#also obsessed with this one still. I absolutely love it

[revelboo]

REVEL! I request some of the lost light starscream story 🙏

Absolutely been obsessed with your writing, i legit have been checking every hour to see if you’ve uploaded anything new. I’ve read probably everything you’ve posted except for the bumble bee stories, you’ve made me fall in love with so many characters, the way you write all of them is absolutely amazing. Also this your reminder to hydrate!

Yeah, Sundays aren’t usually good days

Overdone Pt 3

Starscream x Reader

• Slumping into his chair behind his desk, he leans his chin on a fist as you ramble utter nonsense. Claiming you’d come to just falling to your death. Lies. They have to be, but then you’re turning big eyes his way and thanking him for saving your life and his wings flick. When’s the last time someone thanked him for anything? Shaking himself, he growls. Someone has to have put you up to this. “So I’m to believe you just teleported to Cybertron without meaning to, without even knowing how you accomplished it?”

• Staring up at his scowl, you understand why he doubts your story. It sounds crazy even to you, but you honestly don’t know how you ended up here. The only things you’re sure of? He’d saved you when he hadn’t had to. And that makes you sure he’s good deep down despite how intimidating he is, despite his threats to harm you if you’re a spy. Hands clasped together, you study him as his optics shutter and he presses his servos against them in an all too human gesture like he has a headache. “I swear I’m not a spy. I’m baker.”

• “And I can just take your word for it?” Everyone’s out to get him, to take away what he’s worked so hard for. But he can’t figure out the game here. Maybe you’re not a real human? Just something meant to look like one? Comming Rattrap, he vents when you just stare up at him with wide eyes. Why a human? Thundercracker is the one that cares for the little meat bags, not him. Anyone familiar with him would know that. ‘Bring me a scanner,’ he growls at Rattrap, cutting the connection without waiting for a reply.

• Of course, he doesn’t trust you, but you’re certain you can trust him. And short of him giving you a kitchen and baking supplies, you’re not sure how to prove your claim. You’re also not sure what a scanner is or who he was just talking to. What you are aware of? How massive he is. Alien and strange. His face, his body metal, but malleable. Able to give enough to form expressions and his hands had been warm holding you, making you painfully aware of how cold you are right now. “Why did you save me?” You ask almost against your will and his frown deepens.

• “Would have rather I let you make a very small splatter on the surface?” Growling, he turns toward the door when it opens and holds out a hand in demand. Aware of Rattrap gawking at you as he hands over the scanner. And you flinch when he powers it on and seizes you by the leg to drag you closer when you try to back away. Huffing through his vents at your little squeak when you fall on your butt and he pulls you closer. Your expression almost comically indignant when he scans you. Finding you really are just a human. You don’t even have any hidden tech meant to spy on him and he’s almost disappointed. Almost eager to root out a plot or a conspiracy. Tapping the scanner on the desk beside you to make you flinch, he vents. “Go find Wheeljack,” he mutters to Rattrap. Because you’re still a mystery he means to solve.

Previous

[partiallysame]

So sorry (I’m not sorry) for spam liking but OMG poly wife is my new obsession l!???? Like I want to be her so bad????

What do we think the 141 would be like at wifeys job? Like she’s come to base before and got oogled at, what if she’s like a teacher or a nurse or something (a female dominated profession????) and reader gets jealous about her husbands getting oogled??

Again so sorry (babes I’m not sorry who keeps apologizing??) but I love this fic and I’m in love I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it

Ok ok I think the missus would’ve been a school teacher before stay at home wife. Early grades like maybe kindergarten or 1st. (If you can handle 30 five year olds you can handle 4 soldiers. Sometimes). I also think that you would substitute teach when John was gone for long periods of time to help with boredom. But anyways ok back when you were still working I think John was only ever allowed in her classroom during the summer time to help you with prep for the year and setting up your class room. Can’t go during when there are students bc kids hear military and immediately ask about guns and if he’s killed anyone (you made that mistake once and never again). Now I’m thinking this is when you two were dating or engaged. Once there was a ring on your finger Price suggested (borderline demanded) you not work anymore. Pretty lil things shouldn’t have to work. “It’s not work if you love what you do” “if you clock in it’s work” fair enough but who’s complaining. A few weeks before school starts you brought your big handsome man to work to help put stuff up around your classroom while you finished lesson planning. Left the room for what was supposed to be a few moments to grab your packets from the copy machine but the stupid thing was jamming so it took you a while. On your way back you heard giggling from your fellow teachers before finding your classroom empty. Making your way towards the laughter you peek in to see the teacher in the room next to yours with her hand on John’s bicep thanking him for the help. No nope no. You watched sneaky as he told her it was no problem and asked if she needed anything else and ofc she did. Now he’s moving desks and the woman is biting her lip watching him pick them up one handed and put them where she says. Absolutely not. “John” you called out. The request for your fiancée seemed normal enough but he heard the upset undertone in your voice. Uh oh. He turned to look at you and saw you were glaring at your coworker who’s eyes were still on him. Ohhhh. “Yes my love?” He set the desks down and was immediately in front of you. His quick response brought a small smile to your face. Leaning around your large man “I’m taking him back. You can handle the desks.” Ooh sassy he likes it. (John spent a few hours that night in bed making sure you knew he was yours and yours only)

[eosofspades]

i have to do everything myself around here (/hj)

analyzing what it is about these little guys that makes them so good. as a character designer, visual artist, obsessive art analysist, and someone who just happens to be insane about ghosts in particular, i feel i have some authority to try my hand at the matter.

(under read more because this is a long one. with pictures!)

my claim is: multiple factors combined make the Peak Video Game Companion Form, and that these factors are...

SMALL. perfect size for holding, perfect size for tucking into your hood and snuggling, also makes you more likely to find them cute and feel protective over them because they are so small and vulnerable. (even spiky or extra-protective shells don't really fully dissuade this because the size of them remains the same)

NO limbs. ghosts are VERY expressive but because they lack hands and limbs they have to rely entirely on full-body movement & voice to convey this, which actually makes their gestures seem more exaggerated & obvious. (and of course the voice actors are just always knocking it out of the park; this is absolutely a big part of it) (nolan north especially like ghost's voice is CRAZY emotionally versatile)

and yet! despite their expressiveness! - NO features. an incredibly bold move by the designers to make the most lovable character & your full-time companion a guy with no features except one (1) IMPLIED eye. it's not even a real eye; it's a little image OF a ghost on a screen. this goes back to the previous point; that they're forced to be overly-expressive because they have no features like a mouth or eyebrows to convey something like a grin or scowl. (this ALSO creates a feeling of affection in the player, i think, because when they ARE expressing themselves it's always cute - again in large part because of how small they are & that their ONE feature is a LARGE eye (compared to the rest of their body). when they're happy they twirl their whole shell around, a particular favorite of mine is when ghost is angry and lowers his whole shell so that his eye is half-covered in such a manner it LOOKS like he's glaring. that's absolutely hilarious & adorable.)

entirely digital! i love that they're robots and i honestly think some of the appeal of them would be lost if they were creatures, like, a race of alien or something instead of a type of small robot. i think that what makes this such a good feature is that it creates a sort of distance in one way between the player and the ghost - we're not the same Thing, this is a robot and not a person, and so when they BEHAVE like a person (emotional! expressive! full of love and whimsy!!) it kind of bolsters the affection you have for them because it's New and unique; not, like, a pre-existing thing (like well yeah naturally they've got instincts and emotions and subjective reactions, they're an animal/person - vs., OH, they've got instincts and emotions and subjective reactions because even though they're a robot, they're still complex like a person!!)

also i can't not mention the overall shape language & design. there is an absolutely crazy amount of stuff going on in a design so simple. the symmetry is great, for starters - sometimes symmetry CAN be used to create unease by feeling artificial/unnatural, but in this case, the symmetry of the design connotates something easily-understood, reliable, safe, etc that puts us at ease. (this is also in correlation with the previous endearing factors such as size & expressiveness.)

continuing this, the shapes. the ghost is so satisfying to look at because it's made of shapes we find visually comforting & reliable - even when those shapes aren't actually there!

let me ask you this: the shell fins are triangular, right? nope! very few ACTUAL triangles on this guy! but the body is segmented in a way that makes it appear so. (this goes into actual shape language in the way our brains read it - we like odd numbers, because it feels more natural than even-ness and symmetry and perfect balance. part of the reason i think the ghost's symmetry is so appealing is because it is paired with these more "natural" shapes. (the fins LOOK like triangles, and they're actually 5-sided.) here, i even made diagrams:

also included in this one is the natural positioning. the design would be a little more disconcerting if the fins were positioned in an x instead of a +, and they almost are from the side, BUT even from the side, the middle fins still center a + shape to break it up.

last little detail regarding actual literal design is color. this one isn't AS big of a deal, especially because the shells are SO customizable, but i think it's worth mentioning that they look bright and shiny and smooth, BUT the particular white color of the shell is a scuffed, warm white, which again feels more natural and inviting. pairing it with the brownish-orange freckle (did you know the top and bottom tips of the shell are canonically called freckles??) makes it feel natural and familiar.

i also think it's worth looking at what is NOT a good ghost example. i found these pieces of concept art, including ghosts with their guardians, and what i believe is an early concept of the spider.

oh i am so glad these remained concept art. aren't you so glad that these remained concept art.

don't get me wrong, this is absolutely a viable character design, but FOR ghosts - for your lifelong platonic soulmate in the face of encroaching darkness?? for your silly sweet little guy??? absolutely not NEARLY as good as what we've been blessed with now. two eyes and a little mouth looking thing?? WRONG!! perfectly orbular shape?? WRONG!! that's not my guy!! (the perfectly round shells you can customize with ARE fine because you already KNOW the generalist design, and the one big eye stays the same.) and from this we can glean that the fins ARE important because they SUBSTITUTE as limbs, but this little circle body is just automatically less visually endearing and immediately seems like it would be less expressive. much to learn!)

SO. what now.

the main goal of me writing this whole thing is mostly to figure out what the guidelines here are so they can be adapted to other character designs - i have a similar concept to a ghost in an original project i'm working on, but invoking the same kind of loveability in them has proven insanely difficult. and of course, the context IS extremely relevant - a huge part of why we love ghosts so much IS dependent on the story, their role as a player companion, the significance of their connection to the player/player character (platonic soulmateism my beloved), and how they complement and contrast the setting of destiny. (part of the reason their symmetry and mechanical-ity(?) is so comforting because the rest of the world, especially the place where you first wake up, is so chaotic, broken-down & overgrown.)

also a quick but significant side note is that the fins are so much better than the ghost being small and round like a servitor (as the concept art seems to suggest) because it ALSO distances them from the traveler; despite being of it, they're not the same thing; they're their own beings who don't know everything it knows or even understand what exactly its history is. that round core and the white color draws that connection to the traveler, but the shapes and fins make them clearly their own things.

also, i genuinely think the name "ghost" is a part of this. categorically not what a ghost IS, but using such a simple word matches their vibe (& it feels white and cool and clean), and the word has an ethereal quality to it - i'd go so far as to say the connotation of it is sort of a longing or distance, invoking a kind of loss, which just ties everything about their lore together. (i LOVE when a simple, seemingly out-of-place word is used for things like this. phenomenal trope.)

so, we've got size, expressiveness, lack of limbs/features, and robotness. we got shape language and a very specific balance between artificial and natural. we've got name connotation. was this helpful? i don't know. if i had to list what to take AWAY from these categories to recreate the Ghost Effect, i would say...

size: keep them small. this one is not malleable, this is an integral part of the design.

expressiveness: over-expression GOOD, but works best when paired with a body/form that lacks things to express with (like features)

robotness: ???? maybe i'm mistaken and you could pull this off with a creature!! it kind of depends on the setting. if you wanted to try something like this in high fantasy instead of scifi, i would say the throughline should be something that you wouldn't expect to behave like a human; or something you would expect to be perfectly logical/calculated/efficient, so that that humanity & emotionality & personality really hits.

shape language: what is both distinct enough to clearly be its own thing, with shapes and patterns (symmetry counts as a pattern) that we find comforting but not overly-familiar? (also "distinct enough to be its own thing" is just a good rule of thumb for creature design in general - the silhouette should be clearly identifiable for maximum effect!)

artificial and natural: this ties into the previous item. unique & distinct but with some kind of sense of familiarity maintained

name: i think i've found my thesis, honestly, because this is, again, what is FAMILIAR but unique? what does it connotate? i think simplicity is an integral aspect of this, also.

THESIS/TL;DR/CONCLUSION: the Ghost's design is perfect because it is the ideal blend of something that is unique and distinct (and endearing) while also centering elements that are familiar to us in a comforting way.

thank you for coming to my TED talk remember to kiss your ghost

what is it abt ghosts that gives them the best character design ever, i'm not even talking about the wild customizable shells or anything i mean like the base design, what IS it that makes it so lovable. it's something to do with the simplicity and symmetry, but also they're so expressive and adorable that even though they're entirely robotic they seem so human and endearing. how does one recreate this effect or at least clearly outline how to achieve such a thing

[bridenore]

HD Quidditch / flying fic recs

Here are some drarry recs involving quidditch or flying. Listed in alphabetical order.

Against All Odds by momatu [53k]

Beauxbatons is hosting the first ever Quidditch Summer School for children from all over Europe, and Harry has promised to enroll Teddy as his birthday present. Meanwhile, Draco is stuck in his office, putting together the first ever Quidditch Summer School for children from all over Europe during, when he should be enjoying summer holidays.

Clear Skies, Full Hearts by iota / @sorrybutblog​ [32k]

Harry loves everything about playing professional Quidditch – the rush of flying, the rush of winning, the rush of getting off with rival seeker Draco Malfoy. Harry’s the highest scoring rookie Seeker in the history of the League. He’s also, inexplicably, obsessively, hooking up with Draco. When Draco unexpectedly quits the League and disappears from Harry’s life, Harry doesn’t stop wondering what it all meant and if he’ll ever get another chance to find out.

fly like paper, high like planes by @harryromper [47k]

Harry Potter, Head Coach of the Appleby Arrows, is very content leading a quiet life. He has a doddery old house-elf who makes his breakfast, a team of players who love Quidditch almost as much as he does, and a Kneazle that curls against his damaged leg at the foot of his bed at night. The absolute last thing he needs is a fit, tattooed, and wildly talented Draco Malfoy back from living his life on the margins. Soon he’s dealing with goblins for the first time since the war, traveling to Prague, eating dodgy squid, and maybe, just maybe, accepting that Quidditch, Malfoy, and even Harry himself are still capable of change.

Game Changer by @toboldlygeek [69k]

Malfoy gripped his hand tightly, using it to pull Harry towards him a step. “I never had you pegged for a sore loser, Potter.” Once again, Harry felt that familiar anger twist in his chest, and a small part of his brain registered that it felt good. “Obviously I know you better then,” he hissed. “I’ve always known you were an arrogant prick.” A story of love and Quidditch, not necessarily in that order.

Gravity Centered by @carpemermaid  [6k]

Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are two of the best flyers in the International Professional Broom Racing League. To fans, they’re a pair of competitive rivals that trade skillful wins back and forth, but after they finish each grueling race around the world is that all there is between them? Or: Harry tastes the wind on Malfoy’s tongue.

Hits Different by Storybelle [45k]

Nearly five years on from the battle of Hogwarts, Harry and Draco both fly for the same minor league quidditch team and somehow have become good friends. On the back of a win that could mean big things for them the team goes out for celebratory drinks. Draco admits he once had a crush on Harry. It was a while ago. He got over it. This shouldn’t drive Harry absolutely insane. It’s also, without a doubt, going to.

“I’d Rather Change Nappies Than Have My Cock Sucked” and Other Ravings of a Pregnant Wizard by Frayach [23k]

Like everything else between Harry and Draco, pregnancy and child rearing are fraught with drama

Match Fit by @ravenclawsquill  [25k]

After picking up a groin injury just two weeks before the Quidditch World Cup Final, star Seeker Harry Potter reluctantly agrees to seek help from world-renowned Magi-Physiotherapist, Draco Malfoy. Cue sexual tension, naked sports massages, inappropriate erections and a healthy dose of acid-green lycra.

The Most Splendid Thing by @lqtraintracks [61k]

Star Quidditch rivals Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter become accidentally bonded. They still hate each other, but now it’s untenable to leave each other’s sides—and my, but it feels oh so good to touch. They’re either going to murder one another, or fall in love. OR: A story in which Draco finally allows himself happiness, and Harry finally learns that he deserves to be whole.

The Swaggering Plimpies (or This One Time, At Quidditch Camp…) by @thegertie / RurouniHime [29k]

Draco has an idea, and Harry’s just the one to help him.

The Seeker by @kedavranox [27k]

Draco’s position with the International Association of Quidditch has always been tenuous, but that may be about to change with Harry as his source on the biggest case of Performance-Enhancing Potions doping of the decade. But Draco soon learns that things are not as they seem, and he has to find a balance between his commitment to the IAQ and his evolving relationship with Harry, as they uncover secrets that even Harry has fought to keep.

(Un)Calculated Risk by @l0vegl0wsinthedark [6k]

He thought about the way Harry looked at him, smiled at him; about the way Draco’s head was nearly always full of him, all day every day, and about the way Draco sometimes deliberately went to bed still smelling of him, refusing to acknowledge what it meant – because he already fucking knew what it meant. What all of it meant. And then Draco decided, fuck it, he was going to risk it. They were going to risk it together, Harry and Draco.

What a Fucking Git by @lqtraintracks [2k]

For all anybody else knows, Quidditch stars Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy still hate each other….

I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did!

[slayerdurge]

Regarding The Busts in Gortash's Office

So because I'm endlessly obsessive, I did what I said I would do & wrote down the names and descriptions of all of the people that Gortash has busts of in his office because they seem to be people he admires so I wanted to analyze them, as one does when one is endlessly obsessive. I also did additional research on the ones that I could find more information about. Here they are, and some of my own thoughts on why they might have been included (under a read more because it's long because, again, obsessive).

Baron Alec Bormul - First of the Bormul patriar family to start his own venture, Alec is the unscrupulous bastard who made their fortune in mines and vineyards.

Now, as far as I can find, this is the only information we have about this character. However, there are several other Bormul family members that exist in the game (including an NPC called Callem Bormul who is present at Gortash's ordaining ceremony). The one that stands out more to me though is Ilza Bormul, who is mentioned in the in-game book "Baldur's Gate and the Dialectics of Plunder" and stated to own "slave-labour mines in the mountains of Amn". Presumably therefore Alec is an "unscrupulous bastard" due to the use of slave labor. Not particularly surprising Gortash would approve of that since he is a known slaver himself. Interestingly, that same book also mentions Xeremiah Eltan, who is another of the busts in the office, as another example of the fact that Baldur's Gates patriar families are all founded by blood and immorality (which the author of the book says no one ever talks about). So I imagine both busts are also included as confirmation of his worldview that no one innocent ever gets far in life. I think it's also notable here that Gortash chose to commemorate the "first" of the family who "started his own venture". We know he loves a self-made man, no matter how brutal his path was. Commodore Morgan Redlocks - Baldur's Gate ship captain Morgan Redlocks wed a man thrice her age. After the wedding, the groom suffered a heart attack. Redlocks converted his merchant ships into a pirate fleet.

Unfortunately not a character that I can find any more information about, but how much do you want to bet that she killed her husband? I mean, come on. He has a heart attack so soon after the wedding that he's still being referred to as the "groom" and not the husband? Plus it wouldn't even remotely surprise me that Gortash would appreciate a subtle femme fatale assassin. Also, of fucking course he would admire a pirate. Magnate Carric Ilphescient - Carric started from nothing, built a financial empire, and founded the Counting House. He refused to mingle with the other patriars, saying, "They didn't want me when I was an urchin, and now they can't have me."

Another self-made man, and one who does not mince words about it. Easy to imagine that that quote reflected Gortash's own mentality. Only other reference I could find to him was in an in-game book in the Counting House called "Record of the Honoured" but all it tells us is that he did in fact found the Counting House. The Cockeyed Stranger - This is a bust of the god Bane as he first appeared to Gortash in dreams, and was then described to a Rivington sculptor.

