#and i do like forcing my poetry upon others

[stalinqrad]

*gasp* uni poetry contest??

[hoseoksluna]

LIFE | jhs

pairing: military!hobi x f. reader (ft. namjoon)

genre: slow burn ; tension ; converse high trope / smut, tiny fluff

word count: 8.6k

summary: hoseok has always had a secret thing for you and once he learns you're single, he doesn't waste time and knocks on your door. 

pinterest board: life / playlist: listen / taglist: join / discord: join

warnings: mutual pining, hobi is a feet guy, mentions of a partner giving you a cold shoulder and silent treatment, strong tension, praise kink, petting, nipple play, oral sex (f. receiving), overstimulation, slight dd/lg, raw and rough sex, size kink.

note: SHE'S BACK. HOSEOKSLUNA IS BACCKKKKKKKK. HELLO, MY BABIES. I MISSED YOU ALLLLL SOOOO MUCH AND I MISSED WRITING SO MUCH THAT THIS IS SOMETHING I WROTE IN MY YEARNING TOWARDS THE END OF MY HIATUS. fuck, this is way too hot. and i, again, had to take breaks to do something :D actually, i was inspired to write this at 4 am when i landed in my country after my vacation in dubai and got the weverse notification from hobi. :) yep. he ruined me, destroyed me, and i had to start writing. ENJOY THIS FILTHHHHHH. i missed writing abt dd/lg, too.... hehe. let me know what you think. and if you mayhappsss want part two? I LOVE YOU, MY BABIES. MWAH.

Hoseok, at your doorstep bringing in the moonlight before the midnight hour, was not something you quite expected to see when you heard the bell ring. You were lounging around on your couch, clothed in your new silky pajamas that you bought to heal your wounded heart a little, along with a peachy Korean face mask, a banana vape and a vanilla candle that you lit up as soon as you exited the shower. The creamy white sheet is what you were still wearing on the planes on your face when you stood there, taken aback because the man, clad in his military uniform, was certainly not your friend that visited you often. 

Hoseok was a mutual friend. A friend of your best friend Karina… and a friend of your now ex-boyfriend Namjoon. A friend that hated your guts—a friend that could not stand you. 

A friend that would let his eyes linger a little while longer on you upon seeing you on regular night outs and then ignore you for the rest of the event. A friend that would lock his gaze on your intertwined hand with Namjoon’s before narrowing it and scoffing in a private way that you invariably saw through. 

You weren’t stupid. You knew what his deal was—it’s only that you couldn’t do anything about it. You were Namjoon’s for eight wonderful months that were splotchy with the depth of poetry. Words from his heart that would give your life meaning, keep your head up above the surface. You needed those words as you spent your whole girlhood drowning in the sea of FOMO, rowing your arms through the waves of life that never got you anywhere. Seeing the little beauty of day and night of Seoul with your friends paled in comparison with what Namjoon showed you. You always believed that your life would begin with a man by your side—you prayed for it, you waited for it and it became reality. 

But it was not the reality that your body sought in the long run. 

Yes, the sex was great. Significant to your mental development, especially to your female one as you truly did become a woman in his hands, letting the lush girlish version of you die in his palms. As well as the museums, the hikes, the dinner dates that let you in on the complexity of Namjoon’s intellect that you found so profound and full of beauty. 

But as you nearly reached a year with him, your body began to seek more. The flowers beyond the box of your relationship with him—and you knew that those petals carried the scent of Hoseok. 

He liked you. You saw it in the extremity of his purposeful ignorance towards you, in the forced hatefulness he put across, and in the distance he set as a boundary. You saw it, too, in the way he would entertain other women in the bars and glance at you every now and then to make sure you’re seeing what he wants you to see. And it excited you, his interest in you that he kept at bay. 

It was a forbidden fruit that you smelt and smelt, but could never bite into—and it drove you insane. And when he got enlisted in the military, it drove you off a cliff. 

Missing him made you search for him. Not in Namjoon, but in other men. Privately, in your soul. And it cost you your relationship. 

Namjoon was a jealous, possessive man. He would fight with you if you looked at a guy for a beat longer than is necessary and if a half of a smile crept up upon the corner of your lips, he would give you the cold shoulder. An action that cut through you deep enough to make you bleed and you had to put a stop to it. 

You thought talking to him about it like an adult would straighten the road you were walking upon, but like the intelligent man Namjoon is—he knew that what he was giving to you was no longer what you needed. He threw it back at you, using the poetry of his words, and all you could do was be honest with him. Nod your head, tell him he was right, that you were seeking something more. And what surprised you was that Namjoon wasn’t willing to go the extra mile. 

He didn’t consider it. Didn’t mention it. 

He nodded his head, too. And you parted your ways as friends who loved each other and lived an artistic life together. 

And at that moment, a door to your mind opened and Hoseok stepped in. Made a bed, fluffed the pillows, and rested. 

It seems now he has awoken. Rang your doorbell, bashed his fist against the wood and narrowed his eyes at you in his normal fashion. 

An action that weaves a rhythm into that flat, bruised heart of yours. 

His military jacket is slung over his arm. His two black dog tags, hung by a silver chain around his long neck, rattles as the breath of the fresh, autumn evening breezes past, scattering goosebumps along your chocolate-buttered skin. You notice, within the brief silence while you look at each other and exchange words long overdue, that his hair is way shorter. Not buzzed anymore like Namjoon showed you on Hoseok’s first day in the military six months ago, but tousled and sticking out in different directions as if he raked his fingers through the strands a million times over. Your own itch, wrapped around your vape, his beauty heightened by his evident newly-gained manliness washing over you like an icy stream of water. 

You shiver, blaming it internally on the wind, and not on the lightness of the attraction that you feel sinking beneath your skin, overpowering you. 

And that small movement of your body propels Hoseok to speak, at last. 

“I come home to find you single,” he scoffs, his voice deep and raspy, marked possibly by his job in the military. And you feel it marking you just the same, opening windows in the house of your body for that wind to blow in and exhilarate you, help you breathe. “He’s drunk out of his mind, crawling on Jungkook’s lap and you’re here. In your pajamas with a fucking face mask on.” 

Briefly, you furrow your brows, not understanding the meaning of his words. Is he bashing you for not crying your heart out? Or is he bashing his brother for doing whatever it was. Your heart turns halfway, painfully. Those days are gone—those you spent in bed while that broken muscle wept while your body used that time to repose from all the stress it went through, being in an environment it grew out of. 

You sigh, weary of the recollection of that peculiar pain, and show no sight of the turbulence happening within you. “Jungkook must be happy about that.” 

Hoseok chuckles, humorlessly. A chilling noise that erects your bare nipples beneath your pajama button down. Awkwardness slinks down your sternum and you shift your weight on your other foot as Hoseok deepens his gaze down on you. 

Tension settles between you and you use it. You use it, wholeheartedly, as you should have all those months ago. The only thing you ever took advantage of were the touches Namjoon graced your skin with. You’d grab his hand, while Hoseok watched, and bring it underneath the table. Part your mouth, pretending he was touching a sensitive, private place while he was merely drifting his fingers along your thigh. Hoseok would gulp, but he would keep his gaze locked on yours, very much like he’s doing now. It’s the only form of intimate interaction you ever had, save for the heated debates about different things you two did not have in common. 

All else remained hidden in the silence shared between you. 

And it no longer shall. 

If he came all the way here, unannounced, then you shall let fate, one that is enamored with your body, have her way in your life. 

“If you came here to talk about him, then I’m not interested,” you say, letting go of the door and slipping off your face mask, ignoring the hurtful pinpricks along the perimeters of your heart. “If you came here for me, then the door is open.” 

And with that bravery, you pivot on your heel and walk back into the living room, not expecting him to follow you and not expecting him to walk away. You let fate do her thing, and you begin to tap in the essence of the peachy face mask into your skin with quick, gentle slaps. 

You toss the sheet, along with the packaging, into the trash, your hair clipped away from your face whooshing around you with your movement. Kicking off your slides, you hear them bump into something stable, and when you turn around to seek that strange sound, you see Hoseok standing by your armchair near your couch. 

So he did come here for you. You tremble in a different manner, filled with sparks of excitement, and, turning around to sit on the couch, you flush, smiling happily to yourself. 

But all those feelings turn to dust when Hobi kneels by the edge of your couch and fixes your home slippers. Aligns them rightly in front of you so you can comfortably slide your feet into them once you get up. 

Your stomach drops and your fingertips tingle, all of your nerve endings set on blazing fire by that one act of service. 

The first kind thing he’s ever done for you. 

He throws his military jacket over the backrest of the armchair, where he nestles himself. Legs spread, elbows propped on his knees. His long dog tag chain swings back and forth in the sudden, atypical calmness of the atmosphere that you cannot adapt to fully. Not when your mind creates an image of that chain hanging over your face, your neck and your chest when you’re bare and ready for him, laying on your back, all for him to take. 

You bite your lip, tracing the band of your sleep sock with your fingers, and Hoseok’s eyes fall to it. You quickly lift them, sheepish. Distract your mind by opening a package of eye patches and placing them on your dark circles that just won’t leave. His gaze skims over each motion, studying it, wordlessly, and you can’t take it anymore. 

You can’t be the only one who’s brave this evening. 

You take a puff of your vape, inhaling its sweetness, and stare right back at him. A smile, a foolish girlish smile quivers upon your lips. One that you dislike because you did grow out of it, but it seems as though the more you swallow the intensity of his shadowed, violent sea-charged energy, the more you transform back into that little girl you were. 

And the process soaks your panties. 

So much is said in the silence, always has been, but you can’t stand it anymore. 

“You should start talking before I go to bed,” you bite, willing your smile to flatten, and Hoseok kneads his hands. His knuckles bear a faint memory of yellow bruises, veiny and strong as they are, and for a moment you wonder how far his ferocity reaches. 

He showed you little of it. You know he’s capable of doing things that would change you for all eternity, give you a new form that would not wither with age. 

And you yearn for it. Have yearned for it all those months without knowing that was the thing your body sought. The thing Namjoon could never give you. 

Violence. Roughness. The licks of an outraged sea. 

You’re a witness to it sloshing in the pools of his darkened eyes as he chews the provocation you uttered his way. And you can bet he likes the taste. 

“Did he break your heart?” he asks amidst the banana-flavored smoke, his knuckles whitening for a split second as he clenches his fist before relaxing—as if the thought of Namjoon breaking your heart angers him. 

It rouses you, and the way your chest lifts with each breath stimulates your stiffened nipples. The candlelight sways, casting shadows on his worn features, and you’d much rather sit on them than talk about your ex. 

“Did you not hear what I said?” you spit, throwing your vape on the cushion of your couch. Hoseok’s façade splits as he smirks, dropping his gaze for a moment before lifting it back to you. 

He leans back, slouching in the chair. “Answer the question.” 

The sedatedness of his tone stuns you. Your heart begins to thump as well as the bundle of nerves between your folded legs. It has been too long since you had your release. Months upon months. And you’re too weak to not get carried away by these new feelings you’ve shamefully forgotten about. 

The veins from his knuckles travel all the way back to his arms and your brain empties out. Too, too fucking long. You should’ve fooled around with every guy you found attractive, use them for orgasms, make the best of your womanly years, but instead you dwelled at home—in and out of your misery. And now, now it feels as though you’re a virgin, alone for the first time with an older man that enlivens your body. 

And you might as well give him what he asks of you. 

Sucking on your vape for a puff of bravery, you don’t blink as you stare at him through the smoke. You elongate your legs, placing them on the coffee table next to him, your toes facing his outstretched knee, and his eyes, once again, plummet to them. 

“He didn’t break my heart, I broke his,” you say, your words shrouded by that white mist curling out of your mouth, and you watch as his eyes widen en route to yours. 

He didn’t expect that. 

Something about that satisfies you. Selfishly. 

Hoseok runs the pad of his finger across his bottom lip, his head tilted to the side a little bit. “It was about time you did.” 

The searing heat that rushes forward in your cheeks forces your gaze away from him, begs you to look away, but you don’t. A bead of perspiration trickles down your cleavage, one that is visible to him as you couldn’t be bothered to do all the buttons after your shower. But Hoseok’s eyes don’t flick to it. No, he can’t miss this. He can’t miss the gravity of the moment, of the spoken confirmation of the fact that what went on between the two of you for so long is real. You squeeze your thighs together, the thumping in between unbearable, and the longer you bask in his brave words, in the masculinity of his initiative, the more your own poetry begins to rise in you.

If it drags, it’s not meant for you. If it’s fast, it couldn’t wait to meet you. 

And Hoseok notices. It is only when you let out a little, barely hearable sigh that his eyes do travel down to scrutinize your bodily reaction. To your nipples poking through, the shine of your sweat in between your bare breasts, to the friction you’re rubbing—the miniscule grinding movements that you make in order to alleviate yourself of the ache of desperation that you feel. And because you’re baring yourself out for him, he does the unthinkable. 

He lets you see his true face, his façade collapsing at his big, sock-clad feet. 

Hoseok lifts his hips, hides behind the pretense that he’s just making himself more comfortable, but in reality he did it to turn your attention to his lower region. His length, semi-hard yet still long, stands out, protruding from the camo of his pants and you’re hot, hot all over. 

The thumping worsens—and you need him, all of him, to make it better. 

Perceiving that he’s succeeded in his strategy by the way you just won’t stop ogling him, he blushes and hides it, in vain, with outstretched fingers spread across his face. As if he was doing his signature idol move. It’s a riveting sight to behold, a seemingly cold person growing warm from you gaping at that private part of him. 

And you want more. You want to see more places of his body that are flushed. And you want it now. 

“It was about time you and I talked alone, don’t you think?” you ask, following on from his previous statement. All that pining, those stolen glances, that distance—all that tension advances forward now, stronger than ever.

Hoseok can feel it, too. At your words, his manhood grows harder and his breathing quickens. He tries to stabilize it, but he fails. He fails even when he returns to his original position with his elbows propped on his knees. That chain of his swings with more momentum, teasing you, and you place your legs even closer towards him, and upon witnessing the light flash in his eyes, you realize that you teased him right back. 

The man likes feet.

You draw in a sharp breath when he fists both of your feet in one hand, brushing his thumb over the tips of your toes. The first touch in this lifetime, the first time upon your new virgin body, so intimate, private; he might as well have wrapped a blanket around them with how warm his hand is, secure and trustful. Goosebumps flood your skin, bringing in the iciness that you felt when you took in his beauty against the background of the trees and the moonlight. And its beams must be stitched around his fingers because daintiness clasps you close, the notion that you’re taken care of, in good hands, descending upon you like the most delicate feather tickling you, and you let it—you let it consume you. 

And you let his following question consume you just as much. 

“Were you in love with him?” 

It’s a question you never had the bravery to ask yourself in the two months you’ve been single, but it is here and you welcome it. You hear it whisper to you the hint of your answer and your body is smart enough, capable enough to figure it out. 

No need for long nights of overthinking. 

No need for long hours of listening to your heart crack.

“No, I was used to him—that’s different,” you hush out and the moon lowers herself, spilling through your windows, bathing you in a milky light that feels as welcoming, as right as your confession. And maybe, just maybe it’s the way the shining stream submerges in your neediness that drives you to be bratty. And briefly, before you do, you ponder over the fact how in your life shared with this person drives, moves forward. There’s never a still time—and you find that mesmerizing. Enough for you to simply brood in greed. “What’s it to you?” 

Hoseok flinches. Parts his mouth. His chain rattles and his fingers squeeze the balls of your feet, coaxing a hum out of you that is immediately silenced by his sudden outburst. 

“What’s it to me?” 

There it is. Another plot point. Your heart hammers. 

Hoseok lets go of your feet and you lament the absence. Stands up and towers over you, the moonshine soaking him in divine light that causes your breath to hitch in your throat. A faint layer of sweat has coasted along his hairline and settled there—and you long to swim in his bodily fluids. In the persona of his, in the tumultuous sea of the tension locked within him. 

“You’re genuinely asking me this question?” he pressures, lifting your legs in order to step in between them, and the unthinkable visits you once again. He props his hands on either side of your head and those two dog tags swing in your face. 

A wet patch forms in the center of your pajamas. Your breath mirrors his—hasty, deep and strained—and you can’t take it anymore. 

How far into this road of bravery until the moon averts its opaque eyes away from your sin? 

You arch your spine, hook your fingers on his dog tags and pull him a little closer. Breathe his air, breathe in his masculine, musky scent that intoxicates your senses to the point that there is absolutely nothing stopping you from getting dragged in the natural flow of this situation. 

“Yes, Hoseok. What’s it to you?” 

He pants. Glides, delicately, his fingers along your arm until he winds up at your small fist, clutching it in his as if it was his. And that warmth, you want to dip your head in it. 

“I had to watch you sit in that chair and not crack a smile. Sit next to him like an obedient girl, not allowed to speak. To me,” he grunts, tightening his lips, and that anger of his seeps into you, becoming yours. “He didn’t deserve you. You’re not a pretty toy. You’re a person.” 

He straightens but, panicking, you draw him right back by that chain. “Don’t fucking walk away from me.” 

He seethes and you feel your essence trickling down your thigh. That sea, inching forward, you whimper. And then he spreads that warmth over the crown of your head, rubbing your hairline just once with his thumb before he peels off your eye patches that you have forgotten about. 

And this is when your brows curl. This is the time that says there’s no going back. 

“I talked to you. We fought, don’t you remember?” 

He sweeps that digit over that soaked dark circle of yours underneath your eye. “What do you think would’ve happened to you if I talked to you nicely?” 

Cold shoulder. Uncomfortable time of forced aloneness, filled with the abyss of guilt that you had done something wrong. A toy that didn’t move its lifeless limbs right by his will. 

“I’ve known him for far longer than you. I know how he treats those he thinks he loves. I brushed it away with the others, but with you… I couldn’t. You were so full of life that was stuck in you because of him. Because he didn’t let you let it out. And I can’t forgive him for that.” 

What life? The one you searched for all your girlhood, the one Namjoon molded with his own hands until it no longer recognized the once-familiar lines of his palm? The one that yearned for Hoseok instead? 

A film of tears clouds your eyes and as hard as you try to blink them away, they linger, pooling at your waterline like sea foam. You need your vape, you need him inside you—you can’t face the mirror of the reality of that unfair treatment. 

How blind you were; how Hoseok has become that guiding stick. 

