossoms throughout your nerve endings, exploding behind your eyes, but he ignores any markers of your discomfort. 

Gritting your teeth, you lift one of your arms to push the lock of hair that’s fallen across his forehead. There’s an inexplicable familiarity about the gesture, even though you haven’t seen him in months. Even though your final encounter was precisely that: your last. 

“I thought you said I had to get out of your way, Matt.”

“I know,” he says, his face irresolute.

“Then why are you really here?” Your mouth twists into a scowl as you shrug his hands away, blinking away the tears welling in your eyes. “To mock me, for coming back to Hell’s Kitchen? To… make me hate you more?”

Something between disconcertion and indignation crosses his face. “What? No. None of that.” He wrestles you back down, compressing his hand over the wound again. “I came to be a friend. Because it really looks like you need one right now.”

You hold onto his words, acquiescing his comfort, his company, but all that comes out is an incoherently grumbled response, one that pulses in time with your darkening vision. It’s as if the second he showed up, your body has finally relinquished to the tranquility of rest, knowing that despite your past, Matt is someone to be trusted. 

Agony radiates throughout your body as he hoists you up over his shoulder, your heart fluttering at the gentleness of his touches, the soft cadence of his voice. You barely comprehend what he’s saying, but you cling onto “apartment” and “I’ll look after you”, like a beacon of hope. God-sent, if you consider your prayers answered. 

There’s something else you catch as you’re dragged under. He’s talking to you, soothing you, settling you. It feels like he’s explaining something to you, but whether it’s for him to get it off his chest, or simply to lull  you to sleep is indistinguishable. Yet, your attempt continues to listen. 

“I never wanted you in my way,” he starts, slowly becoming a jumble of noise, “because I was falling in love with you.”

But you’re too tired to contest him. To ask if he’s confessing that because you’re on your deathbed, or if they’re pointless words, said just to appease. 

“I heard when you called,” he finishes. “I always do.”

[sociopathichero]

Continued from here.

Danila had been sitting on the burner phone ever since he had accidentally found it, not knowing what to do. The rickety construction resembling life he had built around Riff—no, Henry—had come crashing down and it seemed like every move would be a wrong one. So here he was, a paralyzed, anxious mess wondering if everything between him and Henry had been a lie and a ploy.

He wanted to believe in Henry's promise, but knowing the truth made it sound empty even while his touch was gentle. Danila had hoped he would've come clean already; he must've noticed the phone was missing after all. Confronting Henry had come to his mind so many times. But that would make it real. Final.

He could only imagine what the brigade would do to him if they found out he had been sitting on such a bomb, not telling them anything about it. And what would they do to Henry? The mere thought made him want to throw up. And yet he couldn't be sure if Henry was plotting to throw him in prison while hiding behind honeyed words and warm kisses.

Did he have enough evidence to do that?

"Of course I'm worried when we do what we do," he replied. It was true, but it was meant to cover the real reason for his growing uneasiness.

"What mistake?" Suddenly he was paying attention with every cell in his body.

@dethenryquinn

[arvandus]

Warning: While this snippet is SFW, my blog overall is not. As such, minors and ageless blogs, DNI and do NOT follow or you will be blocked! Thinking about Barbatos, and how he knows that you're meant to end up with Diavolo. He's seen it already, in the numerous variations of the future, in the ones where Diavolo succeeds in his vision with you by his side. Your paths may cross with the brothers at first, but in the end, it's him; always him, your marriage being what unifies the realms in the end.

And so Barbatos resists you; averts his eyes when they catch yours across the room, keeps his exchanges with you brief and cordial. But it seems to do little good, because no matter what, you return to him each time with hope in your eyes and sunshine in your smile that only seems to appear just for him.

If only he could tell you the truth: that you weren't meant for him; you were meant for the Prince. It didn't matter that his heart fluttered when you were within arm's reach. It didn't matter that his gloved hands twitched to touch you. And it didn't matter how the loneliness felt heavier after a day spent in your company. You weren't his to take; and despite how you felt here and now, you didn't belong to him.

But he can't tell you, not without risking everything. After all, nothing makes a person veer off from their intended course more than letting them see the road that's been paved for them. Perhaps it's something innate in humans, a quality of their souls that makes them so stubborn, so resistant to fate as if it were something they, in all of their smallness, could control.