Bane is obviously a far more established D&D character than anyone else here, so I could write a whole page just about Bane and how I imagine Gortash sees him. I swear I've seen a bit of loading screen flavor text in BG3 that states that when Bane was a mortal man, he was originally a battleslave of Mephistopheles, but it is possible that I'm wrong about that because I cannot find confirmation of this lore anywhere on the internet. (If anyone else has seen that loading screen flavor text, please confirm so I know I'm not hallucinating!) But if it is true, then it's immensely clear what Gortash sees in him. Gortash's whole thing is he absolutely loves the idea of someone who started from the bottom and rose to the top through sheer ruthlessness. He likes the idea of overthrowing his oppressors and taking their place. As a whole, Bane's doctrine also fits Gortash really well. The Forgotten Realms Wiki says that Bane "embodied the principles of ambition and control and believed that the strong had not only the right, but the duty, to rule over the weak." I can easily imagine Gortash having the same mentality. Bane is also known for being a lot more open to having alliances than is typical for an evil god, but he always makes sure he ends up on top. (I could write a whole other analysis about how the original plan hatched by Gortash, Durge, & Ketheric leaves Gortash in the best position. Ketheric gets to be a fearsome conquering general, Durge (later Orin) gets to spread chaos in the streets, but Gortash is the one who ends up being the hero who can actually not only have the benefit of his legitimate ruthlessness but also the benefit of it remaining hidden! By far the best position in the alliance. Orin actually is mad about this (she gives a little speech to Durge about how Gortash betrayed them because all her murders only drive the people of Baldur's Gate into the arms of his Steel Watch) but it is implied that Durge didn't think of it the same way since those were always the terms of the plan... something that always makes me wonder about what exactly it is that Durge & Gortash originally had planned in the long-term. Were they really just both always planning to betray the other eventually? Because I'm honestly not so sure about that. I think they're both too smart for that. But I digress.) Dame Amafrey Ephemial - Dame Amafrey, the Orphans' Friend, founded several orphanages in the Outer City, as the Lower City was no place for children (and the Upper City declined to sponsor an orphanage).

Okay, this is by far the black sheep in the set. A philanthropist? Seemingly without an ulterior motive? Why is she included here? I mean, on the one hand, I could almost believe that Gortash is sympathetic to the plights of children in a way he wouldn't be for adults (since he suffered so much as a child & since children don't have as many ways to help themselves and take responsibility as adults do), but on the other hand, it is so deeply inconsistent with his character too. But then again, maybe he's just a hypocrite. Maybe this really is some sort of secret soft side. Or perhaps it has more to do with the fact that she seemed to be bogged down by the corruption around her (the Upper City declined to sponsor an orphanage) so maybe he keeps her bust around as a reminder that good intentions don't get you far enough. I genuinely don't know with this one, and I was unable to find any more info about Dame Ephemial. Grand Duke Eltan - Founder of the Flaming Fist. Later history is kinder to him than accounts from his time, which portray him as a cruel and hard-handed mercenary commander.

According to the same in-game book mentioned previously (Baldur's Gate and the Dialectics of Plunder), he "founded the Flaming Fist as a ruthless mercenary company that slaughtered and burned for pay along the entire length of the Sword Coast". He is also a character in the first Baldur's Gate game and the expansion Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear. According to the Forgotten Realms Wiki, he was Lawful Neutral and he was known as "steadfast and principled" because of his "tactical genius" and "a sincere belief in maintaining the balance of power among the many small kingdoms of Faerûn". Also apparently he survived a whole lot of assassination attempts. Easy to see why Gortash would see this one as a role model, I think. He is described as a "tactical genius" himself. I also think it's interesting that it says that "later history is kinder to him than accounts from his time". I mean, we know Gortash is huge on propaganda and controlling the narrative. I would imagine he cares how he might be remembered.

[pegging-satan]

Caleb who’s really devoted to you. Whatever you want, you get.

Caleb who’s so desperate for your attention he’s not afraid of being absolutely pathetic

Caleb, who’s unhealthily obsessed with you, walking the precarious tightrope between sanity and madness.

Caleb is loud, he’s vocal, he’s shameless and he’s possessive. He’s protective and he’s also an absolute freak. Down horrendously.

Caleb loves every single thing about you, the way you behave, the way you look, the way you smell, the way you taste, the sound of your voice, the way your skin feels so soft against his. A complete sensory treat.

He believes he doesn’t even need food or water to live. If somehow it was possible for him to just have you and nothing else in his life it would be enough nourishment for him.

He’s loving, he’s caring and he’s kind, he wants everyone to know he’s taken and that you’re the one he belongs to, and that he’s your loyal servant, always there at your beck and call. He cannot stay away from you.

He cannot stop touching you. “You feel so good. Just a little. No one will know. God, you’re so warm.” His hands explore your body with reckless abandon. He cannot stay away or hold back when he’s around you. His hands shamelessly groping, massaging, pinching, gliding over every inch of skin. In his office, in his room, standing beside him. No place is inappropriate

He loves the way you smell. He wants to live in that scent. He doesn’t even need air. He wants every single part of him bathed in it. Christened with your love. You’re shaking, you’re leaking, you’re trembling and he won’t stop until his uniform is soaked wanting to infuse the fabric with your sweet, musky scent, it turns him on so much so it is no surprise he keeps the previous day’s used underwear on him, in his pocket as a reminder of you <3.

His gloved fingers sliding in and out, in and out as you’re sat on his lap quivering. Tears falling.

Riding his thigh as he works and spurs you on as you pathetically grind against him till you cum on his uniform pants wrapping your arms around his neck and nuzzling his nape as you cry.

He’s your slave and your master. He wants every single possession of his to be touched by you. You soaked his uniform, but his boots still remain untouched :( oh well ‘suppose it’s time to get on that, isn’t it? You’re kneeling, hugging his leg again pathetically whimpering as you seek the stimulation you so desperately crave, while he looks down at you with the adoration reserved for a god.

His hand in your hair, making you look up at him, your face wrecked by tears. Eyes glassy and half-lidded, cheeks flushed and tear-stained. Lips puffy and pink, a trail of drool on the side of your mouth. The sight drives him insane, especially when you desperately rub your head against his knee like a cat. The feelings that conjures up for him are indescribable.

He’s a busy man, he has work. But he can multitask. Thats why you’re on his lap, as one hand glides over screens and the other lazily strokes your heat. Aw baby, she’s drooling already, you like that? He says giving you light slaps and pats there. He’s shameless about it though, he’s giving orders to his subordinate while playing with you so languidly. But if he sees their eyes dart to you even for a millisecond, it’s a death sentence.

“Yes baby I know you don’t like feeling empty down there, here, this will help” he says as he slides the muzzle of his gun up and down your sensitive, soaking folds, before pressing it in, further and further until you’re impaled on it, moving slightly to feel it in you. Oh, it’s so debauched and filthy, but god, does it feel good. Perhaps that’s why you’re into it. It’s so unconventional and dangerous, but you’re into it.

And so is Caleb.

[user947468]

NSFW Alphabet - Arisu Ryohei

Hello! If you're from my Chishiya fic please look away, I am really deep in writers block and I thought this could be fun.. Warning this is fully explicit, if you're not into that please click off!

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Very, very gentle. He's scared that he hurt you in someway, or was too rough, or you would regret it immediately after- doesn't matter if you took the initiative or not. Despite being a borderline genius- he's not that knowledgeable in after care, but he tries his best. Cleaning you and himself up after with a wet rag, tissues, toilet paper- which ever was the most convenient at the time- and making sure you feel comfortable, asking if you need anything, ect, ect.. he loves your comforting praises after more than he would like to admit.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Arisu couldn't answer that question earnestly with a gun to his head. He didn't have a favorite, couldn't physically choose one. He was obsessed with everything about you, infatuated with every inch of your being- one moment he would ogle your thighs, than your waist, your chest, your lips, your eye's- yep, he would have to take the bullet. As for him.. well, they don't call them gamer fingers for nothing. He's a bit too proud of how long he can go without getting a hand cramp.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

When Arisu was young he was freaked out by it, thought it was dirty and inhuman- even though it subsided in his late high school years and his hormones were flying through the roof it was always a thought in the back of his mind. That's why it took him by complete shock when you asked him if he wanted to cum on your face, and how fast he came after the fact. He couldn't take his eye's off you after, having to shake himself out of his mind before he got hard again.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

While not major to most- Arisu would never admit to watching as much porn as he frequently does. He's an absolute porn-freak. One websites, apps, magazines- you name it, he's seen it. Oh, and he has a thing for keeping your underwear- which he would never tell you of course, or take without your permission!

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He's not a virgin, while he doesn't have women throwing themselves at him left and right, he's not completely oblivious to the sex scene. And sure, he's watched it, and heard story's from his friends- but doing it is a whole other ball park.. its a good thing he's a fast learner. But there are still a good handful of thing he's yet to be introduced too.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Anything you want. Preferably position's he could fully watch you in, but if wanted to try something new Arisu was anything but picky. However, he does have a knack for missionary and cowgirl- he adores picking apart your reactions, how your head throws back when he fondles your breast, or when he sucks bruises into your neck and you follow up with a low moan.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Arisu always tries to make light of a situation with humor. Especially during your first few nights together; if he feels like the silences are too prolonged he'll tell a joke, or when you make a move and all he can do is let out a nervous giggle- its adorable in hindsight, although you know he hates when he reacts like a untouched-virgin.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Nicely trimmed, not too short, not too long. Before you, he would never give shaving a second glance. After all why would he need too? No one was going to see him there anyways. It was on your first date that he bashfully decided to keep himself more well groomed, for your sake.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Nervous, of course. He's overly sensitive, hyper-aware of everything going on- and you wouldn't have it any other way. He's takes his time, making sure you know how much you mean to him every step of the way- whether is be by his words, or his hands, or his tongue..

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

He surprisingly has a higher sex drive than you would think. He could go one after the other after the other.. he only needs a few length breaks in between before he's back on track! His record was four in one day- which he only counted because of a stupid, and completely childish bet with Karube and Chota.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Arisu never gave thought to power play, especially being titled the submissive one- and maybe it was just you that provoked it in him-but when you first climbed on-top of him, whispering borderline pornographic praises in his ear- moving his hands where you wanted them, refusing to let him cum to early- he knew he would do anything you asked, and you knew it too.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Bedroom- preferably yours. Covered completely by you; your clothes, your perfume, your bed sheet.. he's not one to venture off, especially while still living with family. Although his guard does lower in the borderlands, he'll do it anywhere he deems safe enough for you.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Everything. Nothing. Someday's he could see you in a skimpy bathing suit and all he can think is how beautiful your eyes are or how much he adores your laugh. Other days he can get hard in an instant if you look at him a certain way- mind twirling with different images of you- you under him, on-top of him, him between your legs...

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Anything to hurt you is an absolute no. Blood, knifes, scratch marks- there all no-go's. He's even hesitant to use degrading nicknames. Although he wouldn't mind mild restrains or gags of some sort, on him of course. And don't even think about calling him daddy, he will gag.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

He loves both! Want to give him a blowjob? His pants are already coming off. You asked him to eat you out? He's on his knee's in seconds. Although he love's you warm mouth and curious tongue- nothing beats being between your legs. Tasting you, smelling you- don't even get him started on you tightening your thighs around his head, keeping him in place while you ride out your orgasm.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.) 

Most of the time Arisu likes to keep it slow and sensual, covering every conceivable inch of you in small kisses and following your shape with gentle wandering hands. Once in a while he'll get caught up in bliss, pace radical and tight grips- but he'll apologies immediately after, brushing your hair out of the way and asking if your okay- you always are.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Not his favorite, he enjoys cherishing every moment with you, every whimper and shutter of yours graved into his mind- but there not half bad in his opinion. He has morning wood but a class in fifteen minutes? If your up for it, he is too. After all he would be a fool to not take the chance up.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.) 

If it's nothing too crazy, like almost sadistic, he'll try anything once if it makes you happy. Arisu has no problem stepping out of his comfort zone for you, matter of fact doing introduced him to things he would have never known he was into. Although you'll have to slowly get through his shy demeanor at first.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

He's a loser-gamer with a porn addiction... yeah he's not lasting long at all! But he does really, really, try to hold off when you ask him too, after all he doesn't want to disappoint you. Either way he makes up for it by offering a second round, he'll need a second to recharge but as soon as you start leaving kisses down his neck it's go time!

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?) 

Would he ever by himself? Absolutely not. Even if he wanted too, he'd be too embarrassed to go out and buy one- hell, he wouldn't even want the charge on his card. Besides a fleshlight - which was a joke gift Karube got him for his birthday, "I knew you'd love it!" he said, watching Arisu's face turn the brightest shade of red any ones every seen- Arisu's never once owned a sex toy on his own account. Until he meet you. It started off innocent enough- cheeky lingerie, strawberry lube, clit vibrators- than you turned the vibrators on him and introduced him to male sex toys.. he was sure his brain chemistry changed after the fact.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

You would say he's a tease, he would say he's making sure every inch of you doesn't go unappreciated. He really doesn't mean too, and when ever he notices you getting aggravated or huffy for more friction, he gives you a sly smile and ask's you what you want him to do to you. When said, he jumps straight into action.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.) 

Arisu really tries to hold it in, truly, with all his might - but he's just naturally loud. And you would be lying if you said he wasn't good at it. Every whimper, moan, grunt, and curse could be heard from the man, none of his reactions going unnoticed. He didn't shy away from being verbal either, much to your delight.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

This man is most love-struck fool ever. And that leads to a lot of desperation on his end, especially while your away. How dare you treat him so good? Give him the most live changing orgasm than leave to your collage classes thirty minutes latter? The amount of things he's rubbed himself off too because of it was shameful; your voicemail, a small note you left him on a sticky note, the smell of your shampoo..

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes) 

Arisu was an average length, 6 and a half inches long - he swear the half inch makes a huge difference - and a width of an inch and a half, lean like the rest of his body. Pale pink and a strong veins coming from his shaft, they were always the most sensitive- along with his tip of his dick.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

He could do without getting off everyday. Sleeping through it or taking a cold shower if necessary, and he never beg you into anything you weren't in the mood for but it's safe to say it doesn't take long to get him in the mood.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

As much as his hormones love raging off the charts- his physical athleticism slows him down. Generally he could fall asleep anywhere, anyplace in seconds- but plus being physically and mentally tired? He's already in a deep sleep. (After after-care, of course) Good luck trying to wake him up!

[somehowukook]

(On going) Jungkook fics that totally worth the wait. PT. 2. *:･ﾟ✧

I decided to share some ongoing FFs that I’m completely obsessed with. This is the second part.

Minors under no circumstances can interact with my posts.

Hey guys, 💞

Now I’m back with fic recommendations that are absolutely worth following in real-time.

Also, I’m planning to release a teaser of my own fanfic next week, and this is a way for us to get to know each other better until then!

Without further ado…

Let’s go!

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Dextrocardia by @jeonstudios

cop!jk x f detective!reader, undercover cops, fake marriage, e2l au, [a] [f] [s]

“She’s been moved to another operation to help out. This pairing is necessary because you’ll be undercover as spouses. I know you two can be professional about this.”

“What?!” It’s Jeongguk’s upset voice that sounds, and for once, you share his displeased opinion.

One of the best plots, one of the best themes, and one of the best reading experiences I’ve ever had. Smart, essential, and full of layers—that’s the tone of this story. There was one chapter where I just couldn’t stop pacing back and forth around the house while reading. Dextrocardia is nearing its end, and I’m going to miss it so much! @jeonstudios is one of my favorite authors and has already written stories that rank in my all-time top favorites. It’s worth reading EVERYTHING! Her Patreon is worth every cent!

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Bad Decisions by @alphabetboyluver

Smut, fluff, a lil angst, bartender!jk, student!jk, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers (?), fwb, deal arrangement, undefined relationship (they’re just friends! just besties!!), miscommunication, idiots in love, emotional slow burn, bucket list (a.k.a. the birds)

It’s simple: write your deepest, darkest fears on origami birds and string them up on Jungkook’s ceiling. When they fall—which they inevitably will, thanks to his cheap Daiso washi tape—you have to face the fear. Set it free.

The issue? You have a fear of intimacy.

Jungkook, a fear of rejection.

And you both have the capacity to make some incredibly bad decisions.

I LOVE BD. I LOVE HOW THIS JK THINKS HE’LL DIE IF HIS CARNAL DESIRES AREN’T MET. He is the personification of my perfect man—everything he does is incredible, and I swear, I can’t even explain how BD is worth it. I LOVE HOW THE OC IS SO HEADSTRONG AND HOW I LEARNED SO MUCH ABOUT SELF-LOVE FROM HER. Look, I discovered Holly’s writing through Throttle (complete and incredible), and I was instantly enchanted by her work. Honestly, if I had money, I’d open a publishing house just to sponsor and publish her books. If you haven’t read it yet, you’re missing out!

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死 KKANGPAE by @jungkoode

enemies to lovers, slow burn, gang au, angst with smut, fuck buddies, forbidden love, secret relationship

When you join Kkangpae’s Seduction Division, you know the rules: no attachments, no relationships, no exceptions. The consequences are fatal—you’ve seen them firsthand. But rules become complicated when the Chief of Tactical Assassinations keeps looking at you like you’re his next target, and not the kind he takes out with a sniper rifle.

Alright, I’ve already made it clear in my first fic recommendation list that Kiki is brilliant, and you probably know it by now… Besides writing and creating incredible universes and deeply layered characters with impeccable psycho-behavioral construction, she’s also an amazing and kind person—and her fanarts, help!But enough about her, or I’ll never finish… Now let’s talk about this MASTERPIECE that is KKangpae! I am completely WEAK for Jeon, and this OC? Oh God, this woman can break me, and I’d still say thank you! This slow burn (Kiki’s specialty) is so sensual, so good, and so nerve-wracking that it makes you roll on the floor in a fetal position after every episode. Just read it.

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Stuck with you by @focusonkayjay

Computer sci major/shy/nerdy!Jungkook, econ major/popular/influencer!reader, college au, roommates au, roommates to lovers, friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, angst, smut, fluff

Jungkook’s a hopeless romantic—emphasis on hopeless more than romantic. From the moment he first laid eyes on you, he swore he heard bells chiming, like the angels from above were giving him a cosmic nudge. But he’s always been the awkward, nerdy guy—the one who blends into the background—while you? You felt like a dream way out of his league. Fate, however, had other plans and now, you’re his roommate and living with you—in all your effortless glory—is equal parts chaos and heaven. The only challenge? Keeping his ever-growing feelings in check. That is—until a cocky fuckboy with not-so-pure intentions sets his sights on you, and suddenly, just loving you from the sidelines might not be enough.

I found Chers page through one of my favorite fics, Between the Ride and the Roses(which I think you should read). Since then, I’ve been following her work, and this latest release—seriously, I was so happy I read the first episode before making this recommendation list because it’s TOTALLY worth it! This socially awkward JK, with the purest heart in the world (and some self-esteem issues), will win you over in the very first description, and I just hope this precious soul doesn’t get hurt because, honestly, I’d destroy the whole world if anything bad happens to him. Seriously, he is so precious. MY SHAYLA

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Server Room by @mister0ctopus

Smut (X), Office au, Mini Series

Your new IT guy is quiet and shy. But when you accidentally caught him doing something in the server room while moaning your name, you just had to pretend you didn’t see that, right?

How do I say this without sounding crude? Well, I hope you don’t think I’m crazy, but the server room scene is 🔥🔥🔥🔥, and it left me wondering for wayyy too long —what if it were me???? Well, I probably wouldn’t survive this JK doing THAT while moaning my name.

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Not Ideal by @koojks

Grumpy jk, slight angst and eventual smut. SMAU + Written

Jeon Jungkook has made one thing clear: he has no interest in working with you. He barely tolerates you in the friend group as it is. But with a project on the line, avoiding each other is no longer an option.

Through a Tumblr interest recommendation, I discovered Via and got completely hooked on Not Ideal. I’m OBSESSED—I need to know why this JK is so closed off, why he keeps picking on our OC, what he does when he goes out, what he eats, why he acts so nonchalant about everything??? Baby, I need to know!!!!!

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Hope you like it! And please, let’s keep in touch—I LOVE chatting with you!

[ikkyfics]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome! With the arrival of the Oscars, I decided it was time to create my own celebration – a tribute to the stories that make us laugh, cry and daydream.

This is a day to celebrate the magic of words, the talent of authors and the worlds that come from their incredible imaginations!

The ceremony is just beginning!

⋆˚࿔ on a tuesday by @helloheyhihowdyheya

Life had been a bit lonely – that is until Peter Parker brightened up your life. On a Tuesday. And when that friendship seems to fizzle out on a Tuesday? You’re sure the universe is playing some sort of trick on you.

First of all, I owe an apology for commenting so late on this phenomenal work, my sincere apologies. I remember the happiness I felt when I found this work on ao3, I simply devoured every word and went through ups and downs while reading. You are SO SO good, this is simply the best Spidey fic I have ever had the pleasure of reading in my entire life, I simply fell in love with the way you write. It is surreal, sublime. You are definitely one of my inspirations.