“Don’t forgive him,” you utter, grasping his chain tighter, drawing him even closer, making his breath tremble. The first tear that pours out leaks into the print of his thumb and at the sound of your soft cry, Hoseok topples. Kneels on the couch with your legs on either side of him and you pull, you pull him closer. 

“Do you want me?” he asks—a foolish, foolish question. Presses his forehead against yours, cups your face with both hands now while his back shakes and you touch it, you drag your fingernails down those prominent muscles. And he sighs, so desperately, so tenderly. “Do you want me to let out that life in you?” 

“Yes,” you whisper, sliding your hands underneath his black shirt, scratching the lowest part of his warm, warm waist before hooking your fingers on the waistband of his pants. It’s his—it always belonged to him. “Take me. Here.” 

He brushes his nose against yours, your breath and his singular. “You’re so feisty.” Lips nearly touch yours and your lungs give out on you, your air coming out in pathetic staccatos that make him growl, subduedly. Muscles rigid, bundle of nerves devoutly pulsing. Please, please. “But no.” 

The world implodes, the mocking shimmer of that planetary light gushing through—hand in hand with sobriety. 

But Hoseok, the prince of the unthinkable, dips your head back into that darkness. Lifts you by your armpits and sets you down on his lap, his hard length against your core uprearing your need for release. 

A hand sailing down your neck, your sternum, acknowledging itself with your respiration. “Don’t give it to me that easily.” 

Your own cages him there, right at the apex of the fleshiness of your breasts. “Jebal, Hobi.” 

Please, Hobi. You drive, in his fashion, your hips forward—ever so slightly. His eyes round at the mellow variation of his name wandering out of your mouth and wrapping around his neck, as if the gentleness you give him pains him, transforms into a noose around his vocal cords and he can’t speak. 

He sighs, the noise melting into a soft, low-pitched moan. “Don’t beg me,” he croaks out, so terribly strung out. “I’m-I’m—”

You lengthen your spine, closing your mouth over that one spot on the side of his throat that you can reach, silencing him. He doesn’t need to speak—you’re fine with the tacit language of his hands. And the taste of his skin, that fucking warmth dissolving upon your tongue, you can’t help but to moan just the same against him like that, rocking your hips awfully, awfully slowly, driving him to the point of madness that he stood at the edge of for so long. 

“I want you to touch me,” you murmur, tugging his hand lower to the first done button of your silky shirt and it’s him who hooks his fingers over that fabric now. You lick a stripe across the thick vein of his throat, grinding a little harder when you hear him suck in a pained breath. “I want you to feel that life in me and know it’s yours. Jebal, Hoseokie.” 

He grunts, ripping you away from him. You expect his eyes to be narrowed in that typical manner of his, but they’re not. They’re soft, round and glossy, looking down at you, unblinking. A face you’ve never seen before, that feels too, too significant—and you’re not sure if you deserve to get a load of it. Of his pinkish cheeks and downturned mouth, of his fingers agonizingly sluggishly undoing the first button of your shirt. 

Of his sentimentality that you never thought he was so efficient at. 

The sea that has remotely stilled—but you’re still riding the lenient waves, your torso curving with each button popping off as he engraves his warmth into your cold, cold skin. And once he reaches the very last one, he stops. Holds your shirt together, squishing your breasts, waiting for you to lift your head out of the sea water. 

And you do. 

He inches forward, grazing his lips against yours, making you feebly cry out. 

“Did you cry for him?” 

Your cry prolongs, vexation splattering over your arousal, and you’ve had enough of it. You flick your eyes between his, drawing back, flattening your lips in that anger of his that seems to be still flowing in you somewhere. No more, no more Namjoon; no more talk of your past relationship. It’s over, it’s over.

“Stop fucking—”

Hoseok doesn’t relent. Sinks his fingers into the roots of your hair at the nape of your neck to make you listen. “Did you cry for him?” 

Your heart wept, but your eyes didn’t. The tear you shed in front of him was the only liquid emotion that spilled out of you since the day of the break up. “No.” 

He blows a heavy breath of relief that oddly validates you—and light opens in your sensitive bosom. “Good girl.” 

And it is now that Hoseok presses his chest, his dog tags against that light of yours and clamps his mouth down on your top lip, hoisting you a tiny bit to sit you right down on his manhood. His strong arm wraps around your back while the other floats down and curls around your bum, growling into the kiss that he deepens. And then he parts your lips with his, slipping his tongue inside, and the dam breaks between your legs—as well as the quick little whines and squeaks that begin to leak out of your mouth and into his. 

The life in you throbs. 

His cock hardens even more underneath you and he pushes your clit against it, his noises and yours growing louder and louder in tandem until he’s breathless, panting so vivaciously that he needs a moment. A moment to focus on the mess he’s created of you, a glowing ball of rosiness, the prettiest of all flowers—and you feel like it, being looked at like that. 

“I knew you were smart,” he coos, peppering feathery kisses upon your cheek, jaw and chin, descending to the base of your neck. You moan out, fisting his shirt below his collarbones, the continuation of his validation for you nesting in your core. “That life in you will always win. No matter what.” 

You believe him—in fact, there’s nothing left for you to do, but to submit, submit and submit. And it feels like entering a dream that is kind, a reality that appears to be a dream, but is better. An existence smeared with clemency, where you can be a little girl again. 

“Touch it, please.” 

Hoseok hums, kissing the cleft between your clavicles. Shifts forward on the couch so you can rest your spine on the backrest, your head against the wall, and he slides his palms upward from your tummy to the apex of your breasts. You whine, torturously, at the contact, and you shudder and double over when he swipes his thumbs over your still stiffened nipples, buzzing shocks of acute pleasure coursing down your body, rooting in your clit that asks for his fingers, his tongue, but he remains where he is. Transfixed, starving, ravaged. 

He kneads your breasts like he kneaded his hands, with overpowering strength that quickens your blood flow, your body submitting to him and flushing like his does. A sliver of skin that your shirt exposes catches his attention—and at the sight of the flesh of your breasts spilling through, his cock twitches, his breath ragged, eyes droopy and so, so drunk. He pinches your nipples, still through that silken fabric, as if he was punishing you for causing him this unfair pain. 

Knead, flick, pinch. Your noises are obnoxious, his heat in you rising and rising, and you can’t take it anymore. The drum in your clit thuds and you push him away, the pleasure too overwhelming, too good and too arousing. 

And he pushes away the fabric, revealing your perky breasts. A glint settles on the edge of his irises and he gives you a coy smile before he smashes his mouth against yours, moving it in a rhythm that reflects the one in your bundle of nerves. And you grind, you grind like your life depends on it, your nipples and your pussy rubbing against him, against his icy dog tags, getting you closer and closer to your orgasm. And you would come like this had he not physically ripped you away from him. 

Heaving, he focuses, all over again, on the ruination he makes of you. The warmth in you flits so invitingly that you have to touch the places he did—your stomach, your sternum, your breasts. And as you do, you watch his gaze darken, you watch him nod his head, and wipe the corner of his mouth clean, catching his drool. 

“You feel it, don’t you?” he rasps, following the invisible traces you left on your body. Your stomach, your sternum, your breasts. “Right here. Life. Beautiful life.” He teases your hardened nub, circling it with the pads of his fingers, sliding it between his knuckles and squeezing, his smile growing with each shudder of your chest, with each response. “It’s time to make you come and let it out, you ready? Let’s take these off.” 

He tugs off your pajama pants, throws it behind his shoulder, examines the large wet stain on your panties that he coos at, raspily, petting it with his thumb—and you’re so turned on that even such faint touch like that brings you pleasure. You hold onto his arms for dear life, depending on him, trembling when the panties and the shirt are next, tossed upon the pile of your pants. 

You’re bare and he’s still fully dressed. Such titillating unfairness that turns you unhinged, maddened by liveliness your body is diffused with. 

Hoseok pins your legs back. Takes one hand and glides his fingers across your entire femininity, soaking them in the dew he has coaxed out of you, moaning gutturally. 

“He never made you wet like this, did he?” he asks, pride dripping out of him like his masculine pheromones, and with his wet fingers he palms himself. “You don’t even have to answer that. I know. I need to taste you, baby.” 

You don’t even get to fill a lungful of the stuffed, vanilla-scented air and he dives in, keeping your legs glued to your shoulders as he seizes your clit in his mouth, sucking on it briefly before he flattens his tongue all over you. He licks you like a lost man finding an oasis, humming into your heat while he tastes your personal slickness, swallowing everything he sowed. You bang your head on the wall, a numbed pang expanding all throughout your scalp by your claw clip, taking it all, moaning so loudly the whole of Seoul must be hearing you. Even Namjoon in his drunkenness, shameful that he never managed to eat you like this in the eight months you were his to consume. 

Your orgasm inches to you quickly. With half-lidded eyes, you watch the candlelight create sublime, eccentric images on his back. And as if he couldn’t handle the warmth anymore, he peels himself away from you just to take off his shirt, adding it to the pile. He doesn’t let you see his muscular body—he plunges back down, tongue outstretched, flicking the muscle on your swollen clit. He pinches your thigh, your mound, your folds, whimpering onto your flesh, hurrying to close his mouth over you to suck your clit. 

And within that divine suction, you come apart. The beautiful images on his back advance, fluttering on his smooth skin, and you hold him to yourself. The life in you explodes, saturating him in a dimmed, soft-hued, colorful light that he himself must be sensing because he moans, loudly, sinking his index finger inside your clenching hole. You can’t speak, you can’t breathe—you can only feel, you can only take. Your orgasm continues on, a ceaseless stream of delight untwisting in every part of your body. 

And when he begins to fuck you with that finger of his and hits that good spot, your orgasm melts into another one. And this time, you can’t take it. 

You shake so vivaciously that you fall off the edge of the couch, but he catches you. Hoseok unclips your hair and lays you down, propping your hips on the armrest instead and when he bends at the waist and opens his mouth, you scream out your disagreement, pushing him away. 

He blinks at you, mouth sopping wet. “I wasn’t finished.” 

Your oxygen is stuck in your throat, one that gets bespeckled with the beads of your dew. “Hoseokie—”

He traces it, wiping it off, holding you there. Presses his hard, clothed length against your bare pussy, rocking slowly, casting a private, affection-filled shadow with the arch of his body over yours. Hoseok kisses you once, a nasty kiss perfumed with your tangy scent, and you cry out. 

“The fact you can’t take the bare minimum personally offends me. He had you all to himself and he didn’t do his job well,” he mutters, squeezing your throat once. Drags his wet hand down your sternum, grasping a hold of both of your breasts, clenching them until they flush, again, like him. 

There it is, the saltiness of his sea. You yearn for the physical principle of it coating your tongue—for his cum to trickle out of the tip of it like your dew is off of his. And his words, his anger towards his best friend because of you—it heals you in a way you could never heal yourself. Another person seeing you and telling you that you deserve better, it is the most pristine form of remedy there is and you splutter on the whole beauty and compassion of it all, too weak to accept it at once. 

“That’s right,” you agree, as enthusiastically as your dopeness allows you, smiling lopsidedly, heart pounding. “Go slow on me.”

He croons, squeezing his eyes. “My little girl.” 

He buries his face in your neck, kissing you there, and along with the life in you—your heart explodes, too. The finality of your detransformation. Tears of joy ache in the corners of your eyes, the rawness of human fulfillment housing in you for all eternity. 

He kisses his way down to your breasts. “I’ll go slow on you,” he promises, darting out his tongue and flicking it over your nub, making you tremble. He straightens and dances his fingers along your thighs—up to your knees. “Do you want to stop here?” 

You shake your head. Place your feet flat on his toned stomach while you feel your dew dribble down your bum. Hoseok smiles, his mouth curving in that way of his that causes your own stomach to drop. He holds your heels, hooking his finger under the band of your socks and yanking them off. 

And his grin blooms at the sight of your dusty-pink toes, an endeared look thawing his eyes. He rubs them like he did at the beginning of this journey, keeps one at his stomach while he lifts the other one to his mouth. 

Your poor heart skips a beat. 

“Do you want me to fuck you like a little girl like you deserves?” 

He kisses the ball of your foot, doesn’t break the eye contact. Watches your mouth part in absolute astonishment and your cheeks deepen in their hue. And when he kisses it again, slower this time, it wakes you up from your stupefaction, and you lower your free foot down to his clothed cock. Hoseok groans, the sound muffled against your tootsie, shutting his eyes at the impact. Your chest flickers with a sense of pride that you made him react like that—and you want it again. You trail your toes across that length of his, but before you could reach the most sensitive part of him, he stops you. 

Sucks in that pained breath of his, red all over. 

“If you keep doing that, I’m gonna come.” 

You mirror him, the idea of being capable of doing that to him pleasuring you. You leak onto the couch. Your blood boils. 

“That’s so hot.” 

He chuckles, anchoring your foot upon his heart, tapping it with your big toe. “It’s because you have my heart.” 

Your body ceases all work, as well as time. Even the candlelight pauses its dance, concentrating its caressing radiance on that chain of his. 

And you don’t think as you scurry onto your knees and embrace him, his dog tags no longer icy. He plants his nose into your hair, inhaling you, sealing you into the hug with both of his arms. Your heart reaches its own towards his and they cling to each other, too. 

And you’re not afraid to reciprocate his feelings—they’re as clear to you as that very luminescence of the vanilla candle. 

“You have me,” you whisper into his ear, his body not quivering but stable, safe. “You have my life. It’s more of a treasure than my heart.” 

He had you the moment he so evidently disapproved of your past relationship. He had you the moment he was curious to see if you were jealous when he was entertaining other women. He had you the moment he purposefully put a distance between you and him because he didn’t want you to get hurt by Namjoon. 

You just didn’t know it yet, not until clarity arose in front of you in the form of his honesty. 

Hoseok kisses your own ear, lingers there. “I want both.” 

“Then, have it.”

And he kisses your forehead. “Thank you. I’ll take care of it.” 

You can see in the ivory mist of his eyes that he means it—and so you tug off his military belt as you begin to pepper kisses down the column of his neck because he deserves it, because he cares for you, because he came to you as soon as he heard that you were single. And when you reach those dog tags, the words of his title imprinting themselves onto the surface of your lips, you clasp his cock in your hand. Too big for your small fist, too warm for you to handle—

“Lay back down.” 

You bite into the flesh right above that first steel pendant while keeping your eyes locked on his. “Yes, Sergeant.” 

Hoseok curses. Wrings a sharp gasp out of you when he pulls on your hair, giving you a nasty kiss full of tongue. “Don’t call me that when I need to be gentle with you,” he scolds, sucking on your bottom lip to make it better and you disintegrate. “Right now I would bend you over this couch and fuck you until Sergeant and Sir was all you knew, but I can’t do that. Not when you’re not used to me yet.” 

Yes, the promise of the sea—you convulse from head to toe, pining after it. 

“I want that so bad.” 

He nods, marking you on your neck. You whimper and he groans in response. “And I’ll give it to you, you just need to be good now. Lay down.” 

You comply, but you take him with you—grabbing him by that chain as you arch your back on the couch. He lets you, grins at you like the utmost sunshine, but that expression of delight breaks when a certain realization dawns upon him. 

“I didn’t bring any condoms.” 

You huff out a soft noise. “Good. I want you to come all over me.” 

Hoseok hangs his head low, sighing, on all fours above you. His chain swings, drawing the memory of this very night on your breasts. He looks up at you from this position, his eyes thin slits that cause you to clench around nothing. 

“I’ll give you a big load.” 

You beam like the purest angel, in spite of the context. “Yes, please.” 

Hoseok rolls his eyes back, his façade cracking, and he beams just the same, his mouth widening in the shape of a heart that moves through you. He kisses you deeply, a long peck that breaks you down into a putty, and when he withdraws, you can still see that smile plastered on his glowing face. 

“Good girl. Such good manners.” 

And with that praise, he sheathes himself inside you. You both gasp in union, entering a paradise no other human will ever witness in the afterlife. He stretches you out, slowly, careful not to hurt you as he waits it out, petting your hair in the meantime. 

“I can feel you stretching around me, fuck. You’re so warm, so tight for me,” he rasps, panting, that smile trembling on his lips as he tries to keep it together. He straightens, pinches your nipple and you feel yourself accommodating him quicker at that sudden electricity of pleasure, at the sight of his toned body and that chain. The shine of sweat, the dance of the candlelight, the width of his shoulders and carmine chest as it heaves in desperate hums and groans. You could come just from that—and the sensation is so dizzying that your eyes droop. Hoseok notices, grappling the crook between your neck and shoulder. “Stay with me, baby, you can take this. I’m gonna make you feel so good and you’re gonna come on this cock.” 

Those hums of his cruise all the way to your mouth as he sinks that encouragement into it, kissing you deeply, pinning your hands back above your head and sliding his fingers into a celestial intertwinement with yours. They throb within you, those words of his, where they disperse all around, helping you believe that you truly can take the whole manliness of him. Your mind spins, the pressure of your shared atmosphere ringing in your ears, and he knows, he knows that you’re ready for him.

“I’m gonna start moving now. Talk to me, baby. Tell me everything you’re feeling as I fuck you,” he murmurs, unsheathing himself a tiny bit before he curls his hips forward and upwards, creating a languid, spine-tingling rhythm that replicates the waves of his sea. They slosh to and fro with every slow stroke and he kisses your good spot with the tip of his cock. Your eyes flutter open and close, rolling like those waves, but you can still see the way his jaw is clenched, his gums on full show as he seethes in his self-control, the flush of his neck and the flexing of his abdomen that you can’t help but to touch in your otherworldly daze. He stares down at you, intensely, narrows his eyelids and furrows his brows when he feels your touch, and you discover that the spot, where his V-lines lead to your antidote, is one of uttermost sensitivity. 

He moans, burying himself deep in you, and stopping there. Mound to mound, soul to soul.

“Fuck, baby, you just know where all my spots are, don’t you?” he asks, his voice so terribly strained, torso doubled over, and you grin. 

“I think I was born already knowing them,” you flirt and Hoseok pounds into you for it—a singular thrust that scrambles all your brain cells. Your smile falls, your brows crunch, your throat utters such whiny noise that he himself grunts at the sound of it, and when you lift yourself onto your elbows to see his length driving in and out of you, he pushes you right down by your throat, kissing you hard enough that it hurts.

And he alleviates the lip lock by licking over your tongue, toying with it—all while he, little by little, picks up the rhythm, fucking into you with a force that coaxes your rawest moans out of you. 

“You can’t handle my tongue and I can’t handle it when you flirt with me,” he scoffs, smacking his mouth as he turns his head, claiming your mouth, claiming you. “God, I wanna destroy you so bad.” 