And Barbatos refuses to allow himself to give in to his secret desires, too aware of what such consequences could bring, how it could change the course of the future. He's already experienced the ramifications of his carelessness before, seen firsthand how it'd damaged those closest to him beyond repair. Surely, this would be no different, his own selfishness causing catastrophic changes, centuries of hard work disintegrating beneath the softest of kisses.

Barbatos is powerful beyond reason, but even for all of his ability to see and manipulate time, his powers have limits, particularly when it comes to himself. He is his own wild card, his actions and choices unpredictable thanks to how removed from time his ability makes him. His own lifespan doesn’t follow the strands in the way others' do, a predictable thread sewn into the tapestry next to so many others. Instead, he is more like the needle, with the ability to move the threads from one spot to the next, to bend them to his will to create a picture of his choosing.

His influence cannot be anticipated or predicted.

So he keeps himself forever distant, separate. A watcher, a puppeteer, but never an actor.

He hoped you'd find your way to the Young Lord eventually, let your feelings for him become a part of the past, washed away by time. But you wait, lingering like a lost kitten hoping to be let in.

If only Barbatos could know that the only way for you to find your way to the Young Lord would be through him; through your exploration of your love for him, and later, the inevitable falling out that would take place; a maelstrom of love and loss that would eventually cast you onto soft sandy shores, putting you directly into the Prince’s waiting, loving arms.

If only Barbatos knew that he had to let himself love you and lose you in order to get the future he thought he always wanted.

[faerunsbest]

Okay…but what about Rolan seeing a picture of his adoptive mother’s husband (Cal and Lia’s dad) and asking about it. Then once hearing about it little Rolan buffs his chest and is like “I will be the man of the house and I will make sure we are all well taken care of and safe!”

Please….I need this!

I have every intention of writing about the father that was supposed to be there. The man wouldn't tolerate a child that wasn't his.

I have every intention of explaining the outrage that man felt when he saw rolan holding cal and Lia, comforting them through his outbursts.

I have every intention of writing about man who realized that boy loved his family more than he did.

Rolans father was in my mind not a good man and I will make that EVERYONES PROBLEM

>:]

[rocksandmirrors]

Then it comes to be the soothing light at the end of your tunnel

Was just a freight train coming your way

[blindmagdalena]

Eat Your Ego, Honey ( Ch 6 )

homelander x oc 18+  escort services, sex work, voyeurism, stalking, Homelander in general. see ao3 link for detailed tags. chapter index. check out the playlist!

chapter summary: Homelander spends the morning after their first date musing on what a life with Layla will look like. Unfortunately for both of them, he's quick to voice his fantasy, which clashes hard with her grounded sense of reality.

additional chapter tags: somnophilia, cunnilingus, attempted sexual coercion, accidental injury, gaslighting, physical restraint.

With Layla fast asleep in his arms, Homelander is left to his own devices for the rest of the night. He could sleep, he supposes, but he doesn’t need to. He can go days without. Currently, he finds he simply doesn’t have the desire to be unconscious right now. He wants to savor every moment of this.

She’s here. In his home. In his arms. He inhales deeply, floods his senses with their mingled scents. The lingering warm vanilla of her perfume, the woodsy spice of his cologne, and the heady smell of sex. Amidst it all, he also picks up the distinctive rubbery smell of latex: the condom. Before last night, he can’t recall the last time he used one. He only had the box because it had been packaged with the lube.

He never cared to use them. Didn’t think he needed to until…

Homelander drifts in and out of his thoughts, stubbornly pulling back every time he feels a bristle of anger or grief. In one fell swoop he lost his girlfriend, the mother of his child, and his son. Stormfront may have survived Ryan’s rage, but he knows now that she was gone from him from that moment onward. She only cared about her agenda, not him. Left him alone for his fucking birthday.

Fake or not, what kind of girlfriend kills herself right before your birthday?

By far, the worst part of it all was Ryan. In targeting Becca, Stormfront had alienated he and Ryan from each other, pushed him into the hands of William fucking Butcher. Now he had no idea where his own son was, or if the kid even wanted anything to do with him. 