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⋆˚࿔ did it hurt? by @fear-is-truth

Tate Langdon was the reason I started watching ahs and finding this work was simply amazing. I mean, I was simply disoriented in this scene and then I find a work about it? It's a sublime work, it was the first fic I read by Tate on Tumblr and I was simply devastated. God, you write in such an incredible way, I wish I could be a little like you (and a small confession: I could hardly believe it when we became moots, I almost died)

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⋆.˚࿔ hide n’ seek by @fear-is-truth

Tate again, I was just obsessed with it and you write so well, I'm sorry if I sounded like a stalker. I'm just completely in love with the way you write it. It's perfect, there's no other way to describe it, I can only thank you for sharing your masterpiece with us

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⋆˚࿔ bratting out by @fear-is-truth

Kit Walker, what can we say about him? I had barely gotten over Tate and then Kit came along, and to this day I haven't gotten over this character. I can't, Kit is basically husband material. I didn't know I needed your fic until I read it. And gosh, I couldn't get it out of my head for the rest of the day. It's perfect, period. I can't be happy just because I read this wonder. Seriously, you write in a surreal way. I'm speechless, because the truth is that there aren't enough words in any language to describe how AMAZING you are. That's it, I definitely love you.

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⋆˚࿔ third wheel payback by @gingerteafairy

You and Todd hatch a plan to fake-date as a payback but things spiral a little out of control.

My love, how could I begin to talk about the wonders that you write? It's surreal, I can't put into words how lucky I am to be able to call you a friend. I can only thank you for posting this fantastic work. And yes, you were a pioneer in Todd Haynes fics, nothing else matters. I love it, I'm simply in love with this work, with the way you write. It's perfect, simple as that. It's one of my comfort readings, I can't put into words how much I loved it.

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⋆˚࿔ eyes up by @gingerteafairy

Dave can't stop staring

This is just perfect. It's basically canon. I can't get Dave Lizewski's idea of ​​acting this way out of my head. I think it's incredible how you managed to capture his essence. It's talent, I think. In fact, I'm absolutely amazed. You're simply one of the most talented people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I love you a million times over.

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⋆˚࿔ the great guide for jailbirds in love by @gingerteafairy

Tough times shows up after prision. His only alternative? Working miles away from home. The name of the place was almost faded, but he could still make it out: Last Chance Market

First of all, you were the one who influenced me to watch this movie, and it's also your fault that I became completely obsessed with Warren (I'll never get over the bathroom scene). and then when I think I'm -minimally- ready to move on, you come up with this. I'M HARDLY IN LOVE WITH DAD!WARREN. this was without a doubt one of the best reads of all time. I just want to be the mother of his children, simple as that. please, for the sake of everything that is most sacred in the world, never stop writing.

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⋆˚࿔ is that pr— I mean, a stag? by @wintrsoul

James sought you out after your argument in an entirely different way.

First of all, I'm so so happy to be getting to know you better. I couldn't put into words how amazing and sweet and kind you are. I loved, loved, loved this work. It's SO accurate. I can't get it out of my head that this is canon. James Potter would act exactly this way. Nothing and no one can get it out of my head. I only have compliments to give you, darling, and even then they wouldn't be enough to describe how wonderful you are.

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⋆˚࿔ completely waste by @babsworlds

Dave gets very very drunk and say some things that really catch you off guard.

I was simply enchanted by this work, it's even hard to put into words how much I loved it. Seriously, you write divinely well, I'm in a serious case of passion with your work. Simply addicted. Thank you so much for deciding to share your incredible work with us. I would die happy if I had a Dave Lizewski to call mine written by you. I simply loved the way you wrote it, it's very refined and, God, I just love you, that's it

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⋆˚࿔ boudoir photoshoot by @kquil

You have your bridesmaids show James, your, now, husband, polaroid samples from your boudoir photoshoot on your wedding night while you enjoy his reactions from afar

After reading this sublime work, I have only one request: JAMES POTTER, FOR ALL THAT IS HOLY IN THE WORLD, MARRY ME. I simply could not stop smiling while reading. God, you write so, so well that I am sure you are a celestial being among mere mortals like me. I am simply in love with the way you wrote James, it is surreal, I absolutely love him--just as I love you, seriously, you are one of the kindest and sweetest people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

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⋆˚࿔ santa’s in town by @meelusinee

in which you dress james up as santa to surprise your kid

I can perfectly remember the day I read this and fell completely in love with Dad!James. Oh, love, I can't even describe how sweet and amazing you are. One of the first people I had the pleasure of meeting on tumblr and you were so so so kind, I can only thank you. And you are so absolutely talented, I have no words, thank you so much for sharing this incredible work with us.

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⋆˚࿔ periods by @iamgonnagetyouback

sirius black x reader who is on her period and the mood swings are not helping (sirius, they're not helping sirius)

This was one of those reads that warmed my poor heart, I absolutely loved every word, I am completely enchanted by the way you write, I am absolutely coming back to read more of your amazing work

I couldn't help but mention a few more AMAZING people. @leeny-leens I fell in LOVE with your works (especially the one where the heater is broken) but I couldn't find your masterlist to link it here, but know that I'm sending you all the love in the world. I love our conversations, honey

To the dear @moonyswifee, I only have words of the utmost affection. I'm so happy that you decided to publish your work with us, all I can do is thank you

@beaucate, oh my gosh, I don't even know where to begin. You are so, SO talented, my jaw dropped reading your work, and it's kind of your fault that my obsession with Clark Kent is back, thank you so much for deciding to share your incredible writing talent with us

My dear lovely @sun-kissy, you are simply one of the sweetest and kindest people on all of tumblr, I always smile when interacting with you. Seriously, you are impossibly sweet, thank you so much for existing

(and forgive me the late mention) @bohnerrific69, I couldn't not mention you. I don't know what I would do without your help on tumblr. Thank you so much for your patience in all those explanations. And your blog is simply a feast for the eyes. I don't know if I'm living or waiting to be able to marvel at your work. I love you, that's it, you are simply extraordinary, so much so that I lack words.

I can only thank you for having met amazing people here, you are all SO amazing and wonderful, I don't have enough words to thank you, so I'm just sending all the love I have to you xoxo

[amethystarachnid]

hey, could i request the secret admirer trope with mcu peter parker from love is in the air? it would be great if the reader was a female avenger (in a world where no one dies and everyone lives together). i just know that peter would be soo cute as a secret admirer; so could you write into the story him being super paranoid when leaving gifts and little notes at y/n’s door and always being the sweetest? oh and also thinking he’s super slick and all that but y/n actually knows it’s him leaving the gifts and stuff (she checked the security camera footage after the second one) but peter absolutely CANNOT take a hint so she decides to mess with him a little and convinces another avenger (maybe sam?) to act like her boyfriend to make peter jealous because she thinks it’s a little funny (:() but he only gets sad and barely leaves his room and no one knows why (except y/n) so she comes clean after the second day (i seem to have an obsession with the number 2) and kisses him after she comes to see him while he’s moping in his room. i should stop rambling i really hope this isn’t too long and im excited to read what you write! thanks!

(NOT SO) SECRET ADMIRER

⤷ PETER PARKER

ᯓ★ Pairing: Peter Parker x fem!reader

ᯓ★ Genre: romance, some angst and some fluff

ᯓ★ Requests status: open (only by asks)

ᯓ★ Story type: one shot

ᯓ★ Word count: 6.1k

ᯓ★ Summary: what the ask said and !! important!! both Peter and reader here are twenty-something

ᯓ★ TW(s): nothing i think

ᯓ★ I'm backkk! and I hope to have more free time to write for you guys! <3 also I'm working on a Bucky Barnes x fem!demigod!OC (demigod because yes I said so) so let me know if you would be interested <3

ᯓ★ Love is in the air - Valentine's Day special game

ᯓ★ My Masterlist

ᯓ★ MARVEL Holiday Special

ᯓ★ MARVEL Multiverse - choose an AU, pair it with your favorite character and make a request!

ᯓ★ Songs & Superheroes tales - The Game (to make a request, follow the rules on the link!)

ᯓ★ MARVEL Bingo

ᯓ★ English isn’t my first language

Moving into the Avengers Compound is overwhelming in ways you don’t expect. The high-tech security, the endless hallways, the casual presence of literal superheroes—it’s a lot to take in. You’re used to SHIELD facilities, where everything is sleek and professional, where people nod in acknowledgment but don’t stop to chat. The compound is different. It’s still high-tech, still crawling with some of the most skilled fighters on the planet, but it feels… warmer. Like a home, rather than a base.

It helps that the team is welcoming. Sam and Bucky tease you like an annoying pair of older brothers. Wanda is quick to pull you into conversations, treating you like you’ve always been part of the team. Even Tony, in his own sarcastic way, seems to have accepted you.

Then there’s Peter Parker.

Peter is unlike anyone you’ve worked with before. He’s clumsy but quick, brilliant but self-deprecating, always talking like his thoughts are moving faster than his mouth. He’s a dork, really, but in an endearing way. He’s also ridiculously powerful—not that he acts like it. If you hadn’t seen him in action, you’d never guess the guy who constantly fumbles with his web-shooters is the same Spider-Man who’s taken down entire teams of bad guys on his own.

You notice, almost immediately, that he’s nervous around you. The stammering, the way his face flushes whenever you look at him too long, the way he trips over his own feet when you’re in the same room—it’s impossible to miss. It’s cute.

And then, the gifts start showing up.

The first one appears a week after you move in. You find it on your way back to your room late at night—a slightly crumpled bouquet of daisies, placed neatly in front of your door with a small note.

Welcome to the team! Hope you like these. :)

No name. Just a simple message and a cute little smiley face.

You smile, crouching down to pick up the flowers. They aren’t professionally arranged—some of the stems are uneven, and a few petals look a little worse for wear—but there’s something undeniably sweet about them. Someone went out of their way to welcome you, and you have a pretty good guess who.

Still, you don’t say anything. You don’t want to assume. Maybe it’s Wanda. Maybe it’s Sam messing with you.

Then, three days later, another gift appears. A small bag of your favorite candy, along with another note.

Saw you training today. You’re incredible. Hope this makes your night better!

Again, no name. But the handwriting is the same.

That’s when your curiosity gets the better of you.

You’re trained to notice patterns, to pick up on the details most people overlook. And you’re trained to investigate. So, you do what any ex-SHIELD agent would—you check the security footage.

It doesn’t take long to find what you’re looking for. You scroll back to the timestamp from the night before, eyes scanning the grainy hallway footage. Then, right on schedule, someone drops into view.

Peter Parker.

You watch as he crouches in front of your door, carefully placing the candy down like it might explode. His movements are quick but nervous—he keeps glancing up and down the hallway like he expects someone to catch him. Then he pulls out the note, smooths it down three times, mutters something under his breath, and web-slings to the ceiling.

You replay the footage, laughing to yourself.

Of course, it’s Peter.

The pieces click together so perfectly you can’t believe you didn’t realize it earlier. The awkwardness, the way he lights up when you talk to him, the way he looks at you when he thinks you’re not paying attention. He has a crush on you.

And now, you know.

But you don’t tell him. Because, honestly? It’s adorable. And if Peter wants to keep thinking he’s being sneaky, you’re more than happy to let him.

Since then, the gifts keep coming.

Every few days, something new appears at your door. Sometimes, it’s snacks after a long mission. Other times, little trinkets—stickers, keychains, a tiny plush cat because you mentioned once that you like them. And always, always a note.

You start having fun with it.

You drop hints, teasing him just enough to see if he reacts. You compliment his intelligence, lean in close when you’re standing next to him, smile a little longer than necessary. You even start leaving notes of your own—nothing direct, just little things you know will fluster him.

Nice work in training today, Peter. Maybe next time, you’ll actually land a hit on me. ;)

He reads it while you’re in the same room, and his face turns so red you think he might combust.

It’s perfect.

But somehow, despite all your efforts, he remains completely oblivious.

Tonight, you’re determined to push him just a little further.

It’s late, and most of the team has already gone to bed. You’re in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, sipping tea when Peter walks in. His hair is messy like he’s been running his hands through it, and he’s wearing a hoodie that’s at least two sizes too big.

“Oh,” he says, stopping in his tracks. “Hey!”

You smile. “Hey, Peter.”

He shifts awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Didn’t think anyone else was up.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” you say. “What about you?”

“Uh, same,” he says, though you suspect he was probably sneaking around to drop off another gift.

You decide to test him. “I found something outside my door again.”

Peter stiffens. “Oh?”

You tilt your head. “Yeah. It’s kind of weird, though. It’s like… I keep getting these little gifts. And notes. No idea who they’re from.”

He swallows hard. “That’s—uh—crazy.”

You nod. “Right? I mean, it’s sweet. Really sweet. But I wonder who’s doing it.”

He lets out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, um, no clue. Could be anyone.”

You step closer, just enough to make him notice. “You think so?”

His eyes dart to your face, then away again. “Y-yeah! I mean, maybe it’s, like, a team thing? Or—uh—someone trying to make you feel welcome?”

You hum, pretending to consider it. “Maybe. But it’s funny… they always seem to know exactly what I like.”

Peter practically short-circuits. “That’s—uh—wild.”

You bite back a grin. He’s so obvious it hurts.

“Well,” you say, leaning against the counter beside him, “whoever it is, I kind of wish they’d just talk to me.”

Peter blinks. “Oh?”

You nod, watching him carefully. “Yeah. I mean, sneaking around is cute and all, but I’d really like to get to know them.”

For a second, you think maybe—maybe—he’ll take the hint. But then, he just lets out a choked laugh and says, “Yeah! Totally! That would be—uh—cool!”

You sigh internally.

Peter Parker is the worst secret admirer in the world.

But he’s also the sweetest.

So, you’ll wait. You’ll keep playing along, keep flirting, keep dropping hints. And maybe—eventually—he’ll realize you like him too.

Peter Parker is a genius.

He built his web-shooters from scraps, made it through MIT’s entrance exams before graduating high school, and helps Tony Stark with tech that makes most people’s heads spin.

And yet, for all his intelligence, he’s completely, hopelessly, unbelievably clueless.

You keep flirting with him, testing the waters, pushing the line between teasing and something a little more. Sometimes, it’s subtle—a hand on his arm when you laugh, leaning a little too close when you talk. Other times, it’s… less subtle.

Like the time you stretch in the training room, arching your back just enough to make him flustered, only to watch in delight as Peter—mid push-up—faceplants directly onto the mat. Or the time you “accidentally” call him handsome in front of the team, and he spends the next five minutes sputtering like a broken car engine while everyone watches in confusion.

At this point, it’s a personal challenge.

You want to see how far you can push him before he finally realizes you’re into him. And if he doesn’t? Well. You’re having way too much fun watching him suffer.

The best part is that no one else seems to notice. Everyone assumes Peter is just awkward (which, to be fair, he is), and you’re just being friendly (which, to be fair, you are—just with extra flirting).

At least, that’s what you think.

Until Sam Wilson calls you out.

It happens in the common room. You’re lounging on the couch after a morning mission, scrolling through your phone, when Sam plops down beside you with a knowing smirk.

“So,” he says casually, “you gonna tell me why you’ve been messing with Parker?”

You blink. “Excuse me?”

“Come on,” Sam drawls. “You’ve been flirting with that boy so hard I’m surprised he hasn’t passed out yet.”

You fight back a laugh. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Oh, really? Then explain why he turns redder than Wanda’s magic every time you walk into the room.”

You shrug. “Maybe he’s just allergic to me.”

Sam snorts. “Nah, he’s just allergic to rizz.”

You burst out laughing. “Oh my god, Sam.”

“Hey, I’m just saying.” He leans back, crossing his arms. “Kid’s got it bad for you, and you know it.”

You sigh dramatically. “Yeah. But he has no idea I know.”

Sam squints at you. “Wait. He doesn’t know you know?”

“Nope.”

“…And he doesn’t know that you know that he doesn’t know you know?”

You blink. “What?”

“Never mind.” Sam shakes his head. “So, what’s the deal? You just enjoying the slow burn? Or are you waiting for him to finally grow a pair and ask you out?”

You grin. “A little of both.”

Sam lets out a low whistle. “Damn. That’s evil.”

“Not evil,” you correct. “Just… patient.”

Sam gives you a look. “Right. And I’m Captain America.”

You smirk. “You wish.”

He grins, then tilts his head, clearly considering something. “You want me to help?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Help how?”

Sam stretches his arms behind his head. “I could drop some hints. Get in his head a little.”

You hum, pretending to think about it. “Tempting.”

“Oh, come on,” Sam nudges you. “You know you want to see him suffer.”

That makes you laugh. “Fine. But don’t be too mean.”

“No promises,” Sam says, already grinning like he’s planning something dangerous.

You don’t know exactly what he’s going to do, but you do know one thing—Peter Parker doesn’t stand a chance.

It starts at breakfast.

Peter is sitting at the table, eating a massive bowl of cereal, when Sam slides into the seat across from him.

“What’s up, Parker?”

Peter blinks, mouth full. “Mmf?”

Sam smirks. “You know, I’ve been noticing something lately.”

Peter swallows, already looking nervous. “Noticing what?”

Sam leans forward. “You and Y/N.”

Peter chokes on his cereal.

“I—what?” he sputters, coughing.

“You and Y/N,” Sam repeats, smirking. “Something going on there?”

Peter turns so red you’re afraid he might actually explode. “N-no! I mean—uh—why? Did she say something?”

Sam pretends to think. “Hmm. Can’t say. But, you know, she does talk about you a lot.”

Peter’s eyes widen. “She does?”

“Oh yeah,” Sam says. “Like, the other day, she was saying how much she loves a guy who’s smart. Thought that was interesting.”

Peter makes a strangled sound. “She—she did?”

Sam nods. “And then she said something about how she likes guys who are good with their hands.”

Peter immediately drops his spoon. “WHAT?”

Sam shrugs. “I dunno, man. Just something to think about.”

Peter looks like he’s about to faint.

You, watching from across the room, nearly lose it.

For the next week, Sam continues his psychological warfare.

One morning, while you’re stretching before training, Sam casually mentions, “Hey, Parker, did you know Y/N thinks your arms are nice?”

Peter nearly drops the dumbbell he’s holding.

Then, during a mission briefing, Sam leans over and says, “You know, Y/N was just telling me how much she loves guys who can fight.”

Peter immediately starts sweating.

But the final straw comes during movie night. The team is gathered in the common room, popcorn bowls scattered across the couches, when Sam—loudly, for the whole room to hear—says, “Hey, Parker, Y/N said she likes guys who can take charge. What do you think that means?”

Peter, in the middle of drinking his soda, chokes so violently that Tony has to pat him on the back.

You’re dying.

Sam is clearly having the time of his life. Every time Peter panics, he shoots you a smug look, and you have to fight to keep a straight face.

Peter, meanwhile, is suffering.

And the best part? He still doesn’t get it.

Still doesn’t realize you’re into him.

At this point, you’re genuinely starting to think he might never figure it out.

But you’re patient.

So, you wait. You flirt. You tease. And you watch as Peter Parker, one of the smartest people you know, continues to be the most oblivious person on the planet.

At first, Peter’s obliviousness is adorable. It’s fun watching him squirm, fun seeing him turn bright red whenever you so much as look at him a little too long. But now? Now it’s getting annoying.

You’ve been dropping hints for weeks. You’ve been touching his arm, leaning in close, giving him every possible signal short of straight-up kissing him. And what does he do? He stammers. He trips over his own feet. He gets so flustered that he either short-circuits completely or runs away like a scared puppy.

It’s maddening.

You’re starting to wonder if you’re doing something wrong. Maybe you’re not being obvious enough. Maybe Peter just doesn’t think you could actually like him. Which is ridiculous, because if anyone in this compound paid half as much attention to him as you did, they’d see exactly why you liked him. He’s smart, he’s kind, he’s funny, and he’s got this dorky charm that somehow makes your heart race in ways it absolutely shouldn’t.

But none of that matters if he doesn’t get the damn hint.

So, you decide to kick things up a notch.

You start small. The next time you see Peter in the gym, you make sure to stretch right in front of him. It’s a bold move, but you’re desperate. You slowly lift your arms above your head, arching your back just enough to be noticeable. Then, when you bend down to touch your toes, you peek up to see if he’s watching.

He is.

And then he immediately panics and turns away so fast he nearly walks into the weight rack.

You barely hold back an eye roll.

Fine. If that didn’t work, maybe something else will.

Later that day, you find him in the lab, tinkering with his web-shooters. You walk in, pretending like you don’t have an agenda, and lean against the table. He looks up, startled, then immediately averts his gaze.