Your cry is cut out by another savage thrust and you claw at that sensitive spot of his, inciting him to do it again and again. “I’m yours to destroy.” 

He pauses, the crown of his cock teasing the beginning of your heat. Sweat drips down his temple and he runs a hand through his hair, messing it up in a way that makes your heart twitch in absolute sensuality and relish. 

“Say that again.” 

Your breath hitches. “I’m yours to destroy.” 

Hoseok curses, driving into you all the way. You whine out, clenching your fists, feeling every ridge and every vein of his cock glide forwards and backwards along your walls. And by tensing your body and focusing on the delight he’s gracing your body with, the build-up of your orgasm announces its presence.

“Fuck, Hobi, you feel so good,” you cry, gripping his forearms as he begins to hold your waist steady. He jackhammers into you so viciously that your vision scatters with a creamy hue of ivory, moaning in ragged staccatos that influence you so much that you naturally imitate them, fading into him, becoming one. 

“Whose are you?” he growls without interfering with the gracefulness of his sadism, moving back only an inch before slamming back into you, bruising your cervix—and you lose all brain cells, the synapses blanking out. 

But only one thing is clear. 

“I’m yours.” 

And the following snap of his hips drives you out of this world and out of this universe. The gravity keeps your muscles tense, confining your pleasure and the closeness of your orgasm within. The ringing grows in volume and you’re on the cusp. 

Hoseok is, too, because he begins to beg. 

“Please, please, baby. Come for me. I’m so fucking close for you. Please, I’m gonna come all over you.” 

And with a scream that vibrates through the walls of your living room, you comply. Your core grips him, your skin prickles and you levitate—your back arches off the couch, aching to be closer to him, and Hoseok whines. 

Pulls out, straddles you, and fist-fucks his shaft with frantic, frenzied motions. Covers you with ropes and ropes of his cum that ripple on your stomach, your sternum and your breasts as you drift in and out of consciousness. Warm, warm essence of his masculinity that is warmer than the rest of him. 

Blood-hot. 

And you feel as though you deserved every drop. 

Deserved to see the beauty of his orgasm. The flush of his lower regions, especially. The sight you longed to see. 

Hoseok lets go of his manhood, his hand shiny and wet, though he’s still hard, reaching the beginning of your parting lungs with how big he is. Bigger than Namjoon, bigger than anyone you ever dated. Their names wither in your mind, decomposing. And they lose all meaning. 

They cease to exist. 

You’re not his best friend’s ex. You’re not anyone’s ex—

“Look at how little you are,” Hoseok comments, interrupting the surge of your maddened thoughts. He smears the puddle of cum on your stomach that his cock can reach and your pussy flutters in constant motions that ask for him again. “So little under me and all mine, aren’t you?” 

His avowal brings a fresh dose of oxygen into your lungs and you breathe it in. Want to breathe it in for the rest of your life with him. 

But Hoseok doesn’t stop there. Once you agree with him by the nod of your head and a dopey, gratified grin that casts an affirming light on him, he bends over you, his fists on either side of your head. 

“I’ll show you what true possessiveness looks like. The world will burn if it hurts you and if people say one bad word to you, it will be the last one they ever said. But they will talk to you and you will talk to them. You will learn about this life of yours. What it holds, what it looks like. And I’ll be standing beside you and I’ll watch over you. Learn it, live it with you.” 

He rubs your forehead with his thumb in a fond gesture. Looks at you with a mute meaning that touches your heart and crawls inside before he kisses you, relaxes his lips against yours, and kisses you again. 

Again and again. 

Again in the shower. Again in your bed when you’re riding him, tasting the life he let out of you, because you blazed up with desire after you washed his body. And the sex is quiet, smothered with those kisses until your mouth and his is numb. 

And again throughout the years you acknowledge yourself with that life and realize that you understand it more profoundly and clearly in the process of getting to know Hoseok than this world. 

Hoseok is that life. 

And you kiss him and whisper those words onto his mouth when you marry him at the altar, years and years later, connecting your life and his forever. 

𓂃 ౨ৎ LOVE-KISSED BABIES: @tkslovechild, @jjk7k, @parkinglot-nights, @bethvar, @Sexytholland, @yoongibaybee, @crystaleah,@fennecnco, @lil-kpopstan, @euphoricmyth, @jungkoock, @cinmmongirl, @hoseokkie-caeks, @kam9404, @fr0ggieth1nk.

© 2024 hoseoksluna, all rights reserved.

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[belphegorey]

⌜corruption, satan⌟ angels were such lustful creatures ships ⎯ satan x gn!angel!reader tropes ⎯ subtle blood kink, sex, degradation, poetry reciting, literal corruption, scenting, implied master/pet thoughts

To watch as darkness sunk into the pristine feathers that made angelic wings was glorious. He gorged himself upon the sight as you mewled above him. The blackness began right at the base of your wings, growing and tainting each layer with his every thrust inside of you. 

And never had Satan felt quite as powerful in his life. Your perfectly white attire tore beneath his talons, the hidden halo above your head stuttered in its glow. Every noise you made had his body curling upward to you, pushing himself deep enough to have you crying. 

Such sweet tears. Angelic tears. Only made better due to his knowledge of the cause. “Oh,” your body shuddered as you pushed your ass against him. It left him fully inside of your heavenly sex. The bare skin of your thighs stuck to his pulled down pants, just as flushed as the rest of you, “oh my!”

“You can do so much better than that,” like a true monster, his talons curled around your hips to control your pace. Such eagerness; it was almost as delicious as the taste of your blood that sparkled on his fangs. The bite mark would last a week at most. Satan was already smiling at the idea of watching you stutter and attempt explanations for what caused it, “or are those the only things you angels can say?”

The whimper you cried had his spine tingling in wicked glee. It took no effort to push your body against the table in front of you both. Your wings fluttered as another row of feathers tainted themselves black. He ran a claw down the skin of your ass, chuckling at the small beads of blood that slipped out. 

The only response you had was a desperate clenching around his cock. Such vile creatures. Satan couldn’t stand angels. Simeon was tolerable at best, the chihuahua was a noisy little thing and Raphael… not even demons would enjoy hearing Satan’s opinion of him. But; you. There was something so deliciously sinful hiding behind the pristine gowns and feathered wings. 

Temptation and desire. His (partial) Father would be so disappointed. “Please,” your tears slipped onto the book beneath you. The very one he found you reading. Its pages were already weathered from the countless times Satan had read it — the tear stains would become his favourite addition to the poetry within.. He teased his hand around your spine, making you moan as he crossed over the roots of your wings. Sin grew like vines beneath your skin, stretching around your back as it took over you further. The most blissful sight, “harder!”

Harder. 

It was pure comedic irony. 

He wrapped a large hand around your throat and squeezed, pushing you back against him as he thrust further inside of you. “What was that?” The tone of his voice was pure saccharine as he moved your body with ease. Your head lulled back and he could see your eyes — clouded in pitch black sin that had your skin glowing in the firelight. Sweat beaded at your forehead as those vines grew down your cheeks. Satan twitched his fingers tighter and you moaned through the shaking of your body. “Repeat it for me.”

“Harder, please!” Your hand stretched out to the other side of the table, nails clawing at the wood in pleasure. Both your legs shook around him as he thrusted in and out of you. The clapping of your ass against his hips formed the beat of your rhythmic moans. “I need you to fu… use me.”

An angel swearing, Satan could have sworn he felt the chill of ice wind brush through the entire Devildom. Your nails dug into the wood and your palm, he could smell the copper of blood drip onto the table. Satan couldn’t help his own need grow. He forced himself deeper inside of you at a faster pace, but not so fast that you would enjoy it completely. No. Satan wanted to hear more of those whimpers and pleas for more. 

Maybe if you say the right one he can let you cum and he would even fill you up, as a little reward. How funny would it be? An angel returning to their home, dripping in the seed of a demon lord. You’d be lucky to not be cast out immediately. 

That’s okay, Satan was sure he could find a use for you in that scenario. 

“Yes!” Your hands moved to touch around his own, fingers curling around his palms for air while also pushing them tighter. Such an oxymoron — did you want his pleasure or not? It wasn’t as though you weren’t enjoying it, he could see just how much as the tips of your wings finally shed to the slick black oil. Not a single moment of white goodness was left. “Fuck! So good, Satan!”

An angel with a penchant for dirty talk, too? Satan had to chuckle in your ear as he squeezed your body in his hands. Your halo tipped and fell from your head, clattering on the table with no fanfare. You didn’t even care. Your soiled mind was too focused on screaming more perverse words and feeling his touch. 

With a hand on your hip, Satan pulled you nice and close, your back flush to his chest. Your praise fell quiet beneath your whimper of confusion. Slow. The pace was torture even for himself, but Satan couldn’t help but revel in that delicious cry for more you echoed over and over. 

“Kiss by kiss,” he inhaled at your neck, grazing the bloody fangs on your shining skin. It no longer held the glow of angels, rather a faded darkness that he found himself tempted toward. You moved a hand back to fist at his hair, thrusting your ass against him for more. The shiver of your body against him was sheer delight, “I cover your tiny infinity,”

The words fell with ease as he moved down your neck. Blood and harsh kisses inked out his journey of your skin. Satan wondered if you realised what he was saying, or whether you had already gone too dumb to recall the very book you were reading. You weren’t meant for the Celestial Realm — no angel should read such words. 

And yet, as Satan recited them to you, your only response came as moans of bliss. “Your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,” the stuttering of your hips let him know that you finally realised. He smiled against the vines of desire growing beneath your skin, sucking at the concave of your collarbone.

“Satan,” you whimpered and clawed at his scalp. The fingers that he had found journeying beneath your cloak messed with his blonde hair, thumbing at the horns. You had to have been expecting some form of punishment, an angel to touch themself in Satan’s library? Unforgivable. He gleamed as you curled back to him further, sparkling tears pooling around your eyes, “Need you —“

His pace was near brutal, he realised. The slapping of your joined skins was blissful but the bruising against his hips would be a pain. The black feathers that now made your wings itches at his chest and made him rumble a growl. “And a genital fire, transformed by delight, slips through the narrow channel of blood,” 

With a sharp talon, he pressed against your stomach. He could smell the sweet iron tang in the air as it beaded out. Two short horns protruded from the top of your head, settling where your halo once occupied. What a beautiful sight. You suited black horns far better than any stupid halo. “Please,” such a cute begging voice you had. It captured pure innocence and lust in such a way he was sure his brother would grow envious. 

The clenching around him was almost intoxicating. It sucked him in tight and refused to let him pull out entirely. As if he would. “To precipitate a nocturnal carnation, to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.” Satan was already entertaining the idea of locking you in his room for eternity, it wasn’t like the Celestial Realm would take you back anyways. You were soiled goods. You were tainted. 

You were his. He let you collapse into his chest as you rode through your high. Light sobs left you, but you still moaned for more. What a good angel, but he would ensure you became an absolutely perfect demon. 

© belphegorey 2024 ⌜18+ banner from @/cafekitsune thank you <3⌟

notes ⎯⎯ if you know what poem it is ily, and ignore the slightly wonky timeline satan just has a lot of internal thoughts blame him :)

[midnightbears]

✿ duskbound, afterlight.

#STARRING: cybertronian fem reader & other characters.

#TAGS: trauma. talks of character death. hopelessness? mentions of prostitution. no appearance of canon characters because this is an intro. hunger games reference!

#NOTES: hi! still alive, just not writing for kny atm because my head is like a powerpoint presentation with all my hyperfixations and i can't write for requests when it is on another slide. hope that makes sense. this is the first chapter of my megatron x reader, a strangers to lovers to enemies featuring pre-war cybertron, a magnanimous amount of lore, a lot of non-cannon stuff like sparklings and stuff because i can do whatever i want, and my flickering motivation to finish it. i don't have a specific transformers i'm basing the timeline off, so we will see. i thought of publishing it on ao3 or smth but i have better judgement so i just figured i would upload the first chapter on tumblr. the new transformers movie was soooo good and it inadvertently rekindled my transformers obsession. enjoy? let me know if you like it, i would appreciate it if you have questions or anything :) THIS BITCH IS LONG SO BEWARE

part two | part three | part four | part five | part six

"Y/N, my optics hurt."

"I know, sweetspark, I know."

This place reeked. Pure flowing smoke and vapor, stinking energon, and the smell of the gray coal and ash that powdered the laborers' and miners' bodies like scintillating glitter filled the pavements of that day—such fragrant poetry. 

The barely perceivable light that shone down could not even be called proper illumination in the first place. Every once in a while, the wells of your optics danced up to gaze toward where the sweltering sunlight was supposed to be.

Still, your spark did nothing but wail at you when, each time, all that you caught were mountains upon mountains of pitch-dark vapor, dull particles of dust from the mines, and the visualization of the austere whispers of despair and anguish among the workers of one of the mining towns from one of Cybertron's Primus-forsaken satellites, Nuna 5PY.

Even if you turned to look towards the downtown streets, the particles infiltrated your vents and blistered your optics.

Some workers used gas masks, while others retreated to the mines, where the synthetic stench wasn't as foul, but most were forced to return to work. They snatched up energon everywhere they could, recharged in fits and starts among their screaming. You seriously needed to leave.

As Vaportrail coughed onto the city street, you held her small servo. Even with the torrential acid pouring last night, the smog got to her well before the rush hour. 

You realized things would not improve today, so you hurried in fear of the younger developing tear-streaked optics and a headache to match. It saddened you that Vaportrail would never know what a normal life would be like. It was as though they had collectively given up years before she was born, which was unjust to her and all the future sparklings. 

You grabbed her and pulled her into the cart. Traveling was enjoyable, but not at the price of introducing additional hazardous particles into the environment. 

Mining Outpost R–02 was one of the towns from Nuna 5PY, where unnamed members of the lower classes labored interminably, tediously. The gloomy, smoky shambles of a metropolis required the Communication Grid to communicate with other areas and locations simply. It was no place for a sparkling. 

The infant cybertronian lay quietly on the sulfurous mine carriage attached to the railway, more vulnerable than the glass that was painstakingly constructed for the masses of the High-caste buildings and just as giddily colored.

You wondered if her peds are dirty; how would you know? You pondered what she ate back when Starlight was still living in this downtown slum; where did her mother get energon to nourish her? 

Your servos were callous from several scars and defects, and a part of you ached to sweep her up in her arms and shelter her eternally. But. How could you ever live with yourself if you didn't allow such an innocent being to live a tranquil life?

"I'm sorry about your carrier," You told the sparkling wistfully, making sure she was comfortable for the long ride from here to where your late best friend wanted her youngling to go if something ever happened to her. You gave her a small pad which contained personal information like her name and situation, along with a plead for somebot to take her to safety, "Cybertropolis is a nice place, just make sure you reach the police station safely, they'll know where to take you." 

"Thank you," Vaportrail squeaked out, her knees pulled up to her chest plate. 

The train inevitably started, and you walked in tandem with the slow speed of the carriage just to get a good, final look at the sparkling's dainty, cheerless face. Vaportrail would surely be a problem when she got older because all of the mechs would swoon over her—deservingly so.

With those optics and a grin as charming and gauzy as that, she was the very picture of the youthful beauty who had once bored the name of Starlight. You believed she was the sweetest femmeling on the planet.

"I love you, okay? And I'm sure your carrier is so proud of you. Good luck!"

Eventually, you had to withdraw from the train, which only allowed you to stare at the vanishing small frame of a waving Vaportrail, whose response had been forever lost in the sad, sepulchral winds of the town. 

Despite that, you could still stare at the sparkling's naive, callow features and find colossal gratitude and admiration in its place, which made a lump form in your voicebox and squeezing palpation beat inside your spark chamber.

With Vaportrail gone, the smell of blazing smoke burned your olfactory sensors and induced you to cover them with your suitable servo. You had never before realized that the shrilling blare of the injectors, the drills, the massive excavators, and the wheels of the trucks could be so overwhelmingly loud, either. From the corner of your optics, the flashes and instants of the sparks that aimlessly flew around whenever metal met metal brought you out of your bewildered daydream. 

But then you turned and saw the portrait of shattered ambition, lost hope, undetermined origins, opaque bitterness, damaged honor, futile dreams, and wavering will that assembled the cybertronians of Nuna 5PY.

It was a blow to the back of your head.

Starlight was dead.

If you closed your optics, you could still see the glow on her metallurgical protoform, the spark that no longer burned, and the sound of her laughter that still reverberated in your audio receptors and processor.

Oh, you missed her desperately. 

She'd spent her days as a young and daring cybertronian who didn't let the vacillating shame of her prostitution career ridicule her or anything she was. A good, pleasant, and kind femme that thrived and existed, only for some mech to tear her from her home and forever close her laughing optics. She was a femme, a friend, a sister, and a carrier.

She was someone.

"Oi, femme!"

You knew that whoever was calling that word in such a degrading manner was referring to you and you only. You were aware that you were one of the few femmes working on that hellhole.

Sourly, you turned your helm to the source of the voicebox and found your boss—if he could even be called that—staring at you rigorously from across the street. Other mechs were beside him, and in their hungry optics, you could see hunger, amusement, a blatant lack of respect, and other things—all of it for you.

"You said five minutes. Start moving your aft before I tell someone to move it for you."

The group of despicable mechs started laughing at the humorous, unique, spectacular, utterly not-ever-done-before knee-slapper comment. You wondered what comedians told to get a chuckle or two out of their audience nowadays. 

You detested yourself when you started walking back to the mines with crystal-clear coolant forming in your optics and with the words caught inside your voicebox.

Even the clicking of your battered timer had a languid touch in the fading light of their (your) chamber as if it were a spark-beat at rest. The perpetual rhythm of it became more of a white noise inside the transparent yet spurious safety surrounding your beguiling, chimerical space bubble. 

The memory of the lingering perfume of Starlight's aromatic utensils saturated you far more intensely than it did only days before, making you want to pound and bang your head against the wall until you ran out of energon inside your body.

Your spark chamber was wrenched apart in the core by a hollow cavity. It had been there for forty-eight groons. Faithless and cynical, the pit that took form inside of you pulled you to the very depths of your revolted mind.

You were immobile, your bare servos lying at your sides and your digits tinkering with the berth. Everything within the room drove you crazy and made you want to tear out your optics under the scrutinizing, deep-rooted omnipresence of both the carrier and the sparkling.