He never should have let Stormfront interfere. Homelander could have made things work. He was making things work, regardless of Becca’s misgivings, because Ryan needed his mother.

He still needs a mother.

Homelander refocuses on Layla’s sleeping face. She’s even sweeter asleep than she is awake, features soft, unguarded. She’s relentlessly patient, something that had initially frustrated him. He hadn’t been able to rattle her disposition at all during their first session, though he had certainly tried. She’s kind, she cooks, she even sings. Sure, she drinks a little excessively, and her “profession” is a can of worms to deal with all on its own, but overall…

He can’t help but smile faintly, stroking her cheek the same way he had that very first night he visited her in her home.

With a couple of minor adjustments, she would make a hell of a mother.

It’s a nicer thought to fixate on than any of the others. It carries him through the next several hours, taking him away from the sorrow of heartsickness and the losses he has unfairly endured again and again and again. Instead, he imagines what a home shared between the three of them would look like. A large kitchen, naturally, one that would blow her little condo’s setup out of the water. An oversized bath for the two of them to lounge in. She would have everything she could possibly need at her fingertips.

Ryan would have his own room. Big, with bright windows and posters on every wall. Baseball, dad’s movies, shelves for his trophies. Trophies that he earned himself, not just cheap little statues to create the illusion of a childhood. He would have everything that Homelander should have had.

Eventually, Layla stirs. He loosens his hold to let her adjust, watching as she rolls onto her back, the blanket sliding down with her movements. His gaze drifts down, and he’s possessed by a wicked little thrill at not only the sight of her bare breasts, but the bruises that mottle her flesh. He marked her thoroughly with his lips and his teeth last night, a myriad of them blossoming from her chest all the way up to her neck.

“Oops,” he whispers, playful and without remorse. That changes, however, when she adjusts her legs and visibly winces in her sleep before settling back down. Watching her for a moment longer, he follows the trail of bruises back down, adjusts his vision to look through the blanket covering her. Her hips are darkly marked as well, veins erupted beneath the skin in the shape of his hands. Her thighs, too. He can only imagine the state of her hips and pelvis, her cervix. He had been rough with her by human standards, but she had wanted it. Fuck, had she ever wanted it.

He should still apologize, and he knows exactly how he wants to do just that. He dips down to press a kiss to one of the marks atop her right breast, and then another between them. He kisses her nipple, savors the feel of her goosebumps beneath his tongue as he drags his tongue over it. Though she shivers under his touch, she doesn’t wake. He grows bolder, sucking her nipple into his mouth, eyes falling shut.

This feels like thievery, like snatching the proverbial forbidden fruit straight from the tree. It thrills him as much as it unnerves him to take from her without permission. Throughout his life, indulgence has been the most heinous cardinal sin. Deprivation has always been his virtue. He was never given enough of anything, lest he become a gluttonous beast with no carrot to chase, and no stick strong enough to beat him.

Denying him didn’t weaken his appetite. Instead, it turned his hunger boundless. He’s never had enough. He doesn't know if he ever will, or if it’s even possible. After a lifetime of unending yearning, he wouldn’t know what satiation would feel like even if he had it.

He keeps himself weightless to prevent the bed from dipping too much with his movements, lightly hovering as he slips down beneath the blanket, kissing his way down her sternum.

Her legs are splayed well enough for him to gently shoulder between them, arms slipping under her thighs, hands grazing lightly over the bruises shaped just like them. She smells divine, like seasalt vanilla ice cream, the smell of sweat and sex and her favorite moisturizer lingering on her skin, which is soft in his hands. She cares for her body the way a craftsman does their tools, keeping them polished and pristine.

It drives him wild to see her undone, blemished, ravished. It’s proof that she has given him something rare, that her rules don’t apply to him anymore. These marks belong solely to him, even if she doesn’t. 

Yet.

Settling his weight between her legs, he uses two fingers to spread the lips of her pussy apart, closing his eyes as he leans in, dragging his tongue from cunt to clit. There aren’t words for how she tastes because there isn’t anything else like it. Good pussy is a meal in a league all its own, and hers is some of the finest he’s ever indulged on. 