“Oh, hey, Y/N,” he says, voice slightly higher than usual. “What’s up?”

You tilt your head, resting a hand under your chin. “Nothing much. Just needed a distraction.”

Peter nods, focusing way too hard on his web-fluid cartridge. “Yeah? Um. Cool. What—uh—what kind of distraction?”

You smirk. “Oh, you know. Something fun.”

Peter’s hand slips, and a small burst of web-fluid sprays onto the table. He stares at it like it personally betrayed him.

You grin, stepping closer, casually placing a hand on his shoulder. “You’re so tense, Peter. You ever think about taking a break?”

He lets out the fakest laugh you’ve ever heard. “Me? Oh, no, I’m—I’m good! Totally fine! Not tense at all!”

You squeeze his shoulder lightly. “Really? Because you feel tense.”

Peter swallows so hard you can see his Adam’s apple bob. “I—uh—”

You drag your fingers down his arm slowly. “Maybe you just need someone to help you relax.”

Peter makes a noise that is definitely not human and abruptly stands up so fast his chair nearly topples over. “I-I should really finish this!” he blurts out. “So much work to do! Web-fluid doesn’t improve itself! Haha!”

You blink as he practically throws himself back into his project, acting like you didn’t just borderline seduce him in the middle of the lab.

It’s unbelievable.

How is it possible for someone to be this dense?

You sigh, finally stepping back. “Alright, Parker. Have fun with your webs.”

“Y-you too!” he stammers. Then, realizing that makes no sense, he adds, “I mean—uh—have fun with whatever you’re doing! Yep!”

You walk out, shaking your head.

This is getting ridiculous.

That night, you call for reinforcements.

Sam lounges on your bed, arms crossed behind his head, looking entirely too smug. “So. Parker still being an idiot?”

You flop onto the bed beside him. “He’s impossible.”

Sam chuckles. “Told you.”

“I don’t get it,” you groan. “I’ve been all over him. I’ve flirted, I’ve touched him, I’ve literally told him I think he’s cute, and he still doesn’t get it.”

Sam snorts. “Man, that boy is a lost cause.”

“There has to be a way to make him realize,” you say, frustrated.

Sam hums, thinking. Then he smirks. “Have you tried making him jealous?”

You pause. “Jealous?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “You know. Flirt with someone else. See if that gets his brain to finally start working.”

It’s not a bad idea.

You sit up, considering it. “You think that’ll work?”

“Oh, definitely.” Sam grins. “Peter’s the kind of guy who doesn’t realize what he wants until he thinks he’s about to lose it.”

You tap your fingers against your thigh, mulling it over. It’s risky. But at this point, you’re willing to try anything.

“Alright,” you say. “Let’s do it.”

The plan is simple. The next day, you start subtly flirting with other people. Nothing crazy, just enough to test Peter’s reaction. You laugh a little too hard at Bucky’s jokes, compliment Steve’s biceps during training, even lean in close when talking to Sam just to see if Peter notices.

He does.

And he looks like he’s about to self-destruct.

The first time you flirt with Bucky, Peter nearly drops the coffee he’s holding. The second time you casually touch Steve’s arm, he stares like he’s witnessing a national tragedy. And when you get extra close to Sam at dinner, Peter’s entire body goes rigid like he’s about to short-circuit.

It’s hilarious.

But it’s also not working fast enough.

So, you take it a step further.

That night, when you run into Peter in the hallway, you lean against the wall, looking at him through your lashes. “You okay, Peter? You’ve been acting weird.”

Peter stiffens. “Me? No! I mean—yes! I mean—I’m totally fine! Why do you ask?”

You tilt your head. “I don’t know. You just seem… distracted.”

Peter laughs nervously. “Nope! Totally focused!”

You step closer. “Are you sure?”

Peter swallows. “Y-yeah! Why wouldn’t I be?”

You smile, slow and deliberate. “Well, I’ve just been spending a lot of time with other people lately. Thought maybe that was bothering you.”

Peter’s eyes widen. “Wh—why would that bother me?”

You shrug, trailing a finger along his arm. “I don’t know. Just wondering if maybe you wanted me to spend more time with you instead.”

Peter makes a strangled noise.

Then, just when you think he might finally get it, he blurts out, “I—uh—oh wow, look at the time! I gotta go!”

And then he runs.

Again.

You stand there, stunned, watching as he practically sprints down the hallway like his life depends on it.

You groan, dragging a hand down your face.

Unbelievable.

At this point, you have no idea what else you can do. You’ve flirted, teased, touched, complimented—hell, you’ve practically thrown yourself at him, and he’s still too dense to see it.

Maybe it’s time to just give up.

But then again…

You smirk.

Maybe it’s time to try something even bolder.

This is war.

You have tried everything. Flirting, teasing, touching, straight-up telling Peter you think he’s cute—it’s all been useless. The boy is either the densest human being on the planet, or he truly believes you could never be into him. Either way, you’re at your breaking point.

So, you decide to take Sam’s advice.

You’re going to make Peter jealous.

And not just by flirting with other people. That clearly hasn’t worked. No, you’re going for the nuclear option. If he won’t get a clue after everything you’ve done, then maybe—just maybe—he’ll realize he likes you if he thinks he’s already lost you.

Which is why you’re sitting on Sam’s bed, grinning while he stares at you like you’ve lost your mind.

“You want me to what?”

“Pretend to be my boyfriend,” you say, voice casual.

Sam blinks. “Oh, hell no.”

“Oh, come on,” you groan, nudging him. “It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me. Just a little act to make Peter jealous. You’re the one who suggested it in the first place.”

“I said flirt with other people,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow. “Not start a fake relationship.”

“Please, Sam,” you whine, clasping your hands together. “You’re the only one I trust to do this. And admit it, you think it’ll be hilarious.”

Sam considers this for a moment, then sighs. “Okay, yeah, it will be funny.”

You grin. “So, you’re in?”

He gives you a look. “This is gonna end in disaster, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” you say. “But it’ll be fun.”

Sam groans, rubbing his temples. “Fine. But if this backfires, you owe me big time.”

“Deal.”

And just like that, the plan is in motion.

The next morning, it begins.

You start by holding Sam’s hand at breakfast. It’s subtle, casual, like it’s something you’ve done a thousand times before. Sam plays along perfectly, smirking as he squeezes your hand.

Peter, sitting across the table, nearly chokes on his toast.

“Oh, you okay there, Parker?” Sam asks, smirking.

Peter forces a laugh. “Yeah! Totally fine!”

You smile sweetly. “Good. You looked a little… surprised.”

Peter shakes his head rapidly. “Nope! Not surprised! Just, um—just didn’t know you guys were—uh—” He gestures between you and Sam, clearly struggling to find the right words.

Sam shrugs. “Oh yeah, it’s a new thing. We figured, why not?”

Peter goes rigid. “Oh. Cool. That’s—uh—that’s really cool.”

You squeeze Sam’s hand again, leaning your head against his shoulder for dramatic effect. “Yeah. It is.”

Peter looks like someone just told him Spider-Man isn’t a real superhero.

It’s both hilarious and a little sad.

You expect him to ask questions, to push for details, but instead, he just goes quiet. He finishes his breakfast quickly, mutters some excuse about needing to work on something in the lab, and leaves before you can say another word.

You frown as you watch him go.

“Well,” Sam says, “that was… unexpected.”

You turn to him. “What do you mean?”

Sam gestures toward the door Peter just left through. “I figured he’d get all flustered, maybe try to ‘compete’ for your attention. But he just shut down.”

You chew your lip, suddenly feeling uneasy. “Yeah. That was weird.”

And it only gets weirder.

For the next few days, Peter avoids you. Completely.

He stops sitting next to you at meals. He doesn’t spar with you in training. He doesn’t even make eye contact when you pass him in the hallways. Every time you try to talk to him, he either mumbles some excuse or straight-up disappears.

It’s like he’s a ghost.

And no one—not even Sam—can figure out why.

At first, you think maybe he’s just adjusting. Maybe he’s trying to process his feelings, or maybe he’s sulking. But then you start hearing things.

“He’s been in the lab all day,” Bucky says at dinner one night.

“Yeah, he skipped training again,” Steve adds. “Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” Wanda says, frowning. “He barely talks to anyone anymore.”

You try to play it cool, but inside, you’re panicking.

Because you know exactly why Peter is acting like this.

And suddenly, it’s not funny anymore.

That night, you find yourself standing outside Peter’s room. You hesitate, hand hovering over the door. You don’t know if he’ll even answer, but you have to try.

You knock.

Silence.

You knock again. “Peter? It’s me.”

More silence.

You sigh. “I know you’re in there.”

Still nothing.

You lean against the door, voice softer now. “Peter… can we talk?”

A long pause. Then, finally, a quiet voice from the other side.

“…I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Your heart clenches. “Why not?”

Another pause. Then—so soft you almost don’t hear it—Peter says, “Because I don’t want to make things weird.”

You blink, confused. “Weird? Peter, what are you talking about?”

He sighs. “You and Sam. You guys are happy. And I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna get in the way.”

Your stomach drops.

Oh no.

You screwed up.

You thought Peter would get jealous. You thought he’d realize his feelings and maybe—just maybe—make a move. But instead, he assumed the worst. He thought he lost his chance.

And now he’s shutting himself off because he thinks it’s the right thing to do.

You feel like the worst person in the world.

“Peter,” you say carefully, “you’re not in the way.”

He lets out a bitter laugh. “I dunno. Feels like I am.”

You close your eyes, exhaling slowly. “You’re not.”

Silence.

Then, quietly, Peter says, “Are you happy?”

You open your mouth, then close it.

Because the answer is complicated.

You’re happy when you’re around Peter. You’re happy when he smiles at you, when he laughs, when he rambles about some weird science thing that you barely understand.

You’re happy with him.

Not Sam.

Never Sam.

And you should’ve realized that before pulling this stupid stunt.

You take a deep breath. “Peter… can I come in?”

Another long pause. Then, finally, the door unlocks.

You step inside. Peter is sitting on his bed, looking exhausted. His hair is messier than usual, dark circles under his eyes like he hasn’t been sleeping. It makes your chest ache.

You sit beside him, close but not too close. “I need to tell you something.”

Peter nods, but doesn’t look at you.

You hesitate, then say, “Sam and I aren’t together.”

That gets his attention. His head snaps up, eyes wide. “Wait. What?”

“It was fake,” you admit, voice soft. “I just… I thought maybe if you saw me with someone else, you’d realize…”

You trail off, heart pounding.

Peter stares at you, completely still. “Realize what?”

You swallow. This is it. No more games.

You meet his gaze, voice barely above a whisper.

“That I like you, Peter.”

Peter doesn’t say anything at first. He just stares at you like you’ve grown a second head, eyes wide, lips parted slightly. His whole body has gone still, like he’s afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid to believe what you just said.

You watch the way his brain tries to process it, his thoughts practically running across his face in real-time. His eyebrows furrow like he thinks you might be messing with him, then lift slightly, like maybe—just maybe—he dares to hope you’re telling the truth.

You inhale, steeling yourself. “I like you, Peter. I have for a while.”

He still doesn’t say anything.

Your heart pounds as you force yourself to keep going. “And I know about the gifts. The notes. Everything.”

Peter jerks back like you just electrocuted him. “You—what?”

You exhale, giving him a small smile. “I know it was you. I checked the security footage after the second one.”

Peter makes a strangled sound and immediately buries his face in his hands. “Oh my god.”

You bite back a laugh. “Peter—”

“Oh my god,” he groans again, voice muffled. “This is so embarrassing. You weren’t supposed to know.”

You grin. “Yeah, I figured that out.”

Peter drags his hands down his face, looking like he wants to disappear into the floor. “This is… this is bad.”

You tilt your head. “Why is it bad?”

“Because!” He gestures wildly. “You weren’t supposed to know it was me! I thought I was being sneaky! I had a whole system!”

Your smile softens. “Peter. It was adorable.”

He makes another pained noise, slumping forward, hands in his hair. “This is the worst day of my life.”

You shake your head, fondness swelling in your chest. You reach out, resting a hand on his arm. “Peter.”

He stops rambling immediately, looking up at you with wide eyes.

You squeeze his arm lightly. “I loved the gifts. And the notes. And everything about it. You have no idea how much they meant to me.”

Peter swallows. “Really?”

You nod. “Really. And you wanna know the best part?”

“…What?”

You smile, shifting closer. “I like you too, you idiot.”

Peter’s breath catches.

He looks at you, and for the first time since you walked into his room, there’s something new in his eyes. Something hopeful.

He licks his lips, voice barely above a whisper. “You do?”

Instead of answering, you decide to show him.

You lean in slowly, giving him a chance to pull away. He doesn’t. He just watches you, eyes locked on your lips, chest rising and falling like he can’t believe this is happening.

Then, finally, you close the distance.

The second your lips touch his, Peter freezes. For a split second, he doesn’t move—like his brain short-circuited entirely.

Then, suddenly, he melts.

He kisses you back with so much enthusiasm it nearly knocks you over. His hands fly to your waist, gripping you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go. His lips are soft and warm, moving against yours like he’s trying to make up for all the time you’ve both wasted dancing around this.

It’s messy, desperate, but it’s perfect.

Peter makes a small, needy sound in the back of his throat and pulls you closer, fingers pressing into your sides like he’s making sure you’re real. His heart is racing—you can feel it against your own chest, pounding like it’s trying to break free.

You smile against his lips. “You’re kissing me like a happy puppy.”

Peter pulls back just enough to breathe, his face flushed, eyes dazed. “I am a happy puppy.”

You laugh, cupping his face. “Good.”

Peter blinks at you, then suddenly grins—wide and bright and so full of joy it makes your chest ache. “Wait. I’m kissing you. We’re kissing.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Yeah, genius, we are.”

He looks almost dizzy with excitement. “This is—this is real, right? I’m not dreaming?”

You smirk. “If you were dreaming, would I do this?”

You tug him back in and kiss him again, slow and deep.

Peter practically melts, hands tightening on your waist as he kisses you back like his life depends on it. His lips are warm, a little clumsy but sweet, and the way he holds you—like you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him—makes your stomach flip.

When you finally pull away, Peter is breathless.

“I’m so happy right now,” he says, looking at you like you hung the stars.

You smile, brushing a hand through his messy curls. “Good. Because I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.”

Peter’s face lights up, and before you can say another word, he pulls you back in, kissing you again, and again, and again—like he’s trying to make up for lost time.

And honestly?

You’re more than okay with that.

It’s almost ridiculous how unsurprised everyone is when you and Peter officially become a couple. The second you announce it—or rather, the second Peter stammers through telling everyone while blushing like crazy—the reactions are so underwhelming that Peter nearly short-circuits.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Natasha says dryly, not even looking up from cleaning her knives.

“Finally,” Bucky mutters, shaking his head.

“Wait, you guys weren’t already together?” Clint asks, genuinely confused.

Bruce just gives a small, approving nod. Steve claps Peter on the shoulder like he’s just congratulated him on getting a promotion. Even Thor, who’s barely around, chuckles and calls you both “young warriors of love,” which makes Peter go completely red.

But the best reaction comes from Tony.

Because Tony Stark, billionaire genius, mentor, and serial eye-roller, just grins. Not a smirk, not a sarcastic look, but a real, proud, genuine grin.

“About damn time, kid.”

Peter practically chokes.

Tony pats him on the back, almost knocking the air out of him. “Seriously. I was starting to think you were gonna need some kind of intervention.”

Peter blinks. “You—you knew?”

Tony snorts. “Knew? Parker, you’re about as subtle as a wrecking ball. The only one who didn’t know was you.”

Peter sputters, but you’re just smiling. Tony’s approval means a lot to Peter, and you can tell by the way his eyes light up that hearing Tony say he was rooting for him is the best thing that’s happened to him all day.

But of course, because it’s Peter, he has to ruin his own happiness by still being annoyed at Sam.

Ever since the whole fake-boyfriend prank, Peter hasn’t exactly gotten over it. He knows it was just a joke. He knows you only did it to mess with him. He knows Sam doesn’t actually have feelings for you.

But does that stop him from glaring every time Sam so much as breathes near you? Absolutely not.

And Sam? Oh, Sam knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Hey, lovebirds,” Sam calls out one day, waltzing into the common room where you and Peter are curled up on the couch. He doesn’t even sit down before looking straight at Peter and smirking. “Relax, Spidey, I’m not gonna steal your girl.”

Peter bristles immediately. “I wasn’t—”

Sam laughs, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m just messing with you, kid. Relax.”

Peter does not relax.

And you? You’re getting a little tired of your boyfriend pouting every time Sam so much as looks in your direction.

Which is why, after dinner that night, when Peter is still sulking over Sam calling you “sweetheart” in passing (just to mess with him, of course), you decide to do something about it.

You grab his wrist and pull him toward his room.

Peter stumbles after you, confused. “Uh, Y/N? What’s—”

You push the door open and drag him inside, shutting it behind you. Then, without a word, you shove him onto the bed.

Peter yelps, arms flailing as he lands on his back. “What—?”

You climb onto the bed beside him and immediately wrap yourself around him, curling into his side.

Peter freezes.

You sigh contently, nuzzling into his chest. “There. Now you can stop sulking.”

Peter doesn’t move for a solid five seconds. Then, very slowly, he wraps his arms around you, pulling you closer.

“…I wasn’t sulking,” he mumbles, but it’s half-hearted at best.

You smile against his shirt. “Yes, you were.”

Peter huffs. “Sam’s just—he’s just annoying.”

You tilt your head up to look at him. “You know he’s only doing it because he knows it gets under your skin, right?”

Peter groans, dragging a hand down his face. “I know. But that doesn’t make it less annoying.”

You chuckle, reaching up to brush some of his curls away from his forehead. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

Peter immediately flushes. “I—I’m not jealous.”

You raise an eyebrow.

He sighs. “…Okay, maybe a little.”

You grin and press a kiss to his jaw. “You don’t have to be. You already won, Peter. I’m yours.”

Peter makes a tiny, happy noise in the back of his throat and buries his face in your hair. “Say it again.”

You laugh. “What? That I’m yours?”

He nods, arms tightening around you.

You shift so that you’re straddling him now, hands resting on his chest as you lean down. “I’m yours, Peter Parker.”

Peter looks up at you, eyes wide and filled with so much awe it makes your heart ache. Then, before you can say anything else, he surges up and kisses you, gripping your waist like he never wants to let go.

The kiss is slow, sweet, and full of emotion. When you finally pull away, Peter just sighs happily and flops back onto the bed, keeping you in his arms.

“You’re ridiculous,” you murmur against his chest.

Peter hums, already halfway to falling asleep. “Maybe. But I love you.”

Your heart skips a beat. He’s never said that before.

You lift your head to look at him, but his eyes are already closed, his breathing soft and even. You smile and press a kiss to his cheek.

“I love you too, Peter.”

And as you settle against him, warm and safe in his arms, you know for a fact—jealousy or not, Peter Parker is yours. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

[xylatox]

with wings of wax and thread | hik

Another fic from Cam and a Kai fic no less, this interests me so much, unto the review!!

Before I even start, I've always been obsessed with angel and demon themes and the fact that Kai is mode or less fallen makes me more obsessed.

Feathers, soft and white, twisted in the golden glow from the slow-setting sun. Raining down like a thrown stone, sinking and littering the waiting ground. — god the beginning is so enrapturing.

His mouth had filled with blood, the ichor more sugar than iron, his stomach turning from the flavor, or maybe it was the feeling of falling. Flying had been something like this, the air rippling in his hair, every strand kissed with the soft hands of the north wind, a mother's touch. Flying had felt so close to life that even in falling he understood what it meant to have all your memories rush in front of you one last time. Because falling was like the memory of flying, the echo of it so close it was like a shout right in his ear. — this description is absolutely insane what the fuck.

They had come, found your hiding spot, and planned to finish you off, that laugh was only the start. It had not yet turned cruel as it was that day, the parroting of the group still ingrained right behind your ears, following you around no matter how you tried to shake the thoughts. And now they were coming down like a meteor into the only safe space you had ever known. The entrance was hard to maneuver with wings; it only made sense they would have a rough time with landing except there was a giant splash, the water in the moonpool lapping up, the crashing sound like the waves hitting the rocks only now echoing in the carved out cave. — I love this. I am absolutely geeking out over every word so far. It's all phrased so wonderfully. I'm also super interested in reader, she's so intruding. I also love that contrary to typical demon behavior, reader chooses to save Kai, that further makes her such an interesting character.