Vaportrail was not napping on her carrier's bed; her small chest plating was not rising and falling according to her mellow, smooth breathing. You remembered how she would spring from Starlight's berth just to greet you after every single burdensome solar cycle of nothing but suffering under the cruel comments and sometimes spiteful actions of mechs and their superiors. 

You knew and understood that she left for a better life in Cybertropolis, yet you just can't comprehend why you are not hearing her dulcet giggles and her voice as soft as a feather.

"Y/N, look at me!"

You turned your helm lightly toward the soft-spoken sparkling from your spot on your berth. 

One of your stabilizers was crossed over the other, your servos snuggly behind your helm. Due to your horizontal position, you were seeing Vaportrail in a somewhat awkward manner, whispering something to her carrier excitedly, which made you turn your whole frame so you were resting against your side, lifting your helm with your right servo.

"What is it, V?"

Vaportrail, who had her mother's laughing optics, stood proudly atop Starlight's berth beside her laying figure, servos on her hips and grin on her dermas, meekly waiting for you to look at her so she could show her spectacular stunt.

She was no bigger than a mining pickaxe, which is why she was never let out of Starlight's and your’s shared chamber. She was still tiny, even for a youngling her age, but that was not unusual, as the impoverished environment and the mediocre energon didn't do much to help anyway. Primus knows what could happen to someone so small and so weak.

Her confident, puffed-up stand made you laugh casually, as while typically Vaportrail was a modest sparkling, never one to demand attention or directly ask for what she wanted, whenever she got like this and let out her inner childishness for the silliest of things, both you and Starlight would get tons of laughter out of it.

"Go on! Show Y/N what you've been practicing," Starlight encouraged.

When you nodded at Vaportrail, signaling that your attention was entirely on her, her optics lit up. She walked towards the end of her carrier's berth, planting her peds at the very ends before turning around. 

Vaportrail crouched, and with a slight push from her servos and an impulse from her peds, she successfully rolled forward in the berth, landing on her bottom before scrambling to get up and putting her servos up in the air, muttering a small 'Ta-da!'

You had smiled warmly, watching Vaportrail giggle to herself giddily. Starlight clapped for her and swarmed her in a big hug, proud of her sparkling and happy that she had gotten her little trick right. Honestly, you were a bit jealous. You wished you could be this happy by doing something as simple as a gymnastic maneuver.

Vaportrail cheered along with her carrier, excitedly thumping her peds against the surface of the berth. Then she turned to look at you, her optics gleaming with happiness. "I did it! I did a forward roll!"

"Oh, did you?" After your rhetorical question, you languidly returned to your original position, lying with your back plates on the berth and your servos behind your helm. You cheekily turned to Vaportrail and Starlight, a sly, good-natured smile pulling at your dermas; you closed your optics. "I wasn't looking."

"Y/N!"

Both femmes happily laughed at the moping undertones of Vaportrail's voice.

"Just kidding!"

That day was a long time ago, at least it seemed to be; it felt like it. Those words were spoken in the same chamber you slept and resided in. That comical stunt was performed in the berth across from yours. They were not here anymore. Even if you wished they were back together, that deceitful dream would only be achieved by death.

No one can pursue their dreams or be free enough without it. Freedom is for the rich because dreaming costs money.

Starlight wasn't there to hold her youngling and hug you when you needed it. You weren't hearing her voice either, singing lullabies to help you both fall into a much-needed recharge. Her presence was so needed, so sought; in places like this, femmes like her were what one needed to forget about the harsh burden that was the act of being alive. To think that only forty-eight groons before she was still living, she was still here. 

Her memory made you miserable because best friends comprehend you like no other. Starlight was overly protective and brutally honest—as if she ever needed that. You felt so enraged and resentful at not being there to protect her that you feared you might break. 

Although you dug Starlight's grave, blatantly refusing to let the body of your best friend turn into waste parts or scrap metal, a part of you still suppressed the image. One day, you would properly weep for her, but first, you had to accept that she was truly gone. A part of you would never be able to accept that Starlight would never appear, skipping around a corner to tease you for falling for her clever joke.

‘How can she be dead?’

Harsh knocks against your metal door made you jerk from your position on the berth.

"08, are you in there?!" 

The boisterous tone of the mech standing behind your door made you remember that you were still real and breathing inside your crude, undeserving, unworthy existence. Your bubble-turned crystal cocoon inevitably started collapsing at the reminder that life could still go on without Starlight because, after all, no cybertronian knew who Starlight is—was. No cybertronian knew who Starlight was. The world moved on without her.

Without thinking much, you got up from the cold berth, chills flourishing in your metallurgic skin before walking the small distance towards the oxidized door and swinging it open. You would not have considered the thought of opening (being too engrossed in your self-pity and wallowing in grief, you know?) in the first place was it not for the genuine undertones of chipper motivation that were painted over H–01's usually harsh, asperous voice. 

Wait, why was he at your door anyway?

His hulking, rusted frame was as corroded as ever, and it was honestly a little sickening to look at. Despite the awful veil of dust and ash that littered him, the grayish, crimson, and dull turquoise glares of his deteriorated paint job could still be peeked at; his wheels were decaying, and his melancholic optics had lost their love for life— as had everybot else's.

Ancient as a cosmic star and twice as intelligent, with his towering structure and terse personality, H–01 was by far one of the town's most elderly seniors—and, may you add, one of the most cordial. 

You remembered the day you first arrived here, back when you were still an inexperienced femme in life, gullible, back when you dreamed dreams. 

After an accident in your old work establishment,—one of the mech coworkers had stepped over the line with you, resulting in a mining pickaxe protruding from his knee plate and a lot of energon spilled around— you had been sent to Mining Outpost R–02, and H–01 quickly took it upon himself to become a mentor of some sort as you shared letter unit. 

You recalled that he laughed as he had never before when you told him the story of why they had banned you from your previous workplace. Later, you met Starli—

"08?"

You blinked owlishly, and realizing that he was calling out to you, you grounded yourself and met his preoccupied gaze.

"What did you need?"

He frowned at your mediocre attempt at lying. H–01 was by no means stupid, and sadly, you didn’t give enough credit and didn't acknowledge how easily he could pick apart your facade, layer by layer, until your shell was utterly ripped apart.

"Kid, I may be rusty, but I'm shrewd enough to know that you're not well." You became conscious of how absurd you must have seemed in his words. He continued. "I'm sorry about your friend and her sparkling."

There it was again, that funny feeling, that blow to the back of your head. You felt your spark wail painfully, and your limbs tensed up, your optics frantically searching into H–01's face plates for any sign of mockery. You found none. You almost crumbled at his sincere words until your response was unwillingly driven back to your tanks when the piercing siren started blasting across the halls of the chambers.

Instinctively, you covered your audio receptors at the discomfort. At the same time, H–01 merely stared into the speaker device right up against the wall, a bit far away from them. From the corner of his optics, he saw many of the workers exiting their chambers, each of them confused, some of them covering their audial receptors as well, and others staring, irritated and visibly vexed at the gadget that was currently stripping them of their much-needed recharging hours.

The workers of the 8th unit, otherwise known as the H unit, approached the oldest mech from their division, questioning themselves about what was going on. Their optics wilted, and there was a slight lolling to their helms, drunk with weariness after a session of an endless cycle of mining.

"01, what's going on?" One of them asked rather loudly, trying to shout over the siren, coming up to them just as you got used to the loud siren and pulled your servos away from your audial receptors. 

You moved out of the entrance of your chamber to shut the door behind you, joining H–01 by standing beside him. They shared a brief glance, one filled with puzzlement, the other brimming with uncertainty. But before anyone could share their answer or even make a single move, the horrendous blaring of the alarm stopped. 

The speaker against the wall went completely silent, and a single red light started beeping. The Cybertronians looked at each other, baffled.

Someone talked via the speaker.

:: Attention, all workers. You are summoned to the patio at this instant. Once you reach the area, stand in your respective branch line and don't question your current predicament; ignoring this order will result in immediate offlining. I repeat: ignoring this order will result in immediate offlining ::

I need to leave. I need to leave. I need to leave. I need to leave.

That was what you were thinking when you, H–01, and the others walked among the congregation of cybertronians—you would have said mechs were it not for the few femme 'nurses' among the outer lines of the crowds, who as far as you were concerned, were the ones who took care of the workers who suffered minor accidents like infected optics, fractured limbs or something along those lines. 

It was not like they counted anyway. Primus knew what they were actually in this town for and what they did to survive.

The patio, used for Cybertronians during their spare time, was circular, wide of range, and littered with damaged devices and compartment containers, a whole mess of passed-down gear and materials. 

Whenever they got their energon rations and stopped here to rest, H–01 would remark that only the fuel granted to them wasn't recycled—well, that and the smoke. The patio boulders formed a patchwork, with stones obtained as useless scraps and waste from renovations resting together as lovely as crystalline statues from the High-caste buildings. It had artistry to it, as well as smoothness. You and H–01 used to sit there together.

You saw the executives of Mining Outpost R–02, violently shove some of the workers towards their specific department, yelling something at them that you couldn't quite catch. Considering the calm and easy-going attitude of the mistreated miners, you could just tell that they were the prissy, fastidious mechs of the upper divisions, maybe the 1st or the 2nd, where they didn't get punished for slacking off or harassing other workers along with the bosses just for the fun of it.

Your unit quickly got on its respective branches and neatly stood in line. You all exchanged terse nods, mentally preparing yourselves for whatever was about to happen. 

In front of you and the rest of your division were the mechs of the 7th unit, and behind them were the workers of the 9th, and so on. Judging by the others' facial expressions, they, too had no idea of why they'd been called here nor could muster up a word, which only fueled your desire to learn what was going on. The patio got tighter, more claustrophobic as cybertronians arrived.

You were the last number in your unit, meaning that you were placed in the furthest spot from your old friend. You lightly reclined your helm backward to attempt and catch a glimpse of H–01, but to no success, as you saw him and all the other mechs, for that matter, focused on the temporary stage ahead of them. 

It held a podium, a small staircase, and fifteen glass balls with electronic chips on them. One for each unit of the Mining Outpost. A chill went down your spinal plate at the thought.

An overwhelming, ominous silence suddenly governed the patio when a mech no one working here had ever seen before climbed up the staircase. The way he moved caused cybertronians to stare at him in fear. 

The mech was brawny and towering, and the way his helm fell over his lifeless, devoid optics and left shadows smeared on his cheek plates made others shudder. He was directly in front of the plain, pitiful microphone stand. However, an almost charming smile crossed his dermas.

"I suppose you're asking yourselves why were you brought in here."

Because of the microphone, his voice, profound and with a baritone tone, boomed across the patio, making you wince lightly at its loudness. You, of course, were desensitized from loud noises due to the continuous straining sounds of the mining machines around you day after day, as everyone else was. However, his statement caused many cybertronians to look among themselves, clearly disturbed.

"Gentlemechs, my name is Bullway, and I've come all the way here from Kaon to offer you a choice. I intend to give fifteen of you the chance of coming to Kaon with me and becoming gladiators."

Hushed whispers and inaudible sentences started falling from everyone's dermas at Bullway's words and what they implied. From the corner of your optics, you saw most of the mechs look at each other in mute amazement at what they had just been offered.

Their superiors, who were at the base of the set-up podium, quickly took it upon themselves to silence everyone with a loud yell, the absence of sound appearing once again.

"Think about it! Money, power, glory, fame, all laid at your digitprints!" Bullway threw his arms out to emphasize his words. "Join me, and all you have ever dreamed of will come true. A life of nothing but recognition! Isn't that what you deserve?! Isn't that what you dream of as you stare at the ceilings of your measly stations?!"

Dreaming cost money. Dreaming cost money. Dreaming cost money.

Almost as if he had read your mind, H–01 subtly leaned his helm forward to take a peek at the workers of the section he conducted. Most of them remained stoic, and he was very glad to see that, but what worried him the most right now was H–08.

His facial plates morphed into that of slight disturbance because as he peered into your face, he clearly saw what could only be described as contemplation, doubt, and consideration, which both bothered and worried him.

Bullway smiled at how he had you under a forged delusion and continued his speech, "See the crystal globes here? There's one for each unit of your Mining Outpost. They all contain chips with your respective electronic signatures. Each vorn you have worked here, your signature will be entered an additional time. You can figure out the rest, so let us begin!"

Each vorn?

You suddenly realized that the globes were not in order because, in the same minute that you let the circumstances sink in, Bullway had already slipped a servo inside one of the spheres and grabbed one chip from it, reading it aloud so everyone could hear the letter and number clearly.

"G–10!"

All of the divisions started looking among each other, searching for the (not) lucky mech, a pregnant silence following suit as the group in front of them all glared sympathetically at the chosen one, who stood frozen in place, optics blinking several times, wishing to Primus that Bullway had read the designation incorrectly and it wasn't him who was just chosen.

You felt a shiver run down your spinal plate when one of the guards roughly seized his shoulder and made him start walking toward the platform, ignoring the mech's begging and lightly dragging him across the patio as everyone stared in horror. Your intake suddenly went dry when Bullway moved to the next globe, grabbed an electronic chip, moved to the microphone again, and read it aloud.

This time it was from the upper divisions, A–07, you heard.

Just like that, another mech was whisked away from his branch line and thrown across the patio. He then ascended the flight of stairs to stand beside G–10, who apparently was still encapsulated in deep denial, continuously shaking his helm in disbelief. It was tenaciously obvious that Bullway did not concern himself with their worries and imminent fear as he once again moved toward a globe and grabbed another.

You wished cybertronians would step outside their own frames and oversee from the outside what was actually happening at that very instant in Nuna 5PY. Plucked from their workstations like flowers in a garden, sent off to Kaon for the purpose of entertainment for the Upper class with the bombastic excuse of 'MONEY POWER GLORY' behind it.

Prisoners inside their own bodies, trapped to fend off for themselves on a planet where no one cared about them.

Electronic signatures continued rolling off the mech's glossa like energon from a wishing well. The mechs that were chosen always did the exact same thing. They stood completely aghast for a few nanokliks, staring at the soot-stained ground in front of them in absolute shock, their frames deflating like rubber balloons, dermas parting in awe at themselves because they just couldn’t believe it.

F–03.

I–11.

D–04.

E–07.

K–15.

O–02.

When they got prodded by one of the guards, they stared at them, silently begging for compassion, but they found none. Eventually, they were pulled out of their place and shoved towards the staircase on the stage, where Bullway gleefully welcomed all the newcomer 'gladiators' just to grab another electronic chip and call out yet another designation, and so repeating the cycle.

C–01.

M–06.

B–09.

L–01.

J–02.

N–14.

Oh, there was still a globe left. The H unit.

The crowd drew in a collective breath, and then you could hear a pin drop. You were feeling nauseous, your servos clammy, your whole frame tense, your processor hurt, and your spark ached. You longed to see Starlight, you wanted to chase after the train where you sent Vaportrail off to Cyberpolis, and you didn’t know how much H–01 was desperately hoping that it wasn’t you, that it wasn’t you, that it wasn’t you.

"And the last one! H–08!"

[yeonmuse]

𓍯 — Girl Of My Dreams 𖡎

ᥫ᭡ f!reader x sim jaeyun ── 𝒢enre. angst. fluff, non idol enha. ᭙ᥴ 5.4k Not proofread [reqs are open] ᝰ.ᐟ 𝓁ibrary

authors 𝓃𝑜𝓉𝑒𝓈 so recently I watched this film called dr birds advice for sad poets and I fell in love with it, the somber romance and dependency of one person to another to keep them mentally stable just stuck with me. Though this isn’t as somber to the movie the limerent romance is similar.

IN WHICH Jake finds himself deeply in love with a girl that has a somber heart but a love for poetry. She uses words to mask the pain that hides behind her angelic smile, and the closer the two get the more dependent she becomes on him.

🏷️ : @jwonistic @squiishymeow @river-demon-slayer @sol3chu @butterflywonz

In all honesty Jake knew absolutely nothing about poetry, he had never even found himself interested in a single poem until he had laid eyes on her. Though he was a man of books and literature, never in his life had he picked up a book of poetry. Even so he found himself attending every meeting of the dead poets society, all out of hopes that he could finally get closer to her.

Despite his friend group Jake had always been a socially awkward person, being around others that weren’t his childhood friends made him absolutely anxious. When he became overwhelmed it was like Bees swarming a comb of honey, his thoughts sent into an immediate frenzy. To outsiders because he was quiet and just had always remained in the books it made him weird. He hated the unwanted attention that surrounded him, the negative and positive attention that seemed to surround him like a heavy fog, there was only person's attention he truly wanted and didn’t mind having and that was hers. Everything about her was vibrant and the complete personification of what sunlight was to be in human form. First time their eyes met he felt he had experienced what it was like to come face to face with the stars, to stare into the heart of space itself. She summoned an endless swarm of butterflies in the pit of his stomach every time the two crossed paths. So imagine his feelings when she approached him and his friends during their study session; a study session during which only two of them seemed to be studying.

Jake had been so entirely invested in his book that he hadn’t even realized she approached their table. It wasn’t until his nose had sensed the sweet smell of her perfume that he realized she had been nearby. Sunghoon slaps at Heeseungs shoulder as if to bring his attention to the scene before them. All of his friends were well aware of the massive crush they’re friend had on her.

“Jake?” His heart had begun to beat so fast that he felt he was experiencing heart palpitations, as he heard his name spill from her plump lips, a sound that was absolutely angelic falling upon his ears. The way his name melted off her tongue sending his burning stomach into a frenzied state.

“You’re Jake right?” As he finally tore his gaze away from his book and forced them to focus on her face, he froze up on the spot.

“You are so breathtakingly beautiful.” The words spilled from his lips before he himself could even grasp the fact that they had.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“..Okay, anywho..Jake.” She says it again, the butterflies in his stomach rampage upon her calling his name again. He'd have sworn he had honey dripping from his ears by now, having heard his name from her once again.

“You work in the bookstore downtown right?”

“Right, yeah every week.”

“Perfect, um so the poetry club has been looking for a new place to meet after hours since the campus library is usually closed, and since I’ve seen you around there I was wondering, do you think we could use the bookstore?” Her every word has slipped through one ear and out the other, all he could do was stare into her doe eyes and wonder what thoughts were running through the forest in her head.

“Uh y-yeah I guess I could ask the owner?”

“Yes, yes yes! Thank you.” With the smile that spread across her face she was like the true embodiment of an angel. Before he had any sort of time to react she had kissed his cheek and ran off.

In that moment he had experienced over a thousand flames igniting within him, his heart entirely set ablaze.