He gives a rumbling sigh against her, moving his tongue in leisurely figure-eights. He could—would—do this for hours if she could withstand it. He closes his lips on her clit and sucks gently, rubbing at it with the tip of his tongue. The pattern of her breaths change, her heart jumps, but she isn’t awake yet. She makes an exquisite noise in her sleep that goes straight to his cock, which has begun to harden against his soft bedding. He makes a matching sound low in the back of his throat, nuzzling into her cunt while he grinds his growing hard-on down against the bed.

Layla’s legs move, closing in on either side of him. He can hear her waking up, feel it in her pulse. A noise of confusion first, disoriented, followed shortly by the sweetest of breathy moans.

“Oh, darling,” she breathes, tangling her fingers gently in his hair. Her grip is weak with sleep, nails scraping deliciously along his scalp. It sends shivers trilling up and down his spine like a xylophone. He relishes just how pleased she sounds with him, how she pets his hair while her clit flutters against his tongue.

Last night's frenzied urgency is absent here. The drags of his tongue are languid, the slight roll of her hips loose and without much rhythm. It’s slow, intimate. He loses himself in it enough that her orgasm sneaks up on him, the smell and taste of oxytocin hitting him in a rush.

Homelander moans against her, plunging his tongue into her to feel the quiver of her velvety walls. He hurriedly shoves his hand down between himself and the mattress, lifting his hips just enough to jerk his cock. It’s a treat to come like this, with her hands in his hair and his mouth on her pussy. He sucks at her clit, milks her of her aftershocks while he pumps himself to release, luxuriating in the sharp little gasps she’s giving, how her fingers tighten in his hair.

He comes with a low groan, the sheets below him soaking up the brunt of the mess. She tugs his hair, and he obligingly crawls up her body, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

She looks radiant beneath him, dazed with both sleep and pleasure, her eyes soft, lips set in a gentle curve. It feeds something carnal in him to have done this to her, that she would look at him like this–with love–because of what he has done for her. She has no idea that this is just the beginning. Will she ever be able to fathom the lengths he’ll go for her if she’ll just give him what he needs?

“Good morning,” he purrs, his own voice a low, pleasure-soaked rumble.

“Very good morning,” she says through a giggle, cupping either side of his face. She kisses him lazily, meeting his tongue with her own, licking the flavor of herself from his mouth. He sinks his weight down atop her, slipping his arms underneath her, happy to kiss her until she breaks to breathe. “Insatiable,” she accuses, carding her fingers through his hair.

He beams down at her, gently bumping his nose against hers. He kisses her again simply because he can. Because he’s allowed to. “You would be too if you were me.”

Layla laughs softly. The sound of it warms him to his core. He watches her blink the remaining sleep from her eyes, smearing what’s left of her makeup as she rubs her face, stifling a waking yawn into her hand. He tucks her hair behind her ear, endeared by the way she leans into his endeared by the way she leans into his palm. He's so enraptured by the eager way she touches him, he forgot how good it can be when someone seeks his touch.

People flinch from him far more often.

They kiss again and again and again. It feels like an exploration, each of them mapping out the feel and pattern of the other. She tilts her head one way, and he goes the other, following her in this dance that he would prefer never ended. As always, she’s the first to break for reprieve. He allows it, nuzzling into the crook of her neck instead. He follows the line of her neck all the way up to her ear with his lips and gentle, grazing teeth. He barely resists the urge to bite. Intimacy is the only vice he’s ever struggled to not grip in his teeth and swallow whole. 

“How did you sleep?” She asks, running her fingers through her hair, down his neck, his back. He sighs his pleasure.

“Great,” he lies smoothly. No sense in getting into the nitty-gritty of things. He did have a great night.

“Good,” she says, stretching her arms out across his back until they each give a satisfying little pop. He shifts, lifting himself onto one arm so that he can once again admire not just her, but his handiwork. He brushes his fingers over the bruises that are smattered across her chest.

“You hurt?” He asks quietly. He wants to be proud of them, he wants to love them unconditionally, but first he needs to know they haven’t cost him something in her eyes.

“Mm-mm, mostly just sore,” she says, twisting and curling his short hair between her fingers. “Very bruised, inside and out,” she says, to which he has the decency to look sheepish. “Do you have ibuprofen?”