When they had ripped your wings off you had nothing left to attach, not that you haven't tried, but alone with no help there was no way to reattach wings with your hands. No way to reach behind yourself except to feel the spots they had once been, the jagged scars still there now, the ghost pain of that day still shooting down your back every time you dreamt of that day. — the fact that reader is on her own, it hurts to even think of what she went through.

You had not grown the horns that most of the demons possessed, you could feel the spot they must have wanted to sprout through if they had been given the chance, the area always colder than the rest of your scalp. It had been one of the things they had picked at when taking their dues. — it's so cool that reader is technically demon by birth(?) but lacks all the physical attributes to deem her one, it's makes her even cooler.

Reader's personality!! I love it, I love that there's already thus barrier between them as a result of it.

They had told him never to bite the hand that fed him but this was a forceful hand coming out to get him, twisting its fingers in his hair and pushing his face in the dirt until it was nothing but a given that he had to eat whatever it was that was handed to him. But he listened, taking in each word and trying to keep them as close as he could get them. — Cam...you have such a way with words.

I love that despite the hesitance from reader when they first interacted, it's really sweet now like —“That would be horrible and if you don't listen to me they will be gone, keep your hand away,” you left no room for argument in your tone and Kai listened. He curled his hand into a fist and sat it in his lap. “Today we will let the area breathe and while I’m out we can get whatever we need to make a salve to help the healing process,” Kai nodded knowing that you were right. He didn't even have the first thought of where to start to find out how to help himself. — her caring is super cute.

Also I just wanna say, candle wax is an interesting method to stick the feathers back??? like I wouldn't have thought about it.

He pictured you over and over again in his head. Imagined you with your wings of night in the air next to him, that laugh you had turned his way unlike the one he heard but one he wished you would give him so that he would know something in his dream would be real. This laugh was somewhere caught between a giggle and a sprinkle of light from his fingertips. He locked in on thinking of the laugh over the feeling of flying because it was impossible to not hurt when thinking of the air. But you, thinking of you, felt safe even if it was some kind of hope caught in a dream.  — im going to sob, how could something be so sweet yet so sad.

Kai could not feel the process, not when he was lost in his thoughts. He tried to separate the knowledge of you being a demon away from the proof he had of you being nothing more than someone who was lost. The two could be synonymous is what he reminds himself over again. — :((((

Also the way reader fights over her natural feelings as a demon?? my heart breaks. —But waking up to know he had been here the whole time, knowing that if he had been there he would have helped just the same, settled something inside you that had been overrun with worry. You unfurled your arms from around yourself, throwing them around Kai’s neck and pulling him into a hug. — poor baby.

You whimpered when he brushed over the scars on your back but did not pull away, letting him have a part of you that you would never give to anyone else because he knew what it was like, he knew what it meant, this level of trust rushing into you almost as fast as your coming orgasm. —HELLLLLLIIIIIOOOO??? This was actually so attractive good bye, like the trust, the intimacy behind this???

And then the feathers started to rain. A few white tumbled down along with you as you looked up at him, wax melting from being so close to the sun for only a short time. The edge of his right wing was still tipped in black as if your feathers had infected his mind and thoughts as if they had been the cause of the drop and not the sickening worry he had of losing everything that had just been returned to him. But you could not stop yourself from thinking again of the story you had been told as a child. That demons had been the same as angels, cast out for the bitterness lingering in their near-empty hearts. You two were the same, cast out, and only now did he truly see it. — oh my god. From Kai letting her go to this...it's insane. It reminds me of Icarus :(

If falling felt like flying you would welcome the feeling because anything was better than nothing at all. — oh my god.

I'm so glad I finally got to take my time and read this.

Cam, your writing is beautiful, the way you've described things has left me beyond words. I absolutely love the end where they were both able to relive falling but their emotions were so different at the time. I just love that they're the same ah, this was so amazing♡

with wings of wax and thread

angel!huening kai x demon!fem!reader

‧₊˚ ⋅ synopsis: In the kingdom of Aethera, an angel is pushed from the heavens. Wings torn and feathers spilling, he finds himself in the den of a demon who wishes to have never been found. Long having lived with your own fall from grace, wingless and bloody just as he is now, you help stitch back up what once was. Can nurtured understanding be crueler than nature? ⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝ warnings: 🔞!!!demon fem!reader, angel!huening kai, angst, blood, depression, mentions of death and gore, reader talks about being violently attacked, cpr performed, slight open ending that could lead to mc/member death if interpreted that way, unprotected sex, no pull out mention, prob forgot some sorry

⊹₊ ݁ . wc: 19.6k . ݁₊ ⊹

𓅪 ⸝⸝⸝ now playing: I, carrion (icarian) - hozier an: im so in love with this event, the work that all these amzing writers put into this is so astonishing- it’s so wild to participate in something like this when I still feel like a baby writer with so much to learn but thats always the fun bit I guess lol im so happy we could all stretch our creative abilities to come together and make this work <333 thank you for reading!!

[m.list] [aethera!event m.list]

ONCE UPON A TIME… In a land far far away, where the treetops touched the soft clouds of the sky, and the water sparkled under the glowing sun. Where mountains rose high and in which long, deep caves ran. Where the sea met shore in a collision of tall waves. Where the undead walked among the living. Where the winged flew above the finned. In a land where things beyond any reason and rhyme existed. And amongst those very beings, within the veils of Aethera, there was… 

Feathers, soft and white, twisted in the golden glow from the slow-setting sun. Raining down like a thrown stone, sinking and littering the waiting ground. 

The fall from grace had been sickly sweet. The shock of that first second of flightlessness was frightening enough to cause Kai to sink his teeth into his tongue. Holding back the staggered scream he wanted to let out, still protecting the ones who wronged him. Who had sent a blistering pain down his back, the cracking of cartilage ringing in his ears as he screwed his mouth shut, pleading with glistening eyes, forgiving them the second that his foot had met nothing but air. 

His mouth had filled with blood, the ichor more sugar than iron, his stomach turning from the flavor, or maybe it was the feeling of falling. Flying had been something like this, the air rippling in his hair, every strand kissed with the soft hands of the north wind, a mother's touch. Flying had felt so close to life that even in falling he understood what it meant to have all your memories rush in front of you one last time. Because falling was like the memory of flying, the echo of it so close it was like a shout right in his ear. 

And he laughed, the sound a strangled choke, fighting its way out from between his lips, teeth stained and heart sinking. He had never felt heavy, not when lifting off the ground was second nature. Kai had imagined his bones had been hollow like a bird's, but plummeting only showed him how led he was lined. Heavy, too much for even the mother's air to carry him, slipping through fingers, through feathers. 

He didn't think that having a wing ripped right from his back would have made so many of his feathers come free, whirling around him, in a thick plume. Maybe it was his wing's way of bleeding. He had witnessed the damaged appendages before on others and they never bled, not unless wounded at the base, right at the shoulder blade. But even his feathers now were dotted with thick spots of blood, the droplets rising instead of falling with him, lighter than his lead bones. He reached out, trying to catch any feathers he could, trying to grasp them as if they would be the edge of a cliff he could pull himself back up from. But he came away with nothing but understanding. 

This was a brutal way to make a grave but it was the hand he had been dealt, the cards pushed into his waiting palms without question. He only hoped the ground wouldn’t damage his wings worse than they already were. Half hanging on by tender threads of pink life, he hoped to tuck whatever was left around him like he had when he was a child, creating a small cave for him and him alone. 

Kai was thinking in full circle thoughts, that crippling adult understanding washing away to childlike hope as he counted the seconds down to when someone would realize he wasn’t catching air, their rush to reach him deterred by the weight of him hurtling towards the waiting dirt. If his bones were not lead-lined they had been made of magnets, his ruined wings having kept him from the realization sooner; the grave always called the body. 

The carrion had made the decent look appealing. Kai had grown up seeing the demons sore up only to tuck their tar-colored wings close to their bodies, looking freer than when Kai stretched his out, the span of his shadow over the sea. If they could feel the thrill of descent he could find it in him to enjoy the last of his sorry life. 

The wind picked up, spinning him, round and round, dizzying and giggling. It was his twinkling laugh that made you look up. The jagged rocks circling his falling form, the ceiling of your cave the perfect opening for him to find himself invading. The sun was setting just enough so that the shadow of him cut deep into you, palms slick as you pushed up from where you sat at the edge of the moon pool, sand coating your fingers as you pressed a hand to your racing heart. Blood rushing in your ears, serpentine fear wrapping around your limbs running a chill down your spine. 

They had come, found your hiding spot, and planned to finish you off, that laugh was only the start. It had not yet turned cruel as it was that day, the parroting of the group still ingrained right behind your ears, following you around no matter how you tried to shake the thoughts. And now they were coming down like a meteor into the only safe space you had ever known. The entrance was hard to maneuver with wings; it only made sense they would have a rough time with landing except there was a giant splash, the water in the moonpool lapping up, the crashing sound like the waves hitting the rocks only now echoing in the carved out cave. 

Everything was getting wet, the water cold to your skin as it dotted your legs, feeling like a burn when you were so shocked. Because as the water settled, the churning sound still worked its way through your skull and it began to rain. The soft white feathers swung down billowing side to side, drifting as if they were a newborn butterfly, always knowing flying was in their bones but never knowing they could do it alone. Drifting to a final stop on water starting to calm. And there sinking to the bottom, face up and eyes closed, was an angel. 

His white wings torn and weighed him down lower and lower to the sandy floor of the pool, the plume of derby shadowing him as he hit the bottom. Hands out on either side of him like someone welcoming in the sun after a long winter, the look you saw before a much needed embrace, not as if you had ever seen it before. 

Stepping to the edge where sand turned to rock you looked back up at the sky, the fading light of the day slipping into hazy darkness, the blue hour working its way over the land before the moon fully made its appearance. But you could only see the slow falling feathers, catching wind and making way in other directions far from where you stood now. If he had been pushed by a demon they would have been on their kill without a second thought, they tracked them without mercy, like the hunters who aimed to play with their food instead of showing it the grace of kindness. If they had hit to watch him run they would have chased until it was over not let him sink in this water so far from home. They would have wanted the angels to see what they had done to such a pretty face. 

Because he was pretty, even in dying. The last bubbling breaths fluttered to the surface until they broke through the tension. You trembled, cold all over from the moment's rush of fear that was still coursing through you, hands clenching and unclenching as you thought over what to do with him. In the water he could rot without much worry to you, the fish would pick him over but it wasn't as if you got many swimming around anymore. The sea folk had warned of swimming too close to your pool, for the first couple months of you finding shelter in the hollow cave, the fish had been your only source of sustenance. But the sea folk kept to their own, even the lowest of the food chain, warning them about you had been easy enough. So his body would rise unless his wings found themselves lodged under a rock. 

You were ready to turn, find company in him even if he was at the bottom of the water until a single lone feather caught your attention. Eyes tracing the swaying descent like a cat following the trail of a mouse. Bleached white like a bone, pearlescent once it landed on the now still water, cupped like a curved leaf or petal. And there, dotted like a heart, was a single spot of blood. You could remember the way your own feathers looked, black enough for the blood to seep in and disappear like it had never existed. 

It had felt like drowning the day you found yourself here. Falling from where they had dropped you had hurt, the salt water burning your open wounds like a quick scratch from a cat. Your mouth full of the ocean, choking and suffocating you as you claw for anything to grasp. They had left you, the rain of black feathers not unlike this angel's white ones now. Only you had been still fighting, ripping at the hold that death had on you because in death you would have to go back to some kind of hell and you wouldn't be able to survive an eternity with your worst moments, not when at that peak they felt that excruciating. 

The angel now had given up, his twitching hand slowing to a stop. If the day you had found yourself drowning in this very pool had been your worst you would not let the same death kill someone else when you knew that it had been survivable. You would not take the name of your brethren as a brand but only the burden as it was, this action a shoulder shake to lessen its hold. So you dove in. 

You had reached the bottom before, the sandy ground only six feet deep, a proper grave for when your arrow rang true on the rare fish that came in. They sank from how heavy the weight of their death hit them. But they had never been truly heavy and you still felt weak in comparison to the other demons you should have taken after. It wasn't until you reached him that you realized you would have to touch him to take him to the surface. 

Your hands slid around his wrist, trying to lift him just enough to get your arms under his. Legs kicked behind you as you struggled to keep yourself in the right position, lungs constricting. He was lighter than you imagined and it was mostly because of the water's help, but his wings, broken, bent, and barely hanging on, weighed him down, hanging behind him like a sheet torn to bits. 

Kicking and kicking you went, feet pushing against the rocky walls lined with coral, sharp enough to cut into your feet. Blood was darkening the small space, his and yours, mixing as you went. The need to breathe begged at your aching lungs, throat tight with the need. He was so limp, no help as you finally broke the surface, gasping air by the mouthful as you reached an arm out for the edge. 

It hasn't crossed your mind how you would pull him out only that it was better to have his head above the water than below it. But you tried, not caring if he got scratched up as you pushed him needing to get him halfway out of the water so he was easier to pull out. Your grunts turned into near cries, he was heavier and heavier the more you pushed him out of the water, sopping body, wings, and clothes adding on to the bricks piled up you felt you were pushing out. When he was halfway up when your arms weak, you pulled yourself out of the water. No time to take a breather as you wrapped both your hands around his wrists. You groaned, putting all your weight back, tugging and tugging until he was just feet resting in the bloody water. 

Your arms are trembling, half limp only held up with the adrenaline crossing through you from the fear that was still making its way through your veins. Pushing him onto his back his partially open mouth looked as if he had already gone and died, effort wasted if you gave up now. You had never been taught the art of saving anyone but you knew what you would want if someone had been kind enough to lift a hand to help you. Fingers locked together you press on his chest, shoulders burning with the effort. Dripping water fell from your chin as you went, the droplets sliding down his cheeks like tears as you cursed. “Don't,” it was all you could make out from your clenched teeth, a demand that he not die right here, right now. Sand digging into your legs, grains between each feather pressed under him, turning them golden as the fading light hit in just right. 

You pressed so hard you felt your arms out snap, elbows locked, chest heaving in the way you wanted him to and then he coughed. The strangled choke like a morning bell, that slim chance of promise of another day. His body jerked to life, shocked like lightning he bolted, turning to the side and vomiting a mess of sea. Your nose scrunching as you sat back,  joints electrified and shot, you fell back into the sand, watching the high mouth of the cave as you listened to him continue his fit. 

In the time you had spent in the Moolpools cave it was easy to only make small movements, you hardly went out unless you were truly hungry enough to risk it. This had been the most motion you had done in a long time, and now you knew exactly why it was easy for them to target you. You felt weak, you were weak, this was only proof enough. But you had saved him, if even for a second, and they would have thought you weak for that too. 

You could hear their laughs right behind your ears. You had not been facing the sky then, but you had hoped, their hands forcing your face into the dirt. Childish demon cruelty taken a step too far even in the eyes of the elders. It had taken you a long time to catch your breath then, your lungs never obeying you but it's another reason why they had believed you dead, the sudden stillness that had taken over your body as the pain made its way through you. You wondered if your angel felt that way now. Only you had been kind enough to let him see the sky before he slipped into unconsciousness. 

Because he had, as you regained your strength to look at him, eyes closed, breathing rapid and uneven. You had given him a chance and now you didn't know what to do with him. His wings were bent and broken. Hardly any feathers clinging to the frail bones they had been attached to. It would be hell to fix them, pain unimaginable to bind and snap them back into place, stitch them together, and pray for some way to make them better again. You stood over him, the white shirt that had once been billowing in the wind was now transparent and clinging to his skin, the thread strong and fine. 

When they had ripped your wings off you had nothing left to attach, not that you haven't tried, but alone with no help there was no way to reattach wings with your hands. No way to reach behind yourself except to feel the spots they had once been, the jagged scars still there now, the ghost pain of that day still shooting down your back every time you dreamt of that day. And on the worst days, you could imagine them still behind you, heavy and protective, enough to curl yourself into your personal space, alone in the dark velvet home you had been born with already built in. Wishing they were back was worse than knowing the pain of them being taken away. And even as a demon, you would not be so cruel as your brethren had been to leave you without so much as the one thing that should never be taken from a person, angel or not. 

You still had your embroidery kit, the soft bag had been tied to your finger the day they had ruined you. The thread was dark, dyed to match the rocky mountains you had been sewing into the fabric. You wonder if they had burned your work after you were gone. All the hard hours doing the thing that you had hoped would get you by in the underworld. People loved to be flashy, spend on extravagant things, and there had been nothing more extravagant than the garments you had embroidered. 

Tucked in the bottom of the small pouch was a thin sharp pair of scissors, the handle shaped like a bird, wings laid back with its beak glossed in gold. They had been a gift when you started to learn, your needles next to them clicking around, silver and all different sizes. Everything was so small, your only weapon that day as if it would hurt them. They Had been useless but they would be put to work now. He would need to be wiped of the sand before you went in and started to clean the wounds enough to see where you would have to help sew him back together. 

You had collected a fair amount of things having lived in the cave for so long, your stash that was similar to a magpies, pretty but never something you used. Sometimes you would find things and keep them just because you might want them because it was better having something over nothing. The crate of glass bottles filled with alcohol is one of those things. It had washed up on the beach after a ship had hit the rocks, too close during a storm to leave anyone alive in the mess. You had picked over the wreckage just as the carrion you were nicknamed after. Someone would have wanted it and so you had taken it just because of that fact, if the gold meant nothing to you but everything to another you would have it, as was your nature. Now you could use it, uncork the bottle, and pour it over his back if you could get him to roll over again. 

Kai did not see you move to the dark corner where your stash was hidden when he blinked himself awake. In his confusion his lungs still felt full, his throat constricting as if he was waking in the water and not beside it, choking because his mind was trying to catch up to his reality. He hurt all over, his chest and stomach scratched and burning, heavy with an ache of bruised ribs. His back was on fire, screaming at him, begging him to scratch and rip at the pain. It made him whimper, the only sound that could come out from his raw throat. 

He could not think past anything but the look of the sky above him and not behind him as he fell. And when you showed yourself, a bottle of clear liquor in one hand and a small pouch in the other, he believed you to be a human stumbling upon him on a lone beach. He had not seen many humans, accustomed to staying up in the heavens with his brethren. And how could he have known what you really were when you were wingless? You had not grown the horns that most of the demons possessed, you could feel the spot they must have wanted to sprout through if they had been given the chance, the area always colder than the rest of your scalp. It had been one of the things they had picked at when taking their dues. 

To them, you had been no demon without the markers they had been so used to seeing, your wings the only thing tying you down to their depths. Even your power had been faint, strong enough to only wave a candle's flame to life, no roaring forest fires and destruction.  To Kai, in that moment you were nothing more than a girl who looked like the saving grace he had been begging so fiercely for when falling. 

For an angel, his dark eyes cut through you like knives. You had not been looked at so intensely since the attack, people who caught a glance had known to keep going and turn away. This gaze was a line of glimmering hope that he had thrown around your shoulders tightening until it was nothing but a collar of expectations tugging you forward. You had been taught to crush looks that felt suffocating, praise broken bonds, and burnt bridges before ever letting someone take you for a helping hand and honest heart. “Do not look at me like I'm something to be thankful for,” 

It was not the first thing that he had expected you to say to him. Not when he was so close to thinking you to be some sort of angel like him without the matching wings. Your voice cut through him, sharp and demanding, nearly as painful as it had been to wake up like this. Everything was falling apart; his body, his grip, which he had believed to be tight, around his good faith in people. But you had pulled him out of the water and maybe he had come to expect too much from people. A package deal that had been wrapped up in the warped expectations of the angels. Not that most of them followed the rules, but it was better to hide behind the guise of kindness than the truth of wrongdoing and instinctual indifference. 

The fallen angel only blinked back at your words instead of taking them in, eyes softening at the realization that it had been you alone to pull him out, your chin still dripping with the saltwater that stung the open wounds on his back. He could not do anything but look at you thankfully because it was the only thing he could focus on feeling without turning back into a pit of despair that had let him give up the second he had hit the water. Thinking even about that second of thought that would have led to forever was nothing but crushing rocks landing on his back heavier than the wings still trying to hang on by nothing but thin ribbons of flesh. 

And in truth what the look did was make you nervous. Like some lone schoolgirl who couldn't be under the pressure of her class watching a presentation. It frustrated you to no end, twisting a bloody knuckled hand around your insides and tugging them down to your knees. He was in no way able to make a move to hurt you that you wouldn't see coming first. You knew the small cave better than anyone alive and he was weak, his hands opening and closing limply like the steady wings of a butterfly resting. And all his feeble voice could muster up in response was, “Thank you,” 

The words strung together felt like thrown stones hitting you one after the other. You had been kicked out of your home and told you were no more demon than the humans roaming the castles pretending to play ruler and kingdom. To be told thank you for saving anyone, or even more specifically an angel’s, life was the final nail in your coffin. Every last thing they had said to you as they ripped your wings from your shoulders buried deep enough to burn, those two words sprouting from the grave to show the fruits of your tormentor's labor. The final stamp to seal the truth of your wrongfulness. 