The next morning he sat in class contemplating the ways he could ‘accidentally’ run into her outside of her classroom once her lecture had been over. He stood pacing the floor, his thoughts nearly swallowing him whole like a sea of irregular waves. He did that often when it came to her, constantly overthinking, always questioning whether or not she’d ever truly be interested in him. If he would ever actually man up and tell her he had adorned her for quite some time.

“Jake?” Her voice instantly pulled him from his head, forcing him to focus on something other than his thoughts of her and remain in the present. As his eyes fell upon her she dismissed her friends and made her way over to him.

“Hey, I was looking for you this morning, usually you’re in the courtyard with your friends but you weren’t there this morning.” She noticed that? She noticed him enough to realize that he wasn’t in his usual place.

“Ah right I got here a little late, my shift last night ran kinda late. I did get the okay to have you guys use the store though, as long as everyone is out by 12 the place is all yours.”

“Oh my god! You’re literally the best!” Jake found himself lost in her smile, lost in her dimples as she cheerfully pulled a note from her bag.

“This is the poetry club's schedule. I made this extra one so that you would be aware of the days we’ll be attending, since you’ll already be there. Maybe you should listen to it every now and then?” She hands over the invitation with a smile, his gaze remained glued to her as she brushed the loose strands of hair away from her face.

“Ah yeah, Maybe I should. I've been wanting to get into poetry lately.” A blatant lie, he had never ever thought to get into it.

“Oh? Then tonight will be perfect for you. We're discovering the works of Edgar Allen, starting off with simple works since we’ve gotten new members.” The only time he had ever picked up any work by the former writer he had been in middle school, it was the only time he had ever read poetry in his life and it had been forced upon him.

“Save a book for me then yeah?”

“I’ll get there early tonight, maybe you can help me set up before everyone gets there?” He couldn’t possibly deny her request, with the way her beautiful eyes gazed at him expectantly, he was forced to crumble under pressure.

“Yeah, I’ll be there.” Of course he’d be there he had to fucking work. He swore when it came to her all his logic was immediately thrown out the window.

When Jake had finally arrived to work his thoughts were rampant once more, with no way to silence them. He was nervous to say the least, he had never experienced love, nor had he ever experienced what it was like to love someone this much, let alone someone like her. She was like a rare flower that only bloomed upon the night of a full moon. Her energy was always infectious to anyone that had crossed paths with her. She had a way of making even the saddest of man smile.

The ding of the front bell drew Jake out of his ongoing thoughts, and as she walked wearing her white button up and black skirt, a red sweater adorned around her waist. His eyes drink her in, as if snapping a picture with his pupils and engraving the sight within his mind for eternity. Everything about her was sweet, her plump lips, the dimples that poked out when she smiled, the freckles that adorned her face, and don’t even get him started with her laugh or her voice, that melted off her tongue like sweet honeysuckle.

“Hi Jake.”

“Hey, you actually really did come earlier than expected.”

“I’m a girl of my word.” She responds with a smile as she sits down on a box of books on the only empty table in the store.

“So there's a room in the back, where we keep the old books, but there’s enough space for all of you to gather there, and it's somewhat secluded if you all don’t want to be bothered.”

“Thank you I honestly owe you one, I really do appreciate us letting you use the place.” She responds with a smile, taking the sweater from around her neck and placing it on the table.

“I’ll take these back there for you, feel free to look around.” He lifts the box with ease, not seeming to realize the way she observes him curiously. She had always seen him around campus, or in their shared lectures, his head always buried in a book when he wasn’t studying or hanging around his friends. She always thought him to be cute, though she wasn’t the type to simply crush on someone all because they were cute, she liked to take the deeper dives. To fall for anyone she needed to fall deep into the abyssal vortex of their minds.

She trails him, strolling through the aisles, eyes scanning through the ongoing shelves of books, her fingers dusting over each outdated and upgraded cover, or spine.

“Do you like it here? I mean you must love books a lot to work here of all the options in town.”

“Yeah it’s not bad, I mean the pay could be better but I’d rather be surrounded by something I love than getting higher pay for a shitty job that leaves me miserable.” He responds by taking one of the books into his hands as he sits down the box full of them. He had seen poe's work countless of times, his poetry above all being one of the recent purchases from the store, though he himself had never been intrigued enough to even spare it a glance until now.

“Do you have a favorite work?”

“Favorite work?”

“A favorite piece of his? Poe? Or any poet for that matter if you prefer others.”

“Ah, I’ve actually never even bothered to pick up any poetry, don’t think I’ve read any since I was in middle school.”

“Seriously?”

“I guess I just never got the point, to me they were always just mindless words put together on a page.”

“Then that means you just haven’t written the right works.” She disappears from sight leaving Jake confused as he hears rustling down one of the aisles until she returns with a book.

“This one is one of my favorites.” She steps at his side pulling the book open to one of the first pages inside.

“She walks in beauty, Lord Byron.” As she began to read he found himself captivated, near hypnotised by the sound of her voice. Partially distracted how close the two of them now were, close enough for him to detect the aroma of her perfume almost immediately. As her arm brushed against his own it sent shivers up his back.

“She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent”

Once she finished reading her gaze shifted from the book in hand, over to him who had already been looking at her.

“Beautiful.” He wasn’t talking about the poem, he meant how captivating she could look standing there. How angelic her voice had sounded as she read through the lines of the page. Of course the poem itself was beautiful, it resembled the exact way he thought of her, but having her standing here she looked all the more beautiful.

“It may sound beautiful, yes, but the words where you hear them, what do you think? What did they mean to you?”

“Sounds to me like he’s praising a woman for her beauty, the unfathomable realization that one could be so beautiful, that they could look so sweet and angelic, she must be praised for her visuals and attributes among all.”

He responds, tearing his gaze away from her and looking at the book, part of that had been solely his thoughts towards her.

“Well, the piece is meant to praise the inner and outer attributes of a woman, to admire her beauty, innocence and purity. The admiration of a woman and all that she may be, adorning her inner and outer beauty.”

“It’s beautiful.” He responds looking back at her, her eyes had nearly met him until the bell at the front door rung and slowly but surely members of the club began to trickle in.

Though work pulled him away from the ongoing meeting it didn’t stop him from stopping in every now and then nor did it stop his ears from listening in. He never thought he’d ever find himself interested in poetry but the way she talked about it, how passionate she got when it came to each poem, it drew him in.

By the end of the night when everyone had left and the meeting had come to an end, she was the last to stay behind.

“So what did you think?” She sauntered over to the checkout counter, resting her elbows on top and her head in her palms.

“I guess it’s not as boring as I thought.” He responds, trying to act cool at which she only laughs at his attempt at being nonchalant.

“There's no meeting tomorrow, but do you work?”

“I open tomorrow, yes, though Someone else will be closing.”

“Perfect, I’ll swing by and pick you up after your shift, I’ll make sure that by the end of this week you’ll absolutely love it by the end of this week.”

“Yeah? If you can get me to like it, I'll take you and the whole club out for ice cream, my treat.”

“I hope your wallet is ready by the end of the week then.” She grabs her things, throwing her sweater over her shoulder before making her way to the door.

“See you tomorrow.”

“You promised her what??” Heeseung and Sunghoon were sent into a fit of laughter as Jake went over the events of tonight.

“Oh you’re so whipped it's insane.”

“Im pretty sure I’m fucked, even if I don’t like anything she shows me tomorrow I know I’ll just give in and tell her I like it anyways.”

“How many people are in this club anyways?”

“Including her, twenty.”

“So basically he’ll be buying two hundred dollars worth of ice cream.”

“Isn’t that like your whole paycheck? You only make 350 a week.”

“Well at least he’s finally got a date with the girl of his dreams.”

The next morning Jake found himself watching the clock, waiting for the time to trickle down, his eyes often shifting to the door as if he had been waiting for her to walk right through it. Eventually he forced himself to keep himself busy, dusting shelves and rearranging books out of hopes that it would make the time go by faster, though it just continued to go agonizingly slow. As the front bell dinged he quickly rushed to the front, his heart nearly falling from his chest as she entered. With her green topped button up and brown skirt, this was the first time he hadn’t seen her in some sort of formal attire, honestly it was the first time he had ever been seeing her outside of a scholastic setting. She looked beautiful as always, but something about the revelation of skin made goosebumps adorn his skin.

“Hi Jake.” She approaches him with a bright smile, that same bright smile that made his heart beat every time he laid eyes upon it.

“You look, you look beautiful.” He spoke absentmindedly, earning a smile from her.

“Not that you don’t look beautiful all the time- just today you..today I actually. You know what I think they need help over there I’ll be right back.” Jake silently curses himself as he slips from behind the counter and escapes the aisle to help an elderly couple that had just entered the store.

Meanwhile she sauntered down the aisle, her eyes trailing the shelves until landed upon something that was worthy of a read in her eyes.

“Stealing beauty.” A book she herself had read time and time again simply to feel something, a reminder to her that love existed, that even the most foreign loves could be real.

“Have you read it?” Jake asks, stepping behind her he takes one of the five copies of the book into his hand.

“Mm I have, more times than i’d like to admit.”

“There's something about italian romance that is above all other types, summer italy. Maybe it’s the fact that Italy itself is more beautiful that makes the romance so breathtaking.” He continues on as he puts the book back in his place, this was the first time that she was getting a good look at him now that they had been this close. As he spoke she found his words tugging at her heartstrings, she was getting a glimpse into his own mind.

“Do you like them? Romance books?”

“I’ve read them since I was younger, I’ve always had a knack for them, I’ll read any genre but there’s something about romance that makes you feel hopeful about your own love life, helps discover the things you yourself might like to experience with another person.” The more he talked the more his thick accent melted her ears, there was something infectious about the way he spoke, it was quite obvious that he was a man of books.

“Jake! You can clock out now. I'm sorry for being late.” A tall male who she assumed to be his coworker yells from the front counter, neither of them knew when he got there but he had now made his presence known.

“Soobin you do realize you don’t have to yell, I wasn’t even that far back in the store.” Jake walks away and she lets out an unknown sigh of relief.

For the first time since knowing about him, she found herself becoming more and more interested in Sim Jaeyun.

“So you mean to tell me you’ve really read books all your life and never picked up one poetry book?” She asks, as the two walked down the street side by side

“I’ve never found any interest in it. Why read something so short and inconclusive when I could fall into the world of a book, stimulating my imaginative side.”

“Poems may also be short but they tell a story as well, it may not be as long and drawn out as the chapters of a book, but if you find the right one you’ll fall in love with them.”

The two of them found themselves walking down the street market, her immediately stopping as her eyes fell upon the jewelry cart and he instantly took notice at what her eyes fell upon.

“Do you want one?”

“What?”

“The ring, did you want one?”

“As beautiful as they are, I can't have you buy this Jake.”

“I’ll take two of them.” He tells the seller, completely ignoring her disapproval of him spending money on her.

“Thank you.” Jake gives the seller a charming smile below continuing their walk.

“Here.” He stops only a few feet away to slip the ring on her finger before slipping one on his own.

“What is the significance of these anyways, what’s special about them?” She had been so busy staring down at her hand that she nearly ignored his question.

“They’re mood rings.”

“Like the rings that change with your mood right?” She gives him an absent nod and he looks down at her ring before looking at his own.

“Mine is dark green? What’s the meaning of it?”

“Means you’re feeling mixed emotions right now, in that case the ring can’t pinpoint any exact emotion so it turns a darker green.”

“And yours?” He responds glancing down at her ring, he nervously bit his lip, as he awaited her answer.

“Indigo.”

“What does indigo mean”

“Means I'm happy, that i'm at peace.” Jake's chest heaved a relieved sigh upon hearing those words, she was happy, and he didn’t care if it was because he had gotten her that ring or if it was because she was with him, all that mattered was she was happy.

The evening had gone by far too quick for him, she spent the entire day making him read different poems, showing him different arts and music pieces. They talked over dinner, both of them sharing their interests and talking about some of their favorite works and films that had cause their spark for the things they were so passionate about, and when they finally bid goodbye to one another Jake went home with a smile on his face while she herself went home with a feeling of dread. Before meeting Jake Poetry had been her only escape, of course she had her friends but they had their own lives of course, they couldn’t always be there when they had lives to live as well. Today with Jake had been so perfect, it wasn’t until she got home that she realized she didn’t want to leave him.

As she stepped into her home, the overwhelming sense of dread and immense sadness had overbared her. Broken glass crunched beneath her feet and the sound of yelling in a nearby room caused her to clamp her ears shut as she ran up the stairs to her room. You’d think she’d be used to it now, the constant screaming and yelling, the violently laced exchange of words between her mother and her father. She had been dealing with it since high school, so she couldn’t understand why now in her twenties she still couldn’t handle the way they talked to one another. She had no one, her little brother was never home and it's not like she wanted him to see her like this anyways, after all the oldest daughter was meant to bear all of it on her own. So she plugged her ears with her earbuds, hoping to drown out any sound of the ongoing fuss as she cried herself to sleep.

The prettiest of smiles hide the saddest of hearts

The next day she decided to lock herself in her room, it was a sunday. She should have been out and about, enjoying her day off before returning back to school, yet there she lay wasting away in her room, starving herself. Of course she couldn’t leave her room, she didn’t want to face either of them, she wished that they would just make it easy on everyone in the house and divorce but part of her also knew that that would hurt her too.

Jake on the other hand could only think about her and the previous night, he regrets not getting her number, because now he sat behind the bookstore counter wondering if she had as good a time as he did.

The next day when everyone had returned to campus Jake was quite surprised to see her joining him and his friends for lunch.

“Hi Jake. These are your friends right?” She flashes each of them a smile as she introduces herself to them. In all honesty every one of them had been quite shocked at the fact that she had been sitting at their table, it left them to wonder what exactly happened between her and Jake the day before that the two were now close.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“I’m all ears.”

“There's a film convention coming up at the end of the month and I usually get tickets early, I was wondering if you wanted to go? They're showing stealing beauty and since you like the book too I thought we could go together?”

Jake had frozen on the spot, she was asking him to a movie?

“Yeah- yeah I’d love that it sounds fun, i'll be there.”

For some reason she found herself letting out a relieved breath she didn’t even know she had been holding in. It would have been absolutely humiliating if he had rejected her in front of his friends.

The week had gone by pretty quick, a week in which she hadn’t had much time to think about her family because she had been drowning herself in school work, poetry club and none other than Sim Jaeyun. He became her rock, someone she found herself depending on whenever she felt overwhelming sadness or dread. Whether it was the two of them reading together, watching movies, or simply sharing interests it always tore her mind away from the dreadful things in life.

The two had become quite close, so close that it was obvious to any outsiders that the two had formed some sort of feelings for one another. If it wasn’t obvious enough, the handholding, whispering to one another, or her giggling whenever he smiled or looked at her would absolutely give it away.

As she struggles to place a book onto the top shelf Jake steps behind her, taking the opportunity to snake an arm around her waist and take the book from her hands, placing it up on the shelf himself.

“You know you could have just used the stool.”

“Then how would I have gotten you to come over and help me?” Her words earn a chuckle from Jake, who brushes her hair behind her ear as she turns to face him.

“I think I deserve some sort of reward for helping you put it up anyways.”

“Is that right?”

“Mm.” He hums, leaning in pressing her against the shelf as he presses his lips against her own.

“Please don’t fuck in here I don’t think the owner will be too happy with seeing that on the cameras” Soobin chimes in from down the aisle, causing the both of them to jump.

“Ah what did I tell you about yelling bin.” Jake complains, rubbing his head after having hit on the bookshelf, which only makes her laugh.

The two walked hand and hand to the ice cream parlor that was a mere two blocks away from the bookstore, him now owing the entire club ice cream all because he had indeed, fallen in love with not only poetry, but with her.

The month had gone by smoothly, and the closer the two had gotten, the more in love they fell with one another the worse things had gotten in her family. She had been on her way out when she heard the two of them screaming their lungs out in the kitchen, her mom throwing things as per usual. It was like she couldn’t get out of the house quick enough. Jake had been making his way to the door when she stepped out, she forced a smile on her face as she saw him approaching her with flowers in his hand.

“Hi beautiful.”

“Hello handsome.” He hands her the flowers before tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Are your parents working late again? I was hoping to meet them tonight but if they’re busy again then I guess I’ll just have to catch them another time.”

“They’re gone to my brother's game.” She lied, she hated lying to him but she refused to let him see how fucked up her family had been right now, she didn’t want him looking at her differently. The entire car ride she had been silent, seemingly lost in thought, that was when Jake realized that something had been off. He took her hand into his own, rubbing over her knuckles with his thumb before bringing it to his lips for a kiss, it was then that he realized the color of her mood ring was one he had never witnessed on her finger before, Gray.

“Sweetheart you know you can tell me if something’s bothering you?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Your ring, whatevers stressing you out, whatever’s got you nervous, anxious you me you can tell me?” That was it, she shut down on the spot. It wasn't a lie she could lie to him; he had already known something was up by her silence and the color of her ring, but she couldn't bring herself to say a word.

How could she sit right here in the passenger seat of his car and tell him that she had been lying about her parents. How could she tell him that she’s always avoided the topic when he talked about making things official because she was scared. She was scared that this wasn’t really a romance, that she was only dependent on him to feel something other than sadness. That she was scared that if she really did love him; they would end up just like her parents. Before she had even realized tears had been streaming down her face and it sent Jake into an instant panic.

He immediately pulls up into the driveway of their destination and stops the car.

“Sweetheart, did I say something wrong? I’m sorry love i didn’t mean to-“

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Sorry for what sweetheart, why are you apologizing?”

“For using you, for depending on you to make my shitty life not so shitty.”

“What are you talking about sweetheart you aren’t making any sense.”

“I’ve been lying to you Jake.” Her tearful eyes staring at him made him suck in a breath.

“My parents, the reason I never want you to come over or meet them is because they’re always fighting, they’re always down each other's throats, and it’s the reason my brother never even bothers to come home. I tried, I tried to be happy, you made me happy, but I- I’ve been relying on you like some sort of drug. I’ve been pretending all this time to be happy and cheerful, I’ve smiled when all I want to do is break down.”

“Why? Why didn’t you just tell me? Why didn’t you just talk to me?”

“I just- I didn’t want you to look at me differently, to not like me anymore because I wasn’t the happy cheerful girl you met on campus.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks, though endless tears continued to fall he still wiped them nonetheless, holding her head in his hands he forced her to look at him.