“Uhh.” He racked his brain, trying to think of where he might have something as utterly mundane and useless to him as painkillers, but he came up empty. “Nnnnope. It’s, ah… Never come up,” he says, to which Layla chuckles.

“No, of course it wouldn’t. it’s alright, I think I have some in my… purse,” she says, pausing as she looks around. Her clothes are scattered from one end of the room to the other, but her purse is– “Shit, I left it on the balcony.”

“I’ll have it brought up,” he says, leaning down to give her a quick peck on the lips before he lifts up, a slight pep in his step as he makes his way over to his phone: a landline. He’s always had trouble keeping track of a cell phone. “Could I have some water, too?” She calls out after him. “Roger!” He affirms cheerily. He whistles softly, making a pit stop by his fridge on the way to his phone. It’s lucky she only asked for water, as it’s the only thing his fridge is stocked with. He snatches one of the bottles neatly lined up inside, and tosses it absently while he calls to have her things retrieved. Once that’s settled, he makes his way back to his bedroom. She’s sitting up now, his dark comforter draped loosely over her lap. She’s fixing her makeup in the mirror to her right, swiping her fingers beneath her eyes. He watches her lick the pads of her ring fingers to wipe away the dark smudges at the corners, endeared. It’s such a simple, domestic little moment. 

She stops when she notices him staring, and smiles at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says, shrugging slightly. His tone is soft. “Admiring the view.”

“You’re sweet,” she says, running her fingers through her dark hair to tame it. “Corny, but sweet.” “Always gatta humble me, huh?” He says as he advances, offering her the water bottle. She takes it, eagerly twisting off the cap to take a sip. He slides back in next to her, watching the way her throat works as she swallows. Everything she does is captivating in a way he never would have cared to notice before. Things he would normally find annoying she somehow makes delightful.

“If humbling is what you need, I will gladly provide it,” she says, her smile turning sly. 

Of that, he has no doubt. “What I need-” he begins, leaning in close. “-is more kisses.”

“Mmmm. Lucky for you, I’ve got a fresh batch,” she says, kissing him once, twice, thrice in quick little pecks.

“Christ, woman, don’t waste them,” he growls playfully, taking hold of her face and catching her in one slow, firm kiss.

She laughs against his lips. It’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever felt.

They luxuriate with one another a while longer. Homelander makes a call to the kitchens when Layla inquires about food, but he still isn’t ready to let her out of his bed. Everything is too perfect, too good to let go of. He has the decency to wrap a sheet around his waist when he grabs their breakfast–and her belongings–from the door, but he’s quick to abandon it to climb right back in with her, serving her meal on a silver platter.

“We’re going to have to get up eventually,” she says, taking a bite of the toast. He knows that. They will. He intends to invite her to his birthday celebration tonight, after all. It’ll be better if he doesn’t show up alone. The world is nowhere near forgetting about his most recent failed romantic endeavor.

He resists the urge to lick away the bit of jam that catches on her bottom lip, to interrupt her from her meal, to selfishly claim her every second for himself, to kiss her until she forgets all about that stupid piece of toast, and cares only to satiate her hunger on the taste of him. “...Hello?”

Homelander blinks, realizing he had gone radio silent staring at her mouth. He meets her gaze, and smiles. “What?”

Layla quirks a brow. “We’re going to have to get up eventually,” she repeats, taking another bite of her meal. “You sure you’re not hungry?”

“I ate,” he says, his grin sharpening wolfishly.

“Very funny,” she says wryly, though she can’t hide genuine amusement. She looks good like this. Domestic, even. He really could keep her this way, pampered and cared for. He can offer her more than money, more than mind-melting sex. He has real power in this world. He has so much more to offer her than anyone else could ever hope to. He could give her a real life. A family.

“I have a son,” he says, gauging her response carefully.

She shoots him a look of surprise, lowering the mostly-eaten toast to her plate. “You do?”

“Yeah. He’s, uh… We’re living apart right now,” he says, the words falling awkwardly from his tongue. “Things are complicated.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says gently. Normally, he finds those kinds of condolences sound empty. Rehearsed. Layla always sounds genuine to his ears, the furrow of her brow carrying sincere concern. He wants to lean into it, coax more of that earnest care from her. “Is he with his mother?”