It would have been easier to kill him then, easier than having to hold him down as you tried to help him, and easier than pulling him up from the depths of the moon pool. But they had been right to call you a sympathizer, right in calling you weak because looking at him needing you it was impossible to turn him away. “I'm going to hurt you,” it was a warning bell, the echo of your voice mimicking the sound of some faint prophetic truth. It was not your intention to cause pain on him but the only way that you could help him. It was easier to confess to that than to say you would try and fix him. 

But Kai did not listen, he did not care if you hurt him so long as it made his mind stop working over his last thoughts. The blinking of tears the second he had been pushed had made him feel little again, a child wondering why bad things happened at all. Why would someone push him, why would someone rip his wings until they were nothing but dead weight trying and failing to hold on to their last breath, drowning him, pulling him under into nothing but darkness? He had been wronged more than he thought would ever happen to him and if those who claimed to be honest, kind people,were the ones who hurt him, what was there to believe when those claiming to hurt him had done nothing but pull him free from death? It was a mess of contradictions and his gut was not helping him pick sides. He was a mix of emotions that felt hollow like a long dead tree waiting for a victim to fall into and perish just the same. Being hurt meant nothing to a newly found desolate creature, betrayed, and seeking grace. 

And so he would let you hurt him because he had nothing to lose, no more to give but turn over and let you try whatever it was that you had planned to help fix him. It was like a mutual understanding had fallen over the two of you like a blanket. He saw the bottle in your hand and knew, watched your fingers as they pulled out the needle, watched the way the metal turned red and you started to heat it enough to sterilize it. It was then that he knew what you were. 

It did not make him cringe, not when he knew that to have a demon at his back was akin to death incarnate welcoming themselves to twist a knife right into his spine. He knew that there were hardly enough people on this island who would have helped him enough to the point that they wouldn’t have gotten ill at the sight of his blood. Demons had steady hands; they did not tremble and they did not cower away from gore. To have been stumbled upon by a demon as generous as you were was a blessing he could not fight back against. 

So he let you turn him over, your warm hands working to take off his shirt, cutting it away until it was nothing but scraps, his face pressed into the sand, the grains catching in his lashes. You were gentle with him, laying out his wings that had lost most of their feelings, numb all the way up until they hit the spots right where they were supposed to be connected. It was the only place he could feel the pain anymore, his lungs and throat secondary to the pain he was feeling right there at the root of him. If everyone else had worn their hearts on their sleeves angels had found a way to wear their hearts on their back, their life source, and now it was screaming at him. 

You picked over the scraps of his shirt, peeling away the thread in long stands, looping the thread around your fingers, and making a small ball for you to pull from as you worked. He kept his eyes closed, lashes laying so peacefully across his cheeks as if he was dreaming in the moonlight and not waiting for you to put him back together. There was no going back the second you started, not unless you picked him apart again just to see the way he looked again while hurt. The thought made you feel a bit sick. The intrusion of it is either your mind trying to work around the situation or your faint demon instinct kicking in, playing with the idea until you fall into the trap of it. 

But it was still enticing even if it was sickening. You were so alone and bored, with nothing to do and no one to see. You had been hurt and had not yet found the outlet for that pain even years later, this was the perfect opportunity and yet you could not bring yourself to do anything but cringe the second you straddled his back. Holding him down with the weight of you as you poured the liquor over his wounds and watched him writhe from the pain. There was little enjoyment to find here. 

Kai tried to keep his mouth shut nearly as tight as his eyes but the second the first wave of the anesthetic washed over him he could not help himself from screaming. It echoed around the cave, loud enough to find itself spilling from the cave's top entrance. If anyone had been walking around they would have run, believing some wolf had gotten too far from the woods and taken a victim. You did not try to shush him, just placed your warm palm in the center of his back and pushed him back down, trying to keep him still even if it was an impossible task at that point. 

Then the first stitch came. It was easier to hold back, easier to try and focus on anything else but the blinding pain he was feeling, it was something other than the emptiness settling over him. He could not think of anything good coming from this, could not see himself going home again, to see his friends, the ones who had pushed him, his mother, his sisters. There was nothing but shame and treachery. They would have welcomed him back even wingless but there was no way for him to ever feel at home again, not when he knew what it was like to be nothing but air and death. 

He did not care if he did not move from that spot, the sand the only thing grounding him as he sunk his fingers in curling them until he could feel nothing but his mind trying to work and count every grain he could imagine on his skin. It was nothing but a tactic to let the pain wash away for even a second. He didn't even realize he was crying until the wetness was making more sand stick to his cheek. The soft rumbling of his whimpers mixed in with the faint groans he would release after a particularly tender part of the stitching. 

“You are very lucky to have me, when they took my wings I had nothing to do but bury the one they had left hanging. I don't know what it had looked like but I do know that it felt like this,” you were muttering, talking to yourself and letting the words come out without a filter just as you did when he hadn't been here. “I would have wanted even the one to be stitched back but I remember the pain and I'm-” The word sorry was not one that came from you often or at all, there was little you could do but say it now but still your throat caught. “I would not wish it on anyone,” 

Your fingers worked fluently, picking up the memory of the old stitches you had perfected long ago in a life you did not care to remember. This was nothing but an old way of passing time that you had practiced over and over again. You had never stitched up flesh and blood but it was no different now than it had been then. In a way, it was a comfort you should not have found in the task but it was impossible not to. 

“I do not know how well this will work but I will try,” his wings, covered in sparse feathers, twitched every once in a while as you carefully threaded your needles, tightening the stitches and watching the way the wings came back to life like a marionette doll pulled at its strings. It was hope and nothing more. 

Kai couldn't grit out any more words, the sound of your voice washing over him like a balm but nothing more. He wanted to hate you but knew it was necessary to feel this way when it came to pain. They had told him never to bite the hand that fed him but this was a forceful hand coming out to get him, twisting its fingers in his hair and pushing his face in the dirt until it was nothing but a given that he had to eat whatever it was that was handed to him. But he listened, taking in each word and trying to keep them as close as he could get them. 

Tried to imagine you with dark wings at your back. The silky feathers always shined so nicely in comparison to his white ones. His wings had looked plush and downy, nothing like the oily temptation of the demons. But he could not get the image around his head, could not see what it looked like any more than what it would look like to go home again. It was with you in his mind that he passed out, eyes closing until there was nothing but peaceful darkness where he had no reason to think of hurtful homecomings and angels dressed as death. 

You noticed almost as soon as he fell into the pain. Body going slack underneath you, all of his muscles loosening before he was nothing but twitching nerve ends from each insertion of the needle. It was not delightful work but clean and concise, the expert precision of a fiber works artist long since skilled in their field. Every so often your fingers struggled to keep hold of the slipping needle, the tips of each digit dipped in crimson as you went on with your task. And even as he lay there you went on with your muttering. “We will have to look for more feathers, only a few fell in here, I still have a couple but I don't know how well you will feel looking spotted like a pigeon,” 

For a long time, you had been sick at the sight of the clutch of feathers that you had kept from your wings long gone. It had been nothing but pain to see them, the sight cutting into you like a knife just sharpened on a whetstone. You had wanted to bury them right along with the wing you had put to rest, ripped the rest of the way from your back from your own hands, and yet you couldn't part with them just as you couldn't let go of the needles from your past life. 

Helping him right now, pinching skin to pierce through and thread, felt like it was somehow stitching up a bit of yourself. You acted fast almost as soon as he was out of the water because it was the way you would have wanted someone to help you. Without discrimination, just understanding. They had given you no chance and if you could not give it to yourself you would give it to someone not far off from you. Because you knew what it was like to live here stuck wingless with nothing to do but try not to rot like some discarded apple. It had taken everything in you to help yourself once you had let go of your past life. The feeling was nothing like you had ever felt before. 

It was emptiness, no more and no less, just an expanse of nothingness that unraveled the farther and farther you went into the recesses of your mind. To pull yourself from that pit and find some kind of routine was nothing short of a miracle. But if someone had been waiting here, even if they didn't pull you out of the water but took the wing you had and gave you the hope to live with that once comfort would have been better than nothing. Even if he didn't have full control over his wings like before he would still have his childhood home still there right at his back protecting him when no one else had. If you could give him that it was enough. 

But then when the sewing was done there was nothing to do but let him rest. The work you had done was as neat as it could be, the prickling skin around the base of each wing would hold steady and let the skin heal. You stood looking over him, sleeping with his soft cheek on the sand, his hair once wet now dry and resting against his sleeping brow. Angelic was the only word that would surface and it felt silly to attach something so obvious to him. He was nothing but angelic down to the bone; to his blood. But even still freckled in dried blood and his half-feathered wings you could tell it was written all over him fallen or not. 

You had seen little of the angels when growing up but occasionally they made a pass over the moonpool's mouth. Their bell-like laughter twinkled like the stars in the night that they flew with. They had seemed so far off and distant. But what you had been told about them was that they were nothing but selfish and self-righteous. Underneath the beauty was callous arrogance, they helped others but only if they had already achieved more and found that they could take the last step without them. Take help but never give credit unless it is beneficial to them to say, drop everything to look good, or fend for themselves. 

They had said all demons had shared blood with the angels, until one was banished, the bitterness infecting their souls until their wings turned ebony with rage and the promise of revenge. The story had been on your mind the second they had picked on you for being weak, wondering if somehow your blood had run thin and showed assets of your long since dead ancestors who had seen the heavens and walked with wings of ivory at their backs. Because although you found yourself thinking cruel things you did not dream to be a cruel person. 

So you cleaned him up as best you could, cleaning the blood from your hands and his back, taking the time to take your wet cloth over his feathers to try and clean them as best as you could. You watched his wings twitch in response every so often but he did not stir, there was little you could do in terms of his pain, little more you could do if he found himself with an infection. You could hardly keep yourself alive in the space, you don't get many fish unless you make it out to the beach at night, or find a rabbit in the woods easy enough to catch with a trap. Two mouths to feed was a limit you would have to push yourself to reach. 

But it was something you would think about in the morning, not when the sun was gone and the cave was dark enough that the only thing you could see was the faint glow of the moonpool. The water reflected onto the walls of the cave, washing everything in an eerie blue hue that minced what it would have looked like if you plunged in and swam with the sea folk. It was one of the few beautiful things you could indulge in and yet now you could add to the list because you had him to look at. 

Without turning your back to him you found your usual spot against the wall, the perfect place so that it was just hidden in the dark with the view to see the ceiling's entrance. There was nowhere else to look with him blocking the water as you lay down, back pressed up against the smooth stone wall, washing your heated skin with the faint coolness it had been seeking. You traced the lines of his sleeping face, scared to fall asleep with him so close. Wishing that in that moment you had your own wings to wrap you up, block you from the fear of waking up with him so near with nothing but questions and demands. 

You curled up with your small blanket, tucking it under your chin keeping the angel in sight. It was only when your lashes were fluttering closed that you noticed his eyes start to peek open. He only blinked faintly, a tremble starting in his arms but he was unable to move them. Kai felt weak, drained of everything, vision blurry with the sight of you lying down in the blue darkness. 

Whatever fear you had before was slowly washing away with the look of pain written all over him. He had no way of hurting you when he could hardly breathe properly from the pain. “What is your name?” you could not keep calling him the angel in your head or out loud. 

Your whisper carried in the room and he closed his eyes at the sound, it had been what he had heard before he passed out and it only made his mind feel at ease, something to grab onto in the pain. “Huening kai,” it was low and the only thing in the whole room besides the two of you. 

“You need to rest Kai, tomorrow we have to look for any feathers that may have dropped around the beach or the woods,” but Kai didn't care about that, not when he was still trying to find more of you to hold onto. 

“What’s-” he couldn't think of the rest of the sentence, not until it was tumbling into him like the rocks off the side of a cliff. He wanted to know your name and hold onto it so he could attach it to the thoughts and memories he was building of you in his head. “What's your name?” He was looking through his lashes only able to keep his eyes open the smallest bit because even that had felt like it took too much energy, the small twitches of his fingers taking most of the rest of his will. 

For a second you could not remember what you had been called before you were just you, because in here, alone, no one asked and no one cared. But it came back to you like the moon had come back each night, there was no forgetting it even if it sounded foreign on your tongue after so many years. Saying it, Kai could hear how unsure you felt until you repeated it again for him. 

So that's how he said it in his head, the slight second between the two the repentance following the state of his mind, that question lingering at the last syllable, and the sigh of content following the tail end when he said it again. So he let it go over and over in his head, counted the letters like sheep jumping over him, letting the thought of you lull him back to sleep instead of the pain. And you followed right after him, sleeping fitfully because every time you heard a small hitch in his breathing you had to make sure he was still alive. Make sure that your effort has not gone to waste. 

And he did live through the night and with your aid you helped him sit up in the morning. Watching him ball his fist and rub at his cheek to rid it of the sand that had built up. He looked like a cherub fallen to the stone and looking up in the foreground of the painting waiting for someone to notice his absence. Because all he could think about was if anyone missed him, if they knew what had happened to him and how he had been pushed instead of just caught in some wind he could not find control in as if he was little and learning to use his wing again. They must have said something, maybe they had blamed a demon for what had happened. 

But now with your eyes on him, watching him as you made to clean his back again, checking if in the night there was no more redness or sign of illness, he could not think to see a demon the same again. Here you were being a complete contradiction to everything he had ever been told in his life. Demons were nothing but troublemakers who thought nothing about others. They kept to themselves and made fun by bringing people down. There was no room for him to think about how good a demon could be to anyone let alone an angel like him. 

Sitting up, letting your warm hands look over his back, he wanted to lean into the touch, let you care for him until he could find a way to fly right out of here. There was no way that he could repay you for something like this, nothing for him to do but sit in the silence you had built around you. But he wanted to break it, crack against the hold that the stillness had over him, and scream at the top of his lungs and curse the heavens even if he had forgiven them for so much already. 

He did not know if he deserved what had happened to him but he understood that it had happened and there was nothing for him to do but take it. Cursing and screaming would do nothing but make him bitter and bitterness took too much from the soul, it drained people and he needed all the energy he could get. “Thank you,” it was again the only thing that he could think to say. 

“I told you it would hurt,” because every brush of your fingers to check your work was making him suck in the air between his clenched teeth, the sound fast and snakelike. 

“Would there have been another way to do it without pain?” it was nothing but a question to poke fun. Kai wanted to lighten the mood but it did not help the situation. 

“Do you think my kind would have taken it if so?” you didn't care to look at his blinking reaction, because as much as he knew you were his only option he still held some kind of grudge against demons. It was written all over his face and you didn't even have to see it to know. It shut kai up in a slip second of shame for thinking the instant no. 

“You're helping me nonetheless,” his hand reached across his body to press at his shoulder, delicate fingers so close to the torn flesh. 

You waved his hand away, “don't touch it, the worst thing would be an infection,” 

“The worst thing would be to lose them all together,” he did not say it to be mean or pick at you, he was not like your kind in that way where they know the thing that would tear you down and pick that option every time. No, he was just stating his truth and he was not lying. Infection could be helped but losing them would be closer to death. It was nothing but words but it made your back burn. 

You had heard of ghost limbs, the feeling of a hand still being there after it had been cut clean off. People believed they could scratch the limb if they thought hard enough to get rid of the feeling. You didn't know how real the feeling would be until you were there with your wing buried in the woods, the other long lost and tossed in a fire if you knew how any of them would have cleaned up the mess they made. If anything was to tear into you it was that first night where everything ached. Your back where the scabs started to turn to scars began to itch and the feeling traveled down to where there was nothingness but the hope of where your wings would resprout if that was ever an option. You wanted to wrap them around you and wished if you felt the ghost of anything it would be the home they had helped you feel but all you had felt was pain. A pain you could not help because there was nothing to do but let it work its way through your system. The pain was not an itch; not so easily taken care of. 

“That would be horrible and if you don't listen to me they will be gone, keep your hand away,” you left no room for argument in your tone and Kai listened. He curled his hand into a fist and sat it in his lap. “Today we will let the area breathe and while I’m out we can get whatever we need to make a salve to help the healing process,” Kai nodded knowing that you were right. He didn't even have the first thought of where to start to find out how to help himself. 

“Can you try and pull your wing in,” you didn't want to push him so early but you needed to know if it was worth the trip to even go out and look for feathers if he could not use them. 

For Kai, it felt like an impossible question to answer. He felt distant from his heart back, like he was cut in half but then he felt your fingertips, the feeling of them dragging along the edge of his wings, tracing the span of them and following the curve. “Can you feel that?” This was easier because it was the only thing he could focus on. The heat of you was constant, radiating from your body onto his like a blanket he wished he could pull in closer. 

“Yes,” it was shallow as he followed the feeling in his mind. He had never been sensitive to touch on his wings, he knew others could feel any brush of their feathers but he felt nothing until now. If he had lost the ability to fly he had gained the ability to have sensation right along the spot he feared he would lose anyway. 

You curled your fingers around the top of his wings slowly following the natural way they folded into themselves and helped him push them close to his back. Kai groaned but it was not as horrible as he expected it to be. With your help, he found whatever connection he had lost because now he could keep them pulled in without your help. But you still helped to tuck the other one close just as neatly, checking around his stitches to make sure they could handle the movement without being impossibly stiff. 

The sight made you clench your jaw. Jealousy had not been a familiar feeling here but it was alive and well now. But it did not matter, you could be jealous and still help him. But you had to get up and turn away, busy yourself with finding your own feathers, the ones you kept at the bottom of your stash of things, making sure they didn't accidentally get seen by you when you didn't want the reminder. 

It had felt easy to say you would give them to him in the moment but the second you pushed aside the spare clothes you had and laid eyes on them it was like saying you would clip off your fingers and let him use them on his own hands. You let the stack of clothes fall right back into place, picking up the loose shirt you could find that would button over him. He would have to wear it backwards because it was not made with wings in mind but there was nothing else for you to do unless he wanted to walk around shirtless. 

But Kai was thankful pushing his arms through the sleeves and leaving the buttons for you to do up for him. You made sure to keep yourself from brushing him accidentally, no need to touch him more than you needed to as you secured the fabric around him. But Kai instantly missed your warmth the second you pulled away. 

“The only way out is up but it's nothing too bad, you only need to raise your arms about this high,” you demonstrated, “it's mostly leg work,” 

“You want me to leave?” he didn't know why it was the first thing he would think, you had just told him about collecting materials to help him but as soon as the words left your mouth all he could think was no don't kick me out don't push me like them, as if you could hear him you shook your head. 

“Do angels only sit around when faced with adversity or do they get up and work?” you slung your bag over your shoulder, slipping both arms in to have it securely against your back. When going out it was the only thing that felt comfortable enough to have at your back when you had little else. “If you want to stay, I say we work together to make sure that we can keep you here for a bit longer, but I cannot do everything and you cannot stay forever. Tonight we only need a few things,” 

“Okay,” Kai stumbled to stand, feeling unstable and wobbly enough to reach out for the walls to hold him up. 

“You can stay here for tonight, rest more if you're not up for it,” 

“No,” it was a slight snap back against the way he was feeling. It was not only because he was feeling weak but because he did not like to sit around doing nothing, he did not want to wait for you to come back or worse wait and think that you were never coming back for him. He's sure that is something a demon would do, leave him here without help just to see how long he would stay without the help. But he was thinking badly because he didn't want to face his own truth, “I need to do something,” anything would be better than sitting around and thinking up ways to hate you over nothing at all. Because there was nothing to hate you over, you had done nothing that would make him hate you but the longer he stayed up with his thoughts they seemed to poison the image of you slowly. And he could not do that to his savior. 

“Fine, you can go first so that I can make sure you don't fall back,” and you had been telling the truth about the way out, the grooves of the walls made perfect spaces for his feet to fit. Only after a few steps up did he have to raise his arms to try and hold himself steady as he kicked his feet out the top of the opening. It was only possible because the side you had set him to get out of was shorter than the rest of the jagged ring of rocks forming the entrance of the cave. And as soon as he was out it was easy to sit and rest with his legs dangling into the open mouth as if he would just jump right into the water he had nearly died in. 

You had no trouble pulling yourself up and out, the rock smoothed down from the amount of time that you had made the trip up even if you avoided it most times. “There is no other way in or out?” Kai asked as you showed him the way down to the grassy underbrush. 