“Why would I give up on you for something that’s out of your control? I’ve liked you for longer than I could remember, sat alone sometimes constantly overthinking if you would like me with all my own flaws and anxieties. How could I ever stop loving you or look at you differently for showing aspects that make you human. Your parents actions or words don’t define the person that you are, so what they do I don’t care.”

“Jake.”

“I don’t care, I love you, I fell in love with you and I’m going to love you through sad and happy moments, do you think I’m always happy? That I don’t sometimes feel the stress or dread of life just crushing me, it's part of who we are, part of who all of us are, and you aren’t using me. I’ve looked into your eyes many times, and it's not guilt or deceit that I’ve seen. You love me.”

“Jake I”

“Saying it won’t make me disappear, telling me you love me won’t drive me away, you love me.” There was an overbearing silence after his words. As scared as she had been the entire time to admit it to not him but herself, he was right.

“I love you.” Her voice cracks as she finally speaks the words aloud. Three words that made Jake's heart beat faster in his chest and he was finally able to feel some sort of relief hearing her say it.

“Don’t think about anything going on at home tonight, just be in the present.” He spoke softly, a loving undertone to his voice as he cleaned her tear stained cheeks.

“Let’s make sure that by the end of the night, your ring turns back to indigo.”

[letterstoyourlove]

This claim, shared widely, reworded, and filtered into the media, is false.

Mahmoud Darwish did not date a Mossad agent. (Rita was not a Mossad spy) He did, however, in the 1960s, date a Jewish woman named Tamar Ben-Ami. The name Rita, which is often cited in these posts, is the pseudonym Darwish used to refer to her in his poetry. He was 22 and she was 16 ½. Ben-Ami was a member of the youth movement The Young Communist League of Israel.

Quickly, Darwish and Ben-Ami developed strong feelings for each other and, while they wrote and saw each other often, neither was eager to publicize their union. “I kept our relationship a secret. I didn’t open it up. I think it was because of Communism, because he was an Arab, I was a Jew,” said Ben-Ami.

In 1967, after the 6-day war, Ben-Ami joined the Israeli Navy as part of the naval band. Upon discovering this, Darwish wrote her the following:

“Tamari, this week I thought of you often. My thoughts made me feel bad. I could see only the criminal in you. I was forced to forget the sweet, beautiful aspects. Do those aspects exist? I hope they do.”

Darvish also wrote-

“I love you despite the nose of my tribe, my city, and the chains of customs. But I’m afraid if I sell everyone, you will sell me, and I’ll return with disappointments.”

A heartbroken Darwish then wrote –

“I felt like my homeland was occupied again.”

After their relationship was over, Darwish continued authoring poems revolving around this failed relationship, as he wrote,

“All roads lead to you, even those I took to forget you.”

He also wrote:

“Maybe it wasn’t important to you, Rita, but it was my heart!”

For her, he also wrote his famous poem, “Rita and the Rifle.”

Finally, he also wrote:

[kivino]

Platonic!Task Force 141 x Eastern European!Reader

Word Counter – ~1.9k

Summary – a compilation of headcanons about how reader’s Eastern European background would affect interactions with Task Force 141 during an undercover mission together.

Tags/Warnings – Gn!reader, Eastern European!reader (obviously), Platonic!TF141, fluff, mostly.

A/n – RUSSIANS DNI (this is a personal boundary, so I ask you to respect it, if you don’t like it just scroll past this post). Very self-indulgent. Just showing more love to my fellow Eastern European readers. Since it is mostly based on my own experience growing up as a Ukrainian, I’m sorry if certain things don’t resonate with you! This whole thing was made for fun and fun only.

So, let’s assume our beloved Task Force needs to go undercover to get some information on Makarov and his merry band of goons. Obviously, they can’t do it without at least one team member, who is familiar with the way of living in Eastern Europe. So, naturally, Laswell introduces you to them – born and raised there, ready to help them and stop your sworn enemy from escalating an already pretty shitty situation.

“So, allow me to introduce your new team member for the duration of this mission” Laswell nods to the door when you walk in, saying your name and callsign, already catching some looks full of curiosity from Task Force 141.

First thing they noticed about you? Resting bitch face for days. Who needs a mask when you have a death stare that will give the heebie-jeebies to most if not all of your teammates? However, they feel even more taken aback when you suddenly greet them with a warm, welcoming smile and a firm handshake, not a trace of that sour expression on your face.

One would think that you’d spend hours preparing four of them for the mission by teaching them language, helping to memorize names and faces of contacts, Makarov’s trusted allies, and potential targets. Naturally, you did your job, but those precious hours were also spent with you standing next to a whiteboard, ranting about the politics and societal issues of your country, explaining certain national jokes, and teaching them swear words or poetry you studied at school. But hey, they’re not complaining (maybe a little).  

They were skeptical about this whole deal at first. However, there was a shared understanding between the four of them that they needed to do whatever it took to stop the spreading of Makarov’s influence and diminish his resources in other countries. With time, however, they’ve found things that made their life in a completely new environment a bit more enjoyable and interesting.

Soap would pick up on your native language the fastest out of the Task Force. Under all these jokes and goofiness Johnny’s a smart guy, inquisitive as hell too, which makes a pretty good mix. He’d try to write down how you pronounce things in his sketchbook, dedicating pages upon pages to making a small vocabulary of what you say, searching up the translations of words any chance he gets. Convinces himself that it just helps him to get more into his new way of life, and not at all because he likes seeing you all excited when he slips a word in your language somewhere in the conversation.

“So how do you say it?” he points to the sentence, messily scribbled on the page with the ballpoint pen he slipped from Gaz. There is a slight frown between your brows – the word looks unfamiliar, more like gibberish than something in your language. You can practically feel the gears in your head screech and come to a halt as you drill Soap’s handwriting with your eyes.

“Oh, wait. You made a mistake here. No wonder I have no idea what this is.” You quickly take the pen and scratch the right version of the word on the paper, while Johnny chuckles at your brutal honesty. He doesn’t say anything though. Some time passes and you’re already correcting other words he wrote down, explaining the right way to say them. And you can feel a pleasant warmth spread in your chest when you can see Soap’s utmost attention directed at you.

Johnny can’t help but feel that moments like these were somewhat of a way to bond for you two. He’d jokingly offer to give you some Scottish classes each time you playfully flick him on the forehead for a word he pronounced wrong. He never expected you to take him up on the offer until the five of you got stuck in a countryside safehouse and essentially had nothing to do while waiting.

On the topic of Eastern European countryside, Price is not an old man by any measure, man’s not even forty yet, but it would grow so massively on him that it’s concerning. When you finally got a good, reliable contact that gave you some useful information you had to lay low for some time in a safe house not far from one of many Makarov’s places where the next weapon deal would be held. And while you waited several days for his people to show up there, obviously almost all of you were bored out of your minds. Not Price though. The man went exploring. Of course, taking you with him (he only wanted company on his small journey through the cozy countryside, don’t blame him).

Soon enough, during your walk you two come across the abundance of berry bushes and fruit trees everywhere, and while you pick something to munch on from them constantly, Price only scolds you. You smirk in response, giving him a handful of ripe mulberries, your lips and fingers now a dark red color from the juice.  

“It’s going to rot if nobody eats it. People who plant these trees would rather someone enjoy them instead of fruits just falling on the ground, getting squished, and going to waste.” And Price takes note of that with a small smile. Soon enough the two of you find a spring the whole village uses, a willow standing tall beside it, providing shade for you two to rest, chat a bit, and cool yourself off with fresh water. The fact that there are not many people around also doesn’t miss him. It’s quiet and peaceful, Price finally feels like he has room to breathe with his whole chest.

“You know, I could get used to a life like this.” Price finally mutters, enjoying your simple, comforting presence, walking along the river shore, and hearing the distant sounds of a train passing through the village. You look at him with understanding in your eyes, as you see the tension in his shoulders finally slipping away. Your captain relaxes, which is a pleasant change of pace from the frown on his face that you got used to.  

All five of you had to live in the same apartment in an old panel building closer to the edge of town. Not the best place to live, but a good opportunity to blend in with the locals and find leads on Makarov’s criminal “friends”. More than once you’ve found yourself sitting together with Ghost on the balcony that creaked with each blow of the wind, in complete silence while he was smoking some cheap cigarettes that smelled more like burnt paper instead of tobacco.

“Can I join you?” Your voice is a quiet rasp, as you lean against the doorway, pushing the mosquito netting to the side. You couldn’t sleep. Not when the whole world will go down the drain if you fail your mission. Not when it’s been a month already and it felt like you were still right where you started.

“Knock yourself out” the man shrugs, patting the stool near him. You shuffle your bare feet on the newspapers that were laid out on the balcony floor, plopping down on the seat, your eyes immediately getting glued to the view, enjoying the breeze that seeped through the open window. You two sit in silence for so long, but it doesn’t feel awkward, quite on the contrary – weirdly calming and serene.

After that night these nightly smoke breaks became a sort of tradition for you two, a way to wind down after a long day. Ghost would nod towards the balcony, a silent invitation reserved only for you. Regardless of whether you’re a smoker or not, occasionally he would offer you a cigarette from his pack or a hit from the lit one. A gesture of camaraderie.

“Thought you’d be more talkative.” Ghost’s voice sounds gruff after the whole day working your asses off just to discover the lead that you had was absolute bullshit.

“And I thought you weren’t a type for small talk.” You grumble in return, just as annoyed about coming back to this dingy apartment with nothing.

“That I am” He lets out a low chuckle, flicking his cigarette into an ashtray in his hand, avoiding eye contact with you.  

Kyle found himself liking your cooking above everything else. The way he would eat anything thrown together in a hurry by you was quite flattering. So soon enough you offered to teach him how to make some of your favorite national dishes, and he couldn’t say no to your offer. So, you decided to start easy – picking out the fresh ingredients. And where do you go to do that? Not a grocery store, no way in hell. The market filled with tons of people is the place you need. A lot cheaper than your usual supermarket too.

The number of times you got discounts for fruits and vegetables on the market from older women just for Gaz’s pretty eyes was insane. He would just blink at you with confusion written all over his face anytime you glanced at him with that smile and refused to explain why you spent a lot less money than expected on the fresh vegetables. At some point, Gaz even questioned his ability to count before you told him just not to worry about it since you got a “very special bargain”. And, obviously, Kyle was the one carrying the plastic bags filled to the brim with fresh produce.  

“You know, your version of the dish is not half-bad,” You say, licking the spoon and giving Gaz a wide smile, which he immediately returns to you tenfold. Spending time like this with him was a pleasure. Each minute spent together made you loathe even thinking about the time when you’d have to part ways and you won’t be able to teach him your cultural cuisine like this anymore.

“Well, I have a great teacher to thank for that.” Gaz gives you a charming smile, so glad to finally have a distraction from the constant looming presence of Makarov in his thoughts. Right this moment he caught himself thinking that he was happy they had you here with them. It would be a lot harder if not for you supporting and guiding them through everything. He felt…thankful.

You’d bring the whole Task Force to different cafes that serve your country's most famous dishes, but Kyle would be the one to enjoy these outings the most, barely raising his eyes from the plate to participate in the conversation.

“Wow, are you in a hurry or something? The food won’t run away from you.” You chuckle, while Kyle ignores the odd saying coming from you and continues to eat with the huge appetite he had ever since this undercover mission started.

However, nothing lasts forever, so after finishing their business with you, getting all the information they needed, and “cleaning up the mess” Task Force 141 bids you farewell, returning to their usual duties. Saying goodbye is never easy, even if you knew each other just for several months you still got attached to them, just like they grew very fond of you (as much as some of them hated to admit that). But hey, they promised to visit you after they finish up with Makarov. They promised. And the four of them keep the promises they make.

taglist - @mockerycrow @stridersdiner

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[raayllum]

Anyway let's talk about Star Arcanum Viren

This is of course 1) operating under the assumption that Viren lives post-5x09 and 2) working with the minimal amount of information we have regarding the star primal. Also acknowledging that I am by far not the first (or the last) person to have the idea of Viren connecting to the Star arcanum (I think that's been floating around since at least post-s4) but I thought I'd compile my own bunch of evidence all the same in the name of bringing things up I don't think I've seen other people mention

Let's goo

Arcanum connections thus far in TDP (which is really only two) tend to follow a pattern. You have an object or a guide (or both) that helps you build up your understanding of the primal, you are usually actively seeking it (though this mileage could vary in S6), and after an internal emotional epiphany you understand the Secret of the arcanum and thereby form your own piece of it inside you. Arcana epiphanies grant power and understanding, but they are not necessarily pleasant or positive to undergo.

We see this with Callum in receiving objects related to the arcanums he unlocks (the primal stone to understand the feeling of sky magic; Akiyu's breathing amulet), guides (Villads, ocean poetry), and his own desire ("I'm meditating upon the meaning of Sky" / "I feel like I'm close to a breakthrough with Ocean magic any day now"). We'll return to him in a moment regarding Moon as Callum and Viren often have parallel arcs, so him connecting to an arcanum in S6 bodes well for Viren doing the same, but that's for later.

So for Viren, we need Star adjacent objects (possibly inherited from Kpp'Ar...)

Ibis: If you seek to return that staff to its true owner [Aaravos].

guides

and philosophy. This last one is the trickiest because we just don't Know that much about Star magic philosophy going into S6, the same way we didn't know that much about Ocean magic or its philosophy before going into S6. We know that Star magic is about truth ("You helped me see the truth" as a falsehood vs "I finally see the truth" finally in 5x09) and vision ("I see visions of dragon fire raining down") and a quasi-religious slant ("Where do our gods hide?" / "I will inoculate you...").

It's not one simple thing. It's all the things. They just had to... come together, you know? It's like, I used to hold the power of the Sky in my hand, right? But now that's gone. But Rayla, the whole world is like a giant primal stone, and we're inside it! I'm inside Sky magic, and but it's also in me, with every breath I take. And I kept thinking about birds, and sails, and how they connect to the wind, and I thought I had to find my wings. But that's just it: I am the wing!

You don't control anything. But then you already knew that, didn't you? Because it's the secret of the Ocean itself. The arcanum. You helped me figure it out. I thought it would be about controlling the tides or fighting the currents, but... it's the opposite. The ocean arcanum is about accepting there are depths you can't see, parts of yourself you can't understand, and things you can't control.

This already fits Viren's arc of believing in destiny as an immutable, unchangeable force that he and others are automatically beholden to — that you have no choice, and therefore no accountability for your actions.

V: The path of fate is already chosen. Every step I took, I took because I had to. [...] I had no choice. I did what I had to do.

We see this reflected in how Viren doesn't often acknowledge his own failures but instead deflects them onto other people — "His own stubborn ways stopped me from helping him" / "Tell me what you know about this relic or I will seal your fate" — as though he played no part in things, and how we see that start to shift in S4 and especially in S5. If he "must" make the sacrifice in order to live, then he has no choice, doesn't he?

Except that he does, and he makes it.

This also ties into, imo, the 'beginning' of Viren's story so to speak. A lot of the characters have an Initial Event that sets up everything else for them (i.e. for Claudia and Rayla, it was Lissa / Laindrin leaving), and for the adult characters, it tends to be choice (i.e. Harrow going for the Magma Titan). For Viren, it seems to be coining Kpp'Ar and doing whatever it took to save Soren, an answer that we're surely going to get in S6.

And he almost 99% used both dark and more importantly Star magic to do so.

So Star magic and dark magic started his Path of Fate, so to speak. Dark magic and intrigue led him to Aaravos, and then to his literal Fall and Death (events that Aaravos, particularly if he was Laurelion in the past, also experienced).

C: In darkness, gaze upon a Fallen Star. V: I find myself here at these horrifying crossroads because I have followed a dark path.

It would make sense, then, just like his dark magic dreams to start back at the beginning, and go back to Star magic — but this time, without the taint of dark magic, much the same way he finally unmakes his choices in 1x02-1x03 in full in his decision to Not sacrifice SS in 5x09.

And as previously noted, if Viren was facing 'us' in the poster (same as Claudia), his hair would be angled differently. Therefore, his back is to us, and he's gazing openly at the star instead.

And one last final nudge towards Star arcanum Viren is, to me, the ongoing parallels between his bond with Aaravos and Callum's bond with Rayla. If you want more about how and why Viravos and Rayllum foil / reflect each other, you can check out this tag here.

But basically: Aaravos and Rayla are banished elven guides who push their High Mage of Katolis into discovering their secrets and earning their trust ("Well should we trust you?" + "I don't deserve your trust, not yet" / "Why should I trust you?" "You shouldn't... yet"), bowing to them on paths to Xadia, hunting one another's high mages and trying to save their respective ones, etc etc. You've presumably been following me, none of this is news to you, moving on...

The reason why this is relevant is because Rayla embodies the Moon (leaving and returning, light and dark, withholding information and being secretive, wearing masks and different faces — or a least trying to) and its arcanum, and Aaravos embodies the Stars (mysterious, powerful, ancient) and its arcanum. If there's been 5ish plus seasons of potential set up for Callum connecting to the Moon arcanum ("Now you're starting to sound like Lujanne") when he reaches some Rayla related and/or personal "I have both dark AND light inside" epiphany, Viren understanding more of how Aaravos has likewise been perverted by dark magic and distorted the arcanum he knows (if Star magic has an arcanum at all in the way we think of it) then like...

It'd make sense, and these two dynamics routinely do foil and escalate alongside each other (even S5 being Viravos' divorce, and the bulk of Rayllum's reconciliation).

With everything I've talked about in mind, say Viren does connect to the Star arcanum. What does that actually mean? What is the star arcanum about?

Honestly? I think it's about connection and severance.

The Merciful One: We are, all of us, Stardust, held together by love for an instant.

Everyone and everything is connected. Primal magic exists around creatures, animals, humans, elves, and dragons in TDP, but the arcana is the piece that also exists within them. Dark magic, meanwhile, gives you a twisted form of arcanum that allows Aaravos to reach inside you and assert his will over yours. Puppet strings are just another form of connection, that if you pull on the right ones, the right ways people are connected to each other (Claudia's love for Viren) or the ways they feel disconnected (Viren trying and failing to get human kings and queens to listen to him).

I don't know if Star magic can be as simple as "you write your own destiny" or "you make your own choices" (hi 5x03 Viren) despite the primal's associations with destiny, since Callum already had that epiphany in 2x08 and is struggling to live it out now in arc 2. It would also make sense to me if Star magic is Connection given that after the Startouch elves left, Xadia soon fell apart and was divided into two, since dark magic and isolationism are things that tear people and characters apart. There can be the horror of the connections we're born into (Soren and Viren; characters feeling trapped by their own arcana like Finnegrin and even Rayla sometimes), and strength in the connections we continually forge to create new bonds, or maintain the ones we're born into that we Want to keep.