“No, no, she’s gone,” he says dismissively. “That’s a whole mess. I haven’t really had the chance to, uh, to talk to him about that.”

There’s a dash of befuddlement seeping into Layla’s sympathetic expression. “Was… Who was his mother, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“No one,” he says, tone sharper than he meant to let it be. Things would be so different if she’d just let him raise his own son. “I mean, not… Not anyone you’d know, not anyone significant.”

“She is significant, though,” she corrects him, lips curving into a slight frown. He doesn’t like the turn this is taking: this was supposed to be a pleasant revelation. “She’s your son’s mother.”

“Yeah, yes, sure, she was. She’s dead now,” he says, trying to move on from that. “But what I meant was that she wasn’t, you know, in the news or anything,” he says, skating around any potential inferences she might make, lest she assume he’s referring to Stormfront or any other woman he’s publicly associated with.

Her frown deepens. He wants to choke back everything he’s just said and start over. He wants to go back to her sweet, pacifying sympathy. Not this uncomfortable, critical look she’s evaluating him with. It makes his skin crawl.

“Right,” she says. He hates that tone, the one that tells him he’s anything but right. It tells him she has much more to say than that, and that he wouldn’t like any of it. He bounces his fist on his thigh, agitation creeping up. This isn’t how this conversation was supposed to go. “You haven’t talked to your son about it? Was it recent?”

“Pretty recent,” he says, irritated now. “But that’s really not… that’s not the point. I have a son,” he says again, splaying his hands expectantly, as if he can restart the conversation with that. This is her chance to give a more enthused response.

She doesn’t. “Why haven’t you talked to him?”

“Jesus Christ, I just told you that it’s complicated,” he snaps, though he regrets the slip instantly. Her expression smooths out, cooling to detached nonchalance. Panic begins to set in alongside his frustration. “Don’t–don’t look at me like that,” he spits, exhaling roughly. He pushes his hands through his hair, and tries desperately to recalibrate, holding his hands out to her. “You were supposed to be excited.”

“Excited,” she repeats, tone even. He can’t stand how apathetic she’s turned.

“Yes, excited. I want you to meet my son,” he says, trying once more to extend this olive branch to her.

That gets a response. Her cool indifference falters, brows furrowing. “I don’t think that’s appropriate,” she says, some of that gentleness sinking back into her voice, but he doesn’t care for the sound of it this time around. Or maybe it’s less her tone, and more the words. He’s not sure yet.

“What do you mean appropriate?” He asks, features pulling into a tight, unhappy pinch.

“You–” she begins, pausing to let out a breath. She closes her eyes briefly, and then takes his hands into her own, pulling them down into her lap, bringing their faces closer to one another, leveling him with direct eye contact. “You need to talk to your son. That much is clear,” she says, squeezing his hands. He squeezes hers back.

“That has to happen first. As for me, I’m…” She hesitates, licking her lips. “Your son is grieving. I’m the last thing he needs right now. What he needs is you.I don’t know what complicated entails, but your priority cannot be introducing a strange woman to your child right now.”

“You’re not a strange woman,” he says with  a defensive edge to his tone. “You’re my–we’re–”

“We’re not anything right now,” she interrupts softly. “We’re barely a notion. One date doesn’t mean–”

“No, no. Stop it,” he demands, voice dropping low. He tightens his grip on her hands. “Don’t blow me off. You like me. There’s something here.”

“Yes, but–” She tries to twist her hands out of his grasp. “Let go of my hands, please.”

“No.” “You’re hurting me, John–” “Don’t! Do not fucking ’John’ me.”

“Why? Why not?!” She snaps, louder than he had been. It startles him enough that his grip on her hands eases. He blinks several times. He’s never heard her shout. Almost didn’t think she was capable of it. “You gave me that name! So why not?!”

“Because it’s not a fucking name!” He yells back, escalating right along with her. “It’s nothing! It means nothing! It’s-it’s a fucking–a goddamn placeholder. It was just more convenient than a string of numbers, alright? I don’t want to hear it right now.”

Her heart is thundering in his ears. Her bones feel brittle in his firm grasp. He could snap them without a thought. He immediately loosens his hold. Her expression is fractured by anger, fear, and perhaps worst of all, pity. It’s cloying, a far cry from her usual benevolent sympathy. He wants nothing to do with it. 