“You could swim in and out, it's not very practical but it's better that way if you want to make sure no one sees you coming in. But I don't think that would be good for you and you have to hold your breath for a long while,” Kai could not think about what it would be like to go back into the water after yesterday, he's sure he would instantly imagine himself drowning again. 

Instead, he focused on following you and your steps through the thick mess of trees surrounding the spot where you had made your home. Distantly he could hear the sea, the soft crashing of waves on the shore lightening as the two of you went until he saw the first blood-dotted feather. 

His wings twitched at the sight, the soft white tucked in between the branches and leaves of a tree. He was silent as he watched you pluck it between your fingers, reaching it like you were picking up a gold coin found on heads for luck. “You will tell me eventually why it is you fell from the heavens won't you?” he watched you twist the feather, examining the dark dried crimson stains. 

“There is little of a story there,” he was clenched all over, fists and jaw tight as you held the feather out for him to take, “you hold it,” he jutted his chin out, the only movement he could bring himself to make or else he would fall apart. 

Kai had gone through many feathers of different sizes growing up. Preening them and feeling grateful to have grown fully so that they did not fall out as often as they had when growing from downy softness to strong enough to let him fly. But it was different to see them like this. He knew they should not be in your hand, or even his. They should not be spread around the woods like bunches of snow that had not yet melted with the coming spring. But it was as if the longer he looked out over the expanse of woods in front of the two of you the more speckles of white he caught mixed in with all the green. 

He was frozen in his spot, stuck just looking out at all the pieces of himself spread out like nothing more than a chess board thrown to the ground, with no intention of being picked up after a soiled game. You could see in him the same kind of evil that was in you twisting itself around your brain the second you moved that stack of clothes and saw your own feathers. When you were young they meant nothing because they had always been there but once it started to go away, once it was nothing more than a pile in front of you it made you feel small and insignificant. 

“When they first ripped my wing it didn't hurt like I had imagined it would have,” you had been frozen, stuck like a kitten who had been picked up by the scruff of its neck. You had looked up with eyes that nearly rolled in your skull the second you realized what had happened. How could you not have felt something so huge? Maybe it was because you could not see it, your mind not catching up with your body until seconds later and it was all you could think to feel. There had been blood, slick down your back and on your fingers as you reached to try and hold onto anything that was left. “For a second you almost think you can fly away from the pain,” 

Kai watched your eyes go unfocused, lost in a thought that had been his reality just the day before. It was almost as if he could feel that foot pressed right into his back again. His ‘friend’ with the heel of his boot cutting into Kai’s spine. He had asked him to look out over the edge of the last cliff, claiming to have seen carrion flying around too close for comfort. It was only a second, looking over the edge so high up he knew that if he flew down and caught the wind that it would be a rush he could never replicate. 

The boot had been nothing but a second before his hands had been on his wings pulling them back until that sickening crunch and tear. It had happened so fast kai had felt nothing until it was all too late. 

“There is always a story and you don't have to tell me yours but know that if I could get revenge on the ones who took my ability to fly, I wouldn't hold back from repeating over and over the same pain they inflicted on me,” you tucked his feather into your bag, “they wouldn't think twice about you so don't give them the grace of never speaking up for what they did to you,” 

“You’d think that because you're a demon,” and for the first time Kai saw you crack a smile, a twisted tarnished thing. 

“We are not too different, the only thing that sets us apart is you thinking you are any better than me. You forget we both woke up in that cave only I was alone and you had me, and how lucky for you that I'm nice and don't just build you up to pull you right back down again,” you turned walking because you needed the distance, “go back if you can't see that we are the same,” 

“My first thought wouldn't have been to hurt someone I helped,” Kai kept pace with you, watching you pick up each one of his feathers as you went. 

“Just because I say I resist hurting you physically does not mean that what you say or think cannot hurt me. You want to freely throw your judgment around and stick a label onto me, reducing me to nothing but blood I did not ask to be born with and still you cannot see how we are exactly the same. We are only doing the same thing in different seasons, only one of us is plain as day and the other is hidden behind some thick smokescreen allowed in whatever game we have found ourselves,”  he could tell there was no room for argument with you. Set in some demon way that made you want to burn instead of heal. But even he knew he was just being bitter, proving you right even if he didn't say it out loud. 

He was grateful and he was upset, he had been a pot of water his whole life and it had never been set above a fire until right now and the bubbling was unwelcome and made him itch all over. He didn't see the reason for revenge when there was no way for him to get back up to the heavens without walking up the stairs and that would feel more shameful than coming back wingless. The only thing he could feel about the topic was that if it had been him or you he's not too sure that it would have been him you would have picked to help. But even he couldn't hide from the truth of wanting to pick himself every time. 

So he kept his mouth shut knowing there was nothing he could say that would make him look better and nothing he could say to make you look worse because faintly you were right about the both of you being so similar. He followed you like a lost puppy, watching you pick over the brush, collecting pieces of him until you found every part of the set to make enough of a picture. You were careful with them, fitting them all together in a neat stack and wrapping a loose string of thread around them to keep them from spilling all over again. 

By the time you two had combed most of the area, the sun was setting into nothing but stars. Two handfuls of feathers and a pit in Kai’s stomach made for little conversation. Keeping his eyes on his footfalls he did not see what it was that made you tense up until it was right there burning in the distance. 

A little ball of fire, dancing seemingly above nothing but the air. A Willo-the–wisp, bright enough to feel like a beacon one could not turn to look away from. But you hissed at the thing, reaching down to pick up a rock, smooth in your palm before you threw it. “Hey!” Kai's voice echoed in empty woods, previously the only sound heard was his crunching footsteps. Your years of walking down here had taught you how to keep yourself light as you made a journey this far out from your home. “See only proving my point, hurting things without reason, what did they ever do to you?” 

But you didn’t feel like explaining yourself to him, it felt silly to believe in rumors about the little creatures but it was impossible not to feel conflicted about bad signs when your life had been full of misfortune.  “Its bad luck to see them,” 

“Well it showed up there was no need to throw a rock at it, bad luck or not it was given the second it popped up,” his statement made you roll your eyes. What was there to do but watch the flame snuff out? It felt better to make the flame extinguish the second you saw it as if they were the thing that leached luck from you the longer they stayed around.  

“I'm not going to sit and let the death promiser dance around and curse me, or you for that matter, I don't know how I would pull your corpse from the cave if you were to die from the infection they wanted to warn you about,” you watched his face pale, your eyebrows lifting letting it known that you had seen that you had won written on him, “see, so let me throw stones, I'm doing it for both of us even if you don't believe it,” 

“It's only an omen, it doesn't mean anything real,” but he was trying to convince himself to fear the little flame, small and weak enough to be taken out by nothing but a pebble. 

“You know we have people who read the stars? Creatures deep in the sea, the woods, the kingdom, even your precious sky. They all have stories and folklore that came from some kind of truth,” you picked up another stone in case you saw another little flame lingering around not wanting to risk a sighting even if you could help it. 

“How are you planning on getting the feathers back on?” Kai wanted anything else but to talk about being the same or not, about folklore and truth. He was tired and didn't want to think about anything else besides what was supposed to come next. 

“Wax, I have lots of candles stored up that will do, if I get the layers thin enough it shouldn't weigh you down. It's also soft enough so that it won’t restrict any growth when they start to grow back,” it felt far away to think about having to go through the process of aging all over again, he had been through the phase of watching his feathers transition he did not want to wait again. The wax would give him an option, anything that would help to keep him from feeling as if he fell so far back from everything he had ever known. 

He wonders if you had thought through the same things with your wings before it was too late. If the idea for the wax had come before or after you buried your last option. He did not think it would be okay to ask that, not when you were helping him already. Demons being fickle was not uncommon; he wouldn't be surprised that you tossed him aside for something new to tinker with if given the option. Rather he gets as much information for you on how to help himself before you leave him with nothing at all. 

You showed him the way back up and down into the cave and for a sickening second, he thought you would push him while he looked for a way to make it down without landing in the water. Your hand had been on his back to steady him and yourself on the edge together. His flinching from your touch only registered as pain and not fear. You jumped down angeling yourself so that you landed right at the edge of the water and you looked up, stepping out of the way waiting for him to follow your lead. 

Kai pushed himself down feeling nothing but air for only a second but it was a second too long. He stumbled as soon as his legs hit the ground, leaning back and looking at you for a sickening moment before he was ready to accept falling back into the water, but you reached out making a fist in his shirt as his arms waved trying to find something to hold onto. The heels of his feet almost tipped him into the water, his wings shuddering and trying to pull in closer, hiding back away as if they could when this damaged. The buttons on the back started to pop with the strain of his weight and he had to reach out for you, hands wrapped around your forearm as you pulled him back to the safety of the sand. 

“You're very clumsy on your feet,” you muttered, pulling yourself away from him and his tight grasp. He was embarrassed but only because he was washed in fear and being caught for it on his face. 

“There was not one time you fell while jumping down?” he waved at the short distance that was available for him to land. 

“Once or twice but you get used to the angle and learn,” you don't put your bag down, not when you have to turn around to look for your candles, keeping your back covered even if now you knew he would do little to hurt you physically. Everything you had picked up from your conversations and just watching him walk around made you realize just how his label fits him so well. He had been more upset over the will-o-the-wisp than his own ruining. But it still didn't make you drop your guard. 

Finding your stack of candles you tucked them under your arm and turned to find Kai sitting in the sand all over again, looking out at the water and watching the way it swayed. He traced the dark outline of the opening leading out to the sea, hardly noticeable if you hadn't said there was a way out before. He would have believed there was only the two of you and not the world's ocean just a few feet away from him. So much just inches away from his tomb that he believed he would have been stuck in until someone found his heavy lead-lined bones. 

“We don't have to do it tonight if you don't want to,” your voice was soft as if you knew he was stuck in some darkness in his mind, struggling against the hold of some blanket of depression he had thrown over himself and couldn't find his way out of. “It would be better too because we need the light and I can hardly make a fire big enough to produce enough,” 

Light, once so easy to produce on the edge of his fingertips, wasted power on his childhood innocence trying to find ways to light up his bedroom when he was supposed to be sleeping. It had been easy back then and now sitting here wanting to get it all over with he couldn't get up enough energy to heat his skin. He was cold all over, blood leached, and hollow. Lifting his palm he focused in on his hands, the soft ridges tracing around the center supposed to be the lifeline or so he had been told. That was where he had always watched the light come from first, starting right at his wrist and working its way up curving between his thumb and pointer finger before it was nothing but light held in his hand like he had caught a star. 

Now it was nothing. Not a flicker of illumination nor a hum of warmth. He balled his fist clenching until he felt his nails digging into his supposed lifeline wishing that if he squeezed hard enough he could find a single drop of anything left in him. And still nothing. Not even enough to help him now when he wanted it, needed it most. “Tomorrow,” the word was a bitter thing, in his chest and making it sound rough with hatred. 

“It takes a bit to get back,” you tried not knowing why you didn't just curl up in your spot and wait for the rest of the sun to set so that you could sleep. Ignore him and his well-deserved mood. But you had done the same thing, sitting in the dark trying to make even the smallest flame and nothing would come, “I was never the best at lighting anything on fire, not even the blades of dry grass they let the little ones practice with,” 

Kai listened, watching you from the corner of his eye as you took a seat next to him, legs crossed just like his, your knee so close to hitting against him he could feel the heat from it. “I should have known then that I wasn't like the rest of them, tailless, hornless, powerless,” you gave a dry humorless laugh, fiddling with the candle sticks you had, letting them spill into your lap picking one only one up and examining the wick. He traced the side of your face, following the bridge of your nose right till the end and watching you blow so softly it wouldn't have taken down the light of a birthday candle. 

But a flame bloomed, catching on the wick, and dancing in the coming darkness. It lit up the features of your face, your eyes shining in the light as you watched the small reflection of your power. You had little to give, children had been playing with fire long since they were learning to crawl and you had only come to master a few tricks. “The only thing that had labeled me a demon were my wings, and they had been…” the edge of your lips wobbled, your jaw clenching closed at the itching in your throat as if this was even too much to say to him. “They had been beautiful,” it was said just as softly as the exhale you had done to light the candle, hardly there and weak. 

“I didn't even care about the fire, anyone can light a match or strike flint and create a spark. But…” 

“Not everyone can fly,” he could feel the way you struggled to say it as if it was traveling from his mind to yours. In the firelight he watched the tear fall, tacking down your cheek faster than you could wipe it away. But you caught it erasing it as if that would take your feelings away from you as if it would keep those intrusive memories from surfacing. Because no one would know how it felt to be that high, physically and mentally, unless they had been up there with you catching air with a laugh bubbling up from your chest like it was coming from a faucet that could never be turned off. 

You blew out the candle, sticking it in the sand and pushing yourself to stand, letting the rest of the candlesticks stay laid out for tomorrow. “Don't worry about what you don't have just yet and be thankful for what you're still holding onto. I'm going to bed.” No more was needed to be said when the two of you both knew it hurt too much to find yourself in the mix of confessions and shared sympathy. So you tossed your bag to the side, turning your back to the wall and closing your eyes so that you couldn't look at the blessing you had given him and hadn't received from anyone else. 

But it was incredibly hard, there was nowhere to look except him or the back of your eyelids and all you could see when you closed your eyes was the vision of you in the sky. It ached to remember and the pain was fresh looking at his new stitches that you had done even with his wings pulled in and sparse of feathers. Because he sat there at the edge of the water trying and failing to open his wings up again without your help this time. 

He could tell they were stiff and he was unfamiliar with the feeling. Before it had been second nature, his wings moving as his lungs did without the need for his mind but now that he focused on them it was like they couldn't work and wouldn't unless he focused on not paying any mind to them. But it was hard to do that when his healing stitches were itching and he was told over and over again by you not to touch them. So he sat there watching the water with his back to you as if that would keep him accountable for not messing up your hard work. 

All that was keeping him up was the promise of tomorrow when the sun would come out and you would help him put his feathers back even if he felt that it wouldn't work. In a way he worried it was too unnatural to work, that somehow it would just fail because it was not right, the wind would not agree and still, if it did work he had no intentions of going home. To go back with wings made of nothing but wax and thread felt like a lie of himself. Some imposter trying to pass as himself to fit back into the same life he had before. But with his wings stuck together like a forged abomination felt like he was never going to find himself comfortable there again. 

He didn't care if they took him in as he was, whispered behind his back, because he knew they would, and let him pretend that everything was the same when it so clearly was not. He knew little of the world below and even less of the world below that one from where you came from, leaving home would be an adjustment but necessary. He just needed his wings healed enough to hide them back inside of him wherever it was they unfurled from when he wanted them. It had been uncomfortable back in the heavens because there was no need to hide who you were. He would have to get used to the feeling but it would not be something as horrible as this ache was now. 

It wasn't until the morning, the sun just peeking over the edge of the cave's mouth that he realized he had not gotten any sleep at all. He listened to the water, the chitter of the animals in the distant woods, and the sound of your easy breathing while you dreamt. He wondered if you would have dreams of flying, if they hurt just as bad as the pain of knowing you never would fly again but he knew they must have been tethered feelings; unable to have one without the other. 

He pictured you over and over again in his head. Imagined you with your wings of night in the air next to him, that laugh you had turned his way unlike the one he heard but one he wished you would give him so that he would know something in his dream would be real. This laugh was somewhere caught between a giggle and a sprinkle of light from his fingertips. He locked in on thinking of the laugh over the feeling of flying because it was impossible to not hurt when thinking of the air. But you, thinking of you, felt safe even if it was some kind of hope caught in a dream. 

Because you would never fly again he knew that much because you were so certain of it. He had known of people who wanted to mimic the feeling of flight. Making things out of clockwork and magic as if it would help them but that felt worse than having to go home stitched up. To walk in with wings not even close to the ones you owned, or were born with, felt like the worst kind of death. You wouldn't have even known that you had died, that the only thing keeping your body animated and moving were the strings of your delusion tied so tight around your joints that you never got a chance to look down and realize this was not you at all. 

So he tried to grasp that laugh because it was the only thing that felt close to real; the only thing that felt close to happening at all even with all the distant hope he was supposed to be having. And when you woke you could see it all over him, the failure written on every inch of him. It fueled an anger you had not felt in years, the simmering pot inside you turned up to boiling over nothing more than an empty glance. 

You kept to yourself, let him stay seated by the water, and went about to find the two of you food. And it wasn't until the two of you had eaten that you set into getting yourself ready for the long days work waiting for you. Candle in hand you watched him look back out over the water and you couldn't take it anymore. Kicking at the sand you watched the grains puff up in a plume around his legs his hands waving away the dust, brows scrunched as he scowled at you, “Stop looking as if I'm a failure already,” 

“I didn't say anything,” but he knows what you're talking about, the thought had infected him and was spreading as rapidly as the infection you had warned him would happen if he touched his back. 

“You didn't have to say anything, trust me if saving your life meant little to me I wouldn't have done it in the first place, I wouldn't waste my time,” you grab the handfuls of feathers, his eyes locking in on them in hand. 

“You have nothing better to do,” he didn't mean to say it but it was true he felt it and it made him believe it was the only reason why you were helping him. Because you were bored here, sitting in a cave doing nothing that he could see because there was nothing to do but sit. He had made it so that you had something to do. In a moment you would turn him away and tell him not to come back, to find someone else willing to help him. But you wouldn't let him give up on you. 

“No, I don't but I could have done anything else besides this. Hell it might be more fun watching you fall again than it would be to watch you actually fly but I guess we won't know unless we try,” but Kai’s scowl was back and it was better than seeing him feel nothing at all. 

“Why would you say that? You know what it's like-” 

“Exactly why would I help you for nothing at all but boredom? I wouldn't help if I didn't want to see you succeed, I wouldn't be doing this at all I would have let you die. So stop wasting my limited kindness and accept my effort without believing it will lead to nothing but failure,” 

“You would do that, wouldn't you?” because it had caught on him, the idea of being watched as he fell again by someone who would enjoy it. Unlike the first time, it would be worse, he would never come back from that fall, because even if he had forgiven the person who had pushed him he had known the second he felt their foot on his spine that it had been out of pure evil, if it were you doing all this just to watch him fail again it would be worse and there would be no forgiveness. “Build me up only to prove I should never fly again,” 

“You are incredibly cynical,” you blow on your candle, watching the flame heat the ivory colored wax so close to matching the color of his feathers. “Did you ever think that maybe I want you to succeed? That it would help me see you make it out of here more yourself than I ever would have left this place?” you stand behind him, pushing back the first row of feathers as gently as you can before placing the feather over the node you knew a new one would find to grow. You tilt the candle just enough until the wax drips, translucent dots pattering around the area as you watch the way they dry the color blending in perfectly. You let the feather go watching the way it sticks and stayed in place, right where it looked like it had never been gone. 

Kai could not feel the process, not when he was lost in his thoughts. He tried to separate the knowledge of you being a demon away from the proof he had of you being nothing more than someone who was lost. The two could be synonymous is what he reminds himself over again. He had his back to you and was hoping you wouldn't shove a knife right through him but that didn't mean he wasn't worried. 

He did not bring up his thoughts again, he let you work and passed himself off as being hopeful when it was the last thing he felt he was. He was grateful that you cared enough to try even if he believed you had ulterior motives but he would not say out loud that he had any hope when it was not true and if it was it felt wrong to jinx it. 

And so you worked, the slow repetitive motions evening out your heartbeat. And even when the wax fell to your fingers you did not flinch, taking the slight burn and continuing. Even Kai did not back away from the fallen wax when the sparse drops landed on his back. Anything was better than the pain he had felt before and now this felt pleasant, trembling from the shock the first time and accepting any other spot that made itself known to him. 

Then the two of you began to talk, small things that felt so insignificant when you were alone. His first question filled up the silence, “What's your favorite color?” you had not been asked in years something so lighthearted, there was no need to have a favorite when you wouldn't seek it out. 

“I don't know,” you had shrugged, dripping the wax over the next feather in the lineup. By midday, you had done one whole wing. The way the feathers overlapped made it so that you never even saw the wax since most of the top feathers had stayed in place. 

“You don't know? How could you not know your favorite color?” It was hard to explain to him how it didn't matter because Kai would take nothing short of an answer he saw as being good enough. He asked again, asked what it had been like when you were a child, and he listened as you tried to explain.  Answering his own questions and trying to take everything off his mind besides you and who you were. 

He asked you everything and anything he could think of until it was too late and the only thing he could think about was the fact you had stopped and were looking over his stitches again. “Is it bad?” 