You can't separate pain and love from each other — they go hand in hand — but you can still choose to break the cycle by separating those emotions from the instigation of violence, as Ezran says.

Xadia and multiple characters have had to relearn the merits of connection ("Stronger together, right?" / "there was a way we can solve our problems together") in the face of antagonists who mandate it ("You'll always be a human to them, you'll always be less" / "You must carry this weight alone"). The Startouch elves know connection the way Finnegrin knows control, of retreating so far into just themselves they turned their backs on everyone who wasn't one of them.

This woud also make sense to me in being Viren's next step in his journey, as revoking dark magic in a lot of ways was just Step One, and re-establishing proper bonds and amends with people he's wronged and with himself / the way he perceives the world around him is the next.

Luckily — every step is a choice.

Last but not least, it's super important to the show that Callum, eventually, turns a corner and we get confirmation that other humans can and will connect to arcanums; it's arguably one of the most important things that needs to happen in the series that he's Not the only one who's ever gonna forge his own connection. Viren getting one would do that while also providing him an interpersonal arc and giving us some real interesting worldbuilding.

[topazadine]

Right now you can download my book for (and I cannot stress this enough) FREE

Leave one word. Leave two words. Leave a sentence maybe. That's all. You get 51,000 beautiful words for free.

But what, pray tell, is the book about? I will tell you so you don't even have to click on the above link (but it's there too as well).

Orrinir Relickim received an unusual wedding present from his husband, Uileac Korviridi: Bannain, a disobedient horse who seems determined to end his marriage. With a single kick to the chest, Uileac is out of commission from work at the War Academy, where both men serve as soldiers. Worse still, the entire country is preparing for Feast of the Horse, meant to reflect their country's rich nomadic heritage. Visitors are surging into the capital city and its suburb from all across the realm, where festivities will highlight both the army's strength and the beauty of High Poetry, their native magic system. Uileac was poised to perform dramatic feats of archery while Orrinir marched with the infantry, tasks now impossible given his serious injury. Both are forced to focus on the archer's precarious health - and on the unpleasant facets of their relationship neither wish to consider. This second installation in the 10-part Eirenic Verses series delves deeper into the country of Breme, whose existence hinges upon power-infused poetry. Featuring a greater focus on both the characters and the world they live in, Pride Before a Fall will delight readers of 9 Years Yearning, who have come to love Orrinir, Uileac, and their friends. Luscious prose will whisk you away into a realm melding realism and fantasy for a unique reading experience.

There is no catch. There is no cost. There is just Book. For. Free.

The deadline is November 30th, and there are only 40 SPOTS LEFT. So start now. Read now. Claim now. Do it now.

If you do like the book and want to support me because I'm such a lovely creature, then you can also preorder it at this link.

Also please reblog this so that other people can hear about this fantastic opportunity for free literature with cute boys and asshole horses.

[red-dead-sakharine]

Raphael x Tav/Reader (gn)

Dinner plans - Part 2 (good ending)

hurt/comfort, pining, slight fluff

The vote looks quite clear, so I just ploughed ahead 😉

> Part 1 <

He turned his back on the camp - on you - to leave. A few paces further and no one would even hear him swoosh away.

He didn't realize how his fists clenched. Hope's voice invaded his mind now, "Eat. Shit." his brow furrowed, "Stuff your maggoty tongue in some other woman's ear." His jaw clenched, and he was barely able to keep himself from exploding into his cambion form in a burst of angry flames-- "Raphael!"

He closed his eyes. Now it was your voice in his head again. He should never have come here. The sooner he was back in Avernus, the better, and so he picked up the pace.

"Raphael, wait!"

He stopped. The voice wasn't just in his head - but he didn't dare to turn around. To expose the damnable feelings he couldn't keep from showing on his face right now.

There were steps behind him in the soft grass. He'd know that pace anywhere. There was a distinct rhythm to your walk, he would have been able to pick out from a crowd of a hundred people with ease.

"I thought it was you. Almost didn't recognize ya, in that fancy outfit. Since when are you creeping through the dark?" He heard the smirk in your voice. Were you quoting his own poem back to him? No, certainly not. The choice of words was coincidence, for sure. His mind was set. He wouldn't inflict this torment upon himself again.

He took a breath to steady his voice, "I was on my way to you, little mouse, but business calls me elsewhere. I have a war to fight, after all." Yes. Good. He sounded just as charmingly non-chelant as he had intended. He'd be damned, if he'd give you any hint of how he truly felt.

"Oh." Was that disappointment in your voice? "I had hoped, you'd join us celebrating."

He forced out a scoff, "As if I had the time to waste on such a sorry excuse of a celebration." Good. That shut them up. Now all he had to do was say something grandiose in parting, and he could teleport away.

His eyes dropped down to your face, as you stepped around and in front of him. Damn you.

"I'm sure anything you could set up would be much more impressive, but we had to make do with what we've got. Stay. Please? This is as much your victory, as it is ours."

It took all the self-control he had, to keep his face neutral, while his insides felt like an orthon was step-dancing on his stomach. You wanted him to stay. You wanted his company. 'Please'? You wouldn't have said that, if you weren't serious. Not like this; not with this tone. As much as he wanted to stay mad, to cling to the decision he had made earlier, to leave and start his war, and never think of you again, his resolve was crumbling faster than a dry sandcastle.

And with every passing second he spent looking into those beautiful eyes of yours, that longing, he had tried so hard to suppress, bubbled up in him and threatened to overtake him, and ruin his composure. Damn these unruly feelings!

"And what, pray tell," why was it so hard to keep his voice casual now?, "would I do at this party of yours? Drink awful, cheap wine, and have boring conversations with your companions, who don't want me there any more than I want to be in their company."

Good, yes. That sounded appropriately pejorative.

You looked dejected, and for a moment that invisible orthon was kicking his insides again. But then that spark returned to your eye - that spark he enjoyed so much. That spark of unbreakable determination.

"You could recite some poetry," you offered with an honest smile, "I always enjoyed your little rhymes."

That stupid orthon was grabbing his heart in its fist now, and squeezed it like a lemon. Damn this - whatever this was! Damn you, for making him feel sick!

"Oh, did you now?" he raised a brow at you, doing his damnedest to keep the casual tone, "And what would you have me recite? Do you expect me to compose a verse to your heroic victory over the elder brain?" His voice dripped with sarcasm and he made the idea sound absolutely ludicrous, but he had, indeed, written down some rough verses featuring you. Not that he would ever admit that.

"No," you chuckled, "I can't really picture you singing verses to my glory. But I'd bet a hundred gold pieces that you wrote something about the crown."

His composure was cracking, and he was certain that it showed on his face despite his best efforts. How did this stupid mortal know him so well? Understand him so well? Of course he had written about the crown. He needn't mention that it was in the same poem that heralded him as the glorious new archdevil supreme, with his little mortal hero at his side.

It took him a moment too long to respond, and he could see that mischievous glint in your eye, and that smirk on your lips. You knew, you were right. And you knew that you had him.

"Come" you said, and he felt his arm rise, as you started walking, and looked down to find your hand in his, dragging him after yourself towards the camp, "Have at least one glass of awful wine with me, and if you're really having such a bad time, I'll let you go."

'Let me?' I can go whenever I damn well please! he thought, as he followed you; his hand still in your clutches.

He wanted you to never let go again.

▶️ Continue

[brewstersbru]

More halstarion cuz ive been playing my lil origin run; also happy halloween folks !

Pain. Sharp, dragging, unbearable agony against his back. Astarion huffs a small noise of pitiful discontent before clenching his mouth shut. Quiet. Can’t let him hear you. His fangs tear a little into his gums, but there isn’t enough blood in him for any to really trickle out of the wounds. 

A voice- disembodied, but cold and lilting as ever- sounds from behind. “My dear, how prettily you bleed. Even lovelier now, with the poetry I am bestowing upon you. Truly, a gift. And what do we say to gifts, Astarion?” 

Astarion moans miserably into the ground- or is it a steel surgical table? He can’t remember, he can’t focus. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. There’s a feeling of hands in his hair, grasping, tearing- the flash of a derisive, fanged grin- “What do we say, Astarion?”

His name sounds like rot coming from his lips, similar to the way one would utter the word “disgusting” or “vile”. Astarion hiccups with the force of his suffering- it’s simply too much, never before has Cazador been so persistent, never before has he carved so deep, for so long. Astarion’s weak, starving body cannot maintain itself against his tides of cruelty.

There is quiet as Cazador waits for his answer, he knows Astarion will do his very best to give it. Years and years of this torment had to have culminated into something- into an exceedingly loyal dog, he’d hoped. It’s why he tries not to command anything; not only because it takes the fun out of things, but also because it encourages a kind of devotion to the task that a simple order could never elicit. Pain can be such a useful tool, and he’s spent years honing his skill with it. 

Astarion gasps, chokes on a putrid mix of saliva and droplets of rat blood as they clog in his throat. “T-Thank you.” He coughs. Cazador hums and pushes his head back down. He runs a sharp nail down the middle of the warm, wet mess on Astarion’s back. It stings like a million tiny needles.

“Thank you, what?”

He digs the nail into one of the runes he’d just finished carving, ever so slightly, and Astarion writhes in agony. His breath comes choppy and ragged, and tears track endlessly down his nose. A moment, two, as Astarion brings a heaving breath in and steels himself against the revulsion he is about to feel.

“Thank you, Master.” The hum this elicits is decidedly pleased and Astarion hates himself all the more for earning it. If only he was stronger, if only he were able to hold out just a bit longer. If only he’d been able to make himself wait; Cazador would have grown tired, would have ordered him, eventually. 

Now, he is little more than a lapdog, bereft of even his pride, and the pain will only continue. How he despises the man he’s become, the man Cazador has moulded him into. 

The agony in his back resumes, even sharper and more unbearable than before. Astarion muffles a scream behind clenched teeth and wrenches his eyes open to reveal a circling of trees. A cool gust of air swipes across his sweat-soaked skin and he shivers, slightly. 

Astarion takes a moment to orient himself. He’d been trancing, curled into himself and facing away from the fire- Gods know why, he could use all the heat he can get with the way his undead body refuses to hold onto it on its own; some lingering self-flagellation, perhaps. 

He’s no longer bound to Cazador- for the time being at least- he’s fine. The ‘dream’ or whatever that had been was only a memory. Nothing more. He’s fine. 

Sitting up, he swats at the tear tracks on his cheeks and comes face-to-face with a wide-eyed Halsin, who had been whittling, it seems, judging by the knife in one hand and the partially carved wooden-something in the other. Astarion ducks and covers his face with a slender hand.  

“What in the hells are you doing, you oaf!?”

“… Whittling?” Halsin’s voice cracks a bit as he stumbles over the word. Astarion tries not to notice how endearing that is. He huffs.

“I gathered. Could you just- turn around? Please?” 

Halsin tilts his head to the side, just slightly, and stares at him with furrowed brows, mouth set in a firm line. He speaks carefully, but directly, unable to tiptoe around a subject when they’re both aware of the gravity of it.

“Are you alright, my friend? I don’t mean to pry, it’s just I noticed-“

“Not now.” Astarion’s voice comes out rough, grating, and he cannot bring himself to look Halsin in the eye as he speaks. 

“… Alright” There’s a shuffling as- assumedly- Halsin picks himself up and heads back to his tent. Astarion only allows himself a breath of relief when the other man’s footsteps retreat outside of his range of hearing. 

On one hand, Astarion is astoundingly, exceedingly grateful to have his wishes honored. On the other, it is so, very quiet, and he can still feel the ghosts of fingers petting, clawing and grasping at his skin. He feels dirty, a vile little thing ought to be left in the dirt. 

His back aches- phantom pains, he knows- and even years after their conception his scars throb. It’s not the first time this has happened, but it is the first time he’s been able to focus on it, the first time no other, greater pain can distract him from the dull shock of remembrance. Maybe he’d never healed correctly, maybe it’s his mind playing its usual tricks. 

Suddenly unable to stand the scratch of cloth against the raised skin on his back, Astarion wrestles his shirt off of himself. Sharp nails dragging uncaringly against the skin as if trying to sate an itch. He wants the ‘poetry’ off of himself, he wants to be clean.

His scratching becomes more fervent, less careful as his thoughts spiral. A sob works its way up, only to die in his throat, he chokes a little on it. Off. Off. Off. He needs it off. He wishes he could claw the taint away. His skin crawls under his fingernails, even as they scratch past skin. Blood flows, sluggish, down the bony curve of his spine. It is not an unfamiliar feeling. 

A sharp gasp sounds, quiet, but cutting in the previous silence that had pervaded the space around the campfire. Astarion does not dare look up from the ground. Great. Another interruption to him losing his fucking mind. 

Thankfully- which, who could guess he’d ever think the word in relation to the druid- it’s just Halsin again. Arms now laden with jars and cloth, rather than the sharp woodworking tools he’d left the fire with. The jars are labeled, but his scrawl is too small for Astarion to parse the words. 

“Astarion, my friend, please cease this needless self-mutilation!” He rushes to Astarion’s side, carefully placing the jars on the side of his bedroll and gently, loosely grasping at Astarion’s wrists- assumedly to encourage the vampire to pry his claws from his skin. He doesn’t push, simply holds him there.

The warmth is welcome, grounding in the swirl of pain and cold and despair that had previously been clouding Astarion’s mind. He lets out an unnecessary, but comforting breath and allows his hands to be pried away. 

“Good. That’s good, my friend, thank you.” 

Astarion grouses a discontented sound, to which Halsin huffs a small chuckle. 

“Alright- you’re alright. You were looking rather pale- moreso than usual at least- and I had hoped some of my oils or salves could soothe any injuries you’d overlooked, or old aches.” He pauses for a moment and rifles through the pile of goods he’d brought over, “As elves, our ‘nightmares’ are more memories, than anything. I’m more than familiar with a long-forgotten wound making itself known after a particularly jarring remembrance. I am sorry yours were so visceral.”

He’s babbling, Astarion notices, low voice rather quick compared to its usual steady thrum, but he can appreciate the effort in attempting to keep him grounded. His body doesn’t want to move, though, and he simply slumps into himself, gaze steadily forward, hollow, almost in its vacancy. 

“Here let me-“ A warmth hovers over the mess of Astarion’s back. Well, this is rather familiar. But it pauses,hesitates. Still, Astarion can feel himself tensing. A short, ragged sound punches out of him, unwitting. Halsin hums. 

“Apologies, my friend, it seems my manners have escaped me in my nerves. May I touch you? I wish only to soothe the hurt, I have a balm that should do the trick well and once I’ve applied it, my hands will not touch your skin again should you wish it.”

Astarion takes a moment, another unnecessary breath, then nods. It’s curt, almost imperceptible really, but Halsin had been paying very close attention to his body’s reactions. He thanks him- what for, Astarion cannot even begin to fathom. 

It’s quiet as Halsin’s deft fingers tenderly pass a wet towelette down his spine to clean the blood from it. It soothes, cool and stinging against new cuts and Astarion can only hope that at least he’d left new scars. Something to disrupt the carving of pure malice that had lain there, undisturbed, for so long. 

“Thank you.” It takes a while, and his voice is fairly destroyed by what he can only assume had been long minutes of screaming and sobbing in his sleep, coupled with the panic attack after waking. Halsin’s fingers continue their deft work. 

“Please. No need. If I may I- I hate to see you struggle so. Is there anything that caused it? Anything we can avoid?” His sincerity is sweet, but useless. Astarion shakes his head.

“Comes and goes, really. Used to be able to ignore it with other things. Can’t focus on memories when the present is fucked too, right?” Astarion chuckles, but Halsin does not join in. 

It’s quiet for a bit, Halsin’s hands feel almost hesitant against his skin, “I am not a man easily drawn to violence but- well- your old master deserves nothing but the slowest, most painful death possible. I know it means little but I am sorry. You did not deserve his torment. No one could deserve that.”

“I was no angel in life, druid. For a long time, it seemed like a penance.” The words are almost hissed, but the sincerity in them is unmistakable.

“Even penance ends, eventually, Astarion. Forgiveness usually follows. Two hundred years is more than enough time. Especially when you had not even truly lived before being thrust into undeath- I mean thirty-nine? You still bear your child name.” Halsin sounds almost pained, although his hands remain steady, now pressing fingerfuls of balm to each cut, and even the undamaged rune-scars too. Something in Astarion howls, surges forward into an incessant rage at the tenderness.  

“And perhaps I was a truly devilish child, druid! Perhaps I deserved it!” Halsin sighs. 

“No one deserves that, Astarion. You have to know that.”

“If I allow myself to believe that, then I have to accept victimhood. I have to accept that loss of control. I have to accept that it’s not that I deserved it, it’s that no one cared enough to try to save me. Tell me, druid, which would you rather believe.” With a final, gentle pass of his thumb Halsin retreats. Shamefully, Astarion misses the warmth of his touch. The druid rounds his bedroll, settling criss-crossed in front of him and busying himself with organizing his bottles into a neat pile.

“Well, first, I’d like it if you used my name and not my title. It feels rather impersonal talking to you when you won’t even call me ‘Halsin’. Second, I truly don’t know, but I have always favored the truth over anything else.”

Astarion hisses, “I will call you what I like, not what you tell me to call you.” Halsin simply nods, and something inside him deflates. Backs down from its haunches. 

“Oh, alright, you big baby. Halsin. Maybe the truth is that I was- however implausibly- the kind of person to deserve my penance.”

Halsin seems to light up at the sound of his name from Astarion’s lips. Astarion tries to find it dorky and uncool and not hopelessly endearing. Then, “I find that incredibly hard to believe. Had you even chosen an adult name? Had anything in mind?”

Astarion falls quiet at this. “I had an idea, a few, maybe. I remember being excited about them, I thought I was so clever with the word choice… But I cannot remember them. Cazador only called me by this name, when he deigned to adress me, and I did not exactly have the time or energy to care about choosing another.”

Something within Halsin cracks at the admission. To have that rite stolen from him was abhorrent. Heartbreaking. 

“Truly you remember nothing?”

Astarion shrugs, “Hard to find that kind of thing important when there are other, more pressing matters. It’s not like the names would fit me anymore, either, two hundred years have taken their toll, after all.” He smiles, a crooked, self-depreciating thing and gestures to himself, the scars on his back. “Thank you, by the way. I wouldn’t have treated them on my own.” The thanks doesn’t even need to be forced from his lips. Halsin smiles at the ease with which it is offered. 