“I don’t want to fight with you,” she says, tone level, but not indulgent. He badly misses that quality.

“Then don’t,” he says ardently. “Can’t you just stop thinking about everything so much?”

Layla’s eyes fall shut. She takes in a slow, calming breath, holding it a beat before she exhales. It gives him hope that they’ll recover from this. She tentatively pulls her hands away, and this time, he lets her. However, he feels a bubble of anxiety in his gut when she slips out of bed, and begins picking up her clothes. “What are you doing?” He asks apprehensively, standing.

She pulls her dress on, smoothing her hands down the front of it. “You’re right. I do like you,” she says, stuffing her undergarments into her purse. “But I can’t talk to you right now. Not here.”

He scoffs nervously. “You’re leaving?”

“I need some time to process,” she says, confirming his fear. 

His anxiety spikes. Everything was perfect. How did this happen? “Don’t be fucking childish,” he says, advancing on her. “Talk to me.”

“I’m upset,” she says plainly. “I don’t feel comfortable here right now. I want to go home. We can talk once we’ve both calmed down.”

“I am calm,” he shoots back, frustrated. “You’re the one making a big deal out of nothing.”

“Okay,” she says, but she doesn’t stop gathering her things. He watches her sit and slip her shoes on. 

“Is that really all you’re gonna to say?”

“Yes.”

That single word shoots a lance of pure fury through him like no other, but this seething anger comes with a sense of helplessness. He doesn’t know what to do. “Don’t leave.” He tries to make it sound like a command instead of the plea that it is.

“I promise it’s better that I do,” she says, standing up. “Before either of us say or do something we can’t take back.”

“No,” he says, firm and simple. No.

She doesn’t look swayed. If anything, she looks tired. Exasperated, like he’s nothing more than a petulant child throwing a tantrum. “You don’t get to say no to me here. We’ll talk later, okay?”

Homelander lunges. He catches her face between his hands, and kisses her with everything he’s got.It’s a desperate move. Maybe she'll taste that in the way he presses his lips to hers, feel how much he wants her. How much he needs her. She takes hold of his wrists, makes a muffled noise of protest, but he doesn’t let go. He can’t let go.

“Stop,” she manages to get out, pressing hard against his chest now. “Jo–Homelander,” she stresses, but he’s certain he can turn this around. If he can just remind her of how good things were a minute ago, how good he can make her feel, how good he can be for her, then she’ll stop this. She’ll stay.

The harder she pushes against him, the tighter he holds her. She twists, but he doesn’t want her to speak anymore. The more they’ve said, the worse things have gotten. He kisses her like he means to suffocate her, fingers digging in behind her jaw, mouth stifling hers. He can hardly feel her lips anymore, she’s drawn them into a thin line, gritting her teeth behind them. He steps closer, feels her bump into the bed behind her. If he can just–

Something shifts, and Layla makes a distinctly pained noise. The sharpness of it snaps Homelander out of it, has him letting her go like he’s been burned by the touch of her. Both of her hands go to her mouth, where she’s been hurt. She touches the inside of her bottom lip, and her fingers come away bloody. He’s split the skin against her bottom teeth. Her eyes are horribly glassy, and when she looks at him, she looks…

Disappointed.

Stricken, he reaches for her. “I’m sor–”

She sidesteps his touch, dipping to snatch her purse up from where she had dropped it. She hurriedly throws her coat on, covering up all the marks he had been so proud of just this morning. 

“Layla! Layla! Would you just–would you just stop? Please!” He follows her to the door. She’s practically running from him. He catches her wrist, easily stopping her in her tracks. He could keep her here if he wanted to. It would be so easy.  “Please don’t leave me. It’s…” He holds her wrist in a loose but unopening grip, gesturing helplessly with his free hand. “It’s my birthday,” he whispers, strained.

It’s not. He doesn’t know when his birthday is. Everything he’s ever known has been a sham. His life is a fucking joke.

Tears roll freely down her cheeks. He can smell the salt in them, smell her blood, see traces of it between her lips.The copper tang of it makes his stomach churn in a way blood never has.

“Happy birthday, Homelander,” she whispers back, pulling out of his grasp, and turning towards the door.