“No,” it was the opposite of bad, he healed exceedingly fast because of his angel blood, the once torn flesh already looking a day away from having the stitches removed. “It's doing well, but I ran out of feathers for your right wing,” 

“Oh,” he felt like he had been deflated, his shoulders already bent forward so that you could have the best access to his back and he did not think he could sag anymore, yet he did. Periodically as you added more feathers in you would tap your wax-coated fingertip against his spine asking him to stretch his wings out. In the length of a day, he felt stronger and more like himself as the time passed. He could hold the weight of his wings up fine even with the thread still pulling him together bit by bit. And now he couldn't even finish what had been started. 

You had not thought before you spoke up next, the words spilling out as easily as the continued answers to his constant questions, “I still have a few from my wings if you don't mind the color,” but once it was said it felt right. You had no need for the feathers anymore, the only thing they did was bring you pain. They should have been buried right along with the rest of your wing and now you knew that there was some reason out there why you had kept them besides the reminder of a painful past. If they could help it felt right just as it felt right the second you pulled him out of the moon pool. You could give them up because in some way healing him was healing you. What better than to let your feathers fly again when you could not? 

And Kai did not mind, not when now he was itching to fly again, the hope somehow filtering into him the second you had told him to stretch his wings out again, to try. He let you put the feathers on, looked at the glossy ink color, and had not turned away because now he was tying the strings of his delusion on and he could not bring himself to stop. 

You did not feel loss this time around when seeing your past spilled out in a heap in your lap as you took wax to each one, fastening it to the angel boy's wing to give him one last chance that you wish you could have had. It felt cathartic, watching the way the colors contrasted and blended so well together. Your fingers ran over the line of them the second you had finished. A soft sad smile on your lips as you told Kai to stretch one final time before trying to fly. 

It felt so sudden, so soon from the last time he had taken flight. He hadn't even realized it was his last time at least before the fall. He wondered if you remembered your last time, what it had been like, and if it felt just as insignificant to you as it had to him. Wondered what you would have preferred your last flight to have felt like, where you would have gone. But the thoughts were a distraction to him trying to fly now. 

Kai stretched his wings, the white expanse only broken up by the tip of black at the end of his right wing. He couldn't remember what it felt like to lift off the ground instead of hurtling towards it but then he felt it, his heels lifting first, and the soft beat of his wings echoing in the small space. You stood back watching with a blank expression, tingling all over because you couldn't believe you had done it. He was up, the tips of his shoes just hitting the stirring sand before he felt his wings give out.

Shouting he fell, the distance nothing but a foot but feeling like he had come crashing all the way back down the side of a mountain. His back ached but not from pain but the strain of weakness. “You can try again tomorrow, we just have to keep at it even if it's a little bit every day,” Kai had fallen to his knees, looking up at you with his slumped shoulders and puppy dog eyes. 

“Thank you,” the words still tumbled into you, but it was easier to accept when the fruits of your labor were still right at the forefront of your mind. He had flown even if it was just a foot, it had been more than what either of you had expected. You had worried of his stitches ripping, worried of the feathers falling with only a few beats of wind and they had not, both holding stronger than your conviction. 

Your smile could not be contained, the edges of your mouth trying to hold it back like a stranger at the door because it had been far too long since the last time you felt this happy about anything. “It worked,” disbelief made itself known in your tone but Kai was just as surprised. He did not care at that moment if he got any higher off the ground, only that he did not have to lose so much of himself. “It worked,” he mimicked his smile wobbling as he fought back his tears, “it worked,” 

It was the way he said it last that hit home. You did not think about it hurting so bad to see him succeed, jealousy thick and alive in your blood. You wanted that feeling, you wanted those words to come from you not just from being an aid but from being the project. The words were felt all throughout you as he whispered them, just enough to watch the stress of never again flying dissipate into nothing but happiness. He had been empty and you had tipped in a bucket of everything you had to give, he had gained so much and you lost more than you had to offer him. 

There was nothing more to call it besides envy; sickening jealousy. If you could rip the wings right off his back and give them to yourself in that split second you would have. It was not productive but it was the only thing you could see when you looked at him. But you shook your head as if you had been caught in the rain and needed to get the water from your hair, pushing the thoughts to the side. You would never have what he did, no way for you to have given yourself the chance in the way that you had given it to him. 

So you squashed the feeling, talked yourself out of the need to cry once the two of you had laid down. Your back to the wall again as you look at him with that faint smile on his lips because he was getting to sleep peacefully since the first time he had come here without the aid of his pain. The outline of his wings in the darkness made them look just like a shadow behind him. And it was so hard not to cry as soon as you knew he was asleep. Wanted to turn and face the wall to give yourself the illusion of privacy in your struggle to keep the burn in your throat from turning into a sob you had fallen into to fitful sleep. 

What had awoken Kai was the strain in your voice, the way you muttered, again and again, the word no, the noise of it getting louder and louder until it was impossible to ignore the sound as if it was nothing more than the hum of a mourning bird's song. He opened his eyes and there you were on your makeshift bed, your face pressed into the blanket, your back turned to the sky and you reached back trying to scratch at your shoulder blades. But even in sleep, he could see the way it pained you, hands only just brushing over your shoulders when you found yourself pinned down in sleep. You were whining, crying in your sleep, and it was full of pain. 

Because in your sleep you had dreamt of that first night without your wings. You could not lay on your side, could not lay any other way but with your face to the ground like they were pulling your wings from you all over again. Back facing the sky praying that they didn't come in because you had no strength to turn over, no strength in you except to try and restrain yourself from scratching at the healing wounds, unaided by careful stitches. 

It had been a long time since you had felt the dream so real that it made you believe there was something wrong with your back. Because you were somewhere on the edge of your dream telling yourself it was real, that the pain was right there at the surface and you didn't know it unless you woke up. If only you could just wake up instead of struggling as you had back then. And when you looked to your side there was no kai, just the outline of that wing, the one you had to pull off there dead and waiting for its burial. 

But Kai would not let you sleep through it, not let you scratch at your shoulders and wade through the dreamscape colored in nothing but the shade of a nightmare. He grasped your sleeping hand, the one fluttering at your back like a moth to a flame and curled his fingers between yours. Your hands fit neatly against his, locking in place as if you had been reaching out for him the whole time. His free hand was at your lower back, keeping away from the top where he knew you were trying to reach. And when your eyes opened your gasp followed the way you shot up, back pressed back to the wall and you tried to cure the burning. 

You knew this feeling, the momentary ghost wings pretending they still had feelings for which could be hurt. Everything about you felt as if it was shaking, like a rattling cabinet of glass in an earthquake because your world was shaking at your feet telling you something was wrong but you couldn't tell what it was. “It's okay it was only a nightmare,” Kai tried to sooth, thumb running over the back of your hand that he held in both of his. 

In your dream you had been alone, so much of it had been like it always was. Pain circling around everything you had come to know. But now there had been pain but the faint hurt that Kai had not been there to help you. As if he could go back in time and do what you had for him even if it was no use you had just wanted him to be there next to you. But he hadn't been and in the mix of the sobs you had found his name and prayed he would hear because if they were your dreams you should have been able to grab them by the neck and control them, not follow them down the dark hall that felt neverending. 

But waking up to know he had been here the whole time, knowing that if he had been there he would have helped just the same, settled something inside you that had been overrun with worry. You unfurled your arms from around yourself, throwing them around Kai’s neck and pulling him into a hug. 

He did not freeze up under your hold but melted into you, sliding his hands around your back and pulling you closer to him, your face pressed into the space between his throat and his collarbone. He hadn't known how much a hug would have helped him just as it was helping you. You were warm and clinging to him in a way no one had ever needed him. 

Kai could have sat like that with you in his arms until the sun came up and you would have let him because you needed to be closer and needed something that only he could give you. Your fingers ran through his hair, his hands sliding down your lower back pulling you to straddle his hips because he needed you chest to chest, needed to feel the weight of you against them to make sure that he knew it was real just the same as you did. “You're okay,” he whispered the words, a hammer against the dam you had walled up in place to keep you from ever getting close to anyone ever again. 

It was so quick you are unsure why it was your instant reaction. Your lips kissed over the mole he had right along the column of his throat. The feeling of his words pressed right to your mouth when he hummed your name. Everything was so much easier to do in the half dark, the room alight in that blue glow of the water, the moon still high in the sky as he slipped his hands under your shirt, cool against your heated skin and only making you arch further into him, hips sinking as you kissed up his neck. 

Neither of you stopped the other from the exploration, you curled your fingers in his hair right at the base of his neck and he found any expanse of skin that he could let his fingers touch. And when you finally made your kisses stop right at the edge of his lips he couldn't help but turn his head, chasing after your mouth with his desperate desire to get lost in you. Because once you started neither of you could pull yourself away from stopping. 

He tasted like nothing short of twinkling light filling the darkness that you had let wash over you for far too long. His soft moans caught in your mouth with each drag of your hips now perfectly placed over him and his wanting need. It was the only way to describe the way he was feeling, he did not just want you, he needed you, so hard from just a few devouring kisses that you couldn’t resist. 

You pulled away for only a second standing so that you could take the few clothes you had on off. Kai sitting there watching in awe as you peeled off your shirt, his hands itching to have you back on him with no layers between the two of you, chest to chest but closer now being skin to skin. He reached out for your hips pulling you closer to him so that he could rest his chin on your stomach, looking at you like the fallen angel he was, like you were the only savior he had written in his stars. 

He let his lips pepper over you, your hands brushing the hair from his brow, his fingers dipping into your waistband holding the fabric in a way that asked you for permission to tug them down and off. “Please,” he whispered check pressed to your hip, “I need you,” and you would give him everything he asked for if he continued looking at you in that way as if nothing in the world mattered but you at this moment, not your blood or cruel words, just a boy and a girl seeking out the pleasure of another. 

You let him take your pants off just as easily as he had let you tug him free from his. And when you sank onto him, took all of him in with a gasp at the stretch working its way through you, nothing had felt more right. Because he was curving into you, your lips were his only salvation as you slowly rocked your hips back and forth on him. His face washed in the pleasure of having you his hands growing warmer and warmer as they held your back. You did your best to avoid his stitches, ignoring his wings that twitched along with his body every time you found a new slow rhythm to move to. 

The angle the two of you had was grinding against your pleasure point, your moans so sweet and rumbling against him. He traced up the line of your spine with one hand, keeping the other wrapped around your back to make sure you stayed in the circle of space the two of you had created. You whimpered when he brushed over the scars on your back but did not pull away, letting him have a part of you that you would never give to anyone else because he knew what it was like, he knew what it meant, this level of trust rushing into you almost as fast as your coming orgasm. And right behind him the soft blue light of a will-o-the-wisp on the water, gone as quickly as it had come into your field of vision but you would not have cared in that moment anyway. 

Both of you neared the end, and when you came, the feeling in your belly took all the space to think because it had been reduced to feeling only him and the pleasure he was giving you. His hands felt hot and alive with the power he had believed had been lost to him as you trembled in his hold, swallowing down each little noise you made. He guided you down to the blanket stretched out on the sand, rocking his hips now chasing after his own high watching the hazy look wash over your face as you held onto his shoulders. And behind him his wings spread covering the two of you in that safe space you had craved more than anything, his panting breaths pressed to your neck as he spilled all he had into you. 

You could only focus on him and the way he brought you the closest you had ever felt to being whole again. Wrapped up in nothing but him was close to being saved because you both knew how similar you were and to be seen like this, to be understood, was healing all on its own and you welcomed everything he had to offer. You would let him take you again and again because you felt linked, the jealousy washed away because being held like this was enough to sedate the torment you had found yourself subjected to being here alone for so long. 

And in the morning, when the sun came in on the new day you never felt as excited to see the light as you did in that moment. Because Kai was grinning looking over at you knowing what it meant. He would go out and try again and again until he knew that he could fly even if it took time but here starting today would be the beginning and he would be starting it all with you at his side. 

He did not need help out of the cave's mouth this time, pulling himself up as easily as if he had been doing it his whole life. And he stood, looking out over the water below him and knowing that if he fell he had you there willing to pull him out if he needed it. He looked to the sky the second you pulled yourself up next to him, his wings spreading out and beating softly enough to draw your attention. “We don't have to start so high up. I know it's a short distance to the ground and it won't hurt much if you fall but just in case it might be better to go to the beach,” 

He should have listened to you but he was too excited to think about where he was when all he wanted to do was fly. “Just this once and we can go to the beach and try again if not,” he reached his hand out at his side, low enough to find yours and your welcome squeeze in support. 

“It's okay if you don't get up too high so long as they can carry your weight that's the main issue at the moment because of the stitches,” Kai nodded along half listening as he focused in on the clouds. He pulled your hand to his mouth, kissing the back of it before letting it go once more before trying. 

Both of you held your breath, the seconds passing slowly as you waited for his heels to lift again only this time it was so much higher, Kai was rising, each beat of his wings only raising him and widening your smile. You had done it, you had made him fly again and it didn't hurt but made you elated. 

Kai could feel the wind welcoming him, pushing him up and up until he could see nothing but the expanse of blue and you were gone. It was that thought that had him going back. He could have spent all day up there if he could, if he knew that it wouldn't hurt him if he pushed himself so far but thinking of you watching him without being able to feel it tore into him. He flew back down landing right where he had started and laughed like it had caught him by surprise. 

And he looked at you, his arms open enough for you to run into them, that smile you wore was going to be tattooed along the insides of his eyelids because it was the only thing we wanted to see. Because you had done this for him, you had given him his flight back, his hope, and wrapped in nothing but sarcasm and truth because it was your way. So he hugged you tight, kissed you until your arms were locked around him just right and he took you with him. 

It had only been in dreams that you felt the faint feeling of being weightless. The wind hits your face as you let the laugh bask in the morning sun with you. It had been everything Kai had wanted, his dreams coming to reality as he caught the wind to carry the two of you higher and higher, until it felt as if you both would be made of nothing but clouds and happiness. He knew what it meant to be up in the sky like this again for you and knew that it would never be much of a thank you in return for what you have given back to him. 

And when he found a place to be steady, beating wings behind him, no pain in sight as the two of you looked out over the green and blue land and water below you. He held you close, arms keeping you up and in place even with your dangling feet picking up the memory of what it had been like before when you were a child with nothing to be scared of because you had not been wronged yet, you had only been a girl with wings happy to be in the air. 

Kai pressed his forehead to yours, nose dipping and bumping your cheek as he kissed the edge of your smile. And it didn't matter anymore if you felt weak, or had been told it was all that you had ever been because you had saved someone worthy of being saved, picking up yourself along the way and flying through him when flying was only a word thrown around to hurt you. You had put his wings back when they had been nothing but torn flesh and nothing made you feel this good, only the knowledge that you knew he would take you again if you asked. 

The trail of your fingers did not cross your mind when you felt this good, your subconscious working over the thoughts you were having and putting together the puzzle you had made by following the seam of his stitches. You could feel the knot you had tied to secure the wing in place, the spot you would have to cut away when pulling the thread free after you had checked again that his fast healing had done its job. 

But the ghosting of your touch on the closed wound was akin to you pushing him into a frozen lake, the ice breaking beneath him and reminding him just how heavy he had been when he had nothing behind him to support his body. It was the fear mixed with your words that you had said what felt like ages ago, as if when the two of you had shared then you had been different people. But here at his core, he felt it, that foreboding and gut-turning maggots wiggling into his skin and poisoning his already made-up mind. ‘Hell it might be more fun watching you fall again than it would be to watch you actually fly but I guess we won't know unless we try,’ you had said those words, he had rolled them over in his head over and over again because it had not sit right with him, but he could not remember the rest of the conversation, not when your fingers were messing with the stitches right on his back like you were fulfilling a promise. 

It had been quick, the intrusive thought taking over because all he could think again was that you two were similar. He would have helped you yes but if it had been him or you at the bottom of the water and both of you had to pick who got their wings back he would not hesitate to make sure he felt this feeling again. And having you here, threat alive in his mind he could not help himself from leaning into the cruelty if it meant saving this. 

And so he let you go. 

When in his arms it had been the illusion of flying, still grounded to him just by holding on but falling from this height was even closer to the feeling of flying. The wind rippled around you as you fell in slow motion, his sweet angelic face washed in shock at what he had done and all you could do was think about how you would forgive him because you knew that if it had been you in his place, demon or angel, you would have done the same. 

You did not feel heavy, you felt free and the laughter echoed around Kai as he realized his mistake. His fear had control over him in ways he had not expected it to and his shouting did nothing to make it any closer to you as he tried to catch up to your falling form hurtling closer to a waiting grave that had once had a tombstone with his name written on it. You had missed this feeling of freefall and descent, missed the open arms of the wing kissing your skin in the same way Kai’s hands had only the night before. 

And then the feathers started to rain. A few white tumbled down along with you as you looked up at him, wax melting from being so close to the sun for only a short time. The edge of his right wing was still tipped in black as if your feathers had infected his mind and thoughts as if they had been the cause of the drop and not the sickening worry he had of losing everything that had just been returned to him. But you could not stop yourself from thinking again of the story you had been told as a child. That demons had been the same as angels, cast out for the bitterness lingering in their near-empty hearts. You two were the same, cast out, and only now did he truly see it. 

The last of his feathers started to come free, his control over his wings lessening as the two of you fell, the sky a perfect image of just you and him with feathers all around as it had always been. The spotting of inky black feathers floating around you, finally ready to be buried alongside the body they had come from. You reached out, Kai’s hand already trying to find anything on you to grasp but was just far enough to miss by the brush of his fingertips. The expanse of blue widens around you and is impossible to tell if you were rising in the sky or sinking closer to the waiting ocean. 

If falling felt like flying you would welcome the feeling because anything was better than nothing at all. 

<333 thank you to @beomiracles who wrote the opening paragraph that is italicized for this event so that we could all start on the same page- taglist 🏷: @kissmekissykissme @bts-txt-ateez @apeachty @seungfl0wer @lunesdesire @no1likemybbgcharlie @chasingthatjjunie @taegyutomorrow @izzyy-stuff @yeoningz @filmnings @jellymochii @dawngyu @bamgyuuuri @lickingan0rchid @felixleftchickennugget @thetxtdevil @luvsicktyun @hyukascampfire @prince-jjae @liverspaghett want to be added to the taglist? check out my rules to see how to join!want to be taken off the taglist? send an ask!

[piripiip]

Hii guysss :3 i might disappear again…

Yap session: So from the previous post i didn’t actually mean im gonna quit, no im not quitting😭 Its my absolutely shit wording (fuck you autism, i wished i never had you) BUT what i mean from the previous post if you saw it: i actually meant i wish i can say goodbye. No i didn’t intend it to sound like im quitting because im not.. Im still not very much okay and im still trying to cope. I just wished i had a lover honestly thats why i made that previous post :( im extremely obsessed with the topic of love and i think of it every single day, especially when i wake up Thats the first thing i think of.. Im extremely jealous of my friends actually, like im being dead ass serious but i wasn’t taken seriously. Im just in my room all day wishing for things because im absolutely delusional but i need to accept the fact that i will be lonely forever, like HELL no.. Im also obsessed with beauty standards too.

no one wants to be in a relationship with an Asian girl who thinks weirdly, has brain curses (adhd and autism)and is so fucking ugly. No one wants someone with small eyes. Much worse i cant be in relationship until im specifically 19 years old which will eventually make me suffer even more. I cant post much because of my constantly draining mental health☹️. I genuinely need serious help… im trying to stay away from sharp object’s because consequences will happen not just to me but to others as well.

Im just extremely jealous of my friends who are in relationships.. i CANNOT bare to see any of them like that. Im extremely selfish 🙁 i wish i wasn’t. I wished bad things to them, no im not a good person. I wish i was a good person.. Jealousy leads me into in a very terrible state where i hallucinate things and i hear things too. I feel so sorry to all of them because i wished bad on all of them. I just, cant bare living anymore but i have to live. Im only living to make myself suffer even more, i wish i can be put down out of my misery.

[evelyn-and-art]

Who in the world gets entertained by this stuff? Hey, won’t you tell me? With a smile—up, pull, pull. (MoeChakkaFire by Issey)

[error04landonotfound]

I was tagged by @a-amvryllis (thank you for the tag!! I was DYING to do this!!)

Tagging: @dirtylandotini and @khaoticspartan (aka my newfound besties on this app 🥹 but also only if you want to!!)

[skeletalheartattack]

honestly, the most devastating news you could hear about in 2007 while playing roblox was learning that Scatman John passed away in 1999. like, finding that out was the roblox child's equivalent to 9/11.

[amaranthdahlia]

if you won't be mine ... then