“No need. And I know.”

It’s quiet for a while longer. The two of them take the time to simply look at each other. Astarion wonders, for perhaps the millionth time, what Halsin is seeing as he gazes at him with such open fondness and admiration. Surely it cannot be him. Godssakes he hasn’t even seen himself in two hundred years, who knows what kind of effect it’s had on his wrinkles. He tries not to dwell. 

“I’m going to read.” Astarion says, when he can no longer stand the thought of just how many lines have been carved in his face, without the help of Cazador’s many painful instruments. Halsin simply nods, but continues searching his face. Astarion is unsure what he’s looking for, but is fairly certain, whatever it is, has long since left him. Nowadays he’s mostly bared teeth and vengeance more than anything.  

“Please, go right ahead. If you would not protest, I would very much like to join you. I’ll whittle, stay quiet so you can focus. Would that be alright?” He tilts his head to the side, and, with the way he’s fiddling with a jar, seems so incredibly bear-like in the moment that Astarion has to clamp down on a giggle.

“… Alright. But you had better keep that promise to stay quiet.” Halsin grins, a warm, blinding thing. 

“As a mouse. And we druids are rather good at mimicking animals, you know.”

A laugh punches itself from Astarion’s throat as he heads back to his tent and settles on some pillows, his most recent thick tome open in his lap. 

It’s not long before Halsin is quietly announcing his presence, shuffling around to settle a few feet away, legs tucked up under him as he situates himself against the nearest surface- a stolen chest from one of the many towers they’d rummaged through. 

It’s easy to forget he’s there- or, no, it’s easy to simply exist in a space with him. Astarion doesn’t feel the need to perform or prove anything to him- after all, he’s basically seen him at his worst- and the silence is warm. Interrupted, every so often, by the methodical scrape of metal against wood, or the crisp flipping of a page. 

Before he can stop himself, Astarion’s fallen into another trance. This time blissfully devoid of any visions or memories. 

He wakes to an empty tent, but his book is neatly bookmarked and stowed beside his bedroll. He, himself had been carefully tucked under a pelt of some sort- a piece he knew was not from his own tent- and next to the book lay a small, intricately carved wooden star. On the back, a careful engraving:

little star, how you shine

It feels like a declaration. 

[justadeadreaper]

❇COD Plague! AU

The downfall of humanity... plagues. For how long has the world suffered at the hands of the submicroscopic agents of death and cancer? Mutating the body to overwhelm every cell to produce another corpse to be thrown to a pit filled with a mound of bodies all suffering the same macabre fate as they rot amidst the earth. All for their Mistress who urges them on to continue their ravaging across all of humanity, just following her mantra and her undying will.

Consume... Consume the body, consume the cells. Eat your way through its walls, eat your way through each and everyone one until there is none left that have not felt our hunger.

Conquer... Infect. Infect the host. Override their engines, twist and turn and manipulate their nature, subjugate them to my every whim and thought until my reign overwhelms them all.

Multiply... Force them to make more of us. Make more of us. Split and squirm and overwhelm the cell. Millions upon billions upon trillions until it bursts. Then repeat until we have multiplied to the point that there is no more of the host but only us.

Destroy... Destroy anything that is left over. Use what you have to pick away at the body even if it is bit by bit. Destroy its will, make it weak, make it desperate. Take and destroy until they are withering away into the wind. Destroy all their will until they have nothing left to live for but only wish for the sweet relief of death 

Kill... 

Kill. Them. All.

With the will that she commanded her agents spread and spread until it destroyed all it could. Humans huddled in fear at what she did, praying to whatever God they had to save them from the same fate as the mounting bodies that mounted outside their villages in the burning heaps to try and save others from the very same fate that tried to take them all. But, apart from fear, how did humans react in other ways?

A common way was to make a figure of this plague. No one could tell you the why as no one knew. Every person had a different reason for giving these diseases physical figures for all to see so no one reason could be accepted. Some say it was to humanise the disease, to put it on the level of humans so that it would not be as feared as it was. Others said it was to comprehend the disease as no natural thing could be behind the disease and they could not believe that their Gods would do such a thing to them so they had to create a figure, a representation to do so. Then again the physical forms could have just been made for forms of entertainment such as poetry and paintings where it could be appreciated and show the true tragedy that would otherwise not be known. Although shock was another reason proposed by others as it would show as to why you should fear such a thing as most had features that would occur in humans if they ever did catch it, to show how powerful it was, how it could change you beyond an unimaginable degree.

They just did not realise that by making his physical representations that if enough people believed in them that they would become real. And that is where our dear COD characters come in as now they are not stuck as mere mortals in the military to kill people but they are the diseases. Across different time periods and different countries with different amounts of victims to their cruel goal, they are twisted forms of themselves as now they represent the diseases and everyone’s fears.

Like my last AU, this is an AU that anyone can use but this is just the foundation and base and the basic rules to it so people can build from it and have a starting point to expand from. All I ask is to use the tag I made for the AU, for you to credit me for the AU, and credit me for using my version of the character, apart from that go wild and have fun with this AU, if you have any questions please ask as no question is a dumb question.

[mimble-sparklepudding]

Does Humble believe in love at first sight? Has he ever developed a crush or romantic (or erotic) fixation upon a stranger based on his appearance alone?

(I remember your post about risqué asks so hope it's alright to ask one of you too!)

Humble has a reasonably strong libido, it's just that he has absolutely no idea what to do about it... So he definitely notices other people's appearances and can lose himself in a daydream about what it would be like to kiss them or hold their hand. Sometimes, despite his best efforts, his daydreams veer into steamier territories, and he is forced to desperately focus on the absolute least erotic things he can imagine in order to avoid public awkardness (these include Urianger's lessons on rhyme and meter in Gridanian pastoral poetry and Tataru's tutoring on budgeting and accountancy).

However, despite these frequent little crushes, Humble is not generally a believer in love at first sight. Primarily because his various adventures have shown him that appearances can be deceptive and that sometimes the most handsome noble can become rapidly less attractive once their personality is revealed.

He is also very hopeful that love is something that can grow over time, rather than being based purely on first impressions. Humble is very doubtful that anyone would find him loveable (or even attractive) on first meeting him, as he is painfully aware that he is nowhere near as eloquent, sophisticated or beautiful as he feels he ought to be to deserve such attention. Therefore he is hoping to prove himself to someone over time and, hopefully, convince them that what he lacks in looks and erudition, he can make up for in loyalty and effort...

(Thank you for the ask @upatreewithoutaharness and don't worry, I've got nothing against risqué asks, it's just that some ask lists on sex and relationships are a bit too explicit for me, but that's my issue and not a criticism of those lists)

[rainbluealoekitten]

hey so i don't know you at all, but i saw on an old post that you did an IB eng lang+lit extended essay,,, and if you have ANY tips on choosing a topic for that i would literally appreciate it so much,, i have to choose my topic in the next 24 hours (procrastination </3) and i have vague ideas but no clue how i could structure them or what kinds of topics the IB prefers :/ literally any help, via dm or answering the ask, would be so so helpful ((( but no pressure ofc :] )))

omg hi babes, i'd be super happy to give my advice and i hope i'm not too late?

ok so you know the 3 categories i'm assuming? idk what your school is like but if you need more guidance on the ee in general, go to philpot's step by step guide

when you're told to pick something that interests you, DO THAT. you will spend MONTHS on this topic, researching and writing for hours upon hours, so you HAVE to be invested. even if you love love a topic, you might still struggle for a variety of reasons (my tips on this later on). regardless, you are on tumblr engaging in fandom and media for a reason. WHAT is that reason? what compels you? what themes, character dynamics, settings, motifs compel you? what shows, what books, what films? what about in lang and lit class? do you like ad analysis and the societal implications? do you prefer minute details that make a movie just so so good (e.g. lighting)? did you watch the dead poets society and you've been reading poetry aloud ever since?

the ib requires you to write about an "acclaimed" literary or non literary work, which gives you a LOT of choice. you could write about doctor who, for example.

i'll explain my process when i was picking my topic.

i have always liked greek mythology (like a LOT) and my favourite figure is akhilles. i decided i wanted to do something exploring his relationship with patroklos, but alas! i could not look at the iliad as it was not written in english originally, which didn't fit into either cat 1 or cat 2. so... why not the song of achilles? it's well known and acclaimed, plus would be more fitting for a dp level of literary analysis. but how to explore the characters? well... what else was i interested in?

what makes a character a hero?

this was the central question. i ended up changing the specifics of my question a million times which... don't do that. eventually, my question was (more or less), "how does miller conform to and subvert the characteristics of a hero through characterisation?" (that was not the question. i promise that the actual question was a million times better).

NOW. my extra note.

before you start researching and outlining, here is something i recommend you do before starting, based on my own issues. now, i did get a predicted (knock on wood) A, but after way too much deliberation.

make a list of your strengths and of your weaknesses. consider literary analysis vs diegetic and non diegetic sound analysis (idk if that's even what it's called but yk). consider time management skills. consider outlining skills. consider research skills. what do *you* need in terms of help and support from your supervisor? what do you need to do to help yourself? for example, i should have forced myself to pick a question from the start, before even starting research. this is an issue i have in other subjects too, and caused me a lot of grief for my history ia. i also asked my ee supervisor to help me come up with a realistic, step-by-step schedule bc i struggle assigning myself deadlines.

for the second part of your ask, structure is going to be super dependent based on your topic and category. i recommend reading examples similar to your topic (don't waste time reading ad analysis if you're doing poetry aha). i did mine with bg info on the classical view of heroes, then each bp was a different aspect (first conformity, then subversion). i have a friend who wrote hers on a feminist film and her bg was about feminist theory, with mentions of that time period, which then informed her fairly standard-structure analysis.

let me know if this helps in any way at all, and don't hesitate to reach out again if needed! i wish you the absolute best with the ee and dp more broadly :)

[lovelymalleus]

“For you are the Fairest of Them All…” | Argenti x Jealous! Reader - Honkai: Star Rail

How did you and Argenti exactly get into a relationship? You had no clue, and neither did anyone else—it was a complete mystery that was sort of odd yet sweet in a way to many…Perhaps it was his sweetness, he always had a way with his charm.

You were just the least person anyone really expected to begin dating Argenti, and get him to believe you were the Aeon of Beauty; Idrila themself. Especially since you were described to be a clutz and terrible with lines, and you were even a little jealous of Argenti for how pretty and sweet he was. You even went as far as sending him envious stares, glaring daggers into the back of his head, and trying to avoid him.

Yet somehow, you found yourself the target of the Knight of Beauty’s admiration as he’d hold your palms close to his chest and peck each one of your fingers, going on poetry-like rants about your undying beauty and “loving” demeanor while you were practically in disbelief + flustered.

Not like you were exactly complaining…As much as you’d never admit it.

You still tried to avoid him though, much to Argenti’s dismay, but he never gave up, being as persistent as ever! You can snap and shoot any insults towards him all you want, and he’d only respond with sweet nothings to the point your face grows red with both anger and embarrassment. You even began to think he was only doing this out of spite…! Like honestly, this man even once carried you bridal style all around just because you had sprained your ankle.

“Leave me be already, Argenti—I don’t want your rose, just go give it to someone else...” You’d grumble out, eye twitching while you tried to sound as polite as possible without losing it, turning away in annoyance. Argenti, meanwhile, was attempting to give you a beautiful rose while kneeling in-front of you on one knee as if he were proposing (thank aeons he wasn’t), roses for some reason always surrounding him.

Seriously, was this man a Disney princess in disguise or did he just have some special ability where roses follow him everywhere he goes that he never told anyone about?

You were startled with a grunt however when Argenti suddenly gently grabbed you by your chin with his gloved hand, forcing you to face his warm expression as he held the rose out to you, tilting your chin up to face him.

“There is no one else who could fit the beauty of this rose other than you in my heart. Please, just allow me to offer you this token as a way to express my affection and deep love for you…” He uttered in his deep yet regal voice to the one person he believes to be Idrila, emerald eyes gazing into your own as his free hand held your chin, and the other held the crimson rose.

You were stunned at his sweet words however, now being smacked in the face with a reminder on why you were even jealous of him in the first place. The fact everything he was saying was nothing but the truth didn’t help—well other than him thinking you’re the Aeon of Beauty.

At the same time, you couldn’t find it in yourself to rain down on his gentle aura so you could only huff and quietly accept his gift, cheeks tinted a small shade of red.

It frustrated you. Just what did he like about you? Why did he stay around you? Why did he…Love you? All you did was show pure hatred for him, and yet he still stayed. He was gorgeous and you…You were just you, there was nothing special about you—just why won’t he let you hate him? It wasn’t fair. Why did he have to make you fall for him?

His sweet, sweet touch always made you melt in his arms despite your inner-resistance. His nonstop, flattering compliments turned you into honey as he gave you the praise you truly deserved, and—oh, those gentle kisses he pecks upon your face and hands, all while staring into your eyes lovingly.

It was obvious your envy towards him was slowly beginning to come to an end; your glares falling into soft smiles, jealous stares faltering into loving one’s, and avoidance turning into clinginess.

There was no reason to be so angry or jealous either way, Argenti believes you’re just as pretty as him—no not just that, prettier than him as he worships you with all his might. Those who think against it have no mean to him. In Argenti’s eyes, you were like the fairest of them all…Even if you weren’t really Idrila.

“Look at me, My Beauty…”

You would feel Argenti whisper in your ear as you were sat in his lap, head resting against his armored chest with his arms wrapped firmly yet gently around you as to not squeeze you too tight. He even smelled good too…Like roses, pun-intended.

Without a word, you felt the knight—the knight that you once wished you were—lean in and press his soft lips against yours, his lingering kiss a clear sign of his sincere love and devotion for you as he kissed you like you were a fragile crystal he was holding. You found yourself kissing back just as gently, a little stiff in the beginning however before you relaxed.

“My Beauty…” Argenti then murmured against your lips, breaking the kiss and gazing into your eyes, “Your beauty resembles that of a goddess, perfect in every way to where the sun shines brighter when it spots you…” He praises you, kissing every one of your fingers as he held you close.

“For you, are the Fairest of them All…”

It’s almost 6:00 where I am, and my eyes are slowly falling asleep 😞 but I hope many people liked this! I feel like I added too much tbh 😭

[dailycass-cain]

Detective Comics #1082 featured a SURPRISE Cass appearance, but a welcome one always to have. So here are my thoughts on the Cass's showing in that.

I mean every issue of Ram V's Detective Comics is a treat, and this one is no different (even with the guest star that I just LOVE to talk daily about).

Like there are layers to the tale he weaves that not only continue threads from past Batman writers but does his own thing.

Weaving and spinning a story that feels like a natural progression of what was already told by others.

Bruce feels human here than say other comics which "try" to tell it through his thoughts, but man the artist talents have been selling this struggle.

Why the "reward" is all the more "rewarding" because Ram V puts in this "doubt" in prior earlier stories written that, there's that chance Bruce might lose.

I mean we know he won't, but it's that "DOUBT" planted throughout. It makes Bruce relatable.

Speaking of rewards. The B-plot returns us back to Gotham as the Question continues her case as again we see what an Orgham-run Gotham City is like.

How their Reality Machine has wiped the memory of the bat out. HOWEVER…

"The Batman YET haunts Gotham."

I honestly was expecting Jean-Paul (given he was rocking the AzBats suit when we last left him) but to see Cass the OTHER being Ram V continuing the crusade of the bat?

SQUEEEEEEEEEE!!!

ahem

I mean logically, I wonder where everyone else is. Dick. Babs. Jim. I know eventually we'll see. But to see Cass still as we lost saw her in 2023 fighting the Orgham and keeping the SYMBOL alive in Gotham?

I mean there's a certain POETRY at hand here as we have two bat suits that basically filled in for Bruce when he was away. Either due to being broken in Knightfall (Jean-Paul)--

--or trying via means as Bruce Wayne to get the government to lift Gotham from being labeled a "No Man's Land" (Cass's costume which Helena Bertinelli used to continue Bruce's crusade).

It's so SATISFYING to see these elements incorporated here. Just now, it's Cass continuing the crusade and making sure Gotham REMEMBERS the bat.

Because it is a characteristic trait that other than Bruce, Cass is one of the few who just understands WHY the bat symbol carries so much.

This exact DRIVE within her, is why she is just BUILT different than most folk in Gotham. Heck Renee struggles with the Realty Machine in places in her story.

Trying to remember what was lost.

Yet, we see Cass like she was ripped from when Jorge Corona drew her in Batgirls (very nicely done there whoever drew her like that). As described in the very comic, "a wraith."

It's that answer Cass gives Renee on HOW she's able to resist. The answer again showcases how Bruce/Cass are just so similar. People wonder why Cass is Bruce's heir to being to him as Batman?

Ram V is giving that answer to modern readers.

This "answer" is not new, I find it akin to what Andersen Gabrych came to in his run of Batgirl Vol. 1. Just not as restricting of characterization with Ben Turner who pointed this fact out, and kneeling.

That Cass was going down this path after taking a life, and saying NO to a life of being a killer. That she chose to use the tools forced onto her to become something else.

I think if we ever get time to see the "lost" era of years when Cass rejected her father and hadn't met Barbara Gordon.

I think Ram V would be a fascinating writer to do this. Will he? Oh, I wish! This year would be PERFECT for it for sure.

It's a "gap" that I feel a writer SHOULD farm. Cause I really don't want Gabrych being the only OTHER than Kelly Puckett himself. I feel the period is ripe to showcase how "bat" she was before becoming one.

Though ironically, it isn't lost upon anyone seeing the heir to Vic Sage and well the daughter of a certain someone.

Again, the themes and poetry of what was told in the past. Just with new layers put in. This "interlude" makes me hunger for a Question tale with Renee and Cass being teaching her like Shiva taught Vic.

If not, well we got that here. Somewhere. Someplace both Vic and Shiva smirked at what occurred in this issue. Renee/Cass doing both proud.

I could gush all day and night on this issue. This was something that was TRULY needed. Or at least told again. To remind folks why Cass is different than Jason, Steph, Tim, Duke, and even Damian.

This issue felt like a 25th-anniversary gift Ram V gave to Cass fans. Even though we have 0 official stuff (we could use some DC).

Cass's portion of Tec #1082 felt like a celebration of why the character has lingered so long.

So thank you to all creatives in this issue. To the writer, artists, inkers, colorist, editors. All involved. 🙏