His hand falls limply to his side. The door to his penthouse opens, it closes, and just like that, he’s all alone. His eyes prickle hotly with tears, a tremble running through his core. He stands there a long while, feeling naked and vulnerable well beyond his nudity.

Something has just been taken from him. He had it, and now it’s gone. That contentedness. It had been bundled warmly in his arms this morning, only to be ripped away with such abrupt violence, it left him shivering cold.

“Fuck,” he whispers, pushing his hands into his hair, squeezing it until his scalp starts to ache. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” He roars, catching a nearby vase in his hand. He hurls it across the room with such force that it explodes in every direction upon impact, and a particularly large piece cracks into the center of the mirror hanging on his wall, fracturing it into a web-like pattern.

Homelander stares numbly at his ugly, fragmented reflection.

Just us now.

He closes his eyes, sick of his own tear-stricken face.

I hate you. Chapter Seven.

[museqmeg]

Get wrecked vashmeryl nation... fic wip for @vashmerylweek

[emry-stars-art]

Dare I ask why Abram doesn’t like being called pretty??

I don’t know anon, do you dare?? 👀 jk here we go

I’ll preface with: this isn’t going to be as bad as the canon Nest, nor as bad as canon Andrew’s childhood but there’s a tw for assault/coercion

So like. Neil is just a good looking guy, right. We all know this, it’s canon, we love it for him (and Andrew).

I’m imagining in this au some of the major points of his upbringing are (obviously) not having his mother’s protection - at least not as much if any at all idk - and being a lower station than like half the people he’s around regularly. I think we figured Nathan is some noble that has his own land and place of operations, but I think it’s more a title the eldest Wesninskis have historically earned once they’ve proven themselves worthy and loyal. So yes Nathaniel is the son of a noble and expected to take his place as such but he’s not going to get there anytime soon until he grows strong/smart enough to take the title from Nathan. Which, clearly, he doesn’t stick around long enough to get to.

An introduction as a bit from this scene (which is part of the writing masterpost of this au that you can find here!)

So the Moriyamas still have a considerable leash on him. Acting against or refusing anyone higher in station is very much a punishable offense, and honestly? Nothing the various nobles, etc do is worth getting punished in Nathaniel’s mind.

From the time he’s like seven? Eight? Some of the court ladies likely start commenting on his appearance (because this is the Nest equivalent and because they’re above reproach and the Moriyamas definitely don’t care enough to stop it. Doubtful Nathaniel is the only one this happens to). Bit by bit they get more and more comfortable, usually the ladies, sometimes a man or two, and eventually it’s touching, holding, ‘asking’ for kisses, threatening him as a joke they put on for each other. And Nathaniel, of course, can’t even say anything without earning harm. He’s dealt with lots of unwanted touching, he’s used to having blades pointed at him or against his skin, and at least with the nobles it’s never more than a nick or scratch. They just like scaring him. They never undress him or even try more than to get under a sleeve, but still all roaming is fair game to them over the clothes. And the most common (though not only) comment from any of them is telling him how pretty he is. How lucky he is to have his father’s looks, and how could they possibly let that go to waste? (This is the main reason Abram still thinks he’s a carbon copy of Nathan, though he’s not - he leans more toward his mother’s features, and only his father’s hair, eye color, posture, etc)

As he gets older and grows more dangerous, this starts to slow down. Partly because then he’s a lot better about staying out of sight, he’s gotten used to getting himself out of those situations earlier. Not to say it never happens. Just a ‘his reputation precedes him’ - the smarter ones know that if they go too far, if Nathaniel decides he’s had enough, he could kill them as easily as he could anyone else, and most of them know he isn’t as well trained as the Moriyamas would have liked. He’s more of a risk now and there’s others they can subject to their whims instead.

I don’t think Abram would ever get used to being called pretty, even by Andrew. It’s not a full on trigger like some other things, it just makes him severely uncomfortable and maybe even a little scared. Like a kid again. Clueless and helpless. A jolt through his body when he hears it.

There’s plenty of other things Andrew can and does call him instead, anyway.

[super-rangers]

Time for chapter 4

[jadedloverart]

Lena Lucifer (2023)

"I wept tears, bitter tears, over you..."